This is a very serious chapter. Absolutely no dumb fluff to be found here. Nope.
When the ship landed on Kimm Cresh, Falon and Qui-Gon made their way out of the port and followed a map on his datapad.
"Our house and workshop have already been paid for," he told her as they walked, "Wedding present from your wealthy uncles."
Falon laughed and played along even though it was highly unlikely anyone was listening in. "Ah yes, my dear Uncle Mace and Uncle Mundi, they have been so good to me."
Qui-Gon chuckled. "Come on, it's just another few blocks."
The streets were about what Falon had expected, grimy and filled with stalls of various wares. The people were a mix of the dark skinned human locals and the mix of various aliens and other humans who had for whatever reason ventured to settle on Kimm Cresh. The two undercover Jedi politely declined offers from the vendors they passed and continued on their way.
"Wait," Qui-Gon said at one point, stopping at the sight of a child begging on the side of the street. He plucked some food from Falon's pack and gave it to the little boy, who stared at him with wide and grateful eyes.
"Places like this remind me of how lucky we are to have the opportunities and care that we do," Falon said as they kept walking.
"Even places like Coruscant have this level of poverty, on the lowest levels. It's just easy for people to forget."
Finally they came to a stop outside a structure that had a ground level open to the street but filled with shelves and a workbench and everything a droid mechanic could want. A ladder led to a hatch in the wood of the floor of the upper level, which was a typical enclosed structure.
"I like it," Falon said honestly. There was something quaint and pleasant about it even if it was in a serious need of a clean.
"Good, because it's all we've got. Should we take a look upstairs? The keycode for the hatch is 35278, apparently."
The code worked, and they climbed up into the house that would be the only place of privacy from enemy eyes for the foreseeable future. The term house was a loose one. Like their Jedi apartments, it was all one room but for the small refresher. The entry hatch came out by the kitchen area, but it was only a few metres until one was at the bed that took up most of the space. On the other side of the bed was a meagre table with two chairs and some basic shelving. It thankfully wasn't nearly as dusty as the workshop downstairs.
"Cosy," Falon remarked, putting down her pack and moving to check the kitchen cupboards, which to her surprise were stocked. "Ooh, they've done our first grocery shop for us. How thoughtful."
"They're good, those uncles of yours," Qui-Gon said wryly, dropping Tee's accent. He sat on the edge of the bed and put down his pack. "Well, the bed's comfortable, at least."
"That's all I could dare to hope for, frankly."
She moved to sit next to him, intending to say something but getting distracted by the grain of the wood of the floor. It was interlocked and the lightest parts of it a pale colour like unripe melons, while the darker parts were more like the colour of Qui-Gon's hair. The wood itself had no shine to it and had been scuffed within an inch of its life. A nearby board had a burn mark in it that obscured the pattern.
"Falon? Are you alright?"
She looked up. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"You do when you want to make yourself feel better," Qui-Gon said, "Lose yourself in the details of something. I know you weren't being entirely truthful with me on that balcony. I've known you long enough now to work it out. It's not so much a need for new things as it is a comfort mechanism for yourself. So what's wrong?"
Falon felt stupid thinking for that he wouldn't work it out. He had an eerie habit of seeing directly into her and finding things only her padawan knew about her. She sighed.
"I'm just scared. Plain and simple."
"It's perfectly understandable," he said, in that even, reassuring voice of his, "All of this is completely outside of what we've been taught, of what you know. Scared keeps us alert. Alert keeps us alive."
He gave her hand a brief squeeze before getting up off the bed and kneeling by his pack.
"Why don't you help me get this unpacked, and then we'll get started cleaning the workshop so we can unpack the other one?"
"Do we have any security measures to stop people taking whatever we leave downstairs unattended? Overnight, for example?" Falon asked.
Qui-Gon paused in his packing. "Ah."
She shrugged. "I'm sure we can buy something. A timer force field for the back half of the workshop. It'll help prevent unwanted visitors into the house, too. We don't midnight visitors discovering that Tee Koon looks like a beardless Qui-Gon Jinn without his face paint."
"Thank you for somehow making 'beardless Qui-Gon Jinn' sound like a kind of abstract grotesque insult," he said with a lifted eyebrow.
"Well, I did say I prefer you as you were."
"Very funny."
The unpacking didn't take very long, but cleaning the workshop took them into the afternoon, especially since Falon was meticulous and had to ensure they didn't miss an inch. Once it was finally satisfactory, Qui-Gon ventured back into the streets of the shopping district to find a security forcefield up for sale while Falon unpacked and organised her mechanic tools.
It was hard to concentrate when all she could think about was the lack of the familiar weight of her lightsaber at her hip. Her weapon - and Qui-Gon's - was upstairs in one of the kitchen drawers since there was no way to hide it on her person due to her new attire.
The reality of having to go without her lightsaber was an unpleasant but necessary one. Instead a bulky blaster weighed her down on one side. She had no expectations of using it, but an ordinary mechanic on a world like Kimm Cresh would be worried for their safety.
"We were in luck," Qui-Gon called (back to using the strong accent now that they were outside) as he approached, holding up a small piece of tech. He attached it to the front of the workbench - which was the closest part of the workshop to the street, and closer than the ladder to the house - and began programming it, likely with recognising only their bio-signatures when activated and then the scope he wanted out of the device.
"So it didn't cost us an arm and a leg, then?"
"Not quite. Keep your limbs for another day."
"Why would it be my limbs?" Falon asked, looking up at him, affronted. "I need mine for signing."
"Not the legs. You'd be just fine with one leg, since you have that stool. I need both of mine to run errands for you."
It was more a joke between the married Koons than it was between the Jedi pretending to be them. But it was rather fun. Qui-Gon seemed to be struggling to keep a grin off his face, so Falon made sure to look appropriately unimpressed.
"Honestly, I work hard at my profession to support us, and this is the gratitude I get?" She asked.
"You can still support us without a leg."
"Us, maybe, but not myself."
He cocked an eyebrow at her, and they both started laughing at how ridiculous her response had been, her cheeks warm with vague embarrassment even though it was invisible under the face paint.
"On a slightly more serious note, that light is broken," Falon said, coughing and pointing up at the light in question. It sat on the underside of the house between the ladder and the workshop. "I think I can fix it, but there's the issue of it being very out of my reach. And yours, I think. Suggestions?"
"Hmm." Qui-Gon tilted his head back to regard the fixture in question. "Honestly, I think our best bet might be your getting on my shoulders."
Falon hadn't considered that, and looked between him and the light. "Hm. That could work. Could we give it a try?"
"I wouldn't suggest something I wasn't willing to attempt."
"Alright then."
She took the tools she needed from the bench and approached him as he got onto his knees. Once she'd gotten a leg either side of his shoulders, he took a firm hold of them and slowly got to his feet. The balance was off at first, but being Jedi they were able to correct it within a single second.
"Woah," she said, "So this is what you see from up here. Do you think this looks as bizarre as it feels?"
"I doubt it. Are you going to crack height jokes all day or fix the light you're up there to fix?"
"Take two steps to your right and then one backward, and then I can." He did as she asked, and Falon got to work pulling the casing off the light so she could get to the fuse underneath. "Bit different from our, uh, last trip away from home."
Qui-Gon made a small noise of amusement. "Yes, you could say that. How's it looking?"
"Workable. I think I'm getting somewhere. Is this alright for you? I'm not too heavy?"
"Falon, you could probably lift me without too much difficulty, I am having absolutely no problem keeping this - you - up."
She couldn't really argue with that.
"This is a good vantage point. I like it up here. You make an excellent chair, Qui - Tee. I'm very comfortable."
"How kind of you to say. Am I to assume that you're finished?"
"Yes, I am. It should work now. The remote is over there, though."
"...Falon, I've just noticed something."
"What?"
"There's a sizeable step ladder behind that shelf."
Falon looked at where he was pointing, and sure enough, he was right. There was a brief silence before they erupted into laughter. It was a hopeless, hysterical laughter at how two qualified Jedi couldn't spot a step ladder between them and had instead resorted to amateur circus tricks.
Given that she was still on his shoulders and their laughter was not going great things for their collective balance, Falon bent over slightly, causing her hair to fall in Qui-Gon's eyes. He was too busy still laughing to complain.
They were laughing so hard that they nearly did lose their balance entirely, and Qui-Gon yelped when she grabbed his hair out of panic. They only caught themselves just in time to stop themselves falling onto the ground in what would no doubt be a rather painful collision of limbs and compact dirt.
"This might easily be the most ridiculous thing I've ever done," Falon said hopelessly. She released his hair and patted his head apologetically, now balanced enough to let her hands be free.
"If it isn't, you have some stories that you've been holding out on me."
"Well-"
"Hello?"
They both looked up at the new voice and managed to mostly swallow their giggles. A middle aged native man with a great volume of hair was standing at the entrance to their workshop, giving them an uncertain but friendly smile.
"Hello," the two Jedi said, a little awkwardly.
"I'm sorry, am I interrupting something?"
"Not at all," Qui-Gon said, his smooth diplomatic tone coming out a little differently with the accent. He got to his knees so Falon could climb off his shoulders. "How can we help you?"
"Oh, I'm merely a neighbour, popping in to introduce myself," the man said, his smile widening to reveal gapped teeth. "I'm Kelin. I live opposite, run the best fruit stand on the block."
"Ooh, do you really?" Falon asked. "We'll remember that."
"My name is Tee, this is my wife Falon," Qui-Gon said, and Falon had to not react to the strangeness of the second time hearing the lie that was not going to get any less bizarre. "She's a mechanic."
"I don't know if you'd need any droids for fruit, but if you have any that require fixing or tuning, bring them my way," Falon told Kelin cheerfully.
"No droids for me, but I'll spread the word around," he said, before checking his chrono. "Blazing comets, is that the time? I'm late picking up my daughter. It was nice to meet the both of you."
He started to leave, only to turn around and give them a sheepish look.
"Also, you...know you have a step ladder over there, right?"
"Yes, we do," Qui-Gon said, chuckling, "Thank you, though." As Kelin nodded, albeit unsurely, and headed off, the two Jedi started laughing at themselves again. "What a way to make an impression on our neighbours."
"How many Jedi does it take to change a lightbulb?" Falon murmured. "Two, provided they can't find the step ladder."
A surprised chuckle escaped Qui-Gon and he shook his head. "That one might need to stay between us."
"Nothing wrong with that."
They activated the security system and headed back inside the house, where Qui-Gon made a beeline for the drawer where the lightsabers had been stashed.
"We'll need to decide exactly what we're going to do with these," he said, taking them out and coming to sit next to her on the edge of the bed.
Falon took hers and turned it over in her hands. "They need to stay here. As much as we might want them with us, the prospect of being in need of them and not having them is far less dire than being caught with them."
He nodded solemnly. "I agree. Where should we keep them? We don't know if we'll have visitors; they can't be easily found."
"But they should be easy for us to get to, if necessary." Falon looked around the room, her eyes going between the crate next to one side of the bed and the small dining table. "What about vases? We could buy some plants, put them in vases, and hide them in the dirt. They'd come out with the Force easily enough, and I imagine it's one of the least likely places someone would think to look for anything."
Qui-Gon lifted his eyes. "A creative and clever solution. I like it. I'll buy us some plants and vases tomorrow."
She nodded, pleased he liked her idea. She got up to put the lightsabers away and make tea for the two of them, since they hadn't been able to have it since leaving Coruscant and she was craving it. He made no effort to start a new conversation which left them in a comfortable silence.
It took far too long for Falon to realise that she'd starting making the second cup of tea exactly how Sii liked it, not how Qui-Gon did (not that she knew how the Jedi Master took his tea, since she'd never made it for him before). It threw her far more than it should, and she nearly dropped the pot as she stepped back from the counter.
"Falon? Are you alright?"
"I started making tea for him," she said quietly, unsure of whether she wanted to laugh or cry or both, "Sii. Force of habit. I don't even...I don't even know how you like your tea."
Qui-Gon, without saying a word, got up and fetched a new cup so that he could show her exactly how he liked his tea. "You miss him a lot, don't you?" He eventually asked, when the tea was almost done and she was already sipping hers.
"Is it that obvious?"
"Yes and no. I'm mostly sure because it's the same for me with Obi-Wan."
"Of course," Falon said sympathetically, "How do you think they're handling it?"
"Oh, I'm sure they're doing fine without us," Qui-Gon said, smirking, "Probably having the time of their lives without us keeping an eye on them every hour of the day."
"Unless they're with Master Windu already."
He chuckled. "Yes. Unless they're with Master Windu already."
"Now that I think about it, a few weeks with Master Windu and Sii might never dare to whine again," Falon considered, "Now that's a delightful prospect."
"Obi-Wan won't tolerate much of it either," Qui-Gon said, "He's far too sensible for something so childish."
"Good. Sii is far too mature in every other respect to still be as petulant as he is. I was trying to think of a way to get it out of him once and for all when all this happened."
They moved to sit at their tiny table.
"Is there anyone else you miss, from home?" Falon asked Qui-Gon curiously.
His hand went to his chin as if to stroke the beard that is no longer there, instead just touching the painted skin. "A few. Ki Adi Mundi and I got into the habit of weekly meditations and then lunch together, when we were both at the temple. But I know he'll be there when I get back. What about you? Didn't you tell me once that you were close with Depa Billaba?"
Falon nodded, smiling. "She is a very good friend, yes. Perhaps my closest one. I admire her very much. She is so good, and so wise. I never tire of talking to her."
"I've not spoken to her as much as I would like," Qui-Gon mused, "I may have to rectify that when we return."
When they were finished with their tea, they took turns getting changed into their sleepwear in the refresher and then sat on the bed so that Qui-Gon could braid her hair. They didn't open their minds to each other as much as usual - on the way to Kimm Cresh they had decided they were in tune enough now, at least for the moment.
Of course, not having Qui-Gon's mind to focus on meant that Falon was all too aware of the ticklish spot just behind her right ear that his knuckle kept brushing. And it meant he was becoming aware of it too.
"Ticklish, are we, Jedi Ti-Tarn?" He teased.
"Apparently," she replied, "I'd appreciate you hurrying up so I don't have to stop myself jerking my head every few seconds."
"Apologies." He didn't sound particularly sorry at all.
"I can't stop thinking about Master Windu having to deal with Sii," Falon said after about ten seconds, a large grin spreading across her face, "It's too funny."
"In what way?"
"Sii's respectful, but he also can't resist talking back sometimes," she explained, "Master Windu will get the surprise of his life the first time it happens, and then Sii is going to regret ever opening his mouth."
Qui-Gon laughed. "What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall for that."
"Exactly." She laughed too, picturing the looks on Windu and Sii's faces, the stern Jedi Master and her impossible padawan that she loved very much no matter how much he drove her up the wall sometimes.
Qui-Gon finished her braid and so they got into bed. Falon lay back on her pillow and stared up at the ceiling.
"You know, I think I might have laughed more today than any other day in my whole life," she said, entirely unsure of how she felt about that. "And not that I don't enjoy it, but...I have to wonder if it's a good thing. We're Jedi, isn't this level of mirth a little...unbecoming?"
"The less like Jedi we act, the safer we are here," Qui-Gon replied after a moment's pause.
"Yes, but it wasn't an act, it just was."
"Falon, things here will likely get quite dire at some point. We deserve all the laughter we can get until then."
"I suppose you're right." She bit her lip. "And that's probably a good thing, since you make me laugh more than anyone I've ever met."
"I could say the same of you. It's nice, isn't it?"
Somehow, the simplicity of his words made her worry fall away. "Yes," she said, glancing to her left to see he was lying with his eyes shut but that his mouth was curled into a smile. She smiled too. "It is nice. We're lucky to have a friendship this fruitful, I'm realising."
"Yes, we are. Goodnight, Falon."
Falon shut her eyes and rolled over on her side so that she was facing away from him. "Goodnight, Qui-Gon."
Next chapter will actually be getting into the serious stuff, I just wanted to enjoy these two having fun before I start making them do proper work. Plus I just finished TCW and need some fluff before I inevitably rewatch RotS and cry.
Thanks for reading, let me know what you thought! I'm naturally a little wary about having this much fluff so do let me know if it was still in character.
-MayFairy :)