Parents

It had been a long day, but as Rey settled into her bed next to Poe, she knew it wasn't over, yet.

She had been thinking a lot of deep thoughts that day. One of her students, a young human boy named Relgan, had hurt himself while out hiking through the jungle around mid-morning. Instead of crying due to the pain or being scared of how badly he was hurt, Relgan had kept apologizing. Over and over again. Rey knew the young boy had been orphaned as a baby and had been raised by the owner of a maintenance shop on Anael. He had not been treated well by the man, and Rey had literally had to buy the child from the man in order to get him away from the slavery he'd known his whole life. Now he was in training to be a Jedi, and was doing well mentally, but he still did and said things that reminded Rey that he was not completely healed from a lifetime of trauma.

"Poe?" she said softly, hoping he wasn't asleep already.

"Yeah?" He sounded alert.

"I was thinking… I'd like to adopt Relgan."

Poe turned his head to look at her, his eyebrows high. "Adopt? You're already his official guardian."

"I know," Rey said. "But I feel like if we adopt him, together, that will give him the sense of family that will help him heal even more. Sometimes I think he still sees himself as a slave, even if his current master, me, is good to him."

"So, you want him to take the Dameron name?" he asked softly.

"If… if you don't want that-"

"No!" Poe interrupted her. "I don't mind at all. It would be an honor to call him our son." He shrugged, giving her a grin. "I always figured we'd become parents someday."

Rey bit her lip and frowned. Poe noticed. "What's wrong?"

"About the parent thing," she said. "Do you want children? Naturally?"

Poe looked at her for a long time, his expression serious. "I guess," he started. "I never really thought about it. I mean, I guess I thought that, should I ever fall in love with a woman, I wouldn't be opposed to us having babies together. But as my taste in partners back then was, shall we say 'lacking uniformity,' having babies naturally wasn't always an option." He paused. "Do you not want to have babies?"

Rey kept her eyes down, and she began picking nervously at a loose thread on the blanket covering them. "I did before," she finally told him. She looked up, meeting his eyes. "Before I found out who I was."

Poe shook his head. "Rey, you have nothing to worry about when it comes to your bloodline. You have far too much light in you to worry about your children."

"Leia was all light, too," she argued. "And look what happened to Ben!"

Poe reached over and gently stroked her cheek. "Those were extenuating circumstances, but I get it. I understand why you would be afraid."

"So, you don't mind that I don't want children of my own?"

"Of course not," he confirmed. "We can still be parents for Relgan, and however many other children you feel need a real family."

She smiled at him, but she still felt sorrow deep inside. Poe seemed to sense it; for a man who could not use the Force, it sure seemed to use him sometimes.

"You can always change your mind, Rey," he told her. "Just let me know."

She nodded. "Thank you." She scooched forward and snuggled up against him. "You are going to be an amazing dad."

"I think we're going to be amazing parents," Poe added. "After we mess up a few hundred times, anyway."

Rey giggled. "How do you know we'll mess up?'

"Because good parents always mess up," Poe told her. "But they learn. And they get better. And they never stop loving their kids or each other."

"Sounds perfect," Rey said, her eyes closed, a dreamy smile on her face as she drifted off to sleep.