Chapter 9

Halycon/Horn Residence, West Side, Coronet

Nejaa watched as Scerra picked at the plate of food that he'd placed before her at the beginning of the meal. Nejaa had invited Ros to dinner after they got back from their debriefing with Captain Jenaves about their part in the resolution of the hostage crisis in Este, but now he wished he hadn't. She was trying to hide something from him, and he didn't have to be a Jedi to tell that it was something important.

Ros looked up as he took a sip from the bottle of lomin ale. He wiped his mouth and said, "You know, if you'd rather be alone…"

Scerra met his gaze and said, "Sorry, Ros. But, yeah, I do have to talk with my husband."

Ros nodded and stood, picking up his plate and ale. Smiling to break the sudden tension, he announced, "If you guys don't mind, I'll take my dinner and go upstairs."

Nejaa nodded at him, and Scerra weakly smiled and said, "Thanks, Ros."

After their friend was gone, Nejaa pushed his plate away and leaned over the false wood top of the table. "Okay, you want to tell me what's going on."

She looked down at her uneaten food and took a deep breath. After a moment, she looked up and quietly said, "Nejaa, I've screwed up."

"What do you mean?" he asked as he sat back, concern clearly etched in his face and voice.

She sighed again, and then looked him in the eye and said, "I'm pregnant."

At first, he wasn't sure what to think, much less say. Of course, his silence was totally misread by Scerra. She stood up and hugged herself as she moved out of the dining room and into the front room that was the home's living room.

He followed her into the airy room and found her staring out the window at the small front yard where Ros already had flowers blooming in a raised bed. He could tell she was crying.

"Scerra? Are you sure?"

Without turning, she sniffed and nodded. Then she wiped at her eyes with her fingers and turned. "I took a test today after school."

He moved to take her into his arms and she let him. "What are we going to do? I'm sorry…"

Nejaa stroked her short auburn hair as she spoke, but when she apologized, he pushed her away and held her face between his hands. Gently, he said, "Stop blaming yourself for this. I'm pretty sure that I'm just as much to blame." He smiled, trying to reassure her and sheepishly said, "I'm almost insatiable around you."

She didn't respond to his comment, and instead said, "But if I hadn't been so trusting of that med droid. I should have asked the doctor if it would be safe. We should have used something else for a while. I must have gotten pregnant…"

He silenced her with a kiss. Tender and ever so gentle, it was meant to soothe. When he broke it, he gazed into her teary green eyes and whispered, "Do you remember me telling you that I hope our kids have your eyes?"

She gave him a weak smile and nodded. "Yeah, but we'd decided that it would be better if we didn't have kids. I should have been sterilized when we were considering it."

"No. You were the one who suggested that. Scerra, you will be a wonderful mother, and I would never want to take away the chance for you to be one."

She pulled away from him and shook her head. "Damnit, Nejaa, don't you see the complications this causes?"

"Of course, I do. It simply means that I have to leave the Jedi and acknowledge you as my wife," he replied calmly and moved toward her.

She spun to glare at him. The fury in her caused him to stop short. "That's your answer for everything, isn't it?"

He recoiled at the sharpness of her voice. "In this, yes. I've told you more than once that I'll always put you ahead of the Jedi."

"And do what?" she nearly shouted. "Join CorSec? Tell me, Nejaa, what did Jenaves tell you today about your heroics? That could have gotten you, or Ros, or that poor woman killed, by the way."

He looked away. "I thought so," she responded to her own question. "He wasn't happy that you took matters into your own hands. Again."

"No, he wasn't. Just like before," he quietly answered.

"But he can't really do much about it, except complain to the director and the Jedi Council that you don't follow orders. But he won't do that because he's the one who convinced the director to contact the Jedi that CorSec needed you." She paused and stared hard at him, then she quietly inquired, "However, what do you think he could do if you were part of the force? What did he do to Ros?"

Nejaa turned away and heaved in a heavy breath. "I'd have gotten the same as Ros."

"Which was?"

"A stern warning that, if he does something like that again, he'd have to bring it to the attention of the director." He turned back to her and sternly, passionately said, "But I did the right thing. I was able to talk him into surrendering. No one was hurt, but if I'd ignored my feelings I'm afraid someone would have."

She shook her head and walked away, but his voice stopped her. "Scerra, I can't ignore the Force."

She turned and said, "No, maybe not, but the rest of us don't know not to. That's why you're a Jedi and not a police officer."

She left him alone in the quiet waning light of evening as the last rays of the setting sun shimmered between the two homes across the quiet street and into the three large front windows. A speeder sped by going much too fast, but the engines couldn't be heard through the soundproofing of the home's brick walls.

In a flash of the Force he saw it careen down the street. And in the next heartbeat he saw a fiery crash as it hit the delivery truck that ran a traffic signal, the tricky signal at the end of the street that the setting sun always made hard to see if you were traveling west.

Nejaa ran from the house as fast as he could, calling on the Force to give him strength and speed. He instantly saw the speeder-truck flash between the other houses that lined the street behind his, as it came down the street headed for the intersection. Not even thinking about it, he sent the driver a Force illusion to stop. The heavy truck did, in a screech of a reverse thruster and repulsers. The speeder, which he instantly recognized as belonging to one of their neighbors, made it safely through the intersection, heading north toward the local teen hangout, no doubt.

He exhaled in sudden release as he bent over with his hands on his knees. He let go of his hold on the mind of the delivery driver, and made a mental note to speak to the young man driving the speeder. Suddenly, he felt a hand on his back, and turned to see the tear streaked face of his beautiful wife. But he didn't see anger in the depths of the green eyes that he loved so much, he saw awe, and wonder, and above all love.

In a shaky voice she whispered, "You just saved Mr. Kerksly, didn't you?"

Nejaa straightened up. "Actually, I think it was his son, Ben. But, yeah, I just may have."

And suddenly, Nejaa realized that Scerra was right. He was a Jedi and never could be just another normal citizen. However, just as important, normal citizens would never be able to understand what he could do, and that to ignore his feelings would be totally against everything he'd been taught since the age of two.

x

She listened as he finished in the 'fresher, then she watched as he turned off the light and moved across the dark room they shared. She closed her eyes when he came closer to the bed. She felt the bed shift as his muscular frame crawled in beside her and she hoped that he'd think she was sleeping. She had gone to bed over an hour ago.

They hadn't spoken again about the baby. After he saved the Kerksly kid, an act which still rattled her, he went for a long walk. She busied herself with cleaning up from their mostly uneaten dinner. She had no idea what they could do about the baby. She had gotten onto the HoloNet and discovered that she probably wouldn't start to look "pregnant" until the twentieth week, maybe a little longer if she gained weight all over, not just in her abdomen. That gave them four months, at most, to figure out what they were going to do.

He lied on his back with his arms under his head and he said, "I know you aren't sleeping."

She pulled her knees up further and hugged herself. She felt so alone. She wanted him to hold her and tell her everything would be okay. But at the same time, she wanted away from him. She said in a shaky voice, "Nejaa, what are we going to do?"

He leaned over her and surprised her when he snaked his hand around to lay it on her flat belly. His touch was tender and she knew she'd never be able to live without it. She looked over her shoulder at him, and he opened his eyes when she whispered, "I'm so afraid."

"I know." His voice was rough with his own raging emotions. "I am too. But I love you, Scerra. And…" he kissed her shoulder, "…I already love our baby."

She turned over onto her back and gazed up at him. "You know that once it comes out that I'm pregnant I'll be asked to leave the school."

He nodded, but she continued before he could speak. "I'm already looked down upon because of my supposed live-in relationship with Ros."

She felt him stiffen and she knew that he never really liked the lie they had to live. Nejaa probably loved Ros like a brother, at least they acted like it, but she also saw the tension there when either one of them showed her any outward affection in the presence of the other. She wasn't sure why Ros was so affected by her and Nejaa, but she understood Nejaa's moments of irrational jealousy. She'd feel the same way if she had to watch another woman with Nejaa while she pretended to be just nobody.

When he didn't say anything, she went on, "I could pretend the baby is his…"

"No." She turned when he sat up. Then more calmly, as he scrubbed his face with his hands he repeated, "No. I…we can't ask him to do that. This baby is mine." He looked over his shoulder at her and after a long moment he said, "We could go away for awhile before it becomes obvious that you're pregnant. We could even go to another planet. Somewhere where no one knows I'm a Jedi, or care that we're married. Maybe Chandrilia. The Silver Sea is beautiful. Or to Alderaan's snowy mountains."

She also sat up behind him. "But what about later. After I have the baby. I still will be considered a single, unwed mother living with her boyfriend."

"I'll take the baby."

"You?"

He turned and took her hands into his. "Yes, me. I could take him or her back to the Jedi Temple. Of course, it wouldn't take the Jedi long to figure out that he's my child, but they would never know the whole truth."

She stared at him. Pulling her hands from his, she got out of the bed and glared at him. "How? How could you think that I'd ever give my child away?"

He stood and faced her with their bed between them, which suddenly seemed as vast as an entire planet. "It's just a suggestion. I didn't mean to…"

"Kriff you! This is my baby, too! I know that is what you used to do. I know you used to take babies away from their families and bring them to the Jedi. And I can only imagine that you believed the lies that you told those families after a time. But you will not take my baby away!" She knew that she was near hysterics, but at the moment she didn't care.

"Scerra…" his voiced cracked and she calmed enough to really look at him. He was shirtless, dressed only in the sleep pants that he normally wore to bed, when he chose to wear anything at all. His hair was long and fell around his broad shoulders, but his eyes were dark in the darkness of the room. The only light was the moonlight that filtered through the two bedroom windows. But it wasn't his utter masculinity that she saw, it was his sudden vulnerability. "I'm sorry, love, I…I…" he swallowed hard and he glanced down at the bed where their child was likely conceived six weeks ago, "couldn't really do that either."

She moved around the end of the bed and laid her trembling hands on his chest. He met her gaze and she said, "When it comes obvious that I'm pregnant, I'll quietly resign from Northside. There are other schools in Coronet that would love to have me as a teacher, or even as a principal. I just have to do that and we'll just have to make it work." She moved closer and laid her head against the warm strength of his shoulder and murmured into his neck, "I love you, Nejaa Halcyon. I love you so much. I just don't ever want to lose you."

He took her into his arms and held her. "That's what really scares you, isn't it? That if the Jedi find out about us, they'll send me away?"

She looked into his eyes and responded, "Yes, I sometimes feel that we are just stealing moments. I'm so afraid every time you do something drastic like you did with that robber that the Jedi will pull you from Corellia and you'll never be able to come back."

He stroked her hair and kissed her forehead. "I'll leave the Jedi if they ever do that to us, Scerra. I'd leave and come home and never look back." Before she could protest, he covered her lips with his fingertips and his voice was deep and rumbled as he added, "And I don't care if I don't do a thing. I can't live without you either."

His lips came down onto hers and she moaned as he pulled her against him and deepened the kiss. After he thoroughly ravished her mouth, stealing her breath and creating an undeniable ache within her, he parted from her and rasped, "I want you, Scerra. I want to make love to you."

She whimpered and let him lift the tank top she was wearing off. She normally wore silky things to bed since getting married, but tonight she donned her old shorts and tank top. She stood before him and he ran his heated gaze down over her. She shivered as he touched her, his big hands following the track his gaze had taken, instantly causing the thrill of aching bliss she always felt when he touched her. When he reached her abdomen he turned her around and laid his palms flat against her. She closed her eyes and her breathing sped up as he nibbled on her neck below her ear.

"Let me show you what I see when I reach through the Force," he whispered in her ear, his hot breath making her shiver.

"What do you mean?" She was breathless.

He smiled against her neck. "I can sense the baby."

She turned to look him in the eyes. "You can?"

Smiling, he nodded and said, "Yeah. Would you like to see what I do?"

She was too astonished to do more than nod. Her desire was momentarily forgotten with the prospect of seeing her baby. He kissed her neck and softly instructed, "Close your eyes and open your mind to me."

"Like when we make love?"

He lightly chuckled and answered, "Yeah, like that."

She did as he instructed and soon she felt herself floating. It was disconcerting at first, but then she saw a fuzzy red light. Concentrating on the light, it soon became clearer. She gasped when she saw the outline of a tiny bean-like object that she instantly knew was her baby. She gasped and nearly lost her connection with Nejaa, or maybe, he almost lost it with her. She could feel his tidal wave of emotion as he, too, concentrated on the life they created together.

Pulling back, he released her mind and she breathed, "Oh, gods, Nejaa. That's our baby?"

His voice shook as he said incredulously, "Scerra, that's our baby." He turned her to face him again and she trembled at the intensity of his dark eyes in the dimness of their bedroom. "I could never give him away. I'm ashamed that I'd even think that, much less suggest it."

Before she could say anything, he pulled her to him and begged, "Please, forgive me."

"Nejaa, I love you. There's nothing to for…" whatever else she was going to say was lost when he covered her mouth in a passionate kiss that set her soul on fire and made her to believe that everything would somehow be all right.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Thanks for reading...