Author's Note: This vignette is set prior to the events of part V of "Fragile and Composed" and was written in response to an otp challenge where the characters had to take a trip together.

Allana and Festus navigate their strange new living arrangement; 52 ABY

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And in the middle of the flood, I felt my worth
When you held onto me like I was your little life raft
Please know that you were mine as well
—Snow Patrol, "The Lightning Strike"

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"Life Raft"

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Darth Festus is used to being in close quarters. He grew up surrounded by people, first in the academy and enclaves of the Jedi, and then on Korriban as a Sith initiate – not that he ever felt particularly connected to any of the people around him, or they to him – and for all but three of his nineteen years, he has shared a room with his twin brother. Being in close proximity doesn't faze him; in fact, he often delights in how uncomfortable he can make others, just by standing too near them. But what Darth Festus has never done, not in any of those nineteen years, is live with a girl.

The door to the refresher opens, and Allana Djo steps out, eyeing him warily as she holds her belongings close to her chest. They aren't much, just a few supplies they picked up their second day on the run, and the clothes she was wearing before she went in there. The ship is cramped – the space outside the refresher even more so – but he keeps as much distance as he can.

Maybe this doesn't really count as living with a girl. They've only been on the ship six days, which he supposes makes this more of an extended trip than a permanent living arrangement. Then again, this is the plan for the foreseeable future, to keep moving and not stay anywhere long enough to be found; and if that's the case, then he's going to be living here with her for a while. It probably counts.

"It's free," she says after staring back at him for a few seconds. Her voice is quiet and strained, and after a few more seconds she looks away from him, her face flushed. That doesn't mean anything though, probably just an aftereffect of the sonic shower, which he's really been trying not to think about in the first place.

There are a lot of things he's been trying not to think about when it comes to her, like the fact that it's been weeks since he kissed her or that he replays it in his head every damn day or that she's as scared of him as ever and he can't think of a single reason why she shouldn't be or why he should care and what the hell is he even doing here—

She doesn't wait for him to answer, turning instead to key open the door to the ship's only designated sleeping quarters. It's just one bunk, which he didn't bother trying to claim. There was nothing noble about it, and he made sure to tell her so, before she could get any ideas. He really doesn't care where he sleeps.

She closes the door quickly behind her, leaving him alone in the corridor.

He doesn't care where she sleeps either.

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Their next stop is Beltresh, an Outer Rim world that sits off a branch of a branch of the Hydian Way, dead in the middle of nowhere. The only information he has on it is that the war with the Vong never reached it, and neither did the civil war a decade later, and though it technically lies within the borders of Darth Krayt's empire, it doesn't seem to have any Sith presence whatsoever.

They put down in a small port on the outskirts of the capitol city, which is surrounded on three sides by forestlands and bordered on the fourth by a modest snow-capped mountain range. As they disembark, a man with the port authority approaches Festus for payment. He produces a few of the credits he stole back on Malastare – though not nearly enough to dock a ship – and waves the guy off with a mind trick. There are a few fraught seconds where he's not sure the guy is going to be susceptible to his influence, and he senses Allana tense up on the ramp behind him; but then the man shrugs and pockets the credits and tells them they're paid up for the next eighteen hours.

"What would you have done," she asks once they're well into the heart of the closest public marketplace, "if he hadn't taken those credits?"

He looks at her sideways as they push through the crowd. Instead of her usual long braid, her copper red hair is pulled back in a tight knot and partially covered by a dark blue cap, leaving her neck exposed. He's never really studied her from this angle or noticed the way her freckles trail down to her collarbone, and he wonders if they continue onto her shoulders, too, and—

An image returns to him without warning or permission: her lying facedown beneath him, his knee digging into her back as he grabs her by the hair and yanks her head up—

He drags in a breath, then forces his jaw to relax before saying, "Probably exactly what you think I would have done."

She doesn't say anything to that, and they continue to make their way through the market. She stays fairly close to him as he begins to lift items here and there from the various stalls, but after he's hit five vendors, she slows her pace, her thoughts clearly elsewhere. He slows to match her, his eyes sweeping over the square and the people he stole from, watching for signs that any of them suspect.

"What is it?" he asks, his gaze finally settling on her.

"We can't just keep stealing from people," she says in a hushed tone, eyes narrowing.

"What's your solution? Stay here and get a job?" He scans the crowded marketplace again. "Don't be ridiculous, Princess. We need credits—"

"I'm not a princess—"

"—and we need to eat."

She stops dead in the middle of the walkway and glares at him. "It's wrong. This is—"

She cuts off before she can finish that thought, but he can hear what she's left unsaid. Wrong. This is wrong. They're wrong. Not that he didn't already know that – he did know that, didn't he? – so why does it feel like a kick in the gut?

His danger sense flares, and he looks over her head in time to see a trio of local security officers wading through the crush of people. Instead of answering her, he loops an arm around her waist and pulls her off to the side. She goes rigid in his grip but doesn't fight him, and he ducks behind one of the vendors' stalls and into a narrow alley, holding on to her as he watches the officers go by.

"Let go," she whispers breathlessly once the danger has passed.

He does as she orders, taking a step back to put distance between them. She doesn't look up at him, but her hand drifts toward her throat for a moment before clutching at the collar of her jacket. The bruises are long gone, but he can still see exactly where they were, can still picture his fingertips pressing into her soft skin…

"Come on," he says, mouth suddenly dry. "We should get out of here."

When they make it back to the ship, he unloads his haul on the fold-down table in their tiny common area and begins to sort through it. Credits and ration bars and a few packets of some kind of mystery instant meal, and several small bags of dried fruit, and more ration bars.

"That's it?" she asks in disbelief. "Ration bars?"

He looks up from his organizational efforts to see her staring at the food with thinly veiled contempt. He picks up one of the other bags and holds it out between them. "And fruit," he says.

She tilts her chin up at that, but he can see the way it trembles for a brief instant. "We can't live on just ration bars."

He shrugs and raises one eyebrow. "Why not?"

"Because, they don't… they're not…" Her mouth snaps shut as she stares back at him, and he allows himself a small smirk in response.

"You say you're not a princess anymore," he says, secretly delighting in the furious blush that colors her cheeks, "and yet you're too good for ration bars?"

"I never said that," she retorts in a huff, eyes falling once more to the table. "I've eaten plenty of stuff like this in my life. It's kind of hard to get fresh food, growing up in the enclaves."

Maybe she doesn't mean anything by it – and he wouldn't care even if she did – but he can't let that one pass. "Yeah," he says, with a touch of asperity, "I remember."

That stops her indignation in its tracks, and he tells himself he's not sorry for saying it, or for embarrassing her. That's not why he picks up one of the bags of dried fruit and offers it to her. She holds up a stopping hand and steps around him, heading for the door.

"You have to eat sometime," he calls after her.

She pauses at the door, her expression pointed. "I'm not hungry," she informs him as she gives him that imperious little chin tilt again, daring him to argue. But he doesn't try to argue with her, and after a long moment she steps across the threshold and retreats to her room, leaving him to eat alone.

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He finds her sneaking into the supplies a couple hours later, and he can't help smirking as he flips on the lights in the common area. She drops the food she's holding and spins around to face him.

"Those ration bars are looking pretty good now, huh?" he says, crossing his arms over his chest as he leans against the doorframe.

She flushes and hugs her arms around her midsection, and her gaze wanders to the corridor behind him, but she doesn't answer. Her hair is loose, falling well past her shoulders; for an instant all he can think of is how it felt against his fingers, and how he wants to know that feeling again.

"You don't have to sneak in here," he says, banishing those thoughts with a shrug. "I don't care what you eat, or where. Or how much."

She nods absently and moves toward the door, leaving the food behind. She's just passing him in the doorway when she stops to look up at him, her brow furrowed, like she's steeling herself to say something important. He's beginning to think she's lost whatever battle she's fighting with herself, when she whispers, "I want to go home."

He exhales and rolls his eyes. "Okay fine, no more ration bars, we'll figure something else out."

She shakes her head and utters a sound somewhere between a sigh and a whimper. "No, I— I want to go home."

He narrows his eyes at her, a quiet rage kindling in his chest as understanding dawns.

"I am not taking you to the Jedi," he says, not quite managing to mask the bitter hatred that thought stirs in him.

"You don't have to," she says quickly. "Drop me off somewhere and I'll go on my own."

He blinks at her. "You don't know where they are."

"I'll find them. We have ways—"

"You'll never make it. Your father is still looking for you, or did you forget that?"

"I didn't forget," she says quietly.

"He'll find you long before the Jedi do."

She looks away and shrugs. "Then he finds me."

Those words, stated so simply and wearily, twist at something inside him, and he reaches out to take her by the shoulders. She lets out a little yelp as he pulls her closer.

"No," he growls. "You're not just gonna go back there, after everything—" He stares down into her startled and frightened gray eyes, and loses some of his momentum. "Why would you— you can't want to go back there?"

"Maybe it's for the best."

"It's not. I know you're not stupid enough to actually believe that."

Any trace of fear leaves her as she glares up at him. "Why not? I was stupid enough to get on a starship with someone who tried to kill me."

He laughs then, tries to choke it off by gritting his teeth, but he can't stop it from bubbling out of him. "I could have left you there."

"So why didn't you?"

Gods, he walked right into that one. Why didn't he? Because of that damn kiss? He's tried to tell himself that he only did that to distract her from the Embrace of Pain, but why the hell should he have cared about that in the first place? He shouldn't have. He's not the person she knew, and they're not little kids anymore, and she's exactly right, he did try to kill her. He would have done it if he hadn't been interrupted, but every time he tries to imagine it playing out, he can't get past the tears on her face and that name on her lips and how it left him paralyzed—

Her eyes are wide as she waits for an answer, and he realizes how tightly he's holding her, and he wonders if it's hard enough to bruise, if she'll find five blue-black spots on each shoulder in a day or two and hate herself for ever having kissed him back. Maybe she already hates herself for that.

—of course she does, why do you think she keeps hiding from you—

He lets go of her, hands dropping to his sides. "I don't know," he lies.

Free of his grip, she reaches up with both hands to grasp the ends of her hair, twisting her fingers around several copper strands. "Of course you don't," she whispers. For a second, he thinks he sees tears in her eyes, but she averts her gaze and hurries off to her room before he can get a better look.

He flips the lights off and stands there in the dark, listening to the sounds of the ship. After a few minutes, he makes his way to the cockpit and unrolls the blanket he's been sleeping on, and he lies on his back, watching the endlessly swirling blue tunnel of hyperspace through the viewport above him.

She should run away from him. She should run far, far away.

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The scream that yanks him out of his sleep is so familiar that for a few seconds, he thinks this is just another one of his nightmares. He sits bolt upright, heart pounding as a second scream echoes throughout the ship, this one cutting off in what sounds like a muffled sob. Without thinking, he grabs his left wrist with his right hand, then begins to repeat the motion with the opposite hands before ruthlessly suppressing the instinct. He's not there, he already knows he's not there, why is he wasting time with that nonsense, like he can't fragging help himself—

Another sob, not as loud as the screams, but this one is followed by a distinct thump, one that sounds a lot like someone falling out of her bunk. He flings back his blanket and staggers for a second, shaking away the lingering haze of sleep as he rushes out of the cockpit.

When he reaches her door, he hears her take a long, gasping breath, in a way that makes him wonder if she's actually having trouble breathing. "Hey," he calls out, pounding a fist against the durasteel. "What's wrong?"

Instead of going quiet, the sobs return, punctuated by those same gasping breaths, and he remembers how it felt the first time he saw her twisted up in the Embrace, helpless and broken, her agony dragging against his senses—

He beats on the door again, harder and repeatedly, trying to snap her out of it. "Hey! Allana!" He tries to open the door, but she's locked it – of course she has, why the hell wouldn't she? He knows he's doing this all wrong, but he can't tamp down the panic rising up in his chest, and he closes his eyes and presses his hands against the door, reaching through the Force for the mechanism that holds it in place. It takes several seconds to latch onto the right parts, but once he does, he steps back and wrenches his hands to one side, and the door slides open with a metallic screech.

She's kneeling on the floor next to her bunk, hunched over, arms hugging her middle, but she sits up straight when he enters, her hands flying up to cover her mouth. They stare at each other in the dim light, and he realizes how this must look to her, him barging into her room in the middle of the night. He wonders when he started to give a damn about things like that, or why he feels the need to explain himself to her.

"I—" He swallows hard, not even sure what he wants to say. "I thought— I mean, I heard you…"

She lets out another broken little sob, and the hands covering her mouth tremble, and whether by instinct or choice – he's not really sure which – he crosses the small room in two strides and drops to his knees beside her, just in time for her to fling her arms around his neck.

"You're not there," he says as he pulls her closer, drawing her into his lap. "You're not there, Allana, it was just a dream."

She clings to him and turns her face into his neck, her tears warm on his skin. "It still hurts, and I can't— I can't—" She takes another tremulous breath, and he can feel her entire body shudder from the force of it. "When does it end?"

When does it end? He doesn't know, though he suspects the answer is never. He certainly can't imagine there will ever be a time when his own nightmares cease, or a time when he doesn't check for restraints upon waking from them, just to make sure he isn't back on that godforsaken table.

"It won't always be like this," he murmurs, in a voice he hardly recognizes. "You get used to it after a while."

Her lips brush against his collarbone as she answers. "I don't want to get used to it."

"Yeah," he says, arms tightening around her, "I know."

She leans into him and takes a deep breath, still shuddering a little from her earlier sobs, but more in control now. "Why didn't you leave me on Coruscant?" she asks softly. "You could have."

"No," he says, "I couldn't have. I thought—" He closes his eyes for a moment, feeling the rise and fall of her chest against his, slowing with each breath. "I thought I could bear any pain imaginable… but I couldn't bear yours."

He opens his eyes and looks down to see her gazing up at him, and he thinks of how he held her face in his hands, and how soft her lips were, and how he'd never wanted to stop kissing her. And there's something about her expression, something new and at the same time familiar, though he can't figure out why that is. On Vjun, all he'd known was her terror, and even in their better moments together on Coruscant, he'd only ever seen sorrow or a fleeting, wary hopefulness. This isn't any of those things. This is almost like… like admiration, or—

No, he can't allow himself to imagine it. He should tell her not to look at him like that, like she's seeing someone worthy of her smile, because she's not. Whatever he might have been a long time ago, he isn't that person anymore, and he never will be again, and she ought to realize that by now. What he should do is remind her of that acid-soaked hell, and the life he tried to take, and the bruises flowering across her throat, and… and…

Stars, why is she still looking at him like that? It's only a little smile, but he has no defense against it. She shifts in his arms, her face lifting slightly toward his, eyes searching; and he feels an answering heat spread through him as he finds himself caught in her gaze. What would she do if he kissed her right now? Is that what she wants? How is he supposed to know?

"Dorian," she murmurs, and despite her hooded eyes and her soft voice, that name drags him from his reverie just as surely as being doused in ice-cold water. He isn't that person anymore, and he can't pretend to be. Not even for her.

"I think I broke your door," he says abruptly, more awkward than harsh. She draws back a little, and her eyes widen to study him. "I'm no mechanic," he continues, "but I can try to fix it when—"

"You don't have to," she interrupts quietly, with a little shrug. She looks away from him at the open doorway, that faint smile still on her lips as she says, "It'll make things easier next time; you won't have to worry about breaking it again."

He knows it's twisted, but his heart beats faster at the way she says next time. "That's true," he says gravely. "Starship maintenance is such a hassle."

She smiles wider and shakes her head, then looks behind her at the disheveled bunk. "I guess I should let you get back to sleep."

"Yeah," he says as he helps her to her feet. "You too."

She raises a hand to tuck a few strands of hair behind her ear, and he senses her hesitance, her uncertainty. "You could stay," she says at last, so quiet he can barely hear. "Only if you want to; I— I don't want you to feel like—"

"Sure." He surprises himself with how quickly he answers. "I'll stay."

There's that smile again. He's not sure he's ever seen anything more beautiful. "Okay," she says.

He retrieves his meager blankets from the cockpit and lays them on the floor next to her bunk, and he assures her it's fine, he can fall asleep anywhere. He doesn't sleep though, not until long after she's drifted off, her hand hanging over the edge of the bunk to cling to his. He listens to the steady sound of her breathing, and through the Force he can sense she's resting, even if she isn't fully at peace. And he thinks maybe that's all either of them can ask for – a few restful hours in the middle of the storm.

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