A/N: Hello from college, everybody! I'm hoping this chapter isn't too long (boring) for you, I just have to set everything up. Anyway, enjoy!

DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the following characters (except for Grunt and Skims, and maybe even the store). I have borrowed them for my amusement.

"Ava, I need somebody up front!"

Eight days, fourteen hours, twenty-two minutes, and four seconds.

"Ava, did you hear me?"

That's how long she had been living her new life.

"Ava We!"

Her new life free of bounty hunting, free of danger. Free of Jango.

"Ava, where the Hoth are you?"

Not that she'd been counting or anything.

"AVA!"

Zam was jerked out of her stupor by the harsh, growled shout. With a surprised gasp, she tumbled from the stool to the dirty tile, taking with her several of the hyperdrives she'd been absently tinkering with.

"Ouch! Great. What is it, Grunt?"

An ugly, green Trandoshan stomped to the doorway of the parts room, filling the entire space like a hulking refrigerator. His orange lizard eyes glowered down at the blue Twi'lek sprawled on the floor. "What are you doing, We?"

"I fell, sir."

"Well, get your skinny blue butt up off the floor! You'll get the tile all greasy!"

Growling insults under her breath, Zam raised herself gingerly to her feet and brushed the red dust off her oil-stained overalls. "Something you wanted, boss?"

"Darned right, there's something I want!" Grunt's sharp teeth gnashed fiercely, flecking Zam's face with spittle. "I want you to start doing your job, that's what I want!"

"These used hyperdrive parts needed some work, sir, I was just—"

"DON'T YOU BACKTALK ME, GIRL!" Zam could practically see the steam shooting from Grunt's pointy head. His eyes flamed with anger in the dim light, and his clawed fists clenched into small boulders. "WHAT DO I PAY YOU FOR, JUST TO SIT AROUND AND MOON ALL DAY?"

Resisting the urge to spit some rather vicious insults back into her boss's face, Zam turned away, rolled her eyes, and began to collect the scattered hyperdrive parts. "No, sir."

"DARNED RIGHT!" Grunt's barrel chest still heaved with anger, but with her apparent compliance, the Trandoshan began to calm down. "I probably said about twenty times that I needed somebody at the front desk. Or maybe you didn't hear me, Miss We, hmm?"

For a split second, Zam almost turned around and corrected him: the name's Wesell, not We. She only barely managed to stop herself.

Upon her arrival to Geonosis, the pair of scruffy Ithorians with whom she'd hitched a ride had demonstrated their compassion and kindness in helping her find work at Grunt's Ship and Supply Depot, a small, dirty and rundown shack that served as a pathetic excuse for a machine shop. Still, the place seemed like it was doing pretty well, and she guessed that was because most of the inhabitants of Geonosis were droids: they had to find spare parts some place or another, and Grunt's looked like it was the best around.

Maintaining the Twi'lek form she had swiped from the escort back on Coruscant, Zam applied for a job.

"Name?" the gruff Trandoshan had demanded.

Automatically, she began, "Z—"

She quickly froze. What was she thinking, giving out her original name? Yeah, make it hard to find yourself by using your own name, that's intelligent, Wesell.

At her hesitation, Grunt had looked up from the application with an irritated snort. "You do have a name, don't ya, princess?"

"Yes, yes, I have a name, of course, I have a name!" Zam gave a tremulous smile and stammered out, "My name…my name is…uh…"

A real, simple, unnoticeable name.

"Ava. Ava We."

And finish it up by using the last name of a female Kaminoan. Well, I guess it'll do. Has a nice ring to it.

"Ava We," Grunt had repeated, scratching the name down on the datapad. "Alright, Ava, you're hired. Congratulations. You be glad there's a war on. I wouldn't usually take a stupid Twi'lek like you, but I need the help. So, guess what? For your first job, that refresher over there needs attending to. And wear some gloves. The guy you're replacing only scrubbed the mirror, and he died from some type of fever. You've had your shots, right?"

And so Zam's new life had begun, no longer as Zam Wesell the Clawdite bounty hunter, but as Ava We, the Twi'lek mechanic. She was just glad that she knew a thing or two about ships, or she was sure she'd still be scrubbing that gods-awful refresher.

A pretty face helped too. She got more male clients than she knew what do to with, and even though most of them were bug-eyed Geonosians, Grunt seemed to notice she was good for business, and thus she rose in the ranks rather quickly.

He still hated her guts, though.

The feeling was pretty much mutual.

Zam set the hyperdrive parts on the small, dirty bench where she had been working, and fixed Grunt with a questioning eye. "I thought Yitz had the front desk today."

"Yitz quit this morning," Grunt snarled, turning back to the doorway and stomping down the narrow hall. "I guess he thought he wasn't being paid enough. Stupid Corellian. Guess he thought he could do better."

"Probably 'cause he could, Grunt," Zam remarked, following the Trandoshan down the hallway and wiping her oily blue palms on a spare rag from her back pocket. "You had the guy working ten hours a day for minimum wage for five years. Anybody'd quit."

Either Grunt didn't hear her, or he chose to ignore her. "Work the front, We. That's the last time I'm telling ya."

"And what's with the Corellian comment? Still hate their guts?" Zam was vaguely aware that she was pushing her boss's patience, but she could tell he was in a good mood this afternoon—Grunt's had gotten a large order for spare droid parts that morning, and the Separatists could be called anything but skimpy when it came to payment. She could have sworn she had even seen Grunt smile once after the call had been put through.

Hence she could afford to pick on her boss's infamous phobia every now and then.

Zam threw her dirty rag under the counter as she took her place at the cash register, shaking her blue lekku and sparing the Trandoshan a wry smirk. "How, out of every place in the universe, a xenophobic alien like you could stand living here is beyond me, Grunt."

"It's a living, We," Grunt snarled, bending his bulk over the edge of the counter to lay his clawed hands on a bucket of assorted screws. "And besides, when my slavers dumped me off here, I took what I could get. You can't be picky in a place like this."

Even though she had heard this story once before, Zam's face fell. She didn't like slavers. Aliens who took advantage of younglings had a special place in Hell reserved just for them. "How old were you, Grunt?"

"I was eight." The Trandoshan pawed through the screws, organizing them into the shelves lining the back wall of the store. "Thank the gods. There were some kids younger than me dropped off on worse places. Felt sorry for the critters. There's no chance in hell many of 'em made it."

Zam frowned down at the credit chip she had clutched in her blue hand as she reorganized the cash register. Years of persecution under those blasted Zolans had made her tough, hard, and strong, but no matter how much she had gone through, there was still a soft spot in her heart for children. Any children. They didn't deserve what they got in life. They couldn't help where they were born, who their parents were, what they had to do to survive.

She grasped the credit chip in her hand with such force the edges began to bend. So many children suffering all for money, power, greed, war…

She wondered vaguely if Boba had suffered when he had learned of her 'death.'

Just as quickly as the thought had come, she banished it from her mind. It's trouble to be thinking of those kinds of things, Zam. It's all in the past, and besides, don't be silly. He probably doesn't care. Fett Sr. sure as heck didn't. Heck, for all you know, Jango might not have said a thing about it to him.

Something wet rolled down her cheek, and she quickly wiped it away on her shoulder as she stuffed the chip back into the register. Tears were a weakness. Besides, she had nothing to cry over. Absolutely nothing.

Unfortunately, Grunt noticed the clean streak on the Twi'lek's otherwise grungy face, and he growled. "You cryin', princess? What the heck are you cryin' for? Me?"

"I'm not crying, Grunt," Zam was quick to correct him with a forced smile. "But if I was, it would certainly not be for you."

"Great, that makes me get to feelin' all warm n' fuzzy inside. Now enough chit chat, We. Get your tiny blue butt in gear and start sortin' these screws. What the heck am I payin' ya for, to stand there and look pretty? Gods…"

Muttering swears under his breath, Grunt moved back into the storage rooms, undoubtedly to begin laying stuff out for the droid part shipment. Zam couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief as she watched his stained white jumpsuit disappear into the dark recesses of the store. That should keep him busy for a few hours.

"Hey, Ava, you alright?"

A voice to her left brought her attention back to the front of the store. A short, crimson-skinned Zeltron with kind eyes and a pixie haircut grinned at her brightly with reassurance.

Zam smiled back. "Thanks, Skims, I'm fine. Grunt's sure in a better mood today than he usually is. I didn't get shouted at near as much as I would have usually."

Skims, who had leaned against the counter casually, glanced up with a confused look. "Who? Oh, Ava, I'm not talking about Ol' Lizard Brain back there. I'm talkin' bout you. That was an honest to goodness tear in your eye just a few seconds ago. Everything okay?"

As though to make thoroughly sure any trace of her lapse in emotional control had been erased, Zam brought both hands to her tired eyes and rubbed them harshly. "Yeah, yeah, Skims, I'm fine."

"You sure?" The Zeltron cast a sympathetic glance as she fixed her greasy tank top on her skinny frame. "Ava, I don't know where you come from, or what happened to you, but when those two Ithorians brought you in here for a job, they said you spent most of the trip sitting in the back of their ship either crying or sleeping. Ava…"

Skims gave a sigh, and said quietly, "I know you've only known me for a week or something, and that's barely enough time for anybody to get to know somebody else, but I like to think of you as, well…as my friend, Aves, and…"

Skims trailed off, awkwardly fiddling with a wayward nut that had remained unnoticed on the checkout counter. Zam smiled gratefully at the young Zeltron across from her. Skims had to be about her age, maybe even a little bit younger, with skinny arms, a skinny torso, and skinny legs that looked even thinner when she wore her enormous work boots and baggy cargo jeans.

From what she knew of Zeltrons, Zam recalled that the crimson-skinned aliens had a particularly great capacity to love, and love unconditionally. But when such an outlet was absent, that love often was twisted into hatred that found an outlet in violence. Fortunately, Skims was of a personality of the formerly stated type, probably due to the extensive menagerie of animals she had collected in her small apartment down the street. She perpetually smelled of pet food.

She had also been Zam's first friend of sorts upon her arrival to Grunt's. While not a particularly gifted mechanic, Skims's pixie face and her bubbly personality made her a surprisingly good saleswoman. In fact, Zam had a sneaking suspicion the Zeltron was behind the enormous droid parts order Grunt's had received this morning.

"Well, I dunno," Skims finished lamely, clearing her throat and glancing back up with her black eyes. "Just…if you ever need someone to talk to, Ava, you can talk to me."

Zam smiled. "Thanks, Skims." She wouldn't be taking her up on that offer any time soon, but it felt good to know that it was there. She liked Skims, and didn't plan on telling her anything about her former life, if only to spare her the gory details and perhaps potential trouble should any of her former…clients come looking for her.

"Yeah, yeah," Skims muttered to the cash register as Zam pulled out a relatively cleaner cloth and began to busy herself polishing the checkout. "You say that, but you don't really mean it."

"Of course I mean it, Skims. Thank you for the offer. I'd also thank you to get back to work before Grunt comes back out here and strips both our hides for chatting on the job."

"You kidding me, right Ava?" Skims shot her a deadpan glance before she gestured to the practically empty store. "There's nobody here."

Today, the store was rather peculiarly quiet. Something about a Jedi execution. She had heard about that in the daily holonews this morning, and while she agreed that every dead Jedi was a good Jedi in the world, she wasn't particularly keen on the spectacle that was a public execution. Death was not something to be glorified. Death was necessary for life, like eating, sleeping and drinking, nothing more.

Apparently, however, her views weren't shared by the majority of the population of Geonosis, most of which had obviously begun the celebration early by either sleeping in or preparing themselves for the execution that was to be held later that evening. Skims had a point. The store was practically lifeless.

Except for them, Grunt, and a scruffy looking Dug examining gyroscopes in the corner, the store was empty.

Zam shrugged her blue shoulders. "I'll have to hand that to you."

"Of course you will. Because it's true. Grunt can't get mad at us for not doing our job if there's no job to do."

"You could try resorting the hyperdrive packages?"

"If you mention work one more time, Aves, I swear, I'm gonna punch you in the face." Skims's mischievous smirk suddenly fell from her lips as she leaned forward over the counter to get a closer look at Zam's face. "Gosh, sweetie, you look tired. Are you sure you're okay? Have you been getting enough sleep?"

"Of course I have been." That was a lie. Zam hadn't slept a wink since she had been on this gods-forsaken planet. And the only time she had stolen a quick nap, her mind had been plagued with images of blue and silver Mandalorian armor, and she found that she would almost rather die of exhaustion than have Jango Fett haunt her dreams. "I'm perfectly alright, Skims. Geez, you sound like my mother."

"You work too much, then. I know you're Grunt's best mechanic and all, and he works you like a slave, but you need to stand up to him, girl! Let him have it. He can't keep running you like this."

"Skims, I don't work too much!" Zam batted away the girl's crimson hands like annoying flies. Sometimes, she wondered whether Skims didn't see everybody as one of her pets. "I'm just…a little tired, that's all."

"Then this calls for a girl's night out," she declared, a sudden light brightening her black eyes like two stars in the dim store. "Tonight. You and me, we're hitting Club Dune like crazy girls."

"Skims, I…I don't think that's a good idea." Zam had just been killed eight days ago by who she had considered her best friend, and she still had yet to depart from the resulting emotional roller coaster ride. The last thing she wanted to do was party at a Geonosian bar.

"Why not? That is totally just the thing you need, Aves! A long weekend. And…" Skims's eyes sparkled mischievously. "A man to spend it with."

Zam almost choked on her own spit. "No. Absolutely not."

"Why? That'd be the perfect fix for your depression, Ava! It always works for me!"

"Skims, just…no! I can't! And I wouldn't, even if I could!"

"Why?"

"Just because!" Zam's blue cheeks flushed indignantly, and she busied herself with scrubbing the life out of a rather sticky spot of oil on the counter. Just because the only man I'd ever let myself fall in love with killed me a week ago. It's a little too soon to be moving on. The thought sent a painful wave through the changeling's chest, but Zam quickly brushed it off and stored it in a dark corner of her mind to deal with later. She had learned to do that over the past week. "My previous life, before this one, I'd…I'd never had much luck in the…man department."

Well, that's the understatement of the millennia.

Skims's thin lips pursed in understanding, and she gave a slow nod. "I see, I see. But," she perked up with a mood swing that would have made anyone's head spin, "you'll change your mind tonight!"

Zam just smirked and rolled her eyes, focusing all of her attention on cleaning the wood. This conversation was just becoming downright ridiculous. Zam was fairly certain that she wouldn't heal completely from Jango's betrayal for several years, let alone one week. True, the time to move on would come, and probably come soon, but for the moment, it was still a little too soon.

The wound was still a little too raw for her to just slap a bandage over it and wish the pain away.

The small bell at the front of the store announced the arrival of a customer, and inwardly, Zam breathed a sigh of relief. Wonderful. Now, Skims would go and work her magic on the poor unsuspecting victim, somehow convince him to buy the entire store, and in the meantime, spare her from having to delve any more in this rather testy subject of conversation.

This, however, was not exactly what happened.

"Oh, my gods…" Zam heard Skims gasp in a breathless voice. "Ava, I think you might even get your chance at your man right now."

"Is that so?" Zam, who had ducked behind the counter to wipe clean the lower shelves, smirked into the dark. "Is he tall, dark, and handsome?"

"You can't tell, he's wearing a helmet," Skims whispered in answer. "And armor. Silver armor. Like a warrior."

Zam rolled her eyes as Skims giggled like a schoolgirl, continuing, "I wonder where that armor's from…not Coruscant, not Rattatak, not Kalee…starts with an 'm'…gosh, what is it, what is it…?"

Beneath the counter, Zam had frozen. Everything had stopped stone dead. Not even her heart was beating, the muscle was just a deadweight against her sternum.

She whispered her next word, praying with every fiber of her being that Skims would answer with 'no.'

"Mandalorian?"

Above, Skims snapped her vermillion fingers. "That's it! Mandalorian. Good job, Ava, how'd you guess?"

Ignoring her friend, Zam shot straight up from her crouched position behind the barricade checkout counter. Like an idiot, she shot straight up, baring her head, her eyes, her entire torso to the outside world. If he'd been holding a blaster, he could have shot her fifteen times before she hit the floor.

She looked at him, and he looked at her, and every part of their bodies stilled.

Even without seeing his face, she could tell he was looking her over. She had worked with him long enough that she recognized the minute gestures, the tiny movements that no other being could possibly see, that meant he was looking at her and thinking. She stared at him for a moment, just briefly, but it was enough to tell her that some part of his mind recognized her eyes, the only part of her body she wasn't able to shift. Some part of him knew who she was, even if the rest of him didn't.

Before she could do any more damage, Zam ducked back behind the counter, feeling her heart very much alive again performing a one-girl percussion show inside her ribs with her brain sitting front row.

With his son by his side, standing framed and powerful in the doorway of Grunt's Ship and Supply Depot, was Jango Fett.

A/N: Ackpth! The infamous Jango Fett has made his appearance! So, what'd ya think? Too long? Boring? Drawn out? Click the little button below and tell me!