Chapter 4: Whose Child?
Rey stood in the shower in her private chambers on the Resistance base of Tatooine, letting the water droplets cascade down her bare skin. Each drop of water mixed in with her tears now falling onto the dimly-lit tiles of the shower, so that heated, filtered water was indistinguishable from salt.
It had been several weeks since Rey had awoken in the destroyed throne room, awoken to find her true love still unconscious but thankfully alive. Pressing a tear-stained kiss to his forehead, then another to his lips, she had fled from him off the Supremacy, resigned to the fact that he was to be her lost love. That the life she had wished to build with him would never come to pass. That Ben was to be nothing but a wish denied, a path closed off to her, by both her stubborn pride... and his. Their inability to come together in ideology in the same way that they came together when they made sweet love.
Only... that was not all Ben was to be to her.
It had started with runs to the toilet at all hours of the day, to throw up. Even if she had just finished eating. Rey could hold nothing down. The sensation seemed terribly unlike her - growing up malnourished as she had on Jakku, Rey could never afford to be picky about her diet, willing herself to force down whatever food was placed before her, no matter how revolting, how disagreeable, the taste. The sudden change in appetite befuddled her, and was - for a time - left unexplained.
Until she had overheard some women talking about similar feelings, and the suggestion that they might take a pregnancy test. So, Rey had scavenged and swiped a test from the med ward, and retreated back to her room to take it.
When the test turned positive, glowed in color, she had collapsed to the floor with a wail, tears splashing down her front. The only thing she could think to do was to stagger into the shower, hiccuping so much that she nearly swallowed a mouthful of the initial shower spray as it blasted onto her.
When had a child been conceived? Had it been in the hut (her first time with a man)? The elevator? ... he had been the only one to reach completion, not her... The throne room - a new life squirmed into being so soon after nine other lives had been so brutally extinguished? Rey did not know, could not pinpoint exactly. But perhaps it didn't matter. Regardless, she was to be... become... a mother in a matter of months. The mother of the Supreme Leader's baby. A new idol for her adoration, bestowed upon her by her only love. Her only love sprung from what should have been her only hate.
Stepping out of the shower, almost forgetting to turn the water off, Rey redressed herself in simple nightclothes. Even though it was the middle of the day. She was too drained. The only thing left to do was to go to bed and pray to the Maker that this was all just a bad dream.
"I sense a new disturbance in the Force. No... a presence..."
Rey jumped with fright as she realized she wasn't alone. Her heart rate quickened, even alighted, at the deep voice. Was it... him? The man she wanted still to be with and yet could not be? Ben?
No. The voice was older. And as she watched, an ethereal, blue figure flickered into being before her. He was wearing the Jedi robes in which he had died. But his beard was not as full, scruffy and unkempt as she had remembered it being when he was alive. And contrary to all the moments Rey had spent with him, he now smiled. Almost beamed. Tender. His eyes flickered with amusement, and perhaps even... pride?
"You're carrying a bit high," the Force Ghost of Luke Skywalker informed her.
Rey blinked at him, confused by the observation. "What?"
"High. Boys tend to sit lower. At least, Ben did, when Leia was pregnant with him. I remember how it used to leave her in such discomfort."
For the first time since finding out such earth-shattering news, Rey found her face turn up into a smile. A smile at the realization that her womb was laden with a girl. That her belly was round with a new Rey of light. Would the infant look like Ben, or more like her? She didn't know, but she preferred the former. Wait... oh Maker... she was pregnant with a baby girl! What would Ben say? Would he even want the little thing? Meanwhile, Luke's head cocked to one side, studying her as he clearly sensed her tempestuous thoughts.
"What troubles, girl?"
"None, Uncle." Addressing him thusly seemed almost instinctive. Luke blinked in surprise, but then his surprise deflated into a smile, and through the Force, Rey felt her former Master's approval. And then he guessed:
"You wish to be married to him."
His perceptiveness made Rey flush scarlet, and she smiled like a smitten schoolgirl. "It feels like I already am. Does that make any sense?" Luke nodded quite seriously, earnestly urging for her to continue. "You found us... together. We... share this Bond. And now... this child. I feel like to be his wife is only natural. As far as I'm concerned, I married him that night in the hut." Her cheeks flooded rosy pink again, mortified as she remembered how the Jedi Master had looked upon finding her and Ben, naked as babies, naked as the baby she now cocooned inside of her.
But unlike his reaction then to such a scandalous sight, Luke now only grinned crinkly, warmly, kindly at her. Rey felt no judgement from him, only compassion, and it warmed her heart. Even if it was more than she deserved: after all, it was she who had been tempted by the darkness. And you didn't even try to stop it... She recalled Luke's words of disappointment as they stood over the island's Force pit. And when Luke had discovered her sleeping with his nephew... he must have viewed that as the ultimate betrayal, that she would turn to the dark side and there was no hope for her. Who could blame him if he decided to always hold that against her? Yet Rey sensed from her former Master, along with his compassion, an aura of forgiveness. Acceptance. The past was in the past. The past was dead, and it deserved to die. It should be allowed to die, as her Ben had once said. What's done is done.
"You're right," Luke concurred with her thoughts. "What's done is done. The Force moves ever forward. The Force always has a plan, a destiny. And you cannot stop yours any more than you can stop this planet's twin suns from setting, my expecting, young apprentice. All you can do is trust in your destiny, and that it will not lead you astray." Unexpectedly, a soothing chill passed over Rey's skin as Luke pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. She felt deep, familial love emanating from his being. "Rest now, my niece. Nest, and prepare for this new life. It will be loved, I promise." And before Rey could express how touched she was that he had called her his niece, Luke Skywalker faded away on the air.
For the first several months, Rey managed to keep her pregnancy a secret from the rest of the Resistance. It really was not that hard. For at least the first trimester, she managed to cover up her gradually expanding baby bump, and her ballooning breasts now laden with a mother's milk, with a loose-fitting blouse and a sweater over top. Of course, the latter fashion choice sent several confused looks her way, given that the Resistance was hiding away on a sister desert planet of Jakku, but Rey explained that she found the indoors cold.
Finally, however, even this explanation outlived its usefulness. Especially one day, when Commader Poe Dameron insisted on holding a strategy meeting just outside the base's doors. "We could all use the fresh air," he pointed out, when more than a few soldiers complained. For her part, Rey had to admire how he managed to say such a thing with a straight face, as the only air on this rock was clustered with sand particles. She never tried to breathe in too much of it, for fear that it might be a danger to the baby.
Unfortunately, the choice now was to either stand outside and breathe in dust particles in her sweater, or stay inside and freeze and miss the meeting and look like she, the Last Jedi, was not committed to the cause. Before Poe began, he looked right at Rey and entreated:
"Rey, for heaven's sake, this isn't Hoth! Take that sweater off, why don't you? You'll burn yourself alive!" The rest of the Resistance looked at her expectantly. There was nowhere to run now. Her commanding officer had just given her an order - not a firm order, but an order nonetheless. Rey daren't refuse to follow it. So with shaking hands, she pulled the sweater over her head, to reveal how even the loose-fitting blouse was no longer able to hide the fact that...
"She's... she's pregnant," Lieutenant Connix, whispered, a shocked hand to her mouth.
A collective gasp and hushed murmurs rippled through the crowd of Resistance fighters, and Poe had to push through some of those who were now rapidly congealing around the impregnated Jedi to get a better look.
For a long moment, Rey could not read the Commander's expression. He seemed utterly perplexed, shocked, stricken. All of these emotions chased themselves around and around his face.
And then... the indecision of his expression made a firm choice, as Poe chose to convey his feelings on the matter with angered displeasure. He suddenly whipped out a blaster, eliciting a shriek from the crowd, and prompting Rey to flick a hand just a fraction to the lightsaber at her belt. He wouldn't dare to open fire on an innocent, still-developing baby... Yet Poe did not pull the trigger.
"Whose child?" His voice was murderous, like the winter wind, snarling with the tightness of a wolf's bared teeth.
There was a long... pregnant silence. Rey's eyes were filled with terror. Had he directed the question to her? Or was it a general inquiry? Either way, only she could be expected to give a firm answer. But what was she to say? That their cause's greatest sworn enemy had filled her womb with his demon seed? That she was carrying the fetus of the opposition? Could she confess to an act of the greatest treason, and thus betray her lost love, the father of their unborn child?
She didn't have the time nor the chance. For suddenly, Finn stepped forward from the crowd, the unrelenting Tatooine suns sparkling their light on his dark skin. "Mine, Poe," he murmured.
He sounded convincingly contrite, and Rey had to quickly morph the shocked expression she now sent her dear friend's way into something neutrally passive. It had to be a crime, to lie to one's commanding officer and comrades-in-arms... wasn't it?
But Finn did not back down from his story, and nobody else seemed to question it, or wonder if it rang of bullshit as much as it really did. Poe's face had turned a chilling purple and he raised his blaster, cocking it threateningly, and taking deadly aim. The Adam's apple on Finn's throat bobbled with the force of his gulp, but this was all that gave away his terror, as his expression was still blank and brave. The ex-Stormtrooper unbuttoned his shirt partway, revealing part of his chest, directly over his heart.
"Strike, Commander. Strike true."
Rey looked from one man to the other, horrified. Was this the policy for impregnating someone in a military setting? She struggled to find voice with which to speak, but no sound came out.
But Poe did not strike, as Finn goaded him to. At last, he stowed his blaster, prompting a unified sigh of relief from everyone present. Then, he barked into the silence:
"Anyone on this base who engages in sexual relations... for the love of the galaxy, please - please use birth control!" He cleared his throat awkwardly after this rather unconventional directive, weakly getting out, "Uh... meeting adjourned."
The crowd broke away, returning to their respective duties. Without thinking, Rey launched herself at Finn. Taking his hand, she practically dragged him back into the base, dragged him into a darkened corner of one corridor. And then she was suddenly kissing him, again and again, as if she could not stop: on his cheeks, on his neck, on his forehead, on his mouth, on his eyelids, on his mouth once more. All the while, tears mixed in with her kisses, falling on his upturned face. "Oh... Oh!" she sobbed, too emotionally wrecked and eternally grateful to know what else to say.
"Rey..." Finn placated her gently, not moving to return her affections, even as she draped her arms about his neck. "Rey... don't..."
"Thank you!" Rey got out in a hushed whisper. "Thank you, thank you! I..."
"Rey:" Finn took her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake, to make her stop worshipping him with her kisses. "I don't know who the real father is. And since you were reticent to bring it up, I am not even going to ask. But... I have a feeling that whoever he is, he is out of the picture or not in a position to be a father." His eyes searched her face in a big-brotherly way. "Am I right?"
Whimpering, Rey nodded through her tear-filled eyes.
"Then, I will help you raise the baby. I will try and be its father... if you'll have me." Finn's eyes flittered bashfully away from her gaze, and Rey could sense him wondering if it was his place to make such a sacrifice.
Overwhelmed with love for her first and dearest friend, and still terribly despondent over losing Ben, a deeply touched Rey launched herself at Finn, kissing him again, everywhere she could reach. Finn still did not move to kiss her back, preferring instead to hold her quietly, as she came apart in his arms, resting his head on hers as she nuzzled her face into his chest like a scared child.