While Kanan and Hera had been on their date, Zeb had spent a quiet Friday night at home. It was kind of nice to have a Friday evening to himself for once, but at the same time he'd gotten so used to Kanan's presence that the house felt oddly empty, and it was making him jumpy and unable to relax. Finally he ended up heading out to the little woodworking shed out back that he mostly used for personal projects since most of the carvings he sold were made in the workshop in the back of his store. His hands were itching for something to do, and he had a block of beautiful honey colored walnut wood calling his name. He'd been saving it for something special, and tonight for some reason felt like the right time to use it. He didn't know exactly what he was going to make with it, but his hands seemed to know and so once he was settled in he allows himself to just start carving. He did some of his best work this way-turning off his thoughts, giving into instinct and letting his hands have free reign.

It was hard to tell at first what he was carving-he could see seven columns of varying sizes taking shape, but that wasn't much to go on. Eventually, though, figures start to appear out of the wood, and after a bit he realizes exactly what he was carving: he was carving their whole family, as their game avatars, all standing together. It felt like something Sabine would have made, and the carving might actually be based off of one of her paintings. It felt… Good, somehow. Seeing them all there together in solid wood, almost like a promise that someday they would all be back together.

He could have kept carving all night, but eventually he had to stop, knowing that he needed sleep before whatever Hera had planned for them. Still, he felt like he'd made good progress, and it would be something nice to keep working on later.

Heading back into the main house, he was struck again by how quiet and lonely it felt. It made him miss the Ghost where he'd known that, no matter what, he'd always have a friend somewhere nearby. It almost made him wish that Kanan and Hera and the others, when they found them, would all just come live here, like they were a family again. But that was crazy, right?

Well, maybe not so crazy, the more he thought about it. There was more than enough room for them all. True the kids probably already had homes of their own, and Kanan and Hera had their apartments and Alex… Well, Zeb had no idea about Alex. But it was a nice thought, even if it was probably just a dream…

The next morning Zeb was dressed and ready to go promptly at eight o'clock. He tended to be what his gran called "fashionably late" to things, but he knew from the game that Hera was a stickler for being on time and he doubted that things were any different out here. However, as it turned out, he needn't have rushed after all, getting a text from Kana apologizing for running late, saying that he and Hera had overslept.

Both of them? Zeb felt himself grinning as he read the text-apparently things had gone very well on the date last night. Even though Kanan immediately sent a followup test telling him to get his brain out of the gutter (he knew him too well) Zeb was going to believe otherwise for the sake of his own amusement (he would get so much teasing out of this.)

It was about 8:15 when Hera pulled up in front of the house. Zeb was a bit surprised that Kanan wasn't with her, but when she explained about how Kanan had fallen asleep at her place and had to stop by his place, he couldn't help but laugh.

"That certainly brings back memories," he says with a soft smile.

"It does," Hera agrees wryly. "And, as usual, it was Chopper who kept us from being too late-he ended up being our alarm clock because he wanted his breakfast."

"Remind me to thank him-I'll have to bring him some cat treats whenever I get to meet him."

"Well you're free to come over anytime you like."

"Really?"

"Really! I know things were a bit… Weird at first. I wasn't really sure if I could count what happened in the game as real. But I can see now that I can, and we're still a family, if you'd like to be."

"I'd really like that," Zeb admits with a smile.

Since Kanan was still delayed, Zeb ended up giving Hera a quick tour of the house. He took notice of the fact that she really liked the room next to Kanan's which had used to belong to his grandmother, and he mentally designates that room as Hera's for any time that she wanted to stay over-he knew that his grandmother would have liked Hera and so wouldn't mind her using her room.

They were just finishing the tour when Kana finally arrived, carrying a box of donuts as a peace offering.

"I would have rather you were here on time, but since we needed breakfast anyways I guess I'll forgive you," Zeb teases him.

"Yeah, you don't seem to have any problem eating the donuts as supposedly angry as you are over them," Kanan deadpans.

"You said they were a peace offering, let them do their work!"

"Boys!" Hera rolls her eyes playfully at them. "Really, it's like babysitting two toddlers. Maybe I shouldn't tell you where we're going today…"

"No, we'll behave!" Kanan quickly answers.

"Speak for yourself!" Zeb teases.

"Zeb!"

"All right, fine, I'll 'behave'." He air quotes the word.

"...Well, I guess that's as good as I can hope for," Hera sighs. "Okay, so the plan is-I'm taking you to the local theme park!"
"Oh, great!" Kanan grins at her. "I haven't been in years!"

Zeb, though, felt his stomach plunging. "The… Theme park?" he slowly repeats.

"Yep!" The excited look fades from Hera's face as she looks over at him. "Zeb, is there something wrong?"

"I just… I have a little problem with theme parks…"

"What's that?"

"...Promise you won't laugh?"

"Of course not." Kanan puts an encouraging hand on his shoulder.

"Okay. I get motion sickness on rides. Even the small ones," Zeb admits.

"I see." Hera nods slowly. "That is a problem. We don't want you feeling sick all day!"

"You and Kanan should go," Zeb urges, feeling guilty for upsetting Hera's plans. "Have fun, you can tell me about it when you get back."

"No way!" Hera shakes her head. "This is supposed to be something fun for all three of us, it's no fun going without you!"
"She's right," Kanan agrees. "We'll figure out something else that we can all do together as a group."

"As a family," Hera adds.

"...Thank you." Zeb gives them both a grateful smile, trying not to let his emotions get the better of him. He wouldn't have blamed Hera and Kanan if they just wanted to do coupley things right now, so the fact that they were not just making an effort to but insisting on including him meant a lot to him.

"Hm…. Where's fun to go around here on a Saturday?" Hera muses aloud.

"I'm not sure," Zeb admits. "I don't get out much. If it was Ren faire season I'd take you all there, but that's not until the fall."

"That would have been pretty perfect," Hera agrees. "I'm fairly new to this area so I wasn't even sure if there was a local faire-we should absolutely all go together when it is open!"

"I like the sound of that." Zeb beams at her. "I've been going since I was a kit-no, sorry, a kid-so I know just about everyone there, I'll introduce you around!"

"That sounds amazing, thank you!"

"Of course!" Zeb loved the idea of taking his family (maybe even by then Alex!) to the faire that meant so much to him.

"As good of an idea as that is for the future, that doesn't solve today's problem," Kanan reminds them.

"Well, do you have any ideas?" Zeb asks-Kanan had a point, but he hadn't needed to interrupt his thinking about faire so quickly!

"I do, actually-or at least an idea that I think everyone will like," Kanan answers, catching him off guard.

"Oh, really?" Zeb tries not to let on that Kanan had gotten the better of him. "Well, what's your brilliant idea?"

"The Ocean Park," Kanan answers triumphantly.

"Ocean… Park?"

"Oh, that's that new place by the highway, isn't it?" Hera asks, her eyes lighting up.

"Right!" Kanan agrees. "One of my coworkers took his kids there with his partner over spring break and he said they all had a great time!"

"What exactly is this place?" Zeb liked the sound of the ocean bit but he wasn't so sure about the "park" part.

"It's kind of like an amusement park, but half of it is a sort of combination of an aquarium and a zoo with ocean and beach creatures where they teach about and do a lot of conservation work," Kanan explains. "And the other half is mostly like a water park. There are a couple of rides, like a roller coaster and a river rapids, but there's plenty to do there without going on those."

"That does sound pretty fun," Zeb says slowly. "Although I'm not sure about the water park bit."

"Did you never learn how to swim?" Hera asks, and her tone made it clear that she wasn't making fun of him if he hadn't.

"No, I-" Zeb starts to answer before suddenly breaking off and laughing at himself as he realizes what he'd been about to say. "Ashla, you're not going to believe what I was going to tell you was my reason for not going swimming."

"What's that?" Kanan asks, raising an eyebrow.

"I was going to say that everyone would complain about the smell of wet fur," Zeb answers with a wry smile. "But that's clearly not an issue here so yeah, I'd love to go!

"Yes, thank goodness we don't have to worry about anyone having wet fur here but Chopper," Kanan laughs.

"Well I think it's settled, then," Hera says briskly but cheerfully. "Zeb, you can grab whatever you need for swimming while we're here, then we can swing by my and Kanan's places for our things, and then we can get to the park!"

"Sounds perfect," Zeb agrees. He heads upstairs to pack a bag with a swimsuit, towel, and sunscreen. It was as he was heading back down the stairs that he had a rather amusing thought, and when Hera leads the way back out to where the vehicles were parked (they decided to take Kanan's car as it was the biggest and he was offering) he leans over to Kanan and whispers, "So is this just an excuse to see Hera in a swimsuit?"

"What? No!" Kanan protests, his cheeks turning bright red.

"Mm hm. Sure." Zeb playfully nudges him.

Kanan just scoffs in return, but Zeb knew that he was right.

Fortunately it didn't take too long to stop by the other's apartments, and from Hera's apartment it was only a fifteen minute drive to the park. Zeb had to admit that the place looked like fun-the ocean theming started even before they got to the actual park with pastel bubbles and sealife painted on the parking lot's asphalt. From there they followed a little concrete path bordered by sand, tropical plants, and even some props made to look like they'd washed up from shipwrecks. The gates and ticket booths themselves were under a large structure with a facade on top made to look like a large wave was getting ready to crash down on the visitors passing beneath.

"Someone really went all out decorating this place," Zeb comments as they wait their turn to go through the turnstiles.

"Aw, c'mon Zeb, it's fun!" Kanan says, nudging his arm.

"Didn't say I didn't like it," Zeb reassures him. "It's actually kind of nice."

"We should probably decide what we want to do first once we get in there," Hera, ever one to keep things running smoothly, says. "I'd personally recommend getting a locker for our things and then visiting the aquarium part before going to the water park so that we're not walking around in there cold and wet later."

"Works for me," Zeb agrees. "Plus that way it'll be later in the day and warmer when we do go swimming."

"Exactly!"

Kanan didn't have any complaints about the plan either so that's exactly what they ended up doing. The aquarium was a surprisingly large building with a glass domed roof, full of more sealife than Zeb had ever seen in one place, and out back was an outdoor zoo type area with otters, crocodiles, ospreys, seagulls, seals, and even penguins. Zeb found himself enjoying it even more than he would have by himself with Kanan there to make jokes and funny comments while Hera told them stories about the interesting sea life that she'd seen in her travels.

Once they were finished exploring there, they had lunch at the aquarium's cafe before going to get changed into their swimsuits. Zeb, in the back of his mind, was a bit worried about the idea of seeing Kanan shirtless, and vice versa, but he found that fortunately his hormones were staying in check, and Kanan had eyes only for Hera. Zeb wasn't attracted to women personally, but he could still tell that she looked nice in her simple white two-piece with light green swirls (he had to wonder if she'd gotten it before or after the game since it looked almost inspired by her avatar.)

"So, what do we want to do first?" Hera asks as they walk out into the water park. "Water slides? Wave pool? Lazy river?"

"Lazy river sounds like a nice cooldown activity at the end," Kanan says. "I vote for starting with the most intense thing-water slides-and work our way down."

"That works for me," Hera agrees. "But Zeb, how do you feel about water slides?"

"Those I think I should be okay with as long as they don't have too many loops and things," Zeb answers. "But really, I don't mind doing the lazy river if you want to do some of the bigger ones, I'm happy as a clam just floating all afternoon."

"Hm…" Hera considers his words. "How about this? We do all the things that we want to do together first, then Kana and I can take the bigger slides and meet you back in the lazy river?"

"Works for me," Kanan says.

"Works for me too," Zeb agrees, grateful that the others were taking his needs into consideration.

As fun as the actual riding of the slides was, Zeb's favorite part surprisingly turned out to be waiting in line with Hera and Kanan and getting to learn more about them. He still had a lot to learn about Hera's life out here, and Hera managed to bring some stories out of Kanan that Zeb hadn't heard so far. He found himself talking more than he expected to too, especially because the park reminded him of things from his growing up years, like going on day trips to the nearest zoo, which had been two hours away growing up so it had always felt like a big adventure, and how his grandad had taught him how to swim in the big lake out back of their house.

It wasn't until later that afternoon, when they were all in the lazy river together, that Kanan finally brought up a subject they'd all been somewhat unconsciously avoiding-the kids.

"Ezra would love this," he hears him say at one point, floating on his back in a large inner tube, looking up at the sky while his hands trail through the water as the current pushes him forward. "For a kid who grew up on a desert planet, he sure loved the water. Or maybe that's why he loved it so much."

"Yeah, and he'd have gotten a kick out of all those animals-he was always really good at connecting with them," Zeb agrees.

"Maybe not always." Kanan smiles wryly. "But he got there with practice."

"And Sabine would love all the art here," Hera sighs before admitting in a soft voice, "I miss them."

"I know." Kanan sits up, his feet agitatedly kicking in the water. "I wonder where they are, if they're okay out there…"

"But it feels wrong to try to look for them if they're really minors-people would think we were stalking them, and how would we explain any of this to their families?" Zeb finishes for him.

"I know." Kanan hangs his head. "I want our kids back, but I don't want to take them away from their families…"

"If they even have families."

"What was that?" Hera's words had been so quiet that Zeb had only just managed to catch them, and he looks over at her in concern. "Do you know something that we don't know?"

"I…" Hera bites her lip. "I don't know. Before I contacted you two I was having… Nightmares. Nightmares about all of you being in danger. I-I don't know if they were real or not, because one of them involved Kanan dying in a car accident and that definitely didn't happen, but Sabine was in a really bad foster home, and Ezra… I think he was homeless…"

Kanan and Zeb share a perturbed look.

"I… I don't think those dreams were real," Kanan finally says. "I mean, like you said, if I died in the dream and haven't died in real life then they were probably just manifestations of your worst fears, right?"

"Maybe." Hera doesn't look fully convinced. "But have you noticed… Have you noticed that it almost seems purposeful that all of us were pretty alone out here? That we didn't really have anyone else, so we've all been really eager to reform our family out here because we don't really have families outside of this?"

"...You might have a point," Zeb says slowly-he hadn't even really thought about that until now. "But, I mean-for kids, they'd have to have their parents sign a waiver or something, right? So Sabine and Ezra would have to have people who cared about them enough to agree to them being in the game in the first place, right?"

"Maybe… But you know both of those kids could easily forge a signature," Hera reminds him.

"I… I don't know." Zeb shakes his head. "I mean, even if that's the case, what are we supposed to do? We can't exactly start asking around with social workers or shelters without the kids' real names and without being someone who has a better reason for trying to find them than, 'We adopted them in a video game so now we want to adopt them in real life.' They'd think we're crazy, or, worse, get us blacklisted from having any chance of ever getting them to be able to live with us if we did find them and they were able to be fostered or adopted!"

"I know," Hera groans, angrily kicking the water. "I hate this… I hate not knowing where our kids are, or even if they're okay!"

"Hey." Kanan reaches out a hand to steady her. "I know this is hard. Believe me, I wish we had Sabine and Ezra with us right now, and it kills me to not know if they're alright. But the best thing we can do at the moment is work on keeping a sharper eye and ear out for any sign of them-especially when we're out in public, anywhere the kids might go if they were trying to get away from a bad home. We'll do everything we can, but I feel like fate's worked out so far getting the three-well, technically four-of us together. So we'll just have to hope that, if they kids are meant to be with us, fate will bring them to us."

Hera and Zeb look at each other and then nod. It was hard to not worry about the kids. But they'd do whatever they could to (safely) try to find them, and hope that Kanan was right about fate bringing the kids to them if it was meant to be.