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“I have decided that we should get married,” Merrin declares, lounging in their bed like a starfish while Cal finishes brushing his teeth. She speaks like she’s already dreaming, half-awake and wrapped in his blanket, covering both sides of the bed with her sprawl. “And we should start having babies. I want ten of them. Five girls and five boys. The girls we will raise as Nightsisters; the boys will be Jedi. It is only fair.”
A lesser man might’ve been shocked, dropped something, or made a fool of himself somehow at the topic of marriage and children with their girlfriend; Cal instead spits out his toothpaste, the only sign he hears her being the red flush crawling up his neck and his cheeks. “Sounds fair to me,” he says. “Though some might say we’re moving too fast.” He rinses his toothbrush and sets it in the cup beside hers.
She blinks at him. “How are we moving too fast?”
“We’ve only been dating a couple of months,” he reminds her, gesturing for her to move so that he can crawl into bed with her. “Most people date for longer before they start having children.”
Not to mention the time they’ve been together has been– tumultuous . Making Tanalorr a civilized world for the Hidden Path has not been an easy road so far. And that is not counting the heightened emotions he’s still recovering from with Bode’s betrayal and Cere’s death.
“Bah,” she scoffs at him as she rolls over so he can get into bed beside her. “I have been in love with you for five years. If anything, we are moving too slow.”
He gestures for BD-1 to shut off, and pauses before he turns the light to their bedroom off. “Wait, what?”
Merrin laughs at him. “Cal Kestis. You would not be in my bed if I did not love you.”
Their bed, but fine. He leans over and gives her a quick kiss. “I love you, too,” he tells her. And then his brain catches up. “Five years?”
She smiles at him, white teeth sharp as she kisses him again. “I have been in love with you since you held my hand on Dathomir and told me I did not have to be alone anymore,” she gives him another kiss, this one playful. When she pulls away from the kiss, she stares at his wide eyes in disbelief. “Oh, do not act as if you did not know! I was obvious .”
“You were not ,” he flushes pink. Her favorite color on him. “Merrin, most people tell people they love them.”
“Now you are being ridiculous. I suppose you think I should tell Kata and Greez I love them, too, huh? They know.”
“That’s different,” he rolls over so that he is on top of her. “And yes, you should still tell them you love them.”
She blinks up at him. “You are serious.”
“People like to hear those words, Merrin, even if they are implied,” he kisses her naked shoulder, playfully chasing the gray line tattooed on her body. He does stop, though, and looks at her curiously. “Since Dathomir, though, really?”
She runs her fingers through his hair. “I knew if I left the planet with you, it would be the end of me,” she says, her voice a little sad. “You handed me your lightsaber–your weapon, your life, the key to ending you, and I knew you were my future,” she kisses him, soft and gentle. “It would cement my fate as the last Nightsister, chasing her heart across the galaxy, hoping only that he might one day return her feelings.”
“ Merrin –”
“Besides,” she pulls him closer to her. “That is why I want babies. So I will no longer be the last Nightsister.”
He kisses her collarbone as he considers her words, drinking in her words and settling in for the silence of the night. “Babies are a lot of work,” he says, his voice full of contemplation. It’s not an unappealing thought; he imagines her as she is now, ready for bed beside him, but with her belly swollen and full with a life they created together. The thought stirs in him, lingers in its pleasure.
“You don’t like the idea,” Merrin accuses.
“I didn’t say that,” he frowns at her, pressing his nose against hers. “I just worry about the surprise child we already have, and adding more to the mix.”
Kata. The unexpected–but already loved–newest addition to their strange little family. He has no idea what to do with her. Train her , Cere’s ghost had whispered to him in the Force, but some things were easier said than done. How did one even train a seven year old? When he was her age, he was still in the creche.
“Kata would love being a big sister,” Merrin pulls him close, so that his head rests on her chest and she can run hands through his hair some more. “And you cannot tell me that Greez would not be ecstatic about being a grandfather,” she kisses him on the forehead, taking a moment to brush his hair–it has started to get long–out of his face. “I hope all of our babies have your red hair.”
He thinks, but doesn’t say, that Cere probably would have loved to have been a grandmother or an aunt to their children, too, and will never get the chance, now.
Instead, he holds her close, and breathes in the scene of her hair. “I like your hair.”
He likes her everything, if he’s being honest. He imagines, for a moment, a little girl with her silver hair and his green eyes, and he finds he loves her so much , this little thought in the Force, before she disappears.
They lay together in silence for a little while; Merrin thinks he might be falling asleep. Then: “Ten kids, though? Really? ”
“Maybe twelve,” she says coyly, running her leg against his. “Repopulating two different orders takes a lot of babies.”
He laughs at her, like maybe she is being a little ridiculous, but he loves her too much to care. “I think you are underestimating how difficult it is to raise children.”
“You are right,” she confesses. She imagines a dozen little red haired terrors, all swarming her, asking too many questions and needing things. “We will need slaves.”
“ No. ”
“Why not?”
“Slavery is bad , Merrin,” he says, as though she should know better.
He is stubborn about the strangest things. A difference in how they were raised, she thinks. “Droids, then,” she compromises, knowing how much he loves BD-1.
“They do make nanny droids,” he concedes, yawning as he snuggles her. “But we gotta treat them like family. Not like–not like property.”
They already treat BD-1 like a favorite Loth-cat. Treating a nanny droid kindly will be easy.
“So it’s settled, then,” she rolls over onto her side so that Cal can be the big spoon. It’s how it always is: they’ll go to bed with Cal holding her and she’ll wake up holding him instead–assuming he isn’t already out of bed before her, at least. “We’ll get married soon. And start having children.”
He leans upward, resting on his elbow so that he can look down at her. “I’ll tell you what,” he says. “We finish getting things set up on Tanalorr—working water, shelter, those basic necessities–and then we’ll get married.”
Maybe they can get married on Koboh, at the saloon with all of their friends. Doma can officiate; maybe Pili can grow some Dathomirian flowers for the occasion. Most of their friends have left due to the Imperial presence there but maybe they can be convinced to come by for a visit. Or maybe Tanalorr will be safer then. It’s hard to say.
“And our babies?”
“I don’t think you are going to like being pregnant as much as you think.”
“It will be worth it,” she assures him, squeezing his hand, and he finds that he believes her. The thought of being a mother certainly isn’t as terrifying of a thought for her as being a father is for him.
She is quiet for a moment, reaching out into the heart of the planet. “You are nervous.”
His nerves must be radiating in the Force. He thought he was hiding it better than that. “The Empire is still out there,” he says softly, holding her close. “I don’t want–I don’t want our babies to end up as Inquisitors. And I don’t want them to be pawns in this endless war.”
She takes his hand in hers, and kisses the back of his hand. “Then we simply won’t let that happen.”
It feels a bit naive. He sighs dramatically. “I didn’t want Cere to die, either. Or for Bode to betray us. Or–”
“You can’t worry like that,” Merrin assures him. “Bad things happen all the time. It does not mean happiness is not worth pursuing. What was it Cere used to say? We cannot control other people, only ourselves?”
That wasn’t what Cere used to say, but the sentiment is the same. Close enough. “I’ll try,” he assures her.
Bode’s fear of what might happen to Kata is what drove him to the dark side, Cal doesn’t say. There is a reason attachment was forbidden in the Jedi order. He loves Merrin, but Cal doesn’t want to lose her to the dark side. He can’t allow that to happen–not to him, not to Merrin, not to their–hypothetically, many–children.
All he’s done is fight for so long.
“What if I’m a terrible father?” He whispers, bringing a voice to his insecurity. He knows how to swing a lightsaber better than he does changing a diaper. What if he messes up? What if he drops the baby? What if something happens to Merrin and he has to raise both the baby and Kata alone? He doesn’t do well alone.
“You are already a good father,” Merrin yawns, patting his hand now snug around her waist.
“Am I?” he says, a little hysterical. “I hardly know how to act around Kata at all. Every time I’m around her I feel like all I can say is ‘sorry I murdered your dad in front of you’ but I don’t say that because that makes me sound like a crazy person and it’s not like I wanted to kill Bode and–”
“She still comes to you, when she’s afraid,” Merrin interrupts his spiraling. “And you know her favorite foods, and you thought to get her that plush Loth-cat to replace her Mookie doll,” she turns her head back so she can kiss him. “Your instincts are good, and they will get even better with practice,” she pats his hand again. “I intend for you to get lots of practice.”
He breathes in her hair, taking in the scent of her shampoo. “I suppose you’re right.”
“I always am.”
“Arrogance is unbecoming.”
“Maybe on a Jedi,” she wiggles, and he hates that she’s right. Her confidence is terribly alluring.
They are quiet again, and Merrin has almost fallen asleep when Cal shoots up with a start. “You aren’t pregnant now , are you?”
“What?” She groans, pulled from unconsciousness by his words. It takes her a moment to process them. “Of course not,” she thinks for a moment. She hasn’t had her monthly yet this month, but her cycle has always been a little unpredictable. A side effect of growing up malnourished on Dathomir, the medic had told her when she got her first check up in civilization.
Still, she takes a moment, and mentally pulls up a calendar in her mind, counting back the days.
Thirty-two days since her last. “Maybe?”
“Maybe? ” she did not know Cal’s voice could get so high pitched. “What do you mean, maybe –”
“My cycle is late,” she tells him, pulling him back down so that he is lying flat beside her. “But it often is! It doesn’t necessarily mean I am with child,” she studies Cal for a moment, his wide eyes and the fear panic chaos he projects in the Force.
She should probably take a test tomorrow, though, just in case. She squeezes his hand. “Is it the worst thing, though, if I am?”
Cal steadies his breathing, and looks at her. “No. It’s not, I just,” he breathes in deeply. “I did not consider it a possibility, and then I did,” he lets out a breathless laugh. “It occurred to me suddenly that maybe you were talking about marriage and kids because you were trying to tell me you were pregnant.”
“Oh,” that would have made sense, she supposes. “No, that’s wasn’t what I meant. I mentioned it because that’s what I want in the future, with you, and I wanted to know if you wanted it, too,” she presses a hand against her stomach and tries to sense if there is a life there. It’s impossible to tell. “Or now, maybe.”
“In the future? Definitely,” he kisses her sweetly. “Now? Well, the timing isn’t ideal, but,” he presses his hand against her stomach as well. “I’m not against it, either.”
“In my defense,” she says as she snuggles against him. “The Nightsisters weren’t exactly busy teaching me about contraceptives before they all died, given that I was only twelve.”
Cal smirks against her, holding her close. “The Jedi weren’t either, funnily enough.”
She yawns. “Taught you how to use a lightsaber, but not how to use a condom.”
“Ha ha, yeah, growing up during a war will do that to you. Wait,” he blinks at her. “ Should we be using condoms?”
“No,” Merrin tells him, pulling the blanket up to her neck for warmth. “I want ten babies. Why should we do something to stop that?”
“Oh Force,” Cal rubs his face. “You probably are pregnant.”
The fear and dejection in his voice hurts, a sting like poison in her veins. She rolls over so she can look at him. “You aren’t going to sleep until you know, are you?”
“I will sleep better once I know for sure, yes.”
“It doesn’t change anything.”
“It changes everything ,” Cal says louder than he means to. “We’d have a baby!”
“Wrong,” Merrin yawns, sitting up in bed so that she can start putting clothes on. “I’d have a baby. You could still,” she gestures around the small house they share. “Galavant around the galaxy if you wish.”
He blinks at her, watching as she pulls out a pair of leggings to put on. “You think I’d abandon you?”
“No,” she says, one foot in the leggings followed by another. “But you could ,” she tells him, digging around for a shirt.
He stands up suddenly, and pulls her close to him. “I’d never abandon you. Or our little one.”
She knows that. Logically, she knows that just not the type of person Cal is. But his fear is contagious, and any joy she’s felt at the prospect of possibly being pregnant feels contaminated by his fear. “Let’s just find out for sure, yeah?”
He kisses her forehead, and nods. “I’ll grab Kata,” he says, grabbing a (probably dirty) shirt off of the floor and sliding it on overhead. It’s a good color on him. She likes that shade of blue.
“I can go alone, you know,” she tells him, picking up a black shirt and sliding it on herself. She doesn’t bother with a bra–not for something so small, this late at night. “The pharmacy isn’t far. You won’t have to wake Kata, and–”
He interrupts her with a kiss. “No, I’m going with you. I won’t leave you.”
The reassurance warms her.
In the backseat of the grav-car, Kata yawns, sleepily. “Where are we going?”
“To the pharmacy,” Cal explains, turning back so he can look at their pseudo-daughter. “Merrin’s gotta pick something up, and we can’t leave you at the house alone.”
Outside the grav-car, the frozen desert of Jedha flies by. Merrin prefers to drive most days, so Cal has taken up the passenger’s seat. In between them he holds Merrin’s hand tightly.
Kata looks slightly worried, holding her stuffed loth-cat close to her. “Merrin, are you sick?”
“No, not at all,” she says, glancing in the rearview mirror back at Kata. “I just need to take a test.”
“What for?”
“To find out if I’m going to have a baby or not,” Cal glares at her as Kata gasps. “What?” she asks him, turning her attention back to the road in front of her.
He forgets, sometimes, how brutally honest she can be. “Honey– timing .”
She has never lied to Kata before, and she doesn’t intend to start now, so she doesn’t know what he’s complaining about.
She realizes his concern, however, once it seems as though her comment has woken Kata up completely. “You’re gonna have a baby???” the little girl shrieks with excitement, leaning forwards in the backseat of the grav-car so she can be closer to them.
“Maybe,” Cal says.
“Certainly one day,” Merrin says at the same time. “But we need to know now so that Cal can sleep tonight and not worry about it all night long.”
Cal sighs, and runs the hand that isn’t holding on to Merrin’s hand down his face.
Kata turns her attention to Cal. “Why would you be worried about a baby?”
Cal lets go of her hand so that he can hide his face in his hands. “Because we live dangerous lives, and the Empire is always after us, and things on Tanalorr aren’t fully set up yet, and–” he reaches out and squeezes Merrin’s hand. “Watch out for the spamels.”
“I see them,” they are nowhere near the vehicle. “You worry too much,” she tells her partner as she squeezes his hand.
“They are faster than you think.”
So is life , Merrin thinks, but directs the grav-car further away from the large beasts of burden to ease Cal’s worries.
In the back seat, Kata appears to be thinking quite intently. “If you guys have a baby, will I be the baby’s sister, or her cousin?”
Cal and Merrin share a look, a thousand conversations happening with just their eyes.
“That’s up to you, Kata,” Merrin says finally, looking at Cal to ask is this okay?
“Yeah,” Cal continues. “Would you want to be the baby’s sister?”
Kata kicks her feet up and down, looking out the window to the dark Jedha night. “I don’t know,” Kata says finally. “I’ve never been a sister before.”
Cal squeezes Merrin’s hand. Join the club, kid. “You don’t have to decide today,” Cal tells her softly. “The baby won’t be here for,” he looks Merrin over. Do Zabrak pregnancies work the same as human ones? Kriff, he doesn’t even know how human pregnancies work. “A while still, yeah?”
Merrin nods. That’s if it even exists , at this point.
Their grav-car is quiet as they pull into the parking lot of the always-open pharmacy in Jedha City. Merrin unbuckles, and turns towards Cal.
“I’ll be in and out in just a minute,” she says to both of them. “Any–anything else we need while I’m there?”
“I think we’re good.”
“Can I get a candy bar?” Kata asks in the backseat.
“Absolutely not,” Cal says, trying to project authority in his voice. “It is way past your bedtime, and far too late for sugar.”
Merrin leans into the backseat, and takes Kata’s hand into hers, squeezing it gently. “Krustlepuffs or rosenberries?”
“Rosenberries!”
Cal sighs with defeat. Kriff, what are they going to do with a baby? They aren’t good role models for the kid they have!
“It’s not every day we go to the pharmacy in the middle of the night. One late night with snacks won’t kill any of us,” Merrin reads his mind as she grabs his face, and kisses him with a loud smooch. “And you want vironut crisps, yeah?”
Oh, he does love vironut crisps. He kisses her again. “I love you.”
“I know,” Merrin smiles, opening the grav-car door. “I’ll be right back.”
Then it is just him and Kata, waiting in the car.
Cal stares out the window, and thinks about the possibilities that lie ahead. Merrin could be pregnant. Maybe. They wouldn’t know until she took the test, but the possibility was there. Was that why he kept imagining their children all throughout the evening? Every time she mentioned it, he pictured a different child–a boy with her dark eyes, a girl who was practically his mini-me, twin silver haired little angels–was that the Force, telling him something?
But Kata pulls him out of his thoughts. “So, Merrin’s test–is it like, math?”
“Huh?”
“Like, does she have to take a math test, and if she passes, they give her a baby?” Kata studies the pharmacy building with interest. “I didn’t know they gave out babies at a pharmacy.”
“They don’t. It’s–it’s not a math test, it’s a blood test. It–” he bites his lips as he thinks real hard. “Honestly, I don’t know how the test works either, kid. But I know it’ll tell us if she’s pregnant or not.”
Kata cocks her head to the side, a move she’s learned from BD-1. “What is pregnant?”
Cal sighs. “It’s when a baby is growing inside of a woman’s belly.”
“Woah,” Kata looks at him with disbelief. “Babies grow in tummies?”
“For most species, yeah. Although I think some just lay eggs,” lucky aliens, Cal thought, somewhat unkindly.
“And there’s a baby growing in Merrin’s belly right now?” Kata asks excitedly.
“Well, we don’t know. That’s why she’s got to take the test.”
“How did it get there?”
Oh, that was not a conversation he was going to be having tonight. “Ask Merrin when you’re older. She’ll explain it to you.”
“Okay,” Kata looks out the window. “Why is a baby growing in Merrin’s belly and not your belly?”
That one, he could laugh at. “Because I don’t have the right equipment to carry a baby that way.”
“Oh. Do I have the right equipment to have a baby?”
“Yes,” Cal answers, watching as Kata pats her own stomach. “But not until you are much, much older, you hear me?”
“Okay.” Kata is quiet for a moment, and so is Cal as they watch the street lights in the darkness. But the silence only lasts for a minute or two. “Hey Cal?”
“Yeah, Kata?”
“Would it be weird,” Kata bites her bottom lip. “If I am the baby’s sister?”
He turns back in the grav-car to look at her. “Why would it be weird?”
“Because you aren’t my papa,” Kata says sadly, pulling her stuffed loth-cat closer. “And Merrin’s not my mama. Even though you guys take care of me like a mama and papa should.”
It seems like all of the big conversations were going to be happening tonight. He unbuckles his seatbelt, and crawls into the back of the car, taking Kata’s hand into his own. “Families take all shapes and sizes, Kata,” he tells her softly, squeezing her hand in what he hopes is a comforting manner. “Some people have two mamas, or two papas, or are raised by their aunts, or their grandpas, or a group of adults. I didn’t have a mama or a papa growing up, and I turned out okay. Merrin,” he gestures with his head towards the pharmacy. “Didn’t have a papa but had a mama and lots of sisters. So if you want to be the baby’s sister, you can be the baby’s sister. That’s a choice you get to make,” he leans forward, and kisses the top of Kata’s head. “And if you want me and Merrin to be your mom and dad, well, that’s a conversation we can have. But that’s entirely up to you.”
Under the white light of the streetlight, Kata seems to glow as she snuggles up next to him. “You didn’t have a mama or a papa?”
He shakes his head, holding her. “No, I didn’t. I was raised in a creche.”
“What’s a creche?”
“It’s where a bunch of little kids are raised together in a community,” he tells her, rubbing his hands down her arms in an attempt to keep her warm. In the safety of the grav-car, he tells her “It’s what the Jedi used to do, when I was young.”
Kata scrunches her nose up at him. “Like a school?”
He laughs. “No, not like a school. More like–” but the thought dies on his tongue, as he sees Merrin come out of the pharmacy. “She’s back.”
He lets go of Kata and crawls back into the front of the grav-car, opening the door for Merrin as she carries a bag with her. Merrin slides in the front seat and begins digging through the bag. “Rosenberries for Kata,” she passes the package of sugary-sweet processed berries back to Kata.
“Yay!”
“Vironut crisps for Cal,” she hands him the bag of salt-sweet snacks. Unlike Kata, who digs into the rosenberries immediately, Cal keeps the bag to his side, unopened. “Jerky for me,” Merrin pulls out a package of dried meat for herself. “And one pregnancy test, still processing.”
He leans over towards her, studying the package, a blank screen on a black square, a small timer that says one minute left on the front. “How long does it take to process?”
“The cashier said three minutes, but that this one is the most accurate one they have,” Merrin tells him, her nerves radiating in the Force. Cal takes a deep breath, then holds out his hand to take hers, intertwining their fingers.
“No matter what it says,” he tells her softly. “We’ll deal with it, together.”
She looks at him. “You aren’t afraid?”
“As Master Yoda once said, fear is the path of the dark side ,” Cal says in his best Yoda impression, causing Kata in the backseat to giggle. “I will probably always be afraid. But so long as I don’t let my fear consume me…well, I’ll probably be fine. Besides,” he gestures to the backseat, where Kata’s face is covered in red sugar berries. “We’ve done alright keeping that one alive so far.”
Merrin leans forward, and kisses him. The test in her hands says thirty seconds. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he rests his forehead against hers for just a moment, before their lives change forever.
The test beeps. Pregnant, it says.