Disclaimer: Star Wars belongs to George Lucas.
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Part 4: Step of Fates
The day was rainy and cold. Pedestrians sprinted quickly through open spaces, only the amphibious species took their time. Ocean water sprayed on the walkways and nailed the few beings still on them. Shelter was sought from the dismal weather in the form of awnings, roofed foot bridges, and beneath the balconies of the various buildings that lined the street. One person in particular stuck out.
This person was seen on the same path no less than four times in a row with the same morose expression on his face each time. Under normal circumstances, he would have enjoyed the attention but now he was too caught up in his own depressed thoughts. Dismally, he strode through the drizzly rain ignoring all nearby shelter, feeling comfortable in the cold, dreary weather with only a light, short-sleeved shirt. The day fit his mood, he mused sourly. Somewhere in the back of his mind, in a mocking voice that sounded like his older brother Raith told him that he was being an over-dramatic, love-sick buffoon. And it was right.
A heavy sigh escaped him as he walked past the Solos' apartment building for the tenth time. His hair was flopping into his eyes but he did nothing to move it. Nothing mattered anymore. Not his hair, not his classes, not the mess in his dorm room. Nothing. He lashed out with his foot at a rock and ended up swearing when he remembered that he was wearing soft-toed shoes instead of his regular boots.
He should have seen it coming. It happened all the time; she even mentioned it now and then. He turned and glared at the unoccupied Solo apartment. He glumly returned his gaze to the ground, continuing his walk. It wasn't fair. He'd chosen Ackbar School of Arts over schools at Naboo and Coruscant to be near her.
Four days ago was the day the Solo family left for the Jedi Academy on Coruscant for an indefinite period. There were times she had left before, but she always came back. There was always the estimated date of when she would return, a day he looked forward to. Now there was nothing to look forward to. Except for when she called. Which was not often.
There was an inside joke in the Solo family that he had been let in on. It was something along the lines that if Zekk or she ever called someone consistently then the whole galaxy was doomed. It would be up to him to do the calling if he was going to get his daily Maeve fix. His Holonet bill was going to be enormous.
His feet took him to the path that they walked when they first met two and a half years ago. His wrist chrono beeped, signally the time for him to return to his dorm and study for a test in his acting technique class. He also had to finish reading a tragedy that he was supposed to have done two nights ago.
His life had no color now. He didn't want to go to classes tomorrow. Life without her was dull, lifeless, empty. The drizzle turned into rain while he was wallowing in his misery. Halfway across his campus, one of his friends yelled at him to come join them for a game of sabacc in the rec. hall. He gave a dismissive wave, a gesture that was large and grand, far too theatric to hold any resemblance to the wave a Jedi gives when using the mind trick. Yet, the wave reminded him of when he first saw her use the Jedi Mind trick.
They were walking down a street, streaming with pedestrians, discussing the different gestures Jedi use to help focus their energy. The topic had started when Loryn made a rude gesture (which was only effective in Chiss space) at a man who knocked him over and excused himself by saying that he was only using the Force. Giggling like children up to no good, which they were, they ducked down an alley. She performed the technique, making someone suddenly decide to walk backwards. It wasn't much, but at the time it had been terribly amusing.
He stormed up to his dorm, his shoes squishing and leaving watery prints behind as he went. When he got into his room, he ignored his roommate's greeting and wet clothes as he fell face first onto the bed. Twenty minutes later, there was a knock on the dorm room door. His roommate answered it, and then called for him to come over. With a glare fixed onto his face, he rolled out of bed, and directed his gaze at the interrupters of his misery. He didn't care that one was his RA and the other was a person he had to coexist with for the next few months.
"You have a holomessage, Fel. It's waiting for you on terminal six," the RA announced.
He stalked out of his room and to the communication room downstairs. The person on the other end was going to receive a piece of his mind. His shoes squeaked with every step on the metal floor, irritating him even more. All these emotions were erased when he saw the face on holo terminal six.
"Hi." His voice was squeaky. He cleared his throat noisily and repeated, "Hi."
She laughed and responded the same.
"So… what's up? I thought it was impossible for Maeve Solo to call someone?"
She shrugged. "We stopped for a slight detour on Kashyyk and well…"
Did she miss him as much as he missed her, come to realize that she couldn't live without him, and wanted to spend the rest of their days sitting on a beach? He sincerely hoped that was the case. He leaned forward eagerly, waiting to hear what she would say next. Mentally, he wondered whether she'd be opposed to eloping because he was rather short on funds.
"…my friends wanted to meet you."
The wedding plans came to a crashing halt, as did his heart. He wondered if that leftover take-out he ate this morning was giving him heartburn. It sure felt like it. Now that he thought of it, the stuff had tasted a bit off.
"What is it now?"
"Huh?" He stared at the screen in confusion.
"You're making that face again. The one you make when you think you're getting sick. You can be far too dramatic at times."
He scowled, not caring that it came out more like a pout. Sure he could blow things a bit out of proportion but he was an actor. That's what he was supposed to do. She laughed at his expression, which rapidly transformed into a blush. To change the topic, he went back to the one that spawned the second subject.
"So… about your friends?"
"Oh, yeah. Hold on, they abandoned me to get some qualse."
For the sake of his stomach, he decided not to ask. After living in the Chiss space for nearly all his life, he found the food varieties in the GA wonderful, baffling, and sickening all at once. He also discovered that his stomach preferred Corellian and Chiss food to some of the more exotic fares the rest of the galaxy had to offer. Despite his efforts in not asking, he found out that qualse was some sort of leaf candy that was "quite good" according to her.
As he made small talk with her friends, his eyes would automatically drift to her, where she was barely visible in the right upper hand corner. Then, when one of her friends – they were both Wookiees – said something, she would translate and he would politely returned his gaze to the one he thought asked the question and respond. Occasionally, her brother Han, who had his mother's coloring with his father's features, would drift across in the background. Han would jump up and down, doing a number of silly things. Loryn started to see how long he could keep a straight face before he broke his carefully polite smile into a grin.
After several minutes of conversing with them, he had to end the call and give the terminal up to another person. His insides were twisting round and round. Maybe the next time she was on planet, he could scrounge up the courage to ask her out. It would take until then before he was brave enough, he mused.
He reentered his room feeling considerably better than when he had left it. He said hello to his roommate and started to study for his acting technique class.
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(One year later, three weeks, and nine hours later)
There was a loud beeping on his comlink. He grunted and buried his head under his pillow. Comlinks were unimportant right now, dreaming about her was. His roommate's pillow connected with his back, accompanied by a very sleepy and agitated voice ordering, "Answer, Catch, or I'll hang your boxers out the window. The Rogue Squadron ones."
Quick as a flash, he rolled out of his bed and forgot to go into a crouch, landing with a loud bang. He scrambled up, only to realize that he was tangled in his bed sheets, and toppled over again. He gave up on standing and made for his desk at a swift crawl. His crawling was always better than his walking – that's what his older brothers said – so he made it in time to answer the persistent caller. The rather annoying theme he had set for his ring tone had repeated two times already.
"Hello?" he asked. His voice was heavy and hoarse with sleep.
"Hi, 'Ryn, did I wake you up?"
"No!" An instant smile appeared on his face, instinctively, he started to straighten his hair a bit and sat up straighter. All around, he made an effort to look less tired than he appeared for a voice. She called him "'Ryn". He didn't know where the nickname came from or why she started calling him it but rather liked it.
"Liar. It's 0500. You sleep until 1000. Tell Ephin that I'm sorry for waking him."
"Tell 'er it s'alright but if sha does it 'gain, I'ma not gonna be happy," Ephin muttered, his voice slurring from his state of half-consciousness.
"He said he forgives you but to not do it again."
"Okay. What are you doing today?"
"I can't recall. I think I have some classes. Wait, why do you want to know?" She never asked about his classes before. Now that he thought of it. She shouldn't be calling his personal comlink! She was on Coruscant. It was defying all the things he knew about communication and he really couldn't handle life-changing situations so early in the morning. So he told her as much and couldn't stop himself from basking in her laughter, even if it was at his expense.
"No, 'Ryn, I'm not on Coruscant. I'm here. I thought you would have figured that out by now."
"Huh?" He glanced about the room eagerly, his sleep addled brain taking things too literally.
"I'm not here, here, as in where you are. I'm here as in where I am."
He nodded incomprehensively, and then remembered that she could not see him. So, he said, "Ahh…"
"Well, I can hear that you're half asleep still so I'll let you go. Call me after your classes."
"Hey, wait–" the line clicked and went dead. He frowned and scratched his head.
"Catch, please return my pillow t'me. You can muse about your nonexistent love life later."
A frown crept onto his face and he crawled back to his bed and threw the pillow at his roommate's head. There was a satisfying grunt when it made contact – pillows could hurt, as he learned when he was younger – and he pulled himself into his own bed to go back to sleep.
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Everything was lighter. He never noticed the ocean was that shade of blue. The weather didn't feel so uncomfortably hot, and he didn't even mind that the ocean spray had thoroughly doused him. It didn't bother him that the public lift was painfully slow and lacked the efficiency Chiss lifts had. If he could do it without mentally hearing his brothers' teasing, then he would run singing down the streets. Since he couldn't, he settled for humming loud enough to cause passerby to stare.
The neon pink and neon orange rebel symbol gleamed vibrantly against the side of the building. Metal railings on the balcony shown brightly in the sunlight. Had the Solos apartment building always seemed so clean? He stared at the sign on the door, mentally translating the Aurebesh into Cheunh. It stated DRY SEASON CLEANING FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS with the beginning date written on it. He scratched his head and wondered, Mon Calamari has a dry season?
Several minutes passed as he thought about this. He was thinking so hard that he didn't hear the footsteps approaching him from behind until a hand clapped on his shoulder. His scream was rather high-pitched but not as shrill as she claimed it to be. He let the comment go in favor of observing any changes that had happened in the year she was absent.
Her dark brown hair was a little past her shoulders, a fact which shocked him because three months ago – the time that they had last spoken face to face – her hair was in the middle of her neck. Compared to her usual hair length preferences, it was long. He also noted that her hair had been cut with a sideways fringe that annoyed her judging by the way that her hand absently swept it out of her right eye. Both eyes were the green surrounded by a circle of darker green. The sun on Coruscant must have been strong or she traveled to a sunny world because her normally fair complexion had a light tan. One of her wrists was wrapped in a bacta patch and there were strips of syn-flesh on her neck and on her left cheek. Her messenger bag was slung over the opposite shoulder that it normally was hung and she looked like she was limping a bit. He decided to ask about her injuries later, after they caught up a bit.
"You grew three more centimeters!" he accused. He struck a dramatic pose with one arm on his hip and the other pointing towards her, his finger nearly touching her nose.
She laughed and brushed his hand away. "I did not."
"The top of your head was up to nose before you left; now it's nearly up to my eyes. Stop growing." He liked tall girls but this was getting a bit extreme. His height was one of the few things he could hold over his brothers' head and nearly everyone else's. Being tall was always spoiled by standing near her, her father, or a Wookiee. On the other hand, she was as tall as both of his older brothers which provided endless amusement to him.
Her eyes went in a slow, obvious roll, sending him a mock-condescending look. The expression of maturity was ruined when he wrung the sleeve of his wet shirt over her head. The salty water twisted out in a steady stream before dying, leaving behind a sputtering Solo. A hand came up and wiped her hair from her eyes.
"Loryn Fel! Was that ocean water or sweat?"
"Not telling. It would serve you right if it were sweat. Honestly, you didn't call me for three months!"
"I was on a mission. You know that." The hand swept wet hair out of her eyes again. Emerald green eyes flicked upward and to the side in an attempt to glare at the wayward hair. The attempt fell short and she sighed in defeat. His eyes were falling into the old habit of trying to surreptitiously observe her every move. "Come on up. There're cookies somewhere in the house if Han hasn't eaten them all yet."
For the first time in a year, he entered the apartment building and followed her up the familiar path to the Solo apartment. Hallways were cleaner than the last time he had seen them and a stain that had been on the wall for who knows how long had been removed from the premises. Even the lifts moved a little bit quicker. Dry season cleaning must be going smoothly. It made everything look new and fresh, although that might have something to do with her standing beside him.
Upon arriving at the Solo apartment there was no one to greet them. A frown tugged at the corner of his mouth. How rude! A friend comes to say "hello" and there's no one there to say "hello" back! For the moment, he decided to ignore the lack of Solos and started to check for any changes in the apartment. Things were dustier but the two couches were still facing each other in the living area, out of view to the dining part hidden by the kitchen.
She grabbed his arm and pulled him into the kitchen. His initial impression of the lack of Solos was incorrect. Currently, Zekk Solo was stacking cookies onto a plate while balancing two cups of blue milk that were on the plate as well. The motions were slow as if every one was painful. Zekk turned towards them when they came in and greeted, "Nice to see you again, Catch. I was wondering when you would show up. Did you get the new bacta patches, Eve?"
Before he could ask about the bacta patches, she treaded on his feet on her way to give her father the item, painfully reminding him that he really needed to start wearing his boots again. Without thinking, he swore violently in Cheunh, and then remembering where he was, apologized a moment later, "Sorry, sorry. But, Sith spit, that hurt."
"Oh, sorry, 'Ryn, did I step on your feet?" Her innocent eyes weren't fooling him. He had made better ones before he could even walk.
Well, two could play at that game. He straightened from his bent over position, leaning nonchalantly against the counter and said, "No, whatever gave you that idea, Eve?"
She hated being called that. The only person whom she allowed was her father and grandfather. A look promising swift and painful revenge was shot his way.
"Jaina's asleep, so kill him quietly," Zekk joked before leaving the kitchen with the load of cookies and milk.
"Not any more," Jaina's voice called back into the kitchen. There were several murmurs from the adults in the other room. "Don't eat all the cookies. They're the only thing edible in this house aside from the blue milk we brought off the ship with us until someone goes grocery shopping." The murmurs resumed, but steadily drifted away from the kitchen.
After her parents' departure from the area, she moved to the cookie container and began to load some onto a plate. Taking her hint, he grabbed two glasses from a cabinet and started to fill them with blue milk. While he was doing so, he asked, "So-o… what happened to you and your dad?"
"It wasn't just my dad and me, it was the whole family, but it's nothing to worry about. Just a bit of trouble with the Sith."
Even though he wasn't entirely convinced, he let it go for now. The subject of Sith vs. Jedi was too convoluted for him to understand anymore. Besides, this was a happy occasion. No need to drag in people who tried to kill someone he cared about. Suddenly a thought occurred to him. He could ask her out now. Mentally, he checked his courage reserves, and was saddened to find them nearly dry. That was going to make it harder.
His breath quickened without his say so. Now would still be a good opportunity despite the drought of courage. There might not be another chance like this. For once, his eyes refused to look at her. Somewhere, the Corellian part of him rose up to the challenge and propelled him to blurt out, "Wannagooutwithme?"
"Are you speaking Cheunh again?"
"No-o." His voice cracked a bit, and he reassured himself that it was his difficult vocal lesson from earlier that morning. Again, his Corellian blood was really rolling and, once more, made him talk, this time much slower. "I was won-der-ing if you wan-ted to go out with me."
However, it came out much too slow and a tad condescending. His Corellian half was promptly attacked by his non-confrontational half that was cringing in horror and urging him to turn tail and flee. Oddly, a mental holofilm of two beings – one that resembled Han Solo (the elder one) and the other that resembled a spiced up Toydarian – fighting started to play in his head. Thus, he was distracted enough that he missed her initial answer and had to ask her to repeat it in an embarrassingly squeaky voice.
"I asked 'when?'. I can't do it tonight, obviously, since I just got back. And the next two or so days will be bad since we'll still be settling in."
The being that resembled Han Solo won and a reckless grin slid onto his face. "How about on the weekend? My schedule is a bit full, too. We could go see the new Braaks holo and eat something entirely unhealthy afterwards."
"Sure, I'd like that."
He snuck a look at her out of the corner of his eye, delighted to find that she was looking at him with a lop-sided grin on her face.
-----TBC-----
R&R if you want. I appreciate all feedback. Guess what? I have one mroe part for you coming right up. After that, you're going to have to wait. Sorry!