This ficlet is M-rated for sexual content.


Beautiful, playful and stunning in her disarray, Leia Organa perched on the edge of the Falcon's galley counter, legs bare beneath the shirt she'd stolen from his closet. Han Solo leaned against the hull nearby, one foot crossed over the other. What a sight, he thought. There was very little in the galaxy that looked as enticing as the princess, disheveled and properly adored, late at night aboard his ship. Not because she had to be, not because she had nowhere else to go. But because she'd gotten out of her council meetings early and caught him by surprise an hour before they'd planned to go to dinner.

The next few hours had been … good.

Very good. They'd skipped dinner entirely and had wound up here in search of food instead. Han was not apologetic about it in the slightest.

Leia swung her feet idly and popped a piece of fruit into her mouth, bringing him back to the present. "I swear, you have a gift for finding fresh food."

"It's called a market."

She blinked at him in false innocence. "Oh, is that where food comes from? I just assumed my servants—"

Han pushed off the hull and moved to stand next to her. "Yeah, yeah. Real cute. I get it."

Leia smiled. "My original comment still stands. Does Chewie help you?"

He reached out and brushed his palm up the smooth skin of her thigh, slightly tanned during a recent diplomatic trip to Corellia. He was still pissed that he'd been stuck on Coruscant at the time; Corellian traditional political garb had a higher hemline than most conservative systems did and he would've enjoyed some time alone with her on the Gold Beaches. "We had a steady gig early on, freighting starfruit from Plagirii to the Corporate Sector. Had to help with quality control sometimes to get paid."

"Ah," she said, and bit into another piece of fruit. Sometimes it still amazed him that this was his life now, discussing unglamorous smuggling gigs with a half-dressed princess on his ship. Talk about an undeserved windfall. "How long was the job?"

"About six months," he said. He couldn't remember exactly; it'd been at least six years since then. Time flew by when you fought a war and won.

"Interesting," Leia said, and licked the juice off her lips. "Chewie told me once that the only reason you bothered to stay with one job for more than a month was because you'd found somebody you liked."

He eyed her carefully. "Liar."

"Me or him?"

"Both of you, for different reasons," he said, coming to stand in front of her. Her knees hit his upper thighs and he slid his other hand up her leg. "There wasn't anyone on that run."

Leia snagged another piece of fruit and offered it to him. He leaned in and bit into it from her fingers, then sucked the juice off her fingers quickly, grinning. Her eyes glittered but she turned away to pick up another piece of fruit. "I see. One of your portside harems, then?"

He threw back his head and laughed. Portside harem sounded like something she'd read from a novel. It certainly wasn't how he would have phrased it. In reality he'd never been one of the love-'em-and-leave-'em types. By that time he hadn't liked entanglements; when the opportunity arose for a tryst, it was usually with another pilot or a bartender who knew the ropes. People he could trust not to care too deeply. People who'd been used to that life long before he'd shown up. "You're romanticizing my past."

"Am I?" Leia arched an eyebrow, challenging. "It sounds like there was very little romance to it."

She raised the fruit to her lips. Before she could bite into it, he leaned in and nabbed it between his teeth. He smiled as he ate it. "Nope. No romance," he said. "Just, uh, the act and then an amicable goodbye."

He'd stayed away from paying for sex. He'd stayed away from drunk, vulnerable girls. He'd stayed away from men who expected anything from him. It had been both easier for his lifestyle and morally agreeable to him. He looked specifically for the people that were old enough, sane enough, and experienced enough to know how to live the way he did. Emotions had never been a part of it, not really. Not the way it was now, with Leia. Sex for sex's sake was a way of life, an appetite to be sated. Or it was a distraction, a way to protect himself from the misery of an isolated existence. Any chance to forget, for a moment, what life really looked like.

But looking at Leia now, with her incredible eyes and the outright goodness in them, he couldn't remember why that had been appealing. Or necessary.

"Amicable goodbyes," she quoted, scrunching her nose. "That sounds horrible."

He tilted his head, nonplussed at her tone. "I said amicable, didn't I? Nobody got hurt."

She waved her hand. "That you know."

Han looked at her carefully as she ate another piece of fruit, momentarily stunned. The conversation had been lighthearted, amusing. He'd been teasing her and she'd been teasing back. And then, suddenly, she wasn't teasing anymore. "Hey," he said, squeezing her legs and pulling them to either side of his hips so he could stand between them, closer to her. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," she said automatically. He gave her a specific kind of yeah, right look and waited. She sighed. "No, really. It's just odd to me, to think of you with these people, doing what we do. And then you just…. what? Went your separate ways? Without a second thought?"

He didn't know what to say to that. What he'd done before and what he did with Leia were in two completely separate categories as far as he was concerned. Yes, she was right, that's how it had been. No second thoughts, no shame. There wasn't time for shame. And, too, why would you feel ashamed for a mutually-consensual good time that ate up an hour or two and made the galaxy seem a little less awful than it always did?

How to explain?

He cleared his throat, squeezed her legs. "You know how in the Alliance, on the worst nights, sometimes it felt like the whole base was a reminder that we were all about to die? That it was useless to hope for anything better than a quick death?"

She nodded.

"And all you wanted to do was forget? About everything, about responsibilities and how pointless it all was? Do you remember that feeling?"

She nodded again.

"That's how it felt. You did it because for a second you weren't scum, you weren't an orphan or a criminal or a lowlife. And everybody did it, Leia. What else were you supposed to do?"

She watched him, eyes discerning. The edge of anger was gone, the flair of an oncoming storm dissipated. In its stead was warmth and the whole of her empathy as she tried to follow his words carefully.

"What did you do on those nights?" he asked her, trying to take the focus off himself.

Leia answered immediately, her words. "Worked. Fought. Prayed that what we were doing wasn't pointless."

Of course she had. He leaned in and kissed her because nothing—nothing—in the galaxy was as incredible as Leia, and she reminded him of it every damn day. He should have known that this would be a false equivalency. Maybe if Leia had been in his shoes she wouldn't have fallen into that spiral of baseless sex and trustless companionship.

When he leaned back, her eyes were closed and he could taste her fruit juice on his tongue. He lifted a hand from her leg to the side of her face, pushed a lock of hair behind her ear.

"Not all of us are as strong as you are," he said, low and quiet. "Not all of us know what we're fighting for."