three friends out enjoying the weather. Making light of the tabloid press. Soniee tries to forget her worries, Lux tries to help, and Fox is Fox, bless him.

"So," Lux shook out the holozine he was holding dramatically. It was an infamously bad tabloid that they had all got a good laugh out of on multiple occasions and since Lux himself had made the cover of this issue, he wanted to keep up with his press following. "Would you like the good news or the bad news first?"

"Oh, I think I can take it on a day like this. Give us the bad news." Soniee was lying on her back on the blanket which had recently held their picnic lunch. With Lux sitting next to her on one side and Fox standing on the other keeping guard, and her arm wrapped around her buy'ce to keep it close in case she got a comm, she was feeling rather content.

She couldn't be completely content, as days stretched into a week and then two and now nearly three since anyone back home had heard from Korkie. She worried about him constantly, both his safety and if he still felt the same way about her that he had when he proposed. She hesitated to reach out to him in the Force, still worried that any contact might be sensed by the enemy who had already used her to hurt both of the young men with her now, who miraculously had forgiven her for their injuries and still counted her as a friend.

She had tried to settle into senatorial duties and studying for her exams and making appearances as a small time celebrity. Today however there were no senate sessions and the sun was shining down on Galactic City and Fox had managed to get the day off and a selection of some of her favorites from Dax's Dinner, and the three of them could just hang out like regular teen-agers with the occasional annoying buzz of the holocams that seemed to follow she and Lux wherever they went.

"Yes, the bad news..." Lux flipped a couple of pages. "Ah, here it is. I am afraid, my love," He gave her a heartbroken frown. "That your adopted mother and the Prime Minister have arranged with your guardian, the honorable Senator from Naboo, to retain our chaperon indefinitely so that we shall never have a moment alone to consummate our secret elopement."

Soniee giggled and then put on a simpering breathless soprano, "How shall I live with the disappointment?"

"Best news I've heard all day," said Fox dryly.

"You would think so." She grinned and threw a flower at him that she had been twirling between her fingers. It didn't make a very good projectile and simply floated down toward the ground half way between them. He bent down, grabbed it out of the air before it landed, and tucked it into his belt.

Lux looked back and forth between them and then cleared his throat. "On to the good news then?"

"Yes, please, Darling." Soniee returned her focus to him.

"You will be thrilled to learn that our DNA tests came back and while we may be distant cousins we are not closely enough related to worry about the effect it will have on the genetic makeup of our future children."

"Oh that's marvelous news," she trilled. "We could get started on that right away if we weren't stuck with our constant supervision."

"Indefinitely." Fox said with a satisfied chuckle, but then he went silent and Soniee could tell from his posture that he was getting some kind of communication that neither she nor Lux could hear. She watched him, waiting for him to tell them what it was all about or that it was nothing. "Shab." He said after a while, switching back to his buy'ce's external voice system. "I have to go check something out. I'm sorry, Soniee. Shouldn't take more than an hour or so."

She frowned but she said, "That's alright. I don't think Lux was planning on ravaging me in front of all the families and children here in the park."

"I'd hardly have time to do it properly in an hour anyway." Lux added helpfully and Soniee swatted him.

Fox sighed. "Then I'll see you both in about an hour." He gave Lux a friendly nod and then his T shaped visor lingered on Soniee for a moment longer before he turned to go.

She was blushing slightly as she sat up and poked around in the sack of take-out to see if there was anything left to munch on. She could feel Lux watching her curiously so she attempted to jump back into the previous discussion. "Not a bad idea getting my DNA tested if I really wanted to find out who my birth parents were..."

Lux wasn't going to let her off that easily. "What's going on between you and the Commander?"

"Nothing at all." She insisted. "Fox and I are friends, just like you and I are friends."

"Oh come on! Spare me!" Lux flopped back to lay down on the blanket next to her. "The tension between you two makes me feel like I'm the chaperon."

"Really, it's nothing," she said again but she couldn't look him in the eye and kept rummaging idly for a snack.

"Hmm. It might be nothing to you but Fox is obviously crazy about you."

"I - I may have noticed something," she began awkwardly. "But I..."

"Look, Soniee." Lux sat up and put a hand on her shoulder. The holocams buzzed a little closer in excitement. "I think I know what this is about. I felt the same way after Steela died. I thought I might be disgracing her memory by acting on feelings for someone else. I..." he swallowed. "I left it too long and now I wish I had said something to Ahsoka sooner."

They hadn't heard from Ahsoka since she'd made the decision not to rejoin the Jedi order. Soniee was sure that the ex-padawan just wanted some time to get away and think but surely now that she was free of the Order's ban on attachment she would come back and catch up with old friends.

"What I'm saying, Soniee, is... Amis wouldn't want you to dwell on the past. I'm sure he would want you to move on and live your life."

"I don't know if I can..." she started but she really didn't know what to say.

"If it's... If you're worried what people will say about you dating a clone, I don't mind keeping up the pretense. You and I could pretend to go somewhere private and then I could slip away and let the two of you be alone."

"No." she said immediately. "That - that won't be necessary."

"Well I suppose he is the one who brings you home to Padme's after you and I go out anyway. No one has bothered to ask how long he stays." Lux smirked.

Soniee blushed. "Fox and I... We're not..." she tried again.

"I just..." Lux stopped her. "I don't want you to regret not going for something that could make you happy, like - like I regret not pursuing something with Ahsoka."

"You do?" she asked.

He nodded. "Every day."

"I - I'll think about it but I just... I still don't think I'm ready." I'm not ready to give up on Korkie, she thought.