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(no subject)

Who: Leia Organa & Han Solo
When: August 2 or 3, somewhere around there.
Where: The Millennium Falcon, cargo bay
What: Talking about that kid situation of theirs.
Warnings:

At some point around dinnertime, Leia shoots Han a message. Grab some food and come back to the Falcon?

She nearly adds We need to talk, then erases it when she realizes just what that'll read like without her voice to temper the message. The goal is to see him, not to give him a heart attack.

After, she gets some rations of her own to go and heads down to the cargo bay to see if they have anything they can add to dinner tonight. If there was ever a time Leia Organa needed a drink, it's after hearing about more future offspring. Even the ones who seem to like her.

She'll be picking at her food in the lounge, her feet on the dejarik table, with a bottle of Corellian brandy next to her. Han's going to need a double if he hasn't heard the news yet.

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Leia nods, forgiveness in a gesture. In everything that happened last month, who can blame him for setting aside something and forgetting to bring it back up?

Taking the datacube from him, she turns it on and leans into his side to watch it with him. The face that appears belongs somewhere between the child in Leia's message and the man they've met in person. The softness of boyhood still clings to him in places, but his features are angular, and she knows they'll only grow more so.

It's a message for Han through and through, one a future Leia might not have seen. This is something for a man in the middle of a long journey with his Wookiee best friend, made by a son who's starting to occupy the same world they do.

Perhaps Han didn't forget to mention it. Perhaps he didn't know how to reconcile something so personal, so apparently heartfelt, with the enmity of Kylo Ren. Leia's not sure she can, having seen it. She feels like she walked into a private conversation.

"He loved you," she finally says, looking up at Han's face. She doesn't know everything going on behind those pale eyes, but the way he grows quiet around the subject of Ben, she thinks this might be a place to start. "I knew he must."

He'd like to believe that, had things been different, he'd have thought to tell her. The truth is it might have come to this either way-- they might have needed to fall into the subject first. There's just no easy way to bring it up, and there's something about the message that leaves him feeling fiercely guarded. Protective of this private moment that hasn't happened yet. This is his son-- her son, of course, but there's something sacred about the way his voice cracks, the casual gossip, the things he think will interest his father. The genuine, embarrassed way he ducks his head. In another world there'd be no reason at all to share this casual, fond missive. Here-- well, of course he had to show her. Of course. And yet...

For just a moment he has to glance away at nothing in particular, the hard line of his jaw betraying the tension of the moment. Ben loved him-- but, awful as it is to even think it-- if he didn't, everything would be so much easier to understand. If they'd never gotten along. If there was some simple answer. But this leaves them with more questions than ever.

"I wanted to ask why," he says finally. "I still don't get it."

Maybe he never will.

It's not the place to start, if the way he can't even look at her when she voices the thought is anything to go by. Han must be tortured by that thought: a son who cared enough to send him messages, to tell him he was loved, grew up to kill him. But there isn't really a place to start in this. Every part of this message could wound him, in the right light.

Leia lets him have his moment, sliding an arm around his waist. The fact that he's taken their son's rejection so personally so quickly says to her that he has what it takes to be a good father. He cares, and he obviously cares deeply.

If only his love for his son wasn't rewarded with Kylo Ren.

"Was that all he said?" she asks in a low voice, setting the datacube back onto his lap. "That you didn't try to understand the Force?"

"Not much else."

None of it that makes any of it make sense.

"Nothing about-- what happened." Because something must have happened, mustn't it? There has to have been some catalyst, some catastrophe. A boy like that doesn't become a man like Kylo Ren without-- does he?

Maybe Jaina will grow into hating him, too. The thought leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, but it doesn't quite feel right.

It's like trying to rebuild an engine when you're missing half the pieces.

"He hasn't explained it to me, either." Han knows that, she's sure. If anything had changed, she would have come to him immediately; while he seems to swallow everything that happens with Ben, Leia can't help but want to talk about it. It feels like it's exploding out of her when she learns something new about their son's situation. It needs to be discussed. "If we can just figure it out--"

If they can coax out of him the moment that changed everything, they can stop it. The future is only written for him, not for them, and unlike her brother, Leia believes wholeheartedly in her ability to rewrite fate.

"It's too bad Jaina's still so young." Any possibility of finding the answer through her is dashed by the fact that she doesn't even recognize the name Ben as belonging to family.

Things would have to be so infinitely different for him to be comfortable talking about their son that it's not worth mentioning. Of course she hasn't heard any more. There's little speaking to him at the best of times, and recently-- well.

"It oughta be you," he affirms. There's something more civil between them now-- he wants to believe, anyway-- but Kylo doesn't want to open up, and his prying is apt to frustrate them both at best. At worst-- well, Han doesn't want a closer glimpse of what the future holds.

He doesn't expect there's anything to be done about it, not really. But it doesn't change the fact that they need to understand.

So soon after the outpost, Leia's had little desire to talk to most of the others from their galaxy. Speaking to Ben, especially, seems like a minefield stretching out in all directions. For all that Obi-Wan seemed to think Ben had gone to the outpost for her sake, she doesn't know what Ben knows about her last few weeks. The longer she waits to talk with him, the less likely it is they'll have to talk about that.

But they can't leave this mystery alone forever. The fact that Ben and Jaina both exist, apparently independent of each other, is baffling, and she wants an explanation.

She's just not sure she wants it yet.

But that doesn't matter here, not when Han only says it should be her--not that it should happen soon. She nods, pressing a little kiss to his cheek. "I'll ask him. I can't promise he'll tell me anything--" wryly, with a little shake to her head--"but I'll ask."

Nothing's ever certain with Kylo. Usually that's a cause to despair, though rarely it seems to work for them rather than against them. He hardly expected to have a civil conversation last time, but he'd felt the need to try.

"Be careful," he says anyway. It'd be nice to not feel like he has to say that-- but he still feels like he has to say it.

"I will."

Leia gives him a smile, though it doesn't quite touch the resignation in her eyes. It's not going to be a pleasant conversation, no matter what she does--but she can minimize the risks she takes. No more finding him and shouting whatever she feels.

He kisses her brow, mostly because he can. That's about the best he can hope for. Maybe they'll get some answers; at least, he hopes, they won't end up any worse off.

"C'mon, let's eat."

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