Work Text:
"Enough"
A Bloodstripes Story
The spa room floor was cold and uncomfortable, and still Leia let it chill her skin and dig into her bones. She could have sat on the edge of bath basin. She could have made sure she was on the plush rug, when she sank down; but she didn’t. The discomfort, she hoped, would motivate her to eventually get up.
She leaned back hard against the bath, picking at the edges of her robe. She did toy with the idea of getting up, returning to the living room, or even going to bed, but she felt sapped of energy. Instead, she stayed sitting on the floor until Han came looking for her.
He was barefoot and shirtless, ready for bed. He walked into the room and reached for a toothbrush. He glanced at her, turned on the sink, then did a double take, flicking the water back off.
“Leia?” he asked, taken aback.
He set the toothbrush down. She’d gone to her office to work after dinner, come out to have a snack and some tea with Vada, gone back to work – so he’d thought – yet here she sat in the corner of the ‘fresher, looking disheveled, looking…defeated.
His heart sank. He looked towards the sani, then towards the wastebaskets, eyes roaming over the surfaces in the room. As he searched, Leia reached to her side and picked up a white stick from the edge of the bath. She held it out; Han took it, taking mere seconds to read the results.
(-) Not Pregnant
He sighed. He set the stick aside gingerly, pushing it to the back of the counter away from their toothbrushes and every other item scattered across the sink. He stuck his foot out and slid the door almost closed behind him, sequestering them. Vada didn’t really eavesdrop anymore, but he was still cautious.
He sat down on the lid of the sani, leaning forward on his knees.
“You didn’t tell me you were taking a test,” he said gently.
She usually did. Since they had scrapped her contraceptives, she’d always told him.
Leia ran her hands back through her hair. She pulled it over one shoulder, loose, and twisted her fingers in it. She looked down at the ends, smoothing them between her fingertips.
“It seemed easier,” she mumbled.
“Easier…not to tell me?” Han asked.
She nodded.
“I’m tired of,” she started. She paused, stared at the edge of her hair. She tilted her head back and forth slowly. “’Next time,” she quoted. “’Don’t worry about it,” she echoed, “it’ll happen, Sweetheart.”
She exhaled, let her hands fall from her hair, and drew her knees up a little.
“I’m so tired of seeing you disappointed, so I thought if you didn’t know, you’d,” she shrugged. “You wouldn’t have to be, for once.”
Han scooted one of his feet closer, nudging her toes with his.
“Yeah, maybe,” he said. “So instead you’re disappointed by yourself?” he shook his head. “Don’t do that, Leia. Don’t worry about me.”
Leia bit her lip. She straightened a little, struggling with a bolt of anger in her spine – she caught herself, but she almost yelled at him – almost shouted, no, I won’t worry about you, you already had a baby, I can’t get pregnant, but you had a baby with a woman you barely cared about –
Almost, but she caught herself.
Instead, she asked –
“Where’s Vada?”
“She’s up finishin’ her show,” Han said.
“She needs to go to bed,” Leia said. “It’s late.”
“S’not a school night,” Han pointed out. “She said she’d go get in bed with a book when it's over,” he added, pushing on past that. “If you’re tired of me saying those things, I won’t, but – “
“You’ll think of something else to say?” Leia interrupted. “Something that sounds the same?”
Her voice was brittle, edgy. Han hesitated.
“No,” he said slowly. “I think…I was going to say…maybe we need to, uh, talk to a doctor.”
Her face paled. She bowed her forehead to her knees and shook her head, more at herself than anything. She curled her hands around her shins, and her toes into the floor, shivering. The thought, the idea – it was all just so exhausting.
“Han, this was supposed to be easy. I wanted this to be easy,” she protested, words muffled in her knees. “I don’t want something to be wrong with me. I don’t want this to be another battle.”
Ten years of her life on contraceptives, being vigilant, and even if he was the only one she’d had to be vigilant about, if she was going to find out it had never mattered at all –
Han shuffled his feet. He sat up straight, then slouched again, a heavy blanket of guilt settling over his shoulders. He hadn’t meant to imply there was something wrong, he was just starting to think this holding pattern wasn’t good for either of them. Her anxiety increased by the month, and she seemed more fragile of late, and it hurt him to see.
He folded his arms tightly. He made a noise in his throat as he started to speak, squeezing his knuckles on his arms until they turned white.
“Maybe it’s me, Leia.”
He watched her blink, saw how slow and careful it was – such a soft, slight act, and yet somehow loudly noticeable in the fraught silence that followed.
Immediately, he figured he shouldn’t have said it. He wanted to be with her, but trying to place blame on himself suddenly seemed farcical rather than supportive – alienating.
Leia looked at him, her eyes unreadable. The words hung between them for an era with her eyes fixed on his. She felt an ache in her chest, and then that twinge of shouting anger, but she did not want to be angry with him. Her cheek rested on her knees heavily.
She pressed her palm flat into the tile next to her. Her skin turned white with the pressure, then flushed pink as she let up, and blood rushed into her fingers. She pursed her lips, yet it seemed to say everything.
He swallowed hard, and his skin crawled uncomfortably; he didn’t need other worldly skills to read her mind, to hear her thinking – we know it’s not you; you had Vada…you’ve already had a baby. With someone else. Mouth dry, Han unfolded his arms and wiped his palms on his trousers roughly.
“Leia,” he started hoarsely. “She was before the carbonite. It could be me.”
Leia looked away from him. He seemed too tall, too masculine, too much to deal with. She stared at the wall, her lashes trembling, heavy with tears. She took a sharp breath in, and then turned, abruptly standing. She thrust out a hand and he took it, helping her to her feet.
She cinched her robe tighter, patted her cheeks, and leaned against the wall across from him. Standing up made her feel more in control, and she fought down an urge to bolt from the room and stop the conversation.
“I wanted this to be easy,” she said again.
“I know, Leia,” he said.
“No, you don’t,” she retorted gently. She met his eyes earnestly, unapologetic. “I’m not angry, Han – I want to be, I think, but you haven’t hurt me,” she said. “I, um – do you know, a long time ago, Luke asked me if I was mad at you about all of this?”
She licked her lips.
“I told him I wasn’t, but that I was jealous,” she murmured. “Not of Vada. Of Visenya. Because she had something of you I assumed would be mine, only mine. That hasn’t really mattered – and I had this…beautiful talk with Carlist about it, but,” she broke off, her voice shaking, “but this is…a very difficult thing to cope with, if I can’t – I’m going to struggle with it. And with you. I can’t help it.”
Han nodded. His chest ached, and he took it in as best he could, desperate not to react wrong. The guilt weighed heavier, guilt over past mistakes, guilt because he wouldn’t change it, now that he had Vada, he’d never want her gone, and he didn’t think Leia would either – and that wasn’t what she was saying.
“I know it's been a year, Leia,” he said thickly. “That’s not that long, is it?”
“It’s when you’re supposed to start being concerned,” Leia confessed – she’d looked it up; she’d started doing research.
She’d gone down rabbit holes that started generic and got more specific, she’d read articles that focused on ways to address trouble getting pregnant and articles that devolved into treatises on heartache that told tales of years and years of drugs, and disappointment, marriages broken down irretrievably – and on top of that, the thought that Vada might start thinking she wasn’t enough –
“Okay,” Han said. “Then…let’s see someone,” he suggested again.
Leia folded her arms around her stomach, folded in on herself. She shook her head, lurched forward, went to the sink. She grabbed the pregnancy test and threw it in the wastebasket, and she left the spa, fleeing to their bedroom.
Han followed her.
“Wait,” he asked, voice low. “Leia, wait – stop, I want to talk about – “
“I don’t know if I do, Han!” she hissed, whirling around.
She stood at the edge of their bed, robe loosening again. The shoulder slipped down her arm, and she tugged at it, her eyes wide with anguish.
“I don’t know if I want to…know what’s wrong,” she said, gesturing wildly at her abdomen. “I wanted this, but I can’t,” she shook her head. “I don’t think I can handle all of the things that we’ll have to go through if we go to a specialist and they say that I am broken.”
Her face blanched.
“It's already hard to get a no every month – “
“Yeah, sweetheart, but it will get harder if we don’t know,” Han protested gently. “If there’s an issue with one of us, we can see about fixing – “
“It wouldn’t be an issue with you, and you damn well know it,” Leia snapped.
“The carbonite – “
“Han!” she cried, louder than she meant to. She covered her mouth, standing still for a moment, listening for the sound of Vada stirring, running to check on them. When there was nothing, she squeezed her eyes shut, and pressed her palm tighter to her mouth, stifling a sob. “Han, stop.”
His arms hung limply at his sides for a moment, standing still. She struggled with herself, muffling tears, holding her hand out to him to keep him at arm’s length – and that, he ignored after a moment, approaching slowly.
“Leia,” he said gently, touching her palm. He held her hand and stepped closer hesitantly. “Leia, let me…it's okay, Leia.”
She finally let him put his arms around her, and for a long moment he held her tightly, smoothing his fingers through her hair until she was able to take a few deep breaths, wipe her face on his chest.
“Sit down,” he murmured, pulling her down with him to the edge of the bed.
He tucked hair behind her ears, palms brushing her face.
“You know, you know,” she hissed, “it would be a problem with me.”
“It’s not a problem” Han soothed.
“It is a problem! It would break my heart!”
“I know,” he said emphatically, and when she tried to speak again, he did cut her off, just to get his next words out: “I know I don’t get it, yeah? I know that, Leia. I’m tryin’ to say the right goddamn thing here, but I don’t think I can so just…talk to me, okay? And tell me when it gets this bad – I know we’ve been disappointed, but I thought we were still just seeing what happened,” he admitted. “I get unhappy when you’re unhappy, Sweetheart. I want this, too, but I’m not goin’ anywhere without it.”
He rested his hands on her shoulders.
“I’m not going to break your heart,” he promised. “I’m not going to leave,” he scoffed.
Leia reached up to grab his hands tightly.
“I’m not worried about that,” she said honestly. She dismissed the thought – of all things, she was not concerned about Han leaving her, not for lack of fertility, or for any other reason.
She just wanted him to understand –
“Han, the…thing is, I don’t know if I am ready to go walk into a specialists’ office and ask them to tell me if I can have a baby or not,” she said, her voice small.
He leaned closer to listen.
“I can’t…imagine the pain of being told no, but I,” she looked up at him, her eyes hard and red. “I don’t want to do…needles, and pills, and – I just don’t think I want to go through all that. I can’t,” she asserted. “I can’t. It’s too much suffering for an uncertain result, and I have had too much of that – so when you start – when we start having this conversation – I have to tell you that if I can’t do this the easy way, that’s it for me, and I’m concerned about being seeing as selfish – “
“Why’s that selfish?” Han asked. “You have been through a lot, Leia,” he said. “I don’t want you to suffer.”
“What does it say about my feelings for Vada?” Leia asked hoarsely. “If I just give up, what does it say about…how badly I wanted to be a mother? Women go to the ends of the galaxy for this, and we have the money, and the resources, and I’m just – if I have a,” she took a deep breath, “fertility issue, I just quit? What does that – “
“Who fucking cares?” Han interrupted sharply. “I don’t give a damn what other people think about why we don’t have more kids, or how we got them – Vada knows you love her,” he said fiercely. “No one knows that better than her, ‘cept maybe me,” he added. “You’re adopted, people know you don’t think she’s second class – and it’s no one’s business what you do or don’t want to put your body through!”
His outburst had startled her, but she listened.
“Leia, if there’s anything I’ve learned about the galaxy from watching you the five years, it's that they’ll hound you. They’ll hound you if we have more kids and if we don’t, so fuck ‘em. What do you want to do? What is going to make you happiest?” he asked.
Leia leaned forward. She rested her elbows on her knees, and pulled his hands together in her lap with hers.
“Well, ideally, I want a baby,” she said quietly. “With you.”
“Glad there aren’t any other contenders,” Han said, deadpan. She smiled faintly, and he leaned in closer. “And if we can’t do that, I’ll be around for whatever you want to try, Leia.”
“Han,” she said, closing her eyes. “What I have been trying to tell you is that if I can’t have a baby, you need to be okay with that being the end of it.”
He nodded – he heard that, and he didn’t want to push, because to him it didn’t matter. They could keep things as they were, they could look at adopting, he was open to what she wanted, and he thought she was emotionally compromised right now, and her mind might change – but if it didn’t, that was okay. He wanted a baby with her, badly – but he wanted her more.
“If I can’t get pregnant, it is just going to hurt for a long time,” Leia said, almost to herself, “and we’ll – I’ll – have to find a way to help Vada understand that the pain isn’t about her.”
Leia sat back a little, stretching her shoulders.
“She means the world to me, Han,” she said. “Vada. She’s enough.”
Still, Han felt gutted. He would, he thought, always feel like he’d inadvertently stolen something from her, and if this reality came to pass, some inability to have kids together, he’d feel it harder. He wanted to press back, to say – yes, Vada is enough, but she doesn’t have to be – he owed it to her to go to the ends of the galaxy if that was what she wanted –
The look on her face right now asked him to listen, not to push, and so he did.
He squeezed her hand.
“Do you want to stop trying for a while?” he offered. “Take a step back? If we use contraceptives for a few months, we can stop sorta…holdin’ our breath.”
Leia sighed.
“I don’t know, Han,” she murmured. “I don’t know that I’m ready to give up. I’m frustrated, and I’m scared but…I’m not getting younger, so why cut time out?”
Han laughed.
“Leia, you’re barely thirty,” he snorted.
“Nature’s pretty cruel to women,” Leia said.
She took a deep breath, shook her head.
“No, I’m – I don’t want to stop right now, and I don’t want to…see anyone yet,” she decided. “If we go…six more months without any results,” she paused, “then…okay.”
Han nodded. He pulled his hands out of hers, and then leaned forward to hug her again, pressing his lips to her temple.
“Leia,” he sighed heavily – he had so much to say, but none of it was right, and none of it was anything he could undo, or anything she could help.
She just tilted her head into his lips, nodding slightly.
“Dad?” Vada called. Her voice was close, right outside the door, and then she knocked – the door was open, so it swung, and Vada stood uncertainly in the doorway, as Han pulled away from Leia.
“Yeah?” he asked gruffly.
“I wanted to read you a chapter of my story that I was writing…is everything okay?” she said in a rush.
“Yes,” Han said. “Were you listening at the door?” he asked.
“No,” Vada said.
She held his gaze, but Han wasn’t sure. He arched a brow at her, but didn’t push it. HE gave Leia a quick look, letting her know silently he’d be back, and they could spend some time just wallowing in this -- but she surprised him; she arranged her face, took a deep breath.
“Can I hear?” she asked. “I didn’t know you had written another chapter,” she said, getting up.
She tightened her robe and smiled at Vada. Vada beamed back. She held out her hand to Leia, bouncing on her heels, and Leia strode across the room to take it, squeezing tighter than she might have. She felt Han’s eyes on her back, and she found it comforting – she knew he felt guilt over Vada, but she wished he didn’t. In spite of everything else that might happen, or might not happen, she felt lucky to have this little girl in their life, and it didn’t matter how she’d gotten her.