Destitute

by Amy Hull

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Written for funnygirlthatbelle (the electric phantom) in the Han/Leia Summer Secret Santa Challenge 2017.

Many thanks to Wiliqueen (notophelia), oldtoadwoman, and MandyQ (mandatheginger) for beta reading!

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Leia yanked at the thread. It snapped. "All the kriffing-"

The door to her tiny quarters slid open, revealing Han's crooked grin.

"You swearing now, too, Your Worship?"

There was still something heady about him having access to her quarters, even if they were temporary ones on Home One, a stop-gap between Jabba's palace and Endor, between Empire and Republic, between war and peace.

"Someone seems to be a bad influence on me." She felt the tug of a hysterical giggle, but resisted, holding him with a gaze she hoped was both imperious and coquettish.

This had been a temporary place between alone and not-alone, between single and, now, married.

Han leaned to kiss her, one hand against her cheek. It was a soft kiss. Casual. Comfortable. Most of their kisses had been desperate, frantic, needy. Was 'comfortable' what peace felt like?

Of course, they weren't at peace yet. Not yet.

"-doing?"

She blinked. This was at least the third time today she'd lost the thread. Conversational thread.

She picked up the shirt from her-their-bunk, plucking at the broken, snarled thread. "Mending."

Han put his finger through the hole in the sleeve left by the blaster that hit her. "Isn't this a lost cause?"

"I can patch it."

He raised an eyebrow.

"I can," she protested. "Well, if I can get the sleeve in straight."

"I didn't know you sewed." He rested his arm on the bunk and leaned his head on his hand.

"I have to, resources being what they are. Anyway, not much fits me."

"I fit you."

She laughed. For all the ways that was utterly inaccurate, he was right. They fit together, even if he had to sit down for her to look him in the eyes. Or kneel, like he was doing now.

The tangle of thread remained stubbornly knotted. "You could have asked, you know. If I could sew. I mean, before you cut the sleeve off my last shirt."

"I was an awful lot more concerned about your arm than your shirt. How's it feeling?" His voice was low. Quiet. Worried.

She shrugged. It was just a graze. There were so many ways it could have been worse. "It's tight today, starting to itch around the edges."

"Means it's healing well." His hand, warm on her thigh, squeezed.

"Someone took good care of it." She tucked his shaggy hair behind his ear. He just grinned at her. "All the other shirts in supply would have fit Chewie." She tugged one more time, then yanked the lower sleeve back off and started picking at the popped threads.

"How many times have you done that?"

She glared at him then huffed, "Three." She picked at the threads then carefully pinned it in place again. "Seams matching. Right side to right side," she muttered to herself. She rethreaded the needle. Again. Still muttering, she griped, "You know, I could embroider this entire shirt with a landscape of the Wuitho Trifalls."

"Just...like that?"

"I'd sketch it first, but I could do it. Probably from memory. Yet I can't sew a damned sleeve back on."

"Here. Let me try." Han took the garment from her. He put a whipstitch knot into the shoulder, then ran a running stitch along the old seam, tossing a whipstitch in every short measure or two.

She stared.

"What? You didn't think I had any 'domestic' skills?"

Leia arched an eyebrow. "It's not that, it's just that I've seen your wardrobe, including what you consider 'formal wear.' None of that indicated an ability to-" She gestured.

"-look any other way than 'scruffy-looking'?"

Her cheeks warmed. "You're never going to let that go, are you, hotshot?"

"Nope." He grinned.

"You are so cheeky." She bit her lip.

"Hey, you ever seen me with holes in my clothes?"

Leia thought. "Now that you mention it...there was that time on-"

He waggled a finger at her. "One that didn't get ripped right in front of you!"

"No. I haven't." She wrapped a bit of his hair around her finger.

"I take care of my stuff. Never had much, so I take care of it."

"Like the Falcon."

"Yep. She's my pile of junk, just like I'm your cheeky, scruffy-looking hotshot."

"You are. Officially."

He glanced up at her, his expression cautious. "No one could find even a single other shirt in a smaller size? Not even for you?"

"No. Uniform supplies are running pretty thin."

"The Alliance seems to be pretty thin on, well, everything." He ran his eyes over her pointedly.

She was not having that conversation. She hadn't when he'd been sick after Jabba's, half poisoned, recovering, and trying to turn attention to her. She was not having it now, not with her three-days' husband. She was eating better now than when he was gone, but her body, her emotions, her memories, it was all too raw, all too empty under the surface to speak of. Not yet.

"These past four months," she said carefully, "High Command has run every source dry. We didn't want anyone to know." She swallowed. "We were not entirely sure we had enough fuel for this assault. That's part of why it was so critical."

His hands slowed their practiced movement. The months he'd missed cast a shadow across his face.

"We knew..." Leia bit her lip. "We feared this could be our last stand."

"What happened to the Alliance's sources? Did more of them stop trading?"

"We had nothing left to trade. Many sources were still supporting us, when they could get supplies, but most of them had been choked off. The Empire knew they were supplying us, and they were as needy as we were. There were others..." She had to force the words out through clenched teeth, "those who had fuel and food, supplies we needed, they demanded four times the costs. For their 'risk,' they said." Leia took a deep breath. "I think the Emperor set up the siege so that everything depended on this one moment. He made sure we were desperate enough to attack when he laid that trap."

"But we won."

Talking about it made her shudder. It had been such a close thing, and they owed it to Luke and...to Vader. Vader who had beggared her in the first place, every belonging, every family member, every resource she ever had save herself- She shook her head, forced a smile, and sighed. "We did. We won. Together." His eyes were narrowed, probing hers. "This time," she added softly. "There's so much more-"

"How are we on resources?"

"Better. A few worlds have broken free and, now that winning looks possible, joined us. We'll have enough fuel for at least a standard month."

"But?"

"The Alliance is determined to deal fairly." She watched him return to working the needle through fabric. He took care of things, mended broken things. His ship. The Alliance's plans. Her.

"Course they are. You're on it."

"We...High Command will not requisition that which is not freely given."

"Or what you pay for." He adjusted the edge of the fabric. "Right?"

She pursed her lips.

"C'mon, Leia. I'm a General now. You don't have to hide Alliance business."

The grin he flashed her should be illegal, she thought before blurting out, "We can't pay."

"What does that mean?"

"There is...nothing. Every source, every stockpile, every hidden account, every asset...everything is used up."

Han stared at her, his face almost as blank as when he'd been trying to process her news about Luke. Then he started laughing.

The laugh turned to a guffaw as his face reddened. He paused, then burst out laughing again. He set the shirt on the bunk beside her and rose to his knees.

He blew a breath, placed his hands on her face, then started laughing again, wrapping his arms around her and burying his face in her shoulder. She wrapped her good arm around his back and set her left hand on his waist.

It was catharsis. Irony, the absurd, losses, near misses...they were all a bit mad in the letdown after a decisive victory, in the knowing that they really could win.

Han finally sat back on his heels, wiping tears from his face and still chuckling.

"Sweetheart, do you know what Luke said to me, back on the first Death Star, when he was tryin' to get me to rescue you?"

She shook her head.

"He said, 'She's rich.' Said if we rescued you I'd have more wealth than I could imagine." He laughed again. "Kid just made shit up. And now here you are, and here I am, and the Alliance is dead broke, and you know what?" He set his wide palm against her cheek. "I told the kid, back then, that I could imagine a lot. I was wrong. I couldn't have imagined this much wealth."

He cradled her face, leaned between her knees, and kissed her. He kissed her bottom lip, her top lip, each corner of her mouth, then turned his head and moved his lips against hers. Slow. Supple. Sure.

She wrapped the front of his shirt around her hand. Here, in these temporary quarters, in this in-between, there was nothing temporary about him or about them, nothing halfway. She smiled against his mouth. "You know, we need to eat dinner before bedtime."

"Hmm."

"And I can't go out in my undershirt."

"Hmm."

"And we can't come back till we've gone out."

Han kissed her one more time, and she pushed him away, pointing at his task.

"Slave driver." He picked up the shirt again. "I think I've got some ideas how to make money, seeing as the entire Alliance to Restore the Republic is destitute. You want me to talk to Command?"

Leia chuckled. "You are talking to Command."

"Of course, Your Highnessness."

"Why don't you tell me over dinner? I'll see if I can get a couple more members of the Council to join us."

"I might have a...unique perspective to share. One that skirts the law."

"Seeing as we're all guilty of high treason, I suspect we can work with that."

Han put in one more whipstitch and broke the thread. He turned the sleeve right side out. "It's gonna be shorter than the other one, but I don't think it's too noticeable. I think you could use this other pocket to patch it."

She slipped on the shirt. The sleeve hung properly, and he was right: the difference, apart from the new seam, was negligible. "How long will you keep surprising me, Han Solo?"

"Dunno, Princess. I'm hoping for four decades or so."

"I think I could deal with that." She twined their hands together. The losses were so heavy. But while she might have nothing left, she had victory, Luke, and him. And they had a life's work, together, standing before them. She squeezed his hand. "Let's get out there so we can get back here. Together."

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