Trout: Yes, you are the first! Congratulations! Oh, and, I almost forgot your reward for helping me out amongst the privacy and privilege that is Junior's Abroad camp-out mania . . .
Summers2004: Thank you! Your reviews always make my day . . . Thanks!
SoloKenobi: Well, someoneon the JC Boards pointed out to me that "Never have I Ever" was on a recent episode of "Lost." I threatened to hurt Mr. J.J. Abrams, except then I remembered that I love him for creating Sark. puppy-dog eyes Sigh. Sarkie-baby. Enough of the Alias gush - thank you!
Mirax Myra Terrik: I'm glad you liked it! Hope the Morning After chap is a good conclusion . ..
Dimonah Tralon: Thank you!
Limelight: The admiration is most assuredly mutual, LL. Thank you for the enormous ego boost . . . ;)
SUP3R GIL: Thank you! I try to put Han and/or Leia consistently in the worst situations possible, so the purple and orange were a natural progression for me!
Prudence-Chan: I was actually very, very surprised at how many of my readers did not get the Jacen joke. I'm glad you got it! Thank you!
Lynn: Well, my Writing Fic prof may disagree with your assessment of my writing, but, hey. She doesn't know how much fiction I'm actually writing, eh? Thanks!
This chapter, ladies and gentlemen, was fixed and revamped by my most esteemed colleague-in-fanfic-crime, Ms. Hold-Out Trout. She beta-ed for me in a very, very strange location this last Thursday night, and I am forever in awe of her editing skills. ;) Thanks Trout - you're a life-saver. (And a good flavor, too, I might add. Maybe red or orange . . . )
Chapter 10:
It was an interesting experience, Leia had to admit. Waking up next to Han Solo was not an event she had ever anticipated. And even in the moments that her mind had touched briefly upon the subject before, she didn't wake up to him with an orange skirt and blue tank-top on. And it was surprising to her that, firstly, she could view her current predicament with such detached enthusiasm and secondly, she couldn't remember hardly anything following the . . .
The . . .
Leia sighed and closed her eyes against the sharp needles that seemed to penetrate her brain. It was too difficult to think. She just wanted to lie here in her current lethargy and let the day end.
Next to Han.
On her bed.
She didn't move closer. She didn't pull away. It was more surprising that she could handle the situation than that she was in the situation in the first place. Head pounding, arms akimbo and completely lifeless and empty of all energy, Leia tried her hardest to shut out the nagging conscience at the back of her hungover brain that told her – no, screamed at her – to get up, to put some distance between the smuggler on the miniature bed and herself, grab some kaffe and reality.
She quickly blasted the conscience to dust and closed her eyes again.
"Hey, Rims."
Ivoen, this is called a hangover. "Yeah?" Go away.
"It's two o'clock."
"Yeah, good time to sleep, don't you think?"
"In the afternoon."
Leia opened her eyes, blinked back the sharp pain behind her eyes, and stared at her roommate. "So?"
"We have a floor meeting at three." The blurry outline that she assumed was Ivoen shrugged. "I thought you might want to be somewhat awake by the time we have to face – " she gestured vaguely " – them."
Leia groaned. How do these people do it? "Yeah, okay. I'm up." She rolled herself toward the edge of the narrow bed and groped around the floor for Stribur's blue slippers. Sitting up and extricating herself from the bunk, Leia turned around and stared at Han blurrily.
She was slightly surprised. He lay on his back, hair swept onto his forehead and mouth slightly parted. He looks – She laughed quietly to herself. Innocent. That has to be a first. She took in the rumpled purple shirt and the orange hat still upon his head, still and unmoving in the afternoon light of the window sill, and noticed he lay above the covers, legs spread past the length of the bed, feet dangling off the edge.
Ivoen came up behind her as she assessed Solo. "Do you remember much?"
Leia shook her head. "I remember the – " She stopped. "I remember being at the party and dancing, and have a faint idea of coming here, but, other than that, no."
"Mmm, well, I've taken care of my mother after she's gone to her society parties, and you were in pretty good shape, considering. I mean, you hear all these stories of people screaming and dancing when they're drunk." She chuckled. "Don't worry. I guess you're what they call a good drunk."
Leia rolled her eyes, which shot her brain an electric pain. "Great. When did we get back?"
Ivoen shrugged. "Oh, well, maybe three o'clock. You were almost asleep." She nodded towards the smuggler on her bed. "He wanted to sleep on the floor, but I told him you probably wouldn't mind. Anyway, he was really sweet. You got a good one, Rims."
I haven't "got" him at all. And what's scaring me is that I want to. "Thanks."
"Are you going to wake him up or wait until after the meeting?"
She frowned. "I don't know." What damage could he possibly do here alone? "Let's go. If my current nausea and headache are any indication, we should give him as much chance to sleep as possible."
"Okay, ladies, okay! We've only got a few things to go over and I want to get this done as soon as possible. Okay?"
The chorus of giggles, verbal acknowledgements, and one long melodramatic sigh answered the resident assistant as she attempted to grab hold of the meeting and shifted around on her bed. Seated under a desk, Leia tried to look as comfortable as she could while hunched over and consistently hitting her head on the plastisteel above her. Ivoen was on her knees next to Leia's feet, pushed towards the wall by the rather large brunette hogging the center of the open floor.
"Okay, I know I should have called a meeting before this but I have had the worst week ever and couldn't handle the RA thing yet, okay? Don't ever take Freddi's Hyperspace Calculations class, okay? It's awful."
Three blondes huddled near the feet of the RA raised their voices in affirmation of the statement, each expressing how truly terrible the professor was. Okkon, holding her head in her hands, argued against the four as she detailed her experience with Freddi. The large brunette shook up and down in a wave of enthusiastic excitement as she spun a tale no one listened to about her Hyp Calc class in her public secondary school and how adorable Mr. Garifeldi was way back in the ninth grade. Ivoen rolled her eyes and glanced at Leia.
Leia hit her head on the desk.
"Okay, now, my name is Iotek and I'm a second-year student here at UoIE. So, let's go around and share everyone else's name. Roommates, introduce each other, okay? Okay!"
And so began a long string of introductions full of senseless information that made no sense to Leia – favorite musical groups, favorite holostars, favorite color combinations – until everyone had concluded that everyone else was exactly like themselves in their own inimitable way.
Leia felt awful for hating them, remembered Han's lecture of the night before. But I feel awful and they really are acting idiotic.
"So, we've got twenty-six girls here on the floor this year, and I think it'll be a great year this year." She stopped. "Wow, I said 'year' three times."
The rabble began again, two roommates on the opposite room detailing exactly how ridiculous it was. The shy girl in the corner tried to tell no one that she'd done precisely the same thing two weeks ago with her best friend. Okkon's blonde friend whimpered and said that her head hurt and that she thought 'this year' was an amusing phrase. Ivoen laughed politely and then looked back at Leia.
Leia hit her head on the desk.
"Okay, so I've only got one more thing, I think. It'd be totally awesome to do like a girl's night out or something, okay? Like going to see a holo or go static-blading or whatever. What do you think?"
It was the wrong thing to ask. The three blondes in the corner shrilled out a complicated plan that involved a six course dinner and a trip to a spa. The large brunette in the center told everyone about a group date she'd probably never gone on with a semi-famous, easily forgotten holostar. Another redhead, a different one than Okkon, suggested a night out in the nearby dance clubs. Ivoen watched the debate, then turned towards Leia.
Leia hit her head on the desk.
Feeling like she'd just run a marathon, Leia pulled herself forcefully towards her room and hoped that she'd be able to sleep for the next three days.
Unfortunately, this was not the case.
Han Solo, looking refreshed and very much awake, was seated at her desk looking through her various drawers in unabashed reconnaissance, a small grin aimed at her as she walked in.
"Hey'a, sweetheart!"
Leia groaned and flopped onto her bed, motioning for Ivoen to come closer. "If you kill me right now, in the most painless way you know, I'll pay you a million credits."
Ivoen laughed and grabbed her purse. "No such luck, Rims. It's called murder, and I am slightly against it. Besides – " she moved towards the door " – I'm hungry. Do either of you want anything? I could try to sneak it out to you. Gods know they have their stupid security system looking for us to steal food we've already paid for. So if I wind up in jail, come bail me out, please."
Leia saw Han smile disarmly at Ivoen. "No. I'm fine. Rims looks like the thought of food is about to kill her." He closed the drawer at which he was looking. "And if you kill her that way, I don't think you'll get your million."
Leia shoved a proto-pillow over her head as Ivoen left and Han resumed his inspection.
"Hey, sweetheart, you've got some interesting stuff in here."
"Go away."
"No," he sing-songed. "This is my chance to learn all sorts of fun stuff about you here, Princess. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me."
Like a dream, his half-forgotten words of the night before floated to the surface of her consciousness. "You're so wasted that you're forgetting to hate me. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me." Leia felt her face flush and was supremely glad he couldn't see it with her head under the pillow. Should she tell him? Tell him she remembered? That she remembered hardly anything else except the kiss, how gentlemanly he was, how easily she could see herself falling . . .
No, she couldn't do it. What would it gain any of them? And who would it hurt? She'd only be encouraging this idiotic fantasy that they seemed to share.
"You're too important to rush, Princess."
No! It couldn't go anywhere, it wouldn't help anyone. Who were they kidding? He was beneath her, a smuggler, a mercenary, only in it for the money, after a couple of nights of fun and then a broken heart yearning for him as he flew away?
"Did you forget the drinking game already, sweetheart?"
And what about the Rebellion? She couldn't split her time between the two of them. It'd be impossible! It would require her to give up one of them eventually, even if he didn't take off and leave her alone.
He's probably told every girl he's ever met that he's fallen in love with her.
No.
She couldn't do it.
" – Not to mention that I've inspectedStribur's closet and there is some stuff in there that I would really love to see on you, sweetheart."
"What?" She threw the proto-pillow off her head.
Han was rifling through her text-disks. "Your closet. She's got some nice things in there."
"You looked through my closet?" Out of all the – "What else have you ransacked?"
"Oh, none of Ivoen's stuff. She's too young for my taste."
Leia blinked. "We're the same age."
"You're nineteen?"
She pushed herself from her bed and crossed to the other side of the room, where she whipped out a list from the back pocket of her jacket draped over a chair. "Before she comes back, we have a few things to discuss. I need – "
"Nineteen, Leia?"
" – track Vader. I have to know where he is and where I can't be."
"Wait, wait, Sweetheart, slow down – "
" – an estimate for the size of the Imperial force here. I need you to get me about five hundred credits into an account I can use inconspicuously."
"Okay, but Leia – "
"Stop it." She stared into his pitying gaze. "Don't coddle me. Treat me like you used to. I need a better communication method for you and I."
"Yeah, but – "
"I need a way to get important intelligence to you without using my comm."
He sighed. "Like what?"
"Message drop system? Like in specific waste bins?"
"That could work."
"Anything would be better than trying to tell you what's going on in any kind of code. We use the comm for smaller developments, intel drops for the more important information."
"Okay. Except I think I'll miss Jemmy's dad with the black capes."
She fought back a relieved smile. At least he's dropping the age thing. "I need a better tracking device on my comm. Ivoen's father is on the GansCorp board and I'm going to her parent's house here on IE next weekend."
"That's suspiciously convenient,"
"You're telling me. Almost as if someone is creating a plot and using things like that to further it." She shook her head and looked back down at the list. "I have a million things. I just can't think of them right now." She raised her head as Han stood up. "I'll contact you if I think of any others."
"Okay." He looked around the room as he walked towards the door, stopping before he actually opened it. "Hey, Sweetheart, I really did have a good time last night."
Leia felt herself blush. "Yeah, me, too." She paused. "What I remember of it, anyway."
"It would have been even nicer with a goodbye kiss, huh?"
She grabbed onto her resolve with both shaking hands. The way you kiss, the evening was much better than nice. "Not going to happen, Solo."
His face fell subtly again. "Yeah, well, I'll talk to you later, then."
It was better to ignore it.
Cherish the little she could have.
But ignore it on the outside.
La, dee, da, dee . . . REVIEW! . . . dee, da, de . . .
KR