Chemical Reaction

[Jairus Starvald]

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C O R U S C A N T​

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Union Street Repairs​

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[member="Irajah Ven"]​

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"...and then you just turn the wrench two times juuuuust like this." The vehicle sputtered first and it almost seemed as if it didn't have any effect, until a moment later it roared into life and left Jairus with a self-satisfied smirk. They had decided to cancel their reservation at Coruscant's finest lobster tent and instead come back to Union Street. He had been giddy about his progress when it came to mechanics and engineering. The Sith Lord would probably never be as good as Griff, who seemed to have been born with a wrench in his hand and had oil grease for milk when he was just a babe, but... it came easier to Jai than he had expected.

So being able to show her that was a pleasant thing.

Almost pleasant enough to miss how strange Irajah was acting. It was the little things, the soft tense around her lip, her brows furrowing when she thought he wasn't looking, the way it almost seemed as if she was going to say something, before letting it lie again.

Might have been a period where Jairus would simply read her mind and figure things out that way. But these days he didn't like to do that anymore- it didn't seem... right. Oh, sometimes they did share their mindspace, but this was different. Raj was worried about something and trying to work up her courage to say something. He wasn't about to rob her off the effort and do it for her.

They were better than that.

"I ain't as good as Griff, that one plays machinery like an instrument, but... I like it." Jairus said, leaning against the speeder and grinning like a kid who just got a present. "It is one of the shards, I think, I think one of them was really good at this." It were the little things- the way his hands moved and curled around the tools like they simply fit. The way his mind suddenly shifted in the way it thought.

It was strange.... always was strange when another perspective merged in and made itself known.

But this time Jairus liked it.

 

[Kuzo]

Irajah watched him work, his satisfaction and pleasure at the job unfurling beneath his hands infectious.

It was almost pleasant enough to set aside her worry. Almost.

She'd checked. Three times and even done a scan. There was no denying it. No pretending that the occasional bouts of dizziness and nausea were coincidences or linked to the strangeness that had happened almost a month ago. She was fairly certain it had happened on that trip, but couldn't pinpoint it with any precision. It wasn't like there was any lack of opportunity, after all.

Honestly, Raj wasn't even entirely certain how she felt about it herself. If it had been just her, alone, she wouldn't have hesitated to terminate and would not have shed a tear. But it wasn't just her. This involved someone who she cared about. She lived with him, ate with him. Woke up next to him and fell asleep in his arms. This wasn't some sort of casual fling. They had been slowly but surely building a life together- what it would look like when they were done was anyone's guess, but she had no doubts that they were both building with two in mind.

Not three.

"I'll admit I don't have any idea what you are talking about," she said with a smile, but there was a certain tension around her eyes that simply didn't melt away. She leaned over, kissing the spot right where his earlobe met his jawline. "But I'm glad you're happy and enjoying it. You should feel good about it. Nothing quite like working with your hands."

With the work she did, she would know.

They'd already eaten, simple but homemade, Raj helping with prep (she was good with a knife, even if the cooking was his domain). They'd come here so he could show her things, so they could simply..... enjoy the evening. Out, but not in public. It had been his idea, and a good one.

So why was she wishing they were somewhere with more..... distractions?

"Um. Hey. Can we.... talk?"

[member="Jairus Starvald"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

There were plenty of things that Jairus did with his hands.

Some of it destructive, some controlling, some pleasure and some both of the latter, but there was something... interesting about creating and repairing instead of the usual killing. Less blood on your hands and what was there was usually your own. Not that Jai disliked his other hobby, he had slid off too far into the hole to truly be concerned about the killing.

It was just a thing.

He was good at it and sometimes the Sith Lord even enjoyed it.

That was really all that mattered as far as Jai was concerned. It didn't make him a good person, might even make him a bad one, but he wasn't in the business of making excuses.

"Yeah." He tried to act casual about it. As if Jairus hadn't yet noticed she had been fretting about it the entire night. Just as Raja would probably play along and not note that he had been aware all along. An amusing exercise and one that allowed both of them their own spaces of mind when they needed it.

It wasn't always a good thing to be dating a mentalist.

Finally the Sith turned away from the mechanics and towards her. "What's up?"

 

[Kuzo]

Ho boy.

She made a face suddenly. It seemed like it was out of nowhere, but really, it followed a perfectly logical progression. She had planned out everything she thought she wanted to say. To ask him, first, how he even felt about kids before working up to it. Oh, he'd see it coming then, but he'd be able to ease into the idea, figure out how he felt about it before she said it. It would give him the space because there was no way he wouldn't realize what she was getting at if she went around it from the side. He always knew.

But it was right then that Irajah realized just how exhausting that sounded and decided to not treat him like some delicate flower that needed to be eased into it.

After all, for how they spent so much of their off time, it couldn't possible be *that* shocking.

"I'm pregnant and I'm not sure if we should keep it."

There.

Right out in the open.

[member="Jairus Starvald"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

Jairus blinked.

It was *that* shocking.

"I- We- This-" Every time the Sith Lord started a sentence he immediately broke it off, because it made no sense to him. He? A father? Him? Are you... are you joking? That was the last thing anyone in the Galaxy would want right now. Who in the Force thought this was a good idea. How in the Force had this happened- Jairus realized that he was still standing there with an open mouth, just on the brink of saying something. "I did not think it was actually possible. For me. I mean."

He had been immersed in the Darkside for years now.

If there was one thing that Jai had assumed was that kids would be out of the question. But it seemed that was... not the case here.

"Do... what do you think?" Jairus stepped closer, hand brushing hers before curling his fingers around her hand and squeezing gently. He didn't overwhelm her with a hug, mostly because he was still in moderate shock because of all of this.

The answer was obviously to terminate it.

Them? Parents? In what world did that really make any sense at all? But why was he feeling this warmth around his chest and stomach?

That light feeling of joy, already tugging the corner of his mouth up.

A child.

Their child.

 

[Kuzo]

She watched him openly. Not warily, but unsure of what to expect. The play of emotions across his face was a clear progression before becoming muddy again. But as she watched, she noticed one thing for certain.

The smile, tugging insistently at the corners of his lips. It would falter, sometimes fade for a moment as he went through whatever 'negative' series of thoughts he might be going through, but it always returned.

She was relieved that he went for her hand and not her abdomen. Four weeks. She wouldn't show for so much longer, but she had dreaded the very idea of his response being an immediate reaction of that variety. Oddly, him recoiling would have been preferable to him falling in love in the blink of an eye.

The fact that they hadn't even said it to each other.... would have made that sort of gesture too much for her. Better, a relief, that his hand curled through hers instead. It left options, and reinforced them as a pair, rather than....

She huffed out slightly, putting that away for now.

"We'd be terrible parents," she said, quietly but firmly, giving voice to one of his own thoughts without needing to pluck it from his mind.

"We already know that I am." Blunt. There wasn't guilt, self recrimination in the words. But there was a firm awareness. She had already failed a child, a boy she'd taken into her life.... and then lost when she thought she was doing the right thing.

[member="Jairus Starvald"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

He didn't respond immediately.

They had this discussion already and Jairus had made it clear a number of times that it hadn't been her fault.

But Raja wasn't easily dissuaded. In the end the Sith had decided to let it lie. Why rail against the storm over and over, when it will wash over you regardless? It was easier to make small gestures that weren't comparable to ramming your face into the wall every single time. So, instead Jai squeezed her hand at that mention. Signify that he was there for her in the moment and beyond. "I never thought about having children." Jai finally filled the silence.

"But I always expected- Raja, it surprises me, but-"

Shoulders shrugged helplessly as he searched for something in her eyes.

There was palpable frustration there now, because he wasn't sure how to phrase this. It was completely outside of his wheelhouse. Him having children, that was a joke if he had heard any. But why did it feel so good and right in the moment?

"I want-"

Before Jairus could continue that line of thought he suddenly froze. Amber swirled in his irises as tension and adrenaline took over. "Down!" The Sith pulled her down with him and it was just in time. Shots whirred through the air where they had stood just a moment ago. Instead the blaster bolts splashed against electronics in the back of the room. The machinery whined, static outbursts as fine-tuned electronics were suddenly fried from the overload of damage.

"Move," She was already moving, both of them crawling around the speeder and using its bulk as shelter.

 

[Kuzo]

'That's the thing Jai,' she'd said, frustration bubbling through her tone and into her eyes. 'It's lovely that you think so. But that's part of being a parent, adopted or somewise. The safety, the care of that child is your responsibility. There is no dodging out of fault. I may have sent him away because I thought it was the right thing to do, but that didn't change that it ended up being the wrong thing. It's not about forgiving myself, or anything like that. It simply is. Chose to bring a child into your life.... and you choose that responsibility. You can't do it and still not own it.

You can't have it both ways.'

That conversation was part of her thoughts on the matter now. How could it not be? It wasn't something she had truly understood until after [member="Boo Chiyo"] was gone. She had gone into that with optimism, hope that just by sheer force of will and desire to do the right thing, somehow she could muddle through and manage.

She was warier now.

She watched him, not with that wariness, but with a certain uneasiness. Because, if she were being honest with herself, she had expected something in particular. Relief, perhaps, that she seemed ready to say 'no, this is not good and we shouldn't'. An 'of course, you're right, we'd be terrible parents.' But she saw that tugging at the corners of his mouth. The fact that he was not saying those things and instead seemed torn-

But what he wanted would have to wait.

They both felt that swelling in the Force at the same moment. Both moved, faster than they had any right to except that they were so much more than a Journeyman Mechanic and a Doctor.

Without knowing where the shots had come from.... and from who and why.... there wasn't anything they could do besides get to a more secure location. Just as they reached the stairs up, toward the offices, Irajah reached out with the Force, flicking off the light switch across the room, plunging the whole place into darkness.

It would slow up whoever this was, but she and Jai knew the facility better and it gave them cover as they scuttled silently up the stairs.

"Piss anyone in particular off lately? Or was it me?" she muttered quietly out of the corner of her mouth.

[member="Jairus Starvald"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

For a duo that had just been shot at both of them were awfully calm.

But that was simply the nature that each of them possessed after all this time. She had been killed once before and Jairus wasn't a stranger to assassination attempts either. Hell, one of his closest allies had tried to have him killed with a droid rigged to self-destruct one proximity was met.

"Not that I am aware-" they reached the end of the stairs and rounded a corner, but in the meantime his thoughts went to the job he had completed two weeks back.

"Took out a corrupt banker a few weeks back, left the wife alive." Brows furrowed in thought. "Mistake, I think." Jai enjoyed hitting the target and only the target. It kept things neat, calculated, but above all it was simply more challenging that way. If you just killed everything in site you might as well just plant a bomb and get it over with.

The blaster fire had gone silent after a few minutes, but that didn't mean much.

"Slip around back and hit *them* in the back?" Would also give them the opportunity to take out any scouts on the lookout.

If Raja had been concerned that Jai would suddenly treat her differently, because of the pregnancy? She would find it wasn't based on anything accurate. He trusted her and knew she could handle herself perfectly these days.

 

[Kuzo]

"Suits," she agreed, teeth set in a smile he knew had nothing to do with joy.

But he, of so few people, could recognize the enjoyment in it.

There was a brilliant, feral vitality in the dark haired woman. No longer pale, frail, fighting so hard just to live. No, now she radiated an almost offensive aura of good health. Of strength. It lay low most of the time, her usual visage that calm and almost gentle expression she defaulted to when things were relaxed. But in moments like this.... she was finding a footing. And she liked it.

Not getting shot at. That was irritating, especially considering the timing. But if it was going to happen anyway?

Why not revel in the knowledge and ability to make it so those that had brought this down would regret it?

She had not been worried he would treat her differently perse. Jai had never, even when she was struggling with Gideon, treated her as weak or lesser. That wasn't to sat that she wasn't a bit wary about it. This was new territory for both of them and they still hadn't actually sorted anything out.

The way out through the back from here involved going out a window and down two stories. So far, they didn't hear anyone walking around in the workshop, but that didn't mean no one was there. Sidling up to one of the windows, she slid it open, the jam smooth and well maintained- but with him in charge, what else would she expect?

[member="Jairus Starvald"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

He leaned against the balustrade and watched her slide down.

The ripple of muscle just underneath the skin, the ease as she slid down, the flashing of white sharp teeth in the dark. It made him grin back and his mind touched hers briefly: "If I knew you had such an easy time with the pole, I would have installed one in our bedroom." The tease was relayed through a mental whisper, before she settled down on the ground and was quickly followed by Jairus. Two beats later and they were crouching against the wall and studying the grounds around the corner.

First nothing.

Until something happened.

Shapes detaching themselves from shadows and pushing through the dark towards the opened garage. Laser pointers from their rifles, geared to feth and back, if Jai wasn't mistaken... they even set-up a turret at the far-end of the street.

"This ain't no banker's wife." He leaned in, a whisper away from her neck and ear. "Have you pissed off anyone lately?" The question was more substantial than that, of course. Both of them were in a business were it wasn't hard to make an enemy or two. But enemies that were willing to go through such lengths? That spoke a tale. They seemed military or ex-military at the very least. That, thankfully, limited the number of people that could reasonably be involved.

Even if it didn't make this any easier.

 

[Kuzo]

Mmm, you think you'd get that kind of show for free? The smirk filtered across his mind before withdrawing.

Everything came so much easier these days. And how could it not? After over a year shackled by Gideon, this? This was a cake walk. It had taken some time to feel fully comfortable in the new body, to strengthen, to stretch. She had not even begun to reach her fullest potential, but with how everything felt now, she wasn't sure that there was a limit. Somewhere it waited perhaps, but she dove in and swam, deeper and deeper, into the depths with never the bottom in sight.

"I kill a lot of people hun," she murmured, easy and matter of fact, peering into the window with a small frown. "But unlike you, I am very careful that they have no one left who will miss them."

Different lines of work, different necessity. She usually only took 'patients' without ties, living family that might come looking for them.

"Besides, if someone had a bone to pick with me, they'd show up at the clinic."

She frowned, eyeing them.

"I don't think the First Order could know I'm alive," she whispered thoughtfully. "But it's possible- no, if they did, it would be the Ren, not paramilitary. Alliance? We did destroy that facility."

The speculation didn't really help anything. Unless they took one of them alive, well...

"So," she murmured as they watched, taking stock of how many, where and carrying what, "Right before we were interrupted. You want.... what, Jai?"

[member="Jairus Starvald"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

His thoughts went back.

Maybe they weren't here for the Doctor or the Eidoloclast, not for Raj or Jai. Maybe, just maybe they were here for someone with a lot of old ties to Coruscant, who had lived and ruled here decades back. How would they know he was Carach?

Who knew?

Only a few besides the two of them. All people he could trust, couldn't he? Had he not been careful enough in his dealings maybe?

"It think that- wait what." Jai blinked suddenly and looked to his side. Her expression was expectantly and not at all amused, as if she was joking. "You want to do this *now*?

Only mild disbelief as the Sith looked back around the corner and noticed that most of them had disappeared into the garage by now. It was time to either move or get out of here, the window rapidly closing for either option.

But Jairus liked Agua, he wasn't willing to run. Hand gestured for her to follow. "Can we do this after?"

 

[Kuzo]

"No," she said firmly.

To say that Raj was stubborn would be like saying hutts could stand to lose a pound or two.

"You had been about to say something. You weren't mulling it, you didn't say 'I need time to digest and think'. You said 'I want-' and then these nitwits showed up."

She was quiet for a moment, but in a heavy way that he had come to know meant she was trying to decide just what she wanted to say, rather than was done talking.

"It may seem like a trivial conversation to you Jairus," she said softly, "but to me it is nothing of the sort."

He wasn't the one with a potential living, breathing person inside of him. There was no way she could explain to him the immediacy of the feeling. There was no capacity for patience when it came to his response here. She could have simply taken care of it and told him after the fact..... or never at all. At an earlier point, she probably would have. If she had discovered this in the month after they had met? There would never have even been a question of telling him- that wasn't what they had been. But now?

No. It couldn't wait.

"Besides, we can handle this lot with our eyes closed," she muttered. Peering up over the edge of the window, she watched as the last back disappeared into the garage again. Casting out with the Force, just in case- but no, that room was well and truly empty. With a push of the heel of her hand, she tapped the window open.

"Grif needs to get locks for these."

She paused, frowning, head tilted slightly to the side.

There were locks. They just weren't engaged. Peculiar.

[member="Jairus Starvald"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

Frown marred his expression as she turned away and checked once more if the room was truly empty.

This wasn't trivial for him, but Jairus supposed that was how she saw it.

She was right, of course, they could handle these goons with their eyes closed and once upon a time Jai would have been confident in that knowledge. But the past few months had been blow after another and that instilled caution in him. It was the realization that sometimes things weren't what they looked like and that treading carefully could avoid a lot of problems. How would everything look like, if Carach hadn't forced himself into a situation with the Lady-in-Silver before he was ready?

Might have avoided his heart problems.

A hand pulled her gently back by her shoulder, so she would face him again. "Raja, this is not a trivial conversation for me." He just would have preferred to follow it without being interrupted every two seconds. It would do a lot to avoid confusion.

"I want-" Annoyance flashed as they were interrupted again. This time by cries of alarm from the end of the alley, where the troopers had discovered them. The lone soldier had already shared chatter with his squad and was about to point down the barrel. "For kark's sake." Hand slipped away and out of nowhere a blade folded out and Jairus' form blurred into action. Within the span of two breaths he was already there, blade angled right and piercing through throat and rotating, causing internals to turn into pulp.

Instead of a reprieve the fight escalated as more troopers flooded the alley.

"I want a child, Raja." He dropped to his knee and just about avoided a shock-lance ripping into his face, before spinning his blade straight through armor-weave and cleaving gut open. "Our child. The moment you said it, I didn't feel fear, I felt joy."

Their shared connection deepened as Jairus pulled from the Force to increase his strength.

It also relayed hesitation at the end of that sentence. "...but I feel you doubt."

 

[Kuzo]

"Oh."

She didn't respond further right away, because right behind her the glass of the window shattered. One of the other troopers, alerted over the comms, had come up on the inside while Irajah had been distracted by his response. Not a lot, but just enough for her to miss him. He slammed the armored gauntlet through the window, grabbing her by the hair and pulling back.

The grimace on her face, through the Force, had nothing to do with the pain as he tried to slam the back of her head against the window pane, and everything to do with the annoyance of further interruption.

I doubt, you're right, Jai. Reaching up and behind her, she grabbed the man's wrist with both hands. With a jerk, both body and with the Force, she launched him over her shoulder, crashing through the broken window and raining glass down on them both. She didn't even flinch when one of the pieces sliced neatly across her cheek. We're selfish. Busy.

Easily twice her size, he somersaulted over her, landing hard on his back on the duracrete.

This is the life we lead. Dropping to a knee, she pushed her hand, palm open, against the helmet before he could regain his feet. With a pulse of the Force, the metal cracked, along with bone beneath it. Something thicker than blood started to leak, but in the darkness, it was easy to ignore.

Irajah didn't.

"Blood, Jai. Violence. Passion and anger and all of the wonderful parts mixed in."

She stood up, looking over at him as the blood started to trickle down her face.

"What right do we have.... to bring.... a child into this?"

[member="Jairus Starvald"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

"You ask a question you already know the answer to. We take the right, it's not given to us." Jairus pointed out, as he ducked under a blow and then knocked the soldier down. Heel come crashing down and shattering helmet visor, then bone and skull.

It was all one swift, smooth motion, before the Sith Lord moved on to get closer to Raja again.

Obvious to him, the answer was.

After all... they were Sith. The entire point was that they made things happened that they wanted, no matter what the universe or the Force tried to tell them. They didn't follow the Force, they broke it, subjugated it under their will and made use of it. "Don't you want to make something that is.... ours. Not like an empire, a building. A life made by us, protected and cared for. Something more to... love." He settled down next to her, hand already brushing the blood away from the clean cut.

Head tilted.

Then his left hand flicked to the side and another soldier, who had been trying to sneak up on them, got smacked into the wall... and stayed there.

Hanging and struggling to get out of the illusive and invisible trap.

But Jairus had only eyes for Irajah, trying to gauge what it was that she was thinking without actually reading her mind. Just reading her face; her brows, her lips, her nose and eyes, her everything. Trying to figure out what was mulling there, turning like gears.

[member="Irajah Ven"]

 

[Kuzo]

"That's just it, Jai," she said her voice soft, almost gentle.

Her hand flicked behind her, up and down again- the soldier coming through the door toward the window jerked back as his rifle slammed into his faceplate, shattering it, and then she fed his face into the floor.

"It's not about what we can take. If it was I wouldn't hesitate. There is nothing in this galaxy that we could want that would be out of our grasp if we chose to take it."

Turning her face into his hand, she kissed his palm.

"It's about what we can give. And I am far less certain of our capacity for that."

Looking up at him, she searched his face. She wasn't sure what she was looking for.

They had never said before that they loved each other. She suspected they both knew it- it was not a shocking thing, the word spoken. She had known for some time that was what this was. For both of them, though what his capacity for love truly was, that she didn't know. That he loved her, as much as he was capable of it, that she did not doubt, despite words never passing between them. But just what that meant to him? She had never pried.

"I love you, Jai," she said simply, matter of fact. It was no great epiphany, but it was the first time it was let out into the world. "You have a great many things that I admire. That I cherish. But do you have it in you to give?"

She didn't mean as they did with each other. This would be different. It would mean compromises that the two rarely needed to both with. It would mean giving things up, including this. Not the moment, not his work- certainly not her work. There were, after all, things she knew she had no intention of giving up, and she didn't expect him to either.

But them.

The two of them against the world.

It would turn to three, which could be better, more.

But it would never be the same.

[member="Jairus Starvald"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

She wasn't wrong.

It would be different, but for some reason Jairus was not concerned about that.

A challenge, certainly, it wouldn't be easy and there would be things they would need to compromise on. But would it not be worth it to share something as intimate and close as their own child? I love you, she said and the little smile turned a fraction broader. If this had been in the very beginning? It might have concerned him, but now? Now it was a simple statement of reaffirmation. A long time ago Jairus had realized that words held little meaning for him- he could say anything, twist it in any shape or form and in return people believed him.

They wanted to believe him, his voice, his grin, the glint of a burning eye.

So he had resolved himself to simply... not say anything and instead love her through his actions alone. To reaffirm over and over again that this was something Jai was serious about. It had scared her in the beginning, the Sith Lord knew.

Concerned her for certain.

But as days turned to weeks and those turned to months things had changed and eased into a comfortable dynamic.

"I love you too, Raja." Just before pulling her in that same left hand squeezed into a fist and twisted, in return causing a neck to snap one floor up. The sniper fell and they were alone again for the moment. This time Jai did not allow anything to interrupt the kiss as he pulled her in close and lips locked tight. Breaths mixing, rising, the sweet taste of honey, before a break ensued. He whispered against her lips then. "Had you asked me that in the beginning? You'd know my answer, but now?"

"Now I want to make two... into three and face the world together." He nuzzled her softly, before elaborating to seal the deal. "I want to give, Raja." I want to try.

 

[Kuzo]

She breathed in and out, chest rising and letting it out in a soft whoosh again as she regarded him.

It was perhaps the first time she stood, clearly weighing him. Letting some invisible mental scales tip back and forth, slowly seeking an equilibrium. His words, his actions balanced against her fears. It had never been this close before, watching each side sway and bob. Usually it was clear, one way or the other. She didn't even need to compare, it was simple.

But as the scale shifted, she reached out hesitantly, and added a single feather to one side.

It wasn't much. A warmth breathed onto it. But the scale tipped as she allowed love to weigh in his favor.

"If you can give," she whispered softly. She pushed up on her toes, bringing her lips back to his. "Then so can I."

Kissing him again, she let it go. The worries and the fears. It was stubborn, claws holding on tightly, but that was alright. That was the nature of these things. It would hang by tooth and claw until it finally gave out against the weight of everything she could pile atop it. Right now, she simply allowed the faith she had in him to start.

It was a good place to do so.

Breaking the kiss, she smiled crookedly.

"Last two are running. Should probably figure out what they wanted."

[member="Jairus Starvald"]