Log Date: 4/15/98 Log Cast: Han Solo, Leia Organa-Solo Log Intro: Han's mission to Tatooine has reached a more or less unsatisfying conclusion -- he has gotten useful street intelligence out of his contact Kass Turlon in Mos Eisley, and only one of the two ships GroundOps force that stole onto the Imperial-seized desert planet was recovered. The troopers have relayed Solo to Caspar, however, as his wife and Chewbacca are both on that planet, desperately trying to do what they can to track down what happened to the captured Luke Skywalker. And, despite his own edgy worry about his friend and brother-in-law, Han is desperate as well for some time alone with his wife. He's begun to get in some much-needed moments with her, and the two of them are still caught up in one another's presences as Han tries without much success to juggle the dictates of personal need and his conscience.... ---------- Silence reigns in the tiny bunk room of the _Millenium Falcon_, as the ship lies quiescent, slumbering. Her owner lies just as quietly on the bunk he's claimed for the time being, though Han, unlike his ship, is awake. Under the blanket he's tugged up over them both, his arms curled around Leia's small form, the Corellian just rests for the time being, eyes closed, relievedly setting aside the yammering of his thoughts in favor of the simple sensation of his wife held close in his embrace. At Han's side the petite princess turns onto her side, lips against his shoulder, and murmurs something so drowsily that, for all he may know, she is talking in her sleep. Her braid is loose now, so many of the lustrous brown locks have spilled free to lie in dark counterpoint against the white softness of her skin. And from her, sweet and distinct, wafts the strong sense of contentment. Hearing that soft, sleepy murmur, Han smiles to himself, turning his head to brush a kiss across Leia's brow. In the last few years, it hasn't struck him as much as it used to, the age difference between them -- here and now, though, the Corellian finds himself thinking in bemused wonder how his Princess seems so small, so young, and at the same time, so fiercely proud. Feeling strangely fascinated, he draws back only far enough to study her face, to run his fingertips along the curve of her cheek, and back through her unbound hair. Leia's eyes open partway, a sigh escaping her parted lips, and, smiling faintly, she glimpses her husband and his gentle touch of her cheek and hair. Her expression is tender, her expression unguarded; for once, for one of those brief, rare moments, she is vulnerable and entirely open to him. And Han seems cognizant of this, his eyes unusually softened, a dark warm brown in the bunk room's dim light. A gentle version of his usual crooked grin curving one end of his mouth, he rumbles huskily, "Hi there." Leia has enough of her maidenly shyness remaining that his regard evokes a blush high in her cheeks, but her fingertip traces his scar, covered as it is by his beard, and she murmurs, "You know...that really has to go, Han." Han's grin widens. Eyes still tender, he whispers back, "What, you don't think it suits me?" "Do you want me to have beard burns on my cheek?" is her wry answer. "I could shave," the Corellian parries blandly, "but I'd hafta get up." Leia's sigh is the sound of someone who feels she is making the ultimate sacrifice for the one she loves...and naturally it is underscored with sarcasm. "Oh, all right. Do it later, if you must." A creamy arm covers his chest as she snuggles all the closer, adding against his shoulder, "But don't go just yet, hmm?" "I'm pretty comfy right here," Han drolly replies, quite content to lie right where he is, his wife's form fitted to his side. Then his voice gentles again, and he murmurs, planting a kiss atop her head, "I'm not going anywhere." Though she says nothing immediately in response, Leia's arm convulses about his torso, hugging him closer to her for a moment. Then, pushing upward to lie across his shoulder, she presses her lips to his in a lingering, loving kiss. It likely says more eloquently what her heart is too full to express. Willingly, the former smuggler wraps both his arms about his beloved, and dives headlong into that kiss for a while. And when he pulls back the miniscule distance needed to regain his breath, he merely changes tactics to nuzzling at her hair instead. "I missed you," Leia whispers as she clings to him, delighted to be close to him, -relieved- to be close to him. "How are two people supposed to have a meaningful relationship if they're always apart, hmm?" Han's rather relieved, himself, to hear Leia voice the question that has been nagging at him for some time now. Keeping his arms snugly encircling her, letting his hand trail through silken brown locks, he can allow himself to confide softly, sheepishly, "Missed you too..." Leia cranes her neck upward to offer Han a wry smile, kissing the underside of his chin. "So all right, Mr. Sentimentality," she asks quietly, "tell me what you've been doing with yourself for two months." He can't help but smirk at _that_ moniker, though he does so fondly. Replying with a kiss to the middle of the Princess's white brow, he murmurs, "Well, I went to Kashyyyk. Then I went to Tatooine." "To pal around with your reprobate smuggler friends," says Leia dryly, making herself comfortable again. "I heard. No one in your sordid past that's curvaceous and gorgeous, right?" Han coughs, and says as straightforwardly as he can manage, "Well, uh, Kass _is_ kinda cute, but I was pretending to be her brother..." Leia sits upright, brown eyes turned downward at him with an, "Oh REALLY?" look flashing in their depths. "Kass who?" The Corellian can be seen to swallow a little, though his gaze doesn't waver off his wife's face -- evidently, there is nothing about this Kass person about which he is embarrassed. "Kass Turlon," he explains patiently, "is a weapons dealer on Tatooine. I needed information from her, and pretending to be her brother looking for her in Mos Eisley was the best way I could think of approaching her." His hazel eyes twinkle a little. "I had to keep a low profile, sweetheart." Leia mmmhmms. "And just how cute is kinda cute, Captain Solo?" Though she looks genuinely irritable, her eyes twinkle. Either this amuses her or she is trying to hide that she's really jealous. He can try to decide which. Han starts grinning again, broadly, teeth white against his sunbrowned features. "Only just kinda cute," he vows, eyes all innocence. Leia snakes a hand under the light covers to poke Han somewhere around the solar plexus and remarks with falsified asperity, "Why I put up with you is a question I'll be asking myself into my old age. I'd bet you anything I will." "It's 'cause you're crazy about me," Han rumbles slyly, eyes lightening in hue. Leia settles against him more comfortably, eyes shining sincerity despite the twist of her sardonic smile. Quietly, as if she were afraid others would hear, she says, "You betcha I am, Corellian." Well, what can Han say to that except another kiss? He pulls Leia up to him and does exactly that, taking his time, slow and smooth and warm. When he finally draws back again, his eyes are glittering, clear and expressive. "Kass," he murmurs steadily, "doesn't hold a candle to you, Your Highnessness." "Han..." Leia loops her arms about his neck, loosely, luxuriously, immersing herself in the unique wonder of her husband's embrace, "do me a favor and stop mentioning other women when we're in bed together?" "Or eating...?" "Or bathing..." Leia says, "Or...." "You got it," he promises readily, and punctuates the pledge with another kiss. After all, he can't mention women when he's smooching. What can she say to that? Well, essentially, nothing, since her lips are as occupied as his, and after a few seconds of this, what does she really care about anything else anyway? She loses herself in the embrace, letting awareness of anything outside of him wither away from her consciousness. Eventually, Han does come up for air again, and he hasn't forgotten the subject Leia had originally brought up. Still gazing into her face with a surprisingly tender expression, he murmurs to her, "Anyway, the Tatooine mission wasn't too successful. I got at least some information I wanted, and some leads on others I can try to go find, if Mon Mothma wants me to. But the others with me got there too late to recover the shuttle they were looking for. It wasn't on Tatooine anymore." Frowning now as the lassitude from the kiss dissipates, Leia leans on his chest, making herself comfortable for a discussion that sounds interesting...and in-depth. "What shuttle?" "Well, it's like this," replies the Corellian, playing with long brown hair, "I wanted to go to Tatooine anyway, so I went to the NRI to try to get 'em to scare up a ship for me to use. The Director pointed me at Major Baeyal of GroundOps, who was preparing this group to sneak to Tatooine to try to find a shuttle a couple of AWOL cases had taken off with. Parked it on Tatooine, apparently. And we had a second ship listed as missing there, as well. So the idea was to sneak in, locate the vessels, sneak 'em off again if we could find 'em." Leia nods her understanding, having read the brief on the ship thieves. "Right, I remember something about that. But they couldn't find the shuttle?" Han shakes his head, replying, "Baeyal told me that as near as they could scout out, somebody'd taken off with it into Imperial space. We couldn't go after it... so they dropped me off here, instead." He smiles thinly. "It was kinda cramped on board the _Eagle_, so I can't say I miss it." Leia smiles ruefully as she comments, "No, I know you enjoy your space." A kiss is pressed against the underside of his chin, beard or not, before she continues. "So did anything get accomplished? What's Tatooine like these days?" Han grins within his beard, and keeps playing with Leia's loosely flowing hair, liking the feel of it against his palm. "Well, they got one of the ships back. And got it safely off the planet. Me... well, I got the information I wanted, at least some of it. Another old... friend of mine recognized me, though I got offworld before any of the Imps noticed I was there." He pauses, and then adds, "I think." One of Leia's immaculately shaped eyebrows quirks upward at the addendum to his story, and, pushing upward to regard him from above, forearms against his chest, she repeats mildly, "You -think-? None of Jabba's old friends are there, are they? Just how much trouble did you get into in Mos Eisley, Han?" The Corellian's expression turns slightly sheepish. "Well, for once I didn't bump into any bounty hunters..." He shifts slightly beneath the Princess, and adds ruefully, "Last batch, really, was up on Kichnar, _here_. The, ah, Rodians who shot me." "I remember." Leia's fingers find the scar left from when last she saw her husband; so long was the break between their time together that the formerly bandanged wound is now healed...if scarred. "What -am- I going to do with you? You just keep getting more valuable and more valuable..." Han half-smiles, his eyes turning rather more serious. "The Empire's got a bounty on me," he says gravely, "and this is on top of the Hutts wanting my head, too." Leia's smile falters as she lays her head on his chest again, turning her visage from his immediate viewpoint for the precise and blatent purpose of hiding her expression. Beneath the Princess's cheek, Han's chest can be felt to shudder for a moment, as a slight tremor runs through him -- but even there, there's evidence of the Empire's interest, the three jagged furrows, now several months old, slashing across his flesh. His hold tightens on Leia, though, as if Han hopes to relay to her through his embrace his repeated promise that he won't leave her. Minutes pass, time that is timeless; the couple enjoys each other's company with the relish of two people too long apart. For her part, Leia is reduced to silence, a more appealing option than speaking and showing how much she fears for Han. Then, spurred into action by the same heart-twisting emotion that rendered her speechless, she squirms upward and kisses him with the fierce passion of a woman who fears the time she has with her lover is short. Too short. His arms are already around Leia, and with the fervor of _this_ kiss, Han crushes her down to press against him, with barely enough room for either of them to breath. His lips, once this kiss is broken, seem reluctant to retreat from her now, and he moves his mouth to whisper into his beloved's ear, "I'm here. Hey. I'm here..." Leia breathes his name as her lips find his strong jawline and her hair fills his nostrils, her emotional need translating into a physical need that speaks volumes of just how desperately she yearned for him in their separation. Proof of this need is presented to him without reserve by way of a torrent of kisses upon whatever part of him she can reach with her desperately seeking lips. Enough talk, then. And never mind that he and his Princess had just _done_ this, not very long ago. His senses roaring into life with the kisses Leia's raining down upon him, Han responds in kind... and at last flips her deftly over, supporting his wife in the curve of his arm as he delves into showering kisses of his own all over her soft features, her jaw, her throat. He is, indeed, not going anywhere, and the Corellian pilot applies himself to the demonstrating to his beloved in no uncertain terms that the rest of the galaxy be damned -- at least for this short time, however short it might be, Han Solo is going to prove to the woman he loves exactly how much he's missed her. [End log.]