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The knock comes just as he’s about to fall asleep. Sol dismisses it at first—the inn where he’s staying is poorly located, just off the red-light district. Its usual patrons are often intoxicated and disoriented, stumbling down dimly lit hallways that smell of alcohol and stale smoke, hands and mouths busy as they knock clumsily into doors.
He waits a moment, but the knocking comes again, louder this time, more insistent. Sol groans and sits up, already dreading finding some couple engaged in a questionable act against his door.
The door slides open to… nothing. The hallway, bathed in its usual dusky red, is completely empty. He wonders if he imagined the knocking or if it came from outside. He glances down and comes face to face with a woven basket, positioned slightly to the left of the door, deliberately placed, just out of reach of his feet.
Ah, someone must have mixed up delivery addresses, Sol thinks, and turns to go back to bed—when the basket lets out a high-pitched wail, the cloth inside shifting with the sound.
Sol freezes. His first thought is that it’s an animal, but the sound is human, familiar. A child’s cry.
He bends down and reaches inside, moving the cloth—a blanket—and there it is: a child, blinking up at him with dark eyes, looking equally as surprised as Sol.
Oh.
He stands unmoved, his thoughts evaporating in the quiet around him. Sol glances around the hallway, but it’s treacherously empty. He reaches out with the Force, sensing for any strange presences, but most rooms are empty, aside from two at the other end of the hallway—both residents fast asleep, undisturbed for some time now.
He picks up the basket and brings it inside. Setting it on his bed, he begins to look through it for any clues. Inside, there’s a set of blankets, a small bag with what looks like a change of clothing, and a small wooden toy—a cat. No notes, no datapads, no explanations.
Taking the child out is easy—it’s small and doesn’t protest, oddly comfortable with being picked up by a stranger. Sol sets the baby on the bed and notices that it has something clutched tightly in its tiny fist.
A piece of purple cloth. It looks oddly familiar. He tries to take it, but the baby starts whining, gripping it with surprising strength. He gives up and just bends closer to inspect it. Just then, the baby lets the cloth go.
He recognizes it instantly: the purple cloth woven in intricate patterns—Mae.
Sol sits down, his knees buckling beneath him like limp noodles. Was this child Mae’s? It seemed unlikely; it was so pale, and the features were all wrong. Come to think of it… the child did look familiar. It looked a lot like him.
He turns back to the baby, and sure enough—the cut of its eyes, the dark silky hair, even the nose. Sol had seen those features many times in the mirror. There was no mistaking it: the child looked like him. Was it his? But how could that be?
His mind is blank until it isn’t—Khofar, Mae pretending to be Osha, the stun gun, their talk. Mae got free, and they fought again. It had been easy to overpower her, to pin her to the floor, until Mae kissed him—to distract him, no doubt, but Sol had been so upset, so heartbroken that… that the seemingly awkward physical contact had felt heavenly. He kissed her back, desperate and crying, his heart in pieces, and then Mae kissed him again and… well.
The child lets out another wail, louder this time, snapping Sol out of his thoughts. He’d allowed a single moment of weakness, and here were the consequences—swaddled in a grayish cloth, crying.
He stands and walks into the fresher, closing the door behind him. His body feels strange and numb. The standard Jedi sleeping robes mock him in the mirror, their beige almost fluorescent under the bright light. The water feels blessedly cold against his cheeks, and he catches his reflection—his face is burning, red patches blooming over his cheeks and neck.
Oh, Force, preserve him.
The fans pause momentarily to change speeds, and he hears the child crying—alone on the bed. Sol realizes he had just left it there, unsupervised and vulnerable. It could crawl off the bed and fall, get hurt. Could the baby crawl yet? He didn’t know.
He rushes back into the room, a prickling fear running down his spine, relieved to find the child safe on the bed. But the tightness in his chest only grows. Sol slides down against the door, the carpet disgusting and moldy, but he doesn’t care, can’t even register it.
The child’s cries soften, but there is no going back.
—
“Is he yours, then?” the medic asks, his voice dripping with skepticism. Sol doesn’t hear him, though; he is focused on the little boy—his son, how strange—that currently lies on the weighing scale.
“Sir?” the medic asks again, his presence in the Force tinged with annoyance, probably convinced Sol stole the baby somewhere. If it weren’t for his Jedi robes, the man might have already accused him outright.
“Yes,” Sol says, his own voice sounding hollow. “He’s mine. But... could you do a paternity test just to be sure?”
The medic gives him a withering look, his gaze flicking from the baby to Sol’s robes and back again. “Um, sure.”
“Thank you.” The little boy stares back at Sol, oblivious to the commotion he’s causing. He had been crying earlier, but since Sol had nothing to feed him—and didn’t know what he ate—he offered him the cat toy. It had been the right choice, as the boy instantly stopped crying and smiled.
Sol had nearly felt like crying himself.
“All right, hold him up; I’ll take the sample. It’ll be ready in a few.” The medic is looking at him expectantly, eyebrows drawn. Does he think Sol is drunk or high? Sol wouldn’t blame him; he certainly feels like it.
“Ah, yes.” He reaches down to pick up the boy. The medic swabs the baby’s mouth, which the baby doesn’t seem to mind, although he tries to chew on the cotton stick.
“Now you, but please don’t chew on it.” Sol’s attempt at a polite smile comes out strained and unsure, feeling as foreign as the medic’s forced humor. The man coughs.
When he’s done, the medic steps into the next room, leaving Sol and the baby alone. Sol tries to lay the boy down again, but he starts to fuss, so Sol gives up and simply holds him.
Time stretches in the artificially bright room; the walls seem to close in, and the tightness in his chest intensifies, pressing down on his lungs.
What if the medic says the boy isn’t his? He could leave. He could just stand up, hand the child to the medic, or drop him off at the nearest orphanage. He could go back to his dingy room for his things, go to his ship, fly to the Temple, and complete his mission report there. Or he could take the child with him, give him to the crèche minders; the child was probably Force-sensitive anyway. And even if he wasn’t—AgriCorps always took in foundlings. Life in the system would certainly be better than in some poor orphanage on a backwater planet like this.
The medic’s return breaks into Sol’s spiraling thoughts.
“Well, looks like you were right. Paternity is 99.9%, he’s all yours.” The medic gives Sol an odd look. His Jedi robes aren’t helping his case. “He’s a healthy little guy. I couldn’t find any records for him, so he probably wasn’t registered in the Republic registry. Happens all the time, though—midwives, you know?” He hums. “He’s about six months old, according to the scanner. I’ve given him the appropriate shots; other than that, he seems fine.”
The words hit Sol harder than he’d expected, tightening around his chest like a steel band. There was no more wondering, no more hoping it was all some mistake.
Sol nods mechanically, the little boy in his arms feeling like a sack of potatoes.
“What should I... what should I feed him?” he asks, feeling his cheeks heat.
The medic gives him another unimpressed look. “Is he not breastfed? He’s still so small.”
“I—I don’t know.” If the medic were to call the authorities, it would be appropriate, but on a planet this far from the Core, Sol was the authority—the lightsaber on his belt made that clear.
“Is the mother not around, then?” The medic’s expression softens, a trace of sympathy in his eyes.
Sol has no idea where Mae is; she hadn’t even bothered to leave him a note. He shakes his head.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Well, you can buy baby formula and a bottle for him. The Apothecary across the street should have what you need. Just ask for a generic formula suitable for his age—they’ll help you out.”
“Anything else I should know?” he asks, even though it feels like torture; but it also means he can stay here a little longer and not face the child on his own.
The medic shrugs, then opens his desk and rummages around. “I’d advise taking the little fellow to your Temple. I’m sure they have all the resources he might need there.” He gives Sol a sidelong glance—judging, no doubt. “But if that’s off the table, here.” He hands him a datapad.
Sol activates it. The first page reads: What to Expect When You’re Expecting: From Conception to First Steps, A Detailed Guide for Expecting Mothers. Humanoid Edition.
The urge to throw the datapad at the medic is strong, but he manages to restrain himself. “Thank you.”
The man nods and waves them out. “Sure. Take care. Make sure to keep up with his vaccinations—the pad has a schedule.”
—
Getting the formula is uneventful—no one bats an eyelash at him. The young girl behind the registry just hands him the items, neatly packed in a bag, and sends him on his way. She doesn’t ask for money, likely due to his Jedi status, which is fortunate, because explaining baby formula and bottles would be quite complicated in the mission’s financial report.
By the time he returns to his room, the boy is crying again, the cat toy no longer cutting it—probably hungry.
The formula has instructions, and the datapad—damn the medic—has a chapter on feeding children. The baby accepts the bottle willingly, latching on and proceeding to eat, eyes closed in concentration. Burping the child, as the book recommends, is also easy, if messy. There’s spit on his cloak now, but at least the boy seems to calm and promptly fall asleep in his arms.
“Oh Mae, what have you done?” he asks the empty room, but there’s no answer, only his son making sounds in his sleep.
His son. He has a son.
Sol lies down on the bed next to the basket where the child is sleeping. The little boy looks peaceful, his chest rising and falling rhythmically, breathing deeply. In the Force, he feels light and alive, neither bad nor good, just a steady presence of life and contentment. Sol lets out a heavy sigh; his chest still hurts.
What would he do now? If he brought the boy to the Temple, he would be taken away. The Jedi were forbidden from having offspring. This rule seldom needed enforcing, the "no attachment" part of the code usually made sure of that. Other Jedi, he knew, had tried to hide their forbidden attachments. Their stories all ended the same way—disgraced, banished, or worse.
Sol could picture Vernestra’s disappointed face—he was already on so-called probation after Khofar and Brendok. If he turned up with a child, it would be tested, and the results would no doubt reveal it was related to Osha, since the Temple had her genetic data, making further deduction all too easy.
He would be dismissed, or worse, imprisoned, and the child would go to a crèche at one of the sister Temples or to one of the Service Branches, never to be found again, even if Sol were to look. The idea seemed unthinkable, tasting like dry dirt on his tongue.
Could he… run away with the child? But where? He had neither the finances nor a place to go; his home was with the Jedi, and he knew no other life. The best course of action would be to leave the boy somewhere safe and hope Mae would find him eventually, if she were even alive.
That was a sobering thought—what if Mae was dead? But who had left the boy here, with such precision? Whoever it was knew exactly which room Sol was in and waited for him to get up, to go to the door. The child was left with care and thought—the spare clothing, the toy, a piece of Mae’s cloak, worn and crumpled, no doubt another favorite toy.
His head hurt, and his heart was filled with dread—he desperately hoped it was all a dream, that he didn’t have to make this impossible choice. Perhaps the stew he ate for dinner was bad, and he was running a fever? It all certainly seemed like a fever dream—surreal, crazy, impossible.
The baby moves then, stretching his tiny hand out in an oddly specific way—searching for something. Sol reaches for his hand, moving as if compelled. The boy stills the moment Sol’s index finger touches his palm, squeezes his little fist around it, and lets out a contented sound—not unlike a sleeping kitten, Sol suddenly thinks.
—
In the end, Sol chooses to do nothing. In the morning, he takes the baby to his ship and sends a comm asking to prolong his mission for a month—he knows the answer before it comes. No one is too happy to see him at the Temple at the moment, so if they can keep him away and useless, they will.
Half an hour later, a transmission arrives stating as much. He is to remain where he is and gather the intel needed—useless gossip about local political powers. He is being granted a small additional sum for expenses, the same as before.
When he locks up the ship, the baby now sleeping on his shoulder, the sun is high in the sky, warming the morning air. He slowly makes his way through the town toward his inn. The streets are already busy and pulsing, and he has to be careful not to jostle the boy too much.
The boy, his son. Sol wonders if he has a name. He should; six months is a long time to remain nameless. How he wishes he had found a note with any information—a name, anything.
“What should I call you, hmm?” he asks the sleeping child. The boy answers him by snuggling closer.
“Well, you do have a great personality.” And he does—he’s a calm child, almost no fussing, ready to laugh at the slightest things.
Suddenly, a thought comes to mind. “Dae-ho. Sounds a lot like your mother’s, yes? You can be just Dae, though.” There’s no answer, but he feels better for having given the boy a name.
He stops by the market, using some of his limited funds to buy swaddles and gentle soap, as per the book's instructions.
Navigating the world with a small child is surreal; people seem to dismiss his Jedi status and focus on the baby, on Dae. They coo at him and ask how old he is. No one seems to be under the impression that he isn’t the father—the likeness is uncanny; Sol will allow it.
He even gets a free dinner from the young girl who minds the stall where Sol usually gets food.
She smiles at Dae and waves at him as they leave, dinner in tow. “He is so cute! You should bring him around more often, Mister Jedi, sir.”
—
Sol always thought he knew enough about children, but as it turned out, he only understood those who could talk and walk. A newborn? He knew virtually nothing. Fortunately, the book the medic had given him addressed most of the things that confused him.
Feeding schedules, burping, naps, tummy time—the list went on and on.
Dae is a cheerful child who enjoys long naps (rare, according to the book), so Sol uses his free time to read up on the topics that seem elusive. He even sometimes feels a sense of happiness—a feeling long forgotten since his Padawan days—where curiosity mingles with the fear of the unknown. His heart is light and free in those fleeting moments between trying new things for the first time, like clipping nails or giving a bath.
But the best part of his explorations is having Dae fall asleep on his chest during midday naps. Sol quickly discovers that his son adores being carried and snuggled; he always succumbs to sleep as soon as Sol holds him close. One day, he tries laying Dae against his chest, not expecting any effect, only to find that Dae dozes off almost instantly and stays asleep longer than usual—probably lulled by Sol’s steady breathing and pulse.
Feeling his heartbeat and breaths mingling with his son’s is both surreal and amazing.
A tiny human he had a hand in creating. The circumstances of his conception were sad and odd, but it didn’t matter, not when his son smiled up at Sol. He hadn’t said that word to anyone else yet or even dared to utter it aloud, but he savored the joy of having it at his disposal nonetheless.
A few days turned into a week, and then another. His mission would conclude soon, unlikely to be extended again.
What if Mae never returned? What would he do? Leave his son? Send him away? Surely, he couldn’t.
Sol didn’t dare to think about what would happen next.
—
The day starts like any other. Sol forgoes his reports to take care of Dae, feeding and bathing him. Initially, the boy’s mood seems typical, but as the hours pass, his demeanor shifts drastically—he becomes cranky, refusing toys and food, crying and whining, displeased by things that had delighted him just that morning.
Sol tries scrolling through the datapad, but he ends up with more questions than answers. When he picks Dae up, he realizes that the boy is burning up.
Instantly, fear grips him. He must have done something wrong—misunderstood instructions or mixed the formula incorrectly. His child is sick, and it’s all his fault. Cold sweat gathers at the back of his neck as he grabs his cloak and darts out of the room.
Logically, he knows it’s probably treatable, whatever it is, but his heart feels heavy. What if something happens to his son? What if he… dies?
By the time he enters the medic’s office, he’s on the verge of tears, hyperventilating.
“Hmm. Yes, of course,” the medic nods as he examines Dae. His hands move with a gentle precision, a striking contrast to the fed-up looks he casts at Sol.
“What is wrong with him? Is he sick?” Sol manages to ask, his throat tight and his pulse pounding in his ears.
The medic chuckles, amused. “He’s teething. See?” He lifts the child’s lips with his finger, revealing two teeth, one of which is just breaking through the swollen red gums.
Teething. Sol remembers reading about that—not an illness, then.
“I’ll give you an ointment. Apply it twice a day. Other than that, there’s not much you can do. Sorry to say, you’re about to be very sleep-deprived. It should pass in a few days—a week at most.” He hands Sol a small tube.
Sol nods his thanks, relief washing over him. “I am sure it will be alright. As long as he is not sick, how bad can it get?”
—
As it turns out, it can get very, very bad.
Dae’s once-happy personality seems to have been completely replaced by an angry demon-child who cries at the slightest sounds and spits up food as soon as he’s finished eating. He refuses to sleep for more than twenty minutes at a time, constantly waking himself up and demanding to be picked up and carried around the room.
By the fourth day, Sol’s head feels heavy like a cast-iron skillet—he dreams of falling asleep when he closes his eyes between Dae’s cries. There are stains on his robes that he neither recognizes nor remembers getting, and the room smells of wet swaddles drying out on the windowsill.
He knows it’s not the boy’s fault; Dae is small and in pain, unable to comprehend what is happening. But sometimes it seems like he’s doing things on purpose—waiting for Sol to let his guard down, then throwing his bottle on the floor or relieving himself the moment his swaddle is removed.
“I know you are in pain, but could we perhaps have a long nap? Or even a proper sleep?” he asks Dae as he rocks him to sleep. For a moment, Dae seems to settle, and Sol holds his breath, hoping for a small break. But a moment later, Dae lets out a loud hiccup and spits up all over Sol’s front.
With a sigh, he heads to the bathroom to clean them up. This is the third time today. It’s a pity Sol has time only to wash Dae and his swaddles but not his own hair—taking a real shower feels like a distant fantasy at this point.
—
By the sixth day, Sol is ready to give up. His brain buzzes like static, overwhelmed by sleeplessness and overstimulation. He hasn’t had time to meditate, shower, or eat anything beyond the stale bread left over from a week ago.
It’s midday when he sets Dae down on the bed and lies next to him, the mattress sagging slightly under his weight. He imagines that the baby is calmer today, less angry at the world. Sol hopes this means he’s getting better, though he can hardly fathom enduring this with the rest of his teeth.
Dae settles and stays quiet for some time before dozing off. Sol considers getting up to close the blinds and drown out the afternoon sun but decides to stay where he is, afraid his movements might disturb his son.
He drags a pillow over his face. It will have to be enough.
He dreams—or perhaps it’s reality, blurring together. Sol can’t distinguish the sound of the door opening and closing from his imagination. If he’s being robbed, he doesn't care; there’s nothing to take except for his son and his lightsaber, both within arm’s reach. No thief would dare rob a Jedi so shamelessly, even in this dingy inn.
No other sounds follow—no rummaging, no footsteps—it must have been a dream. He sighs and presses the pillow harder into his face, reveling in its cool, dark embrace.
Dae starts to make sleepy sounds but stops after a moment, so Sol remains still, afraid to wake the boy.
Something feels amiss, as if the room has shifted in some unnameable way, but he’s too sleep-deprived to really care. The pillow on his face is so nice; he can pretend it’s night and sleep, even if just for an hour.
When sleep comes, it’s pitch-black and dreamless.
The first thing to come back into focus is sound—suckling—but of what, his brain cannot fathom. Is Dae hungry and sucking on his own thumb? Well, if he’s not crying, Sol will allow it. He sighs; the pillow on his face is warm now.
Then he feels a presence in the room—oddly familiar, but he cannot place it. It’s not Dae, but it’s not threatening either. He carefully lowers the pillow from his face.
Mae is lying on the bed next to him on her side, her head propped up on her hand. Dae is nursing with soft sounds, suckling peacefully at her breast.
He’s too tired to be surprised; a headache simmers behind his eyes, and his mouth feels parched, as if he’s been asleep for ages. He glances at the window—dark—so maybe he has. Did Mae come in and let him sleep?
“Mae,” he starts, but finds he lacks the energy to finish the thought.
“Nicely noted. I came in here four hours ago; you barely moved. What if it was some thief?” She doesn’t sound mad; her eyes sparkle in the low light with something mischievous.
“I knew it was no one dangerous,” Sol offers, turning onto his side to watch Dae feed. The baby looks calm and peaceful, his little hands grasping at Mae's breast. After days of chaos, this tranquility feels almost surreal.
“I’m almost offended. Almost,” she quips, popping the knuckles of her free hand.
It’s insane—lying here with her on the bed, their child between them. Sol would have thought that Mae would have him dead by now. He sometimes imagined what would happen if she came back for Dae, but those thoughts usually involved him dying or Dae just disappearing the same way he came—silently and without explanation.
“I thought you wanted to kill me.”
Mae fixes him with a piercing gaze, her eyes a little bloodshot. It strikes Sol that she looks tired, shadows under her eyes like bruises from sleepless nights. “Yeah, well, having a child really mellows you out,” she replies, a wry smile flickering across her lips.
“I wanted you dead or brought to justice. I suppose you got the justice part, even if it was pretty lousy and not exactly just at all. As for the dead part, well—” she looks down at Dae, then back at Sol. “I still might want that—I certainly considered killing you when I found out I was pregnant. I even begged Osha to do it while I was in labor.”
“I see.” And he really does. Having Dae around has certainly put many things into perspective.
“For now, you’re more useful to me alive, Jedi,” Mae says with a big yawn, not bothering to cover her mouth.
“I am sorry, Mae.” Sol doesn’t know what compels him to say it; the words just form on his tongue and tumble out—a graceless apology lacking in both wording and timing. It feels woefully inadequate in light of all the horrible things he has done.
Mae rolls her eyes. “For which of the many, many things?”
“All of it.” He closes his eyes, allowing the red dots and lines to dance on his eyelids. His heart races, nearly bursting. “I am not sorry for our child, however.”
He opens his eyes and looks at Mae; her expression is blank, an odd contrast to the warmth of the room. Then she lets out a deep breath—Sol can feel the warm air on his cheeks.
“Yeah, me neither, oddly enough. Though you really played me, old man. How come he looks like your carbon copy, huh?” She pokes Dae in one of his chubby cheeks, and he gurgles, looking pleased.
Sol shrugs. If he were to be honest, he would admit that having his son look so much like him is delightful. It’s solid proof that he is a father, that the little boy is really his and not a figment of his imagination.
“Will you explain all… this?” Sol waves his hand in a lazy circle, his body finally catching up with him, letting the sleep deprivation sink in.
“This?” Mae looks amused, probably happy to poke fun at him.
“The baby, our son. How did that happen?” Once the words leave his mouth, he realizes how awkward they sound, but he doesn’t care; he just needs answers.
“Sol, you’re what, forty-seven? Forty-eight? I’m sure you know how kids are made. I can even recall you participating in the making of this very baby,” Mae points at Dae, who seems to have stopped eating and is dozing off on Mae’s breast.
Sol can’t help it; he rolls his eyes. “Mae.” He hopes his tone conveys just how tired he is.
She sighs, looking put out—it’s oddly endearing. “My birth control implant got damaged somewhere between Olega and Brendok,” she shrugs. “Then I was busy running away with Osha. Next thing I know, it was way too late to do anything about it. So here we are.”
“Oh.” He doesn’t know what else to say. A ridiculous chain of coincidences—that seems about right.
“I’m curious to know why you didn’t have an implant, though. Everyone else in the known galaxy seems to have one.”
Sol swallows. “I do not engage… in that often. There was simply no need to renew it at one point.” He leaves it at that.
Mae laughs, a bright sound that reminds him of Dae when they’re playing. “Yeah, I could tell, no offense.”
No offense? Yes, he figures he probably shouldn’t take any. It had been years—decades, really.
“By the way, Osha was quite upset that you actually survived. Last time I saw her, she explicitly said she’d cut your dick off. I don’t know if her stance on that has changed, but I would stay away if you ever ran into her.”
Sol groans. “I suppose that is fair.”
He sits up and stretches his back, ignoring at least two very audible pops.
“Why did you leave him without a note? What if I were to give him away or take him to the Jedi Temple?” He hopes Mae will humor him in this; he simply has to know why she was so sure to leave their son with him without so much as an explanation.
“I did leave a note. What are you talking about?” Mae gives him a confused look, her eyebrows drawing up.
“There was no note, Mae,” Sol scoffs. He is unsure of many things these days, but he knows there was no note.
Mae narrows her eyes. “Uh-huh. Did you check the pocket in the basket?”
“What pocket?” There was no pocket in the damn basket. Was there?
“Grab the basket. There’s a small pocket in the lining, right where his legs should go. Go on,” she’s not laughing, but barely.
Sol feels dread settling in. He gets up and pads to the basket, now sitting on one of the low chairs near the table. He pats the lining, and yes, sure enough—a pocket. And yes, there’s something in it. A piece of paper.
He takes it out with numb fingers and unfolds it.
“Sol,
This is our son (surprise!). Please look after him while I finish a dangerous job; it should take three weeks. He is six months old; you can feed him formula from any apothecary—he’s not fussy. If he’s being cranky, just give him the cat toy or the piece of my cloak. Anything else you can figure out.
His name is Dal. I am not abandoning him, so do not take him to your damn Temple.
— Mae”
“See? It’s all there. A job went bad, and the stupid trader put a hit out on me, of all things. My choice was between you and a local nunnery. You won, somehow.”
Sol sets the note down and walks into the fresher.
“Hey, come back. I think he pooped!” Mae calls after him. Sol looks into his reflection—spectacular eyebags and eyes so red it’s actually unsettling. He sighs and comes back out.
Sure enough, Dae has his signature expression reserved for poops. He picks him up and carries him to the fresher, hoping he’ll be lucky and not get pee all over his face.
“Need help?” Mae asks, but he just grunts. She probably can’t hear him, but Sol doesn’t care.
When he comes back out, Mae is sitting on the bed, her breast hidden by her shirt.
“I did not know his name, so I gave him a new one,” Sol states, feeling the need to share. Mae cocks an eyebrow at that but doesn’t say anything.
“Dae-ho. It means ‘good character,’ but after the teething, I am reconsidering it.” He frowns and swings Dae around when he starts to move again.
“Yeah, I bet you are. You look like death. Well, give him here; we’ll be on our way, and you can catch up on sleep.” Mae stands up and reaches for Dae, but Sol instinctively takes a step back.
“What?” Just a few weeks ago, he wished for the child to go away, but now parting with his son feels impossible.
“Come on. Thanks for babysitting, even though he’s your kid too, so technically you weren’t actually babysitting. But you’re still a Jedi, somehow. What will you do when it’s time for you to return back to your little cult?” Mae crosses her arms over her chest—stubborn and sure of herself.
She’s right, of course. Sol can’t take Dae back to Coruscant, and he can’t keep him here forever. His chest tightens, the iron chain returning, crushing his lungs and heart into a raw, bleeding mess.
“I know, I—” he starts, but his throat hurts, and his eyes begin to sting.
Mae sighs, the sound coming from somewhere deep within her.
“You know, you could always leave, right? I’ve read the leaked reports on the net; they hate you. Don’t get me wrong, rightfully so—you messed up so much for so long. But you could still leave at any moment; they wouldn’t go looking.”
Sol knows she is right again. Ever since Vernestra found him on Brendok—neck broken and lightsaber missing—his presence in the Order has felt like a formality. He was a powerful Master, and they couldn’t convict him without making a big splash, especially with the Senate taking an interest in the Order's inner dealings. So he was given a new crystal and a month to rebuild his lightsaber. After that, he was sent on mission after mission of pointless fieldwork—report after report, formality after formality.
He wasn’t officially dismissed, but it certainly felt like it.
But… where would he go? He had nothing outside of the Order. No family, no home, no real relationships. That had been the ultimate truth of his life for so many years—up until about a month ago.
He had a son now, didn’t he? He had Dae for only three weeks, but he already felt an overwhelming sense of love for the little boy. Even now, tired and aching, he still didn’t want to be parted from him.
“Where would I go, Mae? I’ve been a Jedi all my life.” He knows he sounds pathetic, and it gnaws at him like an unhealed wound. Mae should turn away in disgust at such a show of weakness.
Instead, she laughs, a sound that startles him. “Cut that out. Self-pity suits you even less than those robes. You can come with us and babysit your kid; I’m really not enjoying this whole working single-mother shtick. You seem to like him well enough anyway.”
Sol looks at her, eyes wide. “What?” Did she really mean it, or was it a cruel jape meant to hurt him beyond repair?
Mae huffs. “You heard me. I’m not repeating myself.”
He swallows hard. The world around him seems to freeze for a moment, but then Dae kicks him, and everything moves again, set in a new, brilliant motion.
“Alright,” he nods, still unsure.
“Really?”
Sol nods again. “Yes.” He doesn’t understand it—not at all—but as long as he gets to be with his son, it doesn’t matter. He will figure it out eventually; there was no other choice for him.
Dae chooses that exact moment to let out an ear-piercing shriek, and Mae’s lips twitch into a smile.
“Alright, give him here and grab your crap. I’m not staying in this moldy dump.”
Giving Dae to Mae is hard, but he sets his jaw and lets her hold him. It’s her child too, after all. Packing takes less than ten minutes; all of his life can fit into a single standard-issue Jedi bag, and Dae’s things go into the basket.
Sol contemplates taking his lightsaber, but it wasn’t really his, not really. His lightsaber had been bled red by Osha, if her sightings over the year and a half were true. So he leaves it on the bed, next to his neatly folded utility belt. He would leave the robes too, but he actually doesn’t have anything else to wear. The gloves he keeps; this was a newer pair that he had really come to like.
If Mae has anything to say, she keeps quiet, seemingly occupied with showing Dae the tasteless pictures on the wall.
When he is done, he looks questioningly at her, his heart in his throat. A part of him still waiting for dismissal, a cruel joke. He would understand—painful as it would be—he deserved much worse for his many sins against Mae.
But she just gives him Dae and grabs the basket.
“Let’s go, come on,” she nods to the door and walks out, the dusky red of the hallway casting her in an ethereal glow.
Sol hugs his son closer and follows her into the light.