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Han won't say it, but he likes the braids. He still jokes about them, about how much time Leia and her droid spend on them each morning. But he gets to undo them in the evening, gets to untwist each silky lock until the whole thing falls in gentle brown waves down Leia's bare back. Then she'll turn and give him that smile, the one that's just for him. And more often than not she'll tilt her head back for a kiss and he'll give it to her and they'll both end up tangled in the sheets and her hair.
Afterward, sometimes, when they're lying together, her head on his shoulder, his fingers combing the tangles out of the hair that spills across his chest, he'll be half-aware of a kind of gentle thrumming. It's not so much coming from Leia as concentrated around her. It's the Force, Han knows, and the fact that the stuff that supposedly binds everyone and everything in the Galaxy approves of a smuggler in bed with a princess amuses him greatly.
It troubles him too. He's lived by his own rules for most of his life, and he thinks he's done all right. He's never been rich, but he's never been dead, either. He's seen many different worlds, been with many different women. He believes in chance and in choice, and he's not comfortable with the idea that he's done what he's done because of destiny or fate. He joined the Rebel Alliance because he wanted to. He's with Leia because he wants to be. He plans on staying with her. It's his plan. And Leia's, he hopes.
She's funny sometimes.
He still smuggles occasionally. Not out of necessity now, but because not all of the Emperor's thugs were on the Death Star when it blew, and some have proven pretty reluctant to leave their posts, especially on the planets farthest from Coruscant. The New Republic does what it can, but that's not always enough for the people on those planets.
Han tries to bring them what they need, usually medicine, tools, and mechanical parts. He gets paid for his troubles, but he'd probably do it even if he didn't. That's another thing he won't tell anyone. Leia and Luke probably know, since they can use the Force in ways that just baffle him. Sometimes, after a drop off, Chewy gives him a look that's about a hair shy of a smirk, so he probably knows, too.
Leia's funny. She comes along when she can, which is great; Han likes having her close, and Chewy's under the impression that she keeps him out of trouble. ("I'm too busy arguing with her to get into any trouble," Han has grumbled to Chewy more than once. Even at those times, he'd rather have her just down the corridor and annoyed, than in a good mood and half a galaxy away.)
She takes the whole business of smuggling very seriously. It is serious, Han allows, but he has to laugh at her sometimes.
"What are you doing?" he asks once when he comes into their cabin and finds her pacing the floor, muttering.
"Memorizing what I'll say if we're boarded."
"Boarded? This ship?" He makes a sweeping gesture. "Besides, there's nothing between us and Altea except asteroids and other space junk."
"There are pirates."
"Sweetheart, if we're boarded by pirates – not that there's a ship out there that can catch this one – the only thing you need to memorize is your blaster settings."
He shouldn't laugh. He knows why she takes smuggling – and so many other things – so seriously. Luke's been teaching her to meditate – to commune with the Force. She usually practices alone and sometimes, afterward, she'll tell Han what she saw.
Even when she doesn't want to talk, he can guess.
When she's sad, it usually means she's seen her parents. The ones she thinks of as her parents, that is, Bail Organa and Queen Breha of Alderaan. She misses them, feels as if she failed them by allowing herself to be taken prisoner by Grand Moff Tarkin. (It's Luke who tells Han this last bit. Leia would never admit to it, even to him.)
When she's wistful, it's usually because she's seen her real mother, Padmé Amidala. "She was so unfinished," Leia tells Han once. "She did so much when she was very young, but then almost everything she worked for fell apart and she just gave up." What she thinks, but doesn't say is: That's not my path. Han doesn't need the Force to know this.
When Leia's angry, it's because she's seen her real father. Han knows not to approach her immediately afterward. He tried it once, made some really stupid quip about the origins of her famous temper, and she spat back, "Bail Organa is my only father!" She didn't talk to him for days after that, even though he apologized. Even though his apology involved groveling.
At such times, it's best just to let her do as she pleases. If that means flying her to the far ends of the Galaxy to deliver spanners to some tiny world still under the thumb of the Emperor's men, so be it. If that means tussling under a blanket, her hair flying wild around them…
Actually, Han prefers that second way. It feels good, and there's relatively little chance of the two of them ending up in some prison, parsecs from help.
She's absorbing her past, and they're both still figuring out how they fit into each other's lives. He knows it will work itself out, not because there's some great destiny laid out for them – though there might be, he allows - but because it's what they both want.
It's nice that the Force approves of his taste. And hers.
He weaves her hair around his fingers until they're well and truly entangled.
"I love you, you know," she tells him.
By now, she doesn't have to say it and he doesn't have to answer. But he always says, "I know."
4/1/07