Chapter Text
She’s known for too long. Leia knows Han’s not a total idiot, but she wonders if maybe he’ll just never notice.
When she starts to show, she’ll just refuse sex, tell him she has a headache. They’ll stop bathing together, sleeping shirtless, or finding dark corners to touch each other in. Maybe she can find some kind of mission to put him on.
She’ll miss him too much.
Leia paces her small room which is hardly a room, some kind of partitioned bunk area that the crew made for her. She didn’t need it, she tried to tell them that, but they insisted she have a place of her own, or as much of her own as they could spare. However, since becoming pregnant, she’s never been more thankful for this.
It gives her time, the very minuscule moments she has to consider what this means. To consider whatever’s stirring inside her chest, whatever she feels vibrating against her skin. The Force, Luke would tell her. She knows he’s right, but what it all means, she’s not sure yet. She really just doesn’t have time to train, no matter how much Luke insists she needs to.
Then there’s her stomach, it’s hard and pushing out just enough for her to notice. She puts her hand over it and closes her eyes, breathing in the energy around her. She hopes it helps him. Helps him know the Light, helps him know love, helps him know to avoid what’s out there that may call to him.
She doesn’t want him to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps, and Leia is so scared, so fucking terrified, that he will not be strong enough to resist.
She’s strong, she knows, but she doesn’t know how to pass on that strength. She really wishes her mother was her to tell her how she did it.
“Leia?”
Her hands spring from her stomach as she spins around. Han’s eyes are round in concern, but he relaxes at the sight of her. He slips his hands around her waist and she doesn’t mean to, but she tenses, hoping he doesn’t feel the difference in her form. He kisses her and his lips are cool.
“Is everything okay?” she asks.
“Yeah, yeah. No one knew where you were.” He waves his hand out toward the rest of the base, annoyed. He smirks at her, that smile that lights her chest on fire. “And I thought you might be missing me,” he whispers.
Leia rolls her eyes as he kisses her again. It doesn’t take long for him to deepen their kiss, backing her up and proving that his remark was absolutely wrong because it’s clear by the way his hands hold her and his lips kiss her, that Han was the one who was missing Leia.
His hand slips to a button on the front of her shirt and she stops, backing away, both of them catching their breath.
“Sorry, sorry,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “I know, you have a lot to do.”
“No, Han--”
“Really, Leia, I know.” He grabs her hand and rubs his thumb over her knuckles. “Maybe later.”
He winks, lifting her hand and kissing it. She can see the disappointed dip in his eyes. It’s subtle, something not everyone would catch, but she can. He kisses her knuckles again and drops her hand but before they disconnected completely, she speaks.
“Han.”
He holds onto her fingers. The statement, so simple, only two words long, keeps repeating in her mind over and over and over. She’s given strategic plan presentations in front of groups of people, she’s made speeches in front of politicians and royalty. She’s done so many things, but she can’t tell the man she loves that she’s pregnant with his child.
“I love you,” she says, her voice shaking.
Han’s other hand reaches for her cheek, stroking her face with his thumb. He kisses her softly and whispers, “I love you, too.”
Han leaves her, only looking back to remind her not to work too hard and to find him before bed. Leia turns toward the wall and cries, swallowing her sobs and rubbing her stomach, whispering.
“Be strong,” she says, “be strong.”