No. 28 IT'S JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG
Anger Born of Worry | Punching the Wall | Headache
I don't write much Han and Leia but this was sweet and fun to try my hand at! Hope you enjoy.
Leia couldn't hear him again. Han shouldn't be surprised, but it concerned him. Episodes like this always preceded—
He ducked. A glass cabinet—glass cabinets Leia had enjoyed picking out so much—smashed above them both. Glass rained down on Leia, Han, but while it sliced him open all along his face and arms, not a shimmer of glass touched her. It skidded away from her skin, light catching in the rainbows around her.
"Leia?" he asked. "Leia!"
No response. His wife still stared at the fruit bowl Han had put in the middle of the kitchen table in an attempt to be domestic. He didn't know how to be domestic, had never been domestic, but he imitated it like he'd seen in the wedding holozines Chewie had bought when he and Leia were getting married, as a study in human customs. Luke had brought them some flowers that hung out on the kitchen windowsill. Their originally ceramic pots were now plasteel; they had been smashed one too many times, and Luke just tactfully gave them a few that were unsmashable. The idea that Darth Vader's son knew more about domesticity than Han did smarted, but he knew that was his own insecurities biting him in the arse.
Leia smiled into the distance, tapping her fingers in an unfamiliar rhythm. She did that a lot. Han had learnt various codes to see if this was the language he could speak to her in when she got like this, a hack to get through to the love of his life, but there was no known correlation with any languages or codes of the galaxy. That didn't stop Luke from always knowing the rhythm she was tapping and tapping it too.
Luke got through to her when she got like this. Why couldn't Han? Twins or no twins, freaky or not, he shouldn't—
Kriff. That flowerpot, their last ceramic one was about to fall. That had the Alderaanian candlewicks in, a gift that Han had got Leia, a gift that had made her cry. He dived for it and caught it before it hit the floor. Then he tucked it away in the corner until this episode was over. Coruscant spun past beyond their kitchen window, but Han pointedly didn't look at it. If he remembered that their failed imitation of normality was actually in the former Imperial Palace, he might just scream.
Leia had moved her hand to her swollen belly. Han, head aching fiercely with all those weird vibes that Leia expelled when she got like this, muscled through it to sit beside her and take her hand.
Their child was kicking.
His heart melted a little bit. Oh. That was what had caught her up so much.
"Han?" She blinked at him, then frowned. "Did I do it again?"
"Yeah!" he snapped. He forced himself to soften his voice. She was already frowning; he didn't like seeing her unhappy. "Yeah. I saved your candlewicks, though."
She glanced over her shoulder. "Thank you."
"Are you alright?"
Leia's gaze found the bowl of fruit again. "They liked the look of the apples," she said. "I was explaining to them what red means."
That was so strange, but Han had admittedly never met a pregnant woman until that pregnant woman had been his wife, so he didn't know how pregnancy was supposed to go. He was pretty sure his ma hadn't explained colour theory to him in the womb, though.
"You're upset. Don't hide it. What is it?"
There was her bluntness again. He breathed a sigh of relief. He'd rather be interrogated straight than flounder in the face of mystical nonsense.
"I'm worried about you. Every time you do that, you vanish, you lose control."
She narrowed her eyes. "You think I should get it together? You're worried I'm going to—"
"I'm worried because I don't know how to help you!" he shouted. "You hate this Force stuff—don't lie, I know you love our kid, I love them too, but you hate that you have the Force. I know it upsets you. And when you get like this, I worry as well. You lose control. You could hurt yourself."
"I could hurt you."
"I'm worried about you, sweetheart."
She winced, biting her lip. "Luke offered to train me," she said, like every word was poison. "To control it better. He knows we don't like these either."
"You don't wanna train, though."
"I don't. But I will." She took a breath. "If… needed."
"Leia—"
"Is this scaring you?" she barked. Her eyes fixed on his cuts from the glass. "I don't want to lose control. I don't want to be like—"
"You're not," he said. "You don't have to go to training. You don't want to, so you don't have to. The kid meant well by offering; he'll understand."
"It'd be for the best—"
"You don't have to do anything you don't want to do," he insisted. His hand was still getting kicked by their child. It was soothing. "We can handle it."
She met his gaze with her own dead one. "I'm twenty-five percent not mortal, Han. This will only get worse. Our child will be the same."
"We can handle it."
"You clearly can't."
He squirmed. It was true, but— "I got a bit freaked out, that's all. I love you." He kissed her on the forehead. "All one hundred percent of you."
She scoffed. "When did you become such a softie?" But she let him hold her and turned her face into his shoulder.
He kissed her hair. "I'm twenty-five percent softie, I'll have you know," he informed her.
Her snort was gratifying. "What, that didn't show up until you were having a kid either?"
"Nah." He closed his eyes. "It's been around way longer than that."
