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"Breathe," Poe instructed, placing a calming hand on Hux's shoulder. Or at least, it should've been calming, but there was absolutely nothing in the galaxy that might soothe Hux right now.
"I am breathing," Hux snapped back.
"Your face is all red," Finn pointed out.
"It's always like that!" Hux snarled. He'd had just about enough of them. As if they'd been through this before. As if they knew what it was like to—to he stopped.
What if something went wrong? What if she got hurt?
"I want to see her."
"Give her a minute, alright," Poe said, trying not to laugh. "This has been done for hundreds of thousands of years, alright. She'll be just fine without you."
"BUT—" Hux started. He couldn't tell how he knew; he just did. She needed him, and she wanted him there with her. And for the first time in his life, he didn't care what society might dictate.
Conventions be damned.
"She's got this," Finn said confidently, patting Hux's other shoulder. Hux gave him a look that could melt beskar, and Finn removed his hand.
"She's the strongest person I know," Finn said with conviction.
"I don't care," Hux finally declared. "We started this journey together, and we ought to do this part together as well. It isn't just her job. It's mine too."
And with that, he ducked out of Poe's grip and pushed the release on the door. It didn't take him long to find her, around one of the corners in a little room with a small bed and cover for her midsection. But of course, she wasn't in bed. She was pacing.
Until she saw him.
"You came!" She exclaimed, pulling him against her tightly. "I thought you wouldn't come. The doctors told me that it wasn't appropriate for you to be here."
She sounded like she might cry.
"Well, if we'd been on any other planet, I'm sure it would've been allowed," Hux replied softly, taking hold of her. "But we were unlucky enough to be near the one planet that thinks it's indecent. Which is ridiculous."
A nurse stumbled in at that moment, her head-tails covered in blue wraps swayed as she gasped, "he isn't supposed to be in here! We don't allow the males in during the birthing. This is a business for the females only!"
Rey gave the Tagore female a glare that could cut ice, and Hux felt strangely proud to see she'd picked up one of his less lovable attributes. His ability to stare someone down.
"He is my husband, and he will be here for the birth of his child," Rey said with composure. Though Hux couldn't feel it, he knew what she was doing.
"Is that wise?"
"What?" She asked, turning to him.
"Using the Force like that when you're about to have a baby?"
She shrugged, "I don't care. They can't force you to stay out. I won't let them. I need you here with me." The silent words she hadn't spoken lingered there.
For the baby.
Armitage Hux was going to be a father. And not for the first time that night had the thought struck him as painfully odd. He hadn't wanted to be a father. In fact, he'd spent much of his life preventing himself from even having to worry about that possibility.
First, because he had no desire to be like his father. Brendol Hux was a cruel man, and Armitage did not want to pass down any of those unfortunate family traits.
Second, because the thought of having to deal with something so entirely helpless made him feel sick. Yes, he was good with children, but that was because children were often self-sufficient and more capable. Babies were an entirely different story.
But then he'd met Rey, and everything had changed. Not just the galaxy, not just the First Order or the Resistance. Hux had changed as well. And now, how could he not want to see what a child of theirs could be?
It was a foreign feeling, an alien thought. But he wondered cruelly if he could love the child. He'd never loved anything quite like he'd loved Millicent the first time he saw her. But that was a different kind of love, or so he'd been told by General Organa. She'd said to him that loving a child is different because it's a part of you.
"You might not realize it, but blood runs deep, and when you see that child, you'll know, and you'll feel it. The kinship is there, and you can't help but know that you love the child more than life itself," she'd said, placing a gentle hand on his cheek. She'd become like a mother to him, stepping in as he'd been missing his own. Missing that parental wisdom and instruction that can only come from a mother.
He wasn't sure he entirely believed all that. General Organa was often sentimental these days, especially when Ben visited. Her real son. Though Hux didn't begrudge Ben any longer.
They'd all been children of the galaxy. And they'd all done wrong—some more than others.
But love had saved them. Or rather. Compassion had. Which was why it was so odd to think of loving something more than himself.
Also, Hux hadn't ever really loved another person before. He'd been alone, save for a few companions. But he didn't love any of them. Not even as one friend loves another. No, he'd been almost entirely devoid of that emotion. And then he'd met her. Rey. His enemy. His Jedi. His friend. His lover.
And now, his wife.
And then he'd loved Rey, and in truth, his heart felt as if it had expanded when he realized it. He loved her, and he didn't have to be alone. It was the two of them together against all odds. And he loved her in part because he understood her. He knew her better than she knew herself at times.
But how was he supposed to love something he couldn't understand? He took pride in knowing, in controlling, and regulating. He was a man of science and order, and now he felt everything was utterly out of his control.
"Breathe, darling," the nurse instructed Rey. Hux had not been paying attention, and now Rey was grimacing in pain, wheezing with contractions.
Stars, he wanted to be here, but now that he was, he felt useless. What was he to do when faced with this most laborious of tasks?
"I think it's time for the bed," he said, pointing to the cot with a covering. Of course, Rey shook her head. That wasn't how they delivered babies on Jakku. That wasn't how she'd been taught.
"I don't want to use the bed," she wheezed through another contraction.
Hux gripped her hand tightly and stroked comforting circles on her back with his other hand.
The Tagore female nurse shook her head, "Mawkish human creatures."
"On Jakku, I saw —once—she just squatted down and—," Rey was cut off by another painful contraction, and she grimaced.
"Breathe in and out," the nurse said reproachfully. "Your body knows what to do. On the next contraction, I want you to push hard."
"But who'll catch the baby?" Hux wheezed out, not realizing he was breathing in time to Rey and her loud puffs of air. "I—I can't."
He was terrified. What if he dropped the child? What if something was wrong?
The nurse huffed at him, "I will catch the child; I don't expect a male to understand the complications of child birth."
Rey looked about to interject, but another contraction came over her, and she pushed hard. Her hand tightened around Hux's fingers, and he winced at the pain.
But if she could do this, then so could he, and he wasn't in nearly as much pain as she was likely to be.
She let out a scream that tore right into his heart, and suddenly he was mentally cursing himself for this. For putting a child in her, for thinking this was a good idea, for believing that, of course, something from him wouldn't hurt her like this.
"Don't be an idiot," she whined as the contraction released, and she let out a heavy breath. "This is labor, and I told them I didn't want the drugs, and I told you that it might go like this."
For a moment, he couldn't even be upset that she was reading his mind. Of course, she would be trying to focus on something else right now. He needed to focus on her.
It took all his self-control to concentrate on the next few pushing attempts. His heart was beating rapidly, and his hands shaking. Still, he held onto her the entire time and whispering words of comfort and encouragement.
When at last, the sound of a crying babe filled his ears, and he noticed the nurse was bending forward and pulling something up. A naked baby, screaming and howling, bloody and beautiful, and then handed to Rey to hold. At the same time, the nurse clamped something onto the umbilical cord.
Hux watched in stunned disbelief as his wife raised the little bundle to her breast to keep warm.
The rest felt like a blur to Hux as the cord was cut and the placenta delivered, and Rey was taken to the bed to lay down. He followed along numbly, uncertain, and still terrified that something might be wrong.
It wasn't until the babe was wrapped in blankets and had settled down sleepily against Rey that he got a good look.
"She's beautiful," he exclaimed, surprised and breathless. He'd always thought that babies looked a bit like a Kowakian Monkey lizard, but not his baby, no she was gorgeous. She was bald, however, and her eyes were a deep indigo. Her face, he swore she had Rey's nose and face shape, though perhaps his coloring.
"She's the most wonderful thing I've ever seen," Rey said, her throat feeling tight and her eyes moist. "Do you want to hold her?"
Hux felt both the urge to shake his head and nod it vigorously, "but she looks too fragile."
"You'll do fine," Rey said with a smile. She was still covered in the sweat and tears of labor, but Hux was sure she'd never looked better. "Maybe sit down."
He did as he was told and settled into a chair by her bedside. Then ever so carefully, Rey placed his daughter into his arms.
She was so small in his arms. He felt he ought not to move lest he wake her. Looking down at her, he marveled at the little features, each tiny finger. She was a wonder. Something warm flooded his chest, and he knew then, exactly what General Organa had said was true.
"That's your daddy," Rey whispered lovingly when the baby finally opened her eyes for a moment and stared up at her father with what seemed like mild annoyance.
She was apparently already following suit with family traditions.
They sat transfixed like this for some time, Rey watching them and Hux watching their daughter. It was almost a strange jolt back into reality when they were ushered out of the birthing suite and into an actual furnished bedroom.
"How are we going to do this?" Hux whispered, terrified but hopeful. "How can we raise a child? The two of us, who never really had parents to teach us."
Rey looked morose for a moment, thoughtful and pained. She met Hux's eyes, her own full of unshed tears.
"I know we will do our best, we will love our best," she whispered consolingly. "I'm scared too. Afraid to make the same mistakes as my parents. Afraid I'll push our daughter away. I'm terrified that I will make a mess of this. But I know, in my heart, that we won't be like our parents."
Hux nodded slowly. Of two things he was quite certain. He loved Rey more than he'd ever loved anyone. And this child of his, he loved her more than he loved himself. And that was what mattered most in the galaxy.
He would not be like Brendol Hux. He would not be like his mother even, who stayed in a bad relationship. Rey would not be like her parents who left her on Jakku to scavenge and survive alone.
Perhaps it would be difficult, perhaps it would hurt. But he would deal with his demons and so would Rey. They would work together, they would fight together, as they always had.
When Finn and Poe were finally allowed to visit, they rushed in all excitement and whispered congratulations. Finn held the baby immediately and pressed a soft kiss to the top of her tiny head before passing her to Poe, who exclaimed he'd never seen anything more precious in his entire life.
"Uncle Poe," Poe repeated to the little bundle until finally, Rey had to laugh and pulled the baby out of his arms.
"What's her name?" Finn asked.
Rey looked at Hux and then back at Finn and Poe, "Alana, after Armitage's mum."
Hux smiled softly down at his daughter. Alana was a perfect name for her. A beautiful name. An homage to the woman who had sacrificed so much for him. Who had helped to bring him and Rey together. Yes, Alana, it would be.
She made a cooing noise in his arms and drifted off to sleep. It was so peaceful and so unexpected that Hux felt his heart near bursting.
This felt, somehow like the beginning of some big adventure.