Visiting Hours

A Star Wars: The Old Republic Fan Fiction by Marianne Bennet

A/N: Spoilers for Smuggler storyline through Chapter 3. A short story featuring a reunion of sorts between my smuggler Meridan (Mare-i-dan) Tallis and the gambler Darmas (whose character is a challenge to capture). Inspired by the conversation choice "I'll visit you in jail." Enjoy!

… … … … …

Visiting hours at the Republic Judiciary Central Detention Center on Coruscant were between the hours of two and six in the afternoon. At 3:45, the guard –Dmitri Layne, his ID named him – finally led Captain Meridan Tallis to the appropriate cell. "You want me to come in with you?" he asked the captain, hand lingering on the keypad.

Meridan was a pretty woman, dark haired and slight, and looked like someone who might need protecting, especially since she had had to yield her weapons at the visitors' area. Dmitri had been surprised at the sheer number of firearms, ammo, and various knives and grenades that poured out of the woman's pockets and pack but she had surrendered them all and willingly. She was obviously a woman that could handle herself. But prisoners were dangerous in Dmitri's experience and people should be protected from them.

"I'd like you to wait out here, if that's OK," was the response. "I don't think we'll have any problems."

Dmitri checked himself and the checked his datapad. Of the prisoners on his cell block –a cell block of very dull, unexciting people in his opinion –this particular one had been quiet during the six months since his incarceration. He had only requested two personal privileges, the first being access to daily news –"Empire or Republic," he had been recorded as saying. "It's all the same to me now." That of course had been denied. The second appeal had been for a deck of sabacc cards. Dmitri had not been able to find anything immediately wrong with that and had forwarded the request to his higher-ups. The sabacc deck had been granted after some debate; it seemed a silly thing to the guard but it was wartime now and there were sufficient reasons to be paranoid.

"Does he know I'm here?" Meridan wanted to know, green eyes steady on the cell door.

"If he does, we've either got a leak or he's some kind of Jedi."

She didn't smile. "I've met Jedi," she said very decisively. "Darmas Pollaran would make a very bad one."

"You ready?"

"Part of me is wondering why I'm even here. But yeah, I'm ready."

"Why does anybody come here to visit?" said Dmitri before he activated the door. "They've got unfinished business with somebody." He hit the switch; the door slid open with a cool hiss. "I'm out here if you need me. Just yell." Meridan nodded, stepped inside. Dmitri hit a different button; a force field flickered to life. He could inside even if he couldn't hear anything quieter than a shout.

The gambler –or make-believe gambler; she wasn't sure what was real or not real with this man anymore –was sitting at a table in a room that was scarce of personal effects, shuffling a deck of cards. He looked up at her approach; she watched emotions flash across his handsome, tired, false face –shock, anger, resignation –all quickly schooled to mimic pleasant surprise. "Look at this," he said, "a ray of sunshine in my lowly abode."

"Tatooine sunset," Meridan cut in quickly with a smirk as she sat down opposite him. "I remember that one. You stick to a routine with me or something? Or do you say that to all of the girls?"

"A motif," he said with an answering smirk of his own. The cards crackled between his palms. "And you underestimate yourself. You are as particularly striking walking in here now as you were when you first came into the cantina those years ago. To what do I owe the honor of this visit?"

"You can throw the 'honor' out the window," was her tart reply.

"All the same. Why exactly are you here, Meri?"

"Don't call me that." He shrugged at her annoyance; she looked to the window. The pane looked like heavy transparisteel, not easily shattered. "What do you do with yourself in here anyway?"

"Sit. Eat. Play sabacc with myself."

"I'm surprised you haven't taught the people here how to play the blasted game."

"Captain, could you truly see me playing sabacc with common criminals?"

"That's right." She leaned back in her chair, traced the table edge with her index finger. "You're a very uncommon criminal."

"I only did what my government and employer required of me."

"Which on this side of the galaxy makes you a traitor."

"Since when did you become a patriot, captain?"

"Since you made me a privateer. Which, by the way, is a fancy name for a pirate."

"Dodanna's idea, not mine," Darmas replied. "In the Empire, grand moffs hire bounty hunters on a regular basis to do their dirty work and they never pretend that they're hiring something else. It's the Republic that likes to use euphemisms to put a clever, nice-sounding spin on its tactics."

"You've had time to think about this."

"What else can I do?"

"You should write," Meridan answered idly. "I'd imagine that the memoirs of an imperial agent would sell for quite a bit."

He smiled a little sourly. "It would get me arrested all over again."

"Assuming you ever get out of here to begin with."

"Well," he considered this, his face darkening again, "if I'm very, very good…"

"But you've been very, very bad," Meridan countered. "I wouldn't get my hopes up. Apparently the Republic does care about a spy in their cantinas."

"It seems they care quite a bit. If they didn't, I'd be dead. And that makes me wonder." He leaned forward, planted both elbows on the table as though raising the stakes. Old habits seemed difficult to drop. "I said I've had time to think and I've thought a lot about you. You and the Republic; it's very nearly the same thing at this point. You didn't kill me on Corellia. You said you wanted to but you didn't. You didn't shoot me for some reason and it's the same reason you're here today. You want something from me and I want to know what it is."

"And what if I don't know?" she said with a shrug and felt the satisfaction of watching his face fall for a moment before he caught himself. "What if I'm bored and I just want to poke at you because I have an empty afternoon on Coruscant while my friend visits his cousin?"

"If that's the case," said Darmas after a moment's pause, "I enjoy the company but I'm not sure what we have to say to one another." He paused again. "How is Corso?"

Meridan was taken aback. "He's… doing his thing," she finally answered after a moment's silence. "He didn't want me to see you but I guess he's just trying to protect me. As usual."

"Has he asked you yet?"

Her jade green eyes darkened immediately. "And what would he have asked me?"

"The boy's been in love with you for ages. He never liked you seeing me." He took another moment to let her think. "Did you say yes?"

"Thinking about it," she answered carefully. She thought long and hard, weighing old trust and intimacy against this new Darmas that she knew very little of. The old won out. "Me and Corso… I love him; that's easy enough to say. But the rest of my life… He'll want me on some farm on Dantooine or Ord Mantell. That's no place for a spacer girl like me. And me and him… it's never been…"

She was fidgeting, toying with a button on her white shirt. He remembered unzipping a vest that wasn't so different than the one she was wearing now. He hadn't had to deal with the buttons; the collar had been loose enough that she had just pulled it over her head. He remembered the surprise of seeing that her ears weren't pierced; they had been hidden beneath her dark hair and she had always seemed the sort of woman who would wear earrings. It should have been unsurprising really but he had liked it about her. He had had too many dalliances with rich, privileged housewives; it had gotten dull and Meridan Tallis was different.

"Passionate," he supplied for her and couldn't resist raising an eyebrow as though to imply that it had been so with him. He didn't get the satisfaction of seeing her blush; this was a different, harder Meridan, no longer a young woman who might hope for "the one" in a fling.

"Why do you think you're so special anyway?" she said slowly, tracing circles on the metal table with her finer. Her eyes slid up to meet his. "Maybe I didn't kill you because I try not to kill anybody? You didn't make me kill you so I didn't. You're not special. End of story."

"I wish I could kill you. I wish I could just pull the trigger and be done with it. Give me one reason to spare your life."

"You killed Skavak," he said suddenly and wasn't quite sure why he did.

"And buried him in a black hole," she agreed with grim satisfaction. The corners of her mouth turned downward. "What, you want me to tell you that you're better than he is?" She leaned forward, bracing her elbows on the table and folding her hands below her chin. "You know, for a second I thought Skavak could be handled. I could talk him down and get him on my ship. It wasn't like he deserved to go home scot-free but I could've handed him over to the Republic and his death wouldn't have been on my hands."

"Not directly anyway," Darmas couldn't resist inserting not quite under his breath.

"Yeah, maybe they would've killed him. He probably deserved it. He kissed me," she said suddenly and her eyes drifted away from Darmas again. "I don't know why he did it; I didn't ask for it and it wasn't any fun. Next thing I know, he pulls out his gun." Her gaze focused on him again. "Do you know what he told me? He told me, 'You're so cute when you're deluded.' And then he started shooting. Tell me why I should think you're better than Skavak because I'm not seeing much of a difference."

"I–"

"So did I look 'cute'?" she asked, ignoring his protest. Darmas didn't blame her; had their places been reversed, he probably would have ignored it too. "Tell me. What did I look like to you? You sure had me deluded. You sure made a fool out of me."

She was staring at him, obviously waiting for an answer. He started shuffling the sabacc cards again and then looked back at her. Setting the deck aside, he said, "I gave you your answer on Corellia. Was that insufficient?"

Slowly, still staring, she shook her head. "I have no idea whether I should have believed anything you told me in that factory," Meridan replied. "I mean, really. We were bargaining for something: your life. All that talk about me being the first woman you regretted lying to –that could have just been the left hand waving around in the air while the right hand grabs the gun. That was Skavak trying to seduce me on a broken ship heading into a black hole. You would have said anything to save your hide."

"And what do I have to lose by saying this now?" Darmas snapped. "What have I to gain? What am I bargaining for? Let's lay our cards out on the table."

"No more games, Darmas."

"I already lost. You won, Meri; look where you put me. I'm sitting in a cell, in a Republic prison, surrounded by the criminals you know I despise, 'poetic justice' if nothing else. I'd say I've hit rock bottom. What could I possibly want from you?"

"Knowing you, you want out. You want me to get you out."

"Maybe I do and maybe I don't. Either way, the word of a smuggler –Republic privateer, if you prefer that –doesn't weigh much in the game of wartime policies and political prisoners. You couldn't get me out if you tried. And I'm still wondering why you came to see me. You won, Meri. The battlefield is yours and yet you're here."

"Why?" The word suddenly escaped her, became a question mark floating somewhere in the space between them. "Maybe what you did, you did for the Empire. I can take that. You manipulated me for the Empire, because it was your job. I can deal with that, Darmas. But you didn't have to kiss me. You didn't have to sleep with me. You didn't have to make me feel…" She stopped, gathered herself. "You shouldn't have mixed business with pleasure."

"You came here to tell me that I did my job wrong?" He laughed a little and then stopped.

"You did me wrong." The conviction in her voice surprised him. "I wanted to know if you realized that. That's all. And now I know." She got up from the table. "We're done here."

"I can't even interest you in one round of sabacc?" he tried with a little bit of his old charm.

"No more games," she repeated and then waved a hand at Dmitri on the other side of the barrier.

"They might still kill me," she heard Darmas say, his tone very dry. She didn't turn around. "Once they've bled me dry of information, they still might want me dead. I'll have outlived my usefulness. It almost seems a kinder fate compared to what Imperial Intelligence does to outdated operatives. Either way, I'm glad to have known you, Meri."

She turned her head slightly as Dmitri entered a code in on the other side of the force field, not enough to face him but just enough to see his reflection in the thick paned window. He was thumbing a card and staring at its symbol it seemed. "You think a gambler like you and a spacer like me would ever have a future together?" she had asked him once and she might have believed it, once. And that "once" had been a very long time ago.

"Yeah?" she said. "I bet your superiors are glad too."

The cell door slid shut behind her and Dmitri began to lead Meridan down the hallway. Suddenly, she asked, "Are they gonna kill him? Are they going to execute him for being an Imperial spy?"

"I don't know the details," Dmitri answered. "I don't know what he's done. They might."

"Well," she said as they approached the elevator. "They'll be doing what I couldn't." And then she nodded to him in farewell and stepped into the lift. As the doors closed, Dmitri was left thinking about her departing comment and wondering again about the petite woman with her pockets full of guns and the card player in the cell.