High Romance
Bruce Springsteen's birthday is today, so I wrote this on a whim in between finishing WK for October. This is for all my other September babies, too--especially @justinegraham. XXXXXXXXX
“It is him,” Luke insisted, in response to Chewie’s dubious hoot. “What’s-his-name from...aw, you know who I mean. From that holo-night, back on Pyrqar?”
Slowing the hovercart he was steering, Chewie craned his neck to look again. Han, too, glanced at the man Luke claimed to recognize: an average-height, average-build human, browsing the forty flavours of Stimquench water. Nothing really stood out about the guy. He wore a leather swoopbike jacket, unzipped, over a t-shirt. Denim pants. Maybe the red sneakers were a bit flash, but he wasn’t dressed in white armour or a black mask, so. Han couldn’t care less.
Han peered at the grocery list, trying to decipher his own script. He’d been writing fast, trying to keep up with his wife’s requests. Weird stuff, but if it made Leia feel better, Han would bring her the pickled pinky finger of Gardulla the Elder. Pulling the stylus from behind his ear, Han braced the flimsi on his bared forearm to cross off the beerilwheat husks—ground, not crushed—and four (4) jars of tintolives. Now, for fruit—
You are correct, Boy Jedi, Chewie pronounced. That is indeed Jyms Tankko.
“Tankko, yeah. Yeah, that’s him! Where’s he been lately?” Luke plucked a qucumber from a bin, fencing with it. Han wondered if Luke was aware that he had an actual sword made of light attached to his belt. “Hey Han! Remember in High Romance, when—”
“Nope.”
“You do too.” Luke put the quke-saber back, scrambling to catch up with Han’s stride. “You were at that holo-night, I saw y—”
“Well, I wasn’t watching, kid,” Han responded in that way he knew Luke hated, hell, everyone hated, which was the point. An art form, really, conveying that level of insulting patience. Wat-ching. It was all in the cadence.
Luke and Chewie traded exasperated looks. Han ignored them, knocking on a dewmelon to test its freshness. It was the truth: he hadn’t watched High Romance that long-ago night on Pyrqar—not the way the Rebels watched it, at least, sprawled on bedrolls and pallets they’d dragged into the darkened hangar. Hundreds of rapt faces upraised to the action projected on a backdrop of parachute silk. Chewie was there too, lounging in a pillow-filled inflatable boat with the Rogues, stuffing puffcorn in in his gullet. Luke had called to Han, up on the Falcon’s roof, but Han chose not to hear him. Who had time for bedtime stories? The rustmite on the aft reactor panel was hardly gonna wire-brush itself!
But the gist of the story reached Han as he worked. Blah blah ancient times, blah grave danger. A knight sworn to protect a persecuted priestess. Clanging sword-fights, clever escapes, bad guys seeing the light; nothing like real life, where you splashed around in a fascist trash compactor. Or you shot a Rodian where he sat. In the film’s climactic attack, which struck just after the couple shared a prissy little kiss, the knight hurled himself into the path of a cross-bow aimed at the priestess. Took the arrow right in his chest—bare, natch, because wasn’t that how everyone fought, especially knights?—but he managed one last speech: commitment, my lady. Blah blah, belief. The knight’s voice broke on faith, and then he died in the priestess’ embrace.
Han smirked around the penlight clamped in his teeth. Yep, that’s where pledging yourself to pretty zealots got you—but then his eyes found her. Over by the hangar doors, perched on the edge of a munitions crate. She hadn’t been there for most of the show, Han felt sure. Not that he’d been looking, he hastily reminded himself. You couldn’t miss the little menace, especially at night. All that white. Besides, Han was an observant guy, anyone would tell you that!
Han Solo did not care about the Princess of Alderaan. At all. One way or the other. With that settled, he could let himself surreptitiously study her. It was impossible to tell if she was affected by the knight’s big death scene. Even with battle-hardened Rebels openly weeping all around her—hells, was Chewie dabbing his eyes?—the Princess sat perfectly straight on that weapons crate, face cool and pale and set as plastone. Han watched her a bit longer, but she never cracked; until at last he resumed his labours, feeling a kind of frustrated admiration.
When the holo ended, the hangar lights brightened but the speakers stayed on, playing the film’s theme song. Cheesy tune: something about hearts going on, a lot of flute. Han rolled his eyes. Not one single lyric about broken heroes on a last-chance power drive? Please. The Princess walked by then, right under the Falcon, not noticing Han on the roof above her. Or anyone in her immediate path, for that matter; absorbed in her datapad, walking at her usual purposeful clip, Her Briskness almost collided with a Kaminoan bio-tech.
“Whoa there, Princess.” With his elongated arm, the Kami affably prevented impact.
Leia’s braided head jerked up. “Oh, pardon me, Dac. I was—”
Dac craned his segmented neck over Leia’s datapad. “Looking up that actor?”
Leia knit her brow in polite confusion.
“Girl.” Dac brandished his own datapad, shimmering with an image of the guy who played the knight, standing all moody atop some craggy cliff. Shirtless again. Because, as everyone knew, the trick to rock-climbing was in the tits. “Behold: The Sex.”
“Ah. Jyms Tankko.” Leia’s face assumed a special kind of look. A look Han had recently decided he liked very much. It wasn’t quite a smile, though her smile was really...hey, princesses were beautiful, so what! Everyone knew that, it was a fact, like wookiees hated to lose and farmboys were nice, and smugglers owed slugs money and refused to enlist. No, this look was in Leia’s eyes. Warm and dancing in her brown eyes, and lately, whenever Leia turned that look Han’s way, he felt something in his chest hit hyper.
But seeing Leia’s playful expression applied to some actor, Han felt, instead, a stabbing hunch: she knows him. He was suddenly sure of it, Leia and Tankko had met. Somewhere, their posh circles had overlapped; maybe more than that. Maybe they were friends. Maybe they were...well. It only made sense: Tankko was handsome. Successful. Rich. Han watched Leia cross the hangar, then dropped his eyes to his knuckles, etched with rust. High romance, Han scoffed under his breath. Right, and went inside his ship to wash.
After, Han sat in the cockpit in the dark, nursing a whiskey, staring out at the duracrete hangar. Listening to the greatest Corellian bard sing about losers pulling off of dead-end worlds to win. Yeah, win: why not him? Maybe Han Solo didn’t have much, but he had the Falcon. Leaving was always an option.
A shrill beeping jarred Han back to the market. Reflexively he reached for his chest pocket, only to remember that he wasn’t wearing his vest but his formal uniform, though he’d ditched the jacket in the speeder and rolled up his shirtcuffs as soon as the event was over. Han shimmied his comm from the hip pocket of his dress Bloods and peered at the screen.
How did it go9
Han grinned softly to himself. For all of Leia’s gifts and talents, which amazed him daily, the goddesses had failed to bless her with deft comm fingers. She was always accidentally incorporating some random numeral or letter into her messages. Funny thing, as Leia was lethal on a trigger. Although she couldn’t see him, Han made rather showy use of his thumb in his response. Still trying to impress her. He was pretty sure he’d never stop.
Princess. You have to ask? Han swiped nimbly back. You assigned the job to the Captain of the Millennium Falcon, aka the coolest Rebel hero, according to the readers of Beings holozine.
Her responding blip sounded indignant. Luke worm that poll!
Han’s head fell back in laughter. Leia invested autocorrect with a blind trust that she would never offer across the negotiating table. Han found this adorable. He also wished that Leia, and the esteemed readers of Beings holozine, could see the super-cool Luke Skywalker now, bopping down the aisle, singing along with some old Core World pop song piped over the market’s intercom. Something about run away, turn away. Not one line about shut-down strangers and hot-rod angels? Pssshhhh.
This called for a voice recording.
“Sure, Luke won the electoral. But I had the popular vote, Princess,” Han said into the grille of his comm. The lecturing meter was back in his voice—pop-u-lar—but these days it made Leia laugh. Back on Hoth, it used to piss her off. When he used that tone, it made her cheeks flush and her eyes snap—it even, Han swore this happened, made stray waves spring from Leia’s braids to frame her face. Which Han found both endearing and painfully hot, and experiencing those feelings together probably should’ve clued him in, much sooner, that he was truly fucked in love with her forever. “The People’s Coolest, if you will—”
Before Han finished, his comm sounded again, her message so carefully written it made him wince: Did I let them all down? Since the end of the war, Leia had presented the annual Alliance Memorial Scholarship at Coruscant University, and planned to do so today, too. But one sip into her kaffe she’d bolted out of bed for their ensuite bathroom, hand pressed to her mouth. Being Leia, immediately after throwing up, she declared she was fine.
“Fine?” Han demanded, leaning in the bathroom doorway. Sternness was hard to muster wearing only the bunny-print boxers she’d bought him last Alderaanian Easter, but he did his best. “The medic said if this happened again, you should rest—”
Spitting out toothpaste, Leia didn’t answer. But there was unmistakable refusal in the way she shrugged off her nightgown, threw it at the hamper, and stepped under the spray of the ‘fresher.
“Oh well then, never mind. You’re fine!” Han tossed up his hands. “Like that time you got sunstroke on Chyron-Ninety, Princess? That kind of fine?”
“I’ll be fine, Hotshot.” Leia said, in her authoritative, that’s-it, I’ve-made-my-decision voice. Which, combined with her slick, soapy nakedness, was so sexy it left Han momentarily speechless.
But Leia’s victory was short-lived. When she retched again while pinning her braids, and went for the fuckin’ hat-trick when fastening the clasps on her dress made her dizzy, Han deployed the old, “what about you need?” Which was established code between them that she was doing too much. Did Leia listen? Did she, hell. Doggedly she re-brushed her teeth and tottered past Han on her high heels, out of their bedroom and down the hall. Han followed, pulling on a t-shirt inside-out, lengthening his stride to catch her if she fell. Leia made it to the kitchen, then sagged against the chiller.
“You okay, sis?” Luke asked from the breakfast nook, over a bowl of that sugary cereal he liked. Tiny chocolate bears drowning in blue milk.
“I’m.” Leia whispered, pressing her forehead to frosted transparisteel like she’d just escaped the Jundland Wastes. “Fine.”
Han stepped up behind Leia, gathering her in his arms. “Come off it, Sweetheart,” he grumbled into her neck.
Leia turned in Han’s arms to gaze up at him. Her stunning eyes, prettily lined in violet for today’s occasion, pleaded with him. As though Han could wave a hand and cure her sickness—when he’d like nothing better! He had, after all, helped inflict it on her.
“Han. Someone has to present the scholarship.”
“Leia. Someone will,”
“You know what I mean. Someone...” Leia’s modesty wrestled with her pragmatism. “...prominent in the Rebellion.” She fussed again with those pesky buttons on her floral dress. Alderaanian roses, Han noted, a pang in his heart. She’d carried them in her elopement bouquet.
The scholarship was for relatives of fallen Alliance fighters, and every year Leia worried its corporate funding would dry up; like all noble endeavours, the fledgling New Republic was close to broke. Han would like to reassure Leia, but he knew the score. Fame was the coin of the realm. Credits would keep rolling to deserving students only so long as big-name Rebels showed up to pose with bankers, wanky entrepreneurs and CEOs.
“We’ll do it,” Luke offered, glancing at Chewbacca. Chewie raised his kaffe mug with an affirming roar.
Leia bit her lip. Han could see how badly she wanted—needed!—to kick off the heels, hang up her dress. Go back to sleep. Leave it to Leia, though, to find the loophole in giving herself a break. She gestured at Luke’s travel bag, set between his boots; then at Chewie’s knitted knapsack, slung over his furry shoulder. Their quick, celebratory visit to Coruscant over, Chewie was headed back to his family on Kashyyyk, and Luke to Yavin for the new semester at his Jedi Academy.
“Han’s driving you two to the spaceport in an hour!”
“So I’ll fly out later,” Luke shrugged. “It’s kinda my own X-Wing.”
Chewie tapped the Spaceways app on his datapad. (I will reschedule my departure to this afternoon, Princess.)
In most cases, Han had learned since becoming a public figure, holotab gossip was bullshit, worded so as to avoid being sued but also so every reader knew exactly who was meant. Like, Which rebel royal had enough of rough trade, and is now secretly engaged to a duke? But one rumour was true: the galaxy’s most famous co-pilot had indeed developed a post-war taste for commercial spaceflight. Chewie liked the heated blankets and constant snacks, the vast selection of holo-flicks. The Wook collected frequent-flier points! Normally, Han found this a travesty—but not today. Today, Han could hug them both, his brother-in-law and his best friend. Luke Skywalker? The mighty Chewbacca? Didn’t get more big-name Rebel than that. And Leia knew it. So Han pressed his chance.
“Yeah, let’s stay home. Can’t be puking on CEOs.” Han squinted thoughtfully down at his wife. “Or can we?”
Even with her eyes all misty, Leia managed to find the ticklish place in Han’s ribs that he hadn’t known existed until their trip to Bespin. But then she pulled back in his arms, stricken. Han didn’t need the Force to read her: if Leia didn’t attend the ceremony, then Han would have to, or the media would conclude that something was up with her. Something bigger than some minor flu. And while Leia had been thrilled for them to tell Chewie and Luke, she wasn’t ready, yet, to publicly announce their news.
Han pecked the freckled bridge of her nose, an obvious yes. Gratefully Leia nestled deeper into his arms; he could feel her exhaustion, and also her trust. And maybe, Leia yawned into his chest, could Han stop by that big market near the spaceport, after? They had the best tintolives. Suddenly, she really wanted tintolives. And dewmelon. And beerilwheat husks...
At the University, Luke gave a moving, funny, inspirational speech off the top of his blond head, and handed the scholarship to an Advozse teenager who’d invented a universal prosthetic lung. Her elder sister had died on Hoth. No one compared to the power and presence of Leia, of course, but Luke had his own sunny charisma, and was such a hero in his own right that the corporate types fell over themselves to meet him; Chewie and Han were no handshake slouches either. They’d been pelted with loaded donation chips.
You never failed anyone a day in your life, Princess. Han’s thumb flew, as though swiftness could convey the depth of his conviction in her. It went great. Promise.
Leia responded with a happy-crying Nexu with hearts for eyeballs.
How you feeling, Your Queasiness? Han wrote.
Butter tanks
Where are those? Han snapped a quick picture of himself, staring with theatrical bafflement into the dairy cooler. Near the cheese grenades?
Han was still chuckling rather smugly when Leia countered with a holo-clip; she was sitting up in bed, braids fuzzy from her nap, wearing the t-shirt Han had tossed aside this morning. The neckline slipped down over one shoulder; the faded crest of CEC Shipyards, Local 356 was just visible across her breasts. And her brown eyes, still lined in violet gone fetchingly smudged, harboured that playful look, the one Han had wistfully noticed those years ago. The look of Leia’s warm secret self.
Leia copped a silly pinup pose, and spoke—no sound, but Han could read her lips. Hiya, Flyboy.
Sixth hell, he needed a minute.
When he could breathe, Han sent Leia about sixty Alderaanian Xs and Os and then, with a dreamy grin, slipped the comm into his pants pocket. Time to finish this shopping, drop Chewie and Luke safely off at the spaceport and get back to his wife in person.
That was when Han saw Jyms Tankko again.
The actor was walking down the aisle toward Han, drinking a bottle of Stimquench water. It seemed that Tankko had barely aged from his heyday of High Romance. His nose was straight, his skin scarless; his stubble probably had its own gardener. He had dark blue eyes, and black curls grazed his shoulders. As the two men drew closer, Han noticed that the bottle’s label bore Tankko’s own image, shirtless again only this time riding a thranta. Han almost burst out laughing, but bit his tongue. He could well afford magnanimity, at point in his life. If Stimquench wanted to pay Jyms Tankko to strip off his kit, well, good for him; hardly fair for Han Solo of all people to judge someone on their hustle.
Tankko hadn’t noticed Han. He was looking, intently, at Luke. Earlier, Luke had recognized Tankko, and now Tankko clearly clocked Luke. And while Luke was often recognized in public, Tankko didn’t stare at the Hero of Yavin the way those rich donors had, today: impressed, starstruck.
Tankko looked...spooked.
Beings were often awed, to meet Luke. But they were never afraid of him. Yet as Han watched, Jyms Tankko stopped in his tracks and, strangely, snatched at the zips on his jacket, as though to quickly close it. Even stranger, Luke had quit singing his run away turn aways and was staring back at Tankko—and Luke’s eyes, usually clear and warm as a summer sky, were trained like blue lasers on the actor’s t-shirt. Han’s own eyes followed.
Across Jyms Tankko’s expensive chest was the printed slogan: I went to Alderaan, and all I got was this lousy—
The sentence ended in the graphic picture of an exploding planet.
Oh, Sweetheart. Han thought of Leia that morning, lovely and brave in her rose-print dress. He had the absurd urge to turn off his comm, as though to shield her.
Under Luke’s stare Tankko actually tried some acting, slapping at his pockets, his forehead, like he’d forgotten something. He quarter-turned from Luke, making to leave the aisle in the other direction. And bumped straight into the mighty Chewbacca.
Tankko gaped dumbly upward. Chewie cocked his sleek head, studying Tankko’s shirt.
(I do not understand.) said Chewie. (The sentence ends before,)
“That’s it, Chewie.” Luke moved toward Tankko like a featherweight boxer, closing off an exit angle. “That’s the punchline.”
(Ha ha.) Chewie slung an arm, heavy with congenial menace, over Tankko’s shoulders. Luke’s smile was likewise cheerful as he took Tankko by the elbow. Han stepped directly in front of Tankko. Tankko’s stare travelled from Han’s polished boots up his Bloodstripes to the Rebel insignia pinning down his collar to his scarred jaw, then he looked frantically around the aisle as though for...shit, what did this guy think, that a phalanx of extras in epoxy armour was gonna ride over from the bakery and save him?
Tankko’s eyes flicked to a spot just above the stacked boxes of Choc-o-Woks. On instinct Han turned to see a mini-drone cam, one of those holotab jobs, clicking furiously away from a location no one would notice if they didn’t already know it was there. And a funny thing happened, then. Once Tankko saw he was being observed, that they were being observed, he looked not just relieved but...improved. His frightened body language relaxed. Colour returned to his face, as though the lens had given him a blood transfusion. He tapped his own chest, the silkscreened sparks and rubble.
“It’s for a role,” Tankko said, with zesty condescension.
For a role, Han thought, amazed. If this were indeed a holofilm, this was where the scriptwriter would provide Han with some poetic, scathing monologue. Something about, once upon a time the bravest, truest, most beautiful Princess was forced to watch her planet and people blow up. How that could’ve been the end of it, the end of her; it would’ve been the end of anyone else. Not this Princess, though. This Princess fought back. This Princess went on to save the galaxy, you disrespectful fuck!
But no words appeared on Han’s mental screen. Instead, it was an image: Leia, on their recent honeymoon, browsing bazaar stalls filled with rich silks, glittering stones, archaic nerfhide-bound books, new cosmetics like delicate pollen. Leia bought gifts for everyone else but nothing for herself, seemed pleased just to be there. Han watched her, her filmy dress rippling around her body, the swell at her middle only just visible, sandals laced up her shapely calves. His heart brimming, Han knew he’d never forget how Leia looked then. At home in this world, the wider worlds. With him.
“Take it off,” Han managed, around the lump in his throat.
“What, here?” Tankko laughed.
Han poked the label on Tankko’s water bottle, Live Laugh Lemon or whatever flavour, Tankko half-dressed astride some poor stoned thranta. “Never bothered you before.”
(Remove this shameful garment. Or we will,) Chewie growled. While Tankko obviously didn’t understand Chewie’s speech, Wookiees had a way of getting their meaning across. And so Tankko looked to Luke, of course. Pleadingly. Because nothing was ever afraid of Luke, even when it should be—just ask the Death Star. Or the wampa. Or the rancor. Or the Emperor. The kid was actually a multiple killer, but in a loveable way. A righteous way that everyone cheered for. Like if a Nabooese therapy retriever occasionally mauled some bounty hunters.
Luke squeezed Tankko’s shoulder. “Is it so painful, for you?”
Tankko’s matinee idol lips fell open.
“Is that it?” Luke had that all-seeing look. It wasn’t the mind trick, but it was close—a compassion so vast and accurate it made Han shiver. “High Romance was years back. You’re getting older, as beings do, and time is shorter, and the next guy in line is getting the parts.” He waved his hand at Tankko’s shirt. “Are you dealing with feelings around that? Because Jyms. You know this isn’t the way to fix it.”
Tankko’s eyes swam with tears.
(The Boy Jedi is wise. This is a reaction to your own mediocrity,) Chewie said, not unkindly.
Maybe that was it. Not being a philosophical type, Han had never wondered what it did to someone to discover that they weren’t particularly gifted in whichever field they’d hoped to make their own. Not incapable, either—mere competence was worse, almost, than disastrous failure. If you were a washout, you could forgive yourself. Move on. Find something else. But if you were just...passable? What if Han had turned out to be a basic pilot, when he’d dreamed of amazing himself? Could that fuel some desperate lashing out?
“It was my publicist’s idea,” Tankko snuffled wetly, pointing at the camera-drone, its cold eye still clicking away. “Wear the shirt out, get snapped in it. Alderaan would give my brand a little edge, they said. Stir up some buzz.”
Nope, Han decided. If he’d proven to be only an adequate pilot, he’d have flown for Spaceways and got on with it, not acted like a nerf’s tit in some bitchy t-shirt, trying to wrestle bitter attention away from whoever smashed the Kessel. Edge. Buzz. No, this shit was best explained by the greatest Corellian bard: there was just a meanness in this world.
“But you’re right, I’m better than this. And thank you for saying!” Tankko dragged his wet face along his leather sleeve. “I’ve done the work, I—hey, Luke, can I call you Luke? Aren’t you some kind of monk? I lived with monks when I was getting into character for Sixteen Steps of Stone. Did you see that one, Luke?”
“Okay, tell you what, Jyms,” Han cut in with a hard grin, hooking a thumb at the drone. “Take it off, right now, or I slap the piss out of you. Open-hand. That’ll be fun for your new brand.”
Tankko couldn’t get the jacket off fast enough, handing it to his new friend Luke who amiably took it, avoiding the Jabba-like trail of snot. Then Tankko peeled the shirt off—his chest and abdomen so meticulously honed that the muscles looked somehow drawn on—and ripped the thing in half!
“No more,” he said, gravely as he’d once delivered his death-speech in High Romance, and handed the scraps of cloth, with great ceremony, to Han. Han considered backhanding Tankko anyway, just as a tax on his drama, but held off. The last thing he needed was to co-star in some meme with this power-dork.
“How is Leia, man?” Tankko asked Han. “What an amazing woman. Inspiring. Tell her I said hi, would you? Met her, way back when—”
Han’s slapping-hand itched. Must be some leftover rustmite on it.
“Talk is cheap,” Luke said sweetly, and shot Han a conspiratorial look.
“Dude! True! I’ll autograph anything you like,” Tankko went on, patting his jacket pocket, a felt-tipped stylus in it. “Got some flimsi, or...?”
Han smiled slowly, and pulled a blank credit chip from his back pocket, already made out to the Alliance Memorial Scholarship Fund.
XXXXXXXXX
Leia looked up from her datapad when the bedroom hatch hissed open. She expected to see Han, but instead a giant stuffed dog—oh, an Alderaanian whippet!—poked its head around the panel, banging its pointy head to...was it “Enter Sandpeople,” the Tattooine Tusks’ hokey theme song they thought was so heavy? The Tusks were remarkably clumsy, Leia had observed over this last week’s visit, Luke and Han watching the smashball playoffs. Some poor Tusk was always tripping on their cleats or tipping over the vat of ice water or accidentally punching the Corellian Dreadnaughts’ wrench mascot, which made Han laugh so hard he went silent—and drove Luke to the verge of the dark side. Oh yes, Leia’s brother, the Jedi master: utterly serene until it was ninety-six to fifteen for the ‘Naughts in the quarter-finals. Han didn’t even care about smashball, really, he admitted to Leia later. He just enjoyed the galactic sunshine boy, Luke Skywalker, spitting Huttese curses at the referee.
The stuffed dog was actually a puppet, Leia saw now that it had turned and was shaking its fuzzy rump to the thrash-metal beat. The puppet’s jaws—so, someone’s rather large hand—gripped the handle of a woven wicker basket; Leia thought it was the one Han had hidden candy eggs in for her, last Corellian Easter. Now the basket was heaped with—stars, were those credit chips?!
Han walked into the room, his grin proud, broad, irresistible. He knelt on the floor beside the bed, made the whippet puppet set the basket down on the mattress.
“For you, Princess,” the whippet said, in as high a voice such a natural bass could reach.
“Thank you, er...” Leia peered at the copper nameplate on the puppet’s collar. “...Penny?”
“Yeah, Luke named her Penny when I spotted her at the spaceport shop.” Han gestured the puppet at the credits. “‘Cos she sure fetched your scholarship a lot of ‘em.”
He made the whippet peck Leia’s cheek, then her slightly convex middle, and then took the puppet off and set it on the side table, climbing up next to Leia on the bed and taking her into his arms to watch with real pleasure as she sifted through the donor credits, all of them glimmering in high-value colours.
“Han! This will easily fund next year’s—”
Han grinned at her, bouncing them gleefully on the mattress as the Dreadnaughts’ own theme song, “Born in Coronet,” followed the Tusks on his comm. Once on Hoth, Wedge blasted it at a party, and Han got his lectury voice on, leaning close in a makeshift booth to say into Leia’s ear “the galaxy misunderstands this song as a rah-rah anthem when it’s really about the savage inequities between Corellian classes, Princess,” only for Wedge to order them to stop talking for once and shake their ass! It was the Boss! Mis-un-der-stands. Princess. Stars, Han’s insistent, arrogant tonal rhythm had used to absolutely enrage her—at least, until one occasion on the way to Bespin where he’d...well, suffice to say she’d enjoyed it, in that context.
“That ain’t all,” Han crowed. “You remember The Sex?”
Leia gestured, incredulous, at her belly.
“Not that,” Han said, patting her stomach affectionately. “How you doin’ in there, littling? Don’t listen. Mom and Dad are talking.”
"So which time, Hotshot, exactly?”
“Gala coat closet,” Han said promptly. “Or—wait—dejarik table, you liked that ri—” When Leia swatted him Han laughed, and shook his head. “No, not us sex. It was back on Pyrqar—”
Leia eyed him, intrigued. “You were having sex on Pyrqar?”
“Okay no, that is not the way this was meant to go,” Han pointed at her. “But also, still no. Pyrqar, I had...offers, but I was already on this random fuck-strike which I hadn’t figured out yet was because I was in love with you.”
“Fuck-str—?”
“Damn thing dragged on three years before we, uh, came to an agreement,” Han said. “No, c’mon, Princess: I mean, The Sex! Remember Dac, the slicer? Called this actor—”
“Jyms Tankko?” Leia demanded.
“The very one,” Han snapped his fingers, and between them appeared, like magic, a ruby-red credit chip. Leia gasped, brought her fingers to her lips. She’d never seen one, in real life.
“Is that—is that—”
“A million credits,” Han said, his eyes alight.
“Jyms Tankko gave the scholarship fund a million credits?”
“You inspire him,” Han said simply.
“How—why—” Leia pushed hair from her eyes. “Was it cards? We can work with it if it is, the fund needs the money, but I do need to know—”
“Nah,” Han said. “We ran into him in the grocery. Me and Luke and Chewie. Got to talkin’. And you know he’s got that big water contract, guy can afford it.”
Oh, right. Leia thought of the holoboard she’d recently seen on the train, commuting to work. She’d thought the man in the ad looked vaguely familiar, but mostly she’d wondered why he was skydiving without a shirt or any other apparent safety equipment on, and what that had to do with expensive water.
“I met him once,” Leia said.
Han raised a brow. “Yeah, he said to say hi.”
“It was at a charity premiere here on Coruscant, before—well, before.” Leia said. “I was seated next to him all through his film, I don’t even remember what it was about, and at the dinner after. Not a very memorable night but, you know.” She waved a dismissive hand. “I never went for actors.”
“Only the best ex-spice-smugglers for my girl,” Han teased, but his eyes were tender.
“Only the best,” Leia agreed, and kissed the broken bridge of her husband’s nose. Then she regarded him more closely. “It does surprise me, though. Jyms didn’t seem the type to care about much other than himself—his career, his hair.”
“Still the same,” Han said. “Mostly. But listen to me, Princess. I offered him a blank chip, asked him to enter what he thought was fair if he supported you. Jyms Tankko chose that amount on his own, and walked away whistling.” Han was telling her the absolute truth, not that Leia doubted him, but feeling was fairly glowing from his handsome face. Adoration. Commitment. Faith. “You have a way, Leia. Of winning someone over to their best self.”
“What did you say to him?”
“Thankko,” Han said innocently, and kissed her, not innocent at all.
