Freedom's Dream Part 2
By: Shada
Disclaimer: I own not, you sue not.
Summary: Sequel to Freedom's Dream.
Note: (Whatever) is Karrde's thoughts.
^^^^^^^^
-----Excerpt-----
"Shada's officially joined him-- had you heard that?"
"Yeah, I did," Han said, giving Karrde a highly speculative look. "You know, I asked you once what it would take to get you to join the New Republic. Remember? You asked what it had taken to get me to join up--"
"Yes, I remember," Karrde cut him off, an uncharacteristic note of embarrassment coloring his voice. "Kindly bear in mind that I have not joined the New Republic. And my relationship with Shada is nothing like that."
"Neither was mind," Han said smugly, putting his arm around Leia. "It's okay. Give it time."
"It's not going to happen," Karrde insisted.
"Yeah," Han said. "I know.
-----End Excerpt-----
Three months later, he was still thinking back to that conversation. At first glance, there seemed to be nothing memorable about it, but the more he thought about it, the more it seemed to be the start of something much bigger than itself. Before then he had never thought about here in more that the way a powerful man things of his most important bodyguard. Or so he liked to tell himself...
No, no, no, he would not start thinking like that. Again. He shook his head, hoping to clear his treacherous thoughts away. She was the biggest help on his ship, nothing else. She was no more to him than any other person that helped out that much. He didn't see her in any other way, he told himself, he couldn't get distracted. She was his first mate, for crying out loud!
(Okay, that was not how that was supposed to come out.)
He paced back and fourth in the cockpit of the Wild Karrde, arms crossed over his chest and head bowed. For the first time in his life, a situation had him completely stumped. Unless he figured out what to do, sooner or later he was going to pull a stupid stunt he'd regret. (Let's suspend reality for a second,) he thought to himself, (And say I admitted that I liked her. Then what?)
That was a good question, he decided. Then what would he do? A knock came suddenly and unexpectedly at the door, causing him to jump slightly. No one ever knocked, they knew they didn't have to. But if anyone ever did, only one person's knock would be so loud, and only one person would have been able to sneak up on him in the first place. "You can come in, Shada, there's no need to knock."
The door opened slowly and she stepped in the room, shutting it behind her. She stared only at the floor, twisting her long, dark braid around one hand. There was silence in the small room for a few moments before she spoke up. "Um, well-- damn, this is hard to say-- I guess I haven't been completely honest with you lately."
They were only a few words, simple and yet cryptic. They could mean anything-- everything-- and yet nothing at all. He found himself wanted to strangle whoever had made women so complicated. In the meantime, however, he decided to follow his head-- and not his heart. (Good luck.) "What do you mean?"
"I-I," she fished for the words, dark eyes troubled. "What do I mean?" She leaned back against the door, lost in through. "Force, what's the best way to say this?" she wondered aloud. She sighed deeply and flipped her hair back behind her, now staring him straight on. "I haven't been near the best Mistryl, haven't been doing the best job I could. I'm afraid I've been letting myself think too much and letting emotion cloud judgement." As soon as she finished speaking, she drew and released a long breath, a look of relief briefly crossing her face.
Of course, now his mind was really spinning off into all the possibilities. One of the advantages of being a smuggler and a trader was being around people and learning to understand them and read them like holos. Now with her this was harder to do-- but hard didn't mean impossible. And was he was reading right now was definitely in his favor. "And what emotions might these be?" he asked, slyness creeping into his voice and a slight smirk appearing on his face.
She whipped her head to this side and chewed at her bottom lip, staring through the glass instead of at him. he was avoiding him as much as she could, and it was not something he failed to notice. "My contract stated nothing about my having to tell you things like that." The statement was short, sweet, and entirely to the point.
He decided to take a huge gamble-- one so risky that being proven wrong could cost him his biggest helping hand. "I like you too, you know." Time in the room seemed to stand still for a few moments and the silence was so profound that one could hear the stars outside as they radiated their light. He hoped and prayed that he had been right. He couldn't afford to lose her.
Her head slowly turned back to look at him, eyes wide, mouth agape, and beautiful face frozen in shock. She simply couldn't believe what she had heard-- no way it could be possible. Absolutely no way in hell she had heard what she thought she had. "What did you say?" she whispered, asking for clarification.
More confident now, he repeated what he had said mere moments, moments which felt like eons, ago. "I like you too." He took a step towards her, causing her to try to step backwards and run into the door she herself had closed. He realized she wasn't believing him and gave a few seconds for it to sink in.
"You're not serious. You're just toying with me, aren't you?" she asked, still disbelieving.
(Okay, this approach is not working.) "Do you really think so little of me to think I would do something like that?" She slowly, but without hesitation, shook her head and he continued. "I'm not at all kidding, you do realize that." She started to open her mouth to speak and he took her momentary distraction as the perfect opportunity to lean in and kiss her.
Now she believed him. They slowly separated about a minute later and he gently took one of her hands in his. "We'll just let this go from here," he suggested, hoping to sound nonchalant. "See where it takes us." Her only response was to kiss him again.
(So you were right about this one, Solo, but I'm not joining the New Republic.)