Tatooine

Just how far is Poe Dameron willing to go to help his wife? Or... that's not how the Force works... or is it?

HUGE THANK YOU TO SUNBURN STARDUST FOR THE USE OF THIS BEAUTIFUL PICTURE

“Why did I ever let you do this to me again?!”

Poe Dameron clenched his teeth as his wife squeezed his hand hard, her voice low and angry and pained.

“Uh, honey,” Poe gasped. “You’re gonna break my hand.”

The pressure eased, but he wasn’t sure if it was due to his words or the simple fact that the contraction had abated. She was glaring at him, so he assumed it was the latter.

“And to answer your question,” he continued, knowing he might just be risking his life with the words, but pushing forward anyway. “I seem to recall you bouncing around the Falcon one day, all giddy, saying something to the effect that since we were moving the base to a new planet, that meant we could have another baby.” He shook his head and gave her a grin. “You’re the one who finalizes these decisions, sweetheart.”

She blew out a long breath. “Yeah, well, next time I have the urge, sit on me.”

“I think it was ‘sitting’ on you that got us here, darlin’.”

Rey reached over and slapped him on the shoulder with the hand he wasn’t holding onto, but he could tell from her expression she was trying not to laugh.

Casey Goethe walked in, her eyes flashing back and forth between the two of them. “How’s it going?” she asked. Casey had been present for the birth of their first child, Shaina, seven years earlier on Ajan Kloss. Now she was here for baby number four on Tatooine.

“Okay,” Rey said with a smile. “I think this little one is going to come faster than Samuel did.”

“They do tend to come easier the more you have,” Casey said with a grin. “Most of the time,” she amended.

“Good to know,” Rey responded.

Poe looked back and forth between the women with a frown, then focused on Rey. “Uhm, weren’t you just telling me to stop you when you had the urge to get pregnant again?”

Rey gave him a patient look. “I’m not having a contraction now.” She shrugged. “I still don’t have a full crew for the Falcon, yet.”

Poe rolled his eyes. “If necessary, you can handle the Falcon by yourself. How many more crew do you need?”

“Four in the cockpit, two on the guns, and at least four X-Wings to fly support,” she answered without hesitation, then glanced at him with smirk. “You’d be in one of those, of course.”

Poe raised an eyebrow. “I kinda like this plan, but it kinda scares me, too.”

Casey laughed. She had been examining Rey while they talked and she sat up straight, glancing back at the midwife droid she was using as an assistant. “CT,” she said. “Let’s prep for the birth. She’s ready to go.”

Rey grinned at Poe. “See? Piece of cake.” Suddenly, her face scrunched up as another contraction slammed into her and Poe grimaced almost as badly as he felt his hand squeezed in her vise-like grip.

“Uh-huh,” he groaned. “Easy as pie.”

“Okay, Rey,” Casey told her. “You can push now.”

“I am!” she gasped.

Poe squeezed her hand this time, encouraging her without words as he saw her focus on helping the contraction work their baby girl toward the outside world. She gasped and dropped her head back, tears leaking from her eyes. “Okay, not so easy,” she mumbled.

Poe scooched forward in his seat and brought his face close to his wife’s. “You’re good. There’s no rush. She’s in no hurry, so you don’t need to be.” He hated seeing her in pain. Everything in him wanted to take it away, but he knew darn well she would argue if he said anything. As much as she had opened herself up to him these recent years, both emotionally and through the Force, she still had a serious independent streak. Besides, what could he do?

Another contraction hit. She pushed at Casey’s urging. He leaned in to put his lips on her sweaty forehead, closing his own eyes and wishing…

He pulled back suddenly, an idea hitting him almost as hard as a punch from his wife. She opened her own eyes to look at him, immediately sensing his distraction. The contraction eased and she dropped her head back again, but her eyes remained on him.

“What?” she gasped. “Something just happened. Are you okay?”

He nodded. “Yeah, yeah,” he breathed. “I just had a thought.” He stopped, not sure if he should proceed.

“Well?” Rey demanded. “It was obviously a profound thought. Tell me!”

Poe grimaced. “What if we connected? You know? Through the Force?” He glanced at Casey, who was pretending not to listen. “Like we do when we… you know. Make babies.”

Rey shook her head vehemently. “That wouldn’t help me. It would only make you feel my pain. Why would you want that?”

“No, no!” Poe argued. “Not a complete bridge,” he tried to explain. “What if you helped me open up to you, but you don’t open up fully to me?” He paused. “I could feed you my strength and absorb some of your pain at the same time.” He had no clue if it worked that way, but he was willing to try anything to help her.

He noticed Casey watching them with interest, now. He shrugged at her, then looked at his wife again. She was fixated on something other than her labor, her brow furrowed in concentration.

“I don’t know if that would work,” she said softly, uncertainly. “But, even if it did, why? Why would you do that?”

“Well, as you’re so fond of reminding me, I’m 50% responsible for your situation,” he grinned. “I just want to make this part easier for you.”

He saw her face tense and knew another contraction was eminent. “Rey?” he demanded.

Poe felt her reach for him through the Force, that familiar tingling that he always looked forward to pulsing through him. He reached out, meeting her, then pushed back. She allowed herself to give way, and he felt his senses almost overcome with both her emotions and her physical perception. The clenching he felt in the muscles of his abdomen and back startled him for a second before he realized that it was working. The pain intensified and he grew a bit unsettled, reminding himself that he had asked for this. His eyes met Rey’s, and he saw the concern mixed in with the pain. Concern for him.

He gritted his teeth and pushed again with the Force he now felt enveloping him; while he still couldn’t tap into it on his own, once Rey helped him with that initial connection, he had gotten pretty good at controlling it from there. He closed his eyes and imagined in his minds-eye a visible current between him and Rey. He imagined the pain she was feeling as the color red, and drew that current toward him more, despite the already overwhelming cramps squeezing his abdomen. He envisioned a white-blue current flowing from him to her, his own Force energy bolstering her.

“Rey, you need to push.” Casey’s words caused him to open his eyes. His wife was still staring at him, her expression full of shock and awe. It was an unusual look for her. He saw her glance at Casey, and then felt his own body tense as she pushed. He could feel it. He could feel the baby.

“Kriff,” he muttered, almost dropping the connection in his astonishment.

Rey was pushing with more energy now. Whether it was because she was feeding off of the power he had directed toward her or because her pain was less intense, he didn’t know, but he knew he couldn’t give up now. He continued imagining the currents flowing between them, trying to regulate his own breathing to handle the intense pain he was feeling. Pain coming from parts of his body he didn’t even have!

The pain from lower down heightened, and he knew without a shadow of a doubt the baby was in the birth canal. Birth canal, he though with agonizing humor. He knew exactly how tight a fit Rey’s vagina was; how the hell was she pushing a baby out through it? He heard a strangled laugh and opened his eyes to see Rey watching him, tears in her eyes and a smile on her face. She knew exactly what he was thinking.

“What goes in must come out,” she told him.

Poe groaned at both her statement and the discomfort he was feeling as he rolled his eyes. “Just push, Rey.”

She gave one last giggle, then did as he asked.

Poe squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth again, holding in another groan as he felt a burning sensation swamp him. Suddenly, it was over. He opened his eyes to see a tiny human in Casey’s hands, red and wriggling. She took a towel from the droid next to her and wrapped the baby up, checking her nose and mouth as she did so. Suddenly, the baby was crying, and Casey brought her up to Rey’s chest, where his wife grabbed a hold of the bundle and settled the infant on her breast. Poe leaned forward, dropping his forehead down to rest gently on the baby, and he felt Rey’s hand move up to touch his head, running her fingers through his sweaty hair.

“Hey, we’re not done, yet.” Casey told them.

Poe turned his head to look at the medic without raising it. He felt the cramping again, and realized he was still connected to Rey. But suddenly, the connection broke, and he lifted his head to look at his wife. She smiled softly at him. “This part is easy,” she told him, and he realized she was delivering the afterbirth in record time.

“CT, cut that umbilical,” Casey demanded. “Good grief, Rey. You’re not wasting any time today!”

The midwife droid had moved in and efficiently tied off and cut the baby’s cord, and then attempted to take the child from Rey as Casey focused on the delivery of the placenta. “Uhm, no,” Rey told the droid, her arms tightening around the infant.

Casey looked up. “CT, I know you’re trying to help, but let the father bathe the child, okay?” She looked at Poe. “I know you’ve bathed your other littles. Think you can handle this one while I clean up mom?”

Poe looked at Rey, asking her with a look if she approved. She just gave him another smile and nodded, opening her arms and letting him take the baby gently from them. Almost immediately, he felt tears form in his eyes. “Geez,” he grumbled as he walked over to the small tub. He took his time, focusing intently on the tiny, helpless life before him. He made sure the water was warm, that he supported the tiny head at all times, that he made sure every nook and cranny was clean. All the while, the little girl silently watched him with big dark eyes. He knew those eyes would change as she got older, and he wondered what color they would become. Both Shaina and Skyler had their mom’s ever-changing hazel, but Samuel had surprised them, with eyes recently changing to Poe’s rich brown.

Casey came up next to him, watching as he finished, laying the baby on the table, taking a soft towel, and gently drying her. “I don’t know what you did back there,” she finally told him softly. “But that was amazing. You probably shortened labor by more than half.”

Poe swallowed, remembering the intense pain and knowing it wasn’t half as much as what Rey had felt during the births of her other children. Skyler’s birth, especially, had been hard for her. He had not been there for that one, but he had heard about it. “Do all sentient species have such pain during labor?” Poe asked her suddenly. “How do they do it? And why do they have to?”

“That’s one of the biggest galactic questions of all time,” Casey said with a smile. “And to answer your first question, no, not all have such pain. Just the mammalian species.” Poe took a step back as Casey set about examining the baby, who still lay quiet, watching them curiously. Poe watched as she checked her heart and lungs and limbs, and when she moved back Poe jumped right back in.

With practiced ease, he put a tiny diaper on his daughter, grinning as she gave a slight grimace and grunt as he carefully moved her body around. Then he pulled on the soft onesie that he and Rey had decided would be her first ensemble; it was a pale blue in color. It reminded him of ‘his’ color, the color Rey said his Force signature exhibited. The color he imagined flowing to Rey during the birth of this child.

“What’s her name?” Casey suddenly asked, loud enough that Rey could hear.

Poe looked over at his wife, who now lay comfortably in the bed on the other side of the room, watching them with tired but happy eyes. She smiled at Poe and looked back at Casey. “Shiloh.”

“Ah,” Casey grinned. “Sticking with the ‘S’ theme, are we?” She looked back at Rey. “And how many more ‘S’ names do you have ready?”

Rey gave a soft laugh. “A few,” she answered.

Poe shook his head with a smile and reached down to pick up Shiloh, carrying her back to her mother. Rey held out her arms, her eyes bright, anxious to have her baby back. Poe placed the child back in Rey’s arms, then settled himself next to her on the bed, watching as she opened the front of her dressing gown and helped the baby find what instinct was telling her she needed next. He felt tears form in his eyes again and took a deep breath; it seemed every baby born made him that much more of a softy.

Rey looked up at him as Shiloh finally found what she was looking for and latched on to her mother’s breast. Her eyes were moist and she was blinking rapidly. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I still can’t believe it worked, but thank you.”

He leaned over to kiss her forehead. “I can’t believe you’ve done this on your own three times,” he told her. “I’m damned well not going to let you do it alone ever again, however many more you decide we need.”

She huffed a laugh. “I’m not going to think about more right now,” she said with a grin. “But I am very much open to it, especially if you’re going to help.”

“I’ll help,” he confirmed. “Both at the beginning and the end.”

THE END