Giving Up

There was a familiar low groan almost like a growl coming from nearby, the sound of pain and muted frustration. It took more than a minute to realize it was coming from herself, and as Aittera tried to push herself slowly up into a sitting position, the dull throb where her head was supposed to be forced her to lie right back down.

“Too much. Drank too much. I've got to stop trying to make up for lost time.” she murmured to the empty bedroom. That's not what you were doing, and you know it. She knew it, but she wasn't ready to admit it, not even to an empty room.

It had been two weeks of utter, ongoing frustration since her return to Nar Shaddaa. The visit from Somaesthesia had seemed itself to be more something she'd imagined than had actually happened, but after two days of doing everything she could to reach out to Kol - from taking a sedative in hopes of inducing one of their shared dreams to simply standing in the cockpit of the Hope, screaming his name to the rafters until she was hoarse – she had begun to wrestle with the possibility that it really had all been some kind of sick mind game.

Teach had shown up at the hangar with a Jedi named Zero. Well, technically a former Jedi, but to Aittera, Force wielders were pretty much Sith or Jedi, and she could not care less about the nuances they used to differentiate themselves. It had taken a lot of convincing to keep them from taking her into custody or detaining her, and in the end, she'd agreed to give Zero her tracking beacon's frequency to keep her from putting her idea of fusing the Hope's landing gear to the hangar deck into action. By the time the two had left, she was furious with her fellow former SIS agent for bringing yet another damned Force user into her situation. She was fairly furious with herself for her convoluted explanations in response to his accusations as well.

She'd promised to stay on Nar Shaddaa while Zero investigated her claim to innocence, though, so she'd finally left the Hope behind to go back to her apartment. That was a better place to begin looking into things on her own in any case, she'd reasoned - until she'd walked in, of course. From the moment she'd stepped inside, she was assaulted with the memory of the time she and Kol had spent in the tiny abode, and the question of whether it could all be a lie was renewed with vigor.

Aittera solicited the help of a slicer named Sheridan Zila that she had relied on in the past to try to track down the evidence the SIS had against her. It seemed to boil down to this security footage Rallyn had informed her of, but a few days after the slicer had answered confidently that she could find where exactly the file had come from, Aittera had a visit from Jean Shcramme informing her that -her- slicer was one of -his- people and wouldn't be working for her any longer.

If she didn't love and respect her old friend so much, she might have decked him. Of course, she understood. She couldn't even imagine how to begin to slice her way into SIS databases and networks without tripping an unimaginable number of alerts and security along the way, and if his agent was compromised, his company's integrity would be compromised along with her. She understood. She just didn't have to like it.

I didn't have to break down in front of him either.

Yes, that had been the most humiliating moment of all – spilling salt into his shoulder as she finally admitted aloud for the first time that what she had experienced had very likely been an illusion. After all, Kol – Ragious, damnit – had said that he had realized he couldn't conquer her by force, and hadn't Khor all but said that he thought seduction would gain her trust more successfully?

Aittera reached for the bottle of bourbon on the table beside her bed, chasing her hangover with the proverbial hair of the dog. Clearing her name seemed less important now. Doing anything seemed less important really. Eventually, she might track down the slicer Jean had offered as an alternative and see if they could get her any closer to some answers, but for now, she no longer saw the point. There was no fight left in her.