Chapter Text
The air was thick with smoke and sand. Blaster fire lit the battlefield in staccato bursts, illuminating the crimson-stained ground and fallen bodies. Overhead, New Republic gunships screamed through the sky, exchanging fire with hostile starfighters. The Mandalorian banner flapped high above the ridge where Din Djarin, Ruler of Mandalore, stood flanked by his captains. But his eyes fixed on the battlefield, or more specifically on the golden-haired figure weaving through the fight below.
Luke. His Luke, his husband of just over a year and Consort of Mandalore.
The Jedi moved like liquid light—an Omega by biology but never by strength. His green sabre swept in broad, purposeful arcs, cutting down attackers without hesitation. Dust clung to the edges of his beskar armor: an articulated breastplate covered his upper chest, etched with the Mudhorn sigil, the back plate was equally as decorated. Spaulders and vambraces catching the morning light as he pivoted through the chaos. Underneath he wore the dark blue colours of the Consort of Mandalore, a long sleeve shirt and pants of thick fabric, reinforced for battle. A belt of brown leather held a clip for his lightsabre, several small items and served as an anchor for the leg holster he wore on his right thigh with a blaster contained, carried at Dins insistence. A com link clipped to his collar kept him in touch with command. He had still managed to obtain a few small injuries though, burns and shrapnel cuts. His presence burned like a beacon in the Force, steady and unwavering, even in the middle of war.
Din's jaw was locked behind his helmet. He hadn't wanted this. Had argued with Luke for two nights before they deployed.
"You’re carrying my child—possibly. You shouldn’t be anywhere near that place."
“And leave you to fight without me?” Luke’s blue eyes had flashed, defiant. “I’m not just yours, Din. I’m Mandalore, too.”
He hadn't won the argument. He had managed to persuade Luke to wear the armour, having it specially made for him. Luke complained it restricted his movement; they had settled on less than half the usual amount.
Down below, Han Solo ducked behind cover, shouting into his comm, “Chewie! That’s your left! Your other left! —Kid, a little help!”
Luke deflected a bolt aimed at Han’s chest, slicing the attacker down without breaking stride. “You're welcome,” he muttered.
Overhead, Leia’s voice crackled through Din’s comm.
“Ground teams, push to vector nine. We’ve got hostiles moving toward the settlement. Din, status?”
“Holding the ridge,” he replied. “Luke’s on the field.”
A pause. Then, coolly:
“Of course he is.”
Lando's voice piped in next: “Remind me why the most valuable Force-wielder in the Republic is frontlining again?”
“I heard that,” Luke said dryly over the comm.
Din couldn't take it anymore. He vaulted down the ridge with the Mandalorians following behind, a thunderous wave of beskar crashing into enemy lines. He fought his way to Luke, grabbing his mate by the elbow mid-spin.
“Are you insane?” he snapped, visor to face. “You could be—”
“I’m not pregnant.” Luke’s breathing was heavy, sweat curling down his temple. “I would know.”
“You don’t know,” Din growled. “And I—I can't lose you. Not to this. Not after—”
Another blast shook the ground near them, and Din turned, shielding Luke with his body automatically. The moment passed. But something in the air shifted. A presence, cold and dark, swept over the battlefield like a rising storm.
Luke’s expression changed. He looked toward the northern pass.
“Somethings coming, dark,” he said quietly, “we need to end this.”
Din nodded, squeezing his arm before letting go. His Omega. His warrior. His mate.
The sky was darker now, clouds thick with ash and blaster exhaust. The sharp crack of a downed fighter echoed overhead as it spiraled into the hills beyond. The battle had turned brutal—street by street, ridge by ridge, an all-out grind.
Luke and Din fought in sync, like they’d done a hundred times before. Luke’s sabre whirled, humming with purpose, while Din’s blaster and vibroblade struck with brutal efficiency. Mandalorians surged around them, their jetpacks flaring as they broke the enemy’s line, pushing toward the settlement's heart.
Then Luke felt it again, stronger this time. A dark presence.
His thought was interrupted by another tremor in the Force. A ripple of danger.
Luke’s eyes snapped to the left—a missile launcher, hidden beneath a ruined arch. He shoved Din with a burst of Force energy just as the weapon fired.
The explosion hit behind them, a deafening burst that scattered bodies and shrapnel. Smoke swallowed the space between them. Luke hit the ground, rolling hard, his shoulder catching on a broken wall.
“DIN!”
No answer.
His comm was fried. Static buzzed from the broken device. He coughed, pushing up, sabre still clutched in his hand. Around him, the battlefield churned—New Republic soldiers pushing forward, Mandalorians fighting tooth and nail—but Din was gone from his sight.
He reached into the Force. Searched.
A pulse—pain. Anger. Alive. But again that dark presence overwhelmed his senses.
Meanwhile, Din shoved rubble off his chest plate, head ringing. The visor flickered with damage, HUD flashing red. He sat up fast.
“Luke,” he called into his comm.
No reply.
He stood, chest heaving, and turned toward the front. The enemy was splitting them, herding Mandalorian and Republic forces apart. A large battalion had emerged from the north pass, and with them came the source of the cold Luke had felt earlier—a Force-user, cloaked in crimson and black, flanked by mercenaries and dark-clad shock troopers.
Luke moved through the smoke like a blade through silk, urgency making him reckless. He knew Din was alive, if not all that safe for now. The dark presence was close. Familiar. Mocking.
They wanted them separated. They planned it.
“Skywalker,” a voice purred through the air. “Still playing at being warrior, and now royalty?”
The figure stepped from the smoke—a woman in ornate armor, sabres at each hip, helmet under one arm. Sith-trained. Mandalorian by blood. An Alpha warlord who had once sworn vengeance for Mandalore’s rise under Din.
“An Omega, all alone, without your Alpha,” she said. “You’re vulnerable now.”
Luke ignited his sabre. “Try me.”
From his side of the battlefield, Din’s vision cleared just in time to see Luke disappear into the distance. He started running, his speed slowed through ranks of enemies, he bellowed orders into the comms.
“Find Luke! Move in on position! Do not let them flank him!”
His heart hammered. Luke had insisted he could fight.
Din had believed him.
But now all he could think was—please, please, don’t let him get hurt.
The air burned with the smell of plasma as their blades clashed with a roar of heat and light, emerald meeting blood-red in a storm of energy. Luke fought with precision—every movement honed from years of war, Jedi discipline, and Mandalorian pragmatism. He didn’t waste flourishes. He didn’t posture.
But she was stronger, the dark side flowed through her.
Her name was Veris Kryze. Fallen Mandalorian. Trained in the shadow of the Sith, fueled by vengeance and obsession. Her twin blades struck like lightning—fast, unpredictable, filled with rage and power that bent the Force around her like a vortex.
Luke dodged her upward slash, twisting into a counter. Their blades locked. She leaned close, eyes burning yellow.
“You’re breathing heavier, Skywalker,” she hissed. “Your balance is off. Are you not quite yourself? The Manda’lor must be desperate if he’s commanded his Omega into battle.”
She swept his legs. He leapt, twisting mid-air, landing hard on the balls of his feet. His sabre came up again.
“I’m perfectly well, and here of my own will. I’m protecting everything you tried to destroy.”
Veris laughed and pushed—a brutal wave of the dark side that hurled Luke back. He hit the ground, rolled, came up with a grunt, sabre high. His ribs ached. His limbs felt heavier than they should. The Force responded sluggishly, as if something cold was sapping his strength.
But he drew the light of the force around him and pushed his bruised and aching body to stand, to fight.
Din could feel it. Even kilometres away, surrounded by battle, buried under orders from Leia and field reports and exploding comm chatter—he could feel the strain through their bond.
Something was wrong.
He was mid-flight, jetpack flaring, moving toward the northern pass, when the transmission came.
“My King—our southern line is buckling. They're being overrun. Republic troops pinned. If we don’t hold—”
Din landed hard behind the cover of a smoking tank. Mandalorians were struggling behind him, awaiting orders.
He didn’t give them right away.
He was staring into the haze, toward the North—where Luke had vanished into the heart of the battle.
“Your Highness?” his captain prompted. “Orders?”
Din’s fingers flexed over the hilt of the darksabre at his hip. His heart wrenched. But he knew—he had to choose.
“Reinforce the southern line, pull everyone there,” he said finally. His voice was low, taut with tension. “I’ll meet you there.”
He turned his faceplate east one last time. He whispered beneath his breath:
“Hold on, Luke.”
Back at the duel
Luke’s sabre was knocked wide. A cut blazed across right side, just where his chest plate stopped—deep but not fatal, not yet. He dropped to one knee, panting, trying to summon the Force, to find the clarity he knew so well.
But it was fraying at the edges.
“You are foolish to think you can best me, better the dark side,” Veris said, circling him like a predator. “Your strength is divided. You’ve made yourself weak with love.”
Luke raised his eyes, fire in them.
“You don’t understand love.”
He surged upward, slammed into her with all his weight, driving her backward. His sabre met hers in a searing lock, their faces inches apart. Sparks flew around them like a storm.
For a moment—just a moment—he began to turn the tide.
But it wasn’t enough.
She drove her knee into his stomach, pulled back, and slashed—sending him sprawling again. His armor absorbed most of the blow, but the damage was mounting. His breathing was sharp, pain curling along his side.
He lay still for a moment, blinking through dust and blood, and reached—through the Force, through the bond—
Din.
He didn’t hear a response.
Didn’t feel him.
That absence hit harder than any blow. His heart surged with fear. But he clenched his jaw, rolled onto his side, and pulled himself up again.
Because that’s what warriors of Mandalore did.
Even when they stood alone.
The battlefield screamed. All around them, fire and fury reigned—craters smoldered, broken walkers burned in the streets, and the sky was filled with the echo of screaming engines and thunderous detonations. The duel between Luke Skywalker and Veris Kryze was occurring away from the bloody heart of the storm. Troops clashed and died, unaware of the duel.
Luke’s movements were slower now.
The deep cut along his ribs throbbed with every breath. Shrapnel had embedded itself in his thigh during a nearby blast, the fabric of his clothes, and the skin underneath, was scorched from glancing sabre strikes. Blood trickled down his brow from yet more shrapnel injuries, stinging his eye. His green blade flickered slightly—a sign of a crystal overstrained by pain.
Kryze didn’t let up. Her twin blades were merciless, sweeping in with wrath and control, her face alight with cruel satisfaction.
“You’re failing, I can feel it. You’re not fighting for victory—” she hissed, striking low and carving a molten line through his thigh, “—you’re fighting just to stay alive.”
Luke gritted his teeth, he wouldn’t scream, dragging himself upright, keeping his sabre up even as his arm trembled.
“You’ve already lost,” he rasped. “You just don’t see it yet.”
Din was covered in dust and ash, crouched behind burning cover, blaster overheated in his hand. He watched another Mandalorian go down beside him—armor blackened, motionless.
This wasn’t a fight anymore. This was a massacre.
His comm sparked with Leia’s voice.
“Din, we’re reading heavy casualties across all fronts. Too many losses. Pull back.”
He slammed his hand against the stone.
“Leia, Luke’s still in the field. I can’t leave him—”
“And you’ll both be lost if we don’t retreat. We’re sending shuttles now. Evacuate who you can.”
He didn’t answer for a second. Then:
“Understood.”
He turned to the remaining Mandalorians near him—battle-worn, bloodied, waiting.
“We fall back. Cover the evac. Priority is getting the wounded out. Anyone who can still walk helps someone who can’t.”
His voice cracked on the next part.
“I’m going for Luke.”
Luke collapsed to his knees again, sabre blade digging a glowing scar into the ground as he caught himself. The shrapnel was biting deeper. The Force was still with him, but far, distant, as if he were underwater. Kryze approached slowly now—circling. Enjoying it.
“Do you know how many of us you killed? In your crusades, your holy war to bring balance?” she spat. “You called it peace. But all I saw was a galaxy broken to fit your family's vision.”
She raised both blades.
“This is what justice looks like.”
Luke raised his head, and even now—bloodied, shaking—his eyes shone with clarity.
“No,” he said softly. “That’s just vengeance in armor.”
And then she struck.
Their blades sang, the force of it pushing Luke backward again—but something shifted. A roar filled the sky—shuttles descending, heavy and fast, kicking up dust and flame. Leia had sent the evac.
Soldiers began pulling back, covering each other. Chaos reigned.
Kryze hissed. “Running already?”
Luke forced himself to his feet.
“Not running,” he said. “Surviving.”
He reached out—one last push of the Force—and shoved her back with everything he had left. It sent her slamming into rubble of a half destroyed tower, her sabre hilts skittering from her hands. It wouldn’t stop her for long. Smoke curled through the air, carrying the scent of blood, fire, and ozone.
But it was enough.
Luke staggered, chest heaving. Pain pulsed like a drumbeat through every limb.
But then—
A sound. Whining metal. Falling debris. The Force screaming out in warning to him.
Boom!
A massive explosion erupted just meters away—an enemy transport struck by a rocket, its payload detonating in a blinding column of fire. The shockwave, rocks and shrapnel hit Luke like a wall. He was lifted off his feet and thrown like a ragdoll across the square.
He hit the ground hard, skidding across rubble-strewn stone, his armored backplate absorbing the worst of it—but damage was done. The breath was knocked from his lungs. For a few seconds, the world flickered in and out—just blurs of light, sound, pain.
He couldn’t move.
Not properly. He tried to lift himself, arms trembling, but his legs refused to obey. Every breath came shallow and burning. His chest felt crushed, ribs fractured. Blood filled his mouth, warm and metallic. His head throbbed and the blackness of unconsciousness was at the edge of his vision.
“LUKE!”
Din landed on the far side of the square, jetpack hissing as he skidded into the chaos. His HUD was blaring alerts—movement, weapon locks, heat signatures—but his focus locked on the one thing that mattered:
Luke, lying in the dirt, unmoving.
He sprinted.
“Leia—I need a shuttle, now! Lukes’s down!” he shouted into his comm, voice cracked with panic.
Leia’s reply came too fast. Too quiet.
“We’ve got nothing left, Din. All evac birds are full or hit. I’m—” she was cut off by static.
The world tilted.
Din’s heart punched against his ribs. “No. No, I’m not leaving him here!”
Then—another voice cut across the comms, gruff and familiar:
“Well, lucky for you I never follow protocol!, On your six, Mando.”
Han had seen the defeat coming and hot footed it back to in anticipation of being needed to retrieve casualties.
The Falcon was coming.
Through the haze of pain, Luke heard it—that low rumble, that thrumming sound that could only belong to one ship in the galaxy.
He turned his head slowly, vision streaked and doubled, and saw a miracle descend:
The Millennium Falcon, dropping through fire and chaos like a defiant god. Her quad guns blazed, cutting a path in the enemy lines as she spun into a near-impossible landing right in the centre of the war-torn square.
His vision failing him he saw two Dins running towards him, converging into one blur as he dropped to his knees beside him. The visor scanning him in an instant. The injuries were bad. Burns across the thigh and chest, a deep gash along the temple, bruising down the side, that deep wound on his right. Luke blinked up at him, dazed and trembling.
“This hurts like hell,” Luke rasped, his voice barely audible.
“You don’t get to talk right now,” Din said hoarsely, “You’re gonna hear ‘I told you so’ for the rest of your life,” he said, barely holding back the crack in his voice.
He sheathed the darksabre and carefully, gently, lifted Luke into his arms. Luke’s breath hitched with pain, fingers curling weakly into Din’s cape.
The Falcon’s ramp opened with a hydraulic hiss.
Blaster fire sparked around them, but Din didn’t stop. He sprinted up the ramp as the Falcon began to rise, the ship shaking with motion and damage. Inside, Chewie roared from the cockpit, and Han yelled back—
“We’re up, we’re up! Hang onto something!”
Din crossed the threshold, half-falling into the Falcon’s main hold as the ramp closed behind them. He dropped to his knees, lowering Luke carefully to the floor, his hands shaking now that the adrenaline was crashing.
Luke's eyes fluttered. He tried to speak.
“Shh.” Din leaned close, one gloved hand cradling Luke’s face. “You’re safe now. I’ve got you.”
And with a rumble, the Falcon soared back into the sky—scarred but alive, leaving behind a world on fire.
Luke coughed—and blood followed. A harsh, wet sound ripped from his chest, crimson spraying across the front of his armor. His body jerked slightly with the effort, pain seizing through him.
He couldn’t breathe.
His fingers clawed weakly at chest plate, it was too heavy on his protesting lungs and broken ribs. Panic surged in his eyes.
“Stop, stay calm, let me help,” Din said, already moving. He dropped to his knees beside him, wrenching off his gloves with shaking hands. He reached for the clasps on Luke’s chest plate.
Hiss—clank—scrape.
The articulated beskar breastplate came free with effort, revealing the scorched fabric of Luke’s undersuit beneath—blistered, torn, and soaked with blood. A massive bruise bloomed along his side, ribs visibly swollen. Din pressed his ear close and heard it:
Shallow, rattling, uneven.
“He can’t breathe.” Din’s voice cracked with raw fear. “Han—we need to get to the medical frigate now.”
From the cockpit, Han’s voice came over the internal comms:
“I’m already burning the engines—we’re hitting max velocity. Strap in or hold onto something, this isn’t gonna be smooth!”
The Falcon groaned as Han threw her into full thrust, inertia shifting violently. Din barely noticed. He braced one arm under Luke’s shoulders, the other gripping his hand.
Luke’s gaze was flickering, dazed.
“Too much armor,” he whispered, half-conscious, lips stained red. “Told you… it’s too heavy.”
“You still wore it,” Din said, his voice thick. He brushed sweat and blood matted hair from Luke’s forehead. “You always do.”
Luke gave the faintest ghost of a smile, “I’m sorry, I…”
Then his head lolled, and his breathing slowed even more.
Din’s gut twisted. “No! Stay awake! You fight everyone else—don’t you dare stop now!”
He pulled Luke tighter against him, blood smearing across both of them, and shouted back to the cockpit.
In the background, Chewie roared something frantic and urgent. Han’s voice, gritted through adrenaline, replied:
“We’ve got a cruiser in-range. Frigate’s moving to intercept—two minutes out!”
Din pressed his forehead to Luke’s, voice breaking against the sound of the Falcon's engines roaring through space.
“Just hold on, mesh’la. Just hold on.”
It was getting harder to hold on.
Each breath felt like pulling air through broken glass. Luke’s chest trembled, lungs burning, body sinking deeper into the weight of pain and blood loss. The world had narrowed to muffled sound—Din’s voice thick with fear, the distant panic in Han’s shouting, the deep thrum of the Falcon’s overloaded engines.
Everything blurred.
He couldn't move. Couldn't even lift his hand anymore.
The Force wrapped around him gently.
Not like a weapon. Not like the clash of sabres or the rage of battle. But a soft current, a thread of light beneath the pain, steady and real.
He reached for it—not with strength, but with surrender. And in that fragile, wavering space between breath and darkness, he felt Din. A surge of love, of fury, of refusal. Din was holding him, wrapped around him like armor that no beskar could match.
But there was something else.
A flicker.
A spark.
Luke’s fading mind paused, touched by it. It wasn’t just Din. It wasn’t just fear or pain or the blood in his throat.
It was… new.
So small. So quiet he might’ve missed it if not for the stillness of the moment. But it was there, nestled in the Force like a candle barely lit.
A life.
Inside him.
His lips parted—no words came, but his heart surged with something deeper than breath. A tear slipped down the side of his face, carving a clean line through blood and ash.
Darkness.
Din felt Luke go limp in his arms.
“Luke?!”
No answer.
Han’s voice cut through:
“We’ve got visual on the frigate! Shields are lowering—we’re cleared to dock!”
Din didn’t hear it. He was already pressing two fingers to Luke’s neck, checking his pulse. It was there—but weak. So weak.
He leaned in close, pressed his forehead to Luke’s temple, voice a whisper.
“I’m not letting you go. Not when there’s so much left. Not when—”
His voice cracked, and this time he didn’t stop it.
“—not when we’re just getting started.”
As the Falcon slid into the docking port with a heavy shudder, the medics raced towards them, Din clutching Luke tighter. White armor stained with soot and blood, the medics boarded. Din didn’t wait for them to reach him—he stood up, Luke cradled tightly in his arms, the Jedi’s limp form streaked with blood and ash.
“He’s barely breathing,” Din snapped, his voice razor-sharp despite the tremor beneath. “Chest trauma. He’s bleeding. Move fast!”
The medics surrounded them, one of them lowering a stretcher.
“Sir—please, let us—”
“I’ll put him down, but I’m not leaving.”
They hesitated.
“Do it,” the lead medic ordered. “Gently.”
Din lowered Luke onto the stretcher with infinite care. Luke didn’t stir. His skin was pale beneath the grime, lips tinged blue. A medic placed a breath mask over his face, another slid a scanner over his chest.
From the cockpit, Han appeared, skidding into the corridor—his face went white at the sight of blood streaking the Falcon’s floor, the way Luke’s body sagged against the stretcher, motionless.
“Stars...” he muttered, breath caught in his throat. “Kid—”
Chewie let out a low, rumbling growl from behind him, the pain audible in it.
“We’ve got it from here,” a medic said, nodding toward Din. “We’ll stabilize him—he needs to go into emergency care. You’ll be updated once—”
“I’m going with him,” Din said, stepping onto the lift as they began moving the stretcher down the corridor.
“Sir, that’s not permitted—”
He didn’t stop walking. “Then shoot me!”
There was something in the modulated weight of his voice, the sheer finality of it, that shut the medic up cold. No one argued again.
They moved quickly—through sterilized corridors and blinding white light, the scent of antiseptic sharp in the air. The emergency care unit was a flurry of motion: medics calling out stats, droids whirring, tools clinking. They hooked Luke to machines, scanning his vitals, slicing open what remained of his undersuit to access the injuries.
Din stood by the bed, visor never leaving Luke’s face. His hand found Luke’s, squeezing it tightly. The blood on his gloves had dried by now. He didn’t care.
One of the medics pulled him aside, gently but firmly. “We have to take him going to surgery. You can’t follow beyond this point.”
Din’s voice was low. Rough. “I stay where he is.”
“We can help your husband. But you have to give us space to work.”
Din hesitated. His fingers clenched.
Then he stepped back. Just one step. Just enough.
They wheeled Luke out. The doors slid shut with a soft hiss.
And for the first time, Din didn’t have anything to do but wait.
The waiting room was too clean. White walls. Dim, clinical light. No sound but the soft hum of the lights and the distant beep of machinery beyond the surgical doors.
Din stood. Still in his armour as ever, his helmet on the small table, arms crossed like he could hold himself together just by sheer force of will. His gloves were streaked with blood—Luke’s blood—and he hadn’t moved more than a few steps since the doors closed. Since they wheeled his entire world through those doors.
Every minute that passed felt like a war of its own.
Footsteps echoed down the corridor.
Han appeared, moving slow, as if the weight of what he’d seen aboard the Falcon had aged him a decade in an hour. He didn’t speak right away. Just stood beside Din, hands in his jacket pockets, jaw tight.
“…How bad is it?” he finally asked, voice low.
Din didn’t look at him. “Bad.”
Han swallowed. “He… he didn’t look like he was breathing when you picked him up.”
“He was, but only just.”
Silence stretched between them. Heavy. Breathing hurt even if neither of them was the one cut open.
“I’ve seen Luke take hits before,” Han said eventually, eyes fixed on the surgical doors. “Blaster burns, sabre cuts… even Force lightning once. But I’ve never seen him like that.”
Din didn’t reply.
“He’s stubborn,” Han added, almost to himself. “Always has been. You know he ran into a nest of bounty hunters on Svivren once because someone told him not to. You think this’ll stop him?”
Din’s voice came quiet. Raw.
“I think it almost might.”
Han didn’t try to comfort him. He just stood there. Alpha supporting Alpha. Present. Steady in the way friends can be.
Behind them, a soft ping from the lift sounded. A moment later—
Leia stepped in.
Dressed in a crisp uniform, hair hastily tied back, eyes sharp. She took one look at Din, then Han. Her lips parted to ask, but the answer was already there in Din’s stance, in the blood.
She just nodded once and crossed the room to stand beside them.
No words. Just three people who loved a farm boy turned Jedi. Waiting.
Luke lay anaesthetised on the surgical table, body pale beneath sterile cloths. His chest rose and fell, shallow, even with the ventilator breathing for him. Monitors beeped around him. Droids moved in fluid, clinical patterns.
The chief surgeon leaned over him, scanning the ruined flesh across his side and chest.
“Shrapnel in the upper thoracic cavity. Collpased lung. Internal bleeding in the abdomen—likely spleen or lower stomach. Sabre burns to the leg and flank, and…”
She paused, eyes narrowing at one of the scans.
“…interesting.”
But there was no time to linger. She looked to the droid assisting her.
“Prep for repair and stabilization. He’s strong—but this is going to be tough.”
She picked up a scalpel, the work began.
The overhead surgical lights glared down on Luke’s still body, casting his face in stark relief—pale, slack, blood drying at the edges of his mouth. The only signs of life were the beeps and lines on the monitor.
“Vitals are fluctuating,” the medical droid reported. “Oxygen saturation unstable.”
“Prep the bacta stabilizer,” the lead surgeon said, hands already deep in the work. “We’re not losing anymore people today.”
They’d removed the shrapnel, and a large jagged coil of metal that had torn into his side during the explosion. Now they worked methodically, sealing ruptured blood vessels with micro-welds, regenerating torn tissue with precision instruments.
The sabre burn across his ribs was more complicated—deep, cauterized, but dangerously close to vital structures. The Force had protected him in some instinctive way, slowing the bleeding, but his reserves were nearly gone.
She cut deeper to expose the collapsed lung, sealing the pleural cavity so the lung could expand again.
One of the assistants moved to check a side monitor, prepping a bacta-infused IV, but hesitated.
“…Ma’am.”
“What?”
“I’m reading something, in the pelvis. Low-frequency resonance.”
The surgeon didn’t look up, she knew exactly what that was, “Yeah, I saw that before, document it and carry on. He won’t live long enough to know if we lose focus.”
Minutes passed like hours.
Sweat beaded on foreheads. Tools clinked. Lights blinked. The hum of medical machinery underlined every breath.
The surgeon's voice cut through the tension, sharp and low: “We’re almost there.”
Finally—
“Lung is sealed. Tissue regeneration holding. Internal bleeding controlled. Heart stable. He’s out of immediate danger,”
She exhaled for the first time in what felt like a lifetime.
“…but he’s got a long road ahead.”
…
The doors slid open with a soft hiss.
All three occupants of the waiting room looked up.
The Chief Medical Officer, her gloves still stained with blood—stepped into the waiting room. Her expression was tight, tired, but not defeated.
“He’s alive,” she said.
The words struck Din like a fist to the chest.
“He’s in recovery,” she continued, her voice carefully measured. “Sedated. He lost a lot of blood, and there was damage to his lung, but… he’s stable. He’s not out of danger. We’ll need to get him into a bacta tank as soon as the prep cycle is complete.”
“Can I see him?” Din asked immediately.
The doctor paused, glanced at Leia and Han behind him, then nodded. “For a few minutes. He won’t wake up yet.”
Din didn’t need to be given permission twice. He followed her through the corridor without a word.
The recovery suite was quiet, humming softly with life-support machines and the rhythm of the monitors. Luke lay still beneath pale blue med-sheets, a mask covering the lower half of his face, oxygen and pain suppressors regulating his every breath.
Without the armor, without the sabre, he looked almost… small.
Din stepped to his side, silent. His hand hovered for a moment over Luke’s, unsure—then slowly lowered, covering it gently. Luke’s skin was warm. Just warm enough.
“You came back,” Din whispered. “Even when I asked you not to.”
He shook his head once, as if angry at the tears threatening to fall behind the helmet.
“You stubborn, beautiful idiot.”
Behind him, the medical team lingered at the door, voices low.
One of the surgeons leaned in, quietly muttering to the lead.
“The scan. The... pregnancy markers are definitive.”
“I know,” she replied softly, glancing toward the closed door. “But now’s not the time.”
“We should tell him.”
“We tell him now, and it’ll destroy him if Luke doesn’t make it through bacta,” she said firmly. “He’s barely holding together as it is. Let him have focus. Let him hope.”
The other medic nodded reluctantly.
They walked away in silence, leaving that truth behind—sealed for now, buried under the weight of war and love and survival.
The bacta suite was kept quiet. Sterile, temperature-controlled, sealed against the noise of the world. It smelled faintly of saline and sterilizer—clean, clinical, but not cold.
Luke floated in the centre of the tank, suspended in thick, translucent blue. Tubes fed oxygen into the mask that covered the lower half of his face, and sensors lined his chest, wrists, and temples. His wounds were already dulling beneath the regenerative solution, edges closing with every hour that passed.
But he was still.
Motionless.
Din stood outside the tank, visor trained on him, unmoving as the hours passed. He hadn’t left. Not once.
The medics had tried to coax him away. Told him they’d send word if anything changed. He said nothing, just stayed there. Quiet. A sentinel. A husband. A king who had almost lost everything.
Sometimes, his hand rested on the glass.
Other times, it curled into a fist at his side.
Leia stood beside him now, arms folded, her presence calm but heavy. She watched Luke too, but every now and then, she glanced at Din—how still he was. Like if he let himself shift even an inch, he might shatter.
“He’s strong,” she said gently. “You know that.”
Din’s voice, modulated and low, responded:
“I do, but this is different.”
Leia’s jaw tightened just slightly. She knew what he meant. She remembered Vader’s bacta tank. She remembered the days Luke had been more spirit than body after Exegol. But this—this was different.
More vulnerable. More human.
And he’d been carrying something else onto that battlefield, even if he didn’t know it yet.
Inside the tank, Luke drifted somewhere deep—beneath pain, beneath memory, where the Force was not a storm, but a tide.
And just like before, he felt it.
That flicker.
Stronger now. Not loud, not even distinct, but present. Real. Safe.
His body didn’t move. But his mind curled toward it like instinct. Like love. As if his soul already recognized something he hadn’t had time to name.
Outside the tank, a soft tone chimed from the console.
The lead medic approached Din.
“His vitals are improving,” she said. “We estimate another twelve hours, and he’ll be ready to come out. He’s stable. The tank’s doing what it’s meant to.”
Din didn’t move right away. But after a pause, he nodded once.
“Tell me the moment he opens his eyes.”
“I will.”
Dim lights glowed along the edges of the medbay ceiling, casting soft shadows on the walls. The air was cool, sterile, tinged with the sharp scent of bacta and antiseptics. Monitors beeped in a slow, steady rhythm. Machines hummed softly in the background.
Luke’s eyes fluttered open.
At first, everything was a blur—shapes, light, color without meaning. Then came the sharp pull of sensation: stiffness, a deep ache in his chest, his leg, a throbbing heaviness down his side. He tried to take a breath and winced at the tightness—not pain, exactly, but sore and raw, like a wound trying to forget it existed.
“—He’s waking,” someone said nearby. “Luke? Can you hear me?”
He blinked again, the blur focusing into two medics in clean white and blue uniforms standing at his bedside, tablets in hand, concern written across their faces.
Luke nodded, just barely. His voice came out hoarse.
“…Hurts.”
“Expected,” the lead medic said gently, stepping closer. “You’ve been unconscious for nearly two days. You had extensive internal injuries— spent the last day in a bacta tank.”
Luke closed his eyes for a second, letting it settle. The memories came slowly, as if drawn from underwater: Veris Kryze. The duel. The explosion. Din’s voice. The Falcon.
And…
Something else.
That flicker.
“…Din?” he rasped.
“He’s safe,” the other medic said quickly. “hasn’t left the ship. Just… stepped out to debrief. We’ll call him soon.”
Luke exhaled softly, tension bleeding out of his body. Relief, sharp and warm, flooded through him even as exhaustion still tugged at every muscle.
Then, the lead medic hesitated.
“There’s… something else.”
Luke turned his head slightly toward her, the stiffness in his neck creaking like old metal.
“We scanned you during triage,” she said carefully. “Standard full-body diagnostics. We weren’t looking for anything unusual, but… the readings were clear.”
She paused, searching his face for any sign of awareness.
“You’re pregnant.”
Silence.
Luke blinked.
His body was frozen—but his mind wasn’t. The flicker. The warmth. That presence he’d felt in the Force before everything went black. It hadn’t been a hallucination.
“…I know,” he whispered.
The medics looked at each other, surprised. The second one took a small step closer.
“We didn’t inform his Majesty yet” she added softly. “Given how critical your condition was, we thought it best to wait until you… woke. Until we could speak with you first.”
Luke nodded slowly, lips parting, stunned but steady. “Thank you.”
“Do you remember when it might have happened?”
Luke let his head fall back against the pillow and gave a breath of something between a laugh and a sigh.
“We’ve… have been trying,” he said quietly, “is the baby ok?” Din had asked him not to go, but he had been so sure, now he could have harmed their child.
The medic nodded, “absolutely perfect, you got a tough one in there.”
The door to the medbay slid open with a soft hiss.
Din stepped in.
He was still in partial armor—chest plate removed, gauntlets tucked under one arm, flight cape slung back. He looked… tired. Like he hadn’t slept in two days. Like he’d been standing, waiting, guarding this door from the galaxy itself.
His gaze locked onto Luke the instant he entered.
The medics straightened at the sight of him. One of them smiled, the other gave a nod, then turned back to Luke.
“You’re stable,” she said gently. “But still recovering. Short visits only.” She looked to Din. “He needs rest.”
Din gave the smallest nod.
The medics backed away, exchanging one last glance, then stepped through the sliding doors and left them alone.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Din crossed the space in just a few slow steps. He stopped at the side of the bed, looking down at Luke like he couldn’t believe he was actually seeing him awake. The dim lights caught the edges of his armor, the faint scratches along the chest strap. His voice was quiet when it came.
“…You scared me.”
Luke met his gaze, voice just above a whisper.
“I’m sorry.”
Din sank onto the edge of the bed, close but careful. He didn’t touch him yet—like he was afraid it might hurt him. Or that it still wasn’t real.
Luke studied his face a moment—tired, open, that emotion buried just beneath the surface of the beskar he’d left behind.
“I didn’t think I’d make it,” he said softly. “On the field… after the explosion. It was like everything was shutting down.”
Din clenched his jaw. “You should’ve stayed behind.”
“I know,” Luke interrupted, and his voice cracked just a little. “But I couldn’t leave you. I couldn’t let you go into battle without me. I’m not just a Jedi, Din. I’m yours. I want to be there for Mandalore.”
Din looked down, finally taking his hand, carefully lacing their fingers together. “You nearly died.”
Luke’s eyes shimmered faintly. “Yeah I know that to,” he said again.
There was silence. Deep and full. Now was as good a time as any to tell Din.
Then Luke took a small breath, reached with his free hand, and laid it gently over his stomach.
“I didn’t know,” he whispered. “I swear, I didn’t know before the battle.”
Din stilled.
“Didn’t know what?”
Luke looked at him, vulnerable now, and slightly afraid, his husband loved him, but he was his Alpha, and even the most loving ones got angry when it came to their Omegas and their children. “The medics scanned me. While I was unconscious. I’m… I’m pregnant.”
The word hung between them like a slow sunrise.
Din’s brow furrowed, searching his face for a lie, had he known. No, Luke wasn’t capable of lying t him about this. Not now. Not with his hand curled over the soft curve of his abdomen, not with that look in his eyes.
“I didn’t feel it,” Luke continued, a little breathless. “Not until I was half-conscious on the Falcon. Just for a moment. A flicker. And then… I knew.”
Din swallowed hard, his fingers tightening around Luke’s.
He didn’t say anything at first. Just stared at him, breathing slow and deep, emotion rippling beneath the surface like a wave just shy of breaking.
Then, softly:
“…you have our child within you?”
Luke nodded, eyes never leaving his.
“I do, please don’t be angry I swear I didn’t know.”
Din exhaled shakily. A sound caught in his throat—half a laugh, half something else entirely—and he leaned forward, forehead gently resting against Luke’s temple, “How in the Galaxy could I be angry? This is the best news, everything we had hoped for.”
Luke smiled and curled in closer to his husband, Alpha and protector.
“But,” said Din, pulling back and looking Luke in the eyes.
“But?” asked Luke.
“Can you please do me one thing, to mostly save my sanity, but also to protect our child?”
“Go on,” said Luke.
“Please, for once, just be an Omega. At least for the next year. No more fighting, no more missions, none of it.”
Luke grinned and looked at his husband, “you want me to just stay at home, get fat and grow our baby?”
“Yeah, can you agree to that on your own or do I need to pull rank,” Din said smiling.
“I think I can do that,” agreed Luke, moving back into his Alphas arms.
They stayed like that.
Quiet. Close. Just the two of them, sharing the weight of a new beginning—fragile, but whole.