It's hard to hear anything in the packed tap-caf. The dance floor is crowded, all the booths are full, and on stage, a motley band of crash-rockers screams themselves hoarse over the din. Leia did two laps around the club, and she's sure of it now: Their contact isn't here.
Besides her, Han suddenly grabs her arm. She follows his gaze. Two white helmets, glinting in the strobe lights. Stormtroopers. This pair scans the crowd, and behind them, Leia sees with dismay, three more guard the door.
Han bends to say something in her ear, but it's useless, so he keeps his hold on her elbow, and they swim into the throngs of revelers. Leia's heart pounds in her ears. Don't panic, she counsels herself. They've faced worse odds than five Imps in an impenetrable dance party.
Then, at the fire exit in the back of the club: five more of them, blocking the way out, shining flashlights in the would-be smokers' faces. They're looking for someone. Han turns them back around, only to find that the stormtroopers from the front are now working their way through the crowd.
There's no way out. Only a short, dimly lit corridor leading to the freshers, where an amorous couple is shamelessly entwined. If the Imperials did get wind of tonight's meeting, they are only looking for her, Leia surmises. Han was never mentioned to any of the Rebels' transmissions. As the enemy closes in, she grabs him by the collar and yanks him into that dark alcove.
Later, she would stand by this plan. When she presses herself into the wall and uses his large frame as a shield, she disappears from view. His shoulders alone block out what little light shines overhead, giving her that child's certainty that if she can't see anything, nobody can see her. Whether she meant to pull his face down on that same surge of instinct or he took it upon himself to embellish their cover, she'll never know. All that matters is that in that shadowed corridor, with his forearm braced next to her head, his dark jacket hanging open like a curtain, and his mouth on hers, if any sliver of her face remains visible, it isn't the sober star of wanted posters in every Imperial command center, but that of a wanton, anonymous party-goer – too intent on her own gratification to plan any sort of Revolution.
Most of these thoughts she formulates much later. In the moment, she is only emotion. There is fear, of course: fear that they could simply tap Han on the shoulder and discover her. But soon that vigilance is struggling against something much more powerful – a rising tide of heat that fills the space between them and floods her senses with a heavy, inexplicable sense of ease. This is easy, she thinks. Gravity holds her down and the wall holds her up. It's even easier with her eyes closed – now she is sure she has never acted so convincingly. Just moments ago, she would have been insulted by the thought of his mercenary hands on her; now she is surprised to learn this escape hatch was available to her all along. She's surprised they haven't always done this. All she has to do is hold onto his collar and let her mouth fall open under his, and the world around them melts away. Her desperation dissolves into one last, incoherent prayer: that the danger will simply pass them by. That they won't be made to stop.
When Han releases her, her hands are shaking and she can't remember her last thought. He casts a glance over his shoulder to check on the fire exit, and the din of the tap-caf comes roaring back in her ears, so she doesn't hear what he says when he twists back around. Then he smirks, and Leia returns to herself. The music has changed. An entirely different band is on stage. The other couple has vanished; she hadn't noticed. No white helmets are in sight. They hurry through the back door.
It's a quick walk back to the spaceport, where the Millennium Falcon awaits them, along with more bad news.
The port police, Chewie roars as soon as they make it aboard, has closed all but one gate, and have been ordered to inspect all ships requesting clearance to leave. A bottleneck has formed in the hangar.
Leia swears out loud. The violence of her outburst makes Han laugh.
"Is something funny?" she demands.
"Relax," Han replies. "We're not the only ones with something to hide. I promise, every single pilot here looks guilty. We'll blend right in."
Still, with his record, it's safer to forge the ship logs and have Chewie up front playing captain. "No passengers," Han instructs his co-pilot. "No cargo. Tell them you dropped off some musicians. Or magicians."
"And we just hide?" Leia asks.
The Falcon, Han boasts as Chewie busies himself with the transponder, has one thing he's sure the other ships don't. He marches her over to the ring corridor and pulls a screwdriver out of one of his vest's many pockets. Leia watches him kneel on the floor and push down hard into a seam in the deckplates, and one of the panels hinges open.
She recalls the well-worn tale of the Millennium Falcon's arrival onto the Death Star, when Han, Luke, Ben Kenobi, and Chewie evaded Imperial detection. She hopes the enemy hasn't updated their scanning technology.
"Hop in," Han says. Leia lowers herself cautiously into the dark compartment and he follows after her. Then he slides the plate back into place like a lid over a coffin. She can't see her hand in front of her face. Legs outstretched, she can sit up, but Han shifts besides her uncomfortably. She registers him slouching down beside her.
The wait is interminable. Long enough for dread to turn into boredom. At first, Leia occupies herself with the port-mortem of the failed intelligence mission. She begins to compile the report in her head, preempting the questions she knows the Generals will ask upon her return to base. After a while, she finds herself contemplating the slowness of the port police's crisis response. She is wondering about the recent contents of the smuggling compartment when the deckplates are jolted by Chewie's heavy, padded footsteps, and she hears the unmistakable sound of the hatch opening.
Han chose the split second before this moment to shift again, but now he freezes, so that Leia's awareness is divided between the danger above and the solid, unyielding length of leg pressed against her outer thigh.
The police clomp on board. Leia hears them milling around and consulting each other, apparently flummoxed by a Wookie captain who cannot communicate in Basic. The confusion turns into an argument, though Chewie's roars drown out most of their voices. After what feels like an eternity, they manage to extract a signature from him. The voices return to a calm, bureaucratic baseline. Though they are muffled now, she clearly hears one voice order the others to split up and search the ship. The footsteps scatter.
Leia can hardly breathe. When Han finally moves his leg away, he seems to fall away into the darkness and disappear. The absence disorients her, and she instinctively turns to seek him out. But she misjudged the distance. He was was turned towards her all along, or they turned towards each other in tandem, and her nose bumps into his face. She twists away, or twists towards him – or he twists towards her, she'll never know – but now his lips graze hers. Neither one of them moves.
Heavy boots thud above their heads, but in the compartment, there is only darkness and stillness. Only their lips touch, then press together.
She's kissed boys before, some even more boldly than this. There was the one that tasted like cake on her birthday, the one that tasted like fine wine, the adventure that exhaled cheap liquor. But she's never experienced anything like the silence she finds inside Han's mouth. This time, it's even easier to let go. She closes her eyes and lets it engulf her. She's eager to fall back in, to sink to the bottom where no one will find her. She presses into him, in search of that comfortable heat. But soon the kiss changes. Oblivion has a tongue, and it curls around the back of her teeth. The feeling is unbearable. Rough and slick at once, a wave of alien sensation that rolls through her, drags her back to the surface. It's a good thing she's had years of military training to hammer her self-control into an unbreakable ring of protection. Without it she might moan, and it would all be over. Without it she might tip into him, obey the sudden, feverish impulse to climb on him. Instead she remains upright. She breathes hard through her nose. Leia can ignore her urges but not the challenge. Hands grasping her own knees, she opens wider, dares him to press deeper. Han resists her bid for self-immolation. In fact, he seems determined to explore her as slowly as possible, until she is squirming in her own skin and, finally, of its own volition, one hand flies out to dig cruelly into the back of his neck. Her heart stops for a moment, but to his credit, Han doesn't make a sound. He placates her with an authoritative sweep of her palate. Subdued, absorbed by the plush, insistent heat, Leia anchors her fingers back into his collar and welcomes him.
They don't notice the officers' departure or the sounds of the landing ramp retracting. Only the sudden racket of the engines pierces their shared trance, and then the force of the accelerators breaks them apart. Chewie removes the metal deckplate, and they stand, blinking in the light.
Not ten minutes later, it all seems very improbable. Leia stands in the Falcon's galley, making caf for the sake of looking busy, and wonders if she can run her underwear through the sonic wash without Han noticing. She feels oddly betrayed by her body's secret enthusiasm – the way it made plans on its own. Or, more troublingly, conspired with him, received his touch as instructions.
The very thought seems to bid the cockpit doors open, and Han saunters over to join her. She remains focused on her caf preparation, so he steps in closer, leans against the counter next to her until she is forced to glance up.
He is looking at her strangely.
"Are we on course?" Leia asks.
"Yeah," Han says. "Four hours." He hardly pauses before asking: "Do you want to…?" He tilts his head towards his cabin. The hatch door is half-open. Leia glimpses his bunk lying in wait behind it.
She answers with more composure than she thought she would, given the situation between her legs. "No," she says. Her voice betrays none of her uncertainty, and it is a relief, in fact, to find that part of herself just as she left it, not dizzy or dripping or in any way compromised.
Han looks surprised. Hurt, even, as far as Leia can tell, which, given his reputation, she might find funny if reality didn't suddenly, finally snap together for her. The adrenaline haze has lifted. Like a sleepwalker rudely awakened, she finds herself standing under the galley's bright lights, headed back to the Rebel base, and somewhere in this disaster of a mission, she has made an entirely new mistake. One she cannot account for.
But she is a planetary leader, she reminds herself, not a hapless ingenue. She can solve this. She takes a deep breath. "Look," Leia says firmly, turning her traitorous body to face him. "Thank you for getting us out of there. But whatever else you may be thinking… Nothing happened. And it won't happen. Not now and not ever." She pauses, scans his face for a response. "Do you understand?"
The boys back on Alderaan took similar reversals in stride. But Han stiffens like he's been slapped. The look in his eyes hardens, from confusion to anger in a flash. He stares at her like that, like he wants to fight, and she wonders, deliriously, if he's about to lash out and say something awful, or worse. They stand suspended for another moment, until his expression twists. Finally, he shakes his head. "Whatever you say, Princess," he says, punctuating the last word with a sneer. He looks her over one last time and walks away.
The following morning Leia sees Han sitting with the other pilots in the mess hall. The group explodes into raucous laughter, and she feels her cheeks burn. She hadn't considered that he might tell everyone, but now the thought gnaws at her. She knows what these rough-necks are like, and how they brag about every supposed score. She's even heard some of Han's stories before, although only secondhand, from Luke: she knows who carved those jealous initials into the queen's square in his Dejarik table, how he almost got his nose broken a second time, and what he did to deserve it.
They avoid each other. Luke comments on it one day when, as Leia approaches their lunch table with her tray, Han gets up and leaves without a word. She pretends not to notice.
"What's with you two?" Luke asks. "You've been mad at each other since your trip to Vesta Prime."
"I'm not mad at him," Leia says.
"Did something happen?" Luke's blue eyes widen. He lowers his voice. "What did he do?"
She shakes her head firmly. "Nothing happened. Well, I already told you it was a disaster, but it wasn't his fault." She could have stopped there, but she adds: "I don't know what's wrong with him." Lying never works with Luke, not since he began his Jedi training. He narrows his eyes for a moment, then returns to his porridge with a chuckle.
The gossip never materializes, and Leia gradually allows herself to relax. Nothing happened, she repeats to herself whenever she catches herself thinking about it. It begins to feel more like a daydream than a memory. For her next trip off-base, Leia requests a different pilot. Then a different pilot after that. But she can sit with him and Luke in the mess hall, or join Sabacc games on his ship, and they go back to how they were before. Not quite friends.
Then Han leaves to drop someone else off on a satellite outpost, and he stays gone for a very long time. Leia keeps track of the weeks until a standard month passes, then nearly two, and she tells Luke to accept that he's not coming back. He reappears just in time to join the move to their next base.
Any later and there might have been nobody here waiting for him, Leia tells him in the hangar. She came out here long after the Generals questioned and released him, after the recruits finished slapping his back and marveling at his safe return. They would all be on a frozen planet ten sectors away, furthering the Revolution without him, she continues, and without the coordinates he would never have found them again. Han's face darkens, turning dusky under his golden tan. She wonders where he's been, and why he hasn't shaved in weeks. "Had a chance to make some money," he starts to explain. Leia sighs. She knows what he'll say next. Debt, Jabba, you don't understand. She's already nodding along, resigned.
Han frowns. "But I've been fooling myself," he says suddenly. Something shifts in his tone, and she stops contemplating his torn collar to find his eyes searching for hers. There's no sneer, no sarcasm when he continues. "I'm done with that life. I can't go back."
This is not their usual script. Leia hesitates. "So, you're… staying?" she asks.
"If you want me to," he replies, still watching her intently.
"Of course we'd like you to," she says.
Leia can't sleep on Hoth. The cold seeps in from the seams of her sleep sack, and the ice walls reflect too much light, so her room is never truly dark, and her thoughts never really stop. She gives up at around 0200 and tugs her snowsuit and boots back on. Sometimes wandering around base helps. Sometimes she ends up at her desk and it's easier to just start working.
In the hangar, only the droids are still up. The rows of fighter ships are dark and silent. When she reaches the edge of the tarmac she sees the light is on in the Falcon's cockpit, though she can't see inside.
"You coming to arrest me?" Han's voice asks from behind her.
Leia whirls around. He raises his bare hands in mock surrender. "I was going to steal some gloves, but I guess you're out," he says. He's wearing a dark, lumpy jacket and his breath comes out in plumes.
"They're not in storage," Leia responds automatically. "They're in the Quartermaster's office." She fishes her key chip out of her pocket and dangles it before him. "Follow me."
Something about sneaking around deserted corridors reminds her of boarding school and impish escapades, long ago before anything mattered, and she can't help but smother a giggle. In the office, she unlocks the uniform bin and watches Han sift through the piles of clothing. He shakes his head at each glove that doesn't fit, and she laughs again. He grins back at her, white teeth flashing in the dim light. She doesn't feel that cold anymore, and she's glad she isn't brooding alone in her ice block room.
They walk back to the hangar as accomplices. When they reach the Falcon, Han says abruptly: "You know, I got a cure for insomnia. You want to come up?"
Leia freezes. He comes to a stop too, standing by her side, only a few steps from the landing ramp. She looks up at the ship. The edges of the ramp are dusted with frost, and the cockpit is dark – Chewie must have turned off the light and gone to bed. Her heart is pounding suddenly. She can feel it in her throat against the banded collar of her snowsuit.
"It's just hot red milk with honeysap and whiskey. Wookie remedy." Han clarifies, watching her hesitate. His voice is softer now, a gentle contrast to the frigid air. The words sound warm and delicious, as tempting as the promise of hot torment in the tundra. They're enough to make her hesitate. Already her eyelids feel heavy, and all she sees is his lips.
She shakes herself awake. "I'm fine," Leia says. "All I needed was a walk. Good night."
When Leia was a child, the only area of the palace that was forbidden to her was the balcony around the watchtower.
Naturally, the young Princess found herself drawn to it. As far back as she could remember, she would stand at the crystal doors and look down at the breathtaking drop to the forest floor. When she got a little older, if nobody was watching, she would dare herself to step out onto it – just one toe, then a full foot, then both her hands curled around the thin, carved railing above her head. She could not explain it to her poor parents. She did it because it was there, and yes, she understood the danger, she even feared it. But she craved it, she needed to master it.
That sense of vertigo returns in the next weekly briefing, when she catches Han watching her. She returns his gaze to show him he doesn't scare her. He smiles. She feels the drop, the long way down. After the meeting, she demotes him on the information list. Let him hear updates second-hand, if he can't take them seriously.
Han looks at her warily when she approaches him in the hangar. He's elbows-deep in the side of his ship, which Leia doesn't find promising, but she asks anyway:
"Do you think you can fly me into Ord Mantell's southern pole without passing through the orbit transfer?"
He straightens up, immediately interested. The sound of his wrench clattering to the ground draws an irritated howl from Chewbacca, who peers out from around the landing strut. Han wipes his hands clean and considers her request with all the magnanimity of a pirate captain accepting his exhausted quarry's surrender. "I know I can, Sweetheart," he says, leaning against the hull with a triumphant grin. "But what's the matter with your other pilot? Can't swing it?"
"Everyone else is busy," Leia says.
He frowns, but she's already walking away. "You'll get the briefing from Mon Mothma," she calls out over her shoulder, "We leave in 48 hours."
Ord Mantell's southern capital is neglected, bordering on dilapidated. In the past, its neon casino lights glowed so brightly that the city could be seen from outer space. But they have long since burned out. Now the streets are filthy and the casinos loom sullen, their façades extinguished, ashen with memories of the pre-Imperial credit rush. The natural beauty of the surrounding mountain chains has been ignored for centuries. Only locals and tourists banned from other entertainment districts come here.
It is the perfect setting for a crucial transaction between the Alliance and the Bright Jewel system's exiled monarchs. Leia changes into non-descript Core attire when the Falcon begins its descent, and after weeks in a snowsuit, she feels weightless in the woven tunic and pants. She adds a jacket and tucks a blaster into the inside pocket, taking care to remove the mash-gum wrappers left behind by its previous wearer.
They leave Chewbacca to guard the ship and set out. Per the mission brief, their contact has reserved a room at one of the casino hotels. Han tries to pretend he doesn't know exactly where it is. He lets her lead the way from the transport center to the dismal waterfront, but he seems to anticipate every turn. Once inside, they learn that the suite is ready, but the Bright Jewel delegate is late. Actually, Han and Leia are late – the space station shuttle was delayed, and packed, and it made endless stops for the twitchy crowds drifting in and out of the city center – and so the delegate checked in, left a note, and stepped out.
They sweep the lavish room for bugs. Finding none, Leia sits at the dining table and reviews her notes. She tries not to think about family vacations in riverfront hotels whose tufted carpets didn't have burn marks and whose wallpaper wasn't mysteriously stained. Han collapses stoically into the stately sofa. She wonders about his past visits to this place, but she decides not to ask.
Tell me the truth, he insisted just before she boarded his ship. He stood at the foot of the ramp and crossed his arms across his chest, as though he might bar her from entering.
Leia paused in front of him, her travel bag slung over one shoulder. She hadn't flown with him since Vesta Prime. She wondered if he was remembering the same things now. She brushed the image away. It's a tricky approach, and you're our best pilot, she answered. His posture changed so predictably she couldn't help but roll her eyes. And it's an unsavory city of low-lives and criminals, she continued, So Mon Mothma would rather send you than any of our innocent recruits.
His expression turned inscrutable. It's not that bad, he said. He looked down at her impassively, still blocking her path up the ramp. Maybe I'll take Your Innocence on a tour when we're through.
That won't be necessary, Leia replied. She maneuvered around him and stomped aboard.
An hour passes in silence before the Bright Jewel system's representative arrives. When he does, it is obvious where he has been – he is beaming from pointed ear to ear, and his pockets jingle with each step. It's also obvious that he has made newer, better plans for his evening along the way. Underneath his courtly manners, he's clearly itching to return downstairs.
Still, it takes another hour to hammer out the finer points of the weapons agreement. When Leia is satisfied, she places her credit chip on the dining table, and he hands over the datapad with the encrypted locations of the decommissioned starfighters. Eight months of work led to this deal. The finality of the exchange leaves her lightheaded. On his way out, the delegate insists on ordering them dinner to make up for the late hour, and he pulls out a bottle of Br'raskan wine from the chiller unit, to be charged to the room. He vanishes in a cheerful flurry.
Leia closes the door behind him. They can't exit right after him anyway. She sits back down at the table and focuses on writing her report until dinner arrives. When it does, Han gets up from his luxurious slouch to fetch the hovertray. He joins her at the table and pops the lids off their meals, revealing two generous slabs of meat with sides of native root and plant matter. The kind of meal Leia hasn't seen in months. She wonders aloud if she should save her steak for Chewbacca.
"Chewie gets meat three times a day," Han informs her. "I spend a fortune on those carnivore rations, and you've been living on gruel and noodles. Besides, if we eat the salad after, he won't be able to smell it."
They don't talk much after that. It should be a celebratory dinner, but Leia mostly feels drained. The sun was just starting to set when they sat down. When she looks up from her empty plate, she sees herself reflected in the floor-to-ceiling window. The world outside is perfectly black and opaque. She looks very small and pale.
"Crime time," Han remarks, following her gaze. He smirks at her bemused expression, then explains. Summer nights in the polar city are very dark but very short, he says. They'll only need to wait four hours or so. She stifles the urge to argue, because she knows he's right. He offers to stay up if she wants to take a nap. They both look at the bed.
"Or…" Han says, dragging his gaze away from the mattress and pushing back his chair to stand. "You ever seen the light show?"
He grabs the ambient controller off the table and moves towards the window. In one click, the room is plunged into shadow. Leia protests loudly, but when he throws open the heavy glass panes, she glimpses a shimmer in the distance.
"Didn't use to be able to see these when the city was lit up all night," Han says, as if he'd personally witnessed the city's rise and fall.
When her eyes adjust, Leia sees something she'd only read about in travel texts. The inky sky is illuminated with dancing flashes of multicolored light, flickering faint then bright. Captivated, Leia rises from her chair and feels her way over to the window, where she sits on the floor like a child.
At some point, Han comes to join her on the carpet, lounging a few paces away, and together they watch the swirls of blues and greens grow and grow, then disappear.
"It doesn't last very long," Han tells her after a long moment of nothing, almost apologetically. Leia continues staring into the empty sky, not quite ready to give up yet. She doesn't look away until the cheerful sound of a bottle being uncorked breaks their pitch-black silence.
"I didn't say you could drink that," she hears herself say. Han ignores her. She hears him takes a loud swig.
With a sigh, Leia crawls over. When she hears him drink again, she reaches out in the direction of the bottle. Her fingers land over his. She doesn't let go. On impulse, she uses both their hands to guide the bottle to her mouth, slowly, as if she needs help finding her own lips. No pretext is too absurd for Han Solo. His other hand locates her shoulder in the darkness, then very helpfully moves to support her head. His fingers tangle in her braided hair. The glass edge clinks gently against her teeth. She barely has time to swallow before the bottle is replaced with his mouth.
This time, he immediately wraps both arms around her. It's less of an embrace and more like wrestling with a storm, with what he unleashes on her. There's no time to plead innocence and back out, and not a moment for reacquaintance. He kisses her vengefully and reproachfully and hard. He pushes into her mouth until she's panting under the weight of his presumption, then pulls her tighter to better invade her. He's trying to settle something, she can tell; he kisses her like he wants to drive the last six months out of her. Like he wants to march her backwards up the Falcon's ramp, muscle her into the galley, and demand a different answer. When she gasps into his lips, he runs his palms all over her like she's the one who needs calming. For a moment, he's tender – or promises to be, if she surrenders. But Leia is merciless by nature. He didn't accept her terms; she won't accept his. She won't soften in his arms, she won't submit and let him cradle her. She only goads him on. She lets him taste her teeth, her depths, her doubts. She draws him in then pushes back, she quarrels with him until they stumble over the precipice, until she finds herself pinned to the floor with a conquering leg between her thighs.
The moan that leaps from her throat startles them both. Leia gasps again – at the weight of him there, at the sound of her own voice, unrecognizable, at the sudden loss of contact when he pulls back.
The room rights itself. Pressed into the plush carpet, Leia hears nothing but their racing breaths. Han props himself up, half on top of her and half hovering above her where she can't see him. He keeps his leg where it is, firm and arrogant where no other pilot has ever dared venture, where her pulse is pounding like never before. But his fury has abated, or he locks it back inside. Gentle fingertips trace her cheek, her jaw, her lower lip, until the quiet overwhelms her more than the kiss. When she can't take it anymore, Leia grabs his shoulders to pull him back down. Instead he rolls them both over, draping her body over his, her legs splayed astride his hips. Her nose brushes against the hair at the side of his head, which is perplexingly soft. Her eyes suddenly sting, and she buries her face in his neck.
"Leia," he says, letting his voice drag in her ear like velvet. She silences him with a hard kiss of her own.
Even flat on his back, Han won't let her take charge. He breaks away to work his mouth down her throat, slow and hot, and everything Leia thought she knew collapses. Suddenly she is moaning, writhing, out of control. The yes-no push-pull inside of her is a threadbare lyre string, wound so tight that she can't draw breath, she can't think or do anything but make those sounds and press herself against him. He pushes her jacket down and off. His warm hands reach into her waistband. A flash of light sears the inside of her eyelids. When she opens her eyes, the room is filled with sparks, the door has fallen off its hinges, a blaster is floating towards them through the air, and by the time she screams Han is already on his feet.
It wasn't the Empire at all – Han recognized the bounty hunter. He blames himself.
Leia watches in a daze as he wraps her arm in sani-gauze. She isn't convinced. "From Tatooine to Ord Mantell, just to catch some small-time smuggler?"
"Small-time?" Han asks incredulously.
He insists on changing the bacta-soaked bandage twice during the trip, and when she tells him basic med-training advises against this, he starts yelling. He yells at Chewie, who looks at them both with concern, then he leaves her side to yell at his ship. He comes back a little while later, asks to take her vitals again. He offers her his pillow, another painkiller, an ancient piece of candy from the back of his cupboards, all of which Leia refuses. Chewie returns with a cup of hot red milk and honey, which she accepts. She falls asleep. When she wakes up, Han is locked in the cockpit.
They limp back to Hoth. Leia slips out of the med-bay while he is being debriefed. She wants to put this disaster them. She decides to let the days pass, to bury herself in her duties and let distance do its work once more. She can acknowledge what exists between them and conclude that they can't handle it responsibly. But things are different now. Han stalks her around base like a dire Batuu wolf, he scratches the ice and howls while she tries to throw him off her scent. She evades him during the day and imagines him outside her door at night, as she pulls the covers up to her chin to trap heat. She dreams of his tongue. In the mornings, she feels all eyes on them.
On the fifth day, he actually does show up at her door.
"Can we talk?" Han asks. But she is late for a meeting. He walks her to the Command Center. "It's important," he tells her along the way. "Come by the Falcon afterwards?" She nods, but after the meeting there is a security briefing, and then a review, and her Intelligence officers have updates for her eyes only. There are rations in her desk and she doesn't leave until well after midnight, and then it's too late.
When he tells her he is leaving, it's her turn to yell after him, to chase him down the hall. Her eyes and cheeks burn hot but the tide that sweeps her feet out from under her is cold and frothing.
They survive another, worse disaster not long after.
Han wrestles her onto the Falcon moments before the base on Hoth collapses. He blasts them out of the Empire's reach, conceals his malfunctioning ship in an asteroid crevice, then makes his move in the dull light of the Falcon's engineering bay.
She can't believe he would do this now. Of course, now that it's a bad time, Han is patient again. He moves in slow motion. He takes hold of her hand and doesn't let go until she looks at him. He stands so close she can smell the blaster fumes.
Leia's back bumps into a wall of cables, pipes, and wires. She really thought she'd never see the inside of this ship again. Now she doesn't remember why she believed him when he said he was leaving. It's hard enough to remember that she hadn't always known him, that he hadn't been waiting for her on Coruscant or Alderaan.
Give the wrong man an opening, her family had always warned, and he'll take everything. If she'd seen him skulking around the palace, leaning against the statues, she'd have screamed. She wants to hang on to the threads of anger she felt on Hoth, but the frozen corridors already feel like years ago, and he did just risk his life to drag her kicking and screaming away from certain death. He is also doing something wonderfully distracting to her palm.
"I'm not trembling," Leia says, although this is the first time she's actually seen his eyes up close. In fact, she's never really looked into a man's pupils before. His are blown wide, two black pits sucking her in, growing larger and larger around her. All the events that led to this – to her back against the wall, tucked into a corner of his ship, lost in space – seem inevitable now, like a galactic snare he set the moment they met, a web he spun all around her. The kiss is as soft as a trap, and it feels good to be caught.
She knows by now that the real threat is not what he'll take, but what he wants to give her. His tongue coaxing her mouth open is just the start – she feels his heart and the hard gift of his body straining behind his clothes, ready to surge after that slick scout. Hers if she wants them.
When he draws back a fraction of an inch, Leia opens her eyes.
"Okay, hotshot," she whispers.
Xx.