a/n: Prior to my work in the SW fandom, the last time I did what was billed as an "abortion fic," I tied it up with an "epilogue" that took place many years later - I felt Absolution deserved the same treatment.

Aldera

(10 ABY)

This quiet, peaceful little apartment in a sleepy sector of Hanna City had been home for more than two years now; it was a secure, permanent place in Chandrila's heart, a blissfully secluded haven even in a big city, even on a formidable core planet that now called itself the New Republic capital – and yet, despite its familiarity, its easy designation as theirs, now – this evening – it felt new, and strange.

She was not – uncomfortable; uncomfortable was not the right word – perhaps on edge was a phrase more apt to describe how Leia was feeling. The home she and Han had fought so hard for – in the abstract, and in the tangible – and had often assumed would never be theirs, was now adjusting to a newcomer – the sacred, protective walls of their hearth protected one more.

Leia took a deep breath, her heart racing gently in her chest, neither agitated nor soothed by the warm water. She tilted her head back until her neck rested against the raised edge of the bathtub, stared up at the ceiling – flicked her eyes to the mirror, blurry with steam – things were quiet, save for the sound of water moving lazily when she shifted – in the place they'd chosen in Hanna City, not even the sounds of traffic fused through the walls.

She listened for sounds of life – for Han, trying to imagine what he was doing out there in the sitting room. She knew she needed to rest, but – the idea of closing her eyes, of deliberately relinquishing her awareness when she was – in awe, really, of what they were going through –

Leia curled her toes, then tapped them lightly, making little splashes, staring at them peeking out from the soapy water – she found it impossible to sit still, to relax –

She heard the mewling, soft cry that was so brand new to her, and yet instantly familiar, and she sat up, sloshing water over the side – as if she'd been waiting for it, just waiting to be needed, despite their agreement, and the advice of her midwife.

"Han?" she called, her tone rising in pitch. "Is she alright?"

Han took a moment to answer.

"Yes," he said simply.

"Are you?" she followed up – it wasn't that she doubted him; it was only that she herself was so caught up in the visceral strangeness of this deliberately undertaken change in their lives.

She heard his footsteps, and he peeked around the corner into the bathroom. He arched an eyebrow mildly.

"You're supposed to be relaxing while I bond," he said seriously.

Leia shook her head nervously.

"Will you just come in here? Bring her in here? I can't relax."

Han nodded. Leia breathed a sigh of relief, and sank back into the bubbles. She closed her eyes a moment, her lips moving soundlessly – not quite praying, but something like it. She ran her hands over her arms, her elbows crossing over her chest, hugging herself.

Home felt so surreal; everything felt so surreal – it was madness that a decision they'd made confidently, together, eagerly – could suddenly feel so scary, so…what-have-we-done?

Han returned a few moments later, his arms tucked up to his chest protectively, cradling the newborn like his life depended on it – and of course, her life very much depended on his attentive hold. He moved gingerly, intently focused on carrying her in that way the midwife had told him, several times was – overkill, overkill; she's not as fragile as you think, General Solo, relax a little –

Leia still wanted to laugh at the look of disbelief Han had turned on the woman, his blunt, Han-like response – Relax? You want me to relax? She weighs less than my blaster! An exaggeration, to an extent, and Leia didn't mind Han's nerves; she had them, too.

Taking her home was as strange as she'd imagined it would be; she felt – she was sure Han, felt, too – like the shift in their lives should feel cataclysmic, and immediately they should have a thousand new things to do – and yet they walked in the door, and she slept soundly for hours, and Han and Leia watched her, waiting.

Han smiled at Leia a little sheepishly as he eased himself to the floor next to the bathtub, pressing his back up against the wall, positioning himself so Leia merely had to turn her head and she'd have an easy view of the baby.

She turned her head in Han's arms, small, curled fingers brushing against him, soft fussing – crying she hadn't really committed to yet. Leia noticed she was only in a soft cloth diaper, with the tiny snaps on either side. She reached out of the soapy water and leaned over, brushing her fingers against the baby's foot.

Han cleared his throat.

"I can't get the blanket fixed right," he admitted under his breath. "The swaddle? Need to see how to do it again," he said.

Leia nodded, lifting her shoulders lightly – it didn't matter. There was time to figure that out.

"She started crying when I tried," Han said, lifting her a little, and lowering his face. "So I stopped," he added, lowering his voice as if he were talking to her.

Leia leaned over more, water dripping on Han's trousers, and placed her damp hand on the baby's stomach. She quieted a little, and Han looked over, his face worried.

"I thought she'd cry louder," he said. "You see babies in public, they're always really screamin'," he noted. "Blow your ears out."

Leia laughed a little.

"I thought so, too," she agreed. "She'll get louder," she said wryly. "She's just doesn't know her strength yet."

Han ran his thumb over the baby's brow. He rocked her only slightly, and she opened her eyes, giving them a rare glimpse of them – accompanied with a somewhat suspicious look, as if she wondered who they were, and why they'd brought her out of the safest place she'd ever been.

Leia grasped Han's shoulder, and nodded, a smile lighting up her face – she didn't open her eyes very often; she was still adjusting to all the bright lights of the real world –

"Blue," Leia noted softly.

Han looked closer, just as fascinated, and she closed them, and he looked up at Leia with amusement.

"I figure she thinks we're ugly," he quipped.

Leia laughed quietly.

She shifted and started to lean over again, draping one arm over the edge of the tub – and then winced, changing her mind; she settled back, easing into the water. The midwife had given her something for muscle pain –

"What hurts?" Han asked, concerned.

Leia closed her eyes.

"Everything," she murmured. "I feel like I ran the Mandalor Marathon."

Han moved a little closer, still holding her close to his chest.

"Seems like it'd be easier to run the Mandalor Marathon," he offered dryly.

Leia smiled tiredly, and opened her eyes. She nodded in agreement.

"I can't imagine going through it if it wasn't something you planned," she murmured, her voice quieting. She hesitated. "Something you wanted."

Han tilted his head at her.

"What's on your mind, Leia?" he asked gently.

Leia sighed, sinking down – her shoulders submerged, and she drew up one knee, staring at it. She compressed her lips, and ducked her head under water for a moment, reemerging a few seconds later and sitting up more fully. She ran her hands back through her thick hair, brushing it back, and blinked water and bubbles out of her eyes, taking a deep breath.

"Bespin," she said simply. "I'm thinking about Bespin."

Han nodded.

"Figured," he said gruffly.

The baby opened her eyes to look at him again, and shifted, opening her mouth in a yawn, and then furrowing her small brow, and starting to fuss again.

"You have been," he said, distracted as he tried to soothe her, "since we decided to have a baby, haven't you?" he asked bluntly.

Leia watched him press a calming kiss to their daughter's forehead.

"Yes," she answered quietly. She sat back a little. "Let me have her, Han," she requested.

Han was careful in his movements, shifting to his knees to transfer the baby to Leia; he held his hands under her back, and her head, until Leia nodded once, twice – exasperated, but affectionate, to let him know she had a perfectly secure hold on her.

Leia curled her arms in, hands overlapping, tucking the newborn's head against her breast comfortably, and holding her safely above the water, warm in the cradle of her arms. The infant's soft crying settled into silence as she rested against her mother's skin, and Han leaned his elbows on the tub, staring down at her.

He swallowed thoughtfully, reaching down to brush his fingers against the crown of her head.

Leia felt peace; she and Han were both new to this, that much was inarguable, but they had wanted it, and found a somewhat stable time to go for it, after the end of the Empire and the start of a new way of life – yet a subdued, small part of her, buried in her heart, couldn't forget –

"Han," she ventured in a whisper. "Can you imagine? We would have had…a six year old, right now."

Han drew his hand towards his face, brushing his neck with his knuckles. She turned to meet his eyes, and he looked shocked, his eyes slightly wide, lips parted. Had it – been six years, had they loved each other for that long? He was startled by how time passed so slowly, and yet so quickly, a simultaneous contradiction – the shock on his face faded into a small grimace, and he lowered one hand to Leia's cheek, tucking wet hair behind her ear.

"You okay?" he asked hoarsely. He paused for a long moment, and then cleared his throat.

"I don't know," she said, almost at the same time he spoke up –

"I still don't think you can – " he started, and then broke off, when he realized he was talking over her.

They both fell silent, and Leia looked down at this child, felt the featherlike beat of her small heart, the rhythmic rise-and-fall of her breathing as she slept lightly – wanted, planned for, anticipated.

"What were you going to say?" Leia asked quietly.

Han sighed. He was always there for her, he never shied from comforting her – but this subject knotted him up immediately, as he had – he hadn't been there, not really; he hadn't experienced it, and wouldn't have experienced it like she had even if he'd been by her side.

He cleared his throat.

"I still don't think," he began again, slowly, "you can look at a decision you made back then based on what you know now."

Leia nodded silently – so similar to the words he'd said to her on Endor, when she grappled with her choices, asking herself if the part of her that disposed of a pregnancy was the part of her inherited from Vader.

"I can't imagine where we'd be now, if," she paused; further elaboration was unnecessary – if I'd had a baby, after Bespin. "If we'd even be together. If we'd have lasted."

They had been through so much – roughness, there was no other way to illustrate it – since the fall of the Empire at the Battle of Endor, and some of it had been average relationship growing pains, and some of it had been true moments of terror, when she almost swore they'd never make it through the class differences and their backgrounds and their intents for the future – and yet every time, at the last moment, they'd chosen each other over anything else, and now they'd chosen to bring this little, precious girl into the committed fortress their relationship had become.

Leia stared down at the sleeping baby, thought of all the conversations that had gone into the choice to have her, all of the preparation, mental and physical, and she was struck with stark terror of the idea of what it would have been like to have a baby she never intended to conceive in the first place.

And yet – even as a confidence that she'd done the right thing, settled over her, so to did a sinking sadness, because back then, she'd barely cut her teeth on Han's love, and what it was like to be so wrapped up in someone, and back then, she'd only known motherhood as an abstract idea, only known pregnancy as an invasive accident, and she'd harshly separated herself from an emotional connection to what was happening to her.

Her daughter slept peacefully in her arms, an innocent, utterly reliant on Leia and Han, possessed of a pure trust in their goodness and their commitment to her, and Leia remembered every moment she'd experienced in the past year when she'd known, day after day, that she was carrying life.

"Leia?" Han asked quietly.

He touched her jaw, wordlessly asking her to look at him.

She obliged, her lips parting earnestly.

"I'm alright," she murmured.

His brows lifted intently.

"Are you?"

She nodded.

He tilted his head at her.

"I've never asked you if you regret it," he said gruffly, his tone careful.

Leia took a shaky breath.

"I don't think I ever could have answered that question," she said, biting her lower lip a moment, "until I had her."

She looked down at the baby again, and shifted, bending to kiss her nose. She lingered there a moment, and then tilted her head up, catching Han's eyes to – confess, or to illustrate her myriad of emotions – or something.

"Are you terrified?" she asked abruptly, taking a complex path to her allocution. "Right now – are you terrified of the task we have, in raising her?"

Han just nodded.

"But," Leia breathed, "you want it?" she asked. "You…can't wait to do your best?"

Han looked at her a moment, like he was appreciating, for the hundredth time, how she could so easily understand how he felt at any given moment – and he nodded again.

Leia licked her lips.

"Me too," she whispered. "That's – exactly how I feel. I don't know what I'm doing, but I want to do it. I love her," she said. "I wanted her."

Han nodded again, looking down at the baby.

"It's almost a relief," Leia confided softly. "As if I…feel better now about – having that abortion – than I've ever felt."

Han looked up at her intently, his eyes soft and attentive.

Leia shifted her arms a little, rocking the baby –

"Having her, I know I'd have loved that baby," she said. "There's no doubt. But I, I," she paused, searching for the words. "I think about how nervous I am now, and how much I have to worry about – and this after we were ready for her, and decided on her – it's going to be hard. And it would have been," she breathed out heavily, "impossible to take this responsibility on when I wasn't ready. It would have been unfair."

Leia swallowed hard.

"I would have done my best – and I – I think you would have, too," she said, "but I – "

Leia laid her palm on the baby's chest lightly, feeling her heart.

"Children have to be taken care of," she said softly. "She'll have the best life we can give her because we want to do it – no subtle doubts, there's no taint to it – there's no sense of – an accident," Leia swallowed again, "If I'd had a baby back then, it would have – had the best I could give it because I had to take care of it and," Leia looked down at the baby again, "babies should be wanted."

She looked up at Han.

"She's never going to have any doubt that we wanted her, and I'd never have been able to say the same for the other," she admitted – and the complexity of it was exhausting, because as she'd said – holding her daughter, she knew there was no circumstance in which she wouldn't have loved any baby she had, and yet – she so firmly felt it was better this way; it was right.

Leia took a deep breath.

"I feel…more like I took a life," she confessed in a whisper, with a bow of her head, and a moment of sadness, because this whole experience had been enlightening to her, in more ways than one; she had never once considered the thing in her body nothingness – "but less like it was wrong to do so."

Han ran his hand over her hair, sliding it down to the back of her shoulders. He leaned in and kissed her jaw, drawing his lips to her ear, pressing his forehead to the side of her head. He simply nodded, gently pulling her towards him a little.

"Yeah," he said huskily. "You know what?" he mumbled. "I wasn't wanted."

Leia nodded.

"I know," she murmured.

Han's mother had loved him – Han never seemed to have any doubt about that. Her life had been hard, though; endlessly rough, and Leia knew that Han had often been on his own, left to fend for himself while she worked, and though he'd been loved by her for the short time she lived to be his mother, he'd never been an intentional choice, and because of that there always lingered some insecurity in the back of his mind when it came to his emotional attachments: does this person really want me, or do they have to want me? - and Leia harbored a special brand of love for the bravery of Han's mother, since she'd done what she had, and because of it, Leia had Han - but she knew Han understood her when she said a child should be unconditionally wanted.

Han cleared his throat, and Leia smiled gently, turning her head for a kiss. He pressed his lips to hers, running his hands over her shoulder lightly. He smiled at her, touching his nose to hers.

In Leia's arms, the baby opened her eyes again, protested Leia's suddenly tighter grip with a small cry, and Leia shifted her, holding her up reverently and tilting her head up to smile at her.

"Shh," she whispered gently, bringing her down to kiss her nose, and stroke her thin, wispy hair, and lay her against her shoulder.

Leia wrapped one arm lightly around her, and Han smirked, tilting his head, to catch the baby with her eyes open, a proud grin breaking over his face –

"She sees me," he bragged, and Leia smiled, resting her cheek on the baby's temple.

She rocked her a little, murmuring a soft lullaby. She felt her shifting her head, and Han moved closer, his hand resting on the back of her head –

"Aldera," he whispered hoarsely, index finger running along her rosy cheek. "What d'ya think of life, Dearie?"

Leia closed her eyes, every part of her relaxing, and she breathed in the air around her, felt Aldera's soft, fluttery heartbeat against her own chest – a tangible, living, beautiful representation of everything she, and later, Han, had ever fought for, a relief, a reward – Aldera, named for her mother's lost world; her parents' hope for the future; salvation of any doubts that the past had left lingering in their souls.

Aldera

story #350

-alexandra