Though the silence was expected in such a small facility staffed only by a minimal team of Paneau, it still left Wil unnerved as he stood alone at the end of the hall, looking out the window into the empty space beyond the station's boundary. It took everything in him to not race down to the hangar and hop aboard the closest ship, joining his father in the search for his sister Jewel, even though he had no clue where to start looking. The lack of direction wouldn't bother him as much as being forced to remain behind and do nothing, passively awaiting word from other covert agents who were out scouring the galaxy in his place. It went against everything innate within him and everything he had learned from his cousins and his brother, Rys'tihns who had always been people of immediate action and response without hesitation. He had even promised his father that much the day Jewel had been born.

He still suffered twinges of pain in his chest as he recovered, though, reminding him just how close he had come to a brush with death. He also had yet to regain much of his stamina; the short walk from his room to the window had left his legs quivering underneath him. It made him nothing but frustrated and angry with himself and his mind that had refused to return to him his memories of the days before, days that might give him some kind of insight into who had taken Jewel and why...

A soft pair of footsteps behind him earned his attention; he had been expecting Embrey to have quickly noticed his absence in his room and followed him to the hall. She would want him to immediately return to his bed, he mused, to continue resting, and the thought only irritated him further. When his visitor remained silent and patiently awaited his acknowledgement, though, his anger became curiosity instead, and he was surprised to turn and see Wyliaa standing just beside him.

"Liaa..."

A faint bruise at her temple seemed to be healing, as were a few small cuts on her face. Though her golden amber eyes were full of worry and fear, as he had expected them to be, there was also a deep regret present that was unmistakable and perplexing. She searched his face wordlessly, reaching her hand up to gently caress his cheek in the tender way a mother would. It was the first time they had seen each other since Horatio had suddenly moved her and Jewel away more than six months ago, a choice that Horatio's message to him had insisted was made without her input...but Liaa clearly bore the burden of that guilt all the same.

His attempt at a smile was feeble. "I'm okay, Liaa."

She seemed to acknowledge his meaning, that he was assuring her about more than just his physical health, but she couldn't return his smile.

"...I am so sorry...about all of zhis..."

He closed his eyes briefly, appreciating her caring touch. "It wasn't your fault."

Though she hesitated, she released a shaky breath as she nodded with relief, lowering her hand from his face. His absolution was something she had needed to hear, and he willingly gave it. Her voice still trembled, though, as she continued softly. "I 'ave always zhought of you as a son. Not zhat I want to replace your mozher... I know I never could. But I 'ave always considered you part of us. Part of our family. You are 'oratio's son. And you are Jewel's big brozher. Nozhing will ever change zhat." She paused a moment, her voice fading even more. "...it tore your fazher up, every day. 'e 'asn't been zhe same since we left. I know zhis doesn't mean much coming from me, but... I wanted you to know. 'e will tell you zhe same when you see 'im again."

Unable to respond with much more than a simple nod, Wil stepped closer to her and pulled her into a warm embrace. She was reluctant to reciprocate at first, seemingly afraid of causing him pain, but the longer he held her, the more she relaxed and tightened her hold around him. Their relationship had always been one built on their mutual love for his father, made even stronger after Jewel's birth, and now that they were facing such a dire situation together, he hoped she understood that he held none of it against her. She deserved his comfort just as much as he deserved hers.

Wyliaa released Wil and stepped back just slightly, looking up at him as a few silent tears slowly fell from her eyes. "I know zhat you did everyzhing you could to protect Jewel, to try to save 'er. I know you did. It almost cost you your life... And I wouldn't expect anyzhing less." With a wan smile, she lifted up onto her toes to place a gentle kiss on his cheek. "Your mozher would 'ave been so proud of you."

He felt less than worthy of her praise. "We will find Jewel, Liaa. I promise you."

"I know," she returned weakly, gripping his shoulder in earnest. "But I need you to take care of yourself, too. I know you want to leave. I can see it in your eyes. You are your fazher's son, after all. But...you are still 'ere right now, so...per'aps today you are your mozher's son instead."

She had a point. He might have taken off after his father had he not had his girlfriend's gentle guidance in the back of his mind, imploring him to recover his memories and his strength before he actively joined the search. Would his mother have done the same, had she been in his place?

Two men approached them from the hall, slowing their pace respectfully as they recognized Wil and Liaa's intimate discussion. They were fellow covert agents, and Wil was nothing but eager to talk to them.

"Hopefully they'll have an update for us," he told her as he nodded their direction, inviting them forward. Liaa dropped her hand from his shoulder, but she didn't move far from his side. She seemed just as eager to hear what they had to say.

"Wil," Thaylan addressed him with patent relief. "Glad to see you up and about, buddy."

"Feels good to be vertical again," Wil agreed. "I was about to lose my mind if I had to stay in that bed any longer."

Nevo still appeared concerned, though. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Just some lingering soreness, nothing I can't handle." Anticipating more questions about his condition, he countered on another path altogether. "Have you heard from my dad?"

Thaylan shook his head. "No, not yet. But we did track where he took your ship." He hesitated a moment with a brief glance at Wyliaa. "They're in the Ottega System."

Surprised, Wil blinked. "...are you sure?"

Thaylan and Nevo exchanged glances, appearing just as surprised to be challenged. "As...sure was we can be."

"It's just...I remember that's where I was before all this happened, when I got that message to protect Jewel. It's not a delayed signal?"

"It's a fresh relay, we know that much," Thaylan assured him. "Your ship's been there since it left Paneau days ago, hasn't moved at all."

Frustrated that there had to be something he wasn't piecing together, something obvious that he wasn't connecting, Wil gave a quick sigh as he brought his hand to his forehead, massaging his temple. "Why would I have been there? What's in that sector?"

Again the two covert agents shared uneasy looks. "...the Bounty Hunters' Guild is based there."

"Were you talking to a hunter, Wil?"

With so much of his recent past still locked within his recovering mind, Wil couldn't answer Nevo with anything helpful. "I don't know. I...I don't think so, but...I can't remember what took me there. I need to see the transmission logs on my ship, they might tell me what I'm missing."

"The Ot'rios have a pair of agents that are stationed practically next door to the Guild's compound. They're working on getting inside and getting those logs back to us. We'll have them soon enough."

Still beside him, Liaa seemed sensitive to Wil's rising anxiety and gripped his hand from his head, bringing it down to his side. Though he wasn't sure how he felt about another Paneau Royal Family's covert agents getting involved in a Sheridan matter, something completely unrelated to their normal operations, at least it promised progress. He had felt completely useless in that regard since waking up after his life-saving surgeries, contributing almost nothing to the search for his sister. He'd even been surpassed by a droid he'd never before met, an astromech that had mysteriously appeared at his father's home after they'd both been brought to the remote facility by the Jedi to be treated. The droid had provided a scan of a ship that had left Dantooine, presumably with his sister on board, though they hadn't yet been able to identify or track it. Maybe the droid had more help to offer...

"I want to talk to Bex."

The change in both of the covert agents was instantaneous. Neither would meet Wil's gaze for several moments, leaving an awful, wrenching knot in his stomach. Thaylan finally worked up the courage to respond, and Wil's heart sank even further.

"...Bex is gone."

"You lost a droid!? You didn't put a restraining bolt on him?"

"We did!" Nevo countered penitently. "But he disappeared hours ago. He...he must have disabled it somehow."

"I disabled it," came another new voice to the conversation as Embrey stepped up to join them. "Bex asked me to."

Wil wasn't sure how he managed to keep a look of betrayal out of his expression. Thaylan, however, appeared furious.

"That wasn't your decision to make!"

Embrey confidently stood her ground against her brother, though. "But it was the right one."

A tense silence hung between the five until Embrey spoke again, her attention fixed only on him as she defended her actions. "Wil, he's a Sheridan droid. He belongs to your family. He desperately wanted to help. He said that he needed to leave, right then, that it was of the utmost importance, and that he would return. I believed him, so I removed the restraining bolt and got him a small ship."

He could hardly keep the exasperation out of his voice. "Em, we don't even know who he belongs to, or what his real motivations are. How did he know where to find my father's home? Why hadn't my father ever told me about him? I never got the chance to question him myself. You shouldn't have let him go."

Though the dark shade to her skin showed little noticeable change, Wil could see the tell in her eyes as they reddened with tears she refused to shed. The defeat in her weakened tone was unmistakable, and it pained him to hear. "...I know where he went."

Nevo looked relieved. "You put a tracker on him?"

Her gaze still locked with Wil's, Embrey didn't even blink. "I'm not an idiot." She drew in a shaky breath as she regained the strength to continue. "He went to the Ottega System, too. But he wasn't there for more than an hour. He made a hyperspace jump not too long ago, so...I guess we'll see where he ends up."

Taking the opportunity to make an exit and repair the damage done, Thaylan and Nevo started for the command center. "We'll let you know the second he comes back on our scopes."

Liaa was interested, too, calling out after the agents. "I will come wizh you." She gave Wil's hand a gentle squeeze before she left, eager to get herself involved somehow but still showing him her support. He remained behind in the hall in a daze, losing himself in Embrey's golden eyes as she broke down her defiant facade and silently pleaded for his forgiveness instead.

"...he will come back," she asserted, though whether for his sake or for her own, he wasn't sure. Wil nodded faintly, letting go of a weak breath.

"I hope you're right."

Wearied by their exchange, he slowly stepped closer to her, reaching his hand up to take hers at her side, but a sudden twinge of pain deep in his chest stopped him midstep. He grimaced and gripped his shirt over his heart as it left him briefly gasping for breath, and Embrey closed the distance between them in an instant.

"Wil?!"

He was too slow to dismiss her concern with a shake of his head. The pain was gone as quickly as it had struck him, though he was grateful to feel both of her hands holding him by his shoulders. His frame was far lankier than hers, but he knew she would have done everything in her power to support him had his legs gone out from under him. The thought brought a faint smile to his face, and meeting her gaze again, he could tell it comforted her, too.

"It's alright. Just a pulled muscle not yet used to moving again."

The care in her eyes drew him in even further, and though she didn't appear convinced, she at least didn't argue with his deflection. She released one of his shoulders and delicately brushed her fingers against his cheek as they shared a tender moment alone together in the hall. He might have let it linger for much, much longer under normal circumstances, but nothing had been normal for months.

"I'm sorry for what I said," he breathed, sincerity saturating his tone. "I'm angry with myself, not you. I haven't felt this helpless in a long time."

"You're not helpless. You're...temporarily decommissioned. I happen to know a little bit about what that feels like."

Stealing a brief glance down at her swollen midsection that was becoming harder to ignore, he gave a weak laugh. "And yet here you are, in the middle of all of it."

"I could say the same about you."

He playfully rolled his eyes. "This is me very much not being in the middle of anything. I could've been like my dad and I could've already left."

Embrey gave him a challenging look. "Your father had a slight still-bleeding problem. You, on the other hand, had a slight keep-heart-beating problem. That's a little harder to ignore."

He couldn't counter, so he deftly changed the subject instead. "Did Bex say anything when he left?"

"No," she shook her head sadly, "I'm sorry. Just that he had to leave, and it was important. It almost sounded like he had to go meet somebody, wherever he went." She paused a moment, mulling over a thought. "Could he have gotten a transmission?"

"Maybe. That restraining bolt might have logged it. Do you still have it?"

A brief flash in her eyes meant he had earned her ire once more, but as she continued to stare past him out the window at his back, he quickly grew curious and turned to look himself.

"That's the ship..."

Wil didn't recognize it. "What?"

Blinking herself out of her stupor, Embrey's expression lit up. "It's the ship I sent Bex away on! He came back!"

Without missing a beat, Wil's wrist commpad lit up with a shrill beep, and he activated it just as quickly.

"Wil, get down here - "

"Yeah, we see it," he answered Nevo in a rush. "We're on our way."

Embrey took his hand and sped with him down the hall, sparing a glance at him every few moments to be sure he was keeping up. The hangar was a quick lift trip down, and it couldn't move fast enough. By the time they reached the small hangar accommodating a handful of ships, the one that had just arrived was just setting down on its struts, its loading ramp already descending. A number of armed Paneau flanking the ship trained their blasters on the opening hatch, prepared for hostiles, but its only occupant that Wil could see was the orange-paneled astromech at the top of the ramp. Bex rocked back and forth on his two feet, whistling and spurting bleeps and chirps with extreme excitement, but he remained in place. With his heart in his throat, Wil looked to the agents beside him as Bex continued to shriek.

"Nevo?"

Nevo only listened a moment longer, his brows knit together as he translated the droid's sputtering. "He just keeps saying, 'I have her, I have her, she's here,' over and over. That's it."

Bex's beeping only intensified, the same electronic phrases repeating a dozen times as they all stood perplexed. Desperately curious, Wil held his arm out beside him, keeping Embrey behind him.

"Stay here," he ordered her, though the look of warning she gave him in return could have torn a new hole in his chest. He stepped forward without her, though, slowly ascending the ramp with Nevo armed just beside him.

"Bex..." he reached out in a friendly, non-threatening gesture, hoping to get the droid to respond to him. "We haven't met, but I'm Wil. I'm Horatio's son, Recero's nephew."

Bex spun his dome as all his lights flickered, his pattern changing only slightly. "He says he knows," Nevo translated. "And again he's saying he has her, she's here."

His nerves were beginning to get the better of him as he looked about the small ship's cabin. There wasn't much beyond the tiny cargo bay the three of them stood in, and the cockpit further inside appeared to be empty, as well. What was this blasted droid going so insane about? The only things Wil could tell didn't belong aboard the ship were piled just to the side in the cargo bay. A number of large power cells were concealing a droid foot behind them, a third foot that Bex didn't seem to have. It had the same orange paint and worn pattern as the rest of the weathered droid, so why had Bex's foot been removed? Were those his power cells, too? Was that why he wasn't moving from where he stood? Had his insides been gutted for a reason?

...the realization hit him so hard, he could no longer feel his own pulse.

"Nevo...his dome."

"What?"

"His dome! Help me lift it!"

Holstering his blaster in a daze, Nevo finally complied as Wil began sinking his fingertips into the faint grooves around the astromech's body. Bex stilled and quieted as they began their work, but Wil wouldn't have heard a turbolaser cannon blast even if it had been shot from just beside him. The droid's dome was heavy and initially refused to relinquish its hold, but they continued to lift, exposing a mess of wiring and servo gears and circuits...

And nestled in the hollowed space created by withdrawn power cells was a tiny twi'lek hybrid girl, delicately wrapped in a soft blanket and hooked up to a small breath mask over her nose and mouth.

"Jewel!"

His hands shook as he reached in and tucked two fingers under her chin, nearly collapsing the second he felt her light pulse. He heard the rest of the Paneau rush in behind him and surround them to help, but he saw nothing but his precious sister as he painstakingly lifted her up out of the droid, cradling her small, limp body in his arms with the gentlest of movement. She was peacefully asleep, at least so she appeared, and though the Paneau spoke to him, asking him a dozen questions, he moved forward without any response, taking her inside the complex.

As if anticipating being needed, Master Rech Natiyr met Wil in the hallway, Wyliaa just on his heels. The Master Healer wasted little time in scooping the girl out of Wil's arms, already calling on the Force to tend to her small form, and Liaa held tightly to her, too, beside herself with joy at finally, finally having her little girl back. They quickly disappeared to a treatment room to begin repairing whatever had been done to her, but Wil had no energy left to follow. He fell to his knees, breathless in shock and elation, only just registering Embrey's arms around him as she, too, knelt just in front of him.