Title: Another Day
Author: DaenaBenjen42
Characters: Mara, AU Skywalker Children... including She Who Was Grounded...
Timeframe: AU, follows Day Like Any Other (Flowersverse)
Genre: Drama
Disclaimer: Aside from the OC's, yes... not mine.
A/N: Written for the Second Proverbs Challenge.
The proverb: #48 "You can't unscramble a scrambled egg." - modern saying
Second Requirement: Nomi Sunrider

It was quiet when she entered the apartment she now shared with her husband of three months, a bag of groceries in one arm and a newly-bought broom with a dustpan in the other. Sighing, she closed the door and made her way to the kitchen. Once in there, she nearly dropped the bag of groceries at the sight of a mess on her countertops that hadn't been that way when she'd left earlier in the day. "What in the name of the Force happened in here?"

Then she saw the plate of cookies on the table with a note. Intrigued, she moved to set the groceries on the table as carefully as possible, and propped the broom against the nearest wall. Then she picked up the note and read the barely legible writing...

Ree-Ree,
You need more flour in your cabinets now. Used it.
I cleaned up as best I could and am sorry for leaving a little bit of a mess, but there is only so much I can do before concentration started to go away again.
Invite your mother over for cookies because there's family thing need to talk about and I can't go visible on you unless she's here because I don't wanna be grounded again.
-Little Needle

Riana stood there blinking in astonishment for a few minutes before going to make a somewhat panicked call to her mother. Someone had been in her kitchen and cooked? And there was a family thing to talk about over cookies? It made no sense!

Mara arrived at her daughter's apartment less than twenty minutes later to find Riana panicking and pulling down the shades on the exterior windows. She watched her do some busy things for a few minutes before making her pregnant daughter sit down. "Come on."

"But," Riana protested as she sat down on the couch, blinking some more as she stared around her living room. "But..."

"Take a deep breath," Mara told her, demonstrating a long and slow cleansing breath. "Breathe, Riana."

Riana nodded, closed her eyes, and let her mother lead her in a calming meditation exercise. It took a few minutes, but she calmed. Slowly. "Sorry."

"Don't be. Now... tell me what made you panic." Riana handed her the note and Mara studied it with wide eyes. "She made cookies?"

"Yes. Who is Little Needle?"

Mara sighed and looked at her, at her rounded stomach. "That's a long story if there ever was one, Ree-Ree. And she can come out and talk if she wants to."

Riana frowned. "What? There's no one else here with us." She was startled ten seconds later when a girl in a form-fitting brown jumpsuit who couldn't have been older than fifteen years of age faded into the room, outlined in blue and translucent. "Oh."

The girl really looked like she wanted to blush. "Sorry about the mess, Riana."

Mara frowned at her, got up to go look into the kitchen, then came back to sit on the couch again. "Not bad for not being able to actually touch anything unless you concentrate really hard, actually. Neesta? You know better than to make a pregnant woman panic. And who taught you to make cookies?"

"Elsie," Neesta told her.

"Ah. Did you follow the recipe?"

"Yes."

"Good. Now what's the family thing you needed to make your sister panic over?"

Riana put a hand up, forestalling Neesta's answer. "I'm sorry. What?"

Neesta smiled. "That very thing, really. It's long past time, Momma."

Mara stared at her for a moment. "You want to talk about... that?"

"Not if you don't want to." Neesta glanced to a point in midair, nodded, and looked at Mara again. "But Great-Great-Great Grandma Sunrider says you can't unscramble a scrambled egg and there's no time like the present for secret-telling." She frowned and glanced that way again. "What does an egg have to do with it? ...oh. One of those things I don't understand. Right."

Riana stared hard at Neesta, then looked at her mother. "So I have a sister you've never said anything about?"

Mara winced. "That's the long story that I'm not going to tell you." She eyed Riana's belly. "Particularly right now. But yes."

Neesta opened her mouth to say something, closed it again, and shrugged. "The details don't matter." She glared right back when Mara glared at her. "What?"

"You know what."

Neesta heaved a sigh. "Yes. I do. More than I should. And I'm only here now to see my sister and make sure everyone is safe. Especially right now."

Riana frowned. "Why..." She glanced between her mother and the translucent one for a long moment, trying to understand what both meant without actually making either say it. If she was understanding correctly... "Oh." Carefully, she led her mother's hand to her belly and then looked at Neesta. "Well? Have that concentration of yours back yet?"

Neesta smiled, nodded, and placed a translucent hand on the apex of her sister's belly. "Sure do."

Mara stared at them both. "How are you taking this so well?"

"I'm not, really," Riana told her with a smile. "But like the Needle here said, the details don't matter. I have another family member I didn't know about before, who went to the trouble of making cookies for me, and wanted to make sure everything was fine, even though she knew it would make me panic at first. It is. And that's enough."

The baby kicked against Neesta's translucent hand and she smiled thoughtfully. "Gonna be a strong little one."

"Is that a prediction?" Mara asked her teasingly.

"Just an observation," Neesta replied, and withdrew her hand. She nodded respectfully to them both and vanished.

Riana leaned closer to her mother. "We are not telling Solen that a ghost made us cookies."

Mara's lips quirked. "Definitely not."

"He'd never believe it."

Mara laughed. "Maybe." She stood up. "I have to go start dinner. Bring Solen, say an hour or so?"

Riana nodded and watched her leave. She sat there for a while, letting the Force flow through her as she tried to make sense of the new revelations. Eventually, she stopped trying to make sense of it, levered herself off the couch, and went to finish cleaning up the mess her sister had left behind.

Solen arrived home to find his wife sitting at the kitchen table to find his wife sitting at their kitchen table and eating a cookie. "Riana?"

She glanced at him, smiled, and offered him a cookie. "Try it. They're good."

"You baked?" He knew very well that she was terrible with baked goods. Terrible, but getting better a little at a time.

"No. A friend made these."

He accepted a cookie and tasted it, smiling at the taste. "Not bad..."

"Oh, and we're eating with my parents tonight, so come on." She smiled at his confusion.

"Why?"

"Mother insisted," Riana answered simply.

Solen nodded and followed her out the door he'd just, not five minutes before, arrived through. Dinner with her parents sounded wonderful.

fini