Too Stubborn To Die
Equipment: Outfit | Lightsaber
Tag: Open
Gatz had only come to Naboo to put flowers on his parents' graves, but while he was here, there was one other thing he had to do.
Dark cowl pulled over his head, Gatz's boots echoed quietly off of the stone paved streets of Theed. Even here, at the edges of the city where the less fortunate lived, the infrastructure was still mostly maintained. That changed, of course, once he diverted from the street to the alley. The streets were seen, so of course they were taken care of. But this narrow passage between two city blocks was rough, cracked, and uneven.
It was hidden, so the damage wasn't as noticeable. Society so loved to hide away the things it didn't want to see.
He found himself at the end of the alley, in front of cracked duracrete stairs on the back of a small building that led below ground level. Gatz stepped down them, reaching for the handrail, only to notice it had been torn away from the wall. Odd—the railing had still been there, the last time he was here—but not surprising. Homes this far out from the center of Theed tended to be... run down. He should know: he'd lived only a few blocks away from here.
Fifteen steps or so later, Gatz came to a door. He didn't bother knocking, no one ever did here. He simply swung it, and stepped through.
The basement room was smaller than he remembered as a child, but was largely the same: a small table and a chair near the entrance, roughly a dozen and a half sleeping bags on the floor behind it, as well as a multitude of blankets and comforters spread around. Seemingly smaller or not, it was a room he knew all too well, and one he could never forget.
One small safe haven for the homeless: a place to stay for when the nights got cold. Even now, there were slumbering forms wrapped up in the blankets strewn across the floor. Men and women of all ages... and some children too. That last one had always bothered Gatz—Theed had orphanages, but some these children were either never brought to them, or had fled from them.
"One moment!" Gatz remembered that voice, though it had been a decade since he'd heard it.
But Gatz hadn't returned here to catch up with an old caretaker. He simply dug a credit chit out of his belt and left it on the table. A small fortune—and yet only a fragment of the money Roche had laundered for him, stolen from Kragan Garr many months ago. But, fragment or not, Jackie would have the money to feed, clothe, and shelter the less fortunate for many moons to come.
That was all he cared about.
He heard footsteps approaching, probably old Jackie herself leaving her makeshift kitchen. But by the time she'd reached the table, Gatz was gone, door shut behind him, and standing at the top of the stairs once more.
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