Mel was standing in her room, fixing her hair after it had gone all mussed during saber (not because she was vain, or at least not mostly, more because it was irritating when it was in her face) when she realized something. It was something that she should have noticed before, but had not, for whatever reasons of her own.

Katie's things were gone. It hadn't been sudden, no not at all, but had more of a gradual fade from the room as she took up residence in another. Mel found it a shock to have to room to herself, a glaring sign of her friend's shifting alliances and a reminder that Mel was, for the most part, alone.

It wasn't really anything major, though it had taken Mel several nights to get used to the silence, just as it had taken her a few in the very beginning to get used to sleeping with another in the room. But it was depressing in its own way, as it pointed out, in flashing neon, how little of an influence she'd really had. This was blow, not because Mel was controlling, but because she had always been a leader. Her little flock of friends had followed her, willingly, and she'd always been careful with them and her damn charisma. Apparently, she needn't have bothered.

- - -

Katie folded the last shirt, before stepping back to survey her work. All her worldly possessions were there, what little that actually amounted too, in half of someone else's wardrobe. It was a milestone of sorts, though it stuck unpleasantly in the back of her mind for some reason.

The second night had been hardest, she'd found. She knew the sayings were about the first step being the hardest, but she'd always thought it the second. After the first step there is still a sense of denial, a sense that one can opt out without feeling some sort of responsibility. It is the second step that commits you to action, and after that it's all downhill.

Or so she'd found. Anakin hadn't seemed particularly concerned that she'd change her mind.

- - -

Mel ducked and whirled, coming on fast. Katie had been behind her, partially in the air, when there was a massive bump. It was nothing like the lurches of before, but it was still unsettling.

Thrown off course, Katie nearly lost her footing, almost falling off the platform. "What the hell was that?"

"That? Oh." Obi-wan looked mildly puzzled, though partially amused. He usually was. "You didn't know? We're making a refueling stop before Alderraan."

"Then where are we?" Mel asked, as though the planet name would actually mean something to her.

"Myelin. It's a small, unimportant sort of only planet, only important when you need it. You'd think of it as a gas station next to the highway," Obi-wan clarified, proving once and again that he'd done some very thorough research of their planet.

"So how long'll we be here then?" Katie asked.

"Not very long. It'll take a few hours to restock, and there'll probably be some sort of pointless audience where we pretend to actually care about what goes on here." He answered sardonically, though he turned out to be right.

Obviously, there wasn't any way to make this a formal occasion had it needed to be one, Mel's dress still a pile of red bits of fabric. It would have made a lovely batch of confetti, had they needed it, but other than that it was useless.

The Myelin people were not particularly demanding, content with a brief appearance of everyone who counted (Katie and Mel included, surprisingly enough) on some sort of balcony and a few words spoken.

Katie found it rather pointless, standing there tying to look impressive while trying not to yawn. She also couldn't help but feel slightly unnerved as well, as the Anakin she was flanking (and trying to look at impartially) was appearing as Darth Vader, in full costume. Now he was even taller than usual, voice deeper, and it was really sort of creepy thinking of her lover as some sort of robot.

So Katie was spacing out, looking off over the crowd to her right, wondering what sort of people they were when she saw it. 'It' was a figure, most likely a man, in the back of the crowd. He would have been entirely unremarkable had he not been holding (what looked like to her) a high-powered rifle.

Without sparing a moment to think, as she watched the trigger finger begin its long, fateful pull back, she launched herself sideways, slamming into Anakin.

He was caught off balance and fell over, as utterly surprised as everyone else when some sort of dart/bullet/flash of laser went flying over where he had been moments before. Obi-wan, also caught off guard, felt the something part his hair as it whizzed by his ear. The crowd reacted rather more quickly than anyone else had, trapping the unsuccessful assassin before he could escape. But whether they had knowingly let him there in the first place? Well, no one ever knew for sure.

In the ensuing rush of people hurrying this way and that, issuing apologies here and investigating there, Katie couldn't help but feel slightly forgotten. He hadn't even had a chance to say anything to her before being whisked off to check for injuries, and she was afraid to look at either Mel or Obi-wan in case they were angry with her for saving his life. He managed later on to sneak her a quick kiss in the hall, but it was very late into the night before the hullabaloo subsided, and she was left sleeping in his bed alone. It was, altogether, a rather unsatisfactory affair.

She would have thought it even more unsatisfactory had she realized how very interested in her the Resistance was now. She'd proved herself yet one more obstacle in the route to freeing the galaxy, and so, she would have to go.