I'm not sure where this come from, and Leia technically isn't in it, but I think it counts as Han/Leia. Anyway, it's my favorite in this collection.

The Long Year

"Stop pretending you're okay, cause I know you're not."

It was getting to the part with her mother's big emotional address and whatnot when he started noticing that she was white-knuckling through the service, or white-knuckling as much as a nine-year-old can, which is to say she looked the same mixed-up way she always did – features so small and girlish, expression so world-weary. Wispy ash-blonde hair – blonde as hell, some other guy you wanna tell me about princess?– pulled back in those neat double buns, for once out of her face so he could see her expression pretty clearly. Something like the kid version of enduring, of pushing through.

Right around when the sermon ended and Leia got up – got up in that black lace dress with its black lace hood up, plunging her drawn features into shadow, the one she wore every year, the one hanging a little loose on her after this long year – he got up too, and he took the kid a little rough by her arm and shuffled her out the door after brief eye contact with his wife, didn't say a word until they were in the little field outside the temple, next to the pond with the bright blue fish that had delighted her as a toddler – her ma and her people all in black, murmuring and remembering in low tones, while the baby squealed daddy! daddy! bwue!Sort of a lucky way to occupy himself, then, saying yeah lady, they're blue alright, when he didn't know what to say to the ever-shrinking population of displaced Alderaanians gathered in anniversary of the day he met his wife. Of the worst day of their life, her life.

Now the baby wasn't a baby though, was too big to be caught calling out blue fish!with glee, and instead just watched them a bit and idly used her mind to make the blades of grass around the pond sway. Her eyes looked glassy, out of it. Broke his heart, so he tried to bait her by theatrically kicking off his socks and shoes.

"Sort of stuffy in there," he pronounced, leaning back in the grass.

"Mama's gonna be mad," she said in response, and she made the heels of his discarded dress shoes click together once, twice, three times like in that story Leia told her, some children's book from Alderaan all lost now. Something about clicking your heels and returning to where you're from. Something Leia could never do. "We're missing her part."

"You looked like you needed some air. Don't worry, she'll forgive us."

"She won't be mad at me,Daddy. I didn't doit."

"Ah, well, you don't need to protect me."

"Good, 'cause I won't," she said, frowning and petulant. But she did inch out of her dress shoes, then wiggle out of her stockings. She only wore black this one day of the year and he always hated it – made her look too old, like the kids he knew growing up, the ones who'd seen too much. And they'd worked so hard to make sure she didn't see too much.

"You gonna tell me what's wrong?"

"Nothin'," she said, rubbing her forehead. "Tired."

He sighed. "Yeah. M'tired too." Last night had been trying, real trying, to say the least – night before Remembrance always was. Even before they were together he remembered this – how one year he found her drinking and crying, maybe that first year? On Hoth it had been hiding in some closet all fetal – Hoth was a bad year. This year was shaping up to be a bad year.

Leia'd had more nightmares than she usually did nowadays, in the weeks leading up, they'd had the fight about sleeping pills they always did (they gave her unyielding dreamless sleeps but they also left her groggy and usually caused oversleeping and he always suspected she was afraid of pills anyway), the house had been on edge. And then last night the terrors had been especially terrific, the ones that were more flashback than anything else, vivid and intense, that left her screaming for long moments before he could wake her and then made her zombie-like and slick and scared and girlish, very young, very small. Vomiting, shaking, thinking him someone else, hating touch. The nightmares had seeped into the Force-sensitive kid's mind apparently, and the screaming woke her up too, because then shewas screaming and crying and begging to know that her mam was okay. Saying where's Mamaand I need Mama to lie with me right now! That old phrase from the year at five when she insisted someone lie beside her each night until she fell asleep. I need Mama, where's Mama?Grabbing him, her small hands on either side of his face. Something very bad is going to happen to Mama and I'm scared, something very bad is going to happen! Daddy you have to do something

!

The kid who needed to see her and the wife who couldn't bear the idea of being seen trembling and dissociating and sticky with sick and sweat. And him, figuring showing Mae Leia curled up over the sani weeping would not reassure her that her mam was fine, would do the opposite. Moving between the two and aching at every I just gotta go check on her, sweetheart, okay, I'll be back in a second.Same words directed at them both in separate rooms, too tired to tease out different ways of coping – you're alright, you're safe.

Mae shrugged. "Sleep is for the weak."

He actually gaped at her. "The hell told you that?"

"Mama told you that, I heard her."

"Yeah, well, your mam's crazy anyway," he said, playfully bumping her shoulder, but the look Mae gave him was foul and furious and so fuckin' sad.

"She's notcrazy!" Blades of grass splintering into shreds. "That's meanand wrongand it's a lie. Don't be a liar,Daddy."

He held his hands up in apology immediately, and her mind released the grass. "I was just joking, sweetheart. Don't worry. I was only kidding around."

"Well don't, I don't likeit."

"Alright lady, enough of that. You're gonna tell me what's bothering you – stop pretending you're okay, cause I know you're not. Alright? Can't fool me."

She bit her lip and he could see it was trembling and that broke him too – "Mama's sad is giving me a headache," Mae finally confessed in a low whisper.

He frowned deeply. "Headache how? Headache like here…" Han gestured to his forehead – "Or headache like here?" He made a small motion as though miming running his hand through his hair, his palm hovering above his head. Weird kid sign language they'd developed to talk about the Force when she was so small – Leia saying in her firm, clear, not-even-thirty-but-mothering-a-toddler voice tell me how it hurts Maemae, does it hurt like here or here?The three-year-old swooping her hand in the strange little motion over and over and over through her tears and Leia gathering her up in her arms, whispering so soft in her ear – okay baby, I'll just take a look, okay?Fucking – entering their daughter's head to make it okay – these strangest things part of his life – this pain he couldn't alleviate, boundary he couldn't breach, bond he couldn't break into––

Mae did the motion. "Here," she said to her lap. "It hurts."

He frowned but then tried to hide how deeply he was frowning. "Thought that didn't happen so much anymore? That your uncle gave you some good tricks and all, for blocking – blocking that out?"

"Yeah, but today's the day when all the bad stuff happened so I think it's bad because she's extra sad and all. So."

She looked so impossibly vulnerable, with those rounded porcelain baby features, that wispy hair Leia had to wrestle into intricate Alderaanian updos each morning. Faerie-hair,she'd tease, mock-annoyed. Just slips right out of my grasp!That solemn face.

So solemn – fuck– and this was exactly why this year had been so hard, because all of the sudden it was like they couldn't protect her from anything, even when they were living someplace remote as hell for Leia's work there was the damn holonet, there were Leia's reports on goddamn sex traffickinglittered all over the place, there were death-threats in her mam's inbox and books that told every damn thing, what the hellwere they teaching in these crappy local schools and who were these rough-lookin' local kids she spent her days with, and which one had planted the information that caused his daughter to come home and ask why was mama tortured and also what's torture?Showed her some profile on him posted somewhere 'cause they thought it cool her family's famous – Daddy, why were you an Imp? And was Uncle Chewie really someone's slave?

He swallowed hard. "This is a hard part of the year for your mam."

"Yeah, I know."

"But that's why she's lucky to have you. Because you make her real happy. You know that, right?"

"Yeah, I know." She kicked her legs idly – skinny, bug-bitten, scratched from tree-climbing, all the stuff that had to be hidden by stockings for this one solemn day. "And you're lucky to have me 'cause I'm a good first mate and good at helping and stuff."

"Yeah…" he said slowly, frowning as he put that together – yes, she was, but not at – managing her mother, he didn't want her to think Leia was someone who needed to be managed, who the two of them took care of or something – "But that's why you're the first mate and not the captain, y'know. 'Cause you're just helping, lady.The main responsibilities ain't yours, alright? You understand that?"

"Only 'cause you won't let me steer or pull any of the biggest levers," she said sourly and he exhaled deeply, like yeah, alright, let's talk about flying itself, rather than using it as some metaphor for your mam's trauma. "S'not fair."

"Yeah, well, that's 'cause you're the kid and I'm the grown-up. So I do the heavy-lifting around here, alright? Your mama and me," he added, just in case maybe she wassubconsciously thinking in terms of some metaphor – "We do the heavy-lifting in this family."

"I guess…" Mae mumbled, kicking her feet but wearing a smile behind her scowl.

He jabbed a finger at her, his tone mock-serious. "Your job is just to be a kid. You got that?"

She gave him a wry salute but instead of being amused he just thought in wonder when did she get so big, that she could be wry? "Yes sir."

That's all for now – I'll post another collection when I finish this next bout of prompts. I typically post one or two a week on my Tumblr, so find me under the same username for more.