Ready

"I'm pregnant."

She wasn't the type to talk to ghosts (that was her brother) or pray to spirits – her religious sensibilities were less the product of sincere belief and more the result of ingrained childhood education – she found ritual and holy things a bit of a drag. Or that was the cavalier way of putting it, and Leia was forever leaning into the cavalier way of putting the things that made her especially anxious or angry or both.

They were a bit of a drag because she'd learned long ago – well, five years ago to be precise – that to place too much emotional significance in any object or place, any material thing, was to set yourself up to fail. She disliked gifts for this reason, and liked wearing issued outfits only for it as well. Didn't need her heart broken by the pain of losing a favorite, flattering skirt. (Or favorite ship – didn't Han realize that every time he fell deeper in love with this ridiculous hunk of metal he was putting his heart just a bit more on the line?) She had no special things, or special places, anymore and in this way she was a little bit more protected.

But. Even someone as deliberately unsentimental and unspiritual as her had to admit that it meant something to pass, even just for a half hour or so, this particular collection of asteroids and dust. That they were flying near what had been Alderaan on thisday of all days was an uncomfortable, emotional coincidence. Or was it? Maybe there was a reason she'd suddenly felt like she couldn't keep it in any longer – had it been because she was vulnerable and on edge knowing that they would be near home? That the ash of everyone she ever knew might be perversely spraying up against the Falcon – no, no, she couldn't think that way––

She'd meant to tell Han when they were back on Home One, when they had time, when she could perfectly choreograph this revelation. It had been hideously awful to figure it out with a crappy disposable test on a distant planet and it had left her reeling and she wasn't going to do that to him when they still had to navigate back. And yet. After lurching into the first jump of hyper when he'd ask "Y'okay?" like he always did,he always asked this because she was known to get nauseous, she should've anticipatedit, she'd blurted it out: that she was pregnant, that she was panicking, that she loved him, that she was sorry.

Sorry? Don't be sorry – (he'd said, appearing momentarily anchored by his need to soothe her before actually facing the reality of what she'd said,) Don't be sorry, Kriff Leia, of all things – don't be sorry––

When they were coming up on Alderaan she told him she needed a moment alone, and he let her take it, kissing her before she drifted to a turret, her private place of choice. She looked out into the bright, glittering world outside their tiny, rusty home. Began to see space rock in the distance, debris – was that it? Was that – that was it? Could that be it, there, that dust, that ash? Her mother, her best friend, the peeling white dresser in her childhood bedroom––

She wasn't sentimental and she wasn't spiritual and she had never done something like this, before – talked to them, tried to talk to them, really – Luke was forever imagining the advice his aunt might give but Leia kept her memories of her family locked firmly in her past. And yet, as her fingers rattled against the bracing of the window she found herself whimpering and the voice in her head calling out, Mama, I'm pregnant. Mama, I'm pregnant. Come back to me please, what do I do?

What do I do, for nausea? What do I do, to be a mother? How do I give someone what I spent my whole life unknowingly receiving from you?

She'd never imagined this conversation – was pretty firm on not wanting children, or otherwise assumed it was at least a decade off – they'd died when she was nineteen, she'd never––

What would her mother say? My darling, am I really that old? Surely I'm too young to be a grandmother!

And hug her – embrace her – maybe cry, her mother did happy-cry sometimes at things like this – she never talked to her mother about women's things, not since her first period – learned a lot of what she knew from sneaking copies of Cosmologyand consumingMadame Alekcandra's sex advice column – maybe that would've changed, maybe her mother would've told her secret things about what it meant to be a woman, have a child, things she never got to learn––

Mama I'm pregnant. Mama, you're going to be a grandmother. Mama the father? He's so, so good. You'd like him, he's funny, he's handsome and smart. He'll never leave me. He'll be such a good father.

Would her mother have stayed with them? Her mother's mother had stayed with them for the first month of her life, she knew – helping, advising, keeping company. And Leia's father had snuck out of meetings claiming important calls to play with her, feed her, holding her as an infant. Marvel, love her…

Daddy I'm pregnant, going to be married I think. Daddy you'd love him – he's wickedly smart and he doesn't take shit. Perceptive and sly and noble, righteous, even though he likes to act like he isn't – treats everyone the same, no matter their status. He looks after me, admires me, thinks I'm smart like you did, calls me the same thing – brilliant, brilliant, "fuckin' brilliant." My brother will walk me, I think – you know about him, don't you? Knew about him. He'll do it instead of you? I'm sorry, I'm sorry…

And I can see you holding a – my – our – baby – tickling her, making her laugh, beaming. Can see you being overjoyed – with Mam, who'd be laughing, delighted, making me flush. Telling me to ease up, take a nap, don't worry – don't worry, Lelila, we've got her, yes we do. Go rest, shoo.

My life, not for the first time, feels like two neat halves. How can it be possible for me to have a child who never knows you? How can it be possible for you to never know my child?

"Oh," she said aloud as they lurched closer to the debris. "Oh, is that you?"

Han was sitting in the cockpit, trying to focus on the tricky navigational turns, but his mind was racing. 'Switch with me, Chewie," he said, trying to keep his voice easy, "I can't focus right." They were doing the thing they often did when Han and Leia were dealing with something serious as a couple while in these close quarters – which was to say, pretending that Chewie hadn't heard every word of their conversation. Chewie knew his friend and knew Han would tell him directly when he was ready to talk, didn't mind giving him his space.

Chewie grunted his ascent and the two switched spots, Han taking the lower-key co-pilot responsibilities and letting Chewie do the steering. Leia was going to have a baby. His baby. They were going to have a baby together. Him and Leia – him and his best friend. (Sorry pal, he thought lightly in Chewie's direction. She's just too fuckin' brilliant.)

He didn't know what she was doing up in the turret but he could guess – she'd had that look she got when she was thinking about home. Private and vulnerable and suddenly nineteen. He couldn't begin to guess how she was feeling – she'd grown up surrounded by family, endless cousins and aunts she was always dropping into conversation by accident, her face falling when he'd have to ask her to remind him about. And now – one long-lost twin brother, one smuggler boyfriend, one Wookiee. And a baby, he corrected himself with a surprising amount of emotion – quiet inside her, who'd never know her parents, her family, her home.

She's going to have a baby,he thought in the general direction of the swirling, dangerous collision of rock outside. Peaceful Alderaan, turned into a hazard for pilots and their pregnant princesses – a fucked up kind of irony. Our baby – and she's going to be so, so good. We're going to be good. We're going to do it right.

We're going to do it right,he thought, directing his thoughts more specifically on what he knew of her parents. We've been through a lot together, and we know what – support means. Responsibility means. She wants to make you proud. And she will.

And I'll do my best –he sighed, breathing heavily – 'cause I know it's probably hard to trust your daughter, you know, with a guy you haven't met who's ten years older than her and uh, not royalty, to say the least – but I know what it's like to be on my own and see a mom on her own and I won't let that happen to her. Them.

You raised her to be so damn brave and self-reliant and strong – how did youdo that? Could you maybe let us in on the secret, if you get the chance?

This scruffy little family is a lot smaller but we'll love them enough for everyone – promise – look after them and support them and give them whatever they need to be brilliant. Can you let me in on how to raise a kid to be so incredibly brilliant? So fucking kind?

Won't say I'll look after her 'cause she'll look after herself. And I'm not her protector, we're partners. Won't say I'll stand by her because I'll do a helluva lot more than just not bail – who is it anyway, who made it so that all a dad is supposed to do is just stick around, and that's enough? But I dunno – somewhere in this spinning, ugly debris was something you built that helped her grow up into someone so good. So I'll say I'll do my best to build that. I can build things. That I can do.

His thoughts were interrupted by Chewie reminding him that they had to make the jump to hyper. He called as much to Leia.

"That okay, princess? You okay to go?"

You okay to leave this place, to lurch into this whole new life spilling out before us?

She didn't call back, but in a moment she was beside him.

"Yes," she said, looking at him and taking a deep breath and giving him a small smile. "Yes, I'm ready."

I honestly have so many pieces ft. Leia saying "I'm pregnant" – check out Everybody's, Gravity, and Orbit for more.