Author: Diamond

Title: And Life Goes On

Rating/Warning: PG

Characters: Aliah (Al) Oliphante

Spoilers: Nope, although it makes a lot more sense if you've read "And Life Goes On" first

Archive: WAAS, anyone else please ask me first

Summary: An encounter at the Downtime Cantina

Disclaimer: Star Wars and all things associated with it are the property of Lucasfilm Ltd. I'm simply borrowing the galaxy for awhile but I promise to return it in no worse condition than I found it. I'm not making any money or anything off this and I don't have any anyway, so suing would be pretty much pointless. Aliah does belong to me though and you can't have her!

Feedback: Tell me what you think of my attempts at combating boredom and I might see fit to give you chocolate! diamond9697@hotmail.com

Not at all, feel free to sit down and take a load off. My name's Aliah, but anyone who doesn't want to end up spending a few days in a Bacta tank calls me Al.

No, that's not a threat, it's a promise. I'm proficient at hand to hand combat and have had quite a bit of weapons training as well, so I'm more than capable of living up to it.

Bounty hunter? No, I'm just a mechanic. I work on the ships of the fighter jocks over there.

Been doing it ever since I joined the rebellion, right after Hoth. Just because I'm not a bounty hunter or some such thing doesn't mean I don't know how to use a blaster though. A girl's gotta protect herself these days after all.

Speaking of flyboys, can you believe those girls over there? I mean they hang all over them like they've never seen a man before. Granted there are some fine lookin pilots and I don't mind taking in the view myself, but I don't drool all over them. Gives women a bad name doing things like that.

Me? I've never been all that interested in them myself. They tend to get killed too easily. Especially the ones who's ships I work on. I mean as soon as you get to know one of them and think that maybe there could be something there…they end up getting vaped in some battle thousands of light-years away. It's not worth the effort.

Yeah, I am talking from experience. I used to think that it was possible to have a real relationship with a guy. I was even engaged to a fighter pilot once upon a time. Looking back on it now I can't believe I was that stupid. I knew what the survival rate was among pilots, but I let my heart get in the way and allowed myself to fall in love. Trust me, that's not something that will ever happen again.

Nope, I can't say as how I really believe in love anymore. You allow yourself to become vulnerable when you fall in love with someone. You open your heart and end up getting it shattered in a thousand pieces that you can never put back together. All love does is get you hurt. When all's said and done, it's better to be alone than to be in love. It's safer that way.

Yeah, sometimes I do think it was worth it to be in love. In the middle of the night when I'm alone in the dark I sometimes wonder if maybe it's not worth trying again. Then I remember what happened to Danel and I know that I'm right to stay away from a serious relationship. Sex is one thing, but love…love is a waste of time, pure and simple.

It's okay, most of the time I'm not like this. I apologize for the depressing conversation but I have been drinking rather heavily tonight.

No, it's not you…it's me. You see, it was a year ago tonight that Danel was killed.

Don't worry about it, you couldn't possibly have known. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go take a long walk and try to clear my head. Goodnight.