After the initial disbelief and terror- stormtroopers and asteroids, a seriously malfunctioned ship and a kiss- came a softening. Leia felt... not forgiving; Han operated true to form, just as she did.
And she wasn't resigned to this, living on a limping ship for- by his estimation- months. Her only regret was a loneliness, that she couldn't tell someone, like Luke. Han was living it too, and Chewie, but she wanted someone else to know. I'm fine. We made it past the Empire but you wouldn't believe what happened.
But there was a willingness she hadn't felt before. Like her resistance had dissolved.
Look at me, Luke. Can you believe it? I almost don't myself.
It was the stars. The sight outside the cockpit window. Beautiful, dimensional points of light. How arrogant of planetary life, to develop the ability to join the stars, and speed past them. To not take part among them, to see the colors, the gases, the iron.
Even the asteroids, as they spiraled toward the ship- she was terrified of them, but they possessed no malice, no mind to destroy.
She prayed to all gods Luke was okay. That would be the only shadow, the not knowing. The ache for Hoth, whose battle scars she could see from the sky, for the losses she didn't know about.
On Alderaan, no matter the weather, she breakfasted on the terrace. There was a netting that wrapped around the terrace that provided the luxury of hearing the songs, seeing the colors, feeling the breeze or the cold, without the pesky bugs or rain.
The cockpit became her terrace.
It was a cramped space, a place to work, and someone was always in it. So she didn't have her own spot, and she knew not to spread out. When Chewie was on duty she sat in the captain's seat; if Han had watch she liked to snuggle in the over-sized chair he'd installed for the large Wookiee.
Neither Han nor Chewie seemed to mind her presence. Sometimes she read. She did a lot of writing, or thinking, and was teaching herself to needle point.
Black thread was all they had on the ship, and the needle was large. She'd never done creative work; to her it used up precious time, but when Han saw her bringing the needle up through one of his rags- she had outlined an 'M' so far, for Millennium, and planned an 'F' for Falcon- he offered her the yellow jacket Luke had worn for the medal ceremony.
"Always hated this one. I don't care if you destroy it."
"I don't 'destroy'," she answered sullenly. "I'm trying to embellish."
"You're poking holes."
She showed him the fabric of the rag. "Embellishing," she stubbornly repeated.
He had laughed. "It'll be a canvas to practice on, right? Is that what you call it?"
The cockpit was different than her terrace not just for the tight space but for the company it kept. Sometimes it was like a sanctuary, where no one spoke, awed to be among all those stars. For her, it was a place to remember and contemplate. Chewie felt it, too. Once she saw wet tracks on the fur of his face, starting at under his eyes, and she thought he may have been silently weeping.
Han was tired, worried, bruised and anxious. Sometimes he looked at her sitting in Chewie's seat, and then he would lean his head back against his own and doze for ten minutes.
In the cockpit he was... real. He reached for her hand and she let him hold it. She felt loved; she felt he sought out contact because the stars told him he needed it.
She did destroy the jacket. She removed the sleeves, the front borders, the neckline, and cut the front panels into four squares. It was easier to hold this way, easier to work.
"Can I see?" he said once. She had started on a flower during Chewie's shift. It involved symmetry and the equidistant placing of the needle and she'd gotten a good rhythm going. When Chewie left she wasn't ready to put it down.
She held up her yellow square with the black outlines of petals and leaves, and a thick line that moved in a wave to show the stem. "I'm rather pleased with it," she said.
He took it from her for closer inspection. "You didn't do this before?"
Leia shook her head no. "It was a common downtime activity, but-"
"You didn't get much downtime."
Her smile was reminiscent. "Believe it or not, my House earned. We had a nerf ranch. I was presented with a calf, Arritha, and she became my downtime. I visited her whenever I could. I liked the way she nibbled at my sleeve, how her nostrils would steam. I brushed her, and walked the pasture with her. She had three calves of her own, by the time-"
He placed a kiss on the yellow square and gave it back to her. He hoped to give her a new ending for her stories. They all ended the same. Alderaan was destroyed. Now she could add, if she wanted, and afterward a smuggler understood. It didn't really help, but his point was at least there was something that followed.
"It's pretty," he told her. "Too bad black's all there is." He got thoughtful. "What if you unraveled something. Like a sock. I got a red pair, I know."
"Maybe," Leia critiqued. "I like the monochromatic. It looks like ink."
"You gonna give it back to Luke?"
Her eyes widened. "You didn't tell me it was still his jacket."
"I told him he could keep it. Don't know how it wound up back here. I don't think he liked it much either."
"Or had a need for it. Or a place to store it."
His head bobbed from side to side. "True."
Leia looked down at her yellow square. "I remember him in the jacket," she said fondly. And her thoughts drifted through the years, from her first meeting to their last.
She had kissed Luke. Not for love or goodbye. It embarrassed her now, especially when afterwards he was going out to battle and she missed her chance to give him a kiss for life. "The last time I saw him was in the medbay," she said.
He had thoughts about it apparently, for he nodded readily. "Yeah, and we know what happened there."
"I was trying to make you jealous," she told Han.
"Yeah," he grunted, not happy with his own reaction. "I don't think it worked. I mean, I felt something. Like I took two steps backwards with you. Nothin' to do with Luke."
"I regret it," Leia said. "I wish I could apologize to him."
"You will, in due time." Han gave a forced, bracing grin. "Trust me, he'll remember."
"You don't- he didn't like it, did he?" Luke had taken on a boastful pose when she released him.
"No, it was uncomfortable, believe me." Leia couldn't help but laugh a little. "He was tryin' to make me jealous, too. But it was nothing like our kiss."
"No, nothing," she agreed.
Han leaned his body over the arm of the chair and pursed his lips. She didn't let him wait, and they enjoyed a sweet, quiet kiss.
"Did you know there were rumors about us on Hoth?" Leia said when they parted.
His smile was personal. "Started a few myself."
"I credited you with starting all of them."
His smile grew to include her. "What made you think of that?"
She sighed. "Luke, I suppose. He had a special status on Hoth."
"What," Han frowned. "Potential Jedi? He had that everywhere we went."
"He had the ears of the smuggler and the Princess," Leia said. "They all came to him with their gossip, trying to see what was true. There were bets, too."
"Yeah, I know about those. Not all concerned us, you know. Who was the first to get attacked by the wampa, stuff like that."
"Did you bet?"
"Lost that one. Bet on Janson. Turns out it was Luke!"
Leia traced a black petal. She felt sad all of a sudden. "That was a bad night."
Han's tone was teasing, "Sorry you suffered, in your nice warm quarters-"
"Chewie made me tea on the Falcon."
"I melted ice. And my piss froze."
She laughed now.
"-and Luke moaned the whole night about a bunch of nonsense."
"I'm glad I can laugh now. I know it was difficult. Horribly so."
"Actually, I didn't mind the moaning 'cause then I knew he was alive."
She nodded quietly. Han took her hand again, and his thumb traced back and forth along the side of her index finger. They faced the cockpit, watching the stars.
"I hope he's alive," she said.
"Sure he is," Han said easily. "He's wonderin' the same as us. That make you feel better?"
"No." Surely he was. Soon the remnants of Echo Base would gather wherever new the location was, and Luke would eagerly await the Millennium Falcon, but she would be long overdue. For some reason, his grief for her made her feel as bad as her grief for him.
"Well, look at us. We survived asteroids, a space slug. We're gonna run out of kaf in a few weeks, but we'll make it."
We'll make it. He would keep telling himself that, Leia thought, until it came true. The one good thing, in her opinion, about the ship's break down was he was derailed from his plan on returning to Jabba the Hutt to repay his debts and face his death mark. She hoped in the months to come her kisses helped him find a better solution. Give him something to want to live for.
Yes. That was the problem with death, wasn't it? Sometimes it was stronger than life.
They sat quietly for a time, her hand still in his, and they watched the stars.
"Sometimes," Leia broke the silence, "when I'm in here, when I'm looking out the viewport, I can't remember- I'm not sure if it's the war I can't remember, or the feeling of being at war."
"It does seem... I don't know. Inconsequential," Han agreed.
"Yes."
The ship moved through the stars, and Leia felt like it was a parade, and they were being cheered.
"Can I have one of those?" Han lifted the hand he held to touch the yellow square.
Leia turned to him, surprised. "One of my squares?" It pleased her inordinately somehow, that he wanted one. "As a token?"
"No, not like that," he shook his head. "Not a token. But a-" he gave her a frowning look, as if it was her fault the words eluded him, and she smiled. "It's like... these." He waved his hand in a general direction. "Somehow."
"The stars?" Leia looked from her lap, where the yellow square rested, to back out the viewport. She drew her legs up in Chewie's seat so she could lift her upper body out of it, and kissed him again. "Tell me," she whispered.
"That," he indicated the square with his eyes, "is something you've never done before, right? And you're not a prodigy at it, are you?"
She smiled, and kissed him quickly again. "I would say most definitely not."
"You've taught yourself something beings all over have been doing... a long time. And all over."
"Yes." It was true that the needle arts existed all over the galaxy. On some places it was rudimentary and crude, simple seaming, on others it was extremely elaborate, with an industry that reflected an age of culture.
"I don't know, I'm thinking, kind of sputtering here," Han smiled shyly and Leia squeezed his hand to encourage him. "Is it how... we get in touch with ourselves? You know what I mean?"
She thought she did, and nodded. "The continuity. The sameness of behavior, or what we have in common."
"Yeah."
"That is like the stars," she smiled at him. "How we exist, on a larger plane. Where war... isn't there."
"Right."
She held up the square and looked at her simple stitches that formed a flower. "I'll make one for you."
He shrugged shyly again. "I'd carry it with me, you know."
"A handkerchief?" she teased.
"Nah," he smiled crookedly. "A memory."
She nodded again. "I could stitch a message on another," she said. "For Luke."
"What would you tell him?"
"The betting results. That you kissed me."
He laughed. "Kissed you finally. And don't forget the other part. One bet is you slap me."
"That I responded in kind."
"Mm. And often." He looked at her, and in his eyes among the stars there was a depth of message, beyond her scope of language, but she could feel it. They kissed again, and their hands caressed over their necks and through their hair, and Leia thought no matter what happened- if they starved or froze or crashed, the destination didn't matter. The journey was everything.
She was part of again, within. She hadn't realized her spirit jetted past the stars, maybe to the edge of the galaxy, to the void. A vast, empty place. Watching, unmoved. No life. No feelings.
From the cockpit, she thought of Han as an explorer, a true naut, come to the void because he could, because he had found it, and he held out his hand in invitation, and pulled her from nothing and brought her down, not by his side, just down, to join everyone else.