So I spent the week visiting family, visiting friends, and sleeping in a desperate bid to convince my body not to fall prey to the headcold it is threatening to give under to. The things I wanted to get written did not get written so enjoy another Side Story from the backups.

So while this is technically a prequel to the main fic I think I messed around with the timeline a bit and for this to actually fit it would either have to start at like the day of conception or the main fic would have to have him further alone… eh. These things aren't actually true to the main fic, they're hypotheticals.

Warnings: mpreg

The heartbeat is not startling the first time he hears it.

It is mostly because he believes it to be his own.

It is not uncommon to hear ones heart while meditating. The silence it requires has a way of making those unavoidable sounds of living deafening.

At first it is too easy to pass off the thud-thud he is hearing as that. Pass it off as a normal occurrence that doesn't require any thought or worry. There is something off about it thought. Something that makes him aware that it is not merely his own heart echoing through the silence.

The sound feels like it is coming through the Force. It originates from inside him, but is being communicated through the Force and not the silence of the room he is in.

Still, he passes it off as something unimportant. Something that doesn't require anymore thought on his part. It is an oddity, yes, but is more likely to just be a new way his own heartbeat is becoming a pendulum to which he can meditate to.

It starts to echo through his dreams.

That is weird but not an immediate cause for concern. His grandfather had prophetic dreams and maybe this is the start of them. An echo through the Force of his own being that will become the gateway to the future being revealed to him. The thought excites him. A connection to his grandfather that is more special than his blood and connection to the Force. A chance to prove himself as Anakin Skywalker's grandson, more than Luke Skywalker's nephew.

He does not verbalise his excitement to Snoke but has no doubt that the Supreme Leader knows. He believes Snoke's silence on the matter is to let it develop. To let the dreams come without pressuring Kylo to force them.

That isn't going to stop Kylo Ren from trying to force them and he spends the majority of his meditations focusing in on the heartbeat. Trying to find the point within it that will spark the visions.

Soon he starts hearing it when he is awake.

He thinks it is a good sign. A sign that he is getting closer to being given the power to see the future. He hopes it goes away when the actual visions come. It is a bit distracting having the metronome of his heartbeat constantly in the back of his mind. However if it is something that he must endure for the rest of his life he will happily endure it for the benefit of the visions.

That is if the visions come.

They seem to allude him no matter what he does to try and open himself up to them. It is frustrating and infuriating to be teased by his own mind. His own powers that are the source of all his strength giving him the suffering but not the reward for it.

His frustration reaches a critical point and the room he is trying to meditate in suffers for it. The destruction brings his own heartbeat up, excites it to the point where he can feel it pounding in his chest. The one in his mind is excited too but there is something off between the two rhythms. Something that doesn't seem to match up.

He tries to push it from his mind. Tries to ignore it as a mistake on his part. There can be no other source of the heartbeat but his own. They had been beating so fast that he probably heard one wrong.

The doubt does not go away.

It is easier to ignore it during the day when he has tasks to complete that keep his mind busy. When he tries to sleep it is there. The heartbeat and the doubt as loud as he believes they could ever be without driving a person insane.

After three nights of the doubt he finds his hand creeping up to rest against the point on his neck where he can feel the blood move past and the beat of his heart strong beneath his fingers.

He closes his eyes, listens and feels. Listens to the heartbeat reverberating through the Force and feels the one that echos through his blood to his fingers.

They beat at a different pace.

He feels his own heartbeat quicken at the realisation (the one through the Force stays the same) and pulls his fingers away from his pulse. He takes one steading breath and then another but finds they do very little to quell the panic that is rising. The two heartbeats do not match yet he is certain the one that is communicated through the Force originates from his own body. Knows it like he knows that the Force is powerful, that it flows through everything in the universe.

The heartbeat is not his own yet it originates from inside him. The truth of what it is rests horribly in his stomach. Three steading breathes do not even begin to calm him as he realises that it is no longer himself he has to think about (worry about). No longer just him that needs the body to survive.

There is a chance for this child to make everything right. A chance it will inherit his powers and his dedication to completing his grandfather's legacy. A perfect finishing step in the First Order's victory.

There is a chance that the child will ruin everything (chance that he will ruin everything for it).