The next morning…
The guys woke up on strangely soft beds. Their heads spinning as they try to recall what happened.
"Oh good you're up." Mal looks at the two hurt brothers.
"Where are we?" Echo looks around confused.
"Nova Hill, an orphanage on Earth." Mal answers softly.
"Earth? Where is that in the Gemini Galaxy?" Fives holds his spinning head.
"It's not. Nowhere near it." Anakin comes to check on them with his right arm in a sling.
"Sir, you're hurt." Fives looks at him surprised.
"Us Jedi aren't invulnerable." Anakin chuckles a bit at that.
"Sir, I'm sorry if I hadn't of…." Echo tries to apologize but.
"Hey no. Your idea got us to a place where we're safe and can get help. Never doubt that Echo." Anakin pats his shoulder with his cyber hand.
"Thank you sir but I still think I should help with repairs argg." Echo groans as he tries to get up.
"I'll get you some crutches." Mal heads for a closet. "We were able to stop the bleeding but I'm too old to heal you all the way and my students are still learning how to force heal. Pluss it's best for your body to heal on its own." She takes out a pair of crutches.
"Thank you ma'am." Echo nods, he had forgotten about his leg.
"Hey… do you have a mermaid here?" Fives looks at Mal recalling something.
"Not exactly. Why?" Mal looks at him a bit confused.
"No reason." Fives hopes out of bed a bit red.
Getting up so fast he feels dizzy almost falling over. Anakin catching him.
"Take it easy trooper. You've been through a ringer." Anakin helps him get steady on his feet.
"Thank you general." Fives feels his spinning head.
'I have to of remembered wrong. That's all.' Fives flushes a bit as he recalls those soft kisses and flowing ginger hair.
Upstairs…
"Hey! Time to get up!" An older boy calls knocking on the girls' door as he brushes his teeth.
"Go away! It's summer!" Ariel calls covering her head with her pillow.
"Get up or the warm water and food will be gone." He calls through the toothpaste foam heading back to the bathroom to finish up.
"Argg…better hurry and get washed then." Nora groans.
"Give up the shower." Ariel yawns sitting up. "That water will be as warm as the ocean by now. But there might be eggs if we hurry." She sleepily gets up.
The two head down in their night gowns. Getting down they see the new faces at the table chowing down. Along with the kids all levitating things or practicing skills early in the morning.
'That really happened.' Both thought, recalling last night.
"Morning." Tammy smiles placing another stack of pancakes on the table. "Plates were set aside for you two on the counter." She motions to the stacked plates over to her right.
"Aunty you're the be-" Ariel goes to grab glasses and bumps into Fives.
"You. You're the one that…" Fives looks at her with thanks and a bit of a flush.
"I-it was nothing." Ariel grabs the glasses and juice as she levitates her plate to follow her to the porch.
On the porch…
"Okay spill what happened I have never seen you so flustered before." Nora smirks at her friend.
"Um well… you see…" Ariel starts but…
"Um… Master Mal said to bring this out." Fives places a small jar of honey on the table.
"Thanks." Ariel plays with her hair trying not to look at him.
"I'm pretty sure that should be our line. Thank you for saving my brother and I." Fives bows his head slightly.
"Really. It was nothing." Ariel takes her toast spreading the honey on it.
"Well, thank you. Again." Fives nods again heading in to eat.
"Okay now you have to tell me, what was that all about?" Nora points to where Fives had left.
"Nothing. Nothing at all." Ariel spreads some more honey on her toast.
"Oh really, then I guess you just like your toast over sweeten then." Nora then points to the toast.
Ariel looks down to see how much she put on it.
"I…" Ariel looks around to make sure no one is listening. "I kissed him to give him air." She whispers in her friend's ear.
"EEEK….you did!" Nora jumps.
"Keep it down." Ariel motions for her to be quiet.
"Sorry but that is so cute. Bet that was one of your best kisses ever hugh?" Nora smiles.
"Actually… I haven't kissed before." Ariel sips her juice red up to her ears.
"Never?" Nora looked surprised, her friend was always attracting so many guys it was a shock she had never kissed before.
"I never trusted anyone enough to tell my secret so I never really dated. I didn't think it'd be fair." Ariel explains.
Nora frowns and says "That makes sense. I've never had my first kiss either. I've had crushes, and I dated once but I've never found that moment you know." Nora sighs.
"Maybe one of these new guys then." Ariel teases a bit.
"What? No I don't think so." Nora flushes.
"Why not?" Ariel looks confused.
"You're the one with the super cool powers. I'm just an art student, who's barely getting by." Nora groans.
"You okay?" Ariel looks at her worried.
"It's just been a bit tuff. The disability service at the school doesn't help much with jerky teachers. And the work they give me sometimes makes me feel like they want to strip the individuality out of me." Nora sighs.
"Just keep your head up. You're too good not to finish." Ariel sips her juice.
'Not that I'm not struggling. If not for the magazine part time job I'd have dropped out long ago.' Ariel sighs a bit at her own money troubles.
"I'm going to try my best to keep going, but for now I need this break." Nora sighs, chomping on her pancakes.
"Same." Ariel snacks on her eggs.
Back inside…
Echo looked on in wonder, he had seen the Jedi use they're powers many times but never so many at the same time. They had never been around so many Jedi, let alone young ones before. They had been told the story of the Jedi that landed here and what they do to help on the planet.
"An entire planet with no clue about they're abilities. How is that possible?" Echo had to ask, confused on how they couldn't know this.
"Because many try to hide they're abilities. They have to, if anyone found out the children would be put in danger. Unfortunately, many Earthlings are far too obsessed with power and greed and would only exploit them." Lock shakes his head.
'Exploit them? These kids?' Fives looks around at them happily playing.
"I can see why you do what you all do, and it's a good thing you're all here to help them. But what about possibly coming back and maybe taking your charges with you back to the temple?" Anakin asks.
"No." All three shake their heads.
"Don't take this the wrong way but I don't know if we could." Lock looks at the kids.
"We have our own way of teaching and really your ways are old ways to us now." Mal adds.
"And we're so attached to them. We could never go back to just seeing them as students." Tammy feeds a little one clapping for more.
"I can understand that." Anakin looks at the happy kids with a small smile. "But if you ever fear for them, the offer still stands." He sips his coffee.
"Thank you." They nod.
Once they finished breakfast, they were given rooms and told when mealtimes were. Once that was done they were free to roam about the house and beach.
Echo wanted to go explore but…
"Nope. Sit on the couch." Fives helps him over.
"Come on Fives I don't want to be stuck inside all day." Echo sighs.
"No way. You're not moving around at all if I have a say in it." Fives sits Echo on the coach.
Echo groaned at his brother's over protectiveness, but couldn't say he didn't appreciate it. Last night was too close a call for either of them.
Suddenly a few children came up to them. Two boys and one girl. The two stood there uncertain of what to do. They were way younger than the commander, so they had no idea what they were supposed to do.
"Um hello." Echo tries waving.
The kids smile and come up, one boy with green eyes and brown hair, saying "Are you two brothers?"
"Yes." Fives nods. "The others are our brothers as well. But we grew up with each other." He explains.
"You have lots of brothers, cool just like all of us." The girl, with black hair and blue eyes, says smiling.
"You're all siblings?" Echo cocked his head confused.
"No but we see each other as siblings." The other boy says, blond haired and brown eyed.
"We can see that." Fives looks at all the kids. "Did you need something?" he looks at them curiously.
"Will you play with us?" The girl pleads with big eyes.
The two flinch at that.
'Is that some sort of Jedi power?' Echo holds his heart.
'That's unfair. Who could say no to that?' Fives does the same.
The boys laugh, no one could ever resist Lily when she wanted to play.
"I guess we could play a bit." Echo shrugs.
"We're at your service young ones." Fives bows a bit playfully to them.
Echo rolls his eyes but nods.
The kids cheer at that and used they're powers to float some toys out. As they did the girls were coming back down from changing to see this.
"And the bear attacks! Run!" They all laugh and run about as the guys play along in chasing them the best they can.
"That's so cute." Ariel looks at the sweet scene.
"Chuckle it is." Nora can't help but laugh at the adorable scene.
"Oh good you're both dressed. Why not lead the forms outside?" Lock has a jacket on.
"Sure. But is everything okay?" Ariel looks at him worried.
"Just have to talk with the bank. Everything is fine." Lock places his hand on hers to assure her before heading out.
"Alright everyone. Practice on the beach." Ariel calls with a clap.
"Do we have too? We wanna play." They all call.
"First one out gets to pick what we do first." Ariel eyes them.
With that it's a race of kids and teens. A few six year olds cheering at being first.
"We wanna play with fishes!" They cheer.
"Okay. Okay. Calm down." Ariel joins them with a chuckle.
"How do you play with fish?" Nora raises a brow confused.
"It's actually animal bonding. We go to the shallow and reach out to make a connection with something. Too much force and you scare them off, not enough and you don't attract anything." Ariel explains.
"Oh that makes sense. It sounds interesting." Nora smiles as she thinks on it. She's always loved animals and the thought of being able to connect with them sounded like a dream.
"Come try with us." Some kids tug on her arm.
"But I don't have powers." Nora looks uncertain.
"Couldn't hurt to try." Ariel shrugs.
"I guess I could try." Nora shrugs, no real issue in just trying it out.
"Alright, we'll start with the little kids. Teens help them with their form and keep the waves from pushing them over please." Ariel instructs. "Now reach out a hand. Close your eyes and picture what you want to attract to you then call out softly. Match your breathing to that of the calm crashes…" she instructs demonstrating.
Then a dolphin flips as she opens her eyes. The kids cheering wanting it to do it again. After a bit of showing off Ariel places her hand down and nods to her friend. The dolphin doing one more flip before leaving.
"Wo, that was amazing." Nora looks on wide eyed. 'To be able to do that.' Nora keeps her eyes out on the sea till the dolphin is completely gone.
"Now you all try." Ariel turns to them. "Start with something small; a fish or crab. No jellyfish boys." She eyes a few of them.
"Ah. Come on. No fun." They pout.
"So um what do I do, you make it look so easy." Nora asks her friend.
"It looks simple, but it does take practice. But if you want to try, then have your feet like this and once you have something in mind slowly reach your hand out calling to it." Ariel shows her friend what to do.
Nora nodded and did as her friend said. She tried to call for something but what? Then something came to mind, it was fuzzy in her mind at first, but it soon got clearer. It was….
"Look flying fish!" Kids called as Nora's eyes opened and there they were, flying by.
Nora felt a bit wobbly as she sat down and thought 'What just happened?'
Meanwhile in town…
"I'm sorry Lock, but your appeal was rejected." A gray-haired African man hands him a red marked paper.
"B-but our place has helped so many kids. And we still have so many with us. Where are they supposed to go?" Lock looks at him worried.
"I'm sorry Lock. Really, I am. I've tried everything to convince the board, but they see no reason for an orphanage when the place is prime real estate for an inn." The hazel eyed man sighs heavily at what he has to tell his old friend.
"And where are those kids supposed to go?" Lock's voice shakes. "We have ten teenagers, twelve kids, and three toddlers."
"Please stop making this harder than it is Lock. You have until the end of the summer to come up with the money. But you'd be better off finding them all a place to go." The man looks at him sadly.
"Thanks for trying Timothy." Lock sighs heavily heading out.
"I really am sorry." Timothy watches as his old friend leaves.
Back at the house…
The lessons ended with saber practice. Some teens still going over the motions and kids playing with their practice swords.
Ariel looks over to see Lock coming back, able to sense his sadness and stress from the beach.
"I'm going… to check on lunch. You mind watching the kids Kix?" Ariel looks over at him.
"Sure. I can watch them for a bit." Kix nods.
Then turns to a few wanting to play with him and the others. He gulped as they tackled, wanting to play.
Inside the caretakers all look dejected and defeated.
"End of summer? We have until the end of the summer to come up with that money?" Tammy looks pale sitting in a chair.
"That's impossible." Mal is the same. "How did it come to this?"
"They weren't too happy when we had those caves declared a protected site. Limiting the crystals they're able to take. I think that's when they decided we had to go." Lock sighs heavily himself.
"Go? What do you mean go?" Ariel opens the door at that moment with Nora with her.
"Oh Ariel, don't worry about it. It's just a bit of money trouble we're…" Mal starts rubbing away the mist under her eyes.
"I'm not a child aunties and uncle. What's going on? Is Nova Hill in trouble?" Ariel looks at them worried.
"The truth is… we've been in trouble for a while. But we hit the red in recent years." Lock sighs falling into his seat rubbing between his eyes.
"The red, but why?" Nora looks confused.
"The bank heads and some tycoons weren't happy with certain choices we helped along to keep our quaint little town the way it is." Tammy sighs heavily.
"W-what about the cave tours? People love them. And they get to take back little trinkets. That used to cover us. And the money we send from work." Ariel looks pale herself.
"It helped keep us afloat. But we can't keep up anymore." Lock looks at her sadly.
"How much do you need, maybe we can find ways to help." Nora looks pleadingly.
"$10,155. And that's just what we owe the bank." Mal starts to weep.
"We can't keep the place running anymore. We just can't." Lock rubs her back.
"Th-the babies are waking up. I'm going to go get them." Tammy hics rubbing her eyes as she heads off.
"I have to go as well. I promised to help start bringing the ship out of the water with some of the other older kids." Lock heads out choking up a bit too.
"I'm going to help with the babes." Mal heads off trying to compose herself.
"Ariel, I'm so sorry." Nora places a hand on her friends' shoulder.
Ariel shakes her head, zombie walking to the couch and falling on to it.
"W-we've always been scraping by. But we always managed. And now… Nora I'm losing my home." Ariel turns to her tear eyed.
Nora holds her friend hoping to give her some comfort but….. 'There's no cure for the loss of a home.' Nora feels tears in her own eyes not sure if she could ever handle such a thing.
Not long after Ariel fell asleep from all the stress of crying and the news.
Nora sighed as she headed out to get some fresh air, hoping distract herself from what was happening.
As she got out and looked on she saw Echo struggling up the stairs. Fives dragging him.
"Fives I'm fine I don't want to go back in." Echo glares.
"Just let me help you." Fives tries to help him down.
"I'm not a weakling Fives just… Just leave me alone!" Echo shouts and shoves him off as he heads to the garden.
"Echo!" Fives calls off to him.
Nora comes down and asks "Is everything okay?"
"Echo is… he's mad at me." Fives sighs heavily.
"Is he not used to being cared for like this?" Nora asks.
"None of us are really. But we're brothers." Fives rubs his arm feeling down at Echo being so distant.
"Well maybe he's just upset about last night. I mean even when he was hurt he kept wanting to go back for you. Maybe he's just mad at himself." Nora shrugs.
"Maybe." Fives ponders.
'I am too. How could I not be able to protect him?' Fives feels down at his own thoughts.
"Maybe he just needs time. I can talk to him for you if you'd like." Nora smiles at him.
"No. I don't want to cause any trouble." Fives shakes his head.
"It's no problem. Someone needs to make sure he doesn't overdue it." Nora waves him off as she heads to the garden.
"Thanks." Fives whispers as she heads off.
In the garden…
Echo sat down on a bench and sighed. 'Why can't he just trust me? Is it because I couldn't save him? It was my fault he was in that situation in the first place. Face it Echo, your idea got a brother hurt again. Just like on Rishi.'
"Hey there you are." Echo looks up shocked to find Nora coming over to him.
"It's you, um the one that got me out last night. I, I never thanked you for that." Echo flushes slightly.
"It's okay. My name's Nora by the way. Your brothers call you Echo, right?" Nora smiles.
Echo nods not sure what to say.
Nora comes to sit next to him and says "Are you okay? I saw you fight with your brother."
Echo looked down at that "Sorry about that I just, I just don't like being treated weak."
"I guess I can understand that. After what happened you wouldn't want to feel that way. But your hurt, not weak, those are very different things." Nora has a far off look in her eyes.
"I guess." Echo said no more, just staring off himself.
Nora looked on a bit confused at this but guessed he had nothing else to say. She decided to look about the garden.
Echo noticed this and said "You don't have to stay here. Fives asked you to come for me, didn't he?"
"Nope, he actually told me not to. I volunteered." Nora just keeps looking at some flowers.
Echo looks shocked but says "Wait you did? Why?"
"I know what it's like to feel frustrated, so I thought I'd come and help. Plus, you shouldn't be walking around on your own with that hurt leg." Nora explains.
Echo looks down sadden and says "So it's pity. You don't have to stay here."
"Who says I want to leave?" Nora looks back glaring.
Echo sighs and tries to get up. Nora rolls her eyes as she goes up to him and says "Are all of you so stubborn?" She tries to get him to sit down but he tries to get up and well…
"Wo!" they both shout as they fall on the floor.
They both groan as they open their eyes and flush. Nora was sitting down on the ground while Echo was on his knees, arms on either side of her. The two flushing mad at this.
"I'm sorry. I. No let me. No I can." In trying to get untangled the two ended up slipping again this time Nora was about to fall back and hit her head but Echo moved fast to grab her around the waist and head, making him slip on his knees a bit more. In turn this made the situation much more awkward.
The two just stared into each other's eyes at that. Frozen stiff and flushed from the situation.
'She smells like morning glories. Wait, bad Echo get that out of your head!' Echo feels his face redden even harder at that.
'Wow those eyes, they're like a sunrise.' Nora feels her heart speed up at that, she felt herself lean in but…
"What do we have here?" Fives comes to check on them with a raised brow.
The two turn to him and Echo says "NO Fives it's not what it looks like."
"We tripped and…" Nora starts.
"About to kiss?" Fives teases.
"Fives it was nothing!" Echo yells.
Nora feels herself flinch at that. 'Nothing…' Her heart drops at those words.
"Fives mind getting him off? He's heavy." She says somewhat low.
Fives nods moving his brother. Once Echo is off Nora rushed off. She couldn't stand to be there.
"So~ Nora huh?" Fives raises a brow at his brother.
"Nothing happened Fives. And nothing can and you know it." Echo sighs at that.
"And why not?" Fives huffs a bit.
"It's against the rules." Echo shrugs off and walks away once more.
'But that rule has always been a pain.' Fives sighs following him.
Inside, Ariel was starting to wake up again. She felt sluggish with the news having sunk in. But there was still stuff to do.
At this point Nora rushes in and up the stairs in a hurry, not even looking at her.
"Hey, what happened?" Ariel follows her friend to their room.
Nora was flushing mad and crying some as she began to explain what happened till "But he then said meant nothing. I should have known. I was too embarrassed to stay after that, so I ran." Nora cries.
"Maybe he was flustered. That's what I kept saying when I was." Ariel pats her back.
"You think so…He seemed so sure when he said it." Nora tries to wipe away her tears.
"Just don't count him out yet. Okay?" Ariel leans her head against her friend's shoulder.
"Okay." Nora calms at that leaning back.