The song (by Barlow Girl) is mostly for Korkie and Soniee but this chapter is dedicated to Commander Fox. I never really liked him before, something about the way he treated Ahsoka and then Fives. But i just finished reading Hard Contact and the first couple chapters of Triple Zero so i'm feeling all kind of warm and fuzzy toward all clones right now.

You told me to call
Said you'd be there
And though I haven't seen you
Are you still there?
I cried out with no reply
And I can't feel you by my side
So I'll hold tight to what I know
You're here, and I'm never alone
And though I can not see you
And I can't explain why
Such a deep, deep reassurance
You've placed in my life
Whoa, we cannot separate
'Cause you're part of me
And though you're invisible
I'll trust the unseen

Waiting. How long would it take for the investigators to find the evidence they needed to let her go? She could meditate some more but she didn't really feel like it. She still had the beads clasped in her hand though because they seemed to bring some comfort. Now if she had her new helmet she could start working on souping it up to her own specs. But where was it?

Soniee knew she had picked up the helmet from the bedside table at Padme's apartment. She had handed her visor to the Senator but she was sure she had brought the helmet with her. She looked around the small chamber to see if she had put it down somewhere and forgotten about it, but it was nowhere to be found.

She couldn't have lost it. It wasn't just an amazing piece of tech. She had already downloaded all her files to its memory, files that had already revealed the truth about Korkie's real parents to one person.

Korkie. A fresh wave of loneliness and longing washed over her at the thought of him. She just wanted to be near him and hear his voice and know that he was okay. Would she know if something had happened to him? Was their connection that strong?

She hadn't realized when the duchess had been killed but maybe that was because there was so much other 'noise' in the Force when it had happened.

Soniee reached out into the Force. She focused on Korkie and him alone out of all the beings in the galaxy. And there like a pinprick of light in the blackness of space, she found him. The relief of that tiny assurance of his presence was like a breath of air to starved lungs.

Then her mind seemed to array them all in her own personal constellation. Korkie's star was there, and Lagos, and Momma Ordo, but the shining beacon that had been the Duchess in the center of it all had been extinguished and with her the gravity that had held them all together. Soniee did feel her loss now and the loss of another star, Amis.

He was like her brother. He was her first kiss. He was always looking out for her. What was it he had said that morning? "Korkie would never forgive me if I let you fly a broken bike." And just before he had died he had looked back to see if she was okay.

She wondered how Lagos was doing and she now focused on her former roommate. Lagos's star seemed almost fractured as if she'd been broken in two. Soniee knew that's how she would feel if she ever lost Korkie. Her heart went out to her friend.

And then suddenly all of them were eclipsed by something dark and cold and jubilant. Something evil was returning victorious from Mandalore, returning to another victory here on Coruscant. Anger and hate swirled around her in the Force and she held tight to the string of meditation beads like a lifeline, until the bliss of unconsciousness drew her under.

"Commander?"

Red, black and white swam together into the form of a helmet before her eyes.

"There you are, Miss." The clone helped her to sit up.

"What happened?" Soniee asked.

"Well they've discerned that the blast came from somewhere else other than your ship and they've got a suspect. You're free to go. Although, I think going to the med center might be the first stop. I came to bring you back to the Senator's and found you passed out on the floor."

"I'm fine." She shook her head to clear it. "Did you call me Commander?"

"Oh you, ah, heard that." The helmet dipped slightly, embarrassed. "Your being force sensitive and dressed up like that. I forgot for a moment that you're not a Padawan. They all rank Commander." He sounded as if he wasn't thrilled with that idea, answering to younglings.

"That's definitely not me." She smiled at the clone. "I'd hate to be given a rank that I didn't earn, as you obviously have. Commander... Fox, wasn't it?"

She may have added that bit at the end to stroke his ego. It obviously had that effect.

"Thank you, Miss." He reached for her hand to help her stand and found it white knuckled around the strand of beads. Without speaking he removed his gloves to help her gently uncurl her fingers out of the fist. There on her palm in low relief were the words, "Peace. Knowledge. Serenity."

Soniee winced as she wiggled her fingers and the blood began to flow to them once more.

"What was it that made you... faint?" The Commander asked, worried and a little curious.

"I was..." She couldn't remember exactly. It was... bad, a vision of some kind but she didn't want to tell him that. "Hungry." she finally finished. "I don't know when the last time was that I ate." That at least was true. She stood, still a little dizzy.

"We'll have to get you some food then. I promised the Senator I'd bring you back safe and sound and I believe that includes not starved."

She thought he might have winked at her if he didn't have the helmet on and she smiled.

"Oh," he continued, unclipping something from his belt and handing it to her. "This belongs to you, I believe." He held out her own helmet and she took it with a sigh of relief.

"Thank you. I thought I'd lost it." She put it on. "Now we match. Where are we headed?"

"Best diner on Coruscant."

"Alright. Lead the way."

The neighborhood made her a little nervous, (she was glad she had a clone commander for an escort) the diner looked like an old grounded transport, and the Besalisk owner was (at first sight) rather alarming. But Fox was right, the food was amazing.

Soniee exclaimed over the fried Meilooruns. She hadn't had any in ages. When she said that they had been the Duchess's favorite and that the Duchess had just passed on, and that she had been the one to fly Master Kenobi back to Coruscant, she got a full 4 armed hug from Dex himself. He said that any friend of Kenobi's was a friend of his and he refused to take any payment.

"You're not just going to sit there and let me eat all this." She told Commander Fox when Flo put another full plate on the table between them saying that it was on the house.

"No no. You're the one who was faint with hunger." He insisted.

"And I've already finished two platefuls. Come on, helmet off, and dig in. That's an order." She grinned.

He laughed. "I guess that's an order I don't mind following, even though you have no authority to give it." He took off his helmet and set it on the table next to hers.

She pushed the plate toward him and waited for him to take a bite of the fried fruit. His eyes lit up.

"Good, right?"

"Mmmm, yeah!" He was more shy now with his face exposed. He kept glancing at her helmet but instead of asking her about it he'd just grab another piece of fruit and stuff it in his mouth.

After they'd both been silent for sometime, Soniee finally offered, "If you, umm, want to check it out, it's okay with me."

"What?" He blushed as if caught.

"My helmet. Go ahead."

Fox wiped his hands and mouth on a napkin and smiled. "Sure?"

"Yeah."

Almost reverently, he lifted the helmet and began to inspect the hardware and the technological capabilities.

"I haven't had the chance to really try out everything it can do, yet." She told him. "It's way better than my old display visor though."

"I knew our gear was based off the Mando stuff but I've never really been able to compare. Your HUD on this is similar to what the ARCs have in theirs..."

She let him expound on all the finer points, just smiling. He reminded her of, well, herself.

"What?" he looked up after a while to see her staring.

"It's nothing. I just... can I see yours?"

"Sure." He pushed his own helmet across the table toward her.

She impressed him with a similar discourse on the pros and cons of his model and what she would do to modify it to her own preferences if it were hers. Then she finished with a sigh. "But you know sometimes it's nice just to put it on and block out the galaxy for a while."

"I didn't know anybody else felt like that. Thought I might be defective."

She shrugged. "Sensitivity to the Force is supposed to be some kind of gift. Sometimes I wish I could just turn it off."

"I don't know about all that Jedi osik." He looked up at her quickly. "Sorry for the language, Miss."

"It's alright." She smiled. "What were you saying?"

He nodded and then went on. "Well, being raised for battle all you really ever get to see is the worst of people. You never really learn how deal with the finer things. Never imagined I could ever have anything in common with somebody like you." He was looking longingly at his own helmet now probably wishing that he could hide away in it after admitting such a thing to her.

Soniee blushed, hiding in her own helmet was sounding like a pretty good idea as well. "Nice to know that we're not alone." She pushed his helmet across the table toward him and he did the same for her.

Safely behind their matching 'T' visors they both sighed and then laughed.

"Ready to get back to the Senator's?" he asked.

"Yeah, I think I am."