Seth opened his eyes. He was in a room, a vaguely familiar room, in a very dim light. He was lying in a bed, in a somewhat enclosed space, and someone was near him. He swallowed and found his mouth dry. For a few seconds, he simply laid there and breathed. His head hurt, but it was more of a headache than anything else. There was still some vague pain across the right side of his skull. Where was he?

Nova shifted and made a soft, unhappy sound beside him, and that finally made everything click home. He was on the ship, in their room, laying in their bed. Okay, so...he must have been knocked out during the battle. He didn't like that he didn't remember much of that battle. The last thing he clearly remembered was seeing the civilian go down, blood and pulverized brains flying out of his skull from the point-blank blaster shot.

That made a pulse of red anger shoot through him, but Seth pushed it down. He needed to find out what had happened, but he didn't want to wake Nova. Even looking at her in the dim light, (she must have left the lights on their lowest setting in consideration for him, not wanting him to potentially wake to total darkness), he saw that she looked exhausted. He knew how she felt. Part of him wanted to just roll over and go back to sleep, real sleep this time, not just unconsciousness, but he knew this was an unrealistic goal.

He was restless, and he knew that until he did something, he wasn't sure what, he would not be able to sleep. Luckily, Nova had put herself closest to the wall and pulled him up against him, draping his arm over her. He was very reluctant to leave the embrace, but he carefully pulled himself up and out from beneath the blankets. He wore nothing but his boxers. Seth slowly moved through the room, gathering up a shirt, some socks, cargo pants, and boots and slipping into the bathroom. Closing the door behind him, he turned on the light and caught sight of himself in the mirror. Well, he looked like crap even more than usual.

He was pale and gaunt and there were deep bags under his eyes. He winced when he saw that a burning groove had been cut right through his hair on the right side of his skull. There was no scar or even cut there, the flesh smooth, (Maya must have used Force heal on him and again he felt guilty), but the hair looked awful, made him look even more crazed and dangerous than he usually did. Have to take care of that sometime, but not now. Right now, he splashed some water on his face, dried it, then took a long leak.

After that, he dressed, killed lights, and slipped back out into the bedroom. Nova was still asleep, breathing softly and regularly. She really must be exhausted. Seth began to head for the door, then hesitated, seeing that he'd disturbed the blanket when he'd left. He moved over, studying her. Nova wore nothing but a pair of panties. He again felt that guilt. She must have been very worried over him, and probably pissed off at him. He was throwing a lot at her for a casual relationship, and part of him, a colder part, wanted to simply write it off, thinking that she should just leave him to his own devices and not care about him as much, he wasn't her responsibility. But he knew that was wrong, a cop out, and more than a little cruel.

Nova did care. Because they were more than a casual relationship at this point, they were comrades in arms, and friends, but more important than all of that was the simple fact that Nova cared because she was a good person. He had to stop doing stuff like this, for his friend's sake as much as his own.

He leaned down and gently kissed her forehead, then pulled the blanket over her. Still she didn't wake, but she did lose the frown on her face, looking a bit more content as she settled more comfortably into sleep. He left the room, opting to leave the light on because at some point he was going to come back and it would make more sense to have it stay consistently on, rather than to need to turn it back on since he was going to need to see when he made for the bed again. He closed the door and moved through the ship, into the central room. As he did, he saw Maya standing near the center of the room, holding a steaming mug of something.

He felt a distinct discomfort as he looked at her, and not entirely because of his history with Jedi, but because she was wearing a robe that was partially open at the chest and her hair was in disarray. He'd known from the first time he'd seen her that she was a very attractive person, but it was extremely highlighted right now and the sudden lust he felt towards her was immediately followed by more discomfort and a little shame. Not just because of his relationship with Nova, nor because of his complicated history with Jedi.

But also because...

Damn, he really had no idea why else right now. His emotions were a mess. With an effort, he controlled himself.

"Hello, Maya," he said quietly.

"Hello, Seth," she replied, her voice a touch cold and maybe angry. "I sensed you were awake. We need to talk. Sit down and wait here for me."

"I...okay," he replied. Part of him wanted to argue, but what right did he have right now? And it wasn't like he knew where he was going or what he was going to do anyway, only that he wasn't ready for sleep. So he tried not to watch her as she walked out of the room, instead moving over to the counter of the kitchen area and checking it out. He opened the fridge and saw what appeared to be green tea in a pitcher. Although he wasn't much for tea, he knew he didn't need to be drinking anything that might wake him up more, and it for some reason looked very inviting, so he grabbed it, poured himself a glass and then sat down with it on one of the couches.

Maya returned a moment later, her hair pulled into a ponytail, wearing a her Jedi robes. She sat down across from him as he drank the tea. It tasted good, and faintly sweet. "You like it?" she asked, nodding to the tea.

"Yeah, normally I don't, but it's good."

"You taste the sweetness?" He nodded. "Honey. I put honey in there, just a bit." She looked at him for a moment longer, then sighed and gently shook her head. "That was really damned stupid, Seth. I mean really dumb. You could have died. You could have gotten someone killed."

"I know, I'm sorry," he replied.

That seemed to take her vaguely by surprise, and her posture slumped slightly, like she'd been expecting a fight. Well, why not? He'd been fairly uncooperative so far. "Well," she said finally, "I'm glad you at least recognize the mistake." She hesitated, then sighed. "I'm sorry, that was rude. Today was...a stressful day."

"What happened? After I, uh, took the hit?" he replied.

"We all got lucky...for the most part. I guess one of us didn't," Maya murmured. "Nova and I managed to kill the remaining Mandalorians, and they apparently didn't call for backup. The one who they killed was a traveler the family had hired to help them out on the farm, so I suppose there is at least that small comfort that the family remains intact. At least physically. I healed you with the Force, then I called for assistance. Another pair of security personnel drove out from the colony with a bigger vehicle and took all of us back. The family is staying there for now and some of the security personnel are staking out the family farm, waiting to see if anymore of the Mandalorians come to cause trouble." She sighed and shook her head. "We're stretched badly thin now, with the setback at the turbine and the dead personnel.

"I've put in a request with the Jedi Enclave and let them know the severity of the situation, asking for additional personnel, security mainly, but more technical staff as well. They're doing what they can and they hope to have another shipment of people out here as temporarily relief in two days while they try to scrounge up some more colonists and permanent residents. Um...so, after we got you back, I'd stabilized you with the Force, but Seri insisted on taking a look at you. Once she was sure you were okay, although she demanded we let you get some sleep and briefly got into a little tiff with Nova on where you would sleep, she wanted to keep you at the clinic, Nova won and we brought you back here, to, uh, her room."

"How are the others doing? Seri and Yex?" he asked.

"Seri's still at the medical complex. She really needs to get some rest but she keeps pushing herself. I sense great turmoil in her...and, ah, Yex is at the turbine, last I checked. He agreed to sleep out there tonight with his pair of technical staff to help get it up and running again. Also, we discovered a datapad on the leader you killed, and Yex is trying to crack it, see if he can get some more information on what they're doing here, where they are, some advantage we can use to remove them from the equation."

"That would be ideal," Seth muttered.

Silence descended, and Maya fixed him with an intense stare. Abruptly, she stood up. "Come with me. We need to have words, and they're better exchanged outside, I think."

"Uh...okay," he replied. Seth downed the rest of his tea and put the glass in the sink, then followed her out of the ship that he now called home.

It was night on Dantooine, although it was not as dark as he thought it would be. The moon was full, and it and the stars, as well as lights from the colony, provided a decent amount of pale luminescence with which to see by. The pair of them walked slowly along the landing pads. Although it had been a bit hot today, tonight it was pleasantly cool. They walked until they reached the edge of the farthest landing pad and looked out over the landscape. It wasn't nearly as visible at night, but Seth could see enough to appreciate it.

"Look," Maya said quietly, "up there."

Seth looked up. A small pod of the flying gray creatures was heading to the east, silently drifting across the skies. "I saw them earlier. What are they?"

Maya laughed softly. "I have a friend here, a younger Jedi Padawan. Her name is Juhani. When she first arrived here and she saw them, she called them the Majestic Flap Flaps."

Seth couldn't help but laugh softly. "Is that what they are to you?"

"I suppose, in a way," Maya replied. "We call them sky rays. No one knows how they stay up there yet. A recent theory is that they somehow use the Force." She lost her smile.

"What is it?"

"Just...my friend, Juhani, has had a long, difficult journey, especially since coming here. She is like you, Seth: she has a lot of trouble controlling her anger. To be fair, she is at a biological disadvantage, compared to some. She is cathar."

"Oh wow," he murmured, "that must be tough. I've fought alongside a few cathar. Great warriors, not always excellent soldiers. They're..."

"Prone to anger. Their brain chemistry is indeed wired a certain way to reward anger and passion. But that is why I brought you out here, Seth. We must begin, soon, to seriously discuss some method of curbing your anger, because you need to get it under control. You got lucky, this time. Next time, you might get killed, or worse, get someone you like killed."

"I know," he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. "I just...seeing that exile below the turbine, and then those bastards killing that innocent..." He grit his teeth.

"I understand," Maya said quietly. "Believe me, I do. But another thing I understood a long time ago was that you can save more people by not freaking out. Being in control almost always saves more lives. If we hadn't been there to back you up, you'd be dead, Seth," she said flatly, staring at him now. "That's how you got shot. I barely managed to shove the guy aside with the Force, and even then his shot grazed you. Another inch to the left and you'd probably be dead."

Seth just nodded, not quite meeting her gaze. "Yeah," he said softly.

"Seth..." she said, and she reached up, placing a finger under his chin and making him meet her gaze again, slowly but firmly raising his head up, "...do you care if you live or die?"

He shivered slightly at the contact and swallowed. Her skin was warm and soft. He didn't know what to make of what he was feeling right now. "I don't know," he answered honestly.

She dropped her hand and frowned, staring at him harder now, scrutinizing him unflinchingly with those stormy gray eyes of hers. "I think you should figure that out," she said finally. "It's important that you know."

"I suppose it is. I've gone a long time on auto-pilot, I guess, fighting the Mandalorians, then fighting the Sith. Getting shuffled from one battlefield to the next on one anonymous Republic warship to the next, like a card being shuffled through a damned Pazaak deck."

"I know it can be dehumanizing," Maya said quietly, "and I'm sorry. This war...these wars, they've taken their toll on us all. Unfortunately, all we can do is keep going."

"Yeah, I guess so."

They stood together for a few more seconds, then Maya yawned suddenly. "We should get back to sleep," she said. "But tomorrow I want to take the opportunity to begin speaking at a bit more length with you about getting your anger under control."

"All right," he agreed, "we can do it after breakfast."

"Thank you, Seth."

They began walking back to the ship, and as they reached the cargo ramp, Seth hesitated, looking out over the colony. Most of the buildings were dark, but the administration building had a few lights on, and so did the clinic.

"I'm going to go see Seri," he said.

"You probably should, see if you can convince her to get some sleep. I'm worried about her," Maya replied, joining him in looking at the clinic.

"Me too. I'll see what I can do. Goodnight, Maya."

"Goodnight, Seth."

He set off towards the clinic.

* * *

He got lucky and found Seri in a small break room close to the main lobby of the clinic. She had fallen asleep in a chair, but immediately woke up when he stepped into the room. It was harder to tell, given that he wasn't as familiar with selkath, but she did looked exhausted from what he could see. She blinked several times, then fully woke up and stood.

"Seth! You're awake. Are you okay? Are you in pain?" she asked, crossing the room and studying his head wound.

"Seri," he replied, "I'm fine. Thank you for looking after me. Um...what are you up?"

She sighed and then crossed to a small refrigerator. Opening it up, she pulled out a bottle of water and drank half of it in one go. "Just trying to help them keep this place afloat."

"You've been busy since you got here, are there that many injured people?"

"No," she replied, "it's not that. I mean, that's some of it, but mainly it's just clerical stuff. They're so disorganized. I'm in the process of overhauling their inventory system, because whoever was here before me, they lost a doctor to a better paying job offworld apparently, was just garbage at it. So that's what I've mainly been doing. That and making sure their database is up to snuff with all the latest information and trying to get requisitions filled out based on what I think they might need, problems they might run into, arguing with vendors about getting it shipped out here, on time, and for a reasonable cost..." She heaved a watery sigh.

"Seri...take a break. Come back to the ship with me," he said.

She hesitated, fidgeting nervously. "I don't know...there's still so much to do."

"Seri, please? For me? You need a break," he said, a little more firmly.

She sighed and nodded, then drained the rest of the bottle and tossed it away. "Yes, I do," she admitted. "I really do. Okay."

"Thank you."

She signed out and fussed over a terminal for a moment before finally accompanying him into the cool night air. "Oh my, it's beautiful out here," she whispered as they started walking back up to the landing pads.

"It is..." he hesitated, then pressed onward. "Seri. We haven't had much of a chance to speak since we got here. How are you doing? How are you handling everything?"

"I'm okay, just keeping busy," she replied automatically.

"Seri," he said, "please. You can tell me the truth."

She was silent for several moments. By the time she began speaking again, they were walking up the cargo ramp, into the vessel.

"I never told you how I came to live in the Undercity," she said. "I was born on Taris. My parents weren't in poverty, not for awhile, at least, but we could never be confused for rich." They came into the central room and sat down together on a couch. "Even at a young age I showed a great intelligence and aptitude. My parents scrounged and saved every credit they could, both of them working two jobs. I learned to be very self-sufficient early on, learned to take care of myself. When I finally did graduate from what passed for school on Taris in the Lower City, my parents had managed to put together enough credits to get me off-world, and into a rather prestigious medical school. I honestly think they took me for a few reasons.

"The first was part of some kind of outreach program to make them look good, I was both a selkath and from a poor family, and because when I took their test, I scored off the charts. We worked out tuition and I got some special grants and loans covered the rest. I shot through medical school, but hardly before I'd finished celebrated graduating six years later, I learned that my mother was gravely ill and hastily returned. She was so frustrated with me when I chose to stay and take a job at a local clinic, a very low-paying job, because she said I was wasting my potential. I told her I could get a better job later, after I'd helped take care of her."

She hesitated and looked away. He had an idea that she was trying not to cry. "I failed. Or rather, I supposed, I was destined to fail. My mother's sickness was fatal, and she died within a year. My father died six months after that. He just kind of...gave up, wasted away. I've often heard that women survive their men...men do not survive their women. It's mostly true. Go to any graveyard, find male-female couples that are buried next to each other. More often than not, the woman's death date is years after the man's." She sighed and shook her head, then, after a moment, reached out and took Seth's hand. He let her, holding her hand, laying his other one atop it. He remained silent, listening to her. This was the most he'd ever heard her talk about herself.

"Not long after they died, I was thinking about what I was going to do. I knew I wanted to leave Taris. I hated that place. But before I could, some Exchange thugs showed up and informed me that my parents were in debt to them. I never learned the specifics, and I still shudder to consider the notion that they went into debt with the Exchange to send me to school, but...no, I still believe that it was a more recently acquired debt, likely done out of desperation to get my mother better treatment. The Exchange wouldn't wait around that long to collect. But as far as they were concerned, I had inherited my parent's debt. I tried to pay them off, but I didn't have enough. They decided that they were going to take me and sell me as a slave.

"I'd learned more than a thing or two about defending myself, growing up on Taris, so I fought them and then ran. I fled to the Undercity and I found the exiles. I wanted to help them, but really I needed a place to hide, to regroup..."

She stopped speaking abruptly and began to cry softly. Seth felt a tremendous empathy