Prompted by "Mind if I cut in?" and a crosspost from Tumblr. A sequel to Gravity if you really squint.

Fairytale Found

1. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a man said, "My wife and I have been talking about adopting a little girl." And with those words a new family began its process of being born, of finding itself, almost five years to the day after a new republic started its own journey into being, almost twenty-nine years after they'd first been spoken in another corner of the galaxy, and just as Breha had finally found a daughter, now that daughter would find her own.

And in the story the man would later tell at bedtime those words were a magical incantation, more binding than blood relation, and he would ruffle up the little girl's hair and say that after that, his ship couldn't be made to navigate anywhere – it only wanted to lead them to her.

(That's a very, ah, romantic way of putting the navigation system collapsing into disrepair, isn't it? his wife would say.)

(And he'd say Lynnie, your mama has no sense of destiny.)

(Since when do you believe in destiny, hmm?)

(Since it led me to you, gorgeous, and he'd kiss his wife and the little girl would squeal and he'd attack her with tickles–– And you, too. Millions of little girls in the galaxy but it led us straight to you.)

2. Leia, as she often did, had some ground rules.

She had to be a she, for starters – this was in honor of her parents' pledge, to adopt a little girl, and also because she feared female children might be seen as less valuable in other cultures and thereby less likely to be taken in.

She could not be a baby – everyone wants babies, it's easy for a baby to get adopted – but she could not be old enough such that she'd recognize them, realize she was being adopted by the last princess of Alderaan and her war hero husband.

She could not have siblings, they couldn't take on more than one and Leia wouldn't separate siblings from one another.

She had to be Alderaanian, at least by parental heritage, because of course, and because there was still, ten years later, a serious crisis of children orphaned by parental suicide.

Anything else, sweetheart? he'd asked, teasing. Hair color, eye color, play three instruments, good cook?

Leia had pursed her lips, contemplative. We have to love her terribly and immediately, she said seriously, even though it sounded more like a line from a faerie story than something a hardened political official would utter. We cannot take a child into our home until we feel so much in love.

3. She fell quickly and he fell slowly but both of them agreed that it was tremendously awkward at first, visiting this diasporic orphanage, her looking intimidatingly regal in a trim white dress and him towering over just about everyone, following the good-hearted but weary director through rooms of beds. Like shopping, Leia had thought, wrinkling her nose, I feel like we're shopping.

It did not help that the older children, the ones closer to five and six, recognized her immediately, clung to her skirt – princess, it's the princess! But she made time for each of them, kneeling and smiling broadly and asking names and even using her sleeve to wipe jam off of faces, allowing dirty hands to track smudges all over her dress through clinging hugs. A little girl with huge eyes whispering to her friend – I thought she was just a story, I didn't know she was real! Leia's heart aching to take all of them home and give them a good meal and a good bath, comb their hair into much neater braids. But they were here to start their family, not to save the world, for once not trying to save the world, and so they pressed on.

When they entered the room where the girls about the right age played and slept, he felt a flush of embarrassment and anxiety – what was he supposed to do, scan the room and find his daughter among all these itty-bitty messy-haired kids? Leia seemed to have more of a plan, had brought her favorite childhood picture book, the one with the soft illustration of a moonlit bat on the cover, and sat down easily among the motley group to read to them. She looks so content, he thought, shifting awkwardly as he stood apart, watching her – her broad smile as she read, her native language – none of the children spoke Basic, as far as he could tell – sounding like a song. Answering questions and nodding and smiling, her delicate hands turning pages like each new development in the story was a precious revelation, her presence all graceful and bright.

He didn't want to get in her way but he also didn't want to just linger awkwardly so instead he summoned his courage and sat down on one of the impossibly small beds, where a particularly pale little girl was coloring contentedly alone, a purple crayon in her tight tiny grip making impressively controlled spiral after spiral. He cleared his throat – he'd learned a bit of the language beforehand, just a few phrases, and said hello.

She looked up at him and blinked. He blinked back, asked her her name.

"Lynnie." The voice shy and small and skeptical, curious. Coming out more like Winnie, he wouldn't realize it wasn't that until later.

"Han," he said, feeling a little absurd, and she handed him a blue crayon and after a moment he drew a spiral too, then another, the two of them working quietly at drawing what was beginning to look like an entire galaxy, before he tilted his head towards where Leia was reading, walked with her over there, sat down quietly and tried not to act surprised when the girl made herself at home in his lap, playing curiously without hesitation with the buttons on his shirt, her expression still studious and shy.

Afterwards, Leia said, That's her. I know it's her, I know it even though she didn't interact with the girl once. He had frowned – he hadn't felt – whatever it was she felt, not exactly, nothing like that's my daughter which he imagined felt a lot more intense than this kid is really cute but also my legs are getting numb. He'd asked how she knew, and she'd said She made a home of you.

You'll see, she said, as she made plans with the director to come back and visit two weeks from then. I know we've found her.

4. When people asked her why she always had a different dry response: "I didn't want to lose my figure." "I despise all infants." "We just really can't risk twins and it runs in families." "Han and I are celibate." And people were always asking, yes, as soon as she made their intentions known – even her brother, who kept giving her low speeches about how there was nothing wrong with her blood.

How to explain – that it wasn't so much about blood but about choosing, the importance of choice, of a child knowing they were so, so wanted. What her parents had given her – the bedtime story of searching the galaxy far and wide for the perfect little girl to love. Something she'd thought about a lot, especially because there had been that abortion five, was it six?, years earlier. She wanted her child to have no doubts that she was blessedly, desperately wanted. She wanted to be sure. She never for one second considered anything else.

So they would never pick out names or change diapers, so she would never give birth – she'd been pregnant once anyway, hadn't much cared for it then. Blood relatives had formed her and Han into so little of who they were, had, excluding Luke, given them nothing but pain. They would give their daughter everything other than their lineage – their last names, their home, their unwavering devotion.

The little bedroom they painted cerulean, the sturdy white bed with the mesh guard so she wouldn't roll off in sleep, the drawers of soft overalls and cozy t-shirts and other clothes perfect to play in, the nightlamp with twin bulbs like the twin suns of Tatooine, the drawing of her and her soon-to-be father's co-mingled galaxy of swirls framed and displayed on the wall. On purpose, planned – Leia returning from each little visit with more notes about what Lynnie liked and disliked until finally they returned with the little girl herself, the one they'd built an entire new bedroom, republic, galaxy for – who looked up at the stars painted on the ceiling and pointed and jumped up and down, who fit perfectly.

Years later, this part of the story would become sacred: Tell that part again, Mama? Again?

We saw you and Mama knew immediately, knew it was you. I said, that's her, that's our little girl, it's her! At long last, we found her! We'd been looking for you for so very long,

And then you found me.

And then we found you.

5. She was learning Basic quickly but she was only three so her speech was a little hard to decipher and anyway she was shy, especially around Han, clinging to Leia's legs and whispering to her in Alderaanian and burying her face in the fabric of her long dresses. Each night he read the bat book to her, sometimes twice because like Leia she loved it, pronouncing the words as carefully as he could even though he didn't know what they meant, he just wanted to talk to her. Lynnie, Lynnie. Tacking her name onto the end of every line, repeating her name and tickling her until she screamed with laughter. He was trying desperately to learn enough of the language to properly communicate with her but there was only so much he could do – for now, Leia was translator when it came to talk.

But he never was one to communicate how he felt via words, anyway. They spent a lot of time coloring together, her sometimes babbling to him softly, seriously, always very serious. And then finally he found it: dancing.

And so he found her.

Yes – she loved dancing, he figured that out suddenly one afternoon, when Leia was out running errands and he flipped on a radio for news only to catch music instead. Some slow, crooning ballad. How the little girl had immediately stood up and swayed, twirled, her movements slow and serious, like she was being moved by a greater force, like she was gliding through so much water, like she could feel the music with her whole body. She could feel the music with her whole body. She was intuitive and innocent and moved like a princess, like a dream, and he realized he loved her.

Carefully, he scooped her up and she put her arms around his neck and he spun them very slowly around the room, something like a dance. When Leia appeared seemingly out of nowhere, he hadn't noticed her come in, and she tapped his shoulder, quipping "Mind if I cut in?" he'd not said anything, just pulled her close, the baby held tight between them as they swayed lightly, feeling something. Yes, he loved her. Yes, they'd found their family.

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I really don't write fluff often, but this was well-received on my Tumblr (which is under the same username) and I've been thinking about writing a bit more in this 'verse to combat Orbit angst, so I wanted to share here! Comments encourage more pieces with Lynnie...