Last time: Sasha and Oppie were caught by Von, but disappeared from the Force. The rest of the family feared the worst.

Now: Viran and Cien search for a sign of hope.

Part 2- Chapter 1- They Can't Be Gone

Viran looked up through tear filled eyes at his daughter. His heart broke at her screaming out mama. For weeks, Sasha had been trying to get the little girl to say it, but she wasn't able to. Now she says it… in the moment Sasha may be gone forever. It then suddenly hit him that she must be able to sense that Sasha is gone too. He picked himself up off the ground and walked over to Lana, who was still bawling. He knelt down before his daughter and scooped her up into his arms as he tried to calm down. He held Lana tight to him as she continued to cry.

"How… what…" Viran tried to say again, his voice still shaking as he clutched Lana tightly to him. "I thought…" He swallowed as a lump formed in his throat.

Cien moved over and put an arm around Viran's shoulders and Kyr stood up. She looked up at him. "Where are you going?" She asked.

"I'm going to go call Kelce to figure out who we need to go kill. And I'm going to call Kitsu and Illara to help us with it." Kyr answered as he left the room.

As Kyr left, Viran suddenly tensed as he sensed Oppie disappear from the Force too. It felt just like what happened on Chikara all those years ago and he shuddered as he lowered his head. First Sasha, now Oppie. What the hell was going on? He had a million and one questions flying through his head as he wished that this was just a bad dream and that when he would wake up, Sasha would be there. And so would Op. But the pain he was feeling was too real to be a dream.

"What's happening?" He asked softly as he shook. "How are they both gone?"

"Both?" Cien asked, "wait, Op?" She asked, aghast.

"Yes… I can't sense him either. It's like Chikara all over again," Viran told her before looking at her. "Can you?"

"I've never had any sense of Op, but Sasha's…" She trailed off, not able to finish the sentence. "Maybe it's not that." She whispered, "If it's like Chikara, that doesn't mean they are gone. Maybe he opened a portal or something similar and they got sent… there again." She suggested, grasping at the possibility.

"Maybe," Viran said, sounding a little hopeful. He had forgotten for a split second to what happened in the past. He cleared his throat. "Sasha was able to reach Op when he was stuck there. Can… can you try that? Or can we both try that?" He asked.

"Yes." Cien said, she held her hand out to Viran, "do you want to come with me and see?"

He hesitated for a moment then nodded. "Yes. I need to know they are okay. That she's okay," he whispered before looking at Lana. "What should I do about Lana? Will she be okay if we go in there?"

Cien hesitated, but having a terrible headache was the least of her concerns at the moment. "We'll only need a few seconds out here." She said quietly.

"Okay," Viran said with a nod. He adjusted Lana's crying form in his arms as he sat more comfortably on the floor.

There was a flash of black, and Viran stood alone in the infinite blackness, but Cien walked over to join him almost instantly.

"Concentrate on your connection to Sasha." She asked as she started looking through the void.

Viran nodded. "Okay," he said as he concentrated on nothing but his wife. He thought of their wedding day. The day he first told her how he felt. The day he fell for her. He thought of her face. Her voice. Her laugh. Her smile. Her… everything.

Cien drew upon his connection and her own with Sasha, trying to find her. Trying to reach out to her, and find where she was. She refused to add an 'if' to that thought. As she concentrated, she closed her eyes in concentration, so hard she already started to feel a headache, even in here.

There.

A tiny spark, far, far off in the distance. She inhaled sharply, actually feeling some sense of Sasha. Cien started walking through the void, trying to get closer. "This way. " She told Viran, over her shoulder. Viran followed her without question.

As they approached, Sasha appeared in the distance. A faint, ghostly form, lying unconscious. But Cien was, now, all too familiar with what someone's passing felt like in this space, and this was not it. But she had no idea what this meant. And as they tried to approach her, it was like they were walking in place, they couldn't get any closer. They could only stay at a far distance. So far they could barely see her, as she remained ghostly. And Cien looked at her in utter puzzlement as she stopped walking. Viran stopped beside her as he stared at Sasha.

"Is she..." He trailed off as he was afraid to ask.

"No." Cien said, looking at him, "No, no. She's still with us. It's just..." She stopped. "It's like she has been almost completely cut off from the Force. Even Force suppressant drugs don't do… this." She said. She had never encountered anything like this before.

Viran released a breath he didn't know he was holding. "Then she's alive? They both have to be right?" He asked her, more hopeful now.

"Yes, she's alive. I would think if she is then Op would be too, but I don't think my connection to Op is strong enough to find him. I could barely find her." Cien admitted.

"Then we need to find them," Viran said determinedly. "I'm not going to lose her or him again. I can't." He shuddered at that last statement.

Cien nodded. "They're still alive. We will find them." She stated. She dropped them from mindspace, and immediately grimaced as a splitting headache crashed through her skull, and the various light from lamps and windows pierced her eyes like daggers.

Viran winced as his head pounded slightly, but not as bad as hers. He glanced down at Lana who hadn't moved, but was still crying against him. He then looked up to Cien. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Cien responded as she covered her eyes with her hand.

Kyr walked back in. He was wearing his full armor for the first time in months. He looked between the two of them, and Cien had her eyes covered as though she was still deeply upset. "Kelce didn't know anything, other than that Sasha had gone off to contact some guy who wanted help setting up another med center in the Outer Rim." He informed them, looking between Viran and Cien, still despondent.

Viran looked to Kyr while he nodded. "We went looking for both of them in the mindspace," he explained, getting Kyr up to date. He paused for a second when he saw Kyr in the armor before continuing. "We think they may still be alive."

"They are alive." Cien said as she opened her eyes, and stopped for a second seeing Kyr back in his armor. "That's not what it looks like when… Someone has passed. Or is passing. It's some kind of Force suppressant I've never encountered before." She informed them. Kyr relaxed slightly after hearing that.

"But that means both Sasha and Oppie are alive," Viran said as he adjusted Lana who was still whimpering, but was calmer. Apparently, them saying Sasha was alive was enough to calm the little one down. "And I am going to do everything in my power to find them."

"Me too." Kyr and Cien both said at the same time. They glanced at each other, and Kyr just shrugged.

"We'll find them. It's what we do." Kyr stated. "I'm going to call Kitsu and Illara. If someone attacked them and drugged them, then it might be a bounty or something. And they would have the contacts to know about that." He said as he left the room to go back to the communications suite.

"I'm going to go call Reya," Viran said to Cien. "If we are going on a search for our family, you bet your ass I'm not staying behind. And I trust Reya to watch Lana." He stood up and carried Lana out of the room, but before he was gone, he turned back to her. "Thank you."

Cien nodded as she got up to go find somewhere dark to sit for a while.

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