As much as I would like to say I own Disney I don't so I don't own Star Wars, either.

The Tom Joad's common room was quiet when Luminara followed Jenni in. Now that they had gotten Threefer into a bacta tank and done what they could for Padme's stump, retrieved the Bond's temporary airlock and Luminara's jet pack and ship from in and by the landing bay, and gotten some distance and a few asteroids between them and the outpost's horrors, everyone was crashing and dealing with their losses at the same time. Anakin was on one couch with Padme curled up on his lap, and Barriss was practically fused to Ahsoka's side on the other—Luminara wasn't sure how the young Togrutan could breath, with how tightly her pregnant friend was clutching at her. Two of the ship's three droids—C-3PO and R2-D2, if she remembered correctly, were by one wall, the astromech plugged into an info-port whistling softly to itself while the protocol droid stood beside it with its hand on its friend's turret.

(And Luminara strongly suspected that 'friend' was the right word, and 'his' better than 'its'—that the Bond had ignored the Republic's laws against allowing droids to achieve sapience. She could see how that would be useful with their limited resources in the Outer Rim, especially with the absent D-FN8 acting as both nanny and bodyguard for their children.)

Jenni waved Luminara over to one of the seats by the gaming console and walked over to sit beside Barriss, gently rubbing her back. Only now did Luminara notice that her former apprentice was shivering.

Without looking up, Jenni said, "I imagine you have some questions."

"I— Yes." Luminara pulled her attention away from the interesting group dynamics she was seeing, there were more important issues to deal with. On the other hand ... "I thought Bonds were more of a 'group marriage' thing?"

Jenni looked up, surprised, then grinned. "Normally it is, or was. But unlike the Bonds of my time, except for me this one's formed by people with preexisting relationships. We've fallen into ... mini-bonds, me and Ahsoka, Barriss and Ahsoka, Anakin and Padme, Anakin and Ahsoka—Ahsoka's kinda the linchpin for the Bond. That's been fading as we all get used to each other—the game of musical beds we have going on helps—so I expect eventually we'll get to what I remember." Jenni's grin widened at Luminara's burning cheeks. "So, next question?"

Luminara coughed into her fist, fighting down her blush. She didn't know why she was embarrassed, as a Jedi she had not just read of but seen any number of arrangements, some of them bizarre—there was the way the Uyot practically used copulation like a handshake if they had the time, with no concerns about privacy at all, and she hadn't given it so much as a sideways glance. Maybe because I know some of them, fought beside them, even finished raising Barriss?

Jenni waved a hand as if trying to get her attention, and Luminara yanked her wandering attention back into line. "Ah ... right." Taking a deep breath and ignoring her still-burning cheeks, Luminara settled her normal serenity about her like a favorite comforting cloak. "You told the Council that you wouldn't be training anyone in the use of the Dark Side."

"I did," Jenni instantly agreed, "and I haven't." She glanced over at Anakin, then back to Luminara. "Everything you saw—and sensed—in the outpost was Anakin's native talent. He's been swept into the Void only once since he and Padme joined the Bond, this is the first time he's actually chosen to reach out to those dark currents."

"And that doesn't concern you?"

Jenni shook her head, her white-and-blue hair swirling about her cheeks. "No, not really. Remember how I described making use of the Void to chemotherapy? Two times in two years, with his ties to the Bond and his love for his children the lifeline to pull him out, is well within Anakin's personal tolerance. And as the galaxy adjusts to its new reality and things settle in the Outer Rim, I expect there will be even less need for Anakin to do so. There is no danger that we are incubating a new Darth Sidious."

Luminara gazed intently at Jenni for a long moment, then glanced over at Anakin ... an Anakin with his wife still curled up on his lap, not a hint of yellow in his eyes. And while her own Force-backed empathy wasn't as strong as that of the Bond with each other, or what Barriss had told her Jenni had with everyone, the Jedi master could still sense Anakin's calm—not a hint of the underlying anger that was so much a part of a Darksider's presence.

It didn't match what she had learned in the Temple about the Dark Side, the Dark Siders she had encountered, or even what she had seen with her own former Padawan's descent into darkness—but if there was one thing Darth Sidious had forced the Order—those that survived—to give more than lip service to, if only to themselves, it was that they didn't know everything about the ways of the Force. As illustrated by her former Padawan, clearly happy to be pregnant, in love with Ahsoka and loved by all the Bond, also without a hint of yellow in her eyes. The emotions Luminara was sensing through the Force didn't lie.

And however powerful the lesson in humility the Order's survivors had received, she still could not imagine a Dark Sider capable of loving anyone, not even themselves. But still ...

"What if Padme dies?"

"Then she dies." Jenni's reply was abrupt, almost curt. But she sighed and continued. "Our self-assumed job policing the Outer Rim isn't safe. Padme's role is more that of judge, diplomat, and investigator than combatant, but the Tao's currents sweep us all into dangerous waters and sooner or later it will catch up with us—one at a time, pairs, even possibly all at once, as unlikely as that is. In the event that Anakin somehow outlives Padme, he'll have the rest of us, especially Ahsoka and his children, to see him through."

Luminara gusted out a sigh as she leaned back and stared at the ceiling. "My report to the Council is going to be interesting."

Soft laughter circled the room, and Padme turned her head to actually look at their guest without lifting it from Anakin's shoulder. "So, did you learn what you came here for? Can you tell us why you're out here, now?"

Luminara considered the question. The Council would come to its own consensus, but that didn't mean she didn't have her own opinion and couldn't ... give it a helping hand coming to the right consensus. She straightened in her seat, refocusing on the Bond around her. "Yes, I think I can. It's one of the crechelings—she's like Skywalker." The others bolted upright where they sat, all cuddling forgotten as the tension in the room suddenly skyrocketed, and she hastily waved a dismissive hand. "She doesn't have the issues he brought with him from slavery, that we didn't know how to deal with, she's creche-raised. But she is passionate. Before Order 67 she would never have been chosen as a Padawan, she simply cannot divorce herself from her emotions; even now, with our relaxed standards on attachments, she is almost certainly too much for any current Knight or Master. We don't have the culture for it, any attempt is likely to end in tragedy, especially since we're considering asking those in a position to take Padawans to double up—which means less individual supervision for each Padawan. But she is powerful in the Force—not Skywalker-powerful, but powerful enough—and after our losses to not have her on the front lines when she matures into her strength would be a monumental waste."

"And then you thought of us," Ahsoka said solemnly. The Togrutan would understand the situation Chiyrsa was in, Luminara thought, her own hadn't been that different—or Obi-wan's, for that matter, and he had been the one to finally suggest the Youxia Bond.

Luminara nodded her agreement. "Then we thought of you, and needed to verify that it was safe to ask you to take over her training."

Jenni leaned forward, intent. "What's her race?"

"She's Human. That matters?"

"Yes, Ahsoka and I were lucky that Humans and Togrutans are emotionally and sexually compatible." She and Ahsoka gazed at each other for a moment, eyes softening, and their hands rose to touch the broach the other still wore around their neck with their bite mark. "Well, compatible enough. What's her name?"

"Chiyrsa."

"Oh, my." At C-3PO's exclamation, everyone turned to look at him. The golden droid clumped around to face them and ignored his friend's whistled interrogative to say in his primly proper tone, "Forgive me for interrupting, but is this child from Thothcant?"

"Yes, she is," Luminara replied, "how did you know?"

"I recognized the word from the primary language of that planet. But in that language 'chiyrsa' is not a name, it is a number. And on that planet numbers are never used as proper names, not for any born into the clans."

Luminara felt herself pale at the primly given revelation, and what it must mean to a crecheling found as a baby—at an orphanage—even as Ahsoka put her realization into words.

"Are crechelings still taught the primary language and culture of their planet of origin?"

"Yes, they are," Luminara replied, her voice strained.

The Bond glanced at each other, then Jenni said, "It look like we'll need to make a detour to Terra on our way back out to the Outer Rim. But I suspect we will be adopting her." She grinned slyly at Luminara. "Don't worry, we won't get there until after you've had a chance to report to the Council."

Luminara kept her expression serene through long experience, but soft laughter swept the compartment anyway—Bond-trained empathic sense at work, she was sure, here at least was one group that would never be taken in by the masks Jedi wore to hide even from themselves. Time for a change of subject. "Where will you go, if you aren't headed straight to Terra?"

"Naboo." Padme responded, lifting her arm ending in a tourniquet-covered stump (a proper tourniquet, with a built-in bacta film dispenser and sensors). "I'll need a new hand to match Ani's, and we'll want Threefer to be checked out, see if he'll need a new arm. And we'll be dropping off the data we recovered with Queen Apailana's scientists, see if it has what we hope."

"Yes, that data, can you tell me now what you were looking for?"

The Bond exchanged glances again—Luminara was beginning to suspect that they did that so that they could let others know they were communicating privately—and Ahsoka sighed and rubbed at her face. "I'm the only one in the Bond right now that can't have Anakin's baby, we want to change that. No one seems to have researched cross-Togrutan-Human fertilization, or if they did they didn't bother to publish anything, so we were wondering if there might be something in Sith alchemy that could do the job. The answer seems to be 'maybe'. And no, it wasn't worth the lives we paid for it."

Barriss gripped her hand. "It wasn't your fault, Ahsoka, none of us knew what we were getting into. And what we've found will be used by many more than just you, Joker and Fun'tac's legacy going forward will be beautiful."

Ahsoka found a smile for her lover, but shook her head. "Not my fault, but my—our—responsibility. The clones see it as their duty to keep us alive, even at the cost of their own, but it is our duty not to waste them."

"And we didn't," Anakin said. He had relaxed like the rest with Luminara's explanation of Chiyrsa's situation, and was once again hugging the wife draped across his lap. "Now that we know about those hellspawn, we need to figure out what to do about them. I think we should whistle up a Republic cruiser and blow this entire asteroid cluster into dust." His expression didn't change and his voice remained calm, but the air began to feel heavy, just a hint of taint filling the room. Until Padme turned to kiss him full on the lips ... the kiss went on and on—and the feeling of the gathering Dark vanished like a popped soap bubble.

Luminara found herself laughing. "Who would have thought that a kiss is the antidote for the Dark Side?"

"Hey, if you think a kiss is effective, just think how sex is!" Ahsoka quipped, and the room filled with laughter again as Luminara's cheeks heated ... again.

At least she wasn't the only one blushing, as Anakin cleared his throat and continued, "Uhm, yes, anyway, there's still the inertial tracker we have attached to our hull. We'll need to clear it—"

"No."

Everyone turned to look at Jenni. "No?" Anakin repeated.

She shook her head, the white streaks through her blue hair shifting in a way that Ahsoka's own blue streaks on white montrals and lekku never would. "I know, I'm the one that points out the Tao's interests and ours don't necessarily coincide, that we have our sapience so we can use it. But in this case the galaxy is in turmoil, and there are worse things out there than a non-sapient—"

She broke off, and the room fell silent. Luminara thought that perhaps—if she wasn't imagining it—she could sense just the edge of the Bond's communication ... argument, she suspected, as the silence stretched and the rest of the room's occupants grew more and more tense.

Finally, the tension broke, and everyone slumped where they sat. Anakin gusted out a sigh. "All right, we'll look through the data we've recovered on our way back to Jussul. If we like what we find we'll leave the tracker alone, and see if the Republic's willing to lend us a cruiser after Barriss gives birth and we see if the Council still wants us to adopt Chiyrsa. Whoever the tracker belongs to will have to move fast to beat us back, with Jenni at the helm."

"Why wait until then?" Luminara inquired. "Why not have Jenni guide the cruiser back, and you rejoin her on Jussul when you're done with everything else?"

Jenni shook her head again. "The problem is that we don't know what effect interstellar distances would have on our bond, and don't plan to experiment to find out. The turbulence of the Tao's currents when we considered it suggest that the results would be unpleasant. Wherever the Bond goes, we go as a group." She groaned and pushed herself to her feet. "Let's get you back to your ship so I can program the first jump back toward Jussul. Then I can get one more conversation out of the way before I hit the sack."

Luminara hastily rose to her feet. She had no idea why Jenni would want to engage in exercise after the day they'd just had (that was what that expression was about ... right?), but she wanted this day to be over.

/\

Jenni winced when she walked into the Tom Joad's small infirmary, and Keda's simmering anger spiked to white-hot as soon as the former and maybe-future waitress saw her. Fortunately, the young woman quickly turned her attention back to bacta tube she was standing by—and the comatose form of her sometimes-lover floating naked except for a loincloth—and her anger settled back down to a simmer, submerged by concern. The other lover of the pair (separately, as far as Jenni knew the three had never shared a bed all at once) looked up from where she was reading a pad in the chair next to the infirmary's patient couch, but that same simmering anger was missing—Asajj knew and accepted the risks of the life they had chosen, as Keda hadn't yet.

But she would, if she continued on the path she had chosen. If ...

Jenni stepped over next to Keda to gaze at the sleeping Threefer. She'd rather he was awake for this, but she needed to break Keda out of the anger that had been born in the last moments of the away team's escape, before it had a chance to be set in stone. But first ... "What did Zeethree"—the ship's medical droid, currently shut down in its charging cradle—"have to say about him?"

Keda turned her head to glare at her for a moment, before turning back to Threefer. "He said the arm can be saved, but he'll need an artificial skin graft."

"Good. From Jussul we're heading for Naboo, they can take care of that there."

Keda's shoulders slumped, her anger washed away for a moment by a wave of immense relief. Jenni could understand that, artificial skin—the real thing, that could actually be linked to the patient's nervous system and so provide a sense of touch, wasn't all that expensive or hard to get ... on a Core World. In the Outer Rim, it was out of reach of all but those that were wealthy enough to import their own health care.

And Jenni wasn't going to have a better opportunity. Let's lance this boil before it grows. "So, Keda, what's wrong?"

Keda stiffened again, her anger returning, but she didn't turn away from Threefer. "What makes you think that anything is wrong?"

"Empath, remember? You aren't hiding anything. But I'm not telepathic, at least outside the Bond. So, what's wrong?"

Finally, Keda turned to face her, fists clenched. " 'The party never ends'." Is that something to say to a man who's about to sacrifice his life for one of your own?"

"Ah, so that's what it is." Jenni sighed and stepped over to sit in the chair next to Asajj. "But I didn't say that to 'a man', I said it to Joker." She glanced over at the Dathomiran studiously ignoring them. "Asajj, why don't you explain it?" Keda would accept it better from her other lover than from the woman she was furious with.

Something Asajj apparently understood. She looked up from her pad with a sigh. "Keda, you have to understand the Bond—well, Jenni, mostly, since she was raised by a Bond, but the others seem to be coming around to her way of thinking. It must be all the sex." She grinned at the chortle that forced out of Keda. "When Jenni says the party never ends, she usually means that life is to be enjoyed now, not months or years down the road whenever you accomplish whatever you think will make you happy ... that if you aren't enjoying life now, you aren't doing it right.

"But there's another meaning, and this isn't the first time it's come up ... that the party doesn't end just because you die." She shrugged. "Most people—hells, most races—would tell her she's much too optimistic about the afterlife, but she doesn't care."

"So ... so 'see you on the other side'—"

"Was me telling Joker that eventually I'd be rejoining his party," Jenni explained. "And I will, none of us gets out of this life alive." She smiled at Keda's new involuntary chortle, but sobered immediately. "More than that, I doubt any of the Bond is going to die in bed. The Bond's mission out here isn't safe, and however many of the clones insist on following Joker and Fun'tac's example, sooner or later the inevitable will catch up to us.

"Which brings us to you."

"Me?" Keda asked. Her hostility had faded, replaced by shame that Jenni was ignoring and now mixed with confusion.

"Yes, you." Jenni felt her knees beginning to quiver a little, and stepped over to where she could lean against the wall. Her day may not have been as physically demanding as the away team's but it had been just as terrifying, and riding the edge just short of total immersion into the currents of the Tao—where her will became it's will—without tipping in was exhausting. She rubbed at her cheeks and sighed. "Today was not how I wanted to introduce you to our world—I've had worse days, but not since Ahsoka pulled me out of what she called a Force vortex ... I think she said? Maybe the rest of the Bond, or Asajj and Threefer when we pull him out, can tell you of worse days, wars can do that. But it was bad, as bad as it's likely to get out here in the Rim. Do you still want to join our merry band of adventurers?"

It took a moment for Keda to parse Jenni's statement, but Jenni was very relieved to sense their guest's confusion shift almost instantly to determination. "Yes, I do."

"Oh, good." Jenni's shoulders slumped in relief, and she had to brace herself to keep from sliding down the wall. She took a moment to gather her strength, and pushed herself away from the wall. "Since that's the case, I have an offer for the two of you, and Threefer when he's awake. I would like the three of you to form the second new Youxia Bond, here in the Outer Rim."

As Keda's jaw dropped, Asajj shot bolt upright, her pad sliding unnoticed off her lap onto the floor.

Deciding she'd tried to play the macho action hero long enough, Jenni walked over to the patient's couch (stiffly, so her knees wouldn't have the opportunity to decide they didn't want to support her anymore) and pulled on the Tao's currents to lift her up onto it. Even as she allowed herself to sag under the weight of her exhaustion, she grinned at the two stunned-speechless women. "Nothing to say?"

Asajj finally found her voice. "You can't be serious."

"As a heart attack." Asajj's snort said she remembered the quip from before, but at Keda's confused expression Jenni added, "Absolutely." She sighed again, running a hand through her hair. "I can't say I planned to recreate the Youxia Bonds here-and-now, Ahsoka and I kind of fell into it to keep me from going insane from the silence in my head." She reached up to touch the broach with Ahsoka's bite marks on its band around her neck. "We certainly didn't intend for anyone else to join us, though I'm happy that the others did. But it's time to expand the franchise."

"But why me?" Keda demanded. "I'm not Force-sensitive."

Jenni shook her head. "Yes, you are, everything that lives is at least a spot of light in the currents sweeping us all along—you're simply a flickering ember instead of a dancing flame. But that doesn't mean you can't join a Bond, and once you do your ember will grow brighter. Padme was just an ember before she married Anakin, after all, and while she'll probably never burn so bright that the Jedi Order would consider her a Knight she does well enough." Better, in her own way, Jenni was hoping that her Bondmate's subtle touch was a function of how her flame had slowly strengthened rather than burning bright from the beginning, and so would be shared by Keda—not that she had any intention of telling Keda that.

Jenni turned her attention to Asajj and grinned. "For you, you've said before how much you miss Knight Voss—usually when you've gotten too deep into the ship's stores of Corellian ale—but Keda and Threefer aren't just cases of 'if you can't be with the one you love, love the ones you're with'. You can't hide your love from an empath." Her grin softened into a gentle smile. "Really, if the three of you can handle the loss of privacy, I think you'd be very happy together." And in a few years, once they'd gotten their feet under them and had some confidence in their bond, if he still lived they could invite Quinlan to join. Jenni knew the thought had already occurred to Asajj, from the fragile hope blossoming in her friend, and knew that Threefer and Keda wouldn't be able to help but see it as well if they bonded ... but they'd see the love she had for each of them as well, for their own sakes, so that would be all right. And from the emotional mix she was picking up from the two—shock, wonder, hope, all churning together—she expected they would agree to form their own Bond. That would take care of a Bond for one of the Skywalker twins, once they grew up, and Chiyrsa if the Council still wanted to pass her to them. Now they just needed to figure out what to do with the other twin.

Groaning, she pushed herself to her feet. "It's been a long day, and Threefer isn't going to wake up any time soon. Think it over when you aren't running on fumes. I suggest you two head to bed, that's where I'm headed." A bed that would be a bit lonely, she suspected—Barriss would need to bunk with Ahsoka for her own emotional health, and Jenni figured after Anakin's dive into the Void he'd be extra-clingy with Padme ... he had been when he'd been swept in, after all, she didn't see why it would be any different when he'd dove in.

As she clumped down the passageway toward her room, Jenni wondered if maybe they could find another Jedi or two on Terra that would consider joining a Bond. She felt a little heartsore at the thought, but they could split up into two Bonds—Anakin, Padme, and whoever for one, and Jenni, Ahsoka, and Barriss for the other, another male when they could find one. That would give them the third Bond they needed for the other Skywalker twin. Something to consider for another day, we have time. Though not much time, the twins would soon be old enough for the parental bond...

"Nicely done," Ahsoka complimented through the Bond. "And like you say, a worry for another day. Now come to bed—our bed, with me and Barriss. It'll be a little tight, but as clingy as Barriss of going to be not that tight ... for you, anyway. And it's not like we'll need room to do anything but sleep."

"That sounds wonderful, I'm on my way."

Author's Note: One more short chapter to wrap this up and I'll be putting this novella to bed.

Much of my inspiration for Bonds came from the line marriage in Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. In Heinlein's creation a particular line marriage was an ongoing institution, with new blood being brought in as elderly members die, the line marriage itself long outlasting any individual marriage. For the peaceful, utopian society of Jenni's childhood, the individual Bonds have a lifespan measured in centuries with the ages of the members across the spectrum—this was the Bond Jenni first joined when she turned sixteen, for the months before the Void Slaves' coup, an intergenerational family. (It wasn't the Bond she spent most of the next four years in, made up of survivors that found each other, those survivors were all young for obvious reasons.) But there isn't much room for romance—children, a few years after birth, have their own bond with their parental Bond that lasted until they turned sixteen, at which point they would join another Bond with the mutual agreement of their parental Bond, the new Bond, and themselves. Hence Jenni's problem (all of their problem, really, though Jenni's the one most aware of it). As Anakin and Padme's twins, Barriss's boy, any additional children any of the women might bear grow up, they're going to need mature, established Bonds to join, and for obvious reasons it can't be that of their parents'.