Who: Rogan Ardellian & some New Republic pilots When: 63.05 Where: New Republic space carrier. What: Rogan gets a glimpse of some holos. Rating: Low Status:COMPLETE.
"Hey, Rogan!"
"Hey."
The greeting sounded almost normal, Rogan thought, as he entered the mess hall and went for food. A group of his pilot buds had waved him over and so he went as soon as he got his tray and he slid in between a Twi'lek pilot named Chuuk and a Coruscanti pilot named Jess.
"I was beginning to think we lost you in that last visit," Chuuk laughed as he raised his hand for a fist bump and then returned to his food.
Rogan smiled and shrugged.
Truthfully he'd been avoiding people and he knew that was the case. His fellow pilots were good people and he liked the ones he roomed and bunked with, but seeing them meant there was the possibility that one of them was going to see through the carefully constructed facade that said 'I'm okay', and realize that truthfully he wasn't okay. He'd fallen in love with Lyric, despite everything he'd told himself. He'd indulged the crush, and then the trust, and then even as he'd told himself daily - multiple times a day even - that it was just sex and comfort in a port nothing else, he'd began to hope for more. And he couldn't quite keep from driving himself crazy with the what-if that said he could have had a chance.
So right now it was easier if he just wasn't around people too much. If he wasn't there, then he couldn't actually make the mistake that said 'no I'm not okay' and 'yes, I half want to just run my ship into the side of a Yuuzhan Vong cruiser and be done with it'.
He wouldn't, of course. He couldn't. The New Republic still needed him and as long as they did, he had a life and a reason to keep going and giving something back to the galaxy. Even if - and this was the harsher side of himself he wasn't too fond of - he didn't really feel as if the galaxy had offered him very much.
"You've been very sparse," Jess took a drink from the cup in front of her. "But you're going to be there tomorrow for the run-throughs right?"
"Definitely," Rogan agreed, and this time the smile wasn't forced. "We've got to put the new recruits through their specs before we get them out in space against the Vong."
"They're an enthusiastic bunch," Chuuk grinned. "Kriffing maniacal, but enthusiastic."
Rogan chuckled. "So long as they can be not-crazy enough to not take chances and keep themselves in one piece, that'd be good. Can't loose the ships or the pilots at this point in the game."
But they would lose both, of course they always did.
"Shit, ya'll, did you see the holo's?"
Bea was stepping up and sliding into the chair across from the other three. His eyebrows were raised, and there was an amused look on his face.
"Lieutenant you know we don't have time for gossip," Rogan shook his head, but the smile hadn't completely dropped from his lips. Bea had been part of Coruscanti's theatre elite back before the war had set in and he'd decided to make good on his quick reflexes and become a pilot. And for the amount of experience he had? He was a damn good one. But you couldn't take the theatre out of the pilot, apparently because he was always the one in the squad who kept them abreast of every major societal change announced on the holonet.
"No really, ya gotta see this." He pulled the datapad out of his pocket and pushed it across the table.
On the screen was a low-light photograph and Rogan glanced at it only as Jess and Chuuk leaned in to view, but his eye was caught on the face and he was pretty certain his skin color paled significantly as the glance held and turned into a stare. He was barely aware of Jess's question about 'who', and Bea's answer "that's Jacen Solo, you know the kid that just came back from the dead?"
Chuuk whistled. "Doesn't look like he's wasting any time."
"Do they really have time for this? He's a Jedi right?" Jess's tone held judgement. "The rest of us are out here fighting -"
"He was in enemy territory for over a year," Rogan's voice felt like not his own. But there was a unmovable quality to it, and it pulled the glance of the other three. This was why he was squad leader, really. He could do this, pull a group of pilots to him, and encourage them, push them, scold them, make them willing to die for him. Right now he couldn't begin to understand why he was defending Jacen Solo of all people, but for some reason it was there.
Maybe it isn't Jacen Solo you're defending.
"He's on shore leave, and it's a well earned one I think. We'd offer it to any prisoner of war that needed it. Any of us would have the same right to that he does. His last name, his parents doesn't mean he needs to push right back out to the front lines. Seems to me the Solo's do that enough on their own without the entire galaxy pushing them on to do it."
"That's not," Jess looked chagrined. "I didn't mean it exactly like that."
Rogan felt tired and the food in front of him no longer even looked appetizing. "If there's something we don't have time for, it's this kinda gossip," he responded, standing up. "Bea put that datapad away and focus on something more useful than other people's love lives. This isn't the Coruscant Opera House, it's a New Republic Naval vessel. Let's act like we belong here."
It was harsh, and Rogan knew it, but he couldn't bring himself to feel bad about it. He couldn't seem to feel anything at all. He left the mess hall and went straight for his bunk. So much for having a dinner like a normal person. The room was blessedly empty when he entered, and he headed for his bunk, pulled the partition across for privacy and sat down on his bed, his head in his hands.
It would have happened sooner or later. Lyric was with Jacen Solo, and Jacen Solo was back, and the holonews had been all over that - which was to be expected. Sooner or later someone would catch the two of them together, and it wasn't surprising that it had blown into the holonet with a force. Handsome prisoner of war with a beautiful lover? What wasn't to love about that story for anyone who wasn't the man in love with that beautiful lover. Part of it was that Rogan could hardly imagine Lyric all right with having his face splashed across the galaxy. It was something he wasn't going to get away from - not in that relationship - but Lyric had been tenaciously private.
Or maybe Rogan had only known him when he was so private and maybe he had been so private only because he thought he'd lost Jacen.
Rogan groaned, turned onto his side and reached for his datapad. It didn't take much to find an image of the picture, to stare at it, and allow the feeling of shards creeping into his abdomen to linger. Lyric looked happy, if surprised by the kiss, and Jacen - well Rogan knew at least a bit of what it was like to stare at Lyric that way. He guessed it wasn't so far of from the way he'd stared at him when he thought no one else was looking. He switched it off, pressing it down between the mattress and the wall, and he put his head down on the pillow. He had thirty minutes. Thirty minutes before he had to be anywhere, and he wasn't moving. It was thirty minutes that he could wallow in the absolute certainty that what he'd thought he might be able to have was utterly and completely gone.