AN: I don't own SW as everyone knows. This story takes place in my own Lucas-canon-only universe where Luke marries my OC Rianna, a former Naboo queen.

"Uncertainty"

By EsmeAmelia

When Luke woke up to find Rianna's side of the bed empty, he initially assumed she just went to the refresher, but as the minutes passed by without her returning, he started to worry a little. It passed through his mind that she might have gone into labor, but he quickly told himself that if that were the case, she would have told him. Wouldn't she?

Or what if she had gone into labor and something was wrong?

With that thought he instantly sat up, throwing the covers off. Quickly he reached out with the Force, scanning the apartment for his wife and finding her in the living room. Well, she clearly wasn't in labor and she didn't seem to be ill, but something still felt . . . not right.

With a gulp, he got out of bed and made his way to the living room, where the lights were off, but he could make out the silhouette of Rianna sitting in a chair, her hand on her very pregnant stomach. Luke flicked on the lights, but she didn't react – instead she stared ahead as if waiting for something.

"Rianna? Luke asked. "Are you okay?"

Rianna breathed steadily as if going through a pregnancy breathing exercise.

"Rianna?" Luke repeated, cautiously making his way to the chair. "Sweetheart?"

"Leia had her third child the other day," Rianna muttered in her low, Nubian-accented voice.

"Yes," said Luke, "and soon we'll have our first child."

"No," Rianna said in a near-shout, her voice trembling slightly. "Our second child."

Luke suddenly felt cold. It had been almost two years since Rianna's miscarriage of their first baby – the endless nights in the hospital, the grief and illness that followed. She had only been a few months into that pregnancy when she miscarried, so the fact that she was eight months along now meant she could carry a child further than that.

But that didn't mean something still wouldn't go wrong.

"I keep feeling her," Rianna whispered, running her hand over her stomach. "She kicks and she bumps and every time I wonder if it will suddenly stop." She breathed in through her teeth. "I'm scared, Luke."

Luke ever-so-gently placed his hand next to Rianna's, hoping to feel a kick but nothing came. "Is she sleeping right now?"

"I think so," said Rianna. "At least I think that's what I sense – I'm still not an expert on this whole sensing-her-feelings-in-my-womb thing."

Luke gently reached with the Force into her womb, gently brushing their daughter and feeling peace and calmness. "Yeah," he said, "I think she's sleeping." He inched his fingers on top of his wife's. "Isn't it amazing that babies can sleep in the womb?"

"Yes," Rianna whispered. "She's amazing. She's amazing . . . and she could die."

How was Luke supposed to respond to that when they had already lost a baby? "Yes," he said softly. "Yes, she could, but she probably won't."

Rianna swallowed, squeezing a bit of the nightgown that shielded her pregnant abdomen. "I guess this was why the old Jedi weren't allowed to have families . . ."

"What?"

"This," continued Rianna. "I don't just feel her body inside me – I feel her soul in me. I don't even know what she looks like and yet I know her." She blinked at her husband in quick motions. "It's driving me crazy knowing that there are still a million things that could go wrong in an instant."

"It's only a few more weeks before she's out . . ."

"And then there are still a million things that could go wrong!" Her hand trembled underneath Luke's. "Maybe this is how your father felt."

Once those words were out, they hung in the air, stilling both the husband and wife. Luke wondered what it was like to be Anakin back when his own wife was pregnant and he was certain that the childbirth would kill her.

No, no . . . this wasn't like that at all, was it? The baby's death was only a possibility, not a certainty.

Of course, her birth wasn't a certainty either.

"I can't go through that again," Rianna was whispering. "I can't . . ."

"What if you have to?"

It was the wrong thing to say. Rianna's brown face suddenly paled, her hand shaking under Luke's. "Why? Why did we decide to try again?"

"You know why," said Luke, slowly leaning over and planting a kiss on her stomach. "Her."

"Her," Rianna repeated. "I don't even know if the first baby was a him or a her, but he or she was in me all the same."

Luke closed his eyes, wishing their daughter would come out soon for her mother's sake. "I sense that she's fine."

"But she could be not fine tomorrow. I could eat the wrong thing, or trip over something, or she could strangle herself with her cord . . ."

"She won't," Luke interrupted.

"You don't know that!" Her shout sounded inches away from a sob.

"Okay, I don't," said Luke, "but listen, all this worrying isn't going to help her. Remember what the doctor said about keeping calm?"

"Keeping calm." Rianna snorted. "I'd like to see him keep calm in this situation."

Luke sighed, gently rubbing his hand over his wife's belly, hoping he wouldn't start trembling himself. He could sense his little daughter not even an inch under his hand, completely helpless and dependent on her mother for everything with only a womb to protect her from the outside world. And yet already he loved her. Loved someone so fragile that one wrong move could destroy her.

"It's going to be fine," he whispered, perhaps reassuring himself just as much as his wife.

Rianna blinked at her husband, her eyes glistening. "You don't know that," she repeated.

Luke leaned over and planted a gentle kiss on his wife's lips. "No, I don't know," he whispered. "But I hope."

THE END