NOTES: This piece keeps in line with the Disney canon that Leia became pregnant immediately after ROTJ, but obviously diverges from there.

1

Something was wrong with the gravity stabilizer in the Falcon. She knew this because there was a certain corridor that made her feel light as air, and not as a metaphor but actually: the route from his cabin to the 'fresher at first more of a skip, then a leap, then something like an aerial glide. It was like this corridor knew itself: made itself dizzy, slow, romantic, the way the midway point between naked-in-the-shower and naked-in-the-bunk always was. But it also made it impossible to walk fast and Leia loved to walk fast and this was a problem.

"Han," she said, her voice firm. "It is impossible to leave your cabin."

"So don't leave the cabin," he offered with a cheeky grin, but he could only pull her back into bed so much. Today, for example, she'd managed to mostly shrug him off to storm to the 'fresher, only to find storming was very difficult when she was bouncing down the hall.

This was a problem: Leia with the stomach that had been bothering her for weeks now, and the desire to walk fast, and the fact that they spent most of their time on this ship now, jetting from one base to the next, ferrying illicit supplies (him) and meeting with rebel allies (her). In the handful of months since Endor they'd led lives that were thrilling and nonstop and not well-suited to a ship with disobedient gravity. As the New Republic (as it was now calling itself – Han took issue with New, convinced it was same old, same old) attempted to fully consolidate power and drive out remaining Imperial forces, suddenly Leia found herself needed everywhere, giving advice and aid and inspiration to as many as three planets in a single standard week, the transit spent zipping through hyperspace and planning her next moves with Han.

With Han – how perfect it felt, she thought, to think of that way, to think of them as a team again, to have hours alone with nothing to fill the time but each other. All at once, she thought, between the sex and the work everything in life felt exhilarating and vital and fast. Every kiss was urgent, there was only so much time, every meeting was important, her body felt powerful and confident, the muscles on her calves tight from taking quick, long strides across terrains of every sort, her core nice and sore. She hadn't felt so optimistic and driven and energized since – well, ever.

And Han, she noted, seemed to feel similarly; for once he seemed focused and determined, excited even – if he was a bit warry of accompanying her into places where Imperials still lingered, the thrill of this new work overwhelmed out the fear. He liked seeing her like this – driven and powerful but also hopeful, in the past General Leia had been grim, now she was grinning. It's happening, Han, she murmured to him one night, her voice awed and exhausted, their slick limbs tangled together, another fact about General Leia was that she was also insatiable – we're rebuilding the galaxy.

And rebuilding the galaxy meant everything had to work perfectly: Leia's three pairs of pants had to always be pressed, her hair had to always be swept up in the same elegant-yet-practical cross-hatching crown, and no dysfunctional gravity. Especially because she'd seemed off recently, slowing down and reticent – off her game. The gravity had to be fixed.

She was resting her head on the seat of the sani when he called out to her: "Hey princess – gonna be going zero-g over there in a few, alright?"

Good, she thought, he'll fix it, and maybe my stomach will stop feeling like it's been through the autovalet six times a day. Leia tried to make her voice sound firm but light: "Alright!" she called back. But with her cheek pressed against the cold metal suddenly everything had fit into place, sudden clarity. The stomach, Endor, the tiredness, the insatiability. Oh, she'd thought. Oh – Oh. He didn't need to know, yet – "Alright."

She flushed then washed out her mouth, glancing at her reflection quickly to fix her hair, slipping each frayed edge back into place. Han, she said to it, biting her lip. Han… How many speeches had she practiced in here? Too many to count, looking at that ruddy, blurred version of herself in the glass – Han, there's something I have to tell you…

She'd stained her pants – the third pair, the taupe ones – while retching and slipped out of them. Her blouse, too, bright white, would need to be cleaned, yellow bile dribbled along the modest collar. Slipping them into the autovalet, she stepped wearing just her underthings out into the corridor. How many speeches…? Han, something I have to—

"And – here we go."

And suddenly she felt herself lifting off the ground. The nausea threatened to re-emerge but she bit it back, watching as her feet left the floor. Leia grabbed ahold of some circuitry on the wall, paused, then did what she'd so often done as a very young child with her mother during long journeys: she pushed off the wall, hugged her knees, and slowly somersaulted in midair. She remembered how it used to feel, watching her mother revolve like a planet, suddenly seeming years younger, hair everywhere – come here, my beloved, let go of the wall, come here with me. Her mother clutching her close, how they'd turn flip after flip together like something celestial. Be brave, Lei – that's it!

Her hair unwound itself, swooping around her, and Leia rocked herself through another rotation – swirling, slipping, as though in water. Hands tight across her abdomen. (Her abdomen – she wasn't ready, would never be ready, to call it a belly, gods…) Han… Moved through another tight, fluid orbit: there's something I have to tell you. Han. There's something. I've something. She pressed her eyes shut. Han, there's something, there's someone else here.

She felt totally out of control. She felt totally in control.

When he popped into the little hall to check on the mechanics, that's how he found her: knees close to her chest, spine curved, hair flying, nothing but ratty panties and an old greying standard-issue bra. "Han!" she said aloud, surprised to see him and still upside down, peering up from between her legs. Be brave, Lei! She forced herself to touch the wall, find gravity. "I think we need to talk."

XX.

Now dressed in her second slacks, the black ones, and an old Rebel camisole, she sat across from him at the dejarik table with her hands folded, her hair in two long girlish braids down her back.

"There's no good way to say this," Leia tried to begin, fiddling with a loose string on the top. "Ah… there's just not a great way to…"

"Sweetheart, you're killing me here." He drummed his fingers impatiently, peering at her expression. Then his voice dropped an octave, to that low, intimate place it went when they talked about Alderaan or sex or what happened on the Death Star. "S'me. What's going on?"

For a while she avoided his eyes, long enough that when she suddenly looked up he was surprised by the intensity of her gaze. "I think I'm pregnant."

Was there an opposite to low-g? When gravity was hitting on you way harder than you knew? Surely this was it. "You…"

"Or, think is the wrong word." She was doing the opposite of fiddling now, instead she was sitting ramrod straight, shoulders back, like he was Mon Mothma and the Committee of Budgetary Dispersement and thus the only thing standing in the way of releasing further funds for the Alderaani diaspora. "I essentially know."

"You essentially know?" (He was having trouble saying anything she didn't say first.)

"My cycle's very late." (Which was a little bit of a simplification – it had been an infrequent and erratic visitor since Bespin at least, something about stress and lost weight, but it'd turned up again just before Endor and surely should've been back around by now. Obviously, this would be lost on Han.)

He stared at her, blinking, uncomprehending: "Your – "

"Coupled with the sickness." Her elbows were on the table now, which she only did when she meant serious business because otherwise, as she'd told him many times, it was impolite and aggressive. "Well, it hasn't been confirmed by anyone but I think it's safe to assume."

"Safe to assume." Maybe heavy gravity was the wrong word, like the wrong way of thinking, sounded like being crushed, it wasn't like being crushed, more – everything falling into him severely. Which, to be fair, was about the same as being crushed, but—

"Han?" She looked at him in that way, her eyes unreadable but serious.

"Princess," he nodded numbly.

And now he could read her expression – something like pissed: "Aren't you going to say something?"

"I'm just – processin', is all."

"Okay." Now she drummed her fingers on the table for a long few moments.

"The processin' would be easier if I knew what you were thinking."

"I don't know what I'm thinking. I don't know—"

"I love you," he said seriously, gripping her hands – suddenly it felt extremely important that she know this, really know this. "I love you and – m'not going anywhere."

"I know," Leia said, a faint smile at the private joke. She let him hold her hands. "And I you." She tried to smile. "And I'm naturally not going anywhere either, especially if I get huge…"

The if hung over the whole room, sly and heavy, like carrying a baby inside you or extra gravity. "I love you," he said again, too quickly. She repeated it back just as fast. "An' – I always wanna be with you," he added.

"I you," she agreed, watching him.

"So do you wanna – should we—?" Han made an ambiguous gesture that she somehow still understood as referring to marrying him.

Her question was totally serious and yet somehow totally hilarious, hilarious enough that he was laughing afterwards, a choking oh-Kriff-Leia-oh-hell laugh: "Blast, but the next few months are so busy – Han, do you think we'll have time?"

XX.

Do you think we'll have time?

That night, they tried to sleep it off, which is to say, they made love all night in hopes that they'd sleep so deeply they wouldn't think about it, but Leia, at least, couldn't stop thinking about it. Especially couldn't stop thinking about it during, her mouth in a firm little line towards the end – one of those Leia nights where she wanted sex and wanted him but didn't want to come and didn't want to be pushed to do so. Something he hated but didn't press, something about control. She always slept curled up on her side like a shell in the narrow bunk, and tonight when she awoke from her typical 0300 nightmare she laid there with her eyes wide open, felt colonized and confused. He asks me – sort of asks me – to marry him and I think we're too busy. What does that mean? What kind of person am I?

What does that mean? She'd spent so much time getting the nerve up to tell him that she never considered what she would actually say – what he would say – which turned out to be not much – so they resolved to have it verified next chance they got, and then he started talking about her choice, saying I want whatever you want, sweetheart, I'll support whatever you choose which she supposed was supposed to make her feel better, and supported, but actually made her feel worse, because it's your choice I'll stand by you was something you said to random girls you got in trouble, not your – whatever they were, lovers, partners, whatever – she'd never considered he wouldn't stand by her, but she didn't just want his support, she wanted his desire, his agreement…

His agreement to…?

She didn't want to be the one to choose for both of them—

This is easy, she told herself, even giving a firm nod in the dark. You love him. He loves you. You might even want this, with him. You've thought about this, with him. Which was true – she'd always been the planning type and when it was clear they were in this for the long run she had envisioned having children, maybe, with him, someday – but that was supposed to be someday. But was there ever a convenient time for this sort of thing? Surely there wasn't ever a convenient time for these things…

But there were times that were more convenient versus less…

Unable to resist, Leia gingerly reached out to Han through the Force. She brushed up against his presence and found it wound tight, confused and anxious. And was he—?

"Han?" she whispered into the wall. "Are you awake?"

She felt him rustle beside her. Normally he slept curled up against her, but tonight he'd laid on his back. She hated that. "Yeah, sweetheart," he grunted. "I'm awake."

She wasn't sure what she wanted from him. Maybe him to say more. "Han?" she said again.

"Bad dream, princess?"

She sighed. "Something like that."

"C'mere." Ah, there it was – he started pulling her close, pressing her face tight against his chest. "Mm. Love you so much."

"You sound like you're apologizing for something," she said shrewdly.

"Not. Just. Just thinking."

She felt warm and safe, there, held tightly up against him. He placed one large hand, splayed broadly, across her stomach and stroked the soft skin there with his thumb. Took a deep shaky breath into her hair.

"Han?"

"Try an' sleep, sweetheart. Alright?" He pressed a sleepy kiss into her hair. Maybe he wasn't awake, then. But still he knew how to tend to her… "Love you. An' I'll love our kid if that's what you wanna do, alright? But – nothing's for sure yet, so let's just wait an' see, okay?"

She felt like she was going to melt or crack open, unzip to reveal another, more vulnerable Leia. Every time she thought she'd reached the bottom of herself, there was another girl below, like the nesting dolls her mother collected back at home. Oh, Mama. I am afraid you'll be so disappointed in me. She said, "Okay."

XX.

Leia looked down at the series of home tests laid out on the lid of the sani, each with an identical pink plus sign. Pregnant. Even she had to admit there was no possibility of misinterpretation – all five had the same result, and said result could only mean one thing. The instructions on the box repeated the meaning of the plus in twelve different languages, five of which Leia could understand, and for some reason she found this very unnerving – that beings across the galaxy also needed this object, were also chugging glass after glass of juice, were also squinting with mounting dread. Or excitement, she reminded herself firmly. Some beings really do try for this sort of thing…

Outside the 'fresher door, Han, she knew, was pacing anxiously. He'd already knocked multiple times – she'd been in there for maybe a half hour – and demanded to be let in. She'd demurred. "Let me take another, just to be sure," she'd called back, trying to keep her voice neutral. "I don't want to give you any false information." Which was how she was here, her bladder aching with overuse, five stark wands in front of her, five sets of instructions crumpled and littering the floor. To her relief and chagrin, the tests been deep within the recesses of the 'fresher's cupboard, apparently leftovers from "long before you, sweetheart," which had made her wrinkle her nose in distaste – not at his prior lovers but at his apparent familiarity with this sort of scare. Han, she wanted to say to the him of long-before-her, you need to be careful! But, at least she had been spared waiting until they reached their destination, plus the embarrassment of bowing out from an important meeting to grab a pregnancy test, of all things. As if she didn't have a hard enough time being taken seriously as a young woman. (At that, Leia remembered the mission during which she'd been mistaken as the peace offering rather than the diplomat offering peace. Awful.)

So her bladder hurt. And she was nauseous. And her breasts felt a bit tender, now that she was taking an assessment. Oh, and she had a hideous headache, but that was mostly from concentration – shielding from Luke wasn't normally a problem for her, but the intensity of these particular emotions (hormones? Awful, awful) made it a much greater challenge. He'd already comm'd once, sensing her distress. There was no way she was going to let him know about this.

It was time to open the door. No more hiding – that wasn't her way, anyway. She thought of her mother, of burying herself behind her mother's skirts when she was maybe five or six, of Breha's hands delicately prying Leia's fingers away: You must never hide, Lei, we don't hide in this family. She held onto that memory – in adolescence her and her mother had grown apart, her mother concerned about the safety of her political aspirations, but they'd been exceedingly close in her younger years, kept each other company while her father attended to practical state matters. In the memory, her mother's face began to morph, abruptly and hideously, into Padme Amidala's. This had been happening a lot, recently. Something about her memories of her mother fading, something about Luke's obsession with their parentage. Leia hated it.

Padme Amidala. Luke had uncovered her name very recently. Leia had seen a few images of her. She looked young and naïve. Far too young to be the mother of twins, the eager mother of twins, but Luke was certain they'd been wanted and Leia wryly figured that the mere fact of their birth probably indicated as much – but then again, she had been older than Leia was now, wasn't she? Older than twenty-three? Padme Amidala looked like the type of woman who spoke in an anxious, flighty soprano and spent a lot of time looking up through her thick eyelashes and often let wisps of hair fall adorably into her face. Exclaimed "oh!" and "gods!" quite a bit; was surprised by treachery. Leia had never been adorable.

The banging suddenly came into focus – Han apparently had been knocking for some time. "Your Worship, if you don't open the door right now I swear I'll have Chewie rip it right off—"

Leia abruptly opened the door, and Han almost tumbled in. "The results appear conclusive," she said neutrally, using her Senate voice and gesturing to the prim line of pink pluses.

Han looked at them, his mouth opening and closing again. He scrambled to grab one of the torn open boxes from the floor while Leia sat down crosslegged, the hair on her legs quivering at the touch of the cool metal, and watched him. He looked at the box, looked at the row again, the box, the row, at Leia, almost in slow motion.

"How—?"

"In retrospect, I think my implant expired sometime around Endor."

"Endor. Fuckin' hell." He rubbed his jaw. "Sweetheart…"

And then she was up off the floor and in his arms, not so much embracing as being held, his one arm tight around her waist, the other hand cradling the back of her head to his chest. She was not going to cry. She thought, Padme Amidala was probably ecstatic. I love him, I love him… Padme Amidala was stupid—

"Shh," he crooned in the low voice, the nightmare voice, the sex voice, they were all the same. She thought about the first time they made love, how he'd spoken to her the same way he spoke when she was afraid from night terrors, all S'okay, I've got you, had she been afraid of sex? She had. We don't hide in this family. Whose family was she from? Han said, "We'll figure this out, princess, I promise." Gingerly, anxiously, he brushed the hand around her waist against her stomach. It felt wrong but right, the same way she'd felt trying on her mother's heels as a child, or when she'd begged for a brassiere at twelve only to discover she couldn't actually fill it: someday right, but not now right. A kind of temporary, optimistic wrong.

From the cockpit, Chewie roared, something about imminent landing, her Shyriiwook was still pretty mediocre. Han cursed under his breath, continued to hold her. His hand, splayed, stroking. Her stomach, a place whose nerve endings she never thought much of, that place he kissed on the way down between her legs but not much else to her, suddenly this site of intense intimacy. Leia steadied herself. "Han, we'll talk about this later, okay?" she managed, trying to keep her voice even.

He frowned at her, disagreement all over his face, but nodded. Apparently the her choice policy extended to conversation too. All the better. "Sure, Princess. Whatever you want. Okay."

She looked up at him, tried to force a smile, to think about this tiny place in terms of all the times they'd made love in the shower instead of her newfound alter to vomiting that was currently surrounded by the detritus of making sure. This mission was going to be a goddamn success. She was not going to hide from the Alliance or her responsibilities. "Okay," she repeated, like sealing a deal. In her family, they didn't hide.

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