Out of Time [Star Wars Story]

35. A Short Rest

Lorash awoke feeling much better. The bacta had effectively healed the bruising on her ribs and shoulder, though there were still twinges and aches when she moved, no longer held in place by ice-packs: instead, Seia was behind her, tucked snugly against her body as a support and comfort. She could tell it had been hours by the blinking of her comm's chrono. When she reached out towards it with her wounded arm, Seia's hand caught her. "Go carefully, Lorash," Seia said, voice low and quiet with fatigue.

The jedi felt a pang of guilt. She stayed up looking after me, after everything she's been through.

"And I would do it again in a heartbeat," Seia whispered, lips ghosting across the sensitive shell of Lorash's ear.

"You need sleep," Lorash said firmly, rolling over in the circle of Seia's arms. The sith looked exhausted, shadows deep around her burning orange eyes. "More than I did."

Seia paused for a moment, as if evaluating whether or not she wanted to argue on that point. "I am weary," she admitted finally, as if it had been wrung from her painfully.

"Let me take care of you," Lorash insisted. "You're the one who spent months on Despayre and in Imperial custody."

"That is what makes this so difficult. You are here now, but..." Uncertainty flickered across Seia's expression. The pause felt heavy, laden with a history of unspoken torments.

Lorash kissed the sith lightly. "Not now," she said, correcting the sentiment. "From now on." She wanted to do so much more to brand in that promise of forever, but Seia was too sleep deprived. "Rest. I'm going to go talk to the others. I'll be back before you wake."

"Only if you promise to return," Seia said. It was meant to sound teasing, but there was a deathly serious undercurrent twisting at Lorash's heartstrings.

"I will always find you," Lorash promised. "I will always come back."

Seia nodded slightly, closing her eyes. The tension stayed in her body, however. The odds of her getting the sleep she needed like that were slim to none.

Lorash ran her hand up and down Seia's back in slow, soothing strokes until she felt the sith warrior progressively relax. She focused on the smoothness of Seia's skin, mapping each individual scar in her mind when she brushed across one, and tried to exhale the calm and serenity she'd learned to master for Seia's benefit. It still took almost an hour to get the sith to sleep. Lorash sighed softly when Seia finally drifted off. She didn't want to leave the sith, even knowing her bed on Corr's ship was safe.

She knew it, but Seia didn't. Worse yet, the fear that Lorash would leave seemed omnipresent. The jedi wished she could undo the damage done by the Empire, but only Time and constancy could do that.

She slipped out of bed carefully, tucking the blankets around Seia. Once the sith was comfortable and as calm as she was going to get, Lorash crept out of the room and headed straight for the bridge.

Jaa and Eso were there, a less uncomfortable conversation going between them. Eso was running ship diagnostics and consulting star charts, while Jaa field-stripped his heavy blaster rifle to clean it. His clawed, metallic hands were every bit as careful and precise as he'd probably been in life. Whatever of his organic self was left, it had adjusted well to its new droid body.

Lorash sat down in the navigator's chair. "Where's Corr?"

Eso just about jumped out of his skin. "Don't do that!"

She managed an apologetic smile. "Jumpy, are we?"

"There is an Imperial star destroyer in system," Jaa said. "Corr was preparing us to leave when it showed up. Now we're hiding until Eso can chart us a way out."