#swfsf2024

Something shifted. A subtle change. Like how the turn of the tide goes unnoticed until you find yourself drifting in another direction. It might have been the warm smile Imogen saw flash across Bix’s lips in response to the stout droid’s stutter. Or the way the mechanic carried herself just a little more steadily, her legs no longer swaying beneath such a heavy burden. Imogen wondered if it had finally lifted off of her shoulders. Perhaps the more likely explanation was that Bix had simply adapted to its weight. 

Less pressure seemed to lay on her own shoulders, as well. Imogen knew her fortitude had been weakened, but had not allowed herself to admit just how entwined their emotions had become. With their strength returned, the bounty hunter felt renewed resolve. At last, she could do what she needed to and put all of this complication behind her.

While The Crimson Huntress had not seen any maintenance in quite some time, the quality of Bix’s work had impressive longevity. To no surprise, the ship’s system did not find a single issue when Imogen ran diagnostics. She could resume business as usual as soon as she gathered her personal effects, which would not take long. 

If only the pit in her gut had not grown.

As she walked down the ship’s ramp, Imogen noticed a lingering stare off in the distance from where Bix conversed with Jezzi. The two had grown closer and Imogen used that knowledge to reassure herself. Surely a Daughter of Ferrix would serve as a far better pillar for Bix than Imogen ever could. She feigned disinterest in their interaction and continued on, despite the invisible cord between her and Bix becoming taut.

What little she had brought to her room from the ship had already been neatly organized for this very purpose. Imogen wasted little time and moved her essential possessions into a leather satchel, trying to ignore the strain of swimming against the tide. 

How else was she supposed to save herself from drowning?

Imogen had barely begun before she sensed a familiar presence approach like a breeze you could hear rustle through nearby leaves, but could not yet feel caress your skin. Under normal circumstances, she would eagerly await that coming wind, whether it be a steady gust or raging storm. This time, though, Imogen closed her eyes and exhaled a quiet sigh through her nose as she placed an extra blaster into her bag, her chest already tightening.

The door to her temporary quarters slid open and closed behind her. A strong ripple through the Force told Imogen to expect a storm. 

“What are you doing?” Bix asked, unable to hide the accusatory tone that already took over her voice. 

“I am tidying up,” Imogen replied, avoiding the mechanic’s gaze. She felt it so directly that she had to fight its influence. 

“You’ve been avoiding me all day.”

“Clearly I have been occupied.” 

“You’re leaving.”

The statement followed a tense beat in the small space. One where Imogen felt the uptick of her own heartbeat in her fingertips as she reached for a comlink and slipped it into one of the smaller compartments of her bag. She knew she should have departed before sunrise. It would have been easier to cut the frequency of Bix’s disappointment over the comms than to face her like this. 

“You have recovered.” Imogen kept her tone detached and cold.

“I pretty much walk on my own, now, yeah.” Every bitterly sarcastic word dripped with mounting animosity. Though, Imogen sensed more than mere anger. She felt the vice in Bix’s heart within her own, as if a clawed hand clamped around the muscle and began to drag it down. She knew by now that her connection with Bix was the cause of such pain. “You told me you would stay.”

Imogen kept her eyes averted as she continued to calmly collect her things around the room. “I never made such a promise.”

“Don’t pull this shit with me again,” Bix warned as she stepped into the bounty hunter’s path. When Imogen ignored the bite and attempted to move past her, Bix caught her arm in a firm grasp. “Look at me, Imogen.”

This time, Imogen audibly sighed. She wanted to wrench her arm free, grab her bag, and never look back without another word. Shame twisted her insides as she accepted the fact she simply could not will herself to do so. Imogen forced her eyes to meet the mechanic’s wounded gaze and felt a deep ache impact in her chest. 

“I do not belong here,” she said quietly. 

The here in question did not quite refer to one particular place, not since they escaped the chaos on Ferrix. Here became Bix. It became Jezzi. Brasso. The boy whose father Imogen cut down after he had been hung on Rix Road, Wilmon. Even Cassian. These were not her people. Imogen had no people. She needed to keep it that way.

“You belong with me,” Bix said with such firm conviction that Imogen felt the claws dig in a little deeper.

“Don’t say that.” Imogen resented how pathetic and pained she sounded.

The grip Bix had on her loosened for half a second before she tightened it again. This time, less vengefully and more desperate. Imogen felt the heat of her palm burn her skin through layers of clothing.  “Don’t go.”

I cannot do this, her thoughts cried. 

“I cannot stay.”

“Yes, you can,” Bix insisted.

Imogen wanted to. She wanted to stay more than she ever has – more than she has ever wanted anything. It reached beyond want. Beyond need. It felt as vital as any other organ within her body that kept her alive. Yet, Imogen had to rip this feeling out of herself, because she knew better. She knew how this would end. “You do not want me to, Bix.”

The mechanic said what even Imogen’s thoughts could not conjure. “I need you.” 

She shook her head again, but felt her resolve start to crumble. “That has never been true.”

“After everything, where is this coming from?”

“You know very well where.”

As steadfast as any storm, Bix held her ground. “No, you don’t get to run this time. Things are different now.”

“Which is precisely why.”

“Imogen –”

“Why are you so determined to have me?” Imogen snapped. Finally, anger broke through the pain and she yanked herself out of Bix’s grasp. Anger she could deal with. Anger she could work with. Her gray eyes burned as her expression hardened. “Whatever excitement you may have convinced yourself was worth turning your back on your own morals to be with me must have dissipated by now. Let it go.”

Bix immediately matched her temper, perfectly reflecting the bounty hunter’s intimidating glare. “No.”

“Why? What could you possibly see?”

“I see someone like me.”

Imogen scoffed humorlessly. She stepped back and slung the satchel over her shoulder. “Now I am truly convinced of your delusion.”

“Is it really so hard to believe?”

“Yes,” Imogen hissed, “because there are few in the entire galaxy who have done what I have. You should have refused me the moment you heard of my past. You should feel repulsed by me. Any decent being would.”

“Well, I don’t. And I don’t really care what you think that makes me.” Bix shrugged, her arms falling back to her sides. “So, what now?”

“I leave. For good this time,” Imogen said before turning on her heel and making way for the door.

“I’m asking you not to,” Bix called after her with sudden urgency, the animosity in her tone falling away to desperation. “Please.” 

The plea halted Imogen’s pace out of her control. She clenched and unclenched her fists restlessly and grinded her teeth. She knew this to be the very last ditch effort to spare herself and Bix. The part of her that knew how useless it all was made her drop her bag and march back to the other woman. 

With swift, exasperated purpose, Imogen unclipped her lightsaber hilt from her belt. Anyone would have flinched or ran for their life, but not even the barest flash of fear crossed over Bix. She knew that even during their darkest moments, Imogen would never harm her. 

The former Inquisitor held the hilt up and Bix’s eyes were immediately drawn to its ornate design. The dark carved wood in the grip. The black metal switch. The angled electrum emitter. Imogen’s weapon was made to bring nothing but destruction and death. This weapon was her darkness. If Imogen could not convince Bix to condemn her with this, then nothing else would. 

“Take this.” 

Bix blinked at her apprehensively before she carefully accepted the weapon. Imogen expected it to look wrong in the mechanic’s hand, but as Bix tightened her fingers around the grip hard enough to turn her knuckles white, Imogen felt the blade… call to her. Not strong enough to suggest a talent with the Force, but enough that her lightsaber seemed to recognize something within the other woman. Something it grew accustomed to in Imogen. She nearly asked Bix if she felt it, too, but stopped herself. 

“The kyber crystal that powers this blade once belonged to my Master when I was a Jedi,” Imogen explained. Bix’s eyes widened every so slightly and she regarded it with renewed interest. “She perished in the Temple on Coruscant, the first night of the Purge.” 

“I’m sorry,” she replied sincerely.

A very brief, very subtle smirk twitched at the corner of Imogen’s mouth. “Do not be. My Master died by my own hand.”

Bix remained still and silent. The hand that held the lightsaber was steady. She did not back away in horror — did not ask Imogen how she could be capable of such a horrific act of betrayal. Imogen wished she would. It’d certainly make this easier. 

“It may have been an impulsive decision on my part, but I have never regretted it, not for one single moment,” Imogen continued calmly, her eyes still transfixed on the lightsaber hilt in Bix’s grasp. “Even in the wake of our Order’s destruction, Rejna would have spent the rest of her life shackled to me out of a twisted sense of duty. I simply found the strength to free us both.”

“That’s how you became an Inquisitor.”

“Yes.” Imogen hoped that her final confession would be the catalyst, and she hoped that it wouldn’t. “That is what I am, even without loyalty to the Empire.” 

“And what else?” Bix pressed. Something captivating sparked in her dark eyes like she had Imogen balanced on a knife’s edge. “What else are you?”

“I am utterly alone,” the former Jedi admitted. Another deeper truth she had never given words to, yet offered freely to the woman in front of her. Imogen could no longer call it strange to splay out her bloody insides for the mechanic to behold. Bix might as well ignite that saber and do it herself.

“Do I make you feel alone?”

Imogen shook her head as she struggled to articulate a response. There were no easy answers when it came to that particular subject. “I don’t know what you make me feel.” 

“That’s a lie,” Bix challenged. 

The intensity of her gaze pierced right through Imogen just as much as those three words, but she simply couldn’t let Bix shackle herself to someone as lost as her. Not any more than Imogen could have allowed herself to be shackled to Rejna. “I do not think I can love you, Bix.” 

“Why not?”

“I never learned how.”  

“Funny,” the mechanic deadpanned as she returned the lightsaber hilt to Imogen’s unsteady hands. “You could have fooled me.”

The clouds suddenly parted in Imogen’s mind at the simple remark. She knew nothing of love — not how to love, nor recognize it — she believed herself incapable of such a thing. But with Bix’s words, Imogen thought back to the months she spent taking care of her. She thought back to the very moment she decided to rescue her from the Empire without hesitation. She thought even further back, still, to the first time she touched down on the surface of Ferrix with a fresh ship and an ambitious idea to make it into something more with the help of a resourceful and bold mechanic. 

A devastating wave of realization crashed down on top of her and it felt like her lungs might burst from the strain of her strangled breath. Imogen finally understood. It’s been her. It has always been her. Memories flooded into her mind of every decision and every word and touch they shared, yet she could not pinpoint the exact moment it happened. This woman had achieved what none other have — to take Imogen completely by surprise. 

In a state of wonder, Imogen absentmindedly set the lightsaber aside without taking her eyes off of the woman before her. And she gave in. 

Imogen’s cold hands cupped Bix’s warm face as their lips collided. Her senses exploded like she had been holding her breath for months – for years, and this was her very first gulp of fresh air. They fell into a feverish cadence — one desperate and fierce and rough. Imogen let go of her reservations, her fear, her uncertainty. She let go of everything, even herself. Nothing else mattered any longer.

Bix clung to her as if she were her center of gravity, and matched the passion that had ignited between them. Teeth scraped against teeth. Gasps entered through parted lips. The soft heat of an eager tongue greeted the other. Imogen wrapped her arms around her and pulled her closer, but she needed something else. Something more. Or something less. 

Their cadence suddenly took on a soft, intimate nature. Imogen pulled back just enough to delicately brush her lips over Bix’s in what could barely be called a kiss, caressing her thumb over the flushed flesh of her cheek. The thrill that raced up Imogen’s spine and detonated in her chest nearly brought her to her knees. Her affection was rarely ever gentle and the harshness she had adopted for years successfully kept a barrier up all this time, but the barrier had collapsed into rubble. So, Imogen indulged in the utterly breathtaking sensation of such a simple kiss, accepting with certainty that she never could have left her beloved mechanic again.  

Not ever again. 

Imogen Kol knew nothing of love… except that she did. She did know how to love, she had been loving this woman all along.