How Deep the Fall
Leia awoke warm for the first time in recent memory. The self-heating blankets she had stolen from Han's cabin had been adequate for her purposes the first few nights of their long sublight journey, but they had never done the job quite this well. Her feet or her face would always wind up cold, outside of the blankets' reach.
But not here. Not now.
Wading through the soft emergence from sleep, she took stock of her physical body and then the kaleidoscope of her emotions. What she found was a pleasant rightness, an alignment, and the all-pervading sense of peace and calm.
A deep mumble, a sweep of calloused fingers over her arm and suddenly she knew precisely why she felt so warm. Han. She didn't have to open her eyes to know his touch, or the sound of his breathing, or the sensation of his legs threading through hers. It was all a very recent loss, that of him beside her in bed, and it brought to mind a hundred mornings that had begun just like this. Fingers against a sleeping brow—he was an early riser, but she always beat him—a rumbled don't get up yet, and the overarching sensation of being loved, cared for, and safe.
What happened?
For an instant, she tried to persuade herself that he had changed his mind about leaving to go and face Jabba. That was the singular obstacle. And if he was here, with her, surely that meant he had come to his senses? That they could repair the broken pieces of themselves, could forgive each other the terrible things they had said, could start the process of mending? She wanted it, he wanted it. The desire for reconciliation wasn't in question.
Remove that singular obstacle and there was nothing standing in the way.
But, no, she realized after a moment of thought. He hadn't changed his mind. She had had a nightmare, and he had rushed to try and save her, as he always did. And she had asked him—asked? No, it had been a plea—to hold her, to stay with her.
To which he had said … what?
She couldn't remember.
Eyes firmly glued shut, Leia tried to rationalize her actions, the need she had felt so deeply that it had brought her to her metaphorical knees in front of him. This would not have been a consideration had she been in her right mind. That she had been under duress, that she had climbed her way out of a horrible nightmare, about…
About losing him.
It had been that dream, the one in which she was falling in a sky full of clouds. Calling out for Luke, for Chewie, for Han. The one in which she knew without a shadow of a doubt that someone had taken them all, a disembodied voice holding all that she held dear in his grasp.
It came back to her suddenly, not in a wave but like a wall: the absolutely paralyzing terror of facing an enemy without a face.
She opened her eyes.
Asleep, Han looked peaceful. The medbunk was not large by any stretch of the imagination and didn't afford him the space to sleep on his stomach like he preferred. He lay on his side, his head just above hers on the flat pillow, one arm heavy on her bicep and knees tucked between her shins. Eyes closed, lips pursed, skin tanned beneath thick brown hair, he was every bit as handsome as he had been the day she had confessed that she loved him, almost a year ago.
It was difficult, fighting the twin emotions that ran roughshod through her body. On one hand, she felt completely at ease and wanted to prolong the moment as long as she could. And on the other, she wanted to wake him up and find her boundaries again, protect herself from the inevitable fallout.
Her hand lifted and she watched as it brushed against his cheek, feeling the stubble on his jaw on the pads of her fingers. He shifted his hips back but didn't move away from her touch, still asleep and breathing deeply next to her.
What am I doing? she asked herself.
Tempting fate was the answer, but that didn't seem to matter so much anymore. Life was moving her ever forward and there was no guarantee of any more opportunities to feel this close to him. The minute those beautiful eyes opened, she would be reminded of his temporarity, the unstable nature of their relationship, the lost hours between Ord Mantell and now. The hurt, the abandonment, the nonsensical rationality that pitted them against each other.
But not now. He was asleep. He had come to her when she had needed him, and here was a short window of peace before the wave crashed her into the rocks. Leia Organa had learned the hard way how to appreciate what she had before it was taken away from her.
What was time, anyway? And who knew how much of it they had left?
—0—
Han awakened in a very different way than Leia did.
Deeply asleep, he didn't dream. He wasn't tormented by traumatic images or the ravages of his own decisions. It was like a reprieve from it all, and he didn't have a sense of where he was or why he was there. Dead to the world. Absolute bliss in its nothingness, the freedom from misery and pain that sleep had always been for him.
One moment he wasn't, and then in the next, he was. His eyes opened to see Leia next to him, and he didn't need the same kind of revelation she had had on waking: he knew precisely what had happened and why they were pressed so closely to each other in the medbunk.
"You okay?" he asked, voice gravelly and hoarse.
She nodded but didn't speak. Long minutes scurried by them, and Han could feel the creeping sense of awkwardness at the edges of the bunk. And he refused to let that happen. Something had changed and it felt too good to ignore. He wouldn't rationalize it away.
"Best night of sleep I've had in awhile."
Had he been a less confident man, he might have been embarrassed by that off-the-cuff comment. But it was the first time he had felt anything close to his old self in a long time and the self-consciousness and self-doubt didn't have a space in his head.
Whatever, he thought. She hasn't pushed you out of the bunk yet, so.
"You say that like you've slept at all the past few weeks," she said.
The thrill of challenge swept through him at the cautiously amused tone of her voice, and it was like the addictive feeling of weightlessness before a sharp dive.
"What makes you think I haven't?" he shot back, setting her up for some gentle ribbing.
A moment of hesitation, but Leia was always game and she recovered well. In answer, she brushed her index finger under his left eye, and then shifted to place her hands back under her head to deliver her rebuttal.
"Well-rested men don't have shadows under their eyes."
"Well-rested men don't sleep in tiny medbunks," he countered, curious how she would reply. Acknowledging the rancor in the room was dangerous business, but Han…
He just didn't care anymore.
Why not test the waters? She might start apologizing, which wasn't at all what he wanted from her. She owed him absolutely nothing. And she could also shatter the peace and remind him that it was his own fault that he hadn't been sleeping well lately. She wouldn't be wrong, and he deserved every bit of that reminder.
But neither of those responses matched the look in her eyes. It appeared he wasn't the only one who felt like fording the dangerous waters so early in the day.
"Thank you," she said. "For staying with me."
That was what he had suspected she might say, and it called back to the agreement they had made that awful night after she had learned Luke was her brother. When they had promised to be honest, to express what they felt, and to not feel ashamed for needing comfort from the other. It was harder for her than it was for him, although he had recently had the same struggles. His shame from the episode in the galley was proof enough of that.
Funny. It was almost like they had traded places.
"You're welcome," he murmured.
God, she was beautiful. Nothing in her eyes or body was inviting him to do anything more than lie there, and so that's what he did. But rogue memories flashed by him in particular detail, too fast for him to suppress: an onslaught of pleasure and pain in tandem.
That's not on the table, he reminded himself. That's not who you are to her anymore.
And it was okay. He was mature and sensible enough to understand that she was the injured party here, and that kissing her now would be an infringement on the pain he had caused her.
But it didn't stop him from imagining it, the way her lips tasted, the strength of her hand as she grabbed his hair, the endless tableau of soft skin hidden now beneath blankets and clothing. He missed her body, he missed the escape he found in sex with her. He missed that closeness and the surrender of it. He missed the abandonment.
Oh, he missed far more than that, of course. Sex had never been the reward for him, not with her. But the other kind of intimacy was bound up in horrific memories of lifeless, blue lips and the discordant feeling that some enormous shift had occurred in the universe on his watch, and that he had failed the test spectacularly. Sex was easier for him than emotional vulnerabiliy would ever be, especially emotional vulnerability draped over with staggering banners of guilt.
You're leaving, he reminded himself. You deserve exactly none of this.
"What was the dream?" he asked as a buffer, a pivot.
Swallowing, she seemed to debate with herself whether or not to tell him. He was relieved when her eyes met his again.
"I'm falling through a sky full of clouds," she began, "but I'm not concerned about that. What is more troubling to me is that I can't find you, or Chewie, or Luke, and I'm calling out for you all. To try to save you, somehow."
She paused, and it was obvious to him that this next part was the reason she hadn't wanted to answer in the first place.
"And then a voice I've never heard says that he has you."
Vader. His first thought was always that monstrous son-of-a-bitch, because there wasn't a being in this galaxy who haunted Leia like he did. But―
"You've never heard the voice before," he repeated.
She shook her head. "Except in my dreams. It's unnerving."
"And you just started having this dream? Since …?"
Ah, he wasn't going to be able to say the words he meant to say. Apparently this was the limit to his maturity. Referencing the time between when he had been privy to her nightmares and the long, cold nights since was beyond his ability.
"No. I've had this one for months now."
He frowned. "You never told me that."
"And I'm sure there are things I still don't know about you."
His first impulse was to throw out his litany of long-practiced deflections, like he always did. You know me better than anyone. You know all the important parts. Nothing else is worth telling. But that felt like it would cheapen the moment, this detente they somehow seemed to have reached, and so he was left mute, caught in the power of her discerning eyes.
He had the smallest tinge of a feeling, something that tickled the back of his neck. A sense that she knew something she wasn't sharing, some sliver of information she was keeping from him. The whisper of her words just yesterday, while he had been working on the engine: I feel like I've tapped into something dark that Luke would handle better.
There certainly were things she didn't know about him, and for good reason. Parts of his life had the rot of poverty and desperation to them. He had done things he wasn't proud of, and he had been someone she wouldn't like or trust at all. But she also knew enough of his history to have understood the general idea. She knew about Jabba, she knew about the spice-running. She knew about the Academy. She knew about the careless life of a wandering mercenary.
She might not know the details—the credit amounts, the names—but she knew enough.
So why did he suddenly feel seen, like a vapra-wolf in the sights of a predator?
"Chewie's gonna kill me," was what came out of his mouth, completely unprompted and sounding vaguely like panic.
Leia just arched an eyebrow at his non sequitur, and that only made his panic grow, rising like flames from a bed of embers.
He tried to elaborate. "I slept through my turn at the helm."
"We don't really need a watch, Han, and you know it."
She was on fire today, calling him out on his bullshit left and right. But the itch to move was only progressing, and an escape route opened in front of him that promised some reprieve from what he was beginning to think was her superpower. Did Jedi read minds? No, right?
"Better go check in with him," he said, and quietly disengaged from her.
He was almost to the corridor when he stopped and turned around. Leia was still on her side, hair wavy on the pillow beneath her head, looking lovely and dangerous in the medbunk. Watching him carefully, she seemed calm and rested. More at ease than she had been yesterday. And the need to help her flooded him again, one last burst of concern for the woman who had begged for him to stay in the throes of her nightmare hours before.
"You sure you're alright?"
She laughed quietly, self-conscious. "Don't I look alright?"
"You look beautiful," he said. "You always do."
With that last awkward but genuine compliment, he spun on his heel and escaped through the ring corridor, ready to take on the less-concerning interrogation from his centuries-old, self-righteous best friend who had pulled an extra rotation of an unnecessary watch in the cockpit devoid of any heat whatsoever.
—0—
The Wookiee was not feeling self-righteous at all; he felt concerned and mildly hopeful.
The hours had been long threads brushing by him softly as he pondered the beauty of the galaxy, his place in it, and the current emotional state of his cubs. Being on watch afforded him uniquely quiet moments, allowing him to discern the light in the dark.
Chewbacca was not philosophical by a Wookiee's standards. His engineering skills had been much lauded by the elders of his tribe as a cub, and that had been the strength to which he had dedicated his life. But humans were fickle and short-lived, and by their standards, he was considered a deep-thinker.
What a strange phrase that was. Deep-thinker. As if there were depths by which to fall. Humans were terrified of falling; Chewbacca himself had seen such terror in Cub's eyes when they had first visited Kashyyyk.
When he had the opportunity to present Little Princess to Malla, he would be curious to see if she also feared the fall. He was not sure she would. Little Princess had the heart of a Wookiee, when it came down to it.
And so he did not mind the long hours at the helm, watching the Millennium Falcon soar through the gases and lights of an utterly predictable universe. They reminded him of the vines on a Wroshr tree, long and connecting, and suddenly all he felt was a deep, abiding homesickness. Had he visited his Home Tree in the past two years? How long had it been since he had held his mate? How much had Lumpawaroo grown? These were important questions to consider, the feelings hard to feel but necessary to express, and he wrapped himself in the long, deep fall as the galaxy flew by them.
"Chewbacca!"
Droid did not belong in the thoughts in which Chewbacca found himself, and he was annoyed. Go away, he growled in the urgent-range of Shyriiwook.
"I do believe Commander Solo has awoken," Droid said. "You may be relieved of duty momentarily, if I am correct."
Such great news, Chewbacca said without inflection.
He hoped that the response would be enough to calm Droid, but he was wrong. "Are all the environmental systems online?"
Chewbacca growled in the affirmative, unsure why Droid felt the need to ask.
"The commander and the princess seemed to have needed additional warmth for the purposes of their sleep cycles."
He did not elaborate and Chewbacca carefully considered if it was worth continued time in the presence of the exasperating golden droid to ask. On one paw, he was curious about the hint that had been dropped, Unintended, of course, but delicious nevertheless.
On the other, however, was Droid. There was little in the galaxy that could tempt him to seek further company from this particular entity.
Why does that matter?, he relented, cursing Han Solo with every fiber of his being.
"Princess Leia was quite distressed five hours ago, as I'm sure you heard—"
I did.
"And Commander Solo was able to awaken her."
He had heard all of that, of course. Nothing Droid was saying was of any use to him. Leave me be, Chewbacca growled, tired already of Droid's voice.
"They seemed quite pleasant when they awoke," Droid prattled on, though his words were of interest to Chewbacca. "Commander Solo is bringing you a mug of caf shortly."
Why?
Droid seemed confused by the question. "He believes you will be angry with him, of course."
Why?
"Chewbacca, you have been on continuous watch for twelve hours."
That did not confuse him. He had known time was passing by him. He did not mind being alone, nor did he mind work. What interested him most was the comment before, about—
What do you mean by 'pleasant'? he demanded of Droid. Were they mating?
"Oh, my. No!"
That was a shame.
"They are speaking kindly to one another," Droid continued. "I do admit, it is a good change. The volume has been entirely too loud."
Chewbacca did not reply, but considered what Droid meant by a change. Cub and Little Princess were passionate, stubborn beings, the both of them: confident in their skills and those of each other. Speaking kindly was preferable to speaking unkindly, of course, but mating would be more so. Unsolicited kindness was not a language either spoke well. Bluntness, honesty, intelligence: yes. Kindness? No. Not in the way Droid meant, at least.
Cub needed to be reminded why he needed to stay with the Alliance. They could not go to Tatooine under such circumstances: the Force did not will it. Kindness was not the answer.
Disconcerted, Chewbacca turned back to the viewport, ostensibly dismissing Droid, and watched the galaxy fly by in all its terrible, dark-laden glory.
—0—
A slim figure in the hold with an explosion of movement. Pale limbs jabbed in tight, controlled jerks, and her hair was a barely-controlled mass on her head, haphazardly tied back with pins. She wore her Alliance fatigues and the tight, binding undergarment that many recruits with breasts wore during hand-to-hand combat training. Her stomach was bare, and he could still see the bruise that swept in a U-shape from her spine to her navel, though it looked more greenish-yellow than purple now.
Furtively watching her train on Hoth hadn't yielded the same effect for Han that watching her on Dagobah had. There, she had been vicious in defeat. The hours in which she had run and jumped and attempted to levitate stones for Yoda had been brutal and frustrating. And even then, she had been so damn beautiful to him, how steadfast and capable and ferocious she was, wildly different from her brother and their master. Placid philosophizing. Calm and control and hope and dogma.
Not Leia. She was a cocked blaster, ready to fire.
Made him wonder about the name they had discovered. General Skywalker. Is that where she had gotten her fire? Some genetic ferocity, the confidence to act in service to others? Or was it the unknown birth-parent, some faceless, doomed soul lost to history?
Or was the trigger pulled by her noble upbringing, headed by pacifistic Bail and Breha Organa? That felt less likely, except for the readily-available epee matches. And the self-defense classes. And the weapons training, flying lessons, military theory tutors. You name it, Leia had been trained in it. A veritable galaxy of destructive knowledge: a tiara-adorned royal shaking out her bloodied fist.
Who the fuck had they been raising, anyway? A straight-up weapon, if you asked Han. You didn't just forge a person like Leia without a plan in mind.
It didn't matter, in the end. She was who she was, now, and she looked so challenging, so angry and intense, that he struggled to identify whether he was concerned by—or fiercely attracted to—her efforts in the hold. Sweat glistened on the skin of her abdomen, and her arms were strong and quick with utility and lethality. The picture of formability.
What is wrong with you? he wondered, marvelling at his own ballsy thinking. Leave her alone.
"I could use a sparring partner."
He was busted. Stepping from his hiding place in the corridor, he winced in apology. "Sorry. Wasn't trying to be a creep."
She dropped her arms and rolled her eyes. "Not trying. Succeeding, though."
"How'd you know I was there?"
She stared at him a long time, then relented with a sweep of her hand over her forehead. "I told you. New skills."
Huh, he said, but didn't offer anything more, thinking he quite liked the idea that no one could sneak up on her anymore. Add it to the resume, he thought. The full Jedi Training Set.
The quiet stretched, and Han let his mind wander, thinking of the fact that he himself had not broken a sweat in the past few days. The idea appealed to him, a bright solution to a problem he hadn't realized he had, and he wondered if he could find a stable enough pipe for chin-ups somewhere—
"So?"
When his eyes found hers, she looked expectant, ready, and he wondered if this wasn't the worst idea either of them had ever had. "I'm not gonna go hand-to-hand with you, Leia."
"Because you're scared of me?" she asked with a tell-tale sharpness that felt like a quick strike to his kneecaps.
"Yup."
"Surely you're made of sterner stuff than that, Captain?"
Captain.
Was that intentional? The hit to the solar plexus that was his lower rank compared to his as-of-yet-still-active commission?
Of course it was. Nothing was an accident when it came to Leia. He ignored it.
"You got all sorts of dirty tricks up your sleeve nowadays, Princess. And before you ask, no, I'm not using my blaster on stun to even the field."
"Wouldn't dream of asking," she said, though he suspected that was a lie. He could take her in target-shooting and dogfights, of that they were both well aware. Evening out the score meant putting a blaster in his hand, and there was no way he was doing that. Again.
"Great."
"Fine."
He nodded, and found a reason to cross the hold. "So I'll just grab this, then."
The completely-unnecessary can of hydro-bolts in hand, Han turned to leave and was nearly free and clear of the roiling temptation when she offered one last challenge.
"It might help with the trauma."
He stilled, can of bolts frozen in his palm, and he swallowed so loudly that he was afraid she could hear it. "How is fighting with you supposed to help—?"
"Movement," she cut him off. "Exposure. Being able to fight instead of being locked up tight in your head."
He turned, a little pissed off despite himself. Hadn't they agreed not to talk about that incident in the galley again? Didn't she have her own shit to deal with? Why was she dragging his out in the open like this?
Hers was blown wide open last night, he told himself. It's probably a defense mechanism.
"Been talking to Goldenrod, have you?" he spat instead, choosing the fight ahead.
"No. But movement helps me."
"I'm fine."
Laughter came from her lips, and though it wasn't mean-spirited, he had to fight hard not to be offended. "And Yoda says I'm the liar."
He set the can of bolts down hard on the storage bin beside him, and the resulting sound was loud enough to startle her. "What the fuck do you want from me, here, Leia?"
She froze at his tone, the unbridled desperation in it.
He continued, regardless. "You want me to spar with you so you can try and fix me? Get me to change my mind about leaving?"
She sobered so fast that he realized her offer had been a genuine one, not born out of manipulation or revenge or even defensiveness, but an extension of their peaceful morning conversation. He had helped her last night: it was her turn to help him. Back and forth they went, in an ever-cycling pathway, trying to save the other without doing the work themselves.
Guilt washed over him at her stricken expression. "Shit," he muttered. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"
"You think that's what I'm doing?" she interrupted him. "You think I'm trying to manipulate you?"
"No."
She blinked, confused, and he hurried to try to explain, because that look on her face was going to kill him.
"I don't know why I said that, and I'm sorry," he said, more confident now. "Well, no. I know why. But it's not about you."
Trauma, again. He had seen similar anger responses from her over the years. From Mac in the Navy, too. It was easier to strike first than it was to block the blaster bolt after it was fired at your head. Offense makes a great defense … Except in cases of relationships, in which the words someone said could inflict considerable damage on their own, without a shot ever being fired.
Luckily, she seemed to understand more than he did. "Is it happening again?"
No, not yet. But close. Soon.
It was like she heard him. With a soft exhale, she grabbed a nearby flutter of dishwater Alliance gray and hauled it over her head, hiding the bruise from his sight. Then with practiced fluidity, she sat on the deck, crossed her legs, and reached her hand out to him.
"Come here."
He was reluctant to do any such thing. Rosy with exertion, she looked perfectly edible there: the ends of her hair curling softly as they fell toward her shoulders, a cascade of color and movement that threatened to distract him.
"I'm not fighting you," he said.
Rolling her eyes again, she seemed exasperated, angry and amused all at once, and the effect tugged at his humor in strange, dark ways. When she answered him, it was in the tone of warrior princess, and he knew he would do whatever she asked of him.
"Later," she said. "Right now, you're going to help me meditate."
He pulled a face, even as he ambled to where she sat on the floor. "Don't know why you think I could—"
"Not for you. For me."
Well, fuck. She was manipulating him, but not for her own benefit. He knew it, and he was helpless against it, because in all of this mess, one concern rose above all the others: what was best for Leia. Everything centered on it, and here she was, offering the answer on a silver plate.
Framing it as a way of helping her took the pressure off him to find any value in it whatsoever. Could he sit here and watch her as she breathed and saw the future or whatever the fuck? Out of all the things he had done to help her, this was the least demanding, by far.
And she knew it.
So he sat in front of her, resting against the long curved line of the interior hull. His long legs splayed everywhere, a sign of his reluctance, and he leaned an elbow against an upraised knee in an effort toward comfort.
"So what do I do?"
She seemed to waver, her eyes searching the hold and her lips downturned, and he realized that she hadn't truly expected him to comply quite so easily. He almost laughed, but suppressed it for her sake.
"Distract me."
A flurry of comebacks came to him, some of them very inappropriate, but he knew to keep his mouth shut. This mood of his today needed to be locked down tight before he said something … terrible. "How?"
Laser-focused eyes alighted on him, full to the brim with pinprick exasperation. "You've never needed help with this before."
The smirk came naturally, but he held his tongue.
She closed her eyes and her face relaxed into the blank expression he knew so well from their time on Dagobah. Free from the responsibility that pressed so weightily on her shoulders, she looked younger than seemed possible, and he had to remind himself that despite the horrorshow of her life, she was only twenty-two years old.
What had he been doing at twenty-two? Plotting an escape from his first naval assignment out of flight school, that's what. Drinking. Sleeping around. Generally being an asshole, like every other motherfucker in the Imperial ranks.
The list of differences between them never seemed to end.
"I can't read your mind, so don't get upset," she whispered, "but I can tell you're bothered by something."
"Shit. Really?"
"Yes, really. Take a deep breath. Let it go."
He tried. He tried because he was uncomfortable with her gleaning even that much information from him. He tried because he trusted her. But the thoughts swirled and it was like a hurricane inside his head: twisting, destructive lines of chaotic words flying by, a storm without an eye.
"Han."
He fiddled with the bloodstripe on his thigh, fingers nervous and active. "You can't just say shit like that and then expect me to calm down, Leia."
"Try."
"You asked me to distract you, didn't you?"
Not that he had a choice at this point. He was profoundly disturbed at the implication that she was aware of him on a completely different level than he was of her. Every single cell in his body disliked that idea, and he needed time to process that in any kind of healthy way.
Ha. What the hell was healthy at this point, anyway?
She seemed to understand him better than he understood her, and murmured a quiet fine as she fell back into her deep breaths. He itched to move. He realized too late that her first offer had probably been the right one to accept: hand-to-hand drills probably would have done far more good for them both than whatever magic she was doing now. But that would have involved touching her, and…
You touched her this morning.
At her request, though.
And whose idea was it to do drills with her?
His inner voice was vicious today. He tried to quiet it down to a murmur instead of a shout, tried to match her deep breaths, tried to find some kind of quiet as he watched the lineless beauty of her face. These were muscles he had never used—not once, never—and ones he had no intention of using, either. This was so far outside his area of expertise that he might as well be painting a mural or teaching younglings to do dance.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the graceful movement of the box of hydro-bolts rising in the air. Steady and sure, it came to their place on the floor and settled on the deckplates beside his right leg.
"You're getting better at that."
"I should be getting better," she muttered. "I've been practicing."
He nodded and settled back against the hull, but the stillness was getting to him. He reached down and nabbed one bolt from the box between thumb and forefinger, bringing it into the harsh light of the hold. With a distracted flair, he flipped the bolt into the air, prepared to catch it.
Until, of course, it stopped moving and hovered above his palm.
"Talk, please," she asked.
"Uh." His brain spun and reached for something to say, some sliver of conversation that was interesting to her but ultimately benign. Something more beneficial than can I kiss you? Or what the fuck? "Kral's sim scores hit top ranking."
The bolt was absolutely still, but Leia's voice was not. "Really?"
His heart squeezed at her tone, the interest wrapped around strain. "Last time I took the Mercs in, she outperformed Quiee."
"On all sims or just the big-top?"
Another bolt rose from the box. Han pressed against the first one with his index finger. "All of them."
"That's fantastic," she said, frowning as she fought against his small distractions. "Have you had any luck getting Salla to put in for promotion?"
A third and fourth bolt. "She was busy."
"With what?"
Grimacing, he reached into the box, plucked a bolt and tossed it in Leia's general direction. The bolt stopped in its arch, though he saw a slight dip in the storm of items hovering around them.
"With commanding," he admitted, once it became clear that she had a grip on … whatever it was she was doing. "Wasn't doing a great job of it myself, those last few days."
Another dip, larger this time, and he instinctively reached a hand to catch the two bolts closest to him. But they held firm, and he chanced a look in Leia's direction to check on her.
Her face was blank except for a small crease in her forehead and the thin line of her lips. Her right hand faced palm-up on her knee and her fingers twitched with the slight bobbing movement of the bolts, but otherwise she was so still that he could imagine she was sleeping through one of her nightmares.
"I thought you were writing reports?" she said.
The lies always came back to haunt him, but he was ready. "I was writing reports on what Salla was doing."
She broke, laughter erupting as the bolts fell to the deckplates, the pings like an accompanying rhythm that made him smile with her. He hadn't heard that sound in a long, long time, and it made everything a little lighter, a little easier to handle, knowing he could still make her laugh.
Author's Note: Happy Thanksgiving, to all my fellow American friends! The next chapter of Specter will be posted Wednesday, December 1st. Thank you for your support, my friends; I am so grateful to you! - KR
