A/N: This story is built off of a couple thoughts and assumptions: 1) Luke is blond in New Hope because of the Tatooine suns and his natural hair color is much darker, similar to Anakin. 2) There is some measure of sexism in the portrayal of Leia always being irritated. She must be a much more skilled diplomat to be so highly regarded by her people and the Rebellion. She also wasn't given enough credit for the trauma she must've gone through watching her entire planet be destroyed. 3) Luke would've learned Leia's same skill set of diplomacy, although he'd be different from Leia because they as people are different.

However, besides that, a lot of the observations I make about the gender-bent characters are taken from my perspective on the films and the original characters.

…

The Beginning

It begins the same way these things usually do — unexpectedly. She keeps finding herself looking at him, with his icy blue eyes and dark brown hair, his dimpled chin and his firm mouth. She wonders if he's actually ice, or if there's fire burning under his skin, and what he must be thinking of the loss of his planet, of his family.

She can't see it on the outside.

She pricks him a little with her words, watches the flames in his eyes flare up and then be tamped as he closes his eyes and breathes before he answers. She has a theory that maybe he needs a little relief, someone to take out his frustration on, someone to let the fire out towards. He's a diplomat, a politician, and one of the most well-known figures of the Rebellion. He has a reputation to uphold. But she wears down his walls more and more and his eyes start to spark whenever he sees her.

One day, when he blows up at her, he says something along the lines of deserving more respect than she gives him. And so she takes to calling him "Your Highness."

She likes seeing the red flare up in his cheeks. He doesn't know what to do because it's the first time someone has riled him to the point of madness. There's something about her that gets under his skin and itches just under the surface.

She's the one person he's ever known he didn't have the words to describe.

And she's leaving him.

Maybe not that day, or the next, but maybe the next after that. Someday very, very soon.

She says she has a debt to pay.

He tells himself he doesn't have a problem with it, that she's an aggravation he's better off without, a distraction at best. But that doesn't change the fact that his eyes follow her when she enters the room or that sometimes he wakes up from a dream and realizes she was in there somewhere, tangled up in his conscious, smirking up at him unapologetically. For some reason, he isn't mad at her in his dreams.

He expects her to leave him. Everyone else is gone anyway. Why not her too.

Sometimes it hits him all over again, especially when he's sleeping, and then he's left shaking and sobbing in the dark. There will never be another Old Alderaanian born in the galaxy, never be another ceremony held in the palace where he was raised, never another so many things he can't breathe whenever he thinks about it or remembers it or those ceremonies or—

He tries to hide his fatigue but it apparently doesn't work very well. Mon Mothma tells him to talk to someone, anyone, and he tells her that he is, but he stays silent regardless. And somehow it continues to get worse. He tries not to let himself think about it while they're evacuating Yavin; he tells himself there are more important things to do than let himself be affected, that he has to be strong, that the Alliance needs him strong. He can't collapse until they're safe.

Dodonna is the driving force behind the evacuation after the Battle of Yavin. It's true they've just dealt a massive blow to the Empire by destroying their master weapon, but that doesn't change the fact that now the Empire knows where they're stationed. An attack is coming eventually, probably soon.

Luke keeps seeing Leia wandering around the base looking lost. She hasn't found her place yet; it seems like she thought the victory over the Death Star would cripple the Empire and actually defeat them once and for all. And now, realizing she knows very little about the operations of this band of rebels she's fallen into, she's taking a back seat and letting everyone else direct her around. It's a small feeling, to expect to be praised and recognized as a hero, and then to be congratulated for barely a day before the focus is turned elsewhere, before they're frantically running around and fleeing for their lives again.

The whispers still follow her sometimes, like when she's eating alone in the mess hall or dropping by the X-Wing she's adopting as her own to work on repairs. She always feels most at home with a wrench in her hand and that's what she reverts to now, on a strange planet with a high level of humidity and a mind-boggling amount of water, part of an organization she was planning to fight against, her only company a protocol droid that keeps talking about its missing astromech companion.

She's spent her entire life staring at the sky waiting to leave a desert planet and now she's happy to have a little normalcy, a little menial labor.

Luke notices. It's his speciality; noticing, connecting personally with everyone. It's what makes him such a good diplomat. If everyone feels heard, they're more connected, more willing to commit to what he proposes.

He brings her lunch. She's smeared with grease and surprised to see him, but she smiles at him gratefully, white teeth gleaming out from a gray-smudged face. He asks her what she's working on; she says something about fixing the astromech translator for Artoo. And then he asks her how she's been doing and she's abruptly honest.

"It's been hard to find my place on base," she says.

He doesn't know very many people who will simply blurt out the truth without stopping to think about how to deliver it tactfully and in a way that will make someone else sympathetic. He knows it's probably just naivety, that this girl has been isolated for most of her life and will probably figure out why it isn't a good idea.

...

He's pretty sure he isn't developing feelings for her. After all, why would he. She blusters and swaggers and brags her way through every situation. She's also started three different underground Sabaac rings on base within the month Luke's been at the new base, let alone whatever she did while he wasn't there. But that doesn't change the way his eyes go to her whenever she enters a room, like there's something there he wants to be able to look up and easily see.

Maybe her arrogance helps him feel more confident. If Hana's acting like she's fine, they're safe for the time being. He's seen her lose her swagger in the middle of a fight before; when she thinks she's close to death, she forgets her bluster.

She sees the way he looks at her, especially when she walks in a room, and she thinks she recognizes it. She's been pursued enough – and also been the pursuer enough – that she can see the way he looks at her even when he can't. She's glimpsed it when he's furious, when he's afraid, when he's tired. She sees it when he slips and forgets who he is, where he is. Even when he rages at her, sometimes almost spitting in his anger, she sees it and it makes her smile.

And she's right, to some extent. Under his irritation and aggravation, he craves her sometimes. He wonders for a moment — in the middle of a fight, when she's smirking up at him triumphantly after he's just blown his temper — what it would feel like to hold her in his arms instead of trying to stab back at her with his words.

His back is tight and rigid as he walks away.

And for some reason, it keeps happening after that.