No Tool Exists to Fix Such Things

[Lyanie Quez]

Sometime around or after Heroes Welcome (http://www.sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?t=21774)...


News travels damn fast, almost too fast. You always remember where you are, what you were doing, every minute detail when disaster strikes, particularly if it has any profound effect on the state of your emotional heart. It is a devestation far worse than the end of a relationship. It makes you wish you could die.

Lyanie Quez felt some semblance of this, but for the men who it happened directly to (though, particularily one of them mattered most to her) the feeling was probably exactly as profound as described. Yet, she too had come to know the Layla enough and to her, ships were more than ships. The wound was deep enough in her, because of how it surely wounded Cirr. Doubt crept easily enough into her mind as to whether there was anything she could do. That ship was nearly the sum of the happiest parts of his life.

Comfort, presence. It would be the best she could likely do.

Lyanie sat late in the berth in the expanse of the Challenger where the Layla once sat, waiting for him as he would surely look for her, toying idly with the first little nut her father had given her, at her wonder and pleading, as a young child. She hardly lifted her head to heed any creaking sound that the large vessel might make.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Challenger had amenities that Whaladon didn't. Foremost of these was a series of actual gym facilities, with equipment that wasn't more or less cobbled together out of parts. In that strange late Republic and Imperial ethic, it was a bit cold and sterile, but the ship's age gave it some degree of lived-in appearance.

Cirr worked a bar laden with 325 kilos of weight, letting it down, thundering back up, letting it down, then another push up. The automated droid spotter hovered over silently, and the only sounds were Cirr's forceful breathing and gutteral growls. While his body was here, punishing itself, his head was somewhere else. Somewhere far away and terrible. Reliving something that shouldn't have been, and that he was doomed to replay, as if trying to find a solution to right the wrongs that he couldn't correct even if he knew them. It wasn't simply regret. It was Tartarus.

His progress on the weight slowed, and the droid moved to intervene, spotting by alleviating pressure, which Cirr rebelled against, doubling down with a renewed fury of strength. Rage at his own futility pushed him to amazing and equally futile heights.

He worked to utter exhaustion, until every bit of his PT gear was dripping with sweat. For a while, he simply lay on the bench, staring at the ceiling. Then he hated himself for feeling so used. It took another five minutes for him to convince himself to get up and hit the showers.

By the time he was back on the deck of the Challenger, he was wearing a new jumpsuit. Tool box in hand, he looked around for something to do. Something that needed his attention. When he saw her, he was torn between running to her and running away. His breathing quickened.

"Hey..."

He clutched the tool box in both hands between him and her, like it was a security blanket. It felt natural that way. He smiled, genuinely glad to see her, but there was a little fear in his eyes. He'd destroyed something he loved already. That was a trend that couldn't continue.

[Lyanie Quez]

A pair of long moments drifted past like aimless space junk before his voice registered in-between her ears and the tall shadow he always cast made her snap her head up as soon as it occured to her that something blocked the light that made the polished little nut shine.

"Cirr..."

She wound the strong strand from which the little nut hung around her hand and closed that hand into a fist before enclosing that fist with the other hand. She smiled for him. No matter the circumstance, seeing him always evoked that reaction, involuntarily. The worry in her brow and gleam of some sadness in her eyes only matched the smile to a very small extent.

"...I'm sorry. I mean... I'm terribly glad to see you, I should be happy you're alive, but I know how you must be feeling and... I just don't know what to say." Lyanie paused, opening the closed hand and holding it such that the childish pendant would unwind from her hand. She looked up at him again, his toolbox in his hands, oh how natural it looked on him. "It would be so normal to ask if you're okay, when it makes sense that the opposite might be the case..."

Her eyes teared a little. "The first thing I heard, that Layla was gone. I didn't think time could drag for so long... that it could also zip by so darn fast when they said you all made it out. It's enough to give a girl a heart attack..."

By the end of those words, she nearly felt as if she would choke again, like she did many-a-time since that news. It had the way of making a raw throat.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

He cut her off with a kiss, pulling her up a bit as he leaned down. It was partly to cut off hurtful reminders he was avoiding, and partly because he wanted nothing more than to spend an eternity in that moment, with his lips and hers together. To feel normal, to feel complete, and not have to worry if everything would be alright. To somehow know it was all okay. He swept her off her feet completely, holding her against him in a gentle but secure embrace. When their lips parted momentarily, he spoke to her as they embraced cheek-to-cheek.

"jI'm not gojing anywherre, Ai'ashree. jI'm herre wjith you. Forr you."

[Lyanie Quez]

Lyanie clung to him rather hard, through the utter surprise of being roped up into his arms, as unexpectedly as she had been, the arresting feel of just being kissed so shut her up right quick. Her cheeks, wet once again with tears for the umpteenth time, she just laid her head against his chest when her feet were more or less planted on the deck again and just breathed in and out for a while before she even dared to speak.

"Oh..." Her one free hand wiped at her face. "Cirr...I... I guess that's really all that matters, right? I'm here too, you know. "

Lyanie dropped her hand from her face and just snaked that arm around him, as much as she could, the other hand still managing to hold on to the makeshift little trinket she had held onto all these years.

"Is there anything..." She paused, leaning against him and considering her words, her mind still in the haze of partial grief. "...anything I can do? I mean, is there anything you'd like to do?"

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr's face put the conflict in his mind on full display, and he tightened the grip on his toolbox.

"No, jI just..."

There wasn't anything constructive in feeling sorry for himself, and he wasn't going to crawl inside a bottle like Sanis was. He needed to have a purpose.

His expression smoothed, and he put on effort to smile.

"Don't suppose you need an extrra set of hands wjith the Knjightfall? Cut yourr worrk load jin half?"

He'd love to just work. Tinker, repair, rebuild, and fret over machinery, and to do it all with her. He understood the absurdity in it, and looked at his feet, shaking his head as his smile turned slightly incredulous.

"jI'm not crrazy, am jI?"

[Lyanie Quez]

"No..." She wiped at her face, the wetness now drying. Lyanie sighed and straightened a bit, stretching to keep the onset of weariness at bay. "...no, you're not crazy. Honestly, you're 'bout as crazy as any one of us that lives this... thing we all live, here. We're supposed to be 'rebels', so you'd think crazy comes with the territory in some fashion, anyway."

The engineer girl chewed her lip a bit and thought over the words she just said, en route to backtracking to Cirr's mention of the Knightfall. Her eyes somewhat cautiously rolled over to where the aforementioned vessel sat and she just about rolled her eyes and narrowly resisted raspberrying at the thing.

"There's always somethin', yeah." She lifted herself away from Cirr and crossed her arms, giving the thing a more pointed look. "Even if she hasn't done a lick of going anywhere, anyway, there's always somethin' that can be done to improve her. And the Chief... frak, it's like he Jedi'd off and vanished. I ain't seen hide nor hair of him. There's only so much tinkerin' I can do on a girl that's not seein' any action before I damn well go crazy for real, no matter how much I love her."

Then she rolled her head back and her eyes up to look at Cirr.

"But yes, your extra set of hands is always welcome, far as I'm concerned. It's better than nothin'. Better than everything, really."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr's smile took on a bit more confidence as he reached a hand forward to swallow up one of hers.

"The way you talk..."

He'd never been much for words. He tripped over them, measured them meticulously in his brain before dropping them bit by bit onto his tongue, and even then got it mostly wrong. It just wasn't his gift. Lyanie didn't have the gift of gab like mother did or like Sanis did, but she talked real, if that made sense. Cut to the heart of it. Said it all, and all of it was earnest.

"...jI love you Lyanjie."

Cirr was earnest too, but with the grace of a tauntaun. No balance, no timing, and the moment the words were out of his mouth, he nearly blanched like he'd given away treason-worthy secrets. What was he afraid of? Whatever it was, he was afraid. But he was also telling the truth.