Originally posted to Tumblr in two parts for Scoundress Saturdays. Prompt: "Were you ever going to tell me?"

She cannot, will not ever understand this man.

This man who swore up and down to her in the cockpit of his ramshackle ship, "I'm not in it for your revolution, and I'm not it in it for you, Princess. I expect to be well paid. I'm in it for the money." And then came back when any real mercenary would've flown far away.

And stayed, while every other day complaining about lousy payment and shit food and suicide missions. Sassing her right back when she called his bluff, when she pulled herself into her most imperious posture to declare, "Well, Captain Solo, you certainly are welcome to find employment elsewhere if this arrangement no longer suits you."

He refused to go, he refused to stay, and somehow his refusals had turned into three years of this arrangement he continued to swear was about the money, damn it, both his reasons to stay and his reasons to go.

If he weren't so damned useful, she would've told the High Command to cut him loose ages ago, but she somehow kept defending him to them. If he didn't always have those fresh juices and that asteria water and those home-cooked meals on his ship, she would never have set foot on that piece of junk after landing at Yavin. If he hadn't been the only one to make her feel something, anything after Alderaan—even if that something was sometimes irritation or the occasional burst of rage—she wouldn't have deigned to even speak to him, much less become friends.

And yes, they did seem to have become friends, somehow. Good ones, even. (All the whispers that it was more than that tripped the silent alarms in her brain, but she ignored them. She wasn't afraid of rumors; what had her years in the Imperial Senate been if not excellent training in ignoring rumors?)

Still, that exchange she'd overheard this morning had thrown her a bit.

"Of course he wants to accompany her on this mission—he's just waiting for a chance to cash in on another reward for rescuing her," Dodonna had said bitterly.

Rieekan had sounded angrier than Leia had ever heard him. "Jan, HE GAVE IT BACK!"

Leia felt oddly vulnerable as she walked up the Falcon's ramp and into the ship. Naked, almost. Not really fully in control of her body, but somehow propelled forward. She greeted Chewie and headed to the cockpit, where Han was rewiring the communications systems. Even Han accidentally bumping his head on the control panel as he turned to look up at her failed to break her focus, though his gentle smile steadied her.

She could not, would not ever understand this man, but she had to know—

"Were you ever going to tell me?"

She'd startled him, before she'd said a word.

He smiled at her, rubbing absently at the spot where his head had hit the control panel and hoping his surprise wasn't too obvious. It had been a while since Leia had come to see him on the Falcon; these days, she tended to hole up in the command center so much that Han had to practically pry her out to get her to eat a damned meal.

"Were you ever going to tell me?" she asked.

Now it wasn't her words that startled him, but the way she said them. There was no ire, no accusation at all in her voice, just a genuine, plaintive question. It was touching—and bewildering, too, since he had no idea what she was talking about.

He tilted his head at her, and kept his voice soft. "Tell you what?"

Now she was the one who looked bewildered, and for a moment he saw fear in her eyes, the look of an animal who'd been cornered and was deciding between attack or run. But she blinked it away, and the Leia who'd appeared in his cockpit was there again.

"That you gave it back," she answered.

Oh. That.

Han glanced down at the circuit board and wires beside him, to the tools strewn along the floor, then back up at Leia. She looked uncharacteristically awkward in the doorway, like she'd wandered into the cockpit by mistake.

We can't have this conversation like this.

He got up, guiding Leia gently to Chewie's spot before taking a seat in the pilot's chair beside her.

"Uh," he began uncomfortably, "didn't want to make a big deal. Just—didn't seem right to keep it."

That was a hell of an understatement. He'd talked a good game with Luke while they were waiting around for the old man, but even as he'd packed up the reward, he'd felt weird about it, like he'd just collected a bounty. Now that he and Leia were friends, it seemed unbelievable to have ever accepted it.

That's right, Furball. We're friends.

Leia nodded slowly. "Chewie knows?"

"Yeah. He was all for it. Honor, y'know."

"Luke?" she asked, clearly calculating just how in the dark she had been.

"No." He shook his head. Luke had never asked, and Han doubted he'd have told Luke if he had. "Just Chewie, 'cause I had to, and Rieekan, 'cause I had to give it back to someone. Chewie didn't tell anyone, I know that."

It was odd—Han returning the reward money was one of the only things Chewie had never brought up in support of his ongoing contention that the Little Princess is meant to be your mate.

No. Shut up. Now is not the time to be thinking about his fur-brained theories.

Leia's face was unreadable, even more so than usual. "So you weren't going to tell me?" she asked, in the same tone as before.

He hadn't planned on it, honestly. Especially now that so much time had passed since he'd done it. Leia had more than enough people putting her on some tragic pedestal; the last thing she needed was Han throwing his earlier sacrifice on the pile. And giving back that much money (it had been quite a bit, if not the ridiculous amount Luke had promised) brought up some questions that Han was not remotely prepared to answer. Like why are you still here, then?

He shrugged. "Figured maybe it was better that way. Didn't want you to owe me. You don't, y'know."

She studied his face for a few moments, then smiled and brought a hand to his cheek. Before he knew what was happening, she had leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on the other cheek.

He leaned back, grinning with delighted surprise, but Leia was already getting up to leave, the usual look of poised confidence returning to her face. But before she departed, she grabbed one of his huge hands in her petite one, smiling and repeating the words that had inspired him to give back the reward in the first place:

"I knew there was more to you than money."