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From-Heaven2Earth: Thank you, I love reviews like this...:D
CHAPTER THREE
Well, I suppose I was right in thinking that Han had moved on with his life, Leia thought, throwing her two bags into Han's captain quarters. If she was going to go on this trip, she may as well take the best room. Still, she sensed something deeper, behind Han's cunning sarcasm and obvious resentment. It was hard to exactly place, with her newly acquired Force skills she still barely recognized. Sadness? Grief, maybe? Shock? Regret? If so, regret over what? Leia nearly fell as the Millennium Falcon took off without warning. Grumbling, she stood straight, balancing herself with her hand on the wall. She could still not stop the rush of emotions that came upon her while Han was in her presence for that brief moment, although. No, she reasoned with herself determinedly. Everyone has these feelings when meeting someone from their past, no matter how moved on they are. I was naïve and young, and I made the right choice. That's what she kept convincing herself of, anyways.
Solo did not really want to do this either, despite his outer appearance on the subject. The only thing compelling him was the thought of revenge. He stubbornly ignored that one possibility for his agreement to continue on this job may have been the thought of spending twenty hours with Leia, which could either be torturous or joyful. Both, maybe, but torturous was the more likely that was to happen. Which could be enjoyable, if approached from the right way - which rarely happened when one is speaking of Han Solo, the Corellian ex-smuggler. He heard the Princess walk in and sit in the navigator's chair. Chewie turned around, letting out a series of joyous howls and barks to the Princess. Leia smiled, not knowing exactly what the Wookie said but inferring that it was a good thing.
"He's glad to see you." Solo said, pressing some buttons into the NavaComputer.
"Well, at least I will have some enjoyable company on this long ride here." she shot at him, calmly, before turning to Chewie, who was looking between the two apprehensively.
"Its great to see you too, Chewie. Its been too long." she said, reaching around and wrapping her arms around the Wookie's neck and giving him a kiss on his furry cheek, ignoring a snort from Han. Chewie gladly hugged her back, letting out his happy... sounds, hugging Leia so tight that she feared her ribs might give way.
"We're jumping to light speed." Han informed them quietly, pulling back a lever and watching the stars start to fly by. Leia and Chewie withdrew from their embrace to watch the sight, but after it passed for a few seconds all three stood up to do something elsewhere. Han roughly pushed past her, and she made an attempt to slap him, but he was already gone. Fuming, Leia decided to follow him.
"Han, exactly what is your problem?" she asked, following him to the kitchen where he was getting out a glass of more alcohol.
"My problem, your Worship?" he asked incredulously, pausing to stare at her with a shot glass and a bottle in his hand.
"Yes, yours." Leia replied. "And since when do you drink?"
"Its just a habit I've picked up over the past year." he said nastily, taking a shot directly from the bottle while Leia watched in disgust. Did she do that to him? "And I don't have a problem."
"Oh, then how do you explain your behavior down at the landing platform?"
"My behavior?" Han asked, taking a step closer to her after setting down both the bottle and the glass.
"Yes. With the sarcasm and the threats." she reminded him.
"Now, your Worshipful Highnessness, you know if I made any threats to you Dumbo down there would have me arrested." he said, gruffly, still walking towards her. She took a step back.
"Go away." Leia told him, not bothering to point out that his threats were too subtle for 'Dumbo' to detect. "You're making me uncomfortable."
"Obviously."
"What do you mean, obviously?"
"You're trembling again." before Leia knew it, he had her pressed up against the wall. "What is it this time?" he asked, his face impossibly close to hers.
"Anger?" she 'stated', trying to sound forceful. Han laughed.
"Try again." he said, stepping back, grinning at her, and walking back to the counter to pick up the alcohol and the glass. Leia looked furious, and she let out a 'trembling' breathe, before fixing her eyes on him, hoping to detect any signs of weakness. She noted that his hand shook very slightly as he poured some of the alcohol into the shot glass, before he downed that. "Well, good-bye your Highness, I'm going to my quarters."
Leia grinned as he left the room, waiting for his outcry of rage when he learned that she already settled in. He deserved it.
Han walked down the halls, his face tinted with red from his previous act. It had taken all of his self-control to not do what it looked like he was about to do there, then make it look like a joke. He did have to say, it worked quite nicely, even though the whole time his stomach was tightening almost painfully from being so close to the woman. He was still smiling in pleasure when he entered his room, but then his smile vanished and was replaced with a look of surprise mingled with anger. No way. He slept here. "Princess!" he yelled, turning. She politely came to meet him on the halls.
"Yes, Captain?" she asked innocently.
"What the hell is your stuff doing in the Captain's quarters?" he asked, furiously pointing behind him. He watched as she fought to keep her own smile from forming on her face.
"Why, Captain, I'm surprised at you. On all of our previous trips you made me use the Captain's quarters."
"Yeah, well, that was different." Han said angrily.
"How so?" Oh, how she seemed to love to torture him even more.
"Why in the hells am I going to tell you?"
"Because you still love me." Han took a step back in surprise. How could he think that it wouldn't be that obvious?
"No I don't." he grumbled, pushing past her, hearing her light footsteps follow him.
"Oh? Trust me, Han, I know."
"Yeah?" he asked, turning around to face her. "Like you did a year ago?"
Leia glared at him. "Listen, Han, I was young and naïve then, and jumping into a relationship - "
"We were in a relationship, Leia! We were in one since Hoth! And you know for a fact that you weren't naïve, and if I even attempted to hint that you were, even in a joke, you would have shot me with my own blaster!" he started to yell at her.
"Of course I wouldn't have wanted to admit it! But I didn't love you, so it would have been the best thing for both of us!"
"You did love me! You tried to tell me that!"
Leia paused. Now that she thought about it, that was true.
"But no, you were too emotionally unstable to jump into a relationship, as you so kindly put it! How in hell were you emotionally unstable, Leia? Tell me that!"
"Because of you!" she yelled straight back, some of her hair falling out of her elaborate braids. Han took a step back in surprise, but he quickly recovered.
"Yeah?" he sneered. "And what did I do to make you unstable? Did I pay too much attention to you?"
She seemed to have had her little plan backfired on her. She had meant for that comment to make him walk away, and she had said it in anger; she knew it wasn't true. She paused for a moment, and then started to walk away, unable to make a reply. She should have known that Han would fight her, tooth and nail, just as much as she fought him to win this argument. It was just how Han and her worked. He walked after her, triumphant.
"Go away, Han. Oh, and do me a favor." she turned to him. "Never contact me again after I step off this wreck onto Yavin."
"That won't be a problem, your Worship." he leered at her, glaring.
"And not Luke, either."
"You can't stop me from contacting him. He's your brother, not your slave. I wanna check up on he's doin' every once in a while."
Leia felt slightly guilty from making everyone Han knew to sever ties with him.
"Come to think of it, how is Luke doing? Did he purposely stay out of contact with me since you broke my heart?" he asked with a sneer, receiving a hard slap on the face from Leia. Why he deserved that was beyond him, because he usually had a drift on why Leia ever got mad at him. She turned on her heel, stalking away, before he just as furiously went back into the cockpit, sitting in the pilot's chair. The Wookie next to him let out a few howls.
"I know, Chewie..." Han said wearily, pressing on a few buttons. "Another argument, just like old times... She started it." he added, rather childishly. He decided to stay on the cockpit for a while, and after a bit, after Chewie went to rest, Leia joined him, sitting in the navigator's chair.
"By the way, Luke's doing fine." she said grumpily, crossing her arms. "He started a Jedi academy on Yavin IV. That's really the reason you're taking me there, to visit him."
"Oh, good, I was worried that I was flying you around for twenty hours for a reason that really didn't count."
"He's my brother, Han." she defended.
"Yeah, whatever..." he muttered, looking at the ship traveling through hyperspace right in front of him.
"And Wedge and Janson and all those guys?" he inquired.
"I heard Wedge is marrying, and Janson is doing fine from when I last saw him."
"Which was?"
She scowled at him, trying to decide if this was a question not so offending that she could answer. "Three standard months ago." she said coolly. She switched to a different subject. "Why did you desert?"
"No, Princess, I took an extended leave of absence." he replied, quoting Skippy.
Leia sighed. "Seriously, nerf-herder."
Han looked around at the old nickname, to find a malicious smirk playing on Leia's lips. His hazel eyes locked on her deep brown ones for a moment, before he looked back at the window.
"I needed to get away."
"From me?"
"Well, you're suddenly the smart one."
Leia's face hardened again at his smart-ass reply. "How? I heard the Republic caught you at one point, but then we never heard from that ship again."
"I went to Tatooine. Your little Republic is doing a great job over there, I must say."
Leia couldn't decide if that was sarcastic or not, so she took the easy route and ignored it. "And the ship?"
"Intercepted by pirates. They took me on their for a while, but then they let me go when I told them Chewie and I wanted to get back on the Falcon."
"They just let you go?" Leia asked, amazed. "Just like that?"
Han smirked. "We got along. I helped them sack the Republic ship, then hide the loot. Pirates and me have a lot in common, from what I found out."
Leia snorted. "Oh, yes. That's right. Mr. Smuggler knows all his little tricks, doesn't he?"
"You got it, sister."
"So you went to Tatooine after that?"
"Yeah. I didn't want to be caught by the Republic again, so I just went to the place where they wouldn't find me. I jammed all communications to and from the Falcon, so even if I was drunk I wouldn't do anything stupid."
Leia felt a pang of remorse. So she did cause his drinking, after all. She was managed to be saved from a reply by being jerked forward into the co-pilot's seat in front of her, falling on the ground, while Han managed to stop from falling on the controls. "What the hell...?" He heard a yell of annoyance from one of the cabins, where Chewie slept, where he had undoubtedly had fallen off a bunk.
"What is going on, Han? We can't be there yet!"
"Well, obviously, your Worship." he said angrily, standing and walking out of the cockpit and into the main control room. "Chewie! Get your furry butt over here!" he called, lifting up a floor covering and tossing it aside, hopping into a place full of interconnecting wires and machinery.
"I knew this piece of junk wouldn't get us anywhere!" Leia said, angrily. "What, is it the hyper drive motivator again? Like always?"
"Shut up, Princess, you're not helping!" shouted Han from below. Suddenly, the ship shook again, and Leia restrained herself from falling into the hole after Han.
"What was that?" she shouted, more full of nerves than everything. Han shushed her, listening.
"Dammit..." he muttered, hoisting himself out.
"What's going on?" demanded Leia, following Han.
"We're being boarded."
"WHAT? I thought I was supposed to be safe on this thing!"
"Yeah, well, the hyper drive has been out of sync for a while so all this traveling was too much on it." he said, hurrying through the halls. "Chewie!" he called. "Gather up anything worth value, we're being boarded!"
Leia herself went back to Han's cabin, and started throw things out of her bags, gathering up anything with sentimental or Republic value, including flimsies, holo-recordings, and various memory chips. She turned to hurry back out, and found a blaster being pointed at her face.
"Aha, its the Princess herself. I told you this was the correct ship. Go inform the Lieutenant."
"Yes sir."
A good look at the man holding her at blaster point told her he was one of the few Imperials left in this galaxy, from one of those Imperial regions on the outskirts. The New Republic had not managed to take those planets, because there were so many Imperials lying around that it had been difficult to fight a war on unknown territory.
"So, Princess, of to a little visit to your brother? Don't worry, he'll be joining you soon enough..." Suddenly, roars broke out, and it sounded like something heavy was thrown against the wall. Blaster shots rang through the air.
"What the..." started the man, making the mistake of looking around. Leia took this as her chance, and swatted the blaster away. That blaster went off, shooting a window that was in the cabin, and suddenly the oxygen dissapeered out of Leia's lungs as a vacuum was created in the room. The door to the cabin started closing as the ship attempted to seal off the potentially harmful area. Deciding she would confront Han about updating his windows to withold the advanced blaster fire later, she grabbed the blaster from the surprised Imperial's hands.
"On the ground!" she shouted, reversing roles and pointing the blaster. No noise came out of her mouth, however, and she was starting to feel light-headed. She fell, from the air rushing out of the room at a rapid pace, closely followed by objects. The bag full of her items rushed past her, and she made a grab for it, successfully locking it onto her elbow. The Imperial that used to be on the floor was now in the air, also flying toward the small window, one of his legs getting sucked through. He was desperately struggling, an Leia grabbed onto a pole, holding it for dear life while her mind was sending flashes of color from the lack of oxygen. She was only vaguely aware of being grabbed by the upper arm and pulled through.