Adventures With Her Boys

Aftermath Part 3

Echo, Hunter, and Wrecker had finally fallen asleep after a few hours of being up restless in their rooms. Tech was still up wide-awake working on his projects. Why did he build some of the things that he built? He didn't know, it was just his thing. Was staying up all night messing around with that stuff a good idea? Probably not and he knew it but it was helping him getting over what happened back on Kamino. 

Ryla was sleeping soundly in Techs room still. Though not for that much longer. She began to have a bit of a bad nightmare. She tossed around a little in her bed, whimpering and shaking in her sleep. In a minute she finally woke up with a gasp, shooting up from her pillow. Tears silently rolled down her cheeks as she looked around. She tried her hardest to remind herself that she was safe on the ship. Begining to cry a little harder Ryla looked to her left she found that Tech was missing from her bed. Where did he go?

"Tech?" Ryla whimpered, hearing no response, "Tech?" He wasnt anywhere to be found in the room. Carefully Ryla got up from her bed and left the small room. She walked down to the cockpit of the ship and found no one. The ship still remained in full auto-pilot. She then just made her way back to the makeshift living room area in the middle of the ship, standing around with worried eyes. She was a brave child but her nightmares were always really bad. She has struggled with them for a long time.

Ryla began to softly cry to herself again, wondering if she should go get Hunter or Echo if she couldn't find where Tech went. With no warning she suddenly heard a familiar voice.

"Ryla?" She didn't see him coming at all causing her to get startled and flinch at the sudden voice and turned around quickly towards the source of the voice, also taking a step back.

"Easy, Ryla," Tech spoke in a soft voice not to wake up the others, "easy now. What are you doing up so late?"

Then Tech finally noticed the tears in her eyes and the fresh tear stains down her face. He saw the scared look in her eyes and her shaking hands. Tech's facial expression then showed more concern towards her.

"Ryla, what happened? Why are you crying?" Ryla stepped closer to Tech. Then she just closed the distance between them and hugged Tech, crying.

Tech at first was surprised but then eased into it, knowing she needed someone. He hugged her back in his arms.

"Hey, it's alright, Ryla. Come on, let's go back to my room and talk." He took her with him and sat on the edge of his bed together. Ryla hugged onto him again.

Tech had never dealt with child woken up from a nightmare before but knowing all of the other facts about children he already knew, he decided to try something to attempt to comfort her.

Tech could feel her while body shaking as he easily pulled her onto his lap and allowed her to lay back on his chest. Her head rested under his chin. He kept one arm around her and took his other hand to start to gently and slowly comb his fingers through her hair.

"I'm here now Ryla, I've gotcha. Tell me what happened," he said quietly, "tell me what woke you up."

"It - it was just a dream."

"Did you have a nightmare?" She nodded, letting out more soft cries.

"Shh, it's alright, it's okay. Those nightmares can't hurt you. It's gone now, it's over and I've got you right here, okay? What was it about?" She didn't respond to that.

"Was it about Crosshair?" She nodded her head.

"It's just - what's wrong with him? He - he shot Wrecker," through her shaky breathes, she felt herself struggling to talk, "he wanted to kill you guys."