Chapter 2: The Unwanted Visitor
The knock was different. Not Antilles’s official rap. This was looser, a jaunty tap-tappa-tap on the durasteel. Leia knew that knock. A fresh, different kind of heat—annoyance mixed with a traitorous spark of relief—flushed through her. She stayed perfectly still on her bunk, the gel doing its numbing work.
The tapping repeated, followed by a muffled voice. “C’mon, Your Worship. Emergency lights are on, I know you’re in there. Or did Antilles weld you to the bench?”
She sighed, the sound exploding in the quiet room. “Go away, Solo.”
“I brought contraband.” His voice was clearer now, right against the door seam. “The good Corellian stuff. Not that paint-thinner you Rebels call ‘spirits.’”
She didn’t want company. She wanted to marinate in her misery. But the thought of that whiskey, real whiskey, was a potent lure. And, despite herself, the idea of not being alone was… slightly better than the alternative.
With another groan, she pushed herself up, carefully tugged her sleepsuit back into place, and palmed the door release.
Charlie Solo leaned against the doorframe like he owned it, which he absolutely did not. The dim corridor light behind him lit the edges of his messy hair like a halo gone wrong. In one hand, he held a bottle of amber liquid, label worn. A lopsided grin played on his face.
“See?” he said, holding up the bottle. “Diplomatic offering.”
“I’m not in a diplomatic mood,” Leia said, but she stepped back, allowing him entry.
He sauntered in, his eyes doing a quick, scavenger’s scan of the room. They lingered on the damp dress, the rumpled bunk, the open medkit on her desk. His grin didn’t fade, but it shifted, sharpening. “Heard you had a rough sit-rep.”
“You could say that.” She moved to lean against the desk, crossing her arms, then thought better of it and just stood there, feeling awkward. “Who told you?”
“The whole ship’s talking about it, sweetheart.” He found two small metal cups on her shelf, leftovers from some forgotten Alderaanian ceremony. He popped the cork on the bottle with his teeth and poured two generous fingers into each. The smell, rich and smoky, immediately cut through the room’s stale ozone. “Seems the consensus is you took it like a champ. Right up until you started mopping the deck with your skirt.”
Leia accepted the cup he held out. “I was not mopping.”
“Polishing, then. Buffing. Giving it a good shine.” He clinked his cup against hers. “To the Princess with the reddest ass in the Galactic North.”
She glared at him over the rim but took a sip. The whiskey was smooth fire, unraveling some of the knots in her stomach. She took another, deeper swallow. “Are you here just to gloat?”
“Gloat? Me?” He took a swig, his eyes never leaving hers. “I’m here as a fellow… recipient of Mon Mothma’s particular brand of corrective encouragement. A member of the club, so to speak. We should have jackets.”
“You’ve never been spanked in your life,” Leia muttered, sinking onto the padded bench in the corner. It was still faintly warm from where she’d been lying. She adjusted her weight with a tiny, unconscious wince.
Charlie’s eyebrows shot up. “Whoa. He really laid it in, didn’t he?” He gestured with his cup. “Antilles. I always figured him for a ‘ten-lashes-with-a-data-slate’ kind of guy. Old school. Formal.”
“It was plenty formal,” Leia said dryly. The whiskey was warming her, making the memory sting a little less. Or maybe it was just the sharing of it, the absurdity spoken aloud to someone who wouldn’t judge. Charlie judged, but on a completely different, amoral scale. “It was very… procedural.”
Charlie chuckled, dropping into the chair at her desk, spinning it to face her. He stretched his long legs out, crossing his boots at the ankles. “Procedure. Right. So, walk me through it. For historical accuracy.” His eyes glinted. “He stand you down first? Give a speech?”
“Charlie.”
“What? It’s research. Gotta know what I’m in for if I ever mouth off to the good Captain.” He took another sip, waiting.
She shook her head, but a reluctant, weary smile touched her lips. “Fine. He said, ‘This ends now. Over my knee.’ Like he was ordering a course correction.”
“Classic. No frills. I respect that.” Charlie nodded, a connoisseur of chaos appreciating technique. “And you went?”
“Not exactly. He helped.” The memory of that unbreakable grip on her arm returned, a phantom sensation. “Then he… commenced the procedure.” She found herself mimicking the rhythmic sound with her hand lightly patting the air. “Crack. Crack. Very efficient. Very echoing.”
Charlie was grinning openly now. “And the famous unveiling? The encore performance?”
“That,” Leia said, pointing a finger at him, “was a medical necessity. The sting was… significant.”
“I bet. And the crew?”
“A captivated audience.” She finished her whiskey, the empty cup feeling suddenly heavy. “Some smirks. Some sympathy. Mostly just shock, I think. Until I started… administering first aid.”
Charlie poured her another two fingers without asking. “And now? How’s the patient?”
“Sore. Tired. Grumpy.” She accepted the drink. “I had a cold shower, ate nutrient paste, and listened to two deckhands replay the whole thing like it was the season finale of Holo-Soap Opera.”
“Ouch.” He said it with genuine sympathy, for once. “The gossip’s worse than the spanking, sometimes.”
“You’d know?”
“Honey, I’ve been gossip on a hundred planets. It slides off.” He studied her for a moment, the smirk fading into something more thoughtful. “But it doesn’t slide off you. It sticks. You care what they think.”
“I have to lead them.”
“You can lead them and still let them think you’ve got a hide like a bantha. Which, apparently, you don’t.” He nodded toward her. “Still hurting?”
“The Captain brought some gel. It’s helping.”
“Antilles?” Charlie whistled low. “Delivering the punishment and the aftercare. That’s a complicated man.” He swirled his whiskey. “You mad at him?”
The question hung in the smoky air. Leia looked into her cup, watching the liquid catch the blue light. “Yes. No. I don’t know.” She shrugged, a stiff movement. “It was humiliating. But he wasn’t… cruel. It was just a thing that had to happen. Like fixing a hyperdrive coupling.”
“A really loud, personal hyperdrive coupling,” Charlie added.
A real laugh escaped her then, short and surprised. “Exactly.”
They sat in a more comfortable silence for a minute, the ship humming around them. The whiskey glow was spreading, softening the sharp edges of the day. Charlie’s presence, which usually felt like a minor electrical storm, was suddenly just… solid. There.
“So,” he said, his voice dropping back into that lighter, teasing register. “You gonna show me?”
“Show you what?”
“The damage. C’mon. For the archives.” His grin was back, all roguish charm. “I need to know if Alderaanian royalty bruises like the rest of us.”
“Absolutely not.” The refusal was automatic, but it lacked its usual fire. The gel, the whiskey, the strange catharsis of talking about it—they’d left her defenses porous.
“Why not? It’s just us. And I’ve seen worse.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Scout’s honor. Purely clinical interest.”
“You were never a scout,” Leia said, but her voice was quiet. She looked at him—really looked. The joking was a layer, a screen. Underneath, there was a naked curiosity, and something else. A shared understanding of being an outsider, of causing trouble, of wearing a reputation that chafed. He wasn’t just mocking her. He was… acknowledging her. In his utterly infuriating way.
She held his gaze for a long moment. Then, with a shake of her head that was more resignation than refusal, she set her cup down on the deck with a soft clink.
Without a word, she turned on the bench, presenting her back to him. Her heart was hammering again, but it was a different rhythm now—not panic, but a high-wire tension. She heard him shift behind her, the creak of his jacket.
Slowly, she reached back, gathered the soft fabric of her sleepsuit, and pulled it up to her waist.
The cool air hit her skin. She closed her eyes, her breath held.
Charlie didn’t speak for a long time. She could feel his eyes on her. The silence was thick, charged.
“Wow,” he breathed finally, the word stripped of all mockery. It was just an exhale of pure observation. “He really didn’t mess around, did he?”
His fingers, calloused and warm, brushed the edge of one of the scarlet ovals. The touch was feather-light, almost clinical, but it sent a jolt through her that had nothing to do with pain. It was the shock of contact, of being seen in this raw, unregal state.
“The gel’s working,” he murmured, his hand smoothing over the skin, spreading the residual coolness. “Color’s going from ‘alarm’ to just… ‘serious warning.’” His touch lingered, tracing the heat. “Does it still hurt?”
“A dull ache,” she said, her voice strangely husky. “Mostly it’s just… present.”
“Yeah.” His hand stilled, resting lightly on the curve of her hip. “It’ll do that.”
The moment stretched, taut and silent. His touch was no longer diagnostic. It was just… there. A point of warmth in the blue gloom. Leia found she wasn’t breathing. She was waiting.
He leaned forward. She felt his breath, warm against her skin, then the soft, unexpected press of his lips against the crest of her left cheek, right on the edge of the tender skin. It wasn’t a kiss of passion. It was something quieter. An apology. A salute.
She shuddered.
That did it. The touch became intention. His hands, rougher now, slid around her hips, pulling her back toward him as he stood. She let him, her body moving stiffly but willingly. He turned her to face him. The sleepsuit was still rucked up around her waist, a ridiculous state of undress, but neither of them cared.
He looked at her face now, his smirk completely gone, replaced by a focused intensity she rarely saw. He cradled her jaw in one hand, his thumb brushing her cheekbone.
“You’re a mess, Princess,” he whispered.
“I know.”
“And you’re still the most commanding thing in this whole rotten sector.”
Then he kissed her. It wasn’t gentle. It was whiskey and smoke and a week of pent-up tension, his mouth claiming hers with a possessiveness that made her toes curl. She kissed him back just as fiercely, her hands fisting in the worn fabric of his jacket, pulling him closer. The soreness flared, a bright, grounding pain as her body pressed against his, but she ignored it, lost in the better, more consuming heat he was building inside her.
He walked her backward the two steps to the bunk. They fell onto it together in a tangle of limbs, his mouth leaving hers to trail down her neck. His hands were everywhere, pushing the sleepsuit off her shoulders, mapping her skin with a urgency that left no room for thought.
Later, much later, they lay in a heap on the narrow bunk. The bottle was empty on the floor. Leia was on her stomach again, but this time Charlie’s arm was a heavy, comfortable weight across the small of her back, his fingers absently tracing patterns on the now-cool skin of her rear. The throbbing was a distant memory, replaced by a whole new set of pleasant, humming aches.
“See?” he mumbled into her hair, his voice thick with impending sleep. “Told you the whiskey would help.”
“It wasn’t the whiskey,” she murmured back, already half-gone.
He huffed a quiet laugh, his breath warm on her scalp. His fingers stilled, resting possessively over the fading evidence of her discipline. “Get some sleep, Your Worship. Big day tomorrow.”
The last thing she felt before drifting off was the solid, reassuring weight of his hand, anchoring her in the dark, quiet ship. The grumpiness was gone, chased away by fire and friction and an unlikely, grudging comfort. For the first time all night, she wasn’t thinking about the bridge, or the crew, or the sting. She was just… still.