Valentine's Challenge 2017 Submission #8 by Dant Solo

I wanted to write this to prove I can still write something short, because these days my stories turn out longer than I even expect lol. I told Zyra I was writing it because I just knew if I didn’t make myself obligated to, I would never finish it. Sure enough, I got to a point and was just stuck. But, I had told Zyra I was writing it so I had to finally finish it. The first simply fluff I’ve written in a long time. Hope you like it!
 
                                                       Epithet
                                                 By Dant Solo

    Moonlight filtered through the clouds, a smattering of stars shining distantly, here and there. Head tipped up to the sky, Leia Organa leaned back in the oval-shaped repulsor chair on the balcony of her home. She shifted beneath the thick blanket protecting her from the cool air.
    Home.
    The word had not existed in her vocabulary in so long. It seemed so strange now to have a permanent place to rest her head. Permanent for now, at least.
    She was slowly getting her life together. Getting a life.
    She had a home again, and family. A brother, a…whatever Han was, she mused.
    Boyfriend? The word seemed so juvenile, so casual. Roommate? Too platonic. He wasn’t exactly her life-partner, they had made no such vows. Consort sounded too formal.
    She glanced over her shoulder to where he slept, peaceful and content. They had such limited time together, between both their schedules.
    They had yet to be in a setting where she had to introduce him as anything but “General Han Solo.” Those within their circle knew of their relationship. Beyond that, she had no idea how well-known it was that they were…together.
    Companion? 
    This is my companion, General Solo.
    Well, that just sounded absurd. He might as well be a pet growlie.
    Lover was too…sexual.
    She smiled to herself at the silliness of her thoughts. Once upon a time, not too long ago, there had been no time to ponder such frivolities.
    Quiet rustling behind her, footsteps creeping up on her, she sensed Han’s sleepy presence. Rubbing an eye with bundled fingers, he lowered to the floor at her feet.
    “Whatcha doin’ out here?” His voice was low and heavy with sleep. He leaned his head onto her crossed legs, one hand digging beneath the blanket to curl back and circle her waist. 
    Leia dove her fingers into the softness of his hair. His eyes were closed, expression dreamy and content. She loved to see him like this, relaxed and unguarded.
    “Just thinking.”
    One eye popped open. “’Bout what?”
    Unbidden, the corners of her lips rose. “Us.”
    The other eye opened as well. “What about us?” He didn’t sound worried, just mildly concerned.
    Leia laughed lightly. “Nothing bad. Don’t worry.” One hand slid from the blanket to stroke his cheek.
    “When you look at me like that, I can’t worry.” His thick voice rumbled in the low light, bringing her a slight shiver. His eyes grew concerned. “No nightmares?”
    “No nightmares,” she replied lightly.
    His eyes softened and closed again. She watched him, hands continuing to meander through his hair.
    “I love the way you touch me,” he murmured, making her smile. “No one’s ever touched me like that.”
    “Like what?” He always seemed to speak the most freely and openly when he was in that twilight of fully awakening.
    He frowned the way he always did when he was searching for the right words. “Like…like even your fingers love me. You’re loving me with your fingers.”
    Her smile widened brightly. He could be so blunt yet beautiful. “My fingers do love you.”
    His smile beamed in return and he snuggled closer to her with a sound of utter contentment that further warmed her. He pulled part of the blanket aside and rubbed his cheek against the skin of her leg.
    “You’re so soft…I didn’t know skin could be so soft.” His head rose and he rested his chin on the side of her knee, gazing up at her. “Must be your easy, royal lifestyle.” His eyes glinted mischief.
    She tossed him a mock-glare. “Yes,” she replied dryly. “These last few years have been particularly undemanding and peaceful.”
    His smirk turned to a slow grin. “Except when you were arguing with me.”
    She suppressed her smile, enjoying the banter. “Arguing with you? It was you who was arguing with me.”
    “Oh, I think your memory’s faulty, Your Highness.”
    She could no longer batter down the threatening grin. “You’re arguing with me again.”
    “Me?” he asked with exaggerated innocence. “I wouldn’t dare.”
    “It’s your default setting.”
    He chuckled, low but hearty, and kissed her thigh. The gentle, intimate gesture made her smile as she looked back out into the night. The city was lit up even more brightly than the stars in the sky.
    “I’ve always loved sitting outside at night,” Leia said wistfully. “It was a lot nicer when my view was filled with trees and mountains rather than lights and the paths of hovercars.” That familiar pang of loss hit her, no longer a deep ache. Closer to acknowledgement than grief now.
    Silence for several moments then Han spoke and his voice held a different timbre, something tentative and quiet. “You miss having everything you could ever want laid out in front of you?”
    The odd wording of his question took her a moment to process. “I’m not sure I would put it like that…I miss…everything I loved.” That pang again, but it didn’t crush her soul.
    The arm around her waist tightened and she sensed some shift in Han’s mood but couldn’t guess what he might be thinking.  A glance down showed him pensive. Her fingers brushed through his hair again.
    “What are you thinking so hard about?” she asked lightly.
    His eyes fell shut in defense and she wondered if he would answer truthfully or shut her out. Inner turmoil radiated from him in soft waves.
    “Nothin’, I just…” He paused for a long moment. His lower lip jutted out as he struggled. “Wish there was a way I could get it all back for you.” The words seemed to rush from his lips as if he were forcing them out.
    Leia sensed there was more to it than that but took it as presented. “If only it were so simple.”
    Han sat up with bright eyes, now fully awake. Her gaze was drawn to the tan skin of his strong, broad shoulders and her hand glided over that path, smooth, taut muscle beneath her fingers. He sighed through his nose, closed his eyes, and bent his head into the caress.
    “I love my new life with you,” she whispered, sensing he needed to hear it.
    The only indication he had heard her was a slight crinkle of his brow. She leaned over and kissed the top of his head, soft hair tickling her nose. It seemed somewhat of a miracle that they had arrived here. Their dynamic had shifted so dramatically after that one stolen kiss. All the resentment and animosity had just melted away, as if drifting into the distance on the breeze. 
    “You rescued me,” she said quietly.
    His head rose curiously, eyes questioning. “On Hoth?”
    Her lips quirked upwards. “No, from myself.”
    He was still puzzled, lips rounding slightly.
    Her smile grew and her gaze remained soft. “I lost myself after the Death Star. But, you found me.” It clicked more soundly into place. “Not found me exactly. You kicked in my doors and dragged me out.”
    Now he was smiling, eyes swirling with too many thoughts. Poignant emotions bounced between them, boomeranging back and forth. 
    “I love you.” His deep voice rumbled through her, thunderous. Before she could respond, he reached a hand into her hair and gently tugged her lips to his. His tongue delved into her mouth, softly, heat slowly rising between them. There was only the sound of the pulse in Leia’s ears, thrumming loudly.
    The ready hand at her thigh slid slowly beneath the blanket, like a heat-seeking missile, cupping her in his hand, causing her to strain into his palm. She broke the kiss to throw her head back with a soft, expectant moan.
    Forcing herself to come to her senses, she spoke in a throaty whisper. “We should…” She broke off at the light brush of Han’s fingers against her closed lips. For a moment, she could scarcely think. Her breath came in gasps as his fingers made a tantalizing path up, down, back again. “Inside,” she whispered, trying desperately to think past the movements of his fingers.
    One finger dove inside her moist heat and her moan was suddenly deep and frenzied. It was impossible for her to think and Han gave a gruff laugh low in his throat. His mouth moved to her ear and he licked her lobe. “You said inside.” His breath whispered into the cavern of her ear, sending a shiver up her spine.
    “The bedroom,” she whispered urgently. 
    “So traditional.” His mouth moved to her neck, sucking gently with his teeth.
    It was a struggle to form words and his stubborn insistence on misunderstanding was not helping. She grabbed him by one shoulder and shoved him back just enough to force their eyes to clash. “The media,” she said shortly.
The passion in his eyes blurred for a moment. Then understanding dawned with sudden clarity and his gaze cleared.
    Media drones followed her often enough for Leia to worry about being caught in a compromising position. She was not one to risk an audience.
    With a sheepish raise and lowering of his brow, he stood, held out a hand to her, and brought her to standing. Inside, he tugged the curtains shut before Leia pulled him by the hand to the bed with breathless anticipation.
    She pulled the sleepgown over her head and tossed it to the winds. Then his hands were gently lowering her by the shoulders until her back was against the mattress. His weight atop her body brought comfort, feeling him so solid, so there. 
    Her hair pooled all around her and Han grabbed a large tumble in his hand and tossed it upwards, out of the way. His fingers moved to her cheek, a gentle caress. Their eyes joined in a gaze of understood emotion and they both smiled softly at the same time. Leia’s heart thudded hard in her chest…it always moved her when he looked at her like that. As if he simply could not believe she were real.
    They made love slowly, savoring these moments ogether, as if they had all the time in the galaxy. The air was heavy with passion, filled with moans and gasps of pleasure as they teased each other into a frenzy.
    And then Leia was calling his name, desperate, digging her nails into the skin of his shoulders, body rising to a crescendo. Han quickly followed her over that edge of ecstasy into the twilight realm where nothing existed beyond that moment of fulfillment, mindless and all-consuming.
    Stillness…breathing, just breathing. The hard hammering of Han’s heartbeat against her own. Slowly, thought returns. One hand against the back of Han’s neck, stroking softly. Limbs weak, one leg curling around his waist, wanting to enclose him within herself, become even more intimately entangled. His lips, soft, damp, lingering against her cheek as one hand slips into the tangle of her hair. 
    They remained in that illusory haze, blocking out all else, able to pretend for just a little while that nothing bad could ever touch them, and the galaxy was a safe place.
    All too soon, reality returned to settle over them, worries pushing their way in. Han would be leaving again in just two days. The separations were difficult enough without the constant worry for his safety that left her with anxiety whenever she was not completely absorbed in an activity. It reminded her of the early days after Alderaan, when she pushed herself to the limit, never allowing herself the time to think.
    “Wish you weren’t leaving again so soon,” she whispered. “I hate to watch you leave.”
    His head lifted, expression earnest for a moment before splitting to an arrogant grin. “That’s why I go…so you can miss me.”
    The words were flippant, but Leia could sense the underlying emotion. He was doing what he always did; detracting from the seriousness of the moment, affecting a cocky air so that she would smile and roll her eyes instead of frowning.
    She didn’t take the bait. “I will miss you.”
    He gave up trying and sobered. “I’ll miss you, too.” He kissed her tenderly on the lips then rested his head against her breast.
    One hand caressed his shoulder absently. “I have that dinner with the State Department tomorrow evening.”
    Han groaned.
    “You don’t have to come,” she said, meaning it.
    He looked up at her, grimacing. “Well, if I don’t, that’s a whole ‘nother night I won’t be with you.”
    Excitement rose. She hadn’t expected him to accompany her. “So, you’ll come with me?”
    He sighed and rolled his eyes slightly. “Yeah.”
    A grin burst forth and she saw his expression soften to an almost-smile.
    “Just don’t expect me to like it,” he grumbled.
    “I won’t,” she replied, still smiling. “So, what should I call you?” she asked, suddenly playful.
    “Huh?”
    “How should I introduce you?”
    His brow was furrowed in confusion. “Whadda you mean?”
    Feeling suddenly sheepish, her enthusiasm dampened. “Nothing.”
    “No, c’mon, what’d you mean?”
    It was clear in his tone that he was not going to let this go without an answer. Leia stared at the ceiling, wishing she hadn’t said anything. “I was just thinking earlier…about what we are…or rather, what I should tell people we are…”
    The silence drew out momentarily, not nearly as comfortable as it normally was between them. Leia was tempted to reach out through the Force to find his feelings, but held back, uncertain.
    “What do you want us to be?” His voice was serious, husky.
    The question made her squirm and she was aware of heat spreading across her cheeks. She forced a trickle of laughter. “Well, my ‘boyfriend’ sounds silly.”
    “You wanna be my concubine?” The mirth in his voice was contagious and Leia found herself suppressing a chuckle. “Maybe a member of my harem.”
    The corners of her mouth turned up as an eyebrow rose. “I think you should be a member of my harem.”
    His grin slanted, eyes twinkling, and he slid up to settle eye-to-eye with her. “Oh, you are definitely not allowed to have a harem. You are all mine.”
    “Oh, and you think that you’re allowed to?” She was half indignant, half joking.
    His smile softened, his voice lowered. “Nah. You’re the only one I want.”
    Her head canted to a haughty position. “That’s more like it.”
    He chuckled low in his throat and it seemed to vibrate through her. She planted a quick kiss on his mouth then lowered her eyes.
    “I’m just…not sure what to say we are. All the terms either sound ridiculous, or formal, or…too serious.”
    “Too serious,” he muttered, barely audible. “Whadda you consider too serious?”
    Returning her eyes to his, she saw that he looked sober and curious in the low light. “Well, like…” She felt suddenly awkward. “Bondmate, for example, implies a life time commitment…” Her cheeks flushed darker. This entire conversation was a mistake…
    His gaze fell to follow his fingers as they stroked her forearm. “Is that something you would want?” he asked quietly.
    Her breath held in momentary suspended animation. She forced herself to speak. “What do you want?” she asked, swallowing hard.
    “I asked if you wanted that, Princess.” His eyes met hers, frighteningly serious.
    She watched him carefully, unable to read his intentions. Here goes nothing, she thought with a deep, inner sigh. “Yes,” she breathed.
    It took a seemingly never-ending moment for him to answer. “Okay then. Bondmates it is.” He smiled tenderly, brought her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers.
    She melted with relief and pleasure, smiling back at him. She knew he loved her, knew he was committed to her. But, having never talked of the future, she hadn’t known if Han Solo, who had always valued his freedom above all else, ever even gave thought that far ahead.
    She placed a hand alongside his cheek and they smiled together like two excited school children. Everything settled more firmly into place and Leia felt more at home than ever.

END

Valentine's Challenge 2017 Submission #7 by infamousnalani

We have a story from a first-time contributor and prior lurker here, so let's give her a nice welcome!

 

 

'Intimate Altercations'

That insufferable man, she thought, seething with pent-up rage. What she was clenching in her fist evoked mixed emotions that demanded to be acknowledged, something she wasn’t interested in doing. In her fury she didn’t notice the trail of people following her that were no doubt eager for the shouting match that was about to ensue. Luke, who was known for his peak in mood when Leia was around, made a point of avoiding her path but quickly joined in her slipstream.

“Whatcha have there?” He sing-songed.

“I’m not in the mood.”

“If you’re not why are you going to see Han?”

She stopped abruptly and turned around to face him then took notice of the gathering of people that had amassed. “Don’t you people have places to be?” With heavy groans they made their way back to their stations. “I’m not going to see him.”

“Yeah, and I’m not a pain in the ass.” Luke smirked and pushed her on the shoulder. “Admit it, you like fighting with him.”

“I do not! Who does he think he is giving me this?” Leia thrust her hand into his face.

“Leia, they don’t say they’re from him.”

“Who else was gone for a week and had the capability of bringing it back to this frozen hell?”

“Why would he give you flowers?”

Leia seemed taken aback. “Why wouldn’t he?”

“Because you keep insisting that you don’t have feelings for each other.”

“And I don’t.”

“Oh but you do,” he laughed. “Which is exactly why you’re on your way to blow up at him. You missed him,” he drawled out.

“I did not!” Leia stamped her foot and turned on her heel, heading towards the hangar.

Luke laughed once more and called out to her, “Keep telling yourself that!”

Leia's anger had mostly subsided when she had approached the Millenium Falcon. The landing ramp had been lowered, which was standard practice between the two. Many a late nights on Yavin she had taken the symbol as an invitation to accompany him, which had resulted in numerous rounds of Corellian ale and bad decision making. To the day just the thought of the stuff made Leia’s heart flip in her chest for reasons she didn’t want to consider while sober. Freeing herself from the memory, she shook her head and ascended the ramp.

Her arrival was plagued with hesitation as a result of the latest installment of their infamous verbal sparring that had occurred in the hanger the night before he was to depart for a supply run. He had agreed at their last late-night Sabaac tournament with Luke and Chewie that he would allow her to escape from the subzero temperatures and mundane white walls with him but the altercation ended with him revoking her place on the ship. When dawn came, Leia pushed her ego aside to wish him well, but was met with a drawn ramp and an intangible sensation that she had only felt when truly dejected.

She made her way into the common area and had found her treasured companion bent around a pipe in an exposed hole in the floorboards. Han sighed and pushed himself onto his feet, turning to face Leia.

“Enjoying the view, sweetheart? I heard you walk up five minutes ago.” His eyes flashed with lasciviousness and his lips fell into its natural smirk, threatening to derail her.

“Captain that is entirely unprofessional.” Leia lowered herself to the ground and allowed her snow suit-clad legs to dangle into the pit Han was standing in. He sauntered towards her, taking care not to step on a discarded tool or trip over a pipe. Her knees settled at the same height as his shoulders and he took her elevation advantage to his benefit and leaned against her legs.

“You’re so caught up in being professional,” he placed his hands on the outside of her knees and slowly made short strokes along her thighs. Han felt her shiver and retracted his hands, bracing himself against the hole in the floor. “You good?” He beamed.

Leia avoided his question and thrust the bouquet of various flowers towards his chest. “Why’d you give me these?”

“Thought you’d get a kick out of them. You know, because sweetheart’s day is coming up and you insist you hate it when I call you that.”

She rolled her eyes, becoming increasingly impatient. “You truly don’t know anything about flower etiquette.” She undid the material binding the dainty pieces together and reached for one of each type. 

“Yellow carnations represent disappointment, geraniums symbolize stupidity, and meadowsweet is uselessness.”

“Yeah, I know, why do you think I picked them out for you?” Han laughed at her admonishment and caught the flowers as Leia hurled them at his chest.

“You’re horrible.”

“That’s why you like me.”

“I don’t like you.”

“Who else would have the nerve to pull something like that on you?”

“Not any respectable man.”

Han rolled his eyes and pulled Leia into the pit with him, pulling her into an embrace, to which she made no effort of trying to remove herself from. Her body heaved with a sigh and she leant into him. 

“Sometimes you’re alright.”

“Most times.”

“Some.”

Valentine's Challenge 2017 Submission #6 by knitzkampf

Let me preface this by saying I can't do fluff! I can't. I tried, but I just can't write anything with them already together and happy. So this is different than the other wonderful offerings. It's got angst, but it still has love.

Princess Leia of Alderaan closed her eyes to the gentle glow of the Falcon's cockpit. Han had asked her to set the ship's chrono to Standard Time, and a blue glow emitted from the console, marking month and hour. She was deep in thought, thinking of time and space, together and separately.

Floating towards her, as if they were delicate molecules in space, she heard voices. The prissy, precise pronunciation of C-3PO and Han's warm, scoundrel's mumble. Listening, she felt herself softening. Han was irritated. Wanted the droid to shut up and let him work in silence, she could tell. She knew him so well, really. He snapped at her, too, but never to make her go away, which was what he wanted the droid to do now. No, he was always daring her to come closer.

It's what he had always done. Always, since she had known him. Then and now. For all their time.

So much time.

The prospect groaned inside her. If he couldn't make repairs, they would drift, in space, for how long?

Time had stopped for her. She knew the moment precisely. Couldn't set it on a chrono – she had been drugged, tortured, and had no idea how long she'd been a prisoner on the Death Star, but nevertheless, time had stopped.

She was nineteen when it happened. She still saw it when she closed her eyes, the fireball of dust that was her planet. She'd simply stopped. Frozen in time. It was how long ago? It didn't matter. The one strand of gray hair, the lines at the corners of her mouth were due to time. Even being frozen in time left signs.

Sweet sixteen and ne'er been kissed.

Her eyes jolted open. Where had that come from? Some silly saying, an Alderaani teasing, reinforcement of virtue and femininity.

But it had time in it. An age. Sixteen. She'd been kissed, she wanted to protest to whatever had put the thought in her head. Kissed by then, since then.

Sweet twenty-two and kissed deeply.

Tomorrow was Lover's Day.

Again, she shook her head, wondering what had prompted that thought. Ridiculous, that she should have gleaned that information from the ship's calendar. On Hoth, it would merely be the third day of the week, no special significance at all. On Hoth, where it was so cold, so perfect. Frozen, everything frozen. Mechanics malfunctioning, relationships not progressing. Frozen in place. She was comfortable there.

She was stuck on a broken-down freighter, for who knows how long; too long. They would move through space and time past Lover's Day.

He was giving her space. Time, too, perhaps. Which had stopped, twice now. Once in horror, so many lives snuffed in one single instant.

The second time in sweet seduction. Damn him. Time, his time, had been building to this moment. He'd known it. But for her, it came as a shock. Frozen, she'd always been able to hold him off, stop his progress, tell him not to love her. If she pictured herself, it was arms up, forging a barrier, preventing him moving through into her space.

The little cramped circuit bay. He finally managed to grab hold of her hand, she couldn't hold him back. His face was serious, earnest, smoldering. He'd liked being called a scoundrel, though. Seemed to enjoy it immensely. Her eyes on his lips, her heart thumping, thumping, beating time, a rhythm forward, thawing. She was twenty-two, stuck on a freighter, and tomorrow was Lover's Day.

She stirred a bit in the captain's seat, peering out the cockpit view port. The freighter too was in a cramped space, hunkered down deep past a cave entrance of an asteroid. The Empire was above them, time killers. She could hear the thumps of the bombs they dropped, destroying asteroids, trying to flush them out of hiding.

What had he done? Brought her out of Hoth, onto this broken ship, his ship, and it was warm, so warm. She would melt if she didn't get out of this snow suit.

His kiss had started time again. Brought total climate change. She smiled, regretfully, at that. Because she was warm now when once she'd been cold. So cold. Her chill covered everything. She was sure it was how they wound up on Hoth, the entire Rebel Alliance. Her touch turned all to ice.

Tomorrow was Lover's Day. She closed her eyes again and like a friend the moment everything died visited her. She was nineteen then and twenty-two now. She had a gray hair. Time hadn't stopped. She had stopped.

How sad, she thought now.

Han wouldn't know it was Lover's Day. He had his own methods of stopping time. Day after day of needing to leave turned into year after year. Three total now. Yet in his typical offhand way, he'd given her a gift of sorts.

For past Lover's Days she had received presents. Candies from her parents, bouquets from the adoring public that lined the streets. People that loved her but were not lovers. This year she had received a kiss, and space and time. And a day early, at that. She grinned softly, her knuckles in her cheek. Han Solo, gambler, had cheated time.

He was probably happy back there, about the kiss. The bastard. But the thought was affectionate. He had flown them into a cave, and anybody that followed had crashed and burned, and now nobody knew where they were. He had stopped time for all who were out there, so he could start hers again.

Something ticked in the cockpit. Her eyes sought it out. Time made noise, when you were counting it. So did bombs. But they counted down, too, didn't they? Was it a malfunction? Something else on this heap to be wrong?

C3PO's metal fingers had poked at Han's shoulder, like depressing a reset button. Stop the clock, turn off the alarm. Leia had never used hers much in her quarters on Hoth. What did she need to measure when there was no passage of time?

His voice back there, soothing. She could picture, it, as if it wasn't her shoulder his large hand rested on, as if it wasn't her jaw his fingers lightly brushed. Her hand held in his other. She could see her body, her back against the wall yet open to him, trembling. Wary, terrified in the knowledge he was going to kiss her, and she was going to let him.

His hands were on his ship now, just as broken as she. Maybe more. She realized he treated them the same. Like a lady. Except for the yelling and the cursing. But he loved them.

They were in trouble; there was no doubt about it. She had made repairs. Set Standard Time, gotten too warm in her snow suit.

But he couldn't get the hyperdrive back online yet. Said he might need parts, which of course did not exist out in the nowhere of space.

He was worried, she could tell. She had a sense he felt time was running out, that there was only so much he would be able to do before it all went up in a puff of smoke. The gambler's creed. So he set about kissing her and fixing the Falcon, make things as right as he could if he didn't get the chance to come back and finish it properly.

How sad, she thought again.

Destiny is your time to choose was an old Alderaani proverb. Alderaan had not chosen to die, certainly, but it had anyway. And she had stopped with it; not died, entirely, but allowed it, slowly. Like her hair turning gray; a gradual shift. She had invited Death in. And Han, Han was Life; knocking, merry, not gradual at all but sudden and spontaneous.

Destiny was fluid, he taught her. She had chosen once and she was choosing again.

He'd held her hand, kissed her. His gift came early, before Lover's Day. If they could just get away from the Empire, whether they flew off with the repaired hyperdrive or stayed hidden in this asteroid, then they would have all the time in the world.

He was giving her space, he started time, and she was warming.

Time was racing. She was twenty-two now, she had a gray hair, a man had kissed her because he'd wanted to for a long, long time.

The Empire was out there. They had to get away, they just had to. She was not going to let them stop her again. She would spend Lover's Day in a cave on an asteroid, or hopefully, in hyperspace, and the Empire was going to leave her alone.

A shadow crossed the cave. She sat forward, leery, used to being afraid. It's how she spent the last three years but this was new, this was different. Her heart raced, sweat gathered in her armpits. This fear didn't have the icy control over her.

A creature landed on the view port, rubbery, toothy, wings and tail. She heard herself make a noise, part revulsion and surprise, and dashed out of the cockpit.

Time was up. She needed to confront the captain.

"Something's out there," she ran up to him.

She almost expected him to give her a scoundrel's wink, that delicious half smile, say cheerfully, "I'd say there's somethin' in here too, Sweetheart." But all he said was "Where?" His hair was mussed, the goggles marked a line on his forehead, and he was intent on his repairs. He had done what he could for Leia, what he always knew he could do, if she would only let him, and now his focus was on his ship.

"Out there, in the cave," she declared. She was breathless, anxious. He was grim and determined, and all she wanted was to grab his elbow as he passed her. He was in motion, moving forward, and she thought to stop him; stop his time, so she could tell him. But instead she followed him, grabbing an oxygen mask, thinking there'll be time for that later.

Valentine's Challenge 2017 Submission #5 by Knighted Rogue

Valentine’s Day Submission: “Weapon in Her Arsenal”

KnightedRogue

Han awoke before sunrise with a thundering heartbeat. He blinked up at the ceiling, tried to orient himself. His brain dredged up images from his dream: a particularly awful one about his time in carbonite. And though he was awake the phantom fear of statis hung over him like a cloud. He tried to distract himself by finding shapes in the shadows above his head but the shadows reminded him of blindness, helplessness and defeat.

So he turned to his side and looked at Leia.

In the dark he could only make out her faint silhouette. She breathed quietly, sound asleep, turned toward him with her hair exploding from her braid in all directions. He could barely see the soft line of her cheekbone. And as much as he wanted to feel calmed by the sight of her sleeping peacefully beside him - still a novelty, still a miracle - he just couldn’t find any peace.

He sighed, frustrated. While these dreams were becoming more infrequent, one bad dream would often spark another. Sometimes he would be able to catch Leia in a similar situation (her dreams bordered on night terrors and scared the hell out of him) and they would get up, make some caf and lounge around the apartment until it was time to go to work. They were partners in trauma, capable of getting through it together.

But she was blissfully asleep and there was no way Han would disturb her. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine more pleasant things: the Falcon’s new telemetry panel, his upcoming trip to Kashyyyk, the little black thing Leia had worn to bed last night.

But his heart still raced. The anxiety bubbled beneath his skin. He felt like he sometimes had as a kid with Shrike: his fight-or-flight reflex working at hyperspeed. His brain continued to fire on half its thrusters and left him circling the same thoughts over and over again: immobility, helplessness, terror.

You’re fine. It wasn’t real. Go back to sleep.

Han tried to breathe through his panic. Quietly, in and out, with as little movement as he could manage. He didn’t want to wake Leia. He just needed to get control of himself. He was safe, he was fine, there was nothing here to hurt him. Them. Her.

That was always the worst part. He could handle dreams of his time in carbonite. There wasn’t much to dream about and the claustrophobia eventually faded. But his last memories before the terrifying void of hibernation were brutal. Leia, her eyes broken, telling him she loved him because they both knew she’d never get another chance to say it. Chewie, failure stamped across his face. Han was going to die without being able to protect them from Vader. The past three years had meant nothing if it came to that. He had no problem dying in service to them, not a single one. That was a good death, a better one than he probably deserved. But dying before knowing Leia and Chewie were safe? Knowing that Leia was once again in Vader’s hands, that Luke was on his way? No.

The only thing he really knew he was good at doing was protecting them, and without that, he was absolutely powerless.That was the stuff of nightmares.

Han almost flew out of bed when he felt a hand on his chest. He looked down: Leia’s, of course. Leia’s small hand, the back resting against his left pectoral. An innocent sleep maneuver, maybe she was cold, maybe she -

“Han,” she mumbled.

Han’s panicked thoughts quieted, first to a dull roar and then a quiet hum. The insects beneath his skin disappeared. His heart seemed to stumble into a slowing rhythm, not instantly but quickly enough that he felt himself returning to a light lull.

He squinted in the dim light, trying to catch her eye. She must have awoken while he’d been overwhelmed. Her hand, even the back of it, felt gloriously warm against his chest, like she was anchoring him to her. His name on her lips brought the endless circling into a quiet tranquility. “Sorry to wake you, sweetheart,” he whispered.

She didn’t reply.

Confused, Han leaned in. From his closer vantage point he could see that Leia was still asleep.

Unable to help himself, he scooted backwards, away from her, until her hand lay benign on the bed between them. Slowly, he felt his heart tumble into its faster rhythm, the panic spiral down his spine. Without another thought he moved back to her, closer, reached out and pressed her hand against his chest and held it there above his heart.   

A moment, then his heartbeat slowed.

The hell? Han was tempted to keep testing this odd influence Leia seemed to have on him, but the relief felt too good. He moved closer to her and threaded his legs through hers, his body so close now that he could feel her breath against his neck.

He knew Leia had a visceral effect on him when they were awake. Everyone knew that. But that wasn’t this. That was chemistry, the spark that drew them both in.This was her presence calming his panic, her skin bringing him back to their reality. And she was doing it while she was completely unconscious.

Was this some Force thing she’d picked up from Luke?

Probably. And in his normal mental state, he would balk at this psychic shit. But like any good penitent, he deferred to the higher plane of his own comfort, closed his eyes and felt himself fall into a peaceful sleep.

When Han next awoke, the early dawn light filtered through the windows and Leia was gone from the bed. He could smell caf brewing in another room and heard the holoscreen flip onto a familiar galactic news station. He groaned but threw his legs over the side of the bed and stood, ambled into the fresher. Sometime while the sonics did their magic, his brain defogged enough to remember the night before. He shivered despite himself, a little freaked out, remembering the sure way his body had quietly yielded to whatever mumbo-jumbo Leia had been up to.

He made a concerted effort not to panic. To Han’s mind there were knowable truths and there were unknowable truths. One of the most knowable things in the universe was that Leia would never do anything - anything - to hurt him, consciously or unconsciously. By that logic, if she had really been doing something to him last night it wasn’t worth his panic. With a glance at the mirror, he walked out of the fresher, threw on a pair of clean pants and wandered into the kitchen.

Their apartment wasn’t large, but it was theirs and something about that made everything seem ten times better to Han. For someone who hadn’t lived in an actual building for years the novelty of its permanence hadn’t yet been lost on him. The fact that Leia, the most famous negotiator in this post-Endor galaxy, hadn’t argued at all when he’d suggested a new cohabitational living arrangement was sometimes beyond his capacity to believe.

He grabbed a cup of caf and then made his way to the living room, where he spotted a mess of a brunette bun peeking over the back of their conform couch. He walked behind her, kissed the top of her head and mumbled a quiet good morning.

He loved seeing her like this. Morning-Leia: undone, tired, caf-addicted. Human.

Leia turned to watch him as he sat beside her, temporarily ignoring the holoscreen in front of them. “Good morning,” she said. “How did you sleep?”

His hard-won cynicism wanted to ask her how she thought he had slept, but the man that loved Leia Organa prevailed. “Not bad. You?”

“I had the strangest dream,” she said into her caf. “You were there.”

He put his feet up on the table in front of them and crossed his ankles. “Aren’t I always?”

She rolled her eyes.

Han offered her his most pathetic wounded animal expression. “Fine. Were we at least doing something interesting?”

Her exasperated smile drifted away as she thought about it. “We were on the way to Bespin and we lost environmental controls.”

“Oh,” he muttered. “That would have been … bad.”

Worse than bad, actually. Catastrophic. Not a single one of them would have survived if that had happened.

“No kidding,” she said. “You panicked, started yelling at everyone to shut up. To be fair, you do that often enough in real life.”

“Inspiration,” he said, and grinned. “I am the man of your dreams, after all.”

“One of them,” she fired back. “Chewie was there, too. And Threepio.”

He had to laugh at that. “Clearly I’m not earning my keep if you’re dreaming about the droid.”

She smiled. It always amazed him that she could still look drowsy while she snarked at him in the mornings. This woman was everything he’d never known he needed in his life. “You are handy for services that the others aren’t qualified to provide. Nearly getting us killed is one of the ones you insist upon.”

He left that services comment alone for the moment. “‘Nearly killed,’” he quoted. “So we survived?”

Leia’s eyes slid to the side and she mindlessly ran a finger down the enclosure of her robe. “It was odd. I couldn’t get you to stop yelling. I kept trying but you wouldn’t listen.”

Han’s hackles rose. Her voice had dropped into that weird, shadowy quality that Luke’s sometimes did, like she was worried her words might wake some ghost.

“So I touched your chest to get you to stop and you just disappeared. Right in front of my eyes.”

He sat up, took his feet off the table and set his caf down.

Leia’s eyes found his again. “It was so strange. I wasn’t upset about it, either.”

“No?” he asked. His left hand shook a little. He placed it on his thigh.

“No,” she said. “I was … I felt happy about it.” She shook her head. “Clearly my subconscious is worried about you freezing to death.”

“Yeah,” he said, running his steady hand over his face. He felt brittle, like if she wanted, she could snap him in half. His left hand was still shaking. He wasn’t sure how he should feel. Leia was saying … wasn’t she telling him impossible things? That she tapped into his dreams, or his anxiety, and then decided to help him out? Without being awake?

That was unnerving. That spooked him. Because whatever that was, it wasn’t normal. Luke could do all this crazy shit, levitate things, make impossible shots, take over people’s minds. Han had seen him do it.

And he’d known Leia would be capable of all of that, too. They were goddamned twins. Vader had ripped Han’s blaster from his hand on Bespin from meters away. Even if he and Leia didn’t talk about it - at all, never - she had access to that same power, right? So what would stop her from doing this?

He forced himself to look at her. She leaned back, curled her legs underneath her, watched the holoscreen with a thoughtful expression on her face. The mug in her hand was the little yellow one that Chewie had given her years ago, making fun of its relative diminutiveness compared to his preferred tankard of a mug. Without makeup she looked younger than she usually did. That mess of a bun on top of her head called forth memories of when all he wanted was to see her look like this: comfortable, relaxed, at home. Happy.

This was all he’d ever wanted. This life. With her.

His stomach twisted. She didn’t even seem to know what she’d done. Her dream was eerie, because it threw her motivations into this blurry line between his anxiety and her dream. She’d sensed his panic and instinctively protected him from it. She’d been happy that he’d disappeared from her dream, like she was saving him from a long, pointless death. And wasn’t that exactly what she’d done?

Wasn’t that exactly what he would have done for her, too? If he could, if he had that power? Would he have hesitated to steal her out of those night terrors, the ones when she screamed for her father, her real father, the only one they recognized? Hadn’t he spent hours holding her to him, gladly bearing the exhaustion the following day because he couldn’t stand to see her in pain?

He was willing to die for her. He’d gladly do anything to spare her. What made him think she would do anything less for him?

He reached for her mug and ripped it from her hands. She threw him a shocked, indignant expression as he put her mug down on the table next to his.

And then he lunged at her.

Her indignation twisted into a sort of surprised yelp as she fell onto her back, Han on top of her, his hands bracketing her head as he grinned down at her. “Yes, Flyboy?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow. “Did you want something?”

He considered telling her what she’d done for him. He wanted to. He wanted to say that he would do the same for her. He wanted to say that he recognized her instinctive need to protect him, that it was in essence the same as him using his speed draw against Vader. A weapon in her arsenal. One he didn’t have, one he didn’t understand, and one he desperately appreciated.

But he didn’t have a hope of being able to say it with the right amount of depth that she deserved. And he wasn’t sure that she would take it the way he meant it. Leia’s capacity for self-loathing had expanded tenfold since finding out about Vader. Han thought she was getting a little more perspective on it now, but he didn’t want her to tiptoe around this issue. He’d bring it up someday, in a way that communicated his gratitude.

For now he just wanted to show her that she meant the galaxy to him.

“Yeah,” he answered and pressed his hips against hers. “I want you.”