'ello, peoples of the earth!
Well, Guatemala was absolutely amazing, and the first chance I get, I'm going back. It was just that fantastic, and the people were lovely, and honestly, if I had to move there for some reason I would not have a quarrel with that.
I also came back to one review, so I wonder where all my reviewers went? Thanks to Lux's Sister for the *cough* one *cough* review on the last chapter!
Anyway. Without further ado, I present Chapter 4 of Clean! Hope y'all enjoy!
It did not take long for Kira to establish a routine. She woke at the crack of dawn and made herself a cup of tea. Obi-Wan usually woke soon after Kira, and the girl made sure to have a hot cup of tea ready for him, too.
Kira spent most of the day entertaining Anakin. She and Jim had brought only the tooka doll and a small bouncing ball that the toddler liked to play catch with when they left Onderon, but every so often Kira thought of some new game to play with him. Still, though she was able to keep Anakin entertained most of the time, she promised herself to keep an eye out for some new toy she could purchase.
At the end of each week, Kira travelled to Anchorhead with Jim to catch up on news, since the family dared not use a personal Holonet connection. Every week, the news reported some new bill the Senate had passed or showed footage of the systems that bill was affecting. And every week, as Kira watched, her stomach churned and threatened to make her sick.
Though Kira's usual order of muja juice was much more bitter on Tatooine than it had been on Onderon, that wasn't what turned her stomach. What did turn her stomach, however, was the fact that she was doing nothing to stop the cycle.
But she held her tongue.
One morning, Kira took Anakin outside to play after she made her tea. She sat at the side of the hut and nursed her cup while he climbed on the sand dunes. He quickly discovered that sand slides out of your hand when you pick it up. Kira watched Anakin carefully as he picked up handfuls of sand and watched the grains drain between his fingers, hoping he wouldn't try to eat it.
Anakin didn't try to eat the sand, but he did decide to pour a few handfuls of sand on himself.
"You're crazy," Kira told the toddler inside the refresher as she helped him out of his clothes so he could take a bath. "See if I let you play in the sand again."
"San?" Anakin stopped trying to grab his dirty shirt from Kira and looked up.
"Yes, sand." Kira put emphasis on the d sound as she reached into the tub to check the water temperature. Satisfied, she turned off the water. "Now into the tub with you."
Anakin peered inside the tub and shook his head rapidly. "Noooooo," he moaned as Kira picked him up. "No ba."
"Yes, bath," Kira said, lowering Anakin into the water. For one blessed moment, Anakin was silent. But as soon as his foot hit the warm water, he screamed at the top of his lungs.
Now, Kira loved younglings. She'd helped take care of younglings back at the Temple when her Master was off on a solo mission, and she'd even gotten Caleb and Cadena to help her a few times. (There was one instance that made her smirk every time she thought about it.) She'd liked rocking the children to sleep and telling them stories. She even liked playing their childish games with them when they asked her to join in.
But there are a few things about babies that no one likes, even those who love children. In general, there are the dirty diapers, the crying at night, and the spit up. Then there are the problems specific to just a few kids. Some children have a serious grabbing problem. Others like to throw things.
And then there are the kids who scream.
Anakin didn't even shed a tear when he screamed. He mostly did it to get his father's attention, and get Jim's attention the screaming did. Kira had just started filling up the bucket to pour over Anakin's head when the refresher door opened. A rumple-haired, sleepy-eyed Jim peered into the refresher. "What does he want?"
"To get out of the tub."
"Ah."
Anakin had, by this time, figured out that the screaming wasn't helping. His Plan B involved splashing the water as hard as he could. This soaked Kira's tunic and got water droplets in her eyes. Still she pressed on, reaching for the shampoo. "You may as well go get a few more minutes' rest, Jim. This might take a while."
"I'm already awake." Jim ran a hand through his sandy hair, messing it up even more. "Do you need help?"
"Not at all."
Jim shrugged helplessly. "I'm not gonna argue with you." He backed out of the refresher and shut the door behind him before Kira could change her mind.
Anakin took one look at the closed refresher door, inhaled deeply, and screeched.
Kira covered an ear with one soaked hand and sighed. Yes, this would take a while.
Kira entered the kitchen only after she had bathed and dressed Anakin, cleaned the refresher floor, and changed out of her own soaked clothes. There, she found Obi-Wan on one side of the table with a cup of steaming tea in his hands and Jim on the other side, his hair hanging over one eye as he tapped his own cup. Obi-Wan looked up as Kira passed his chair. "I kept the tea hot," he said.
"Thank you." Kira retrieved a cup from the cabinet. "I'm terribly sorry about the episode this morning."
"It's all right," Obi-Wan said.
"There's nerf bacon if you want it," Jim added.
Kira filled her cup, took a few pieces of cold nerf bacon from the plate Jim had made, and sat down with the men. She was beginning to tire of nerf bacon. "Do we need to go on another supply run, Ben?" Force, Kira hated calling Obi-Wan that.
Obi-Wan sipped his tea before answering. "We probably should. We're running low on blue milk, bantha meat, and nerf bacon. We need the protein."
Kira fought the urge to scream at the mention of nerf bacon.
"I might need some parts, too," Obi-Wan continued, a hand coming up to stroke his beard thoughtfully. "The vaporator is acting up, and if we don't have water, the protein won't matter."
Kira rolled her eyes at Obi-Wan's slightly morbid joke, but Jim perked up. "I could fix it," he said.
Obi-Wan sipped his tea again. "I won't ask you to do that, Jim. You have a son to take care of."
"Yeah, but Kira's been helping me out a lot." Jim turned to wink at Kira over his shoulder, and the young girl sipped her own tea to hide her grimace. "Maybe I can get her to help me out a little more."
"I'm not great with mechanics," Kira warned shortly.
"That's fine. I'll just need someone to hand me tools."
Obi-Wan looked at Kira inquisitively, and she caved. "Alright. What parts do you need?"
"Oh, I don't know yet. I need to look at the vaporator before I'll know."
Kira put down her cup. "Then might we work on it this morning? I'd like to leave and come back before it gets too hot."
"Deal."
"Spanner."
Kira plucked the tool from the tool box and threw it towards Jim. Jim reached forward so it would land in his hand, but he miscalculated the distance between himself and the spanner. The spanner landed on his head with a thwack instead of in his hand.
"Ow!" Rubbing his head, Jim looked around him and found the spanner lying half-buried in the sand. "You didn't do that on purpose, did you?"
Kira was taken aback. "No! Why would I do such a thing?"
Jim shrugged, teasing grin already stuck on his face. "I get the feeling you don't like me."
Now that was true. Kira didn't like Jim. She didn't sense any evil intent from him; in fact, she'd seen what he'd done during the Clone Wars. She'd seen how he treated fellow soldiers and how he'd interacted with the refugees the 501st and 212th had worked together to save on a few occasions. All in all, Jim was a good man.
But there was the problem with Cadena and the Code she had sworn to uphold. She'd risked it all for this man. While her devotion was to be admired, Kira just couldn't understand why it was Jim Cadena had recklessly abandoned the Code for. He was handsome, yes, but he'd had his own duties to the Republic. He was quiet, while Cadena had liked to talk. He thought through decisions, while Cadena rushed headlong into things without thinking of the long-term consequences.
"I like you just fine," Kira replied. "I'm sorry about your head. I didn't mean to hit you."
"I know. I was just teasing." Jim stuck his head close to the vaporator. "Aha!"
"What?" Kira uncrossed her legs and got up, coming over to see. "Did you find the problem?"
"Think so." Jim pulled a small laser out of his pocket and handed it to Kira. "Shine it on this little box for me, will you?"
Kira peeked over Jim's shoulder and found the box, then she turned on the laser and pointed it.
"Thanks." Jim peered inside, moving aside wiring before inserting the spanner into the top end of a screw. The little machine whirred for a few seconds and clicked off. Jim frowned. "Uh-oh." He tried again with the same result.
"What is it?" Kira asked, curious.
Jim pulled the spanner out of the vaporator, held it up, and turned it on. The machine whirred without clicking. "Well, it's not the spanner. Trade me." He took the laser out of Kira's hand and replaced it with the spanner.
Kira examined the spanner, careful not to prick a finger on the prongs. "Are you sure it's not the spanner? It looks old."
"No, it's not the spanner." Jim pointed the laser at the edges of the little box and cursed. "Poodoo."
"I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that something is dreadfully wrong with the vaporator."
"Not necessarily. I'm pretty sure I can have it fixed with a couple tweaks." Jim backed up and closed the side of the vaporator he'd been working on. "But now I won't know unless we have a broken-screw remover in that tool kit."
Kira had never even heard of such a thing. She walked over to the tool box and shuffled through it. "It's a basic kit," she reported. "I don't see anything unfamiliar."
Jim's shoulders sank. "Yeah, we're going to have to go grab one. We may as well grab some water while we're at it. I'm not going to be able to fix this thing for a few days." Frustrated, Jim kicked at the sand near the vaporator, wisely refraining from kicking the vaporator itself.
Kira raised an eye marking. "A broken-screw remover doesn't sound too hard to use," she commented. "Why the delay?"
"Because a broken-screw remover is a lot harder to deal with than it sounds," Jim explained. "It's a touchy thing. You have to be slow and careful not to apply too much force to the thing. Otherwise it'll break off right in your hand." To demonstrate, Jim made a cracking noise and pulled his hands apart. "Then you have to remove the broken screw and the broken-screw remover."
"So you either have to do it over time or wait until you have time to do it all at once," Kira supplied, catching on. She wiped some sweat from her forehead. This day just keeps getting better and better.
"Yeah." Jim knelt to pick up the tools scattered on the ground and put them back in the box, and Kira scrambled to help. "So if you would be so kind as to grab a broken-screw remover on your supply run, that would be fantastic."
"I'll see what I can do," Kira promised, wishing that the Code didn't prevent Jedi from revealing emotion.
At the very least, she wished that the Code didn't prevent frustrated teenage Padawans from revealing emotion.
Looks like the gang is running into a few problems...
Kira: Are you serious? First I have to go a week without drinking tap water, and now I can't drink water at all?
Me: Hey, you should be grateful you didn't drink the tap water.
Obi-Wan: Yes. Remember what happened to Nate?
Kira: I thought it was grilled cheese that caused him to get sick.
Me: Same problematic bacteria, same symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea.
Obi-Wan: ...I don't think your readers want to read this, Amelia.
Me: Yeah, I think you're right. Okay. Kira, do the review notice.
Kira: ...you could at least say please. Can I at least pick a song?
Me: Sure. Go ahead.
Tablet: ...four that want to own me, two that want to stone me, one says she's a friend of mine...
Me: Ooh. Nice choice.
Kira: Thanks.
Me: You still have to do the review notice.
Kira: Darn. Okay, well, if you liked it, hated it, or wanted to light it up and watch it burn, please review and let Amy know. And actually review this time? She wasn't too happy when she only got one review on the last chapter.
Obi-Wan: And she was already tired and grumpy because the plane was delayed and she didn't get to eat dinner.
Me: Okay! I think that's enough of that. Thanks for clicking in, and may the Force be with you always! *waves hand* You will review this chapter...