Part 1

"Mommy?" Five-year-old Ben Skywalker was playing in the living room with a toy X-wing fighter. Mara looked up from her desk, where she was working on some paperwork for the Jedi Academy. "What do you need, honey?" she asked.

"Where do babies come from?"

Mara almost fell out of her chair, catching herself at the last second. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself. It was just her luck that Ben had chosen to ask her this question while Luke was back at the Academy for the afternoon. She had told him that he was in charge of all these uncomfortable questions if they had a boy. "Hmm, that's a really good question, Ben. Where do you think babies come from?" she stalled.

"I don't know. That's why I asked you!" Ben said. "Silly Mommy."

Mara slapped her palm against her forehead. "Oh yeah!" she exclaimed. Ben laughed and laughed. "You're funny, Mommy!" he cried, his X-wing flying through the air. Mara smiled and turned back to her work, hoping that she had successfully distracted Ben from his question.

"Mommy! I wanna know where babies come from," Ben insisted. No such luck.

Mara kept her eyes on her work, but focused her attention back to Ben. She didn't want him to see her blushing. "Why do you want to know, honey?"

"I heard people talking about babies being made."

"Oh? And who did you hear saying that?" Mara asked, her curiosity piqued.

"Daddy's friends."

"You mean Uncle Han?" Leia's gonna kill him! she thought.

"No, not him!"

"Uncle Lando?" I'm gonna kill him!

"Nooooooo. These guys!" he yelled, thrusting his X-wing in the air.

Oh Force, Luke's gonna kill them. Quickly, Mara pulled up a recent photo of Luke with his old friends from Rogue Squadron. "Do you mean these people, Ben?"

He crawled over to the desk, moving his X-wing across the floor. He stood up to look at Mara's computer terminal. "Yeah, that's them!" he said, pointing in particular at Wes Janson.

Mara's head fell on her desk. "Are you okay, Mommy?" Ben asked.

"Uh-huh, I'm fine," she said, trying to keep the frustration out of her muffled voice. She lifted her head, trying to keep the redness off her face. "Can you tell me what they said, honey?"

"They were talking with Daddy in the lunch room today. They said that Daddy was getting old and better hurry up and make some more babies." Mara was glad that she hadn't been drinking anything, or she would have had to buy a new keyboard. "Daddy got all red, like you right now."

"Oh did he now?" Mara questioned. "Tell me, Ben, does Daddy know that you heard them?"

"Yeah. He made me go play with Jaina until they were done. And when were in the speeder coming home I asked him where babies come from but he wouldn't tell me."

"He wouldn't?" Mara's suspicions rose.

"No. He told me to ask you when he was back at work."

Mara's only response was to repeatedly bang her head against her desk.