Lies
She could not hide anything from him. He knew that she was a bad liar.
Once, on Dantoine, she told him that she would just take a walk. The truth was: she intended to go back to the Sublevel to find something. She didn't know that she was being followed.
She opened the large Sublevel doors. It was getting dark. Since Mical had told her that more laigreks come out at night, she knew that she would better be more careful. Vibroblade in hand, she crept.
As she neared the Archive doors, she saw something shiny on the floor. It was her ring. "It must have slipped from my finger as we fought those pests," she thought. She slipped it on her finger and got ready to move on. Though it was just an ordinary gold ring, it wasn't ordinary at least for her.
Suddenly, she heard the sound of multiple clicking feet behind her. Laigrek feet!
She swung her vibroblade behind her. The laigrek was cut in half. She always knew where to strike. But her moment of triumph didn't last. A few minutes later, a dozen laigreks came to her from all directions, surrounding her. Just as one laigrek was about to pounce on her, it crumpled to the floor. Blaster shots rained on the laigreks.
"Run!" a his voice called to her.
"Atton!" She recognized him as she chopped another laigrek.
Both of them sped through the hallway, Atton blasting the laigreks that they meet on the way. At last they made it to the exit, both of them gasping for breath.
She was about to thank him, when he yelled: "Just what do you think you're doing?! You could have gotten me killed in there!"
"I'm sorry. It won't happen again."
He always shook her sense of control. But later as she meditated in the Starboard chamber in the Ebon Hawk, she remembered him. He did save her life.
"Thank you...for saving me." She said when she came to him in the cockpit.
"No problem," he said nonchalantly as he lay back on his seat. He didn't even turn to her. She was about to leave when he asked, "Why is that thing so important anyway?"
She raised her ring finger. "You mean this?...It's nothing."
He turned his chair around coming in her full view. "Really? Oh well, I guess you could say that, since you almost fed yourself to the laigreks because of it."
She turned away. It was obvious that she was lying. She conceded. "This was given to be by someone I..." She tried to force a smile, but her eyes were getting watery. "Well, let's just say that this...this is the only thing that reminds me that...at least one...someone...loved me." She laboriously said those words as she tried to suppressed her tears. She didn't want him to see her like that. She wasn't accustomed to crying. For her, that is weakness. Yet that question and its answer somehow hit a weak vital spot in her that she hid for a long time. "I'm sorry. It's just that...I didn't know that it still hurts. Well, at least a bit."
She was about to walk away when his gloved hand reached for hers. She was astounded. So was he. He wouldn't let go. His hands were warm. She had thought that he was going to kiss her when he released her hand, and awkwardly said, "Sorry. None of my business anyway. Forget I said anything."
She tried to hide her story from him but she couldn't. She tried meditating in Kreia's room, but too many questions lingered in her mind. Has she really moved on? Did the person who she followed most of her life still had the power to hurt her as he did? Was she at least allowed to turn to someone, especially someone who she knows nothing about? She had never allowed herself to think about her feelings until recently. Most of her life, she knew that she was unhappy, but she had always used her unhappiness to understand the unhappiness of others, and in the process, work to help them find their happiness. Yet, she somehow wanted to know more about Atton. She also wanted to him to know her story, without her telling him. She rubbed her ring.
"Are you thinking about the one who gave that to you?" asked Kreia from the shadows. She could always read her mind, though she couldn't read everything that she was thinking.
She didn't answer.
"After he made you destroy all those Jedi at Malachor, and turned against you, you still love him. And now you follow him, hoping that that his tracks would lead you to the Sith-"
"I don't know if I still love him." She stood up. She didn't want to be examined by Kreia, especially at that moment. "But I can't forget about him."
"And the fool?"
She thought for a moment. She knew that that cannot be; she had cared for someone else. She finally gathered the strength to answer: "I don't care much about him."
"Are you sure?"
She paused for a while, but she had to say, "Yes."
"Well then, perhaps I was mistaken."
"About what?"
"Nothing." Kriea's answer was cryptic as usual, but it seems that she understood what and who Kreia meant.
As she walked out the door, she nearly bumped into the fool himself. She knew that he heard everything.
At first, his face was blank, then he shrugged nonchalantly saying, "Nah, don't worry, I don't care about you either. I just thought of kissing you to shut you up. Maybe I just wanted to see you naked. It doesn't matter. Joke's on y-?"
Slap! In the next moment, there was a red palm mark on his face. It seemed that she didn't hurt him at all.
"I hate you!" she cried as she ran away. She knew that she didn't mean it, but it looked like he believed her.
In life, there are at least three things that one cannot hide: cough, poverty and love. But he was able to hide love.
"You're good," said Mical as he and Atton were repairing couplings in the Engine room. "How can you pretend to not love someone when you do love someone?"
Atton looked at him squarely. "Kid, a lie isn't a lie anymore if someone else knows about it."
Mical placed his screw down. "But how do you do it?"
"Endure it. Just watch and learn." Atton threw his gloves away and took a red coal-like crystal from his pocket. "See, this is a crystal that I got took from her." He held it firmly with his right hand. "It's really hot, in fact, it's burning my hand, but I'm enduring the pain."
Mical examined him. It didn't look like he was in pain. He was even smiling. He must be lying, he thought. "It's not hot at all."
Atton's smile grew wider. "See for yourself." He handed the crystal to him.
The minute it touched his hand, he felt it burn his skin. He yelped in pain as he threw it away. As he tried to shake the heat away, he saw Atton's hand. It had second degree burns.
"Joke's on you," said the scoundrel.
Later, he was silent as he treated Atton's hand. "He's really good," he thought. Atton groaned a bit as Mical applied medicine, but he controlled himself. Then he smiled and said, "The principle is the same with love."
"You're not going to tell her?"
"No. I'll tell her."
She went to the square once more. Once, she Kreia taught her to hear Nar Shadaa there. As she closed her eyes, she could hear everything once more. Nar Shadaa was alive. She could hear everything, but everything can't hear her. That was both her blessing and curse. Only a few wanted to hear her, since she was one that the galaxy sought to erase.
She heard him. As always, he was playing pazaak as he leaned on the rails beside her. They had long forgiven each other, dismissed their "quarrel" (as some might call it) as if it never happened. She found herself thinking more of him. He always followed her.
Once, he taught her how to play pazaak in her mind. Every time she played pazaak, she always played it with him. There, at least she was safe for a while. But at that moment, what was he trying to hide from her? She thought.
She could hear him think even after she opened her eyes. "Plus minus one card. Draw a plus minus two card. Stand."
"That indeed makes twenty." She said out loud to him. "Are you done with your game?"
"Nope. I still have to win one more round." He sighed. "You know, I really wouldn't have to say anything, since you know everything I am thinking."
"Not everything." She looked at him directly in his eyes.
He looked away. "Trust me, you wouldn't want to know."
It was getting late. They started walking back to the ship. They were nearing the platform when he asked, "Do you want to know a secret in becoming a good liar?"
"Maybe." She smiled.
He knew that that means a "yes." "When you lie, you need to be consistent. If someone questions your story, insist that it is true."
"Do you do that when you're with me?"
"All the time."
She stopped asking questions.
That night, of both them lay on the cockpit: he reclining on the pilot's seat, and she recling on the co-pilot's seat. The middle controls functioned as their divider.
Atton stared at the controls above him. He stopped playing pazaak. He heard her stir. "Are you asleep?"
She stirred once more but she didn't answer. He knew that she wasn't asleep.
"I'll say this as if you were asleep: Sometimes, when someone doesn't figure out that you're lying, you can believe that your lie is true." He paused, struggling to continue. "As for me, I'll believe that who I am now with you is true. But I am also someone else. Perhaps if I tell you, would you still think of me?"
She stirred again. "Don't get up. Insist that you are asleep. So no one will find out that you are lying."
No sound came from her direction. She lay still.
"And one more thing: I love you." He laughed bitterly. "Now that's a lie."
After that, he never said anything else.
She heard everything. Somehow, she had always known that he loved her. She wanted to say the same thing to him. But she can never tell him. She pretended to be fooled by his lie as he pretended to be fooled by hers.
She has become a liar like him.
The End
A/N: The Exile's name here is Aranel, but for some weird fancy of mine, I chose not to put her name here.
I'm thinking of writing a sequel where they would tell the truth, where there will be no blur between lying and telling the truth. Not yet sure how that will go though. Otherwise, the ending that this story will get perhaps will be the sad cut ending in the game where Atton dies. I'm not sure if I want that more, or the other lighter one.