A/N: Written while I should have been working on my thesis architecture project. My brain is a scrambled mess so some of this might be a scrambled mess. Hey, woe is the student who is six weeks away from her B. Arch, right? Or, maybe, insane is the student… Oh, and the lyrics that show up later in the chapter are from Roisin Murphy's song "If We're in Love".

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Chapter 6: A Little Captain in You Leads to Pulsating Lightsabers and Something Like the Truth

Thane sneezed. He sneezed so hard that he was shaken from his premonitory dreams. He sat up, sneezing again, only to hit his head on the bulkhead and send himself straight to the floor, his head swimming only from the knock to his skull and not from the alcohol in his system.

When he finally opened his eyes, he was staring at ten red-painted toenails attached to ten blue toes, which were, in turn, attached to a pair of small blue feet. It took a moment for his brain to remember that the hot Jedi did not have blue skin and that this was in fact…

"Gizmo," Thane groaned.

"You talk in your sleep," the girl said. Thane rolled over and put his hands on his chest. He was very, very glad that the girl was wearing a flight suit. "Loudly."

"What was I saying?" Thane said, looking Gizmo in the eye.

"Something like 'No, don't touch that, darlin', it's mighty dangerous. Most women don't know how to handle it. Well, if you're sure. Yeah, that's right."

Thane's eyes opened wide as he tried to remember what he had been dreaming about just before he had woken up. It certainly sounded like the kind of dream that he would never want a child to overhear. Not that he would want anyone to find out that he cared about the well being of, well, anything. He was Thane Sunrider, Conqueror of Virginity. If it came to be known that he was something like a virtuous man, the galaxy might very well fold in on itself and all life would cease to be. So, he continued to lie there, a slight smirk replacing the momentary look of horror. He even folded his hands behind his head and pretended to enjoy the view from down below, all the while wracking his brain for any semblance of the dream.

When the dream did not come to mind, he pushed himself up off the floor and brushed his hands together.

"What were you dreaming about?" the adolescent asked.

"A lightsaber," Thane said. "A very big lightsaber."

Gizmo giggled. "Garth wants you in the cockpit."

Thane started. "Shit, wait, shoot. No, shit. He wants me?"

"In the cockpit, yeah." Gizmo gave the big man a funny look. "You suddenly got all pale. If you're worried about the sex dream— You've got a conscious, don't you?"

"No. Lightsaber," Thane said, answering both questions. "It was seriously about a lightsaber. And a duel, with Brazilla." It was, in fact. Thane had been dueling with Brazilla with a rather large lightsaber that had a longer than usual, red blade. She had been all pale and scary and Thane had been trying to taunt her into a fight.

"Okay, whatever. I don't know what you Jedi call your… Forget it. Garth wants to see you."

"I'm not a Jedi," Thane said, following Gizmo through the maze. "How old are you anyway?"

"Sixteen."

"You don't sound like any sixteen year old girl I ever knew. They were all embarrassed about everything all the time."

"I grew up around spacers and they don't give a crap about who you are or what you have in your pants. They talk the same all the time to anyone who will listen. You learn about the birds and the bees real fast, no matter how much your deadbeat brother tries to shelter you from it. It don't help, though, when he runs off with some sweet talkin' girl who's only interested in one thing and is out for all that she can get from him on his next get-rich-quick scheme and leaves you with one of those foul-mouthed spacers who don't give a crap about you when you're thirteen."

"Oh."

"I kinda want to find him, though, if only to give him a piece of my mind. Last I heard he was an errand boy on Taboo. Some gettin' rich quick that is."

Thane lifted his brow. "I've a feeling we'll end up there one way or another. Just hold tight, kid."

"I'm not a kid."

"Look, I'm old enough to be your father. Your young father." Thane frowned. "You're a kid."

"I'm not a kid."

"Then think of it as an endearing nickname."

Gizmo frowned. "Whatever," she said as she walked off, leaving Thane in the cockpit alone with Garth.

"I hear you wanted to see me?"

Garth looked up. "Oh, yeah, it was more a ploy to get Gizmo out of here. She was fussing with things and going on about her deadbeat brother."

"Yeah, I got a bit of that, too. She was also talking about being okay with sex, which was weird to hear out of her."

Garth looked back at the big smuggler and lifted his brow. "And what, exactly, brought that subject matter up? I don't have to remind you about certain laws that govern our galaxy, do I? I must admit that I'm surprised to hear that out of Thane Sunrider, yadda yadda yadda."

"I'm a smuggler, I don't live by the galactic rules. And she overheard and mistook a perfectly innocent dream for something else. And don't ask if I have a conscious, I've heard enough of that today."

"Wasn't going to."

Thane frowned yet again. It was an expressing he was really getting sick of, which was a thought he sent straight up to the heavens. Getting back to his conversation with Garth—which was one of the first real, civil conversations they had had without any of Thane's very creative insults—Thane shrugged and threw in a, "Wannabe," for good measure. Garth rolled his eyes.

"Anyway," the wannabe said. "We're about to drop out of hyperspace just above Dannon."

"Good, I'm ready to get out of this boat. I'm glad I was out of my mind for most of it."

"Oh, that reminds me," Garth said, swiveling in his chair. "Brazilla is on a warpath looking for you. She wouldn't touch you in your sleep—something about Jedi honour—but now that you're awake, you might want to keep an eye on your back. I wasn't there, but gossip girl Gizmo related the story to me."

"What did I do?"

"It sounds like you insulted her, her mother, and her female master all in one foul blow. I think you told her to be careful about her feelings for you because, in your travels, you found a way to go back into time and might very well be her father and that her calling you 'Big Daddy' the night before was a little too close for comfort, considering the circumstances. I'm not sure what you said about her master, but it was probably along the lines that celibate Jedi give up their vows for you all the time and that her master had done so many, many times. Personally, I think you had no idea who you were talking to or where you were."

"Yeah, you're right," Thane said, somewhat more pale than his normal tan self. "I sort of remember that and I seriously think that I thought that I was in some dive bar in the Outer Limits talking to an ugly spacer. I honestly don't remember being on this boat last night."

"That was two days ago."

"I see. I'm glad Brazilla chose not to touch me in my sleep. I'd probably be castrated if she hadn't stuck to her codes." Thane paused, pressed his lips together, and then shook his head. "I'll check later just to be sure." Still, his hand wandered somewhere near the vicinity of the front of his pants.

"To be sure of what?" came Brazilla's voice from behind. Thane literally jumped.

"Hi, darlin'."

"Don't call me that."

"I had a flattering dream about you last night," he lied. He wasn't sure why he was being so jumpy and emotional this morning (maybe he was now somewhere in between and man and a woman? He really needed to check on that…) but he had a feeling that it was because Brazilla, despite being very slim, could probably hand his ass to him without breaking a sweat.

"Gizmo told me. Big, pulsating lightsabers?"

"Not my words…exactly," Thane said, his hands up in defense. "Hey, when I drink that much I can't be held accountable for what I say, especially when it puts me into a coma for two days."

"So you remember how much you drank but claim to be not held responsible for what you say?"

"I remember nothing, but I can count. Four empty fifths in my cabin, and another five in the common room. And, look, there's another one hiding up there in the corner. How'd it get there?" Thane scratched his head. "I guess I've got a little captain in me, though." He smiled. "Like they say, I can drink anyone in this galaxy dead. I've gotta piss."

"How do you know you were the only one drinking!" Brazilla said to his retreating back.

"Because we've got a fatherly Wookie, a Jedi, an AA member," he pointed to himself, "a kid, and a droid in our party."

"Jedi drink," Brazilla said, sitting in the co-pilot's seat. She seemed to deflate slightly, now that Thane wasn't around to look at her.

"Not Jedi like you."

Brazilla frowned. "Yeah, you're right. What did you tell him anyway to get him so scared?"

"Only a shade of the truth. I didn't think he would be so horrified if I told him that he was singing you the lyrics 'if we're in love, we should make love, when will we be lovers?'."

"I don't know, that might have been better, to tell the truth. His tale about going back in time was more amusing than anything else. It was when he vomited on my boots that he crossed the line. Jedi… people should know better."

Garth gave her a sidelong glance. "He's a Jedi, isn't he?"

"Don't tell anyone you know. The council likes to reveal these things in their own time. He's an incredibly powerful man and it was a terrible shame when he left us to become the man you know. He was…disillusioned by our Order and sought a different destiny than the path the Jedi had him on."

Garth bit his lower lip. He wasn't sure if he was more disturbed by being told that Thane was a Jedi or by the fact that Brazilla had so blatantly lied to him. There was something else going on here. And it wasn't his country western singing tendencies that were telling him that. It was everything.