A/N: It's 1:25 AM here, but here you go. Last of the baby trilogy. :)


Obi-Wan of Stewjon


The birth of Stewjon's Crown Prince is largely uneventful.

Of course, uneventful has a myriad of interpretations. In particular, Alephi Kenobi – Queen of the Stewjon system – upon being told to push in second stage of her labour, snarls spite at her midwife for the word, and squeezes her husband's hand against the fresh wave of pain.

"You're doing lovely, my dear," Ben-Avi whispers, stroking her hair from his seat beside her labour bed.

"This is all your fault," Alephi hisses back, with a glare like magma rising through glacial ice. Her hand tightens on his again, white-knuckled and sweat-palmed.

"Right you are," Ben-Avi says, genially, though his eyes flicker with worry as she pushes again, whimpering through clenched teeth.

Time passes in what seems to be lengthy bouts of distress, but what really are only minutes; Alephi gives one last scream – a scream of agony, or victory. Or both.

"Stop pushing, your majesty," the midwife calls. "The head has been delivered. One moment, and he'll have turned enough for us help him the rest of the way."

Ben-Avi looks faintly green, but a smile is blooming on his features all the same.

A moment later, Alephi relaxes. "He's out?" she whispers, tugging on he husband's hand.

"He's out," Ben-Avi replies, tears glimmering in his eyes.

Alephi smiles through her own tears for a moment, despite not being able to see the child at the end of the bed. And then she stills, furrows her brow.

"He's not crying," she says, urgently. "Ben-Avi–"

Ben-Avi is staring, and so is the midwife – but not at the new mother.

"He is," Ben-Avi says, with a hollow note in his voice. "He is crying."

Alephi cranes her tired, aching neck to look – and the midwife holds up her child for her.

Oh, the most beautiful thing she has ever seen.

She sees the curve of a red, chubby cheek, and slime-covered russet hair; the swell of a newborn stomach with the grey-green umbilical cord still attached, tiny, perfect hands curled into fists–

–and a mouth open wide with soundless cries.

Something rises in Alephi's chest – a feeling, not only about this soundless cry, but more. Something of the future.

The midwife – the whole medical team, now – is looking at them both with ill-disguised pity. "We've scanned him. He's otherwise perfectly healthy," she says, in that calm, professional tone every medical professional uses, in situations like this.

"Oh," Alephi murmurs, faintly. New tears are forming in the corners of her eyes, now. She turns to Ben-Avi, to find that his misty eyes have turned into a rainfall, too.

"He's perfect," she says.

"He is," Ben-Avi chokes back, tracing thumb over her cheekbone, despite the crystal rivers running down his own.

And then a few moments later, their new child is placed into their arms, swaddled with warmed cloths, and they begin to laugh, despite everything.

"Hello, Obi-Wan Kenobi," Alephi murmurs, as the medical staff busy around the new family. "It is a pleasure to meet you."

And although Obi-Wan cannot answer, one tiny hand grasps his father's thumb reflexively, as his other does his mother's index finger, and he calms in their shared embrace, opening sky-blue eyes to blink up at them.


Stewjon falls in love with their new Crown Prince nearly as quickly as his parents do, though they only receive but glimpses of him; the official holophoto of the royal family on his third day, and a few more scattered over official functions in the next few months. His inability to make a sound is discussed, and many a tear shed for the young prince's sake, but comes with the equal planet-wide determination to value him no less for it.

Obi-Wan is seven months old when his motor function develops enough to grasp smaller objects, and with it, control of something greater still.

Ben-Avi stumbles into the family's private kitchen early one morning, when the sun has yet to peek up over the palace gardens, but Obi-Wan is awake and hungry, and a father must oblige.

He places Obi-Wan in his high-chair and staggers over to the conservator unit with eyes barely cracked open, feeling for a jar of muja puree with the exactness of a well-trained hand.

Something smacks into his head, and Ben-Avi jerks around with a barely-contained shout; but there is nothing there, except Obi-Wan in his chair, who looks back at him with an expression of what-are-you-looking-at-me-for?

Ben-Avi looks down, and finds a thin piece of baked bread by his feet: a broken breadstick.

He stares uncomprehendingly at it for a moment, then up to the bowl of breadsticks on the table. The bowl is made of Felucian amber, and the table Endorian wood; both quite solid, and the table edge quite out of reach for Obi-Wan's stubby little arms.

"I've finally reached the point of exhaustion where I'm actively hallucinating," Ben-Avi says, to nobody in particular.

Obi-Wan is flapping an arm at him now, giggling silently, as if to say, hurry up with that and come play with me.

Ben-Avi turns back to the conservator unit.

Something whistles through the air.

Ben-Avi shouts properly this time as something blunt but nonetheless hard collides with the back of his head. In his effort to turn around faster, he trips over his own slippered feet and crumples to the floor, bringing half the contents of the conservator unit as he does so. A veritable mountain of purees, minced meats, chilled milk and other food rains down upon him, glass jars smashing into the tiled floor.

There is an answering shout from the corridor outside – a moment later, an armed guard has burst into the room, blaster at the ready, with a frazzled-looking Alephi on her heels, obviously having just risen at the noise.

A pause, as the two women take in the sight of the First Duke of Stewjon sitting dazedly on the kitchen floor, covered in the remnants of enough pureed food to feed an infant for half a week.

"Sir?" the guard enquires. Her long hair swings over her armoured shoulder as she glances around the room.

"Exactly what it looks like," Ben-Avi replies, covering his face with the cleaner of his hands.

Alephi is holding a hand over her mouth, now, though the creases forming at the corners of her eyes belie her amusement. "Thank you," she directs at the guard. "If you would be so kind as to inform housekeeping…?"

"Yes, ma'am," the guard replies, holstering her weapon with a small smile.

When the family is alone, Alephi wraps her housecoat closer around herself and steps carefully over to her husband and son.

"Hi," Ben-Avi says, grinning sheepishly up at her.

"Hi," she replies, smiling as Obi-Wan smacks his high-chair table for her attention. "Is there a sorry story involved?"

"Um, actually, I'm not sure what really happened."

A raised eyebrow.

"Someone kept throwing breadsticks at my head," Ben-Avi backtracks. Gloop slides off his pyjamas as he shifts.

"Someone," Alephi says, dryly. "Who, exactly? Obi-Wan's all over here by his lonesome self." She picks up her son as she speaks, and Obi-Wan settles into her arms happily.

"I'm not sure," Ben-Avi says, looking down at himself as he tries to brush some of the food off his Alderaanian-silk pyjamas, before giving them up as lost. "Do you think–"

A dull thok as something collides with his head again.

Dead silence.

Ben-Avi looks up slowly, to find Alephi staring at the infant in her arms with utter shock.

Obi-Wan is giggling soundlessly, bright blue eyes fixed on his father.

"Dear…?" Ben-Avi ventures.

Alephi swallows, visibly. "This is going to be somewhat hard to believe, husband," she begins, "but Obi-Wan waved a hand and a breadstick flew out of the bowl at your head."

"Oh."

Then:

"Are you sure?" Ben-Avi says, weakly.

Alephi's gaze snaps to him. "Of course I'm sure. I saw–"

Obi-Wan chooses this moment to flail a chubby hand, and a breadstick whips so quickly out of the bowl that it falls over with a thunk.

Ben-Avi's brain is so preoccupied with coming to terms with this that he forgets to duck.

The breadstick hits him directly between the eyes.

Alephi nearly drops Obi-Wan. Ben-Avi massages the red spot on his forehead with a shaking hand.

Obi-Wan is practically writhing with delight now, lips open in silent laughter.

Alephi gropes for a chair, sits at the table with Obi-Wan on her lap.

Ben-Avi rises out of the mess and goes to sit next to her. He takes her free hand.

Stewjon's sun rises and bathes all three of them in its golden light, but only two of them realise it is not only a new day dawning, but a whole another episode of their lives; one of sacrifice, and tears, and love beyond what they thought possible.


They argue for five months over what is to be done.

Contacting the Jedi Order itself is held off for a long as possible; they enquire through other, more hidden routes instead, and list out their options with the brutal efficiency of the diplomatically trained.

The Corps indicate with impeccable politeness that they do not oversee training of younglings. The Temple on Coruscant serves that purpose.

Alephi and Ben-Avi look further.

"We could send him to Jedha every half-year."

"What will two months a year do for him? He's progressed to hovering tables by now, Aleph. You know how education works. He'll never learn properly if he keeps going back and forth between here and Jedha."

"I don't want my son to be a stranger to me, Ben!"

"Aleph, I don't want him to grow up being unable to control this!"

"Don't talk to me about control. I'm in blasted control every day, from dawn till midnight. Don't make me lose it."

"Fine. I'll take Obi-Wan watch tonight."

"Fine."


The week after Obi-Wan's first birthday – an event held with great tradition, where all the nobles of court cooed over the crown prince in his adorable little birthday robes, while his parents held him with smiles like glass – they come to a decision.

The Jedi come to receive their new initiate three days after.

Obi-Wan stares up from his toys to the tall, brown-cloaked figure with a smile of wonder, and holds out a hand.

To a simple bystander, it might seem a simple social motion, as expected of a twelve-month-old child; but Alephi sees differently, as does the stranger.

It is Obi-Wan greeting, for the first time, someone like him.

The stranger takes Obi-Wan's hand.


In the days after, Ben-Avi takes to wandering the empty nursery like a spirit without its tether. Alephi has taken to sleeping in a separate room. Ben-Avi does not blame her.

Alephi throws herself into her duties; trains up ten new commanding officers for Stewjon's military forces herself with a fiery spirit.

Outwardly, they remain Stewjon's Queen and First Duke; diplomatic, gracious, kind. In the Sufari palace, the royal quarters grows colder by the day.

They barely speak to each other for a year. There is nothing to say, and too much all at once.

Alephi does not visit the nursery. She cannot bear it, she says. This, Ben-Avi also understands.

Eventually, two years into their loss, Ben-Avi presents himself in her throne room one morning, before morning council; Alephi looks him over – dressed in the plainest court clothing as he is – and asks her attendants for privacy.

Ben-Avi lowers himself to one knee.

It is not often that even the citizens of Stewjon do this; this is reserved for only ceremonies. Stewjonian royalty do not value themselves above their people.

"I'm not going to say much," Ben-Avi says. "I have a feeling that if I do, I'll fall back onto my old patterns, and so will you."

Alephi regards him with silence, the crossed short swords she always carries with her jutting severely over her shoulders.

"I am not suggesting we forget Obi-Wan," he continues, staring at the floor, where the Stewjon Songbird sings in the crest of Alephi's reign, forever etched there in Sundari marble. "But I am suggesting…I am hoping…to begin anew. Please."

"I see," Alephi says, without any inflection at all.

"Please," Ben-Avi repeats, without looking up. His hands are clenched around his knee.

"And is there any reason for this hope, husband?"

Ben-Avi raises his head. "There is no reason to continue in grief. And so I choose hope, instead. Are you not my duty, as I am yours?"

Alephi watches him for the longest moment.

And then there is a rustle of heavy fabric as she rises from her throne and descends the steps to him. Another rustle, more prolonged than the first, as she kneels down in front of him, and pulls him into an embrace.

Ben-Avi chokes on his next breath, lifts shaking hands to return it. He buries his face in his wife's shoulder and lets the tears come.

If his shoulder is soon soaking wet, too, he is glad for it.


The road to rebuilding takes time.

They pick up sign-language studies again where they had left off, determined to be able to communicate with their son should they ever see him again.

Another child does not come easy; it takes years of doctors and sorrows before they find themselves back in the labour room again. This time, the baby's cry sounds even before they can expect it.

And then all three of them are crying, though for very different reasons.

"Kifi-Ra Kenobi," Ben-Avi says. "Our little lion cub of a daughter, with a Jedha lion's roar."

That same moment, light-years and systems away, Obi-Wan Kenobi's hair is being braided into a padawan braid; and he is masterless no longer.

The Force has always been unifying, though none of them are aware of it.


A/N: I've got exam month in March, and then I'll be in Nepal through April for a medical elective. Any updates on FFN might be sporadic through then; but I've written some shorter stories on my tumblr, too, and you can find playlists for this and my other stories there. I've also posted a oneshot to FFN with Anakin and Obi-Wan directly after the events of The Lawless in TCW. So check that out if you haven't yet! My profile has both a link to my tumblr and also my recent stories.