Review Responses~
sarahmichellegellarfan1: Thanks :D
ShigureAyameHatoriFanClub: Lolol, oh my gosh, your reviews never fail to make me laugh! Don't worry it doesn't get too bad- Oh, this is chapter 12.. weeeeeell.
heroherondaletotheresue: Thanks! Pace definitely starts to pick up from here and everyone'll be getting more feels.
Also thanks to everyone favoriting, the story, and myself, as well as all of the Favs and Follows! Means the world to me!
~TheObsessory
To The Stars and Back
Chapter 12; Happy Birthday
A Fanfiction written by TheObsessory
My eyes opened slowly, the bright sunlight streaming from my window and down onto my face. For the first time in many months, I felt completely rested.
My heart gave a scared thump and I sat up, checking the hour. The clock read nine. I felt the color drain from my face, and I was just about to jump out of bed when I realized it was an off-day. There were no classes or training sessions.
I fell backwards onto my bed with a huff, my head hitting the pillow softly. I had to stop doing this to myself. It had been a regular occurance to do this on off days, along with waking up before my alarm, fearful that I had forget to set one.
I snuggled back under the sheets, enjoying the softness of my bed and the solitary feel of my room.
Poe and I had gotten a two bedroom apartment our third year of school, and it worked surprisingly well. Having grown up together, we knew each other's living habits: I was relatively messy when it came to cleaning, but made sure to do my part every off-day. Poe, on the other hand, was the neat freak that had a place for everything. We evened each other out.
The apartment was a Godsend after living in close proximity to other students two years in a row. I could escape it all- the partying, the noises, the screeching at two in the morning. It was a decent size, too. Two bedrooms, one small bathroom, a half kitchen and a living space. No more cantina food. And it was entertaining cooking for ourselves when neither of us necessarily had the skill.
It was hard to believe in just a few short months we would be graduating and leaving this place for good.
A knock at the door pulled me from my nap. I didn't bother sitting up as Poe walked in.
He had been growing his hair out. Not only the hair atop his head, but his beard as well. What had once been light stubble had grown into a full beard. His curly hair was nearly untamable and often slicked back into a small ponytail.
"Sleeping in, Birthday Girl?" He sat at the foot of my bed, a white box in his hands with an orange ribbon wrapped around it.
I shot him a questioning look before I realized that it was, in fact, my twenty first Birthday.
I sat up slowly, running my hands through my hair to keep it from my face.
"Yeah, I guess I forgot." I chuckled, glancing nervously at the box in his hands.
He held it out to me, a soft smile hidden somewhere behind the beard.
I took it and unwrapped the bow, setting it on my sheets before sliding the top of the lid off the box. On a small white jewelry pillow sat a small silver chain. It wasn't brand new, and the glint of the metal had been dulled with age.
I looked at Poe in surprise, reaching for his shirt and pulling the neck of it down ever so slightly to find that the chain that had been there for nearly twenty one years was gone.
"Why?" I asked, pulling the chain out and admiring it in the sunlight.
"I'll tell you once you're ready to know." He flashed one of his brilliant smiles my direction and stood up to leave my room.
"I hate surprises." I grumbled, clipping the chain around my neck. The metal was cool against my skin and exceptionally calming in a way.
"Tonight we're going out." Poe called down the hall from the bathroom, "To celebrate both of our birthdays and our upcoming graduation, got it?"
"Okay, on one condition." I answered, following him into the bathroom, pulling at a knot at the back of my hair.
"That is?" He stood in front of the mirror, splashing his face with water.
"You shave and let me cut your hair."
He glanced up from the sink, eyes narrowed as droplets of water rolled by them.
"Does it look that bad?" He asked, grabbing his towel to dry the water from his face.
"You're starting to look like a Wookie, Poe." I laughed, running a brush through my hair.
He dropped his towel to the counter and released a Wookie call from the back of his throat, doing a fairly decent job.
I snatched his towel off of the counter and tossed it at his face, retreating back to my room, calling back, "Shave and then I'll cut!"
I slipped into some comfortable clothing and tied my hair back in the same two ponytails that rested over my shoulders. They were loose, tied near the bottom with orange ties, but still stayed out of my face with a small clip on the back of my head. I wasn't one for experimenting with hair.
Once I had finished, I began to set up a chair with some left over papers around it to catch the falling hair, listening to Poe hum a song as he shaved.
That was probably my favorite part about living with Poe- his singing was extraordinary. He didn't have a huge range, but had a strong voice that was soft on the ears..
I began to hum along, recognizing the tune, but unfamiliar with the song title or origin. My humming soon turned into singing. The lyrics weren't in the basic language, and I wasn't entirely sure of the language myself, but I knew them by heart and sang quietly along with Poe's hums.
"You ready for this face?" Poe called down the hall, his hums stopped.
He didn't wait for my response and walked around the corner into the living room, his face smooth and beardless.
"Ah, so Poe's finally returned." I was happy to see a clean shaven Poe. The beard was just too much, "Sit."
He sat down and I pulled the hair from its ponytail, running my fingers through the curls to catch any hidden knots and get a feel for how much should be taken off.
His hair was soft, if not a little greasy from whatever he put in it to tame it. I grabbed my scissors and began to cut, working my way toward the roots of his hair to, hopefully, err on the side of caution.
I worked silently for a while, focused on not accidentally stabbing him in the head. I often cut the end of my hair whenever it got too split or long, but styling hair was a completely different thing. Then again, how hard could it be?
"Hard to believe it's been six years since you broke my heart."
I stopped what was doing, quickly removing the scissors from beside Poe's head in case my anger got the best of me. I stood there for a few moments, the adrenaline coursing through my veins, telling me to turn and run from this conversation. The quickened pace of my heartbeat hurt my chest. But my fear soon morphed into anger.
So it had finally come to this.
"I broke your heart?" I said slowly, "We were fifteen, Poe. Your friendship was all I ever knew. All I ever wanted, and you… you wanted to change that."
"What would have changed?" He turned to look at me, eyes resolute, "I've seen you nearly every day since the day I pulled you out of your house. We laughed together, cried together, your pain was mine, and vice versa. Nothing would have changed."
"Everything would have changed." I breathed back, ashamed with the run of emotions coursing through me, but growing in confidence with the adrenaline that spurred the words from my throat, "Friendship and romance-" I spit the word out "-are two completely different things. And I was terrified. You dropped it on me like a bomb-"
"I thought you felt the same way." He interrupted.
"I couldn't… see you that way Poe." I shook my head, my stomach growing uneasy, "And I started to think what if I did? What if I hadn't pushed you away that day? All I could see was bad. We'd been each other's best friends for eight years by then. We'd spent eight years forming this friendship, this amazing thing, and you wanted to add another variable. And I thought to myself, 'What if he started to hate me? What if he decided he didn't want me as his friend anymore? What would I do?'. I felt so damaged from all that I had gone through and you were the only one around willing to understand. The only one who did understand." I took a deep breath, pushing my nausea away, "I didn't want you to leave."
I felt childish, saying these things that I had been holding onto for so many years, the things I had contemplated late into the night on more than one occasion.
"So you made your decision based on a bunch of 'what ifs'? You didn't even bother talking to me about it? Isn't that what friends do?" He looked hurt.
"I was fifteen." I reiterated with emphasis this time, "I was scared. But now-"
I stopped myself, swallowing my words.
"But now what?" His hurt had changed to anger, "Now you're having second thoughts? Changing your mind? That's not how it works, Sid."
"I never said it did." I shook my head, "But now it hurts. I realized that eventually you'd find someone you loved and I would stop being your best friend. But then I saw you kiss her… And when you lied and called me your twin sister…"
"Sid, no. You know I didn't say that because I meant you weren't my friend anymore." His hand brushed my arm and I realized I was shaking, "No one could replace you."
My breath hitched in my throat. When had he gotten so close to me? I felt my face flush instantly.
How could I have been so stupid? All my fear that had been for nothing…
My eyes closed involuntarily and placed a hand on his shoulder. Six years of this silly, childish game I had played with him.
"Just your sister, huh?"
Had my face not been bright red already, it would have been at the sound of another voice.
There, standing in the door, stood Poe's girlfriend of a year and a half. Nusa.
"Nusa, wait-"
But she didn't bother listening and had slipped out the door before Poe had a chance to say anything more.
He took a few steps toward the door before he turned on me, his face stern and his eyes ablaze.
"You can't just do that." He snapped, eyes intent on mine, "You don't get to chose when things are convenient for you. That's selfish. And it's mean, not just to me, because I don't care when you're mean to me. But it's mean to the other people, the people who are inconvenienced by you. People like Nusa."
He paused here, taking a deep breath.
"You think you were afraid?" He said much more quietly, "How do you think I felt-" He stopped himself, shaking his head.
"Maybe it's time we had some time apart."
And without a glance back, he went after her.
Just maybe I had been right about everything afterall.
So, did Poe chose Nusa over Sidra? Hmmmmm.
Coming up in Chapter Thirteen: Months of silence between Poe and Sidra, but now they've graduated and gone back to Yavin 4 where they can, hopefully, make ammends.
~TheObsessory
