Bloodline
One more week.
Give or take a few days, of course- there's no predicting these things, though Senya looked her up and down at breakfast this morning and murmured something about early, I think, carrying that low under her breath- but it can't come soon enough. She hasn't had more than one cup of caf a day and not a single drop of whiskey in seven months, her stomach turns if she so much as looks at cheese, and she can't fit into any of her boots. She can't fit into any of her anything, especially in the last weeks, relegated to roomy tunics and low slippers.
This is intolerable. She blames Theron.
(Only in jest- they'd agreed, after long nights of discussion, that it was now or never. Neither of them's getting any younger and the worst of the war had passed, and so when it came time to switch out her implant she'd simply had it removed for the first time in twenty years. She wasn't sure it'd ever happen, anyway, after the belly wound she'd taken and the scar tissue left behind, but Theron only shrugged.
"It'll be fun to practice, at least," he grinned, and pulled her onto his lap, and she laughed and kissed him-
So, of course, she was pregnant two months later. The Shans, apparently, were ferociously fertile; according to Satele, she's lucky it isn't twins.)
She can barely fit onto the throne, for that matter. It's been a quiet year, mercifully, the Eternal Fleet on patrol at the boundaries of their territory and only a few small squabbles to resolve, not like the first few years when there seemed to be a new uprising every week. But still, the fleet needs orders, so after breakfast she walks across the compound and takes the turbolift down to the command room.
Force, it feels good to sit.
The controls snake around her wrists, holding them fast, a slow tingle of energy crawling its way up her spine; the sensation's as familiar after three years as breathing, and her mind wanders from ship to ship to ship. A change in patrol route here, the Sixth Fleet due for shore leave and the Ninth for resupply, three commanders due for promotions. All is well. Her orders issued, she disconnects.
It takes a moment to come back to herself. It always does. She stretches, goes to push herself to her feet-
-and sits back down, a sharp kick launched upward into her rib cage and taking her breath away.
"Yes, yes." Cupping her belly with one hand, she manages to stand up properly this time. "I know. We've got a full morning of reports, then a nap promptly at two o'clock. It will last forty-seven minutes, at which time I will need to use the 'fresher, and then-" she winces again, this kick aimed outward; when she follows its trajectory Lana's there, standing in the doorway with her arms folded, watching.
"You know we can call in orders to the fleets individually." Lana shakes her head. "We can't be sure what effect using the throne might have. Theron-"
"Theron needs to stop fussing over me. Contacting the fleet manually takes an age. Everything's been fine so far, the scans have been perfectly normal, and the rest of you'll have to do enough of my work in a week or two in any case." A third kick, in Lana's direction again, makes her look downward. "I think she's saying hello. Or dancing. It's hard to tell sometimes."
"Hello to you, too, little one."
Yet another kick. "She's definitely saying hello. Ouch."
"May I?" Lana reaches out with one hand as she nods, brushing her fingertips across the width of her stomach. "Ah, there you are. I- oh." She blinks, hand steady. "Oh."
She raises an eyebrow. "Interesting conversation?"
"She-" Lana pauses. "Theron's not Force-sensitive at all, is he?"
"Not even a little bit, but you know that."
"And there were never any Sith in your family?"
She does not like where this conversation is going. "Not as far as I'm aware. Why?"
"Well," Lana says, "sometimes these things do miss a generation."
She sits back down, heavy, on the throne. "Are you telling me-"
A nod, a shrug, and when Lana pulls her hand away she can- ah, stars, she can almost feel the connection sever, in the same way it does when she reads her: more distant, hazier, but two-sided in a way that theirs could never be.
She hasn't moved so fast in ages, still waddling, still mostly graceless, but in only a moment she's back on the lift and half-running through the corridor with Lana at her heels. He should be- where? It's half past ten, which means the quartermasters' meeting, which means the small conference room; she rounds the corner, panting, and punches in the access code to override the door lock. They all look up, Theron and Hylo and Aygo and Sana-Rae and Oggurobb, and as she leans against the doorframe Theron's out of his chair and reaching for her, his face a study in anxiousness.
"Are you-" his hands are on her shoulders- "What's wrong? Is it time?"
She takes a deep breath. "No. No, not yet, I don't think."
"Then what-"
"Your mother was right. It skipped."
(He knows exactly what she means. They'd talked about that, too).
Theron just stares for a moment, eyes on hers, his mouth half-open in head-shaking disbelief, before he starts to laugh and then she's laughing, too, their foreheads together in peals of helpless giggles because of course Satele had been right, Force knows she'd been right about everything else all along and-
-and then her water breaks.