A/N: I got a PM from someone who was confused about story continuity last update, and so, for those who are also confused, there's a story map posted to my profile. Thank you.

It was early the next morning when Mara awoke to find Luke dozing in a reclining chair with their daughter in his arms. She watched for long minutes, a smile on her lips. It should have been odd to see him like this… so normal. It wasn't, but it should have been.

The door opened and a nurse entered quietly, crossing to her bed. Mara sat up, slowly, and took note of just how sore she still was. "Hi. Where is Jaelle?"

The nurse smiled as she began to take Mara's vitals. "In an on-call room, sleeping." She nodded to Luke and the baby. "Want me to…"

"No," Mara told her. "He's not fully asleep."

The nurse nodded again and went back to her task, completed it, wrote some numbers on a pad of flimsie she'd dug out of a pocket, and left the room again.

Luke's eyes blinked open and he yawned. "Must they do that three times a night?"

Mara laid back down, smiled at him. "Be glad she didn't try to take yours. And it's a hospital. Of course they must." She noticed that he was holding most of the baby's weight in his right arm. "Which arm did I punch?"

"Left shoulder."

"Still sore?"

"You dislocated it," he answered truthfully.

Now that… that explained why he was holding her mostly with his right arm. "Oh." She sat up again, held out her arms. "Give her to me."

"But…"

"My turn," Mara reminded him. He simply looked at her for a few moments before struggling to sit up and then get up out of the chair, and placed the infant in Mara's waiting arms. She smiled at him, then with her free hand, grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him in for a kiss. Then she pulled back and nodded to the chair. "Sleep. Heal that shoulder so you can hold her without pain."

Luke stared at her. "You want me to go into a healing trance? Now?"

"Yes. Indulge me?" She glared at him until he acceded, got comfortable in the reclining chair, and put himself into a healing trance. Then she chuckled and laid back with their daughter in her arms.

Breakfast had come and gone by the time Mara felt like getting out of bed, and now she was standing at the window, looking down at the street below and holding Neesta securely. She was sore, yes, but that was only natural, considering she'd gone through seventeen hours of labor the day before.

"You're not supposed to be up and about, you know," a now-familiar woman's voice chided her gently. "You are supposed to be resting."

Mara turned to find an older woman with graying red hair standing in the doorway. "Couldn't stay in bed anymore and I wanted her to look out with me."

Widia smiled and approached, holding out her arms. "You must be tired, though. Can I?"

Mara nodded and handed the small precious bundle she'd been holding over to the other woman. "Not tired so much as..."

"Sore?"

"Yes." Together they looked down at the small babe and smiled. Then Mara shook her head, silently acknowledging the moment for what it was. "I saw us, here. Like this."

Widia frowned. "Saw?"

"Months ago, before I really knew I had family out there somewhere." She glanced back to where Luke was still sleeping, then looked at Widia. "It's strange to be here now, really."

"I think I understand," Widia said slowly, turning from the window. She considered the sleeping man for a moment. "Was he part of what you saw?"

"He caused it, but I only saw us." Mara sighed and went to get back into the bed. "It was so strange, I couldn't tell him afterward. I wasn't even sure if I saw what I saw."

"The Force can work like that," Widia said as she sat down on the edge of the bed. "Jaelle pushed us out so quickly yesterday that I didn't get to find out what you named her."

Mara smiled. "Neesta." She nodded to the sleeping man. "After her father." At Widia's questioning expression, Mara chuckled. "He was, after all, our missing needle in a haystack. Seems only fitting."

The older woman chuckled. It did, at that.