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On the third day of Fête week, Pash Cracken makes fireworks with his father.
They're back on Contruum, playing at tradition. Pretending Mam and Da can coexist without exploding at each other, and pretending they don't all miss the war. It's sweltering hot in the shed, but Da's in here making fireworks, because it's the least destructive option.
Pash doesn't want to talk about it, but he also doesn't want to talk to Wedge about Luke Skywalker and all the Star Destroyers currently attacking Yavin IV. So he sits at the workbench in the shed, wearing a mask and gloves, and pastes shells as Da fills them with stars and powder.
Eventually, after they've assembled several shells in companionable silence, Da says, "You don't need to fuss over me, boy-child."
Well, it's not that hard for him to guess why Pash came in here. His Da-management techniques are always blindingly obvious, and then Da evades management, and Pash is stuck analyzing his opaque claims that he's quite alright, boy-child, don't mother him. Someone should've, but Pash never says that.
He shrugs. Da knows he can't stop Pash from worrying about him. For a long time there was no one else to do the job, and now that it's not just the two of them anymore he can't put it down that easily.
Dissatisfied with the shrug, Da decides to add, "If I found the topic of Wedge and Skywalker upsetting, I'd never get anything done."
Pash would follow Wedge to the end of the galaxy, no questions asked, but he'd rather shove a detonator into a power socket than discuss that topic with his father.
"Uh," he manages, horrified out of his silence, "That's good. So. We don't have to talk about that. Then."
He can feel his face going red, only partly hidden by the mask he's wearing. Above the edges of his own mask, Da's got a gleam in his eyes, the corners wrinkling, subtle but unmistakable. The mad bastard is laughing at him. Thanks loads, Da, glad you're happy and all but you're not the one enduring all the Commander Stepdad jokes in the Rogues' group message.
"You're not obligated to talk to me about anything," says Da, mildly. He scoops more powder onto a scale, as Pash tries to project a scowl through his mask. "No matter if Dena claims you need to."
Dena's not wrong. That doesn't make it easier. Still, he's spotted the conversational escape hatch away from the topic of Luke and Wedge, and hell if he's not taking it.
"Since when, not obligated." Technically he was obligated to talk to the court, not his father, but it's good that they can joke about it.
"If there's a subpoena to compel reconnection with a parent, I think we're all better off not knowing about it."
Ha. The contempt of court charges they'd rack up. Dena would request the maximum possible sentence just to spite Mam.
"Yeah, probably. We've done so well keeping Dee out of prison."
Da drawls, "I've yet to find one willing to take her," as prideful as any parent boasting about a child's accomplishments.
There's a lot of assumptions folks make about Pash's father, and what sort of parent he is. The schemes, the opacities, the gruff demeanor that borders on severe--you'd think. And, well, some of it's not wrong. Despite all that, though, he's never kept it secret that he's proud of them. Even after everything they've done, and why wouldn't he be, when Pash and Dena are both so much like him.
Pash doesn't want to know if Da's honest with himself about it. If he lets himself realize how far they'd go, to follow his footsteps. He never misses anything, sure, but he'll bend any truth--to anyone, including himself--to justify his methods.
It doesn't do any good to think about these kinds of questions. What's in their blood, how they were raised, does the why matter when the war still got won. It's not worth untangling family and duty and love and belief, like there's a formula for weighing each out in proportion. He'd carry on quite happily, not thinking about it, until the war finally ends him, if he could. He has to think about it, though, because Sera called him from her work comm, months ago, and told him that his holdson needs a home.
He frowns down at the half-finished shell in his hands. Contemplates the pattern of the paper-and-paste strips holding it together, applied methodically, so that it'll burst open in just the right way. Then, when the silence gets heavy, he says, "It's not that I don't want to talk to you."
Any reaction is hidden behind Da's mask, but he replies, "I can well imagine why you wouldn't want my perspective on the subject," and Pash knows better than to believe the careful neutrality of the words.
It's an easy excuse. Pash could shrug, and say, yeah, I think I need to figure this one out for myself, and Da would drop it. He's never considered his own feelings particularly relevant to Pash's decisions. There's a reason Pash was avoiding this conversation, though--he hates lying to his father. It's very inconvenient when he's doing his damnedest to lie to himself.
He loves the kid. He does. He held that little boy when he was a brand-new baby, while his mother named him Arik, and made stupid, sentimental promises he never could've kept. He's made other promises, too. He can't keep all of them. No matter what he decides, there's someone he'll have to betray.
He confesses, "I don't want to let you down."
Da stops scooping out gunpowder, halfway through filling another shell. Studies him, considering what he's saying and what he's not. Some fathers might tell him something like I raised you better, or don't be selfish, or maybe even well if you quit messing around and found a wife, but that's not the sort of father Pash has.
Da says, "You're a better man than me, Pash." It's steady, unquestioning. He has his flaws but a deficit of certainty is not one of them. "You'll give him a good life, one way or another. I'm sure of it."
Stupid fucking shed with its stupid chemical fumes, making his stupid eyes all watery.
"You gave us a good life, Da, c'mon."
His father's eyebrows arch about as high up on his forehead as Pash has ever seen them go. Well, it was better than sitting in a safehouse his entire childhood, with nobody but Dena and her rat for company.
"There's been good parts," he amends, getting a huff of laughter out of Da in response. "And nobody else could've managed us."
Da says, natural as breathing or lying or arson, "Loving you and your sister is the easiest thing I've ever done," because he always blindsides them with corny dad shit right when they're feeling weepy. "And the difficulties, let's be honest, are ones I've made for myself."
Then he picks up his gunpowder again and resumes measuring, completely confident that he hasn't lost track of what he was doing when he put it down. It's a damn miracle he still has all his original limbs, and burned his eyebrows off only that once. He might be onto something, though, even if this whole shed is one stray spark from disaster. Pash does kind of feel better. Or maybe that's just the chemical fumes going to his head.
Outside, there's a loud shriek, followed by a bright burst of laughter--Arik's fizzy giggles and Mam cracking up. The sound could raze a world to the ground.
Well, the kid's a Cracken, now. Causing a bit of destruction is his birthright.
* * *
On the witness stand, at Tycho Celchu's treason trial, Pash testified unwillingly, and made sure everyone knew it. He understood his duty well enough, being his father's son. He's his mother's son, too, so he made them issue a subpoena anyway.
The prosecution made a point of his training at an Imperial academy, and his father's role in sending him there. How he lived under a false identity that his father made him. What sort of man is this, was their point. A soldier, a spy, a hostile witness--such a smart man--but such a stubborn one. He knows more than he says, how could he not. None of us believe Airen Cracken's son doesn't pay attention, surely.
They weren't wrong. There is always more he's not saying. There is always a threat analysis running in the back of his head. He is, always has been, too loyal for his own good, stubborn about it. What else could it be, if not pure stubborn, that read a list of seventy-two TIE pilots assigned to his wing, and decided he'd leave with all of them.
It was less important to the prosecution, and their point, when he told them about hearing missing and understanding dead. About dealing with what's in front of him, and not thinking about things he doesn't have to think about. They didn't need the courtroom wondering about the real threats on his scale of zero to infinity, if Tycho Celchu was only a five.
You know when they mean dead, he told the prosecutor. You learn, he said, and you meant a boy who started learning at eight years old, but they didn't ask about him.
The evening before Arik's third birthday party, he arrives home and finds that Mam has left him a message, please do comm her back when he receives it. Even someone with fewer dead friends than him could figure that out.
It hits him the same way it always does, a wave of nausea. He shakes it off because he has to shake it off.
He shouldn't let Arik watch holos during dinner, but what can he do, he has to comm home. He coaxes and signs please and struggles with the projector, until his holdson consents to sit in a booster seat and eat noodles and watch a cartoon. They negotiate over how loud to turn up the sound. Arik's newly acquired hearing aids are nowhere in sight, as usual. Their first audiologist tried to insist on making him wear them, sensory stress be damned, and now they have a new audiologist.
What if he doesn't call home. What if he puts his head down on the table and just takes a break. He's tired. He's busy. It's not a good time for someone to die.
He has a nice two minutes with this pretense, and then goes over to his desk to comm Mam.
"Who," he says, when the call connects, Mam's face flickering into view.
Mam sighs. It's not quite mid-afternoon there, and she's in her office at the ministry building. There's a weariness in her frown. A few stray curls of her hair are coming loose from their pins.
"Your nan," she says. "She passed this morning."
Oh, thank fuck.
Shit. Okay, no time to feel guilty about that. That's--he can deal with Nan. There are others Mam could call about. If it were one of the others--but it's not. Nan's the best-case scenario.
He blows out a breath, and checks, carefully, "Someone's told Da?"
Who'd tell him, besides Mam? Aunt Del, most likely, if Mam thinks it's not her place anymore.
"I spoke with him. Del offered, but--well." She trails off, elides the rest with a shake of her head. Yeah. Still hers. "I'm not certain what Wedge knows."
Breaking the news to Da is one thing, but going around him to Wedge--Mam's not stupid, she wouldn't put herself in the middle of that. She's concerned, though, or she wouldn't mention it.
"I'll check on it," he says. Seventy-two defectors under his command, when his flight group first formed. He knows how messy this can get. Granted, none of his pilots were recently reinstated intelligence directors with a tendency to pyrotechnicalize their feelings, but he's familiar with how those can get, too.
There's something else she needs him to handle, obviously. Better not to make her ask.
"I can tell Dena, too."
The tension in Mam's expression deepens. Dena's stopped speaking her entirely since Fête. Won't talk to anyone about it, and if they push she might go and have another fecking breakdown, won't she, so they're all stuck at this stupid impasse together. Maybe Pash should do more to fix it but he's a bit busy, being responsible for an actual child and all.
Arik is starting to make noise over at the table. The cartoon trance only lasts so long. If Pash doesn't take pre-emptive measures soon there's bound to be a breakdown. Over the food, maybe, or the show, or the chair not pushed in exactly right, or his shirt is wet but he doesn't want to take off the shirt.
"I left her a message to comm me, but I don't expect she's going to listen to it," says Mam.
"Pa," yells Arik, behind him. He glances over his shoulder. No fork on the floor, cartoon still playing, chair the correct distance and angle from the table. Cause of discontent unclear.
"There soon, kiddo," he replies. Arik isn't looking at him, but he signs it anyway. "I'm talking to Nan. I'll be there in one minute."
Whenever Pash fails to fix the food or the show, can't get the chair right, can't dry the shirt--when he reaches the end of his rope and his voice gets an edge to it and he slams down a cup or a plate slightly harder than he should--when it gets away from him, Arik's face crumples. Pa, he says, all filled up with tears, because he can't say Pash yet, and it means why. Why doesn't Pash understand him. Why did Pash take his mother away.
"I'm sorry," says Mam. "I can ask Del--"
Hell, no. Not a chance. That's not right and Mam knows so, why else did she call Da herself instead of letting Aunt Del do it. Dena's his sister, she's been a monumental pain in the arse since they were kicking each other in the womb but she's his. He'll tell her.
"No." No matter how much he insists it's fine, Mam's going to feel guilty all the same, but he tries to reassure her about it. "I've got it, I don't mind. You're going to the funeral?"
Mam smiles, in a grim way that's not a smile at all. "I want to see her put into the ground. Preferably face-down."
Not coming to the party, then. Got it.
"Pa," says Arik, "Pa," and then something Pash doesn't understand but in an urgent, demanding tone. It scores high on the toddler frustration scale. Screaming tantrum incoming, three to five minutes from impact.
"Pash," says Mam, with an abrupt change in intensity. He snaps his eyes back to the holo, just in time to catch Mam zeroing in. "Are you alright?"
Sometimes, when it's all breaking down, Arik sobs for his mother. All the years of war--every day Pash woke up and thought I'm going to die before I see Dena again--every terrible thing he's decided he can live with--none of it ever felt so fucking hopeless as Arik's tiny voice, pleading for his mother.
"Arik's fussing, I've gotta go," he says, like dodging the question ever works on Mam, even when his excuses are technically true.
"Sweetheart--"
"Pa!"
"Mam, I really--"
She relents, probably because she can hear Arik's distress in the background. "Go, take care of the little one. I love you."
Pash starts to say, "Love you, too," and then winces at the distinct sound of Arik's cup hitting the floor, followed by a long, distraught wail. Mam smiles, wistful.
She says, "Just think, it could be twins," and ends the call, leaving him to his fate.
* * *
In the time it takes to console his toddler, he misses a call from Da, another from Sera, and a holomessage from Wedge. There are various chat messages in his queue from relatives on Contruum. Their condolences stretch the meaning of condolence to its limits. One cousin sends a holo-clip of a Liberation Day parade. Another asks, in a group message, how much confetti for the funeral. Aunt Del's oldest daughter simply tells him congrats.
They'll all have to wait for replies, because he has to trick Arik into taking a bath. The kid genuinely loves the bath, but getting into the tub is a daily sticking point. Tonight it takes twenty minutes to convince him to try it. Nobody cries, so Pash will take the win.
Next up to deal with: get Dena to answer her comm.
He calls. She doesn't answer, naturally. He fires off a message: answer your comm, dipshit, nan died. If she won't pick up she can read it in a message, he's her brother, not their Mam. He's got no obligation to be gentle about it. Not like she's going to shed any tears.
He calls again. She answers this time. Thought so.
"Is this why everyone's fecking comming me all day," she complains, skipping such niceties as hello and how is my nephew and sorry I'm a fecking dick all the time. Oh, right, sure, you've got so much of such importance going on, Dee. So sorry to disrupt all the nothing you're up to.
In the tub, Arik rediscovers his rubber duckie, a nightly occurrence that never fails to bring him great joy. Duck, he signs at Pash, gleeful, waving the toy and babbling.
"Duck," Pash agrees, signing the word back. "D-uh-ck. Duck!"
Dena says, "Fecking what."
"Duck!" says Arik. He squeezes the toy and sends water spraying out of the hole in the bottom.
Pash pretends to fall over, with an exaggerated,"I'm hit," because it makes the kid laugh. Annoying the shit out of Dena, a pleasant bonus.
"Oh, I'm sorry, am I interrupting something," she says. "You called me, y'know."
"Auntie Dena's so grumpy," he tells Arik. Arik doesn't seem to absorb this, but he does give Pash the duckie. "Good thing we're never grumpy, huh."
He returns fire. Arik flails, splashing water everywhere with a delighted, "I hit!"
Dena huffs, "Oh, feck off," doing nothing to acquit herself of the grumpy charge. But she lets it go, so as to report that she's on her way to Da's, would he kindly brief her on the dead grandma situation. Pash has less information than her, apparently, if Dena's already deployed.
Oh, no, she didn't know about Nan, but that does contextualize nicely the holomessage Wedge sent them. Pash hasn't opened that yet, but Dena's happy to summarize. Point one, Da hasn't told Wedge jack shit. Point two, Wedge sent her on this recon mission, he sure does suspect something's up. Point three, listen to what Da's done this time--
Oh, for feckssake. Of course he did.
Arik probably doesn't hear him cursing under his breath, at least. Just in case Pash continues waging their splash war to distract him.
"D'you think Wedge knows," Dena asks.
No, Pash doesn't think Wedge knows anything about Nan. It's probably never occurred to Wedge that Da ever had parents.
"Dee, c'mon."
"Yeah, no, I heard it soon as I asked."
A drop of water gets in Arik's eye. Pash has a towel on hand for this scenario. He lunges to dry it off before Arik forgets how much fun he's having and breaks down over the drop of water.
He protests, "Pa," and dodges the towel. It's insane, because he's a baby, but feck, the kid sounds like his father, complaining like he always did when Pash was worrying about something stupid. Pash, c'mon, quit fussing. We'll be fine, commander worrywart.
He's not thinking about that. Arik's father's been dead since Generis. There's more recent dead parents to worry about.
The line's gone quiet, but neither of them end the call. Probably he should hang up, get Arik ready for bed, find his hearing aids, negotiate story-time. Probably he ought to ask Dena how she's doing. Is she upset, is it kinda messed up that they're not more upset.
It's that stupid question of guilt--guilt, and all the stubborn that doesn't let him leave people behind, even when he should--that makes him confess, "I went to visit her. When we were there for Fête."
He can envision exactly the face she's making at him, on the other end of the line. Appalled, you'd call it.
"Pash," she says, aghast--like he's confessed he regrets all that treason, the Empire was alright, actually, he's making amends--"Why."
It's stupid. Stubborn stupid. "I don't fecking know. She was an old lady, Aunt Del said she wasn't doing too well. Kept thinking how she was all alone out there. Y'know."
He says y'know with no expectation that Dena recognizes the sentiment. Champion of grudge-holding, his sister, exhibit A: Mam.
"She was alone 'cause she was a hateful old bitch that made her own bed." Yep. There it is, that's about right. Go on and snarl, you're not wrong.
He tries to put on a smile for Arik and his bath games. It doesn't work. He quickly stops so that his grimace doesn't scare the poor kid.
"Yeah, well. Don't bother scolding me, being there was punishment enough."
"Ah, shit. You moron." She sighs. Yeah, he knows. "What happened."
"Her memory was all shot, she didn't even know what year it was. Dementia, I guess. She thought I was Da."
The silence is resounding as Dena processes this. Infers what their grandmother said under that misconception. Nothing that doesn't apply to him, too, people always do say he takes after his father.
After some deliberation, she delivers a verdict: "You can never tell him. For real. You can never tell him, ever."
"Obviously I'm not going to tell him!"
"You're the one who went to see her, dumbass, I can't trust your judgement."
Pash checks the chrono. Y'know what, it's getting late. Arik's about to experience the inevitable tragedy of getting out of the bath. They don't need to talk about this anymore.
* * *
"He's going to the funeral, he says," Pash tells Dena.
It's late, Arik's finally asleep after a knock-down, drag-out hell of a bedtime. Pash has a splitting headache and a stone of guilt in his chest that he can't push free. There's a window of maybe two hours when he could sleep before Arik's first bad dream of the night, but for some fecking reason, when he finally collapses onto his bed, he comms Dena again.
They've communicated more in the past few hours than they usually do in a month. Already messaged each other all the intel they have. Ranked the cousins' condolence messages for creativity and sheer viciousness. Worrying, and wisecracking to blunt the edge of the worry.
Pash already messaged Dena about Da and the funeral, but, for some stupid reason, he repeats it, only to hear her huff and curse over the crackling static of the comm. They're not bothering with holo, it doesn't matter, he knows every face she's made at him since he was born and ended her ten glorious minutes of only-childhood. If he closes his eyes she could be lying down next to him, kicking his shins and stealing all the blankets.
When they were toddlers, they used to climb into each other's cribs at night. Mam still has a holo-clip from the baby monitor, Dena tumbling head-first onto Pash after slipping on her way over the side.
"I dunno why," she says, exactly what she wrote back when he messaged her. Then, answering her own question, "Closure, or something."
Not fecking likely. They've gone to plenty of funerals, it's not a reliable indicator the departed will stay that way. He offers an alternate theory: "Probably because Mam's going. Someone has to stop herself from blowing up the casket."
Dena cackles. He closes his eyes and listens to her laugh. He can practically hear that rat of hers squeaking in its enclosure from two decades away. Mam used to find them awake two hours past bedtime, laughing and bickering, threatened to make them sleep in their own rooms but never did.
"Fecking hell, they'll be coming back with a kill count."
"At least they'll be getting along," Pash points out. "Nan, a catalyst for family unity."
"Pff," is Dena's opinion of that. "We're not going, right?"
"Absolutely the fuck we're not going, are you insane."
"You went to see her!"
She'll be holding onto that one for a long time. She does love her grudges.
"Yeah, that was enough. Besides," he reminds her, just in case, he's only helping like a good brother would, "Arik's party."
She does not appreciate this gesture of brotherly helpfulness.
"I'm not going to forget about the party, stop reminding me about the party, tell me about the party one more time and I'm bringing indoor fireworks."
Sounds like a good time, but the parents from Arik's preschool won't agree. Too bad.
"Who knows how many brain cells you've got left, I can't trust your memory."
"Quit worrying, the kid's not even going to remember it. The stakes are not that high."
"He'll remember it if it's bad."
Like hell will Pash give the kid more bad memories. Like hell the stakes aren't high, what the hell did he burn down his life for if not.
"Don't be fecking stupid, it won't be bad."
He says, "What if the other kids bully him," in direct opposition to the order to stop worrying.
"Then I'll kick them."
Great, thanks, threaten the preschoolers. That's helpful.
"Kids can be really mean, Dee."
She snorts. The snort is full of scorn. What's with the scorn, it's perfectly normal for him to worry about the kid getting bullied at a birthday party. Surely it's normal.
Did Mam and Da ever worry that him and Dena would get bullied? What a mind-boggling thought. Mam would've sent them to school with dossiers on all their classmates' families, if she thought it was a possibility. As for Da, it would've never occurred to him that they might have weaknesses a bully could exploit.
Dena scoffs, "Like anyone was ever mean to you when we were kids."
Sure, no, right, Maren Tilley fecking stabbed him out of kindness and goodwill. According to his dipshit sister this doesn't count, Pash shot Maren's mother. Maren's mother shot at them first, or did she forget. Who the feck cares, where's an example that isn't directly related to an act of war.
Pash doesn't remember much about the kids they grew up with. He doesn't like to think about them. A lot of their primary school friends were dead by the time they were old enough for secondary school.
Not that they went to secondary school, or even finished primary. Da's old droid Vee Gee and some of the more patient members of Cracken's Crew ended up tutoring them in between acts of insurrection.
Dena says, wistful, "I ran into her, y'know. Maren. When I was at uni."
That's a shame. Maren was actually really nice. They did a science project together once. Her mam helped them make paper-and-paste models of Contruum's moons.
* * *
In the rankings of Pash's friends, Sera Faleur is among the best. Certainly the most long-suffering. She's put up with him--and all his stubborn moods, and lies by omission, and unasked-for fussing--since their Academy days. Served as his second-in-command for the entirety of her career, despite these idiosyncracies. Even forgave him for leaving her by herself with the kids, when he went off to fly with the Rogues. It felt miraculous at the time. Now he wishes she got angry, quit on him as she'd jokingly threatened to. If she'd quit before the next campaign she'd be better off now.
The morning of Arik's birthday party, she arrives at the indoor playground early to help Pash with the set-up. Her two boys are with her, carrying bags of extra supplies. She even picked up Zindra Daine on the way over. Pash is so grateful for her he could cry.
"Don't give me that, Arik," she scolds him, when she spots whatever his face is doing. "You're my life's work, boss, what else have I got to do."
Right, yeah, she's raising two kids that used to live in an alley, gestating a baby, and juggling an overflowing caseload as a child welfare worker. She doesn't have her hands full at all. Mostly because her hands go numb for hours on end at random, so she's found other strategies for carrying things.
And, well, he knows he's not supposed to say it, but she's huge. She's only early in her third trimester, weeks to go before her due date, how is there room for the baby to get bigger. Surely a human body can't stretch more than this. This is one baby, too. There's people out there having twins. Fecking hell.
"Sit down," he says. He skips telling her not to call him Arik. That's never worked, because on their first day at the Academy he told her that was his name. He's since retracted this statement, it was a cover, she understands the concept of a cover, but she refuses to adjust her worldview.
She scowls at him. He gestures, pleading, at a chair. She can critique their decorating efforts from there. The decorations aren't that complicated, he knows how to follow a theme.
How is anyone meant to stand in her condition. Her ankles must be in agony.
She says, "Quit fussing or I swear I'm calling her Arika," a threat that brings her untold satisfaction. Never mind that there's already an Arika, a Rikki, and two Ariks, present one included, among the children belonging to members of their defector wing. Never mind that Arik isn't Pash's name. Or that--
"She won't," he tells her older son, whose name, coincidentally, is Erich. It's destiny, she told Pash when she first met the boys, it's fate, these are my sons. She and Gavin barely knew each other at the time, and Gavin was trying to adopt them as a single twenty-year-old fighter pilot, but Sera's always been undeterrable once her sights are set.
Erich's younger brother, Theo, says, "I dunno, I think she might," and then, "Ow," because his brother pinches him.
Sera groans, which doesn't inspire Pash to quit fussing. It's just the fake contractions, she claims, she's been having them for two weeks, stop telling me to sit.
Eventually it's Arik who gets her to cave. He wants cuddles, and she's incapable of saying no to him when he calls her Ra-ra. It's so cute that Pash finally understands why commandos say cute and mean dangerous.
Arik curls up on a chair next to her, and rests his head against her side. The concept of the baby in her belly fascinates him. He asks, hopeful, "Baby now?"
"Baby soon, junior, still waiting," she answers. She runs her hand, in its usual compression glove, over his hair. Pash signs for her as she speaks. She tries, but when her hands are hurting it's hard for her to form signs.
"Good thing, too, poor lass, she's still got no name," Pash observes.
"I've got time."
"Careful, that's the mistake my parents made."
We've got time, they thought, we can argue about this some more, they thought, and then Pash and Dena arrived early. They were the boy-child and the girl-child for weeks.
Sera scoffs at his warning. "Right, that was the mistake."
"Lay off, I have great parents."
She points out, "Your childhood stories involve so much fire," with the same tone she uses for telling him things like you can't put lighters in the party favors.
He counters, "That's just a normal Contruic childhood," with the same eyeroll he uses to make arguments like obviously I'm kidding, three-year-olds don't have the motor control to work a lighter.
"Did you remove the Cracken family from your sample data?"
She's his rudest friend, too. Not even Leia comes close, no competition. Honestly.
* * *
T-minus fifteen minutes to party commencement, Page arrives. Bringing with him, he's proud to show them, a gift.
The lumpy paper-and-paste creation could almost resemble a moon, if not for the distinct attempts at rendering an equatorial trench and a composite superlaser dish, which point to a different intended reference.
Page holds it aloft, suspended by a bit of paracord, so as to encourage their admiration of this birthday offering. Pash once saw an Ewok holding up the severed head of a stormtrooper in exactly the same pose.
"It's a piñata," he announces.
"A what," says Pash.
The ensuing explanation is interrupted when Sera, with gasping laughter, pleads, "Please tell me you made that."
Page grins. Technically grins. More accurate to say that he bares his teeth.
"The psychs are onto something, doing a craft really is very soothing."
* * *
The good news is, all the guests show up, proving wrong one of Pash's many worries.
The bad news is, the noise is incredible. A dozen or so children screaming in chorus, their voices uniting in an unending, grating screech like a TIE crashing through atmo. How is it possible for such small lungs to make so much noise.
Zindra and Erich, the two highest-ranking children--due to both superior age and the commission Pash is paying them for their efforts--divvy up their command responsibilities as efficiently as any seasoned squad leads. Zindra wins over the preschoolers with charm and imaginative games and the promise of teaching them swear words; Erich, meanwhile, lurks around the edges of the group, heading off any strays about to wander and ruthlessly nagging his brother into submission.
Zindra leads them through the play area, charging around in their socks, up ladders and down slides and scrambling through tunnels. Arik looks so small, the shortest of the lot. There's no hint so far that the other kids might give Dena cause to kick them. He's not wearing his hearing aids but he's following along, eyes fixed on Zindra's hands as she points the way along with each instruction.
Pash is watching too intently, running an analysis, scanning for threats. It's not necessary, he knows. Arik's preschool classmates aren't about to stab him. The children's parents, chatting among themselves as they supervise, aren't about to open fire, even if they are shooting Pash odd looks out of the corners of their eyes. Maybe they're forming the same sort of judgements Nan threw at him, when he went to visit her. Plenty of political staffers and government-adjacents around, in this district, at least a few of them must know who he is.
And yeah, he knows. He knows he's too intense and too stubborn. He knows that he picks stupid battles, and worries too much, and lives with all those years of war a little too easily. Maybe peace wouldn't be this difficult, if he could lie to himself about the sort of man he is.
"I love this place, it's like boot camp for babies."
That's Page, materializing next to him from nowhere. This is his first leave in awhile, so Pash hasn't seen him since transferring to a desk-bound Intelligence posting. They exchange updates: Page's latest operation went well, no casualties, an almost unprecedented lack of unplanned explosions, considering the Wraiths were involved. Pash spends most of his time at a console, experiencing an unprecedented lack of violence of any kind.
"That sounds terrible," says Page, frankly. "I would kill myself."
During the Rebellion, after Da's promotion to General and before he came to terms with it, Pash spent a fair bit of energy begging his father to stay at his desk. Partly because he was getting too old for fieldwork. Partly because his untraditional approach to fieldwork was liable to make Pash go gray. Spycraft isn't supposed to involve that many exploding bullets. Or any exploding bullets, actually.
Joke's on him. He gets it now. Staying at a desk is one of those nine hells that Corellians are always swearing about.
He replies, "Not an option. Or did you forget."
Page's expression goes faintly puzzled, and then abashed. "Oh, shit. Sorry. I did kind of forget."
Pash waves it off--commando humor, what can you do--but Page continues being concerned at him. What is that. What's that face.
"Why are you giving me eyebrows," he demands, fairly sure he already knows the answer.
Page sighs at him--not a good sign--and asks, "Kid, are you okay?"
Yup, there it is. People keep asking him that.
"Still not a kid," he says, the scrutiny making him cross. "Progressively less a kid, by the day."
"Sure, babe. How's it going with you and--"
"It's not. That's done."
Page blinks at him. What, like he doesn't get it, he said it himself, this is a nightmare for people like them.
"Child, desk job," says Pash. Consciously not gritting his teeth, because he's not a sullen kid. It's a reasonable, adult decision made by a reasonable, adult person whose life is not compatible with the bizarre domesticity of Pash's. "Not what he signed up for."
"Did he say that or did you say that?"
"He did. It's fine." It doesn't matter. He's fine. Let's talk about something else. "Hey, did I tell you my Nan died?"
Page winces, and says, "No shit," in that way commandos do when they mean how many casualties. "How'd he take it."
"He sent Wedge and his liabilities three on some top-secret assignment. Under comms blackout."
Page laughs. A fair reaction. It's so entirely consistent with his father's usual approach to problem solving, Pash isn't even surprised. Nobody would predict this turn of events, but yet, of course.
Page reminisces, with a nostalgic grin, "He sent me on the most batshit mission, after my father kicked it. I was finding new bloodstains for weeks. It was very thoughtful."
"Well, he's fond of you."
"Not-my-real-dad I never had."
* * *
True to her word, Dena doesn't forget about the party. True to Pash's expectations, she does arrive forty-five minutes late. And makes an unholy commotion about it, naturally, it's her sworn duty to be as disruptive as possible at all times. She stomps and huffs in the reception area. Drops a backpack with a worringly metallic clatter. Ignores the many signs telling her to take off her shoes, and strides across the play area still wearing her boots.
She stops in front of Pash. Her hair is loose, hanging in her face, slightly sweaty. When she shoves it back, her forehead and cheeks are flushed.
"Did you run here," Pash asks her.
"No," she lies, and then immediately feigns distraction. "Oh, sweet, who brought the piñata?"
"Page," says Sera. She's sitting on an oversized play cushion, of unknown purpose. She adds--overjoyed, this is her favorite thing he's ever done--"He read about it on the Holonet."
From a few meters away, Page announces, "I made it myself," while doing pushups with Arik perched cross-legged on his back. The children are keeping an enthusiastic but inexpert count. He's bet them he can do a hundred, not realizing it's impossible to win, three-year-olds can't count that high.
"Fifty-three," he prompts them, hopeful that they'll catch on, "Fifty-four--?"
"Fifty-five," Theo contributes. He's old enough that he could easily finish the remaining forty-five numbers and put an end to this, but he seems disinclined to do so.
The next child forgets about fifty-six, and shouts, "Eleven!"
They've circled back around to eleven three times already. Page starts laughing helplessly. Arik giggles, nearly topples, and grabs on tightly to the collar of Page's shirt, which doesn't help Page's situation.
"Twelve!"
"Threeteen."
"Nineteen!"
"Sixteen!"
"Eleven!"
Several of the parents watching this are deeply charmed. A few are very much un-charmed, perhaps due to their spouses' reactions. Dena is vaguely perplexed, but she's not great with kids.
"Mental," she decides, not an untrue statement about Page, and then she turns her attention to Sera. "Have you always been this pregnant?"
Sera says, "For years, at least."
"It doesn't look comfortable."
"Crackens and your keen powers of observation."
"We also throw incredible baby showers. Last one I did, the baby showed up right then and there, it was that good. Pash is doing a shower for you, right?"
"What kind of question is that," says Pash, offended. He threw her party before she married Reina, and her next one after she divorced Reina, and her third one before she married Gavin. Of course he's throwing her a party. "There's gonna be a theme and everything."
Sera gives him the special glare that means no themes. He gives her the stubborn chin that means pick a theme or the theme is fire. She flips him off, ignoring the disapproval of a nearby parent prompted by the gesture.
It's fine, they don't have to re-litigate it now. Go back to the part where you delivered a baby, Dena, what the feck.
* * *
An hour in, an hour to go, and Pash is not hiding.
He's flown against Lusankya and Exsanguinator. He's covered the retreat at the fall of Generis. He saw his first war before he turned ten, picked up a blaster and never looked back. He's not intimidated by a bunch of three-year-olds and their parents.
It's just so damn loud in there, and besides, it can't hurt to count the party favor bags again. And make sure he hasn't forgotten candles for the cake. And step out a side door into a filthy Coruscant alley, where there's only regular city noise and not the noise of children begging Dena to let them color in her tattoos. He helped throw the Empire off this planet, he should get to enjoy the gross alley if he wants.
Of course, he gets two minutes of peace and deep-breathing in the trash-scented air before Dena materializes next to him. Tattoos uncolored and picking through a party favor bag for her favorite candies, because she's a dick.
It could be worse, at least she's not smoking up back here. Or maybe that was her plan. Good thing he's taking a break in this alley, to thwart her.
"I have the leftover candy, you could just ask," he says. It's best to let her believe she's disrupting something. She doesn't need to know he made extras for this specific reason.
She complains, still rummaging through the bag, "You didn't put in those little plastic switchblades. Everyone loves those."
Don't get me started, Dee, you think I didn't try.
"They didn't have any at the party store."
"Fecking Coruscant."
She picks out another candy, then holds the bag out towards him. He grabs one at random. They eat their candies in silent, sullen contemplation of fecking Coruscant and why the feck they live here.
"D'you think you'll ever go home," he asks Dena.
Sera's going back to Chandrila, soon. She hasn't broken the news to him yet, but he's not deluding himself that it's not coming. Three kids, hands she doesn't trust to hold anything worth holding, Gavin on active duty--why the hell would she stay here, when her family's spent all these years waiting for her to come home. When she could finally have that house on the sea she's spent all these years telling him she'd get, when the war ends.
Dena frowns. Deliberately misunderstands the question. "I mean, probably, after this? Got fuck all else to do today, so."
"Dee."
"You can't come over, you don't want your kid in my neighborhood."
He has no idea where she's staying. If she's got a job. In their family they know better than to ask certain questions.
"Don't be fecking stupid," he tells her, and takes another one of her candies to make his point.
She shrugs and hands him the bag. Pulls something from her pocket--he braces for the joint or the pack of cigarettes--but it's just her lighter. She flicks at it, something to do with her hands.
"Tried, didn't I? Spent a couple years plastered to the floor of the Dead Canary and wrecking Mam's life. Wasn't worth it."
You think I believe here's worth it, he almost asks her, because he's seen her expression whenever they walk past the Imperial Palace. Then again, Da will never leave. When she disappears for weeks at a time, it's reassuring, to know he'll at least be on the same planet whenever she resurfaces.
"You're still wrecking Mam's life."
He braces for a shut the fuck up, or maybe something vicious about Mam, but instead she laughs, rough and mirthless. "Not the goal, not that anyone'd believe me." The look he gives her expresses clear enough his opinion of that. She stares down at her boots, frowning. "C'mon, don't pretend you don't know. Da must've told you enough."
Uh-huh, sure, Da walks around volunteering information all of a sudden. Maybe she has been smoking.
"The hell are you talking about."
"The war, dumbass," she snaps, the way she does when she's hiding a wound. She waves a hand at the alley, at the shadows of taller buildings overhead, at herself and him and everything they are. "Fecking Coruscant. All that shit in my debrief. You think it wouldn't wreck her, who I--"
--does she really think.
"Da didn't read it," Pash interrupts.
She whips her head up. Meets his stare, eyes burning, the same eyes he sees in the mirror every damn day.
"What."
"Your debrief. He didn't read the report. He asked Winter to tell him what he needed to know."
Why does she think it was Winter who debriefed her, when Coruscant fell, right in the middle of Tycho's trial. Another legend when it comes to grudges, Winter, she didn't agree to it out of goodwill towards their father.
There are tears in Dena's eyes. Ah, shit, Dee, you moron.
"Did you--did you want him to read it?"
"No! I don't fecking know! Since fecking when does he--"
What, know you? Get over yourself, you're no worse than him.
"Have limits?" Pash suggests. "Guess we found the only one."
"Fuck off, he kicked out Nan for you, you don't get to talk."
He did what now.
What even is this conversation. He came out here for two minutes of silence and fantasizing about smoking a cigarette, not for worldview-disrupting family revelations.
Dena says, "She told Mam to watch out or you'd turn out as bent as him. It was, I dunno, the final nail."
They were still kids, before the war, when Da finally cut ties with her. Pash has always had a general understanding of the reasons, mostly through stories from the cousins and eavesdropping on Aunt Del. They're a difficult sort of people, the Crackens. Da's difficult, so's Nan, and she's mean to boot. Didn't seem too mysterious. 'Course, then he went and visited her, heard firsthand what she had to say to her son.
"How do you know that."
"I overheard her saying it."
Naturally. Always such a little spook.
"You never fecking told me."
"I'm telling you now, shitbrain."
"Because I told you that thing about your debrief?"
She grins at him. During the Rebellion he would've given anything to see her grin at him again, just like this. This is justice, it means. Accept your fate.
"Yes."
She and Mam really are more alike than either of them realize. Pash has no intention of being the one to tell them. Instead he does the sensible thing, and flips her off. She sparks her lighter, threatening. He sticks out his tongue, and then runs back inside before she can set his hair on fire.
It's happened before. Sera gets so appalled, whenever he tells that story.
* * *
The kids are playing a rowdy game of tag when Pash returns to the play area. How they're still going, he's not entirely sure. Maybe Arik will be tired enough at bedtime to fall asleep without raising unholy hell.
He's consulting with Sera about timeline--piñata in a couple minutes, then cake, they're going to get through this thing, it's almost done--when Zindra comes over and slumps down into a chair. She's doing an admirable job as ringleader of the baby circus. Poor kid needs a break.
He hands her a container of water from the cooler, and says, "Stay hydrated, Flight Officer Daine." Technically she resigned her commission when Starfighter Command finally implemented minimum age requirements, but it's hard to let go of old nicknames.
"Yessir, Commander Pash sir," she chirps, with a depth of sarcasm achievable only by a pre-teen with Cubber Daine for a father. She downs half the water in one go, though, so he'll take a little sarcasm. "Hey, why isn't the General here?"
There's a worried scrunch in her forehead. Back in the Rebellion days, when she lived with the fleet, Da was a particular favorite among the many high-ranked military officers in her babysitter rotation. Da, perhaps suspecting a lack of official grandchildren in his future, didn't pass up the opportunity to acquire one by nontraditional means. She was an instrumental contributer in the great campaign of keeping Airen Cracken at his desk, circa years 38-39 GRS.
"Oh, sorry, Zin. He had to go to Contruum for a funeral. My grandmother died."
"Oh shit," she says, very loudly, eyes wide. "The mean one?"
A cluster of nearby parents cast a judgmental look their way. Zindra wilts, in the way of all pre-teens who'd rather die than be looked at.
"Don't worry about it, you know how the civvies get," Sera reassures her.
"Fuck forbid a kid know a naughty word," Pash agrees, glaring at the parents in solidarity. Like Zindra, he too was raised by insurrectionist mechanics, a linguistically rich sort of upbringing. "Who are they to judge."
Zindra scowls. "They have a lot of opinions."
Oh, do they. Tell us more.
Zindra reports: she overheard one of the moms say she'd like to thank Pash for his service. Her freckled nose wrinkles as she repeats this intel, her mouth pressed into a crabby frown that's pure Cubber. No one ever thanks her for her service, she complains.
Sera nearly doubles over in a spray of laughter, and then groans, rubbing her side. Pash blinks at Zindra, and racks his brain for a way to explain without giving Cubber justified reason to kill him.
Stalling, he objects, "We've given you heaps of medals," which is true. She must remember receiving all those awards, including both the whimsically invented Meritorious Service in Passing The Tools, and--the youngest recipient in Starfighter Command history--a genuine Kalidor Crescent. Are these not cherished childhood memories.
Zindra says, not fooled, "I don't think that's what she meant."
Several children run past them, shouting in confusion. They're just barely grasping the rules of tag. Sometimes half of them are It all at once. Sometimes none of them are. Oh, look, now Arik is It, watch him go, so fast, scrambling up a climb-gym in pursuit of his target.
Sera, an angel Pash doesn't deserve, pulls off impressive save, by telling Zindra, "She meant taking him on a date."
Zindra's forehead scrunches again. "Oh, gross."
"Well, don't worry, I don't think she's his type."
Pash turns in her direction, intending to say something clever about her type and the two wedding parties he's thrown her. What he ends up saying is, "Oh, shit," while lunging towards the climb-gym. He lands on his back next to it as Arik falls off, right in time for his son to drop heavily onto his chest.
"Ow," he wheezes, and then Arik bursts into stunned tears.
Page comes over to help them up, as quickly as he can with a toddler hanging from each arm and another clinging to his ankle.
"He's okay, just scared--I'm just gonna take him--"
He jerks his head in the direction of the side room where the cake's set up. It's quiet in there, Arik can catch his breath without an audience. Page waves him off. Sera, uncomfortably rising to her feet--that was definitely another groan, Faleur, I'm onto you--announces that it's time to set up the piñata, covering their retreat.
Arik's still bawling, Pash whispering the usual reassurances as he closes the door behind them. That was scary, yeah, I've got you. You're safe, I've got you. Safe is awkward to sign with one hand, but he's got practice with it, after so many nights of waking up with Arik's bad dreams.
He made the same kind of promises when Arik was just a baby--yeah, sure, he'd be holdfather, honored to, why not. You've got a great mam, kiddo, he said--the way everyone says stupid sentimental things to babies--we're all gonna take great care of you. Not sure about the name, you let me know if you wanna change it and I'll help out, what's a holdfather for. I've got you.
That's what he couldn't stop thinking about, when Sera called him last year and said come get Arik. How he'd held the kid as a baby and promised I've got you, and failed them so awfully, him and his mother both. Always deployed, and never comming enough, and they were alone. Maybe if Pash had been better--maybe if he hadn't gotten Arik's father killed at Generis, before he was even born--maybe then Arik's mother wouldn't've eaten her gun.
"Pa," Arik sniffles. He rubs at his eyes, swiping tears across his face. Pash, with no tissues at hand, wipes his cheeks with the cuff of his shirt.
Safe, Pash reminds him, and he nods bravely, lip wobbling.
Safe. What a fucking thought. Safe is boring. Cowardly. An insult that A-wing pilots throw around when they're talking shit to the guys in X-wings and Y-wings, asking if they're scared to go fast. He doesn't want a life that's safe. He'd give anything to go back to his old one.
Except it's not a question of anything, is it. Just one thing, a promise he's too stubborn to let go, even if it means breaking all the others.
Arik squirms. Signs, play. He's ready to head back out there.
"Alright, boy-child, play," he agrees. "Let's go take down a Death Star."
He's not sure how to sign Death Star. Wedge probably knows. Pash'll ask when the big secret comms-blackout mission is over, if he hasn't gone to prison for assassinating the head of NRI.
* * *
Turns out that Page has made a critical error in his enthusiastic but inexpert paper-and-pasting. He forgot to include a design flaw. This might be the most indestructible Death Star ever built.
"I guess his father never taught him to make fireworks," says Dena, as they watch Page whack at the piñata, the kids cheering at each ineffective swing.
"Definitely not. His father was a piece of work." Another swing. The Death Star twists and whips around perilously on its paracord, but Page is the one who hung it up on the monkey bars, so there's very little chance of the knots coming loose.
"We need new tactics," Page announces. He rests the bat on his shoulder and surveys the rapt faces of his baby commando squad. "Ideas, team?"
"Just shoot it," Pash offers, from across the room.
"Ooh, yes," says Dena. "You've got a holdout on you, right, Page?"
Page calls back, offended, "What kind of question is that?", but Sera intervenes, "No live fire at the birthday party," because she's got no sense of humor.
Theo, a very pragmatic sort of seven-year-old, says, "Why don't we stab it."
"Oh, good idea," says Erich, lighting up. He promptly pulls out a pocket knife.
The parents react predictably to this. Sera groans, but it's difficult to tell whether it's knife-related, or another fake contraction. Page stares at him, horrified.
"Where did you learn that grip," he says. "Give it here, no more knives until I teach you to hold it right."
"Get your own," says Erich, pulling back, like he expects Page to lunge and manually disarm him. The knife's trajectory as he makes this motion could best be described as alarming.
Page, making an executive decision, stops fucking around.
"Put it away, soldier," he tells Erich, with a no-nonsense look very similar to one of Da's. Then he grabs the piñata and slices the bottom open, with his own knife, he already has one, Erich. Candy pours out onto the floor. He flicks a piece off his arm before making the knife disappear back to the nowhere it materialized from.
He steps back to let the kids swarm the candy, shaking his head as he walks over and collapses next to Sera.
"Holy hells," he says. "You couldn't pay me to do this every day."
"I'd rather shove a pos-flow detonator into a Garris socket," Dena agrees.
Sera says, "You do know parenting's not a paid gig, right."
Someone should do something about that. What did they all overthrow the government for, anyway.
* * *
The door closes behind the last of the guest-children, their half-amused, half-appalled parents properly thanked and ushered away. Zindra and Erich, now off-duty, are demolishing the remaining cake, while Theo and Arik start recon on the pile of presents in the corner. Dena even agrees to help clean up, sort of. If the definition of help includes holding open a garbage bag, while Pash and Page do the actual picking-up.
Then Sera says, abruptly, "Arik," and just from the way she says it, he knows.
He meets her gaze across the room. Her eyes are wide, and pained, and scared. It's too early. Gavin's not here. They're going to the hospital, ready or not.
"Page," he says.
Page replies, "Erich and Theo are with me. Dena, you've got Arik. I'll drop Zin off at home on the way out."
Good man.
* * *
It could still be the fake ones, Sera says, on the way to the hospital. Pash weaves the speeder by reflex through the nine hells of Coruscant traffic, and replies, maybe. The sounds she's making through gritted teeth, the waves of tension rolling across her face at shorter and shorter intervals, aren't convincing him, but he loves her, so he says, maybe.
In the delivery room, this pretense disappears almost immediately. It only takes a quick examination for the doctor to settle the sheet over Sera's legs and announce, well, time to have a baby.
Attended by a parade of nurses, Sera takes off her compression gloves, reaches for Pash's hand. Says, "Don't you dare let go."
He pulled her out of her burning A-wing, at the end of her last dogfight, while her flight gloves melted into her hands. Bacta treatments made the skin heal smoothly, with hardly any scar tissue, but the nerves underneath are still on fire more often than not.
He takes her hand, and squeezes. Grins at her. "When do I ever."
And after, as Sera sleeps, he sits next to brand-new Semni Darklighter in her incubator, her hand only tiny on his offered finger. Sera chose the name on the spot, reasoning, I've never met a Semni before.
A nurse, coming by to check on her, says, "Are you dad, then?"
"Hell, no, just an uncle. Mine's at home." Her paper-delicate eyelids droop, as her face goes yawning and sleepy. Fair play, girl-child, it's been a long day. "Is she going to be okay?"
It's a stupid question, but he can't help asking it.
The nurse smiles. "I think we've got a stubborn one on our hands."
Her mother's daughter, then. Good lass.
*
FIN
*
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