Hobbie didn't think anything of it when his commlink beeped. He pulled it free and turned it on. "This is Hobbie."

"Hobbie! You'd better get down here quick! There's a couple here who claim to be your parents." Wes was on the other end, and he knew this could be a prank, but more than likely, his parents were here. On Coruscant. In his base.

Eyes widened at the thought of his parents finding the Ewok Incident holos, or even the ones of the nice ladies at the bar who thought he needed a cheering up. "Feth!" He cursed out loud, running down the hallway for the lift to the front office.

"What was that, Hobbie? Hobbie? Hobbie!" Hobbie turned off his commlink in his rush to get down there.

"Oh, Derek! You don't look happy to see your mammy!" The squat, round women with graying curls of permed blonde hair waddled over to Hobbie, dragged him down to her level and planted a kiss on his cheek that smeared red when she pulled her lips away.

Hobbie's father sat by the door in a repulsorchair, his legs covered in a blanket. His face appeared chiseled from stone in the form of a frown. Some thinning gray hair appeared to be thrown on for effect, cumulus atop a mountain carving which sat on a base that resisted time.

"Derek, I brought your favorite teddy, someone told me you were having trouble sleeping." Hobbie looked even more distressed than usual, looking to the ceiling as if wishing to be struck dead. He looked to his mother, eyes wide, and mouth agape at the mention of his stuffed Ewok.

His mother pulled the ratty Ewok from her bag, shoving it into his arms. Stuffing emerged from a few spots, but it was still most definitely an Ewok. "Derek-- teddy?" Wes nearly doubled over in laughter from his vantage point at the counter. Wedge and Tycho joined them during this exchange, walking out of the gym with towels around their necks.

"He is Lothar, King of Uranus!" Hobbie declared, glaring uncharacteristically at Wes. Wedge looked to Hobbie as if he had just cursed on the grave of his mother; Tycho merely turned his head to the side, hiding it behind his hand.

"King of his what?" Wedge asked, joining the group and taking authority.

"It's the moon of a planet in the outer half of Ralltiir, and he is King." Hobbie held up the ratty stuffed Ewok. One of the eyes appeared barely held on by a thread and the fur was matted by something that was beyond Wedge's guess.

"Hobbie, hide your shame."

"You sleep with an Ewok, too!" Wedge had never seen Hobbie this way. It appeared he was being pushed closer to the deep end, and his parents had only just gotten here.

"Hobbie, calm down. Lets get back to your room. Misses Klivian, Mister Klivian, if you'd come along." His mother gathered her things and his father merely slid forward on his chair.

"Derek, you should smile more. You look so handsome when you smile. Why don't you smile?" His mother waddled quickly alongside Hobbie, chastising him for everything he was as he stalked off to his room, gripping Lothar in a way that would strangle a Wookiee.

"Who wants some of Estelle's famous zatvah balls?" Wes jumped at the chance for real food, or for Hobbie's further embarrassment, Tycho merely shrugged and raised his head and Wedge nodded.

Hobbie groaned.

Hobbie's father, for the first time any of them could see, grumbled. There was now a cigar in his mouth, lit and ashing the blanket that covered his legs. "Hobbie, why don't you introduce us to your father?" Wes piped in.

"I haven't had a proper introduction to your mother yet, Hobbie," Wedge said from the stool he was perched on.

Hobbie waved to his father, who was busy watching the paint on the walls fade, the cigar slowly burning down. "That's the Colonel. This is my mother, Estelle," he said to the squat woman hovering in the kitchenette.

"Call me mammy! Derek does!" Wes snickered, curling up from the gales of laughter that struck him in his chair.

Wedge, Wes, and Tycho introduced themselves by voice. When Tycho spoke up, Estelle called from the small stove, "Oh, I know you! You told me my Derek wasn't sleeping well. Thank you so much."

Hobbie glared at Tycho like he had unleashed an unspeakable evil upon the Galaxy; any of them could mention the Emperor's name with impunity, but Hobbie never spoke of his parents. Lothar had by now disappeared into Hobbie's things, along with some of the more questionable holos in his ownership.

Finis

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