Nu Kyr'adyc, Shi Taab'echaaj'la

Chapter 3 - Eyayah

Author's Note: There are some... revelations in this chapter. ;)

~ Amina Gila

"I – what?" Anika splutters, staring wide-eyed at Kix. "That's not possible. Are you certain?"

He looks amused. And also annoyed. "General, I wouldn't have told you if I wasn't one hundred percent certain. You are pregnant."

She looks down at herself, as if she could somehow see the child growing in her womb. Which is stupid, because it can't have been there for long, or she would have sensed it. As it is, the only reason she came to Kix in the first place was because she felt... weird. She felt something off about herself in the Force, and she went to him, just in case there was something there that she wasn't noticing.

And that is how she ended up with the most unexpected news she could ever have gotten.

Pregnant.

Pregnant.

With Fives' child.

Force.

It was what they dreamed of, having children, but the timing is less than ideal, especially with the start of the Outer Rim Sieges. But it means that there's still something left of Fives, that he's not totally gone. He lives on in his child, too, a child he'll never get to meet.

She feels a flare of grief and pain at that, just as sharp as on the day she held Fives in her arms as he died. He should have been here. He deserved to be here.

Even after half a month, she still... she can't quite wrap her mind around the fact that he's really gone. Some days, it doesn't seem real. Some days, she almost forgets when she wakes up until reality returns. But some days, she wakes up, almost crying, longing for the other half of her who she'll never see again.

Anika reaches up, fingering the necklace around her neck absently. "How far along?"

"I know very little about human reproduction," Kix answers matter-of-factly, "But if I had to guess, I would say a little over a month."

... Oh.

That would probably have been shortly after Ahsoka... left.

It... would make sense. She and Fives had grieved when Ahsoka left – her, Fives, and Rex all had. They'd spent some time together, time with just the two of them. Maybe they should have been more careful, but Anika doesn't really care. She can't regret it, even if the timing isn't good. She could never regret having a child with Fives.

(She had grieved for the loss of their dream almost as much as Fives himself. The hope that she could be a mother to a child of her own had been dear to her, and realizing that it could never happen, since she could never replace Fives with anyone, had been gutting.

She had wanted it, a life outside of everything else. She'd wanted to be a mother, to raise a child. She'd wanted to stay at home, to care for a house they built for themselves, tending to a garden, maybe, cooking meals for them. Maybe it just reminded her of her own mother, of the closeness and life they had on Tatooine, because no matter how hard it had been to be slaves, they'd still had each other.

Anika wanted that with Fives, to have a life where they could just have each other and be content with something... simple. She wanted it more than she could ever say and knowing that they would never have their own house, that she would never raise their children, teach them to walk, to talk, to – to be good people, it had hurt.)

She chews on her lower lip nervously. "How long do I have before I start showing?"

Kix frowns. "I'm not sure. A couple months, max, I would say." That probably makes sense, but it's not like she knows, either, exactly. All she does know is that she has six months to figure something out and get her life in order, because when the baby is born six months from now, she'll be expelled from the Order.