"Wake up, sleepyheads!"
Han Solo could barely even open his eyes to acknowledge his oldest son's request. It couldn't possibly be morning already.
After a few moments of pretending to still be asleep and hoping to be left alone, he heard the voice again, and he felt the five-year old's body crawling between him and his wife, Leia. "I said, wake up!"
Han felt small hands shaking his shoulders, and he knew he couldn't put it off any longer. "All right, all right," he relinquished. "I'm awake."
"Me, too," he heard Leia mutter sleepily beside him. "We'll be out in a minute, Jacen."
Clad in his sleep pants, Han swung his legs over the side of the bed and rubbed his eyes.
"You want to shower first today?" Leia asked.
"Sure," Han answered through a yawn before stumbling toward the 'fresher.
It was a routine they had become accustomed to over the past few months. Now that the kids were a little bit older, they had decided to try and limit the amount of outside help they'd been receiving. They'd also agreed to spend less time work so that they wouldn't need Winter to be around as much and could do more of the parenting themselves.
Although they were happy to be able to spend more time with their growing children, it had left them far more exhausted than they'd anticipated. Han wasn't sure that he had ever been so tired in his life on such a consistent basis. But he also didn't want to miss out on any more of Jacen, Jaina and Anakin's lives than he had to.
He knew that Leia wasn't handling their new schedule much better. They'd hardly had a chance to have any kind of adult conversations lately, since any moments they finally found to be alone were usually late at night, when the only thing they had any desire for was sleep. It wasn't quite how he wanted his family life to operate, but he decided it was just something he was going to have to put up with until the kids were older and more self sufficient.
He let the warm water wash over him and hoped that it might help him wake up a bit more.
A little while later, when Han was clean and dressed, he joined the rest of his family in the kitchen. "You're not going to forget to come get me later, right?"
Leia looked up absently while wiping breakfast off her 5-year old daughter's chin. "What? No, sure. Fine."
Han looked at his wife who was obviously a bit flustered that morning, trying to keep the household from complete chaos. That afternoon he was scheduled for a relatively minor dental procedure, but one that required that he be put under anesthetic and therefore needed a ride home afterward. Chewie was back on Kashyyyk for a few days visiting his own family, Luke was away, and while Leia was obviously a very busy woman, she had assured him that it would be no trouble to come pick him up.
He put a hand on her shoulder, hoping to get her attention for a quick goodbye kiss. "Okay, I'll see you later then."
Completely oblivious to his intentions, she patted the hand on her shoulder once. "Right. Bye, Han."
Disappointed, he puckered his lips and kissed the air before placing a hand on his daughter's head. "Bye, Jaina."
"Bye, Daddy!" She shrieked from her seat at the kitchen table, causing him to smile. At least someone in his family still harbored some enthusiasm.
He turned to his sons, whose toy droids were caught up in some sort of epic battle. "Bye, guys."
Not even looking up, Jacen and Anakin responded, "Bye."
Han Solo really did enjoy his life. It was just that sometimes it seemed as though it was happening without him. The kids' childhoods seemed to be flying by in a haze of pure exhaustion from trying to function through their day-to-day activities. Some days it seemed harder than others.
He knew that he wouldn't trade his life for anything in the universe, but sometimes he just wished that maybe he and Leia could be a bit more like they used to be before Jacen, Jaina and Anakin were born. He loved his children dearly, and they had provided him the opportunity to experience having an actual family for the first time in his life, but lately, he felt as though he and Leia had become so focused on the children's needs that they didn't have any time left for each other.
He loved Leia, and he loved watching her being a mother and suspected that she loved watching him as a father. But somewhere in the middle of all of that they had forgotten how to be husband and wife. While it made perfect sense to Han to put their children first, he also didn't see why that had to come at the expense of forgetting about the spouse entirely.
He'd tried to be romantic at times, but Leia always usually seemed distracted. Wondering how the kids were doing, if one of them might be getting sick, if someone was doing something they weren't supposed to. After a while, it seemed far easier to simply stop trying.
The worst of it was that at times, he felt completely obsolete in the lives of his own wife and kids. He was no Jedi, he couldn't sense the things that they could, couldn't teach them anything in that regard. It was more than slightly frustrating, and he didn't like feeling useless.
He couldn't quite figure out what had suddenly pushed him to the breaking point, but he hoped that maybe a little bit of drug-induced sedation might help, and he set off for the dentist's office.