#10: "Well, it's not the men in your life that counts, it's the life in your men."
I'm no angel, 1933

As she sat at his breakfast table and watched him go about his morning routine of being an administrator for a mining colony in the atmosphere of a gas giant, Mara couldn't help but wonder what made this man so important that her master would send her all this way to assassinate him. He was ordinary. More than that, he was common. Full of... commitment. It was odd.

Odder still, she'd found herself questioning her Lord Emperor ever since arriving on Bespin and meeting him. What made him so important?

He glanced over at her, smiled once, and she wanted to return the smile. Was it the charisma her Master hated? Because... that part was kind of endearing. Kind of.

"Lady Jade, can I get you something to eat?" Lando asked after a long moment, waiting for her to do something more than sit there.

She could add caring to the list, and suddenly remembered she was wearing his bathrobe. Standing up, she shook her head. "I need to go change."

"How about after?"

She hesitated again. "Perhaps." Mara could feel his eyes on her backside as she retreated to retrieve her discarded clothing. In his room, she allowed herself a moment of weakness and leaned against the wall. Maybe it wasn't as simple as it looked. Maybe her Master had seen something terrible somewhere down the line in one of those vision things of his. Did it matter?

In an instant of remembered sensations and that first touch which had broken through her defenses like a hammer to a nail, Mara shook her head. No. No, it didn't matter. This was one life, of one man, who cared for others, that she was not going to end. Would not. Could not.

Shedding the bathrobe, she quickly donned the clothing she'd been wearing the night before, and took a deep breath. The weight was still there in the back of her mind, an ever-present reminder that her life was not her own. That her choices would have untold consequences if discovered. Had he been able to see through the lie? Did he know? It was impossible to tell and impossible to know.

She rejoined him in the common area of his suite, and her eyebrows went up at the food set out on the table. "I'm not hungry."

Lando smiled at her, gestured to a chair. "Well, I am. Join me, Lady Jade?"

"Would that please you, Administrator?"

"It would."

"Then I guess I'll just have to make you happy and join you." She sat down in the chair he offered, and then sat across from her. Mara stared at him, finding it hard to believe that he'd be so genteel to a woman he knew had been sent to kill him. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

Lando paused for a long moment, looking back at her, before setting her wrist sheath on the table. "Because you could have used this at any time. You didn't. You can have it back now, Mara."

"What if I don't want it?"

"Your choice."

It all came back to a choice, didn't it? Between this moment and the next... choices. Trust. He was trusting her to choose correctly. Testing her. Slowly, she pushed it back toward him. "Keep it, Calrissisan."

"You're sure?"

Mara frowned at him. "Yes... and no."

"Good enough." He gestured to the food between them. "Eat?"

Wanting to sigh deeply, Mara joined him for the morning meal. Caring... trusting... compassionate... committed. It was a riddle, the case of this man. The life of this man wasn't something she was willing to trade to her master's game of dark politics. If someone had asked her six months ago if she'd be sitting here now with an intended victim eating breakfast rather than leaving the planet as soon as possible after doing her duty, Mara would have laughed in their faces.

The wrist sheath with her hold-out blaster in it stayed on his dining room table for months...