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 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."

[velocities]

You think a princess and a guy like me...
No.

He watches her in silence for a long moment. It was one thing to know in his gut what a long shot this was and another to have it laid out i front of him like this. Except she's laying it out here, before there's any Alliance to placate or kings and princes chasing her skirts for the opportunity to up their galactic standing a little.

Where they were already changing things so that won't happen.

"Yeah, so what about now? You get to be you now, right?"

[organa]

A nod, then a shrug. "Now depends on whether or not you're okay with being in a relationship with Leia Skywalker."

She'd said it to others, but not Han. She knew that he still had (well founded) reservations for her father, but as much as she tried desperately to hold on to the partsnof herself that were still Alderaanian, she couldn't be an Organa anymore. How could she possibly explain that?

Leia waits, gauging his reaction to laying claim to her father's – and brother's – name.

[velocities]

There isn't much time for a reaction. However it is he feels about her father, whatever suspicion and caution there is exists for Vader. Even on Bakura it had been the Skywalker in her, not the Vader, he'd tried to remind her of. Something more of Luke, of someone neither of them had known until now.

"Wouldn't be here if I had a problem with it, sweetheart." Han squeezes her hand and smirks, giddy and stupid and insufferable. "Though I gotta say I liked the sound of 'Leia Solo,' too."

Not a proposal, of course, but if they're being honest...

[organa]

"Oh, don't you start with that, too."

She plants the hand he's not holding on his chest and gives him a light, playful shove.

"Some women may wait until their wedding nights to let a man take their hair down, but we are not getting married."

[velocities]

Han just laughs and settles back on the cot, resting on his elbow as he looks up at her.

In some other time with some other version of events about to transpire there might be princes and kings chasing her down, but if she wants him, wants him, then Han figures he's already got the winning sabaac hand. He's just got to wait for all the other players to fold.

"Anything you say, highness-ness."

Except, wait... "Who else started that? Luke?"

[organa]

Just as playfully as before, she smacks him again, sitting beside him as best she can on the cramped cot.

"Don't call me that. I'm not a princess anymore." Unhooking her lightsaber from her hip, she looms over him, dangling the pummel from her fingers. "Or do you need a reminder?"

As for who said something even remotely on the subject of her marrying him— "It's not important."

[velocities]

The amount of hair that falls over them when she leans in is astounding, and save the odd strand persistently trying to get into his mouth, Han can't say he dislikes it. Very much the opposite, actually.

He eyes the pummel and then gives her that same look he'd had in the circuitry bay after evacuating Hoth.

"Okay, Leia. How about you remind me of something else?"

[organa]

"Like what? This—" The tip of the lightsaber's hilt is pressed against the underside of his chin, faux threateningly. "Or—"

For a moment, Leia ignores the constant thrum of Force-sensitive minds looming at the edge of her awareness. The lightsaber drops to his chest, rolling off both him and the cot. It clatters to the floor as she presses a firm, quick kiss to his lips.

"Or something more like that?"

[velocities]

His hand has already gone up to skim past her ear and cradle the back of her head, fingers tangling in the hair at the root for the first time he can remember.

"Now who's the scoundrel?" Muttered low as he pulls her back down for another kiss.

[organa]

She'd insist that the scoundrel was still him if he left her room to answer, let alone breathe, before claiming her lips again.

Leia wilts atop him, barely having the presence of mind to push her hair back out of the way as best she can without moving. She really ought to replait it, but that would also require moving. Right now, that's the last thing she wants to do.

[velocities]

No, moving is entirely out of the question. He keeps his hand on the back of her head, careful not to pull her hair when pulls her down with him so he can lay flat on the cramped little cot they're on.

As far as he's concerned, any Jedi eavesdropping can go ahead and get spaced along with Mon, the rest of High Command, and every prince or king that thought they could take this from her. This moment, this small happiness. It's selfish and possessive, but this is his.