"She's pregnant," Jorec whispered to himself as he struggled to get comfortable in the small crewbeing's bunk that served as his new bed. It was easily better than the cots he had been forced to sleep on during his imprisonment, but it was far removed from the bed in the first mate's cabin that he had given to Lia after her arrival on the ship.
"What am I going to do?" he added. "No, scratch that, what are we going to do?" he quickly amended, realizing that Lia probably had even more say over the matter than he did. After all, she was going to be the one to carry the child for all of the eight months that it would develop. His mind went over the many possibilities, and checked over how their relationship had been going since they had escaped from Selvernos. At this time, he didn't have much data to go by. All that had happened in past three hours since she had told him was him telling her about his real early life, she was curious about life in the Jedi Temple, and what it was like to live life as a Jedi.
If she was willing for the relationship to continue, which Jorec believed was entirely possible, he could always marry her like he had begun thinking about in the month prior to his capture. But how could he ask her without sounding like he was only going to marry her because he had gotten her pregnant? It would take eight days for the Dancer's Dream to reach Alderaan; eight days for Jorec to find a way to properly ask her, if it was indeed a possibility, and eight days for him to completely regain her trust. He didn't want to be worried; yet this new information had changed everything about his life. What if the child was Force-sensitive? If the Empire ever found about his or her powers there would be no telling what they would do the child. No matter what happened, he would always worry about whether or not his child would be safe.
This made him wonder; when the Empire took over, did his own parents worry about him? How did they react when they heard the news of the so-called "Jedi Rebellion," and did they believe that story? A wave of guilt overcame him as he began thinking of his real parents, he barely even knew their names. And in the past eight years that he had been living on Selvernos he had never even attempted to contact them and let them know that he was still alive. He had concocted numerous excuses; fear that they would turn him in (which he knew was absolutely preposterous), anger at them for giving him up to the Jedi (a philosophy that was common in the early years), and finally the excuse that he didn't have enough time to do so. As he closed his eyes for another attempt at falling asleep, he promised himself that he would inform them about his survival as soon as he could.
The chronometer, set to Gevest's time zone while they had landed, reported the time as 1151 when Jorec finally managed to open his eyes. He rubbed his eyes as he sat up in the bed, cursing the late hour. He stepped out of his cabin, dressed in the same clothes he had worn the previous night, and was greeted by the laughter of Rinoco coming from the lounge.
"I don't see what's so funny about this," Jorec heard Lia say as he rounded the corner. On a screen near the table, two slythmongers were being chased by several security guards.
"It's great," Jorec replied as he took a seat at the table to watch the Holofilm, prompting both Rinoco and Lia to turn their attention away from the screen.
"We were getting kind of worried about you," Lia said. "It's almost noon."
"I couldn't sleep very well," Jorec replied. "Too busy thinking."
"Are you worried about what's going to happen?" Lia asked, pretty sure that she already knew the answer to her question.
"A little," Jorec replied. "OK, a lot," he finally truthfully replied.
"Hey, don't worry about anything you two," Rinoco said, unaware to the truth behind their conversation. "I'll get us safely to Alderaan. There were no TIEs left alive to discern our location." Rinoco looked at the slightly confused looks on Jorec's and Lia's faces and sunk in his chair as the two slythmongers on the screen finally made their escape. "All right, somehow I have a feeling that getting to Alderaan safely isn't what you two are worried about."
Jorec and Lia looked at each other, silently asking the other one who would actually tell Rinoco. "She's pregnant," Jorec finally said.
Rinoco nodded. "Oh, so that's what you two were worried about," Rinoco responded. "Don't look to me for advice," he added. "I have no experience on the subject."
"I really wasn't asking for advice," Jorec replied as he leaned back in his chair. "To tell the truth, I really wasn't expecting this at all."
"Neither was I," Lia chimed in. "I just found out that morning. Found out a lot of things yesterday," she added.
"It was a lot to spring on you at once," Jorec responded to her. "I know, I should have told you the truth sooner," he said, echoing her statement of the previous night. "There are a lot of things that keep running through my head. I mean, what if I had been killed. There were plenty of times in which I could have died. It would probably have been extremely hard on you; having to raise a potentially Force-sensitive child by yourself, without actually knowing the truth about me."
"It would have been extremely challenging," Lia replied. "Imagine the child, growing up thinking that his or her father was a traitor. If I would have ever told it about you…"
"I wouldn't have blamed you," Jorec admitted. "If you decide to have some new life after we reach Alderaan, I still wouldn't blame you," he added, hoping that it wouldn't come to that.
As Rinoco busted out into another fit of laughter at the antics of the comedic duo in the HoloFilm, Lia herself hoped that it didn't have to come to that. She was hoping to spend as much time as she could with Jorec on the trip to Alderaan, looking for a glance at the "real Jorec" that might actually be the same one she met over a year previously. So far, despite the limited amount of time with him, he didn't seem that different at all.
An empty cargo hold inside of the nearly abandoned cargo compartment of the Wayfarer-class vessel provided the perfect place for meditation. Hardly any of the other two people on board the ship visited the area at all, and Jorec was well away from the humming of the engines that filled the lounge.
"Come in," he told the familiar presence at the door before it could even knock.
"That's kind of creepy," Lia said as she entered the room.
Jorec smiled at her comment. "Sorry," he replied. "I guess I should have let you knock."
"It's fine," Lia added. "I just wanted to be near you, I guess. What are you doing?" she asked as she sat down on the floor next to him.
"Meditating," Jorec replied as he turned to face Lia. "And before you ask 'about what?' I might as well answer that question. I meditate on the Force, and about pretty much anything else."
"How did you know that's what I was going to ask?" Lia asked suspiciously. "Did you read my mind or something?"
Jorec shook his head and let out a slight chuckle. "No, I didn't," he answered her question. "It just seemed like the most logical follow up question." He picked up the tone of her last question and remembered some of her actions of the past few days, and that coupled with a slight case of paranoia he came to his conclusion. "Are you afraid of me, Lia?" he asked her.
She slightly paused, thinking over the answer to his question. It was true that his Force powers were something that she had never seen before, and every once and a while the appearance of a new power startled her. It was the result of ten years of propaganda that was still struggling to control her behavior. "No, I'm not," she answered his question. "Why do you think that?"
"Just kind of the way you've been acting around me," Jorec replied. "A few questions that you've asked."
"I'm not afraid of what you are, Jorec. It's just going to take some getting used to, that's all."
Jorec let her words sink in for a minute before finally responding. "Does that mean you've made a decision?"
Lia nodded her head. "I have. And I'm sure by now you can guess what I've decided."
It seemed like a weight was lifted off of Jorec's shoulders. "I'm not going to lie to you again, Lia," he told her. "It's going to be tough. The Empire is going to be hunting us, and I really don't know to what degree they're going to do it in. There's going to be some significant risks."
"There were risks when you came back to Selvernos, wasn't there? You were willing to take them, so am I."