InsaneJournal

Anakin Solo & Tahiri Veila
Enterprise • Evening
Low • Complete

Tahiri didn’t need to look at the new message on her PADD to know he was here. She was so attuned to his presence in the Force that she felt it within minutes, just as she’d felt his absence for the past 48 hours. Two days had never seemed so long before. They didn’t stretch out the same way as the hours when he and Jaina had been with Jacen had, but it still felt like a lot longer than a couple of days and a part of her had worried she’d be stuck here without him for an uncountable number of days, no matter how sure she’d seemed talking to others than he would find her here.

She walked quickly - barefoot, of course - navigated corridors as she sought out her fiancé. Just as she could sense his presence here on the ship, she let her feelings draw her to him. It was a pretty big ship but for her, locating Anakin Solo was easy. She could have done it even if she’d been blind.

“You’re late,” she informed him once she did find herself standing in front of him. Arms crossed in front of her, Tahiri tried to look annoyed, but she only partly succeeded. She was sure he could sense the relief she felt, anyway. Even without using the Force, it was there in her eyes. She might go through the motions of giving him a hard time, but the truth was that Tahiri was really very glad to see him.

Anakin had felt her easily enough, but with her standing in front of him his face burst into a lopsided grin. Despite the fact that he had felt her, the entire thing had been so clean and clinical and unlike anything he was used to, that it was off-putting. Tahiri standing there, bare feet, blonde curls, and an attempt to look annoyed even though there was so much joy in her eyes was possibly one of the best sights of his life.

"Tahiri," he breathed, and he stepped forward slipping his hands over her waist and pulling to him like he hadn't just see her on Coruscant a few hours before. But the fact that he had didn't make this place Coruscant and didn't make the strangeness of it any less strange. There was almost a sense of deja vu about it, but it was something he couldn't quite place, just a nagging sense that he'd been in this position before.

"I am really glad to see you here," he pressed his lips to her forehead. "Even though I'm still not exactly sure where here is…?"

Tahiri let the pretense of being annoyed with him slip, at least for the moment, as she stepped into his arms and leaned into that embrace. Feigned irritation wasn’t as important as slipping her arms around him and hugging him, at least for now. Something about this position felt so familiar, but she assumed it was just the number of times when he’d come home to her after some trip or another. They didn’t allow themselves to be parted often, but it still happened often enough that she had some practice in welcoming him home.

And, of course, each homecoming included her being annoyed at him for being gone so long, whether it was days, weeks or months spent without him right there. This wasn’t so different, except that it had been some time since she’d been in a position to doubt whether she would see him again.

After a moment of uncharacteristic quiet in which she just let all of her senses really feel the fact that he really was here, Tahiri pulled back just enough to look up at him. “We’re on a ship called the Enterprise,” she explained, even though she was sure the liaison would have told him that much already. “As far as I can tell, we’re not in our galaxy, but I’m not really sure where we are beyond that. There are a lot of other people in the same position. The people who normally live on this ship call us travelers. They say we were brought here by some kind of abnormality in a nebula. They don’t know how to send us home, so we’re stuck here for now.”

Regardless of where he was, Tahiri always felt like home and Anakin didn't expect that fact to change. He kept his arms around her as he let her talk, absorbing her words in silence as he tried to make sense of what she was saying. He raised an eyebrow at the last sentence - an abnormality in a nebula?

He waited until she took a breath to turn that raised eyebrow into words. "I'm assuming you've bothered them for navigational star charts," he mused before turning more serious. They'd said most of this in his orientation, but he couldn't help but wonder just how many people there were here, and while they'd seemed very certain there was no way to send them back, Anakin wondered if that were really true. After all, he'd been told before there was no way to do things, so why should that be true here when it hadn't always been true in the past.

"How many of us are there?" He asked her, snugging her close into him. "Us… travelers as they called us."

“Of course I have,” she told him. “There’s nothing I recognized. I haven’t been up to the observation deck yet, but I don’t expect that view will be any more familiar. It seems like we’re pretty far from home, but Jaina and Jacen are here, at least. And your dad is, too.”

She hesitated, wondering if she should tell him about his mom who wasn’t really his mom, because she was from an alternate reality or about the others who were here, like Jaina’s roommate who was that other Leia’s daughter or the fact that his grandparents were here. She would tell him, but she thought she might want to give him a minute.

“I don’t know the exact number, but it feels like a lot,” she admitted. Truthfully, there was only one other traveler she cared about right this minute and he was standing there in front of her.

Anakins's fingers slid around Tahiri's waist to settle there and he pulled her against him once again. It was good to have her here, a beacon of stability in a locale that felt otherwise very unfamiliar. Even the ship around him seemed too clean and crisp and although it was space it didn't feel quite right.

"They did mention that," he nodded. "And I think I feel mom. Do I feel mom too? She feels a little off I guess…" He paused. It felt like Leia, but Tahiri hasn't mentioned her. "Well, I guess there's one more traveler anyway," he leaned forward and kissed her. "Where's your room? They gave me a number, I don't suppose it's where you're staying."

It was hard to avoid telling him when he came right out and asked. Tahiri nodded. “Sort of.” How did she explain that it was another version of Leia? It was going to sound crazier than the rest of this already did.

“I’m in D-35,” she said after kissing him back for a moment, deciding it was easier to answer the question of her housing arrangements than it was to jump into explaining his crazy alternate universe family right this minute.

That was not where he was, but Anakin supposed they could deal with that later. It wasn't as if they hadn't slept apart of recent although in the last few years it had been more because they were on different planets than for any other reason and it certainly hadn't been when they'd been on the same ship as they were currently.

"So what else should I know?" He grinned at her. "They said something about Starfleet? I assume they're running this show - do they seem reasonable?"

“This is their ship,” Tahiri said, nodding as she grabbed his hand to tug him in the direction of her quarters. She had roommates in the suite-like quarters they’d assigned for, but the sleeping area was her own and suddenly this corridor was not where she really wanted to be.

“I haven’t had much chance to talk to a lot of the crew, but we can go back to my room and I can catch you up on what I do know.”

Anakin slid his hand into hers and followed easily, taking in the relative similarity of the halls. He was going to have to figure out the layout of this place more intentionally he thought, but thankfully Tahiri seemed to be aware of where she was going.

"I'd like that," he glanced over at her and smiled, relieved all over again that she was here and he wouldn't have to figure it out all alone. "You could maybe catch me up on a thing or two else, if you'd like," he smirked over at her.

“I think I could manage that,” she agreed easily, mirroring his smirk. She was relieved he was here, too. It could have ended up being a much longer wait and she was grateful it had only been a couple of days. Exploring this new environment was going to be so much more fun with him at her side.

“Luckily, my quarters aren’t that far from here.” It was still a walk, one that felt too far when she wanted to be alone with her fiancé, but at least it wasn’t on the other side of the ship. She hope he intended to stay a while, because she wasn’t going to be inclined to let him go anytime soon.