A/N: Happy Holidays, everyone! This one was written for mitdemadlerimherzen for the JediFest Exchange '16 on Tumblr. It's set within the new canon, after the book "Aftermath: Life Debt", and it features Leia pregnant with a boy, but it doesn't mention any future unhappy events and you don't need to have read any books to get the references (I think). It probably will be rendered not canon by "Aftermath: Empire's End", but that's fine by me.

Thanks a lot to mandatheginger for beta-reading this, to the JediFest folks for organizing the exchange, and to my awesome giftee for allowing me to write Han/Leia. Please fave/review if you liked it!

Han Solo leaned back against a column and looked over the rim of his wine glass, tracking the movements of the woman across the room. She didn't notice him staring, absorbed as she was in her conversation with a group of Togruta. He saw her hands moving now and then to emphasize a point, her head nodding as she listened respectfully to the others. She looked at ease, as if no part of the conversation was upsetting her—point for the Togruta. Not many people knew how to... navigate this one without crashing.

Still, Han could tell she was tired, from the way she kept shifting her weight and rubbing her lower back.

He kept watching, biding his time. He'd done it a thousand times, in much less fancy places, with much less beautiful women. It had always been so easy, back then. With this woman, it never was. Biding his time with her had become a dangerous game, one that had almost cost him everything more than once. But the alternative would have been to let her go, and so Han was glad he hadn't done that.

Leia Organa drove him crazy, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

He downed the rest of his wine and picked up a full glass from a table before crossing the room towards her.

The Togruta sensed him before Leia could see him; Han nodded at them as he stood next to her.

'Evening. Sorry to break this up. Would you mind if I had a word with Senator Organa?'

The Togruta acquiesced at once, so Han looked at Leia for confirmation. 'Sure,' she said, somewhat doubtfully. She thanked the Togruta and wished them to enjoy the rest of the evening before taking Han's arm and following him a few meters away.

There were at least a hundred beings from systems all across the galaxy milling around them, all having come together to celebrate the signing of the Galactic Concordance and inaugurate the new seat of the Senate and capital of the New Republic. The place was more palatial than any of the buildings in Hanna City had been, although Han thought everything here was a bit over the top compared to Chandrila, including their new home. Never having a permanent residence other than his ship, he hadn't felt uprooted leaving their old apartment behind. It wasn't like they've been able to spend much time in it together, anyway. He would adapt to the new apartment just as well as he had the old one. Still. Their first shared home. It had been nice, and… yeah, he'd felt something like regret, knowing they couldn't keep it.

When they stopped walking, Leia turned to face him. She was wearing a gauzy sand-coloured gown that bared her shoulders and the top of her chest, giving the illusion that it could fall off at any second (it wouldn't fall off until much later, he knew, with some help). Her hair was wound around her head in a loose complex braid that fell down over one shoulder, a thread of gold interwoven through the chestnut strands. She glowed, but it was much more than any artificial embellishment could provide, and it wasn't only her beauty. People commented on it now, like it was new… he supposed her glow had increased now, sure, but she'd always been like a beacon to him.

'What is it, Han?' she asked, after allowing him five seconds to just stare at her.

'How are you doing?'

Leia narrowed her eyes. 'Did you pull me out of a conversation just to ask how I'm doing?'

'And to give you this.' Leia accepted the glass filled with crystalline water from him and reluctantly took a sip, not without giving him a mock-dirty look. 'Did you eat anything?'

'Of course not. I was talking. I couldn't talk with my mouth full, could I?' she said with aplomb.

Han didn't answer, focused instead on signalling a server droid.

'For goodness' sake, Han…'

'You must be hungry. And tired. I thought the only reason they were keepin' us on our feet was 'cos it'd be a short thing. We've been here for hours,' he complained.

Leia took a bite-sized pastry filled with some sort of mousse. 'They're keeping us on our feet because a dinner would have been too stiff and formal. We're supposed to circulate and be able to mingle.'

'You've circulated more than enough, Your Worship. We should go home now.'

'We're not going home just because you're bored, Han,' Leia stated. She grabbed a second canapé and put it whole in her mouth, all the while glaring at Han, daring him to be smug about it.

'I'm not having a ball here, but that's not it. Your feet are probably killing you.'

'Luckily for you, you don't have to worry about my feet, as they're none of your business.'

'I do when your ankles get all swollen up and you're begging for a massage. Your back, too.'

'I don't beg ,' Leia scoffed.

Han circled her waist with his arms, drawing her closer, and pressed his fingers into the muscles of her lower back. His wife's eyelids fluttered closed and she let out a strangled sound of pleasure—low enough that nobody else but him would have heard, but it made his smirk grow wider. 'Maybe not with so many words, sweetheart.'

He slid his hands through the soft, pleated fabric to the front of her dress to cup her belly. 'So it is kinda my business, wouldn't you say?'

'We're not going home yet,' Leia said softly, placing her hands over his and giving them a squeeze. 'Everyone is still here.'

'Yeah, not everyone's eight months pregnant, Leia,' Han reminded her, running slightly out of patience at her stubbornness.

It wasn't like she couldn't take care of herself, or that she expected someone to do it for her; he knew that. But sometimes, her priorities differed from most people—people like Han. If she had work to do, she was likely to put off having lunch. If something last minute came up, she'd go to bed only after she was done with it, or at least until she'd made good progress. If etiquette said she had to be on her feet at a formal function for hours, she would ignore the fact that she was carrying a whole child inside of her until the discomfort would practically make her fall onto a chair. And so he looked after her, and she fought him off out of habit, pretending that she was above basic human needs, before giving up. It had almost become a game between them—a battle of wills that he always, eventually, won (because he was right and she was hungry, or tired, or pregnant, or all of the above), but she never made it easy.

'Forgetting that I'm pregnant is a lot harder than you seem to think, believe me.' She reached up to lay a hand on his cheek and locked her gaze with his. 'I'm fine. Once he's born, you'll have an excuse to drag me home early from every party.'

'I don't know about that,' Han grumbled. 'I think I'll end up taking the kid home after you ditch us.'

'Don't be silly. Of course I'll go home with you early. I'll have to think of him. Not that I'm not thinking of him now, but really, I'm not overworking myself here in any way that could affect him.'

Han gave her a long-suffering sigh. 'You know, sometimes you're allowed to think of yourself, too.' Before she could protest, he said, 'Would you at least sit down for a while? There's gotta be a chair here somewhere…'

'Fine,' Leia conceded. 'You just got yourself into a foot massage session, laser brain.'

'Sure, Princess.' He held out his arm again for her, smirking. He liked to think he won, but if he was honest, it was always because Leia let him. She just liked to string him out.

They turned and were met with a young reporter holding a holocam.

'Could I take a holo?' he asked, eyes eager on them. Their public appearances together were rare, and with Leia's pregnancy so visible, the current opportunity was too good to let it fly away.

'I'm sorry,' Leia started, 'but—'

'Sure, kid,' Han said at the same time. He looked at Leia. 'Let him take it.' He stooped to whisper in Leia's ear, his back angled towards the reporter. 'Come on, we don't have many presentable records of you pregnant, don't you think?'

He moved to face the guy again, face impassive as he slung an arm around Leia's shoulders. The corners of her mouth quivered as she nodded in agreement at last, and he had no doubt she was taking stock of all the holos he had taken—domestic shots of her sleeping, absent-mindedly caressing her belly while reading a datapad, posing with Luke and Chewie, and a really nice one not long ago of her naked (she had insisted it should be tasteful, so her hands were strategically positioned. It still wasn't living room material).

She rested both hands over her stomach now and Han lay his free one on hers as they smiled for the camera. He'd never really liked this, the idea of a clear record of his face being taken, much less willingly given. It was self-preservation. He also laughed at the almost morbid fascination they seemed to elicit on part of the galaxy, who liked to speculate, make up crazy rumours, and root through the holonet for everything and anything they could find about them (well, mostly about him. The smuggler who'd wound up with the last Princess of Alderaan and knocked her up, too). But there was nothing forced in the grin he wore now. This wasn't for them ; it was for his child. Han wanted him to have good memories from before he was even born, as neither he nor Leia had them. He thought it'd be nice for the kid to be able to look that far back into his past and see nothing but good stuff.

The holo was being taken when the baby kicked. His hand flinched back and Leia laughed at him. It happened every time he wasn't expecting it.

'Sweetheart, your baby is kicking me out again!' he joked.

'It's nothing personal, he's been like that for the past half hour. I think he actually missed his dad,' Leia told him, beaming as she rubbed her stomach. She turned to the press man, who had recorded the whole exchange and thanked him.

Han reached out to tap his shoulder before he could walk away. 'Can we get a copy of that, kid?'

After assuring them he'd get in touch with Leia's staff, the reporter left them and they started walking once again, towards a corridor that opened on one side into an extended balcony.

There were conform loungers set at intervals against the wall, luxurious and inviting, and they headed to the nearest one. It gave them enough privacy while keeping them in sight of anyone who might come looking for them if they leant out of the arched doorway.

The balcony was empty but for a small group of beings a long way away from their spot. Their voices floated to them faintly, carried away by the night breeze; they added to the buzz of aircraft outside the building and the hum of the crowd inside.

Leia set a round cushion against the armrest and sat sideways. Han held out his hand and she took it to brace herself so she could lean back, squirming until the lounger adapted itself for her. Once she was settled, he sat down on the other side and silently held out his other hand.

'My hero!' Leia exclaimed, extending an arm to take the offering—the biggest canapé he'd been able to find and smuggle without Leia noticing, taking it from another serving droid right before they walked out of the room.

'I thought you said you weren't hungry?' Han teased, feigning innocence as he watched Leia bite into the spiced dough filled with cold meat.

'That's not what I said,' Leia corrected him as gracefully as she could with her mouth half full. She swallowed. 'I said I hadn't eaten because I was talking, not because I wasn't hungry.'

'And you knew your saint of a husband would come rescue you,' he said, shaking his head ruefully as he lifted her legs to place her feet on his lap.

'You're hardly a saint,' Leia pointed out. He unclasped her low-heeled shoes and dropped them to the floor. She wiggled her toes, happy at the regained freedom. 'I'm sorry I give you a hard time. I really appreciate that you take such good care of me, you know. You don't even like coming to these things…'

'Too much hypocrisy together in the same room, but hey, as long as there's free food and wine,' Han said lightly, winking at her. He patted her feet, then his thumbs slid to her soles, pressing and rubbing with practised movements. She shivered and relaxed further into the lounger.

'I really love you, hotshot,' she breathed out, blinking heavily. He looked up at her and gave her a crooked smile.

'Besides,' he continued, 'you, giving me a hard time?'

Leia regarded him with curiosity. 'You don't think I do?'

'No, of course you do. Wouldn't be you if you didn't,' he explained with smug satisfaction. She tried to slap one of her feet against his chest, which came out as a very feeble attempt since they were caught in his strong hold.

'I'm preparing you for parenthood,' Leia said.

'Yeah, and who's preparing you?'

Leia held her stomach pointedly and arched an eyebrow at him. 'Your child is.'

'Fair enough. Is he still kickin'?'

'No.'

She sighed and her eyelids drooped again for a moment as waves of warm pleasure spread from her feet to the rest of her body. Han looked up sharply. 'You're beat, aren't you?' he asked, almost like an accusation. He didn't wait for her reply. 'Blast it, Leia, I should've taken you straight home—'

'No, I'm fine!' she hurried to say. 'I can't go yet, there's a Loneran who wanted to talk to me.'

'But—'

He was cut short by the appearance of Commander Willard out into the open corridor.

'Commander,' Leia said, hastily throwing her legs off Han's lap and smoothing down her skirt in an effort to regain some sense of propriety. Willard held out a hand to stop her.

'Please, that's not necessary, Leia,' he assured her. 'I saw you two coming this way and only wanted to see if you were all right.'

'Oh. Yes, I'm fine. I just had to sit down for a minute, but we'll be rejoining the party soon.'

'You know you don't have to. You can go home if you want to—this has extended well over what we all expected and you've done more than enough, as always.' He gave Leia a benevolent smile. 'No one will fault you if you called it a night.'

'No one will miss me, you mean?' Leia asked candidly.

Willard furrowed his brow, giving her a worried look. 'People aren't still giving you a hard time about Kashyyyk, are they?'

'Oh no, not openly."' Leia settled back once again against her cushions and, with an effort, lifted her feet onto Han's lap. 'That's one of the good things of being an expecting mother—people can't be too rude to me in public. It makes them look heartless.'

'You did what you had to do. Sometimes that's not the most strategically convenient, but it's the kind of things that happen in war. It will blow over.'

'I know I did,' Leia said. She glanced at Han. 'And I'd do it again.'

He was holding her small feet again but his hands weren't moving. He thought back to months ago, when he'd thought he could free Kashyyyk on his own. Just him and Chewie, and the New Republic's priorities be damned. This had been Chewie's priority, and so it had been Han's. All had gone to hell then, and he'd thought he'd lost Chewie. Leia had risked everything when she'd flown in his aid, dragging a ragtag fleet of volunteers with her. He thought he couldn't love her more when he saw her walking towards him for the first time in months, smug, proud, effortlessly quarrelsome, glowing, and coming for him again.

'In any case, that's not the biggest of my concerns.'

'Disarmament?' Willard asked knowingly. Leia nodded.

'You know I shared my father's—and Alderaan's—stance on this, but… I no longer think a ninety percent disarmament is a good strategy.' Leia dropped her voice. 'I fear Mon is too caught up in her past, in trying to fix what she thinks were her errors, to consider other points of view.'

'The drawdown won't be immediate, but gradual. It will probably take years before—'

'Not the way Mon envisions it. And then what?' Leia's nose flared as she took a breath. 'She thinks there's only one way for history to repeat itself, and a government that will be rendered unable to protect its people from the remnants of the Empire is not it.'

Willard sighed wearily. Han thought he looked much older since the day he'd met him on Yavin. 'I suppose only time will tell. Try not to stress too much about it either way, Leia,' Willard advised, his eyes falling on her stomach for a moment. 'The baby will be here soon, I presume?'

'Not too soon. I have another five weeks left.'

'Well,' Willard said, giving her an affectionate, almost grandfatherly smile, 'that's not long.'

'Maybe not—unless you're the one carrying it.'

Willard laughed. 'I apologize for my lack of sensitivity. Still, what better excuse to take things easy?'

Han saw the briefest flicker of indignation in Leia's eyes, but she fixed her most diplomatic smile in place and said, 'That's right.'

The Commander said his farewells then and Han and Leia were left once more in the relative solitude of the corridor. Han was expecting her to say something, but when she spoke, it wasn't anything he would have guessed.

'Stars, I must look massive,' she muttered, looking down at herself.

'What?'

'Willard isn't the first person tonight to ask me if I'm due soon,' she explained. 'Which makes sense, because I resemble a dwarf star.'

'You don't look massive,' Han said, sliding his hands up to massage her calves, 'you look like an eight-month pregnant woman.'

'Well, I feel like a dwarf star,' Leia countered. 'And there must be some truth to that, considering it's the basis for people to suggest I "take things easy", like the pregnancy was somehow affecting my brain on top of my fat reserves.'

Han snorted in laughter. 'I'm telling ya, your fat reserves are fine, sweetheart. And no one's tryin' to get rid of you. You are supposed to be takin' things slow as per medical orders, like any other sensible expecting mother.'

'Don't,' his wife said, holding up a warning finger.

Han gave her an innocent look. 'Don't what?'

'We're not having this conversation again, not tonight.'

'And what conversation are we supposed to not be having?'

'Don't toy with me, Solo, you know full well—'

'Right,' Han said, opening his eyes wide as if in sudden realization, 'you mean the one where we discuss your maternity leave?'

'No, I mean the one where I tell you again that I'm not taking a maternity leave until I feel absolutely necessary.'

'Which is gonna be when the kid's comin' in the middle of a Senate session.'

'Not likely, but if that's what happens…'

'Leia—'

' Han , I'm not taking a vacation right now so I can lie around all day, when I'm perfectly capable of working, despite everyone's concerns!' she said, her voice rising in exasperation.

'No, that's not it,' he snapped. Leia's expression changed from commanding to caught, and to warning again. It gave him pause. You don't want to take a break because you're afraid that's what everyone wants. Because you always think you need to prove yourself or something. Because you think the whole galaxy rests on your shoulders.

That wasn't a conversation Han wanted to get into tonight. Mostly because he'd already told her, and she already knew, and he knew why she had operated that way ever since he'd met her, but he still couldn't help himself when it got in the way of them , and so it always came out a little harsher and less articulated than he'd meant, and even if they always made up, a fight came first—and he didn't want to fight tonight.

He broke their staring contest first and looked down, rubbing one of her legs. 'Yeah,' he said, looking at her again and giving her a lopsided grin. 'Yeah, you just want me to have to carry you out of the Senate when you go into labor. You can admit it, sweetheart.'

She was stunned for a second, not having expected him to drop the argument like that. Han couldn't understand her… and at the same time he did, better than anyone else. She would not take a break from the Senate until she was closer to her due date if she could help it, but she would slow down—for the baby, and for both of them. And after the baby was born, when he's older, when they become used to being parents, when everything has quieted down—because one day, one day the galaxy will really have quieted down—then they will take a real vacation, the three of them.

'You got me.'

Leia swung her feet to the floor again and tried to push herself up. Seeing her efforts, Han held out a hand and helped her sit up straight. When she did, she smoothed the skirt of her dress down, turned to him and, placing her hands on each side of his neck, pulled him down and kissed him.

'What was that for?' Han asked when she pulled away, beaming at him with the warmth of a sun.

'That's your cue to take me home.'

'What about the Loneran?'

'She can come find me tomorrow at my office,' Leia said firmly, taking Han's hand and looking into his eyes, already crinkling at the corners as he smiled back. 'I think a sensible expecting mother would want to take this dress off and spend the rest of the night in bed with her husband, and that's exactly what I'm looking forward to doing right now.'