Onward…

4

Leia readjusted her veil and squinted at the Tatooine suns, frowning. "I don't think I fully appreciated how bright it would be. The two suns, that is." She leaned herself back a bit, trying to hide the difficulty of getting herself comfortable. She was always settling herself, now, never settling – readjusting herself, never readjusting, like she wasn't part of her body. Well, maybe that was right. "Home was always a bit… misty. Foggy. Or maybe that's just memory..."

"It is brighter than I remember here, too," Luke said, nonchalantly handing her a cushion to prop behind her back. "Glad you've been able to cover up a bit."

Another day, another hostel, this one their second since they arrived; while Lando worked on developing his cover at Jabba's, Luke and Leia had separated from Chewie and were darting through the surrounding barren landscape, never staying anywhere too long and never able to do much other than sit and chat idly while they waited, somehow able to be casual with each other even though the danger that awaited was so very real. Well, they couldn't stay at maximum panic for two weeks…

Their days as barren as the landscape, a sort of polar opposite to what she fondly or not-so-fondly referred her "little trip to Bespin" – instead of sex and bodies and probing conversation, all that existed was veils and sun and empty talk…

"Conventions of femininity were often at some point adaptive," Leia noted, plucking at the white cotton veil covering her hair.

"Men have thicker skin, huh? Can't burn?" he teased.

"The stakes of unsightliness are lower."

"And you wouldn't want to be unsightly, would ya?"

"But I suppose that since I've already been impregnated, though... well, who gives a damn anymore, right? Evolutionarily, that is," she said, rolling her eyes. "But my mother was always very nervous about the fragility of my skin, ah, my complexion… everyone at home was darker, so – I think she may have overdone it out of anxiety… creams and veils and things, but I humored her… you know, she tried for so long to have children and they all sort of – receded from her like the tides with the same variety of – violence, and gentleness… I guess that metaphor is lost on you farmboy, though, isn't it?"

"I do know what the ocean is, Lei," he said, teasing gently.

"Well, then. Then you get it," Leia said, smiling a little. "Anyway, though – it took her a bit to, you know. Realize I wouldn't recede… once she had me…"

"You don't talk about your mom much."

"Oh, is that how you say it?"

"What?"

"Mam, you – mom. Huh. Mawm."

"I dunno, I mean, I didn't say it a lot growing up, so… Mam?"

"Yes?" she answered as if in saying the word he had been calling her, batting her lashes and then laughing shortly. "Hmm – I guess I don't. Well, as you might imagine – it's painful. You rarely talk about your aunt and uncle…"

"That's not true, like they come up, like little sayings – you always tease me for saying my aunt used to say but – you never say anything like that."

"You must handle grief more effectively than I do. Evolutionarily, I mean," she quipped.

Luke sighed. "I wish I could show you, back where I grew up. I mean the house is gone, but the area… it's not much, but it's something. And where Old Ben lived…"

She smiled faintly.

"It's sort of funny, actually – this guy is like, the best cover we could ask for," he said, indicating her belly.

"What, the tenant? Intriguing."

"Just 'cause no one is expecting rebel operatives to be, like. Pregnant."

"Do we make a convincing husband and wife, do you think?"

"What, like to our – landlords? I hope so. I mean, what else could we be, right?"

"Right, right… I mean, one room one bed, so… right…" She sighed, squinting again. "I feel like that happens whoever I'm standing next to, though. That everyone is always trying to, you know, parse who I belong to. To whom I belong."

"Well, whenever you talk like that they try to figure out where you're from, so…"

"Talk like what?"

"'To whom I belong', the way you always – invert your sentences?"

Leia smiled faintly. "Didn't anyone ever teach you about not ending your sentences with prepositions?"

"I guess not."

"So backwater… here, here's a dirty joke, it's one of my favorites."

"I'm sorry, are you telling me a dirty joke? Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan?"

"Sh, sh, it's a dirty grammar joke. Okay, so: a Coruscanti and a Corellian girl arrive at the Legislative Youth Program, where they've been assigned to be roommates…" She'd told this joke recently, hadn't she – had it been to Han? On the way to Bespin – to Han, one time when they were drinking, when she'd had too much to drink – though thinking about that now she felt a little guilty, but… Laughing and whispering in his ear, so sloppy, making a big show of crawling up into his lap… he grabbed her playfully but forcefully, yanking her legs into a straddle before refilling her drink, she was definitely drunker than him but didn't mind it too much, not when he was mumbling Finally have you all to myself, about damn time, oh…

"So, the two girls are unpacking their things and, in an attempt to make conversation, the Corellian girl asks, So, where're ya from? And the Coruscanti girl is, you know, Coruscanti, and she sticks her nose up and says, very pretentiously," here she imitated the Coruscanti accent, when she'd told Han she'd pulled away all withholding, a parody of her own aloofness, "I'm from a place where we know better than to end a sentence with a preposition. And the Corellian girl blinks at her, crosses her arms, and says brightly, So, where're ya from – cunt?"

Luke, who had heretofore seemed fairly uninterested in Leia's "dirty" grammar joke, burst out laughing, genuinely caught off guard, and she would've smiled but she was caught up in the memory, now. She'd whispered cunt right in his ear, making the c hard and the t crisp, the word naughty and tart in her mouth, and then she'd grinned and he'd grabbed her and hauled her off to the bedroom, where once he was inside her he made the word his own, low and husky and groaning, goddamn I love your cunt… other Leia going wild and laughing and moaning, not a care in the world. They'd used a condom that time, right? It had only been the 'fresher and Cloud City, and that time in the cockpit, when they hadn't? She couldn't remember, and maybe that was the point, the not-remembering, that was how she'd gotten into this situation… other Leia was so stupid, who did she think she was?

"Leia? Are you alright? S'the sun bothering you?" Luke, then, because she'd pulled her veil down protectively to try to mask her expression.

"No, I just…" To her horror, the tightness in her throat was almost audible. "I, ah. Hormones," she finished lamely.

He took her hand and squeezed it. "I'm glad you're here, Lei."

"Oh, now you are."

"Just feels right. I can't explain it – in the Force, though – it feels like you're supposed to be here."

She nodded a little. She had a headache, too, from sleeping in tight braids; Luke had been surprised that she had declined his offer to sleep on the little couch in the room and even moreso that she meticulously rebraided her hair into tight coils after washing. Like he expected it to be the opposite – well, most people did, but she'd shared beds on missions before, albeit usually Han was the one playing her husband… still, she didn't mind the warmth of another person too badly, even in all this heat. And he'd seen more of her skin, she realized, on this trip than ever before, because her improbably skinny legs stuck out from beneath Han's shirt-turned-nightgown, but it didn't bother her much. The hair, though, was another story…

Don't those hurt to sleep on? Luke had whispered in the darkness, the two of them sort of turned towards each other like mirror images, two halves of a kind of familial whole. Like a slumber party, like being a kid, telling secrets in the middle of the night.

Leia had shrugged. A bit. Sort of a lie – the tightness of the braids pinned down neatly to her scalp was in fact fairly painful, but she didn't want to complain. With Han at least she'd eventually worn her hair in a long, simple plait down her back to bed, that had been comfortable, but…

Do you always have to have them on? Ouch.

Not always, not when I'm alone... It's – mm. An intimacy thing. Modesty. She'd been going back and forth on whether to take it all down in front of him, when they reached Cloud City – at the time she'd wanted to wait for when she was sure he'd stay… now… what if he never… it was hard to imagine anyone but him, ever – if not him, maybe no one would ever see it again?

"Do you want children?" she asked suddenly before jerking, surprised at herself.

"As in, eventually? Or as in, your particular houseguest?"

"As in eventually," she clarified, rolling her eyes. "I wouldn't just pawn off this one all of the sudden, that seems inconsiderate to Stella and Lou, I should at least give them a chance to make a counter offer…"

"You tell them you were coming here?" he asked, looking at her, his expression hard to read.

She looked away. "I don't really – we don't communicate directly, just – through Carlist, really. It's too…" She pressed her lips together. "Well, it's all been complicated now, I suppose."

"I guess," he said slowly.

"I mean I'm less of a charity case when the situation's instigator isn't in a state of suspended animation. So I'm not really – I mean, nothing is certain…" She tugged the sleeves of her dress so they went past her wrist, trying to hide in the light fabric. "That is – assuming we can get him out."

"Assuming. We will."

She nodded.

"And – to answer your question… I've never really thought about it? Like since joining the Rebellion, a part of me has been pretty convinced I won't last that long."

"Well, you know. These things can sneak up on you."

"I dunno, being gay's gotta be a sufficient contraceptive, right?"

"Whereas being bi is like poking a hole in your diaphragm? Oh…" She grinned macabrely and shut her eyes. "Go on."

"And before that, I never really thought about having a family or anything."

"You'd be a good parent, I think," Leia said decisively. "You look out for people. You're patient, you're boundlessly empathetic..."

"Hey. Thanks, Leia."

"I mean for awhile there, Han and I were like squabbling children, and you always did a good job of keeping us separated when needed. Making sure we apologized to each other when appropriate. The way a parent does, I'd imagine..."

"Does that make me gramps?" he joked, nodding at her abdomen.

Leia grimaced. "Grand-landlord. Grandlord. How about that?"

"Sounds like a Sith."

"Well, now you've ruined it."

"It's sort of weird that I've never, I dunno. Seen you two – together."

"Hm?"

"Like – seen you two as a couple… functioning as a couple..."

A couple. A couple. Yes, that would – yes, a couple, we would be a couple, will be a couple. "Yes," Leia said softly, and suddenly her face felt tight and hot and she stared – tried to stare – into her lap. "Yes, that is strange." Are a couple. Something about that so comforting…

"I don't know how I didn't – sooner, I mean. Guess."

She shrugged. "I didn't either, so."

"I – if you hadn't… if this hadn't happened would you – I mean. You would've told me, right? Or I guess… I guess you wouldn't have?"

If this hadn't happened – if she hadn't had to sit him down one evening, him and Chewie, and say, her voice careful and on edge, I need to tell you something and I know you're going to be very upset at me for concealing it but I promise I've only just learned the other day.

"Probably not," she confessed. "I sort of – I think I had it in my head that if I – said the words aloud, that we'd been together, that it would – sort of pop, like a soap bubble. Like a dream."

I'm pregnant, it's Han, and I'm going to have to have it as I'm halfway to term.

"That is one benefit," she added, smiling tightly. "Now I know it really occurred – I bedded Han Solo! Like a brilliant flashing light. The latest member of the club."

Luke's stunned expression, eyes huge and darting between her stomach and her face, she'd folded her arms over it protectively, concealing whatever it was he was looking for. Eventually blurting out, It's – Han's?

"You know what Chewie said."

"That he loves me. Yes, I know," she murmured. "I – I can't believe I'm even thinking about this, worrying about this sort of thing, when his life is…"

"I mean. We've got to pass the time somehow, right? It sucks, being stuck in one place, but for now..."

Got to pass the time somehow. Going up to Han and saying seriously, Captain, I'm concerned about rations if things continue at the current rate, and him saying Yeah? How do you figure, Princess?

Well, if we keep going to bed with the frequency we've established––

"Going to bed," gods, I'll never get tired of your fuckin' – cute little euphemisms, Kriff, "going to bed."

And if our original timeline for sublight travel remains accurate…

Swear to gods, if you insist on checkin' my work one more time––

Well. I'm concerned we might face a shortage.

Of… sex?

Of prophylactics.

He'd laughed, really laughed, aloud, a rare, unironic sound bursting out of him. Hells. You might be right about that.

We need to diversify, she'd said, smirking and serious all at once.

He'd grinned wickedly. If y'want me to eat you more, sweetheart, all you have to do is ask…

Leia shut her eyes and inhaled, clearing her thoughts. How was it possible, to go from dire straits in Hoth to so much easy, simple happiness – to this? And would she ever be able to think about them having sex without self-loathing, without frantically tearing through the memory for the presence of a condom so she could pronounce that one clean? Not tainted by – this mess, this fucking mess, it was such a…

Who did she think she was, getting optimistic and happy like that? Didn't she know better by now?

"I'm going to review the groundplan of the palace again," she said decisively, standing up. "Are we still planning to switch locations tomorrow morning?"

"Yep, that's the plan. This next one will get us a little closer, should work nicely."

"Alright, let's just ensure we're on the same page about identities. We might want to decide if I'm renting to a boy or a girl, in case someone asks next time – it would be awkward to blurt out contradicting answers. We cut it close with the due-date ask at the front desk… I mean it was fine, me fielding it, but I do think the less I talk the better – I sound distinctly… not from here. As it were."

Where am I from? Where're ya from, cunt? Where are you from, Leia? Where are you, Han – and where are we going?

"As it were," Luke said, looking at her. "I think I'll stay out here, for a bit. Maybe meditate a little."

"Would you like me to get you at some point? Sometimes you lose track of time."

"Whenever you're ready to eat," Luke said, smiling guiltily.

"Alright." Thinking of how she'd functionally fasted, those first few weeks after what happened at Cloud City – sick with flu but still insistent on making her body into lean, fit perfection. Running relentlessly, determined to get faster, stronger, even when she had to stop to vomit on the side of the track. For Han, for Han. And now all she could do was sit, and wait… another week and a half, until she could even approach the palace, another week and a half in which he was encased… and then what? She felt so trapped, too… immobilized in every sense… she couldn't run fast anymore, not as fast as she'd like, and she was clumsy… stuck in Tatooine countryside and impotent…

"Almost there," Luke said, offering her a smile.

"Yes," Leia said, her voice a little more doubtful. "Almost."

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