Kess didn't go to Leia to talk about it. In fact, she didn't go to anyone. She wandered that way before she left the Senate Dome, but talked herself into believing that Leia was either too busy or didn't need this complication right now. She thought to talk to Nik, but she didn't want to have to explain the whole thing. She kind of wanted to talk to Yana, but that would mean admitting what happened, and she didn't want to add anymore uncertainty between Yana and Wedge.
In truth, the one she really wanted to talk to about this was Wedge. He was one of her oldest friends now, and he was Luke's best friend. Wedge would be the one person who would know how to advise her. But Luke was right; it would be wrong to go to Wedge simply because he was the co-conspirator.
She left the speeder behind so Luke could use it later and hopped the first public transit she found, just to get away from the political sector. She didn't really pay attention to which direction it was going, and she didn't pay attention to how far it went before she looked up to find she didn't know where she was. It was late afternoon by the time she decided not to travel too far away from home and climbed off the bus with a small pouring of other random people.
It was an unremarkable section of the city, mostly industrial, with a smattering of low-income housing and dingy shops. Not on the top level, but not in the depths either. This area was sort of a ledge between the high class and the underworks, a wide surface street cut between an immense cavern and taller factories. She had no idea where she was, but she wasn't worried, she'd find her way back when the time came.
At least she was away from it all.
She had grabbed her brown cloak and now pulled the cowl over her head to keep people from wanting to approach and chat. Wrapping the thick wool over her front hid her lightsaber so no one would recognize her that way either. Kess just wanted to be alone right now. She wished she could go to the clearing for it, and realized that somehow, they had to find a new clearing. They both needed a place to get away and think.
She should at least tell Nik or Tayla where she was; she'd turned off her commlink when she left. She wasn't hungry, yet she absently pulled into a tiny diner on the side of the street to sit for a java juice with the intent to report in to someone.
Greasy workers and retirees peppered the establishment with conversation. Kess sat down in the first empty booth she found and grinned at how the ancient red-plastic upholstery groaned under her weight. The server droid yelled out orders through the kitchen window at a skinny, shirt-stained cook standing unflinching in his sprays of grease. This place was a real dive.
It was perfect.
After a moment, Kess looked around to see if she was supposed to wait for the server droid to come to the table, or if she was supposed to order at the counter to order. Her attentions caught on an elderly and massive besalisk man sitting in the corner of the bar counter like a regular, but Kess only recognized the race by the four giant arms and frog-like facial features. She'd never met one before. They were supposed to look intimidating, but this old man chuckled deeply and smiled with bright eyes at one of the waiters. She overheard a bit of another conversation in the booth behind her; they were arguing about sports. And across the dining room, two ladies with seven fingers on each hand knitted as they complained about their daughter-in-laws.
Normal people. Kess grinned and pushed away her cowl to look the place over again. Maybe what she needed was not a clearing in a jungle as much as a place where normal people gathered with normal-people problems.
The waitress droid sped by on her uni-wheel, ignoring Kess entirely, and instead reported into the elderly basalisk customer. Kess was getting ready to raise a hand and ask for service when she caught the basalisk murmuring to the droid and pointing at her.
"You got it, honey." The waitress's accent sounded like sour milk. She rolled away to the kitchen.
As the basalisk grinned at Kess, Kess returned a wrinkled brow like he was nuts. You're not trying to buy me a drink in order to pick me up are you? She wasn't sure how to respond to this suspicion, especially to watch the giant, green, four-armed geezer push off his stool like a man broken from decades of hard work and waddled over to her table with a dark-chuckling smile.
"Mind if I sit down?" He asked, but only after he was already squeezing his fat ass and pregnant belly between the booth and the table. Kess rolled her shoulders back and tried to find a polite way out of this. Before she found the right words, the waitress droid rolled up with stuff on her tray, setting down two small dishes: a cup of tea and a slice of tamal pie.
"I didn't order anything," Kess said with uncertainty.
"On the house," the basalisk announced and winked. Smugly, he set two of his four arms on the tabletop.
The waitress droid flipped a digit his way as she rolled off. "He owns the place."
Kess decided she must have been recognized, and there was a Jedi or political favor trying to get bought by a slice of tamal pie. Patiently, but ready to bolt as soon as she had the polite means to do so, she folded her hands into her lap and met the basalisk's eye. "What can I do for you?"
He just laughed more. His giant shoulders shuddered in the deep chuckle. "You can drink the 'bloody tea'." He said the last two words with a poor imitation of an inner rim accent.
Then he chuckled some more, as if Kess was the butt of some kind of joke.
Kess rolled her eyes and reached for the tea. Senses on, there was no deceit or ill-intent from this guy. "What do you want?" Kess challenged with a wisened grin, and took a sip.
It was the same kind of tea that grandpa used to drink.
"Don't want nothin'," he assured with a shrug, folding his huge fingers together on the table. "But I got a skill. Some say its kinda like a Jedi skill. I ain't no Jedi, but do have this skill."
Humored, Kess played along. "Okay? What's your skill?"
"When someone comes into my place needing to think, somehow I can sense what it is they need to eat and drink while they's thinkin'."
Kess looked down at the tea and tamal pie, and eyed him from underneath scrunched eyebrows. She wouldn't have ordered this as comfort food. This was more like the comfort food grandpa would've picked.
"I used to have some friends, long time ago, who would come in a lot. Not a lot. But a lot. When they needed to." He narrowed an eye and grinned with a quiet secret. "You kinda look like one of them."
She sighed for patience, "I'm sure you've seen me on the newsnets. You know who I am already."
"Yeah." He admitted, "But even if I didn't, I'd still recognize you." He nudged the tamal pie plate closer for her to partake in that as well.
Unwilling to get suckered into something, she didn't reach for it.
"So lemme guess," he said, squinting curiously, "And you don't have to tell me if I'm right, but lemme guess."
Kess lifted her brows and awaited this dare.
"You need somebody to talk to, but all your usuals aren't the right fit for this. The one you really want to talk to ain't around no more."
Kess licked grandpa's tea from her lips and lowered her eyes. It was eerie how that comment sucker punched her in the soul after she was so on-guard about this stranger. Her eyes flicked out the window.
"Like I said, you don't hafta tell me if I'm right." He shifted and it took a couple of tries to do it, but he wriggled his body out of the booth and groaned as he stood up. "But like I also said, you look like an old friend of mine."
Kess looked over at him, at where he was standing now, and getting ready to walk away. This was... surreal.
"Besides, you may as well make use of it." He chuckled again as he turned away, "I only kept that tea in stock for when Obi Wan came around anyway." And he waddled away.
Her sights fell back to the dinged-up table of tea and pie, but she couldn't see them clearly for the sudden tears in her eyes. To be sitting here, not far from what was grandpa's home before she knew him, accidentally visiting a place he frequented, that the owner remembered his favorite flavor of tea and favorite comfort food to go with it. It was like grandpa had reached out to say hello in a new way. This felt like a hug from the dead.
Kess ran a fingertip along the rim of the tea cup and smiled through her gentle tears. She flashed a smile, sniffed, and gazed out the window, trying to sense what grandpa's advice would be about all the things she had going on.
She could imagine his old voice, easy humor, and inner rim accent. Stop fretting about it for a minute and just eat the bloody pie.
Kess laughed, and though she knew it was her own memory excavating those words, she followed the order. Her mind was transported to other times and places, to younger struggles and older faces, and she grinned to taste that first reminiscent bite of tamal pie.