As before, I make no money on this. Heck, I'm a poor college student. Don't sue; I'm not worth it.

~~~~~~~~

Only One

Raven entered a rather dilapidated structure about a five-minute walk from the rally on the walkway. She was lost in thought as she made the short journey across the lobby to the lifts, setting it to go to the highest floor. Unlike most buildings on Coruscant, the disrepair didn't lesser the farther up in the building one went. It was continuous throughout, a rather depressing place.

The lift chimed, and she exited to be nearly bowled over by a small girl racing in the hallway. "You can't catch me!" she shrieked to the older boy farther down the hall. The boy whooped and gave chase for a short distance then stopped to greet Raven.

"Ash! You're back! Where did you go?" he queried, latching on to one of her legs.

Raven smiled gently, extracting him from her extremity. "I had some errands to run, Copelan," she replied. "I had to go all the way to the Senate sector." The little girl had appeared next to her brother, her blue eyes wide. Her longer hair was a dirty blond, pulled back into a messy ponytail. She was about four years old and grinned to reveal two missing teeth on her lower jaw.

He glared at her slightly, his gray eyes blazing in an older sibling's fury as she pushed towards Raven. Copelan C'xon was about six, his cropped hair a muted red, taking after his father. He crossed his arms in annoyance. Both children wore well-worn clothes, fraying around the edges. Raven stooped down, producing two small wind-up toys from a pouch on her belt, the cheap kind that could be bought from street vendors. "Here, I brought these for you," she told them, smiling again at their elation.

"Mama!" the girl, Nara, cried, rushing into the open door on the hallway. Copelan followed at a more sedate rate, though excitement gleamed in his eyes. Raven brought up the rear of the small entourage, peering in the doorway.

A toddler, another boy, watched from the floor as his siblings charged the blond woman standing in the meager kitchen of the apartment. The woman was relatively young with blond hair and blue eyes. She was short in stature, especially compared to the taller Raven. The two were essentially opposites except for their slime frames, although Availle's was beginning to thicken around the middle, an indication of another child on its way.

The apartment reflected the shabbiness of the children's clothes, well cared for if threadbare. It had a small living room with a few couches. The bedrooms were off a back hallway, a master room for the parents, one for the toddler and Copelan, and the other for Nara. All were small, however, with little room for much beyond a closet and a sleep couch. However, love suffused the small living area.

Raven picked up the toddler, Lian by name, and crossed the living room into the kitchen. Ava C'xon looked at him with a loving smile then gave one to Raven. "You didn't have to get them something," she informed the taller woman good-naturedly.

Giving Ava a shrug, Raven tickled Lian's belly, coaxing a smile from him. "I know I didn't," she replied, "but I wanted to get them something to brighten their day. Besides, it will keep them occupied for a while." As if to underscore her comment, the two older children were making noises comparable to fighters or other kinds of spacecraft.

Ava's eyes darkened for a moment. "Not much money for new things," she conceded, giving her ample stomach a reflexive brush. "Especially not now." She shook her head, looking sad for a moment.

Raven considered, watching Copelan and Nara play in the living room for a moment. She sighed, shaking her dark head. Carefully, she set Lian down with his brother and sister, returning to the kitchen. "How soon?" she asked quietly.

"Only three more months," Ava replied, washing vegetables for their dinner. There was no meat for this meal, as there had not been for many. "I don't know what we're going to do. This wasn't supposed to happen."

The taller woman watched the children play with each other, Nara and Copelan being impressively careful around Lian. They wound up the small freighter models, letting the ships go to drift lazily around the room and then fetching them to play again. Her right hand snaked to a pouch on her belt beyond Ava's view. Raven withdrew a credit chip and set it on the counter.

Ava saw the chip and shook her head. "Ash…" she began, her tone somewhere between thankful and reproachful.

Shaking her head, Raven waved off the explanation. "I'm only one. I don't need as much money as I earn."

Ava's lips compressed as she picked up the chip, motioning with it. "I don't want to take your…." She trailed off, catching sight of the amount the chip was worth. "Eight thousand credits! Ash, I can't take this! Where did you get this much?"

"They're not dirty credits," Raven replied nonchalantly. "Completely valid, clean, honestly earned money." Ava looked a little distressed, not wanting to cross back into this familiar argument. "The work I do is dangerous. I don't want to drag you into something just by having knowledge."

Ava sighed. "I'll talk to Dane about it," she said finally, completely noncommittal. Raven gave her a brief, knowing smile. That meant she would hear from him later.

***

Raven walked into her dark apartment, swinging the door closed behind her and activating the lights. She took off her cloak and hung it on a peg by the door. With a quiet sigh, she crossed the small room. Data pads lay scattered on the table, a wealth of unorganized information. Pulling out a small data pad from a pouch on her belt, she withdrew a chip from it and set it amidst the mess. The table was situated between the wall filled with storage areas supporting the next level of apartment and the bar separating the small living area from the kitchen. Opposite the small kitchen was a door leading to the refresher.

The rest of her apartment was very small. It was constructed into two half floors with a small ledge to function as a bunk. Her door was located under the staircase to the second floor, which had a couple of worn leather couches and a table. It also had a large, floor-to-ceiling picture window that viewed the Senatorial sector of Coruscant. In the distance, the Galactic Senate building and the Jedi Temple spires were visible. The corner of that room had a small communications station with a holoprojector, functioning as a method of giving news and vids from the local channels, as well as storing data and making calls. A small ladder stood in the corner, above the door on the floor below, leading to her bunk, where a pillow and thick comforter lay strewn on the bed, unmade.

Raven frowned, pulling off her boots and going up the open stairs to the next level. She paused for a moment, looking out over the endless cityscape that was beyond her small home. Usually, she jokingly referred to the apartment as a loft; it tended to be warm during the summer months and cold during the winter. These extremities in temperature didn't both Raven much, although the building's truculent climate systems and other idiosyncrasies were know to cause other residents, such as the C'xons, difficulties.

A small blinking light on the comm caught Raven's eye, drawing her away from the window. It indicated that she had a new message from her afternoon away. "Play message," she told the machine, dividing her attention between it and the view. Something bothered her, tugging at the edge of her awareness, although she couldn't tell, either from her own deductions or the Force, what the slight disturbance was.

A young man with sandy hair appeared, dressed in common clothes, looking a little strained "Raven," it said, the baritone voice placing the person as a middle-aged male, "I need to do me a favor. I need you to pick up my daughter at her school. I will be at work late. Thanks." Then, the figured winked out.

Raven tore her gaze from the skyline, approaching the station. She located where the message had been stored on her system and, fingers flying across the keyboard, accessed the information encoded within the visual message itself. It was a relatively safe method of keeping secret information as such. The message was from one of her clients, one Wai S'rmen. He needed something, his 'daughter,' run from an office within the Bespin embassy to another location on the other side of the Senatorial sector. She sighed. The poor lackey of S'rmen seemed very tight and concerned. It must be a very important transfer.

She copied her specifics onto a chip, put it in one of the compartments on her belt, and then erased the message and all indications of its previous presence on her system. It would be unfortunate, however unlikely, if someone were to search her system for her runner activities. Most of the information she carried pertained to illegal activities, besides the fact that running in and of itself was illegal.

With a sigh, she flung herself onto the couch, reaching to grab a six-stringed instrument propped up against it, a ratiuar. Raven plucked a few of the strings, adjusting their lengths with her left hand as the fingers on her right picked out a melody. She had learned the instrument as a padawan at the Temple, something her master had taught her. In fact, she had given Raven this particular ratiuar, with its clean, natural blond front and mellow tone. Her tension and frustration eased away as she used it to facilitate her meditation.

***

A knock came on her doorway some time later. Raven put aside her ratiuar and walked down the short flight of stairs to answer it. A taller, young man with dusty blond hair stood in the doorway, shifting his weight as though he were nervous. Raven smiled and moved aside, gesturing inside. "Hello, Dane. Ava told me I would see you."

Dane moved within the room, and Raven shut the door quietly. He had his hands shoved deep in his pockets while the look on his face showed his distress. "I can't take your money," he said finally.

"You're not taking my money. I gave it to you of my own free will. Consider it a return of the favor when you got me back on my feet. If you hadn't befriended me when I first came to this sector, I would probably be dead or starving." Raven countered softly, crossing her arms. This was a familiar argument, one with the lines already drawn in the sand.

"It may not be safe. I know it will buy food, money, and new clothes for the kids, but what if someone tracks it? Then we'd be in trouble. I can't do that to them. I can't do that to Ava. We have enough problems as it is," he sighed.

Raven shrugged. "It can't be traced. You have Republican credits right there. No strings attached, no vouchers for the rest of the money later. I won't deny that sometimes my payments can be suspicious, but I've never handed that money to you. That stays with me. You know I'm a runner. You've seen me near the Alderaanian office, picking up or dropping off things. But I don't run for dangerous or corrupt groups, like the gangs who sell spices or weapons. This is mostly information or packages that are essentially harmless, such as flimsy documents or things of personal value. It may be illegal, but I run honestly. I wouldn't knowingly do anything to hurt your family. They are as much of a family I'll ever have because of all you've done for me. Take the credits. If not for me, then take them for Ava. With the baby coming soon, you'll need more money than ever."

He shook his head angrily, and Raven could see tears glistening at the corners of Dane's eyes. She walked over and placed a hand on his shoulder. Immediately, he brushed it off, moving out of reach and ignoring her wounded look. "Give me time to think," he said finally. "I don't want to bring danger…"

Raven spread her hands apart in a gesture of placation. "Knowingly, I would never do that. And you know it." Dane looked torn, and she knew that it was a hard decision for him to possibly put his family into jeopardy, not matter how remote that possibility might be. Long moments passed until he finally nodded assent albeit begrudgingly. She gave him a relieved look, as he disappeared back into the hall.

She let out a breath, not realizing she had been holding it while he was contemplating. Raven moved to her table and sat in a chair. She began to sift through the cards, trying to organize them into a way that made sense. The rogue was sure that she had nearly all the information, but she couldn't piece it together correctly. That concerned her, because her instincts, however hesitantly, were beginning to warn her that time was running out.