I just know everyone will be on the edge of their seats during the "fixing the Raventalon" segments of this story.
This chapter was probably the most difficult one to write so far. It went through several major revisions.
"Anything?"
"Uhhh...yeah, smoke. There's smoke coming out of case."
"Whoops, wrong wire. How about if I do this?" The navicomputer's little output screen blinked on for a split second and then went dark along with the cockpit lights. PY-HD twittered angrily.
Marco cringed. "Uh..."
"That just tripped the circuit breaker, didn't it?"
"Looks like it."
A defeated sigh came from inside the navicomputer. Then Tom dejectedly said, "The breaker panel is down in the cargo hold."
"Alright. I'll get it."
"Why don't you call the girls and see if one of them can get it? It's one room over from the reactor."
"I guess I could do that." Marco picked up Tom's commlink and hailed Janna's as he sat down in the copilot's seat. Please let Janna pick up.
Huh...never thought I would ever *hope* for Janna to answer...
"Star, can you get that, please? I have my hands full at the moment."
Star looked at Janna's chiming commlink sitting on the tool box beside her and sighed as she reached for it, hoping it wasn't Marco.
"Hello?"
"Heyyyy, Star. What...uh...h-how you two doing down there?"
"What do you want, Marco?" she asked, her voice almost completely devoid of inflection.
"Uhhh...we had a circuit breaker trip. Tom said the breaker panel is in the cargo hold right next to where you guys are?"
"Gotcha. I'm on it." And Star disconnected the transmission. "Janna, how do I reset a circuit breaker?"
From inside the reactor, Janna called "Whichever one has the switch that's pointed opposite the others, just flip it back. Breaker panel is on the bulkhead next to the door."
"Okay, on it."
Marco squeezed the commlink in his hand and leaned forward on the control panel.
Star doesn't even want to talk to me...
Behind him, he heard Tom groan and grunt as the demonicite slid out from inside the navicomputer and picked himself up off the floor. "What was that all about?"
"What was what?" Marco asked.
"Star sounded like she was mad at you or something."
"...She kinda is, I think."
Stretching his muscles that had grown stiff from hours of lying on the floor, Tom came over and sat down beside Marco. "Why is she mad at you?"
"I...I don't want to talk about it."
The overhead lights flickered back on, and the darkness in the cockpit was erased. Marco noticed the concerned expression on Tom's face, all three of his eyes seeming to simultaneously say, "Talk to us." Marco looked away, standing up once more. "C'mon. We should get back to work."
Star took Janna's hand and steadied the Captain as she climbed out of the Raventalon's fusion reactor for the fourth time that day. They'd spent nearly the entire previous day replacing the stator bearings, and once the bearings were removed they had found that the splines on the drive motor shaft that turns the bearings had been sheered off, adding more time to the reactor repairs.
"Everything looks good in there?" Star asked as Janna hopped back to the floor.
Captain Ordonia brushed herself off. "I hope so. The bearings probably need adjusting, so we'll have to dry-cycle it and see." She wiped her brow. "Let's go up to the main deck and see how the boys are getting on, and see if we can have Marco cycle the reactor for us so we can check the stator alignment."
Janna noticed Star's demeanor completely change at the very mention of Marco's name, just as it had earlier when she'd spoken to him on the commlink. "M'kay," was her only response.
I may need to move talking to Star about whatever is going on with her and Marco a few notches up on the priority list, Janna thought as they climbed the stairs.
"Hey, guys," Janna greeted the boys as she entered the cockpit.
Tom was still on the floor with his head inside the navicomputer case, and called out a muffled, "Hey!"
Marco turned around, catching sight of Star in the doorway, and his heart skipped a beat in surprise. "Star! Uh, hi!" She said nothing. "H-h-how are you, uh, doing? I feel like I haven't seen you at all in, like, two days."
"Yeah," she said quietly. Her eyes locked on the floor. Marco had never seen her like this. When he talked to her on the comm, she had sounded annoyed, ticked off. But in person...
...she was just quiet. Marco didn't think he'd ever seen Star give a one-word response in the entire time he'd known her.
The room became uncomfortably silent save for sound of Tom trying to pull his wedged horns out from the access panel again.
"You know, I'm here, too," Janna reminded Marco sarcastically, trying to relieve some of the awkwardness in the room.
Marco was feeling frozen in place and was grateful for any reason to turn away from his best friend. "Oh, yeah, hi, Janna."
No eyes on her any longer, Star entered the cockpit and sat down on the floor beside PY-HD. The astromech droid beeped happily as Star affectionately leaned against it.
Tom groaned as he finally hauled himself to his feet. Janna shot her copilot a questioning look, her eyes motioning to Star and Marco. Tom's only response was a shrug and a look of confusion.
"So," Janna began a little bit more loudly than necessary, "did you guys make any progress with the navicomputer?"
Tom gave a nervous chuckle. "Define 'progress.' Pony, can you try to boot it up?"
The droid twittered affirmatively and rotated its interface in the computer terminal socket, remaining as still as possible as to not disturb the Jedi Padawan leaning against it. The navicomputer whirred briefly, the output screen illuminating and displaying a few lines of data before going dark again. Fizzling electricity could be heard inside the case and a few wisps of white smoke drifted from the gaps in the panels. PY-HD buzzed in alarm.
Janna grimaced. "Yeah, that is definitely not how I define 'progress.'"
Tom rubbed the back of his neck and collapsed into the chair behind the pilot's seat. "I think something in the circuit board is shorted out, it's probably toast."
"Darn!" Janna shook her head. "We can worry about that later. Star and I have the reactor put back together and we need you guys to control it from up here so we can check the bearing adjustment."
"Why don't you show Marco how to do that, and while he's cycling the reactor for you, I can try to remove the circuitboard and see if it's repairable?" Tom suggested.
Marco had been feeling rather useless helping Tom, so he was eager for something to do that would be productive. "I can do that. Show me what to do."
Janna nodded. "Alright. C'mon, Diaz." She lead Marco over to the pilot's seat.
Meanwhile, Tom was looking at Star, who was still leaning against PY-HD. Her eyes were closed and she looked like she was in pain. I am so confused. What happened between those two?
"Okay," Janna began, pointing to the switches she wanted Marco to activate. "This is the reactor fuel pump control. I only want to dry-cycle the reactor to check the stator bearing adjustment, so you have to make sure this is 'off.' The switch is spring-loaded to return to 'on' when the reactor is shut down, so you have to shut it off every time before you start."
"What happens if I don't shut that off?" Marco asked.
"Considering that we don't have the upper reactive chamber cover on, you'll probably cause an explosion that, if it doesn't rip the ship in half, will definitely kill me and Star."
Marco flinched. "Okay, really important. Don't forget to shut that off."
"This lever over here is the power diverter to the stator motor, so that has to be 'on', but only give it about 10% power. Then this switch over here is the circuit cut-off to the stator motor, so once you flip that 'on' the motor will start spinning. If I tell you to shut it off, just flip it back and then make sure you push the power diverter back to zero. Got it?"
Marco nodded. "Got it."
"I'll call you on the comm when I want you to start it."
"Okay. I'll go grab my commlink from the other room." Marco quickly slipped out of the cockpit, hoping the girls might be back down on the lower deck by the time he returned.
Janna came back around the seats to the rear of the cockpit, stopping beside where Star was still sitting on the floor against PY-HD. "Ready, Star?"
The girl in question nodded slowly. "Mhm." She gave the astromech a pat on the dome and got to her feet while Tom wondered why she looked so completely dejected. The girls left, heading back to the reactor room, and a few moments later, Marco returned, commlink in hand.
Tom sighed as Marco hopped into the pilot's seat. "Okay, Dude, seriously. What is going on between you and Star? You're both acting really weird around each other and I wanna know what's going on."
Marco kept his focus locked on the controls. "I don't wanna talk about it."
Tom shook his head. "Marco, if we're ever going to get out of..." He looked out the view screen at the empty blackness beyond. "...wherever we are...we're gonna have to work as a team, and right now, Star looks like she's avoiding you, and that means we are not all on the same team. So I am gonna help you sort this out."
"Don't you have a circuit board you're supposed to be pulling out?"
PY-HD squeaked something that sounded like "Oh, snap!" as Tom blinked in surprise. "Uh...I mean...yeah...but I think this is equally important."
Marco opened his mouth to say something else, but the commlink in his hand began to chime. He answered it.
"Yo, Marco. You ready?"
"I'm ready, Janna."
"Good. Fire it up."
Marco flicked the fuel pump off, increased the power handle to 10% and flicked up the stator motor start switch. Elsewhere in the ship, there was a terrible metallic clanging sound. Tom and Marco both cringed.
"Kill it! Kill it!" Janna yelled over the comm.
Marco quickly hit the motor cutoff and returned the power diverter to 0%. An audible click came from the control panel as the fuel pump control switch clicked back to the 'on' position.
"That didn't sound good," Marco observed.
"No, it did not," Tom agreed, "Now tell me what's going on with you and Star."
The Jedi Padawan swiveled halfway around to look at his friend. "No chance you're gonna drop this, is there?"
"Nope."
"There is no way for you to fix it. Trust me."
"Tell me anyway."
Marco gave an exasperated sigh. "But you have to promise me you won't tell anyone. Especially not Janna."
"I promise I won't tell Janna, but, seriously, who else would I tell? There's only five of us onboard."
Marco had completely forgotten that PY-HD was in the cockpit with them. He looked past Tom and saw the astromech no longer plugged into its computer terminal and instead facing him with its big photoreceptor aimed directly at his face, seemingly waiting anxiously for him to speak.
"Pony Head, you can't tell Star or Janna."
The droid whistled something that sounded like it was feigning offense. Marco squinted at the droid, then at Tom. "I do not trust that droid one bit."
The droid whistled indignantly followed by a few stuck-up sounding chirps.
"What did she say?" Marco asked.
"She said, and I quote, 'Hey, I heard that! I'll have you know, I'm great at keeping secrets.'"
Marco narrowed his eyes at PY-HD a second time. "You'd better be." Then he looked back at Tom and took a deep breath. "Okay, how do I put this..?"
The commlink chirped. "Try it again, Marco!" Janna said.
"On it!" Marco turned back to the control panel, repeated the control commands, and the clanging noise returned, though not quite as loudly, from somewhere near the stern.
"Shut it down!"
"Shutting it down!" He flipped the cutoff switch and the clanging slowed to a stop.
Tom cleared his throat.
"Yeah, Yeah, I'm getting to it." Marco exhaled loudly through his nose. "Umm...I'm breaking the Jedi code."
Tom's brow furrowed in confusion. "Huh? How?"
"Heh, I don't think specifically how is really important," Marco said quickly. "What is important is that Star doesn't know about it. I was going to tell her right before we made our lightspeed jump from Coruscant because I was pretty sure we weren't going to make it and I, uh, decided I didn't want to die without her knowing."
Tom looked confused. "Why would you care if Star knew or not before we died? By the way, thanks for having so much confidence in me and Janna's piloting skills," he added jokingly. "Does it have something to do with her?"
Marco quickly looked away out the viewscreen and hoped his face wasn't turning red. He decided to ignore Tom's question and just continue. "Anyway, then we sort of had other things to worry about what with the overloading hyperdrive and loss of control and all, so I guess it kinda slipped both our minds until well after we were out of immediate danger. She asked me later on what it was I was going to tell her..." Marco's shoulders slumped and he hung his head. "...but I just couldn't do it."
The commlink chimed. "Again, Marco!"
"Yup." Fuel pump, power distributor, circuit cutoff. Silence.
"Shoot, I think we adjusted too far. Now there's too much clearance. Shut it down, Marco."
"On it." Circuit cutoff, power distributor, *click.* Switch off commlink. Marco sighed, but said no more.
Tom turned and glanced at PY-HD, shooting the droid a look meant to convey Am I missing something? If bleeped back "I don't get it," in response. Tom shrugged and turned back to Marco. "Sooooo..."
"Star and I have never kept any secrets from each other. We tell each other everything, we always have. And I guess her knowing that there's something I don't want to tell her really hurt her feelings."
"Why can't you tell her?"
Marco shook his head sadly. "She always says that I can tell her anything because we're best friends, but I'm afraid if I tell her this...we may not be able to be friends anymore."
PY-HD whistle-bleeped something and Tom nodded in agreement. "Yeah, probably," he said to the droid.
Marco narrowed his eyes again. "What?"
"Oh, nothing. Pony and I just think you're in love with Star."
Marco felt like his mouth was actively working against him. "Wha- Why- D-don't- Of course I'm not!"
"...Are you sure?"
Marco was trying very hard to keep from gritting his teeth. "What could possibly make you think...that I'm in love with Star?"
"You just said you're breaking the Jedi Code, and having romantic feelings and becoming emotionally attached to someone is definitely something that isn't allowed, right? And you totally ignored me when I asked if the thing you couldn't tell Star was something to do with her, which means the answer is yes, it does have to do with her. Plus, when we were hiding out on Coruscant, the two of you were both acting awfully...flirty, at times. Janna noticed, too. And, unless Star was sleeping on the floor, you two were sharing my bunk when your leg was healing."
Marco blushed bright red. "So what if we were? Best friends can't share a sleeping space?"
"Janna's my best friend. If you were me, would you want to sleep in the same bed as her?"
"Dude, if I were married to Janna, I wouldn't want to sleep in the same bed as her."
"...Okay, I can't really argue with you on that. What about the rest, though? Was I wrong?"
"Uhhhh..."
Tom shook his head and PY-HD swiveled her dome back and forth to mimic Tom's expression. "Stop trying to deny it, dude. You have feelings for your best friend. Janna and I both noticed it."
The commlink chimed. So excited was Marco for any excuse to change the subject that he snatched it up with such haste that he nearly sent it flying across the cockpit. "Yes! Janna! I am on it!" he nearly yelled into the receiver before Janna even had a chance to say anything.
"...okay, cool."
Marco flipped his controls and the earlier clanging sound returned, but very softly.
"Darn, we went back too much. Shut it down."
Marco shut down the reactor and switched off the commlink yet again. Something Tom had said a few minutes ago was stuck in his head. "Tom, did you say that Star and I both looked like we were both flirting? Like...with each other?"
"Uh, Yeah. I did."
"So...do you think...?"
PY-HD whistled something very loudly.
"What'd she say?"
"'That Star is in love with you? Yes,'" Tom translated. "And, I agree with her. Well, to a degree. Heh, I made a rhyme. I don't know if Star is in love with you, but when we were on Coruscant, I could tell that she definitely has some degree of feelings for you. The way she acted toward you was...different...than how I've seen her act in the past."
Marco found himself involuntarily smiling. PY-HD noticed and starting relaying some very mocking beeps.
"See?" Tom said with a knowing grin. "You like the idea of Star being in love with you. Because you're in love with her, too." The demonicite stood up. "I think you know now what you need to talk about with her."
"Yeah...I guess I do."
Without another word, Tom stood and strolled back over to the navicomputer. He pulled over his tool kit to begin disassembling the case.
"Hey, Tom?"
He turned around and looked back at Marco.
"Thank you," the Padawan said with a smile.
"I got you, bro."
PY-HD beeped indignantly.
Marco chuckled. "You too, Pony Head. Thank you." Marco's commlink chimed again and he answered it. "I'm on it, Janna."
Marco was already reaching for the fuel pump kill when Janna cut him off. "Actually, Marco, we have to take the stator armature out of the reactor. It's bent and we gotta straighten it out. Shouldn't take too long."
"Oh, okay, I'll hang tight up here."
Janna clicked the commlink off and set it down in her tool kit. "Alright," she said, "Let's take the armature back off again." Star watched Janna hop up onto the reactor and slide down inside through the open top. A moment after she disappeared, Janna's hand popped up through the opening again. "Wrench, please." Star grabbed the wrench from the tool kit and placed it in Janna's hand. "Thank you." The arm and tool vanished back inside the reactive chamber. "So, Star," Janna's voice came from inside, "I've been wanting to ask you, what is going on between you and Marco?"
"Nothing is going on."
"That's a lie. For a second time."
Star gasped, feigning offense. "I am not lying!"
"Yes, you are. You wouldn't even hardly look at Marco when we were up in the cockpit before, let alone talk to him. You snapped at him on the comm, too. I asked if you were mad at him and you said you weren't, but you're obviously upset about something." Her hand popped up through the top of the reactor again. "Thermal decoupler, please."
Star fetched the tool and handed it to Janna. "Alright, fine. I'm not mad at Marco, I'm just...I don't even know. Hurt, I guess."
"Why's that?" Janna's voice strained slightly as she forced loose a threaded connector. "Do you need me to hurt him for you?"
"No! Nothing that bad."
"What is it then?"
"Back when we were escaping from Coruscant, he said there was something he needed to tell me, something he said he wished he'd told me sooner, but then we made the lightspeed jump and we kinda had other things to worry about and he never actually told me." Star paced back and forth across the room as she talked, making gestures with her hands that Janna could not see due to being inside of a fusion reactor. "Then I asked him to tell me and he said he couldn't." She sighed. "I guess I just feel hurt that he feels like he has to keep something from me. I thought he knew by now that he could tell me anything."
"He's in love with you." Janna's hand popped out of the reactor. "Pry bar, please."
"Say what now?"
"Pry bar, plea-"
"Not that, the first thing!"
"Oh, right. I said he's in love with you. Pry bar, please." Janna's fingers beckoned for the tool.
Star fished the pry bar out of the tool kit. "What makes you think Marco's in love with me?" she asked desperately as she handed it Janna.
"Um, because it's so painfully obvious that I can't believe you haven't noticed. Plus, completely ignoring the- grrrr...hang on." Janna grunted as she strained against the pry bar and the stator armature popped free from the upper bearing. Gently holding it to the side, she was easily able to pop it out of the lower bearing. "Here, Star, grab this." She hefted the heavy durasteel armature up through the open access hatch.
Star grasped the top and began trying to lift it out of the reactor. "This thing weighs a ton!" She pulled it halfway out and then stopped. "Oh, what am I doing? Duh!" She let go with one hand and concentrated on the stator armature with the Force, letting go with her other hand as it floated gently upward out of the reactor. She guided it carefully down to the floor.
Janna popped out of the access hatch, trying to suppress a smile. "Forgot you were a Jedi for a second there?"
"Oh, shut up. What were you saying?"
Grinning mischievously to herself, Janna hopped back to the floor. "Let's take a look at this thing," she said, completely ignoring Star's question. She knelt down on the floor beside the armature while Star looked over her shoulder. "Doesn't look bent to me," Star said. "Now tell me!"
"Oh, it's bent, alright." Janna grabbed a long, thin case from her tool kit and popped it open. Inside was nothing but a narrow polished rectangle of durasteel. "This is my straight-edge. This thing is precisely calibrated to be perfectly straight. Watch." When she gently laid the straight edge against the side of the armature, the two pieces did not make contact along their full lengths. Janna rocked the straight edge back and forth along the bent section. "See? We gotta make this perfectly straight or it will make contact with the inside of the reactive chamber."
"Ohhh, okay. I see. Tell me now?"
Janna grabbed a mallet and rolled the stator armature flat against the floor. She pounded on it a few times, then checked it with the straight edge again. It was still off, so she repeated the process until she was satisfied that the armature had been restored to its former shape. Every time she stopped hammering to check it with the straight edge, Star would try to get her attention by saying, "Janna." And every time, Janna would pretend not to have heard.
"Ah, there we go," Janna said, checking the armature one final time. "Well within acceptable tolerances."
"Greaaaat," Star said sarcastically. "Now finish saying what you were saying before!"
Janna chuckled to herself. "Alright, I guess I've kept you in suspense long enough. But can you 'Force' this thing back into the reactor while I tell you? Carefully."
"Yeah, yeah, sure, totally, totally. You were saying?" Star held up her hands and directed the armature as it floated up off the floor.
"What I was saying was, if you ignore how flirty he was being with you after we rescued you guys, it's still obvious that Marco is in love with you."
"Why's that?" Star slowly lowered her hands and finessed the armature back inside the reactor as carefully as she could.
"You said that he said he had something he wanted to tell you, and that he said that he wished he had told you sooner, and then you said that he said afterwords that he couldn't tell you. ...That has to be the single most confusing sentence that's ever come out of my mouth. Anyway, what else could that thing have possibly been? Think about it. Marco has always been super excited to become a Jedi...for some reason. And last time I checked, developing romantic feelings for anyone, especially another Jedi, is a good way to get your Force-card revoked."
"Not really how that works." The armature safely back inside the reactor, Star relaxed her hands and turned back to face Janna. "But I get what you mean."
"Right. Marco probably didn't want to go against 'The Jedi Way.'" Janna rolled her eyes and made quotes with her fingers. "So he didn't tell, well, anyone, because he didn't want anyone to think he was breaking the very, very, dumb rules. But also, probably equally if not more importantly, he's probably afraid that if he tells you and you don't love him back, that it'll make your friendship awkward and he may even lose it altogether."
"But that's silly! I could never stop being friends with Marco!"
"Exactly, because you're in love with him."
"That's ri-! Wait, what?"
Janna made a motion with her hand. "You are, aren't you?"
"Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat makes you think that?"
"You were being just as flirty with Marco when we were hiding out as he was with you," Janna said with a teasing smile. "And you slept with him while his leg was healing."
Star blushed bright red. "We never-!"
"I meant you were sharing a bunk. Seriously, Star, get your mind out of the trash compactor."
Star's face turned even redder. "Right, right."
"Sooooo...am I right, or what?"
"Huh?" Star's mind was still preoccupied with the previous thought. "Right about what?"
"That you're in love with Marco."
The young Padawan turned away, her face still flush with embarrassment. "...Yes."
"I KNEW IT!"
Star couldn't help but giggle at Janna's enthusiasm. "Why does that make you so excited?"
"I just really like being right." Janna jumped up atop the reactor. "Now c'mon. Let's get this thing back together so we can actually have power again. I've never had to use the deep-cycle batteries for power...like...ever...and I don't know how long they're gonna last."
Feeling much more upbeat than she had ten minutes ago, Star excitedly assisted Janna in climbing back inside the reactive chamber. "Yeah! Let's get this puppy back online so I can go make out-up! Up! I meant make up! With Marco!"
Janna decided to let that one go. She just smiled and shook her head as she hefted the stator armature back into place.
"Shut it down, Marco! Just one little tweak and I think we'll have it."
"Roger that!" Marco shut down the reactor yet again.
"Oh, Pony, this is not good," Tom muttered behind him. The droid bleeped in agreement. They'd managed to extract the main printed circuitboard from inside the navicomputer and the demonicite and astromech were examining it together. Part of the board was scorched black.
"How bad is it?" Marco asked.
"Bad enough that if we had any other choice I'd just throw it away," Tom replied. "Unfortunately, we're gonna have to try to fix it. The good news is that this kind of repair is one of the things Pony Head here was built for. Right, Pony?"
PY-HD whistle-beeped and folded out a few accessories, one of which included a tiny electro-welder for repairing printed circuitboards.
"It still won't be a quick or easy task and there's no guarantee it even is fixable, but if it is, Pony will get it done," said Tom. "Eventually." The droid jabbed Tom in the side with spike on its dome. "Yow!" Tom took several hasty steps away from the droid. "You know, one of these days, I'm gonna take that thing off you!"
The commlink chimed again, interrupting Marco's laughter. "Ready, Janna?"
"Yup! Try it now!"
One last time, Marco flipped the fuel pump off, diverted 10% power and flicked the circuit cut-off switch to "on." A moment later, a low hum emanated from somewhere near the stern.
"Alright! Now we're talking! Perfect! Shut it down so we can put the upper reactive chamber cover back on, and then we'll come up and we can fire the reactor up for real!"
"Awesome! Shutting it down," Marco said as he undid the controls for the last time. "Great job, you guys!"
"I know," Janna said, sounding not even remotely modest.
"Everything looking good on the sensors, Pony?" Janna asked. The droid beeped affirmatively. "Alright! The Raventalon is officially back under power!"
Tom, Star and Marco all cheered.
"Not that we can actually do anything with it besides charge the auxiliary power reserves," Tom reminded everyone, "but at least one of the many things that were damaged is fixed!"
Star gave him a slap on the back. "It's a start!"
Janna leaned back in the pilot's seat. "Well, I've had enough for one day. Let's get some grub." She began to make her way out of the cockpit, Tom following close behind.
Star and Marco looked at each other, the first time they'd made eye contact in several days. Neither made any move to join their friends.
"Aren't you guys coming?" Tom asked when he noticed they weren't following.
"We'll, uh...catch up in a few," said Star.
Tom nodded, figuring the two Jedi needed a little space. "Take your time." He spotted PY-HD still sitting by the computer terminal. "Come on, Pony, I bet your power cells are getting low. I'll put you on to recharge."
The droid beeped a reply which Star roughly understood as, "No, thank you, I'm good."
Tom lowered his eyes. "Pony..." He motioned for it to follow him with his eyes. Exasperation flowed out of the droid as PY-HD begrudgingly followed Tom out of the cockpit.
And so, Star and Marco were left alone. They stared at each other, neither knowing where to even start.
"Sta-"
"Marc-"
"Sorry, you go first," Marco offered politely.
Star didn't want to go first. She'd only started to say something to break the silence. What do I even say? Where do I start? Should I just say it?
Maybe now isn't the best time. If Janna was wrong about his feelings, I don't want him to feel trapped. Literally.
Maybe...maybe for now I just apologize and make out-UP! MAKE UP!
Okay, calm down, Butterfly. He's your best friend. Just talk to him.
I know what to say.
"Marco...I'm sorry. I know I always tell you that you're my best friend and that you can tell me anything, and...I still believe that. But...if there's something that you don't want to tell me, I should trust you enough by now to understand that you must have a good reason for not wanting to tell me. I'm sorry for...avoiding you and not wanting to talk to you." She smiled at him nervously and took his hand. "Can we please just...go back? I love Janna and I like hanging out with her, but I really miss my best friend."
Marco was shocked. For a second he just stared, his eyes locked on Star's, unsure what to say. "I...I've missed you, too, Star." He squeezed her hand. "More than you realize..."
Janna was right! thought Star.
"I'm sorry for not just saying what I started to tell you," Marco went on. "I was going to tell you now...so that we could go back to being friends-"
"It's okay," Star interrupted. "You don't have to tell me." It's not the time."Besides..." Wait, hang on. Where is my mouth going with this? "I think I might already know what it is." WHY did I just say that?!
"You...you do?"
"Uh-" Think of something fast, Butterfly! "Oh, just a hunch." And she winked at him. Okay, that was weird. Just stop, girl, you're gonna make it awkward again.
Marco, meanwhile, was internally panicking while desperately trying to keep his face from showing it. Does she know?! How could she know?
Maybe she just knows you that well. I mean, do you really think you made it that difficult to figure out?
I don't know! Shut up, me! And what was up with that wink? That was super weird.
"Marco?"
Maybe she *really* knows and she winked because she loves you back. You should totally kiss her!
You know, for being my inner voice, you give terrible advice.
C'mon, you know you want to.
Yeah, I know I want to! But that is a terrible idea! What if Tom was wrong?
"Marco!"
Marco shook the thoughts away. "Huh?"
"You, uh, kinda zoned out there for a second."
Marco's face turned red and he rubbed the back of his neck nervously with his free hand. "Heh, sorry about that."
Star giggled. He's such a dork. It's adorable. "So...friends again?"
He grinned at her. "Best friends."
She smiled back. "I would accept nothing less." She let go of his hand and held out her arms. "Hug?"
"Yes, please."
Star Butterfly and Marco Diaz were best friends, and as such they had hugged many times before. But this particular hug was different. They held onto each other far more tightly and closely than they ever had before, both feeling a rush of calm and contentedness that they had never previously experienced.
Standing there in the cockpit of the Raventalon, each lost in the feeling of holding onto the one they secretly loved, nothing in the galaxy mattered anymore. Not the Jedi Order that had been destroyed, nor the Sith Lord who had pulled the figurative trigger; Not the inquisitor who had tried to kill Marco, nor the Raventalon's current lack of motive power. Not even the Force mattered; not the light or the dark, the cosmic or the living halves, the midichlorians...none of it.
As they stood with their eyes closed, as far as they could tell, nothing even existed. In the entire universe, there was nothing but each other.
And because they both had their eyes closed, neither noticed the soft glow of light coming from the hearts on Star's cheeks, and from the previously invisible crescent moon's on Marco's.
And when they reluctantly broke apart, the glow vanished, and they rejoined Tom and Janna in the galley for some dinner, neither having any indication of the very peculiar phenomenon that just taken place.
[Author's Note Redacted]
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