Valérieinthebluesky

“A short flight,” she said, pursing her lips together. “Just a short one.”

“Of course,” you replied.

“You’ve already been on more flights during this pregnancy that I would have recommended.”

“I know, but just one more.”

Din made a small, half-hearted protest as you made your way back to the cabin, but when you leaned over and whispered into the helmet that it would be one last opportunity for the pair of you to make love in space before you became parents, he needed little further persuasion.

Now, in the bunk, as the Crest drifts peacefully back towards home, he moves inside you, slowly. The careful, unhurried draw and press, the long, deep stroke of him, his bare hips moving against yours with the kind of restraint that he’s learned, painfully, to apply to his own body when it matters.

It matters now. You can feel it in him – the tension banked under the careful rhythm, the way his arm tightens across your chest, the way the modulator catches each breath and warps it into a small, clipped sound against the back of your neck. He could go faster but he won't because of the belly, because of the small, fierce project of keeping you safe even now, even like this, especially like this.

It’s more than enough. The slow, deep press of him touches a place inside you that you’ve almost forgotten exists, and you make a small, ragged sound, the modulator catching a small, ragged sound in response.

"There?" he murmurs, the vibration of it travelling through the beskar at your nape into your spine.

"There, there…"

"I've got you."

His bare hand slides down to find you and he circles slowly whilst the world begins to do that thing where it narrows and goes white and small at the edges. Where there’s only the warm, dark alcove and the man behind you and the slow, steady, rocking that’s more like a tide than a thrust, the long, deep pull and return until you can’t tell anymore where his rhythm ends and your body begins.

“Come on, mesh'la. Come with me."

You go over quietly, the way you’ve done these last few days. The climax that used to break across you like a wave has become something deeper and stranger, a slow, heavy pulse that starts low, spreads outward and takes a long time to finish.

You make a sound into the pillow and your body clenches around him. You feel him gasp through the modulator and his hips press tight against yours and hold as he pulses inside you, his arm tightening across your chest, the cool dome of the helmet pressing hard against the back of your neck and staying there a long moment while he breathes.

He stays inside you a long time because you both know this is the last time and he means to make it count. He stays pressed against your back, his hand splayed flat across the great, taut, warm curve of your belly, his breath slowing through the modulator into a long, even rhythm against your hair until you can feel him soften and, finally, with a small soft sigh through the modulator, ease himself out of you.

He reaches for the cloth on the shelf above the bunk and cleans you both gently before tossing it toward the laundry and gathering you back in. The warm length of him fits against your back again and he pulls the blanket up over both of you.

"There you are," he murmurs to your belly. "There you are. Hello, ad'ika, settle down.”

The baby kicks, lazily, against the inside of your hip, as if to register an opinion and he huffs a laugh against your hair.

"She’s going to be bossy.”

You laugh too as his thumb strokes across your belly, and you close your eyes feeling, somewhere very deep and very quiet, your baby settling.

You think – sleepily, with the kind of soft drift that comes after – about tomorrow. About how you will walk off this ship and not walk back onto it until you have a child in your arms. Until you are a whole, complete family ready to take on adventures in the galaxy together.

As much as you’ve come to love the cabin, you still can’t wait to show your baby the ribbon blue of hyperspace.

"Cyar'ika," Din murmurs softly. “Thank you.”

"For what?"

"For everything. For finding me, being with me, staying with me, marrying me, giving me a child…”

“I’ve done a lot,” you laugh and he laughs back, his hand spreading a little wider on your belly as the helmet settles a fraction closer against your nape.

You’re both slipping towards real sleep. You can feel him going as the long, even breaths through the modulator slow, his hand going heavy, the beskar at your nape resting, the weight of a head that has stopped guarding for the night.

“Thank you too,” you hear yourself murmur. “For rescuing me, letting me stay with you, marrying me and giving me a child…”

The proximity alarm goes off, the high shrieking three-tone warble cutting through the alcove like a blade through cloth. Din is up before it finishes its first cycle his arm gone from your belly, the cool dome gone from your nape, the warm length of him gone from your back. The bunk lurches as he comes off it in a single fluid motion, his hand already finding the trousers on the shelf, the gauntlets, the…

The Crest hits – or something hits the Crest.

You can’t, in the split second, tell which. There’s a roar that’s not the engines and a bang that comes up through the hull plates into the soles of your feet and the deck of the bunk. The whole ship lurches sideways, hard, and the standby panel above the bunk shatters into red emergency strobe. The alarm becomes two alarms, then three, then the long flat whoop of hull-breach somewhere aft, and you clutch the edge of the bunk with both hands as his hand suddenly comes back, hard, on your shoulder, steadying you against the lurch.

"Stay down!"

The alarms become the world.

"Hold on!"

He’s gone before you can answer, up the ladder in three strides. You hear the gauntlet hit the rung, the heavy slap of his bare feet on the deck-plate, the half-shouted curse in Mando'a as he reaches the top and the cockpit lights come on through the open hatch in a wash of red and green. You hear the cuirass-buckles clicking as he secures the plate one-handed at a dead run. He swears, soft and vicious, the way he swears when something’s very wrong and there’s no one to swear at.

"Din!”

"Stay down, cyar’ika!"

The ship lurches again hard to the side. The blanket goes sliding off the bunk as the shelf above your head dumps the gauntlets and the cloth and the spare comm-unit straight down onto the mattress beside you. You grab for the rail with both hands and feel the weight of your belly drag at you, the inside of you pulling, your baby startled into sudden, violent motion.

"There’s only one!” He shouts back down through the hatch. “Just one – hold on!”

You don't know what to hold on to. The bunk is bolted to the bulkhead, and you grip the rail until your knuckles whiten and press your back against the cool metal wall, wrapping your other arm under the heavy curve of your belly. And you hold the baby like that, half-curled around her, as the alarms shriek and the Crest bucks under you and the cockpit roars something. Then you feel the answering whump of something hitting the shield, then through it, and then the long, ugly tearing scream of beskar-laced hull plating giving up.

"Din!"

"Down, cyar'ika, get down!"

You go down flat on the bunk, half on your side, one arm under your belly, the other braced against the rail, your face pressed into the pillow and you breathe into it, hard, in and out, in and out, and tell yourself it's only a fight, it's only a fight. You’ve been in fights, many fights, and you always come out unscathed at the other side. Why, the last time, you ended up on Tatooine…

The Crest pitches.

It’s not a lurch this time, but a pitch – the long, sickening tip of a ship that has lost its yaw stabiliser, the world tilting through forty-five degrees and not coming back. You slide off the bunk and over the rail, hitting the deck of the alcove with your shoulder. You scream, and your belly lands hard against the floor under you, your baby going very still for one terrible second and then exploding into motion, kicking, frantic, all elbows and knees and get me out, get me out, get me out.

"Mesh’la…!"

He’s in the hold now, his hands on you, and he gathers you up off the deck and says your name, over and over through the modulator like the only word he knows.

"Up…up, can you stand, can you…?"

"I can't, Din…I can't…"

"Hold on to me!"

"The baby…"

"Hold on to me, cyar'ika, hold on to me!"

You wrap both arms around his neck where the soft underweave is exposed beneath the helmet, and he hauls you up against him – careful even now, even in this, his hand spread wide and supporting under the curve of your belly, the other arm under your knees – as the ship pitches again.

He braces, the world goes sideways and somewhere very far away you hear another whump and the tearing scream of more hull. The alarm-tones change, deepen, become the one tone you’ve never heard on this ship and that you’ve always known means only one thing.

"We're going down," you whisper.

He doesn't answer.

"Din, we're going down…!"

"I know, mesh'la, I know!”

He carries you through the strobing dark of the hold toward the crash-cradle – the emergency rig he installed in the curve of the bulkhead after he agreed you could still fly with him as and when required. He returned home to the cabin one evening with a salvaged grav-couch and proceeded to bolt it in without a word whilst you watched from the ramp.

You’d laughed at it at the time and told him he was paranoid, but now he lays you into it, fast, both hands working – the cross-strap over your shoulders, the wide soft belt low under the curve of your belly, the cradle-piece that braces around your hips and locks – and he talks fast.

"There, there, that's it, that's it, brace, brace, mesh'la, brace…!"

"Din, get in the chair, get in the chair…!"

"I'm flying her down, listen…" The visor moves right in front of you, dark and red-lit, both his hands cupping your face for one suspended second. "Listen to me. I’m going to put her down as soft as she'll go. You’re going to be fine because the cradle is rated for atmospheric impact. You’re both going to be fine. Do you hear me?"

"I hear you…"

"Say it."

"We’re both going to be fine.”

"Good. Now brace!"

He goes back up the ladder, three rungs at a time, the cockpit hatch slams, the alarms shift register again, and you hear the high whine of an atmospheric entry burn that shouldn’t be happening at this angle, or at this speed, with this much hull missing. You press your hands flat against the cradle-piece around your hips, close your eyes and talk to her.

"It's alright my sweet girl. Your buir's flying and he’s the best pilot in the sector. He's going to put us down soft, so you hold on. Hold on, my girl, hold on…"

The Crest screams into atmosphere, the sound like nothing you’ve ever heard before. It’s the sound of a hull that isn’t meant to be going this fast through air this thick. It’s the sound of plating peeling back, of seams parting, of the old girl giving up the last of what she has. You hear Din shouting and then something he says is not Mando'a and not Basic and you realise, with a cold lurch, that he’s praying.

The first impact isn’t the ground, but rather the canopy of something. For a second, you think that it might be trees, and then the Crest bucks like a thrown thing and there is a long, terrible scraping. The deck-plate beneath you twists and the cradle takes you, hard, in the chest, under the belly and at the hips, and you scream into it.

The second impact is the ground and feels like the end of everything.

There’s a sound like a planet closing on a fist, a long, bright, white nothing. There’s the cradle bracing and holding and bracing and holding and the terrible torsion through your spine and the heavy drag of your belly against the cradle-piece and you’re all moving at the same impossible speed in the same impossible direction…until there’s nothing.

****

You don't know how long you’re unconscious for, but you come back in pieces.

It’s the smell first – smoke, ozone, something hot and sharp and wrong. Then the dark, the slow, heavy realisation that the alarms have stopped, that nothing is moving, and that you’re on your side with the cradle still around you which is the only thing that is right-side up in the whole tilted, ruined world.

There’s a faint, red glow somewhere off to your left – emergency lighting, the auxiliary cells, still feeding – and a faint, white glow somewhere off to your right that you can’t make sense of for a long second. Then you realise, with a slow, stupid wonder, that it’s daylight, coming through a hole in the hull. There’s a hole in the Crest that is letting in daylight, and there are leaves moving in it, real leaves, the green of an atmosphere that has trees.

You breathe in and the pain comes everywhere at once – your shoulder where you hit the deck, your hip where the cradle-piece bit, your ribs where the cross-strap caught, your jaw where you bit through the inside of your cheek without knowing – and you take a slow inventory the way Din has taught you.

"Din."

Your voice is a rasp and the hold doesn't answer.

"Din…Din!"

There’s a long, terrible second and then – from somewhere very far away, from the front of the ship, from the cockpit that is no longer above you but is, you realise now, level with you because the Crest is on her side – you hear a sound. A grunt, followed by the scrape of beskar against bent deck-plate.

"Cyar'ika…"

You start crying because you can't help it. You sob, once, into the cradle, and then you swallow it back because crying takes air and you need the air,

"I'm here. I'm in the cradle. I'm…Din, are you…?"

"I’m coming to you, hold on!”

You hear him crawling, dragging himself across the twisted metal, and somewhere in the dim, red gloom of the tilted hold a shape resolves, slow, a dark, crawling, armoured shape with one pauldron half torn off, and the visor catching the red glow as it tips up toward you.

"Mesh'la…"

"I'm okay. I think I'm…Din, my hip, I can't tell if…"

"Don't move, let me get to you.”

He hauls himself the last metre on his elbows – one of his legs is dragging, and there’s a dark patch on his thigh where the cuisse has been torn open – and he reaches you, his hand finding your face, immediately, thumb sweeping across your cheekbone, his visor right against the top of your hair.

“Cyar'ika, look at me.”

"I'm looking…Din, your leg…"

"Not now. Where are you hurt?"

"My hip…ribs…shoulder. I don't…I don't think anything's broken. I can feel them all, I just…”

"The baby."

"She's…she went still for a second and then…Din, she's moving, she's moving but it's…it's not right, it's not the same, it's…”

You break off because something is happening. Something inside you, low and deep, the warm curve of you tightening, hard, in a long, heavy, rolling clench that isn’t a kick or a flutter nor anything she’s ever done before, and you grip his wrist with both hands and stare at the visor.

"Din."

"What?”

"Din!"

"What, cyar'ika, what…?"

"I think she's coming."

For a moment, the visor doesn't move.

"No," he says. "No. No, it's the impact. It's…it's the shock. It'll pass. Vesha said sometimes…"

"It's not passing."

"It'll pass."

"Din, it’s not passing. It…oh…!"

The clench rolls through you again, harder and longer. You feel it now for what it is – the heavy band of it, the way it starts at the back and wraps around to the front, the way it tightens and holds and does not, will not, let go until it’s finished with you. You’ve read about this and you know what it is.

You start to laugh, a small, wild, wet laugh that comes out half a sob.

"She's coming, Din. She's coming now."

"No, cyar'ika…"

"Yes!"

He freezes. The visor tilts down to the belly, to your hands gripping his wrist, to the soft, impossible roundness of you under the strap of the cradle. You watch the helmet do the small, fractional thing it does when he’s being asked to accept a fact that he can’t accept and watch it accept it anyway.

"Okay," he says. "Okay. Okay, mesh'la, okay. We’re doing this. Listen to me, I'm getting you out of the cradle and getting you somewhere flat. I'm going to find the med-kit, then I'm going to comm Karga. I'm going to…I'm going to…"

"You don't know where we are."

"I'll find out where we are later. For now, I'm getting you out."

It takes a long time, because he has to work the cradle-buckles one-handed whilst he holds you, because his leg isn’t taking weight, because the deck is tilted and the corner of the hold has a beam through it now that wasn't there before. And because every time another contraction takes you, you have to stop and breathe through it and grip his wrist and not scream, and Din has to hold you, and wait, and breathe with you through the modulator, in-out, in-out, the long, flat measured rhythm of a man who’s not letting himself panic.

He gets you onto the floor of the hold and gathers the scattered blankets, dragging them under you, and making a nest of them in the only flat patch of deck the wreck has left, in the angle between the bulkhead and what was the floor and is now a wall. He props you against the slope and gets a pillow behind your back then another under your hips.

The light through the hole in the hull is moving –the real leaves of a real atmosphere – and you stare up at it and laugh wetly again because you can hear birds. Somewhere outside there are birds singing in the wreckage of your ship.

"There are birds, Din."

"I know, cyar'ika."

"There are birds."

"I know, keep breathing."

You breathe through the contraction as he drags himself away as fast as he can to the bulkhead-locker where the med-kit lives. You watch him work the catch and curse and work it again and finally rip it free with his bare hand, before dragging himself back to you with the kit and a comm-unit clamped under his arm.

He fumbles the comm into his palm and thumbs it on, but nothing happens. He thumbs it on then off again and you watch as the little display gives a single red blink and dies.

"Karking…"

"Din…"

"The comms and relay are dead. I'm getting nothing. I…okay. New plan. We do it ourselves."

"Ourselves?"

"You and me, okay?"

"Okay…"

He opens the kit and lays the contents out on the blanket beside you – bandages, sealant, the bone-knit injector, the little folded thermal blanket and the cord-clamp pack that you bought in Nevarro three weeks ago and have laughed about ever since because you would never need it on the ship.

Another contraction washes over you, bigger this time. You arch up into it and he’s there, both hands on you now, one on your belly to feel the tightness of it, one wrapping your hand to grip. He breathes with you, through the modulator, in and out.

"Good," he says, when it passes. "Good. That was a long one cyar’ika. How…how long between, do you know, have you been…?"

"I don't know,” you gasp. “They're close, Din, they're close, they're already close, I don't…I don't think this is going to take long…"

"Okay. That's okay. That's…okay."

He doesn't believe it. The modulator strips most of the doubt out but you can hear the seam of it underneath. You know he’s been studying, reading the books and listening to Vesha. He knows that first labours are supposed to be slow, are supposed to take hours, are supposed to give a man time to fetch a midwife and boil water. He also knows that you’ve just been in a crash and that trauma does things to bodies.

He also knows that your baby is, right now, deciding the timetable, and she appears to have decided.

He works fast at getting your trousers off, followed by your underwear, then folds a clean blanket under you, and gets the thermal up to your waist, talking the whole time with a voice that doesn’t panic or let you panic.

"Alright knees up, mesh'la. Just…yes, there. Good, I've got you."

"Din…"

"I've got you."

"Din, it hurts…"

"I know."

"It hurts, it hurts, it hurts…!"

"I know, cyar'ika. I know! Breathe with me. In…and out. Good, that’s it. That’s my girl.”

The praise is lost on you as the contraction rolls through. You ride it the way he tells you to and squeeze his hand so hard you feel the bones of his fingers grind. He doesn’t flinch, or pull, or make a sound. He breathes with you through the modulator and his hand on your belly feels the band tighten and hold and release, and when it releases, he exhales softly and presses his helmet down for one second against your shoulder.

"Good. That's one done…one less."

"Mm…"

"Talk to me."

"I'm…I'm okay, I'm…Din, my hip, the cradle bit my hip, I can feel it under me when I…"

"Show me."

You shift and he looks, the visor angling down, his hand going carefully to the place along your hipbone where the cradle-piece caught you. The skin there is darkening already, and he presses, gently, with the pads of his fingers, causing you to suck a breath.

"It’s bruised, but nothing’s broken, I don't think. Can you feel your feet?"

"Yes…"

"Move them for me." You shift slightly and he nods. "Good, your spine and pelvis are okay. You're okay, mesh'la, you’re okay. The baby's coming and you’re okay."

"What about you?"

"Don't worry about me."

"Your leg…"

"It's a cut, cyar'ika, I sealed it while you weren't looking, I'm fine. Look at me, I'm fine."

He isn't. You can see it now in the angle of the leg, the way it lies, the way he won't put weight on it even kneeling. But you can also see – through the visor, in the lift of his head, in the steady set of his hand on your knee – that he means it when he says it doesn't matter. That his leg is not, for the next however many hours, a thing that exists. There is only you, your baby and the work.

Another contraction hits you, bigger again. You feel the long, deep tightening start at the small of your back, wrap around and lock down and you cry out – a real cry this time, the kind you can’t hold in – and his hand crushes yours back and his voice is right at your ear.

"Breathe through it, cyar’ika. In…out. You're doing it. That's it, good."

You ride it, knuckles white, breath even, the unshakable knowledge that the man beside you will not let go.

It passes and you gasp. "How long was that one?"

"Long, maybe a minute, maybe more. They're…they're getting close. They're getting close."

"How close together?"

He pauses, the visor tips and you know he’s counting in his head. You watch the small, fractional pause in the angle of the helmet as he runs the arithmetic.

"Two minutes, maybe less.”

"Din, that's…"

"I know, cyar'ika. Listen to me. This is going fast, very fast. Some babies do this. The book says some babies do this. Especially after…after a shock. Sometimes the body just…it just goes. It decides. So, she's deciding and we’re going to let her decide. We're going to ride it, you and me."

"You and me."

"Yes."

You nod, but you can’t stop the tears. They come, hot and steady, sliding into your hair, he sees them and his thumb wipes one off your temple.

"You're the bravest thing I’ve ever seen, mesh'la."

"Don't…"

"You are. You're the bravest thing I’ve ever seen."

The next contraction takes you mid-breath because you weren’t ready. There’s supposed to be more time, and it slams you, making you arch up against the slope of the bulkhead and grip his wrist with both hands.

You scream, and somewhere in the scream you hear yourself say I can't, I can't, I can't, and his hand is on your face, and his voice is in your ear.

"You can. You are. You're doing it. You're already doing it. That's it, good."

You ride it somehow, you don't know how, and then it ends and all you can do is sob.

"I'm going to look, cyar'ika, okay? I have to look now. Stay there with your knees up."

He shifts, the bad leg dragging and gets himself down between your knees, the visor angling down to where he needs to see. You feel the warm press of his palms on the insides of your thighs, steadying, and the tilt of the helmet as he tries to look.

Almost immediately, he goes still.

"What…" you ask, panicked "What is it?"

"It's…it's the light. The light's bad. I can't…the visor…"

He shifts and tilts his head, the helmet tipping one way, then another as he tries to get the angle. The little auxiliary red glow off the bulkhead is the only light in the hold besides the moving, leaf-dappled white through the hole in the hull, and neither of them is the light he needs. He drags himself a foot to the side and tries again.

"Din…"

"I can't see, cyar'ika…"

"Din, what's…?"

"I can't see. The visor…the filter…it's the polarisation, it's the…I can't…"

Another contraction, the biggest yet, seizes you. It lifts you and you make a sound that isn’t a sound at all, but rather a long, low, animal cry that comes from somewhere underneath your ribs, and you feel a change, a pressure that has gone from coming to here, something low and heavy and inevitable.

"She's coming, Din, she's coming, she's coming…!!"

"I know…I…karking…I can't see, mesh'la, I can't tell if…there's…I can't tell what I'm looking at, the visor's…the angle's wrong, the light's wrong, I need to…I need to…"

He stops moving, stops talking. He kneels there between your knees in the strobing red half-dark of the wrecked hold of the ship you both have called home with one bad leg under him and his hands shaking, very slightly, against the insides of your thighs. The visor tips down and the helmet goes very still.

You watch him and don't, at first, understand.

He lifts one hand slowly from your thigh and brings it up to the side of the helmet, setting his fingers against the seal at the base, at the small, recessed catch.

"Din," you whisper.

He doesn't look at you. The visor is still tipped down toward your body, toward the place where the baby is coming, toward the work.

"Din, no, you don't…"

"I have to see, cyar'ika."

"Din…"

"I have to see."

His fingers find the catch.

"Din, no, you don't have to, the light, we can…there's the torch, there's the kit torch, I'll get it, I'll…"

"It's in the cockpit. I checked when I got the med-kit. It's gone under the console and I can't reach it. There's no time, cyar'ika, there's no…I can't see her, I can't tell if she's right, I can't tell if the cord is…I have to see!"

"Din…"

"It's alright."

"It's not alright, it's…"

"It is."

He lifts his head, the visor finding your face. He looks at you for one long, suspended second through the dark of it, with his hand still at the catch, and his voice goes very quiet.

"Mesh'la…it's the Creed. It's a Creed. It’s not her. She is the Creed – do you understand me? She’s coming and I’m going to catch her and to catch her I have to see her, and there is nothing in any Creed in this galaxy that comes before that. I made her with you and I’m going to put my hands on her first. I’m going to see her face before anyone in this universe sees her face, and you’re going to see mine, because the man who loves her mother and loves her and built her cradle and is going to protect her for the rest of her life is not going to meet her from behind a piece of beskar. Do you understand me?"

You can't speak. All you can do is nod and sob.

"It's alright, cyar'ika. It was always going to be you. If it was ever going to be anyone it was always going to be you. I just…I just thought it would be in the cabin. I thought I would have time, but I don't. So, it's now…it's here."

"Din…"

You feel the low, long warning of another contraction starting and he sees it in your face.

"Alright," he says. "Alright, mesh'la, hold on.”

His fingers move on the catch, you hear the soft hiss-click – the smallest sound in the world – and he lifts the helmet off.

➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰🚀➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰

Taglist: @thelittlebats @sassythejedi @millercontracting @porganas @lovely-kitsune-exe @themilkhasjustexpired @dream-alittlebiggerdarling @seikamuzu

Harry let the shower run over him, one hand pressed against the tile with his head hung low. He shut his eyes—it was another early morning. He usually was always the first one to wake up, since taking over the company, he’d been waking up earlier than normal. 

It wasn’t even light out when he woke up that morning. He didn’t even want to get up either—you had been lying on your side facing him, blanket pulled to your chin. He had been having trouble with balancing his work with his home life, especially now that Charlotte was pregnant too. He didn’t want to put too much stress on Peter, not if he could help it. 

But there were moments where he wished he could go back in time—when things were much simpler and easier. 

He was about to reach for his shampoo when he heard the bathroom door open. Harry looked up and watched your figure come into view. It was steaming inside the shower, fogging up the glass so while he couldn’t see you clearly, he could see your shape just fine. 

He bit his lower lip. Yesterday had been an amazing day, despite the stress he felt at work. And he promised you he’d try to balance work and his relationship with his family. 

A minute or two passed before he heard the door to the shower open. Harry turned around to face you, lips parting at the sight of your bare frame. 

“Morning,” you whispered quietly, letting out a yawn. “I figure maybe I should join you in these early mornings.” 

Harry reached out for you instantly. His hands darted out to grab a hold of your hips, gently and carefully pulling you flush against him. “You spoil me,” he said quietly. 

“Just want to spend as much time as I can with you,” you answered. Harry knew what you meant and he leaned down to capture your lips in a soft kiss. 

“I wouldn’t mind… having you join me in here every morning,” he whispered against your lips. 

“We wouldn’t be showering though, would we?” You smiled, your own arms now looping around his neck as you felt the water cascade down the top of your head and down your body. 

“No, I don’t think we would be,” he chuckled, moving his lips to your cheek lightly. “Did you sleep okay?” 

You nodded, tilting your head to expose more of your neck when you felt his lips brush past your cheek to the shell of your ear and down the side of your neck. “I just don’t like waking up to an empty bed.”

“I’m sorry, baby,” he said, pulling away just slightly to look down at you. Harry reached up to and gently stroked your wet hair back and away from your face. “You know I’ve been getting up earlier than normal.” 

“I know,” you sighed. “But do you need to? I mean, you don’t even head into the office until after we drop the kids off at school.” 

“I do some work before I go in,” Harry reasoned. 

“So, you’re working at home.” 

He nodded. 

“But you’re still coming home late.” 

Harry sighed.

He knew what you were getting at. 

“Baby…” 

Almost like you realized what you were saying, you shook your head and looked up at him. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make you feel bad. I just—I miss you.” 

“I’m right here,” he said quietly. 

“Not all the time,” you sighed. 

“I promised you last night that I’d try,” he whispered, moving his hand from your hair to the side of your neck. “I mean that.” 

“I know,” you nodded. 

“And besides, my mom will be coming by the office today,” Harry reassured you. “I’ll talk to her about everything, okay?” 

“And we’ll still have our scheduled morning walk?” 

Harry smiled. He leaned in and lightly pecked your lips. “We’ll still have our scheduled morning walk,” he confirmed. “Everything will be okay,” he nodded. “I promise. It’s just… hard right now, but it won’t always be.” 

“Okay,” you answered. “I trust you.” 

“Good.” Harry pulled away from you only to retrieve your body wash. “Now, let me take care of you, yeah?” 

You bit your lower lip in anticipation. “I didn’t come in here for you to take care of me. I came in here so that I can take care of you.” 

He chuckled. “Return the favor tonight. Deal?” While one hand held your body wash, the other moved between your legs. Harry watched you gasp in surprise. He smiled and leaned in closer. “I love you, baby,” he said huskily. 

Your eyes fluttered when you felt the pads of his fingers brush against you. Answering with a shaky breath, you replied, “I love you too.” 

Harry watched with a quiet chuckle and a permanent smile on his lips as both Frankie and Sammy were talking amongst one another at the kitchen table. You were helping Stevie get ready for school, having promised last night that you’d curl her hair. 

“Sammy, don’t make a mess, buddy.” He pointed out, grabbing the roll of paper towel to set on the table for him. 

“I won’t, daddy,” he answered. 

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t,” Frankie giggled. 

“But you make a mess too,” Harry smiled. 

“No, I don’t! I’m cleaner than he is.” 

Sammy widened his eyes. “Nuh uh!” 

“Uh huh!” 

“No!”

“Yes!” 

“Okay,” Harry said, stepping in between the both of them. “How about we all agree that the both of you are messy? Even Stevie.” 

“Lies,” Frankie said, shaking her head.

Sammy agreed. “Yeah, exactly. Lies.” 

Harry let out a quiet snort and leaned down to wipe both their lips from the syrup that also drilled down their chin. “See, messy.”

Frankie and Sammy looked at each other, quietly giggling amongst one another. They finished their plates of pancakes quickly and stood from the table to set their dishes into the sink. Harry watched the with loving eyes and followed them closely, reaching over to run the water over the dirty dishes. 

“Go and get ready for school, okay?” He told them.

Frankie nodded.

Sammy did the same and then hugged his leg as the other girl ran down the hallway and into her room.

“What’s up, buddy?” 

“Nothing,” he said, looking up at Harry. 

Harry set down his cup of coffee on the counter and leaned down to pick Sammy up. “You’re still hungry, aren’t you?” 

Sammy giggled. “Can I just have some fruit?” 

He smiled and walked to the fridge, grabbing the bowl of grapes as he kept Sammy against his hip. “You can have a bit, bud, but you still gotta get ready for school.”

They younger boy nodded. “Okay, daddy. Did you eat too?”

Harry shook his head. “I’ll have some toast before we leave.”

“You don’t eat in the morning? But you’re always awake before everyone.” Sammy scrambled to his feet and walked towards the dining table again, hoisting himself back onto the chair as he reached for a couple of grapes. 

Harry bit his lower lip and sat down next to Sammy, reaching for some grapes too. “How do you know I wake up before everyone, hm?” 

Sammy shrugged, swinging his feet off the edge of the chair. “Well, you’re already dressed by the time we wake up, so…”

“So observant,” he chuckled.

“I just want to make sure you have some yummy breakfast too, daddy. Tomorrow, I’ll try to wake up before you and make you some waffles too!”

Harry looked at him and smiled, leaning forward to kiss his temple. “You’re the sweetest, buddy, but you don’t need to. I’ll make sure to eat beforehand, how’s that?”

Sammy narrowed his eyes up at his father. Harry couldn’t help but let out a quiet laugh because it was the same look you’d give him. “Promise?”

“I promise, Sammy.”

“Pinky promise?” Sammy lifted his hand in the air, extending his pinky out for him.

Harry nodded and curled his own pinky with his. “I pinky promise, buddy. You all done eating?”

Sammy took a couple of more grapes before he climbed off the chair. “All done. I’ll go get ready for school now.”

“Love you, Sammy.”

He smiled and wrapped his tiny arms around Harry, kissing his cheek. “Love you too, daddy.” 

Harry watched the younger boy disappear down the hallway and into his room as he stood from the dining table. He went to retrieve his cup of coffee before making his way to Stevie’s room. He could hear the quiet chatter between the both of you, so when he slowly opened the door even further, he couldn’t help but smile at the sight before him.

“Dad!” Stevie said, turning her head to look at him. 

“Sorry, sorry,” he mumbled. “You look beautiful, Stevie girl.”

She was wearing a white and black striped long sleeve tucked into a denim skirt. Her hair was curly and framed her face and she looked up at Harry with soft eyes—almost like she was looking for his approval too. 

“Y—You think so?” She asked.

You smiled and stood from the edge of her bed to wrap your arms around Stevie from behind. “Look at him,” you teased. “He’s got tears in his eyes.”

“I do not,” Harry said, blinking back the tears that filled his eyes. “I just—Your mom did a great job on your hair.”

Stevie grinned and leaned back against you. “I’m still wearing my converse though,” she said. 

“Ah, can’t forget about your converse,” he chuckled, walking further into the room and looking down at Stevie. “How are you no longer my little girl?” Harry asked with a sigh. 

“I’m always your little girl,” Stevie answered. “Just… I’m older.”

“I know,” Harry said with a nod. “I look at you and all I see is that same five year old little girl,” he continued. “But now… she’s got a crush that she’s trying to impress and—”

Stevie sighed loudly. “Dad, he’s just a friend.”

“Uh huh,” he replied. “How come you don’t dress up for your other friends then, hm?”

Stevie felt the warmth in her cheeks. “He’s a new friend.” 

You looked up at Harry and smiled, shaking your head as you pulled away from Stevie. “Okay, okay, that’s enough. Make sure to eat breakfast, okay, Stevie?” 

“Yeah, mom,” she nodded. “Thanks for doing my hair. I love it.”

“Taylor better love it too,” Harry muttered under his breath.

Both you and Stevie looked at him, gave him a look that said seriously without saying the words. 

He widened his eyes just slightly and lifted his hand in the air. “Okay, okay, I’ll knock it off.” Then, Harry leaned in and kissed the crown of Stevie’s head. “You do look real pretty, Stevie girl.”

“Thanks, dad,” she smiled, looking up at him. “Still got pancakes?”

Harry nodded. “You know there’s enough left for you, baby.”

“Oh good,” she said, leaving her room to go into the kitchen, leaving both you and Harry standing in the middle of her bedroom.

“She’s—She’s getting so big,” Harry sighed.

You nodded, walking up to him and gently running your hands up and down his chest. “I know, baby, but hey… we’ve got two other babies still.”

“What about… a fourth?” Harry asked.

Your eyes lit up. “Yeah?” 

He smiled. “Yeah.”

“Talk about it tonight?” You asked, hopefully.

Harry nodded and leaned in to lightly peck your lips. “Tonight, baby.” 

Later that morning when both you and Harry parked at the school, Stevie kissed both your cheeks before joining her friends. Sammy held onto your hand and wanted you to walk him to his class, which left Harry and Frankie. 

“Daddy, I think I know what I want to do,” she said, keeping a tight hold on his hand as she led him to his classroom. 

“What’s that, babygirl?” He asked, looking down at her. “Soccer? Gymnastics? Basketball?” 

“Martial arts,” she grinned, looking up at Harry. 

“Martial arts?” Harry repeated, tilting his head. 

Frankie nodded excitedly. “I want to learn how to punch and kick, daddy.”

“You don’t want to do any other sport? What if you get hurt, honey?” 

“Well, I won’t,” Frankie smiled, the dimple on her cheek appearing. 

“You can’t guarantee that, Frankie.”

“No, but I know that I’ll be good at it,” she said with confidence. “Can I at least try it out first?” 

“I’ll talk to mama,” he reasoned, scooping her into his arms and kissing her cheek. “How’s that?”

Frankie smiled, wrapping her arms around him. “Okay, daddy, but I really want to do it.”

“We’ll try it out first, see how you really like it, yeah?” 

“What if mama says no?” She asked quietly. “I think she might say no.”

Harry looked down at her, his lower lip pulled between his teeth. He never realized how much of a soft spot he had for his children. “I’ll—I’ll try to convince her for you to give it a try. I’m not saying that we’ll sign you up—”

Frankie nodded quickly. “Really, daddy? You promise?”

“I’ll do my best, babygirl.” Harry said, kissing her forehead. “But if you can’t do martial arts, what else would you wanna do?” 

“Hmm,” she shrugged. “I haven’t thought that far.” 

“Oh? You think we’ll agree and say yes to you doing martial arts?”

Frankie grinned. “Yes.”

“Confident, aren’t you?”

She giggled. “Yup.”

Harry chuckled and tickled her side, feeling her arms tighten around him as her giggles filtered his ears. He loved that sound—loved hearing every single child of his laugh because of him. “I love you, Frankie.”

“I love you too, daddy,” she smiled, pulling away from him and scrambling to her feet once they got to the door of her classroom. “Don’t work too hard, okay?” 

Harry bit his lower lip. Stevie had said something first, then Sammy, and now Frankie. Guilt filled his chest, so he leaned down and ran his hands down her arms and to her tiny hands to hold in his own. “I won’t, babygirl. Have a great day, okay?” 

Frankie nodded, kissing his cheek. “You too, daddy. See you after school!” 

Harry smiled to himself and watched her walk into her classroom, feeling someone’s arm wrap around him from behind. He turned slightly and noticed you instantly, his smile just growing bigger at the sight of you. 

“Kiddos are all in their classrooms,” you said. 

Harry nodded, turning in your arms and wrapping an arm around your shoulders as you both began walking away from Frankie’s classroom and back towards the car. 

“So… hear me out,” Harry said quietly. 

“What?” You asked, brow arching. 

He bit his lip. “Frankie wants to do martial arts.” 

Your brows lifted upward. “What?” 

“Her words, not mine. She said, I want to learn how to punch and kick, daddy,” he repeated. 

“She could get hurt.” 

“Yes, I told her that.” 

“Harry—”

“I didn’t say yes,” he interjected. “I said… I’d talk to you.” 

“You just can’t say no to our kids, can you?” You teased. 

He chuckled quietly. “I didn’t say yes,” he repeated. 

“But you didn’t say no either.” 

He rolled his eyes playfully and held you closer to his side, turning his head to kiss your temple. “I told her I’d talk to you,” he said again. 

“What if I say no?” 

“Then I’d push back and ask you to reconsider,” he answered. “Let’s just have her try a few lessons. See if she really wants to do it before we commit.” 

You looked up at him, leaning into him. “No sparring.” 

“Baby, she’s six.” 

“No sparring,” you repeated. “Or any physical contact with any other kid.” 

Harry nodded. “Just the foundations,” he agreed. “The basics.” 

“The basics,” you said. “Okay, we can let her know that we can check out some places.”

He smiled. “She’s gonna be so happy.”

Harry got into the office about an hour later. Peter was already there, walking towards his office with a large grin on his face. He always was envious of how easygoing his younger brother was. Harry, on the other hand, was always in his head, always overthinking and worrying. When things were out of his control, it only stressed him out further. 

But Peter was the complete opposite. 

He didn’t mind going with the flow, didn’t spend too much time worrying about one single thing, and he was able to separate his home life with his work. 

“Morning,” Peter said, hands in his pockets. 

“Hey,” Harry answered, holding the door to his office open. “We got a busy day today.”

“Nothing we can’t handle.”

“How’s Charlotte?”

“Good,” Peter answered. “Yours?”

“She’s good too,” Harry said with a nod, his mind drifting to you as he was already counting down the minutes until you got to the office. “Frankie wants to do martial arts.”

Peter chuckled. “You’re gonna have your hands full with that one,” he teased. “I wonder who she got her athleticism from.”

“Me,” Harry answered quickly. “Obviously me.”

“Uh huh,” Peter smiled. “Sure.”

“And Stevie’s got a crush,” Harry added. “Dressed up today. Had her mom curl her hair and everything.”

“Oh,” Peter said softly. “You’ve got a pre-teen on your hands. Good luck.”

Harry laughed quietly. “I know, it’s crazy, isn’t it? How am I gonna survive her teenage years?”

“Well, it’s good thing you won’t be doing it alone,” he answered with a smile.

Harry nodded in agreement. “Yeah, you’re right.” 

“You both still trying to get pregnant?” Peter asked.

“We—we haven’t talked about it since we were having a tough time about a year ago,” Harry answered. “But yeah, I think we want to try again.”

“Could’ve been stress,” Peter suggested. “It’s been a year since we both took over for mom and dad, and… well, you almost overworked yourself until you collapsed last year.”

Harry sighed. “I know. Don’t remind me.”

“But… you’re still kind of doing the same thing, Harry. Maybe not to the same extent, but—”

“I’ve got it handled,” Harry interrupted. 

“Is that why mom’s coming today?”

He looked over at him. “How’d you know she was coming today?”

“Well, she called me. Asked me if everything was okay.”

He sighed. “I just—just wanted to talk to her, that’s all.”

Peter walked over to him and reached out to rest a hand on his shoulder. “I hope you know that you can lean on me, Harry. I know Char’s pregnant and everything, but I’m here for you too. We’re both co-CEOs for a reason.”

“I know,” Harry said. “I know.”

“I’ll take the morning meetings, you take the afternoon. Sound good?”

“Peter—”

“Great,” he grinned. “I’ll catch you later.”

“Peter,” Harry repeated. 

“I am capable of doing this job too.”

“I’m not saying you can’t.”

“But you’re not letting me do anything.”

Harry sighed and nodded. He reached up to run a hand over his face. “Okay, fine. You get the morning. I’ll get the afternoon.” 

“Good,” Peter smiled. “I’ll see you later. You know where to find me.”

“Uh huh,” he said, watching his younger brother leave his office with a large grin on his lips. The door shut behind him and he sighed, walking towards his desk and sitting at his desk. Maybe splitting the meetings equally like this would work, but he couldn’t help the lack of control he was feeling. 

Harry felt his phone buzz. He pulled it from his pocket and looked down to see his mother text him that she was on her way. He replied with a thumbs up before turning his laptop on to at least get started on some work before she got here. 

Harry had been walking back to his office after refilling his cup of coffee when he spotted his mother at the end of the hallway, stepping off the elevators. His eyes lit up and he walked over to her, seeing her gaze find him instantly. When he got closer, she pulled him in for a hug and he relaxed instantly, kissing her temple. “Hey, morning.”

“Hey, honey,” she said. 

“Want a cup?” Harry asked.

His mother shook her head. “Already had my fix this morning,” she smiled. “And you? What number cup is this?”

“Two.”

“It’s not even ten in the morning, Harry,” she said.

“Exactly.”

She rolled her eyes and hooked her arm with his, following him towards his office. It didn’t take long for them to get there, so Harry held the door open for her before shutting it behind the both of them once they were inside. 

“How’s dad?” He asked, walking towards his desk to set his mug down. 

“Good,” she answered. “He’s good. Meeting up with Jay, actually.” 

“Oh?” Harry smiled, arms crossing over his chest at the mention of your dad. When your parents moved back to the city to be closer to you, both of them spent a lot of their time with his parents too. It was like they were long lost best friends now finally catching up. 

“At the gym, apparently,” she laughed quietly. “Which is fine. Considering how often they try to sneak in some sweets, it’s nice that they’re out there working out.”

“Good for them,” Harry said with a nod. “Maybe we should have you guys come over this weekend or something.”

Her eyes lit up. “I think we’d love that, honey. How are the kiddos?”

“Good,” he smiled. “Sammy made a new friend yesterday. Frankie wants to do martial arts. And Stevie—she’s got a crush and I don’t know what to do with that,” Harry answered honestly.

His mother laughed quietly and walked towards the couch, taking a seat on it with ease. “Oh, the joy of growing up.”

Harry followed her and sat down next to his mother, biting his lower lip as he looked over at her. 

“What, honey?” She asked, turning to face him. “You texted me for a reason last night. What’s going on? Are you—you having trouble with—”

Harry shook his head and interjected immediately. “No,” he answered. “We’re not having trouble.” 

“Then, what is it?” 

He sighed and looked down at his hands, his thumb grazing over his wedding ring. “Remember how it was like last year? When you and dad retired and me and Peter took over?”

She nodded. “You wouldn’t stop working… and didn’t let Peter do any of the work.”

“I did let him work.”

“Barely.” 

Harry sighed again. “I’m—I’m having trouble with that again,” he admitted. “I’m working a lot and I don’t know how I did it before, how I fixed it. I don’t know how you or dad even did it.”

“You’re not letting Peter help you,” she answered like it was the most simplest answer there was. 

“Char’s pregnant, mom,” he said. “And you know the challenges both she and Peter had just to get pregnant this time around.”

“Harry,” she sighed, taking his hand once she started noticing that he was fidgeting uncomfortably. “I know you want to take care of them, make sure that there isn’t any other added stress, but you can’t do this by yourself. Why else did you think we named both of you as co-CEOs?”

“I just—I know I can handle it myself. I just need to be better at separating my work life with my home life.” 

His mother said your name, causing his gaze to look up at her. “How does she feel about all of this?”

“Well, that’s the thing… it’s starting to affect us. Our kids are also taking notice.”

“That’s a problem, honey.”

“I know,” Harry whispered, guilt slowly crawling up his chest. “I’m trying.”

“What are you doing to try to make things better?” She asked. “If you’re trying… what exactly does that look like?”

Harry tore his gaze away from her. He couldn’t answer that. “Mom—”

“Your father and I didn’t name you both co-CEOs just for the hell of it,” she interjected. “We knew you both were ready, but if it’s causing you this much stress—”

“It’s not.”

“It is,” she sighed. “Why do you think you need to try and control everything, baby?” She said softly, reaching up with one hand to cup his cheek so that he could look at her. “The company’s thriving, Harry. Nothing’s going to happen.”

His eyes softened. “I just don’t want to do a bad job. You and dad worked so hard for it and I don’t—I’m scared that if I don’t keep up with it that it’ll just go under, that I’ll end up disappointing the both of you,” he answered honestly. 

His mother’s eyes softened too. She leaned forward to kiss his forehead and he sighed, leaning into her like he was that same, sensitive little boy who worried about the smallest of things. 

“Nothing you or Peter could ever do would disappoint us,” she reassured. “And this company—it’s just that. Your health matters more to me, Harry. Same with Peter. If it goes under, it goes under. This company isn’t our legacy,” she continued. “You and Peter are, do you hear me, Harry?”

He looked at her and felt tears sting his eyes. He blinked them back, tried to keep his composure. 

“I said, do you hear me, Harry?”

He nodded slowly, biting his lower lip as he looked into her eyes. “Y—yeah, I hear you.”

“Lean on your brother,” she added. “You aren’t the only one running this company.”

“But Charlotte—”

“Harry, it’s not your job to make sure that they are taken care of. You have your own family to think about too. If it’s affecting your marriage, if your kids are seeing it too, then how can you expect to take care of them if your cup is already empty?”

He sighed. “How did you do it? How’d you work when you had me and Peter?”

“I had help,” she smiled. “I didn’t do it alone. I knew I couldn’t do it alone.”

“Dad,” he said. 

“Exactly. I had your father.”

Harry nodded. “Okay, I’ll—I’ll let Peter take on more. Or at least an equal amount of work.”

“Good, that’s a start,” she said. “And make sure to keep your boundaries. Work should only start when you get to the office and when you step foot out of this building. At home, your priority is to be a father—a husband. Once you take work home with you, honey, it’s hard to separate work and home life after that.”

“Okay,” he repeated. “And waking up early?” 

She shrugged. “You can wake up early, sure, but don’t wake up early because you feel like you need to work.”

“Work when I’m at the office,” he said. “Boundaries—okay, I’ll work on that.”

“Won’t be easy,” she said. “But I know you love being a father and husband more than being a CEO, Harry. This company—it’s not everything.”

He nodded again and leaned against her. Harry shut his eyes and didn’t feel like the weight on his shoulders were dragging him down. “Thank you,” he whispered. “For talking to me. For coming here.”

“Of course, honey,” she smiled, arm wrapping around his shoulders as Harry rested his cheek against her. “I’m proud of you, both you and Peter. So, your homework today is?”

“Once I leave the office, work’s done,” Harry answered.

“Good,” she said softly. “Good.”

You were already in bed by the time he finished in the bathroom. Harry smiled to himself, feeling lighter once he left work once he left the office. It wasn’t easy, especially when he wanted to stay a bit longer after work, but this was the first step. 

“Kids went to sleep pretty quickly tonight,” you said, arms coming up to wrap around him once he laid down next to you. 

“Must’ve been because we let them watch a movie during dinner,” he chuckled.

“They do like their movie nights,” you smiled. “Did you see Stevie? She was grinning the entire ride home.”

Harry nodded, arm snaking around your shoulders. “Guess we’ll have to ask her about it tomorrow. See if she’s willing to let us know what happened.” 

“Wanna bet that she won’t tell us?” You teased.

Harry laughed quietly. “I think she’ll give us some details, but not all.” 

“You might be right,” you smiled. “She asked me if I could show her how to curl her hair.”

“Yeah? What’d you say?”

“I didn’t want to say yes,” you admitted. “Guess I’m also feeling like she won’t need me anymore either.” 

Harry nodded in understanding and leaned down to kiss your forehead. “She’s growing up.”

“I know,” you sighed. “Makes me sad too.”

“She’s still our Stevie girl though,” Harry said. 

“Yeah, she is,” you nodded. “How was your talk with your mom today?”

“It was—it was good,” he answered. “It was what I needed actually. Gave me some good advice.”

You smiled. “Yeah?” 

Harry nodded, turning to lie on his side to face you. His arm draped over your midsection, pulling you close to him as he felt your nose gently graze his own. “Did you know your dad and my dad work out together?” 

“My mom did mention something about it,” you laughed quietly. “I’m sure they get some sweet snack afterwards.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” he smiled. 

You brought a hand up to his hair, running your fingers through his dark curls. “So… what’d your mom say?” 

“I need boundaries,” he answered. “Said that I should only focus on work when I’m in the office.”

“Good advice,” you said with a nod. “And how was that? Today after work?”

“Difficult,” he said honestly. “But felt good.”

You smiled and leaned in to peck his lips. “I’m proud of you,” you whispered. “I know it couldn’t have been easy but I—I’m glad that you’re trying, even if it’s hard for you.”

“I’m doing this for—for us, for our family,” Harry said softly. 

“I know, baby.”

“And I want to try again,” he continued. 

You bit your lower lip and sat up slowly, reaching over to turn the light on on your nightstand. Harry sat up as well, looking over at you with soft eyes. 

“If that’s what you want too,” Harry added.

“It is,” you nodded. “I do want to try again too.”

He smiled, reaching out for you and pulling you onto his lap. “And I know last year was a tough time for us. I know we tried and we didn’t have any luck, but I think it was because of stress,” he said, thinking back to what Peter had suggested earlier that day. “I think I was so focused on work that we just—we couldn’t get pregnant.”

You ran your hands down his chest and back up until they rested on his shoulders. “What about this time around?”

“This time around, I’m gonna be better. I’m gonna establish boundaries wth work,” he repeated. “I want another child with you.”

“A shit ton of kids, right?” You smiled, leaning in to brush your lips with his own. 

Harry chuckled, squeezing your hips tightly. “A shit ton of kids, indeed.”

“And maybe we don’t put a lot of pressure around it this time around?” You suggested.

Harry nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I think that’s a good idea. While we wanted to get pregnant when Frankie and Sammy were born, we didn’t really put a lot of focus on it either. We just—weren’t careful.”

“So… we start trying,” you said.

“We start trying,” he repeated. 

“Can we start trying now?” 

Harry’s eyes lit up. He nodded and slowly rolled you onto your back, settling himself between your legs as his hands moved from your hips to slowly pull your shirt over your head. “Hell yeah we can start trying now.”

He runs the seam of one gloved finger over the blade and nods as though satisfied with both his own work and the delivery of the news.

“You'll like her. She's good people.”

“That sounds fine,” you reply from your position on the couch, and, at that moment, you mean it.

You know about Cara Dune. Din speaks of very few people from his life before you, but Cara’s one of the names that comes up every so often – the ex-shock-trooper, the mercenary turned marshal, the woman who fought beside him through more scrapes than he'll ever fully detail. There’s always a warmth in his voice when he mentions her that he reserves for almost no one and you’ve thought nothing of it before.

You think a great deal of it now.

You’re thirty-six weeks pregnant, your body a vast and aching landscape you no longer recognise, your ankles swollen and your back in a permanent state of mutiny. You feel enormous, ungainly and lumbering. And the hormones that have your body in their grip have lately taken to ambushing you with emotions so sudden and so vast they leave you breathless – weeping at the sight of a banthacalf or laughing until you can’t breathe at nothing at all. And lately, increasingly, a low simmering possessiveness that flares hot and irrational at the smallest provocation.

So when Cara's transport sets down in the yard and the woman herself comes striding down the ramp, you feel the jealousy hit you like a physical blow before she's said a single word.

The cruel, immediate truth of it is that she’s magnificent. Tall, broad-shouldered and built like a warrior carved from durasteel, her arms corded with muscle, her hair framing her heart-shaped face, all coming together in a way that makes her look strong but also, strangely, sensuous. She moves with the easy lethal grace of a woman who’s never in her life felt ungainly, never lumbered, never had to negotiate a doorway around the weight of another person growing inside her.

She’s everything you currently are not – lean, powerful, free.

Din comes out of the cabin to meet her with a warmth in his body language you see instantly. You see the way his shoulders ease, the way his head tilts, the way Cara grins and slams a fist against his pauldron hard enough to ring the beskar.

"Mando," she says, a whole history in the single word. "Look at you all…domesticated. Never thought I'd see the day."

"Cara." Din's voice holds that rare warmth. "It’s good to see you."

"Good to see you breathing. Heard you've been busy making yourself a family."

Her dark eyes find you then, where you stand in the doorway, one hand braced on the frame, the other resting on your enormous belly and her widens, easy and genuine.

"And there she is. The woman who tamed the Mandalorian. Stars, look at you – you're about ready to pop."

"Not long to go," you says, hearing the stiffness in your own voice, and hating it.

Cara crosses to you, sticks out a hand, and you shake it – her grip strong and warm – and she looks at you with such open friendly interest that you immediately feel horribly guilty for the venom coiling in your chest.

"It's good to finally meet you," she says. “He talks about you, which, if you know him, is basically a love poem. Man barely says ten words a day and half of them lately are about you and the baby."

You know she means it kindly as a compliment, a generosity. But all your hormone-addled brain hears is Din talks about you to her, they talk, they have a whole life together you aren’t part of, and the jealousy flares hotter.

“That's nice," you say, and the words come out clipped. You see the briefest flicker of confusion cross Cara's face before she smoothes it over.

"Come in," Din says, oblivious – gloriously, infuriatingly oblivious, the way men so often are. "I'll get the caf on. Cara, you can stay the night. We have room."

Cara nods happily, follows you inside and it is, by any reasonable measure, a perfectly pleasant evening. She’s warm and funny and easy company, full of stories about jobs and scrapes, careful and kind in the way she includes you in everything, never once making you feel like the outsider.

And Din is happy. That’s the thing that twists the knife. He’s relaxed in a way you rarely see, leaning back in his chair, trading old war stories with Cara, the two of them falling into the easy rhythm of people who’ve bled together and lived to laugh about it.

You sit through it with a smile nailed to your face and a furnace of irrational misery burning in your chest.

It’s nothing they do and that’s what makes it so maddening. Cara never flirts, never touches him beyond the rough camaraderie of old comrades, never gives you a single genuine reason for the green poison flooding your veins. Din, when he reaches for you – and he does, constantly, his hand finding your belly, your knee, the small of your back, as automatic as breathing – is as devoted as ever. But every story Cara tells that you weren't part of, every shared laugh over a past you had no place in, every reminder that this gorgeous powerful warrior-woman had known Din long before you did, feeds the fire.

She fought beside him. She's strong and free and beautiful. She knows the parts of him you'll never know. She held the line with him. What have you held? You can barely hold your own weight.

The thoughts are ugly and unfair, and you know it even as they consume you, the knowing only making it worse. You've never been a jealous person. This isn’t you. It’s the hormones, the exhaustion, the helplessness of your enormous aching body. But knowing the source of the poison doesn’t make it any less potent.

By the time Din shows Cara to the fold down bed in the living room and comes to your room, you’re a tightly wound coil of misery, lying on your side facing the wall, your jaw clenched.

He undresses in the dark, and you feel the bed dip as he slides in behind you, his bare chest warm against your back, his hand sliding over your hip to find your belly in the familiar way.

"You're quiet," he murmurs against your shoulder. "Tired?"

"Mm."

His hand stills because he knows you too well. "You’re angry. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong."

"You're a terrible liar, cyar’ika." His thumb strokes over your belly. "Did Cara say something? Did I…"

"She didn't say anything,” you reply, sharper than you mean to. "She was lovely. She's wonderful. She's perfect."

The silence behind you takes on a careful quality. "Okay," Din says slowly. "But I'm getting the sense that's not actually a compliment."

You say nothing. You stare at the wall, your throat tight, hating yourself, but unable to stop.

"Talk to me," he says softly. "Whatever it is, just say it."

It comes out of you in a rush, all of it, helpless and humiliating.

"She's strong, Din. She's beautiful and strong and free and she can fight. She can do everything. She's everything I'm not right now. She held the line with you. She pulled you out of bad spots. You light up when she's here, I've never seen you that relaxed. You talk to her, you…"

Your voice cracks, and to your horror you feel tears spilling hot down your face.

"And look at me. I'm enormous and…and slow. I cry at banthas. I can't do anything because I can barely walk to the door. I…and she's just…she's everything, and I'm…"

"Hey." Din's arm tightens around you, alarmed. "Cyar’ika, I don’t understand…"

"Don't."

You try to pull away, which is absurd because you can’t go anywhere, but the misery has you in its grip.

“I know it's stupid, I know it is, I know there's nothing…I know she's just your friend, I know you don't…but I can't…"

The sobs take you fully now, ugly and gasping, your whole body shaking with them.

"I can't help it. I see her and I see everything I used to be and everything I'm not anymore and I hate it, Din, I hate feeling like this, I've never been like this, and I just…she could give you…she's everything you…"

"Stop!"

There’s a sudden fierce edge in his voice, and he moves, pulling you over onto your back with careful insistence, looming over you in the dark so he can find your face through the visor.

"Stop right now and listen to me. You think I want Cara?" he says, and there’s something almost incredulous in it. "Cara Dune?"

"She's…"

"She's my friend, cyar’ika. My brother-in-arms. There has never been – not once, not for a single second – anything between us but that. The thought of…" He makes a low sound, somewhere between a laugh and disbelief. "She'd break my arm if she heard you say it. I'd break my own arm. It would be like…it's not even a thing that exists, the idea of me and Cara. It's not real. It was never real."

"But you…you're so happy with her here, you talk, you…"

"Because she's an old friend and I don't have many of those." His hand comes up to cradle your wet face, his thumb wiping at the tears. "Because she reminds me of a part of my life that's over now. That I left behind for this." He presses his other hand flat against your belly. "You hear me? I left that life. The fighting, the running, the bad spots Cara pulled me out of…. I walked away from all of it. For you, for this. Because none of it ever made me feel one tenth of what walking through that door and finding you and our baby makes me feel."

You’re still crying, but the sobs have begun to gentle, your hands coming up to grip his forearms.

"You think I want strong and free?" he goes on, his voice low and rough and fierce. "I had strong and free. I had a whole galaxy of it. I had a ship and a creed and nothing to lose and I was the loneliest I've ever been in my life. And then I found you. Soft and stubborn and brave and so full of love it spills out of you." His thumb traces your cheek. "And for a while we rode that life together but now…you're not less than you were. You're carrying my child, cyar’ika. Do you have any idea, any idea at all, what you look like to me right now? What you do to me?"

"Din…"

"You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." He says it flat and certain with no room for argument. "Not despite. Because. This body…" his hand sweeps over your belly and your hip, reverent and possessive, “…I can't even look at you without losing my mind. You think I want lean and hard and free? I want you. Round and full and soft and mine.”

The poison in your chest starts to drain away, slowly, replaced by a flood of shamed relief and a returning, traitorous heat.

"I'm sorry," you whisper. "I'm so sorry, I know it's irrational, I know it's the hormones, I…"

"Don't apologise."

He leans down and presses the helmet to your cheek, your jaw, then the corner of your mouth.

"You feel what you feel. I just need you to know the truth underneath it. There is no one, cyar’ika, no-one but you. There will never be anyone but you. You’re my wife. My riddur. Ni kar’tayl gar darasuum. Cara could walk in here right now and I wouldn't take my eyes off you for a second."

"Don't say that, she might actually walk in," you say, a watery laugh breaking through the tears.

And you feel his body rumble as it shifts over yours with that careful attention he always gives your changing shape, feel him hardening against your thigh, feel the want rising in him as surely as it’s rising in you.

"Din," you breathe. "She's right next door…"

"Then you'll have to be quiet, cyar’ika." The helmet drags down your throat. "Or you won't. I don't care. You're mine, and I'm going to spend the rest of this night proving it until there's not a single doubt left in that beautiful head of yours."

His hand slides down between your thighs and finds you already slick – jealousy and tears and want all tangled together into a desperate need – and he groans low through the modulator against your throat.

"See?" he murmurs. "All this misery and you're still soaked for me." His fingers part you, slide through your wetness, and you gasp and arch. "Let me fix it. Let me make you forget there's anyone in the galaxy but us."

He undresses you with slow reverence, easing the sleepshirt up over the swell of your belly, baring your breasts – so heavy and sensitive now that the first brush of his palm makes you whimper. The cool beskar rubs gently over your nipples in turn and you have to press the back of your hand to your lips to muffle the cry that wants to escape.

"That's it," he breathes, his hand never stopping its slow torment between your thighs. "Quiet, unless you want her to hear exactly whose name you're going to be saying. Because it's going to be mine. Over and over, until you can't remember why you ever cried about anyone else."

He arranges you carefully on your side again – the position that’s easiest now, that lets him hold you and your belly safe – and slides in behind you, the hardness of him nudging hot and insistent at your entrance. Then he pushes in slow, sinking into you inch by inch, and you both had to bite back the sounds that want to tear free.

"Kriff," he breathes against your ear, seated fully inside you, his hand spread wide over your belly to hold you against him. "Feel that? Feel how perfect you are? How perfectly you take me?"

He rolls his hips, a slow deep grind that makes stars burst behind your eyes.

"No one else fits me like this, cyar’ika. No one else is mine like this. Just you…only ever you."

He moves in you slow and deep, the careful rolling rhythm your body demands, the helmet at your throat and his hand splayed over the place where his child grows, and with every thrust he murmurs into your ear – a low filthy litany of devotion, of possession, of how beautiful you are, how perfect, how completely and utterly his. The misery that consumed you melts away under the heat of it, burned out and replaced by the overwhelming truth of him wrapped around you, inside you, worshipping you.

"You're the only one," he pants, his thrusts deepening, his control beginning to fray. "The only one I want. The only one I think about. The only one I come home to. This is everything, cyar’ika. You're everything." His fingers find your clit, circling, and you have to bury your face in the pillow to muffle your cry. "Say you believe me. Say you know it."

"I believe you," you gasp. "I know it, I know, Din, I'm sorry, I…"

"Don't be sorry, just be mine."

His hips drive into you, harder now, the bed beginning to creak, all his careful quiet beginning to slip.

"Be mine and let me prove it. Let her hear if she has to, I don't care. I want everyone to know exactly who you belong to."

You come with his name muffled against the pillow, your body clenching hard around him, the climax rolling through you in long pulsing waves made all the sweeter for the shame and relief and love tangled up inside it. Then his own restraint shatters, and he buries himself deep and holds and spills inside you with a low broken groan through the modulator, the helmet pressed hard against your shoulder.

You lie tangled together afterward in the dark, both of you breathing hard, him still buried in you and his hand still spread over your belly, holding the three of you together.

"Better?" he murmurs against your neck, and you can hear the smile in it.

"Better," you admit, your face hot with embarrassment now that the haze has cleared. "I really am sorry. I don't know what came over me.

"Vesha warned us about this part, remember,” he says softly, his thumb tracing idle circles over your belly. " The moods…the crying." A low rumble of amusement moves through his chest. "Though she did not specifically mention you'd accuse me of pining after Cara Dune, of all people.”

"Stop." You bury your burning face in the pillow. "I know how stupid it was. I knew it was stupid while I was saying it, that’s the worst part. I could see exactly how irrational I was being and I just…couldn't stop the feeling."

"I know." He presses the helmet to the back of your neck. "You think I don't know what irrational feelings feel like? We all have things that rise up bigger than sense, cyar’ika." His arm tightens around you. "I'd rather you tell me, all of it. As long as you don't lie there beside me suffering in silence and let me think you're just tired. That's the only thing I can't stand."

You turn your head to look at him in the dark, at the smoothness of the beskar, "You really don't…there was never anything…"

"Never,” he says with absolute finality. "I'd swear it on the Creed, on anything you want. Cara is one of maybe three people in the galaxy I'd trust with my life, and the thought of her as anything more is…incomprehensible. She'd say the same but probably less politely." He shifts slightly. "If it would help, I could ask her to confirm it in the morning, though I suspect that conversation would mortify you more than it would reassure you."

"No…" You shut your eyes. "She can't know I…did she hear us just now?"

"Almost certainly." There’s no shame in it at all, only a low warm satisfaction. "I wasn't exactly quiet at the end, and neither were you, despite your best efforts."

You groan into the pillow, and he laughs again.

"Let her hear. Let her know exactly how this Mandalorian feels about his wife. I want there to be no doubt. Not in your head, not in hers, not anywhere."

You can’t help the reluctant laugh that bubbles up through your mortification. "You're impossible."

"I'm yours." He gathers you closer, your back to his chest, his hand finding its familiar place over your belly. "Which is the same thing, apparently."

You lie there in the warm dark, the last of the poison gone from your chest, replaced by a deep and settled contentment. Beneath his palm the baby stirs, a slow lazy roll, and you feel Din go still the way he always does, the wonder of it never fading no matter how many times he felt it.

"There," he murmurs. "There she is. We probably woke her up.” His thumb traces the curve of your belly. "Won't be long now. Weeks, maybe less."

"I'm scared," you admit quietly, the confession coming easier now in the dark, in the aftermath. "Not about the jealousy. About…all of it. The birth, after…whether I'll be good at it. Whether I'll know what to do."

"You'll know." He says it without hesitation. “You’re going to be the best mother our chid could ever ask for.”

You felt your throat tighten again, but it’s a different kind of tightness now, warm and full instead of poisoned.

"And you won't do it alone," he goes on. "Not the birth, not after…none of it. I'm not leaving you to figure it out by yourself. We do this together, cyar’ika, every part of it. The good and the terrifying and the parts where you cry at banthas. I'll be there for all of it. I promise. Wherever you are, I'm there. Whatever happens, I'm there."

You turn in his arms – carefully, with his help, the manoeuvre requiring negotiation now – until you’re facing him.

"I love you," you whisper. "I'm sorry I doubted it tonight. Even for a second."

"You didn't doubt it." His hand comes up to cradle your face. "You doubted yourself, there's a difference. And I'm going to spend the rest of my life making sure you never have to." He kisses you through the beskar. "You're the most beautiful thing in any galaxy. There's just you. Always just you."

You believe him this time. Fully, down to the bone, the way you should have all along.

You fall asleep tangled together, his hand spread over your belly, the helmet cocooned by your hair, and for the first time all evening there’s no poison in your chest at all – only the warm, settled certainty of being completely and unshakably loved.

****

In the morning, you come out to find Cara already up, sitting at the worktable with a cup of caf, her boots up on a crate. She looks up as you waddle in, and there’s a knowing glint in her dark eyes, and the corner of her mouth twitches.

"Sleep well?" she asks, far too innocently.

Heat floods your face. "Cara…"

"Relax."

She grins, easy and warm, and there’s no malice in it at all, only a rough, affectionate humour.

"Walls are thin, it’s fine. Honestly, it's good to hear. Din spent years being the most miserable, locked-up, lonely son of a bantha in the Outer Rim. Half the time I figured he'd die alone in that beskar shell of his, too stubborn to let anyone close."

She nods toward the bedroom, where Din’s still getting dressed.

“Then he goes and gets himself all this. A wife, a baby, a home and he’s…I've never heard him talk the way he talks about you. Never seen him relaxed like he is around you."

She meets your eyes, steady and sincere.

"Whatever you're worried about, don't be. I'm just glad somebody finally got through to him. He deserves it and so do you."

The last of your shame melts away under the plain warmth of it, and you feel your eyes sting again – the stupid hormones, always so close to the surface.

"Thank you," you manage. "And…I'm sorry, if I was cold yesterday. I wasn't…it wasn't about you. It was…"

"You're almost nine months pregnant and your man's old war buddy showed up looking like this." Cara gestures at herself with the cup and smirks. "I'd have wanted to throw me out a window too. No apology needed."

She stands, stretches, her joints popping, and claps you gently on the shoulder.

"He's a good man, under all the beskar and the brooding. The best I've known. He's lucky to have you so, take care of him. And let him take care of you - Maker knows he's desperate to. The man can barely stand to be in a different room from you."

Din emerges from the bedroom then and crosses to slide his arm around your waist, his hand finding its automatic place on the curve of your belly. He looks between the two of you, the visor sliding from side to side, reading something in the air.

"Everything okay?" he asks.

"Everything's great," Cara says, draining her caf. "Your girl and I are square. I was just telling her she's got good taste, considering what she has to work with. Don't worry, Mando, I'm not stealing your woman, or correcting her opinion of you. Both seem suspiciously high."

Din's arm tightens around you, and you feel the warmth. "They're not high enough," he says quietly, "but I'm working on it."

His fingers twitch slightly on your belly, and you move your hand to rest over his.

“I have to ask…” he starts, “if…”

“No, you don’t,” Cara interrupts him. “The answer is yes. The answer is always yes.”

You look between them, confused. “What’s the question?”

Both of them stay silent, but Cara nods, just once, her expression serious whilst, outside the window, a lone Nevarro bird cuts through the air, its blue and gold feathers dulling under the shadow of a gathering ash cloud.

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