It can't be, but it is.

Rey knows herself, and she knows her body, and she is. She's known for a while, but she hasn't been able to tell anyone yet. How can she even explain it? She dreads the day when it becomes necessary to explain, because anyone putting together the timeline will easily figure it out. She had been captive for exactly 47 days before a rescue mission had been successful. She had only held out until, what? Day 20?

Maybe they would think he forced himself on to her unwillingly. It was a way out, but it made Rey feel squeamish, thinking about lying about something like that. She couldn't.

She dreads the day when he finds out. Because he will find out. It is possible, she thinks, that he already knows. Somehow. And he will want it. She knows that she will have to protect it from him.

At night Rey splays her hands out on her stomach, feeling the slight change. She thinks of the three times they were together and she wishes that she could take it all back. It all feels hazy now, like she was living in an unreal world, where nothing had context or consequences. She thinks of the first time, when he had gotten so close that she backed against her cell wall. When he practically begged her to join him, or else she would be killed.

"Kill me then."

He had lost control, destroying the furnishings of her cell, before he came back so close she could feel his breath on her ear.

"You make this so difficult. Please."

He did not want her dead. Not at all.

She thinks of the second time, when he came to her and she had for some reason found it beyond her power to turn him away. She thinks of the third time, when she came to him, and had spent the night in his bed as if it was something almost normal.

The whole thing feels like some sickening dream. The proof that it was real grows inside her now.

Of all people, Finn says something first. She thinks it is because he is always observing her closely. He has been watching her even more than normal lately, and she knows that he has taken note of every meal she has refused, every time she seems to need to stop and catch her breath more than normal. It is getting close to five months since the last time she saw Kylo Ren, and her clothes are not very forgiving.

"Do you have anything you need to tell me?" he asks one night when her corners her alone. He says it with a smile, but his eyes are so worried. She cannot lie to him. What is the point? She can feel her child move inside of her as she cries on Finn's shoulder and lets herself be held.

"I'm gonna kill him," Finn says, and Rey laughs into his shirt, because she doesn't need anyone to stand up for her, and they both know it, but it feels nice for him to say it anyway. It feels nice to be held and it feels nice not to keep the secret bundled up inside of her chest, pressing on her lungs. She breathes.

"You're going to have to tell them," he says, threading his fingers between hers as they sit next to each other under the stars. "They already suspect, but you need to have a conversation."

"I know," she says, but right now she wants to lay back and feel the night air on her face and his hand in hers. She puts her other hand on her stomach and feels the movement, and for the first time she finds it comforting rather than frightening. My child is in there, she thinks.

She does tell, the next day. She's very, very frightened to tell Luke, because she does not want to disappoint him, to make him ashamed of her. She's frightened to tell Leia, because she knows how mixed the general's emotions will be towards the situation. It is her grandchild she carries inside of her, the child of her only son- the child of a murderer who killed the man she loved.

In the end, they side-step many of the hows and whys for more practical topics such as what do we do now?

"He will come after the child," Leia says. "After it is delivered, we need to take it somewhere safe. We can find someone who will be able to care for it and protect it from anyone who tries to come after it."

"Without me?" Rey asked, putting her hand over her stomach protectively without thinking about it. "You want to take my baby away from me?"

"Just for a ti-"

"No. Absolutely not." Rey feels herself almost shaking; she realizes at this moment how much she feels about a topic she had never even considered before just now. No one is taking her child away from her. There is no way she is going to leave any son or daughter of hers on some random planet, counting away the days on a neverending calendar, wondering if she is ever coming back for them. "My child belongs at my side. There is no one better to care for them than me. If you have to send me to hide away, too, so be it."

They don't send her away to hide. In fact, after the initial conversation, they hardly mention the subject at all, despite her rapidly growing belly. Slowly, she is able to do less and less, until one day she is hardly able to even get to her feet to say goodbye to Finn and Poe before they leave on a mission. She makes herself, though, because for one, they say walking is good for bringing on labor, and also, she never lets them leave without saying goodbye. She never knows.

Rey goes for a walk by herself. She tries to ignore the ache in her back and the pain that runs up her legs, and instead tries to concentrate on the light breeze that pushes her hair back, and the feel of grass under her feet. To be able to raise a child somewhere like this, even in the middle of a war, feels like a gift to Rey. She would have never wanted to bring up a baby back on Jakku, never knowing when you would be robbed, or cheated or starved to death. She had no one, and now she has a family of sorts, people who she knows have her back. You might not have been conceived from love, she directs her thought at her child. But you will be born into it.

She crosses over a hill. What were you conceived from? Rey still does not know entirely. There had been an undeniable connection between the two of them, but what that connection is she does not understand. Had it just been lust? Is it possible that it is something so simple, so basic, so mammal? She strikes this thought from her head. It is not love either, because nothing she has come to associate with love seems to fit into this. It is something even more pared down, and one word crosses Rey's mind- need- when she is suddenly doubled over by the sharp pain of a contraction.

She grips her middle and squeezes her eyes shut with the pain. When it finally passes, she thinks that she probably better turn around and head back. Rey stands up straight, and she sees him. She sees him standing right in front of her. At first she thinks it can't be real, because how can he be here, but he takes a step forward and Rey reaches for a weapon that isn't there.

"I'm not here to hurt you," he says.

"You're here to take me," she spits at him, and this he doesn't deny. So stupid, she thinks as she backs up. Stupid for walking so far, stupid for not going into hiding when she had the chance, stupid for being so giant and pregnant and useless. The smallest voice inside of her whispers along that she is so stupid for the way her heart jumped the tiniest bit when she saw his face. Because it is his face and not his mask that approaches her. His face, and not his mask, that is the last thing she sees before everything goes hazy and she falls into his arms.