Notes: I thought this would be the end, but conversations happened I hadn't planned. At least one, maybe two more chapters. Thanks for reading!

After all the work Han put into Ben's baby bed for the Falcon, he barely uses it. He's hungry when they leave Takodana, so he's attached to her breast until they go to lightspeed, then the Falcon flies smooth and true, so there's no reason to put him down. Han reaches out his hands after she's done feeding him, and passing Ben over almost seems natural.

He's so sleepy-content after he's been fed that she almost wants to keep him, but he eats so much, so often, that it's a relief to hand him to his father, Luke, or Chewie. Then her hands are free, and she feels half-human, not just a bantha, producing milk on demand. Which still hurts, sort of, she can't really call it pain but it's not what she imagined when Doctor Kalonia went through nursing with her. Her nipples aren't bleeding anymore, but they ache, or maybe it's her breasts. Bacta plasters and ice packs help the rest of her heal but it'll take time more than anything.

It would be nice to sit without finding new aches in her hips, or stand without shifting her weight because her lower back is just different after Ben tore it apart with the back of his head. Leia thought giving birth would return her body to her, but she's a different mind in a different body. She loves her son so much that her chest throbs and she can't stop watching his little face, but it's still wonderful to hand him to Han.

Han cradles him with one arm as he checks the hyperdrive and leans back, content. He strokes Ben's cheek, then mutters to him about Luke cooking dinner and her eyes sting, then water, and when Han looks over at her, she's already crying.

He offers the rag he just used to burp Ben and it smells faintly of warm milk, which everything smells like, but she takes it.

"Good crying?"

"Good crying," she agrees. Leia sniffs and that doesn't make it stop so she gives up. The strange half-cramping of her belly still twists, and she lacks the words to explain any of it, because 'tired', 'sore' and 'infatuated' usually don't go together.

Ben's tiny fingers wrap around Han's and he murmurs to him, staring down at his eyes with such affection that stopping crying is a lost cause entirely.

She suspected he'd be good with the baby. He was so patient, so kind with Poe, and though he'd never admit it, he was one of their best commando instructors. He protected Luke, and her, and he's so gentle when she needs him. Suspecting isn't seeing, isn't knowing, and she lacks words for him and how grateful she is. She kisses his cheek, holding him close before she stands, stretching her back. He doesn't have to see her to hear the wince.

"Still sore?"

"It's better."

"You did a number on your mother, kid," he remarks to the baby, wrapping him up in a bright green shawl Maz gave them as a parting gift. When Ben's bound and secure, he leaves the pilot's seat, touching her shoulders, then her arms. "Give it time, okay? You don't have to be healed right away. That was hard, worse than getting shot on Endor, or that concussion Luke gave you."

She smirks. Before she was pregnant, Luke Force-threw her into a wall harder than she was ready for and she saw stars for an evening before her brain stopped swelling. The headache was brutal for a few days, especially because soaking one's head in bacta just wasn't an option. This is similar. Bacta can assist the healing of her tissues, but the soreness lies deep.

"You're never going to let him forget that."

Han tils her chin up to kiss her. "Nah, I like the look on his face."

"You did this to me though," she insists, pointing at Ben and then her soft, still rounded belly. "All that pain, could be considered your fault."

"Right," Han says, shaking his head. "Well then, going to have to use the secret weapon." He tugs the shawl open so she can see Ben's sleeping face, his little lips pursed and red, his eyes all squinty. "He's worth it."

Han meets her eyes, then strokes her cheek. He kisses her, lingering, and through the Force she senses his warmth. Han's affection echoes inside of her head, as if love could hum like an engine. Meeting his eyes doesn't cover it, and she reaches back, letting him share the strange weight of her heart.

"He's worth it," she agrees, breathing in him, and Ben, and the scent of home. There's no doubt in Han's mind, no creeping fear of her darkness. He saw the worst of her, her selfish desire to shove her pain onto everyone else, and he's not afraid. He's not even foolishly unafraid, because she'd know that. She'd feel that. This isn't bravado or a misunderstanding. He accepts her, even embraces her lingering presence in his mind and the bond she's dragged him into.

He kisses her, because he must be able to hear her feelings. She's projecting them loudly enough that Luke and Chewie must hear the sappiness of her heart. Han pulls her in, holding her beside Ben against his chest and again, the scent of him overwhelms her. He's mixed with baby now, that newness, and strange milk sweetness.

He rests his head on hers, waiting for her to calm before he suggests dinner. Not that it matters, she's cried enough in front of Luke and Chewie that this is nothing new, but he's careful with her. They all have been. Luke's been so gentle, and Chewie just keeps stroking her head, which is the highest form of affection, Han assures her.

"Come on," he murmurs. "Luke does a good dinner, especially when Chewie helps."

"The wookiee's the best cook," she replies, stroking Ben's sleeping head. "I wonder how often that happens."

"It's the sense of smell," Han says, guiding her towards the galley. "Means he picks the best spices."

After dinner, Ben sleeps on Luke's chest in the lounge while Chewie beats him again and again in dejarik. Their laughter carries through the bulkhead while she lies on the bunk, watching Han shave his stubble. The soft hiss of the razor mixes with Han's humming while he putters with the shaving soap. It's lazy, domestic, and she's not reading, not worrying about the Senate. She's not even sure what day it is, because they've blended together.

She hasn't even touched the data reader she grabbed before she sat down.

Han smirks at her in the imperfect mirror as he shaves a strip of the sweet-smelling lather from his face.

"You're not reading."

She shakes her head, toying with the long simple braid she had pulled her hair into that morning. "Words aren't making much sense."

"That's because it's a novel," he teases her. "It's not what actually happened on a boring lunar survey. It's supposed to be exciting."

Leia undoes the braid and slowly works her hair free. "I guess excitement wasn't what I was looking for." Dragging her fingers through her hair, she watches him lather his other cheek.

"I don't know if anyone ever wrote a novel about getting enough sleep," he says, tapping the razor on the side of the sink. "Most parents would appreciate it though. You could write one. Keep you busy."

She's barely had to do anything all day, but sleep deprivation clings to her. Luke and Han help with diapers, all of them are very happy to hold little Ben, and though he needs her for food, but he's a sleepy infant who is easily contented with a full belly and a warm chest. Leia's not sure she could do much even if she was asked. Exhaustion blurs her senses, as if Ben's birth has rearranged her mind as brutally as it altered her body. Her flesh, however changed, is hers again, even her aching, swollen, alien breasts, but her mind is still adapting, finding a way to cope with the new reality.

Leia knew Ben, she'd held him within her, but now that he's out, she has to get to know him all over again. He loves her, settles in her arms when she holds him, stares at her face with wonder. He knows his mother. Chewie says it's by smell. Luke insists that Ben knows the sounds of all of them because he reacts, snuggles closer, seems to know them. Maybe Ben felt them all around him. She doesn't know how much of the Force he understands, but her mother said when Leia was an infant, she had a sense for people that was never wrong.

Her mother was exaggerating, of course, but Leia came to her parents a stranger. She had a power they could never understand, and even though that was buried, her parents must have felt it. Her mother didn't even hold her until she was two days old. Even once she did, Leia wailed, even when her father or mother held her. Leia had known the loss of her birth mother, and she'd been hard to settle for the first few weeks. She hadn't blamed her new parents for not being the mother she knew, she couldn't have, but the way she cried had been so painful. Breha said it was a foolish thing to worry about, that Leia knew she was loved, but at first, nothing could calm her.

In that respect, Ben is easy. He knows all of them, and will stop crying when Han holds him. The only time he was truly inconsolable by anyone but Leia, was when he was hungry. Breastfeeding him drags her thoughts back to her mother.

Curious at four when her aunt fed her cousin, she'd asked, if she'd been fed that way or if she'd had to always use a cup. Her mother picked her up and assured her that she'd ate just like her cousin, greedily, getting milk everywhere, because she was a very hungry baby. Leia had found that funny, because babies were little, how could they be very hungry?

Breha had told her, years later, that she'd worried about everything: if Leia would fit in on Alderaan, if she'd be happy, if being a princess was too much to ask of her, but feeding her had been something she felt they did right. She'd had two short days to coax her breasts to produce before Leia had arrived, and her breasts had ached and leaked and it seemed like it was the most foolish thing she'd done.

Then she held her, listened to her cry for the mother who'd never had that chance, and Breha had said, "at least I could feed you. You'd lost your mother, and you cried for her, day and night, for weeks. You were so small, the doctors thought you'd been early, but they couldn't be sure, and you seemed so delicate to have lost so much. Your father and I knew we weren't, could never be her, and we needed each other so much then because we felt like we'd failed you. You'd cry and cry, and we'd hold you but we weren't your birth mother. You didn't know us. We'd just brought you home, and already, we'd failed you."

"But we made it through. When you started to smile at us, we'd made it, and when you laughed, we realised you loved us too."

Her father could only listen to her mother laughing for a moment before he too would laugh, and they'd set each other off at the most inappropriate times, during meetings, when they were trying to read her stories. They'd been so happy, and they'd brought her into that, taken her from a war and sorrow and brought her home. They'd loved her, and Leia trusted that more than anything. Breha and Bail Organa taught her love, and family, and she'd lost that, lost everything she thought mattered. Yet now, she has a family. She has a home as good as the Palace of Alderaan on this bucket of bolts and there's love, so much love, and in the middle of all of it she can't fight the sensation of unworthiness.

She brought the Dark Side in, touched the selfish side of the Force, hurt people. She didn't endure the long nights with an inconsolable infant that her parents did, and she didn't accept defeat and let Maz take her pain with drugs, she went to the Force and touched the darkness. Will it change things? Will she reach for that again if she's injured? If Ben was sick? She wipes hot tears from her eyes because it's too much. She has everything easy in Ben, he knows her, he loves her, and she still failed him.

Han smiles at her gently in the mirror, his face all covered in lather. "Still good crying?"

She nods, then shakes her head, and she should tell him her thoughts, find words that explain how much he means to her, how much she loves him and their son, Luke, and Chewie. How after losing her family, she has one again, and they're just as precious as her parents. Leia doesn't manage to speak.

He shaves a stripe clean on his cheek, watching her in the mirror, before he sets down the razor.

"I'm fine," she protests, but her voice is too high pitched.

Crossing the cabin in a handful of strides, he kneels down in front of her. Han strokes her cheek with damp fingertips. "You don't have to be fine, I won't tell anyone if you're not."

Leia nods, again, but speaking's too difficult. She has every reason to be happy, and she is, there's no fresh sorrow in her chest. This isn't-

He kisses her forehead, leaving a cool mark of shaving soap, then he kisses her cheek and he's all around her, warm, and sweet-smelling, like Corellian hasawood. She touches his face, Han kisses her neck and then the soap's everywhere, all over both of them. He rocks back, resting on his knees next to the bunk. Han smirks, then marks her nose with lather.

"Better."

Leia reaches for his face, tracing his stubble and smiling back when she finds the smooth patch. "Thanks."

"You can tell me anything, princess, you know that."

"Feeding Ben reminds me of my mother."

"That's good," he says, taking the towel from his shoulder. He daubs her face clean, then kisses her again, leaving more soap behind. "Your mother was a wonderful person, and she'd be so proud of you. Your father too. I bet they'd love him, he's the best baby the galaxy's ever seen."

Han speaks with such sincerity that she wonders if her parents have found a way to speak through him.

Leia tries to smile at him. "She had it so much harder than I do. She didn't know I was coming, my father brought me home and I hated her."

He snorts. "You were a baby."

"I didn't know she was my mother. I cried for a person she'd never met, that she could never give me, for weeks. She and my father always laughed about it when I was older, but they'd look at each other, and I knew."

"You knew?"

"They thought I hated them."

Han lifts himself from the floor, wipes his face in the towel and climbs into the bunk next to her. She leans into his chest before he even lifts his arm, and then she's safe. He strokes her hair, playing with her ear.

"Your parents knew they were adopting you, and that your mother had died, and that because you were very smart even when you were tiny, would miss her. They knew all of that, and they loved you. It might have felt like you wanted someone else, but they knew better. Besides, Leia, you were a baby, it's okay if you wanted your mother. You didn't have to know they were your parents right away."

"But Ben knows. You pick him up and he knows you, when I'm near him, he's happy."

"He's sleepy," Han teases, kissing her head. "He's always sleepy, or hungry."

"Han-"

"Okay, okay, fine, parenting Ben is easier than parenting you was, because he's all of a week old and he doesn't hate us, and you're upset about that."

It sounds ridiculous when he says it. Leia sits up, shifting so she can hold his hand. "Not upset about that. I'm tired, and there's something wrong, I can feel it, but it's not Ben, he's perfect, and he loves us, I can feel that whenever he's held. He's so content." She stops, staring at the deck. "It's not him, I- I-" She has to shove the words up from her chest. "I had you, and Luke, and Maz and Force Ghosts, and you love me. All of you love me so much, and I still touched the Dark Side. I only had a few hours left, and I dragged everyone in the cantina into some kind of horrible-"

"Not me," he reminds her. "Or Luke, or Chewie, Chewie says he didn't feel it, and everyone just got quiet around him. I guess some of them cried or shook, but they were fine when you stopped. None of them remember, and the people who hang out in Maz's, they're smugglers, pirates. They've had worse. Most of 'em have had run ins with the Empire, or the Hutts, and you know what they're like."

"That doesn't make it all right," she says, fidgeting with his fingers. She doesn't deserve him or Luke, or anyone being so gentle. Someone should look at her and tell her it was wrong, that she misused her power.

"Hey, sweetheart," he begins, hugging her closer. "Do you know how long you were in labor before that happened? I know you didn't look at the chrono, I didn't, but Maz said it was twenty hours, maybe more, before you did anything with the Force. That's a long time to have something hurt, anything, even a broken arm, and this was so much worse. You didn't know when it was going to end, and it kept getting worse, I don't know if I could have done it."

She turns, waiting to see his eyes. "You would have been fine."

Han shrugs. "Maybe not, hate being tortured, not a big fan of the pain thing."

"But you don't give in."

"Maybe I would, if I had the power you do." He kisses her again, softening her worries with the warmth of his mouth. "You took it back, you know. You know how much pain you were in, how much you shoved away, and you took it back. That's one of the bravest things I've ever seen, and I'm surrounded by heroes of the New Republic."

"It was mine," she says, and Leia tries to look away because his eyes are too intense, too forgiving. "It was mine."

He hugs her, which is his response when she can't meet his eyes. It gives her time to think and he's warm, solid and secure, so it helps. "What did you do?" he asks, his voice soft above her head.

"What do you mean?"

Han rests his chin on her head, and his heart thuds slowly near her cheek. She's so attached to that sound.

He strokes her shoulder, then her arm. "When all of your pain came back, what did you do? How did you get through it? You weren't even having contractions anymore, it was just one unending kind of thing. You didn't even see me, or Luke, or anything. You were in my head, but I- I have no idea what that's like."

Her memory of Ben's birth is already treacherous. It's blurry, half-formed, as if her mind tried to protect itself as it went on. "I remember you," she starts, pulling at the strings of her memories. "You talked to me."

"I rambled about nonsense because Obi-Wan said you could hear me."

Leia pats his chest, then shifts to look at him. "I heard you. I think I threw up on you too."

He winces a little, and nods. That dry chuckle of his is the most endearing sound. "Yeah. You did, it was fine, I was all sweaty and that's none of my good shirts."

"You were there," she says, searching her thoughts. "That's what I remember, you were there, and Luke, but you- I needed you."

"You've got me," he reminds him, grinning. "Even if you don't remember it."

"You said I wouldn't want to."

"Probably not."

Remembering early labor isn't difficult. Han's smile in the sunshine remains in her mind, and poor Luke, having to shut out her early contractions. After that, it's more confusing. She missed her parents, and Luke was there, and Maz, but Han's the constant. He never left. "Thank you."

"Me?" Han holds her a little closer. "I had the easy part."

"Maz said you're meant to forget, in case you're ever foolish enough to have another one" Leia remembers. Running her fingers over his cheek, she toys with the stubble he hasn't reached, then moves her fingers back to the smooth place. "I think I'd like that, someday."

He laughs so hard that his chest bounces beneath her. "Really?"

"Hey, parents, you want your kid back?" Luke calls from the doorway.

"Is he screaming?" Han calls back. If he was, they would hear him, and Leia shakes her head.

"He's asleep," Luke answers, grinning in the doorway. Ben's wrapped to his chest, and he'll sleep there for at least another hour until he's hungry. "Missed another thrilling dejabrik match."

"Kid's too young to have taste," Han jokes.

He doesn't get up, and she's grateful. She's not ready to part with his presence yet.

"He'll root for Chewie when he's older," Han promises. He toys with her hair, threading his fingers through. She hasn't braided it again. Leia's barely taken the time to brush it in the past few days. She's as bad as Han and his almost-beard.

"I just need Maz to teach me a thing or two," Luke teases.

Han shakes his head and winds his hand deeper into her hair. "Oh no, she'll never tell you how to beat her boyfriend, she likes how only she can do that a little too much to share any tricks."

Luke wraps his hand around Ben's little head and smirks. "Thought that might be the case."

Han looks down at her, then nods. "Keep him, he's content. Bring him back when he's hungry. Unless you're sick of holding him, then I suppose you can give him back."

Luke's lazy smile has none of the heaviness that has followed him since the Death Star. He's so easily happy with Ben. "I'll keep him then. He's not good luck, but it's nice holding him."

"It does something to your chest, doesn't it?" Han asks, trailing his fingers through the ends of her hair. "You hold him and you just don't want to let him go."

"He's not even mine," Luke answers, staring down at Ben's dark little head.

Leia shakes her head and shares a look with Han. He understands.

"He's yours," Leia corrects Luke. He'll never have children. Rebuilding the Jedi will take that from him, but she can give him this. "You're part of me, and Ben, and he already knows you."

"It's more like you're his," Han adds. His fingers squeeze her shoulder in agreement "Welcome to parenting, kid."

Luke looks from Han to Leia, then back at Ben. He is willing to be his. They didn't even need to ask. She projects her love for Luke, for the three of them, because it's too much to hold in. Luke replies with his own feelings, and that's a rush of affection that blindsides her all the more. The Force pulses through her and surrounds her, like a hot bath. She opens her mind and guides Han into that sensation, letting him share the rush of love.

Luke brushes her mind, bathing her in light and reminding her that no darkness in her their love can't chase away.

Ben, of course, sleeps through the whole exchange.