Author's Note: Will be a three-parter with epilogue.

Tesa Jarrus is my original character. She makes another appearance in a fic of mine called "Named". It's not essential to read that fic in order to understand this one, but…hey, why not? =)

I don't own SWR.

I.

Maul's blade is right over her daughter's heart

Hera watches the wild-eyed creature hovering over her helpless infant. The baby isn't crying or moving; she just stares up at the monster, wide-eyed and silent, awaiting her own execution with a studious expression.

Maul turns to Hera.

"Remember today," he tells her. His voice like ash and smoke scorching her soul. "Remember today as your greatest failure."

Hera says nothing. She crosses her arms across her chest, watching the scene before her like a mildly interesting holonet drama.

On the ground, Tesa turns her head towards her mother. Hera meets her gaze, level and steady, before her daughter looks away.

Maul's lips peel back in a snarl, and he raises the lightsaber above his head. There is the briefest moment of utter stillness as he hovers the blade above that tiny body.

Then, he brings it down.

II.

In her head, she's picturing the inside of the engine, walking herself through each step needed to repair that damaged converter. Not complicated in and of itself, but so many little steps to take, and it's a piece of the ship that's is absolutely necessary to keep them in the air.

The caf brewer has been percolating since before the sun came up on this little moon, when Hera decided there was no point lying in bed waiting for Tesa's inevitable shrieks to summon her. Too much needs to be done, and she'll factor sleep in later.

(At some point)

(When she finally makes some sort of dent in the list of Things That Need To Be Done To Prevent The Galaxy From Falling Into Everlasting Tyranny and Oppression)

But she woke up electrified, her heart slamming against her ribs, unable to close her eyes. Even though every part of her body pulsed with exhaustion, she lay awake beside Kanan, jittery and frustrated. It didn't help that Kanan was sleeping peacefully, looking full of that famed Jedi serenity she'd heard so much about.

From in the crib next to her bed, the rustling of blankets let Hera know her daughter was awake again, and probably hungry.

I'll get up when she cries, Hera had thought, resting her head in a nest of her arms. Her face felt sticky and unwashed, her skin covered in a film of grease from being awake all night long. Through the tiny window above her bunk, she could just make out the razor-thin blades of golden dawn. It was always a weird feeling to her, seeing the sun rise after a long, sleepless night. Like she was watching the rotation cycle spinning the opposite direction.

She couldn't stay in that room a second longer. Not while Kanan slept and her veins were on fire and she was alone with the baby.

So Hera pulled on yesterday's clothes and tucked the baby under one arm. For some reason she was panting, so she tried once to be comforted by the stagger of her daughter's breathing; the rattle-hiss of every inhale, the loud heat of her chest moving in and out without rhythm or pattern, but at least moving. It didn't help, but a few cups of caf ought to clear her head.

The kitchenette aboard the Ghost fills with a warm, cocoa smell, and Hera grabs a fresh mug for herself with one hand, balancing the baby against her waist with the other. The caf maker grinds and churns, and Tesa reaches out for it, trying to touch the stream of brown liquid filling the pot. When Hera snatches her tiny hand back, Tesa whines in protest.

"Oh, I know, Little Luv," Hera says, setting Tesa in her little carrier-seat on the table. After fussing the entire night, she wonders how her daughter still has energy left to cry. "Life is so hard when I don't let you stick your hand in boiling water."

Her daughter lets out another sulky whimper, but Hera turns back to the baby, listening to the slow gurgle of the machine instead. Soon her daughter's voice becomes a background hum she can't completely tune out, but at least push to the back of her mind.

Normally, Kanan's the one to watch her in the mornings, after Hera's done feeding her. But Kanan is dead to the world right now, and she was wide awake most of the night, so she decided to let him rest a little longer.

She'd stared at his face while she dressed, the way his eyes moved under their closed lids. He wasn't thrashing under the covers or grinding his teeth, like he did whenever he was having a nightmare.

She wondered what he was dreaming about. Whatever it was, it must have been good.

Tesa hollers, and Hera presses a gloved hand to her forehead. Gritting her teeth, she mentally labels the four main parts of the converter. She thinks it's a problem with the connector fuse, probably a short-circuit; she'll have to replace it with whatever's lying around in the spare parts closet and just hope that holds out. At least, until they complete the mission and can find a new fuse back at the base –

"Remember today as your greatest failure."

"Oh, great, a fresh pot."

Hera's head snaps up at the sound of Sabine's voice. Despite the early hour, the girl is already dressed in her armor.

"Help yourself," Hera replies as Sabine grabs a mug from the drawer and pours herself a generous amount.

"Save some for me," she hears Ezra call, and the boy shuffles into the galley still in his sleep pants, dark hair flattened against the side of his face. He flops down at the table with a dramatic sigh, resting his head in his arms.

"Euuurgh." Zeb groans as he sits next to Ezra, his eyes bleary. "Hera, you gave birth to a baby, right? Not a jet engine?"

Not for the first time, Hera wishes she had one of Chopper's electric probes and a clear shot at Zeb's rib cage.

"And to think," Sabine says mildly. "We were so worried about her lungs."

Zeb snorts. "Trust me, that part of her's working just fine."

Sabine slides into her seat at the table.

"I thought you guys could use the Force," she says. "You know, to calm her down. So she wouldn't wake up screaming her head off."

"Girl's got a point," Zeb grumbles. "I saw you use the Force with those babies we rescued from the Inquisitors. It kept them from doing exactly what that one did all night!"

Hera narrows her eyes at Zeb.

"That one?" she repeats coolly.

Zeb has the grace to look like he regrets the comment.

"Don't you think I've been trying?" Ezra snaps. "Or that I like staying up all night because she won't stop crying? The Force isn't a pacifier! I've BEEN trying to connect with her! Kanan has, too. But it doesn't always work!"

He rests his elbows on the table and buries his face in his hands.

"Sometimes," he says, his voice muffled through his fingers, "babies just cry. They don't have a reason; they just…do."

"Yeah," Zeb mutters. "I think we're all aware of that."

"If you would like to do something about that," Hera tells him, "you can always run diagnostics on the Ghost's internal systems."

"That's a droid's job!" he says. "Get Chopper to fix it; he could do it in two minutes!"

"Chopper is busy working on the Phantom II's power grid," she replies. "You, on the other hand, will have plenty of time to do the job."

Zeb growls, but even he knows better than to keep pushing.

Tesa fusses in her carrier, making every long, sulky syllable stretch like rubber. It always amazes Hera how she can do that.

Ezra rubs his black-bagged eyes. He reaches into the carrier to lift Tesa, and Hera watches as he takes the hem of his sleep shirt and wipes Tesa's mouth clear of the bubbling drool that's slipping down her cheeks. She wonders why it didn't occur to her to do that.

"How do we make you happy, Cranky Lady? Hmm?" he says to Tesa in a singsong voice. For some reason, he has a grin on his face, even if weariness tilts it slightly off-balance.

Tesa coughs, a wad of snot landing on Ezra's shoulder. The boy winces. Zeb practically leaps up from the table like he's been stung.

"Where are you going?" Hera asks.

Zeb twitches his ears towards the baby. "Between out there and in here, I'll take my chances with whatever is on this rock."

"I think I'll join you," Sabine says, downing the rest of her caf in one swig. "Fresh air sounds good right about now."

Hera rolls her eyes.

Ezra holds Tesa against his shoulder, rubbing her back in slow circles. She's still whimpering, but the high-pitched cries have mostly died down. Hera can see her eyes glazing over as Ezra soothes her. If he can get the baby to be quiet for just two minutes, she will promote him to squadron commander.

"Any luck?" she murmurs, taking the seat Sabine abandoned.

Ezra shrugs his free shoulder. "She's not in any pain. She's just cranky. And hungry."

"Right." Of course she'd be hungry; her last bottle had been –

Hera can't remember. She has a foggy recollection of sitting on the edge of her bed, flightsuit unsnapped and pooled at her waist while the baby drank from her. There's another memory of Kanan with a bottle, testing out the temperature of the liquid on his wrist.

Were those from the same night? Were they even from last night, or last week?

Ezra holds the baby out to her. Hera stares at him for a second before realizing she has to take her daughter.

III.

She's making a valiant effort to catch up with the latest schematics of an Imperial ammunition factory when Commander Sato comms her, and thank the Force, or the Ashla, or the Flying Potato Casserole Creature Of The Galaxy that he can't see her right now.

"Captain Syndulla." Crisp and no-nonsense as always. Man must have the patience of a saint. Hera distinctly does not remember being that calm when she was bedridden for weeks on end.

She sets the datapad she'd been studying aside, grateful for the reprieve. The lines and sketches were starting to wiggle off the screen.

"Commander Sato," she replies. "I was just looking over the report Captain Jinso sent us. Looks like they used the same planning structure they used to build the Lothal weapons factory. I'll send a team to do some recon and make sure."

Tesa lets out a grunt and kicks against her belly, a sharp pain Hera ignores. Her right lek slumps over one shoulder close to her daughter's face. Hera tucks it over her shoulders so Tesa won't decide she's more interested in yanking on Mama's headtails instead of finishing her meal.

Mama.

Her chest catches at the word.

There's a pause from Sato before he asks, "I'm sorry, have I interrupted something?"

"No," she says, too quickly. "No, it's fine. What were you saying?"

There's the briefest pause before he speaks again, his voice unwavering as ever.

"I know you are aware of the situation with Captain Ibo's unit?"

Hera sighs. "You mean, the unit that lost an entire strike fleet in that Imperial air raid?"

Sato's voice is grim. "The attack on Cato Neimodia greatly weakened them. They are in need of new pilots to build a new fleet."

Hera sighs, shifting Tesa's weight in her arms. "They can take a number," she mutters.

Another pause in the transmission, and Hera's face flushes. Not exactly the model behavior of a reliable squadron commander.

"There are several volunteers who wish to aid Captain Ibo in rebuilding his unit," he replies. "But most of them are not formally trained as pilots."

Tesa squirms against her mother's hold. Hera absentmindedly adjusts her daughter's weight, hoping the baby won't unlatch. Now is not the time for a fifteen minute session of squashing her boob against her daughter's face in an attempt to relatch while Tesa yells and squirms in hunger.

"I understand that you have a great many responsibilities aboard the Ghost," he says. "And I know I've asked a great deal of you these past few weeks –"

Hera blames her overtired mind for taking longer than necessary to put two and two together.

"And you want me to go?" she asks.

"I understand if you cannot take time away from the Ghost," Sato says. "Phoenix squadron still needs your leadership, and your crew is vital to our fleet."

"And," he adds, his voice a fraction softer, "I know leaving the young one is a difficult thing to ask of you. I do not wish to take you away from your child; only know, I would not ask unless I thought –"

"No." Hera would never cut off a superior officer so abruptly, but she'd Sato think her rude than weak-willed. "No, Commander, that's not it. I'll take the mission. I'll help them."

There's more doubt than surprise in Sato's voice when he replies. "Are you quite certain? Do you wish to confer with the other members of your crew?"

Hera shakes her head, forgetting he can't see her.

"I don't need to confer with them," she says confidently. "They'll understand. The attack on Cato Neimodia cost the Rebellion so many lives, and we aren't replacing them quickly enough to make up the numbers. The sooner we get Commander Ibo's new recruits in the air, the better."

There's a long silence on Sato's end.

"Very well," he says finally. "I trust your judgment, Captain Syndulla. I shall contact Commander Ibo and let him know he should be expecting you within two days' time."

Hera blinks. She hadn't expected to be sent away so quickly. That didn't give her a lot of time to work out a temporary childcare solution with Kanan and the others.

She shakes her head. They all know how to feed and change the baby. There's a storage of youngling formula in the Ghost kitchenette for situations like this. They'll figure it out.

"Thank you, Commander," Hera says. "I'll be awaiting your coordinates shortly."

She assumes he's dismissed her, but when she reaches to switch off the commlink, she's surprised to hear Sato's voice from the other end.

"I am told that your daughter is doing quite well."

Hera's eyes widen. Sato has never asked about Tesa. He's hardly even seen her, other than a visit to the medwing shortly after her birth.

"She has." She stares at her daughter in her arms, still nursing, her long suckles pulling at something deep in the pit of Hera's belly. "Some days are better than others, but she's getting there."

"So, there is some good news."

He sounds quieter, somehow. More reflective.

The first time Sato met the baby, he was still in his wheelchair. The stump from his amputated leg was bandaged and tied right at the knee, and his head was still wrapped in layers of bacta strips that looked like a helmet made of gauze. He hadn't been very mobile in those early days, so Hera knew that for him to use what little strength he had to wheel himself here was a big deal.

He'd walk again, the medic said. Thank his lucky stars. But he'd always have a limp, and prosthetics could be tricky. Even if they could be fully attached to a person's body, there was no guarantee it would be a smooth transition. Most likely, she'd warned, the commander would have to use a cane for the rest of his life.

A squadron's worth of soldiers, and they only managed to pull three survivors from the smoldering wreckage. The Imperial attack above the Abregado system had been precisely calculated, swift and merciless. Thrawn had them all on the run, and he knew it.

By the time they found Commander Sato, his left knee had been hanging on by the barest threads of skin and tissue. He was unconscious, half-buried, in shock. Had they been thirty seconds later, he would have bled to death.

But he survived. Barely.

He hadn't say much. Just wheeled himself to the edge of Hera's bed, presenting her and Kanan with a simply-wrapped package resting in his lap, tied with what looked like a shoestring.

"For your little one," he'd said solemnly.

It was a quilt, stitched together from dozens of fabric squares, all different colors and patterns. Hera had run her hands over the seams, tracing a pattern of blue stripes against a yellow background; a jungle-pattern of treetops; a flower-print of little pink blossoms.

She'd stared open-mouthed at Commander Sato. For a moment, she was too stunned to remember her composure as a Phoenix leader.

"This is beautiful," she'd told him. And expensive, she realized. Hera had seen enough amateur stitching in her day to recognize true craftsmanship. The seams of this quilt were perfectly aligned, the patterns blending into one another without any jagged edges or strange, misshapen sections.

Before Sato wheeled himself back to his bed, Hera had studied his lined, tired face for any sign of disappointment. Of frustration, unhappiness, rejection. She'd searched and searched and searched his expressions, looking for the one that would tell her what she'd feared every day since the moment she decided to carry this child to term.

She hadn't found it then. She hadn't found it yet.

But she's still looking.

Hera turns to face the wall, letting the cool metal press against her throbbing head. It's a small reprieve, but instantaneous, and she keeps her forehead resting on the wall, grateful for the relief.

She hasn't seen Commander Sato since he'd been fitted with his prosthetic leg. But if he was well enough to give orders and discuss war tactics with other rebel leaders, she figured he'd be out of the medwing sooner rather than later. Good news for all of them.

Hopefully, he'd return to base camp knowing that everything was precisely the way he'd left it. He'd return and see that Phoenix squadron had managed to hold it together just fine in his absence. That everything was running on time, as smoothly as it could. He'd see that promoting Hera to a commander while he recovered was the right choice.

He would see she is still a capable leader. The perfect choice for such a demanding job. Baby or not, everyone could count on her to be Captain Syndulla, part of the Rebel Alliance fleet.

She would not fail.

Nobody would expect anything less from a Phoenix leader.

IV.

The language of flying isn't utilitarian. It requires resilience and determination and a damn good Basic-to-Bonkers translation guide. Every ship has its own dialect, every star system its own ways of accenting and pronouncing and conjugating their grammar. The language of flying means you speak part orbit, part binary, and part oh shit I have to make a decision right now or else I am going to crash into that moon and die.

The language of flying is the language of the sky – sprawling, ever-changing, unchartable. Everyone who thinks differently and tries to capture the black might as well try to capture the concept of time, or infinity.

Hera has spent every day since she left home speaking the sky. And for everything about it that is vast and unknowable, it's the only speech she understands these days.

It grounds her to the ship – her ship – in a way that reminds her she has always been here. The Ghost isn't just a vessel that gives her the art and thrill of flying. It's home. An extension of herself. A connection more than love at first sight; it's kin, because you couldn't speak the language of the sky unless you were flying through it in something that you trusted to navigate the different dialects respectfully, one that you swore could predict your instincts and reactions before you made your move.

This is her world. This is as much a part of her as the patterns of her lekku, the shade of her skin, the sound of her the ship is still connected to the unspoken words of the cosmos, then she is as well.

Or at least, she will be, once she gets her head sorted out.

A shower of sparks suddenly erupts above her, startling Hera. She slides backward against the cold metal floor, heart racing. She just misses being shocked, but it was close enough. She'd been jolted before, and it was the kind of pain that couldn't be braced for and sucker-punched the breath right out of your body. She lets out a stream of curses under her breath as she repositions her body under the open panel.

From the little carrier that Ezra fashioned for her, Tesa is whining, arching her little body into a tight line as she tries to squirm out of her seat.

"Sorry, Little Luv," Hera calls. "Forget Mama said that."

She pauses at the word. Not for the first time, Hera wonders why she sometimes refers to herself that way. All her life she's gone by her own or various code names, or "Captain Syndulla". But for some reason, she calls herself by the title that only one being in the whole galaxy can precisely claim as her own. As if she has become a whole separate entity, no longer part of herself; as if the Hera she was before giving birth shifted to make room for the Hera she is now.

It makes no sense to her, this lingering feeling of rearrangement. That's not the exact word for this feeing, but the only other word that comes to mind is "loss", and Hera hasn't lost anything. Hera knows what loss feels like; her entire crew does. None of them are strangers to grief, to heartache.

She's gained a beautiful little girl, a new edition to the wonderful family she and Kanan have built. She's surrounded every day by the people she would cross whole galaxies for. To call it "loss" would feel ungrateful, in some way. Diminishing, compared to the suffering that she's seen.

Tremendously selfish.

V.

"Have you been at it all morning?"

The words are muffled, and it takes her a moment to surface from the depths of the Ghost's innerworkings.

Kanan stands in the doorway, still wearing his sleep pants. Barefoot and hair askew, face free of the mask over his filmy eyes, he looks strangely older, somehow. Hera feels too exposed without her flightsuit, gloves, and headwrap, but Kanan's face looks carved from stone, features worn deep into the dark skin. He looks steady as a mountain, old as the earth they walk on.

At the sound of her father's voice, the baby's head whips around. Her feet kick like pistons as she flails her arms, reaching for him. When he lifts her out of the carrier into his arms, Tesa's small hands reach up, resting against his cheeks. Kanan bends his head close to their daughter. For a moment everything is so quiet, so unbreakably peaceful.

Kanan once said he dreamed about her, while she was still inside Hera's belly. Even before Hera had missed her first cycle, Kanan could feel the presence inside her, the small clot of cells that was already reaching out through the Force, somehow sensing her father even when she hadn't even formed the ability to know the word "father". Before it had even formed enough to be called a "she".

When Tesa was inside her, he never missed an opportunity to feel the baby kicking against his palm, or wrap his arms around her from behind. On the rare nights they had time to be alone, he'd lay his head on her stomach, his face soft in concentration as he whispered in wonder to Hera, everything he could tell about their growing baby through her already-present signature in the Force.

It startled her, realizing he was that in-tune with something that was going on inside her own body. Hera had never really understood the Force, but she had always trusted Kanan's instincts. Still, his knowing, his intimacy, unnerved her. The knowledge that, at least temporarily, she was not connected to only herself. Her body was an alien thing to her, not solely Hera's to command.

Kanan had been the one to dream about their child. He'd known her before she'd come to their world. But Tesa had grown inside her body. Hera had felt her moving inside her belly, felt the flutter of her kicks against her skin. Her body had nourished this being into existence; they were once as physically close as it was possible for organics to be.

Kanan and Tesa are twinning souls with a dialect only they speak. Hera is her mother, but Hera will never speak that language, or come close to understanding it.

"Has she been fussing all morning?" Kanan asks.

Hera rolls her eyes. "I don't know where she finds the energy. You think being up all night would tire her out at least a little."

From her spot on the floor, Hera watches Kanan as he leans against the doorframe, shifting Tesa in his arms. Her hands splay across his bare collarbone like little stars, fingers spread wide. Kanan prefers direct skin contact with their daughter. He's always tracing the lines of her face with his fingers to commit its shape to memory; holding her close so the warmth of his own body flows freely into hers; lying her on his chest while the sound of his heartbeat lulls her to sleep.

And he never says it out loud, but Hera knows Kanan too well for him to hide behind his silence. She knows he thinks that if the baby can feel him breathing, her own small chest might memorize the rhythm of the motions. Maybe their daughter will learn the right way to inhale and exhale the same way Ezra learned lightsaber combat, or Hera learned to fly; going through the motions, letting the experience sink inside their skin, the patterns their bodies imprinting all the way through their bones until it was second nature.

"Did you sleep at all? You were gone when I got up."

"It's fine." She wipes her brow with one arm. Too late, she remembers she's had her hands in oil and grease, and she's probably streaked her forehead with a dark, metallic-scented stripe. "We don't have time for anything else."

"You need a break? A fresh set of eyes on the problem might help."

There's just enough of a question mark in that phrase to make her lekku twitch.

"No, it's okay. I think I almost figured out the problem. I'm almost positive it's an issue with the flux converter. Tedious to fix, but not impossible. We should be off this hunk of rock soon enough."

"Still. Is there anyone who could help move things along?"

She bristles at the implication; once upon a time, Kanan never questioned her ability to do what needed to be done.

Hera keeps her eyes focused on the pattern of screws and bolts above her head. They're real and solid and they don't slide away from her as she works. Everything is within her grasp.

"You know what you can do?" she asks instead. "Take her for me. This has to get done. It's not negotiable."

"Hera –"

"We're already too far behind as it is." She keeps her voice level, still focused on the grid above her head. Wires crossed, bolts tightened, currents moving in their correct path. The organs of this ship she knows as well as she once knew the breakdown of her own body. "We're cutting it close no matter how fast we travel. And if we miss this drop, we'll have to wait two more rotations until the next one. Assuming the Empire hasn't figured out we have an inside source at their transport station and moved the entire base of operations around. In which case, we'll never get to them. All because I didn't do everything I could to help."

Kanan sighs.

"I see your point," he says. "I've got her."

The world is suddenly smeared around the edges, blurring as her grip on the controls start to slide away. She makes herself breathe and grinds her teeth. On her forehead, the oil mark dries and tugs at the skin, creating an itch she refuses to scratch.

"If you need anything," he says quietly, "just say something."

Hera doesn't have an answer for that – at least, one that she wants to say out loud – so she just continues working. She doesn't look up as he leaves the room, taking their daughter with him.