"Do you remember when," she says, softly, distractedly, staring off to where the Millennium Falcon had been, "we had that dinner on Hoth?"
He nods, sliding his arm down from around her shoulders to her waist. "Right after we got there?"
"Mm-hmm..." She leans against him, resting her head on his shoulder. "You were freezing..."
"It was an ice planet," Luke protests, smiling.
"And you had never even seen ice, much less being surrounded by it..." She smiled against his chest. "You hid in the Falcon for an entire evening, wrapped up in all the spare blankets you could find..."
"And Han..." And his voice breaks a little when he says his name, but he continues before she has a chance to react. "He brought me dinner, just because he knew I wouldn't be able to cope with the cold."
"And I went looking for you and found both of you in the Falcon — you still..." She laughs, softly, something that, in another woman her age, might have even been a giggle. "Still buried under blankets while Han was trying to heat up your dinner..."
Luke's smile grew wider. "So you pushed him aside..."
"Heated up your dinner, and mine, because I had spent all my time looking for you..."
"And then grabbed most of the blankets while I was eating." He looked down at her. "I still can't believe you did that."
She looked up at him, smiling. "You didn't notice the cold, did you?"
He laughed at that, pulling her closer.
She hugs him, and, suddenly, there are tears wetting his shirt. "Luke..." she whispers, her voice nearly cracking. "What're we..." She trails off, suddenly unable to finish the sentence.
He holds her, tightly, and they stand there, in silence, trying to find the words to say to each other.
After a few seconds, she sighs. "I just...I just wish he was here," she says, so softly that only he can hear it.
Luke pauses for a few seconds, thinking it over, then, suddenly, something changes within him. "He is here," he says, his voice low.
She steps away from him, looking up into his eyes. "Luke...?" she asks, her voice quavering with barely-repressed hope. Hope for a nearly-dead tradition and its ancient beliefs.
"He's here," he says, almost savagely — strange for a boy who's spent weeks focusing on his control. "And this is how he'll kiss you."
And he kisses her — viciously, passionately, his tongue pushing its way past her lips and into her mouth — and she thinks she can almost smell engine oil and him and nearly starts crying from the sensation.
Then, just like that, he moves away from her, looking at her, his eyes large and frightened and...
And hopeful.
And it's the hope that does it. The possibility that, with this one thing, her pain could be...
No, it would not leave.
But it would be...lessened. Briefly.
She smiles, and, silently, takes his hand. She pulls him from the observation bay, away from the ships outside, and away from Lando and Chewbacca speeding off to find him, and away from the droids, who chirp in annoyance when the door to her quarters seals in their faces.
Her smile turns into a grin and she looks up at Luke. "He's here," she repeats, her voice cracking only once.
And Luke smiles, a smile that's so much like him that, again, tears nearly come to her eyes. Cocky and assured and just a bit wicked — like on the Death Star and in the asteroid field and when he swore that Lando would...
She drowns out the memories by pulling him close to her, pulling his mouth to hers, letting him kiss her as he would kiss her. And his kisses are has his would be — filled with life and need, unyielding desire for her. Not for any woman, not even for any princess, but for her.
His hand's on her waist and sliding up higher and higher, and as he starts kissing her throat, Luke whispers against her skin. "He'd kiss you here, and he'd move here, and he would touch you there..." he growls as he finally touches her breast, nerves sparking in tiny flashes as she gasps and bucks against him.
His hands start to slide underneath her shirt, his palms cool against her heated skin, and her eyes open, suddenly. "No..." she says, her voice low and husky.
Luke freezes, tensing against her, his hands lifting away from her body, his face buried in the crook of her neck. She can feel his embarrassment seeping from his skin in a red-hot flush and she closes her eyes, briefly, feeling something move through her.
"No," she finally says, her voice stronger, more assured, powerful. "He'd kiss you."
He looks up at her, his eyes wide in surprise. She smiles, the smile he would have, and then she kisses him — with the same ferocity she knows he'd have.
She kisses him, roughly, then pauses, pulling away just long enough to let him breathe, and he shudders, gently, against her, his eyes tightly closed. The moment stretches, both of them locked in a tableau of revelations and pain, and then, softly, she whispers, "And then he'd do this..."
He frowns slightly, looking at her quizzically, then yelps as she shoves him across the room and onto the bed.
Landing on the bed dissolves any tension between them. He's laughing as he lands with a thump, and she's laughing as she falls on top of him. She kisses him again, with a gentleness that can only be a blend between her and him, and Luke responds back in much the same way — one part shy virginal farm boy, the other part him.
They match kisses, alternating between being Han and being Luke and Leia. Luke kisses with inexperienced passion, all fumbles and flashes and falling over in childish enthusiasm. Leia kisses with just a hint of decorum, of palace gardens and diplomatic dinners. And Han...for them, Han kisses like fire. They burn with the feeling of it, with the strength, with the passion, with the spirit behind it.
Leia feels consumed by his kisses, consumed by the turbluence within her, the feeling of her shirt being pulled away from her skin, by hands sliding against her, by a thigh spreading her legs and pressing, firmly, just there. Luke looks at her with awe, the look of a boy who has never seen a woman in the height of passion. But when he is Han, when Han is kissing her, and touching her, he is more assured, more aware of what he's doing and how he's making her feel.
Luke is just...overwhelmed. He has no words for how he feels and, until he gets control of himself by pretending to be Han, he can't even think — just a jumble of clinging-to-the-cliff-edge sensation. Leia's body is soft, and her touch is gentle and elegant and she's so, so beautiful when she closes her eyes and moans. And then she shifts, and she's Han and he's so rough and strong and male, rolling on top of him, pressing his shoulders down and kissing him as if his life depended on it, powerful and passionate, a thigh thrust between his and rubbing against him as he rubs against it over and over, using every scrap of control he's learnt to prevent himself from shooting all over their trousers.
And then they're naked against each other. They're naked, and gasping, and when he slides inside of her, neither of them is sure if it's Luke or Han or if it's Leia or Han and it doesn't quite matter because they begin to rock and strive and push further and further, both of them reaching and crying and whispering his name over and over, calling him to them as they continue to be him.
Striving, reaching, stretching more and more until...
She comes. Or he comes. Or they come. They are no longer sure who is inside whom is kissing whom is simply who. They only know that she is screaming out his name and he is whimpering out his name and both of them fall against each other with tears and sweat and a moment — a single moment, a fragile moment — of peace.
They kiss, one final, tender, bittersweet time, as Luke, and as Leia, and then, slowly, in each other's arms, drift off to sleep.
This Star Wars story was written by Kate Bolin. If you liked it, there's plenty more at http://www.dymphna.net/fanfic/. And you can feedback her at dymphna@dymphna.net.