Saga Diving (H/L, AU, intertrilogy) - thanks for the Award!

This looks fascinating! Please add me to your PM list.

Well done!

 

dianethx: I loved how you've twisted the typical H/L story so that he's married to Bria. Very AU. And a Lt. Commander. Of what? Imperial? Or Corellian? Or something else? Imperial Navy. Very intriguing. Great job. Thank you!

Kab730: Can't wait for the next part I'm trying to speed it up, I swear! Thanks for reading!

dm1: Whoa, Goldie! I get back from my trip to find Han is actually married to Bria Yep. , and Bria is an archaeologist? Not my fault! Interesting, and what a twist!!! Thank you!

Sylvahl: I love this story! Thanks! More soon. ASAP...

Jade_Pilot: This looks fascinating! Thank you! I hope I will be able to keep it that way. Well done! Thanks for dropping by!

****************************************************************************************


A/N: I'm sorry if this chapter took me some time to get written, I'm finding the teenage Leia/ adult Han dynamics not that easy to write but I hope you like it anyway. Again, thanks to Rick for reading it first.


Diving

Chapter 3

Leia Organa repressed the sharp intake of breath with which her body reacted when her sight reached the face of the Imperial Lieutenant Commander saluting her. Even without the name she would not have failed to recognize the hazel eyes or the subtle smirk that fluttered briefly across Han Solo’s lips.

You’re a fool, Leia Organa, the Princess of Alderaan berated herself as she extended her hand to him too. You should have known it...
//

Sweet Corellian stars, the kid’s the Princess! She really is!


She looked nothing like the drenched brat he had fished from the lake the day before, with her elegant clothes and the long hair up in some complicate arrangement. She looked more mature, more in control. Royal. Still he would have recognized those sparkling chocolate eyes anywhere.

Han Solo laughed on the inside, knowing that this was a story nobody would ever believe.
//

“... Your lovely wife for a while, Lieutenant Commander,” Viceroy Organa finished.

Han Solo blinked and dropped the small hand he was still retaining. “I’m sorry?”

“Dr. Tharen and I need to discuss some details about her work that will take some time, would you mind if I borrow her for a while, Lieutenant Commander?”

The young Corellian opened his mouth as if he had just remembered something but changed his mind. “Of course, Milord,” he nodded.

As Bail Organa offered his arm to Bria and asked Winter to accompany them too, Han threw a questioning look to his wife. She shook her head fractionally and then turned her full attention to the ruler of Alderaan and former Imperial Senator.

The guides started to gather the group of scientists to bring them back to the shuttle that would get them back to Aldera.

“Is anything wrong?” the Princess’s voice asked, watching him study his chrono with a worried frown on his forehead.

“No...” he answered. “Not really... But I need to report at the spaceport in a little more than two hours and my duffel’s back at the hotel.”

Leia remembered him telling something about leaving Alderaan the day before. “Oh. Don’t worry, we can provide separated transportation if needed.”

Solo shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “You think they’ll take long?”

Her petite form straightened. “My father is a very busy person, Lieutenant Commander, I’m sure he will take the time he needs, no more, no less,” she replied haughtily. Just what was this... Imperial implying?

The Corellian cocked an eyebrow, amused. He was sure Bria had been no saint all those long years he had been stuck at the Academy, and neither had he, but he also knew she was smarter than this. If she was so obviously excited about working with the old guy, there had to be some other reason for it. “I’m sure of it,” he replied rolling his eyes.


An assistant approached them and whispered something in Leia Organa’s ear. “Yes, of course,” she answered. “Would you like to take a walk in the gardens with me after I say goodbye to the rest of your group, Lieutenant Commander?”
//

“So where are you stationed, Lieutenant Commander?” The Princess asked politely. How she hated the small talk mandatory in these cases, but each bit of information could be potentially useful, at the proper time.

“I’m between assignments, your Highness. I’ll know when I report back to Coruscant in two days.” His voice was even, emotionless. The exact tone he had learned - the hard way, of course - at the Academy that suited best these occasions. He had to be careful. Even if Alderaan was not the Emperor’s favorite planet most of the time, she still was the Viceroy’s daughter, heir to one of the most powerful families in the Galaxy. His in-laws, with all their wealth, were just working-class by comparison.

How do you get yourself into these situations, Solo? He asked himself.

“Leia?”

Solo and the Princess turned as one towards the newcomer’s voice. A young man dressed in casual but expensive clothes closed the distance between them with agile strides. Blond hair, blue eyes, it was obvious he was an athlete of some kind.

“Jorlyn,” she acknowledged.

Her stare was so cold that Han saw the youth literally shrink under her gaze. All muscle, no brain, he catalogued him. Poor idiot.

“I brought your swoop back,” he stammered.

“Thank you.”

The silence stretched between them.

“Do you need something else, Jorlyn?” Her words cut the clear air and the young man they were directed at flinched visibly.

“No...”

“Then I’d like to continue my conversation with Lieutenant Commander Solo uninterrupted, if you please. Goodbye, Jorlyn,” she finished, lacing her arm familiarly to Han’s and steering him away from the gaping blonde.

“I think you just broke the nerfherder’s heart, Princess,” he drawled imitating her accent, bending slightly to whisper in her ear. His free hand covered the small one she still had wrapped around his biceps and she turned her head sharply, her lips founding themselves only a breath away from his.

Leia’s cheeks turned crimson in a split second, her mind working in overdrive, wondering how the blazes she had gotten into this situation with a married guy. And an Imperial Navy officer too for that matter.

She’s beautiful, was all that Han Solo could think meanwhile.

Turning her face away she hurried him along a path that lead to a different section of the garden. Once they were hidden from the Nornen guy’s view, the Princess slipped her hand from Solo’s hold and for a while they walked silently between even rows of carefully groomed bushes.

Suddenly Leia stopped and plucked a few half-dried leaves from a branch. “They’ll need all the strength they can muster when the blooming season comes...” She whispered to herself, as if she did not remember that she was not alone. “Maybe you’ll get to see them in all their glory during the Flower Festival, Lt. Commander.”

Dang, she’s the proper Princess again. What a shame, he liked the brat.

“Maybe. Is that an official invitation?” He asked with a wink. Stop doing this to yourself, Solo. She’s a kid, she’s a Princess, you’re a married adult. End of story.

“You don’t need one...” The color came rushing back to her features. “I mean...” Why are you so inarticulate today, Leia Organa? “The gardens are open to the public during the Festival... And they’re really beautiful.”

“I’ll try to come and see them, if I’m not half a galaxy away,” he promised, smiling a little sadly.

“Since Dr. Tharen will be taking over Dr. Grasan’s project, won’t you be asking for a transfer to Alderaan?”

“I’m afraid I’m in no position to choose my destination, your Highness.” And especially since I was the last one to be informed that my wife would be moving here.

Leia’s sight dropped to the side of his pants. “But I thought...”

“It’s just some old-fashioned piping, Princess. It doesn’t carry any privileges.” Not since the Navy top brass had wanted to discharge him dishonorably for the same actions the Corellians had decorated him.

There it was again, the hint of bitterness, she mused. Her treacherous mind tried to decide on the spot if he was cuter with this sadder look on his face or winking mischievously like before.

“My father could drop a word on your behalf...” She started.

“... I don’t think that’ll be necessary...” He denied.

“... you could be a great asset for us.” Leia Organa’s eyes dilated, her distracted brain noticing her slip at the same time the words left her mouth.

Solo’s face turned dead serious immediately and he took his time to swallow and take a deep breath. “I don’t think you wanted to say what you just did not say, Princess.” He made a big show of checking his chrono again. “It’s getting late, I should be going.”

 

Interesting, has Han caught on to the rebel factor? Is Bria just using him in that reguard?
So many questions Great update.

 

Trouble in paradise, hmm? I have a feeling things are going to go downhill real soon.
Keep up the good work, you've got a swell plotline going.

 

Dang, she was the proper Princess again. What a shame, he liked the brat.

Out of the whole post, I zeroed in on that! Loved it!

 

This is interesting idea. I'm looking forward to how it all plays out.

 

I missed a post?!!! And Han is married???!!! LOL! This is a fantastic AU. I love it.

 

Great update! The conversation between Han and Leis just sizzled! I really like your story--it's so creative!

Bravo!

 

Oooh, the asset comment has so many layers to it! Yup, saying something like that to an Imp probably is not a good idea, on the other hand, there are the other assets.....sorry, that's what I thought of first, the "assets" and not the "us" part.

It's a little hot in that garden, isn't it?

 

Nice twist, having him arried to Bria.

 

you could be a great asset for us

Uh oh Leia, you're playing with fire!

I look forward to seeing how Leia and Han deal with their mutual attraction despite the obstacles in their path.

Great update

 

ccp: Interesting, has Han caught on to the rebel factor? He suspects, at least. Is Bria just using him in that reguard? Ha, good question! So many questions Some answers coming in the next few chapters... Great update. Thank you!

reagan64: Trouble in paradise, hmm? If this is your idea of paradise... I have a feeling things are going to go downhill real soon. Maybe. Keep up the good work, you've got a swell plotline going. Thank you very much!

VaderLVR64: Dang, she was the proper Princess again. What a shame, he liked the brat. Out of the whole post, I zeroed in on that! That's our Han, isn't it? Loved it!

alhana_antilles: This is interesting idea. I'm looking forward to hoe it all plays out. I hope you like the rest as well. Thanks for reading!

PonyTrick: I missed a post?!!! Don't worry. And Han is married???!!! Heeeehe, I was waiting anxiously for your reaction! LOL! This is a fantastic AU. I love it. *Goldie breathes more comfortably*

Jade_Pilot: Great update! The conversation between Han and Leis just sizzled! I had to work so hard to make them behave! I really like your story--it's so creative! But I'm sure that if you pay attention you'll recognize most of my sources for certain things... Bravo!

dm1: Oooh, the asset comment has so many layers to it! That was completely unintentional... Yup, saying something like that to an Imp probably is not a good idea, Not unless Leia had more information about him, which she didn't. on the other hand, there are the other assets.....sorry, that's what I thought of first, the "assets" and not the "us" part. Some people have such dirty minds... It's a little hot in that garden, isn't it? You think?

Darth_Marrs: Nice twist, having him arried to Bria. I always thought Ms. Crispin could have exploited Bria's character a little more... Well, maybe not *more*, but differently. In short, I never really understood Han's fixation with her according to the 'canon' EU story in the Han Solo Trilogy, so I obviously had to come with some alternate explanation.

KELIA: you could be a great asset for us Uh oh Leia, you're playing with fire! To tell the truth, she's being quite innocent and unselfish at this point, after all she's only 15 years old, she still has these romantic notions about love and marriage and that married people should be together... I look forward to seeing how Leia and Han deal with their mutual attraction despite the obstacles in their path. I hope you like how the story developes. Great update

 

Great Post-i'm looking forward to the next part.

 

Oh dearie me. Han's married off to Bria and Leia's behaving like an uppity princess and EVEN THAT cannot stop the massive sexual tension.

Gah. I love it. True love always finds an outlet? (Even if that outlet involves clandestine walks in the garden.)

Love this- Can I get on the PM list?

-SE

 

Great chapter!
I think Han and Bria's marriage isn't going too well...I love it!

Can't wait for the next part.

 

Yup, I kind of wonder why he was the last one to know that his wife was going to Alderaan....

 

Kab730: Great Post-i'm looking forward to the next part. Thanks you!

Solo-Evenstar: Oh dearie me. Han's married off to Bria and Leia's behaving like an uppity princess and EVEN THAT cannot stop the massive sexual tension.
Gah. I love it. Thank you! True love always finds an outlet? (Even if that outlet involves clandestine walks in the garden.) Not that clandestine... In fact, Bail instructed her to get as much information out of him as she could. But I guess that what really happened was not what Bail intended.

Sylvahl: Great chapter! Thanks! I think Han and Bria's marriage isn't going too well...I love it! Mean girl! Can't wait for the next part. I'm working on it...

dm1: Yup, I kind of wonder why he was the last one to know that his wife was going to Alderaan.... He knew she was going there for a convention (that's why he joined her there to spend some time together) not that she had an offer for a job there... I think Bria was waiting until the last minute to tell him because she was not sure how that would work out.

 

WOW! Great story so far 1 question, who is Bria?

 

JediNat: WOW! Great story so far Thank you! 1 question, who is Bria? Bria is Bria Tharen, a character created by A. C. Crispin for the Han Solo Trilogy, the novels that tell part of Han's story before ANH.

*****************************************************************************************

A/N: not much action in this chapter, but I needed to explain a few things, so bear with me. And this is the first time I'm writing Bail Organa, so that is another excuse for the delay .


Chapter 4

Han Solo arrived with plenty of time to the spaceport thanks to the transport provided by Princess Leia, only to find out that his shuttle’s departure had been postponed by two hours.

With nothing to do and not really in the mood to roam the gift shops, eat or take advantage of any of the different forms of entertainment offered to the travelers, his feet brought him to the only other logical destination: a bar.

The place was classy but not pretentious, softly lit and mercifully quiet, no screaming kids or noisy vendors allowed there. He sat at the counter and ordered Alderaanian ale.

The bartender placed the tall glass before him and for a while he just sipped carefully from the rich brew. Alderaanian ale was dark and deceptively soft, as he had soon learned after his first experience with it.

He felt a little anxious about leaving the planet. Not that he did not want to leave, on the contrary. Still, he felt strangely absent. Detached. He had the uncanny sensation as if one big hatch had closed behind him and he was all ready in space waiting to jump into hyperspace. At least he would go away with some of the answers he had come looking for.

He realized he should be angry with Bria, but it was as if he was past that emotion all ready. Or maybe he had not accused full impact yet. In a way, he was angrier with himself for having turned a blind eye for so long. For letting the big and little lies pile one upon the other for years.

It had not been this way in the first times, not at all. He had loved her and she had loved him. Or at least they had thought they did.

After their escape from Ylesia and the near disaster in Corellia they had followed a crazy impulse and exchanged their vows in front of a sleepy Coruscanti magistrate and two anonymous witnesses. It had been an act of faith, faith that their love would change their lives for the better. They had been young and foolish enough to think that a lie was good start to it.

Bria had finally accepted the money her father offered in exchange for her return to Corellia, and that money had paid for his examination fee for the Academy. He had not mentioned in the registration form his marriage, as bonded candidates were automatically rejected. His bride did not say a word to her family either and the same day he landed on Carida, she had entered an exclusive rehab facility to cure herself of her exultation addiction.

They would not see each other for the next ten months.

By then, she had been out of rehab for several weeks and had just decided to go back to University and her interrupted studies. It seemed a sensible thing to do since he would be stuck at the Academy for another three years. Even if they had not seen each other for a long time, they had exchanged messages and holos as frequently as they were able, supporting each other through their trials and tribulations. When Solo was in the mood to be honest with himself, he had to acknowledge that it had been exactly that what had carried him through the grueling, horrible first year of his Navy training. The idea that, for the first time in his life, someone would be waiting for him at the end of the spacelane.

That first leave he had spent with Bria in her little college apartment in Corellia had been paradise. Passion had exploded between them in a way even they had not foreseen in those few days they had been together after Ylesia, when she was still so sick because of the exultation. She would make astounding discoveries that would turn around the the field of paleo-art, he would be the youngest Admiral ever and one day they would have the most amazing family together. Life was beautiful, exciting and full of promise.

Of course it did not last.

Why would it?

This trip to Alderaan had only confirmed what he had suspected about his wife and his marriage for a long time.

“Another one, sir?” The dutiful bartender offered.

Solo nodded. Then, feeling a whisper of silk and perfume sliding on the stool next to him, he added. “Make it two.”
//

“Father, I need to talk to you,” Princess Leia whispered to Viceroy Organa after the dinner they had shared with a few guests.

Bail led her to his private studio, probably the safest room in the whole Palace. Only a handful of people had unrestricted access to this place and not many more had seen the inside of it. Texts and data in several forms - even some ancient ones printed on flimsy - from a hundred worlds covered the ordered shelves up to the high ceiling. Most of its contents would have been frowned upon by the Empire’s inquisitors and a few would have granted him an immediate death penalty.

Leia had spent many hours in this room, in solitude, after her mother’s dead, when Bail’s obligations as a Senator kept him in Coruscant. She curled up in his father’s armchair and played Breha’s favorite music, feeling a little as if they were with her that way.

It still was her favorite room in the entire Galaxy, but lately she had felt a thirst for open air, a need to feel the wind blowing up her hair, for the sun falling unfiltered upon her skin. She did not know why, but she sometimes felt suffocated between the carefully controlled environment of the Palace.

That was in part what had prompted her to buy the swoop. And not any swoop, a state-of-the-art racing swoop. Just climbing on it gave her a thrill very difficult to ignore. Bail had agreed on the acquisition only after some heavy convincing and a lot of promises. Promises she had broken, for the most part, when she had sneaked it out of the Palace with Jorlyn’s help the day before.

“What’s wrong, Leia?” Bail Organa asked, slightly worried by his daughter’s uncharacteristic silence. “How did you fare with Lt. Commander Solo?”

The teenager’s shoulders slumped. “Not good.”

“His wife warned me that he’s not an easy man to read,” Bail smiled. “But she also said he has no great love for the Empire, in spite of what’s apparent.”

I don’t think you wanted to say what you just did not say, Princess. The worried expression in Solo’s eyes came back to her mind along with his words. “I know.”

The Viceroy frowned. Leia was a highly intuitive person, a priceless quality that, sensibly used, had immense potential. He did not really know if that almost infallible ability had something to do with her Jedi heritage, though in his heart he wished without hope that was not the case.

“Why are they important?” She asked suddenly.

“Tharen has been collaborating with us for several years now. She’s a brilliant woman, very motivated. Garm speaks very highly of her. Her only liability – or greatest asset, depending on how you consider it – is her husband,” the Alderaanian ruler sighed. “There had been several subtle attempts to contact and eventually recruit him, but so far none of them succeeded. On the other hand, if he suspects something about his wife’s allegiance he has not acted on it, unless he’s been ordered to wait and catch a bigger fish...”

“Aren’t you taking a big risk then...?”

“Offering her a job here?” He finished for Leia. “Maybe. But so far, it’s just a perfectly legal research grant. Later, we’ll see... Meanwhile, it’ll give me the opportunity to have a first hand opinion on her.”

“And so far?”

“She’s eager to move here. She swears Solo would never betray her... or us. That he’s a honest man, but very stubborn and that he entered the Academy only because he wanted to fly.” He run his fingers through his silver-streaked beard, thinking about what the Corellian scholar had told him about how she met and got to marry Han Solo. “I don’t know, the guy’s past before the Navy is pretty shady, but anything is possible. And she’s obviously in love with him,” he finished.

Leia’s eyelashes cast long shadows on her slightly colored cheeks. “I think she may be right.”

Bail Organa’s dark eyes studied his daughter’s flushed face with tenderness. She was growing up so fast. He dreaded the day she would find a man daring enough to fall in love, because he knew she would be the kind of woman that would not let anything stand between her and the object of her affections. Unless it was her own pride and stubbornness. “Why?” He asked as if he had not noticed anything.


As succinctly as she could, Leia proceeded to tell him about what had happened the day before at Lake Reeja and earlier in the gardens.

 

1st post Great update , so the plot thickens. Can you add me to the PM list?

 

My my what a tangled web.

I can't wait to see how this is all going to work out.

 

Wow! It's going to be very interesting to see how this thing works out.

I'm loving this story!

 

Wonderful update!

Your characterizations are amazing, Goldie! I felt just like I was sitting with Han at that bar--very well done. I think your talent for writing is particulary strong in character development and I'm really loving this unique and creative story.

Bravo!

 

Awww...poor Han and Bria for that matter.

It's unfortunate they couldn't have found out how incompatible they were before marrying.

I'm glad to see Leia believes Han would not betray his wife or her family.

Great update

 

Great update!

Han and Bria have a lot of troubles. I wonder what will happen with their relationship?

Waiting for a new update...