Paper Cup

Author: RowenaR

Rating: M due to mature themes

Category: Angst/Romance

Disclaimer: Star Wars on the whole belongs to George Lucas but the characters mentioned here are children of my imagination. Respect that, please. "Paper Cup" is a song by Heather Nova which inspired me during a kind of difficult time for myself on a cool summer night to write this. I love this song. And I love the whole "Siren"-album. Please keep writing and singing songs, Heather!

Summary: A one-shot fic. Vignette about how Kenzy feels… the incident with Blenwell in the work-out room. Companion piece to "Hallelujah". No stand-alone, sorry. Recommended reading "Odyssey" first.

Archive: Sureeeeeee. Just write me a note where you're putting this baby ;)

A/N: When I wrote this I was in a pretty difficult situation myself. I was in love with my best friend, but unfortunately he only wanted us to be friends. Great friends, sure, but no friendship can fulfill what you really need from the other.

Every time I listened to the song "Paper Cup" during this whole time I felt like crying because it somehow reminded me of everything that was going on inside me, and some cool summer night this story just popped right into my mind. Suddenly the lyrics were not only my own thoughts anymore but also these of my favorite character of my story "Odyssey", Saron Kenzy. And she wouldn't let me get this by unsaid, so I wrote it down. I hope it's not too depressing.

Paper Cup

Wishful thinking I might be yours
Drifting on every step
I'm always drawn to the dark horse
Sweet, sweet, oh nothing's said

And every dream, every, is just a dream after all

And everything stands so still when you dance
Everything spins so fast
And the night's in a paper cup
When you want it to last

Wishful thinking you might be mine
Every shiver sends
One breath under the bridge of sighs
Bending where the river bends

And every dream, every, is just a dream, after all

And everything stands so still when you dance
Everything spins so fast
And the nights in a paper cup

When you want it to last

It's nothing, I keep telling myself. Nothing. And still… Why is everything spinning around me then? Why do I feel like I would drown every moment? Why do I lye here, curled up ever so tightly? That's not me, that's a stranger. I don't know myself anymore. And everything because we couldn't keep it in. Couldn't keep it in, whatever that was pent up inside of us. It wasn't beautiful yet it wasn't ugly either. It wasn't tender yet it wasn't violent either. It wasn't all sugar and spice an' everything nice yet it wasn't devastating either.

I don't understand it. I'm a grown up woman, I should be pretty much able to cope with this. This wasn't the first time I've had something like this, right? Right.

Wrong. Sure, I've slept with men I didn't love. I've slept with them because I needed their money. I've slept with them because I needed their influence. I've slept with them because I needed their bodies.

But I didn't sleep with Blenwell because I needed anything of these from him. I didn't need his money, I have my own. I didn't need his influence, I didn't make it to lieutenant in two months for nothing. And I didn't need his body. Not just his body. I needed more. There was so much inside me. So many things I couldn't quite put a finger on. The hatred for Chesfer, the anger at Lochlin, the ever growing, ever annoying strange attraction for Blenwell… I felt so drawn to him and yet I wanted nothing more than to run whenever we met. I wanted to consume him and push him off, to heal him and to hurt him at the same time.

And look what it got me. Half an hour craziness in the work-out room and a lifetime of self-loathing, self-reproaches and aching heartstrings. Gods, did he feel good. And do I hate myself for being so weak.

I don't feel weak because I slept with him. But I feel weak because I fell for him. I can't fall for somebody because I can't feel this way, I keep telling myself, but it's a lie. A lie I'm telling myself so that I can do what I have to. Shooting, killing living beings, give orders to people I know they can only fulfill at the cost of their own lives. But I have to keep up telling this lie. Lives depend upon it. Lives depend upon me killing other people and giving deathly orders.

And that's the reason why I told him not to worry about it all, that "after all, it was just sex." Everything else would have made me vulnerable, open to gloat at me, make fun of my, snap at me. I did the right thing, kept up my head, was strong.

But why do I feel like this is all hollow talk, a big façade with nothing behind it? Because I discovered something deeper. Something that does not need a knife to hurt me or a disease to make me sick. It's very simple.

It's called unrequited love.

And in the still of the night it comes to haunt me, to taunt me, to anger me and to torture me. I'm lying completely still but everything seems to spin around me, like a giant spiral taking me down and down and down…

There's only one night in my whole life I wanted to last into eternity, and this was – with a strange and bitter twist of fate – the night that will devastate me. But I would give everything to return to it and never have the next day dawning.