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[imahologram]

for whatever miscellaneous bullshit your little heart can come up with.

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[imahologram]

"I think Mother might understand not being first this once." Surely she can see just how thoroughly overjoyed Dad would be--is--at the idea of grandchildren.

Still, he knows Mother better than anyone, and it's not like she's going to be able to tell she told him first. (There are occasions when it's incredibly convenient not to have a Force-sensitive mother. If only she weren't so blasted good at reading people even without access to the Force.) It can't hurt to follow his advice on this point.

"I'll let her think I'm telling you tomorrow," she says, looking over the brightly coloured flowers. "But that means you can't send her a holo tonight. She'll see right through you."

They all know just how easily Mother can take the furrow of Dad's brows and the curves of his lips and translate them into thoughts. He'd beam at her, he might mention Leia's name, and that would be that.

[forcesaken]

He laughs again. It's infectious; this warmth swelling in his chest, something about the way they are just glows brighter and brighter and it may have something to do with the life growing inside Leia now or it may be that this moment is something that he will always draw on. His struggles with the dark will always be there, but his family will always bring him back even if they aren't always by his side.

His laugh calms to a rumble and he smirks down at her, mischief in his eyes. "You think you can lie to your mother, hm?" His hand pats hers, the amusement never fades. "Ah, to be young and foolish again. You do what you want to do, princess. I'll follow along and not send her any holos until you tell her. But you know as well as I do, your mother never needed to be Force-sensitive to read people like an open book."

[imahologram]

"Maybe," she says, grinning up at him. Dad's not wrong--privately, Leia thinks that Mother's become all the more adept at spotting the truth for the fact that she's surrounded by Force users--but it still seems worthwhile to give it a try. If she succeeds (unlikely though it is), Mother gets to believe she heard the news first; if she fails, it becomes a pleasant story to be told and retold in the future. (Just after your father and I found out about you, she imagines herself saying to a child, I know your grandparents would want to know about you, too...) "I guess we'll see."

It reminds her of something, and as they walk along through the sweet-scented afternoon, she adds, "I used to think I got away with things all the time, when I was younger. You were just being generous, though, weren't you?"

[forcesaken]

He smirks and lifts a shoulder in a shrug. He thinks about them as younglings, huffing their faces when they've been caught in a lie or with a hand in a cookie jar -- sometimes, it's a cookie jar, but as they got older, it became the hyperdrive, the ignition lock, the holoNet room. It fills him with nostalgia and hits him with time.

"Oh, no," he said between laughter, "No, I wasn't always generous. You and your brother were good when you were younglings. Then someone taught you to lie and you both had it in your little heads that there was a sure way to lie and get away with things. The moment you tried, you broadcasted it and it became so, so, so obvious."

He squeezes her hand to emphasize and then a strange and unfamiliar but wonderful thought struck him. He makes a laughing noise that's straight from his stomach.

"I should write a book - Parenting tip for Force-sensitives children."

The thought of him sitting down to write a book. That's the funny part, probably.

[imahologram]

"I wonder who could have taught us that? We must have learned it somewhere."

Leia laughs with him, picturing it from the opposite vantage. For so much of their lives, she and Luke couldn't be nearly the rebels they might have wanted--they were too busy being the rebels their parents needed, the (reasonably) well-behaved children who spent their lives on the run. But when they were teenagers, when the Rebel Alliance gave them slightly more permanence...

Well, they weren't always as reliable as either of them are now. And even before that, there were cookie jars and staying up late, whispering to each other, well after they'd been warned to go to sleep.

"I might need that in a few months." However impossible Han finds the Force, she doubts their son or daughter will be the same way. The Force runs so strongly in the Skywalker line that she's sure it will continue in this child. "As long as this one doesn't turn out to be two, though, it can't be nearly as tough as Luke and I were."

[forcesaken]

"Let me tell you this: I used to love flying. Well, I still do. But you know, you and your brother... " He smacks his lips with a slight grimace and there's a hint of teasing in his voice, as if he's trying to get a reaction out of her. "You two ruined it for me for a while. I loved every moment I had with you and your brother so much more that flying..." He waves his hand dismissively, "It became just annoyance. Just a logistical way to get back quicker."

He trails off for a moment. Nostalgia was hitting him harder and harder, making his expression turn soft. He feels his age when he thinks about how small they were once, how he could fit her in one arm and her brother in another. Now, his daughter is going to be a mother, she stands tall beside him, her own woman with her own life, filled with both successes and failures.

Didn't they only started to go out and be as daring, brave and smart as him and Padme were as reckless youths?

He smile and sighs and feels maybe a bit overwhelmed by the suddenness of everything. "As tough and tired as it might get, there'll be moments when you know it's completely worth it. Not all the time, though! Everyone tells you you should love all the moments but sweetheart, I'll be honest and admit that I did not enjoy the moments when Luke and you took turns being sick on me."

[imahologram]

Leia's ready to sigh and roll her eyes--just like you clearly want, Dad--but then he keeps going, and all she can really do is smile. His love for his family is so strong and bright that sometimes it fees like music she can't quite hear; it's all around her, the reverberations clear even if the pitch isn't.

"Just think how tedious it'll be when you're a grandfather," she teases. "Flying Mother around and taking care of Jedi business when you could be spoiling this little thing."

For emphasis, she taps her (for now) flat belly where something tiny lives. So far, it's too small to reach with the Force, but Leia fancies she can feel it nonetheless, steadily growing. Already, she can't wait to meet it, whoever it ends up being, and not just because she's already had to stave off a few bouts of morning sickness.

"I don't think we enjoyed that, either." Still, poor Dad. Two children who were attuned to each other deeply enough that when one got a cold, the other sneezed in sympathy--that's a lot to handle. "Remember when I threw up on our birthday? Right on the cake?"

[forcesaken]

"Your mother's favourite cake!"

He laughs again, his arm goes around her and pulls her tight to his chest. He misses the days when he could pick her up and lift her high up in the air, but this is just as good. She's warm to his side as she was nestled on his chest the first time he held her. Also warm like the baby goos the twins like to project.

"She took the day off to bake it and you know how your mother is about taking days off," He's laughing now but he still remembers the look on Padme's face, the abject horror and the offended (though adorable, beautiful, he could go on and on) look she gave him when he just started laughing. "Made it just for you kids and neither of you took even ate it."

He looks down at Leia and kiss the top of her head. "Sweetheart, you have many years of that and more to look forward to. And you know, your mother and I are always here to help. I even promise I won't let little one here get into any trouble, unlike Obi-Wan."

[imahologram]

"I had the flu!" she retorts, but it's been more than long enough by now that it's merely a joke. At the time, she'd been heartbroken; she remembers starting to cry even before she'd stopped spewing their birthday dinner. "And then the rest of you did."

One small piece of revenge when she couldn't even enjoy her birthday. Someday, this child is going to have birthdays with its grandparents--two of them, anyway. Han hasn't mentioned any family at all (besides Chewie, of course), and she hasn't yet brought it up. Part of her is hoping he will first, though she doesn't think it's likely.

"I don't know if I can believe that." She raises a brow at her father. "We both know how responsible Uncle Obi-Wan is."

And how...willing to bend rules her father is.

[forcesaken]

"One day," he pats her hand again, donning some kind of sage and older persona instead of that lively, excited man he really is, "One day you're going find out just how responsible your Uncle Obi can be."

He fixes her with an I told you so look, knowing that it would be soon. It might even involve the child in Leia right now, or it might be Luke and that Han of hers. There's something great about counting the people he knows as family - yes, even Han. Anakin feels another sweep of joy, and he smiles warmly down at his daughter. He clears his throat and before he lets those emotions take over him, he excitedly announces.

"We need a family reunion! You're all spread too far! I haven't seen Luke in months. Next thing I know, he's going to come back and say he's gotten married and his wife is a month into pregnancy."