Rain sheeted down and thunder crackled even as far up the valley from Shay Memorial as the Drake ranch, several dozen klicks away.  The hangar near the house was warm and dry, though, and one of the Drake children was taking advantage of that fact.  Xander Drake was underneath the old speeder he’d been working on since before he was tall enough to drive it, still working on fixing up the ‘old girl’ after all the years.
           He’d arrived home late the night before, under cover of darkness and festivities—and fleet activity above.  He still wasn’t sure what had happened, but he wasn’t inclined to ask, either.  That was his mother’s concern, his father’s concern, his brother’s concern.  Not his.  Not anymore.  Not ever.
            His first thought, when he heard the sound of repulsors on an old X-wing, was to wonder what his mother had forgotten at the house and come back for.  He didn’t even bother to pop out from beneath the vehicle to greet her.
            “Uncle Bobby?  Dorrin said that there was something down here I needed to see?”
            He recognized the voice in an instant.  She was climbing down from her portside S-foil when he pushed himself out from underneath the speeder and stood up.  He smirked a little, wiping his hands on a rag and leaning against the speeder’s nose.  “Think you’ve got the wrong Drake.”
            Their eyes met.
            She fell off the S-foil.  Her helmet bounced across the slick floor, out of immediate reach.  He choked on a laugh, even though it wasn’t really that funny.  “Hi Molly.”
            She scrambled to her feet, blinking, checking herself to make sure she wasn’t hurt even as her eyes never left him.  “…when did you get back?”
            “A couple hours ago.”  He finished cleaning his hands and tossed the rag across the nose of the speeder, frowning.  There was still a lot of grease there, but he wasn’t going to get it off without liberal application of soap and water.
            Molly nodded slowly, taking half a step toward her helmet before wincing, rubbing at her hip, then continuing the few steps further to pick up her helmet.  She hugged it against her belly as she straightened, mouth dry.  A couple hours ago?  Who had he told?
            “You came to see Dad?”
            Her eyes widened.  “No!  Dorrin…Dorrin just said that there was something out here I needed to see, and I wasn’t doing anything in orbit.  Legacy isn’t shipping out for at least another week, until Davil can do shake-downs on the other ships assigned to…”
            Her babbling stopped as he nodded.  She swallowed hard, hugging her helmet a little tighter.
            “You just…left.  And now you just…come back?”
            Xander turned away so she couldn’t see his wince, then turned back as quickly as he’d looked away.  “Molly…”  He struggled not to sigh as she looked down, picking at something on her helmet.  “I’m sorry I left.  It wasn’t about you.”
            She didn’t look up.  “Was rather abrupt.  What crawled up your shorts?”
            He turned away again, raking both hands up into and through his hair, exhaling through his teeth.  “You wouldn’t understand.  Mom sure doesn’t.”
            Molly took a few steps forward before she could stop herself.  “What wouldn’t I understand?”
            “I had to go find out who I am.”
            “…and I wouldn’t understand that?”  She pushed her hair out of her face, setting down her helmet.  She took a few steps closer, hesitating when he didn’t turn back around, when he leaned against the nose of the speeder, bracing himself against it with both hands, back to her, staring down at an unfinished paint job.
            “It’s easier for you, and Dorrin, and Aly…you’re all happy following the family business.  People treat me like I’m an idiot because I don’t want to be a soldier.”
            She licked her lips.  “You think it’s easy to live in the shadow of my parents?  It’s…well.  Being in the ‘family business’ isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be, Xander.”
            Xander snorted a little, half glancing back at her under his arm, smiling a wry sort of half smile.  “You should have seen how my mother reacted when I told her I was a bounty hunter now.”
            Molly winced, hugging her arms across her belly, feeling momentarily sick.  “Dangerous line of work to be in.”
            He shrugged.  “Maybe, but you know what?”  He smiled a little more, turning to her.  “I think I’m good at it.”
            She took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly as she nodded a little.  “So…what does this mean for me?”
            Blinking, Xander stared at her, his stomach turning over.  “I’m sorry?”
            Shrugging, she scuffed a toe against a stain on the floor.  “Worried us half sick, y’know.  Davil kept trying to figure out how the hell he was going to explain it to your parents, since he knew—he just knew—they’d ask.  He wasn’t going to make Dorrin try to explain.”
            Xander shook his head slowly.  “It was something I had to do, Molly.”
            “With…without a word?  To any of us?”
            “Cay knew I was leaving.”
            Her brow furrowed.  “So it was some big Auyn secret?”
            He stared at for a moment, then turned away, leaning against the side of the speeder again.  “Molly, what do you want me to say?  Because obviously, I’m not saying it.”
            She took another step forward, reaching, then stopped herself, forced herself to put her arm back down.  “Just…I…I don’t know.  I just…I don’t know.  Not every boy sees me naked, Xander.”
            He winced, silently grateful that she couldn’t see his face.  “I didn’t leave because of that, if that’s what you’re thinking.”  He paused, unable to stop himself from smiling at the memory of her in the corridor, so angry that she’d forgotten a towel after her shower had been interrupted.  “But I’ll admit, it’s a picture I haven’t been able to get out of my mind since.”
            She hugged herself.  “I…I didn’t think you’d left because of that.  Not really.”
            He snorted softly.  “But you enjoyed teasing me about it.”
            Molly held up both hands.  “In my defense, we all enjoyed teasing you about it.  It’s what happens.  It’s…a rite of passage, I guess you could call it.”
            Finally, he turned back around, facing her again.  He smirked slightly, crossing his arms and shaking his head slightly.  “You want a rite of passage?  Try getting blown off a building on Nar Shadda and falling thirty stories or so.”
            Her eyes went wide.  “You what?”
            He waved a hand a little, hoping that making light of it would calm her down.  “There’s a rival bounty hunter trying to collect a price on my head.”
            “How…how’d you piss off another hunter?”  The words ‘that quickly’ dangled unspoken in the air.  Her eyes widened again as a horrible thought clicked.  “It’s not Deathdealer, right?”  Though how he would have found a way to piss off Arilyn that badly that quickly was beyond her.
            Xander shook his head.  “Nope.  An Auyn dropout named Match.”
            Molly tilted her head to the side, expression suddenly puzzled.  “You people have dropouts?”
            “Just him,” Xander clarified, watching her as her confusion grew.  He shook his head slightly.  “And I didn’t piss him off.  I pissed off whoever put the price on my head….and then I pissed him off.”
            She shook her head slowly.  “Who did you piss off that royal?”
            “My partner’s still looking into it.”
            Both brows went up.  “Partner?”
            He nodded.  “Crystal Qel-Droma.  She’s the brains, I’m the brawn.”
            Molly blinked again.  “Uncle Ion’s daughter?”
            Xander eyed her for a moment, watching the wheels turn as Molly struggled to process everything that was being pushed into the light.  “Yep.  She was checking up on me on Nar Shadda, but she thinks I don’t know that.”
            “Because of Ion?  Or something else?”
            Xander shrugged a little.  “I’m sure Cay made a call to someone, and they made a call to her.”  He pushed himself off the speeder and moved over to her, gently taking her by the shoulders.  “Mol…you managed to piss off all of the local chapter of Black Sun.  Is my life so hard to believe?”
            She smiled wryly, looking up at him.  “I breathe wrong and piss off someone, Xander…comes from being born daughter to my parents.”
            “You look like you could use a drink.”
            The smile grew a little.  “Maybe I could.  I don’t want to fly back to base in this storm, though.”
            He grinned a boyish, lopsided grin and let go of her, walking over to the speeder.  He leaned in and popped the glovebox, pulling out a bottle of brandy that was probably barreled when they were infants.  He held it up for a moment for her inspection.  “Will this do?”
            She grinned back.  “What’re you going to drink?”
            He shrugged, straightening.  “I thought we could split it.”
            She peered at the bottle with all the mock-seriousness she could muster, studying it.  “You sure there’s enough?  I’m off-duty.”
            Xander just grinned and pulled out the cork with his teeth, passing her the bottle.  She took it from him and put the bottle to her lips, tipping it back for a long swallow as he came around the speeder and opened the door to the back seat, gesturing.  She arched a brow as she swallowed the brandy—not quite decent brandy, if she was a judge, and she liked to think she was.
            “I redid the leather seats myself.”  When she hesitated in climbing in, he grinned, climbing in himself.  He threw an arm around her waist and dragged her down into the seat next to him.  She yelped, trying not to spill the brandy all over both of them—and the leather seats.
            “Hey!”
            He captured the bottle and took a long swig, eyes widening as he swallowed.  “…ugh.  I guess it’s not bad for a bottle I smuggled out when I was twelve.”
            Molly grinned.  “I thought it tasted funny.”
            Xander held the bottle just out of reach.  “Well, sorry if it’s not up to standards, princess…”
            She laughed.  “I’m not a princess, Xander.  Give me that bottle.”
            He grinned, handing it back, letting her have a long swallow.  They leaned back together and he threw his arm across the back of the seat behind her head.  “So, you missed me, huh?”
            She cradled the bottle in both hands.  “I worried.  You ran off without saying anything to anyone.  But then…I’d worry if Dav pulled that shit, too.”
            “Ah,” he said, tilting his head back for a moment.  “If I’d told anyone, you’d have tried to stop me from going.”
            “Can you blame us?”
            He shifted, looking at her.  “No one stopped Cay when he ran off last year and nearly got himself killed.”
            Molly shook her head, staring right back at him, expression serious.  “The only one who could’ve talked him out of it was Mary.”
            Xander nodded a little, expression as serious as hers.  “I meant what I said.  I thought about you every day.”
            Her expression softened.  “You did?  Really?”  He nodded and she smiled, turning slightly in the seat so she could look at him without craning her neck.  “Why?”
            “Why what?”
            “Why would you think about me every day?  Seriously…I’m not that memorable, even naked.  Believe me, I know it.”
            He smiled, almost sheepishly.  “Well, if you wanted to get naked again so I could get a second idea…”  He almost blushed when her eyebrow shot up.  “Because what I remember was beautiful.”
            Xander stole the bottle from her while she was blushing, trying to figure out what to say, finally settling on quipping, “Liquid courage, Mr. Drake?”
            He grinned the lopsided, roguish grin that he’d learned—or inherited—from his father.  “Nah, but if I let you drink it all, you’ll claim I took advantage of you while you were drunk.”  He winked at her, still smiling.
            She snorted, shaking her head.  “I’ll save that one for another time.”
            “Save what?  Being drunk?”
            She shook her head.  “Using it as an excuse.”
            He grinned.  “I notice you didn’t say anything about putting off the part where I take advantage of you.”  She shrugged a little and stole the bottle back, taking another long swallow of the brandy.  Xander put his hand on her thigh, almost casually.  She glanced down at the hand, arching a brow, then glanced up at him.  He shrugged in return.
            “Are you trying to put the moves on me, Xander?”
            The grin returned.  “That depends, is it working?”
            She smirked.  “We’ll see.”
            “What are you smirkin’ for?”
            “Nothing,” she said in her best faking innocence voice.  Xander grinned, leaning in.  She met him partway, tangling her fingers in his hair for a moment.  It was almost experimental, the kiss, the first taste.  It was only a few moments before they both pulled back.  There was a little color in both of their cheeks as they did.
            Xander’s voice was a whisper.  “…I thought about doing that more than once, too.”  She smiled and let him get his arms around her.  They kissed again.
            She pulled back, looking at him.  “Have…have you ever done this?”
            He blinked, surprised.  “Done what?”
            Molly gestured a little.  “Done…this.  Anything like this.”
            He shook his head a little.  She grinned.
            “Neither have I.”
            He reached up, brushing her hair back and out of her face.  “So we can be each other’s first.  Together.”
            Her blush hadn’t faded much.  “So how was it?”
            He grinned and kissed her again.  “Well, I keep coming back for more…”
            She elbowed him in the ribs, laughing against his kiss.  “Awful…”
            “Hey!”
            “You are!”
            He smiled, a little sheepish and roguish at the same time.  “Is that such a bad thing?”
            She shrugged, shifting a little closer.  “Maybe.  Hopefully we’ll have a chance to find out.”
            He ran his fingers through her hair.  “Well.  Neither of us are going anywhere in this storm…”
            She shook her head a little, smile fading.  “I mean…I meant after today.”
            Xander raised a brow, smile growing a little.  “You saying you wanna be my girl?”
            Molly shrugged, smiling weakly.  “Maybe?  I don’t know.   Your line of work is more dangerous than mine…and my mother didn’t raise any stupid kids.”
            He just stared at her for a long moment, mouth dry, stomach turning again.  “Molly…”  He hesitated a moment, watching her, trying to catch and at the same time trying to avoid eye contact with her.  “…this is who I am.  This is what I do.  If you can’t accept that…”
            “I’m not asking you to change, Xander,” she said quietly, thumb stroking his cheek.  “I’m just saying it’s going to take some…I don’t know.  Something…to get me to go against Mom’s advice about boys.”
            He started to lean back.  She held on.
            “I’d like the opportunity, though.”
            He smiled at her weakly, nodding.  “I’d like that.”
            She leaned in and kissed him gently, smiling as she pulled back.  “I’ll have to do my homework.  See how much trouble Dad got into when he was our age.”
            Xander grinned, running his fingers through her hair.  “Look at how much trouble mine’s getting into now.”
            She laughed.  “There is that.”
            Thunder rolled outside and the bottle sat forgotten between their knees as they sat there together in the back of his speeder for a long, long time.

~ Ed and Erin