The General's Wife

2. The Second Attempt

The message he'd finally received a month after departing Naboo had been brief. Not pregnant.

Those two words stared out at him from the datapad he had read it on like a silent accusation. He knew that she came from a family of women who had all successfully bred and born multiple children, so he stood contemplatively at the control panel aboard the Finalizer allowing his thoughts to wonder as to why they had been unsuccessful. All of his previous dalliances with whores and the ship concubines had been focused solely on preventing pregnancy; he wasn't sure about the methods for impregnation other than emptying himself inside her. Of course one session was hardly enough to guarantee it took, and he cursed himself for not having her again before he left the next morning. She had been sore though, and he knew the initial act had taken a great deal out of her – the pain she tried to mask had been extremely obvious.

Hux scoped through his calendar on the datapad and saw a free afternoon the following week where he would have time to visit for a few hours before he would be expected to return. He sent a reply message to expect him on that date and huffed his frustration. So many things were expected of him from so many people and now this was one more thing on the pile. Still, in spite of his reluctance to agree to marry, he did feel a sense of responsibility to the poor girl; therefore he would sacrifice what little free time he had and return to her for a few hours.

He felt a presence behind him and turned to see Kylo Ren's black façade staring at him, that irritating helmet masking all features and glimpses as to what he might be thinking, a fact Hux was all too aware was not the case for him.

"Trouble, General?" he asked conversationally, though Hux knew he had already seen what the General was thinking of, "Marital problems already?"

"Nothing to concern you, Ren," he snapped, turning towards the wall of screens, trying to find something else to concentrate on. The familiar tickling of his brain alerted him that Ren was still pilfering through his memories with Cara, probably looking for something he could use against him.

"Can I help you?" he seethed menacingly, not bothering to hide his irritation at the man.

"Just looking," the man spoke casually through his helmet, voice distorted, "Perhaps you would have been more successful if you'd stayed a little longer General."

"And what business is it of yours how I conduct my affairs? It's not as if I can leave this ship for long without knowing if one of your tantrums will have me explaining to the Supreme Leader how you tore it to shreds in my absence."

Ren shrugged his shoulders, "She's a beautiful girl; it seems a shame that you could not enjoy her charms more than once before you left. Then again she didn't look like she enjoyed herself too much either." He walked off at those parting words, leaving Hux fuming in his wake at the implication that he had somehow already failed his young wife as a husband and a lover.

She knows not to expect affection or romance. The least you can do is give the poor girl a baby, his thoughts scolded him.

He spent the rest of the morning rearranging meetings and the like so that he could carve out a full day for her in place of the few hours he had planned to spend. If he arrived early in the morning and left after dinner it would be reasonably safe to assume those he left in charge such as Phasma and Mitaka could babysit Kylo Ren for that long.

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Cara busied herself in the weeks following her wedding with wandering the halls of her youth and whiling away the time by the pool overlooking the mountains, its edge perilously close to a violent drop off. As a girl she and her siblings had dared each other to swim directly next to the ledge, peering over to the craggy rocks and tree tops below before swimming back to the pack in terror.