"I thought you might like the rest of your tea," a warm, soothing voice said. Josh looked up from the French-dubbed episode of Deep Space Nine he was trying to decipher to see Becki offering him a ceramic cup and a smile. Her face was bathed in a soft, warm glow coming through the large windows. The moon was high in the nighttime sky, and with the apartment mostly dark the lights of the Paris cityscape sparkled in her eyes.
Strange that a color like gray could shine so brightly.
"Thanks," he said with a smile of his own as he took the mug she was offering him. As soon as he took it he knew it wasn't the rest of his tea; it was, in fact, a fresh cup. Steam still rose from the top and the sides of the mug were almost uncomfortably warm. Her hand, brushing against his as the mug was passed between them, was cool by contrast.
When Becki sat down on the couch near him Josh noticed the object she held in her other hand. "Could I have my lightsaber back?" he asked in a nearly pleading tone.
Becki regarded him with a measured, pondering look. "Only if you won't use it on your teammates anymore," she said. Although her voice had a teasing tone and the corners of her lips curved up slightly, the firm look in her eyes told him she was serious.
"Well, I certainly won't use it on you, anyway. You're the only one I can stand at the moment." Seeing the serious look on her face, he added, "Of course I won't."
Finally she smiled fully and handed him the lightsaber. "Mind that promise." Then, turning to face him, leaning back against the couch's armrest and hugging her knees to her chest, she watched him in a studious silence.
Until the silence grew too loud for him and demanded breaking. "Waiting to see if I'll change my mind and slice you all up in your sleep?" he teased.
She winced slightly but shook her head without hesitation. "No, I know you won't. At least," she grinned, "I'd very much like to believe you won't."
"Look, what Mike said . . ." He flushed and looked away.
"What about what Mike said?" she persisted. "You know, I was there, watching you dueling with Vickie. You two moved so fast, it was hard to keep up; but at the end--I thought you seemed angry, but then Vickie was goading you so, it made sense that you would be. . . ." It all came out in a rush, spurred on by stirring memories. She paused for breath and then asked: "Whatever Mike saw, I couldn't tell if you used the Force to end the bout. And I couldn't tell, either, if--" She fixed the serious gaze on him again. "Did you really go to the Dark Side then?"
He paused to think for a moment before replying, "I don't think so. I was pretty mad, sure, but I don't think I ever went over to the Dark Side. It's just not in my nature."
She was grinning oddly at him. "Nature? I wonder if the Dark Side's not more natural to all of us than we'd like to believe. . . . But if you're sure you didn't, that's a relief to me."
"Don't worry about me, I have no intention of turning evil. Anyway, I can beat Vickie soundly enough without the Dark Side," he smirked, "so why would I need it?"
She rolled her eyes, but her smile suggested that his answer had been satisfactory. "Still, I hope you'll be careful. I mean, even Luke Skywalker and Corran Horn had Dark Side trouble at times; why should you be immune?"
"Do you buy all that 'Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate' stuff?" he asked her, his tone implying that he had his own doubts.
"Well . . ." She shrugged and waved one hand in a dismissive gesture. "Yoda has his moments, but some of his ideas are a bit out there. I don't know. I think it can't be that simple. 'Once you start down the dark path . . .' Well, 'forever' wasn't exactly true in Darth Vader's case, at the end, was it? He had a last chance." She shook her head and looked up at him. "Still, fear and anger certainly aren't of the light side. 'God has not given us a spirit of fear' and all."
"Natural human emotions," Josh frowned. "Good people get scared and angry just as much as anyone."
"Which is why I say there's more of the Dark Side by default in human nature than we're comfortable noticing," Becki nodded. "But noticing and admitting it is the first step in changing--the necessary beginning of redemption. Emotions are one thing; but it's just as natural for us to act in fear or anger--to act wrongly--as it is to simply have those emotions. It's the actions that have to change, but who of us is strong enough to do so?"
Josh chuckled and raised an eyebrow. "You're starting to sound like sermons I've heard."
"Oh dear," she laughed. "Well, that might be a PK thing."
"PK? Prophet Kristy?" He frowned in confusion.
"Preacher's kid."
"You're . . . ?"
"Yeah."
"I didn't know that."
"I didn't know before today that you were a computer tech, either."
"Now we're even?"
"Something like that. I don't know." She smiled and twisted a stray lock of her hair around her finger, watching him thoughtfully. "At least I think we're better off than we were before, being ignorant of each other."
"I'll second that," he grinned. Then he sighed. "You know, the Force sure does complicate everything," he said as he resituated himself on the couch, turning so that he faced her more fully.
She shrugged but still smiled. "I suppose so. I wouldn't know, having no connection to the Force myself."
"I wouldn't say you have no connection," he said quickly. "Your presence is brighter in it than any I know."
She looked up and their eyes met--and locked for a long moment; then she blushed and looked away. "I can't sense it, though."
"Maybe you're the lucky one," he sighed. "Like, for example, I can sense Mike's hostility without even trying, whether I want to or not."
"Oh. Ouch."
"I just don't see what his problem is with me. He's as much a weakness in our team as anyone, with his squeamishness about killing. If he had worried less about keeping his hands clean in that warehouse and more about keeping the team alive, we could've been done with that search and safely away from there sooner. And he worries that I kill too much? Maybe it's because I've got team members who are too afraid to do it!"
He broke off suddenly on the realization that she was chuckling at him under her breath. "Present company excepted," he teased. "I've never seen you squeamish."
"At least my shots occasionally hit where intended these days," she shrugged. "But Mike . . . as I understand, some of the things he had to do in Project Boussh were kind of traumatic for him. He avoids killing again for that reason." She shrugged nonchalantly, but her eyes were relentless. "Let him be. Just because you can handle the killing doesn't mean it will be easy for everyone."
"It's not like I like it any more than he does," Josh persisted. "But we have no choice; someone's shooting at you, you have to shoot back. If I don't kill when it's necessary, I'm endangering all the rest of you as well as myself. If someone's trying to kill one of you, I have to do something. I'm not going to let anything happen to you, even if it sometimes means killing." He sighed and slumped back against the couch. "It's not pretty, and I certainly don't enjoy it, but sometimes it's necessary."
"I know," she nodded, and then grinned somewhat bleakly. "I figure Terra Group work generally comes under the Just War heading. I don't like it much either, but that's how it is." Frowning at the grim turn the conversation had taken, Becki glanced over her shoulder at the television. "Not to change the subject, but . . . can you follow that very well? TV in French?"
"Uh, well . . ." he shrugged. "Context helps a little, but it goes too fast for me to keep up with it, really. I'm sure you have no trouble with it."
"Actually," she grinned, "I'm half lost now myself. I'm more fluent on paper, or speaking--listening's the hardest part of a second language sometimes. Especially as fast as native speakers tend to speak it. At least this is French and not Latin."
"You speak Latin too?"
"Well, I read it. Speaking is another matter." She laughed and looked back at him. "Although as much spoken Latin as I heard last semester during my student teaching, I almost believe I could be as fluent there as in French before too long."
"I remember Sci mentioning that you were on leave from the group for student teaching," Josh nodded.
"I told the Chief that the way they keep student teachers busy, I wouldn't be able to get away from Terre Haute that semester even to save the world," Becki giggled. "Apparently he took me at my word."
"So how was student teaching?"
"Every bit as busy as I expected and ten times more so," she sighed. "Teaching is hard work."
"I was wondering," Josh ventured, "why you did the student teaching anyway, considering that you're supposed to be starting a career as Queen of Mendellia shortly?"
For a moment she looked nearly sick, so that he regretted asking. It passed quickly, though she kept her gaze averted as she answered: "Well, after four years of college and with only one left to go, I hate not to finish. I intend to complete my degree, even if it's no use to me in . . . Mendellia." She shrugged to give the illusion that it was no great concern. "Just stubbornness, I guess."
"Well, it's good not to let all that studying go to waste," he said. "You never know; maybe you'll have use for that degree after all."
"Maybe. Maybe not for the Indiana teaching license, though," she said quietly.
"But you don't want to let go of that," he guessed suddenly.
"Yeah, maybe. It's such a huge step, leaving behind my whole past, my family, everything I'd planned for my life--"
"I know," he murmured, barely loud enough to be heard, but it drew her eyes up to his again.
She watched him for a moment then blinked and said, "Oh. You would, you're kind of in the same position, aren't you?"
"Except that I got a title of 'Special Military Advisor to the Crown' with the move, not 'Queen,'" Josh grinned. "And I didn't exactly have as much choice in the matter as you do."
She nodded. They watched each other warily for a moment before simultaneous grins, of the improbably silly variety, won out. "Well, then," said Becki, raising an imaginary sword in salute, "here's to my fellow expatriate--"
"Nice not to be the only one anymore," Josh held up his mug to her in return.
"We need a secret handshake now," she mused in mock seriousness. "And maybe a theme song. Emblems, mottos, a crest or something of the sort. . . ."
"And a partridge in a pear tree," Josh suggested.
"Okay, that works for our official bird. And tree, too," she chuckled. And then dissolved into a fit of giggling. Josh raised an eyebrow stoically, but the laughter was infectious and he soon joined her in it.
Suddenly she leaned forward, hugged him impulsively, and sat back again before he'd fully registered what had happened. "Thanks, Josh," she said, flushed from the laughter and still smiling, "I think I needed that."
"I guess I did too," he nodded, a slight blush creeping onto his face.
"And for what it's worth," she said, "whatever the others say, I think you've made a good mission leader so far."
"Well, I suppose that's debatable."
"Not to me," she said firmly. After a moment's silence she reached over and picked up the remote control sitting next to him on the couch. "Let's see what else we can find to confuse ourselves with."
On the first channel she found Danny Glover and Joe Pesci arguing in voices that were very clearly not their own. "Lethal Weapon 2!" he identified it. "I love this movie!" Becki stared blankly at him. "Though maybe not so much in French," he finally said. They both broke out in a sudden fit of giggles.
"I've never seen it in English, so it's even harder to follow," Becki admitted.
"You've never seen it!?" Josh asked incredulously.
"Nope."
"Wow. . . . I thought everyone had seen them by now."
"Everyone but me." She smiled at him as she lay her head down on the back of the couch. "Actually, I haven't seen many movies at all."
"Yeah, but you had to have seen the Star Wars movies, right? How else would you have gotten into this group?" He slumped down a bit and rested his head on the back of the couch, too.
"Well, yes, of course."
"Then you must have seen the Indiana Jones movies too, then, right?"
"Nope."
"That's almost criminal!" he exclaimed. The look of surprise on his face was turning into something closer to disappointment. "How about Men in Black? That's practically required viewing for people in our line of work," he said reasonably.
Becki yawned as she shook her head. "Haven't seen that one either." She smiled at him almost apologetically.
A gunfight broke out on the TV, breaking the calm quiet with the discordant sound of automatic weapons. "I think we've seen enough of this today." He grimaced at the screen as he took the remote control back from her and turned the TV off. When he turned his full attention back to Becki she had wrapped her arms around herself and was snuggling further into the couch. "Okay, what about Gladiator? Perfect for Latin teachers."
"Uh-uh."
Josh shook his head sadly. "Unbelievable. Top Gun?" he asked around a mighty yawn.
"No."
"James Bond movies? Any of them?"
"Mm-mm," she mumbled by way of response.
"Hmmm. Let's see. Oh! The Princess Bride?"
But the question was lost on Becki. Her eyes had drifted closed, and her breathing was deep and regular. Finally realizing just how tired he was, too, Josh lay his head back down and looked over at Becki. He was amazed by how peaceful she looked sleeping, the city lights still warming the shadows on her face and a soft smile on her lips. . . .
And then he was asleep, too.