Jenny's Log - OOM: Edward needs to learn how to have fun.

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22 August 2008 @ 02:44 pm

OOM: Edward needs to learn how to have fun.

"I think we'll start with Dagobah," Jenny told him as she walked towards the cockpit of her small shuttle. "According to my computer, it's a small swamp planet discovered a thousand years ago by a sect of Jedi who had broken away from the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire after a deceleration decreeing all religions founded upon fictional works were null and void. There's not much there now. It's been abandoned... um, well, for a while."

She stopped by her chair, turning around to make sure that Edward had indeed followed her from Milliways.

Her shuttle wasn't much, Jenny knew, but she considered it her life. It was the only home she had (unless you counted the room in Milliways) and her only means of actually doing anything. Well, anything remotely interesting. Random knickknacks from various planets were scattered about the room, mostly concentrated away from the cockpit and in the back of the shuttle. A couple of photographs of herself and Bart were taped on to various walls. Her prized piece of psychic paper was lying underneath a stack of books.

It felt more like a home now than when she commandeered it from Messaline.

"Well?" Jenny slid into the pilot's seat and looked at him. "Whatcha think, Edward?"

Tags: edward cullen, milliways, oom

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bitunlikely.livejournal.com on August 24th, 2008 05:12 am (UTC)

"A mouse," Jenny confirmed with another giggle. "He wanted to distract the guard. It would've been easiest to just ki-"

Right. Killing was bad. There were alternatives to killing. There were always alternatives, she reminded herself. And they existed for a soldier, too.

"We needed to get past the human faction of Messaline to find the Source and end the war before the Hath and humans wound up slaughtering each other. Which we did."

And then she had died.

Edited 2008-08-24 05:13 am (UTC)

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themidnightson on August 24th, 2008 05:17 am (UTC)

Which was unsettling and yet not. It didn't make her less mortal, just mortal with a much longer time frame ability. Mortal long enough to almost be considered immortal. But not close enough to almost to bridge the gap to where his kind were.

Edward...didn't like the idea of her dead though.

"You had a very exciting life for such few hours."

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bitunlikely.livejournal.com on August 24th, 2008 02:49 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," Jenny agreed, tilting her head up to smile at him. Seconds later, her head returned to its resting position, now against his shoulder rather than his chair.

"It was exciting. Right up until the end. General Cobb didn't want the war to end. It had lasted for generations and, it turned out, only for seven days. He was going to shoot Dad. I... well, I took the bullet instead."

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themidnightson on August 24th, 2008 03:35 pm (UTC)

Edward didn't shift because of the presence of her head, light as a bubble, rested against him now. Not that he needed to, he could sit still for days and it wouldn't bother him, but it made him quite aware of not moving until. Her memories were fuzzy yet clear, still grainy the way his now compared to his human memories.

He continued to toy with the controls, figuring out which made what go faster and what the controls were that he wasn't using. Brave, or reckless, or selfless.

"And since then?"

Edited 2008-08-24 03:41 pm (UTC)

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bitunlikely.livejournal.com on August 24th, 2008 03:44 pm (UTC)

Jenny had no complaint about his toying with the controls. Faster, in her expert opinion, was the best thing in the universe. Well, one of the best things. Up there with Bart and feeling like you belonged and helping people.

"Spent up a regeneration, stole this shuttle, and decided to see the universe myself. Save planets, fight evil, run."

And then there were the things not spoken. Falling in love, for example. Making her own family. Struggling to fit in somewhere. Wanting to be accepted. Those were private goals, goals she wondered if she would ever fully accomplish.

"Befriend dull vampires and make them into fun brother type people instead," Jenny added in as an afterthought, giggling a little as she spoke.

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themidnightson on August 24th, 2008 03:49 pm (UTC)

"Nice to know there are so many of us." Edward shook his head at her last words, feeling the smaller chasm between what she said and what she didn't, as the planet grew larger and larger before their eyes.

"Are you going to tell me anything more about this Astroland before I step on to it?"

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bitunlikely.livejournal.com on August 24th, 2008 03:56 pm (UTC)

"Nah," she responded to his first statement. "You're definitely one of a kind."

Which was more than okay by her. Jenny liked unique and Edward, it seemed was very unique in his own brooding-type way. Maybe he'd tell her about it sometime. She hoped so.

Jenny straightened up in her seat as the planet grew larger. It was growing too large too quickly. She shook her head and gave Edward a sharp look. "First, you need to slow down. Astroland's on an unsuccessfully terraformed planet. Which means there's going to be a dome and a traffic controller that wouldn't appreciate you crashing into his base."

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themidnightson on August 24th, 2008 04:01 pm (UTC)

Slowing down wasn't too hard, even if his lips dipped toward a frown. Going slower was quite boring after being faster. Even as he felt wary about an unknown multitude of circumstances about to great him, he couldn't be swayed from thinking the planet was beautiful.

An orb of stupendous color suspended in the endless black.

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bitunlikely.livejournal.com on August 24th, 2008 04:06 pm (UTC)

Domes were scattered here and there on the planet's surface, glossy structures with a rainbow tint that covered expansive areas of land. One such contained Astroland, with the galaxy's largest and fastest hover coaster. Some were mining projects and others were small settlements, homes to the individuals that worked along side the robots at the park.

"Yeah, I don't like slowing down either," Jenny stated in response to his frown. "But trust me. I had an entanglement with traffic control on Stars' End a few days ago. It's even more dull than you used to be."

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themidnightson on August 24th, 2008 04:12 pm (UTC)

Even as the roller coaster flipped against her mind, other people's words and her imagination and excitement entangled with research, he studied the domes domes that would keep the sun from his skin. It wasn't something he wanted to deal with so far outside any comfort zone.

"Was that before or after breaking Jay out of jail?"

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bitunlikely.livejournal.com on August 24th, 2008 04:20 pm (UTC)

She had done her research. Astroland was comprised completely of artificial lighting. Edward had nothing to fear, even if Jenny still believed he wouldn't stand out at all. Not in a place with Raxacoricofalapatorians and Star Poets and all other sorts of aliens she couldn't even put names to yet.

Jenny laughed at his question and shook her head. "After. And we're going to be on our best behaviour, okay? I don't need to go about breaking you out of jail, too."

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Edward Cullen: Serious with a side of Not Laughing

themidnightson on August 24th, 2008 04:27 pm (UTC)

He cast a glance down at her, with a chuckle. The thought of her, so small and fragile and devil may care, trying to break him out was ludicrous. He hadn't even seen a prison that could hold him (which giving the expanding universe in his view might change, but hadn't yet).

"As if I was the one who need to worry about that," Edward said, pressing the best behavior implication back on her. He followed the lane in front of him, watching for where to go.

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bitunlikely.livejournal.com on August 24th, 2008 04:32 pm (UTC)

Jenny rolled her eyes at that and playfully elbowed him in the ribs. Her nose wrinkled at the impact, not out of any sort of pain but out of frustration that he would barely notice the action. That, she thought, wasn't fair.

Stupid, indestructible vampire, she thought with a definite fondness. She'd find a weak point in his physiology at some point. Now that she had seen him smile and heard him laugh, it seemed like a good enough new goal.

"There's not a prison in the universe that can hold me," she answered arrogantly as the lane of spaceships slowly began to move dome ward. It was an infuriating wait. Jenny was almost tempted to seize the controls from Edward and find a back way in. "I'm good at what I was born to do."

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themidnightson on August 24th, 2008 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Which wasn't breaking out of jail cells," Edward continued. Her restlessness mingling into his, settled in his seat since it wouldn't move much and it was amusing to watch her squirm. "Unless you were covertly leaving that out."

He'd know. He ~~eated her brains~~ listened while she spoke, to all the things she connected to her words. The soldier in her was still there, but it wasn't the centrifugal point.

The line continued to bring them down further into the biosphere.

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bitunlikely.livejournal.com on August 24th, 2008 04:48 pm (UTC)

"No, but I am a soldier, remember? I know how to use my environment to the best advantage."

Jenny might have been striving to be something more than a soldier, but her inheritance would always be a part of her. More than that: she was clever, her father's daughter to no end. Even if she was still coming into her own, Jenny knew things. And knew how to use situations and people.

It could even be fun, sometimes.

Although none of that knowledge could make this line go any faster. She sighed and shifted around in her seat again. They were entering orbit now, the line leading to a smaller dome next to the bigger one. But it still wasn't quickly enough.

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Edward Cullen: The Fits Everything Expression

themidnightson on August 24th, 2008 04:56 pm (UTC)

She shifted about like a child and Edward did his best not to smile at how her antics fit her age more than her words. It was not a comment he could make out loud. Not something shared.

"Only a few minutes now."

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bitunlikely.livejournal.com on August 24th, 2008 05:04 pm (UTC)

"A few minutes too long," Jenny muttered with a sigh. She poked his arm, frowning again at the lack of indentation on his skin when she did.

"How can you possibly be so calm? Is it an Edward thing or a... a you know thing?"

After all, they were close to an inhabited planet now. It was better not to use the v-word for a while. Even this far from Earth, she wouldn't want to take any chances. There would be humans in Astroland. And she wouldn't want anything to happen to Edward.

Edited 2008-08-24 05:05 pm (UTC)

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Edward Cullen: Liquid topaz to rule them all

themidnightson on August 24th, 2008 05:13 pm (UTC)

He felt the warmth on his skin when she pressed. An oddly shaped dot which pulled his attention inwardly but without showing on his arm or his face.

"I've had time to perfect it."

It could have been a yes, both ways or either.

"Much longer than you."

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bitunlikely.livejournal.com on August 24th, 2008 05:21 pm (UTC)

"Decades and decades," she murmured, now thoroughly distracted from the wait. Her own thoughts turned inward for a few moments.

Just a year seemed like such a long time. She already lost a good seventeen or eighteen or so that she was supposed to live, the years most species use to figure life out.

They approached the garage sphere, directed by information on the computer monitor for bay information. Jenny sighed again and looked up at Edward, appearing and feeling oddly vulnerable.

"That's what scares me, you know. Not dying or taking chances or hurting myself or any of those stupid things that seem to worry you. But the years. The... there are going to be so many and I'm going to be all alone for most of them."

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themidnightson on August 24th, 2008 05:31 pm (UTC)

Edward stiffened, but not enough that she'd noticed since he'd been sitting so still already, but her words hit on a deeper note.

Instead of letting it stay, he moved his hands, shifting the ship so they followed the direction he was given into a garage and to a place where they could set the ship down. Edward's mind was elsewhere, even as saw her, felt her, staring at him so clearly still.

It took about half a minute to clear the muddle his mind became.

"I doubt you would chose to be alone for long," he said quietly, thinking about her tenacity with people, also those excluding himself, already shown.

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bitunlikely.livejournal.com on August 24th, 2008 06:40 pm (UTC)

She wouldn't. Jenny liked people and liked them a whole lot. Her father always traveled with others and, so far, she rather enjoyed doing the same. But it didn't change the fact that no one else she knew would live nearly as long as she would.

Not even Bart.

The shiver that went down her spine at that thought was so intense that for a moment, Jenny couldn't think of anything else. As quickly as it came, it went. The idea was shoved aside and buried in her mind.

They landed and Jenny smiled, placing her hand on Edward's arm again. "At least I'll have you, right?"

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themidnightson on August 25th, 2008 07:39 am (UTC)

Jenny hardly knew what she asked or who it was of. Yet her thoughts were peerlessly, faithfully hopeful, without fault, still.

She wouldn't live as long as him of that he was mostly certain. Longer than humans, but not as long. Regardless of if she figured out space and time in the way her thought shivered around her home, and especially her father, time still caught up eventually to her and her twelve chances.

While it would run forever from him.

Her question while a comfort to her long time made him innate aware of her still shorter time.

Edward's expression was quietly composed, as he rose from his chair after turning the shuttle off, and said quietly, headed for the door. "You do seem rather determined to have it so."

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bitunlikely.livejournal.com on August 25th, 2008 03:21 pm (UTC)

"Because you understand," Jenny whispered as she followed Edward from the chair. "You get time and eternity like only Dad might. And I don't have anyone else to learn it from. Or know anyone else that'll be alive two thousand years down the line."

She never did find those Time Ladies in Milliways, even though she met the husband of one. But that one was human and Jenny had no idea if regenerations and centuries of not really aging affected her. Or all those other strange things she had read about in concerns to Gallifreyan biology in the Book of Rassilon and yet not witnessed.

But Edward seemed to understand. At the very least, he got what it meant to be immune to the affects of time.

It was a comfort and a part of the reason, she thought, that she was drawn to him. He was different like she was, if for an entirely different reason.

Edited 2008-08-25 05:13 pm (UTC)

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themidnightson on August 25th, 2008 05:14 pm (UTC)

Friend, brother, teacher; her ante continued to rise and Edward contemplated the particles specks of dust in the air between himself and the door while he reached out to open it. His voice was still quiet, but irony twisted it, "This is a strangely serious conversation to have at an amusement park."

She was two months old.

How would she feel in forty years?

When she was the person right over a hundred?

Would her naive, cheerful force be present still? Would it have gathered the jade of lives passing through her fingers like ants and sands? Would he want to see the holes it would leave in her, no matter what stayed and what didn't?

Edward steered them both out of the ship and in the direction of where the most noise--both of people and machines--was coming from beyond their spot in the garage.

Edited 2008-08-25 05:15 pm (UTC)

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bitunlikely.livejournal.com on August 25th, 2008 05:34 pm (UTC)

Never having been to an amusement park before, Jenny felt no reason to counter. Perhaps it was a strangely serious conversation. To her, she felt it simply normal. The natural flow of the conversation that they had been having.

Jenny closed and locked the shuttle door behind her and looked up at Edward with a smile. As long as she had a choice, she wanted to stick by him. Whether he liked it or not. During the course of the trip, Jenny felt as if his opinion was changing from the latter to the former. It made her feel content.

"It just makes sense," she told him firmly, gripping his hand tightly and pulling him in the direction of the monorail that led from one dome to another. "You like me, whether you'll admit it a lot. And we're going on the hovercoaster first, okay?"