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

[velocities]

Slowly, he moves his hand up and down the length of her back as she cries. It's awkward, and he's never sure if he's helping, but when he hears her speak again he just nods.

"No, he shouldn't have," he agrees, chin fitted against the top of her head. "But you've gotta figure he knows that now."

[organa]

Leia can only imagine how awkward this is for him. It's not like her to get upset like this, but Luke's right; she has to start letting go of her anger before it eats at her to the point she's rotting from the inside out. Giving her emotions a release that isn't bottling, yelling, or wailing on something is a start, even if it makes her feel like a stranger in her own shoes.

"Does he?" Careful not to knock her head against his chin, Leia lifts her head and tilts it back to look up at him. "He's my father, Han. They both are, even if the one that exists in this timeline doesn't know it. He still helped to make me who I am. Learning the ways of the Jedi, getting to know my biological parents... It doesn't mean I'm no longer from Alderaan. I may not be its princess anymore, but it's still my home."

It's the Aegis, Metara, and those pirates all over again. Leia's scrambling and trying trying to hold tight and fast to Alderaan's remnants. Only this time, it's the part the remain within herself.

[velocities]

Awkward he can deal with. It's vastly preferrable to the alternative where Leia doesn't heal from all this. So he'll take this, and the talk of fathers, in as much stride as he can manage.

Han leans back so he can look down, arms still loose around her. "If he hasn't figured that out after this then I'll go set him straight."

It occurs to him, vaguely and without any real urgency, that Anakin is probably jealous. Not that he'd have any right to be, in Han's opinion, but it at least gives a reason for him insulting Bail like that that's a little more understandable.

[organa]

Sometimes the wounds being held together by crude stitching have to be ripped open and left bare to the wind in order to heal properly.

Leia ought to discourage that, and the stern look she fixes him with at first seems to suggest that. But instead of scolding him, she reaches up to grab his head and pull his lips down to meet hers in a sudden, urgent kiss.

[velocities]

Still not sure this is helping, but certainly not about to complain, he kisses her back.

(Even if she'd said something, the stern look goes right over his head. One way or another, someone is going to have to go over some subject boundaries with Anakin before he says something really stupid.)

There are a few long, enjoyable moments before Han pulls back, hand on her cheek, and look at her. Probably better to lean back in, forget that they're in the hangar of the Jedi Temple for a little while longer, but he can see on her face how she'd been crying. Enough to take the wind out of those particular sails. "Feeling better?"

[organa]

It may not be helping, but it's helping her to forget her turmoil, if only for a moment. Like she does in a fight, Leia wants nothing more than to throw herself into the heat of the moment. When he draws back, she sorely tempted to reach for his shoulders and drag him deeper into the cabin, to whisper 'make me forget' as the backs of her knees hit the edge of the cot.

But she doesn't. The hum of Force-sensitive minds looming in the Temple warns her against it, and she bristles in response to both that constant reminder and Han's question.

"No." Clipped, gaze narrowed. "No, I really don't."

[velocities]

"Didn't think so."

He kisses her forehead this time, solid and firm, and much safer than other things he might do with his mouth. Really, this is more frustrating than being blind. To be here with her, in complete possession of all his faculties, but experiencing the most intense displacement he could imagine.

But that isn't helping Leia, not really, and he knows it. As much as distraction can be enjoyed, Han is struck by the need to do a lot better than distraction. To do better by her. Especially since he finds that he keeps leaving her here with Anakin just to maintain the blasted cover they've got going.

[organa]

Those other things are exactly what she wants him to do with his mouth, and she pushes away from him with a hand planted firmly on his chest when he kisses her forehead. Just her forehead. Anakin tried to offer her tenderness while attempting to retract his statement, and now Han was trying to placate her with much the same. She was not a child that needed to be held and comforted. She wanted--

Leia drops down onto the edge of the cot, making a valiant effort not to cross her arms and glare at him. Instead, she turns her gaze away from him and stares hard at the wall.

[velocities]

Han watches her sit, and then stare, at a loss for what to do next. At this point in Leia's moods, he usually is sorely tempted to storm out.

He even makes a noise, the telltale harrumph in the back of his throat that usually precedes him saying something unimaginably stupid like, 'Fine,' and 'I'm leaving.' Instead, he stomps over to sit by her and starts fiddling with the end of the braid that had fallen earlier, fully intending to put it back to rights for her.

Except for all his skills in repair he was never well versed in braids, and it just starts unraveling between his fingers.

"You know," and he's mumbling at the back of her head now, slowly and methodically smoothing out the crinkled hair as it comes undone from just that one braid, "I only ever landed on Alderaan once."

[organa]

It's not until he says those words does she turn to glance over her shoulder at him.

Gone is the fury that crossed her features when he refused to touch her in the way that she wanted him to, replaced with a different sort of desperation: the desire to know. In those bleak, early days after Alderaan's destruction, she'd just about tortured herself rewatching old and archived footage of her planet, trying to absorb as much knowledge of the world she used to know. Her thirst for preservation hasn't changed, and whatever Han glimpsed of her homeworld is worth hearing.

A hand slides back against the coverlet, the tips of her fingers grazing his knee.

"Tell me."

[velocities]

The change in her has him shifting a little where he sits, uncomfortable under the scrutiny of her need to preserve. It isn't the best memory, though it's probably a great example of just how bad his decision making can be.

"Wasn't exactly a scheduled stop," he manages, meeting her eyes before turning his attention back to slowly unraveling her hair. "I was... I was running spice with a Togorian named Muuurgh when we got hit by pirates. He was hurt, and Alderaan was the closest safe place to set down."

The truth is awkward, but he's not about to lie.

[organa]

Her gaze drops momentarily to the unraveling braid in his hands. She should ask what he's doing, tell him to stop. But perhaps it's time she stopped batting his hands away. They've come this far, haven't they?

Leia turns back around, silently granting him permission to continue.

"You made a good choice," she says, bowing her head slightly to give him better access to the plaits that press right up against her nape. "Not with the spice, but choosing to land on Alderaan."

[velocities]

Han doesn't miss that she hasn't told him to stop messing with her hair. It's a first, but he still pauses a few seconds before moving onto another plait dislodged from its place by what he's already done.

He nods, a new braid between his fingers. "Yeah. Soon as we landed they took Muuurgh to a medical center and got him fixed up. Probably the warmest welcome I ever got from strangers. There was even--" and he stops for a moment, running his fingers down to the loose ends of her hair, "During docking there was a video message. From the Viceory and his daughter."

[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).