The lights seemed far brighter than he remembered. The next thing he noticed was that in spite of the fact that he was fairly certain he was lying still, the room seemed to be spinning around him. Not yet willing to sit up, he saw a woman enter the room out of the corner of his eye.
"Looks like someone's awake. How are you feeling?"
"I don't know." It was an honest answer. He couldn't feel much of anything.
The woman smiled at him in amusement. "Well, I'm sure you'll be ready to sit up soon. You said your wife was coming to get you, right?"
I have a wife? He thought hard for a moment. He could barely even remember who he was, but Leia's face finally popped into his head. Oh, her. What the heck did they give me?
"Yeah, I told her to be here at 1530."
"All right. We'll send her in when she gets here. For now, you just lie down. You're going to be dizzy for a while."
"Fine. Just let me stay in here and sleep until she gets here. I don't get much of that at home."
"Of course, General Solo. I won't let anyone disturb you."
"Thanks."
He shut his eyes, hoping that by the time Leia arrived to pick him up, the dizziness would subside., but also looking forward to the opportunity for a quick nap.
Leia had come home from work to relieve Winter just in time to break up yet another fight amongst her Force-sensitive children. Anakin was playing by himself, trying to stay out of the rift between his siblings. "Will you two please stop fighting? Go to your room and play quietly."
"But Jaina – "Jacen began, but his mother cut him off.
"I don't care what she did, Jacen. Just go to your room. I've got some work to do before dinner. Threepio, would you mind getting that started?"
The droid had been hiding in the doorway, trying to avoid the unruly Solo children. "Of course, Mistress Leia."
Defeated, the twins walked back towards their bedroom, and Leia turned her attention to the blue-eyed boy in the corner. "You too, Anakin. Dinner's going to be ready soon, ok?"
"Ok, Mommy."
Leia smiled at her youngest son, then sat down on the couch with her data pad. Was there something else she was supposed to do today? It was a wonder some days that she could manage to get herself dressed. She shook off the feeling and tried to finish her day's work as quickly as possible.
Han opened his eyes again, seeing the blank white room around him. Didn't he just wake up there? Reaching up to rub his eyes, he realized that he didn't feel nearly as dizzy anymore. The medication must've been wearing off, and he figured Leia would be there any minute to pick him up. But his eyes widened once he glanced at his wrist chrono and realized that she was supposed to be there to pick him up two hours ago.
Sitting upright, he shook away the head rush before walking out the door to the waiting room where he found a lone receptionist.
"Hello, sir, are you feeling better? Who was it who was supposed to come pick you up?"
"My wife." Han was suddenly more than a little bit worried that something had happened to Leia that afternoon.
He quickly pulled his commlink out of his pocket to make sure everything was all right, exhaling sharply when he heard Leia's calm voice on the other end. "Hi, Han. What is it? Will you be home soon?"
"You tell me. You're the one who was supposed to pick me up."
"What do you mean? Where – " Realization suddenly dawned on her. "Oh, I completely forgot. I'll leave the kids with Threepio and I'll be right over."
She severed the connection before he even had a chance to respond. He had been relieved that something hadn't happened to her, but was now embarrassed in front of this strange woman who knew that his own wife had left him there.
Waiting in silence, Han wondered just how far down on her list of priorities he had gone to be left off completely.
Several minutes later, Leia entered the waiting room and Han looked at her from his chair.
"Come on, let's go. Threepio's almost got dinner ready."
Not an apology. Not acknowledgement that she was over two hours late. Had there not been a random stranger in the room, he might have lost it right then. But once they were in the speeder, his anger had turned to hurt, and he wasn't feeling much like yelling.
By the time dinner was over, he still hadn't said a word. The children had been sent off for a few final minutes of playtime before bed, and he remained seated at the dinner table, his food hardly touched.
Leia came over to clear his plate. "What's the matter with you? Do your teeth still hurt?"
There was no physical pain from the dental procedure he had undergone, and he spoke softly, not looking up from the table. "You forgot about me."
"I know, I'm sorry, I just lost track of…"
"Did you even notice that I wasn't here?"
"Of course I noticed, but don't act like this is the first time you've ever been late without calling."
"That's not what this is about. I asked you to come get me, and it was hours before you even realized I was missing."
"You know how much energy these kids require, and that I often have work that needs to be done. You're a grown man, Han. I know you can take care of yourself."
"Again, you're missing the point, here. I'm asking you seriously, does it even matter to you or to anyone whether or not I come home every night?"
She looked a bit taken aback, but her voice hadn't softened. "That's ridiculous. Of course it matters."
"I'm not so sure about that anymore. Honestly, Leia, sometimes in this little scenario here I feel like I'm not much more than a sperm donor. Just someone to make sure that the next generation of Skywalker Jedi are a little bit taller."
That didn't seem to sit well with her. "Han, you're being absurd. After all this time you can't honestly believe that that's the only reason I married you."
"Well, sure. Maybe not at first. But what does anyone here need from me anymore?"
Leia pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. "Han, I'm too tired right now to deal with your irrational thoughts of inadequacy. You know I love you. You know the kids love you."
"The kids also love Cocoa the talking bantha, but that doesn't mean that they need him. If we stopped letting them watch his stupid show it'd probably only take them about two weeks to forget that he even existed. You forgot about me, and it took you quite a while to realize it."
"Aren't you being a bit dramatic here? It's not like I left you for dead. You fell asleep in the dentist chair."
"It doesn't matter where I was. The fact of the matter is that you didn't even realize I was gone."
"Listen, I think that anesthetic has had some affect on your brain. Will you please just come to bed and we can talk about it in the morning when we've both gotten some more sleep."
"I don't want to talk about it in the morning. By then we'll be back into the old routine, taking care of the kids and we won't have much of a chance to breathe let alone talk."
"Do you think that you're the only one here who sometimes feels undervalued and underappreciated?" Her calm, rational voice was gone. Now she seemed to be getting angry. "Being a parent is a fairly thankless job, Han, and one you'll have for the rest of your life. I suggest you get used to it."
"I don't care about being underappreciated. I'm not looking for a 'thanks, Dad for making me breakfast,' or a, 'Han, thanks for cleaning up the kitchen.' That's not what I'm talking about. You know that if you didn't come home after work one night this house would damn near fall apart without you. The kids need you. I need you."
"You're acting awfully selfish, you know."
That stung. "Sure, that's it. Selfish. You know what? I love having kids with you. It means more to me than you'll ever know, but I don't think it has to mean that you and I stop being anything to each other aside from live-in nannies who happen to sleep next to each other. I miss having a wife."
"I'm still your wife, Han."
"Not the way you used to be you aren't. Listen, I love Jacen, Jaina and Anakin. But I love you, too. And I just don't understand why having them in our lives means that we forget about each other. And if that's selfish, then I'm the most selfish man in the galaxy."
Leia stared at him silently for a few moments, and Han decided he'd had enough of this argument and turned to leave.
"Where are you going?"
"What the hell do you care? You didn't notice I wasn't here before, shouldn't take you long to forget about me again."
"Han, I – " the door slammed behind him and Leia was left alone in the entryway.