~Asajj's POV~

"Can we practice the Ataru lotus stance again tomorrow, Saji? I want to get that move down before you go," Mara asked as they walked away from Obi-wan and Nava's chambers towards their own sparse quarters a few halls down closer to Ahsoka and Luke's. Was it odd that even the family's quarters were near to each other?

Asajj decided not to think about it. Instead, she wondered at Mara Jade. For someone who hated being left out of any heroics, Mara was taking the fact that Asajj was leaving rather well. It frightened her a bit because it either meant that Mara was growing up or she was hiding something. Ventress was not sure which one she would prefer.

Mara was her lifeline, her everything. Without her… Ventress didn't know what she would do. It was a sign of impending trouble for the girl to go and grow up, but hiding things never bid well for any sane and breathing being either. "Sure, kid," she replied steadily.

"Oh good. When are you leaving, anyway?" Asajj narrowed her eyes at her suspiciously.

"I don't know. It might take awhile longer now that we have Dooku in custody, but…" she consulted the Force. "Soon," she stated definitely. Mara nodded thoughtfully.

"Are you sure I can't…?"

"You aren't coming," Mara sighed and opened her mouth to begin an argument that would probably last until they actually walked into their quarters, but she was interrupted by a shout.

"Asajj!" She turned, surprised to see Lux Bonteri jog over to them. She lifted an eyebrow. He had been walking the other way last time she had seen. He stopped in front of her, casting a grin at Mara before looking to her. "A few of us are going to my quarters. Do you want to come?" He inquired. Asajj blinked, wondering which others he meant.

Seeing her confusion, he smiled. "Padme is with Anakin and the twins," he raised his eyebrows, expressing his dubiety about the good things that could come out of that. "Obi-wan and Nava are busy with Han and Lando. That just leaves the rest of us," ah.

That was a lot of people. And all of these people were talking about what exactly? Lux was being very vague. Seeing her confusion, he glanced pointedly at Mara. Asajj did not need another hint. This was a gathering without Padawan's, one which might include alcohol.

She opened her mouth to decline the invitation when Mara gave her a playful shove from the back. "Go, Saji!" She hissed, grinning. "I'm going back to quarters to do some studying. I'll be fine," Asajj squirmed in place. She had never really been out with anyone before. Sure, back in her bounty hunting days, she had gone to lunch with a few friends, but even that had been nothing compared to what she was relatively sure this would be.

"Are you sure?" She insisted. Mara nodded and turned, about to head home without giving her a choice in the matter. Asajj exhaled long-sufferingly. Sometimes she wondered who taught who more. Mara waved without turning.

"See you in the morning, Saji!" She called over her shoulder.

"Don't get into any trouble without me," Asajj called back, a bit unsurely. Mara may have been comfortable heading out alone, but Asajj wasn't. She shook her head and turned back to Lux. He was chuckling softly.

"Well," he observed, smiling. "I can see who holds all the cards in the relationship," Asajj glared at him. What did he know about the training bond between her and Mara? What did he know about one at all? He didn't even have the Force.

Which was why he did not hear her rude thoughts. Smiling, he only turned on his heel and waved her after him. "Come on, then. The others will have already broken out the drinks," he said. Asajj followed him, wondering just what they would be talking about. Well, she thought as realization dawned on her. Who else?

"Do you know where Dooku is?" She asked. Lux's jovial face morphed into grave seriousness. He glanced at her with dark eyes.

"I was hoping you knew," he replied softly. "On account of having the Force and everything," Asajj could have kicked the wall.

"Wherever he is, he's in a place where my searching can't find him," she told him. She squinted at him balefully. "I should think you would know, seeing as how you're friends with the girl who found him," Lux snorted.

"They all know that if I knew where Dooku was, they would come in the next morning to find him full of blaster holes," well, at least someone agreed with her on this. Even if Asajj did not know why exactly Lux hated Dooku so much. She knew his planet had been part of the initial Separatist break-up and his mother a senator in Dooku's court. Could he have had something to do with Lux's prosthetic arm?

She knew better than to ask, and besides, she didn't know Lux that well anyway. She could only guess at his past, as he could only guess at hers. It was a comfortable accord. The rest of the trip was made in thoughtful silence as they marched through the long, quiet halls of the Temple; the only sound that of their footsteps on the cold floors.

The cold had just begun to seep into Ventress, making her want to change her mind, go back to her own quarters and cuddle beneath the blankets pretending nothing was wrong, when they came to Lux's chambers. The door opened before either of them had reached for it.

Asajj followed Lux to see Ahsoka, Jinx, Rex, Cody and Intrepid already inside the small space. Intrepid was at the bar, sipping something that looked like wine and watching Ahsoka and Jinx separate cards at the small table. Unlike most of the Jedi, Lux didn't have a mediation table for candles, but rather a full size regular table that he had made himself.

It made Asajj's shoulders unwind. She had grown up with a regular table, too, with Ky. The meditation tables did nothing but remind her about a culture she had only heard about in bedtime stories.

The chair stools, too, he had made. A single lamp swayed above them, shining a yellow light upon the two players. Rex and Cody were polishing their blasters on the couch to the side, eyes far away.

"Help yourself to anything in the kitchen, Asajj," Lux told her amiably, as he sauntered in. "I see these vagabonds already have," he stated, looking pointedly at Ahsoka, Intrepid and Jinx, all of whom had small cups of wine. "How did you get inside my house, intruders?" Lux demanded, snatching the wine bottle to pour himself a glass.

"We climbed in through the window using strips of our own tabards!" Intrepid declared theatrically.

"Hacked into your security system with a hair clip," Ahsoka casually informed him, calmly flipping through a deck.

"You don't have any hair," Jinx pointed out.

"Doesn't mean I don't know how to break into a house with a hair clip, Jinxy-boy," was the dry retort.

Lux laughed. "And you?" he asked the clones.

"The vents," Rex called over next, jerking his head to indicate him and Cody. They all chuckled softly, even Asajj, remembering the impish children whose favorite tactic for any kind of covert travel was the ventilation systems.

"Well, at least none of you just walked in," Lux supposed. He sipped his drink, and over the rim regarded her curiously. "Come sit down, Asajj!" he called, waving her over. Asajj, realizing that she had been standing awkwardly near the door, walked in and took the glass Intrepid handed her.

"Intrepid, don't tell me you're reading a data-pad right now. And my data-pad at that," Lux said to her as he leaned against the counter to stare at the contents of her reading.

"I sure am," Intrepid snorted without apology. "And the material you have on here is atrocious. Aren't you educated?" She demanded. Lux downed his wine glass and put it down with a satisfied thump.

"Not all of us grew up in a glorified Temple," he told her. Ventress walked over cautiously, feeling a bit out of place. She took a sip of the wine. It was not as if she had not had a drink before. In fact she had had a lot of drinks before, but there was something wrong about sitting about with people who used to be her enemies sharing a drink. The wine was silky and smooth, gliding over her tongue with a small burn of acidity. She exhaled slowly, the tension leeching out of her.

"Exhibit A: Jungle boy over here," Ahsoka jerked her head to indicate Jinx. "He's obviously uneducated. He thinks he can beat me at cards, after all," Jinx glanced up with eyes combative in the dim light.

"I'll show you wild," he threatened, and it did not take much to see that there were double meanings behind his promise. Ahsoka smiled, exposing sharp predatory teeth. "Asajj," he then addressed her, without turning. "Do you know how to play?" She rubbed her chin.

"It's been years since I last played," she admitted. "But I was pretty good, back in my day," she considered. She had barley ever lost a game, though much of the time she had cheated using the Force. The times she hadn't cheated, though, she had won bigger money. She wondered if that was some moral lesson from the Force telling her that cheaters never truly won out in the end.

"Good," Jinx and Ahsoka decided in unison, both using the Force to pull over two of the bar stools.

"Fickle use," Rex scolded them with a grin.

"Bonteri, come show us some politician's cunning. Intrepid, do you have any money?" Ahsoka inquired, as she started rearranging her deck.

"Why would I have money?" Intrepid inquired idly, as she closed down Lux's data-pad and turned in her seat, leaning against the counter to observe the proceedings. "I'm the only proper Jedi in this room, and Jedi are supposed to be humbly destitute," she informed them as Asajj and Lux wandered over to the playing field and sat at their designated places, one person at each corner of the table. Ahsoka flipped out their cards intently.

"So you do have money," she translated.

Cody, evidently done with polishing his blaster, put down the large weapon and ambled over to peer over Ahsoka's shoulder curiously.

"We used to play cards with our brothers at Republic stops," he said, curiously.

"Does that mean you'll throw your lot in?" Jinx wondered, with a flicker of a mischievous smile.

Cody snorted and shook his head. "Shame on you, Master Jedi! Inspiring people to bet and gamble," he tsked. Asajj privately seconded that statement. She had never expected the Jedi to be the types that would sit around a table playing cards and drinking wine.

True, she had seen Ky drink before. He had never been perfect, but Ky was…Had been…A rebel. In the fullest sense of the word, he had been one of the wandered Jedi, a legend that stumbled into the darkness and stayed there as a lantern against encroaching night. He had never seemed holy or perfect. Ky had merely been…Ky.

Then again, she had learned years earlier that there was much about the Jedi that she did not know. She had been taught the Jedi Way; but not grown up being one. Ky had always told her that she had the heart of a Jedi, but Asajj doubted that more than she had in her youth.

"Don't fret Cody, it is only an attempt to lessen my state of destituteness," Jinx drawled, with a wink her way. Ah. So she hadn't been shielding her thoughts very well. She should attempt to fix that soon.

"No luck with me," Cody told him apologetically, spreading his hands in a sign of helplessness. "I'm afraid I'm just as, if not more so, poor as the rest of you. Rex?"

The other shook his head, leaning one elbow on the counter to place his chin in his fists thoughtfully. His eyes were far away. Ahsoka finished handing out the cards and flipped her own deck up in an exaggerated sign of prowess. Ventress stared down at the pictures across the top of the cards and cringed. Where did Ahsoka even pick these up? A spice smuggler's station? They were encrusted with grease and engine oil, reeking of cold, hard business in the Force.

This is certainly not what I always thought Jedi were.

"What do you suppose we're going to do about Anakin?" Rex suddenly blurted.

Immediately Ahsoka stiffened, her shoulder blades locking into a tight knot of tension. Jinx and Lux exchanged grave looks.

"I think we're going to need a few more drinks before we go down that route, Rex," Lux said, just as Intrepid floated another glass of wine Ahsoka's way. The Togruta cast a grateful look over her shoulder before downing the drink in one sitting.

There was a long stretch of silence, in which they all contemplated how to answer that question. At length, Ahsoka seemed to gain control of herself again and sighed with loosening tension. "Who knows?" She said with a shrug, eyes trained on her cards. She looked up at Rex with mournful eyes. "He's changed."

"Haven't we all?" Intrepid inquired, darkly. Her rhetorical question went unanswered but they all knew the truth anyway. No one had changed as much as Anakin Skywalker had. The Hero with No fear was now the epitome of strife, the master of madness. He was now a broken shell of a man, and that, Ventress could sense, was almost worse than him going to the Dark Side for the family.

At least then he was still… Him. Just a darker version. Now he was empty. Scoured clean. Gored. How could one return from nothingness? Was there any redemption or salvation from emptiness?

I don't know, Asajj thought, her own mood darkened by the subject, her own demons roused to life by the doubt. Yet I have a feeling-and an odd feeling it was-that he'll be the one to figure it out. For better or worse.

Probably worse, though. "The only thing that can save Anakin now is the Force," Lux said, and for a non Force user, he sounded extremely sure about that fact. Asajj was impressed by his evident faith. "An even better question, what are we going to do about Dooku?" he growled.

"I'm definitely going to need a drink for that," Ventress quipped without thinking, unsure if she was joking or not. Intrepid levitated a drink in front of her anyway, and Asajj felt a surge of gratitude.

"You obviously have your own ideas about what to do with him," Jinx observed, leaning back in his seat. He pushed his deck of cards to the forefront casually, his movements graceful and catlike. "Let's play," he suggested.

Lux glanced at the cards and nodded. "Death," he replied, adding his own card.

"A little drastic for a man who saved us from lifelong slavery," Rex stated. Lux shrugged.

"He's taken more lives than he saved that day," he pointed out. He glanced up at her, and it occurred to her that he might have brought here there to be an ally. "What do you think, Asajj?" he asked, and his voice was nothing but politely curious. Asajj snorted and crossed her arms. She gazed into his deep brown eyes for a moment, gauging whether she should participate in the conversation or back out while she still could.

She had never been one for backing down. "It depends," she picked up her extra drink and swished it about the cup idly. "Why do you want him dead so much?" She inquired, in his same tone. She saw a tightening of his jaw and knew she had hit upon a sore spot. Ahsoka exhaled slowly. Ah. So she had also gotten to the bottom of Lux's apparent hatred of Dooku, too.

She wondered if he would answer. "He killed my mother," Asajj had to say she was not surprised. She had almost been expecting something like that.

She nodded. "I'd love to see him dead. He killed my sisters," every single one of them. Until only she and Mother Talzin were left. She would never forgive him for that, for taking whatever chance at a normal life she might have had before she could even begin to have it. At the same time, she was also cognizant that had he not done what e had, then she would never have met Mara Jade.

She still didn't know what to think of Dooku.

"However, he could also be helpful alive," she guessed. "He's been in a Sith prison for two years, but there are a lot of things one can learn from that experience," she pointed out.

"You're suggesting using his knowledge to benefit the Rebellion?" Cody clarified. Asajj shrugged and sipped some more of her drink. She felt as if she needed eight cups now.

"He is one of the only people to escape the Sith prison and run off-world," she pointed out. "If we're attacking the Sith on their turf, we're going to need every sluice of information out there. Info he has, as much as I'd like to slit his throat," and she really, really did.

"Speaking of attacking Sith," Jinx supposed when this had been absorbed. He snapped more cards out as Lux snatched one, and Ahsoka matched the other. "Our new attack strategy…"

"Oh, you mean the one where the heavy hitters of the Jedi Order get sent into an unknown hyperspace lane?"

Jinx winked at Ahsoka. "That's the one. Aren't the negatives more likely than the positives?" he wondered.

Asajj leaned back in her seat, humming thoughtfully around the rim of her cup. "We all already agreed to it," Cody pointed out, with a noncommittal shrug.

"That doesn't mean it isn't crazy. In fact, us agreeing probably just hyped the scale from crazy to suicidal," Lux snorted.

"I've been studying hyperspace lanes," Intrepid piped in, reassessing her-Lux's- datapad. She crossed her legs daintily and leaned over, eyes alight with processing information. "There's a theory out there-small, unheard of, ludicrous-that some hyperspace lanes can lead to other galaxies," she said.

"That's great!" Lux chortled. "Let's send Dooku there!" Present company either smiled or gave him disapproving glances. Asajj tipped her cup in silent cheers.

"It isn't the Jedi Way to dump your problems on other people, Lux," Rex told him knowingly. Lux rolled his eyes as this comment inspired a few snickers from the attentive audience. Asajj could not help but smile.

"Anyway," she stressed, as the mood lightened considerably. She supposed it must be the wine which had bade her to speak out. The others did not look surprised. Maybe they had drugged visitors before. "The Force has already preordained that it is the right thing to do," she pointed out, and the Light Side gently curled in pleasure at her insightfulness. Asajj sighed.

The things that raising a child did to you.

She had to be more attentive of the Force with Mara standing around. Ahsoka's face grew grave. "I sense it too," she agreed. "It's us or them this time," the statement cause a shiver to run down their spines collectively.

They all lapsed into silence, the only sound being that of Jinx shuffling cards absentmindedly. With a sigh, Rex stood up and grabbed Ahsoka's cup. He downed the rest of the wine desperately and set the cup down with a little more Force than was necessary.

That gesture alone seemed to infuse them with gravity. "Well," the clone mumbled; his voice deep and resigned. "There's to hoping that it's them."