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Get By With a Little Help - Jedi Survivor

Summary: The many times the folk of Rambler’s Reach lend a helping hand to their resident Jedi, and a few times he helps them in return.Or, a series of short vignettes of Cal interacting with the folk found around Koboh.

Chapter 1 below the cut, if you prefer ao3 reading, this is the link! (Please drop in and leave a comment if you like it!)

Tags: fluff, hurt/comfort

Koboh isn’t the kind of place they write about in the Core to lure rich travellers somewhere to empty their pockets. It’s the kind of place that you end up in when you’re either running from something or too naïve to understand why the planet is so deserted. Unless you’re Turgle, who came here specifically to swindle fools, but Doma wasn’t Turgle. She’d once been a prospector, full of foolish dreams of striking it rich on an untapped planet. Then her partner had died and she had found herself alone on a backwater planet without a ship or hope of anything.

Then Doma had happened across the barest bones of what was once an outpost, and she has never been a quitter. She rallied a few prospectors and rescued a few others, and over the years a little town grew in the shade of the mountain and nestled against the slow, wide river. Others began showing up too. She didn’t care much about who was coming in back then, she still doesn’t now, as long as they aren’t raiders or agents of the so called Empire that’s burning their way through the rest of the galaxy.

So when a Jedi of all things lands at her doorstep Doma hardly blinks an eye, just gives him the lay of the land and sends him on his way. The kid seems halfway between polished and rough, but he helped out Turgle and that is enough to endear him to her somewhat. That and the priorite he has lining his pockets. Doma may be kind, but she isn’t a fool. There’s nothing that makes the galaxy go round more than getting what’s owed from credits to justice. She might have a few things a kid like him would be interested in, and she makes sure they’re on full display when he comes into Dendra’s Antiquities.

When he enters it’s a bit more energy than she’s used to from the folks around here. Not from the kid, exactly, but his little droid. The thing bounces off his shoulder and starts scanning any and everything around the shop. She watches the duo curiously from behind the counter as they inspect some old tools that Mosey’d found on an unlucky prospector over in the gulch then move on to a broken toy tooka. Not that there were any kids around to play with the thing, but you never know. Maybe the kid needs something softer than the droid to sleep with. He passes right over all the things Doma had laid out to tempt him to trade and eventually lands on the other side of the counter.

“Is there anything I can help you find?” asks Doma, slow and inviting.

“Yeah, actually. I was wondering if you have any clothes in here? I don’t mind used if that’s all you have,” says the kid. The look on his face says that he would actually mind very much but is either too desperate or too polite to say otherwise.

Doma gives him a once-over, taking in his appearance in the close proximity. While his face is clean and his hair has seen a wash sometime in the last few days, the state of his clothes say that they’re the only ones he’s got. Her eyes can pick out the lines of mending stitches beneath dirt that’s been ground into the weave of his shirt. The vest he’s wearing has seen better days too. So have his pants and boots. Probably the only set he owns then, Doma concludes. He must be one of the on the run types. Not that the Jedi part didn’t give that away.

“Sorry kid, not at the moment. At least I ain’t got anything that’ll fit you.”

“That’s okay. Does anyone else around here sell clothes?”

Doma chuckles. “I’m the only shop in business in Rambler’s Reach, though if you find an abandoned campsite out there with something in your size, chances are no one’s going to come complaining if you take it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” says the kid.

“If you’re really desperate I’m sure Mosey has something that might fit a scrawny little thing like you,” she adds.

The kid flushes nearly as red as his hair. Doma forgot that humans did that. It’s sweet. He trades for a few songs and backs out of the store before the red fully fades. Doma watches him go. The new blood’ll be good around here, breathe some life into an old, dusty town. She does make a note to procure some clothes in the right sizes for the kid. If he’s willing to trade all that priorite she may as well give him something to trade for.

It takes a while, but eventually Doma gets a healthy selection of clothes for humanoid males into the shop. Some of it’s been scrounged from abandoned camps, others from the raider’s supply. Either way, no one’s come looking for them yet, and the kid, Cal, is the only one buying. He hasn’t asked her about stocking anything else yet, and so Doma settles in to seeing him at least once every few weeks for a new shirt or pants, the last ones looking like he’d dragged them by nekko around the planet then given them to a mogu. But it works for her and it seems to work for him.

Cal doesn’t have to ask her to stock anything else, but Doma learns. She learns the hard way, as she always does. She learned she wasn’t cut out to be a prospector with the death of her partner. She learns what Cal needs when the raiders come knocking.

The sound of the scuffle is what gets her attention. Doma is in her shop when the echoes of blaster fire ring through the outpost. Screams follow, and the sound of people running. This isn’t the first time the raiders have come to Rambler’s reach however, and Doma knows from experience that having a strong figure to rally behind gives the residents here the spine to stand and fight for their home. So she grabs her rifle and steps out into the sunlight with her shoulders squared. No raider will be taking their home nor goods today.

Yet the sounds coming from the entrance to town aren’t the usual gleeful hoots and hollers from the raiders. No, there’s concern in those shouts. Fear too. And the high pitched sound of something buzzing. Doma rounds the corner and sees the gang of raiders she was expecting, both humanoid and droid together. But what she wasn’t expecting to see was the local Jedi waving his lightsaber around and handling the group by himself. For a moment she feels like she’s small again, back when tales of the mysterious Jedi coming to save a planet were still common bedtime stories. But she has never been one to revel in the past, and Cal has never really cut an imposing fairy tale figure. He does not fight like she imagined a Jedi would. He does not possess elegance and grace but rather a lethal calculation to his strikes.

Doma arms her rifle and steps towards the fray. While she appreciates the help, this is her outpost, and she can protect it. No need to get complacent and rely on a kid, no matter his background. The few raiders still standing looked between Cal and Doma and made the smart decision by turning around and heading back into the dusty hills.

“Get gone!” shouts Doma after them. “And don’t try it again!”

As she tracks the raider’s retreating backs Cal approaches her. He walks stiffly, she notes, and has a bruising ring around one eye. He grins at her as if to share a victory. As if the raiders won’t come back soon, in a week or two when he’s off planet and cannot help.

“Thanks for the assist,” says Cal.

“Usually it’s me or Mosey scarin’ em off like that. You did good,” says Doma.

Cal keeps on grinning at her. He looks half a fool, but she lets it slide. The young often fall prey to foolishness, and he doesn’t seem like one to not know his limits. Unlike a certain green idiot hanging around the outpost.

“Hey, do you have any bacta available in your shop?” asks Cal.

Doma doesn’t. A few of the residents have some stocked away for emergencies, including herself, but nothing for sale. Her eyes wander to where Cal’s hand is pressed against his ribcage, and thinks of the heavy electrostaffs she’s seen some of the raiders using.

“No bacta in the shop, I’m afraid,” she says.

A look of acceptance passes over Cal’s face. He sets his jaw against the pain as he nods and takes a few shuffling steps towards the saloon.

“I said no bacta in the shop, I didn’t say I had no bacta at all.”

Cal turns to her so fast she can’t believe he doesn’t have whiplash from it. There’s a hopeful gleam in his eyes.

“I got some stashed away just in case. I’d be willing to part with a few patches for a handful of priorite,” says Doma.

An amused grin appears on Cal’s face and he digs in his many pouches until he comes up with the required handful. Doma takes it, her large hand dwarfing Cal’s, and leads him over to the shop. He waits patiently as she slips into her living quarters and retrieves the promised bacta patches.

“Thank you,” says Cal gratefully. “Greez can’t complain too much if I already have bacta in hand.”

The last part he adds on quieter, like a thought escaping confinement. His little droid beeps in what sounds like agreement. That’s when Doma learns that she must also keep her shop stocked in bacta and probably other medical supplies. The little Jedi was going to need it if he kept throwing himself at the Bedlam Raiders. Greez would probably buy some too, now that he was shipping out with the kid across the galaxy. Yes, there was likely going to be some profit to be had from keeping bacta in supply.

Doma watches as he leaves, no doubt headed back to his and Greez’ little hideout underneath the saloon. It’s good the kid has someone looking out for him. She turns to survey her store. The shelf over on the left could use some rearranging anyways. Now all she had to do was find a good supply of bacta and she’d be rolling in priorite. She could claim it was to get more priority shards from the kid, or that it would be helping the outpost in the long run, but that wouldn’t be the whole truth. Maybe it was just her going soft as she got older, but she likes him, and if keeping clothes and bacta in stock will help him in the long run, then she is going to do it.