35. “Stay here tonight.” Any character :B
The Serenity came to a graceful halt on the landing pad, and her owner stepped out of the ship to survey Coruscant’s busy sky. Ziost was once full of life like this, Xaja silently mused to herself, drawing her robe tightly around her thin frame to ward off a chill, despite Coruscant’s regulated climate. Ziost had only been wiped of all life less than two weeks ago, and the memory was still too vivid in the Jedi’s mind. The feeling of panic not her own, the sounds of screams carrying through the Force despite the space separating Ziost from its orbital station, the terrible, consuming hunger, the dread, and then the awfulness of the void that consumed the planet…
“Easy, easy.” A hand on her shoulder brought her back to reality. Doc was standing behind her, looking grim and concerned like Xaja had never seen him before. “You sure you don’t want to go back to Tython and do whatever Force healing thing you Jedi do?”
Xaja shook her head. “Tython’s too… too…” At a loss for words, she just gestured out to the cityscape. “There’s more life here and I need to feel it.”
Doc didn’t quite understand- she could see it in his eyes. But he nodded. “Okay. You probably need to get off the ship anyway, you got a hell of a case of cabin fever. But give me or one of the rest of us a call if you need it, okay?”
“I will. I’ll probably just see if Korin’s on-world.” Xaja forced a small smile for Doc. “Don’t blow my ship up.”
“You spoil all our fun,” Doc said with a dramatic sigh that almost made Xaja giggle. “Rusk and I will restock on supplies while you’re gone.”
“Sounds good.” Xaja nodded and started off, pulling her holocom from her pocket and dialing in a frequency.
Korin, unfortunately, was in Hutt Space, looking among his underworld contacts for any news of Vitiate and not finding a hell of a lot, beyond reports of strange invaders attacking Korriban and other distant planets led by a set of near-identical twin commanders. “It’s probably some legend what’s gotten out of hand,” her brother had said. “We’ll look into it anyway.”
“Be careful, all right, little brother?”
“Yeah, I will be. Maybe check in on that Jedi we brought back from… there? Theron and I kinda got hustled off Tython before we could ask.”
“Yeah, I will. I’ll let you know.” Xaja disconnected the call and leaned up against a wall, thinking. She didn’t want to go back to her ship or return to Tython yet- she’d spent far too long already staring at the walls of her ship as though she’d find answers for Vitiate’s madness in the durasteel…
She tapped in another frequency into her comm link and sent a text message. <<>>
The answer came back quickly. <<>>
<<>> Xaja paused before sending another message. <<>>
The response was almost immediate. <<>>
Xaja let herself softly smile again as she plugged in the attached coordinates and flagged down a speeder taxi.
The apartment complex was modest, in a region of Coruscant that, while nowhere near the glittering towers of the wealthy, was far from a slum. Xaja hopped out of the taxi, paid the droid, and slipped inside the building. Up a few floors, down a hallway, around a corner and down another hallway until her feet led her to a plain, unmarked door. She didn’t need the simple “T. Shan.” nameplate beside the door to know where she was- she could feel his presence through the door, warm and soothing and real and alive.
The small Jedi tapped her fingers on the door, and seconds later the durasteel slid back to reveal Theron Shan. The disgraced spy said nothing, just gave Xaja a tired smile and stepped aside so she could enter the apartment. The moment the door slid closed again, Xaja all but launched herself into Theron’s arms and felt him cling back to her, burying his face in her loose hair. She hadn’t realized how much pent-up grief and tension she’d been carrying with her ever since she’d left Ziost’s ashes behind her until she felt Theron soothingly rubbing her back and realized she was shaking, tears escaping her eyes to stain his brown tee-shirt.
“It’s okay,” Theron whispered. “Please don’t cry. You’re okay here with me.” He pulled back from the tight hug to look Xaja in the eyes- and now the Jedi could see the worry in his gaze. “Are you okay? You’re not hurt?”
Xaja shook her head to both of his questions, letting go of him long enough to brush her sleeve across her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, already imagining the silent judgements Theron had to be making over seeing her break down like that. “It… It’s been a rough couple of weeks.”
Theron nodded and pulled her back against his chest. “For both of us,” he agreed, his voice low and grim like it had been the last time she’d seen him on the Fleet station. “It’s… not been good for anyone.”
Still with her face buried in Theron’s shirt, Xaja cast out with the Force to get a read on him. He still had his habitual mental shielding up, but Xaja didn’t try to pry past that- his surface emotions told her all she needed. Depression, uselessness, a guilt that threatened to consume him like Ziost had- Xaja quickly shook her head to clear her mind of that thought. “You feel terrible,” she mumbled into his chest.
Theron laughed, although the sound felt choked and forced. “Yeah, I do. And so do you apparently. Why else would you be here?”
“I missed you,” Xaja confessed. “I… need to feel someone or something alive. Ziost was…”
“I missed you too.” Theron tightened his arms across Xaja’s back. “I saw the reports and eyewitness accounts of what happened there. I can’t even begin to imagine what that felt like for a Force-user like you.”
“Awful.” Xaja felt herself tremble again despite Theron’s hold on her. “It was worse on the surface when-”
Theron froze. “You went back down there?!” He pulled Xaja back to stare her in the eyes, shock and horror radiating from him. “What were you thinking?!”
“I had to see if there was any way that anything or someone had maybe… if someone…” Xaja’s voice trailed away as she recalled her failure to find any hint of life on Ziost and the horror she’d endured by trying to use the Force on the dead planet. She’d thrown up then, and she was close to it now at the mere memory. “There wasn’t any life left,” she whispered. “Not so much as a weed.”
“I’m still stuck on ‘you went back down there’!”
“The air’s still breathable, and I wasn’t alone. Tee-Seven went with me.” Xaja shook her head at Theron’s scowl. “What was I going to meet down there?”
“I don’t know, maybe that same genocidal maniac who killed the planet?”
“He had no reason to stay. There was nothing left for him to- to…” Xaja’s voice broke and she looked away from Theron’s disapproving frown. “Theron, I had to at least try to find something, anything!”
“Blasted Jedi,” Theron grumbled, then paused and ran his thumb along Xaja’s cheekbone in a surprisingly-intimate gesture. “Hey, I didn’t mean it like that, please don’t cry… I’m right here. You’re not there anymore.” Xaja hadn’t even realized there were tears on her cheeks again until Theron leaned in and kissed her forehead. “You’re safe here… as safe as a suspended spy who isn’t in anyone else’s good books can make you.” He couldn’t hide the bitterness and the regret and anger in his voice at that.
Xaja felt a bitter laugh escape her mouth as she tried to blink away the tears she hadn’t shed yet for Ziost and the horror she’d witnessed there. “We’re both wrecks, aren’t we?”
“A fine pair,” Theron deadpanned as he lowered his head to kiss her on the lips. Xaja felt something else in his touch as she kissed him back: his own pain, the crippling guilt, the worry, the fear that he probably refused to admit he felt… It was a long while before the pair pulled apart for air. “Stay here tonight,” he whispered, eyes closed and forehead pressed to hers. “I… I don’t want to be alone either.”
Xaja nodded and wrapped her arms tighter around Theron’s neck. “Thank you,” she mumbled.
“Anytime.” Theron tilted his head to kiss her cheek. “What do you need?”
“You.” Xaja stretched up to kiss Theron’s mouth again. “I’ve felt too much death already. Let me feel life again.”
“I can do that.” Theron caught one of her hands and shifted it down to rest over his chest as he kissed her again, his heart still beating reassuringly under Xaja’s fingers. The Force hummed with his presence, not as vivid as one sensitive to the Force, but still bright and steady and comforting to Xaja’s senses. Theron probably would never have any idea how much his presence was a healing balm to Xaja’s mind. There’s still life left in the galaxy. Vitiate can’t take all of it. There’s still hope while there’s life left.
