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Cut remembers tending to his decanted brothers when he was still just a cadet. The way the batches of babies (five of them, as the rule stated) were pushed around on carts by the kaminoans into the room where they’d be fed and put to sleep.
They’d be still slick with bacta and fluids, all tiny and crying with all the strength of their little lungs.
The walls and the light were white and sterile, and the closest thing to parental love they would get would be the way their brothers - young cadets old enough to take care of the youngest ones and the few defective troopers like 99 - would tend to them.
“Love?” Suu calls, sweat dripping down her forehead and lekku; her voice is shaking “Please, I’m… I’m scared…!”
The twi'lek is lying on their bed, wearing only her nightgown pulled up just below her chest, the baby in her womb feeling too big, like it could tear her open. Cut places a cool cloth over Suu’s forehead. She screams in pain again. It’s been hours, and it seems be to be only getting more and more painful.
“Don’t worry, my love.” he says in a gentle voice “Everything will be okay.”
He can’t let her know he’s just as scared.
Cut checks again if everything’s ready. There are several towels under Suu, many clothes to wrap the baby in so they’ll be warm, his medkit is there too, and…
Suu grabs his arm, letting out another scream. Her eyes are brimming with tears.
“Why hasn’t the doctor arrived yet?!”
Cut pats her hand tensely. He had done everything he could to stay off the radar but when his wife had her first contraction he couldn't give less of a damn if he would be found by the Republic - he looked for a doctor, any doctor but there was only one in the nearby village and she was tending to people in another village far from there. The villagers did promise call him as soon as she'd return, and Cut had no choice but to wait in his home, holding his wife's hand.
“Can’t you hold on a little longer?”
Suu shakes her head, sobbing.
“I’m feeling weak. I don’t… please, help me, love…”
Cut stares at Suu, each sob from her breaking his heart. He wordlessly walks up to their bathroom to thoroughly wash his hands; he then walks around the bed and sits on his haunches close to her parted legs, raising his eyes to his wife.
“We can do this. You and I, we can do this together, Suu.”
Time seem to slow down as he make sure to prep everything around them to help Suu birth their child. He tries to remember everything from his teachings back in kamino, grimacing; he wish he had been a medic back in the day. That would certainly be handy now.
But he knew how to stop a bad bleeding, and he knew a battlefield's first aid. He hopes it will be enough, and he looks back at Suu. Her belly is so big… how in the moons will he get that baby out of her? Could he end up losing Suu? The baby? Both?
He would rather die a thousand times.
He swallows down tensely. Suu screams again. And again. Cut draws in a breath. This is just like before. Just like leaning over an injured brother and keeping him awake while the medic does his best to save him.
He tries not to think of the corpses scattered in the battlefield. Of the enemy killing off the wounded.
“Okay, love, I need you to slow down your breathing, okay? You’re hyperventilating. C'mon, breathe with me…” and he drew a deep breath
Suu tried to breath with him, she did. But another contraction made her scream and she started to cry in despair.
“I can’t… Cut, I’m gonna die!..”
“Hey. Hey! You are not gonna die. Focus on me. C'mon. Breathe.”
He sounded just like he used to be in his squad. Chin up, brother. The fight is not over. Let’s give hell to those clankers.
Cut still doesn’t quite understand it. It was all in a blur. Suu’s screams, her pained sobbing. His encouraging words for her to push, to keep breathing, and then the sight of a little head, of tiny little eyes closed shut.
Then more screaming from Suu's, her begging for it all to be over, and Cut easing the baby out, the little being covered in blood so tiny he couldn’t believe it.
Suu collapsing on the pillows, taking gulps of air and the cries-
The baby's tiny, broken cries.
Cut cleans most of the blood off them with a soft cloth and the baby grabs his thumb with their little hand. Cut gasps, eyes brimming with tears as he wraps the baby in many layers of clothing making sure they were warm. The baby still cries weakly, and he carefully shifts to sit by Suu’s side to show her their baby.
“Hey…” his voice is raspy, choked out “hey look. Everything’s okay.”
Suu reaches a hand to hold the baby along with Cut. Her face still wet with sweat and tears has the most beautiful smile he had ever seen. The baby squirms and opens their eyes, looking at their mother and father.
That’s right… I’m a father now, Cut thinks, still in a daze. I'm... someone's buir.
“Our little one is just perfect!” Suu whispers
“Yeah… just perfect.”
Cut was born in a cold room and tossed around like a tool by people that never cared for him. He was glad he could make sure his child was welcomed into the world and born in their own home, surrounded by love.