A/N: Hey all! Hope you're doing well and staying healthy!
I wanted to give a shout out to all you lovely folks who continue to read as well as y'all who continue to follow/favorite/review. You have no idea how much of a difference it makes for all of us aspiring writers:) Thank you so much for the encouragement and the motivation to keep going! I owe a lot of this story to you all. I also owe so much to my beta Leona2016 (thank you so much for all of your help with everything! I truly am growing as a writer because of you), and to my ideas man FenrisInside (dude, seriously, I'm kind of in awe of your military/weaponry/historical knowledge and want to thank you so much for graciously bestowing it on me lol).
To be dead honest, I'm a bit nervous about this chapter. We're about to shift gears a bit, but I hope it's not too disappointing and that you like it! I'd love to hear what you have to think for or against the plot decision. Feel free to leave a review or PM me with your opinions or any constructive criticism you might have.
Anyway...take care until next time!
-Emmeth
Rey staggered through the sewers after Ben. Exhaustion gnawed at her, eating away at her strength. Her limbs trembled with it, threatening to send her crashing into the ankle-deep water running at their feet. Her nightmares were close again, clinging to the corners of her mind as they had for weeks. As they had ever since Mela's vision and her warning. The dark sewer mirrored their deeper darkness and she fought back the images that had begun to plague her even in waking life.
Their shadows cast a pall over her thoughts, and she shuddered. She could still see them: figures hooded in black and chanting strange words, a throne haloed in twisted rays of stone and illuminated by forks of lightning, a black shrouded figure whose cold voice called her name; it all flooded back in no matter how hard she tried to shut it out. She shivered again, wrapping her arms close about her stomach, from where the creeping cold always emerged. It seemed that she was always cold now. Always blundering about in the darkness. Ben didn't know. He didn't need to know. The dreams were her burden to bear.
Ahead of her, Jai and Tal stopped and consulted Tal's nav-computer before taking a right turn down a side passage. She followed, treading carefully on the uneven footing. Her boot slid on a loose stone and she stumbled. Ben's hand caught her around the waist before she could fall and she clung to him for a moment in the darkness, steadying herself with the warmth of his strong arms. In the next moment they were gone, and she was standing alone again in the cold of her thoughts and the dark of the sewer.
The tunnels began to feel as if they went on forever, and Rey lost any sense of the passing of time. It seemed that the slosh of water at her feet had always been present and that she'd never known such a thing as light or heat. She was isolated- cut off from all that she loved by the all-consuming blackness that surrounded her. More than anything, she longed to close her eyes and fall into the oblivion of a sleep without dreams. At least then her mind could be still for a precious few minutes.
They were about to make another turn when a small noise grabbed Rey's attention. It was different than the splash of water, or the low murmurs of her companions. It was a quiet sound, somewhere far off down the tunnel. At the same moment, the Force tugged at her, dragging her awareness in the direction of the disturbance. Someone was crying.
"Do you hear that?" Ben asked, his curiosity sparking along with her own.
Rey crept forward hesitantly, following the sound, with Ben at her back. Ripples caught the red light of their sabers, spreading ahead of them down the tunnel. Somewhere out in the blackness beyond the dim light, there was a gasp. Something splashed and Rey caught sight of a pale foot as it was pulled into a small crevice.
"Ben," she breathed, grasping her forearm. "Ben, did you see that?"
"I saw it."
Rey took a careful step forward and knelt on the cold stone, water soaking into her breeches as she peered into the crack. Something scuffled in the darkness and Rey caught the faint noise of breath hissing rapidly through clenched teeth. The music of the Force around her went out of key and there was a brief pressure against her mind as the being huddled in the small crevice struggled to turn her focus away. She pushed back, gently, weaving the notes of her song with the new music coming from the fissure in the wall. The breathing slowed and the shrill notes of anxiety lowered by a fraction.
"It's alright," Ben murmured behind her. "Come out of there."
Someone crept slowly forward. A small someone. A young boy in an old, slightly flattened cap stepped out into the light from their sabers. He eyed the weapons, shrinking away from them and back toward the safety of his hiding place.
"It's alright," Rey repeated. "We won't hurt you. You don't have to be afraid."
The child stared at her but didn't say anything. Rey edged a little closer and stretched out her hand to take the boy's. His fingers were dirty and overly warm and when she looked closer at him, she saw that his clothing had done little to keep off the damp of the sewers. He shook with chills and his eyes held the half-glazed look of a high fever.
"What's your name?" she asked in a soft voice.
"Temiri," he said. "Temiri Blagg."
"Where are your parents?"
"Haven't got any," he rasped. "They sold me a long time ago."
Rey's stomach twisted and she winced with the pain of the boy's words. Memories prodded at her mind, trying to open the door she'd shut on them. She closed her eyes and took a breath of the sour air of the sewers, fighting back the old dark thoughts.
"What are you doing down here?" Ben asked.
"Hiding."
"From the fighting?"
"From monsters," the boy whispered, cowering down and trying to wrench himself free of Rey's grasp to disappear back into the hole.
"What monsters?" Rey asked.
The boy only shook his head, tugging harder against her restraining hand. Rey let go, allowing him to dart into the shadows again.
"What do we do?" she asked. "He's going to die if he stays here for much longer. He's already sick."
"We'll take him with us," Ben said, glancing over her shoulder toward the boy's hiding place. "Obviously he's terrified of something here. I can't imagine he'd be any less safe with us than he would be if we left him."
"And how do we explain him to Tal and the other troopers?" she asked in a low voice. "We can't tell them the truth- not when Snoke's still hunting them."
"He's an orphan we picked up on the way and he's going to be taken to one of the training ships to become a trooper."
"But instead we'll take him to Mela's ship?"
"No. Corann's. He'll do better there to start out, especially if he's sick. Corann's the best of us when it comes to healing."
Rey looked back toward Temiri, huddled deep inside the wall. She crouched down once more, extending her hand toward the terrified boy.
"How would you like to leave this place?" she asked.
"You mean it?" came the little voice, high pitched and tight with fear. "Away from the monsters?"
"Far away from the monsters," Rey said.
"Is there food?"
Rey's heart broke for the boy. His three words told her infinitely more than any story he might have woven. She could remember the same question haunting her in her childhood days. Hunger was the only constant companion she'd known and a sensation that drove her to take chances with her life during scavenging runs. A hungry child was a desperate child. No one knew that as well as she did.
"There's food," she said.
"There are other children there, too," Ben said. "Children like you."
Temiri poked his head from the fissure, fear etching lines in his young face.
"Are you like me too?" he asked.
Rey smiled gently and twitched her fingers toward the boy. The cap flew from his head and landed in her outstretched hand. She held it out to him, and he took it with an expression of awe. He pulled it back over his dark hair and crept further from the crevice. Rey took his hot little hand gently in hers and led him back down the tunnel toward the glow of Jai's lightsaber with Ben following close at their heels.
"This is Jai and Tal," Rey murmured to the boy. "They're here to help us."
The boy nodded solemnly but didn't speak. Tal glanced at Ben, questions in his eyes, then looked back to the small figure at Rey's side.
"A new recruit," Ben said in explanation. "He'll go to the nearest training ship."
Jai nodded slowly, then faster as Rey saw understanding spark in him.
"And how do you propose we get him there?" the knight asked. "It's not like we can drag him around in the middle of a battle."
"I'll take him," Rey said. "I don't think I can go much further anyway, and I'm going to be next to useless in a fight. I'm just a hindrance now."
Ben didn't voice his agreement aloud, but she felt his rush of relief. She'd known he hadn't wanted her to come from the beginning. It had annoyed her then, but she understood after a day of battle. The last few months had drained her of her old strength, leaving her exhausted and weak. Lack of sleep and the never-ending tension had long since taken their toll. At least the nearly constant nausea was gone. It had faded just in time for her to avoid the dreaded med-bay visit.
"When we get to the spaceport, we'll get you a ship," Ben said. "You know the coordinates?"
Rey nodded, drawing Temiri closer against her side. The boy seemed to melt against her, burrowing his face into her tunic. The unexpected display of trust surprised her, but not in an unpleasant way. A familiar warmth curled in her when she looked towards Ben. She shook her head, blinking away the impossible thought before it could take root in her mind.
They began to move again, trudging through the water and slime, with Tal occasionally consulting his nav-computer for directions. Water trickled from the walls and dripped from the roof, the drops loud in the silence. Temiri stuck close to her side, weaving a little as he walked. Occasionally, Rey would be forced to stop as a coughing fit wracked the child's small body, leaving him gagging and gasping for air. The longer they walked, the more often he stumbled, until Rey took pity and lifted him onto her back. When she did, it surprised her to feel how little he weighed. They went on, hours seeming to pass them by without light to mark them.
At last, they came to a spot in the tunnel with more iron rungs projecting from the walls. Tal stopped in front of them and craned his neck upwards.
"This is our stop," he said.
Jai ascended first and lifted the grate, poking his head into the open and looking about.
"All clear," he hissed down to them before climbing through the hole and out into the world beyond with Tal following close behind.
"Hold tight," Ben said as he took Temiri from Rey and hitched the boy high on his back.
The youngling wrapped his arms around Ben's neck, tightening his grip as Ben began to climb. Rey hauled herself up behind them, hand over hand, the rusty metal digging into her sore palms. Every movement sent spasms of pain through the blaster wound at her ribs. She crawled through the hole seconds after Ben, breathing hard and blinking in the strong light beyond the grating. The space that opened around them was wide and long and it was swarming with people. Rey's first instinct was to dart back into the sewers, but Tal's shout stopped her.
"Sim! You made it!"
"Really, Captain," the woman said, grinning as she came forward and clasped his arm, "you wound me. Don't act so surprised."
"I'm putting your name in for a promotion."
With relief, Rey noticed that the people surrounding them wore the white armor of stormtroopers and the gray uniforms of mechanics. She even thought she caught a glimpse of Lita hauling a small cart full of spare parts towards a grounded TIE.
"Where are we?" she asked.
"An underground hangar in the spaceport," Sim said. "The docking bay is above us."
"How did you get here?" Rey asked.
"Same way you did," Sim said, grinning and looking down at her filthy boots, then back to Rey. "What's with the kid?"
"Found him," Rey said, smoothly, the lie Ben told coming easily to her lips. "I'm going to take him to one of the training ships."
Sim's smile left her face to be replaced by a wary look.
"New recruit?" she asked, something in her voice telling Rey to be careful what she said next.
"His parents sold him," she explained. "He doesn't have shelter or food. We figured he'd have a better chance on one of the ships."
Sim's expression softened by a fraction, but a consuming sadness still lurked within its depths.
"Hope he's tougher than he looks," she muttered.
"You haven't left the access hatches unguarded, have you?" Tal broke in. "The Resistance is going to figure out that's how we got through their blockade."
"She didn't," Jai said, "I had about six blasters pointed at me when I lifted the grating."
He threw Sim an admiring look and a smile that she quickly returned. Rey glanced from the knight to the ships huddling in alcoves delved into the walls. Temiri pressed closer into her side, fingers silently reaching for her sleeve and grasping it in a tight fist.
In the bright light, Rey got her first good look at him. He was covered in filth with two spots of red high in his cheeks, his shock of dark brown hair slicked close to his head with perspiration. Rey felt his forehead and the child leaned into her palm, his eyes drifting closed as he swayed. She caught him before he could topple forward and crouched next to him, half gathering him into her arms. His skin was burning under her fingers, the fever having grown worse in the short time since they'd found him.
"Ben," she murmured, edging her tone with the slightest pressure from the Force.
His attention immediately snapped to her and took in the small boy she cradled against her chest. He nodded and turned to Sim.
"We need a ship- one with a hyperdrive."
Sim rubbed her chin, scrutinizing the ships spread before her; most of them damaged.
"I think I've got an SF fighter that's in working order," she said as she glanced at Temiri. "It'll have a harness for the kid too. Can you pilot something like that?"
"If it's anything like the old v1, then yes," said Rey. "I found a simulation program back on Jakku that had that model."
"Same basic principle," Sim said, cocking a thumb over her shoulder to a brightly lit tunnel at the end of the chamber. "That's the exit that will bring you out on the west side of the spaceport. Just be careful, you're going to attract some attention."
Rey nodded her understanding as Ben leaned down and hoisted Temiri into his arms. She followed him towards the fighter, trying to ignore the way her body ached with fatigue as she crawled through the hatch, raising her arms for the child. It took everything in her not to gasp aloud when she felt the boy's ribs digging into her through his worn shirt. Ben peered down at them, his expression revealing nothing of the horror and disgust that had flared at his own realization.
"You have the coordinates for Corann's transport?" he asked as she strapped the boy into the gunner's chair.
"Yeah. He should be in the Sumitra sector, right?"
Ben nodded.
"He's orbiting Thustra. Comm him once you get close. He'll guide you in."
Rey stared at him for a long moment, then carefully reached her hand up to catch his. The calluses there were warm and familiar against her palm and she found that she didn't want to let him go.
"Watch your back," she said.
He gave her the smallest of smiles as he leaned forward and brushed a kiss over her knuckles. The heat of his breath sent something like electricity tingling over her skin. She shivered a little as warmth flooded into her. Unexpectedly, the strange music was there again in the back of her mind, its low lilting notes bringing terror with them. She quickly pushed it away. Its melody had been following her; haunting her like her dreams, for weeks now. It would come back. It always did. It wove itself into her dreams and half-wakenings, singing to her when her mind was least guarded against it. But she couldn't think of that now. She wouldn't.
"I'll see you soon," Ben whispered.
They rested there in the quiet, hands clasped and minds twining, just breathing. Then someone called Ben's name from outside the TIE and his fingers slipped from hers, leaving her feeling cold and alone. He was gone in a few heartbeats and she sealed the hatch behind him before she took her place at the controls.
Reaching up, she flicked several switches above her head. Red light glowed from the control panel and the TIE purred to life. In spite of everything, Rey felt a rush of exhilaration. It was good to be flying again. She eased the throttle forward and the TIE shuddered out of its alcove with the high whine of the ion engines.
Be safe, Rey.
The whisper curled around her and for a moment she thought she felt the ghost of Ben's fingers trailing through hers. But the sensation vanished, and the echoes died, and she was accelerating along the tunnel towards a black sky that flickered with stars.
The TIE shot out into the night, skimming over the rooftops of the city's lower levels. Rey hauled back on the yoke and the TIE nosed upward. She settled herself a little more firmly in her seat and reached over to jam the thruster forward. The TIE responded to her touch without hesitation, screaming towards the atmosphere. Behind her, Temiri began to whimper.
"It's alright," soothed Rey. "We're going to be fine."
At that same moment, there was a prickle along her spine. She jerked the yoke sideways, sending the TIE spinning off to the right just as a red bolt of plasma streaked past the wing. Rey swore and pulled back on the thruster, slowing the TIE's ascent. A light flashed on the control panel and a proximity alarm started buzzing as the pursuing x-wing roared past her. Rey set her jaw and punched the thruster, accelerating after the starfighter.
"Get out of my way," she hissed as she flicked the switch to engage the deflector shields.
Her fingers flew across the controls, arming the laser cannons. Ahead of her, the x-wing banked and shot upwards. Rey followed, accelerating even as she gained altitude. For a moment, she closed her eyes, drawing on the Force around her. It tugged on her and she obeyed, pressing her thumbs against the trigger switches. Two green bolts of plasma burst from the cannons, painting the x-wing's aft end. Half a second later, fire blossomed from the craft and it spun away into the night, trailing smoke and sparks. Rey gritted her teeth, ignoring the brief spasm of guilt, and pushed the TIE into a faster climb.
She broke through the atmosphere with a sigh of relief and glanced back over her shoulder to the gunner's chair.
"You okay back there Temiri?" she asked.
There was no answer and when she twisted farther, she saw a pale arm dangling limply over the edge of the seat. Rey bit her lip and turned back toward the controls, quickly entering the coordinates for the Thustra system into the flight computer. It beeped its acknowledgement and Rey threw the lever for the hyperdrive. An instant later and the bright points of light stretched to become brilliant lines of blue fire streaking past outside her viewport.
She leaned back and took a deep breath, finally allowing the pain and exhaustion to gain a foothold. Her limbs felt like lead, and a deep ache settled into her overstrained muscles. Her side burned where the blaster bolt had clipped her and she pressed her hand to the place, fingers exploring the rough scab. It could have been a lot worse. Her hand slipped down to rest beside her and her eyes drifted shut, but she didn't sleep. In the stillness between worlds, Rey's mind was anything but silent.
Her eyes flew open again as the computer chirped a warning that she was nearing her destination. She rubbed her cold fingers over her face and took up the steering yoke just as the TIE dropped out of hyperspace. A planet loomed suddenly before her, its mottled yellows and greens broken by the brown of broad mountain ranges. For a moment, her curiosity drew her toward the spinning world. Then Temiri gave a hacking cough and she remembered why she'd come.
She hit the button to activate the comm and entered the code Ben had given her. A few seconds later, an unfamiliar voice crackled through the ship.
"Identify yourself."
"My name is Rey-" she started.
There was a short exhalation, as if the speaker on the other end had sighed.
"Rey, thank the Force. Kylo sent a message that you were on your way."
"I'm coming from Cantonica with a young boy. I know you're near Thustra, but I need your exact coordinates."
The speaker rattled off a few numbers which Rey proceeded to program into the flight computer.
"Be advised, I'm flying a TIE sf," she said. "It was all we had with a hyperdrive."
"Copy. We'll meet you in the hangar. You're clear for landing."
"Roger."
Rey clicked off the communication and focused on guiding the TIE on its path toward the flashing dot that indicated Corann's ship. The planet curved away beneath her, and she couldn't resist watching the soft white clouds swirling through the atmosphere in their infinitely varying patterns as she flew by.
A few minutes passed before she caught sight of the transport through the viewport. It neared at a rapid pace and before she knew it, she was edging her TIE into the landing bay. It looked surprisingly familiar- so like Cy and Mela's ship that she expected to see the woman's blonde hair and wide smile as the TIE settled to the floor. Instead, her eyes caught and fixed on a shock of red hair. For a horrific moment, she thought it was Hux. But a second later, she nearly laughed with relief when the man turned, and the illusion evaporated. Beneath his red hair, the knight's face was covered in a thick mass of freckles, and his eyes, though an ice blue similar to Hux's, were kind, with a keen intelligence that might have been intimidating if his face wasn't lined with concern.
He climbed onto the TIE and was scrambling over the roof as Rey stood and opened the hatch. She unbelted Temiri and lifted the boy into her arms. He let out a soft moan and wrapped his arms and legs around her, clinging fast.
"Wake up, Temiri," Rey murmured to him. "We're here."
The boy didn't say anything, just wrapped his arms tighter around her neck. As he did, the knight's head appeared in the open hatch, upside down as he peered through.
"You must be Rey," he said, extending a hand. "I'm Corann."
"Good to meet you."
"Kylo said you were bringing a boy with you and that he was sick. Is this him?"
"Yeah," Rey said. "We found him in the sewers with a bad fever. It's only gotten worse,"
"Better get him to the med bay then. I'm going to need to get a good look at him and I don't want anyone else exposed."
She nodded and Corann reached down, prying the child free from her arms. She pulled herself free of the TIE and slid down to the floor before she held out her arms for the boy again. Corann shook his head.
"You look worn out. I'll take him."
"Thanks," said Rey, gratefully.
She stumbled after the knight, focusing on keeping herself upright as they crossed the hangar. Corann was tall- taller even than Ben, and she found that she had to trot to keep up with him. Temiri lay quiet and still in his arms, pale faced and soaked with sweat. Rey studied the boy as she walked, wondering if they'd made it in time. He was so small and so thin.
As they traveled through the maze of corridors, Rey's mind began to drift away, lost somewhere in pain and a desperate need for sleep. Her legs began to go numb and a wave of dizziness rolled over her. She staggered on, feet seeming to tangle with one another. Just as she felt sure she would not be able to go further without a rest, the knight stopped before a door. He scanned his palm and it slid back to reveal a white room that smelled of antiseptic and steel.
Rey saw several droids hovering next to a long table full of glass vials and silver instruments. A man she recognized sat behind it, scribbling busily on a datapad. She narrowed her eyes, her exhausted mind struggling to place him as she scrutinized his features. The memory came clear with the same surge of pain it always did.
The Resistance. Leia. Ben's knight she'd first met on Abafar.
"Decha?" she asked, incredulous.
The man looked up and grinned.
"Rey!" he exclaimed. "It's good to see you. What are you doing here?"
"I'm a delivery girl," she said, nodding to Temiri.
Decha's smile faded and he came out from behind his work bench to examine the boy.
"Sick?"
"Yes," said Corann, setting the boy down on one of the tables. "and deathly thin. Now back off. He's most likely contagious and I haven't the faintest clue what he's carrying."
Corann drew up a thick white liquid in a syringe and started to work Temiri's frayed pant leg above the boy's knee. Temiri mumbled something while the knight swabbed his skin with an antiseptic, then jerked and tried to pull away as Corann plunged the needle into his thigh. The knight held him fast, deftly injecting the medication even as the boy struggled and began to cry.
"What was that?" Rey asked, collapsing onto a stool.
"A gamut of antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals and something to reduce his fever," Corann said, drawing up another syringe. "Give me your arm."
"Why?"
"You've been exposed to whatever it is he has. When you see Kylo, tell him he's going to need a course of broad-spectrums as soon as possible. I'm trying to nip a pandemic in the bud here."
Obediently, Rey rolled up her sleeve to expose her shoulder. Corann doused her with antiseptic and quickly stuck the needle into her arm. It burned. Rey winced and rubbed at the spot, trying to dispel the lingering ache. Corann scrubbed his own arm and injected himself with the same medication with a grimace.
"Force help me," he muttered as he turned back towards the steel tray of instruments, "who knows what he picked up down there."
When he faced her again, he was drawing up a new medication.
"What's that?" Rey repeated.
"Sedative," Corann muttered. "I'm going to have to take samples and run a few scans. It's easier if they sleep right through it."
Temiri flinched at the bite of the needle, but his sobs soon faded as the medication took hold. He quieted, curling onto his side, and breathing like a sleeper. Rey's thoughts began to slip again as she watched, and she found her vision sliding out of focus. She jumped when Corann put a hand on her shoulder, coming fully back to herself.
"There's a refresher down the hall. You're going to want to scrub after traipsing around in that sewer for hours, especially with that wound. I'll send a droid in with clean clothes for you. What you've got on now is going to the incinerator."
Rey glanced down at herself, realizing just how filthy she was. Her boots were covered in slime and other things at which she didn't want to guess. Her tunic was dusty and stiff with blood near the rip torn by the bolt of plasma, speckled with mud and still damp with sweat. Even her skin lay hidden beneath a thin layer of grime.
"Thank you," she said. "You don't have to-"
"Yes, I do," Corann interrupted. "I've been charged with protecting the younglings under my care. You, little sister, are a walking, talking biohazard. Draw what conclusions you will."
The vehemence with which the knight spoke put Rey off balance. She tried to smile, but it was an uncertain, shaky thing.
"Don't take it personally," Decha remarked from behind his tubes and vials. "It's his mission in life to eradicate every major illness in the known universe. Every time someone sneezes, he thinks it's the pandemic that will bring about the end of the galaxy."
Corann scowled at Decha, but Rey's smile spread a bit wider and she let out a half-hearted chuckle.
"Well, I do appreciate the offer," she said. "Thanks."
Corann nodded once before turning back to Temiri's still form on the table. Rey made for the shower, glancing back in time to see several droids clustering around the table, Corann's red hair a brilliant flame at their center.
She slid the door shut and stood looking at the room before her. It was utilitarian, at best: a mirror above a small sink that stood next to the toilet and a little alcove in the wall for the shower. She couldn't have cared less.
The water pounded against her back, its heat easing the pain of nearly twelve full hours of battle and six more of running for her life. Her mind, drifting free from worry for a few precious moments, seemed to float with the transport among the stars. The world beneath them echoed with songs, its melodies twisting off into the emptiness between worlds. She could hear them, but they weren't as they had once been- even the memory of them slipping away as she tried to grasp it. It seemed like there was something between her and the music, cutting her off and muffling the beauty she so longed to hear. Separating her from the light side.
But she couldn't go back. It had turned its back on her, and so she had turned on it. That chasm was too deep for her to cross.
She stepped out of the shower and dressed, scrubbing at her wet hair with a towel even as she listened to the dim music around her, sadness and a desperate hunger clinging fast. Without quite knowing how it had happened, she found that the strange song she'd been pushing away all day had swelled and overwhelmed all others. This time, its music was almost a relief. It seemed the only real melody among a cacophony of hazy, half-blurred notes.
She let it wash over her, listening with a kind of anguished fascination. It began as a small trill- a short series of notes she could barely tell apart from her own music. But the longer she concentrated on it, the louder and more insistent the little song became. For the first time since she'd begun to sense it, she did not close herself off to it, instead allowing herself to explore and discover its smallest intricacies. As she listened, the music took on a melody unique unto itself, yet still like to hers in certain ways; as with the little runs of notes sprinkled through the song that she recognized as hers. It throbbed in her ears, taking on a pulsing beat that she could sense beneath the melody- something that seemed to drive the music itself…
She gasped in recognition, fingers clenching tight around the sink edge.
Her white, terrified face stared back at her from the mirror. The truth was a fist that had closed around her throat. She couldn't move. She couldn't speak. She couldn't breathe. Her mind flew backwards, tracing the time. How long had it been since she'd bled? Months, at least. She hadn't been concerned those first few weeks. After all, such things had happened before. She'd told herself it was the training. The daily, grueling combat lessons and sparring with Ben. Yet the time had run past as sand through her fingers and she'd begun to suspect; the long weeks of sickness raising memories of things Hausis had told her as a girl. But even then, she'd silenced her fears and denied the music for what it was, convincing herself that it was just the months of tension taking its toll on her body.
But now, she could no longer ignore it.
The music she'd struggled to banish from her mind was singing out around her, clear and pure and unmistakable. It pulsed within her and filled her with a dizzying mixture of dread and elation. Feeling as though her legs would no longer support her, she sank to her knees, forehead pressed against the cool porcelain of the sink as she fought to keep the tears at bay. The music still hummed through her, and she sensed again the pulse behind it- a rapid fluttering like the beating of a bird's wings.
Slowly, hand trembling, she released the sink and reached down until her fingers rested against her abdomen. How could she not have realized? How had she not seen? It seemed like such a foolish thing now to have blinded herself to the changes she'd begun to notice within herself over the last months. As her hand traveled down, she felt the first traces of a swelling. She froze there, one hand clenched around the sink edge, the other pressed tight to her stomach. For the first time since the terrible suspicion invaded her mind, she saw clearly the truth and accepted it as such.
She was carrying a child. Ben's child. Their child.