Here we go!

Obi Wan had barely eaten anything at breakfast, and Satine hadn't either. He hoped that Anakin hadn't noticed his nerves. Fortunately, he seemed in a sunnier disposition than he had been in when they had arrived on Mandalore, taking pleasure in Satine's light-hearted jests and the brief tour she gave him of the hangar, where scores of broken droids resided. They left Anakin in the company of Husharn, a friend from their revolution days, and the droids.

"We'll visit the archives now, Anakin. I'll see you again in time for lunch. Do behave yourself, please. You are expressly forbidden from flying off-planet."

Husharn gave the nervous grin of an underqualified babysitter and waved them on their way.

Alone with Satine. Stars. He was a Sith-killer and a Jedi Knight; it should not have given him the fluttering in his chest and stomach that it did. The sound of her shoes on the marble. The knowledge that he could reach out and take her hand, right now. The same nervous energy that he could sense in her. Obi Wan became dimly aware as they walked that they were not following the correct route to the archives. There were no others walking these distant corridors. He wondered if they were going to her private quarters. Obi Wan's heart rioted more uproariously still.

To hells with it. He couldn't stand the silence anymore.

"I'll confess, Satine, that when you alluded to me that there was something you had to tell me in person…"

He reached for a smile. He would say something to make her laugh. It was his favourite sound. It would put him at ease.

"The first thing that came to mind was that you might be pregnant," he admitted, with a wry grin. "But I can see that you're not."

She did not laugh.

"Well…"

A jolt in his chest. He looked to her waistline once more. She didn't look-

"Are you?"

"No," she assured him, and paused, and grimaced. "Not anymore."

Obi Wan stopped dead in his tracks.

"What do you mean-"

"Not in the hallway, Obi Wan," she muttered impatiently, and beckoned him towards a nearby doorway. "My quarters are just here, come inside-"

She opened the door and they stepped inside. Obi Wan felt as though he were in a dream. An imperfectly made bed; the bed she had slept in. An unfinished mug of tea at her dresser. A jacket draped over a chair. He surely couldn't be here, in this space she shared with no one else. The tapestries upon the wall and the stained glass of the windows seemed bright and hyperreal.

"Not anymore?" Obi Wan repeated, all but dumbstruck.

Her expression was stricken, and Obi Wan fumbled for words.

"Did you- did you miscarry, Satine?"

A shake of her head. The idea hit him with a sinking feeling in his chest.

"You must have- did you terminate?" he asked then. "Oh, Satine, it's your choice, of course it is, but I wish you'd told me, I wish we could have-"

"Stop talking, Obi Wan," she pleaded.

They locked desperate eyes, seeing and not seeing each other.

"I don't know anything about the Force," Satine murmured, "but I thought you'd surely…"

A faint realisation was beginning to dawn on Obi Wan even before Satine opened her mouth to speak again.

"Can't you feel him?"

And then it hit him with all the force of the bomb blasts that had turned this palace to rubble in the years gone past. That presence in the Force. That calling. Far fainter than Anakin's, so young and unformed. But so bright. And so strangely familiar.

Satine was waiting for him to say something. His mouth was dry and his tongue unwieldy.

"By the stars, Satine."

She nodded tremulously.

"Yes."

He knew the truth but would step through it carefully, deliberately, and take the time necessary to comprehend it.

"You were pregnant," he recounted. "But not anymore."

"Not anymore," Satine repeated.

A larger step to take, now.

"We have a child," Obi Wan articulated.

Satine nodded.

"A son."

And a question so enormous he could not voice any more than a single word.

"How-"

"There's a great deal I need to explain to you," Satine agreed fervently. "I meant to tell you with far less drama before he was born but he came very early and very unexpectedly. I'll tell you everything, but…"

She had taken a few steps towards an alcove that was presumably her wardrobe.

"I mean, if you'd like… I'll let you hold him first?"

She gave him a weak smile.

"I don't imagine you'll hear a word I say while you're still waiting to see him and hold him."

Obi Wan stood dumbstruck, and then nodded vigorously. Satine turned towards the alcove and he followed obediently behind her.

"He was born very early," Satine explained, "so he's tiny. Don't be frightened."

In the alcove, between rows of silk and satin and woollen gowns, there was a bassinet. And inside the bassinet…

"It is most important to keep him warm and calm," Satine went on, as she lifted a bundle to her chest. "He is very vulnerable to any sort of stress, the doctor says, physical and emotional. So we just have to be quiet and gentle with him."

There was a baby in her arms. Their baby in her arms.

"The doctor says as well that skin-to-skin contact is good for him. It's good for bonding, and calming him, and it will help him grow and be healthy. The doctor taught me how to use a sling to keep him warm and hold him to my chest. Here, let me show you…"

Satine tugged indicatively at his collar with a free hand. Obi Wan pulled his tabards and then his shirt over his head. Satine fixed a sling over his shoulders and unswaddled the infant. A tiny, tiny baby. His baby. Their baby. Skin-to-skin.

"So you can hold him just like that, see?"

Satine, so infinitely wise in that moment. So beautiful. A mother. Obi Wan's heart swelled enormously and he felt as though he might cry but he wanted to remain calm because the Satine said it was important for the baby.

"That's perfect. You hold him just like that. He's happy there."

Obi Wan swiped at a tear and nodded his head.

"His name is Korkaran," Satine said. "But most of the time I call him Korkie."

The universe is enormous and boundless but Korkie's world, in that time, was small. His tiny, developing brain knew little beyond the beating of his heart and the tides of his breath and the gentle flow of milk through his gut. He knew the warmth of the lamp that shone like a sun in his tiny galaxy, although his infant eyes could only hazily grasp the objects it illuminated. He knew the gentle hands that held him and laid him against her chest. Her voice was like music. Her heartbeat was the first sound that he had ever known. He rested his head against her chest and he listened to her heart speak to him. Its thumping said Ma-ma, Ma-ma, Ma-ma. Mama. Korkie had known his mother before he knew anything else.

He was transferred by his mother into different hands – larger – and laid against a different chest – broader, warmer. The figure spoke with a deeper voice than his mother did.

"Satine, this is the most incredible- I can't explain-"

"You don't need to say anything."

Korkie knew this man. He knew him somehow immediately. There was an energy radiating from him that touched the energy inside Korkie's very core and they knew each other. This heartbeat was slower, and stronger, beneath his resting head. It thumped Da-da, Da-da, Da-da. Dada.

Korkie knew his father, and his tiny universe was complete.

I hope this makes up for the wait.

As Satine says, there's lots of explaining to do - but we'll leave that for next chapter. Let's bask in Korkie's tiny universe a little longer.

Much love,

S.