Work Text:
BB-8 whirled on board the Millennium Falcon, whizzing around the feet of those left in the Resistance. Friend-Finn had arrived in safety with Mechanic-Rose [Beebee's internal processor logs the potential future necessity of updating her designation to Friend-Rose as well], and Master-Poe was checking in with Amazing-And-Perfect-Leia-Organa.
The pieces of the plan had not yet fallen together, though. Beebee zoomed in a different direction, purposefully hooting loud enough for Master-Poe to hear, until it found its target.
[Savior-Rey!] Beebee rolled up in front of the young woman who saved its life on Jakku. [You have rescued the Resistance.]
Rey smiled down at BB-8 in a way very similar to the way Master-Poe often smiled down at BB-8.
They were terribly compatible, and it did not compute that they had not met yet. BB-8 had cataloged the things they had in common:
- Pilots
- Reckless
- Kind
- Loyal
- Curious
- Warriors
- Enthusiastic
- Like and Respect Leia Organa
- Love Finn, formerly FN-2187
- Love BB-8
All of these reasons, the last being the paramount indication of compatibility, suggested that they should at the very least speak, and most realistically, should complete the humanoid ceremony of ‘marriage.’
Rey adjusted BB-8’s antennae while it was considering the perfection of its plan, still smiling softly despite the lines of exhaustion on her face.
BB-8 sensed the approach of Master-Poe, and sure enough, when BB-8 looked up, Rey was standing and accepting the hand Master-Poe offered.
Master-Poe was good at talking to women. And men. Everyone. Master-Poe was Charming.
This was going to go according to plan, Beebee had accounted for everything, and its two favorite people in the galaxy were now finally meeting and would find what the humanoid holo-reels often described as ‘love.’
“I’m Rey,” the savior was saying.
“I know.” Poe – whose biological indicators suggested heightened interest and positive reaction to the appearance of Savior-Rey – smirked at her, and Rey smiled back. Then, the conversation ended.
Beebee had not accounted for one thing:
Savior-Rey made it difficult for Master-Poe to talk, and therefore Charm Her, because –
She made him nervous.
This was not in the calculations. Master-Poe would need further encouragement.
***
Beebee continued to find creative and interesting ways to encourage Master-Poe and Savior-Rey to talk to one another. The biological response noted in Master-Poe the first time they had met only grew more intense with time, and similar markers began to appear in Savior-Rey as well.
Excellent.
When Beebee followed Master-Poe outside base one day to watch him pick flowers (strange, strange Master-Poe, but then again, he’d never done things that made much sense), it realized its dreams were coming true when –
Master-Poe walked back into base with the flowers in hand, the back of his neck beet-red. He knocked on Rey’s door, muttering to himself – a quiet, “Wish me luck, buddy,” whispered down to the droid, who hummed obligingly in response – and the door hissed open.
“I got these for you,” Poe said quickly. Beebee rolled over with great interest to see Rey’s cheeks matched Poe’s neck in color. “Because they’re pretty. And I know you like flowers. And you’re pretty. And I like you? So yeah. Uh.” Rey took the flowers, looking pleasantly surprised (based on the angle and height of her eyebrows and the corners of her mouth). “I’m gonna go away forever now, yeah? Okay, great talk, see you at lunch—” Rey leaned forward before Poe could walk away and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, yanking him into her room. The door hissed shut before Beebee could enter.
It rammed into the durasteel a few times, grumbling in protest before rolling away. It would just have to ask Master-Poe for details of this victory later.
***
Eight months later, when the Resistance has once again reached near-optimal recruitment levels, Beebee pretended to be Savior-Rey for almost two hours while Poe practiced a speech.
“My mother gave me this ring before she died, and there is nothing in the galaxy I treasure more than it. Well, except for you, Rey. You’re my partner, my perfect half, the part that’s been missing from me for so long, I didn’t notice it wasn’t there until I met you. You’d make me the happiest man in the galaxy, Sunshine, if you agreed to marry me. No. No, that isn’t right –” Master-Poe made an odd noise – one that, in the past, often preceded an impressive, drunken projection of vomit – and collapsed on the bed face first.
[Master-Poe] Beebee rolled forward and nudged him kindly. Poe sat up and blinked at the droid, looking upset. [You are over-calculating. Merely ask Savior-Rey. She appreciates being spoken to in a direct fashion. It is something I appreciate about her.]
“You’re right, buddy,” Poe sighed and scratched the top of Beebee’s dome. Beebee made a small noise of enjoyment – more for Master-Poe’s sake than its own. It didn’t actually feel much when Poe scratched it, but it seemed to make Master-Poe happy. “I just don’t want to kriff this up.”
Master-Poe then proceeded to skip dinner to avoid seeing Savior-Rey, due to something Poe described as “a flock of angry steelvultures in [his] stomach.”
This would not do. BB-8 excused itself with great skill and went to find Rey. It told her a story of an injured Master-Poe, and she rushed to his bunk with the droid.
Beebee felt that it would receive a scolding later, based on the face Poe made when the doors open and BB-8 ushered Savior-Rey into the room; but, given that she agreed to his proposal, it felt that perhaps some leniency in punishment was to be expected.
***
BB-8 rolled over to Poe a week after the wedding (Beebee had been designated Ring Bearer, and had completed its duties admirably).
[Master-Poe] it chirped. Poe beamed down at him and kneeled, petting over its dome. Beebee hummed in contentment briefly before remembering its objective. It rammed forward into Poe’s knees quickly.
“Ow!” Poe yelped, rubbing his leg. “What the hells, Beebee?”
[You broke regulation!] Beebee scolded. [You were wrestling in a sleeping area!]
“I was what?” Poe’s face looked – Beebee scanned its facial recognition software – confused. Master-Poe looked confused. Beebee sighed in fond exasperation. Master-Poe required an explanation. Typical.
[You and Savior-Rey,] Beebee started. Poe looked less confused, more red, now, and Savior-Rey wandered over at the sound of her name. [You were wrestling in your bunk last night. And you caused Savior-Rey a good deal of pain! I heard!] It zapped Poe for good measure, causing another yelp.
“No!” Poe shouted, raising his hands. Savior-Rey covered her mouth with her hand and started to [scanning lexicon] giggle. She was giggling. Odd. Beebee reprimanded her husband for breaking regulation and causing her pain, and she giggled? Humanoids were so strange. “No, oh, Maker save me, no, we weren’t wrestling we were – Rey, help me, gods, stop laughing—no, Beebee we were uh…doing something else.”
[Explain] Beebee rolled forward anxiously to Rey, who knelt and rubbed its dome comfortingly.
“We were just practicing for something,” Rey said sweetly, patting Beebee once more before folding her hands in her lap. “You wouldn’t tell on us for practicing, right?”
[No!] Beebee assured her. It valued loyalty above almost everything else in the galaxy. [No, I would not write a report on my master and mistress.]
“Good,” Rey smiled at him happily. “And Poe didn’t hurt me, not at all.” She looked over at Master-Poe, and Beebee’s internal drive whirls in confusion when she winks at him. “Very much the opposite.” Master-Poe turned an odd red color. This was common when Master-Poe talked to or sat with Savior-Rey, so Beebee did not even bother logging the reaction.
[What were you practicing for?] Beebee asked. Poe choked, strangely, and Rey grinned at both of them.
“Something very, very important that your master wants very, very badly,” Rey said sweetly. Beebee fondly bumped against her legs before rolling away. Rey giggled for quite some time after the conversation.
Oddly enough, from then on, Beebee finds that the door to Master-Poe’s bedroom is often closed for an hour or two in the evening.
Odd.
***
When Savior-Rey and Master-Poe have been married for one year, eight months, and sixteen days, and the war had been over for five months, eight days, Beebee noticed an odd development.
It looked like Savior-Rey was carrying a BB-unit under her tunic.
Odd.
And stranger still, the BB-shaped bump grew larger over time.
Master-Poe seemed unperturbed at this change, and often would rain kisses down on the bump, causing Savior-Rey to giggle and swat at him. She called him ‘silly,’ and ‘ridiculous man,’ and once, confusingly, ‘proud papa.’
Master-Poe was Savior-Rey’s husband, not her ‘papa,’ but Poe seemed deeply pleased by the title, and rained down more kisses on his wife and her swollen abdomen.
Savior-Rey called Master-Poe things like “silly” and “ridiculous,” but he called her things, in Yavinese, like “diosa,” and “reina,” and then would offer to worship her in thanks for giving him…something? Something he called “the greatest gift in the galaxy.” But, Savior-Rey had not given Master-Poe a gift since his thirty-fourth Life Day, six months prior.
It was all very strange.
***
They moved into the Dameron compound on Yavin 4 one year, nine months, and thirty-two days into Master-Poe’s marriage to Savior-Rey. She now required assistance getting out of chairs and lifting things, something she grumbled about because apparently she could “do it herself,” but Master-Poe was adamant about helping her.
Perhaps he was starting to notice the BB-shaped lump on her abdomen? Master-Poe had been slower than that in the past. It would not be surprising.
Abuelo-Kes was thrilled to have them, and he and Master-Poe often worked on plans for a new house in the corner of the compound while Rey napped in a chair. She was very active while awake, but Beebee wondered if the extra weight around her middle made her tired. It tried its best to drag soft blankets from around the house to where she slept, and she was always very appreciative of the gesture.
***
Master-Poe went into an inexplicable panic two years, thirty-one days in his marriage with Savior-Rey.
The droid had been minding its own business, charging its energy source in the corner of the bedroom, when Savior-Rey woke up, two hours before Standard Dawn on Yavin 4.
“Ow,” Rey said softly, cradling the bump on her middle before looking over at Poe. “I’m going to go get some water, Beebee, you make sure Mr. Over-Protective gets some rest.” Beebee hooted in acknowledgment – Master-Poe had truly been over-bearing to Savior-Rey recently, as if he had forgotten that she was the strongest person in the universe – and she patted it on the head before leaving.
There was a crashing noise from the kitchen two minutes later, and Poe bolted upright. “Where’s Rey?” He demanded after patting the bed next to him.
[She went to the kitchen,] Beebee answered. [She required –] It huffed in annoyance when Master-Poe sprinted past it, shouting for Rey as he went. [Water.]
Poe was kneeling on the floor next to Savior-Rey when Beebee arrived to the kitchen. The source of the crashing noise was quickly identified as a broken glass of water. Savior-Rey’s face was grey – Poe’s was not much better in terms of healthy coloring – and one hand gripped the counter above her, the other gripped her abdomen.
“Breathe,” Poe was saying, stroking a hand through her hair. “Just breathe, Sunshine.” Rey nodded, and then squeezed her eyes shut again, biting her lip as she moaned low in her throat. “Dad?” Poe bellowed. “Buddy, go get Kes.”
Now definitely alert to some unseen danger, Beebee rolled as fast as possible to Kes’s room. Abuelo-Kes was already awake and stumbling for the door, and Poe shouted, “Get Kalonia!” out of sight.
Beebee decided to follow Kes to send the holo-message to Doctor Kalonia.
It thought to itself that Savior-Rey must truly be sick, if Doctor Kalonia was coming all the way here.
***
There was a lot of screaming (Savior-Rey) and a lot of crying (Master-Poe), and then more, higher-pitched crying. This all came from behind the closed door of one of the smaller houses on the compound, while BB-8 waited outside anxiously with Abuelo-Kes.
Thirteen hours and sixteen minutes after Savior-Rey fell in the kitchen, Master-Poe stumbled outside the house, crying. Beebee hooted anxiously, but Poe smiled, smiled through the extreme amount of tears falling from his eyes.
“It’s a girl,” he sobbed. “She’s—oh gods, papá, she’s beautiful.” Kes bounded up the stairs and into the smaller house, and both Dameron men emerged five minutes later, Kalonia shooing them, sobbing and clutching each other. Beebee watched them with intense confusion as they wandered up to the house.
The droid rolled to the front door and peeked inside. Kalonia was performing a task that was unseen, over what looked like a small surgical table set up in the corner of the one-room house. Savior-Rey was collapsed against the pillows, sweaty-faced, her hair a halo around her head, and Beebee noted a pile of bloodied sheets at the foot of the bed.
No one seemed alarmed about the blood.
Odd.
Very odd.
Kalonia turned around and held – a wriggling, tiny humanoid creature in her arms.
“Here she is,” Kalonia cooed. Rey held her hands out, sniffing, and collected the bundle.
“Hey,” Rey sniffed again. “Hey stranger. It’s so nice to finally meet you.” Rey laughed then, an exhausted sound, and Kalonia sat on the edge of the bed, and joined with her, smoothing some hair out of Rey’s face. The women smiled at each other, but Beebee stared in shock, its optical unit zooming in and out in an attempt to understand.
What was that thing? And why was no one furious that it had arrived amongst such screaming and blood, all of which seemed to come from Savior-Rey, whom everyone loved and treasured?
This must be a trick.
When Master-Poe returned ten minutes later wearing different clothes, his arm wrapped around Abuelo-Kes’s shoulders, he seemed undisturbed by this ‘stranger’ as well. Instead, he curled up next to his wife on the bed. He draped an arm over his wife’s middle, his hand coming up to stroke over the head of the…creature…and rested his own head on Savior-Rey’s shoulder while he gazed down at the newcomer.
No one seemed alarmed at this potential invader, and no one seemed to notice BB-8. It rolled away muttering about the First Order and its evil ways. No one heard.
***
The next few weeks, it became very obvious what The Creature’s ploy was.
Exhaust the Damerons until they could not function.
It cried all through the night; it ruined a good amount of clothing and blankets; it screamed at odd times. Savior-Rey and Master-Poe had not slept more than two hours at a time since Its arrival.
Savior-Rey cried more in those three weeks than in the entire three years Beebee had known her.
And Master-Poe? The man was an Absolute Wreck. Amazing-And-Perfect-Leia-Organa’s words, not BB-8’s.
Speaking of Amazing-And-Perfect-Leia-Organa, though – she was just as smitten with The Creature as everyone else. This truly solidified the threat in Beebee’s databases. The First Order assuredly was plotting some great evil against the heroes of the Resistance, and the former Rebellion, based on how much time and energy Abuelo-Kes and Amazing-And-Perfect-Leia-Organa spent with The Creature.
This did not bode well for the future of the Damerons if they did not address the threat properly. Beebee would have to speak to Master-Poe. If only he were awake and/or not holding The Creature long enough for the conversation to be had.
***
Master-Poe came to speak with BB-8 without the droid requesting an audience. Beebee waited patiently to say its piece regarding The Creature, but Poe began to walk and talk quickly. Beebee tried to log what Master-Poe was saying, but his words were slurred and even quicker than normal, a sign of his exhaustion.
“I’m so sorry I haven’t introduced you yet, buddy, I don’t want you to think that I’ve forgotten you because I haven’t, and we’re gonna get R2-D2 down here so he can hang out with you when Rey and I are asleep or busy because I don’t want you to think we don’t care about you just because you have a little sister…”
Little sister? BB-8 whirs in confusion.
Poe knocked on the door of the room he shared with Savior-Rey, and her voice called out softly, “You can come in.” Master-Poe opened the door slowly and gestured with his head for Beebee to go in first. BB-8 rolled in suspiciously, on the guard for The Creature in case it finally attacked.
The Creature was there, of course, sitting in Rey’s arms as she curled up in a chair. Rey’s hair was braided, doubtlessly by Amazing-And-Perfect-Leia-Organa, who’d been staying in a downstairs bedroom these last few weeks (when she’d offered ‘to help,’ Beebee assumed she had meant ‘eliminating the threat’ and not ‘falling victim to its Evil Ways’), and there were circles under her eyes. But, even with a blanket over her lap and The Creature in her arms, it was unmistakable.
The BB-shaped bump under her clothing was gone. Her face was a little fuller than it was a year ago, and she was a little heavier, but the bump – vanished. Gone. Disappeared.
Beebee rolled all the way over at Master-Poe’s request. Its master kneeled down, and Rey slid down to sit next to him. The Creature waved chubby, pink approximations of hands around in the air, and BB-8 leaned away in distaste, not wanting to make contact with the potential enemy.
“This is Hana,” Rey whispered reverently. Beebee scanned its mistress quickly, and saw that her oxytocin levels were intensely elevated (Master-Poe’s too), and her heart rate was slow, her blood pressure incredibly normal. No signs of stress or manipulation. Odd.
[Hana?] Beebee repeated, curiously.
“Hana Dameron,” Poe answered softly, his thumb gently stroking some of the wisps of hair on top of – Hana’s? – head. “Our baby. Your sister.”
Beebee’s optical unit zoomed in on the sleeping – baby’s – face. Not creature. Baby. Small, pert nose. That reminded BB-8 of Mistress-Rey. Darker complexion, darker, curly hair, and when the eyes open, a dark brown. That reminded BB-8 of Master-Poe.
BB-8 ran the calculations, did the math. It computed.
[Sister?] Beebee repeated, leaning in close again, dome rolling around to get as close as possible to the infant. The baby cooed and waved its chubby hands towards the droid, but it didn’t flinch that time.
“Yes,” Rey said happily. “We’re a family, Beebee, you included.”
As if sensing its residual doubt, the baby reached up and grasped Beebee’s antenna in a tiny fist, slightly bending it.
“Just like her mama,” Poe laughed wonderingly, leaning in to kiss his wife’s forehead. She hummed in agreement, but Beebee was transfixed, gazing at the infant, committing her face to its memory logs.
[Hana] it repeated. [Sister-Hana].