What a thing to say. Not really unexpected, which was the hell of it.
She was waiting for him when he got back. Everything was stretched so thin. Credits, supplies. There wasn't enough. Except for sacrifice, hers, and she was nearing the end.
"I got some ideas," he had told her, but that was mostly what he'd come back with and they both knew if they were any good he'd have acted on them already.
But she stayed for a drink and they discussed his empty ideas and while they talked her finger rubbed or poked at a place on her chest, almost the middle, near where the rise of her left breast started.
"Wouldn't it be funny," she breathed, wistful, ironic, and weary, "if I died tonight?"
Pretty, young Leia. Han would like to say healthy. He would like to say with her whole life ahead of her, but the whole of her life was behind her.
So not tonight.
Already.
Pretty, young Leia.
And no, it would not be funny.
With familiar patience, he put his palm against her head and offered it a place to lay. Against his own calcified chest, now starting to crumble; a sudden, powerful erosion, and it hurt.
She was a salve. Her own pain, soothing his own.
What a fucked up couple, he thought. It was a new idea, and he liked it, this idea of coupledom, togetherness, and took a sip of bitter ale and held it in his cheek, savoring it.
"Famous last words," he said after he swallowed.
And she smiled. He couldn't see it, but he felt it against his chest, the youth of her cheek dumpling.
Pretty, young Leia.
"Let's get out of here," he said.
She seemed to consider it. Or she was listening to his heartbeat. Han didn't know how many thumps she counted before she answered. "I won't leave," she said. "I can't."
Yeah. That. Him, and the Princess. And the war, and the spot on her chest, like a clenched fist, that kept her from him.
"I don't mean that," he said.
"Mm?" She lifted her head and sought his eyes.
"There's no blizzard. All the moons are full."
"Go outside?"
"Yeah," he said as fetchingly as he could.
She straightened, and looked all around the lounge of the Falcon like a captive unsure of freedom.
It was hard to tear himself away from her, slide along the curve of the bench clumsy and reluctant, and not sweep her up himself.
He shook out an oversized blanket and held it out. "May I smuggle you, Princess?"
She stepped into the blanket and let him fold it around her. "I am more effective when I'm contraband, this is true."
"Thought that was contrary," he bantered lightly.
They exited out the bay lift, still open from the unloading. The hour was late, the pilots in their bunks, the ships dark and silent. It was too easy to slip outside. He should mention that to command.
He'd never seen Hoth like this.
Silver white. Three full moons happened once every seventy-three years. Han had checked. The light from them was so bright. The air was so still. No wind at all. It made it feel warm. Like snow didn't need cold to exist.
Their shadows were black and clear and sharp in outline against the white snow. It looked like they were meeting two other people. Princess, Han thought, meet Leia.
"Goddesses," Leia breathed. The ground crunched under their boots. The day's snow was icing over but it wasn't slippery. The surface broke under their weight.
They walked. She let his arm stay on her shoulder, holding the blanket firm, and their bodies were close.
She stopped, so he did too. She was listening, her face moving a slow arc to the night. He didn't hear anything, but maybe that's what she was hearing, the silence. Or her heartbeat. Her left hand, gloved, rested gracefully at her throat.
There were stars in the sky. So many it was like a dusting of snow. If it weren't for her, his arm on her shoulder, he wouldn't know which way was up.
"We can go back now," she whispered so as not to disturb the silence. They had no trouble finding the way back.
She slipped out from under his arm, from out of the blanket. Her cheeks, usually so pale, were pink. Her eyes had the soft flicker of a sun's light, seen through a star lightyears away.
"I better go," she said. Her hand was poised in the air. Not to stab at her heart, not to rub it away. She was thinking of squeezing his hand.
Pretty, young Leia.
"Better go, Your Contraband, before they think I'm holding you for ransom."
Her face flickered with uncertainty, and then a stillness settled over her features, like the snow outside. "Goodnight, Captain."
Han shut himself back up in his ship and sat with a fresh bottle of bitter ale. It had been the truth, what he told her long ago, that he wasn't in it for the revolution.