A/N: Just fun! (And totally unrelated to 'Conversations') - Enjoy!

(At Least) Five Times Han Solo Didn't Kiss the Princess

1.

Okay, it was really the third time.

The first time they had been sealed in a garbage compactor standing on twisted metal and plastic and doubts they had really survived the (way too close) closing in of the walls. The screaming and the droids and the smell rattled in his brain and water (is it water?) squished inside his boots and he drew her into a hug and her pulse pounded even through his armor and he was happy to be alive (he thinks) and she was happy to be rescued (mostly) and he needed to include his hairy seven-foot-tall friend in the brief celebration because he wanted to keep his arms in their own sockets, thanks.

The second time they had been under a (the) starfighter that had just shot down the biggest weapon in the galaxy and if the odds on their earlier escape from an evil bureaucrat and the Emperor's own right-hand man had been long, the odds on their victory (without everything going to spacedust) over the biggest weapon in the galaxy were even longer and he didn't want to worry about running them in his head. So, instead (because he is a gambler), he tried to calculate the odds of meeting a princess and a farmboy and a Jedi all in one day and, as she hit his chest hard from her running start, he ran the odds of a princess and a guy like him, you know, because, after all, he was a hero.

So, the third time, which was really the first time, because being alive just does something to the way you think and you can't be held responsible for actions taken immediately after almost dying, they had just stood in front of hundreds of troops and a handful of generals and he had just received a medal (because, after all, he is a hero) and it hadn't hit her yet that her planet had been obliterated. He had rescued her twice and he was feeling cocky and she looked beautiful and he (really really really) wanted to touch those breasts and thought he would rescue her a thousand times over just to keep seeing her smile (just like that). He began to invade her space but her smile became nervous and he realized she wasn't just some portside slut on a backwater planet playing for credits and reputations and (dammit) his usual tricks weren't going to work on a senator or a princess (definitely not on a princess). But he leaned in toward her anyway and whispered his thanks for the medal and that he was glad someone important finally recognized what a great guy he was and she rolled her eyes, of course (but he doesn't miss her blush).

2.

The (presumed) second time, they were running through the rain down a near-empty street and they could smell the blaster fire burning the air (much too close) behind them and if it weren't for the fact they were being chased, he would be appreciating the way her tight pants defined her ass as she moved (like a dancer, in his opinion). But if he had been (too) distracted, he would have missed her turn sharply and enter a small gate and he would have lost precious seconds and been shot and they would have found her too because he would have given away the location where she had disappeared (idiot). Having entered the gate and flattened himself against the wall behind the hinges, he cursed the (krethin', Force-forsaken) planet they'd been sent to to do who knows what (no one ever tells him what Her Worship is doing).

She eyed him from just beyond his right shoulder and she was soaked and he was still holding his blaster ready to fire and it wasn't until then that he realized they were pressed against some (very very rare and expensive) vines covered in huge yellow flowers. He smirked as he noticed that said flowers were as big as the buns she used to wear on the sides of her head and she smiled back (although she doesn't know why he is smiling). If they hadn't been running from the law and if this was another life and if he liked being mushy and cliché, the garden would have been the perfect place for lovers (which they are definitely not) to steal a romantic moment (and 'romantic' isn't a word in his vocabulary, so there). Yet they did make a good pair and dodged the worst this and every other (krethin', Force-forsaken) planet could throw at them and because they made a good team, he smiled (not smirked, dammit) down at her again and she tilted her chin up and licked the rain off her lips and he tasted the droplets on his own lips because she clearly just wanted to taste the rain (and it's still hot to see the tip of her tongue slip out of her mouth).

3.

The third time, everyone (everyone) was drunk – drunk and dancing and obnoxious and rowdy and everything that sent Dodonna into a tizzy and made Rieekan prone to nostalgia (and willing to share a drink or two or ten with the troops). She wasn't nearly as inebriated as her colleagues and neither was he and it meant that they were able to sustain a (mostly coherent) discussion (with the help of a few drop-ins) about what human males find attractive in human (not to be speciesist) females. He wasn't stupid enough to point out to her the things she was doing right there that were quickly turning him on but he knew she was smart and if her engine was running at even just half capacity she'd figure out pretty quick when (which was really every time) his generalizations applied to her. She hadn't run off and he took that as a good sign and decided to turn the tables and maybe he was a little drunker than he thought (because he forgot that even Han Solo can't turn the tables on a trained diplomat).

With her feet propped up on his lap and her most recent drink finished and her hair coming undone, she answered his question (quite seriously) with the admission that she liked older (much older) reptilians with green and purple scales (most especially purple) and that, save those aged lizards, she was most attracted to blue-eyed, blonde humans with big hearts (often named Luke Skywalker). He was holding her ankle and she was suddenly giggling and he knew from (almost) the beginning he was being played and that the bare toes pushing on his thigh told him more than stories about purple scales. But the thing about Luke made him resentful and as much he liked (whatever, loved) the kid, he (really really really) was jealous and she was so gorgeous and they had the chemistry (dammit) and it wasn't just the liquor talking (but she doesn't know that). Yet he took his chances (because he is still a gambler) and ran a hand up to her knee and she didn't stop him, but the departure of laughter from her (beautiful) face was enough to make him pause (because he knows she is a serious woman and this is the wrong game to bet in).

4.

The fourth time, they were on his (admittedly beat-up) ship evacuating the last Rebel base because there had been a spy and it had been ugly and they were headed to some distant planet named Hoth, which sounded too much like the Corellian word for 'hell' and he was pretty sure it would be just that. Except any hell would have been better than the one he was in just then, with Her High-and-Mightiness glaring at him across the crew quarters and him glaring back at her and not a word in between. She was mad (he doesn't know why) and he was mad (he doesn't know why) and he was sick of the whole thing and wished she would just say something.

Finally, she just tossed a datapad to him and demanded he read it and she watched his face as he learned that the bounty on his (handsome and more expensive if alive) head had gone from just being (very very very) high to being, well, a straightforward deathmark. Then she stepped forward to take the datapad back and asked why he hadn't explained how serious things were with his debt and looked up at him with doleful eyes and he knew it wasn't about the Alliance this time. He couldn't explain to her that he was a criminal (and that's just the way it is) and that there was no way he could satisfy Jabba the Hutt, but the deathmark didn't matter anyway because she had one, too, and so did Luke, and so did Chewie, and everyone else who mattered (to him). Instead they stared at one another and the unspoken words and undisclosed feelings swirled in the (recirculated) air like leaves in a windstorm on Kashyyyk and he could have said to hell with it all but her big eyes pulled him in and pushed him away and he couldn't decide whether he was the one who put the hurt there, or if he was just the only who saw it (and, either way, the last thing he wants to do is make it worse).

5.

The fifth time, he was shivering to the core and had (just barely) rescued his best (human) friend and wanted nothing more than a very hot shower and a warm blanket and a good sleep and preferably for that sleep to be nothing less than eight hours. The emergency medics (finally, for Sith's sake) seemed satisfied that he would live without any immediate medical intervention and he kept glancing around the hangar despite knowing the princess would most definitely be accompanying their unconscious friend to the medbay and so when she appeared from out of the shadow of his ship he was about to grab one of the medics again and tell him that he was actually having hallucinations.

He was (obviously) in love with her and she was (maybe, probably) in love with him and he couldn't imagine that he was going to leave her (all of them) the day before and then the dumb kid hadn't come back from the frozen wasteland outside the shield doors and he couldn't leave him either (and even though the odds were terrible, he is still a damn good gambler). But she was making her way across the duracrete floor that was almost as cold as the snow outside and he could see her face and knew she had gotten less sleep than he had and wondered if it would be reasonable to pretend that she had been (is) worried about him. He slid off the transport cart and she slid into his arms and didn't mention that he smelled like a dead tauntaun (although he knows he smells like one). He needed to feel her (warm, alive) skin and she needed to feel his (clammy, alive) skin so he pulled back a little from the embrace and leaned his forehead on hers. He was aching from the cold (and the heat) and thought it would feel so good to have her to keep him warm rather than one of Chewie's old blankets, and it would have been so easy (no, simple, not easy - nothing is easy with her) to drop his lips to her mouth (but he doesn't, because he almost left her).