A/N: Not beta'd, so please be kind if you review.

She is a high ranking official in the Rebel Alliance and, technically, a princess. Everyone keeps their distance from her. Except for Han. Han calls her "Princess" but rarely treats her like one and she doesn't realize it until a month after they leave Yavin, and establish their new base on a rainy planet called Ephron, and she never admits to this to anyone. Ever.

He isn't afraid to touch her. That's the first thing she notices. Most people have been wary of her since the Death Star and Alderaan, treating her like a precious cracked vase that's been unceremoniously placed in the middle of the living room of a busy household. Meanwhile, Han doesn't think twice about putting his hands on her. He manhandles her around a crate or bundles of wires and teasingly pokes her while she gives him orders. Sometimes he just leans in unnecessarily close when they talk, just so he can invade her personal space and aggravate her.

In time his touch starts to linger. His thumb will stroke her shoulder blade two or three times after he politely helps her out of the Falcon's cockpit or his hands will stay on her waist a little too long after maneuvering her around some obstacle in a cramped corridor. That's how she figures it out. After Han Solo grabs her by the waist and just sort of picks her up and around a crate full of wires someone left in the middle of the east passage, and his hands just sort of stay there for a little too long, and that spot where his thumbs stroked her back feels warm for pretty long while.

She had to go to a High Council meeting with that on her mind (and her back).

Luke reaches for her too sometimes, he'll hold her hand or put his hand on the small of her back as they walk through doors; but there is a hesitancy to his movements that betrays his intentions in a way she can't help but find endearing. There's a familiarity in his touch she can't quite explain, but it doesn't make her skin tingle or her heart race or her tummy to flutter, so she doesn't fight it like she fights against Han.

A month after 'The East Passage Incident', Leia realizes that Han doesn't look at her the way everyone else does. Well, okay, the way Luke does. Most people look at her with respect and admiration. She's aware that some of the men at times look at her like she could be just another warm body to keep them company or a piece of meat. They always turn away when she looks back. Luke looks at her like she's the reason stars burn and then blushes and looks away.

Han doesn't look away.

He gazes at her, watches her move around the room like she's a walking puzzle he's trying to solve in his head. One day she catches him staring at her while she takes inventory of the supplies he and Chewie just brought in. She narrows her eyes and asks, "Do I have something on my face? A large zit I somehow keep missing? A spontaneous hairy mole?" He laughs and shakes his head. "Then why are you staring at me?"

He just shrugs and says, "Because you're pretty."

That night, as she sits in front of her mirror and brushes her long, long hair, she realizes it's the first time someone has told her she's pretty since long before Alderaan was lost and it makes her want to cry.

Six months after getting settled on Ephron, they go to Galtea for a supply/recruitment mission and her coat gets ruined as they sneak past a group of Stormtroopers and onto the Falcon. On the way back to base she gets cold and Han lends her dark long-sleeved shirt she's seen him wear once or twice before. It smells like him, like sweat and oil and leather and burnt electrical wires accompanied by subtle notes of wet fur. It's sitting there behind Chewie's co-pilot seat, that she realizes that she actually likes the way this dumb, irritating, freakishly good-looking criminal smells. She can't help but bring the shirt collar up to her nose to breathe him in. He catches her and she blushes, he grins and she fights the urge to punch him in the mouth.

She steals the shirt instead.

It takes Leia another 4 months to finally admit to herself that Han Solo isn't all that terrible. When she first met him he had been a greedy and selfish bastard who only cared about himself, his Wookie, and his ship (and in that order). Now she sees that that isn't the case anymore, and maybe it never really was. She sees how he looks after Luke and treats him like the little brother he never had, giving him "manly advice" on issues she largely doesn't even want to start to understand; and she eventually she realizes that she can't ignore how he worries about her in his own way.

He frets over her at meal times. It's aggravating. He says she drinks too much kaffe even though he usually offers her some whenever she comes by the Falcon, and he tells her she doesn't eat enough while dumping about a third of his own food onto her plate. Sometimes he goes the extra mile and gets her food from the line for her, with extra helpings and all, and she always scowls at him throughout most of the meal, even as she eats everything he puts in front of her.

On the anniversary of the Battle of Yavin, the entire base joins in a minute of silence for the pilots lost in the battle and for Alderaan. Leia feels like the planet was added in to the moment of mourning at the last minute, but she says nothing about it. That night there is a celebration commemorating the Rebellion's first major victory. There are bottles of champagne she is sure a certain someone managed to smuggle in and everyone is in good spirits, Luke and Han especially, who are heralded as heroes and "guests of honor". She attends for a few minutes before sneaking back to her bunk. Her hair is only half undone and she is already in her nightgown and standard issue robe when there is a knock on her door. There is a tiny part of her that isn't actually surprised to find Han Solo standing on the other side.

What does surprise her is the air of tentativeness that surrounds him as he shuffles his feet at her doorway with hands behind his back and a sheepish look on his face.

Still, her patented scowl slips into place. "Shouldn't you be at your party, Captain? I thought you were the man of the hour."

"No, you left in the middle of my hour. It's Luke's turn now." She rolls her eyes and, for once, he actually looks apologetic for making her do that. "Look, I know that today has been a hard day for you and all you want to do right now is go to bed, but I got something for you."

Her instinct is to tell him that she has no interest in whatever he has for her, to glare at him, maybe even shove him out of her doorway, and slam the door in his face; but the earnestness in his eyes and the sincerity in his voice give her pause. Instead, sighs and watches, somewhat warily, as he slowly brings his hand out from behind his back. When she sees exactly what it is he is holding she lets out a sound that lands somewhere between a gasp and a sob.

She gingerly takes the bottle of wine, Alderaani wine, the same wine her cousin's husband made in his vineyard in the valley minutes from the summer palace, the same wine her parents drank at dinner, the first wine she ever tasted, the same wine she drank the last time she was in Alderaan.

"Where did you find this?"

He walks in and closes the door behind him. "Hosnian Prime."

She has a feeling this bottle's story is far more complicated than his answer.

Leia Organa the Last Princess of Alderaan, stands in the middle of her bunk holding one of the last bottles of Alderaani wine, and isn't sure what to do with it. She considers saving it. Although, for what? The Rebellion's next victory? The next Alderaani holiday? Her birthday? Should she try to keep it safe, instead? Hide it away until the after the war is over and the New Republic is established? Should she have it put in a museum, then? A testament to the existence of a planet that once thrived and is now nothing but dust?

She catches her reflection in her small mirror and thinks, 'No.'

"Mark your time with glasses of wine," Bail once told her. "A new opportunity, a new year, a new love, a new life. When you begin again, open a bottle of wine and share it."

Leia takes her father's advice, carefully opens the precious bottle, and pours the deep red into a pair of empty mugs.

"To Alderaan."

"To Alderaan."

They stand there and drink in silence, the sounds of the party floating down the hall and into the space between them. A familiar song seeps in under her door, a sweet, funny melody her mother used to hum sometimes, and she feels something in her break.

In the days after Alderaan's destruction, after the battle and things had settled just a little, Leia had decided that the best way to honor Alderaan and her parents would be to fight. She decided she would destroy the Empire and seek, not vengeance, but justice. She decided she would not waste time on tears. Now, a year later, she reneges on her word and breaks down into a mess of hiccupping sobs, in front of Han Solo of all people. He doesn't say a word, just takes her into his arms and lets her cry it all out, a year and a lifetime worth of tears pouring out and soaking his shirt. He undoes the rest of her hair and brushes it with his fingers and she's struck at how well his hand fits to the shape of her head and how slow and steady and soothing his heartbeat sounds against her ear.

When her tears finally dry, she stays in his arms, his hands on her back, her ear over his heart, the music seeping into the room; and they sway.

They don't talk about it the next morning, not that she expected him to. No, they act as if nothing had happened at all. When she goes into the mess hall for lunch she finds Han and Luke sitting in their usual spot in the back with Luke nursing what looks like his first major hangover. Han pulls her chair out with his foot and tut-tuts over her meal.

Shoveling about half of his mashed purple something or other onto her plate, he says, "Good grief, Princess, looking at this little set up people would think you're a bird, not a soldier."

He winks at her and Leia doesn't know if she wants to kiss him on the cheek or stomp on his foot.