11. DAY 21

One, two, three, out, one, two, three, in, don't stop, two, three, out, see the wheel, two, three, in, it never stops, two, three, out...

It was taking her more and more time every night to relax and fall asleep. First of all, the flood of feelings that plagued her since that day when she discovered that vid. It did not seem to diminish with time. It was not that she hadn't remembered Alderaan before, but now, she realized that a dimension had been missing from her memories. Before that day, she had only remembered the facts, not the feelings.

But Han was there always, to prevent her from getting lost in that see of feelings where she sometimes feared to drown. He was her anchor, her life preserver, the pier waiting imperturbable for her to come home. And he accepted her. She felt it. His unconditional acceptance was the most precious gift he could have given her.

Not that he didn't make things difficult, sometimes. He had his particular method to bring her back to reality, to this reality where Alderaan was only a memory and he and she were getting closer every day. And this particular method of his was nothing more and nothing less than touching her.

Touch. The old, basic, primal medium of communication between sentients.

He was keeping his word, though. He was not being pushy at all. He had learned quickly where her limits were, how far she would allow him to go and restrained himself admirably. Of course, he made little mistakes now and then but she didn't rebuke him so hard anymore. His touch made her feel safe now, not menaced like before, and she was infinitely grateful for that.

Anyway, there was one moment of the day that was special, different from the rest of it. It was that moment of the night when she decided to go to sleep and he walked her to her cabin. Then, he would give her a goodnight kiss. In this kiss, he would allow himself to let go a little. In this special kiss, he would put to use all of his skills, his charm, his body, his mind and his soul. Maybe he was silently pleading to be admitted inside the room that had become forbidden territory since this strange relationship between them had started; maybe it was simply the way he was.

What was for sure was that night after night, she found it more difficult to extricate herself from him. When she finally was alone in her bed, she found more difficult to sleep. She had to use Luke's breathing exercise more and more to fall asleep, and even then, many times, she would awake after a few hours with no apparent reason. And sometimes, with a reason.

His comm unit chirped and he awakened with a start. He felt for it in the dark and answered it.

"What's up?" Han Solo asked. A familiar voice came out of it but he could not understand a thing.

"What is it, Chewie? Talk louder, I can't hear you..." He set the volume control to its maximum and drew it nearer his ear. He always left it activated as much as he put his blaster under his pillow. He couldn't sleep otherwise. Those simple precautions, as much a part of nightly routine as cleaning his teeth, had saved his life more than once.

"Again?" he spoke into the mike. "I dunno, pal, maybe she wants to be alone..." He listened again and shook his head. "She is? Alright, alright, I'm coming..." He closed the transmission and stretched, yawning loudly. I bet Luke is better at this than me, he though, slightly depressed. But he rose from his bed and slipped into a pair of slacks.

Barefooted, he padded down to the lounge.

The Princess did not notice his silent approach but flinched when he ostentatiously poured himself a glass of water. Quickly, she turned off the holo-projector and wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her jumpsuit.

Han observed her and decided that Chewie was right. That settled it. He went to her.

Leia had pulled her feet, covered with simple white socks, over the bench and was bracing her legs, chin on her knee. He approached her and brushed gently a strand of soft hair out of her face. "What's up, sweetheart?" he asked kindly.

"Nothing," she answered.

"It's not nothing. You've been crying." He said matter-of-factly, sitting by her. "Another nightmare?"

"No. Yes. More or less," she said shaking her head.

"Tell me."

"I dreamt of Luke."

"What's the kid doing in your dreams?" Han said pretending indignation. "You're supposed to dream only of me."

His bragging brought a little smile in her face, which dissipated when she continued. "He was mad at me. He was shouting at me because I had forgotten his lifeday. 'How could I forget your lifeday' I shouted back, 'It's two days after mine!' 'You forget everything' he said then. And then I awakened. And remembered..." her voice faltered and she did not continue.

"...What you've forgotten." Han ended her thought.

"Yeah."

"And it was...?"

"My father."

"What about your father?"

She disengaged her knees and turned to face him. "It was his lifeday yesterday, Han, how could I forget?"

Tears were dangling from her eyelashes again. He simply opened his arms and she threw herself into them, burying her face in his chest, just as she had done so many times in the last few days.

But as her cheek contacted with his pectoral muscles, the soft bush of his chest hair tickled her and she jerked noticeably.

"Do you want me to put on a shirt?" He asked, his voice spilling resignation.

"It's alright," she answered after a moment, resting her face timidly back on his chest, her ear reaching for the spot where she could hear the beating of his heart the best. The calm and firm pounding had soothing effects on her - that much she had discovered in the past few days.

What was a surprise that now tinged her cheeks, was that, after the first shock passed, she could find so pleasant the touch of the scruffy outgrowth he was so proud of. And his personal scent was more distinct this way too, alluring her and making her blood run wild in her veins. Who would have known? She had found his aggressively masculine anatomy almost revolting three years ago and now...

With a gasp and a pang of guilt, she realized that she had almost forgotten what she had been crying about.

"Hey, is not that bad," Han said, stroking her hair and her back. He had forgotten so many things along the years, why was she so upset because she forgot a lifeday? Anyway, it was so sweet to hold her like this. That she let him hold her like this.

"I don't understand it, Han. I've been remembering so many things these days. Things that I haven't thought about in years are coming back in flashes all the time. How come did I forget his lifeday?"

"What else did you remember, sweetheart?"

So many things. Father's cologne. Mother's lullabies. Trevin's laugh. The feel of the wind when she climbed the highest tower in the palace. The taste of Alderaanian grass, when she had idly nibbled one of its leaves. And the faint, sad sensation she associated with her other mother. So many things. So few explainable. And she had almost forgotten it all, in the past three years.

"Look," she said suddenly excited, turning in the circle of his arms and switching the holo-projector on again. "See that beach? I used to go there at dawn, when everybody else was still sleeping. I sneaked some bread from my dinner and went to the beach to feed the gulls. I sat on the sand and they flew around me, I threw crusts in the air and they snatched them. I haven't thought of it in more than ten years!"

"Yeah, you must have been quite a view...!" he said laughing. The Princess tried to change the point of view from the holo but instead, it went backwards and the scene with the dancing girls and Bail Organa appeared.

As always, her body stiffened at the sight. Han Solo held her a little more tightly and buried his lips in the curve of her neck. For a moment, Leia wondered what Father would have thought of Han. Of her being there, in the middle of the (nominal) night, trapped in the middle of nowhere, being held like this by this half-naked devilishly good-looking smuggler with the big heart.

A little voice inside of her told her that, given the general circumstances of her life, he would probably be happy for her.

Another memory assaulted her then. It was shortly after her mother died, she must have been seven years old, eight at the most. She had awakened in the middle of the night, went to his father's bedchamber and slipped into bed with him. He had held her tight against his chest, both sobbing. That had happened many times and now, somehow, she had added a new piece into the puzzle: Father had been already crying when she arrived, every time.

"Why white?"

Han's question snapped her out of her reverie.

"Sorry?"

"He wore white, and you are in white all the time. Why?"

"Mourning."

"Oh." He wished he had not asked.

"He wore white for Mother for five years. My cousin Trevin died a month before..." She shuddered and then finished. "... Before the Death Star."

Hell, they were there again.

"You know?" She continued. "If I should wear white a minute and only a minute, for each person on Alderaan when it was... gone, a hundred lifetimes wouldn't be enough."

Alright, a new topic, Solo, now!

"You don't look much like your father."

She glanced at him weirdly. "No."

"Who do you got the shortness from? Your Mom?"

"I don't know," she answered dryly.

"C'mon, sweetheart. How come?"

"I don't know, Han," she repeated, hardly hearable. "I was adopted."

If someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over him, he would not have looked more surprised. Their eyes locked, his flashing green in the holo-vid light, hers lost in the darkness. Again, she had rendered him speechless, so he simply pulled her to him and squeezed her so hard in his arms that she could barely breath. But she didn't care at all.

"Let's go back to sleep, flyboy," she sighted after a while.

"You'll do anythin' for one of my goodnight kisses, dontcha?" He laughed.

She just smiled at him.