I made a point not to see Atton or Kreia for an entire day. After this, I felt calm again – or rather, calm for me – and I ventured out from that room to forage for something to eat. I hoped that we would reach Telos soon, and it was anyone's guess when we would be able to eat again after that happened.

With me, it was hard to tell which days were going to be good and which were going to be bad.

Atton emerged from the cockpit at the sound of my pattering footsteps against the cool metal, almost as if he'd been waiting for me.

I stiffened as he took me in, and, just like before, his eyes couldn't quite reach my eyes in time for me not to feel flushed.

He sighed then, looking away, and he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Look, uh…" He let out a heavy sigh. "About before…"

"We don't have to talk about it," I said, brushing it aside.

Actually, I didn't want to. At all.

He hesitated now. He'd been expecting something different, but not this.

"If I hurt you, I'm sorry," he said.

His eyes found the wrist he'd twisted. Absently, my second hand had been rubbing it, and I dropped them both to my side.

"It's nothing at all, Atton, really."

I smiled good naturedly at him.

"I know it was just an accident," I said. "We all have instincts. Some are hard to break." I let out the tension from my chest by laughing. "I shouldn't have hit you."

He looked dumbfounded.

"I absolutely deserved it!" he said loudly, taking a few steps into the room.

"Still shouldn't have hit you," I said, shaking my head and turning to the small little kitchenette off to the side of the hallway. I leaned over into the cabinet and found a bag of milk, which I tore open and sucked on greedily.

"I, uh…" He cleared his throat uncomfortably, clearly out of place.

I knew what that was like too.

I glanced over my shoulder and all at once stopped thinking of how good the milk tasted on my dry lips. His head searched the floor for answers, and I saw that guilt had kept him awake. He looked as disheveled as he had been when I'd first found him.

I felt bad. I knew that look, standing there in the silence, incapable of understanding what was being said around you for fear it wasn't real.

"Hey, Atton, come on," I said, walking over to him. "Don't worry about it, alright? Things happen. I have…violent…reactions too. As you noticed."

We met eyes and laughed together, both sheepish but for different reasons, I was sure.

"I shouldn't have prodded you like that though," he said. "I was an ass."

I smiled over my milk, which hung suspended just below my lips.

"True," I said, before resuming guzzling for a moment. "But that doesn't mean I shouldn't have held back." I shook my head at myself. "For being not a Jedi, I'm certainly a bad Jedi."

He laughed appreciatively, and I could tell this kind of humor would draw him out of his slump.

"Besides," I said, "I can't imagine being dragged into all of this has put me in your good books." My smile faded a little now. "I actually am really sorry about that."

He shrugged.

"Not your fault," was all he said, turning away to rifle through the cabinets. "What is all this junk?"

"Rations," I said plainly. "Not much left. Want some milk?"

He nodded and I handed it to him to finish.

"How do you know where everything is?" he asked over his shoulder.

"I've told you," I said. "Been on this ship before."

"This is the ship you crashed in, right?"

"Yeah," I said. "In all her glory."

"And you went fighting all the way into the jungle to find this scrap heap?"

"Hey!" I said, laughing. "It's not so bad. Kept together this far. She won't fail us yet. Besides, she's fast, and she has a particularly useful feature underneath the hood. Something a smuggler might like, but I'm sure you wouldn't be interested in that."

He stood tall now.

"Really?" he asked, flipping around.

His face assumed the features of a little boy who'd just gotten his first speeder as a surprise.

"That's amazing! Would you show it to me?"

"Sure," I said, raising my hand to beckon to him.

He followed, and I retreated further into the ship to the cargo hold. I noticed he kept a good distance away from me out of respect, and I was glad for it.

"Look," I said, pointing. "There's a false bottom over there."

He went past me delicately and found the place I indicated before lifting the hatch. He smiled victoriously.

"Wow, that's a big hold!" he said, hopping down into it.

I nodded, smiling lightly.

He leaned down into it, and his eyes looked a little sad now.

"What did you carry here?"

"All kinds of things," I said. "Mostly…" I cleared my throat. "Medical supplies or food. During the war. There were often quarantines or embargoes on restricted sectors. Apparently didn't stop this sucker." I patted the wall gently as I heard him come back up.

"What about recently?" he asked.

I shrugged.

"People," I said.

There was a silence.

"People?" he asked. "Or you?"

I would not be saddened, not that day. I'd had my fill of crying.

"Why can't they be the same?" I asked, shrugging and making my way back to the main hold. "I'm part of people."

"Not to some, you wouldn't be," he said back.

I laughed.

"That's true," I said. "Thus, the smuggling bay."

Another silence.

"You're very strange for a Jedi," he said finally.

"Look, I'm not a Jedi," I said gently. "Okay? So you can lay off with the 'innocent Jedi routine.'" I laughed before taking a seat on the counter to converse with him. "Doesn't help anyone much."

"So…what does that mean?" he asked cautiously.

"What does what mean?" I asked, furrowing my brow a little.

"You being innocent."

"Oh," I said, blushing a little. "Well, I've been to your beloved Red Sector, if that's any indication."

He looked like he'd been slapped. I shouldn't have been amused, but I was.

"You've been to the Red Sector?" he found himself asking.

I couldn't hide a sound of disgust, despite my mirth.

"I've been all over that stinking planet," I said back. "All over this galaxy, in the Republic…out of the Republic."

I sighed, leaning my head back onto the cool metal cupboard behind me. I closed my eyes and rolled my head there, just resting, just feeling so…calm with it.

"What do you mean 'out of the Republic?'" he asked tentatively.

"What do you think it means?" I asked.

He was silent.

Leave me alone, my mind snapped viciously. Get away from me and leave me alone! No more questions!

But I kept this panic at bay.

He was silent with the implications of this statement, but he didn't question it again.

We both knew it meant with the Sith. Near Empire territory.

"Alright," he said, "I'm impressed. Now, I can officially say that I've found a Jedi that isn't absolutely terrible."

This wounded me, and I sat straighter.

"Seriously, what do you have against Jedi?" I asked edgily now. "I don't get it."

He shook his head.

"Don't need to, oh holy traveler of paths not walked," he said back, all guilt gone. "You and that preacher back there really should make a Jedi Academy. If she can even last as long as Telos."

I sighed, feeling the bitterness again before closing my eyes.

"Look, ease off the insults, okay?" I rubbed my temples tiredly. "She was wounded helping us escape, remember?"

He paused again before making a sour kind of noise. I could tell he wasn't enjoying the new direction of this conversation.

"Whoa, all right, all right! Don't get mad at me!" I said nothing. "I didn't ask her to stay behind and get her hand cut off, okay?"

We sat in silence for a long time.

And my thoughts ached for being grounded like we had been just a few minutes ago, laughing and smiling. I pined for it. I needed it.

"Can I ask you some questions?" I asked tentatively.

A vicious scowl lit on his face now, and I recoiled.

"Oh, no, no, no," he snapped. "Look, I respect your privacy. I mean, when have I ever asked you any questions? I mean…besides that one?"

I sat stiffly, feeling horrified and embarrassed. I shouldn't have said anything. I was sorry I asked.

He could tell, and his eyes looked at me with such strange emotions that I shifted a little bit so that I didn't have to look at him.

We began to talk about the astrogation charts though. I didn't know how or why, but we did, and that was relaxing.

Until we talked about the voice print.

Until we talked about him.

So I asked about something else. Anything else.

The assassin droids.

"No more droid, no more problem," was all Atton said.

And I kept asking him things. They seemed like normal questions to me, questions an outsider asked an insider who didn't want to help.

But I saw the life in his eyes he answered, and my feeble response to the Force granted me a little understanding. He was thrilled to be helping me this way, talking me down from my own head.

Finally, I ran out of things to ask and he ran out of things to say. It had not been a long discourse, but it was longer than I'd had in years.

Awkwardly, I put my hands on my knees and slid off the counter. I'd go lay down maybe. Get away from the stress. Try to sleep. Maybe with the duress the nightmares would stay away. Besides, I felt calm right then. Less tumultuous than I had the last time I'd retreated to my quarters, that was for sure.

As I stepped across the threshold into the hallway, I heard him speak.

"What?" I asked, retreating closer to him to hear what he said more clearly.

"What happened?" he asked.

His voice was small. Cautious.

His question rang in my head. "When have I ever asked you any questions?" he'd asked.

Hypocrite.

"What are you talking about?" I asked weakly.

"Don't give me that," he said abrasively. "There were plenty of times back on Peragus where a lightsaber would have been helpful. So…where's yours? What happened to you?"

"It was…taken from me," I said numbly.

"By who?"

"By the Council," I said automatically.

I'd never talked about this. It had been such a long haul since then.

"Why?" he asked pointedly, as if to brush away any suggestion that he might actually care.

I could hear that he did.

"I, uh…" I put a hand to my forehead. I felt his eyes against my body and burned with shame. This discussion had quickly turned difficult.

"I was exiled," I said to him.

These felt like extremely intimate and personal questions.

"Why?" he asked again, crossing his arms.

I flushed.

"They told me I made a mistake," was all I said.

"What kind of mistake?"

"I fought in the wars."

"And they punished you?" he asked quietly, as if in awe. "They actually punished you for this?"

I faced the hallway again, unable and unwilling to meet his dark and sympathetic gaze.

"Yeah," I said, extending my hands against the screen to hold myself up. "Yeah, they…"

I heard the wavering in my voice.

"I'm sorry," I said abruptly, "I…I don't want to talk about this. I'm sorry. I can't…I…"

"Yes," he agreed, abruptly turning back to the console behind him. "Yes, of course."

He cleared his throat.

"I'm…sorry," he said sincerely. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." He made a noise. "Again."

I just sighed.

"It's okay," I said. "You deserve an answer."

He said nothing, which prodded my mouth to speak.

"Exiles aren't allowed to keep their lightsabers," I said to him wearily. "So mine was taken and here we are."

He scoffed again, but a little nicer this time.

"I thought a Jedi was supposed to married to their lightsaber. Guess I heard wrong."

He hadn't.

"Were you a single hilt or one of those double-bladed Jedi?"

I thought. It was a struggle, wading through all these painful memories.

"Single," I finally said.

He made a judgmental sort of noise.

"Figures," he said.

I heard him gearing up to ask another question and stiffened.

"Wasn't red, was it?"

I stiffened at this, flipping around to face him.

"No," I snapped. "Nothing like that."

"Alright, sorry I asked!" he said, not sounding sorry. "What color was it then, princess?"

"It was unique."

"Unique how?" he asked incredulously, as if he'd seen all kinds and they all looked the same to him.

"It was silver," I offered him.

"What?"

"The crystal. It was silver. I made it myself."

He was silent.

"Must have been something," he said kindly, as if that would supplicate my discomfort.

I could tell he was impressed, and it made me a little warm.

"Would have been nice to have," he said cautiously.

"Maybe," I said quietly. "Hard to tell anymore."

"And what else happened to you?" he asked.

Now, I felt confused.

"What do you mean what else?"

"Well, you obviously have some kind of post traumatic thing going on," he said, looking me up and down.

I pursed my lips.

"I could just as easily say the same thing about you."

"Hey, easy!" he said, raising his hands in surrender. "Didn't mean anything by it. Just curious."

"I don't mean to offend you," I said back carefully. "But…it really isn't your business, and I don't really know you at all."

He leered.

"We could fix that," he said, taking a step forward. "Do you want to know me?"

I felt red and backed into the wall.

"No, I -,"

"Because I'm sure it would be very invigorating," he said, taking another step forward.

He reached forward and brushed my hair out of my face. His fingers lingered for a moment before clasping onto the back of my head and neck, but not roughly.

"Don't tell me you don't find this handsome rogue incredibly attractive?" he whispered into my ear.

My hands found the wall behind me. They shook, and I was sure he felt it.

But I had to be brave.

"Please," I said, tilting my head bravely to look him squarely in the eye. His nose could have brushed against mine if he turned just a millimeter to the left, it would have collided with mine. His breath, despite being in a prison for who knew how long and then with me all of the days before, didn't smell bad. It was sweet, like the milk we just drank.

I smiled at him winningly.

"Do you think I'll always cave so easily?" I asked his lips, leaning against the wall before pushing a very stunned, very impressed Atton away.

"I'm not that weak!" I said, smiling over my shoulder.

He didn't reply as I walked away, not until I was opening the door to my new room.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"To rest!" I called back. "We're probably going to need it on Telos, so I suggest you get some too."

And with that, I walked out of the hallway and into the room, feeling much, much better than I had before.