remade.

He takes a deep breath and runs his hand over his face. "Alright," Anakin sighs. "It starts on Tatooine. I'm with my mother and I can still feel the slave tracker in my neck. She's telling me about her life before everything... before Gardulla and Watto… Just like it used to be." He pauses. He always pauses there. The next part is what he wants to forget.

"And then?"

"And then she's dying," he says after swallowing hard. "I can't see her, but I can feel her slipping away... No, not slipping. She's being ripped away. And—and I can't do anything to help her. She's calling for me, but I can't help her. It's like my hands are tied, and I’m powerless." 

You're silent for a moment as you try your best to fully consider this. "Maybe," you begin. Then you sigh. "Maybe, it's just fear. I have bad dreams, too. They're not likely to come true."

Anakin opens his eyes and sits up to look into your eyes. "You have... dreams?"

The ghastly images of your dreams spring into your mind. The Jedi temple in ruins, the searing heat of a burning planet, the very garden you sit in now—the garden both of you have claimed as a sanctuary—nothing but char. Anakin's eyes glowing gold. It's only fear that fuels the dreams, you know that. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Since you realized the crippling attachment you have to Anakin, the fear of the very worst that could happen has plagued you.

"They're not important," you say.

Anakin brushes the hair away from your face and strokes your cheeks with his thumbs. "They're important to me," he insists.

Oh, he's looking so intensely at you that you might pass out. A Jedi padawan reduced to unconsciousness by a pair of clear blue eyes and warm hands. You'll never pass the trials at this rate.

You take Anakin's hands and bring them away from your face. "Ani... You shouldn't do that..."

"Why not?" Anakin questions.

The only reason is that if anyone sees it, you'll both be in trouble with both Master Kenobi and Master Fisto. And Anakin won't care. Besides, Master Kenobi is often as liberal with him as Master Fisto is with you. A firm talking-to might be the most you'd get. But there's still your position in the order to think of.

Nevertheless, you have no desire to sour a quiet moment with the bitterness of responsibilities. "Because you're being ridiculous," you tease with a smile and a playful punch to his shoulder.

Anakin returns your smile. "I don't feel ridiculous," he says with a hint of a laugh. "Obi-Wan tells me to trust my feelings."

"Obi-Wan says a lot of things you don't listen to," you point out.

"Well, maybe I feel like starting."

"Anakin," you say, more sharply this time. Too sharply.

He pulls his hands back. "I'm sorry," he says quietly.

Of course, once his hands are gone, you begin to miss them. You want them to linger on your face. You want them to trace the column of your neck. You want his lips to follow them. A shudder builds in you just thinking about it—a shudder you have to work hard to suppress.

But he's looking at you like he wants the same thing so badly that it scares him.

With a sigh, you reach for his shoulder. A shoulder is safe. It isn't a cheek or a neck. Or lips, Maker forbid. "I didn't mean to snap like that," you say. "It's just... We're supposed to be meditating here."

Anakin reaches to lay his hand over yours. "You keep me focused."

You're about to protest the point. More often than not, you're his primary distraction and vice versa, but he closes his eyes before you can say anything and takes a deep breath. His hand is still on yours.You ought to meditate, but he's giving you a perfect opportunity to study his face, a luxury you rarely have. So often, you're afraid to stare at him. Afraid of someone seeing and guessing why you'd want to.

“I like it here,” he says, keeping his eyes closed and gripping your hand just a little tighter. “I always have, ever since I was young.”

“We’re still young,” you point out.

Anakin smiles. “Younger.”

In the following silence, you finally make yourself close your eyes, focusing only on the feeling of Anakin’s hand on yours. It is, funnily enough, something of a tether rather than a hindrance. There is a sense of belonging that comes with it that can almost erase the fear.

When enough time has passed, you take one more deep breath and open your eyes to find Anakin looking at you again. You pull your hand reluctantly away.

“We should go soon,” you whisper, and Anakin nods. 

There’s no point in lingering any longer, really. Together, you stand and head for the door.

“I really hate to leave this place sometimes,” you admit, just before you leave. “I’ve always liked it here, too.”

Anakin hums.

“Do you know what Master Fisto told me once?”

He gives you a questioning look, urging you to continue.

“He said: the Jedi who keeps the garden keeps the peace,” you say. “I didn’t understand what that meant at first, but I think I do now.”

“What does it mean?” he asks.

“Look at this place,” you urge him. “Where else can any one of us go to better soothe a troubled mind?”

If he agrees, he doesn’t say so, and now your time with him is up. Before you part ways, he grabs your hand and squeezes it tightly.

The next months are a whirlwind. By the time you pass your trials, the Clone Wars have begun. One by one, Jedi are called to the battlefront. Even Master Fisto goes, and that’s not a parting without its hardships. Yet, worse even than saying goodbye to your former master is saying goodbye to Anakin.

When he approaches you, you’re working in the temple gardens which seems to be a more or less permanent position. Not that you can complain; you’re very satisfied with your work, and Anakin’s visits have been frequent.

This one begins as any other. The minute he enters the garden, he finds you. He’s lost an arm recently, and his hair has gotten longer since his trials, just like he talked about. It suits him, you find. It suits him very well. You can’t stand to look at him for very long.

“I heard you were headed to the front,” you whisper as he approaches before he can say anything to you. You’re making a notably impressive effort to pretend to be unbothered by that information. It’s all you’ve thought about since you heard it days ago.

“Hello to you, too,” he says. There’s a strange energy brimming from him. Excitement, almost. It doesn’t suit him as well as his other changes. It fits him strangely. “We leave next week after the garrison is finished with their training.”

A deep burden takes root in you, but you nod, accepting it. “I wish you the best, my friend,” you say. “Stay safe for me, will you?”

His gaze darts anxiously around the gardens as he steps closer. “That’s actually why I came,” he says. “I wanted to talk to you.”

A glance over either shoulder tells you that you’re alone, so you step closer to Anakin and nod. “Yes?” you say.

He’s caught you firmly in his gaze, but you watch him falter with the grasp. The confidence and excitement that he approached you with begins to wane, and there is the beginning of something like fear behind his eyes.

“What’s the matter, Ani?” you ask, keeping your voice soft.

He drops his gaze down to the floor and swallows hard as his fingers twitch at his sides. “You know, don’t you?” he asks you without ever once looking at you. “I suppose you have to know by now.”

“Know what?” you press, ducking to try to catch his eyes once again. “Anakin…”

It all happens in a moment. The moment you recapture his gaze and fully understand the whole world of feeling behind it, he kisses you, and it’s equally everything you dreamed and your very worst nightmare. For a moment, you allow it, as much as you allow yourself to pretend that this can be more than what it is. Somehow, your hands come to rest on the back of his neck, inadvertently encouraging him to deepen the kiss.

His thumbs are brushing the apples of your cheeks, and you always knew this kind of tenderness was in him. You don't know how to handle it with the care that it deserves. When he pulls away, you don’t know what to say.

The silence is ripping a hole in the ground. You stand on fraying threads, waiting at any time to fall through.

Maybe it isn’t what you ought to say, but it’s the only thing you can muster up. “Don’t do this,” you say, half through your teeth.

“Everything I do is for you,” he admits slowly, hands still resting lightly on your arms. “I don’t know how else to be.”

“Not like this,” you tell him, trying to mean it.

It’s too much to watch him come to an understanding, but you watch it anyway. Like a shipwreck that you can’t tear your eyes away from… You want to fix it, immediately. There is no way you can. The feeling of his hands leaving you is an even stronger feeling than when he touches you at all.

You turn away from him at his first backward step, and you don’t watch when he finally leaves you. It’s nearly three years before you truly see him again.

All this time, he’s known where he can find you, of course; but there’s been no effort on his part or yours, for that matter. Sometimes, in the Temple, you think you catch glimpses of him. Worse, you see him from behind and turn yourself in the other direction. You make it easier by convincing yourself that he must do the same thing. 

But in the gardens, there’s no denying each other’s presence. You always feel him the minute he walks in, infrequent though his visits are. You have to wonder if he feels the same inescapable pull. 

Three years ago, you wouldn’t let him tell you how deeply his feelings for you ran. Now, it’s all you can think about. It’s a kind of torture that even the gardens can rarely soothe, and for three years, you’ve dealt with it the best you can. Yet, despite your best efforts, Anakin throws a wrench into the machine of your masterful self-control.

He approaches you from behind, but (of course) you don’t need him to announce himself. You’ve felt him the moment he stepped inside, his hesitation, his fear. He needs the gardens as much as you do, you’ve always known that.

Still, you refuse to look at him as you clip away the dead leaves of a dying plant. “What are you doing here?” you demand, voice too sharp to belong to this place. You’re forgetting yourself already, dammit.

“I had to see you,” he says, desperate and terrified.

With a deep breath, you turn to face him. To let him see you. You see him in turn, his hair long and features dark. He’s beautiful, and you could very nearly hate him for it. “Alright?” you press, choking it out over your caught breath. When he says nothing, you press all the more. “Why are you here?” you ask him once again.

“I keep having dreams,” he whispers to you after another long moment. But as quiet as his voice is, nothing can hide the panic laced in it. "Like the ones I used to have about my mother before she died."

You set the shears down and look around you. “What do you mean?”

“They’re about you,” he continues.

This stuns you to silence for a long while. When, eventually, you find your words again they come few and far between. “Me?” you ask. “What…?”

“If this war continues, you won’t make it through,” he says. “I’m sure of it.”

“Anakin,” you sigh, making an effort to tamp down the sudden panic that’s shot through you. “How could you be sure of something like that?”

“Because it’s happened before,” he says. “I need you to listen to me. You need to leave this place.”

“Leave?” you ask him. “And go where?”

“Anywhere,” he answers. “Anywhere but here.”

You can see it now, the fear that would lead him there. If this is, indeed, a world where dreams can come true, it falls to you to do everything in your power to stop them. With shaking hands, you reach out, placing your hands on either side of his head, his hair threading through your fingers. “Listen to me now, Ani. Old friend,” you say slowly. Perhaps a little over careful. “It won’t happen. There’s nothing here that can touch me, and I’ve had no word from the council about deploying me for battle. I am safe. You are safe. We’re both fine.”

Anakin shakes his head free of your hands. “You don’t know that,” he tells you. “I know what I’ve seen. I know these kinds of things become real.”

Once again, you try to reach for him, but he flinches away from you. You suppose you earned that, in a way. All you want is to bring him some comfort, but you’ve surrendered that privilege. “Have you spoken to Master Yoda?” you ask him.

“Yes.”

You nod. “What was his advice?”

Anakin clenches his jaw and turns his gaze upward, eyelids fluttering. “He advised that I leave you alone,” he says. “But I can’t do that. Not to you.”

You could bring up the past three years in which you’ve both done a decent job of leaving each other well enough alone, but you don’t. Instead, you say, “Master Yoda is wise. Moreso than we can imagine at our age.”

“Why,” Anakin snaps, “does everyone assume that we’re ignorant just because we’re young?”

His sudden flare of anger is palpable and nearly debilitating. At the very least, it shocks you into silence. It isn’t that it’s unlike him, rather his anger is composed of him. It’s the most of him that you believe you’ve ever seen, and you don’t find that you’re afraid. Instead, you’re fascinated, almost protective. 

“We are all ignorant,” you say. “Every last one of us, not only the young.”

Anakin paces away from you before returning again. “Well, I’m not,” he says. “I won’t allow myself to be.”

“Ani, think,” you sigh. “Who among us can truly know the path ahead? I have dreams, too, don’t forget.”

At this, he grabs up your hands between his own in a vice-like grip. “What are they?” he demands. “Please, tell me.”

If there was ever a time, this would be it. The desperation in his voice necessitates the uttering of nothing but the truth. Yet, the words catch in your throat as you see that awful nightmare once again. Even in the safety of your garden, you can nearly smell the smoke. “I can’t…” you whisper, choking on it. Speaking it would seem to give it power in a way. You cannot do that. Not to him.

At your refusal, your rejection, he seems to have reached the final straw. He leaves you there again to your shrubs and trees and little flowers. These comforting greens keep the peace, you remind yourself. Keeping them is your only duty of any value, but you wonder for a bitter moment if you’ll ever see him again.

In the following months, those old dreams that you couldn’t even speak return to you. Once again you see the golden-red shine of Anakin’s eyes as the temple burns all around him. The visions rob you of your sleep and make your work slow and stilted. Still, it’s only fear that’s affecting you so. You believe it’s only fear. You have to believe it.

The number of attendees to the gardens reduces even more if that’s possible. Those who remain assure you that the war is coming to an end, and once it does, the Jedi will return to this place of peace. This, you have to believe, as well.

There comes a day when there are no Jedi in the gardens at all, and the whole planet seems to have gone strangely still. You work through the morning, trying your utmost to keep the disquiet of your mind at bay. Yet, there are forces at work that you cannot deny. Something has begun that you cannot ignore—a great disturbance.

It’s late in the evening when you hear the sound of the first blaster shot, followed by the ignition of lightsabers that seem to do nothing against the onslaught. Instinctually, you reach for your own lightsaber clipped to your belt, but you don’t ignite it yet. Mentally, you make a desperate attempt to rationalize what must be happening. The Separatist forces have organized a strike against Coruscant, a desperate attempt at retaliation for Count Dooku. Surely… you think. Surely, that’s what this is: just another battle that must be seen to the end.

Yet, your feelings tell you what your mind will not. The very worst of your fears have come to pass.

There are Clone Troopers at the door, dozens of them from what your senses can tell. You stand ready for them, igniting your saber and bracing yourself for the fight, but it never comes. The moment the door opens to them a voice commands, “Hold your fire!” You would recognize that voice anywhere.

Anakin parts the wall of troopers with ease and comes close enough to really look at you. His eyes are gold. 

“Anakin…” you whisper, disarming your lightsaber and reaching for his hands. It would be pointless against these numbers, anyway. “What is happening?”

He doesn’t answer, not immediately, but there’s no need. Already, you’re beginning to understand that you would rather not know.

A trooper jogs to the rest and catches Anakin from behind. “Lord Vader,” he says, “We’ve cleared the first three floors.”

It takes you too long to realize that the trooper is addressing him as Lord Vader, and yet you instantly recognize it as a dark name. A Sith name. Anakin doesn’t acknowledge the trooper at all, watching you instead. Watching the horror come across your face as you pull your hands back. The silence between you allows for the sound of death to flourish from the distant reaches of the temple.

“What have you done,” you finally whisper.

“Only what I had to do,” he says. That’s all the acknowledgment you get before he’s turning back to the clones to give more orders. Through a blood rush, you hear the secret corners of this sacred temple, your home, marked for destruction.

As for you, you stay completely still—a moment frozen in amber, unable to grow past the events unfolding before your very eyes. The next moment, Anakin is pulling you through the temple as it burns. This is what he has to do, or so he believes. The words wind through you slowly like the spreading of dark ink across paper until you are completely saturated with it. This is your fault. All of this death, dealt out with childish abandon, is to save you.

If there’s anything you can say to cut catastrophe off at the head, you don’t know it. Yet, it won’t stop you from trying as you reach the exit of the temple. Perhaps, perhaps… You could contain it here. “Anakin, Anakin… The war is ending soon,” you tell him desperately, repeating the assurances of so many masters that now lay dead on the Temple floor. With the children. Dear maker, the children. “Why don’t you let it?”

“That’s not possible,” Anakin tells you. “The war will continue unless the Emperor himself puts an end to it. But don’t you understand? I can overthrow him once it’s done. No more Jedi. No more Dark Lords. The Force will truly be balanced once and for all.”

“Don’t be blind,” you say.

“I’m not blind,” he insists, flatly. “I’m the only one who sees the truth. The lies of the Jedi—”

“I am a Jedi,” you remind him, nearly doubling yourself over as you stumble to grab onto him once again. “Have I lied to you?”

He doesn’t shift an inch once he’s under your hands. Not at first. Instead, he stays stock-still as if the slightest movement would shatter you. Or him. Or even both at once. Then, without any warning, he straightens his spine and his eyes go suddenly cold. “I won’t make you join me,” he tells you. “But I won’t let you die.”

It should be a comfort to you, but it unsettles you as much as anything else he’s said up to this point. You release him from your grasp and match his posture.

“Will you come willingly?” he asks, holding his hand out to you. “Or will I have to force you?”

You know better than to refuse, even if your hand hovers over his, hesitant and terrified. It doesn’t matter. He takes you by the wrist and leads you away from the only life you’ve ever known. You’ve never seen Coruscant so dark, every light out but the one behind you. When you look over your shoulder, the fire from the temple is the only thing that lights up the world. You watch the ashes from the garden rise into the sky.

You don’t feel anything at all. Distantly, that frightens you, but it makes the trip through space easier. He keeps you in the cabin of his transport, waiting for some hint of your destination other than the stomach-pull of hyperspeed. In the muttered conversations of the troopers around you, you think you hear something about the Mustafar system.

An eternity passes before you land, and the thud of the ship touching stone jolts you harshly into a new reality. The troopers insist that you’re not to leave the ship on Lord Vader’s orders. Even so, out the windows you see nothing but more fire, more ash.

Death lingers over this place. Whatever Anakin’s purpose is in this place must be some other heinous act to add to all of those he’s committed within the past few hours. It sits rotten in the pit of your belly and nearly overwhelms you when he finally comes to fetch you from the transport. Your knees wobble as you walk across the obsidian ground, and he steadies you with a firm and powerful hand at your waist.

He escorts you to a serviceable bedroom and sets you on the cot there. Standing over you, he runs his gloved hand through your hair and tilts your head back, searching for something you couldn’t name if you wanted to. The tug of his fingers is markedly not uncomfortable, and you’re tired enough to allow yourself to push your head into his hand ever so slightly. You almost convince yourself that you can’t feel the blood that, though invisible, coats those hands.

“You understand, don’t you?” he asks you, quiet as a grave, the leather of his thumb pressing over your hairline. “You understand why I had to do it. You would, above all others.”

It takes more effort than it should to tap into his emotions, and you’re sure he feels it when you do. There is a raw wound at the core of him, bleeding and open for you and you alone. It may just be love.

That same rot that sits in your belly is creeping in at the edges of his mind. It will not be long before even that is choked out and lost to the will of the Dark Side. Thus, there are no other words you can muster to respond. “Nothing grows here,” you remark quietly.

To this, Anakin has no answer. He untangles his fingers from your hair and paces to the far end of the room. “Hate me if that’s what you want,” he tells you instead. “Nothing will change. I will still hold my power, and I will still use it however I need to in order to keep you safe.”

“I don’t hate you,” you tell him, rising carefully to your feet and finding it remarkably true. “But think, Anakin, please. Think of your dreams. How do they end?”

He has no answer. He won’t even look you in the eye.

Again, you say, “How do they end?”

“I don’t have to tell you anything,” he says.

“Anakin,” you try.

“Stop it,” he orders you, grabbing you by the throat. “Stop it.”

His grip goes beyond the point of pain. You can’t take a breath no matter how much you try for one, and the edges of your vision are slowly fading to a dark purple. You may die here in his hands, you realize, and you don’t have the time or the breath for any kind of parting words.

Again, you say, “Anakin,” and it’s a barely intelligible, squeaking word. Yet, he has to understand you. Above all others, he has to understand you.

In the next moment, he releases you, and you collapse onto your hands and knees. He leaves, wordless. It is this moment, breathless and nauseating, that proves to be the beginning of the end.

The world is clouded here, and even time is difficult to parse, only marked by eating and sleeping. You’re not sure how long you spend pacing the halls of this dark palace alone, but at times you are able to catch the corners of Anakin’s thoughts and understand why. He is waiting for Master Kenobi, you realize. Waiting for his Master to come and scold him like a child. Then what?  Sometimes you catch him within the winding maze giving orders to the troopers at his command, and he always stops to give you his undivided attention for a moment or two. He loves to play as though nothing is wrong. To the outside observer, he has made you queen of his little Empire, nestled safely upon a pedestal where nothing can touch you. In fairness, very little does, but not even the great Darth Vader can stop the slow creep of death. For all the fire this planet holds, you are cold. Since the first day, you have been moved to a room befitting an empress, and even in that room there is no warmth.

You’ve hardly had time to settle yourself before Anakin comes to you, whatever darkness that lingers in his mind expertly cloaked from your probing. You’ve had little time to speak to him in private since you came here.

There is a prolonged silence as his eyes roam your body before he finally speaks to you. “I wasn’t mistaken all those years ago,” he says.

It isn’t a question, but you couldn’t deny it even if it was. There isn’t a doubt that he’s referring to that singular kiss that you shared. It has become a ghost in its own right, and you have been the willing place it haunts.

He takes a step towards you, tentative, a matter of testing the waters. As for you, you don’t move a muscle, equal parts unwilling and unable. It’s an animalistic dance, this pacing. For all of his confident words, his uncertainty shows through his movements.

When he’s at last close enough to touch, it’s you who finally reaches out, fingers at his waistband, promising what you shouldn’t. Only then does he touch you, his hands combing through your hair as once they did. You close your eyes against the feeling, whether unwilling or unable to look directly at him, though you cannot be sure which.

From these touches, the whole of the world spirals out of your control. You don’t feel as though you’re a part of your own being as you work together to remove all barriers between you, little piece by little piece until nothing separates your bodies but space. Even that disappears in short order. His good hand traces the length of your body, skin over skin.

There’s nothing left to do except to let yourself be taken. You feel yourself going limp, pliable and willing to be so as long as no thought is required of you.

Everything is in contradiction to itself. He makes quick work of entering you, hips stuttering as he presses in, mouth opened in an abandoned gasp. It’s insult and comfort in one. Under such circumstances, you could hardly make yourself match his increasingly frantic movements, but you cannot help but hold onto him. When he finishes in you, it is a warm feeling, and a bitter one.

He huffs heavy breaths into the curve of your neck until he falls soundly asleep but never says another word to you. Your hands stay splayed over his skin as though you couldn’t bear to move them.

The nights are long on Mustafar, and you sleep as often as Anakin and your mind will allow. At least you dream, feverish though your dreams tend to be. In your mind, you follow rivers of blood until they clear into fresh and sparkling water. You drink from the springs (the water is sweet) and look up across the stream to Anakin as you once knew him. He wears a shirt of white linen and looks up at the triplet suns that shine across the sky of an unknown planet. With a breath, he closes his eyes. Your dreams do more than comfort you. They give you hope, even as you feel your life slipping away.

On another night like that one, after Anakin has summoned you to his chambers and had his way, he lingers for a moment in silence. He is seated on the edge of the bed, and where his emotions were difficult to reach before, they scream at you now. All of the guilt and the uncertainty… As though you are enmeshed with him: one creature.

“Don’t you think we’re too young for this?” you ask.

He doesn’t turn around. “Get out,” he tells you, not even offering you the dignity of looking to see if you do.

There is an endlessly long and silent chasm between you for some time. Silent, perhaps, and yet never empty. Confusion fills it—chaos, too. That uncertainty flows from him and fills the space that he drives between you. It is so close to the end; you can feel it in every inch of your limbs now.

You know the long silence, the darkness is over when he comes to you in the middle of the night on the third day of the same. His intent is clear, and yet, he is slow to action. Perhaps any other night, you would spur him into it, having long since grown impatient with his indecision. Not tonight. 

Tonight you rest with your back against the wall and watch him pace the length of the room once, slowly and deliberately. When he turns on his heel to face you, he demands, “Well? Aren’t you going to say something?”

“What do you think I’m going to say?”

“What you usually do,” he answers. “What you always say with your mind if not your words.”

You only hum because, of course, there is nothing to say that hasn’t already been said. The grief you still hold over everything he was—over everything you were—has been overwhelming since its inception. To reach out with it another time may prove more than you could bear.

He sits on the edge of the bed and draws your hands into his. Flesh and metal. “Speak to me,” he demands. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Perhaps it would be in your best interests to lie—to give him exactly what you know he wants as you have since the slaughter. He’s stubborn when it comes to getting his way, after all. The truth, however, is all you can bear to give. “I’m going to die,” you tell him.

He flinches but doesn’t speak.

“If I stay here,” you clarify. “There’s something about this place… It’s inhospitable. You know that, don’t you?”

“I know,” he mumbles. “I know.”

“I won’t be here forever, and I don’t know what comes next. Where I’ll go… What I’ll do… Whether I’ll even survive…” you say. “But I know where I belong.”

He doesn’t press, to your surprise. That, in itself, is another good sign.

“I miss my garden,” you tell him, feeling enough at liberty to be candid with him. “It was all I had for so long. The only place I felt at peace…”

It’s another long moment before he speaks. “You were always my garden,” he says quietly. “I never could keep you.”

You push your hand into his long hair, keeping your thumb softly against his brow bone. He closes his eyes.

“I will do anything you ask,” he tells you in a hoarse whisper. “Please, just tell me what I can give you.”

At first, all that comes to mind is everything he could not possibly give you. The temple and its garden… The peace that the galaxy once held… The lives of thousands of friends and mentors… Above it all, you think of three long, wasted years that marked the foolishness of your youth. These he could never give to you because you never gave them to him.

It doesn’t matter anymore. All of those things are dead and gone. What remains is yours to have if you’ll only ask for it. Even so, there is only one thing you can think to wish for.

“Get on your knees.”

You expect your request to shock him, but it doesn’t. Perhaps this is what he always expected of you. His eyes flutter open, and he drops to his knees in an instant.

“You know what I’m going to ask you, don’t you?” you say, and he responds with a nod so slight you might’ve missed it if you couldn’t feel his head move under your hands. Yet, the briefest of affirmation tells you what you need to know: he is ready to leave all of this behind.

“We’ll have to leave this place,” you tell him. “And I don’t doubt we’ll be hunted for the rest of our lives.” The truth of it strikes you where you’re sensitive. This man in your hands has committed unspeakable horrors without excuse. Even so, you hold him there.

“I will follow you,” he promises. “All my life, I have served none but you. I will serve none but you.”

“Then I’ll keep you safe,” you say. “Above all others, I will keep you safe.”

No, I don’t mind you reading my letters aloud, within reason. After all, me and Steve share little pieces from your letters with each other in order to feel like you’re right here with us and making up the final piece of the Three Stooges, a little band we’re likely to become once you finally get yourself home. I’ll just have to be cautious not to invoke the name of Fr*nk S*natra anymore since he’s a sore point among the men.

I am also every bit as happy to have things that are just between you and me. Here’s something for your eyes only:

The promise you’re asking for is difficult to give, but I’ll give it to you all the same. It’s my sincere hope to not only have the title of your best friend but to be deserving of it, too. So, no, I won’t hide from you, and I certainly don’t want to. However, I will endeavor to make these letters a joy to read as much as they are a joy to write, laced as they are with honesty and hardship. It is, after all, the Thankful time of year, and I intend to live up to the spirit of the holiday. End confidential statement.

Speaking of, I hope you and the boys will enjoy a feast even so far from home. I understand that for many of the boys, this is their first time out of the country, but I assure you it feels strange to us back in the States, too. What do you think about good ol’ Franklin Delano Roosevelt changing Thanksgiving Day to the last Thursday of the month? My mother is calling it Franksgiving only because she goes about all month long getting ready for her grand family dinner, and this year she’s upset at having less time to prepare. I tell her not to worry so much since we should try not to consume as much food this year anyway. This only upsets her more.

Still, she remains a real gem of a patron saint, if I do say so myself. Last week, she was put in charge of desserts for the church’s bond-sale potluck, and created a beautiful sheet cake of red, white, and blue over which she pasted the words “Prayer for Our Boys is Sweet to God.” God may have been the only person that cake was sweet to, I’m afraid. Amidst all the chaos of organizing the thing, she had substituted sugar for salt. My father has told me I am not allowed to joke about it with her until months after Franksgiving is over, and to understand that, even then, the most I may get out of her is a frustrated sigh. It is on you and the boys that I must rely to find the humor in it. Eugene may be right. There might be some benefit to living on a sugar farm.

Yours,

Moe (if you’ll be Larry and Steve will be Curly)

P.S. Hello to the men of Easy Company who I understand will be hearing this letter. You’re all bang-up fellas!

P.P.S. Hello to Babe especially. The tea was better this time.

-... -...

1 December 1943

Heya Moe,

Boy, oh boy. I don’t know WHAT you wrote to Eisenhower, but he must be a sucker for a pretty dame. I didn’t want to write you about this just so as not to get our collective hopes up, but now that it’s finally over and done with I’m happy to share. “Share what?” I’m sure you’re asking at this point. Heck, I’m sure you’re on the edge of your seat. Well, hold your horses and sit down, missy, and I’ll tell you all about it.

At the end of October, the men of Easy finally found their final straw with Captain Sobel when said so-called “captain” issued Lt. Winters a court-martial. Again, that was a court-martial for LT. WINTERS of all people. The reasoning, I learned from Captain Nixon (a close friend of Winters’s), was a failure to follow conflicting latrine inspection orders. Typical Sobel, I learned from the rest. They have a choice name for him having to do with what comes out of the rear-end of a chicken. Apparently, the feud between him and Winters went much deeper than I thought. (My own CO’s, though tough, have been dolls in comparison).

Anyway, so this court-martialing business goes on and on with hearings getting postponed at every turn, but the Easy guys have had enough at this point. Guarnere, according to his own testimony to me, headed the whole thing up. (Doubtful, but I can’t prove it). There was this great, big campaign among them to resign their positions in an act of what can only be described as pure mutiny if Colonel Sink was gonna keep Sobel as the CO. In the end only three NCO’s (non-commissioned officers) from Easy stayed out of it.

Well, Colonel Sink had a fit, according to the guys who were there. One guy got busted down a rank, and the rest were told that they oughtta be shot for insubordination. Surprise, surprise, they all survived. After that, we were all just waiting to hear about Winters’s court-martial outcome, but I guess they dropped it. And that gave us hope.

Well, the news came in just this past week. Presto, Sobel’s OUT. He has been relocated from his command of Easy Company to a nearby flight school where he’ll torment a new group of paratrooping recruits. But the key thing is he is in no position to probably ever lead men into combat. Among those we are thanking are God, Colonel Sink, and your saintly mother.

On the subject of your mother, I hope she wasn’t too disappointed with the outcome of her dinner. It did feel strange for us to celebrate Franksgiving early but not nearly as strange as it felt to celebrate it so far from home. The turkey was alright, if a little sparse and dry. More than a couple of men expressed thanks that Sobel’s ugly mug was no longer around to look at, to which we all said cheers with a couple of cans of army-issued peaches. A couple of folks who shall remain unnamed started a fight with one of the Brits in town who, curious about the holiday, was told that the colonists had just been grateful to get the [REDACTED] heck out of this “miserable, wet, soul-sucking joint” (meaning England). Unrelated, Joe Liebgott and Harry Welsh are working the mess hall this week.

I’ll tell you what, kid. When life gets tough, the tough get tougher. Now that things are looking up, every letter from you could fuel me for a marathon even in the frostbite cold of Aldbourne. News of your saintly mother is also extremely welcome, and always a riot for myself and the boys. There is much hooping and hollering at every mention of her. If only I could share these bursts of energy with you, but the best I can do for you is give you letters of my own. Still, somehow, I can’t help but think we’re gonna pull through. Afterwards, you and I can go on a hunt for all the privacy and alone-ness in the world, never once having to be lonely if we don’t wanna be.

We stay warm these days after our scheduled activities by playing basketball until we’re sore. Our good friend John Hall is a star player of Lt. Winters’s team, and I am the star player overall. Don’t forget it.

Yours,

Bucky “Larry from the Three Stooges” Barnes

P.S. First Malarkey, now Babe. Unbelievable. Can’t a guy get a lady to himself?

-.-- -.

12 December 1943

Dear Bucky,

If you ever do see Sobel again, give him my hearty congratulations on his reassignment. I hope he felt my excitement wrap three times around the whole world to slap him right in the face like a particularly cold wind. You didn’t mention, but I assume that Winters has taken over command of Easy Company? If so, give him my congratulations on his promotion, too. In fact give the whole company my congratulations and many hugs and big, red lipstick kisses. What lovely news during such a lovely time of year. ‘Tis the season, indeed!

Now, this is silly, but my cousin wants to know if John Hall seems happy to hear from her. She’s let me read some of his letters which she thought were the sweetest things in the world, and now he’s all she wants to hear about. For my part, I thought they were alright. Not bad on the comedy level, but no Red or Jack by any stretch. I think you and I do a heck of a lot better on that front. I would call his letters short, but I’m not about to pot his kettle. But if she likes him, I can’t say much of anything except good for both him and her! I love her as dearly as a sister, but I can see John Hall becoming a subject I grow quickly tired of. Don’t read this part to John, he’s a swell guy and he won’t be able to keep from thinking I think otherwise if he hears about it.

In light of this promise we’ve made each other, I do have one hardship to get off my chest. You see, there’s this new Bing Crosby song that’s been playing on the radio every chance it gets, and it goes something like “I’ll be home for Christmas / You can plan on me / Please have snow and mistletoe / and presents on the tree. / Christmas Eve’ll find me / where the love light gleams. / I’ll be home for Christmas / if only in my dreams.” Simple, isn’t it? Even so, I find myself tearing up a little every time I hear it. There are so many empty homes this year, and how many soldiers would like nothing more than to return?

I don’t know what Christmas will be like this year, but the usual holiday feeling has already been thrown a little off-kilter with the absence of so many of our young men. The city certainly feels smaller if that were possible, and yet it does also help all of us to feel closer. I can’t brush shoulders with another lady without knowing she must have a brother or a husband or someone or significance to her overseas. And I know any other lady will know the same of me without ever exchanging words. We are all so anxious to hear from you and know that you will be okay by the end of the year. Then we can mark another one down and pray that there aren’t many to go before the Germans surrender. There. That's my complaint. Hopefully that's pretty mild as far as hardships go.

Please be so kind as to distribute the attached package of little Christmas cards to the men + Vera. I'm so happy to hear that you had a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, but now I feel I should do my part to give you a Merry Christmas. If these little notes are worth anything in energy, maybe it will be enough for you and Easy to storm Hitler's Eagle's Nest all by yourselves and end the war by the time 1944 rolls around.

I am happy to be,

Your Best Friend

P.S. Dedicate your next half-court shot to me and you can get a big, red lipstick kiss of your own.

-... -...

19 December 1943

Heya,

Thank God that I’ve still got one friend inclined to give me the time of day. Dum Dum has taken clean off for the past few weeks. You can catch him in the pubs of Aldbourne paying special attention to a girl with yellow hair, freckles on every inch of her face, and a mean right hook when bothered by overzealous G.I.’s. I told Dum Dum not to steal my methods of finding a girl to write to, but he insists it’s not the same since she hasn’t hit him. Well, I say, YET. As both you and I could tell him, it’s only a matter of time. He’s become as distant and mysterious as Ron Speirs. 

With him gone, I’m stuck talking to Harry Welsh before lights out. Don’t get me wrong, Harry’s a great guy (inclination to fight excepting), but all he talks about is missing his girlfriend Kitty. Kitty this, Kitty that. And as soon as he hears any name at all that’s close enough to Katherine, he gets all distant-eyed and moony. He told me his plan is to save the white silk of his parachute after the jump for her to make her wedding dress out of. Now, I don’t know much about girls and what they like from a wedding dress, but I DO know something about parachutes and the difficulty of hauling them around once they’ve been deployed. Still, Harry’s convinced he’ll be able to do it if it’s for her. I can’t understand being that blinded by love.

Even so, I suppose I can’t blame him for thinking about home all the time. I haven’t heard Bing Crosby’s song, but I have heard of it. From the rumors flying around base, the BBC has it banned for fear of it decreasing morale. Well, consider my morale decreased. I’ll feel better once I get off this island, get my hands on a Luger pistol, and mow down enough Nazis that they decide I’ve done enough and send me home. Sorry, for the morbid talk, I guess. I’ll mellow out once I get over my poor, runny nose and talk to someone who isn’t head over heels for some girl that no one but them has ever met. I don’t know how anyone stands that kind of person.

Ignore me, Moe. I’m just jealous, is all. Up to this point I have been VERY subtle about my tendency for jealousy, but you’ve finally caught me. I do see John Hall around, and he DOES mention your cousin very frequently. He hears my news of you with polite interest for his friend (not the confidential parts, don’t worry), but I can tell that his thoughts must drift to her as mine do to you when the roles are reversed. It’s easier to hear Eugene Roe talk about Vera. At least I know her. (She was thrilled to be included among the recipients of your pretty cards, by the way. I've given her your address, so expect some more English mail.)

By the end of the year, I’ll be A-Okay, no worries on that front. I’m only afraid that we’ll all be horribly stir-crazy. I think the boys and their English girlfriends (excluding Roe and Vera) are due for nasty breakups any day now. Like clockwork.

A Christmas at home sounds like it would be beautiful, but I'm afraid I couldn't secure a pass home. In fact, I don't know anybody who did. Not for lack of trying, either! Winters shared with us about his home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and his own parents and sister that he left there. I've never even been to Pennsylvania, and yet I found myself longing for it. How crazy is that?

Then I started to think, geez… What would it take you to meet me down in Pennsylvania? There's a lot of farmland there, Winters says. Maybe we could just visit Quaker land and see the funny way they live and see if it's more lonely or more alone-like. Heck, what am I saying? We'd freeze to death. It's like I forget that the States can get cold, too. In my defense, Aldbourne is colder, and it's colder when there’s no one warm nearby.

Sorry about the drag of a letter. The holiday spirit is coming to me a little harder this year. It's comforting to know that if anyone understands me, it's you. I remain,

Yours,

Bucky

P.S. I have made no less than five half-court shots since your last letter and dedicated all of them to the angel daughter of a saintly woman. Emphatically.

-... -...

25 December 1943

Heya,

I hope I’m not bothering you by doubling up on my usual letter-writing quota. It’s the very earliest hours of the morning now, and I wanted you to be the first person that I wished a Merry Christmas. Wasn’t lucky enough to secure a pass back home, so this will have to do.

My last letter was so pathetic, I hate to even think about it. Although, it is true that I start to ache when I think about those grand ol’ Christmases in New York and the warmth that somehow gets under your skin even in the coldest days of the year. All the same, I’m glad that today by some miracle I don’t have to say that I can’t feel that warmth from all the way across the Atlantic. I actually can, and it’s a very present feeling. The Brits are kind, the boys are family to me, and I have a stack of letters and some pictures from this wonderful girl back home that’s been kind enough to read and answer my own letters. That’s the best present a soldier could ask for: just knowing that there’s someone thinking of and missing him on the other side. Like my own Christmas angel.

Is it cruel to hope that you do really miss me and that it’s not just something you say because I’m a serviceman and it seems right? I know back home we were never close the way some friends are. I think of me and Steve and you and your cousin, just for two obvious examples. Still, I’d like to think that if this were any other Christmas and I came to your door needing a friend like you, you would make me feel welcome. For just Christmas night, I like to think you would make me a part of your home, and you’d make sure I didn’t feel so alone. In a lot of ways, you already do. 

So, I won’t mourn for a Christmas that I won’t get to spend with Steve and Rebecca. They’ll get their Christmas letters, too. Instead, I’ll sing carols with the men in the afternoon and trade stories with them about what it’s like back home. And I’ll think on this letter and how many times I’ve written back home, back home, back home. And this evening, I’ll know that there is a girl who looks pretty in red who is waking much later than me and who is about to have a very Merry Christmas who wishes me the very same. If you feel that your fire is extra warm today, that’s the feeling of my best wishes for you flying across the ocean just to land in your hearth.

It’s time I was asleep now, if Dum Dum’s snoring is any indication. The last I’ll say is that Bing Crosby really does know his stuff. I sure will be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.

Love,

Bucky

I’m glad you’re interested in my crochet, but I’m afraid such projects don’t make interesting stories. No story of mine could be quite so glamorous as rough-housing with enlisted men over a picture of some girl you knew in high school, anyhow. (Thank Dum Dum very much for his vital information from the front. I salute him and wonder about you.) Rather than just tell you about the little baby blankets and wool socks I’ve been busy with, I’ve shipped over some green mittens for you to keep you warm as we approach the winter months. However frosty NYC gets, I know Aldbourne must be suffering worse. My poor little heart aches to think of you shivering in the cold, so do wear them for me as your activities permit?

Has the Sobel situation improved any? Or maybe it would’ve been better to keep him in a warm climate where he can thaw out. Let me know. Miss Helen’s little boy Hank Jones has started his senior year at West Point as of this past August and is going straight to the army once he graduates. He was so much more serious than you’d remember him being; it was hard to get him to laugh when he visited home this weekend. I wondered briefly if he’s become Sobel-esque and if that’s just what studying and practicing at war does to a person. That was, of course, before I did manage a chuckle out of him at last, courtesy of Benny and Skelton, both of whom I was able to see since I last wrote. Hail the conquering hero.

I can’t believe you missed your shot at Churchill. There goes my invitation to Buckingham Palace. I won't be too sad about it, though, since it seems all England is good for is fertile ground for heartbreak. When all the American gentlemen go and marry English girls, the US population will die out and the Brits will get it in their heads that they can reclaim the colonies. Since I cannot forbid you from taking up with a local girl, I only ask that you heed my warning in this regard. If there can be a second World War, a second Revolutionary War is every bit as likely.

To the credit of the Enemy (the English, this time, not the Germans), a sheep farm sounds lovely. Certainly, there must be worse places to be billeted, and your little roommates are sure to agree. With the mittens, I have sent a pack of Wrigley's gum to either use or dispense at your pleasure.

I am, as ever,

Your friend

P.S. Stop flirting with my mother, won’t you? Makes a girl feel left out.

-... -...

29 October 1943

Heya,

Well, now you’ve done it, missy. I hope you enjoy the wagon of tea bags that the guys have sent you because each one of them is so darn smug about it I can hardly stand it. Each one is labeled with the name of the guy that it once belonged to, but I allowed this so you would know which of these poor suckers couldn’t find a girl back home to write to if it meant saving their poor hides. I figure there’s gotta be a reason for that, and I encourage you to figure the same. Consider yourself warned!

In fact, the only single gentleman of Easy Company who wouldn’t give up his tea is their medic, Eugene Roe. I think there’s something wrong with him, too. After all, after seeing your picture and hearing your nice letters from time to time, who wouldn’t want you to have every nice thing in the world? 

Speaking of nice things, these mittens are just swell. Every pair my mother ever made me got scratchy after wearing them for longer than an hour, but these have stayed soft and warm all through the better parts of yesterday and today. Sorry to say there’s little occasion to wear them with all the activities they have for us (we still do arms drills regularly), but you can bet they'll be with me every chance they get. I'll tell you without lying that it's a very timely gift. Aldbourne is chillier than NYC gets by a mile. I think I complained about the cold in August? I was naive back then, and I shudder to think of how it gets in December. Hopefully, we’ll be [REDACTED] by then.

Sobel has not improved in the slightest, and now he’s showing just how much right he has to be as demanding as he is. Read: none at all. He’s about as incompetent as he is anal, and that’s saying something as you well know by my past letters. Heck, just the other day during a drill, half of Easy Company was perfectly positioned for an ambush on my attacking squad, and instead of staying put, Sobel ordered them to charge. Well, not only did my squad nab them in a second, but another squad that kept their ambush position got him, too. (Again, Lt. Winters proves what real competence looks like, partly credited to the strong contrast he’s provided with.)

I can’t imagine Hank Jones going serious on us. Poor kid with his wide eyes and dopey ears stuck in the mud pits of West Point. With Eisenhower and everything, doesn’t he figure we’ve had enough of West Point men? I think more often now of how old I am compared to the boys back home who are wading into war by the minute and second. I guess to a grandfather, I’m not so much older than eighteen, but I still feel the wide stretch of the almost-decade gap every time there’s some rookie mistake like a firearm pointed downrange. How many children do you think it will take before the old men are satisfied? Well, I’m sure you get the casualty reports from Italy and Japan, so I won’t rehash them.

Sorry about Churchill. I thought I’d at least be able to nab Eisenhower for you and get you an invitation to Capitol Hill. No such luck. Don’t worry about Revolutionary War 2, I’ll be in the Brooklyn trenches when the day comes and I’ll fight off every Brit with my bare hands if it comes to it. For now, the English are hospitable, and that’s all we can ask of them. The sheep farm really is lovely, honestly. It may be a funny way of viewing these big stinking creatures, but there is something satisfying about the work and something sweet about how stupid sheep are.

The London kids thank you very much for your gum, but I’m afraid they ran through it faster than they thought. Now, they’re bemoaning another year with no Halloween to speak of (or, at least, not one in the city), but I guess by the time that you get this, Halloween will be over and done with. Let me know how it is for you. This year, I’m going as an army man.

Yours,

Bucky

P.S. I’ll stop flirting with your mother when you stop flirting with Don Malarkey. Truce?

. .-.

29 October 1943

Dear Miss,

Pardon me for writing since we’ve never met, but I want to put to rest any slander that Buck might be spreading about me. You see, tea isn’t a thing that’s given out with the rations over here, but we get it in bucketfuls from the locals. I happen to get all of mine from a young lady by the name of Vera who has been more than kind and generous to me during my stay here. I hope you understand that I am keeping my tea not out of a lack of generosity but rather out of respect and affection for her.

I do enjoy hearing your letters on the rare occasion that Buck reads them to us, and you’re a fine looking lady if you don’t mind my saying so. I also hope you don’t mind me telling you that I am less inclined to flirt with strangers than Malarkey, Luz, Guarnere, and the rest are. Although, in their defense, the girls they get letters from are not half as fun as you seem to be. Cut them some slack for being pigs; they don’t know no better.

Sincerely,

Eugene Roe, Easy Company, 506th Airborne Division

P.S. Be careful with Heffron’s tea. If it tastes dirtier than tea should, SPIT IT OUT.

-.-- -.

4 November 1943

Dear Bucky,

You can imagine my surprise at the “wagon” of tea that arrived on my doorstep this morning. There was such a great variety of flavors and so many names that I could never keep track of them all. Give the boys my love for their generosity. I can only imagine how long I’ll spend drinking all of this. (I have Heffron brewing on my stovetop now with no small amounts of trepidation. Thank Eugene for his warning.)

Halloween was more or less uneventful for us here, too. With all the sugar rationing, I don’t think people like to go around passing out candy. All the same, I did dress up as Little Red Riding Hood and had a couple of close friends and my cousin over for a cake and some card games. Steve was there dressed as the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz which I got a good kick out of. My cousin asks you to say hello to John Hall for her, though I think they’ll start writing each other soon enough—there may not be any need! I’d ask you to say hello to Don Malarkey in particular for me, but… Well, truce, I guess.

Do you read all of my letters to the boys? Not that I’m upset if you do, but I can’t imagine that there’s anything in them worth hearing when most of them must have girls and/or families of their own to hear from. I don't take your concerns about these young men lightly. Goodness knows, I do see it every day in headlines, casualty lists, and the heavy hearts of the families dear to me. As an older brother to them, you should encourage them to write home whenever they can, especially in active combat zones. I know one too many mothers that would sell everything they have for just one letter from their baby sons who have been gone for far too long. In the same vein, I know one too many mothers who will never hear from those sons again.

What a happy letter, huh? I’m sorry that it hasn’t been the typical escape from the harsh realities of life as we know it that I try for. Oh, Heffron’s tea is bad, by the way. Very, very bad. What the heck did he do to it? I’ll take a clean replacement at his earliest convenience.

Sobel, as you wrote to ME once, is on my last nerve. I’ll write to Eisenhower this very week to have Lt. Winters installed as his replacement. Although, since I was not secured that invitation to DC, I wouldn’t hold out hopes that Ike pays it much mind. Maybe I could get Frank Sinatra to put in a word. Do you know, I’ve been listening to his program more frequently these past couple of weeks? His voice is nearly perfect. A girl could swoon if a girl was so inclined.

This letter might have to be shorter than I would like. I do have so much more to say, but I’m going to watch my boss’s new little girl Marjorie June this weekend, and I need to leave within the hour. I can’t believe that sweet baby is already a month old and growing like a weed. It makes me think of how old I am, too, and how life just keeps going and going. I pray for this baby that she will never remember what it was like to grow up during a war just the same as I pray for my best friend that he will come home safely and leave the worst of it behind.

Always and ever,

Your friend.

P.S. I heard after the war, the country’s going to need farmers by the hundreds. Something to think about?

-... -...

15 November 1943

Heya,

I guess it’s probably too much to ask if I was to request some pictures of Steve as the scarecrow? The thought makes me laugh, and I don’t have to ask Steve to know he would flatly refuse even if I begged. More pictures of your lovely self wouldn’t go amiss either. Bet you made the prettiest Red Riding Hood ever seen on the East Coast. Heck, I bet there wasn’t a prettier one in the whole country.

Forget about me. What do YOU think of farming? I’m sold on it, myself, but I’ll never admit to it if you say you’re not in favor. Why? Well, mind your own business, that’s why. I WILL say, if you grew your own sugarcane, you wouldn’t have to worry about rationing for your cakes and candies. Roe tells me that there’s plenty of sugar growing where he’s from in Louisiana.

Yes, I’ll have to admit that I have read your letters to the fellas on occasion. Cross my heart, it’s not all of them and never the whole thing. Call me sensitive, but I like to have some things that are just between you and me. You have to understand that it’s a tradition on mail drops to read out the most interesting parts of the news from back home. Heck, I probably know more about Guarnere’s brother Harry and his service over in Italy than I do about my own sister who I write to almost as frequently as I do you.

I guess I have Roe to thank for letting the cat out of the bag. For once, he’s done a miracle and been a worse tattletale than Webster and Dum Dum combined. Serves me right, I guess. Do you mind all that much? I hadn’t thought about it before you said so, but they do feel like little brothers to me and Dum Dum in a way. Sharing any and all news at home with them makes the winter feel less cold, and Sobel less overbearing. On that note, “Heffron” has asked you to call him “BABE.” This is not him being a flirt. We just all call him Babe, Roe excepting.

Going back to things that are just between you and me, would you make me a promise? A real one, and not some joke about who you can and can’t write to. Don’t try to cover up what it is that you really think and feel. I won’t lie and tell you that it’s easy over here, so there’s no need to do the same. I was never long in a version of NYC that was ravaged by war and rumors of war. That said, I can’t possibly know what you’re going through unless you tell me straight up, the same as you can’t know about me.

The whole thing gets exhausting and more than just physically. Here we are, holding our breaths, never knowing when the big jump is going to be and going crazy with the thought that it could be tomorrow or the day after. In that way, you and I are the same, except you have to sit and wait for news of it which would almost be worse. So, no, I don’t need a fairyland version of New York from you, it’s alright. You just go ahead and be as honest with me as you feel, and I’ll do the same. We’re countrymen and neighbors and friends besides. If we can’t shoulder these things together, then who can we turn to? You remain the first person I want to tell about these things, and I remain

Yours,

Bucky

P.S. Babe shipped you another bag of tea, but me and Roe don’t trust it any more than we did the first one. Just so you’re aware.

I don’t think I ever apologized for that, by the way. Now’s as good a time as any since I don’t know when I’ll see you in person next. I wish I’d known how difficult that year was for you. I wish a lot of things had been different, actually. It wasn’t fair to you that you had to work so hard and go without, and meanwhile I was oblivious to all of that and just made things even harder than they had to be. Now, there’s this war on that sort of makes all those wishes for different circumstances seem small and unimportant. I still look at them from time to time though sort of through the looking glass, and I imagine a world where there isn’t a war at all and things have been dandy between us our whole lives. That way I can better enjoy it when you call me your best friend even if it’s only a running gag. 

And, on that note, what’s a picture between friends? I hope the one I’ve enclosed is sufficient for bragging rights. That one was taken by John Hall. Do you remember him? He’s a few years younger than us, and I think he knows Steve better. Anyway, he’s getting ready to ship out with the rest of you… I think he’s trying to become the next Eisenhower. I hope by the time the punk reaches that level of seniority, the war is long over. If you see him sometime, say hi for me. I did manage to get a hold of Steve, and he laughed at you making me “Buck’s messenger girl.” He told me to tell you that he gets your letters and he knows you’re getting his, so stop bothering me. (Don’t quit bothering me, I’ll never forgive you.)

I truly don’t know how my mother would feel about being your division’s patron saint, but it sure gets a laugh out of me. I say go for it, but don’t tell her I said so and don’t let anyone make a pin-up of her. I mean it! I’ll know if you do.

She doesn’t know yet that I’m writing to you. I think, honestly, I just want to see first if we keep it up. I’m sure you’ll get so busy after a while that it will be hard to think of writing letters, and I want you to know that I won’t be angry if they start to peter out. Until then, I’m happy to give you any news of New York that you would like, short of sending you the Times. Just be a dear and let me know what about me you’d most like to hear about.

For the time being, I’ll let you know that the rubber business is booming and keeps a poor old maid secretary like myself from finding a good husband. This breaking headline I’ve heard from the women at church. I credit it more to a love of being mostly ALONE. I’d have to really love somebody to want their presence all the time.

I remain affectionately, 

Your Friend and maybe even your best one.

P.S. Sorry to hear you don’t get Jack Benny! But in that case, I hope you don’t mind if I repurpose some of his gags. I’ll be your one-woman USO show.

-... -...

27 September 1943

Best Friend (the absolute truth, not a gag),

Well, well, well, I was minding my business a couple of mornings ago as I was working the mess (nevermind why), and who should show up for their chow but the entirety of the 506th? Guarnere was the first to pay me the time of day, and I guess it’s because he’s a rough character who really has it out for me. Not that I don’t get it. I might have accidentally remarked to one of the guys that his name sounds awful close to “gonorrhea” and they sort of took that and ran with it. All the same, I was genuinely happy to see him, and he didn’t seem as brash as he usually is. 

Then, knowing he was around, I was able to track down Joe Liebgott, Babe Heffron, and Don Malarkey. So, here they are! Paratroopers by the dozens. With them here, I’m guessing that it will only be [REDACTED] before we ship out to the mainland of Europe, now. [REDACTED]. [REDACTED]. From what I understand at the moment, we’re not headfirst into combat, but it’s not far off. Can’t tell you where we’re going exactly—loose lips sink ships and all. Besides, I hardly know, myself. They don’t tell me much, but needless to say, it’s gonna be a rough one. (Hello to the Second Lieutenant reading this letter to censor all of the information he considers sensitive. Why don’t you just trust that I don’t know anything worth telling and stop being such a creep? Haven’t you got your own girl to write to?)

That in mind, don’t you dare get all sappy on me about what all happened a decade ago. I didn’t want folks to know, so I didn’t tell them. No matter what I was going through, it didn’t give me an excuse to be a jerk. I don’t think I ever apologized to you for that, either. So there. We’re even. Besides, it’s like you said: happy memories in the end. What a swell friend you’ve been to me thus far, and lucky me if we keep it up.

Don’t go writing to John Hall, now, either. I do remember him plenty and I’m sure there were girls aplenty clamoring to write to him. As for me, I’ve only got the one. (Poor me! Take pity, Second Lieutenant.) To discourage you from running off with handsome Mr. Hall, I’ve sent you a picture of myself to remind you how very handsome I also am.

No pin-ups of your saintly mother! Yes, ma’am! I hope she approves of me enough to not be bothered if/when you decide to let her know that we’re writing. I, personally, don’t see myself giving up writing to you, but that promise of no-anger goes in both directions. You girls back home have got to stay busy and keep morale up over there. Though, I can confess to selfishly enjoying my one-woman USO show.

Old maid? You’re how old? Twenty-four/five? I guess that makes me an old confirmed bachelor at twenty-six. I joke, but some of the guys here are so young it darn well feels like it. When we win this thing, it’s gonna be from the efforts of teenagers and twenty-somethings. At this rate, they’re gonna have to start letting eighteen-year-olds vote in elections.

That’s all from me for the time being, though I figure with the 506th in town, things will start to get interesting. Who is Captain Sobel? Well, he’s the guy who just showed up to make my life a living [REDACTED] heck.

Your faithful friend,

Bucky Barnes

P.S. I understand wanting to be alone. If there’s one thing this town is missing, it’s PRIVACY.

-.-- -.

4 October 1943

Dear Bucky,

Thank you for your picture. My mother found a frame for it so I could put it on my desk and try to remember that I am writing to Bucky Barnes and NOT John Hall. It’s so hard to keep track, sometimes. Although I might have to start writing to him if you insist on being so secretive. What do you mean nevermind about you working the mess? Is there something about mess work that I don’t know?

Mother was glad to hear that we’ve been writing and even happier when she saw your picture come through. Not to inflate your ego, but handsome was just one of the words she used to describe you. She couldn’t stop saying how grown-up you look from the last time she saw you. I think the Class A’s help: they do shine you up some, soldier! (You’re in need of some polish, too. Poor Mr. Guarnere.)

Well, tell all the boys I say hello. I feel like I know them already. Would you believe I was thrilled to hear that the 506th had made it to you safely? Well, I was. Although, maybe it’s just the patriotism that the war has instilled in me over the past couple of years. Hoo-rah for our boys coming to the rescue of those poor Brits. Even if one of our heroes is really named Malarkey. Is that a fact or a nickname?

Speaking of those poor Brits, I haven’t forgotten about the cup of tea you owe me or my chat with Winston Churchill. Do you think you’ll get a pass to come home for Christmas? I know that’s some time out, but I can’t help but wonder. If it really is nice to be missed, you must be living the nicest of anybody. Me and Steve go to the movies on Saturdays to see the newsreels (haven’t yet caught a glimpse of you) and wonder about what you’re doing at that very instant.

Oh, swell, my mother’s just come for a visit and is asking about you. I’ll have to pick this up later.

Much later! We ended up taking the car to go to a bond rally in Manhattan and take a casserole to a family in her neighborhood who just put up a gold star. I’m starting to hate the look of those things. 

Well, I have no desire to sour the tone. My boss is giving me Friday off this week for no other reason than to be nice. His wife had her baby this weekend, and he was in a happy mood/intends to take a long weekend himself. I think I’ll call up my girlfriends and see if we can’t see the Jack Benny show taped live. If not, then we’ll see that new Red Skelton picture. Geez, I can’t imagine only getting Bob Hope! I hope the English comedians are funny enough to make you snort, at least. 

Sorry for another short letter! Running around like a chicken with my head cut off until Friday. I’ll try for a longer one next time. Maybe when I’ve got a little more time to write, I can bore you to death with my crochet projects. Or maybe I’ll become a WAVE so at least my boring stories will have a little more action. Whatever I do in the next couple of weeks, I will remain,

Your BEST friend.

P.S. My mother wanted me to tell you that you look just like John Wayne. I do not see it.

-... -...

9 October 1943

Heya,

I thought I said don’t worry about my working the mess. Well, I meant it, and you’d better get used to taking me seriously, missy. You are now writing to a gentleman who has crawled his way out of said mess hall, and is well on his way to being promoted to a Lieutenant any day now. How do I know this? Well, easy. I’ve got the blessing of your saintly mother. It’s enough to lift any man’s spirits and make him feel loaded down with good luck charms. (Although, I’ll admit, your pretty picture is still my favorite).

What am I doing on a Saturday? After duties, probably lounging around with whatever guys from the 506th that can get out from under Sobel’s thumb. They’re all swell guys, don’t get me wrong. All the same, the idea of going to the movies with you and Steve makes me homesick in a way I’ve never known. (I just remembered the time difference between you and me. When you go to the movies, I’m probably washing up for bed.)

There now, remember what I said about home morale? You’re doing your part, kid. Just don’t become a WAVE if you can help it. It’s enough to keep selling bonds. Who will crochet for us if not you? Tell me all about your projects, if you like, and I’ll be an avid listener. It’s a better hobby than what the guys get up to which is mostly just getting drunk and smashing up whatever glass they can find. (I once again thank Lt. Winters for staying sober as a judge and keeping some semblance of peace). Who are you that can make even the rough corners of NYC seem like a gentle place to land?

Yes, Don Malarkey’s name is really Malarkey. You’ll love this, too. Winston Churchill did, in fact, come to inspect our troops with Gen. Eisenhower. Malarkey himself had a decently long conversation with the Prime Minister and now won’t shut up about it. He told me to give you this bag of tea (enclosed) since he can’t stand the stuff and he’s reached the height of the English experience anyway.

All of us are getting a little antsy here, I think. Some more than others. There have been plenty of guys who have run around and snatched up all the pretty local girls. Then, when I think all of them must be taken, they all break up with each other and go rounds. Sounds awful tiresome to me. I keep myself busy after duties by writing to you and Rebecca then helping out on the sheep farm I’m billeted at. These folks have a couple of little refugee kids here from London that crack me up the way they stare at me all wide-eyed when I’m in uniform. When I’m out in the roads, though, they’ll chase me on their bikes and ask, “Got any gum, yank?” I like to surprise them with it, if I can.

I’ll let you know as soon as I know anything about Christmas. I did have a home pass last year, so I wouldn’t count on it twice. If it works out, though, your door will be the first I knock on when I go caroling. Give your mother my love and kisses.

Your favorite Englishman,

Bucky “John Wayne” Barnes

P.S. I won’t tell all the boys you said hello. They’re a bunch of opportunistic scumbags, and they don’t deserve it from you. Dum Dum says hello back.

-.. -..

From the esteemed desk of Timothy Dugan

9 October 1943

Dear Madam,

I am writing regarding information that you requested approximately a week ago regarding the work of one Mr. James Buchanan Barnes in the fine Mess Hall of our base here in sunny Aldbourne, England. I regret to inform you, ma’am, that the mess hall is where a soldier of Mr. Barnes’s rank is sent after engaging in what a lady like yourself might call a “rear-end” kicking with his fellow enlisted men. What drove our Mr. Barnes to such drastic and violent action, you may ask? Well, madam, it is a joy to relate it to you!

I remember it well: a simple game of football on a misty day like you must be accustomed to in New York. Mr. Barnes, having been goaded into playing by myself and several compatriots and having also finished a letter to his sister Rebecca, put down his writing equipment and joined us in a riotous good time. When he returned to his property, you can imagine his shock at finding it pinched by a couple of enlisted men who had seen your picture and wanted it for a pin-up. I don’t mean to shock you, madam, but these are the facts of the case.

Dear sweet mother, but I have never seen Bucky Barnes so darn riled up before. Those enlisted men quickly found out how funny their little joke was. He socked both of them across the jaw before either of them knew what was happening. It was a blow that, from what I understand of how you befriended our Mr. Barnes, would’ve made you proud.

Sincerely,

Tim “Dum Dum” Dugan

P.S. I’ve since been privileged enough to see the picture that sent Mr. Barnes to the mess hall. I’d say it’s worth fighting over. You look like—if you’ll excuse me—a real peach. Bucky’s a lucky fella.

.--- ….

9 October 1943

Hello to you from Aldbourne!

I realize it may be strange to hear from me so all of a sudden, but I’ve run into Bucky Barnes and he’s having a real cow over a letter that I guess Dum Dum means to send to you. All the same, they’ve reminded me that I saw the picture that Bucky got pinned for fighting over. That’s the one that I took, isn’t it? Boy, that was a swell day.

Speaking of that day, I think I also gave you some pictures that I took of your cousin who was with us, if you’ll remember. If you gave her those pictures, do you know if she would mind sending me one along with her address? I’d really owe you one if you’d ask for me.

I’ll let Bucky handle all of the riveting descriptions of life in England, but I hope you and yours are getting along. Write to me if you ever get a mind to! You and Steve both.

Your friend in Able Company,

John Hall post

"Ow!" His eyes shoot open, and his arm jolts away from you.

You jump out of bed and rip off your nightclothes on the way to the dresser. Your things are in the third drawer down as always.

"Do you suppose you might employ less violent methods to wake me in the future?" Armitage asks as he sits up, running his hand over his face.

"Your fault for not setting the alarm," you answer, stepping into the standard black stormtrooper trousers. "I told you it's an early day for me. Could you tighten this?" You tap the bra strap on your shoulder.

He stands, walks over, and tightens the strap. “If I’d known that having the physical evaluations this early would make you bruise my shin, I would’ve canceled them altogether."

“Oh, would that be the only reason?” you question. “Not because you want me with you all day?”

He hums low in his throat and presses his lips to your shoulder blade. “There. Keep that with you all day. But I expect to have it returned by this evening.”

With a roll of your eyes and a smile, you turn to him. “Sir, yes, sir,” you say as he helps you pull your shirt on. Once you’re dressed, you stand on your tiptoes to peck his lips. Then you’re running out the door, saying, “Don’t forget to feed my cat!”

"She's my cat," he answers as you slam the door shut.

You have to skid to a stop when you reach the medbay waiting room, attracting more attention to yourself than you’d like. Conversations stop. People shoot dirty looks your way. You're used to it, of course. It's not exactly a secret that you're involved with General Hux. It's also not a secret that everyone hates you for it.

Whatever. It doesn't matter. Whispers of nepotism trail you like shadows, but it isn't like you've been promoted. (Not that he hasn't offered. In the middle of the night when you're both enveloped in sweat and heat, when he's breathing praises in your ear, he offers to give you whatever you want. You laugh it off and kiss him.)

You've barely been waiting for a minute when your number is called. The physical eval goes well… you think. You're in peak stormtrooper condition. The mental eval seems fine, too; but the doctor seems in a particularly bad mood. You're anxious to relieve the tension.

"So, doc, will I live?" you ask, grinning.

The doctor doesn't laugh. Doesn't smile. "Ever been reconditioned, trooper?"

You hesitate. The smile doesn't leave your face, but it loses its mirth. "Uh, yeah," you answer. "Yeah, once."

Once when you were a teenager and had just finished initial conditioning. Once when you started to care too much about what happened to your fellow troopers. Your friends. You were too young to experience the way reconditioning breaks you and puts you back together, but you experienced it anyway. You still pass those friends you cared too much about sometimes. You don't care about them anymore. But you care that you don't care so much it hurts. Reconditioning isn't an experience you're eager to repeat.

"Well," the doctor says. "You're due for another round within the next month."

Your smile drops as the doctor hands you your file with bold, red letters across your information: SCHEDULE FOR RECONDITIONING.

You sit there, staring at it another second before asking, "What the hell is this?"

"It's questions like that that get you reconditioned," the doctor says, opening the door. "This is the medbay, not the hub. No special treatment here."

Oh. 

Maker, you want to knock his lights out. Instead, you curl your hands into fists, grit your teeth, and march out the door.

You have duties to attend to, but your mind is on a different plane. There’s no way you’ll be able to bring yourself to don your armor and stand on guard in the hub for hours. Not when Armitage will be there, and you’d have to face him knowing that everything you’ve ever felt is about to be ripped away from you. Not when you know you’ll have to act like everything is fine. The kiss on your shoulder is burning a hole straight through to your heart.

You march back to Armitage’s quarters. Because it’s instinct, and you don’t know what else to do. There, you flop down on the bed, face buried in your hands. As much as you want to block everything from your mind, you can’t. It’s tormenting you endlessly. A distressed mewl and the sound of a food bowl being scraped across the floor interrupts your existential crisis once, and you get up with a deep sigh to feed the cat. Afterward, you’re right back where you were. On the bed in the fetal position, trying not to think. Thinking too much.

There’s no telling how long you’ve been there when the door hisses open and shut.

“You weren’t at the hub this afternoon,” Armitage's voice penetrates the silence. The weight of it is shattering.

"You didn't feed the cat," you retort half-heartedly, voice raw from unshed tears.

"I didn't expect you to be here before me. Besides, I was monstrously busy today. More than usual, if you can believe it." 

You raise your head just enough to see him unclasping the collar of his uniform and slipping his boots off before slipping into the bed behind you. He wraps his arms around you and pulls until your back is against his chest.

"Now," he mumbles into your neck. "Are you going to tell me what's wrong, or shall I guess?"

Maker, you can't take this. Everything is so perfect. He's wrapped around you. His fingers laced through yours are against your chest. You can almost imagine there’s nothing wrong at all. You could be a regular couple at the end of a regular long day. "Nothing," you choke, unwilling to spoil the fantasy.

“Don’t lie to me,” he orders, squeezing your hand. “I can tell when you lie.”

“Armitage, please,” you sigh. “Just… Just tell me about your day.”

There’s a silence before he speaks. “I…” he starts. Then he clears his throat. “What about it?”

“Anything.”

So, he tells you everything, the entire itemized list of his agenda for the day. And you listen to his voice more carefully than you ever have, just savoring the way it falls on your ear. The way it vibrates in his chest against your spine. The way you can feel it on the nape of your neck. One day, you’ll remember that this moment was important to you, and you won’t be able to recall why.

But for now, the arm you have become so accustomed to draping over you becomes a wing to hide beneath, shielding you from whatever comes next.

You don't say a word. Not until he mentions something about approving the reconditioning list. "Did you," you start. Clearing your throat, you start again. "Did you review the list before approving it?"

Hesitation. "Well, no," he sputters. "No, but you weren't on it."

You turn over to look up at him, your beautiful fool. His voice is so sure, so confident. His eyes, however, are all uncertainty. "How would you know?" you question.

"Why would you be?" he counters. "You're nothing if not a loyal soldier."

Deep breath. "Doesn't mean much."

"And why not?" he challenges. His voice holds the faintest hints of anger now as if the mere implication of your number on a list is worth losing composure. "Haven't you already been reconditioned once? What could the First Order gain from sending you a second time?"

"It's not about what we gain, it's about what we lose," you tell him. "In this case, we would lose the embarrassment of the highest-ranking general of the order being involved with a lowly stormtrooper."

That silences him for a time. "Embarrassment..." he finally grits as he stands up. 

"Embarrassment? We'll see about this."

"There's nothing you can do," you sigh as you sit up. "You've already approved the list. My name was on the list."

"I can change the list." He's pacing the floor now, the gears of his mind turning.

"If you changed it for me, you'd have to change it for everybody."

“I don’t have to do anything.”

"You know I'm right."

He stops pacing. "What would you have me do, then? Give you up?"

"What other choice is there?" you ask.

Another long silence before he sighs from his chest and walks back over to you in long, determined strides. His hands are on either side of your face. Cold hands against burning cheeks, ready to brush away any tears that would dare to fall. "I'll find a way. I swear it," he promises.

You know he believes it, despite how impossible it is. So, you smile. You say, "Okay." And when he crushes you to his chest, you hold him tight, and you don't let him know that you're holding on to your last moments.

Your last month before reconditioning is a whirlwind of regular duties paired with snide remarks and smug looks from your peers. At night, when you're in Armitage's quarters, you scoop up the cat and hold her close to your chest while Armitage works late into the night, trying to find solutions. He barely talks to you aside from a kiss hello when he enters and an absent “Goodnight,” when you tell him you’re going to bed.

It’s because he's wearing himself thin, you know that. His desk light is on when you fall asleep in his bed, and it's still on when you wake in the middle of the night. His forehead rests against his hand, shoulders hunched, hair unkempt. He’s drifting off and shaking himself awake every couple of seconds, and it hurts your heart to see it.

Silent as the grave, you pull yourself out of bed and shuffle to stand behind him. He takes a deep, settling breath when you spread your hands over his shoulders and lean in next to his ear. “Come to bed, sweetheart,” you whisper to him calmly as you would to a child. “You’ve done enough.”

“Not enough,” he counters. His voice sounds so tired. “It isn’t enough yet. It won’t be enough until you’re safe.”

You wrap your arms across his chest, forcing him to relax into you. Your cheek is against his head so he can feel it when you say, “I don’t want to spend my last days with you without you.” 

After this is only a moment’s pause before he takes your hand and holds your palm against his cheek, kissing it once. Twice. “This is all my doing,” he tells you, His voice isn’t just tired. It’s penitent like he’s trying to atone for something. “It’s my duty to you to fix it. I cannot, I will not give you up.”

He drops your hand and returns to his work. He’s far too good to you. Far too good to a stormtrooper that no one else would blink twice at. He always has been, hasn’t he? And you love him for it. Maker, you love him, and your heart squeezes with the realization that comes too late. You can’t tell him, not before he loses you forever. So you squeeze your eyes shut against pointless tears and press your lips to the back of his head, your kiss lasting longer than you intended. There’s no desire to pull away, but you eventually have to. When you curl back up in bed, the phrase “You love him, you love him, you love him,” plays over and over again in your head, and the melancholy song sings you to sleep.

You’re nearing the end of your time. In the final days before you’re due to be shipped out, something in him seems to change. A long-overdue realization that he’s powerless in the situation seems to break over him. Where his determination would harden him, he begins to soften. He speaks to you carefully. He ends his work before bed and curls up behind you. Every little thing you usually worry about in a day is taken care of for you. 

On the first morning of your last week, you wake to the feeling of his lips brushing against yours. He’s sitting on your side of the bed in full uniform as if he’s been ready for hours. Once again, you feel instinctively that you’re late for something, but you can’t be bothered to care. His hand is in your hair as he just barely smiles down at you, thumb brushing against your hairline. It’s the first time you’ve woken slowly and sweetly in so long. Even before the reconditioning news, it was rare to wake like this.

“I’m late,” you mumble, despite how little you care.

"Don't concern yourself with that," he answers. “I’ll take care of it.”

A sigh escapes from your chest. “I can’t let you do that.”

He leans down, nose brushing against yours. “Why not?” 

Gently, you push him back and sit up, running your hand down your face. “Because,” you groan. “That kind of thing is what got us into this mess to begin with.”

"Well…" he responds as he stands. His voice is teetering on the edge of saying more, you can tell. He doesn't, however. Instead, he goes through the motions of a regular morning: feeding the cat, making his side of the bed, etc.

All the while, you're contemplating what kind of punishment you'll incur from being as late as you are. Or if Armitage takes care of it, what kind of remarks you'll get. What kind of looks would you receive?

"If I married you, no one would be able to say a thing about it, would they?" he says suddenly.

Your heart lurches in your chest, but you sigh. "That's not funny."

"Good," he replies. "It’s not a joke."

Lifting your head, furrowing your brows, feeling your stomach drop, you say, “You can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” you scoff. “I’m a stormtrooper. I’m a number on a sheet. I don’t even have a name.”

“You have a name,” he reminds you. “I gave you a name.” Then he leans down, his lips next to your ear. Slowly, tenderly, he whispers the name he gave you. The one he only uses in secret. The one that is uniquely yours. It sends a shiver through you.

You can’t let him do what he proposes. He shouldn’t even entertain the notion, but the wall of resistance is slowly eroding, cracking, crumbling. It’s all you can do just to stammer your next words. “But you can’t,” you reiterate. “I mean, what would the Supreme Leader say? Beyond that, you can’t just throw away your whole life to spare me. There will be others, Armitage. Somewhere down the road, you’ll meet someone who was born for the kind of life you could offer, and I can’t be the person who stands in the way.” 

At this, he grips your shoulders. “Would you have a selfish thought for once in your life, dammit?” he asks sharply. That silences you enough for him to continue. “Or if you can’t, would you consider that I just might be proposing to marry you because I want to? Because I—” 

He cuts himself off as sharply as he began and turns away from you, pacing the room. But even in the silence that follows, you can’t formulate a single sentence. You’re still sitting there dumbstruck as he runs a hand through his hair, heaves a deep sigh, and turns back to you.

“Don’t you see? There isn’t anyone else. There never will be, and I’ll be damned before I let anyone take you away from me.”

It’s only then that you can gather yourself enough to speak. “But why?”

“You know why.”

“No, I don’t,” you counter. You have a guess that you would never presume upon. It seems too much to ask for. 

But then his wide eyes soften, and for the first time since you’ve known him, he looks vulnerable. Afraid. Like he stepped into a battle without armor or a blaster. Nevertheless, he crosses to you. Kneels before you. Surrendered. He takes one of your hands in both of his. 

“Because…” he begins, looking down at where your hands are joined. Then he steels himself, looks into your eyes, says your name. “I can’t let anyone take you from me because I’ve never loved anybody before. It goes against my nature, against everything I have ever been taught. I don’t understand how you managed to change me, but you did. And despite everything, I love you. I have loved you for what feels like an age. And I know that to ask you to love me in return is more than I deserve, but I only ask that you let me save you. Please, my love, marry me.”

Tears that have been threatening to show since he first said your name spill over now without resistance, without reserve. He’s still gripping your hand with both of his. You lower your forehead to rest against his hands and sob against them. The grey of the world you’ve been moving through for the past month is blooming into light, but all you can think of is how foolish you’ve both been. Burying so much for so long, only uncovering the truth at the last possible minute. But in the last minute, love has become salvation, and refusing him would be the unpardonable sin.

He’s been calling your name softly, and you haven’t been hearing him. When you finally do, you look up at him. At his ocean eyes that have a gentleness to them like a sudden calm over a troubled sea. Gentleness that you have to be in the right place and time to see. Or maybe you just have to be the right person. 

“Will you marry me?” he asks you again. Another long silence as you struggle to say anything at all.  “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“Yes,” you finally say through a shaking breath. “Yes, but will you marry me?”

An invisible weight lifts off his shoulders as he sighs. In a swift motion, he gathers you to himself and makes you stand with him. “Of course,” he mutters into your ear through a veil of hair. “Of course, I will.”

And then he’s kissing you anywhere his lips can reach: your temple, the bridge of your nose, the corner of your mouth. All the while, he mutters incomprehensible words to you. And though you could never hope to understand them, you can sense the warmth of them.

You’re saying something, too, but you know exactly what it is. Just three words, repeated over and over again, growing more true each time you say them. And you think he notices you telling him you love him because he pauses just to hold you still against him. Just to let out a hot breath against your hairline.

When the day comes for you to get your grade back, you can sort of see the red marker bleeding through the back of the page, and your stomach drops. Your frustration must be evident when you meet up with your group because James snatches your rubric out of your hand and reads it aloud to the whole class. “It’s a B plus,” he says. “It’s a good grade. Heck, I know it kicks my grade up, anyway. You ought to just calm down about it, sweetheart.”

You've never socked anyone across the jaw before, so there's no way you could've known how much it would ache in the bones of your hand. Oh, but it does ache when you do it, quick as a whip. Even you didn’t really see it coming. 

James sputters as he holds his jaw and looks down at you in shock. “Hey, what—?” he starts.

And as much as your hand hurts, you’re already raring to go for another one because he darn well deserves it. After the next one, he sees you gearing up for a third and dodges so violently that he falls over, and in a second you’re railing on him seeing only red.

The next thing you know, you’re seated in the principal’s office next to James Barnes, cradling your sore hand and wondering what your parents are gonna say.

James clears his throat and starts to speak because, apparently, you can’t catch a break. “Now that I’ve had time to think,” he says, “I’ve decided to admit that I’m wrong and you’re right. I’m sorry, and let’s be friends, okay?”

He extends his hand for you to shake, and you only stare at it. “You’re just saying that because I handed your rear end to you.”

“Only half right,” he corrects you. “I’m also thinking that if we can get together and let the bigwigs know that we’ve gotten over our grievances on our own, they’ll let us off with a light sentence.”

“Oh, so you don’t actually think you ought to be sorry at all,” you decide, turning away from him again.

“Well, I’m not gonna go around throwing punches about it,” James grumbles.

The door to the principal’s office slams shut and you hear him talking to the secretary, sending a spike of panic right through your middle. “Fine,” you sigh, having run out of options. “Let’s be friends, James.”

“Fantastic,” he says with a grin. “But you oughtta know that all my real friends call me Bucky, and we’re gonna be best friends.”

You nod. “Okay,” you say. “Bucky.”

“That’s the ticket,” he says. When he shakes your sore hand and you yelp, he winces and pats it all gentle-like.

In the office, he takes full credit for the incident in the hallway, admitting that he provoked you and emphasizing that you’ve worked out your differences. Something you heartily agree to. In the end, you get out with a weekend of detention each. You shudder to think of the consequences if you and Bucky hadn’t decided on being friends.

It isn’t until the new year begins that you figure out something about Bucky. Virtues of paying more attention now that he’s someone who’s supposed to be your friend. At lunchtime, he doesn’t buy lunch. Most kids don’t, of course. Just a sign of the times, but most kids bring something from home. You count the days he goes without. It’s every single one. He doesn’t eat a darn thing unless Steve Rogers makes him.

On the subject of Steve Rogers, they’re thick as thieves, him and Bucky. Everyone knows they’re friends, but you had no idea how ready and willing Bucky is to go to bat for him. All the fights he gets in make sense, suddenly. He’s in the dead middle of the food chain, punching up when the bigger guy punches further down than he has any right to. According to the grapevine, shortly after your fight with Bucky, he took a real beating for Steve that put him out of commission from his job for two weeks.

You hadn’t known he was working a job, either. The only thing that makes that feeling worse is when you learn that it’s more than one. If that doesn’t make up for a lack of contribution to silly school projects, you don’t know what does. There’s no getting around the guilt of everything you assumed, but you never work up the nerve to apologize to him.

In many ways, you grow up together. Although, it may be more accurate to say that you grow up adjacent to each other. Your friend groups are a perfectly symmetrical Venn diagram, so it makes sense to cross a little bit into each other’s circle.

At school, you overhear him now and then when folks ask him who you are and he responds, “Oh, that’s my best friend,” like it’s his favorite joke. Even Steve seems in on it, shooting him conspiratorial looks when he says so. It doesn’t bother you as much as it might. He’s friendly to you in the hallways and smiles at you across rooms. He’s a sturdy, almost comforting presence all the way up to graduation.

The next few years give you the space you need to calm down about a lot of things. Mostly, it’s just a matter of growing up. The war certainly puts things of actual importance into perspective. Silver stars go up in windows. Half of the stars on your street alone turn gold after a while.

Your work keeps you busy and distracted from thinking about those poor boys that ship out to training camps all over the states and then to England by the hundreds every week. There’s some fulfillment in secretarial work, especially at a rubber manufacturer where good work is a matter of life or death overseas. Even so, it doesn’t keep you distracted from the old busybodies in your neighborhood.

“A nice girl like you ought to be married at your age,” they tell you. “Ain’t there anybody willing to take you?” You don’t tell them that plenty have tried, and you’ve been disinterested in all of them. No, things are much better for you the way that they are for the time being. Besides, there is a war on. There will be better times for that kind of thing later on, when it’s all over. If it will ever be over.

Especially on a day like today, you’re praying for a swift end to the war. Every higher-up at the factory acts like they’re the busiest they’ve ever been and all the minutia is getting passed off to you. The thing about minutia, of course, being that it builds up like nobody’s business. The fact that you’re able to slip away for even a fifteen-minute coffee break is a blessing. Cream and sugar is like manna. You close your eyes on the first sip and don’t open them again until you hear unfamiliar footsteps coming down the hallway.

It’s Bucky—you can see him through the break room windows. He’s dressed up in uniform which should probably surprise you more than it does, but it seems like every boy you ever knew growing up (except good ol’ Steve Rogers) is in the service these days. It’s honestly just his general presence that nearly stuns you silent. What the heck could he be doing here of all places?

When he finally sees you, he grins wide and steps into the room. “Well, well, well,” he says. “If it isn’t my best friend. Fancy seeing you here.”

“Bucky Barnes,” you return. “I guess they’ll let just anybody in here these days.”

He shakes his head. “Not really, but I can be pretty convincing.”

You set your mug down on the table next to you and fold your arms over your chest. “I see Eisenhower got you too.”

“Yeah, well…” he says, looking down at his uniform. “I figured this getup don’t make me look half-bad. What could it really hurt?”

You don’t bring up the gold stars. Better not to sour the mood. “It’s been over a year since I last saw you, hasn’t it?” you ask him. “Not since Steve’s birthday party, right?”

“Must’ve been,” he says. “Something about the fourth of July just breeds enlisted men. I’ve been down at a bootcamp in Georgia. Camp Toccoa, maybe you’ve heard of it.”

“Oh, sure,” you say. “So, what brings you in?”

Bucky nearly freezes, it seems like. He glances down at the mug on the table and shifts his weight. “Does the coffee here taste like rubber?” he asks you, keeping his tone light and nonchalant. “If not, I could use a cup if you’re willing to share.” 

You shake your head. “I’ve only got a fifteen-minute break here, and I’m down to five. You gonna answer my question or not?” you ask him, picking up your mug again and smiling into it as you take a sip.

For a long moment, he only considers you, eyes searching. Then he sighs. “Uh, I guess… Look,” he says. “I ship out here in the next couple of weeks, and the thing is I don’t got a girl to write to unless you count my baby sister. Which I don’t.”

“I thought you were going out with a girl,” you remind him, furrowing your brows. “What was her name? Florence? Dolores?” As if you don’t remember exactly who it is.

“Dolores? You mean Dot?” he laughs. “We stopped going steady forever ago. Haven’t seen each other since we were kids.”

“If you’ll remember,” you say, “you and I haven’t really seen each other since we were kids, either.”

He draws his lower lip behind his teeth and nods. “That’s a fair point,” he says.

“Did you run out of girls to ask or something?” you tease, voice flat and brows raised.

“You wound me,” he says, laying his hand over his heart. Then, he leans in conspiratorially. “What’s the big deal? Do you still live with your folks?”

Unbelievable. With a defeated sigh and a half-smile you snatch up the notepad from the table and scribble your apartment’s address. “There. My address,” you tell him, tearing off the sheet of paper. “Don’t overuse it.”

Bucky looks the paper over once before gingerly folding it and putting it in his breast pocket. “Don’t think that’s a promise I can make,” he admits.

After only a couple of minutes and your polite farewells and wishes of good luck, he’s gone, and you’re back to where you started: in a break room with a cup of coffee, dreading the minute you’ve got to get back to work.

The next weeks are the same as ever they are, grating for their sameness. It’s complete drudgery to the point that your mind blanks out, and you almost forget what you agreed to until his first letter comes seemingly out of the blue. It comes to you on a Saturday when you have nothing better to do than sit down on your sofa and listen to the Count Basie Orchestra on the radio while you read all the news from overseas.

He writes: 

21 August 1943

Heya Best Friend,

I’m writing from the training camp in jolly ol’ Aldbourne, England. I would say it’s a welcome change from Toccoa, except it turns out that jolly ol’ England ain’t all the jolly since it must be thirty degrees below freezing at all times. Turns out this is baseline when you get up this far in the Northern Hemisphere, even in the middle of August. Would’ve loved that interesting little tidbit before deploy, but, heck, they probably told me when I wasn’t paying attention.

They gave us a grand old welcome when we got here. Guess the idea is that the Americans are here to give the old Fuhrer his due. Not that we’ll be seeing European soil for a while yet. Still, these people have been pretty roughed up by the Krauts even all the way up here. Not Blitz-level, but the effects ripple. I guess they’re just happy to get a little bit of help. I don’t blame them a bit.

I hope we’re worth the effort they seem to think we are. We get up each morning at the crack of dawn to run six miles uphill and then load and unload our weapons about a thousand times (more like twenty, but still). It’s repetitive and monotonous as anything, but some of these guys ain’t half bad. They at least found out the best places to spend our free time—English pubs are every bit as fun as they say they are. With you being a lady and everything, I don’t think I probably ought to tell you everything that goes on.

If there was a more interesting coffee scene, maybe I could tell you about that, instead. Trouble is that Brits don’t know how to make a good cup of coffee, but they tell me that I don’t know how to make a good cup of tea. Even swap, so they say. Although, tea shops don’t have near the same atmosphere. All stuffy with pictures of the king everywhere. Have you ever seen a picture of His Royal Highness? He looks like he’s got a rubber face that melted all around the mouth. I’m telling you this because we’ve been warned against criticizing royalty in front of the locals, and I’ve got to get it off my chest somehow.

Well, I hope you’re doing well back home. Keep me updated on the goings on, and I’ll do the same. This first letter should give you a basic idea of what life is like over here. Apologies about it being so short, but this one is only the first of many. Scout’s honor.

Your friend,

James Bucky Barnes

P.S. If you see Steve around, tell him I said hello from me to you to him.

You’d be lying to yourself if you said you didn’t find it kinda charming in the way that only Bucky Barnes has always managed to be. Somehow, you can see a little bit of his expressions in what he writes, the way he raises his brows just so when he’s about to laugh or how he leans in like he’s telling a secret. You read it over a couple times just to latch onto the talking points and immediately head to your writing desk to start composing your response.

30 August 1943

Dear Bucky,

Thanks for your note. Glad to hear you made it that far up in the Northern Hemisphere safely. Sorry to hear it’s awfully cold and not all that jolly.

Well, what the heck are you supposed to say after that? It takes you a solid five minutes before you glance at the coffee forming a ring on your desk and smile. That’s the ticket.

I’m having a good, American cup of coffee right now. Just for you. If you can pick up any good tea-making tricks, bring them home for me, will you? I bet I could make as good a tea as any Brit, and I can do it without a rubber face hanging over me. (No disrespect to His Royal Highness.)

I wouldn’t go getting nostalgic for New York any time soon. It’s monotonous, too, don’t forget. Although, I guess it might be a little less strenuous. Six miles uphill? I’ll take my office chair any day, thanks. I even get to listen to Jack Benny replays when the work gets slow. (If it ever gets slow). Just now, I’ve got Count Basie on the radio. Does England have a taste for the finer things of life like comedy shows?

Nevermind about a short letter. I trust you’ll let me know all about the guys you meet and who you like and who gets on your nerves. I expect some truly fantastic characters to come out of your stories. Who knows? Maybe you’ll make friends of Winston Churchill, and then you’ll have to put up with the king’s face in more than just the tea shops. I’ve always wanted to travel to England, and I’m afraid your bleak picture painting hasn’t done anything to deter me. So when you do make friends of dear Winnie, be sure he extends me an invitation.

As for the goings on, there aren’t many (monotonous, tiresome New York for you). My mother and I are busy selling war bonds when we’re not working which is mostly just rallies,  street corners, and church. In fact, our church asked mother to sing a little song to “get morale up.” I don’t think she realized that they were asking for something more along the lines of the Battle Hymn of the Republic rather than the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B which she sang on a Sunday morning with great enthusiasm and to the horror of the deacons. To this day (some weeks later) she is mortified, indignant, and insisting that the music director should’ve been more specific with his request.

We are all hurting for the boys overseas, wishing them each a swift and safe return. I will pray for you every evening until your next letter which I’m anticipating will give me much more information as to what I should pray for specifically. 

You see? I can write short letters, too. Tell me stories and plenty of them! 

Yours truly,

You sign your name with a flourish and read it over once before putting pen back to paper.

P.S. I haven’t seen Steve lately, but I’m sure he says hi right back. We miss you over here.

Your letter finished, you walk it down to the post office, send it off, and mostly forget about it. Yet, in the days following, you get a keener eye for things worth writing down. The humdrum of the rubber office and New York as a whole gets a little sharper in your eyes and in your mind as you consider how you might describe it to someone who won’t be able to see it again for many years yet. Additionally, you keep your ears open for any hint on how to get a hold of Steve Rogers. After all, if an enlisted man gives you a task to do, you’re going to do it, for Pete’s sake.

As of the moment, you haven’t told a soul about your little arrangement with Bucky, the better to shut out those voices that would tell you to get your old maid hooks into him and not let go. (Old maid, you have to laugh. An old maid because you weren’t married the moment you turned twenty. If that’s what they want to think.) Besides, as letters go, they’re a slow-moving thing. You’re well into September by the time you get Bucky’s next, reading:

9 September 1943

Heya,

What’s the big idea, getting me all jealous over a cup of coffee? Why, if you were a fella, I’d tell you right where you can stick that cup of coffee. Oh well. I guess if only one of us can enjoy Yankee pleasures, it might as well be you. It gives me little joy to congratulate you on your little Maxwell House cup, but I do so nonetheless.

The guys here in the 107th are just swell, but I think all of us are feeling the loss of the 506th who are still back in Toccoa training to jump out of planes. What can be done? We’re not paratroopers because we’re not crazy or even half as brave. I’ll tell you sometime about those guys, but now I’ve got to put up with Tim “Dum Dum” Dugan. Dum Dum is my bunkmate and he doesn’t snore so much as whistle in his sleep. I’m writing this now at midnight under the covers with a lamplight because I couldn’t catch a wink under these conditions.

Even so, the station here is a heck of a lot better than what we put up with at Toccoa. (God bless Guarnere and Liebgott who are still stuck back there. Paratroopers. Crazy.) I think back to those days and could almost laugh if Captain Sobel hadn’t been on everyone’s last nerve by the time I got the heck out of there. More than once, he revoked all of his company’s weekend passes because too many of them weren’t up to his exacting standards. Easy Company got fed a big spaghetti dinner before having to run a twelve-mile. Most miserable saps I ever saw in my life. I say if we’re gonna go fight tyrants in Germany, let’s take care of the ones on our side first. If it weren’t for Second Lt. Winters being such a decent guy, I would’ve popped him and taken the court-martialing with a smile. He’s not even my CO!

Well, enough about me. Hope you and yours are well. Thanks for that story about your mother! You got a decent chuckle out of me to the point where Dum Dum caught notice and had me read it to the division. Hope you don’t mind if we make her our patron saint. Somehow, it was like he heard the sweet, sweet song of our American angel all the way overseas. We’ll paint her name on the side of every vessel the army’s got if you’ll let us.

I can’t help it: I’m starving for news about New York. Heck, I’ll take a word about Connecticut or Oklahoma or Nebraska if you’ve got it. Still, I’d like to hear about you most of all. I can picture it better that way, I think. And speaking of pictures, would you mind sending me one of you? Guys here don’t believe you’ve got a girl to write to if you don’t have a picture of her, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to brag on you a bit. Besides, it would be nice to have something easier on the eyes to look at than Dum Dum’s ugly mug.

I’m afraid as far as comedy programs go, we don’t get Jack Benny over here. No ma’am, only Bob Hope is good enough for the AFRS. (That’s Armed Forces Radio Service, in case you didn’t know). I don’t know about England, but I’m a pretty big fan of Jack Benny myself. Don’t forget: Lucky Strike means fine tobacco.

Yours truly,

Bucky Barnes

Draped across the sofa is a dress. A burgundy, knee-length thing with a deep neck, no sleeves, and a subtle golden pattern on the hem. The fabric is light but sturdy— perfect for the Nevarro climate. And there’s no doubt that it’s nicer than anything you’ve ever worn in your life. 

You look down at the patchwork jacket in your hand. Most of the patches are faded, blue variants or some kind of brown. But you can’t tell what the original color was anymore, and strings are hanging off of it where the hem has frayed and been stitched back and frayed again. It’s dusty, too. You haven’t had the chance to wash it all week. It’s not much, but it’s completely yours. It’s the only thing that’s completely yours.

“Nice, isn’t it?” Karga asks, picking the dress up off the sofa and holding it up to you.

“Sure,” you agree with a shrug.  

Karga gives you an exasperated look. “Sure?” he echoes. “It is. You should wear it next time you go to the cantina.”

“Oh,” you say. “So, it’s not a gift. It’s a work uniform.”

“Would you just put it on?”

Rolling your eyes, you snatch up the dress and drag it back to your room. It feels funny on your skin when you put it on, but it does technically fit.

Karga seems to think so anyway. He smiles when you walk out in it and says, “Ah, there we are! Give it a spin, let me see.”

You turn in a lazy, disinterested circle. “This is ridiculous,” you huff as you face him again.

“It’s only ridiculous if it doesn’t work.”

You look down at the dress and back to Karga. “What exactly is it supposed to do?”

Karga folds his arms over his chest and sighs. “Listen, I don’t know how you did it,” he sighs. “But somehow, you got Mando to change his mind. There’s something about you he must like. And if we can play that to our advantage…”

“To your advantage, you mean,” you correct him.

He uncrosses his arms and puts his hands firmly on his hips. “No, to our advantage,” he insists. “There’s a bounty I need him to take. Hardly any of my hunters have dared to go after it, and the few that have… Well, there have been unfortunate endings. I need Mando to take it, but the problem is this isn’t the kind of thing he usually goes for. Direct commission work. If you can convince him to take it, I’ll take another five percent off.”

Those few words flip a switch in your brain, and you hate it. Suddenly, something you’re terrified to even try becomes something you’re desperate to accomplish. The dress still seems excessive, but if it helps, then why not? And you still have no idea what you could have possibly said to Mando to get him to take four pucks, but you could figure it out. Over all of these thoughts echoes the constant chorus, “another year of my life, another year of my life, two whole years of my life.”

“Okay,” you agree after only a moment’s hesitation and next to no thought. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”  

In the next couple of hours, Karga hatches the beginnings of a strategy. He debates himself on the best way for you to get the job done. You interrupt him only a few times with some pertinent questions. 

 “Isn’t it going to be difficult to gauge his reaction?” you ask at one point. “Should I ask him to take his helmet off?”

This earns you a stern look from Karga. “That’s a joke, right? Tell me that’s a joke.”

It very much is not. Still, you scoff. “Oh, come on,” you say. “Of course, it’s a joke.” That’s the end of your questions for a while. 

Eventually, Karga decides that you have as much of a plan as you need for the moment. “Besides,” he says. “Mando won’t be coming back for months. We don’t have to worry about this until then.”

You don’t know anything different, so you don’t argue, figuring that anything you need to know can be learned later. But it’s time you don’t have. It’s only a month later when Karga hurries over to your usual seat at the booth. “I got a page from the shipyard master,” he tells you. “Mando’s Razor Crest is landing.”

“What?” you question.

“I know, I didn’t expect this either,” Karga says. “Just get out there, and stick to the plan.” 

“But we never finished the plan,” you remind him in a half-whisper, half-shout. “You said we wouldn’t have to worry about it for months. It’s only been one month.”

Karga isn’t hearing it. In fact, he’s practically pushing you out of the booth. “Just do whatever you did last time.”

“I don’t know what I did last time!”

“Would you just go?”

At this, you stand and smooth out the skirt of your dress. You’re still not entirely used to it. It’s been difficult to see it as anything other than a uniform. A tool. Not yours. Now is the time to put it to the test. How effective is an errand girl in a dress against a hardened warrior? It feels more absurd than ever. “Alright, fine,” you mutter as you walk away.

You make it to the shipyard as fast as you can, and the shipyard master hands you a holopad and directs you to Mando’s Razor Crest. The ramp is still up when you get there, but you’re gripping the holopad like it’s the only floating thing on a planet of ocean. But when the ramp begins to lower and you see him standing right there? That’s when you have to remind yourself not to break the thing.

When Mando sees you, he stops halfway down the ramp. The moment of silence that passes is nearly unbearable until he says, “What is this?”

You look down at yourself and back up to him, eyebrows furrowed. “Um… a dress?”

“No,” he says, continuing down the ramp until he’s standing over you. “You. What are you doing here?”

You hold the holopad closer to yourself. “Karga sent me to take inventory,” you tell him.

“He sent you to the shipyard… in a dress.”

You shrug. “It’s just an outfit.”

“It’s impractical. You look uncomfortable.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t my idea,” you tell him, growing frustrated. “Karga thought you might—”

“Might what?”

The way he’s staring at you, you get the impression that he already knows but wants to hear you say it anyway.  “Might…” you huff, your face going warm. “Might appreciate… it.”

“Appreciate you in it? Is that what you mean?”

You fold your arms over your chest, holding the holopad tight against you as a barrier. Maker, you wish you had your jacket. Wish you had some fabric on your arms. “Yes, I guess, that was the plan,” you answer.  “Like I said, it wasn’t my idea.”

“What does Karga want?” he questions. 

You shake your head and shrug. You could lie, but if there’s one thing you remember from the last time you negotiated with Mando, it’s that he doesn’t mind brazen honesty. “It’s some kind of direct commission bounty he wants you to pick up,” you explain. “He said it was high-dollar but not your usual gig.”

“And Karga wants you to convince me to do it?”

You tilt your head to the side, but you don’t look him in the eye… visor… whatever. “Offered me another five percent if I could. Anyway, I managed it last time, didn’t I?” 

That silences him for a moment. “Let me be clear,” he begins, finally. “I saw four good jobs, and I took them. I don’t do anything because someone begs me to.”

The way your spine goes stiff and your throat tightens is almost immediate. First, he calls you a slave, now this. On your planet, no one would have dreamed of calling— of implying—  “I’m not a beggar,” you tell him, your voice low, and your gaze snapping onto him. “Don’t call me a beggar.”

“Then what are you?”

“I already told you. I’m a servant. An indentured servant. That’s all. Not a beggar, not a slave.”

“If you’re not a slave, why not leave?” he questions. “It’s your grandfather’s debt, not yours.” 

“Because,” you tell him. “My grandfather and my father died paying it off, and I’d rather die than disrespect that. This is the custom where I’m from. It’s shameful to be indebted like this, but it’s worse not to bear it gracefully. So, you give everything you have to the one who holds your debt, and you work for them for as long as you have to. The last thing you give is the clothes on your back, and you do not try to run from it.”

It isn’t the first time you’ve had to explain this to someone, but it’s never any less tiring. A brutal reminder of all the life that has been lost in the wake of a debt you’ve carried with you as long as you can remember only ever serves to exhaust you. But it does nothing for your present self. So, you sigh and straighten your shoulders. “I’m not here to explain all this to you,” you eventually decide. “Karga’s waiting, and I’m just here to take inventory.”

That seems to be enough for Mando. He stalks away without a word.

You’re sure you just fucked up that entire encounter. It’s definitely not what Karga had in mind, anyway. But what else were you supposed to do? Just stand there and take insults from a— a walking, talking suit of armor? 

You can almost hear your father’s voice reminding you that not upsetting your employer also means not upsetting your employer’s friends. Then it’s your grandfather’s voice reminding you that there’s nothing that upsets people more than hearing about other people’s difficulties. And then, of course, it’s your own voice. “Stupid,” you whisper to yourself through gritted teeth. “Fucking stupid.”

That’s about when the actual shipyard crew to take inventory comes to take over, and that reminds you that all you were supposed to do was stand there in a dress and look pretty. And you failed at that so spectacularly you almost want to laugh. The dress was never going to work, anyway. It’s time you finished patching up your jacket.

✦✦✦

He knows exactly what Karga’s trying to do by setting you up just outside his ship. You’re supposed to be the first thing he sees. There’s no way he’s going to believe that the same girl who didn’t know how to open his profile last month is suddenly in charge of taking inventory. You’re a strategic pawn. Meant to either soften him up or break him down. What he doesn’t like to admit even to himself is that neither option is impossible. 

You’ve been on his mind lately. Most of his thoughts consist of what the hell is Karga thinking by keeping an indentured servant? But the fact that you keep showing up in his thoughts at all… The fact that your name has been stuck on repeat in his head ever since Karga said it… 

No, he knows what the hell Karga is thinking. Now that he’s seen you again, he knows exactly what’s going on. Karga isn’t stupid. Karga knows he took twice as many pucks as usual and why. And Karga’s counting on it working a second time.

He’s hyper-aware of the fact as he enters the cantina and approaches Karga’s table. The bastard is leaning back like he’s not on the edge of his seat waiting to see if his scheme paid off.

“Ah, that was fast,” Karga remarks. “Did you catch them all?”

He responds by tossing all four fobs on the table.

Karga looks over the fobs and nods. “Good, I’ll begin the offload.” 

Karga barks instructions in Huttese to someone nearby while he unclasps his rifle, sets it down on the table in front of him, and sits. Karga spends too long rifling around in his satchel until he produces payment and sets it down in front of him.

“These are Imperial credits,” he says.

“They still spend,” Karga points out.

“I don’t know if you heard, but the Empire is gone.” 

Karga leans back in his seat. “It’s all I’ve got.”

That’s all he needs to hear. He grabs up the fobs and begins to stand. 

Karga reaches for the fobs. “Save the theatrics!” he says. “Fine. I’ll… I can do Calamari Flan. But I can only pay half.”

Another of Karga’s games. Paying him what he would’ve gotten for just his two usual fobs anyway, but he's not in the mood to fight it. “Fine,” he agrees, taking the Flan. “I want my next job.” 

“Of course,” Karga agrees, reaching for the unclaimed pucks. “Hmm… I have a bail jumper. A bail jumper, another bail jumper, a wanted smuggler.”

That’s four. That’s what he’s got to start taking from now on if he wants to keep the heat of speculation off. “I’ll take them all.”

“No, hold on. There are other members of the guild, and this is all I have.”

“Why so slow?”

“It’s not slow at all, actually. Very busy. They just don’t want to pay Guild rates. They don’t mind if things get sloppy.”

He can sense where Karga is trying to lead the conversation, but he can’t avoid it. So, he grits his teeth and asks, “What’s your highest bounty?”

“Not much. Five thousand.”

“That won’t even cover fuel these days.”

To his credit, Karga doesn’t immediately jump on that. He takes a second. Hums. Raises his brows in thought. “There is one job.”

There it is. No way Karga was going to trust the entire thing to you. He’s had this orchestrated for a while now, probably even beyond what you know. “Let’s see the puck,” he decides.

“No puck. Face to face. Direct commission. Deep pocket.”

“Underworld?”

“All I know is no chain code. Do you want the chit or not?” Karga holds it up.

It’s a second before he makes up his mind and takes the chit. Holds it for a second before standing to leave. It’s a year of someone’s life, after all. Anyway, it is the highest-paying bounty.

✦✦✦

There’s enough time for you to run back to the house and grab your jacket before returning right back to the shipyard. The final piece of Karga’s grand, pointless puzzle is in place. You were the first thing Mando saw when he arrived. Now, you’re supposed to be the last thing he sees before he leaves. Karga’s purpose in this meticulous staging is still a mystery, but never let it be said you don’t follow orders. You simply refuse to twiddle your thumbs while you wait for Mando to get back.

So, you find a crate to sit on and get busy finishing up the patch that you didn’t have the chance to almost a full month ago. It feels good to have your jacket in your hands again. Patching the bulky, heavy, rough thing is doing a spectacular job of keeping your mind off of the fact that Mando is going to be back soon. Probably no more convinced than he was a couple of hours ago. Probably still pissed. 

Keep it out of your mind. Keep working on the jacket. Why stop at a patch? You could fix the hem that’s coming loose, too. 

You feel it when he enters the shipyard, and you can’t explain that at all. All you know is that the hair stands up on the back of your neck suddenly. A shiver passes through you, and when you look up, he’s walking towards you. 

There’s a new beskar pauldron on his shoulder that wouldn’t look as impressive on anyone else. It adds something that you can’t describe in words but makes you keep staring as he approaches instead of shrinking away from even looking at him.

“So, did you take the puck?” you hear the sound of your voice asking before you have time to make yourself nervous about it. 

He doesn’t answer which tells you that he doesn’t want you to know. Which you’re pretty sure means he definitely took it. 

“Well,” you sigh, going back to your hemming. “Good luck.”

He’s still standing there, and some part of you is bracing for a lecture. A warning. Some kind of confrontation dealing with the attitude you took with him a few hours ago. But his next words are so unexpected that it stops your hands from working. “I realize I offended you,” he says instead. “I apologize. That wasn’t my intention.”

That’s… surprising. There’s no face when you look up at him, of course. Just the helmet, tilted down to look back at you. But if you squint, you think you can almost make out an expression. Something genuine in the way he’s holding himself.

You blink through the shock and give him a half-hearted, close-lipped smile in return. “Hey,” you say. “You didn’t say anything that wasn’t true. I was begging. You were right.”

“No,” he says. “You were doing your job, and I was ignorant and disrespectful. It won’t happen again.”

Nothing about this encounter is what you expected. No one has ever apologized to you like this before. No one has ever felt the need. You’re just a servant, after all. Unsure how else to respond, you shake your head. “Um… it’s alright,” you tell him. “Indentured servitude where I come from… it’s like the antithesis of religion. Instead of dedicating your life to getting closer to something immaterial, you dedicate it to getting away from something material. But I know that’s not normal, and you couldn’t have known anything about it. It was an overreaction, and I’m sorry.” 

He doesn’t respond. Good. You’re not sure how you would handle a response. You’re still reeling from the fact that this is coming from the silent, stoic Mandalorian. The silence seems to be the natural thing, and it suits you fine.

“What are you doing?” 

You look down at your work and back up to him. “Fixing the hem of my jacket. It’s time I got rid of this dress. Karga kinda threw it on me.”

“He does that.”

You shrug. “Evidently.”

By all means, that should be the end of the conversation. It’s here you would absolutely expect Mando to walk away, fly off, and not speak to you again. But he doesn’t. Instead, he looks over his shoulder and back at you. Takes a step closer. “What if he couldn’t anymore?” he says.

You furrow your brows. “What do you mean?”

“You could tell me what Karga’s planning before I’m even on-planet.”

You stare at him a moment, unable to form a coherent sentence. “Why would I do that?” you eventually sputter.

“It would save you the work of convincing me to take a job.”

Good point. It takes a second of utter confusion to think of a counter. “It could also screw up my so far amazing track record that’s taken two years off my debt so far.”

“I’d compensate you.”

“Like an inside job?”

“Like an inside job.”

You drop the needle on your lap, plant your hands firmly on the edge of the crate, and lean back. “I don’t know,” you grumble. “It’s a good idea, but how would I even do it? Karga monitors my personal frequency. He’d catch on before long.”

He pauses for just a moment. Then he reaches for his utility belt, pulls out a comlink, and tosses it in your lap. “Karga can’t monitor that,” he tells you.

Slowly, you reach for the comlink and turn it over in your hand. “Holy kriff, you’re serious about this, aren’t you?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” The way he says it makes you believe he thinks you’re wasting his time with pointless questions. But in all fairness, it seems unlikely.

And yet, you can’t think of any reason to refuse. “I…” you start, trying to make something up. Karga would be pissed but after the humiliating dress debacle? That’s more of a perk, and nothing else comes to mind. “Could you do an advance?”

Mando nods and retrieves a piece of Flan. A whole piece of Flan. Two months of pay for you. Slowly, you reach for it and squish the coin between your fingers. 

“Get back to Karga,” Mando instructs you as you examine the gelatinous currency. “Contact me as soon as you know what he’s planning.”

When you look up to face him again, he’s already walking away. You have no idea what almost compels you to call after him. Gratitude, you guess. But gratitude doesn’t usually feel like your insides are being wrung out. No, that’s what fear feels like, but you’re not afraid either.

Hesitantly, you stand and start walking back to the house. Back to your room, with your jacket slung over your shoulder, the comlink you hid in the pocket making it heavy. By the time you get there, it’s dusk. From your window, you can see the shape of Mando’s Razor Crest taking off. That wringing, twisting feeling is still there. It’s taking over your whole body, making you numb in your limbs.

It doesn’t help when Karga bursts into your room without knocking… again. 

“Oh, he’s taking off, huh?” Karga asks, walking to stand next to you in front of the window.

You shrug your shoulders and wrap your arms around yourself. “He took the puck, right?” you ask him, after a while.

“He took the job,” Karga confirms. “I could give you the five percent for it, but I’m not sure if it was you that convinced him or me.”

You don’t bother arguing or even reacting. All you do is face him and pull out the piece of Flan. “I got this from Mando. I’d like it to go towards my debt, please.”

He takes the piece and examines it. “How did you get this?” he eventually questions.

“I agreed to things,” you answer, purposefully vague. You’re almost positive Karga is going to take it the entirely wrong way. Good. He doesn’t need the context.

Karga exhales slowly as he pockets the Flan. “Well, congratulations,” he says like it’s physically painful to do so. “Five percent it is.”

You exhale with the weight of another year’s worth of debt coming off of your shoulders, but you find that you’re not as light as you were the first time it happened. Once again, you fix your eyes on the Razor Crest fading from view. Once the ship is out of sight, you turn back to Karga. “What happened to the hunters who went after this thing?”

“You mean the few that actually dared?” he asks. Then he shrugs. “All killed. But I wouldn’t worry about it. If anyone’s got a shot at this thing, it’s Mando.”

“But he could die,” you point out. “I helped you convince him to go on a hunt where he could very well die.”

“What are you so worked up over? It’s not like you’re the one pulling the trigger. You did good,” Karga says as he pats your shoulder and walks past you.

You should be happy, you know that. In the brief amount of time you’ve been on Nevarro, you’ve accomplished the impossible twice. Ten percent of your debt is gone within the span of a couple of months. But that suffocating feeling you used to get when the Mandalorian was around is coming to you as he’s leaving, and the fear that it might never change is keeping you underwater.

It’s little more than a half-hour later when that prayer is put to the test. At an intersection of streets, the glint of the sun off a beskar helmet catches your eye, and you see Mando march across the marketplace with a satchel slung over his shoulder. You’re chasing after him before you know what you’re doing. Your head is swimming again, this time with the idea of a year of freedom you wouldn’t otherwise have. 

You can’t run; the streets are too crowded for that, and Mando wouldn’t respond well to that, anyway. Besides, the idea of approaching him and immediately engaging in a conversation is making your step falter as you get closer and closer. 

He’s bartering with a vendor in a language you don’t understand, and you just hover in the background, trying to map out your plan, pretending to be involved in your surroundings. Every step you take closer to him is more time you have to remind your heart to keep beating. Maker, you've never been so disoriented before, and it scares you to death. 

Still, you persist. When he moves to a different stall, you move too, giving him space to get ahead first. You're still racking your brain for what the hell you say to whatever the hell a Mandalorian is. If you knew anything about him at all, this might be easier. Maybe you should just observe for now.

He goes under a tent that takes up three stall spaces, and you follow him there a few moments later. It’s an artisan’s tent; shards of stained glass in every shape you can think of hang from the posts of the tent, shining in the sunlight and casting rainbows of color onto the dusty ground below. It’s the most color you’ve seen in years, and it nearly distracts you from your task. 

There’s a mobile with shards of deep blues and purples in abstract shapes lined with silver along the edges that catches your eye. You haven’t seen anything quite so vivid in years. Almost without thinking about it, you reach for it. Your fingertips barely brush against the smooth surface— 

“Are you done following me?” a voice from behind you asks.

Mando’s sudden attention hits you like a punch in the stomach, and you drop your hand to the side. He’s no more than a couple of feet behind you, and you hadn’t even noticed he moved at all. You suppose you should’ve known better than to try following a bounty hunter without being noticed. “I—” you start, as you spin around.  “I wanted to apologize. For yesterday, I mean…”

Mando doesn’t shift an inch. “It was Karga’s fault. He should know better.”

Great start. "He wasn’t trying to be rude,” you tell him. You’re still aiming for an apologetic tone, but it comes out defensive. You need to rethink your strategy. What you need is a lie. Well, no, not a lie exactly. Just a different way to frame the truth.  “I wasn’t even supposed to meet you at all, but I pestered him about it. It was all my fault. If there’s any way I can make it up to you…?”

“I know what you’re trying to do,” he says. “Tell Karga that if he thinks sending his errand girl to—” 

“Karga didn’t send me,” you interrupt him without thinking, and in the silence that follows, you realize that may have been a mistake. He’s staring at you, helmet tilted to the side. All you can do is take the fact that he hasn’t turned to walk the other way as a prompt to elaborate. “That is, he didn't tell me to talk to you. Opposite, in fact.”

“If Karga didn’t send you,” he starts, “why are you here defending him?”

“Well, I— I’m trying to be a good employee,” you stammer. “I just want to do my job.”

“Never met someone so invested in working for Karga. It’s always something else. I’m not interested,” he points out, and that seems to be the end of the conversation for him. He brushes past you out of the tent without another word, leaving you standing dumbstruck.

By the time you turn to follow him, he’s so far ahead of you that you have to jog to catch up, and he’s certainly not slowing down at all. “Well, isn’t there anything I could do to make you interested?” you insist. You're not even going to attempt feigning pure intentions.

“Are you gonna follow me around all day?”

“If it comes to it,” you answer. “Would you hear me out?”

“No.”

You roll your eyes but keep following. "You don't even know what I'm asking!"

"Don't need to."

“It would help us both,” you promise.

“I said no.”

That's three times he's said no, now. It won't help to become even more of a nuisance, but you can't give up. “You don’t understand. I’m talking about a year of my lif—”

Mando’s arm shoots out suddenly and grips the arm on your far side, stopping you in your tracks just as a heavy-duty transport drives a little too close on the path in front of you. If he hadn’t done anything, you absolutely would’ve walked right out in front of it.

He doesn’t release your arm until the transport is well out of the way of your path. When he does, he turns to look at you. “Go back to Karga. You’re gonna get hurt out here.”

“I can’t—”

He grabs both of your shoulders and turns you around back in the direction of the cantina. “Go,” he tells you, and his hands leave your shoulders.

It’s not worth another shot, you decide. As far as Mando is concerned, the conversation ended before it even started. By the time you turn back around, he’s disappeared into the crowds.

That evening, you cook dinner for yourself and Karga with the groceries you picked up. The usually relaxing process of cutting and steaming does nothing to ease your disappointment in your colossal failure. Maker, you were so stupid just approaching Mando like that. You know nothing about him at all. If you had waited, you could’ve figured out things about him and his culture that could have helped you influence his mind. But you had to take the mudhorn by the horn. Had to do things your way as soon as you got the chance. Had to get drunk on the little bit of freedom you were given and abuse it. You want to kick yourself. 

When Karga returns to the house, he’s even more tired than he was yesterday. “I can’t give you a break tomorrow,” he tells you. “I need to keep training you to take over the records. It’s getting to be too much for me to handle by myself.”

You nod your understanding and have dinner in silence. Sleep comes to you in hazy, broken patches that night.

Once again, it’s an early morning at the cantina, and most of it is spent training. Record-keeping is an even more harrowing job than Karga prepared you for in the weeks before he brought you to Nevarro. Even making entries in the transaction ledger makes your head spin.

Karga lets you practice it a few times, but you think he gets some kind of sick amusement out of watching you struggle with all the fucking numbers. Just when you think you’re about to rain curses on the sick freak that invented math, Karga takes the holopad out of your hands.

“Alright,” he says. “Let’s take a break.”

You slam your head down on the table. “Thank you,” you mutter. “Today is a bitch.”

“It’s only ten o’clock,” Karga tells you.

“She’s a bitch,” you insist.

“You’re just being irritable,” Karga counters. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

You lift your head and pinch the bridge of your nose. “You would be too. First the whole thing with the expired bounty a couple of days ago, then the thing with Mando yesterday, now this—”

Karga holds up his hand. “Hold on, hold on,” he says. “What about Mando? What happened?”

You hesitate, unsure how much you’re willing to say. More and more, you’re realizing that you have tested the limits of what Karga said you could do. “Nothing, I just…”

When you’re silent for too long, Karga leans in. “You just what? What did you do?”

It’s at that moment that the door slides open, and the Mandalorian walks in as he did a couple of days ago.

Karga sits up straight. “Mando!” he says as the Mandalorian approaches. “Didn’t expect to see you back so soon. I assume this means you’ve made up your mind?”

He doesn’t answer, but he takes the seat across from the booth. 

Karga turns to you. “Go wait outside—”

“No,” Mando interrupts. “She stays.” 

He doesn’t elaborate on this sudden change of attitude, but Karga glances at you and seems to come to a realization. What that realization is, you have no idea, but there’s a definite new, conniving spark behind his eyes. 

“Right,” Karga agrees, his voice noticeably controlled. He rises slowly. “Give me a moment. I need a drink. Open up Mando’s profile and the available bounties on the holopad while I’m gone.”

No, wait, what? All you’ve been trained to do is take transaction notes. There’s no way in hell you’re going to be able to follow all of these new instructions. Especially when the Mandalorian is sitting across from you, staring you down. Nevertheless, you swallow your objections and nod while Karga walks away.

Deep breath. “Okay,” you mutter to yourself, getting only as far as you know how to. You come to a roadblock way sooner than you hoped.

“You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”

After the long silence, the question catches you off-guard so much so that you wouldn’t even dream of being dishonest. “Not really,” you admit. “But I can manage until Karga comes back.”

Mando lets go of a deep sigh and reaches his hand out across the table. After a moment’s hesitation, you give him the holopad. He accesses his profile in less than a minute and hands it back to you.

“How do you know how to do that?” you ask him.

“I’m observant,” he answers.

You look down at his profile. Most of his personal information is redacted. There’s no given name. No physical description beyond “beskar helmet.” What little information is available to you is mostly transactions and statistics about his performance as a hunter. No wonder Karga agreed to five percent. There was no way in hell you were gonna be able to find anything out, to begin with. 

“Well,” you say after clearing your throat. “I guess I’m not as observant as that.”

“Apparently,” Mando says. Is that irony in his voice? “You almost got yourself killed crossing the street.” Okay… irony.

Something like dread swirls in your stomach. “Right,” you say, looking up at him. “If you could keep that between you and me, I would appreciate it. Karga doesn’t have to know about that… that whole encounter.”

“How many favors do you want from me?”

He’s playing with you, now. You might not be able to see his face, but you can sense that much. “Please?” you ask him, your voice somewhere between desperate and irritated. 

“Karga doesn’t have to know,” Mando agrees. “As long as you tell me what you meant when you said it’s a year of your life.”

Is that it? Is that the entire reason you’re here now instead of waiting outside while he and Karga talk business? You furrow your brows and shrug. “I had a deal with Karga, that’s all,” you answer him. “If I could convince you to take more than two pucks, he’d take five percent off of the debt I owe him. It would usually take a year to pay back five percent.”

“That’s a twenty-year debt. What did you do to owe Karga so much?”

“I didn’t do anything,” you answer. “I inherited my debt from my grandfather, and Karga bought it a couple of weeks ago from my former employer. I’m honor-bound to pay it back no matter who I owe it to.”

“So, you’re a slave.”

Your jaw clenches at the statement. “I’m an indentured servant,” you correct him. “There’s a difference.”

“What’s your job again?”

“To do what Karga tells me.”

“And you get paid for that?”

“Well… no.”

Mando goes quiet again and tilts his helmet to the side as if he’s trying to make a point.

You let out a huff. “That’s not the point,” you say. “The point is that I was supposed to get you to take another puck. Just one more.”

“I don’t take more than two.”

You blink once. “Hence… the challenge.”

“What was your strategy?”

You take a deep breath and let it out on a hiss. “Didn’t have one, really. I figured I’d try a bunch of different angles until something stuck. Unfortunately, you didn’t let me try any of the angles.”

He just stares at you. If he’s taken aback by your honesty, he doesn’t say so. You, however, are shocked by the sound of your own voice saying nothing but the truth. It’s not really as much a choice as it is something that he seems to draw out of you.

It’s as you open your mouth to say something (anything to fill the silence) that Karga calls your name. You rip your eyes away from Mando as he approaches the table, drink in hand. “Go back to the house and get lunch started, would you? I’ve had enough of cantina food for a week.”

The last thing you expected was for Karga to say something so contrary to Mando’s instructions. But Mando doesn’t say anything, and you can tell that Karga has some kind of purpose he’s not telling you about. So with an obedient nod, you stand and leave the cantina. Once again, the Mandalorian’s gaze follows you out.  

When Karga returns to the house that evening, he calls you to the main living room. “What did you say to Mando while I was gone?”

The question takes you aback. “Um, I don’t know,” you say. “I just answered his questions.”

Karga raises his brows. “Oh, is that all?” he asks. “What questions?”

You shake your head and shrug. “Just about who I am and why I’m working for you. It was like a job interview. Nothing happened.”

Karga lets out a sound somewhere between a sputter and a laugh. “Well, whatever arrangement you’ve got going on, keep it up.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you tell Karga. “There’s no arrangement. As far as I know, as soon as I left, he took his two pucks, and left.”

Karga stares at you a moment. “He didn’t take two pucks,” he says finally “He took four.”

Four? Where the hell did that come from? What did you say to convince him to take double his usual count?

“You really didn’t know, did you?” Karga questions, seeming to finally come to the realization.

“No, I didn’t...” you answer. When you can finally clear your head of white noise for a moment, you look up to see Karga looking at you thoughtfully. “What?”

The pain from before is still there when you wake in the middle of the Separatist encampment, tied by the wrists to a whipping post, kneeling in mud. It’s the dark of night. You’re not sure how long it’s been… Days, probably, judging by your hunger. Ventress isn’t likely to feed you. If she did, it would only be enough to keep you alive. 

Something bright red clouds your vision. Blood dripping from your temple into your eye. It should’ve dried by now. Unless it’s being kept fresh.

If your mind was clearer, you might try to think of an escape. But as it is, you’re on the verge of slipping away again. 

All you can think of is Obi-Wan. How you left him. The pain in his eyes. There’s still so much you want to tell him...

There isn’t even darkness this time. Just swirling nothingness that lasts an eternity… Until the faintest of colors crawls in. A still, small voice piercing the silence. 

“Hang on, dear one, hang on…”

The next thing you’re aware of is falling back into a painful reality. You’re still tied to the post, wrists rubbed raw by the shackles. You haven't been moved even once. Who knows how long you've been suspended there with a broken body desperate for healing?

It’s another bright afternoon, and there’s a voice. A real one that doesn’t belong to a battle droid or Ventress. “I am not here to fight you, Ventress, but I will if I have to,” it says. “Wouldn’t you rather avoid it altogether?” 

Your heart begins to pound, and you begin to dare to hope. “Obi-Wan…” you whisper, voice hoarse from disuse. You’re not even entirely sure it’s him, but you say it all the same.

Consciousness is coming to you heartbeat by heartbeat, fading in, fading out. Fading in, you’re aware of someone crouching in front of you. Fading out, you don’t know who it is. Fading in, there’s a hand on your forehead, tenderly brushing away the hair that’s sticking to it with blood and sweat. Fingers gently lifting your chin. Thumb brushing over your cheekbone. Fading out again, but now you know for sure. No one else has hands like that. 

Ventress is saying something smug. You can’t hear her over the ringing in your ears.

Obi-Wan stands. Maker, he’s so close. If you had full use of your hands, you could reach for him. “Make no mistake,” he says. “I am not here to fight, but Anakin Skywalker isn’t far behind, and he most certainly is. I can tell him to turn around. Or we can test a fleet of starfighters and highly specialized clone troopers against your dozen or so battle droids.”

What happens next is clouded to you, but it feels like another age before you’re vaguely aware of being lifted off the ground. Strong arms under your knees and around your back. Vaguely aware of Obi-Wan’s voice piercing through the fog. “There, I have you now. Can you hold onto me, my darling? There we are. Good. Don’t let go, dear one.”

Don’t let go. It’s the last thing you hear before you’re fading, fading, fading… 

Your next waking moment is oddly euphoric. Your mind is still clouded, but you aren’t registering pain. There’s a bed underneath you. Your arm is in a sling, your ankle has been wrapped to immobility, and everything feels tight to the point of discomfort. You can sense that you’re in the Temple, but you’re not sure where.

“The intensive care unit.” It’s Mundi’s voice answering your unasked question. Slowly, you turn your head to face your master. He’s scowling at you like you haven’t just survived being a prisoner of war. 

“Hello there,” you say. Your voice isn’t in perfect condition yet.

“Indeed,” Mundi replies, scowl unchanging.

There’s a long silence before you continue. “How may I be of service, Master?”

“Is this a laughing matter, padawan?” he scolds. “Forgive me if I fail to find the humor in stealing a starfighter to go on a rogue mission ending in miserable failure.” 

“It was my starfighter,” you grumble.

Mundi leaps to his feet. “It was the Republic’s starfighter! Do you realize that I am currently fighting for your position in the Jedi order? You are at risk of expulsion, more than you have ever been.”

Strangely, that does nothing to faze you. Must be painkillers. “Well, I am sorry, Master,” you say. “But considering that I’m not fully recovered, may I be spared the lecture temporarily? And who knows? If I’m expelled, you may not have to give it at all.”

Mundi’s face turns bright red, and he storms out muttering, “Obstinate, stubborn girl!”

With Mundi gone, you sleep. It’s not the slipping to and from consciousness. It's real sleep, deep and restful. The painkillers wearing off is what wakes you. Suddenly aware of how much your entire body hurts, you start awake.

“Careful, careful!” a sweet voice chides. A hand like no other grabs yours, and your eyes focus. There’s Obi-Wan’s face before you. His blue eyes, stung with concern. His hair is newly trimmed and unkempt; but, Maker, it’s still him. “What do you need?”

“Water,” you say immediately. You feel like you haven’t had a drink in weeks. In fact, that may be true. “How long was I…?”

“Nearly a month,” Obi-Wan tells you as he releases your hand and pours a glass of water from a nearby pitcher. “Some thought you may not wake at all.”

He hands you the glass, and you begin to greedily swallow it down. 

“Slowly, my—” He cuts himself short.

You don’t acknowledge what he said. What he almost said. Instead, you finish your water. Slowly. “I hear I’m being expelled from the order,” you say.

Obi-Wan sighs and folds his arms over his chest. “Not exactly,” he says. “The council reached a decision this morning. If you’re able to pass the Trials after you’re recovered, you’ll remain as a full Jedi Knight. You’ll only be expelled if you fail.”

Something between dread and excitement stirs deep in your stomach. “I see,” you say. “Are you here to tell me this, Master Kenobi?”

“I’m here as a concerned friend,” he says. “That is, I hope we are still friends.”

And you know deep down that you’ll never be able to be purely friends with him. Not really. There will always be a part of you that wants to reach for him like he’s the last water in the desert. And you know that Mundi’s right. You’ll never pass the Trials with that kind of attachment.   

None of this stops you from smiling at him. “I suppose,” you allow with an exaggerated sigh. “Only because you rescued me from Ventress. If you hadn’t, I would’ve screamed at you to get out. You’re lucky I even recognized you at all with your hair like that.”

Obi-Wan hums. “Oh, yes, of course,” he says with a nod. “I thank you for your benevolence, oh gravely injured one.”

“You’re welcome,” you continue. “And I suppose, in my benevolence, I will allow you to visit me tomorrow. If you’d like to?”

He smiles. It’s that warm candlelight smile again. “I would like that very much,” he says. Then he reaches over just to tweak your padawan braid, flooding you with so much warmth, you nearly forget your pain for a moment.

A month of painkillers and physical therapy goes by. You’re just beginning to walk again, but it feels like you aren’t making any real progress. 

“Besides,” you complain to Obi-Wan one evening. “It hurts.”

“It’s going to hurt. There’s no getting around that,” Obi-Wan counters. “And I think you’re being a rather difficult patient for the poor nurses.”

“I’m being charming to the nurses,” you counter. “It’s my kriffing ankle that’s being difficult.”

Obi-Wan rolls his eyes. “My mistake.”

There’s something about the way he says it that makes you want to kick him. Unfortunately, your ankle has made kicking difficult lately. “Fine,” you say, throwing your blanket aside. “Help me up. I’ll go walking right now.”

“No, no,” Obi-Wan says, eyes widening. “I’ll call a nurse to help you.”

“No, you can help me, Master Kenobi,” you say with a shake of your head. Your hand reaches for his. “Come on.” 

After a moment’s hesitation, he wraps his fingers around yours and helps you rise shakily to your feet. Slowly, carefully he leads you out of your room and into the infirmary garden. You wince the whole way but bite back complaints. His hand is still holding yours, and the other is on your elbow, gently steadying you. No complaints. You don’t want him to decide that the walk is over.

There’s a bench in the right wing of the garden where Obi-Wan leads you when you begin to tire.

“You ought to get a walking stick,” he remarks when he’s sure you’re comfortable.

You hum and shake your head. “Why would I need one? I’ve got you.” 

“Yes, I suppose you have,” he answers after a pause.

You let a minute pass in the stillness of the garden, breathing in the open air, and letting the sound of falling water lull your eyes shut. “You know,” you say. “It is getting easier to walk.”

“Good,” he says. “The worst of it should have passed by now.”

You open your eyes and turn your head to him. “It could’ve been much worse if you hadn’t shown up.”

Obi-Wan holds your gaze a moment before looking down at his hands. “I try not to think about that.”

“I think about it,” you tell him. “All the time. I thought I was going to die there.”

“It was the will of the Force that you didn’t,” he says. He still won’t look you in the eye.

You hum thoughtfully. “I wonder about that sometimes,” you admit. “I still don’t understand how you found me.”

Now, he looks at you. Oh, that’s a familiar look. The conflict you sense in him is familiar, too. The night he kissed you in the archives is only too vivid in your memory. You’re not sure how long he looks at you like that before he speaks. “I felt you,” he says, his voice quiet and raw. “I always do. As though your voice is always humming in the back of my mind. But it changed that day. I heard you screaming my name as if you were in pain… So, I followed it. That’s how I found you.”

How are you supposed to answer that? You won’t be able to without making yourself a liar. The only honest answer would be to hold him and tell him you loved him in every language you knew. So, you don’t answer, but your voice is choked when you ask, “And how did you get me away from Ventress?”

He braces his hands on his knees and takes a deep breath. “Oh,” he said. “I merely suggested that if she gave you up, I would see to it that she was left alone while she was on Lasan.”

There’s a silence as this revelation registers with you. “Obi-Wan,” you say slowly. It’s the first time you’ve said his name since you returned. “You surrendered the planet in exchange for me?”

“From a certain point of view,” he answers. There’s a smile playing at his lips, but his eyes are so tired.

Your lips are parted in disbelief, and a minute passes before you can gather a sentence together. “That, my friend, would be a pyrrhic victory.”

“No,” Obi-Wan rejects out of hand. There is something firm and resolute about his voice. He is leaving you no room to question him. “No, it was very much worth the cost.” 

Everything is crumbling in you. Your resolve. Your stubbornness. A whole life dedicated to training. Everything you’ve ever been taught. And, somehow, you’ve never been more at peace.

Obi-Wan pats your knee once before his hand lingers there. “We ought to get you back to your room,” he says. “Can you walk?”

“Yes,” you say with a nod. “If you hold me up.”

“Of course, dear one.”

Walking is getting easier. You aren’t holding his hand for support.

Once you’re fully recovered, you’re graciously allowed a month of training before you face the Trials. That month slips by all too quickly. Seeing Obi-Wan becomes rarer and more precious. Suppressing your attachment to him becomes impossible. You know you’re still radiating it by the way Mundi glares at you even when you’re silent and tells you to be mindful of your feelings. You’ve stopped caring.

You’re beginning to understand what Obi-Wan meant when he described how your voice hummed in the back of his head. You’re starting to feel him, too. In quiet moments, no matter the distance, you can feel his being like you can hear your favorite song playing in another room. The strange thing is that you’re not sure it’s much different from regular love. Amplified by the way the Force connects you, maybe. But just regular love, all the same.

Your time before the council approaches faster than you can blink. Everything is going just as you always planned, and it’s making you dizzy. Your back is turned to Obi-Wan’s seat. You can’t risk looking at him now.

Something in the way you’re holding yourself must be unusual. Master Yoda addresses you. “Something to say, have you?”

Yes, you do have something to say. It has been building in you for months now. “Masters,” you begin slowly. “I am truly honored by this chance to prove myself to you…”

“But?” Master Yoda presses.

“But, I regret that I cannot take the Trials.”

Master Windu exchanges a look with Master Yoda before looking back at you. “Are you afraid you won’t pass the Trials?”

You shake your head. “Not at all, Master Windu.”

“Then why will you not take them? You understand the alternative is to resign from the Order?”

“Yes,” you say. “I simply find that the cost of dedicating oneself completely to the Jedi Order is not one that I am willing to pay.”

No one argues this, and the council is silent for a long while.

“What will you do?” Obi-Wan’s voice speaks behind you.

You turn to face him. He’s staring at you half-dazed like he’s trying to read your mind. As if he doesn’t know that you would let him in before he could ask. You smile. “Well, Master Kenobi, with the council’s permission, I’d like to continue to work in the archives. I’ve been trained very thoroughly there, and I don’t need to be a full Jedi Knight to sort holofiles.”

Obi-Wan smiles back at you.

“We will need to confer on this matter,” Windu says.

You turn back to him and nod. “I leave that to your judgment.” With a bow, you leave the council chamber, feeling lighter than you have in years.

Obi-Wan’s presence is outside your door almost as soon as you’ve finished packing away your few possessions.

“Come in,” you tell him.

He steps through the door and shuts it behind him, lingering in front of it for a moment before he speaks. “I— I have been sent to tell you that the council has agreed to your request to work in the archives.”

You respond with a smile and a nod. 

There’s a moment when he looks like he’s about to leave it there and walk away. But he doesn’t. “What did you mean when you said the cost was more than you were willing to pay?”

With a deep breath, you look down at your shoes and answer. “Just that in the past year, I’ve been happier than I ever remember being, just from letting myself feel. Feel everything: the good and the bad. And I was about to sacrifice that for a stoic life that I no longer wanted.”

Arms folded over his chest, Obi-Wan wanders across the room to you in slow, cautious steps. “And you’ll be happy? Working in the archives?”

“Yes,” you promise him. “And I assume I’ll see you quite a lot?”

He smiles. “Well, nothing ever really changes, dear one.”

“Well,” you counter, returning his smile with a teasing quirk of your brows. “Your hair changes every now and then.”

He takes another step toward you. He’s standing over you now. “Do you know why I cut my hair?” he asks, his voice low. 

You can’t find it in you to say anything at all so you shake your head. You’re craning your neck to look him in the eye. His dark, worshipping eyes.

“I did it so I could forget what it felt like to have your hands in it.”

Oh. Oh. “Well…” you say, ignoring how everything in you is seizing and burning all at once. “Rash decision.”

Obi-Wan gives you the smallest of smiles and tugs your padawan braid. It’s a useless thing now, you remember. But you think you’ll keep it. “I can think of worse ones.” His fingers leave your hair to wrap around the back of your neck, his thumb brushing just behind your ear. 

“Did it work?” you whisper after swallowing hard. 

He shakes his head and presses his lips to the space between your brows. “No,” he mutters against your skin. He moves his other hand to the other side of your face, letting his knuckles caress your cheekbone as he kisses your temple. “No.” He kisses your cheek, close to the corner of your mouth. “No, my darling. It didn’t work.”

You’ve had enough of waiting. You reach your hands up to cradle the back of his head, digging your fingers into his hair so he would never be able to forget what you feel like there. You pull him into you, lips meeting lips in blazing heat that gives you chills. It’s not the kiss from the archives. It’s not scrambling and desperate. Everything is slow and deliberate. From the way his arms drop around your waist, cinching you to him, to the way you slide your hands forward so you can feel his beard against your hands.

“Jocasta’s busy at the moment,” you tell him. "Can I help you?"

He glances at your head. “Shouldn’t I be asking that?”

You remove your hand from your head. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? I can find someone else—”

“I’m sure,” you promise. “How may I help?”

Master Kenobi clears his throat. "Ah, yes. I noticed an error in the Kamino file I’d like corrected."

"Of course," you reply with a nod, sliding a datapad over to him. "Applications for corrections are here."

As he fills out the application, you rest your elbow on the desk, chin planted on your fist. His eyes wander to you once, twice, before he says, “You’re Master Mundi’s padawan, aren’t you?”

“Mhm,” you confirm. “And you’re Master Kenobi.”

“Yes, I am. How did you know?”

“It’d be difficult not to recognize you after your victory on Geonosis.”

Master Kenobi hums low as he continues with the application. “Rather a pyrrhic victory…”

“Pyrrhic? How so?”

Master Kenobi shakes his head. “I hardly think that beginning a war and failing our role as the peacekeepers of the galaxy is worth winning a single battle. The cost of the victory was too great to justify it. A pyrrhic victory.” 

You ponder this as he finishes the application and hands the datapad back. “I wouldn’t consider Geonosis a pyrrhic victory,” you conclude, more to yourself than him.

“No?” he says, quirking his brow.

“This war was planned for some time,” you say. “It was always going to happen. We gained an advantage in discovering the Separatists’ plot early and winning the first battle. The victory was worth the cost.”

Master Kenobi considers you a moment before allowing you a small smile. “You have an interesting point of view.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It was one.” Without another word, Master Kenobi turns and leaves. You’re still staring after him when he walks away. 

It’s a week later when Anakin Skywalker passes the Trials. Anakin Skywalker who’s two years younger than you and started training six years after. And you’re still sorting holofiles in the archives. It’s what you’re doing when you see Master Kenobi again. He’s in the next aisle with his back to you, and you catch a glimpse of him through a gap in the shelves.

“Master Kenobi?” you whisper.

He lifts his head and turns around, brows furrowed in confusion. “Oh, it’s you!” he says when he meets your eyes. 

“It’s me.”

“I wondered if I’d see you again.”

You pause before pushing a holofile onto the shelf and asking, “Why?”

“I don’t know your name.”

“You could’ve asked Master Mundi,” you point out.

He folds his arms and strokes his mustache. “Oh, I did,” he said. “And he told me more than I asked for, but he ultimately failed to mention it. Unless, of course, your name is Headstrong, Obstinate Girl.”

“No,” you say, rolling your eyes. With a sigh, you tell him your name. “I hope you don’t think badly of me, Master Kenobi.”

Master Kenobi smiles. “Not at all. I’ve had a headstrong, obstinate padawan,” he says. “And please, none of this Master Kenobi business. Call me Obi-Wan.”

Anakin was his padawan, you remember. That same screaming frustration from before rushes back. It had been silent while you talked to Master Kenobi. To Obi-Wan. “Shouldn’t you be celebrating with Master Skywalker now?” you questioned. 

“No time, I’m afraid. He’s escorting Senator Amidala home,” Obi-Wan explains. “Besides, I’ve been meaning to ask for an update on the correction I requested.”

“Ah,” you say. “Jocasta oversees corrections. You should ask her.”

Obi-Wan nods. “I see,” he says. After a moment’s pause, he continues. “Very well.”

“Very well,” you repeat. “Goodbye, Obi-Wan.” 

He gives another bright smile. “Goodbye,” he says. Then he says your name. When he walks away, you’re smiling, too.

It’s two days before you see him again. Two long days. You’re tending the desk (sitting under it and avoiding everyone) when you sense his presence. It’s still a moment before he speaks, calling your name. “What in the blazes are you doing under there?” he asks.

Slowly, you pull yourself up to face him. “Obi-Wan,” you greet him. “Jocasta’s on break.”

“That’s not an answer,” Obi-Wan says, a smile playing at his lips as he folds his arms over his chest.

A moment’s hesitation. “I’d rather not talk to people,” you answer, taken aback by your own honesty.

“Doesn’t that make it difficult to work?” Obi-Wan asks. “Which begs the question... Why are you working in the archives? I’ve seen you here more than with Master Mundi.” 

A bitter laugh escapes you. “I recently had a… lapse in patience. Mundi assigned me here for as long as necessary to learn a lesson, he says.” 

“I take it you’re not overly fond of Master Mundi.”

You shrug. “I’m not used to him. I’d probably like him if I’d known him longer.”

Obi-Wan furrows his brows. “Not used to him?”

“Mundi’s my third master,” you sigh, leaning against the desk. “The first was killed, and the second couldn’t stand me for longer than a year. I’ve been with Mundi for two now.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan says. “That doesn’t sound easy.”

You shake your head. “It’s life. I don’t think it’s meant to be easy.”

“Perhaps not,” he allows. “But I know how it is to lose a master. I know the kind of pain that brings. The damage it does.”

You believe him. You’re not used to trusting masters, but this is different. No other master has tried to understand the hurt. They brush it off as a frivolous emotion that you should have been trained out of years ago. But Obi-Wan is looking at you differently than anyone has. He looks like he could fit all your pain into the palm of his hand and carry it with him.

The next day, he visits the archives and tells you about his old master Qui-Gon. Qui-Gon who bent rules. Qui-Gon who taught him compassion and trust. Qui-Gon who was killed in battle. Was the victory worth the cost? 

In turn, he asks about your masters. The first who had been killed in a conflict after being your anchor for five years. The second who barely made an effort. Mundi who’s breaking his back conforming you to his ideas. Obi-Wan keeps you company for your entire shift and doesn’t flinch when you mention the anger. 

When he begins to leave, you stop him by calling his name. You’re not sure what to say except, “Thank you.” Thank you for seeing me. Thank you for understanding. Thank you for making me feel the most alright I’ve been in years.

His smile is as warm as always, but it’s not quite so bright. It’s warm in the quiet way a candle is. He slides his hand over yours where it rests on the desk. It’s the only cold thing about him, clammy like he’s afraid. You don’t understand why until he stares at you with those sincere blue eyes and says, “It isn’t any trouble,” in a low voice that sends your heart pounding. Pounding like you’re terrified.   

He’s there the next day for an update on the correction, he says, but he never speaks to Jocasta. There isn't an update that day or the next or the next. For three weeks, he's there nearly every day for correction updates that never come. But he stays to tell you more stories. Happier stories that manage to make you laugh and settle something in you that you never realized was disquieted.

The first time you see him outside the archives is in a conference with the Supreme Chancellor. You’re shadowing Mundi ten feet away from Obi-Wan, but you keep glancing at each other from the corners of your eyes while the other masters talk. It’s difficult not to smile. You have to bite your lip to keep it in. So does he. 

When the conference dismisses, Mundi turns to you. “What did you learn, padawan?”

You open your mouth, but nothing comes out. You didn’t pay any attention to the meeting at all. 

“As I thought,” Mundi sighs. “This is a testament to my fears. Without the patience to be attentive to the Chancellor or even Master Yoda, how can you pass the trials? More time in the archives will serve you well, I believe.” 

“Master,” you say, disappointment crushing you. “I thought we’d be combat training today.”

Mundi shakes his head. “You’re a skilled swordswoman,” he says. “It’s emotional control that you lack. You need more time in the archives.”

So, back to the archives, you go. Under the desk, you stay for two hours, willing your mind blank. Anger leaking from your eyes, wetting your cheeks.

When you sense Obi-Wan approaching, you wipe away the tears and try to steady your breaths. He whispers your name over the desk. “I came for a correction update,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” you say, pulling yourself up, “I don’t know where Jocasta is.”

Obi-Wan doesn’t respond to that. He’s looking at you like you’re bleeding out and unaware of it. “What’s wrong?”

With anyone else, you’d shrug and tell them it’s nothing. But it’s Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan who carries your pain in the palm of his hand. 

“I’ve been assigned more time in the archives,” you say.

His sigh sounds relieved. “Is that all?”

“No,” you say. “No, that’s not all. I’m tired, Obi-Wan.”

“Tired of working in the archives?”

Elbows on the desk, you bury your head in your hands. “No! I’m tired of being a padawan. I’m tired of masters stretching me beyond where I can reach.”

“Isn’t that a master’s responsibility?” he says gently.

You look up at him. “But when does it stop hurting?” you ask. “Or is it always that you find someo— something that takes the pain away, and it becomes a distraction you have to get rid of? Is being a Jedi a matter of always being at war with yourself and paying through the nose for it?”

He doesn’t answer. In the silence that permeates the air, you can sense his conflict. He reaches out cautiously, the very tips of his fingers just barely grazing the curve of your jaw under your ear. You're fortunate there's a desk separating you. Otherwise, you’d melt into that feather of a touch without reservation. You know that now. And once you did, there would be no recovery afterward. Would it be worth the cost?

His hand moves from your jaw to your padawan braid which he gives a gentle, affectionate tug. "It will stop hurting, dear one," he says. "I believe that."

You can't help wondering if he only believes it because he has to. Because the hurting hasn't stopped for him, either.

His fingers are still holding the end of your braid when he says, "The Council is sending me off-planet to negotiate alliances for the Republic."

Your voice barely comes to you. "Good luck."

"There's no such thing," he sighs with a smile. "I'll come here when I return. To check on the correction."

You nod, and he leaves you. 

It’s a week later when you catch word from Mundi that Obi-Wan is returning, and you ask to go work in the archives. He isn’t there yet when you report to Jocasta for your daily assignment.

“You can sort the holofiles in the north wing,” she decides after a moment. Then she sighs. “I suppose you heard that Master Kenobi is returning today.”

The fact that she’s asking is enough to give you pause. “I’d heard something like that,” you confirm.

She shakes her head. “In all my time, I’ve never known a single Jedi Master to visit the archives quite so much as he does,” she muses.

“Well, he’s waiting for an update on the correction application he submitted,” you remind her.

She looks at you like you grew a third eye. “The correction Master Kenobi requested was completed weeks ago,” she tells you. She walks away, shaking her head and never explaining why she brought him up, to begin with.

Your head is spinning on the way to the north wing. Completed weeks ago, Jocasta said. How long has Obi-Wan been lying to you about it? Why? What did he hope to gain?

You’re still not sure what to make of it when he finds you and stops on the outside of the aisle you're in. His hand is lingering on the outside of the shelf like he’s waiting for you to invite him closer.

“Master Kenobi,” you greet him over your shoulder.

“Back to Master Kenobi, are we?” he questions with something of a laugh, daring a step closer to you. “Oh, dear. What have I done wrong?”

You turn to face him fully. “Nothing,” you say. It’s more of a snap. “Are you here for your daily correction update? How is that going, by the way?.”

A realization seems to come over him, and his smile fades. You return to your work, trying not to pay him any more attention. Pretending you don’t notice when he barely whispers your name and takes two long strides towards you.

You aren’t ready for this kind of confrontation. You need time to figure out what the lying means. You want to know why it’s starting to matter less and less. “Jocasta’s busy,” you tell him. “Come back later.” 

He grabs your wrist as you reach for another holofile, making you look at him. “I don’t want to talk to Jocasta,” he says, leaning in close enough for you to feel his warmth. 

As if on cue, Jocasta herself approaches, and Obi-Wan drops your wrist and takes a step back. 

“Master Kenobi,” she greets him. “I’m told you had further questions about the correction you requested.”

If Obi-Wan looks back at you, you don’t see it. You’re already walking away.

That evening, near closing, when the archive is all but empty, he finds you again in a secluded corner of the archives where the lights seem dimmer. Nothing is separating you now. Not a desk. Not a cart of files. Nothing but space.

“I want to explain,” he says after a long silence.

You fold your arms over your chest—a habit you picked up from him. “Why should you have to?” you ask. “You’re a Jedi Master, and I’m a simple padawan learner. Whatever ulterior motive you had in lying to me for weeks must be beyond me.”

He closes the space with two strides and stands over you. “It isn’t like that, dear one,” he says. “I wanted—” He stops himself short and lowers his head.

“What?” you question. “Obi-Wan.”

He looks up at you again with terrified, desperate eyes.

“What did you want?”

He doesn’t answer you. But with something between a grunt and a sigh, he’s crushing his lips against yours, pushing you back until your back is pressed against the shelf.

There’s not a moment’s hesitation for you. The second his actions register with you, you’re reciprocating with equal force. Hadn’t you already decided that you would melt into him if given the chance? Your hands are tangling in his long hair before you permit them to, pushing him down closer to you.

His lips soften after that. Warm. Pliable. Breaking open against yours. He’s everywhere around you. One hand in your hair (padawan braid between his fingers) the other on the only part of your back that’s not against the shelf. You sigh an involuntary sigh from your chest when he pulls back just to kiss the corner of your mouth. Your cheek. The curve of your jaw that he had barely dared to touch with the tips of fingers before. He’s sighing too, and that’s how you know that even though you’re the one with your back against a wall, he’s completely surrendered to you.

It’s then that Jocasta’s voice over the speakers announces the closing of the archives in ten minutes, making both of you jump. Once the initial panic subsides, you’re both laughing and breathing hard. Obi-Wan’s forehead is buried in the crook of your neck, and you stroke his hair once, smoothing out the tangles. He presses a gentle, breathy kiss to your collarbone before reclaiming your lips.

“I have to go,” you mutter, never fully pulling away.

“Not yet,” Obi-Wan says, moving to kiss your temple.

“Yes,” you laugh. “I have to be in my quarters by curfew. I’m still only a padawan learner, remember?”

“You’re clever. You’ll think of an excuse.”

You roll your eyes and kiss him again before slipping out of his arms. “Who’s headstrong and obstinate now?”

Before you walk away, Obi-Wan grabs your hand and presses a long kiss to your knuckles. He doesn’t let go of your hand until you’re stretching too far to hold on any longer, and you grin all the way back to the dormitories. 

The grin fades when you see Mundi sitting outside your door looking sterner than he ever has before. “Hasn’t any master of yours ever taught you not to project your emotions?” he questions. “He clearly learned not to, whoever he may be. But it’s a wonder the entire Temple didn’t sense you wantonly breaking the code.”

Everything crumbles: your face, your confidence, your joy. “Master, I can explain,” you start.

He holds up his hand to silence you. “I was to send you on a mission to negotiate an alliance with Lasan soon,” he tells you. “If you had been successful, you would have faced the Trials. I see now that you are further from that goal than I dreamed. I will request to send Anakin Skywalker in your place.”

Fury builds in you like billows of ash. “Master, that’s not fair,” you snap. “I've been ready for the Trials since I came to learn from you.”

“Clearly not,” Mundi counters. “This attachment that you are vulnerable to can only serve to hinder a Jedi’s path.”

“Would your wives say the same?” you shout back.

Mundi closes his eyes and breathes deeply through the nose. “I must ask myself every day if those attachments hinder me from my duty. Every time, my duty wins. It must always come first. Would you now sacrifice yours? Understand that this offense is worthy of expulsion from the order. Everything you have worked for—everything you have suffered for—now hangs in balance. Would it be worth the cost?”

You grind your teeth, refusing to show Mundi that he struck a chord. Without another word, you retreat into your room and slam the door. Once you hear him walk away, you slide down the door and sit with your face buried in your knees, wanting to scream but unable to. Instead, you cry for hours.

Years of training emotions away didn’t prepare you for the numbness. Years of training didn’t prepare you for many things. You question it all now. Mere feelings, mere logic becomes as objectionable as absolutes. The only thing that feels sure is time. The years you spent training. The moments you spent with Obi-Wan. Would it be worth the cost?

The first light peeks over the horizon, and you rise with the sun, clipping your lightsaber onto your belt and charging toward the starfighter hangar. This is not a decision. It's instinct.

You know Obi-Wan is there the minute you cross the threshold. His presence screams at your senses. Still, you move forward, locating your starfighter and fueling it for takeoff.

Of course, he senses you too and approaches you in the quietness of the near-empty hangar. “Hello there,” he says. “What are you doing here so early?”

“I’m leaving for Lasan,” you tell him. You know you sound cold. You can’t help it. 

It’s a moment before he answers. “I see,” he says. “I didn’t realize you’d been assigned—”

“I haven’t,” you interrupt.

“Oh.” Another pause. “Have you considered it may be a little reckless to—”

“What’s one more reckless thing, Master Kenobi?” you question, suddenly looking him square in the eye.

The hurt in his blue eyes has the tears rushing back to yours. “Are you…” he starts. “Are you angry with me?”

“No,” you say, burying your face in your hands. “No, I… I’m angry with myself. I wasn’t think—We’ve both made commitments to the Jedi order. Commitments not easily broken.”

“Yes, we have.”

“Well, are you ready to risk it all?” you ask, dropping your hands and looking at him, pleading.

He doesn’t answer. He just stares back at you with his mouth slightly agape. That’s answer enough. 

You give him a sad smile. “Neither am I,” you tell him. “I have to let go. So do you.” The price of becoming a Jedi. Will it be worth the cost?

You’d be able to sense his hurt even if it wasn’t written on his face. It’s taking everything in you not to take it all back and kiss him again. You want to kiss him again. Not like you did in the archives but slowly and tenderly, taking his pain and carrying it with you. 

“I understand,” Obi-Wan says after an eternity. It’s barely more than a whisper. “You’re right, of course. I am sorry to have caused you further pain.”

“I’m sorry, too,” you mumble. “Goodbye, Master Kenobi.”

“Goodbye, dear one.” This time, it is a whisper, and you sense that you weren’t supposed to hear it. 

But when he walks away, the numbness washes back over you, and you man your starfighter. You have worth to prove.

Nevermind that. Karga’s interviewing a potential new Guild member, and you’re taking notes. But you haven’t written anything down in five minutes, and Karga notices. He’s called your name twice now without an answer. You jump the third time, and Karga sighs. “If you’re not gonna take notes, could you at least make yourself useful and get us some drinks from the bar?”

With a nod, you rise from your seat and walk to the bar, pretending to ignore the stares that follow you. You get it. Karga goes off-planet for two weeks and comes back with some nervous-looking girl and no explanation for her. People are curious. Still, you can’t help but feel on edge. Especially when you notice how many people don’t bother to hide the fact that they’re staring. Especially when you notice how many times the words “errand girl” and “Mandalorian” pop up side-by-side in snippets of all the different conversations. 

After the drinks are ordered, a man with a gleam in his eye slides uncomfortably close to you. “You’re Karga’s errand girl, yes?” It’s the same voice that discussed you earlier. He’s got an accent you can’t place, and a crooked smile like he has no interest in being friends.

You glance at him out of the corner of your eye, but keep quiet. You aren’t interested in being friends, either.

“You know he’s hiring you for the Mandalorian?” the man presses when you don’t answer. “He’ll probably make you fuck Mando to get him in a good mood. Get him to take more pucks.”

Cringing, you turn fully away from the man, giving him the back of your head to talk to.

The man wheezes out a laugh. “Good luck! You’re pretty, but not pretty enough to change Mando’s mind, I think. You’ll freeze him out like that, anyway. Hell, maybe you’ll freeze each other out! Hard to fuck someone when you can’t see their face.”

The drinks you ordered are placed on the counter, and you whisk them away before you can hear another word. There’s a sick feeling settling deep in your chest. Settling in right next to the new word… “Mandalorian.” Karga has made the particularities of your arrangement abundantly mysterious, but he wouldn’t stoop that low. Or you think he wouldn’t, but you can’t be sure. He seemed safer than the man you were almost stuck with. But safer doesn’t necessarily mean safe.

The notion chews you up until the cantina is all but empty, and Karga is reviewing your work. It’s the only time you’ve had all day to ask questions, and you jump at the chance. “Who’s the Mandalorian?”

Karga looks up from the holopad with a furrowed brow and looks back down as he answers. “Mando’s my best hunter. Why?”

“I dunno,” you answer with a shrug. “I just get the impression that… That I’m supposed to know who he is.” And you’d had that feeling before the confrontation at the bar. The second you heard the word Mandalorian, it jumped at you like it was supposed to be important to you. It’s one of those gut feelings that you get every once in a while that you know you’re supposed to listen to.

“Well, it’s inevitable. He’s bound to show up again sometime soon to collect some new pucks.” Karga hands the holopad back to you. “Good work for the first day, but tomorrow should be even better. There’s a lot of room for improvement.” 

You look between Karga and the holopad. “And did I…?”

“Did you what?” Karga asks. “Earn your daily percentage? Oh, sure.”

Good. It might not be much, but .02% off of your outstanding debt every day you work for Karga is a vital step in the long crawl to independence. But knowing you earned your keep for the day opens up your mind to different concerns. “So,” you continue. “When am I gonna meet this Mandalorian?”

“You’re not going to,” he says. “Whenever he decides to show up, you keep quiet. I don’t need you making him even more irritable than usual. I’ve already had a hard enough time with him lately as it is.”

You let out a small sigh of relief. So, it’s not what people think. “What do you mean?” you press.

“You two would clash,” Karga answers. “Trust me when I say that it’s in your best interests to say as little to him as possible.”

That still doesn’t serve as a description. It doesn't explain why you can't see his face or why people seem to think that you’re somehow… intended for him. It doesn’t explain why you have a gut feeling about him. But Karga shuts off the holopad and changes the subject.

“Alright,” he says as the lights in the Cantina go off. “Come on. I’ll show you where you’re staying.” 

Your room is a small one near the kitchen at the back of Karga’s house. Only a small but serviceable cot stands in the room positioned under a window with plain linen curtains. Of course, none of it belongs to you. The only things that truly belong to you are the clothes on your back, and eventually, those won’t belong to you either.

It’s fine. It’s just another person holding your debt while you work to pay it off, that’s all. People have bought your debt before, and the same people have sold it. Nothing changes for you except the place you live, the work you do, and the person holding the documents.

You drag a hand down your face, settle on the cot, and try to forget about it for the night. One day down. Twenty years to go.

The next day, Karga takes you back to the cantina bright and early. Something about a client that’s picky about having meetings at the break of dawn. But once you’re there, it’s full throttle. Hunters and clients alike pour in one after the other, not to mention those who are there for the drinks. The cantina seems louder than it did yesterday, and it doesn’t help when clients are yelling for Guild rates being too high and hunters are yelling about not having enough clients.

You collapse onto the booth next to Karga after dealing with a hunter who didn’t deliver on a bounty with a very specific deadline and bury your aching head in the palms of your hands.

“It gets worse,” Karga promises you, sounding as exhausted as you feel. “But I’m only expecting one more hunter today. You’ll be fine.”

It’s then that the door slides open, and you pick up your head from your hands.

“Speak of the devil,” Karga mumbles to you.

Hunters have been in and out all day. Nothing at all should be striking about one more in the neverending stream. But there’s something different about this one. Something about the way he walks. He’s not cocky. Plenty of Karga’s hunters are cocky. It’s something else. It’s how sure his stride is. Like he knows the specific way he’d take out every single person in the room. Like he knows he wouldn’t even have to think about it. And he certainly doesn’t need to tell anyone. They know without being told.  

He walks directly to Karga. Doesn’t stop. Doesn’t even hesitate. When he approaches the table, even Karga seems like a small man in comparison, and that’s when you notice that the cantina has quieted considerably. And that’s when you know. This is the Mandalorian. 

“Who’s she?” a voice comes from the helmet, deep and vibrating. A perfect match to the intimidating figure before you. The sound of it rattles you so much that it takes a moment before you even consider that he’s talking about you.

“My new secretary,” Karga explains. “She’s all right, Mando. Sit down. We’ll talk business.”

“I don’t talk business with outsiders,” Mando counters, shifting his beskar helmet to look more fully at you.

You’re walking the thin line between fear and captivation. You should be looking to Karga for your instructions, but you can’t rip your wide eyes off of the Mandalorian. There’s no way you’re going to try to stare him down. You wouldn’t dare. But you wouldn’t dare look away either.

“Come on, Mando,” Karga tries after a moment. “How am I supposed to keep track of all the pucks I send out if I don’t have someone to keep a record of them? Besides, she’s contractually obligated to follow my commands. If I tell her that everything stays in these four walls, it does. Now, come on. I haven’t got all day.”

It’s a split-second of hesitation as he considers you. And you can feel him consider you, sizing you up, deciding how dependable you are. He has nothing to go off of except your looks, which are not the best they’ve ever been. “Pretty. Not pretty enough to change Mando’s mind.” The split-second passes, and the judgment is made. He’s turning and walking away without a word.

“Mando, wait!” Karga calls after him. “There you go again with the theatrics!”

The Mandalorian barely looks over his shoulder to acknowledge him.

Karga nudges you. “Wait outside. This shouldn’t take long.” 

With a nod, you stand and make your way to the front door. On the way, you pass the Mandalorian and try not to notice how tall he is or how his stare follows you out the door. It’s the same stare that you’ve gotten from everyone else. New girl. No explanation. But at the same time, it’s so, so different. You can’t put your finger on it. You just know. Maybe if you could see his eyes, you’d understand. 

Once you're outside, you take a deep breath like your head has been underwater for an hour and you just resurfaced. Too much noise in that cantina, you decide. That’s why you’re so dizzy right now. Too much noise, and too many notes. You should be relieved to have a break.

But through the window, you can catch glimpses of the Mandalorian as he talks to Karga. It’s not a sense of relief you feel. You’re insulted. What right does he think he has to throw you out? But Karga agreed to it, so maybe it’s him you should be insulted by. Or maybe, as a servant, you don’t have a right to be insulted by anything at all.

So, if you aren’t insulted, what are you?

It’s only a few minutes before Mando walks out of the Cantina. He spares you a glance before turning his back to you and walking away. Only a glance, but it’s enough. You know what you are now. You are fascinated by what terrifies you.    

Once Mando fades into the crowds of the street, you return to the booth where Karga sits.

“That was the Mandalorian?” you ask. You don’t need to ask. You’re already sure.

“Yes,” Karga answers. “And he’s even more pedantic than usual like I was afraid of.”

You fold your arms over your chest like you’re trying to protect yourself. “I didn’t even say anything.”

“No, no,” Karga agrees, waving your words away. “No, you did fine. Mando doesn’t like me changing his routine on him. He’s very big on rituals. You know how Mandalorians are. I think even just your presence bothered him somehow.”

You choose not to bring up the fact that you have no idea how Mandalorians are. Instead, you ask, “Did he take a puck?”

“I gave him four options, and now I’m giving him time to consider which two he wants. I wish he’d take more than two sometimes. He’s the best hunter we’ve got, and if he took even one more there would be much fewer days like this for you and me.” 

The concept of fewer hectic days sounds nice. “Well, couldn’t someone, I don’t know… Convince him?”

"How would you convince him?" Karga asks, rolling his eyes.

You shrug. "I don't know," you admit. "I'd think of something. If I had an incentive to, of course." You give him a pointed glance.

Karga laughs. “You're more conniving than you let on,” he says. “Sure. If you can convince Mando to change his mind, I’ll take five percent off of your debt. How does that sound to you?”

You nearly choke. How does it sound? It sounds like a whole year off of your sentence. “Deal,” you answer. To be completely honest, you’re not thinking about it beyond the potential payoff.

“You’re out of your mind, girl,” Karga sighs. “No one changes Mando’s mind. Not even Mando changes Mando’s mind.”

“I'm on break in ten minutes,” you tell him after checking the time. "Find someone else.”

He leans in. "I would’ve asked someone else if I could’ve. Two seconds, doc. That’s all I’m asking for.”

You drop the datapad into your satchel. “Fine,” you sigh. “What can I do for you?” 

He extends his left hand, revealing a swollen welt on the base of his thumb. “Luke suggested I get this checked out,” he explained. “I don’t think it’s that bad, but I thought what the hell?”

You seize his hand gently and hold it close for inspection. “How’d this happen?”

“Lost my gloves outside yesterday,” he says.

“Numb?”

“Pins and needles.”

You drop his hand. “That’s frostbite, Han,” you tell him. “It is that bad.”

Han cradles his hand to himself. “No need to get snippy, sister,” he says. “What do I do about it?”

Ten minutes until your break... But you’ve never been able to refuse Han, and Dak will understand if you’re late to lunch. 

You sigh and lead Han to a basin of warm water. “Give me your hand,” you instruct. 

He complies, resting his hand palm-up in yours. Slowly, you submerge his hand under the warm water, trying to ignore his pained hiss when the water hits the frostbite.

“Keep it warm. Keep it covered. Do not rub or massage it,” you tell him. “What did I just say? Repeat it back.”

“Warm, covered, no rubbing,” Han repeats.

You nod and pull some gauze out of your satchel. “I’ll write you a prescription for anti-inflammatories. Set an appointment with me within the next couple of days to check up. Alright?”

“Well, aren’t we in a rush today?”

“I told you,” you say. “My break is in ten minutes, and I’m meeting Dak for lunch. Hand.”

Once again, his hand is in yours. “You ever not meeting Ralter for lunch?”

Slowly, you begin to wrap the gauze around his thumb into a sort of fingerless glove. “Occasionally,” you answer absently. “Why? Does it suddenly bother you that I eat with my friends?”

“No,” Han responds immediately. “You and Ralter are pretty friendly, though.”

His meaning isn’t lost on you, and it gives you a moment’s pause as you look up at him. He has this idiotic smirk on his face like he’s got you pinned down and dissected. It’s infuriating. As if you and Dak Ralter of all people would be involved. As if there was anyone for you besides... “Yeah, of course, we’re friendly,” you tell him. “We’re friends.”

“‘Course, you are,” Han replies. The smirk doesn’t leave. 

You study him for another second before dropping his hand. “Do you have something to say, Solo?”

He folds his arms over his chest and leans in. “Do you, doc?”

The sudden proximity is a little too much. Maker, you can feel his warmth. “Impossible man…” you grumble as you straighten yourself and walk away.

“Would you have me any other way?” Han calls after you.

“Yes, I would!” you shout back over your shoulder. You could waste hours describing the various ways you would have him, but you’ve had enough of Han Solo for one day. You’ve never been able to understand how someone so… pretty and charismatic can be such a nuisance. 

When you reach the mess hall, you collapse on the bench across from Dak. “Sorry, I’m late,” you mumble.

“What kept you?” Dak asks, pushing your rations across the table to you.

“Solo got frostbite,” you explain, stabbing at your rations.

“Oh?” Dak says with a conspiratorial look. “Did he beeline for you like always?”

“Stop it, Dak,” you say through a mouthful. You swallow before continuing. “It’s not gonna happen. He’s obsessed with the idea of you and me together.” 

Dak nearly chokes before he starts laughing.

“Yeah, I know,” you say as a smile creeps over your face.

“How doesn't he know about me?”

You shrug and shake your head. “He’s an oblivious idiot?”

Dak nods. “Either that or I’ve got to try harder,” he muses. “Why not tell him it’s never gonna happen next time?”

You stammer before a coherent sentence leaves your mouth. “Oh, right. Right, of course. How does this sound? ‘Hey, Han, you’ve got the wrong idea about me and Dak. You can fuck me through the floor now.’ How about that?”

Dak is silent for a moment. “I love how that’s where your mind immediately goes,” he says. He takes a bite of his rations. “You need to make out already. Before the end of the week.”

“Ha ha.”

“No, I’m serious,” Dak says. “I dare you.”

You almost cough up your food. “No!” you say. “Not that stupid game!”

“You owe me a dare! You said so yourself.”

“That was over a month ago!”

Dak wields his fork at you like a weapon. “Fair’s fair,” he insists. “You’ll thank me later.”

“Doubt it,” you grumble.

But Dak waves off your doubt and moves on. It’s easy for him. He doesn’t think about it every day.

You, on the other hand, think about it all through lunch. You think about it through the end of your shift, dinner, and on the way to the barracks. The mere thought of simply kissing Han plagues you when you brush your teeth and change into nightclothes. It cuts into your sleep.

Which explains why you're so tired at your shift the next morning, slumping into the medbay and making caf before attempting conversation with anyone.

"Doctor?" Harter Kalonia approaches you after your first sip. "Are you ready to start?"

"Yes," you sigh, lying through your teeth and reaching for the datapad she’s holding out to you. One look at the name at the top of the info sheet and you want to bash your head against the wall. "Who let Captain Solo schedule his appointment for first thing today?"

"He insisted," Kalonia replies. "He's waiting in the examination room right now."

"Of course, he is," you grumble. "Let's get this over with."

When you walk in, he’s sitting on the examination table like he’s not sure what to do with himself. His frostbitten hand is pinned between his knees while his other is propping him up, and there’s a scowl on his face that’s almost comical.

“So,” you begin, “I guess I should’ve specified not to book me for the very next day.”

“Well, doc, you seemed a little too busy to elaborate on much of anything,” he says, sounding as irritated as he looks.

“I told you to go find someone else,” you point out.

“And I told you that there was no one else,” he counters.

“Nevermind,” you say with a roll of your eyes. “Let’s see it.”

He holds out his hand and lets you gingerly unwrap the burn. It’s something you should take your time with, but the closeness is making everything foggy. His head is so close to yours, and you’re both looking down at your hands, observing the way your fingers brush up against his now and then. If both of you were to look up at the same time, you would be nose-to-nose. There isn’t anything you want more than to be over with it. Nevertheless, you push through every agonizing second until his hand is bare before you.

“It isn’t the worst I’ve seen,” you explain. “Fairly mild, in fact. Keep taking your meds, and it should heal up within a few months. So… more appointments, probably. Not tomorrow. Give it some time to progress.”

“Sure,” he agrees.

“Good thing it’s your left, huh?”

“I’m left-handed.”

“No,” you protest. “You shoot with your right.”

“I shoot with my right,” he confirms. “Everything else I do with my left.”

It would be laughable if you weren’t mortified. “Funny how the only person I know who wears two jackets indoors managed to get one of the most inconvenient frostbites on base,” you mumble.

“I see nothing funny about this,” he counters.

“I promise you it’s hysterical from this side,” you say, making appointment notes on the datapad.

Han furrows his eyebrows and practically pouts. “Well, I’m glad I could amuse you.” 

He’s being childish, and you’re sure he doesn’t think so. For once, you smile at how ridiculous he is. And then you look up to notice that his eyebrows have unfurrowed and his face has lost its hardness as he looks at you. You stand that way until your smile fades, and you realize that you’re standing nearly nose-to-nose as you feared. If you wanted to, you could move just a couple inches forward and… Dak’s challenge immediately comes to mind when your eyes flick down to his lips, and the backward step you take is almost involuntary.

“Right,” you say, swallowing hard. “That’s it for today. Set an appointment for about two weeks from now on your way out, alright?”

“Aren’t you gonna wrap this up?” he questions, waving his hand.

“Oh, yeah,” you mutter, reaching for fresh gauze from your satchel.

You’re halfway done wrapping his hand when he speaks up in a low voice. “You’re doing it again,” he says.

You spare him a glance before returning to your work. “Doing what?” you question. 

“Rushing. Like you can’t wait to get away from me. You treat all your patients like this or am I just special?” 

“You’re imagining things,” you say, shaking your head. This isn’t a safe conversation. 

“Yeah?” he asks, closing his hand over yours and making you look him in the eye. “Then how come you walk in here without so much as a hello and try to leave without so much as a goodbye?"

It takes you a moment to work up an answer to that. How are you supposed to explain to him that the only reason you keep him at arm’s length is because of how badly you want him closer all the time? How could you ever possibly explain something you don’t fully understand yourself? “I-I’m not trying to. I’m just...”

“Busy?”

“Busy,” you confirm.

Han nods, lets you finish wrapping his hand, stands, and takes a deep breath. “Figures,” he says. “Say hello to Ralter for me.”

“Maker—” you start, your hands curling into fists at your sides. “I— You— You are so oblivious sometimes. For your information, I’m not even having lunch with Dak today.” 

“Alright, I get your point,” he says, heading for the door.

You don’t think he really does, but you still don’t know how to explain it to him. You don’t know if it would matter. It doesn’t stop you from calling his name before he can step through the door. “Han.”

He stops dead in his tracks and hesitates a moment before looking back at you. “Yes, doctor?” he sighs.

You don’t know. Honestly, you were saying his name just to say it. You close your eyes and take a deep breath. “Just…” you start. When you open your eyes again, he’s still staring at you. You like to imagine that you can still see some of the softness in his features that he showed you a moment ago. “Please… Take care of yourself?”

He swallows hard before answering, “What do I rely on you for?” He’s out the door before you can answer.

At the end of your shift, Dak meets you outside the medbay to go to dinner.

“Hey,” you greet him.

Whether he knows by the tone of your voice or the way you’re walking, Dak cringes and says, “Was your day that bad?”

“Well, I had an appointment with Solo if that answers your question,” you answer. You hold up a finger. “And before you ask, no I didn’t.”

Dak smiles and shakes his head as you begin to walk. “At this point, it’s like you don’t want to.”

“I do!” you answer a little too quickly and a little too loud. Quietly, you repeat yourself. "I do…"

"Then why don't you do something about it?"

"Because," you sputter. "It's just… It's not that easy. I mean, what if he didn’t kiss me back?"

"Is that it?" Dak asks. "Am I being stupid or is this the same guy who comes in for every stubbed toe and doesn’t let anyone else treat him?”

“Because I’m a good doctor!”

“Yeah, but you’re so mean to him,” he answers. “Look, you’ve got nothing to worry about. And besides, fair’s fair. So—”

“No, Dak,” you say, turning serious. “That’s just it. If something happens, I want it to happen because I want it. Because he wants it. This is a real part of my life, not a game or a joke. It’s just— It’s too important.”

Dak is silent a moment before whispering. “Holy kriff, this is beyond a crush for you, isn’t it?”

You walk with your head down and don’t answer.

“Okay,” Dak continues. “Okay. No dares. You do it in your own time.”

“Thank you,” you say. Then you smile. “Now, can we talk about something else? I have had enough of Han Solo for one day.”

Dak wraps his arm around your shoulders and squeezes. “Absolutely.”

It’s the end of the week, and your shift is nearly over when your comm buzzes.

“Hey, doc, do you do house calls?” Han’s voice asks the minute you pick up.

“Solo?” you say. “How did you get this frequency? It’s for medical personnel only.”

“Pulled a few strings. Do you do house calls?”

“Technically, yes. But it’s—” A deep breath. “It’s the end of my shift.”

“It’s not for me,” he says. “It’s Chewie this time. Can you swing by the Falcon?”

A moment’s hesitation. “Give me two seconds,” you say before flicking off the comm and gathering your med bag.

You know exactly where the Falcon sits. You pass her every day on the way to the mess hall and try not to think about the captain, but you’ve never been inside. There’s no time to consider that as you climb the ramp and navigate the halls to where Chewie sits. Han is standing over him like a protective parent which almost makes you laugh considering how often it’s the other way around.

“Finally!” Han says, waving you over. “Tell her what’s wrong, Chewie.”

Chewie says… something. 

“I don’t speak Shyriiwook,” you tell Han. “You’re going to have to translate.”

Han nods. “He caught his wrist and twisted it working on the power couplings. Says it hurts something awful.”

So it went that you would ask Chewie a question and Han would translate his answer. Chewie had sprained his wrist badly, but you fixed him up with a sling and instructed him to rest it. “And I mean it,” you said. “I know you work hard, but you need to let it be for about two weeks. Got it?”

Chewie nodded and said something that sounded like affirmation before standing and retreating down the hall.

“Ah, he’s gonna go get some sleep,” Han explained. “Been a long day for him.”

“Him and me both,” you sigh, leaning against the wall and trying to stretch out a kink in your neck that’s been there all week. 

Han swallows hard and reaches for a cabinet on the wall. “Drink?” he asks, retrieving a bottle of brown liquor from the cabinet and pouring two glasses before you can answer.

“Guess I’m off-duty now,” you concede, accepting the glass with a nod. You take a sip and let the burn of the liquid settle in your stomach before speaking up. “So, why’d you drag me out here? He could’ve come to the medbay with that.”

“Well, uh,” Han begins, swirling his drink and not meeting your eyes. “Don’t tell him I told you, but he’s sweet on one of your nurses and didn’t want to embarrass himself. Harter something.”

Your eyes widen. “Harter Kalonia?”

“That’s the one.”

“Oh,” you say. It comes out as a giggle. “Well, she’s cute.”

“Yeah, she is,” Han agrees and takes a swig of his drink.

That response doesn’t sit right with you. Before you have a chance to think, you blurt out, “You wouldn’t stand a chance with her, of course.”

Han raises his eyebrows, folds his arms over his chest, and leans against the wall with you. Less than an arm’s length away. “I wouldn’t? What makes you say that?”

“Well,” you scoff. “Reason one: Kalonia isn’t a nurse. She’s a first-year resident on her way to being a doctor. Reason two: she’s a very no-nonsense girl. Level-headed. Not your type. Reason three—”

He holds up a hand. “Whoa, hold on,” he says. “How do you figure who’s my type and who’s not?”

“I—” you begin, struggling for a good explanation besides the fact you figured his type was anyone not like you. You take a swig of your drink and swallow. “I assume—”

“Yeah, you assume,” Han says. “And I venture to say that your idea of who my type is is a lot different from mine. But go on. Reason three?”

You take a deep breath before continuing. “Reason three: Kalonia wouldn’t hold with your… style.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that I don’t think you could seduce a woman without yelling at her.”

“Oh, you think so?” Han asks, leaning in. “Bet I could surprise you. You oughta make it part of that dare game you play with the pilots.”

You almost snort. “Yeah, I think that game effectively ended a couple days ago.”

“How come?”

He’s looking at you with the same softness you saw in him before, and you wind up staring at him so long that you almost forget to laugh off the question. When you do laugh, it comes out awkward. “Something stupid Dak dared me to do, that’s all,” you answer, pushing yourself off of the wall and gathering all of your supplies back into the bag. “Thanks for the drink. I’m off.”

He calls your name before you reach the door. Not “doctor.” Not even “doc.” He says your name, and even though you squeeze your eyes shut like it hurts you, it’s one of the nicest things you’ve ever heard from him.

“There you go again,” he says, irritation lacing his voice. “Running off without a goodbye.”

You turn back to face him. “Why do you care so much?”

Now, he pushes himself off the wall and walks over to you. His shoulders are hunched, and he looks like he’s at war with himself. “What was the dare?”

“None of your business,” you answer.

“It’s just between you and Ralter, isn’t it?”

Exasperated, you throw your hands up. “What is your obsession with me and Dak?”

“It’s not an obsession! I just wanna know what’s going on!”

“He dared me to kiss you! Is that what you wanna hear?”

That shuts him up. Considering that was more information than you ever planned on volunteering, it shuts you up, too. 

It’s a full minute before Han says, “I thought he was in love with you.”

You roll your eyes. “He’s not in love with me,” you answer. “Dak Ralter doesn’t like women.”

Han goes silent again as he processes the new information. Finally, he speaks again. “And you turned down the dare?”

“Of course, I did,” you answer immediately.

“Of course, you did,” Han repeats. “Why would I think anything different?”

"What are you talking about?"

"What am I talking about?" he responds. "I'll tell ya, sister. I'm talking about how I've had just about enough of this for one day."

You laugh in his face, trying to hide how his words sting. "Oh, you've had enough? I've had enough of you from day one!"

“Fine! See if I come by your office again! I won’t! Weren’t you leaving, or something?”

“As a matter of fact, I was,” you snap and march out the door. 

The minute you leave the Falcon, you stop dead in your tracks. The outside cold hits you like a slap to the face, but there’s cold under your skin too. You’re shaking, not shivering; and your own words are gnawing at your mind. You can’t bring yourself to take another step forward. In fact, you want to turn back around. You want to look him in the face and argue with him until the sun rises. You want to feel his hand closing around yours again. You want to sit in total silence with him for hours. Yes, he’s a storm that makes your bones ache with his presence, but you’re a liar if you say you’ve had enough of him. You’ve never had enough of him. You never would.

The beginnings of a scream rise in your throat before you spin around and march back up the Falcon’s ramp. 

You collide into his chest in the hallway, just as he’s storming out of the lounge. When you regain your bearings, you both start talking at the same time. Then you both stop. Then you both start again.

You slap your hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry,” you say. “I would take it back if I could.” Then you drop your hand. Oh, but your fingers glide over his lips and down his chin so you curl them into a fist once they’re back by your side.

“So, you’re saying you would take the dare if you had another chance?” he challenged. “Alright, I dare you.”

You stare, horrified. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Slightly,” he admits. “I don’t know… You’re a doctor, right? Can you explain why I can’t even think straight when I’m in the same room as you?”

“What?”

“I just said I can’t think straight,” he repeats. His hands are on your shoulders before you can register that he’s reaching for you. “As a matter of fact, I haven’t been able to go a whole day without thinking about you for months now, and I’d like to know what’s wrong with me. Have any idea?”

You don’t know what’s wrong with him, but you sure as hell know what’s wrong with you. So you answer, “A little…”

“It means something to you?”

“Um,” you start. His fingers are gripping your shoulders so tightly, it’s dizzying. “A little.”

It’s not the answer you mean to give, and by the way he sighs and pulls his hands away from you it wasn’t the answer he was hoping for either. A little too late, your mind clears, and you realize that he’s slipping away. And maybe it’s the alcohol taking the edge of fear off, but you’re so sick of letting your chances pass you by. So you grab him by his sleeve and pull him back to you.

You’re nose-to-nose again, but this time it’s on purpose. Your neck has to crane to look up at him like this, and he has to bend his head down. He could move right now, you realize. If he wanted to, he could step away. But he doesn’t.

So you kiss him, grabbing him by the lapels of his jacket and pulling him in. The cold in you shatters, making way for burning, melting warmth when he wraps his arms around your waist and hoists you closer to him. It’s still not close enough, but it’s better than you dreamed. You had never quite gotten the details right in dreams. How could you have imagined the texture of his hair at the nape of his neck where your fingers comb through or the unexpected softness of his lips against yours? How could you have imagined the way his arms around you are both strong and gentle. How could you have imagined him not letting go even when you pull away? How could you have imagined such warmth in a frozen wasteland? 

It’s a moment after you pull away before you dare to open your eyes, but when you do, you find him staring at you, soft and dazed. 

“Okay?” you ask as though a kiss is a sufficient explanation.

But then again, maybe it is, because he swallows and nods. “Okay…”

With a smile, you kiss him again — quickly and sweetly — before wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him into an embrace, your hand cradling the back of his head. You can feel his smile, warm against the curve of your neck.

The radio lights up. “Hold it, Resistance scum,” a voice warns. “We have you on your screens now. Identify, or we’ll shoot.”

They might just do so anyway, you remind yourself. “Diplomatic mission from the Ileenium System,” you manage in a wavering voice. “Ambassador transport requesting deactivation of the deflector shields.”

Nothing but static. Of course, what did you expect? Any moment now, you’ll be blasted into the cold vacuum of space. But a presence is whispering in the back of your mind. It finds the first loose stone in the wall around your mind and latches onto the opening until it’s all you can think about.

In a rage, you flick on the radio. “And if Kylo Ren is there,” you add. “Tell him that if he doesn’t let me in, I’ll tattle to his mother about him.” But, of course, he’s there. There’s no one else in the galaxy whose mere presence could inspire the same rage in you. There’s no one else whose presence you would feel as potently. 

That’s why you’re not surprised when the disgruntled officer’s voice comes over the radio again. “Clearance granted. Land in hangar two in the north quadrant.” He sounds disappointed like he had been hoping for a fireworks show.

You confirm and comply. Here it is before you: the moment of truth. You can see as plain as day how it will unfold. You’ll tell Ren you’re there to win him back, and he’ll laugh in your face and run his saber through you. He’ll tell himself it was justified. He’ll believe he is in the right. It’s what you deserved for refusing to join him when he offered it. After all, he’d given you one chance already. If you were lucky and if he was feeling merciful, he might keep you alive long enough to give you a second chance which you would flatly refuse once again. And the Dark Side will pull him in further and further into delusion until there isn’t even a memory of who he used to be. 

But Leia had asked you to do this.

The army of stormtroopers that you expect to be at hangar two is not there. No one is there. The hangar is vacant as far as the eye can see. But there’s that presence again, sucking you in like a whirlpool. Oh, there is someone there. Someone who doesn’t want you to see him.

He’s watching you; you can feel it. He’s watching as you sit for another five minutes in your X-wing, gritting your teeth and steeling your nerves. He watches as you slap your cheek once just to get the blood flowing again, and he watches as you climb out of the ship and land firmly on the ground. In his territory, now.

“Well,” you say to the empty air. “Don’t be a coward, Ren. I’m unarmed, which is more than I can say of you.”

The silence rings in your ears until you hear his voice. Oh, Maker, you hear his voice, same as ever it was. “It’s been a long time.” He doesn’t call you love. That endearment used to punctuate every other sentence Ben Solo muttered to you. Not anymore.

“Not long enough,” you spit out. “I’m not here to talk to thin air, Kylo. If you don’t show yourself—”

“You’ll tattle to my mother about me?” He’s so close now. Just behind you with a voice that is suddenly modulated and stiff. Maker, you could turn around and see him if you wanted to. “You’re one of her Resistance pilots now, I see.”

Your fingers curl into fists. “Did the bright orange flight suit give it away?”

“It seems a pity to me. There was a time when you would have made a brilliant Jedi.”

At this, you turn, and you see his mask staring back at you. Empty. Emotionless. Dark and foreboding. One look and you’re beginning to understand what it must have been like to see Darth Vader in the flesh. Kylo’s fantasy leaking into a horrifying reality.

Still, you don’t stutter. “Is that your idea of a joke?” you grit, wishing to the stars you had your blaster so you could make him regret it.

He doesn’t answer you. His head tilts to the side, and his mechanical voice is almost soft when it says, “You haven’t changed…”

You wish your heart didn’t thud the way it did when he said that. “I wish I could say the same about you,” you reply. You can’t bear to face him any longer, and you can only hope that he doesn’t notice when you lower your eyes.

But he doesn’t have to notice. He could read you backward and forwards. He could recite you like a poem. He doesn’t have to notice that your eyes lower. All he has to do is look for your mind and find your fear. “You’re afraid of the mask.” He states it so matter-of-factly, not even giving you a chance to rebuff it. As if you would. Lying to him about anything is pointless. “Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not,” you snap suddenly, meaning it truly. You aren’t afraid of the helmet. You’re afraid of what’s underneath. You’re afraid that behind the facade there is a man—a creature—who still looks and sounds like Ben Solo. That is the fear that is radiating off of you.

Which is why he reaches up and removes the helmet.

It’s the familiarity of his face that strikes you first. It’s how it could have been another day at the academy… Another day of staring at watery brown eyes that used to make you happy just by their being. It’s how in a different life, those eyes might have smiled at you again. It’s the fact that despite everything, he still has Ben’s face, just like you feared. You lower your eyes again, and this time, you do not look up.

“I take it that General Organa is still leading the Resistance?” he questions.

You cringe at the impersonal way he chooses to refer to his own mother. “She is,” you confirm.

“Of course. Who else could inspire such loyalty in you?”

Kriff, you want to scream at him. Ben could have! Ben used to! Ben still would if there was a scrap of him alive somewhere! “Yeah, who else…?” you say instead.

“What about Han Solo?”

“Haven’t heard from your father or Chewie for a year,” you huff. “If you care about your family so much, why don’t you go back home and ask after them yourself?”

Out of the corner of your eye, you notice him look away from you. It’s only then that you get the courage to look at him directly. The sight of his nose in profile, his hair tousled back from his face… It’s almost too much, but you can’t make yourself look away. You don’t want to look away.

“Don’t ask me that,” he demands through gritted teeth.

“I’ll ask whatever the kriff I want,” you answer back the same way. “What are you going to do? Kill me? I came here with every expectation that you would.”

“Why did you come?” he asks.

The answer is becoming far more nuanced than the one you give. “Because your mother asked me to. She misses you.”

He turns back to you and fixes you in his gaze. He tilts his head, looks down his nose at you. “What about you? Do you miss me?”

You take a step towards him. You’re so close that you have to tilt your head up to look at him properly. You hope he can feel your breath on his face. You want it to sting. “I miss Ben Solo,” you whisper to him. “I don’t know who you are.”

Kylo grips your arms, and you’re sure he’ll leave bruises the size of his fingertips. “I am stronger and wiser than Ben Solo ever could have been,” he insists. “But in every other way, I’m the same. Can’t you see that?”

You wrench yourself away from his grasp. “Don’t you dare claim to be anything like Ben,” you say, warning hanging in your voice. “Ben was kind. Ben was gentle and scared. Don’t you dare.”

“You know so much and yet so little,” he counters. “If you only knew what kind of power you could have.”

“I don’t need power!” you say. “I never needed power. I just needed you!”

He’s staring at you like you just stabbed him, and it’s only then that you realize your mistake.

“Ben,” you correct yourself. “I needed Ben.”

Still, he says nothing and stays statue-still. It gives you time to notice how darkly the Force is moving around him. Time to notice the presence of stormtroopers outside the door, no doubt waiting for Ren’s command if you don’t comply with his wishes. He’s backing you into a wall.

“There’s no point,” you say after a pregnant pause. “No point in trying to convert me. I made my choice years ago.”

“So did I,” he finally says. “You have to realize that I can’t let you go. Not like I did the first time.” At this, the doors open. The legion of stormtroopers flood in. 

“Of course,” you respond after a shuddering breath. “How could I expect anything different from you?”

Two troopers come to grab your arms and haul you to a restraining cell before Kylo can respond. You don’t see him for days afterward. In those days, you’re not interrogated or tortured, which defies your expectations. But except for a rotating guard and food once a day, you’re left completely alone which is arguably worse. It gives you too much time alone with your thoughts, and every time you remember Kylo’s face when you told him you needed him is worse than being flayed.

When he finally comes to see you, he’s maskless, but his face is hardened. He sits across from you and doesn’t speak for a long while.

You don’t want to be the first to talk, but the silence is killing you. “Can I help you?” you say at last.

“Do you remember when you first came to the Academy?” he asks.

“Yes, because it was you who asked me to.”

“Because I knew you were strong. I knew what kind of power you could one day hold.”

You smile a bitter smile and tilt your head to the side. “And all along I thought it was because you wanted me there with you.”

Perhaps he would never admit it, but you know him as well as he knows you. You notice the subtle shift in his jaw when he clenches his teeth. You notice the vein in his temple throb.

 Nevertheless, he doesn’t give you the dignity of a response. Instead, he says, “You mean to tell me that you haven’t continued to study the Force in all this time?”

“Why would I?”

“You could have become strong enough to defeat me.”

You look down at your open hands. Hands that could have killed him, if you had practiced more. Luke had asked you to before he disappeared. He had told you all about the balance that it was his duty to keep. A duty he couldn’t fulfill as a master without an apprentice. Still, you had refused. You were not the right person for the job, you had told him. What you hadn’t said was that you never could have killed Ben… Kylo… If it had come down to it, you would have failed. And you wouldn’t have been able to stop him. 

“You would have killed me anyway,” you answer. “You were always going to, weren’t you?”

“I wouldn’t—”

“Stop lying to me,” you snap before he can finish his sentence. “You came into that hangar intending to kill me if I refused you again. I may be rusty, but my senses are still attuned enough to tell that much.”

“Yet, you’re still alive,” he points out. “Don’t you wonder why that is?” You look away from him, and you don’t see it when he leaves.

He’s gone for days again, and you begin to crave the sight of him. It makes you wish for a firing squad. How long will you be able to last like this? The Resistance has your loyalty, you have to remind yourself. Leia has your loyalty. The idea of a free galaxy has your loyalty. But Ben has your loyalty too, and there’s a tyrant who parades around with his face. 

The next time you see him, he doesn’t waste any time with silence. “Why is it that you refuse to understand me?” he says. His voice is strained like he’s being choked. “I want to show you everything that Skywalker never would. I want to make you powerful as I have become.”

“I’ve already told you that I don’t want power,” you answer, keeping your eyes on your hands. You don’t want to look at him. You don’t want to become addicted to the sight of him. “Poor seduction tactic.”

After a moment, he kneels in front of you. You see his gloved hand slip into yours before you feel it. Every one of your limbs has gone numb, and you have to squeeze your eyes shut. “Look at me,” he demands coolly.

You don’t have the strength to refuse him. You open your eyes without a thought, without time to regret it. There’s Ben’s face, regardless of who is wearing it.

You aren’t sure if it’s him leaning in to capture you or you leaning in from complete desperation for him, but it doesn’t matter. He’s kissing you, and you’re kissing him back. The cracks in your resolve travel and widen until the whole thing is shattered on the ground.

He gathers you to himself as he stands, his hands pressing hard into your back as he lifts you. Your hands are tangling and tugging on his hair which elicits a low, dangerous noise from his throat. Maker, you shouldn’t be doing this, but that noise… the feeling of his mouth moving against yours… You’ve been so tired, and you don’t want it to stop.

He pulls away from you, his nose still brushing against yours. He’s breathing hard. His hot breath in your open mouth stings. “Do you want me to stop?” he whispers.

You hate him for it. He’s in your mind, sensing your thoughts. He knows as well as you do that you don’t want it to end. So, you don’t answer, and let him kiss the curve of your jaw, under your earlobe, down your neck. He doesn’t see the angry, bitter tears rolling down your cheeks.

You’re pulling him closer by his hair, all the while muttering inaudibly. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

He’s muttering, too, as his fingers bunch the fabric of your shirt. Of all the things he’s saying, only one sentence comes through clearly. “Please, let me show you who I am… Please…”

But you have no interest in who he is now, and you realize that as soon as you can comprehend what he’s saying. You’re letting him kiss you because he has the face of a dead boy, and he’s kissing you to destroy you.

“I want Ben back,” you gasp suddenly and louder than all of the words you’ve spoken thus far. 

He stills completely at this, and the Force flows darker around him than it ever has before. After a moment’s hesitation, he lets go of you completely and leaves the cell without giving you so much as a look at his face.

You see him again when you’ve lost count of how long you’ve been in that same restraining cell. The bruises he left on your neck have already darkened and faded. There’s no physical remnant of the last time you saw him. So, why can you still feel him all over you? 

Then without any warning, he walks through the door. He sits next to you, close enough to touch, once again silent and contemplating. You’ve already had enough of silence. “Aren’t you going to say something?” you question.

“I’m thinking,” he says.

“Oh, well,” you scoff. “Excuse me.”

Another long silence before he says, “You’ve never been tortured here, have you?”

“Define torture.”

“I don’t know if you would survive it,” he says, ignoring your quip. “You’re strong, but there are few people who are strong enough to survive the methods the First Order employs for an extended period.”

You hummed. “Is that what you’re planning on, then?” you ask. 

“No. Not to you,” he snaps immediately. “But it’s what others in the ranks are planning on. I’m trying to decide what to do about it.”

“Oh,” you whisper. No more questions. You had pressed him enough already, but you long to peer into his mind and discover what’s going on.

“Why are you prodding?” Kylo asks you. 

“Didn’t mean to…”

“But you want to know,” he says. “You want to know if I would let them torture you. Or maybe I would do it myself. Watch you bleed and suffer. Push you past your breaking point. Wait for you to beg to learn from me, but it would be too late. Do you think I would? You can ask.”

You remain silent, eyeing him skeptically.

He sighs, and your heart hurts for how tired he sounds. “You still don’t trust me.”

“You just described torturing me,” you answer. “That’s hardly grounds for establishing trust.”

“And nothing else would?”

Despite yourself, you smile. “The kissing didn’t do much for me on that front if that’s what you’re asking.”

“But doesn’t it tell you anything?” he asks. His voice has become desperate, almost pleading. It drops the smile right off of your face. “Doesn’t it explain why you haven’t been tortured the entire time you’ve been here? Doesn’t it explain why I didn’t kill you? Why I couldn’t kill you? I should. I should do it right now. But I can’t, because every time it crosses my mind I start to collapse. There is something weak and detestable in me that is still clinging to you.”

He tilted his head until he was looking at you. How reminiscent the scene was. How often you used to see him just like this, sitting side-by-side and spilling your souls in words neither that were simultaneously incomprehensible and true. And then you saw him. For the first time in years, you saw Ben Solo alive and buried deep. A faint spark somewhere in the darkness.

Slowly, you began, “Could it be that you still love me somewhere deep down?”

He looks away from you and down. “Would it matter?” he questions. “I seem to recall you saying that you want Ben Solo back.”

“It matters,” you promise him. Of course, it does. Kylo Ren isn’t capable of love. If there is any part of him that loves you still, that’s the part of him where Ben Solo is still struggling for life. “It matters to me.” 

Then slowly, fearfully, you reach for his hand. You just barely brush your fingertips into his palm at first. There is no warmth there. No cold either. Just a leather glove separating your fingers from his skin. It makes you pause and wonder if you’re being reckless when he doesn’t respond. Oh, but then… His fingers wrap around yours slowly with just as much fear. Leather glove or not, that’s Ben’s hand. It couldn’t be anyone else’s.

The pair of you remain like that for another thirty minutes while you let him think. He squeezes your hand before he leaves.

He doesn’t let days pass this time. He’s back within a couple of hours with a pair of handcuffs that he claps on your wrists without a word, but he looks into your eyes and nods. Just that is enough to make you feel safe. He leads you through the halls of the cruiser with his hand on your lower back. If anyone questions this, they don’t say. You guess that no one wants to openly question Kylo Ren.

You reach hangar two, and it’s just as empty as it was when you first landed in it. A shuddering sigh escapes you when you see your X-wing looking as good and new waiting for you. 

Behind you, Kylo leans down to whisper in your ear. “If you leave now,” he says, “Never come back. Don’t even think of it. Don’t ever try.”

If… There shouldn't be an 'if.' He's offering you an escape, and that should by all rights be your only option. But you know he's offering more. You know he's waiting for you to turn to him and say, "And what if I stay?" 

But you can't bring yourself to. "Understood," you say instead. A faithful subordinate taking an order from a commander. Impersonal and cold.

Now would be the ideal moment to walk away, but you feel cemented where you are. How can you truly leave him? That spark you saw is glowing brighter every second.

"What would you do if I stayed?" you finally ask, knowing full well the danger of a hypothetical.

"I'd get on my knees and pray to you," he says. "I'd do whatever you wanted."

"Would you become Ben again?" you ask.

He hesitates just a moment. "I'd let you call me Ben."

At last, you turn to face him. You're dangerously close. "That’s not the same,” you point out.

He doesn't have an answer for that, and you don't have time to wait for one. You're able to rip your eyes away from him just long enough to throw a glance over your shoulder to your ship. It's time you returned to the Resistance.

But he's grabbing your hand and bringing it to his face, eyes closed as your knuckles graze his cheek. “Stay,” he breathes.

“I can’t,” you tell him.

“Please, love, stay with me,” he whispers, pleading.

It’s breaking your heart, knowing that you have to leave to where he can’t follow. How easily you can imagine that spark of Ben fading away if you leave him now. You suppose that’s why you reach up to hold the side of his head just to feel him lean into your touch. It’s why you stand up on your tiptoes and press your lips to his.

It’s nothing like your last kiss. It’s not the whirlpool drawing you in before you can stop it. Instead, it’s the slow, gentle rhythm of the tide lapping on the shore and fading back out. 

Heat turns to warmth. Fear turns to hope. A hope that floods so much so that when you pull away, you keep your forehead against his and say, “Find me somewhere.”

“Where?”

“Away from here. Away from the Resistance. Find me.”