A little slice of Organa-Solo family drama based off a prompt "turbulence" for "a fic I would never write." I decided to write it anyway.
Turbulence
"Alright, I believe everything's strapped down," Leia announced, coming back into the Falcon's lounge. "How are we doing in here?"
"Strapped, stowed, all good," Han said, tying off the last of his tools.
"Any more ideas about the cause?"
"Just space debris," Han said, shrugging. "War debris, that kinda thing."
"Still? It's been six years."
"S'not like it gets cleaned up or goes anywhere, who's gonna pay for that? Starts to attract other big chunks, orbit around itself…"
"That's gruesome."
"No, no, s'just machinery. That kind of thing."
"Well, the machinery tore through bodies once. Or shepherded them to their tearing," she noted, sitting down in the booth.
"That kinda night, huh?"
"I lead that kind of life," she shot back. "Alright, I have about a hundred briefings to review… what are your plans for the rest of the evening?"
"How about you go off to bed, huh?" Han said. "Big day tomorrow, big day today."
"It won't do me any good to be well-rested but ill-prepared," she retorted, picking up a datapad and flipping through it.
"Be nice to go to bed together at the same time for once," he said casually, and she gave him a tired, sympathetic smile.
"Oh, I know, it's been a long time, hasn't it? But Ben's so close in his bunk, I don't really think… and I really do have all these briefings… I think this one is supposed to be really wonderful, our quarters are supposed to be very modern, the local architectural culture is really bright and vivid, all these colors – or it was before the Imperial takeover, but there've been some real strides in restoration since. Anyway, Ben will have his own bathroom."
"Well that's good," Han said, a bit brusque.
"I'm really grateful we were able to fit the mattresses, thank you for that. Where was it, where we had those hideous – the very thin, hard ones? We would stack them? The posting before – it was when Ben was potty-training, wasn't it?"
"Sometimes it's hard to remember 'em all, huh?"
"Well luckily the data I've gathered from my fieldwork has been memorialized in my many reports, so even as my memory continues to fail, my work will be there. I wonder if it's a wartime thing, a – post-war trauma thing, as though my mind is trying to discard every hideous memory and happens to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater."
"Yeah, listen – I wanna talk to you about that," Han said, shifting.
"The baby?" she quipped, not looking up. "Or the bathwater?"
"The postings. I wanna talk to you about the postings, Lei."
"Yes – I know last one wasn't ideal, but it was only six months, and this one is a really lovely town, there's culture and the families are quite large so there will be many other children, that twi'lek man from State who overlapped with us on Naboo? The gay couple with the twins Ben's age, the boy and the girl, he loved playing with them – he's stationed there as well. That'll be nice, familiar faces."
"That was when he was two, princess. He don't remember that."
"No, he was three then, actually – and I understand, I know it isn't going to be easy at first to adjust to a new place, I suppose I was just trying to look on the bright side. Pardon me," she said, rolling her eyes and ducking her head back into her reading.
"Uh, hello? Thought we were gonna talk?"
"Sorry, sorry – what was it you wanted to talk about?"
"The postings, Lei."
"The postings," she echoed, frowning. "I don't understand, why would you wait until everything was already set, until we had already packed up?"
"Just started hitting me."
"The job I've held for six years has just begun to hit you?"
"Not your job – just – look, I was thinking about what's coming up next month."
"What's next month?"
"Your birthday," Han said gruffly. "When you're thirty."
She looked up at him, blinking. "Are you concerned I'm wont to turn into a pumpkin."
"And Ben should be startin' school, too – s'four months to the start of the calendar year, ain't it?"
"Ben loves school – he's five and a half and can read, it's actually marvelous."
"You know what I mean – real school, primary school, same place for a buncha years, y'know, consistency – a real nice place, not––"
"You know, my whole job is to make everyone in the galaxy have access to real nice places, not just the wealthy or the decorated war heroes – but putting that aside…"
"Yeah, we get it, princess, you're savin' the world, sorry for thinking about our kid first."
"That was so unnecessary – I don't understand what you're trying to tell me, so just come out with it."
"Been in ten places in six years. You're turnin' thirty and he's startin' real school. Think it's time to settle down, princess."
She looked at him for a long time. "… Settle down?"
"Look, the way I see it is – when you took this – gig, when Mon offered you this thing––"
"My work investigating sentient rights violation is not a gig, I don't just do it for fun or to stave off boredom."
"When you took this job – you were how many months pregnant, said it was perfect for having a baby – he's not a baby anymore, now it's time to start talkin' about what's gonna come next."
"Okay. Okay," she said, resting her palms on the table and steadying herself. "No, I hear you, I understand what you're attempting to articulate – I just wish you hadn't decided to say something right as we're moving to a new commitment. At the most inconvenient, inopportune time – I'm about to start an entirely new project tomorrow, I don't understand."
"Just as we were packin' everything up I was like, shit, another damn move, another damn place."
"Well that's what we do, Han, that's what we signed up for," she snapped, "We move. We're nomads. You told me – I said, I worry I'm going to tie you down and you said you wouldn't be tied down because you knew we wouldn't let becoming parents stop us from going on adventures – and it's not as though before you met me you had a permanent home to which you were loyal beyond this ship. And I haven't had one in a long time either."
"Yeah, don't you think Ben should get one?"
"Yes, I – I don't disagree. I don't know what my thirtieth has to do with anything other than making me feel as though you've seen all my work up to this point as child's play, a frivolity – as though you've been seething through the past six years of our lives longing for a domestic fantasy – but – yes. I too have been thinking about a transition – I don't disagree that it would be good to stay in the same place for a few years, I just don't know why you had to say so now."
"Look, I've never been one for timing, alright? A transition. That's what I meant. And I haven't been seething. None of that."
"But you haven't been happy?"
"It's not about me, it's about––"
"Ben, I know, which is hard, because while again, I agree with you, I agree with you, it troubles me to think you think we've somehow committed terrible parenting sins in all of our choices until now and you're somehow concerned with the person he's becoming."
"Didn't say that––"
"We were very deliberate for two people so young who'd been together for such a short time – no nannies or otherwise leaving him on his own, no trying to shelter him from all of the injustice around him, no backing down from the fight that we'd started – we made those choices together."
"Yeah, but that was in the height of the war – didn't want to leave him with a nanny 'cause we were worried about kidnapping, didn't want to back down 'cause the galaxy needed us."
"The galaxy doesn't need us anymore?" She gave him a look he couldn't place. "The galaxy doesn't need me anymore."
"Feels like you need it as much as it needs you is all."
"That's a very cruel thing to say and I wish you hadn't said it," she said simply, looking away and gathering her composure.
"Not trying to hurt your feelings, sweetheart."
"Well you've managed to accomplish that anyway, without any effort, well done to you. Fine. Okay. So – I'm sure I can talk to someone––"
"I'm not the bad guy here!"
"Did I say you were? Like I was saying, I'm sure I can talk to someone about other vacancies in other departments. Chandrilla, Coruscant––"
"You can't go to the Senate though, thought that was the whole––"
"There are other jobs in government in the capital that are not as representatives."
"Don't talk to me like I'm a moron, alright––"
"I'm not. This is just how my voice sounds when I'm…"
"When you're what."
"When I'm – a bit – annoyed."
"Well maybe I'm a bit annoyed too. 'Cause maybe I don't know how I feel about livin' in a city."
Leia raised her eyebrows. "Really."
He shrugged casually. "Maybe Ben should grow up somewhere he can run around more easy."
"I don't disagree, that's what we've done for five and a half years––"
"Somewhere nice, Leia, somewhere nice."
"It's not like he's been raised in refugee camps! And by the way, I don't know if I want that for him, some sheltered gated – you, Han, you want him to grow up in some ritzy––?"
"Would've killed for a house with a yard as a kid – hells, you got to grow up somewhere nice––"
"I grew up in a palace, we can't exactly just givethat to him – and by the way I'm not sure if I would want to – but that's beside the point – there are drawbacks to all different choices, we don't need to suddenly become picture-perfect people, that will never be us––"
"Kes Dameron and Shara Bey––"
"Kes Dameron and Shara Bey are farmers. Do you want to be a farmer now? That isn't us, Han, that isn't you."
"I'm just sayin' I want the kid to have more consistency."
"Consistency – Ben and I spend every day together, Han," she said, looking at him and appearing genuinely taken aback. "He's the most important thing in my life, I have woken him up every morning and put him to bed every single night of his life, he lives on my hip and I leave for work with a sippie cup, I've kept him by my side always – you're the one always saying too much, might I add – I took testimony on teenage sex slavery with him at my breast – he's not starving for consistency. If anything…"
"If anything what."
"Just, if anything – well. I get him in and out of his clothes every day and you – travel. Which I don't begrudge you for – that's your job, you're trying to set up and run this company and you're trying to do it while moving often for my work, and while handling supplies that are very valuable and complicated but you do travel, and I don't have a problem with that, at all, but it's a part of our lives nonetheless.
"If you don't have a problem with it why'd you bring it up."
"I just mean in terms of consistency – because you said consistency… it isn't as though you're – the most… consistent."
She watched his face redden then saw him swallow that feeling, set his jaw, his expression dark and potent and hurt – she knew that was his sorest spot, the idea that someday he might leave them, not only because his own father had done so but also because of the ever-looming narrative that he was not good enough for her and not reliable – that all that time he said he was leaving, because of Jabba, it meant he would eventually leave her – bullshit, all of that – it was for this reason and because of how Leia was raised as well as the way the war made them cling tighter to what they had that they were both so insistent on caring for Ben entirely on their own... "That's low, sweetheart, real low."
"Well I'm sorry! I don't mean it like that, I'm just trying to be honest – if this is really about what's best for Ben than surely you'd want me to be honest––"
"Clever, real clever."
"I'm not trying to be clever!"
"Look, forget all this shit – your job, my job, whatever – all I mean is just been thinking, 'cause he's bigger, 'cause you said this was temporary – all I'm saying now is I wanna give him anything I didn't have and that means going to a good school, fresh air, and stability, that kinda shit – shit a kid should have––"
"I want him to have those things as well! I just don't understand why you suddenly feel we need to drop everything and enact some kind of pastoral fantasy on Yavin and cut ourselves off from this new world we fought – we're still fighting – to bring into existence! It makes me feel as though you hardly know me at all."
"Yeah well you can forget that, sweetheart, 'cause I know you."
"Then why – how could you ever think I would want to live our lives in some kind of beautiful blissful sheltered obscurity? That I would want that for Ben? I want him to be around all kinds of beings, I want him to see us fighting for things that matter, I want him to see that the galaxy is bigger than just him – I want him to have the same sense of duty and call to service my father spent so much time instilling in me – to care for others."
"He's a kid, sweetheart. How 'bout for now he just gets to play and have a normal first grade teacher and ride a bike?"
"I want that too! These things aren't mutually exclusive––"
"All I'm sayin' is when I was a kid I would've done anything––"
"Here's a question, Han: in all those childhood fantasies, what does your father do?" she asked tartly, suddenly standing up very straight.
"'Scuse me?"
"What does your father do?"
"Dunno he – works, he works but he's home for dinner, I don't––"
"And what does your mother do?" she continued, looking up at him and not breaking eye contact.
"Leia."
"What about your mother?"'
"Don't try to make this some gender, sexist whatever thing, it ain't––"
"I know where I fit into your picture, even if it's still subconscious for you."
"Don't accuse me of something like that! Shit, I fell for you because you're strong, tougher than me for fuck's sake!"
"I believe that. But I also believe in your picture of us as farmers like Kes and Shara, or as denizens of some other quiet small town, you go off to work – you get to leave the remote little moon of our bliss and escape back to the grown-up world – and I stay in the bubble for the sake of providing your son with consistency."
"That's fucking bullshit, Leia, and you know it."
"The vision of the house with the yard––"
"Could just as well have me in it looking after Ben all day! I don't care!"
"But you do. You wouldn't do that. Would you really do that? Would you really spend all day, every day, minding the child. No, you wouldn't."
"Leia––!"
"You wouldn't or you would have already, don't lie to me, and you haven't – and that's okay, because minding the child is a little mind-numbing and also not conducive to what you want to do with your life – that's okay. I don't resent that, I don't, it's hard to have a small child underfoot, my work allows me to do that and yours doesn't and I believe in my heart that you should be able to do work that feels meaningful to you, just as I should be able to do the same, I believe we've fought for that and we've earned it and if that means – as it has – that I am Mama every hour of the day instead of just mornings and evenings and weekends in the way you're his Dad, I don't care."
"Sounds like you do care – what the hell, princess, you've just been – what, resenting me this whole time? You can't just––!"
"No, I don't, I have never resented you. Not at all. We wanted him to be close to us always, we wanted to give ourselves the peace of mind of feeling him beside us, I wanted that too, I do want that still!"
"So what––"
"I just am – I am scared that to you, giving him everything includes giving him me. Han, I've already given all of myself – happily, I would do it again – and yes I said we should stop moving around once he starts school but no I will not give up being a citizen of the galaxy and protecting the rights of others, I will not give up the fight for every child to get to go to school so my child can live in an idyllic rural fantasy-land of privilege and privacy in a big beautiful house with a big beautiful lawn while I tend to a garden and bake cookies!"
She was up in his face, then, snapping and angry and devastated and just as he raised his finger to point at her and yell back, the ship rocked dramatically with a minor collision, and then––
"M-m-m-a-a-ama!"
Leia frozen, shook her head as if to clear it, and then rushed to Ben's bunk. No hesitation, no checking to see who would – she did, she knew to. He could hear her murmuring worriedly, reassuring him, and then in a moment she was back out, carrying him to the med bunk while he was hugging her like a spider, he was too big to be carried around like that anymore, and she was soothing over his hysterics: "I know, I know, that's very scary, but it's going to be just fine, you're fine, you're fine, Mama's here." She carefully sat down on the med bunk with Ben still clutching to her and said simply over his head, "Med kit," in Han's direction.
"He alright?" Han asked, digging around for the kit.
"Ye-es, he's fine, right Ben? You're perfectly fine. Mama made a mistake – I forgot to strap down his guys, on the shelf above his bunk – they fell and one of them sliced his palm a bit, I think he's just scared – you're just scared, huh? A little scared. I know. It's okay – Ben, it's okay!" she admonished gently after an especially loud cry. His guys, of course, being the little models he and Han had made of almost every place they lived, little recreations with rainbow interlocking blocks, like a 3-D timeline of where they'd been.
"Lemme see, huh?" Han asked, squatting down beside them.
"Ben, let Daddy see your hand… he's just going to put a bandage on it, it's okay, don't be so shy… c'mon baby…" she coaxed. Ben whimpered something too soft to hear and she held him closer and replied with even softer whispers into his hair – then he could, so soft and sweet, "nobody's mad at you, darling, nobody's mad. Daddy's not mad," and Ben finally unfurled his little hand, trembling.
It wasn't a bad cut at all, just a wide surface area, so there'd been some blood. "What, this lil thing? This ain't worth crying over, buddy. You're fine," Han said as warmly as he could, wiping his hand as best he could with Ben threatening to yank it away every time he touched too close to the cut. Daddy's not mad. He felt a searing pain in his chest.
Ben, who had his other hand wrapped firmly around a fistful of Leia's hair, pressed his face to her neck and whimpered.
"Ben, for real, this is nothin'. You're not even gonna have a scar. No big thing, no need for the waterworks," Han said, trying to catch his eye and smile at him while he cleaned up the cut and added some ointment.
"He was scared, Han," Leia said under her breath, kissing the top of Ben's head protectively.
"I'm tellin' him he doesn't have to be. Right Ben? You don't gotta be scared, huh? Just a lil scrape."
"My guys…" Ben whimpered into Leia's neck as Han placed a bandage on his hand. "Mama, my guys…"
"We'll fix 'em up first thing tomorrow, alright? Promise," Han said, and he kissed Ben's hand before releasing it – it immediately flew to Leia's neck.
"See? Daddy's going to help you fix your guys tomorrow like he helped fix your hand. They'll be good as new."
"I broke my guys… Daddy I broke my guys… don't be mad at me please…"
"He's not mad, darling, I promise. You're not in any trouble. It's Mama's mistake, I should've tied them down, I am so sorry dear…"
"Sorry Daddy…"
"Don't be sorry, I'm not mad, kid. Why would I be mad? We'll fix everything up tomorrow, promise, first thing, alright? It'll be fun."
Ben whispered into Leia's neck – she stroked his hair and murmured, "Ben, don't be shy," but he just clung to her more and whispered again. "He says 'okay,'" Leia translated, sighing and patting Ben's back.
"First thing tomorrow," Han said, swallowing. "Promise."
"See? Everything's okay, no more tears," she promised, kissing Ben's hair again. "Let's get you back into bed, my darling – everything's okay. Okay?"
She shifted him so he was sitting on her lap facing her, wiping under his eyes with her thumbs and smiling warmly.
He whispered something unintelligible.
"What's that love?"
"Mama… can I sleep with you?"
"Yes," Leia said without her usual hesitation, her usual checking in with Han, and she smiled and kissed Ben on the nose. "Yes you can, let's go to bed right now, I'll come too. We have a big big day tomorrow. Your dad was just telling me I should be going right to bed."
And she scooped him back up, and in a moment he was left without them.
For a second Han just stood there, staring after them. He felt – something, something, so deep in his chest, aching and acute. He wanted to – it was taking everything inside of him not to slam his hand down on whatever surface was nearest. He just – that teeny-tiny voice – don't be mad at me, please. Did he think he could ever be mad at him? Those little models they'd made, come undone – Ben's first thought, really truly, that he could be mad? Mad at that tiny little thing?
All the fresh air and bikes in the galaxy but if the kid still thought he could be mad…
Didn't he see, all the care, that went into those models and every other thing – in trying to give him everything, make the world perfect for him, everything, everything – still – don't be mad at me, please…
He drifted into Ben's bunk, looked at all the stars Leia had painted in there – the purple galaxy sheets, the stuffed Ewok he called Chew, the scrap of one of Leia's old nightgowns he slept with as a security blanket. His clothes from today, the little socks crumpled up, tiny sneakers. Everything impossibly small.
He picked up the models – they were easily reparable. Each little crude configuration from those tiny blocks, the ones that it was hell to step on – each place they'd lived. Ten planets in six years. He knew Leia. Not wanting to let anywhere else be home not because she'd never had a home but because she had. He respected her job but he knew her, he wanted to know – who would she be if she had a home? Barely accumulating belongings the past six years, she brought nothing with them from place to place, nothing – for each birthday he always got her practical things, whatever she needed, useful tools, a vibroblade, a sturdy new pair of boots, an extra-small vest like the one he had in a svelte grey. Things that made her light up for his remembering, that she wore until they were worn and frayed. Only once had he gotten her a piece of jewelry – their first wedding anniversary, a delicate, faerie-like little chain with a tiny pearl. Ben, six months old then, sucked on it until it turned green. The one frivolous thing. He'd said, you want a new one? Let me get you a new one. And she'd laughed and said What do I need a new one for? I have this one right here.
Ben with his special sheets, his cute polka-dot socks, his Chew, his mother's nightgown as a blanket. A kid who didn't have to know to be practical. Leia still wearing the green necklace, rolling the gnawed-on pearl between her index finger and her thumb when she was feeling contemplative. He'd had nothing. He wanted to give them both everything. Everything – he needed to change that, reimagine it – not everything, but everything they wanted – a world that they wanted. What good would it do, to give them a world that was the absolute best but not best for them, for their family?
"Be-en..." Leia admonished softly. She nudged his head away from rubbing his cheek against the collar of her nightgown. "Stop that, honey."
"But it's my soft," he whispered, curling his fingers around the worn lace.
"It's not your soft, silly," she murmured. "And I won't able to sleep with you squirming like that. You promised me we would sleep, that was the deal my love."
Ben made a malcontent little sound and burrowed further against her, pressing his face to the hollow of her neck, his little body curled up under her arm. "Can I hold your hair please, Mama?" he whispered.
"Mm... you tug in your sleep though, remember? No tugging."
"I just pet it okay?"
"Okay, but please be gentle or you'll have to stop," she said, and he reached up and very delicately began to pet her hair.
They were curled up like that, Leia rubbing the fraying sleeve of his already-getting-too-small space pajamas between her fingers, when Han slipped halfway in. Ben groaned a little and curled up further, and Leia squinted at the light. "Wha… Han…?"
"Just uh. M'gonna go – sleep in Ben's bunk," he said awkwardly, jerking a thumb. "Looks a little squished in here."
Leia kept squinting and brought a hand up to shield her eyes, provoking another whimper from Ben, and nodded a little. "Okay."
"Brought Chew and his soft, though," Han added, holding out the tattered nightgown and the little stuffed animal. "Figured he'd start askin' soon."
"Oh…" Leia said, and smiled at him, her lips cracking into one as if in spite of herself. "Ben, honey, look what Daddy brought. Look."
Ben squirmed and put a hand up as if to block the light from the door. "Go sleep…"
"Darling, look."
Han squatted down and wiggled Chew a bit and watched that identical smile of his erupt across Ben's face. Relief, surprise, joy. "Chew!" he whispered excitedly, yawning enormously and then reaching out the hand that wasn't holding Leia's hair.
"As much as I wanted to keep 'im to myself… 'cause y'know, you took my bunkmate… but what the heck, take 'em both."
"… Daddy you got my soft?" Ben whispered after a moment.
"Figured I'd keep that one," Han teased, and when Ben widened his eyes he held out the nightgown too. "There you go. Only kidding."
Leia yawned, patting Ben's back as he curled back up beside her. "Say thank you, darling," she murmured.
"Thank you," Ben whispered into Leia's neck.
"Not a problem," Han said. "And I – y'know. Just wanted to say g'night. So." He moved slightly over to them, then bent down awkwardly and kissed her very gently, somewhat uncomfortably. Her chapped, torn-up lips. "G'night."
"Goodnight," she said softly, peering up at him with those enormous eyes.
"G'night, kiddo," Han added, kissing Ben's forehead.
"Ben," Leia whispered, yawning. "Say goodnight."
"Night Daddy," Ben murmured, sloppily blowing a kiss.
"Goodnight," Han said one more time. He lingered for a moment, then muttered after a beat, "Leia, listen."
"I don't want to get into this now, we're sleeping…" she murmured. "I'm sorry Han, I'm sorry, I can go into details of why I'm sorry tomorrow…"
"Yeah no, just." Han shoved his hands in his pockets. "I don't want you to bake cookies, alright? I want – everything for you, for you and him, us. But uh – not that. For you. Not baking cookies. Just – every good thing. You – uh. You know that, right?"
There was a beat of silence, and for a second he'd thought she'd fallen asleep. Then she whispered, "I know."