Chapter 1: If You Prick a Mandalorian…..

"Hey Candy", Elriel breezed into the Ebon Hawk's garage. Canderous looked up murderously from the workbench.

"If you call me that again, Revan," he languidly drawled out the emphasis on her former name. Elriel winced and held up a placating hand. "Ok, ok, I'm sorry Mr Canderous, sir", she said, grinning. "I should think so, Miss Elriel, ma'am," he returned. "And to finish my sentence, if you call me that again I'll take you over my knee."

Elriel giggled before the memory shot a lance of pain through her. "Carth threatened to do that once," she told the gruff Mandalorian with a wistful smile. Canderous snorted, rolling his eyes. "Follow through on the threat, did he?"

"Hardly!" Elriel cried in mock horror. "We were in Ajunta Pall's tomb at the time!"

Canderous raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn't have stopped me. Always knew Republic was all talk."

"Let me tell you, Mandalorian, that he had plenty action when it came to –"

Canderous interrupted hurriedly "Please, spare me the details, El. You can relive them as many times as you like in the privacy of your own quarters."

Elriel's blush felt like it had reached the roots of her hair. "Ah, yeah…uh sorry," she stammered. "I miss him is all."

"I know. But we're on our way home now. You'll see him in a couple of months."

"Four months, seven hours and…" Elriel checked her digisec, "seventeen minutes. Give or take."

Canderous rolled his eyes. "Right. Anyway, look, did you come in here for a reason or just to distract me from my upgrades by mooning over Onasi and his penchant for sexual sadism?"

Elriel couldn't help but roar with laughter at the Mandalorian's brusque terminology. "Actually," she said, calming her giggles, "I came to ask you if you'd seen Atton. I wanted to tell him that T3 has fixed the rattle in the motivator."

"Atton is where Atton always is. In the cockpit."

Elriel frowned. "What's he doing up there? We've been on auto for a week."

Canderous looked at her as if she were a lobotomized Gammorrean. "Force almighty, woman. For a Jedi, you're not half stupid sometimes. He is doing the same thing you were doing except, being a man, he doesn't impose his mooning on his unfortunate, long-suffering companions."

"Ah shit," Elriel smacked her forehead, annoyed with herself, "I'm such a bantha-head."

"You'll get no argument from me."

"Shut it, Candy-ass."

"Hoi!" Canderous brandished his hydrospanner at her menacingly. "You want this stuck where even the Force can't reach it?"

"Since things calmed down, I've just been thinking of getting home, you know? Counting the minutes, the seconds. I didn't even think about poor Atton. Bantha-head, bantha-head! I ought to go talk to him."

Canderous gave her a sardonic look. "I don't think Rand will respond particularly well to any Jedi's-gotta-do-what-a-Jedi's-gotta do crap, babe."

Elriel looked aghast and opened her mouth to protest

"Just like," Canderous carried on, pointing his hydrospanner at her, "Republic will, I have no doubt, follow through on his threat to spank you silly when we get to Telos."

There were no words.

"Shut your mouth, girl, or something might fly in there."

Elriel's mouth snapped shut audibly.

"Look," Canderous' tone was kinder, "us mere mortal men just aren't built that way, get it?"

A triumphant looked appeared on the Jedi's face. "Ah! But Atton is a Jedi."

"Ronto balls!" Canderous snorted. "He uses the Force but it doesn't make him a Jedi. Anyway, it's more difficult for him. At least you and Onasi got to spend time together before your disappearing act. And you had plenty time to…uh…consummate your relationship." He winked at the reddening Elriel.

"They didn't?"

"They didn't. That frickin' old witch you used to hang about with, it was her fault partly. Thought she knew about the whole galaxy and its mother. Turns out she didn't know half as much as she boasted she did, the old bitch."

"Atton is, as always, the fool. But the Force watches out for ones such as him, I feel."

I truly hope she's right. And now I have to ask it.

"Did he love me?"

"He is a fool, and that alone should answer your question," she snapped. "He has nothing to offer to one such as you – and even a fool such as Atton is not so ignorant of that fact."

She'd still been cryptic to the end, the evil old scow. Why didn't she just answer the question? What was all that bantha crap about Mical? She thinks I love him. Does Atton think that? Did Kreia tell Atton that? Is he a fool because he loves me or a fool because he doesn't? Force, I'm glad the cryptic old witch is dead.

"Traya?" Elriel shuddered at the elusive and indisctinct memory of her former Master.

"Yeah, Traya, Kreia, whatever the hell she called herself," Canderous growled. "For all her Force powers and the nuggets of so-called wisdom she liked to ram down everyone's throats, her match-making skills left a lot to be desired."

Elriel's confusion was matched only by her surprise at the Mandalorian's interest in the affair. "What in the galaxy are you talking about?"

Canderous sighed resignedly. "I wish I'd never brought it up. I'm never going to get this blaster put back together at this rate. OK, look, when we got to Malachor V the Exile went bombing off to have her big fight with Kreia alone as you bloody Jedi are so wont to do."

Elriel smiled, remembering Carth's relief warring with his terrified anger as she returned to the Star Forge docking bay following her final confrontation with Malak.

"Rand was going out of his head worrying about her and sending the rest of us out of our heads too, so I told him to go after her. Not to get involved in the fight, of course – I know enough about honour to know the Exile had to face the battle by herself."

"Canderous, you really are going soft." Elriel grinned wickedly.

"I will choose to ignore that, missy. Anyway, blah blah blah, fight to the death, good triumphs over evil again and all that Republic propaganda shit. Kreia's doing her whole bad guy death speech and all and starts giving the Exile –"

"Rezi," Elriel interrupted, chidingly.

"Stop interrupting!" Canderous roared. Elriel stifled a giggle, feeling like a small child. "She starts giving REZI all of these preditions about what the rest of us are going to get up to in the future. "

Elriel's curiosity flared and she opened her mouth to speak.

"Don't even think about asking any questions." The hydrospanner jiggled at her once more. "Right. Anyway, Atton's been skulking in the shadows, watching the whole thing, looking out for her, you know? The witch is giving it all this stuff about how Mical loves Rezi and if she's going to come looking for you and help with the whole Sith thing she can't take him with her. Like she loves him, you see? Shows how much attention she was paying, if you ask me. Anybody could see that all the sexual tension was between Rezi and Atton – well, anybody but them, I guess. Reminded me a lot of being on the Hawk with you and Onasi. Drove everyone crazy too, you pair. We all wished you'd just shut yourselves up in one of the dorms for a few hours and get it out of your systems." He chuckled at the memory.

Elriel laughed ruefully. "I did too. And you don't know everything either, Mandalorian. We had a fair few moments that were heading speedily in that direction but we kept getting mysteriously interrupted."

"Heh!" Canderous laughed, unsurprised. "Bastila, I bet. Anyway, you pesky Jedi wench, you've interrupted me again. Atton, idiot that he is, takes this as meaning she loves that pasty-faced whelp too, and this is despite the fact that Rezi promptly asks the witch if Atton loves her. Why would she ask? Force, what is it with people in love? Does all the love in your brain kick out all the sense in your brain?"

Elriel crossed her eyes and let her tongue loll out of one side of her mouth.

"Hmph. Yeah, well, the hag just gives Atton the burn about being an idiot – which was one thing she did get right I guess – and that he knew he wasn't good enough for her sorta thing."

"So?"

"So what?" Canderous snapped.

"What then?"

"What then is that we blow up the Force-forsaken planet and go home and then a few of us are sent to the farthest reaches of the galaxy to aid another stubborn Jedi woman in her fight against the forces of evil. What then is that Atton thinks she left goody-goody Jedi boy behind because she loves him – not because actually he'd be as much use against the forces of evil as Coruscant silk armour. What then is that the whole sorry state drags on ten times longer than your little affair and what then is that I lose my frickin' patience with the whole thing and bang their stupid heads together."

Elriel was utterly dumbfounded. "What did you do?"

"Got the daft pilot to tell her how he felt about her. Eventually. Just before she left. Pretty much five minutes before she left. And, of course, she loved him too – which I bloody told him – and then he was a mopey mess because he hadn't said it sooner…..and likely because he could have got some dorm action too if he had."

Elriel shook her head slowly in wonder. Canderous the Mandalorian plays matchmaker. A lot of ridiculously unlikely and downright weird things had happened to her since she woke up on the Endar Spire but she was pretty sure this one topped them all. Carth's gonna laugh his ass off when I tell him.

The Jedi ran her fingers through her hair and sighed. "Right, so he misses her and he's miserable and he feels like he wasted a load of time not telling her how he felt."

"I guess. " Canderous grunted non-commitally. "His own fault anyway. At least he listened to me in the end. I told him I had prior experience in the area and that mixed-up Jedi gals seem to have a thing for pilots with issues."

"Canderous!" her eyes widened in shock before she snorted with laughter.

"You can't tell me you haven't noticed the weirdly similar parallels".

In all truth, she hadn't. Canderous' powers of observation were certainly outmatching hers at the moment. Now that she thought about it she saw how right he was. Weirdly similar indeed.

"Force!" she exclaimed with a sigh. "I'm glad to have you around when all that love in my brain kicks out all the sense. I really should go talk to Atton."

Canderous grinned at her. "Well, if it means giving me some peace then go to it. I doubt you'll get much out of him without truth serum though."

A delighted smile broke out on the Jedi's face. "Canderous, you really are a genius!"

"Nice of you to finally admit it, though I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"Truth serum. Perhaps we should crack into all that Tarisian Ale we swiped." She winked at the Mandalorian before turning to leave.

"Ah, wait," Canderous called. "If that's your method of choice, be careful just how much drunken truth you ask for."

Elriel frowned. "Eh?"

She was a lobotomized Gammorrean again. "Look, just keep your wits about you."

"I don't know what you –"

Canderous sighed dramatically. "Never mind, never mind. Go talk to the angsty flyboy."

"Huh," she smiled, a little sadly, "you could as well be talking about Carth."

The hydrospanner was jiggled for emphasis yet again. "Exactly," Canderously replied smugly, as though he had imparted some great truth. A little bemused, Elriel turned on her heel and left.