Shani was right: the crates were loaded in no time at all. It took longer for Leia to count them, open them, check them for trackers, and re-seal them than for Han and Chewie to hoist them into the cargo hold. Outside, the hangar was lethargic. Apart from a handful of drunken pilots camped out by their decrepit ships, arguing over cards, only a pair of repair techs slouched behind the fueling pumps, where they studiously avoided eye contact with any potential hassle. It was hard for Leia to reconcile this picture with the urgency of the war that consumed her. She wanted to march up to the drunks and shake them, enlist them. Didn't they know what was going on?

"What are you staring at?" Han asked. He was fidgeting by the Falcon's ramp and watching her. She shook her head and followed him through the hatch.

The space station's artificial atmosphere made for a smooth exit. Their ship sliced through it without the usual shudders and jolts of natural planets. All at once, the faint blue haze gave way to the velvety blackness of outer space, which fell over the cockpit like a heavy curtain. Tiny stars glittered in the distance, and Leia remembered how very far they were from the Galaxy's core. She listened to Han and Chewie work out the coordinates to their next stop, their voices low. For a moment, she was a child again, sitting in the back of her father's silver strider while her parents discussed the evening's opera in the front seats, taking in the lights as they glided home. She watched Han flip switches in the semi-darkness, and tried to imagine him driving a lowly land-speeder.

Chewie didn't like the cramped cockpit. Almost as soon as the course was set, he hauled himself to his feet and lumbered out, undoubtedly headed for his hammock.

Han waited a few seconds then looked over his shoulder.

"All yours, Princess," he offered, slapping the back of his co-pilot's oversized seat. His eyes lingered on her expectantly. It had become her habit on these trips, unless they were fighting, to sit up front with him during his turns at watch. He could usually behave civilly, sometimes even nicely, when they didn't have an audience, and neither the main hold nor the crew cabin had viewports. And they weren't fighting – not at all. Unforeseen coincidences aside, he had been nothing but cooperative since they left the Rebel base, and the hot undercurrent that had accompanied her back onto the ship, she decided, was baseless. It wasn't his fault someone from his past had intruded into his present. And it didn't bother her, anyway.

In fact, maybe this chance encounter was a good sign. Someone from Han's walk of life, drifting towards the righteous path? Interested in enlisting? Maybe it wasn't so far-fetched, then, that Han might also eventually see the light and actually commit to the Alliance, rather than cynically circling it.

I've got a bounty on my head, he reminded her whenever she included him in conjectures about the Rebels' future. Probably be long gone by then. He repeated it like a mantra: that each job he did for them was probably the last, that his involvement was conditional. But the longer he hung around, the more that detachment seemed like a pose. True mercenaries didn't risk their lives for others. She knew there had to be a way to get through to him. She'd imagined it before, tried to decide what his voice would sound like saying the solemn words. I pledge my life… They'd all said it, and to her knowledge, no one had ever reneged after making that passionate promise.

He was still watching her as she climbed into Chewie's seat. "Just three hours," he informed her, for conversation. They'd already been over this. "So we'll land in Lasan City at 01700."

Leia nodded, drawing her knees up against one of the armrests. Her mind still replayed the conversation in the tap-caf, looking for a hook.

"Would you vouch for her if she does try to join up?" She asked casually.

"Who, Shani? Nah, don't really know her."

Leia's eyebrows shot up. "But she seemed to – "

"I used to drop by every few months for a year or two," he shrugged. "Back when I ran blaster plasma through Sullust's moon station. She worked the parts exchange. But that was a while ago, and we sure didn't talk politics. Didn't even recognize her without the shaved head."

The nonchalance in his tone stung her. There'd been something back there, she was sure of it, and to see the way he so easily stepped over it… Leia couldn't help herself.

"Well, she certainly remembered you."

Her tone was snide, reproachful even, but Han tilted towards her with delight. "They always do," he grinned, catching her eye. Indecent white teeth flashed out in the dark, and Leia felt her temper twitch. Moon jockey. She hated the heat that crept into her cheeks. She hated that he never blushed. When she didn't respond, he doubled down. He leaned in closer, grit soap and engine smoke radiating hot from his open collar, and she found herself holding her breath. "Wanna find out why?"

"Watch your mouth," she snapped – hard enough to make those insolent green eyes waver for a fraction of a second, to make him pull back like he'd been bitten. She wanted to hold onto the thrill, smallest of joys, savor the fact that she could at least make him feel that. But Han was smooth. He played it off with a laugh and sprawled back in his seat like she hadn't just seen him flinch. "Your loss, Princess."

He turned back to the stars, languid and unconcerned – another pose, she'd determined recently. He had to pretend it wasn't about getting the last word. And she knew him well enough by now to know there was no winning aboard the Millennium Falcon. My ship, my rules. It was the closest thing he had to an ethos, and he always fell back on it. If you don't like it here, sweetheart, he'd once sneered, the airlock is to your left. They'd spent the rest of that sixteen-hour journey in a stand-off.

Leia decided to try a new tactic. She copied his pose, and his silence, and resolved to make him break first.

Recently, she'd overheard several of the women in her dormitory complain that Han was all talk. That he'd play along when they cozied up to him, but never followed through. For a fleeting moment, this had improved the smuggler's standing in Leia's eyes – wiped his slate clean from the stories Luke sometimes sheepishly paraphrased for her. Maybe those second-hand tales about tap-caf cloakrooms and dark warehouses were all talk, too. Maybe the sly propositions he occasionally tossed her way – this was at least the third such offer – weren't even real. And in that case, a little voice had murmured, maybe the danger she felt radiating from him wasn't real, either. Maybe she could trust herself around him after all, watch the blur of hyperspace with him and laugh at his dinnertime banter, and not wonder if she was handing something over whenever she found herself easing into his company.

But then one of the flight techs had piped up. Probably just doesn't want to get caught up, since he's just hiding out here. You know how spacers are. Her suggestion was met with a chorus of assent, and the women's conversation soon devolved into grievances about all the spacers past and present who had ever wronged them. The two Chagrian medics had rolled their red eyes quietly to each other. Their species didn't complicate life with such emotions, but they'd already been shouted down for suggesting that humans should also be assigned a new mate at random each spring.

Maybe it was all talk. Maybe a smile was just a smile. But that look in the unzipped explosive dealer's eyes had been quite real, and Han hadn't denied it – he'd even been shameless enough to taunt her with it. Like some meaningless, sporadic arrangement was something a someone might envy, like she might just say yes.

The notion was ridiculous. Leia shifted in her seat, unconsciously chewing on her lip. Frozen blackness stretched out endlessly ahead of them, until her gaze drifted to Han's reflection, shadowed in the viewport. She knew he was only teasing her, he couldn't possibly believe she'd ever say yes. And yet… Wasn't she free? Why shouldn't she find out? Whatever had happened on Sullust II, it made the jaded, slouching drifter light up like a beacon, and it was apparently on offer. So what was stopping her, Leia, that hadn't stopped all these others, kept her dry on her island while they swam carelessly in dark waters?

She allowed herself a sidelong glance at her pilot. He was draped in his seat with his eyes closed so convincingly she wondered if he really had fallen asleep. She watched the peaceful rise and fall of his chest, arms folded loosely across his middle. Legs splayed in long, invitingly firm angles. Something about that always made her want to climb on him. She felt that tremor of what if come alive somewhere deep in her insides and work its way outwards, under her skin.

If she were anybody else, she could call his bluff right now. If she didn't believe in consequences, she could unbuckle her crash webbing and just do it, throw a knee over his lap and let her toes graze the floor, just to see what he would do. Just to see if his expression would change, if he would let her press her face into his neck, or if he'd push her away. If he ever stammered.

Then she would know. Maybe, the little voice said, turning bitter, even if something did happen, maybe it wouldn't even be any good, and then she could be done with him – she could be the one to taunt, she could dismiss him once and for all.

But then he would know her too, and that thought was unbearable. Discover her before she even had a chance to know herself, and she would have to learn it all right there along with him, under his eyes. Eyes that were sometimes soft, but often hard, and –

"Princess, if I didn't know you better I'd think you wanted something."

Startled, Leia snapped back to the moment and found the object of her frustrations returning her gaze, very much awake.

She felt the blush burn in her cheeks.

"Maybe if you ask me nicely – "

He trailed off when Leia unbuckled her straps and hauled herself to her feet. Her left leg had fallen asleep, and she winced hard as a sharp pinch shot up the back of her thigh. "In your dreams," she bit out, grabbing the back of her chair for support.

She felt his eyes follow her as she limped out the door.

But of course the only place to retreat on his ship was his cabin, with three bunks and one blasted pillow between them. She punched it. She was too hot in her coveralls, but she didn't want to take them off and she didn't want to lie down.

Standing in the flickering light of the drab durafab sleeping quarters, Leia's thoughts drifted to a very different room – to the last time what if had taken hold of her, one faraway evening on Alderaan. Having arrived early for a state dinner hosted by her noble young suitor's parents, she'd pretended to take some air in the garden, then deftly scaled the trellis under his window, light as the air in her silk dress and slippers. The shock and amazement on his face when she rapped on the glass had thrilled her. She'd been fifteen, then, and bold.

His room had rivaled her palace suite in taste and refinement – the same low, heavy wooden furniture, the same plush, tufted wall coverings depicting the luminous lakes and trees they each saw from their windows, but deliciously other... Seductive reds instead of her snowy whites. His proud saber and medals hanging above the bed, his polished boots lined up under his stiff jackets. A man's room. And yet he'd been almost afraid to kiss her that evening, amidst all that sophistication. His lips had opened under hers when she circled her bare arms around his neck, but all the while he kept a nervous eye towards the double doors.

Maybe we should go downstairs…

She was always the one who had to push. She'd broken away as though on a whim, trailed her fingers along the satin coverlet. Took hold of his hand, sat down on the bed, reclined on her elbows. Watched him freeze above her. I'll be the one in trouble if they find you up here. His voice had cracked in his urgency.

He'd spent the rest of the night stealing glances at her from across the long dining table, unable to eat, a tortured expression spoiling his fine features, while she wondered when she would ever get a chance to find out what came next.

But that was before her father had initiated her into the Revolution. Before she discovered that he and his allies in the Senate were doing far more than discussing the past in their late-night meetings. Before it had all clicked, what he had been training and testing her for since childhood, and it became so real that her mind was delivered of any thoughts of princes and kisses and brimmed only with plans and missions, weapons and justice.

Before she regularly found herself sulking in the dimly lit crew cabin of a smuggler's ship, hiding from its captain. A maddeningly unsuitable candidate for the sudden reawakening of these long-buried impulses.

How many other women, Leia wondered, had already run their hands all over his clothes, had already pulled his hair this way and that, or tried to leave a mark on his skin, only for him to stand up, stretch, and move on to the next? And he made her this offer with his white teeth like he would be doing her a favor?

Who did he think she was?