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Han pointed to some emergency warming blankets and thermal packs on her list. “Seemed like we might need more of those, what with the ice, so I managed to get ‘em to throw in another 10 boxes or so.”
Leia wasn’t always the one assigned to review the supply run with Han upon their return, but when she did it just underlined for her how lucky they’d been to end up with Han and Chewbacca working for the Alliance.
She looked up. “Good thinking. Was it much more?”
Han shook his head. “Nah, no charge.”
“How’d you manage that?”
“I got my ways,” he replied with a shrug.
Leia couldn’t help laughing. “Ah, so you flirted your way into it,” she said.
Han shrugged again, although if Leia wasn’t mistaken, he did seem mildly sheepish, which implied she was right. “Eh, they were overchargin’ for the bacta, so they were still gettin’ a deal. You complaining?”
“Not at all,” she returned, pausing to make a brief note on the datapad. “We’re just fortunate to have a contractor who can be so capable and charming.” She nearly winked at him in addition to her smile, but decided at the last moment to hold back.
Han’s eyebrows raised in mock surprise. “Careful, there, Your Worship; that sounded like a real compliment.”
“Maybe,” she demurred. She was having fun with this little exchange, so she was drawing it out a bit. “You complaining?”
“Nah.” He seemed to have relaxed a little at her response. “We all good here?”
Leia touched the datapad to submit her checkout from the supply run. “All good,” she said.
“Pleasure doin’ business with you,” he said, and then immediately switched gears. “You eat yet?”
Leia felt a mild sense of disappointment, knowing this signaled a forthcoming invitation that she was going to have to turn down.
“I’m still on shift in the command center till 2100,” she apologized.
Han didn’t seem bothered. “‘S alright. I’ll come find you later,” he promised.
He patted the outside of his jacket pockets briefly, as if searching for something, then reached into one of them and pulled out a small parcel. “That’s for you,” he said, casually handing it over.
Leia could feel herself perking up slightly. Han normally waited until they were in private to slip her whatever little thing he’d brought her from a supply run, but she guessed that he didn’t want to wait. Maybe he’d figured it was private enough; while there was plenty of activity in the hangar around them, nobody seemed to be particularly focused on their conversation at the moment.
“Thank you,” she said. Han didn’t like it when she made a fuss一and he really hadn’t liked the one time she’d offered to pay him back for one of these packages, had gotten a little offended, in fact一so she tried to keep her gratitude low-key and simple.
“Nothin’ big,” he shrugged, waving her off. “But you’re welcome.” He turned to go. “Don’t have too much fun in the command center, General.”
“I won’t,” Leia promised, tucking the parcel into the pocket of her vest.
The parcel turned out to be a small bottle of starflower-scented shampoo. Leia was glad she’d waited to find a moment to slip into her makeshift office in the command center to open it. Last supply run, he’d brought back a tin of mints with a label in Alderaanian script, and she’d teared up immediately; it wouldn’t do for her to break down publicly in the middle of her shift over a travel-sized hair care product.
She removed the cap and breathed in the scent. It wasn’t one of the luxury brands, but that meant that the starflower scent was a little more pronounced, so she was actually glad of that. Where did he find these things?
At the sight of movement at the entrance to her office, Leia quickly moved to replace the cap and put the bottle away, but relaxed slightly when she saw who it was.
Carlist Rieekan had clearly noticed the bottle Leia was holding, given the slight change in his smile, but he immediately turned to the business at hand. “Excuse me, General. Is now still a good time to review those communications reports?”
Oh, right, she had suggested getting together after she’d finished closing out the supply run.
“Of course, come on in. I was just一” She decided to abandon that sentence. Thankfully, Carlist was one of the few people on base who was unlikely to press her to explain further.
“Of course.”
She put the bottle back in her vest pocket and cleared a space on her desk for Carlist’s datapad, but as they reviewed the reports and made notes on next steps, Leia felt a thought in the back of her mind begin to nag at her. Multiple thoughts, actually. Not bothering her, exactly, just一nudging her in a way that told her they’d keep coming up until she actually addressed them. Something about starflower shampoo and the casual Of course from Carlist and the way she’d eagerly anticipated the arrival of the Falcon earlier today. The other assorted items she’d received over the past several months, the only truly personal effects she even owned. The mug of strong kaffe that Leia could set her chrono by, likely arriving in another two standard hours, just when her energy and spirits tended to flag.
Shortly after she finished her meeting with Carlist, she allowed one of those thoughts to fully land. Specifically, the remark she’d made in Han’s presence when her last bottle of Alderaanian shampoo was on its way out; at the end, she’d been mixing it with the standard-issue supply in an attempt to make it last longer. (She’d originally considered not using it at all, just having it as a keepsake, but that seemed such a waste given their low supplies of everything. And something about having her hair smell like starflowers helped her feel like not every part of her was lost with her planet.)
Interesting coincidence, if it was one, that this bottle had been the thing that Han had found for her this time.
He’s a good friend, she thought, smiling to herself as she returned to her work.
The kaffe, along with Han, arrived right on time. And he was in rare form tonight.
“Wanna win some money?” he asked, after sliding her one of the thermal mugs from the Falcon and watching with amusement as she tried to hold herself back from snatching it up immediately.
She took a long but careful sip一it was piping hot, Han must have brought it immediately after brewing it一and decided to play along.
“Always,” she said.
Han’s eyes twinkled a little, and he grinned. “Alright. So here’s the thing—I figured out what’s in the new betting pool.”
“Which one?” Leia laughed. Wes Janson had an entire flimsi notebook devoted to his ongoing betting pools on base, which High Command wasn’t supposed to know about, as Jan Dodonna had a weird bug in his bonnet about gambling. Carlist and Leia indulged Jan by giving cover whenever the bets got a bit out of control, and indulged Wes and the rest of the Rogues by feigning ignorance of the entire operation, for the most part. Entertainment was hard to come by around here, and if Wes wanted to help provide it and it wasn’t hurting anyone, Leia certainly wasn’t going to make a thing about it.
“The new-new one,” Han was explaining. “In his brand spankin’ new notebook. The one he keeps—oh, right, the one you don’t know about.”
“Oh, that one,” Leia nodded.
Han occasionally forgot that Leia wasn’t treated the same as the other Rebels on base, even those in command. People didn’t tell her things. Well, a few of them did, Luke for one, but Luke was different than most beings. And Han kept her up with all the latest, though Leia sometimes couldn’t tell if that was because he had little use for rank and authority in general, or if it was just that he had always treated her like a person rather than a title and wasn’t about to stop now.
“Anyway, it’s some kinda competition thing. Brackets.”
“A tournament?” Leia took another long sip of kaffe, pausing to savor it a little.
Han nodded. “Hottest on base.”
“Hottest what?”
Han grinned. “Everything. There’s a bracket for pilots, ground staff, hottest couple, the works.”
Leia considered that, enjoying more of her kaffe. She should be pacing herself, making this cup last longer, but it was so strong and so warm and so good. And the current conversation was a welcome distraction from the intelligence analysis she’d been slogging through when Han had come in.
“And how precisely will we be winning money from this?” she asked.
There was that slightly sheepish look again. “Well,” Han admitted, “not sure, precisely. But I figured if I had a jump on the bets and the stakes, we could figure it out together.”
Leia felt her eyebrow raise at that, and decided one of her more regal airs was appropriate to the situation. “Captain Solo,” she said crisply, “do you mean to make me your accomplice in a plan to cheat?”
She got the desired response—a hearty laugh.
“Nah, Sweetheart,” he said, putting a little extra drawl into his usual Corellian accent, “I mean for us to win.”
Adding the new bottle of shampoo to her personals bag prompted Leia to get out her other keepsakes again once she reached her quarters. It was a strange collection, a mix of truly precious artifacts, like the petals of a t’ill flower preserved in amber, or a small Alderaani tapestry, with what normally would be completely ordinary items. Things that on most planets, on planets that still existed, would be considered junk, really. The tin of mints she’d teared up over last time. Empty soap and shampoo containers from on-planet brands. A compact with swirling designs on the top and the tiniest sliver of pressed powder still left in it. A bottle of cheap fragrance that had been marketed to young teens. A comic book given away for free as a promotion. Fabric swatches; Leia wasn’t even sure where those had come from or how Han had gotten them or how he’d even known they were Alderaanian.
But the item she found herself turning over in her hands was not one of her Alderaanian treasures. It was a sabacc chip, one from the Falcon. Han had given her this, too, having insisted she keep the chip from her winning bet the first time she’d beaten him and Chewie.
“Don’t say I never donated anything to the cause,” he’d joked.
“You didn’t,” she’d shot back. “I won that fair and square.”
He’d laughed, in that relaxed, familiar way that felt like another reward.
“[Be careful, Cub],” Chewie had teased, with Leia delighted she had learned enough Shryiiwook to understand him. “[She will come back and win your ship.]”
Han had shrugged that off. “‘M not stupid enough to gamble my ship.”
Now, Leia held the chip in her hands.
I knew there was more to you than money.
This was where her thoughts had been leading her; Han had been doing so much for her, this little bottle of shampoo being just the latest example, and Leia wanted to do something for him. But so far the only idea she’d come up with was money.
In Leia’s previous life, she could have bought him something. A gift. A bottle or a case of the good Corellian whiskey, or a bottle of Toniray (which she wasn’t certain he’d even ever tasted, but it was rare and he might enjoy it). A new shaving kit. Parts to soup up the Falcon even beyond its current capabilities. A nice soap. A pass to the swoop races on Telos IV. A new set of sabacc cards.
But even if she’d had any money that wasn’t already half-promised to the Rebellion or to her fellow Alderaanians, Leia knew these gifts would be all wrong. Insulting, even. Too expensive and too cheap all at once.
And money was too impersonal. Yes, it was the kind of impersonal that could be damned useful, and Leia would never take that for granted, but the way these little candies and shampoos and trinkets made Leia feel was something almost indescribable. Warm, in a cold place. Here, still here despite everything that she’d lost. Seen. Lov一cared for.
And she was going to, what, gift him a pathetic pile of credits in return? Yuck. No.
The only money that would really be worth his while would be enough money to pay off Jabba. And even if that had been realistic for her to provide—it wasn’t, at least not right now—it felt oddly self-serving, like she would just be paying him off so he’d no longer have any excuse not to stay. Like she was trying to buy him for the Rebellion.
So not money, then. She thumbed the fluted edge of the credit chip.
She could figure this out. She just needed to think.
“What color y’think that turns your tongue?” Han asked, nodding his head toward the table they were watching from across the outdoor lounge, where two other beings were sipping some kind of frozen drink that was a rainbow of neon colors. They were in one of the thousands of little outdoor bars on this island on the southern continent of Bimmisaari, waiting for their contacts under the guise of people watching, but they’d been sitting here for almost three hours without a sign, and Leia was getting restless.
It had been Han’s turn to freak out earlier, when he’d thought for a moment that he might have recognized someone (or, more to the point, that they might have been in the position to recognize him). Now, Leia thought she’d kept her impatience under wraps, but Han had obviously noticed, given the fact that he kept coming up with new topics of conversation to distract her, or reassure her. And their contacts weren’t even technically late for the meetup, just not here yet. There was quite a large time window.
“Gray?” she guessed in answer to Han’s question.
He made a face. Leia had to laugh; he looked a little ridiculous behind that enormous drink she’d procured for him, hiding his face behind about 12 different paper umbrellas and fruit skewers and assorted doodads in case the “old friend” he’d caught a glimpse of really was the bounty hunter he thought for a moment he recognized. (It wasn’t.) Now Han just looked like an awkward man on holiday who was especially fond of extra umbrellas in his Blue Lagoon.
“Because of the colors swirling together,” Leia elaborated, keeping her eyes on the neon rainbow drink couple. They were lingering a bit, which could imply they were the beings Leia and Han were to meet, but it was hard to tell. A lot of folks were lingering at this bar, which was part of why they’d picked it in the first place.
Leia pointed to the bright liquid in Han’s drink. “What about yours?”
He gave her a quick glimpse of his blue-streaked tongue, sticking it out at her, then grinned and nodded toward another couple that had just arrived at a nearby table. “Mm, checkered shorts, point for me.”
Another thing Han had come up with to pass the time: a game guessing the most common patterns in the attire of their fellow patrons in this outdoor bar.
“I’m still winning,” Leia said.
“Only because that flower print is all they sell at the Seacomber store,” he countered, attempting to move his collection of drink decorations aside long enough to take another sip.
“Still counts.” Leia’s drink was far more navigable, although it was in a hollowed out fruit and not really all that much less ridiculous than Han’s. It was delicious, too; Leia was trying to avoid giving herself brain freeze by drinking it too quickly.
“Fine,” Han agreed, and they both quietly sipped their drinks for a couple of minutes.
Then Han’s expression did something funny, and he reached across the table for her hand. “Hey, Sweetheart.”
Leia immediately caught on, and let him take it. “What is it, Honey?”
Han’s smile didn’t change, and his eyes didn’t leave her face, but she could sense the tension as he said, “Think I know why our friends are late.”
She squeezed his hand. “Late, or not coming?” Leia was still focused on the mission, while at the same time finding Han’s eyes oddly mesmerizing right now.
“Different bar, maybe,” he suggested, “different crowd.”
Leia knew what that meant: Imperials in this location, move to the secondary meetup site.
She wasn’t sure how closely they were being watched, but her instincts told her they shouldn’t linger. She tugged Han’s hand toward hers and briefly kissed it, before saying in a low voice, “Want to get out of here?”
“Do I.” It was a good thing Leia was so conscious of the mission, lest the bedroom eyes Han was turning on her become even more distracting than they already were. Sometimes she really had to remind herself that this kind of thing was an act.
Han threw some credits on the table to tip their server, then they were rushing for the exit, Leia’s hand in his, both of them laughing. Despite their haste, Leia took a second to pluck a few of the little umbrellas and stirrers from Han’s drink on their way out. A little sauce on their cover as a vacationing couple; sometimes it was the little details that made the difference.
A week later, Leia was back on Hoth, teeth nearly chattering out of her head as she struggled through another intelligence analysis report. That was the problem with missions in a tropical or even temperate climate; no matter how successful they were, after the mission was done it was back to ice-cold reality. Emphasis on the ice.
She could hear Jan and Carlist having a rather intense discussion in the room next door that Carlist used as an office. Well, technically it was more Jan going off on some kind of rant and Carlist attempting to calm him down. Evidently Jan had caught wind of the new set of betting pools.
“—utterly inappropriate, and I will not have them distracting from duty….”
“...put him up for insubordination, what’s more they’ve gotten the Princess mixed up in this—”
Jan was sputtering, and Leia let out an audible groan at that bit of the conversation. Jan had worked with Leia closely for three years, had known the things Leia had done and was capable of, and still occasionally insisted on treating her like a delicate flower in constant danger of being corrupted by her fellow Rebels. Leia didn’t know where it was coming from, but she was a little sick of it.
“How long they been going at it?” Han was suddenly in her doorway, kaffe mugs in hand, a knowing smirk on his face.
Leia rolled her eyes. “Carlist has been trying to talk him down for most of the last hour.” She took the mug he was offering her. “Thanks, I really needed this.”
“Got something else for you, too.” Han looked extremely pleased with himself.
“Oh, you do?” Damn. Leia had still not figured out what the hell to do for him, and now he was doubling or tripling down on the gifts? Her latest idea was ship parts, but she was hesitating on that, as it felt almost as mercenary as just giving him credits. And Han actually did the runs where they picked up new ship supplies, so that also felt a little bit too close to him purchasing his own gift.
“Well, technically it’s for both of us,” he said, and handed over a small flimsi notebook.
Before opening it, Leia looked up at him. “Is this—”
“Open it,” he insisted.
Sure enough, it was Wes’s new betting notebook, with a growing set of brackets mapped out on each of the pages. Leia flipped through it for a few minutes, noting who had already invested and what the odds were on several of the bracket entries.
“Where did you get this?”
“He gave it to me.”
Leia gave him a dubious look.
“Really. Offered to keep it safe for ‘em.” He cocked his head toward the argument next door, which incredibly enough seemed to be getting louder. “Dodonna confiscated the other one.”
As if Han had accidentally summoned him, suddenly Jan’s voice was coming closer, and Han and Leia realized at the same time that the argument was making its way directly into her office. On instinct, Leia quickly stashed Wes’s notebook in one of the drawers of her desk and hurriedly picked up her kaffe.
“Your Highness! Good evening,” Jan greeted as he entered, apparently taking a short break from his rant to observe some manners. “Solo,” he said, nodding towards Han.
Then he looked back and forth between Han and Leia, a suspicious look on his face. “Am I interrupting something?”
Han was out of Jan’s direct line of sight, but Leia could see a mischievous look making its way across his face, like he was going to do something to deliberately provoke Jan’s ire. Leia gave him a look of warning, which prompted another look from Han, an invitation to have a little fun. Leia could almost hear the C’mon, Princess in his look.
Leia liked Jan, but he had been an enormous pain in the ass recently, especially when it had come to second-guessing her decisions. If he was worried something salacious was going on with her and Han一which was what his scowling question seemed to imply—maybe they should give him something to worry about.
Okay, she indicated to Han.
Han smirked.
“Not really,” he responded to Jan’s question, pointedly throwing Leia a meaningful look that implied that he really meant, not interrupting, yet. “I was just here to spend time with Leia.”
He took a long drink from his kaffe, and Leia could see Carlist lightly shaking his head in the background, trying and failing to hide a smile.
Leia had forgotten how much she liked the way Han said her name, or how nice it was to hear him say he was here to see her for more than business.
She had not forgotten that Han’s casual demeanor around her was one of the things that made Jan especially grumpy about the smuggler.
“Well, if you will excuse us, Captain Solo, we have something to discuss with Her Highness.”
Yes, that exchange had definitely pushed a few of Jan’s buttons. He was nice and grumpy now, practically pushing Han out the door.
“I’ll bring you that…package, later,” Leia told Han, realizing that she couldn’t exactly give back Wes’ betting notebook right in front of Jan. It did seem that he and Carlist had something private to discuss with her. Plus, her promise sounded suggestive enough that it would annoy Jan further while being perfectly innocent.
“I’ll hold you to it,” Han agreed. “Later, Your Highness.” One of her titles, but with enough of a wink to make it seem even more familiar than using her given name.
“Thank you for the kaffe,” she called as he left, then turned to her fellow members of High Command. “Now, what can I do for you?”
Leia hated to do this, but figuring out something she could do for Han was a puzzle that she was not coming any closer to solving. And the more missions they went on, the more kaffe he brought her, the more conversations they had, the more the months stretched by and that bounty of Jabba’s hung over his head, the more she desperately wanted him to have something from her.
Finally, she decided to ask for advice.
“I have sort of a strange question for you,” she said to Luke one evening, while he was helping her catch up with some inventory.
He pulled out a new bin to begin filling with fresh supplies. “Shoot.”
“What does Han like?”
Luke stopped what he was doing to give her an incredulous look. “What?”
This was embarrassing. The question had sounded weird even as it had left her mouth. “You heard me.”
Then much to Leia’s dismay, Luke openly laughed at her. For a full minute.
“You’re asking me what Han likes. You.” He was still laughing as he said it.
This had been a terrible idea. “Oh, forget it, I—”
“No, wait.” Luke managed to stop laughing long enough to continue. “Why? Also, why are you asking me?”
“He’s done so much for us,” Leia sighed. “For me. I want to get something for him. Or do something for him. When I go to Corellia, maybe. But everything I think of just seems wrong.”
Luke had calmed down and was now looking intently at her.
“You know he doesn’t care about stuff,” he said carefully. “I’m sure he’d like anything you bring him.”
Well, this wasn’t helpful at all. She might as well go back to trying to puzzle it out by herself, for all the good this was doing her. At least she wouldn’t have to endure her best friend laughing in her face.
“I don’t want it to be anything,” she tried to explain. “I want it to be like the things he’s—I want it to be something he cares about.” She scowled mildly. “It’s not always easy to tell what that is.”
Luke was silent, but Leia could tell he was suppressing the urge to laugh again.
“What?”
“Leia, listen to yourself for a minute,” he said. “You don’t know what Han cares about?”
Leia was about to say, No, why do you think I’m asking you? but was stopped by the look Luke was giving her.
She could almost feel his words. Come on, Leia. You know.
Now she felt herself blushing, which was even worse.
“I don’t think he feels like that about—”
“Leia.”
Luke was calling her out? Luke? She could feel her blush getting deeper.
“Well, you’re definitely not winning the bracket for hottest couple now,” Luke said. “Don’t even know what the other person likes. Don’t even know you’re a couple.”
That pulled Leia away from her thoughts. “Wait, what?”
Luke grinned. “The new betting pool,” he said. “Wes says thanks for keeping his notebook safe, by the way.”
“We’re in the new betting pool?” Leia asked, feeling suddenly like she wasn’t sure if she was ever being covert about anything, if this was all so obvious to everyone else. She used to work as a damned spy, for kriff’s sake.
Still, this had to be a mistake. “But Han and I aren’t a—”
“Leia,” Luke said again, with that same look that had prompted the blush earlier.
She held his gaze for a moment, then went back to putting the bin they'd been stocking back in its place.
“I think we’re done here,” she said, hoping Luke would forgive her for not quite being ready to process all of this right at the moment. “Thank you for your help.”
Luke seemed to have picked up on her meaning. “Anytime.”
Going to Corellia without Han felt very strange. There were, of course, plenty of Corellians in the Rebellion, so it wasn’t like Han was the only person she knew from there, but she was so used to the rhythm of her missions with Han that the idea of going to his home planet without him seemed deeply wrong.
However, apparently some new Corellian benefactors were interested in funding the Alliance, and in meeting with Leia to explore the possibilities. And while he had many wonderful qualities, and had been an excellent mission partner the last time they’d gone to the planet, Han was probably not the best choice to accompany her to a diplomatic meeting with extremely wealthy people. Not if she wanted to avoid blowing up the negotiations.
Leia wasn’t entirely sure she could trust herself not to want to blow up the negotiations.
She’d been given a brief tour of the main benefactor’s estate outside Coronet City, during which they spent time discussing the Alliance’s work, their recruitment efforts, and current needs, and the benefactor had shared extensively their work with the local refugee community. Their work was impressive, and the benefactor seemed to have their heart in the right place, as much as one could when surrounded by this much luxury. Leia nodded and asked questions as they strode through halls draped with rich tapestries, casually decorated with contemporary sculptures by galaxy-renowned artists. She admired the art immensely, but she found herself making mental calculations of how many X-wings just one of these tapestries would buy. Or how much food.
The discussion went well, with their new benefactor committing to transfer funds to the Alliance in the next few days; the rest of the visit was essentially a celebration of this new relationship. On the second afternoon, they were discussing sentient rights while droids served them a formal tea.
Their benefactor was one of those beings whose speech tended to veer off into long, only semi-relevant side stories no matter the subject, so Leia had plenty of time to listen and nod along politely as they sipped a Gatalentan tea blend, one of Leia’s favorites.
Leia’s attention was partially on her host, and partially on the large bowl of perfectly shaped sugar cubes set next to her. They made her think of Han.
“Used to think they were candy,” he’d explained once, “when I was a street kid. Even before.”
Han didn’t talk much about his childhood. Leia knew it had been rough, that he and his mother had struggled even before she’d caught some sort of illness and left him orphaned, but Han rarely elaborated. It was a sign of the trust he had in her (and Luke) every time he’d let out any details at all; Leia was pretty sure Chewie had told more stories of his upbringing than Han had.
But he’d shared this. How those fancy little cubes of sugar were perfect foods for a little boy to swipe off a tray; they were meant to be consumed as part of the kaffe or tea service, so they were less likely to be missed, unless you took too many, and more likely to be forgiven if you did get caught. How they could be easily slipped into the sleeve or the pocket of a garment and then enjoyed later. How as a boy Han would savor them, letting a cube melt on his tongue.
As Leia sipped her tea, she thought back to why her little bottle of shampoo and that nightly delivery of kaffe and that sabacc chip meant so much to her. Why they’d made her so determined to do something for Han, why it had been so hard to figure out what. Why Luke had laughed at her when she’d said it was hard to know what Han cared about.
Sometimes it really is the little things that make the difference, she thought, as she considered how many sugar cubes her sleeve might be able to safely conceal.
They couldn’t spend all their time in the cabin—well, they could, but that would have been incredibly unfair to Chewbacca, leaving him alone to care for the ship with only Threepio for company. And while they were running out of maintenance tasks for which they had the available parts (or that could be safely done while traveling in sublight), there was no shortage of other projects to be done around the ship.
Leia had spent time cataloguing their food supplies, helping Chewbacca re-organize the galley, and helping Han go through several of their storage lockers. Funny thing about smuggling for a living; it meant that you collected quite a lot of random stuff over the years.
She and Chewie were going through several of the Falcon’s many storage compartments in the lounge area when Chewie paused her by placing his paw over the lid of the box Leia had been about to open.
“[This compartment is private, Little Princess,]” he growled.
Leia sprang back. “Oh, I’m sorry, Chewie, I didn’t mean to一”
Chewie shook his head. “[It is all right. It is not mine. It is Cub’s, but it is where he keeps items that are especially important to him. I think he will be all right sharing this with you, but we should ask to be sure he is ready.]”
Oh. Leia knew by now that Han kept a lot of things—their cleaning project alone was evidence of that—but not that he had a place like this, that his sentimental side had any connection to actual things. And she and Han had become very intimate over the last few weeks (in many senses of that word), but she didn’t want to intrude on his privacy.
She was ready to move on, but Chewie was already calling out to Han.
“[Cub! Is it all right if your mate looks at your treasure box?]”
There was a pause—Leia wasn’t sure if it was because of Chewie so casually saying “mate” or the question he’d asked—and then Han called back.
“Uh, sure.”
Leia was about to tell Han that was fine, she didn’t need to look, but Chewie had already removed the lid and taken out one of the more familiar items: Han’s medal from the Battle of Yavin.
Many times Leia had wondered if Han had actually kept his medal, and where. She’d frankly expected to find it in a random box during their cleaning; as cocky as Han could be sometimes, he was extraordinarily modest about his role in that battle. He tended to severely downplay the fact that he’d basically helped to save the entire Rebellion and probably several other planets on that day.
Chewie passed the medal to her, and she ran her fingers along the ribbon, then across the grooves of the medal itself. It had been hastily made for the ceremony but incorporated Alliance and Alderaanian designs. She remembered the day she’d hung it around Han’s neck. That wink he’d given her, that had steadied her through that ceremony, that had made her feel like herself again for just a second.
She handed it back to Chewie, now curious to see what else Han had saved.
There were several things she didn’t recognize: a very simple, broken necklace in tarnished metal, a few coins, something with a Shryiiwook rune on it, some things with Corellian writing on them.
But she was surprised and delighted to recognize several items she hadn’t been expecting. There was a single packet of Devaronian hot sauce, from a box she’d found in a restaurant they’d once visited together. She’d brought it back for Han after returning on another mission, offering him a temporary cure for the impossibly bland rations they were enduring on Hoth.
There was a small bag containing some of the sugar cubes she’d brought him back from Corellia. (Twelve, it turns out, was the answer to the number of sugar cubes that could comfortably fit in the sleeves of the dress she’d been wearing that day.)
She spied two paper umbrellas and a sword-shaped drink skewer, snagged from his ridiculous neon drink at the beach on Bimmisaari. A sticker advertising some kind of Corellian soft drink and featuring what Han and Leia had nicknamed “the Green Goddess of Delight,” an image they’d seen stuck on every bench and half the walls of the Coronet City central transit station during a mission there.
Finally, the intricately folded piece of flimsi Leia knew contained one of the pages Jan Dodonna had ripped out of Wes Janson’s betting book. She was the one who had rescued it from a shred pile, folded it like an Alderaanian love note, and given it to Han. (The page contents? Results from the “hottest being on Echo Base” bracket. Han had been very pleased.)
There was one more item at the bottom that she didn’t recognize. Well, she recognized the script on the label of Alderaanian callaberry soap, but she hadn’t seen this item before.
“Got it right before Ord Mantell. It was for you,” Han said from behind her.
Leia turned around to find him smiling at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, suddenly realizing that she’d been looking at what Chewie had said were Han’s most precious items without him. “I shouldn’t have一”
Han stopped her with a gentle hand to her shoulder. “Leia,” he said. “‘S all right. I said sure.”
“Okay,” she agreed.
The soap was still in her hand, and she took a moment to take in its scent before asking the obvious question: “Why do you still have this?”
It was an accident that they’d even seen each other again, much less ended up on the same ship for this journey. If the soap was intended as a gift for her, why was it here?
Han looked a little uncomfortable. “I just. Well. First I kept forgettin’ to give it to you,” he explained. “And then we一”
“We had that fight,” Leia finished. “And then一”
He was leaving. He might still be, Leia didn’t know. Much as they loved each other, that didn’t magically make Han’s bounty from Jabba go away. They’d managed to come together, to admit their feelings and what was really happening here, but they hadn’t really resolved what was to happen when they fixed the hyperdrive and made it to the fleet.
Han looked solemn. “We weren’t talking. And then I knew I had to leave. Was gonna give it to you then, but every time I thought about it… I don’t know. Seemed like kind of a dick move. ‘See ya later, Sweetheart, here’s a bar of soap to remember me by.’”
Leia laughed, in spite of herself. “I don’t need a bar of soap to remember you.”
They gave each other a long look, then Han continued.
“Remembered it again, right when we were s’posed to leave, and I decided to keep it.” He looked a little apologetic. “Decided I could give it to you when we came back. If we could come back,” he amended.
“You were going to come back,” Leia said, and something inside her unclenched.
“I am gonna come back,” he promised, sounding a lot more certain this time.
He took Leia’s hand, the one still holding the soap, in his and drew it up towards her chest. “You can keep this, now. It’s s’posed to be yours anyway.”
“No,” Leia said softly, reaching up on her toes to kiss him.
They lingered in the kiss for a few moments, and then Leia drew back.
“I wanted you to stay,” she admitted, “for me.” She opened a pocket on his vest and put the soap inside. “I still don’t want you to leave.”
She could tell he was about to say something, but she stopped him with another kiss.
“Promise me you’ll come back,” she said. “I’ll be waiting.”