Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
She was beautiful. How had he forgotten that? It was as if, somewhere along the way, he'd stopped really seeing his best friend.
Glancing sideways at her chiseled profile now, seeing the indicator lights shift across her delicate features, Anakin remembered something he'd always known and never paid attention to: Ryn was staggeringly good-looking.
He adjusted their course minutely, fiddling with the controls for something to do, but he was seeing the look on Imram's face the first time Ryn had smiled at him, her real smile.
He was remembering the way Ferus stared and lost his place in the conversation ... well, nearly every time Ryn walked into a room, lately.
And she'd wanted him.
He hadn't wanted her, and he was still furious at what she'd done, the way she'd shut him out, but it didn't seem right - that he had learned every angle and curve, the startling black-on-white contrast of her hair and skin, the sharpness of her features, the outlines of lithe muscles hiding beneath her bulky jacket now, and never cared.
She had to know she was gorgeous, but she had deserved to hear it from him, at least once.
She'd certainly let him know she found him attractive, after all.
He cleared his throat. "Ryn?"
"Yes?"
He'd been about to tell her to check the fuel gauge, because they were going to need to fill up soon and because you're beautiful and I should have told you wasn't much of a way to open a conversation. But there was something odd about Ryn's voice, something almost choked, that made him turn and look at her more closely.
Her face was absolutely still in a way that had become uncomfortably familiar over the last few days, but the cockpit lights were reflecting off it in little prisms, not a normal way for even Ryn's sparkling-pale skin to respond to light.
He forgot the fuel gauge and said quietly, "Look at me."
She turned to face him, mechanically obedient, and Anakin felt his breath catch, because Ryn was crying.
Silent tears streamed unchecked down her pale, set face. No sobs, not even a hitch in her breathing: just this steady, unacknowledged weeping.
"What do you need?" she asked dully, staring at him without meeting his eyes.
"Ryn," he said carefully. No sudden moves. "Did you know you were crying?"
She reached up and touched her face: pulled her hand away and stared at the tears glistening on her fingertips as though not sure what she was seeing.
"Sorry," she said uncertainly, and turned back to her co-pilot's console without ever looking him full in the face.
Sometime later, Anakin remembered to say, "Check the fuel gauge."
Evinne and Makesh showed up to take the next shift, at least one of them in high hopes of finding the two youngest members of the expedition reconciled to each other and the past forgotten.
That wasn't going to happen.
Evinne halted in the doorway, her anticipatory smile fading as she took them in.
"Shorty, can I talk to you?"
Ryn flicked a glance at Anakin and stood up, her expression guarded in a way Evinne remembered all too well.
She stepped through the hatch, following Evinne, and waited in defensive silence.
The hell with this, Evinne thought.
"Skywalker."
Ryn's gaze flickered to the floor and then returned to its straight-ahead rigidity. "What?"
"Don't give me 'what'," Evinne said. "You're upset with him. I want to know why."
"None of your business," Ryn answered sullenly.
"With the two of you skulking around the ship like beaten dogs? The hell it isn't." Evinne scowled at her. "Out with it."
Ryn's jaw worked, but finally she said, "I'm not upset with him. He's upset with me."
"You've been crying," Evinne said shortly. "An activity which in adult humans typically indicates some sort of emotional distress."
Ryn locked her jaw shut, giving nothing away, and Evinne sighed. "Fine. Why is Skywalker upset with you?"
There was the crack in Ryn's facade; a thread of genuine confusion showed through. "Either because I tried to touch his penis, or because I didn't want to talk later." She frowned. "Or maybe because I wore the Podracers do it better shirt."
Evinne closed her eyes. "Walk me through this again. You tried to touch his - his - you tried to touch him intimately?"
Ryn gave a single short, sharp nod.
"Why?"
Evinne didn't think she had ever seen a being look so dejected. "I thought he would ... enjoy it."
Evinne took a moment to reflect on the men she had known. "Okay. Did you have a particular reason for thinking he might feel that way?"
"I read in a book that it was the most sensitive part of the body for human males."
"Let me try the question another way. What was he doing when you decided to touch him?"
"Oh." Blood washed through Ryn's pale face. "He was ... kissing me. And ... kind of touching me, too. All over."
Kind of touching? Evinne thought, but what she said, bluntly, was: "Down your pants?"
The color over Ryn's cheekbones deepened. "No. But I was only wearing underwear, so ..."
"Ah," Evinne said, finally beginning to see the light. "So ... Anakin was ... caressing you ... and then you decided to take things a step further."
Ryn nodded miserably. "I wanted him to know that it was okay if he wanted to ... um ..."
"You wanted to let him know that he was welcome to consummate the relationship," Evinne helped her out.
Ryn dropped her eyes. It would have been cute if she hadn't been so obviously unhappy. "More like I'd die if he didn't," she admitted reluctantly.
So Kit's sweet, fragile sister had discovered her concupiscence after all. Evinne filed that information away for later. "And he didn't react well."
Ryn puffed out a breath. "He fled. He said he had to take a shower and bolted." She pressed the heels of her hands to her temples, her voice thinning into an anguished whimper. "I was so desperate I actually frightened him out of the room! Gods and saints, what is wrong with me?"
"Where to start," Evinne muttered. Ryn looked stricken, and Evinne remembered that she was supposed to be channeling her helpful side.
Like I even have a helpful side. Force help us. She tried to rub away her headache, failed, and reminded herself that life is, after all, full of disappointments. "Look, Shorty ... it isn't remotely possible that Skywalker is, or ever was, frightened of you. That boy could take you with one hand tied behind his back." Considering this, she added, "Although if he's going to take you, I think he should really use both."
"Not helpful," Ryn said, scowling. "And he was frightened. I could feel it."
Evinne thought it was far more likely that he was afraid of disgracing himself in the sheets, but he would never forgive her for saying so.
Yeah, and he'd be so thrilled with the conversation we're having now.
"There's a mix-up somewhere," Evinne said definitively. "Which you won't sort out if you don't start talking to him."
"I've tried!" Ryn protested. "I tried to say I was sorry, but he just walked past me. He doesn't want to hear what I have to say. What else am I supposed to do?"
"If you can't talk, try listening," Evinne suggested. "Skywalker doesn't strike me as the type to suffer in silence for long."
"I told you, he's -"
"Do you want to be right, or do you want your boyfriend back?"
"He's not my boyfriend," Ryn said, ignoring Evinne's eyeroll. "But I want him back."
Skywalker glanced up as she entered the cockpit. "We've set course for a world called Garis Orbai to refuel."
Evinne frowned, momentarily distracted. "Garis Orbai? I've never heard of it."
Makesh, sitting in the co-pilot's chair, punched up the description. "It doesn't look like much, but it claims to be a major step for refueling, and it's not far out of our way."
Evinne leaned closer to the display, squinting. "I'm not crazy about this route, you know."
Makesh shrugged. "You wanted to keep a low profile."
Evinne sighed. "Yeah. Okay. But ... wait a minute. Who controls this world?"
"It claims to be an independent planet," Anakin said, checking the read-out.
"This close to a Hutt hyperspace route? I wouldn't count on it."
Makesh sat back. "So what do you want to do?"
Go to bed and sleep for a week, Evinne thought. But she said, "We'll go in. I don't see any better choices. But let's keep our eyes peeled. And you'd better go inform Master Kenobi." She gave him the honorific without thinking about it.
"I'll tell him," Anakin said, starting to rise.
"No, you stay there," Evinne ordered him, back on track. "We need to talk. Makesh -"
"On it," Makesh said, and flashed her one of his rare smiles as he headed for the hatch.
Skywalker didn't look happy as Evinne settled into the co-pilot's seat Makesh had vacated, but since he hadn't looked happy in days, that was no surprise.
"You're making her miserable, you know," she began conversationally.
Skywalker's jaw tightened, but he said nothing.
"She misses you, Force knows why."
Still no answer. Evinne sighed and braced her feet on his chair supports. "Look, I'm trying to understand, here. Work with me a little."
He looked at her directly then, deep blue eyes so hot with resentment that Evinne almost leaned away. "Why?" he demanded, his voice sullen. "It's none of your business."
Evinne glared at him. "Because Ryn is miserable and so are you! And I don't have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, but I'm pretty sure that's bad."
Anakin gave her a quizzical look. "What sort of thing?"
Evinne waved her hand helplessly. I am so not cut out for this. "You know. Friendships. Personal things. Not private, just ... personal."
She could tell he had no idea what she was trying to say (she was starting to have some doubts herself), so she gave up explaining and said, "I knew you were the Chosen One because Ryn was afraid." That got his attention. "You all went to such great lengths to hide it, but I knew. I've known Shorty most of her life. I've fought with her and seen her lose engagements where not one fighter in three was left standing. I was in the team that extracted her after she played decoy and was tortured. We fought together at Dorain Ridge." She met Anakin's eyes. "But I never saw her scared until she thought you were in danger."
Anakin looked away, but he was uncomfortable rather than disinterested. Enough with the mushy stuff. We're neither of us any good at it. Evinne cleared her throat. "Now, I know you may not feel comfortable with Ryn's sexually aggressive behavior, but you have to remember that Ryn and I are from a culture that perceives sex -" She stopped, because Anakin was staring at her with something she dismally recognized as horror. "What?"
"Ry - I - she - what?"
That was so incoherent Evinne didn't even try to respond; she folded her hands and waited for Anakin to splutter his way into a sentence.
What he finally came up with was a strangled interrogative: "Sexually aggressive?"
And who would have thought it of Ryn? Not letting herself be distracted, Evinne nodded briskly. "Yes. Lorethan women as a rule are ... well, it doesn't matter. My point is that this can be fixed. I have certainly learned to moderate my behavior, and I am sure Ryn can do the same, if you'll just tell her what you want. You two might want to abstain for a while, just until you are both -"
Skywalker recovered himself enough to break in. "Ryn is not ... aggressive."
He sounded offended. Not to say apoplectic. Evinne frowned. "What's the matter, then?"
"I - it's complicated." He shot her a glower. "And none of your business."
"True," Evinne agreed, unperturbed. "But I think it might be Ryn's business."
Anakin just looked at her. Patiently, Evinne explained, "Ryn is under the impression that you resent her for some sort of sexual encounter in which she moved too quickly." When this is over, I am going to go home and rethink my life. I mean it. "Um. She touched you?"
She felt the quick tide of Anakin's anger, rising to cover his embarrassment. She ignored both. "Ryn wasn't much more articulate than you've been, but ... I gather she thinks you see her as a sort of desperate female, who will do anything to get in your pants. That you are ... disgusted." Watching him obliquely, not above twisting the knife, she drawled the last word: "Repulsed."
Anakin actually flinched. Evinne leaned forward and followed up the advantage. "I don't know you very well, but I'd like to think you were smarter than that." She sat back and looked at him. "Anyway, your shift is over. Go on, get out of here."
Anakin left the cockpit in a daze, too overwhelmed and confused to think.
His traitorous feet led him straight to Ryn.
She was in the engine room, hanging practically upside-down from the access to one of the service shafts, stripping and splicing wires with great attention.
She didn't look up from her work, or acknowledge his presence, and that hurt more than if she'd slapped him across the face.
He couldn't think of anything to say, so he stood in the doorway and watched her work.
Watched the grace and strength in her calloused fingers. Watched the slender muscles shifting in her bare arms as she changed grips to swing her upper body back into the shaft to grab another wire. She'd stripped down to a close-fitting shirt with narrow straps across her shoulders that left not just her arms but her shoulder blades and the shallow upper curve of her breasts exposed, all clear white skin broken by shadowed valleys.
It wasn't anything he hadn't seen before - in training, not to mention the few times he'd glimpsed her undressed - but it felt different, watching her with this distance between.
Now he was paying attention.
He missed what she did that caused the short, but he saw her flinch, heard her sharp intake of breath, and moved without thinking, crossing the room in two quick steps to catch the flailing wires she'd dropped - above the stripping - and still their twitching.
Ryn eyed him cautiously, nursing a bloodied knuckle, but she gave him a curt little nod. "Thanks."
Her husky voice had dropped into a lower register, curiously guarded.
There was something desperately wrong in a galaxy where Ryn was wary of him, but Anakin ignored that for the moment.
"What were you trying to do?"
Ryn gave him a sharp look, but she must have judged his question to be sincere, because she answered, "Boost the strength of the commsat by drawing power from auxiliary navigation."
"From -" Anakin bit down on that thought. "Do you want us to be flying blind?"
Ryn tucked her chin like a guilty little girl. "It's auxiliary. That means we're not using it now."
"Yes, and it's navigation," Anakin said, mimicking her tone. "There's a reason why that system has a back-up. You develop a glitch there, you won't likely live to regret it."
Ryn grabbed hold of the access edge with one hand and swung herself down to stand next to him, an ominous mixture of superficial burns and general grime spiderwebbing her bare skin from forehead to fingertips. Anakin thought some of it might be soot.
"What do you suggest instead?" she asked, her voice throaty from fumes, just skirting the edge of a challenge.
Anakin thought about it. "If we drop the temperature all over the ship by about ..." he did the calculations quickly "... say, three degrees all over the ship, we should be able to draw from life support without compromising essentials like oxygen."
Ryn folded her arms under her breasts - I won't look won't look won't look - and Anakin noticed she wasn't wearing anything under her stretchy little excuse for a shirt. "Oh, so auxiliary navigation is an indispensable system but life support isn't?"
Anakin refused to rise to the bait. "A lot of what's called life support is just keeping beings like us comfortable. And keeping a ship warm in space takes a lot of energy." He'd learned that on the way from Tatooine to Coruscant.
You come from a warm planet, Ani. A little too warm for my taste. Space is cold.
It was colder still without Padmé.
He dragged himself back to the conversation. "Lowering the temperature by even a few degrees can make a significant difference in power drain."
"Which means more to use elsewhere." Ryn considered this briefly, then gave her sharp, decisive nod. "Okay. I'll give it a try." She held out her uninjured hand for the wires he was still holding, clearly believing the conversation was over. "Thanks for the advice."
"You're going to need help," Anakin said, not releasing the wires.
"Oh." Ryn bit her lip, caught flat-footed for once. "Then -"
"Go clean that hand," Anakin said, nodding at the right hand she was still favoring. "I'll see if I can sort out the mynock's nest you've made in here."
Ryn's pale cheeks reddened in displeasure at mynock's nest, but Anakin saw the moment when she realized that he was - not very graciously - offering to help.
She didn't risk a smile, but he saw her eyes light.
She ducked her head and hurried off to do as she was told, her cautious hope brightening the Force.
Stang. I'm an idiot sometimes.
Anakin shook his head and turned back to the wires to start doing what he did best - fixing things.
A/N: Hey, who spotted the TPM quote?