With them resettled on the sofa Opi performed her opening lines again, this time introducing Han to the discussion. Her smile was warm, her manner comforting. And yet, Han still found it hard to like her.
Perhaps it was knowing Leia was sensing a change in Opi's attitude that made him nervous. Or perhaps it was just in his nature to mistrust more than most.

"Leia..." Opi launched into the interview. "You started telling me about your discovery on taking Jorj to see a fertility specialist on Coruscant. Perhaps you could expand on what you were saying."

"Well, really it was Han who uncovered the connection." Leia told her, giving his hand a light squeeze.

Opi's face tilted toward Han's. "Han." She prompted.

"Well, I..." Han began, and swallowed. "I wouldn't call it an 'uncovering' exactly."

"Then, what would you call it?" Opi pressed, her tone reminiscent of some of the conversations he'd had with Leia back in the days of the Rebel Alliance.

Han's eyes narrowed briefly at her. This was not the interview Opi had prepared for, nor was it the interview Opi had wanted. She was pissed at Leia for moving the goalposts, and now she was pissed at Han for stumbling over the first hurdle.
He could see how far he was able to push her, but that would only serve to piss Leia off. And that was something he wanted to avoid if at all possible.

"Well, Opi..." He said. "This medic our friend recommended looked at Jorj's chart and confirmed what the clinic had already told us; that we'd left it too long for the procedure to be reversed. And then our friend, he asked the medic if she could maybe examine Jorj and see if there wasn't some small hope we might be able to offer him."

Han recalled the initial look of horror on his young son's face at the prospect of yet another medic picking and poking about at him, and then he remembered that horror melting away at the sight of the long legged, blonde medic who promised to handle his young son with the utmost care and attention. Followed by the look of fury on Leia's face when Han failed to prevent the leggy blonde from leading Jorj by the hand into what Leia considered her 'lair'!

"Jorj was reluctant at first..." Han said, his lips curling into his trademark grin. "But he soon got over his reservations and allowed her to take a closer look at him. And it was her examination that revealed what had happened to Jorj."

"So it was this friend of a friend who made the connection." Opi checked.

"No, it was me, just like Leia said. Try to keep up." Han said before ploughing on. "After she'd told us that Jorj's tubes had been removed, we figured at first it must have been some kinda mistake...a...an accident maybe."

"Medical negligence?" Opi queried.

"Yeah, that too. But then we got to thinking, an' somehow, something just didn't add up." Han explained, tilting his head at Leia for her contribution.

"You see the more we thought about it, the more we questioned ourselves over those first few hours after Jorj's birth, the more we came to realise the issue of sterilisation was raised repeatedly." Leia offered.

"It was subtle, but it was there. In every conversation we had with medics, the option was once again put to us." Han added.

"So...there was some gentle persuasion guiding you to accept a decision you maybe didn't want to make?" Opi asked.

Leia looked up at Han, who looked back at her with equal uncertainty. "We..." She started, before faltering.

"What would you do? Faced with what we were faced with back then, what would you have decided to do?" Han finally asked Opi.

"I..." Opi shrugged, her head shaking.

"Exactly! Sometimes, whatever decision you make, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't." Han stated.

"In the end, I think we opted for the path of least resistance never expecting our decision to be questioned." Leia accepted.

"Least of all by our own son!" Han added, with a wry smile.

"What happened next, however, was pure coincidence." Leia offered and looked at Han for him to take up the reins.

Han cleared his throat a couple of times, before speaking. "The..ah..the friends we were visiting had this other friend, a..an ex-employee, who had..um..a..a daughter with..you know..with some issues...that..um.."

"What Han's struggling to tell you is that he had a liaison with a woman a couple of years back," Leia told Opi.

"Liaison! It was nothing!" Han scoffed and turned a sour eye on Opi, adding. "You can edit that bit out, right?"

"This woman has a daughter around the same age as Jorj, and with similar educational and behavioural issues to him. The coincidence, is that she had worked part time as a masseuse in one of our friend's health and beauty clinics. With a little..coaxing..she allowed her daughter to be examined, which concluded that the child's infantile sterilisation also went a lot further than her medical records indicated." Leia reported.

"They removed the child's ovaries." Han stated.

Opi's mouth failed to move, until she gasped. "They...removed...her ovaries?"

"Without prior knowledge. Or consent. And by lying in her medical records." Leia added.

"That's when I suggested it might be more than just an accident. Or even medical negligence." Han said.

"And that's when I called upon the assistance of an old friend from the Rebel Alliance, who was able to pull enough from Coruscant Public Records to be able to extrapolate a likely explanation. The only reason for those procedures to be undertaken, and for them not to be recognised in their medical documents would be to deceive the public at large." Leia said.

"The thing is Opi, people of our generation have seen it all before; the slaughter of Bothans, of Wookiees, of any race that doesn't quite 'fit the profile'. And it's so easily done. All it takes is an amendment to an original bill, and it doesn't even need to be ratified by the full Senate assembly. All you need do is, choose your moment." Han pointed out.

"That moment..." Leia offered, swallowing down the bile she could feel starting to rise in her throat. "...if looked for, can be identified in Senate Papers."

Opi turned to Leia, the question she was about to ask had been prepared in advance. As had the response. "Leia, are you prepared to tell me when that amendment was passed?"

Leia slowed her breathing and levelled her gaze at Opi. "It was toward the end of Borsk Fey'lya's second term in office. Right before the two term maximum was removed from the position of Chief-of-State."

"Both of those amendments were brought to the Senate floor by..." Han grinned. "...Borsk Fey'lya."

"We have proof of course, proof that we'll very happily present to an independent examiner for verification, but everything we've said is true. Our son, and millions of others just like him, have been butchered for no greater reason than that they don't fit the right profile." Leia concluded.

The room fell silent, a sound that weighed heavily upon the three occupants as they awaited Opi's final question. "Leia, what is it you hope to achieve by raising this now?" She finally asked.

This was Leia's chance, her final opportunity to appeal to Opi's viewers. But her thoughts were with Jorj, their beautiful son who had fought so hard to save his own life and at the same time managed to save Han and Leia's too.

"Leia..." Opi very gently prompted.

Her answer was quietly measured. "When we arrived home, Jorj was quite simply ebullient. It was such a joy to see, to watch him playing with his pets, and then talking to his rocks. And that was when I realised what they were to him. To anyone else, they're just a collection of rocks that a young boy has given names to. But for Jorj, they're all the souls of all the people who would have loved him...his Grandfather Bail, his brother Anakin, his sister Hannay...people he never got to know, but who live on through him." Her face grew sombre. "And then I lied to him. He asked if now he'd seen a specialist, if he would be a father one day. I mean, I explained that it didn't always happen, not for everybody, that no matter how much they might want it to, sometimes it just doesn't happen for them. And he looked at me in such an open and honest and earnest way I just...I couldn't be the person who shattered those dreams. So I told him that yes, he might now be a father one day." Leia took a breath. "You asked me what I hoped to achieve Opi, well it's too late for Jorj...and for far too many others like him...but what I hope, is that the people won't allow this...this genocide to continue. Forty years ago, I was a leader in the Rebel Alliance. Well, my leading days may be over, but I hope the evidence I'm able to present will awaken a new leadership. One that might return the New Republic to the values it's founders gave their all to resurrect from the ashes of the Empire."

"Han. Leia. Thank you." Opi smiled at the couple. "And that's a wrap!"

Leia breathed a sigh of relief, while Han couldn't wait to unclip the tiny microphone from his shirt collar.

"Finn and I will review the recordings, loop in some expert testimony and a final edited copy should be in your inbox by late morning tomorrow." Opi said.

"Wow. That soon." Han noted.

"We have two available timeslots, I'm eager to get the first." Opi reported, her head sliding to one side. "Leia, are you all right?"

"I..er...I might just...grab a moment of..er...fresh air." Leia said, rose and hurried out to the rear porch where she unceremoniously emptied the contents of her stomach under an Illia Tree. She apologised to the wilting bush and slumped down onto the steps, resting her head against the fence post.

It felt like she'd been sitting there hours when Han finally came and sat beside her. "Opi's packed up and gone. She figured you might need some time to yourself so hoped you'd understand her not coming out back and disturbing you." He offered.

"I threw up. I think I might have killed Jaina's Illia Tree." She admitted.

"Nah! I pee on that thing all the time, I don't think anything's gonna kill it!" He confided.

Leia hiccupped a laugh, a hand drifting to cover her eyes. "I can't believe I lied to Jorj."

"Don't beat yourself up sweetheart." He chided.

"But Jorj! The one child of ours who most needs our truth, our honesty, and I lied to him. And not just lied to him, but to his face!" She groaned.

"You did what you thought was right." He reminded her.

"Yeah? Like we did what we thought was right when he was born?" She queried.

"That's different." He argued.

"Yes, because this time I knew I was doing wrong!" She growled.

"All right, let's say you told him the truth. Then what, huh? More tears, more tantrums, more name calling? You made a judgement call and if you ask me, you also made the right decision." He told her.

Leia sighed deeply. "Maybe. But I'm not going to stop hating myself for it."

"You told a sweet young boy what he wanted to hear. I, on the other hand, have done far worse in my lifetime. Yet you expect me to stop hating myself for it." He pointed out.

She knew what he was talking about. Once again, the night he had assaulted her was laid bare between them. "How about a pact then. If I try to forgive myself, maybe you could try harder to forgive yourself." She suggested.

"Sounds reasonable enough." He agreed, sniffing the air. "On one condition."

"Oh yeah, what's that?" She asked.

"You do something about the vomit under our eldest girl's anniversary gift to us, so I don't have to lie to her when she asks how I managed to kill it!" He demanded.

"We could just replace it with a new one. It's not like she comes visit that often, she'd never know the difference." Leia reasoned.

"Great idea. I'll go get the digger, you go online and order us one that doesn't smell like the Pit of Carkoon" Han pushed to his feet, offering her his hand which she took gratefully, helping her to rise also. "Great job, by the way. I wouldn't want to be in Borsk Fey'lya's boots when that interview hits the wire."

"It wasn't personal." She defended.

"No? Well it damn well should have been." He said, before heading back into the house.