Not In Our Stars

[Atton Kira]

It was a hard thing not to look. A harder thing when you convinced yourself that you could get away with a furtive glance every now and again, without actually considering just how long a glance was, and just how often was too often. Atton Kira did his best; at the very least, he managed not to stare. Part of him wished that he would, though: part of him wished that he would stare and stare until the sight of her now was plastered across every inch of his brain, utterly obliterating the way he'd seen her when they first properly met.

To look at her now, you could almost fool yourself into believing that everything was fine; that nothing had even happened. The scars were almost completely gone - the ones on the outside, at least - and while she hadn't quite recovered to the full lofty heights of her usual sassy self, there was less shellshock in her eyes these days; she had begun to seem like Sadie K'Vesh again - or at least, the Sadie K'Vesh you caught glimpses of in the bootlegged holos of band performances, and that you heard stories of if you moved in the right circles.

Hell, here she was, venturing out into the depths of Cloud City without bringing along her big strong bounty hunter bodyguard for a change. That she felt safe being alone out here with just Atton for company seemed like an important step in her recovery; and to Atton it meant something, as well. All these years he had sought to covertly protect her from the shadows, to keep her safe; and while recent events called his success and effectiveness into question, that she had managed to find some small amount of trust for him within herself, well, even the Banking Clan didn't have enough credits to buy a feeling like that.

"Not much further," he assured, as he led her through the somewhat grimy streets - or were you supposed to call them corridors when they were inside a giant pressurised flying city? - of Port Town. Most visitors to Cloud City found the lower levels such as this off-putting, preferring not to stray from the crisp and clean upper levels. Atton Kira knew better though. For someone like Sadie, raised on the streets of Nar Shaddaa, this was the part of Cloud City that would feel the most like home.

He risked a glance across at her again; let it linger this time, and offered a smile as he noticed how not entirely comfortable she was. It was subtle, and Sadie knew the game well enough not to be overt about it, but Atton could see the way that she seemed quietly conscious of the weapons that Mr Montegue had insisted she bring with her. It probably wasn't the wisest of moves, but Atton reached out with an arm, barely touching her as he very gently draped it across her back: just a simple, physical reminder that she wasn't down here alone.

"Don't worry, I've got a reputation. No one down here's stupid enough t' mess with me."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

A person could go and lie to themselves, that was easy. Yeah you knew you were full of dren but you could do it all the same. It was other people that were the damn tricky part; simple if they were just anyone, harder if they knew you. Sadie weren't the type of person who let a whole heap of people into that later category, fact was most folks never even got close. Was a downright surprise that Vitt had managed to get that far - Maybe. Maybe not all things considered - but that meant she didn't have to act around him or pretend everythin' was shiny cheffa cake all the time. Not that she sulked about like a wounded hound either, but around Vitt it was okay to have the bad days along with the good. Everyone else though? Frak 'em. They didn't get to know a damn bit of anythin'.

All except the Kira guy. Sorta. She didn't exactly drop guard around him, that just weren't her nature, but all things aside she knew he knew and that made for some awkward situations. It weren't like the boss lady that knew you knew that she knew but you could just act like no body was the wiser and everybody was good with it. Sadie had tried that sort of thing with Kira but it didn't work. Not that anyone said anythin' to make it weird. Nen had done plenty of that for everyone when he'd made the point that it was Kira that was actually behind her not dyin' and all. A guy who knew an awful lot 'bout her without any obvious reason why was reason for concern.

Oh she'd done diggin'. Came up with info 'bout dead family, a stint with the Holonet, even somethin' bout some Countess on Alderaan - mum, not lover - but nothin' added up to why Kira had been keepin' tabs on some slicer slacker girl out on the fringe. He seemed benign enough, though. Sadie figured if he'd wanted her dead there'd been plenty of opportunities for that, the least of which would have involved leaving her all by her onesies in that back room on the backwater planet.

Fact was Kira was actually nice to her. It was like Nen had said - creepy. And yet not. Sadie couldn't quite figure it out and that just made things all kinds of worse. Vitt hadn't been too thrilled with the idea of her headin' off alone with the guy either, but he'd allowed it just the same and that alone spoke volumes, she figured. If there was actual trouble there was no way the Captain would have let her venture without him.

All amiableness aside, that didn't mean the guy got to touch her. Flinching away would have been too obvious a thing, even if she had to fight to not do it. A quickened step forward to break contact was what happened, even if it looked more like a stumble and far damn less graceful than Sadie wanted. Fraking body...

"Figure no one down here messes with anyone less they got some issue with 'em." Yes, 'cause clearly talkin' helps someone forget 'bout th' fact you just took an awkward step when they barely touched y'. "Weird 'bout places like this, safer than folks would expect. Well, unless y' look like easy prey." Smoooooth.

Yeah okay so it wasn't the finest response Sadie ever had to just 'bout anythin', but it would work. For now. Kept her from askin' exactly why they was goin' to see the boss lady's new pub, at least. Not that Sadie wouldn't have eventually gone there anyway, but she didn't exactly figure it was that big a deal either. Maybe just another attempt at makin' her do somethin' normal. Fair enough for the time bein'.

[Atton Kira]

Sadie's body language was about as subtle as a Hutt in drag, and Atton witnessed it all plain as day; felt the clench of sadness in his chest as his fingers curled into a fist in thin air, his arm falling uselessly back to his side. Of course she didn't want comfort from him. It didn't matter that the reverse wasn't true: he was nothing to her, and she knew of no reason to trust him. That was the problem with keeping a respectful distance, with helping out anonymously, with trying to protect from the shadows: you earned nothing for it, no gratitude, no trust, no nothing. You found yourself in the situation where some two-bit angry little man-boy of a bounty hunter meant more and was trusted more than Sadie's own -

He let out a small sigh. He could tell her, of course, but it would make no difference. It would raise more questions than it answered; sacrifice more trust than it earned. After all, it didn't really matter who he was, or why he wanted her safe; just that she was. If that meant keeping the Montegue boy around; if that meant earning his trust so that Sadie would inherit it by proxy; if that meant not a single word of thanks, not a single speck of credit, not even a single hug of gratitude; then fine. He'd lived a lifetime alone. A few more years of the same was a small price to pay if it meant Sadie would stay close enough to keep truly safe.

That didn't mean he wasn't allowed to dote, though: one of the few secret perks he'd allowed himself to indulge in, via backroom deals, third parties, anonymous donations, and every other avenue he could think of. Today though? Today was different. Today he'd get to do it in person, and while Sadie might never understand why... maybe for now it would be enough.

"For someone I my line a' work," Atton commented, making sure that his reaction to Sadie's reaction was utterly invisible, acting as if he hadn't even noticed at all, "Lookin' like easy prey can come in handy. The more people y' have underestimatin' you, the easier it is t' catch everyone by surprise. Worst thing in the world is bein' predictable."

He glanced across at her, and flashed a grin. "Who the 'ell wants to be that kind a' boring?"

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"I can see why you 'n th' boss lady get along." It weren't quite purposely done, but Sadie knew the comment was meant to take the limelight off her for a bit. "Fine set of folks we all are, yeah? Funny how Cloud City seems t' fit what with th' shiny part most people see an' then this goin' on down below."

She offered a small shrug of her shoulder and tried to ignore the way that it tugged at skin that still felt weird when it was tugged that way. That was the real raw deal of it all, Sadie figured. You could avoid lookin' at yourself when cleanin' up and gettin' dressed and all, but when every damn time you moved you felt weird. She doubted that would ever stop, only question was if she'd ever get used to it.

"So what's the deal with the joint here anyway? Boss lady recreatin' what she had back on Coruscant? Nice place, that. Only went once. Might have ended up playin' a gig there but... yeah, y' know how that ended up." Off to business then complete with stickin' her foot back in her mouth again.

Ruddin' mess this was. Was the problem with small talk when you didn't know a lick about the other person and didn't want to ask questions that'd give you more info. Kira seemed like the kind of guy who wouldn't just give you info about himself but rather make you work for it and Sadie just wasn't up for that sorta game.

[Atton Kira]

"I wouldn't know," Atton offered with a shrug. Almost a total lie, that. While he'd not set foot in Emelie Shadowstar's establishment on Coruscant himself, he knew everything there was to know about it's financials, he'd hacked the surveillance months ago; and as for what boss lady's intentions were, well, he was 50% of what was going on around here, so he knew pretty much all there was to know.

As far as the club though, the vacant space down here in Port Town that Atton and Emelie had acquired on behalf of Elysian Acquisitions to be one of Bespin's new night spots, and that he was ostensibly bringing Sadie down here to inspect and get her input on security measures, acoustics, and such; that he was far more willing to admit knowledge about. "Truth be told," he continued, "Elysium is gonna be my baby as much as it is 'ers. I used t' run the lounge in the 'oliday Towers up top, but some scummy Hutt came in an' bought the place. The old management didn't really give me all that much trouble, or pay all that much attention t' what I got up to, but Hutts, they meddle, and I don't 'ave the time to be deain' wi' that."

Atton gestured up ahead to an ominous looking deserted structure, a mix of physical barricades and security fields erected to stop any of the locals trying to annex the vacant space. It looked grim for now but the placement was good - comfortably close enough to Atton's own landing pad, and to the civilian cargo port; far enough away that anyone going anywhere had to wander past here at some point. Nice and inconspicuous. Exactly what they needed.

Coming to a halt in front of the entrance, Atton hesitated before punching in the access code on the locking mechanism. "I needed a new place t' work an' conduct m' business; Miss Shadowstar was looking for somethin' to replace her investment on Coruscant...." He shrugged, prodding the keypad with the correct sequence of symbols. There was a magnetic thunk as the lock disengaged, and a jab at a keypad caused a hastily installed door to slide open. Atton flashed Sadie another smile, before gesturing for her to follow him inside. "Synergy an' all that, I suppose."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"Makes sense." Didn't answer a ton of questions, but sounded a might bit like job security to the likes of her so that was somethin' at least.

The place itself didn't seem like a whole lot, one of them old warehouse jobs that was bein' converted for more entertainin' purposes. Was a good size though, not too small that it couldn't accommodate a bunch of debauchees but not too big that you wouldn't have folks waitin' outside either. Smart stuff, that. Not that Sadie figured it would be any different, weren't like it was either of the two owners' first round with this sorta dren.

Although just bare bones the place had a good feel to it. Bar was off to one side and looked plenty big enough to stock whatever madness the boss lady could conjure up. Dance floorish area was huge and Sadie figured they'd pack the edges full of furniture.

"Lotta potential here," she mused while glancin' about. "Guessin' you'll be lookin' at makin' security on the down low so folks don't notice it none? But keep an eye on everyone at all times sorta thin'?"

A small laugh left her as she shoved her hands into the front pockets of the slightly over sized hooded sweater she wore, a boot kicking at the unfinished floor of the club. "Not that I imagine there'll be a lot of unknown illicit dren goin' down here. Figure anythin' that comes in 'n out the doors of that nature will be company approved, yeah?"

[Atton Kira]

Company approved. Atton smiled at that. There was no denything that Sadie was a smart and insightful woman; but she was quiet often, and kept her smarts mostly to herself. Just like him, she downplayed herself, hid her skills, let everyone assume she wasn't a threat until she was good and ready for them to know. She wouldn't describe herself that way; might not even think of herself that way, but it was something that she and Atton had vaguely in common. Absolutely zero contact between them, and yet she had somehow found her way onto the same sort of path that he had already walked.

"Not entirely," Atton countered, with a slight squint of his eyes and rock of his head. "We certainly want anythin' of that nature t' be company approved, but we also 'ave to keep the odd undesirable example out. Lets say that, hypothetically -" He gave her a knowing look. "- we 'ave a client who 'as asked us t' obtain a certain illicit substance, an' the exchange is due t' go down 'ere in Elysium. That's all good an' fine, we can watch that, control that. But suppose some grubber from out on the docks comes in carryin' substances of his own, and he isn't quite as subtle about it as our boys are. He gets snagged by security, and we bring down a whole mountain of scrutiny on our heads. That would be very bad for business."

Atton continued walking, leading Sadie through the abandoned remnants of refurbishment supplies and equipment. For a moment, he paused to look at a large sheet of fibreboard, marked out with various shapes and patterns. A few squints and estimates led him to conclude that it was intended for behind the bar: a surround to neatly frame the cluster of cogs and machinery that they had decided to make a feature of. Neither the blueprints nor the Ugnaught surveyors they had brought in knew quite what the seemingly redundant mechanism was for, but no one had been willing to see it removed, and so there it stayed, pride of place behind the bar. Or at least behind where the bar would be: it was still a crude frame at this point, most of the components waiting to be assembled and plumbed in. Atton had given the fitters a half day off - not because they deserved it, particularly, but because he'd wanted the place to be empty. No point in forcing Sadie to confront a room full of distractions and strangers; better to let her make her observations in peace, where she didn't have to worry so much about who might be watching her. Besides, there were certain aspects of the tour Atton had in mind that the workmen weren't privy to.

Finally, the meandering path through the building site brought them to a quiet corner, an inconspicuous door recessed behind an inconspicuous pillar and an inconspicuous rack of shelves. The door was marked the way that many of those on Cloud City's lower levels were: markings in several languages to show that the door was locked and sealed, nothing but maintenance crawlspaces and the inner guts of the platform's mining and refinery mechanisms located beyond. The door was even welded in place, melted metal sealing the divide between the door itself and it's frame. Absolutely, in every way, a clearly unpassable.

Unpassable, that is, until Atton pulled out a security key card, and slipped it into the rusted and seemingly unpowered lock. A few buttons were pressed without the usual satisfying bleeping sound, and then suddenly there was a hiss. The door did not slide upwards or aside the way it was supposed to; rather, the entire construction, door frame and all, slid backwards several inches before swinging aside on an unseen hinge. Darkness loomed from beyond. Atton grinned, and led the way inside, clanking his way down a flight of corrugated durasteel stairs. The darkness closed in around him, but he counted his descent, knowing exactly when to step out onto the solid floor. He heard Sadie on the steps behind him, considerably more trepidation in her movements.

Atton drew in a breath and sighed, a sudden wave of anxious nerves sweeping over him. He'd decided this would be a good idea. He'd been fairly confident that Sadie would appreciate this. But what if she didn't? What if the gesture he was trying to make meant more in his mind than it would to her?

"Wakey, wakey," he called out into the dark, biting the bullet.

"Voice authorisation confirmed," the room responded through speakers lurking somewhere in the blackness. "Atton Kira, User Zero One."

Suddenly the shadows began to flicker, tiny glimmers of light manifesting into existence before growing brighter, slowly illuminating the room. The door above them closed automatically, barring any uninvited entry, sealing the two of them privately inside. The lights in the distance soon resolved, transforming into the definite shapes of a bank of monitors (https://wegameunited.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/mass-effect-game-rig.jpg), their glow casting enough light to bring data terminals and computer consoles into view.

Slowly he turned to Sadie, looking both majestic and mysterious the way he was silhouetted from behind by the screens. "I have been following your career f' some time, and I became a little... concerned about your failsafe. I was worried that, given the company y' have a habit of keepin', you might be forced to do somethin' rash while under duress that y'd end up regretting. So -"

He waved a hand out behind him. "This is as much of your network as I could manage t' salvage, mixed in with everythin' else that I've managed t' build myself over the last twenty years or so. This room has the best slicing and network security gear that money can by, taps into military comms and all the major holonet sub-bands, feeds from all the security sensors on Cloud City, and from everywhere else my droids an' I've managed t' conceal a surveillance device over the years. Hells, give Katie the word, and she can hook you up with a camera feed direct from Captain Montegue's bedroom and 'fresher, if you're inclined t' want t' watch that sort of thing."

Atton fell silent for a moment, a thoughtful frown crossing his brow, a new layer of sincerity draping itself across his words. "Bog'el tried to take everything from you, an' I wasn't prepared to let that happen. I know this wasn't the same as how things were before, but maybe it's a start."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Sadie hadn't known what to expect but it certainly weren't this. When Bog had her pull the trigger on her network Sadie had figured that was the end of a bloody era. Everythin' was gone as far as she knew and in her mind that meant maybe one day she might start piecin' it all back together if she was bored or motivated enough but it was one of them things kinda like a stubborn wound, pickin' at it wouldn't do anyone any good and odds are you were just gonna make a mess of things before you actually got anywhere with fixin' anythin'. Or somethin' like that. Either way, she'd taken it all for a lost cause.

But now there was this. Nothin' was really gone, maybe even better than it had been thanks to Kira's own sources and well... Choked up was a nice way of puttin' how she was feelin'. Air caught in her throat mid breath, she felt like her heart had come to some complete stop somewhere in her chest, the world felt kinda blurry overall - not just on account of the damned annoying tears that wanted to fill her vision and block out sight of all them pretty monitors - and Sadie just... well... it was like when Vitt gave her that quetarra all over again. Just as vulnerable and just as impossible a moment to pretend like she was bein' better off than she was.

"Wh-why?" was all she stammered and it barely registered that the computer was yammerin' off somethin' about "Saidra K'Vesh, User Zero Two."

She managed to pull herself away from the displays and looked back towards Kira who seemed all kinds of ominous in the light they were castin'. "I-I mean thanks. Really. I don't really know how t' say that an' make it any bit more meanin'full. Feel like I should, cause y' don't - or, okay, so maybe y' do - know how much this means t' me."

She was speakin' in circles a bit, words catchin' and cut off a bit as she kept tryin' to remember to breathe enough and blink enough to keep from turnin' into some sort of sobbin' mess even if she felt like her insides had already sunk to the floor and were weepin' like a person who just found out their entire world weren't blown t' bits like they thought it had been.

"I-I jus' don't get it, y'know? Y'say you've been watchin' after me an' now this and jus'... Why?"

Sadie weren't sure she wanted the answer but damned if the question wasn't persistent in bein' asked. It was openin' a can that she had thought she had sealed a long time ago, Sadie was sure of it. Frak it, too late to take the question back now that she'd gone and asked it twice already.

[Atton Kira]

"Because of a promise."

Atton had known she would ask. He must have. Of course she would. Sadie was the kind of girl who knew you didn't get something for nothing. She'd always try and figure out what the catch was, the ulterior motive, the hidden reason. She hadn't been on the receiving end of an ounce of charity or benevolence her whole life, so of course she wouldn't start taking such things for granted all of a sudden. It was obvious. Yet, despite how blatant an outcome it was, Atton found him standing there, at a complete loss for anything to say.

Well okay, perhaps that wasn't true. There was plenty that Atton could say: an entire universe of truths and revelations he could offer to the girl who knew almost nothing about herself. But rather than could, the key factor here was should. Saidra had become who she was in ignorance of her origins, and while there had been more than her fair share of hardships along the way as a result of that, the truth wouldn't undo the past. It might undo the present though, and the future. Atton had the power to change Sadie's life, and her sense of self, completely and utterly. But it was a Death Star of a power. No matter how much you insisted that it was simply a mining station with an utterly benevolent goal, you were still going to end up obliterating someone's entire world as soon as you tried to do anything with it.

More than anything though, it was that same promise that turned his insides into knots: a promise that he had redefined and stretched the parameters of countless times over the years. Make sure she'll be okay, was what he'd been asked; but that simple request had turned into a lifelong cause of guardianship from the shadows, and now it had transformed into mysterious benevolence in the light of day. Would the next step, the final removal of the screens and barriers between Sadie and the truth, be the final act that broke that promise?

It was too late for such questions now though; Atton found himself continuing to talk, the final decision made by something other than his brain.

"A promise I made to my sister, when she realised that the only way to keep her daughter safe was to never see her again."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"Wh-what?"

She couldn't have heard right. Sister. Daugher. That meant... No no no. That was a damn impossibility. Sadie didn't have family that was alive and kickin' and takin' an interest in her, she just didn't. That weren't up for debate, that wasn't a question she had asked that was a gorram fact. And yet...

This time her body went ahead without permission and echoed what she'd been feelin' earlier, legs failin' under her until she hit the cool floor in the most ungraceful landin' ever. Her eyes had been focused on a spot between the two of them and there it stayed for a few beats before Sadie mustered up that bit of courage needed to look at the guy, at Atton Kira, at her uncle; flesh and blood and all that jazz.

She tried to say somethin' but couldn't, despite mouth openin' and tryin', nothin' wanted to come out. For a brain that was constantly computin' and runnin', now was all kinds of empty and still. Atton Kira was her uncle. His sister was her mother. And all this time...

Sadie felt her head nod more than she actively made it do so, a deep breath drawn in as she looked back down. "Okay. Well, that answers all whole heap o' stuff."

So what was she supposed to do now? In holomovies stuff like this ended with hugs and huge changes and all that dren, but Sadie's life was about as damn far away from that sort of thing as you could get. And as much as some questions had gotten answers with that proclamation, it brought on too many others. She'd only gotten mention of one sister of Kira's and she'd been far too young to be Sadie's mum so there was that gaping hole of new information right there, then there was the whole why didn't you say nothing before? but that was better left unsaid. People had reasons and right now Sadie wasn't sure she wanted to know why it was that her mother apparently felt it was better her kid was on her onsies in life rather than growin' up normal.

She wanted to be mad. Wanted to blame everythin' that had gone wrong in her life on the man who apparently had been keepin' tabs but never actually stepped in. But that weren't right and she knew it. Things happened for reasons even if you couldn't understand 'em. There were bigger pictures and already she was comin' up with hosts of 'em that absolved blame from just about everyone.

"Y'... Y' aint gonna leave now that I know, are ya?"

[Atton Kira]

Wordlessly, Atton took a few slow steps closer, until he found himself with the crumpled form of Sadie at his feet. Carefully he eased himself down something half crouch, half kneeling, as close to Sadie's eye level as he could manage to bring himself. Tears were another thing that shouldn't have been unexpected; but the way they affected him was. It was like a steel beam through the chest, puncturing him so completely that where there had once been anxious twists and tightness there was now only a void. He'd done that; he'd caused that. All these years of watching from a far, of keeping his distance, of not meddling in her life for fear of affecting her choices in a way he simply had no right to; they all came to an end with this.

Equally unexpected was the way that Sadie's sorrow was echoed in him, his own vision misting over as he tried to find her gaze. "I was supposed t' stay away," he said quietly, a frown tugging at his brow, and suddenly those efforts to look Sadie in the eye seemed like an utterly bad idea. When you said it aloud, it was such a stupid notion; such a pathetic excuse. "I was supposed t' get you safely into the system, get you into foster care, an' then never come near you again. Y' mother didn't want her enemies and dangers becomin' yours, and so I promised that I wouldn't run the risk of anyone tracin' me t' you."

He seemed almost ashamed, equal parts for breaking his promise, and for following through on it to the extent that he had. "I couldn't 'elp it, though. Figured there wouldn't be any 'arm in checkin' up on you every now an' again. As soon as I found out what 'appened with the family who fostered you though, it was too late. I couldn't step in, and there was nothing I could do to intervene, not without breaking the promise I made. So I -"

A hollow laugh. "I cheated. I took my intelligence trainin' and' m' trust fund, and I started building this: this network, this information broker empire, this 'ole persona and life a' crime. An 'ole elaborate web a' connections, just t' let me pull on the strings of y' life 'ere an' there. I bounced jobs y' way through third parties. Greased a few palms t' make sure y' got t' perform. Came t' your gigs a few times; hell, y' got fan mail from me under pseudonyms more'n a few times. I did everythin' I could, or at least, as much as I thought I could get away with. But -"

A tear managed to break free from the shimmering pool collected at the edges of his eyes, disappearing to his cragged features. "I didn't know what Bog'el was doing behind the scenes. If I had, I -"

"I'm sorry." His head fell, staring down at the floor between them. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry. I should've done better, an' I -"

He stopped, words continuing to fail him over and over. There was no point in this. No point in apologising. He was slapping a bandaid on a hull breach: a waste of time when you already knew it would take far more significant measures to repair that extent of damage. He could sit here and say he was sorry until every star in the sky had burned out and died, and it still wouldn't make a damned bit of difference, because it was just words. If any amends was even possible, it'd take actions; it'd take effort; it'd take time. Now was as good a time to start as any.

Slowly, he reached out to take hold of Sadie's hand, but stopped himself, rethinking the potential foolishness. His wrist twisted, a hand extended in greeting rather than in any attempt at unsolicited comfort. "I've wanted to say this for your entire life: hello, Saidra. I am your Uncle Atton. Y' have no idea how glad I am t' finally meet you."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Sadie weren't sure what she was supposed t' be feelin' right then. That naggin' voice that was sayin' she should be all sorts of out put by it was whisperin' itself hoarse, though. Maybe someone else would have found everythin' a reason to hate the guy in front of her, and anyone else that knew or had a hand in it, but she just couldn't find it in her to be that way. After all, what good was there in estrangin' yourself from the first actual family you had in your whole Force-forsaken life.

She caught that bit where he'd reached out and second guessed himself though and even though it went against every bit of her that was demanding a straight no touchie policy, her hand clasped Atton's.

"Yeah, likewise." Her voice sounded a bit unsure and far away and Sadie hated herself for that and with her free hand reached up and dragged it through her hair. "Look, I aint no good at this sort o' thing. I don't really know what t' say, see? Can count on one hand th' number o' times someone's ever done somethin' f' me that meant a lick an' two of 'em have been all sorts o' recent."

The same hand that had been in her hair now dragged across the back of her eyes, smudgin' the minuscule amount of makeup she'd put on. She eyed the bit on her hands before wipin' it off on her pants and let out a slight laugh. Try to look a bit nicer for the more proper folks and look what comes of it. That'd learn her.

"Jus' thanks again, yeah? For..." She gestured to the screens before lookin' back down on where her hand still lightly held onto Atton's. "An' everythin' else, I guess."

[Atton Kira]

"No."

This was the tragedy of it all: the girl so beaten, so undermined by her life that she didn't know how to react when someone gave her a gift; didn't know how to respond to a person who set out only to bring something positive into her life. In truth, Atton wasn't sure how to act in this situation either, what to say or what to do to somehow undo even a shred of the damage he'd allowed to happen; perhaps even had an inadvertent hand in causing.

"You don't need to -"

His words stumbled again; he pulled in a small breath, released a small sigh, mustered a small smile onto his lips. "I have a lot a' making up t' do. You don't need t' thank me for a thing until I'm none makin' amends, okay?"

He let his other hand settle gently atop where Sadie had taken hold of his, his eyes scrunching in the corners as a sincere smile found it's way there for the first time in too many years to count, a gently insistent note of sincerity creeping into his words.

"From now on, you want for nothin'. No matter how big, or how small... you want it, it's yours. All the birthdays, all the Life Days, all the random chances t' do my job an' dote upon my beautiful little niece... too many opportunities t' do what I should 'ave and always wanted t' do have been let pass by, and while I know a -" He waved his hand vaguely. "- military grade pulsewave encryption scanner or a gold plated quetarra with a diamond-studded fret board, or any amount a' gifts or luxuries ain't gonna change a thing about the past or make all the times I should a' stepped in an' been there for you go away an' be forgotten..."

His gaze fell away a little. "I still wanna try. All the money in the 'verse can't undo the life you've been sufferin', but maybe I can... I dunno. Make it feel like all the struggles an' hardships were worth it somehow, t' 'ave brought your life t' here, an' now."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"Gonna sound stupid but 'm already startin' t' wonder if that weren't th' case." Even if half mumbled Sadie was pretty sure that wasn't supposed to actually make an exit from her head.

Another short laugh followed and with another deep breath to put a halt to all them rampant errant emotions that really needed to be put back in their proper place, she looked back towards the monitors. A small twinge of smirk worked it's way to her lips as she studied the setup once more.

"Military grade scanner, though, you say?"

The grin widened a bit as she glanced back to Atton.

"'M kiddin'. Those things are pieces of munk. Curious to see what all y' got set up here. Smart puttin' it down under the club, no one is gonna think anythin' o' anybody comin' and goin' here even at odd hours."

Gettin' back to her feet, Sadie finally lett her hands go back to bein' free on their own, her fingers practically itchin' to start testin' out what her uncle - that was gonna take some gettin' used to callin' him - had set up for her.

"So what all kinds of surveillance we got here on planet? Figure I can give that a test run b'fore delvin' in real deep, if y' don't mind."

[Atton Kira]

"Mind?"

Atton let out a chuckle, and with that the tension in his shoulders shattered, his biggest fear disproved. Sadie knew, and she was still here, still talking to him, not just out of professional courtesy but with a smile even. All these years being afraid that the secret was safer than the risk of the truth driving her out of his reach; all that wasted time and wasted opportunities that he'd so stupidly robbed them both of. The guilt was still there, and the shame, but something new draped over it: pure and simple embarrassment of how much of an idiot he was. This was his niece, his sister's daughter. He knew the kind of stubborn resilience that was in her blood. Hell, he'd just seen her shrug off being abused and tortured by one of the people she trusted most, and here she was shrugging it off and getting on with her krasking life. She was made of tougher stuff than he'd given her credit for; and he should have known better.

"On the contrary, Miss K'Vesh: I absolutely insist."

Those words hung in the air, the jovial smile that they'd been spoken with wavering slightly as they registered. It was the kind of thing that Atton Kira would have said; but that wasn't who he was anymore, not exclusively. The performance that he acted out, the personality and manner that he wrapped around himself to stop anyone from being able to know the man that was underneath. It was a defensive facade, necessary for his own protection as well as to protect his many secrets. But not protection from her. Not protection from Sadie. Alone with her in this room, she deserved to have him lower his shields.

"Ath-Thu'ban," he corrected quietly, his voice a strange mix of timid and reverent. "Lady Saidra Ath-Thu'ban of Alderaan."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Sadie felt her face tug, eyebrow archin' far higher than she'd ever have figured she could manage as she turned back to look at Atton.

"What?" One of these days she'd come up with a better comeback but for right now that was the best she could figure out. Brain just weren't ready for all these kinds of shocks and dren. "Y' kiddin'... right?"

Didn't take very long to figure out the look on dear uncle's face and the way he'd said the rather fancy soundin' - what she guessed was hers -full name that it weren't a joke. Made sense she guessed when she let herself have a breather to think for a sec or two. The Countess... err Contessa - damn fancier soundin' titles - had been the guys' mum. Only made sense with the new info that one could connect the dots and just...

Sadie started laughin'. Oh, it weren't the right reaction and she knew it but... Alderaanian nobility?? HER? Princess of space dust and flyin' chunks. Only took a bit of a few minutes b'fore the significance of that actually caught up with her and brought a halt to the gigglin' and replaced it with a rather stoic look. Atton hadn't exactly gone and offered up more info on her mum or a dad, or any other family members that a family should consist of. Which... considerin' the space dust again...

"S'rry... Jus'... Y'know. Me a Lady of anythin' is prolly some big ol' cosmic joke. Not s' funny when you really get on with it though. So... Alderaan. Guessin'... we're the only ones left, then?"

[Atton Kira]

There was a momentary pause, a brief flutter of hesitation, as the urge to hide behind a reflexive lie gripped him. It was a subconscious habit at this point: lies and misdirection uttered as easily and effortlessly as breathing, a tangle of deceit woven into a blanket that he bundled himself up in as a barrier against the rest of the universe. But Saidra, she didn't deserve to be on the outside of that, she didn't deserve to be treated the same way as everyone else. And perhaps, just this once, maybe Atton deserved to allow himself to be something other than alone.

One tentative moment longer, and then he turned, crossing the room to a biometric lockbox casually tucked away in an unsuspecting corner. Such meager security measures wouldn't have stopped Sadie of course, and Atton supposed that on some subconscious level he must have known that. Perhaps this had been his plan all along, one that even he didn't fully realise: leave the answers that Saidra deserved to have easily at hand, ready to be stumbled across the first time her curiosity sent her exploring her new surroundings. That would have put all the answers instantly in her hands; that would have made it all her choice, given her the opportunity to contemplate her new reality and approach him on her own terms, rather than being forced to react instantly to him revealing it himself. Perhaps Atton had hoped that approach would be the safer route, the one less likely to deprive him of his niece's company before he even got the chance to know her. It didn't much seem to matter now.

From the safe, he pulled out a small device, it's simple appearance a stark contrast to the careful reverence with which Atton held it. He stared at it in his hands for a few moments, before finally turning, and extending it towards Sadie.

"This is everythin' I 'ave," he explained. "Everythin' I know about you, y' family, and y' mother." More or less, at least. He made a slight gesture towards the bank of screens. "Obviously, I couldn't just leave it around on the network fer anyone to find, but -"

He trailed off, a somber lump in his throat tripping up a few of his words.

"There's two copies. This one here, an' another in a safe deposit box in a bank on Ord Radama. If anythin' were to happen t' me, instructions in my will are t' give you the coordinates an' the code. Always hoped I might one day get the chance t' tell you myself, but I couldn't risk the chance that somethin' would 'appen to me and leave you alone in the dark for the rest a' your life."

A small, sad smile.

"Guess I wasn't expectin' you t' be the one who suffered the badness that'd bring me into y' life."

Carefully he took hold of Sadie's arm, lifting it enough so he could place the data storage device into her hand. "Be careful, though. Don't seek answers just 'cause you finally know where t' find them. Not every answer is gonna be an answer you want to hear, an' the person you've become - the incredible woman I only just got the chance t' meet - has never had those answers; never needed them."

He stared down at the device, knowing exactly what lurked within the storage crystals within that duraplast shell.

"It's your choice now, Sadie. Make it carefully."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Funny how downright ominous somethin' so little could be. First Atton handed her a livin' family member, then a fancy title and an actual last name rather than somethin' she picked up out of a holomovie, and now practically the rest of the missin' pieces in her life right all in one big moment. Was a bit overwhelmin' and only took a few moments of lookin' about to find a chair that made the whole thing a bit easier to take.

She stared at the storage device as if it might spring alive and attack or somethin' equally as laser brained. Whole lot of answers, but as Atton had said not all answer she'd actually like hearin' and maybe just a whole mess of questions more to crack open. Sadie didn't know if she were ready for that. Didn't know if she'd ever be ready for that. Like he said too - she hadn't needed any of that sort of scriff before. Maybe it was best to take this whole thing slow. Weren't like it was goin' anywhere, after all.

With a nod she pocketed the device, realizin' it probably wouldn't last unseen too long, but damn if she wasn't gonna need a bottle of good stuff to help swallowin' it all down. Besides, she had a nice shiny new toy to play with and what sort of niece would she be if she didn't actually tear right into it?

The chair was whirled towards the monitors and consoles that made up the huge display system.

"Think I'll start with th' devils I know t'day. Don't wanna overload."

Fingertips were interlaced and stretched out in front of her in some silly grand display of preparin' to do what she did best. As an afterthought, Sadie glanced back over her shoulder at Atton again. "Serious, though. Thanks... Unc."

[Atton Kira]

Unc.

Two minutes, and that was who he already was. Whatever worst case scenarios his mind had considered, whatever outcome of Sadie finding out who he was and she was he had possibly imagined, Sadie simply taking it all in stride and getting on with her day wasn't one of them. It should have been, given what he knew about it; but he'd never imagined that he would be something she was content to accept without question. All those years of keeping away, of staying at more than just arms length, and now this.

Atton smiled. Not a smug smile, not a disarming smile, not a fake smile as part of some manipulation or ploy: he smiled because he needed to, because his brain and body insisted that was the only thing he should be engaged in right now; because that was what uncles did when they couldn't possibly be more proud of the niece sitting in front of them.

His hand reached up, and tugged at the brim of an invisible hat that he wasn't wearing. "You're quite welcome, milady."

[Inyos Aamoran]

* * *

A sound like a futuristic sonic boom reverberated through the cockpit as the Delta 7 Aethersprite burst out of hyperspace, breaking thrusters firing to slow it's ballistic trajectory to a much more sedate pace. The light of Bespin - both the star and the reflections from the swirling clouds of the planet - glinted off the transparisteel cockpit, and cast strange shadows across the circumference of the Jedi Starfighter's hyperspace ring.

Within, Inyos Aamoran's eyes narrowed at the sensor displays before him, lips drawing into a thin line as he contemplated the Imperial world that loomed ahead. Despite the efforts of Imperial propaganda and politics, Bespin still remained a relatively unvisited world by galactic standards: the casino and resort spires of Cloud City certainly attracted plenty of civilian traffic, but the presence of the Imperial military was still relatively sparse. Even so, dispersed as it was, the Imperials were still there; and that complicated matters.

Perhaps it was more a case of nostalgia than rational thought, but Inyos always felt more comfortable in starfighters such as this: the Aethersprite felt lighter, sleeker, and more responsive than craft that integrated their hyperdrives; but the advantage they gained over the bloated and sluggish alternatives came with a not insignificant vulnerability. Before the Clone Wars, and even during, the notion of abandoning a hyperspace ring in orbit for later recovery was barely even worth a spare thought. Such was the way of things; and space was large, while hyper-rings were small, making the odds of them being stumbled across and destroyed fairly small. Even if that worst case scenario did transpire, Republic starships carried replacements as a matter of course; anyone stranded by such an occurrence would not be for long. Nowadays though? His Sylliure-31 module was an antique; not even the most recent module used by the Jedi and the Republic. If anything were to happen to it, not only would he be a lone Jedi stranded on a world deep inside the Empire, but questions over why such a ring was in orbit would raise all kinds of questions, and draw all sorts of unwanted attention.

He'd chosen this fighter over his usual shuttle because he'd expected it to be more covert. Suddenly, that decision seemed to have been in error.

A string of chirps and whistles sounded through the comm unit, prompting Inyos to glance at the small display screen that translated his astromech's instructions. "No, Peethirteen," Inyos replied calmly, as the droid gently reminded him that the fighter's hyperdrive was indeed detachable. "We're going to hang onto it for a little while. It'll be much harder to find if we hide it somewhere within the atmosphere."

R4-P13 took a moment to proclaim just how problematic he considered that plan to be, but Inyos mostly ignored it. The droid was old and eccentric: this fighter was one of the handful that had been recovered by the Jedi and the Alliance when he and Master s'Ilancy had discovered the wreck of the Jedi Cruiser Venture. By that point, P13 had already spent his entire existence integrated into the structure and systems of this Delta 7, and had then spent thirty years trapped and alone in the vacated hangar bay of an abandoned wreck. The Alliance engineers had wanted to wipe his drives and reset him back to factory specs, but Inyos wouldn't let it happen. Thirty years was more than enough to turn a little astro-droid into a being, and a life - even an artificial one - as complex as P13 had become was too precious a thing to be wasted.

Besides: Inyos knew from painful experience the affect that so many years of isolation could have on your mind, and your soul. If P13 could be rehabilitated, and keep proving himself useful even with those memories intact, then perhaps Inyos could somehow find a way to do the same.

His hands loosely on the controls with practised comfort, Inyos tried a few gentle manoeuvres, recalibrating his pilot senses to the feel of the craft with it's additional weight and skewed centre of mass. The weight had all shifted a little further forward, which made the pitch and yaw a little more sluggish, but not problematically so: at least, not out here in the microgravity of space. How the weight would affect the craft's handling once he began to rely on the repulsorlift coils to hold him aloft was another matter entirely. Still, at least Bespin was a gas giant, with no solid ground for him to crash into should anything go catastrophically wrong.

Just a slow, agonising crushing death in ever increasing atmospheric pressure.

"Link the stabilisation thrusters on the hyper-ring to my flight controls," he requested, flipping a few switches internally to help expedite the instruction's he'd given to his droid. The hyperdrive module was loaded down with reaction control clusters and station-keeping thrusters to help the unit remain stable and correctly orientated once it was deployed for use from a parent starship: docking a starfighter with a hyperdrive ring was a precision process, and while automation broadened the margin for error considerably, any unexpected variations in the ring's motion could provide all kinds of complications. If that control functionality was there, Inyos might as well make use of it; every micron of potential delta-v was valuable to him now.

As P13 complied, Inyos took care of his next request on his own, pulling up the navigational data on Bespin's atmospheric patterns, and overlaying data he had gathered so far. It had begun while studying the pale echo of the Jedi Archives that the refugees on Ossus had been able to scrabble together from every source they could find. He had been searching for the wisdom of old Jedi Masters, the kinds of teachings and parables with which he had acquainted himself so thoroughly during his days as a Padawan on Coruscant. Even then, such wisdom was rare: though the Jedi had existed for millennia as the paragons of peace and light in the galaxy, there were events and eras - just as with the Republic - that forced history to be reset, and so much of the knowledge gained before had been lost. The Jedi Purge of recent years had devastated those records, but it was merely the latest in a long line.

Instead of wisdom, what he had found was an obscure reference, in a half-corrupted memoir that would have hardly seemed worth his attention were it not for a nudge of curiosity and the Force willing him to spare it more than half a glance. Amid the deteriorated words, only two stood out, but only two were necessary.

Enclave. Bespin.

It had taken months of private effort to satisfy his curiosity. He had visited numerous worlds within the Alliance, searching through Republic records and personal accounts to learn anything at all, and even that had yielded almost nothing at all. Yet, despite the mystery, he could not help feeling drawn towards it, motivated by the will of the Force to seek out whatever secrets lurked within the clouds of Bespin. It went beyond mere research, went beyond a desire to help the Jedi Order to rebuild and recover: the Force wanted him to carry out this venture; as if there were some personal stake that was meant for him alone to experience. It was something he could not shake, and that his usually rational mind could not overcome. So here he was, staring down at the rusty clouds of an Imperial world, about to begin searching for an atom in a debris field.

His eyes regarded the most recent piece of the puzzle that he had obtained: a crude map sourced two days ago from the Figg Archives on Gerrenthum, roughly marking out various sights of archaeological significance discovered on the gas world. While Cloud City was the most infamous - and arguably most significant - structure on Bespin, earlier instances of habitation were spoken of in myth and rumour, and a few fragments and rellics of older occupation had been stumbled across over the years. To casual eyes they were a scattered array, no coherent pattern to be unravelled, strewn about by air currents across hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. Inyos' eyes were more than casual, though. He had learned all he could about the gas world, studied the scientific surveillance of it's atmospheric patterns, and from here in orbit he could feel the ebb and flow of it's air currents, the living pulse of the planet's existence. For a moment he let his eyes closed, reaching out with more than vision, letting the Force guide his attention. Something at first pulled his mind towards Cloud City, to the myriad souls that dwelt within; but he pulled back against it, forced his focus to broaden, searched for a glimmer of what it was that he sought.

His eyes opened, hands carefully manipulating the fighter's controls, aiming the nose towards a faint swirl within the clouds. There: a tiny blip, a tiny ripple within the Force that should not have been. He released a slow breath and then, after a moment of reverent pause, powered up the thrusters and began his descent.

[Nen Lev'i]

* * *

"No."

Nen Lev'i stood, hand clutching the railing at the top of the stairs behind the unfinished Elysium's secret door, and stared. It wasn't just a stare, either: his mouth was trapped in limbo, half way between a gasp and a grin, and to be completely honest, it was taking a whole lot of self control to avoid peeing himself with excitement.

"No way!" he enthused, ripping his eyes away just long enough to glance eagerly at Sadie before his eyes were drawn back again. He set off down the stairs at an eager scamper, luck and momentum the only things keeping him from missing a footing and barrelling arse over tit the rest of the way down. "This is so cool!"

"Recognise," the synthesised voice of the security protocols announced over the speakers. "Nen Lev'i, User Zero Six."

The squeaking gasp that escaped from Nen Lev'i sounded like a mynock trying to fornicate with a seal, his grinning mouth split open so broadly that it almost seemed like he was going to explode. Hunched a little within the comfort of his reassuringly generic hoodie, Nen's fingers twitched eagerly as he ogled the the data terminal, shifting his weight from foot to foot, waiting impatiently for Sadie to make her frustratingly slow own way down the stairs. When Sadie had burst into his cabin on the Crimson Tide and told him she urgently needed to show him something, he had mostly been terrified. Nen's understanding of women was pretty limited - he was pretty good at knowing that women didn't like him and weren't interested, but that was only because he made the blanket assumption that no one ever would or would be, and worked out being correct the vast majority of the time. Sadie was even more enigmatic and confusing than most, so something could have been anything from her lady business or some wound that was oozing a particularly disgusting colour of puss to a Hutt that had fallen down and couldn't get up, or maybe a holo of a tap dancing baby nexu. When she'd led him down to Port Town, that terror had only increased. Why were they going into an abandoned warehouse? Had they decided he was a liability? Was she leading him into an ambush? Was Vittore lurking in the shadows waiting to do to him what he did to that guy back on Nar Shaddaa? The secret doorway though, that had been an unexpected curveball... and then this? Dear sweet baby nunas, this.

"It knows who I am," he said softly in disbelief. This was the coolest thing that he had ever seen. This was the coolest thing that had ever happened to him. Well, factoring in his amnesia for anything that had happened before a few years ago, this was the coolest thing that he remembered ever happening to them - a disclaimer that also neatly encompassed the time he'd woken up in bed with a porn star, a raging hangover, no pants, and absolutely no memory of what had transpired the night before.

Okay, so maybe the second coolest thing that had ever happened. But still.

Nen managed to wipe the kid in a candy store expression from his face just long enough to turn his attention back to Sadie with as much sincerity as he could possibly muster, all to ask:

"Can your new uncle be my uncle too?"

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Watchin' Nen's reaction brought it all in full perspective. When Atton had shown her the set up she had been baffled as to what she'd done to deserve it and all the revelations and such that came from her askin' had kinda diminished the giddiness that was more proper for the gift. Even returnin' she'd felt excitement, but it took Nen's burstin' enthusiam to really set her mind straight. Yeah, y're damn right it is cool.

She'd only done a bit of pickin' b'fore runnin' off to snag Nen, just enough to confirm that Atton weren't kiddin' 'bout it bein' most of her network and then some. Turns out Uncle Atton came through with flyin' colors. All her algorithms, the back door keys she'd made to all sorts of networks, okay maybe not everythin', but most everythin' was there and what wasn't could be remade easy as all with what was there. Not that she figured she needed to. The lil' bit she'd played with showed that Atton's system was huge. Would take days just to uncover all the goodies that awaited her.

For a bit she'd wanted to just discover things all on her own, but part of her had wanted to run off and show Vittore as well. Only took a few steps to get that the hunter might not be as appreciative of it all that a more like-minded folk would have been. She didn't doubt he'd buck up a smile or two on behalf of her own happiness but you couldn't right proper share in the joy unless the person got it.

Nen, on the other hand, got it for sure.

"Ha, y'd have to ask him. Though get the feelin' that just outin' himself t' me took a deal out of the guy so I wouldn't go an' plan any new family relation such stuff just yet."

Ploppin' herself down in one of the seats in front of all them fancy monitors, Sadie swiveled until she looked back at Nen. "So, y' wanna help me see what all dirt we can uncover 'bout Cloud City? Already got some stuff runnin' for the boss lady - lookin f' more of that Sarlacc dren. Don't mean we can't see if we can't figure out how to get on some permanent VIP lists over at th' Cumulus. Free drinks for life or some o' that. An' y' wouldn't believe th' security feeds we got access t'."

[Nen Lev'i]

Nen's eyes narrowed at the mention of security feeds. While sure, the things were useful and all if you wanted to scope out a place before a job or whatever, it was the whole spying thing that made his skin crawl. He didn't know why exactly, but the notion of them, the notion of being watched and seen whatever he did made him paranoid and self conscious, always wondering who was watching and judging what he was up to. So sure, he wasn't exactly important enough for anyone to proactively spy on; except they were on Cloud City with Atton Kira, and he seemed like the kind of guy who would spy on everything, and then creep you out by casually mentioning what you had for breakfast, and then suggest adding more fibre to your diet because of how long you spent in the 'fresher that morning.

He shuddered at the thought before fumbling it aside, dumping himself into one of the other seats with at least 93% of his usual optimism.

"Cumulus?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Sure, lets go drink drinks that are stupidly expensive just for the sake of bein' stupidly expensive, surrounded by a bunch of asshats in fancy clothes tryin' to show off how rich they are by standin' around sippin' on their stupidly expensive drinks fake-laughin' about what Farquith an' Tumbleberriq got up to at the Lantillian derby this year."

He rolled his eyes as his fingers drummed away at his own keyboard, but mid-stream he hesitated, a thought suddenly occurring to him. Ever so slowly, his eyes peered sideways at Sadie, and then over his shoulder just in case anyone else had crept in behind them. No one watching. Good. He carefully typed in his new instructions to the system, trying to type casual, splitting the sequence into random chunks just in case Sadie had some weird superpower that let her work out what someone was typing just by hearing the keystrokes.

Search query.

Good so far. Little indicator flashed up on the screen. Sadie didn't seem to notice nothing.

Security feeds.

Still good. Nothing to see here. Everything normal. No need to worry. Carefully, he reached out and angled the monitor the tiniest bit, skewing the screen so that Sadie wouldn't be able to just glance across and see.

Strip clubs.

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Sadie weren't sure exactly what it was Nen was bein' so secretive of... until she tapped in a few keystrokes and found out all quick like. Not that she didn't trust him, or figure he was up to more than some harmless fun, but there was a reason she was alive this long and a healthy dose of paranoia did a body good. A shake of her head was her only reaction - like she cared 'bout that sort of thing. Boys will be boys or some such dren, so long as he didn't start goin' and enjoyin' the show too much, it was all good.

Also meant Nen was kept occupied so she could take a better gander at stuff without bein' asked what it was she was lookin' at or for. Was good to have company around, meant she wasn't all on her lonesome, but that didn't mean she wanted t' play the came of a million questions, either. Truth was she weren't sure what she was doin' aside from gettin' a feel for everythin'. Few keystrokes and there was the boss lady, drinkin' more spiked caff than was healthy for an average person; another few inputs and there was the Crimson Tide, sittin' pretty waitin' on her t' return; some of them Ciz folks; a couple gettin' wayyyy too friendly in public; ships dockin' and leavin'. Weren't just Cloud City she was keepin' eyes on. Bespin had other places, duller places, but was still neat t' see she could watch 'em whenever she wanted. No wonder Atton knew so damn much 'bout everythin'. There was all sorts of hacks into other places too - Coruscant, Zeltros, Nar Shaddaa, Dac... Save all that for later.

Was surprisin'ly easy to keep tabs on everythin' with the setup. Sadie knew she had some particular talents that were helpin' her process everythin' too... made her wonder again just how much Uncle Atton knew 'bout her. Enough. Both in answer to the amount and to that line of thinkin'.

For some inexplicable reason - probably havin' to do with that annoyin' talent she was tryin' not to think too much about - Sadie kept findin' herself drawn again and again to some hunk of junk rock. Looked like nothin' more than ruins, which all things considered Sadie guessed that maybe there were plenty of abandoned minin' operations and failed Cloud Cities out there. Far as she could tell there weren't nothin' 'bout the place worth even a glance. But then there were readin's. There was a ship out there... and not the kind she instantly recognized - Not that she was good with that sort of thing, really, but still.

Curiosity was an evil sort of thing and before she knew better, a security cam from a satellite just above atmo was picked up, rewinded, and she took a gander at the strange ship again.

"Now what are you up t'?" she half mumbled to herself.

Maybe it was time to find out more about where it was headed...

[Inyos Aamoran]

* * *


Clouds surrounded him on all sides. The upper layers of the Bespin atmosphere were pleasant: at different times of day, the refraction of light through the surface clouds and gases made the sky anything from a crisp clean blue to a warm and rusty brown. Deeper down though, once you dipped beneath the habitable zone that Cloud City and it's cousin platforms occupied, the gases began to close in, to clog up and thicken. Warning indicators flashed across the displays, informing him of the mildly corrosive nature of the atmosphere now, and the steady increase in external pressure. Chemical reactions as certain clouds brushed against certain other clouds produced byproducts, transforming into a dusting of particulates across his cockpit canopy as the transparisteel dispersed the heat throughout it's surface and forced the chemicals to depose. Elsewhere, static friction between other particulates sparked flashes of lightning, and the endless air currents that all those factors created constantly buffeted his craft.

Inyos had long since given up on his navigational sensors for help in navigating to where he thought - hoped - his destination would be. Instead he had enabled his active sensors, his fighter pulsing out high-frequency waves of sound, mapping out a proximity grid as the sonar signals were deflected back to him. The results confirmed what his Jedi senses had suspected: shapes lurking off in the distance, living creatures that followed slowly along his path but didn't dare come closer to this strange new thing that had entered into his territory. Inyos tried his utmost to project his harmless intentions through the Force, soothing anything that might mistakenly view him as a threat.

A concerned whistle from P13 drew his attention back to the sensor monitor, a vast shape looming ahead. A colossal creature perhaps? Some large predator? Inyos reached out, but felt nothing - nothing alive, at least. A few manipulations of the relevant subsystems angled the active sensors towards it, a sharper and more refined image slowly resolving as pulse after pulse was reflected back at the Jedi Starfighter. Smooth edges. Sharp angles. Dense materials. Not organic then, not natural; not unless creatures on Bespin had found a way to evolve into armour-plated boxes.

Carefully, Inyos brought the fighter to a stop, triggering the command that would release the clamps holding his fighter attached to it's hyperspace ring. A few careful manipulations of the thrusters and he eased his way out of the ring's grip, pressing forward towards the detected structure at a much slower pace. Gradually, the object grew larger on his screens, until a dark shadow loomed out of the clouds ahead. Inyos' eyes widened: whatever he had expected, the dark corroded metal, the sharp lines, and the ominous towers had not been it. He had seen many Jedi constructions over the years - the Temple towering over Coruscant, the Library in the jungles of Ossus, the forgotten ruins half-buried on Dantooine - but this was like none of them. He could feel the faintest tint of the dark side hanging in the air like a bitter taste at the back of his throat. He reached forward and activated the forward floodlights as he drew closer, angling the nose to sweep what felt like a pitifully weak beam of light over the hull, searching for an entrance. Inyos reached out with the Force as well, but all the while something else tugged at him, some nagging sense of familiarity far behind him, willing him to be somewhere other than here. Latent anxiety perhaps; or perhaps a gentle nudge from the Force, imploring him to exercise greater wisdom. What was it that people always said in moments like this?

"I have a bad feeling about this."

P13 chimed in with his agreement, at the same time highlighting a section of the superstructure that seemed to resemble a landing platform. A vast iron door loomed behind it, but despite his best efforts, the astromech droid could not trigger any kind of remote command to access it. According to the starfighter's readouts, the platform was operating on minimal power: enough to keep it afloat, but little else. At least we know no one is home, the droid offered helpfully, as Inyos manoeuvred the fighter into position, undercarriage unfolding as it settled down against the platform with a dull thunk. He paid little attention to the droid's contributions though, his mind fixated on the doors that it seemed logical to presume led into some sort of hangar bay. Options slowly began to unfurl in his mind, trying to think of a way to bypass a barrier that his droid claimed to be unable to circumvent. He thought of Mandan Hidatsa, his closest companion during the Clone Wars and the early days of the Purge, and the way that he had been able to manipulate electrons, controlling the flow of power to trigger electronic locks; but Inyos knew his own abilities were far too inadequate for such an approach. Perhaps there was a way he could brute force his way past, use the Force to move the gears, or lift the doors directly -

His mind brushed against something, a faint flicker of a notion on the periphery of his awareness, and suddenly the deck beneath him began to rumble, a muffled groaning sound translating through the Bespin atmosphere as the hangar doors slowly began to creak open. Inyos' eyes widened in surprise. Did I do that? Through the canopy, Inyos saw P13's dome swivel to face him, uttering the same query with a few nervously warbled droidspeak profanities mixed in. Inyos ignored the droid's trepidation, and his own, a little power to the repulsorlift coils causing the fighter to begin drifting slowly forward, into the gaping maw of what Inyos sincerely hoped was indeed the Enclave, and not something else.

As the fighter passed beneath the shadow of the entrance, Inyos felt the hatch begin to groan behind them, the faint diffuse glow from the Bespin clouds outside fading and fading until with an ominous, reverberating clunk they were plunged into total darkness, save for the lances of light emerging from the fighter's nose. P13 once again voiced his reservations at being here, and as Inyos brought the fighter to rest awkwardly on the deck, he was inclined to agree. It was foolish to be here alone; he should have brought assistance, engineers, more eyes to study and explore. That would have been the logical course of action, but the Force had urged him, insisted otherwise. Aside from the need for subtlety, and the desire to avoid drawing the attention of the Empire to his place, why did the Force feel it was so important for him to be here alone?

Inyos enabled more of the fighter's sensors, this time studying the chemical composition of the atmosphere outside. The same noxious clouds as the rest of Bespin at this altitude. The same unbreathable toxic mix -

Light flickered around him, an intermittent struggle as if the power was fighting it's way past obstacles to force it's way around the necessary circuits. Another clunk, more ominous vibrations from the superstructure, and Inyos watched as the atmosphere outside began to change and mutate, inhospitality gradually giving way to a breathable atmosphere. None the less, Inyos still reached for the compartment beneath the pilot's chair, pulling out a breath mask and settling it over his face. "Remain with the ship," he instructed his droid; as if P13 had a choice, permanently grafted into the fighter's hull as he was. The astromech screeched out a warning, but it was too late: Inyos' hands triggered the release on the canopy, and the external atmosphere hissed it's way outside.

Vaulting out onto the deck with the assistance of the Force, Inyos studied his surroundings, peering towards the extremities of the room. Even with the overhead lighting activated, there was still an ominous dimness, enough light to allow human eyes to see but not so much that it staved off the deep shadows that clung to every surface. Perhaps it was merely a symptom of the Enclave operating on minimal power, or perhaps it was by design: Inyos was beginning to increasingly suspect that regardless of what his research had suggested about the occupants of this place, the Jedi themselves had not been responsible for it's construction. That was troubling in and of itself, but dwelling on mere supposition was an exercise in futility. Perhaps the answers he sought lay deeper inside.

Carefully, Inyos removed the lightsaber from his belt and held it aloft, a beam of brilliant blue snapping into existence, casting enough light to drive back the shadows at least a little. For an uncomfortable moment, his mind recalled another ancient structure that he had once explored by 'saber light, another experience surrounded by darkness and clouds. A cascade of black and unsettling thoughts pressed down against him, trying their utmost to paralyse his lungs and drown him. He fought them aside, fumbling around for the scant handful of happy memories he still possessed, letting them fill his thoughts and drive the negativity aside. His eyes had closed, and when they slowly opened, they regarded the chamber with a new sense of clarity.

His brow twitched into the faintest of frowns, head cocking to the side as his eyes were drawn to a series of letters carved into the far wall. He couldn't recall the name or origin of the specific alphabet, but it was familiar enough for him to understand the single word. Brotherhood. Curious. The notion of family and and familial connection had always been something that the Jedi had shied away from, and frowned upon. Such connections and affections were considered a weakness, a vulnerability that the dark side could exploit. Why then was it here, engraved upon the wall of a structure that the Jedi had supposedly once occupied?

He turned his attention back to his fighter, and the droid trapped within. A pang of regret tugged in his chest as he realised the situation he had placed the droid in: after decades trapped and alone in the darkened bowels of the derelict Venture, here he was placing P13 in a cruel reminder of that very same torment. "I need to look around," he stated, trying his utmost - and mostly failing - to sound reassuring. "I promise, I will not be long."

[Nen Lev'i]

* * *

"He is goin' to kill us."

Even if Nen had been given a thousand years to consider and corroborate that belief, he would still have been just as certain of it's accuracy as he was now. There was a note of frantic and panic in his voice, as much a result of the fact that Sadie wasn't bloody listening as it was because of the underlying peril that she was about to drag him into. Sure, he didn't have to follow her. He didn't have to be scampering along anxiously after her as she'd strode back through the corridors of Cloud City, and marched her way up the ramp back onto the Crimson Tide. He didn't have to follow her through the hatch into the converted cargo bay that housed - with very little room to spare - Captain Montegue's pride and joy. At any point he could have grabbed a comlink to expose her terrifying notion, or whipped out a blaster and stunned her until he managed to think of something better to do. He hadn't, because apparently that wasn't who he was. His will was weak: why do something about it, when you could just let yourself get talked into things and spend the whole time fretting?

He shot Sadie a pleading look. Even by his standards of getting caught up in stupid plans and winding up in all kinds of trouble, this was a new record-breaking extreme. Sadie wanted to go investigate that little blip she'd found on the sensors back in the awesome spy style network room - which they totally needed to come up with a cool name for by the way, and Nen had a whole butt ton of suggestions - and that was absolutely fine. It was probably stupid and dangerous, but even that was fine. Dragging along Nen wasn't quite as fine, he would much rather have brought along Captain Montegue and that Amaros guy to make sure they didn't wind up getting killed and eaten by anything creepy and monstrous, but Nen was at least a little bit curious about it too, so whatever. But this though? This weird fixation all because Sadie had a feeling about stuff, this whole crackpot plan to "borrow" Captain Montegue's Y-Wing to fly out there and poke around, this was just plain crazy.

That was why Nen had taken the opportunity to dart back to his cabin, to fumble through the tiny footlocker that contained all the worldly possessions he'd managed to bring with him from Nar Shaddaa when he had been so rudely abducted by Captain Montegue during the whole rescuing Sadie from those assholes thing - you're welcome, by the way; no need to thank me or nothin', which is awful convenient since no one's ever bothered to - and grab his lightsaber. Not his lightsaber. Weren't like he'd built it himself or anything. It was his because he owned it, bought it from some weirdo Dug antiquities guy back on Nar Shaddaa. Didn't know how to fight with it, couldn't do the whole fancy blaster deflection thing or nothing like that, but he had the hang of it enough to cut holes in stuff if he needed to, and that wasn't nothing.

"Okay, so maybe he won't kill you," Nen conceded. His shoulders couldn't be any more dejectedly slumped if he'd tried. "He likes you. But he's definitely gonna kill me."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Sadie weren't quite sure why it was she was so keen on doin' this. Boredom, she guessed, but knew that weren't it. Was like an itch you couldn't scratch or those irritatin' moments when an eye would go haywire and start feelin' like it was twitchin' but nothin' visible was actually goin' down. Normally the effort itself would have seemed too much, no point in goin' off wanderin' some place fancy and unknown when you had a nice fancy network system to sit and drink a beer in front of. But somethin' had gotten under her skin bad and she knew it just weren't gonna quit until she went and figured out the frak was persistin' so bad.

Nen's warnin's should have meant somethin' too. She weren't one for purposely makin' folks uncomfortable - except when it was funny, and funny as Nen bein' out of sorts was, this weren't really that. Okay, so maybe Nen had a point 'bout Vittore bein' none too pleased with them takin' the Y-Wing out without prior notification, but Vitt weren't about to ask and that whole compulsion thing was removin' her normal sense of dottin' Is and crossin' Ts.

Besides, he'd gone and said that she could use whatever she needed aboard the Tide.

Sadie raised an eyebrow at Nen with the Jedi-stick. The frak did he think he was gonna go and do with that? Blasters were the way to go and everyone in their right mind knew it. "Y' worry too much 'bout what Vitt is gonna do. Let me take the heat for whatever falls from this. It's my idea, after all, savvy? You're just... keepin' me from goin' off by myself into the unknown danger. Big damn hero dren."

Lookin' to the Y-Wing, Sadie put her hands on her hips and frowned a bit. "That an' I need a pilot. Ain't never had t' learn how t' fly. Din't need t'."

[Nen Lev'i]

So not only was she dragging him on this little exercise in poking the krayt dragon and seeing how much they could get away with; now she was expecting him to fly?

Okay so sure, he could. Well at least, he could fly an airspeeder, and he'd flown enough getaways after heists and jobs and all that. If he could bomb a speeder around the streets of Nar Shaddaa without bumping into anything too bad, he'd be plenty fine flying around on a giant planet where everything was made of clouds. It was the principle of the thing though. Sadie could talk about how she was going to talk their way out of it all she wanted; but if he was flying, then it was all on him. Any scuff on the paintwork, any dent in the hull, any ominous stain on the upholstery from when Sadie decided she didn't like the turbulence and up-chucked everywhere... even if everything went perfectly fine, it was still going to be Nen that'd get his hands sliced off, or his kneecaps shattered, or whatever it is Vittore was likely to do to him in that little torture cabin of his. If he was just a passenger, then maybe he could get away with seeming like he was being dragged along; but no matter what Sadie said, Nen knew it was gonna be him that Vittore was scowling at until the end of time.

"This is a bloody stupid idea," he grumbled, hugging his arms across his chest as if that would somehow squeeze out the horrible mixture of emotions he was feeling.

He looked around himself desperately for some sort of excuse, some sort of escape clause, some way of trying to talk Sadie out of this crazy scheme - or at the very least, talking her into waiting until Vittore could actually take them himself. All his desperate eyes managed to settle on was Katie.

"Even Katie thinks it's a dumb idea, don't you Kate?"

[R4-K8]

R4-K8's conical headpiece spun, orientating her ocular towards Nen, but the rest of her body continued moving in the same direction it had previously been heading.

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The string of droidspeak trundled out of Katie's vocabulator in an almost mournful, sheepish tone. The way that she fired the little jet boosters in her legs and leapt gracefully from the deck into the Y-Wing's astromech socket made it abundantly clear which of the two she had chosen to side with.

[Sadie K'Vesh]

The grin that happened was downright unsavory, but Sadie just couldn't help it. "See? K8's got my back on this one. Us girls gotta stick together." An appreciative smile was tossed towards the little droid.

Sadie weren't sure why she could understand droid speak, maybe it was from spendin' too much time starin' at code, but them little bloops and blips made all kinds of sense t' her. Weren't a skill everyone had and some days she was downright thankful for it. Other ways... well, was good to pretend you didn't know what they were sayin'. She didn't have none problems with thinkin' of them as people, far as she was concerned some of 'em had more personality than half the folks she'd met that were supposed to have one. Was just another language to her, and just like any of 'em there were times you could surprise folks with what you knew and there were other times when pretendin' you didn't know your arse from a hole in the ground worked out for the better.

She could tell Nen was still miffed about the whole thing, though. "Look," she started, tryin' to put on the best everythin' is cool attitude she had. "Vitt ain't gonna do skrag t' ya. Me 'n Katie won't let that go down. He trusts what we say an' both of us can see plain as anythin' y're all under duress."

That nagging feeling that was pullin' her towards the decayin' platform out in the clouds was tuggin' at her again. Even goin' so far as makin' Sadie turn her head and look off towards the damn thing. She didn't quite like that she knew where it was despite not bein' actually sure of her bearin's at that moment but she tried not to give it too much mind. That way was madness.

"Serious though, Nen... now that K8's with me, if y' really don't wanna go an' check out the neato secret abandoned place and the Jedi Starfighter" - she'd looked that up - "that just showed up an' miss out on somethin' that really might turn out t' be worth it..."

Oh she wasn't playin' fair. Her tone was makin' that plain as daylight and stardust. Truth was, Sadie didn't like pushin' people to doin' things they didn't want to do. If Nen wanted to stick back and point a big neon towards the missin' Y-Wing with a them ladies did it, that was his deal. Though somethin' told Sadie he was just as damn curious as she was.

[Nen Lev'i]

Nen's eyes narrowed, an achingly long moment passing as he glared at the manipulative bloody woman with her little psychic seduction misdirection type techniques, or whatever the hell it was she was doing. Bamboozling him with her feminine wiles, or confusing him with all kind of double talk, putting him in a position where not coming made him seem like a coward instead of seeming like the sensible one. His anger spiked, seething away inside him. We should have left you on Nar Shaddaa was the instant thing which sprung to mind, instantly and aggressively obliterated from his mind, and the neurons and brain cells responsible vaporised. Not left her there as in not rescued her, Nen wasn't an asshole or nothing, but like... just... left her there. At a hospital or something. Or better yet, left him there, rather than trapping him here needing to buy clothes just so he wasn't wearing the same shirt and boxers day in, day out. Stupid Sadie getting herself all kidnapped and tortured or whatever. Stupid Vittore being all heroic and boss-like, dragging him into that mess and then dragging him out of it again. Stupid Atton Kira for paying him money to look for stupid Sadie. Stupid everyone. Stupid galaxy. It was all just so bloody unfair.

"I hate you," Nen muttered, letting his glower linger a moment longer before a resigned sigh escaped him, and he began clambering up onto the fighter's fuselage, making himself as comfortable as possible in the holy shit I'm in a starfighter with guns and everything, oh god I'm going to get us all killed cockpit. It took a few minutes for him to acquaint himself with the various controls and switches and toggles. Well, more like a few seconds probably, he'd always just had a sort of natural aptitude for technology; could pick something up and sorta implicitly get a vibe for how the thing worked. Kinda useful most of the time, especially when you were hijacked on some stupid adventure and had to do stuff like this.

A few switches and commands, and the Y-Wing's engines hummed into life. Couple more fired up the repulsorlifts, the fighter bobbing a couple of inches off the ground above the whole doors in the floor thing that let you leave the ship. Idly, Nen began to wonder if there was even enough room for the Y-Wing to fit out the doors with the Crimson Tide landed like this. Guess there was only one way to find out.

"Open the doors please, R4-K8," Nen requested, making a point of using Katie's full designation. The traitor was implied. He zoned out whatever whistles and bloops she replied with, didn't even let himself look at the little translation display, just waited for the clunk of the doors retracting. He had no idea if the cold shoulder treatment would even affect the little droid. Didn't matter. Still made him feel better, marginally.

As the doors slid past the edges of the Y-Wing's repulsor field, the fighter suddenly lurched downwards, and Nen barely managed to spool up the field intensity enough to stop them dropping like a rock towards the deck. His reflexes were pretty quick though; they only lost about a foot of height before he had it under control, just enough to unsettle Sadie without risking any real harm to the ship. "Sorry," he said, faking a tone that made it seem like he'd done it on purpose.

Carefully, he eased down the repulsorlift power, and a grimace formed on his face. There was room for the Hunter to duck out from beneath the Tide's fuselage, but it was a tight squeeze, and you needed to sorta head out at an angle, emerge out under the curve of the wing so that you didn't crash into the back of the whole droopy down bow thing that the bridge was inside. Carefully he twitched the controls, a tiny little nudge at a time, the nose of the Hunter ticking to the left a few degrees at a time. Too slow. Too painful. Too likely to get Sadie saying something smug. He tried a little more aggressive, a little more of a nudge; there was an ominous thunk as one of the Y-Wing's gargantuanly widespread engines clunked against the hanger deck. Nen winced. Okay, so that part was his fault. Well, maybe the Y-Wing's designers were at fault, too. Koensayr or whatever. Why the hell did they have to build this thing so damned fat?

Without saying anything, without drawing any attention at all, Katie hijacked one of the monitors in the cockpit, projecting a vid feed from the gun cameras on the nose, superimposing little indicator lines that represented the width of the fuselage, and the unexpected extra extension of the engines, the colours shifting from green to yellow to red depending on how close Nen's path strayed to something he might bump into. There was an artificial horizon too, little elevator indications - a peace offering. A small embarrassed smile tugged at Nen's cheeks. "Better hunker down, Katie," he called, a deliberate reversal of his earlier deliberate name choice. "This is going to be a tight squeeze."

Nen had never clenched as hard in his life as he did for the next few seconds, his hands carefully ratcheting up the forward thrusters, gliding the Hunter forward and out from under the Crimson Tide's shadow, across the hangar towards the doors that intellectually Nen knew were plenty big enough to fit far larger craft, but that looked intimidatingly narrow now that he was actually having to worry about not bumping into things, and then out into the vast, open - oh thank shyke, so vast, so open - Bespin sky. Whatever adrenaline had flooded his system now triggered a dopamine response, and for a fleeting moment Nen found himself feeling inappropriately confident, strangely tempted to whip the nose around and try his luck swooping through the casinos, hotels, and corporate towers on Cloud City's upper surface. Not now though. Not ever, the part of his mind still terrified of Captain Montegue chimed in.

"Okay then, so -"

He frowned, cocking his head to one side, as if somehow that would give him more clarity in understanding the various readouts and displays arrayed in front of him.

"Where the 'ell is this thing, anyway?"

[Inyos Aamoran]

* * *

Brotherhood. That word again. Inyos frowned as he wandered through the corridors and control rooms of this section of the derelict platform. His arm ached from holding his lightsaber aloft like a torch for so long, but he drew upon a tiny fragment of the Force, enough soothing energy to dull the sensation enough that he could focus his way past him. It was a testament to how unprepared he was, he supposed. No flashlight. No mapping equipment. No droid to plug into any of these consoles he kept passing. He rationalised it to himself by insisting that this was just reconnaissance, that he was just scouting the facility, and that the Jedi would no doubt send archaeologists of their own in due time. If that were true, then why had he not told anyone where he was going? Why had he taken leave of his teaching duties on Ossus to gallivant around the Outer Rim - a region of it under Imperial control, no less - with only a fighter and what supplies he could carry in his own two hands? The will of the Force. That was the reason.

Or was that just the excuse?

The more he explored, the more the enigma of this place deepened. It was definitely old, that much was certain, and it was definitely not built by the Jedi. However, here and there he found familiar-looking terminals; consoles and fixtures that reminded him of the temple back on Coruscant. There had been a room containing a free-standing database pillar and a table and chairs that looked like they'd come straight from the Jedi Archives. The Jedi had been here, layering their technology and their furniture on top of the old. But what was the old? Who were the Brotherhood?

Perhaps the library database held the answers, but if there had been a way to activate it, Inyos hadn't been able to work it out. A conduit draped across the floor seemed to plumb the device into the facility itself, no doubt designed to draw from the main power grid that was unfortunately inactive. Inyos had studied each terminal he had come across thus far, only a few of them proving to be functional, and fewer still providing any kind of useful control. On the level overlooking the landing bay he had found a terminal that allowed him to activate the magnetic shield that would keep the Bespin air out and the breathable air in; fortunately that seemed to be one of the systems accounted for by emergency power, or whatever other low output situation the facility was currently suffering through. The controls were frustratingly simplistic, though: simple programming, simple software, no network access to let him poke around for other information.

That all changed with the next chamber he entered. In an instant he knew exactly what it was: he had been in just such a room at the Jedi Temple countless times during the Clone Wars. The room was vast and tall, domed and vaulted in a functionally ornate sort of way. Numerous corridors seemed to converge on this point, reaching out like the strands of a spiderweb with this chamber at the centre. Around the periphery were scattered consoles that Inyos guessed would access command and control functions, but at the heart was the true familiarity: a huge holoprojector just as there had been in the war room back in the Temple. There, fleet deployments and troop movements had flickered and flashed in the air in the usual crisp blue that one came to expect from a hologram when one was raised by the Republic; what shimmered into existence above this projector however - seemingly in direct response to him having entered the room - was rendered in shades of red and gold, a detailed representation of the platform within which Inyos stood. From the outside, through the the clouds and mists, he hadn't gained a true appreciation for the shape and scope of the platform. By contrast to Cloud City it was tiny - a floating building rather than the floating island that Figg money had constructed; smaller even than most starships - but it was still impressive, in an aggressively ornate sort of way. He found himself in the upper levels, vast and structural, no doubt the part of the platform intended for occupancy and habitation. Below, like the dangling tendrils of some cnidarian creature, hung pylons and superstructures that Inyos presumed held the generators, communications arrays, atmospheric processors, and the repulsorlifts that held the structure aloft.

There was something else though, a flashing indicator just off to the periphery. Inyos drew closer, almost mesmerised by the image. His lightsaber fell away, deactivating the instant his thumb released the trigger, only the glow of the projection illuminating the room. He reached out, curiosity driving his motions, fingers brushing through the photons of what he understood to be an approaching craft. The image shifted, a representation of the vessel filling the display. Inyos would know that silhouette anywhere: not the curved lines of the craft that Bespin Air Control used, but rather the profile of a BTL-B Y-Wing Bomber, a relic almost as old as he was. There was no denying the fact that it was on a direct course for the platform, and yet Inyos had the strangest sense that it posed no danger at all. There was something familiar about it, the same familiarity that he had sensed since arriving. Was this it? Was it this fighter, and not the Enclave, that the Force had led him here to see?

He turned away as the Y-Wing completed it's approach, settling onto the same landing platform that he had arrived by. He tugged a comlink from his pocket, already striding off down the corridors as he flicked it on, lightsaber held aloft once more to illuminate any obstacles. "We have company," he reported to P13, his voice utterly and annoyingly calm. "Stand by, I am returning."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

It was like there some some sort of gorram proximity alarm in her head. The nearer they got to the decayin' platform, the more weird she felt. It was like havin' one too many cups of caf and nothin' to eat or somethin'. Nah, weren't quite like that, but Sadie couldn't quite remember the last time she'd felt like she was being manipulated by outside stuff to a point where it was downright uncontrolled. Okay, so that weren't the truth, but this was the first time in a damn long time that it wasn't an unpleasant feelin'. Usually served as a warnin' sort of job, one of them bad feelin's you couldn't shake. This weren't that though, this was... was... like those final moments of checkin gear before takin' the stage or the first time y' heard a full mix of a recordin' put together and knew everythin' was comin' out right.

She'd wished she had taken the pilot's seat just so she could see what was comin' up next. Even if the view weren't really changin' all that much and the place was less than stellar when you got a look at it, it still felt like she needed to see it. Needed to...

Not get stopped by a big arse blast door or whatever the frak it was that had the place locked up tighter than some Zanazi's undergarments. That couldn't have been right. Sensors weren't showin' no clear way of tellin' the lock to frell off either. So how the frak do you get in there? Sure as hells ain't sayin' 'please'.

[Nen Lev'i]

Nen stared at the readouts in front of him, and they all confirmed the same thing: it was a door. Just a door at that. Most people might not know what to look at, but Nen? He was good at this sort of thing, good at getting into places he weren't supposed to be, good at locks and vaults and all that stuff. He knew what he was looking for, and this door in front of them? There wasn't a damn thing. Okay so sure, there was an energy signature that seemed like an atmospheric containment field, but there were no external consoles. No obvious optical ports. No receptor antennae. No little hatches that those creepy Hutt eyeball droid things could poke out of and waggle around. There was seemingly no way of opening the door from the outside, and that... that made no sense. This platform was clearly designed for landing, and you didn't put a landing platform outside of an obvious hanger door unless you expected someone to need to land on it at some point. Which meant people were going to get out of ships out here, and they were going to need to get inside. Sure, with some breathing gear, decent balance, and a good head for heights, that wasn't really a big deal - but then where did you go? Was the only way in to have someone on the other side open the door for you?

And where was the fighter they'd come here chasing. Was he inside already?

Before his mind could formulate answers to any of that - and before he could work out how to arm the weapons systems, just in case that turned out to be the only way of getting in - he felt a rumble reverberate through the landing platform. For a minute he panicked, hand flying to the repulsor control just in case the ancient platform was giving way beneath them, but instead it was the door that began to shift, creaking up into it's recessed berth within the platform's superstructure. This was what they wanted: the door was open. They could get inside.

So why did Nen feel like he needed a new pair of shorts?

"Was that you?" he asked, more than a little nervousness in his voice. "Because it weren't frellin' me."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"Nope." Granted, the whole sudden opening of giant doors had her a bit startled when nerves were already all antsy, but she was willin' them damn things to crack too much to give a care for if she jumped in her seat a bit or not.

"At least, I don't think so."

That was an unnervin' thought. Okay so she could sometimes do stuff that no normal person had any right to but she'd had that all under wraps. Last time she'd done anythin' had been on that big lizard death machine an' one of them Jedi folk had almost called her out on it but she'd told 'em to not pay any mind. Wasn't the time and she'd skipped off before the time ever came around. Certainly weren't gonna go an' pull anythin' stupid like that now. Not with... well... reasons to really avoid that sort of dren.

Sadie had half a mind to take a real deep breath, pop the hatch, and go runnin' down the landin' pad into what waited beyond. Knew it wouldn't work. Didn't make it any less temptin'. Also knew there were reasons for it and yet she somehow only barely contained the urge to ask Nen if he was movin' in real slow just to drive her up the damned walls.

There weren't a ton of light inside, it was hard to see to be honest when compared to the bright outside world, but just enough was escapin' in and came from the emergency bits that they found the thing that'd lead her here in the first place.

"Well, at least we know the ship didn't go an' magically up an' vanish." She mumbled before findin' herself startin' a bit as the doors started closin' behind them. "And... that's just downright ominous."

[Inyos Aamoran]

Ominous. That wasn't the intention, but it was the effect. As the doors strangled off the Bespin light from beyond once more, the shadows cascaded back into the hangar like a flood, and it was into that Inyos strode, emerging from the corridor with sombre purpose. He kept his distance from the new craft, but close enough to still be in view, his eyes fixed on the cockpit canopy, reaching out to sense the intentions of those lying within.

With a snap and a hiss his lightsaber ignited, the icy blue glow casting a strange silhouette across half of his body, which threw his already sharp features into sharper relief. He sensed no overt malice from the Y-Wing's occupants, and yet there was something confused and distorted about their intentions; particularly the one mind that screamed at him more loudly than the other. It was almost as if they were unsure why they were here. Drawn by the Force perhaps, as he had been? Or simply curious, having observed a strange blip on their scanners? He sensed both, somehow, twisted and intertwined; and that feeling of familiarity grew stronger still, singing to him, urging him forward with a chest-clenching anxiety. He needed whatever or whoever was in that ship. Needed to know. Needed to understand.

His hand reached out, invisible tendrils of Force snaking out across the distance between his fingers and the starfighter, reaching into the mechanisms, triggering the external release latch for the canopy. With a nudge of telekinetic assistance, the durasteel barrier slowly rose, exposing the pilot to the platform's reprocessed air.

"I am Inyos Aamoran," he intoned, his voice echoing around the hanger, amplifying off the walls. "Why are you here?"

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"Son of a..." The words died on her lips as she stared at the blue lit individual standin' in the hangar.

It kriffin' couldn't be. Just. No. Way. She'd heard about the Will of the Force and all that, but it was a load of poodoo. Everythin' was a giant load at this point, or at least that's as far as her brain was goin'. It weren't often that Sadie found her brain switched off to huttese but the string of colorful curses were hearkenin' back to days of old.

Way old.

Nen seemed frozen in place what with the cockpit opened not on his wantin' and that was probably for the best. When it came to Sadie, well, her eyes were downright stuck on the shadowed person as her hands unthinkingly went to the controls and told the dome above her head to crack itself open and let her get about movin' like she were in some sort of freakish dream.

B'fore she knew any better her feet were on solid-ish ground and she was walkin' towards the guy with the lit up Jedi sticker. Funny thing was, despite not bein' proper armed herself, she didn't feel those usual warnin's in her head. Just that drawin' towards the guy that was definitely to blame for all of this. What was the frikin deal?

"I- I know you."

Nar Shaddaa. Home. She'd been... so small. No. No. No. This was all wrong. He couldn't be here lookin' almost exactly the same. And yet...

[Inyos Aamoran]

You know me?

The familiarity was blinding, piercing into his head like a shouting scream. Memories danced across the edge of his consciousness, but they were memories from before, memories from beyond the great void of darkness that had carved out the centre of his life and made it so difficult to remember who he had been before. In the glow of the lightsaber, and the dimness of the scant lighting the hanger provided, there was something eerie about her features, something about the eyes, the cut of her jaw; but only faint, nowhere near a match for the wail of familiarity he felt towards her.

His grip shifted, finger releasing the dead man switch that kept the lightsaber's blade ignited. Darkness descended deeper around them, the details in front of his vision fading, the memories coming clearer still. Nar Shaddaa. Yes, he could hear that in her accent. How long had it been since he had dwelt there? A few years shy of two decades? He had been a different man then. Still his old self, or there abouts. The last place that the old him had ever existed, in fact. A Jedi on the run. It had been after Lúka. After the Malebius. Before Ithil. Before Mandan. Before everything that had been lost. And she, she -

An alleyway. Gangs. Noise. Chaos. He felt fear. Danger. Frightened minds. Frightened children. Some opportunistic criminal, preying on street orphans, abducting and inducting them into some exploitative crime ring. Tiny hands make subtle thieves. He remembered those words, remembered the sadistic glee lurking behind the lips that had uttered them. He remembered Mandan's words when they had received the message telling them what was afoot. Lets be Jedi, one last time. And he remembered the hands that had typed that message, the hands that had tried to pick his pocket and stumbled across a lightsaber instead. The hands that had fled before contacting them when it was safe. The hands that had lurked in the broken vent pipe, nervously warning them of the danger that so many children faced before scampering away. The hands that had hugged around him, thanked him, before disappearing into the crowd. The hands he should have taken hold of, held on to, led away from the dingy depths of Nar Shaddaa to the fractionally better life that he might have been able to offer.

The hands that stood before him now.

He studied her face, reading the years that had changed her since they had last met. What had she called herself in those days? Sid? She was still young, too few lines on her face to tell any real stories, but there were plenty to be seen elsewhere. She carried her body strangely, as if permanently self-conscious, permanently wounded, or both. Her expressions were pinched, an undercurrent of pessimism and bitterness beneath everything. Her eyes were bright, and pure, but sadder than they had any right to be, tragic stories and too much pain swimming away behind the blue. He knew those eyes. He saw eyes like those in every reflective surface, staring back at him with all the hurt and regret of a whole lifetime. He thought of the grateful embrace she had given him all those years ago; wished he knew how to return it now.

"How -"

The question didn't even finish before the answers began to resolve in his mind. Whatever strand of Force had drawn him here, it must have done the same to her. Whether the strand connected them both to this place, or merely looped through this abandoned Enclave on the way to each other, he could not be sure, but he had no doubt of what had transpired. It was the will of the Force that he and she should meet - reunite - in this place. But why? A chance for redemption? A chance to undo a mistake of the past, to put right an injustice? He supposed he would find out in due time.

His head bowed, the very faintest ghost of a smile taking the edge off the harshness in his features.

"It is good to see you again, Sid. It has been -" A faint breath, as much of a laugh as he could muster, escaped at the understatement he was about to offer. "- a long time."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"J-jus' a bit there," she whispered. Sadie hadn't meant to, it just kinda came out that way.

He was here. Beyond all reasonable explanation or anythin' that her brain could suss out the gorram Jedi was here. Force works in mysterious ways was frellin' right. She'd come across more Jedi since then. The frakin' Novgorod for one! But no. It was here on kriffin Bespin and...

Sadie wavered a bit, uncertainty suddenly smackin' her in the face. She didn't like the idea that there was somethin' pullin' strings and tuggin' her where it wanted her to be. That made a lot of the crap she'd experienced seems like a grand cosmic joke. Not that it didn't some days but it was one thing to laugh it off and another to find out that it might be true.

She suddenly felt all kinds of self conscious. Here she was, draggin' Nen out of a perfectly good and safe hideaway to come here to - apparently - talk to some Jedi who downright saved her from a livin' nightmare at one point in her life b'fore she'd even picked up her first quettara.

"S-so... what brings y' t' this hunk of junk?" It sounded stupid saying it and she even shuffled a bit uncomfortably and found herself scratchin' the back of her neck like she was havin' some borin' conversation some place perfectly reasonable rather than some old abandoned... whatever this place was.

[Inyos Aamoran]

"That -"

- is complicated. That was the answer he intended to give. It was his natural inclination to be evasive and vague. Too much practice hiding who and what he was. Too much time spent hiding the Jedi Order's secrets from those intent on destroying it. But why now? There was no reason for it. If Sid had been delivered here by the will of the Force, then surely she of all people could be trusted?

"- is a good question," he redirected. "I learned of this place in some of the old Jedi records that we have been able to scavenge together in recent months. According to what I read, it was once a Jedi Enclave, a few hundred years ago; but an obscure one. I had hoped that it might have gone unnoticed during the Purge, and that some Jedi teachings might have survived, but, well..."

His lips tugged into a thin line, frustration escaping as a breath through his nose.

"As you can see, I haven't managed to even turn the lights on, let alone access any kind of database."

His gaze shifted for the briefest of moments, looking past Sid and towards the craft that had brought her. It was of a slightly later generation of starfighter, one that favoured independent astromech units instead of integrated ones. Had the Force not only brought him a familiar face, but potentially the tools to help him unlock the secrets of this place? Had it compelled him to travel here alone, knowing full well that accompaniment would be readily available when he got there? The idea of the Force's will had always unsettled him: it was something that Mandan embraced with carefree ease, but Inyos found something disconcerting in the notion of some abstract consciousness guiding his actions and the fate of the whole universe, following some plan that he could never know or understand. There were some who embraced mysteries, who lived for them; Inyos could not stand them, they grated against his sensibilities, itching to be uncovered. But for now, he would simply accept the events that had transpired, and be grateful for the gifts that the universe had seemingly presented.

"I don't suppose I could borrow your droid?" Inyos asked. There was the strangest shift in his voice, something strangely relaxed, something that might even have seemed ever so faintly mirthful had it come from the lips of anyone else. Was that even a faint flicker of a rueful smile? "Unless you still remember how to slice your way into people's hotel room computers, of course."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Sadie felt a smile start growin' across her lips in a lopsided way. Did she still know how to… Of course, there was no way the Jedi would have known that sort of thing. It'd been ages and then some, after all. Her amusement faded as her racin' mind caught back up to what else he'd said though.

"M' droid?" Her head went off on it's own way, tiltin' to one side as if he'd just asked her the most perplexin' question in all the verse. Realization came swift though and smacked her right upside the noggin, causin' Sadie's eyes to go wide. "Oh! You mean Katie! She ain't my droid. Well, I mean, I work with her but she ain't mine. She's my friend though so you'll have t' go an' ask her yourself if she'd be willin' t' help out. Probably ain't nothin' nowhere that us two can't get into if we worked t'gether on it, I reckon."

Her head turned, lookin' back towards the Y-Wing before she gestured full on with one of her arms. "Y' guys don't have t' wait in the ship or nothin'. Katie, come meet... " she faltered as she realized she didn't quite know what to call the guy nowadays. His name was escapin' her. His face was nothin' short of familiar, his voice and mannerisms even more so, but lack of somethin' to call him was throwin' stuff off kilter. "...an ol' friend o' mine."

Weren't quite right but it'd do for the moment.

"You too, Nen. An for kriff's sake, leave th' weapons in th' ship." Sadie sheepishly looked back towards the Jedi, a small shrug playin' across her shoulders that was workin' it's merry awkward way through the rest of her. "You'll have t' excuse th' lot of us. Ain't really the proper sort and 'm sure y're used t' dealin' with more… respectable folks. Been an odd sort of few weeks for th' lot of us, I guess."

[R4-K8]

The conversation between Miss Sadie and the lightsaber-wielding individual might have been too far away for the audio reception of a conventional organic listener, but not for a droid like Katie. Even so, as Katie's systems processed the spoken words, an error flagged in her fact-checking subroutines, forcing her to run an intensive linguistic analysis, just to be sure. The results were conclusive. Statement confirmed. The error persisted.

She's my friend.

Data points and subroutine parameters were written in a cascade of system updates. New conditions were set in Katie's social interaction protocols. It took a fraction of a second, but it was still too long. Katie fired her jets to boost herself out of the droid socket, persisting with the thrust to propel herself in a forward parabola, landing in a high speed trundle that brought her beside Miss Sadie in mere seconds. Applying her breaks carefully, she slowed enough to bring herself alongside her friend, positioning herself so her conical dome nudged it's way under Miss Sadie's hand.

And then the second critical error of the day processed.

In the low light, Katie had been unable to obtain sufficient optical resolution for any kind of facial recognition analysis. Katie's statistical predictions did not suggest that a familiar correlation was likely, but as it was a core subroutine of her operating system, the process ran regardless. The results were deeply erroneous. Her recognition program contained a contingency, a predictive algorithm that approximated possible variations from saved facial patterns based on age, weight change, and facial hair. The face that she now scanned contained a startlingly high probability match with one she had on file, but it's current variation seemed to deviate too far from the prediction curve she was programmed with. The face had not deviated sufficiently to account for the elapsed time. If the match was indeed correct, the ensuing thirty years of time should have had a considerably more significant impact on the human standing before her. The probability of him being the individual her software concluded him to be was infinitesimal: too statistically small to even be acknowledged. An outlier. A close mathematical approximation of impossibility. And yet -

Katie's optic sensor dimmed slightly. The error triggered a brief accidental pulse in the circuits for her locomotion servos, her chassis recoiling backwards slightly in apparent surprise. The only course of action that presented itself was to enquire for clarification: to ask for an explanation to overcome the error.

01001101 01100001 01110011 01110100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01001001 01101110 01111001 01101111 01110011 00111111

[Inyos Aamoran]

How did it know his name?

While Inyos was not as fluent in droidspeak as some citizens of the galaxy were, a war spent as a Jedi Knight, with an Industrial Automaton astromech droid in every starfighter he had ever flown had made him intimately familiar with that particular sequence of bloops and whistles. He knew inherently that this little droid - an R4-series agromech if he was not mistaken, based on the chassis design - had recognised him, and yet he had no memory of encountering such a droid. The only R4 units he was familiar with were the ones like P13, a special variant of the model created specifically for use by the Jedi Order aboard their starfighters. The early models were inseparably integrated into the fuselage the way that P13 was, though Inyos knew of some Jedi who had arranged for the central processors and memory core to be transferred into an independent chassis; an odd display of attachment and sentimentality that would have deeply irritated his younger self, but that he now found oddly nostalgic and comforting.

He dropped himself down into a crouch, bringing himself level with the droid's optic receptor. It did nothing to alter his recognition of the droid, but it seemed appropriate somehow. This conversation was between him and this droid, and it did not seem proper to conduct it while looking down upon it.

"I am afraid I do not recognise your new face, little one. How do you know me?"

[Nen Lev'i]

The instruction to leave his weapons behind in the cockpit was utterly ignored. Ever since that freaky lightsaber guy had magicked open the air seal on the cockpit canopy, Nen had been sat there with a holdout blaster aimed at the guy's head. Or at least, aimed in his general vicinity: even on a brightly lit day with a sniper rifle, Nen would be lucky to even hit the guy at all from this distance, and knowing Nen's luck he'd do the vwoom thing with his lightsaber and end up deflecting any shots he fired at Sadie, which would mean that Captain Montegue would want to kill him twice as bad, but still. Thought that counts or something.

But yeah, now Sadie was all chit-chatting with the guy as if she knew him or whatever, old friend and all that, and so Nen was supposed to act like everything was fine. The air could have been poisonous, Sadie, his mind protested angrily. That whole opening the canopy stunt could have killed him. Okay, so perhaps that was unlikely, what with the whole Jedi standing there breathing just fine without any mask on or anything, but he could have been a cyborg, or had gills, or an immunity, or some other weird something or other that meant that he could stand there not dying from something that Nen could have easily died from. It was the principle of the thing, and now Miss Reckless Endangerment and Mister Reckless Endangerment were all chummy and it was just so infuriating.

So the holdout blaster had been shoved into one of the pockets of his hooded jacket, and the lightsaber tucked awkwardly into the waistband of his pants, before it was untucked and flipped over before being tucked back in again. Of the two fates, he's rather die by having his stomach accidentally slashed open than his junk accidentally slashed off, especially since he wasn't entirely sure the latter would be fatal, but knew he would very much wish that it had been. Grabbing his all-purpose datapad too, he clambered his way out of the cockpit, and trudged over to where -

Oh great. So now Katie was getting all friendly with this maniac too. Everybody was being nice to everybody, except no one was being nice to Nen. Fan-bloody-tastic. Par for the course, that.

Katie blooped and whistled away some statement or other. Out of reflex, Nen glanced down at his datapad, blurting out the translation for the sake of the non-fluent. "She says My designation is R4-K8." Nen frowned, and then one eyebrow climbed it's way back up, a disparaging look thrown in the droid's direction. "Well duh, Katie, we could a' told 'im that."

[Inyos Aamoran]

R4-K8.

Thoughts ticked away behind Inyos' furrowed brow. Katie, they called her; but no, that didn't sound quite right. R4-K8. Arfour Kay-Eight. Kay -

Kate?

Realisation dawned, the mystery obliterated in a cascade of nostalgic understanding. For a moment there was a surge of familiarity and joy, and then it faltered, the sombre sadness of all the realisations that went along with it tumbling onto Inyos like hail, playing out on his expression as tired lines that deepened further still in the dim light.

"You flew with Mandan Hidatsa during the Clone Wars."

His voice emerged in a level tone, but the edges were crumpled, sadness playing out at the ends of his words. Kate responded with an enthusiastic affirmative, rocking a little from one leg to the other, a flurry of bloops and whistles - but then she stopped, suddenly falling silent, her dome twitching the slightest bit from side to side, the way it always did when she was running some sort of complex calculation. It was funny that, how a glitch like that had transferred even to this new chassis she had occupied; a tiny motor error that had become a part and parcel of her personality. The whistle that came next was tentative, clearly a question, clearly one where the answer was already speculated to be something bad. Inyos didn't need the translation.

"He died, more than twenty years ago. I -"

Killed him. Inyos stopped himself from saying that. The words were true, but the sentiment was false. Under the circumstances, Mandan's death had been unavoidable. It had spared him from the corruption that Inyos had suffered; from the torturous isolation that Inyos had been forced to endure for so long. A dark presence had twisted Mandan's emotions, exploited the strength of his heart and compassion and turned it into a weakness; turned Mandan against his closest friend all because of an impossible choice. No matter what the guilt and the dreams that plagued him insisted, Inyos had done the right thing. The right thing. It just didn't always feel that way.

"I lost him while we were attempting to rescue a woman stranded on a remote world." Inyos placed a hand gently against the side of Kate's dome. "He died the kind of hero that he spent his life being."

A mournful whistle escaped from Kate, but there was a certain understanding to it, a certain acceptance. Or perhaps there wasn't, and Inyos was merely projecting. He had spent so long isolated from people back then, a decade alone and in the dark; he had forgotten faces, and expressions, and the subtleties of the emotions of others, and to understand them now was as much estimation as it was intuition. To him, the subtle ticks and twitches of an automaton were as comprehensible as the nuances of a flesh and blood being: entirely incomprehensible, that is.

"I am glad to see you though," he assured. "I require your help, if you are willing to give it. All of your help," he added, his gaze encompassing the two humans as well.

Slowly he shifted his eyes between them, looking first at Sid, and then at her companion. He was clearly having some kind of emotional reaction to their current situation, but Inyos didn't have it within him to comprehend what. No doubt if it was important, the man would make it clearer to him in due time.

"I am Inyos Aamoran," he explained, "And this -"

He gestured around him to the darkness, to the platform, to the Enclave, the situation, everything.

"This is a long story."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

If someone had given her a good shake that mornin' and asked what Sadie thought she might get herself up to today... well, nothin' that happened would be listed that was for damn sure. The whole Uncle Atton thing had been a jostle yet she took it in stride despite part of her head wantin' to wig out nice and good 'bout it. That though? That was nothin' compared to standin' around in some abandoned Jedi temple type joint with an actual Jedi she had actually met at one point off in the long dark yonder. This were absolutely completely one hundred percent bloody kriffin' insane. Yet somehow she was entirely at ease. Aside from feeling a might bit foolish here and there she actually weren't freakin' out like she had the proper rights to. Should have been unnervin' but instead was just... Strange. Mighty gorram strange at that.

Didn't seem t' matter though. Even when Inyos - was good to hear Katie say it. Made it so she didn't have to ask, even if he told them all in the end - escorted the lil' droid and Nen off to another area she didn't feel it reason to make a fuss. She just kinda intrinsically trusted th' guy. Which was about a million shades of wrong given that Vitt were the only other person who managed to go from total stranger into that status. Even Atton had taken a bit and she still weren't entirely certain of him even if she wanted to be.

Where the hell did she go? The girl who had avowed not to give a damn about anyone and trust nobody but herself? Trusting people was dangerous. Caring was even worse and nowadays she was guilty of both. Was gonna end bad, that was for certain. Only thing to do was ride out the good while you had it, Sadie guessed.

Weren't just the situation that was nuts, though. The actual location was even more crazy. She weren't all that good with history but when Inyos had explained what he knew about the joint it sounded all sorts of confusin'. Maybe if she could help sort it out it would quiet everythin' back down in her head and she could get back t' drinkin' beers with Vitt and not givin' a crap anymore.

Sadie glanced over her shoulder as Inyos came back in the chamber he'd left her in, lookin all shadowy as he approached on account of the big arse holo projector now behind her vision.

"I gotta say," she said with an amused short laugh followin'. "Downright quandary y' got y'self here. I aint seen systems like this in... frak, longer than I can even remember where I seen 'em. Guessin' K8'll have a bit more luck than me. Kriff, I can't even figure what made them big ol' doors open up when we got here an' that should be easy."

Sadie paused and contemplated apologizing for all the swearing. Didn't seem right to do in front of a Jedi.

[Inyos Aamoran]

Kate and the odd jumpy fellow had been escorted to the archive database that Inyos had earlier discovered, hoping that between the two of them they could provide portable power to the unit and access some sort of log or journal that might explain a little of what was going on here. Sid - Sadie, the others called her - had remained in what they were currently guessing was the command centre or control room, trying to work her way beyond the surface levels of the platform's operating systems.

Inyos shared Sid's assessment that the system architecture was strange. He was not a slicer like she was, but he did understand enough to know that there was a network connecting all of the computer systems on the platform: they just had no way of accessing it. There was a strange mix of functionality: at specific locations there were tactile interfaces, manual controls that allowed you some basic level of operation. You could open each door individually, if you were there. You could manipulate the atmosphere shield in the hangar. You could push controls on the consoles here in the control room, and make small things happen in the immediate vicinity. They could not do anything remotely, though. They could not access the environmental controls to open or close all of the doors, the way one would expect fire prevention protocols to do. They couldn't affect the ambient lighting, or run any kind of diagnostic on the atmosphere protocols, or the power generators. Perhaps it was merely a symptom of the platform operating in what seemed to be low power mode. Or perhaps -

Inyos' head cocked to the side as he considered Sid's comment. The door. The entrance that they had both passed through. When he had arrived, he had not deliberately initiated any kind of trigger, no transmission or security code or anything of the sort, and yet the hangar had opened automatically for him. Part of him wondered if it was merely an automated response, a reaction to the detection of any kind of craft that approached, and yet somehow he knew that was incorrect. Somehow he knew that it was not his presence, but rather his thoughts that had made the difference; or perhaps his desire and need to get inside, the way that the Force had insisted he should. There were certain technologies capable of responding to such things: holocrons for example could only be opened by manipulation of the Force, and Inyos supposed that theoretically there was no reason that the same principles could not be applied to a door, or a computer password. What better way to safeguard the secrets of Force users than to make it impossible for anyone but them to utilise your computer network?

But then, why the local terminals? Were they a redundancy? Systems that droids could use, or allies who were not able to manipulate the Force? A grim thought occurred to Inyos as he contemplated the possibilities. Slaves? There were any number of groups from history that might have referred to themselves as a Brotherhood, and while at first Inyos had thought - or perhaps hoped - that it referred to some sort of religious order or benevolent alliance perhaps, that was not necessarily the case. Either way, the Brotherhood seemed to be Force users; no wonder the Jedi had eventually found their way here. Of all the things that the Jedi Order had been throughout it's history, tolerant of belief systems about the Force other than their own it was not.

He frowned a little, a hint of surprise in the expression that he directed towards Sid. Had she not come to the same conclusion? Had she somehow not realised that her mind had been what triggered the entrance? His head cocked to the side, trying to get a sense of her, to understand the way that she fit into the interwoven tapestry of the Force. He felt brightness within her, a bright gleam of shining silver lurking beneath the surface, but it was dulled; not tarnished the way that his own presence in the Force had been, but rather as if she had never been polished, as if she had been made and then discarded without anyone ever taking the care to bring her to the clear potential that she had. A note of sadness knotted itself in his chest. It had been tragic enough when she had been the lonely street orphan back on Nar Shaddaa, the one who had helped to save so many others but fled before Inyos and Mandan had been able to help her. Now though it was worse: Inyos wondered how many opportunities for safety, for a life, for happiness had been denied to her over the years since then. Not just that; even worse than that.

You don't think you deserve to be saved.

Inyos considered his words carefully, fighting the urge to simply state the obvious fact as he so typically did. "I do not think I am incorrect," he began quietly; it was not something that they had spoken of, and yet somehow he knew that they both on some level understood this to be the case. "In saying that we were both drawn here, to this place, by a will that was not our own."

That was a reasonable start: no outrageous or alarming conclusions there. Yet, the need to approach this gently compounded itself in his mind. He got the sense that Sid, that Sadie, that her connection to the Force was something that she buried, that she hid, something that she had yet to embrace and that she perhaps regarded with trepidation, even fear. That was not surprising, amid the hostility towards those capable of such things that had existed her entire life, but it was also dangerous - fear was the first step on so many dark paths, and Inyos knew from painful experience that fear of oneself and one's capabilities was by far the most toxic.

"I believe that like me, your connection to the Force is such that you are able to influence it; to encourage the Force to heed your will in subtle ways. I do not believe this is a capability that you have exercised, or embraced, or trained to use, but I sense it there none the less. I believe this Enclave sensed it too: either our proximity, or our subconscious thought. We wished the door to be opened, and so it was. We intended to be inside this place, and so the path was opened to us."

He felt the shift in Sadie's emotions, the way her spirit recoiled from the accusation that he had just made, the hidden truth that he had exposed. Part of him wanted to reach out with the Force, to impose his gentle will upon her and soothe the anxiety that he felt within her; but Sid deserved better. She had spent too long being manipulated, too long being denied and repressed, to long being forced into hiding by necessity or by wills other than her own. A platitude, a manipulation, those were more of the same injustice, and Inyos would not be part of forcing it to persist further. The truth, then.

"You worry about your secret being revealed. You worry that people will regard you differently if they learn of this aspect of you. Know that I will not. Whatever else this place may have been in it's past, it is an Enclave of the Jedi Order, and you are safe here, from harm and from judgement. On my honour as a Knight, I promise you that."

He faltered for a moment, another truth offering itself in his mind, one that he was unsure that he had the right to convey. He danced around it carefully, the truth revealed without being outright stated.

"I do not think your friend will judge you for it, either. I believe that -" He stopped himself, changed the words that he was about to speak, a tiny preservation of that other secret. "- a man who carries a lightsaber tucked into the front of his trousers will be in any way alarmed to learn of what you have the potential to be capable of."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"Yeah I know," Sadie answered with a heavy breath. "Known for a long while now. Jus' didn't go seein' th' need t' make a deal out of it. Ain't like it's exactly somethin' t' be proud of nowadays."

Was somethin' a person could get lost thinkin' about, that you were one o' them freaks as Vitt and probably a half billion others called 'em. She never really experimented none, didn't try nothin' weird like movin' stuff around with her mind or makin' others think a certain way. Was more natural instinct she guessed that let her judge situations an' helped out with speedin' up slicin' to a point where she could compete with droids and such. If that's all that ever came of it, that was good enough.

The door, though, that was downright clever of whoever came up with it. A piece of info to tuck away for later, maybe. Not that she figured she'd be good enough t' make such a thing on her own but damn. Frakkin' brilliant, that.

"And it ain't him I'm worried 'bout." She nodded down off the ways that Nen was at.

Was the truth, really. Sometimes people found out what she was and usually it weren't no big deal. Bog knew and 'bout the only thing he'd done 'bout it was make sure she was too hurt t' go breakin' her own bonds when he'd tore into her. Ether that or he just didn't care if she tried to fight back. Never found out and lingerin' on that was startin' to agitate her somethin' awful.

Sadie guessed Atton knew since he apparently knew just about everythin' havin' to do with her. Must have trusted her ability t' keep it secret too since he weren't tryin' to get her away from Vitt all quick like. Vitt... kriff sake. She never really cared if folks found out one way or another, she'd handle it. Vitt though? She didn't want him knowin'. Meant that he might tell her to shove off or worse and that thought bugged in ways that made her memories of what Bog had done seem like a damn walk down through th' park. Should'a known better, though. Vitt weren't dumb, he'd find out one day and then she'd go and lose him. Probably some worse stuff too. Much as that threatened t' break calm, Sadie knew she deserved it. Was the way of the verse and her life, really. Can't keep anythin' good and anythin real good weren't ever gonna be hers.

Kriff sake, Sid get a hang of y'rself. Little infatuation of yours is gettin' downright embarrassin'

"So what happens now? Y' gonna try an' sell me on the Jedi thing? Don't bother... I aint got it in me t' be one and don't want t' neither."

[Inyos Aamoran]

Those words struck a chord and resonated with Inyos. Ain't got it in me. It was a strange concept when you thought about it: that a person's worth and value was something tangible on the inside; something that radiated outwards like heat from the core of a stone. The Jedi knew such things to be true, of course: some could sense auras, some could feel what lay at the heart of a person. Strange though that so many others, so many without such sight, simply accepted the notion to be true, enough for it to become idiom and vernacular.

What resonated though was not the linguistics of it, but the sentiment. That was a feeling with which Inyos had grown all too familiar of late. Or perhaps for him, it was more a matter of what he did have in him: the corruption and the darkness that had infected him during his years on Ord Ithil, the blackness that he could feel clawing at the edges of his self. He often wondered what Padawan Némain saw when she looked at him: few paid much attention to the eccentric young Jedi, but Inyos had learned over the years to heed wisdom wherever it came from. From the way Cleo described people, from the way she spoke, she saw far more than what mortal eyes could see: she saw beyond and beneath, peering into the soul and aura of those before her; and did so as if it were the simplest, most common place thing. He had heard her descriptions of Jedi that he knew, and could feel the accuracy of her descriptions; even when the words spoke of textures and colours, he could feel in her words the emotions and states of mind that she was trying to articulate. He had never heard her describe himself, though. Never found the opportunity to ask. A once bright light perhaps, now faded and dim, enshrouded in black and entangled in thorns.

"I am not sure that I have it in me, either."

A frown gripped his brow, and his mind reached for some sage wisdom from the ages, but none came. None of the great masters that he had studied, none of the ancient consulars whose accounts he had memorised, had ever said anything that could apply to a moment like now. His own wisdom then, such as it was.

"You are afraid," he said quietly; not an accusation, merely a gentle statement of fact. "You fear what will happen if people know who you are. You fear what your friends and your loved ones will do. You fear what the Empire will do. You fear even what the Jedi would do, yes? I can sense the comfort you feel here; the familiarity of this world; the tug that draws your thoughts and your mind back to Cloud City even now. You fear being forced to leave this place. You fear being ripped away; being taken from your home."

He reached out, a hand carefully placed on her shoulder, a calming extension of his aura gently draped across her like a reassuring blanket.

"I have no desire to compel you to leave this place, Sid. I certainly would not seek to drive you to a place where I am not sure that I even belong." He paused, the frown shifting a little on his brow. "But I do worry for you. Fear is the first step on a path that cannot be easily turned back from; and it is a path that leads to the darkest of places. I sense -"

He stopped, shook his head slightly.

"No, not only that. I know there is good in you. Even as a child, you were selfless. Even now you aid a man you hardly know. You are someone who keeps to the corners, who stays in the shade, who evades notice wherever she can. Do not. Come out into the sun. Let yourself stand in the light. It is warmer here; and it is where you belong."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"I ain't..." She knew it would be taken the wrong way but Sadie couldn't help but shrug away from the hand on her shoulder. One of them reflexes that y' kinda felt bad about the second it was over. There weren't nothin' untoward in the Jedi's actions after all, he were just tryin' to give a bit of comfort.

Sadie couldn't bring herself t' finish th' verbal objection at least. Ain't afraid of nothin' was about as far from the truth as a body could find itself. There were other protests too, that Inyos didn't know jack about her, that she didn't know what he was seein' in her but it must have been lookin' clear 'round all the crap. The slicin' jobs done for folks that she knew were downright unsavory, the slave drive she'd helped out in, people she probably made dead with a blaster or a few choice strings of code. The whole sex, drugs, an' rock 'n roll bit...

"Sorry, suns and I don't get along too grand. Pale skin, y' see? Shadows tend t' do me better. Least they have so far. Ain't so bad skirtin' th' edges of light 'n dark, y'know? Less headaches, I guess." Sadie sighed, both at the whole of it and at the fact she was apparently preachin' t' a Jedi. Shiny.

"Look, I know what y're sayin' an', I appreciate it, yeah? Just... some of us folks weren't made for th' light. I tried it once, went on some grand savin' the galaxy thing. Did some real good an' didn't get a whole lot back in thanks other than... Well, okay, so I guess maybe now it's all makin' it up t' me. Got... folks that apparently want t' do right by me. Course I half wonder if it's cause all three of 'em feel like they need t' try an' undo what was done t' me but..."

She was ramblin'. Knew she was an' yet couldn't go an help herself. Somethin' bout the guy just made her want t' open up. Was probably one of them Jedi Mind Tricks but it didn't bother her too bad except now that she caught herself and realized she was sayin' a lot of vague and not a lot of good.

"I just... can't be that. Got too much to lose that I barely got a hold on and I ain't wantin' t' be done with him." That was like a damn brick t' the back of the head. Bad slip of the tongue there, she'd have to watch for that. "Them. It. All of it."

[Inyos Aamoran]

Sarcasm. Deflection. Humour to skirt around reacting to a truth that you couldn't bring yourself to confront. Inyos had known a woman like that, once. Same way of twisting words. Same frustrating way of faking misunderstanding to distract from the abundantly obvious that was there, plain as day. She had meant something to him, back then: something that he didn't understand, something that he couldn't define; but something that stirred and twisted inside him as he spoke. I ain't wantin' t' be done.

He hadn't wanted to be done either, not with her; but the universe had made it feel like there was no other choice. He hadn't been safe to be around back then, back at the height of the Purge. He wondered how long it would take before new Jedi stopped remembering what it was like to be hunted, to live in fear of what you were, to constantly seek to hide who you were and what you could do from even those closest to you. It was madness: the Jedi had always been peacekeepers, guardians, healers, diplomats, sentinels, sages - they had lived to serve, lived to protect, spent their lives and given their lives for the greater good of the Republic. So quickly that had all changed. So quickly, people like Sid had become the new generation, the future of the Jedi Order. Whatever the Jedi became, it would be build upon that fear, built upon that caution, built upon that wariness and distrust and that backwards belief that to protect oneself should take precedence over the protection of others. That did not feel like the right path; not the one the Order should have been walking down. He did not know where the right path could be found, but he knew the ground beneath his feet was unstable, surrounded on all sides by slippery slopes.

What of this path here? What of the beacon that had drawn him to Bespin, and to her? Was this the road that he should walk down - not as part of a great Order seeking to bring brightness to an entire galaxy, but as one man trying to guide one woman back from the brink of darkness; redemption by saving a single life? Was this how he mended the broken light inside him, by helping this fragment of his past to kindle her own? He did not know for certain, he could not hope to divine the specific will of the Force; but surely this was not coincidence, surely there was a deeper purpose to this serendipity?

"What if I stay?"

His mouth made the decision that it knew his heart would inevitably reach, but even then the words surprised him a little as he heard them.

"You misunderstand my intentions, I think. When I speak of shadows, and of light, and the sun, I speak only of the ones that lie inside you. I speak of the shadows that claw at the edges of your thoughts. I speak of the light that flickers and wavers, the embers of joy and hope that deserve to be a roaring fire. I speak of the sun that comes from accepting the affection of others into your heart; of opening yourself to trust, and to love. You joke that you are pale, and that you would burn in the sun; you know this, because you have been burned, and so you choose the cold and the shade, so that it can never happen again."

His expression shifted, still processing her words, his piercing eyes peering into her own, looking for the writing scribed across the surface of her soul.

"I sense that your thoughts dwell on someone. You worry that you will lose him if you ever embrace who you are, and so you hide behind walls; ones that hide you from view, and ones that keep him away. But those are not the only walls you can seek protection behind. Within these walls, within this Enclave, no one but you or I need know the potential that exists within you. With training, you will be able to build new walls that exist only inside, to fortify yourself against the inner darkness, against your fears and nightmares; walls that will not hold the rest of the world at bay, and that will perhaps not stop him from seeing you in the light you wish."

His head bowed slightly.

"So if you wish it, I will remain - here in this Enclave, or across in your city of clouds - for as long as I am needed. As long as it takes to help you find the right footing, and guide you away from the dangerous paths."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Was this guy serious? Well, of course he was serious, weren't like Jedi were known for jokin' around or lyin' straight t' your face. Stickin' 'round to help her though? Of all reasons that the one that made the least damn sense. Gettin' this whole Enclave place up and runnin' would have made a heap ton more sense to her. Still, Sadie felt that same naggin' pullin' sensation and judgin' by the fact she hadn't had t' go an offer her services in helpin' the guy get settled long enough to make this place worth showin' off to the rest of his Jedi buddies, she was gettin' the picture that he was probably bein' nudged in the same direction. She didn't like it, not one bit. Verse needed t' let people make their own damn decisions, dammit. But if it were gonna be all insistent like and if this would shut it up? Fine then.

Besides, learnin' how to possibly proper juggle bits of her life for a change might do her some good. She still weren't sure she could hide anythin' in the long run from Vitt, but maybe, just maybe someone who was used to dealin' with all kinds of persecution could at least maybe help her come up with a way to broach the subject that wouldn't end with a blaster aimed at her skull and one heap of heartache.

Heartache?? Frak, had she really let it get that bad? Obviously th' thought of loosin' the hunter was screamin' out to the galaxy loud enough that Inyos could go an' hear it. Breakin' her own damn rules. Oh well, Cloud City was some sort of fresh start for her, it seemed. Family - actual family - bein' someone's partner, why not throw secret Force lessons into the damn mix? If it was all gonna go belly up at least it could do so in huge blowout spectacular fashion. More fuel for that fire.

Frak she wanted a cigarra bad suddenly. Or just a glass of whiskey. Boss lady always seemed to have somethin' on hand and Sadie was really startin' to appreciate her wisdom in that.

"Y' sure y' really want t' do that? I mean... If y' were certain, I know I could set y' up with a false identity an' papers that no one would question on Cloud City. We wouldn't even need t' move your ship, I can..." Well, couldn't go an' offer him a ride back on the Y-Wing. That'd mean leavin' Nen here alone and she was sure that'd go over as well as throwin' the poor guy into a pit of needles.

They'd need bigger transport if they were gonna all get off the platform. Makin' the Jedi take his own ship was one giant no-go. Didn't have clearance and while Sadie was sure she could get somethin' workin' on that end right quick it didn't exactly change the fact it was a Jedi ship. Too many questions, too much attention. Nope, they needed another route. And hidin' a Jedi in an Imperial city weren't impossible but damn if she couldn't use help. Luckily, well, Sadie had just got her gorram golden ticket when it came to that thing, hadn't she?

"If y' aint' opposed t' it. I got someone I trust that can get y' t' th' city clean as anythin'. We'll set y' up somewhere decent t' live so y' don't have t' camp out here an' everythin'. My way of sayin' thanks finally, I s'pose. An', I guess payin' y' for... helpin' me again."

[Inyos Aamoran]

He could feel her unease. Her body didn't show it, but the sentiment rolled off her in ripples. This was a big decision, that Inyos understood. For him, being a Jedi had never been a choice: since birth it had only been a matter of time before the Temple came for him, and the Jedi had become the only existence he had ever known; the sense of identity that had shaped who he was. When the Order had been lost, he suffered for it, and had been forced to learn a new way of being, but that imprint of the Jedi Order was still there, still dictating his morality and his beliefs.

Sid though? Sid was shaped by loneliness and hardship. Her beliefs and compulsions were to isolate herself, to rely on no one. You didn't need to have met her a lifetime ago, or read her aura to understand that. You could see it in her words, the way that her eyes didn't always look directly at you when she spoke, the way she stood just that little bit further away to ensure there was a comfortable distance, the way her arms kept protectively close to her instead of quite being as relaxed as any other human might have been. Next to her companion, Nen, who seemed constantly worried and yet constantly care-free - an odd combination - Sid was the poster child for introversion and defensiveness. That, combined with an untrained potential for the Force, and the tugging allure of the dark side? Her safety, her purity, her integrity, her soul was at risk, and for some reason that concerned Inyos far more than it should. Was he so desperate to make amends that all his hopes had now been hung upon saving this one girl? That was what he felt the will of the Force nudging him, and he resented it - not because he minded the prospect of helping Sid mend herself, but because he saw the way that it influenced her as well. Had she not suffered enough already? Had she not earned the right for the universe to leave her alone?

Yet, despite her trepidation, she accepted his offer - more or less. Questioned it, of course, doubting his conviction and willingness. She sought to include another as well; someone she trusted, someone else to stand beside her in the face of a man who was little better - or perhaps worse - than a complete stranger. That was wise. That was good, even. Inyos did not relish being the subject of caution and concern, but if Sid could seek the aid of others against a potential danger from without, then perhaps she could learn to open herself to the same kind of aid against dangers from within. Inyos could sense that it would take quite some effort to convince her of that, but Sid was already on a healing path; one that Inyos was eager to walk beside her on.

He did not respond to her suggestion though, not immediately. He felt the buffer between them, the barrier to trust, the way that the mystery he presented made him a subject of wariness. She did not know him, and so she could not fully trust. Again that was wise. Again that was problematic. But how to earn her trust? How to relate to someone who had lived a life so opposite to his own? How to stop himself being an intimidating example of what Sid believed she did not have it in her to be?

"Thirteen years ago," Inyos began quietly, and it was his turn to struggle for eye contact. He didn't force himself; didn't try to hide his reluctance and shame. He wanted Sid to see it; wanted her to understand the honesty that he was trusting her with. "I became stranded on a world on the fringes of the Unknown Regions. My closest friend and I had been lured there by a call for distress, from a young woman we believed to be trapped, reaching out to us through the Force. When we landed, a dark presence wrapped itself around our ship, preventing us from leaving. It reached into our minds, and my friend -"

He faltered, his brow conflicting, but he forced himself to continue. "Mandan Hidatsa was the greatest man I ever knew. Not the greatest Jedi perhaps, but what he lacked in discipline and focus, he made up for in compassion and understanding. You knew him also; you know the kind of man he was. During the Jedi's waning years he fell in love with another of our Order, and when the Purge began he and she were able to be together. The Jedi Order had taught me to see love as a weakness, but slowly I learned that it was his greatest strength. I have never known anyone before or since whose heart has shone as brightly."

Shame slumped his shoulders. "The dark side on that world affected us both. It twisted him against me, and I -"

A sigh.

"I killed my best friend. I had no choice, I could not save him... but it haunts me. And for the years that followed, the decade I spent stranded on that world, it haunted me. I can feel it clawing away inside me, and I know that if I am not able to keep it at bay, it will make the worst of me."

His eyes finally rose to meet Sid's. "I do not wish to see your shadows become the plague to you that mine are. But if you fear them, you will only fuel them. So am I certain? Am I sure that helping you is what I want?"

Inyos' eyes had never looked so sad; the small smile he managed to muster only seemed to make it worse.

"Mandan and I began to save you once. I owe it to him to finish what we began. So I will stay, if you will allow it; and any help you can offer I will gratefully accept."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Mandan. That was the other guys' name. She remembered having trouble sayin' it back then and had shortened it to Manny or was it Danny? Not that she'd said it aloud or nothin' like that. Even as a little street urchin Sadie had known what was oversteppin' bounds when it came t' respectin' you're elders and such. Not to mention the fact they were frikin' Jedi.

He was dead now though? And Inyos had killed him thanks to some sort of Darkness? That was rough. Real rough. Sadie had done a lot of regrettable such things in her life but nothin' on that number. If there was somethin' appropriate to say at a thing like that, she had no damn clue what it was but sure as hells wished she did. If helpin' her out made Inyos feel like he was doin' some sort of good though? Well, who the hell was she to say no to that? Vitt and Atton and even Emelie had done their damndest to find things for her to do to make herself feel like herself again and there weren't no words to express how grateful she'd become for it all. Maybe was time to return the favor or pass it on or whatever phrase you wanted to use to describe the fact that she was feelin' like this was supposed to happen.

Either way Sadie felt like she was hearin' somethin' that Inyos didn't exactly throw out there for just anyone to hear. A phantom pain etched across one of them symbols that'd been gouged into her. The skin still felt odd some days, especially right after a shower or when she stretched certain ways, but there weren't pain anymore, not real anyway. As laserbrained as that sort of thing sounded on paper and as much as Sadie were the kind to give crap to anyone who actually believed in that sort of dren, maybe this was right. Maybe it was somethin' she honestly needed after everythin'. Outward wounds had healed well enough as they were gonna, maybe it was time to call in some reinforcements on the inside ones.

Her head nodded and Sadie found a half smile tryin' to form on her lips. "Y'now... I think this is gonna work out all shiny."

[Vittore Montegue]

* * *

He was going to kill her.

Well okay, maybe not kill. Maybe just, well, okay, so not mangle, or harm, or threaten, or anything like that. But he was going to glare at her real hard. Vittore was not a man who cared about a whole lot of stuff. He had a few things that meant something to him, but most of the stuff he owned was just crap. Most of his life was just junk that he didn't feel much for one way or another. That starfighter though? The thought of it gone, the thought of it taken, the thought of the girl he'd brought into his life, and his work, and his home just upping and taking it without so much as a word, without so much as a note? Either she'd thought it would be okay, and she just didn't know him anywhere near as much as he'd started to let himself start to hope the tiniest bit that she had; or she just didn't care. He wasn't sure which of the two was worse.

Part of him knew that it wasn't just about the Y-Wing either. There was something lurking in the background. What if something happened to you? How can I protect you if I don't know where you are? But his mind struggled to process that, struggled to come to terms with why he was so damn invested in some stupid little Shaddaa kid who he'd been paid to rescue, paid to protect. Yeah, she was his partner, and it had meant something to Vittore when he'd invited her to be that; meant something having her by his side on jobs; meant something when she'd stuck by him through that whole Black Sun face stealing imposter murder crap. He'd thought he could trust her. He'd thought he could rely on her. And then just gone. He'd walked into the ship, and there had been empty rooms and an empty Y-Wing bay, and just -

He was the first out of the speeder when Atton brought it into the bay. The repulsors had barely powered down by the time he'd popped the hatch and stepped out. He hadn't paid attention to the weird mystery platform on the way in. He hadn't processed the knowledge that Sadie had told Atton that there was a Jedi waiting for them on the station. Didn't think about that. Didn't care. His eyes found the Y-Wing. His eyes found Katie; also stolen. They avoided Sadie entirely, and found -

The bottom dropped out of his stomach. Memories cascaded back, twisted and painful. A world utterly covered in darkness. His brother possessed by some undead Jedi freak claiming to be their mother. Ghosts, and sentient shadows, and Force crap, and nightmares. And then that guy. That Jedi. Standing on the ramp of the Coromon Headhunter with an evil yellow glow in his eyes. The blue shimmering shape of Dan-something leaping out of the dreadlocked Amos Iakona guy, one ghost tackling another ghost out of the Jedi's body and -

Why? Why? Why was this here? Why was this happening? Why had this crap followed him from one side of the galaxy to the other? Was one ruined life, one ruined family, one lost love, one ordeal of torture - was that all not enough? Why did it have to come here and screw with this new life he was slowly putting together for himself? And why did Sadie have to betray him like this, playing a part in helping it happen?

The anger faded from his eyes as they turned to Sadie. Sadness clunk behind for a moment, like a film of moisture left behind by a receding wave, but that too dissipated, leaving only one thing behind.

Disappointment.

"I'd ask for an explanation," he said quietly; his eyes didn't even manage to linger on her for more than a second before they fell away, staring at her hands instead of forcing himself to suffer all the extra emotions that her eyes caused. "But it don't feel much like y' think I deserve those."

He felt the Jedi shift; caught the motion off in the peripheral of his vision. "Aaah!" he warned, a hand snapping out to silence Inyos Aamoran before he had the chance to speak. His eyes sought the Knight out, glaring at him with more devastating intensity than a Death Star superlaser. "I will deal with you in a minute."

They turned back to Sadie painfully slow; one last attempt to look her in the eyes confronting her with the swirling hurricane of emotions that raged away inside him. All the usual gruff and roughness from his voice was faded. It sounded cracked. Broken. Wounded.

"What the hell, K'Vesh?"

[Sadie K'Vesh]

No no no. She wanted him to yell at her. She wanted him to be angry if anything. Not that she had exactly expected to see Vitt in the first place. Call for a ride had gone out to Atton alone, figurin' he could take Inyos back to Cloud City - maybe Nen too if he was still jumpy - and her and Katie could get the Y-Wing back home easy as cake.

Sadie had known the risks of takin' Vitt' Y-Wing without a word but some part of her had been sure it was golden. Vitt trusted her and she trusted him and she had figured, no - incorrectly assumed - that sort of trust would mean he would know that somethin' he took so much pride in would be safe with her. It was Nen's worry that he'd kill the both of them for takin' it and even if she was wrong 'bout the whole trust thing Sadie had been ready t' take the brunt of some boisterous shoutin'. She knew how to take that, knew how to conduct herself even if it went violent - not that she ever thought it would with Vitt - but she'd seen him mad plenty of times, just never had it leveled on her.

This though? This were worse. She couldn't flinch away an' just let the other person have a row until they were done. This involved explainin' herself, explainin' reasons she weren't quite ready to give voice to, didn't feel like she had to.

"Y'... Y' said I could..." Nope. No he didn't. "Said I could make use o' whatever I needed."

She tried to keep herself lookin' anythin' but guilty but it failed oh so quick like. Tryin' to keep herself lookin' at Vitt was damn near impossible so her eyes fell to the floor, to stare at the space betwixt their boots.

"I jus'... I thought it would be okay. Was plannin' on havin' her back right quick. No scuffs or nothin."

Her head turned just a bit, catchin' sight of the bottom edge of Inyos' coat before lookin' back. "'M sorry, Cap'n. Real sorry."

[Vittore Montegue]

That's what Cambrio and dad would say too, probably. That's what you said when you pulled a disappearing act on Vittore Montegue. I'm sorry. Free pass out of everything. Sure, they'd seem less sincere about it than Sadie did, but it'd comfort him about as much.

Maybe it was his fault. Maybe he did too good a job being the tough guy. The good soldier. The ruthless hunter. Who cares about hurting the feelings of the guy who doesn't ever show any? Who cares about offending the guy who shrugs off gunshots and insults with equal disinterest? It stung, though. That was the kicker. Yeah, Sadie was right: he'd said she could use anything. But if she'd asked? If she'd said a word? Hell, he would have flown her here himself. He would have stood there all threatening-like, just in case the damned Jedi tried anything. It was his job to protect her. Not just because Emelie paid him to, but because that was the promise that he'd made when he'd asked her to partner up. Work jobs, together. Celebrate victories, together. Face danger, together. Live, eat, drink, laugh, watch movies, hang out - together. That she was out here, poking around in this mystery place, rushing into peril, facing intrigue, and doing it all with Nen Lev'i? He'd get over the ship. He'd get over not knowing. But that? That stung.

Words played out behind his eyes, and he had half a mind to utter them aloud. You almost made me lose you, Sadie, and I would never have known why.

He ripped his gaze away. Forced himself to stare off over the top of Sadie's head. His shoulders sagged, a breath escaped as a sigh.

"Get in the speeder, Sadie."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

The speeder. Not the Y-Wing. Were the right thing to do on Vitt's part but damn if it didn't make it feel like the bottom of her stomach just fell right out. Well, more than it had before. Trouble was, Sadie was pretty sure it wasn't her stomach that was causin' the feelin' but some other organ a bit higher up in the chest cavity.

"Y' sure? I... I can come help put it away. We can talk..." bout what? Bout how you fraked this up?

She was graspin' at straws in plain view of everyone and while some part of her was downright unsettled by it. Angry at herself, even. This weren't like her. Beggin' weren't her style. Makin' amends weren't her style. Excuses and reasons and all weren't her style. Kriffin' Vittore Montegue, man. Of all the people in the verse for her to give a damn about he made a ton of sense but it still seemed so gods awful embarrassin'.

[Vittore Montegue]

"Get in the speeder, Miss K'Vesh."

Vittore wondered if the edge in his voice hurt her as much as it hurt him saying it. Hurt enough for him to wrench himself away and walk past her, just to make sure she didn't see. Set his sights on the Jedi instead. That was easier. That was angrier. Those emotions were far easier to deal with, far simpler to comprehend. He could feel the cold metal of his slugthrower pressing against the small of his back, tucked down the back of his jeans. Make me use it, he taunted at the Jedi as he advanced towards him. Please. Just one damn move. Make my day.

The Jedi didn't oblige. He stood silently, some weird sad frowny head tilt curious expression on his face, like some bemused puppy, not quite grasping what he was watching. Figured. He knew this Jedi. Knew he was one of those proper ones. Raised by the Order, back before the Purge. Didn't know jack all about the real world. Didn't know squat about how real people worked. This one especially, he was especially messed up. Years in isolation. Evil dark side voodoo screwing with his brain. Should've put him down the moment they'd met him. Dad would've done for sure, if he'd been thinking straight. Maybe now was the time.

"Talk."

It was a threat. A command. A demand. His hand twitched, settling on the grip of the slighthrower pistol.

"Start fillin' the air with answers, or I start fillin' you with -"

[Atton Kira]

"Easy there, Moof."

Atton's voice cut through the air like a laser, utterly calm but utterly commanding at the same time. He waited, watching as Sadie climbed her way into the passenger cabin of the airspeeder he'd rented. He'd watched as Vittore's words had made her crumple, like a droid drained of all power. There was more going on there than a disagreement between friends and colleagues. He'd suspected as much when Vittore had burst into his quarters an hour ago, borderline panicked that Sadie had disappeared. It was commendable in a way; reassuring that Sadie's allocated protector was so invested in her well-being; but unsettling at the same time for a man who'd spent his entire life keeping his protective affection for Saidra safely hidden away - something that Vittore was far less capable of, it seemed. As soon as Atton had been able to reassure him that she was safe, his attitude had mutated, and it was the resulting anger that Atton had brought him for. Atton would have liked nothing more than to demand to know what the hell his niece had been thinking, running off into danger like this; by letting Vittore take point instead, he'd spared himself the danger of losing the niece he'd only just come to know.

The result had been unexpected, though. What was supposed to be a bit of shouting to bop Sadie on the nose for her antics had turned into something else entirely, Vittore trampling like some clumsy mastmot all across feelings that he clearly didn't realise Sadie had. Now he'd turned, stampeding towards Inyos like a reek on a warpath.

He gestured to Nen Lev'i, standing off in the distance in a state of mild panic as he watched the events unfold, instructing him to get in the passenger seat that Vittore had vacated. With a heave, he swung down the driver side gull-wing door, letting is close with a resounding clunk and a hiss of atmospheric pressurisation. He strode forward with swagger, tongue playing back and forth across the inside of his teeth, but his calm belied an anger beneath that burned even hotter than Vittore's did. Vittore was angry over some colleague and roommate that he'd only just met: Atton's was the anger of an uncle whose niece had been lured to the middle of nowhere, not just by any Jedi, but by this one in particular. No, there would be no shootings by Vittore Montegue today. If anyone was going to put a bullet in Aamoran's skull, Atton would do it himself.

"Mister Montegue," he said, his voice turning quiet as he drew up level with the hunter. "I think it'd be f' the best if you take that fighter a' yours and go for a bit of a fly."

Vittore tried to protest; Atton didn't give him the chance. "You need to cool your head, an' we need t' make sure that two ships don't suspiciously arrive back at th' same time from th' same direction, on a vector that leads to the middle a' bloody nowhere." He paused a moment for effect, before adding the final bit of persuasion. "Don't forget who cosigns y' paychecks, Mister Montegue. Don't mistake this f' a request."

The hunter didn't seem happy about it; but Atton didn't need him happy, just compliant. A long lingering look passed between Vittore and the Jedi - more of a story there than the scant details that Atton was aware of, that was for sure - before Vittore grunted and marched away, barking an order at Katie to saddle up before he climbed up into the Y-Wing in a far more aggressive manner than should have been humanly possible.

Atton's eyes turned back to Inyos, contemplating the man that the years had been unnaturally kind to. "Y' never call," Atton quipped. "Y' never write. Honestly, I think we were all hopin' you were dead in a ditch somewhere. But since you're not -"

All the pretence of faux familiarity faded from Atton's expression.

"I think you and I need t' have a little chat."

[Inyos Aamoran]

* * *

The will of the Force was to mock him. That was the only possible explanation for what had happened here. The presence of Sid - of Saidra, as Atton Kira had explained - he could accept as a benevolent gesture; a chance to make amends for a missed opportunity from his past; a chance to start seeking redemption for his previous mistakes. That had all changed when the others had arrived though. These were not black marks on his history that he could hope to fix: they were simply reminders, the Force laughing at him for everything he had done wrong. There was Vittore Montegue, a witness to Inyos at his absolute darkest. There was Atton Kira, a reminder of the first misstep that had made everything that followed come to pass. And then Sid, Sadie, Saidra? That the Force had chosen to reveal the daughter of Elira Asael to him was a cruelty beyond description. It had arrayed before him the complete timeline of his downfall: a systematic deconstruction of how he had become the broken echo that he now was.

The hurt had not been his alone, it seemed. Sadie had not said a word since Inyos had climbed into the back of the speeder with her, both relegated to the status of passengers while Atton and Nen rode up front in the main cabin. Inyos felt handled somehow, like he had become some burden that Atton Kira and the others found themselves grudgingly responsible for dealing with. He supposed he was. He supposed he had always been. From the utter dejection in Saidra's posture though, and the dark emotions broiling away beneath the surface, something far deeper had happened than Inyos currently understood. For the last several minutes, he had searched his mind for something to say; a comfort, a distraction, anything. There was nothing in his corroded understanding of people and emotions that seemed in any way beneficial, and yet the prospect of remaining silent seemed far worse.

"I take it that the use of the ship that brought you here was not entirely consensual."

Inyos regretted the words instantly. Perhaps a statement so blunt was even worse than silence.

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"''Pparently not," Sadie managed. The words should have been all full of her usual self but they felt hollowed out, kinda like the rest of her.

It was all kinds of inevitable, she supposed. Nothin' stayed good forever, and things were gettin' awful good lately. Was like that sayin' 'bout the brightest stars burnin' out the fastest or somethin'. Sadie weren't quite sure what sort of damage she'd done between whatever it was that her and Vitt had but that last curt callin' her by the last name he knew her by was some sort of nail in a coffin, she was sure 'bout that. Doors were openin' and one overstep had sent about slammin' them all tight down. She wasn't lookin' forward t' returnin' home. Sad that, first time she'd a place comfortable and agreeable and easy goin' enough that she felt right callin' it that. Just enough time to find someone, somewhere, that could actually earn the name and for all she knew it weren't home anymore. Not after the way Vitt had talked to her, not after the way he couldn't even really look at her. She'd crossed a line and there weren't no goin' back. Serves y' right.

Sadie sighed, eyes closin' for a bit as she forced herself t' not get all emotional. Were plenty of time for that later when Vitt proper told her to get out. Or put her on lockdown if she was lucky.

When she had the gumption to finally open her eyes again she looked over at Inyos, damn Jedi was lookin' almost as sad as she was, probably. Poor guy, he didn't do nothin' t' get the reception he had. Of course, no way of knowin' that Inyos was familiar with Atton and Vittore, neither. Will of the Force, her arse. Was all just a game that somebody was playin' and they certainly weren't playin' none fair.

"Didn't seem like folks were real glad t' see you. Sorry 'bout that. Trust that it weren't a ploy on my part, yeah? I didn't know..."

She only knew a conversation had gone on between Atton and the Jedi, no shoutin' or such and Inyos was comin' along anyway so she figured it must have been amiable enough. And hell, was there actually a body in the verse that Atton didn't know? Sadie was startin' to guess there weren't many for whatever reasons.

Vitt, though; that'd been unexpected as all getup.

Her gaze fell back to her hands, fumblin' across each other. "So, how you know Vittore?"

[Inyos Aamoran]

There were so many half-truths to offer in response to that question; so many fractions of honesty before reaching the kind of answer that Sadie was looking for. He was there when I was rescued. Our paths crossed when he was younger. I met his father once. I knew his mother.

The truth, though? The truth will set you free. That sentiment rattled around in his thoughts, echoing like a mockery. There was nothing liberating about his guilt. Nothing free about inspiring another to look upon him with the same kind of contempt that he felt when he looked upon himself. But the truth was seldom for the sake of the one who spoke it. The truth was for those who heard; those who deserved to know. As far as Saidra was concerned, there was so much truth that she deserved to have shared with her; but Atton had been insistent. She doesn't know yet. Don't talk about her mother unless she asks. In lieu of those truths then, in substitution for the ones she truly deserved to hear, Inyos steeled himself for his confession.

"The siren that lured Mandan and I to Ord Ithil," he began, and while he did not falter his words creaked with slow reluctance as they tumbled from his voice. "The woman, who reached out to us through the Force, pretending to need our aid. Her name was Emaryn Montegue, and she was Vittore's mother."

That alone would have been enough: not just the explanation, but the was. Yet even that was a half-truth. There was more. There was worse.

"When Vittore was still a child, his mother was seduced by the dark side, and found her way to Ord Ithil. She was trapped there when we arrived, and it was she who twisted Mandan's mind. She was the one that turned us against each other; and after I had been forced to kill my closest friend, I -"

Inyos looked at her, gazed at Saidra with the eyes of a guilty child, looking to a parent for forgiveness.

"I grew angry, and I turned that anger upon her. I killed her, and then I killed myself. But the Darkness on Ord Ithil has a will, and a potent power to it. It grew bored, and I had slain it's only source of entertainment. So it corrupted me. One of it's dark minions possessed the fringes of my mind, driving me to do things but leaving me just in control of myself enough to feel the guilt of what I had done. Worse, because of the way that darkness entombed the entire world, the spirits of the fallen could not leave to become one with the Force. Emaryn, and Mandan, and everyone else slain on that world remained, and when Vittore's father learned of this, that the pure soul of his beloved wife - finally free from her corruption - was trapped on Ord Ithil, he came to rescue her."

His eyes fell away again. Stared at his hands.

"In the end, he rescued me. Mandan's spirit drove the darkness from my body, and allowed the rest of us enough time to escape. Emaryn's spirit was able to become one with the Force, but Mandan remains trapped on that world, and I? I exist as a reminder to Vittore of what the dark side can do, and while what he saw makes it so that he cannot quite blame me for my actions, or for the death of his mother, it also makes it impossible for him to forget, or forgive."

Inyos looked to Sadie once more, a slight tilt of his head taking the place of a shrug.

"I am the harbinger of all his loss."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"Y' didn't make his mom go bad in th' first place," Sadie offered. It was a poor attempt at consoling Inyos, at disprovin' what he was sayin' though Sadie weren't sure who it was she was talkin' for the benefit of.

Was like another punch t' the gut when you were already on the floor. Killed his mother. The way Inyos had explained it made it clear as a bright sunny day that he weren't t' blame. Darkness had taken over and Sadie weren't sure what all the Force could do when it went proper bad but she'd heard enough stories to know it could get pretty awful. Didn't make the guilt any less though, Sadie guessed; especially if you'd been told most your life your entire purpose was doin' good and savin' folks.

"For all he's been through, he's turned out okay, you know? Got his demons and has seen some shit but... he's... he's good. Does a lot of good. Saved me from..." She didn't want t' explain what or why she ended up half dead in a back room, too long a story and maybe she'd tell it another day.

Instead Sadie just looked down before her hands let go of each other an' with a bit of a cringe that weren't necessary - 'cept maybe in prep of what the Jedi's own reaction was gonna be - hitched up her shirt a bit. Not a ton of skin revealed but Sadie knew that were the side of her stomach that some of the meaner lookin' scars an' such resided. Her hand fell and so did the fabric and she let out another deep breath.

"He just... deserves better than the verse gives him."

Better than me, that's for damned sure.

It was too much to deal with. Em and her crazy assassins with weirdo names, Vitt probably hatin' her somethin' awful for thinkin' she was besties with the guy who killed his mom, Atton findin' out that the niece he'd apparently kept watch over wasn't even grateful enough to get anyone to even look into what sort of mess she was tossin' herself into, Nen who probably thought she was nothin' but trouble and grief... And now she'd just gone and thrown people back into Inyos' life that the poor Jedi would probably have been better off with. Harbinger for one man's loss had nothin' on catalyst for everyone's misery. Even if she weren't directly responsible, it all came back on her. Like some damn patient zero or somethin'.

Was only one way to handle a thing like that and it was gonna hurt, but less pain in the long run for everyone involved.

[Vittore Montegue]

* * *

I am such an idiot.

Atton had been right. Vittore needed to clear his head. Needed to fly angry, needed to plunge into clouds, needed to let his anger seethe and boil and rumble away until it accidentally stumbled it's way across common sense. He was so used to being angry and hurt; it had been his default experience for so long that he had stopped questioning where it came from. He got angry, and he took it out on the target. That was how he did the job. That was how he fought the good fight. That was how he punished the bad things of the universe, because he knew there was nothing he could actually do to get back at the specific things that had harmed him.

Sadie had been right, too. He really had said it: Take anything you want. He'd meant it. He still meant it. This ship, precious as it was to him, counted as part of that. Sure, this chair was his chair, and Nen's backside smushing up his cushions wasn't exactly a pleasant feeling, but the seat behind him? That turret was Sadie's seat. She was his partner. Equal partner. If she wanted to use his baby to go investigate some mystery, she damn well could. Him being all butthurt because she'd not wanted him to tag along, that was something else. That was him and her, two people so used to flying solo and relying on no one that they just straight forgot that they had someone now.

And he'd screwed it up. Sadie didn't deserve his anger, or his blame. Hadn't earned it. Shouldn't have been on the receiving end. The Jedi guy didn't really deserve it either, just some hapless victim caught in the same gorram incomprehensible web of light, and dark, and mystical energy fields, and all that crap. Kira had done right by him, stopping him before he acted. That was another default: see the thing, not the person. He looked at Inyos, and he didn't see a man, a victim, a friend of Sadie's, or of Atton's; he saw a Jedi, he saw a target, he saw something from that list of things that his dad had taught him to hate without thinking his whole life. But the universe was teaching him lessons now. It was showing him that there was more to people than the stuff that you'd write on a list; that the first impression was often the worst impression; that his instincts weren't some supernatural power, and were just as fallible as pretty much anything else in the 'verse. If he clung to those kinds of impressions, then Sadie was just a victim. Atton was just a know-it-all ass. Nen was just a flake. Miss Shadowstar was just some vacuous tramp. If people clung to their first instincts about him, he was just a brute; a murderer; as much a monster as anything he killed. He hoped they were wrong; but he knew he'd need to start learning that he was just as likely to be wrong about them as they hopefully were about him.

"I'm sorry, Sadie."

He said it aloud. Dry run. Dress rehearsal. It sounded weird from his mouth. Forced. Fake. Not sincere enough, Katie chimed in on his console display. Little droid had been giving him shit this entire time. He deserved it. Miss Sadie deserves better.

A sad smile formed on Vittore's lips.

"I know, Katie. But I ain't got better. All I got is me."

Vittore felt a rumble through the fuselage as the Y-Wing pierced the magnetic barrier that kept the worst of Bespin's atmosphere at bay, bringing her around to settle in one of the open areas of Atton Kira's private little hangar. The Exchange's hangar now, he supposed, what with their little branding efforts. People sure did like to name things. He just hoped they wouldn't start making him wear a uniform or something. He'd been wearing the same kinda clothes for pretty much the last ten years straight. No need to go changing things now.

The repulsorlift coils spooled their way down to silence. Vittore's first instinct was to hop out and inspect her for damage; see just how badly Nen's attempts at flying had scuffed things up. He ignored it. Not doing that any more. There were more important things than what came immediately to mind. I shouldn't have yelled. I'm sorry.

The hatch to the Crimson Tide was open, ramp down as usual. Sadie could've easily sealed it up; locked him out. He would've deserved that. Maybe the fact that she didn't was a good sign. Maybe she weren't as hurt at him as she had every right to be. Truth is, I don't care about the ship. Was more worried about you. Wasn't there to keep you safe.

More than just the main hatch was open, though. Door into the main body of the ship was, too. Cabin door. Cockpit door. He walked slowly through the lounge, an unpleasant stillness in the air. Something off. Bad feeling. He glanced into Sadie's room as he passed; no one there. Nothing there. Nothing there. His heart twisted, dropped clean out through his gut, plummeting towards the core of Bespin.

No. No no no.

His pace quickened, down the short corridor to the cockpit, maybe she hadn't... maybe there was still... maybe he could...

He froze, eyes on the copilot chair. Her chair. Where she came and sat while he was flying. Where she came when she needed to just stare out at hyperspace. Where he kept finding her sleeping, when her tiny cabin just felt to big. Her chair. Where she belonged. It wasn't empty. That should have been a comfort, but it wasn't. A curled up crying Sadie would have been a comfort next to this. Angry Sadie glaring daggers at him would have been better. Hell, Sadie waiting with a blaster to drop him to the floor the second he walked through the door - he'd pick that over this.

I was scared I might lose you.

It was just a quetarra. Just a blaster. Just a knife. Just a shirt. Everything all neatly poised, neatly presented, neatly folded. It was just stuff. Just everything that Vittore had ever given her, returned like it was some temporary loan. Just the most soul-crushing shrine of agony he had ever seen. And then there was the note. Not a rant. Not a goodbye. Not any of the things he deserved to have her yell at him. Just three words.

Thanks for everything.

[Sadie K'Vesh]

She hated starports. Too loud, too busy, too full of folks tryin' to get somewhere and not carin' 'bout another livin' soul 'cept maybe those waitin' on the end for 'em. Cloud City's was shiny and bright, just the same as the troopers that were walkin' 'round like they were waitin' on someone t' start somethin. If luck would have it's damn way with her for a change, this would be the last time she'd see such a place. One way ticket back t' the rim where people like her belonged was in hand. Didn't much matter what planet it was to her, just some place as far away from civilization as a person could get. Lady at the counter had given her a funny look but hadn't said anythin. Thank frak for small blessin's.

Was the good thing about not ownin' much. Means she didn't have a whole ton except a few changes in clothing with her and a datapad that all fit snug into a simple bag she could keep with. Whole life wrapped up in one small canvas container. That was fittin'. Made it easier to move, made it easier to leave behind the stuff that weren't supposed to be hers to begin with. A shirt that was given because her own that day had been unsalvageable, a blaster so she could keep herself safe if need be, a knife that'd been used to carve up bog, a quettara so she could have a piece of normalcy, and a boy that was too good for a damn fool like her.

Leavin' was her only option. Runnin' was always what Sadie had been good at. Get out of town before you go hurtin' folk. She'd already failed big time on Vitt's part, breakin' trust and destroyin' friendship that was too fragile to begin with. Atton and Inyos were next on the list and Sadie didn't want to stick around and find out which of them was gonna go down first. Family and old friends that she didn't want but might have needed but couldn't be around. Not for the long haul. Only folks that hurt her got stuck around like a bad habit, only folks that hit hard enough she couldn't hurt 'em back.

Sleazy had tried to ask what was goin' on but she'd just pushed past him and into what room had been hers for a short time but long enough that it had felt like somethin' more. She'd wanted to leave Vittore some long note, some long explanation and excuses and sorries for bein' what she was in all the ways she was. Couldn't bring herself to do it, though. Some wounds were too fresh, she supposed.

The hood of her jacket was pulled up over her head and she may have felt just a touch guilty about her most recent purchase but didn't give a crap. Waitin' area for folks like her was more grimy than the rest of the place and she sat down in the familiar scented haze of about a million bars on all kinds of planets. The cigarra was tumbled along her fingers in a familiar way before she got the nerve to light it. Months since she'd had one and all it took was one hell of a day for the addiction to come right on back. Aw well, there were worse ways to die.

[Vittore Montegue]

Vittore's fist clenched so hard his hand had started cramping. His throat felt swollen, every shouted, threatening word he'd uttered grating like sandpaper against his vocal chords.

Where is she?

The second he'd burst into a room, he'd pulled a gun. Slugthrower. No point threatening a Jedi with a blaster, right? Not that he needed it. There was enough anger boiling up inside him that he could swing it around like a club; could tell from Aamoran's reaction that he'd socked him one with the brunt of it. Atton had tried to intervene again, tried raising his voice, talking down to Vittore like he was just some kid throwing a tantrum. Inyos had cut him off. Smart man. Perceptive.

Sadie is missing.

Damn right she is.

Accusations came fast, Atton yelling about his niece. Newsflash for Vittore. Bombshell like that dropped on her, and Vittore didn't even know. Kriffing hell. How could two people living on the same ship be that bad at talking to each other? How the hell could this be something that Sadie had just found out? How could Atton have gone all these years without telling her? Inyos had got in on that one too. Apparently that accusation hit a raw nerve. More history. More secrets. More mess. All of this garbage, all of this crap, all of these secrets kept from her; still more flooding up behind the dam, threatening to burst through. Vittore'd turned the gun on Atton at that point.

Find her, or so help me she'll go back to havin' no family.

Comm calls. References that Vittore didn't understand. Sending Nen to some basement somewhere. Atton pulling up records of every ship that'd left since they'd made it back from the platform. How many frakking destinations?! Inyos doing his Jedi thing. She's scared. Angry. Hurt. Thanks for the help there, Aamoran. Really busted the case wide open with that. Narrow it down by destinations with busy starports; places you go when you want to get lost. Katie scrubbing through security footage. Sleazy trying to slice her financials. Come on, come on, come on.

There she was. Quick flash of tiny and hooded, trying to make it through the concourse for one of the passenger terminals without the security monitors catching her. Would've managed it too, if the Imperials hadn't got so paranoid lately. She'd gone for one of the swankier terminals up in the upper levels too. Smart move. Wouldn't have expected her to go here. Trying to lose herself amongst the tourists instead of sticking to the seeder launches down in Port Town. Cross-referenced the passenger manifests with a list of known aliases. Sid Kira. How about that for an emotional suckerpunch to everyone in the room.

Last minute seat booked for the flight she was on, paid for by the Elysian Acquisitions discretionary fund. Shadowstar hadn't even hesitated before fronting the credits. They'd all pay for it later one way or another.

And so here he was. Terminal C. Some damned Core worlder in a starched blouse and one of those stupid little scarves, head wound up so tight that it was clearly squeezing on her brain. "I'm sorry sir, I can't let you through without the proper papers. I'll have to defer you to the next flight so that your security visa has time to clear."

"You don't understand, its -"

Vittore didn't even get to finish the sentence before Inyos spoke. "You'll have to hurry," he said, a strange insistent lilt in his voice; a strange gesture of his hand. "That flight will be boarding soon."

The blouse's eyes glazed over. "You'll have to hurry. That flight will be boarding soon."

Inyos and Vittore exchanged a look. Mind tricks. Any other day Vittore would have responded to that with a bullet. Today it was a nod, and a faint flicker of a grateful smile.

"Hurry," the Jedi insisted. Vittore didn't need telling twice.

His lungs burnt from running so hard. Arm ached from the number of slow-walking passengers struck with glancing blows as he passed. Rage fired out salvos of glares as he passed, damned people standing on the moving walkways, clogging up the path, getting in the way of the people who weren't lazy as sin and were actually trying to use the damn thing properly. A few choice words of Huttese from the Rodian driving one of those mobility speeders that shuttled the old and infirm about the place, tossed out as a frustrated Vittore vaulted from the walkway and into his path. I don't have time for this. His fingers caught hold of a corner of wall, flinging him around it at full speed, precious seconds spared as he hurtled towards the designated gate.

Please.

He stopped the second he saw her. It was like some dumb holomovie, except the emotions were all wrong. She was supposed to look up and see him. They were supposed to have a moment. Orchestral music was supposed to swell. She was supposed to run into his arms, and never leave them again. Sucked that real life didn't work that way. Sucked that he'd hurt Sadie so bad that all she seemed to be doing was hiding underneath her hood, staring at the weird patterns on the carpet.

He fought a little air into his lungs. Coaxed himself forward despite how much his legs suddenly started shaking. Dragged the back of his wrist across his eyes. Damn. Running must've got dust in there or something. A sniff. Another breath in. A slow breath out.

"Hey. Is this seat taken?"

[Sadie K'Vesh]

It weren't a voice she'd expected on hearin'. Not here, not ever again as far as Sadie had guessed. Yet there it was and her head turned right at the first word and reddened eyes met his before she had the decency and sense enough to run the back of her arm across her face. Made the moisture go away but not the congested nose or puffy eyes that made everyone who looked at you know you'd been sobbin' like a lame. Sadie hadn't cared what stupid strangers saw her, but Vitt mattered. He had since day kiffin one.

Struck mute by her own whatever it was, Sadie shook her head and sucked at her lower lip, catchin' hints of the kind of slight saltiness that sweat and tears left behind. Great. Well, at least that swollen bit in her lip that had stubbornly persisted since she'd been picked up off Nar Shaddaa was finally gone, little bit of scar tissue under the surface though. Weren't that just a grand metaphor for everythin? For her? For them? For this whole situation? Except a lot of it wasn't hidden from view like it should have the decency to be.

"Wh-what are y' doin' here?" Throat raw from tryin' to keep herself quiet made the words not sound quite like her.

Vitt wasn't supposed to be here. This was her escape, her clean getaway, her not havin' to deal with anythin' like this anymore. Only thing she could do now was give him a proper shove and hope for the best, even if sayin' the bomb was gonna mean she'd been lyin' to him this whole damn time.

"Y- Y' don't wanna sit next t' me, Vittore." There it went again, voice crackin' as she felt herself tryin' like hells to keep those lil drops of betrayal of emotions from leakin' down the sides of her face. Weren't workin'. Fine. Truth with a side of tears it was, then. "Not with somethin' y're supposed t' hate. Not with one of them freaks y' hunt. Force user been lurkin' right under your nose this whole time, livin' with y', stealin' your ship..."

She had to stop talkin and drew in a sharp breath. There was cryin' and there was cryin' and she was gettin' way too close t' th' second stage and had to look away from him, back at the floor was good for now. "Sorry, Cap'n."

[Vittore Montegue]

Force user.

Was that what this was about? All this because of something lurking in her blood? All this because of his hate, his dad's crusade? All this because she didn't believe there was a single thing about her that made a damn of difference?

"Y' think I didn't know?"

He stood there, stunned. Shellshocked. Kinda needed the seat next to her to be honest, but he couldn't bring himself to take it just yet, not after a statement like that. She was running from him. Running because... what? Because some Jedi showed up, and suddenly she figured she was the next job? That she was just some target to him? That he could ever think of her as anything other than -

He dropped into a crouch, bringing him down to her level, peering up under the hood and into the eyes that were trying to hide from him.

"Bumbles ran y' blood the first day," he said quietly. Wasn't sure if his words would be reassuring. Hoped. Was all he had, all he could do. Stupid, worthless words, ineffective lumps of sound to try and battle back the agony that he had inflicted. "Midichlorian count's kinda par for the course in my like a' work. Better safe than sorry, an' all that."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Her head went and lifted on it's own accord, just a bit, just enough so that her eyes met his. He knew? And they hadn't said a damn thing to each other? Weren't entirely surprising, she guessed. People like them kept all sorts of stuff bottled up and tucked away and secrets upon secrets and all that jazz. That seemed like a hell of a one to not tell her, though. What if she hadn't known about it herself? Of course, the same could be said for if he hadn't known, then they'd be back to this awkward confession in a damn starport.

"S-so y're not here t' kill me, then?" Frak it felt horrible to ask but she had to. It sounded more pitiful than accusing though, and for the only time that she could remember she was actually glad for that.

Was horrible havin' him to close right then. All she wanted to do was the same she did the first day she met him, fall to his level and wrap her arms around him - both this time since they were workin' properly - and just be done with it. Felt like there was some sort of giant crater between them though and if she left her seat she was gonna fall and never get back up from whatever thing in the pit was waitin' on her.

[Vittore Montegue]

Other way around.

That was how it felt, the way that question tore through him, dumping his entrails out on the floor and leaving utter emptiness behind.

"You -"

Didn't need to finish that sentence. Of course she honestly thought that he would. Wouldn't have asked if she didn't. He'd earned a whole lot of reasons to feel bad about himself over the years, but that one was gonna leave a scar. Was bad enough seeing the monster he'd become every time he looked in a mirror. Seeing it in Sadie's eyes? Seeing it written across her tear-streaked face? He had half a mind to pull a blaster and end himself right then and there.

A hand flinched, shifting as if it was gonna try and reach for her. Was supposed to be reassuring. Was supposed to be a comfort. A hand on hers. Hand on her shoulder. Hand on her cheek. Something. Anything. Wouldn't seem that way. She'd probably recoil away. Probably thinking he was about to make all her fears come true. He stopped it, screwed it up into a fist. Forced it back to his side.

"Sadie, I'm here t' bring you home."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Home. There was that word again. She knew what he meant by it: Cloud City proper, Elysian's offices, maybe the Crimson Tide. He didn't want her gone then?

"Can't..." She tried and felt like she fell flat on her face once again. Gorram words bein' so hard to figure out which ones y' wanted.

Sadie wanted to tell him that she couldn't go home because there was no such thing for people like her. She wanted to tell him that leavin' would be easier for the both of them, save 'em from stuff. Trouble was she was havin' a hell of a time figurin' out what they'd be saved from. Gettin' close to another person? Yeah, that were true. Lot of hurt could come from somethin' like that but weren't that already the case? Wasn't that pain already there? Didn't feel like it could get any worse, really.

Fine, time for confession number two. Force usin' stuff didn't push him away then there was always the bigger one. Partners was one thing. Sadie figured maybe Vitt saw her - best case - as some surrogate for the brother he'd talk about sometimes that he lost. Old huntin' partner, younger person t' look out for but knew was watchin' your back too. Not the same thing she felt that was for sure. Crush on the guy that saved her that went and turned into borderline obsession. She weren't gonna use that other word for it, that was for sure. Had to know what that even felt like first and she was sure it weren't this, couldn't be because she weren't capable of that sort of thing.

One night stands in bars, short flings that were bad for her in every way possible, that was what she was capable of. Nothin' good, nothin' lingerin', nothin' like what she had with Vitt now. Well, had had.

"You were home."

[Vittore Montegue]

Were.

Vittore was wrong. He'd let himself think that it couldn't possibly hurt any worse; that he couldn't possibly have any feelings left to feel. Surely, knowing someone you respected, someone you liked, someone you cared about thought you were capable of just waking up one morning and deciding they were gonna off you just because of some glorified blood type... surely it couldn't hurt worse than that. But it could.

It wasn't just the sentiment, wasn't just all the layered meaning that came along with it, a weight and significance that Vittore couldn't even begin to comprehend. This was all just because he'd saved her, right? That was all it could be. He'd got her out of that place; given her somewhere new to be. Given her a purpose. Given her the start of a new life. She was grateful for that, sure. But anything else? That just didn't seem possible. There wasn't anywhere for it to come from. He was even more broken than she was, even more hacked to pieces and scarred. There was no softness to him, no squishy interior, nothing but gruffness and sarcasm and a little too much alcohol. Girls like her, girls like Sadie, they didn't go for that. They deserved better than that. Throw them in a bar, add a few dark corners, some loud music, and sure, maybe he was good for what she needed for a few minutes. But that was it. That was his worth. Not something you run from. Not something you cry over. Not something you -

But there it was. Right there in her eyes, plain as day. Same look he'd seen her give him a hundred times. Was only now that he understood what it meant. For a fleeting moment, something almost like joy sparked in his chest, before it spluttered and died like a match in a vacuum. That's what he was. Was. Not any more, though. Whatever affection, whatever hope, whatever chance, he'd broken it. Broke her heart. Broke their friendship. Broke her trust that he would never make her feel the way he had.

His eyes fell away. "I'm sorry, Sadie." He heard the words coming out of his mouth, the words that had been running through his head, the apology he'd practised. It sounded different, though. Not the gentle, slightly sheepish tone that he'd planned on. Not the embarrassed admission that he'd maybe thought would earn a few awkward smiles before they hugged it out and grabbed a few beers. The words came out desperate, pleading, his voice shaking as the carpet he found himself staring at went all blurred and misty. "Truth is, I -"

He looked up. Felt like a mistake until the moment he did; then he found those eyes, and the words just came. Not struggled, not practised, just true.

"I don't care about the ship. I don't care that y' didn't tell me. I don't care that y' went with Nen an' not with me. I care that... I care about you. I care that y' went off, an' then I walked onto that ship, an' y' just... y' weren't there. I thought I'd lost you, Sadie. An' then when I realised y'd gone off on some thing, some trip int' danger, I... I just thought a' somethin' happenin', an' there not bein' a damn thing I could do about it. I thought about y' gettin' hurt because I weren't there. I thought about y' gettin' in trouble an' there bein' no way I could come save you. I thought about -"

He did it this time. He reached out and took hold of her hands, not tight like he was trapping her; just gentle; just wanting to break the insufferable gulf of space between them. He stared down, looked at how tiny they were inside his. Looked at how much they belonged. Thought about what could have been if he hadn't screwed it all up. He found her eyes again.

"I thought about all the stuff I didn't say. Thought about how I was too busy bein' the tough guy t' tell you how much I like havin' you around. About how y' make me feel like a whole person again, which I ain't felt in so, so long. About how I spent my whole life fightin' against every somethin' that crossed my path, but how you make me feel like I've got somethin' to fight for. About how I hide on the ship when you're playin'; act like I ain't there so y' won't get shy an' stop. About how I keep findin' y' asleep in the cockpit, an' when I do I can't help starin' for way longer than I should. About how..."

His breath caught in his chest, his stomach twisting in knots.

"About how y' have..."

He faltered, as if he was just truly noticing, just truly appreciating what he was about to say for the first time.

"Y' have the most beautiful smile I've ever seen. An' there are galaxies that ain't a scrap as amazin' as when you smile. An' as much as I love the sound a' your voice when y' sing -"

A terrified, flickering, faltering sad smile managed to sneak it's way onto his lips.

"- it ain't even close to soundin' as beautiful as when y' laugh. An' if you gotta go, you gotta go. I ain't gonna try an' stop you, but just... just laugh for me, an' call me Cap'n one last time. Record it for me, so I don't have t' go the rest a' my life without ever hearin' it again outside a' dreamin'."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Well that were downright unexpected. All of it. He'd gone and stunned her into all kinds of silence and the only way she could think of respondin' was some cheesy way she'd seen in one of them holovids once. Guy runs after girl, both get everythin' in the air and fall into each other in a display that was borderin' on needin' to be on late night only 'less the parents had t' go an' explain th' workin's of stuff to their kiddos. That didn't feel right, though. Not for them.

Was like a switch had been flipped in her. Wantin' to run to wantin' to stay more than anythin'. She'd never felt like someone actually gave a damn before but what Vitt was sayin'? That weren't stuff you just made up t' make sure you had a decent slicer on your side.

She looked down at his hands and turned hers enough so she could give his the smallest of squeezes before she looked back up at him.

"If it's all agreeable with y', I think I'd rather do that in person for a bit still?" Sadie managed a smile then, not a real big one or nothin' of that sort but a little one that was more genuine than a lot of the ones she'd done in her life. "Permission t' return home, Cap'n?" She could have said the Tide instead, but well, when y' have a theme, run with it.

Overhead a voice was callin' for the first boardin' of the flight she was scheduled on. One way ticket that she now had no plan on usin'. Routine and normal stuff be damned. Was nice to stay for a change.

A bit of a sardonic laugh left her, definitely more forced than the smile had been. "Boss lady is gonna ream me for blowin' creds on this."

[Vittore Montegue]

It was one of the hardest things Vittore had ever done, letting go of those hands, shifting out of that crouch, and moving himself into that seat beside her. Breaking contact with her eyes was the hardest part, but he made it up to himself.

"You let me worry about Miss Shadowstar," he said, still not quite managing to recover the normal nature of his voice, but having a good crack at it. "Saved her life too, remember? Figure I can cash in on that a little."

He hesitated, but only for a moment before his arm reached out and settled around her shoulders, gently easing her towards him just enough for her to begin leaning against him. He felt the stupidest thing he had ever even considered saying beginning to form itself on the tip of his tongue; but now didn't seem like a day for holding anything back, no matter how dumb it felt, so he let the words tumble out in a soft half-whisper as she settled into the crook of his arm.

"Welcome home, Sadie."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Oh she wanted to crack wise about what he'd said, but let it slide. Plenty of time for that later. Now though her arms moved about his waist as she settled against him and she let only a slight amused laugh leave her.

"Hell of a day, yeah?"

One giant understatement, that. Weren't enough ways to even begin t' cover the range of everythin' that'd gone on to have it all end with this. She'd need some proper downtime, that was for sure. Thankfully there was a nice dark quiet space in a basement somewhere in Port Town that quite literally knew her name. Had to be somethin' broken and wrong with you when you thought of work as relaxin'. Not that that was news or anythin'. But that was fine, if she was broken at least she weren't alone and broken. Was a big change. Good one, though. Now she just had to keep rememberin' that it was.

She idly watched the first round of folks who were supposed to be on the transport start boardin' while those who had no business bein' in line yet went and got up and stood around anyway, entirely oblivious to the life alterin' events that had just gone and taken place around them. Was somethin' reassurin' about that strange little fact. Galaxy kept right on spinnin'.

"If it's all shiny with you, think I'd like t' stay here like this for a lil' while b'fore we head back."

[Vittore Montegue]

"No can do, Miss K'Vesh."

His arm squeezed at her shoulders. Mouth planted a kiss on the top of her hood before he knew what he was doing. His heart kinda fluttered at that; she must have heard it from where she was leaning. Didn't much care. Didn't seem like there was much point trying to hide anything any more. Felt kinda nice, that.

"See, thing is, I had t' kinda buy an expensive last minute ticket t' Darlyn Boda t' get in here, and there's this -"

He felt a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"There's this girl, right? Kinda got a thing for her, truth be told. An' see, I got this buddy, Atton, an' he sliced the starlines computers t' make sure I got the seat next t' hers. Her life has been kinda crazy lately, an', well, was kinda hopin' I'd get the chance to maybe sit an' talk for her a bit. Find out some a' the stuff that we ain't been tellin' each other. Spend a few hours away from work, an' uncles, an' Jedi guys who don't ever smile. Figure she could use a little time away, an' a friend, an' well -"

Another heartbeat that didn't quite work right. Another clench of his chest. Another flutter of his stomach.

"Now I'm kinda figurin' that she might maybe wanna talk about bein' more than just that."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"Think that sounds like a mighty fine idea." Still a bit croaky from the upset, but mostly Sadie sounded some sort of happy but exhausted thing. Which was just about how she was feelin'. Still a bit confused, still a bit out of sorts given everythin' that'd gone and happened in a short span but okay was a good enough word for it.

She glanced up, catchin' nothin' but the edge of her hood in view but still smiled a bit on account of what Vitt had done.

"In that case, then. Guess we got a transport t' catch."

[Vittore Montegue]

"I guess we do."

That glimpse of Sadie smiling, peeking out from under her hood there, made it impossible for Vittore to not do the same. She was still hiding though, still tucked away under that little protective shield. An hour ago, he wouldn't have done a thing. Would've just left her in her shell until she was good and ready to come out on her own, though. Not now. Maybe it was selfishness, dressed up as something else, but he couldn't help it. His hand rose slowly, gently easing easing back the hood, but that wasn't what he was after, not really. It was the fingertips that tucked the stray strands of hair behind her ear. It was the way the edge of his thumb brushed across her cheek, trying to gently smudge away one of the tear tracks that he'd helped her make. There was a momentary flash of panic in her eyes, but just for an instant, clear conscious effort taken to stop her reflexes from making her flinch away. Her hand rose, taking hold of his, insisting that it stay, not giving either of them the option of going along with what her broken subconscious wanted.

Her eyes met his. Vittore couldn't think. Could barely breathe. It was like his ears stopped working, his body stopped feeling; just a hand and those eyes, that was all his brain paid any mind to. How had he missed how beautiful they were before? So clear, and deep, and blue: it was like staring into hyperspace, so much infinite possibility, so much hypnotic depth to explore. Until now, hyperspace had been the sight that had lulled him to sleep, the peaceful reassurance that calmed his mind when there was too much going on to slip away. Turned out that had only been a rehearsal, preparing him for this; and whatever gods, or Force, or higher plane beings were out there listening in, he begged them for a chance to let this be the sight he'd fall asleep to from here on in.

His chest tightened. He knew what came next. At least, he knew how it had gone before. But Sadie was different, Sadie was special, Sadie was -

Ah, screw it.

He leaned forward and brought his lips to hers, a kiss far too long in the making. Not some crazed, hungry, desperate kiss like you had in a bar or against some hotel room wall; something slow, something gentle, something tender and honest that Vittore didn't even realise he was capable of. There was passion, but it was restrained, held at bay by something more important: a gentle insistence, a desperate need, an urgent desire for Sadie to understand the kind of message he was trying to send; for her to know how different she was from anyone he'd ever felt something for; how different how he felt was.

It ended too soon, as far as everything but Vittore's lungs was concerned. He only managed a whisper as he caught his breath, eyes still firmly closed as his head rested against hers, some strange worry that she might not still be there when they opened.

"Think we need t' move fast," he breathed, that unstoppable smile finding it's way to his lips again. "Not sure how long I can wait before I need t' do that again."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

So... that was how that was supposed to feel like. It weren't like it was her first time bein' kissed, person didn't go through her sort of life without gettin' in all sorts of trouble. But there were a big difference between just kissin' someone out of a night of stupid fun, some sort of desperate liaison in a bar bathroom or somethin' like that; and well... whatever that was. Sadie hadn't put much stock in all that romance stuff, how could the act be any different? Were just an act.

Oh how damn wrong and mighty foolish she was. There'd been some sort of expectations when Vitt had started leanin' in and Sadie didn't expect to feel nothin' from it aside from that usual goodness that came with it - maybe a bit more on account of who it was - but how the frak a kiss could feel like something else entirely she had no damn idea. Weren't like she wanted to go run and find somewhere private like afterwards, felt more like she wanted nothin' more than the entire galaxy t' stop turnin' and just let that one single instant of aftermath keep on with their heads all against each other like they were.

One thing was for damn sure if nothin' else. No kiss before had ever left her with that much of a smile afterwards. Felt like her face kinda hurt but in that good way and it was gonna be sore tomorrow if she kept it up. Trouble was, with things in the open, Sadie weren't sure it was gonna stop any time soon. Aw well, like any muscle, it'd best get used to it.

"Don't go temptin' me," she said, voice barely crackin' above a whisper. "We can move all right, y' better just have plans t' make it up to me later, savvy?"

[Vittore Montegue]

Vittore pulled - no, tore - himself out of where Sadie had hugged her arms around him, the mere act of moving away feeling like agony in his soul. His fingers stayed touching her as long as possible, the hand draped around her shoulder trailing down her arm until it was able to snare hers, and ease her slowly to her feet with him. For maybe the first time, he truly became aware of how tiny she was by comparison. Not tiny tiny, but still enough to make the logistics of kissing her again without being sat or lying a mite bit complicated. Tiptoes maybe, or he could scoop her up in his arms a little, or maybe she'd jump at him and wrap her legs around his waste and -

A thought too far. Vittore's face flushed a little. He'd thought all kinds of thoughts about all kinds of girls before, but apparently now was the time where it felt kinda wrong doing so. Not because there was anything wrong with thinking that way about Sadie. Hot damn no. It just didn't feel okay. Didn't feel appropriate. Didn't feel like he'd earned the right to think of her like that just yet. Weird sensation, that. Every woman he'd ever been with had been a race, a desperate scramble from make out to naked, a whole lot of rushing and fumbling in between. Sadie was the first time it felt like going slow was the right path. Maybe he was just being careful, easing up to her like you would when you were trying not to spook something. Maybe he just realised how precious and precarious this was, and for once in his life he didn't want to go screwing up the amazing thing that was in his lap.

So with all that in mind, he didn't try for another kiss. Didn't try to slip his arm around her again. Didn't try to sneak a feel of anything as they walked. He just stood there, and smiled.

"F' someone askin' with eyes as pretty as yours? I think I can manage that."


* * *

Vittore let out a long, slow breath of relief as he closed the channel on the vid terminal he'd been using to report back to Cloud City. Atton was pretty pissed about the whole thing to be honest; yelled at him about how they'd bought him a ticket so that he could talk Sadie out of getting on her transport, not hop on their with her and go for a jaunt across the Sector. Hadn't really appreciated it when Vittore had pointed out how wasteful that was; better to at least make use of the tickets that creds had been spent on, rather than just throwing those credits away for nothing. Besides, as Vittore had sternly pointed out, some people had been dumping all kinds of knowledge bombs and secret computer suites on their poor unsuspecting nieces, and lo and behold it had got a bit too crazy-much for her. He'd been sure to put plenty of emphasis on Atton's culpability: there was more than enough blame that he was aiming at himself, but Kira and that damn Jedi deserved their share as well. He'd pointed out that it was probably for the best that Sadie be allowed to step away and catch her breath: get things straight in her head without Cloud City coming at her from all sides. He'd promised that they'd be on the first available ship back the next day.

And then he'd lied and said he needed to go because Sadie was coming out of the shower. Earned him a look from her, since she'd been watching him from off-screen, but it was worth it for the flash of horror in Kira's eyes as the comm had cut off.

He turned away and threw a shrug in Sadie's direction, all comfortable - or at least, as comfortable as she was willing to get right now - on the bed across the way. They hadn't talked much on the flight, she'd just sorta leaned against him, and despite the dead arm and numb fingers it had left him, he'd been so damn angry when they'd landed and the damned hostess droid had forced them to get up and leave. Wished he could've aimed a gun at the pilot and asked them to do a few more loops around orbit. Just a few more minutes.

But they were here now, and after Sadie had swept the room for bugs and listening devices - something that Vittore hadn't realised was quite as adorable as it was until now - they'd talked. About everything. About him. About her. About why Vittore was the way that he was, about the life that had led him to finding her, about all the scars that he had on his soul. She'd listened. She'd sniffed. She'd squeezed his hand at all the right points. She'd said some pretty dumb things too, pretty stupid misconceptions about how unimportant she thought she was versus the other people who'd been in Vittore's life before her, but he straightened that up real fast. It was weird. Vittore wasn't one for talking, not really. But to her? It felt weird the way that everything lifted a little; the way that having something else know made the stuff on his shoulders feel a little less heavy.

Weirder was the realisation that not only was he staring, it was okay to. He still stopped, an embarrassed little smile creeping on his features, but instead of burying that all down or brushing it off, he got to walk over to her; got to sit down on the bed next to her; got to take hold of her hand again.

"You holdin' up okay?"

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Despite all the upset and craziness thrown into her life, Sadie felt like she'd taken some sort of great heap of weight off her shoulders. Not havin' to go an' hide her feelin's 'bout Vittore was nice, but a lot of it came down t' just talkin'. She couldn't remember the last time she'd gone and spoken for so long, 'specially 'bout herself. Weren't a lot of secrets divulged, just chunks of story missin' 'bout her life an' all the things she'd learned and done that Vitt didn't know the details 'bout. Things ran the gamut from when she was real little and the so-called family she'd been a part of, to how she'd came across Inyos and Mandan and how they'd helped her and the others get out, then the band and how she'd bought her quetarra - the one Bog had smashed - and taught herself t' play. He asked some tougher questions too, 'bout why she'd stuck around the band as long as she had. Sadie weren't quite sure she answered that one too good, was hard to put into words. Other stuff, other worries aired that lookin' back were as silly as her own.

Now that it was done though, she felt drained. Not in a bad way, but definitely tired like. Instead of how she might have held that inside though, now she could let herself go and slump against Vitt a bit, her head restin' on his shoulder as she looked down at their hands again.

"Yeah, think everythin' will be all right. Feelin' better than I have in a long time. Like all this has patched some stuff up inside, y' know? Kinda embarassin' t' put it that way. Figure you've been kinda t' blame for that since y' had to do it for reals. Still feelin' kinda overwhelmed, if honest, though. Not sure what t' make of everythin' or m'self anymore. Ain't used t' havin' people care 'bout me. 'Pparently got an overabundance nowadays."

Sadie let a small laugh leave her, just a quickie. "Still not sure what t' make of this. Ain't had a proper boyfriend b'fore. Not sure what t' do or what's all expected."

[Vittore Montegue]

"Boyfriend, huh?"

Vittore couldn't help the small tug of a smile on his lips, but it quickly turned from teasing to bashful as he looked down at their hands, his thumb brushing gently against her fingers. Was it right to answer her question by saying that nothing he might have expected could ever be better than this? Just sitting with her, being close to her, knowing that she knew what he was thinking and feeling; knowing she felt something in the same wheelhouse? Before now, all his caring had boiled up inside him, and it had turned into anger, and worry, because that's all he was willing to let it be. Didn't want to admit that it might have been something else - something he was terrified of ever feeling again. But now he remembered why. Now he remembered the reason it had been so agonising the last time it had been taken away; and this, this was far more than that had ever been. This was like finding the other half to his whole, and he wanted nothing more than to just nestle up beside her and never move again.

"Don't think much needs t' change," he answered quietly, a little more hesitantly than he normally spoke, a hint of something nervous tugging at the edges of his usual suave and charm. Why was it harder to be that way around her? Why couldn't he just act with the same swagger he'd used around every other woman he'd ever known? What was it about Sadie that forced him to have to be honest about how he felt, and what he truly wanted to say.

"Think we just do what we've been doin' this whole time, 'cept maybe we sit a little closer on the couch when we're watchin' vids, walk a little closer an' maybe have our hands like this when we're goin' place to place. Smile a little more when we see each other first thing. Ain't gonna change how much we look out for each other, but maybe we look out for ourselves a little more, 'cause we know how much it's gonna hurt the other if we let anythin' happen t' ourselves. An', well, maybe -"

He'd leaned a little closer as he spoke, and now his eyes slowly climbed, trying to find Sadie's gaze but quickly finding themselves distracted by the sight of her lips.

"Maybe I don't have t' feel quite so guilty that I keep thinkin' about kissin' you all the time."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"All th' time, eh?"

Joking was 'bout the only way that Sadie could make up for the full on foolish feelin' she had at lettin' that boyfriend thing slip. There weren't nothin' wrong with the word, she guessed. It just kinda sounded like those things that kids called each other when they though they had somethin' and were goin' on dates and all that. Seemed downright juvenile, bit beneath the both of 'em, but it weren't like there were some better terms for it all. Guy I'm Seein' sounded more nonchalant than Sadie wanted it to be, but less silly than the other. Whatever, they'd have time to worry about what to refer t' the other as later on.

"Could'a said somethin' y' know? Or just gone an' done it." Sadie continued, lettin' one of them small teasin' smiles work it's way back to her lips. "Ain't like y' hadn't done it b'fore, after all."

[Vittore Montegue]

Vittore actually blushed a little at that. It had been back when he'd rescued her. A distraction to stop her tensing up when he reset her dislocated shoulder back to where it belonged. He'd thought she was too out of it to remember; too much pain, too much blood loss. It was weird, how guilty it made him feel having stolen a kiss from her like that. Good intentions, sure, and it wasn't like he hadn't kissed a girl for less-than-noble reasons before. Hell, there were times when he half-wondered if kissing Miss Shadowstar would be the only way of getting her to shut up; not that he ever would, mind you. At least, not again. He'd heard stores since then. Dodged a bullet on that front.

With Sadie though, it was different. With Sadie, she deserved better; and he wanted to be better. Do right by her. "I'm sorry about that," he offered quietly, not completely ashamed, but certainly the closest thing to timid that Sadie had probably ever seen him. "I don't -"

He frowned. What didn't he? What was it he was trying to say? What was it that he needed to say? The sentiment clawed away at the back of his skull, but he couldn't quite work out how to make it into valid words.

"I guess that, before? That first time, an' times with other women and stuff, it was always just a thing that you do, y'know? Get drunk enough and it just happens. No big deal. Nothing fancy. But now, with you -"

He trailed off, an awkward fidget and an even more awkward tug of a tiny smile creeping onto his features.

"Guess I kinda feel that with you it means more, an' I didn't know how to tell you what that more was. Didn't think it was somethin' you'd want to hear from me."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Sadie felt the smile form before she fully realized she was doin' it. It weren't some big grin or nothin' like that, it was more shy like on account of what Vitt was sayin' and how it was reflectin' a bit too much.

"Yeah, you ain't th' only one t' feel that way," was a timid sort of way she admitted it and Sadie ended up looking down and shoving her hands into the pockets of her hooded sweater. Was a nervous sort of tick that made her play with the little object there, her fingers idly flipping the small data chip that Atton had given her over her knuckles in the confines of the fabric.

"Gotta admit, figured y'd want nothin' t' do with me... Not like this, anyhow. Guessed y'd see me as the sorta... messed up kid, or somethin', y' know? Been down th' same kinda road but went a different way, I guess." Sadie couldn't help but laugh at that as she looked back up to Vitt.

Lookin' at him alone was enough to make the edges of her lips curl back upwards despite herself, though. "Ain't... really felt like this 'bout no one. I s'pose at some point someone came close t' matterin' but they went up and vanished b'fore things could settle and..." She was on the verge of ramblin' again and shut herself down right quick. "But... yeah, weren't the same. Nothin' was like this. Guess maybe that was part of why I went and ran. Was scared this was just me feelin' like this and didn't know how t' handle. Needed someone t' lean on for all this muck they tossed at me an' knew you'd back me up but... not in how I needed. Not... like this."

[Vittore Montegue]

She was hiding from him, shrinking down into that little hooded sweater the way she always did. Was kinda cute most of the time, but not now. Wasn't gonna just sit here and let her shy away from him: if she was running still, then he'd follow.

A slight shift on the mattress brought him a little closer, one arm resting itself gently around her waist, the other following her sleeve downwards to settle atop Sadie's pocketed hand. The fabric of the sweater was still there to protect her, her fingers not trapped or anything like that: just a gentle reminder that he was there. A kiss pressed against the top of her head completed the effect. If Sadie felt like she needed to hide from things, then fine. He'd wrap himself around her like a protective shield, and keep her safe from whatever it was.

"Ain't nothin' wrong with runnin'," he said quietly, letting his cheek rest against her hair, his thumb idly stroking across Sadie's hidden fingers without really even realising. "People act like only cowards run, but it ain't like that at all. Pretty much everythin' alive's got two basic reactions when stuff goes bad: fight, or flight. Fleein' is what keeps you safe. It's what stops you gettin' hurt when the fight's gonna be too tough to face. Ain't nothin' but rational about it."

The arm around Sadie's waist shifted a little, a little more affection added to his embrace.

"You an' me though? We get stuck with just the one. I got so good at fightin', and you got so good at fleein' that we don't even wonder if the other option might be better. But now I've got you in m' life, things are different. If I fight an' you flee, we're gonna end up gettin' separated an' I'm gonna lose you, an' -"

He trailed off, his head dropping, a kiss pressed against the thing fabric shielding her shoulder from him.

"It's time that I started tryin' to do both. If you run, then I run; but runnn' doesn't mean I stop fightin', just means I'm only ever gonna do it when I'm by your side. Means what I'm fightin' is gonna be the stuff that's tryin' to stop you bein' safe; the stuff that's gonna stop you wearin' that pretty smile on y' face. Whether it's keepin' you safe, or keepin' you around... don't make a difference to me, I'm gonna fight just as hard either way. I don't wanna lose you, Sadie. Gonna keep fightin' to my last breath t' make sure I don't."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Might have been a silly thing to say and admit but Sadie liked this whole, sittin' and talkin' thing. Was new in a way. Usually attraction of any sort just resulted in clothin' bein' torn off an' a whole lot of action. This though? This was nice. The gentle pressure of Vitt's arm around her, the same for where his hand rested on hers even if it was hidden under fabric. Then there was the way he kept findin' excuses to press his lips against parts of her that weren't even exposed, was like a nice reminder he was there with all the intent without it bein' needy... or somethin' like that. Whatever. Tryin' to describe it was like tryin' to describe why that moment you hit a planet just right and their Summer was endin' and their respected sun or suns had gone down below the horizon but there was still enough light t' see by an' the air was just startin' to cool off was her favorite time of... ever. It just felt right, y'know?

She liked what he was sayin' too. No body said things like that to her, no body made her feel like she was actually worth a damn, really. Oh sure, she had value, to some folks but it always seemed like the kind you could look up in your books and actually put a credit amount to. Vitt was one of the first people who had made her feel like maybe there weren't quite a proper thing to ascribe to her worth, but it was there. Sadie could only hope she let him feel that same way.

That was probably the oddest thing about the day. All actual revelations aside, Sadie felt like she'd gone and learned a bit more about herself than she'd known; and not just names and blood and all that - though that was good too. Was more internal than that, more about what her head and things she was findin' important that never seemed like they would be. Stuff she'd written off as things she'd never experience suddenly makin' themselves all kinds of present. In a lot of ways, kinda literally. There were two folks in the verse that Sadie knew actually gave a kriff about her well bein'. That was two more than she'd ever thought she'd have.

One of them contented sighs left her as she found herself not real certain 'bout what all to say in reply to Vitt. She leaned against him a bit and let her eyes closed just long enough to appreciate the subtle warmth that bein' so close to another could offer. Still, as if fate itself was still tryin' to tug her around and refused to let her be, Sadie was still all kinds of aware of the data chit in her hand, opposite the one that Vitt had covered. That same annoyin' feelin' of curiosity that had lead to her Inyos was beconin' again and despite feelin' pretty burnt out, Sadie couldn't help but think there may have been some kind of wisdom in gettin' everything proper done with in one go. Yeah it was overwhelmin' and had made her make some not so great decisions, but that'd been solved and Vitt was here and...

She pulled the small device out of her pocket and rolled it between her fingers as her eyes reopened and settled on it. Her mother. Woman that Sadie had given up thinkin' bout; and supposedly everythin' she'd want to know was all right at her fingertips.

Frak it.

"Hand me m' datapadd, would y'?" She half mumbled to Vittore, who was closer to the bag she'd dropped on the bed.

[Vittore Montegue]

It took a moment for Vittore to even process the words, his brain was busy paying attention to all the other sensory input instead. The weight of her against him. The warmth he could feel from her being close. The scent of her hair. The gentle sound of her breathing. The feeling of elation and peace and safety that flooded through him. It was that same kind of awe as when you saw the perfect sunrise and couldn't help staring at it just that little bit longer, wishing you could somehow burn the experience into your mind. It was something Vittore hoped he would never forget; and while okay, if what both of them had said was true, there'd be other moments, other times like this - but it didn't matter. Right now, these moments were diamonds, and Sadie was a diamond mine. Just because there were would be more didn't make the first diamond any less precious: just meant you were gonna wind up with a whole kriff ton of diamonds.

So it was yet again with painful reluctance that Vittore found himself needing to pull away from Sadie's arms, to release her long enough to retrieve what she'd asked for. It would only be a moment or two, only a bit of stretching, maybe a step - but it was more separation from her than he was willing for right now. It was like that moment in the middle of a cold night where you found yourself busting for the 'fresher, but you couldn't bare the thought of leaving the warm bundle of bedsheets you'd cocooned yourself in, and you found yourself daring your bladder to do it's worst, trying to decide if wet pyjama pants and having to change the sheets in the morning was a price you were willing to pay to stay put.

It's a shame I can't -

That thought stopped in it's tracks. He couldn't reach the datapad without moving; but he'd learned things about Sadie today that required his worldview to be reshaped, and while she likes me was utterly at the forefront, there were other things worthy of remembering too. It was a weird feeling in a way, discovering that someone was Force sensitive and not reacting with fear, not feeling as if this new knowledge somehow posed a threat. But Vittore didn't feel the slightest bit uncomfortable, or in danger. The opposite in fact: it was almost fascinating in a way. Dad had raised him to hate such things on reflex. Anything that used the Force was inherently bad. Inquisitors. The Jedi who'd supposedly betrayed the Republic. Even mom. But the more he learned, the more complicated it became, and now, what? How did he think of it now? It was almost as if the Force itself had lost it's mystique. Using it was like firing a blaster. Sure, most people used blasters to kill, and harm, and threaten; bit in isolation, the prowess of a sniper or an expert gunslinger was impressive; worthy of admiration in it's own way. Was that how he saw the Force now, then? Just a tool, just a skill, defined only by the kind of person that used it? His dad would have yelled at him for thinking a thought like that. Vittore clung to it tighter. To hell with you, dad.

Vittore's arms held Sadie just a little bit tighter. "Can't you, y'know..." His voice trailed off, a sort of timid faintness in his words almost - not quite nervous but definitely cautious, not even sure how to phrase a question like this. "Jedi it over or somethin'?"

[Sadie K'Vesh]

A breath of a laugh went and left her, somewhere between shocked that he'd asked such a thing considerin' how much she'd spent tryin' not to let on about it, and the other part genuinely amused that for all his findin' out on his onsies, the hunter hadn't figured out all what she was capable of. Course, could have been a bit of a third thing...

"Ha, I wish. Well, I mean, I might be able t'. Don't really know, I guess. Ain't never just Jedi-ed somethin' over." Sadie gave Vitt a slight playful shove with her shoulder and the better part of the side of her body that was closest to him. A flicker of discomfort ran itself across her face, kinda at the odd tug of her skin that still bugged the ever livin' frak out of her and part at the way she'd set herself up for a whole heap more of confessions that Sadie had figured she weren't never gonna go and tell Vittore.

"Not like I really go an' experiment with it, y' know? I mean... I know I can kinda, use it t' make myself faster. Not, physically... well, okay maybe a bit. I think. Runnin as a kid, swift hands in pockets, that sort of dren. Ain't done that sort of thing in years though. Nah, comes from up here-" She paused and tapped the datachip to the side of her head. "Reason I guess I can keep up with droids an' such. It's hard t' describe, I guess. Ain't like a purposeful use or nothin' of that sort. It just kinda... happens? Took me a long time t' figure out what was goin' on... think it was th' first time I met Inyos that it got pointed out t' me."

Sadie felt another quick breath leave her, not quite managin' to pull it into a laugh or nothin' that time around. "Kinda hopin' he can help me figure more stuff out without... y'know... tryin' to convert me or drag me off t' some temple or somethin'. Don't think he will, says he just wants t' help keep me from fallin' t' Darkness or somethin'."

The small device danced across the back of her knuckles in an overly practiced motion that Sadie barely thought of how to keep it goin'. She fought the slight nervous tick of runnin' her hand through her hair, keepin' the one occupied with the data chip and the other secure under Vittore's, still tucked away in her pocket.

"Dunno if he'd be so concerned with that sort of thing if he knew all what I'd gone through though. Figure if anythin' was gonna do somethin' like that would have been th' hell you saved m' from and... well... think I'm doin' okay all things considerin'. Sure don't feel any darker."

[Vittore Montegue]

The mere vague suggestion of Sadie being dragged off to the Jedi created an urge to cling on to her tighter that Vittore struggled to resist. Whatever this was now between them, whatever term and descriptor it had earned, the thought of it being gone so suddenly twisted his insides. He felt a spike of anger, intended for the Jedi; the urge to keep Sadie away from him just in case, to drive him off Cloud City, to run him out of town -

A more rational part of his mind prevailed. Falling to darkness. That was what Inyos wanted to shield her from. If the Jedi wanted to safeguard Sadie against suffering the same fate that his mother had, well... that Vittore could live with; that he could tolerate, for as long as Sadie was willing to do the same. The instant that changed though, the instant Inyos Aamoran ceased to be someone that Sadie wanted around, he would be gone: either by transport, or by sudden egress through one of the city's airlocks, and a rapid descent towards the core of Bespin.

"I ain't an expert on this stuff," Vittore said quietly. Despite his efforts, a little fragment of that desire to hold her closer leaked through. "But I do know that th' darkness, or dark side, or whatever they call it -"

His stomach clenched, voice faltered, mouth forced itself to swallow against the sudden dryness in his throat.

"It takes away the people y' care about." Wasn't quite the way of phrasing it that had immediately come to mind; he was glad his mind had the forethought to avoid any words that might make Sadie run for orbit again. His lips pressed against her shoulder again, and for a fleeting moment he wished there was some way he could stop quite so much fabric being between them. "If this guy trainin' you means I get t' have you stick around instead a' loosin' you? Sounds... like a pretty good plan t' me."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"Sorry I kinda almost ruined that."

Weren't no shortage of guilt that eased it's way on into her voice. Had been mighty stupid now that she could think clear again. Runnin' from a whole heap of craziness, away from problems that didn't really exist, and she never once gave it thought for how it might go and effect people now. Was supposed to save 'em all from whatever disaster was gonna follow in her wake in the long run, save 'em from whatever dumb skrag she was gonna stumble into or do herself. Had been like thinkin' bout takin' off one of them sticky bandages. Yeah it was probably gonna hurt, yeah it might tear somethin' back open and make y' bleed for a bit, but was best done quick like rather than draggin' it out over a long time. Course like a dumbass she'd gone and forgotten the fact that leavin' the thing on was best for you and it eventually came off painlessly on it's own when it was good an' ready. Whatever, was a stupid metaphor anyhow.

"Y'sure you're okay with this, though?" Sadie couldn't help but ask, despite the way Vitt was holdin' on to her pretty much answered anyway. "Seems a got a whole heap of baggage I didn't even realize I was carryin' around."

She held up the data chip, kinda lackadaisical in a way, as if it didn't hold some next big thing. "Atton said this here holds everythin' about m' Ma. Called me Lady... some noble house of planet Spacedust or somethin' like that. Not sure I want t' know what sort of Lady up and ditches her kid on th' shittiest damn planet in th' verse. Guess it's better than bein' blown t' th' seven hells though."

Sadie nodded her head back towards the datapadd in her bag. "Was gonna let it rest at first, then figured why th' frak not jus' get everythin' out of th' way, y' see? And... guess I got you here with me this time around on th' ol' Revelations Express. Don't matter what this thing turns up, no matter how bad it is or what sort of dren it brings with it... I... I got you with me t' back me up, yeah?"

[Vittore Montegue]

Ruined? Okay with this? Baggage?

The apologies, the negativity, the put-downs all compounded upon each other, blame and guilt crystallising into a shell that Sadie could hide inside, a barrier that Vittore found himself firmly on the other side of. All the sorrows and complications in the world, Vittore could cope with that. Was part of who she was, and everyone had that kind of crap; didn't phase him in the slightest. Trying to act like it would be too much for him though, like it was some unfair burden she was somehow throwing at his feet that he didn't have the fortitude or affection to want to help her carry? Steaming pile of nerfshit, that was.

One minute, Vittore was gone from her side. Next he was in front of her down on one knee - not like that - with one hand on her waist, the other in her hair. His eyes locked with hers, equal parts determined and pleading, utterly desperate for her to understand, demanding that she cut the crap and pay attention to the sentiment that he could barely do anything about except ride like a wave. He leaned into her, bringing his lips to hers, kissing her with so much passion and intensity that it was almost like he was trying to extract her foolish words and foolish notions right out of her lips. Not the sweet and gentle kiss of earlier: something urgent and insistent, something that threatened to drag him away like an undercurrent, something that when he started Vittore wasn't sure he even had it in him to stop.

Somehow he managed, but only barely, his forehead lingering against hers, a faint whisper all the voice he could muster.

"Always," he breathed, struggling to pull away just enough to find her eyes again, expression conflicting between a faint frown and a flicker of a smile, equal parts saddened by her doubts and overcome with his own affection. "That ain't ever a question y' even need t' ask."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

For a few seconds there, quite a few more than there was any right in doin', Sadie completely forgot about the damned data chip in her hand and the Jedi and Uncle waitin' on her back home. Okay, so maybe there weren't any guilt in that at all. This was what she really needed right? A bit of a breather, a moment of peace and damn quiet to get her head straight. She'd gotten it already by just gettin' away but everythin' had lingered in the back of her head ever since leavin' Bespin despite a lack of invite to do so.

Those few seconds though? That little bit of time where she could swear the entire galaxy stopped movin' and existin' and all that was left was just her and him? Yeah. That was good. That was damn good. That was the kind of sappy stuff you heard about in stories but didn't ever think was real and you'd experience it until apparently suddenly - Wham! Right person and the right time was all it took, apparently. She just never figured she'd ever find that person. Weren't like she'd been lookin' or hopin' or dreamin'. It just kinda... happened. Like it was the most natural damn thing in the verse.

She felt herself nod, just slightly, just enough to feel the motion against where his head rested with hers. "Guess I should'a known better."

Could have just left it there, she supposed, but he was too close for their own good and it took just about no effort at all - more to not do it, really - for Sadie to bring her lips back to his. Gods or whatever Force controlled everythin' she had wanted to do that for a while. Had considered it at times when they'd been back on the Tide, watchin' holovids and sittin' a bit too close to be entirely casual that she now looked back on and could have smacked herself upside the head for not actin' sooner. Better late than never, or however that sayin' went.

Didn't last long, that much self control was there. Oh sure, there were parts of her brain that were being all kids of laserbrained and considered just lettin' things go all out. Why the frak not? Well... answer to that was that Vitt weren't like any guy she'd been around before and somethin' about takin' things all kinds of far after such a tentative way of admittin' stuff to each other seemed all kinds of wrong. If we went and kissed her again like that though, well, all damn bets might be off. Course, there was still the problem of what might set on once clothin' started gettin' pulled off. Could like a person well enough, find yourself all kinds of attracted and wantin', but Sadie figured the tangle of scars etched into her would be downright impossible to ignore and one hell of a mood killer.

Best to not push things, then. She was vergin' on feelin' decent, no need to watch a flinch or somethin' tear all that down. Things were good as was, after all. Well... with one damn exception.

Sadie let a small sigh leave her as the weight of that damn data device came back to haunt her. Was probably the thing about the whole Force sensitivity deal that got under her skin and made her wish there was a way to tell it to frak off... and that was when the Galaxy got somethin' up it's big ol' arse that it felt you needed to know about, it didn't let up until you acted. Was what had caused the whole mess of the day, really, and now was comin' back for seconds. Was no gettin' around it and as much as Vitt was apparently more than capable of makin' it piss off for a bit, she couldn't exactly ask the guy to keep kissing her so she didn't have to find out about whatever woman spawned her. Okay, so Sadie probably could do it... but that lead back to all that other dren and to be downright honest, she was just tired of runnin' for the night.

Her eyes moved away from him, towards the data chip in her hand and she held it up again, not quite as prominently as the first time she'd explained the thing, "T'gether then, yeah? Well... I mean... figuratively. Kinda literally too, I s'pose. Ain't like I've got a mind t' keep secrets at this stage and all."

[Vittore Montegue]

"Together," Vittore agreed, letting a smile work it's way onto his lips.

There was an opportunity here, and Vittore took it; took the data chip too, easing it gently out of Sadie's hands before he turned away and headed for her discarded bag to retrieve the datapad she needed. He didn't exactly run, but his pace was a little swifter than normal. Kinda had a little bit of a spring to his step too, little smiles blossoming before quickly being downplayed by his lips as Sadie kissing him drifted across his thoughts every few seconds. Was kind of a weird thing, you know? Was one thing for him to kiss her, and her to let it happen; another thing entirely when it was her who wanted to.

He was gone about seven seconds; it felt like longer. He slotted the chip into the datapad before he returned to his place beside her, arm looping around her waist with a little more confidence this time; a little less trepidation that it might not be okay. An urge to let his fingers sneak beneath the seam of Sadie's shirt and brush across her skin was stifled - a whole lot of effort required, too. Vittore had seen what Sadie tried so hard to hide - seen them when they were fresh, obviously, but he'd caught glimpses here and there. He knew the way she felt about them; but they didn't phase him in the slightest. Wasn't anything to be phased over. Wasn't as if he'd ever known her without her scars, and they said so much about her; what she'd been through, what she was capable or surviving, why she and Vittore even knew each other in the first place. Given half a chance he'd kiss his way across every micron... not that he could exactly out and say that, of course. Was a fine line between trying to be reassuring and honest, and accidentally pressuring someone into doing stuff because they figure it's the way to give you what you want. Not now, then. Wait until the right moment, back home on the Tide maybe, a holomovie on the couch, leaning that turns into kissing, kissing that turns into hands roaming, Sadie saying that Vittore should stop because he wont like what he sees, Vittore assuring that there isn't a damn inch of her he wouldn't happily stare at for the rest of time, a nervous smile, a slow continuation, clothes teased aside skin on skin -

Vittore's face started to turn red as he began to frantically fumble those thoughts aside, passing the datapad to Sadie as a distraction in the hopes that she wouldn't notice. He knew it wasn't something he should feel embarrassed about, letting his mind wander like that, and he knew that part of her wouldn't mind; but maybe part of her would, and with all the honesty that had been shared between them now, he wasn't sure he had it in him to make up a lie if she came out and asked why he was blushing.

"My money's on supermodel, by the way," Vittore offered, adding a little embarrassment for Sadie to help disguise his own. "Don't get t' be as beautiful as you are without havin' damned attractive parents."