Star Wars does not belong to me. Just Skylar & Co.

Tea says, "Please review?"


"Vod'ika, I know you're impatient, but we're less than ten minutes away. By the manda, and for the love of all that is holy, please stop that tapping!" Hew spoke up from the driver's seat of the speeder they'd taken from Arca Barracks.

Kot, sitting beside Hew, willed himself to sit still. He held his left hand flat on his thigh, focusing on keeping his fingers still. The robotic digits responded just a touch slower than the organic ones on his right hand, but, after a moment, they obeyed. "Sorry Hew."

Kot could hear Doz's smirk as the man spoke up from the back bench seat, "It's okay Kot'ika. We know you're nervous."

"You just don't know when to quit, do you D'ika." That was Top. "You've had your fun, leave the poor guy alone."

"I'm not nervous," Kot protested. Hew scoffed and Kot turned his head to look at him, "I'm not. I'm worried, H'ika. Gabe should have answered. Doz called him twice. Twice. And Top called Sky with no answer either. That's not like either of them. Not at all!"

"Calm down, Kot'ika," Hew soothed as he merged into the lane that would take them straight to Deena's appt. "You're forgetting that Deena's at work and Sky's almost as pregnant as Zephyr." Kot opened his mouth to interrupt, but Hew held up a finger, the hand signal for wait. "Gabe's probably got his hands full with the girls and Sky and Zeph probably aren't feeling too well right now. I remember when Deena was at this stage, she was always sick. We'll get there and everything will be fine." Kot almost missed Hew's whispered "I hope" as the sergeant gripped the steering controls a little tighter.

"If you're trying to calm me down, Hew, it's not working." Kot knew his tone was bordering on rude, but he didn't care.

Hew looked at him sharply for a brief second, but it was Top who spoke up, "Kot, if something had happened, there's nothing we can do until we can get to the apartment."

Doz chimed in, "Yeah. The last thing we need to do is work ourselves into a frenzy if nothing's wrong. But," he took a breath, "if, and that's a big if, something's happened, we need to keep our wits about us."

"Wits? Really Doz?" spoke Hew. "I thought the kaminiise forgot to give you those. Weren't you sick that day?"

"Hey!"

Hew and Top both laughed. Doz, being Doz, pouted only for about half a second before he too started laughing.

Kot chuckled, but the fingers of his left hand started tapping again.

Less than ten minutes later, as Hew parked the speeder at the landing pad for Deena's apartment, Kot still couldn't shake the feeling that something was not right. As they exited the speeder, his hand slid to rest on the blaster at his belt, "This doesn't feel right, Tea normally greets us as soon as we land."

"And I still say you're being paranoid," Doz responded, rolling his eyes. "It's technically Tea's naptime right now."

Hew's forehead creased with worry as he stepped around the front of the speeder, "Doz, Tea knew that we were coming home today. There's no way in haran that child would be sleeping right now."

Top spoke up, "Hew and Kot are right, something's off."

Hew walked briskly across the landing pad towards the entrance of the apartment building, Beta falling in behind him. "I'll take point. Kot, you're behind me. Doz and Top, you follow behind. Act as casual as possible, no need to make Sky's civilian neighbors anxious. But be ready to draw blasters just in case."

"Keep to stun though," Top murmured as they entered the building. "We don't want any civvie casualties."

Doz scoffed as they moved down the hall toward Sky's apartment, "We're not dumb cadets any-"

"K'uur, Doz," Hew hissed. The sergeant held his right fist up in the hand signal for stop.

Kot's breath caught in his throat. They were just steps away from Sky's apartment door now. Said door was wide open with dim light coming through into the hall.

As one Beta froze, waiting for just a moment to see if their little Togruta niece would come careening out the door to greet them. Several breaths later and there was still nothing.

Hew drew his blaster and stalked into the apartment with Beta following suit less than half a second later. As they stepped into the main room, they found the light was coming from the kitchen.

They split into a standard search formation and shouts of "Clear!" starting coming from each of the rooms. With each call, Kot's heart sunk deeper in his chest. He kept himself calm as he knew the rest of Beta was as close to panicking as he was. Panic won't help us find out what happened here.

Something squeaked beneath his boot as he investigated Tea's room, the last room on the second-floor hallway. "Clear!" Kot shouted as he stooped down and picked up what he recognized as Tea's stuffed bantha, his niece's second favorite toy. Her first favorite was her Tooka doll, but the little girl made her father take that toy with him on every deployment. While Fives was away, Tea never let the bantha out of her sight.

He heard movement behind him and turned his head just enough to see Doz walk up behind him. He stood and wordlessly handed the stuffed bantha to his brother.

Doz took the toy, his face filled with worry. "Tea never forgets this thing," he whispered.

Kot shook his head and glanced back around the room, "I know. I even checked under the bed for her since that's her favorite place to hide. Nothing. Closet door was open though, and her favorite shoes are gone."

Doz nodded, some relief coloring his face as he glanced to the far corner of their niece's room, "Her dresser drawers are hanging open, just like they are after every time she dresses herself."

Kot nodded, "The rest of the rooms I checked had closets and drawers open too. Something made them leave in a hurry."

Doz opened his mouth to speak just as Top and Hew came charging up the steps, Hew holding his commlink in his hand.


Fives rubbed his wife's back as she buried her face in his neck. He sighed softly to himself; he really hadn't meant to make her cry. These pregnancy hormones of Sky's were confusing him just as much as they were messing with her. He'd seen her cry, but not like this. She's not just crying because of her hormones though, she's known Tarcca her entire life and now he's gone too.

He let her cry for just a moment more before he gently nudged her. "Cyar'ika, I'm sorry, but Katarcca needs to be….." he paused, struggling for the right thing to say.

He needn't have struggled, his wife understood him. She nodded as she reached for the extra piece of gauze to dry the tears from her face. "We can't leave him lying out there in the sand." She sniffed, "He hates…," she took a steadying breath, "he hated the sand. It always got caught in his fur."

His wife stood and he caught her hand, making her look back at him. He met her questioning gaze, "Take a stretcher out there, have Lyle load Tarcca on it." She tensed and opened her mouth to protest, but he interrupted her with a stern look before continuing, "You are over three months yaihadla and have just barely made it out of a firefight, Skylar. Per every single medic you've seen the past three months, including some of our brothers, you are supposed to be taking it easy. The last thing we need is for something to happen to our baby."

She nodded and he sighed in relief. He didn't feel like having another argument and was grateful she was actually listening to him for once.

He held onto her hand for a moment longer, "And whoever that mystery woman is, and whatever she's done, please try to not hit her again. Not for her sake. I don't want you to break your hand."

She actually chuckled. A watery, sad chuckle, "I'll do my best, Cyar'ika. Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum."

He released his hold on her, "I love you too."

Sky gave him a loving look just as a garbled beep came from the doorway. A look of recognition came over her features as she turned away from him and toward the door. A purple astromech droid, what looked like an R2 unit, rolled forward and beeped excitedly as it stopped in front of her.

"ViVi!" Sky exclaimed, sounding as happy as Tea did when the little girl caught sight of one her uncles. His wife knelt in front of the droid, brushing her hand affectionately over the top of it's dome, "I missed you too."

"Sky?"

She turned her head back to him, a wistful smile on her face, "F'ika, ner cyar'ika, this is R2-VV9. She was my father's astromech. He gave her to my mother not long before they got married."

The purple droid beeped and warbled. Fives had spent some time around General Skywalker's droid, just enough to understand the basics of what the little droid in front of his wife was saying.

"Did she say that she used to watch you when you were little?" He left out the rest of the translation as, apparently, the droid had also said that she couldn't wait to watch Sky's baby too.

Sky beamed at him, "Yeah. Before…." His wife took a deep breath, before looking back at the droid, "She sent you in here, didn't she Vivi?"

The droid gave a low warble.

And Fives finally understood. "That's your mother out there, isn't it? I thought you said she died when you were just a little girl?"

"That's what I thought. That's what Buir thought." His woman dropped her hand to her lap as she took a shuddering breath.

"That's why you hit her."

ViVi beeped sadly. Sky looked sharply at the droid, "What was I supposed to do? She abandoned Buir, ViVi. She abandoned me." Her voice shook, "I can't believe that I mourned for her."

Fives' heart ached for her. I don't have parents and I don't know what being abandoned by one would feel like. I don't understand why anyone would walk out on their child like that. There's no way in haran that I could even think about doing that to Tea and the baby. He wished to the manda that he could stand, that he could walk to her and pull her into his arms. His anger over her rashness was completely forgotten.

The sound of the droid warbling broke into his thoughts, but ViVi was interrupted by the sound of Lyle clearing his throat from the doorway, "I'm sorry, Sky, I let her in. Her and Claire." Fives looked up from his wife to see the Coruscant Guard Lieutenant standing awkwardly in the doorway. "Claire said she knew Katarcca, and," he took a deep breath, "she wasn't lying. I could see it in her eyes.

Fives watched his wife tense from her spot on the floor. "Udesii, ner riduur. Udesii," he whispered to her as soothingly as he could. To Lyle, he asked, "Where is she now?"

Lyle shifted uncomfortably as he removed his helmet, "In the conservator with Katarcca. She had me help get him… situated." He clipped his helmet to his belt. "She promised she wouldn't leave the conservator until you gave the okay."

"Her promise? Means nothing to me." His wife stood, "But she was telling the truth about Katarrca. They were friends since my mother was a teenager." She went to Lyle and put a hand on his shoulder, "It's okay, thank you for helping Tarcca."

"Eleck," Fives added from the bed. "And thanks for looking after my stubborn wife, Lyle. We owe you."

Lyle chuckled softly, running a hand through his hair, "Just leave me out of commando missions from now on, and I'll say we're even. I don't want to be this far from my son ever again."

Sky smiled at the Lieutenant as she moved back to Fives. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pressing a kiss to her temple as she nestled against his chest, "I think that may be for the best, Lyle."

Lyle nodded with a smile, "I'll keep an eye out for Claire, make sure she stays put." He left, leaving Fives alone with Skylar and Vivi.

"I think Lyle's pretty smart, cyar'ika. I think he may be on to something."

His wife sighed, "I think so too." She pulled his hands down to rest on her belly.

Fives took a tentative breath, "Does that mean you're actually going to stay home with our kids?" He rubbed her belly and gasped when he felt the tiniest of the tiniest of movements under his hands. "Is that…?" He didn't dare finish, just in case…

Sky nodded, her hands on his. "I felt it first when the commando droids attacked. And again, when you pulled me into your lap by the landing strut." So that's why she grabbed for her belly like she did. "I think," she sighed, "I think I'm a few weeks further along than what the medic Deena works with first thought."

Fives froze, his shoulders tensing with fear, "S'ika, gedet'ye tell me that there's nothing wrong with our baby. Gedet'ye. I don't think I could live with myself if I passed my accelerating aging along to him or her." Please no. Please, please, please, he begged the manda, the Force, even the universe itself.

"I thought that first too, F'ika, but now that I've had some time to process… Udesii, sweetheart. I'm sure that didn't happen. If it did, my belly would be much bigger by now." She gave him a reassuring kiss and Fives allowed himself to melt into it, allowed himself to breathe. She pulled away and rested a hand on the side of his face. He cupped her hand with one of his, keeping the other on the spot at the top of her belly where he'd felt the baby move and hoping he would feel it again.

"Then…?"

"According to Deena, it's not uncommon for a medic to guess wrong early in a pregnancy since the baby's too small to be certain of anything at that point."

"So…" He rubbed the top of her belly and was rewarded with another tiny movement that he barely felt. "Hey there, ner ad'ika," he murmured. The movement caused so much joy, he felt his heart might explode. It was just as amazing to him as the night he adopted Tea and the first time his little girl had called him Daddy. He completely forgot what he'd been about to ask his wife.

Sky smiled softly, a lovingly gentle look in her eyes that he knew was in response to the wonder that she could see on his face. "So what, Babe?"

She chuckled as she watched him try to gather his thoughts. He rolled his eyes at her, finally finding the words again, "So, how far along are you then?"

She took a moment to answer, thinking. His impatience got the better of him and he opened his mouth to ask the question again when she spoke, "Closer to four months I think."

Surprise flitted across his face, "The night we got married?"

She laughed and nodded, "If I'm right, we definitely weren't as careful as we first thought."

He hugged her tight to his chest, "I'm glad we weren't."

She laughed again, "Don't let Rex hear you say that."

Fives snorted. She's right, Rex would lose his mind. "Ah, he'll get over it. He may not show it very well, but he does love our kids almost as much as we do."

Sky went quiet, and then sniffed. ViVi warbled gently.

Concern filled him, "Cyar'ika? Sweetheart, what's wrong?"

Her voice broke when she finally answered, "Katarcca l-loved our b-babies t-too."

He pulled her into his lap, ignoring the jolt of pain shooting through his right leg. He murmured reassurances gently to her as she cried into his chest, his heart breaking for her.

The abandonment of a parent he could never understand. The loss of family that had been with you since birth, that he understood. Domino Squad. Echo. He felt a few tears run down his face.


I finally beat the writer's block again!

Vod'ika = little brother

Manda = heaven

Kot'ika = little Kot

D'ika = little Doz

H'ika = little Hew

Kaminiise = Kaminoans

Haran = Hell

K'uur = Quiet!

Cyar'ika = Sweetheart

Yaihadla = pregnant

Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum = I love you (I hold you in my heart forever)

F'ika = little Fives

Ner = my

Buir = father (or mother)

Udesii = easy, be calm

Riduur = spouse

Eleck = yes

S'ika = little Skylar

Gedet'ye = please

Ad'ika = little child