A/N: Co-authored with Dinah Lance. For those following along, this post-game one shot is a follow up to a series of in-game shorts starting with "Playing with Matches," and specifically the events of the short "Getting Burned" which can be found over on Dinah's page. It should, however, be able to stand on it's own.

Also, this was a stand alone in a series of one shots, but we are now consolidating them as chapters under one story to make it easier for people to follow the posts. So thank you for the patience as we reorganize a bit to make things easier to find.

Chapter 1 - Plan B

As he waited for his visitor, Ja'Taren Allonis Revan paced in front of the floor-to-ceiling duraglass window that stretched along the length of his study and overlooked Courscant's bright city nightscape. Running a corporate empire that spanned thirty-seven star systems left him little time for useless woolgathering. Normally he wouldn't have spared the time to study the breathtaking view that he paid so much for, but recently the concerns of his personal life had begun to eclipse even his important business ventures.

His granddaughter's miraculous return from the dead was the source of great relief and happiness, but there were those in the Senate who were hell bent on keeping Minuet from reaching her next naming day. Ja'Taren had already lost her twice—once to the Jedi and once to the Sith, and he was not about to lose her a third time if the myopic, hypocritical Senate could not be reasonable about the woman to whom they owed their continued existence. He had every intention of using all of his considerable wealth and influence to save his granddaughter, whether or not she wanted him to.

Which was the reason for this meeting. Minutes dragged by and Ja'Taren's patience began to fray. He was beginning to wonder if the Mandalorian had blown him off when the comm on his desk beeped.

Ja'Taren's long brown fingers pressed the comm button, revealing the ghost white face of his security chief. "Sir, your guest is here."

"Good. Send him to my study."

The security chief frowned at something or someone beyond the range of the comm. "There's a problem. The Mandalorian refuses to give up his weapons."

"You didn't ask nicely," a deep voice drawled in the background.

Ja'Taren could practically hear his security chief's teeth grinding over the comm. Or maybe that was his own teeth grinding.

"You heard the man," Ja'Taren said. "I expect to see him up here in no less than five minutes," he snapped, as he cut the connection.

Ja'Taren sat, resisting the urge to pace further and limited his outward show of irritation to drumming his fingers on his desk. Another flick of his fingers brought up the dossier he had prepared on the Mandalorian, and he reviewed the information until his protocol droid shuffled into the room, followed by the man himself.

Even if he hadn't had the man thoroughly investigated, Ja'Taren would have known Ordo was a mercenary simply from the rough clothing and heavy combat boots that scuffed along the priceless handwoven carpet. But it was Ordo's arrogant military stance that caught his attention, hinitng that this man was more than just ordinary mercenary trash. In fact, the Mandalorian looked exactly like the man he needed.

Ja'Taren didn't offer him the courtesy of standing; he merely gestured toward one of the delicate chairs made out of rare Telosian darkwood in front of his desk and said, "I wasn't sure you'd come."

As Ordo dropped his not inconsiderable frame into the chair, it creaked ominously. It protested still further as the man sprawled his legs out in front of him and laced his fingers behind his head. He shrugged. "Min thought I should see what you wanted. And you're all she's got for Clan. I'll hear you out."

"Clan," Ja'Taren said, tasting the word on his tongue. It was a crude word, but appropriate nonetheless. "Yes, I suppose I am. She has other relatives, of course, but on the whole they were quite dismayed to discover she was alive."

The Mandalorian scowled at that. Intimidation would be nothing new to this man. "Then they're not Clan."

Ja'Taren's lips twitched. "Perhaps I will tell them that the next time they come by and try to wheedle their way into inheriting my fortune. As far as I'm concerned, Minuet is the only relative I have." His near smile settled into a deep frown. "Which is why I am anxious about this upcoming Senate vote. You must know that despite the efforts of Captain Onasi, Jedi Shan, and the Jedi Council, she is in very deep trouble."

"Yeah," Ordo deadpanned dryly. "I noticed that."

"I've lent my assistance to Shan and Onasi's efforts. However, they are not aware of how far I have gone already, or what I would be willing to do to keep my granddaughter safe. I'm certain they would not approve of my methods. They seem to be overly..." He waved his slender brown hand. "...idealistic and I don't want them getting in my way because they have some kind of unrealistic moral objections."

Ja'Taren had thrown all his considerable resources at the Senate and called in every political favor he'd acquired in the past fifty years of his business dealings. The amount of money he had laid down to influence the Senate vote in his granddaughter's favor was staggering even to a man who had a habit of making million-credit deals before he drank his first cup of caffa in the morning.

Bribes, kickbacks, and promises to create jobs on backwater, industry-poor worlds were just the beginning. Threats to pull his corporate holdings off of other planets and put thousands of their citizens out of work had worked wonders getting many Senate votes. So had sending investigators to dig up secrets in order to blackmail those who remained stubbornly against him. But even after all of his expenditure and efforts, there was no guarantee that the Senate would make the right decision. Which was where the Mandalorian came in.

Ordo snorted his agreement, then sat forward. Ja'Taren had the impression he had the man's attention for the first time. "I'm listening."

"But you—you're no stranger to getting your hands dirty, are you?" Ja'Taren rested his elbows on the desk and studied the Mandalorian over the polished dark wood. "If the Senate votes to take her from the custody of the Jedi, the Order will have to hand her over. She will executed, possibly even without a trial. So I need to know how far you would be willing to go to help my granddaughter."

Ordo scowled. "As far as it takes. They don't touch her."

"Excellent." He turned and gestured toward the console in front of him. "Simply tell me what your fee is and I will add ten percent." This wasn't the usual way Ja'Taren negotiated a deal, but Ordo might be her chance at staying alive and he wasn't going to endanger her by haggling over such an insignificant thing as price.

"Fee?" The Mandalorian spat the word like a curse. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Ja'Taren turned back to the mercenary, frowning and wondering if the man had taken one too many head wounds. It was something to consider carefully. If Ordo was this slow, he was not the man to ensure his granddaughter's safety. "For your services. You are a mercenary, correct? If we fail to secure the Senate vote in favor of the Jedi, you will be the contingency plan. You will have to break her out of their custody and elude the combined forces of the Jedi and the Republic military. That's not something I would expect you do to for free."

The man was muttering to himself in a way that did little to assuage Ja'Taren's fears for his mental capacity. "I made a vow to protect Revan," Ordo said finally. "That's not something... I'm not taking your money," he finished with a sneer of distaste.

Ja'Taren's brows rose. Such depth of loyalty from a man such as this was unexpected, and it complicated everything. Ja'Taren preferred to deal with something much more concrete, like credits for a job done. That was the entire reason for approaching the mercenary instead of the other Ebon Hawk crew members.

His frown deepened as he struggled to understand what motivated the Mandaloran. Ordo was old enough to be her father; perhaps he saw Minuet as some sort of adopted daughter. Upon reflection it made sense. Minuet had a knack for inspiring loyalty in her companions, and from what he'd learned about the Mandalorian's background, Ordo's people had been decimated and scattered. "Does this vow of protection make her a member of your..." Ja'Taren groped for the word the Mandalorian had used earlier. "...Clan?"

Ordo shook his head, though Ja'Taren could not tell if it was in denial or just a sign of the Mandalorian's annoyance with the need to explain. "She killed Mandalore. She's beyond Clan."

Yes, that was the most surprising thing about the intel his investigators had uncovered. Ja'Taren would have expected the Mandalorian to hate his granddaughter for crushing his people, but all of the evidence indicated that he revered her for it.

"I don't understand you or your culture, Mandalorian, but I suppose I don't have to as long as we share the same goal. Can you actually pull this off?"

Ordo snorted. "I've kept her alive this long, haven't I?"

"That's quite the arrogant attitude coming from a man who was a mercenary thug until my granddaughter came along. Minuet was taking care of herself long before she ever met you. Normally I would trust my granddaughter to extract herself from this mess, but she seems to be caught up in her own guilt at the moment." He tapped his finger against his chin. "In fact, you probably shouldn't tell her about this at all. I don't like keeping her in the dark, but I don't want her throwing herself to the kath hounds in some kind of misguided effort to face justice. Knowing how stubborn Minuet can be, she'd probably try to stop you."

"Stubborn?" Ordo snorted. "That's a polite way to put it."

"And how would you put it?"

The man leaned back in the chair again, pulling a pack of cigarras and a lighter from his pocket. He tapped one out and lit it. "I usually refer to it as having her head up her ass."

Ja'Taren couldn't decide if he should be indignant on his granddaughter's behalf or amused at the accuracy of that statement. "Are you going to be able to handle her? A rescue won't do any good if she fights you every step of the way or tries to turn herself in after your escape."

"I've gotten a lot of practice calling her on being a dumbass." Ordo grinned. "I usually win."

But Ja'Taren was not about to bet his granddaughter's future on the Mandalorian's colossal ego. "I can't believe it will be that easy. You'll be taking her away from the people she cares about the most, unless you're planning on taking Shan, Onasi, and the rest of the Ebon Hawk's crew with you."

Ja'Taren wasn't sure how feasible that would be. While he knew the captain and his granddaughter were lovers, the captain seemed to be so utterly upstanding that Ja'Taren wasn't certain that the man would be willing to defy the Republic even to save her life. It was an unfortunate situation. He did not want to cause his granddaughter further pain by seperating her from her lover, but keeping her alive, no matter what the cost, was his highest priority.

He shook his head. "I know my granddaughter. It's going to be difficult to convince her to leave them."

"She knows Onasi will look after the Jedi Princess," Ordo replied. He took a drag of his cigarra. "And she knows I won't stop until she comes with me. She'll come to keep me from being locked up."

Ja'Taren frowned, boggling at the Mandalorian's overinflated sense of self-importance. "You think that she would choose saving you over staying with him?"

Ordo raised an eyebrow, as if Ja'Taren had been the one to make a preposterous statement. "Him who?"

"Captain Onasi, of course," he said, irritated that he had to spell out something so obvious.

The Mandalorian's expression didn't change. "If that's as good as your intel gets, we might have a problem."

"That didn't come from my intel," he snapped. "That came from her."

Ordo crossed one foot over the opposite knee and stubbed his cigarra out on the sole of his boot. "Then you must have heard wrong."

"Unlikely. She told me that she'd fallen in love during the mission–" He cut himself off as he realized that she hadn't said the man's name; he'd just assumed that she meant Captain Onasi since the man was the obvious choice. But suddenly the reason for the Mandalorian's smug arrogance became clear. "Are you telling me," he said slowly, his anger growing into fury with each passing word, "that she was talking about you?"

Ordo inclined his head in assent, looking more smug than ever. "Unless she's stringing some other poor bastard along."

Ja'Taren remembered this feeling with acute clarity, even though it had been years since the last time he'd experienced it. There were times in the past when it seemed he'd lived in a constant state of dismay and exasperation with his granddaughter. Every time she'd been kicked out of a boarding school he'd spent a fortune on, every time she'd stolen one of her father's swoop bikes and wrecked it, every time she ran away from the Jedi or came for a visit with some completely unsuitable man in tow, he'd felt it.

The curses he'd learned working at the docking bays in the lower quarter back when he was a young man with barely two credits to rub together flowed from his mouth as he shot to his feet and stalked over to the bar. He poured himself a liberal glass of his best firewhiskey and drained half of it in one swallow before turning back the Mandalorian.

He jabbed his finger at Ordo, as his other hand tightened around the fine crystal glass. "Of course it would be you. I should have known. Minuet never had any sense when it came to men."

The Mandalorian got to his feet slowly, hands in fists, jaw tight. "I just told you I'd do anything to keep her safe," he rumbled. "She told you she's in love with me. What the hell else do you want?"

Ja'Taren's outrage echoed throughout the study. "Where do I start? I want her with a man who isn't over twenty years her senior, for one! What is she, some kind of trophy? Are you really this shameless or are you just desperate to recapture your lost youth?"

Ordo spat something at him in Mandalorian, an insult by the livid scowl on his face. "Watch yourself, old man. There aren't words in your language for what she is to me."

Ja'Taren scoffed as he glared at the Mandalorian. "Is that so? Do you really think you're the first man to sit in that chair and declare your devotion to my granddaughter? That Malak boy swore that he'd protect her too, and he tried to kill her twice!"

Now that he knew, Ja"Taren couldn't believe that he hadn't seen it before. Captain Onasi was the kind of man Ja'Taren had hoped she'd bring home for years—a wholesome, safe, and upstanding family man—which meant that Minuet probably didn't even look at him twice.

"You are just like Malak," he snarled as he dismissed the Mandalorian with a wave of his hand. "Large, dangerous, crude, and arrogant. Exactly the type of man she'd fall for."

"Compare me to Malak again, and I might forget your Revan's Clan." Ordo glowered down at him. "I'm bound to her. My life, my honor. If you've got half the brains Min claims you do, you know what that means to a Mandalorian."

Ja'Taren was so angry that it took him a several seconds to choke the words out. "You're married?"

Ordo shrugged. "Near enough."

"You arrogant son of a schutta! How dare you presume to marry my granddaughter? What kind of life can a man like you possibly offer her?"

"I can offer her everything she wants," Ordo spat. "I can give her freedom. What the frack have you ever given her?"

The words hit their mark, maybe even more than the Mandalorian knew, but Ja'Taren was not about to get sidetracked by past mistakes and old guilt. "You talk about honor, but a year ago you were working as a thug for a minor crime lord. You talk about Clan, but your people are dead or scattered and your homeworlds abandoned. You talk about giving her freedom, but you can't give her stability. You talk about protecting her, but all you have is your blade. And how long will that last given the fact that you're old enough to be her father?"

"Long enough." Ordo flicked the remnant of his cigarra onto the priceless Iridonian carpet. "You want me to prove myself worthy? I dragged her ass off that Star Forge. The only reason you've got her back is because of me. You want me to dig her out of the shit she's buried in now? Fine. Ask me to do whatever the hell you want. Because there's not a damn thing you can ask that'd be harder than dealing with the mess after she remembered who she is."

"What do you mean?" Ja'Taren demanded.

The Mandalorian crossed his arms over his chest. "I mean that if you think she's wallowing in guilt now, you've never seen how far she can take a wallow."

The cold burn of fear made Ja'Taren's chest ache. "Are you telling me that she tried to..." He couldn't finish. The idea that she would want to die so badly that she would end her own life wasn't something he could say out loud.

"She asked Onasi to kill her." Ordo's voice was flat and his gray eyes hard.

Somehow, that seemed even worse. Ja'Taren remembered that he was still clutching the glass of whiskey. It seemed like a good time to finish it.

"And now?" he asked, after the liquor burned away the lump in his throat. "Would she try something like that again?"

"I said I'd protect her, didn't I?" the Mandalorian snarled.

"That's not what I asked."

Ordo swept a hand through the air impatiently. "She won't get the chance. Not as long as I'm around."

Scowling, Ja'Taren studied the Mandalorian in silence for a long time. Then he turned, set the crystal glass down gently, and walked over to the window and looked out at the nightscape below.

Eventually, he turned and sai,. "You are not what I would have chosen for her, but you are what I have to work with. I don't trust you, Mandalorian. If you hurt her, I will have you killed, and if you fail her, you'd better be dead too."

Ordo gazed back at him impassively. "I think we finally understand each other."

Ja'Taren made a noncommittal grunt as he sat back in his chair behind the desk. "She's going to need more than just your protection." He gestured at Ordo's dossier on the holoscreen in front of him. "Whether we win this Senate vote or you have to disappear with her, she still needs to rebuild her life. You've spent your whole life fighting battles. Are you even capable of doing anything else?"

"What? You worried I can't provide for her?" Sneering, Ordo gestured around the room. "Afraid she might not live in a penthouse surrounded by worthless crap?"

Ja'Taren's brows rose skyward again. The Mandalorian really had no comprehension of what he was dealing with. He supposed he should be grateful that Ordo wasn't a gold digger.

"Minuet has a trust fund that's larger than the budgets of most backwater planets. Anything she wants, she can buy for herself. She doesn't need you to provide for her." Ja'Taren crossed his arms. "No. I'm worried that she's married to a man who has no idea how to be a husband."

Ordo raised an eyebrow. "How many men have you known that knew how to be a husband before they got married?"

"None. But I haven't known any fifty-three-year-old Mandalorian bridegrooms either." He scowled, the guilt that was always in the background clawed in his gut. "She's had enough grief from her own family, not to mention those Jedi bastards. She should be wanted and needed and valued for a change."

Gray eyes glared at him. "You think I'm in this for kicks? I told you I'm bound to her."

"You keep her safe, make her happy, and give me some great-grandchildren, then in a few years I might believe you."

Ordo snorted. "I'll do those things no matter what. Believe me or not."

Well, that was something, at least. Ja'Taren had all but given up on Minuet producing some heirs. If the Mandalorian could manage to convince her otherwise, then that was a huge point in his favor.

"Good." Ja'Taren considered for a moment before adding, "Children would be better sooner rather than later, as neither you nor I are getting any younger."

"Talk to Min. She'll give you more trouble about that than I will."

"She wouldn't be Minuet if she didn't give me trouble. There's nothing about my granddaughter that's easy," Ja'Taren said, his tone equal parts exasperation, affection, and admiration.

The Mandalorian barked a short laugh. "Now I know we understand each other."

"Yes, I believe that we do." He rose from his chair and handed a credit chit to the Mandalorian. "Expense is not an issue. Whatever you require to make this happen is yours."

"Just let me know if the vote starts to look bad," Ordo replied. "The sooner I know, the quicker I can get her out of there."

"It's going to be close. Those ungrateful bastards in the Senate are quick to forget how much they owe my granddaughter. Most likely we won't know how the vote will break until the very last minute."

Ordo scowled. "Maybe we shouldn't wait."

"I'm tempted to agree," Ja'Taren said. "It's risky, but if you disappear with her now, they'll hunt her for the rest of her life. She'll be in hiding and I'll never see her again." He cleared his throat. "For one long, terrible year, I thought she was dead. I just got her back. I'll let her go, if I have no choice, but I want to give her a real future that I can be a part of."

The Mandalorian appraised him with a tight jaw. "Fine," he ground out finally. "But don't wait too long. Or we're going to have a problem."

"I know what I need to do. You just be ready to do your part if she needs you, and I will take care of the rest."

Ordo nodded, then turned and headed for the door. He paused on the threshold. "You pay a lot for security? 'Cause I've still got two knives on me. You're wasting your money."

"Good to know. I'll take care of that at once." He paused before adding, "The next time you come, bring as many weapons as you can we'll see if the new guards catch it." He sat back down at his desk. "Now, I'm assuming you can find your way out, without stabbing my staff in the process."

"I'll do my best. No promises." And with a final arrogant smirk, he left.

Ja'Taren watched the door hiss shut behind his granddaughter's Mandalorian husband, torn between the hope that the Mandalorian would be able to deliver on everything he promised and exasperation over his granddaughter's unexpected choice. His finger hovered over the comm button as he considered contacting his granddaughter and demanding to what she was thinking by marrying such a man, and why she hadn't told him herself. But as he knew that would change nothing, Ja'Taren decided the lecture could wait a bit, so with a wry shake of his head, he turned to the console, pulled up a list of Senators, and got back to work.