Interlude: Fathers' Flashback of Fates

He stared at his daughter. She was growing up too fast for his liking. It seemed only yesterday that he was scared of dropping her. Oh wait, that was yesterday. And every other day from the time his daughter was born.

Zekk deftly caught his waddle-running one year old daughter around the waist without looking away from the smash ball game and placed the little girl in his lap. He tickled her stomach and listened to her laughter like a man dying of thirst. He loved every infantile noise that came from that child's mouth.

After playing in his lap for several moments, the little girl yawned and buried her face in the crook of his left arm. The game forgotten he looked at the child tiredly patting his arm. One pudgy hand had a firm grip on his sleeve and the other quit its patting, moving to rub one bright, emerald-blue eye. Jaina assured him that nearly all infants had blue eyes at first, gradually changing to they color they were meant to be over time.

He remembered the first time he saw a hint of green in her eyes. He nearly dropped her from surprise. Fortunately, Maeve had a great sense of humor and saw her sudden plummet and her father's quick rescue as a game. In a way, he was disappointed that Maeve's eyes didn't take on Jaina's shade of brandy brown but was inexplicably proud that his genes had overrun the Solo ones at the same time. In fact, Maeve seemed to resemble him the most. Her dark hair was barely a few shades lighter than his own, and although her features still held baby fat, they looked more like his than Jaina's.

Those eyes were fixed on his and mumbled something in her private language. Fatigue was rolling off of her through the Force. Zekk gently reached out with the Force to brush his daughter's mind and nudged it towards sleep. Instinctively, Maeve's mind pushed back, causing a warm smile to tug on Zekk's mouth. Still, his daughter's eyes slowly shut, the grip on his sleeve gradually slackening. He shifted her so he was cradling her in a better position, brushed her mind once more and returned his attention back to the game.

Two and a half hours later, the game was over, Zekk was channel surfing, with his daughter still resting in the crook of his arm, and cutting off all circulation to the limb. His wife's mind brushed against his from the entrance of the Jedi temple. He nudged her back and resumed his channel surfing. He paused at the beginning credits of a recent holodrama set under the time of the Empire called Here's Looking at You. Slouching, he settled further in the squishy, secondhand couch to watch. Maeve made a quiet noise and unconsciously brushed her mind against his but otherwise did not react.

Barely ten minutes into the movie, he felt his other half on the opposite side of their front door. A moment later, it whizzed open and she walked in. Zekk pressed a finger against his lips, glancing pointedly at their daughter. Jaina shot him a smile and crept over, placing her bag and cloak on a chair before walking over to sit gently down on the couch next to him. She kissed his cheek and whispered in his ear, "I should have known you'd have her asleep before I got home."

Zekk tilted his head to the right, knowing Jaina could clearly sense what he wanted. With a soft laugh, she shifted and leaned around to kiss him on the mouth. Both reached out to each other through the Force.

"Bad-ma! Bad-da! Up!"

Jaina broke away, grinning at the now wide awake one-year-old. Now that the attention was focused on her again, the infant pushed herself of her father's arm and held out two pudgy arms to her mother. "Up!" she demanded again.

Jaina laughed, giving into her daughters orders. Then, she resituated herself to be under Zekk's arm, pressed up against him, with Maeve stomping on both of their laps. The three played well into the night before deciding to go to sleep.

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(Csilla, approximately one year and three months later)

His son stubbornly crawled over to the table. With practiced ease, he pulled himself up, keeping his hand firmly placed on the table. He banged on it with one hand, cheering and giving himself fanfare. Then, he took several waddling steps. Upon reaching the edge of the table, he gave himself more fanfare before releasing the edge. He wobbled and took several shaky steps before falling flat on his bottom. A pout crossed his face as the infant glared accusingly at the table. Then, he started to crawl towards it to begin the whole process again.

Jagged Fel shook his head at his son's stubbornness, secretly feeling pride at his son's tenacity. The boy had been trying to walk towards him for the better part of an hour, refusing to crawl. Loryn Fel, his third child and third son, was nearly one season old. He lacked the mobility and wide vocabulary that his older brothers had at his age but what he did know he put to good use. His single word vocabulary of "catch" was repeated for everything and he was quite agile on all fours. Jag had a hard time keeping track of Loryn this way so he dreaded the day the boy would learn how to walk.

Like his eldest brother and father, Loryn had black hair and green eyes. Loryn's eyes were glassier and had changed much earlier from baby blue than his brother Vanid's had. According to his mother, Loryn looked far more Antilles than Fel. His wife, Asori, agreed with her. If he squinted then Jag could see that Loryn's face was narrower and his jaw was not as pronounced. So maybe he did take more after the Antilles side in looks.

He turned away from his son to go back to reading his latest report about the political situation in the Galactic Alliance. In the background, he heard Loryn chanting "catch" to himself. A moment later, a hand clutched his trouser leg accompanied by a very stern order of "catch!". Without moving his eyes from his datapad, he reached down and placed Loryn on his lap. The screen of his datapad fizzled and the error sign flashed on the screen. Jag sighed and stared down at his son, who stared up innocently with the datacard that Jag had been reading in his mouth.

With another sigh, Jag held out his hand. Loryn brought his other hand up and slapped his palm against Jag's. A smile tugged on the corners of Jag's mouth. This time, when he held out his hand, he said patiently, "Loryn, please give that to me. I know you're teething but that's no reason to keep me from working."

Loryn's response was to babble incoherently around the datacard.

"All right, Loryn, I'll make a compromise with you. You give me that datacard and I will sit and watch every single holodrama we have with you."

The eleven-month-old's eyes widened almost as if he understood. Most likely, Loryn recognized the bargaining tone of voice, Jag mused. He probably expected that he was getting a cookie. Jag reached out and gently removed the datacard from his son's hand. With some tricky shifting, he managed to get a handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiped the datacard and his son's hand.

He lifted his son and carried him over to the holodrama shelf, shifting Loryn to allow him to see it. A fist shot out and knocked one of the cases off the shelf. Jag was barely able to catch it before it hit the floor. He chuckled and replaced the film. "This movie is a little too advanced for you. How about this one?"

Loryn patted the box and made an approving sound. Another laugh escaped him and Jag moved to the holoplayer. Before he could insert the disk there was the sound of the door whizzing open, shouting, and the stomping to clear away snow. His other two sons and wife came into the living room, all red-cheeked from the cold.

Asori frowned and chided, "Jag, if you don't stop carrying him everywhere, Loryn will never walk. And were you going to allow him to watch that holo? It's so violent."

Jag shrugged and allowed himself to be bombarded by the rest of his family, punctuated by several shouts of "catch!".

End of Interlude

Well, that was rather pointless, but hopefully you guys enjoyed it.