Title: Positive
Timeframe: AU after Return of the Jedi
Characters: Leia & Han
An AU sequal of Susan Zahn's AU story, Portside Girl. Read that story FIRST. Adult Themes. Sometimes a child can empower you to do something you would never have had the strength to do otherwise.
Author's Note: I wrote this story years ago, but never posted it anywhere. One of the reasons for this is because I was unable to get a hold of Susan Zahn, whose story Portside Girl this is a sequel to. So this has been written WITHOUT HER PERMISSION. I beg her pardon, and if she contacts me asking me to take it down, I will. I am finally posting it now because I finally broke the writing ice in a different fandom, so thought I might as well post the other stories I had sitting on my hard drive.
Unfortunately, it seems like Portside Girl has also disappeared from the net. If you know where it still exists, PLEASE send me a link, and I will put it here. If you haven't read it, this story (and it's sequel) will not make much sense. If you would like to read it, you may private message me with your email address and I will send it to you.
All Star Wars characters are owned by George Lucus & Co. This story is written without the permission, and no money is being made off of it. The premise of this story (Portside Girl) belongs to Susan Zahn, who I was unable to contact to get permission to write this, so it is without her permission. Salu San was created by A. Windsor and it is being used with her permissionl. Both authors are much better than me, and I highly recommend their work. A. Windsor's work may be found at /u/161129, and the story the holiday came from can also be found on my profile under "Favorite Stories". Susan Zahn's seems to have disappeared from the Internet.
Positive
I stared at the third read-out in a row. The third positive in a row. My hand holding the flimsy was strangely still; I hovered between shock and terror, frozen and quaking. Somehow my mind still struggled to process what my eyes had already accepted. Positive.
It said a little more, of coarse. It had the words "three" and "months" and "healthy" there too, but those words didn't quite have the same power, not yet.
Positive.
It was THAT word that had the power to change lives. It had the power to render a seasoned politician, a woman who's entire career, livelihood, and often very life depended on her wit and intelligence incapable of rational thought. It had the power to rearrange priorities and time schedules and sleep cycles and furniture. It enlarged a person from a "self" to a "family". It had the power to cause Him to-
Well, I wasn't quite ready to think about that part yet.
.
As my hand began to shake and I sank to the couch, some of the rest began to sink in. Three months. That wasn't even the last time; it was the time before the last time. How had I missed it? My cycle had come and gone, hadn't it? But come to think of it, it had been fairly light...
Small things began to come to my mind. Things like headaches and soreness, things that had easily been explained by stress and overwork now made eerie sense. The way my stomach had never seemed quite happy with me; the time I hadn't felt well and had to leave the Snivvian reception early--
Other memories began to assault me. Dinners, receptions, conferences filled with rich wines and light drinks. I have never been much of a drinker, but circumstances sometimes require it. I began to feel a sickness in a new part of my stomach, a sickness that had nothing to do with hormones or organ rearrangement and everything to do with my guilt and my fear for something-someone-I hadn't even decided I would acknowledge yet. Or decided if I wanted yet.
Positive.
There was too much. There were too many questions and decisions, too many hopes and fears and uncertainties. It was too much for me to handle, after everything I had handled in the past. Hadn't I lost enough and suffered enough without this? Hadn't I given enough? Hadn't enough people around me suffered without me being given someone else to hurt? It was too much. I didn't want more or need more. I curled up in a ball and cried.
--
I dreamt that night.
It wasn't my usual dreams, of storm troopers and interrogation droids, dark helmets and carbonite fumes, blaring klaxons and exploding planets. There were nightmares a plenty without adding new ones. No, this dream had to be new. No, this dream had to be much more devious, much more pointed.
The dream started out with a girl. She was about 7 or 8, with long dark hair and a lop-sided grin. I somehow knew this to be true, the way you always just know things in a dream, though the child never smiled.
The child changed, many times, throughout the dream. Sometimes it was a girl; sometimes it was a boy. Sometimes he was barely a toddler; sometimes she was nearly an adult. But one thing never changed; she was always waiting.
She would be sitting at a window, wearing a birthday hat, her brown eyes big and round and liquid, watching to see if His was one of the many ships to fly by. He would sit on the steps on Republic Day, his face coloring from the heat, and his hair mussing slightly in the light breeze, to see if that day He would come. She would push sweaty strands of hair out of her face as she scanned the cheering crowd after she scored the winning goal during her smashball game, to see if this time He would accept the invitation to see her play. He would linger downstairs the night before Salu San, his eye lids drooping with tiredness, thinking this year would be different, this year He would show, and this year he would have a real family for the holiday.
But mostly, she/he would be sitting next to me in that bar; that lonely, smelly, dirty portside cantina, waiting. Together we waited for a father that was never there, a lover who could never commit, a man that could never stay.
At first, the child would be excited, filled with anticipation. But as the minutes became hours and he became later and later, he/she would begin to droop. Their face would fall farther and farther, until finally a few tears would escape. My heart would break with theirs, for it was the expression I've seen on my face in the mirror many times over the last six years, on many such occasions. Then, he or she would scrunch up their face and begin to harden their heart a little further, so that no one could ever hurt them like that again. Someday, they tell me, someday He won't be able to hurt me anymore.
As I sat in my bed, with the silken blankets and sheets bunched around my sweat-soaked knees and the moonlight casting shadows around my face and arms, I felt a new sensation, an overwhelming sense of sadness for that child, that child who was nothing more then a spec, so far nothing more to me than a few words on a flimsy. As much as it pains me to see him leave every time, as much as it breaks my heart and questions my will to continue, to do such a thing, to cause such pain to a child is unthinkable. Yes, any child of his will crave excitement and adventure someday, but first and foremost children need stability and to know they can depend on things, like that the sun will set and that water is wet and parents will always be there to protect you. Human psychology has taught me that, but it never meant the same until it was my child that needed it, my child who would forever be scarred without it. My own hardened heart is one thing; I wouldn't wish it on anyone, least of all my own child. Children need fathers, and the cold, hard truth is that mine would never have one, not like they would want, not like they would need. He could not be counted on to be any more than a fleeting moment, a date on a calendar, a face in a mirror.
I have never had the strength to end it. No matter how much my heart breaks, no matter what it does to my spirit. No, I depend on Him, he is my drug, my opium; I haven't had the strength to give Him up yet. I am both stubborn and masochistic. But this is no longer simply about Him and me. It now contains an Ours as well. If I haven't found the strength to give up our meetings for His and my sake, suddenly in Ours I find I have strength I've never known before. No, I can't end it for my own sake, but I can for Ours. Ours deserved more, and my very first act as its mother would be to see that it would get it.
I pushed the coverings from my legs and release myself from the bed. My bare feet stick slightly to the cold floor as I walk towards the computer station. I pull up my schedule and find the date of our next appointment. For the first time since the first flimsy announced its verdict, my hand moves of its own free will to that small, flat part of my stomach cradled by my pelvis which holds our child. I reach out with the force and touch a small, glowing spot of light contained within and I know with a certainty I can't explain that I will miss that appointment. No matter how much it hurts or how my heart breaks, no matter what the future holds. I cannot and will not allow myself to be there. This is no longer about us, though truth is, we both deserve more. Our child deserves more, and that was all there was that needed deciding.
Despite it all, despite the fears and uncertainties and insecurities, I find a smile touching my lips. This is real, and this is happening, and somehow, it will be ok.
Positive.
The sequel to this story is Time to Move On, which can be found under my profile.