Disclaimer: How many times do I have to say this to those mean lawyer guys? I don't own Star Wars.
Chapter Six: The Appearance of Old Friends
Two months had passed since Zekk and Marin had moved in. Things had fallen into a routine for the quartet and they now functioned quite well together. If one slacked off on chores, the other three people were there to hound them about it. They even did a bit of training together. Training together worked out quite nicely, becauseMarin would complain about meditation and Kionne would complain about Marin complaining. Of course there were a few awkward moments involving two of our favorite adults, but other than that everything went smoothly, until one sunny weekend morning, whena loud and insistent knock was sounded on the door.
Zekk was at the sims that morning and Marin and Kionne were at the beach with some of Kionne's friends. Jaina, on the other hand, was making an attempt to sleep in that glorious morning, only to be roused from her bed at 1000, grumpy and tired.
She mumbled to her herself as she stumbled off the cot and made her way to the door. By now, the door chime was ringing after each knock creating an incessant and annoying noise that would wake even the dead. She whacked the door controls and watched as it slid open.
At the door were Tahiri, the Kenys twins, and Lowie. Each of them held some dish of food in their hands. They were all peering at Jaina curiously and she vaguely wondered why. She gestured them in before walking over to a chair and flopping down in it. She was half asleep by the time everyone was situated in a spot most comfortable for them. It took a bit of prodding from Lowie for Jaina to snap back to attention.
"What the Hutt slime are you guys doing here?" Jaina blurted out.
Tahiri looked momentarily confused before she said in her usual energetic tone, "You sent us an invitation for a party that's being held for Jacen and Tenel Ka. You said that you wanted us here early to help set up. The invite told to bring some sort of food too."
Jaina nearly fell out of her chair from shock. "What party? I didn't know anything about this!"
"What do you mean? The address from the invitation was sent from you," Mystiran said.
"Gah! It's all Jacen's fault! He's doing this to get back at me!" Jaina exclaimed.
"Why? What did you do?" Tahiri asked.
"Well, since he didn't tell me that he was going to pop the question to Tenel Ka, I arranged to have his hair dyed electric blue, everything from datapads and datacards that he owned to play a very charming song in Ewok, and programmed his holoscreen to play a recording of Lando singing," Jaina listed.
Everyone flinched. Lando's singing left much to be desired.
"So, you did this all at a long distance?" Mystiran asked. "By yourself?"
"I enlisted Al's help, of course," Jaina commented. "I sent him my instructions and he did the hacking into files and such."
Al grinned. "That was fun. Almost as fun when Jacen asked me to hack into your Holonet file and send out all these funny little things."
Jaina whipped around and stared at him. "What are you talking about?"
"Your brother told me that you needed some invites sent out or something like that and you couldn't get onto your file. So he told me to hack in for you and send them. So I did," Al answered. His confusion was evident in his face and voice.
"Jacen was trying to get back at me, I guess, probably hoping that I would be caught at a bad time. Did he say if he was going to be here at all?" Jaina queried.
Al sat for a few minutes, thinking. "Umm… he'll probably be here around 1900."
"Good, good, and now all we have to do is play along with his little plan," Jaina said.
"Why?" Tahiri asked.
"Well, I don't want poor Jasa's ego crushed. He might've worked really hard and that just wouldn't be nice." Jaina's facial expression was saying the exact opposite. "Okay, people, we need to give out cleaning assignments. Now, who wants to do the toilet?"
Al's hand shot up immediately. He waved it frantically in the air and accompanied his waves with shouts of, "Me! Oh, pick me! I wanna clean the potty!"
"Nuh uh, I wanna clean the potty!" Mystiran exclaimed raising his hand in the air and copied his brother.
Soon, this escalated into a shouting/attention match between the boys. Jaina looked back and forth. Tahiri put her head in her hands and shook it in shame. Finally, Jaina had experiencedenough.
"QUIET!" Needless to say the boys shut up. Jaina looked them both in the eye and stated clearly, "You two can both clean the bathroom, now get going."
"I claim toilet bowl!" Mystiran said.
"No, I do. You always get to clean the toilet bowl," Al whined. Their argument drifted out of earshot as they went to the clean the bathroom.
"C'mon, Tahiri, let's go clean the kitchen up," Jaina muttered.
XaXaXaXa-
(With Zekk)
He cheerfully walked back to Jaina's apartment building. Despite the fact that he had resided with Jaina for the past few months and had nearly begun to think of the apartment as home, he still referred to it as Jaina's place. He couldn't allow himself to think of it as home because sometime he would have to leave. That thought nearly pulled him out of his good mood. Determined not to think of his inevitable leaving, Zekk steered his thoughts away.
The base wasn't too far of a walk, just 10 minutes or so, combined with his morning in the sims and walking up all of the stairs (Jaina's apartment was on the top floor and the turbolifts were still down);he had worked up a good sweat and thirst. He fumbled with the palm lock-Jaina had finally got it tuned to his hand- and walked inside. The murmurs of arguing voices were faintly heard as he made his way to the kitchen. Making sure thatno one was too close, Zekk opened the fridge door and grabbed out the blue milk jug. Once more, he checked to see if anyone was close to the kitchen. He then popped the top off and drank from the jug.
"So you're the milk thief."
Zekk turned -still drinking out of the jug- and looked toward the voice he knew well. Jaina was shaking her head at him and shaking her finger. He slowly lowered the jug away from his mouth, looking sheepish. "You caught me red-handed," Zekk said.
"Yes, well, we can't do anything about that now, can we? Just don't do it again, use a glass next time," Jaina ordered.
Zekk mock saluted and Jaina slapped his arm -or would have, if Zekk hadn't grabbed her hand. Jaina laughed and tried to tug her hand away, but Zekk pulled her to him. He grabbed her other hand and grinned. "Looks like you're caught, Goddess."
"That isn't fair. You got me off guard," Jaina said in mock-complaint.
Zekk rolled his eyes and looked down at her. He noticed how close their bodies were and felt a blush begin to creep up his face. Jaina cocked her head in confusion. "Zekk?"
Her voice sounded light-years away as he found himself suddenly lost in her eyes. Slowly, he lowered his face to hers until they were barely centimeters apart.
"Jaina? Did you find the spare towels? 'Ran is starting to throw water at Al again and you know that it won't take long for Al to figure out what's hitting him- OH NO! MYSTIRAN KENYS I'M GONNA KILL YOU!" Tahiri yelled.
Zekk and Jaina immediately sprang apart and while he was mentally cursing Tahiri for her extremely bad timing, he could've sworn he saw Jaina have a fleeting look of annoyance on her face, but it hadpassed by the time he looked back at her.
Jaina quickly grabbed the towels and walked out of the kitchen, wondering what had just happened. She pushed aside her thoughts for later, however, when she arrived at the bathroom or battlefield depending on how one looked at it. There was water everywhere and even the occasional bubble from soap that the twins had launched at each other. Apparently, their version of "cleaning" involved a very violent water fight that left them and everything in the room soaked.
A dripping Tahiri was glaring at a sheepish-looking Mystiran, who was flinching away from the petite blond and gesturing frantically and wordlessly at Alaric. Al was trying to wring the water out of his shirt. The water was twisted out of his shirt and on to the floor. Jaina glared at this and carefully stalked into the hazard zone.
"Al, what do you think you're doing?" Jaina asked.
The man looked up and smiled innocently at her. "What ever do you mean, oh Great One?"
Her eyes narrowed and Jaina pointed to the puddle that was forming at Alaric's feet and wordlessly thrust a towel into his hands. She handed a towel to Tahiri – who had stopped glaring at Mystiran – and then gave one to Mystiran himself. She spun on her heel and into Zekk.
She wobbled on the slick floor before falling flat on her bottom. Pain shot through her lower back side and Jaina did exactly what her father taught her to do in a situation such as this – curse loudly and fluently.
Her outburst was covered by the peals of laughter coming from the people whom she had considered some of her closest friends. Jaina glared up at Zekk - who was obviously the closest to her - until he helped her up. Zekk easily reached down and tugged Jaina up. Jaina glanced up and caught his gaze. Momentarily, Jaina felt herself become lost in his eyes, but snapped out of it quickly.
What is up with me today? First the kitchen and now this, Jaina thought.
No one else seemed to notice her fleeting fascination with Zekk's eyes, not even Zekk himself. He was too busy watching as Alaric and Mystiran made a stab at wiping up the layer of water that covered the floor.
XaXaXaXa-
The crisis in the bathroom was soon averted and with the arrival of Kionne and Marin, things went a lot quicker – mainly because they had more people to watch the Hazard twins, as they started to call Alaric and Mystiran. All of them managed to get the cleaning done before Lowie – who they hadsent out to get some groceries – even came back.
Around 1600, the first few guests arrived. Danni was the first to come; she stopped by for a few minutes – only long enough to tell Jaina to extend her congratulations to the newly betrothed couple – before she had to leave again to go back to work. It wasn't long before the rest of the guests arrived.
Of course Jaina's family members were there, along with many of the people Jaina and Jacen had known most of their lives like Wedge and Lando. Heck, even Kyp was there, though Jacen wasn't overly fond of him.
Almost all had brought some sort of munchie or dish to eat. At about 1800, Jaina, Han, and some other people started cooking the food. Han fired up the grill and nerf steaks and burgers were cooking. Then they made the veggies and set out the remainder of the snacks that were left. The six-year-old Ben was particularly thrilled when they brought out the sweets but was held at bay by Mara.
When the chrono dinged at1900, Jaina started to search for her twin through the Force. As he said he would be, Jacen and Tenel Ka were in the hallway, almost to Jaina's cramped apartment. The door chime was barely heard above the din of voices, but that stopped because it began to ring repeatedly in a row.
Jaina fought her way through the crowd and palmed the door open. She leapt out before it had finished cycling and into her twin's waiting arms. They laughed and Jacen gave his sister a tight squeeze before letting her slip to the floor. He grinned down at her and said, "Hey, Jaya, I think you've gotten shorter since the last time I saw you."
Jaina's eyes narrowed and she kicked him in the shins. He flinched and made a face. Jaina ignored this and turned to Tenel Ka. Her stoic warrior friend still had her signature impassive face. Jaina noticed with pleasure that Tenel Ka had traded in her royal robes for the evening and wore traditional Dathormiran lizard-hide armor, and her hair was also tamed into the warrior braids that Jaina had often seen on the woman when they were younger.
"Tenel Ka, it's good to see you!" Jaina greeted before hugging her. Tenel Ka's only arm squeezed around Jaina in a short hug before she pulled away.
"It is also good to see you to, friend Jaina," Tenel Ka said.
Jaina couldn't say anymore because the betrothed couple was pulled inside and given a proper greeting by the other guests. Jacen was surprised to find out that Zekk was at the party, andhe was even more surprised when he found out that he and Jaina were living together.
"Zekk! I didn't expect you to be here! I tried- err… I mean, I thought an invite was sent to your rooms on Ossus but they said that you weren't there," Jacen said.
Zekk shrugged. "I was on a mission and then Marin got us stranded-"
"It wasn't my fault!" Marin cut in.
"Whatever," Zekk continued. "So Jaina and Kionne were sent to pick us up and when they found out we didn't have anywhere to say they invited us to say here with them."
"So you and Jaina are living together!" Jacen asked. He had a bewildered look on his face. "That means that you guys are together, together, right?"
"Huh? What! No! Nothing like that!" Zekk exclaimed, though he couldn't help but mentally adding on the word 'yet'.
Jacen gave him a "yeah right, do you think I'm stupid?" look before he was distracted by a loud yell coming from the kitchen.
The men strained to hear what was going on. Zekk recognized the voices of Marin and the Kenys twins. Marin was screaming something that sounded oddly like, "PIE STALKER!"
The Kenys twins were obviously pleading and then tossed out, judging by the crash landing both had made at Zekk and Jacen's feet.
"What was happening in there?" Jacen asked as he helped them up.
"We only wanted a piece of pie," Mystiran started.
"But your mean apprentice kicked us out before we could get any!" Alaric added.
"We were going to leave a quarter for the rest of you!" both voiced.
Zekk looked amused and Jacen eager.
"There's pie? Well, excuse me, Zekk, I uhh… gotta do some Jedi duties in the kitchen." With that Jacen raced off.
The party continued until the wee hours of the morning. The last people to leave were Jacen and Tenel Ka. Afterwards, Jaina and Zekk sent Kionne and Marin to be. The adults flopped on different pieces of furniture, exhausted from the day.
Their rest was cut short, however, when the door chime rang. Jaina got up, muttering something about it being an indecent hour for people to be bugging others. Zekk waited patiently for the shouting and telling off of the unlucky soul at the door but it never came. He looked up in curiosity only to see Jaina whispering urgently with the person at the door. As abruptly as the person came, he left after a couple of minutes. Jaina, meanwhile, hurried off toward the rooms, ignoring Zekk's questioning glance.
Only when Jaina was about to go out the door, did she turn and say, "Zekk, do you think you could keep an eye on Kionne for me the next the few days?"
He sat up in surprise. "Yeah, sure, Jay, but why?"
"I just got a new mission and it's so late that I don't wanna get Kionne up to take with me this time. I'll see you in a bit." After that was said, Jaina walked out of the apartment without waiting to hear his reply.
TBC-
Muahahahahahaha, it was longer than normal… I think. Well I hope you guys enjoyed that.
1. Wons-wons are some weird food that I got from the New Rebellion and apparently, Wookiees are the only ones who like to eat them.
Reviews:
Ace Ryn Knight: I'm glad you realized that not all of the J/Z fics are garbage. In fact, I suggest you look at some of Trickster-jz's stories. She has J/Z angst galore and there's even a bit of J/K. Also, try checking out DathomiranAuthorRoamer's J/Z fic. The funny moments normally have me laughing so hard I can barely type. Btw, I found the Galatic Phrase book thingie at Borders. They normally have at least one copy and I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with me being a J/Z fan. I got the book a few years ago, anyways.
DathomiranAuthorRoamer: Arigato, I'm glad you liked it! Mountain Dew and pixie sticks are a very fun combo. (evil face ) Thankee sankee!
54388: lol, hmm… that would be an amusing fight. Gah! I'm being attacked by plot bunnies! Thanks!
