The Park on Sunday morning - picnic.

[hernando_fuentes]

The puddle of children had woken in the morning and asked to go to the park. After feeding them - and shooing the teenager out of his kitchen so he could have the privilege of making breakfast - Hernando walked them all to the park.

The children knew the way and it wasn't that Hernando was any sort of helicopter parent except yes, perhaps today a little bit, he was. Sparkle was making a quick dash into town to put a 'closed today on account of children' sign on the door of his store but planned to join them later.

Hernando had packed an entire antique picnic basket full of food and snacks and put Quinn to work hauling a rolling cooler behind them. The children had acted as if this were a usual thing and that made Hernando smile a bit. Abney was wearing the folded picnic blanket as a superhero cape and was running ahead with her arms out, making zooming plane noises.

There was way more food than the children would need, even if one was a growing teenager. To his rueful chagrin, Hernando found that the store had decided to help when he spread the blanket out and began to unpack. The basket never seemed to empty. He set out only enough plates of sandwiches and baskets of fruit for the moment and let the children go run. There were thermoses of tea and sodas and waters in the cooler as well.

Once free of her superhero cape, Abney lead the way to the playground and commenced burning off the energy. Quinn was more interested in reading a book but he, too, occasionally joined his sister in playing.

[Open park with picnic food! Come let the kids play together!]

Comments

[what_dad_was_like]

"And I realized that literally everyone is family with my father except me?" Jacen might have kicked a toe against a step on the way up, yes. "That kind of threw a hydrospanner in the whole 'family bonding time' plan, yeah. I can't, right now. I'm too..."

Something. He wasn't sure what. But it wasn't great.

[forever_family]

"He doesn't know Abney or me any more than you do, Jacen," Quinn pointed out, "His face was all over confusion when she said it and then he didn't want to hurt her feelings when she was about to cry all over him. I don't think he's any more used to it than you are."

He shrugged, "You're not our Jacen, but you're still Jacen, so..uh.. if you want it, you're still our cousin."

Quinn wasn't as good as Abney at adopting people but he was trying anyway.

[what_dad_was_like]

"I mean, it's not... not entirely about who he knows. You have him. Everyone here has him. And I have... I have a mural Sabine painted, so at least I know what he looked like before he died. And a charm on Mom's kalikori. And his stupid face and his stupid hair and his stupid ears and sometimes Mom sees me in him and flinches inside."

He had, 'my father,' and they had 'Uncle Kanan.'

Jacen swallowed.

"Not... not that I'm... saying no. You know? It's just..."

He was green with envy. More green than usual, anyway.

[forever_family]

Quinn leaned over and bumped shoulders. "I get it. I used to feel that way about other kids who had parents, when I didn't. I'm just sayin'. We're here, you know? If you want people of your own."

[what_dad_was_like]

Jacen chewed on his lip a little.

"I mean... it isn't that I don't have people," he hedged. "I've got Mom and Chop. And sometimes Sabine and Zeb and Alexsandr. Wedge even visits sometimes, or we go to Ryloth..."

Which... was always A Thing. A complicated Thing.

He sighed as he stopped in front of the door to the roof.

"But it'd be nice to at least have people my age." A pause. "People who get it."

[forever_family]

Quinn nodded, "So we make it happen. If you get the chance, you come back and we do the same." He thought about it for a second, "Did Kanan give you a phone?"

[what_dad_was_like]

Jacen shook his head a little.

"Nope." A pause. "Should I get one?"

[forever_family]

"Yeah.. wait, hold up. We're on Aunt Jack's floor," Quinn said, "If she still lives here."

He walked over to one of the apartments and scrutinized the doorjam for a moment before smirking. "She definitely still lives here." He reached up and carefully removed something that looked like a tiny, clear thread, setting it aside.

Out came his wallet and out came a lockpick and wrench. It took him less than a minute to get the door opened. Pushed it carefully and took a look inside just to make sure. Yup. Definitely Jack's place. Same couch. Same dartboard with a Cerberus logo and a bunch of throwing knives sticking out of it. He snickered and headed inside, going right to a cabinet in the kitchen. A quick rummage around and he found what he wanted - her stash of burner phones. They were cheap and basically disposable smartphones but they had standard parts and chargers, which was what he wanted. These came with a SIM card included, which was good since he couldn't exactly stop to go buy one right at the moment.

Quinn carefully put everything back and closed back up, returning to the hall, closing and locking the door as well as resetting the little hairlike strand. "Got one. Aunt Jack keeps a stash. She, uh, is a little hard on phones."

She threw them at the wall or into the ocean with frequency. "I can mess with it while you're flying."

[what_dad_was_like]

Jacen paused a moment to lean in and kind of squint at that thread.

Huh.

"Yeah," he replied, smiling crookedly as he straightened up again. "That sounds like a plan. Onward to the Escape, then?"

Which was the best ship ever and was going to be his someday anyway, so he might as well take it for a joyride today, right?

[forever_family]

Quinn saw the glance and huffed a laugh. "She taught me that when I was twelve. It was a way to tell if my sister'd been rummaging through my room while I was out. Jack's.. a little on the paranoid side."

He grinned, bouncing a little on his toes, "One more flight of stairs! To the roof!"

[what_dad_was_like]

"To the roof," Jacen agreed, breaking into a bright smile. "And then to the stars!"

A brief pause.

"Or at least to the junk."

Which was far closer than the stars. Easier on fuel.

[forever_family]

"Definitely at least to the junk," Quinn laughed, taking the last few steps two at a time. "Where we can at the very least get a really good view of the stars!"

He thought of something. "Ghost is at the scrapyard, right? Not on the roof right now?"

[what_dad_was_like]

Jacen gave a little nod of confirmation.

"That's where Mom keeps her docked, yeah," Jacen agreed. "She says it's too big for this roof, but if that other freighter can sit up here, I don't know why the Ghost has to sit with the garbage."

He was looking at you, Ebon Hawk.

[forever_family]

Quinn huffed a laugh, "Can't have Ghost on the roof when the Hawk's there. Everyone's afraid T3 and Chopper will breed. I was asking to make sure Chopper wasn't on the roof. He's kind of a snitch sometimes. I do not need a shock in the ass if he's in one of his moods. He does not like me."

[what_dad_was_like]

"Really?" Jacen couldn't help but laugh a little. "I mean, I've never had a problem with him."

Jacen, buddy. Chop helped raise you.

[forever_family]

"Really," Quinn grinned at him, "I think he thinks I'm a bad influence or something."

Quinn..buddy.. you were.

[what_dad_was_like]

They were about to steal a starship because Jacen had a case of the sadness. That was totally a worthy cause, darn it.

And click, click. The lock to the roof was unlocked, and Jacen was smirking and holding the door for Quinn.

"What, Chopper does? But he's the one who sets the bar for bad influences!"

[forever_family]

Quinn smirked a little, "Not where I'm from, man. Our Jace taught me how to say 'kark off you bucket of rusty bolts' when we were like ten and told me it was how you say 'hello how are you doing Chopper' in binary. You can imagine how well that went over."

And then he laughed. "And how much better it went over when I figured out which bits and bleeps were 'kark off' and used it around your mom because for some reason I forgot that of course she'd speak binary.."

It had not gone well. It was funny now, but Hera's mom-voice was legendary.

[what_dad_was_like]

Jaen paused for a moment to picture that.

...

"How are you not grounded for life? I know she's not your Mom or anything, but when she gets in that mood, she could say 'your grounded' to a gundark and it would let its ears droop in shame while it went retreating to its room."

[forever_family]

"I think I got a pass because I was running away from a gremlin at the time," Quinn mused, "I wasn't yelling it at a person. I still got the lecture and she called my parents and everyone wanted to know where I learned that."

He snickered, "I blamed Aunt Jack for the words and Scout Guides for the binary. Poor Jack. She got the blame for most of our bad language and she'd just shrug."

Quinn clambered into the Escape and flopped into the secondary seat. There was never any question who was going to pilot this ship.

[what_dad_was_like]

"Here's where I ask the stupid question," Jacen noted, flopping into the pilot's seat, himself. "You know, the 'what's a gremlin,' question?"

He hunkered in and immediately started running ship diagnostics. The fuel supply was full up, that was good. Everything with moving parts was checking out...

[forever_family]

"That's not stupid," Quinn assured him, "You've only been here twice, you weren't to know. They're little creatures, green, scaly. Native to the island, they mostly hide and try to stay out of the way but every so often someone'll bother one and get bitten. Their bites are hallucinogenic and it's pretty immediate. Lasts a day or so and it's not fatal but it can get pretty embarrassing. The last time I got bitten, I thought I was a video game character and kept running around going 'wakka wakka wakka'. My dads got it on video." He grimaced.

Then he laughed a little and confided, "This one was chasing me because Jacen and I had both been given slingshots and I was out with mine, saw it and tried to hit it with a paint pellet. Those little suckers can run fast when they want to. I thought I'd be able to lose it, running through the scrapyard. Nooooot so much."

[what_dad_was_like]

"But... did it get you?"

Or did Hera getting him scare the gremlin off?

[forever_family]

Quinn laughed, "No, man. The tone of your mom's voice when she snapped 'Quinn!' - the gremlin took off in another direction."

Nobody argued with Hera when she got that tone.

[what_dad_was_like]

See Jacen. See Jacen smiling a big dumb proud smile at that as he powered up the Escape's engines.

"That," he said, sounding quite pleased, "is my mom."