A/N: It's been a rough couple weeks trying to teach the tiny humans, and I'm anxious at the thought of going to work tomorrow. Here's something a little bit sad, and a little bit vague. Merry Christmas?

Ache

Twenty years after she fell in love with Kanan Jarrus, and nine years after she lost him, Hera Syndulla let herself open her heart again. In the course of her duties to the New Republic, she met someone who was everything she needed. He had an easy smile, kind eyes, an understanding heart. They had the Rebellion and Ryloth in common, and a love for flying. It was just as well they hadn't met in their younger years; the people they were before the war were so different from the ones they were after. If they'd met in another time and place, it wouldn't have worked.

As soon as Hera realized she loved him, she gave herself to him wholly and completely. She'd learned her lesson the first time. Life was too short, too unpredictable and awful to not be with the person whose soul resonated with your own. The love between them wasn't the burning, passionate thing they'd both felt before, in other times and for other people. But it was steadfast and deep and no less real.

They married quietly, and for maybe the first time, Hera felt she was standing on solid ground. She was finally building a life—not just fighting for one. She felt happy and hopeful, like she was waking up to parts of herself that had been dormant for almost a decade.

And then she got pregnant.

Something heavy lurked beneath her joy and it must have shown in her eyes, because when she told him she was carrying their baby, her husband tempered his own excitement—which was very nearly palpable—and held her so close that she could feel her heart beat against his chest. He murmured things into her skin, things she couldn't hear above the sound of apprehension roaring in her thoughts. Then his hands wandered and came to rest on the new fullness below her navel and she felt dizzy because, Force, she loved him so much and she wanted this—their baby, their life together.

But she felt a hollowness somewhere deep inside.

It was something she couldn't put into words until she was visiting Sabine on Krownest a month later. She sat watching the Mandalorian wrestle with a formidable opponent: her six-year-old, a raven-haired beauty who did not want to have her tangles smoothed out. They were sitting cross-legged on Sabine's bed. Again and again, Sabine turned the wiggly girl's shoulders, tilted her head, wrapped her fingers around the collar of her nightgown to hold her in place. Hera had to bite her lip to keep from laughing when she heard the light pop of a comb against the little one's scalp, accompanied by the ancient rebuke: Sit still.

Hera had seen Sabine set high explosives with fewer lines of concentration creasing her forehead.

"Please ask your daddy to tuck you in," Sabine sighed when she released her prisoner at last. She was exhausted from the struggle, but not so exhausted that she couldn't shoot one last, firm look. "Straight to sleep, Mira."

"I love you, mommy," little Mira said irreverently, smacking a kiss on Sabine's cheek. She tumbled off the bed and ran straight to Hera, wrapping her arms tightly around her neck. "I love you, Aunt Hera."

"I love you, too." She watched the little girl streak out of the room, all energy and carefree smiles. "I imagine you were every bit like that," she said to Sabine.

The younger woman groaned. "Karma," she answered, shaking her head. "Come over here, won't you?" She motioned to all the empty space on the bed. "I didn't ask you to be here so I could talk to you from halfway across the house."

This dramatic statement met with an eyeroll, but Hera left her chair and settled next to Sabine on the bed, both of them leaning comfortably against the headboard. For a moment, it struck her as odd; the Hera and Sabine of fifteen years ago would never have felt comfortable sharing such intimate space. The dynamic between them was something else the war had changed, but Hera found she didn't mind all that much.

"How are things?"

The hesitant question shook Hera from her musings. She breathed deeply through her nose and made a humming noise as she exhaled. "I'm pregnant," she said finally.

"I thought so," Sabine murmured softly, glancing sideways. Hera could tell she was sorely tempted to scold her for traveling halfway across the galaxy. Instead, she asked, "How far along?"

"Eighteen weeks." Sabine visibly relaxed and Hera nodded, tacitly acknowledging that her pregnancy had advanced beyond the window when miscarriage was most likely to occur. "We're doing well."

"Does the baby move much yet?"

"Some." Hera rubbed a hand across her abdomen and very nearly smiled. "It's like a flutter, or tiny bubbles popping under my skin."

"Enjoy that while it lasts." Sabine tapped her fingers on her own very large belly. Her due date was only days away. "In a few months, there'll be someone in there who wants to create new spaces between your ribs."

Hera winced thinking about it. "Wonderful."

"It's not. But," she added, eyes shining softly, "then you'll have a tiny person in your arms, and…you'll just kind of forget about all the uncertainty and the pain that came before." She looked at Hera, brows drawing together. "It's okay to feel those things, you know."

Unwelcome tears started to pool and Hera looked down at her hands. "It wasn't an accident," she explained in a rush. Her words were uneven and halting. "We started trying right away and nothing happened, so I thought…I thought I'd missed my chance. At thirty-nine, I wasn't expecting to—" She stopped, taking shaky breaths. "And then when I found out I was, I—I was so happy and relieved and—guilty."

"Hera, why?" Sabine's alarm and dismay were evident in her face, and pregnancy hormones were doing her no favors; tears were in her eyes, too. "You've more than earned the right to be happy—"

"I wanted to tell Kanan," she whispered, choking on his name. She looked Sabine dead in the eyes. "When the droid gave me the result of the pregnancy test—in that split second—the first person I wanted to tell was Kanan. I should have been beside myself with joy, but suddenly I was grieving all over again."

She couldn't keep from crying anymore. Sabine swore softly in Mando'a. She cupped her hand around Hera's and squeezed tightly. She didn't say anything for a long time; there was nothing to say. No words could mend what had been broken, and both women knew that.

Hera tried to pull herself together, wiping tears from her face with trembling fingers. "You must think—"

"What I think," Sabine interrupted sharply, "is that you're too hard on yourself."

"I just…" Hera shook her head, rubbing tired eyes. "How is it possible to be so happy and so content with my life and still feel this…this terrible ache deep inside?"

Sabine's eyes drifted toward the sound of her husband's laughter, coming from Mira's room. "Grief ebbs and flows," she murmured distantly. Hera followed her gaze, brows pulled together in concern.

"Does he still have nightmares?"

"Mm." Sabine turned back with a somber nod. "Not as often. And—so do I, sometimes."

"I didn't know."

Sabine shrugged. "Considering how bad everything was at first, it's…it's not a big deal anymore. It's just something we live with." The air was thick for a moment before her lips turned upward in an impish grin. "That's how we wound up with Mira, you know," she said wickedly. "I couldn't sleep because of nightmares and I knew he couldn't either, so I went to his room one night and…stayed."

Hera made a sound that was halfway between a horrified gasp and a shriek of laughter. "Sabine Wren! On my ship?"

The younger woman's eyes widened. "You didn't know?"

"I suspected that's…but I tried not to think too hard about it."

They looked at each other and then burst out laughing until they were out of breath and tears streamed down their faces. As Hera regained her composure, she thought of how hard it had been to let herself laugh at all in the first few months after Kanan died, when she'd still been rebuilding her life piece by piece. She'd never imagined being able to smile at anything again, let alone laugh. She remembered how some days, some weeks, some months were harder than others. Sabine was right; grief ebbed and flowed. Maybe it always would. Maybe some wounds weren't meant to heal completely. It would be difficult to savor life's sweetest joys without having first tasted the bitterness of pain, Hera mused.

Months later, she again found herself settled near Sabine and again, the Mandalorian issued a gentle query. "How are you, Hera? I mean, really?"

"I'm tired," she said simply. Her voice was deeper than usual, strained by hours of sleeplessness and the pained cries of labor. Her body hurt and she could hardly keep her eyes open, yet she felt she could do without sleep just a little while longer if it meant she got to cradle her newborn to her chest.

"Tired," Sabine repeated with a snort. "Leave it to you to make an ordeal like childbirth sound like only a mild physical strain."

Hera rolled her eyes and laughed, then winced at the sharp twinge of discomfort in her lower body. "I'm in pain in places I didn't know a woman could be in pain," she deadpanned. "Are you happy now?"

Sabine sat forward on the edge of her seat, pulled close to Hera's bed, bouncing a babbling five-month-old on her knee. "Are you?"

"I am," she murmured. She nuzzled her cheek on top of baby Aurora's head. She was blue-skinned like her father and beautiful and perfect. "I'm happy, Sabine."

"And that ache you told me about?" Sabine watched her intently.

Hera nodded, admitting softly, "Still there. But it's—different, somehow. It's…" She fell silent, unable to find the right words.

"A thing you can live with?"

"A thing I can live with." Hera gently opened one of Aurora's tiny, balled-up fists, counting her fingers for the dozenth time, marveling at the smoothness of her skin. Hera's heart did ache, but with love and joy much more than sadness. Hearing Aurora's first, gasping breath made Hera's entire world snap into focus, as if every pain and trial had led her to that one moment. She smiled as her eyes drooped and closed. "And someday we'll share that story with them—with Aurora and Caleb."

Sabine kissed the top of her son's downy head. "I think they'll like that."

A/N: I was shooting for pure angst, but my INFP "has a compulsive need for a hopeful, if not happy, ending" self wouldn't allow it. At first I thought the conversations between Hera and Sabine were messy, but then I thought, feelings are messy, you know? Anyway, let me know what you think!