#bodhiweek

An Imperial broadcast goes out across the HoloNet asking them to pledge their allegiance or face consequences. People start disappearing after that. For a while everything feels unreal, life keeps turning despite the changes until new taxes are instated for people to prove their loyalty. His mother can’t afford them and takes up the offer to work off their “debt” mining kyber instead. The work wears on her but she never complains, trying to hide her hurts for Bodhi’s sake until one night he finds her soaking her aching hands. He feels sick to see her in pain and stricken to do something about it. She’d always been so strong and so protective of him and he feels like he is failing her. When he tells her he wants to take her place, to provide for her, she smiles sadly and shakes her head. ”Bodhi, my brave boy, It is my job to take care of you. If this is the worst of it than we are blessed, do you understand me? I just want you safe no matter what,” she says. He starts to argue but she fixes him with a look of exhaustion and he can’t help but let it go. It’s not the last time he brings it up but she never seems any more convinced.

He tries to focus on his studies as his mother wishes but even his school is overtaken by the Empire’s rhetoric. He’s quieter in class and his friends are too, all understanding what danger getting in trouble could bring. Aptitude tests are given, flight simulators installed, and new lessons keep him busy. Nobody is surprised when the recruiters arrive. An assembly is called for those who test high enough and somehow Bodhi makes the cut. An officer offers the chance of training the Imperial Academy with a stipend for their families as an incentive. Like many of the other boys, he is at first caught up in the idea of seeing the galaxy he’d only ever read about. More than that he knows how much the credits they are offering could help his mother and his choice is made. He signs on.

When he tells her what he has done she cries inconsolably and tells him no amount of credits is worth losing him to those monsters. He feels sick with grief and sick with her disappointment but promises he will come back to her. When all her tears have been shed she won’t look at him. He and the fellow recruits train for weeks at the school before being confirmed to enter the academy. The mental and physical boot camp has Bodhi exhausted. They say it weeds out the weak but still, he survives.

Bodhi was born in the winter in the middle of a surprise thunderstorm. For years afterwards, his family had always told him they knew he would have good fortune, because of the rain, and Bodhi always loved to hear that, whether it was his mother or his aunt or his grandmother saying it.

It made him feel loved.

But Bodhi hadn’t celebrated his birthday since he’d joined the Empire - he never had leave at the right time. When a family member had a birthday, he would content himself with sending a thought-out birthday holo.

In the end, it came up because of the monsoon. Because it rained often on Yavin IV and Bodhi loved it. It didn’t rain very often on Jedha, and when it did, there was always a celebration. People would gather and laugh and run around in the streets and perfect strangers suddenly became like family, all united simply because they were gifted with rain.

“You’re soaking,” Jyn said when he came back in after spending a solid thirty minutes in the rain outside the base.

“Yeah,” Bodhi said happily. On Jedha, the rain was always cool, but on Yavin, it was warm and muggy. Different than on Jedha, but that was okay.

“You couldn’t get an umbrellat?”

“I like to feel the rain,” Bodhi said, grinning at her. “That’s the point.”

Jyn looked unimpressed. “The point.”

“Yeah,” Bodhi said, smoothing back his wet hair. “On Jedha, monsoon season is a two month long celebration. There’s parties and prayer and good food and everything is really nice.” He grinned at her, pulling off his wet raincoat.

“You celebrate because of bad weather,” Jyn said flatly.

“It’s good weather on a desert,” Bodhi said, to which she shrugged. “I was born in the middle of a monsoon. My family said that meant I’d have good fortune.”

“So you were born in monsoon season?” Cassian said, looking up.

“No, no, I was born in winter. It was a surprise thunderstorm,” Bodhi said. “Extra lucky.”

Honestly, he thought that was the last of it, until several months later. It was winter, his birthday was in a few days. He really should have figured out earlier that this was a birthday party, but no one knew his birthday here, so he didn’t figured it out until Jyn passed him a wrapped bundle with a bright orange bow.

“What’s this?” Bodhi asked, taking the bundle. It felt soft.

“Open it,” Chirrut said. “It’s a birthday gift.”

“Is this – ” Bodhi said, unfolding it. It was a light brown cloth, long, the kind that people wore thrown around their shoulders. It was embroidered all over with intricate plants and flowers that bloomed in Jedha. Bodhi felt his breath catch. A family shawl. “You made this for me?”

“Baze embroidered it,” Jyn said. She reached out and touched a slightly lopsided pink flower. “Most of it. I did this flower, which is why it looks so bad. But Chirrut said it was important that we all do a part.”

“You helped?” Bodhi said. He swallowed heavily and touched the little pink flower that Jyn had embroidered. All around it were tiny lopsided flowers that Bodhi could only assume everyone else had made. A cluster of four colorful flowers, surrounded by Baze’s intricate detailed handiwork. “Thank you – thank you so much,” he said, drawing her into a hug.

“We all helped,” K-2 grumbled. K-2 was looking at him like if he got a hug, he’d commit murder, but Bodhi  reached out and grabbed his hand anyways.

“Thank you.”

Family shawls were made during the nine months a child was growing in the womb, traditionally. It was traditional as well that every family member stitched some part. Bodhi’s first family shawl had been an ocean scene, made with care and love almost entirely by his grandmother. His grandmother had made over thirty shawls in her life time, for her little sisters and her nieces and nephews, for her own sons. For Bodhi, her first grandchild, and for her nine grandchildren after him.

It had been lost on Jedha. Along with every shawl that Bodhi had ever helped stitch for his little sisters and his cousins. Along with his family.

But his new family had made him a new family shawl. Just as beautiful as the old, just as important as the old, just as the new family was as important as the old. “Thank you,” Bodhi repeated. He placed the family shawl around his shoulders, reverently. “Thank you.” He reached out to Baze next, who pulled him in. He smelled of Jedha and Bodhi didn’t want to let go, but he did.

“We wanted to do this for you,” Chirrut said, accepting Bodhi’s hug. He too smelled faintly of Jedha. “I suspect your family shawl was lost.”

“I left it on Jedha,” Bodhi said, finally throwing his arms around Cassian. He was trying not to cry, but he didn’t think he was doing a very good job of it. “It got destroyed.” He thought of it every time he thought of Jedha: the proof that his family had loved him, the proof that they were there – just gone. “This is really - thank you.” And now he was crying.

“You’d have done it for us,” Jyn said, reaching out to adjust his shawl tenderly, like Bodhi’s sister might have. Bodhi swiped at his tears.

“So,” Chirrut said, settling against the couch. “Bodhi. Tell us your story.”

This too was traditional – typically, the oldest in the family would tell the story, starting from the birth all the way until whatever age the birthday child was. For the youngest kids, it would take thirty minutes, for the oldest it would sometimes take all day. The last time Bodhi’s grandmother had told his story, it had taken three hours, everyone sitting at her feet, rapt.

Compared to their Imperial counterparts the T-65s are marvels of durability and simplicity. There are a few… interesting design choices that Bodhi notes here and there, but they're definitely not seemingly-disposable death traps like most TIE fighters. Which is an especially good thing because Bodhi starts to get attached to the Rogue Squadron pilots pretty quickly, from helping Janson with a few pranks to wiping the smirk off of Antilles' face during a sabacc game to…

Well, Luke's different. He's the Hero of the Rebellion, the poster boy, and even Bodhi has to admit that the Alliance has lucked out in that because there's something eminently likeable about Luke Skywalker that's apparent from the start to pretty much anyone lucky enough to meet him. Luke's the one who destroyed the Death Star— everything in Bodhi's life up to now seems to have happened so that Luke would be allowed to take down the Empire almost single-handedly, and Bodhi's… okay with that. Luke's a nice enough person— he'd been so sweet when they first met, he'd been excited to meet Bodhi, which is something Bodhi still doesn't quite get, and ever since Luke's done nothing but go out of his way to be kind and helpful, even bringing Bodhi caf when he's up late making repairs to Luke's X-Wing.

Which is a blasted good thing, because Luke's X-Wing… Bodhi understands that Luke is a Jedi, has an ability to manipulate the Force in ways beyond even Chirrut, but still: technology has fundamental limits. Luke appears to have no regard whatsoever for these limits, yet somehow manages to fly his ship home in… close to one piece every single time. Somehow. Not even Wedge's perpetual dings in his armor due to an overly light hand with his deflector shields causes Bodhi quite as much dismay as the number of times he has to replace the power couplings and rerouters in Luke's sublights, or the day Luke comes back in missing the better part of an s-foil but nonetheless emerges from the cockpit with a grin on his face, even as Bodhi rants at him about how it shouldn't even have been possible to fly the blasted thing in space, much less land it in atmo.

Making the situation even more infuriating to Bodhi, the Rebel Alliance is not exactly in the position to purchase as many replacement parts as Bodhi would like. But he and his mother hadn't had a lot of money when Bodhi was growing up, and if there's one thing that Bodhi's become an expert in during his short life, it's making do.  After the first few weeks, Bodhi's datapad is a mess of revised schematics detailing exactly how he's completely rebuilt Luke's T-65, with all of the modifications and customizations he's made along the way. The other mechanics don't even bother looking at it any longer, because it takes less time for Bodhi to just finish whatever else he might be working on before running Luke's maintenance and diagnostics than it does to explain why the fuel lines are in a completely different place or whatever else has them totally stumped. Artoo seems to tolerate the changes, and Luke's ship continues to return, mission after mission; all in all, it's an arrangement that works, and Bodhi's happy with that. Besides, if anyone else works on Luke's ship, they might move the notes.

Bodhi likes the notes. He tries not to think about how much he likes the notes. It's right up there with not paying attention to how much Luke seems to grin at him when he's ranting about physics, the cost of power couplings, and the tolerances of durasteel in the pantheon of things Bodhi tries not to think about too much.

See: especially in the weeks right after Scarif, Bodhi has had some… memory issues. They're not a huge obstacle in his work, but especially when learning how to maintain a completely new spacecraft, it sometimes helps to have visual reminders more immediate than yet another tab on his datapad. So he carries flimsi, a pen, and tape with him as well and isn't shy about labeling things he comes across— just little reminders to himself at first: things he's changed, things he's done, things he needs to do, that sort of thing. Bodhi's usually very thorough about making sure he's cleaned them all up when he goes, but there's this one note, less a reminder to himself and more just an exclamation to himself, "Is he using his 4L4s as engine brakes?" that he truly does forget to pick up out of the cockpit one day.

The next time he sets down to start diagnostics, the note's still there, but with a reply written beneath it. "Yes." Just the one word, but definitely not in his own hand, Bodhi isn't imagining it, and Luke has wandered off elsewhere, so Bodhi doesn't have the chance to explain to him face to face exactly why that's such a horrific idea. Instead he pulls out another little bit of flimsi, tapes it to the bottom of the existing note and scrawls out: "This explains so much. Knock it off."

And things sort of devolved from there. While Bodhi might have some residual guilt about yelling at the golden boy Hero of the Rebellion to his face (not that it ever seems to stop him from going off on his rants in the moment, but still, Luke Skywalker is also the reigning king of the kicked puppy look as well any time that Bodhi goes slightly too far and— that's just more guilt than he can handle), he has no trouble continuing the arguments through the notes. There are several tails of them now trailing through the cockpit of Luke's T-65. Some of them include little diagrams Bodhi's drawn to explain why Luke's breaking the laws of physics as well as the Rebellion's meager budget— Bodhi's sometimes tempted to add 'and my heart' but he doesn't because… well, because he doesn't want to see the kicked puppy look again and maybe because it's a little too close to certain truths that he's not quite comfortable admitting to himself yet, much less to Luke. Luke's added a few drawings as well— he's a better pilot than an artist, but Bodhi treasures every single one nonetheless. Bodhi likes the drawings and the notes, and they feel sort of… private, and so he's a little territorial about Luke's X-Wing, and has managed to fall asleep in it in the middle of repairs more than once, because fixing it is his job and no one else's.

Bodhi watches it fly into the hangar and finishes another mug of caf before grabbing his datapad and walking up to meet it.  Luke's handing off that Artoo unit of his— it's a snippy, fiesty little thing that seems to thrill in getting into fights with Kaytoo over… whatever it is that droids could get into fights with each other about, Bodhi's not sure. What Bodhi does know, judging by the sounds of Luke's engines winding down, is, "You're using your 4L4s as engine brakes again, aren't you?" he groans, grabbing a diagnostic kit from his tool chest.

Luke winces and turns to face Bodhi, his hair a sweaty mess, cheeks flushed bright red, and those blue eyes of his twinkling without a hint of actual remorse, blast him.  "I don't do it on purpose... usually," he adds, just to infuriate Bodhi a little bit more because it's one hell of a maneuver to be pulling off on instinct— though Luke's turning off his targeting computer at the Death Star was apparently instinct as well, but— who knows, it's still infuriating.

Bodhi has the total cost of rerouters that he's replaced thanks to Luke's bad habit pulled up on his datapad already, had been planning to add it to another bit of flimsi, but Luke's here now, may as well show him. "No one else shares your habits, and you're going to bankrupt the entire Rebellion on those rerouters," he says, pushing the pad into Luke's hands.

"I am not," says Luke, his face starting to turn a bit more red as he starts to read.  If they were in the Imperial Navy Luke's habit would have more than just Bodhi getting after him about it… but the Rebellion isn't the Imperial Navy, that's why Bodhi's here in the first place. Luke finally looks up at him, "I promise I'll stop, okay? Kind of hard to forget with all the notes on my controls, now," he adds, a teasing grin on his face.

Bodhi shakes his head and grabs the datapad back. "Didn't stop you today, and those are supposed to be temporary— I'll clean them up, I promise." Luke actually reaches out and grabs Bodhi's shoulder. "No, no— I don't mind them," he says, ducking his head a little.

Bodhi blinks— apparently he's not the only one who likes their little notes— but they're still against regulation and Bodhi's trying to impress a little discipline on Luke. He breathes out a sigh. "Well, do you still need the reminders?"

"Clearly," says Luke, pointing at the datapad, the look on his face almost shy, which doesn't make any sense. It's enough to make Bodhi smile despite himself.

"Fine, flimsi's cheaper than most parts anyway," he says.

Luke grins at him again. "You should leave me as many notes as you'd like, then."

Bodhi shakes his head, turning around to start climbing into the cockpit— he's not really ready for a full dose of the Skywalker charm, not when he has so much work to do. "Oh, I'm sure I'll find something new you've managed to fly this ol' girl home in spite of," says Bodhi.

"Oh, I bet you will." mutters Luke from the bottom of the ladder.

There's something about his tone that strikes a note of fear in Bodhi's heart as he clambers into the cockpit, and he peeks back out of it almost immediately. "That's not-- please don't take what I said as a dare," Bodhi calls out. Skywalker's already looking up at him for some reason and Bodhi frowns. "Is there something wrong?"

Luke blushes a little and snaps his gaze away before ducking his head. "Nope! Fine, everything's fine..."

Bodhi shrugs— he really has no idea what's going on inside that man's head, does he? Rather than focus on the incomprehensible, he focuses on what he does understand, surveying the damage. "Oh, that's a rich thing to say, I'm starting to understand why that Artoo unit of yours is such a snippy little thing, how does he even survive this?" He glances down and picks up a doodled bit of flimsi, holding it up outside of the cockpit. "And is this supposed to be a sarlaac?" he asks.

It's several long seconds before Luke replies. "Uh... sure, yeah," he says, followed by a long sigh. "And hey, I always do my best to make sure Artoo doesn't get hurt, he's my friend, you know."

"Survive, sure but he must be going completely nuts rewiring this thing on the fly, he'll be crazier than the Falcon's mainframe soon if you keep this up," says Bodhi, tucking the sarlaac back where it had been perched.

Luke lets out a sound of disgust and calls up, "Please don't even joke about that."  

Bodhi grins— apparently there are some impossibilities, like trying to talk to the Falcon that are beyond even Luke's understanding: albeit it seems like Han and Chewbacca are the only other mechanics around who can assist Bodhi in his rebuilds and actually contribute.  Bodhi feels the need to give Luke a little credit.  "At least you seem to have a dim idea of what your deflector shields are for, unlike Antilles..." Bodhi's voice trails off as he reads the addition to the engine brake note: "Your eyes  are even prettier when you're complaining about the cost of re-routers," he reads aloud, all but dumbfounded. He peeks out of the cockpit.  "Luke?"

Luke appears a little startled, all but frozen with his own eyes looking very bright as he stammers out. "Well... they are." Bodhi's 'pretty' eyes feel very wide right now and his cheeks are redder than Luke's. "Please don't bankrupt the Rebellion because you like my eyes when I complain, I'll find plenty of cheaper things to complain about, okay," he blurts out before he can stop himself, clamping his hands over his mouth for a couple of seconds before adding, "Could you go get me a cup of caf, please, it looks like I'm going to be in here awhile."

Luke's eyes widen a little as Bodhi rambles at him and he grins after a moment, pushing away from his position against the ladder and throwing Bodhi a lazy salute and a wink. "Yes, sir, whatever my favorite mechanic wants," he says because apparently he wants Bodhi to have a heart attack.