Work Text:
The Fifth Adjective
Han Solo walked into the kitchen and stopped beside the breakfast table.
A flier lay across it.
Cheap print.
Bad illustrations.
Small type.
Han scanned it once, determined it contained nothing remotely useful, and began crumpling it into a ball.
“Han!”
He froze.
Leia stood at the counter with a cup of kaffe.
“What?”
“Don’t do that.”
He looked at the paper in his hand.
“Why? What is it?”
He immediately began smoothing it flat again.
It would not have been the first time Han threw away something that looked like garbage to him and turned out to possess tremendous significance to his wife.
“It’s a poetry reading.”
Han stopped smoothing.
“In midtown.”
He looked at Leia.
She stared back.
“Yeah? That's why I was throwing it away.”
Leia did the familiar half shake of her head, half roll of her eyes.
“Maia is reading.”
Han frowned.
“Maia.”
“Your granddaughter.”
“I know she’s my granddaughter.”
“Do you?”
Han ignored that.
“That’s today?”
“Yes.”
Leia checked something in the oven.
“So get dressed.”
Han looked down at himself.
“I am dressed.”
“Solo.”
“Fine.”
He reached automatically for his chest pocket.
Empty.
“Which one is Maia again?”
Leia slowly turned.
Han held up a hand.
“I’m kidding.”
Mostly.
They had accumulated a frankly unreasonable number of grandchildren.
His datapad appeared in front of him.
Leia was holding it.
“Thanks.”
“Right where you left it?”
“Exactly.”
Han sat at the table and opened the file labeled:
GRANDKIDS
Leia sat across from him.
He scrolled.
“Oh.”
Recognition dawned.
“Maia.”
“What do you have beside her?”
Leia leaned toward the screen.
Han immediately shut it.
“Princess.”
Leia sat back.
“Princess.”
“Yeah.”
A knowing smile appeared.
Han disliked that smile.
He had cleaned up the list substantially after Leia discovered it several years earlier.
The incident involving their youngest child’s middle son and the descriptor future Darth Vader remained one of the more spectacular domestic miscalculations of Han Solo’s later life.
The entry now read:
pouty.
Compromise was the foundation of a successful marriage.
Leia sipped her kaffe.
“Finish breakfast.”
Han eyed her.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“Immensely.”
The café was small and crowded, tucked along a busy midtown street.
One wall had been opened toward the sidewalk, and a little raised platform stood near the windows for singers, performers, and, apparently, poets.
Han and Leia sat at a table near the back.
Maia stepped onto the platform.
Han remembered her immediately.
Not because of the datapad.
Because she looked like Leia.
Not Leia now.
Leia then.
The young princess he had first met aboard the Death Star.
Same dark eyes.
Same confident posture.
Same look that suggested the galaxy had already disappointed her and she intended to correct it personally.
Han leaned toward his wife.
“Can I heckle her?”
“No.”
“Just once?”
“Absolutely not.”
Han leaned back.
“Where are her parents?”
“Helping with the twins.”
“Oh.”
The great-grandchildren.
More names for the list.
Maia began to read.
Han listened for a while.
Then stopped listening.
Poetry had never been among his gifts.
But eventually a few phrases penetrated.
Peace.
Disarmament.
The failures of militarism.
Tolerance.
Han slowly turned toward Leia.
She was listening with a strange, soft expression.
He leaned closer.
“What is this?”
Leia didn’t look at him.
“Hush.”
“She’s attacking the military.”
“She’s reading a poem.”
“Same thing.”
“Han.”
His voice dropped lower.
“You buying this?”
Leia finally glanced at him.
“Listen.”
So he did.
Or tried to.
He looked around the café instead.
At the people gathered by the windows.
At the crowd outside.
At his granddaughter standing on a stage criticizing institutions that had once kept half the galaxy alive.
Easy, Han thought.
Easy to say all this now.
No stormtroopers outside.
No Star Destroyers overhead.
No friends disappearing into Imperial prisons.
No worlds being burned because somebody somewhere had decided they were inconvenient.
He looked at Leia.
Leia, who had been tortured.
Leia, who had watched Alderaan die.
Leia, who had picked up a blaster and never really put it down until the galaxy stopped giving her reasons to need one.
And she looked...
proud.
Maia finished.
The café erupted in applause.
Leia stood.
Han stood with her.
Then he saw Leia wipe quickly beneath one eye.
He stared.
Maia was glowing on the stage.
Han sighed.
Fine.
She was their granddaughter.
He clapped harder.
Then whistled.
Leia shot him a look.
“What?”
“That was not heckling.”
“No.”
“That was support.”
“I know.”
Han grinned.
They walked home after lunch.
Coruscant had changed.
Or maybe they had.
No escorts.
No bodyguards.
Very few people stopped them anymore.
Once, they had barely been able to walk a city block without someone asking for a holo.
Now they were simply an older couple moving slowly through the afternoon crowd.
Leia glanced at him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re still thinking about Maia’s poem.”
Han shoved his hands into his pockets.
“I get it.”
Leia waited.
“She’s our granddaughter. We act like everything she does is brilliant.”
Leia stopped.
“That is not why I cried.”
Han turned.
“No?”
“No.”
Leia looked back toward the café.
“I don’t agree with everything she said.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“Han.”
“Sorry.”
She took a breath.
“What I saw was my granddaughter stand up in public and criticize her government.”
Han frowned.
Leia continued.
“Openly. Safely. Without fear.”
He went still.
“She said things half the galaxy would have been imprisoned for when we were young.”
Leia’s voice softened.
“She can disagree with us.”
A small smile touched her mouth.
“She can even be wrong.”
Han snorted.
Leia ignored him.
“And nothing happens to her.”
He looked back toward the café.
“She goes home.”
“Yes.”
“To her parents.”
“Yes.”
“And writes another lousy poem.”
Leia smiled.
“Probably.”
Han exhaled slowly.
“That’s what the tears were for?”
“That’s what the tears were for.”
He nodded.
Now he understood.
“How can she think that way, though?”
Leia resumed walking.
Han followed.
“She knows the stories.”
“Stories.”
Leia looked at him.
“That’s the point.”
Han frowned.
“Our children lived through the aftermath. They heard about the war everywhere.”
She gestured toward the city.
“For Maia, Alderaan may be a chapter in a history course.”
Han looked ahead.
Something about that bothered him.
Something else made him proud.
“That’s good?”
Leia nodded.
“It is.”
They walked in silence for a while.
Hovercars streaked overhead.
People hurried past carrying packages, talking into comms, complaining about work, meeting friends.
Normal problems.
Normal lives.
Han slipped an arm around Leia.
“This is what we fought for.”
Leia leaned into him.
“Yes.”
Han watched the traffic.
“She’s never known anything else.”
“No.”
“And we did that.”
Leia looked up.
Han laughed softly.
“Still sounds ridiculous when I say it.”
“I remember when it did.”
Something in her voice changed.
Han looked down.
“Where’d you go, Princess?”
Leia smiled.
He didn’t call her that often anymore.
Not like he once had.
“That title’s taken.”
Han scoffed.
“Not a chance.”
He kissed her.
Quickly.
Leia caught his jacket before he could pull away and kissed him again.
Properly this time.
Han smiled when she finally let him go.
“So that was worth all the fighting.”
Leia arched an eyebrow.
“Which fighting?”
“What fighting?”
“Han Solo.”
“We never fought.”
Leia laughed.
“Now I know your memory is going.”
“Memory’s fine.”
They entered their building.
“I remember the important parts.”
Leia was still smiling when she asked:
“I wonder.”
“What?”
“What adjective you would have put next to my name.”
Han blinked.
“On the list?”
“Yes.”
He thought about it.
“Depends when.”
Leia nodded.
“All right.”
The lift doors opened.
They stepped inside.
“First?”
Han leaned against the wall.
“Feisty.”
Leia considered it.
“Fair.”
“Second...”
His mind supplied Hoth.
A dark corridor.
A kiss that had changed everything.
“Sexy.”
Leia flushed.
Han grinned.
“Still true.”
“Continue while you’re ahead.”
“Third.”
This one came easily.
He remembered a wedding.
Her hand in his.
The startling realization that somehow this extraordinary woman had chosen him.
“Mine.”
Leia looked up.
Her expression changed.
Softened.
She stepped closer.
Han kissed her.
The lift chimed.
They walked toward the apartment.
“Fourth,” Han said.
Leia stopped.
“There are four?”
“I’m improvising.”
“That's always dangerous.”
Han thought.
Children.
Tiny bodies placed into their arms.
Leia laughing and crying at the same time.
The two of them staring at something they had somehow created together.
“Miracle.”
Leia’s breath caught.
“For the children?”
Han nodded.
“Yeah.”
Leia slid her arms around his waist.
“And now?”
“Now what?”
“Is there a fifth?”
Han shook his head.
“Nope.”
“Come on.”
“I’m done.”
“You’re doing wonderfully.”
“That should scare both of us.”
Leia squeezed him.
“A fifth.”
Han looked at her.
War.
Marriage.
Children.
Grandchildren.
Great-grandchildren.
Years.
So many years that the galaxy had finally become a place where their granddaughter could stand on a stage and criticize everything they had once fought beside and for.
He thought of the Falcon sitting untouched in her hangar.
Of how long it had been since he had flown her anywhere that mattered.
Of traffic moving faster than he liked now.
Of a galaxy that no longer needed Han Solo and Leia Organa to save it every few weeks.
That was all right.
It had been the point.
Han smiled.
“Lucky.”
Leia’s expression softened.
“That’s your fifth?”
“Yeah.”
She leaned into him.
“I like that one.”
Han kissed her forehead.
“Been lucky since the day I met you.”
“That is not how you described it at the time.”
“I was young.”
“You complained constantly.”
“I was overwhelmed.”
Leia laughed.
Han tightened his arms around her.
Outside the apartment windows, Coruscant moved beneath a clear afternoon sky.
Speeders crossed between towers.
People hurried toward lives that had nothing to do with wars or rebellions or emperors.
The galaxy continued without them.
Han found that he didn’t mind.
Not much, anyway.
Leia tilted her head.
“Still think Maia’s poem was terrible?”
“Absolutely.”
She laughed again.
Han smiled.
Maybe that was the fifth adjective after all.
Not lucky.
Not quite.
Something better.
He looked at his wife.
“Happy.”
Leia stilled.
Han shrugged.
“Yeah.”
Her eyes shone.
“Happy,” she repeated.
He kissed her.
And outside, the galaxy went on.