Rey frowned as she woke slowly in the darkness. Ben clutched her to him, his arms nearly tight enough to constrict her breathing. She'd grown used to that over the time they'd spent together, he always held her as if his unconcious mind feared waking up to find her gone. No, that wasn't what woke her. She decided. There was no way to wriggle out of his grasp without waking him so she didn't bother trying.
Suddenly her belly heaved, tightening into a ball so fiercely that it seemed to shrink several inches. She frowned down at it and rubbed the rock-hard mound. It was curious that no pain accompanied the contraction, but she figured that to be a good thing. Her frown faded into a dreamy smile. She'd be holding her babies in her arms soon, she knew, and the thought made her too happy to experience this alone.
"Ben," She whispered into the darkness, stroking the back of his hand where it gripped her shoulder. "Wake up."
"Hmm?" He hummed, nuzzling her hair, still mostly asleep.
"You've got to feel this." She said quietly.
He smiled softly and kissed the top of her head.
The contraction released slowly.
In his befuddled, sleepy state Ben hadn't even noticed the pressure in her belly until it began to receed. His eyes jerked open.
"Oh, you missed it." She frowned and wriggled free of his embrace to scoot away from him enough to see his face.
"Was that…" His eyes were huge in the low light. "What was that?"
"A contraction." She smiled beautifically. "Wait a bit, it'll do it again."
"Are you in labor?" He jerked upright, excitement mingled with fear radiating off of him.
"I don't think so." She rubbed her tummy. "Doctor Guiness warned me that this would happen when the time drew near."
He placed one hand lightly on the enormous mound of her stomach where his daughters seemed to be tap-dancing on her ribs. His hand followed hers as they drew circles with their palms across the swollen expanse that was plenty big enough for several more hands to rub.
"Oh!" He gasped as the mound hardened, rounding into a tight ball. "I can feel that!" His amazement shined like a beacon in his shadowed eyes.
The lights in the room brightened enough to see clearly by, though not enough to hurt their eyes.
"Oh my, that's…" He trailed off as another thought struck him. "That feels like it's happening inside me, too."
"I know." She smiled. "Isn't it wild?"
"If I can feel that…" He gazed at her with horror. "Am I going to feel…" He swallowed. The thought was too scarey to speak out loud.
She frowned. "Maybe."
The contraction dissipated.
He slipped into her mind. 'Just making sure I'm feeling it as much as you are.' He thought, his heart in his throat.
'It wont be so bad.' She smiled up at him and shifted to a more comfortable position, facing him but half on her back and half on her side.
Another moment passed before her belly tightened again. This time a bit of pain, like a hunger cramp, accompanied the pressure.
'Oh! That hurts a little.' His nervousness ratcheted up a notch.
'It didn't before.' She frowned back. 'Don't worry, this is perfectly normal.' She tried to sooth his nerves. 'I'm not due to deliver for two more weeks.'
He let out a breath he didn't even realize he was holding as her belly relaxed. 'I was two weeks early.'
'You were?' She asked mildly.
"Yeah." He switched to verbal. "Mother never failed to mentioned that when she was mad at me." He rolled his eyes and mimicked a falsetto, "If you'd have just waited that extra two weeks I'd have had time to set your nursery up in my office and your dad wouldn't have been able to let you roll off the sofa." He switched back to his own voice. "When I was little she always blamed my mischievious streak on hitting my head as a baby... To my face anyway."
"That's terrible!" Rey recoiled in horror.
He shrugged. "I'm sure she didn't mean it like it was my fault… My parents fought a lot."
"Well, we wont." She promised as another, slightly more uncomfortable contraction constricted her middle. "Oh, these are starting to hurt."
He knew that fact intimately.
"If that's what she said to your face, what did she say behind your back?" Rey seized on his wording, looking for anything to distract her from the rapidly intensifying pain in her abdomen.
"That she could feel the darkness inside me." He rubbed his own belly with one hand and hers with the other. "That she was afraid I'd turn to the darkside someday."
"Well," Rey wiped a trickle of sweat off her temple. "She wasn't wrong about that."
"No," He agreed, panting slightly, "She wasn't wrong about that."
They chatted through several more contractions, each more painful than the last before finally they could ignore the rhythmic pains no more.
"I think it's time to visit the infirmary." Ben ground out through clenched teeth as another contraction tore through their bond and felt like it was ripping his guts out through his navel.
"This will probably be over soon." She panted. "Maybe it'll help if I walk a little."
She took a deep breath as the pain subsided and lurched to her feet. Around and around she paced, pausing briefly at the summit of each painful constriction in her womb.
After about the tenth one during her pacing, Ben was ashen, trembling and panting as he groaned, "It isn't going away!"
Rey didn't want to admit it, but he was right. "Alright," She gasped. "Let's go see Doctor Guiness."
The pair walked slowly, pausing every thirty steps or so to clutch at their middles, toward the ship's medical facility. "Who's idea was it to put the medbay so far from the officers quarters?" She groaned, leaning heavily against a wall trying to recover from a pain like a hammer blow that had just slammed into her pelvic bone.
Ben nearly choked as the same sensation slammed into him. He'd once been kicked in the crotch so hard by Snoke, during lightsaber training, that he'd thought for sure his pelvis was broken... this hurt worse than that.
"I don't care what they say, you're getting drugs as soon as we get there." He panted while the pain slowly receeded.
"I don't want drugs." Rey insisted.
"Tough." He groaned and took her arm to continue their slow plod toward the infirmary. "You're getting them anyway."
"Are you seriously telling me that you can't handle this?" She groaned as another contraction doubled them both over.
"Yes, I am." His reply sounded a lot like a wimper.
When the pain passed he took her arm again and said vehemently, "If this part feels like this, I don't want to know what the next part feels like."
He glared at her when a ripple of amusement washed over him from her direction. "It's not funny." He grated out.
"It kind of is…" She grinned up at him. "You've been shot, cut, beaten, had broken ribs, a punctured lung and the Force only knows what else… yet you can't handle the pain of childbirth." She giggled a little even as another contraction gripped her insides like a Force fist made of hot coals.
"I thought you said that's not what this is?" He panted around the pain.
"I'm pretty sure I was wrong." She panted back.
