Archive of Our Own ^beta

"What IS that? Get it out of here!" Rey pitched forward, tugging a handful of greasy hair out of Leia's hands. She lost momentum with a slight groan, and resettled on the pillows. Leia placidly took the strands back up and returned to weaving the four-stranded crown called "The Gate Of Life" by a dwindling number of people. It kept the hair near the front of the head, so it wouldn't mat at the back.

"Nooooom. Noooom," crooned the Chroon-Tan droid. It floated in behind Rose, blue dots illuminating on its visualizer as it moved further into the room. Rose looked back at it warily.

"What the kriff does 'Noooom' even mean?" Rey asked the ceiling.

"It's just supposed to be a soothing noise," Leia said. "Chroon-Tans don't speak much basic."

"Well, it isn't soothing me! It's annoying and weird! And its hands aren't right!"

At that, Rose glanced at the droid's hands. They were scoop-like, and odd indeed.

"Yes, they're definitely weird, I can see it," she said.

"Yuuu-moooo, yuuuuuu-moo, yuuuu-moooo," sang the droid, hovering right next to the bed now, opposite Leia, who was preoccupied with putting thin, flexible pins in Rey's hair to secure her braid.

"I'll yuuu-moo YOU," Rey puffed. She gestured as if to punch the thing, but with a sudden sharp breath her whole attention was gripped by something else.

"A bad one coming?" Rose asked. Without waiting for an answer, she slipped between the floating droid and Rey, who nodded and grabbed one of her friend's hands with both of hers.

"Don't squeeze too hard, I'm not as strong as you," she joked, right as the pain dawned over Rey's face. But Rey didn't squeeze at all, she just cradled Rose's hand as her centre, flowing with deliberate breath, and then used it to pull Rose in, so their foreheads touched. Rose could feel Rey's energy, swirling purposefully around and through her body. It made her feel lucky to be there.

"Oooh-baaa. Oooh-" the droid jerked to one side and suddenly fell to the floor, having lost power the moment Leia had unplugged its fuel cell.

"You're right," she said, looking down at it, "the hands are weird."

The thought of time as a long chain slipped away from Rey, and she only lived in this moment, this bit of ice in her mouth, this set of steps to the fresher, this wave of pain. Over the day, the ring of time got tighter and tighter around her until nothing existed except herself, her body and the way it was heaving, weeping, straining to bloom. She thought that people she loved might still exist. She felt them loving her, helping her to get on all fours, but they were so far, outside, and she was all the way in.

The pain guided her, she pushed back at it every time it prodded, roaring in its face. There was a rhythm that she became a part of, and it felt hard, but natural too. It took a moment for Rey to understand why there was sudden shouting and a firm, bejewelled hand over hers.

"Rey, don't push,"

"Don't push."

"You need to wait, Rey,"

Three voices, asking the almost impossible.

A long, groaning sob unravelled from her throat. What if the rhythm went away, and all that was left was tedium?

The third voice piped up again. It was Doctor Kalonia.

"The cord is tight around the baby's neck. I need to clamp and cut it so it doesn't tear."

Riding the rise of another wave, Rey cried out again with the effort of denying it this time. Rose's warm, capable hand came to rest over the one Leia wasn't holding.

"It's going to be all right, Rey, you're doing so well," she murmured, kneeling on the floor next to the medbay bed.

"Mmm-hmmm, keep talking," Rey choked out. Tears splashed on to the mattress. One fine-spun pin, shaken loose, fell there, too.

"You're so strong, Rey, so fierce and so loved," Rose continued. "You're an amazing mom to Euni and you're going to be so good with this one too."

Kalonia's hands and arms worked, quick and deft, like the Falcon slipping through an asteroid field. Leia shifted and rocked from one foot to the other, but otherwise stayed quiet and calm.

"Soon this will be over and you'll hold your baby in your arms," Rose said, tear-tracks glimmering on her cheeks. Then she pressed a heartfelt kiss to Rey's forehead, painted with night-long sweat.

"All right," Kalonia piped up, as she set aside the scissors and patted Rey's ankle briskly. "Push all you want, now,"

So, Rey did.

~*~

The first sun, the big one, was high, casting whitish rays between the curtains. The orange one, which came later but moved much faster, would join it soon, and pull along the odd little pink moon that always trailed behind it. Rey liked that it had a friend, up there in the sky.

She took another sip of jogan juice and drank in the figure of Leia, who was sitting down and beaming brighter than any heavenly body at the milk-drunk bundle in her arms. Her fingers stroked his curls, the colour of volcanic rock. She hummed and cooed at the baby for a few seconds, then looked up at Rey and spoke clearly.

"Well, what are you going to name my first grandson?" She asked.

Rey choked so hard on her juice that it sprayed all over the pillow, leaving petal-like stains in purple.

"Um, Kaks I think," she wheezed. Suddenly she felt very silly to have thought that Leia could be deceived.

"Hmmm. It's a good name. Short, easy to spell. Han would approve." Unruffled, Leia turned back to making eye contact with the baby, who sneezed adorably.

Rey coughed to clear the sweetness lingering in her throat, flipped her pillow over, and settled in for a nap, trusting that she'd wake later to her son's hungry cries.