Kess woke up long before morning for no good reason. She tried to sleep longer, dozing in an out, but her eyes kept drifting open to see a bedroom bathed in a dim purple light. It was a neon sign, Luke and Kess once investigated to learn, a big one, hanging high above the street and just out of sight from their window, but close enough that the light from it bled crossways through the window. Solid purple with trims of white; a used speeder salesman. The only time it became noticeable was in the middle of the night when a healthy portion of all the other businesses shut down their lights, leaving the purple and white to stand out as one of few still alive in the blackness.

Kess once joked that it was kind of neat to have the purple light for it would help the mood during Luke's 'training' in bed.

She rolled over.

He slept in perfect peace. His hair was in his eyes. His face half smashed into the pillow. His lightsaber rested sideways on the bed table behind him as if it was sleeping too. For a moment she grinned at the purity of this peaceful bliss; that waking up next to him was not only normal now, but was also the plan for the rest of time.

She closed her eyes and meditated, just 'cuz, sensing out to the world around her. A couple was having a fight a few floors below, but it wasn't going to descend into violence. A woman was sitting in an alley outside desperate to figure out how she was going to acquire another hit. Police were bored on their watch, watching the chrono until they could go home and get back to bed. An employee tried to wake up as she unlocked the back door of her caffeine bar and started turning on the brewing equipment.

Closer by, Nik began to struggle with another nightmare.

Kess quietly climbed out of bed and tiptoed out, closing their bedroom door so none of this would wake Luke. She helped herself into her brother's bedroom and sat by his side. For a moment, she just sensed out to learn: water, drowning, no air. Then she reached her hand over to rest her fingertips on his brow. She reached into his busy mind to sooth that tiny knot that was causing the nightmare, like massaging a cramped muscle. Horrors that flared up like this were similar to that of a damaged muscle. It was like a charlie horse of the mind, causing PTSD episodes or nightmares. It could only heal when it was at rest... but how often is the mind truly at rest? Meditation wasn't a religious practice, not like everyone thought. Meditation was just a way to let the mind take a break so it was ready for whatever was next. It sure as hell didn't rest when the rest of the body was asleep.

Nik relaxed and sunk back into REM sleep. Kess patted his arm and tiptoed out of his room.

And just because she was up, she snuck a peek into Tayla's room too. The girl's body splayed across the bed like she was trying to take up the whole thing. Her tiny snores released in little whistles. So cute! Kess smiled. She sensed out to learn if The Nice Man was whispering things at the girl in her sleep, but all was quiet. Still, Kess was concerned. So far he'd done nothing but good things, but Kess still didn't entirely trust it because she didn't entirely understand it. And every time she thought about it, a visceral rage threatened to erupt. Kess was beginning to notice that her mind more and more frequently wandered into a fear that The Nice Man might someday cause Tayla harm. It was new: this strong reactive instinct to guard the child from danger, and it wanted to nudge Kess to the dark side like...

... like a Mama Rancor.

"Oh crap," Kess gave herself a self-depreciating smile as the Master in her helped the Apprentice in her learn where the problem truly was. She closed the bedroom door and turned away, remembering Luke from earlier today, suggesting she make enough practice hilts for all the apprentice babies he wanted her to breed. In truth, he would be satisfied with one or two, maybe three. The tease of wanting fifteen of them was just an old joke to poke fun at her. She crossed the silent living room thinking about it. Mama Rancor. Kess was afraid of babies. She was afraid of what instinctive dark sided shit she might do to protect them.

She hitched a grin at the old adage, 'a woman can turn any man to the dark side', and she thought, Yeah well, you threaten a woman's child enough to bring out Mama Rancor, and Darth Vader'll seem like a walk in the park.

Not tired enough to go back to bed, not stressed about anything that needed unraveling right now, not fretting about anything in particular, just... thoughtful. Kess wandered into the office, patted the dome of sleeping Artoo, and sat down at the cluttered desk.

First, she dug through to find the schematic for the dud sabers and started a shopping list. Then, feeling giddy about the idea of smelling a hot solder gun again, she searched online shopping sites for remotes with variable settings so kids could practice with a lighter disciplinary sting when they missed a block. That led to shopping for an energy-absorbent mat she could hang up as a curtain so they could practice in their own living room without damaging the transparisteel windows.

Too careful not to spend money for the last five months, mainly because she didn't know how much they had and knew they needed to save every credit for the more expensive and more important Academy construction, Kess allowed herself a moment to 'window shop' without regard of cost. Some of this stuff they likely already had in the material donations, but until she had a list she wouldn't know what to look for. Now, she went happily mad. It was only a list anyway. She wasn't actually ordering anything.

Gentle lights and white noise machines to make any room a meditation room. A simple lockable cabinet to keep unused lightsabers away from too-curious hands. Sand cubes and small soft toys for practicing telekinesis without accidentally knocking someone over the head with a rock. Belts with D-rings so the apprentices could get used to having a lightsaber on their hips even if it was only a dud.

She sat back and looked at her list for a long moment... then sat up and shopped some more.

Map scanners. Sketch pads. Seismic testers. Flood lights. GPS markers. Infrared distance measures... She racked her brain. What else did archaeologists use research an ancient site?

Too bad Gina wasn't here. Grade-school teacher she may be, but for the sister-in-law get her degree in history, Gina probably had to take a class in exactly this subject. Reaching out to Gina for help though; that was a bad idea, at least for right now. Mama Rancor deserved a little space to protect her baby from what she felt was a threat of danger: the Jedi. Kess began to understand...

Blip.

Mail. Kess reached over and hit the key to see what it was. Amongst the dozens of read messages, one bold line stood out at the top.

TO: Jedi Home, Jedi Office FR: Tyrona Iktri Delegation RE: Response to Iktri power proposal.

Kess sat up and punched the key. Brown eyes widened to dance across the screen...

A minute later, Kess sat down on the side of the bed and looked at Luke's sleeping face bathed in purple light. She brushed the back of her fingers on his forearm until he sniffed and blinked and slowly woke up. He licked his mouth, rolled to his back, and shoved his elbows behind him with a sleep squint. "Ws goin' on?"

For a beat, she just sat there, smiling softly, and let him wake up a little more. He did his usual routine of sensing out for danger, glancing around to check his surroundings, rub his face, comb his fitful hair from his face with his fingers, and sat up more until his elbows were in his lap. Finally, a little more awake, he looked her in the eye and asked again. "What's the matter?"

Kess whispered it, but her soul was shouting it loud. "They said 'yes'."

Gina Lendra sat in her dark living room and stared at the air. Kicking Nik out had one very severe unforeseen consequence that Gina realized too late. No Nik meant No-Nik-Paycheck. And No-Nik-Paycheck meant No-Mortgage-Payment. She explained the situation to the School Master and pleaded to be reinstated before the disciplinary suspension was over, but the damage was already done. They were living too close to the wire to float a half month with no income, followed by an indefinite number of months with only one income. And only the measly primary school teacher's pay at that.

Her first thought was to take on a second job, but who would take care of Ben? Especially when he needed his own parents the most right now. She frantically began cancelling everything they could live without: newsnet subscription, sand-shoveling service, speeder repair. She shut down the air-conditioning most of the time and used strategically placed fans instead. She pulled out Nik's toolbox and removed every other bulb in any lamp that had more than one. She avoided going to the market and made use of every mismatched ingredient in the back of the cupboard. She had arranged a counseling service for Ben but cancelled it before they made it to their first appointment.

After a few weeks of this, sitting in her dark, hot, empty living room, with both stomachs grumbling, and the sound of Ben absently playing with his fighters in his bedroom, using the light of a desk lamp set on corner of the floor... Gina finally faced the math that all these efforts were too little, too late.

She racked her brain for people she could go to for help. Not Nik. Not yet. Not Kess. She was too embarrassed by this. No mom. She had barely enough left in her retirement to feed herself. Not her father-in-law. Even if she did happen to find him sober for the asking, there would be strings attached to the help. The last thing Ben needed was what would be attached to those strings.

She considered Leia's offer, but what good would that do them if they lost their house in the process. What would they come back to?

Gina felt like a mountain was slowly crushing her into the sand. She shriveled tightly into the corner of the couch and tried her damndest not to cry loud enough to alert her fragile son. But her son was beginning to learn skills on his own that she was only vaguely starting to understand.

He seemed distracted by his toys right now, quiet in the corner under that desk lamp on the floor, barely visible around the edge of the door, so Gina tried to keep her tears quiet.

After a few minutes, Ben started a big fight between the fighter toys, shouting as if to play the roles of both Imperial and Rebel pilots wanting to kill each other. So enraged by his own imagination, he threw one fighter hard against the wall until it crashed and broke. He stood to his feet and balled his fists by his ears. He growled out loud and scared and angry. "AAAARRRGGG! It's so noisy! To noisy! Quiet! BE QUIEEETT!"

Gina launched off the couch and rushed in, falling on the floor by his side. She wrapped her arms around his tense body. Ben curled to a ball in her arms, yelling at the demons in his head. "Stop talking! Stop talking! It's too heavy! Get it off me! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

Gina wrapped herself around him and held his crying face to her breast, shushing him softly as she herself tightly cried in fear and panic and pressure too.

Ben's anger melded into heart wrenching cries. "Where is dad? I want my dad? Where's my daddy? It's too noisy! It's too heavy! I want my daaaaaadddyyyyyyy." His yelling dribbled to a whimpering sobs and then to intelligible whispers.

Gina held him for a long silent time in the dark. Rocking him and shushing him softly, whispering nonsensical condolences into his blond hair. Eventually, he cried and screamed himself into exhaustion and Gina carried his snoozing body to bed, but he still whimpered and pleaded. "I want my daddy."

She sat with him for a long time, and eventually went to bed herself, but she didn't go to sleep. Gina lay awake all night long, staring at nothing in the darkness.

When the suns finally came up and glowed bright into the bedroom, amplifying the empty bed next to her... Gina climbed out of bed, made a strong cup of java, and forced herself to make the toughest comm call of her life.