A dozen things needed her attention, and Kess wasn't sure how she was going to resolve half of them, but the day was essentially over. As a symbol to remind her that it was time to stop for the day, Kess began to unravel the braid rolls from the back of her head as she rode the elevator to the house.

It was growing more comfortable to come home to the black and sand home on the fourth floor. Not fancy, not junky, not ostentatious on the top of some tower, not down in the grubby levels under Coruscant's lively surface - just functional. Technically, the place was to serve as a way station for all the Jedi when they happened to be in town for Senate functions. Until they built the Academy, until they had apprentices running around that they needed to keep close, this place had become a starter flat for a starter couple.

She found Luke sitting at the corner of the long dining table when she came in. He hunched over a scattering of datapads and cards with fingertips rubbing hard against his eyes. That end of the table had become a second desk for them, where they often sat across from each other to sort out Jedi Academy plans. Now the clutter there seemed permanent. (When they ate at home, they sat across from each other at the other end of table.) Sensing his stress, Kess set down the bag of fruit she had picked up from a street vendor and stepped behind his chair. Without a word, she set her hands on his shoulders and dug in her thumbs.

Luke let out a little moan of appreciation and fell back in the dining chair with relief. Kess massaged his muscles for a minute longer, eyeing the shape of his shoulders under the powder blue fabric of his shirt. She thought about comic figurines with unrealistic musculatures and superheroes with capes, and she grinned. Coming home to this suite was one thing, but coming home to him. . . . Kess felt like she won the grand pot of a lottery.

Before he got too comfortable with it, Luke stretched his neck, and Kess pulled away to sit down in the dining chair next to him. She watched him sigh over all the work and lift an eyebrow at her. "You know what we forgot?"

"What?"

"Infrastructure." He waved a hand at all that was in front of him. "Water. Power. Sewage. Roads. . . . We've got every building we need to get started, but they can't break ground on any of it until we get the infrastructure set up."

"What's that going to do to the time table?"

Luke shook his head. "Puts us at a dead stop until we solve it."

Kess flicked her brows at the problem. "It's tempting to just slap down a ready-made colony ship."

"Yeah, but the At'Bintarians and Tyronans would never go for that. And a colony ship wouldn't sustain us for long anyway."

"I was kidding actually."

He grinned and shrugged a brow.

She propped her head in her palm on the tabletop and fidgeted with her braid-kinked hair. "Can I ask you a weird favor?"

Luke was glad to take a moment and solve something easy. He set his elbow on the tabletop and propped his head in his palm too. "What?"

Kess cringed at the air, trying to figure out how to word this.

Invisibly, his boot lightly kicked her boot. "What?"

"Yana is really struggling with this speech impediment thing, so I have an idea to get some books on sign language and practice with her, just to give her an action plan. Plus, Leia wants her to take me shopping for a gown for this Senate shindig coming up. . . ."

"So? What's the favor?" Suddenly his brows wrinkled like she was nuts. "You're not asking me permission to go out and play, are you?"

"Oh, heck no!" she yipped.

"Okay, good," Luke sighed a smile.

She fidgeted with her earlobe and squinted one eye at him. "It's actually the other way around."

His eyes shifted over.

"I want to bring her over on Zhellday night so we can catch up a little and then the two of us get up and go out shopping Benduday morning for the gowns."

"And you want me out of the way," he realized aloud.

"Only because she's really tense about trying to talk right now. She won't even try when she's in company. I think if I get her alone where she can feel comfortable about messing up, she'll try to communicate more."

"Okay." He nodded. "This Zhellday?"

"Yeah. Do you have a place to go?"

He turned back to his work and started clicking off datapads to deal with the rest tomorrow. "I'll figure something out."

"So. . . ." she peeped devious. "Can ask you another favor?"

Grinning, his eyes slid over.

"While you're there, ask that bishwag why he hasn't commed her yet."

He whined a fresh smile. "I'm not getting in the middle of that."

"Fine. Then just make sure he's not comming her for stupid reasons." She got up from the table to go put the fruit away.

His voice was sneaky, "Did you see your apprentice today?"

Kess groaned comically and dragged her feet like a teenager into the kitchen.

Luke fought a chuckle as he pushed up from the chair. "Oh, this I gotta to hear."

"I don't wanna talk about it." Kess whined with pinching humor then respectfully met his eye. "Let me brew on this one a little bit and I'll brief you later."

Luke accepted that. He tucked his hands in his pockets and grinned inwardly. "I assume you saw Leia too? Since she's ordering you into ball gowns again?" When Kess glanced affirmative, Luke's tone changed to brotherly concern. "How is she?"

"Leia is a superhero in need of a cape." Her awe was palpable. "I don't know how in sandy hell she manages to keep it so together with all that's going on."

Blue eyes fell to nothing to think on it, and he grinned again. Leia may look like she was doing fine on the outside, but Luke vowed to go check in on her soon anyway.

"She wanted me to give you a message," Kess said, her tone softened. She watched Luke for his reaction.

New concern struck his features. "What?"

Kess dropped her shoulder on the inner curve of the archway and broke it to him gently. "She's going to name the baby Breha."

Not Padmé? That's what Kess expected him to say. And his expression flicked as though it might have been his first thought, but his eyes dilated on a distant spot of the sand-colored carpet and returned to her with a warm smile. "A baby girl." His smile widened. "Good for her."

Kess smiled to see him warm so brightly at that. He turned his feet and his eyes sparkled. "So that makes five," he boasted as he disappeared into the office. "I'd better get working on that infrastructure."

It took Kess a moment to figure out what he meant. She put the fruit away, biting into one as she worked, and counted in her head. Breha, Leia, Tayla . . . oh yeah! Nik and Ben. Five. Already! The sooner they built that Academy, the easier it would be to train all these people, especially the young ones . . . and the adult ones with horrors to meditate away in a peaceful setting. So . . . all of them.

Kess now recognized why the old Jedi Order trained apprentices from infancy.

Jedi babies. . . .

Kess blinked.

And her eyes popped to globes.

"Oh shit."

In a rush, she stuffed the last of the fruit away and hissed under her breath to run across the house. "Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit."

She punched into the office where Luke was already sitting at the terminal and Wedge was already on the screen. Kess didn't acknowledge either and leaned over Luke's shoulder to punch in a few commands. Luke sat back and spread his hands to let her have the controls.

Wedge's image shrank down to the corner. His tiny image wrinkled with curiosity. "What's going on?"

Luke shook his head. He didn't know yet. But he paid attention.

A calendar popped up on the remaining screen.

"When was the Battle of the Line?" She asked in a panic, pressing her finger to a date.

Luke pointed at a slightly different date and sharpened his eyes at her. "Why?"

She walked two fingers forward by a few days. "How long was I out?"

He pointed at a date three days later and left his fingertip there. His brows knitted hard now. "What's the matter?"

Kess set one finger on that date, then stretched her thumb to walk forward to the present. One month. Two months. Three months . . . which would only be a few days from now. Kess dropped her hand from the calendar and laughed with groaning relief.

Luke's squinted at the calendar, but Kess smiled down at Wedge. "Sorry to interrupt. Carry on." She slapped Luke decisively on the shoulder and left the office.

Luke's palm still hovered in the air, stunned. His narrowed eyes followed her out the door.

Wedge hitched a new laugh. "What was that all about?"

Blue eyes flicked back to the calendar for a beat - then he quickly reached for the button with a darkened voice. "I'll comm you back."

Click.

By the time Luke strolled out of the office, Kess was in the utility room punching commands at the in-house med droid and cussing under her breath. "Blast."

Slowly, he dropped his shoulder against the door jam with his new understanding. "They put you on birth control after the battle," he realized aloud.

"Yeah," she breathed. "I guess a three-month shot is standard procedure after a miscarriage. Dammit, this thing doesn't have the right kind." She began to gather her loose hair in her hands in preparation to go out again. "I'm going to have to go to a med lab."

She turned to go, but a big body was blocking her exit from the utility room. She stopped short.

Luke didn't move out of the way. His chin was down. He wasn't quite looking at her, but his eyes sparked with guilt.

"Oh no," she shook her head. "No. No. No."

He closed his mouth, and opened it again.

"You have to let me go do this," she demanded. "It's safer if the shots overlap by a couple of days."

Luke didn't move. His grin twitched as he inhaled for the right words. There was humor there, yet he was shy to meet her eyes.

"Not yet," she begged.

He snapped his mouth shut and swallowed carefully-

Kess shook her head some more and nearly squealed it. "Luke, we're not even married yet!"

Finally, his eyes flicked to her and his voice hiked too. "I know. Calm down. That's not what I'm saying."

"Then what are you saying?"

Brows popped up. His mouth smirked. "Are you going to let me talk?"

She huffed with humility. "Sorry. Okay talk."

His mouth rippled with uncertainty before he whispered his confession. "I got a shot, too."

"You did?"

He nodded.

"When?"

"About a week after the battle." He turned to rest his back on the door jam and face her. "I got it out of hope. I didn't tell you because I didn't want you think I was expecting anything when you graduated."

"Oh!" She piped and breathed freely now. She nodded at the air, truly relieved that she didn't have to handle this responsibility by herself. And she sighed new air again to accept the honor of that. "Okay. . . . Good."

Her eyes found him, but his eyes still looked a little guilty.

"You never mentioned it," she realized.

Now bouncing uncomfortably against that door jam, Luke shrugged a shoulder. "We never talked about it."

Kess crossed her arms at her chest and shrugged approval of that answer. She leaned her shoulder against the opposite door jam and took in this data. An easy nod, a fast sigh . . . but before she managed another shrug to accompany all this -

It didn't take the Force to sense it, to realize he was still blocking her way out of the utility room to go get her booster. Her eyes shifted sideways to see Luke's face and it was clear that his expression was not quite as stoic as he probably wanted it to be. His eyes dared to meet hers with unintended intensity.

This was no shrugging matter.

Her stomach flipped. Her breath was shaky, "I guess we're talking about it now, huh?"

He angled his head. His eyes worked hard to look innocent, but a hint of a grin betrayed him. His eyes stuck on her now, unable to gaze away, and his nervous words were tenderly voiceless. "I guess we are."

Blue eyes met brown for a long, heart-thumping beat.

She smiled sideways and cringed her own whisper. "Not yet."

"No, I agree. Not yet." He told his own feet. "But that's begs the question . . . ." And he really looked like a nervous farmboy when he found her eyes again. . . . "When?"

Her heart thudded with fear. Her eyes flicked to the air to think of Ben, of Leia's baby, of Tayla. . . . There were so many kids around already. Her eyes found his again, terrified.

Luke bounced his big shoulder against the doorjamb once more, rubbing his lips, afraid to ask. "Ever?"

Kess's lips twitched. "Well yeah, someday. Maybe? But. . . . I don't know." Then she found her voice once more. "Luke, we're not even married yet!"

"I know." He stared at his feet again for a beat, then rolled his shoulders back as if forcing himself to be an adult about it. "Go get your booster," he said as he shifted his feet and finally let her out of the room. "I just wanted to put the thought in your head."

He grinned at her like it had been a deviously planned poke in the metaphorical ribs, but Kess could sense the new knot in his stomach and the little white lie in his words.

Faking frustration, she gritted her teeth and shouted at his back. "But it's sure as hell ain't gonna to be fifteen of them!"

Luke curled over with a giddy giggle and looked back over his shoulder with a bold whine. "Awe, come on!"

She tried to shove his shoulder as she passed him on the way to out, but he snatched her hand out of the air and yanked her in for a smooch on the mouth, then shoved her away once more. "Go on. I'll get mine next week and we'll have a double overlap."

Her eyes were sincere. "Thank you."

Luke strolled back to the office as she moved for the elevator, eyes hanging on each other for a longer moment than usual. This particular discussion was clearly not over.

As soon as the elevator doors closed, Luke dropped into the terminal chair and slumped in defeat. He thought hard, pinched his mouth shut, and dialed up Wedge once more.

Wedge's face flickered onto the screen with a new kind of grin, but he chuckled more to see Luke set his elbows on the desk and rub his face with both palms in exasperated defeat. "Do I even want to know?"

Luke widened his eyes at his best surviving friend and stressed it. "I think I need to come over this weekend and get drunk."

Brown eyes laughed with surprise, but Wedge angled his chin and crooned deeply. "Bring it on."