The Stars Above Us

Chapter 10

Kess woke up slowly, hiding her face in the cool pillow and forcing herself back to sleep on several occasions. Only the last few incidents of shallow consciousness did she realize she was still on that tiny little ship, but she never saw him. She thought she heard a boot step once, but that was it. She half-expected him to wake her up and make her do something training-like, but he never did.

After a long while, when Luke never appeared and Kess was too rested to get back to sleep, she pulled her naked feet out of the bunk and sat up. The air was moist, warm and smelled of rotting vegetation. The pressure was different. They must have landed.

It took two steps on the grated deck to reach the open cupboard and pluck out her duffel. It was clear that girly girls packed her a change of clothes for they were the only ones who would have packed make-up for her. With a quick visit to the lav, she cleaned her teeth, washed her face, and changed into a set of exercise clothes. It was too difficult to stretch on a sports bra over the arm cast, so she just went bra-less under the big cotton shirt. She stuffed her combat boots on but didn't tie the laces. She was too eager to see where they were and figure out where he had gone. Instead of digging further to see if anyone packed her own jacket, she just grabbed his navy blue jacket hanging from the bunk post and threaded her arms in it.

For a split second, she started for the exit ramp, but the jacket caught her attention the moment it was around her. She draped it over her shoulders and absorbed the big warmth. She pulled the corduroy collar to her nose and drank in the smell of him.

Blindly, Kess sat back down on the bunk and tried not to cry. She pulled the jacket so far around her shoulders that she could barely see over the collar folding over her nose. She hugged herself hard into the heavy fabric, thinking of those times she saw him wear it, thinking of those rare lessons when his arms reached around her. She shuddered out tears and tried to combine those memories into a single fantasy. Those arms around her, that chest in her face, that warmth, that essence, if he would just hold her strong and let her be weak… let her be the 'damsel in distress'… just for a couple of minutes…

But he couldn't.

Because she wasn’t.

With a hard sniff, she wiped her eyes dry and stared at nothing to think on that. She mulled over so many memories of him, of his wisps of impatience in the managers' office, of his laughter in the clearing, of when he talked with his mouth full. She remembered the day when he seemed too giddy during the morning run only to have the midday punctuated by a GQ drill. She remembered the day sitting next to him on the Frakkan beach while they played with the fine-grain sand trying to figure out what made it red. She remembered the day she won at tag the first time and how he yelped with laughter, whipping his hand in the air for a second before turning on his heels to take up the chase with a playful flare of revenge. She remembered that day... that day when Grandpa showed up.

"If you had a reason to wait until your training was over…"

Then he kissed her.

And then Grandpa showed up…

After that day, trying not to think about that day was torture. Meditating away that day was difficult and largely ineffective. She could do it. She did it quite often. But no matter how sharply she focused or how long she meditated, that peace always shattered the moment a spark lit up in his blue eye.

Those sparks were aimed at her often enough, over some joke she made on the Pad, or some childish complaint she made in the clearing. Yet he still managed to shatter her concentration when he was smiling at something else, or when he touched her by accident trying reach for something behind her, or when he just sat there to read a datapad over a meal without even acknowledging she was sitting there.

Usually, she'd say something mundane, something like, "I gotta go home," or, "Here's your report," or even, "Hey Artoo…" Luke's eyes would glance over and that spark would be back, shining at her passed the fist he was resting his cheek upon, as though he were trying to hide his smile behind his curled pinky. In those moments, that day would be shining at her through his eyes all over again, raging fresh as if he had just kissed her two minutes ago.

Mistake or no, after that day, there was nothing that was going to erase that day.

But she still needed him, the shipmate part of him, the Jedi Master, the best friend; she needed Luke to get through this, to climb out of this. She felt like she was at the bottom of a well and all her scrambling to keep from falling farther only made her slip deeper into darkness. She could barely see him anymore in that spot of light far above, and only enough of him to see his hand getting ready to let go of the rope that had her, getting ready to let go because she told him to.

Kess closed her eyes and retreated deeper into that warm jacket for one more moment of weakness. She whispered forbidden words into the corduroy collar. Then she huffed a deep breath and whispered shaky apologies. Then she huffed an even deeper breath and steeled herself to jump back into the thorny journey whether Luke's love was at the end of this road or not.

Kess dragged her clopping boots down the open ramp. She heard no deep hum of power, no speeders zipping by, no voices; just far away caws and cackles and an occasional splash. For a moment, she thought they were on some remote spot on Yavin 4, but she realized she had no idea how long she was out. They could have been anywhere.

She stepped onto the surface in bewilderment. This jungle was grayer and swampier than Yavin. The trees were entirely different in shape and four times taller. Snakes slithered through the brush. Evil cackles rained down in the still air. Vines hung like living curtains. If the ground wasn't a puddle, it was mud or wet dirt. A thick mist blanketed the landscape and drifted up into those giant, gnarling trees.

A few metres away from the open ramp, where three of these immense root-bases created a triangle on the jungle floor, Luke lounged over a steamy little campfire. He sat on one of the crates he'd set up around the spot, leaning his elbows onto his knees so he could cut up a shuura fruit and eat it in pieces.

It wasn't cold, but Kess hugged the blue jacket around her shoulders anyway. This place was just plain creepy. She dragged her loose boots through a carpet of fallen leaves and looked around for signs of civilization as she joined him at the tiny campsite.

She sat down on a crate opposite his little fire and looked up at the dull sky and dingy foliage. "When you said, 'hide out for a few days', I was thinking, y'know, Nakisa."

He grinned softly.

Brown eyes looked around some more. "Where are we?"

"Dagobah." He said it as if she should know the name. He offered a slice of shuura fruit across the space to her.

"Never heard of it." She took it the juicy white flesh and nibbled, still looking around. He had set up two lamps on the handful of crates so the dull sky and fire wasn't the only lighting. A sonic insect repellent hummed at the apogee of the wedge-shaped campsite.

"That's why it's a more effective hide-out than Nakisa," he pointed out, lifting one grinning eye her way.

Kess tried to scoff it off, but she found the humor in it and smiled in spite of herself. A featherless bird cawed overhead. The sky was the color of a dull coin.

"How do you feel?" He asked respectfully.

Kess turned her eyes to see him again and dragged her sights to the ground before actually meeting his eyes. She swallowed hard and adjusted the jacket around her neck some more. "I'm fine."

His brows knitted. "If you're cold, ther—

"I'm not cold," she muttered, snuggling deeper into his jacket.

"Then—

"Shut up."

Timidly, she watched the single flame of his little fire while he added a few more branches to it. The raw orange flame glowed with warmth and comfort. It seemed as though he were shining a single light so she could find her own way out of the dark. Here's the rope, he seemed to say, climb up yourself.

He got up from his perch and rummaged for something in another crate. She secretly watched his blue hip and white shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows as if his forearms were escaping containment. There was no lightsaber where it should be, and no blaster on the other hip. He wasn't even wearing a commlink. Kess assumed it was all set aside somewhere, out of the way but ready to be Pulled into grip should the need arise.

She wondered where her lightsaber was. She needed it to resume its service as her symbolic entrapment before she did something that would make him yell at her again. She needed to get out of these exercise clothes and put on a bra. She needed to stop using his jacket like a security blanket. All it would take is one touch of tenderness and she'd be in pieces. Kess looked back towards the ship but didn't recognize the design. She wondered it if had a shower.

Kess oscillated with indecision. She wondered where her lightsaber was.

Luke squatted down to straddle her crate from the left, sitting unusually close. Kess reared back before she saw that his arms were full of stuff. "What are you doing?"

His hair was in his eyes as he set down a medical kit and started unwrapping supplies. "Your bandage fell off."

Kess watched over her shoulder at his work, watched him clean off his own hands with a disinfectant, and unwrap a white envelope the size of his palm. When he reached up to touch her hair, she flinched.

He paused. His arms hovered over the side of her head. Then, more tenderly, he touched her again. Kess visibly braced herself to keep from reacting to it. His fingers padded to adjust her hair on her skull so he could work.

"This may sting a little."

It did, but only a little. He sat tall over her left side and taped a smaller bandage to the side of her crown. It took work to get it to stay within a full head of loose hair. With his arms up and around her head, Kess fought to keep herself from falling sideways into that chest and start crying.

"How big is it?" She asked instead.

"Not big. Maybe a centimetre. But it's deep. Puncture wound of some kind."

That decrepit Y-wing flashed in her mind, the battle around her, the man in the front seat, the 'puncture wound' she gave Lokey when she stabbed him in the side of the neck with a screwdriver. She could still smell that the stench on the Force when Lokey died and her stomach flipped. She slammed her eyes shut and put her palm over her mouth, face scrunched into nothing. Kess began to shake all over again and tried to implode. "I killed him."

Luke's eyes dropped to her before his hands did. He stopped doing whatever he was doing.

Kess hugged herself in the jacket.

His arm began to move around her back, but Kess jumped and yelped. "Stop touching me!" She curled in on herself like a retreating snake.

Luke dropped down onto his knees in the mud in front of her, trying to dip his head into her line of sight, trying to get her attention without touching her. "I'm just trying to take care of you."

"Well, don't!" She barked at him, wincing weakly even as she did so. "I'm a Jedi Apprentice, not a damsel in distress!"

Luke blinked back.

Her brows knitted like she had a migraine, trying not to look him in the eye but couldn't stop herself. She crumbled with shame and humiliation to have to say this out loud. "I am so scared."

Luke's mouth fell open.

Tears welled up to blur her vision so much that she couldn't decipher his reaction anymore. "Please don't make me do this alone."

He fumbled with uncertainty, standing again on his knees in front of her but unsure what to do.

Kess gritted her teeth and begged. "Please don't let go—

His mouth interrupted hers.

He held her face with both big hands and kissed her, quick and tender, and Kess froze in it. His kiss wasn't deep and it wasn't long, but he didn't run away when it was over either. This time, he hugged her head to his cheek with a shuddering sigh of relief.

Kess just buried her eyes into his neck. "I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong," she whimpered.

Still, he said nothing. She knew what was going to happen, but she didn't have the strength to fight it anymore. His body closed around her and pulled her ear to his shoulder, his arm hugged her head into his neck. Luke's body swallowed her whole, and she just disintegrated in it.

Kess cried hard.

He adjusted his boots in the mud behind him and sat back on his haunches, pulling her with him until she rested completely against him. Despite the slice of his own trepidation, Luke held on tight.

The first layer was a terror so ink dark that she couldn't sense anything anymore. It was like walking blind to find a light switch on a giant landing deck. But even if she couldn't see anything, big arms had her pinned, hard and secure, like lifelines keeping her from getting lost. She balled into his neck and gripped the shirt at his back like a baby monkey.

"I've got you," his whisper danced across her ear.

Crying, it turned out, was more effective than running. She screamed in her mind as loudly as she wailed in real life, both cries slowly released the pressure from a fear so old and so thick that she never knew how deep it went. And it wasn't a fear of dying or getting wounded in battle, it was something else entirely; something about being alone, about being broken-hearted, being rejected, never knowing, never finding her way home. It didn't make any sense. And yet the clear compass point to guide her away from that fear was right in front of her.

Eggplant fear bled out to a brown, chunky mud of heartbreak, deliberately hidden under evergreen pieces of anger.

The crying quivered into a scream. "I hate you!"

"I know," he assured in a shaky whisper.

She balled her fist and tried to hit him against his shoulders, but she didn't have the strength at this angle She squirmed in his grip to try to get away, but he only pinned her harder to the front of his angled body. He held her head to his neck with his arm and whispered into her eyebrow. "I am so sorry."

She crumbled with those words. Those pine green splotches tumbled away as if his whisper reached in and punched holes right through the layer of fury, but those big boulders of brown junk churned in the wake.

"I should've never— " She couldn't finish because she wasn't entirely sure what she was trying to say. "He—

"You trusted him and he betrayed you."

Indigo hate erupted up for revenge! She gripped his shirt again and stiffened every muscle. But even as her body instinctively reacted, her voice questioned the topic. "Who are you talking about?"

Luke almost smiled at the simplicity of that. "It doesn't matter, does it?" He held her firmly to him. "Lokey for deceiving you. Your father for scaring you... Maser for cheating on you. Rix for dying on you... Your grandfather for leaving you and me for hiding things from you."

Like gasket splitting without warning, she exploded into a new angry struggle, trying to beat him up without letting him go.

His whisper was soft. "I've got you."

Pinned down like that, the only way the rage could erupt out of her was through a pugnacious, thunderous, hateful growl. Her voice echoed in the wet jungle until it was eaten by the darkness.

After she was done, the crickets didn't resume chirping for a full minute.

Kess felt another layer of darkness peel off like dead skin. As the midnight hatred fluttered away like moths in her mind, that dark, chunky, bitter chocolate brown was becoming more and more red.

The Dagobah sky was dark and the fire had gone cold. Kess realized she had no idea how long they had been sitting there like that, how long she'd been crying in his arms. She had a tear-drenched wad of gauze in her hand that she never remembered reaching for. They could have been like that for a few minutes as much as it could have been a few hours. The parts of her body not pressed against his warmth or covered by his jacket was feeling incrementally colder with nightfall.

With most of the fear and the anger and the hatred now worked out of the way, she began to recognize what he was doing all this time. She had become a hydrogen tank with a faulty release cap. Luke held her down so the pressure could safely escape. Kess began to sense things again, to see his Force print again. With no other sentients around, no nearby 'walking globs of emotion', not even klicks away in some city, she could relax her mind in the soft rawness of nature and the security of his light.

This was safe. This was private. This was secret. Her mind slowly relaxed, like a muscle finally able to rest, but there was still a barrier. No matter how much she meditated the rest of it, 'that day' still throbbed like a blood blister ready to burst.

And now that she had cleaned out all the murky emotion she was using to muddy 'that day' into obscurity…

Kess grew acutely aware how she lay atop him from knees to shoulders, how there was only one layer of cheap fabric separating her skin from his hands. Her face was in his neck. Her nose was under his chin. She sucked in a deep breath of him and fingered the hair at the back of his neck. She tried to hide her mind from her desire by squeezing him harder, but that had the opposite effect.

Luke was no fool. It didn't take Force skill to feel the heat begin to rise. His mouth moved to her ear and Kess braced for a new rejection.

Luke inhaled a parental breath to speak—

Splat. Splat. Splat.

Rain came down as if some dead Jedi just turned on a water hose onto their heads. Luke winced from the sky. Kess pulled the jacket over her head. Together, they scrambled to their feet and dove for the ship. Tiny geysers of mud splashed up from the ground at their feet. The rain came down cold and hard, but Luke and Kess were chuckling, weak and embarrassed, by the time they ran up the little ramp.

Luke swept away the wet jacket from their heads the moment they were under cover and looked for a place to hang it over the still open ramp. Kess toed off her loose combat boots so she wouldn't track in the mud. She tried to use this moment to shove that last moment under the carpet before she got yelled at again. "Harvest time," she teased weakly.

Luke snorted a goofy snigger and dropped his back against the opposite bulkhead.

Kess took one look at him, at his silly grin and sparkling eyes, at the wet hair drooping into his face and she tumbled right into it.

"Geez, when are you going to get a haircut?" She stepped over and reached up to scoop the wet hair out of his face—

And his eyes drew her in. And his hands took her hips. And she stopped breathing.

And his kiss was exquisite.

Her arms fell around his neck. His palms warmed her ribs. The rain hummed a soft, solid roar on the powerless ship. His mouth was timid and gentle, warm and sweet. The Force ignited and pulsed.

His nose fell against hers and rested there.

She opened her eyes to find him just as breathless by it, just as drugged by it. She knew she should pull away before he reacted like a drill sergeant, before somebody glowed up to tell them to stop, but she couldn't move. Kess was so thirsty for this she didn't have the strength to pull away.

Hands brushed around her neck and fingers wove into her hair behind her ears as if to get the mess out of the way of what he wanted. Before she realized what was happening, Luke kissed her again.

There were no more barriers, no more apologies. No sour wisps of 'it's none of your business.' No more stings of calling it a 'mistake'. There was no power, no people, no interruptions, and no glowing chaperones. Nothing existed outside of this… syrup. He kissed her this way and came up for a breath of surprise, then kissed her that way and stared at her through droopy lids. She pulled herself into him by his wet shoulders and reached for more. The rain roared and the ship slept and they made out in the dark doorway for several beautiful minutes.

As if a timed moment in a dance, both minds drifted toward the empty bunk less than a metre from their feet.

No one would know.

Mouths slowed to a pause.

It was simultaneous, the way she squeezed her eyes shut, the way he bit his lip. Their faces fell together with a mutual wince of regret and craving. Drugged and struggling, Kess whispered against his mouth. "Oh, this has got to be some kind of test from somebody."

Forehead to forehead, he swallowed hard and shook his head. "No. Not a test," he watched her face, "a decision."

Unable to let go, Kess stayed there in his arms and heard him out.

His throat tightened to speak these words out loud. "You want a piece of me? Take it." He gripped her sides with his fingers as his voice grew to a lusty huff, "I want you to take it."

Lust splashed at her like a crashing wave, taking the breath right out of her. His breath shuddered on her cheek. "But that's all you'll get: a piece."

Kess tightened her stomach and held still, listening to that breath in her ear.

"Everybody keeps asking me how soon you're training is going to be over. And no one wants it to be finished more than I do." He shook his head. "But you're not finished, Kess. You're not even close. And you're the only one who knows that better than me."

Kess closed her eyes again and squeezed her eyes shut against his jaw.

He whispered into her eyelash. "I'm not going to fight you anymore. And your grandfather isn't going to show up on us either." He swallowed hard and his whisper paled. "But if you cross that gap before you're finished... If you take it now, all you get is 'now'."

Her fingers gripped the shoulders of his wet shirt.

His whisper grew strong, almost laughing it. "Because if you can't figure out which side of the Force this is on, woman, you have not been paying attention in class."

Luke's words ended a dirty chuckle. Kess stuffed her flushed laughter into his neck.

They laughed guiltily together and they both sighed together, a controlled release of tension and mystery.

Kess teetered, unsure whether to trust her instincts or her logic, unsure to trust anything. She needed to hear him say it. "What do you want?"

After a pause, Luke's whisper crossed her ear. "I want more than 'now'."

Kess drank it up and shuddered under his hands.

"I want more than 'just a piece'," he admitted, "and I'm willing to wait for it. I've been waiting for it." He shook, his hands trembled against her ribs. "But if you cross this gap any further, Kess, I will not hold you back anymore."

Her eyes closed with s****l frustration and intelligent logic. She struggled with wanting it and forced herself to not want it. Yin and yang spun into a hurricane.

Then he whispered the scary truth that came with it all. "But I won't be your teacher anymore either. You'll have to train alone. Or wait until I train someone else to teach you for me." He shook his head. "That could take years, if you finish at all, and by then..." He didn't finish. His whisper ended in a quivering sigh.

Her teeth chomped shut to hold herself back.

"This isn't a test, Kess. This is a decision." His voice returned, husky and harsh. "And I'm giving you complete authority to make it."

His words made her quake as much as he did, but neither of them moved for a full minute.

'Follow your instincts', he always said. But being sentient was about, 'When not to follow your instincts.' Kess realized the zenith of Jedi training was figuring out when to follow your instincts and when to turn away from them.

Kess pulled her arms from his shoulders and slid her hands to his face. She dared to look at him and brushed her thumb down his lips. Still trembling, Luke opened his eyes and reached his mouth—

Face to face, breath in breath, Kess consciously reached around her human desire and grabbed hold of the logic hiding behind it. She nodded into his eyes and pushed herself away from his body.

Luke's sucked in a breath like she was taking a knife out of his stomach, but his palms allowed her to slip away.

She backed up to the opposite bulkhead of the entrance corridor, still shaking with lust, and rattled her head. Staring at each other across the tiny, unlit space, they both worked to catch their breath for a little while. Luke wiped his wet hair from his face and closed his face for a hesitant exhale. Kess tried to scoop away her long hair over a shoulder, padding the little bandage to verify it was still in place.

She closed her eyes and screamed in her mind to make it go away, but it didn't work.

As though he changed his tune, he reached for her hands across the corridor and pulled her back over to him.

Unsure about this, but unable to deny him, she moved where he guided. Didn't we just make a decision? He wrapped her up in his arms again. He settled back against the bulkhead, locking his knees, and pulled her in to rest against his body. Like a wet rag doll, she just fell against him and drank in the warm comfort of it. This time, he wrapped big arms around her shoulders and held her close, sighing with difficulty into her hair.

Kess hid her face in his breast and collarbone and let herself be weak, just for a couple of minutes…

…and discovered that she could sense a lot more now than she could yesterday.

Obedient to her training, Kess opened her mind and first looked inward to her own mess of color.

All that was left of the old terror was a lavender flush of the unknown future. The wrath blew away like leaves so that only an apple green of inconvenience remained. Irritation tumbled away like a spilt box of bolts, leaving only a handful of baby blue annoyances. The raisin-soured broken heart reached out like a shy sapling to the other Force Print now wrapped gently around her. The passion drained as it stretched, red shifted to orange, brown faded to peach. Her arms held his waist as her Force Print timidly hugged his soul.

Now, looking directly at it on the Force, she could practically see it when it happened.

Carefully, slowly, Luke wrapped his mind around her, despite the swirls of passion still in them both. He sucked air through his teeth and tugged himself down into a meditation to drain out all the dark junk that was left inside him so that he could show the way to drain out all the dark junk that was left inside her.

Kess held on tight, tender and trusting, letting him pull her back into the daylight until she was back on solid ground once again.

The officer shivered in his boots when he reported the news. It didn't matter that Supreme Prophet Kadaan was sitting apathetically in his throne, Admiral Cheenan was furious.

"What made the imbecile think that we would be able to protect him after he took off in broad daylight?" He waved his hands in frustrated disbelief. "Right in the middle of the base? Did he think those twenty flight groups would just stand around and watch?"

The officer didn't answer that.

Kadaan set his elbow on his chair and rested his long cheek in his palm. "Where are they?"

"They were seen boarding a small transport ship and going into hyperspace three days ago."

Cheenan laughed sickly, ready to wring the officer's neck. "He didn't ask you where they were three days ago."

The officer's eyes stretched sideways to stare at Cheenan.

Kadaan swished his fingers in the air. "No, no. It's alright. This gives me an idea."

Cheenan waited with respect, but still clearly wanted to backhand the officer anyway.

Kadaan narrowed his eyes at Cheenan. "Has Shori Ka shown more intelligence in your communiqués?"

Cheenan shrugged. "I don't sense Shori Ka to be the type to panic like Mugwot Pon did."

Kadaan waved a finger. "I wonder if the entire team might consider working together in concert to aid in our offensive."

Cheenan nodded to consider this. "You think they can bring her to us on the way out?"

Kadaan studied his fingernails. "They will if they want to live."