AN: Voila! Something! Please enjoy.

Apparently, Jaina was no longer distraught enough to accept her new milk bottles without a fight. Though Han and Leia were only beginning their investigation, neither of the twins was showing any signs of trauma which the parents couldn't be more thankful for. Things were normal in the Organa-Solo household which almost bothered Han and Leia as they began their quest for an answer to the previous night's chaos. Without much more of a lead to follow, they went about their day like any other, taking Jaina and Jacen with them to community compound for the morning's chores.

Reecee's warmer season was coming to a close and the land was losing its fertility and the fish were swimming to warmer waters. As Leia had learned in the previous year, that meant the village would come to rely more on the nomadic game that wandered through the forests as well as trade with townspeople. That meant there was plenty of work to be done in the commune where much of the work on their exports was based.

By the time Han and Leia got there, the compound was already buzzing with activity and conversation among the adults, excited chattering and laughing among the children. Many of the younger children still held a fascination for little Jaina and Jacen, and they gathered at Han and Leia's legs as they entered. Now simply accustomed to their adoration and curiosity, Han playfully swept them back as he took one great step forward. "Alright, you guys know the protocol. I want a single line, straight and narrow!" The children laughed, but took their hint and gave the parents their space. At the feeling of a twinge of anxiety that had less to do with the herd of children and more to do with the compound's general excitement, Leia clutched Jacen closer to her chest. She didn't want to admit it, could hardly admit it to herself, but the previous night's muddled chaos had startled her. She didn't want to jump to accusing Isab of anything, but there had to be a cause and a reason for whatever had happened last night. But that was just it— Leia had no idea what had happened. All she had known upon stepping inside her home was the terrified looks on her babies' faces and the tear tracks running down their cheeks. As though she were afraid they would suddenly burst into such terrible cries again— though, she supposed she was— Leia craned her neck to check on Jacen, but the baby boy was content to rest his sleepy head on Mommy's chest. She took a mental breath of relief, patting his back as though to reassure the babe rather than herself.

"Hey," Nakia greeted as Han and Leia settled down to join their usual group. "How are you two?" Her greeting smile was more of a cautious grimace, eyes wide and acknowledging. "How was last night?"

Leia blinked. "Last night?"

Without looking up from her work, Himah told her and Han, "Isab never came in this morning. She's still at home with her kids."

Leia leaned forward, her curiosity peaking. "Did she say anything to any of you?"

The women traded a long look before Nakia turned back to Han and Leia. "First, you're going to tell us what happened last night that sent her into a frenzy."

"Bloah! We don't know! We came home to her pointing a vibroblade at the children. We tried talking to her, but we couldn't get a word of Basic out of her. What are we supposed to gather from that? Tell us. What did she say to you guys?"

Rewa shrugged. "Not a word of Basic. And nothing that made any sense."

Nakia shrugged. "I know her dialect just well enough to grasp basic sentences, but nothing she was saying made any sense."

"But you got something out of it," Han pressed.

The woman sighed. "She apologizes for her absence this morning, but she is concerned for her children's safety and her own. She said that she saw your children become possessed by evil spirits, and she did what she could to protect them and herself, but failed in banishing the evil spirits from your home."

Leia had been exposed to enough diverse cultures and faiths to reserve her judgments, and she only felt more confused than frustrated with this explanation. Even Alderaanian mountainous tribes had practiced dozens of variations on the concept of spirits and the living unliving. What bothered Leia, however, was that Isab must have seen something to make such a claim or be so put off; she didn't take Isab for the joking type, and there had to be a reason behind this.

"Well, that's pretty articulate for a rusty translation."

Nakia rolled her eyes. "Look, I wasn't there. I don't know what Isab really saw, but I would talk to her if I were you, assure her that the twins are fine."

"Of course. We'll let her know her concern was appreciated." Leia shot her gaze to Han, but he already had two hands up in surrender. "First thing after our work today."

Han had never thought he would ever be chosen to play the part of diplomat in any scenario, but Leia had insisted he be the one to check up on Isab— without the twins— and assure her that the babies were acting quite healthy and normal. From what he understood of the younger woman's frantic tirade in her native tongue, she was not yet prepared to take Han's words at face value and offered the credentials of several holy shamans from another village. Exhausted, with more than a bit of worry still eating at him, Han had returned home to collapse on the couch while Leia finished putting the twins down to sleep.

"We need another date night," he grumbled, an arm thrown across his eyes as he rolled over.

Leia poked him on the shoulder. "We just had a date night yesterday. We have twins, Han; we can't be too demanding of our willing babysitters." When he didn't get up, Leia poked him again, this time in the side. He swatted at her hand, and she responded with another poke. "Get up, flyboy. If you don't come to bed, you're sleeping out here by yourself."

He grunted, awkwardly flipping back up and struggling to his feet.

As she turned to head to their bedroom, Leia glanced over her shoulder at Han who was slow to follow. "Ooh, you better be careful there, dear. Don't you think you're a bit young to be getting so old already?"

"Hey! I'm up, I'm comin', Your Highnessness."

Leia turned back to face him, a mischievous grin playing on her bright lips. "Hurry up. We went to bed way too early last night, and we didn't get to finish date night."

"Coming!"

Long after clothes were discarded and the couple decided they'd reached the perfect end to their date night, Leia lay in Han's arms, hair strewn around her where she rested her head on his chest. She kept a hand pressed over his heart, listening and feeling for its strong and steady beat as its pace returned to normal. "How did your conversation with Isab go?"

"About as well as it sounded like Nakia's did."

"Mm," Leia grimaced. "So, I guess she's never babysitting again, is she?"

"I don't know what she really saw, but whatever happened scared the living daylights outta' her. Whatever it was, she's sold on this spooky ghosts idea."

Still, without any better a clue or answer, Leia merely shrugged. "We'll just give it time. It'll pass."

"You believe that?"

Leia smirked. "We know the twins aren't always perfect angels, and we still love them to death."

"True."

"I think we just need to let it go. Leave Isab to sort it out for herself. Jaina and Jacen seem to be fine."

"Yeah. Not gonna' lie, this whole thing's had me more worried about them than Isab."

"Me too. It scares me to think that maybe something did happen to them and we weren't there. What happened, what we would have done, gods know, but …" She sighed. "They're okay. They're perfectly healthy."

Han couldn't even bring himself to nod. He would agree as Jaina and Jacen both were quite healthy and had not acquired any odd behaviors, but something about the previous night felt off. No one had a clue what had happened, but something about it refused to leave Han alone, and he got the feeling that Leia was experiencing something similar.

Han would be home for a few more weeks before his next pickup and delivery off-planet was scheduled. Leia was immensely grateful for the time to have with him as well as his help in caring for Jaina and Jacen. He was gone less often than it seemed to Leia as his days far from home passed like weeks and weeks like months … But they had plenty of time to spend together as a family before he would have to be heading off again.

They spent most of the weekend in their home, hiding away from the rest of the village, soaking up every second of family time they could. Both of the twins seemed to be so close to speaking their first words that it was nearly torturous as the parents tried to coax them into saying 'mama' or 'papa'. As if just to taunt them further, Jaina made even more of her moaning sounds, clapping and grinning at Leia. They made a trip to the town market, Han and Leia dressed in another pair of disguises, this time as humans but with enough prosthetic latex and makeup to not invite questions. They kept the twins in a sling Leia wore, and they smiled and thanked all the passing gazers who complimented their gorgeous children.

"Can you imagine if they knew whose kids they were complimenting?" Han chuckled quietly in Leia's ear. She nearly shivered at the thought, responding, "I'd rather not think about that."

Following that thought, they were quick to finish their business in town, picking up fruits and vegetables to prepare for the twins, and headed straight home.

Leia put one of the more orange vegetables they'd bought into a small bowl and went to beating it into a puree. Han sat in the living room with the twins, playing with them, pushing toys into their laps and providing gleeful demonstrations. Leia smiled as she watched, head tilted in fond adoration. She stirred a mini spoon through the bowl, poured half its contents into a second bowl, and called for Han. "I hate to interrupt playtime, but dinner's ready."

Han strapped both twins into their highchairs, pulled their bibs over their heads, and took one of Leia's bowls from her. They didn't pick a baby to feed or recall which one they'd had the previous day, but simply took the nearest one without a thought and sat down before them. Leia ended up with Jaina who tended to be more vocal about her dislike of any food other than the one that came straight from Mommy. Leia had a feeling the solid, sweet cereal bits she and Han had found would be much more to Jaina's liking, but she preferred the baby get used to swallowing thicker foods before she choked on something more solid. She stirred the orange mush in the bowl, spooned out a small amount, and didn't let Jaina look too long before raising it to her mouth. She didn't force the spoon in, but introduced it to her lips, gently moving it along her pucker. "Mommy and Daddy found a new horrible vegetable to torture you with," she cooed to Han's amusement. "You probably won't like this one either, but it's healthy, and you need more vitamins." Finally, she prodded Jaina's lips open and teased the spoon's way in. Jaina began to fuss, her lips first puckering further in refusal. When Leia didn't surrender, she shook her head, one hand coming up to bat the offending utensil away. "Uh-uh. This is dinner. This is what you're eating tonight." Jaina's response was a half-grunt, half-cry, and Leia backed away, giving her a moment to recollect. She glanced to her side to see how Han was faring against Jacen, but their baby boy didn't seem to mind the new food as Han raised a spoonful to his lips and he reluctantly accepted. Leia returned her spoon to Jaina's lips, finally getting it in this time. Jaina took it only to immediately spit it back out. "I know it's gross, Jaya, but you need to eat. Unfortunately, this is what's for dinner." She used the spoon to wipe the orange mush off Jaina's chin and scooped it back directly into her mouth. Jaina seemed to swallow on accident and cried in frustration. But it was a success in Leia's book. Meanwhile, Han and Jacen were on their second spoon, but Leia tried to ignore that. Surely, Han would make this into a competition, and Leia was bent on getting Jaina to accept the spoon. "Mmm, yummy, Jaina. It's so yummy."

Jaina, however, was not in the mood for this game, and she slammed her tray with two hands. Quickly, Leia took the bowl out of reach. Jaina screeched, and Leia could have rolled her eyes. "We have to eat food. We don't play with it." Mother and daughter battled wills for several minutes longer before Han left the dining room to bathe Jacen. Han called for Leia from the bathroom, asking for a towel and the new soap they'd bought from the market just for the babies. Leia pointed her spoon at Jaina, an authoritative warning. "I'll be back for you," she promised before hurrying to help Han. But before she left, she set Jaina's bowl on the kitchen counter, far from the baby's reach.

She kept an ear open to listen to Jaina while she scoured through the groceries she and Han had left in the entryway. The new shampoo bottle was a small, pale pink container that had its own unique smell that could only be described as 'baby'. She found that and a small towel from the closet before running them to Han. When she got back, Jaina was right where she'd left her, now apparently patient as she waved her arms and looked up at Leia. However, the bowl of orange mush was no longer on the counter, but instead spilled over on the floor closer to the table. Leia sighed, bending to pick up the bowl. She held it up for Jaina to see and frowned.

"Oh!" Jaina cooed in her baby voice.

"Yeah, 'oh'. This must be your lucky day." She set the dirty bowl on Jaina's tray, half hoping that maybe Jaina would start licking out of it if she just let her have it for herself. She took a rag from the sink and got to cleaning up the sticky mess on the floor. Jaina threw her bowl off her chair. Leia set it back in front of her. Jaina threw it again. Patiently, Leia set it back. She threw it again, but when Leia was finished cleaning up the mess, there were at least splotches of the puree on Jaina's face and a dribble on the corner of her mouth. Leia called it another success.

Besides bathing Jaina, Leia decided she wasn't in the mood to clean any more messes, so she set Jaina's bowl on the table out of reach. "Of course, now you want it," she chastised her daughter in good humor. "But you don't plan on putting it in your mouth, do you?"

"Hey, Leia!" Han called once again from the refresher. "Is Jaina about ready for a bath?"

Bless Han if he still had enough patience in the day to do a second bath.

She stared down Jaina tiredly and called back, "She's all yours!"

Han returned from the refresher with a clean and wet Jacen who shivered in his towel. The father presented his child like a newborn heir, raising the baby boy before him high above the floor. "It took some secret magic, but the process was a success. I present to you … a clean baby."

Leia smiled, reaching to take their boy from Han's hands. "If getting Jacen clean took magic, Jaina may require some mystic Dathomirian sorcery."

Han surveyed his challenge for a long moment, then shrugged. "Challenge accepted. I specialize in the troublemakers."

"I'm glad one of us still has the patience for it."

Smirking, Han bent to leave a kiss atop Leia's head. "She'll get used to it. We already know Jaina likes to make it hard on us, but she picks stuff up quickly."

"I'm not frustrated with her," Leia tried to assure him. "I'm just— running low on patience for the day. I knew Jaina wasn't going to like it when I started weaning her."

"It's just 'cause she likes you so much." Leia smiled.

She dried off Jacen in the towel which was far too large for him, and she dressed him in a onesie with long sleeves for bedtime. Leia brought him with her to check on Han's progress with Jaina in the tub, and she found a quite clean child lying in the small basin Han had bought for the twins. He was teasing her with half of a soap bar, circling it over her head, then tapping her on the belly button or nose with it. Each time the slippery bar touched down, the infant would blink, both confused and surprised, reaching out to find the mysterious object and take it into her own hands.

It took a moment for Han to notice Leia had entered the refresher behind him, and he turned to grin up at her. "What do you think, Mommy? Does she look clean?"

"She looks like she could slip on carpet." Then to Jaina, carefully bending with Jacen still in her arms, she tickled her baby girl under her chin, and cooed, "Daddy did a good job, didn't he?"

To Jaina's disappointment, bathtime was now over, and Han set the soap bar in a little dish high out of her reach. But it was still in her sight, and Jaina's gaze was intense as it stuck on the soap bar and she calculated a plan to get it back.

"Bedtime?" Han asked.

Leia heartily agreed, "Bedtime. Then, Mommy and Daddy can have some quiet time together."

A light thud startled the two parents from even beginning to daydream what might happen once they put the babies to bed, and their heads snapped around to look for what may have fallen. Nothing appeared to have fallen, but before either Han or Leia could question then what the sound had been, the soap bar caught their eyes as it slowly began to levitate from its dish and struggle in midair.

If she were honest, Leia felt a twinge of familiarity before the logical part of her mind snapped into action and she realized that something was clearly wrong. On par with her instincts, she hugged Jacen closer to herself, taking a step back just as Han swept out an arm to keep her back. In the same instant, they both saw Jaina, her face red and eyes glazed over in concentration and effort as her stare seemed to follow the object. Just as soon as the soap bar had risen above the dish, however, it awkwardly tottered a centi or two to the side before suddenly breaking free of an invisible grip and splashed into the tub of water. Jaina blinked and her face cleared for a moment before she erupted into tears.

"Han …" It was the only sound Leia could make as the whole 'fresher seemed to burst into chaos. Jaina and Jacen were both crying, red faces dripping tears, screaming not in discontent but fear. Han didn't seem to have any words either, and was occupying himself with trying to retrieve the bar of soap from the bath, muttering curses under his breath each time the bar slipped between his hands. When he finally got it, he set it carefully in its dish, reaching to grab Jaina and quickly take her out of the bath. She was still screaming, something like fear written on her face. Han forgot the towel for her, clutching the dripping baby to himself. He held her close, cradled her head against his chest as though he was protecting her from something.

Perhaps, it was because now they both understood. After seeing that— no other possibility dared cross their minds. While it seemed so wrong, made no sense, it wasn't so new to them. In fact, they were both quite used to seeing displays of such alien power like that. From their friend Luke.

Shaking off her raw confusion, Leia quickly turned to follow Han to the nursery. The father moved about the room, grabbing clothes for the still screaming babe, his footsteps heavy and uneven. He fumbled through drawers, tossed aside diapers and blankets in his search for who even knew what. "Han," Leia spoke gently. She set Jacen down in his crib, whispered a comforting 'goodnight', and eased han away from the dresser. In seconds, she found a suitable onesie for Jaina to wear to bed and gently pulled her flailing arms and legs into the piece of clothing. Still screaming, Leia picked her back up, cradled Jaina's head to her chest. "It's okay, Jaya; it's okay. Mama's here. Mama's got you." She began rocking from foot to foot, a steady and gentle rhythm as she paced the nursery room. She kissed her child on her temple, wiping at the baby's tears with her thumb. She sang her a lullaby, two, three, never faltered in her comforting whispers until Jaina's cries turned to hiccups, then to soft, tired moans. Rather than setting her down in the crib with Jacen, she glanced at Han, flicked her gaze to Jacen and nodded once, and brought Jaina to the crib in her and Han's room. Han settled Jacen across the mattress from his sister. They were both calm now, no evidence of their previous fright upon their restful forms.

Leia pulled the crib closer to her side of the bed, reached in to caress her daughter's cheek. Han clambered into bed beside her, releasing a tired sigh. He was shocked, Leia understood, and likely nothing more. He was startled by what they had just witnessed, but a new fear was sewn deep into Leia's consciousness, something she knew would now keep her up at night. Han was coping with shock, turning the possibilities in his head as he automatically related this scenario to the only other thing either of them could compare it to: Luke. The Force. Jedi Luke and his mystic powers which were beyond either Han or Leia's understanding. All either of them knew was that he could use it to lift things without his hands, or find people without looking, or tell whether Leia had had a good day or bad without reading her face. Such a foreign concept it was, something so beyond them that they could never have seen it as potentially being part of their lives. To Han, he was just grasping onto a strange reality, considering the odds that one of his kids could end up with the same supernatural powers as his best friend Luke.

But before she could even wholly grasp the concept of one of her children having the same powers as her friend Luke did, reality hit her first, a nightmare she couldn't shake. "This isn't good," she muttered, a deep sadness and fear accompanying her words. "This isn't good, Han. What are we going to do?"

"Do—? Heck! How should I know? You think it was Luke's Force or whatever?"

"What else could it have been?"

He dragged a hand down his face, taking his time to search for words. "Fierfek, Leia. I can't believe— I don't even know. I don't get Luke's Force stuff or how it all works, but how does our kid end up with that stuff? Our kid?"

Leia didn't have an answer to that, though she could hardly think past her fear to even consider the odds that one of their children had the same supernatural abilities as one of their closest friends. In retrospect, she supposed her first thoughts should have gone back to Luke; he was the only living Jedi they knew— the only person they knew who had the Force, for that matter. Instead, her thoughts were stuck on old memories of her private lessons with tutors when she was just a young girl on Alderaan. Her education growing up had been nothing if not unique— even among the education her peers in the political sphere would have been given. She'd learned all the usual things, but her father had seen to it that her education— well, that it wouldn't pass the Empire's learning standards. Her political and diplomatic lessons had included examples of dead nobles and politicians from across the galaxy whose ideas had opposed those of the Empire's. Her self-defense training had included tactics taught by a mysterious man who had seemed to want Leia to know that he had been a Jedi— before he'd been killed. Even her history lessons had been what the Empire would call "tainted" (what an ironic statement that was!) with tales of the Old Republic and its heroes who were then no more than myth.

The Jedi. The Empire's— no, the Emperor's greatest enemy. Up to the galaxy's introduction to Luke Skywalker, it had been believed that they were all dead. Slaughtered, her father had told her in an embittered tone with glassy eyes, in a galaxy-wide massacre ordered by the Emperor himself. Order 66 had been its designation, Leia recalled, and it had commanded the death of all Jedi. From the ancient and wise masters of the Force to the most innocent younglings. The Emperor and Darth Vader cared for neither. Luke could have missed the main reactor when flashing through the Death Star and he would still be the Empire's most wanted criminal. He could still be a dreaming moisture farmer stuck on Tatooine and Empire would have its strongest fleets seeking out the harmless boy.

And while Order 66 had been given and carried out years ago, numerous massacres had broken out across the galaxy upon countless rumors of sentient beings who possessed the abilities of the Force. Some maybe had. Most, it had always seemed, hadn't.

The Force was supposed to be a myth. Supposed to have died out, be nothing more than a legend old grandparents told their grandchildren in hushed whispers in the dead of night by soft candlelight. The Force was a threat to the Empire, Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, to their chokehold on the galaxy's neck. Even sweet Luke. Sweet Luke who Leia struggled to imagine swatting a Meelan fly dead.

"Han," Leia's voice trembled, only betraying an ounce of the quaking fear she felt. She peered into the twins' crib, saw that Jaina's eyes had closed and she was already falling deep into sleep. She stroked her rosy cheek, savoring the touch of her baby's soft face. "They'd kill her. If anyone found out."

Han didn't respond for a moment, and Leia was so immersed in the sight of her daughter that she didn't look back for his response. "Sweetheart, no one here is gonna' hurt her. Rewa and Nakia and all of them love the twins! No one's gonna' turn their backs on us just 'cause one of our kids has the Force."

"I don't think they would betray us either, but, Han, if this gets out—!"

"Why would it?"

"What if something like this happens again? How do we explain this when it happens in town? Just because Reecee is partial to the Rebellion doesn't mean everyone on Reecee is. What if a holorecorder catches something—?"

"Leia, you're going down quite a slippery slope. What are the odds—?"

Leia raised a brow. "Don't tell me the odds."

Han froze, caught off-guard, then slumped. "Alright. So, we don't take Jaina out into town."

"That's it? Han, the Empire sends troops out looking for Force-sensitives. If the wrong person saw—" Leia broke herself off, sudden understanding hitting her. "Isab saw. Jaina must have had an episode like this when Isab was babysitting. That's what Isab saw!"

That seemed to put Han on the same page as her, and Leia was only slightly relieved when she saw the same horror she felt come to reflect in his eyes. "She's done it more than once," he echoed; Leia would have found his blatant expression of dumbfoundedness amusing if the circumstances were any different. But the circumstances were what they were, and Leia felt little to no amusement regarding Han's slack-jawed expression— only disheartenment and cold fear.

From Han's lips fell a soft-spoken, "Kriff," and Leia's resolve crumbled and blew away like Tatooine sand.