Pilots' Quarters

[Dav Man'Sell]

He sighed, dipped his head. Listened to her words, to the quiet, possibly even desperate, plea for him to rest, to recuperate. And he knew the effects of fatigue. Could recognise that, even with his skills, his powers, his body, his mind, he was not even close to operating at 100%. He knew that the longer he kept this up, the closer he would get to avoidable, maybe fatal mistake.

But what he said was true. Until the Ion Cannons and Shield Generators were protected in a manner that the Mandalorians couldn't overcome, they were vulnerable. A weakness comparable to a certain exhaust point at the end of a certain trench that had been exploited by a young man named Skywalker, right above their heads, some fifty-three years earlier.

And just like the one and a half-million beings on the Death Star when it blew, they'd all die in a flash of fire and fear, with no chance, no hope to save themselves, if that weak spot was hit. And on top of that, a slower more painful death was threatening to march its way through their front doors at almost any time.

He turned to her, locked her eyes with his.

"Thirty six."

He blinked deeply at her, felt a flicker of confusion in her presence in the Force.

"In the past eight hours alone, I've intercepted thirty six Mandalorians that have come within a few dozen meters of finding the Shield Generator. Yesterday, half a company nearly stumbled on one of our Ion Cannons a few short hours after Ronan landed. That's the better part of a hundred hostiles that came close to finding the only things keeping everyone in this temple alive, in the space of the past sixteen hours."

He looked away, took a few steps towards the desk again, leaning upon it, eyes down at the surface.

"Not only have we got to stop the Mandos finding those locations, but we've got to maintain that pressure up across the entire battlefield. Or some sharp eyed commander on their side will work out the areas we're most often intercepting them, and realise that we're trying to keep something hidden there. We've got to balance that with rapidly dwindling supplies, with also stopping periodic attempts to walk right up to the front doors of this Temple and knock, and we've got to do that with armed forces who are at their limit, who don't have the endurance I do, who can't push on like I am."

His eyes came up to meet hers again, eyes wide, full of pain.

"There are soldiers out there, giving their all, fighting tirelessly to defend this Praxeum." He stood, gesturing with arms wide, emphatically. "What's our death count now, hmm? Including the ship crews dead in orbit? A hundred thousand? More? They are giving everything to fight to protect us, to protect our home. They are dying for us and I'm not even sure we have any right to ask that of them. So, no, I'm sorry, but I cannot rest."

He shook his head, turning sharply away from her. His eyes pressed closed, his teeth grit, his lips pressed into a thin line, and stood, still, hands curled into tight fists at his side, for a long, heavy few seconds. And then, the tension in his shoulders sagged, his hands unfurled, and he turned back to her. Crossed slowly. Took her healer's hands in his big, weathered warrior's ones.

"I want you to know that I do hear you, Tee. I understand. I'm aware of what I'm doing, and of what it might cost me, personally, in the long run. But this is my path to choose. So long as there are men and women out there, potentially dying at any time, day or night, in defence of us, I need to be out along side them. And until our holes, these vast, gaping holes in our defence, are plugged, until we have that little bit more solid security, I need to be out there, watching our weak points. I'm still standing, I can still run, and fight, I can still make a difference. My mind, my body, my spirit, they cannot have any rest until I know that me taking a few hours to myself isn't going to lead to everyone ending up dead."

He lifted her hands to his lips, held them there, his head dipping and his eyes closing for another long and quiet moment.

"You know that no one here has seen war like I have. Not even Zuli, or Lita. My life was meant for fighting the fights that others couldn't, for standing on that battlefield and fighting longer and harder than anyone else. That's how I serve the Force, that's how I protect this Galaxy, protect the people I love. If I have to push myself to total exhaustion, if I have to fight until I drop to defend this Praxeum... to keep you, and everyone else safe... then I will. Then, then you can drag me back here, stick me on a bed, and force me to rest. But until I have given every last piece of energy I have left, until I reach that stage..."

Once more, his eyes lifted to find hers.

"That you try to protect me, that you care, shores me up. It gives me strength, and it'll probably bring me home again when I ought not to have made it. But I shall know no rest yet. Not yet. Not until I know I can do so without it leading to more lost lives."

He dipped his chin to her hands once more, pressing his lips to them in a long kiss, and then he released them, turning to the door leading to the refreshed.

"I'm going to grab a shower and a change of clothes before I head out again."

Dav looked back at her again, pausing in the doorway, one hand holding the frame, and gave her one more wearied smile, before he turned and crossed into the room.

They were both right, of course. In their own way. And, role reversed, he'd probably be intervening, telling her to rest, to take time for herself.

That's what we do. We keep each other aware, we keep each other accountable. So long as she keeps checking, keeps pushing, I'm aware of how close to the limit I am. As long as she keeps asking how much longer I can do this, I'm thinking about it, and I'm not letting that point of no-return come without noticing it. Then I can make the right call.

Right?

He pretended that he could legitimately, confidently answer that as a yes. As he reached out for the shower controls, he convinced himself it was a yes.

An emphatic, heartfelt yes.

[Tebana Sor]

Tebana’s hands dropped to her side and her head to her chest as if his leaving her immediate proximity had drained all fight and strength from her. She heard him leave the room. His point had been made.

So well. So eloquently. So clearly.

He had left no space or time for any response or question from her. That was how sure he was.

Tebana felt like crying. Rageful, painful tears at first. Then peaceful and silent ones.
But the tears would not come. There had been so much cause to cry in only a short week, so much to mourn, so much to fear and rage against that refusing herself even a second of it, had numbed her out completely. The emotional plea for Dav to listen to her, had been a last effort, but in truth it had been all she dared show in terms of true emotion.

Tebana, like anybody else in and around Yavin at this moment in time, needed to function. She had a purpose, both functional and symbolic.
The tears, the truth, the emotions, the injustice and the pain of it all would have to wait behind a carefully constructed dam of rational reasoning and projected calm and clear thought, painfully reinforced with the learnt and proper responses one would expect from Jedi Master Tebana Sor, healer and protector.

But the human soul is a peculiar thing. It has a life of its own. It sings where it is nourished and dies when it is silenced. It lives to cherish and to heal, it thrives wherever it is allowed to be hear and seen and it will wither and revolt whenever we try to ignore it’s struggle to stay alive.
Dams will only hold for so long until they break or become brilliant, unbreakable stone while the soul dies in silence somewhere behind it.

There really wasn’t anything left to say, even if everything compelled her to stay and wait… because there still WAS something pushing forward even there was nobody left to listen to it.

“And then what…?”

Once he had reached that point of no return, which he clearly and consciously aimed for, what then…?
His reasoning was so full of thought and yet failed to see the true finality. Once Dav Man’Sell had reached his last limit, he would be out of commission. He would be so out of it that he could do nothing. While the battle raged on. They were trapped in a siege after all. And while yes, boosting defences would help them hold out longer, ultimately it wouldn’t change a single thing. It would sooner or later come down to a direct confrontation on Temple grounds. And in this scenario, it would take place without their strongest Jedi, who had exhausted himself beyond functioning on account of pointless self-sacrifice and survivor’s guilt.

The sound that worked itself out of her throat and mouth resembled a strangled groan.

She wrapped her arms around herself. And for a grim second she considered his well thought out system of checks and balances. They had been at this for years after all.

Tebana finally drew herself up with a deep breath and finally opened her eyes and flexed her hands.

Another outing. A maximum of 48h.

The next time she’d see him, she wouldn’t leave him a choice. Not anymore.

She grabbed a new shirt, her shawl and her dark cloak and without a word left their common quarters, the door closing behind her with a familiar sound.

[Tebana Sor]

From a dimly lit hallway the door to Dav Man’Sell and Tebana Sor’s quarters opened without much sound giving way to a set of dark rooms.

Tebana stepped over the threshold, careful neither to activate lights nor to make a sound in these very early hours of the night. And even while in other parts of the Academy there was not night rest, even in this part - close to the Hangar - silence and nightly calm had started their reign. In only two hours time, another rooster would move out and worn pilots would find what rest they could before braving the constant grind of their siege defense once more.

She dropped her cloak onto the half-circle shaped sofa in the main living area before bending down to slip off her boots, yet again without a sound. Dav was sleeping in their bed just meters from her through an unclosed separation door. His clothes, carelessly strewn across his main desk and the floor bore witness to his passing. But it was his com bracelet and lightsabers on the desk that truly gave away his presence here.

She drew herself back up and stood in the middle of the room, the darkness wrapping itself around her, eyes closed. She couldn’t quite tell what had drawn her here. She hadn’t felt this disconnected from him in a very… very long time. There seemed to be entire star systems between them. The feeling wasn’t completely unfamiliar and probably guided by dark memories from the past, almost forgotten battles and struggles suddenly made themselves painfully present in her mind.

Yet another battle over Yavin… an old enemy, they thought they had beaten… the desperation, the pain and sacrifice that led to her being corrupted once more… the fear and unmeasurable despair that had driven her away to die in solitude… Ruusan… weeks and weeks of learning to die and fade out of existence, hoping to leave nothing behind…

Finding her way in the complete darkness not unlike a cat, she stepped into the passage of the open door, feeling into the room and the lover lying in front of her. Dav’s breathing was audible in the darkness. Even and deep, comforting. She longed for his incomparable warmth that had never failed to warm her. That’s when she realised how cold she was and how she had been for several days now. She missed his ever strong presence beside her, in the Force and the world. In almost ten days, the moment stolen from a higher purpose were few and the reassurance they brought was of very little impact when compared to the crushing adversity in their struggle as a small group of survivors.

His actions had made things so hard for her. And he seemed completely oblivious about it all. Of how many times he had shirked her words, had dismissed them and never left her a chance. Even a full-sized intervention of the people he considered family wasn’t enough for him to even consider her words. The fact that she had to call for an intervention behind his back was grotesque and she knew that somewhere deep down, she resented him for it. No matter which way she turned it, she felt rejected. Unconsidered. And in the end silenced by his formidable Padawan who had been the only one to inadvertently make him see reason. Not love, not companionship, not trust, no Force bond, not shared years of living along side… nothing she had to offer had been strong enough to achieve that. In that respect, she had utterly failed him.

And he… had set her up. Had given her the impossible role of fail safe in checking his limits while dismissing the possibility of her ever achieving anything more than the status of an obnoxious ‘low fuel’ alarm.

She felt the heavy pull of exhaustion on her mind, could feel it crawling up her spine and she dismissed her confused thoughts and mixed feelings, turning back to the main living area. She needed sleep and for these few hours the sofa would have to do. Tebana would be gone before he ever woke up.
She refused herself the proximity that in any other circumstance would have seemed normal and healthy, stubbornly settling into the round curb of the sofa, drawing up her knees and covering herself with her heavy cloak.

I just wish you actually knew how easily you break my heart with your heroics, Dav Man’Sell.

It was a childish thought, but it was hers, in the dark where nobody could see the calm facade of the leader fail so spectacularly.

[Dav Man'Sell]

It was an hour later when he awoke, an urging in his mind that drew him from the deep sleep in which he had been submerged for much of the previous day. At first, that urge had caused him to reach for the comm unit built into his night-stand, as he had twice throughout the day to send Lita, or Ronan, messages warning of a danger that his battle-tuned mind had detected in the Shatterpoints of events, but his hand stayed a few centimeters short, his head tilting in the dark as though listening.

This was not the Shatterpoints that had woken him. Indeed, the urgency of those points of weakness seemed somehow less immediate now. No, Dav had been woken by a very different type of Force connection.

He stood, slipping out from beneath the sheets, and crossed to the door that separated the sleeping chamber from the reception room. His eyes, adjusting to the dark, were able to make out the form curled up on their sofa, the body which contained the spirit that had drawn him out of his long slumber. He stopped, leaning against the door frame, and listened again to that bond between them, which had woken him. Though she was still and quiet upon the sofa, her mind worked furiously, her emotions rolling with the distress of an unsettling nightmare. He caught flashes, echoes of images, and knew she was reliving her darkest moments, the moments where the Corruption's evil had taken her body, and almost claimed her mind and spirit as well. A frown furrowed his brow, and he wondered for a moment why she might be reliving those moments now, but he found his own answers readily enough.

Our home under siege. The rainforest occupied by a deadly foe. Constant exhaustion. Distance between us.

There's plenty of similarities between now and then. She must be feeling a lot of the same feelings as she did then. Understandable.

He pushed off of the jamb, crossing to the sofa, and crouched beside her, resting a gentle hand upon her shoulder. His mind reached into the telepathic connection between them, a gentle, supportive force, but one that was not as gratefully received by her subconscious mind as he was used to. He felt a cold reluctance there, a wary resistance to his mental presence; this, he supposed, he had earned, and he grimly accepted his part in that. He did not withdraw from the telepathic bond, gently working through the mists of her sleep to find a part of her mind that would hear and recognise him.

<<Tebana...>>

There was a spike of reaction, and he felt the nightmare she was having shift around him, reshape to adapt and include his imagery within the images it presented to her. There was a cold frustration that answered him. No words.

<<You are having a bad dream. Wake up.>>

Another emotion struck him through the fear and discomfort of her nightmare. Stubborn refusal. He supposed he had earned that, too. Stubbornness for stubbornness. His chin dipped, and he exhaled a deep sigh.

<<Wake up. Come on now. Wake up.>>

Her mind stirred, and her body did the same beneath his hand, the nightmare slowly crumbling around her thoughts and awareness. He withdrew, slowly, from her subconscious, back to the darkness of their shared rooms. Somewhere, off in the distance, the low rumble of an explosion served to remind him that this was not just another night, as if he had needed any.

Her eyes opened, and they met his through the dark. He offered a tight smile.

"Hey."

[Tebana Sor]

Tebana’s body tensed before her mind had truly returned from restless sleep and dark dreams. The reaction was instinctual. Too much fighting on the go, too much disturbed nights and too much loss.

For a second she was confused as to where she was. It seemed so improbable that he would be with her like a presence of a long lost memory himself.
Then finally her mind caught on, slowed by barely an hours sleep: his warm hand on her shoulder convinced her that no, this was not another emergency call that had woken her, but him and his damned insistence to use any pretence he could to avoid resting.

At last her body seemed to relax enough and her head dropped back onto the backrest of the sofa with a deep sigh that mirrored his own.
Under her hand that had come up to cover her eyes, a deep frown masked angrily throbbing temples and an expression that betrayed the dark mix of memories and images that had assailed her.

“Thank you.”

Her voice was barely above a whisper as she settled somewhere in a reserved spot behind the cool, draughty silence and the stubborn reluctance he had already felt earlier.

“Go back to sleep. I’ll be up in a minute.”

... the barely veiled meaning behind it being that she would be gone in a minute.

[Dav Man'Sell]

He nodded, shifting back on his haunches.

"You should come to bed. At least for a few more hours."

The irony of him saying this to her was not lost on him.

He turned his face away, working his jaw, before he stood, moving to the doorway. He again paused at the threshold, and turned back to face her. His bare, undressed body caught the pale blue light from the window, a sliver running down the side of his face and the toned contours of his shoulder, the side of his body, his hip, and one leg.

"I'm a stubborn arse. I'm sorry that I let things get as far as they did. I..."

He bowed his head, brows arching high on his forehead.

"Mine is a burden of repentance. I have no way of knowing how much of a difference I might have made against the Empire, if I had been on the right side. But making a difference now..."

He gave a shake of his head, turning his face into the shadows of the darkened sleeping quarters, before he looked back again.

"It's hard to relinquish that responsibility. Sometimes, I forget that I don't have to fight alone any more."

He dipped his chin again, before he lifted his eye to the window. The canopy of the rainforest stood silhouetted against the sky, which was beginning to lighten to the east with the promise of a new dawn, and a new day - another day of fighting.

"Sun'll be up within the hour. We've lived to fight another day."

He took a deep breath, turned, and headed in to the darkness of the sleeping chamber, to rest a few hours more.

[Tebana Sor]

An apology.

Worse.

An explanation.

Full of regret and past guilt.

As if she ever needed an explanation. As if she was not the one who knew his darkest secrets, had felt his weakest moments and his deepest doubts. As if all of her own confusion, feelings of neglect, rejection, abandonment and frustration were just a simple matter of lack of information. A question of missed understanding.

She appeared in the doorway behind him, still dressed, ready to leave at a second’s notice, she drew in a sharp breath and willingly dropped all the carefully constructed projections and shielding. It was painful, like a muscle that had been tensed for so long it couldn’t immediately recall how to function and the result was another angry flash of throbbing pain behind her eyes.

“Have we…?”

The frustration rolled off of her in waves now. The last thing on her mind before she had finally turned in to sleep only an hour before had been her broken heart and how easily he could walk around in it, wreaking such havoc in what under normal circumstances were a strong mind and an even stronger heart, full of fight and empathy and balance.

Her attachment to him was so immense, she wondered where the limits of such a bond truly lay.

The echo between past battles that had been lost, the Corruption and its immeasurable toll on her mind and health, and the current fight against yet another foe that seemed all but unbeatable, was catastrophic. And she knew it, of course.

She crossed her arms and drew them close around herself. The dim greeting of an early morning now fell on her and the twin scars on her left cheek were clearly visible on translucent skin, the blue tinge adding to the contrast.

“Why are you apologising to me? Your convictions are unchanged and I doubt you would do things differently now, so nothing has changed. You used me as your failsafe and then ignored me like you would any pesky tech droid. There is no apology for that. There is no explanation that I do not already know. So, please, stop insulting me and consider who it is that you are talking to!”

She could see him draw himself up even in the dark room, a painful look on his face, his glorious naked torso exposed and vulnerable turned towards her.

She leant against the door frame as she could feel the inner tension of days of unspent tears suddenly releasing themselves into her mind and body. She closed her eyes against his look on her, but his reaction in their Force bond was enough as a huge sob finally liberated itself with a pained sound into the dark room.

She felt his arms wrap around her and she had half a mind to resist him, knowing full well that this release was needed. Vital even. This what was their bond after all. It wasn’t about some exterior sign of their love, exuberant feasts or public displays of affection, a ring, a contract. It was the true meeting of souls. In the light and full consciousness of their mutual darkness, weakness and petty thoughts.

“Force, I love you. Even while you are breaking my heart.”

[Dav Man'Sell]

He rested his cheek atop her head, and let out a long sigh, holding her a little closer in the dark. The aroma of sterilising washes drifted up from her hair, and her body felt tired beneath his touch. They stood together in the darkness for a while, lost in each other's breathing, neither saying much of anything. He was lost in thoughts of what she had said, a small pang of pain at the idea that he might have caused her pain.

But then in all their life together thus far, hadn't that often been the way? Their own selves, and sometimes, regrettably their relationship to one another, had been secondary. Duty to the Galaxy, in service of the Force, came first. Dav wondered if Tebana regretted that, sometimes? He knew she certainly felt hurt and resentful in that moment, though he rather felt that was more towards himself than towards the notion of their relationship as a whole.

He shook his head to himself.

"We are all of us suffering under this. All of us responding in different ways. What happened earlier, in the Hangar, shows that." He pulled away, just far enough to lower his gaze and meet hers through the darkness. His hand stroked a lock of hair out of her face. "I expect we'll have many more arguments before we're through the other side of this. War has a way of taking us into dark places we'd rather not go, and even family relationships falter under these strains."

The Jedi Battlemaster dipped his chin, resting his forehead against hers.

"I didn't mean to ignore your warnings so callously."

His large hand came to a stop, cupping her face gently. His thumb ran gently down one of her twin scars, the marks of her own past battlefield.

"Come to bed. We need to rest together. We haven't had a chance to do that since this all started."

[Tebana Sor]

[Tebana Sor]

After a few hours of shared respite from thoughts for everyone else, the overall wellbeing and strategic shatterpoints, Tebana had left in the early morning to attend to her duties.

Another day passed, filled with horrid revelations and hurtful words between her and Jago, a desperate morning that she had spent alone trying to find a way to save their patients and anybody unlucky enough to walk across that same ruin fields as Sgt. Morris’ combat group. She had spent a solitary meal of a few fruits from the jungle - a resource they could always afford as long as they could dare to venture out of the Academy - pouring over fragments of intel from the Rebel period on Yavin trying to find an indication of what was happening. There was nothing helpful.

They had always known that some of the older ruins were in fact vestiges of the Massassi who in turn had been enslaved by the Sith who had used the various temples for some of their darker activities. Supposition and indication had always led the Jedi to believe that the Sith perfected some of their Sith alchemy on the wild- and plantlife on Yavin 4, but there was no actual spotting ever properly recorded. And so it had become a myth. To all but a few who had actually entered these particular ruins some odd ten years ago and had felt their true darkness. She had spent most of the rest of the day to form some kind of theory in which Sith alchemy had been used to transform a particular nasty strain of fungal spore. Small and impossible to avoid, and highly toxic once boosted through manipulation of the darkness. Over time the containment had been buried more and more, and eventually weakened more and more… until disturbed by unsuspecting peacekeeping troopers patrolling through the jungle…

Healing an affliction that was linked to such a source was even beyond her powers. Or rather… the evidence made it impossible to know where to direct a healing.
Jago’s first idea of a testing sample to extract a cure hadn’t been misplaced, but it was dangerous at the best of conditions, with unlimited power supply and without a blockade and invasion force that threatened to overrun them any day. She could heal the physical damage, could disperse some of of the spores in the lungs, but even that could prove to be dangerous.

She hadn’t slept during the next night, but had opted for an hour of sustaining meditation, somehow wishing for help in the living Force to guide her to a solution. Her Force Vision was impaired by her dark memories of various source and her tired mind.

Soon morning would come and as she walked silently through an almost dark hallway once more at nearly 5 in the morning, her thoughts turned back to Jago. She wondered if he truly would run off into the jungle hoping for a solution without guide nor help.

The door slid open silently and the familiar hum of his beloved presence announced a few moments of calm within a sea of uncertainty.

Tebana slipped into the room, breathing in the familiarity, its stillness in these suspended hours of the morning, the faintest of blue lights from the outside window and the comforting silence of ancient walls and past pleasures.
Her heart and soul had been longing for his strong presence, at a time where clearly, she had only projections and carefully laid out illusions of calm and power to keep her standing. The sinister link between the ruins where she had lost her brother, her child and a part of a future life in one moment, the darkness and the manipulated spores were hard to process alone. Memories of an unspeakable loss, of such merciless immolation by her own family with the only wish and will to cause irreparable damage… kept getting in her way. And after a full day of trying to push past, an unwilling part of her realised that she didn’t need to visit the ruins to be swept back into the bottomless pit of sorrow again. The vision through the Force had been enough, her memories adding another layer to an already overstretched mind.

She slowly crossed over to the main sleeping area, pausing at the entrance to slip off her boots and socks. She sat on the bed, close to a still sleeping Dav, resting her back on the wall behind them and slipped her feet under exquisitely warmed sheets. Again, she noticed how much his natural warmth contrasted with her own cold. She rested her hand on his bare chest, feeling his mind and spirit so close beside her as it radiated calm, only ever so lightly tinged with tense anticipation. He knew he was waking up. And there she was, waiting for him, silently guarding the sacred passage between sleep and wakefulness.