"Only in the darkness can you see stars."
-
It has been six years since Ben Solo succumbed to his fate and betrayed the Jedi Order after being seduced by the Dark Side. With the aid of his immense power, the First Order has cast a shadow over the g...
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Several Months Later
"I can still help with recruiting, Leia," I groan, following her into the command bridge of our starship. She halts and turns on her heel, only to look pointedly at my round, swollen belly. She glances back to my face and raises her eyebrows. My cheeks warm.
"Absolutely not. I won't risk it," she denies, for the 4th time today, and the 23rd time this week. She moves to continue her path out of the ship. I scowl and thrust my hand out to her shoulder, willing her to turn back around.
"It's different this time, Leia. You know how important it is to me," I plead, feeling a burst of triumph when her face softens. "This planet, I need to see. If you'll let me come this one time, I won't ask again. I promise."
When I first found out, I was absolutely petrified to tell Leia, to tell anyone, that I was carrying her grandchild. But when I'd finally mustered the courage, admittedly one of the harder acts of bravery I'd ever committed in my life as a Jedi, it had all been worth it. I'd never seen her smile so much or so beautifully in all the time that I'd known her.
Leia grabs my hand and squeezes. Understanding clouds her features.
"You can come. But you have to stay right at my side the whole time, under heavy security," she relents, sighing. Her gaze flits down to my swollen belly again.
I'm not due for another month, but as soon as I began to show, Leia refused to allow me to accompany them on any missions. Even the non-dangerous ones. Due to my itch for adventure and love for combat, these last few months cooped up on the starship as my abdomen safely grew have felt the longest in all my years.
Longer even than the time I had spent cooped up on a certain enemy starship, denying the feelings I still harbored for the one person who had turned every one of my hopes on their heads- and squandered them.
The small, quick heartbeat that took over the spot in the back of my mind where his used to reside seems to thump louder in response to my thoughts of him. I stifle a smile.
As someone who had trained to become a Jedi, I had always expected to never get to experience this beautiful part of life. For that reason, I refused to admit to myself just how much I had actually come to desire it. And though he had broken and destroyed me in so many other ways, some that would probably never be fixed, I could at least thank Kylo Ren and the stars for this one blessing he had been able to give me.
"I'll get my things," I say to Leia. An excited grin already splits my face, despite the feeling of the Force heating around me, as if in warning or sense of foreboding.
-
A soft breeze blows my short, once-again-natural brown curls from my face as we enter a market deep in Hanna City, the capital city of the planet Chandrila.
The same planet where Leia bore her son and raised him, with Han, until he was shipped off to become a Jedi.
Marco is a close and comforting presence at my side, well aware of everything I'm feeling as I take in my soul mate's birthplace and home planet for the very first time. He's the "bodyguard" Leia assigned to me for the recruiting mission, though I'm sure nothing in the galaxy would have kept him from my side even if she hadn't.
