They stood in near silence for a great many minutes, gazing at the child in silent adoration and incredulity, before Obi Wan slid gently down the wall to sit on the floor, and Satine followed beside him.

"Tell me everything," Obi Wan said.

And so she did.

She told him that she'd not known about it, not even suspected it, when he'd left. That she'd only realised six weeks later, during a nasty bout of vomiting, because she'd been so accustomed to being without periods. She told him the enormous shock of it, and that she had truly thought herself rendered infertile by the starvation, and that she was so, so sorry, and she'd not been trying to trick him.

Obi Wan shook his head.

"Don't be sorry."

Satine felt a tightness in her chest but swallowed back all the questions she wanted to ask him.

"Alright."

She told him about Doctor Sewlen Jerac, who she had trusted to be discreet, and about the dating scan, which could not be interpreted with confidence because of her absence of periods and the lateness of the scan, but which placed Korkie's conception most likely around the time that they were held as guests – or captives – in the General Iadon's house. In the hours before they were hunted down and kidnapped by rogue Old Guard soldiers. In the hours before the escape and the train and revolution in Keldabe's city square.

Obi Wan frowned faintly in reminiscence.

"So that means… that perhaps it was the very last time that we-"

"Yes."

She told him that she'd known from the start that she would keep the child, and that she had planned to announce it to the public soon, before her pregnancy became visibly obvious. She explained that the Mando'ade were strictly disapproving of sex outside of marriage, and that Korkie would have been condemned as a bastard, so she had planned to suggest that he was conceived through rape, an act of violence, which the Mando'ade could understand more readily than love. She told Obi Wan that she had planned to tell him before the public announcement but admitted that it had been difficult to work up the courage, knowing that his chosen path in life was as a Jedi Knight. She told him that she'd thought she had a little more time.

"I'm glad you told me now," he said.

He gave a gentle smile, but Satine could feel that his demeanour had changed with the mention of the Order.

Korkie mewled at his chest.

Satine did not know how to comfort him, so she talked more.

She told him about that terrible day – about the pain in her abdomen, that started so suddenly and so unprompted, and the horrible clamminess of her skin and the way her consciousness had started to dip and slide. She told him that she'd called Bo-Katan-

"I apologise for breaching confidentiality, but I really did think I might die."

-and that she'd asked Bo-Katan to call him.

"She said she tried, twice, and that you didn't answer. But I'm not to know whether she was telling me the truth."

Obi Wan frowned.

"She might have called. How many days ago did you say this was?"

"Five, now."

"Oh," Obi Wan murmured.

Korkie cried again. Satine reached a hand to stroke her son's back; Obi Wan's hand came down at the same time. Satine should have been too old, too wise, too familiar, to feel that jolt of electricity as they touched. Damn all the stars that had cursed her with this affliction; she loved him and she always would.

"Obi Wan, I-"

But Obi Wan seemed to barely hear her.

"That was the day of… of the battle on Naboo."

Satine's chest thudded with sudden understanding.

"The day Master Qui Gon…?"

"Yes."

They sat in silence for a few moments.

"I'm sorry. I didn't realise."

"I'm sorry I wasn't here with you."

"Don't be ridiculous."

Another few moments of silence. Too much to say. Too much that they would not say.

"Tell me more."

And so Satine told him the simple things. She told him about a placental abruption, which she'd not heard of until she had one, and about how she was bleeding all of the blood meant for Korkie into the womb. She told him that she still felt guilty, somehow, of failing Korkie, although Sewlen had insisted that it was not her fault. And Satine told him about Sewlen's heroics, which were hazy in her memory, but the impressiveness of which were not lost on her.

"She was all on her own, Obi Wan. Her and some out-dated assistant droid that held some deranged, tiny vacuum-cleaner to suck up all my blood and give it back to me through the tubes she'd put in my arms. She cut me open and it can't have been even two minutes until she took Korkie out. She said he would be dead. I was only twenty-two weeks pregnant, Obi Wan. It should have been impossible for him to survive. But Sewlen put him on my chest and I felt that he was alive and I…"

I felt you. I felt you. Somehow I felt you, Obi Wan. It was a miracle.

She wondered if Obi Wan somehow heard the words she did not say; he nodded patiently and stroked Korkie's back with his thumb.

"I stopped watching what Doctor Jerac did then. I closed my eyes and meant only to rest but I suppose I lost consciousness."

She told him of how she'd woken to find Bo-Katan beside her, their arms connected by a transfuser circuit, and that Bo-Katan had saved her life twice in less than half a year now, which was a little embarrassing. She told him that her sister had stayed three days before returning to Concordia. She told him about the tests that Doctor Jerac had suggested they run.

"She guessed that he was Force-sensitive, I think. He's a miracle baby. She couldn't explain his survival any other way. But I didn't let her take any unnecessary bloods. I don't want a midichlorian count. He's…"

Satine swallowed effortfully.

"He's not going to the Jedi, no matter what."

She grimaced as the words left her mouth. She had to say them. Obi Wan had to know, right now, from the start. But she could not help but inwardly lament the darkness that came over his face then; they'd made it this far without fighting, and she didn't want to start now.

"Are you under the impression that the malevolent Jedi appear promptly to kidnap an infant whenever a midichlorian count reads high?" Obi Wan asked.

Stars. She'd seen this before. The antagonistic arch of an eyebrow. His voice mild but his gaze determined. She'd seen this a hundred times before.

How they'd fought, when they had first known each other. They'd fought all the love they shouldn't have felt for each other, and they had fought it ferociously. They'd caused great scenes with their arguments – Master Jinn had once dragged his Padawan away by the collar. On another occasion, they'd almost been found where they hid in the back of a food shipment, hissing barbs at each other when they should have been silent, because they'd both refused to concede the last word. But Satine, of the mighty beskar tongue, who had been victorious so often, could admit to herself that she didn't like fighting with him. They had loved each other from the start but it had been only in the last weeks that they had spent together, when they had returned to Keldabe and finally incited an enormous revolution, that they had stood side by side as friends.

"The Jedi do not take children into the Order unless they are volunteered willingly by their parents," Obi Wan prompted, in their silence.

"And I am not volunteering him," Satine retorted.

Obi Wan nodded graciously.

"As is your right."

Satine was rattled by his diplomatic airs. Or, more likely, she was bothered by the knowledge of the bond that existed between father and son, a bond that her own senses were entirely blind to. Korkie would have powers that Satine could never control or understand and there would be lessons that only his father could teach him.

"He's presumably been diluted by my Forceless blood, anyhow," Satine muttered in self-consolation. "He is surely ineligible."

Obi Wan corrected her with a gentle smile.

"It doesn't work that way, Satine," he told her. "There's no clear mode of inheritance. Korkie's connection to the Force…"

He trailed off and shook his head in wonderment.

"It is strong and clear. It is beautiful to feel. His count is presumably equal to if not higher than mine."

Satine was assaulted then by viciously clashing emotions – tenderness for the way that Obi Wan cradled their child, a sharp sting of discomfort at his words. She looked at the child she had birthed and named with new eyes.

Korkaran Kryze. Mando'ade and Jetii. A son of the Clan Kryze, the son of a Sith-killer.

It seemed a miracle to her in that moment that she and Obi Wan Kenobi, with all the enormous differences between them, could have conceived this tiny human child. For how could he be both of theirs when they were so different?

And Satine was struck by a horrible fear in that moment – that he could not possibly be both of theirs, that he would be so much his father's child that he would grow a foreigner on this Sundari soil, that although he was born of her womb she would never fully understand him. For she had loved Obi Wan and she loved him still, but that was not to say she understood him. They had conceived a child together but there were so many parts of him that she would never know.

Obi Wan had called her selfish a hundred times and he was right, for she looked at their child and she wanted him to be hers, not his. Obi Wan had left her once and would do it again, and if Korkie ever left her then her heart would break entirely.

But she could not articulate any of this.

"Doctor Jerac does not know his prognosis from here," she informed Obi Wan, factually, instead. "He is well, so far, although we supplement his oxygen on occasion. And he is vulnerable to infection, and gut necrosis, and chronic lung disease, and…"

She trailed off and steeled herself.

"He is well so far," she repeated. "He has survived a day that would kill almost any other infant. Doctor Jerac is helping me to care for him. I believe that he will stay well."

She half-wanted him to give some Force-informed prophesy in the conceited way that Jedi did – "I know that he will stay well, Satine" – but instead Obi Wan nodded and pressed a hand against Korkie's back to hold him closer to his chest. Korkie was so tiny, inside that hand.

"Tell me why you named him Korkaran," Obi Wan said instead.

Satine leaned back against the wall and found a smile.

"A long time ago in Mando folklore…"

Anakin liked Hushie. He cared for the droids like Anakin did and he spoke Basic with an accent, which made Anakin feel a little better about his own accent, which was so ugly and poor-sounding compared to Obi Wan's silken way of speaking. Hushie was kind and the droids were interesting enough, but Anakin found his mind wandering again and again back to the palace.

There was something in there. Some sort of presence. Anakin called it a hunch but Obi Wan would have said that he sensed something in the Force. Something that seemed more alive, more present in the Force, than whatever holos or stacks of flimsi Obi Wan had said they were looking for in the archives.

It had surely been over an hour, now, that Obi Wan had left him for. And the presence was as distracting as ever.

Anakin told Hushie that he needed the 'fresher – which was true – and told him that the Duchess Kryze had already shown him where it was – which was untrue – and that he could go by himself.

He restrained himself from running as he headed from the hangar back into the palace.

"A long time ago in Mando folklore, a newly married couple were expecting their first child. There was great anticipation in their small northern village for the birth of this child, for the father was a great warrior, and the village's best hunter. He stood at almost seven foot tall-"

Obi Wan raised his brows mildly.

"I'm not even six foot tall."

"I know. My loss. The story isn't about you, anyhow, you narcissist."

They shared a fleeting smile at the familiarity of the unmalicious taunt.

"He stood at almost seven foot tall and was a great warrior," Satine went on. "The villagers were hoping to see his wife birth a strong son. But the infant was born sickly and small. He weighed less, it was said, than a loaf of dense bread."

"Like our Korkie."

Our Korkie. The enormous emotion of those words.

"Like our Korkie," Satine agreed. "Anyhow. It is considered a great shame to birth a weak infant on Mandalore. Some villagers taunted the father, telling him that the child could not possibly be his, and that his wife must have dishonoured him by conceiving with another man. Others defended the father, and implored him to remarry, to find a wife worthy of carrying his child, for this first wife had clearly failed him with an inhospitable womb. But the father defended his wife; he maintained that she had not been unfaithful, nor was their child's small stature any fault on her part. They carried their infant proudly through the marketplace, and they would tell anyone who would listen, 'He is our child and he will be a great warrior.' They must have said it a hundred times to a hundred different people. 'He is our child and he will be a great warrior.' When they were told that the tiny infant was a waste of milk, that he should be left to die, they said, 'He is our child and he will be a great warrior.'"

Satine had said it a hundred times to herself, in the days gone past.

"The Korkaran of old was loved by his parents and survived his infancy. He never grew tall. But under his father's teaching he did grow to be a great warrior, the greatest in the village. When the raiders came he saved the homes and lives of the neighbours who had ridiculed his parents and called for his abandonment at birth. He was a hero in the town. And his own son… his own son grew to be seven foot tall."

Obi Wan nodded as he digested the tale with a pensive smile.

"That's a rather more wholesome storyline than I would expect from Mando folklore," he remarked.

Satine rolled her eyes.

"That's because I'm telling it. Others will tell you all of Korkaran's gory feats. He would cut his enemies down at the legs so that he could more easily decapitate them."

Obi Wan mimed blocking their son's infant ears. Satine felt a lurch of tenderness as she watched him.

Look at us, Obi Wan. A family.

She swallowed hard against those words.

"You'll need to get back to Anakin soon," she said instead.

There was a flash of panic in Obi Wan's eyes.

"Anakin can wait. We need to-"

"What is there to do, Obi Wan?" Satine asked.

This will hurt me, Obi Wan.

I'm not ready to hear this, Obi Wan.

What can you say that won't break my heart all over again, Obi Wan?

"We need to talk about how-"

It was so rare to see Obi Wan lost for words like this. When he found the words, he spat them out raw and desperate.

"Satine, I can't fly away and never see him again."

Outside of Korkie's tiny galaxy, things are a little more complicated. Love is hard. I hope you'll come on the long journey with me as these two try to figure it out. Let me know your feelings about how this is all unfolding!

For those of you who would like to revisit The Last of the Clan Kryze, I'm putting Korkie's likely conception between chapters 30 and 31 (numbered 31 and 32 because of the prologue), in that very beautiful moment of vulnerability and tenderness. As always, not required reading but those chapters could be read as a stand-alone accompaniment to this story.

Next chapter, Satine and Obi Wan have a difficult conversation while Anakin follows his intuition on his journey through the palace. What could go wrong?

xx - S.