i.

[organa]

It's been a long time since Leia's been this inconsolable. Things don't usually get to her – not visibly, anyway – but she's rattled to the core when she bursts into the Twilight's cockpit with a dramatic sort of flare that she can't help in this moment. She managed to keep her emotions steady and under control on the way over here, but the dam that was holding them back has now burst. Leia's furious, and wounds that were never fully on the mend feel like they've been ripped open all over again.

Most of all, she's hurt. Anakin's words stung, and she's mortified he would even imply such a thing.

Comments

[organa]

Leia hasn't made up her mind as to whether she's going to let him completely unravel her braids or not, but for the moment, she's content to let him continue. And it's actually rather soothing to have fingers other than her own combing through her hair for a change. She'd have her eyes closed in quiet enjoyment if it weren't for what he said next.

That got her attention.

"I--" She wrings her hands together in her lap, but doesn't turn to face him again. "Force, I must have been young. I stopped participating in those as I got older."

[velocities]

There's still plenty of time to make him stop before he sees it all, time to back out and reassess. Still, he keeps going at a steady pace, slow and deliberate.

"Couldn't've been more than ten. It was right after I got away from Shrike."

It feels strange how easily he says that, now that she knows. That he can use that as a reference point in telling her more about himself. Not entirely uncomfortable, not bad, just... Foreign. New.

Han breezes past it, though, finishing the second braid and carefully moving on to the next. "Wasn't really paying too much attention. I think I muted it halfway through so I could run back and hide the cargo." Not mentioning the rude gestures he'd made in frustration, or exactly what kind of spice he'd had as cargo. Or what he'd tried to do with it once he landed.

[organa]

"Ten." A quiet laugh follows her echo, and Leia reaches up to remove the pins that are holding the braids still pinned to her hair in place. It gives her something to do, something to distract herself from the dull ache that resonates within her upon recalling what it was like to be ten.

Young. Carefree. Happy. Still thoroughly an Organa. She barely went offworld at that age, and so untouched by the harsh reality the galaxy at large had to offer.

She looks down at the pins in her palm, her braids now hanging loose for him to do with them as he pleases.

"I don't even want to know what your cargo was." Probably something illegal, something that didn't belong on Alderaan's soil.

[velocities]

"You really don't," and he tries to make it sound like a joke. "I've had some bad jobs, but working for that Hutt clan was the worst."

He untangles the braids with the same methodical pace he's kept since sitting down here with her. Talking about Ylesia isn't what he wants to do right now, either, so he steers them back to Alderaan.

"Anyway, we landed and I got to wander around Aldera while I waited for Muuurgh to wake up," as he runs his fingers through her already loose hair before starting in on another braid. "Kid tried to pick my pocket, but he wasn't very good at it. Didn't even look like he was hungry, and the security officer tailing me didn't even try to arrest me."

[organa]

Leia has an idea or two. There wasn't much the Hutts wouldn't smuggle -- spice, codes, parts, people. Han wasn't the type to shuffle around slaves, but that didn't mean his cargo had been any less illegal. Especially in a peaceful society masquerading as an Imperial one.

She makes a noncommittal noise that's almost, yet not quite, a chuckle.

"They probably didn't see you as much of a threat. No offense."

[velocities]

"None taken," his ego, though... Han is on to another braid and tugs it gently (like some little boy on a playground) before continuing the slow and steady journey to Seeing Leia With Her Hair Down.

[organa]

The handful of pins is dropped in her lap as she reaches back to swat at whatever part of him her fingers manage to reach. It's a playful swat, much like the banter that passes so easily between the two of them.

"What did you think? Of Alderaan?"

[velocities]

She manages to smack him pretty soundly on the wrist, but he doesn't bother to retaliate. Just past halfway through the braids, he's too busy managing the loose hair that's pooling around her on the cot, and kind of floating in some spots where it seems to fluff up against all better judgement and the known laws of gravity.

Was it like this on Endor? Kest if he can remember. Most of what happened those few days was a frantic, panicked blur that ended with a frantic giddy smudge.

"It was nice," he says, soft and low, more serious than the banter might have led to if he wasn't doing this with her hair right now. Except 'nice' is a coded word with them, isn't it? Han shakes his head and amends it, "Good, I mean. Too good for me to go back until--"

Until Luke and the old man got him involved, until it was gone.

He stops, hands still halfway through another loose patch of soft floaty hair he's trying to get to go down so it doesn't knot with the rest that's looking suspiciously like it has designs on becoming a tangled mess and blaming him.

[organa]

She'd nod if he weren't holding strands of her hair, coils and loops that had been woven tightly into braids that stayed for days tangling around his fingers.

Alderaan was good. Too good, she'd argue, for someone like her these days. It was a peaceful world, and even though she'd been taught how to fight and defend herself, she doubted that Bail Organa had done so with the intentions of her ever using them to become some sort of militarist general. A princess of Alderaan wasn't meant to lead armies.

Nor were Jedi. (Which is exactly why they'd been pushed into a position where they had no choice but to do exactly that.)

"I'd like to go back. Someday. Not now." It was too dangerous at the moment, and Leia feared turning her homeworld into a target all over again. "But someday. After we make things right. When the war is over and the Emperor's been dealt with."

[velocities]

Making things right might take a good long while, but he nods. Going now would be too much of a risk, and besides that he's not sure how Leia would handle it. He's watched her spend years fighting off grief with action, mourning and desperately collecting every Alderaanian refugee that happened to wander into her line of sight... It will be an emotional reunion between girl and planet, and it shouldn't have any dark clouds hanging over it.

"Well," he says, moving on to the last braid and deliberately slowing his hands down in their work.

"I never was able to get out of giving you a ride when you needed one."

[organa]

Han might have spent time on her planet, but she doubts he understands how big of a deal this is for her. Mere strands stand between her and letting him see her with her hair completely down. Few have beyond family and a household of attendants that haven't served her in years, most of which were lost to the Death Star's destructive ray. She's tended to her own hair for a long time now, and only accepted the assistance of her mother's handmaidens when she was masquerading among them once she got it half up herself.

And now it's tumbling down, unraveling between Han's fingers like a silent promise. An unspoken agreement to something they haven't yet talked about, something she's pretty sure has already been solidified in her head. Something she's snapped at her father on more than one occasion for assuming.

She wouldn't be allowing him to do this otherwise.

"Even if it's in this bucket of bolts?"

[velocities]

"Yeah, if it gets us there."

He doesn't know the full scale, but he has an inkling. Still remembers the first time her hair had been an issue, getting singed during some mission or other, how another Alderannian that was with them had pulled him aside after he'd snapped at her (I don't know about your hair, princess, but if your mouth is still working we gotta move) to let him know in no uncertain terms to leave her alone about it.

Now, though...

Han doesn't have a lot of experience with long hair. Lots of hair, Wookiee hair in the vents, things like that he knows. He doesn't know how one head of hair takes up so much space, strewn over his lap and floating around her shoulders. But this seems important, now that the last braid is undone, a moment that needs to be marked somehow, so he leans forward and kisses the back of her head before sitting back to run his fingers through her loose hair (and try to keep the errant strands out of his mouth).

[organa]

It is an important moment. A very important one, one that's been a long time coming.

Leia leans back into his touch, relishing the feel of someone else's fingers combing through her locks. She hasn't had her hair all the way down in ages, and the way the strands crimp and curl are a testament to how long they've been twisted up into braids. One would never guess that her hair was actually straight as a pin with the way it looked right now.

[velocities]

Thankfully, his fingers don't catch on too many knots or tangles given just how much hair there is now between them. It's oddly calming to do this, move his hands just so in her hair, which for all the crimps and tangles is still soft, softer than he expected it to be. To know that she's letting him.

"D'you feel better now?"

Han certainly hopes so.

[organa]

Leia hums in response, leaning back until her head's resting on his shoulder and she can reach for his wrists, pulling his arms around her through the curtain of her hair. Some of it is trapped between his arms and her sides, the rest is just about blanketing them, its crimped state giving it far more volume than it normally has.

[velocities]

He lets her pull his arms around with a hum of his own, lacing his fingers over her stomach, careful not to pull too hard at any of the hair that's still clinging to his hands. Letting the quiet stretch through the room seems better than any of his ideas on what to say that would almost definitely ruin it.

[organa]

After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Leia says, "You're the first person I've let see me with my hair down."

Nevermind unbrushed. Her royal sensibilities were screaming at her to find one and see to the tangled mess it was threatening to become, but she couldn't quite bring herself to move from the warm, relative safety of her--

"Han," her fingers touch the backs of his wrists. "What are we doing?"

[velocities]

He tenses for a second with the certainty that the question followed by that statement means something he's not quite grasping, then adjusts so he can press his cheek against her temple.

"Mussing up your hair?"

[organa]

"Not that!"

Her sudden ire with his lack of understanding is expressed by pressing her nails into the back of his palm.

"Us. This."

[velocities]

Oh.

"Ow, hey..."

At least now he's on the same page, but he moves his hands to hold hers. Both just to hold her hands and with the side intention of not getting scratched.

"This is-- Leia, here, look at me," said as he turns his head to look at her. "I'm not taking down any one else's hair, if that's what your asking. Not ever, if I can help it."

[organa]

"That is what I'm asking."

She sounds annoyed, but as she cranes her head back to peer at him, something in her expression turns serious. And not the sort of seriousness she dons when ordering soldiers around or even talking about this temporal mess that they're in. It's a different kind, one that's almost vulnerable in nature.

"Look," and she scoots so she can see him without straining her neck, gathering her hair and pushing it all behind her as best she can. Some of it still manages to fall over her shoulders. "I don't know what you've been assuming about us, but-- No, that's a lie. I do know, and I've pretty much let my Father have it every time he referred to you as much. You made up your mind, and I'm pretty sure you made it up long before I had pieces of my own on the board. But it's not the same for me."

Leia reaches for his hands again. "I'm not saying that to hurt you. Back in our time, I had obligations. A duty. I had the Alliance and Alderaan's survivors. I had... options. Doors I could have chose to open and might have very well still been considering, but things have changed. I'm not a princess anymore. I don't have to think about giving my people a leader or ensuring that I remain the perfect figurehead the rebellion needs me to be. I can just," she shrugs, "be me. I can have what I want, because I want it. Not because it's what I want for someone else."

[velocities]

Hurt may not have been her intention, but there's a flash of pain in his features for a second, a pinch, and then it settles into a frown.

"You were always gonna do what you had to do, whether I liked it or not. Whether you liked it or not." It was one of those things he had always been aware of, unable to go a day without being reminded of her dedication to the cause.

Still, she'd come back for him. Despite everything else, the looks and the gossip and the constant cloud of her obligation, Han knew she'd dropped it all to get him out of that hunk of carbonite. He couldn't imagine any one else he'd ever been with, ever thought he'd loved, doing something like that. For him, it was lightyears beyond even seeing her hair down.

Then the rest of what she said sinks in and he raises an eyebrow at her. "That mean you want me?"

[organa]

A hand slips out of his so that she can raise it to his cheek.

"I've always wanted you, but I knew that I couldn't have you. And I wasn't the only one. They were humoring me when I took a leave of absence to find you. Even Mon Mothma knew that I was chasing a pipe dream."

[velocities]

"Then tell 'em all to get spaced."

It seems like a simple solution from his end, and it is endlessly frustrating to watch her twist herself into things she doesn't want to be when she's more than earned the right to take whatever happiness she can get.

[organa]

Her gaze narrows slightly, though it lacks heart. "I am not telling Mon Mothma –any version of her – to get spaced."

Fingers curling around his ear, Leia makes a futile attempt to lush some of his unruly locks back behind it. He was starting to need a haircut as much as her split ends did.

"You don't know how many marriage propsals I turned down. I said 'no' to so many young kings and eager princes. Even the ones who could've provided the Alliances with much needed resources."

A sigh escapes her, gaze flickering down and away from his for a moment. "I think they kept asking, because they knew what Mon did: One day, I was going to have to say yes to one if them."