Homecoming

Homecoming
Rated: R, for strong language, angst, that sort of thing.
Timeline: Just after the events of _Rebel Stand_
Summary: An unpleasant task ends with an unexpected surprise for Garik Loran's family

Notes-this is just a short fan fiction I'm working on, connected to my big one concerning Face and Erinn Rieekan. This is later, in their futuret wat was just kicking around in the back of my head while I was bored at work-what happens when to Face and the other Wraiths after their mission on Coruscant in _Rebel Stand_? If you don't like my version, well, then, dammit, too bad! :p
(Oh, and in case you're wondering, Tonya is INDEED named for Ton Phanan!)


Any comments, questions, feedback, bitches, flames, direct to sutter@stargate.net

"Mardi? Tonya?"

Their mother's voice had taken on a hint of weariness, and resignation. Hardly a good sign. Mardi Loran looked up from her sketch pad, trying to search her younger sister's eyes, but the eleven-year-old was focused on the cartoons being played on the HoloNet.

"Girls? Did you hear me?" Erinn Rieekan Loran walked into the room. Her large turquoise eyes were as hard as steel, matching her voice. Mardi looked up at her mother, studying the fine lines around the woman's eyes. The signs of age made Erinn look somewhat comical-with her childish features and usual impish expressions. Which had been fewer and far between these days.


"What did you want, Mom?" Tonya finally pulled her gaze away from the HN and looked up at her mother.

Erinn ran a hand through her tangled mess of black curls and stared hard at her daughters. "I want you to come upstairs with me. I need you both to help me go through your father's things." She paused, narrowing her eyes at Mardi. "Now, girls."

She turned and headed out of the room, the door sliding closed behind her. Tonya looked at Mardi fearfully.

"Why does she want us to go through Dad's things?" she asked her older sister, knowing the answer all too well.

Mardi shook her head. "YOU know, Tonya. Come on-she can't do this."


Erinn was up in her bedroom, tearing through the closet, attacking it with a fury her daughters hadn't seen in a long time. Mardi ducked, missing a pair of pants that had flown at her head. Tonya hung behind her, watching her mother fearfully.
"Mom? What are you doing?" Mardi asked. Erinn turned and glared at her.

"You know damn well what we're doing. And yes, I said 'we.' I want you two to set aside anything you might want for yourselves. Most of your father's clothes I'm giving to the Refugee Committee."
She paused, looking up at the two girls huddling against the door. "Well? Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to help me? I don't have time for this shit."

Tonya's eyes started to tear up, her lower lip quivering. Mardi glared right back at her mother. "You can't do this, Mom. When Dad gets back he'll-"

"Dammit, Mardi!" Erinn slapped the palm of her hand against the carved Orowood of the dresser. "Your father isn't coming back! Don't start with me, I mean it."

Tonya burst into tears. Mardi's jaw dropped. "Bitch," she muttered.

Erinn froze. Her eyes formed small, hard chips of turquoise ice. She looked daggers at her eldest daughter. "Excuse me?"

Mardi smirked. "You heard me. You've been one ever since we left Coruscant. Maybe you're the reason why Dad isn't coming back."

Erinn drew her arm back to slap the young girl when Tonya leaped across the room and flung her arms around her mother's waist.

"No! Mama, Mardi, stop it! PLEASE!"

Erinn lowered her arm, embracing the small girl. "Mardi, I-" She looked mournfully at the teenager standing in front of her.

"Kriff you," Mardi snapped. She was sick of it. Sick and tired of this damn war, sick of the Vong, sick of her life being disrupted like this. Her father was off Force knows where, her younger sister was acting more and more childish as time went on, and her mother was becoming a complete and utter harpy. She turned and slammed out of the room, nearly tripping over her father's astromech.

"Sod off, Vape." The droid beeped inquiringly after her, but she ignored it, and kept on running. Running, always running. Maybe if she ran far enough, she'd be running backwards, back to before. Back to when her father was there, back to when the galaxy was safe, when she was a little girl, and her mother was perfect. Before she found out that even parents are human and thus, fallible and flawed.


****
Erinn wrapped her arms around Tonya, kissing the top of her head. "Ah, hon, I'm sorry. I wouldn't hit your sister. I wouldn't hit you, either. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I've been such a dinko lately. I just..."

Tonya burrowed her face into her mother's stomach. "I miss Dad," she muttered, her voice muffled.

"I know, Baby. I do too. Come on-will you help me?" Erinn asked in a sobbing voice, but her face and eyes were dry-devoid of tears.

Tonya pulled back and nodded, looking more like a child of six or seven, than a young girl just turned eleven. She sniffed, swiping at her eyes.


Part Two: Two Weeks Earlier

"Where to, Poster Boy?"

Garik "The Face" Loran turned to his long time friend and teammate, Kell Tainer. "Where else, Demolitions Boy? Home."

"And where might that be?" Kell asked, examining his friend's expression. "Livadia, perhaps?"

Face grinned, but the other Wraith could see a trace of bitterness to it. "If it's still there, you mean."

Kell thought to himself that it would be highly unlikely not to find Livadia in one piece. The world itself was far outside the normal space ways, on the farthest rim of the Outer Rim territoriesick-ick-named "Fringe of the Rim", Livadia was itself, a lovely world, but essentially a backwater.

And it was where Face's wife had grown up, and where the couple had a sizable estate in the mountains.

"Come on, don't think like that. Livadia's pretty far out-I don't even think the Hutts know it exists. I certainly never heard of the place before I met Erinn."

"Yeah, well...you're not worried about Tyria and Doran?" Face turned around in his seat, raising one black eybrow in question.

Kell gave him a sheepish grin. "All right, point. But ye gods Face, have a bit of faith in your wife. She's survived being married to you all these years-I don't think the Vong should present too much of a problem."

"Right." Face closed his eyes. A kaleidoscope of images flashed through his mind-his daughters, Mardi and Tonya, sitting at the kitchen table and arguing over who had the largest piece of honey cake. And for that matter, the taste of honey cakes-made from Erinn's grandmother's recipe. Mardi, tossing off a sarcastic barb at something stupid on the Holonet. Tonya asking for his assistance with her math homework.

Erinn's hand against his cheek, the warmth of her breath, the sweet scent of mint in her hair. Her body snuggled against his, the two of them safe and content, in the dark of the evening, alone in the universe. Making love to her, feeling her heart beating against his, the touch of her lips on his...

Face sat up and squared his shoulders. If he kept thinking along these lines, he was going to have a rather embarassing situation on his hands.
"All right, Tainer, plot us a course to Livadia."


****
Present Time, Livadia


Going through her father's closet, Tonya reflected, wasn't as hard as she had anticipated.

Most of Face Loran's wardrobe was nondescript-shirts, pants, jackets. Nothing that triggered fond memories, or brought tears to her eyes. She suspected that was probably why her mother had started there.

"Fold those pants, neatly, Tonya. Don't just toss them to the side," Erinn commented, pulling a shirt out of the closet without looking.

"Ew-is that an ugly shirt!" Tonyra wrinkled her nose. "When did Dad wear THAT!"

Erinn glanced at the shirt in her hands. Made of black silk, it featured large insects embroidered in silver glitter thread. She snickered. "Oh, I think he had it for some acting job or something like that. Hideous, isn't it?"

"Ugh. Are we going to give it away?"

Erinn hesitated, then shook her head. "Nope. Not fair to foist it on the refugees. Maybe I can use it to scare away the lake rats or something."

Tonya laughed. Maybe everything would be all right. Mardi would cheer up, the New Republic would come back. And her father...

She stopped laughing and burst into tears.

"Tonya," Erinn begged, "Don't please? I don't want..." She bit back her own tears. "C'mon-let's go down and eat lunch." She held her hand out.

***

The treehouse nestled in the branches of the huge r'ark tree was her sanctuary. It was Mardi's place to brood.

Her father, along with her Uncle Adam and Uncle Wyl, had built the treehouse when Mardi was seven. It featured three rooms-one for Mardi and one for Tonya, and one small general room-and a large, wrap-around porch with a staircase that wound about the tree trunk like a ribbon. Her mother had droid painters varnish the wood and she had painted the trim in teal. Then, her parents and various family and friends had donated old, castoff furniture.

Mardi's "room" was full of her drawings, an old carved drawing table donated by Erinn, and some of her mother's old paintings. A trunk underneath the desk contained her art supplies.

Today, she didn't care about drawing. She settled into the old fashioned ham swi swing out on the balcony, propping her feet up on the railing.

Mardi knew her mother had to be hurting. It wasn't like Erinn to lose her temper like that. She knew she had hurt her mother.

:But I'm hurting too. Doesn't Mom get it? We miss Dad every bit as much as she does! Why does she have to take it out on us?:

She closed her eyes. The only way to get away from it all was sleep. And she couldn't sleep at night.

It was too hard to sleep when you can hear your mother crying herself to sleep. When you can feel your family coming apart at the seams.

Part Three:


Livadia hadn't changed much in the past five years, Face thought to himself. At least the war hadn't touched it so badly. Of course, there were the holo signs spouting propaganda about the war, signs offering directions to the nearest refugee lodgings and signs asking people to Support the War Effort.
He pulled the slouched cap over his forehead, making sure that the rusty-hued wig he wore beneath it was still in place.

"Now, where you say you wanted to go, Sir?" the driver of the air taxi asked. The driver was an aging male Bothan with a slight hearing problem. Face rolled his eyes and scratched at the false beard he had applied over his own close-cropped mustache and goatee.

"The Lorekaneg estate, sir." He grinned to himself. 'Lorekaneg' being a combination of his and Erinn's surnames and initials.

The driver grunted. "It'll take about four hours to get there."

"WHAT? Four hours?! It should only take two-"

"Nope. Fuel's being rationed. On account of this here war now. Besides, what you want with the Lorekaneg estate? You tryin' to court that widder lady what lives there? She's supposed ter be pretty dang wealthy, some says. Still, 'spose you should let her mourn her husband, for a spell." The driver turned and gave Face a look of disapproval.

Face thought to himself it was a good thing he was trained as an actor. Otherwise, he might have revealed that Erinn certainly wasn't some "widder lady", and the husband she was supposedly mourning was sitting right in the back seat of the cab. Then it hit him that perhaps Erinn and the girls were mourning him already. Well, he'd put a stop to THAT.

"Um, no. I'm an old family friend. Madame Lorekaneg will be expecting me." He settled back against the seat, and sighed. er aer arriving on Livadia, Kell had taken off, deciding that he might as well go and catch up with his wife, Tyria and their son Doran.

And now, after months away from his family, the next four hours seemed more like four years. He could hardly wait to see his family, to hold his wife and daughters in his arms again...


****
Erinn Loran was not a beautiful woman-and many would say she wasn't at all pretty, either.

True, she was not without her charms. A thick mane of wild black curls and large aqua-hued eyes were her best features. But her skin was almost snow white and thin-one could see the ripples of veins beneath and she bruised easily. Since the birth of her second child, her eyes seemed circled by smudges of black. Her face was round, childlike, with a turned up nose and pouty lips. She was also short, with generous curves that many would call "plump."
Now, the delicate white flesh was creased with thin lines at the corners of her eyes. And her eyes themselves were bloodshot from long, sleepless nights and endless tears.

It was with incredible difficulty that she had finally had to admit to herself that her husband was not likely to come back. While the Wraiths were one of the toughest commando units in the New Republic, Erinn knew it would take a miracle for Face to have made it off of Coruscant alive-if he hadn't by now. She had held out hope that perhaps he had made it to Borleias-but with word of the defeat of that planet, her hopes had been crushed.

And now, here she was, taking her anger out on her children. It pained Erinn to think of how close she had come to striking Mardi. Despite the harsh words the girl had thrown at her mother-and she knew that Mardi didn't mean it. Anymore than she had meant to hit her.

Erinn didn't like to think of herself as weak. She wasn't the type of woman to fall apart the minute her husband was gone. Her grandmother had brought her up to rely on herself-and not have to depend on a man for anything. But Face wasn't just a man-he was her husband, her lover and her best friend. She felt as if her heart had been pulled out of her chest and replaced by a large weight that pressed down painfully and made it difficult to breath.

A teenage girl's relationship with her mother is rocky in normal circumstances-this was anything but normal. And Mardi was far too much like Erinn for the two of them NOT to clash on occassion.

After lunch, Erinn and Tonya continued to make headway through Face's closet, without incident. Wisely, or perhaps out of her own sorrow, they avoided any serious personal items-such as the carved trunk at the foot of the bed. The bed she used to share with Face.

When Erinn had had enough she sent Tonya on to look in her own closet-to find things she had outgrown that could be included in her latest donation to the refugee committees. Then she went to look for Mardi.

It wasn't hard to find the girl-Erinn figured that her eldest would be hiding out in the treehouse. Sighing, she drew on a heavy tattered blue robe and headed outside.

The r'ark tree loomed up against the fading autumn daylight, the multi-hued leaves shaking gently in the breeze. Erinn shivered. It would be getting colder soon-and the leaves would be falling off. She reached the base, quickly jogging up the stairs to find Mardi asleep in the hammock, shivering.

"Mardi?" Erinn gently shook her daughter's arm, then slipped her robe off and draped it over the girl. Mardi's eyelids fluttered and she yawned, looking up at her mother.

"Mom? H'uh?" She looked groggy and disoriented. She pulled Erinn's robe around her shoulders and shivered. "What are you doing out here?"

"Coming to find you," Erinn said, sitting down beside Mardi. "I wanted to appologize-for today and for the way I've been acting lately." She paused to push a dark lock of hair out of her daughter's face. "I shouldn't have raised my hand to you. I've never hit you or your sister, and I don't want to start now. Will you forgive me?"

Mardi blinked. "It's okay-Mom? I didn't mean it. About Dad not being here because of you. I just...just...Mama!" she started to cry and flung her arms around Erinn, burying her face against her mother's neck.

"Oh sweetie." Erinn slid her arms around her daughter, stroking Mardi's long black hair. Tears streaked down her own cheeks and for once she didn't brush them away. "I know, I know."

She hadn't held Mardi like this for a long time, and resisted saying anything more, lest the teenager suddenly become sullen and aloof. Mardi shook with her sobs and Erinn didn't even realize she was also crying until she noticed tears dripping into her daughter's hair.

"I wish Daddy were here," Mardi mumbled against Erinn's shoulder. Neither of the girls had referred to Face as "Daddy" or her as "Mama" for a few years now-especially Mardi. They were regressing.

"So do I, Mardi. So do I." Erinn stroked her daughter's long, silky tresses and kissed the top of her head. "I do love you, Mardi. Even though we fight."

"I lyou you too, Mom." Mardi pulled away and wrapped her mother's robe around her shoulders. "What time is it?"

Erinn laughed. "Time for dinner, I'd say. You've been out here all day-it's getting chilly! C'mon, let's go eat."

Strolling back to the house, arm in arm, Erinn felt as if someone had begun to chip away at the rock sitting over her breast. She squeezed daugdaughter's hand. Mardi squeezed back.

"You know, Mom, I was thinking that-" Mardi stopped dead. Her eyes narrowed. "What the hell is that?"

Erinn followed her gaze. "H'uh? Who could it be at this hour of the evening?"

Someone was making his up the tree-lined drive way. Of medium hight, he wore a faded grey cap pu dow down over his face.

Then she heard an unmistakably joyful yelp. "MOM!!! MARDI!!! It's DAD!!!"


Part Four:

He was exhausted, dirty, hungry and his entire body ached. But Face forgot all of that the instant he heard that incredibly beautiful word.

"DAD!!!"

Racing towards him was a small, curly-haired moppet, waving her arms frantically. Face dropped his bags, his disguise having been discarded as soon as the cabbie had sped out of sight.

Tonya raced at her father, Face sweeping her up into his arms and pressing his face into against her hair. "Tonya!" He covered the top of her head with kisses, holding his daughter tightly to him. It was a wonderful feeling. Then Mardi came crashing into him, nearly bowling him over. Face shifted Tonya to ground to embrace his eldest.

Erinn stayed back, watching her daughters launch themselves at Face. Her heart was slamming painfully beneath her breast as she looked at her husband, unable to believe her eyes. It couldn't be-was it a dream? had had he survived this long? It had to be a miracle.

And then he paused, allow Mardi and Tonya to step aside. Face smiled, and held his arms out to her. "Erinn," he said hoarsely.

The trance she was under broke. With a strangled cry, she practically flew the distance between t hur hurling herself at him. Face's arms closed around her, pulling her up against him, his lips crashing down on her's. His tears mingled with her own. "Garik..." she whispered softly against his mouth, his name the only thing she ever wanted to say.

Face tangled his fist in his wife's hair, breathing in her scent, crushher her body against his, whispering soothing words into her ear. Gods, but he loved her, and how good it felt to be home at last.

Their joyful meeting wasn't to last long. Erinn became aware of gagging sounds behind her. She turned in Face's arms and looked at the girls. Mardi was rolling her eyes and Tonya was pretending to stick her finger down her throat.

"Oh GROSS! BLECH!!!" Tonya grabbed her throat, sticking out her tongue and making vomitting noises.

"You guys are so sick. Gods, you're like OLD!" Mardi snapped.

Face mock-glared at her, then noticed the peculiar streaks of pink in the teenager's hair. "What did you do to your hair?"

Mardi smirked. "What did you do to your's?" she snorted, looking pointedly at her father's freshly shaven head.

***
They lay tangled in a state of exhausted bliss.
Skin against skin, she lay against him, her hand over his chest, fingers splayed, taking in the slow, steady beating of his heart.
He kept his arms locked tightly around her, his hand at the small of her back, feeling the rise and fall of her breathing.
Erinn turned her head ever so slightly, pressing her lips against his shoulder. "You're going back soon?" Face caught her tone of dir.
r.
"Two weeks." He laid his finger against her lips. "Let's not talk about that. Not now, anyways," he added.
Erinn smiled. "No, not now." She wiggled a bit closer to him, and Face tightened his hold on her. She yawned.
"Yeah-I feel that way myself." Face grinned. "Not that I'm complaining, mind you." He kissed her forehead, smoothing the silky black curls back. "I missed you, love."
Erinn responded by running the palm of her hand along his thigh and kissing him long and full. "Oh!" she yelped delightedly as his flesh began to harden beneath her fingertips.
"Well, well, well, it seems you're not THAT tired..."
"Not quite. IN fact-oh SITH, Erinn! Keep that up and we'll never get any sleep."
"That's the idea."
"Damn, I love you."
"I love you too."