Han sauntered through the living room. He was looking for his boots. Going for a nightly walk was his idea; scheduling it at seven was Leia's.
He was retracing his steps. When Leia came home, her shoes came off as soon as the door shut behind her. He might or might not leave them on. It depended. On what, he couldn't really say, but that was his routine, that he didn't really have one.
So far the boots were not in the bedroom, the 'fresher (when something is lost, he often told Pandreia, you have to look in the places you're sure it's not, because it's lost) or the kitchen.
The lights weren't on yet but the holoplayer added its own uneven brightness. Han said, "Lights," and a lamp turned on in the corner.
His daughter was on the floor, sitting in front of the holoplayer but not watching the program. It was one she probably had memorized, featuring the animated Wookiee that was nothing like a Wookiee and it drove Han crazy. Happy Harkyll was short and stout and spoke perfect Basic. His teeth were wrong, too. Pandreia had daily contact with a real Wookiee who didn't look at all like that, but Pandreia loved that damn cartoon. Han called the character Harpy.
Each episode, Happy Harkyll got in his space yacht named Clover, yelled out, "Yippee!" and was instantly transported to some planet.
"Clover is faster than the Falcon," Leia smirked the second time they watched the program. Funny how the walk was at non-negotiable seven o'clock but she could suspend reality for a dumb cartoon. And Han was happy to go whenever the heck the family was ready and maybe not when it was snowing, but Leia insisted they just bundle up more, but naming a ship like it was some pet nerf and not showing the rigors of space flight was offensive to Han.
One of his boots was on the living room floor. Pandreia was rolling a ball into it. He did a double take.
Another part of the nightly routine was the bath after dinner. Leia was open to who did the bathing, but it was definitely what happened after dinner. Han pointed out that if it was raining, Pandreia liked to splash in the puddles on their walk and maybe the bath could wait. Leia would then pick Pandreia up, say, "I'll give it tonight." She'd let Pandreia splash in the puddles, and then the kid would get a second bath before bed.
Tonight he'd given the bath. His shirt was proof as it was still a little wet where she'd splashed him. Her bath game was Happy Harkyll traveling somewhere. The washcloth was Clover and she'd plunk it heavily in the water, splashing Han, who laughed at his daughter, whom he loved more than he ever could imagine, but he also would be thinking, I'll send Harpy to hell.
He dressed her after the bath, too. Sometimes he had to chase her, true, but tonight he distinctly remembered telling her it was chilly outside and she needed a warm shirt. He even got her head stuck for a moment in the neck hole and had said, "Yippee!" so she wouldn't be scared until he managed to stretch the fabric.
"Whatcha doin', Little P?" he asked, bending over to see if the second boot was under the table. It wasn't.
"Yippee-ing," came the serious answer. His daughter was not wearing her warm shirt.
"Oh, my boot's Clover again, eh?" Her imagination was interesting, and it was always showing. She reminded him of Luke a little bit, Leia's brother. He was probably something like nineteen when Han first met him, but he still seemed kind of starry-eyed and wondering. He hung on to his imagination late. The a-few-years-ago Han would say Luke had never grown up. He'd also have said Leia wasn't allowed to be a child and she would have retorted with something sharp, hiding the hurt of a possible truth. She'd accuse him of not having a childhood, and that could be true too, but it didn't hurt. Just made him wonder. He didn't remember having a life like Pandreia did.
"Where's your shirt?" he asked her now.
"Over there," Pandreia answered without indicating where there was.
Han found it on the couch. It was positioned so that he described it in a slouch. She'd tried to arrange it in a sitting position, as if a body filled it. The long sleeves were stretched out. One reached over the arm of the couch and the other did its best to stay horizontal when it couldn't. The wrist portion was pointing at the top of the couch back. It looked like it was trying to sneak its arm around something. Han smiled to himself.
"What's it doing?" he asked, because you never knew.
"Watchin'."
"Why aren't you watchin' with it?" Or in it, was the real question.
"'Cause I have a game."
"You put Har- Happy- on for your shirt?"
"Mm-hmm."
Han walked over to his boot and sat on the floor. He tapped his daughter on the shoulder. "You're real considerate, you know that?"
"Yeah," Pandreia answered disinterestedly.
"Does it need something to sit with?" It was fairly unbelievable, how his level of conversation had changed over the years. He'd once told a bounty hunter over my dead body but here he was arranging a date for a shirt.
"No. It just didn't want to play."
"What shirt wouldn't want to go yippee-ing?" Han wanted to know.
Pandreia scooted so she was lying on her belly, peering into his boot. Her little hand reached in to grab the ball. "Happy Harkyll yippee-d somewhere really warm."
"Like where Uncle Luke lived?"
She shook her head. "A beach."
"Shirts don't like beaches?"
"Daddy." Pandreia looked sternly up at her father. "Do you see shirts on beaches?"
Han blinked. She was only three, but she'd observed something about beaches, probably harking back to the vacation they took a few months ago. Thanks to Leia's status they'd booked a private isle at a tropical paradise and it was just them and Luke's family and Chewie. "No, I guess I see a lot of skin," he admitted. They'd spent a lot of time in the water. "So you're at the beach too, then," he noted of her shirtless state.
"I'm swimming."
He chuckled. She was going to get rug burn the way she pretended to stroke shirtless on the floor. "Clover looks wet."
"Clover is catching crabs."
"Ah." Han thought of a dirty comment he could make but knew it wouldn't land. Too bad, he had to let it go to waste. "I didn't know ships eat."
"Not crabs!" Pandreia was outraged. "He's helping them. They're drowning!"
"Oh. Poor crabs that live at a beach and don't know how to swim."
"Yeah, poor crabs."
"Are they gonna yippee somewhere? Like a fish store and find a new home?"
"No, Daddy, just higher on the beach."
"Yeah, well, yippee 'em quick, Little P."
"Clover does that, not me."
Han glanced at his chrono. It was time to end the game. "Well, my boot wants to go for our walk. Can you tell Clover to be a boot again so I can wear it? Know where my other one is?"
"You need more shoes, Daddy."
"I have some," Han hedged. Not ones he liked to wear. Dress ones. And pink bunny slippers Luke gave him a few years back.
Leia's head appeared in the threshold. "Time for our walk!" she sang out.
"Okay, mama!" Pandreia shouted and left Han in a hurry. The shirt remained on the couch. Han hopped to the entryway while he put one boot on.
Leia frowned at her daughter. "Where's your shirt, Pandi?" That was her nickname for her daughter. Han's was Little P, or he called her by the full name, Pandreia. Little P, Leia suspected to her secret pleasure, stood for Little Princess. That alone was reason to love him, though others had to come before.
"It's watchin' Happy Harkyll," Han said. "I dressed her," he told his wife's accusing eyes. "I did!"
"Will you put my shoes away Han, please?" Leia tossed at him as she took Pandreia's hand and went into the living room.
"Sure." His second boot was here, which answered the question of how he came home today. Opened the door and took his boots off. He grabbed Leia's heels and went to their bedroom. In the closet, he glanced sourly at his dress shoes, and then swept his eyes over the numerous pairs of shoes Leia owned. He could toss them in Han-style, let them fall where they may, but he saw the empty space she had arranged for this pair, black like the other two pair on either side, and tucked them in neatly. He grabbed a jacket for himself.
In the entryway, Leia and Pandreia were waiting for him, holding hands.
"Glad shirt wants to come along for the walk," Han remarked.
"I had to negotiate," Leia said with that wry look of knowing how different their lives were. "Fortunately, I can still run circles around a shirt."
"Yes, you can," he chuckled and gave her a quick kiss. "D'you get it on okay?"
"It's small on her!" Leia exclaimed.
"Yeah, I had trouble too." He swiped his daughter's nose. "You got a big head. Ready?" He opened the door. "I can snip a slit in the neck hole, get another year out of it."
"Month, more like it," Leia said. She tightened her shoulders at the sudden chill of the outdoors. "Cutting it will ruin it. I'd rather save it for the children's charity."
"Yeah, you would."
"Han!"
"I forgot about it."
In this regard, Han thought how they were still instantly recognizable as Han and Leia. Transport them to Echo Base of a few years ago- that'd be a fun yippee trip for Clover- propose the scenario of what to do with a toddler who's outgrown her shirt, and they'd answer similarly. He tactlessly, but that's what he had to do to his own clothing when he was a kid. And it wasn't because his head was big. She graciously, because she was a Princess who had everything available and custom made to boot, but was trained to think of those who didn't.
She linked her free arm through his and laid her ear on his bicep. She wore what she called her Walk shoes at seven o'clock, comfortable canvas slip-ons. Pandreia's pace was slow. She dropped her mother's hand to skip freely.
"She's gonna be taller than you next year," Han said.
He heard Leia laugh lightly. "That's okay," she breathed out like one satisfied.
"That's how it should be, right?"
She lifted her head to nod. "Yes. Children grow and live and learn."
Han pointed with his chin to their daughter. "Think we were ever like that?"
"If we were, it's sad it's forgotten, isn't it? I would want her to remember."
"Yeah. Kids got lousy memories."
She smiled, comfortable. It was just past seven, dinner was good, and when they got back from the walk they'd read a story to Pandreia and put her to bed. It would be nice if that could last a long time, but soon their daughter would start school, or be on a team, or prefer a friend, and she knew it wouldn't. Still, she was willing to see what the future held. And that was interesting, too, because it seemed like that's what Pandreia had given her, a future, but she'd had to envision something first or else there'd be no Pandreia. She heard other parents say their child was a gift but she felt it she and Han were Pandreia's gift.
"Luke remembers stuff like that, doesn't he," Han was still talking. Another change he noted now was his language. It was a lot milder than it used to be. "I think mine was... well." He remembered something. Han could picture himself on a mat, awake when others slept, and even though he couldn't see his face he knew the expression was furious. "I imagined stuff," he continued, "but I didn't have a Harpy or a Clover. Nothing that opened me, you know? Or took me places."
"Your imagination wasn't escapism because you really needed to escape," Leia said. She'd only learned a bit of Han's childhood, not everything. She knew the memories hurt.
"Yeah." He pushed on her arm that snaked through his with his elbow. "You have anything like Hellish Harkyll?"
"Not Harkyll the Wookiee but we did have a duckling." She continued over Han's chuckling, "It even had Alderaani hair! It was green."
"I'm imagining something really scary," and they laughed.
They walked on. Pandreia patted a tree and stopped to admire the flowers that had come into bloom recently. The routine of the week was to remind her not to snap the blossoms off.
"When is she going to understand that?" Leia wondered.
"They'll be dead soon," Han said. "Next spring, maybe."
Leia shook her head mildly at her husband. "We've navigated so much."
"Without a Clover yippee-ing us," Han agreed.
"Without the smooth solutions," Leia agreed. "One is never really prepared, are they."
"You know what we should do? Write our own Yippee episode. Where Clover breaks down and Harpy has to travel at non-yippee speed."
Leia laughed. "They'd have it end where a space slug rides them to safety."
"He never lands where beings are mean," Han observed. "I think that's what I hate about that show."
"Of course it's unrealistic," Leia said. "Wouldn't it be nice if we could just yippee our way out of any situation."
Han laughed. "I'm thinking of that night with Luke. I could have found him and then just yippeed us back to base."
Leia's good nature had changed to sadness. "I'm thinking of so many times."
"Yeah." Han freed his arm to wrap it around Leia's shoulder and gave her head a kiss. That's what imagination did to Leia now, made her remember what could never be again. Maybe that's why he hated that stupid show.
"Daddy?" Pandreia had skipped in front of him and he and Leia had to stop.
"Yeah, Little P?"
"Can we yippee home? I'm done."
"Sure." Han hoisted her up by her armpits. She was getting big. "Yippee! We're going home," Han crowed and turned around in a mock jog.
"Race you," Leia called out, and passed him. She was quick on her slip-ons and her long braid bounced on her back. Han loved her, for her heartache and color-coded shoes and her schedule and the fun that found a place in the spaces in between.
"Uh-oh," he said to Pandreia. "Big P's got a lead on us."
"It's just home," Pandreia said matter-of-fact. "Mama will open the door."