Chapter Text
“Kriff, I’m drunk,” Jyn admitted as she stumbled to the side and tried not to bump into the wall. It halfway worked as she slammed out a hand to catch herself.
“You and me both,” Leia slurred, grabbing Jyn’s arm and dragging her back upright.
Jyn struggled to move in a straight line. She’d never had a female friend before. Well, to be honest, friends as a whole were new to her, but she’d never thought she’d be friends with a princess of all things. But here she was, stumbling down the halls of Echo base hoping they didn’t run into anyone who wouldn’t let them live it down. It was Leia’s fault. She was the one who had somehow gotten her hands on a bottle of Corellian brandy. And if they’d drank most of it between them in a storage room off the hanger well who could fault them? Raucous voices up ahead and the sound of a wookiee froze them in place.
She heard Leia cursing under her breath. “Not interested in another rousing fight with Solo?” Jyn asked with a laugh before grabbing the other woman’s arm and pulling her through a doorway into a training room that was unlikely to be occupied at this hour.
“I can just imagine how much he’d enjoy finding me blasted on Corellian brandy,” Leia said moving past her and flopping down on a training mat.
“I could beat him up for you?” Jyn offered settling down next to her. The mat had the stench of dried sweat, but it was better than the freezing floor.
Leia laughed. “That’s one of the nicer things anyone has ever offered me.”
“I could,” Jyn doubled down. “Solo’s hand to hand is crap.”
“Oh, I know you could. I’ve seen you in training matches. I’m a little jealous if I’m being honest.”
“Jealous?” Jyn asked shooting up to stare down at the princess. “Of me? Why?” There was literally nothing in her life she could fathom a princess being jealous of.
Leia shrugged. “I’ve had some training with a blaster and self defense, but mainly I fight with words, and deals, and diplomacy. Besides no one is willing to truly punch a princess so the training would have sucked even if I could convince someone to take me on.”
“I’d punch a princess,”
“Would you really?”
“Sure, why not?”
“I don’t know,” Leia said. “I think people were worried about being arrested or something.”
Jyn laughed. “We both know I don’t have any problems with being arrested.”
“Ok,” Leia said hopping to her feet and taking a swig of brandy. “Where do we start?”
“Oh no,” Jyn answered shaking her head and laying back down on the mat. “Never train wasted. It always ends poorly.”
“Oh come on, it’s not like we have anything else to do.”
“Nope,” Jyn said stretching and yawning. “I’m willing to punch a princess not break her bones, and when I’m drunk I tend to break things.”
A comlink beeped and Leia sighed pulling hers out of a pocket and squinting at it. “Not me.”
“Hmmm?”
“That wasn’t my comlink,” Leia repeated.
“What are you talking about?” Jyn asked rooting around in her pockets. “No one ever coms me this late.” She pulled the comlink out and frowned as it chirped again. “Hello?”
“Erso, settle something for us.”
“Solo?” She lifted an eyebrow at Leia and the woman shrugged.
“Yeah, you hang out with the princess sometimes, right?”
Jyn shot Leia an exasperated look. “On occasion, why?”
“So you guys tell each other girl stuff, right?”
“Oh yeah, Solo,” Jyn said rolling her eyes. “Our monthlies have synced up and everything.” Leia stifled a snicker behind her hand and handed the bottle back.
“Gross.”
“You would be a child about that,” Jyn shot back. “Get to the point, Solo.”
“You think Luke or I have a better shot?”
“Shot at what?” Jyn asked just to be a jerk. There wasn’t much in the form of entertainment on Hoth, so annoying Han rated high on the list.
“At the princess, obviously.”
“Like what? Killing her?” Leia shoved her arm and they grinned at each other.
“Erso!”
“What?”
“Getting her into bed, obviously,” Solo clarified and Jyn snorted at the machismo. She doubted Luke was interested in just banging someone, and Han obviously cared about Leia more than that too no matter what he said. The smuggler talked like he didn’t, but he was clearly someone who fell in love hard and fast. Love like that got you into trouble, sometimes got you signed up for a rebellion if you were really dense.
“I dunno, Solo,” Jyn hedged. “Would Leia prefer a nice good-looking man who is completely dedicated to the cause and also might be a legendary Jedi or a smuggler who picks fights with her constantly and would hit on anything, and I do mean anything, with boobs? Real tough decision.” She heard men laughing in the background and grinned. They were all probably as drunk as she and Leia were.
“You’re such an asshole, Erso” Solo said.
“Hey, don’t ask for my opinion if you don’t want it.”
“Come drink with us,” Solo followed up, clearly not actually pissed at all.
“Total sausage party, huh?” Jyn asked with a smirk.
“Shara abandoned us an hour ago,” Kes shouted down the com. “Said we’d gotten stupid.”
"Gotten stupid?” Jyn challenged. “You all have always been stupid.”
“Is that any way to talk to your superior officer?” Kes shouted. Jyn rolled her eyes. “As punishment you have to come drink with us.”
“I’ve got a drinking partner,” Jyn argued.
"Who?” Han demanded. He was such a damn gossip. “Is it Andor? Good for you, kid, get yourself some!”
“Name the first child after me,” Kes shouted. “I demand it as your superior officer.”
“What if it’s a girl?” Jyn asked. She’d mainly given up telling people her and Cassian weren’t like that months ago. It was a waste of breath.
“Eh, it’s still a good name,” Kes shouted.
“Come drink with us,” Han whined again. “Kriff, if he has to Andor can come too, just don’t get handsy in front of us.”
“I’m not drinking with Andor,” Jyn said taking a swig from the bottle before Leia stole it back from her.
“Who then?” Solo demanded. “Luke says Rook is off base, and you don’t have any other friends besides us since those two old dudes went their separate way.”
“You specifically comed me to ask about one of my friends.”
“You are not drinking with the ice princess.”
"Wrong again, nerf herder,” Leia piped up at her side causing them both to burst into giggles.
Silence reigned on the other end of the line and then, “Where are you?”
“We’re not telling you anything, laser brain,” Leia shouted downing another swallow. Jyn laughed and snagged the bottle from her fingers.
“Come on,” Solo whined. “Come drink with us, ladies.”
“Kriff off, Solo,” Jyn said. “We’re going dark.”
“Hey-” but whatever he was going to say got cut off by Jyn clicking the comlink off.
“He’s never going to leave you alone about it now,” Jyn said flatly. “He’ll hound you to drink with him until you die.”
“It’s not like he ever leaves me alone anyway,” Leia groused, but with an edge to it that said she didn’t totally mind. “Come on, the bottle is empty. I think I have some alcohol stashed in my room.” Leia reached out and helped drag Jyn to her feet. They looked both ways in the hallway before stumbling out of the training room and heading towards Leia’s quarters.
They were almost there when someone called out behind them for Leia. They both flinched as they turned around. “Oh, thank the force, it’s just you.”
Cassian lifted an eyebrow at the princess’ assessment and eyed both of them critically. “I think they are inebriated, Cassian,” Kay said at his side.
“Yeah, I worked that out,” the captain said dryly. “I suppose this report can wait till tomorrow then.” And it was so Cassian to see a coworker wandering down base halls at an ungodly hour and think they might be willing to discuss business. Though knowing the spy, he probably wasn’t even fully aware how late it was since he tended to work odd hours anyway.
Male voices reached them from down the hall. “Shit, we’re not going to make it,” Jyn said twisting around.
“Make what?”
“We’re being hunted,” Jyn supplied.
“Is there a wampa loose on base?” Kay asked. “There was no alarm.”
“Worse,” Leia groaned. Then she lit up with an obvious idea. “Captain Andor, aren’t those your quarters?”
“Yes?”
“Well then, I command you to let us in,” Leia said imperiously.
“What?”
“Let us in, Cassian,” Jyn said shoving past him and keying the code.
“You know his door code?” Leia questioned as Cassian simultaneously asked, “You know my code?”
“Kay gave it to me,” Jyn said shoving Leia inside and reaching out to drag Cassian in behind her as she heard Han’s voice rounding the hallway corner. Kay followed last and the door slid shut.
“Why did Kay give you my door access?”
“He lost a bet,” Jyn said flopping down on his bed next to Leia.
“She cheated,” Kay clarified. “I just couldn’t prove it.”
“You made a bet to get my door key?”
“No, I made a bet to get your datapad, which at the time happened to be in your room,” Jyn contributed easily. She turned on her side to let Leia have better access to her hair as the woman had drunkenly started plaiting it.
“Do I even want to know why?” Cassian sighed pulling off his boots. Voices shouted out in the hallway.
“I needed to know something,” Jyn shrugged. “You have higher clearance than me.”
“You could have just asked.”
“Plausible deniability,” Jyn sing-songed. “Can’t have Draven up your ass for nothing.”
“Ask me next time,” Leia advised. “No one ever blames me for anything.”
“That’s not a half bad idea,” Jyn agreed. “Think you could get me Draven’s holonet history? You know there’s some excellent blackmail in there.”
“Jyn,” Cassian warned.
“It’s not the worst idea.”
“Princess,” Cassian started.
“You’re not going to win this,” Jyn advised. He could barely talk her out of doing something stupid. He’d never succeed with both her and Leia on the same side.
Cassian sighed again. ”Are you both staying here?”
Leia grinned at that. “Can you imagine how pissed Solo would be? But no, I don’t think all three of us would fit in the bed, and you’d get hypothermia being chivalrous and taking the floor.” Leia stood up and swayed, catching herself on the small desk chair.
“Come on, I’ll walk you both back to your quarters,” Cassian said sitting back down and putting the boots he’d just taken off back on.
“No need,” Leia said waving him off. “I can find my way now that those idiots are probably on the other side of base looking for us. They must have tried my quarters first.”
“Yeah, we’ll be fine,” Jyn said shoving herself off the bed and grabbing Cassian’s wrist to stop him from doing up his laces. He lifted an eyebrow at her that clearly doubted the truth of her words. Drunk enough to lack much embarrassment or assess her actions before taking them she brushed her fingers through his hair. “Promise.”
“Come on,” Leia hissed. “Coast is clear.”
“Don’t drink anymore,” Cassian advised.
Jyn grinned down at him. “Can’t make that promise, Captain.” He snagged her hand as she moved past him to follow Leia.
“You’re going to feel like bantha shit in the morning if you put back anymore.”
“Bring me breakfast in bed?”
He laughed and Kay made a noise of disgust behind them. “Just drink water before you pass out, please.”
“Now or never, Erso,” Leia said darting into the hall.
Jyn grinned and pulled away from his hand. “Got to go. Princess’ orders.” She ran out into the hallway with the sound of Cassian’s laughter trailing her. He did that more often around her recently. She liked it.
“You could have stayed,” Leia said shooting her a smile before glancing around a corner and starting off again.
“Not you too,” Jyn whined. “We’re not like that.”
“Because you’re both repressed moof milkers,” Leia said gleefully as they shot down another hallway bumping into each other and the walls.
“Like I want relationship advice from you,” Jyn argued. “Your idea of foreplay is constant arguing.”
“I’m not interested in Solo,” Leia said sharply.
“And I’m not interested in Cassian,” Jyn said sarcastically.
Leia glared at her, but tugged her into her room as she opened the door. She laughed as she kicked off her shoes and dug around a shelf clearly looking for something. Jyn smiled. She liked Leia like this, acting her age and stupidly happy. It was so rare either of them could.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted before she could stop it. Kriffing alcohol.
“For what?” Leia asked turning back with her prize in hand and looking confused.
“For Alderaan.”
Leia frowned and looked away. “That wasn’t your fault.” They hadn’t discussed it. Always skirted around the topic of their shared histories.
“My father’s creation killed your father,” Jyn said giving a voice to the thoughts that had been swimming right below the surface of every interaction she’d ever had with the princess.
“And my Alliance’s bombs killed yours,” Leia said looking up at her with steel in her eyes.
Jyn shook her head. “It isn’t the same. Your home world-”
“Stop,” Leia said firmly, setting the bottle aside and moving forward to grab her hands. “You didn’t have anything to do with it, and your father gave us a chance. He might not have made all the right choices, but it was something. Jyn, what he did, you don’t have to carry.”
“You lost everything because of my family,” Jyn argued and tried to ignore the burn behind her eyes. She mourned Alderaan, and yet, she still mourned her father more. That must mean something terrible about her, that she could mourn one life as much as the billions he’d taken.
“We lost everything,” Leia corrected, “because of the Empire. That’s not on either of us or our families.”
“Cassian almost shot him,” Jyn said quietly.
“What?”
“He had orders to assassinate my father,” Jyn explained. “From Draven, on Eadu.”
“That bastard,” Leia said with such absolute conviction that Jyn couldn’t doubt that it was a surprise to her. “It’s not like it would have stopped anything. The Death Star was already operational. You’d seen it on Jedha. His capture and interrogation would have helped us far more even if he was loyal to the Empire. Jyn, I swear I didn’t know anything about that.”
“Of course not,” Jyn said. “You weren’t giving orders at the time.”
“My father might have known,” Leia said quietly.
“Of course he didn’t,” Jyn defended instantly. She hadn’t really known Leia’s father, but from all the stories she had heard he sounded like a fair man. She knew Saw had respected him, even if he hadn’t agreed with him all those years ago. If Organa had known, she hoped at least it was a modified version of Draven’s orders. Something like kill him if you can’t extract him for fear of what else he could build, not kill him on sight. She could give a dead man the benefit of the doubt, especially with the way he’d died.
“I’d like to think he didn’t,” Leia said, “But would I know? Jyn, our fathers they made their own choices. Now, we have to make ours.”
They slipped into silence after that, both women lost in their own thoughts.
“I can’t be with Cassian.”
“Why? I could see if he actually shot your father, but he didn’t. Captain Andor isn’t one to disobey orders lightly. If he didn’t do it, then the only reason I can think of is that he didn’t do it for you,” Leia said, apparently unfazed by the change in conversation, perhaps even a little anxious for it. “He obviously cares about you, and you obviously care about him.”
“They locked my father up,” Jyn said curling up on the bed. “Used his loved ones against him. My mother, she loved him so much, more than she loved me. She couldn’t exist without him. I hated her for it sometimes – that she chose to die for him over live for me. Cassian and I,” she paused and tried to get the words right. “We don’t make it out of this war. The best we can do is keep it simple.”
“Jyn Erso,” Leia said in a voice she rarely used for anyone other than Han Solo. “You don’t know that!”
“Come on,” Jyn said with a shrug. “Cassian takes high-stakes undercover missions and I infiltrate high-priority targets on the regular. They aren’t professions with retirement benefits. Even if we did, what would we do? The two of us, we don’t know anything but war.”
“When we win,” Leia said firmly. “You can learn something else. Besides, a government is always going to need an intelligence division, and peacekeepers, and advisors. And if none of that appeals to you we’ll make something up. You can become my drinking advisor and we can just hang out and get drunk together.”
Jyn laughed at that. “I’m not sure they’ll let that on the payroll.”
“Kriff them, I’m a princess,” Leia said trying to stand tall and regally. “I’ll do what I want.” She swayed a bit and Jyn grinned.
“Drinking advisor it is,” Jyn confirmed.
“You want more?” Leia asked snagging the abandoned bottle and waving it at her.
“No,” Jyn said moving towards the ‘fresher. “I’ve been instructed to stop and drink water before passing out.”
“By who? Oh,” Leia smiled and followed her. “Sensible Captain Andor. I wish you took all of your friends’ advice so seriously.”
“I would remind you that I am more than willing to punch a princess.”
Leia laughed and accepted the glass of water Jyn passed her. “Do it, and I’ll order Captain Andor to arrest and punish you however and however long he sees fit,” she said with a leer that would make Solo proud.
Jyn gasped and then laughed in shock. “You’re as bad as Han.”
Leia glared. “You take that back.”
“Never,” Jyn said shifting past her and out the ‘fresher door, glass of water in hand. “Hope you weren’t planning on sleeping alone tonight, because there’s no chance in hell I’m going back to my crappy shared room on the other side of base.”
Leia tossed a comb at her back just to punctuate her annoyance, but didn’t make any arguments. Most people didn’t argue a bedmate on Hoth. “You better not kick. Shara kicks.”
“I know, she gave me one hell of a bruise on my shin one night,” Jyn answered. “I’ve made her crawl back to Kes every time we’ve drank since. I just curl up in a ball and don’t move.”
“I tend to sprawl,” Leia said with a shrug. It didn’t surprise Jyn. That’s exactly how she imagined a princess used to her own quarters and big fancy beds would sleep. Jyn was used to tight hard spaces not meant for actual sleep and curling around your most vulnerable spots in case something caught you unaware. Who’d have ever thought she’d end an evening in a princess’ bed? Certainly not her.
Leia flipped off the light and tucked in next to her. Jyn was drifting off to a hazy rocking slumber when Leia giggled next to her sleepily. “What?”
“My aunts would have been mortified if they knew I let a soldier into my bed.”
Jyn smiled in the dark. “I’m sure they would have been just as thrilled with a smuggler.”
Leia poked her in the side sharply and Jyn shoved her back. “Don’t even joke about that. Solo isn’t getting anywhere near my bed.”
“Yeah, probably because you’ll both just end up fucking wherever you happen to be fighting.” A pillow wacked Jyn in the head, which she snatched and turned on her side tucking it under her head only to have Leia steal the other pillow out from under her. “If it helps Saw would have been equally mortified if he knew I crawled into bed with an Alliance princess.” Leia laughed next to her. What a strange turn her life had taken. Still, there were worse places she could be.