Private Stranded Lights

[Maeve Linahan]

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Maeve burst from the water, gasping for breath.

It had happened all so quickly. One minute, she'd been flying a shuttle through the stormy skies of Tovarskl, a remote planet in the Outer Rim, and in the next, she'd been struck by a stray bolt of lightning, frying her ship controls. What came after was straightforward enough.

She had crashed, spiraling out of the sky, shattering into the storm-tossed sea below. How she escaped was a miracle, and while she faced violent waves and currents that threatened to drag her under, Maeve didn't care. She was worried about something else. Someone else.

"Cale?" she called over rumbling thunder, coughing water. "Cale!"

Maeve had lost him in the chaos of the crash. The Jedi Master had joined her for what was supposed to be an easy mission—uncomplicated, nothing too difficult—and yet thanks to her carelessness, he could've been underwater, choking on salt. Ashla's Light, what had she been thinking? How could've she been so foolish?

A flash of lightning lit up the waves. She searched around, legs kicking beneath her, hair matted to her face. Maeve had no idea where to start.

Cale Gunderson​

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[Cale Gunderson]

Cale was a good pilot, a great one even, and he'd told Maeve that at least twice before she took the shuttle's controls. Given the outcome of their last flight, it would've been a great time for an 'I told you so' if he hadn't been preoccupied with keeping the rushing seawater out of his lungs.

His legs kicked against the cold sea, trying to get clear of the surface, his arm pumping at his side in a poor attempt to aid his ascent. Cale could hear his long-dead master chiding him for having been so arrogant, for thinking he could've avoided the task of swimming for the rest of his days. His fingertips brushed the surface, breaching the surf only for a mighty wave to shove him back under.

The Jedi almost panicked, feeling the fear gripping at his heart as the dark waters clouded his vision. For a single heartbeat he let the fear and panic have him, then he redoubled his efforts. Arm lifted above his head, Cale kicked with all his might, furiously thrashing his legs against the deep sea around him, going up and up until finally he breached the surface.

Cale sucked in a breath of cold, salty air as his head bobbed above the stormy sea, a flash of lightning filling his gaze with light before another wave shoved him back into the dark, cutting off the profanity-laden spew he'd nearly let spill from his lips. He drove himself back up again, dark hair soaked darker and clinging to his skin as he forced himself back up.

"Maeve?" His eyes swept the rolling darkness, looking for her amidst the swirling debris and stormy waters, hearing her own call close by. "Maeve, where are y-?!" Another wave shoved him under, and he struggled to find his way back, his lone arm straining to drag him back out of the depths, burning with the effort.

His head emerged again, and this time the waves did not silence him, "Feth it all, damned piece of shit waves!" He hissed as lighting cracked across the sky once again.

Maeve Linahan ​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

She barely heard his voice in the storm.

Maeve whirled, turning towards the distant call of her name. She might've thought it a trick on her ears, but she knew that gruff voice from anywhere. Cale was alive.

She swam to the source of his voice and spotted a shadow in the dark waters, thrashing against the current, his head hardly above the surface. "Cale!"

When she reached him, Maeve found him spewing curses like a madman. It wasn't expected of a Jedi, but honestly? She felt the same. Waves continued to lash out at her, biting into her skin, and she grit her teeth as if that alone would help her through it. She'd been in worse situations, but this was definitely in the top ten. Or seven? Maybe top five.

Maeve pushed harder, spitting saltwater, and while she held onto the sliver of wreckage for support, she reached out for his one arm. "I don't think cursing the waves will help!" she shouted over another bellow of thunder. "Take my hand!"

Cale Gunderson​

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[Cale Gunderson]

"If you haven't noticed, my hand is a bit preocup-," A wave washed over him, briefly submerging him and drowning out his sharp retort as though the force itself were chastising him. He shot back up through the waves, taking in another deep breath. He met Maeve's gaze and felt a surge of relief that it was too dark for the flustered expression on his face to be plainly visible. After so many years spent relying on himself, and eventually a collection of others small enough to be counted on one hand, somehow something as small as taking a comrade's hand felt as consequential as starting a war.

Kicking his feet hard, he propelled himself forward, letting the next swell carry him forward to her. Cale reached out, pushing aside self-important pride and took Maeve by the hand. When they were safe and dry, he expected there would be a few smirking jabs made at his expense, but Cale was happy to endure them at this point. The water was cold, the rain torrential, the storm above vicious.

For a moment, he considered the irony of two seasoned Jedi being felled by a stray lightning strike, then cringed at how he imagined Aleks would take the news, whenever it reached the boy. That took what little humor he'd found in their predicament away with haste.

"Are you hurt?" The words he'd intended to say involved asking Maeve if she had managed to activate the shuttle's distress beacon before it went down, but the others left his lips instead. Somehow, being in the water wasn't quite as nauseating as being on a ship above it, and Cale was grateful for that small mercy. It would've been beyond humiliating if he began vomiting in the midst of the ordeal.

Maeve Linahan ​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

"Well, just grab something!"

Maeve's arm ached as she stretched to him. Surprisingly enough, he took her hand, and with all her strength, she pulled him to the wreckage. Even with adrenaline bursting through her veins, she struggled and couldn't help but groan over the waves, "Ashla's Light, even with one arm, you're heavy."

That, or it was the current pulling at him. Same difference.

They both shared the chunk of metal at the next lurch of a wave, and she clung to it, nails digging into the steel. Sick with nausea, she glowered at Cale—now that he was alive, there was no need for her to feel worried for him anymore. For now.

"I'm fine!" Another thunderclap. She cringed as saltwater sprayed into her eyes. "Did you manage to activate the beacon before the ship went down?"

Maeve had considered asking him if he was alright, but she was, of course, always the more blunt one out of them both. Besides, he seemed well enough, considering his… condition. "I don't know how long this storm will last, but we need to find land. Can you help kick? Push? We should move east, I think I saw land that way!"

Cale Gunderson​

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[Cale Gunderson]

"Oh, quit your complaining." He took hold of the debris, bracing himself against the piece of metal and trying to get his bearings, pushing aside the stinging of the cold. Now that he was certain that she was fine as evidenced by her usual bluntness, Cale afforded himself a single smirk in her direction before thunder shook the world.

"Did I-? You were the pilot, the beacon was your job!" Cale snapped as another wave rocked against them, further matting his dark hair against the rest of his head, leaving the Jedi to huff in frustration, biting back another slew of curses. He missed protecting fat senators from the blades of Sith, who were far too easy on the eyes for how utterly drowning in the darkness they were. Now they were the ones drowning, but in the most literal sense. It wasn't half as fun.

Her questioning sent a rush of fresh frustration through him - of course he could kick. Rather than give voice to his insecurity, Cale simply grit his teeth and began to kick, driving them eastward in spite of the raging waves and the weight added by his soaking garments. His saber was still on his back at least; it never seemed to be shaken loose, no matter what the situation.

Maeve Linahan ​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

“My job? I was too busy trying to steer the ship and bring the controls back online to bother with that—you could have sent out a signal!” Maeve snapped. Frustration bled into her voice. The saltwater was probably getting to her head. She was already exhausted after almost drowning just minutes ago, so to have this argument now wasn’t exactly helping.

She huffed. “Enough talk. Just… just swim!”

Bright hair matted to her face, Maeve took on the next wave and she coughed up a fistful of water. Mother of Moons, she didn’t know how much longer she could last like this, but she tried anyway, kicking her legs beneath the ocean’s surface. Slowly, agonizingly, she and Cale made their way east through the storm, lashed by the wind and rain.

It wasn't long before he spotted a glimpse of land.

“There! Do you see it?” she said over the next flash of lightning. Barely visible over the waves was the black shape of a shoreline, maybe another mile away. “We’re almost there, if you could just—”

Maeve didn’t finish the sentence. Another wave crashed into her out of nowhere, and her hand slipped, forcing her down, the current dragging her underwater.

Cale Gunderson​

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[Cale Gunderson]

The sight of land was something Cale took her word for, his head bent down against the piece of debris as he kicked hard against the raging sea. Then the wave came, violent and powerful, slamming him forward against their makeshift float hard enough to bruise, but he blinked away the pain, and readied to launch a retort Maeve's way. When he turned his head though, she wasn't there.

"Maeve!"

There should've been at least a moment's consideration, Cale should have at least contemplated the consequences of letting go of their raft. He didn't.

Cale let go of the raft and dove, reaching out in the Force to sense her in the dark of the churning sea, Cale reached out and wrapped an arm around her. He kicked up, heaving her up with him, straining against the grip of the current and the violence of the waves. The Jedi Master called to the Force for aid, desperate to just make it above the water. His legs burned, his chest screamed, his grip on Maeve began to slip-

And he broke through.

"Maeve?" Cale called to her as he desperately took in air, treading water and trying to catch site of the debris they'd clung to without success. He saw the shoreline though, growing ever closer as the waves rolled toward the faint black shape. "Hey, talk to me! You better not have fething passed out, Iam not dragging you the rest of the way!"

Cale was lying, he'd do it if he had to, but he held out hope she didn't know or plan to capitalize on that.

Maeve Linahan ​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

Maeve sank into the dark. She'd been surprised by the wave crashing against her, forced to swallow a lungful of saltwater, and disoriented, she spun haphazardly in the water, losing all sense of direction. She blacked out, leaving her utterly at the storm's mercy.

But not for long.

Despite the pain in her lungs, despite how much her head was spinning, she felt something take hold of her, an arm, before lifting her up from the dark. When she broke the surface of the water, consciousness rushed back into her, and then, air. Fresh and beautiful air.

Maeve coughed water, her throat burning. Coming back to herself, she finally registered Cale's words, and then the miserable situation they were in.

"I'm... I'm fine!" she said, cringing against another flash of lightning. The storm seemed to be easing, but it still threatened to drown them both. To survive, they needed to make for land. It wasn't too far now. They could make it with a little extra effort.

"Just swim, you lump of muscle!" Maeve said, then kicked her feet, holding onto him as well, bringing the two of them ever close to the shoreline…

Cale Gunderson​

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[Cale Gunderson]

She bid him to swim, and swim he did. Cale had pushed far past what his body thought was possible by the time they reached the shore, soaked to the bone and sticky with salt water. His hand clawed through the wet sand as the surf rolled past him, pooling around his knees and wrists as he took frantic breaths in. It all burned, his lungs, his muscles, his eyes, if he weren't so worried about being dragged back out with the tide, he'd have passed out in the sand then and there.

Instead, he sat back on his knees, head turned upwards to the starry sky and forced himself to breathe. The rain continued on, indifferent to their plight, leaving Cale to mumble in frustration as he took his arm from around, reached up and pulled off the soaked-through jacket he'd worn that day. The article of clothing so heavy that it could've been woven with iron. He groaned with exhaustion.

"Need to," He sucked in another breath. "Need to find a place to recuperate, for a few hours." Cale managed, looking to Maeve with exasperation.

"Next time, I'm flying."

Maeve Linahan ​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

"I think that… we can both agree on."

Maeve panted, her breathing labored, wet to the bone. Exhaustion weighed on her like a heavy blanket, and so did the saltwater, soaking her outfit completely. All she wanted to do in that moment was lay down and drop into a coma, but much as she hated to admit it, Cale was right. They needed to find shelter.

"Come on," Maeve said, wrapping an arm around him, helping him up to his feet. "Gods, you really are heavy."

With a grunt, she shambled up the beach with him towards the tree line, thick with massive, looming redwoods. The ground was covered in patches of flowers—which Maeve, of course, crushed as she walked—as well as moss and colorful ferns. Eventually, she settled beside a fallen log, where the rain wasn't pelting her back or trickling from the canopy.

She groaned, laying back against a tree, and began squeezing the water from her clothes. "Stranded on a backwater planet with no supplies and nothing to signal a rescue team. Just wonderful." Maeve pushed her hair back, turning to Cale. "If you have any ideas, please, I'm all ears." She patted her left ear, trying to knock some water out. "Well, one ear."

Cale Gunderson​

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[Cale Gunderson]

"Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time." Cale grumbled in answer to Maeve's remark on his heft once again, though with a hint of a smile. They were alive, which given their situation only an hour before, was at least a little bit of a surprise. A pleasant one, to be sure, but it wasn't necessarily the outcome he'd been expecting when the waves had persisted in dragging them down.

He let out an audible groan of relief as they both came down, leaning against the toppled. It took him a moment to process that he wasn't being actively rained on, and in the time between that realization and Maeve's beginning to wring the water from her close, he shot the Jedi a look of incredulity. When he realized she wasn't straining the water from clothes that'd only be soaked again in an instant, the expression faded away whilst a flush took its place.

Cale was more exhausted than he'd realized, which was impressive in the worst of ways.

"Can't say I've got anything, my brain is a bit waterlogged." He chuckled softly at his own terrible wordplay if it could even be called that. "But the council knows where we were going; when we don't come back, they'll come looking eventually."

The galaxy was a chaotic place, and the Jedi Order was, as ever, stretched thin, trying to protect those that lived in it. 'Eventually' could take quite some time, days certainty, but weeks, months, even years didn't seem entirely impossible. That sort of uncertainty wouldn't do for long, but in that moment, it was all he had to offer.

Cale pushed strands of hair from his brow and ran a hand through the clinging mess on his head. He turned his gaze to Maeve and sighed again, trying to steady himself with deep, controlled breaths. Will we always get into trouble like this? Cale wondered quietly as he looked her over for any signs of serious injury.

"For now, I'm thinkin' we need to sit verrry still, until the burning stops." The pain of the exertion wasn't going to leave anytime soon, but it was a nice thought.

Maeve Linahan ​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

"They better come soon," she huffed, pressing the water from her hair. She didn't want to stay stranded here any longer than she needed to be.

Cale had a point though. The Jedi Council would surely send out a search team if they didn't report back soon, and Maeve had habit of checking in frequently, always coordinating the next mission. Valery or Amani was sure to notice her absence at some point. Right?

Maeve sloughed off a layer of her robes, leaving her just in a plain, white garb. Still, she felt soaked to her insides, and after a moment of rest, she stood up and shuffled around the small patch of forest they were temporarily calling home.

"I can't stay still," she said. "Not as long as we're trapped here." As weak and tired as her body felt, she couldn't stop. The stubborn girl in her refused to.

Slowly, Maeve collected what dry moss and twigs she could find and threw them in a pile between her and Cale. Kneeling back down, she rubbed some sticks together and in moments, she had a fire going. It seemed she hadn't lost touch with her old survival skills.

Warmth bathed the two of them as she settled back and watched Cale from across the fire, water dripping from his tangled hair. "You can sleep. Let me take first watch."

Cale Gunderson​

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[Cale Gunderson]

"Maeve, come on." He spoke to her softly, watching as she scraped together what she could for kindling. "You can't whine about how heavy I am and pretend you aren't tired. Start the fire, sit down."

He knew the fire she was carrying, the stubborn insistence to put everyone and everything before herself. It was a Jedi trait if there ever was one, but he'd learned when it did and didn't serve the hard way. Maybe he'd tell her that story, if she kept pushing herself, the absent arm made quite an emphatic point. They were both exhausted, they'd endured something that would've likely killed most others, but he wasn't the one who'd been at the controls when things had gone wrong.

If she stayed awake, she'd let her mind linger on tiny details and what-ifs, or maybe he was just projecting, but either way mattered little in the end, he was going first.

"You're on second watch, I'll wake you when it's time." It wasn't a request, not that he expected that to stop her.

Maeve Linahan ​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

Maeve glowered at him, obviously unamused.

"No," she said curtly at his… suggestion. She wasn't going to let him spend half the night staring into the flames when he could be resting. He'd managed to swim a mile of storm-tossed sea with a single arm. If there was anyone who needed sleep, it was him.

She wouldn't change her mind on this. They could go back and forth all night and Maeve wouldn't budge an inch. Surely, Cale must've known this by now.

"Just because you're technically a Jedi Master doesn't mean you can order me about." Maeve leaned back against the tree, arms folded over her chest. Face cast in warm firelight, she stared at him for a long moment, then huffed. "How is it that you earned Masterhood, anyway? You never did tell me."

As she thought about it, she couldn't help but ask. Cale clearly had the experience, but so did she—what made them so different?

Cale Gunderson​

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[Cale Gunderson]

"Technically, that is exactly what it means." He shot back, sitting himself upright on his palm, eyes narrowing beneath the mop of damp hair. Cale hadn't pulled rank ever, not even once, and even if he'd wanted to, the feeling of unease he had about it gave him all the wrong kinds of feelings. He didn't deserve the title, he'd been outside the order for so long, against it even for a time, yet there had been no arguing with the decesion.

"Actually, I did tell you, sort of." Cale sighed. "Aleksandr Stirsea, you don't know him. He's out on his own these days, but that boy was my apprentice," The title seemed cold for the nature of their relationship, but like his rank, it all came down to technicalities. "I trained him, and eventually, I knighted him. I didn't ask for the rank, they just gave it to me after."

He thought about Illum often, how he and Aleks had waged war in the frigid wastes, weaving between the debris of a Star Destroyer crashing down from low orbit. It was another day he should've never walked away from. Not the first, nor the last.

"Maybe they thought my 'wealth of experience' was sufficient. I was a Knight for a long time before I-" Cale trailed off for a heartbeat, organizing his thoughts and the story of his life in a way that he could avoid lying as much as possible. "Before I went...away. It was different back then; we got knighted fast. I was only a learner for a year or so, lots and lots of time on my own."

Fifteen was too young to have been facing down the horrors of the Dark Harvest, to have been at the front of the galaxy's worst wars, especially alone. He'd raised a boy past the age of 15, it was not the right age to be leading soldiers or facing ancient evils. He'd lived though.

Maeve Linahan ​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

Aleksander. The name rang familiar in her mind, and she remembered what Cale had told her back at the victory ball, about a stowaway thief and orphan. She nodded slowly. "Of course… your son."

That made sense. Leading a Jedi to Knighthood often came with the rank of Master afterwards, and while not always, it sure explained why Maeve never achieved the rank herself despite so many years of hunting Sith. Taking on a Padawan? Sounded like a miserable experience.

"I see," she said. "Perhaps I underestimated how old you really are."

Maeve gave a tiny smirk at that. Though laying back against the redwood, she stared at him more carefully now, unable to stifle her own curiosity—she hadn't missed the abrupt pause and change in his tone, the lapse in his words.

She raised an eyebrow. "But what do you mean by 'went away?' Did you finally have enough and took a vacation from hunting Sith? Now that would surprise me."

Cale Gunderson​

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[Cale Gunderson]

“Don’t call him that, it sounds…strange.” Not wrong though, he called Aleks all sorts of things, some kinder than others, but he avoided that particular title. There was a chance the sentiment was not mutual, after all Aleks had a father, and not some neglectful or abusive excuse of one either, the man had just died. Cale didn’t want it to seem like he was trying to replace him. A stupid thing to fear, but sometimes he had the feeling he was a stupid man.

Cale took the remark about his age in stride, forcing a false scowl that faded into a chuckle and a grin as quickly as it had come. Her question erased all hint of humor from his face though, his expression growing somber in the light of the flickering flames.

“You telling me you’ve worked with me this many times and haven’t looked me up?” It wasn’t a hostile question, but there was no warmth to it. Old intuition made him question if she did know, but just wanted him to say it, seeing a trap where there was nothing but curiosity. Cale had his answer before she ever gave it. She hadn’t. She didn’t know, and a twisting in his stomach made Cale wonder if it wouldn’t be better if she stayed ignorant just a little longer. Would she see him differently? Cale knew he didn’t cut the most inspiring of figures, but the past marred him further still.

“I’ve lived a lot of lives Maeve, some of them not by choice.” He offered a weak smile in hopes that the platitude might suffice for now, or the implication that he had checked her file might distract her from the rest.

“Get some rest.” Cale added without any real force behind the words.

Maeve Linahan ​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

"Your words, not mine," she said with a weak shrug.

At his vague answer about his past, though, Maeve raised an eyebrow. He was clearly dodging the question. As for why, she wasn't sure, and part of her didn't know whether she should press further or leave it be. She settled for the latter. She was too exhausted to start interrogating him. Tomorrow, perhaps.

"I haven't bothered to check the archives," she said. "Should I?"

Maeve tended to with most Jedi she'd partnered with, but she had a poor habit of coming upon secrets that were best left undiscovered. When she'd found out Kahlil was formerly a Sith Prince, no less an heir to Darth Carnifex, it had discolored her perception of him for a long time. The man was a hero, one of the greatest of the Jedi, and yet…

She stared at Cale, suddenly unsure, but she accepted his next words as enough. "We're not home yet," she sighed, looking up at the dark sky. The storm had finally lifted, the rain gone, revealing a glimpse of the stars. "Far from it, really."

She slumped against the tree, curling against a patch of moss. "You're lucky I'm feeling generous tonight. I'll let you take first watch, but only for saving me from the current before." She gave a barely visible smirk. "Maybe then we can consider it even."

A poor joke, but she'd pay him back somehow. For now, he won this time.

With a sigh, Maeve closed her eyes, and gradually let sleep take her.

Cale Gunderson​

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[Cale Gunderson]

"I was drinking, doesn't count," Cale said dismissively, trying to excuse the blunder he'd made that night on Coruscant. He didn't answer her question. Instead, he simply met her gaze with a slight tilt of his head, like she should've already known the answer. Cale wondered what would change when she knew and counted on the anxiety that inflicted to keep him awake for however long he let her sleep.

Every Jedi struggled with the Dark Side. It was an inherent struggle that all of them faced. In a way, he'd been robbed of that. There had been no struggle, no fight because in his mind, Cale had always been of the light. It was the darkness that puppeteered him that was malevolent. Cale had not faced the Dark Side, at least not then, but his body had still done its will. Even with new techniques and years of separation, Cale was still visited by nightmares of his time inside the occupied temple.

The screams were the sort that scarred the very soul. They'd certainly left their mark on his.

"The light is my home, Maeve. It's never far if you know where to look." The words sounded decidedly wiser than any he had a right to be saying, but nonetheless, he settled back against the log, shifting around to make himself remotely comfortable to the long watch ahead.

"Us, even? By the Force Maeve, you sure you didn't hit your head on the way down?" Cale flashed a small smirk in return as the woman lay down and let sleep take her.

The night was long, and he let her sleep, remaining silent on his vigil until morning light began to shine through the dense treetops.

Maeve Linahan ​