Next chapter for the main fic will hopefully be up Monday all things permitting.
So I was messing around with the idea of how I could work (common) multiple births in a 'verse that still had Ben + Rey as only children and ended up with the concept of there being a way for people to have either normal birth-numbers (so like rw statistics) or have litters depending on how the child was conceived. Hopefully this thing explains it well enough…
If you want more info on the way this verse would work go send me an ask on tumblr. I probably wrote it down somewhere and forgot to post it.
Also, how many times do you think I'll write the bridge scene? I would apologise if it wasn't such a perfect thing to mess around with.
Warnings: mpreg; mildly problematic thinking about children (the 'they're you kids so you're going to love them and do anything for them' style thinking); implied discussions about rape;
"He's pregnant," Rey says as a greeting.
"What?" Both Finn and Han are thrown by the words. It was not what they expected the first thing out of her mouth to be.
"Kylo Ren. He's pregnant," Rey repeats and the world seems to stop for Han Solo. "I saw it in his head when he… look, it doesn't matter."
"Are you sure?" Han asks, holding his daughter's (he's going to kill his son for taking her, for making everyone believe her to be dead) shoulders in a strong grip. He is aware he is probably hurting her but he needs to know.
"He is." That is confirmation enough. The world starts spinning again.
"Come on, we've got to move." Han isn't going to let the resistance die because of personal family drama.
"How?" Finn asks Rey as they move and Han wishes he was able to tune them out, wishes he wanted to.
"I don't know, I didn't go looking for that!" So his daughter knows what sex is despite growing up in a scavenger settlement with barely any other humans on it. At least that was one awkward conversation he didn't have to have with her (the 'by the way I'm your dad' one will be bad enough).
Finn sputters about how he didn't mean it like that and Han would find the kids awkwardness funny if it wasn't for the fact that it is his son they are talking about and his daughter Finn is trying to impress. "I mean why?"
"I didn't go digging for that either."
"You didn't go digging for much," Han doesn't mean to sound so harsh but this is his son they are talking about.
"I didn't get the chance to go digging around. He kicked me out pretty quick after I found it." She seems ashamed of that fact; as if she wishes she could have done better for him (he's only know her for a week and he's already screwing up another kid). Han wants to reassure her that what she did was impressive enough. To get Kylo Ren out of her head and then break into his while being completely untrained is a ridiculously impressive feat. She really is Luke's kid. They don't have time for the praise she deserves right now though. So Han keeps them moving and reminds himself to tell her later (hopefully to tell Luke just how amazing their daughter became – if this all goes well).
They decide to use the bombs they have in their possession to give the resistance something of a chance at destroying the base and Han finds his son. He eventually convinces him out of his helmet and even at the distance they stand from each other he can smell it on him. Rey had been slightly off in her summary of Kylo Ren's condition: he wasn't just pregnant, he had been pupped.
"Ben what happened?"
"I realised the truth and left the foolish teachings of my uncle to discover my real strength," Kylo Ren says nonchalantly, but Han can see in his eyes that he knows what his father is talking about.
"That's not when I'm talking about and you know it."
"I hardly see how that is any of your business."
"Because you are my son."
"You lost the right to call me that long ago."
"Doesn't stop it from being true though."
"It doesn't mean you are allowed to have a say in what I choose to do with my body."
"I'm not saying I do. I'm just asking why you agreed to it. You did agree to it right?" If his son said no there would be nothing stopping him from carving a path of destruction right to the 'Supreme Leader' himself.
"Of course I agreed to it. Do you really think me so weak?" The answer is of course no, Han is very aware of his son's strength. Still a father's fears will be present no matter how strong his son, nor how safe the universe.
Klyo apparently takes his reaction as disgust. "Does it really bother you so much to think of being a grandfather? Really you shouldn't be surprised; I am more than old enough to be a parent. For all you know you could already be a grandfather four times over."
"Am I?" The thought sickens him. It's not that it makes him feel old (seeing Rey sickens him in that way – the small daughter he lost suddenly all grown up), but thinking of his family, his grandchildren, growing up under the First Order's rule makes him want to break things. His son being there is bad enough.
"No," Kylo says after a few seconds of (painful, horrible) silence and his eyes move from staring through his father's face to a place somewhere below where they stand. Han wants to look at what has gained his sons attention (wants to see if there is anything or if his hope that shame is the cause is correct) but is too scared of what his son could do if he took his eyes off him for even a moment.
"Why?" Han asks but isn't convinced he will get an answer.
"It would be wasteful to not. Wasteful of the power of my bloodline." Han knows his son is trying to goad him by implying that he isn't part of Ben's genetic linage (or a least a non-important part). It won't work, not with the memories that get pulled up from the words. Memories of a time that logic was presented to him about two of the three beings he only cared about in the universe at the time.
"So the reasoning's still the same huh." His son's eyes dart to his face at those words and he is glad he didn't risk taking his eyes off him because he would have missed the gleam of something in his son's eyes that he thinks (hopes) is doubt.
"What are you going on about?"
"You think I haven't heard all the justifications before? Do you know how many people told me, actually told me, they were disappointed that your mother only had one when she was pregnant with you? How many people tried to get me to convince them to have more?" His son looks uncomfortable at the words, like it is a topic he did not want to think about. Good, maybe he can start to feel how Han does thinking about the fact his son has been pupped.
"It's different," his son doesn't even sound convinced.
"How?"
"It just is!"
"Come home Ben."
"Where would 'home' even be?" He had a point, Ben was a child often moved between locations. The longest he had stayed in one place was when he was being trained by Luke (Han isn't going to take him back there). Han had thought his son liked the constant change in scenery. Like seeing what all the different planets were like. Apparently he was wrong.
He says the only think he knows for certain. "It's not here."
Kylo Ren lets out a snort. "How do you know that?"
"'Cause you would have killed us by now if it was."
His sons eyes flash with anger and Han will admit (as long as he doesn't have to admit to anyone) that he takes a step back when the lightsaber crackles to life. "It can still be arranged."
"You don't want this." He's more hoping he is right then actually convinced he is, but he promised Leia he would bring their son back home and he isn't going to back down now.
"How can you be so sure."
"Because my son is not so stupid as to not see the obvious when it is right in front of him." As sickening as it was while Rey and Finn tried to figure out the 'why' of the pregnancy Han was trying to figure out the 'why now'. He had managed to come to two conclusions. One: if this had been the plan before Ben was pulled to the dark side (it was not a scenario he liked thinking of but was one he knew to be a possibility) then it would have happened earlier. Two: if it was supposed to happen after they were certain of victory than they would have waited the couple more months to ensure the Resistance and Republic were actually destroyed. That left two options remaining: either the person who suggested (ordered) it didn't expect / intend Kylo Ren to stay alive for much longer or it was a punishment. Neither implied his son to be as important as the resistance believed.
"What are you talking about?" his son's voice is deadly but Han still knows what he looks like when he is unsure and the behaviour is as unmistakable now as it was when he was a boy and asked if he wanted to go to Luke to train.
"Why now?" Han asks and his son snarls but he knows he's on the right track. "You must have thought about it and there's no other conclusion to draw." His son was not stupid and Han can see in his eyes that he has come to much the same conclusions as his father. He wonders if he has managed to get it down to one, if he has some piece of information that rules out one or the other alternative.
"The Supreme Leader is wiser than us," his son says as if it is justification for it.
"That doesn't mean he has your best interests at heart." He had done his best to teach his son that just because a person was smart didn't mean they were trustworthy. Taught him that being the smartest (or most powerful) person in the room didn't always make you the right one (and he did regret that one – maybe if he hadn't of put that thought into his son's head Ben might not have turned against Luke).
His son tightens his jaw and stands with lightsaber raised. "I am not so vain as to believe my life more important than the goals of those above me."
Han wants to laugh at that. Wants to laugh and point how much that makes him like Luke and Leia. The infuriating willingness to die for their cause that always ended with Han getting dragged into fights he didn't want to be a part of.
He doesn't laugh though. He knows it will only anger is son more (and he is very aware of the lightsaber ready to strike).
Kylo Ren takes the silence as a cue to continue. "And soon I will have children to finish whatever I fail to complete."
"And what if they don't? What if despite everything you and everyone around them do they end up idolising their grandparents and try to undo everything you worked to build." He thinks of a child, dressed in mini-First Order's officer outfit idolizing him and he tucks it away for a time when he can actually laugh about it (if there ever is a time when it isn't s threatened reality).
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying you have no idea what you're getting into."
"And you do?"
"No. I'm still convinced I wasn't cut out to be a parent but I tried. You think you will be able to hand them over once they're born, that you won't feel anything for them. I can tell you that you will. No matter what you'll love them for the rest of your life."
"You're lying," his son says but the lightsaber has been turned off.
"Sometimes I wish I was," the words are a risk, they could potentially anger his son to such an extent that there would be no calming him back down.
Apparently the gamble pays off. The lightsaber falls from his son's hand, tumbling down into the darkness below the ramp. "I'm sorry," his son says and Han can see the tears in his eyes.
"Then come home with us."
His son weakly nods and Han reaches out to him, to grab his hand. He leads his son off the catwalk and remembers all the times he had done the same thing when Ben was a child and needed the reassuring touch of his parents to know he was safe.
There are still a lot of things to work out (and Leia is going to have a heart attack when she finds out she is going to be a grandmother), but for the brief moments before the chaos breaks out Han is happy to have his family back again.
