An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 9/?
Fandom: Star Wars: Rebels
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla
Characters: Hera Syndulla, C1-10P | Chopper, Original Characters, Kanan Jarrus, Ezra Bridger, Sabine Wren, Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios, Alexsandr Kallus, CT-7567 | Rex, Mart Mattin, Wedge Antilles, Ketsu Onyo
Additional Tags: Pregnancy, vague mentions of abortion, future character death in the background, Season/Series 04, Established Relationship, Oral Sex, Chair Sex, Table Sex, sex during pregnancy, chapter 2 has lots of sex, Secrets, the best pilot in the galaxy, flying combat, character injury, canon torture, flight of the defender, rebel assault, Jedi Night, Major character death - Freeform, Grief, Morning Sickness, Counseling, Masturbation, Dreams, Traditions, Space family, Inappropriate bets, Lothal, Shopping, down time, Space Combat, Battle of Scarif, Rogue One - Freeform, hammerhead corvette!, Yavin 4, Stardust - Freeform, Alderaan, Death Star
Summary:
She read. “Ketsu! Zeb! Get in here!”
“What is it? Is—?”
“Alderaan,” Hera cut Zeb off. “It’s gone.”PSA: No baby yet.
She wasn’t in labor when they got there. Zeb had looked at her face once she initiated the hyperspace jump and done his prickly panic thing, because it was TEN HOURS TO LOTHAL and what if they didn’t make it in time?! But Hera had rolled her eyes. These weren’t even real contractions; they were rehearsal.
In fact she had visited the med center on Lothal and been sent “home” to the Bridgers’ residence before anything else happened, and even then it wasn’t much. Just a weird...contraction? Her abdomen clenched hard, out of nowhere, at the same time the baby went wild, striking out with what had to be all four limbs. It caught her off-guard and she didn’t muffle the moan very well, so Chop and Zeb and Sabine and even Ketsu all came running. “Nothing,” she told them. “I’m fine.” The sun had set, the night on Lothal clear and full of stars even in the city, but something dark touched her heart.
She showered; they all ate a good meal and went to bed. Everyone else fell asleep. Gravity plus active baby weren’t letting Hera get much sleep these days, so she called up the galactic headlines and scanned through articles, shifting from foot to foot in an effort to get comfortable, Chopper bored next to her. No mention of Scarif, which shouldn’t have surprised her. Jeddha was on the back page at this point. Alderaan —
Sabine heard the sharp cry and must have rocketed out of bed. “What? Is it time? Sit down! You look like you’re going to fall down!” Hera only gestured at the screen.
She read. “Ketsu! Zeb! Get in here!”
“Alderaan,” Hera cut Zeb off. “It’s gone.”
“What do you mean it’s gone? Alderaan, like the planet Alderaan?”
Hera nodded.
“We’re not talking about somebody’s pet lothcat here? Because I don’t see how you can misplace an entire pla — ”
“It’s GONE!” Sabine shouted. “Not lost. Destroyed, blown out of orbit, and you KNOW how it happened if you’d stop and THINK for a second.” She was angry crying now, but the loss was so great that Hera could only feel numb.
“Initial reports are confused,” she said woodenly.
Sabine sniffed. “Yeah, well, we’re not confused.”
Chopper thought they should have stopped that thing when they had a chance.
“Shut up,” Sabine told him rudely. “We didn’t have a chance.”
“I’m just glad you got yourselves back here alive.” Ketsu’s face also looked like thunder, but she knew better than to touch Sabine right now.
“Stardust,” Hera mumbled. It was a morbid name.
Zeb plunked onto a stool next to them and they mostly sat in stunned silence, occasionally reading and commenting as new reports came in.
Hera had pulled herself together enough to begin a note of consolation to Bail Organa — except she hadn’t begun it, she didn’t have a clue what she could possibly say — when an even more terrible thought occurred to her. Bail.
“Was Senator Organa on Alderaan? What about his family?”
“No reports on survivors yet,” Zeb said.
Rebel Command was busy, but Rex sent them back a personal note: Bail Organa and family confirmed on planet, all dead.
Ketsu made caf and Hera let herself have a cup.
By sunrise she’d admitted that she was, in fact, in labor, though she didn’t tell the others right away, because they were getting a bit...jumpy. And then nothing much happened for a long time. And even then it was only Zeb and Sabine pestering her to go to the med center every time she ground her teeth on a contraction, while Chopper insisted that she could do what she wanted and Ketsu made an amazing looking breakfast and wisely stayed out of it. Hera reassured them and did the dishes, because the alternative was writing reports and nobody really cared about those reports now.
When the contractions were coming four minutes apart and none too gentle, she agreed to go to the med center. She even let Sabine drive so as to avoid the argument. With Sabine at the wheel and the air on her face, she looked up at the cloudless blue sky and thought, “Nothing is ever going to be the same again.” It wasn’t a good sentiment or a bad one, though it could be frightening if she let it. So she changed tacks and thought of this whole thing like flying into battle, instead: Here we go again.
