Cody learns to love

The one chapter where Emerie finds a home

  It's been hours since Emerie ran from the Kaminoan medical facility and she still hasn't found any of the nice armored bounty hunters. Her legs hurt already from the hours of running and walking. Maybe she could take a little break, she just had to find one of the odd, long chairs that people seemed to enjoy sitting on. There was one just in front of her.

  So Emerie sat down and looked around. She got rid of Nala Se's phone right after she ran out of the Kaminoan facility, she was pretty sure the phone was trackable. Other than that, she had nothing but the flashdisk carefully hidden in her pocket. The people around all seemed to have a lot of stuff as they were carrying huge bags.

  "Are you lost?" a Theelin woman asked her. She was pretty, with purple skin and incredibly long blond hair. She also wasn't wearing armor but she seemed nice. Maybe she was nice. Maybe she will agree to help Emerie.

  "Kind of," Emerie admitted.

  "What do you mean? Where are your parents?" the Theelin asked.

  "Uh... my mother - I guess? - is at home with my sister and I would need my sister taken away from her because she does medical experiments on Omega that hurt her?" Emerie tried to explain in short. She probably said something wrong because the Theelin looked horrified.

  "Maybe you should tell more about that to the Guard," the Theelin proposed in the end.

  "The... guard?"

  "The Coruscant Guard. You don't know them? Oh, darling... The Coruscant Guard helps people. They catch criminals and help find lost people or help abused children find a new home."

  "So they would help me find a facility where they wouldn't perform painful medical procedures on Omega?"

  The Theelin looked at loss of words for a bit. "I think it will be for the best if someone from the Guard explains that to you," she decided. "What's your name?"

  "Emerie."

  "Alright, Emerie. I'm Yara and I'm going to take you to the Guard now, okay? Just follow me."

  Emerie decided she liked the Coruscant Guard, even if all the people were a little weird. But maybe those were their regulations. Emerie didn't see any regulations safe for the uniform.

  It was overwhelming, all the different people walking around, talking... A few of them asked Emerie random questions about Nala Se and Omega and the Kaminoan medical facility and when she gave them the flashdisk with some of Nala Se's experiments, they said they were going to call a 'social worker'.

  Social worker turned out to be a Zabrak who told her to call him Alexis. He was nice, only asked some really weird questions and took notes all the time, even when it was just the number of water rations for a day and nothing important. 

  "We are done with the investigation now. You must be tired," Alexis said and he was right, Emerie was tired. She supposed she should've expected that when she decided not to sleep for an entire night cycle. "Let's get you something to eat and some clean clothes."

  "Wait, where am I going to stay if I'm not going back to doctor Se?" Emerie asked. She shrunk a bit when Alexis looked at her with an unidentifiable look. He didn't seem to care much about regulations but maybe asking like that was too much?

  "To a foster home. That's a place with lots of children who don't have family who would take a good care of them. It's a nice place, you will see. I'm going to make sure they place your sister in the same foster home so you can see each other."

  "We are not going to our father?" Emerie has never really used the term before but this seemed like a good situation to use it.

  "I thought you didn't have one?"

  "Well, he never took care of us. Doctor Se said he didn't even know we exist. But he exists, I overheard his name once. His name is Jango Fett."

  Alexis looked like he didn't know what to say but he collected himself in a few moments. "I will look at what I can find about him," he said in the end and started typing furiously on his laptop.

  "Look, Emerie," Alexis spoke a few minutes later. "I need to make some phone calls. Are you okay with staying here on your own for a bit? I know there is not much to do but maybe a block and some pencils would help? Or I have a picture book with me. You are a little old for that but maybe you will like the pictures."

  "I'm not old," Emerie protested. "I'm thirteen years, four months and seventeen days old."

  "If you think so. Here, you can look at this book while I make the phone calls," Alexis handed her a book with a colorful cover. There was some disproportional humanoid girl with an equally disproportional bird on the cover. The whole book seemed to be full of colorful, disproportional pictures and short sentences. But it was... nice.

  Emerie got quickly bored of the picture book. There was barely any text and she could stare in awe at the rainbow painted across the whole page for only so long. But Alexis still wasn't coming back and she had to be patient. Because this will get Omega away from Nala Se and no one will perform painful experiments on her anymore. This was all worth it. But Alexis was taking so long!

  In the end, it took Alexis something over an hour to come back but he said he had good news and that was good, right?

  "So, I found your father, Emerie."

  "Are we going to be living with him?"

  "No. He... has done some bad things and he wouldn't be a good parent for you or your sister. But we found your other family. You have eleven brothers, Emerie and I talked to the oldest one of them, Cody, and he would take you in if you wanted."

  "Would he take Omega too?"

  "Yes."

  "Then I think I want to go with him," Emerie decided.

  "It's not that easy, unfortunately," Alexis stopped her. Was there something stopping Emerie from finding her brother? "First of all, before you go to live with this Cody for good, you will have to pass the probation period. That means you will live with him for two months and in those two months, you can decide if you want to stay with him. If you decide that you want to stay, you can live with him forever. If you don't want to, we will find a different solution."

  "Okay?"

  "Second thing that makes it more complicated are your other brothers. Eight of them are still children by galactic standarts and they also live with Cody. You would have to learn to get along with all of them. Do you feel up to it?"

  "Yes!" Emerie was sure of that. She would never be alone anymore because she would have Omega and eight brothers to play with and to talk to.

  "Alright then," Alexis smiled. "You ready to meet your big brother?"

  Emerie nodded. Alexis gestured for her to wait and ducked out of the room for a moment. When he returned, there was a tall man with him. He had tan skin and golden eyes, more like Omega's than Emerie's own, and he his hair had the same shade of brown as Emerie's. That had to be Cody. Her brother.

  "Hi," Cody smiled at her. "You are Emerie, right?" he asked as if it wasn't obvious.

  Emerie nodded.

  "Let's take you home."