the s2 plot finally kicks off in this part as the agent and five finally meet and make wonderful first impressions on each other. this part is also reads more like a fic than the last (which you should def read before this for it to make sense if you haven’t bc it sets up the whole scene), since it’s p dialogue heavy, and pretty much all from the agent’s pov, but it’s still more on the draftish, notesish side. also some of the original scenes bw five and elliott are gonna be retconned since the agent’s already answered most of his questions about crop circles and whatnot when she revealed where she came from.
The agent find herself standing face to face with the stranger from the picture, now practically burning a little square down onto her skin through the pocket of her jeans. Elliott’s standing behind him mouthing what the hell is going on, and between the disbelief that boy in the picture has actually, finally shown up, the day has finally come, and the panic over what to do with Elliott, the agent does little more (well actually nothing more) than stand there with her lips parted and not a single word on her tongue.
A beat passes as the boy maintains eye contact while he lifts the mug to his lips, taking a drawn out sip, and only breaks it once he steps forward out towards the open area of what’s now the makeshift research/office space where they’ve put together any and everything that they could get their hands on related to the strangers (does it count if the agent knows them from a picture?) who appeared in the alley after the agent..
“Hm. This Colombian?” he asks, turning back around to face them. He looks far too nonchalant about all of this for the agent’s liking, and she has half a mind knock the coffee out of his hand, even if it means her favorite mug breaks.
Before she has the chance to respond, however, Elliott hastily moves forwards before answering back, “It’s my own blend.” The agent quickly grabs him by the arm and tugs him back into the kitchen, the butter knife that he’d grabbed after the boy’s intrusion clattering to the floor.
“Excuse us just a second,” she grits out, dragging Elliott further back until they’re stood up against the counter where the forgotten groceries lay. “What are you doing, oh my god. ‘It’s my own blend’,” she says, doing a (pretty poor) impression of Elliott. “What, are you gonna tell him the recipe now if he asks?”
“What am I doing,” Elliott hisses back. “What are you doing? Because if I’m not mistaken, that’s the same guy from your picture, and this is what you’ve been waiting here for since the moment you got dropped into that alley!”
The agent quickly glances at the boy, who’s poking around their setup, turning over newspaper clippings and fiddling with the machinery, and doesn’t seem to be paying them all that much attention. “That doesn’t mean that you just tell him everything he asks about! We don’t even know what he’s here for or if that little teleportation trick is all he’s got! And also, isn’t it just awful convenient how the one person we’ve been waiting for shows up last, and how he ended up literally knocking on our door?” She again looks back at the boy, who stops reading whatever journal it is he’s picked up and looks back, arching a brow at her. She scowls back.
Elliott sighs. “Well maybe if he got the chance to speak he’d tell us what he’s here for anyway.” He pauses, then frowns. “No harm in being too careful though,” he agrees, pulling open the drawer under the counter and grabbing a (much sharper) knife before the pair make their way back over to the boy.
He gives Elliott a ‘really?’ look as he sees the knife in his hand, but nontheless ignores it before he asks, “Have you ever heard of Area 51? Roswell?” And honestly the agent can’t help the snort she lets out at that. Who knew letting Elliott keep his conspiracy theory crap mixed in with her research would ever get that reaction out of someone.
“Please, you honestly expect us to believe that you’re from another planet? Which one, home to the alien race of vertically challenged boarding school runaways?” The agent crosses her arms and scoffs but before she can say anything else the boy’s once again blinked and now stands directlyfront of her, and she quickly leans back to steady herself.
“Well,” he says, smiling thinly, “If there were such a planet then you’d no doubt be a citizen there yourself, so let’s both of us ignore that comment for now,” and okay, the agent realizes with a little feeling of indignance, he does have an inch (or two) on her. Still, she doubles down on an overly saccharine smile of her own.
“Alright, let’s,” she says back, and silently hates the sense of relief she feels once he steps back. Behind her Elliott, ever the peacekeeper, clears his throat.
“Um, what my niece over here meant to say is that, while there certainly is reason to believe in extraterrestrial life which exists beyond the limits of our own universe, and beyond our comprehension, you and all the other anomalies we’ve seen don’t seem to to fit into that, uh, narrative. So don’t go trying to avoid the question at hand.” The agent gives him a funny look; which question at hand have they even asked at this point? The boy, on the other hand, quickly leans forward again.
“Which others?”
*
Elliott quickly explains phenomenon that occurred during the five energy surges they’d witnessed together, and the consequent flashes of blazing blue light that had appeared alongside them each time before depositing a figure into the alley. Somewhere in the middle of his explanation, he’d set down the knife, and the agent hopes that it wasn’t a mistake (she’s confident in her own special power, but if the boy teleports before she has a chance to use it then it won’t be of much use at all).
The boy frowns, brows furrowed. “Did you get a good look at any of them?”
“Yeah, a couple of them. There was the first one, which I saw alone, because, uh my niece wasn’t here at the time.” Before their guest has a chance to ask what he means by that the agent quickly cuts in.
“There was that freakishly big crybaby,” she adds, and the boy turns to face her.
“Crybaby?”
“Yes, a crybaby, a person who cries often, and is thus referred to as a cry plus baby. You know, you should quit playing hooky, otherwise you’ll miss out on more than just those oral comprehension skills you’re lacking here.” And okay, she should feel kinda bad for taking jabs at a teenager but he’s also had her feeling unsettled since the moment he walked (or rather, blinked) in. Before he can respond (most likely with a threat, which. Shocker) Elliott jumps in, breaking up the hostile air.
“He kept coming back to the alley and sat around for hours wailing someone’s name, a woman’s name, it was uhh-”
“Allison,” the agent supplies.
“Yes! Allison.”
The boy frowns (the agent bites her tongue before she makes a comment about his face getting stuck that way). “Luther.”
“Well,” she says instead, “Whoever it was, they all came scattered over the past couple years. No two at the same time. The last one was in September.”
The boy lets out a sigh of relief. “So my family’s alive,” and okay, what? The agent’s eyes widen in part shock and part confusion as he continues. “Shit.I think I stranded them here. Now listen to me-"
"Elliot. My name's Elliot. And this," he gestures towards the agent, “Is-”
“None of his business,” the agent says coolly, crossing her arms.
“Alright, fine. Elliott and None Of His Business, I got ten days to find them and save the world. Now, I need your help to do that,” he says, the last part directed at Elliott. No surprise there, the agent thinks, going for the more guileless of the two. Although it’s not as if she would have done any different herself. However, she once again interjects. Knowing Elliott, he’ll reveal something to this guy before he even asks about it, and she’s not sure she wants him knowing how much they know any more than they need to let on. For now at least.
“You know,” she says, quickly making her way over to one of the desks pushed up against the wall, pulling open one of the drawers and producing a newspaper clipping, “This mugshot looks a lot like arrival number four.” That’s a lie, because she knows for a fact that that is exactly the last arrival, had held the clipping up beside the blurry picture given to her by The Handler and confirmed it at least ten times. But he doesn’t need to know that just yet. She offers out the clipping and he immediately snatches it out of her hands, eyes racing across the picture.
“Diego,” he breathes out, before looking up from the paper and directly at her. She feels a pang of guilt at the look of extreme, almost manic relief in his eyes, when she knows there’s information on all of the rest of, what she knows now to be his family, sitting there in their office.
And then his words truly hit her; in her scramble to make sure Elliott didn’t blurt anything out, she’d almost forgotten that first part where he said he needed to save the world and just. What? Is that a part of her mission? Is she supposed to help him do that too? And why didn’t The Handler ever mention that? She wants to ask him more but has no clue where to start, and before she gets gets the chance to ask (or to be more accurate, splutter incoherently for a second), someone else speaks up first.
“So that’s helpful then,” Elliott states more than questions, looking almost eager to be of more use.
“You have no idea,” is all the boy says, and before the agent gets a chance to ask him wait, hold up, let’s go back to that saving the world bit, he folds up the snippet of paper and disappears with a soft zap. The agent and Elliott both turn to face each. other. Almost a minute passes and then-
“Well that was something.“
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Hey Hon! I was wondering if you could do a request? No rush on this one :) I will say this one is a bit personal bc I tend to do this A LOT 😅 Cal comforting the reader after being hard on herself? Maybe the reader was working on Cal’s saber, ends up breaking it more (unintentionally) and once everyone is asleep, she locks herself in her own room and cries? Thanks hon! 🥺💖
Hi again Hon~! I’ve had this request of yours sitting in my inbox for long because I was too indulged in completing “A Path I Can’t Follow”!! ;;A;; sorry for the long wait, but I hope it’s worth it with this fic I’ve finally made at your request! 😁 As always, thank you always for sending me your love and support, you sweetpea! 🥰🤗🥺💖
“Perseverance Over Pride”
Tags: Self-doubting! Reader
Next | Masterlist
1 of 2
The roar of the Jotaz can be heard in the entire crash site.
As if one wasn’t already enough, a swarm of Scazz popped out of their burrows and joined in. You and Cal were already busy in dealing with the larger enemy, the least you could do was Force-push the vermin away for the meantime.
“[Y/N], DUCK!”
You ducked and rolled away from his general direction, he sears the Jotaz’s arm that was supposed to be a heavy strike for you—once again, you were saved by Cal’s quicker reflexes. You finished it off by crippling the sack of blubber’s hind leg, the result made the creature stagger and Cal finally drove his lightsaber across its rotund belly.
It gave one last ear-shattering howl before falling dead on the ground. You’re still lying on your back, propping yourself on one wobbly elbow as you stared at the motionless Jotaz, gasping for air as you register the fact that it almost had you if it weren’t for Cal.
A hand appeared in your periphery, you looked up and saw Cal. You clutched his forearm as he did you, then pulled you up back on your feet.
“Thanks,” you gasped.
“Don’t mention it,”
Before Cal would clip his hilt on his belt, you heard the tiniest crackle. Quickly, your eyes were searching for the sound until you saw little sparks emitting from Cal’s saber. You exclaimed which immediately caught his attention, he followed the direction of your eyes and saw that his hilt had been severely damaged.
“Aww crap…” Cal hissed, unclipping it again and cradled it in his hands. His eyes shifted between you and his broken lightsaber. “Could… Could you… fix it this time?”
At a loss for words, you shot him a surprised and puzzled look.
“I… I busted my soldering iron, and I’ve been meaning to get a spare, but I couldn’t find in any of the workbenches we’ve passed by,” he added.
He places the hilt on your hands, you brought it closer to you for examination. You looked around the place and saw that the two of you were in the middle of the crash site by the lake.
“Well, all of the workbenches are obviously far from here. The safest is back at the Mantis. We’re gonna have to go through the ice caves again,”
He groaned jokingly, you playfully cup his cheeks and ran your thumbs across them.
“Oh, come on, you big baby!”
“Your big baby,”
You scoffed coyly and motioned to him to follow you.
With Cal unable to fend for himself, the least he could do was use his Force abilities, but using them still take a toll on him, rendering him fully incapable of combat. You take the lead, taking down anything that stands in the way between the both of you and the elevator.
“Look, the Jedi are here!”
“Take cover!” you cry out, slipping behind the rock walls as the torpedo ejects from the barrel of the launcher.
Thanks to his quick reflexes, Cal easily lifted one of the cargo boxes and threw it to the Stormtrooper reloading the rocket launcher in a panic. The two of you bolted towards the elevator, jumping across the Stormtrooper’s incapacitated body, and then stomped on the pressure plate to make the elevator work.
For the duration of the elevator ride, while catching your breath, you took another good long look at the broken lightsaber. The sparks have ceased to spew from the hilt’s insides, but the ends of the wires are cooked and have crumpled out of shape.
“The Jotaz sure did a number on the old thing,” you weighed the saber on your hand up and down.
“If Master Tapal would see that now, he’d really give me a scolding,”
“Has he ever scolded you before?”
Cal jokingly extended and then curled his fingers on both of his hands, “I don’t exactly have enough digits in my hands to count all the times that he did.”
His joke warranted a chuckle out of you.
“Quite the troublemaker, are you?”
“Eh, can’t avoid it even if I wanted to,” he shrugged and did his trademark stance with his hands on his waist while slightly shifting his weight on one leg.
“I thought you liked bad boys,” he added.
You scoffed as you coyly rolled your eyes to fix them at him, and there he was glancing back at you, you notice his eyes moving up and down—examining your entire person. You looked away, still smiling.
The elevator rumbled a hollow clang sound as it stopped for the doors to open. The way back to the Mantis wasn’t long enough. The shortcut from the ice caves to the landing pad was just a hop, skip, and a jump away. A pair of Scazz hissed and hunched their backs at the sight of you and Cal, but they lasted only ten seconds by your blade.
You finally got to the landing pad and met with the others.
“Back so soon?”
You presented the broken lightsaber in front of Cere as an answer. For good measure, you even tried to switch it on—the emitter flashed the beam for only five seconds before it was totally busted.
“Ah, I see,”
Upon entering the ship, Cal helped himself with a cup of water while you readily strode into the room but Cal snatched you by the hand and stopped you in your tracks.
“Whoa, hey, slow down there! There’s no rush on fixing that,”
“Are you sure?”
“Sweetie, we barely had time to really catch our breaths,”
You rolled your eyes pensively, “Now that you’ve mentioned it—it kinda seems that way.”
“It’s about time we take a breath, don’t you think so?”
You set down the busted lightsaber and Cal slowly reeled you in, letting you sit on his lap, whilst you gingerly combed his silken, ginger hair. He mouthed the words “Come here” in a whisper, sneakily closed in on you for a kiss which you gladly returned. You prodded your tongue into his mouth for good measure, in return, you could feel the smile in the middle of his kiss and feel his tongue dip into your own mouth.
When you pulled, you followed up with a little kiss on his forehead and found him staring back at you with his soulful, puppy eyes.
“What is it?”
“Nothing, it’s just… Have I told you how pretty you are?”
“Well, in the average count of at least twice a day, you’re short on one,” you played along.
The smirk that curled along his lip was tender albeit boyishly mischievous, he brushed away your hair to the back of your ear as he cooed.
“It’s your eyes that’s always been my favorite. You’re just so pretty, really.”
You smiled back, bit your lip at him and playfully patted his shoulder.
“I have to get this thing done if you wanna be on the move again,” you chuckled, then stood up from his lap to take the busted lightsaber from the table, he still had his grasp on you but smoothly slid off as you walked into the room.
Cal knew that you were the type of person who wants some time alone when working on something, he has been sensing the determination swelling in you ever since he asked you to repair it. You began taking it apart in a sequential order from the emitter to the sleeve on both sabers. More of the damage was seen when you’ve removed each part, especially the circuitry that’s nestled just underneath the switch—where the Jotaz had made its mark.
Apart from the destroyed wiring, the Jotaz also managed to sever the parts located within the second saber’s handle and majority of those parts conducted the power of the kyber, hence the short-lived flashing of the blade that you demonstrated to Cere minutes ago—and this only to name a few of the damages that the Jotaz has made on the saber.
“Wow, and I thought Nydaks were the worse ones,” you muttered under your breath. “Turns out they’re just the same, I suppose.”
Keeping your eyes glued on the cross-section of the lightsaber, your hands blindly rummaged on the toolbox for wire cutters and small tongs, then you pawed the storage compartment where the spare lightsaber parts are—to your dismay, there were a few internal parts that were lacking from the box.
This calls for some improvisation, and unfortunately, you’ve got little to work with.
You sigh at the realization that this is going to be a long day.
To save time, you decide that it was best to start with the ones that you can already take care of—such as replacing the wires. Your fingers gently tugged off the cooked and severed wires to replace the fresh ones, your fingers elaborately wrapped the strands together and fitted them through the narrow space between the pair of cycling field energizers.
It has been hours since you started working—two and a half hours at that, thanks to the damage done whether big or small—even so, you still feel like you haven’t done enough. You’ve poured all of your focus on the lightsaber that you didn’t sense Cal coming from behind. He slipped one arm around your waist.
“Hey,” he cooed, greeting you with a kiss on your cheek. “You’re awfully busy.”
“No thanks to that Jotaz, he didn’t exactly made this easy for me. Look!”
“Looks pretty bad,”
“That’s because it is, and I think I’d have to improvise on some of the parts. I just hope there’s spare internal parts in here,”
While he nestled his chin on your shoulder, you took some of the damaged parts and show him, out of the blue you were lecturing him about lightsaber components, what needs to be replaced, what parts are hard to find, and the like.
“Uh-huh…” he hummed, you felt his fingers brush away your hair from your shoulders and he teasingly planted kisses on your neck; goosebumps pelt your arms as the grip on both of your hands weakened.
“Cal,” you clicked your tongue, hinting the sternness in your voice.
He hummed again, his lips climbing their way from your jaw up to your cheeks while his free hand caressed the other side of your neck, his fingernails closely scratching the base of your scalp. By impulse, you slightly shift your neck to give more access for his lips.
“Not while I’m working,” you moaned.
He stopped but buried his face into the flesh of your shoulder. You chuckled suggestively and finally had the strength to pull away and twirled to face him.
“Playtime can wait,”
“That can wait,” he pointed over your shoulder with his eyes.
“Both can wait,” you fiddled with the buckles of his armor as you spoke. “I’d rather have nothing else on my mind by that time.”
“Alright then, princess. But you’ll be there for lunch, right? Greez is cooking something good—or so he says,”
“I will,”
You return to your work as soon as Cal left the room. You made a mental list of the parts that need replacing and continue with what you can at the moment. You contemplate what you can scavenge among the crates in that derelict hangar; if push comes to shove, then the Imperial bases situated in the mountains and even in the ice caves became options.
A couple more hours pass, you could hear Greez’s chatter accompanied with the clattering of plates and utensils—that’s the cue for dinner—and you start putting away the things in one corner.
“Lunch is ready,”
“Yeah, I’m coming,”
Cal scooped you up—you squealed in reaction—away from the workbench and easily marched out of the room with you in tow. The two of you made it to the table and had a helping of Greez’s stew. Of course, it’s not a meal without some conversation.
“So, [y/n],” Cere initiated. “How’s the lightsaber repair coming along?”
“Surprisingly tough,”
“Oh? How so?”
“The Jotaz that Cal fought managed to get its claws into the internal parts,”
“Like what?” Cal joined in before taking a spoonful of food into his mouth.
“The energy channel, you know that very narrow tube where the kyber’s energy goes through until the emitter? I still have to figure out how to fix that with what little we have in the inventory,”
Merrin, as inquisitive as she always is, asked more about the elaborate details in creating a Jedi’s weapon—answers came from the three of you, speaking from their own experiences. The conversation over meals became more animated as memories turned into stories to be shared over the table.
In your mind, you agreed to Cal that this was a good time to lay low for a while and take the time to avert yourself from action. It may or may not be indefinite, but at least you managed to rest your body and mind from all the strenuous action.
Immediately after dinner and helping with the dishes, you went to the derelict hangar and then ransacked the crates stashed there.
“Nerf fur… Mineral ores… Metals: large. No, that’s not it. Metals: parts and pieces, here we go!” you unconsciously read aloud the labels and exclaimed at the last one.
Upon opening the lid, your eyes lit up like a Weequay pirate finding a whole shipment of spices. There’s got to be several variants of metals in this box! You scooped up a handful of parts, take some little pickings that may fit your needs, and then returning them all back into the sea of parts—this cycle continued on for a time until you’ve ticked off majority in your mental list.
“Okay, that’s that,”
You returned to the ship and back into the workbench you went. Finally—and hopefully—having the much-needed parts. Cal paused from practicing on Cere’s hallikset to watch you come in the Mantis, acknowledge him with a smile and then disappeared into the room.
“Wow, she’s really busy with that. I hope she doesn’t stress herself over it,” Cal thought out loud, absentmindedly strumming the instrument.
The collected parts scattered on the workbench placemat and continued with the progress you’ve left behind. You were feeling good about this. Your hands were working at a brisk pace; while the lightsaber gradually returns to its original state, so did your confidence.
The final step was meditating over it—in a true Jedi fashion. Hovering both of your hands over the dormant lightsaber, you channeled your focus and your Force energy to the weapon. Images of the lightsaber, inside and out, flashed behind your eyes; you willed it to respond to your Force, remembering the teachings of Master Yoda from the time you participated in your Gathering.
“Please,” you mouthed, with only the ‘s’ whistling through the thin gap of your teeth.
Click.
You slowly open your eyes and looked at the saber sitting still on the placemat. There was a pang of hesitation when you reached for the weapon.
Is this doubt I feel? It can’t be… Not when I’ve finished it! You thought to yourself when your fingertip were mere centimeters away from touching the hilt.
Your fingers curled around the sleeve, then gently nestled the center of your thumb to the switch’s button. You mentally counted down from three, closed your eyes by the time you counted two, and then took a deep breath after whispering one. The weight of your thumb pressed against the button… and then hum of the blade sung once it was ignited.
It was a small feat, but an achievement nonetheless. You gently swung it around and its purr was silky smooth. You admired the beam, a blinding beacon inside the narrow bedroom… and then it died off voluntarily—along with your celebratory smile, in exchange, your eyes widened.
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