From a Certain Point of View
Nearly one month later, Han stood on the hangar floor talking to one of his crewmen when an odd sight caught his eye. Courteously concluding his conversation, Han walked steadily toward an X-wing in the distance. Trusting his feet to find their footing, his eyes never left the sight up ahead. It was a woman crouched on top of the machine, her arms elbow deep into a mechanic's hatch. As he got closer, he could see the smudge of grease along her cheek and he could hear the argumentative beeps of a recalcitrant droid unit.
She wore the tan cargo pants and navy blue shirt of an off-duty flight officer. The light material hung on her body not like the baggy clothes of a child but like a fine, linen curtain hugs the curve of a breeze coming through an opened window. The sleek, clean lines of her thin, muscular frame were easy to follow for him, who had seen them firsthand. But also, he suspected, for any man that could recognize a fine machine by the mere sight of it no matter what the exterior package looked like.
Han glanced around the hangar, taking his eyes off of her for the first time, looking for any such onlookers while unconsciously resting his hand on his blaster.
"Hello there," he called up to her, sure that she was already aware of his presence and had witnessed his approach.
She turned her body to him, twisting her leg up to allow a forearm to rest upon her knee in a casual manner. A warm smile was her first method of greeting and then she said, "Hello yourself."
His eyes went from her face to her body, from her greasy hands to the opened mechanic's hatch then back to her eyes. "What're you doing?"
She looked down at the opened hatch and then quickly scanned the entire length of the X-wing with the soft eyes of a mother or a lover. "I'm having Artoo erase its memory sectors and…fixing a few things."
He held her gaze but said nothing.
Her head turned to the droid. "Artoo, keep working, I'll be back."
A series of blats and beeps went unanswered by the Princess as Han watched her climb down the access ladder and then spin around to face him. "I'm returning Luke's…this X-wing to the service of the New Republic."
"Does this mean that you found what you were looking for?" His words were a surprise to both of them. He had not allowed the question to occupy the forefront of his thoughts lately, but it seemed it had lain patiently in wait.
"I guess so, yes."
"Well, have you or haven't you?"
"If I tell you I have, will you ask me to tell you what it was?"
There was a pause. "No."
"Then, yes."
He clenched his jaw and then took a finger and wiped the smudge on her cheek. Remembering where they were he hurriedly took his hand back and wiped it against his trousers. "What kind of Princess knows how to recalibrate an X-wing's memory sector?"
"What kind of Princess doesn't?"
Han chuckled. "None that I would ever want to meet."
"It's the universe that holds certain ideals for the title of a Princess, not me. Not ever."
There was a constriction in his chest and he said, "C'mon."
He began walking in such a way as to not allow her to question him or stop him and he could hear the gentle thud of her footsteps as she obediently followed. They reached a small alcove with a nondescript door and Han scanned his palm print and it opened. Once inside he spun around on her, slamming her body against the door almost before it had closed completely.
He kissed her, once again in a manner that said he would not be denied and other than a slight hesitation that was most probably from shock, she didn't deny him but responded in kind. It was over quickly, his urgent need sufficiently satisfied. She looked at him questioningly, their faces dark with the dim light of the room.
"I wanted to know what it felt like to kiss you in public. Outside of the four walls of your apartment."
She chuckled as she quickly looked over his shoulder and back at him. "Han, we're in a storeroom."
He remained unfazed as he shook his head. "It's not your apartment."
"Do you think I wouldn't kiss you in public?"
"It's no one else's business," he replied, embarrassed at what his confession had sounded like now. "That's not what I meant. I just-"
Her lips stopped him mid-thought. When she stopped the kiss, she spoke into his mouth, her lips brushing his as they moved. "I won't kiss you like this in public. But I will accept your hand as we are walking." She looked down to his hand and took it in hers. "Or your arm over my shoulder in the cool wind of the streets." She trailed her hands up his chest and then gripped him tightly around his neck. "I will expect a proper farewell when I take your leave." She pressed her lips against the side of his face and then whispered in his ear, "Like your lips pressed to my cheek."
"I really didn't need a demonstration, but I appreciate the effort."
She kissed him again, deeply, and then pulled her head away from him, her arms still wrapped around his neck. "I'm not ashamed of our relationship in the slightest, Han. I only…I only enjoy our time alone in my apartment so as…as I don't wish to leave."
"You don't have to explain."
"But I just did. So now you know." She bit her lip and then breathed out. "And…about what I was looking for…"
He rested his hand against her cheek, his thumb absently wiping the remaining grease smudge away. "You'll tell me when you're ready."
"Soon."
He smiled. "You'll tell me soon."
When he returned to their apartment after work she was waiting for him. She had showered and changed into a short-sleeved dress, a stark contrast to the greasy flight officer he had seen earlier that day. Her confession that she had found what she was looking for was weighing on him, but he had vowed to practice the patience he had promised her wordlessly earlier.
But something else occupied his mind now. She had not touched that X-wing in weeks. That X-wing had not left the Coruscant hangar since she had returned that day, beaten and bruised. Yet she continued to give the impression that she left the apartment every day. If she had found what she was looking for, especially if she had found it several weeks ago, then where was she going now?
She had been sitting at the table when he entered the apartment and she rose and met him halfway to the foyer. She wore an easy smile as if recalling their storeroom meeting earlier and she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly.
The lightheartedness of the moment almost kept Han from asking, but when she pulled away and he looked at her he couldn't help himself. Her hair was loosely braided in two long braids that hung down her chest. She wore no makeup and that combined with her hairdo and her promiscuous air made him feel as if she were deliberately trying to derail his thoughts.
His hand held one of her braids in it as if it were made of glass and he followed it to its end and rubbed the loose ends between his fingers. "Leia, can you tell me where you've been going during the day?" He had spoken the words with his eyes on his fingers, but her silence made him drag his gaze up to meet hers.
She looked like a teenager caught sneaking out. She pressed her lips together but didn't say anything.
"Do you even report to the New Republic anymore?"
She let out a heavy breath and seemed more inclined to answer that question. "Yes," she said. "Just not regularly."
He let her hair go.
"They schedule meetings with me and I show when I want to. They are fairly certain that I've gone rogue on them."
He returned her easy smile and then watched as she turned and began to walk away from him.
"They're still set on restoring the Jedi Council." She stopped walking, but kept her back to him as she said, "They've appointed Roman as my liaison."
"Wait a minute," this caught his attention and wiped the smile right off of his face. She turned to look at him and he said, "What?"
"Probably because of our prior relationship-"
"Probably?" Han asked incredulously. "So you've been seeing Roman?" Han tried to reel in his anger and jealousy.
"Professionally, yes."
"Since when is a comptroller a liaison to a rogue Jedi?"
She glared at him and said, "I said they think I'm rogue. I am neither rogue, nor a Jedi. I thought I had made that clear already."
"You've only made clear what you have allowed to make clear. Don't act like you weren't hiding this from me. Like you had no idea I would react this way or that I have no right to react this way."
"Just what rights do you think sleeping with me has gotten you?"
"Don't even. Maybe we've never talked about our expectations of monogamy since we started sleeping together but I would wager that you would take offense if I brought another woman to my bed."
"Since your bed is in my apartment, then yes, I guess I would."
His head ticked to the side in the only sign of rage he would allow her to see. He answered her calmly, "I can see that one of us should get this conversation back on track."
He took a step toward her and she flinched.
"I wouldn't call it a right, but I certainly had an expectation that neither of us would sleep with anyone else while our relationship is what it is right now."
"I am not sleeping with-"
He took another step toward her so that he now looked down at her. "Another unspoken expectation of two people in a relationship usually involves full disclosure of any activity concerning ex-boyfriends or ex-girlfriends of any kind."
She didn't say anything, her wide eyes darting back and forth between his. And for the first time Han remembered just how much younger she was than him. Her maturity and life experience acted as a mask of seasoned adulthood that made the nearly ten years between them seemingly vanish. But she was still very young and her experience and maturity were gained by anything but sexual relationships.
His anger dropped one notch but he still voiced his next words with the intensity he thought they deserved. "I am sorry, about how I reacted to your news. But don't lie to me and tell me that you didn't think twice about telling me because you knew that I should know and that maybe, with valid reason, I wouldn't approve."
"You have no valid reason not to trust me."
He shook his head at her as if she had lost her mind. There was no creature on earth that held more secrets at bay from him than this woman. Yet, for reasons that certainly escaped him at this very moment, he did trust her. "Tone it down, Leia. I am trying here."
Her eyes fell guiltily. "I knew I should've told you."
"How long?"
He watched her eyebrows lift up as she slowly forced herself to look at him.
"How long has Roman been your liaison?"
She held her bottom lip between her teeth, slowly freeing it and leaving a trail of white skin that her blood rushed to fill. And then she whispered, "Well over a month."
"Would that mean almost two months?"
There wasn't a nod of her head or any clear reaction, but Han took it as a yes.
He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. When he looked at her again, her face had softened. Keeping his tone even, he said, "Are we not on the same page about the expectations that I just mentioned? Because, if any of that sounded out of line to you…"
She had begun to shake her head almost immediately and as his voice trailed off she took a moment before she responded. "No. Nothing you said sounded unreasonable."
"What does Roman know about us?"
"Nothing."
"After your words to me today. After your claim that you are not ashamed of our relationship-"
"What does one have to do with the other?"
"Leia, why do you think Roman agreed to be your liaison or that the New Republic chose him as such? I know you are not that naïve."
"Whatever Roman thinks doesn't matter."
"You have never been more wrong, sweetheart. You are not a man. You don't know how men think. You may think that you have us figured out. You may think that you are intelligent enough to predict our motives and arm yourself against us, but if you ever meet the man that intends to harm you, you will find out how sorely you are mistaken."
"I let you have me."
Han's voice cracked as he cried out incredulously, "Don't you think I know that?" He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration as he whirled away from her, millions of thoughts raining down on his mind. "Leia," he said as he started back toward her, "I know you don't want to hear this-"
"Roman isn't that kind of man, Han."
"You'd been surprised what the right woman can drive a man, any man, to do." His eyes raked down the length of her body as his anger rose again. "And if there was any woman that could do it, it would be you. The way you hold yourself as if you don't even know…the way you…"
"The way I what?"
"Just trust me on this, Leia."
She let her arms fall down to her sides as if she had given up trying to argue or understand him. "What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to make it clear to Roman that you are in a relationship. I want you to watch for his reaction. I want you to use whatever scraps of Jedi training you have to judge for yourself why he took that role."
"Alright." She smiled at him, like a mother easing the fears of a child. "I will."
"This is not just me being jealous," he told her as he grabbed her gently at the shoulders. He ran his hands down her arms and back up again. He spoke slowly as his eyes studied every centim of her body like a landowner surveying his property. "Even though…I am…jealous."
She ran her hand along his jaw and smiled at him. "It's actually quite endearing on you."
"I don't trust the New Republic…or Roman."
"Do you trust me?"
The words were heavy and thick with emotion and Han felt them wrap around him like a warm blanket. Taking a deep breath he leaned into her and kissed her, quickly, lips just barely brushing. Lingering in front of her, his breath mixing with hers, he whispered not only the word that he had wanted to say, but the word that he knew she most wanted to hear, "Implicitly."