THE BABYSITTERS' CLUB
Chapter 1
Han Solo was exhausted.
He'd just finished a fourteen run to the Outer Rim the day before, and today he'd spent all day training pilot candidates. It had not gone well. Well, he thought, some days were better than others. This had been one of the others. He'd never liked the crash landing in water exercises when he was in the Imperial Navy, and he didn't like them any better now. Usually, one or two cadets needed the rescuers; this time, half the class did.
He wearily headed for the tramway to go home. He and Leia were going to have to get another speeder soon, and he feared that they were going to need the oversized version, the one that screamed, "I have children!" He didn't mind showing off that fact; he was the proudest father in the galaxy of his and Leia's seven month old twins. But the oversized speeders were clunky looking and weren't known for their nimble handling.
He was very much looking forward to seeing Leia and the babies. The moment he saw his young family never ceased to be one of the best parts of the day, no matter how badly it had gone.
The training facilities were forty kilometers from the government district, which was where their apartment was. It was the end of the work day for day workers, and the trams were packed. The only good thing about it was that he was not likely to be spotted by the holorazzi; they'd been incredulous that Leia preferred the ten minute walk to her office over a government limo service, and Han was a lot more comfortable with what they called 'the great unwashed.' Not that he loved crowds; he detested them. But anonymity was in short supply and he'd take it anywhere he could.
Han's comm went off shortly before they reached the stop at five kilometers. It was Chewie.
{You need to come to the docking bay immediately}, the Wookie barked.
Han groaned. He didn't need this right now. "What is it now?"
{I have a problem I can't figure out}.
"We have three days till we ship out again. It can wait."
{This is serious. The hyperdrive motivator is screwed up again}.
"What the hell were you doing? The hyperdrive just needs adjustment, and we do it together!"
{Just trying to save you some work. My apologies.}.
"Fine. I'm four stops away." Great, he grumbled. He was dying to see Leia and the kids, and now this. If it took any longer than five minutes, he told himself, he was leaving the mess to Chewie. And for Chewie to insist that he come forthwith meant something had really gone wrong. The chances that he would get out in under five minutes were somewhere along the lines of less than zero.
He got off, with a large cloud of other sentients, near the docking bays. Normally, the smells of grease, brine and the sweat of a thousand sentients (admittedly not Han's favorite aroma) was one he relished. He'd grown up around it. Right now, though, he was more annoyed by it than anything.
As he stepped into the bay, he yelled for Chewie.
"Chewie! You useless fuzzbrain! Where are you?"
He was anticipating that Chewie would walk down the gangplank, but his irritation turned to confusion when it was Leia who stepped out to meet him.
"Hey Flyboy! Move your ass!" Leia called out cheerfully. "We need to get going!"
Oh gods, this better not be one of her emergency trips to save the galaxy, he thought morosely. The last thing he needed was a ship full of whining delegates.
"What's going on?" he called to her as he approached.
She smiled broadly. "We've got three days off. I thought we might spend it at a lovely beach on Corellia." She wrapped her arms around his neck and he hugged her closely.
"That's great, sweetheart, but Chewie told me-"
She gave Han a wicked grin. "I put Chewie up to it."
He picked her up and spun her around slightly. "Hmm. That was a very naughty thing to do."
"Oh, I can be very naughty. And I intend to be even more naughty." She gave Han her sauciest smile.
"What about the babies?"
"Don't worry. I've got three capable babysitters."
"Well, then, we'd better hurry!" The two sat down in the cockpit and Han laid in a course for the southern continent of Corellia.
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"Sounds like they're awake," Luke announced. He'd been watching the smashball game with Chewie while Threepio was cleaning the kitchen. Luke paused the game and he Chewie went to the babies' room to retrieve them.
The twins took one look, didn't see their mommy or daddy, and Jaina began to wail, and Jacen followed suit.
"Hey, it's me, it's Uncle Luke!" Luke exclaimed as he picked up Jaina. Chewie had Jacen and a quick sniff of the room indicated that diaper changing was not going to be the highlight of their day. Luke took Jaina to the changing table and checked her. He felt as if he was going to gag. He tried a ten second meditation to try to block it out, all the while trying to keep a squirming baby still enough to accomplish the task.
{This smells terrible}, Chewie bayed mournfully.
"Don't you do this all the time?" Luke asked him.
{Sometimes, but not very often}. Jacen was equally wiggly.
"I don't know about this having kids bit," Luke said, trying to clean Jaina up and then struggling to get her into a new diaper. Now she was laughing at her uncle as he tended to her.
{At least baby Wookiees don't need changing}, Chewie remarked. Jacen had seen and heard his sister laughing so he took his cue from her.
"C'mon, guys, let's go play," Luke said to them. "Threepio? What've they got for dinner?"
The gold colored droid looked up. "I do believe there are tubs of soft food here in this cupboard." Threepio methodically scanned the shelves. "Oh dear. I believe that they forgot to restock. Now what are we going to do?"
"Maybe we can mash up some vegetables and fruit," Luke suggested.
Threepio scanned the chiller. "Actually, sir, it appears that someone failed to submit a grocery list. The cupboards, chiller and frozen units are all but empty."
Luke was annoyed, but he knew his sister needed the break. He was on Coruscant when she asked him to cover while she took her husband on a much needed three day weekend.
"Unless they can deliver right away, I guess I'm going food shopping."
"You can get one hour delivery for an extra charge," Threepio informed him.
"Never mind. I can do it faster myself. You guys think - Jacen, stop sticking that remote in your mouth!" His nephew had located the remote for the holovision and was stuffing it into his mouth, drooling all over it. Chewie tried to pull it from the little boy, and succeeded, but not without Jacen bursting into tears.
Luke decided that it would be much better if he went food shopping.
At least I know where the market is, Luke said to himself as he extracted himself from the apartment. Chewie knew how to comfort the little ones, he told himself, trying to not feel guilty about leaving.
Work had ended not long ago for a great portion of the population, and the market was mobbed. Luke realized that he had no idea what to shop for and that using the Force for this might well be useless. He had his comm and attempted to raise Threepio. Threepio was not the best about answering his comm; that had been evident from their experience in the trash masher on the detention level of the death star, where Han, Leia and Luke had nearly been crushed.
"Come on, Threepio," Luke groaned, grabbing a trolley to put things in. He and Mara split the home maintenance chores; Luke was responsible for cleaning their apartment; Mara was responsible for errands and cooking, both of which she was good at. Luke had never cooked and Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru had insisted he clean up all the time.
The signs for each aisle flashed on and off in no less than twelve languages. Luke attempted to raise Threepio again with no success. He sighed and began walking down the first aisle.
He decided to comm Mara. Mara was probably busy starting the evening meal but she could at least help him.
"I'm in the market and I'm lost," he stated simply to Mara. "I have no idea what to buy."
He was expecting her to be her crisp, efficient self. Instead, she burst out laughing.
"Hey, you're the one who shops," Luke said, annoyed with her reaction.
"And cooks," she added. "We'd starve otherwise."
"Tatooine doesn't exactly offer the most varied cuisine," Luke reminded her. "I have to get food for the babies, and some for myself and Chewie."
"Leia's weaned the babies, so infant formula, baby food, cereal rings, juices."
"Hold on, I'm looking for the baby aisle." Luke wished Threepio had informed him of the food situation earlier when the market would have been less crowded. Leia and Han weren't usually this disorganized, but it was a last minute idea by Leia to take this trip. She was supposed to head out to the Inner Rim for negotiations, but had managed a settlement via holoconference.
And he knew that Han and Leia had had no time alone since the babies were born. They were either working or caring for the little ones, sometimes both at the same time. The dark circles under their eyes had their own dark circles. Leia wasn't keen to wean the babies before they were a year old, but keeping up with breastfeeding two infants was becoming an impossible struggle.
"Okay, I found it." Luke had nearly been run over by several sentients who dwarfed him and several who'd sworn at him. Just another reason why I hate Coruscant, he thought. He kept a small apartment not far from Han and Leia's but hated being away from Yavin. Anything good and natural had long been erased from Coruscant and provided an ugly comparison to the moon of Yavin, where it was lush, green and smelled of flowers and foliage.
Luke scanned the rows and rows of food for infants of the largest groups of species present on Coruscant. Luke found the human section, but his eyes spun in their sockets at the variety and age levels, which varied according to the manufacturer. Meats, vegetables, fruits...maybe he'd just get one of everything and see how it sorted out.
He and Mara had begun discussing marriage and children. Despite their being exhausted, the intricacies of day to day life with new babies were invisible to him.
And this was just a trip to the market.
"It's gonna a be a long three days," he muttered, trying to make his way through the crowd.
