Chapter Eight – A Rewrite
Adra sat on the couch, one of many in the Wraith lounge, and sighed softly, her gaze staring infinitely at the floor some ten feet in front of her. Somewhere behind her, she could hear Inyri's laughter and the clatter of tumbling equipment. Not long after, Face's joking voice made a comment that she completely missed. Across the room, she could see Tynian sitting comfortably on another couch, Kai lying on her back next to him, head in his lap.
But she wasn't really watching those things. She was thinking back to when she was Kai's age. The worst year of her life, actually. And then, seven years later, when she had thought she'd never hear another word of Reggie Grandar, she'd heard of him again. Heard of him in the form of asking Ryok about his niece.
"I didn't know Aerolin was every married."
Ryok shook his head. "She wasn't. She, er, had a one night stand with some 'Reggie Grandar' guy."
She felt herself pale. "Oh."
"Speaking of whom," Ryok looked searchingly at her, "Her message said to ask you about him."
Adra didn't answer; instead, she sprinted in the opposite direction from where Ryok was standing. There was no way in any of Corellia's hells that she'd bring up Reggie Grandar in a willing conversation.
Her experiences with the bastard were better left hidden off in the darkest part of her head. Yet she'd all but given herself away three weeks earlier. It was unintentional, of course, but it had still happened. She had made a comment, specifically the comment pertaining to the fact that the Imperial had a fondness for beating up the girls he knocked up, and that comment had been thankfully overlooked. Yet if anyone came to actually think about it, they'd have to wonder. And Adra didn't think she wanted to just up and tell the galaxy the story.
A figure moved across her line of vision, stopping in front of her. The fact that she could no longer see the previously-mentioned line on the floor caused Adra to blink back into reality. She glanced upwards, not quite sure who she was expecting to see. However, it certainly wasn't Cerne. The girl was looking at her, a thoughtful line drawn across her face.
"Aunt Adra, could I talk to you?" Ray asked from only a few steps away.
With a sigh, Adra nodded. "You want to talk here or someplace else?"
The girl nodded to the door, obviously giving her answer. Without a sound, Adra got up from the couch, following the 21 year old out into the hallway. The black-haired girl stopped and turned to face her, her eyes cast in slight shadow. If Adra had been able to clearly see Ray's eyes, she could've been able to get a feel for the Intel officer's mood. However, it didn't appear she had that luck today. So instead, she waited for Cerne to speak, now walking slowly next to her down the hallway.
At last, Adra heard the girl intake air. "I know I'm not really a part of Wraith or anything, and I know I've been offworld for the past year and a half. However, I've really been trying to catch up on everything." She paused, seeming to collect her thoughts. "I've gotten the information from numerous sources among the Requiem and Junior Wraith squadrons. It all leads me to ask the question that I never thought I'd have a need to ask you." Even as Cerne took another breath, Adra had the strangest suspicion she knew what was coming. She was going to be asked the very thing Ryok had tried to get an answer out of her over. The problem was, she'd probably have to give the answer.
"I understand that this probably isn't the best time to ask you about this, and I'm sure it is also one of your least favorite subjects," Ray continued. "But I'd like to know what my mother meant in reference to asking you about your side story with Reggie Grandar. Before you snap at me and tell me to mind my own business, I want to just say something. You're bound to be asked about your comment by Uncle Face, or someone who knows you well enough. It's something I'm sure they've just not gotten around to doing. Between Aunt Iella and Aunt Winter, though, both Intel and I would like to understand what we're not hearing."
As the girl finished, Adra stopped walking, her feet not obeying her commands to keep going any more. Instead, she merely raised a hand to each of her temples, rubbing them vigorously, as though that would clear up this whole mess. Force, what did she do to deserve this? However, Adra almost thought she knew; she'd avoided it for so long, she couldn't just ignore it anymore. There would be no way she could help Kai with her own experiences if she couldn't get over her own.
She glanced to either side of the hallway, wondering it there was a room she and Cerne could have this conversation in without interruption. However, that didn't seem like such a possibility so instead she gestured towards the courtyard-type extension of the Wraith grounds. Back when there were still four year olds running around this place, they'd gotten the New Republic to build the garden and walkways for the kids to play around in. Now it was just a good place to think, even if it was on the small side.
Once the two of them were walking down a path away from the building, Adra began, fighting her desire to slip away from the conversation every step of the way. "I assume you're going off the comment I made to Grandar in the Wraith hanger." She glanced quickly at Ray, who nodded quietly, still listening. Adra took a breath of air and released it, hoping to calm her nerves. "I knew Reggie from the days when I was in the Imperial Academy on Bastion, flew against him quite a bit in the sims. He used to be one of my best friends, actually. When I left with Yaddle, I never expected to become anything more than a pilot who died when she was 25 or 30 years old. I thought I might even live to see 40, if I was lucky enough and studied hard enough at the Temple.
"I was nine when I hacked into the Bastion City files and sent them anonymously to Intel. I figured I was doing them a favor and everything, sending them the information. It didn't take them too long to figure out who'd done the work. After that, I was constantly going from Intel headquarters in my 'spare time', hacking files with Tyria. That's how we met, actually. When I became a Jedi Knight, which only took me four more years to accomplish, Iella offered me a position in the field of undercover operations. I figured, hey, why not?
"My third mission took me to Bastion. There I met up with Reggie again. He was older than I was by about six years, but he didn't know that. My op cover said I was seventeen, and at that point, I got away with it. Cosmetics helped, of course. My mission in Bastion lasted three months, during which time I guess you could say we two started seeing each other. I don't know why I did that; I should've ignored him from the beginning of that mission. It was my mistake." Adra sighed then, shaking her head over the memories. She really had been a fool.
"Anyway, about two weeks before my mission was drawing to a close, as I was there for information only on the three month timeframe, I basically called the relationship off. As I'm sure you've deduced of Grandar's character by now from everything everyone else might've told you, he's a bit of a control freak. Details withheld, I ended up going back to Coruscant unknowingly pregnant and beaten up worse than I'd ever been, until Daala," she finished. Adra's mind was running through everything she'd left out, everything she'd never told people about her life. Iella and Winter had gotten the major, need to know details, but beyond that, Adra had been distant about it.
Only then did she realize they'd stopped walking. Cerne didn't appear at all phased by the knowledge that her father, a man she'd never truly met, enjoyed raping women, beating them bloody, and leaving then to raise a kid or two on their own. Finally the girl looked over at Adra, and she thought she saw understanding in the gray-green eyes.
"Thanks, Aunt Adra," she said, a slight smile etching over her mouth. "Thanks for telling me." Ray paused, then said, "I'm going to venture a guess, but you never told anyone outside Intel about that, did you?"
Adra smiled slightly. "Correct."
Cerne nodded, seeming to go back to her world of equations. Then she looked up again, the smile still there. "Well, I guess I've gotta say thanks for trusting me enough to tell me that information. What happened to Kai must seem like a horrible rewrite of your life."
"You have no idea," Adra answered distantly, staring at the brick tile in front of her. "You have absolutely no idea."