Aftermath

[Adelle Bastiel]

Dantooine

The clock read 0311 standard. She should be used to this by now. Soft shadows played over the ceiling, cast by a tiny light from Leigh’s low-powered state. She could just barely hear the whir from the droid’s internal systems. Adelle turned her head to look at the other hammock across the hut. A lean arm hung out of the opening and she could just barely make out the mass of sleep-ruffled hair at one end. At least one of them was sleeping. Two, if she counted Leigh’s low-power state as resting. If it wasn’t the nightmares keeping her up, it was . . . whatever was going on tonight.

Adelle eased herself out of the hammock, pulling her tank top and pants off the floor. At this point, she might as well head outside and stretch at the least. Minimize the chances of her waking Na’an up. Besides, if she did end up sleeping outside, it wouldn’t be the first time. The weather had been fine as well. She shoved her legs into her pants and tugged her shirt on, slipping outside as silently as she could. The air was cool, slowly turning as the seasons changed. With no light pollution to really speak of, millions of stars sprinkled in the night sky overhead. Adelle stretched her arms and rolled her neck, debating if she should go for a run or just settle for katas and bodyweight exercises. A run would probably wake her up more than she’d want. It was just a restless mind, she reasoned, that was keeping her up. Katas and some stretching would probably work.

Adelle started with katas from Form One, the motions more habit than conscious thought. From one stance to the next, she ran through them, focusing on warming her body up. Form Two was next, although these were not terribly familiar. She transitioned into Form Three, settling her mind into the repetition and the flow of one movement to the next. Nightmares would not have required this. Nightmares she could . . . well, cope was a strong word to use, but she had methods for dealing with those kinds of sleepless nights. Tonight was a different problem.

Na’an.

Ever since that festival they catered at, she’d tried to act normal. Tried to pretend that she hadn’t been surprised by Na’an’s dancing, to ignore how charming Na’an had been, to forget how happy she looked when she laughed. But every now and again, Na’an would get it into her head to dance and of course she needed a partner. Adelle loved and hated it: loved dancing again and the attention Na’an seemed to pay her, and hated that she craved it. It’s not like Na’an had shown any interest in how she placed her hands on Adelle’s body. Adelle stuttered through the next step and growled, before restarting the kata. Na’an was just a friend. A good friend, but just a friend all the same. It was ridiculous to keep herself awake at night with daydreams and “what-ifs.” That was for teenagers, young love, and holo-dramas. Not a broken person like herself.

Her foot hit the ground in the last stance and she held the pose, slowing her breathing down. Na’an was stable now. She had a home, a job, and people that cared about her. She’d only bring her down from here and Na’an didn’t deserve that. Adelle just wished her brain would get on the same page about this. She closed her eyes, breathing in the crisp night air. Emotion, yet peace. She could do this. Putting aside her own feelings wasn’t that hard. Passion, yet serenity. But there was Na’an, whispering in her ear, her body pressed against her own. Adelle rubbed her forehead and ran it through her loose hair. She walked back to her starting spot and took up the first stance. She’d run these katas all night if she had to.

Anything to drive out these thrilling but ultimately unwelcome thoughts.

[member="Vidalu Na'an"] | [member="Leigh"]

 

[LE-03 (Leigh)]

Leigh's motion-detector activated at approximately 0312 Standard time. Such activation was unheard of, given the physical proclivities of both her partner and the healer [member="Adelle Bastiel"], to have one or both of them stir well before sunrise to engage in heavy physical activity. The faint audio feedback she received--the padding of feet from the most distant hammock, the slow opening of the hut door in order to prevent it creaking--were also consistent with Bastiel's behaviors on many nights, when whatever kept her from sleeping soundly led her to start the day far too early. Leigh decided to pay it no mind, and continue charging in relative peace. Adelle Bastiel seemed to prefer believing that her nightly activities went unnoticed, after all.

Then, several minutes, the droid heard a growl.

The growl was distinctly humanoid in origin, so the probability of Adelle Bastiel encountering a wild animal outside was minimal at best. However, such vocalizations were uncommon for the gentle Healer, at least when awake. Such aggression in her friend's movements, particularly at 0319 Standard, was something that did, in fact, attract Leigh's curiosity. So, being careful to move slowly and silently, Leigh righted herself and made her way towards the hut door herself. She only paused once, to turn back and check on her partner. The sounds outside had not roused Vidalu Na'an from REM sleep, bundled as she was in a rumpled nest in the center of her hammock. Her breath hitched once--from some random snatch of what organics called dreaming--and then settled back into a peaceful rhythm.

There would be no need to wake her for this. Leigh made a point to push the door as carefully as Adelle ever did, to prevent it from creaking.

Out on the dirt path, the Healer was performing some ritual exercise that Leigh recognized as being derived from lightsaber training--katas, Na'an had called them once. As the droid watched, Adelle thrust her arm forward and down in and uncharacteristically angry gesture, her breath coming in sharp bursts that seemed to Leigh rather counterproductive. Na'an had always given her the impression that katas were meant to be a calming practice...

So why was Adelle Bastiel not calm?

"You seem unsettled."

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

"You seem unsettled."

Adelle jumped and silently swore. Of course, she woke [member="Leigh"] . The droid never let anything slip past her, never let anything go. She held her last stance for a moment longer then let her arms and shoulders sag. None of it was working and now she'd woken Leigh. Job well done, A+ for not disturbing anyone else.

"It's nothing," she said, even while she knew it wouldn't put off the droid. "Just can't sleep again. Sorry I woke you."

Planting her feet in the starting position again, Adelle took a steadying breath and tried to clear her mind. Her body staggered through the steps as her mind veered off track again.

"Dammit!" She raked her hands through her hair and paced. "Okay, maybe it's not nothing but it should be."

 

[The Girl In Green]

DAMMIT I DID THE THING

 

[LE-03 (Leigh)]

Leigh paused before replying. Something that should be nothing yet was something was, possibly, one of the most infuriatingly organic things an organic could possibly say. Yet whatever it was, had clearly upset Adelle Bastiel to the point where her body was no longer responding normally to external stimuli.

"I believe it is safe to assume," she said, "That what is troubling you is different from your normal reasons for being awake at this hour. Should I awake Na'an? Perhaps she can empathize more fully--"

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

"No!" She rounded on [member="Leigh"] , stepping forward as if to place herself between the droid and the door. The word seemed to fill the quiet night with its force. Adelle bit her lip, realizing just how inappropriate the response was: Too loud, too forceful, too strong for Leigh's suggestion. But the idea of Na'an trying to help Adelle through her attraction was terrifying. She'd surely be disgusted and push her away, keeping her at arm's length. She was one of two friends in Adelle's life.

And Adelle wasn't about to risk that.

"Look," Adelle said, forcing her heart rate to normalize. "It's not something she can help with. It's just a little thing that my brain is spiraling into a bigger deal than it is. Making mountains out of molehills, that kind of thing. I'll deal with it."

 

[The Girl In Green]

AUGH I AM THE WORST

 

[LE-03 (Leigh)]

"But your heart--"

Leigh responded to her friend's biometrics almost before she knew what she was doing. It was only with incredible restraint that she tamped down on her response, letting her circuits follow a logical train of thought.
Adelle's heartrate was elevated, yes. It had skyrocketed, however, as soon as the droid had mentioned the idea of waking her partner. The Healer's response to the very idea of Na'an had been just short of violent--a wildly different response than Leigh had anticipated.

It was Na'an, then, that was the problem. Had Na'an acted in a way recently that would merit such recrimination? Had her indiscretion last week at the Starfall festival been so extreme that the slowly growing friendship had been damaged, rather than bringing them closer together as she had thought? Had Adelle been flushing out of anger, rather than happy exertion and enjoyment of Na'an's efforts? Had Leigh's estimation of that situation been so wrong?

"If Na'an has upset you this much," she said gently, "She would want to know about it. She holds you in such high regard."

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

Such high regard. Na'an held her in such high regard. Adelle shoved her hands into her pockets and studied the packed earth beneath her bare feet. That was the problem. She couldn't have both; life didn't work that way. She couldn't be both Na'an's "Doc" and her lover. "Doc" was selfless, made sure Na'an stayed healthy and stable, anchored Na'an to the real world.

Adelle couldn't be any of those things in a relationship.

"It's not—" Adelle halted, trying to find the right words. She finally looked up at the droid. Leigh, solid, stable, dependable Leigh. Leigh had always been a good listener, even when Adelle stumbled through memories. Even when the nightmares kept her up and sent her to the cockpit of a loaned freighter or outside the hut. If anyone could speak reason, it was Leigh.

"It's not like that," she said softly. "Na'an hasn't done anything wrong."

Her legs folded beneath her and she sat on the path, looking at the night sky and the dormant farm in the distance. "How long did you know Na'an could dance?"

 

[LE-03 (Leigh)]

​"Unofficially? I received that knowledge as part of my initial programming."

So it was about the dancing. Leigh let out one of her strange, glitchy sighs, then eased herself into a seated position on the stoop. "My...mother knew about her time as a Hutt slave, even if she never saw the results for herself. Officially...I first saw for myself about a year before we left the Order. There was a harvest festival--celebrating a successful year. The Noba boy invited Na'an to join him for a reel." She allowed herself a chuckle at the memory--the jangle of a tambourine, the soft syncopation of the drums, her partner's bare feet and broad grin flashing in the firelight. "By the end of the night she had won three hundred credits off the local drunks."


She took in Adelle's face, watching the night sky with strangely rapt attention. Something in the human's expression put to rest any worry that the droid had, that her partner was somehow in trouble here. Perhaps the problem with the droid's initial estimates were that they had not taken the evidence far enough.

Perhaps it was Doc who was in trouble.

"I suppose after you see it once, you start to see it everywhere."

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

Adelle smiled wanly. Yeah, after the festival, that sounded a lot like Na'an. She could just see the cocky twist to her smile, the gleam of trouble in her good eye. For once, she didn't try to fight her imagination but she couldn't picture Na'an doing a jig. Not after her performance at the Nivek party.

"Last person I danced with," she said, "was my partner in CorSec, Rishii. She . . . was also my lover."

She leaned back, settling herself on the ground with her hands behind her head. "Before her, it was my master. He taught it to me to help me with my lightsaber footwork." She paused, thinking about how fluidly Na'an had moved from one step to the next. "Neither of them had Na'an's skill."

Adelle rolled over onto her stomach and looked pointedly at Leigh. "Both are dead. Because of me. Leigh. I have a backdoor protocol too. But it can be accessed by anyone with the right words. I followed you out of the Order because—"

Because what, exactly. Because they were the only people she trusted? The only people that would put her down if it came to it? Or because they were the closest thing to friends she'd had in ages and she was so damn tired of being lonely. Adelle rested her forehead on the ground. All of it. Because of all that and she wanted to stop being alone.

The truth. Leigh deserved the truth. However complicated it was.

"Because I thought you could and would put me down if it happened." She looked up at the droid's blank dome and wished Leigh would use her hologram more often. If only to judge the droid's reactions. "Na'an ought to keep her distance."

 

[LE-03 (Leigh)]

Leigh listened without a word. Adelle had never spoken about her reasons for following them out of the Order, and Leigh had presupposed that those reasons had not been the same as their own. This...had not been one of the possibilities that she had debated, at the time.

At the same time, it was not unfamiliar territory. What Adelle was describing was very much like the Mother protocol she herself feared, only more accessible. And her terror of the ones she cared for dying at her own hands...

"You know how unlikely It is that she will do so."

She leaned forward, her arms resting on her knees, knowing the effect that this would provide with her massive bulk.

"Adelle," she said quietly, "Why do you think Na'an and I initially agreed to our partnership?"

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

What. She blinked. "I thought— It was a directive or protocol that She— You really . . ."

It shouldn't surprise her, if she was being honest. Leigh was practical and stubborn, often to extremes. Na'an could be defeatist at times, and even as ruthlessly practical as Leigh. Adelle looked up at the looming droid, her dome blank where her holographic face could be. Despite knowing Leigh's character, the droid presented an intimidating image.

"You're both healthy and stable now, though," she said at last. "I am decidedly not. And I don't know if I'll ever be. And even if I was, I don't know that I'd have even a snowball's chance in the Nine Hells."

 

[LE-03 (Leigh)]

"A snowball's chance in Nine Hells of what, exactly?"

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

That knocked the wind right out of her. She had assumed Leigh would have known, or guessed, or expected it. And she had just waltzed into that can of worms. And it wasn't like she could just pretend she didn't say what she just said. Leigh wouldn't let her.

"O-of Na'an being interested," she stammered out. Her mouth suddenly felt dry and she couldn't look at the droid's face, much less meet her gaze. "Romantically."

 

[LE-03 (Leigh)]

And there it was. Leigh's dome flickered as the last few bits of information clicked into place. Being a droid, she had had no firsthand experience with sexual attraction. The flickers of feeling she had inherited from her mother provided some context, but they were so hazy and half-formed that they had not even been considered when Leigh had first watched a blush creep across Adelle's face. Somehow, she had the feeling that the two women would respond to sexual attraction in very different ways.

But there was no denying it. She had it straight from the bantha's mouth, as organics would say. Something about that dance had triggered this...mating response, and Adelle Bastiel was responding to it with a level of rejection bordering on revulsion.

On one level, Leigh could relate.

On another...the reasons for such a response were patently illogical.

Leigh sighed another one of her glitchy sighs. Then she turned on her hologram and fixed Adelle's gaze with the most even stare she knew how to calculate. "Adelle Bastiel," she said with all the patience she could muster, ​"The only reason either of us are anything resembling 'healthy and stable' is due to your influence. You encouraged us to open up to each other, and to you, despite our misgivings. Despite the damage each of had done, and could still do. Why is your situation so special that doing the same is out of the question?"

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

"My situation," Adelle snapped, bristling, "is that I have gods-damned memnii and that what I lived through was designed to break organic minds!"

The placid face Leigh had on infuriated her. It was Leigh, for sure, but it was so calculatingly, meticulously Leigh that the droid might as well have not even turned on her hologram. Adelle scowled and rolled back over to sit up, facing away from the droid.

"You, I might be able to talk to," she said grudgingly. "Provided the myriad of issues I have don't stop me. Na'an . . . has 'such high regard' for me. I don't think she'd understand what I've done. Who her 'Doc' used to be.

"She wouldn't be able to handle the memnii." Adelle tore up a handful of grass and flung it far from her. "She'd live through every pain, every fear, every thought I had. She'd feel everything. And I'm sure as hells not about to make her experience trauma again. Not if I can help it."

 

[LE-03 (Leigh)]

If Leigh's physical body was capable of bristling, it would have done so. As it were, she doubled down on the calculations designed to keep her projected face calm. "I was unaware that you respected me so much more than you did her. What an odd sentiment towards someone you claim to be so drawn to."

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

If ever there had been a time where she wished she could share her memories on contact, it was now. Adelle was on her feet in a breath and faced Leigh.

"You don't get it!" Part of her knew this emotional response was due to fatigue. The rest didn't care. Leigh didn't know. "She would see skin and muscle slide off someone's skull! Taste formaldehyde as it drowned her. Watch piranha beetles eat someo—"

Blood. There was so much blood.

Adelle shoved a fist into her mouth to keep herself from screaming. Her broken fist pounded uselessly against the transparisteel box. She closed her eyes shut and bit down as other details from the memory flashed through her brain. Even as she tasted the metallic tang of blood, she couldn't shut out the screams. Scalding tears escaped and ran down her face. Her jaw and hand ached but the pain was enough to ground her in the moment.

Dantooine. Sometime past 0315 Standard time. Leigh was here. Sitting on the doorstep. Na'an slept inside, hopefully still fast asleep. Adelle ran her free hand through her hair, knotting her fingers in her own locks as she sat down. She could feel. The tears, the aches, the sharp pull on her hair. Air on her face, cool earth beneath her. She could hear. Nocturnal insects, the trees sighing, Leigh's quiet machinery whirring. She could speak and be heard, she could make her own decisions, she could feel the Force around her, she was not drugged, not being abused, not being manipulated.

And Leigh still waited.

"Na'an—" Adelle coughed and tried to clear the creaking from her voice. "Na'an wouldn't know how to handle that."

 

[LE-03 (Leigh)]

Leigh waited for Adelle's breathing to slow. As she waited, she trawled the Holonet for all the information she could find on memnii.

Memnii. Noun. an extremely vivid memory produced by Caamasi when they experience jolting events or situations, such as witnessing the murder of a family member, meeting someone famous, the birth of a child, or another personally important event. Memnii contain emotions and physical sensations, along with other less tangible parts. Unlike normal memories, they do not fade in intensity over time.

Based on several accounts, the reliving of traumatic memnii was a horrifying event, in large part because of the inability of the memory to fade with time. The re-feeling of sensation, the sights and sounds and smells of an event always as fresh in the mind as if they were happening all over again...

Once again, Leigh could relate. Being a full-blooded Caamasi must be much like being a droid, with full recording capability and a full emotional spectrum.

But still.

Na'an had been able to handle LE-03, given the time. And the right opportunity. Na'an had even given her a name.

"After everything she's told you about her life, do you really believe that?"