"Jati!"
Jacen shifted Keil, wincing at how sore his arm was from stirring the stew on the cooking unit. "What, Sieren?"
"I can find my shoes!" she yelled back
Jacen rolled his eyes with a smile at her broken Basic. She never could seem to remember the negative form of a phrase.
"Did you look under your bed?" he dropped the stir spoon and turned to the refrigeration unit.
"No! They are there!"
Jacen couldn't help himself; he laughed out loud.
Keil turned his head sharply, startled by the noise. For a moment, he simply stared at his father in fascination, and then began to grin.
Jacen grinned back, hearing Sieren muttering darkly in Bachi in her room, still looking for her missing shoes. Life with his six-year-old was never boring, whether his laughs came from her mischievous spirit, or the fact that her cant's became can's and yes's managed to work themselves into no's.
"Jati! I can find them still!" Sieren was becoming extremely frustrated.
Jacen switched Keil from one arm to the other and picked up the stir spoon again.
"Hang on, Si, I'll come help you look." He turned the heat control under the stew down and turned, setting Keil in his chair.
"I can be late!" Sieren was near frantic.
"I know." Jacen soothed, pushing her bedroom door open enough to slide through.
He surveyed the cluttered room, picking his way through the mountains of stuff, trying to remember what color the flooring underneath it all was. "You know," he reasoned, "if you ever cleaned up in here, things would be a lot easier to find."
Sieren look sheepishly at the junk she was kneeling on. "No."
"Yes." Jacen corrected gently.
Sieren scowled, muttering something in Bachi about hating Basic. She sighed. "Yes."
"All right, well, you look in your container." He pointed at her receptacle against the wall that was supposed to hold toys, but viewing the mess on the floor, he couldn't imagine that it had anything in it. "I'll look in your closet again."
Sieren nodded and crawled to her toy box.
Jacen sighed and began to dig through the mound of clothing in the bottom of her closet.
"Si, are you sure you didn't leave them at the gym yesterday?"
"No."
Jacen wondered if she really meant 'no', or if the words were just getting twisted again.
"Si-"
Keil chose that moment to begin crying.
Jacen groaned and pushed himself to his feet. "Hang on, buddy, I'm coming." He pulled Sieren's door back open.
He jerked back as the smell hit him, and then realized how hazy the room was. "Oh stang." He lunged for the cooking unit and grabbed the twist knob control. He yelled when the pain from the heat finally registered, shaking his hand as if to dislodge any more negative nerve senses that might still be pulsing.
The smoke wasn't coming from the boiled over stove, however.
"Stang!" he exclaimed loudly, jumping toward the small oven, knocking the stir spoon out of the stew as he did.
Smoke was pouring from the vent on the top of the oven, clouding the entire kitchenette/living area with a thick grey haze.
Jacen supposed that meant their breakfast rolls would be burned.
He jerked the oven door open, coughing at the sudden out-pouring of smoke and ash.
Keil began to scream.
He reached into the dark oven and pulled out the baking sheet that had only half an hour ago held six lumps of dough.
He grimaced. There wasn't enough left to perform a burial.
Keil's screaming had risen a couple of decibels in the two minutes it had taken for their entire day's meals to disintegrate.
Jacen groaned at the mess. The stir spoon from the soup was on the floor, the epicenter of a magnificent splatter of gooey stew.
If Jacen hadn't been so weary, he might've marveled at the volume of stew that had been on the falling spoon, and the force of the splatter.
As it was, he didn't even notice that the hot durasteel baking sheet was burning through the thermoglove on his hand.
"Ah!" he yelled suddenly, dropping the pan onto the floor and racing to the sink.
"Jati!" Sieren coughed from the back bedroom.
Keil was still screaming.
The last thing Jacen wanted to hear was the sizzling noise that was coming from cooking unit that should have been off.
"Sithspit!" he could have eagerly quit now and had enough disasters to last him the whole month.
He hop-stepped over to unit to where the substance-formerly-known-as-stew had proceeded to boil over yet again; shaking both of his burned hands in an attempt to relieve them of the never ending pain.
He grabbed a dishtowel, yelping at the rough cloth against his tender hands, and tried once again to turn the heating element off. He finally got it into the 'off' position and shoved the glowing pot of soup onto the back of the unit.
The amazing part of it all was that Keil had finally quit screaming.
Jacen turned around, expecting to find the baby either gone, or passed out from the smoky air. Instead, the three-month-old was watching him silently, one fist shoved in his mouth.
Tenel Ka stared at him, bouncing Keil lightly in her arms. "What in all the galaxy happened here, Jacen Solo?"
Jacen sighed and only just barely kept from sinking to the floor in weary relief. "Uh... Quite a lot, actually."
Tenel Ka surveyed the room with a speculative eye. "I can see that. I meant details."
"Ahh..." Jacen trailed off, unsure where to begin.
"Jati," Sieren appeared at his side then, "I am late! I can find my shoes!"
Jacen was ready to fall over dead if something didn't give. "Si..." he groaned. "Can't you just go barefoot like Aunt Tahiri?"
Sieren seemed to think that over for a moment. She finally nodded once. "No."
Tenel Ka raised one eyebrow as the six-year-old kissed her father's cheek and skipped happily out the door. "No?" she looked back at Jacen.
Jacen grinned wryly. "Like I said, Basic is still a work in progress."
"Ah." Tenel Ka nodded, reflexively bouncing Keil again to keep him quiet.
"So..." Jacen began, bending over to pick up the discarded stir spoon. "What's up?"
"Actually, Master Skywalker has called a meeting."
Jacen straightened. "When?"
He could've sworn he saw her smirk. "Now."
Jacen groaned. "Ok." He tossed the spoon into the sink and grabbed the dishtowel.
"Just let me finish up with these-" he grimaced, "-rolls."
Tenel Ka eyed the pile of ash curiously. "Is that what they were meant to be?"
Jacen just glared. He dropped the pan into the full sink. "Ok." He held out his arms to take Keil. "Let's go."