Hello! It is Wednesday and I am back with a new chapter. It's funny how my writing can ebb and flow with the seasons. A year ago in a lockdown I watched The Mandalorian for the first time and came up with an AU for some of my characters which I call "Justin's Mandalorian AU". Of course as many know, the Boba Fett show was not too long ago and following that, I revisted this AU of mine. I couldn't help myself! I wondered what sort of game that Justin would create for his little sister, Jorgie, during a different time in his life. I think in this one, we get to know Justin's alter ego - Jin - a lot more. As well as his new friend, or rather, love interest. It's easy to tell who she is inspired by and certainly by the end! I hope you enjoy :)
Disclaimer: I own the story and the OCs mentioned!
The man seemingly made of metal had only one thing on his mind as he perched on the fallen tree trunk. No, it was not the beautiful sight of the planet that he had crashed on although you might presume. On this particular day, the shimmering lakes contrasting with the green meadows were not on the forefront on his mind. He had only one thing occupying his thoughts.
He swore an oath to never remove his helmet. But on this day he wished that he could. How much heavier his neck felt than his body as he perched on the edge of the tree trunk, spine curving and his head in his hands. How unbearable it was!
Without actually speaking any words, he grumbled to himself. And then, he was encouraged to actually complain out loud when he at last turned his attention elsewhere, his vision through his metallic cage taken up by a toddling child.
Jin's helmet steamed up practically as soon as he laid his eyes on her, gadget adorned fist unclosing and stretching out fully as a warning. His voice as it often did, didn't strain.
"Be careful." He told her, his head twitching from side to side as he watched the toddling thing slop with bare feet through the moist, dew decorated grass of the planet they had landed on in the middle of the night. "One wrong move and you might fall into a puddle and be gone forever."
Almost as soon as Jin discovered his aching neck to be seeing the child from a slanted angle, he felt her gaze looking at him in return and with the same incline of her head. Without saying anything at all, he agreed with her.
Yes, he knew that losing her forever wouldn't be the worst thing for him personally, far from it! But her family would be devastated, he reminded himself, and that would be the thing that would go on to torture him the most.
The child chose to look away and very much like most beings or creatures of that same age, continued what she had been doing before and paying no heed to the warning that she had just received. Because of this, Jin sent wind from his nostrils and his helmet once more steamed up like the humidity pouring off the lava on a distant planet that he knew only by name.
And then, he didn't bother telling her twice. If she was going to get in a pickle then he would most certainly let her. And most certain of all, he would have to get her out of it, just like he always did!
Shaking his head for almost a different reason that time, he watched the child dunking her bare feet against blades of grass which ended up pulling her down into shallow pits of sloppy mud. At least she was happy, he told himself. Or rather, at least she was occupied.
Jin was free to be alone with his thoughts. But of course, almost as soon as he was left with them, he decided that he much preferred to be doing something rather than ruminating on what was to come. He never really knew what was going to come and that was a problem in itself. He didn't have the luxury of-
Another thing he didn't have the luxury of in that moment was finishing his sentence. For a rare occasion, he had been unaware of another person sneaking up on he and his companion, far too occupied by the thoughts whizzing through his mind like he soared across outer space.
"You have a very special companion there." the person unintentionally sneaking up on them spoke, hands on her hips for something to do and perhaps to offer herself some balance as she too perched on the unpredictable surface of the boggy grass. "Do you know that?" she added.
Jin forwent his usual reaction to being snuck up on of reaching his hand to his weapon in the pocket against his leg. He figured that the feminine sound couldn't possibly mean any harm. And then he inwardly scolded himself almost as harshly as he could often scold that funny little child.
He should never presume things such as those. Danger was the last thing he should get himself in voluntarily. Especially not when he came in toe with that little tot.
Then feeling his temples throbbing equally as much as the grief that his neck had been giving him for most of the morning, he swivelled his head around to survey who was actually speaking to him.
Jin observed a girl with hair a shade or two paler than the burning sun of the most peculiar planet of all up and down before answering her, going along with the knowledge that he could figure most people out just from the first glance.
"If by 'special' you mean 'weird' then yes. Yes, I do know that." he replied, looking over at the girl who had joined them and seeing the way that her inquisitive eyes darted between both him and the toddling tot equally as much.
He didn't need to turn his head away again in order to feel the child stopping in her tracks and not because she had become stuck in the mud. He knew that her little (big) ears were revolving with hurt even though she looked at him with hardly any expression at all.
Jin didn't give her much attention. He saw the way that the girl who had joined them was unlikely to give him any more attention after he had said such a thing about such an 'innocent' creature.
Innocent!
He didn't exactly care either way. But strangely, the girl continued talking to him, and she looked right at him and him alone after studying the sweet thing's little response to the very purposeful words.
"Is she yours?" the girl wondered, hands no longer on her hips and instead joining together at the middle of her stomach where the cinched in waistcoat met her long and flowing, practical but intriguing nevertheless, skirt.
She had never seen such a metallic man before though she had heard of his kind. And she had certainly never witnessed one choking on their own air before laughing, a gadget decorated hand thumping over his own chest to try and contain himself!
Again, the child turned her attention over to the man with waggling ears, not overtly showing it but knowing why he was having the reaction he was having.
The girl was none the wiser. So Jin had to explain between coughs, somehow able to perfectly read the expression of the stranger as her hands fell back to her hips once more in almost defiance and her eyebrows formed a union just above her nose before shooting closer to her hairline.
"I don't have this reaction because of my age. I understand you can't tell how young or old I am." Jin began, these words initially not comforting her words the way that he reacted and he could tell because her hands still had not left her hips that he had some more explaining to do. "It's because why, oh why, would I have chosen to breed such a tiresome creature?" he felt the child's attention all on him once more and this time decided to turn back to her himself. "And downright impertinent." He added for some reason.
Although the girl's hips were a magnet to her hands, she listened to his response with one eyebrow that had resumed its usual stance while the other still tried to merge with her hairline. She couldn't figure out why this man was speaking in such a way about a little thing that couldn't be that much trouble.
…..Could she?
"I see." Her words spoke exactly what she was thinking even if her right eyebrow then sunk down again at last to join her other one.
In the single second where the child looked out towards the view of the distant lake rather than over at her insulter, Jin knew that maybe he had spoken too cruelly in front of a stranger. He accidentally shared too much of himself.
Jin set to correcting this situation.
"Are you the leader of this village?" he asked, doing a rare thing by asking a question in return. Unlike her when she had asked if the toddling tot had belonged to him, he had the pleasure of seeing her face and being able to roughly gage how old she was.
However, the expression that took over her features then made him silently wonder if he had made an equally poor judgement. The girl's face screwed up like the child's often did when she was given lumpy broth while she had to sit through the meetings of him and his peers.
Jin watched one of her hands roam to the thin part of her hair that was clipped back, waiting for a response. If she was going to give him one after he had spoken about the knee high thing so poorly.
"They tell me that I am." The girl answered, putting extra length on the first word of her sentence to which Jin immediately bobbed his heavy head, figuring that he already understood. He probably did. Her nose didn't stop crinkling at the edges and he didn't pull his attention away from there. "I don't know." She spoke to give herself extra time, the thin wisps of her own hair seeming particularly interesting. "I'm one of them. To tell you the truth, I prefer being around all the little children. They're the future."
Jin tried to nod his head up and down when he heard this part but he couldn't bring himself to do that. And it wasn't because the aching of his neck hadn't exactly intensified but it started to twinge in a whole new, infuriating way.
He thought the future was pretty bleak if children like the one he was minding were the next generation to take care of the galaxies! But that time, he knew better than to voice this opinion even if there was a chance that the girl could read him equally as much as he had read her thus far, and noticed the way that he didn't respond to her.
But then Jin did reply to her. He somewhat changed the subject.
"It's a beautiful village that you get to call home." He made an attempt to compliment but then resulted in giving himself a sensation in his heart that felt almost as heavy as his head.
Jin encountered aliens day in and day out. Creatures like you wouldn't believe and so many different personalities. One thing that he never encountered, however, was the feeling of the last word that the girl had spoken.
His spaceship was his home. Sometimes that filled him with freedom. Other times, it weighed him down when he gained the knowledge that home to other people wasn't a container filled with buttons and the ability to go anywhere but instead a loving pair of arms or a motherly kiss against a forehead.
It's anyone's guess whether the girl with hair the colour of softening lava caught onto Jin's moment of silent reflection or not. Regardless, she herself went on to change the subject and she had a bit more of outward reasons to.
The child had started to slop her feet through the mud once more and wave her hands from side to side to aid her balance as she walked.
"Can I play with her?" she asked, and she wouldn't have dreamt about going down next to the child without permission and inviting herself to join in her fun and games without asking.
For one, she didn't know how the little tot was going to react. She seemed pretty content – or more realistically, unbothered – by her presence, but she didn't know if by shuffling closer to her that it would render her entirely frightened.
And for two and perhaps more importantly so, she didn't know how the metallic man was going to react. She had heard from the elder of the village about his presence to their home in the middle of the night and she had been told that he was harmless. But she also had enough knowledge about the wider world that his kind was to be kept at arms lengths.
Diligent and rebellious in their ways, they took to their duties and saw through their duties while keeping their distance from everybody else. Everybody else except for little star fish clasping hands, it seemed, for that particular member of the well-known creed.
But then again, maybe that little creature was a duty. The girl couldn't possibly know. But she hoped she might find out.
"Be my guest." Jin answered. She waited for a couple of seconds before making moves towards the child. She waited that couple of seconds for him to add more words, the deprecating kind. But they never came.
Instead, in its place, Jin appeared to relax as much as a man dressed in head to toe of pristine, shiny metal could possibly relax. His bottom shuffled further back on the fallen tree trunk and he stretched his arms outwards as if he was going to remove himself of the gadgets clinging to every inch of his hands and even tapered up his forearms too. But alas, he did not.
Instead, his arms went behind his head and he prepared to watch the girl play with the child. Soon enough, she sat too. She too perched on the fallen tree trunk but at the opposite end to Jin. She had hitched up her skirts before getting comfortable and then she reached out both hands to the child, wordlessly saying that this was a greeting rather than any pressure to make physical contact.
Yet of course, like was often was most creatures or beings of that age, the child lit up at the idea of clasping her opening and closing starfish hands of hers around another, bigger pair of hands and she darted forward, not seeming the care that at that point her little brown, potato sack of a playsuit had changed partially to a wetter, deeper hue because of the mud.
"My name is Kitty." She informed the child as her miniscule hands slid into hers, encouraging her to take more, wider and bolder steps now that the two of them were holding hands. She looked up at the older girl rather than where she was treading. "You seem like a right little adventurer."
Jin might've had his arms behind his head and tilted his helmet towards the sun in order to feel the mid-morning beams streaking into his eye panel but upon hearing the first words that the girl spoke, he couldn't stop his head from sloping.
His helmet inadvertently reflected a line of sunlight across a patch of grass. So, she had a name and it was Kitty. And Kitty seemed to be no stranger to poring over the more intricate, hidden details of strangers.
Yes, the child was a little adventurer, joining him on journeys across all corners of the galaxies and meeting all kinds of creatures. But it was kind that she used that word to describe her rather than anything else, he noted to himself. He knew made a show of treating her in not quite the same way!
Kitty tried not to show it but after the child successfully clambered through the mud and got as close to her as possible, those hands of hers then sliding away from the bigger pair and resting on her knees instead, she knew that she had felt an extra streak of sun laying across the grass.
She knew that what Jin had been up to. She turned to him after giving the child more compliments. She didn't exactly compliment him.
"What kind of person would travel to a village with no known space ports and in the middle of the night?" she questioned, her hands laying over the child's and feeling the way that the smaller ones tickled, almost giving the feeling that her knees had grown undependable and fuzzy under her touch. "And with a tiny child, no less?"
Jin might have chosen to look over at Kitty with the child when neither of them was paying attention to him but now that he was being spoken to, he acted like the blazing sun in the sky was the most interesting thing to look at. And he acted like the sun protection in his eye panel was any proper match for it!
He allowed a shrug to roll of his shiny shoulder pads as if he didn't have an answer for Kitty, or as if he wasn't going to say one. But he did.
Though he had wordlessly reprimanded himself for this same thing before, he again spoke honestly and more than he usually would to any old stranger.
"We needed a holiday." He said, the way that his breath decorated his words and then fogged up his helmet speaking without saying anything about who needed the vacation the most! However, before Kitty's right eyebrow could shoot up again, Jin elaborated. "Her parent's pay me to keep her out of harm's way." he began telling her, looking into her eyes though she couldn't possibly tell from the head gear. "Her home planet isn't entirely safe for her. Sometimes she needs to be on the move. And indeed, no better place than a village lacking space ports."
Kitty was glad that her eyebrows hadn't been so hasty. Instead, her lower lip fell into her mouth a couple of seconds after she had listened to all that had been put forth. Rather than looking equally back into the eyes of Jin that she could not see, her vision travelled to the tiny silhouette of the child who was no longer clinging to her knee caps but trying to make a grab for the winged creature brooch that attached itself to her waistcoat.
Such a sweet and innocent creature. It was hard to believe that anyone would set out to harm a single hair on her wispy little head. But then again, she had heard horror stories of what still went on in the space above all of their heads and on other planets. She was also no stranger to some of the dreadful things that could happen to her planet and her own village.
The galaxies were filled with such beauty, Kitty had learned, but also filled with such destruction. She might have not known where to place Jin, but as far as she could tell, he was a protector of peace rather than an instigator of chaos.
Maybe this was why she changed the subject from his words – his words that were a response to her subtle interrogation. Maybe this was why she moved her hands away from the tot and outstretched one towards him instead.
"I'm Kitty." She told him with sudden simplicity, leaving him behind his helmet wondering if he should clue her in to the fact that he had been eavesdropping before and knew perfectly well what she was called.
In spite of the fact that Jin was filled with hesitation, from Kitty's point of view and the child's too as her head turned to watch the two of them engage, his hand shot out towards hers relatively quickly.
She could feel the heaviness of all that he carried with him as the two of them shook hands.
"Jin." He spoke, showing nothing of his hesitation and certainly not the fact that he had not learned new information. Perhaps he added for this reason and this reason alone. "Kitty?" he questioned. She didn't have the time to even bob her head. "Why do they call you that?"
Jin wasn't a stranger to the knowledge that most people in their world always had a very good reason to be called what they were called. In fact, it was a complete rarity for parents or creators to name their offspring or their robots or even their gadgets simply because they liked the way that it sounded.
He tried not to think of his own name and where it came from. He didn't think that he would ever meet his mother ever again and re-learn why another sound had been bestowed upon him. And then, on a different hand, his father. Well, that was a straw far less easily grasped at.
Thankfully Kitty answered Jin with a fraction of a girlish blush to stop his thoughts from spiralling too far as if he was a lost star ship in outer space.
"Because I have an affinity for the unusual, feline creatures that are said to levitate and dissipate at a moment's notice." She informed him, that rosiness not fading away from her cheeks and prettily complimenting the blush colour of the sleeves underneath her waistcoat. Her hands had joined back together now that one had left his. "They come and go at night in the woods here and their enticingly large mouths are said to lure in the naughty children of the village." Kitty and the child were none the wiser but Jin's eyebrow shot closer to his hair parting from behind his helmet. "But I just think they're smiling."
And with that, although all of Kitty's explanation was laced with a kind of shyness that hadn't been there before, she finished with a shrug before she went back to playing with the child. The two's hands had joined once more and this time, they both started to stand up together so they could wade through the sloppy mud side by side.
Jin might've liked to tilt his head on the one side and watch the two of them, thinking about everything that he had just heard but he didn't. It was interesting to be sure but something else occupied his thoughts.
He allowed the two of them to frolic for a good few minutes before his reply finally came, running the risk that his humour would be as unwelcome as the first time and even though names had been shared at that point.
"You hear that?" Jin asked and initially, he got Kitty's attention long before he got the child's. He had to wait for the older girl's gaze to out of habit travel towards the depths of the sky and listen out and look away again before the tot's ears twitched and he was finally given her attention in return. "You better wise up, kid, or something with even sharper teeth than me is going to get ya."
And with that, the child was used to this kind of behaviour so she didn't need to even shrug let alone react, resuming playing with the girl that had roamed into their lives.
Kitty responded even if the little one didn't. She sighed such a sigh that is set a scale for all future sighs throughout the galaxies. And then in return, Jin mirrored her, his view being temporarily blocked by his fogged up helmet.
Because of this and because of the way that the girl's head twitched away from him, he didn't see the way that the corner of her mouth had started to elevate and so resumed his position of being more at the edge of the fallen tree trunk and with his head in his hands.
Jin ruminated while the other two engaged in more jovial pursuits.
He didn't know why he kept saying things like that in front of Kitty or saying these things at all. It was clear she disapproved. It wasn't as if he was trying to get a reaction. Just, for some reason, he couldn't stop being himself around her.
His hands were then equally as heavy as his head as they cupped this particular dome.
He ached so much! He didn't know why he kept his helmet on all the time sometimes. If he removed it, he might have been able to show people that he wasn't actually that cranky and that his eyebrows were often dancing and a dimple like a segment of fruit could appear on his cheek in light-heartedness during the words of sarcasm that he uttered.
His vow was a hindrance. But it was a vow that he had made. And it was a vow that he wouldn't break.
How peculiar that he was reminding himself of this when Kitty glanced back over at him a good couple of minutes later and spoke of similar things.
"Do many people know what you look like under your helmet?" she wondered and Jin came back a little more to reality to see what else had encouraged this question to be posed to him. The troublesome tot had found an empty coconut shell and was attempting to put it over her own head to mock him! Jin was forced to twitch his head from side to side with a twist in his brow. "What do you look like?"
This made Jin's eyebrows knot closer together furthermore. He believed that the child mocking him and wading through the mud in a manner in which he would do would cause his eyebrows to feel the tautest but he was stood correct.
Describing himself was beside the point, wasn't it? He knew it was meant to be his honour never to show his face. He didn't exactly know where his creed stood on telling people what he looked like.
Again, that was irrelevant. If anybody knew what kind of face resided under there, his career would be over! There would be no more looking after that troublesome child.
For once, he didn't tell himself that that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
Instead, his stoic expression melted away from underneath his shiny, angular helmet and more of the sunshine known within made a rare appearance. Not that his helmet assisted him in showing that.
"I'm a man made of metal wearing a suit of metal." He decided to humour her rather than anything else, shuffling back to more of the middle of the tree trunk and resting his gadget adorned digits on the ends of his knees. "And guess what's underneath there?" he encouraged, his head seeing Kitty rotate in front of him and a single finger pointing outwards purposely. "You guessed it."
He told her these words from the moment that she airily revolved her irises within the whites of her eyes and clutched her hands against her hips now that she was confident that the child could wade well enough without holding onto her.
Kitty replied to Jin.
"I see, I see." She said, not needing to explain what exactly she saw. Shaking her own head from side to side, she relinquished the image of a man with never ending metal layers and decided to leave the child to it completely, joining Jin on the trunk again. That time, she sat right next to him. "What do the buttons on your arms do?"
The helmet might have been a hindrance but it also came in handy sometimes. Jin was able to hide the wideness of his eyes as he had the rare privilege of someone sitting right next to him. At least he had the sense to tone down his reaction of what occurred next, even if his helmet allowed him not to give anything away either way.
Jin felt two hands wrapping around his elbow, although they didn't dream of pushing any of the knobs to find out. He had to be quick with his words before she chose to behave as recklessly as the child!
"Uh, what would you like them to do?" he asked, accidentally going too far by thinking of the cheeky child and practicing the kind of dynamic they would have when she could actually formulate proper words. He was already prepared for the incessant questions that would fall out of her in upcoming years!
Kitty considered, silently hoping her cheeks would stop absorbing some of the sun's warmth and match the sleeves of her shirt. Still, her skin proved to be hard to ignore as it hammered. Jin's elbow still loosely in her clutch, she managed to consider what she imagined shooting out of the buttons from his wrist.
"Arachnid webs to spook your opponents?" she suggested, unable to stop her eyes from wandering a bit further than the lake a few metres away and to the other side of it, where night fell the darkest and rumour had it that trees came to life.
Just hearing that, Jin knew what she was up to. He pretended to remove his elbow away from her hold and he also pretended it to be so he could promptly be ready to get the child out of mischief now that she was abandoned.
He ended up having to actually reach out to her when she got distracted by a slimy, hopping creature and almost tumbled head first into the mud! The child was rescued but was forced to climb all over the drier mud, no longer trusted to trample on her own while the other two talked.
"I do not go swinging through the trees at night surrounded by your favourite felines, thank you." Jin answered, bottom back on the tree trunk all over again. His body was facing outwards towards the lake but his head was tilted over at Kitty.
His voice might have sounded as level as the lake in the distance but she garnered the humour that was oozing from the pit of his belly. She set her giggles free even if she waved her hand over her mouth.
Though Jin shook his head from side to side, she felt as though he would let her have another go at guessing so she seized the opportunity, hands feeling the material of her own skirt rather than her hair or indeed, Jin's arm.
He made a gallant attempt not to drop his gaze downwards, out of the gap in his helmet that hung about his neck.
"Does it shoot water?" Kitty wondered. As soon as this possibility formed on the tip of her tongue, she couldn't stop herself from brightening considerably as if she was the sun in the centre of a universe.
Because Jin extended his loaded arm outwards, rotating it from side to side so she could get a glimpse of all of his gadgets, not just the wrist one that she had taken the most interest in, she believed that a chance of her being right presented itself.
He, however, didn't go on to confirm it entirely.
"Almost." He said at first. Kitty's fingers started to reach out to him all over again and that time, as if she had become the age of the toddling tot, she couldn't resist preparing to reach out and push his button. "Careful!" Jin warned. The child heard him warn her with more gusto than he ever did with her. "It's a flamethrower. And I don't think you want to burn your whole glorious village down."
And with that, the only thing that spoke of his sigh, even if it was a fond one, was the breath that surrounded his own cheeks like the mist of when he was flying his star ship over a particular icy planet. Jin didn't think he would ever have to do this for another reason but in that moment, he was forced to reach down to his own wrist weapons and select the child lock on them so they would need a two-step verification before working again.
Hopefully the planet wouldn't be ambushed! Sometimes Jin couldn't believe that he had been forced to spend all that money in upgrading his armour when it came to the child. But then again, when it came to her, it was safety first. And not even just for her sake!
The last thing he wanted while he took a nap in his space craft was to wake up to the child pushing his button and causing a flamethrower to burn a hole right through his beloved ship.
Jin never believed that he would meet another reason to activate that special setting. But then again, he never expected to meet anyone like Kitty.
"Does your jet pack work as well?" Kitty asked, breaking Jin away from his thoughts and appearing a whole lot less interested in his wrist weapons if they didn't shoot haunting webs and they did not jet water either. He turned her head as she lightly kicked her foot against the contained pack that was leaning up against the tree trunk. "Can you fly up high in the sky and see the planets below from space?"
Jin started to see Kitty with a slope in his aching neck. His eyebrows were not encouraged to go towards his hairline, however.
He answered nevertheless, and he did so after a shaking motion of his inclined helmet.
"Why would you want to do that?" he retorted with another rare question. Now that the child was occupied with remaining on the dry mud but waving a starfish hand at the slimy creatures that hopped through the wetter mud, it seemed that he had someone else occupying one hundred percent of his brain power. If not more!
Kitty's eyebrows knotted together, showing Jin for the first time the presence of her own dimple as her lips pressed together. He couldn't linger on that though.
She prepared to come out with something else, not saying with words any kind of answer because her expression had clearly spoken of the words 'why wouldn't I?'
"Can you-"
She wanted to ask him something else. She wasn't given the chance. For a rare moment, it wasn't the troublesome tot interrupting things.
Jin did something new by flicking the tracker open in his arm and using that to hold his finger up instead of using his actual one. He interjected her.
"No more questions. It's my turn." Childish words sounded in a careful, concise voice. Although Kitty's dimple appeared once more as her lips pressed together in a different way, she couldn't exactly argue with him when he was right. She had wanted to know a lot. This time, his whole body as well as his glinting helmet turned towards her. "How can one person ask so many questions?"
His tracking device in his arm had been lowered. His hands started to falter towards his hips but his stance remained the same, turning precisely towards her. Kitty was not blinded by the sun ricocheting off various parts of his pristine armour but she was blinded by the sudden reality.
She had wanted to know a lot. Maybe too much. She quietened down and her lip fell into her mouth, her own stance shrinking as she couldn't help but wonder why to herself.
Kitty didn't mean to be as annoying as she knew some of the village children could be and probably had been when they first saw Jin slinking out of one of their tents early in the morning. Heck, she didn't mean to be as annoying as he perceived the child to sometimes be.
She had hardly the time to ruminate why she wanted to know so much. The answer was on the tip of the tongue and then it was out there, speaking with honesty to Jin.
"I guess it's the same answer as why I wanted to know if you can use your jet pack to fly away." She began her sentence with a phrase of doubt. But she could not be clearer in her knowing. For a rare occasion, this wasn't shared by him and his eyebrows started to draw together behind his covering. "I haven't been away from this village in a very long time." She confessed, trying not to allow her sigh to envelop her words but being unable to stop it. A shrug rolled off her shoulders and Jin watched as her long locks bounced up and down along with it. "I can't remember the last time I saw this planet from up there."
It's not an unusual thing for Jin for be rendered silent. Yet, there and then he was bestowed with the need to be not just silent but heavily so. In fact, his expression barely even had the nerve to show anything at all so it indeed revealed nothing from behind his helmet.
He listened. He didn't nod. He absorbed. He absorbed in a way that wasn't entirely clear to anyone. It wasn't clear to Kitty who had just met him. And it wasn't even clear to the child who was one of the people who knew him best – though he would have surely wretched at this notion just for the sake of it.
Jin didn't know what to say. Jin didn't know how to say that for one of the first times, he couldn't relate to her.
"I see." In the end, he chose to copy some of the first words that she had first uttered to him. And thank goodness, it accidently did exactly the right thing.
You see, that little gesture put them back on the same page all over again. And while Kitty's cheeks were stinging for a different reason this time, after inhaling the fresh village air into her lungs, she found the confidence in herself to live in her truth.
She shuffled even closer to Jin on the log and believed that it was okay to ask just one more thing.
"Tell me about some of the places you've seen?" she asked. Jin thought about whispering, reminding her that he had said that there would be no more questions.
But in the end, he found something unusual within him as he was unable to say no to her hip unwittingly banging against his and her elbows resting against the top of her thighs, her own cheeks in her palms as she prayed that she would be given the chance to listen.
Jin's eye panels might have grown less clear. But his heavy helmet bobbed. His gaze was entirely on her with a mind was elsewhere after he pointed loosely to the brooch on her waistcoat, informing her that that little detail would play into the words that he would go on to say.
He painted the picture of the jungle planet that he had accidentally crashed on one day, just a few short weeks before he first was given the mission of taking the child back to her home planet. From the moment that he stepped onto that humid ball of nothing but greenery, he knew that he didn't like it.
His armour was a paradox of being equally as impractical as it was practical at the best of times but it was a nightmare trying to fix what had gone wrong with his star ship while the humidity clung to him. He was already in a bad mood at crashing and damaging one of his only friends in the whole universe. And the moisture capturing every part of him was not helping matters.
Jin had felt especially sour about having to wander into this canopy of trees and never-ending green when he heard a distant buzzing noise and believed that one particular part of his space ship had shot off from where it needed to be and got lost in the tropics.
He pushed past leaf after leaf and flower after flower for what felt like hours, that buzzing noise not only getting louder but duplicating too. He assumed that if his precious part had split into multiple pieces then it would be rendered silent, not humming in harmony like a technological choir.
Oh how wrong he was. Not even that he was wrong about his broken part because of course, if he had had a closer look, that part had still been on his ship all along. He was mistaken about his first opinion of that planet. There was still far more joy to experience there. And beauty too. The kind that he would go on to explain side by side with a girl on a different planet.
Jin had pushed through the trees one last time and discovered the culprit of the buzzing noises. Above him was an array of creatures that he had never seen before. All of them possessed the biggest eyes that he had ever encountered in any being and more impressive wings to boot. He did not know what to make of them. Those made him uncomfortable.
But then he was in awe when he spotted another, different kind.
These ones had far more graceful wings as they soared above him, clapping together in a silent manner but he could kid himself that he could hear congratulating him. These creatures were the colour of the oceans on his home planet or the sunset from another as he looked down at it from space. A few were even the same shade of his tousled locks. Glorious did not even describe them.
Antennae were shown to him to be longer than even his stature, seemingly there just for him. Perhaps present to remind him that first impressions were not always the best impressions. That there would always be more round the corner. He just had to be patient.
Jin told Kitty this. Jin told Kitty all of this. And the two of them were rendered as silent as he had been as he had fallen in love with that planet.
Kitty believed that there could be no words that would be good enough in response to what he had to say so she remained quiet, fingers clamped tighter around her cheeks and knees drawn closer to her body.
Jin finished with a smile on his face. Kitty would never know. She would only have to understand from the sun mirroring this countenance off his armour. And she would go on to learn about this other side of him when he decided to give up on being silent after a couple of minutes.
It was hard for his angular helmet to tilt towards anyone without seeming alarming. But on this day, he tried his best to imagine that that covering was rounder, and far less disarming.
"This village of yours is a sanctuary too, you know." Jin began and for half a second, Kitty couldn't hold back the expression that was as though she had secretly stuffed one of the slimy creatures into her mouth rather than the child. The sounds of the tot spitting it out again blurred into the background of Jin adding before Kitty could shut him down entirely. "Is it not better to be known and needed than to see each corner of the universe but have a friend in no one?"
Kitty heard this and knew this was the moment to smooth out her expression. She hadn't liked that Jin's words at first had sounded patronising, like he was a teacher and he was consoling a child that their work was equally as good as the teacher's pet.
But then again, maybe that was just how she had heard it. Maybe Jin understood what it was like to feel trapped. Even if his job seemed to allow him to be more free than almost anybody that she knew.
With that being said, she had hardly anyone to compare. They were all in the same boat in that village.
"It can drive you crazy staying in the same spot all of the time, that's all." Kitty allowed herself to speak in the same honesty that Jin had unintentionally allowed himself to slip into.
Her hands slid away from either of her cheeks and cupped at her knees instead. That occasion, Jin didn't bother to stop his gaze from peeping down and out of the gap in his helmet that hung around his graceful neck.
He had a strange idea to reach for her hand. But he overthought this notion for too long that it was too late. And then, he wasn't given the opportunity anyway.
You see, it seemed that other things had the ability to drive other people crazy. The child had done well at not clamouring to be the focal point up until that moment but there and then, she was driven round the bend at the lack of attention! The hopping creatures just weren't cutting it anymore. She started to whine.
Kitty began to chuckle despite it all. And in a way that Jin hadn't had the pleasure of knowing for years, her motherly hands roamed to her hips before she knew that the little tot probably wanted to explore elsewhere. She was a little adventurer after all, wasn't she?
She joined hands with the child and then turned back to Jin who was shaking his head, his sharp cheekbones sucking in underneath his helmet.
"I think that she would quite like to go for a dip with me in the lake." Kitty began. And it seemed like an opportunity that would kill two birds with one stone seeing as the child's feet were practically glued together with mud at that point. "May I?"
She knew that it was best to ask him. She knew him better at that point but still felt it appropriate to get his blessing before she traipsed off anywhere with that little stranger.
Needless to say, Jin was silently overjoyed at the idea of some time away from the chaotic tot for a little while! He didn't nod his helmet but he waved a haphazard hand. He watched Kitty and the child prepare to stroll off a few metres into the distance.
He surprised himself by calling after them and in not even the full second after he had done this, he felt a wave of regret washing over him. Why would he try and stop his own moment of peace and quiet from happening?!
"Just make sure that she doesn't swallow too much water!" Jin warned. In that moment, he had no idea that his words made Kitty sound as if she might be stupid. His bowing motion of his head spoke of everything before more words tumbled out. "I'm still clearing up my ship from the last time that happened."
Jin shuddered. Goosebumps ricocheted off his body more than Kitty's and the child's who were already dipping their toes in the shallow parts of the lake at that point before making moves to being ankle deep.
He went on to regret his words for different reasons than one would image. He was forced to stand up, shielding his eyes from the sun and to listen when Kitty turned over her shoulder at him and spoke, addressing him and only him.
"If you're so worried then you should join us!" she suggested in a manner that knew that Jin would never dream of doing such a thing. But then, the way that he did indeed react encouraged her to squint and furrow her brow as if she was the one with blinding light in her eyes. She couldn't stop herself from speaking with as little filter as him, garnering hardly any remorse either. "Do you ever allow yourself to have fun?"
And with that, Kitty shook her head but towards no one in particular before venturing to properly immerse herself into the lake and while holding the child underneath the armpits. The tot cooed with delight at the sensation that was few and far between these days.
Jin was just left to ponder to himself from the lakeside.
He had fun, didn't he? He was always laughing and he was always smirking.
A wave of cold washed over him that was like either of the pair in the water had chosen to splash him.
It was true that he was always smirking and he was always laughing. But it was silent. Private. Usually after he had made a sarcastic comment. Or alone.
When was the last time he allowed himself to let his hair down? That was a fading memory. The hours of the day were dedicated work more often than not. It was all duties. All business.
Kitty had no idea how old he was underneath that armour. The truth was he was young. Just a handful of years older than her. He certainly didn't act like anybody else his age. Far more responsibilities were thrust at him than were given to most people his age.
Did he ever allow himself to have fun for the sake of it?
Whether or not he did or he didn't, it was pointless ruminating on this, he decided. He could only choose how he was going to act moving forward.
Jin didn't realise it, but on that day, the effects of fate started to react all around him. He took a massive step. A stepping stone was undertaken on a path meant just for him.
He didn't let Kitty know that she was mistaken, that he could allow himself to have fun. He merely instead told her this without saying anything at all and the simple plinking noise of him joining her in the water did all of the talking.
Kitty could have acted like she was clueless to his presence but she didn't. That would have been wrong. She could have held back her smile for him but she didn't. That would have been a bigger lie. She tilted her head towards him and she smiled. A simple smile. And then she resumed playing with the child.
Jin watched from the edge of the lakeside after only just getting his boots wet and removed himself of anything that he couldn't allow to get soaking. He unstrapped his gadgets from his wrists and forearms. He dropped bullets down onto the grass. A blade or two followed. And a gun. Kitty seemed hardly to notice him removing his wears.
She did, however, notice the cape of the same hue as the lake that they were dipping into as he dropped that down onto the dew speckled grass. He knew that the water loving tot would need to use something to dry her up later. He didn't know what he would do about him. And even less what he would do about Kitty!
But like she taught him on that day and like she would go on to teach him in upcoming moments they shared, he would just have to go with the flow.
Kitty stopped having to pretend that she hadn't noticed his glimpse of warmth and properly absorbed herself with what she was doing instead, gently spinning the child around against the water and beaming words of encouragement down at her as they played.
She had well and truly become the sun blazing across the village at that point. And as Jin moved fully into the water and started to tread until he was waist length, he discovered himself to be opposite Kitty and surveying her far more than he was making sure the child wasn't swallowing too much water.
She was the sun in the village, not just the leader, he had no doubts. But the real orb in the sky was still present and as it bounced off her face as joy did too in the same manner while she engaged with the sweet child, Jin noticed her eyes for perhaps the first time fully on that day.
No wonder he had taken hardly an interest in the green hues of the grass and the aquatic shimmer of the lakes and puddles plonked all around the village. The best display of all was captured in her eyes. And it was shown to him even better and brighter when the sun hit her line of vision.
Secretly tongue tied behind his helmet covering, he wanted to say something. But what would he say? Surely he couldn't be that honest, could he? He certainly couldn't be that forward.
He heard the child laughing in the hold of Kitty as she held her with just one hand under her armpit, showing her a bit of extra confidence so she could be a tad more independent if she wanted to be.
There and then, Jin found the words to say. It seemed that the child came in handy for some things after all.
"I think she is so fond of you because of your eyes." Jin suddenly told her, own eyes squinting behind his helmet due to the sun radiating both in the universe and in Kitty but appearing fortunately stoic thanks to his metallic covering. "They remind her of her village."
And with that, Jin didn't quite get the reaction that he was hoping for. He would have to learn that circumstance was always the better place to be rather than the grass is always greener approach. But still, it was a bit of a kick in the teeth.
Kitty raised her eyebrows at the suddenness of his words. And for a rare moment, she was clueless to the truth as she held the child underneath both armpits all over again and lifted her up and down over and over again, dipping her into the water – but not too much so that she swallowed any of it.
Kitty radiated furthermore. She radiated for the child.
Jin tried not to get a pang and to instead remind himself that of course that would be the case from the words that he had chosen to speak. His lower lip fell into his mouth and he started rub with the pads of his bare fingers against his neck for a different reason than usual.
Once more, Kitty was none the wiser. Or maybe this was just an act. Regardless of her attention seemingly being wholly on the child, she turned to Jin with her on her hip and felt that she knew why he was behaving in such a way.
She gave him an elevation of her lips that he wished had been when he complimented her in his own way.
"Why don't you take your helmet off?" she suggested to him. She didn't hope that he wouldn't snap at her, reminding her that he needed no more questions, because she was starting to know him better than that. She started to know him. She knew his kind too and the vow that they took. She knew that seemingly, he took it more seriously than most. So she added: "I can turn away. Or you can. You should enjoy the water."
Rigidness was a huge part of Jin. From his vow. To the persona that he had to embody in order to be successful at his work. In order not the feel the loneliness that he often felt. It would have been easy to brush Kitty's words off there and then in that manner, reminding her that he couldn't.
Why couldn't he? It might have been a push to describe his features to her. But for him to take his helmet off and neither of them look at each other? That had to be okay, didn't it? He could trust her, couldn't he? She had been so tender with the child. As long as no other villagers saw.
Jin didn't nod his head. Instead, he turned his back away from Kitty and the child and the rest of the occupied village too. His whole stance was pointed towards the overgrown reeds where no other creature could possibly be lurking to speak of his features and he waded closer to the bank so he could discard his helmet there.
He rubbed the back of his neck all over again before he did anything, as if he was telling his body that respite was soon to come. Kitty tried not to but like she couldn't help but turn her head over her shoulder minutes before and call to him, she couldn't help but watch.
She witnessed bare hands reaching upwards towards a helmet before that helmet was pulled upwards towards the sky. A hitch formed in her throat when long, galaxy purple hued hair tumbled out of it and hung gracefully around an equally elegant neck.
Somehow, he seemed to have a narrower frame now that his helmet was no longer on his head and was instead resting on the bank side. Jin was clueless to his audience and with his eyes closed, a smile tugged at his lips and he reached his hands down towards the water. They cupped at handfuls and then washed them through his locks, wetting them.
Kitty swallowed as if she had been the one to gulp down the lake when she saw his tendrils dampen and him have to roam his bare digits through them in order to tame them. She didn't bother to try and hold back this. She tried to stop herself from peering at the helmet, hoping for some reflection of his face, but wasn't successful.
Successful at one thing, she was at least. She kid herself that she could see a lot portrayed to her in the distorted metal of his helmet. An almost feminine face to contradict his armour. Nevertheless, an angular jawline and hollow cheekbones and eyes that could cut through steel.
Yet eyes that were a little lost. That was okay. It was villages like hers that people became found. And she could only hope that he might discover everything that he wanted right there in the place that she called home.
Not thinking through what she was doing, the child on her hip, Kitty started to approach Jin as he washed himself. She silently waded through the water. She didn't know how to hold back her actions at this point as her hand reached out to him from behind.
Her hand was nearly touching where his bare neck met an underclothes covered shoulder as she asked him.
"Do you ever remove your hat?" she asked, porcelain skin of hand then meeting porcelain skin of a neck. Electricity brushed through them both. "Will you ever put it back on?"
In that moment, Jin didn't know what in the slightest was going on and why, oh why; she was asking such a thing. He could have sworn that he had already heard those words but in a different form.
And then, he was hearing the contradiction of them. Wasn't he…?
No, Jin had stopped hearing things a good few seconds ago because out of nowhere, the village scenery had been ripped away like someone stamping through a theatrical curtain.
Jin wasn't being asked such a thing. His nearly identical counterpart was.
Justin was encouraged back to reality by a hand on the shoulder from Katie as he sat on the kitchen floor with his little sister. He shook his head to remind himself of where he actually was before he turned over his shoulder to look at the person, his expression filled with confusion as much as it was delight at the company.
"Lovely, what are you on about?" he wondered, chin pressing down to meet her hand that was still on his shoulder.
Soon enough, it parted as she stopped crouching as he sat cross legged on the kitchen floor and stood in front of him instead, where Jorgie was pacing up and down along the wooden floor. She couldn't resist folding her arms over her chest.
However, Katie could resist pointing out to him that it should be her asking him this question!
A look of mischief taking over her features, she posed to him all over again.
"Do you ever remove your hat?" she repeated, the facial expressions that Justin could now see clueing him in a little more to what she was hinting at. The way she pointed to the saucepan that he had been holding but was then back on the counter top told him of this furthermore. "Will you ever put it back on?"
Justin's smile beamed fully now that he understood. He looked up at Katie and after a lower lip fell into his mouth, he spoke to her and congratulated her on her wit.
"Oh, ha-ha, I see." A finger the shape of a weapon pointed over to her but of course meant an act of understanding rather than any sort of harm. His shoulders stood even prouder. "A wonderful journalist you would make, Katie."
She pretended to curtsy as if this compliment meant the world to her. But then, she copied her best friend's position, dropping down onto the kitchen floor and crossing her legs.
From the second that she felt Jorgie moving closer to her as she continued another round of her stomping up and down in her wellington boots and in the water spillage that both her and her eldest brother had unintentionally caused, she wrapped an arm around the waist of the orange haired little girl.
"What are you two playing?" Katie asked Jorgie's brother the most although you wouldn't think it from the way that her teeth gritted together at the sweetness of them playing together, tickling her fingers against the tummy of the six year old as they were all in each other's company.
Justin looked over at Jorgie to see if she wanted to answer before he saw that, in a rarity, she wasn't bothered by telling all. And furthermore, she wasn't bothered by the affection of Katie. She wanted to stomp and stomp and stomp some more, continuing being in their game even if Justin was not!
He couldn't resist holding back his laughter so he didn't. He couldn't hold back his smiles so he didn't. He had elbows resting on his knees and knuckles cupping his face as he answered Katie.
"Oh, just our usual space shenanigans." He informed her, not giving much away at all. If I was Katie, I would be rendered clueless! But alas, I am not Katie. And I only know this story from being told.
She tells me that she didn't hesitate to nod with understanding. And after she glanced over at Jorgie contently being immersed in their fictional world, she looked over at Justin with eyes that were brighter than any of the stars in the galaxy of that universe that he had made up.
No wonder she was his sweetheart there too.
"Can I join in?" she asked, tilting her head on the one side as she waited for a response.
To tell you the truth, she would have been happy if either of them said that it was just for them. She would have been equally as happy to just watch. But naturally, Justin couldn't exclude someone who was a big part of all of his worlds.
And although, just like his character, he did not answer with words, the way that he responded made it perfectly clear that he wanted nothing more than her assistance in bringing playtime even further to life.
A bare hand except for a single ring was held out to Katie and then the saucepan was offered out to her as well. After touching the side of his cheek, she giggled and she accepted both. I didn't know how she understood without trying to understand much at all. But that was the truth. That was Katie. That was them.
No matter what universe they were in, Justin not only revealed everything to the girl with hair that was very much alight, but he offered to her the parts of himself that he used to hide away. In many ways, no matter where they went – fictional or very much reality – she had his entire world in his hands.
And on that day, she had the child-like nature of his soul cupped against her adoringly. She always knew that there was more to him than met the eye. And still, she knew that there would always be more and more.
It never deterred her. In fact, it gave her hope. Just like the twist and turns of the adventures that Jin and the troublesome tot got into, the adventures of Justin Morgan promised nothing but surprises. Nothing but adventures.
I had a lot of adventures myself when I was younger. But now, I prefer to remember all of these. Because, to tell you the truth, they surprise me as I recount them just as much as learning them the first time round!
The End.
There you go! Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed :) In the context of the AU, even as I wrote this and certainly afterwards, I couldn't help but wonder why it felt so necessary for Jin to be pretty exasperated here and even mean at times. I think that you can tell that life with no permenant home has gotten to him and even more complicated - the fact that he realises that this little toddling thing like Jorgie in the regular universe has a home very much in the family that he was once a part of. But he fears that he can never go back there. Quite a dilemma for him! Fortunately in this chapter, it's clear he has just met someone who can hold his hand while he nagivates all of that :P I think it's sweet that Justin plays these games with Jorgie even as she herself gets older. I can't help but wonder, will he go onto bring his own children into that world, just like Katie has been allowed in? Or will it be for a select few? :) Thanks again and I will be back again on Wednesday once more with a special update so see you then!
Amy signing out :3