A/N: So, unsatisfied with Zam's death on Coruscant (and being the rabid Jango/Zam shipper that I am) I rewrote the scene! Dedicated to Pasha Pasha, my first friend on . Enjoy!
DISCLAIMER: If I owned this, the following would definitely NOT be called an 'alternate universe.'
She needed an escape, and she needed one now. The two Jedi had entered the club, their sharp piercing eyes sweeping the mingling bar-goers. Any moment now she was at risk.
Thinking quickly, she ducked into the female restroom.
Cheap dim lights washed her purple suit into a sickly shade of puce as she entered. The small room smelled like mold and stale antibacterial.
Some sharp gasps and heated thumps in the last stall made an involuntary blush rise to her cheeks, despite the situation. She had obviously intruded upon a human mating ritual.
Ignoring the sounds, she stumbled to the sink, and clasped the dirty counter in both trembling hands. She felt sick.
She knew Fett was here, watching her. Once, during the speeder chase through the city, she had caught a glimpse of him, keeping out of sight behind the parapet of a skyscraper. He was making sure there would be no mistakes.
No mistakes…
Zam's purple gloves tightened on the porcelain as she gritted her teeth. Fett had often been her business partner, her friend, and, she sometimes liked to think, maybe a little bit more.
But she knew he would not hesitate to kill her in a heartbeat. Especially if he suspected her coming anywhere close to divulging information related to him or his son.
A cold, sticky emotion suddenly swept through her body, beginning from the base of her neck all the way down to her fingertips.
Fear.
She had felt fear very few times before, but she knew what it felt like well enough.
She also knew it was pointless.
Breathing deeply, Zam removed her purple crash helmet, and placed it behind the sink.
Panicking would get you nowhere, except deeper into trouble. She needed to think. She needed a plan.
She stripped her clammy hands of their gloves, and splashed some healing water on her face. The noises in the last stall made concentration near impossible.
She had to eliminate the Jedi.
That was the only way she could escape with her life.
But she knew it was impossible. She could hardly defeat a bounty, let alone a Jedi; she specialized in sneaking around, performing tasks that required stealth and a disarmingly sweet face.
She could fight them. She was skilled in hand to hand.
Oh, please, who was she kidding?
Giving a sharp growl in frustration, Zam shattered the mirror with a bare fist.
She gasped and withdrew the hand swiftly, cursing under her breath in Huttese. Injuring yourself was probably worse than panicking.
Plucking the larger shards of glass from her skin, Zam examined her bleeding hand thoughtfully.
She could change…
But, then again, she knew of the Jedi's mind tricks. No matter what form she took, she might as well wave a sign over her head; ASSASSIN HERE! They could pick her out of a crowd by simply reading her mind.
She washed most of the blood off her fingers, and pensively watched the red swirl down the drain.
That was it!
She had to disappear.
She couldn't go back to Fett. She couldn't go back to anything of her old life. She had to start fresh.
But how…
As if in answer to her unvoiced question, the door to the last stall opened.
Absorbed in her thoughts, she hadn't noticed the humans had finished their mating.
A tall, rough, dark-headed male, pulling on his trousers with one hand and correcting his hair with the other, emerged from the stall. Zam cast his reflection a critical eye in the shattered mirror. He wasn't particularly handsome. His dirty, unshaven face and filthy clothes marked him as only one example of the scum who frequented the club. Scum looking for food, drinks, and cheap sex they could buy with the money they just earned off their recent transport.
He hardly spared her a glance. She might have been just a paper towel dispenser. He stumbled from the restroom in a drunken stupor, probably off to blow the last of his money on another drink or two.
Zam remained stationary by the sink, waiting. It did, after all, take two to tango…
Finally, the second participant in the mating ritual emerged.
A smashed blue Twi'lek staggered from the stall next, barely keeping her skirt held closed with a tiny hand. She absolutely reeked of drink. Zam vaguely wondered how much the ugly human had forced down her throat before she had agreed to sleep with him.
By the outfit the girl was wearing, Zam guessed she was a prostitute. But then again, she might just be a naïve girl wearing what she thought was appropriate attire for a rough club.
The Twi'lek lurched to the sink next to her, drunken hands doing their best to arrange her lengthy lekku acceptably.
She, unlike the man, wasn't too drunk to at least notice someone else occupied the restroom. She tipped her head sloppily. "'Morn."
"Had a good night?" Zam's mouth twitched.
The Twi'lek shrugged, then grinned, and patted a stuffed coin purse; the fruits of her labor for the night. "Good enough."
Zam frowned. Just a moment ago, the girl looked intoxicated enough to knock over with a feather. Already, she seemed to be sobering up.
The Twi'lek put a hand on the sink absently, and retracted it with a gasp. A small red slit stood out against the blue skin where she had cut her palm on a shard of glass.
Zam almost offered aid, but for some reason, didn't.
The girl examined her injury for a moment, as though not quite comprehending what had happened. And then, deftly, she held the hand underneath the obnoxious neon light, and changed it.
Not the light. Her hand.
With a quick shift of skin, her hand became, not that of a Twi'lek, but of a human.
Zam blinked twice, but that was the extent of her show of surprise.
She glanced at the Twi'lek casually, who seemed to be examining her with a superior smug grin on her face.
"Clawdite?"
The prostitute giggled, and shifted her skirt proudly. "Shape-shifting sure is handy in this business…when you can become anything your buyer wants…"
Zam had never thought about it that way before.
But the girl was a Clawdite…that could prove useful…
The idea smacked into her like a brick, and she barely kept the grin from her face. Very useful indeed.
"You sober now?"
"Yes." The Twi'lek dropped all her form now, and became her natural shape of a Clawdite. Zam couldn't help but flinch. Her kind was…very striking indeed. "We sober fast."
"Indeed." Zam appeared thoughtful for a moment, pursing her angel mouth. "Tell you what…would you like another job?"
"What job?"
Zam looked pointedly at the girl's purse.
Catching her meaning, the prostitute's enormous green eyes lit up greedily. "A client?"
"Two, to be precise."
"Where?"
"Just outside, towards the front entrance. Now, wait a minute…"
Zam's bare hand reached out and grasped the Clawdite's arm as she went to exit the restroom.
"They're rather…expecting me," the bounty hunter fudged, looking down and allowing a blush to stain her cheeks. "I…owe them for tipping me off about a bounty the other night."
Without another word, the Clawdite's skin rippled, and Zam was swiftly staring at an exact replica of herself, dressed in a scanty skirt and top.
"I always thought I was shorter…"
"Close enough." The Clawdite brushed off her comment and made for the door again.
"Wait!" Zam grabbed her arm again and pulled her back towards the last stall, shrugging off her purple leather jacket as she did so. "You need to be dressed like me. And trust me, I would never be caught wearing those rags."
The Clawdite seemed to be a little too dense to pick up on the fact that she had just been insulted. Giggling insanely, a noise that reminded Zam of an irritating fifth grader, the Zam replica began to remove her skirt and top.
Zam assumed the prostitute's clothes, putting them on herself, and trying her best to ignore the various stains and smells that hung on them.
Finally, the Zam replica emerged, grinning, wearing the purple suit and helmet. "How do I look?"
"Like me," Zam answered, impressed. If she didn't know better, she'd say she wasn't herself at all. She hoped it was enough to fool the Jedi.
The Clawdite grinned excitedly, and pulled the veil over her mouth. She made for the door with haste.
"One last thing," Zam took her hand and pressed her blaster into the palm. "Walk up behind the red-headed one, and point this at him. It…rather…turns him on."
The girl squealed, a noise that made Zam puke a little in her mouth, clapped her hands excitedly, and shot out of the bathroom, tucking the blaster away under the vest.
Zam held her breath, and changed herself into the form of the same blue Twi'lek.
It really was handy to be a shape-shifter sometimes.
Cautiously, she opened the door to the restroom and peaked out.
The unsuspecting prostitute was making her way through the crowd, towards the pair of Jedi.
Zam bit back a grin. She felt no remorse for sending the girl to her doom. Besides, she had fairly begged her to anyway.
She slipped behind a pair of thrashing Senators, out on a weekend binge, to watch the occurrence.
She had to hand it to her, the Clawdite prostitute was talented. Zam found it rather spooky how similar their bodies looked.
She stayed long enough to watch the wretched Clawdite draw her blaster at the red-headed Jedi's unsuspecting back.
And when he whirled, saber out, and chopped her hand off, Zam took her leave.
Without stopping, she ran for the back door of the club, knocking over several dancing couples and a few unsuspecting tables.
She sprinted out the back door, spilled out into the alley, picked herself up, and kept running. The Twi'lek's lekku dangled on her back like an irritating added weight, but there was so much adrenalin pumping through her bloodstream, she hardly noticed.
She had to make it to the space port. Her speeder was trashed, but she had enough credits in the purse she had snuck from the Clawdite to buy a new one ten times over.
Or a ticket for the nearest rock in the middle of nowhere.
That was her plan.
She had to disappear. Narrowly dodging a pair of Jedi after a failed attempt to assassinate a senator was rather sketchy. Not to mention Jango would not be happy…
The thought of the bounty hunter made her heart skip a few beats, but she quickly stopped the thought.
She couldn't think of him that way now. She couldn't think of him at all.
Her life here was over.
She rounded a corner. The spaceport was just at the next alley.
But then a sight made her stop dead in her tracks.
From where she stood at the very corner of the skyscraper's walkway, she could see a form, crouched low above the city.
It sparkled.
Zam could have recognized Jango Fett's unmistakable T-shaped visor anywhere, even in the middle of a pitch black cave in the dead of night.
Allowing herself to revert back to her human form, Zam scuttled across the rooftop and hopped to a ledge just above the bounty hunter. From behind, his jet pack gave him the increased appearance of a boxy droid.
She wondered what he was doing here, crouched on the ledge of a building above the Outlander Club entrance. Her perfect view of the back of his white helmet offered little observation of his actions, but from the movements in his right arm, Zam guessed he was fiddling with something.
Creeping as close as she dared, Zam squinted hard at the long tube Jango grasped in one fist.
A Mandalorian dart gun.
Simple, but deadly.
Once, when she was little, Zam remembered falling off the roof of her home, where she and a friend had been playing. The fall was short, only about six feet to the ground, but she still remembered the awful feeling of having the wind sucked from her lungs like a vacuum of space.
That was the way she felt now.
He was planning to kill her.
Well, not her her, but the other her. The prostitute her!
Blazing anger erupted through Zam's chest, and a hand flashed to her side for her blaster. How dare he think he could get away with killing her? Her, his friend and partner for close to ten years now!
She might have shot him in that instant of rage, had her hand not grasped that strange alienness of a missing pistol at her side.
Like forgetting a step at the foot of the stairs, Zam felt her stomach drop to her knees. Where was her blaster?
As if in answer, a cacophony of scuffling noises and sharp words directed her attention to the entrance of the Outlander's Club. The two Jedi and her look-alike were making their appearance.
On the ledge below, Jango lay flat on his stomach, arms bent and holding the dart gun to his eye. Lining up the shot.
Did she imagine the trembling in his arms?
Her gaze flashed back to the Jedi, who had the prostitute flat on the ground and seemed to be proceeding to interrogate her. The girl had not dropped her form, a fact that was surprising but not unpleasant. Zam had heard of cases of shock where a Clawdite's muscles all tensed at once, and a shift was impossible. A useful development.
She couldn't quite hear what was said from her position on the rooftop, but she had a feeling Jango could. His shoulders were visibly tense, and the barrel of the dart gun trembled now more than ever.
The wind finally subsided, and she made out the trembling words the prostitute began to murmur, "Alright, I'll tell you. I was hired by a bounty hunter named…"
Zam's heart dropped. She was done for.
But in the same instant, Jango turned his head to the side, and pulled the trigger.
As with all of his shots, this one found its mark. Flying straight and true, the feathered dart burrowed itself in the prostitute's long neck.
It was almost comical how similar the look of shock appeared on both Jedi, Zam, and the prostitute's faces.
Disbelieving, the girl reached up a finger and touched the protruding weapon. On cue, her eyes skipped over Jango, who she did not see on the hidden ledge, and lighted on Zam, who stood tall on the roof.
Her eyes narrowed to slits as she hissed her dying words in Huttese. "Scum bounty hunter."
And then the prostitute was no more. The skin of the beautiful young woman melted away to reveal the shriveled green Clawdite beneath, enormous lime eyes flung open and glazed.
So it was over.
On the ledge below, Jango slowly rose to his feet, still clutching the dart gun, as he stared at the Jedi taking the Clawdite's pulse.
If Zam hadn't watched it happen, she would not have believed it. He actually did it. Jango would have killed her.
What a fool she had been! To think that she had actually believed…
Had actually wanted…
She didn't realize she was crying until she tasted the bit of salt on her tongue. Stunned, she touched a tear with her fingertips. She couldn't remember the last time she had cried.
She knew he had his priorities. He had to protect himself. He had to protect his son.
It still stung like a whip when she realized she had never been one of his priorities.
Jango said something into the wind in a quiet murmur. She couldn't make out what it was, but she thought she heard her name. She dropped down flat against the roof and buried her face in her arms, pleading to whatever god existed that he had not seen her.
He had not. Eyes shut, form returned to that of the now dead Twi`lek prostitute, Zam listened to the sound of his jet pack igniting. She was still until the noise disappeared into the hubbub of the late night Coruscant commute.
She was still even after.
The air in her lungs had disappeared again.
"Hey, you!"
She whirled, eyes wide. The lekku on her head smacked against the roof as the security guard came forward, flashlight held out threateningly.
"This roof is off limits," the rotund human growled, marching forward. "What are you doing up here?"
He was ugly, short, and fat, with an unkempt five o'clock shadow, and extremely greasy hair.
Perfect.
Shoving the feel of abandonment to the farthest corner of her mind, Zam began to act. She pouted her full Twi'lek lips and surreptitiously drew her already scandalous skirt a little above mid-thigh.
"I think I'm lost," she squeaked in her best innocent voice. The naturally sultry cadences of her Twi'lek vocal chords only added to the spell.
The security guard flushed, and blinked twice, obviously trying valiantly to deny his eyes staring at her thigh. He began to stammer a reply, but Zam interrupted.
"It was really scary up here all by myself," she murmured, rising from her position on the ground and coming towards him. "But now that you're here, sir, I feel much safer."
The guard flushed deeper, his mottled skin taking on the complexion of a hot tuantuan. Zam smirked inwardly. Men were so weak.
"J-Just doin' my job, m-miss," he stuttered. The hand holding the flashlight trembled.
Zam smiled sweetly. "I have a job too, sir. Know what it is?"
Sweat streamed down the guard's face, only adding to the already putrid scent of an unwashed body. "I c-could guess…"
"My clients tell me I'm very good at my job." Inside, she was caught between laughing at the guard's obvious want, and puking from her actions. This was the worst part of the job. "Would you like to find out? A…free ride, as we say?"
The guard had already dropped the flashlight and was in the process of unzipping his pants. Not much for words, this one.
This would usually be the point where Jango, hidden in the shadows, would shoot with deadly accuracy, and then the pair would continue on their way.
The thought of Jango made the left side of Zam's chest squeeze painfully, but she quickly dismissed the thought. Jango was gone, and she was dead. There would be no more thoughts of Jango Fett.
"You are a bright one," Zam giggled like that obnoxious fifth grader again and teasingly brushed the front of his pants with a finger. "You really want this, hmm?"
If the guard nodded much harder, his head would fall off his shoulders.
"Then I'll give it to you." Her hand hovered still over his pants. She counted to five, while she planned her moves in her head.
She'd give it to him, alright.
With a strike as fast as a snake, Zam's hand snapped out and fairly ripped the guard's pride in two.
With a sharp yelp of pain and assorted Huttese curses, the man doubled over, retching.
Zam deftly grasped his general issue pistol from the holster and casually kicked him hard, breaking his knee.
Howling swears and heaving breaths, the guard rolled to the side, roaring at Zam. "You little…"
With a short pop of the blaster, the guard fell back, eyes wide in a mix of shock and death.
"Nothing personal," Zam smirked, quickly stripping the dead guard of his shirt and utility belt. As she negotiated a stubborn cuff from one fat wrist, she noticed the tarnished wedding ring.
Her nose wrinkled in disgust. "I probably did her a favor." What kind of a creep would be willing to sleep with another woman when he had a perfectly good wife at home? Someone who loved him and trusted him?
The guard's shirt fit her more like a dress, just above the knee. Zam secured it around her waist with the belt and holstered the standard issue blaster. Not exactly a fashion statement, and it stank, but it would have to do.
Securing the Twi'lek's veil around her blue face, Zam made her way down the steps into a small raucous pub. Not as big as the Outlander, but definitely with rougher characters. She was sure she recognized a Dug in the corner booth from a wanted poster on Dantooine.
Unnoticed from the dank smell on her outfit, and the slight bit of weight she put on for safety, Zam slipped right out the front door, easily snitching a drunk Neimoidian's purse.
Marching down Corscant's street, Zam couldn't help but glance around her now and then. She knew she was being paranoid—the two Jedi and Jango were long gone by now. But she hadn't made it in this business for close to fifteen years by being careless.
She spotted the speeder store immediately, and quickened her pace to the door. She stopped when she realized it was closed.
Now what?
Struck with an idea, she secured the coins in the stolen purse and rocketed down the street towards the space port. With enough money to buy a speeder, she could certainly hitch a ride on a craft.
Almost running over a Geonosian in her haste, Zam spilled out onto the space port, green eyes scanning each ship.
She found her answer in a small craft being loaded by a pair of scruffy looking Ithorians. She sprinted forward and spilled inside just as the bay doors were shutting.
The Ithorians gurgled in surprise at the sudden appearance of a Twi'lek girl in their cargo bay.
Zam ignored them and held out a handful of credits. "Where you headed?"
The stunned pilot glanced first at her, then at his co-pilot, who shrugged and quickly scooped up the proffered credits as he made a low reply.
Zam nodded. "Geonosis? Funny, me too, what a coincidence."
No more questions asked, the Ithorians fired up the engines of the small craft and rocketed into space.
Zam propped herself up against a crate of what smelled like spice as they zoomed away. Geonosis. No one would look for her on Geonosis. That desert rock at the farthest reaches of the galaxy was definitely the place to go if you didn't want to be found.
And she did not want to be found. Not by the Jedi, not by the Republic, not by anyone.
Not by Jango.
"How long until we get there?"
The pilot gurgled in his own language, "A good twenty four hours at lightspeed and without stellar flares. Now, shut up, I want to hear no more of you for the remainder of the journey."
Zam ignored the latter part of his sentence. Twenty four hours.
She looked out the window at the quickly shrinking Coruscant, where she had left it all behind. Her uniform, her blaster, her life.
Jango.
It existed no more.
She expected a feeling of cleansing, catharsis, a sense of freedom. She was dead. She could be anyone she wanted to be. She could start over.
All she felt was numb.
"It will get better in time," she murmured quietly to herself. "Things always have a habit of fixing themselves in the morning."
There was that taste of salt again. That absence of matter in the left side of her chest. That missing wind.
The Ithorians in the cockpit glanced behind them at the sudden harsh sob that racked the Twi'lek girl's body. She lay curled on a crate of spice, balled up and crying as though she had been beaten. Her pretty face was buried in her arms.
The co-pilot's gaze softened as he looked on the girl in their cargo bay. "Wonder what happened to her."
"Abusive boyfriend probably," the pilot answered, staring fixedly into space as he readied the hyperdrive. "Always the same with these girls."
The co-pilot looked into his lap, before glancing back at the sobbing Twi'lek. "She's crying as though her heart's been broken."
"This is exactly why I don't have a mate," the pilot growled, pulling the lever. "Nothing but pain."
The craft shot away into the stillness of space as Zam softly cried herself to sleep, and the Ithorians pondered the unfairness of love.
FIN.
A/N: TA-DAA! The fruit of many hours of brain-wracking plotting! :D I might continue this, Zam's survival changes the entire fate of the Fett family, but that depends on your reviews!
