Luke sat at Wedge's dining table sipping some tea. Wedge had invited him and Tycho over. Wedge's apartment was rapidly becoming the hang out spot.

"Did he say when he was coming?" Iella asked.

"No," Wedge said. "He was stopping to pick up Wes and Hobbie first."

"Oh, thanks for the warning," she said, but she was smiling.

For people who didn't know him, Wes probably did need to come with a warning. For everyone else, it was a fun joke.

Luke turned around to look at the door. He could sense something. Nothing bad. But something. He looked several more times over the course of the next few minutes.

"Hey," Wedge said, catching Luke's attention. "You're making me nervous."

"Oh, sorry," Luke said. Sometimes he forgot how other people might interpret what he was doing. "It's okay. Nothing bad."

"I don't know if that makes me feel better or not."

"No, it's fine. I think...Tycho is on his way up."

"With Wes and Hobbie?"

Luke paused. "Yes."

"That's it?"

Luke paused again, but before he could say anything, loud voices wafted down from the other end of the hallway.

Iella lowered the datapad she was reading. "What is going on out there?"

"Are you sure that's Tycho?" Wedge asked.

"Yes -" Luke was about to clarify when he was cut off by the distinct and familiar sound of a woman's voice cackling with laughter.

Wedge looked at him skeptically. "Are you sure?" he asked again.

"Well, that wasn't," Luke said.

As the voices grew louder and closer, Iella opened the door. "Might as well not make them knock," she said.

A moment later, Wes and Brianna came bursting through the door, chattering and giggling. Hobbie followed close behind, grinning broadly, while Tycho looked a bit embarrassed.

"And there's that coffee art place -"

"And the pool hall with fun signature drinks -"

"And the adult ball pit!"

"There's an adult ball pit?! We are totally doing this."

As they continued, Luke glanced at Wedge, who seemed a bit disgusted at the idea of an adult ball pit. Wedge turned to Tycho. "What did you do?"

Tycho shrugged apologetically. "Sorry. We ran into her on the way, and it seemed like a good idea…"

"I thought I was the expert at finding fun things to do," Brianna said. "This list is amazing, bumper speeders -"

"The arcade -"

"The ice cream place -"

"The escape room -"

"Look at all of these fun things." Brianna turned on Luke. "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME YOU HAD FUN FRIENDS!"

"Huh?"

Brianna quickly held up her hand to clarify. "Not that Wedge isn't fun."

"What!?"

Brianna grinned as Wes burst out laughing. Luke caught another glance from Wedge. As usual he wasn't quite as annoyed as he appeared, however…

Wes nudged Brianna. "We should probably go get started so they can keep doing grown up things."

"We're gonna go do fun things!"

"See you later!"

Hobbie, who hadn't stopped grinning the entire time, waved merrily to the group, then followed Wes and Brianna back into the hallway.

As the noise died down to the other end of the hall, Iella shut the door. The silence that dominated for a moment was a stark contrast to the brief cacophony. "What...was that?" Iella finally asked.

Wedge slowly turned to look at Tycho. Not mad. But perhaps realizing that was going to happen far more frequently. "That was exactly what I told you not to do."

"Maybe they'll be so busy with each other, they won't bother you," Tycho suggested. Wedge's expression looked like he thought that was the least likely of future possibilities.

Iella wrapped her arm around her waist. "Maybe you should throw them for a loop and join them."

"I wouldn't go to an adult ball pit unless I was wearing a biohazard suit," Wedge said. Iella raised an eyebrow. "I'm fun!" Wedge insisted.

Iella gave him a soft kiss on the cheek. "We know."

—

Luke sat on the bed of the guest room in Leia's apartment. It was the same room he'd been using for years, more than two decades. He could have kept using his own apartment across the hall. But after he set up the academy on Yavin, and especially since the kids were there, he was usually only on Coruscant to assist Leia with something, so it just made sense to stay here.

Still, he still felt like a guest. He wasn't sure if it was supposed to feel more like home. He wasn't entirely sure what home was supposed to feel like. Yavin had felt less and less like home over the past six months. These were just places he stayed until he traveled somewhere else.

Luke shook his head and turned back to the open journal in his lap. He had managed to write in it almost every single day since he had first pulled it out of his trunk. He had gotten faster and better at writing the letters, but it was still very much a meditative exercise, forcing him to focus on one thought before moving to the next. Luke repositioned his pen. He'd been in the middle of a paragraph about Wes and Brianna bursting into Wedge's apartment earlier. Wedge had been less grumpy about it than he appeared, though Brianna's joke about him not being any fun did rankle a bit. Brianna's brand of intentional annoyance was slightly less endearing to most people than Wes'. Especially for those on the receiving end of it.

The room's communications console dinged with an incoming call. Luke set the pen and journal down and leaned over to answer it. Usually only Wedge called him in here. "Oh," Luke said as the hologram resolved itself. "Hi Wes."

"Hi, Luke, hey, um, Wedge gave me your number, I hope you don't mind. I'm not interrupting anything or bothering you, am I?" Wes absently scratched the back of his head.

"No, of course not," Luke said. "I was actually just thinking about you."

"Oh! Good, great, so uh, I just wanted to make sure you weren't, you know, upset about earlier."

"Upset about...what?"

"About, you know, Brianna and me coming into the room like that… Because you know," Wes continued quickly, "I don't want you to think it was something it wasn't. Because it definitely wasn't."

"Wasn't...what?" It wasn't like Wes to be so indirect.

"You know," Wes said. "I don't want you to think it was like that."

It finally dawned on Luke what Wes was talking about. Luke smiled and shook his head. It was rather funny. "Wes, it's fine."

"Okay, you know, I just wanted you to know it's not like that, and even if I wanted to - which I definitely don't - I wouldn't because you know, I don't want you to be upset about it."

"Wes -"

"Not that there's anything wrong with her, you know, she's smart, funny, fun, cute, I'm just saying," Wes cut himself off, "it's not like that. Especially if, you know, you'd be upset about it."

"Wes, it's fine," Luke said again. "Even if I was upset about it, she'd probably ignore me anyway."

"Well, but I wouldn't," Wes said. "But, just friends. You know, if that's okay."

Luke shook his head again. "Wes, first, it's not my business to try and tell her who she can and can't be friends with, even if I thought I could get away with it. I don't think I've successfully dictated anything to her in her life. Second, I actually think it's a good thing."

"I - you what?"

Luke smiled again. That had clearly been unexpected. "I think it's a good thing."

Wes cocked his head to the side a bit. "Why?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"Well, a couple of reasons," Luke said. "One, I think it has something to do with the way she connects to the Force, though that's not really a fully formed thought yet. Two, you seem very similar in some ways." Luke cast his memory back almost twenty years. "When Brianna was a kid she was always a bit weird. Whenever she trained she always turned everything she could into a joke or a game to amuse herself. I never minded; she was learning, she was having fun, and she wasn't hurting anyone. Mara minded a lot. She thought it was undisciplined. But, Brianna really had no one to be weird with. Her siblings aren't like that. Her cousins aren't like that. Camie would chase around after her sometimes, but wouldn't really join in on the weirdness. Brianna was always weird at people. But not with anyone. And you, I think, are sort of the same. People who know you laugh along with you, and Hobbie is always along with you. But you're not - at least that I've ever seen - ever weird with anyone."

Wes leaned forward and rested his chin on his hands. "Yeah, you know, you're right. Even when I was a kid, it was like this. Not that I didn't have any friends. I did. But, you know really little kids are a bunch of weirdos anyway. But they get older and then they have to be cool and fit in and stop being weird. And all my friends did. And I guess I didn't." Wes laughed. "I was always the class clown. But no one ever actually joined me being weird."

"I lost track of what Brianna was doing several years ago," Luke said. "So, I don't really know who she spends time with, outside her siblings or cousins or Camie. Not that I absolutely need to know. And I don't think she'd tell me if I asked anyway. But, it's nice to know that she's spending time with good people."

Wes grinned. "I'd say I'll keep her out of trouble, but I don't actually know which direction that will go."

"If you ask Wedge, it will be neither of you."

Wes laughed. "He's not mad, is he?"

"I think he was a bit grumpy with Tycho," Luke said. "Apparently he explicitly told Tycho not to do that."

"Oops," Wes giggled.

Luke shrugged. "He'll get over it."

Wes laughed again. "Yeah, he will." He looked more pointedly at Luke. "And how are you?"

Luke paused, then realized Wes wasn't asking about Brianna anymore. "Good," he said. And it was true. Certainly, today it was true.

Wes smiled. "Good. Hey Luke?"

"Yeah?"

"You're the best, you know."

"I -" Luke glanced away and fought the instinct to disagree. He glanced back up and smiled a bit.

"Hey Luke?"

"Yeah?"

"Goodnight."

Now Luke really did smile. "Goodnight Wes."

Wes grinned and then disconnected the call. Luke leaned back and took a deep breath. Wes had one of the biggest, kindest hearts of anyone he knew. He glanced over and saw the journal still open to the unfinished passage. He pulled it back into his lap and repositioned his pen.