Last time: Sasha was running herself ragged to take care of the twins.

Now: Oppie finally wakes up.

Chapter 2- We Did It For You

Oppie, Sasha and Viran fell to the floor, the Dark Lord already recovering. The Holocron had electrical arcs racing across all of its facets, and it was emitting a horrible screeching sound which built in power and volume. Oppie looked to Sasha and Viran, and knew he had to get them to safety. He had failed them. He couldn't defeat the dark lord, but he could at least send them somewhere safe, and then dispose of the Sith, forever. He looked at Sasha and Viran and the memories of the last fifteen years together ran through his mind. Sasha's nightmares, and holding her on those awful nights letting her know it would be okay. Viran's first flying lesson, and the exhilaration he had felt. Sasha and Viran's triumph at beating him with practice sabers the first time by working together. Viran's exuberance at winning his first race. Sasha's pride when she took ownership of her first cantina.

He looked back at the Dark Lord, already recovering. He was bringing his hands up to capture the three of them again.

That wouldn't do.

He took advantage of the break and folded Sasha and Viran away, up to his ship. He called his sabers back to him in each hand, but left them unlit. He turned his attention to the Dark Lord and the Holocron, which looked like it was building towards an explosion.

Without a second thought, he created a fold. To anywhere, it didn't matter, he might have been folding to the Imperial Palace for all he knew. Hopefully it was in deep space. He just ripped open a fold behind the Sith and sent a Force push at him with all the strength that remained. It wasn't enough. With a grunt the Dark Lord deflected the blast and focused all his anger and malice at the Jedi that had thwarted him.

With a great heave, and one last thought of Sasha and Viran, he ran full tilt at the Sith. A most unexpected maneuver, apparently, as the Dark Lord did not have time to react. The Jedi tackled the Sith, and sent them through the fold to… somewhere.

Oppie awoke in the darkness with a start, still groggy. For a split second his heart sank as he thought he was back in that place, that his escape had really been the dream. But then he realized he was in some kind of medical ward, the soft beeps of equipment and monitors all too familiar to other such times he had been in such places, and he smiled, realizing he had made it out. He tried to lean up but he was well bound and it was difficult, so he gave up. He still had a dull headache, and his body still felt like one big bruise, but he felt better. He looked down his feet and thought he could just barely make out Sasha resting in the bed across from him. He could definitely sense her presence in the Force, and Viran's too. And he could sense the Force itself. Such a welcome change from that prison he had been stuck in for a week, or for… eight months, they had told him? He closed his eyes hard at that, not sure what that would mean.

Off to his right was a bacta treatment tank, and it was being overseen by medical droids. It was currently empty, but the activity around it seemed to indicate it had been in use recently and was being readied for more use. He didn't feel the strange itch and the warm, cozy numbness that bacta instilled, so he hadn't been the patient, who had been in the tank?

And where was he? This facility almost looked Imperial, but it wasn't a prison, and there were no guards in the room. He was so confused. And thirsty, and hungry, too.

Viran had been drifting in and out of the Medbay where both Sasha and Oppie were recovering. He had at first resigned himself to sleep in the Medbay to await Sasha and Oppie, so that they could have a familiar face when they woke up, but Kitsu and Illara had just about dragged him out. They had told him that they were worried that he would run himself just as ragged as Sasha had, and he knew that it would help nobody if he also passed out from exhaustion. So they helped him patch up his ankle, checked his other injuries to see their progress, which was good by the way, and then left with Kitsu and Illara.

At this moment, he was grabbing a bite to eat in the kitchen with Kitsu and Illara and was debating with them regarding the finer points of T16 Skyhopper's maneuverability.

"Look I get that you think that T16 Skyhopper is overrated, but there is a reason that it is one of the best selling personal speeder craft in the outer rim territories" Viran said.

"Yeah, they're cheap!" Illara threw in, "any farmer's kid can buy one."

"But" Kitsu chimed in, "There are so many other craft that accomplish the same mission parameters, not to mention that they do it so much better, I don't get it, it just doesn't have Kandosii, and you need that in a ship."

Viran suddenly felt something stirring in the Force, he knew that it wasn't the presence of Sasha, he had grown so accustomed to her aura in the Force, but it was something familiar. He did not have the same Force ability as Sasha, but he also was smart enough to put two and two together, he knew, at that moment, that Oppie was awake.

Viran suddenly got up from the table as if in a trance, and left Kitsu and Illara at the table.

"You can't just leave! We were still talking," Kitsu growled at him as he walked away.

Viran shouted over his shoulder, "I'm only leaving because you know I'm right"

Viran knew that Oppie would have dozens of questions, and he knew that he should be there to answer them, especially given the fact that Oppie had been out of things for the better part of nine-months. Viran had already gotten to the Medbay as he had been lost in thought, trying to figure out what to say to Oppie.

He paused at the door to the Medbay, the reality of the situation still had not really set in. Viran knew that for Sasha, she had felt that Oppie was alive. For Viran however, he had not connected with Oppie through the Force as Sasha had, he still felt that, even with Oppie actually back, he hadn't really had a chance to process that he truly was back. More importantly, Oppie hadn't even been gone for the length of time that he and Sasha had lost him.

Viran took a deep breath and the door slid open with a quiet whoosh as he entered into the Medbay, Sasha was still asleep, which was good, but he did see that Oppie was stirring and his vitals seemed strong.

"Hey Op."

"Hey Viran." He responded in a hushed tone, feeling like it was the middle of the night, and not wanting to disturb Sasha, but he smiled.

Viran grinned back, "You have been out of things for a little bit… In fact" Viran counted on his fingers, "you have been asleep for almost nine months."

"Oh ha ha ha." He said as he rolled his eyes. "Anything happen while I was gone?"

"You missed, alot...and you were missed a lot too," Viran said as he walked over to Oppie's table. Viran reached out with the Force and grabbed a rolling stool that was sitting at the base of Sasha's Med-table. Viran knew that he would want to be sitting, there was a lot to go over.

"I missed you guys too. Next time I have to tackle a Sith lord through a portal to nowhere let's do it together." He said as he reached up and wiped his eyes.

"I think on that, both Sasha and I agree, wholeheartedly" Viran wiped a tear from his eye as well, and a small smile started to form at the corner of his mouth as he glanced her way.

"I'm honestly not sure where to start," Viran began after a moment.

"First," Oppie interjected, "is she okay?" He said, nodding to Sasha, not sure why she was stuck in a medical ward like this. "And where are we?"

"Sasha is perfect," Viran brightened up, Oppie raised an eyebrow at that. "I mean she's great...well she's good..ugh, she is recovering well." Viran groaned internally, this had already turned into a Holospeeder wreck.

"That's good.. I uhh.. I'm sorry I had to break my promise, by the way, when I told her that stuff to confirm who I really was. I hope that didn't cause any problems." He sidestepped mentioning what he had said about what he overheard when Sasha was out with the Tarkelian Flu, but hoped that it would also serve as an apology for that as well. It was still fresh in his mind from only a few days ago, for him, and it had weighed on him that he might have put Viran in a bad spot with his bringing both of those up.

Viran blushed slightly, he truly had thought no one had heard him when Sasha had the Tarkelian Flu. Viran then grimaced. He realized that he also needed to apologize, the last conversation that he and Oppie had was after all of them had been ambushed back on Vestora.

"It's ok, I need to apologize to you as well, the last conversation that we had was not how I wanted to leave things. I blamed you for endangering our lives, for endangering Sasha's life, I was naive to think that you had all the answers and was even more naive to think that you should have seen the Empire coming, that we could simply evade the Empire indefinitely." Viran rubbed his hand on his neck, "I also wanted to say that for the past nine months, the only way that Sasha and I were able to figure out what to do, the only way that we were able to handle everything that was thrown at us, was because of your training. It is because of you that we are here today. You prepared us, prepared me in ways that I couldn't even imagine."

Oppie was taken aback, not sure what to say for a moment, the Viran sitting before him was different from the one he knew. The depth of how much he had missed over the last nine month suddenly hit him more solidly than it had while he had been trapped and brought back. "Vir, you don't have any need to apologize for that." He wasn't sure what else to say. "We had just been chased away from our home by a Sith. And Sasha was unconscious, you were worried about her. I understand, and you don't need to apologize for that."

"I just wanted to make sure that you knew that whatever happens in the future, we will make it through because of your training. I know the Jedi taught us to not have attachments, but I truly believe that your dedication and care for myself and Sasha is beyond what the Jedi had ever taught, and that I am glad that you have been there for us, you have been like a brother to me, to us." Viran said.

"Yeah… that was something I didn't realize until we were on Chikara," Oppie said. "We kind of threw the whole 'no attachments' thing out the window. That was why I had to make sure you guys were safe. I think of you as my brother too, and Sasha as my little sister. And it," he paused, looking for the right words, "affected my fight with Dracul, that gave me strength that night that I don't think I would have had otherwise." He paused for a moment. "And thank you, Viran. I felt like I had not been a worthy teacher for you guys, that was why I thought Sasha was so badly affected by that Sith, I thought that was my fault, for not being able to teach her and you properly - that I had done you guys a disservice. I'm glad that whatever difficulties you had over the last couple of months without me, I did enough to help you get through it."

Viran was glad that he had a chance to finally speak his mind to Oppie, and was silent for a moment,

"Speaking of brothers… after you disappeared, we didn't know what to do so we sought some help from the only person you seemed to trust, and umm, well let's just say seeing you again after we thought you had just died, was a bit tough." He thought back to how Sasha reacted when seeing Kyr for the first time, having lost Oppie once was rough, but it almost broke his heart more to see how Sasha reacted when she first saw Kyr's face.

"Yeah, I can imagine." Op said, closing his eyes. Remembering his own reaction when Kyr had taken his helmet off. "I'm so sorry. I had no idea how to bring it up when I met Kyr, about what happened to his - my family. I didn't want to leave you guys alone, and I was worried if you knew what happened you guys would insist on helping him or something, and then after a few weeks it just... never had a reason to come up. And I couldn't do anything other than take revenge, anyway. That was just after we had that brush with the Empire and ended up going to Haktere, so we were in a pretty bad state too. I'd just found out about losing that family, I couldn't have you guys in danger, losing our family also."

Viran felt the anger boiling up, what Kyr had told them about what had happened to his and Oppie's family, he couldn't even imagine the anger and pain that Oppie had to deal with, the choice that he had to make to take care of him and Sasha. Given the choice that Oppie had made, Viran wasn't sure that he would have made the same choice under the circumstances. He couldn't imagine losing his family now, he did not think he could go on without Sasha.

"Kriff" Viran cursed under his breath, "You know you and Kyr are so much alike, right? Once we found Kyr, he dropped everything to help us, no questions asked. He saved our lives…"

Oppie looked at him for a moment. "I thought he hated me." His gaze turned as he looked towards his feet, away from Viran, "I know he pointed me towards Kitsu, and helped me get that ship on Artemis, but I thought that was just because Kitsu yelled at him." Suddenly the memory from when he woke up on that ship, when he had seen Kyr in such a critical state on the bunk next to him came back to him. "Where is Kyr, is he okay?" He found it ominous that he wasn't here recovering alongside him in this... wherever they were.

Viran thought about the multiple bacta treatments and surgeries that Kyr still was going through. Viran shuddered, thinking back to when Sasha had used the red lighting on him.

"He is still alive barely, but he had encountered some pretty gruesome injuries, what with his fight against all of the stormtroopers, and the two star destroyers that were in orbit above the planet that we rescued you from. He has gone through several bacta treatments, and is currently under intensive care in the room over there." Viran gestured to the closed room in the other corner next to the bacta tank suite.

Oppie looked over at the sealed door and felt so guilty, "All of this for me? Sasha told me about some of the temples you had to visit, some of the adventures you went on. But all of this?" He deflated.

Viran sighed, "Oppie, please don't blame yourself, you know you would have done the same for us if either of us were in your position,"

Oppie was silent for a moment. "So where are we, anyway?" He said, gesturing around at the darkened room that still looked to him like something the Republic or the Empire had constructed.

Viran laughed, "This is actually the basement of your family's house, and I'm sure he would love to discuss that with you once he is awake."

"My family's house?" Oppie said a little incredulously, looking around the room with a new sense of fascination. "Yeah, he and I have a lot to talk about." He said, his gaze again settling on the intensive care suite that Viran had said Kyr was in. He turned back to Viran. "So what else did I miss? Sasha told me about some of the temples you visited, but I get the feeling you visited a lot more." He asked, hoping to turn away to more exciting adventures and less gloomy topics.

"Oh! Just a little super heated rain, a planet overrun with monkey lizards -"

"Wait, sorry." Oppie interrupted. "one thing before we get into this." Op said, holding up his hand "Is there any food in this place? I'm starving."

Viran smiled, "Yeah, let me run up to the kitchen and get you something, I'll be right back."

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