When Josh had finished speaking, Sylvana remained silent for some time, her own dying eyes glaring into his blazing as the heart monitor continued to chime. Beep... beep... beep.... "With respect, Captain, but you have no clue what you're talking about."
"You're right, I don't. I remember everything I've done. I don't remember everyone I've killed, because I've lost count. Don't be so naive to think you're the only killer in the room."
"Talk to me when you've killed your best friend at the age of six," she growled.
Josh inclined his head, "Touche." He straightened and spread his hands. "But I'm not going anywhere. You want to talk about it?"
She looked away from where he stood, drawing her knee up to her chest where she sat on the cot. After a long sigh, she hid her face behind her knees. "I can't," she said softly, her voice muffled by her position.
"Right, fair enough." Josh sat down by the bed.
Forty-two minutes passed in silence.
Memories, what ones had been returned to her, continued to swirl like a morass in Sylvana's mind. She attempted to pull herself more tightly, attempting to disappear by sheer will alone. One memory told her she could, but refused to show her just how.
Forty-two minutes passed in silence.
Sylvana began to tremble in the weight of knowledge oppressing her to such an extent as it caused pain in her heart. One hand pulled from around her knees to rub at her sternum.
Beep... beep... beep....
Forty-two minutes passed in silence.
Josh sat, doing his best to project 'I'm not going anywhere'. He surreptitiously studied her while he sat, trying to replay the conversation in his mind, seeing if it could have gone better. Then, one phrase caught in his mind. 'Someone I cared about....'
Forty-two minutes passed in silence, when the heart monitor began beeping erratically. Sylvana's shoulders began to shake beneath the thin cloth of her convalescent garb.
Later, Josh could never recall crossing the distance between them. He just knew that suddenly he was holding her, cradling her head while she began to sob.
"I don't... want to remember.... I wish we'd... never gone to... Coruscant, I wish I... never had to... to meet... Master Skywalker. I... I just want... want to be... to be normal," she sobbed into his shoulder, rambling in her misery.
"Yeah, it'd be nice to be normal," he chuckled. "I'd probably still be stuck behind a counter at Mobil, with nothing more to worry about than maybe a junkie with a syringe." He squeezed her gently, "But normal's off the cards for us now."
"Not fair...."
"That, it's not."
She cried a bit longer, slowly calming down, her sobs returning to shuddering sighs. "I shouldn't be here."
"No-one should. No-one should."
Sylvana was silent a short while, still encircled by Josh's arms, the monitor pinging quietly in the background when she again spoke. "Do you ever wish you could start over your life from the place where it all began? You know, the one event that changed your life's path to bring you here?" she asked quietly.
"Sometimes. But... then I start to think that I am what I've been. If I'd changed something in my past, I'd be a stranger. And, despite everything, I'd rather be me."
"You're very lucky, you know that?" Syl said quietly.
Josh laughed, "Same as someone struck by lightning eight times."
She pulled back from him, then looked up. She blinked... then again... then - she burst out laughing. "What... What in the six Lorrdian continents are you talking about?!"
"I've seen people described as lucky because they've suvived being hit by lightning some stupid amount of times - when I'd say they were pretty unlucky to get hit in the first place." He smiled ruefully, "So, maybe you've been struck a few more times, but neither of us are really lucky."
"All luck really is, is hanging by your fingernails until things turn out right," Syl said in an odd tone, before leaning back into him. "That's with the assumption they'll eventually do so."
"Yeah, but you might as well hang on, because by the time things turn out worse, the cliff collapses. Better to go down fighting than to just give up." He paused for a beat, "What was that you said earlier?"
"What do you mean?"
"That, 'by the seven moons of Nasreen' or whatever it was."
"Oh... Six Lorrdian continents? It's... oh, uhm..." she thought a moment. "It's like saying 'what in the world?'...here...." Syl's voice trailed off as she made the connection as to why it wasn't familiar for him. Whoops.
Josh stared at Syl for a moment, opening and closing his mouth as he tried to find something to say. Finally he settled for a compromise solution. "Wha?"
Syl gave him the 'it's okay, really!' smile.
"You were saying that 'what in the world?!' like it's something that's not said where you're from. I thought you were from Canada, or somewhere."
"Well, Kind-of. I've lived quite a few places here on Terra..." she sighed.
"Anywhere else?"
She looked at the far wall, it was blurred, but she put that off to the tears in her eyes as she leaned against him. "Uhm... Montissori... Lorrd?"
"Montissori? Some bad memories there?"
Good sign, he wasn't freaking. "Not really. Remember when I asked if you could go back to the defining crossroads of your life?"
"Yeah...." Where the hell is Montissori?
"I wish I'd never left Lorrd," she sighed. "It all went downhill from there."
Left... Lorrd? "Where'd it go downhill from?"
"Leaving Lorrd - y'know, the planet?"
Josh blinked. "That, I'd kind of figured out. I was just kind of asking where things had gone downhill from. Like, where you were at before things went to crap."
"Terra," she said flatly.
"Tell you what. I'll shut up, I think I'm confusing myself."
"I'm from Lorrd, my mother's from Terra - when we came we were stranded here - one thing led to another, my twin was murdered, and my memory was erased. So, now you know, okay?!" Her tone of voice couldn't be described as anything other than miffed.
"Thanks," replied Josh mildly. "Sounds like you got struck about eighteen times, then." There didn't seem much else to say.
"Stupid Skywalker," she muttered.
"What's he got to do with it?' Josh asked, trying to cope with the treacherous currents in her stream of consciousness.
"Actually, you know what? It's the Major's fault. Cause he wanted me to meet Skywalker in the first place!" she said in exasperation.
"Uh huh," Josh replied, paddling aimlessly as the heart monitor raced once more.
"Though, it could be my fault. If it weren't for those stupid dreams about people being chased around Paris, and shot, and all of that." She huffed, "I just can't win."
"You dream about people being shot and chased?" He paused, "Actually, I can see that. Ignore me."
"I can't! Half the time it is you!"
"It is? I mean, it makes sense, but..."
"Yeah." She sighed, then yawned slightly from where she was still huddled in his arms.
"Uhm, look. You're probably still convalescing. We actually had a bit of a scare not too long ago. Maybe we should let you get a bit of rest."
"Mmm hmmm..." Syl yawned again, her eyes falling closed. Her frustration spent, she really had no energy at all.
"Uhm... I guess I didn't mean that quickly..." he said softly. "Though, that works too."
In a very short time, the erratic sound of the Machine That Goes Bing had returned to a simple, steady pulse.
Beep... beep... beep....