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Chapter 16: Scar Spelunking

Han grimaced and rubbed his face where it had scraped against the controls. Leia glared back over her shoulder, "Don't act so surprised either, you know those droid brains ar- You're hurt!" She jumped up to look at the blood smeared along his left cheekbone.

"Just a scratch. Don't worry about it," he dismissed as he pushed her hand away. At least she was talking to him again… well, close enough.

"I'll get the med-kit," she said, disappearing out of the cockpit.

"Don't bother. I'm fine," he called after her, but she was already gone.

Solo resigned himself to resetting the controls and adjusting the heading for Rebel base. She was right about the three droid brains that ran the systems of the Falcon. They would get into terrible fights over which one was to do what since there were no permanent system assignments. With all the cross-wiring and modifications, Han knew the feuding was an unavoidable given. This is why he tended to despise droids. He and Chewie were gonna have to do some serious wrangling of those droid brains when they landed.

He thought about having 3PO 'talk' to them, but that just might irritate them to the point of refusing to communicate with each other at all. On the other hand, maybe he could get R2 to convince them to work together under the threat of having 3PO mediate things if they didn't refused to follow orders and work in unison as they should.

From what Solo had seen of the pair, he was sure the chrome dome had a few things to say about his annoying counterpart to anyone or anything that would listen. In the past, Solo had done everything possible to avoid Goldenrod from being plugged into his ship, cantankerous droid brains or not. He did have to relent to R2-D2 once or twice for help. He didn't mind that one so much. R2 came in handy in tight situations at times.

The Princess hurried back in with med-kit in hand just as he finished up the last of the course headings for the final approach. She was murmuring something under her breath about how it was used so often it's no wonder why it never seemed to be properly stocked.

"I said, I'm fine," he argued as she found the last dermawipe to clean the cut and clean the blood off his face.

"I wouldn't want anyone thinking I finally came to my senses and decked you," Leia smirked as she reached out towards his face.

Solo shirked away from her, both to get away and to laugh, "Sweetheart, nobody is gonna believe that you could even reach that high."

Instead of taking the bait and allowing him to distract her, Leia stood there holding the moist cloth and waiting. With her head slightly tilted, she said nothing.

Solo knew that look. He had seen it more times than he cared to remember. Basically, it meant that she was going to do this and that was all there was to it. If he tried to argue further, she would just logically point out: one, how stupid it was when she was already standing there with the supplies; two, if the situation was reversed, he would want her to accept the help; and three, why was he making this difficult?

Nowadays, instead of reciting the well-worn argument verbatim for the umpteenth time, she would give him that look. In turn, he would reply with a stubborn glare. All of which would change nothing and finally he would surrender to her, as usual… some things never change.

With a satisfied look of triumph, the Princess sighed to herself as he turned his left cheek towards her without comment. Gingerly beginning to dab at the gash, she chuckled.

"What's so funny?" Solo winced as she dabbed gently at the open strip of flesh.

"I'm not used to you managing to hurt yourself by tripping into navicomputer consoles," she smiled teasingly. "I've never considered you the clumsy-type."

"You didn't see it, Sweetheart. I was thrown into the console. Obviously, you were blinded by your own royal majesticness," he argued weakly, purposely trying for an insult.

He didn't comprehend how pathetic that particular one sounded, however, being totally distracted as Leia leaned her face rather close to inspect the wound. She gently spread the soothing bacta gel with her fingertip since there were no sterile swabs left. Instead of minor pain as would be expected, her smooth teasing touch along his cheekbone was causing a rather pleasant tingle to course through him. Not to mention, the mere closeness of her lips to his was pushing his thoughts into overdrive. Leia was so close all he had to do was move just a little and he could show her that kiss she had asked about during the bonding night.

Solo was frozen in place, though. She had made it clear that she didn't want anything mentioned about the bonding or their time spent on Uluruan. Any spark that may have further ignited a romantic relationship there had been seemingly squashed by that demand. So, why was the heat between them unmistakable at this instant?

Apparently, not fully registering what he had said while she focused her attention on his face, Leia continued to run her fingertip along his cheekbone, applying a last thin coat of the gel. Solo saw the loose wisps of hair near her ear sway gently as his warm breath brushed along her neck and fully realized she was much closer than need be to take care of his wound. She had stayed close even after her initial triage. Her entire being radiated softness as she reluctantly lifted her fingertip from his cheek and, as if from some powerful unseen compulsion, slowly brought it down to trace the scar on his chin.

"I guess you didn't bother with the bacta gel at all when this happened," she whispered without thinking, studying the scar's trail under her fingertip.

"Nope, can't say that I did. Good thing you're here or I might've ended up sporting another one," his voice rumbled gently.

"It suits you," she admired almost inaudibly, still in her contemplative trance.

Suddenly becoming scandalously aware of what she had been saying and how intimately she had touched him, her mortification rose instantly. Her eyes, desperately searching for any place to look other than his chin, flew up to his stare just long enough for him to be able to register her deep embarrassment. Completely flustered, Leia quickly turned to the medkit. Somehow throwing in the supplies while simultaneously shutting it, she flew out of the cockpit, mumbling something about putting everything away.

The huge smile on Solo's face eventually made him wince from the good size scrape on his cheek, but it was worth it.

Unceremoniously chucking the hastily closed medkit back into its storage compartment, Leia tried to get a hold on the flood of humiliation and irritation at herself that washed over her. What had she been thinking? Well, she knew the answer to that, but had no interest in giving it any deep examination. Sighing, she realized that undoubtedly she would be thinking quite a bit about it tonight, right before she went to sleep. Lately, Han Solo had been affecting her strangely and she had been unable not to think about him nearly every night. What's worse, she couldn't really take anytime standing here. The Falcon would make orbit any moment and she would be needed to finish out her duties as copilot until they landed.

Shaking the dread off as much as possible, she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and forced herself to march back to the cockpit. The Princess promised herself on the way that she would not allow Solo's inevitable forthcoming remarks to rile her.

Even with that promise she hesitated at the open door. There he sat, obviously awaiting her return. Worse, although his back was turned, Leia could tell by his posture that he was quite pleased with the turn of events. That is, he was pleased with her flustered flight and in his inimitable way would most definitely use it to his full advantage in their battle of wills.

With one last lingering bit of dread, Leia's eyes squeezed shut with the mere thought of what would happen next. With another deep breath for sustenance, she opened her eyes and again resumed the copilot's chair.

She held onto her forced composure as the ship began to make planetfall and headed towards the Rebel base hanger after receiving clearance. Deciding to be fully absorbed in the controls, Leia hoped to avoid Solo's undoubted smirk.

And smirking he was. Not his usual full-blown slanted smile, no, it was actually subtle. Of course, her studied avoidance was a good as an invitation to provoke Solo as it ever got and he was not about to let it pass by. He was in too good a mood. There was no doubt in his mind now that regardless of her insistent plea to forget the events of the past several days; she felt something real for him.

She had opened up the field of play between them once again. This time the stakes were going to be higher than ever whether she knew it or not. Solo was determined to get her to admit her feelings, no matter what he had to do, even if it meant shocking her into it. Since confrontation was his preferred method of dealing with things, he naturally thought it would work.

Once the Falcon touched down, pilot and co-pilot concluded the final shut down sequence for the cranky freighter. Leia couldn't believe her luck. Solo hadn't said a word since she had come back into the cockpit. Surely, if he were going to comment, he would have already done so. It wasn't like him to stay silent if he intended to torment her. Considering it tempting fate, she didn't even want to check out of the corner of her eye to see if his smirk had disappeared. In a couple of seconds, they would be parting company. Leia intended to see to it that she saw him as little as possible in the coming weeks. With an internal sigh of relief, Leia swung her chair around and got up to leave.

"Hey," Solo called offhandedly, as if it were an afterthought while looking at the readouts.

Caught off-guard by the distractedness in his voice, she turned at the hatch to see what he wanted. Swiveling his chair to face the Princess, he stood up as his demeanor instantly switched to a more Han Solo-like brashness.

"Since you so interested in giving your opinion of my body, Sweetheart, I have a couple of other scars that might interest you. How about if I come by later, so you can explore 'em in private?" He flashed a grin a parsec wide and a roguish light danced in his eyes.

The Princess's eyes seethed with a fury that almost made Solo flinch …almost. Obviously, she skipped clear past any embarrassment this time and Solo considered it his own pure good luck that she wasn't holding a blaster.

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