Chapter Text
“And then Sabine used the Force to push me across the gap!” Ezra explained excitedly, his hands moving wildly to illustrate his story.
“Really wow!” Jacen said, eyes like saucers. Chopper grumbled something that sounded like a curse that made Ezra roll his eyes.
Hera looked across the room at her boys. It had been maybe a month since Ezra’s return, and Jacen had taken to him immediately, begging him constantly to train him to be a Jedi, or to tell him stories about his time on Peridea.
“Hey I think that’s enough Jacen, It's time for you to go to bed.” Truthfully it was earlier than his usual bedtime, but something about Ezra’s story had given Hera pause.
“Really Mom, can’t I just have one more story?” It was a constant battle these days getting Jacen to do anything that didn’t involve Ezra.
Thankfully he stepped in. “No, your Mom is right, you can't train to be a Jedi if you don’t sleep.”
After that it didn’t take long for Jacen to get ready for bed, and for Chopper to trundle off to charge for the night.
“So Sabine used the Force huh?” Hera asked. They were sitting arround the Ghost’s dejarik table, glasses of spotchka in hand. It was strange to drink with Ezra, she kept seeing the skinny child she and Kanan had picked up on Lothal all those years ago. But this was a conversation that would need alcohol. “You didn’t mention it before.”
“Yeah, a couple of times.” Ezra said. “It was pretty impressive actually, whatever Ahsoka has been doing with her really paid off.”
“Are you sure it was her, you weren’t just imagining it or accidentally doing it for her in the heat of battle?” Hera had a look of concern on her face now.
“No, it was definitely her force signature.” Ezra shrugged. “Why?”
“Because Sabine has the force sensitivity of a damp rock ,Ezra, and I, nor Ahsoka have ever seen her connect to anything.” Hera took a sip of her spotchka. “What happened in Peridea? Between you two?”
The question clearly made Ezra uncomfortable as he shifted in his seat and scratched at the back of his neck. “What? Nothing. We just reconnected.” He shifted his gaze down to his spotchka, eyes reflecting the subtle glow of the liquid, and repeated himself, almost too quiet for her to hear. “We just reconnected.”
“Ezra, I need you to be honest with me. Did anything happen between you two on Peridea?” There was a seriousness to Hera’s voice.
“Hera I don’t know where you are going with this.”
“Ezra, did you or did you not kriff Sabine?”
“Why does it matter?” Ezra felt his cheeks begin to burn. This was the last thing he wanted to discuss with Hera.
“Answer the question.”
“Yes.” Ezra said “Look I don’t want to talk about it it was heat of the-”
“Ezra, I don't care about that.” Hera said. “What I care about is that there may be a problem growing on Peridea. Did you use contraception?”
“Where would we have got it?”
“I don't know, maybe she had some?” Hera said, knowing that that would have been the last thing Sabine remembered to pack.
“No, we didn’t use contraception.” Ezra’s cheeks were burning. This was not where he saw the conversation going.
“Okay great.” Hera look a long sap from her cup. “How well can you talk to Purgil?”
“Why does it matter? Why are you making a big deal out of this?”
“Because, Ezra, there is only one thing I can think of that would make Sabine force sensitive all of a sudden. And that is that she might be pregnant and stranded in a far away galaxy. So how well. Can you talk. To Purgil?” The last part was said through gritted teeth.
Ezra shook his head. “Force sensitive because shes - Hera that’s not how the Force works.”
“Oh really, because only one of us has been pregnant with a force sensitive child, and while I wasn’t throwing people at starships, I was more connected to the force than I ever have been in my life.” Hera said, before softening her gaze and tried to sound reassuring. “Look I might be wrong, I don’t know the ins and outs of the force like you do, or Kanan did. But I think it's possible.”
“Kriff.” Ezra put his head in his hands. “I just thought her training, and Peridea, the force runs through it in a way I can’t even describe, it's incredible. Unbalanced, but it's so powerful. I thought it was just that. But that plus your theory. Kriff.”
Hera reached across the table and rested her hand on Ezra’s shoulder. “You might still be right. But I think we need to move our trip back to Peridea forward a bit.”
“But Thrawn -”
“Will be nothing compared to how pissed Sabine will be if you’ve left her stranded and pregnant.” Hera squeezed his shoulder and stood up. “Look I’m going to have to pull a lot of favours to get us leave to do this, though I’m not above desertion. And I’m going to ask Leia what she thinks, because she’s the only other person I know who’s done this."
Contraception had been the last thing on Ezra’s mind when he had woken in Sabine’s arms, her fingers gently playing with his hair and tracing the scars along his cheek. She had brought her lips down to meet his and it was over for him, he would have done anything for her, to be with her.
And now she was alone on Peridea. Possibly pregnant. And it was all his fault. All his stupid kriffing fault because he couldn’t think about the consequences of his actions. He took a deep drink from his glass focusing on the way the spotchka burned to escape the guilt swirling in his chest. He shouldn’t have left her, should have gone back when he realised she wasn’t joining him on the Chimaera. At least then she would have him.
And the New Republic wouldn’t know about Thrawn’s return.
A voice that sounded suspiciously like Kanan reminded him. It was something he had had to tell himself constantly for the past month. Until now it had been easy to believe it, to hold onto those words as the reason he had had to come back, to leave Sabine again.
Even after he promised he wouldn’t.
She wouldn’t have let you go if she didn’t trust you to come back to her.
For weeks now Sabine had been brushing off the symptoms. The nausea, the exhaustion, the mood swings. She had just been stranded on a strange planet, with strange food, and strange people. Separated from Ezra after their brief reunion, restarting her training with Ahsoka. It was normal that she wouldn’t feel herself.
Right?
But when she lost her breakfast for the third time that week she sat on a rock and tried to remember the last time she had a cycle. She had never been regular, and never had much of a reason to track it, but she could hear a nagging voice in the back of her head. She and Ezra had been intimate those few nights they were alone. And her last cycle, that had definitely been before she left for Peridea.
She couldn’t be right? She had an implant, and - and she hadn’t had it replaced. When it had expired two years ago she had had it removed, and hadn’t had it replaced. At the time she had no need for it, and had wanted rid of the artificial hormones. And then with Ezra, she hadn’t even thought about that. She had just wanted him, needed him. Just wanted what felt right in the moment.
Kriff.
Sabine lightly pressed her hand to her stomach. It was a flat as it had ever been, but how much of that was that she had just emptied it? If she was pregnant she couldn’t be more than what? A month? Two? Was that even far enough to be able to see it? To feel it?She regretted not paying enough attention when Hera was pregnant, though how much of Twilek pregnancy applied to humans Sabine didn’t know.
She could have filled a library with what she didn’t know about pregnancy.
She could have filled a library with all the reasons she never wanted this.
Not like this. Not stuck in some random kriffing galaxy with no support and no hospitals.
And no Ezra.
Sabine felt a sob rip through her body as tears threatened to spill over. Would he have wanted this? Them to have a child? The longer she spent thinking, the more certain she was that she was in fact pregnant. Maybe she was imagining it, maybe it was some kriffed up effect of the force on this planet that was making her think she was.
The force could do that right? Make you believe in things that weren’t there, that weren’t real?
“Sabine?”
Ahsoka interrupted her reverie, crouching so she was at eye level with the younger woman.
“Are you okay, you’ve been out here a while.” Ahsoka reached out to touch Sabine’s sholder. “Have you been crying?”
That broke the dam in Sabine's chest as another sob ripped through her.
“Hey, hey. It’s okay.” Ahsoka said softly. “What can I do to help?”
“I think it's beyond helping Ahsoka.” Sabine said between the sobs. “I messed up. I was so kriffing stupid.”
“Sabine, if you don’t tell me we can’t deal with this.”
Sabine raised her head so she was staring directly into Ahsoka’s eyes, reminding herself that it didn’t matter if she told her, Ahsoka would find out eventually. “I think I'm pregnant.” She wiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand. “It's so stupid, I’m not a teenager to be making this mistake, I’m thirty.”
Ahsoka pulled Sabine into a tight hug, ignoring how her tears soaked Ahsoka’s cloak.
“Okay. Well that certainly complicates things.” Ahsoka said softly, rubbing Sabine’s back as she let her cry. “Though it would explain the sudden force sensitivity.”
That comment rocked Sabine to her code as the sobbing abruptly stopped and she pulled away from Ahsoka. “That’s not how the Force works.” Confusion written all over Sabine’s face. “I mean I've never heard of it working like that. That can’t be what's happening. You said yourself that the Force is stronger here, easier to connect to.
“It is, but,” Ahsoka sighed. “The other is true too. I've seen it happen twice.” There was a note of sadness to Ahsoka’s works. Sabine knew she must be talking about Hera, but who else she didn’t want to pry on.
“So I better make the most of this then?” Sabine asked with a weak smile. “I’m going to throw you off of so many cliffs.”
Ahsoka shook her head as she laughed. “No you are not, what you did with Ezra was quite possibly the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Incredibly reckless for someone who had only just started using the force a few moments earlier.”
“When have I not been reckless?” Sabine said, a small smile playing on her lips. “And I mean, it worked.”
“It did.” Ahsoka acquiesced. “But it was still stupid. We need to start making a plan about this.” She gestured to Sabine’s stomach.
“I’ve got at least 7 months yet.” Sabine said.
“True,” said Ahsoka. “But we should make a plan. Even if it might not be needed.”
“Might not be needed?”
“If Ezra has told Hera you used the force she's probably figured out what's going on.” Ahsoka smiled. “And I doubt either of them is prepared to leave you here.”
Sabine nodded and pressed her hand to her stomach again. Pregnant, maybe. With a baby she didn’t know if she was prepared for, in a galaxy she wasn’t familiar with, to a father she didnt even know wanted this. She took a deep breath.
“Okay, we’ll make a plan.”