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Poe Dameron-Hux squeezed his husband’s hand. The free one, not the one crushing an empty paper cup and dribbling lukewarm coffee down his pale knuckles. “Are you okay, Mr. Dameron-Hux?”
“I’m wonderful, Mr. Dameron-Hux.” Armitage spoke in a clipped tone. His expression remained tense and pinched, and Poe sagged. Addressing each other by their surnames, their terms of endearment, usually lightened an otherwise gray mood. It should have worked on a day determined to end as one of the three happiest in Poe’s life.
There was the day he met Armitage, standing outside Poe’s classroom on the first day of Han Solo-Hux’s fourth-grade year. It marked the beginning of a lengthy but passionate courtship that almost resulted in Poe’s dismissal from his teaching position. Thankfully, clear heads and love prevailed. Poe kept his job, and his man.
Second chronologically, but not necessarily in order of preference, there was the day he and Armitage married. They opted for a small ceremony in the courtroom of a judge with whom attorney Armitage was closely acquainted. Standing up for the grooms were young Han and Poe’s colleague from Cloud City Academy, Finn. After the vow exchange and the longest kiss witnessed in said courtroom, their select guests came forward to congratulate them: Finn’s wife Rose, Armitage’s first husband Ben, his wife Rey, their twin girls, and Ben’s parents.
A family wedding. Mainly Armitage’s ex’s family, all of whom became Poe’s through Ben and Armitage’s shared custody of Han, a child born to them through a surrogate. Rey. Now Mrs. Ben Solo, and now their surrogate.
Which brought everybody to today, Day Three, the throes of Rey’s labor and the coming blessed event.
Poe and Armitage waited in matching wingback chairs in the elegantly appointed lounge of the birthing center. It resembled the lobby of a boutique hotel, awash in dark reds and greens with contemporary art on the walls. Floor plants in every corner, light jazz piped in through speakers. Every three minutes the office manager checked in on them and offered espresso. When Armitage asked for a Valium instead, Poe smacked his shoulder.
“Isn’t this a medical facility?” Armitage asked. “There ought to be drugs.”
“It’s a birthing center, and from what the website read they specialize in natural childbirth procedures,” Poe said. Rey insisted they come here. It was where she delivered her twin girls, and she swore by the staff and environment. Poe figured Rey knew better, though Armitage had balked at Rey forgoing an actual hospital.
“How do people not mistake this place for a bed and breakfast?” he asked during the tour.
“The stirrups attached to the beds, for one,” came a crisp reply from the nurse. Poe had a quip about his favorite kink at the ready, but kept his mouth shut.
Nine months later, Poe saw easily how Armitage still hated their surroundings. Armitage refused to thumb through an expired magazine, or play his infinite Wordle app. He stared at the opposite wall in a no-blink contest he appeared to be winning.
“Mr. Hux, you’re freaking me out.” Poe still gripped his husband’s hand. Warm skin, and a pulse. Thank kriff.
Armitage didn’t turn to face him. “What if she doesn’t like me?”
“Who, Mrs. Johnson?” Rey’s birthing coach was a nice enough lady. Dressed like a hippie and smelled of patchouli. Armitage theorized the stench was meant to disguise any hint of weed consumption, a crack the woman overheard during the tour. Poe didn’t miss how Mrs. Johnson shook her black crystal bracelet in Armitage’s direction after every appointment, as though warding off evil spirits.
The question earned Poe a hard glare, and Armitage yanked back his hand. Poe understood. “She will love you, and will always look up to you,” he said. “You are her father.”
Poe then braced himself for the inevitable counterpoint. Biologically, the child about to debut was Poe’s. Armitage voluntarily refrained from siring children due to his health history, being a carrier for cystic fibrosis. Despite his healthy and loving relationship with young Han, biologically Ben’s son, Armitage occasionally took on a faraway look when involved with their extended family. Maybe the Solos noticed, maybe not, but those moments of wistful longing rarely eluded Poe.
“It’s different with girls, though, isn’t it?” Armitage asked, his voice soft. “Fathers and daughters have a unique relationship. I see it with Ben and his girls. I don’t want to keep using the word different, but it’s appropriate.”
“I hear you.” Poe put his hands in his lap. He knew. The Solos and the Dameron-Huxes shared a duplex townhome to keep Han close to all his parents. The families crossed paths constantly, and Poe watched Ben with young Leia and Ami. He spoke softly around them, almost genteel, and exhibited more patience around them than anyone else. Of course, a substantial age gap existed between Han and his sisters, so perhaps Ben acknowledged the need to play gentle giant with them.
“You have the advantage, though,” Poe reminded Armitage. “You’ve been a father for over a decade, and you’re great with kids even if you don’t personally see it.”
Armitage huffed out a laugh. “Poe, you teach elementary children. No school would have you if you couldn’t relate to young people.”
“A teacher is not a parent. Well, unless that teacher has kids, then they’re parents at home,” Poe said. “Unless, of course, their kids attend the same school where they work, and chances are those teachers might end up teaching their own kids…”
Now Armitage turned to look at him, with an expression of pure befuddlement.
“The point is,” Poe continued, but stopped. Hell if he knew what he wanted to say right now. Rey and Ben were in their birthing suite taking care of all the heavy lifting. “Armitage, everything will be fine.”
“You’re shouting,” Armitage said.
Poe checked his voice. “I’m nervous, too. And it’s not like we’re in a library.”
“I’d almost rather Rey have the baby in a library.” Armitage picked up a year-old People with a celebrity wedding on the cover. “Their periodical selection is current, at least. This couple is divorced now.”
Not the best joke, but Poe appreciated the boost in levity. As he thought of a retort to keep the momentum going, the coach’s nurse assistant poked her head into the waiting room and invited both men to join her. “Somebody wants to meet you,” she said, grinning.
They clasped hands again; Armitage required it to get to his feet without stumbling. They followed the laughter and enthusiastic chatter filtering out from an open door in the short hallway. Rey sat upright in an adjustable birthing bed, covered from the waist down, her hair matted with sweat. She heaved deep breaths as though finishing a marathon–a fair comparison, Poe thought, considering the long labor–yet her face radiated an exhausted joy.
Armitage shielded a view for a moment, owing to the wide open state of Rey’s gown. She held their naked, flushed and squalling infant against her skin, protecting the little girls’ head with her palm as she kissed the downy threads on the baby’s scalp. Poe stepped forward but Ben intercepted them, not necessarily to guard his wife’s virtue but to grab the new fathers in a dual bear hug.
“You guys, she is absolutely beautiful,” Ben told them before breaking free.
Poe slid his arm around his husband’s waist and kissed his cheek. “She takes after you, then.”
~*~
The new fathers were shown to a corner of the room with a plush sofa and a privacy screen. This allowed Rey to rest a bit and give Poe and Armitage some space to meet their daughter. Prior to that, both men shared the responsibility of cutting the cord.
The coach and her assistant cleaned the baby and delivered her into Poe’s arms. She continued to squawk but not as loudly as when she entered the world. Poe stroked her forehead where her brow met the tiny yellow knit cap covering her head. Words failed him at first–he wanted to speak everything in his head and realized he might come off like a babbling idiot. He decided to let their girl do all the talking for a while.
Eventually Armitage said, “She has your eyes.”
“I hope she has your smarts.”
Armitage laughed. “I hope she’s smarter, enough for scholarships,” he said. “I paid back loans for years.”
“Would you like to hold your daughter?” Poe nudged their little bundle toward him, panging a bit when Armitage reacted with hesitation. Surely it hadn’t been like this when Han was born. “She’s yours, too, Armitage.”
“Yes, she is.” The moment Poe slid her into his husband’s arms, a calm settled over them. The baby quieted down to a long, urgent moan and looked up at her parents with wide, liquid eyes. Her tiny mouth pursed and her head shook as though bottling in a big secret. Perhaps it might come out the other end–both men were prepared for that.
“Look at that,” Poe whispered, lifting her hand with his forefinger, “she stopped crying the second you took her.”
“I suppose I have that effect on people.”
Poe bussed his cheek. “Not with me. This means you can take the two A.M. feedings to start.”
Armitage ignored that. “Have we decided on a name?” They’d narrowed it down to twenty, all of which paired with Rey as the middle name. “I’m partial to your mother’s.”
Poe thought his late mother would have loved that, but a different name stood out in his mind. “I was thinking we name her after you.”
“You would do that to an innocent child?” Armitage cut him a derisive glance. “It’s bad enough I had it done to me.”
Poe put his arms around Armitage. “Ginger Rey Dameron-Hux.”
They let the name sink in for a few seconds. Their daughter squirmed a bit and let out a noise one might interpret as happy. “You hear that?” Poe asked. “That ought to count as a vote.”
Armitage nodded, and smiled. “Already she’s taking charge,” he said. “It’s going to be an interesting rest of our lives, isn’t it?”
Poe agreed. He couldn’t wait.