Kenna barely stuck around the Temple long enough to give her report about the results of their mission before bolting home. "Hear any more from Dustil?" she demanded after letting Carth kiss her almost breathless as soon as she walked in the door.
"Slow down, beautiful," he chuckled. "He'll be here in about-" he double-checked the time, "-two hours."
"Two hours?" Her eyes widened. "I need to clean up, I haven't had a chance to straighten the house-"
"Kenna, calm down." Carth rested his hands on her shoulders as she started to panic. "First, you have plenty of time to clean up. Second, Dustil's working on the restoration project. I doubt clutter would bother him. And third, you need to have a little more faith in Mission, and me."
Kenna looked over his shoulder. "Oh." From what she could see, the place was cleaner than it had been in...oh, about four months. Morning sickness had not lent itself to wanting to clean. She smiled sheepishly. "Sorry."
"I think you owe me a kiss for underestimating me." Carth grinned.
"If you insist," she sighed in mock exasperation, pulling his head down to kiss him. "I'll try to have a little more faith in the future. Though if this is the way you want me to apologize, can't promise I'll be terribly motivated to do any better." Her grin was wicked and promised all sorts of things.
"Mm. Don't tempt me," Carth muttered, kissing her on the forehead. "Go clean up. I'll get on Mission's case to be ready."
Kenna nodded, reluctantly pulled away and headed to the bedroom, already wriggling out of her robes.
oOo
Two hours later, the three of them were on the landing platform, waiting for Dustil's shuttle to arrive. Mission was the only one who wasn't nervous. She was actually excited. She'd heard about Dustil, both after Carth and Kenna had found him on Korriban and after the failed assassination attempt on Citadel Station-and even caught a glimpse of him outside the Station cantina-but never actually met him.
"How much longer?"
Kenna laughed. "Three minutes less than the last time you asked, Mish. The board said that shuttle was running twenty minutes late. Be patient."
"I'm trying," the Twi'lek shot back.
"Not very hard," Carth muttered under his breath, rolling his shoulders in a vain attempt to undo the knot of tension forming between his shoulder blades. Kenna noticed.
"You need to relax. You're the one who told me he doesn't totally hate you anymore." She rubbed his back. "I'm more worried about what he'll think of me," she admitted. "I mean, what if he thinks I'm trying to replace Morgana?"
"I've already sworn up and down to him that you aren't. I think he believed me." Carth chuckled at the look she gave him. "I can't read minds, love. That's your specialty."
"True," she conceded. "But you still need to relax. He might take it wrong." Her thumb dug into the his muscles, trying to massage away the tension. "Carth, c'mon. Relax." It was the closest he'd heard her to ordering him to do something since Taris, and the tone made him grin.
"Yes, ma'am." He kissed the back of her neck. "But only if you relax, too."
Kenna huffed at him. "That's blackmail."
"Indeed it is. But it's necessary blackmail. You look just as tense as I feel."
"Freely concede the point," Kenna muttered as the transport shuttle from Telos swooped in to dock, ten minutes ahead of the revised schedule. She raised an eyebrow. "Well, you ready?"
Carth nodded.
"I know I am," Mission chimed in.
"We knew that," Kenna teased, one hand absently pressed to her stomach. "What?" Carth demanded, almost instinctively covering her hand with his own.
"Nothing. Just glad the morning sickness is mostly gone," she reassured him. He accepted that, kissing the top of her head as the shuttle door hissed open and the passengers began to disembark.
Dustil appeared midway through the emerging crush, eyes searching. He spotted them and angled through the crowd. Kenna squeezed Carth's hand, smiling as he returned the pressure. Please don't let any of us screw this up, she begged mentally. It would be too easy for someone to say the wrong thing and for the tentative progress Carth and Dustil had made on the Citadel to be undone.
The young man reached them and nodded in greeting. If he was nervous, he was hiding it well. "Hello, Father."
"How was your trip, son?" Kenna picked up on the slight hint of nerves in her husband's voice and hoped Dustil missed it.
Dustil shrugged. "Uneventful and boring, for the most part. The delay was due to Czerka demanding to add cargo when we stopped on Anaxes. Apparently they finished working on some new high-tech gizmo and had to get it to market. Didn't bother me, of course, but I think close to a quarter of the other passengers were gonna miss connections because of the delay."
"Twenty minutes is going to mess up that many people's connection?" Kenna found that had to believe.
"It was an hour's delay when we left Anaxes," Dustil explained. "The pilot took a few risks, pushed the thing harder than he probably should have, and managed to cut that down to twenty minutes. It's probably fewer now."
"I see. Brave man. Most shuttle pilots wouldn't dare veer from company procedure for fear of losing their job." Kenna tugged on Carth's arm and motioned to Dustil and Mission. "Come on."
"This pilot struck me as a bit more of a gambler than any other I've met," Dustil agreed as the four of them left the platform. "Not that I carried on a long conversation with him or anything, just an impression I got."
"Guess we'll hafta trust your judgment, then," Mission piped up, unable to stay out of the conversation one more second.
Dustil arched an eyebrow at her. "Let me guess. You Mission?"
"Yep. Good guess. 'Course it's not like there's anybody else from our crew you could really get me mixed up with or anything."
"Yes, you're definitely unique," Carth muttered under his breath. Mission spun around and stuck her tongue out at him before returning her attention to Dustil.
"Very mature," he laughed in response to her instinctive reaction to Carth's comment. "How old are you, anyway?"
"Fourteen. Almost fifteen."
"Really?" His incredulous tone had Carth and Kenna exchanging a look behind his and Mission's backs. He was in for it. Unless he shut up.
"Yeah. Somethin' wrong with that?" Mission sounded defensive, her tone one Carth knew all too well.
"No." Dustil shook his head. "For some reason I thought you'd be older."
Carth and Kenna winced. Kenna's quickly turned to a grin she fought to bite back.
"Why wouldja think that?" Mission bristled, crossing her arms.
"Fourteen just seems kind of..." To his credit, Dustil caught on in time to not finish the sentence, but the inference was there, and inference was all Mission needed.
"Kinda what? Young?" Kenna could almost see her rolling her eyes. "I'm so sick and fracking tired of people assuming that! How old're you?" The Twi'lek demanded.
"Me? Seventeen, almost eighteen. Why?" Dustil asked suspiciously.
"Bet I could beatcha in a duel." Mission's eyes gleamed as she issued her challenge. "'Less you're scared, of course."
Ooh, Force, she's evil. And quick. I was sure we'd make at least two days before she brought up sparring with him. "Mish, why don't you let him get settled in before you try to kill him?" Kenna intervened as they reached the speeder. "Maybe you two can duel tomorrow."
"You're a total spoilsport, Ken," Mission moaned.
"However, she's right. We fight now, you may beat me 'cause I'm tired," Dustil pointed out. "If we wait until tomorrow, I'll have no excuse if you beat me."
"When," Mission corrected. "When I beat you."
"Whatever you say." He shot Carth a 'where-did-you-find-her?' look as he tossed his bag in the back of the speeder.
oOo
"Hey, Dustil, you wanna play pazaak?" Mission thumbed her deck and grinned at him.
He thought about it for a second, then shrugged. "Sure, why not."
"She's very good. And very cutthroat," Carth warned. "She could beat the pants off everyone on the Hawk except Canderous."
Mission snorted a laughed. "Hey, I did beat him once. But Kenna and Bastila couldn't win pazaak if their lives depended on it. Juhani was okay. Same with Jolee. T3 beat me a couple times." Her expression flashed sad for a moment. "I think Big Z let me win." The grin returned as if it had never been gone. "You were pretty good. I mean, for an old guy."
Carth rolled his eyes and didn't rise to the bait. "Go play. And don't take it easy on him. But no cheating, young lady."
"Hey, I don't cheat," Mission protested, trying to look hurt. The giggle didn't help. "C'mon, let's go play somewhere else." She tugged Dustil up out of his chair. Carth watched them go, then went in the kitchen to help Kenna clean up from dinner.
She smiled at him. "Come to rescue me from my drudgery?"
"I didn't think you ever needed rescuing," he teased.
She smirked. "Housework is a much more sinister foe than Malak could ever hope to be." She kissed him on the cheek and handed him a towel. "I'll wash, you dry."
"Sounds good, beautiful." They worked in silence for a few minutes.
"So what're they up to out there?" Kenna asked, raising one hand from the sink to gesture towards the living room.
"Pazaak. Hopefully Republic Senate rules, or Dustil will probably be broke by the time he leaves."
Kenna laughed. "I see. Since she can't beat his butt sparring until tomorrow, Mission's going to wipe the table with him playing pazaak."
"He might surprise her tomorrow," Carth pointed out. "Remember where he spent the last four years."
Kenna raised an eyebrow. "I'd think you'd want to forget that your son spent four years with the Sith."
"I want to, but I can't," Carth muttered. "It's part of who he is now, and I can't ignore that in hopes it'll go away." He sighed. "Morri tried to warn me what he was going to think. She told me once that it's hard to explain to a six year old that Daddy isn't here because he loves you. She understood my reasons, even if she didn't like me being gone so damn much, but Dustil didn't."
"Carth, no angsting allowed, remember?"
"I'm not angsting," he protested.
"Then what do you call it?" Water sloshed as Kenna scrubbed a plate harder than was necessary.
"Evaluating my mistakes." He grinned when she rolled her eyes. "I'm not beating myself up for any of it, Kenna. I'm just saying I could have been a better father."
"Well, you were protecting them, and orders aren't exactly optional," Kenna pointed out.
"But some of the tours I accepted were. I didn't have to go on all of them. But when your CO prefaces a request with 'We could really use you for this, Onasi. You're the best pilot in the whole damn fleet', it's hard to say no."
"Oh."
"I don't look forward to when that comes up." Carth used his elbow to nudge a stack of dishes aside to make room on the counter. "Dustil's gotten better at controlling his temper, but he is my son, and he did spend four years learning to nurse anger and hatred to the point they're practically a weapon on their own."
"I know, sweetheart, but don't worry about something until it's actually a problem-Oh!" Kenna gasped and one hand jerked back from the sink to press against her stomach.
"What's wrong?" Carth demanded, almost dropping the glass he'd been drying.
"Nothing." Kenna grinned at him, eyes bright with emotion. "One of them kicked. Here." With her other hand, she guided his to where one of the babies was making his or her presence known. They had to wait a few seconds for round two, water from Kenna's hands dripping on the floor and seeping into her tunic and Carth's sleeve. When it came, Carth's hand twitched under hers.
"Have they done that before?"
She shook her head. "Not that I've felt. This was the first time."
"Well, I think that deserves a kiss." He slid both hands around to the small of her back.
"And I think you just want an excuse to kiss me."
"I need an excuse?" he whispered, resting his forehead against hers.
"Mmm...no. Good point." Kenna tilted her chin up and let him kiss her.
oOo
"No way!" Mission's yelped disbelief reached them in the kitchen just as they finished.
Kenna raised an eyebrow. "I do believe he just beat her."
He had. When Carth and Kenna entered the living room, Dustil was smirking and Mission's mouth was hanging open. "I want a rematch," the Twi'lek demanded. "And quit smirking like that! One match outta five doesn't mean nothin'!"
"Mission, calm down." Kenna couldn't keep the laughter out of her voice. "If you're all worked up, you're more likely to make mistakes."
"Good point," Mission admitted, still giving Dustil the evil eye as she shuffled the deck. Kenna knew that look. It usually precluded some of the most ruthless pazaak ever seen in the galaxy.
Not that it had ever been directed at her. By her own admission, Kenna was lousy at pazaak. She had, however, watched several of Mission's games against Carth, and a few against Canderous. Both soldier and Mandalorian had earned That Look several times.
Despite Dustil's best efforts, Mission didn't lose another match. She wiped the table with him, just as Kenna had expected.
"Ha!" the teen gloated as she won the twentieth-and final-game by three.
"Glad we weren't playing for credits," Dustil muttered. "You're really good."
"Thanks." Mission beamed. "You're not too bad yourself. Where'd you learn to play?"
Dustil shrugged. "Little from one of the other guys working on the Restoration project. A little from a C-Sec officer who stops by sometimes when I'm on break. I even got a few tips from the pilot of the shuttle over here. He was really good. He might even beat you."
"Huh. I think I could take a pilot. Pure pazaak." She giggled. "No pun intended."
"Pure pazaak?" Dustil raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, y'know, easy as heck, not hard at all. It's not exactly a rare expression," Mission commented, stifling a yawn.
"Really? You're only the second person I've heard say it."
"And the first was?" Mission prodded as she cleaned up her deck.
"The shuttle pilot. He had to fix a shorted out wire when we stopped on Anaxes, part of the reason Czerka caught us to load their gizmo, and he said that when he got it fixed."
"Huh." Mission shrugged. "Maybe it's common among people who play lotsa pazaak. Cuz winning's easy if you have enough practice." She yawned. "I'm going to bed. G'night."
"Night, Mish." Kenna stretched, surrendering to a yawn of her own. "I think she has the right idea. Can you show Dustil where his room is, honey?"
"Sure, beautiful." Carth kissed her again before letting her go.
oOo
Kenna sat on the edge of the bed as she kicked off her boots and shrugged off her robes. Pure pazaak. Where have I heard that before? Mission had said it once or twice while they were saving the galaxy, but she remembered hearing someone else say it. She frowned as she stripped off her tunic and reached for her nightshirt, the memory dancing around the edges of her mind but never fully forming. She yawned again. I'm too tired to worry about it now. I'll figure it out in the morning. She slid between the covers and was asleep the second her head hit the pillow.