LACUNA
(n.) an absence to be filled; a blank space; a missing part
Her mother used to tell her desire was an intense, consuming thing that could easily get the better of a person, leading them to do rash and reckless things. Leia always felt that was a poor excuse used to defend behavior a being had come to regret in the light of day, but after weeks trapped on a freighter with Han Solo, she now fully understood the near irresistible pull when caught in the tractor beam of lust.
She had wanted Han from the very beginning and that attraction had only grown exponentially stronger with time, until her body was all but shouting at her to lose their clothing and surrender to passion. Add into the bargain that she was helplessly in love with him too, which meant her heart was also shouting it in chorus, and she scarcely stood a chance.
Just looking at Han was an effective temptation. Because when she did look at him, now with the weight of fully knowing the man he truly was, she didn't just see a handsome face and nicely put together body. She saw Han, the real him, and everything tied up in their history together. She saw the man who held her after she woke in terror and grief following a nightmare. She saw the man who made her laugh with his dry wit and even his zany silliness, something that only those closest to him ever got the chance to experience. She saw the man who challenged her, teased and provoked her back into feeling. She saw the man who respected and valued her. She saw all the many times they'd worked flawlessly together as an unparalleled team. All the times he looked at her with affection and with hunger. She saw his many kindnesses over the years, bringing her special things she needed or wanted: little tokens like extra hair ties and pins; her favorite Alderaanian wildflowers after she'd told him only once, weeks prior, that as a child she thought they were the prettiest thing she'd ever seen; grazer steaks she grew up eating; Alderaanian spiced wine he served steamed for her, as was their custom; anything of Alderaanian origin he ever came across, and many things so rare she unquestionably knew he must have sought them out and paid a hefty credit.
All of those things made her ache for Han in a very real and physical way. The combination of history and love, it seemed, was a potent aphrodisiac, much more so than merely handsome looks and base-level attraction. When both were present, and now that she had assurance it wasn't only one-sided, now that they were essentially 'together', the pull towards consummation was a nearly overwhelming call. While Han hadn't told her that he loved her — to be fair, she hadn't told him either, yet that didn't stop it from being true — he had admitted to powerful and long-enduring feelings for her. Feelings that let her know sleeping with Han would be meaningful to him, as well. At the very least it would mean far more to him than the average tumble in the sheets. Knowing that made it harder still to convince herself to hold out.
Her lone caveat was that, along with knowing Han, she knew too well the torment of grief. Love — even the purest, most uncomplicated kind — had consequences. When you loved someone, you gave a piece of your heart, yourself, to them, a piece you never quite got back when you lost them. That missing piece continued to make you pain and pine, ache and agonize for what had once been and now never could be.
In many ways things were simpler between them now, yes, easier to give over to love and passion, but with Han's continued plans to leave the Alliance, in other ways it was just as difficult as before. Stopped up at the same impasse, Leia's subconscious continued to warn her to take things slowly, to be careful and cautious. Her understandably wary heart needed to be shielded from any further pain, and as such, her mind persisted in proclaiming the sound reason and wisdom in protectively holding back, in maintaining certain defensive barriers between herself and Han.
Since she had already lost the battle for ownership of her heart — that irretrievably belonged to him, had for years, even outside of her will — those fortifications tended to the only barrier she had left: her body. It was in Leia's nature to carefully analyze every side of an issue, but this one didn't require much thought. It only made sense that, of course, increased physical involvement — for her, the very first steps into sex and physical intimacy — would lead to further emotional entanglement and thereby a greater eventual loss.
But all of those cautions mindlessly faded into the background whenever Han was around. It was all too easy to be swept away by and with him. After all, this was the man who, surrounded by stormtroopers in the midst of life-or-death firefights, could make her want him without trying or even knowing. In a relaxed, contented environment with said man now openly admiring her and willing to profess his feelings, she had no hope of withstanding for long. And, frankly, little actual desire to do so. Whenever she was with him, her body — their chemistry, whatever this magnetic thing was that existed before feelings were even present — would take control; her qualms weakening and defenses growing feeble in the heat of desire that flamed between them.
Since they were only nearing the halfway point of their journey to Bespin, Leia knew that unless she intended to spend the rest of the trip in bed with Han, she would have to quickly find something to occupy them other than strictly their newfound freedom with each other.
They had the makeshift gym Han rigged up in the forward hold for keeping in shape while on extended space journeys, and she'd taken to jogging laps of the ship for added fitness, but that couldn't fill all the extra hours of a day. It was Chewbacca who came up with the idea of using the time to impart new knowledge and abilities to one another. It was a Wookiee tradition, he enlightened Leia. On Kashyyyk, a week was set aside at the beginning of each year, a period in which every Wookiee who was masterful in a subject would pass on their expertise to the rest of the tribe so that it might live on after they were gone.
Leia thought it a brilliant idea; Alderaanians were likewise raised with the belief that any and all new learning was valuable to broaden one's personal development. It was a concept Threepio thoroughly echoed. With majority firmly on their side, Han went along. He didn't really mind; it was something to do — and Leia was right: you never knew what kind of skills would come in handy. So they had what Han joking called a makeshift "committee meeting" about it where they collectively decided who would pass along what to whom.
In the days that followed, Han had been teaching Leia how to navigate by old-fashioned star charts, without the aid of technical readouts, using only the stars themselves. She was also studying more advanced and nuanced Shyriiwook with Chewie.
The knee-jerk assumption by certain members of High Command would have been that Han didn't have anything notable on which to tutor Leia, though she would have a world of things on which to educate him. But Han's "lack of upbringing", as Dodonna once put it, did not denote a lack of education, far from it. Unsurprisingly, he was more street-wise than she, but that wasn't the sole field in which his accomplishments outstripped the tremendously educated princess. There were the specialisms of flight and expert ship maintenance he'd already begun to impart to her by necessity over the years, and she'd long ago discovered Han was a proficient linguist. There were only two languages she knew that he didn't, and those were from obscure, rarely traveled worlds; more prestige knowledge than serviceably useful. Meanwhile, there were four languages Han knew that Leia didn't. Being a smuggler and dealing with all variety of beings from varied ports of call made it paramount for him to quickly pick up many varied dialects. All that meant there wasn't much in the way of languages that Leia had to offer him.
She'd thought to teach him formal dining etiquette, which spoon to use when and that sort of thing. It was a prospect that thoroughly excited Threepio but Han had quickly shut down, firmly declaring he had "less than zero interest" in the subject.
They finally settled on dividing their evenings between pragmatic betterment and frivolous enjoyment. Half the nights, Han, Leia, and Chewie practiced advanced gaming strategies — in other words, played dejarik; having a certified table on board was kismet, and since dejarik strategy and war strategy were essentially one and the same, such expertise could be useful for the Rebellion. Every-other night found Han and Leia in private dance lessons.
Han was shockingly adept at the kind of social dancing done at clubs, bars, and parties throughout the galaxy; the type that was thoroughly outside of Leia's elite education but immensely engaging to her all the same. She loved watching Han move from the moment they met. There was just something so primal about it — the instinctive swagger to his step, the measured pulse and pace to his repair routines aboard the Falcon — that belied an inherent sense of natural rhythm. She hadn't expected it, but it made perfect sense that such aptitudes would organically translate into dance.
Han was blessed with such an innate sense of physicality that he instinctively exceled at the most carnal, sensual styles of dance with no need for instruction. He once admitted to her that, as a teen, he'd swiftly discovered it was a skill well worth honing; many an improvised Corellian lambada or bachata had landed him a whole lot more with a whole lot less clothing in the alleyways and back rooms of cantinas galaxy-wide.
Though Han could manage a decent tango, the formal ballroom dances practiced in the chic, royal environments Leia once frequented — such as the Coruscanti waltz, foxtrot, or even an old-fashioned Hapan quadrille — were outside of his scope. He'd faked his way through on a few of their undercover missions over the years, but it was by the seat of his pants. He wouldn't be able to repeat the steps to save his life, something he'd literally been doing at the time.
Yet it wasn't the past but the future that motivated Leia now. All through their journey to Bespin, since they'd begun this thing together, she had dared to imagine a free galaxy someday, one in which Han would attend such state dinners by her side and would need to know those formal dances, though she didn't mention that fantasy to him.
Han, for his part, wasn't especially interested in formal dancing, but he enjoyed it with Leia. He got to hold her in his arms, sometimes closely against his body, and he liked how excited she was to impart a skill to him, how pleased she seemed when she'd successfully taught him to master a certain move. Those incentives kept him occupied until the second half of their lessons, the time reserved for teaching Leia his moves — which unfailingly evolved into physical expressions more enjoyable than mere dancing.
But tonight was gaming not dancing, so they were waiting at the dejarik table for Chewie to come join them. Leia was curled up on Han's lap where he'd pulled her a few minutes ago, her arm around his shoulders and knees bent against his chest. If Luke were there he would have described the scene as 'snuggling', but neither of them thought much about it. It was just the natural order of things to burrow up together — for protection, for warmth, for comfort — long before they could admit it was done out of love and affection as much as necessity.
"So I was thinking: if we lead with the Grimtaash tonight instead of the Monnok, we could end this early," Leia suggested, pressing her socked toes into his warm thigh.
"Oh yeah? You got plans for that time, Princess?"
"Perhaps." She smiled slyly and Han hummed his pleasure at the possibility. "We could always—" Leia stopped short, her attention drawn to his hands at her ribcage, fiddling with the end of her single long plait. "Are you undoing my braid?" she asked around a laugh, charmed at his ongoing fixation with her hair.
"You told me it was my privilege," he reminded her flirtatiously, pausing a breath to emphasize, "Only mine." Han consistently delighted in that fact, not out of a sense of possessiveness but in flattered, appreciative awe at being uniquely chosen by her.
She met his eyes a moment, hers shinning happily, and then nuzzled her nose against his cheek. "It is," she reaffirmed, and he brought his hand up to cup her chin, his forefinger stroking just beneath, before gliding his touch down her neck where his thumb played at the hollow of her throat as he leaned in to kiss her.
"You know," Leia coyly pointed out when they pulled apart for air, "I haven't much practice, but I imagine it would be more conducive to amorous activities if you kept my hair pulled back."
Han smirked lazily; he really hadn't been trying to start anything. "Just want to touch it," he murmured, removing her hair tie and discarding it on the table.
They kept up a back-and-forth, theorizing on the most efficient strategy for beating Chewie, as Han ran his hands through her hair, first to loose and fluff it out, then just toying with it, wrapping it around and through his fingers, savoring its softness. There was a moment where she caught him holding strands up to his nose and breathing in deeply; his eyes fell closed and he sighed almost imperceptibly before going on.
She couldn't explain why at that particular second it came to her, but something about the simple, sweet intimacy of his action sent her hurtling back to the past, and it struck her how this now everyday scene between them could, in fact, have been conjured straight from the fancies of a young Leia Organa.
It was clear to Han that she'd lost the thread of the dejarik tactic he was explaining, though her distraction didn't seem to be over anything he'd done wrong as she was regarding him with a soft light of affection in her eyes. But it was still a look that implied something deeper, and he couldn't help curiously asking, "What? What is it?"
His inquiry roused Leia from her silent reverie, and now she was the one to run a hand fondly through his scruffy locks. "Don't get cocky, but I really like you." With that confession came a further burst of affection for him, inexorably rushing to the surface along with a broad smile that lit her face; her features all but shone with love. "You are awfully special, Han Solo."
"I'm amazing," he casually boasted in agreement, "but what'd I do to finally make you see it? Guess I should unbraid your hair more often," he quipped. Gently tugging a strand, he pressed a kiss to her forehead and gathered her in closer against his chest.
"It wasn't my hair. Or, actually, it was. In a roundabout way. I was thinking of the summer Winter and I turned thirteen," she told him. "We used to sneak out at night after everyone had gone to sleep."
"You were a little rebel back then too, hmm?" Han said with a grin. "Even princesses have teenage shenanigans?"
"Hardly," Leia laughed. "We only went out into the gardens. I liked looking up at the stars and mountains. They made me feel small, and yet…" Searching for the proper word to describe it, only one repeatedly came to mind, the perfect encapsulation of the feeling. "…connected; a small part of a larger whole, interlinked and thriving together. There were times I felt more connected to those stars and mountains — the wind, the moonlight, Aldera Lake beyond — than I did the actual beings I encountered in my daily life."
It was no secret she was often an outsider amongst her peers; that was nothing new or exceptional. It was far more difficult to grapple with such extreme interconnection to the land, sea, and air of a planet that no longer existed, was forever eradicated. Did that then mean a part of her was also destroyed that day? Not emotionally or psychologically, but deep-down literally? Was it an actual, tangible connection? Thriving together and destroyed together, too? Is that why she still felt Alderaan's loss so keenly?
She shook off that thought. It had come out of nowhere. This entire turn wasn't what she'd intended to say. And even if it were true, how did one begin reconcile with that truth? There was nothing to be done about losses that were impossible to reverse.
"Anyway," Leia continued, tugging the conversation as well as her thoughts back on track, "all Winter and I did was talk, no shenanigans. But we were freer to do so when it seemed the entire rest of the world was asleep and it was only the two of us…If I was feeling particularly bold, we'd go all the way out to visit the thrantas."
"Nothing illegal then," Han tsked in pretended disappointment. "Seems I got you beat in rebelling."
"I suppose what we did could be seen as rebelling," Leia allowed. "After all, it was very much against the rules to be out past curfew, and alone at night. We weren't trying to rebel, though. That wasn't the heart of it. Mainly, it was just our way of being normal girls who were coming of age. We were too serious to talk about boys and things back in the palace — or maybe life felt too serious there, I don't know. Not that I mean it in a bad way," she was quick to make clear after realizing how that may have sounded. "My childhood was idyllic. I loved my life. But being out in nature, under the open skies, late at night, without even any members of the security team around, I felt young and carefree, and blissfully ordinary."
It was strange yet intriguing to Han how she said ordinary like it was a great treasure in life to be so when, for him, ordinary had always been a source of shame and a sense of inadequacy, but he didn't voice as much, not wanting to interrupt her reflections.
"Sometimes we were even downright silly," Leia went on, smiling to think back on those innocently untroubled, cheerful summer nights; the kind of moments in life where you're living a cherished memory but you don't know to cherish it until after the moment is gone.
"We would talk about trivial things. Out there, for that small window of time, we gave ourselves permission to be frivolous. Sometimes we'd discuss fashion: what dress to wear to the ambassador's ball, finding a pair of shoes that would be comfortable all day in classes while still looking cute — yes, even I cared about clothing and liked looking pretty," she preempted before he could. "You'll find women are multifaceted beings who can be serious and intellectual, even a revolutionary, while still enjoying a good shimmersilk dress."
Han lifted his hands in playful surrender. "Never said otherwise, Worship."
"Hm." She shot him a skeptical look. "I'm fairly certain you have at some point. Probably shouted it during one of our arguments."
"You shouted a lot of things, too," he reminded her.
"Yes." She nodded ruefully, but said, "Only half of which I regret, and a quarter of which turned out to be untrue."
"'S that right, Sweetheart?" he challenged, leaning in a hair closer. "Which quarter? Spell it out for me. Nothing gets me goin' like You were right and I was wrong."
"It doesn't matter," she dismissed before this turned into a battle of banter that ended in kisses — enjoyable, but she still hadn't finished her story. "I shouted everything but the most important thing: I want you, and I'm very mad about that."
"That's what you wanted to shout, was it?" he rumbled, nuzzling his mouth beneath her jaw and laying a trail of soft kisses over to her pulse point.
"Don't try to distract me. I was telling you something," she scolded with no real heat, in fact, sounding already half-distracted. The way she tilted her neck back to allow him better access didn't exactly sell her conviction of restraint either.
"You and Winter, outside in the garden," Han reset the scene while still nuzzling. "See, I can kiss and listen at the same time."
"Not for long," she contended. "Not the way we do it."
He looked up at that, his eyes sparking heat, heartily approving of the sentiment, but Leia put her hand to his chest forestallingly. "No more of that. Yet. Pay attention."
"Yes, Highness," he obeyed, pulling back and giving a mock-bow of his head. "So you and Winter were gossipin' outdoors…"
"Sometimes we did gossip," she smiled to recall. "About the latest scandals at court and in school. Or celebrity gossip — even high-minded Alderaanians weren't above that; our tabloid press was the sort of thing everyone read but no one would admit they read."
"Every planet's tabloids are like that, especially with the rich. Anywhere you go, society people are obsessed with each other."
Leia started to argue that wasn't entirely fair, but then she thought of her aunts and the sometimes vicious nature of life at court and couldn't effectively defend the point. "Other times we talked about boys…the things we found attractive. That's a commonality for rich and poor alike."
A low giggle slipped out of her, as if even now it was an outrageous thing to confess, and Han chuckled too, running a hand down her leg. "Did you debate which prince looked best without a shirt on?" he teased.
Leia laughed again. "We didn't talk about anyone we knew. It was purely hypothetical, beyond the occasional celebrity crush — really the fictitious characters they played, not the celebrities themselves. It was never particularly a physical thing; at least I hadn't identified it as such. We were only just turning thirteen. I didn't think of boys — certainly boys I knew — in a sexual way. I'm not sure at that point I'd had a sexual thought at all."
"That's 'cos you hadn't meant me yet," he told her with a wink.
"I should hope not. That would have been very illegal," she pointed out, referencing their age difference that, back then, would have been exceedingly salient. "No, we talked about harmless, if naïve, girlish longings for the future — what we hoped for in a mate: guessing at his profession, the things he would like, how he would act, how he would treat us, everything along those lines."
"Dreaming up lovers just like filling out the latest expense report?" Han smirked, amused by the image of ever-practical Young Leia checking off boxes.
"I admitted it was naïve," she conceded with a smile. "But let me tell you, I may be accused of being too detached and pragmatic but I had nothing on Winter. Even in our late-night sisterly imaginings that no one else would ever be privy to, her every consideration was absurdly practical: a man who was well-rounded and settled, with a temperament that complemented hers, suitable ties, beliefs, and values the family would approve of. It used to frustrate me to no end how she seemed to lack any romanticism at all. I, on the other hand, was a touch too starry-eyed. That's what my father called it, anyway, as I got older," she grinned to recall. "All that I could imagine was—"
"Your very own scoundrel," he supplied, his tone dropping low and seductive as he went back to nuzzling her neck.
"Something like that, yes," Leia admitted. "Though I wouldn't have put it that way back then. I pictured someone handsome and dashing, and hopelessly appealing. Someone with whom I could unleash all the passions I kept carefully reined in, and not only would he thoroughly approve but the rest of the galaxy would understand how the charm and allure of such a man would leave a person understandably powerless to resist."
Han stopped his kisses to meet her eyes, puffing up his chest braggadociously. "A fitting description of me if I've ever heard one."
She grinned, enamored with characteristic boating that she knew was for her benefit — to make her laugh and smile, to be a happy distraction, and yes, to turn her on. "But not only a scoundrel. I wasn't lying when I told you I like nice men. I imagined that side of him, too, and it was equally important to me. Someone decent and moral."
"Well, that puts me out," he quipped.
"You think so? And who was it that cleared the way for Luke to make the shot that destroyed the Death Star?" she observed, pressing a kiss to the shell of his ear. "Who rescued a Wookiee he'd never even met, and was almost beaten to death as a result?" A second kiss followed, warm and open-mouthed against his jaw. "Who stuck around for three years to look after a displaced princess and a farmboy even though it meant having the kingpin of the galaxy, as well as all the Empire, on his trail?" She leaned in to kiss his lips next, but after catching the look on his face, knew it would be too incendiary when she still had a point left to make. Instead, she diverted her attentions to the scar on his chin, brushing her lips back and forth over its length, ending with just the slightest graze of her tongue. "That all sounds decent and moral to me."
Han visibly swallowed, his fingers curling tighter at her hip. "Leia, I—"
"Hold that thought, Flyboy. You didn't let me finish my description. I also imagined someone kind, who would treat me with care." Ever defensive after a lifetime of perceived weakness over being female and a princess and tiny in stature, Leia was quick to add, "Not because I was fragile, never that, but because—"
She cut off, overwhelmed by a surge of emotional strong enough to well up her eyes as she thought back on a piece of her mother's most cherished advice.
"That same year," she started again, "I was to attend my first state event escorted. It was considered a milestone, almost a rite of passage. When I was choosing my companion that first time, and every time to come, my mother repeated the same thing to me: Remember, Lelila, everyone deserves someone who will sincerely care for them, the same care you show them in return. Settle for nothing less than that."
Han made no mention of the tear that had noticeably escaped Leia's lashes. He didn't pity her, press her to release the rest of those tears, or draw any undue attention to her involuntary emotional response to a beloved parent now lost. He just softly replied, "Your mother gave good advice", gently brushing the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone, and with it, wiping away the evidence of bittersweet longing too strong to be contained.
He often said he didn't know what he was doing in a relationship any more than she did, but experienced or not, that was the perfect response, offering vivid substantiation of both the soundness of mother's advice and why Leia loved him so very much.
"Yes, she really did," Leia agreed. "I was too young to understand the full breadth of what she meant, but I knew I wanted the same sort of loving relationship my parents had. Someone I could be vulnerable and real with, without judgement, but also affectionate and teasing and tender, too."
She reached down to take his hand, threading their fingers together against her thigh. "It wasn't within the realm of my experience at that age to imagine a man who would comfort me through night terrors, or make sure I was getting the best of the rations when we were stranded on Serenno and didn't know how long the food would last, or go two extra hyperjumps out of his way to bring my favorite tea back to base. Or…" She held his gaze pointedly. "…treasure something as simple and sweet as the scent of my hair."
Sheepish that he'd been caught, Han sniffed self-consciously, looking away. "Smells like you; that's why I like it."
She ran her free hand over his arm, hoping to convey that he shouldn't be embarrassed; indeed, she cherished him all the more because of the way he cherished her. "And I was smiling that way just now because you were being you, and not only did I like it but I suddenly realized it's everything I'd imagined at thirteen years old."
Han's expression changed, a sort of tender melting, and he leaned in and kissed her softly; first the tip of her nose, then each cheek, her jaw, and finally her lips — lingering sweetly, absent intent for anything further, simply unable to get enough of her.
He cleared his throat gruffly afterwards, taking a moment to collect himself. "You girls get up to anything else while you were out there?" he playfully inquired. "Inventing new hairstyles? Ways to outwit governesses? Plotting the course to galactic freedom?" They both knew the last was the most likely of the three.
"Nothing so dramatic. We didn't have the time. We could never get away for very long without being discovered, an hour or two at most until palace security came looking for us." She shook her head regretfully. Those clandestine escapes were just the respite she needed while navigating the murky waters into adulthood and she would have loved for those vital moments of adolescent normality to have lasted longer.
"Once they came to find us, Winter's bright white hair always gave away our position; it reflected the moonlight. After the second time it happened I begged her to wear a scarf, but she refused to 'cloak her true self'." Leia smiled fondly at the weak excuse. For such a cunning mind, Winter found it incongruously difficult to lie to those closest to her. "Of course I suspected she actually wanted to get caught. She didn't approve of sneaking out in the first place; it was all my idea. She was afraid something might happen to me and…."
The rest of Leia's sentence petered out when she noticed the strange expression on Han's face, something between stunned and…alarmed. The reaction was out of place, to both her story and their present circumstances, therefore, piquing her curiosity. "What?" she asked him. "Now you're looking at me oddly."
He didn't doubt that he was; her inadvertent revelation had definitely thrown him, leaving Han's mind whirling to connect all the dots.
Leia had spoken of her close childhood friend on several occasions, but this was the first time she'd ever mentioned Winter's hair was white — a fact that, to his mind, was too coincidental to ignore. He was still hesitant to say anything if he wasn't sure, knowing how painful it would be if he got her hopes up for something that turned out to be wishful thinking, but Leia thought of Winter as a sister of sorts and that complicated things, making not telling her just as tricky a prospect.
Maybe, Han finally decided, he could casually find out a little more before determining whether or not to spring it on her.
"You said Winter had white hair?" he asked, thinking he was sounding nonchalant but failing miserably. "Did she dye it that color? Or was it natural? How common is it to have white hair on Alderaan? And was it long like yours?"
Leia blinked at him in bewilderment over such rapid-fire interest in an old friend's appearance whom he'd never met. It was strange, but she didn't see the harm in answering him. In fact, she was healed enough now that it was surprisingly nice to remember Winter and to share that memory with him. Perhaps, she realized, that was his point in asking.
"White hair like hers, not from old age but a striking pure-white, wasn't common on Alderaan, no. It was so rare she was pestered by our peers with rumors that she colored it for the attention. Anyone who really knew her would have known that wasn't true — Winter hated attention, you see, and preferred to fade into the background — but you know how jealousy at play leads to gossip that can follow a person…Anyway, the last time we saw each other her hair was long like mine," Leia addressed his final question, "though she did have plans to cut it."
Free from Senate obligations, Winter had entered the Alliance underground well before Alderaan's destruction. The two women had similar goals but approached galactic freedom from opposite ends: Leia trying to make changes from within, while Winter attempted to take down the Empire from the outside.
"Winter was raised by my parents after hers passed, but she wasn't their officially adopted daughter. She wasn't the Royal Princess, which meant we had different levels of prominence," Leia explained to Han. "Everyone on Alderaan and Coruscant knew who I was. Winter had more freedom and she used that advantage. Her photographic memory, her knowledge of security systems, her near-genius intelligence, and her ability to go unnoticed all made for the perfect spy. She was a deep undercover operative with the Rebellion well before I was. Intelligence warned her from the very start that her hair — the length, the braids — were too obvious a giveaway of Alderaanian decent. Eventually, she came to reluctantly agree with them. But that last night before I left for Tatooine, she hadn't yet cut it."
Leia mindlessly fiddled with Han's hand as she thought back on their final meeting, bittersweet even prior to knowing it would be their last. "Honestly, I think she was dragging her feet about cutting it. It was such a huge sacrifice…She cried when she told me what she had to do, and Winter never cried." She sighed, chewing her lip pensively before revealing, "Sometimes I comfort myself with the thought that at least the Death Star spared her that."
"Maybe not…"
Han hadn't meant to say that aloud, the gears still busily turning in his head, but Leia immediately jumped on it.
"What do you mean?" The look on his face now, as if he'd said something he shouldn't have, seemed to imply he may know something he wasn't telling her. That set a different light on his earlier curiosity about Winter. "Why did you want to know so much about her?" Leia scooted her bottom off his lap and back down onto the bench, pulling away from Han to better see his face, judge his features.
She kept her legs across his, lest he mistake the action — she wasn't angry with him; she only wanted to know what was going on — but Han was aware they were entering murky waters. Maybe she would be mad to find out only now; maybe he should have told her before….
"Okay," he relented, but exhaled with heavy reluctance. He still wasn't sure getting into this would be the best thing for Leia, but he knew she would be insistent on knowing whatever he did. "Remember about a year and a half back, that mission I worked with the Rogues on Abafar when you were busy on Roone?"
Leia nodded, wary but interested. "Yes, I do."
Missions for the Alliance were too many to count, often with similar targets and goals. In the fog of war, they had a tendency to blend together, especially with time. But the missions when they weren't together inevitably stood out, if nothing else than for their uncommonness. One way or another, Han always ended up as her pilot, security, or undercover partner.
"That was one of the rare occasions we were assigned separately," she noted. "I was with Luke and Wedge, while you and Kes ran point on Abafar with Tyco, Hobbie, Wes, and Dak." That, alone, made it notable. She just wondered what else did.
"Targeter was also involved in that mission," Han divulged, opting to simply lay it out on the line.
It was information that genuinely surprised Leia, threw her even. "I never knew that."
As a member of High Command and a lead general on base, she thought she knew everything about the missions run by their wing of the Alliance — as well as having a good handle on the major happenings at other Alliance bases. Yet here she was, over a year later, finding out she knew nothing about the presence of one of the Alliance's most notorious spies on the Abafar mission, either before or after the fact, something that presumably should have come up in debriefing even if it had been unplanned. The fact that it wasn't just any mission, but one that Han was on, further stung.
Reading her thoughts, Han expounded, "It was classified, highest-level restricted. None of us knew about till just an hour or so before Targeter showed up. High Command was supposed to be in the dark — plausible deniability, plus the smallest number who knew the better. It was all done through Alliance Intelligence, straight from Cracken himself; he didn't even want his top officers in on it."
Han took a breath, catching her eye. "The thing is…while we were working together on Abafar, I found out something about Targeter's real identity."
Hearing that, Leia immediately held up a hand to stop him. "Don't say any more."
"Leia—"
"While I don't appreciate being denied the full scope of missions that I'm responsible for, in this case, I do have to agree with Cracken. The least number of beings who know the least amount of things about Targeter's identity the better off the entire Alliance is."
"Maybe, but they shouldn't have kept it from you." His decision to stay quiet about it never sat right with Han.
"Even I'm not impervious, Han, despite what people may think."
It was a delicate subject, one they largely avoided in the light of day, but they both knew well what she'd been through so he might as well say it. "You've already withstood Imperial interrogation — torture from Vader himself — and they couldn't break you; you wouldn't give 'em anything."
"But that's not always—"
"I wouldn't be trying to tell you this if it wasn't important." He held her gaze with earnest gravity and only once he saw capitulation in her eyes did he use a bit of humor to lighten the mood. "I know how much you hate breaking protocol…"
"All right," she relented with a tolerant roll of her eyes that left Han satisfied his teasing had done its job. "But only tell me the minimum of what you think I need to know."
He nodded, mentally parceling down the facts to be as concise as possible. "First off, Targeter is a human, a woman. Didn't know that at the start, even with her standing right next to me. She had on a Kaleesh mask and cape, looked creepy as hell," he said with a grimace. "The mission got complicated—"
"Our missions almost always do," Leia put in with irony.
"Right? What's with that?" Han smirked appreciatively. "Well, the bunch of us got separated. I ended up hunkered down in a back alley with Targeter, waiting out a band of stormtroopers who were casing the place lookin' for us. We were stuck there an hour, maybe more, and I hadn't heard her speak once — not just then, during the whole mission — but all the sudden she starts talking, asking questions about you."
Leia had to admit that was a little strange. However, she was a public figure and had become something of the face of the Rebellion. Coupled with her tragic notoriety as princess of a demolished planet… "A certain amount of 'inquisitiveness' we'll call it follows me, Han, you know that. It's plausible here, if not entirely professional coming from someone at Targeter's level."
"But these weren't the usual questions like have I seen you, do I know you, what are you like. These were personal, leading questions: what happened to you on the Death Star, where were you when the laser was used, how much active combat have you seen, stuff like that. She was obviously ferreting out specific information. It was too pointed not to be up to something. I started getting worried the whole thing was a trap and Targeter was in on it. Wouldn't be the first time the Alliance was double-crossed."
"Unfortunately, not," Leia regretfully acknowledged.
"Then, I thought chances were even greater that this person wasn't Targeter at all. She could've been an Imp posing as the infamous Alliance spy. Our own higher-ups don't know who Targeter is or what she looks like. Even that she is a she — or a human, for that matter. You gotta admit," Han asserted, "it'd be the easiest impersonation ever."
"But I thought you said Cracken personally sent Targeter in?"
"He did, but at that time in the back alley, I'd never seen him with her. He just said Targeter would be connecting with us once we arrived on Abafar. Then this Kaleesh-masked being showed up claiming to be Targeter. She had the right codes. There was no reason at that point not to accept it. But we both know codes can be faked."
Leia nodded; a bait and switch was perfectly conceivable then: the imposter kills the spy and shows up in their place. She herself had been on the imposter end of such missions against the Empire.
"Either way," Han continued, "I had a gut feeling something wasn't right, and I had my blaster on her before she could get the draw on me. We argued back and forth a little. Targeter wanted me to keep quiet, put down the blaster and trust her, but I said: Fuck that. I don't know you from a buckethead, so there ain't no way that's gonna happen. If you want me to shut up and put the blaster away then you better start telling me why in kriffin' hell you wanna know so much about Leia. Well, she must've thought I was causing too much of a scene, was afraid I'd give away our position or blow her cover, because the next thing I know she's taking off the disguise. It was only then I could see she was a human, female, largely nondescript. But none of that meant shit to me; I still didn't trust her. The whole thing was suspicious as fuck. She figured that out on her own, though, and started promising she wasn't trying to hurt you; she was just checking up on you, said she couldn't help herself, said she knew you once upon a time back on Alderaan. By the end of the mission, I did see her with Cracken, so I know she was for real: that woman was Targeter."
Leia thought she had done and seen enough not to be shocked by anything anymore, but she couldn't suppress her astonishment or keep that reaction from her face. "Targeter is someone I knew personally? And from Alderaan?"
Han nodded in the affirmative. "That's what she told me. That's all she told me, except she did ask me not to tell you about it. The troopers left right after that, and we made a run for it. Afterwards, I didn't know if I should say anything to you. First, 'cos I knew you'd react the way you did just now and tell me you couldn't hear anything about Targeter's identity. But also — and really, more this than anything else — 'cos I didn't want you to get your hopes up about her being an old friend or classmate or something, anyone left from Alderaan, and then it turning out not to be true. I knew how devastating that would be for you."
It wasn't an excuse, maybe, and he knew that now, but it was the honest explanation for why he hadn't told her about it.
"I thought it might've been an exaggeration on her part. You know how people are about you. She could've been just a distant acquaintance — friend of a friend of a friend — maybe someone who worked at the palace, or only had a class or two with you back at University. So I never said anything, though I guess I probably should've." Han picked at a loose thread on her pants, looking uncomfortable, ashamed even. "Just didn't want you to get hurt," he admitted with candid vulnerability. "But now I'm thinking that wasn't my decision to make."
Leia didn't know what to think about this new information, hadn't yet processed just exactly what it made her feel, but she did know she wasn't angry with Han for not saying anything. She could at least set him at ease on that point. "It was an incredibly difficult position to be in — particularly with Cracken, and the Alliance, and Targeter herself demanding secrecy and your silence. I don't think I would have reacted any differently than you did."
"But there's more. Now there's more," he emphasized. "Leia, I swear I had no idea it might be something this important to you…but what you just told me about Winter…The thing I remember most about that night was Targeter's hair. It was cut short, like here, to the chin," he demonstrated with his hand, "but it was conspicuously white, almost glowing like a holo. And if white hair like that's an unusual thing, and with what you said about Winter's background…" he articulated leadingly. "Sweetheart, I think Targeter is Winter."
The idea that Winter could still be alive — and right beneath her nose, working in the Alliance all this time — left Leia reeling. Her first instinct was to dismiss it as false. Such a thing seemed too good to be true; it had to be a misunderstanding. Life as of late had taught her to prepare for the bad, over and over again. The idea of something so unexpectedly good falling into her lap was too sharp a juxtaposition not to question, if not immediately reject. But the more Leia thought about it the more she realized she really couldn't say for certain where Winter had been when it all happened.
"I…I guess I don't know for a fact she was on Alderaan at the time of the Disaster," Leia worked out aloud. "She was there when I left so I just assumed — I've had no reason to believe otherwise…But there were several days before the Tantive IV was attacked, and I'm not even sure how many after that once I was captured."
She'd never dared hope — for a long while survival depended on shutting off all thoughts of her family and life before — but now that she'd worked it through, Leia realized it was entirely possible that Winter could have gone off-planet in the time between.
"Winter didn't tell me she had a new mission or anywhere to go, but if it was something top-secret it's not unrealistic for her to have kept it from me. It was my father who had the highest level clearance at the time. I was still working within the Senate. For my own protection, there was only so much I was let in on. Delivering the Death Star plans was by far my biggest, riskiest undertaking."
She was straddling a line back then: one foot in legitimacy, trying to better the galaxy through legal channels in the Senate; one foot in covert rebellion, endeavoring to help beings in more extreme ways when lawful efforts failed. Winter had no such restraints and could be more deeply involved without the threat of watchful eyes and heightened suspicion.
"And if Winter was off-planet when the Disaster happened," Leia continued to work out, more an audible chain of mental deciphering at this point than actually speaking to Han, "once the Death Star plunged the galaxy into all-out war, going completely underground in the Rebel spy network is exactly what she would have done. It was what I was supposed to have done had I gotten the plans to Obi Wan myself and had Alderaan never been destroyed."
Leia blinked thoughtfully, coming back to the here and now. Her here and now: the equally implausible reality of lounging in a dilapidated freighter's main hold with her legs cradled in the lap of the smuggler she'd been passionately kissing only twenty minutes prior.
The past few years had led to all manner of circumstances unforeseen and unimagined in her previous life. Things that likely would have been impossible — certainly improbably — had her life continued on its prior course were commonplace for her now. The same would certainly be true for Winter had she survived Alderaan's planetary genocide.
In the past, underground or not, Leia would have dismissed the notion that her near-sister had survived yet never gotten at least that much word to her, but now anything was possible. Her silence may have been a necessity for both of their protection.
"Han?" Her fingers played in anxious agitation at the neck of his shirt before slipping beneath, finding the grounding she needed touching his bare skin, tracing the ridge of his collarbone over to the slope of his shoulder and down his back. "Do you actually think it could be her? That Winter is alive?"
He ran his hand soothingly over her hair, down her neck and back up to palm her check. "I can't say for certain, can't make any promises, Sweetheart, but I think it's very possible. I wouldn't have burdened you with it if I didn't."
"It's not a burden, Han. I'm glad you told me," Leia absolved him. "But I have to find out. If I can't see her myself — and I don't expect that; I'm not asking for that — I just need to know if it's true. Just to know if she's alive and safe and well. Cracken, Mon, someone is going to give me answers."
The fierce determination of a princess and senator faded away, leaving the smile of a hopeful woman to slowly bloom, wide and joyful, across her face. "Oh but, Han, if she really is alive, that means—"
"I know," he grinned along with her, Leia's happiness ever contagious to him. "It means someday when the war is over you might have someone to be reunited with, after all."
That line of talk — 'when the war is over…' — forever resurfaced on Rebel bases. What will you do once we've won the war? Where will you go? Who will you see? It was a sort of game of anticipatory hopefulness, a balm for the spirits, drug out amongst the ranks whenever times got particularly tough. Though it was, of course, a source of inspiration to Leia to imagine a future where the Alliance had won back the galaxy to freedom, it still didn't offer quite the same comforts to a woman with nowhere left to go. She had no home, no village, no planet, and no one waiting for her on the other side, a fact she'd consistently highlighted whenever Han or Luke had tried to use the game to cheer her.
"You can have a family again, Leia, when the war is over. You already do," Han stressed. "Your parents are gone, but the galaxy is full of made families. 'Soul family' is what they call 'em on Kashyyyk: the people who become family along the way. Other survivors from Alderaan — like Rieekan and maybe Winter — and the people you pick up as you go. People like Luke, and Chewie, and me…There's something special in that, I think," he ruminated, "the people who're around by choice, the families that are forged in fire and under pressure, like a diamond. Those kinds of families are the ones that last."
He had her pegged; that was exactly what Leia had been thinking. She was thrilled at the prospect of potentially having a member of her old family back again — and thrilled all the more, too, that Han had included himself not only in the ranks of her "soul family" but amongst the number of those who could be around when the war was over.
"Do you know something, Han," she said with a gentle smile, "you call Luke 'The Dreamer', but you may just be 'The Philosopher'."
He pointed both fingers at himself and derided with an audible scoff, "Me? Hells, I never even made it through primary school."
"That doesn't matter," Leia was quick to dismiss. "Intellect isn't necessarily measured through education level, or even within a traditional education system. I've known you for years, through some of the worst circumstances imaginable, and over all that time, when you're not even trying, you've come up with some of the keenest insight into the galaxy, into what drives beings — both their happiness and their strife. You're an incredibly multilayered man, Han Solo," she told him, stroking her hand through his bangs to the nape of his neck.
Dropping her voice down to a sensual purr, Leia added, "And I appreciate every—" She walked her fingers from his throat down to the open neck of his shirt to play at the hairs of his chest. "—single—" Down his shirt to trace along his abdomen. "—one of them." Down his abdomen to teasingly bop the buckle not of his belt but his gun holster, where it rested stimulating low over the base of his cock.
With a soft growl, Han hauled her back into his lap, sliding his hand from her waist up her back to cup the base of her skull, steadying her neck as he brought her mouth avidly to his.
[Dejarik can wait for another time if the two of you would like to be otherwise occupied]," Chewie rumbled a few moments later, breaking them from their enthusiastic embrace.
"No, Chewie, stay," Leia insisted. Moving off Han's thighs to sit on the bench, she promised with rueful amusement, "We'll be good."
[Human mating rituals are a private thing], Chewbacca waved her off. [Though I value your effort, it isn't necessary to try to include me.]
"Nonsense. I want you to stay," she assured him. "We've been talking about soul families, and ours wouldn't be complete without you."
Chewie reached out to gently pet over her head, the way she'd seen him do a time or two to Han after he'd been injured. Leia knew that in itself was a family-inclusive action, and she was touched and honored by it.
[I feel the same way, Little Princess, and appreciate you saying so.]
"And I'd appreciate it if a single being on this ship could pick a better damn time to walk into a room," Han groused lightheartedly.
[Quit your whining, Cub. This is supposed to be an instructional evening, and no one will ever learn to be an expert dejarik strategist without my assistance.]
"Without your reputation for arm-ripping, you mean," Han countered.
Leia listened to their continued good-natured ribbing all while they set up the board, and she dared to dream of a future with her haphazard, dysfunctional, perfect made family.