Han Solo spent his first day out of the bacta tank readjusting to his life. Although less than a year had passed since he had left Hoth and the Rebels, many events had altered deeply his usual environment.
The casualties of the battle of Hoth had been dead for a long time and the grievers had moved on. His sympathies were welcomed, but were also unavoidably late. In the middle of an ongoing war, nobody wanted to go back in time.
Luke was officially a Jedi now, as weird as it sounded. He still held the rank of Commander for the Alliance, but he was not commissioned at the time. The High Command had given him a free hand to use his capabilities in the way he judged best. Chewie had told him that the young man had spent most of the time since Bespin searching for him and it was something that had moved Han deeply. The kid had repaid him in a grand way, that was for sure. Not that he had ever pretended to collect the debt, of course.
Wedge had been the CO of Rogue Squadron since Luke missed the rendezvous after Hoth. There had been a few changes in the bodies filling the cockpits as well. He did not know almost half of them. The Alliance had sustained heavy loses in personnel and facilities since the evacuation of Echo Base.
Lando was someone that had also changed deeply. Although he still donned his cape and his charm, he could see now that it was merely a mask that concealed a deep sadness and concern. He knew the symptoms well: another one that had fallen in love with the Rebels.
He could not help but recognize the symptoms in himself. His love was more focused on a certain Rebel Princess, but he could not deny the great impact that the open manifestations of affection received from many Rebels since he was back had had on him.
Those manifestations had had the side effect of leaving him almost no opportunity to be alone with Leia. Between Chewie that hovered over him like a mother with a sick child all the time regardless of his own (healing) injuries, and the constant visitors, there had been few moments to exchange some words in private. And, truth be told, there were less words than kisses in those rare minutes. He was starting to feel like a teenager boy with his first girlfriend, steeling caresses behind her parents backs.
Although they had talked endlessly for most of the seventy-six-and-a-half-days voyage, there were things they had never gotten to discuss in their way to Bespin. That private, personal voyage that had gotten them together. For example, how they would manage the social side of their relationship? Open or secret? He was not supposed to stay, so it hadn't been an issue until now. She didn't seem to want to exactly conceal it, but she looked utterly embarrassed sometimes nevertheless and avoided any intimate demonstrations in front of third parties.
Anyway, any discussion they would have had then would have been pointless now, since all the premises had changed. He was no longer in debt with Jabba. Moreover, there was no Jabba anymore. For the first time in three years, he was free to do what he really wanted to do. The only thing that he needed now was to decide exactly what he wanted to do.
Four years really. He still had to the get used to the gap. He had tried to convince Leia to fill him in about what else happened at Bespin and Jabba's Palace and generally in Leia's life in the months they were not together, but she had been stubbornly vague about it, emphasizing Luke's, Chewie's and Lando's parts in his rescue.
It had been Lando who finally told him about the thing she had endured in the hands of Vader, Xizor and Jabba and the risks she had taken for him. The old gambler seemed quite impressed with her and Han had a feeling that if he hadn't claimed her first, maybe Lando would have taken his chances. Strangely, the only thing the con artist had always been honest around was women. But he had mentioned in a whisper the mysterious way Leia had known were Luke was in Bespin during their escape and that had stirred the old jealousy in a way that the open admiration of Calrissian did not.
She had never said that she loved him and that was something that hurt. He had hoped, waited for it but it never came. But no, she did not need to say it. He tried to convince himself that he did not care at all if she said the damned words or not. It had taken him three years to recognize it; he could give her that much too. In spite of all her traumas, she had trusted and wanted him enough to share with him that magical night they had had right before Bespin, and that had to mean something. Everything else would come along, eventually. Meantime, he would make sure that she heard about and felt his love as often as possible.
Which was not near as often as he wanted or needed, because she seemed to have decided to make up to the Alliance for the time she had invested in searching for him, so the time she had been with him was next to insignificant, at least from his point of view. A brief hour after he'd been taken out of bacta, a few minutes for lunch, another quick visit in the middle of the afternoon. Well, maybe that would change when he'd be out of the ward.
His eyes had gone back to normal, the usual 20/20, and the rest of his body had come along. He had been weak as a newborn when he was taken out of bacta, but thanks to the accelerated physical therapy he was feeling much more like normal now. The tiny devices that made his muscles contract every few seconds were annoying, but not painful, and the med-droid had told him that he could take them out so he could rest in the night. Anyway, he felt a little tired still, but nothing that a good night of sleep, nutritive food and a cold gizer could not cure.
There was some memory loss, though, but Two-Onebee had said that that was perfectly normal and had engaged in a long speech about the electro-chemical basis of long-term human memory and how these processes had been interrupted by the carbon-freeze. The moments right before and after he was in the carbonite had been irremediably lost. The last thing he remembered was Leia's desperate kiss in the carbon-freezing chamber and the next was her other kiss in Jabba's lair. A sweet parenthesis with black nothing in between. He had asked the droid to keep it confidential, though, so nobody will think that he was forgetting things around. All in all, not remembering being in carbon-freeze was an unexpected blessing.
Now it was near midnight and Leia had not dropped by yet. He struggled to stay awake, but the stupid droid had medicated him, insisting that it was necessary for his quicker recovery. At least he had finally convinced Chewie to go to sleep for the night.
A soft sound woke him up more than two hours later. He looked around in the dim light of the med-ward and found the origin of it. Princess Leia was sitting on a chair by his side, but she had laid her head on the bed along with an arm that acted as a pillow. She was profoundly asleep, her lips parted allowing a little snore to be made every time she sucked air in.
Han Solo stroked gently her hair and thumbed tenderly her cheek. "Hey, Royal Snoriness, you fell asleep," he whispered in her ear. Leia woke up with a start and looked around, confused.
"I did?" She asked. Rubbing her eyes, she tried to compose herself, pacing the room a little to completely awaken herself. Finally, she sat on Han's bed. "Sorry."
"It's alright, Princess. I was asleep too. How long since you got a good night sleep?"
She shook her head, dismissing the question. "Too long. Between Tatooine and now... This is big, Han!" She had whispered earlier in the afternoon excitedly about the new Death Star and the gathering of the whole Alliance. "So much to do," she added thoughtfully. Changing the subject, she took his hand and looked into his eyes. "How are you feeling?"
"Better now," he affirmed, grinning. Sliding his hand behind her neck, he drew her to him to demonstrate it with a slow kiss. Before breaking it, though, he maneuvered expertly and hauled her so she rolled over him and ended lying by him on the other side of the bed.
"Now is better," he marked, securing his arms around her waist so she could not escape.
"Scoundrel," she accused with a wide smile. His lips descended over hers again, teasingly, and this time their bodies relaxed into each other as well. The Princess released a little sigh of satisfaction as they broke apart.
"I missed you so much, Han..."
It was difficult to comprehend that what had been months for her, were only a few days for him. He became suddenly serious. "There is something I wanted to ask you, Leia." But for a long while, he did not.
"Did Jabba..." He finally started. "Did he... hurt you?"
The answer was not delayed nor disguised. "Not much."
Still, he was not satisfied with the answer. "Don't lie to me, Leia, please," he asked painfully, "I know how he was with girls..."
"I said he did not hurt me, understood?" The Princess energetically said, taking his face in her hands and forcing him to eye her. He nodded.
"I love you, Princess."
Her answer was as extreme as unexpected. Her face cringed and her eyes flooded with tears and soon she was crying with loud sobs into his shoulder. He just managed to insert a Hey, sweetheart, it's not that bad, when she seemed to calm down, only to be answered with renewed sobs.
At last, she really calmed down and managed to say in a soft whisper: "I was so scared..."
Han kissed her tresses tenderly. Then her still wet cheeks and her nose and her chin and her parted mouth. His lips went down her throat later and his hands down her spine.
The Princess suddenly remembered that they were in a semi-public place, were someone could walk on them any minute. "Stop Han," she said breathlessly.
"I'm drugged, I'm not responsible for my acts," he answered smugly, tugging at her blouse's buttons.
"You can't fool me anymore, Captain Solo," she exclaimed teasingly, pushing him away a little. "I know you are capable of being a gentleman!" Kissing his scar, she bargained. "This is the deal: you behave, I stay."
The Corellian frowned lopsidedly. "Alright, that blasted droid will come prick me anytime, anyway. I bet he's a relative of Threepio." Then he added as a second thought, hopefully: "What if you don't behave?"
"For that reason, your sister has remained safely anonymous," the blue Force-ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi concluded.
Luke Skywalker shook his head, incredulous. But suddenly, a revelation hit him.
"Leia! Leia is my sister!"
The Princess stirred in her sleep and that woke Han up. Holding her closer, he kissed her brow.
"Luke..." she muttered. "Oh, Luke..."