"Hey, Denali, wanna hear another joke?"

She didn't open her eyes. She didn't know what time it was, but Denali was sure that, like many nights before, she wouldn't be getting any sleep. Offering a joke was one of many signs that told her Danik was in the mood for full-throttle annoyance, regardless of how tired either one of them were. Within her mind, she prepared herself for another onslaught of oral agony.

"You should never trust an atom...wanna know why?"

Silence.

"Because they make up everything."

For three months, she'd had to suffer through this.

The treatment from the people holding her hostage was great. The food had gotten considerably better and now she wasn't even attached to the wall by chains. They'd given her a cot to sleep on and a door to her left that'd been previously locked was now opened and revealed a bathroom she could use with plumbing that was functional, along with a working shower. A man dressed in white would bring her a new outfit to change into every morning after she'd bathed. But she would've traded it all for a sound-proof barrier between her and her brother. Or a pair of ear-plugs. Or a knife, just one knife. She could cut off her pinky-toes and use them as ear-plugs if they weren't willing to give her any real ones.

"Hey, Denali, you know what it means if you date a Jedi and he ditches you for the Order?"

Silence.

"It means you're looking for love in Alderaan places."

Again, she was used to this. Anything revolving around her life that he could turn into his own twisted comedic humor, he'd butcher with terrible puns and dry thoughtless punchlines. But she still couldn't help but clench her fists and roll over on her side in hopes of blocking out at least a little sound. Three months. Three whole months with no sign of rescue. If she couldn't figure out a perfect time to escape soon, she'd rip out Danik's tongue with her bare hands. Of course, he'd probably end up making a terrible joke out of that predicament as well.

"Hey, Denali, what did Master Yoda say when a farmer let his animals loose in the Jedi Temple?"

Silence.

"May the Horse be with you."

She mentally sighed. Though she'd never given in once to Danik's constant talking and aggravating jokes, she missed a time when someone painfully annoying wasn't constantly trying to make her explode. At first, her plan was to bide her time, to lay in wait until the most opportune of moments appeared for her to make her get-away. But as the weeks went by and she realized that the man who brought her clothes was immune to mind-tricks, she began to question her strategy. She needed to get out, she had to. But not once had her door been opened and not once had she seen the outside of her room. Denali didn't even know what planet she was on.

"Hey, Denali, what do I say when I find hair in my food and it's under-cooked?"

Silence.

"It's a little Chewie."

**********

Hours passed before the man who'd bring her clothes finally arrived, indicating that it was morning. Danik was still cracking up over another awful joke he'd made hours prior and Denali was on the verge of Force-choking herself to death when her luck finally changed for the better. The man hadn't brought any clothes this time. Instead, he brought a friend.

"Master?" Denali gasped at the sight of Kit Fisto as he stood on the other side of the force-field barrier. He was just as he'd been the last time she'd seen him...the day she'd been removed from the Jedi Order. Immediately, cold, hard bone fingers crunched down on her heart and she regretted even speaking.

He wasn't her master anymore. He was...he was...what? What was he to her? Friend? Did friends agree to kicking each other out of the only lives the other had ever truly known? Did friends abandon one another when they need them most for support? Because if that was the case, then they might as well be braiding friendship bracelets and gossiping about the hottest musicians during sleepovers.

Her voice was nothing more than a raspy whisper due to her unforgivably long silence in her cell, secluded from any real human contact and conversation for weeks and weeks on end. But the word still came out, though, and Kit still smiled sadly at the sound of it. A sympathetic smile, a pitiful smile she wanted to slap off his green face. 

She didn't need his pity. She wasn't weak. She could kill him as soon as he opened the barrier separating them and not feel a single bit of remorse for it because, after all, friends stabbed each other in the back all the time, according to her experience.

He nodded to the man on his right. The man in white pressed a button on the outside and the force-field disappeared. Kit stepped forward and extended his hands, his large black eyes filled with concern she didn't trust and never would again.

"Denali-"

She swatted his hands away unapologetically. 

"Where is my baby?"

Her words snapped like a whip, each syllable coated in cold fury and layered in murderous calm. Kit didn't approach her any further and his arms slowly descended to his sides. He was unarmed, she noticed. His lightsaber was nowhere to be seen, meaning he was planning on her to be hostile. He knew she'd be infuriated by the sight of him, just being near him made her want to explode in a fit of rage. Even more than her own brother, her attempted-murderer, one of her biggest betrayers and a damned Sith Lord. 

None of this would've happened if Kit Fisto had grown a pair and stood up to Windu in the first place.

"Did I stutter, Kit?" She questioned when he didn't reply and threateningly put one foot forward. "Don't play stupid with me, you worthless, spineless failure. Where. Is. My. Baby?" What he said next made her do a double-take and her eyes began to water.

"Follow me," He turned on his heel and began to exit her little prison. "They're right this way."

They.

...they?

...they?

"'They'?" The anger and disgust dissolved into a million pieces and fell from her heart like sand being blown away from a stone in the wind. "What...what do you mean?" 

"Didn't you know? You were pregnant with triplets, Denali. Three beautiful girls."