\ Carth \
"Hey, hey, hey... It's okay. You're safe now. Carth Onasi's here." Carth whispered gently with the most confidence he could muster. He knew she wasn't safe.
The woman in his arms violently thrashed and shrieked, fighting against something that wasn't there. He held her close, whispering comforting words, rocking back and forth until whatever had hold of her let go.
This was the situation Carth found himself in the last four days. Caring for an ailing woman with no chance of recovery while trapped in a grimy apartment on an alien world. She would be stable one moment, then skin boiling and limbs flailing the next. Crying out like a mother grieving her child, a husband grieving his wife.
He swore he felt her cold terror pulse through his own veins. There was no cure for what she endured - short of a miracle.
A smarter, less stubborn solider would have left her behind days ago. Not that it hadn't cross his mind. The mission ahead was arguably too important to care about the life of a single recruit. But even unkempt and unconscious, an alluring essence swirled about the woman.
His body grew heavy when she wasn't in sight, like he was leaving part of himself behind. It'd be more dangerous to go on without her than to see her through.
In the closeness, he'd accidentally studied her form. She was striking. Each of her features stood on their own - except for her eyes. He didn't remember what they looked like. It wasn't his fault. They'd been closed for four days, and he'd been busy piloting crashing ships. He spent the empty hours struggling to recall their color as if that would help her open them again.
He figured she was the kind of woman who made waves in the air as she walked. You'd drown if you weren't prepared.
There were really only two other things Carth knew about her.
First, she was a last-minute addition to the Endar Spire crew at the request of Bastila Shan. He didn't question the Jedi's odd demand at the time. It didn't matter, any answer Bastila gave would've been twisted into a riddle. "Soon a time will come to pass when your questions are answered within." Damn Jedi. They never cared if they made sense.
Last, she was the only surviving Endar Spire recruit of the thousands aboard. He couldn't process the loss of life now, he focused on saving the lone one before him. He understood why she'd survived this long. She was resilient. Whenever she took a turn for the worse her hands balled into fists as she twitched and grimaced. Did she physically fight death away?
The sooner she awoke the better.
Carth was a man praised for his perceptiveness. His intuition. Almost always, his gut reaction was the right one. But he couldn't get a good read on this one. Maybe that would change once she was walking and talking. When he could finally see the whites of her eyes. He had questions, and they, whether she liked it or not, had a mission. He couldn't shake the feeling they'd never escape Taris without each other.
The dread of trusting this stranger with his survival made him sick. So he tinkered around with his blasters for awhile, as a distraction. He was almost successfully distracted when a familiar sense of doom yanked his heart through the floor.
It was back.
When he reached the woman, she trembled so fiercely, she quaked. Instead of fever, she froze. Blue slowly invaded the pinkness of her cheeks. Reassurance and face holding wouldn't save her this time. He was losing her.
No thinking, only acting. Carth stripped to his essentials and dived into bed. He buried her into his chest, wrapping his arms around. Their legs twisted into one. She struggled against his strength, getting a few connecting blows to his face and gut. It didn't stop him. In the end, his large frame swallowed hers.
"Shhh… Don't worry. You'll be okay. We'll be okay." His words came out slowly, each syllable timed with the back-and-forth of their sway. As he spoke, her struggles lessened, so he didn't stop. "When you wake up, I'll get us a feast. We'll eat, clean up, and get a good night's sleep. Doesn't that sound amazing?"
He talked into the empty air of the apartment about anything he could think of. He told the story of his brief time on the Endar Spire, Bastila's powers, and the attack that ensued. When he caught up to present, he spoke of personal things, his reservations about the Jedi, his time in the Mandalorian Wars, Saul Karath's betrayal. It was therapeutic somehow. He almost found himself speaking of things he purposefully tucked away.
In time, his voice blended with the cadence of her heartbeat, and the melding of their flesh lulled him into his first true rest since they crashed on Taris.
/ Asira /
Darkness. There was only darkness.
Until the darkness was engulfed by a haunting dream. A battle, suffering, loneliness, despair. Then darkness returned. The dream visited every night. If thoughts could be had, they would have longed for death. At least death was final.
The only relief came from a soft light that peaked through when things seemed bleakest, a shimmering sun. It cocooned the mind and soothed the violent forces. The light grew stronger each time it arrived until it finally drove darkness away completely.
Asira awoke to find herself familiarly cocooned. The weight that enveloped her blew steady snores of tranquil breath down her neck. She found a rugged hand stuffed under her bust and a leg wrapped over her waist. A blanket covered them but provided none of the warmth.
She had no memory except for the indelible sensation of her impending ruin.
But that's not what she felt now.
The man's embrace was tender. Cozy. Safe. She closed her eyes, not to sleep, but to lie in the peacefulness of it all. She might have laid there for eternity. But eventually, the man stirred.
\ Carth \
Carth awoke flooded with worry until he confirmed the woman was breathing. She was okay, almost blissful. Whatever he'd done, it worked.
He gingerly unwove their entwined limbs, not willing to address the dull pain that came with no longer having her near. As he extracted his last arm, the woman's eyes sprang open and locked on his own.
"Ahh… hi there?" He said more like a question as he stepped back and realized what this must look like. He should've prepared something to say.
"This isn't what it looks like." Good save, Onasi. "You were smashed up pretty bad, you needed heat and, uh... support." He felt the ground for his pants, and there was an awkward silence as he waited for her to speak.
She didn't.
"I'm Carth, one of the Republic soldiers from the Endar Spire. I was with you in the escape pod, do you remember?"
/ Asira /
Her eyes widened. "I remember you." But not in a way he would understand. He was her light. "I'm Asira."
"Hi Asira. It's a relief to see you awake instead of thrashing about in your sleep. You might not remember, but I promised you a feast when you woke up. How's food sound?" He talked quickly, eager fill every second of silence.
"I like the sound of that." Asira didn't divert her eyes as Carth wiggled into his pants. She was pretty sure she should be able to remember meeting and bedding such a man.
"Try not to move around too much. Relax a bit, and I'll be right back." He said as he left the apartment in a hurry.
Asira was happy for some time alone. Some time to try and piece together where she was and what was going on.
She pinched at her shirt and pulled it past her face to examine. It looked like someone's thrown out work tunic. Unadorned, utilitarian, but clean. Her pants followed a similar fashion. She didn't think about how her unconscious body got into them.
A few shoddy lamps lit the room like a dull sunset. Damp clothes hung from a string hammered in and pulled tight, dividing the room into two quadrants. Overall, it was welcoming, not alarming. Someone took care to make this place a bit of home. Beside her was the unmistakable evidence of a stake out. A chair pulled close, a bowl of water with a wrung-out rag, a still glowing datapad peaking from a bag on the ground.
She felt around blindly until the cool metal brushed her fingertips. The datapad whirred to life, opening to what looked like a journal entry.
Well, this was certain to have some answers. How could she resist a peak?
Asira scrolled until she saw familiar words, the Endar Spire. The dull pain in her head pulsed as she remembered the being assigned to the Navy cruiser. She started reading from there, inhaling each entry like a last meal. Carth wrote succinctly, with great wit and perspective. She smirked whenever he griped about the Jedi. At one point he dubbed the Jedi, repressed and ill-dressed.
{ Human female. Unknown position and rank. Mid-30s. Average height, fit build. Black hair. Undetermined eye color. }
His words about Asira were less colorful. She read like a tedious official report.
{ Unconscious, but breathing. Injuries include strike above left temple. }
Asira lifted a hand to the protrusion hidden under her hair, flinching at the sharpness of the slight pressure.
{ No infection present. Most concerning is what I can only liken to severe nightmares. }
She remembered fighting the dreams off until she almost gave up. Carth had somehow broken through and pulled her head above water at the last minute. There was no existence before the nightmares. There were no true memories. What she could recall were facts in a memorized list, and a short one at that. Name, Asira. 38 years old. Counterintelligence working to stop Malak in the Jedi Civil War. Last assignment: Endar Spire. If she had friends or family, she wouldn't recognize them.
{ Attempting to wake her has no effect. Responds well to direct physical contact and }
Asira's fingers tightened around the datapad. Physical contact? Is that how he described his touch? His touch was more than that to her. It was the anchor that kept her in this world. Her everything when she was slowly becoming nothing.
Her breaths grew shallow as she neared the last entry. Had Carth really saved her life… three times?
Guiding her through the Ednar Spire to the escape pod.
Carrying her from its wreckage to this apartment.
Pulling her out from an almost eternal slumber.
If she had anything to fear in her vulnerable state, it wasn't Carth. No, he was someone worth keeping around.