A/N: Please read and review so I know where to take things next!

III

Leia woke late in the middle of the night unable to sleep. It was the first time she had been allowed time to rest since being caught on Cloud City. The Millennium Falcon was home enough to provide her naps on their way to Bespin, but it wasn't the same as being back in her bunk on the Rebellion base, no matter how many times it relocated. She hadn't had time for a real sleep until now, under the horrible circumstances.

First it was just plain insomnia, but once she fell asleep, the nightmares started. Leia was trapped in strange dreams that she couldn't quite understand, but she knew their source. One had her stumbling through a dark, silver hallway, similar to how she viewed the frigate when she and Luke boarded. Another had an eerie red glow as she glimpsed Han's frozen face, forever looking as though he were in pain. She couldn't remember the last one, but it left her heart racing enough that it wasn't worth trying to go back to sleep. She had run on little sleep before, so it would be nothing new.

The Princess sat up in bed. Her bunk was hardly satisfying at this point, so she stretched, rubbed her eyes, and slowly got to her feet. Staying in bed staring at the ceiling would only make her feel more enclosed in the small room, so there was no way she was staying in the space until morning.

Leia stood in front of her door and waited for it to woosh open when it sensed her. She thought for that small moment about what she wanted to do; Luke would surely be sleeping, and the few soldiers still responsible for keeping up the core systems at this hour would be too busy monitoring their tracking screens to put up with her rambles. Plus, what would she talk about? No one was supposed to know about her situation with Han, anyway.

Slowly, Leia peeked her head around the corner of the door to her neighboring room. Chewie was supposed to be arguing with See-Threepio, like he usually did while the others slept; Wookies needed less sleep than humans, which was why Han valued him so much as a copilot. Instead, there was silence. The dark space housed a shut down Threepio, but tonight, he was helping the core in case someone got word from Lando and Chewie. Artoo, their other droid, was spending the night keeping watch in Luke's bunk.

The hallway was beginning to get too quiet for Leia, but it didn't make sense to go back to her bunk. She took a few steps towards Chewie's empty room, but stopped herself shortly after. What was the point? She would seek comfort in Chewbacca, but he wasn't around. Han had trusted him with her, and he left, too.

Leia squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists. Luke had always told her that anger would lead to the dark side, but she never thought that it would be about her. Right now, she was so angry that she wanted to hunt down Darth Vader herself. Suddenly, it made sense to her, though. If she stayed so angry, she would want to do horrible things to the Dark Lord, which would put her exactly in his place. She couldn't do that, for her sake, or for the Rebellion's name.

Frustrated, Leia sighed, then turned around to go back into her room. When she made it back to the doorway, she pinned in her code number and waited for the door to unlock so she could crash down onto her bunk again and wait for the others to wake. When it didn't budge, she reset the pad and pinned in the code again. Still, nothing. Frustrated, Leia slapped her palm against the wall and leaned her head against it as she pinned in the code for a third time. When the pad read and error message, she silently cursed the security system she insisted they had installed and took a deep breath.

Suddenly, she had an impulse for comfort. She turned away from her door and took a step towards the entrance of the room next to Luke's across the hall. The room was diagonal to hers, yet not too familiar. She regretted not spending more time in it when she had the chance.

When Leia reached the door, she paused. Not knowing the key code, she thought for a moment. What would the lock code possibly be? Then, it was easy. What did Han love the most? The Falcon. Carefully, she punched in 1300, remembering that the Millennium Falcon was a YT-1300 freighter. Then, the doors slid open and allowed her access to the bunk.

To her surprise, Han kept his bunk fairly neat. Compared to the bunk on the Falcon, which had clothes and ruffled sheets, this looked like a home straight off of Alderaan. Leia had to pause a moment to take it all in. The bunk had a blanket nicely folded on the end, just as hers had when she returned to it. The drawers under it were all closed except for one, which seemed to be stopped from completely closing by a pair of Han's pants.

She stepped in and the doors closed behind her. Not sure what to do first, Leia relied on her Princess traits and bent down to fix the drawer underneath Han's bunk; it would bother her until it was neat. When she opened it, she revealed two pairs of navy work pants, both lined with the Corellian military blood stripes, just like the ones Han was wearing when she met him. Under those was a brown pair with yellow stripes...the same ones he was wearing when she last saw him. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she folded all three pairs up again and tucked them in the drawer nicely so it would close cleanly.

Satisfied, Leia decided to try to get some sleep in the comfort of Han's bunk. The room slightly smelled like him still, which was as close as she would get to him for a while. Then, another idea hit her. The Princess opened the drawer next to Han's pant storage and found his slim cut, ivory shirts. Each one was different, but she sorted through them until she found one she was familiar with; his long sleeve v-neck that he wore under his vest the first time she saw him outside of the ridiculous Stormtrooper disguise he and Luke had rescued her in.

Leia changed out of her jumpsuit and into the white, long sleeved shirt. It smelled even more like Han, which she needed. Then, she traced a few fingers across the bottom seam of the hem on the shirt. She watched as her fingers softly ran over each stitch on her hip line. Each small stitch had touched Han, once, too. She wished for a moment that she had a stronger emotional connection to the shirt she stole from his wardrobe, but quickly realized it wouldn't have mattered. Yes, she had liked him for his good looks from the first sight of him, but never had he opened up to her until they were already nearing the hands of Lord Vader.

Leia laid down on Han's bunk, not bothering covering herself with his blanket. She laid her face on it, instead, and didn't bother draping her legs onto the mattress. It was meant to be a quick stay in her mind, but Leia knew she wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon. For all she cared, she would deem Han's bunk her own until he was brought back safe and sound. And even after that, she wouldn't want to have to leave him again. Her eyes closed and she began to steady her breathing in attempt to finally fall into a decent sleep; it was a trick her mother used to teach her on Alderaan.

Sleep wasn't what came, however. Instead, she carefully pictured the boyish features of Han's face when he threatened to leave the Rebellion on Hoth. His smoothly shaved jaw line and his soft eyes always gave him away as a good person, despite his bad boy attitude. She remembered him pointing at her face and the silly anger he held as he frowned and furrowed his eyebrows together. His mouth made him look like he was pouting, which was slightly appealing to her. She knew she would have kissed him right there if he had stayed in her face a moment longer, but instead, he had stalked off and yelled "you could use a good kiss" over his shoulder at her. Had they spent less time bantering, maybe they could have perfected that kissing thing. Instead, Leia only had two kisses to go off of right now: the one on the Falcon and the one on Bespin.

Bespin. The instant Leia thought about that awful place, tears welled up in her closed eyes again. She fought to stop her sadness so she wouldn't cave in, but it was no use. Instantly, she was back at the carbonite pit, witnessing the distress of those same soft eyes as they turned glossy and pained. If she never kissed him in the first place, then maybe he wouldn't have felt so bad about having to leave her. Hell, maybe he would still be alive, somewhere off in the outer rim with Chewie on the Falcon, far away from any danger that came with caring for the former Princess and Senator of Alderaan.

Then, Leia made a decision. She would bring Han back, but then, that was it. No more involvement with the smuggler. No more trips with the Corellian, even to help the Rebels. Not even another escape with the thief, if it came to it. She would much rather die somewhere she didn't know alone than have to be the source of Han's pain any longer. It would kill her, but it was the best solution she could come up with. She would stay in his bunk until she could find him, to linger on what happiness he had brought her in such a short amount of time, but after that, she would break it off with Solo.

A tired Luke Skywalker observed chaos as he entered the main control room of the frigate unit. Warning lights flashed from all screens bordering the inside of the core space, and messages were being broadcast along the main speaker system, which reached only the docking bay, medical wing, and core command center of the Rebellion base so far.

Stumbling people pushed past Luke, racing back and forth to draw up units to send out into the ship's halls. Luke was as confused as he had ever been; he hadn't felt a disturbance in the Force from his bunk, and he knew he would if the Empire had found their whereabouts again. He could feel his father especially well now, knowing that there was some sort of family tie between them.

Then, Luke was able to seek out Mon Mothma, who was standing in front of the central controls with Threepio, awaiting a message to be broadcast once more over the communication units throughout the ship.

"Mon!" Luke called across the panic, waving his hand through the air to capture her attention. Her worried face met his when she finally turned to him, which only probed more questions. "What's happening?" he asked, still not feeling any change in the Force. "Is it the Empire? Have they tracked us down?"

"Oh, Master Luke, it's horrible!" Threepio cried, shoving himself into the conversation.

Mothma shook her head, ignoring the droid. "The Princess," she told him. "She's gone."

"Gone?" Luke repeated, shocked. "That's impossible."

"She wasn't in her bunk this morning, and none of our units have seen her aboard the ship since I initiated a search for her."

"But I felt her presence from my bunk," Luke said, trying to assure Mon that Leia was safe.

She frowned. "I was sure we hadn't picked up any scouts from the Empire, but with all these new freedom fighters joining the Rebellion, it's hard to keep track."

Luke sensed that the Commander was blaming herself for Leia's strange disappearance. Taking initiative and deciding that his trip could wait a few more hours, he forced a sincere smile and placed a hand on his light saber at his hip.

"Let me search the ship for her, first," he begged his superior. "I reached out to her from Bespin through the Force and it worked. Maybe it will work here, too."

Mon studied Luke for a moment, then agreed. "I'll cease the search units, for now. Please locate the Princess. She's important for our mission to destroy the Empire before it's too late."