Disclaimer: We don't own it; we thought you'd have got the point by now. However, we do own Zeke.

Sticks and Stones

Wedge knew that he shouldn't be there. But it was necessary to make Zeke talk, and Luke said that he wasn't going to try again until tomorrow, by then who knows what would have happened. The rescue party was now so far behind the kidnappers that it would be impossible to find them once they reached there destination without help.

It had been a few hours since their dramatic first meeting with Zeke, and Wedge reasoned with himself that was more than enough time to cool down. Plus, Zeke must be getting hungry.

It only made sense to smuggle him something to eat. Of course Wedge hadn't told Luke he was going to see Zeke. He hoped Luke would never find out. He approached the room where Zeke was being kept. There was now no sound coming from behind the door. Wedge gulped he didn't know whether that was a good or bad sign.

Out of habit, he knocked three times on the door.

Iris Jaret was slumped against the wall, completely exhausted from the efforts of escaping from the chair. He had finally managed it by slamming it so hard against the all that it broke, but in the process had caused himself injury. There was a sharp, pencil shaped piece of wood, stuck into his back, and because his hands were still tied he couldn't reach it to pull it out. It was very deep, but not fatally, and was a safe distance from his spine. There was a trickle of blood flowing down onto the floor.

Zeke couldn't feel the pain anymore. He had had worse in any case, and there was no way he was going to call for help.

Suddenly, out of the silence there were three sharp raps on the door. Zeke looked up, perplexed. Should he say come in? He decided they probably would anyway.

He was right. The door creaked slowly open and one of his interrogators from earlier stepped cautiously in the room.

Zeke almost smiled, as he brought two memories back out of the blurred haze that was his mind. One was, 'Hey that's the guy I sank my teeth into…' and the other was 'At least that guy can take a joke, he laughed when I tried to be flippant.'

There was an awkward silence, in which Wedge started at the ground and Zeke kept his eyes fixed on the tray that Wedge was carrying.

Finally Wedge spoke, "Hungry?" He looked up. Yet again he was taken completely by surprise and stepped backwards.

Zeke was confused, what had he done now? Had his visitor noticed the pool of blood? No it could be, he was at the wrong angle. Then he realised…his eyes must have changed.

Indeed they had, the black had melted away to reveal shocking lizard green, once again however there were no pupils, just one enormous Iris.

"Don't worry about it," he rasped, "They've changed because I'm calm now. Let me guess they're green right?"

Recovering from the shock, Wedge walked forward and put the tray down in front of Zeke, "Your eyes change colour?"

Zeke nodded, "Depends on my mood," he explained, "Sometimes, they're blue, sometimes they're red or green or black…they've been black a lot recently."

Another silence set in between the two. This time it was Zeke's turn to break it.

"Is that for me?" he nodded towards the bowl of stew that Wedge had brought.

Wedge kneeled down in front of Zeke and nodded. Zeke dipped the tips of his fingers into the stew and sniffed it, "What poison did you use? Rat?"

Wedge grinned, "No, Lando made it. That should be poison enough."

Despite not knowing who this Lando was, Zeke couldn't help but grin.

Zeke leaned forward to pull the bowl closer. As he did so, Wedge let out a gasp and said without thinking, "What have you done to yourself?"

"Hey! It wasn't me who tied myself to the chair!" Zeke growled. Wedge watched closely as Zeke's eyes turned a darker shade of green.

"Alright, alright! Calm down!" Wedge got up, "I'd better go get Luke. He'll sort-"

"NO!" Zeke yelled so loudly, Wedge jumped a foot in the air.

Zeke's shout was followed by another string of the same curses he had used earlier, except this time Wedge caught the word 'Jedi' among the muttered swearing.

Wedge shook his head in exasperation, knowing that Zeke would never ask for help. "Do you need a hand taking it out?" He gestured at the chunk of wood. Zeke held up his bound hands in reply.

Wedge sighed, he hadn't done anything like this in a long time, "Okay, come away from the wall."

Zeke struggled away from the wall, and Wedge walked up to him, "I'm going to untie you, but remember you're on a ship in the middle of space. There is no where to run except out the air lock, and I seriously doubt you'd get that far. Got it?"

"Yeah, yeah," Zeke grumbled as he held out his hands again to Wedge, who untied them carefully. Zeke flexed his fingers and wrists. For a spilt second, Wedge thought he was going to run, until Zeke got onto all fours and said, "Ready."

Wedge smiled again, "No you're not, take off your jacket, we don't want any fabric in the wound, and put this between your teeth," he was about to hand Zeke a butter knife but thought better of it, Zeke seemed like one of these people who could kill anyone with anything. Best not to give him ideas. So instead he handed the boy a spoon.

All Zeke did was look at it, "What's that for?"

"You'll see. Put it in your mouth, please."

Zeke did as he was told. He took of his jacket and got on hands and knees again.

Wedge came to his side, "Brace yourself, one, two, three!" As Wedge said three, Zeke realised what the spoon was for. He was clamping his teeth down on it even harder than he did on Wedge's hand. The pain was intense; there were no other words for it. Finally after what seemed like an age, there was a clatter as the wood fell to the ground.

Zeke's body went limp, and he found himself breathing heavily. His vision was blurry but he could hear Wedge ripping up what he assumed was a bed sheet for bandages.

"So," Zeke gasped. "I can't go forever by calling you, 'The Dude who Ripped a Piece of Wood outta my Spine.' What's your name?"

Wedge was once again in Zeke's realm of vision. He was considering introducing himself formally, as General, but instead went for a more casual approach. "I'm Wedge."

Zeke cracked a grin. "Wedge? As in Potato Wedge?"

The older man groaned. How was it possible for this to be mentioned twice in the same day? He retorted in a bored voice, "At least I don't have a girl's name- Iris!"

As soon as he said it, Wedge regretted it. But Zeke didn't seem angry, just surprised. It had been a long time since he had been in a conversation like this. Yet Wedge still felt the need to make up for his mistake.

"Yeah, they called me Potato Wedge a while back in the Rogue Squadron. It was a bit of a legend for a-" He was interrupted.

"Hang on! Did you- did you say, 'Rogue Squadron'?" Zeke stared intently.

"Yeah. I'm actually General Wedge. Rouge Leader and all that!" Hey, it had been a long time since Wedge had got to boast about his position! It was nice to have a captivated audience. Zeke's mouth had opened in awe.

"You're kidding, right?" he asked, somewhat hoarsely.

Wedge lapped up the attention. "Nope! Why are you so interested anyway?"

Wedge would have sworn that his young friend jumped a foot in the air as he turned away quickly. "Oh! No reason!"

Rouge Leader, however, thought that there was a perfectly good reason. "You know, we're always looking for good pilots. If you know any, that is." He was smirking and Zeke caught it.

Both burst out into full blown gales of laughter.

"I couldn't fly a ship to save my life! Besides, I doubt that even the Rogue Squadron would take on full time psychopathic maniacs!" Wedge shot him an odd look. "Hey, I know you were all thinking it!"

Wedge gave a small smile. "Well, you did give us a pretty good reason."

His companion looked at the floor. "How's your hand?"

Taking this as the closest thing to an apology as he'd get, Wedge replied, "Sore, but I think I'll live." He glanced down at the rings of teeth marks.

"How's the guy I shot?" Zeke looked genially concerned.

Wedge started to say he was fine but before he could get it out Zeke exclaimed, "Oh God he's dead isn't he!"

This time Wedge didn't know whether he was joking or not, "No he's alive, but you probably won't be by the time that his wife gets her hands on you."

The corner of Zeke's mouth twitched, "Cow."

Wedge blinked, "That's royalty you're talking about there boy," he warned.

Zeke looked at him and said very deliberately, "COW."

Wedge shook his head, "She's not so bad, honestly."

Zeke grumbled something inaudible, and Wedge decided to change the subject of Leia.

"So…Where are you from? Corellia? Tatooine? Hoth? Are you a wompa?"

Now Zeke was starting at Wedge as if he was insane, "Coruscant, actually."

"How'd you get mixed up with Bobby Fett's guys then?"

"I needed the money. But Fett? Never met him, I only had dealing with Dengar. Apparently Fett doesn't like-" he cut himself off and suddenly looked embarrassed.

"He doesn't like what?" Wedge asked, quietly.

The twitch at the corner of Zeke's mouth came back but this time more violently. The whole mood in the room had changed dramatically in just a few seconds. You could almost have cut the tension with the butter knife.

Zeke's eyes started to turn red, but seemed to only get half way and therefore stopping at pink. He was nervous. Fidgeting slightly he said, "Doesn't matter."

"Anything you can tell us matters," Wedge said, trying the press him on. Zeke had started drumming his fingers on the floor and tapping his foot very quickly. Wedge noticed beads of sweat on his brow. He looked extremely worried.

"Are you alright?" Wedge asked getting concerned. It looked like the start of some kind of fit.

"Fine…Fine, I'm great, couldn't be better, nothing wrong with me…" he said all this very quickly.

"I really think I should get Luke," Wedge said carefully, "It could be your wound, it might be infected."

"It's not….I'm good," Zeke looked away, speaking through his teeth, "I'd like…to be on my….own now…"

Wedge didn't need telling twice, it wasn't a very comfortable situation. When the door was once again locked Wedge started to head back to where the others were. As he was leaving he heard Zeke scream from inside the room.

Right that was it. He was getting Luke. He sprinted into the lounge and yelled. "Luke, I don't care what you say, that boy is definitely not human!"

A.N Hello we're back for our third chapter in two days! COOL!

WE ROCK!

Sweetdeath04: So Thorney, recovered from your incident with the chair yet?

Thorney: Yeah, we forgot to tell you about this last chapter. In order to get the description right on how Wedge helped Zeke up, I tied myself to a chair and got Sweetdeath04 to push me over. No joke! We actually did this!

Sweetdeath04: It just goes to show how much we care about you people! (Though Thorney strapped to a chair lying helpless on the floor was a very funny sight!)

Thorney: Funny for you, maybe! Next time we'll tie you to the chair!

By the way, we absolutely love Zeke, so we hope you do too!

Sweetdeath04 and Thorney