Private Stranded Lights

[Cale Gunderson]

She laughed, it was forced, but he liked the sound, and missed it when it was gone. Then Maeve did what Cale had thought was impossible, and admitted that she had been wrong. If it were about something less serious Cale would've laughed, made jokes about having to catalogue such an admission for the archives, but instead, he just listened to her.

Every word she said seemed impossible, the opposite of what he'd imagined would come next. He shoved up off the floor as she turned, still waiting with bated breath for the moment that she pivoted back into fulfilling his nightmares, but the moment never came. Instead, when she asked him about happiness, he found himself smiling with something besides cynical derision. Cale's heart thumping in his chest, his nerves were alive with an anxious but optimistic buzz.

"Yeah, I'm happy Maeve Linahan. It was a good answer." Cale looked down at her and let out a sigh of his own. Something told him to leave it, to let things be as they were and be grateful for that much. He couldn't though, not after he'd lived a lifetime with things unsaid and questions both unasked and unanswered. "But I have another question,"

It was funny, he'd faced down death a thousand times or more, and at least a few times that evening, but this made his stomach turn more fiercely than nearly any he could remember.

"What if we-, if I-," The Jedi Master's usual composure began to crumble as Cale stood before her. "What if I wanted things to change? With us?"

The words hung in the air for a heartbeat before he clarified.

"If a different way, obviously."

Maeve Linahan

 

[Maeve Linahan]

"What do you mean?"

Maeve stared at him. To say she was lost would've been an understatement. She didn't quite understand what he was getting at, but the way he looked at her prodded at something in her chest. He was nervous. Probably more than she'd ever seen him before. For a Jedi Master, she didn't think Cale could be so easily rattled.

Maybe it was just the lack of sleep getting to him.

"You've already earned my trust. What more do you want from me? A hug?" She huffed a laugh and turned back to scavenge through another container of spare parts. Honestly, a hug from Cale didn't seem so bad, even if he did smell like dried blood and old leather.

But Maeve didn't hug. That just wasn't her. It wasn't something she did.

"If there's things you want to change, fine. I will allow you to pilot the ship from now on, if you're so bent on it. But don't expect me to start calling you 'Master Gunderson.' I might still be considered a Knight, but that's only because I've never bothered to pursue the rank of Master, let alone taking on a padawan. A mistake I will be sure to avoid."

Maeve stopped digging through the container of parts and looked back at him. "We're equals here. Don't expect that to change. Now, is there anything else you want? Or are you going to keep standing there and gaping at me like some bantha?"

Cale Gunderson​

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[Cale Gunderson]

She didn’t get it. Of course Maeve didn’t get it. Cale wouldn’t have gotten it either if their places were reversed. For a heartbeat he wondered if should forget what he was thinking, and wait until things were the other way around. If they ever would be.

A hug wouldn’t have been too bad either, admittedly. She probably smelled of dirt and sweat, yet the prospect didn’t bother him.

“No I don’t want a-,” His words were cut short by her own, and with each word she added Cale found himself fighting not to laugh. A smile crossed his features and he shook his head with a sigh as Maeve dug through the tools once again. Maybe he was right to second guess, maybe this wasn’t the right time, or he wasn’t the right person. Then she looked at him, and he knew in an instant that he’d prefer to risk it.

“All kind offers Maeve, really. I’ll fly from now on, and if you start calling me ‘Master Gunderson’ I will leave you on this rock to watch the nursery. I don’t want us to be anything but equal, and I’m a little hurt you’d say otherwise.” The flash wry smile at the close made it clear he wasn’t actually bothered at all.

“And for the record,” Cale stepped in close again, brought his hand up to Maeve’s cheek and kissed her. It was a simple kiss, soft sincere, and short enough so that if he’d read her wrong he’d have a microsecond to prepare himself to go through the nearest wall. “I wasn’t gaping at you.”

Maeve Linahan

 

[Maeve Linahan]

Maeve rolled her eyes at that stupid, ridiculous, handsome smile of his and shook her head. "Don't worry. I would sooner refer you as a glob of grease than a—"

She didn't have time to finish the sentence. In a heartbeat, Cale stepped forward, took her cheek in his hand, and brought his lips to hers.

Like a flock of startled sparrows, all thoughts fled her mind.

Eyes wide, she felt the softness of his lips, the stubble on his chin. She tasted the mint leaves he'd chewed the day before and smelled the old leather on his back, and then something more. Cedar. Sandalwood. Smoke. It was entirely Cale.

How strange it was—kissing. Maeve never thought to experience it herself, not when there was Sith to hunt and wars to fight. Romance was a distraction. Attachments led to weakness. Love was just not something she cared to pursue, and it wasn't meant for women like her, who only knew how to kill and fight and destroy. She should've pushed Cale away.

So why didn't she?

By the time he leaned back, she was breathless. Stunned. She stared at him with a dumbstruck look, as if he'd fried every nerve in her brain. And maybe he did.

She looked down, bringing a hand to her lips, then back up at him. For the first time in perhaps her entire life, her face turned red. "Did you just—?"

Suddenly, the screen door slid open. Elya poked her head into the room with Denth at her back. "I expect I'm not interrupting, but I imagine that you might be needing this." She procured a small, cylinder-like object in her hand. A circuit fuse.

"The boy found this in one of my old cookie jars. Silly me, I must have hidden it there a long time ago, just in case anyone tried to steal or activate the signal beacon without my knowledge, back when I thought Denth was... well, dangerous. A good thing he caught it."

Elya smiled thinly. Maeve wasn't sure whether Elya had seen everything, or was completely oblivious to what had just happened. Either way, she wasn't sure whether to be thankful, or hate the old woman for the interruption.

Cale Gunderson​

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[Cale Gunderson]

“I did.” Cale managed to answer, though only just before Elya and Denth re-entered the room. Maeve had been sweet, her lips had been soft for someone he’d known as a fighter first and foremost, and when they’d parted a tingle had run down his spine that made Cale feel alive. Maeve hadn’t thrown him through the wall, and the flush on her cheeks didn’t seem to be born of anger.

For a moment Cale considered reaching out and shutting the door on Eyla and the boy, then trying again. But that would’ve been setting a poor example, and there was still every chance he was wrong. His eyes had been closed, Maeve’s hadn’t been. His mind was insistent on grabbing any detail it could do that Cale might second guess himself. He imagined they’d have an interesting enough conversation when the message was sent, and all that was left to do was wait.

“I-, thank you ma’am, it’s quite fortunate that you still had such an important piece.” Cale didn’t believe the cookie jar line for a minute, and he was beginning to suspect the villager might have been playing a game of her own with the two of them. Matchmaker must’ve been an entertaining role in a quaint place like this.

Cale wasn’t entirely sure how it worked with Jedi, the Nobles seemed to have it figured out, and a few others pairs, but more often than not it seemed complicated to the point of futility. That was all relationships though, wasn’t it? Not that whatever had just happened could be called that.

Taking the piece into his hand, Cale went about installing it into the device and sending out a distress signal across all alliance channels. It only took a few moments to get a response, their ride home would arrive by the next morning, and the adventure would be at an end.

Yet all Cale was worried about was whatever came next between himself and the Jedi next to him.

Maeve Linahan

 

[Maeve Linahan]

Maeve stood like an idiot while Elya handed over the circuit fuse and Cale installed it into the beacon. In a matter of seconds, he had the cursed thing working again, and its screen winked to life as a signal was sent out across every local Alliance channel. Help would come.

Just not soon enough.

Maeve struggled to bury the feelings in her chest, hiding her embarrassment. She tried her best not to think about that brief moment she'd shared with Cale, about his hand on her cheek, his lips. She fought to think only about the mission, about her duties as a Jedi.

And by Ashla's Light, it was difficult.

She clenched her jaw and watched as Elya and Denth trailed out of the room, the old woman saying something about 'baking cookies while the adults talked.' But Maeve wouldn't have it. As Cale stood and dusted off his hands, clearly finished with the beacon, she moved towards him with a sense of newfound strength. She needed to make some things clear.

Before Cale could even open his mouth to breathe, she silenced him with a harsh finger.

"Don't talk. I am going to say this once and only once." Her eyes narrowed. "You will not utter a single word about what just happened here to anyone. You do, and I will make sure you're eating from a straw for the rest of your life."

Maeve cleared her throat. "Now, when we return back to the temple, I will permit you to take me out on one date. One. Don't expect anything more beyond that. Understood? Good."

Without even bothering to hear his answer, Maeve turned and stalked out of the room like a dark cloud. She couldn't stand to look at him for another moment. Worse, she couldn't believe what she had just said. Maeve Linahan, chancing a date?

What had the galaxy come to?

Cale Gunderson​

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