Soulbreaking

[Meeristali Peradun]

Spoiler

Chasin City Hospital
Commenor

Vibrant orange eyes watched the entrance as citizens and foreigners came and went. People passed each other on the walk, a gaze cast occasionally to his tail, his large frame, the... acid scars that sprayed from one side of his face, an ear, his scalp. A mother moved her child to the other side of her body as the pair of them passed, her eyes moving over him with a wariness that he had become used to, but it was something to which he hardly paid a mote of attention. His thoughts were elsewhere. How many months had it been?

How many, this time?

He couldn't be and wasn't angry. This was always the way things were, between them. Being Jedi, it simply could't be helped... but being what they were to each other - whatever that was - seemed to feel as if it should give more information direct from the source, rather than secondhand, but no matter which way the news of the disappearances came to him, the way it made him feel when it led to the effect it would have on [member="Avalore Eden"] banished thoughts of anything but her from his mind, and it was the reason for why he was here.

Across the street.

Just staring at the entrance.

"Feth, you idiot," a hand rubbing over his face and coming to rest, obscuring his chin, "go."

The hand dropped.

"Just go."

And so he went, not trying to look any less menacing - trying, it had been found, was futile - as he crossed the street, making his way to the entrance, halting just out of range of the door sensors. A soft sigh escaped him and he stepped into range of the sensors, the doors wooshing open, admitting him. Within, he took stock of the entry area, waiting patients, nurses manning the check-in desks. This went on for a few minutes before he finally approached the desk. A woman with curly brown hair, a slim face with laugh lines, and a name tag that said 'Eveneisti' looked up... and up to his face from where she sat.

"Good morning."

He gave her his best approximation of a smile.

"Morning. I'm here to see Healer Eden?"

She seemed to think about that for a minute.

"May I ask the reason?"

He blinked.

"Jedi business."

She smiled, then.

"Your name?"

He scratched at the growth of stubble along his jaw.

"Tell her a man with orange eyes and a tail is here to see her."

She blinked.

"Alright, sir. Why don't you take a seat while you wait. I warn you... it could be a while."

A genuine smile bent his lips. Small, but it was something.

"I'm patient."

 

[Avalore Eden]

"Master Eden."

It wasn't a good time, but the lifeblood of a hospital didn't thrive on what constituted a good time for anything. Nothing ever happened at a good time, especially not for the resident Healer. Why had she chosen Commenor? Why Chasin City Hospital? Why not ...any other planet but this one? Why hadn't she just relocated to one on Cato where she'd made her promises and signed away her life? Why hadn't she just stayed at the Sanctuary and fulfilled her duties as expected?

Because nothing in her life had ever gone as expected.

Commenor was a planet that needed her. One of the great trade worlds of the Republic, heavy on civilian and merchant traffic, light on just about everything else. Jedi were not particularly common here, so when it was announced that a Jedi was here to see her, Avalore looked up from her current patient.

Orange eyes and a tail. She felt her mouth go dry and the scar tissue on her hands draw momentarily tighter. Time halted just for that second and suddenly all eyes were on her.

She felt them. Every single one of them.

Avalore cleared her throat, "Is it urgent?"

"No, Master Eden, he said he would wait."

"Thank you."

And wait he did.

He waited through four shattered ribs, a punctured and collapsed lung, and internal hemorrhaging.

He waited through the painstaking long process of removing bone splinters from the heart piece by piece.

He waited into the wee hours of the night where fluorescent glow replaced natural sunlight.

When finally Avalore appeared she was pulling blood-stained gloves from her arms, wearing a surgery smock painted red. The Healer uttered a quiet greeting to him, brown eyes dulled by the weight of all the things she carried around with her day in and day out.


In her office she offered him a seat while she washed up but made no great hurry of the task. Not with any intention, of course, but simply out of her own routine. After dropping her Healer's robe in the laundry bin and tossing her gloves into a contaminate box she moved to the large sink in the corner where she ran the water until it steamed then slowly began to scrub at her arms.

"How..." did you find me? This was the question she felt forming in her mind but she held it back with a furrowing of her brow and a deepening of her frown. That question implied she was hiding, and while that wasn't exactly a lie it also wasn't what she wanted him to think. She wasn't hiding from him...

...or was she?

"...how are you?"

[member="Meeristali Peradun"]

 

[Meeristali Peradun]

He watched and waited - what was waiting a little longer, in the grand scheme of things? In truth, he had arrived without prior notice, inflicting his presence on her day; the circumstances demanded his patience. Over the spread of their relationship, patience had been key what with the long stretches between their meetings, and was no less needed, now. So he watched in silence, citric eyes following her movements as she disengaged from the long day and went about cleaning up.

"Well, all things considered," he said, in response, "thank you."

His laced fingers hovered between his knees, elbows staged on his thighs. What things? Would she ask; would she need to? He gave so little, and it was the way of things between them.

"And you?"

The words came out with a cautious hope, still more than he intended to let on. He wasn't entirely certain what to expect, coming here, but he was without doubt as to what he hoped.

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

Avalore gave pause in her scrubbing, the steam fogging up her gaze. Or was that forming tears?

"...terrible," she could feel a sudden shudder send a choking sob through her chest, hands curling under the steaming water, turning red, "I thought it would get easier, you know? Just close up shop and leave home. Ha, home," she sputtered an incredulous laugh, "I keep thinking he'll be on one of those ships coming in, that I'll walk down that hall and he'll be leading the Manaan refugees up all battered and bruise but he'd be here...he'd be safe..." Avalore's voice became terribly strained, tears pooling freely in her eyes and beginning to dribble hot and thick down her cheeks, "and Diana will be right behind him, and Lira..."

Too much. Too long. The grief had become so encompassing that even her Kasha Crystal couldn't assuage the overwhelming deluge of pain. Clutching at her chest with a strained wheeze Avalore found herself incapable of breathing. The world was spinning, and like all things in her life everything had fallen out of grasp, "...my daughter..."

"...they're not coming back. They're never coming back."

And just like that with the simplest question the once Master Healer of the Jedi Order broke down.

[member="Meeristali Peradun"]

 

[Meeristali Peradun]

He had never seen her like this. The first day they met was the closest point to her present state, yet still paled in comparison. He could have been angry, could have gotten on her case for hiding away, and cutting herself off; for holding it all in and ignoring it, but his mind went back to that first day, and those things never came to the surface; those things were never born and never felt, at this moment. That moment, he watched her implode, and in the next he was standing and going to her, large and ever-warm hands taking her by the shoulders as if he believed she might crumple and fall.

"Hey..."

He couldn't say it was going to be okay. Those words were a mere placation, a band-aid, and their veracity was never absolutely certain. He squeezed her shoulders in a gentle way, just holding her like that for another minute before releasing her right shoulder and putting that arm around her, to pull her to him.

"...hey, I'm herrre."

The other calloused hand went to her head, stroking her hair.

"Avalorrre, I'm herrre."

The words carried a strong-yet-soothing tone - he was unsure if any of this would have an effect, but damned if he didn't try. He didn't shush her.

"I'm herrre for you, cyarrr'ika," he said, finally, with a word, one of many words he had learned between his time spent with the Mandalorians and that which had been shared with him by Mara, "whateverrr you need."

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

There was a very short moment that the Healer went rigid in Stali's grasp. A tenseness reminiscent of a creature prepared to fight off its assailant, to flee forever from sight. In those seconds her breath caught between the painful truths she'd come to learn over the years and the desperate need for comfort. Avalore couldn't handle losing another loved one but she also couldn't handle being alone any longer. Stali's presence made this all the more real and his words were just a reaffirmation that she shouldn't be alone any longer.

As Stali folded her into his arms that fear and desire to run dissipated and she sank against his chest, heavy with the painful grief she'd kept to herself for so long.

"...Hal's gone, Stali. They took him ...they sent me his eyes and a video of him being tortured....and Lira, she went looking for him. The Bounty Hunter found her body," tears were spilling from tightly shut eyes, the strain of her voice growing so tense it began to break, "...my daughter...the orphanage was destroyed during the Netherworld crisis."

"I did that to her."

"It's my fault."

[member="Meeristali Peradun"]

 

[Meeristali Peradun]

She could have told him, at each instance she could have told him and he would have been there for her. He could bring that up, what she should have done, but should have, would have, could have. He bit back a sigh, and left what was done where it was; analyzing it would do no good. The truth would do more.

"None of this is yourrr fault," he said, a firmness of conviction in his voice, "the decision of Hal's kidnapperrrs to take him was not yourrr own any morrre than you could have contrrrolled Lirrra. You did not open those porrrtals, Avalorrre Eden."

He dropped the hand from her head, to have that arm join the other in wrapping around her.

"Instead, you contrrrolled what was within yourrr powerrr to do. You saved lives. You gave of yourrrself when the galaxy itself seemed as if it would snap in two, when the Forrrce had all but abandoned us."

He squeezed her tighter; the wetness caused by her tears was not a bother.

"You help otherrrs, yet cannot help yourrrself. Stop hiding, Avalorrre. Stop burrrying yourrr pain. Let me be therrre forrr you at the darrrkest and bleakest times. Let me carrry you when you cannot walk."

One hand shifted upward to bury itself in her hair.

"Let me love you."

He pressed his lips to the crown of her head.

"Let me in."

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

They say time heals, but anyone who has had to withstand any of measure of time in the agony of frailty never really knew what that felt like. Time doesn't heal, it erodes. It takes away all the things you're too weak to hold on to, wears away the strength of your foundations when you've nothing to help you weather it's unrelenting brutality.

Avalore felt thin. Frail. Not just in her body but in her mind and soul. If ever she might have lost herself to the darkness it had been then.

Time had provided no healing efforts. No soothing touch, no comforting embrace. Time had done nothing but corrupt a slowly dissolving fortitude.

Peace, solitude, serenity? Ideas and notions as frail as the woman in the arms of [member="Meeristali Peradun"]. So easily disrupted by chaos rampant. Where was the placidity in the maelstrom? Who would warm their hands on the fires of their own souls? Where were the Tenets by which her beloved Hal had lived so passionately by? The ones that promised for all things frail and delicate. The gentle feather to hold back the encroaching storm.

There is no emotion,
there is PEACE.

There is no ignorance,
there is KNOWLEDGE.

There is no passion,
there is SERENITY.

There is no chaos,
there is HARMONY.

There is no death,
there is the FORCE.

Avalore withered in Stali's grasp, a broken woman.

There is no code,
there is only LIES.

The Jedi had it all wrong.
~~~~~


Sun. Breeze. A cool fall afternoon. Avalore left the Chasin City Hospital, relieved of her duties early on an uncommonly calm day. An unhurried stroll along the city blocks home filled her bags with ingredients for dinner. Cooking for two had become a pleasant routine - for nearly six months now her small Chasin City apartment had been home to not only her, but Stali as well. Though his job and duties often took him away, it was his dependable return that had helped instill a sense of comfort into what had otherwise been something of a dead and dreary habitat.

Warmth where there had only been the chill of isolation.

In the brisk fall wind Avalore huddled in her jacket and quickly made her way up the steps, unlocked the door and headed inside. It was a simple place of little decoration and less nostalgic value. She kept very few things anymore, finding that too much clutter had a way of unsettling her senses. The quiet of a bare home was welcome after a stressful day at the hospital.

Setting her bags down she noted that Stali's jacket hung on the rack and his keys set on the stand below. Avalore gave this a surprised blink and pulled off her own coat as she strode into the small kitchen, brown eyes searching expectantly, hopefully.

Hope where once there was none.

"Stali?" the clatter of bags being set on the counter, "You're here? I thought you weren't back for another three days."

 

[Meeristali Peradun]

Rinsing off the final dregs of the last week and a half, he stepped out of the 'fresher and snagged a towel, winding it around his hips and leaving an opening at the back; opposite of what the average human male would do, on account of the semi-prehensile tail that trailed his behind. It was just as he was donning the towel that he heard the door open and close, and bags set down the little table just off of the kitchen, that he knew she was home.

The fondest of smiles took his lips, and he looked to the mirror, raking a hand through his hair, and turning his head this way and that to look over the growth that he would be shaving right now if not for her early arrival... but she was here, so clearing his jaw of a week-and-a-half's growth would have to wait. He checked the secure of the towel, and strolled out of the restroom, just down the hall from where she was.

"Hey, yeah," he said, stepping through the doorway and into the hall, catching a glimpse of her when he strode down and poked his head into the kitchen, "I thought you weren't off for a while, yet."

A half of a grin appeared on his face, and he came around the corner to stand in the kitchen, in nothing but that towel.

"I could go back out for another three days if you like."

That grin only grew, teasingly, then dropped away for a more content, if serious look. He stepped over, dropped a strong peck on her cheek, and breathed in her scent, as elusive as it was from being at the hospital.

"I missed you, Ava, as always. How was your day? Your week... and a half?"

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

A somber smile formed at the sound of his voice, Avalore began pulling groceries from her bag and setting them on the counter, "It was quiet day," she said, not immediately turning around, but pausing as he teased to go back for another three days. She'd grown accustomed to his presence, perhaps frighteningly reliant. It kept her comfortable, and whatever worth any other being placed upon that word she multiplied in tenfold. Comfort was a luxury she'd long been hard to come by these past few years and one that she had nearly forgotten about.

But it was a fragile comfort, much like most things with her. Always a work in progress. A glass floor on this cozy home - she still walked as if on eggshells.

Couldn't get too comfortable, too reliant, lest he, too, was taken from her.

Her smile faded somewhat as her hands slowly began passing the contents of the bags out again, "I only meant-"

Interrupting fuzzy cheek smooch. Avalore blinked, noting immediately the scent of chamomile and mint, the warmth of his presence at her back, the moisture of a soggy beard after a fresh shower. She glanced back at him over her shoulder, wane smile returning, color forming in her cheeks as she noted a bit too late that he was only wearing a towel.

Oh dear.

"Good," she replied, smile stretching briefly as the Healer attempted not to see the mischief in his gaze, "quiet," turn back to the task at hand. That's right, groceries. Don't think about the towel. Or what's under it. "ahm, quiet week. I've been coming home early for the past few days. Things seemed to have calmed down. Nice...beard."

I really hope that's just your tail.

 

[Meeristali Peradun]

He placed his hands about her shoulders, a soft grip, and stood behind her as she unloaded the bags onto the counter, listening to her try not to trip over her words; that always made him smile. He knew the effect he had on her, and to not exploit it was one of the most difficult things he dealt with in recent memory, as he would do now. He planted another kiss atop her head, then backed off to help put things away.

"Don't get too attached to it," he said, picking up a can and idly looking at the ingredients marked on the label, "It needs to be gone before I'm needed again."

His eyes slipped from the can to her face.

"So if you want a picture..." one side of his mouth lifted in suggestion, before he let the subject trail off, "...but there's a reason I'm home early."

The words came out without indication towards positive or negative, and he put the can away in the appropriate cupboard. That done, he moved away from the counter, but not before stealing a real kiss.

"I'll go shave and make myself less distracting," he said with a tone that seemed to say that might be impossible, when he broke from her lips, "we'll talk about it after."

Then he turned to go back to what he'd intended to do before she arrived, distracting him with her mere presence.

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

There was warmth in those hands on her shoulders - more than that of the physical realm. Avalore smiled quietly to herself, giving another short glance to the mythical creature that was Stali's beard, before offering a small shake of her head, demured to his teasing self. No, no picture necessary. There was a part of her that feared them and another very small part that wished to take a hundred of them. To have just a small token, tiny keepsake of his likeness to look upon when he was away and her heart was heavy.

But every picture she'd ever owned had wound up as cinders and soot.

Avalore couldn't even remember what her parents looked like anymore and that notion stung incomprehensibly deep.

No, she would simply continue to sneak glances at the man when he wasn't looking, imprinting his image on her mind, committing it to memory simply because he might suddenly vanish from her life just like everyone else. Offering him feigned curious, confused gazes when he caught her as if she had no idea what he could be so smug about. Avalore wasn't the stealthy type, nor did she boast inhuman reflexes or senses - he caught her quite often.

"Oh?" this time when she glanced he was already there, so quick to steal that kiss and a good portion of her breath ... and then saunter away with that air of accomplishment only a cat could really possess. Her brown eyes watched him go, falling to that tail poking out of the back of his towel, "...mm..."

distracted again, "...alright..." what were these things in her hands? Oh, right. Dinner. "I'm making ...stew."

Force Avalore, get ahold of yourself girl.

"No rush."

~~~~~


One of the things she liked best about this apartment was the way the smell of a cooking meal quickly permeated every little corner. Fresh meat and veggies from the market bubbled in a large pot, the heady aroma mixing with spices and herbs as she slowly stirred them in. The smells of home. Of a life burned to the ground. She tried not to think of how old her daughter would be by now, or what she would be doing while dinner simmered on the stove.

Instead she was buttering bakery bread while working on building a list of supplies she would need to restock at the hospital. As the only standing Jedi Healer in attendance her own stock varied from that of the Doctors and oftentimes the overlap just wasn't enough. A trip off Commenor would likely be required to get everything on the list - likely, a trip back to Ossus. Not something she was terribly fond of doing.

The Healer sighed, hand in her hair as she tried to think of another place that might provide the same market. Nothing came immediately to mind so she turned to putting the bread back in the oven to warm it instead.

"Hey," Avalore heard the shuffling of Stali again - the sound of his clothing as opposed to his footsteps, the man was unusually silent on his feet, "do you know of another place I could go to get my usual stock of supply. I'd rather not head to Ossus, given a choice."

[member="Meeristali Peradun"]

 

[Meeristali Peradun]

He shuffled down the hall, returning to the common area in the midst of her question. He thought for a moment, but only a moment - the answer was easy to find, but everything else that came with it would change their lives once again, one way or another. It was a risk he had to take.

"That could fit with what I wanted to talk to you about," he said, "actually."

He moved to the table, pulling out the chair he claimed as his place, and sat in it, draping one arm over the back of the chair in turning himself to face her again. Orange eyes settled on her eyes, and he swallowed before the words came.

"So, the group I've been working with, we're part of a greater whole that seeks to purpose itself to clearing the Sith threat from the thousands of worlds under its thumb."

He searched her face for a reaction, for a moment, before continuing.

"They're calling themselves the Galactic Alliance, and people are rallying under that banner faster with each passing day. Pilots, soldiers, merchants, Jedi, all without the excess of politik, and a stronger military ethic."

A smile, small but honest, crept onto his face.

"What do you think, Avalore? What do you think about being part of a cause again?"

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

Curiosity for the connection of conversational subjects was understandably strong. Avalore watched him take his seat from where she stood at the stove, wooden spoon in hand slowly twisting figure-eights through the stew absently. Something about his expression didn't quite sit right with her and she wasn't sure if it was a hint of detected unease or the simple fact that he was once more clean-shaven. She suppressed the desire to interrupt him with an impromptu make-out session - the type that relished the fresh, smooth skin of his face and the smell of his aftershave - and instead held his gaze with slow breaths and patient blinking.

At the mention of Sith threat the Healer looked away and focused, very intently, upon the pot of bubbling stew.

She didn't see that small, honest smile, though she thought she could recognize it in his voice. Brow furrowing, the woman gently cleared her throat, shifting her weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

"I don't..." the sentence began on her lips but ended abruptly in her mind. Too many thoughts racing, memories once thought firmly buried now suddenly resurfacing at the trigger word Sith.

Another gentle cough, Avalore rubbed at her nose with the back of her hand, stirring intensifying, lips thinning.

"I need...salt."

[member="Meeristali Peradun"]

 

[Meeristali Peradun]

He knew this would happen. He expected it. His arm withdrew from the back of the chair, and fingers became interlaced in his lap. He watched her, smelled her, felt her. He knew her hesitation, and the reasons for it.

"I don't need an answer right away, cyar'ika," he said, softly, "any questions you have, I'll do my best to answer. Fears and concerns, I will address as I always have."

He watched the slight movement in her shoulder as she stirred the pot, gaze travelling up her neck to behind her ear.

"I have never dismissed your feelings, your worries, and I never will."

He pulled in a deep breath through his nose, and his mouth took on a contented expression.

"Dinner smells good."

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

Cyar'ika.

The word brought a brief release of tension to her expression. A short glance his way that could not linger for the intensity of his own stare. Another shift of weight. Brown eyes danced from stove knobs to counter littered with the peelings of ingredients that quickly invited the discomforted Healer into action.

It was how working in the hospital had become so therapeutic. Always there was something to do or needing done. Rarely did the Healer sit still. It was much the same at home, especially when conversations like this came up. Though, she reflected, she would rather deal with her anxiety this way, with Stali here staring at her in that disarming way, than alone. At least now she knew he would still be there once she'd worked through whatever it was stalling up her thoughts.

He was hungry for dinner, after all.

A sigh pressed through her nose, Avalore busied herself cleaning up the counter. Trimmings in the compactor, dirty utensils in the washer. Plates in the sink for later. She cleaned the counter with a tense, methodical fervor in much the same way she'd scrubbed at her arms the night he'd come to find her at the hospital. He knew better than to interrupt by now.




"Where are they?"

A quiet question voiced as she set a large bowl of stew down at his place at the table before she turned to pull the bread from the oven.

"The Galactic Alliance. Where are they based out of?"

How far away from everything will it get me? she wondered to herself as she placed the garlic bread on a cutting board and set it between them, taking her own seat.

[member="Meeristali Peradun"]

 

[Meeristali Peradun]

The scent of the stew was more intense, when right under his nose... but self-discipline kept him from digging in when the answer was so quickly on the tip of his tongue. His answer was almost instant, but for being stalled by a rephrasing of her question.

"Sullust," he responded, "old Protectorate territory, southern reaches."

He picked up a spoon and slotted it into the bowl, but didn't lift it out. He'd rather wait until she was seated, and then seated she was, so he dug in. He was hungry, but he didn't know how hungry until that first bite, when his appetite really came to with eagerness. Swallowing that first bite, he gave her a corner of a grin.

"This is good, Ava."

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

For a moment, just after being seated, Avalore felt an overwhelming mental fatigue settle squarely on her mind. All this worry, anxiety, tension. It was exhausting. Why couldn't her life go back to easy?

Unsmiling, the Healer looked over at Stali as he answered and then dug in and for a split second she felt her appetite wither.

"This is good, Ava."

Her eyes followed the line of his mouth and the cockeyed grin that formed there. She felt it more than anything and it stirred something else in her. It could go back to easy, if only she would let it. If only she could let things go. Easier said than done, but never done if she didn't try.

A tentative taste of her stew, the warmth settling in her stomach with a curiously pleasant sensation. A bit like ingesting happiness. Faintly, she smiled and looked back to Stali, "It is..." the Healer remarked with a hint of surprise, even a chuckle, "finally."

They ate for a time without any further questions until spoons began to scrape the bottoms of the bowls and Stali stood to help himself to seconds. Avalore spent that time pondering Sullust and the meaning of being in old Protectorate territory. It meant, if she remembered correctly, it was far away from here.

"That's why your missions have been taking longer..." a quiet remark as she nibbled on some bread, "you've been going to Sullust?"

[member="Meeristali Peradun"]

 

[Meeristali Peradun]

"Mm, that," he said, peering into the pot before scooping more stew into his bowl, "and other worlds in the general area."

He scooped stew into the bowl, and moseyed back over to the table, placing the bowl in front of his seat, and sitting.

"There's a lot of work in getting set up; we haven't gotten anywhere near building, but we're still scouting local and further-reaching systems of present neutrality to get a good picture of what we're working with - what it's going to take to give us the best chances of succeeding at our goals within the limitations of our resources, and what we need to do to improve or add to our resources."

The One Sith was big, a juggernaut, but that hadn't stopped groups similar to the Alliance in bygone times from taking down their monsters. He lifted a spoonful of the second helping into his mouth, and chewed thoughtfully.

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

"Sounds like you're pretty involved..."

Avalore wished she could be the girl that leapt at the opportunity. Wanted so desperately to be the girl that said Tell me how I can help. Nothing more to show support for these new endeavors of his ... but she couldn't. The Healer didn't have it in her anymore, so much of a shell she'd become. Hollowed out by every loss, every nightmare experience, all the grief, all the doubts, regrets.

She'd found a place of comfort here on Commenor. A little iota of peace where the past couldn't find her. A sanctuary amidst the turmoil and she was too scared, too cowardly to leave it.

"Don't let me slow you down."

[member="Meeristali Peradun"]