"Han, look there's a reason I'm not dating anyone in real life on this base. I'm busy! Running a war. I don't have the time or inclination to have a real or fake a relationship while I'm working." Leia sighed in frustration.

Leia and Han were sitting around the dejarik table on the Falcon. Leia had her hands cupped around a tumbler, nursing two fingers of Han's good whiskey. Han was looking irritated and Leia exhausted.

They had just completed a brainstorming session on how they could fake a relationship for the public for positive publicity (really any publicity at this point was positive) after they had been secretly tailed and holos of them looking like a couple while they were undercover were taken without their awareness. He had surprisingly agreed on most points of the plan she had concocted earlier in the day, without even devolving into a shouting match. Until now, anyway.

Han, however, would not drop his insistence that they also had to fake a relationship on base. Leia rejected the idea for several reasons, two of which she was willing to share with him.

"What are you afraid of Leia? Afraid you might like being with me a little too much?" Damnit, he had dropped his voice low, looked down at her through his lashes, arm somehow barely brushing the top of her shoulder.

"The trick to a good long con, and seduction, is subtlety. Building layers of deception slowly. I ain't suggesting we make out in front of everyone all over base. I'm sayin' we give people just enough to assume something is happening without them ever seeing it. Look, just hear me out!" He had turned off the charm again just as fast as he had turned it on. Leia blinked twice to take a held breath and compose herself.

"Solo, I dare you to find a being less scared of anything or anyone than me. And fine, I'll bite. What's your proposal?"

"Fine. First of all, where do you think the most powerful gossip of this fake relationship publicity stunt will come from? Two undercover missions and a couple of leaked holos? And when beings start contacting rebels to confirm that it's true? It falls apart. Echo Base is cold and boring and we are all half starving on this frozen hell-hole, Worship. The rebels themselves will be our publicity machine. They will whisper about the gossip with each other and their families when they are permitted contact home, or will gossip off-planet with contacts while away on rebel business."

"Alright, go on. What else?"

"Ok, second point. We can't just hit the public or the base over the head with a romance or relationship or whatever, in progress. That's not fun and it will have a short life. It's the chase…the buildup that interests them."

"Are you proposing you want to wine and dine me on base, Captain?"

"Mmnn, that sounds tempting…but no." Hans fingers were dancing around the back of the acceleration couch behind her while he thought through the details.

"Ok, so it's like this. I go on a run, and I give you a little gift in front of the off-loading crew when I return to base. You smile at me. We have lunch at the mess a few times a week and we commit to being nicer to each other in public occasionally. You are already coming to the Falcon for your Shyrriwook lessons with Chewie, and for Sunday dinner. The only change we need to make there is I'll walk you back to your quarters. And we need to let Chewie in on the plan."

"Fine, I can live with all of that. But I want to discuss boundaries. The official public version of me would never allow a love interest into her quarters."

"But what would the real Leia allow?"

"We aren't talking about me, but if I did, I would be sure to never get caught. Look, Han I have certain responsibilities to uphold. There are expectations of how I behave publicly. I still have people here on base and scattered around the galaxy that view me as their sovereign and expect me to act accordingly. No one actually expects me to remain a virgin until marriage, but they definitely want me to pretend I am until then. Ok? So no faked sleepovers, no making out in front of the rogues, no staged quickies in storage closets. I'm sure they will have their assumptions about what the Rebel Princess and the Underdog Han will get up to on missions or when alone together on the Falcon, but we can't hit everyone on the head with it."

"Staged encounters in storage closets? That sounds fun, tell me more. Given that scenario a lot of thought, have you?"

"Han! I just told you a whole lot of very important information and that's what you got out of it? You are impossible!"

"I heard you. I have some time now, want to scope out a broom closet?"

"Shut-it hotshot. I'm leaving."

"I'll walk you back." He wiggled his eyebrows at her suggestively and she rolled her eyes but laughed.

On the walk back, Leia couldn't help but wonder what being romanced by Han for real would be like. He was so subtle. A light hand on the small of her back as they shouted a hello to Wes. A hook of his pinky with hers as they walked past Wedge. Both had raised an eyebrow in surprise. In the south passage, he conspiratorially leaned close to her ear and whispered for her to smile at him as they walked passed the open door of the command center, which she did because his low rumble had tickled her ear deliciously. She heard hushed whispers as they passed.

When they pulled up to the door outside her quarters, Han stood close to her, gazing longingly for the benefit of the deck officer that just passed them. "Tell me one thing about you that most people don't know."

Leia looked up at him, briefly surprised before she remembered that they were supposed to learn things about each other that a couple would know.

"I like thunderstorms," she whispered.

"How many people know this about you?"

"The entire Junior Legislature when I was 16."

Han chuckled. "You ain't gonna make this easy, are you?"

"What's the fun in that? I thought you were all about the long game?"

"Oh, I am Sweetheart, you'll see. Goodnight." He leaned forward slightly as he heard someone walking towards them in the hall, and gently rubbed his knuckle across her cheek as they walked by, mouth agape. He winked at her, turned on his heals and swaggered around the bend.

Leia palmed her door open, smiling. She wasn't entirely convinced Han wasn't running his own long con on her, but it had been fun to see the cogs of the base gossip machine begin to turn in earnest.

The next evening, Leia walked briskly through the frigid hanger, grasping a bag that hid a bottle of decent Corellian whiskey she had squirreled away in her quarters. Strictly speaking alcohol was forbidden on base, but High Command was well aware there was little else to do here off-duty and looked the other way as long as the rebels didn't show up drunk or too hungover to do their jobs.

She had plans to corner Han so she could find out at least basic information about him and thought the whiskey might help loosen his lips. She could count the facts he had personally divulged about himself on her fingers, and they had been friends for nearly three years. It hadn't occurred to her that she would also be expected to share about herself, and she was becoming nervous as she walked up the ramp of the Falcon.

"Han?" She called when she entered.

"I'm in here," he called back, standing in the frame of the crew cabin door. He had pants slung low over his hips, zipped but not buttoned and no shirt on. He was dragging a towel through his hair. Leia tracked with hungry eyes a lone drop of moisture slide from his collarbone all the way down his muscled abdonomon.

"Like what you see, highness?" Han was smirking at her devilishly, his far arm framed in the doorway, causing a subtle flexing of wiry muscles.

"Eh, I've seen better," she lied evenly.

Han barked out a laugh. "I doubt that. Give me a second, I'll be right out."

Han sat down across from her at the dejarik table a moment later, fully dressed but with unruly damp hair. He looked impossibly handsome but she had had a chance to fan herself before his arrival dissipate the fire that was threatening to engulf her.

"I've come to ply you with whiskey. We are supposed to know things about each other, and I know…nothing about you." She passed him a tumbler, which he sniffed.

"Not bad, thanks. I never thought I'd see the day when Princess Leia Organa admitted to trying to seduce me with whiskey. What do you want to know?"

"That is not remotely what I said. And I don't know anything. What do you want to tell me?"

"I did the Kessel run in 12 parsecs."

"Han, you tell everyone that."

"Well……"

Leia looked at him pointedly.

"Why don't you break the ice. Tell me something."

"I was adopted."

"That's public knowledge."

"You didn't specify the terms of sharing. Your turn.

"I was kicked out of the academy."

"I know that already, it's in your background check dossier."

[….] Han glares at Leia in silence.

[….] Leia glares back at Han.

"I'm not a words guy. I'm a man of action."

"All evidence to the contrary, motor-mouth."

"Kriff, Princess, this is a waste of time."

"You are being stubborn and unhelpful. Let's raise the stakes. How about we play sabacc, whoever wins the round gets to ask a question. And no dirty ones."

"Fine."

Leia loses the first round and accuses Han of cheating. He takes a sip of his whiskey, a smirk on his face, and considers his first question.

"If you weren't raised to be a Queen someday, a politician or whatever, what would you have chosen to be instead?"

"I'd do exactly what I'm doing now, probably just not as a member of High Command. Fight oppression, fight for people that can't fight for themselves."

Han is surprised at the self-awareness of this statement. A lot of the Alliance brass were blissfully unaware of their elitist attitudes and privilege. It seemed Leia wasn't among them and he wondered if she had been raised that way or it was because she knew she was adopted and wasn't strictly born into it.

Leia won the next round and sipped her drink as she gathered the courage to ask her next question.

"You have been threatening to resign your commission for years, and yet you haven't left yet. Why?"

"Kriff Leia, way lob me an easy one. I like being cold and living on rations."

"Bantha shit, I gave you a real answer Solo, you give me one," she ordered.

Han sighed, obviously calculating how much he wanted to say. She knew whatever answer he gave, it would be a half-truth at best.

"For a long time, it was just Chewie and me. We were wondering spacers, living job to job, having adventures, but no real connections except for his family in Kashyyyk. We met the kid and you, the rogues. Chewie called it a 'found family.' Ya know, not the family you are born with but the one you choose. Plus, I'm no fan of the Empire. Good enough reason to stick around for a bit, plus you all would be dead five times over if we weren't for us always saving your asses."

She raised her glass to that, touched at the sentiment but feeling like he left much unsaid.

Leia won a second straight hand and took a deep drink. She had the whiskey warm in her belly and her tongue felt loose.

"Have you ever been in love?"

"Yes."

"That's all you're going to say?"

"You should have asked an open-ended question if you wanted details."

Leia rolled her eyes at him, and let out a breath in frustration. She was dying to learn more about that. Han's stubborn silence and one word answer left an itch unscratched.

Han bluffed her into folding the next round. Her usual unflappable ability to hide her tells was slipping with the two tumblers of whiskey and she still felt like she still knew nothing more about him.

"Have you been able to stop thinking about our kiss?" She would have thought if this came up again, it would have been said as a joke, or with his harmless flirty banter. He asked it seriously with an intensity that put her guard up.

"Han..," she warned.

"Just answer the question."

"We were on a mission, posing as honeymooners. We did what we had to do to not blow our covers."

"Now I'm calling bantha shit on you, Highness. You still haven't answered my question."

"What do you want me to say?" She whispered. Shit shit shit. She had to play this very carefully.

Han caught her eye, held the contact as he leaned towards her face. Leia held her breath, fighting the desire to move towards him just a few more centims. She had been replaying that kiss on repeat. Fantasizing about more of them. She doubted she could possibly get enough of the feel, taste, of his lips on hers. But she knew he was playing her, trying to get her to confess something that would give him the upper hand.

"Yes," she said in a low alto she was pretty sure made him crazy. "I keep thinking…" (she paused while Han held his breath in anticipation of her confession and looked into his eyes again) "…that you should brush your teeth before the next one." She brought her tumbler of whiskey up between their still closed mouths and downed the rest of the amber fire in a gulp.

"It's late. Goodnight, Han. I can walk myself back." Leia stood up and walked off the Falcon. Han followed her to the ramp to see her off.

"Good night, General," He called, and acknowledgement of her superior tactics this round.

She waved at him, shooting a dazzling smile over her shoulder before walking away.

Hobbie was so shocked to witness a happy, radiant Princess exiting Solo's bucket of bolts while the smuggler had lovesick dopey grin on his face that he dropped his tool on his foot accidentally. He quickly gathered it up so he could race to tell Jansen the latest gossip. Still no public kiss, but one of them would win this bet soon, he could feel it.