Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jango Fett, Ven’alor, bounty hunter, and seasoned ori’ramikad, stands in the middle of the Keldabe Market, utterly defeated. His beskar’gam gleams in the midday sun, imposing as ever, and he can only be thankful that it hides the look on his face. 

This is not how he imagined the day would go. 

Jango generally considers himself to be a competent man. Accomplished, even.

Today, his steady spiral into the abyss of parental inadequacy has him reevaluating that assessment.

Next to him, Aurora—his newly adopted ad who has somehow dismantled his ego in less than two weeks—squints at the label of yet another bottle of hair serum, her lips pursed in a way that could either signal deep concentration or barely concealed judgment.

While she spent a week recovering in the medbay, Jango and Myles had done their best to make sure their apartment was ready for when they were finally able to take her home. They’d asked about her favorite foods. Stocked up on comfortable bedding. Set up separate bedrooms after her polite but firm freak-out over the idea of sharing their traditional karyai sleeping arrangement. Bought just about anything they could think of that she might need or want. They even asked her for preferences, which she answered with the decisiveness of someone picking between identical shades of paint.

They wanted to make sure she was comfortable in their home, and by the time she was discharged, they’d thought they’d nailed it.

That illusion shattered on Aurora’s first night back when she ran a hand over her hair, sighed dramatically, and declared it was in a "tragic state." Then she looked at their soap options—the ones they’d carefully selected based on glowing reviews and recommendations for her hair type—and simply said, “This isn’t going to work for me.”

He’d exchanged a silent glance with his riduur, who shrugged helplessly. Jango swore then and there he’d figure this out.

That’s how he found himself here, following Aurora through the Keldabe Market in a desperate attempt to find something that meets her standards.

“Too much sulfite,” Aurora mutters, setting down a bottle at the first stall.

“Too much?” Jango echoes. He’s never thought about soap beyond the ‘does it get the blood off’ threshold, but clearly, she has her own criteria.

“Too much,” she confirms.

He nods along like he shares her concerns.

He doesn’t.

He’s not even sure what a sulfite is.

At the next stall, she examines the labels like she’s translating ancient runes, grumbling about naming conventions, undisclosed ingredient ratios, and how there must be no regulatory bureaucracy if things are this inconsistent. Jango stands next to her, doing his best to look like he’s absorbing all of this valuable information.

He is not.

By the third, she’s asking the vendor about chemical compositions. At the clearly unsatisfactory response, she frowns, sets the bottle back down, and walks away without another word. Jango exchanges a sympathetic glance with the vendor before jogging after her. 

“We’ve got eight kinds of soap at home,” he tries, his voice just shy of pleading. They’d bought eight. That has to count for something.

“And none of them are remotely acceptable,” she replies, already studying a new label.

Jango bites back a sigh and follows her. The next stall boasts shelves crammed with hair products that smell like anything from overripe fruit to harsh chemicals. Aurora picks up a bottle, squints at the label, and mutters something under her breath. He’s given up trying to decipher those mutterings.

She turns to the vendor, a portly woman with a smile that’s almost sincere.

“Do you have the chemical breakdown of this?” Aurora asks like this is a perfectly normal question for an adiik to be asking.

The vendor blinks and proceeds to recite the ingredient list.

Jango appreciates that they’re trying to indulge her, but he already knows that’s not going to help.

Aurora sighs like she’s just been gravely disappointed. “I see.” She places the bottle back. 

By mid-afternoon, Jango is convinced they’ve visited every stall in the market. Twice. He’s also fairly sure Aurora has memorized the chemical composition of half the galaxy’s shampoos. She hasn’t bought a single thing.

"How about this one?" he offers, holding up yet another bottle of hair tonic that he selects at random. The vendor eagerly thrusts a sample toward them. "Smells like starflowers."

Aurora barely spares it a glance. "Too acidic," she mutters before turning to inspect the next option.

And so the day goes.

Stall after stall. Product after product. She sniffs, she squints, she zones out like she’s running chemical formulas in her head, and then she moves on. Jango finds himself silently wondering if there’s a manual for raising a genius teenager who does things like…this as he follows behind her.

“Zinc pyrithione,” she mutters.

Jango studies her. That sounded more surprised than derisive. Maybe they’re getting somewhere. “Is that... good?”

She zones out again, then she shakes her head. “Not in this formula.”

Jango nods solemnly, pretending he understands what that means. “Got it. Next stall.”

He follows her, trying not to sigh too loudly. He’s been doing that a lot today—following her. It’s almost impressive how much effort she’s putting into this. At first, it was even cute.

But it’s been six hours. Six. Hours.

Aurora approaches yet another vendor, her fingers skimming over a shelf of oils and creams. She sniffs one bottle and recoils like it’s poison. Jango feels his last shred of hope die.

He’d thought this would be simple. Go to the market. Buy soap. Maybe pick up a few other things. But no—he can’t even provide his new daughter with the right shampoo. What kind of buir is he?

By the time they get home, empty-handed, Jango feels like he’s failed a mission. As they step into the apartment, the smell of something cooking greets them, and Myles looks up from the kitchen.

“Hey, you two,” Myles greets, his easy smile faltering slightly at the sight of their defeated faces. “Rough day?”

Aurora kicks off her boots. “We didn’t find anything.”

Jango follows her lead, shaking his head as he starts shedding his armor. “Nothing. She didn’t like any of it.” He hesitates, looking at Aurora, and then asks, “What... exactly were you looking for? We could try the holonet—order something off-world.”

Aurora frowns briefly, thinking. Then she brightens. “Actually, can someone take me to a grocery store tomorrow?”

“A grocery store?” Myles asks, his voice carrying the same confusion Jango feels. “Like... for food?”

Aurora nods, completely serious. “Yes. Fruits, vegetables, that kind of thing.”

Jango exchanges a confused glance with Myles, who looks just as baffled as he feels. “We’ve got food here,” he points out. “We stocked up—”

She rolls her eyes. “Not to eat. For my hair.”

Jango squints at her. “Are you making a salad for your hair?”

“Not exactly. I just need to pick up a few things. Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”

Something tells Jango he shouldn’t trust that confident grin at all.

“Alright,” Myles says cautiously. “One of us can take you in the morning.”

Before Jango can question her further, Aurora beams at him, the first genuine smile they’ve seen from her all day. “Thanks,” she says sweetly. “I’ll do some research tonight.” 

Then, just like that, she vanishes into her room.

Jango stares after her, then turns to Myles. “Research? For what ?”

Myles shrugs, smirking. “Knowing her? Probably how to turn fruit into some kind of explosive. I like her initiative.”

Jango groans and collapses onto the nearest chair. “I don’t know. And I don’t think I want to know. But you’re taking her tomorrow. And if she blows up the kitchen, I’m blaming you.”

Myles grins, clearly relishing Jango’s misery. “Noted.”

Jaster Mereel prides himself on his composure. He’s dealt with political intrigue, a civil war, and the monumental task of raising Jango Fett. It's made him damn near unshakable. Yet, sitting behind his desk watching his fully grown ad pace back and forth, wringing his hands over hair products, he’s struggling.

“What if we have to import something? She’s from a primitive world, Jaster. Their hair care solutions could be made from... I don’t know, tree sap or sand! It might not even exist out here. Should we call in a professional? Or order a custom formula from the holonet?”

Jaster leans forward, resting his chin on a gloved hand and watching his ad spin himself into a frenzy. His ad is not often flustered, not since the days when he’d turn into a blushing, stuttering mess every time he tried talking to Myles. (Those holos, safely stored in Jaster’s private collection, are treasures he fully intends to embarrass Jango with someday. Maybe he’ll share them with Aurora, too. She’d enjoy them.)

This rare display of domestic panic is too entertaining, and though he won’t risk saying so out loud, endearing. He’s not sure he should be this amused watching his ad stress over his new bu’ad’s hair, but since the feeling is mixed with a decent amount of pride, he figures it’s okay.

“Jan’ika,” Jaster finally cuts in, smirking. “Have you considered simply asking her what she needs and taking it from there?”

“I did!” Jango groans, throwing his hands in the air and plopping into the seat across from him. “You know what she said? ‘Can we go to a grocery store?’ A grocery store, Buir. Myles took her this morning, but why does hair need groceries?”

Jaster blinks. "I have no idea."

"Exactly!" Jango groans again, running a hand down his face. "And what if we can’t get what she needs here? What if we’re—"

Jaster cuts him off with a chuckle. "You’re spiraling over soap, Jan’ika. Relax. If it’s that complicated, she’ll figure it out. She seems resourceful."

That, it turns out, is an understatement.

As if on cue, the door to Jaster’s office creaks open, and Myles steps in, struggling under the weight of several bags filled with what can only be described as confusion incarnate. Fruits, vegetables, dried herbs, and an alarming amount of glassware peek out from the tops of the bags.

Aurora strolls in behind him, looking far too pleased with herself. It’s a look he will later come to fear. For now, he thinks she’s adorable.

Jaster calmly raises an eyebrow. “I have to ask, ad’ika. What exactly are you planning to do with a farmer’s market and an armory of beakers?”

Aurora beams at him, as though this all makes perfect sense. “I couldn’t find anything at the market that would work, so I researched foods with the compounds I need. It was much easier to find the exact chemical makeup of produce then whatever passes as haircare here. I’m going to make the products myself.”

Jaster leans forward, impressed despite himself. “You’re telling me you’re going to… cook your hair products?”

Aurora laughs. “Not cook. Synthesize.”

Jaster gives her a long, skeptical look, but he can’t help enjoying how her eyes light up. She’s already going a bit stir crazy and she’s been on light duty for a day. Maybe this will be a good project to distract her. 

“Are you secretly a chemist, bu’ad ?” he asks, half-teasing.

She shrugs nonchalantly. “I dabble.”

By the next day, the palace air is filled with the acrid smell of burning… something , and occasional pops and bangs echo through the stone halls.

Jaster finds himself standing outside one of the lower-level storage rooms, which now has an ominous scorch mark on the door and a faint trail of smoke curling from under the frame.

"She needed space," Myles mutters beside him. "And ventilation."

With a sigh, Jaster opens the door cautiously.

‘Dabble,’ it turns out, is Aurora-speak for turning a storage room into a makeshift lab. 

The room is a scene of organized chaos. Fruits and vegetables are juiced, mashed, and boiled down into suspicious-looking pastes. Tubes and flasks bubble ominously, connected in an array of precarious, improvised plumbing. Aurora, wearing oversized safety goggles, hums cheerfully as she stirs a glowing concoction in a glass apparatus that looks ready to shatter.

Jaster pulls his buy’ce on. He’s not taking chances.

He stands in the doorway, arms crossed, taking in the sight. “Ror’ika,” he says, “why does it smell like you’re trying to set the palace on fire?”

Aurora waves him off, not looking up from her work. “It’s fine. Just a little combustion. Completely controlled.”

Jaster eyes the scorch marks on the walls. “Controlled. Sure.”

She glances up, exasperated. “Don’t worry. Once I have a proper lab, I promise I won’t blow anything up.”

(He later learns that what she means by that is that she won’t blow anything up in her lab. All other spaces are apparently fair game. But at the present moment, he remains blissfully unaware.)

Jaster raises an eyebrow. “Are you expecting to be given a proper lab?” he asks carefully.

“Not yet,” she responds before returning her attention to her chemical concoction.

That’s not reassuring at all.

“When you say ‘proper lab,’ you mean…?”

She shrugs, stirring her mixture with a practiced hand. “A better-equipped space where I can streamline processes. Better airflow, proper containment units, a centrifuge. Oh, and a vacuum desiccator for solvent removal—mine’s a little jury-rigged at the moment. But really, nothing major. For the chemical components anyway. I’ll need a properly sterilized bio-cabinet for other…stuff.”

Jaster exhales through his nose. “Uh-huh. And how’s the… synthesis going, ad’ika?”

“Great! I’m almost done with the shampoo base. I just need to balance the pH and refine the emulsion stability. I’ve got some chelating agents to deal with water hardness, and I’m adjusting the surfactant concentration so it won’t strip natural oils. Oh, and I’m testing a modified lipid enhancer for moisture retention. It’s going to be perfect! Probably. The smell will dissipate. Eventually. And it’s only mildly volatile.”

“Mildly what?”

“It’s fine,” she says breezily. “It’s just an exothermic reaction during phase separation. Totally normal!”

Jaster exchanges a long, silent glance with Myles, who’s wisely stayed outside the danger zone.

“That’s… reassuring,” he says, flatly. “Though judging by the charred ceiling, your definition of ‘normal’ might need a review.”

Aurora looks entirely unapologetic. “I’ve been known to have a liberal definition of the term ‘safety hazard’.”

Jaster gets the feeling that’s an understatement.

"Right," he says slowly. "I’m going to regret asking this, but… when you said you ‘dabbled,’ how much experience were we talking about?”

“Oh, just the basics,” she replies casually, then launches into a terrifyingly detailed list. “You know, organic and inorganic compound synthesis, catalytic reactions, chelation processes, polymerization techniques, controlled distillations, colloidal systems, enzymatic activity modulation, pH buffering, thermochemical reaction engineering, and a bit of chromatography for separations. Oh, and I’ve done some limited work with aerosol dynamics and emulsifier stability tests. Nothing too advanced, though.”

“Nothing too advanced,” he repeats slowly. Behind him, Myles lets out a strangled laugh.

Aurora nods, her expression serious. “Right. I haven’t had access to high-performance liquid chromatography yet, so my refinement process is slightly inefficient. But I make do.”

Jaster stares at her, trying to decide whether he’s impressed, terrified, or both. “You’re going to be the death of me, bu’ad. ”

She grins. “Only if you’re standing too close during testing.”

By the time Aurora triumphantly presents four jars of her homemade hair solutions, the lowest-level storage room is thoroughly compromised. Scorch marks streak the walls, the ventilation system looks like it’s barely holding together, and the faint smell of burned… something… lingers in the air. Jaster is still trying to understand how a hair-care experiment managed to violate at least six fire codes and what he’s pretty sure is a Mandalorian ordinance on hazardous materials.

Later, as he sips a well-earned caf in his office, he chuckles to himself. Aurora might be the most chaotic addition to the palace he’s ever seen, but watching her work—fearless, focused, and impossibly brilliant—fills him with pride.

And maybe a touch of dread.

Not even a month later, she manages to leverage him into signing off on her request for a private lab. Complete with reinforced walls, industrial-grade ventilation, and a generous safety radius. She’s very particular about who gets access, so he rarely knows what’s going on inside.

It’s probably better that way.

Chapter Text

Aurora will admit—grudgingly and under duress—that she doesn’t like being confronted with her own limitations. Her solution is simple: obliterate her weaknesses by sheer force of will. Weakness turns into skill. Problem solved.

This approach has served her well in life. She's stubborn—to a fault, some might say, though she’d vehemently disagree—and relentless. And she's no quitter.

That being said, looking at the current state of the kitchen, it might be time to consider that baking just isn't in the cards for her.

You might be wondering why she’s trying her hand at baking. Good question. The short answer is sheer boredom. The long answer is Jango. If there’s one thing she knows about her parent, it’s that he has a sweet tooth. Surely giving him some cookies baked with love (okay, so maybe at this point they’re being baked with more spite than love, but she doubts he’ll be able to taste the difference) will go further than another round of mandatory family therapy.

How hard can baking be, anyway? She has plenty of chemistry experience. Baking is just edible chemistry. It even comes with instructions.

Yeah, except those instructions are lying liars who lie.

They give you a literal step-by-step manual, complete with pretty pictures that make you hungry before you even begin and taunt you the entire time you're at it. Only for the final product to look more like a lump of coal than the fluffy cookies that picture promised.

The instructions have to be lying to her. Because she’s perfectly capable of following instructions, thank you very much. It's just that at some point between step 8 and 9 the kitchen got a little...charred.

And at some other point, everything got covered in flour. Literally everything—her entire person, counters, cabinets, and somehow, the ceiling.

She’s not exactly sure when that one happened.

The smell of burnt sugar mingles with something she’s pretty sure is melting plastic. Aurora waves her hand in front of her face, squinting at the first batch of cookies cooling on the counter in front of her. They’re less “golden brown” and more “charcoal briquette.”

Which is fine. Totally fine. That’s why she had a backup plan.

The space-oven beeps cheerfully behind her, completely unaware of the chaos it has caused. She turns slowly, giving it a death glare. The second batch is in there. Her redemption arc.

Cracking open the space oven, she peers inside to check on the tray of cookies currently holding all of her hopes and dreams. The cookies themselves are… molten. Lava-like. Bubbling. Seething like they have a personal vendetta against her.

That’s fine. She can handle this. All she has to do is remove the tray before—

A blob of molten cookie dough drips onto the heating element. It sizzles ominously, then bursts into flames.

—before that. Great.

Okay, not ideal, but still manageable.

The fire spreads. Fast. Like it’s showing off.

It’s okay. Totally okay. She has an hour before her parents get home. That’s more than enough time to fix this.

Then the universe decides to up the difficulty setting. Myles strolls in, caf cup in hand, and comes to an abrupt stop, surveying the disaster work in progress.

She just sort of stands there, her hands hovering uselessly near the oven, unsure what the protocol is for this situation.

“Well,” he says, taking a slow sip before setting the cup on the flour-coated counter. “This is a thing that’s happening.”

She scowls, brushing flour off her hands. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

Instead of leaving, Myles unclips his helmet from his belt. He’s going to try and immortalize this moment, isn’t he?

She narrows her eyes. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh, I definitely would.”

“If you’re going to take a picture, I want it in writing that you will never show it to Luka.”

Myles briefly considers this, then shrugs, which she takes as acquiescence. She’ll hunt him down for his signature later. She’s not taking chances.

Then she smiles, her trademark ‘everything is fine, and nothing is on fire’ smile. Because everything is fine, and if you give her a few minutes, nothing will be on fire either. She has this all perfectly under control. 

“Okay, you got your pic. Now shoo, I’m busy,” she says, waving him off.

He still doesn’t leave. Instead, he taps something on his vambrace, and a nozzle pops out.

She frowns. “I thought that was a flamethrower.”

“It was.” He grins. “I had it modified after the voice-activated thermal detonator incident.”

“Ah.”

She can’t argue. The whole "detonators rigged to go off when someone says ‘pass the salt’" thing was, in hindsight, a bit of a fire hazard. But in her defense, the look on Jango’s face had been priceless.

Myles sprays the flames with foam, and the fire dies with a pathetic hiss, leaving her with a smoldering mess of ash and goo. “There. Problem solved.”

She gives her parent a betrayed look. “You ruined my cookies,” she says dramatically, throwing in a pout for good measure.

Myles looks like he’s unsure whether to laugh, comfort her, or point out that she’d done a fantastic job of ruining them herself long before he even entered the equation.

“Now I have to start all over!” she declares, wobbling her lower lip like a champ.

“Do, uh, do you want help?” Myles asks tentatively, though he still looks suspiciously close to laughing.

Bastard.

Aurora sighs. “No. I can do this myself.”

She can. Third time‘s a charm, right?

She shoos him until he’s all the way out of the kitchen. He lingers just long enough to snap another holo—because he’s the worst —before finally retreating.

Left alone with the smoldering wreckage of her culinary ambitions, she sighs. Surely there’s some way to salvage this. Right? Maybe if she scrapes off the burnt parts of the first batch… 

Let’s call that Plan B.

Jaster leans forward, squinting at the plate Aurora just set on the table. The cookies—if that’s what they are—look like something a goran might hammer out of molten beskar. His lips twitch, but he keeps the grin at bay. Barely.

He glances at his son-in-law, who’s suddenly very interested in refolding his napkin, and then at his son, who is tilting his head at the cookies like he’s trying to decipher an ancient text.

“Well, look at that,” Jaster says, his voice warm with the kind of affection that only comes with years of experience in not crushing someone’s dreams. “You really… made something.”

Aurora plants her hands on her hips, her eyes narrowing dangerously. “They’re cookies.”

“Are they, though?” he says, picking one up. It’s heavier than he expects, with the density of a small brick. He taps it lightly against the plate. The resulting thunk is loud enough to make Jango choke on his water.

“They’re just crunchy,” Aurora says defensively.

Jaster bites the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. She’s so earnest, it’s almost painfully adorable.

But he doesn’t want to hurt her feelings or discourage her, so he takes a careful bite. The cookie cracks loudly, almost like chewing on gravel. His teeth meet unexpected resistance, and he has to chew slowly, thoughtfully, to avoid damaging a molar. The flavor is… well, it’s chocolate-adjacent, but mostly it tastes like something went horribly wrong between steps 8 and 9.

“Not bad,” he says after swallowing. He even smiles, because really, she tried.

Myles sits back in his chair, holding a cookie between two fingers like it might explode if handled incorrectly. “You know,” he says, tilting it side to side, “I think I saw a rock formation like this on Concordia once. Very… solid. Good craftsmanship.”

“Careful,” Jango adds, smirking as he eyes the plate. “You don’t want to drop one on your foot. Might break something.”

Aurora glares at them, but Jaster sees the faintest quirk of a smile tugging at her lips. She’s trying not to crack, and honestly, he’s proud of her for holding out this long.

He grins, patting her on the shoulder. “Hey, don’t listen to them. These cookies could be useful.”

“For what? Paperweights?” she grumbles.

“No, no. Doorstops. Or maybe self-defense. Imagine throwing one of these at an intruder—they’d drop in an instant,” Myles interjects, grinning. 

“Buir!” she yells, picking up a cookie to throw at him.

He dodges it easily, snickering as it bounces off the wall and lands on the floor with a heavy thud. “Did that leave a dent?” he asks, peering at the wall.

Jaster chuckles warmly, shaking his head.

Aurora mutters something under her breath about ungrateful family members, but Jaster just smiles. Beneath the flour-smeared frustration and overbaked ambition, she’s got the same stubborn spark he’s always admired. She’ll be back at it tomorrow, no doubt, determined to prove them all wrong.

In the end, her focus moves from baking to cooking.

It’s…not better.

Chapter Text

Usually, Mij has to drag people into his medbay. The current interloper is no exception. She can be half dead and she’d still grumble about how she’s “fine” and he’s being “overly cautious”.

Apparently, when she’s perfectly healthy, her aversion suddenly disappears.

The medbay, his sanctuary of order and healing, is currently host to his least favorite recurring theme: unwanted visitors causing havoc.

Luka is leaning against one of the cabinets, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else as Aurora makes an impassioned argument for why he should get involved in whatever trouble she’s currently cooking up. Something to do with revenge on Vau for making her clean his beskar’gam after what she referred to as the “unfortunate incident involving stubborn glitter.” 

Mij has wisely chosen not to ask for details.

“I swear, Luka,” she says, eyes bright with something between mischief and utter conviction, “it’s definitely edible! It’s not like I’m gonna poison him! Just... you know, make his morning routine more sparkly.”

Mij doesn’t want to know. He’s learned the hard way to tune out the details of Aurora’s plans, especially when they involve Walon Vau’s precious caf machine and a decidedly questionable amount of glitter.

When it comes to Aurora, ignorance is a survival strategy.

“Could you just—no, listen!—I know you know the code,” she persists, determined. “The last time I tried to hack it, the door shot me. So, you have to help me.”

Mij clears his throat. “Aurora, you’re not dragging Luka into another one of your schemes.”

Before she can protest, the doors slide open, and Dax Ordo strides in, looking uncomfortably sheepish. Mij groans inwardly. Wonderful. Just what he needed: one more headache. Dax begins to speak, his words stumbling over themselves.

It takes a minute for Mij to piece together that the di’kut is here to apologize for his apology.

Yeah, Mij doesn’t know what he’s thinking either. 

In typical Dax fashion, he’s made a massive mess of things. From what Mij has heard, he’d taken advantage of the fact that nobody wanted to discuss what happened on Gargon to avoid telling his ven’riduur, Lileru Rook, about it. 

Then, soon after having a front-row seat to Luka going off on Dax, she somehow found out about the recording. 

Mij has no proof, but he strongly suspects Aurora was involved in that convenient discovery. Lileru’s vod’ika, Antar, is in Aurora’s combat training class, and it was after one such session that Lileru was overheard yelling at Dax about it. Apparently, she could forgive him for being, as Luka put it, ‘a dimwitted bully’ when he was an adiik, but his recent behavior was a step too far. 

What makes the whole thing reek of Aurora’s chaotic meddling is how Antar just so happened to record it. It wasn’t long before half of Keldabe had listened to Dax get chewed out by his ven’riduur and told in no uncertain terms that he needed to grow up and make things right with Luka before she’d be willing to swear the riduurok.

Which was slightly problematic, because they’d scheduled a whole event for it that was supposed to happen next week. 

Like the clueless di’kut he is, Dax must think he can smooth everything over with another apology. 

Luka seems completely at a loss for how to react, like he can’t decide between being offended that Dax clearly wasn’t listening to a word he said the first time, or pitying him for being this stupid. 

Mij, for his part, is actively fighting against the desire to punch Dax in the face. But no matter how furious he is, his medbay is no place for violence.

And then there’s the distinct sound of a blade sailing through the air. Mij watches helplessly as the blade grazes Dax’s neck and then embeds itself with a sickening crunch into the medical droid behind him.

There’s a moment of stunned silence. Mij stares at the ruined droid, its processor flickering ominously, then back at Aurora, who has the audacity to look completely unbothered. She stands there, arms crossed, as if it’s totally normal to throw knives at people—and droids.

In. His. Medbay.

Luka is doing an admirable job of pretending he doesn’t exist right now, staring very intently at the floor. Dax, meanwhile, is pale and clutching at his neck like the nicked skin might spontaneously bleed out if he lets go.

It’ll hardly even need bacta.

“The next one is going through your jugular if you don’t disappear right now.” Aurora’s threat is delivered in an icy, terrifying voice, with a matching look in her eyes.

Dax takes this threat seriously and bolts, practically tripping over his own feet.

Mij’s eye twitches. His hand tightens around the edge of a nearby counter, willing himself not to snap. He waits until Aurora looks over at him, sees the storm of fury on his face and winces before he says anything. 

“Aurora,” he says, slow and steady, “what exactly were you thinking?”

“It’s not like it was intentional.” She shrugs, like she doesn’t see the issue. “Dax makes me... stabby.” 

Mij pinches the bridge of his nose. “Do you think I have you disarm before entering my medbay for fun? The rule is no weapons. Not ‘remove the ones I can see.’”

Mij already watched her unload an entire arsenal into her personally designated weapons container when she first walked in here. 

Yes, she has a personal container. She even decorated it with tiny drawings of a creature she calls a ‘bunny rabbit.’ It’s oddly cheerful for its purpose, but the arrangement was necessary. The armory she carries around had been taking up far too much space, leaving little room for actual patients to store their weapons during appointments.

He’s convinced it’s not humanly possible to locate every weapon she manages to conceal. 

Aurora, face completely unreadable, says, “Oops.”

Oops.

With that, Mij had officially hit his limit for tolerating her weapons in his medbay. Even if he can sympathize with why she was feeling ‘stabby’.

He slams a hand down on the nearest counter. “Aurora, you’re fixing that droid. I don’t care if you have to rebuild it from scratch.”

This, he realizes too late, was a tactical error. She grins, a glint of pure mischief in her eyes that sets every one of his alarm bells blaring. “Sure thing, Doc. I’ll give it… upgrades.”

The end result—a droid that gives unsolicited dating advice while stitching wounds and hums battle tunes—haunts him to this day. Aurora insists it’s an improvement. Mij considers incinerating it daily.

In a spontaneous but frankly overdue decision, Mij institutes a new policy: if she doesn’t need treatment and is just stopping by to drag Luka into her latest osik or hide from her buire, she’s not allowed into his medbay.

Aurora narrows her eyes, but to his surprise, she doesn’t argue.

This should have set off several alarm bells, but Mij is naively relieved instead.

That relief would last exactly three days.

Three Days Later:  

Aurora crawls through the medbay vents with the grace of a cat on a hot tin roof—lots of clanging, a fair bit of muttering, and the occasional near-death experience when she misjudges how much weight a panel can hold. She’s not proud of this, but desperate times call for vent-shaped measures.

Her goal is simple: motivate Luka to give her the code to Walon Vau’s apartment. There’s revenge to be had, but getting Luka to see the light will require some carefully planted…motivators. For that, she needs access to the place he spends most of his time. Unfortunately, at the moment, she’s banned from the premises unless she has a legitimate reason and she’s not desperate enough to injure herself just to be let in the door. 

That’s what vents are for.

Might as well make use of her miniature size while she has the chance.

Aurora prides herself on her planning. She even hacked into Gilamar’s calendar and was careful not to schedule this excursion during a time that overlaps with any actual medical procedures. Contrary to what the family therapist seems to think, she does understand boundaries. Sure, she might read your confidential files or hack your comlink if the situation calls for it, but she draws the line at barging in on something private. 

Today, according to Mij’s completely free afternoon labeled ‘chart review,’ she’s in the clear.

So, naturally, this is the exact moment when the universe decides to betray her.

She’s halfway through maneuvering over one of the medbay’s exam rooms when voices filter up through the vent. The muffled tones make it hard to distinguish words, but she recognizes one immediately: Gilamar. That’s fine; she can work with that. His calendar is empty, and she’s not doing anything technically against medbay rules. Yet. Though she imagines if she gets caught, the rules will be amended. 

She pauses, listens for a beat, then freezes as another, deeper voice joins in.

Jaster.

Her heart drops into her boots. She’s got a sinking feeling about this, one that’s confirmed when Mij sighs audibly and says something that includes the words ‘prostate exam.’

Nope. This is not what she signed up for.

Aurora tries to reverse out of the vent as quietly and quickly as possible, but her foot slips on something damp ( why is it damp?! ), and before she can stabilize herself, gravity decides it’s her time. She tumbles out of the vent like a sack of potatoes, landing on the medbay floor with a graceless thud.

The room goes silent.

Flat on her back, Aurora groans and slaps a hand over her eyes because no, no, no, this is not happening.

From her extremely unlucky angle, she got an all-too-clear view of things she can never unsee. This is it. She’s going to need to invent industrial-grade eye-bleach. Or— shudder —actually go to therapy. 

No, the bleach sounds like a better option.

“Are you serious right now?” she groans, raising her free hand blindly in Gilamar’s direction. “You need to start accurately updating your calendar, Gilamar! It’s called being responsible. Some of us rely on it to avoid... situations like this! How hard is it to quickly make a note when your schedule changes?”

She can’t see his face, but she knows exactly what expression he’s wearing. That deadpan, long-suffering look he gets every time she does something that leaves him questioning his life choices. She’s probably earned this one, but like hell she’s going to admit it.

“I hacked your calendar for a reason!” she snaps, her eyes still firmly covered. “A girl needs some warning! ”

There’s a cough that sounds suspiciously like Jaster when he’s trying not to laugh and the sound of something rustling, but she refuses to check if it’s safe. She’ll just stay here, with her eyes safely covered and protected, thank you.

“It’s a medical facility, Aurora,” Gilamar says, his voice so calm it’s dangerous, “What exactly did you think might happen?”

“I don’t know, chart review ?” she snaps back, turning her head away as if that will somehow erase the mental image now burned into her brain. “Which is what your calendar said. But nooo, you couldn’t be bothered to update it and now I’m scarred for life, thank you very much.”

A snort escapes Jaster, quickly followed by outright laughter. 

She’s never going to live this down.

Chapter Text

This is it.

Today is the day Luka will finally commit treason.

Is it technically treason if your country doesn’t exist in this reality? Probably not. Semantics. The point is, Aurora’s days are numbered. And by ‘days,’ he means, like, several minutes. Or maybe just one. Luka’s not picky.

The medbay smells like a toxic mix of burnt rubber and chemicals. Around him, the pristine white walls and polished surfaces are barely visible beneath a thick, frothy carpet of fire suppression foam and streaks of indeterminate, questionably luminescent chemicals. Foam is everywhere, coating the cabinets, the tables, the diagnostic equipment. It's a miracle that the consoles aren't short-circuiting in protest. There’s a small mountain of it piled on top of his head, turning his hair into a sticky, lumpy mess.

He spits out a mouthful of foam that tastes like naivety and bad decisions, swiping futilely at the clumps stuck in his hair. It's like trying to towel dry a cloud. A very angry, judgmental cloud that smells vaguely of industrial disinfectant.

“Luka.” Mij’s voice comes from somewhere behind him, dangerously neutral. That tone sends a shiver down Luka’s spine because it means his parent is caught in that fine line between scolding him and howling with laughter. It’s a dangerous game. Mij clears his throat. “Would you care to explain what happened here?”

Luka doesn’t even bother turning around; he’s busy wrestling with a particularly stubborn blob of foam that’s somehow fused itself to his eyebrow. “Science,” he replies flatly. 

Mij clears his throat, attempting to sound stern. "Luka. What part of ‘handle the medical compounds responsibly’ did you interpret as ‘start a foam rave.’?"

"It wasn’t a rave! It was sabotage.”

There’s a beat of silence. “Sabotage,” Mij repeats slowly, like he’s trying the word out for size.

“Yes. Sabotage,” Luka snaps, flinging the blob onto the floor with a triumphant splorp . “Someone told me this ratio was stable. It was supposed to be a more effective solution.” He pauses dramatically, gesturing at the foamy hellscape around him and slips slightly on a rogue patch of suds. “It did not make it more effective.”

And he knows it was sabotage because Aurora’s too knowledgeable and meticulous to have made an incorrect suggestion by mistake. If she wasn’t completely sure, she wouldn’t have said anything at all. The question is what, exactly, he did to earn her wrath. As far as he knows, this is a completely unprovoked attack.

Mij pinches the bridge of his nose, a valiant effort to maintain authority, but his shoulders start to shake. 

"You’re laughing!" Luka accuses, pointing a foam-covered finger at him.

"I’m not laughing," Mij insists, biting his lip so hard he might draw blood. He kindly hands Luka some cleaning supplies, thankfully sparing him the lecture.

Luka gets to work cleaning up the mess, muttering about how that was the last time he’ll ever take one of Aurora’s ‘helpful suggestions’ at face value and vowing that from now on, everything out of her mouth was going to be vetted for potential sabotage, all while still furiously trying to get the foam out of his hair.

Aurora is in the middle of training to adapt to her new armor with the help of her favorite combat training droid—Sparky.

It’s a masterpiece of her own design—sleek, efficient, and, most importantly, programmed to respond to her every command. Sparky ducks her jab with a fluid movement. “Strike sufficient. Recommend 12% more follow-through.”

See? Helpful and efficient. Sparky’s the best.

The doors to the training room slam open. Aurora barely reacts as Luka storms in, still crusted in patches of foam, like the world's angriest marshmallow. He looks around wildly, zeroing in on her like she’s personally responsible for every bad decision he’s ever made—which, to be fair, is probably not entirely untrue.

“You!” he snaps, pointing a foam-streaked finger at her. “Explain.”

She raises an eyebrow. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but the showers are through there.” She helpfully points in the direction of the locker rooms.

Luka makes a strangled sound. “You know what. That solution you suggested—it blew up!”

Aurora arches an eyebrow, finally lowering her guard and stepping away from Sparky. “‘Blew up’ seems like a strong term. I think you mean it reacted…vigorously.”

“It set off the fire suppression system!” 

“Well,” she says, brushing imaginary lint off her sleeve, “perhaps you should reconsider your ongoing refusal to help me break into Walon’s apartment if you don’t want things to go…wrong.”

Luka stares at her like she’s just asked him to help her steal another spaceship. Which, admittedly, is not the worst thing she’s ever asked him to do.

“You shouldn’t mix volatile compounds. That’s just science, Luka,” she adds, with a sigh, heavily implying that she will not be blamed for his incompetence, regardless of her…encouragement.

Luka’s glare shifts momentarily to Sparky, his expression a touch too calculating for comfort. Aurora doesn’t like it.

Luka looks back at her, opens his mouth to say something, but then thinks better of it and shakes his head. Without another word, he storms out, still dripping foam. She manages to contain her giggle until he’s out of earshot. Which, if you ask her, is a notable accomplishment.

The next day, Aurora is in the middle of demonstrating a complicated wrist maneuver to her class, with the helpful assistance of Sparky, when something odd happens.

Unprompted, Sparky cuts in with a suspiciously familiar voice, "That swing was cute. Try aiming next time."

Sparky then turns to her class and introduces itself. “Hello. I am Rory, Aurora’s superior combat assistant.”

“Sparky—” she starts.

“It’s Rory,” the droid interrupts in Aurora’s exact tone of voice. “Rory. Not Sparky. Please pay attention.”

Aurora blinks, pauses, and then glares. “What?”

“Rory. Not Sparky,” the droid repeats, a little too smugly. “Get it right next time. You’re supposed to be the teacher here.”

The students are trying—and failing—not to laugh. Antar has to turn away to hide his smirk. Vortai Tenau, on the other hand, lets out an audible snort. “Looks like your droid’s been…updated.”

Aurora glares at them before turning back to Sparky, who has casually rolled out of her reach. Maybe it caught a virus or something.

That was definitely her voice, which tells her Luka has finally discovered the art of revenge through pranks. She’s proud.

She stares at her droid, exasperated. “You’re getting reprogrammed,” she decides.

But, of course, the droid is too fast.

She dismisses her class so she can shut Sparky down and investigate, but every time she gets close enough, the droid runs away from her. Then, when she decides to give up, Sparky starts following her.

And the commentary doesn’t stop.

By mid-afternoon, Aurora is sprinting down the palace halls, swearing fluently in multiple languages as Sparky darts ahead of her, trying to catch the insufferable thing as it zips just out of reach. It’s like trying to catch smoke in a bottle—only the smoke is mocking her.

“Maybe if you were faster, you would’ve caught me by now,” Sparky —because she refuses to concede to calling it Rory—taunts from a few steps ahead. “You should consider adjustments to your cardio routine.”

Gilamar, conveniently appearing just in time, watches from a distance, an expression of pure delight on his face.

“Oh, come on, you can do better than that!” Sparky chirps, taunting her again as she disappears around a corner. “Did you skip leg day? That’s a game-changer.”

“Sparky!” she yells, skidding around the corner. “Get back here before I turn you into scrap!”

The droid stops briefly to address a passing Bo-Katan Kryze, who raises an eyebrow at the chaos. “Hello. I am Rory, Aurora’s superior combat assistant.”

That’s another thing. Sparky’s been introducing itself to everyone it encounters like that.

“Superior, huh?” Bo-Katan drawls, crossing her arms. “I see why she’s not training me. Clearly too busy being bested by her own droid.”

Aurora rounds the corner just in time to hear that. “Not now, duckling,” she growls. “And no, I’m still not training you!”

“Are you sure?” the little duckling asks, smirking. “If you change your mind, I might be able to help you with your…problem.”

That’s it. She needs to refocus her efforts on getting rid of the New Mandalorians so that little persistent redhead will finally go home.

“Maybe you’re not cut out for combat,” Sparky says from an irritable distance. “Have you thought about pottery? Very soothing.”

Aurora ignores mini-Kryze in favor of Sparky, who has already put more distance between them. “When I catch you, I’m rewiring your entire system!”

Sparky spins briefly in place, voice oddly patronizing. “Walon’s locks are not even that complicated. You are just lazy.”

From somewhere nearby, Aurora hears Gilamar’s distinct laughter. She doesn’t need to see him to know he’s thoroughly enjoying this.

The medbay is quiet, save for the soft clicking of keys and the occasional hum of diagnostic equipment. Mij is leaning over the data console, showing Luka how to interpret a particularly tricky neural scan. 

“Okay," he says, tapping the screen, "This is a standard neural scan, but you have to pay attention to the temporal lobe. It's always a bit tricky when you’re dealing with—"

The door to the medbay slams open with all the grace of a malfunctioning airlock, and in walks Aurora, looking like she’s run a marathon, wrestled a Wookie, and had a brief, one-sided conversation with a tornado. Her hair is a wild mess, her clothes are askew, and there’s a suspicious streak of grease on her cheek.

In one hand, she’s holding the severed head of her once-beloved combat training droid.

"Evening, boys." Aurora strides in and unceremoniously dumps the droid’s head into Luka’s lap. "Not bad. You’re learning," she says, practically grinning ear to ear.

Luka freezes, staring down at the droid head like it might bite him. "Uh…”

She spins on her heel, clearly satisfied with herself. "Anyway, the rest of Sparky is running around like a headless chicken somewhere in the halls, but I finally shut it up, so I don’t really care anymore."

And with that, she walks out, leaving behind a faint trail of grease smudges on the floor.

Luka, who had braced himself for some form—or at least a threat —of retaliation, sits there looking very confused. 

But Mij understands what she was doing, and despite his… frustrations with Aurora and her apparent vendetta against his medical equipment, he appreciates her for it. 

Silently, of course. He wouldn’t want to encourage her.