Alderaanian Ynblossom.
The article had settled on this rare, expensive, lost scent to describe the perfume Leia Organa had been (reportedly) wearing since the destruction of the Second Death Star. The piece had been appallingly saccharine, superfluously admiring. Authoritatively-sourced, too, by consulting a highly-regarded scent specialist who could identify nearly one thousand perfumes blindfolded.
(Why *anyone* would want to make a living that way was beyond Han. Fucking stupid, as far as he was concerned. Wasn't there a better use for a talent like that? Lost children to find? Poison to identify?)
(In fact, that was the phrase he would use to describe the entire article. *Fucking stupid*. Was the galaxy so tame now that people needed to know how celebrities smelled?)
(Don't get him wrong. Leia smelled amazing. She always had.)
Anyway.
*The erstwhile princess is reported to be in talks to marry General Han Solo of Starfleet Command, but no official statement has been made.*
Han almost laughed. That line was word-for-word plagerized from yet another stupid article from yet another stupid media outlet.
(In talks. *Ha.* The rumored wedding had already happened, in secret, a month ago. It had been small and intimate and perfect and the best part was that no one outside of their little four-person family knew.)
(She had smelled delectable that day, too.)
*Alderaanian Ynblossom*. That was pretty funny shit, there. The flowers were as extinct as the rest of the planet itself; did the professional perfume expert believe the black market was powerful enough to resurrect a dead flower?
(He had no idea what Alderaanian Ynblossom smelled like, but he definitely knew what *Leia* smelled like. It was a simple freshness, like clear skies and a warm summer breeze. Maybe a little bit of citrus? He didn't know. He certainly couldn't be considered an expert in such things. Put a blindfold on him, and he would only be reliably able to identify that she was in the room with him, and that was mostly because he was probably reaching out to touch her.)
He *was* an expert in finding that particular perfume, however. He had been buying it for years now. It wasn't some expensive thing he had to barter his soul away to get for her, either. As with most things about Leia, the perfume she wore was deceptively classy with honest roots.
He had found it in the street markets on Naboo nearly seven years ago now. Someone had sprayed it near him when he had been hunting a particular kind of bacta that the then-Alliance had needed for some crisis or other. He couldn't remember the details. Something in him had demanded he buy it for her, because it just … was hers? That's what it had felt like. It was Leia in a bottle, and Leia should have it.
And then she had worn it. Even before they had been together, she had worn it, and it was like a secret between them, some weird silent agreement when they could agree on literally nothing else.
(Was it creepy for him to just … buy perfume for a woman he wasn't sleeping with? Yeah, probably. Did he care? Nope.)
The first minute he had had to himself after Endor, he had flown to Naboo, returned to the street market, and bought more of it. The vendor was a nice woman, maybe thirty years old, who made the perfume by hand. He hadn't offered his name, just bought the small bottle and left.
Alderaanian Ynblossoms had nothing to do with it.
Except this article was one of those numbered ones. *The Galaxy's Best Perfumed Beings!* the title proclaimed, and that was a dubious honor that made him feel angry. The fuck did it matter? Leia smelled good, yeah, but she was so much more than that.
(He had to remind himself that the stupid shit had more to do with the end of the war and less with his wife.)
(His wife. Holy shit.)
*She smells like sunshine!* some random contributor proclaimed, and that was the closest the article had come to the truth. *She must spend a fortune buying custom perfume!*
(Ten credits. That's all. The vendor's name was Bry and she had two kids in school and a wife who grew the plants she used in her perfumes in the fields outside the capital. He might have brought Leia last time he had gone. Leia might have given Bry her private comm frequency. Han and Leia might be scholarshipping Bry's son to attend a prestigious Nubian music academy.)
Han rolled his eyes and flipped away from the article, tossing the datapad onto the low table in front of him. Leia, startled, looked up at him, and he shook his head.
"Nothing," he answered her unasked question, pulling her bodily into his side and nudging his nose into her hair. Sunshine, yeah, and citrus, and some other things, but mostly, she smelled like Leia and that was good enough for him.
