"That douchebag sold me out. Doctor confidentiality, my ass!" Atton decided to forgo any lewd gestures at the comm screen in favor of rubbing out the cramp in his leg. "I'd kick the crap out of him, but he's protected by this wall of doctors that all want to draw my blood, do ultrasounds and stick strange things in stranger places."

Mira blinked back at him blearily, running a hand through her tousled hair and rubbing at an eye. "Wh- what? Atton, is that you? I told you not to call this number unless it was an emergency. Is this an emergency? It had better be a really big emergency."

"Of course it's an emergenc—you mean you don't know?" That made Atton pause. He leaned towards the window and edged the drapes over with his fingers. He was immediately rewarded with the blinding light of a flash bulb going off outside. He pushed the drapes back into place and turned back to the view screen. "All right, this is going to sound weird, but I'm having a baby. And if you were having a baby I would respect your choice to abort it or sell it to a Hutt or whatever you felt you needed to do with it, but apparently since I'm some kind of anomaly I can't even get a damn glass of juma when—"

"Hold on, hit the afterburners," Mira held up a hand in a silencing gesture. She straightened her posture and with her other hand, adjusted the sheet she had wrapped around her torso. Her shoulders were bare. Atton realized that he had probably woken her up. He wondered if she was still in bed. Unfortunately, it was hard to be sure, as the only illumination in her room seemed to be from her comm-screen itself. She waved her raised hand unsteadily for a second, took a deep breath and asked, "I'm sorry, but you're what?"

He counted back from ten in his head and tried to remember some long forgotten hyperspace route. "It's a baby," he said. "The first few months I could still go out in public because it looked like a beer gut. All the medical people want me to wait for it to rip its way out of my stomach like some horror vid freak show. "

She squinted at him for a moment, scowling. "You're serious, aren't you? And you don't seem to be high on glitterstim. Wait..." Her eyebrows shot up and her jaw dropped, "The guy on the news holos, the freak show, that's you. " She threw her head back, stifling her laughter with the hand not holding the sheet.

Still laughing, she suddenly twisted behind herself and reached into the darkness of the room. "No baby, it's nothing," he heard her whisper, "Go back to sleep."

"It's not funny! Nico Kor-Vas will knock your ass up from the other side of the galaxy with half a thought! I think I'm going to die, here, I think I'm... I..." He frowned. "I think I'm interrupting something, here."

"Yes," she said, "The first decent night's sleep I've had in, well, ever." She grinned. "Which is more than can be said for you, I imagine. I bet Nico'll skip out on his child support payments. Will you breast feed? 'Mira' is a good name for a girl, by the way."

"Hey now, if you're so interested in the kid, you can have it." Atton scratched at his chest. "This is one of those things I've got a bad feeling about. Like it's going to be born with fangs kind of feeling. And that was before it decided to use my kidneys as a pair of bongos."

She contorted her face in mock-sympathy. "At least now they'll match your prostate." She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Seriously though, Atton, are you sure it's, you know, a real, live baby? Maybe it's just an infected cyst or freaky tumor or a brain-sucking parasite or something. Have you fracked anything non-human recently? Besides Kor-Vas, I mean."

He began to wring his hands. "I wish," Atton said. And then he blinked. "About the kid stuff, not about fracking aliens... Well, maybe both.

"Kor-Vas was the one that freaked out first with all his Jedi mysticism garbage and the one benefit of being a living, breathing freak show is having top of the line medical care. I've got ultrasounds if you want, but I told them to hold off on the gender."

For the first time in a long time, Mira seemed genuinely speechless. It didn't last long. "Holy fracking mother of the chaos god. Honestly? That's... You're a real piece of work Atton Rand. Nothing is ever simple with you, is it?" She shook head in exasperation. "At least you're getting that top of the line medical treatment then, right? Don't ever go to those creepy droid-run free clinics. I've heard bad stories. Stick with real doctors." She sighed and propped an elbow on the console and rested her chin in her hand. "What're you going to do?"

"Aside from finding the tallest building on the planet and proceeding to throw myself off of it, I don't know." He shrugged and gave a snort. "You're the only person I know with an active and functioning soul. I don't know what to tell you. But I think I may have to kill Kor-Vas. If for no other reason than the principle of it all."

Mira snorted, "No argument here." She leaned back and sighed. "Well, whatever you decide let me know if you, I don't know, need help with something or whatever. You've got my number so, call. I hardly sleep anyway." She rolled her eyes as she made the last statement, a private in-joke probably.

"Will do." He forced a smirk on his face for her sake. "Try wearing some pajamas. It's hard to get to sleep if you're cold."

"Oh," she replied. "I'm not cold. Goodbye Atton. Hope everything works out."

He watched as her image faded from the screen. He shook his head. Ridiculous.

Sleep was probably something that he needed right then, as well. Not that Mira looked like she'd been sleeping. She looked too happy for that.

Who the hell had she been talking to?

His bladder felt like it was two seconds away from bursting. So that was it, then. There was a cold resignation fluttering in his gut.

Or maybe that was just the kid. It was frightening to think that things would only get inevitably harder once the kid was on the outside. Atton rubbed his face and shuffled to the refresher.

With the passing weeks, Atton's "beer gut" had expanded into a full blown keg. Despite what the Disciple said to the contrary, Atton insisted that whatever movements he felt inside were heartburn and indigestion, but it was getting better.

If he could ignore the stretch marks, the strange rash and everyone dumping out his booze.

"I know blondie knows what this kid is," Atton was saying as he patted his belly. "He keeps giving me these looks, you know?"

Kor-Vas shoved a forkful of Corellian noodles into his mouth and washed it all down with one giant swallow of juma. "That's probably because you're having twins, or triplets and he doesn't want his prize lab gizka to freak out."

"Nah, I keep telling him I don't want to know." Atton made a point of swirling his glass of water. Kor-Vas, by this time, was immune. "If it's a he or she, then we have to start doing crap like picking out names and actually admitting it's a legitimate person. I've already gotten offers from a couple Hutts."

The Exile glared over at him. "No way are you selling my fracking spawn to a Hutt."

"I'm sorry, have you seen how swollen my ankles are?" Atton asked. "Since when did you start giving a shit?"

"Since that thing is half my DNA which means it's probably destined for greatness," Kor-Vas said with a shake of his head. Oh, yes. That made perfect sense. "Hell, there's probably a Jedi prophecy somewhere about how awesome it's going to be."

Atton narrowed his eyes. "If this kid's destined for greatness it's because on its eighteenth birthday we're going to team up and kill you." He shook his head. "Seriously, man. Neither of us are exactly what you'd call prime candidates for the ideal father. Maybe we should just hand it over to the Disciple or something."

The Exile pulled a face. "Oh hey, I didn't say I was going to do a fracking thing for it. Kids smell and are a serious pain in the ass." He considered for a second as he tossed the leftover noodles aside and lit up a smoke. "But I don't want a pussy like Disciple raising my spawn, either."

"Well, see, now we have a problem," Atton said as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "You don't want it and I don't want it, but you don't want the Hutts or the Disciple to have it, either. What do you humbly suggest, oh master Jedi?"

Kor-Vas rolled his eyes, as though the answer were obvious. "That we find someone with a nice rack and dump it on them. That way if we ever decide to visit, we can have some fun on the side, too."

Atton stared at the other man. "There is something horribly wrong with you."

"Me? You were the one thinking about selling the potential chosen one to a Hutt." Kor-Vas waved a hand as smoke drifted from his nostrils. "I'm just looking for alternatives to make everyone happy."

"Okay fine, whatever." Atton raised his hands up. "So should we put a place for cup size on the applications?"

Nico frowned. "That sounds like it might be too much trouble. We should just give it to someone we already know."

"I'm pretty sure Mira already said no."

"Mira's rack is pretty spectacular, even though she won't let me touch it," Nico grumbled, "But there's got to be someone else we know."

Atton began to count them out on his fingers, "Mira's out, Disciple's out, Visas' is dead, Kreia's dead..." He laughed. "We have a problem. It's sounding more and more like everyone's either dead or hates our guts."

"Brianna is around too much. If we gave the kid to her we'd have to see it all the freaking time." Kor-Vas scratched his chin. "Maybe we can pawn it off on one of those fat farm girls on Dantooine. They seem kinda matronly."

"Yeah, I guess that works." Atton paused to take a sip of water. They'd just have to stress just how dangerous it could be for a young child to hang out with its daddys when they were fighting Sith and saving the galaxy. "They are literate, right?"

The Exile laughed. "I have no idea. I had more important things to worry about like boob size and if we find some place where their fathers couldn't find us."

"Mmm," Atton snorted. "Nothing like burly, inbred, hick Jedi. I can just imagine you in your sixties when all these angsty illegitimate brats are of age and have decided to destroy you because they weren't held enough as children."

It was like talking to a ferocrete wall. Kor-Vas continued to lip the end of his cigarra. "Whatever. How do you know they won't find me and thank me for giving them such awesome genetics?"

"Because due to your preference in partners, they're all going to be fat, backwater nitwits."

The Exile took a drag from his cigarra. "Like the Force would let that happen."

"What the Force would let happen?" Atton set his glass down on the table and rubbed at his face. "I'm not going to hit you. I'm just going to strangle you for a little bit."

"It's true," Kor-Vas continued. "Have you ever, even once seen a fat Force user?"

"Are there any Force sensitive Hutts?" Atton said slowly.

Nico laughed. "I've never heard of one."

"Well, shit, I've got nothing." Atton shrugged. "Still don't think it's the Force. Spend a lifetime whipping a lightsaber around and running away from any kind of common sense and anyone'd be pretty toned."

"Force, luck, exercise. You can call it whatever you want, but no kid of mine will be fat."

"That sounds like a wager to me," Atton sighed as he stretched his arms out. "When this kid's born, I'm going to feed it a diet of lard and cheese just to prove you wrong."

The Exile doubled over laughing. "Yeah right. You'd actually have to pay attention to it for that to happen. Don't lie. The first thing you're going to do when this kid is born is be drunk for a couple of months."

"Don't forget going face down in a nice pair of knockers, too." Atton wasn't exactly sure what he found so irritating about the other man's comment. It was probably just a reaction to the lower back pain. Goddamn hormones. "I can't wait for this to be over. It's unbelievable that some idiots actually try for this crap."

"I think they must not know how much it sucks beforehand." Nico gave a somber nod of his head at the philosophical implications that could have only been brought about by several hours of steady drinking. "Or maybe they're all just accidental pregnancies and everyone lies about it afterwards."

Atton gave a grunt and nodded his head. Freaking Disciple wanted to be informed of way too much. Poking and prodding, asking what Atton had for breakfast and insisting on being the first to know if he started to urinate blood or any other creepy, potentially life-threatening thing happened.

"Does this mean you won't pay child support?" Atton snorted.

Nico flashed his teeth clenched around the cigarra. "Yup. The gift of my fantastic DNA should be enough."

"Well, sorry you feel that way." Atton stood and yawned. "I've got a couple Hutts I need to talk to."

The wave of Force energy knocked Atton back onto the couch in the other room before he had a chance to even blink. Kor-Vas was on his feet and marching over. So much for the Disciple's request for bed rest and low-stress environments. "I don't freaking think so. Fat farm girls, or I lock your ass in here with no vid or comm until you pop."

"I was fracking joking!" Atton groped for his stomach; freaking thing was doing a damn line dance in there. "Crybaby."

"Just for that, I'm going to get drunk, while you have to sit there and just watch," Kor-Vas snarled.

"Drunk enough to pass out?"

The Exile shot him a suspicious glare. "Why? You going to do something stupid if I do?"

"I'm just saying." Atton waved his hands. "We never snuggle anymore, baby."

Kor-Vas frowned and then shrugged. "Tell you what. You go get me a beer and sandwich and we can snuggle all you want."

Atton paused, like he was actually considering it. Then he doubled over laughing.

Nico's laughter joined his as he shoved off the chair. "You're all right, Rand," he declared as he swaggered out of the room.