Longing

By Lelila

 

First appeared in Size Matters Not #1, May, 2002

 

Leia returned to her quarters fuming.  She absently wished she had a door she could slam instead of an automatic hatch.  Her day had been terrible, just one thing after another, and for the first time in recent memory, she’d let it get to her.

 

She dropped onto her sofa, feeling the stress radiating from her.  She worked her shoulders and rolled her head, feeling the knots in her neck.  She wished Han were here to give her a massage, but he was off on some mission or other...again.

 

Leia realized for the first time perhaps that she wasn’t really happy with her life.  She did what she did because she felt she must, not because she really enjoyed it.  The only time she really felt happy was when she was with Han.

 

When had that changed?  When had the most important thing in her life become her relationship with this man?  She couldn’t exactly pin that down.  She wasn’t even sure if it was when she had resigned her position in the Alliance to go and free him from his carbonite prison.  She had done that partly out of guilt; she’d gotten Han into that mess, she felt responsible to get him out of it. 

 

But yet...it hadn’t only been about that.  It hadn’t even been mostly about that.  It mostly had to do with the huge pit that formed in her stomach every time she thought that she would never see him again.  For the first time in her life, she had allowed herself to be selfish.

 

And yet now that he was free, and the war was over (officially, anyway), she spent even less time with him.  He was always off on some mission.  It made her ache inside every time she thought about him.

 

She blinked as tears stung her eyes.  Damn him!  Damn herself.  Damn this whole situation.  She expelled a shaky sigh and got up to begin pacing, unsure of what else to do with her restless self.

 

There had to be something dysfunctional about this situation; everyone she talked to about it said she’d be happier without him.  Everyone but Luke, anyway.  They were hardly ever together, and when they were it was a few days of intense loving and fighting, and then he was gone again.  Much of the time it felt more like she was having an illicit affair than an actual relationship.  And yet...the mere thought of him made her happier than she ever thought she could be.

 

Her whole thought process had changed because of him.  If her weight fluctuated or she discovered a skin blemish, things she’d barely even bothered to notice before, her first thought now was always, “What would Han think?”

 

And when she knew he would be seeing him, well, she became something of a whirling dervish.  The excitement of the anticipation was almost as good as the actual visit.  Even her bathing habits changed.  While she was anything but unhygienic normally, when she knew she would be seeing Han, it suddenly became very important to make sure the little nooks and crannies like behind her ears and inside her navel (not to mention more intimate places) were well scrubbed.

 

Quickly coming to the realization that pacing was getting her nowhere, she flopped back onto the sofa, her legs splayed out in front of her.  The idea of masturbating flitted through her mind (she did it occasionally to relieve stress), but quickly tossed the idea aside.  Since she’d become intimate with Han, pleasuring herself had never been the same.  Nothing could satisfy her the way he did.

 

After sitting a few more fuming moments in silence trying to decide whether to scream or cry, she finally decided to do neither and instead have something to eat. 

 

She was just opening the refrigeration unit when the comm chimed.  “Now what?” she muttered and went to flip it on.  Fully expecting it to be some aide or lackey, she put on her best senatorial air and said “Yes?” before the image cleared.

 

“Hey, Your Worship,” Han’s fuzzy image replied.  “How’s everything?”

 

Leia felt the smile spread across her face as her dour mood suddenly drifted off into the stratosphere.  “Fine.  Everything’s just fine now.”

 

~Fini~