Han Solo decided he was getting old.

Ten years ago, he'd have been right in the thick of things at a party like this. Drinking, dancing, and the ultimate reason for celebrating - what more could you want?

Instead, here he was at the biggest victory party in the galaxy, wishing he could go somewhere quiet and sleep for about a week.

Since when did Han Solo want the party to end?

Trouble was, he just couldn't get into the spirit of the thing. So much had happened in the past couple of days that he hadn't even gotten his mind wrapped around it all yet. Maybe he was just coming down from the adrenaline high of the battle. Or maybe the side effects of his time in carbonite were just now catching up to him. Whatever the reason, he wasn't enjoying this half as much as he ought to have been.

He'd had a few drinks and wandered the Ewok village, being dragged into one hut after another by an excited Wookiee. Admittedly, he'd been highly popular at every place they'd been. It had felt good to be a part of things, really a part of things.

If someone had told him, as recently as a year ago, that he'd end up a General - well, he wouldn't have believed it, that's for sure.

But it was true - said so right on his name tag: "General Han Solo". He'd removed the blasted thing the minute Crix Madine wasn't looking and shoved it in his jacket pocket. There was no need for a name tag, anyway - every last sentient being on this moon knew exactly who he was. He was getting rather weary of being addressed as "General" - or worse, "sir" - by total strangers.

This whole "general" bit was going to take some getting used to.

He'd never been all that comfortable with the whole "Hero of the Rebellion" label that he'd been stuck with after Yavin, particularly since it seemed to mean that he was expected to work wonders on impossible assignments, while being given minimal resources.

Of course, there were fringe benefits to the hero gig that had far exceeded the piddling sums the Alliance had provided him as compensation for his time.

The reward would have been nice, had he managed to hold on to it long enough to use it to get Jabba off his back. As it was, the medal that had been placed around his neck at Yavin was about all he had to show for that effort.

Well, no. that wasn't quite true.

There was one other thing he'd gotten out of that adventure.

Playing the role of hero had given Han the opportunity to associate closely with a certain Heroine of the Rebellion, which he hadn't minded nearly as much as he'd pretended to over the years.

Speaking of whom... just where did his particular Heroine happen to be hiding right now?

He hadn't seen her in hours. If he had to be dancing, why couldn't he have her for his partner? He would have welcomed a legitimate and public excuse for holding her close.

In fact, if he closed his eyes, he could imagine it now: her arms around his waist, her head against his chest, the two of them swaying together to some soft music. Right at this moment, he thought he'd settle for the soft music part, even if he did have to slow dance with this tall, pale blue-skinned Twi'lek pilot instead of with his Princess.

He wasn't fond of the Ewoks' style of music - those blasted drums and high pitched pipes were giving him a massive headache. And how the hell were you supposed to dance to the stuff? He felt like a drunken Gamorrean trying to keep up with the Twi'lek, who seemed determined to lead.

He'd made the mistake of asking her where she'd been during the battle, and she'd been more than happy to launch into a long and involved tale of her adventures with the recon team. She'd gotten to fly one of the speeder bikes they'd commandeered from the Imperial scouts they'd diverted. She assured him that the experience was exhilarating… simply exhilarating. Han didn't bother telling her he'd already been on one. Or that it was somewhat less than exhilarating trying to fly one while someone was shooting at you.

The lekku trailing down her back kept coiling around his wrists. He had just about decided that she was doing it on purpose. Surreptitiously, he eyed the crowd over her shoulder, alert for an opportunity to escape. Lekku or no, he suspected she was flirting with him, and he wasn't in the mood at the moment.

Across the room, Jan Dodonna gave him a cheerful thumbs-up and Han smiled tightly, not appreciating this particular encouragement. It had been decided by someone upstairs in the Command ship that the Heroes of the Rebellion should not monopolize one another. Instead they were instructed to go forth and mingle with the Unsung Heroes of the Rebellion. General Willard had actually used that phrase.

Han suspected High Command would regret this particular instruction, if they'd gotten a glimpse of what General Calrissian was up to in the corner with that girl from Supply. Yeah, Lando was mingling, all right.

Thankfully, he spotted Face Loran wading through the crush of people toward the makeshift bar.

Han deftly steered his partner around so she caught sight of the formerly famous holo actor, producing squeals of joy from her when he assured her that it was, indeed, the one and only Loran that she beheld. Solo chuckled to himself at the extent of her excitement. Apparently, "matinee idol" had better credentials than "Hero of the Rebellion".

The only thing to do, of course, was to introduce her to the handsome pilot, and Han did what needed to be done. Soon Face was the one entangled in those coiling lekku, and Han was on his way to the bar.

His mood improved once he had a glass of ale - well, it looked like ale, at least - in his hand. Trying not to draw attention to himself, he stood against the wall, scanning the room, in vain, for his princess.

His princess. That was something else he wasn't used to yet - Princess Leia Organa, who could have had any man she wanted, had chosen him.

He wasn't complaining, mind you. He just had a hard time accepting that it was real. He couldn't quite shake the feeling that any minute now, he was going to wake up, and find out the whole thing - General, Death Star, Ewoks, Leia - was all some weird dream he'd been having while trapped in the carbonite.

It was almost too good to be true.

The first thing she'd ever said to him was an insult, and the next words out of her mouth were nothing short of an order: "Into the garbage chute, flyboy. " And into the chute he'd gone.

Racing through the corridors of the first Death Star - and really, who'd have guessed one day he'd be calling it the "first" Death Star? - with a squad of stormtroopers at their heels, he and Chewie had had a hasty conversation about the prisoner they'd just rescued.

He could still remember his own words, as if it'd been yesterday. "Either I'm going to kill her myself or I'm beginning to like her." Solo could no longer recall just when it had happened, but somewhere in the four years since then, he had made up his mind about the Princess: he definitely liked her. In fact, he'd fallen hopelessly in love with her.

But after all this time, he still found it hard to believe that there really was any hope for a Princess and a guy like him. It was a damn good thing no one had ever told him the odds.

They'd only had a few private minutes, lying together beneath the trees, after he'd bound up her wounded arm. She'd told him the little information Luke had given her before he left, about their shared heritage. It hadn't been easy to swallow. Leia and the kid, twins? Vader, their father?

Well, hell. He was supposed to believe Luke was a Jedi, now. Might as well accept the rest of it, too. It seemed to be the day for accepting crazy things.

The Emperor, dead. Vader, dead. The Empire, in disarray. Victory, in their grasp.

And a princess, in his arms.

It hadn't lasted nearly long enough, before duty had called.

Reluctantly, he'd trudged back to the Ewok hut that they'd commandeered as a temporary headquarters to rejoin the rest of the strike team in an informal debriefing. They'd patched in communications links to the various ships in the scattered Fleet, and soon, it seemed like half of the High Command was online.

Before he knew it, the impromptu gathering had deteriorated (in his view, at least) into a formal discussion of procedures and plans for the forest moon and the captured Imperial vessels.

He'd quietly slipped away as soon as possible, but when he'd returned to the shaded glen where he'd left her, she was gone. One of the Ewoks had managed to point him in the right direction, and he'd found her in the hut that had been set up as a makeshift medical clinic.

She was asleep on a cot with a drip in her arm, and his heart had gone cold at the sight.

He'd gone in search of a medic and he hadn't been exactly polite to the tech who'd intercepted him, demanding to know just what he thought he was doing.

Luckily the physician in charge of the "clinic" had been alerted to the presence of a general, and was quick to intercede. He assured the worried Solo that the Princess had simply lost a lot of blood today and tried to do too much, too soon.

"She's just overdone it, sir. We'll get some fluids in her and she'll be fine in a few hours."

"She's part of my strike team, damn it - why didn't anyone call me?"

The medic looked away, embarrassed. "She specifically asked that we not get in touch with you, Captain... er... General Solo. She... well, she said you'd worry, sir."

"Yeah," Han replied, with a faint smile. "I do that."

Without another word to the medic, he dropped down and settled himself cross-legged, at the foot of her bed, carefully lifting her feet, beneath the blanket, to rest them on his lap.

The medic was clearly stunned at Solo's presumption and opened his mouth to protest.

"Go, on. I'll call you if I need anything," Han said, dismissing him with a casual flick of his hand. When the medic didn't budge, Solo's expression hardened. "Don't worry, Lieutenant. Your patient's not going anywhere."

"But, sir," sputtered the young man, helplessly. "I can't just leave you here with her, I'm supposed to..."

"You WILL leave me here with her. That clear, son?"

"Yes, sir."

He didn't care if she was sleeping or not. He was content to sit there quietly and stare at her, marveling at his own good fortune.

What crazy roll of the cosmic dice had landed him here, on the Princess's bed, waiting for her to awaken so he could see her smile at him?

He chuckled to himself at this thought. On her bed, eh? He'd have preferred to be IN it, but he hadn't quite figured out yet how to manage that particular transition.

From her point of view it had been more than half a year... but to him it was only a few weeks ago that they'd been together on the Falcon, en route to Bespin. They'd grown closer on that trip - they'd left Hoth as reluctant comrades, occasional antagonists, and arrived in Bespin as something more than friends.

But she'd kept her guard up, never quite believing that he wasn't leaving for good. It hadn't been until the moment before he'd been dropped into the carbonite that she'd confessed her true feelings for him.

He'd known already, before she'd blurted it out in that last instant, that she cared for him. He'd seen it in her eyes, tasted it in her kiss. It hadn't been necessary for her to say it, but he was glad she had.

It made his own decision less painful. He'd only discovered the depth of his own feelings for her scant moments earlier, when he'd plunged headlong into the Wookiee's scuffle with the stormtroopers. Only the Wookiee, whose honor bound him to Solo more deeply than any oath, could have understood Han's emotion in that terrible moment.

Keeping her safe was more important to Solo than his own life.

Chewie had seen this immediately, but Leia had not. Her insecurity and doubt about whether he returned her feelings, and her deep-seeded terror that she was going to lose him, in the end, had left her more vulnerable than before.

What a pair we are, he thought ruefully.

He'd gotten glimpses of her as she worked her way through the crowd, determined to speak, personally, to every member of the strike team and the command staff. The few times so far that he'd managed to catch up with her, she'd been in a group of people.

It had been awkward to hear her addressing him as "General Solo," without the knowing smile or teasing tone she'd already adopted in private for his new title.

She had every reason, he knew, to be distracted and preoccupied. And he didn't push her. She wore her best diplomatic smile and to all appearances was having a grand time celebrating… but Han knew her well enough to know better. He knew she was worried about Luke, who was acting rather strange and... well, Jedi-like. And he also knew that she was far more upset by Luke's revelation about her parentage than she was letting on.

Han, too, was more worried than he was letting on. He was worried for her - he couldn't forget just how close he'd come to losing her - and all he wanted was to be near her, to know she was all right. And he wasn't even managing that much.

What he really wanted was to get her alone somewhere and kiss her until they both forgot about the battle, forgot about Vader, forgot about everything.

Han was tired and he didn't want to worry about his ship or about what was ahead for them all. Not tonight. Tonight he just wanted to hold the woman he loved in his arms and remind himself of what really mattered.

Instead here he was at a party, pretending to have a swell time.