Title: Here at the Right Time (4/?)

Fandom: Star Wars

Rating: PG for this part

Pairing/Characters: Thrawn/Jorj Car'das, Aristoca Sev'eere'nuruodo, Anakin Skywalker, and Supreme Chancellor Palpatine

Summary: Jorj Car'das learns that life is more interesting with a Chiss than without one. An AU of sorts taking place after the events of Timothy Zahn's Outbound Flight.

Notes: From here on out actual events both Republic-wide and Thrawn-specific will be sped up and happen in a matter of months instead of years. I'm not sure where this is going exactly, but I'd love feedback or thoughts if you have any!

Car'das was jostled awake by Thrawn who managed to move a respectful distance away before Car'das could smack him.

"You must eat and prepare yourself for meeting the Aristocra. She has finally seen fit to give you an appointment."

Not in person, of course. Thrawn apologetically informed him that bringing a human to Csilla would be altogether too much for most of the Ruling Families to tolerate. Particularly a human who would have to be accompanied by a Commander who was overeager to differentiate himself from the rest of polite society.

"It is fortunate in a way," Thrawn added. "You will be forced to remain with me and doubtlessly placed under my direct supervision."

"So nothing much will change."

"Not in the immediate future. I suspect that eventually someone important will wish to meet you."

Car'das showered and changed into something more fitting for meeting a dignitary, namely the only green jacket he owned –green being important to Corellia not that someone Chiss would care- and a collared white shirt tucked into neatly pressed trousers.

Thrawn watched Car'das eat with rapt interest but with no interest in joining him. Apparently he'd eaten earlier.

"Someday I want a uniform," Car'das decided.

"I would not object to that, but we ought to discuss something before you speak to the Aristocra," Thrawn began when Car'das' mouth was full. "You must remember to only address people by their ranks including me when we're in a more formal setting or even during casual interactions with those under my command. Once such things are sanctioned or approved, of course."

"I thought I got to use your core name. If nothing else, I definitely should be able to use it now."

Thrawn laughed. "Yes, but not among my people and certainly not on a frequent basis when others are nearby. Core names are very personal. I was glad to give it to you and I did not mind sharing it with Ferasi, but it is different now that you are an Ambassador. We do not acknowledge individuals, Jorj. We acknowledge rank."

"I don't mind you using my name."

"No, but I would mind others using your name."

Car'das sighed. "But it's just my name."

"Names are personal. I know that this must seem rather nonsensical to you, but I'm afraid it is necessary."

"Don't worry about it," Car'das said after mulling the matter over. "It's not a big deal."

And it wasn't, but Car'das couldn't figure out how Thrawn managed to remain among these backwards people even though he was one. He suspected Thrawn was still working on a way to leave that was not the same was willingly being demoted, but that only left exile and he doubted he'd be allowed to follow Thrawn into it. Whatever path Thrawn chose, Car'das refused to let himself wind up feeling as if he himself had been used. Such possible outcomes were already weighing on Thrawn's mind, and Car'das disliked the notion of Thrawn remaining trapped simply to keep from hurting someone else's feelings.

The conversation with Aristoca Sev'eere'nuruodo was about as brief as the one with Palpatine. She was probably the tallest Chiss he'd ever seen even if he wasn't seeing her in person. The Aristocra was willowy and regal in a black uniform with metal bars and a large bronze patch that signified some sort of connection to the CEDF although it was awhile before he learned what that was.

Veeren, not that he would have dared to call her that, seemed intrigued and amused by Car'das piss-poor Cheunh. Eventually she took pity on him and switched to Sy Bisti.

After some questions and examining the information she had at her disposal, she seemed satisfied that he was merely a Republic envoy and not a spy. His appreciation of the Chiss language and culture did him much credit. As for his location, Car'das was informed that Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo was quite pleased to have him on Picket Force Two where he could learn about the strength of their Defense Fleet and Phalanx divisions to his heart's content so long as it was under the Commander's direct supervision.

With a thin, smug smile, Veeren added that it would make little sense to move Ca'rdas anyway since the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet was controlled by her House.

After the talk was over, he stretched back out on his bed and waited for Thrawn to come out from where ever he'd been lurking. "You people sure love to brag," Car'das muttered.

"Then you must have faith that I am as eager to brag about you as anything else," Thrawn said.

"I'm not really worried about that."

"All the same, I will assert my claim when needed and certainly I will not discourage you from any demonstrations of physical affection should such expressions seem permissible or beneficial to you."

Car'das sighed. "With you it's all about timing. I don't think I can do that. I don't know how to time or make my reactions suitable for the entire Chiss population. Do you?"

Thrawn sat down on the bed and offered up an apologetic smile. "What I feel and when I feel it are outside of my control. I know it is the same for you. However, allowing others to manipulate those feelings to their own advantage is another matter entirely. I will not submit you to public scorn or ridicule on my behalf or to satisfy any selfish desires I might have for you at any given time during the course of a day."

"That's why you did nothing before," Car'das thoughtfully concluded. "Thrawn… How long did you feel things for me?"

Thrawn colored slightly. Car'das wondered for the first time if Thrawn had felt this way from the very beginning. Or maybe just from the moment he learned he couldn't just use Car'das' first name without giving something in exchange.

"You can tell me," he insisted, brushing fingers over Thrawn's arm. "We Corellians like that sort of thing."

"Nearly the entirety of your stay," the commander testily replied. "As I mentioned prior to your departure, if memory serves."

Car'das sat up. "I know but I like hearing it," he admitted. No one had ever wanted him around as much as Thrawn seemed to even if his way of expressing that sentiment was difficult to interpret and easy to miss. "You must have known I wouldn't reject you. I liked and trusted you after knowing you for all of five milliseconds."

"You were always destined to leave."

"You could have asked me to stay."

Thrawn raised an eyebrow. "Why? The odds of your staying were-"

"I might have," Car'das argued. "You can't use statistics or the laws of probability as an excuse for being too scared I'd reject you."

"Then clearly you do not need me to explain why I did not ask," Thrawn hissed.

Car'das sighed and put his arms around Thrawn's neck to keep the Chiss there when he started to get to his feet. "Relax. Okay?"

Reluctantly Thrawn nodded, but his gaze shifted towards the door.

"I need to ask because I want to know why you do things. I shouldn't have phrased it that way because I honestly don't think less of you just because you didn't want to get hurt. What I should have said is that Corellians and odds don't mix. If being with you means cheating, defying, or ignoring them? I was willing to do that before and I'm willing to do that now."

Thrawn turned to look at him. "You worry that I will not?"

It was Car'das' turn to look smug. "No, I don't. I figure you're too smart to be that dumb."

Thrawn seemed to need a moment to process this, but eventually he offered up a small, strained smile.

The days following the conversation were pleasant enough. He found that most of the Chiss stationed on Picket Force Two could understand his Cheunh and were eager to speak about themselves to an outsider. After all, they'd never met someone from another sector of space before without intending to shoot them out of the sky or send them back to whence they came from. It would be many months before the novelty wore off.

The kindest of these pilots and soldiers were from Thrawn's Household Phalanx. There weren't many of them, but they all wore burgundy and several of them were appointed to Thrawn as some sort of protection detail. And there was no one they admired or strove to emulate more than their commander.

Car'das wasn't allowed onboard the small Clawcraft fighters, but he was allowed to view them, a privilege that many ship manufacturers and designers might have killed for particularly Sienar Advanced Systems.

"They're still flawed," Thrawn observed in quiet Basic. "Somehow."

But whatever corrections needed to be made seemed beyond even the commander's ken.

The sequence of most evenings became fairly predictable, albeit pleasant. There was no point in asking how their days had been since they spent them together or at least on the same base.

Thrawn would stare at art for a few hours and Car'das would try to catch up on all the events going on simultaneously in the Republic with what little access he had to that information. The SIE-TIE twin ion engine gave way to news of a ridiculous number of clones fighting wars elsewhere.

The commander would eventually need to ask a few questions about Alderaan or Naboo or whatever planet of origin the artwork came from. Car'das would make an effort to only tell Thrawn about some of the Republican chaos, but would inevitably end up telling him everything.

The ion engine was the bit of news that interested Thrawn the most since he couldn't completely understand why humans were so slow to improve the designs of their own ships. He could see the benefits of cloning. He seemed a bit disgusted to learn that the only Republic clones were of one man and a bounty hunter at that.

"A waste of resources," he murmured. "But I imagine this cloning will give way to more productive uses of the technologies that created them."

In only a matter of months, Thrawn made his way through the art given to him, and Car'das was able to take his report back with him to what seemed like a slowly unraveling Republic. He hadn't been looking forward to the trip.

Arriving in Courscant would take twice as long as it should have and leaving would be difficult for several months. Thrawn had taken this in stride, but he also had kept Car'das in bed for nearly a day and a half before seeing him to his ship.

Palpatine seemed to be in high spirits as a result of various conflicts rather than in spite of them. He tried to suggest this was because difficult times could make or break a great man, but the glimmer in his eyes suggested some darker kind of madness. Something Thrawn would have appreciated, but one that Car'das couldn't understand.

The Supreme Chancellor showed off a TIE fighter prototype to Car'das and a select handful of others including one young man named Anakin Skywalker who had temporarily returned to the Capital in order to be promoted to Jedi Knight. A promotion, it turned out, that was basically an excuse to keep him out of action for a few months. Meditation and contemplation were his current tasks.

"The things a mess if you look at it," the Jedi had insisted, giving the SIE-TIE another one over when Palpatine had moved on to speak privately with the more important of his guests and supporters. "The power-yield is pathetic and you can't actually expect a fighter pilot to survive without a proper life-support system. And the shielding on this baby is non-existent. But maybe your blue friends can fix the problem someday. Kinman Doriana tells me their ships can do microjumps."

"Only the combat cruisers. I think they're having problems with their clawships."

Anakin looked intrigued. "Which are?"

"Um. Sort of like this only with curved wings and a different cockpit."

"No chance of you borrowing a ship someday?"

Car'das had laughed. "I doubt it."

Skywalker, at least, was entertaining company. Since Anakin was only a few years younger, they had more in common than not. And once he saw Anakin mooning over Senator Amidala, he figured they both had similar problems.

"You should talk to her," Car'das suggested as they walked past her and down to one of the scummiest space pubs available. They knew from habit that it was one of the few locations that the Jedi would never look for Anakin in.

Anakin smirked. "I do a lot more than talk to her."

"Really?"

And here the Jedi looked less arrogant and a bit more vulnerable. "Well, she's everything to me. I love her."

"What about the whole celibacy thing? No one cares?"

Anakin snorted and ordered their drinks. "Love isn't just about sex, but it doesn't matter. There's not much they can do about the things they don't know about. I doubt they'd believe you if you told them."

Car'das glared at the Jedi Knight. "Like I would. We're friends."

Anakin laughed. "Relax. I know you wouldn't. So do you miss the blue people now?"

"Not exactly." He wasn't going to admit to having days where he longed to be the only pale person in a sea of more colorful people.

"You miss that one guy then."

"Maybe."

"No, you definitely miss him."

"Yeah, I do."

But your affection for him…"

"Is about as taboo as the one you have for that Senator, I think."

"I bet it's a little less," Anakin wryly replied. "So. Why didn't he come with you?"

"He'd bring even more shame on his people, I guess. I think it's forbidden to be

interested in anything different."

"Poor guy. I guess it's like that everywhere."

"It shouldn't be."

"No," Anakin agreed. "It shouldn't. I grew up thinking that once I got freed and off Tatooine, I'd be done with all of this shit. You know?"

Car'das didn't know completely, but he nodded anyway. "You figured people would be open-minded."

"Or at least receptive to new ideas."

"You'd think certain groups would be obligated to be."

"Exactly. I figured Jedi would be. I'd like to think people capable of creating cruisers that

can microjump and fighter ships with the ability to go into light speed without on-board navigational computers would be open-minded too. How else do they come up with that? How else can a Jedi want to help the galaxy? What good is being special or being a chosen one if all people do is hold you back?"

"I don't know."

"It shouldn't be like that. A whole galaxy full of willfully oblivious people. If we're this enlightened Republic, why isn't everyone made to be more aware?"

Car'das shrugged. "You couldn't have that unless you forced it onto people. You'd have to make them be liberal, tolerant, and welcoming. And it would be a lot of work and no one would thank you for it."

Anakin shrugged. "I don't want thanks or a parade. I want to be able to express myself fully and not have to worry about all the stupid consequences of being true to myself."

"I know what you mean."

And there seemed to be an endless amount of consequences for Anakin's actions. He was constantly in trouble with Jedi equivalents of nurse maids. He seemed to dismiss this with a decent amount of aplomb, but he was clearly frustrated by each interruption and the inability of the Council to trust him. Every so often, his former Master would show up and while he clearly was concerned by Anakin's behavior, Obi-Wan Kenobi could eventually be coerced into drinking or at least listening to random factoids about the Chiss.

In some ways Skywalker was like an angrier, immature version of Thrawn, – a young man gifted and destined for something more with everyone at least vaguely aware of his potential but being thwarted at every turn— but in others they were complete opposites. Anakin was openly affectionate with his girlfriend, lover, or wife. It was hard to tell what they were. Anakin was completely uninterested in looking good or earning new titles. And he certainly didn't plan ahead for anything.

As far as Thrawn was concerned, Car'das' conversations with him were brief and entirely in Basic. They were fairly dismal talks too with either one of them learning anything they didn't already know about the other and both of them expressing affection as if they were distant strangers. The longer he was away, the less he tried contacting the Chiss. It was just too damn depressing.

Instead he rounded up more artwork and spent as little time on his own as was possible. He was eventually allowed into the Jedi Archives and Obi-Wan was able to give him copies of their art, which he figured would please Thrawn. And he caught only a small glimpse of the Chiss Jedi Padawan before learning the boy had stolen away to fight in the Clone Wars elsewhere.

Returning to Crustai was a strange experience and although he wasn't sure how Thrawn would react, he found himself hugging the Chiss immediately upon seeing him.

Surprisingly, the commander returned it somewhat fiercely and he smiled, but it didn't quite work its way up to his red eyes. He didn't particularly good either. Too stressed and on edge for Car'das' taste. And he was only too willing to follow where the Corellian led, which either indicated a lack of sleep or temporary lapse in sanity.

"What did they do now?" Car'das asked.

Thrawn sighed as they left the docking bay and would say no more about the matter until the door to their room was between them and the rest of the base staff.

Apparently preemptive strikes had been the order of day ever since Car'das had been off pretending to be good at being an Ambassador. Needless to say, the majority of Chiss Aristocras were furious and threatening to remove him from his position. They had made no definite decisions, but it wouldn't take much more for them to take drastic action.

"Have you tried to reason with them?"

"I am past trying to reason with those who are significantly lacking in that particular virtue."

"You might need to give them time."

"I am tired of giving them anything."

Car'das sighed and patted Thrawn's arm. "I know. I think I'd rather we worried about this later."

"So would everyone else."

"Maybe I agree with them since I just got here and I haven't seen you in months. And maybe I don't really care about any of this bullshit because I already know you're doing the right thing."

They stared at one another for a few minutes, both dealing with their own unique combination of frustrations, before Thrawn managed a sincere smile. "I missed you."

"I missed you too."

They kissed and moved on to more enjoyable pursuits.

Thrawn had little to share about his months alone and Car'das found himself strangely subdued when it came to mentioning new friends he'd made. Instead, they looked at artwork together and Car'das spent most of the first day back kissing a very enthusiastic Thrawn.

For a few days, they were able to push the matter aside, but the Chiss commander continued to be hell-bent on creating enormous rifts between himself and the rest of his people.