| abstract | - It looks worse from the air. Dark stars of scorched sand, with points radiating out into Mos Eisley, with only burned-out buildings for the centers... the destruction is precise and thorough. Though the Empire has had its way with a few physical structures known to be affiliated with Karrde, the bywords of the smuggler-chief's business are diversity and diffuseness. Would the loss of the individual businesses mean that much to the organization over the long run? Probably not. Would it have an affect on the morale of the organization members? Maybe. Is it affecting Orson? Definitely. The mechanic leans forward, looking out of the cockpit as they land. He's silent, brooding even. Yet another small payment in a huge debt to pay off. To the Empire, to Karrde. People had died and lost their livelihoods, based on his decision. He moves aft, hardly giving the other crew or his instructor/friend a look, stepping out onto the hard-packed sand and holding a hand in the air, angling it to block out the light from one sun. "This is awful," he murmurs from the foot of the ramp, a disemboweled warehouse nearby, collapsed in on itself. Her feelings sealed off as they have been for most of the trip, Jessalyn emerges behind her apprentice, squinting into the glare as she looks around the wreck of the buildings in front of them. But though her emotional shields are intact, there's no mistaking the ache in her eyes as she witnesses the carnage she was at least in part responsible for. Too large a part, she tells herself grimly. Swallowing, she folds her arms against her chest, looking stricken as she follows in his wake. "I didn't know it was so bad. So many dead...." She can feel the deaths still lingering here; desperate, horror-stricken, agonizing. Orson trudges through the light dusting of sand on the landing pad, moving to the warehouse. Swinging a leg over a broken timber, he begins to pick his way into the lost building. It's been there awhile, already picked over by Karrde's people and then scavengers. "It could have been worse. We knew they were coming," the mechanic says, picking up some blackened machine part. "It's war, I guess," Orson explains to himself, tossing it down and clapping the soot from his hands. "You know what I like about you," the man says as he turns on Jessalyn, eyes narrowed down to thin slivers of gray in the bright light. "Is that you spare me the platitudes in moments like this. No words can make this better." A plain brown cloak covers Jessalyn's shoulders, and she pulls back the cowl from her face as they enter the warehouse, eyes adjusting to the relative change in lighting. She offers a slight smile that doesn't reach her eyes as he turns to her, then glances around, picking out a path through the blackened debris. "I'm not so good with words," she murmurs, almost to herself. "What are we looking for again?" Bending at the waist, Orson plants his hands on a large pile of rubble and hops over it. "I guess I just wanted to see it for myself," he replies evenly. "Our people have a few crates for us of some stuff that didn't make the last transports and didn't get destroyed completely. That's it mostly." The man seems suddenly satisfied that nothing has been overlooked in the wreckage. "Anything you need while we're here?" Not wanting to risk walking over the rubble, Jessalyn stands in place and watches as Orson moves around the delapidated warehouse, turning in place to look in each direction, and giving a slight shrug in response to the question. "I don't think there's anything I need from Tatooine," she says dryly, re-tracing the path that brought her inside and then going to Orson's side. Too much death and destruction here, the chaos and terror bludgeoning at her more empathic senses. She pushes them aside, blocking herself from the Force. The quietness between them, so different from the usual free exchange of thoughts along the Force, makes her hunger for physical contact in its place, and she slides an arm around his, feeling weary from the effort of shielding herself. "I don't like it here. I feel so responsible. No wonder Karrde thinks of me like he does," she admits to him under her breath. Making a sour face, Orson takes in a breath full of the smell of sand-scoured smokey things, burnt in the explosion. He snorts out the breath as soon as it's in his chest. "Karrde wants to be able to identify you, me too I guess, with the consequences of his own conscience. Realizing that made me tire of apologizing for the choice I made on the asteroid. You know?" he asks, turning to his companion, ushering her quietly to a corner of the warehouse that didn't collapse. A few crates and piles have been set up there, tarpaulin stretched atop them. Jessalyn glances at Orson thoughtfully, tightening her hand on his arm. "I should have apologized to you a long time ago for putting you into such a position with someone who... you considered family," she says gingerly. "I really made a wreck of your life. I don't know why you let me follow you around." Odd that this time she phrased it differently than usual. Then they are upon the tarp, and she picks up one end to peek underneath. Underneath it, some old computer husks, warped and blackened. Some sort of engine, in a few parts, hardly damaged but laying at an odd angle. "Useless," Orson pronounces, peeking underneath alongside her. "Hey," he corrects himself immediately, reaching in and dragging out a droid head. "Ah no," the mechanic murmurs. "Looks like TooSock was in the wrong place in the wrong time." He holds up the lifeless, dented head of a droid and points its old face at Jessalyn. "There'd be no need for your apology," Orson says from behind Socks' head. "I would have done it for anyone else. I'm glad it was you though." The broad-shouldered man lowers the head, revealing his much more animate and full-of-expression face, staring intently at her. Suppressing a frown at the sight of the charred remains of the droid's head, Jessalyn blinks a few times as she meets Orson's steady gaze, feeling a strange lightness forming in her chest and spreading outward. "I'm glad it was you, too," she says sincerely, her eyes soft and fierce at the same time. "Are you going to be able to fix your droid?" she adds a little too quickly, touching the dome of its blackened head. "Probably," Orson says, popping it into the air and reorienting its face to exchange a look with him. "Shouldn't be hard at all, if he's got a recent memory dump. I can get new parts for his body easy enough." He tucks the head underneath his arm and squats, poking through the pile of junk, dragging out a few bits here and there that seem valuable. All in all, there isn't much, and his slight frown grows more intense as he takes a better inventory of what Karrde's people set aside as valuable. "Have you gotten a chance to talk to Mira?" Orson asks, slightly hidden by the pile. "I did, told her about Simon. The night after you ran off, I found her sleeping on the ship." "I haven't," Jessalyn says, shaking her head. "Sometimes I think she's a little afraid of me or something." She bites her lip, nudging at some indeterminate object charred beyond recognition with the toe of her boot. His choice of words doesn't escape her notice, and for the first time since she "ran off," she risks showing some emotion through the Force: a twinge of concern for him, and a desire to rectify any rifts she caused. "I talked to Luke, too." Orson stands, stamping his feet in the dust, holding up Socks' head once more, like he's hefting the skull of a lost friend. "Poor TooSock," he murmurs, fingers gripping the edge of the attaching ring, wires dangling. "I knew him pretty good. Had a few screws loose, but otherwise a good droid." He shared her sentiment with Mira, for the most part, though he was pretty sure the girl wasn't scared of him. Just difficult to connect to. "I've told her she was welcome to travel with us, for now. I guess, with ... well, she didn't have anywhere to go." Orson turns his shoulders square on Jessalyn, lowering the droid head again. "Luke," he repeats. "How was that?" It's about as neutral a sound as he's capable of making. Giving the broken droid a sympathetic look, Jessalyn brushes dust off her cloak and turns her gaze anywhere but at him. "It was... all right," she says with an irritated shrug. She impulsively reaches out and plucks TooSock's head out of Orson's hands, turning it around to give the circuitry poking out of the severed neck a look. "Of course, Mira should come with us. Perhaps... she should be trained." The thought of teaching someone else who had also been so close to Simon makes her cringe inwardly, but that's a wound she's tending to most carefully these days. "I realized some of my mistakes, actually," she adds, suddenly changing the subject once more as she finds some of her courage. "I asked her about it," Orson says, touching Jessalyn's elbow. Some of his deep reservoir of patience and affection for her flows from his fingertip and into her, and his hand wraps lightly around her elbow. Support for the other thread of conversation, which he plans to bring up in a moment. "About the training. She said she'd talk to you or Luke," he explains, plotting a course for the both of them out of the wreckage. "What sort of mistakes?" he asks, going along, quietly steeling himself for a body blow. Instead, Jessalyn pauses as they pass back out into the daylight, her head leaning on his shoulder as she inhales a long breath. "That I was an idiot to... risk my own heart to save somebody else. That I deserve better than that... that I shouldn't live for something that isn't real and never can be." She peers up at the blue sky above the glare of the suns off the sandstone, wrapping her hand around his at her elbow. "Of course it's one thing to know this in your head, and another to feel it in your heart. But, I think I'm starting to." A careful arm with a light touch tiptoes across her back and around her waist. Someone less attuned to the man, less attuned to the Force, would hardly notice the hard knot in his throat. He's had a fairly negative outlook since she left, and has resigned himself, once again, to the good sport role. "I'm here," he says simply, turning his mouth to the top of her head. It's too hot for this, but he doesn't notice. "Whenever you feel it. Mm? Okay?" He's taking them back to the ship in a roundabout way, TooSock's decapitated head in his other hand. The ruined husk of Karrde's presence on Tatooine seems like quite an inappropriate place to have this kind of an epiphany, but the thought only makes Jessalyn smile. She tips her head upward a bit so that she can make out some of his profile from her position on his shoulder. "I don't know if there's really anything else to find," she confesses quietly, her emotions touching his only lightly, a little overwhelmed with a feeling of calm and impatience at the same time. "Orson, you've been able to see into me from the beginning. What do you see now?" He doesn't need the Force to tell her the answer to that, but he uses it anyway, the fullness of being that comes with Force soaking into his mind, strengthening his supporting shoulder. "Make sure you're ready," Orson says with an appropriately divining voice, though tinged with some disappointment. They're back at the ship. "Between Luke, Simon. Training. So many little things. Big things," he corrects, stopping in the shadow of the Uwannabuyim. "Worth it though. To me. To you?" Something makes her flinch as she straightens back up and takes a step back, her hand lingering momentarily on Orson's arm. Then her fingers curl in around her palm and she brings her hands rigidly to her sides. "All I know is that I've never been as close to anyone as I am to you, and I... I think I need you to care. No one ever really has, not like you, knowing me so thoroughly and accepting me the way I am." The words flow out much to her own surprise, and she closes her eyes, realizing it's too late to take them back. "I'm sorry," she gasps, turning to the ramp of the ship and hastening her steps upward. Orson gives her his full attention, even leaning in on her, brow furrowed with concentration. "Yes," he says, accepting this with a nod. "Yes, I care about ... yes," he inserts carefully, affirming her where it seems natural to do so. Unexpected, but he'll roll with it. Some good news for a change. "Jessalyn!" he calls out as she breaks free, starting up the ramp after her, boggling TooSocks' head. "Wait! Don't be sorry!" His voice has the same timbre as a long 'awww.' She stops in the corridor of the freighter, but doesn't turn around, only glancing over her shoulder at him. "We seem to be constantly running away from each other," she finally says, a little ruefully. "What could it mean?" It's cooler on the ship, and darker. Orson scoots up behind Jessalyn, thumping into her inadvertantly while trying to make a smooth grab for her shoulders. "Oops," he says, suppressing a startled laugh from his own mouth. "Let's agree to stop running then," the Jedi student suggests from behind her, growing serious again. Jessa gasps softly as he bumps unexpectedly into her. "Okay," she says a little breathlessly, turning slightly and managing to smile. "I think I can handle that. You have my permission to keep me from running away the next time I try it." A little humor creeps back into her voice, though her body is still tense as she stands so close to him in the dim corridor. The broad-shouldered mechanic lowers his stance slightly, repeating something they had worked on a few days ago. His arms come out to the side, blocking her from escaping the way she had come. Eyes narrowed, his smile is tight, calculating, but above all, playful. "Let's see how you do," Orson challenges, wiggling the fingers of either outstretched hand. "I'll give you a head start even." Green eyes go round with surprise as Jessalyn stares back at Orson, brows arched mildly with amusement. "Ah, so you like the chase, is that it?" she quips, gauging him, and glancing beyond him as if plotting her escape. She waits a split second, then ducks underneath one of his outstretched arms, laughing as she runs past him back toward the ramp. Not exactly the way she had planned on going, but she's not really trying to avoid him this time. He wouldn't be able to catch her if she didn't want to be caught. Orson knew that because he had seen her natural speed on Myrkr several times. With the Force, she could move as fast as most people could think. But if she didn't want to be caught, there really wasn't any point to these games at all. Orson misses with the arm that she ducks underneath, but his other is there, coming along behind her and in front of her stomach, pulling her backwards into his strong grip. "Ah ha," he says dramatically from the embrace. "Give yourself up." Still tugging at her, he gives her a little bit of slack in his arms, spinning the Jedi about to face him, wearing a grin. She squirms to at least put up the appearance of trying to escape as he swings her around to face him, squealing with surprise and clinging to him to regain her equilibrium. "Why, what are you going to do me if I do?" Jessalyn counters, returning Orson's grin and laughing breathlessly. "Wait, maybe I already know the answer to that." She wrinkles her nose and slides her arms around his neck, peering up with slitted green eyes, and surprised at her own sense of ease. "Seems highly inappropriate, though," she adds gravely, but there is laughter in her eyes. "How old are you again?" Orson taps the point of his tongue against the edge of one of his teeth thoughtfully. He's been in this position before, just a few days ago. He tightens his grip around the narrow woman, still playful. No last minute escapes for Jessalyn this time. "Just a few, well, about your age," Orson lies, obviously enjoying himself. He tilts forward once more and moves to whisper to her. "Maybe not exactly ..." He tilts his strong shoulders and closes his eyes, more out of trepidation than a sense of romance. If she wasn't there when he opened his eyes, it would be easier than watching her leave. Emotion is summoned to his face and is focused on his lips, newfound abilities stirring in his belly and lending fortitude to his romantic effort. Holding his breath, Orson Tighe leans in again ... Even though her slender body trembles as he pulls her closer, she doesn't try to draw away, instead cupping his cheek in her hand and sighing nervously as she watches him lean in for a kiss. She had expected this outcome, of course, and has to admit her role in accomplishing it. Until this moment, however, she wasn't sure what she would do when it actually happened. But sometimes in a split second the Force can open up almost any possibility, and the futures that Jessalyn glimpses when she thinks of Orson show her a life with all the love and solace she would ever need. So it's with a sense of relief that she lets go of her emotional shields, risking a tender strand of herself in a silent offering to him through the Force as she closes her eyes and melts into his lips. Her honesty falls into his strong arms and he hangs on to it solidly. It would be something to cherish even more in the future, the selflessness and fragility of the gift astonishing Orson. What he lacks in style he makes up for in feeling, and at the moment they enter into this intimate embrace, some new level of understanding is shared between them. Fully aware and mindful, fully in the moment, and fully conscious of the Force that is around them and being shared between them, Orson is startled at his own ability to see both here and the Force. To experience both realities and perceive this world as a simultaneous reflection of what the Force wills -- it rocks him. Fueled by it and the clarity of this open exchange, he brings a hand into her hair on either side of her head, drinking deep. "Do you yield?" he asks softly, finally pulling back a few centimeters and exchanging an unblinking stare with her. It's not like anything she has ever experienced before, and somewhere along the new awareness between them Jessalyn gasps with the shock of it. She's never been so close to anyone with this level of familiarity and care, with a clarity of purpose and vision that completes her in ways she never even knew existed. His openness and strength gives her the courage to lean on him, to reveal the deepest desires and dreams buried so far inside her. The Force pulses like blood from her heart, flowing out of her as it threads into Orson's very being, sharing the essence of her soul. It seems like an eternity before the kiss ends, and she opens her eyes to look back at him with surprise, amazed as she looks into his face at how thoroughly she -knows- him. "Do you?" she counters, slowly smiling even as her brows draw together with worry. "Never," Orson pronounces like he means it, jaw set and eyes widening as he speaks. To prove it, he darts in and pecks at her lips one more time, laughing lightly. No facial horns like with Simon, no attempt at Stoicism like Luke. Just a frank exchange of affection, uncluttered and finally direct, much like Orson himself. The student peers at Jessalyn's face, and quickly sweeps her up into a warm embrace. It seemed appropriate, somehow, to offer some gesture of friend even after that show of ... whatever that was. As good and as powerful as the kiss was - as /right/ as it was - it still deserved consideration and would require some sorting out. It only takes a free hand at her knee before he's lifted the woman from the deck of the ship, giving Jessalyn a light spin before putting her down again on his opposite side. "We'll figure it out," the man assures her, inner-self buzzing from the power of their exchange. "Will we?" Jessalyn murmurs, still smiling, but a bit more somber than he as her feet are set back on the ship's deck. She half-expected the connection they had shared to disappear once the kiss ended, but it's still there, and she explores it curiously, her feelings running like a plethora of raindrops on the thread of a spider's web between them. He was so honest and strong, straightforward with his thoughts and feelings, and willing to share, she finds herself dreading the thought of losing this connection with him. She tries to find the words to express this, but fails, and leans against him, burying her face into the curve of his neck, surprised at how tightly she clings to him. Orson bobs his head over hers. She could probably feel it, his affirmation: such a tangible thing. "I know we will," he says firmly. It's easy for him to imagine a bridge between them, some sort of connection born from mutual respect and then friendship. Only in the last few moments has real passion been added as an ingredient, but it's a true explosion of flavor in a simmering dish. It's disconcerting for the mechanic to be able to see and appreciate the complex shades of color and form in their interlocking interest in one another. The sheer openness of it makes it valuable. But that openness also makes the new student fear her response. The rugged landscape of Orson's heart is visible from her vantagepoint atop his outer walls. At a sudden and predictable loss for words himself, he murmurs, "If we can just... stick together." He pulls away and tugs at her wrist, pulling her to the bench at the holochess game. He sits and seems to leave her little option but to perch on his available knee and enter into a long embrace. Orson urges her toward that perfect fit. Jessalyn allows allows herself to be drawn down into Orson's lap, keeping her arms tightly around him and her head on his shoulder like before. The openness does seem a vulnerability, borne out of a lifetime of pain and disappointment, and a self-defensive need to keep the heart protected from such exposure. And yet, Jessa knows now, at last, that it's exactly what she's wanted her whole life, without ever being aware of exactly what her heart yearned for. The thought brings tears to her eyes at the same time that she reaches out across their firm but hesitant bond, trying to show him that it's only their fear they have to be afraid of. Wanting to reassure him, and exposing herself in the process, but she can't bring herself to care about that now. "I never knew it was like this," she says in a distant voice. "It seems impossible." Only the core of Orson remains. The superflous has stripped away over the past few weeks, relentless introspection and training having honed his instincts, stregthened his body, and matured his ethic. He's starting out new in some ways, though still draws on the hard lessons of life, hanging on to what's made him who he is to make sense of the galaxy. This new man sits under Jessalyn, pondering the impossibility of the power and resulting responsibility of wielding the Force. The impossibility of this relationship, strong but so incredible because of their now mutual draw off of this not-so-hidden power in the Galaxy. "I'll take care of you," Orson says simply, quietly stroking her hair. Sensing his introspection and drawing on this new source of support, she stays quiet, simply listening to his heartbeat and her own whirling thoughts. Those futures she glimpsed before are still there, hovering off in the distance, but she can't get a closer look when she tries to focus on the images. It makes her sigh, but she's content enough, surprised at the lack of doubt in her mind now. It seems almost ludicrous that anything like fear should have ever stood in the way of this. After a long time, Jessalyn lifts her head and looks at him, offering a small smile as she touches his cheek. "I meant what I said before... that I need you to care. I wish I knew how to say what I feel when I see inside you. I'm sorry I always hurt you before." "I will," Orson says, but quickly corrects himself. "I do, I mean. Care." He all but ignores her apology, instead lifting a hand between them, thumb and forefinger curled like they're ready to pinch something. "I've been here before," he starts, making it clear now that he's holding something tiny up for Jessalyn to see. "This is a familiar place. I think there's been a little piece of this, of you, that I've been holding on to. For a long time. I'm not making sense." Still, it doesn't seem right to just let that little piece of her fall, so he touches his imagined peace to his chest and then wraps his arms around her again. "Should I be worried if it makes some sense to me?" Jessa chuckles softly as she tightens her own arms around him, but keeping enough space between them to look at his face. "You don't have to hold onto a tiny piece, anymore. I know what that's like. I would much rather you hold the real me." Her smile is shy and revealing at the same time as she leans in to prove it to him, pressing her lips softly to his. Something deep sounds from his throat, but he doesn't have time to agree with her statement, so he just focuses on the woman, tasting perfect lips and making an effort to clothe himself in her, wrapping the strength found in her whole person around his shoulders like a well-worn cloak. The first sun has set, and late afternoon light filters up from the deck into the ship, tinting the room a color not so unlike the hue of her hair. "What now?" he asks earnestly, cupping her inviolable chin in his rough palm. Perched on Orson's knee at the holochess table, Jessalyn gives him a pensive look as she draws breath to reply to his question. "What now? Well.... " She trails off and looks around, suddenly tensing and lifting her chin out of his palm. "We're not alone," she says under her breath, making an effort to start to climb off his lap even though she knows it's probably too late to avoid the inevitable. She smiles sheepishly at him instead. Drew, like most people, doesn't walk into common rooms expecting, er, stuff to be happening. She bursts through from the cockpit, flimsies in hand, probably heading towards another area of the ship. She's walking at a fast clip, only interrupted by the briefest of stops when she sees Jessalyn sitting on Orson's lap. Hrrm. Before she can help it, a sheepish grin crosses her face and she moves to keep...going where she was going. She says murmurs, "'xcuse me." Orson stomps as he tries to struggle up, but is way off balance from the woman on his leg. After a moment of fighting it, he gives in, sharing in the sheepish smile party. "Hi Drew," the mechanic says with a straight face, the same tone he uses when he's got his hands in an engine some place or another. Normal stuff. "Everything okay?" he asks, lifting his gaze like he's trying to read her flimsies but, at his spot on the other side of the room, he's just throwing a gesture in that seems to make sense. With that less-than-sly redirection, Jessalyn suddenly gives a start, jumping slightly. Orson takes the opportunity to slip to the side and stand, showing the pair of them a toothy grin. Jessalyn just stares up at Orson with wide eyes that narrow into slits as she drums her fingers on the top of the holochess table. She bites back whatever words are about to come out, forcing a smile and offering it to Drew instead. They all seem very interested in her flimsies all of a sudden. "Hi, Drew," she calls, a little awkwardly since the woman is clearly not comfortable with what she just saw. Drew can't help but stop when Orson asks her if everything is alright. She peers at the man as he stands, and at Jessalyn who visibly stiffens. She glances down at her flimsies, since they seem to be the center of attention, blinks, then looks back at the pair. The look on her face turns from sheepish to perplexed. She studies them politely, smiling briefly at Orson, "Nothing wrong.. Was just going to check something." Things are a bit more complicated than they seemed at that first glance, and she isn't sure if she should stick around for it. Her eyes glance at the doorway. The mechanic claps his hands, pressing his palms together without even looking back at Jessalyn. "Oh sure," he says, waving a hand at Drew. "I think we're about done here," Orson explains, though he means his business on Tatooine and not whatever it was that the pair was just doing. He adds hastily, "We'll leave for Caspar soon, if that's okay with everyone?" With that, the mechanic turns and moves starboard, hand resting on the doorway to the stateroom. Standing a little shakily, Jessalyn watches as Orson crosses the deck towards the stateroom, looking for a moment like she's debating following him. Instead she glances at Drew, and bites her lower lip. "Caspar," she says a little dubiously, fighting back a swirl of conflicting feelings that rise with the thought of that planet. "That's fine," she agrees, trying to regain her composure and folding her arms in a business-like stance she doesn't quite pull off. "Anything would be better than the heat on this planet." Drew's reply to Orson is a nod. She looks between the two, brows furrowed. "Ship's okay," she says quietly. Sounds pretty irrelevant, huh? The man purses his lips, giving a terse nod, turning and disappearing into the stateroom without another word. Then, a moment later, he calls out, "We'll leave late tonight." A few things are being moved around, and then there's only silence.
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