Last time: The trio and Kait came up with a plan to track down Frey.

Now: Sulam checks in with Cien.

Chapter 9- Cravings

She was craving something, but she couldn't quite determine what. That and she was also wide awake even though it was the middle of the night. Kyr had offered to walk with her somewhat insistently but she had told him to go back to sleep even more insistently. She'd put the loose shirt and cargo pants on that Nova had let her borrow, tucking the legs into her boots and set off in a search for the unknown. That and also just to wander a bit and try to tire herself out since she was feeling so restless.

The Defiant was relatively quiet. It was a warship that was on active patrol, so the night was filled with almost as much activity as during the middle of the day, but there was a slightly subdued feeling about everything, the lights were a bit darker to keep everyone's day and night cycle up. Fewer people were in the halls, and the canteen felt oddly empty when she walked in, even though there were a few people up late, or taking their leisure time now before or after their shift.

Walking over to the cabinets she looked at the choices with a sense of dismay. She was craving something salty and sour but didn't feel hungry. The stuffed peppers were a bit of a turnoff at the moment, she didn't even want to look at them, even though she suspected she would probably sit down with a plate of them for lunch, considering how odd her taste had been lately.

"Hey hun." Admiral Sulam said, walking up to her with a datapad from the main entrance.

She was startled slightly to see her, "hello." Cien said, perhaps a little guardedly.

The Admiral smiled. "Don't worry, I won't hug ya." She said with a slight chuckle. "I almost didn't recognize you without your armor."

"Yes, Nova let me borrow these." She said, looking down at the comfortable garb.

"That suit getting a little tight?" The Admiral asked with a smile.

"Yeah." Cien said, unconsciously placing an arm across her stomach, and her growing bump. "It still fits okay, just not as comfortable as it usually is for just wearing."

"I can see that." The Admiral said with a slight smirk, looking at the slight bump Cien was protecting that was just barely discernible under the relatively loose shirt. "What has you up so late?" She asked.

"I am not sure, just couldn't sleep, and I'm craving… something." Cien said. "You?" She asked.

"Just got off a late night call with command about us returning to Caranas - very early morning for them" She replied.

"Anything interesting?" Cien asked.

The Admiral smirked at that, "just fleet stuff, nothing fun." She got a kick out of Cien every time she visited or talked to her. She suspected she still thought of herself as an Empress that needed to be in the know of everything.

Cien nodded, and looked despondently back at the selections.

"Anything sound good?" The Admiral asked, eying her.

"I don't know." Cien said, looking at everything. "I'm not hungry, but I want something salty, or sour." She said.

"Like a pickle?" The Admiral asked.

Cien mulled the thought over. "Maybe?" She said, it did actually sound good. "The texture sounds bad though." She said, pursing her lips.

"C'mere." The Admiral said with a smile. Cien looked at her quizzically and followed the Admiral as she grabbed one of the available drinking cups and wandered back through to the kitchen area. She looked around at the minimal staff and walked over to one of the stewards. "Hey hun."

The steward suddenly looked up from what he was doing and realized the Admiral was standing there, and jumped up into a more attentive pose. "Good evening, Admiral." He said, looking between her and Cien. Anyone else he might have admonished to stay out of the kitchen.

"At ease. You know those pickles you serve with the sandwiches?" Admiral Sulam asked.

"Yes?" The steward said, confused and relaxing a little.

"Got like a jar or something of them with the juice?" She asked. Cien just watched the interplay, confused.

"Uh, we have a barrel we opened the other day?" He offered.

"That'll work." The Admiral said, looking at him.

The steward looked between them for a second. "It's over here." He said as he started leading them back. He stopped near a metallic barrel. "Did you want a pickle?" He asked, a little confused.

"No, just something to drink." She said, handing him the cup.

He was confused for a second more until he looked over at Cien a little more closely. "Oh, yeah." He said, relaxing as he took the cup, and grabbed a soup ladle that was at a nearby workstation. "My wife had a lot of this stuff with our first kid." He said with an easy smile. He filled the cup, and handed it to Cien, "congratulations." He said.

"Thank you." Cien said, slightly embarrassed. She tentatively sniffed it, and then took a sip. It tasted wonderful, like a cold glass of water after being out under the hot sun.

"Thanks kid, I owe ya." The Admiral said with a wink, and then she turned and led Cien out of the kitchen. "So how are you three doing?"

"Good, I think." Cien said, taking another sip.

"Scamp said you guys had quite a scare on that bloody nebula planet?" The Admiral asked as she grabbed a bottle of milk for herself. She had only heard about what happened after everything was already confirmed okay.

"Yes." Cien said, "I don't think the defense system of the temple intended for the user to be wearing beskar." She said with a slight grimace. And, it probably hadn't been designed with user safety in mind, for that matter.

They sat down in one of the more secluded booths that was part of a short wall that wrapped itself around and through the canteen, adding booths and breaking up the space into various little sections. "I'm glad, I can imagine it was frightening."

"Yes." Cien said, swallowing. "I'm not sure I've ever seen Kyr so scared as when I woke up." She said, frowning.

"I can imagine." The Admiral said, leaning back. "How are you doing?" She asked.

"I'm okay." She said, "I'm very happy, it's just a lot to get used to." Cien said quietly.

"I can imagine that as well, hun." The Admiral said, taking a drink of her blue milk. "It is a big change. I got the impression you were thinking it was a little further off on the horizon as well?" She asked.

"Yeah." Cien said. "It was something I vaguely thought might happen in a few years." She grimaced a little, "I was a little mean to Sasha when we found out." She swallowed, "I was very mean, actually. I was so…" She tried to think of the word, and borrowed one from Sasha, "freaked out that I said some things I regret and nearly hit her with the scanner." She admitted glumly.

The Admiral looked at her with a slight smirk. "Sasha's a big girl, I'm sure she understood."

"Yeah, but I feel bad." Cien said. "I've done so many terrible things to her, and she always forgives me, and I don't really understand why." Cien said quietly.

"Have you talked with her about it?" Admiral Sulam asked.

"Somewhat." Cien replied, a little distantly. "I've apologized many times over the years and she always says she forgives me and not to worry about it, but I feel terrible for what I've done." She took another sip of her pickle juice.

"Scamp mentioned, when you talked with him the first time, that you said Sasha wasn't someone to bear a grudge, right?" The Admiral said.

"Yes." Cien replied, remembering that conversation.

"I think she's just happy to have you as a sister. I think she's happy to see that you're happy now." Nadiera continued. "She's a good sister."

"She is." Cien agreed, looking downcast.

"And so are you." Nadiera continued, taking a drink of her milk. "That's why she has forgiven you."

Cien glanced up at her when she said that, and then looked down at her cup. "All of this is so foreign to me." She said quietly. "I met them because I was on a mission to take something that Oppie had, and probably kill them. And here I am a dozen years later and they're my family. I never thought I would have that. I never thought I would have a husband, or be a mom." She said quietly.

"Life has a strange way of working out sometimes." Nadiera said with a soft smile.

Cien nodded. "Yes." She took another drink. "I had a memory of my mom and dad that I buried while I was a Sith, or at least a true Sith. I had to. But it's always in my mind now, especially the last few weeks." She admitted softly.

"Something nice, I hope?" Nadiera asked.

"Yeah." She said, swallowing. "My dad was playing with me at the shore of a lake, while my mom watched us from a picnic blanket." She said with a soft smile. "And then afterwards the Sith came. Because of me. And they… died, because of me." She said very distantly as her countenance faltered.

Nadiera looked at her for a long moment. "How?" She asked.

"I don't know. At the end of that memory I just remember Sith ships coming in over the lake. Nothing after that. Later on, I found out that the Sith would do raids like that, they had some way of knowing about some Force sensitives. This was during another era when they were beaten back by the Republic and were trying to regroup in the shadows. They would find children like me, take them, and leave no witnesses." She said, "I think I may have been older than most of the other children, though."

"That might be why you ended up becoming who you are now?" Nadiera suggested. "If all the other kids didn't have a memory like that, then they might not have had that beginning, that little spark of being loved that makes you such a sweetie." Nadiera said with a light smirk.

Cien looked up at her, with a raised eyebrow and a slight smirk of her own, and then back down at her glass. "Maybe." She said with a grimace. "I miss them." Cien said very quietly, swallowing and trying to suppress tears. "It's hard to miss people you never met, but I wish they were here. I wish my mom was here."

Nadiera reached across the table and took her hand. "I get that, hun. Especially now." She said. "I'm sure they are somewhere looking down at you ecstatically happy for you and what you've gained."

Cien glanced up at her. "They are." She stated.

The Admiral was a little surprised at the conviction that she said that with. "Oh?" She asked, curious if it was a Sith belief, or something.

"When Sasha and I went to go save Kyr, you know how close he was?" Cien asked her.

"Yeah." Nadiera grimaced, "Kelce's report made that pretty clear."

"He was closer than that." Cien said, "Sasha and I went to go find him, and when you go into someone's mind there's people in there, like the ones you encounter in a dream. And we encountered something like that but of Anna, Kyr's older sister." Cien said, "but she confirmed who she was to us, she was actually Anna, visiting from wherever they go. We also encountered Kyr's mom."

Nadiera looked at her kind of stunned, getting confirmation of something like that. "Really?"

"Yes." Cien said, "Kyr was close enough to act as a bridge between us and them, and we also saw my parents and Sasha's parents from beyond some divide." Cien said. "I still have a hard time believing it, but…" She stopped, "it's not so different from the guardian spirits of the Sith I encountered in the temples, or the Force ghosts that Jedi can apparently become; that Sasha, Viran and Op have encountered." She said, thinking about it. "Just perhaps less manifest since they weren't Force sensitives." She said, thinking aloud a little.

"Huh." Nadiera said, taking a drink of her milk. "I hope that Levaan and Scamp get along." She said with a slight smirk that fell to a troubled smile. "Damn." She finished.

Cien swallowed, "but seeing them, up there together with Kyr's family and Sasha's, it was..." She paused, "it was nice to see. I just wish I could have them here." She said. "I wish I could have met them, and spoken to them for even just a moment." She said quietly.

"Yeah, well it sounds like you know that they are here." She said, looking around the canteen as if she might spy them, and all their other loved ones hanging around in the booths and tables about them.

"I suppose so." Cien said, looking around and doing the same.

"Cien, I…" Nadiera started, and then stopped. "I mean it when I say if you need a mom, I'm here for you, hun." She said, looking at her, "I know that might sound like something I'm just saying, but it's the truth. I know I could never replace your mom, but if you need a mom, I'm here for you sweetie."

Cien looked at her, and then down to the pickle juice. "Thank you."

She nodded, "I know I hug you too much so I'll try to hold off on that, but I really mean it. Get me on the comm anytime you need to talk, or if you just need someone. I'm happy to be here for you. You and Sasha are both like the daughters I never had, at least in my mind."

"I will." Cien said quietly as she looked at her glass of juice, then up at her. "Thank you, Naderia."

"You're welcome sweetie." She smirked, "And unless things really pick up with Troy and Wynnie, those two and Lana are the closest I'll have to grandkids for a while." She said, gesturing at Cien's tummy. "I need someone to dote on and make cookies for, damn it."

Cien snorted with laughter at that. "I am sure all three of them will appreciate that." She said with a smile. "And if you had seen Wynnie teaching Troy how to shoot yesterday afternoon, that might not seem too far off." Cien said with a mischievous smirk.

"Oh, do tell." Her surrogate mother said with a grin. "I just get scattered reports from Scamp, and Troy doesn't tell me a damn thing."

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