A Picture On The Mantle

Special thanks to AWilson for reminding me that I'd left a character hanging... Lena.

'He's late.'

Lena turned away from the window of her new apartment to look again at the wall chronometer. No, he still had ten minutes. Her impatient frown turned to a smile that he wasn't late and then right back to an impatient frown. If the next ten minutes were anything like the last ten, it would seem like hours.

Waiting was the worst. She'd never been good at it, not as a child and not now. She turned back to the window and looked at the rising sun, casting great long shadows across the face of the planet. He said he'd pick her up for breakfast, and he'd never failed to keep a date. She just hated the wait.

The first thing Lena had noticed about him was his hair.

It was a lustrous dark gray, not black or brown, but truly gray, like granite, flecked with silver highlights. She'd never seen anything like it before. She liked it from the first time she saw it in the twilight of her hospital room.

In fact, it was one of the first things she'd found any joy in for a long time. Her 'misadventure' began months before on Bandomeer. She'd been making her way across the galaxy, working odd-jobs; waitress, dancer, hostess; headed for Taris, headed for home.

It had been a grind. The work paid very little and with many worlds still recovering from the war against the Sith, her expenses ran very near her income. Hence Bandomeer. Taris after Malak's bombardment was still too damaged and wild to allow refugees to return, but she wanted to be close enough to help when she was allowed. She owed everyone so much for helping her when Griff left her stranded. Helping Taris was her way of repaying them all. Especially Mission.

Her relationship with the little blue Twi'lek had not started on the best of terms. Griff's sister Mission blamed Lena for his decision to leave the young girl on Taris as he jumped from place to place and scheme to scheme, hoping to 'make his fortune'. Really it was Griff's idea to abandon Mission; his selfishness knew no bounds. Even now, years later, Lena had little word of his whereabouts and activities.

Until Bandomeer, that is. Like a wereha-moth drawn to a flame, Griff was drawn to the shady side of finance; drawn to the Exchange. And as always, he was on the wrong side of the deal. Koreehyt had put a bounty on his head, but somehow the Twi'lek schemer had found out that Lena was there and he had used her freedom to save his scrawny little backside. Every other time he'd disappointed her she could find it in her heart to forgive him. Not this time.

The weeks in the slave den had been awful, but not really that much worse than some of her 'dancing jobs' as a young woman in the Outer Rim. Twi'leks were cheap and Hutts were cruel no matter where you went. It was bad, but she was able to manage. The neural collar she wore helped too, keeping her from really understanding what was happening to her. Until Mission walked in the door.

Lena knew from the first sight that something was wrong. The younger woman looked drugged, oblivious to her surroundings. Fortunately, Lena's collar had begun malfunctioning some days before, and with careful play-acting she was able to keep it a secret from her captors, all the while hoping for an opportunity to get them both out of that hellish place.

It came on the night of a huge 'party'. Unbeknownst to the two Twi'leks, a group of friends, some old and some new, had found their way inside. During a disturbance in the front room of Koreehyt's complex, she had seen, and been seen by, Juhani and Bastila Shan. In an instant the chains were cut, a lightsaber making an excellent key, and they both were free. But their troubles were not yet at an end.

'Enough of the past,' she though to herself as she looked out the window of her new apartment, high above the building's gardens, the sunlight creeping up the building's side as dawn awoke the district.

As the light came streaming directly into her face, she turned and looked around her new place. It was smallish; two bedrooms, food prep, sitting room, small hallway, but it was hers. Well, Justin's; he had been the one to give her the money for it.

'A loan,' she had insisted. He had simply smiled and nodded, knowing better than to argue to point.

She had met him before at the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine. Then, as now, he was 'Justin Blacque'; only back then he was dressed as a Jedi, a lightsaber on his belt, Bastila Shan hovering nearby looking concerned. When Lena heard that he was really Revan the lady Jedi's concerned look made more sense. Not that Justin seemed to require such close scrutiny, then or now. In Lena's experience he'd only ever helped her; reconciling her with Mission, getting them all out of the clutches on the Hutt, loaning her money to start a new life. He was quite the man. Just not her man.

Her eyes caught on something in the sitting room, her one true possession: a still hologram of a handsome man with gray hair. She picked it up, closed her eyes and hugged it to herself.

Never again would she argue with a doctor's orders to 'keep for observation'. That first day she had simply wanted to get Mission settled in the hospital and leave, but everyone had insisted that she stay.

'What can it hurt?' asked Jolee.

She had managed to hold herself together all during the long trip back to Coruscant, but she'd had Mission, and then Bastila, to look after, to keep her mind off the recent past. It wasn't until she found herself alone in her hospital room that the nightmare of the last months overtook her. She awoke screaming at the horrible images she saw in her dreams, screaming because she knew they were not dreams, that they had really happened.

And then she saw him, saw that wonderful hair. It was such a departure from what she had expected that she stopped in mid-cry long enough to hear his soothing words.

'It's all right. You're safe now, I'm here with you.'

He moved to her bedside and took her by the hand with the gentlest of squeezes, just enough to show her that he really was there with her and not some part of her terrible visions. He sat with her that whole night, and again the next and the next. He even brought her a treat, chocolates, much against doctor's orders. Everyone was concerned that her nightmares were not just psychological, but symptoms of the chemicals she may have been given by the Hutt's slavemaster, and her diet was closely monitored until the test results came back.

Lena had seen the signs of such treatment on Mission, so although she couldn't remember any such treatment herself, no one was taking any chances. Besides, she got to see him every night. That alone was well worth the limited food choices and restricted access to entertainment programs on the Vid.

By the fourth night she was doing better; the nightmares were much more manageable, now less focused on the actual events of the previous months and more on general symbols of disquiet and danger. And always he was there with her.

His name was Yeron Redfern. The Redfern part she had learned from the tag on his uniform. His given name had taken longer, and some actual courage, to find out. Not that he was hard to talk to once she started. With her frightened tears now nearly exhausted, Lena was ready to learn more about him, his likes and dislikes, his sense of humor, his wants and desires.

He was so unlike Griff, or any of the dozens of other men she had looked to for company, companionship or protection. For one thing, he was an officer in the Fleet, a Lieutenant in the Medical Corps, and amateur musician who played fanfar in a Jizz band a few weekends a year. His brother, Buth, was a Jedi Padawan.

It seemed the Force did not run in the Redfern family, but at least Yeron's being assigned to Coruscant kept them nearby each other, although their many tasks kept them from really seeing each other much.

The night before she was to be released, Lena convinced him to invite her to his next gig. At first, Yeron was too embarrassed to make the commitment, Lena having been a professional dancer and all. He was worried that his playing wouldn't be up to the standards to which she was accustomed.

'Come on!' she cajoled. 'It'll be fun. Besides, I don't have anyone else on Coruscant.'

That got him. A heart as compassionate as his... With Mission still under care and all her Jedi friends off dealing with the problems of the Order or the galaxy or whatever, who did she have?

Looking down at the hologram, Lena realized she had him, so when the door chime rang, she placed the hologram back on the mantle shelf and rushed to answer it.

'Ready?' he asked with a smile, his hand held out for hers.

'Am I ever!'