Shuddering, Winter huddled closer to him in the small cockpit, her cheeks a startling red against her white hair. The ration bar wrapper in her hands crinkled as she nibbled at the edge of the dry snack. He held up a hand and she passed it over so he could take a bite, on his hands and knees with his head stuck under the dash, twisted at what appeared to be a rather uncomfortable angle.
Tycho handed back the bar and waved his fingers around blindly. “Hand me the ⅛, would you?”
Winter poked through the rusted toolbox for a moment before handing him a wrench. “Can’t we fix the heater first?” she complained.
“Aren’t you supposed to be the brave soldier?” he replied, lifting his arm so he could see her as he raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t like it when I can’t feel my toes. Hoth kind of knocked my namesake right out of me.” She sniffed, glaring at the half-eaten ration bar in her hand.
“Well as soon as we get communication back in this junkpile, I’ll work on the heater for you. Or, you know, you could do it.” Something squeaked repeatedly under the dash and he pushed a very enthusiastic rodent away from the wires with a disgusted noise.
Winter held a piece of ration bar out to the small creature and it gratefully ate it from her hand before scurrying off. She tucked the rest of the bar in her pocket and grabbed a few things from the toolbox before standing up - as much as she could in the tiny cockpit, anyway - and stretching. She made her way over to the panels and began pulling them open, trying to sort through the mass of tangled wires she found there.
She heaved a sigh suddenly and held up two ends to a chewed through wire. “I think this is it. Well, there goes that idea.” Winter tossed the tools back in the box and zipped her jacket up further, giving him a rather shameless once-over. Nothing better to do with her time anyway, right?
“Hey, hey, I think I got it!” Tycho banged his head as he hurriedly sat up, lights blinking lethargically on the dash.
Winter sidled in beside him, quickly tapping out a message with her current code name and their estimated coordinates on the keyed buttons. “Now hopefully that actually gets somewhere.”
“It will. This computer’s ancient but it was working just fine until-”
“Until we crashed? Yeah, that might have been when our problems started,” she sniped, toeing the rodent away from exposed wires again.
“Would you quit blaming me? This is not my fault and you know it.”
Winter sighed, scooting closer to take advantage of his body heat. “I know. I’m sorry. Just on edge. This was supposed to be a very cut-and-dry mission and it’s been nothing but.”
Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, Tycho gently kissed the top of her head. “I know,” he murmured, rubbing his hand over her arm.
“If someone were to find us out here…” She sighed. “I know we can both take care of ourselves but I don’t like being so incapacitated like this. You know?” Turning her face up to him, Winter met his eyes, pretending to be oblivious to how close they were.
Tycho crooked a finger under her chin. “And you don’t like being cold,” he added with a hint of a smile, leaning in to kiss her gently, just a brush of his lips over hers.
Winter smirked in spite of herself, kissing him back, her eyes still open. “No, I don’t like being cold.” She paused for a moment, his hand curling over her cheek to kiss her more deeply. “You’re going to pull out the pilot charm and tell me we should really keep our body temperatures up, aren’t you?”
Grinning, Tycho pulled back just enough to look her in the eye, an eyebrow arched teasingly. “Any protests to that line of thinking?”
She pursed her lips, trying vainly to hide a laugh. “No, no protests, Captain.”
Tycho chuckled, sliding one hand onto her waist, the other wrapped around her neck as he captured pink lips, tongue sweeping out. Winter let her eyes drift shut, her own hands curling in the thin shirt beneath his flight jacket. She leaned against him, sighing softly as she parted her lips to let him in. He lifted her up slightly, swinging her legs over his lap, one large hand lingering on her calf.
Sliding it up slowly, he toyed with the hem of her dress and, when she didn’t protest, let his fingers move beneath it. Winter wrapped an arm under his jacket, seeking warmth and closeness as he lightly teased the skin behind her knee. He pulled away from her kiss, lips trailing down her throat and over her delicate collarbone. Leaning in against him, she pressed soft kisses to his cheek and temple as he nipped at her, and straightened her leg slightly, inviting him higher.
Pressing his palm to her thigh, Tycho sighed quietly against her, the feel of her soft skin beneath his touch a heady rush. Winter tipped her head back, letting him trace her sweeping neckline with his lips, tease the soft, warm skin there. Her free hand wound into his hair, his boldly pulled open the first tie that held her dress together, giving him more room. She shuddered, feeling suddenly as though he were touching her everywhere at once, his thumb stroking the crease in her thigh, his hand wrapped around her side, just under the curve of her breast.
“Tycho…” she breathed, trying to press closer, one heel edging off as she curled her toes.
“Would you like us to hold off on the rescuing until the two of you are done?” A grinning voice asked suddenly and they tried vainly to scramble apart. Tycho’s hand caught in her skirt and she broke a nail on the zipper of his jacket and their heads shot up wide-eyed and breathless, looking rather like two teenagers caught by parents.
Wedge arched an eyebrow, trying uselessly to suppress a grin of his own. “I know how danger really adds to the moment.”
“Do you now? You and Iella ever have a crash landing?” Wes teased, crossing his arms as he leaned in the doorway of the broken down ship.
Winter blushed furiously, standing with as much dignity as she could muster. “Pilots,” she grumbled, earning herself a vaguely put-out look from Tycho as he dusted himself off.
“How’d you get here so fast?” he demanded, not meeting anyone’s eyes.
“We were in the neighborhood,” Wes said with his amused-voice.
“Heard your SOS.”
“Figured you would rather be picked up now instead of a few days from now.”
“But if you’d prefer, I mean, we can leave you here, give you some alone time.”
Wedge and Wes exchanged smirks at their friends’ expense as Winter and Tycho filed off the ship between them.
---
“Tych, honestly, what is this all about?” Winter demanded as he half-dragged her into the hangar, her hand caught tightly in his.
He didn’t answer, just as he hadn’t the last five times she had asked. Stopping at the door to their wrecked ship in the far back corner (Wedge and Wes had towed it in with them), he popped the stairs down and opened the door. “I thought you might like to finish what we started.”
The cockpit was devoid of any rodents now and, though the floor tipped at an odd angle, a clean blanket was laid out over it and a basket sat against the wall with food and wine poking out the top.
Winter chuckled, covering her mouth with a hand to hide her grin. “Pilots,” she grumbled, eyes twinkling as he hauled her up inside.
Laughing, he wrapped his arms around her, lips on hers without apology. He pushed his tongue in her mouth just as she started to slide on the angled floor and they tumbled to the deck with a mutual groan. Tycho lifted himself up off her, one leg pressed between hers and his hands braced on either side of her.
He raised an eyebrow, grinning. “Well. Isn’t this just perfect?”
Winter pressed her lips together, shoulders shaking with laughter as she slid her hands up his chest to wrap around the back of his neck. “It would seem so.”
Ducking his head, he kissed her firmly, one hand holding him up as the other strayed down her side to push her dress up to her hips. The fabric fell away, her bare leg bent beside him as he ran a hand over her white thigh, fingers hooking beneath the silky fabric of her undergarment. Winter moaned quietly, lifting her hips so he could slide it down off her legs, heels coming off in the process.
“Mmm…” He caught her lips in his again, deftly untying the ribbons down the front of her dress until she lay beneath him in nothing but pale, lusciously soft skin.
Winter stretched slightly, letting him admire her. They had only done this a few times, their busy lives not often allowing for it and she wanted to savor the moment as she pushed his flight jacket from his shoulders and slowly lifted the white t-shirt underneath over his head, his muscles firm under her fingertips.
She held his gaze as she unbuttoned his pants and worked them down off his hips, his boots long tossed to the side. Her arms wrapped around him and he kissed her, tongues pressing softly against each other as he held her thighs on either side of him. Winter pulled away, tipping her head back, eyes closed, biting her lip, as he pushed inside her. His head ducked to her chest with a soft sigh of relief as if he had been waiting entirely too long to feel her around him again (which, in all honesty, he had.)
Tycho kissed her skin gently, burying his face in the crook of her neck, his hands moving up over her ribs as she wrapped her legs around him. They moved slowly, her hands pressed to his back, fingers curled under gently. He whispered in her ear how beautiful she was, how much he had missed her during their latest separation and how amazing it felt to be in her arms again.
“I love you,” he whispered as he came, dragging her over the edge with him. They lay there a long moment, catching their breath until he pulled away, moving to rest by her side, arms around her. Winter sighed contentedly, nestling against him.
“Good thing we couldn’t fix the heater,” she teased. “We’d by dying, all this heat.”
Tycho chuckled, pressing a soft kiss to the top of her head. “We’ll have to keep this up though, if we don’t want our body temperatures to drop,” he joked.
She tipped her head back, lips pursed good-naturedly. “Pilots.”