We Lost Each Other Twice Before (Bambi Maddox)

[Grym Kandle]

Grym sat back in the corner of the bar, a stim between his fingers. He held his hand up before his face in the dim light and glanced over the skin before pressing the stim stick to his lips. He wore none of his usual attire out this time. In fact, no one that was alive would even recognize the man beneath the mask of Grym Kandle. Leaving the stick between his lips, he pulled at the artificial layer of skin. Sadly, it appeared more real than what lay beneath.

At this point, Grym appeared as he might have if he wasn't a glitterstim addict. His hair was dyed a natural brown and his skin was covered in a synthetic layer. For all this and the drab flight suit he wore, he was nothing of the mask and cloak that anyone looking for Grym Kandle would notice. And his 'disguise' covered the excessively apparent scars and side effects of his fancies with glitterstim. He even had contacts on to cover the greened veins of his bloodshot eyes. He wanted to fit in as much as possible. Just another bum in the Outer Rim, wasting his time in the bars when he probably could've been out there working some job that would only pay for the drinks later anyways.

But the bar he was in just happened to be the same bar that Javes Tinarm frequented. His last name was actually a tag on he had recieved for an outdated prosthetic arm. The bum smuggler was so cheap he would never bother with an upgrade. Grym knew that and more. He always knew the ins and outs of the prey. Since he had received his order from the top to make some convenient observations, Grym had determined that the prey was much more available than the hunter. In fact, he had no word on the hunter whatsoever other than it was an assassin new to Sorsha's employ. They had pulled off a few jobs so far from what the word on the street had turned out but little else was available.

The Vigo had just mentioned, since Grym was in the area, he should check out the new agent. If it was even more convenient, he could arrange for the agent to never make it back to Sorsha. If possible of course. He had already dealt with his own business in the area by now, word had reached him obviously well before the assassin's deadline. And Grym had been tailing the smuggler for some time now. Of course it wasn't noticable, Grym was well beyond being noticed by this point. He had the target bugged and then some. And he was playing the role of just another bum pilot, flying a heap of junk that he'd taken off a friend's hand for nearly free. The thing couldn't even leave orbit in truth.

And so he waited. Javes was watching the races at the bar with some friends, all of which Grym could tell their addresses by memory by now. Grym had been an assassin for long enough, all he needed was a glimpse of the hunter and he'd know them for sure. Death reeked off those kind of people, a confidence only gained in murder. And none of the people currently residing within this bar had tasted of that experience like any assassin had. He took another drag before flicking the stick into a flower pot that only held other spent sticks.

[Bambi Maddox]

Maddox stretched, leaning back the length of the speeder bike with her feet up on the handgrips.

She smoked her cigarette leisurely, eyeing the entrance to the bar and contemplating her next move.

Did she wanna wait here, follow ol' Tinarm to his next stop and take him out there, or even enroute? Or did she wanna go in, watch how the dumb drenack spent his last hour in this world before popping him on the way to the john.

The second option sounded more fun. It seemed appropriate somehow that the scum smuggler who had earned a check-out ticket from Sorsha should make his end face-down in some dingy fresher bowl.

A long drag and then a flick of her fingers to send the glowing butt in a red arc across the street, Maddox made her decision.

Swinging long legs over to the side she got off the bike and stood on the pavement. She straightened her blaster belt and crossed the street, stepping on the slowly dying cigarette before entering into the bar.

The stink was the first thing that hit her. The bar smelt like every other intergalactic dive she'd ever frequented and somehow it pleased her. This was familiar territory, places like this. She'd danced enough of 'em to know it like a familiar friend. Maddox felt completely at ease.

She spied Javes immediately upon entering. The ignorant idiot was watching the races, making bets that would not matter tonight if he won or lost. Bambi laughed to herself. She might let him pick up his winnings first before she capped him. A small mercy, why not?

"Corellian head-rocker" she said, acknowledging the barkeep only enough to order as she took a stool at the end of the bar near the hallway to the washrooms.

[Grym Kandle]

He wished that stim had never gone out. He wished that moments before could have lasted forever and not ended so soon. The hunter, Sorsha's newest assassin, technically Grym's prey, had entered the building and taken a seat only meters away. Of course Grym's reaction had been well masked in feigned boredom and the exasperation present in any other of the locals but he hurt somewhere inside like he hadn't felt before.

=======

Grym drove the speeder with ease through the crowding traffic. This was nothing compared to Nar Shadda and it was past midnight here even. He didn't bother turning his masked face towards Bambi who sat beside him as he began to speak again.

"As I was saying, its your first job and its walk in the park. Literally. We've been tracking your target and we know he and his bodyguards take the path through the executive park outside his place of business. Repeat your plan again, and remember its only a tentative outline. Anything could happen."

They'd been over it plenty of times. He just wanted to her to repeat it so he could reassure her that she had done everything correctly so far. He hadn't had such support or tutelage. He had a mentor but she had not held the same kind of relationship like Grym and Bambi shared.

[Bambi Maddox]

Bambi smiled to herself. How many times did Grym need to hear this for crying out loud?

"Your beginning to remind me of an old mother hen, Grym.." she joked, "..only you aint as pretty." She didn't really mind his painstaking attention to detail. It was kind of reassuring actually. And she knew he wanted her to succeed in this hit - maybe more than she did. He knew what really was at stake, whereas Bambi only thought she knew.

She gave an exagerated sigh and then complied.

"Ok, you drop me at the south-east end of the Park. The bodyguards are flanking the target (she had to call him the target, Grym had insisted. It kept the kill from being personal, which all good assassins knew was the golden rule).

I make my approach on the right-hand side of the street, the park side, keeping to the shadows but without trying to really hide. Natural like. As they enter the building, the target routinely puts in an hour or two of work after eating dinner at "Stella Belles." I follow inside, act like Im lost and have come into the wrong place. I take advantage of the mild, momentary confusion to pop first guard in the head, negating his threat immediately (she lifted her hands snuggly gripping her blaster and made as if discharging of the weapon--bang), then pop the second guard, again in the head (same motion--bang). I gotta be pretty darn quick about this, I know. Then take out the target (bang--bang) and then boot it outside and cut back through the park. You meet me at Palpatine's statue.

Easy as pie"

[Grym Kandle]

"Remember, the expediate death of the two bodyguards comes not with a rushed purpose but with grace in purpose. Take out the target with enough rounds to insure that he is in fact dead and evacuate. I've seen targets get back up from a score of blaster bolts to the chest due to this or that. The reader in the glove box is a portable medscanner. It's used to detect vital signs. The second after you blast him, the other hand should have that scanner ready. You can get him from the same distance you shoot from and confirm the kill. This should take all of one second. Hesitation only gives our real enemy, time, the advantage."

How many times had he been told that in his own training?

"And you've got it all down. This will be easy. We'll be back on the ship with your contract credits by the end of the night."

=======

What was she doing here? Hadn't she died? Completely obliterated by that bomb? And why was she working for Sorsha of all people? She couldn't be Sorsha's new agent. It was too ironic, too... unfortunate. The synthetic skin suddenly seemed itchy and he wished for the comfortable static climate of that his cloak provided.

He looked up from his drink just in time to hear the target say something about going out back to relieve himself. This was her chance if she planned on accomplishing it here with minimal complications.

And the eye patch? He could only assume the worst there if she was lucky to even be alive. And here Grym had thought he had laid his sorrows to rest. She had died in a botched mission, her first. He had already moved on from his reasonable portion of grief. He wished he was delusional, wished that it was some mirage concieved by his addiction. But he knew it was only denial that she could've survived and he had somehow missed her. The details of that event were so taxing to recall even now. And even then, his mission now?

[Bambi Maddox]

She laughed in that careless manner that always brought a curl of a smile beneath Grym's mask. Head tossed back, blonde mane whipping about her in the wind and her throat bobbing up and down as she loosed that familiar cackle.

"Aw geez that was funny Grym. You scared the beetlejuice outta that poor rodian"

Grym had been giving an example of how not to misread the scanner - reminding Bambi of the time they had come across a derilect apartment block that was known for squatters. It was an abominable dive and on any given day or night, a person could find some sorry loser who'd crawled his or her way inside and passed from this world to the next in a stim-hazed oblivion wrapped up in old newspapers as their deathshroud.

He and Bambi had crept into that apartment block one night looking for cadavers on whom to practice with the scanner reads. Gryms eyes glowed eerily in the darkness as he moved like a wreath among the shifting shadows of a Nar Shadda moon. In in the dark, he stepped on a sleeping rodians foot, waking the hapless creature and giving him a fit of the terrors so bad the poor thing had stroked out right there. The body language of sheer annoyance and irritation Grym gave at that moment was priceless. And Bambi again pealed with laughter at the memory of it.

Grym then slowed the speeder and Bambi got out, scanner tucked in her back pocket. She gave the edge of the speeder a farewell bang with her hand.

"Here goes nothin. I'll see you later"

======================
======================


Tinarm walked behind her and Bambi watched him in the reflection of a cheap silver-plated "Best Service" plaque mounted on the back wall behind the bar.

She allowed enough time for Javes to work his zipper before turning off her stool and moving off down the hallway after him.


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The explosion rocked the entire block it seemed to Grym as its echo rippled through the park. The sound of it a jolt like lightening through his body as he knew for certainty just one thing as he sat, waiting at the appointed place . It involved Bambi.

[Grym Kandle]

Grym skidded to a stop a few blocks away. The smoke wasn't even done settling. Traffic was congested and the local authorities were buzzing overhead towards the situation. He was breathing heavily and not from running from the park to here. That was nothing close to a long distance, no, it was anxiety that actually struck at the heart of the weathered assassin. He turned down an alley and under a slight feat of acrobatics, scaled a wall to reach the fire exit. In moments, that seemed like it took an eternity, Grym was on the roof of the building. He jumped the gap to the next building and continued to leap, building from building until he was overlooking the debacle that had once been 'Stella Belles.'

The scanner in his mask showed no life signs in the rubble but for the search and rescue team preparing to traverse the rubble. Kandle magnified the view, panned out, and double checked every area he could, maybe her vitals were just hidden by the rubble, as likely as that was. He just couldn't give up hope yet though.

"Bambi..."

=======

She was down the hallway and out of earshot when Grym stood. The bartender gave him a glance, use to his presence by now. Grym raised his eyebrows and gave a mischievious grin, pointing his thumb in her direction.

"'Ey Amos, I'm gonna go give the looker a look. Be righ' back."

The barkeep shook his head with a smile and went back to serving drinks to the other customers as they roared in glee and frustration over the upcoming results of the latest race. Grym made it to the hallway in time to see Bambi head out into the alley to follow the target. She was focused, he could practically taste it from here. Maybe he had stood up too quickly, the hallway seemed to spin slightly beneath his feet.

=======

"It was a what?"

His voice was even more dry than usual as he spoke with a public relations officer. The man seemed nervous but then most of the honest public were uncomfortable around Grym.

"It-it-it was a... det-detonator, th-h-hermal detonator. It completely incinerated everything within the immediate radius."

Grym had understood him the first time. He was just making sure it was really that bad. Everything was gone. Grym had been there for hours and he had even risked associated with the local authorities to find out as much as he could as fast as he could. No sign of Bambi though, and the only conclusion he could make so far was that he was standing on her ashes.

"What was y-y-your name again, s-s-sir?"

"Nothing, its not important. Trust me."

[Bambi Maddox]

"Dont you frelling move!

The city cop boomed out behind Grym and the individual he had been talking to. All and sundry who were standing about seemed to jump in their skins then snap freeze in place, only their eyes swivelling in their heads to see who the burly officer was adressing so agressively.

The object of the policeman's attention was a skulking form that had slithered up on the peripheral of the chaotic scene and was intent on pilfering anything worthwhle from the debris. The collective onlookers sighed with relief and watched as another officer grabbed the vagrant roughly by the arms and pulled him off for questioning.

Grym took his moment to slip away from the scene. There wasn't anything left for him to do now anyway.

========================
========================

"Dont you frelling move"

Bambi's voice was soft, yet intimately threatening. Grym had slipped through the back door into the darkness of the alley only to realise now Maddox had been positioned, waiting for him to come out.

His eyes, needing to make no adjustments for the darkness saw immediately the slowly widening pool of blood spreading on the ground from the other side of a dumpster. The kill had been a silent one. And incredibly quick. He guessed Bambi had used a blade of some description, though this was not the weapon she had trained on him now. A small hand-held blaster was aimed directly at his head.

"Just keep your head forward and step back the way you came. Real easy. Got it."

[Grym Kandle]

The accent he picked up here wasn't unfamiliar, it was straight from the sticks but the average joe spoke the best of it around here.

"Whoa whoa whoa, Lady. I don' want no trouble."

She was fast, faster. And she had some kind of concealed weapon he would be mindful of. The target was already coagulating, the kill had been that fast. And with that out of the way, Grym, was only a liability to her mission now. Something he was determined to remedy as he stepped back into the hallway.

"I'm-m-m s-so sorreh, I was jus-s-s like a, like a..."

His tone changed fluidly, softer but sharper, and the accent replaced by crisp basic, unmistakable to her ears.

"Like a moth to the flame."

The cliche had been the same thing she had said to him the day they'd reunited the first time. And under much better circumstances he noted.

[Bambi Maddox]

The sound of Grym's voice was like the trigger pin to a detonator. Bambi's brain did not reconcile the voice with the features of the individual before her and an instant flash of anger flared up. What was this joker playing at?

She pulled him further inside then pushed him roughly against the corridor wall, hands gripping his flight suit lapels and blaster crammed underneath his chin.

Another bar patron staggered into the hallway at the other end on his way to the fresher, and Maddox stopped him in mid-step with a threatening bark, "Back off!"

"...But I gotta--"

She extended her one arm training the blaster on the newcomer, "Back out NOW"

The man shuffled for a second in hesitation, the weight of his bladder challenging his good sense, then turned back the way he came.

Alone again, Maddox took a very up close inspection of the man in her grip. The man, she noted now, had made absolutely no resistance to her assult, no sudden move. Not even another comment in his defence. It was as if he was just waiting. Waiting for the coin to drop. For the light to go on.

Bambi looked at the skin of the mans throat. His jugular was pulsing normally. His skin was smooth with a few dark hairs curling at the throat base and just visible out of the collar of his flight suit. His cheek was clean shaven with just the faintest sheen of perspiration dampening it. She looked up into his eyes, he was just slightly taller than she, and they were a clear, deep brown. Normal enough.

But for some reason, it was wrong. Something just kind of..off. The brown eyes softened just slightly as Grym spoke again. "You know me yet?"

Bambi dropped her hands, stupefied, and stumbled back a step or two, bumping against the opposite wall as recognition finally hit.

"Grym? How?" clearly she found it hard to collect her thoughts.
Then her expression changed to one of severe annoyance.

"Where have you been? Ive been looking everywhere for you!"

[Grym Kandle]

Grym's voice was casual. Nothing was in a rush right now. And he needed to remain calm and relaxed or his own anger and surprise at the odds of this unfortunate event would overwhelm his defense mechanism of stoicism.

"Let's go. He's dead, you've got time. I need air, you look like you could use it too. I'll drive."

He gave a second of thought to her bike outside but they could come back for it. It'd still be there. This place let the dead lie. Everyone had their own business to worry about before they made a call to the authorities. His ride was parked closer to the back anyways. He stepped back into the alleyway, looking over his shoulder to make sure she was going to cool it enough to follow without making a bigger scene.

[Bambi Maddox]

If Grym was hoping to avoid a scene, he was going to be disappointed, though it was probably not what he was expecting.

Bambi followed him into the alley and watched as he tossed a glance back to ensure she was behind him. She still could not believe her eyes - the handsome face, the clear eyes and thick brown hair was so incongruous to the Grym she knew. But underneath, it was him alright. It was him.

Grym rounded the corner where alley meets backstreet and turned suddenly round, his survival instincts sensing Maddox was coming up close real quick. As he made it 180 degrees, he was accosted by his old partner, wrapped in an embrace that almost took the breath out of him.

"...I can't believe you're alright" she squeezed harder, though he didnt know how that was possible. Gone was her initial knee-jerk reaction of confused anger. She buried her head into the curve of his neck, giving him a mouthful of wind-tusslled hair "Its like seeing a ghost Grym, only not as freaky.. You're alright, you're alright."

She was thrilled, and was not the least bashful to show it.

[Grym Kandle]

Grym had been alone for so long and then had just started to adjust to being around another person and then the drastic change to being alone again. And now this. And the ironic nature behind it all. He wanted to laugh and cry, even if he couldn't do the later due to damaged tear ducts, how he felt so compelled. But it felt like one of those moments you tried to enjoy the most of before reality realized it was happening.

Slowly, as if he were trying to evolve into an emotional being, his arms wrapped around her, returning the embrace. Resting his head against hers, he stared into the shadows of the alley beyond them. She smelled great and he knew he offered an unfair trade, the fake skin smelled like biosynthetics with a tinge of the bar atmosphere. She was so real, so alive, he could feel her heart racing, a testimony against any dellusions that this was a dream.

=======

"Who are you?"

Eight beings stood in the hangar, all standing before the lowered ramp to Grym's ship. All of them were armed and a few of them had felt it necessary to wear armor.

"We're... friends of Cyrus."

Bambi's target, who had died along with the detonation, caused by a failsafe gone wrong on one of his cyborg body guards. At least that was the testimony of the word on the street.

Grym's mask showed nothing, conveying his stoic nature to the universe in a more aesthetic fashion. It also allowed him to count how many weapons they were all carrying and the physical specs on each of them.

"And that means what to me?"

The spokesperson stepped forward as if offended that Grym was trying to play games with them.

"We know you took the contract on Cyrus. You and that fine lady. Your lil' babe bit the big one though when Cyrus' man took a dive, didn't she? Some say she cursed yo' name before she rode that wave of incineration."

"Ok."

A few of the guys who had been snickering at their leader's humor stopped. Two of the three fell backwards, knives protruding from the base of their jaw. The scene erupted into action. The masked figure of Grym Kandle launched towards the leader, the closest. The leader's blaster was unholstered in moments but a moment too late. A gloved hand grasped the man's forearm and the other hand applied enough pressure to break the arm at the elbow in a fluid motion. The blaster fell from the man's grasp and into the open palm of Grym. Three bolts to the leader's face and another man fell shortly thereafter. One man lunged and kicked high to collide with Grym's face. Grym shifted his weight suddenly and dropped to his hands, one lithe leg sweeping the man's grounded leg from out under him. Grym was back up in moments, an open palm uppercutting the man's chin. A satisfying crack could be heard as the man hit the durasteel floor of the hangar.

It was an art, the Echani martial arts style and it stressed pure action, every movement was vital because it conveyed your purpose and existance. Everything around the performer was within their realm of awareness and action could be required at any given time. This is what saved Grym when he detected the grenade roll into his sphere of awareness. He launched backwards and whipped his cloak before him, activating the shield on his belt as the concussive force hit him.

Two of the eight survived that encounter and word on the street was that the nameless masked assassin that had accompanied the other dead beautiful female assassin had joined her only a week later to go beyond the veil as another pile of incinerated ash.

=======

"I'm alright?"

He could only whisper, and it took him a moment to contemplate and even say what he wanted to say to her.

"It was you who died first."

[Bambi Maddox]

"I -- What?"

Bambi lifted her head and stepped back a half-step so she could look at Grym's face. Or the face he was wearing, which was still kinda weird for her to see and was throwing her off balance.

If she thought about it from Grym's perspective, she could see how he might have thought that she'd gone ka-boom with the rest of the building that night. But she always was a little slow at seeing things from anyone's point of reference other than her own. In her mind, she'd never been lost. She'd always known where she was.

"Oh. Well. It was close" she said with a sheepish grin, rolling her good eye in the direction of her eyepatch, which made her look rather bizare. "I followed Cyrus into the building, just as we'd planned" she turned slightly and they both began to walk together down the street toward where Grym had left his transport. "Cyrus and his bodyguards were in there and I came on like I was to meet someone there...."


=============================


"You know where I might find Sam Lyneman?" she called as she came in the doorway.

Cyrus was still flanked by both bodyguards standing waiting in front of a turbolift and one of them turned square on toward Bambi to cover his charge in a protective stance. He held out a palm indicating her not to come any closer. "You got the wrong building lady, try the next one up"

From where she stood, Maddox could see the second guard touching a hand tentively toward his blaster hilt, ready to convince her to back up if it should come to it.

Bambi tried to keep them talking in order to gain her the right moment to pull her blaster and take them out. "Really? Sam said this building, Im pretty sure--"

It was then the turbolift's arrival was announced by a dainty "ting" and the shiney twin doors pulled apart.

Automatically, heads turned toward the open doors, Bambi's head included.

Inside the lift was a slight-framed individual dressed in a drab brown overcoat. But that was not what caught everyone's attention -- it was the detonator he held in his trembling hand.

It was then many things happened all at once and the job went to pot.

The bodyguard closest to Cyrus acted immediately, pulling his charge sideways away from the open doors and the obvious threat standing within it.

Maddox went to draw her blaster, but her eyes on the occupant in the lift and the jolt of surprise at this development caused her to fumble the pull and drop it. The other guard closest to her saw Bambi's movement from his peripheral and as she bent to retrieve her blaster the laser bolt he shot off shattered the glass window behind her. In that split second, she made the decision that there was only one outcome to this situation. And it was gonna be a messy one.

Snatching up her gun, she fired a random volley of blaster fire off, hitting mostly walls and ceiling, and scrambled to the door to beat a get away before the psycho in the lift pulled his pin.

What exactly happened next, Maddox could not be certain, but one thing was sure, the bomber with the deathwish got all the credit for her first kill.

================================

Bambi leaned against the speeder now as she remebered that night. Big blocks of it were a blank. But other details were so clear it was like she was right there, right this moment.

"I never ran as hard in my life, Grym" she said with feeling, "but I felt like I was in slow motion and my legs were made of led. I dont even know which direction I ran. I didnt get very far I dont think. What felt like only seconds later, the detonation went off. BAM!"

She smiled oddly and shook her head.

"That's something I'll never forget. Anyway, I woke up at some point in a crappy apartment with some character smacking me on the face. He couldn't speak basic but he was trying to tell me something important. A while later a friend of his - big guy with bad teeth - came and took me to a hospital on the other side of town.

What I find out later was that the first guy who was hitting me - Looda was his name - it was his brother-in-law who was the suicide bomber. Old Cyrus had all but destroyed the guy, and his family. First ruining the small family business by extorting exorbitant protection money from him, and then when he couldn't pay, Cyrus terrorized the poor bugger until he snapped. Looda had been waiting in the wings incase his brother-in-law did not follow through on the big bang plan and then went to the scene after it was obvious that he had. Thats when he found me, on his way and aparently took me back to the safety of his own place.

When Looda came back to the scene a little while later - looking for peices of his brother-in-law I guess, who knows - he was arrested by the City cops and questioned for two days. Thats what he had been trying to tell me, before, at the apartment. He was sorry he'd been gone so long."

Maddox had spent the next six months being patched up and recovering. After that time, she'd then set out to find Grym.

"And here we are"

She jumped into the passenger seat, and flashed him a grin,

"Let's go celebrate, Grym! You can fill me in on where you've been"

[Grym Kandle]

"Celebrating... I think we'll have to put a hold on that for a little while."

Things had worked out and in such a way, they really hadn't. At least she was alive. Grym eased into the craft and started the engine. He ran a hand through his hair and returned Bambi's smile poorly. Hiding behind his mask for so long had left him a little worse for practice in the facial expressions department. Facing forward, he lifted the speeder out of the alley and joined the nearest traffic vein.

"We're headed to my residence. No one'll bother us there."

He wanted to break it to her slowly. It would be a mistake if he broke it all down right now in front of her. They were assassins, on two very different sides of the coin. And he knew both sides had agents and informants all over the place. The randomness of Grym's arrival and his disguise would keep them from knowing who he was, for the most part, but word would probably already have reached Bambi's boss in the next few hours that her target was dead. And that she had flown off with some random guy.

Fill her in on where he'd been? He had awoken in a bacta tube in a hospital. He had been knocked out of the hangar and into an adjacent building. It hadn't turned out that bad, a few months in recovery, a hefty bill shortly thereafter, and Grym had been back on his feet. He'd believed her dead and had set out upon his goal to reach the Black Sun, alone this time. He had managed as much and obviously, so had she. If Fate was anything alive, Grym would have its name on a death contract for setting things up like this. What a tragedy.

After a moment, he noticed how quiet he had become.

"Uh, right. We'll get to me in a bit. But you, your eye?"

There was always a hope it was only a scanner or something. It pained Grym to think that she had to suffer a wound like that from her first mission if it was truly injured.

[Bambi Maddox]

"The eye's toast" she said flippantly, as if it didnt matter.

"The patch is cool, though, dont you think?" she leaned over a little as if to give Grym a better look. "Saves time when I take pictures, no crunching shut the other eye to focus."

She threw herself back against the seat as Grym accellerated through the spacelanes, the wind whipping her hair about. Just like that last night.

It was impossible for both their thoughts not to be pulled back there and wonder about all the iterminable time in between. So much was lost. They'd just been starting out, not having even begun to hit their stride before it had all been obliterated by one, poor, over-the-edge guy who detonated his, and their, lives into oblivion.

Sometimes life really sucked like that.

"Hey so -- that dude I killed. His name's Javes Tinarm..what the frell kinda name is that anyway?" Bambi laughed infectiously. "Hey, maybe I should be called Bambi One-eye..or Patch Maddox!"

Grym seemed to have lost his sense of humor, not that he had ever been one for hysterics, but he atleast used to find her a bit of amusing. He wasnt laughing tonight, though. Something was heavy on his mind.

Her laugh dwindled, though she couldn't stop altogether. She was actually happy for the first time in...well...since Grym had showed up at Vins Starlit Night to invite her on the ride of her life. And here he was again, showing up, outta the blue. This time, he wasn't gonna go anywhere. Bambi was going to make sure of that.

'How far's your place, Grym? Im gonna fix ya a real drink, none of that grey dren you used to drink before. You still have to take that stuff?"

[Grym Kandle]

That he still drank.

"Yeah, it does the body good. Taste is a temporary sensation. But I could do for a good drink now."

So would she by the time he was finished explaining everything. She seemed so happy. A guilty impulse tempted him not to even mention. Just enjoy things as they were. Wasn't that cheating though? Only running away from the facts that brought reality crashing down and obliterating the enjoyment he could've derived from this?

"We should be there soon."

He needed to keep her talking, he was acting maybe too much out of character for the moment and she had probably already noticed.

"That 'dude' you killed was a drenbag. And I'd stay away from those names..."

Grym smirked with muted amusement.

"... I'm not sure they really convey the job you're looking to represent on the streets."

The speeder made a smooth turn and entered a parking garage to a dingy looking set of buildings that turned out to be apartments upon closer inspection.

[Bambi Maddox]

She craned her head forward now, taking in her surroundings with a dubious look.

Sheesh, they'd been better to go back to her place -- the Penthouse was palatial in comparison to these apartments. Bambi knew Grym preferred to keep a low profile. But there was low, and there was low.

It didn't dampen her mood any, though, and she swung her long body out of the vehicle just as Grym came to a stop. Bambi was not a girl who needed pretty things, though she wouldn't refuse them, as her current lodgings at Sorsha's generosity attested. But she didn't need them. Her tastes were simple and honest. Grym may be the only person who really knew that about her.

"So partner, which of these joints belongs to you?" She rubbed her hands together. "Im in the mood for some good times, so show me the way"

She came around to Grym and threaded her arm through his, hugging close to him. In the past, she would not have been so familiar, but in the past she had not realised how very bad it is when a good thing is gone. Bambi knew better now.

As they made their way forward, Bambi gave him a poke on the cheek with her forefinger. "So who's face is this anyway?"

[Grym Kandle]

Good times? He wanted to sigh, shake his head, just do something to convey the futility that ran from his face to his toes. But he turned his face to her with a smile, holding a hand to his cheek as if she had injured him. He let her be so close to him though, without reluctance.

"Well, if someone would quit trying to kill me too..."

He paused, the words getting caught in throat before he could continue on.

"... It's here."

He led them to a lift, the doors opening slowly with lack of maintenance.

"It's synthetic. My face, Lady. I know it doesn't look anything like it, but if you took away all the saturated glitterstim and did some cosmetic surgery, it wouldn't be too far away from what it looks like now."

The lift ride was fast thankfully and the doors opened to a rather dull apartment.

It was only meant to be temporary and Grym wasn't much of a materialist anyways. As for the general cleanliness, it was immaculate. The holoscreen was on, muted, showing the rise and fall of the prices of shipped goods in the Outer Rim. Just from entering, they could spot the aparatus used to refine glitterstim into several different forms on the small table in the middle of the room. His mask and cloak hung from the hooks of the door to his bedroom. Those two items and the immediate sense of cleanliness were the only signs that Grym had been there recently.

"Its not bad. why don't you go ahead and get to those drinks? I'm going to get rid of this thing."

Pinching the skin on his bare hand.

[Bambi Maddox]

Bambi had known Grym a long time. Before the days they were partners, they had been old friends. But she had never seen this face before. Or at least, this version of it. Flawless and youthful. For as long as she could remember, addiction to glitterstim had held Grym in its vice-grip and his mask had always been the face she knew as his own.

She crossed directly over to the kitchen and rattled through the cupboards to locate the liquor supply. As on his ship, "Breft'kel's Treasure," all the supplies were in a neat and orderly fashion. Bambi smiled at the man's indyosyncratic nature.

"Aha!"

Apparently finding what she was looking for, Bambi set to work, bringing down a pair of decent sized glasses from an overhead cabinet.

"Well, you go get yourself back to normal and I'll have your Reactor Core on ice"

She mixed together a generous amount of Spice rum and blue tonic, stirring it with a metal knife for want of an actual twizzle stick. Dropping in some ice-cubes, Grym heard her clilnking her way to the sofa, where she sat down with a loud exhale of relief.

Sipping from her glass, she held out one to Grym as he returned from his bedroom.

"Here, this'll curl the hair on yer chest"