"Thank you for dinner, Suu. It was really delicious," Cass nodded to the grown Twi'lek.
"Hey, I caught it," Cut interjected.
"It attacked you...and almost won, I might add," Sue deadpanned.
Cut crossed his arms and leaned back. "Still caught it," he muttered under his breath.
Cass laughed with the kids and began grabbing the empty plates on the table.
"You don't need to clean up Cass, that's the kids' chore," Cut started and tried to grab the dinnerware from her hands.
"No please, it's the least I could do. And it will help keep my mind off things," she explained and brought the dishes to the sink.
"Very well," Suu nodded.
"Yes! No dishes!" the kids cheered.
"Well no, now you have more time to clean up your toys outside," Cut argued with a chuckle.
The kids whined and threw their hands up, they hung their heads low and grumbled as they dragged their feet outside and onto the dusky home front.
As Cass continued to scrub and rinse and dry the few dishes, she watched the shadows outside grow longer until only dark silhouettes were visible. She smiled as she saw Shaeeah and Jek get distracted while picking up their things, eventually starting a game of ball. They played one game, wrestled, and followed a lizard all in a matter of ten minutes. Watching them get distracted kept her thoughts from steering too far in the direction she didn't want to go. When she finished the last dish, she dried her hands, grabbed her data pad, and walked outside, then sat cross legged on the dirt and continued to watch the kids dance in the shadows.
"Hey Cassi! You want to join us now?" Jek kicked the ball to her and it gently tapped against her feet.
"I think it's getting too dark to play, but I was gonna stargaze if you wanted to join me," Cass flicked her hand and force pushed the ball back to Jek with a velocity to match his. She tapped away on her data pad, the glow of the screen illuminated her features in the darkness.
"I don't know, how much do you know about the stars?" Jek caught the ball under his boot and shifted his weight to one side.
"Well, there's about 400 billion stars and over 3 billion habitable star systems orbiting the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. The Republic assigned stars a specific class based on their chemical properties, and they come in so many different types and sizes! I mean it's really cool to think about it when-"
She paused when she finally looked up and saw Jek and Shaeeah staring with wide eyes.
"I uh...I mean—yeah I know a lot about stars," she mumbled and sheepishly blew out a breath.
"We can see that," Shaeeah laughed.
Cass bit the inside of her lip, afraid she may have gone on too long or spoke too quickly or frankly lost their interest. But to her surprise, they sat down beside her and looked to her expectantly.
"Well, go on!" Jek light shoved her shoulder.
"Uh, yeah—yeah okay, um...well what do you wanna know?"
Jek excitedly began pointing to the sky, his index wavered every which way. He cheerfully chirped when she answered his questions, and it only made her smile bigger. She explained the difference between luminosity and apparent brightness, and told them that even some planets—if close enough—can shine brighter than a star. At that, the kids went on about every planet they had heard of from their father's stories. And of course Cass gladly mapped out and spouted everything she knew about each one. They eventually had splayed out onto their backs, not caring about the dirt that would dust onto their clothes. She spoke passionately and carefree, like there was nothing wrong in the galaxy, and they listened like there was no other words than the ones she spoke. Pure childlike curiosity resonated from all three of them, especially from the one who laid in the middle—the one who wasn't an actual child.
"And what's that green one?" Shaeeah spoke softly. The older Twi'lek sibling had her head touching Cass' shoulder, and the younger of the two had his head laid on Cass' stomach.
"That's Felucia, it's a jungle planet," Cass answered. "It's really warm and humid and there's these big blue worms called gelagrub." Cass tapped on her data pad and brought up an image of the creature.
"Ewww," Jek scrunched his nose and imagined the giant squishy worm swimming through the leaves and vines of the jungle.
"Yeah they're pretty weird looking, but they're very ticklish," Cass revealed and placed her data pad aside.
"A worm? Ticklish?" Shaeeah rolled onto her stomach. She propped up on her elbows and raised a brow.
"Oh very," Cass nodded. "I had a friend named Hardcase and he was absolutely out of his mind ninety-nine percent of the time. He thought it would be a good idea to try to bridle it like a bantha."
The kids laughed when they imagined a clone trying to wrestle with something so huge in comparison. Cass remembered it vividly. The blue glow that emanated from within the insect, the way Hardcase idiotically chuckled as it kept throwing him off with its massive body, Echo and Fives making bets on how long he could stay on without it bucking him off, Jesse and Kix trying to ignore them.
"Anyways, let's just say he never tried to tame another animal again," Cass laughed then raised a finger. "That is until Kix dared him to ride a gurreck." Cass shivered when she recalled the whole ordeal. Hardcase couldn't walk straight for three days.
"You have some crazy friends," Shaeeah flopped onto her back once again.
Cass swallowed hard and nodded. She blew out a sigh and fought the urge to recall more memories—memories that would only cause her to spiral again. She wasn't ready to look back at everything yet, the wounds were still too fresh. But there was no harm in acknowledging that she agreed with Shaeeah.
"Crazy is an understatement," Cass conceded.
"Will you tell us more?" Shaeeah and Jek looked to her earnestly.
"Okay okay, just one more and then we need to go to bed, alright?" Cass hushed them and raised her hand to the darkness of space. "You see that cluster right there? And there?" she outlined the figure with her index.
The kids hummed a few "uh huh"s and nodded.
"That's drall's hat, it's a constellation. It's the brightest when you're on Corellia, but you can faintly see it from here." She drew her finger from the top of the constellation, to the bottom, listing all the stars by name. "I've always wanted to go to Drall, or maybe even meet a Drall. They're very intelligent and have enormous libraries on their planet, and they have these art pieces made out of beautiful gems."
Shaeeah propped at her elbows again, but this time her demeanor was much more inquisitive in nature. "How do you know so much?"
"I've always loved learning things. There's a great big galaxy out there waiting for me and you," she spanned her arms out dramatically, spreading her fingers over the celestial bodies that hung in the heavens above their heads. "You can never have too much knowledge. And with a universe like this, you'll never run out of things to learn," she sighed happily.
Shaeeah softly rocked her feet as she laid on her stomach, completely fixated on every word that came out of the Jedi's mouth. Jek was calmed by the rise and fall of Cass's chest, and when Cass began to gently pet his head his eyes slowly began to drift closed.
"You remind me of Uncle Tech," Shaeeah confessed and lazily drew circles on Cass's shoulder.
"Oh really?" Cass mumbled. She also was growing weary in the night and couldn't fight the content smile on her lips as she thought of him.
"Yeah, you both are like, crazy smart," Shaeeah continued, and glanced at Cass. Cass' eyes were glazed over with something Shaeeah recognized from the way her mother looked at her father. "I bet you guys really enjoy being together," she subtly pushed on with a smirk.
Cass' eyes drifted closed as she wrapped an arm around Jek and held him securely in place. She hummed tiredly and nodded. "Yeah we do. He's...he's really great."
"I bet he misses you." Shaeeah held back a giddy cheer and bit her lip. "Do you miss him?"
Even in her sleepy state, she couldn't miss the tone in Shaeeah's voice. She rolled her head away from Jek and peeked her eyes open to squint suspiciously at the Twi'lek.
"I think it's time for bed," Cass sighed and pulled Jek to her chest. She scooped him into her arms and drowsily stood up.
"Ah come on!" Shaeeah laughed and threw her hands up, quickly scurrying behind Cass as they wandered back into the hut.
"Don't ask questions you already know the answer to," Cass mumbled quietly.
Shaeeah shut the door behind her and bounced on her heels. "I knew it!" she cheerfully whispered and clenched a fist.
Cass only shook her head and ignored the girl's cheers. She gently sat down on Jek's bed with her back against the headboard. She shifted and repositioned so Jek was wrapped around her like an infant ewok. He stirred in his sleep until his ear was right against her chest again, then his body settled and relaxed.
"Are you going to stay here?" Shaeeah whispered and stood at the foot of the bed.
"I haven't been sleeping well lately, so if it's alright with you, yes. I would like to stay here instead," Cass pleaded in the silence of the night and stroked Jek's back.
Shaeeah nodded. "Don't worry, you'll sleep good here. And Jek is like a little heater when he sleeps."
"Good, because I'm always cold," she chuckled softly and leaned against the headboard.
Shaeeah tucked herself into the adjacent bed and buried her face into her pillow. "Goodnight Cass," she mumbled and Cass almost didn't catch it.
Cass closed her eyes and listened to Jek's calming breaths. She hummed softly against his head, feeling a high of contentment melt into her body. "Goodnight."
. . . . . .
Cass woke up to a bright Saleucami sun and Shaeeah prodding her side gently. She wasn't happy to be woken up in such a way, but it was much better than the cold sweat that routinely occurred instead. She contorted under Jek's sprawled body and pushed his foot out of her face. She rubbed her eyes and grabbed Shaeeah's hand to stop the repetitive poking.
"What?" she murmured and sat up slowly.
"Your comm hasn't stopped blinking," Shaeeah pointed to the device on Cass' wrist.
When she looked down, it indeed was blinking quickly. She counted the long and short flashes, deciphering it as it blipped. She furrowed her brows and sat up straighter.
This was Tech's signal.
She interacted with the signal and raised the comm to her lips. "Tech?"
"Cassiopeia," his crackled voice spoke softly after a moment. Even through the speaker, his voice caused a chill to run down her spine. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and this time she didn't even need a force connection to get that reaction out of her.
"Is something wrong? Where are you?" she bit her bottom lip and rubbed her palm.
"It's...complicated. We will explain everything when we land on Saleucami."
"Wait, you're coming here? Already?" Cass stuttered.
"Again, it's complicated. But yes, we will be meeting you much sooner than we anticipated. And I can promise your safety, Crosshair isn't with us...at the moment."
"Oh," Cass peeped out.
"I have a theory his actions had to do with the inhibitor chips the Kaminoans implanted in us clones. However, I think our enhancements made the chip defective, but I can't say for certain."
"There's only one way to find out."
Tech paused and Cass could imagine him furrowing his brows under his goggles.
"I'll have my lightsaber and Cut and Suu have their blasters. Come to the farm unarmed and if none of you try to kill me, then we'll have an answer."
"That's one way to test a hypothesis, I suppose," he said dryly.
"How quickly will you get here?" Cass glanced out of the hut, secretly hoping the Marauder would already be landing.
"We just made the jump to light speed. Navigation says we will arrive in three hours."
Cass' heart leapt. They would be here so soon. He would be here so soon.
She smiled to herself and blew out a breath. "But we know that means somehow you'll be able to make it in two."
"Naturally."
Cass held back a laugh and looked up to see Shaeeah wagging an eyebrow. Cass bit back her smile and rolled her eyes.
"I'll see you when you land then," Cass softly reassured him.
"Affirmative," he answered curtly, but she could almost hear the soft grin on his lips.
She cut off her comm and leaned back with a sigh. She idly traced the edge of her communicator and grinned lazily.
"I guess that proves my hypothesis," Shaeeah smirked and crossed her arms.
"Shut up," Cass groaned and bit the inside of her cheek. She stood up and wandered to the kitchen, doing her best to conceal the blush on her face.
. . . . . .
CAN U JUST IMAGINE HOW SHAEEAH AND JEK LOOKED AT CASS LIKE SHE WAS THE MOST AMAZING THING EVER I-