The cold nights of Kamino were much like my native Canadian winters, just with much, much more water and rain. I laid on my side, having evicted Jango from his bed so I could rest, not that he minded. He was out on a bounty as I laid there, watching the plain wall, wondering if the scent that hung in the apartment was typical of the two or something else. Either way, I'd have to learn to get used to it.
I was nearly asleep when I heard a scratching at the door, well, more of a sad, pathetic knock than a scratch as I rolled onto my other side, grabbing my t shirt from the ground. I wore a pair of Jango's baggy pants, since they were softer and more comfortable to sleep in than hard denim. Pulling the t shirt over my head I answered the door, my braid still stuck between my back and the shirt.
What I saw was young Boba, his cheeks wet and his dark brown eyes watery. Needless to say, I melted and bent my knees, crouching beside him and wiping away the tears with my hands. "What's wrong?" was all that came out of my mouth. The standard, motherly question to ask when something goes wrong and you don't quite know what it is that is going wrong.
"I had a bad dream," Boba said in a soft voice, gentle and very unlike how he was when his father was around. I had come to understand that, though they were the same person genetically, each had their own attitude, their own personality, though despite that, both were a lot softer, more compassionate, when the other wasn't around.
I crouched and wrapped my arms around his chest, hugging the young, frightened boy against me. He was warm, very warm, especially in comparison to my normally cold self. I let my eyes close and I rocked him back and forth, just gently, as if I was trying to calm a baby, though I would never. I hate children, as a rule, though Boba seems to be the objection. "Do you want to tell me about it?" I asked with an even toned voice, trying not to -pry- into his dream, but at least gain an understanding. I was aware that Jango had nightmares as well, and I knew that him and I had experienced the same dream, from different perspectives, about his death by Windu, and I was curious whether or not Boba was having the same dream.
"I... uh," he looked down, I could feel it because his face brushed against my shoulder, where the shirt had pulled to the side. "No..." he finally came up with, after much delay.
I felt sorry for the small lad, I had to. Before I came along, he had been left with no other company than the cloners and the clones that they had created, neither of which were of much comfort if you thought about it. I tightened my grip and let out a slow breath. "You should get back to bed, kiddo," I urged as I felt him shake his head. I knew what it was like to have nightmares, and I did get the strange sensation that his dream was the one that his father and I had been sharing.
"Can... Can I stay here?" he asked, timid, meek, afraid. I wondered for a second what he was afraid of, before answering my own curiosity. Rejection. He didn't want to be told that he wasn't welcome, though he also understood that it wasn't what was perceived as proper behaviour for a bounty hunter in training.
I smiled at him, nodding. "Of course," I said softly, lifting the pyjama clad boy off the ground and setting him on the bed. He looked up at me as I turned around, his eyes wide and giving a very affective "lost puppy" look. "I'm just going to the other side," I said making my way around the foot of the bed, laying on the opposite side of Boba.
I laid back and immediately I found the young boy against me, almost to the point where I couldn't roll on to my side for my own comfort. I pushed him gently to the side and smiled, messing him his already dishevelled hair. His small hands gripped the shirt and I felt another motherly tinge coming forward as I slipped an arm under his form and wrapped another around his shoulder, hugging him and slowly, lulling him into a sleep I wished to be peaceful, though I never could know. I could only hope.
Soon after I heard the soft murmurs of Boba as he slept, I fell into the blanket of soft and welcome darkness, awakening only when the door cracked a little and light flooded the floor of the dark room. Jango had returned home.
The welcome he got was merely an opened eye looking at him before I fell back into unconscious rest, Boba was too tired and in too deep a sleep to wake. I could hear him as he took off his armour, resting his helmet on a stand of some sort where it made a slight "thud" sound of metal on wood.
He removed his shirt, I could hear the material rustling, and pulled the sheets away from the bed, climbing in on Boba's side and pushing his son and I a little further towards the opposite edge. I felt his hand brush my shoulder through the fabric of my t shirt, then my cheek before wrapping around his son, bare arm pressing into my stomach slightly as he pulled close.
For a minute, it felt like a family, but then one would realize that I am, in essence, a babysitter at the moment for the young Boba, who was a clone of his "father", Jango. Jango travelled across the galaxy on "business", killing people for a living which brought in an incredible revenue, which combined to the already astronomical pay that he was getting for being the genetic source for the clone army of the Republic.
I let this unsettling thought go and returned to my sleep, knowing that when I woke I would head back to Coruscant on my own to reunite with my two friends, Tash and Christine, and try to figure out a way that would save the man who's son I was holding, without altering the future of Star Wars too much. It was a daunting task, and with the Clone Wars looming swiftly ahead of us, we had to work fast.