You didn’t think I was going to let the last official Scoundress Saturday go without any fic, did you? This turned out a bit silly, but I thought we could have a little fun with post-ROTJ Han and Leia. Also, to be clear, I still have plans for many other Han and Leia fics in the works (some of which were started or continued thanks to Scoundress Saturday), so this is far from the end of writing or posting. Thanks, all, for the wonderful support that has made writing these things each week so much fun.
Leia strode into the apartment, a bit later than her estimate, but well within the time Han had figured into his calculations for dinner.
“Would’ve been earlier,” she said, after kissing him and accepting a glass of Corellian red, “but I had to lose some old friends.”
Old friends used to mean Imperials or bounty hunters; now it meant the paparazzi, who had evidently decided that Leia and Han were much more interesting than they actually were. No less relentless, but at least they were slightly less likely to try to kill you. Unless it would make a good story, Han thought wryly.
“’S okay,” Han said. “Almost ready. How’s your day?” He finished cutting a selection of cured meats and cheeses, offering the plate to Leia.
“Fine,” Leia said, tearing off a hunk of bread and adding a slice of cheese to it. “Met with the Bothan delegation. Your good and close friend Borsk was not there,” she noted at Han’s raised eyebrow.
“Ah, so actually had a prayer of gettin’ something done,” Han said. Borsk Fey’yla, though a valuable asset to the Rebellion, was proving to be something of a perpetual stumbling block as the New Republic worked to move the galaxy from war to governance.
Leia laughed, taking another sip of wine. “A prayer, yes. Actually, it wasn’t that bad. How about you?”
Just then, the timer for the meat rang, and Han went to take it out of the oven. “Oh, y’know. The usual. Oh, yeah,” he said, placing the pan on the counter and then turning to her with a deadly serious look, “almost forgot. It’s over. We’re splitting up.”
“Again?” Leia asked mildly. “Too bad. What’d you do this time?”
“Oh, no, this time I’m leaving you,” he said smugly.
Leia sighed and took another sip of wine. “Well, I guess I can’t hide my baby bump from you forever. You have one really good Crathulian meal—” She shook her head. “Whose love child am I having now?”
“Wedge’s,” Han said. “Apparently I am real pissed off.”
“I can’t imagine Luke is very happy about it either,” she said. “Do you think that will make dinner awkward? Where the hells are they, anyway?”
“Eh,” Han shrugged as he tested the temperature of the meat. “You know the kid. He’s on Jedi time. Just Force-comm him.”
Leia made a face. “He hates it when I do that to remind him he’s late,” she reminded Han. “And then he gets all bitchy with me in my head.”
Luke and Wedge showed up without a reminder just after the meat had finished resting, and after a lively dinner—including ample banter about Leia’s and Wedge’s paparazzi-imagined affair—they settled down in the living room for what promised to be some intriguing after-dinner entertainment.
One of Leia’s secret pleasures was watching the collection of holofilm biopics and television series purporting to portray her friends in the Rebellion—The Courtship of Princess Leia, The Life Day Special, Jedi Ewok Princess, the Last Jedi—and she’d recently converted not only Han but also Wedge and, begrudgingly, Luke to this particular pastime. Their latest viewing party had been a rewatch of Jedi Ewok Princess, which had some of the worst production values they had ever seen (“I think they just bought a few houseplants and called it Endor,” Wedge had noted incredulously) as well as some entertaining dialogue.
Tonight’s selection was a rare feature, a bootleg copy of which was obtained not by the former smuggler in the group, but by Luke. Well, technically, by R2D2, but with Luke’s help.
“You owe me,” Luke said gravely as he handed over the disc. “Big time. Do you even know how many porn versions of your relationship are out there?”
Leia turned to Han. “Eight? Nine?”
“Nine,” Han said with confidence.
“Thirteen,” Luke corrected. “And Artoo downloaded them all when he was looking for this show.” He shuddered slightly.
“Huh, some new ones,” Han said. “Maybe they got a new guy to play me. That other guy was way too short.”
“Don’t think that was the dimension they were casting for,” Leia said dryly.
Wedge, who had started laughing quietly at this exchange a few minutes ago, fell over on the couch, no longer able to hold it in. “Just start it,” he said. “I wanna see how bad it is.”
The new show was called Days of our Rebellion, and it was a limited holoseries purporting to tell “the true stories of the lives and loves of the heroes of the Rebel Alliance.” It was supposed to have come out six months ago already, but apparently the network airing it was still skittish about releasing something that could cast the current political leadership in an unfavorable light, likely based on the memory of Palpatine’s frequent crackdowns on such things. But never estimate the power of an astromech droid to help them snag their very own copy of the series.
“Okay, this looks promising,” Wedge said as the opening credits began. “Obviously not a houseplants in Endor production situation here.”
The Luke was an up-and-coming actor who had recently been cast in a superhero movie, and he actually sort of looked like Luke. “Or Luke’s younger brother,” Han joked, as Luke elbowed him in the ribs.
“Aw, my baby daddy made the credits,” Leia said, as the actor playing Wedge showed up on screen. Wedge had gotten written out of The Courtship of Princess Leia with the exception of some generic fight scenes, and wasn’t even named in some of the other holos.
Leia’s double was an actress who had played a Padmé Amidala-like senator in another miniseries. “Oh, she’s good,” said Wedge.
They kept showing the Han actor in wide-angle shots, and when they finally showed him in a close-up both Leia and Luke gasped.
“Go back and freeze-frame,” Leia directed, and when Han did, Luke was the one who collapsed with laughter this time.
“Oh my goddess that’s Porn Han. They cast Porn Han!” Leia exclaimed.
“Naw, they wouldn’t—“ Han began to insist.
“They did,” Leia said again.
“You’re right, he is way too short. He doesn’t really look like you, except that he’s wearing your outfit,” Wedge pointed out. “And there’s a Wookiee with him. Did they get real Wookiee actors?”
“Yeah,” Han confirmed. “Wouldn’t give ‘em the rights if they didn’t.”
The first episode opened on Yavin, but spent all of five minutes there before moving to a familiar-looking winter landscape.
“We’re going to Hoth already?” Luke asked.
The designers had managed to make a pretty convincing set that really did remind Han of Hoth, He shivered a little to think of it.
Porn Han and Not-Senator-Amidala were having an argument in the hallway, as personnel squeezed past them on their way somewhere else.
“Ha, look at all those people just walking by while we argue,” Han said, laughing.
“I know,” Leia said. “Right in the hallway! ‘Don’t mind us, we’re just going to have incredible amounts of sexual tension while you try to go about your daily lives,’” she continued.
Luke and Wedge exchanged a look. Oblivious to the end, these two.
“Releasing tension, huh. I think that’s what Porn Han is for,“ Wedge quipped.
