Note: February came early, because if I don't post now, I won't be able to post until 8pm PST tomorrow and I know that would be very late for many of you. So enjoy!


Touch-Starved


Leia awoke to warmth for the second time on the trip to Bespin, and it was utter perfection.

He radiated heat like a fire, asleep behind her with a heavy arm over her waist and knees crooked behind hers, and it was like something out of a well-remembered and cherished dream. Breathing deeply, his chest brushing her shoulder-blades on each inhale and his exhale ruffling the loose hair at the crown of her head, she felt like a precisely-cut puzzle piece fitting into the space she belonged.

What had awoken her hadn't been a nightmare, or an existential crisis, or the lingering sense of betrayal that she had stubbornly worn like an old favorite ceremonial gown.

No, it had simply been time to awaken. She felt rested, reinvigorated for the day ahead. If called upon, she would be able to run through a deep, dark jungle, or rally a massive group to her cause. She felt powerful and adept, strong and wise, protected and protective.

Wondering if this was simply a byproduct of endorphins or something deeper in the fabric of her uneasy relationship with the Force, she cleared her mind and prepared to meditate. It felt strange to attempt it in this position—scandalous, even, with the bare skin of Han's thighs bracketing her own—but she had no intention of leaving the bunk anytime soon and a question lurked in the corner of her mind.

What would the Force do now that she had found some peace?

Her emotional strife had coincided with her immense improvement in skill, and that had all the properties of a fact that left her uneasy. But… well. The archaic idea of singular service to the Force that had been perpetuated by the Jedi Order had left them exiled from the experience of living. And it felt largely elitist, too, as it kept the Jedi from working among the ordinary people they claimed to serve.

So why shouldn't she reach out to the Force here, in this admittedly un-Jedilike space? Hadn't she already decided her path would be different from Yoda's and Obi-Wan's and Luke's? Why not test the theory now?

She supposed she should be surprised by how easily she slipped into nothingness on a morning in which she felt so incredibly satisfied, but she didn't. Clarity of mind was hard to find when one was heartbroken. And she sheepishly understood that attempting this now, after sex with Han, was surely going to have its own physical effect that had nothing to do with inner peace.

But as she quieted her mind and stroked the tethers of the power that gave shape to her spirit, she found consistency in the peace the Force offered her. Curious, in that she wasn't bringing the peace with her. No. She found resolution in the aphysical, calm in the invisible.

Oddly, it felt also like snapping a puzzle piece into place. The image was the motif of the morning, apparently. She felt buoyant, able to sustain long moments of tranquility the likes of which she had only heard about from her master but had never experienced herself.

Calm your mind, you must! he had demanded. Surrender!

Hers had not been the kind of surrender he had envisioned, she thought with a soft laugh, but it was indeed working.

Predictably, her ever-vigilant bedmate awoke with a twitch of coiled muscle, prepared to take the helm or his blaster if need be. Such a long memory his reflexes had, she marveled, and wondered at the sheer horror in the number of times said reflexes must have saved him.

"We're fine," she murmured, slipping her hand over his and squeezing. "Go back to sleep."

He stilled but didn't do as she asked, if his breathing was any indication. One still, silent moment passed, and then he seemed to melt into her as his memory caught up to him, to them, to this.

"You're here?" he mumbled, sleepily.

The lingering peace of her meditation opened her ears to the wonder inset in his voice. She tried to grip that peace tightly, thinking she could bully it to her aid, could use it to put him at ease, but it dissolved as if it were smoke, and she found herself with just the memory of her easy morning meditation.

Conceding defeat, she rolled onto her other side to face him. His eyes were soft and hazy, and he blinked to clear them as his hand gripped the curve of her waist. A smile hinted at the corner of his lips, mischievous even now, when he hadn't fully grasped what her being here meant.

"I'm here," she confirmed.

Kissing him felt divine, and so she took her time. Soft and slow, she imbued him with the comfort she had found this morning, the certainty, the rightness. She only stopped when he pulled his head back.

"Watch those hands of yours," he said. She frowned, and he hurried with the punchline, giddy and not at all coy. "You gonna help me with these scratches on my back, Worship?"

She stilled guilty fingers, running up and down the glorious expanse, amused. "I always do. Are you hurt?"

He shrugged, then nudged her nose with his. A thrill swept through her at the casual affection he showed her, had always shown her, that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with closeness. A physical man by nature, he sought and gave affirmation with the touch of his hands rather than the words from his mouth. In some ways, it had confused her at first: she was from a family of wordsmiths: careful but effluent speakers. They told each other they loved them and found enthusiastic and novel ways to do so.

Touch-starved, he had called her once. And it felt true, because she relished moments like this, where she didn't have to speak. When he held her, touched her, kissed her, she lost her words and it felt good. The expectation to find some abstract description for what she felt for him made her nervous; it was alternatively very simple and very, very complex.

I love you more than is sensible. I love you because and in spite of the worst of you, which is no better or worse than the worst of me. I find you intriguing and beguiling, and at the same time, I know who you are at the very center of your being.

But she couldn't say that to him. He wouldn't trust it. Words others spoke meant nothing to him, even hers, because there was no true consequence for misusing them. Words lied because people lied, himself included.

So she held the sides of his head and brought his forehead to hers and that said plenty until they slipped back to sleep.

—0—

"Do you have any blasted idea how cold I am?" she asked.

He was in absolute perfect form, glorious by all measure, and he had the gall to be nearly an entire captain's quarters' length away from her while she was freezing and in obvious need of his body heat.

Looking up briefly from his careful navigation of the deck, he sidestepped their discarded clothing with two hot mugs of caf in hand and offered an eloquent huh? in response.

"You are my primary source of heat and you left me."

A crooked smile bloomed on his face as he made it to the bunk, handing her both steaming mugs. He kicked off the sleep pants he had pulled on for the venture to the galley and then leaned against the headboard of the bunk, covering himself with the oversized, threadbare blanket.

"It's either a decaffeinated princess or a cold princess. I made a choice."

She hadn't known that he had left. At some point they had tumbled back to sleep and she had dreamed of home: wild, waving grasses and a herd of thrantas grazing in the midlands and a western wind that smelled of cjarna-blossoms.

Even unconscious, she had not been oblivious to the connections her brain was making.

But then her eyes had cracked open into dreary blue lighting for a second time, and she had been mildly upset to note how cold she was in his ridiculously large bunk. She ached, and so she knew her memories of last night were real, that Han had been here with her, that she hadn't dreamt their incredible, intimate reunion in some sad, stricken response to abundant loneliness and loss.

Han was here: the old Han, her Han. The man of outward confidence and inward thoughtfulness. Brash and loud and unceasingly loyal. Perfect even in cold blue lighting, white teeth and tan skin and an attitude.

She was going to celebrate that fact for as long as she possibly could, with every possible carnal act she could think of, until they were both spent. And then she was going to do it all again, just to hit the point home.

"Was Chewie upset that I missed my watch this morning?"

Missed it spectacularly and with absolutely no repentance whatsover. I'm sorry, Chewie.

"Nah. He knew what happened and put Goldenrod at the helm."

"He heard us?" she guessed.

Shrugging in answer, he took one of the mugs from her warming hands. "Not the first time that's happened. He would have told me if it bothered him, believe me."

He sipped the caf with a calmness that charmed her, a semblance of normalcy that she had sorely missed. Scooting closer to him until their sides were touching, she drank her own caf, reveling in the rich taste and the familiar undercurrent of bitterness. The crew of the Falcon always seemed to find the credits for a better caf blend than the base ranks drank. She had missed that in their last weeks on Hoth, too.

Missed the company more, she admitted to herself, since she had been drinking the caf for weeks again.

Oh, but the luxury in being able to sit here quietly with him was still so arresting to her. The protective anger that had sealed her off from the galaxy was gone, and it was healing to feel welcome to exist in this space with him. She didn't have to talk, and neither did he, and a quiet morning in bed was completely acceptable when one wasn't constantly guarded against anything the other might say.

No hypotheticals. No what-ifs. Just quiet.

Well. Quiet, but with an undercurrent of heat that had nothing to do with him leaving the bunk. She slipped a hand under the blanket and ran her fingers over the long, strong line of his inner thigh.

"I was thinking," he said, his voice deep as it tore through the silence.

She turned a falsely concerned look his way. "Oh, no."

Rolling his eyes at her jibe, he continued and she let her fingers circle higher and higher. "I think there's a combat training remote somewhere around here. We could maybe rewire it to something that could help you."

The offer was so sweet that it masked her real response until it hit her like a ton of bricks and she stilled her fingers. "Why do you have a training remote?"

"Luke used it, years ago. No idea where it came from. I think it's probably in the storage locker somewhere."

She frowned. "Luke used it when?"

When he turned to face her, she was struck again by the picture he presented, the calmness, the confidence, the ease in which he moved. This was a striking difference between the Han of last night—who had nearly bled blue in his remorse and need for her—and the Han of this morning. A new man to her eyes. She didn't trust that his demons were purged entirely, and she fully resolved to push him into meditation with her later. But the frenetic energy around him was motionless at the moment, and he seemed so much more himself.

"Ben Kenobi was there, so it must've been before we got to you," he said. "When we were heading to Alderaan."

"Mmm. So back when you thought the Force wasn't real."

He tried to deny it. "Still have my doubts."

Liar. "Back when you thought you didn't care for anybody."

"I don't, except for a few."

"Your few is rather large, Commander, but I'll accept it. Back when you wouldn't take orders."

His eyebrows shot up nearly to his hairline and the look of surprised outrage on his face almost made her laugh.

"Who says I take orders now?"

"I do."

He sipped his caf thoughtfully and it gave her time to note the rangy splendor of his chest and stomach, how long his upper body was, and how much she did not care about report times or her own physical discomfort when he looked so casually handsome that her fingers twitched into activity on his thigh again.

Touch-starved, indeed.

The truth of the matter was that they should probably get up, should shower, should act like mature adults who could balance their relationship better now, in its second iteration, than they had the first time around.

But.

"Suppose you're right," he said into the lip of his mug.

And then his eyes slid over to hers with the flicker of heat that she recognized. She tossed any expectations of their behavior out the airlock, and, slipping her hand out of the blanket, she took his mug from him and placed it next to hers on the locker. She turned toward him with a raised chin and the imperious attitude she knew he loathed and adored all at once.

"Well, then," she said, and sliding on top of his stomach, finally got the opportunity to touch the skin she admired so very much. She raked her fingernails through the hair on his chest, fingers brushing up his torso until her palms sat at his clavicle. "I have an order for you."

"Gonna have to ask some questions first, Beautiful."

She tossed the ruined remains of her braid over one shoulder and fixed him with a small facsimile of his own crooked smile. "I think I would rather you put your mouth to better use than to question my authority."

His eyes shifted into darker shades as he ran his palms up the backs of her thighs and then pulled her hips closer until together they had brought her knees level to his ears.

"Authority, huh?"

And in that utterly unfathomable way he had, in a momentary submissive role and yet somehow still the aggressive victor, he smirked, grabbed her hands, and placed them above his head, onto the ledge of the bunk.

"Think you better hold on," he said in his lowest register.

A touch of his lips, and she found herself without breath. It was gone from her lungs as surely as the knowledge of her inevitable surrender was. Because she needed this, and he would give it to her, and that was how their sexual relationship went. Give and take. Partners, always.

His path was circuitous, teasing, intentional, and his fingers lightly grazed next to where he kissed, but then found work elsewhere. Down her thighs, back up: light brushes as his lips remained decidely closed. She hovered over him, waiting for his usual signal, but it never came.

"Commander," she breathed after a few moments, annoyed. He wasn't doing anything particularly stellar, light touches without any precision, soft kisses but never moving to where she most liked him to be. "What exactly am I holding on for?"

"Impatient," he grumbled.

She gripped the ledge tightly as he added pressure to her hips, bringing her down to his mouth. And the feel of his tongue was so good, swift and striking, that she closed her eyes. He was targeted now, fully capable, finding her with such exacting domination that his earlier efforts seemed laughably inept by comparison. The finesse in his movements was perfect, how he applied pressure and then fell away, alternating in rhythmic insistence, coaxing her down a road of no return.

Frissons of heat broke through her and she found it easier to stay in the moment with her eyes open, watching the movement of his hair on the pillow. Her hips started to move as she looked down, took in the visual of molten green eyes watching her with a range of emotions budding right there on the surface. And that was fire right there, too, as much as the sinful dexterity of his tongue, and she began to feel the edges blur, her lips falling open as small, determined convulsions rocked her.

His name might have come out of her mouth. She wasn't sure, but he would tell her later if it had. It always gave him some kind of thrill, and he made it a point of pride to elucidate on her pre-orgasmic words after the fact. Whatever it was, it was repeated, over and over, as he slipped two fingers inside her.

She wasn't sure which would break her first, his sudden unholy pressure on her clit or the forceful curl of his middle finger, so long that he could find one particular place that made her catch her breath. And once he heard that, he was absolute persistence itself, pressing insistently as she shook above him.

He looked up at her and it was too much. She had to close her eyes, focus on twin points of contact, no, three now: his thumb was suddenly a factor, too, something she had only allowed with him and that he used with deft skill when he wanted to utterly destroy her.

It built, and built, and built with extravagant intensity, and while last night had been hard and fast and passionate, this was more all-encompassing. Her hips moved constantly now, and she was barely able to comprehend how fully she was falling until it was entirely too late.

She had no breath. It was gone. She threw her head back and froze as the titanic wave rocketed through her, sweet and one-sided. Knees shaking, hands gripping, sweat dripping down her neck and between her breasts, she shuddered and panted through his ministrations, feeling for a moment as if she commanded the universe, with all its colors and gravity and love and loss.

Goddess, it was like he was determined to annihilate her. She crested the wave and he held her there, viciously captive, forcing the pressure until she sagged against him, until there was nothing left for him to pull from her. Had it been one climax or two? She wasn't at all certain.

He brought her down with softened lips and a reassuring palm on her thigh, and when she was able to open her eyes again, his were crinkled at the corner, proud of himself. There was nothing that she could say against the proof of his prowess, no smart remark in the wake of that enormous ecstasy he had just wrung from her.

On wobbly knees, she scooted back until she could nestle into his side, boneless and utterly spent. Residual quakes filtered through her as she looked up at him from his shoulder in adoration, in complete satisfaction.

He quickly brushed his hand over his mouth, trying to be subtle, though it made her laugh, and then smiled at her in what he would designate a shit-eating grin and she would instead call an insufferable smirk.

Brushing her hand over his straining erection, she intended to reciprocate, but blinked when her fingers trembled against him. She frowned, focused, tried to rally, but was stopped by the sweep of his hand as he brought hers to his lips, kissing them softly.

"Don't worry about it," he rumbled. "It's on the house."

Embarrassed to realize she was somewhat relieved at the reprieve, she relaxed against him. To fully reciprocate for what he had just done to her would require much more mindfulness than she could muster right now, torn apart as she was by his utter domination. And as he was fond of saying, sex wasn't fun when it was a chore.

She would get him back later, and it would be worth the wait.

"You realize you didn't even give me an actual order?"

She thought back, realized he was correct, but decided it didn't matter. "Out loud," she answered with a flick of her hand, before it fell to his chest. "You're just extremely well-trained."

His laughter was her lullaby, and sleep had never been so welcome in her life.

—0—

"I don't understand why I gotta do this, too," he complained.

They shared one functional outfit between the two of them: him in his sleep pants and she wearing a long-sleeved casual shirt of his that fell to just above her knees. They sat on the deck of the cabin facing each other, and it was an utter mockery of Yoda's training methodology from which she took private pleasure. The cabin was an obscene mess of clothing and evidence of their activities of the past few hours.

"Because you are still traumatized," she answered him matter-of-factly, "and one night with me is not going to fix everything."

"Wanna bet?"

She arched an eyebrow at his petulant tone.

"If you want so much as one more moment of my time, Han, you're going to work on yourself, too."

He shook his head, comical in his utter lack of self-consciousness. "No, sure, yeah, totally," he said with upraised hands. "I'm fine with all that."

"But?"

"But I bet I could work on myself faster if we did it in the bunk."

Smiling ruefully, she leaned over and kissed him, their lips fitting together as soundly as they had done all morning. Making up for lost time, she reminded herself. Zero guilt about kissing him senseless whenever I feel like it.

"Faster isn't the goal," she murmured against him, before pushing away. "Like most activities in the bunk."

"True. But things tend to go fast on the deck, too, in case you forgot."

She hid her reaction behind her hands, feigning exasperation when really she was finding his vague off-color humor hilarious. He was tempering his language for her amusement. Nary a fuck to be found, she thought, and that somehow made it funnier.

She wouldn't classify their recent activities as such in her inner monologue but he might. She didn't know. She'd never asked.

But the incident to which he referred, from months ago? Yes, that she absolutely would call fucking.

Now is not the time, Leia, she reminded herself. This is important.

"Cross your legs," she instructed, sitting back into her meditation pose with a deep breath and trying to stem the flood of hormones that seemed to be itching for release.

He snorted. "If you want me to be able to uncross 'em again, I probably shouldn't."

"Honestly, it's like teaching a child. Where is your work ethic?"

Indicating the bunk with a quick tilt of his head, he grinned shamelessly but lumbered into an uncomfortable-looking cross-legged position. "Now what?"

"Close your eyes."

She didn't wait for him, knowing he would eventually follow her lead. As ludicrous as it probably seemed to him, meditation might be exactly the kind of focusing activity from which he could benefit. And since she needed to work on it herself, she figured it couldn't hurt to lead by example.

She had more experience in this field than he did by far, and he was a skeptic at heart. She was absolutely certain the only reason he was entertaining her suggestion now was because he still felt unsure about her faith in him or because he felt she needed further repentance from him.

The sexual episode from earlier came vividly to mind, and she realized that what she had taken for a pure expression of his love for her had probably also been a kind of apology.

And now meditation. His regret, his guilt, his fear … all of it was behind his willingness to undertake something he would normally consider a fraud. A joke. Some spiritual nonsense.

Something that made him deeply uncomfortable.

But it also might be a tool on his quite well-endowed survival toolbelt, something to help him with any episodes he might have in the future. There would be more. And if she showed him it was okay to invest time and energy into it, well, maybe he would use that tool to his advantage.

It was worth a shot, anyway.

"Inhale for a count of five, exhale for a count of eight," she murmured.

She heard him run through a few cycles with her, relatively effortless and quiet by all standards, and she started to try to open herself up to the Force as she had that morning.

The clarity wasn't as strong as it had been, and that made sense to Leia. The morning meditation earlier had been an exemplar feeling, some confluence of the physical and the emotional that had led to her easy tranquility. She hadn't expected it to feel the same now. But a less brilliant sense of centeredness came to her then, and she sat in its grasp, small and connected and inconsequential and yet very, very important all at once.

"Now what?"

His voice cut through the air like the Falcon's thrusters, and without opening her eyes, she said, "Keep breathing. And just exist. See if you can clear your mind."

"I can exist and not do that."

Her eyes snapped open. "Han."

Eyes closed, he held up his hands and resumed his deep breathing, leaving her to her own journey.

She decided to focus on Luke. She felt good about her shields, reinforcing their natural strength often, and the work was easier today than it had been yesterday. Bolstered by her own personal serenity, her shields felt nearly impenetrable, durasteel against the universe.

So. Luke.

Knowing he wasn't with the Fleet, she cast her net broader. Yoda's Force-presense was necessarily shrouded for his own protection from Vader, she assumed, but Luke had a more distinguished flame, one that burned uniquely bright. She reached for it like she was putting her hands up to a campfire. Searching for heat as well as light. Searching for her twin brother.

Faint confusion brushed by her, a whisp in the darkness. That worried knot that pulsed, was that him? It wasn't distress, it wasn't fear for personal safety, and for that she was grateful. But it was bright enough for her to pick up on it in what usually was a frustrating, blank void.

Can you hear me? she asked.

She received no reply. That didn't surprise her; what she was discovering about herself and her journey as a Jedi was broad and nonspecific. If that one spot was Luke, and that was a big if, she could expect his Force presence to be somewhat illegible to her. She was no expert in anything in the Force.

But it was progress. Wasn't it?

Bringing the exercise to an end, she wrapped her senses around her current surroundings, seeing what else she could perceive. Unlike the confused ember of her brother, Han was neatly humming in front of her, energetic and bright. And Chewie, too, in his hammock, sleeping peacefully, with a similar brightness.

She smiled, proud of herself, and opened her eyes. Han was still breathing slowly in perfect counts of five and eight, eyes closed and lips pursed. He didn't have a color, and that was fine. It felt less like something she could perceive and more like something he unconsciously shouted at her in moments of suffering.

"How do you feel?" she asked him, softly.

Brilliant green eyes opened. Like a sunrise, she thought, and then internally rolled her eyes at herself for the melodrama of that thought. Thank goddess he can't see your color.

For a second he fooled her, all calm eyes and tranquility. And then he opened his mouth, and shattered whatever naive illusion she had had about Han Solo's capability for spiritual enlightenment.

"Hungry," he answered. "Let's get food."

—0—

Han, for his part, was fucking happy.

Everything about the day had been perfect. All the sleeping, all the touching, all the Leia that had occupied his hours, had been both enough to last him a lifetime and also not nearly enough for him. Given the choice, he wouldn't let her out of sight for the next decade. He felt an almost frantic need to touch her, just to make sure she was really there.

Watching her come this morning—and he had watched her, of course he had, after the scare of the night before—had been all he could think about during their meditation session. It was hard not to think about it, with the memory so recent that he imagined he could still taste her. He couldn't, it had been hours and he had rinsed his mouth out, but he held onto that sense-memory so tightly that it was driving him a little nuts.

How do you feel? she had asked, and his honest answer really should have been: hard as fuck, but that's okay, Princess.

Ah, he knew they had been a little rough last night, and he also knew it wouldn't be fun for her to do a repeat performance so soon. And when offered the opportunity to make her feel better, to prostrate himself at her altar and to repent of some of his sins of the past few weeks, he had been one-hundred percent ready to take it in stride.

For penitence, yeah. But also because he just plain liked doing that to her. She came apart in such insanely beautiful ways, and if there was one thing he was obsessed with, it was seeing behind Leia's facade of control.

Speaking of. It was creepy as fuck, he knew, but he didn't like all this stuff about clothing right now. Standing in the Falcon's small galley, he diligently stirred the flash-frozen egg dish he was reheating for their "breakfast". He kept one hand at the curve of Leia's back as she brewed a fresh pot of caf, but the edge of her pants kept getting in his way and his reclaimed smashball shirt swallowed her whole and it was unacceptable. Being this close to her and fighting for access to her skin was casting the smallest of shadows on his otherwise spectacular morning.

Morning? Day? What time was it, anyway?

"I should check in with Threepio," she said, further ruining the moment, and he resigned himself to acting like a human being who had to share the attention of his partner.

Partner. He liked the sound of that very much.

Slipping away from his fingers, she flashed a smile at him and then moved to the cockpit. Her silhouette rounding the bend in the corridor was a fascinating work of art and he enjoyed it until she was out of sight, then refocused on breakfast, unappetizing even by most standards. Necessary, but not anything to get excited about. Their fresh food stocks were long depleted. Hopefully Lando had someone who could help in that arena, along with a hyperdrive specialist.

Forget a specialist, he thought. I can fix it myself if he could find me a double-sized converter cable.

Whatever. He didn't care. Bespin to him was a stopping point, a place for repairs, refueling and restocking, and then it was back to the Fleet. Bonus points if Lando didn't try to shoot him on sight.

Eggs were done. He put them in two bowls and turned to the holochess table. Setting their breakfast down, he allowed himself a moment of reflection, thinking about the blood that had painted the hulls and deck of that very area a few weeks ago. It hurt, thinking about that, but it hurt like adding weight to physical exercise. Like lifting a heavier load than he had before. Like running just a little bit faster than he had yesterday.

"Did you know Threepio talks to the Falcon's onboard system?" Leia asked as she reappeared and then sat in the booth.

He quickly followed suit and then dug into the eggs. "Yeah."

"Did you know they have whole silent conversations?" she continued. "About communication strategies and current events and other goings-on?"

Goings-on? "What?"

Picking up her utensil, she offered him an enigmatic smile. "Threepio says he is not bored during his watch, that he and your beloved ship are discussing, and I quote, processes and mechanisms."

"What does that mean?"

"I have no idea," she said. "But I have so many questions. Are they talking in binary?"

"They'd … have to be, right?"

He was half-listening to this confusing conversation, because the moment the eggs hit his stomach, he realized how truly hungry he was and was currently trying to eat the entire serving in under three minutes.

"Yes, but please imagine how insane the Falcon must sound to Threepio. You have three droid brains vying for dominance, right?"

"They're not vying."

She tilted her head, and he understood the sentiment clearly.

"Okay, they're not vying often."

"Do they have different personalities? Different accents? Different perspectives?"

"There aren't accents in binary," he said with a scowl. "It's ones and zeros."

"We couldn't possibly know that. We don't speak it."

"Leia."

Her eyes were wide and eager, and she looked so much like Luke in that moment that it made him laugh. This was a side of her that charmed him immensely, this curious woman with the galaxy at her fingertips, who heard voices in her head and moved things around without touching them, and she still found the mental space to wonder about droid interactions.

"You could probably learn to speak binary if you wanted," he offered with a wave of his utensil. "Add it to the list."

"There would be no political capital in doing that."

"Political capital," he repeated.

"My father gave me tutors for information I might need for the Alliance," she said. "Everything I learned was highly cultivated."

"Uh-huh."

She frowned at him, compelling him to answer her unasked question.

"No, I believe you," he said. "Doesn't make sense for you to be doing target practice on Alderaan otherwise. Except that…"

He trailed off and waited, knowing she could not let it go. It wasn't in her nature.

With a royal shake of her head, she fulfilled all expectations after just a few clicks of their utensils on their bowls. "Except what?"

"Except there is no reason a self-respecting princess should be taught Ubese."

He waited for her well, actually speech, rehearsed and completely factual but totally beside the point, as it always was. He had thought about this a lot the past few days, the discrepancy in Leia's background. The shit that didn't add up. The distinct tenor of manipulation that lined the words she spoke with such fondness and pride.

"It's a descendant of the Urbetsi linguistic family, and there was a thought that perhaps a trade agreement could be negotiated—"

"Bullshit."

"Sometimes people know things," she defended.

He nodded. "Yeah, but people know things in their own class, Princess. Ubese is a dirty language, and you somehow learned it. On Alderaan, who didn't even have bounty hunters."

She sniffed delicately. "Languages can't be dirty."

"Filthy," he said. "What did Bail do? Hire a hit man as a bodyguard? Who the hell taught you?"

"You could talk, Han. How often do you use that High Trapaani you have locked away?"

Muttering three very proper words in the low register he knew she couldn't resist, he struggled to keep a straight face. She stabbed the air in front of his nose with her utensil in righteous indignation and an aggression that tossed him right over into full laughter.

"I think it's a beautiful and misunderstood language," she said in Ubese.

He pushed the utensil out of his face, leaned over and kissed her softly. "It's not," he replied in High Trapaani.

"You sound very intelligent in that tongue. Perhaps you should speak it more often," she said in aristocratic Corellisi.

And he, grinning, responded with: "Oh, do you want more of my tongue, then?" in Cordv, which completely ruined any and all conversation they planned to have with the riot of laughter that followed.

—0—

When he fell to his side in a tangle of bedsheets and Leia's limbs later that evening, Han hovered on the edge between sleep and wakefulness, a twilight of conscious thought. And it occurred to him that there was an artifact in the moments before he came that reminded him of that horrible moment on the holochess table a month ago.

A slash of red and a budding horror about what was real and maybe not so real after all.

It unsettled him as he fell asleep, and that slept with him, too: the sense of impending stress. The worry that something ugly lurked outside the goodness of Leia and him together in their cabin. Maybe that it was too good to be true?

It didn't surprise him when his eyes snapped open not even an hour later, disturbed by who-knew-what. His heart hammered in his chest, his stomach was in knots, his breathing felt raspy and unsure.

The sonics were running in the fresher and since Leia was nowhere to be found beside him, he assumed that was where she was. And maybe it had something to do with his impending panic attack and maybe it didn't, and maybe this was a panic attack and maybe it wasn't. But he felt discombobulated. Untethered. Unbalanced.

He didn't want to bother her. Sex was different for all genders, but for hers, it often meant some kind of care afterwards. And, too, they had been pretty fucking active all day in some fun ways. If she needed a moment, he would respect that, though he wished she would use the real water rather than always deferring to the sonics.

He resolved to make sure she knew she could use the warm water stores whenever she wished, and that … felt better? Thinking of something else? Thinking outside of himself?

But his heart still beat an ugly, fast staccato. The rhythm of it was too loud in his ears.

Fine, he thought.

He focused on breathing. In for five, out for eight. He was terrible at it; he felt like he was trying to wrestle something bigger and meaner than Chewie for every bit of oxygen. And there was no calm to be had, not like how she described it. He didn't drift on astral planes or sense anyone else's aura or any of the rest of that bullshit. He kept his eyes open, taking in the sights of the cabin, full lights engaged because they hadn't dimmed them upon their ragged and breathless entry a few hours ago. The harshness of it was probably not right, but he wasn't looking for anything in particular, was he? No, this was just an experiment, that was all.

He had promised her that he would try, and he had meant it.

It was a losing battle, but he fought valiantly. His brain never cleared; thoughts flew out of his head and whirled around the room like small invisible rockets. But chaos had never bothered him much, and so he kept after it. In for five, out for eight, just like she had said.

By the time she turned off the sonics and stepped back into the cabin, he had gotten the hang of the rhythm. It was like muscling through combat drills, when it came down to it. Things had a beat to follow, a natural pattern. Mathematics. And while the blissful calm she said she sometimes experienced still eluded him, he understood math. It was clear-cut, analytical. If he slowed his breathing, his heart rate would fall. No gimmicks, no tricks. Just rhythm.

"You're awake," she said as she traipsed toward him, naked and beautiful and deserving of so much more than he could offer her.

And he was also an ass, and so he said with every bit of indignation she had displayed at the opening of their incredible day, "Do you have any blasted idea how hot I am?"


Author's Note: Give me a medal for that one, friends. That was absolutely a labor of love.

Thank you so much for your support, kind readers! I am happy to hear that you shared my joy over the last chapter and that 2022 started off with a proper bang. Erm. Yes. A proper bang.

The next chapter of Specter will be posted on Tuesday, March 1st. Have a wonderful February! -KR