And here's chapter 3, no regards this time cause I'm posting it alongside 2 so I haven't received any new ones yet lol. This marks the end of the beginning so to speak, still some emotional chapters left, but nothing of the breaking down in tears variety. Anyway, enjoy!
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Carry On
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Leia had joined them by the time Ori came back to herself, that same gentle hand stroking soothing circles into her shoulder while Luke supported her against his chest, now decidedly damp. She knew she should be embarrassed, knew that she'd just made a massive fool of herself, but at that moment, surrounded by their calming energy, she found that she just didn't care. She needed to be allowed to be human for a moment, and they were giving her that, so she was going to take it.
"Stupid question, but are you feeling better?" Leia asked, a sad smile spreading across her face. Ori couldn't help but return it, watery and red eyed though it may have been, her head nodding silently as she slowly sat up away from Luke.
"Sorry, I guess I wasn't as done as I thought I was before." She pushed stray curls from her forehead, tucking them back behind her ears. She felt her face color up softly as Luke's quiet chuckle echoed around them.
"We should be the ones apologizing. Now come on, I'm still hungry." He stood, holding a hand out to her, that same quiet smile in place. She drew a calming breath and nodded, clasping his hand and getting to her feet. She still felt the shock of fear as he pulled her up, still saw Suzie's terrified face, but not as badly. She wondered if he'd done something while she cried, some Jedi trickery that would help her, but decided against following that train of thought too much.
"What about Han?" She asked, not feeling up to another round of abuse just yet. She knew she should stand up for herself, she'd never let anyone run roughshod over her before, but for some reason, she just couldn't bring herself to face off with him. Maybe it was because she'd held him in such high regard for so long that it felt wrong to put him down now. Or maybe it was the seven foot seven mass of fur that was always just to his right. Whatever the reason, she found herself unable to talk back when faced with his anger and thus would rather avoid it if possible.
"He's been informed that his behavior is unacceptable." Leia said, bristling slightly at the recent conversation, though shouting match would be a better term for it. "He won't be bothering you anymore." She said, patting Ori softly on the shoulder and steering her to the large bench seat, pushing her gently down until she was sitting. "Now don't disappear this time okay? I'll be right back." She looked toward Luke and both twins disappeared into what she could only assume was a small galley kitchen.
She took the moment of solitude to catch her breath, her mind struggling to catch up to everything that had happened in the last, however long it had been. She wasn't alone, that was the first thing that clicked in her mind. Sure Han was having issues with accepting her presence, but Luke and Leia seemed to believe her, which wasn't half bad, and went a long way to making her feel less gut-wrenchingly terrified of her future. The next thing was that, however horribly the experiment may have gone, she'd proven her theories, all of them, even the ones she'd never shared with another soul.
She wished she could feel happy about that, wished she could celebrate the accomplishment, but she couldn't. The person she should be celebrating with was dead, lost to a void that she couldn't save her from. Her scientific mind took a small moment to log the victory, bitter as it may have been, but that was all she would allow herself. She'd failed, as far as she was concerned, and her friend had paid the price.
"Oh, hello there. My name is C3PO, human cyborg relations. I do not believe we've been introduced." The voice shook her from her thoughts and brought her back around to a familiar golden face, a small smile pulling at her lips.
"We haven't. My name is Dr. Oria Jones, it's nice to meet you C3PO." She said, bowing her head slightly. The droid seemed to like that, muttering a quiet "oh my" before bowing at the waist, his joints squeaking faintly at the motion.
"Do you require any assistance Dr. Jones?" 3PO asked, taking a small step closer.
"No thank you." She said, shaking her head with a soft smile. She'd always liked the droid, even though others found him annoying at times, and she'd always hated how rude everyone was to him.
"Very well, if you require anything, I will be powered down just over there. Don't hesitate to ask." He said, giving another bow before turning and walking to the same alcove R2 was resting in and shutting off. She laughed softly, her mind struggling to comprehend to what had just happened, straining to accept the incredulity of the whole situation. Luckily, she was spared much further thought by the twins returning from wherever they'd been, trays in hand.
"Alright, so it's not the best, but it'll fill you up." Leia said, setting a tray down in front of her before sliding into the far side of the booth, motioning for her to move over so Luke could sit on the other side of her. She obliged, feeling a little strange about being pinned in by the siblings, but chalked it up to her jittery emotional state and began tucking into her food.
Leia was right, it wasn't the best, but it wasn't terrible either. She'd spent a fair few years living off instant dinners and ramen noodles, so she was used to prepackaged food. The meat, or whatever was impersonating the meat, had a fair amount of flavor, and whatever the pasta like things were had a buttery texture that reminded her of egg noodles. Mixed together with a little sauce, it all started to taste kind of like her mother's old beef and noodles recipe. It brought a small smile to her face as she ate, remembering the way her brother would slurp up the little egg noodles, earning a soft swat on the leg from their mother and an admonishment from their father. He never did learn to knock it off.
"So, I just realized, I don't actually know your name." Leia said, trying to sound conversational. Ori could tell she was feeling awkward about the whole thing, no doubt thrown off by the idea of there being a universe where she didn't exist.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm Oria, Oria Jones. You can call me Ori." She said, smiling and holding out a hand. Leia shook it gently and returned the smile. "And you don't have to be so proper about this whole thing. You can ask me whatever you want, I won't mind." She took a sip of the dark liquid in her glass, liking the way it tasted, almost like soda, only without the bubbles.
"Are we real, in your world I mean." Leia asked, her face suddenly serious. It was strange to see her mood shift so rapidly, but then Carrie Fischer had always been an amazing actress so it was only right that her character be similarly skilled.
"In the sense that you the person exists, no. But, you are movie characters, so there are real people actors that portrayed you, so in that sense, yes." Ori said, hoping that that explanation would be as intelligible out loud as it was in her head.
"What's a movie?" Luke asked, his curiosity still burning from the initial images he'd seen in her mind.
"Well, a movie is like a story, told through pictures and sound. Images move across a screen, along with spoken dialog, like a play, only recorded." Ori knew they had theater in this universe, though it might still be different to what she knew, so hopefully they would be able to make the intellectual leaps on their own.
"And actors play characters in these movies." Luke said, his head nodding slowly as if some massive puzzle pieces just clicked into place. Now the images he'd seen made sense. They looked flat because they were up on a screen, she was watching the action second hand.
"But there's no Leia Organa in your universe?" Leia asked, still struggling to wrap her mind around the fact that she didn't exist.
"Not that I know of. The actress who played you, Carrie Fischer, was the closest to you that we got." Ori said, smiling, though it seemed tinged with sadness. Leia wanted to ask why thinking of this person made her sad, but Luke's subtle head shake let her know to drop the subject. "How long have I been here?" She asked, looking between the twins. She felt as if she hadn't eaten or drunk anything in days. She knew it had to have been a while, she'd slept several times since she was put in that room, but her scientific mind was curious as to the exact time table.
"We found you three days ago. We still don't know how you managed to get on the ship, no one was in the cargo bay when you arrived, but you fell from somewhere, the thump was what led us to you." Luke said, looking almost guilty at the admission. So it had been three days since she was found. No wonder she was so fragile, three days of isolation after a severe trauma or loss will make anyone unstable.
"Wow, I knew it had been a while, but I didn't think it had been days." She wanted to ask why she'd been left alone that long, wanted to know if they really trusted her as much as they seemed to. But she knew that she wouldn't be able to get a straight answer out of either of them, and she wasn't entitled to one either. She was, simply put, an invader in their home, and they had every right to treat her with as much or as little distrust as they saw fit.
An uncomfortable silence settled over the three of them, each one feeling a different emotion, until a thud and a loud swear broke the silence. Leia groaned softly, her hand slowly sliding down her face as Chewie's growling added to the din and Luke simply sat back against the padded bench and laughed.
"I told him not to try and fix it while we're in hyperspace." He said, sounding almost gleeful as the swearing got louder. "He never listens." He stood from the bench and strolled slowly to the mouth of another corridor. "You okay back there buddie?" He shouted, earning a wave of insults and swears for his trouble. "Okay." He turned and walked back to his seat, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter that Leia joined in on a moment later.
"It's like you two are the siblings sometimes." She said, resting her head on her arm, shaking it gently as the ship stuttered and fell out of hyperspace. "What am I gonna do with that man?" She asked, more to herself than anyone else. Luke just continued to laugh as Leia lamented, Ori fighting to repress a smile as the whole situation reminded her forcefully of her days in the graduate program at her university.
The sound of pounding footsteps echoed up the corridor and Ori readied herself for another confrontation as Han rounded the corner, grease smeared and red faced. He looked from Luke's laughing face to the top of Leia's head as she continued to groan before settling on Ori.
"You said you were a scientist right?" He asked, his body suddenly relaxing as if he'd just found the solution to all his problems.
"Yeah..." She replied, feeling suddenly apprehensive. She'd never been very technologically minded, preferring to stick to theory while Suzie built the gadgets.
"Think you could do some calculations for me?" He asked, his face melting into the most personable smile she'd ever seen. Her heart leapt at the idea of not only being useful, but also of being able to catch a glimpse at the science that ruled this universe and she nodded, a smile spreading across her face. Han nodded, crooking his finger at her as she hurried out of the bench seat, disappearing down the corridor with him.
"You did that on purpose didn't you?" Leia asked, looking up at Luke's grinning face. She'd thought it a bit odd that he would antagonize her husband like that, usually being much more reserved and counseling patience when Han started to lose his temper, but now it was beginning to make sense.
"I don't know what you mean." He said, getting up from the bench seat and stretching his arms toward the ceiling. "You better get on those Senate notes, I imagine they'll have a lot of questions for you once I'm done talking." His grin only deepened as Leia groaned yet again, her eyes moving to the all but forgotten data pads that were sitting at the far side of the table.
He smiled as he left her to it, moving through the ship quickly until he reached his own room. His mind wandered to their resident stranger, Oria Jones. He hadn't intended for her to get swept off by his friend quite so quickly, he still had a great deal to ask her, not least of which being how he was able to sense her so clearly. She had to have some kind of training, some Force equivalent in her universe that would allow her to tap into it so easily, but if she could use the force, then why did she allow her emotions to rule her? Why didn't she simply meditate and lessen them the way he'd been taught to do.
He felt his stomach drop a little as a thought passed through his mind. What if she'd been taught to use her emotions, the way Vader had been? He'd spoken with his father only once following his death, and had learned a great deal of the Sith and their ways. What if Oria was like them? No, something about that didn't feel right. When he'd been around the Emperor, he'd felt the wrongness of him, the way he seemed to warp the air in the room, it was almost physical. He didn't feel anything like that from Oria.
He sighed, leaning back on his bunk and closing his eyes, willing his thoughts to slow. There was nothing he could find out from what ifs and maybes and she was not on hand to question, so he would simply have to wait. It wasn't like she was going anywhere anytime soon, there would be time later to find out what he needed to know.
"Okay, so this is the variable that tells the ship where in space it needs to stop, and this is the variable that tells the ship where in hyperspace it needs to be to get to where it needs to stop. From there you said the ship plots a course around all known obstacles to avoid collisions and then off we go right?" Ori asked, looking up at Han as she spoke. This was truly fascinating stuff. She'd always assumed hyperspace was a speed, but it was in fact, a destination in its own right, a sort of subspace superhighway that you could slip into and out of with the right speed and engine.
"You got it. So what I need you to do is get us from here to here as fast as possible, my navicomputer is on the blink and it can't chart the route itself." He handed her a pen and some paper and slid a data tape into the console, bringing up star charts and maps. "It can still calculate obstacles, so I know we won't hit anything, I just need to shave some time off our trip to make sure her Worshipfulness gets to the Senate on time." He directed a look over his shoulder, as if he was afraid she would come around the corner at any moment demanding to know why they weren't moving.
"I think I can do it, it seems pretty basic compared to what I've been working with recently. But, and I don't mean anything bad by this at all, are you sure you want to trust me with this? I mean, you don't seem to like me very much, or trust me for that matter, and I don't want to do anything to make that worse." She hadn't meant to let so much fall out of her mouth when she resolved to ask the question, merely wanting to give him a chance to back out should he not fully trust her capabilities, but once she'd started, she couldn't stop.
"Listen, I don't trust you, not yet, but I do believe you. Luke and Leia say you're telling the truth so I gotta trust my friends but if you try anything funny..." He let the threat hang in the air, his hand hovering over his blaster for a moment as she nodded. "Glad we got that cleared up, now let's get to work." He turned and headed back to the engineering nightmare that was the Falcon's internal components and she turned her attention to the charts and calculations.
Luke had to brace himself against the floor to keep from falling as the ship jumped back to hyperspace. He felt a smile cross his face as a wave of accomplishment and happiness fluttered back to him from the direction of the cockpit. It was joined by a faint trace of Han's laughter as both bodies moved through the ship.
He smiled as he heard the two pass his door, Oria saying something about a wrench that had Han laughing and instant later. He rose quickly from his bunk, popping out his door to join the two. Oria smiled at him as he approached, pointing toward him as Han questioned what she was smiling at. Han turned, his grin turning lopsided as he caught eyes with his friend.
"This doesn't make you right kid." He said, turning and heading quickly down the corridor. Luke watched him go with undisguised humor, stopping just short of where Oria stood.
"I hope I didn't interrupt anything." He said, directing his grin at her. She colored up again, shaking her head softly, sending crimson tendrils of hair down into her face. She reached up and brushed them behind her ear, blowing a few stray strands away with a quip puff of air and turned to look at him.
"Is there something you needed or were you just popping out to check up on me?" She asked, her expression conveying a whole host of emotions. There was gratitude and happiness, but the sadness and fragility he'd sensed in her still hovered there as well, just around the edges of her deep green eyes.
"A little of both actually. Do you have a minute? I know you're probably tired but I do have a few questions I would like to ask you." He tried to make it sound as personable as possible, not wanting her to feel pressured. He knew that she was feeling very out of place right now, trapped in a small space with a bunch of people she both knew and didn't know, and it was all probably very confusing for her. The last thing he wanted to do was make it worse by making her feel she had to listen to him if she didn't want to.
"Yeah, I don't think Han needs me anymore so I'm all yours." She said, shrugging and gesturing for him to lead her wherever he wanted to go. He smiled and turned, moving back toward his own room, making a show of opening the door so that she could watch his movements before stepping inside. She followed, laughing softly, a sense of quiet gratitude floating slowly over to him and making him feel strangely warm inside. "So, what did you want to know?" She asked, sitting down on one of the cushions along the wall. They'd been a gift to him from Leia, to make meditation more comfortable she'd said.
"Better to start with an explanation of my own I think." He said, sitting opposite her on another cushion. He didn't want to start out like this, but she seemed to like to be direct so he drew a breath, steadying himself as he met her eyes. "The Force is strong in my family, my father had it, I have it, my sister has it. You know these words, I saw them in your mind when we touched. I think you have it as well. I've been able to sense you very strongly since you appeared on board." He expected denial, anger, outrage, or simple refusal. He did not expect excitement and the overwhelming tide of pure child like glee that washed over him.
"What? You can't be serious. I mean, obviously you are serious and I don't mean to make light of your religion, but you can't be serious." She clapped a hand over her mouth to stop herself from speaking, trying her best to push down the absolute geek out she was having at the idea of being able to use The Force. She reminded herself that it was real here, an actual thing, a tremendous power that could turn bad quick if not controlled. "Sorry, I'm better now, go ahead." She swallowed, feeling her insides all but vibrating with excitement.
Luke couldn't help the smile that crossed his face. For the first time since he'd met her, she wasn't sad. The sadness was still there, along with the aching sense of loss, but now, she had something new to cling to, something new to latch her hopes to. She had a future again, and she was so happy she could burst. He felt his heart swell with that happiness and drew a breath to calm himself, one of them had to keep their head or this conversation would never go anywhere.
"Well your reaction pretty much answers my first question but I'll ask anyway. Do you have anything like The Force in your universe?" He watched as her excitement dimmed, replaced by an almost internal look. She was searching her mind for anything that she knew in their universe that would be a match for what she knew of The Force.
"Hmm, that's an interesting question. We have some forms of energy that can be manipulated with the right technology, but nothing that a human mind can use to do the things you do. The closest we have is what some of us call Magic. It's a specific kind of energy that all living things generate, and if you know what you're doing, you can use it to subtly manipulate the world around you, encourage healing, give luck, that kind of thing. Nothing I know of in my universe operates or has as much power as The Force. Why?" She looked up, the introspection gone from her face, replaced by open curiosity. He couldn't resist the quiet laugh as he began to feel like a specimen in a lab.
"For me to sense you as clearly as I do, I would need to be connected to you, intensely. Obviously, I'm not, which just leaves one explanation, that you've trained in the art of channeling and are sending these feelings out for me to pick up on." He watched as the introspective look came over her face again. Neither of those theories sounded right to him, and apparently to her either, so she had gone off in search of one that did. What would it be, he wondered.
"Well I know I haven't trained in The Force, I wouldn't be here if I had, I would be making money hand over fist in Vegas levitating anything that wasn't nailed down. But I did work with Magic a bit. So if Magic and The Force are essentially the same energy, just varying strengths and level of contact, then its possible that I'm using The Force without meaning to. Does that make sense?" She asked, looking over at him for confirmation that her idea held water.
Now it was Luke's turn to be introspective. From what she'd described, this Magic was similar to The Force, though far less potent, and if she could manipulate something so small an energy, then tapping into the wellspring of The Force would be absurdly simple, and it could cause the kind of link he'd been experiencing. Something about it still didn't sound right to him, but he couldn't place his finger on exactly what it was.
"It does, though something about it still seems off. With the kind of link that would form, I should be able to read your surface thoughts, as well as your emotions, and I can't." His eyes narrowed at the floor as he tried to find an explanation that would fit all the facts.
"Well that could just be down to my mental disorders. I can't even catch most of my surface thoughts, stupid ADHD." She laughed, looking up at him expectantly. Was he meant to laugh as well? What was this ADHD she was talking about? He watched as her face started to fall. "You have no idea what I'm talking about do you?" She asked, a look of pure incredulity settling on her face as he shook his head. "Oh boy, settle in, this is gonna be a long one." She said, laughing softly before launching into a detailed explanation of what mental disorders were and what caused them.
She detailed the ones that she personally lived with, namely Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. She explained that ADHD could account for the lack of surface thoughts, as the executive pathways in the brain that led to one having surface thoughts, never formed in her brain. She didn't have the kind of internal governors that he had that would allow her mind to separate out extraneous thoughts from the more important matters, and as such, she wouldn't have anything simply "floating around" in her mind for him to read.
"It's also why my emotions are always so intense. I literally can't control them as well as other people can so they sort of get to gang up on me whenever they want." She said, shrugging as if she'd given this explanation a hundred times before. Luke felt his heart break for her, the mere thought of being at the mercy of his every thought and emotion making him want to scream.
"How do you manage?" He asked, marveling at her control. Now that she'd explained it, he could sense her thoughts, running loops around each other in her mind, a massive swirl of input just waiting to be fed through her brain.
"Practice mostly, judicious use of distraction, and occasional days where I just don't. I'm guess that's what the last few days are gonna be marked down as cause I sure as shit didn't handle myself very well." She blushed softly, her hand moving to worry at the back of her neck. Was she actually embarrassed by how she'd acted? After all she'd been through? He felt a new sense of respect for this woman bloom in his chest and he had to fight the urge to pull her close.
"I think you've handled yourself very well Oria." He said, smiling softly as her blush deepened. She muttered something that sounded like "shut up" and locked her eyes to the far corner of the room. "In fact, I think you showed great potential." He said, keeping his tone casual as he too picked a vacant corner to look at. He could feel her eyes whip around to him as he spoke, the excitement from before bubbling up inside her in a way that drew a smile to his lips.
"Well I am a good student, I mean, if you were to teach me anything, I'm a quick study." She said, mimicking his casual tone and pulling a full grin to his lips as his eyes slid back to meet her.
"And it would be terribly irresponsible of me to just leave you without training, dangerous even." He watched as she nodded sagely, her expression a perfect parrot of seriousness, the urge to laugh was unbearable.
"No one wants untrained Force users around, all kinds of trouble could happen." She said, her face a mask of concern. It proved to be too much for him as she nodded once again, a loud bark of laughter bursting out of him as she finally cracked a grin. They shared a bout of laughter as they both came to terms with what they'd just agreed to before lapsing into a comfortable silence.
"I've never had a student before." He said, looking at her, seriousness slowly bleeding through his humor.
"Don't think of me as a student, I'm just a friend you're showing something to, it takes the pressure off." She said, smiling knowingly. She'd never had to teach someone something as important as this before, but she'd had a handful of classes in her time, and for some reason, the word "student" was just too intimidating.
"I like the sound of that. We'll start tomorrow, it's time for dinner and then you should really get some rest, you've had a busy day." He said, standing and holding out a hand. She hesitated for a moment, not wanting to see Suzie's face again. Luke's hand closed over her own, pulling her forward, gasping as the image of a woman's face flashed in his mind along with a pang of pure grief.
He kept a hold of her arm, riding through the rest of the memory with her, needing to know what caused her so much pain, and felt his heart still at the horror of it all. So this was why she was so angry, this was why she cried. He opened eyes he hadn't realized he'd closed as a soft hand brushed a tear from his cheek.
"Sorry you had to see that." She said, sniffing softly as a near identical tear rolled unchecked down her own cheek.
"Don't be. It wasn't your fault." He said, knowing she would understand the double meaning. He wanted to help her move past this, to get to a place where she wasn't afraid to take his hand anymore. She just nodded, dropping her arm out of his grasp and turning to the door, mimicking his actions from earlier to open it, disappearing out into the corridor beyond.
And there you have it, the beginning of the true story. I know I kinda just threw the whole "force sensitive" thing in there, but I've never liked how Luke is portrayed as this Obi-Wan esque kind of character just because he's a Jedi now. So this is my interpretation of him, sorry if it doesn't agree with what you picture but gimme a chance, you may like him in the end. Anyway, thanks in advance for any follows/faves/reviews, I really do appreciate them, and I'll see you guys in the next chapter!