Yavin IV, right after the celebration for the destruction of the first Death Star.

He'd decided to pursue her from the very beginning.

"I don't know who you are or where you came from, but from now on you'll do as I tell you, okay?"

She was the first challenge in quite a bunch of years that really got him going.

He felt gratitude towards his softer side that had forced him to stick around Luke. The kid was good and Han was happy he had saved him and his rebel friends' asses after all. Still, he was far happier for the medal that now weighed against his sternum. Because everybody knows that women – and certainly the Princess, as cold as she wanted to appear, was a woman – love heroes – and certainly the medal showed that he was one. He'd saved everybody's day: it was about time she recognized the fact and showed some appreciation.

He found her in the observation room of the temple, engaged in conversation with General Dodonna. Said conversation seemed to have already come to an end, anyway, as he heard the General say "I'll keep you adjourned, then. Have a nice evening, Princess Leia".

Han accepted Dodonna's polite words of congratulations with an appropriate smile that was meant to please her unshakable diplomacy. He let it fade, anyway, as Dodonna passed him. Han approached her slowly, waiting for the General's steps to be swallowed by the largeness of the temple: he wanted them to be alone.

"What do you need to be adjourned on, your Highness?"

His words, the smirk on his face, the fact that he was leaving in a few days regardless what she said or did or his mere presence when she wanted to be alone, finally, after weeks of forced company and hard moments: she didn't know which irritated her the most.

"It's none of your business, Captain. Especially since you are leaving us"

"Maybe it's something interesting that'll keep me around a while longer... Isn't that what you'd like?"

"Stop it, Han, I'm not in the mood"

In the mood for fighting or in the mood for admitting that she did want him around a bit longer? The look on her face told him that she would not react well to the question.

"As you wish, your Worship"

"Yeah, whatever", she barked, waving an irritated hand at him, "will you go away now, please?"

"No"

"No?"

She couldn't help the desperate quiver in her voice. She really needed to be alone. She needed silence and an empty room to finally take in the events of the past weeks. To take in the fact that now she was alone in the galaxy, for example.

"What is it that you want, Han? What do I have to do so that you'll finally leave me alone?"

Her voice was perilously edgy and that should have stopped him. But it didn't.

"Oh c'mon, Princess! Is this medal the only reward I get?"

She shot him a glare that could have killed.

Money. Money was the only thing he cared for. She felt like screaming and in the end lost her internal war, lost her reticence to let herself get angry, lost her control. She snapped. Weeks of frustration, exasperation, desperation came up and gathered in her womb, detonating in waves of sheer rage that came to crush against his head.

"Money! The only thing you think about, the only thing you are in for! You already got what Obi Wan had promised you, what else do you want? Most of our money was on Alderaan! On Alderaan, understood? We have no money, it's all gone. Everything is... gone!"

Pulverized. He knew. He'd heard Riekaan talk about that. He'd also heard that Alderaan was her home and in a rare attempt at empathy he'd asked himself what it could feel like to have everything you knew and loved pulverized.

But he hadn't been talking about money. That was not what he wanted. He tried to tell her, but she was too far gone, the obvious lump in her throat had her choking on her invectives, her face was red and her eyes were almost glistening – or was it the light that made them look so? He held out his hands in an attempt to calm her fury.

"Don't you dare touch me!"

But since he kept trying to reach her and she was by now blinded by rage, she slapped him, hard and sudden, on the cheek.

The echo of the slap resounded in the empty room, followed by her gasp.

"I'm sorry", she mumbled, now completely still, hands against her mouth, eyes wide in shock and shame.

Han wasn't as shocked. He knew he'd had it coming and accepted it with some kind of grace. He was actually happy she had let go in some way. He took her by the shoulders, a soft sideways smile playing on his lips.

"You have a nice blow, Princess", he said, winking.

"Anyway, money's not what I wanted"

He was too close to her and she was way too confused by his behaviour – and hers, by the way – so a graceful "Oh?" was the most articulate response she came up with. She felt his hands slide down her arms, lightly caressing her clothed skin, leaving a trail of goosebumps behind, and finally depart from her. She shivered.

"You know what I want", he said.

But she was not sure she did really. As he looked into her puzzled eyes, he was not sure anymore if he himself knew.

"C'mon, just a small kiss to show me your gratitude. I'm your saviour after all"

He had meant to kiss her all the time when he'd walked down the aisle, as she'd put the medal around his neck, as he'd walked up the stairs to the observation room. Now he'd be more than satisfied if she didn't strangle him. He'd be more than satisfied if she just laughed at him. Actually, he'd love to see her laugh for once.

But she was actually thinking about it. He was smiling a smile genuinely amused at his own strange request and she could see a little something glimmer in his eyes. She wondered what that might be, whether hope or mischief. She didn't want to be fooled by him.

But she did want to be kissed by him. What hurt could one kiss do? She had nothing to lose anymore. And he was leaving after all, she expected no consequences. She realized she wanted – maybe needed – some kind of comfort and that he could provide at the same time that comfort and a distraction from the numbing pain that wouldn't leave her chest. Maybe a kiss would make her feel alive – or just feel something, anything again: it would be enough for her. She didn't want to resist him and decided she didn't have to.

She looked at the entrance of the room and considered that they probably wouldn't be interrupted. She leaned against the wall, smiling, silently giving him consent and watched as his eyes widened for the shortest while in surprise. He clearly wasn't expecting her to say yes. He recovered quickly, anyway, and started descending on her. When she felt his breath on her lips, she stopped him bringing a finger between their mouths.

"One", she whispered, "I grant you one only"

Then she removed the finger and allowed him to kiss her.

Her experience with kisses consisted of her first kiss with Kif, the gardener's son at the palace, and a kiss stolen by a delirious rebel who died two days later because the medical droid was broken and she didn't know how to perform a transfusion. He had called her Maylee, so probably it wasn't even her he was kissing in his mind. That was it, anyway. Both Kif and the man had simply pressed their lips against hers and she thought that was all kisses were about. Kif's lips had been wet and warm and had sent butterflies flying throughout her stomach and that seemed enough to her.

She was more than surprised when she felt Han's tongue caress her lower lip. She opened her eyes and saw him with his eyes still closed, intent on kissing her. Or trying to, let's say.

He felt her freeze in his arms and opened his eyes to find her watching him with a very confused look on her face. The situation made him smile.

"Open your mouth, Sweetheart", he whispered against her lips, before resuming his task.

She blushed, bewildered at herself that he'd had to tell her what to do and irritated at him for not finiding a better way to put it. Still, she did as she was told. She shuddered when she felt his tongue push in her mouth and felt him smile some more. That sent her totally raging at him, at his arrogance. He was laughing at her. She thought of pushing him away, but then thought better and pressed her tongue against his, kissing him back hard. Anyway, after a while of battling with his tongue, anger was decidedly not what she felt for him anymore.

Suddenly she remembered she had granted him only one kiss and realized she didn't know how to count them. They had been kissing for a while without parting, did it count like one?

At a certain point he released her lips to let them both catch their breaths and she realised her head had been spinning for the lack of oxygen. Her mind had barely formed the thought that probably that was the end of the kiss he'd been allowed, when he captured her lips again.

It was better this time, she knew what to expect and what to do. Still he surprised her a few times when he grazed his teeth against her bottom lip. He surely was good at what they were doing. Not that she'd tell him, anyway.

Their bodies had grown closer in the meanwhile and now there were not many parts of her that didn't adhere to his. He was literally pressing her into the wall. The notion sent excited waves to her womb and she felt something wild stir deep inside her. It was no butterflies. It was much, much more powerful and she didn't quite know what to make of it.

Again he parted his lips from hers, but kept his body tightly pressed against hers. She couldn't breath properly, but didn't feel like complaining about it. She looked at his face and saw the marks her blow had left on his cheek. She touched them lightly with the point of her fingers.

"I'm sorry, Han", she mumbled.

"I'm not", he replied with a smirk, "Actually, it quite turned me on"

She laughed at that, throwing her head back a little. He caught the chance to kiss her neck.

The shiver that erupted throughout her body made her realize that things were evolving pretty quickly. She tried to gain time putting words between them.

"Captain, I can clearly remember that you were allowed to one kiss only. Do you ever play by the rules?"

The relaxed smile on her face was what he had always wanted to see. Brilliant, like a shining sun. He just smiled back and kissed her again, softly, tenderly this time, while she was still smiling.

But the noise of steps climbing up the stairs could be heard and they abruptly parted. Leia smoothed her dress as best as she could. As Riekaan's figure stepped in, she had already regained her royal composure and the steely look in her eyes. One would never have guessed the two had spent the past ten minutes making out.

"Then I guess this is it, Captain Solo", she said.

For a moment he just looked at her in utter shock, then he nodded slightly, keeping his eyes fixed on hers with a strange look on his face. As good a sabacc player as he was, he couldn't really keep up with the perfectly calm expression that had settled on her features. Somebody should have taught her sabacc, she'd have made a wonderful player.

Riekaan watched the pair and, as much as he tried to look for evidence of what he suspected had happened between them, he could find none. The only palpable signs were Solo's mysterious gaze and the evident tension between him and Leia. But that, Riekaan knew, meant nothing. It was the air that had changed between them, he could feel it. And – oh, those marks on Solo's cheek. Five small and thin fingers. Maybe things hadn't gone down the path he'd imagined, after all.

He searched Leia's face as the Corellian captain retreated down the hallway and found her serene. That was all that counted, he decided. All that he needed to know.