Force & Resistance: a Han & Leia love story

3. Rain, Soup, Blood

Leia and Han avoid each other for the first few days, but then it all goes to bantha dung.

They're forced together by hunger and rain. Both stuck inside Luke's base while a downpour pounds the forest outside. Luke and Chewie caught out in it somewhere (Don't feel sorry for them, they're dry, hiding in the Falcon playing dejarik). Hungry, Han and Leia can no longer avoid coming out into the central, common space, where they accidentally find themselves raiding Luke's ration stores at the same time.

It is awkward. Instead of talking to Han, Leia busies herself building a cooking fire in the central hearth. Han rustles around and chops things, clatters a pot with too much vigor. After what feels like a small eternity of sharply pointed, almost-ignoring, Leia's silence and Han's noise somehow produce a passable soup.

The sit and eat it. As far away as they can get in the round central hub of the wheel like structure. Leia almost takes her bowl to her sleep pod to eat, but she stays to be civil.

The fire burns down. A bit of rain comes down the vent hole above and hisses in the glowing coals from time to time.

The fragile peace is ruined, of course, when Han tries to talk.

"Do you have to be so quiet? Why are you treating me like a stranger, Leia?" Han can't help himself. He hears the whine in his voice and hates it.

"Do you have to chew like that?" Leia answers, flinching to hear herself so stinging, so fast.

"Oh, my table manners bothering you, Highness? At this fancy state dinner in front of all these diplomats? We're alone in the woods, I made that stew, and I'll chew as I please, Princess," Han is tired, he doesn't have the energy to hide his wounds. He also has a pretty good point.

Leia almost apologizes but as she draws breath...

There's a giggle.

Then a shimmer in the air.

Then the Force Ghost of Master Yoda is there, sitting by the fire, holding up his little hands to the flames, as though he can feel the warmth. Maybe he can.

"Fight with your mate, you will not, Padawan," Yoda says to Leia. Crinkly eyes smiling at her.

"Yes, Master Yoda," Leia says, surprised at his appearance, accidentally fumbling her empty soup bowl and spoon with a metal on metal clatter.

"A mother you will be. To a powerful Jedi," Yoda tells her. He nods, twinkling and solemn at once.

Leia can only sigh and kneel by the fire so that she's down at Yoda's level. Head bowed, chin to her chest, she doesn't look at Han.

It is Master Yoda who turns to the frozen and uncertain Han, lets his strange laugh peel out, "Mmmhmmmhmmm. Solo you are. Solo you will not be."

Ghost Yoda's glowing green gaze seems at once infinitely loving, all knowing, and super judgemental. Luke's know-it-all Master persona has a long way to go to match Yoda's level of patronizing.

"A father you will be, to a powerful warrior. Dangerous he will be. Learn the ways of peace, you must," Yoda warns Han, not giggling now.

"Yes, Master Yoda," Han says, belatedly taking a knee beside Leia. He's stammering, "A-a father? Mother? N-now? Ya mean now?"

Yoda turns his gaze to Leia again, pointing a little green three clawed hand at her belly, "The Force is strong within him, within you. Train well, you must. Difficult your path will be, Padawan."