A/N: This chapter was co-authored by xenzen.
Common Ground
Chapter 9 – Tug of War (Part Two)
Morgana morosely shoved her mounder potato rice around her plate while Brell told her stories about his time off planet in the Corellian/Kuat engineering exchange program. She and Brell were sitting in a candle-lit corner booth of the Emerald Room, eating a very expensive dinner. With Brell's Corellian status pronounced loudly with his min min earring, they didn't have any problems with the wait staff, who brought their bland and overpriced food promptly.
Brell's min min earring, for the first time ever, also announced that he was in an exclusive relationship. Morgana knew she ought to be flattered because Brell was clearly making an effort to please her and make this night special. So she desperately tried to enjoy their dinner. With all of the candles, the stringed music, and the expensive wine, it should have been romantic.
Instead, it was downright awful.
Normally, Morgana would have been delighted to hear about all of the interesting projects that Brell was working on. Since he specialized in drive systems on large Corellian cruisers, it was an area of knowledge that she didn't normally have exposure too, and she usually found it fascinating. But as she half listened to his stories, she couldn't help but wonder about how much of his life he had edited out for her benefit. Over the five months he'd been gone, she'd heard rumors through the gossip mill about several women. It should have hurt badly, but instead she was discovering that she simply didn't care anymore.
But what she did care about was how hurt Carth had looked when he had stalked off. In fact, she couldn't stop thinking about Carth, period. About how much she'd missed him this week, about how special he made her feel, about how well he treated her, and about how much she simply wanted him. It was impossible not to notice the differences between Carth and Brell, and she was quickly realizing that she really didn't want to be here with Brell at all.
Brell paused and looked at her expectantly. Morgana looked up and realized that she had no idea what he had just said. She made a vague, non-committal sound to cover the fact that she hadn't been listening, but Brell was not fooled.
"You haven't heard a word I've said, have you?"
Morgana just looked at him sheepishly. "I'm sorry…"
"You're thinking about him, aren't you? Blast it, Ana! Tonight was supposed to be about us."
Morgana asked the question that had been nagging her since they'd arrived at the restaurant tonight. "Brell, why did you take me to the Emerald Room?"
"I thought you liked this place."
"I don't. I never have." Morgana shoved her plate away, giving up on the pretense of eating. "Do you think we could go somewhere else?"
Brell waved his hand and rolled his eyes. "Oh, Ana, stop being irrational."
She looked around at the elite of Corellian society, and couldn't help but feel completely out of place. "It makes me feel uncomfortable."
"Our dinner is half finished. Besides, it's important that we be seen here."
Morgana shook her head in frustration. Brell's social climbing ambition was one of the things that they'd disagreed about the most in the past, and she'd wanted absolutely no part of it. She'd hoped that his time on Kuat had changed his attitude.
"Zana and Mhir are out there schmoozing the grant board right now! They know how important respectable appearances are. You know that we need to be making the right impression now that we're getting close to graduation. It might be important in the future, especially when it comes to future job possibilities."
Morgana was extremely skeptical about that. "You think people are going to care about where we have dinner?"
"Of course they will! You know I'm trying to get a job teaching at the university. It's important that I'm seen as respectable. Going down to Treasure Ship Row or to those races that you like so much would be frowned upon by the people we need to impress."
"I can't believe that they would care about what I do with my own free time."
The patronizing look on Brell's face spoke volumes. "It matters, Ana. Talent can only take you so far, and then it comes down to who you know and whether they like you. I wish you'd listen to me. You should be spending just as much time making contacts and impressing people as you do on your engine. If you're not careful, you're going to be overlooked. In fact, you should be trying to impress Obrin more, especially with that grant coming up."
While Morgana was willing to be polite and put up with Professor Obrin, she would never actually schmooze the way Brell did. Not only did she find the idea distasteful, but she knew that she simply didn't have the social skills to pull it off. Teaching his classes and putting up with his mind-numbingly boring lectures about staying focused was bad enough – she couldn't actually imagine how awful it would be to actively socialize with him.
"My work speaks for itself."
"But you should be out there selling yourself, showing off your talent, making the right friends, and being with the right people." He frowned and looked directly at her. "And being with a pilot is not something that would gain you anything. But you and I… we're perfect for each other."
A horrible suspicion snuck through Morgana. "Is that why you're with me, Brell? Because I'm one of the right people? Are you with me because having an engineer girlfriend makes you look good?"
He looked genuinely hurt by her question. "No, Ana! I love you! You have to know that."
While he sounded sincere, Morgana was becoming more and more convinced that this wasn't the case. There had always been a part of her that wondered if Brell's interest had a lot more to do with the fact that she was an engineer, rather than actually liking her. When they had first started going out, people had commented on how the two engineering students were the perfect couple, and he had reveled in it.
"Would you still love me if I were a barmaid or an actress or an artist?"
Brell set down his utensils and slid up next to her, draping his arm across her shoulders. "You're being silly again. You know you mean everything to me."
"Is that because I'm an engineer, or because you like me?"
Exasperated, and missing the point entirely, Brell said, "You are an engineer."
"But there's more to me than just that! Is that the only reason you like me?"
He cupped her chin in his hand and looked her in the eyes. It took her a second before she realized that the physical attraction she'd once felt for him had faded away.
Brell, however, did not pick up on this, and plowed ahead. "We're perfect for each other. You have to see that. We're both engineers, we're both brilliant, and we're both Corellian. And once we get married-"
Horrified, Morgana's eyes grew wide, and she flushed. "W-what?" she managed to get out, even though she was nearly dumbfounded.
"I want to marry you, Ana. I've wasted too much time as it is. Graduation is coming up in a few more months, and it would be the perfect time for the two of us to settle down, me with my job at the university, and you with the Vanush grant."
The way that he took her acquiescence completely for granted on something this life-altering rankled the hell out of her, but she had to admit that his attitude was partially her own fault – she had caved so many times in the past just to please him that it was hardly surprising that he took her feelings for granted.
Well, not anymore.
"Brell, those aren't reasons to get married."
"Of course they are! I know you were sowing your wild oats with this pilot, and I forgive you for that. I was doing the same thing while I was gone, but now that we're back together, it's time to get serious. Marriage is the next logical step."
Morgana scooted back in her seat and out of his arms. "Brell, you don't love me. You think you're supposed to love me so you put up with me."
"That's not true!"
But Morgana knew exactly what she meant. For the first time in two years, she was seeing the situation with perfect clarity. It was strangely liberating, horrifying, and frightening all at the same time.
"And that's why you wanted to see other people on Kuat, because you were looking for something that you couldn't get from me. Think about it. Other than engineering, we don't even like the same things." Nabat's words about how Morgana had settled for Brell because he was convenient and easy rang loudly in her mind. "Our parents, your friends, our professors… they all expect us to be together. I think we just followed along."
"So what are you saying? That you're not going to marry me?"
Morgana looked at him for a long moment, wondering how someone so brilliant could be so amazingly dense. She swallowed and gathered her nerves, preparing to spell it out for him, and even though she knew it was necessary, it didn't make it any less hard.
"That's exactly what I'm saying. It's over, Brell."
Brell's hazel eyes grew wide, and his jaw dropped in shock. "You're dumping me?"
Morgana nodded, and a huge, invisible burden lifted from her shoulders.
He backpedaled, trying to do some damage control. "Okay. Maybe I'm taking it a bit too fast. I know I've made mistakes, but I can make it up to you."
"Brell…"
He grabbed her hands. "Please, just give me another chance!"
As gently as she could, she pulled her hands away. "I don't love you anymore, Brell. I want to be with him."
"How can you choose him over me? He's just an arrogant, ignorant pilot!" he hissed, struggling to keep his voice low even though he was furious. While she felt extremely guilty, the rational part of her mind was very happy this conversation was happening in a public place, since it prevented Brell from yelling and screaming.
"No, he's not. He's wonderful and thoughtful…"
…and everything you're not.
While it was the truth she wanted to say, she held back because it just seemed too mean. Instead, she said, "I've been incredibly stupid."
"How can you be so blind? Think about what everyone will say! What will your family think?"
Dread filled Morgana, because she knew that her family would be livid about Carth.
But that's a problem for another day.
She stood and put her napkin on the table, knowing that any further conversation with Brell would be pointless.
Brell's tone became downright nasty as he spat, "If you leave, that's it, Ana. Don't come crawling back after he dumps you when he ships out."
"I'm sorry," she said, and walked out of the restaurant.
She felt guilty, because she knew that she'd hurt him badly, but she also felt hugely relieved that she had finally figured this mess out. She boarded the nearby tram quickly, in case Brell decided to change his mind and stop her from leaving, and headed for the military base, hoping to find Carth.
Carth half-walked, half-stumbled through the door of the Singing Gamorrean, the fourth bar they had gone to that night, and the entire cantina fell silent as everyone in the bar turned and stared at the three young pilots in the entryway. This particular bar was almost completely devoid of non-human sentients, and Carth could tell that the patrons were overwhelmingly Corellian by their their min min earrings and the unfriendly stares that they focused on their flight jumpsuits. A trio of burly men at the bar, wearing greasy and dingy tech uniforms, were clearly thinking about whether or not they should toss the three young Republic officers out on their backsides.
Good. Come on, you bastards! Start something!
"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, Carth. Let's go somewhere else," Jordo said, frowning back at the men at the bar as he tried to steer Carth out the door.
But Carth didn't want to go somewhere else. The reason he'd insisted that they come to this particular bar was because he wanted a fight. The waitress at the last bar had warned them that the patrons of the Singing Gamorrean tended to be very anti-Republic, and Carth in his brandy-soaked judgment had decided that a fight was just what they needed, and he hoped that someone would be stupid enough to start something. He was desperate to take out his frustration and anger and aggression out on someone, because he was tired of doing the mature thing of holding it all inside.
Carth shook Jordo off. "No. I want to stay."
Jordo shook his head in exasperation, but he didn't say anything further.
Unfortunately, they must have looked like they weren't worth the bother to hassle, because other than several scathing looks, no one tried to cause any trouble with them. It was extremely disappointing. If they wanted trouble, they were just going to have to cause it themselves, and Carth simply didn't have the heart to pick a fight with some poor, unsuspecting person for no reason.
Jordo, Dustil and Carth made their way to a back corner of the cantina, next to the bar, and settled around a wobbly, grimy table that looked like it had been broken in half and patched together a couple of times. Dustil was at least as drunk as Carth, and he teetered a bit before finally managing to take a seat. Jordo, who had always been the responsible one of the threesome, and shamefully almost sober, sat between the two of them gingerly, his backside still sore from his brand-new tattoo.
Carth sat down and leaned back in the chair, figuring that it was a good thing that he was drunk, otherwise his back would still be tender from the trip the three of them had just made to a nearby tattoo parlor. Dustil had been nagging Jordo and Carth to get matching tattoos of their squadron insignia for years, and on account of their rather drunken state, something they had been reluctant to do before had now become a very good idea.
While they waited for one of the scantily clad human waitresses to serve them, Dustil decided to continue gifting Carth with his sage wisdom and romantic advice, which he had been spouting all night long. Considering that a month and a half was the longest Dustil had ever been with the same girl, Carth decided to ignore his friend's advice.
Dustil spoke in the slow, deliberate manner that only someone who was very drunk could manage. "So, as I was saying, you should forget about her."
"I don't want to forget about her," Carth protested, knowing that forgetting about Morgana Drayson would be next to impossible now anyway.
"Onasi, you've got the kind of smile that makes women's panties melt. Hell, you could have any girl you want." Dustil waved his arm in the direction of the bar, where several women were smiling and looking at the pilots appreciatively. "Why the hell are you wasting your time on her?"
Because she's special. Because she's smart, and interesting, and beautiful, and sexy. Because she worries about me when I fly. Because when we're apart, I can't wait to see her again. Because I've never felt this way about anyone before.
None of those were observations he was willing to share with Dustil. Instead, he just stared morosely at the wall, wishing the waitress would hurry up because he needed another drink badly. He was going to need more liquor if he was going to have to endure much more of Dustil's advice.
"She doesn't care about you. Hell, she's probably in bed with her asshole boyfriend right now-"
Carth's hands balled into fists so tightly that his knuckles turned white. Jordo glared at Dustil and snapped, "Damn, Dustil, will you give it a rest already?"
"I was just trying to help."
Jordo pointed out what should have been obvious to Dustil. "Well, you're not. So shut the hell up."
"All right. Fine. Whatever." Dustil crossed his arms sullenly and pouted.
"Don't listen to him, Carth. He's an idiot."
"Yeah, he is. But what if he's right?" The jealousy that Carth had been trying to drown in alcohol all night long swam to the surface.
Jordo tried to do some damage control. "I saw the way she looked at you. She cares about you a lot. I don't think she's the kind of girl who would just jump back into bed with that guy."
Unless she's still in love with him…
For the millionth time that night, the horrible fear that he was losing her swamped him. Afraid that Dustil might open his big mouth again, and deciding that he needed a distraction of the alcoholic variety, Carth stood, steadied himself on the table, and headed to the bar. People steered clear of him, moving away and glaring at him as he approached, but Carth managed to order drinks and got back to their table, when the trouble he'd been looking for all night found him.
The man stepped directly into his path so quickly that it was impossible for Carth's dulled reflexes to kick in fast enough to miss him. Cheap Corellian brandy sloshed all over the other man as Carth dropped the glasses onto the floor, where they shattered. Carth, momentarily forgetting that he wanted a fight, reflexively started to apologize.
It took him a second to realize that the man he'd bumped into was Brell. An angry flush crept under the Corellian's olive skin, and Carth's heart lifted, because Brell looked just as drunk and miserable as Carth felt, and if Brell was looking that miserable, then things couldn't have gone well with Morgana. Most importantly, if Brell was here, he wasn't in bed with her.
"You! I've been looking for you all night, you son-of-a-schutta! You poisoned her against me!"
That was the best thing Carth had heard all damn week. He couldn't stop the grin from spreading ear to ear.
The entire cantina fell silent. "Everything was fine, and then you came along and stole her from me! But I'm not going to just stand by and let some offworld, hotshot fighter jock steal her from me!" Brell's voice rose, and Carth realized that everyone in the cantina was watching them now. Brell had an extremely sympathetic audience in a bar filled almost entirely with burly and rough-looking Corellians, and he began to whip up the crowd.
"You Republic bastards come here and tell us how to live, tell us how to run our government, and steal our women. Are we just going to stand by and take this?"
When a chorus of "Hell, no!" came from the growing crowd of men, Carth realized that he was going to get the fight that he'd been desperate for, except that it looked like it wasn't going to be just one on one with Brell. The way it was going, it was going to be the three of them against the entire bar. Carth was just drunk enough to be looking forward to it.
Jordo, once again, was the lone voice of reason. "Whoa, now. Our trouble is with you, not anyone else. If you and Carth want to kick the hell out of each other, then you should take it outside."
One of the burly Corellian techs came over, followed by a few of his friends. He crossed his large, beefy arms across his chest, and stood behind a smirking Brell. "Our trouble is with all of you, chumani. We're tired of you Republics coming here and interfering with our business. And now you take our women. I think it's time to teach you flyboys a lesson."
Carth couldn't help it. He knew that he ought to be worried; it was the three of them against potentially the entire bar, and they were literally backed into a corner, but he smiled, because he was finally going to get the action he'd been itching for all damn week. He looked over at Dustil, who was cracking his knuckles and smiling menacingly. Jordo just looked resigned, because he knew Carth well enough to predict what was about to happen.
"Okay," was all Carth said before his fist hit Brell square in the jaw.
Pain spiked into Carth's hand, but the alcoholic haze and vicious satisfaction at seeing Brell knocked back with his lip split dulled it to a throbbing ache. As if his punch had started a human avalanche, the whole bar seemed to erupt into action as Brell staggered into the back of a large Corellian, who whirled around, knocking his drink onto someone's foot.
That was all he saw through his blurry perception, when Jordo pulled him back towards their corner table by the scruff of his collar, just as Carth tried to lurch forward to try to get to Brell through the bodies.
"Dammit, Carth, you idiot!" Jordo yelled into his ear, snapping out a kick at another Corellian who lunged at him. "You're going to get surrounded!"
"Leggo, Jordo!" Carth roared back, and wrenched himself out of Jordo's grasp, too angry and drunk to care.
Driven by anger to get at Brell whatever way he could, Carth pushed and shoved at bodies, hearing Jordo cursing behind him. Dustil had grabbed a chair by its back and was swinging it around, whooping as he hit Corellians right and left, the wood impacting flesh with loud meaty thuds.
The stale smoke and smell of sweat, of too many bodies in too small a space filled his nostrils as he panted, looking for Brell. Carth's boots crunched on broken glass, and his head throbbed in time to the beat of heavy music on the loudspeakers. He tried to fend off Corellians that kept barging into him, but fists and blows landed on his back and torso, and he was buffeted on all sides.
Frustration fueled his anger, and he hit back, not caring where his fists landed as long as he could shove through the crowd, looking for Brell.
Brell found him first, and a blow to the side of Carth's head staggered him, his vision spangling with stars. Carth had no time to recover as blow after blow hammered into him, and he couldn't see well enough to fight back.
Finally he gathered enough of his alcohol-sodden wits to drop into a defensive crouch, holding his arms in front of his face to block Brell's blows. Carth could feel blood dripping down his chin from a split lip, and aches all over his body, but so far the alcohol was numbing him to the pain.
It was also making him slow. When his vision finally cleared, more or less, Carth saw Brell's sneering face above him, and rage tinted his vision red as he lunged at the man.
And missed. Instead of grappling with Brell, Carth went past when Brell dodged and fell across a table, tilting it over and spilling him and what glasses and bottles were left on it to the floor. Glass shards cut into his hands as he fell to his hands and knees, and he slipped and slid in his frantic haste to get back up, his boots rolling on treacherous bottles and glasses.
You stupid idiot, Onasi! You can't even take on some university pretty boy?
A pair of rough hands grabbed his uniform by the shoulders and spun him around. The view revolved in Carth's sight more than it should, and his stomach lurched in protest. Brell's face filled his vision, and before Carth could get his arms up, Brell's fist smashed right into his face.
Carth bellowed as his nose broke, pain shooting like blaster bolts into his head, and he rocked back. Blood gushed from his nostrils down his chin and onto his uniform, and the metallic taste of it filled his mouth.
There was a split second before fireworks and static blocked his view of Brell, and he saw the shock on Brell's face. Carth swung wildly, flailing around in his desperation to get his eyes working again. He was panting harder now, and his broken nose made breathing difficult.
Dammit, Onasi, you're so wasted you can't even hit anything!
Before he could recover his sight, Brell grabbed him by the front of his flightsuit and heaved Carth forward. Carth's sight cleared just in time for him to see the surface of the scratched and scarred wooden bar hurtling towards his face.
Reflexive instinct made him throw out his arms, and the impact shuddered up his arms as his hands hit the edge of the bar, stopping him from hitting it face first, but both he and Brell had miscalculated.
Instead of smacking Carth's head down on the bar, Brell threw him forward too much, and Carth's momentum hurled him right over the side of the bar. Carth hit the floor on the other side belly first, and all the breath was knocked out of him.
If he'd been sober, Carth would've waited until he at least got his breath back, but he was drunk, so he grabbed up a fallen bottle and lunged back up and over the bar. And if he'd been sober, he wouldn't have hit his knee on the edge of the bar and tripped over it. He did manage to catch himself with his free hand, instead of pitching over onto the floor.
By luck, accident or design, Carth managed to swing the bottle directly onto Brell's head, breaking it and showering Pretty Boy with Sullustan gin. Teeth bared in a feral, triumphant grin, ignoring the pain as it stretched his split lip, Carth dropped the broken bottle and hopped off the bar.
Adrenaline and rage had cleared much of the brandy fog away from his head, and Carth advanced on a stunned Brell, blocking what he now realized were inexpert punches away with his arms. Brell looked shocked and scared as Carth slapped his fists away and began pummeling him in the gut instead of breaking his hands on Brell's skull. That first punch Carth threw had been a mistake, one his old instructor would've had him doing a hundred push-ups for; going for the skull guaranteed you broken knuckles, but the gut was a lot softer and a much bigger target.
Brell bent over, trying to protect his midsection, unable to catch his breath because Carth kept punching him in the solar plexus. Carth threw an uppercut that snapped Brell's head up, grabbed his shoulders and stepped right into Brell's space, bringing his knee up into Brell's crotch.
A mewl escaped Brell's bloody mouth, and he collapsed into a flaccid pile, holding himself and rolling on the glass-strewn floor.
Let's see you try
and touch Morgana now, Pretty Boy.
First off a big huge thank you to xenzen who wrote the entire bar fight at the end of this chapter, and for betaing these last two chapters for me. She's been graciously allowing me to suck up all of her free time, and I owe her greatly for that.
And again, thanks for the feedback everyone. Letting me know what you liked and what you didn't like, what worked and what didn't work is extremely helpful.
