"Hello, Conni."

Sorena recognized the voice immediately. Her eyes shot open, and she whipped around from where she had been meditating to face the tall red Zabrak she had somehow not heard enter the cargo hold of the Ghost.

"Maddox," she snarled, her teeth bared. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see you. I had to know if it was true; that you..."

Sorena moved carefully to her feet, and, while she wasn't able to stand up completely cue to the constraints of the force field, she could at least ready herself in case a fight was forthcoming. "Well, do you have your answer?"

Maddox's face was uncharacteristically hard, and his normally soft and kind eyes glinted like chips of amber. "Yes," he informed her quietly.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke; there were no other sounds in the room except for the gentle hum of the Ghost's inner workings. But Sorena was intent upon letting him make the first move. Maddox could become very unpredictable if angered, and, knowing her affinity for getting on people's nerves, he had to be regarded with caution.

"I'm not going to ask you why you did it," he said finally, "because I already know. I lived as a Sith Lord for years, and I've done a lot of wrong things for what I thought were the right reasons. No one understands the pull of the Dark Side better than I do. But I do know that someone who has always been so keen on the Light will be seriously unbalanced by a sudden turn to the Dark."

" 'Sudden?' " Sorena barked out a laugh. "You call eleven years sudden? I chose my path, Maddox, like you always urged us to when we were kids back on Onderon. If you have a problem with me following your own counsel, then you'd better take it outside, because I don't give two credits."

"This isn't what I meant."

"Then nice job leaving it up to interpretation."

Maddox glared at her, and for a moment Sorena wondered if she hadn't gone too far. But the Zabrak remained impassive, even as he turned away to leave. The door slid shut behind him a moment later.

It can't be over so quickly as that, she thought. He's far to stubborn to give up so easily. So what's he up to...?

The door reopened a few moments later, allowing Maddox and Teri to enter. The second Teri tried to meet her eyes, she scowled at him with all the spite she could muster, and she watched him look away with a satisfied smirk.

But then, she felt a little twinge of pain – that irksome speck of Light was acting up again. She growled exasperatedly, channeling her darkest thoughts about how much she wanted to kill Lux Bonteri.

However, much to her surprise, it wasn't enough to reinforce the walls around her heart. Where the hatred had once flowed easily, it only came to her in a trickle like a streambed in a drought.

No, no, no! This can't be happening, she thought angrily, trying to refill her empty reserves with loathing that just wasn't there. I can't be going soft – that's not possible! I'm not weak; I hate Lux. I hate him. He left me for dead, and for that he deserves to die. I hate him more than I hate anyone. I want him gone forever.

But try as she did, it just wasn't coming. Infuriated by this peculiar defeat, she focused instead on her hatred for the other Inquisitors who connived incessantly to take her place as Grand Inquisitor; one in particular even more so than the rest.

That pulled her back into the embrace of the Darkness without fail.

In the meantime, Teri and Maddox had descended the ladder from the walkway down into the cargo bay, and had come to stand close by. Sorena summoned all the power she could muster, waiting for them to act.

All of a sudden, the force field was down. Sorena reacted immediately, heeding the call of the Force just outside the circle, but before she could take even two steps forwards, she was frozen in place.

She couldn't move a muscle – not even exhale the air in her lungs.

Teri rushed forward, grabbing her hands – apparently, her inability to move her muscles was one-sided, as he was able to pull her arms together easily. A moment later a pair of thick metal cuffs were fastened to her wrists.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

Sorena was beginning to feel the grip Maddox had on her – for it was he who was preventing her from moving – relax, and took a deep breath in. "No, you're not," she hissed, fixating Teri with a venomous stare.

Teri stepped back, biting his lip, and Maddox relinquished his hold on her. The second she was free, she ran out of the circle and summoned the Force with every intention of smiting them both where they stood with deadly Sith lightning...

But nothing happened. She was completely cut off from the energy field that surrounded all living things; enclosed in her own little bubble that was keeping her from using the powers she'd had since birth.

When Sorena realized what had happened, she twisted her hands as best she could, clawing frantically at the cuffs. But there were no grooves to speak of that she could use to wedge them open – somehow, the unnaturally cold metal surface had transformed itself to be completely smooth to the touch.

"Don't try it," Maddox growled. "Those cuffs can only be opened by someone who can touch the Force – and, shame as it is, right now, you don't fall under that category."

Sorena murmured a string of profanities strong enough to make a pirate fresh off Nar Shaddaa blush under her breath. She clenched her hands furiously into fists, her nails digging into the skin almost with enough force to draw blood.

Maddox motioned for Teri to step forward, but like the coward he was, he didn't move. She knew the pitiful speck of Light locked away behind walls of magma felt and shared in his pain, but that only made her even more hostile towards him.

Exhaling shortly, the tall Zabrak walked over and grabbed her arm, pulling her towards the ladder. She dug in her heels, determined not to cooperate, but a cry of shock escaped her lips when she was suddenly sent flying through the air.

She landed in a heap on the walkway, and Maddox followed a moment later, alighting with far more grace than she had.

"I always find a way, Conni. You should really know that by now."

"My name is Sorena," she hissed, scrambling to her feet. "And how dare you throw me like that? Who the hell do you think you are?"

"Maddox Jagannath, father of three, leader of the Wild Jedi, and someone who in all honesty does not give a kriff what anyone else says." And with that, he opened the door and pulled her back down the hallway, with Teri a few steps behind them.

As they rounded a corner, Hera came into view, the irritable Astromech she called Chopper at her heels. "It's certainly about time you got her off my ship," she told them, crossing her arms.

"Thank you for this, Hera," Teri said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "You're a lifesaver, and I am in your debt."

Hera nodded solemnly, then continued past them down the hallway. Chopper gazed up at Sorena for a moment with his darkened center eye, before he warbled something to himself in Droid Binary and puttered away after the Twi'lek woman.

"I heard that!" she called after him. But before she could say much more, she found herself being dragged by one arm down the hallway again. This time aware of the risks of Maddox pushing her forward with the Force, she didn't struggle, choosing instead to bide her time and wait for a better opportunity for escape to present itself.

It wasn't long before they had reached the ramp into the ship. Sorena blinked in the bright sunlight, and it took a moment before her eyes were able to adjust. But while her sight was having some difficulty getting used to the increase of light after several days in the cargo bay, her other senses worked just fine. It wasn't long before a familiar smell reached her nose – that of wosko, a dish of made up of spiced meat and vegetables in a wrap fried in guush palm leaves.

And there was really only one place it could be found: the planet Rhea.

"You brought me to Tortuga? A pirate hub?" Sorena shot Teri a look. "Clearly I overestimated you."

Teri said nothing, but for someone as perceptive as she was, even his silence held answers.

"No, that's not it... You have other business here, too." A smile curled the corners of Sorena's mouth as the pieces fell into place. "You're calling in the old team, aren't you? First Maddox, next the vode... Either you're planning something big, or the Rebellion is so desperate it has to go seeking aid in second-rate Sith and soldiers who are mere shadows of what they once were."

"Watch who you're talking about," Maddox said, his golden eyes dark and vaguely threatening. "We are not your true enemies, Sorena."

Suddenly, a gentle ring echoed in the space around them, and the Zabrak fished through his pocket for a moment before grabbing hold of a transmitter. Once he had checked the caller ID, he shot Teri a meaningful look. "I have to take this," he said. "You get her back to base camp – I'll follow when this is finished."

Lux nodded, hailing an antigrav buggy pulled by a squat, insect-like droid equipped with a single wheel. Then, taking her arm, he pulled her over towards it and inside. With a dejected look, he unwound a long cord of woven durafiber and secured one end to a sturdy beam running the length of the buggy and the other to her cuffs at such an angle that she couldn't possibly remove it.

Faced with no other option but to wait it out, she sat back in her seat, closing her eyes in meditation. As memory and the present began to fade together, Sorena found herself speaking words she had said in the past aloud: "Three... two... one..."

"Aha! Told you I could do it!" Ahsoka crowed as she opened the microwave, grabbing the steaming bowl of kwhyen oat gruel inside and setting it down on the counter. She tapped the figure 0:00 frozen on the screen triumphantly.

Lux, who was waiting for his cup of caf to finish filtering – she'd forgotten to tell him that thanks to faulty power circuits no one ever bothered to repair, the cranky old machine in the corner of the Saberdart's kitchen took forever to warm up – rolled his eyes. "You and your kriffing Jedi reflexes," he muttered.

He tossed a credit in her direction, which she caught and pocketed with a bright smile. "And this why you don't make bets with me," she said, sitting down on the counter. She swung her legs back and forth, gazing impatiently at her food that was still just a little too hot to eat.

"It was good of Captain Lei to ferry us to Alderaan for the meeting with Senator Organa, even after so many months since we last spoke with her. She always seems unusually happy to help us." Having given up on waiting for his caf, Lux grabbed a piece of meiloorun fruit from the basket and came to sit on the other side of the counter. But what he did next took her by surprise – he tucked his chin over her shoulder, wrapping his arms around her from behind.

"Uh..." Ahsoka hoped her lekku weren't as flushed as they felt. "Yeah, well, although she'll die before she admits it, she has a real soft spot for Saw."

"Like you have a soft spot for me? I mean, you always kept coming back for me, even when I thought I wasn't going to see you again."

"I guess you could say... that..."

As Ahsoka turned around and realized how close they were, she trailed off, suddenly lost in his deep grey eyes. A moment later, he tilted her chin gently up with the tips of his fingers, and, as they drew slightly nearer to one another, it was almost as if they were going to–

"Oh for kriff's sake, get a bloody room!"

Ahsoka and Lux jumped apart as Maddox, from whom the complaint had originated, shuffled into the kitchen, an empty mug in hand.

"Was I wrong to hope the gods would spare me this?" he grumbled. As the caf machine beeped – the pitcher Lux had started was ready – he went over to fill his cup, adding a splash of blue milk from the conservator before he walked over to stand in front of them.

Having realized that she forgot to get a spoon, Ahsoka jumped off the counter and made a beeline for the cutlery drawer.

"The only thing worse than teenage love," Maddox continued, "is having to witness it when you're so many years older and thought it was all behind you. You start getting these horrible flashbacks from back when you were really stupid..."

Now Ahsoka was sure she was blushing. "Um, what do you mean? Because, uh, yeah, um, it's not like we're a couple or anything..."

"Yeah, right. Really, it's so kriffing obvious to anyone with eyes how much the two of you want to get into each other's pants and–"

Mortified by what he was implying, Ahsoka was about to turn around to tell him to shut up before he could say anything that would embarrass her and Lux. But before the words could leave her mouth, most of the steaming hot caf in his cup suddenly spilled all over his sleeping pants, effectively cutting him off.

There was a moment of stunned silence. Then, with no other prompting whatsoever, two teenagers simultaneously burst out laughing.

"Hey, not funny!" the Zabrak exclaimed. "I just washed these!"

"After what, three years?" Lux gasped in between howls of laughter, clutching his sides.

Ahsoka wasn't about to allow an opportunity to rub it in to pass her by. "Everyone knows you take forever to wash your clothes, even that new Nautolan navigator you keep trying to flirt with, and she's only been here a week!"

"The smell of the laundry detergent bothers me. And besides, I wash the underwear," Maddox pouted, reaching for the rag in hopes of cleaning up the mess.

But, much to his surprise, it wasn't there. Ahsoka realized at the same time as he did that Lux, who was standing by the door, was dangling it in front of him with a wicked grin on his face.

"Run, Lux! Run!" she cried, darting past Maddox to bundle him out the door. She grabbed his hand, and, oblivious to any stares that were coming their way, they charged down the corridor, laughing like they had not a care in the world.

And they didn't. But that was all about to change...

*Sorena continues to find herself captivated by memories of the past, even those she lived as Ahsoka Tano. But really, are the two so far apart as that? In the past, Ahsoka is starting to develop feelings for him, and in the present, Sorena just can't bring herself to hate him, even after what she thinks he did to her... which still remains shrouded in mystery. Many things are unclear, but hopefully, the revelations made in coming chapters will answer some questions...

Omg thank you friend who just got back from a trip to Europe, these souvenirs taste AMAZING... *through a mouthful of chocolate* Hello all! How's everybody doing?

Not much really happened in this chapter, but anyway, it started off intense, so I felt it was my duty to use the fluff/comic relief flashback scene I'd been planning to use for quite some time... And I also liked the transition, I might do more of its kind in the future... (And Ahsoka trying to stop the microwave at zero is kind of me every single time I have something to reheat)

Buuuuttt, on the topic of intenseness, thankfully, Sorena is finding that, with Lux back in her life, her angry feelings toward him just aren't as strong as they were before. I guess it's just easier to make assumptions about people when they're not around...

But now that Sorena is out of the ship, I can FINALLY *reproaches self for getting carried away for this long* start writing Terina (their ship name in this fanfic :D) interacting in the present. Of course, she still wants to hate him with everything she has, but knowing how much I ship them, that won't last long...

But Maddox is going to make things funny. Really, REALLY FUNNY.

But I LOVE the dynamic between Maddox, Teri and Sorena, both in the past and present, and so far it's been really fun to write... Looking forward to going into it further...

Also, just a side note, when Lux mentions the times Ahsoka came back for him, he's talking about Carlac *sighs and thinks about A Friend In Need* and the rebellions of Onderon -- the one in the time of the Empire and the one back during the Clone Wars.

Anyways, I'm going to get going now. I have some reading to do *looks at Soph_theScribe* and something else to post (just for my randomness book though, not an update, but it's still cool). Next on the updates list are LtLB, UAAT and SOTE. 

GOTTA FINISH BOOK NINE BEFORE SCHOOL STARTS!!!

*eating more chocolate* May the Force be with you,

Sharron