The Café
Fanfiction by Ala Green
Timeframe: Takes place around 3 years after ROTJ
Disclaimer: I own Nuura and the Moonbeat Café.I don't own Boba Fett, Luke Skywalker, or any of the planets mentioned.
Chapter 1: The Moonbeat Café
Normally, he ate aboard his ship. Today his ship was docked far away from where he was, and the streets of Coruscant were crowded. It would take too long to go there, he reasoned, he would loose valuable time.
So instead Boba Fett ducked into a small cafe called Moonbeat, ignoring the sudden silence of the crowded café. There was a line of people waiting to be seated that almost reached the door, but he ignored that too and looked around for the busy proprietress, Nuura Moonbeater.
Two years ago, under similar circumstances he had decided to eat at the Moonbeat Café for the first time. Since he couldn't remove his helmet in a public place, he had stalked up to Nuura and demanded a private room to eat in.
"I'm sorry." She'd said politely but firmly. "There's only one dining area, no exceptions."
He remembered looking down at the short, slightly frazzled woman with her shoulder-length brown hair pinned messily up and her hands deep in the pockets of her stained apron.
"Do you know who I am?" He'd growled impatiently, sure she would buckle eventually.
"Yes sir, Master Fett." Her tone was deferential and unmoved. "I'm sorry we cannot accommodate you, I'm sure one of the other eateries on this street can. The Golden Sabre is known to have private dining areas-"
He made an impatiently gesture with his hand that silenced her. "Private rooms are never intended to be private." He pointed swiftly to a security camera mounted above the doorway of her Café as an illustration.
She put one hand on her hip, and he quickly noticed she had six fingers on that hand. The other one was still buried in the apron pocket, but he was willing to bet it was the same. Odd, she looked human enough, especially now that her mask of professional courtesy had been dropped.
"Really, Master Fett, I'm not sure what I can." Her voice trailed off, and her eyes rested unseeingly on the breastplate of his armor as a thought occurred to her. "Unless.you would allow me to offer the use of my personal quarters to you." She shrugged. "That's the best I can do."
That the best she could do was offer him a pleasant, quiet room with no cameras made a favorable impression on the bounty hunter, and he always ate there when he was in the city and it was convenient. Today, however, the Café was packed. Tourists, mostly, he surmised. They stared at him with frightened eyes, frozen with terror. Another thing Fett liked about Nuura was that she didn't capitalize on his patronage the way some places would have. He was famous, after all, and some people wouldn't have been above putting a sign in the window: "Boba Fett Eats Here".
Nuura had no such pretensions, she told him he could use the back door if he pleased, but so far he had seen no reason to do so. Today he almost wished he had. "Nuura." He said, and the helmet's amplifier carried his voice and made it sound like command. There was a clatter of dishes, and Nuura pushed through the double doors from the kitchen, bringing a wave of food smells with her. She'd made a futile attempt to pull her hair back, but now almost all of it had straggled out to frame her tired face, and her apron looked dirtier then usual.
"Oh." She said when she saw him, a line instantly appearing between her eyes. She was short-staffed, actually it was just her and the cook, her afternoon waitress was late, and there stood Boba Fett, demanding with his body language the personal attention she usually gave him.
Long before the Moonbeat Café, Nuura had studied human behavior at a science university, her content area had been non-verbal communication. She had decided early on that Boba Fett was human, and she liked to think they'd developed some sort of rapport from all the times she'd respected his privacy and waited on him in her own dining room. Now she hoped she was right, she would have to play on his good graces today.
"Master Fett." She set down the plates she'd been carrying at the appropriate table, taking a second to smile at her customers. "My noon waitress should be here any minute, could you." She waved at a table with one six-fingered hand. "Could you find out what they want?" She hustled over behind the counter as someone paid their tab and she smiled and thanked them.
Boba Fett wavered, surprised and uncertain. He was almost positive the frumpy little woman had just asked him to wait on tables, and then turned away as if she knew he would. Of course, the sooner the tourists were taken care of, the sooner he would get his lunch in the quiet dining room with blue walls. He whirled to the table she indicated, inhabited by a balding human man and an older woman with a painful amount of make-up on.
"What do you want?" He growled.
The man broke down completely under his helmet's glare. "To live!" He blurted out. "I just want to live." With that he started blubbering, falling on his knees and begging Fett not to take him to Garnosh, whoever that was.
Boba Fett glared scornfully down at the guilty patron, and he heard Nuura say in a weary tone "Never mind. That isn't going to work." Then her noon waitress rushed in, babbling something about her boyfriend, and Nuura motioned for Fett to follow her to the back. Through the kitchen was Nuura's home, a simple set of rooms that she decorated tastefully, reflecting a serene air that was a relief after the bustling café.
The dining room was painted sky blue, the high alley windows covered with neat white curtains and the walls adorned with pictures of open fields, quiet streams and patches of wild flowers. "I've lived in this city my whole life." She'd once told him. "But I think I'm a country person at heart."
They went through the familiar ceremony of sitting at the shiny wood table as she wrote down his order. He noticed that she sat down whenever possible, the effect of having a job that kept her on her feet all day.
"Why all the people?" He asked.
"Tour shuttles. Come through every season and every eatery in town is packed. Some of them come all the way from the outer rim to see the capital." She smiled quickly at him. "Some of them have guilty consciousness too."
That inspired him to ask something he'd wondered about ever since he'd met Nuura. "You aren't afraid of me."
"Of course not." She stood, tucking her mini datapad into her apron pocket. "I haven't done anything wrong."
~~~~~~
A light tap on the door interrupted his meal, and his hand hovered near his helmet. "Nuura?"
"Yes, it's me. I'll refill your drink now, if that's ok."
Boba donned his helmet quickly. "Come in."
"How is everything?" She inquired politely as she expertly topped off his drink with the contents of a large pitcher. "Is the Horgantot to your liking?"
"It's fine."
"Good." As she leaned further over to steady the pitcher, a small leather sachet on a cord slid out of the open neck of her tunic. The bounty hunter spied it instantly, from his vantage point the slender leather cord that hung the pouch around Nuura's neck was dangling right in front of his helmeted head. A charm or amulet of some kind?
He reached up and pinched the leather cord between his gloved fingers. Nuura jerked slightly, a slight pink blush on her cheeks betraying her discomfort. "Something wrong?" She asked, her voice still calm and courteous as ever, despite being held in an awkward position bent over the table. Boba didn't think anything ever really fazed Nuura.
"What's this?" The enhanced sensors in his helmet were picking up a somewhat-familiar scent.but he couldn't identify it.
"Just a little memento from a bygone day." Her tone was flippant. "Can I straighten up now?"
He barely heard her, he was so intent on trying to recognize the subtle smell. He came quickly out of his reverie when she placed her fingers over his on the cord, gently working the cord from his grasp. "Let go, please."
There was decided edge on her voice. He dropped his hand and picked up his fork again. "You may go."
For a split second, Nuura looked as if she would make a sharp retort, then she composed herself and smiled, polite as ever. "As you wish." She replied, hefting the pitcher and bustling out the door. Boba stared after her for a minute, then removed his helmet and continued to eat. What was that smell. He reviewed what he knew about Nuura. She was by all accounts single, she never made mention of any family or religion. She was tied to her job, her messy hair and wrinkled clothes made it painfully clear that she ate drank and slept at the Moonbeat Café. What memories would she have.what mementos? Suddenly, she interested him. His hunter's instinct was telling him there was more to Nuura Moonbeater then met the eye.
~~~~~~~~~
In the kitchen, Nuura found herself unsettled by her latest encounter with the bounty hunter. She waited on him on a semi-regular basis, but when he took hold of her sachet, her body had gone hot with the unexpected invasion of her personal space, then cold with fear and dread. Did he know? "What's this?" He'd said, but DID he know? Was he somehow able to smell the nearly odorless mixture? She fingered the sachet as if she would remove it, licking her dry lips.
"Hey Nuura." The cook said. "You all right?"
"Yes." She forced herself to turn and smile brightly. "Of course. Just tired." The cook nodded. "Well, our last two customers are leaving, so give Mr. Secretive" -she jerked her head toward the door that separated Boba Fett from the kitchen- "his check and then we can all call it a day."
Nuura looked at the wall crono and was glad to see it was nearly closing time. "Right." She agreed. "That's just what I'll do." Without thinking, without knocking, she barged through the door into her dining room.
~~~~~~~
Boba Fett tensed when he saw the door swinging open, and in the split second he had he chose his gun rather then his helmet. Nuura walked through the door and then blanched as she realized what she had done. Instantly she averted her eyes to the floor, unable to stop the picture from branding itself in her memory. The man who's surprise and anger she could feel in every fiber of her body was indeed human. He had light brown skin and short black hair, and an sinister looking scar running dangerously near his hard brown eyes. A meager black goatee gave him a sharp, merciless look that was just as intimidating as his helmet. He was also aiming his blaster rifle at her, and her heart slammed into her chest, half expecting each heartbeat to be her last.
He was seething, she could feel it emulating from him. "Well?" He demanded. "You'd better have as good reason for invading my privacy."
"I forgot." She admitted, her eyes still on the floor. "I was in a hurry, and I wasn't thinking."
"This lapse could be your demise." He said coldly, and without his helmet's amplifier Nuura was surprised to note that his voice had a slight outer rim accent.
"I'm sorry."
"Sorry won't protect you if anyone learns you've seen my face."
"They won't." She vowed. "May I be given over to my enemies if I do."
"What enemies?"
There was a slight pause. "It's just an expression, Master Fett."
He made a noise that sounded like a cross between a sigh and a grunt. "Look up, Nuura."
She kept her eyes trained to the ground. "At you?" She clarified.
"Yes."
She slowly raised her eyes. He watched her face carefully, masking his curiosity. No one had seen his face in a very, very long time, especially not a woman. To his disappointment, Nuura's face betrayed as little as his own. Her tired green eyes regarded him calmly, so calmly that it reminded him of something, and his eyes went to the sachet around her neck.
Nuura's self-control was admirable. "Your check." She said, laying her datapad on the table.
~~~~~~~~
Boba Fett intended to leave the city that night, but a small amount of research yielded enough information to convince him to stay. He was almost certain he know knew the contents of Nuura's sachet, but a closer examination was in order. Nuura was not the simple café owner she seemed to be.
Fanfiction by Ala Green
Timeframe: Takes place around 3 years after ROTJ
Disclaimer: I own Nuura and the Moonbeat Café.I don't own Boba Fett, Luke Skywalker, or any of the planets mentioned.
Chapter 1: The Moonbeat Café
Normally, he ate aboard his ship. Today his ship was docked far away from where he was, and the streets of Coruscant were crowded. It would take too long to go there, he reasoned, he would loose valuable time.
So instead Boba Fett ducked into a small cafe called Moonbeat, ignoring the sudden silence of the crowded café. There was a line of people waiting to be seated that almost reached the door, but he ignored that too and looked around for the busy proprietress, Nuura Moonbeater.
Two years ago, under similar circumstances he had decided to eat at the Moonbeat Café for the first time. Since he couldn't remove his helmet in a public place, he had stalked up to Nuura and demanded a private room to eat in.
"I'm sorry." She'd said politely but firmly. "There's only one dining area, no exceptions."
He remembered looking down at the short, slightly frazzled woman with her shoulder-length brown hair pinned messily up and her hands deep in the pockets of her stained apron.
"Do you know who I am?" He'd growled impatiently, sure she would buckle eventually.
"Yes sir, Master Fett." Her tone was deferential and unmoved. "I'm sorry we cannot accommodate you, I'm sure one of the other eateries on this street can. The Golden Sabre is known to have private dining areas-"
He made an impatiently gesture with his hand that silenced her. "Private rooms are never intended to be private." He pointed swiftly to a security camera mounted above the doorway of her Café as an illustration.
She put one hand on her hip, and he quickly noticed she had six fingers on that hand. The other one was still buried in the apron pocket, but he was willing to bet it was the same. Odd, she looked human enough, especially now that her mask of professional courtesy had been dropped.
"Really, Master Fett, I'm not sure what I can." Her voice trailed off, and her eyes rested unseeingly on the breastplate of his armor as a thought occurred to her. "Unless.you would allow me to offer the use of my personal quarters to you." She shrugged. "That's the best I can do."
That the best she could do was offer him a pleasant, quiet room with no cameras made a favorable impression on the bounty hunter, and he always ate there when he was in the city and it was convenient. Today, however, the Café was packed. Tourists, mostly, he surmised. They stared at him with frightened eyes, frozen with terror. Another thing Fett liked about Nuura was that she didn't capitalize on his patronage the way some places would have. He was famous, after all, and some people wouldn't have been above putting a sign in the window: "Boba Fett Eats Here".
Nuura had no such pretensions, she told him he could use the back door if he pleased, but so far he had seen no reason to do so. Today he almost wished he had. "Nuura." He said, and the helmet's amplifier carried his voice and made it sound like command. There was a clatter of dishes, and Nuura pushed through the double doors from the kitchen, bringing a wave of food smells with her. She'd made a futile attempt to pull her hair back, but now almost all of it had straggled out to frame her tired face, and her apron looked dirtier then usual.
"Oh." She said when she saw him, a line instantly appearing between her eyes. She was short-staffed, actually it was just her and the cook, her afternoon waitress was late, and there stood Boba Fett, demanding with his body language the personal attention she usually gave him.
Long before the Moonbeat Café, Nuura had studied human behavior at a science university, her content area had been non-verbal communication. She had decided early on that Boba Fett was human, and she liked to think they'd developed some sort of rapport from all the times she'd respected his privacy and waited on him in her own dining room. Now she hoped she was right, she would have to play on his good graces today.
"Master Fett." She set down the plates she'd been carrying at the appropriate table, taking a second to smile at her customers. "My noon waitress should be here any minute, could you." She waved at a table with one six-fingered hand. "Could you find out what they want?" She hustled over behind the counter as someone paid their tab and she smiled and thanked them.
Boba Fett wavered, surprised and uncertain. He was almost positive the frumpy little woman had just asked him to wait on tables, and then turned away as if she knew he would. Of course, the sooner the tourists were taken care of, the sooner he would get his lunch in the quiet dining room with blue walls. He whirled to the table she indicated, inhabited by a balding human man and an older woman with a painful amount of make-up on.
"What do you want?" He growled.
The man broke down completely under his helmet's glare. "To live!" He blurted out. "I just want to live." With that he started blubbering, falling on his knees and begging Fett not to take him to Garnosh, whoever that was.
Boba Fett glared scornfully down at the guilty patron, and he heard Nuura say in a weary tone "Never mind. That isn't going to work." Then her noon waitress rushed in, babbling something about her boyfriend, and Nuura motioned for Fett to follow her to the back. Through the kitchen was Nuura's home, a simple set of rooms that she decorated tastefully, reflecting a serene air that was a relief after the bustling café.
The dining room was painted sky blue, the high alley windows covered with neat white curtains and the walls adorned with pictures of open fields, quiet streams and patches of wild flowers. "I've lived in this city my whole life." She'd once told him. "But I think I'm a country person at heart."
They went through the familiar ceremony of sitting at the shiny wood table as she wrote down his order. He noticed that she sat down whenever possible, the effect of having a job that kept her on her feet all day.
"Why all the people?" He asked.
"Tour shuttles. Come through every season and every eatery in town is packed. Some of them come all the way from the outer rim to see the capital." She smiled quickly at him. "Some of them have guilty consciousness too."
That inspired him to ask something he'd wondered about ever since he'd met Nuura. "You aren't afraid of me."
"Of course not." She stood, tucking her mini datapad into her apron pocket. "I haven't done anything wrong."
~~~~~~
A light tap on the door interrupted his meal, and his hand hovered near his helmet. "Nuura?"
"Yes, it's me. I'll refill your drink now, if that's ok."
Boba donned his helmet quickly. "Come in."
"How is everything?" She inquired politely as she expertly topped off his drink with the contents of a large pitcher. "Is the Horgantot to your liking?"
"It's fine."
"Good." As she leaned further over to steady the pitcher, a small leather sachet on a cord slid out of the open neck of her tunic. The bounty hunter spied it instantly, from his vantage point the slender leather cord that hung the pouch around Nuura's neck was dangling right in front of his helmeted head. A charm or amulet of some kind?
He reached up and pinched the leather cord between his gloved fingers. Nuura jerked slightly, a slight pink blush on her cheeks betraying her discomfort. "Something wrong?" She asked, her voice still calm and courteous as ever, despite being held in an awkward position bent over the table. Boba didn't think anything ever really fazed Nuura.
"What's this?" The enhanced sensors in his helmet were picking up a somewhat-familiar scent.but he couldn't identify it.
"Just a little memento from a bygone day." Her tone was flippant. "Can I straighten up now?"
He barely heard her, he was so intent on trying to recognize the subtle smell. He came quickly out of his reverie when she placed her fingers over his on the cord, gently working the cord from his grasp. "Let go, please."
There was decided edge on her voice. He dropped his hand and picked up his fork again. "You may go."
For a split second, Nuura looked as if she would make a sharp retort, then she composed herself and smiled, polite as ever. "As you wish." She replied, hefting the pitcher and bustling out the door. Boba stared after her for a minute, then removed his helmet and continued to eat. What was that smell. He reviewed what he knew about Nuura. She was by all accounts single, she never made mention of any family or religion. She was tied to her job, her messy hair and wrinkled clothes made it painfully clear that she ate drank and slept at the Moonbeat Café. What memories would she have.what mementos? Suddenly, she interested him. His hunter's instinct was telling him there was more to Nuura Moonbeater then met the eye.
~~~~~~~~~
In the kitchen, Nuura found herself unsettled by her latest encounter with the bounty hunter. She waited on him on a semi-regular basis, but when he took hold of her sachet, her body had gone hot with the unexpected invasion of her personal space, then cold with fear and dread. Did he know? "What's this?" He'd said, but DID he know? Was he somehow able to smell the nearly odorless mixture? She fingered the sachet as if she would remove it, licking her dry lips.
"Hey Nuura." The cook said. "You all right?"
"Yes." She forced herself to turn and smile brightly. "Of course. Just tired." The cook nodded. "Well, our last two customers are leaving, so give Mr. Secretive" -she jerked her head toward the door that separated Boba Fett from the kitchen- "his check and then we can all call it a day."
Nuura looked at the wall crono and was glad to see it was nearly closing time. "Right." She agreed. "That's just what I'll do." Without thinking, without knocking, she barged through the door into her dining room.
~~~~~~~
Boba Fett tensed when he saw the door swinging open, and in the split second he had he chose his gun rather then his helmet. Nuura walked through the door and then blanched as she realized what she had done. Instantly she averted her eyes to the floor, unable to stop the picture from branding itself in her memory. The man who's surprise and anger she could feel in every fiber of her body was indeed human. He had light brown skin and short black hair, and an sinister looking scar running dangerously near his hard brown eyes. A meager black goatee gave him a sharp, merciless look that was just as intimidating as his helmet. He was also aiming his blaster rifle at her, and her heart slammed into her chest, half expecting each heartbeat to be her last.
He was seething, she could feel it emulating from him. "Well?" He demanded. "You'd better have as good reason for invading my privacy."
"I forgot." She admitted, her eyes still on the floor. "I was in a hurry, and I wasn't thinking."
"This lapse could be your demise." He said coldly, and without his helmet's amplifier Nuura was surprised to note that his voice had a slight outer rim accent.
"I'm sorry."
"Sorry won't protect you if anyone learns you've seen my face."
"They won't." She vowed. "May I be given over to my enemies if I do."
"What enemies?"
There was a slight pause. "It's just an expression, Master Fett."
He made a noise that sounded like a cross between a sigh and a grunt. "Look up, Nuura."
She kept her eyes trained to the ground. "At you?" She clarified.
"Yes."
She slowly raised her eyes. He watched her face carefully, masking his curiosity. No one had seen his face in a very, very long time, especially not a woman. To his disappointment, Nuura's face betrayed as little as his own. Her tired green eyes regarded him calmly, so calmly that it reminded him of something, and his eyes went to the sachet around her neck.
Nuura's self-control was admirable. "Your check." She said, laying her datapad on the table.
~~~~~~~~
Boba Fett intended to leave the city that night, but a small amount of research yielded enough information to convince him to stay. He was almost certain he know knew the contents of Nuura's sachet, but a closer examination was in order. Nuura was not the simple café owner she seemed to be.