*THERE IS SOME MATURE LANGUAGE AND REFERENCES IN THIS CHAPTER. CONSIDER YOURSELVES WARNED.*
Hera was at her wits' end trying to get the Ghost shipshape again. Obstacle after obstacle was being placed in her path with every bit of progress she made – when she tried to bypass computer control of the engine reactor core, she accidentally activated the emergency failsafe. She only got past it two hours later.
In the words of the mostly trustworthy Cathar mechanic Teri had called in a favor from to help her with the repairs: "I don't know how to put this any other way, Captain Syndulla, but... Honestly, your droid really kriffed shit up."
She had no more room left in her brain to worry about the whole situation with Inquisitor Sorena... about whom Kanan had been whining incessantly for the last hour. She had listened to him as patiently as ever, but even so, that patience was beginning to wear thin.
"I really don't think we should trust Teri so easily like this," Kanan said for what had to be the seventh time in the last half-hour, crossing his arms irately.
She extended a hand toward him and the toolbox next to him from where she was in a crawlspace amongst the pipes and wires, but didn't acknowledge what he said. "Plasma welder."
Kanan passed her the tool, but, much to her dismay, as soon as she started working again, he resumed his monologue with renewed vigor. "He's hiding things from us, and I don't like it at–"
"Can you please stop your bitching?" Hera snapped, finally reaching her limit. "I'm trying to get a job done here, and you're not helping."
Kanan stared at her, his mouth agape, and Hera covered her mouth when she realized she had spoken aloud.
"I'm sorry. That was inexcusable." She sighed. "It's just... It's taxing on someone to have to listen to your views on the situation nonstop when you've already made them clear. I'm really sorry, Kanan."
"Yeah. I guess." Kanan covered his surprise with a nonchalant roll of his eyes. "And where'd you learn language?"
Hera just shot him a look. After a moment, he dropped his gaze, and she grabbed a wrench from the small pile of other tools she had yet to return to the toolbox, putting it to work to remove the screws keeping a small panel in place.
"Okay, fine. Don't tell me." Kanan took a few steps closer until he was next to her, folding his legs under him. "I just don't think he's–"
She held up a finger to silence him, shushing him for good measure when he opened his mouth again. "No more of that."
It was quiet for a moment, but then, Kanan spoke up again, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Nice weather we're having today."
"Kanan–"
"I don't understand what you want from me," he said with an exasperated sigh, dropping the front and returning to his usual self.
Hera exhaled softly. She pulled herself up out of the crawlspace, dropping her tools and sitting down beside him. Then, she took his face in her hands and kissed him square on the mouth. After a moment of surprise, he kissed her back, cupping her face in his hands.
They had kissed only a few times before like this, and what moments they had shared had mostly been when they had been somewhere, cornered, when they had been sure they were about to die. They never planned it, but somehow, over the years, they had become so attuned to one another while keeping their distance at the same time that moments when the danger around them was at its peak always brought them close.
It was their way of saying goodbye... just in case. And with their new duties to the Rebellion, they were forced to say goodbye far too much.
It was always the same: without any ceremony, Kanan would press his lips to hers quickly, put the two halves of his lightsaber together, and tell her to get ready to play her part in some desperate last-minute strategy that, against all odds, somehow always worked.
Some secret part of her dreaded the day when his latest hair-brained scheme would go horribly wrong, and their last kiss would really be their last kiss.
"I want you to go talk to Teri," Hera said when they finally parted, brushing that dark line of thought away and coming back to the present. "That's what I want."
"Come with me."
"Kanan, I have work to do here."
He shot her a look. "When was the last time you ate?"
"Uh..." Search her brain as she did, she honestly couldn't remember. But she wasn't about to tell him that. "A few hours ago," she lied.
"Don't give me that." He stood up, extending a hand. "Come on – there's this place I noticed on the corner. Last I checked, they were selling spiced shaak broth with kwhyen noodles for a really good price, and I know how much you like those. There's a bowl of it with your name on it. On me."
She hesitated for a moment, looking at the tools beside her and then back up at him. Then, she smiled. "Kanan Jarrus, are you asking me on a date?"
"You're the one who called it that," Kanan said, but Hera saw right through it.
She chuckled knowingly, taking his hand. "Alright, hotshot – let's get going."
Four days. Four blasted days shackled in these Force-draining cuffs, locked away in a prison cell of a room with no Imperial rescue party in sight.
It was enough to drive a person mad.
Dammit, Sky Guy, where the hell are you?
Sorena snarled in frustration, her yellow and red eyes opening to gaze upon her modest quarters. She couldn't concentrate like this, with nothing but her own reflections to keep her company – she needed the Force to help sort them into the little balls of barely restrained chaos that she could use to push her forward.
"Patience," she whispered to herself, closing her eyes and shifting slightly where she was on the small cot in one corner of the room. She closed her eyes, searching for any tendril of the Force she could access. But she found none. She had no choice but to look inward.
But even as she tried to channel her thoughts toward plans to get herself out of there – she had gone to sleep in her Inquisitor's gear one night and woken up the next morning in plainclothes, so she no longer had her tools – the past wasn't so far from the surface that it wasn't able to mess with her logical thinking.
Sunlight catching on dark hair...
Stop it. Focus.
A crooked smile, whose corners pulled at high cheekbones and made green eyes sparkle...
STOP. IT.
How easily his soft lips moved around the syllables of a name only a part of her still recognized and dared answer to...
NO.
Gentle fingers brushing against her cheek as he leant in to–
Sorena exhaled angrily, jumping up. Her feet took her from one end of the room to the other as she tried to find some way to expend the restless energy that had taken ahold of her. She felt like a captured predator in a cage, and the need to be free and destroy those who had wronged her was... intoxicating.
She drank it all up, calling on her inner darkness as the door slid open.
A smirk came to her lips when she realized who it was.
"So you finally managed to get your hands up my shirt, huh?"
Teri blushed beet red, his eyes wide. Perfect – he was absolutely mortified. In the past few years, she had come to excel at catching people off-guard, at making them lose their footing before they even had it to begin with.
"I didn't... change... It was H-Hera and Kilindi," he stuttered.
She played with the hem of the grey tank top she was wearing nonchalantly. "But you wish you had, though," she said, quietly enough so that he heard it but the other people walking into the room after him – Hera, Kanan and Maddox – didn't.
The Jedi crossed his arms. "We have some questions for you."
Sorena barked out a laugh. "I don't make it a habit to stoop so low as to talk to Rebels. But good try nevertheless, Caleb."
Hera's eyes widened, and she turned towards the speechless Jedi. "Did she just call you–?"
Kanan Jarrus' eyes were like twin orbs of turquoise fire. "How do you know that name?" he growled, his hands curling into fists.
"I have a way with people. And codes into forbidden databanks."
Not to mention Sky Guy and I came in to teach a Tactical course for his class back when we were Je... NO. I'm not one of them anymore. That was in a past life.
Kanan turned to Teri. "Are you sure this is safe?" he hissed, bristling.
"She's completely cut off from the Force. We'll have to keep a close eye on her, true, because she still has her fighting skills, but at least she can't send for one of her Inquisitors telepathically," Teri told him, summoning a straight face in a remarkably short period of time.
"One of my Inquisitors?" Sorena barked out a laugh, draping herself back over the cot. "Just who do you think I am?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Kanan demanded irately, but she didn't miss the note of apprehension in his voice.
That was just as well. He knew, as they all did, that with her rank came connections to people even higher up on the Imperial chain of command. And it wouldn't do any harm to bring that little detail to their attention again – experience had taught her that it was always a smart move to play one's cards in a way that kept one's enemies on their toes.
Fear was a powerful ally, but uneasiness had to take root before it could be molded into a weapon against someone.
"I'm the Grand Inquisitor, love," she reminded them sardonically. "The people looking for me are a far cry from my worthless underlings, and now it's only a matter of time before they track you all down."
"That's not gonna happen," Lux said, setting his jaw.
"Wouldn't be the first time you've underestimated me," Sorena said, her eyes narrowing lazily.
Hera furrowed her brow, and Sorena took it to mean the green Twi'lek woman wasn't sure she knew what she meant by that – or if she liked it.
"Enough of this," Maddox said, stepping in between her and the Rebels. "She's stubborn as hell; you're not going to get anything out of her without any refinement. Lux, you know her the best. Talk to her."
Kanan whipped around, fixating Maddox with a glare intense enough to burn holes in durasteel. "What's that supposed to–"
Maddox stopped him before he could say anything. "Later, Kanan. Later."
Although Kanan obviously still had things to share, he left quietly. Sorena took note of this, knowing that it wouldn't be long before he snapped and did something reckless. And when he did, she would be ready to use it to her advantage.
As the door slid shut behind Maddox, Hera and Kanan, Teri sat down, cross-legged, on the floor across from her.
For a time, neither of them spoke. But Sorena sensed that sooner or later, someone was going to have to fill the silence, and, with Teri making no move to do so, it would probably be best if she spoke first in hopes of hitting a weak point. "So, Teri. What do you want to talk about? Or do you want me to leave you alone and let you brood about old dreams that are never coming back?"
"Why?"
As much as it pained her to admit it, the question caught her off-guard. She wanted to pretend he was asking her something else, but, for the time being, she knew that there was only one question he would have for her. But the words that came out of her mouth took her by surprise.
"Because I cared too much. It ate away at me until I had nothing left to give."
The glimmer of hope in his eyes sickened her.
"And why suppress what you've got with trivial concerns like who lives and who dies?" she added in hopes of salvaging the situation. "There's no point in caring. You have to look out for yourself and yourself alone or you'll never have what it takes to be strong."
"Cut the crap. Tell me what you really mean." Teri's face was hard lines and jagged edges, but, gradually, it softened again. "Even if what you have to say poisons me, it's the sweetest poison there is," he whispered. "Just hearing your voice again, when I thought all I had left of it was fragments of memory... it strips away whatever hatred you've been keeping locked up inside you for all of these years and takes me back to when we were young."
"Yeah, when we were children; when we knew nothing of the galaxy outside our own little corner of the Japrael sector." But then, for reasons she couldn't quite place – and wasn't sure she wanted to – her voice dropped off, lowering in volume until it was hardly above a whisper. "Back when we knew nothing of how cruel a place it can be."
"But there's some beauty in it too," Lux reminded her. "There's light. There's happiness. Can't you see it?"
And just like that, Sorena's walls came right back up again. "No. I can't," she said harshly. But her voice sounded bitter, even to her own ears. "I stopped seeing things as I wanted them to be and started seeing them as they were after Norolan Plains. What I went through that day... broke me. This is how I was put back together."
"You have a way of saying everything and nothing at the same time."
Sorena glared at him with her eyes painted the colors of blood and hatred. "I have nothing more to say to you, Lux Bonteri."
Then, she curled up on the cot and shut her eyes, as if completely oblivious to his presence there.
But, truthfully, she was anything but.
*HEEEEEYYYYYY GUYS I FINALLY UPDATED THIS WHAT'S UP
*dodges blaster bolts and lightsaber blows from angry readers* FRICK
So sorry about the wait, but the creativity has been a little slow for this lately. But on the bright side, I think I've worked out a schedule: two updates for UAAT on the weekend, and I work towards finishing one chapter for one of the long-chapter fanfics (SOTE, LB JK and LtLB) over the course of the week for Friday, with updates for TISS and SAtJ during the week as well.
We'll just have to wait and see how well it works...
Also DAMN THAT AHSOKA BOOK
I STILL CAN'T GET OVER IT
I HAVE AN IDEA FOR TWO SEQUEL STORIES ALREADY
AND IT'S GONNA BE AWESOME
Anyways, I hope you guys all liked the chapter. First half, KANERA UNLEASHED!!! Second half, LUXSOKA/TERINA FLIRTING AND FEELS!!! ALL GOOD STUFF
It's really fun to write how Lux and Sorena are coping with the fact that they have to deal with one another's presence in their lives once more in their own separate (and perhaps soon joint) ways.
Because frankly, I'm getting bored with all the waiting. I like writing fluff as much as I like reading it. You can expect some Terina fuzzies in the next chapter or two, as well as a bit of action also coming soon ;)
Also, expect Kanan snapping soon. And a bunch of crazy surprises and lots of carefully buried secrets coming to the surface. As you've probably guessed, Kanan is 100% the scapegoat of this story, but there are plot-related reasons for that.
I'm sorry to all you hardcore Kanan lovers out there, but I feel absolutely no shame XD
Also, as I went looking for pics to use for the second half of this chapter, the main reason why I used that picture with Maul and Hera is because (as usual) Maddox is just so fed up with everyone, mostly Kanan XDDDD
I might be able to get an update for UAAT finished tonight, but no promises. Either way, there'll be one tomorrow-ish. That is, if I don't get sidetracked by the latest SWR episode like I usually do, haha!
May the Force be with you,
Sharron