teen idle

When Rose checked herself in, she just wanted to be alone for awhile. She didn’t want her friends on the inside know yet, though it was inevitable that they would find out soon. But Rose didn’t want to explain too much at this moment, still reeling from what had happened. Rose had remained in her room for awhile, not wanting to come out. But eventually, she did leave– coming to sit in front of the glass and watch passerbyers. 

A smile broke Rose’s face when she saw Iris. Iris was one of the few that Rose had told what was going on, before she had to submit herself to the quarantine. She trusted Iris, despite the short time knowing her. 

“I’m okay,” she tried to reassure. “I have enough blankets, the medics made sure of that. But… I would like to talk to you.” What about, she didn’t know. But she liked being in Iris’s company. “What kind of useless things?” 

iris was glad to hear that rose was doing okay. it seemed like every day, things were getting worse behind the glass wall. sure, it had only been a short time since rose checked herself, but iris’s fondness of her transformed itself into worry.

“well, apparently whoever written up the documents thought they were being cute,” iris said, pulling out her data pad and angling it so rose could see. she’d taken pictures of the documents that she’d collected so she could look at them if someone else wanted to see them. here, the pictures served a different purpose: giving iris an avenue to talk to rose. “this document had nothing to do with the virus, but the handwriting matched, so i took a look at it anyways. the useless, or i guess cool, part is over here.” iris pointed toward the top right of the screen. “apparently they’d drawn stars next to stuff that they thought it was important, and there was enough important stuff here to draw a lot of stars. and i’m pretty sure they added some more just so they could be clever and label their drawing ‘burning snake constellation’.”

“well, i don’t really know her that well yet, but she’s great. she’s one of the best people i’ve met here. i haven’t met that many people, but i still feel like that’s something. i really like being with her. i like that she sees something good in me, and that she saw it from the beginning. i think that if she asked me to leave the order, i would.”

     SEPARATED  INTO  TEAMS ,  one  for  the  search  for  clues  and  the  cure  itself  and  the  other  for  the  cause ,  the  WHYs  behind  the  whole  situation  —  luke’s  content  behind  the  cause  team ,  the  desire  to  understand  the  reasoning  behind  the  attack ,  how  someone  could  do  something  like  this , powering  his  search  through  the  scene  of  the  crime .  (  first  his  parents  and  obi-wan  had  gone  through  this ,  and  now  it  was  all  of  them  —-  the  whole  family ,  their  friends ,  and  enemies  laid  waste  to  an  outbreak  they  had  no  idea  of  curing  without  leaving  the  planet  ).  so  far ,  the  search  had  proven  futile ,  luke  grabbing  whatever  he  deemed  could  be  of  value  and  worthy  of  a  second  look ,  when  he  comes  across  the  other  member  of  his  team .  ❛  any  luck  ?  ❜  he’s  still  hopeful  they’ll  find  some  clue ,  some  starting  point .

hearing luke skywalker’s voice startled her in more ways than one. in her file gathering daze, iris had almost forgotten that he—a real jedi, a real legend—was on the cause team with her. the thought made her feel invincible. she’d been raised on stories of the jedi, and though the future seemed bleak, having a jedi on her side made her feel a little more confident that everything would be okay. so far, she’d found nothing, but she thought her luck could change. “no, not yet. but i’m taking as much as i can back to the castle so i can take a look when i have a clear head and good lighting.”

“I’d like that,” Rose said, clasping her hands in front of herself and wringing them slightly. Automatically, she missed the contact with Iris. But she definitely did not want to be weird about this– especially since they were on such a time crunch for solutions. Rose tried to ignore the way her heart felt like it skipped a few beats. Now as not the time for examining feelings– now was the time for saving her friends. 

“Do you want some help with taking some stuff out to the others?” Rose asked. Being a mechanic, she was used to carrying larger items to be fixed. She wasn’t the most physically strong, but she did manage to hold her own when she needed to transport items. 

iris beamed. there was something about being around rose that made iris’s heart feel light. iris assumed that it was because rose was genuinely good. somehow, rose had taken a look at iris’s black clothes and dark disposition and saw someone worth befriending. iris thought it was a wrong thing to do, sure, but it meant a lot to her nonetheless.

“yeah, that would be great,” iris answered. she thought she could carry everything by herself, but it was nice to have help. she pulled her hair back and tied it up so that it wouldn’t get in her face while she was carrying the documents, and she pointed to a pile of documents lying on a nearby table. “you get that pile, and i’ll take some of the ones over here.”

Rose smiled when Iris slowed down. Right now, the both of them needed to remain calm– for those who were infected. They needed a cool head to collect their thoughts. And if Rose needed to be there to remind Iris to take a step back and stop for a moment, she would not mind doing that. 

“Not yet,” Rose said, a twinge of disappointment in her voice. “We’re still trying to decode notes we found in the warehouse. I think I may go try the greenhouse next, I’ll let you know if I find anything.” Rose wasn’t expecting much out of the greenhouse, but at this point anything would be helpful. 

Rose, after a moment, realized she was still holding Iris’s hand. She let go, not wanting to weird Iris out. They had only recently met, after all. Rose felt a little embarrassed at her forwardness of the hand holding. 

iris liked having rose around. rose was everything that iris wasn’t: calm, steadfast, good. she wondered who she would be if she had known someone like rose when she was younger. maybe she would have been a good person; not the best, but still good.

“you’ll find something,” iris said. now it was her turn to offer some hope. she knew she could do that much. “maybe later i could take a look at the notes, or anything you find in the greenhouse. sometimes all you need is a fresh pair of eyes.”

iris noticed when rose let go of her hand. sure, hand-holding probably wasn’t thing the best thing to do when everyone around them was trying not to do, but iris couldn’t help but feel a touch of disappointment that rose hadn’t held on.

“ the only cure i know of doesn’t grow on naboo, ” he explains, before realizing that this could only elicit a further sense of helplessness. anakin only wants to prove that he isn’t a scholar on the topic, but he senses that she’s in need of comfort rather than facts. “ but if this virus was stopped twice, it can be stopped a third time. ” anakin stops himself from continuing as he watches her lean against the cabinet, only looking at her briefly before returning to unkempt area at the very edge of the room. after a while, he clears his throat and speaks up again. “ do you need me to help you look over those ? ” he asks, motioning towards the files she had picked up herself.

the force doesn’t respond to her prayers. instead, the man with her speaks up, bringing iris back to reality and reminding her that she isn’t alone in this. she’d gotten so used to being alone she’d come to assume that she would be alone in everything. “yeah, totally,” iris says, pushing herself off of the cabinet and walking over to the man. she pulls one of the files out of her bag and opens it so that he can see, too. there are drawings of plants, with some loose notes and calculations scribbled in the margins. iris recognizes some of the words used, but it’s too dark to make out the rest. “do you want to go somewhere with more light to look at these?”

Rose stepped forward, taking Iris’ hand gently. Trying to stop her frantic pace. Sometimes it was good to get it out. Other times it could spiral out of control and make things worse. “Hey, breathe a minute,” Rose said. “We have medics. We have scientists. We have the entirety of Naboo trying to figure this out. It’s okay.”

And like that, it was almost as if Rose had been affirming that to herself as well as Iris, because the next breath she took felt like a weight off her shoulders. 

“Take a second. We have some information. Let’s see what we can get with that, yeah?” Rose hadn’t quite realized she hadn’t let go of Iris’ hand yet. 

and somehow, iris’s lungs began working again. she stopped pacing and speaking as her eyes locked on rose’s hand holding hers. iris squeezed rose’s hand lightly, hoping that sufficed a thank you as she tried to regain her ground.

“yeah, we can do this, rose. everyone’s going to be okay. we’re going to be okay.” iris said. she gave rose a small smile. “so, have you learned anything from your group?”

iris realized that rose hadn’t let go. she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to be feeling; she only knew that she didn’t necessarily want to let go either.

anakin nods as she explains the symptoms.  “ not much more than you do, ” he replies, breathing out harshly as he peers around the room for other details that could be of us to them, apart from what she girl had picked up already. part of his believes his words are true; when it came down to the deep structure and biology of it all, anakin was clueless. however, when this particular strain of the blue shadow virus was briefly released, he was one of the few around. even now, there aren’t many people alive who can recall the details.  “ i fought in the clone wars. i was there when the last outbreak happened, but— apart from that, nothing. ”

“you probably know more than you think you do, with the firsthand experience and all,” iris says, though she isn’t sure if she is trying to reassure the man in front of her or herself. she sighs. “i wish we had a real biologist or doctor here with us searching to lead us. all the medics are back at the palace, and we’re flying blind.” iris had never been a religious person, but for a moment, she stops, relaxes her body, leans against the nearest cabinet, and prays. she asks the force to bring back someone who can help them.

she seems to be on top of things, something he admires. anakin can see why rose has found a friend in her, even if the two of them seem vastly different in intuition and nature. she’s right, of course. should this strain be different from the last, information on all of the sicknesses that naboo has come across is vital. even though he has a first hand account of what caused this during the clone wars, the same can’t be said about their current point in time. although the two of them have different tasks, the assignments are more interconnected than most think. “ do you know what the symptoms are this time ? ” 

the man seems nice enough. iris remembers seeing him, possibly with the cure team, as she arrived at the factory. it was strange how this one virus could unite all sides, formerly dead or simply alive and resistance or first order, against one thing. for a moment, iris entertained the thought of maybe that’s why the virus was released before storing it away. no one truly wanting peace would risk so many lives. “uh, i’m pretty sure that there are fatigue, muscle aches, cough, dizziness, and throat sores. there are some others, but i don’t remember. what do you know about this?”

Rose gave Iris a small smile, thankful that Iris was not amongst the infected. And oddly enough, Rose felt calmer around Iris. She wondered if the other had that kind of affect on people normally– or if this was something different. Nonetheless, the shakiness of her heart and the panic that threatened to spill forth settled and stilled when Iris spoke. 

“Did you find anything?” Rose asked, coming forward to help gather whatever Iris was wanting to bring to the others. “All I found were faded notes that didn’t make sense.” She had rolled them up and stuck them in her pocket, just in case someone could make sense of them. 

Everyone had been searching for answers ever since they had to put up the quarantine. Surely someone has found something out by now. 

"nothing i didn’t already know, or at least guess.” iris shook her head. she began pacing up and down the room, trying to make sense of all the questions in her head. why would the blue shadow virus just suddenly appear? who would have the motivation to do this sort of thing? who would have the expertise to engineer a strain of the virus that was both airborne and could infect people this fast?

as she paced, she rattled off every thought that came into her brain, trying to come up with something: “so we know that it’s the blue shadow virus, right? and we know that viruses infect us by reproducing, and if we’re lucky, our immune systems prevent them from reproducing. and we... we can help our immune systems by making vaccines, right? except no one here knows how to make a vaccine, and vaccines won’t cure anyone who’s already been infected. oh, kriff.”

iris stopped and looked over at rose, hoping the sight of her friend would offer some clarity, or at least hope.

Rose was afraid for her friends. She was smart, but science and medicine were not the subjects she excelled in. Machinery and building were her areas of expertise. So when everyone started falling ill and went into quarantine, panic had bubbled up and threatened to explode. 

But Rose had to remember to stay calm. She was one of the lucky ones who were not ill, so she could actually do something. She could help search for the cure– which was the team Rose signed up for. 

“Iris?” Rose called softly, watching her rummage through items. She seemed spooked, as anyone would be. But it still tugged at Rose’s heart to see Iris like that. 

iris didn’t have any loved ones who were sick. maybe a few friends or acquaintances, but no one she was particularly attached to. nonetheless, she wanted to help anyway. half of it was guilt--after all, what if it was someone from the order who had released the virus, and iris had accidentally aided them? the other half was morality--it was the right thing to do, and iris knew that.

hearing rose say her name shook iris out of her haze. iris was glad that rose was okay; she didn’t know what she would do if her friend was sick. iris turned toward rose, her expression soft.

“hey, you wanna help me?” iris asked. “i’m thinking i was gonna take all of these files up, and everyone could look at them together.”