Always in Motion

By Susan Zahn

Disclaimer: Much as I'd love to be able to retire and live off the proceeds from these stories, I sadly do not own the rights to these brilliant characters. Maybe if you put in a good word for me…?

The family you come from isn't as important as the family you're going to have.

-Ring Lardner

As dusk turned to dark, the rain continued in a steady downpour. The showers had lasted throughout the day, the sort of heavy spring rains that washed away the last dreary remnants of winter and promised bright sunlight and new life the next morning.

Leia Organa-Solo arrived at their luxury apartment and keyed open the entrance. She stepped inside just as a rippling flash of lightning briefly lit up the spacious living room, before everything was plunged back into darkening shadows. Whenever they were working from the main offices here on Coruscant, her husband was usually home first, often with the tempting aroma of dinner waiting for her, but tonight it was obvious from the stillness and lack of artificial light that she was alone.

For countless minutes she stood in the center of the living room, not knowing what to do as the muted sounds of the rainstorm and the colors of shimmering light from the city outside washed over her.

Her day had been an endless exercise in trying to ignore the gnawing fear eating away at her peace of mind and her ability to concentrate. It had been like someone telling you to not think about a pink bantha — the mere process of trying to ignore it forced one to conjure up the image in the first place. And now, to discover that Han was not indeed waiting to greet her with good news made all those worries that had tip-toed in the shadows of her conscious mind take a bold step into the light.

A powerful rumbling of close thunder rippled the air around her, and suddenly it was as if all the nervous energy that had kept her going throughout the day was draining away like the rivulets of rain running down the expansive windows. Leia sank down onto her knees on the plush carpeting, and then down onto one hip as she leaned heavily against the front of the nearest couch and stared out the wide transparisteel wall at the florid rain-streaked colors of the city lights beyond.

Rarely prone to despair or depression, and even less since the war, she found herself unprepared to deal with such dark fears. Only now, as she struggled to find blissful numbness, was it becoming apparent that all her steady healing, which had come with time and love, had also come at a price.

There was a sound at the far end of the room; a soft beep signaled that someone had introduced a key, and a moment later the main door slid open with a soft whoosh. Leia didn't need to look up to know it was Han — she recognized his sigh as he shed his coat and threw it over the back of a nearby chair.

With years of living together had grown patterns and traditions, and Leia knew Han's habits like she knew his aura. Whenever he had important news to deliver, he liked to accompany it with a drink; a bottle of his favorite Corellian wine for the good, and an equally aged but far more potent bottle of whiskey for the not-so-good.

Leia sensed him pass by the back of the couch without saying a word, and she knew he was heading for the arched entrance to the kitchen. Closing her eyes, she easily pictured her husband opening the cupboard and then removing two glasses with one hand; the soft clinking sound from the other room verified the vision.

It wasn't until she felt him move around the end of the couch and come to a stop at her side that Leia opened her eyes. She watched as he set down a pair of squat tumblers on the glass top of the low table nearby, and then the dark bottle of hard liquor beside them. It was all she could do to keep from gasping in pain as her heart tried to lurch into her throat.

That was it.

Han let out another sigh, and then carefully leveraged himself down until he sat beside her on the floor. Stretching his long legs out and crossing them at his booted ankles, he reached to put an arm around her shoulders and then pulled her close to his side.

They sat like that in the darkness in mutual silence, just listening to the rainy night and watching the occasional flicker of lightning outside. Then he turned his head toward hers and pressed his lips to her temple.

"I'm so sorry, Sweetheart…"

"Please… Don't…"

"They said it's me… That it was probably the carbonfreeze. Nobody knew the side-effects, and sterility was probably the last thing anybody was worried about."

Leia knew better than most about the power of words, and yet she still wasn't prepared to hear that one. It felt like someone had slid a vibroblade past her ribs and into her heart.

"I don't understand why," she uttered in a tight whisper. She'd told herself that too many years had already passed for her to summon up anger anymore, but this anguish — this last wound — was too raw with its newness. "He systematically destroyed everything in my life; my family, my world, everything I thought I knew about myself, almost everyone I ever loved…"

"Leia, this isn't—"

"But this… This is my father's last little 'Fuck you', isn't it? He's reached beyond the grave to destroy our future, to make sure we can never—"

"Stop it, Leia. I'm not going to play the blame game with you tonight."

Out of words, out of steam, she twisted against Han's side and pressed her face into the soothing and familiar hollow of his shoulder, wishing she could flee from the sudden finality of their hopes.

In the several years since their marriage, during the height of the Empire's collapse, they'd regularly discussed having children and had agreed to wait until their lives and careers and the galaxy in general had settled down. They'd taken the appropriate precautions, and in the meantime had reveled in their growing relationship and weathered through those hazards new couples faced, all the while assuming that, when the time was right, things would just fall into place. But nearly an entire standard year had come and gone since they'd agreed they were ready.

One of the surprising qualities Leia had discovered in her husband, way back during their less harmonious days during the war, was his knack for knowing what sort of comfort she needed most, and now he demonstrated that ability once more. He just held her for a while as they watched the rain without speaking.

And then Han did one of the other things she knew all too well. "Hey, look on the bright side. At least Luke will finally have to shut up about us producing a new horde of little Jedi's for him to train."

Leia just sighed. After all these years, she still marveled sometimes at how Han could find humor in the worst of situations.

"Well, unless he starts talking divorce…" Han continued in the equivalent of a verbal shrug.

"That isn't funny. Luke would never do that."

"Maybe not him, but I know others who would. Hell, they already have."

She pulled away far enough to see his face, trying to read in his shadowed expression what he wasn't saying. "Divorce is not an option. And since when did you ever care what others say?"

"I don't…but I care about what they say about you. And if they find out you've cast your lot with a guy who can't even—"

"THEY can all jump into a sarlacc pit, for all I care. They have never liked you. Why should I start listening to them now?"

Han paused too long and Leia anticipated his change in thought before he could say anything more; even in the gloom of the stormy night, she could read it in his eyes, in his sudden shift in demeanor.

"I swear to the Goddess, Han! If you're about to offer some sort of noble sacrifice…"

One corner of his mobile lips dipped down in a frown, showing his frustration at being cut off at the pass. "I know how much this means to you…"

She gave him a half-serious look of anger, not knowing whether to be furious or touched. "If you keep offering to step aside like that, some day I just might take you up on it."

Giving in with an appropriate amount of chagrin, Han offered a sheepish look back. "Well, at least now we know that option's off the table."

"It was never on the table."

He shifted his position and drew her back down against his chest to hug her closer for a long moment, and she was more than happy to let him.

The ambient light flickered; the lightning was further away this time, and then the room returned to the glimmering reflections of the surrounding city.

"It's funny," Han broke the silence once again, his tone contemplative now. "All those years… I never really thought that I'd want kids. Not until I met you."

"I always did," she responded in a soft voice, still unable to mask her sadness at the loss and injustice of it all. "I just never thought I'd get the chance… But then Luke told me that he'd 'seen' us with children, and I believed…"

She stopped.

Han rubbed his hand across her shoulders and then the back of her neck, offering some needed comfort once again.

"You know, there are other options," Han gently proposed. "I already know how we both feel about cloning, so that's definitely out, but we could find another donor. And there's always adoption…"

"I know." A small part of her wondered if it could ever be the same, but in the grand scheme of things, the mere fact of shared blood didn't really matter. Goddess knew, she was a living example of how bloodlines were no guarantee of anything. Whether or not the child had hers or Han's eyes wouldn't change how she loved it, and in the end, she was also the result of foster parentage and she'd never questioned the love she'd grown up within. All the same, she dwelt on the idea for a long moment, needing to allow the idea to germinate and grow in her mind until it could crowd out all those original longings of actually creating a new life with Han before she finally spoke again. "There are still so many orphans out there who need loving parents… Maybe we could do that. Bail welcomed me into his home and heart, giving me a second chance at life…" She straightened away from his embrace, drew her knees up, and then shifted around on the floor to face her husband, wanting to see his reaction. "I think I'd like to do the same, Han. What do you think?"

He reached up to caress her cheek, offering her a lopsided smile in the process. "I think you've got the biggest heart of anybody I know. You'll make a great mom."

Leia released a long sigh and finally, after what had felt like days, she was able to muster a smile. "Maybe Luke was right after all. He's always said that it's hard to interpret visions like that—they're shifting all the time."

True to form, Han rolled his eyes a little; he put little credence in such Force-fueled intuitions, despite past events. "Well, maybe if he spent a little less time focusing on us and a little more time worrying about his own—"

"You're incorrigible. Are you going to pour me that drink or not?"

"As you wish, Your Worship."

Almost inured to this nickname by now, she let it slide and instead felt the hint of a wistful smile play across her face as she watched Han reach for the bottle. He poured two fingers' full of amber liquor into each glass, then passed one to her before picking up his own.

Without ceremony, she sipped half and closed her eyes to focus on the sensations as it burned down her throat, stealing her breath away for a second before igniting a tiny fire in her chest. Another series of lightning flashes lit up the sky outside, throwing the room into stark contrasts once again, and they both turned toward the window, waiting in anticipation for the rumble of thunder. Long moments later, the low roar arrived to gently rattle any loose items in the room, the sonic pressure feeling as if a low-flying starship were passing overhead.

"Don't ever offer to leave me again."

Han turned back to her, perhaps sensing that any teasing had left her voice. He found her eyes once more. "No, we're in this for the long haul now. You're stuck with me."

Leia gave a strong, single nod. "I'm okay with that. The rest I'm willing to take as it comes."

"That's the spirit."

They remained in companionable silence for a long time after that, until Han finally got to his feet to find them some dinner. Leia remained on the floor a while longer, gazing out at the dancing lights, allowing the soothing sounds of the rain and Han's puttering around in the kitchen to salve her soul a little more before rising to join him.

THE END