Title is from Florence and the Machine's "Shake It Out."

All of the ghouls come out to play

Nobody was really certain how and when the doll had first arrived. It was one of the steady stream of gifts from diplomats and well-wishers from around the galaxy that had flooded Leia's office and the Alderaanian embassy as soon as news had broken of an Organa-Solo baby on the way. Like the others, it had been taken through a rigorous security check and vetted by members of Leia's social staff before being added to the group of gifts for Leia and Han to review. Most of the gifts would go to the Alderaanian diaspora, to a museum, or to support one of several other causes Leia and Han were known to champion.

There was just so much; even Leia had been overwhelmed by it all, and Han's mind was continually blown by the idea that beings he'd never met were sending incredibly expensive (and at times, ridiculous) items for their future baby.

(Frankly, the thought that such a baby existed at all, or that he got to wake up most mornings next to Her Worship, that this was his life, already kind of blew Han's mind sometimes. So the daily arrival of jewel-studded baby rattles and certificates confirming ownership of a pair of pet fathiers was extra wild.)

He'd first noticed the doll because Leia had audibly gasped upon opening the box.

"Goddess," she'd said quietly, gently lifting an extremely lifelike toddler-sized doll from the wrapping. Upon closer inspection, Han had seen that it was dressed in an outfit that even he easily recognized as traditional Alderaanian.

The doll talked, too: "Mama" and "Papa" and a few other simple Alderaani phrases. Han wasn't exactly keen on the idea of a talking doll, but the security folks had triple- and quadruple-checked the thing to make sure it wasn't secretly some kind of surveillance or assassin droid or other security risk, and Leia had been uncharacteristically soft on the idea of keeping it. So it had gone directly to the small pile of gifts that came home to their apartment.

"I had one just like this when I was a little girl," Leia had said quietly as she'd roamed the nursery-in-progress, trying to find a good spot for it. "I'd forgotten all about it, until now."

At first she'd put it inside the hand-carved toy chest from the Naboo artisans, but later Han saw it sitting on top of the chest.

Okay, it was cute. Very cute. And Han loved the idea of Leia regaining something from her childhood, especially seeing as her childhood seemed well worth remembering and there was so little of it actually left. He wanted their kid to have that, wanted her to have that.

It was just…maybe it was the talking, or the watchful eyes that popped open when the doll was upright but fell closed when you laid it down. Whatever it was, there was something about that doll that creeped Han the hell out.

He tried to ignore it at first, mostly because it felt fucking ridiculous to be freaked out by a damn toy, but also because Leia clearly loved the doll so much. But as he helped Leia paint the walls and put up shelves and arrange furniture in the nursery, he kept getting the feeling he was being watched. And every time he looked up, there was that doll—that doll with eerily Leia-like eyes—looking at him, like it could see through him.

Like it was judging him.

So the next time he came in to work on the nursery, he decided it wouldn't hurt if the doll was just…put away. He carefully placed it in the toy chest, then went on with putting together the gliding rocker Carlist had found for them.

Leia came in soon after, and he interrupted his work to listen to her rant about the officious Senator from Scipio who was holding up their latest series of hearings with his constant pointless digressions.

"At this rate, our daughter will be walking before this treaty gets ratified," she complained.

Han's ears perked up. "Daughter?" he asked with interest. He quickly abandoned his tools to move over to Leia, who had been pacing around near the crib as she talked.

Leia smiled, looking a bit sheepish. "Yeah. Sorry, I was going to mention that, I just found out myself."

"Found out?" Han was trying to respect her boundaries—Leia didn't always like to be touched, especially now that she was pregnant—but he was really tempted to just hold her.

Another sheepish, almost shy look. "She, uh, told me."

And with that, Leia pulled Han toward her, and he kissed her tenderly and put a hand to her waist. This woman. Mind-blowing.

"Force thing?" he asked. He'd gotten a lot more comfortable with the Force over the last few years; he'd had to, if he was going to be there for Leia and Luke. Or for his and Leia's kid, for that matter, especially if she—she!—was using the Force to communicate with Leia.

"Force thing," Leia confirmed, and he kissed her again.

Only after Han had returned to his work did he notice the doll sitting atop the toy chest, staring at him again. Huh, Leia must have gotten it back out.

After the glider was put together, Han found that he tended to avoid spending time in the baby's room. It wasn't like he never went in there; when Leia was home, they spent time in there together all the time, arranging the diaper station or hanging pictures or whatnot. He just had a funny feeling about going in there alone. And it wasn't because he was afraid of being a father, or thinking about the very different childhood he'd had compared to Leia's, or any of that stuff that Chewie probably would have diagnosed him with, had he been here. He just—he didn't need to go in there, so he didn't.

The first time the doll appeared at the kitchen table, Han jumped back and made a very un-Han-like yelp.

"Kriffing hells!" he yelled, and then instantly remembered how Leia had said they should probably start watching their language now, so they didn't raise a child who said Alderaani or Corellian or Huttese curse words as her first sentence. Of course, nobody was here right now to hear him curse.

But how the fuck—

Leia. It had to be Leia, fucking with him. Han didn't think he'd told her about his uneasiness with the doll, but between the Force and the fact that she knew him better than just about any other being in the galaxy, she'd probably figured it out. She wasn't above having a little fun with him, and the idea that former ruthless mercenary smuggler Han Solo was unnerved by a godsdamned doll would probably be very entertaining to her.

"Good one, Your Worship," he said wryly, and took the doll back to the nursery.

But the doll started appearing in other places around the apartment: poised next to the holo when Han sat down to watch a smashball game; at the kitchen table, again; next to the kaffe machine in the kitchen; on the counter in the 'fresher. Each time, Han was more startled than the last, but each time he vowed that Leia was not going to get the best of him in this creepy little game of hers. Although this was getting to be a bit much, even for her.

And the doll watched him, like it saw everything.

One night, Han was in the 'fresher doing his final preparations for bed when he heard Leia bellowing at him from another room.

"HAN SOLO!"

Oh fuck, what had he done now?

(They'd been discussing baby names, and considering what to give the baby as a middle name, although their running joke was that middle names primarily existed as something for an adult to call you when you were in deep trouble.

"Must be why I don't have one," he'd joked. "You yell the last name right, I already know I'm in trouble.")

He followed Leia's voice to the nursery, where he found her rifling through the toy chest. She looked up, murder on her face.

"Where did you put that fucking doll?" she demanded.

It took him a moment to process that. "What?"

"It was maybe a little funny the first couple of times, but this is creeping me out. This is mean, Han," she scolded him, clearly livid at whatever it was she thought he'd done.

"I didn't do anything!" He hadn't! What the hells was she even talking about?

"So help me, if I find that fucking doll at my dressing table again, I'm going to completely lose my shit and you're gonna sleep on the Falcon," she continued.

Han stopped short. "I…did not—" For a split second, he still thought Leia might be fucking with him, but…no. Leia was dead serious.

"I swear, I haven't touched—" he began. "Wait, you haven't been moving that doll?"

Leia's face immediately dropped its angry look and exchanged it for confusion. "What? No. And you haven't…"

"No."

"I thought you were teasing me," she said. "Like an All Hallows prank."

"Yeah, same," Han said, chuckling a bit at their misunderstanding. But as the implication of that dawned on him, his eyes narrowed. "But that means—wait, Leia!"

Han was amazed at how fast 30-weeks-pregnant Leia had managed to stand up and reach the door; he'd barely had time to turn around and follow her before she was halfway down the hall.

Sure enough, the doll was again perched on Leia's dressing table in their bedroom, which creeped Han out even though he'd known to expect it this time. And he couldn't be certain—it happened quickly— but he could swear for a split second he saw it move as he came back with his blaster.

Han was vaguely aware of how ridiculous this probably looked, pointing a weapon at a doll, but Leia was doing it as well, so it felt slightly less weird. He wasn't sure where she'd gotten that blaster so quickly, but that was a conversation for another time.

"Mama," the doll said, in its Alderaanian accent, and then said the Alderaani phrase for "I love you."

Oh, hells, no. Han was ready to throw down with whomever had decided to exploit the culture of Leia's fucking dead planet to plant this assassin/spy/bug/whatever the fuck this was.

Leia kept her blaster aimed on the thing, but Han saw her close her eyes. She'd been doing a bit of Force practice with Luke recently, just baby steps. Sometimes closing her eyes improved her focus.

Her eyes flew open, and the doll went flying against the wall. Leia held it there, suspended.

"Mama," it repeated.

"Han," Leia said with a deadly calm voice. She was angry, but it wasn't directed at him. "Can you please get my comm and call Luke?"

Han reluctantly lowered his blaster long enough to find Leia's commlink on the bedside table, punch in Luke's code, and hand it to her.

She must have gotten Luke's outgoing message, because she paused before saying, "Luke. Could you please come over as soon as you get this."

Again with that calm, extremely controlled voice. If you heard this tone from Leia on Echo Base, it meant you had seriously fucked up, and she was seconds away from eviscerating you.

"I need you," Leia continued in the same tone, "to get your fucking FATHER'S Force ghost OUT of our FUCKING APARTMENT!"

"The doll is VADER?" Han yelled, and pointed his blaster at it again.

"Anakin," Leia corrected wearily, having hung up the comm, "and he's possessing the doll. The doll is innocent."

"The doll is fucking creepy," Han said.

"Still," Leia said. "Don't shoot it."

It really was a shame that pregnant people were not supposed to drink alcohol, because Han was fairly certain everyone in the apartment could use a few belts of whiskey right about now, including the non-formerly-evil Force ghost who had dropped by to help out.

Han had gotten Leia out of the bedroom soon after Luke had arrived. She'd continued her policy of flat out refusing to speak to Anakin Skywalker's Force ghost, even to yell at him, and after about thirty seconds of watching his brother-in-law argue with the doll, Han decided it was time to take Leia to the kitchen for a soothing cup of tea.

He also reminded himself to make sure he never, ever made Luke Skywalker that angry. Leia's anger could be pretty lethal, but…fucking hells. The Kid, normally one of the calmest, most laid-back beings in the galaxy, had exploded.

They could still hear Luke yelling at Anakin's ghost from down the hall. And this was after old man Kenobi's Force ghost had shown up to try to calm shit down. (Hearing "Anakin! " in a Coruscanti accent that most definitely did not belong to anyone else in the house had made Han draw his blaster again, and had almost made him spill Kashyyyk Calmer Tea all over his damned self.)

Han couldn't hear everything Luke was saying, but it sounded like he was really on a roll.

"Do you know how long it took me to get Leia to agree to do anything with the Force because of you?"

"I'm pretty sure 'I don't want to see or speak with him, ever' doesn't contain any loopholes. Definitely not any 'maybe I should haunt a doll from Alderaan to spy on Leia and her baby' sort of loopholes."

"I've seen some of her nightmares, Father. You're lucky I still talk to you."

"Father, you tortured him, froze him in carbonite, and gave him to one of Jabba's bounty hunters! I don't think he gives a shit that you're impressed with the Falcon."

"Yeah, I'll be sure to tell Leia how proud you are that she killed him. Right."

After the yelling had died down, Obi-Wan's Force ghost emerged from the bedroom, followed shortly by Luke, who was carrying the doll. Before Han could react, Luke had shoved the doll into his arms.

"The fuck? I don't want this!" Han said, briefly juggling it as if Luke had handed him a red-hot tuber instead of a toy, then flinging it back at Luke.

Luke then tried to give the doll to Leia.

"She doesn't fucking want it either!" Han insisted.

Leia neither confirmed nor denied that statement, but looked at the doll in Luke's outstretched hands and then back at Luke.

"Is he out?" she asked.

Luke scowled slightly. "He's out."

"Fine," Leia said, and took back the doll.

The upside of having a pregnant person in the house was that they had gotten used to stocking an ample supply of treats. They might not be able to have a stiff drink, but Han had fixed up each of the living beings with a bowl of ice cream.

Leia had already finished hers and had begun pacing, the doll still tucked under one arm. "I still don't understand," she said. "What in the nine Corellian hells was he even trying to do?"

Luke and Obi-Wan both made a similar gesture, pinching the bridge of their noses, as if the question itself was giving each of them a headache. Or perhaps Luke just had brain freeze.

"I am very sorry, Leia," Obi-Wan said gently. "I believe he just wanted to observe you and your new family, your life. Without disturbing you, as he knows you do not wish to speak with him." He shook his head. "I realize that in itself is incredibly disturbing. And I won't pretend to excuse it."

Maybe the old man should've been the twins' father. Instead of him.

Luke had been pretty quiet, but he still looked just as pissed off as he'd been when he'd arrived. Han was learning that once you stirred Luke's inner rancor, it was best to leave him alone for a while, so he let Luke continue to grumble into his ice cream.

Leia plunked down on the couch, the doll in her lap, and actually began talking to it. "Why couldn't you be possessed by a dead person I might actually want to talk to? Like my mother, or my real father? Or Obi-Wan?"

Obi-Wan shook his head, and smiled slightly. "If you ever wish to speak with me, Luke can help you learn to reach out to me through the Force. No haunting of inanimate objects required."

But even Leia's ironic suggestion made Han nervous. "Here's an idea, how about we have no dead people in the doll? And maybe take the doll to space and throw it out a nice airlock or something?"

It was pretty fucking rude of a Force ghost to laugh at him like that, but Obi-Wan had gotten his scary-ass former Sith father-in-law out of the doll and calmed Luke down, so Han was willing to let that one slide.

Leia laughed too, but she reached over and squeezed Han's hand. "I told you, the doll itself is innocent." She turned the doll back towards Han. "She's so sweet, look at her."

Han had to admit Leia was right about that. The doll was very cute, not to mention a direct link to Leia's childhood. Such a shame that Leia's bio father couldn't leave well enough alone, even in death. But still—

"Don't tell me you still want that thing in our house after all this."

Leia laughed. "Oh, no." She addressed the doll again. "You're going to a museum."

"Mama," the doll replied.