#Ben is going to go grey before he returns to his time at this rate. Lol!

[morgansmornings]

“It means the hobby of exploring caves. Or as I used it, to try and go running off the edge of the rooftop without any ropes or tethers to keep you from an unfortunate sudden stop after a long drop. And if ‘witch’ is too negative for you, you can just call me by my name.” Was it a bit petty and snide in tone, maybe. But that was more so for the comment about black magic and witchcraft. 

“There are many things that have changed since your time. 250 years has altered society to a point that you would not recognise it as such. And that I understand. But in order for me to do what I must, you have to be complicit and willing to accept these things as they are.” She meant no offence. But given his station she thought that Ben would rather have the brutal facts and truth over more lies and deceit. A Spy Master he may have been, but it was clear to her that she was far more in depth a student in things pertaining to the supernatural. Besides, when all was said and done, he wasn’t going to remember his time here as it was. Not if she had a say about it. She knew better than to go tampering with alterations to time and reality. Sneaky and unforgiving as they were. 

“Look, I know that this is a lot. I know you have very little reason to trust me. But I have to ask you to give me that trust and the faith that I can take you back to where you belong. To the time you belong to. But I first have to finish translating that scroll in hopes to find that solution.” She folded her hand on the arm rest of the couch, leaning back and taking a calming breath herself. While she could hold his hand and walk him through every little step that has had a dramatic change, there was no telling how long it would be nor how resistant to her attempts would be. 

“Things can always get worse when it comes to those who mess or make light of dealing with Temporal Magicks.” Jayden said, glazing to his left to gaze out over the golden glow of the surrounding city. “Some believe in Chaos Theories such as what they call “The Butterfly Effect.” How that one small change in events can lead to catastrophic events hundreds of miles away.” 

This was quickly coming back to her own worries and fear of when she had first encountered the Major standing in her loft. The nagging fear that things would change so drastically and that no one would remember it because history would have been fundamentally changed. 

“I will be happy to explain anything you want me to if I can. But understand the position that we are both in. You are out of place and I am the reason why. I can’t have anything happening to you here because then everything I know will change and there is no way of telling how bad and dangerous that could be.” Jayden looked to him, both in worry and with a kindness in her features that would hopefully tell him she was just as scared as he was. 

“I am trying to help you, but you have to be willing to listen to me and help me in exchange. My life depends on your survival and I am going to do everything I can to make sure that you are safe and returned.”

"You mean, things could actually be worse?" Benjamin asked, unable to keep from making a face. "With all due respect, madam, this land no longer feels like the colonies...it is far too coarse and ill-refined."

And that didn't even account for all the bloody inventions that he had yet to fully understand.

When Jayden started signing at her dog -- because why not? Of bloody course animals and people could talk in this century -- Benjamin forced himself to remain calm before he followed after her, his pulse still drumming erratically as he kept in step with her tread.

As she spoke, he winced. "Must you be called a witch?" he wearily asked. "The implications there aren't exactly flattering, and I would prefer to believe that you do not, in fact, intend to eat my intestines, nor perform some sort of black magic upon my soul."

Jayden ignored the remark -- perhaps it had been rather uncouth -- and showed him outside.

All at once, Benjamin's mouth dropped and he took in the scenery, wide-eyed and slack-jawed as he struggled to process the greenery. They were not in a forest, and yet it felt as though he were surrounded by lush wildlife.

“We are three stories up from the ground," Jayden explained. "As long as you don’t plan on going spelunking over the side of the building you will be safe up here.”

Benjamin's brow furrowed. "Speh...lunking?" he echoed, testing the sound with a scrunched nose. "I'm afraid that even my studies in Latin are failing me on the etymology here... What could that possibly even mean? It sounds like sheer nonsense."

As did everything else in this situation.

With a frustrated sigh, he pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, then slowly counted to ten before exhaling, long and slow. "Although the architecture here is quite impressive," he treaded, "I'm uncertain of how enjoyable it would be to live so far removed from the rest of the world." Here, he turned back toward the horrifying sights of the street below. "Where are your neighbors? Do your people not believe in daily visits, nor meeting for a drink?"

[misaverawrites]

Death and All His Friends (Owen Hunt x Reader)

a/n: he is so hot for what? i'm also really sorry if he dies.

summary: You are a Doctor at Grey-Sloan Memorial and the wife of Owen Hunt, you watch his last moments.

warnings: possible spoilers for 18x09? Crying, loss of a loved one, mentions of throwing up, Owen fucking dies, mentions of sex, spoilers for Private Practice.

It was supposed to be a normal day, three tumor removals, and then a run of chemo for a few of your patients; now your husband was missing from getting Farouk's heart and no one was telling you anything. Suddenly, you heard sirens outside of the hospital, you look and firefighter trucks are wailing and parked outside. You begin to have an uneasy feeling in your stomach, something isn't right.

You start running outside, making your way through the pit and out the doors. Getting out of the rig was Hayes and Teddy, Teddy held the cooler with the heart. Behind them an ambulance rushed through the ambulance bay, whooping as the EMS crew stopped and Bailey and you made your way to it, you felt a pit in your stomach as the doors of the ambulance opened, and laying on the stretcher was your husband, battered and bruised. You felt your breathing getting heavier as everything around you began to feel constricted as Bailey looked at you and then him. You saw Bailey trying to tell you something but couldn't make out what it was over all of the noise around you and your mind racing one thousand miles a second.

You just stood in the ambulance bay, feeling tears fall faster than you could stop them and sobs wracking your body. Teddy and Hayes had gone to get Farouk prepped for surgery and the firefighters of Station 19 make their way back to the station, only Ben staying behind.

"B-Bailey... Bailey and Link are operating... On my husband, who could be dead at literally any moment. My husband... could be dead and all I can do is stand here being useless!" You begin to sob again as Ben places a hand on your shoulder walking you into the E.R. You take a peek into Trauma Room #2, watching your husband lie there, a bone protruding from his skin, battered and bloody, you think of George. He was so broken up over George and... You don't want to think like that yet. Ben then looks at you, pulling you away from the trauma room as Bailey, Link, Amelia, and Tseng wheel him out, Bailey motions them out as she walks over to you, "He has multiple bone fractures, there is free fluid in his abdomen and we're going to make sure he keeps normal brain function through the surgery. You're going to need to sit in the waiting room, (Y/N). You're officially off duty for the day."

You begin to bawl your eyes out as Bailey runs to the E.R. Ben rubs your back comfortingly as you turn to him, "Everything is going to work out, (Y/N). Hunt's stubborn, he wouldn't leave you like this." He wraps his arms around you tightly as you return the hug, you blubber into his arms before pulling away from him. "I'm going to my office." You lie to Ben as he smiles warmly at you and squeezes your shoulder one more time, sneaking your way onto the surgical floor to watch your husband's surgery.

When you get into the gallery, it is empty and dark, you sit on one of the seats in the back, you see your husband, open on the table, Bailey standing over him as she tries to control the free-bleeding in his abdomen. Tseng tries to help stitch but he's losing too much blood too fast. He's running out of time and all of you know it.

"Owen, please..." You beg to any deity that will listen as his heart rate drops, everyone begins to panic, doing everything they can at this moment to try and save his life.

"You have a wife and three babies waiting for you, Hunt! You can't do this!" Amelia pleads with him in this unconscious state, "She loves you too much for you to leave her!"

You watch all of this happen and begin to feel sick, your husband's last moments are all for you to see. Laid out on an O.R. floor among your mutual best friends. You hate this, you want to throw up at this moment but force yourself to stay here, pushing your hair out of your face. You need this closure, more than anything.

Owen begins to flatline, there isn't much that Bailey and the others are able to do with his chest open, all they can do is make things easy on him as he passes. "This isn't happening..." You whisper over and over to yourself as you watch the O.R. heartrate monitor flatline and suddenly, your husband is gone. You can't face this right now, you make a sprint to the attendings' lounge.

When you get there you open Owen's locker and pull out his jacket, wrapping it around your body. It smells like him, citrus and pine, and it was warm. You lie down on the attendings' lounge couch and begin to cry as loudly as you wanted to at that moment, and you do. You sob until your head and chest hurt and you feel dehydrated. You hear the door open and close behind you and turn around to see Amelia, guilt is strong in her eyes as she comes to sit next to you, "I am so sorry." Is all she can say, she knows you know, she sees the tear-stained face and the empty look in your eyes, it's something she knows all too well, she too, is a known friend of loss.

"I just can't believe it... We woke up this morning and we... we had sex. I kissed him and we drove to work together and made our dinner plans for tonight and then plans for a date night soon and now... he's gone."

She nods and doesn't say anything, she knows nothing will help. Nothing helped her after losing Ryan and Christopher back to back. Except for meetings, a lot of meetings. Your grief right now, however, was too overwhelming for any kind of help.

"I mean... I'm a widow," You began to ramble, "We were supposed to grow old together, raise our three kids and live wonderful lives together, and now... I'm all alone."

"But you're not alone, (Y/N)," Amelia whispers to you as she holds you tight, "You have all of us right now. We are here for as long as you need us."

You nod, hopefully, Owen would be happy knowing you would be okay and safe. In that moment however you can only think of your grief and how much at that moment you love and miss him.

[phoenixyfriend]

Auntie ‘Soka and Little Leia (and Rex)

The counterpart to Uncle Ben and Little Luke (Original Post, Chrono)

Listen. You all knew this was coming.

This got... very long and detailed and I’m going to have to clean it up and post to AO3. As in, this was supposed to be 2-3k and is literally ten times that long. It crossed 25k. And the initial section actually glosses over a bunch, actual fic-style writing starts at “That, of course, is when things get interesting.”

Warnings: discussion of various canon traumas (most relating to being child soldiers), general PTSD, several scenes featuring dissociation or panic attacks upon being triggered, and canon-typical violence.

Rated T, gen.

I still want there to be de-aging nonsense involved so Ahsoka is physically a late teenager despite having a solid two decades of field experience behind her (we’re pulling her from Malachor).

Leia, much like Luke, is now six. She just came from being a rebellion general. She is not happy about being a child. She was already short, this is just mean.  She’s a human espresso.

UNLIKE BEN, Ahsoka is not happy about this turn of events. Being seventeen-ish is not helpful in the outer rim. She’s a female togruta, young and healthy, and in the Outer Rim, caring for a small human child. Sure, she has her lightsabers and plenty of combat experience, and she can keep them safe, but she’s just one person, and a major target for those looking to make some quick cash. It doesn’t matter how good she is; she needs sleep at some point.

It makes my heart happy to treat Ahsoka and Rex as two halves of the same black ops specialist so you know what, he’s there too! He’s physically like... 10-12 in natborn, maybe. They’re not sure, because clones age weird. He’s moderately more useful than Leia (who is very competent but also physically six, and short for that age), but he’s still... very small.

Reminder that none of them have been born yet.

Ahsoka has a harder time explaining WHY she has children with her, since she's barely more than a kid herself, and clearly unrelated by species. She sometimes just says “Oh, my adoptive brother’s kids” since it’s kind of the truth for Leia and she’s not touching the actual truth about Rex with a ten foot pole.

Ahsoka definitely knows about Leia being a Skywalker, or at least has suspicions that Bail never outright confirmed but was conspicuously quiet about. She does tell Leia about it, but it’s not like that means anything, right? Just, you know, your dad was my teacher! I don’t have to tell you he became Va--oh shit, you already knew that part. Well, fuck. What do you mean he had a son? OH SHIT, PADME HAD TWINS.

Alt take for explaining why she’s got kids: She’s my foundling, I know her name as my child (Leia shut up!!!)

(Ahsoka can fake Mandalore. Sometimes.)

That said, there is... significantly less gambling and significantly more theft to get to Coruscant.

As previously stated, Ahsoka is a black ops kinda gal, and more importantly, she looks like a fairly attractive young woman in the Outer Rim, with two children in good health. She’s a target, and also not the kind of person one generally gambles with. If she does gamble, people get upset when she doesn’t lose, in ways they don’t get upset about Ben doing the same, because she’s, again, a cute teenage girl. It’s exhausting.

As things go, she largely ends up stealing from people who deserve it and/or smuggling herself and her charges into someone else’s ship. They’re small, they can hide. Sometimes she can get them all passage by working as a mechanic, she’s good at that.

Once they’ve got a handle on when they are, they have to decide on Names. None of them have been born yet, so technically they could use their own names without anyone Knowing. Rex and Leia might not even be born, depending on how successful they are at, you know, stopping the war and everything. Ahsoka, though, she’s going be born in two years, and there’s no reason to prevent it, so... she doesn’t want to steal baby-her’s name. That would be mean.

Leia is already calling her “Auntie ‘Soka” when she can for reasons like “selling the bit” and “manipulating adults” and “making us both feel better after we had a mutual breakdown about Anakin being Vader.” Ergo, she decides that whatever new name she picks better include that in some way, and decides on “Sokari” because it sounds pretty.

Overall, they don’t... they don’t actually make it very far before there’s an Incident. Again, teenager with small children. They spend a lot of time hiding out in space ports looking for an opportunity.

That, of course, is when things get interesting.

Specifically, Ahsoka spots a Mandalorian.

She doesn’t recognize the armor. She does recognize the sigil, and thinks ‘well, they’re more likely to help than some,’ because from what she’s heard, the Haat Mando’ade are Decent People Overall. Her view is a little biased, mostly on account of the sheer level of grudge she has against Kyr’tsad. It’s fine! The True Mandalorians have the same grudge, right? And Mandalorians like kids and Ahsoka hasn’t slept in five days and it’s fine. It’s fine! IT’S FINE.

“Oh shit,” Rex whispers, before she can suggest anything. “Oh fuck.”

“Stop cursing,” Leia hisses, elbowing him. “People are going to notice.”

“That’s the Prime,” Rex panics, mostly quiet. Ahsoka’s heart drops, because fuck is right. “That’s Fett.”

Leia isn’t impressed. Ahsoka just angles herself between Fett and Rex and hopes that he doesn’t see them. That’s just asking for trouble.

Unfortunately, Ahsoka is in fact running on none sleep with left trauma, and doesn’t notice Fett walking up and dropping into a seat across from them until he’s actually done so, removing his helmet to glare a little more efficiently.

“Wanna explain why your kid has my face?”

Ahsoka later tells herself that he’s killed Jedi and that’s why he can sneak up on her, and that she can be forgiven some slip-ups with the exhaustion being what it is, and that she’s obviously going to be dealing with some emotional instability in light of the sudden return of teenage hormones and new forms of anxiety that are markedly different from those she was dealing with a few weeks ago.

What Ahsoka wants to say is “that’s kind of a long story,” or “maybe he’s a cousin,” or “kriff off, I don’t know you,” or maybe even “he’s a clone.”

What Ahsoka actually does is burst into tears, which is embarrassing for her, for Fett, for the kids, and for the entire rest of the bar.

It really is the straw that broke the eopie’s back. Even when she was actually this age, she didn’t exactly cry much. Objectively, Fett quasi-aggressively asking a valid question shouldn’t send her into a panic. She’s been through torture and worse. She shouldn’t be crying.

But she is, sobbing her eyes out with no control, and he’s just sitting across from her and looking uncomfortable while Rex wraps his little arms--oh Force he’s so small--around her, and both ‘children’ glare at Fett.

“So, I’m going to take it she didn’t kidnap you from a loving family or do something illicit with a blood sample,” Fett says, after it becomes obvious that Ahsoka’s not going to be ready to talk any time soon.

“She didn’t,” Rex says stiffly, with just the right emphasis for Fett to catch what’s implied. Ahsoka just keeps her head down, eyes pressed against the heels of her palms, trying to get her body to stop rebelling against her.

Fett’s eyes dart to Leia, who folds her arms and draws herself up, every bit the unimpressed princess. “My father claimed her as a sister, so she’s my Auntie ‘Soka.”

The man dithers a bit, the conversation clearly not going where he’d expected. “Right,” he says. “You--you’re all kids. I thought she was a little older, at least, but I didn’t have a good look at her face before.”

She is older, but actually admitting that is only going to make this worse, both for her pride and for her chances of making it out alive.

“Where are you staying?”

“What?” Leia bites out.

“You’re kids, you’re alone, and you’re clearly not okay if you were trying to hide the one with my face as blatantly as you did, and then... whatever this is, when I confronted you,” Fett explains. Ahsoka lifts her head to glare at him, but it’s probably not doing much with the way her eyes are rimmed with red and still wet. “Don’t give me that look, ad’ika, your kids looked as confused and horrified by that as the bartender did. They obviously didn’t think it was normal either.”

Well, kriff you too, Ahsoka thinks.

“And what do you mean by ‘blatantly,’ here?” Leia challenges. It’s adorable, but Ahsoka watched this tiny girl shoot a man last week, and wonders when people are going to start taking that seriously.

“There’s a lot of people in this galaxy, and I don’t exactly have the clearest memory of what I looked like at that age,” Fett says, slow and careful like he thinks they’re dumb. Ahsoka decides to chalk it up as being because Leia’s visibly six. “I would have thought it was just a coincidence if you hadn’t put in effort to hide him.”

Leia huffs, and Rex glares harder. Fett just sighs, like they’re all going to give him grey hairs.

“You can explain whatever the hell’s going on,” Fett says. “I’ll let you stay on my ship, there’s a spare bunk and you’re small.”

“For free?” Rex demands.

“A night on a bunk in exchange for information,” Fett clarifies. “We can negotiate from there.”

Ahsoka takes a few moments, notes that both of the others are waiting on her for the decision, and cringes. She doesn’t feel steady enough to carry that. She has to anyway.

“Rex?” she asks, voice rasping after the breakdown of the past few minutes.

“Yeah?”

“How much?”

He looks up at her, eyes calculating, and grimaces. “We don’t want Order 66. A warning is better, even if we... share information.”

She nods, and turns to Leia. “Any premonitions, princess?”

Leia glowers, cute and furious. “No.”

“No, don’t tell, or no, you aren’t getting any vibes about sharing info one way or the other?”

“The latter,” Leia clarifies, huffy to the last.

“Right,” Ahsoka says, and then just... hesitates. “Fett...”

“You’ve got conditions,” he guesses.

She bares her teeth in what could have, through a squint and perhaps a few drinks, been called an apologetic smile. “Just one, really.”

“Yeah?”

“No hurting, killing, or turning us in for bounties,” she says. “Any of us.”

“You’re children, I wouldn’t.”

She blinks at him, slow and careful. She hesitates. She reaches down, out of sight, sees him stiffen.

She unclips her sabers from her belt and puts them on the table.

His eyes are fixed on the weapons the second they enter his line of sight, and don’t move as he clearly realizes why she made the condition she did.

“I left years ago, because I couldn’t stay without it ruining me,” she says. Still slow. Still careful. She’s so tired. “But if I want to keep Leia safe, I have to get back to Coruscant.”

His eyes finally lift from the sabers, expression blank. “Just her?”

“Rex doesn’t have the same monsters coming after him,” she says. “If it were just me and him, I’d worry less. Leia’s a different kind of target.”

“You’re putting a lot of faith on the table by telling me that,” Fett says, voice flat and toneless. “Considering my occupation.”

“She’s a child,” Ahsoka says, feeling heavy and boneless. “Even with what I was and will be, even with what money you would get from the right buyer, you wouldn’t.”

“There are other risks.”

“There are.”

They stare at each other for too long, probably, and then Fett jerks as Rex kicks him under the table. The boys glare for a moment, and then Rex says, “If she weren’t good, I’d still be a slave to those who grew me.”

Fett blinks, and then nearly growls the word, “What?”

“She freed me,” Rex reiterates. “While I was trying to shoot her.”

Ahsoka lifts a hand and puts it on his far shoulder, pulling him into her side. She doesn’t meet Fett’s eyes again, because part of her is back on Mandalore, dodging her own soldiers and crying out as her family dies across the galaxy.

Fett breathes in. Breathes out. He puts a hand to his head, visibly frustrated. “Fine. A good Jedi kid, and two smaller kids, one of which is apparently in some way mine.”

Rex makes a face, which is fair, but also not helping.

“To the ship,” Ahsoka says, putting her sabers back on her belt and sliding out of the seat. “I’m... I’m Sokari.”

“You already know my name.”

“I do.”

---------------------------

Fett watches her like she’s a predator, which has the benefit of being accurate and slightly flattering. She lets other two take care of most of talking, and then Fett tells her to sleep first, and talk in the morning.

“You’re dead on your feet, jetii,” he snorts. “And that crying jag didn’t do you any favors. Sleep.”

So she does, and Fett doesn’t even wake her. He just lets her sleep. He watches her in the way of a guard. She sees him when she gets up to use the ‘fresher in the middle of the night, but he doesn’t even comment when she collapses right back into the mediocre cot she’s borrowed for the cycle.

Rex and Leia are safe, her hindbrain tells her, even in the depths of sleep. Her mind curls around theirs in the Force, and she trusts that they are here. They are not happy, but they are alive and unharmed, and that has to be enough.

When she stumbles her way to true wakefulness, groggy and loose-limbed, Fett greets her with caf.

“The kids wouldn’t let me near you,” he tells her.

“They’re good,” she says, cupping her hands around the mug. She feels wobbly, in every sense. Her body, her mind, her emotions, her connection to the Force. Nothing is on-kilter right now. “Did they tell you anything?”

“They waited for you,” he says. “But the little miss needed a nap of her own. They’re down in the other bunk.”

“I didn’t notice,” she admits. She should have. She’s Fulcrum. She’s a veteran of the Clone Wars. She’s... she’s supposed to be better than this.

“How long?” he asks, and then when she squints up at him, he clarifies. “How long did you fight?”

“My last fight--”

“No, whatever war you came out of,” he says. Her chest twists cold. “I don’t know if the Jedi sent you into it or if you waded in yourself once you left, but you move like a soldier.”

“I was,” she confirms. “But... but I don’t want to talk about the details. Not until the other two are here.”

He frowns at her. “Is there anything you can talk about?”

She shrugs and looks away, trying to take solace in the warmth of the caff she holds above the table, as if it can hide her, guard her, from the disgraced Mand’alor across the table.

“Jedi?”

“I’m not officially a Jedi,” she says, voice quiet. “Not anymore.”

“Then what do I call you?” he asks. “We’re not exactly close enough for names.”

“Torrent,” she says. “It’s not--I can’t claim my family name anymore. But I can claim Torrent, so I will. And if you want a title, I was a commander.”

“Bit young for that.”

“I got the rank when I was fourteen,” she says, and watches his face do something complicated and unpleasant. “Don’t. I know your own culture puts children on the field that young.”

“Not in command.”

She shrugs. “Yeah, well... the soldiers were technically younger. Adults, but...”

Ahsoka can see the way he casts about to figure out what species grows at that rate. He guesses a few, and she shoots all of it down.

She won’t tell him. Not until Rex is awake.

This part of the story is his.

--------------------------

When Leia tries to sit alone, a foot away on the bench like a proper adult, Ahsoka refuses to let it happen. She pulls the younger girl to her side and quells protests with a glance. It’s a decent skill, but she’s not sure how long it’s going to work on her niece-in-spirit.

“Your body needs the chemical release of skinship,” she says, and Leia glares at her. “I spent way too much time with the boys to not know about this. Deal.”

Rex sits close enough to knock their knees together under the table, and his warmth is the old comfort she needs.

“Do you want the story you’ll believe, or the truth?” Ahsoka asks.

“What’s the difference?”

“One of them involves something so impossible that even most Jedi wouldn’t believe it,” she tells him.

Fett folds his arms and leans forward to rest them on the table, challenging but oddly open. “Try me.”

“Time travel.”

He blinks, just once, fully controlled. “That’s a tough one.”

“There were only three Jedi left alive when I died,” she says. “Or... whatever it is that happened to me. I think I died. All I know is that one moment, I was thirty-two and dying, and the next, I was... seventeen again, and had these two with me. All of us younger than we were. None of us have even been born yet.”

She refuses to look him in the eye. “They both outlived me by... six years, maybe. Got caught up while traveling instead of dying. Leia was twenty-two. Rex was thirty-five. I’m not technically the oldest anymore. I mean, physically I am, but that doesn’t mean anything, and it’s not exactly doing us any good, and--”

Rex bumps his shoulder to her arm. “I dunno, Commander. I’ve spent a long time looking older than I should. Nice to look younger for once.”

She shoots him a small, pained grin. “Could be worse, yeah.”

“Let’s say I believe you.”

Her attention snaps back to Fett, who’s looking damnably blank, and is showing even less in the Force.

He waits a second for her to relax back into her seat.

“Let’s say I believe you,” he repeats. “How’s ‘Rex’ connected to me? What’s so special about Leia there? And what war did you fight in that has you acting like a veteran?”

“Three years in the clone wars,” she whispers, glancing to Rex and forcing herself to not go for her sabers to defend against an attack that her paranoia says is coming and the Force says is not. “Then almost all the Jedi were wiped out at once, and I spent a year... drifting. Then black ops for the next fifteen.”

“Black ops,” he repeats, still damnably flat.

“There was a Sith Empire,” she says, and she can hear her own tone growing somehow emptier. “Glassing planets. Enslaving entire species. Committing genocides all over. Of course, there was a rebellion, and of course I joined it. I was one of the only people left with Jedi training. For all that I’d left the Order, I still had a duty to the universe.”

His eyes flit to Leia, who shrugs and tries to look prim. “I was adopted and raised by one of the founders of the rebellion, a movement built on the desire to instate freedom and democracy in a galaxy that had lost even the pretense.”

“That why you’re special?”

Leia smiles, thin and patronizing. It doesn’t fit on her little face. “I’m special because my biological father was one of the most powerful Force users in history, and his Fall to the dark side and choice to become a Sith is why the Emperor’s rise was nearly uncontested. I do not like power, but it’s in my veins and I can’t change that. Force users are... a lucrative trade, and I’m still the size of a child, so I can’t fight back. I’ll be safer in the Jedi Temple, even if I don’t want to be a Jedi.”

Fett looks to Ahsoka, makes to ask a question, and then shakes his head. Not the time, maybe.

“So, that’s all... very complicated and I don’t know how much of it I believe, but it doesn’t explain...” he trails off, and sighs. “My kid, or whatever you are. I heard you mention clones.”

Rex grins. It is not a kind expression.

“Let me tell you about Kamino.”

---------------------------

Ahsoka has no idea if Fett believes them. Either he thinks they’re telling the truth, or he thinks their delusional kids. Whatever the case, he offers to take them closer to the Core. Ahsoka quietly offers to take a look at his engine in return, and then pretends not to notice when Fett awkwardly drifts to and away from Rex.

“They put chips in our brains to make us kill the Jedi we respected, cared for, even loved. I tried to shoot ‘Soka, Fett. She was seventeen and risked her life to get that chip out of my head while I was trying to kill her. I have never hated myself more than when I woke up and realized what I’d almost done, and I was one of the few that were able to fight it. I heard the stories of dozens of brothers who woke with their chips having degraded and chose to eat their blaster rather than live with the guilt of the orders they’d followed without question because of a thrice-damned Sith slave chip in their head.”

“So no, I won’t call you father or acknowledge you as clan until you do something to prove you’re worth it, shared blood or not.”

What Ahsoka does get out of the arrangement, for all that Fett’s route mostly takes them on a meandering path that isn’t faster than their previous system, is sleep. She gets to rest. She gets to trust that Fett won’t kill Rex, out of guilt for something he hasn’t done, that he won’t kill Leia out of a worry that she’s just a delusional child, a real child, that he won’t kill ‘Sokari’ because it would ruin any chance of gaining Rex’s favor, ever.

She’s not safe, won’t believe she can be until she’s in the Temple and Sidious is dead dead dead, but she’s safer than she’s been in a long time.

Every night, Ahsoka wakes up and stumbles to the little galley, deaths and torture sparkling behind her eyes with the energy of a thousand lost Jedi, ten thousand mourned brothers and sisters.

She is not the only one of their little group to be a survivor of a near-total genocide, but Rex could not feel his brothers die in the Force, even if his nightmares featured what they heard of suicide missions by the emperor’s favored shock troopers, and Leia had... Alderaan had more off-world survivors than there had been Jedi at all.

It’s not worth comparing their pain. It’s stupid to even think it. Part of her can’t help but do it anyway.

“Caf?”

She feels a lek twitch in response to the voice of the only other person on board who can reach the top shelf. “I probably shouldn’t.”

“Whiskey?”

“That’s a definitely shouldn’t.”

“Hoth chocolate?”

“...please.”

She doesn’t lift her head from her arms until the mug clicks down in front of her, ceramic on plastisteel.

“Do I ask what it was this time?”

She shrugs. “It’s hard to explain to non-sensitives.”

“Try me anyway.”

Ahsoka twists the Hoth chocolate in her hands, takes a sip as she thinks. “The Force isn’t just one thing. It’s... energy and philosophy and spirit, a sense of being that ties the entire universe together. Sentient and inanimate and living and dead, empty space and lush forests and stifled cities. For those of us who are sensitive to it, it’s possible to feel the life of everyone around you, theoretically possible to feel entire systems. If you have a Force bond, like a master and padawan, that can stretch across planets, even systems if one or both are particularly powerful.

“So just... just imagine, for a moment, what it’s like to feel the screaming of all those Jedi in the Force as their trusted men shot them down.

“Some of them were close enough that I could feel them die,” she manages. “I... it’s horrible. It’s horrific. It’s not something I can ever forget, and I want to. I want to forget what that moment was like. Not that it happened, but...”

She can feel the tears. Fuck..

“You want to dull the edges.”

“Don’t we all?” she asks, scrubbing the back of her hand across her eyes. “Leia lost her entire planet, billions of people, and she was forced to watch. Rex... Force, I can barely imagine, and I was there for most of it.”

Fett watches her, measuring. “From what he said, they were as much your brothers as his, by the end.”

“No,” she immediately denies. “They could have been, maybe, but the ones I was closest to died earlier, and then I left, and by the time the Empire rose, all but a handful were... no. Rex, I will claim as a brother in all the ways that matter, but I don’t get to do that with the rest. I don’t have the right.”

“You’re hard on yourself.”

“Fate of the galaxy, my good bitch. Guess who’s got it on her shoulders.”

He snorts at her, and nods at the mug. “Drink your Hoth chocolate. We’re landing in eight hours, and you’ve got kids to look out for.”

---------------------------

There’s a twitch in the Force when they land, something pulling at her in a way she barely feels. She’s had her shields up so fully for so long that it’s natural to hide away what she is to the point where she can hardly tell what anyone else is, either. It takes more than a moment to remember how to let herself spread out across the world.

“Auntie ‘Soka? Why’d you stop?”

She doesn’t have an answer to Leia’s prodding question. “I don’t know.”

It’s almost familiar. Old and half-forgotten, not the same as what she remembers, but--

“This way,” she says, and wanders off into the crowd. Leia and Rex follow without question. Fett curses and rushes through the rest of his transaction with the docking attendant. The sound of him jogging after them is almost funny, with the armor, but she can’t focus on that.

Ahsoka slips between people with the ease of a career built on such a habit, children trailing like ducklings. She knows this feeling, she knows this person, what is she missi--

“Oh,” she breathes, going stock still. She knows that face. She knows those braids. She even knows the presence.

Younger than Ahsoka had ever seen her, but unmistakably Master Billaba.

“Torrent, what the hell?” Fett demands, finally catching up. “You can’t just run off like that!”

“It’s Depa,” she says, eyes still fixed on the woman parsing through a datapad with an irritated vendor. She has a padawan braid. It doesn’t feel like Master Windu is on-planet, so this might be a solo mission, a... oh. Senior Padawan, Knight Elect. This is the kind of mission taken to test if she’s ready to be promoted.

Ahsoka feels light-headed.

Fett waits for her to elaborate, but she can’t. This was Kanan’s master. This was a member of the High Council. This was a woman who died and--

“You need to sit down,” Fett says, not a touch gruff. He puts a hand on her shoulder and guides her off the main walkway. “I’m... going to talk to the woman in the Jedi robes. You three just stay there and don’t get kidnapped.”

Ahsoka nods, feeling like she’s not quite inhabiting her own body.

It’s Depa.

Her eyes track Fett without conscious control, and her montrals pick up the sound.

Depa looks up when the armor comes close enough, free hand tensed in a way that says she’s preventing herself from reaching for a saber in reaction to the heavily-armored individual standing several feet away.

“Mando,” the woman says. “May I help you?”

“Are you Depa?”

Depa doesn’t do anything so dramatic as gape or step back, but she does blink rapidly for a moment. She then folds her hands down in front of her, drawing her spine up ramrod straight. “I am Jedi Padawan Depa Billaba, yes. May I ask why it is that you need to know?”

Ahsoka imagines Fett grimacing, or rolling his eyes, or maybe dithering. She can’t tell from this angle, and he has a helmet on besides. It turns his awkward silences into judgmental ones.

“I’ve had some Jedi kids on my ship, hitching a ride,” he says at length. “One of them recognized you and then just... froze.”

“You have our younglings in your care,” Depa says, carefully not accusatory, but close enough to be a warning.

“Not quite,” he says. “The one that actually came from the temple is seventeen. One of ‘em isn’t Force Sensitive, and the last one is but hasn’t been to Coruscant before. They’re trying to get the little one to the Temple for her own safety.”

Depa considers that, and then passes the datapad to the vendor. “Lead on.”

It’s surprisingly simple, really. Fett did all the talking.

And then Depa is standing right in front of her.

“Like I said,” Fett sighs. “She froze up.”

“Hello,” Depa says, hands laced together inside her sleeves. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Ahsoka shakes her head. “I know of you. I’ve seen you spar. You’ve never spoken to me.”

All true. A little misleading, but it’s fine, it’s all fine.

Depa waits a moment, and then says, “You seem to have me at a disadvantage. You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

“Sokari T-Torrent,” she manages. The words feel clunky in her mouth, the sound abrasive for all that it’s just her own voice, no different from usual. A little shaky, maybe. She can feel a cool breeze on her upper arms. Shouldn’t she have armor? She should have armor. “It... it’s been a long time since I’ve seen another Jedi. I’m having a hard time believing you’re real.”

“I see,” Depa says. “Perhaps we should take this somewhere more private? You seem a little unsteady.”

Ahsoka lets herself be led back to the ship, in the company of Mand’alor Jango Fett, Jedi Padawan Depa Billaba, Princess-General Leia Organa, and good old Captain Rex.

It’s like the start of a sick joke.

---------------------------

Fett and Depa talk where she can hear, but they rarely address her directly. Both seem to realize that she’s not particularly useful right now. Leia and Rex are pressing up against her at the little table in the galley, and Ahsoka lets them.

This is real. She can feel Depa in the Force, recognizes her energy even if it’s not quite what it will-was-could-have-been. This is happening.

It’s a textbook Traumatic Stress Response case, one of them says.

Fett has his helmet off. Ahsoka’s sure that’s wrong for some reason. She thinks he might already be on wanted lists. Should she worry about Depa trying to arrest him?

Depa asks about Rex at one point. Fett tells her that someone cloned him without his knowing, but the kid is more comfortable with Ahsoka so they’re still working on what that means for him.

It’s more or less true. Rex squeezes her hand the one time someone suggests separating them. She’s not letting that happen unless Rex wants to leave for whatever reason. They’ve worked apart before. They can do it again.

“Auntie Soka? You’re shivering.”

Is she?

Leia cuddles in closer, and Ahsoka runs a hand over her hair. It’s an absentminded motion, and for all that she knows Leia’s hair is fine as silk, it feels like plastic in the moment.

“I don’t think I’m okay,” Ahsoka announces. The words hang in the air like lead balloons, and she can feel Depa staring at her. “I haven’t been for a very long time.”

“Yeah, we noticed,” Fett says. “Do you need to lay down, Torrent?”

Does she?

“No,” she says. “I... I don’t know what I need.”

“The spicy drink,” Rex tells them. “It’s grounding.”

Right. That.

Fett goes to grab it, and Depa continues to watch.

“How long ago did you leave your master?” Depa asks. “Or... did he die?”

Ahsoka closes her eyes and shakes her head. She can feel the shivers now, tremors in her biceps and a shudder she can’t control in the height of her ribcage. Her teeth grind together, jaw like stone.

“You don’t have to answer that,” Depa assures her. “I’m... going to recommend you see a mind healer on Coruscant.”

That was a forgone conclusion.

A cup clinks onto the table. Fett’s back. “Drink.”

She does.

Depa and Fett continue discussing it as “the adults” at the table. She’s older than both of them. Rex is older than all of them. Ahsoka follows about half of what they say. She agrees with most of it. Rex bullies his way into speaking when she doesn’t, without her even asking, because he knows her mind as well as she does. Fett rolls with it. Depa lets him.

She’s going to reach out to the Temple and see about getting them a ride back to Imperial Center Coruscant.

Fett makes Soka go to bed, taking Leia with her.

---------------------------

She feels more like a person come morning.

Depa’s sitting at the table, datapad in her hands and caff on the table in front of her.

“Good morning,” Ahsoka says, rough and croaking, and Depa’s eyes flick up to meet hers. She nods a shallow hello.

“Feeling better?”

“Much,” Ahsoka says, and goes about gathering a breakfast. There’s definitely some dried meat in here. She can get something fresh when they stop by the market later.

“I was hoping to speak with you about your options,” Depa tells her, once she’s sat at the table. “Fett and your friend Rex took care of most of the negotiation, and I feel like I have an idea of what would work best for you.”

Ahsoka nods slowly. “Okay.”

“There is a Master-Padawan pair a few planets away,” Depa says. “The Council informed me when I spoke with them about you and your wards. They’d be headed back to the Temple in a few days anyway, and the Council has agreed to extend an offer to Fett to handle the transportation. The presence of a Jedi Master on board will allow for him to get in and out of the Core unmolested, and we’d like for you and yours to have a Jedi escort, given what happened yesterday afternoon.”

Her complete spiral into nonbeing?

“I understand,” she says instead. “I suppose Fett agreed because he’s still trying to get Rex to like him?”

Depa shrugs. “That part isn’t my business.”

Of course it isn’t.

“Rex can stay with me for a while, right?” Ahsoka finally asks. “I know it’s not exactly protocol, but I’m...”

“In need of a support system until you’ve seen a mind healer, and against all odds, the child is part of it,” Depa summarizes. “Yes, I recognized as much. I think the Council will be able to allow some leeway there. I don’t know if he’ll enjoy it, given that all the others his age are Initiates, but we can adjust as necessary. On that note... Do you know Leia’s midichlorian count?”

“No,” Ahsoka says, and hesitantly adds, “But her biological father was my Jedi Master, and I’m told his count broke records even as a child. Given what Leia’s shown so far... it’s why I’ve been in a hurry to get her to the Temple.”

Depa frowns at her, clearly working through the implications of a Jedi having a daughter and still teaching... and then visibly dismisses the situation, eyes closing to breathe in the steam of her caff.

Biological father certainly implies a child that was raised by her mother or adopted out so the Jedi father could remain in their chosen career without a conflict of interest or duty.

She’ll tell the council the truth, or... at least Master Koon. Master Kenobi is still a padawan, but she can tell Master Koon.

She already told Jango Fett, of all people.

“Padawan Torrent?”

Her head snaps up. She hasn’t been a padawan in over fifteen years. It’s weird to hear. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I asked if you wanted some time to think it over before I presented the offer to Fett,” Depa says.

Ahsoka gets the distinct feeling that Depa is planning a report to the Council that has ‘needs a mind healer’ underlined at least three times.

“No, I’m--I’m fine. That sounds like a good plan.”

“I’ll speak with him, then. Would you like to come with?”

"No, thank you.”

---------------------------

Fett agrees. Ahsoka’s pretty sure it’s all to do with Rex and maybe Leia. It’s probably nothing to do with ‘Sokari.’ She’s a Jedi, an adult in mind and in body, or at least close enough to count. She’s a damn sight more ‘enemy’ to Fett than the other two are. Not as much as Depa, maybe, but Fett’s been playing nice with her for Leia’s sake.

He plays nice with Ahsoka for Rex’s. That’s all.

They’re only a few planets over from the meeting point, and they have a few days to hang around before the escort meets them. Depa hadn’t given them a name--apparently it could have compromised the opsec for the Jedi team--but Ahsoka’s pretty sure she’ll be able to identify almost anyone. She gets the feeling that the Force is going to send her a familiar face, just as it did Master Padawan Billaba.

Ahsoka lets herself feel the world around her. It’s dark and dreary, in the sense that the beaten-down port is full of petty crimes and less petty horrors, but it’s still lighter than most of the Empire had been. She sneaks away from the ship at night, ignoring Fett at her back, and performs a bit of vigilante justice while she can. She’ll be banned from doing so as soon as she’s reinstated as a Jedi, probably, but for now... for now, she can look at the drug cartels and ‘they’re not slaves, really’ workers and do something to help.

She doesn’t use her sabers. She doesn’t need to. It’s been a long time since she has, for small fry like these.

“What are you doing?” Fett asks her, landing heavily behind her back.

“Chip removal,” she says, hand pressed to the slave’s leg. Her eyes are closed, but she can hear him shifting. “Let me concentrate, I don’t have a meddroid for this.”

He’s silent until she finishes, and waits until the people she’s helped are on their way to the planet’s freedom routes. He doesn’t ask what she did with the owners.

“You’ve done this before.”

“Regularly,” she confirms. “You?”

He doesn’t answer that, just ambles over to the the chains and stares down at them.

“Fett?”

“You go through this like it’s as easy as breathing,” he says. “It’s... impressive.”

“I guess?” she hesitates to continue. “I’m... I don’t think of it that way. This is the easy stuff. A time-waster that helps people. If I wanted to help for real, I’d been going after Jabba or Sidious or--”

“How old were you?” he asks, turning on his heel to face her dead-on. The vocoder of his helmet pulls the emotion from his voice. “When did this... these missions, the slavery battles, when did that start for you?”

“Fourteen,” she says. She’s not entirely sure, really, what counted as a mission for ending slavery and what counted as just a part of war, but she can round down. “Maybe fifteen. It’s a bit of a blur.”

“And you just kept doing it.”

“Of course,” she says. “If I have the time and the energy, if I need to do something and there’s nothing official on my hands, why not?”

He doesn’t answer her.

---------------------------

Rex greets them before she does.

Ahsoka, in her defense, is asleep at the time. It’s a restless sleep, but it’s enough that she doesn’t sense the nearing Force signatures until they’re almost at the ship.

She recognizes one of them.

“Auntie ‘Soka?” Leia questions, when she lurches to her feet and starts pulling on her boots with all the energy of a zombie. “Where are you going?”

“Jedi,” Ahsoka grunts. “Here.”

“I see.”

Leia dresses to follow her, in a little coat that’ll withstand the chill of the outside air, and Ahsoka makes it to the cargo hold just in time to hear Rex saying, “I’m not shaking your hand until you put your gloves on, Vos.”

She laughs to herself, breathless with the knowledge of what she’s about to find. She jumps the railing of the upper walkway, drops down just in front of the Master-Padawan team, and keeps her back to Fett and Rex. “Hello, there.”

One human, one Kiffar. She knows the latter.

“Would you be Sokari Torrent?” the Master asks.

“I am,” she says, with a slight bow. She can tell there’s a bit of judgement for how she’s dressed, but they’re covering it well. A Shadow and his trainee know the value of armor better than most Jedi bother with. “I’m afraid Padawan Billaba didn’t inform me of your names before we met.”

“And yet your friend knew my padawan,” the Master says.

“By reputation,” she says, as smoothly as she can. “I’ve encountered Quinlan Vos before, though I doubt he remembers--”

“I’d remember someone like you,” Quinlan interrupts, with a grin she’s sure is meant to be charming and rogueish.

He’s... very young for her, and not her type. Mostly, she wants to pat him on the head, but that probably wouldn’t go over very well. She still looks like she’s younger than him.

“Anyway,” she says, turning back to the master, “I’m afraid I still don’t know who you are, Master.”

“I am Tholme,” he says, with the bow that a Master gives a Padawan. She feels a little slighted, but it’s fine. She looks the right age, it’s fine.

It’s not like they know.

“It’s nice to meet you, Master Tholme,” she says. “My charges are Rex Torrent, the young man behind me, and currently coming down the ladder is Leia Antilles. I’m sure you’re aware of Jango Fett.”

“The Mand’alor,” Quinlan volunteers, and Ahsoka can almost hear Fett’s teeth grinding.

“Don’t call me that,” he says. She’s sure he’s got a hand drifting for his blaster.

“There isn’t a whole lot of room on the ship,” she says before the men can get into whatever weird contest she’s sure someone might start. Her bet’s on Fett. “But Leia and Rex are small enough to share with me, so I’m sure we can make it work.”

“There’s spare rolls for anyone comfortable with sleeping in the hold,” Fett grunts. “Or on the floor in the passenger room.”

“Well, I guess I could ask for a little help fi--”

“Vos,” Ahsoka snaps, letting her voice take on the kind of ‘obey me or get fresher duty’ irritation that she’d perfected back when the rebellion still had her managing people, before they’d realized she was more use in the field. “Do not.”

There’s a moment’s pause, and Tholme looks unimpressed with that raised eyebrow, but the kind of unimpressed that’s split between his own padawan and the stranger before him.

“Um,” Quinlan says. “I just--”

“No,” she cuts him off. “No flirting.”

It’s weird and uncomfortable and she’d have maybe been okay with it if she was actually the seventeen-or-eighteen-ish(?) that she looked, but she’s not. She’s in her thirties and Vos is... what, twenty? Twenty-one? No.

He stares at her, and she wonders momentarily if she’d gone too far in the direction of judging his intentions in the Force and preempted actual flirtations.

“I’m sorry?” He offers, looking confused, but ashamed. “I, uh, I’ll keep that in mind.”

She definitely preempted the actual flirtation.

Fuck.

Ahsoka closes her eyes and breathes in. Breathes out. Opens her eyes. “Right. That was... I’m not sure how much Padawan Billaba told you about me.”

“Enough,” Tholme says. He moves forward and puts a hand on Quinlan’s shoulder. Ahsoka has no idea if it’s to comfort him or hold him back. “I didn’t share most of it with my padawan, but I have a general understanding of what’s going on.”

Quinlan darts a look at his teacher, but Ahsoka doesn’t acknowledge it. It’s fine. Everything is fine.

“Thank you for your understanding,” she says, and bows, and stiffly turns away to walk to the galley.

---------------------------

Leia squirms into the bench seat, shoving her way under Ahsoka’s arm like a particularly wriggly tooka.

“What was that?” Leia demands, the authority of a rebellion general rather useless in the squeaky voice of a child.

“What was what?”

“The whole thing with Padawan Vos,” Leia says. “You blew up at him before he even did anything.”

That’s pretty true.

“I felt the flirtation coming before it happened and reacted inappropriately because I panicked. I’m significantly older than him, but I can’t tell him that, so it’s just awkward and uncomfortable and... I’m not okay, Princess. I haven’t been for a long time.”

“Yeah, we can tell.”

“Leia.”

“What? I need therapy too! Captain Rex needs therapy! I’m pretty sure Fett needs therapy! You, Fulcrum, you really need therapy. None of us are okay.” She huffs, wiggling impossibly closer. “I don’t like it, but it’s true.”

“I know,” Ahsoka groans. “I just... I just need to hold out until the Temple.”

“Will you be able to hold it together if you see someone you actually care about?” Leia demands. “What are you going to do when you see Kenobi?”

“Stop.”

“I’m serious, you--”

“Leia, that’s enough,” she snaps. “I was fighting that war before you were even born, and I’ve dealt with the consequences since. I know the risks and I’ll thank you to remember who taught you to control your own mind.”

Leia stiffens, sucking in a sharp breath. “That was uncalled for.”

“You’re not the child you appear to be,” Ahsoka reminds her, not a little sharply. “You want to dish it out, be ready to take it. What will you do when we see Bail Organa? When we see the toddler that is Anakin Skywalker?”

“I get it.”

“I’m not sure you do,” Ahsoka mutters. She isn’t surprised when Leia ducks out of the embrace and leaves the galley. She lets the girl go, guilt warring with the memory of how Master Kenobi had more than once spoken that way to Anakin at the height of the war. The fact that she’s an adult in the body of a child isn’t an excuse for poking at Ahsoka’s open wounds. It was cruel and unnecessary, and unbecoming of a... not a Jedi. A princess. A politician.

She rests her head on her arms and zones out. She should meditate, but that seems like... too much effort.

She can feel Vos and Tholme setting up in the room they’ve been assigned. Neither seems particularly angry. Most likely, Tholme’s given the absolute shortest explanation of ‘child soldier, dead master, highly traumatized and emotionally unstable’ to Vos to smooth over the incident in the cargo hold. Rex is with Leia; he’s agitated, but less so than Leia herself. Fett’s annoyed, in the cockpit, but he seems annoyed as often as not. There’s a shudder at lift-off, and a few minutes later, they’re in hyperspace, headed for the Core.

Fett finds her, falls into the other bench in full armor, and drops his elbows onto the table. The helmet clunks down a moment later.

She doesn’t lift her head. “What do you want?”

“Do I need to keep Vos away from you?”

“What?”

“Vos. He made you uncomfortable. Was that him being someone that hurt you in the future, or just the interaction being awkward?”

She lifts her head. She stares at him. “What?”

He leans back and crosses his arms. “Do you need me to tell Vos to stay the hell away from you?”

She’s gaping. “You realize I’m thirty-two, right? I can handle my own battles.”

“You’re also traumatized as hell and everyone can see it,” Fett argues back. “If Vos himself is a trigger, I can handle it.”

“He’s not,” she tells him. This is strange. Fett’s being strange. “He was actually a friend of my grandmaster’s. I’m just uncomfortable with the flirting because I’m a lot older than he realizes, and I can’t tell him that.”

He nods sharply, and then looks away. The silence sits.

“Thanks for asking?” Ahsoka says, well aware of how her confusion over the offer turns it into a question. “I mean, thank you for... caring.”

I guess, she finishes in the privacy of her own head. Or at least pretending to.

Fett makes a face, still not facing her. He eyes the galley instead. She can guess where his thoughts are going. The galley is... not very big, especially with six people on board instead of one, but she’s sure they’ve stocked up enough. On the off chance they do go through more than expected, because of how many growing bodies are in residence, they can stop off and buy more. They have those resources now.

Jango never does ask what she did with the slavers.

“Who’s going to cry if I spice things properly?” he asks.

“Probably Leia,” she says immediately. “Vos will try to power through it even though he’s going to be overwhelmed. No idea about Tholme, but I think he’ll keep a straight face whether he likes it or not. Rex and I are fine, ‘hot’ was pretty much the only flavor of seasoning the GAR had.”

“GAR?”

“Grand Army of the Republic.”

He finally looks at her.

“You already knew I was a child soldier, Fett; don’t act surprised.”

“That doesn’t mean I like hearing about it.”

“I was fourteen. That’s old enough by Mando standards, Fett. Just think back, when did you get on the battlefield?”

“I take your point,” he says, lip curling unpleasantly. “It just hits different now that I’m old enough to look back and think of how damned young fourteen really is.”

Ahsoka shrugs. “Yeah, well--”

“You said the clones were ten.”

There’s the rub, isn’t it?

Of course it was about the clones.

“...closer to seven, by the end. Kamino was just making speedies at that point. Triple growth on the average instead of double, but averages in that case meant they’d been growing at double rates for six years and then got forced through four growth cycles in a single year to beef up the army when we kept losing men.” She looks down at the table, picking at a scratch in the plastipaint with her nail. “Rex and the rest of the ones from the beginning were basically twenty in mind and body, even if they’d only been decanted ten years earlier. The speedies... I always wondered. They’d gone from functionally twelve to functionally twenty in a year. That’s not... even in Kamino, that can’t have been normal. They didn’t act like adults, not the way the originals did.”

Fett rubs at his face, groaning. He swears under his breath in three different languages.

She pities him, if only because he hasn’t actually done any of this yet. He’s paying for the crimes of a man he likely won’t ever become.

She kicks him under the table. “Wanna make tiingilar and see how long it takes Vos to start crying while he insists it’s fine?”

---------------------------

Dinner is when the questions start. Some are relatively easy. Others, not so much.

“My Master was Leia’s biological father,” is an easy truth to share. “She inherited his power, so I need to get her to the temple for her own safety, because home no longer is.”

“Yes, her adoptive parents were unfortunately killed rather recently. We’d prefer not to talk about it.”

“Rex is with me. Where he goes, I go, and vice versa.”

That one gets her an odd look.

“I thought...” Quinlan trails off, gesturing between Rex and Fett.

Fett keeps his face impassive, but his discomfort and guilt leak into the Force. “I didn’t know Rex existed until I ran into these three in a spaceport cantina a few weeks ago.”

Quinlan blinks at him, looks at Rex again, and then turns back to Fett with a grin that might have been described as ‘saucy’ if he were less smug about it. “Wild oats, huh?”

“Are you shitting me right now,” Leia whispers, and Ahsoka elbows her.

“That was inappropriate, padawan.”

Quinlan’s grin fades as Fett just continues to eye him.

“Um, so--”

“How old is the kid?” Fett interrupts.

Darting eyes answer him, as Quinlan tries to gauge Rex. “Ten? Maybe twelve?”

“And how old am I?”

“...early thirties?”

“I’m twenty-seven.”

Quinlan’s grin fades further as he does the math.

“I’d have been between fifteen and seventeen when he was born,” Fett says, tone flat. “Between fourteen and sixteen at conception. I know damn well I wasn’t doing anything that could have resulted in a kid at that age.”

Quinlan rallies. “So, brothers?”

Tholme sighs loudly, hand over his eyes.

“I’m a clone,” Rex says, and Ahsoka can feel the amusement he gets out of Quinlan’s confused shock. They’d both had plenty of respect for Master Vos, but Padawan Vos was nothing but trouble. “Harvested genetic material, grown in a tube, inconsistent aging meaning I don’t even know how old I am for sure.”

“I broke him out,” Ahsoka adds, which is half true.

“There was a chip in my head,” Rex adds, with a bright smile. Quinlan’s discomfort grows. “She got it out. Also, lots of brothers. None of them are... around anymore. The creators were trying to make an army.”

Vos and Tholme have no response. Fett looks like he’s been carved out of stone. Leia’s just ignoring them and picking at her food.

Ahsoka lifts a hand and, without looking, Rex high-fives her.

---------------------------

“Drop your elbow.”

Ahsoka tries to cover her smile at the dirty look that Leia shoots Fett. Fett remains unimpressed by the glare of royalty, just gestures for the girl to do as he said.

“I know how to fight,” Leia grumbles. “I took lessons. I was good at them.”

“And I’m better,” Fett says, leaving no room for argument. “You want the Torrents to take over?”

The Torrents. Rex and Soka. She likes being referred to that way. Like they’re a team that never got split up.

Force, she wished they’d never gotten split up.

“Again,” Fett orders, and Leia moves through the Mandalorian kata with ill grace in her emotions and all grace in her sweeping limbs.

Well, as much grace as an undersized six-year-old can, at any rate.

“Think he’ll ask me to spar her again?” Rex asks, dropping down into the seat next to Ahsoka and passing her a drink.

“Maybe,” she acknowledges. “I think he’s wondering if it’s worth asking Vos to spar with her, so she gets more experience with size differences.”

“Hm?”

“She flinched at his face again,” she tells him. “The whole... thing with Boba, I guess. She still won’t tell me why Fett triggers her sometimes, but he’s not pressing her to spar with him, and there’s only so much she can get out of fighting me. Asking Tholme would be presumptuous, but Vos is just a padawan. I think it’d work out.”

“And you?”

She looks at him, already feeling a cresting wave of bullshit she doesn’t want to deal with. “What about me?”

“Are you going to spar with the Jedi?”

She should. She hasn’t sparred with a saber since she got tossed back into a body only half-familiar to her. She’s let Leia borrow the shorter one to learn some basic blocking moves, Shii-Cho and then, with hesitance, the first Soresu form. Another time, she loaned it to Rex to practice some attacks; they both know that the next time he picks up her saber in battle, having lost his weapons or she her grip, it will be neither the first or last time he wields a sword of light. None of that, however, is... sparring.

None of that is against someone who knows what they’re doing.

How long has it been since she sparred with anyone other than Kanan and Ezra?

How long has it been since she sparred without the looming specter of Darth Vader in the back of her mind, without fear of the Inquisitors, without the knowledge that any saber held by someone other than her two friends would be red as blood and twice as drenched.

Would she be able to hold back as she fought?

“I should,” she acknowledges, eyes on where Fett is nudging Leia’s feet into position for some kind of leveraging flip. She’s so small. “It would probably be a good idea to spar against a master at some point.”

“Do you think you can?” Rex asks.

“I never knew him,” she says. “And he isn’t Dark. It should be fine.”

Rex nods, taking her word for it. They watch as Leia stumbles on a final move, and Fett gestures for her to sit down and get a drink.

“That man is a terror,” she informs them.

(She’d once described him as a slave-driver. She had not made that mistake twice.)

“Least it’s not Kamino!” Rex tells her cheerfully. When Leia refuses to look impressed, he laughs at her.

Ahsoka has a half-second’s warning before heavy boots thud to the ground next to her. “What’s Kamino?”

“Hello, Vos, it’s nice to see you too,” she drawls. “I’m good, thanks for asking, and yourself?”

The boy-not-quite-man rolls his eyes. “Hi, Torrents; hi, tiny one.”

Leia glares at him next.

“So, Kamino?”

“Planet by Rishi,” Rex says.

“Why were you there?”

“They specialize in cloning.”

Ahsoka covers her mouth as the conversation drops into the same awkward gap that always happens when Quinlan stumbles into a subject he didn’t know to avoid.

“Like... you were made there, or you were researching how it works for your own--”

Ahsoka slaps a hand over his mouth. “Now’s a great time to stop talking.”

He licks her palm.

She bares her teeth and arches her fingers just enough to press nails into his cheek.

He bites at her palm, and she yanks her hand away.

“You’re all children,” Leia accuses, conveniently forgetting that Ahsoka and Rex are both over a decade older than her.

“I can throw you the length of a swimming pool,” Ahsoka tells her. “One of the fancy competition-ready ones that would make a Tatooinian cry. You are absolutely the child here.”

“Using the Force is cheating, sir,” Rex informs her.

“Only if there’s a competition,” Ahsoka shoots back. “And proving that a certain princess is a small child is not a competition. It’s a declarative fact.”

“I’m going to rip open the seams on all your tops except the ugliest one,” Leia decides.

“Try me,” Ahsoka challenges. “Adi’ka.”

A low, rough cough interrupts them. “Are you done?”

Fett has his arms crossed, and an eyebrow raised. He knows they’re all adults here, and is entirely unamused. As the silence drags, the eyebrow climbs a little higher.

“Done with what?” Quinlan finally asks, thereby volunteering himself to spar in hand-to-hand with Jango Fett, as one does.

“Poor, poor Vos,” Rex laughs, watching as Fett barks out orders at Quinlan every five seconds to fix his footwork, to stop dropping his guard, to stop wasting energy on flips instead of just dodging the easy way.

“Throw him!” Ahsoka calls. To her delight, Fett obliges.

The thing is, Quinlan isn’t bad at brawling. He’s got training, endurance, skill. The man knows what he’s doing, objectively. He’s just not a match for Fett, and is used enough to relying on his saber that his hand-to-hand skills are rusty. They are perhaps less rusty than those Jedi who don’t take questionable jobs in the Mid-Outer Rim, and Ahsoka’s got a suspicion that Vos regularly gets into bar fights in his downtime, but none of that is enough for him to actually do more than survive against Fett without his saber.

Even the saber wouldn’t help, if Fett had his armor.

“Whose idea was this?”

Ahsoka cranes her head back and smiles. “Hello, Master Tholme. Vos... volunteered.”

“Did he know he was volunteering?”

“No comment.”

Tholme snorts, crossing his arms and eyeing the spar in front of him. “I thought Fett hated Jedi. Giving us a ride for the sake of you three is one thing, but why is he teaching my padawan?”

Ahsoka shrugs. “Constructive bullying?”

There’s a small twitch of a smile, quickly gone. “He said something wrong, I’m guessing?”

“There was no way he could have known,” she dismisses. “We’re just, like, ninety-percent tragic backstories.”

“You’d think the Force would warn him,” Rex notes.

“That’s not how the Force works,” Leia chides.

“No, no, he’s right,” Ahsoka corrects. “The Force does sometimes step in to stop a person from saying something stupid. However, Padawan Vos is at an age where people think they are very rational while being more irrational than they likely ever will be again.”

“Do I want to ask what you were doing at that age?” Tholme asks.

“Running bla...” she trails off, then whips around to gape at him.

He smiles, bland and unassuming. “Does Fett know?”

“Know... what?” Ahsoka asks.

“That you’re significantly older than you look,” he says, voice just low enough that the sparring duo can’t hear him. “All three of you.”

Ahsoka turns back to the spar, only catching Tholme out of the corner of her eye. “He knows.”

“Mm. Were you planning on telling the Council?”

“Yes.” That part was never in question. “How did you figure it out?”

“I am a good investigator,” he says. “And you rely a little too heavily on your physical forms to obfuscate. Were it just one of you, that wouldn’t be a problem, but the pattern repeated across three is a little easier to discern.”

“I hoped the whole ‘child soldiers’ thing would be a bigger distraction,” Ahsoka mutters. She glances at Leia and Rex. Both of them are used to being in charge to some degree, giving orders and making contingency plans, but in this... in this, Ahsoka is in charge. They’d decided that at the very start. It didn’t matter that Rex had lived longer and had more experience, or that Leia had held the highest Rebellion rank of the three of them. Ahsoka had been agreed as leader, and they were relying on her.

They’re waiting on her orders. Stiff and unhappy, in Leia’s case, but they trust her.

“Will you be telling Vos?” She asks.

“No,” Tholme says. “Your secrets remain your own unless they endanger us, and I’ve a feeling they won’t be.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Rex jokes, smile not reaching his eyes. “I’ve been working with this family for too long to trust that trouble won’t find them around the next corner.”

“This family?” Tholme repeats.

“Sokari was telling the truth about her master being Leia’s biological father,” Rex says. He shrugs. “I worked with him, with his wife, with both of his kids, with his master and his padawan. All of them, to a one, are trouble magnets.”

“Ah, but that’s not the secret that’s putting us in danger,” Tholme points out. “Simply existence as a Jedi.”

Rex shrugs. “Fair enough. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though.”

Ahsoka lurches to her feet, turning with a smile and dancing backward into the the stretch of empty cargo hold they used for such things. “A spar, Master Tholme?”

He looks past her, to Quinlan, and raises a brow. “Would you not prefer to spar with someone a little closer to your level first?”

She barks out a laugh. “Master Tholme, I’m afraid I’ve spent more of my life fighting to survive than having normal friendly spars. My style is more lethal than the average, and you’ve already seen what war’s done to my mind. I ask to spar with you because, if I lose control, if I slip in time or react on an instinct that isn’t appropriate, I trust that you’ll be more able to stop me than a senior padawan.”

He smiles. “Yes, I gathered as much. Still, better to ask. Shall we wait for them to finish up?”

Ahsoka shrugs, turns, and yells. “Clear the deck!”

Rex snorts behind her, and lowly mutters, “Sir, yes, sir.”

She smirks at him over her shoulder. “At ease, Captain.”

“That’s ‘Commander’ to you, I got promoted,” he sniffs, chin held high.

Heavy steps herald Fett’s arrival at their little group. “The hells are you doing?”

“I’m going to have a spar with a Jedi Master, and I want you and Vos to not get stabbed.”

“I’m not that easy to injure in an actual fight, let alone by accident,” Fett grouses. He looks up and over at Vos, who is already significantly taller, if a fair shot less built. “This one, on the other hand...”

“Hey!”

Ahsoka laughs and backs into the center of the cargo hold, drawing her sabers. “Don’t worry, Vos, I won’t play dirty. You’ll probably get your master back in one piece.”

He wrinkles his nose at her. “Getting a bit ahead of yourself there, aren’t you? He’s a Jedi Master and former Watchman. You’re... what, eighteen?”

Ahsoka raises a brow and activates her sabers, tapping the blades together and watching as more than one person winces. “Wanna bet on how long I last?”

“No,” he says immediately, stepping back to join Rex on the bench. “You’ve already blindsided me enough. I’m not dumb enough to fall for whatever you’ve got up your sleeve.”

“I don’t have sleeves.”

“Armwarmers-slash-greaves, then.”

“Greaves go on the legs, these are vambraces.”

He throws his hands up in the air. “I’m just going to stop talking now!”

“Good plan,” Leia snarks, and then literally hisses when Rex ruffles her hair.

Tholme lights his saber and sinks into an opening stance.

Ahsoka mirrors him.

---------------------------

She wins, but barely. She's had a few weeks to practice her forms, has sparred hands-only with Rex and Fett, but this is her first real try at using her sabers against a person, instead of a blaster or thin air, since she arrived in the past. She’s only mostly adjusted to her body.

But Tholme is a healer and a watchman, not a duelist. Ahsoka held her own against Ventress, against Grievous, against Maul when she was this age. Still adjusting to her body or not, her lineage is one of battle, and it bled true.

“You’re terrifying,” Quinlan tells her after they’re done, smiling like the sun as he hands her a towel. “Please never turn that on me.”

She laughs at him. “Would you believe that I’m out of practice?”

“Out of practice with what?” he asks, horrified and fascinated. “Fighting Sith Lords?”

“Among other things,” she says, and smirks when he chokes on his drink. “Multiple darkside users who claimed to be Sith, at least. One being a full Lord, one that was disowned by his master, and one that was apprenticed to a Banite apprentice, so she wasn’t technically allowed to be a Darth because of the rule of two.”

Tholme meets her eyes past Quinlan’s shoulder, head tilted and eyes half-shut in consideration. He’s taking her seriously. He knows what she’s not saying.

“How...” Quinlan trails off and shakes his head. “You know what, no. Asking you people questions never ends well.”

“Good plan,” Ahsoka says, clapping a hand down on his shoulder. “Also, you need to spar with Fett more. Your footwork is shit.”

“It is not,” Quinlan gripes. “You’re all just scary good at this stuff.”

“You mean surviving?” Leia pipes up, and smiles innocently when Quinlan turns to pout at her.

“You’re getting bullied by a six-year-old,” Rex informs him.

“Yeah,” Quinlan sighs. “I know.”

Ahsoka laughs, and it’s fine. It’s all fine. For a week, everything is honestly great. She trains, she laughs, she works through the nightmares.

Then fucking Denon happens.

---------------------------

Denon is a city-planet on the intersection of two major hyperlanes. It’s the kind of place where they stop for two things:

Fuel.

Paperwork.

Technically, there’s a whole mess of paperwork they have to fill out to continue along this specific hyperlane, since they aren’t official Republic ships, and don’t have the licenses to just pass along like ships that are pre-registered to the Trade Federation or the like. They could sneak past--literally all of them know smuggler’s routes--but it’s honestly less of a pain to do things legally. They have a Jedi Master. They have cash. Some of that cash wasn’t quite legally acquired, but nobody needs to know that.

It’s supposed to be a pit stop. That’s all.

It’s just a pit stop.

But no, the galaxy isn’t that kind and Ahsoka’s luck is currently being compounded with a Skywalker, two Fetts, and Vos, which means that of course they run into trouble. Of course they do. There was never any other option, was there?

“Motherfucker,” Ahsoka snaps, lifting her head up and slamming her drink on the table.

The glass is empty. That’s good. They’re in a restaurant right now, a little splurging after weeks with only each others’ company, and spilling the sugary child-friendly juice with that move would have drawn way too much attention from the servers.

“Language,” Tholme says, voice idly unconcerned.

“Sir?” Rex asks, kicking Ahsoka under the table. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wr--that jackass,” she hisses, getting to her feet. “Rex, grab a blaster, I’ve got shebs to kick.”

“Okay,” Rex says, grabbing one out of Fett’s holster and scooting out of the booth before anyone can tell him not to. “Whose?”

“I didn’t even know that he was... osik, I don’t have jurisdiction,” she realizes. “I don’t have any record of wrongdoing. I can’t arrest him since we don’t have evidence of criminal wrongdoing...”

“Are you two going to explain what’s going on?” Vos asks. “Or sit down, maybe?”

Ahsoka makes her decision. She eyes the window--the restaurant in question is a little dingy, but it’s also several dozen stories in the air. “Rex, remember the thing we did on Geonosis that you hated?”

He pauses, and then sighs heavily. “Yes, sir. I remember the... yeeting.”

Hah. That slang doesn’t even exist yet.

“Great. With me!”

It’s a good thing the windows are forcefields instead of transparisteel. A bit of a twist to the energy and they’re gone.

She only hears a little screaming before the wind tears all noises away while they plummet.

They land lightly--of course--and Ahsoka wraps them both in a don’t notice me aura. Nobody even notices that they’ve just come from above. It’s great that she can just Do These Things again, and get brushed off as Weird Jedi Shit, instead of worrying about the Empire. She’s missed being able to jump out of windows without fear.

Rex follows her as she starts running through the city. They don’t have comms, and he’s still so small, which means he can’t keep up with her even if she runs at normal speeds without Force enhancement.

“Should you carry me?” he asks, before she can figure out if it’s worth suggesting. She did it a few times before they joined up with Jango.

“It’s not... urgent, I think,” she says. She hesitates to speak, even as she keeps jogging with Rex at her heels. “Honestly, I’m trying to figure out if there’s anything I can ding him for so we can attack him. It’s all well and good that I can beat him right now, but all the crimes I know about haven’t happened yet, so it wouldn’t be legal...”

“Commander?”

“Hm?”

“I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

She scrolls the conversation back mentally, considers, and says, “Oh.”

“Who’s getting steamrolled?”

“Uh, Maul’s here,” Ahsoka admits.

“Ah,” Rex says. He makes a face. “I understand the desire to jump out a window, now. I don’t agree with it, but I understand.”

Ahsoka laughs. “I mean, I just... every time I’ve seen him for almost twenty years, it’s been like... on sight, you know? We’ve never not attacked each other, except when I needed him to cause problems on Mandalore. But I always knew I was in the right, then.”

“So... what do we arrest him for?” Rex prompts.

“Um... carrying a lightsaber without a license?” she hazards. “We’ll need Tholme there. Hopefully I can just shout at him and he’ll attack me, but I think he only went full nutjob after Master Kenobi cut his legs off. He might be too controlled to try to kill me just for yelling at him.”

“...do we have to stalk him?” Rex asks, sounding like he’d most likely sigh if he weren’t mid-run.

She scoops him up and swings him around onto her back before she answers. “I think we have to stalk him, Rex’ika.”

“Don’t call me that.”

---------------------------

Maul is... exceptionally sneaky, actually. Either that, or he hasn’t done anything wrong yet. Ahsoka’s betting on the former, because she’s seen this particular skocha kung take over a planet before anyone realized he was the most dangerous person around.

Or maybe he’s just not committing crimes, and is in fact just here to buy groceries.

He’s examining a papaya.

She fantasizes about jumping across the market and greeting him with a heel to the cheekbone.

“Are you imagining a flying kick, Sir?”

“Yeah...”

“He’s examining a papaya, Sir.”

“I know...”

“Does he know we’re here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? Do you think I should go hit him?”

“No.”

“Should I hit on him?”

“No, Sir. I would not advise that.”

“He’s looking at the neloms.”

“I can see that.”

“Why does he have to be so bo--did he just fucking bite a nelom?”

“It appears so, Sir.”

“Like... like rind and all. Just bit the little fucker.”

“Seems it.”

A scuff of metal. “What the fuck are you two doing?”

Ahsoka tips her head around to peer through the grate. “We’re spying, Fett, what does it look like we’re doing?”

Rex cranes his head. “We’re hanging upside-down from a fire escape to get a look at a suspected Sith Apprentice that is currently shopping for various fruits, Mand’alor.”

Ahsoka waves. “Hi, Master Tholme.”

“Sokari,” the master greets. “This seems a very conspicuous way to spy.”

She shrugs as well as she can from this angle. “Yes, but you see, this way’s more fun.”

“Is it now.”

Rex shifted. “He’s on the move!”

“To kill someone?!”

“No, to the deli meats.”

“Kriff.”

---------------------------

Apparently, Tholme and Fett had told Quinlan to take care of Leia, as Leia had wanted to finish her juice and refused to get involved in the Torrents’ nonsense. According to her, if they couldn’t be bothered to explain the nonsense, they didn’t need her.

This was true and accurate.

Quinlan shows up while they’re still stalking Maul, having moved to a low rooftop for a decent vantage point with less likelihood of being spotted. He’s giving Leia an eopie-back ride, and the pout on her face at needing it is adorable. She pouts harder when she sees them.

“Are you even trying to hide?” Leia scoffs.

“Not really,” Ahsoka admits. She’s got Fett’s binoculars out. “I’m not sure he’s caught wind of the fact that we’re here yet.”

“Or he has and he’s just biding his time to escape while we’re distracted,” Tholme points out.

“Meh,” Ahsoka says, avidly devouring the visual that is a teenage Maul glaring at leafy vegetables. “I just want him to do something so I have an excuse to beat his ass.”

“Do I get to know who?” Quinlan asks, setting Leia down on the roof. “Or are we going to keep being completely unwilling to share information?”

“Baby Sith Lord,” Ahsoka says. “He’s fifteen. A child.”

“A baby,” Rex agrees.

“You’re... that’s... ugh,” Quinlan groans as loudly and as dramatically as he dares, flopping down to the rooftop. “Master Tholme, please tell me this isn’t a real Sith.”

“He’s Dark,” Tholme confirms. “Sith is... up for debate until we have evidence.”

“He’s a bitch is what he is,” Ahsoka mutters. She observes the teenager in question stop to poke at some pink tomatoes. “E chu ta, break the law, already!”

“Does he have a lightsaber?” Quinlan asks. “If he has a lightsaber and no Jedi ID or specialty license, we can probably arrest him.”

“Auntie Soka doesn’t have a license or ID,” Leia points out.

“She’s got a Jedi escort,” Tholme says. “And if our supposed Sith is polite and plays nice, we can probably escort him to the Temple as well.”

Rex snorts derisively.

“Do you know why he’s on Denon?” Fett asks.

“No clue,” Ahsoka admits. “Evil reasons, probably.”

“You’re useless,” Leia tells her.

“Thanks, princess, how’s that attempt to open the jam jar by yourself coming?”

Leia says something very inappropriate for a princess, for a child, and for a lady. It’s fairly appropriate for a soldier, which is admittedly what she’s been for a few years now. Ahsoka sticks her tongue out at the girl like the mature operative she is.

“I wish we could still get him to lose his osik by just showing up and insulting him,” Rex mutters, low enough that Quinlan probably can’t hear.

“I wanna punch him in the face,” Ahsoka confesses. “I want him to try to punch me in the face, and fail.”

“Don’t bully the baby Sith,” Rex admonishes.

“He’s a Sith.”

“He’s fifteen, it’s tacky.”

“But it’s Maul.”

“I know, but you’re tw--significantly older than him.”

“But... but it’s the motherfucker himself.”

“...you can bully him a little, but only because he’s a Sith.”

Fett steals the binoculars. “You can borrow them again when you stop acting like children.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Rex says, dry as Ryloth. “I’m ten.”

“Pretty tall for your age,” Ahsoka mutters, and then giggles.

“Don’t steal my jokes,” Rex says. He elbows her, hard.

“You know,” Quinlan says, slow and tired. “Master Tholme and I are trained investigators.”

Ahsoka and Rex look at each other, and then up at him.

“Okay?”

“...do you want me to find actual evidence of this guy doing something criminal?”

“Oh, yes please.”

---------------------------

Quinlan, as it turns out, is not overselling his skills. He does catch Maul doing something illegal later that day. It’s a little more ‘stealing corporate secrets in the dead of night’ and less ‘torturing people for kicks,’ but it’s still enough to legally arrest him. Quinlan attempts to do so.

Quinlan does not succeed, and is forced to jump out a window to avoid getting cut in half. Maul follows, steals a passing speeder by throwing out the driver, and takes off. Someone--looks like Tholme--drops back to save the driver, but the rest of them give chase. Ahsoka gleefully takes point on that, of course. She’s the best pilot.

(Rex looks bored, but someone is likely to puke by the end of the night. She hopes it’s not Leia, who insisted on coming for some fucking reason.)

“How the kriff is a teenager that good?!” Quinlan yells, clinging to the edge of the speeder to avoid getting tipped out as Ahsoka swerves around a corner with a wild laugh.

“He’s a Sith!” Leia shouts over the wind. “What do you think?”

Quinlan is not impressed by the claim of Sith.

Ahsoka screeches as she drifts across four lanes of traffic and into an alleyway to pursue Maul. He’s pretty good at dodging cross-building walkways, but she’s better. She bares her teeth, hissing, and tries to pick a plan.

“Vos, how’s your aim with Force throws?” She calls to the backseat.

“Uh, decent?”

“Great! Fett’s the projectile!”

Vos takes a second longer to process that than Jango does.

“I’m wh--”

He cuts off, screaming, and is flung forward by Quinlan to crash headfirst into a teenage Sith.

“Take the wheel!” Ahsoka commands, not waiting to see who follows the order, because Fett and Maul are both getting to their feet, the other speeder is about to crash, and she’s not sure who’s going to win that fight.

She jumps from the speeder they’ve been violently dragging around Denon, and lands feet-first on Maul’s... shoulder.

Hm.

That definitely dislocated something.

“You should wear armor!” she chirps at him, drawing both sabers and grinning as he whirls to face her, eyes wide with hate.

He’s utterly silent.

That’s disturbing. Expected, but disturbing.

“Did you just throw me?” Fett demands, higher pitched than she’d normally expect.

“No, Vos threw you.”

“Because you told him to!”

“Yeah, it’s a good strategy!”

“It is not!”

“Why not? Throwing people was standard practice in the GAR.”

She can’t see his face, but she’s pretty sure he’s about ready to strangle her.

Ahsoka cannot, at that point, continue snarking with the father of her best friend, because there’s a red lightsaber coming for her throat, and she should probably worry about that. Maul’s very good at killing people and she’d like to avoid becoming part of that statistic.

As she is quickly reminded, he is... fifteen. And shorter than she’s used to. And already injured.

It’s really, really easy to take him out, actually.

At some point, the other speeder was safely recovered before it caused property damage, and their own is landing a few meters away with Vos and the kids.

“You have Force-negating cuffs, right?” Ahsoka asks.

“No, Master Tholme has them.”

“Oh,” she says, and grimaces. “I guess I’ll just... keep sitting on him then.”

Maul snarls, and she raps him on the skull. “Stop that, it’s uncivilized.”

Rex snorts.

Jango makes a noise that is incredibly frustrated with the lot of them, and turns on Rex. “Was she telling the truth?”

“About?”

“Throwing people being standard practice for the GAR.”

Rex’s face goes pained. “It was in the five-oh-first. And a few others.”

“What’s the GAR?” Quinlan asks.

“None of your damn business,” Fett snaps.

Quinlan throws his hands up in the air again. “Come on! I just proved I know what I’m doing!”

“And their tragic backstory is none of your business, prudii!”

Quinlan blinks at him, and then glances at Ahsoka. “Um.”

“He called you a shadow since your training, um, seems to be pointing in that direction,” she says as carefully as she can. “We were theorizing.”

“Wh... you actually paid attention?” Quinlan asks, looking horribly confused. “I thought I was just annoying you.”

Ahsoka laughs at him. “Oh, Vos... I’ve been running black ops for... much longer than most would guess. Trust me, I know another spy when I see them.”

She smiles as kindly as she can, because she hadn’t actually meant to make him feel left out or unwanted or... well, she’d been pretty patronizing, especially for someone seemingly younger than him. The smile does not work. Quinlan just looks kind of horrified about how young she just implied she started spy work.

Granted, she’d been sixteen for Zygerria...

Deciding to ignore him for a bit, she shifts on Maul’s back and pats him on the cheek. “Don’t worry, Baby Sith. We’re going to get you lots of nice therapy. Mind healers, no Sith tortures, all that fun stuff. Maybe some plushies.”

“You’re also getting therapy, right?” Quinlan asks. “Please say you are. I’m required for the specifics of my training and if anything you’ve said is true, I feel like you really need it and I’m scared of what’ll happen if you don’t.”

Ahsoka laughs, knowing exactly how empty it sounds. “Oh hell, if I didn’t get therapy, I imagine Kix would rise from the grave to force me into it.”

The name means nothing to anyone except Rex, and... ah, yeah, she told Fett about Kix a few weeks ago.

“No more throwing me without warning,” Fett grumbles, dropping to sit on the ground next to her. “Especially not at baby Sith Lords.”

“I am not a child!” Maul spits.

“He speaks!” Ahsoka cheers. “Aw, I knew you could do it.”

“’Soka, I told you not to bully him,” Rex complains. “It’s tacky. You’re being tacky.”

“I’m allowed to be tacky,” Ahsoka declares. “I’ve died twice, that’s, like, permission from the universe.”

“You’ve died twice?” Quinlan asks, back in ‘fascinated horror’ territory. “Wait, no, I shouldn’t ask--”

“Too late! The first time was on a planet that doesn’t exist and my Master lost his mind, killed a god, and used the good favor of another god to have me brought back to life at her expense. Not in that order.”

“I--what? No, that’s--what?”

Ahsoka smiles brightly. “You asked.”

Tholme finally shows up with the cuffs.

---------------------------

“You should eat something.”

He glares at her.

“Baby Sith Lords need to eat.”

He keeps glaring at her.

“Maul, you’ll never get big and strong and ready to kill if you don’t eat your vegetables.”

He bares his teeth.

“No, I don’t eat my veggies, but I’m a Togruta, so if I eat too many vegetables I throw up.”

Rex kicks her thigh, right on the faulds. “What did I say about bullying the Sith Lord?”

“Not to.”

“And what are you doing?”

“Making him eat his vegetables.”

“Soka.”

“Rex’ika.”

He kicks at her again. “Get up, we’re swapping out the watch.”

“But I wanted to hang out with my favorite little criminal mastermind.”

Rex drops to the floor and presses his forehead to her shoulder. “How the hell is being around this guy the first thing to make you cheer up in weeks?”

“I’m allowed to be mean to him.”

“He’s going to bite you.”

“I’ll bite back.”

Rex jabs a finger into her ribs, and she squeaks. “Go get something to eat, Commander.”

“Fine,” she huffs, rolling to her feet and moseying along to the galley. She walks in on Tholme and Fett having an argument about the ways in which Jedi and Mandalorians differ. Quinlan’s on the side, watching with wide eyes, and little Leia’s drinking a juice box at his side, tucked up under his arm and occasionally saying things to fan the flames. Ahsoka assumes she’s enjoying herself.

She opens the cooling unit, looks over the contents, and pulls out a raw leg of eopie mutton. She leans against the counter, bites into the chilled-but-not-frozen meat, and uses the back of one hand to wipe the blood off her chin. The ‘real adults’ don’t notice.

“I’m like ninety percent sure you’re doing this to mess with me but also...” Quinlan trails off, staring at her with horror. “Why?”

“A girl’s gotta eat.”

“Yeah, but all the obligate carnivores I know are like... generally holding to basic rules of courtesy when it comes to not grossing people out,” Quinlan says. “Like, I don’t chew with my mouth open. You don’t... eat in the most intimidating--did you just crack the bone with your teeth?!”

Ahsoka smirks at him, using her free hand to take away the shard of bone so she can suck out the marrow without eating the bones themselves. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this isn’t polite society. We’re in a galley on a bounty hunter’s ship, and I’ve been living on the run or in an army for most of my life. Table manners are optional.”

“No, they’re not,” Leia orders. “Fett, it’s your ship, tell her to--”

“--and another thing!” Fett snaps at Tholme, clearly paying less than no attention to the food argument.

Ahsoka keeps on eating, trying to catch wind of where the discussion’s at. Mostly, it seems to be at ‘talking past each other.’ Neither of them seems to have fully grasped more than the absolute most basic parts of the other culture, and that’s only enough to insult each other, not actually have a constructive conversation. She’d have expected more out of Tholme, at least. He’s not exactly young.

“Hey, quick question,” she says, in a moment where both of them have paused for breath and the opportunity to seethe. “Fett, when’s the last time you worked with a Jedi, or any member of a Force-based religion, before I popped into your life?”

His nose scrunches up as he makes a face.

“And Tholme, when’s the last time you worked with anyone from the Mandalorian system?”

Tholme’s reaction isn’t any more gracious than Fett’s.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she says. “Vos, were either of them actually interested in that conversation, or just looking for an excuse to yell?”

“Now listen here, jetiika--”

“Fett,” she snaps. “I am not a child.”

“And neither am I,” he growls right back. “This is my ship, and I damn well don’t need you treating me like a misbehaving youngling. You’ve got a problem, you bring it to my face, not get all smug about people’s tempers blowing over.”

Well, then.

She smiles thinly. “Of course.”

He stands with his arms crossed, in full armor save for the helmet. She puts aside the eopie meat and wipes her hands, smiling until she can put her hands on her hips and let it drop to a challenge.

“You know, I’m just--I’m just gonna go,” Quinlan mutters, pulling Leia out with him, the girl hanging from under one of his arms. “This, uh, this looks like a problem for... you folks. Um. Yeah.”

He sidles out.

Tholme doesn’t.

Fett rubs at the bridge of his nose, and then gestures at the table. “Sit.”

“I’d prefer not to.”

He drops his hand and glares at her. “We have another week on this ship together. We are going to have this conversation. Sit.”

She sits, right on the warm spot left behind by Quinlan and Leia. She crosses her arms, lifts a brow, and waits.

Fett takes the seat across from her. Tholme leans against the counter.

“We all know you’re older than you look,” Fett says. “I heard Tholme mention it, I know that much has been shared. You’re acting like an actual teenager, and I’ve... I’ve put up with a lot. I am trying to keep things civil, particularly with you. I’ve tried to be friendly. You’ve been fucked up since we met, fine, everyone’s got trauma. The thing where you’ve started talking shit to our faces for what seems like your own amusement? That has to stop. You’re older than me, Torrent. Fucking act like it.”

She blinks at him, slow and not exactly happy, and turns to Tholme.

The man shrugs. “I was planning to put up with it until we arrived to the temple and handed you over to some mind healers. Fett doesn’t have that kind of time.”

There’s a curdle in her stomach, defensive and angry and guilty.

“You’ve been... a bitch,” Fett finally says. “You know that. I’m not going to mince words. You’ve been holier-than-thou and rude and condescending, and aiming that at Antilles is one thing, when you’ve apparently known her since she was a toddler and taught her things. Aiming at the rest of us isn’t going to fly. We’re all adults trying to share a space. Stop acting like... just like you have been.”

There is no defense to be made that they aren’t both already aware of.

She closes her eyes and tries to strangle the burst of irrational rage.

Their accusations aren’t unfounded.

They deserve an apology.

She is in the wrong.

She’s felt freer than she had in years, and in that freedom allowed herself too much rein, let herself lace her words with barbed wires and poison instead of sparks and spices, comments that were cruel instead of just joking. Too familiar. Too comfortable.

“My behavior’s been inappropriate,” she finally says, the words clumsy and too big in her mouth. “You’re right about that. I’m sorry, and I’ll endeavor to keep a tighter rein on my less pleasant behaviors in the future.”

At least she only lashes out with words. It could be worse.

She opens her eyes, fixes her gaze on the wall behind Fett, wrestles her expression into stiff neutrality. “Am I dismissed?”

“...uh, no, not after that,” Fett says, sounding just a little horrified. “What the hell was that?”

Tholme hisses out a breath. “Let her go.”

“No, this needs to be discussed, that’s not a healthy rea--”

“Fett, let her go,” Tholme insists, low and heavy.

Fett looks between the two for a moment, seems to come to a realization he doesn’t like, and then gestures almost violently towards the door. “Fine. Go.”

She walks out, doesn’t sprint. She’s stiff. She’s controlled. She’s the one that fucked up, so it’s fine if she doesn’t feel great right now. Getting called out on one’s own failings as a person isn’t something to get upset about if the failings are real. The feelings are real and normal, but this was her fault, and so it’s up to her to fix it, and she can’t let them know it hurt her, because this was her mistake.

She goes to the cargo hold.

---------------------------

Ahsoka works out her frustrations on Fett’s punching bag. She does not augment herself with the Force, just uses raw strength and technique, ignoring the tears that press at her eyes.

She’s fine.

It’s not weird. It’s not odd. It’s not strange to not notice she’s been kind of a bitch since her mood came up with the whole Depa thing, and then Maul. She’s been mean, mostly to Vos and Fett, and nobody’s confronted her about it until now. They let her have room for her trauma, and she hadn’t reined it in. She’s just gotten worse.

‘Snippy’ she’d always been, but age apparently hadn’t fucking tempered it.

“Um.”

She catches the punching bag, breathing heavily and covered in sweat. She hasn’t worked out all the twitchy, nervous energy yet.

“Vos,” she greets, once she’s caught herself enough that her voice won’t waver. He’s on the other side of the bag, but she knows his voice. “Do you need something?”

“You’re kind of... projecting,” he tells her, drifting to where she can actually see him. “Not self-loathing, but, um, recrimination? You just don’t feel very good and I was hoping to help”

Why in all the Sith hells does he have to be nice.

“I got called out on my behavior and wasn’t ready to face the fact that I’d kriffed up,” she tells him. “I’ll be fine. And I’m... sorry. I haven’t been fair to you and was using you as an easy target for some of my ruder comments.”

“I mean, I kind of figured,” he admits, coming closer. “I’ve been tutored by Shadows before, and a lot of them act like you. I just assumed it was more of that.”

“I still shouldn’t have let myself run loose like that,” she says. “I’m... it wasn’t appropriate. I shouldn’t have let it happen.”

He shrugs, not meeting her eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” she says. “Not with... not with you. Or anyone other than Rex and a mind healer, really. Most of it is...”

She trails off, distantly noticing that her eyes are tearing up enough to blur her vision, and her nails are digging into the bag in a way Fett won’t appreciate.

There’s so much that beat her down, never quite breaking her, that she doesn’t even know what made her act the way she does.

“Want to spar?”

She looks over at him, wonders what he sees that makes him want to fight her when she’s visibly unstable.

He smiles, kind and easy, and it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. It’s genuine in intent, if not in energy. He wants to help. “You all keep saying I could work on my hand-to-hand. Just take off the armor so I don’t break a finger, maybe.”

“You’re serious.”

“No, I’m Quinlan.”

She’s going to wipe the floor with this boy. “You sure you wanna fight me?”

“You won’t be able to meditate until you do,” he says. He’s right, damn him. “The other option is that I go get your... vod, I think? I go get Rex and you two can talk it out since you trust him with more. I don’t want to do that, though, he’s still a kid.”

She eyes him, lips pressed together and mind awhirl with emotions and thoughts she’d tried to beat out of her head and into the bag. “Ever fought someone without the Force?”

“...yes?”

“Was it cuffs?”

“Oh, you meant me not having the Force,” he realizes. “Er, no. Is... is that something you’ve done a lot?”

She smiles at him. “You’re planning on Shadow work. That means getting captured and stripped of everything you are at some point, Force included. Unfortunately, the cuffs are in use on a very annoying Dathomirian right now, so we’ll have to make do with you shielding like your mind’s a Kessel Spice Mine.”

“...do I want to know how often you’ve been captured?”

“No, you don’t.”

When he comes at her, it’s easy to dodge. It’s easy to tap him on target points, little pokes that show she could take him out, but isn’t going to until he’s learned something. He stays grinning throughout, letting her take the lead, and he treats her like... like a knight. Like a teacher. He’s stepped back and gone from trying to impress her as a fellow padawan, to proving himself to a full knight.

She’s not sure when that change happened, or why or how, but it makes things much smoother. She wants to think that it would have even if she hadn’t gotten a wakeup call from Fett.

So she treats him the way she treated Ezra, for the year she’d spent traveling with Kanan. She treats him as a student that’s willing to learn, good but not yet great, competent but not yet ready to survive. She draws him into the kind of chest-heaving exhaustion that tells a fighter just how much energy they waste.

(Ahsoka may have had her own style, but her grandmaster had been the pinnacle of a Soresu user. She’d spent years on the frontlines of a war. She knew the worth of conserving energy, and she’d teach it to any who stepped in to challenge her.)

“Who taught you to fight like this?” He asks, when they’ve taken a handful of moments to circle each other. His steps are heavy, sure, planted. Her own are light and ready.

“Soldiers,” she says. It’s true enough.

“Not your Master?” he asks, just as he tries to kick for her upper arm. It’s a safe question. For anyone else, it would be a safe question.

But for Ahsoka, it’s another chink in the armor, after a maelstrom of emotion, a storm of self-loathing, a dervish of instability.

She doesn’t break right away.

She spirals. She fights Quinlan, but doesn’t quite see him. Her strikes get sloppy, her feet stumble. She can’t make herself meet Quinlan’s eyes, not when the scrape of his heel against the metal sounds like the rasp of a breathing machine. Her shields get fuzzy, she knows, and she leaks what she feels into the air, making it sour and thick. She doesn’t notice, because all she can see, all she can--all she can hear and feel and--

She drops to her knees and grabs at her head, trying to stop it.

“Sokari?”

She breathes. In and out, harsh and jagged but natural in a way that the damned respirator wasn’t.

Her master her teacher her brother the traitor the hound the executioner

Her face is hot. Something prickles. It might be tears.

She tries to say something, tries to say a name or a request, tries to make anything come out of her mouth that isn’t the broken wail of a woman who hasn’t let herself think about how she died.

She feels herself pulled into someone’s arms, and she can’t quite tell who, but they’re bigger than she is, and feel warm and worried. They care. They don’t understand, they’re scared, but they care.

Her hands shake, clutched to her chest and she can’t breathe she can’t make herself take in enough air to do a Force-damned thing the empire is going to feel her her shields are down and broken and her emotions are spilling and the empire is going to find HER ANAKIN IS GOING TO FIND HER AND--

“COMMANDER!”

Rex.

Rex is here.

Her breath is coming so fast that she’s hiccupping more than she’s actually inhaling. She feels small hands in gloves on either side of her face, and then her forehead presses to something warm.

Rex. A Keldabe kiss. Her brother, her partner, her other half. He’s here. He’s calm. If he’s calm, then things are fine.

“What happened?” Light voice, high voice, small and distant. Leia. Little Leia little princess Leia she’s in danger she’s in trouble Anakin will--

“Commander.”

No. Here and now. She needs to focus on here and now. Her throat feels cold. She breathes too fast, still. She can’t stop it.

“I don’t know.” That’s Vos. He was... they were doing something. He was here. Talking to her. “We were sparring, and she just--”

Right, sparring.

“I don’t know if I said something?” He offers, voice pitching up, unsure and worried. Is he the one holding her? He’s the one holding her. That’s embarrassing.

“Commander?” Rex prompts. “Commander, can you open your eyes?”

She tries. She can’t. She shakes her head.

“Soka?” he asks, voice quiet. “Where are you?”

“F-F-Fett,” she manages. It’s enough.

“And where were you?”

His voice is so soft. So worried. She held him the same way after Mandalore, after Order 66, after all his brothers, all her friends...

“Soka.”

Her mind is spinning, and suddenly all she can hear is Anakin Skywalker is dead. I destroyed him.

Her breath hitches, and she wails.

“Commander,” Rex tries again, but her head is a vortex of Then you will die and Perhaps this child and not the Jedi way.

Our long awaited meeting.

I destroyed him.

Then you will die.

She can’t breathe she can’t breathe she can only see that yellow eye that’s too familiar but belongs to a stranger can only hear a voice that shouldn’t exist can only mourn and break and--

“Soka?”

“Malachor,” she manages. “I--h-he--I died.”

“What did you say?” someone asks. A vod. It’s the right voice, almost, rough and business-like, not accusing anyone yet, and... and... no. No. Not one of her boys. It’s Fett.

“Um, right at the end? I asked her who taught her to fight like this,” Quinlan says, nervous. “And she said it was soldiers. And I joked, I asked that it wasn’t her Master, and she didn’t answer that. A couple minutes later, she just started...”

“Oh, Soka,” Rex whispers, pulling her closer. “Commander, just breathe with me.”

“H-h-he, he just--R-Rex, he j-just--and I c-c-couldn’t--”

“I know,” her captain whispers. “I know, just breathe with me.”

“He k-k-k-killed me,” she sobs, falling out of the Keldabe and into too-small arms. “I l-loved--he was my broth-ther and--and he just--he killed me, he didn’t even stop.”

“I know,” Rex whispers. “Soka, I know.”

Of course he does.

---------------------------

“It was just bad timing,” Rex says, once they’re in the room she’s been sharing with her little family, curled up under a blanket and watching the floor like it has all the secrets to how she lost her world three times over.

“Is there anything we need to keep in mind?” Fett asks, gruff and uncomfortable. She wonders if he’s angry that she took his necessary confrontation and turned it into this mess.

“Don’t bring up her Jedi Master,” Rex says, and pulls her in when she shivers. Her eyes squeeze shut before she can stop them, tears beading up again. “Just... don’t. It’s too soon.”

“He’s--”

“He Fell,” Ahsoka interrupts. “I thought he died, but he became a Sith. And fifteen years later, we ran into each other, and I refused to join him in the Dark, so he tried to kill me.”

Fett swears, low and muffled. She thinks he has a hand over his mouth.

Quin and Leia aren’t there. She thinks they’re keeping an eye on their Baby Sith prisoner. That’s good.

“Soka,” Rex whispers, and she buries her face in his shoulder. She’s too old to be this kind of mess. She’s thirty-two. She’s Fulcrum. She’s...

She’s in need of a lot of therapy.

“We can avoid the subject unless you bring it up,” Tholme promises. “Definitely until the Temple. Is there anything else we shouldn’t talk about?”

Ahsoka can practically feel Rex’s deadpan look. “Sir, we’re a trio of child soldiers ripped from everything we know. Every other sentence is a risk. We’re just... working our way through.”

There’s a knock at the door. Oh. Quin and Leia.

“Just figured we’d drop this off before we went down to visit Mr. Grumpy-Face,” Quinlan whispers. He still thinks Leia’s a child. He’s trying to make things less terrible for her. That’s nice. “We decided he’ll be less angry if he tries Hoth chocolate, and made some for everyone.”

They definitely made it for Ahsoka herself, and Maul was an afterthought. Still. It’s sweet.

“Commander?” Rex prompts, jostling her a little to try and get her to sit up.

“Gimme a sec,” she manages. It takes longer than it should to push herself away from him, to accept the mug that Leia gives her, too-serious worry in the furrow of her brow and the twist of her soul.

She doesn’t look six. She doesn’t even look twenty-two. This girl was always too old for her skin, forced to grow up in the hostile fear of the Empire.

“Thank you, Princess.”

She sips.

She can barely taste it beyond the ashes she imagines coating her tongue.

I destroyed him, her memory echoes. His slightest hesitation before he made the final move, it haunts her. She almost reached him. If only she’d tried harder, yelled louder, been better...

She shivers.

“Do you need help falling asleep?” Tholme asks. “I’m a regular healer, not a mind healer, but...”

She probably should.

She takes another sip of her drink, willing herself to taste it. It’s good. She likes it. She knows she does.

“Can you make it dreamless?” she whispers.

“It doesn’t always work, but I can try,” he tells her.

She nods. “When I finish the chocolate.”

“Of course.”

---------------------------

Everyone’s careful around her for days. The whole decision to be nicer doesn’t mean anything when she’s walking about in a daze of too few emotions, drained of everything she could feel in favor of a grey cloud of fluff in everything she does.

She does forms. Single saber and Jar’kai. Ataru and Djem so and Soresu. Reverse grip, regular grip, partial reverse on either side.

Again. Again. Again.

She loses herself in the motions, not meditating so much as just empty.

Rex worries. Fett worries. Vos worries.

Leia and Tholme keep their shields locked up tight, and she doesn’t know how they feel. She thinks Leia might be judging her. She think Tholme might be pitying.

Maul simply hates. It’s an old and familiar sensation to walk into, and she takes unthinking comfort in his rage. She’s silent instead of snippy, when she plays the role of guard, and they stare at each other in silence. His eyes burn, and she wonders how much he’s heard of her nightmares.

“You need to talk,” Rex tells her, when he finds her with a cold cup of caff, eyes fixed somewhere beyond it all. She lifts her head. “Soka.”

She just stares at him.

He sighs and pulls her into a hug. “Commander, please.”

She can’t.

Ahsoka stares at the wall behind him, resting her chin on his head. Her neck itches under the lek at the back of her head, a little tingle of a feeling that she can’t bring herself to do anything about. The pale light of the galley is sharp against the chipped paint of the metal that surrounds them. It hurts her eyes to look, but it’s not the deep and dark lit only by red--

Then you will die, her memory growls.

She flinches.

“Breathe,” Rex tells her, too-small hands clinging at her back. “Just breathe, ‘Soka.”

She curls in tighter and tries to just breathe.

---------------------------

“Tell me something good.”

Ahsoka blinks. She looks at Leia. She doesn’t have the energy to parse that.

Leia chances a look at Rex, who isn’t leaving Ahsoka’s side any more than he has to, and Fett on the other side. Tholme’s asleep and Quin’s on Baby Sith duty. It’s just people who know, right now.

The little girl across the table, the child senator, the spy, purses her lips and huffs in irritation. “You knew my biological father before he became one of the worst people in the galaxy. Both of you did. Tell me something good about him.”

Good things.

About Anakin.

“You fought a war as a Jedi,” Leia prompts. “Surely you must have done some good things with him, or at least thought you were.”

Did they?

Every mission ended in tragedy or was just a ploy of Palpatine’s. Every saved life was just...

Wait.

“He built Threepio,” she finally says. “Your father wi--I mean, Bail wiped Threepio’s memory after the Empire rose, for your safety, but Anakin was the one who built him.”

Leia sits up, eyes brighter. “I didn’t know that. I... was Artoo involved? Did he build R2D2, or...”

“No,” Rex says, “But Artoo was his favorite astromech, and they always pushed each other into stupid stunts. We risked a hell of a lot to save that droid, more than once, and I didn’t find out until you started working with the Rebellion full-time, but Artoo and Threepio were the witnesses for your bio-parents’ wedding.”

Leia gapes at him. So does Ahsoka. (Fett doesn’t know enough to care.)

Rex grins, and if it looks a little forced, that’s fine. “He had a holo recording. I was one of the few people left that knew about the marriage that might have wanted to see, so Artoo offered. It was... sweet.”

He waits, probably for Ahsoka to add something herself, but she has nothing.

“I think that’s when they swapped droids, since Threepio was more useful to a politician and Artoo did his best work when we set him loose on the enemy.”

“He never changed,” Leia muses. “Did he always swear that much?”

“Yes,” Ahsoka answers, as Rex laughs. “Always. All the binary I learned started with the best swears.”

She tries to think of another good memory, something else that Leia might appreciate. Her mind ticks back to saving Stinky, which is just a terrible option, because that mission started with Hutts and ended with the Battle of Teth. That massive loss of life, all for the son of the creature that had put Leia in chains.

She wonders if she has anything in her memory that doesn’t end in blood and graves.

“Soka.” Rex.

“Hm?”

“Remember that time Fives and Echo got lost in the undercity their first time on leave, and we had to get the General to help us find them?”

She does.

He’s right, that’s a good story.

“Okay, so what you have to understand,” Ahsoka says, already digging the faint details out and dusting them off, “is that these boys were ARC troopers, top-notch, terrifyingly competent once they got through specialty training, and loyal as hell. Echo had memorized the reg manuals front to back, and Fives was... well, Fives ended up being the only person to figure out the chips before they went into action. Point is, the Domino twins were good... eventually. Just like everyone else, though, they started out shiny.”

---------------------------

“Tholme’s hiding something.”

Ahsoka wonders if Leia will just leave if she ignores her enough. Probably not. This was the girl that got kicked out of boarding school for leading a sit-in at age seven. She’s got patience.

“His job requires him to hide a lot of things,” Ahsoka says instead. “Not as many as Vos will have to, eventually, but a lot.”

“He’s hiding something from us,” Leia insists, visibly frustrated that Ahsoka isn’t as upset about this as she is. “Something important.”

The way she says ‘important’ is clumsy and impacted by the missing baby tooth. She can’t say the r. It comes out as ‘im-poh-ten,’ which is adorable, and if Ahsoka comments on it, she’s probably going to get punched by a six-year-old.

“The Force doesn’t care,” Ahsoka says. “I trust his intentions, if not him as a person.”

“If you don’t trust him, then why trust his intentions?”

“Leia, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I trust one and a half people in the galaxy,” Ahsoka points out. “Me not trusting a person isn’t a sign of anything except my paranoia. The only person I trust fully and without reservation is Rex. Even you, I only mostly trust, because my brain starts screaming if I think too hard. That’s why you’re the half.”

“Okay, whatever, paranoia aside,” Leia barrels on, “He should tell us. Whatever it is that he’s hiding, we deserve to know. We’re not children that he can just hide things from for our own good.”

Ahsoka presses her lips together. “Leia. Princess. I know you’re used to holding all the cards--”

“This isn’t about me being a control freak!”

“It is, though,” Ahsoka soothes, and smiles. “Your mother--the bio one--was the same way. You spent years as one of the leaders of the Rebellion, so obviously you’re used to having all the information, and people reporting to you... but Tholme is a Jedi Master. He reports to the Council and the Republic. Do you know how many people I kept secrets from while I was a padawan? We’re an unknown, Leia. They have no proof that we’re on their side, especially since we’re traveling with Fett.”

Leia crosses her arms and glares as hard as she can.

“I’m not going to bother him,” Ahsoka says. “I’ve already had, like, five unrelated mental breakdowns. I’m putting this on hold until we get to the Temple and I can trust that there’s a healer on hand to sedate me or something.”

“You... want to be sedated?”

“Leia, this... really should be obvious, but a Force-Sensitive losing their osik the way I have been isn’t actually safe. I know I broke a weapons rack last week.” Ahsoka gestures vaguely. “If the Jedi Master isn’t telling me something for reasons that might relate to my clear and obvious mental instability, I’m going to assume he’s got a point.”

“So he should tell me or Rex.”

“We’ll be on Coruscant in four days,” Ahsoka soothes. “Just... let it be. They won’t hurt us.”

“You don’t know that.”

Ahsoka shrugs. “I don’t have to. The Force leads me in all things, including this.”

Leia isn’t impressed by that, but Leia isn’t impressed by much in the first place.

She strides off in a fit that is, perhaps, more influenced by her six-year-old emotional control than she’d like to admit. Ahsoka lets her. It’s not worth the argument.

It’s only a few minutes later that Fett strides in, takes the seat Leia was just in, and asks, “What would it take for you to teach me how to use a jetii’kad?”

She blinks at him. “You want to learn how to use a lightsaber?”

“Yes.”

“...why?”

“Viszla.”

“I see.”

She does.

Ahsoka taps her fingers against the table, eyeing him with the kind of interest she copied from Master Kenobi, years ago. Fett doesn’t fidget, but she thinks he might want to. He just looks back, waiting for her judgement.

“You’ll need to justify it,” she finally says. “It’s a significant difference from what you actually did, so I need to know your reasoning for doing it, and your plans for once it’s done.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s step one,” she corrects. She tilts her head, considering. “My standards for you aren’t built in a vacuum, and you know that. Explain to me what you plan to do and how you plan to do it, and if I approve...”

“You’ll help me achieve it.”

“Maybe,” she allows. “A lot of that depends on Rex.”

“I expected as much,” Fett says. “He is... an admittedly large part of the reason.”

“He would be,” she says. She gives the silence a few more seconds to sit awkwardly between them, and then stands up. “I’d guess you’ve been brainstorming already. Do you have it written down or is it mostly just in your head so far?”

“I’m still... debating options, so to speak.”

She grins, and the shape of the predator’s smile, the baring of teeth... that almost makes him step back. She can see it in the twitch of his muscles. Smart man.

“Follow me,” she says, and doesn’t wait for him to stand. She strides out with tooka-light steps, hears the heavy beskar tread behind her, and goes to the cargo hold. Fett’s confusion grows tangibly behind her, especially when she tosses him a wooden quarterstaff. She picks up the other and spins it in one hand.

“You’re going to fight me,” she tells him, stretching and letting the staff help with the process. “And while we fight, you’re going to tell me what your plans for Mandalore are.”

He mimics her, but there’s a frown on his face. “And why staffs?”

“You and I, we’ve only sparred bare-handed,” she says. “I need a feel for how you fight with a weapon anyway. These are a good start.”

“Not the beskad?”

She grins, and the twitch is back. “No. That can wait. We start with the staffs.”

He takes a stance, and she mirrors him. She lets him strike first with a weapon, but she’s the one that asks all the questions.

(He is the only one on the ship that can fight her one-on-one right now, and he can win. Still, she makes him work for every inch, and what she doesn’t win in bruises, she wins in words.)

(Fett might yet be a proper Mand’alor, but Ahsoka learned war from her brothers, negotiation at the knee of a general and in the shadow of a prince, and government at the side of duchesses and queens.)

(If he wants her help uniting his people, he needs to prove that he can hold them together once she’s gone.)

---------------------------

Ahsoka’s interrogation of Jango’s plans is thorough, and she’s not the only one involved. She brings Leia in, and has her join in on the grilling. She maybe laughs as the twenty-seven-year-old survivor of Galidraan, the Mand’alor, a man who has killed Master Jedi with his bare hands, gets lectured on various government structures by a tiny girl that's missing several teeth and needs to sit on books to see the table properly.

Still, Leia knows this better than any of the rest of them do. The girl might have grown up heir to a monarchy, but she got a classical education and was drilled on democracy and all associated forms of government. Where Ahsoka knows military protocol and law enforcement, intersystem relations and defensive measures, Leia knows agricultural subsidies and welfare programs, infrastructure and education.

Ahsoka may know how to find out if someone’s breaking a zoning law, but Leia knows why it exists in the first place.

“And I grew up in a cult,” Rex says, when an argument on that topic breaks out. Everyone that hasn’t heard the joke-that-isn’t-a-joke stares at him. “The Jedi grew up in a religious meritocracy; Leia grew up in a monarchy; and I grew up in a cult.”

Ahsoka elbows him. He’s not wrong, but still.

Unfortunately, Ahsoka is about forty-seven percent sure that Leia will put her foot in her mouth when it comes to Mandalorian culture, blunt as the girl is. That prefrontal cortex isn’t anywhere near as developed as it should be, either, so impulse control for the princess isn’t great. Ahsoka refuses to let Leia and Fett talk about ways to mend the breaks between tradition and the pacifism of the New Mandalorians without either Rex or Ahsoka herself as a mediating presence. Tholme sits in a few times, but while he knows that Leia isn’t really six--though not about the time-travel, yet--Quinlan doesn’t.

They admittedly end up doing this while he’s on Maul-sitting duty.

“It’s like he doesn’t even care about making nice with the people that, at this point, make up the majority of his people!” Leia grumbles one night, as Ahsoka kicks over a step stool so the girl can brush her teeth. “He may not like the New Mandalorians, but from what I understand, it’s still early enough to prevent the majority of the cultural bleaching you brought up. If he stays this stubborn--”

“Leia,” Ahsoka says, and the girl’s mouth snaps shut. “I’m aware of your reasons for not trusting his intentions. But if I may say? Chill.”

“He’s not even trying!”

“He’s trying a hell of a lot harder than he did in the original timeline,” Ahsoka reminds her. “Brush your teeth.”

“I’m not a--”

“Teeth.”

It’s a little worrying, how the child’s brain affects Leia, but... well. That’ll pass in time, hopefully. Until then, Ahsoka gets to be the aunt she should have been. This includes tucking Leia in, which the girl grumbles about despite the fond waves of comfort that enter the Force around her. Ahsoka doesn’t call her out on it, just brushes back wisps of hair to plant a kiss on Leia’s forehead, and then does the same once Rex stumbles in, grumbling about the limitations of a cadet’s body, but far more ready to follow the protocol that is bedtime.

Rex doesn’t pretend to not like getting tucked in, for all that he’s sharing with a grumbly, already-asleep princess. He smiles up at Ahsoka, lets her hug him, and pretends they can be a normal family for five seconds.

Quinlan’s making a late night snack for himself in the galley. Tholme is guarding the Baby Sith. Fett...

Ahsoka goes to the cockpit, takes the copilot’s seat, and watches hyperspace pass them by.

It takes long minutes before either of them say anything.

“Do Jedi believe in souls?”

His shields are up, locked up tighter than the innermost chambers of the Imperial Palace. She has no idea where he’s taking this question. She has to cast about for an answer.

“That depends on how you define a soul,” she finally says. “Leia told me about Force Ghosts. A Jedi Master who underwent the right meditations and training could pass into the Force upon their death without losing their sense of self. They could remain themselves, to an extent, and interact with force-sensitive individuals. I don’t know if they could last that way indefinitely, but depending on your definition, I could argue those ghosts were evidence of a form of soul.”

“So you believe that the dead pass into the Force, but that what passes could be a soul. Something must exist for a sense of self to disappear at death in a way that impacts the Force as you understand it, and many would use the word ‘soul’ for that something.”

“Mm,” Ahsoka considers it. “I’d say that’s pretty accurate. You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”

“What about those not yet born?”

Her fingers feel cold, and she finds herself no longer able to watch the passage of hyperspace as passively as she had, and her eyes catch on streaks and motes of what is not dust, her vision unable to keep any more still than her heart.

“Oh,” she hears herself say. “The clones.”

It’s a long time before he answers, but the walls come down. He carries a confused sort of grief with him, guilty and a mite resentful. His questions have been building for longer than she’d thought. His voice is rough. “I’ve taken plenty of lives, but I’ve never known the name of someone I erased from existence before they were even born.”

“The stories we told Leia about the brothers.”

There’s a grunt of agreement from Fett, so those dots at least connect.

“I take it my answer wasn’t helpful,” she manages to say.

“Will they still exist?” Fett asks. “Will they be born elsewhere? Or is... is a soul something that only comes into existence after the body does?”

“I have no idea,” Ahsoka admits. “I want... I want to think that I’d be able to find them eventually, to recognize them, if their souls are still born into this world elsewhere.”

“And if your Sith finds someone else to build his army out of?”

Ahsoka looks at him, sharp and pointed. “You wouldn’t.”

“They’ll be doing it anyway, if their plans are as ironclad as you say.”

“You’re already associating with Jedi,” Ahsoka says, fighting the urge to break his nose. “They wouldn’t approach you, not now. They can’t leverage your anger against you. They won’t know everything, but they’ll know that you have friends among the Jedi.”

“You think they can’t come up with better lies?”

He has a point. He has more than one point and she hate hate hates it.

A Jedi does not hate.

I am no Jedi.

“You’re going to have to convince me,” she says. “Especially if you want to somehow balance this with the darksaber thing. I won’t teach you how to fight with it if you’re not planning to retake Mandalore.”

“That’s how they’d sell it,” he says. “Retaking Mandalore. An army ostensibly for the Jedi, and ultimately...”

“You’d build an army of slaves.”

“No, I’d be the inside man for when they build that army anyway.”

She holds his gaze. She looks away first.

“Torrent?”

“I’m thinking.”

He lets her.

“I’ll need to talk to Rex. Probably Leia.”

“Understandable.”

“I don’t like this.”

“I’m only just considering it. It’s an idea, not a plan.”

“That’s the only reason I haven’t ripped your throat out with my teeth.”

“Hyperbole doesn’t suit you.”

She glares at him, and leaves, her mind chopping up and laying out every possible angle on Fett volunteering to do the exact same thing as last time, but somehow worse.

Great. Just what she needed.

---------------------------

Ahsoka isn’t there for the shouting match between Rex and Fett, but she doesn’t have to be. She can hear it form clear across the ship, and Rex comes to her afterwars. He’s been crying, which isn’t as surprising as it could be. These bodies are still prone to such things, and will be for years. She doesn’t comment.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.

“We need to take out Sidious before he starts anything on Kamino.”

“Agreed,” she says. “It’ll be hard, though.”

“I don’t care.”

“What did Fett say?”

“That if it wasn’t going to be my brothers, it would be someone else’s. Either we stopped the cloning from happening at all, or we mitigated damage by being there.”

“I don’t think Sidious is going to tap him for it,” Ahsoka admits. “Not unless you’re willing to stage that kind of fight publicly enough for Fett to claim the Jedi poisoned you, family, against him. It could work, but it’s a gamble.”

He knows all of this.

“I miss them,” he says, and she cards her fingers though the curls he’s managed to grow in the past weeks. “I just... even at the end, I had Wolffe. I knew Boba was out there; I wouldn’t be surprised if the beskar let him survive a Sarlacc. I had brothers. Not as many as I used to, but there was always someone. I miss them all, so much it hurts.”

“It wouldn’t be them,” she reminds him. She pulls him closer, puts her cheek to his head. “It would be the same process, the same faces, the same training, even, but the boys themselves...”

He clings to her and shudders.

“Rex?”

“I can’t force them to grow up the way I did. I want them back. Sidious is going to make the army no matter what. Someone’s going to suffer, and I don’t want it to be my brothers, but they won’t exist otherwise, and...”

“And it’s an impossible choice,” she summarizes. “And it sucks.”

“It’s sucks Gungan balls, ‘Soka.”

She laughs, and feels him smile against her shoulder. Good. He needs to smile more.

“He’s still trying to get me to like him,” Rex says. "He’s still making an effort, and he never did that for anyone except Boba, and it’s weird. I don’t know what to do with any of that.”

“Gain a brother,” Ahsoka whispers, and she feels him jerk against her. “If that’s what you want.”

“He’s not vod.”

“Same blood as all the rest, and you’re older than him, so he’s not really in a position to be a parent to you like he was to Boba,” she says carefully. “You don’t have to do anything, if you don’t want to, but... I think he’s trying. I think this means a lot to him, and that he isn’t any more sure of what to do than you are. You don’t have to forgive him for what he did in the future, you don’t have to accept when he reaches out, you don’t have to ever talk to him again after we reach Coruscant if you don’t want, but I think... I think it’s worth at least considering what you have to gain. I think it’s worth looking at what he’s trying to give you.”

Rex huffs. “Why couldn’t he just be the shabuir I knew in training?”

“Something happened between now and then?” she offers. “I don’t know. I never met him in the original timeline. I just know the guy that keeps trying to get on my good side so you’ll like him.”

He outright scoffs. “Soka, that’s not the only reason he’s trying to get on your good side.”

“...I’m a former Jedi who talks trash to his face,” she says slowly. “And I cried on him. There is no reason for him to be nice to me, other than you.”

“He thinks you’re cool and a good person and wants you to be his friend.”

“Bantha poodoo.”

Rex grins in a way that goes straight to smirking. “Soka, I’m not joking. Jango Fett wants you to be his friend.”

“Kriffing why?” she asks, more than a little horrified. “I’m a mess, look like I’m ten years younger than him, have gleefully kicked his ass in front of an audience; I even told Vos to throw him at a baby Sith Lord. Putting up with me is one thing, but I’m... I’m only barely not a Jedi. I’m a historical enemy of Mandalore, and part of the community he hates more than anything, and--”

“And his reaction to you kicking his ass was pure Mando,” Rex says. “In that he now thinks you’re a badass, and thus worth being friends with.”

“I can’t believe that. I physically cannot.”

“Soka, just accept it. The Mand’alor wants to be friends with you.” He scratches at his scalp. “I mean, he met you while you were protecting what appeared to be children, and it’s apparently still early enough for him to care about that.”

She leans back in her seat, eyes on the wall ahead of her and back against the cool metal of the other side. Rex falls back with her. She wonders if Rex changed the subject so they didn’t have to talk about deciding how many of his brothers get to exist, and whether or not he can swallow the bitterness of his history to have a connection with at least one member of his blood. She doesn’t ask. If he wants to change the subject, that’s his right.

“I don’t... no.” She denies it as well as she can, and then the implications dig a little deeper. “Is this me accidentally signing up to be the Jedi Order’s official liaison to the Mand’alor?”

“I mean, this point in time... they’ve got Kenobi for the Duchess, yeah?” Rex shrugs. “Good relations with the system are probably a good thing, and you’ve got a stronger connection than Tholme and Vos.”

“Ugh,” she says. She rubs a hand against her head, and then lurches to her feet. “Fine! Fine. If it’ll get him to retake Mandalore before the Sith decide to bribe him with an army he doesn’t get to keep, I’ll teach him how to fight for the kriffin’ Darksaber.”

“That’s what makes the decision for you?”

“Well something had to!”

They only get one lesson in before Coruscant, but the lesson lasts a full day, and Ahsoka’s got his comm number. Fett’s a quick learner anyway, and Tholme was there to give pointers where Ahsoka couldn’t.

He won’t measure up to a Jedi in saber-to-saber combat, but he doesn’t need to. He just needs to learn enough to turn all those skills with a beskad to something that works with a jetii’kad.

(The balance of a saber is wrong to those used to a physical weapon. The inertia doesn’t work the way anyone expects. There’s no need to worry about damaging the blade.)

(Fett is good. Ahsoka is better. And, bless his heart, he knows it.)

(She will mold him into the shape of someone who not only can, but should rule a system with a history like that, and he damn well knows that too.)

---------------------------

“Dropping out of hyperspace in T-minus twenty seconds.”

The Slave I is not, in fact, a Venator-class starship, or anything else near the size and smoothness of the ships that Ahsoka grew up on. This is a bounty hunter’s vessel, and the drop to real space jolts like nothing else. Ahsoka’s in the copilot seat for the return, but Tholme’s going to swap with her as soon as they’ve got confirmation that there were no problems with exiting hyperspace, and nobody’s shooting at them.

“We’re not going to get shot at,” Tholme had assured her.

“I always get shot at,” she’d told him.

“I have our clearance,” he reminded her, seeming more amused than frustrated. “There’s no need to worry about getting shot at.”

“I also always get shot at,” Jango had thrown in.

“Okay,” Tholme had allowed, after several minutes of his trust in the Temple warring against Ahsoka and Jango’s learned paranoia. The looks Quinlan had darted around the room when Leia and Rex also claimed ‘chronic getting-shot-at disease’ had been a treat. The paranoia of a Watchman and a future Shadow was great, but the paranoia of three revolutionaries and a galaxy-wide criminal was greater. “You can take us in close enough to get in radio contact, but the second we have to ask for clearance and a vector, I’m in the seat.”

She’d agreed, of course. She was paranoid, not inexperienced.

“We’re much less likely to get shot down by ground control if you tell them we’re with you,” she’d said, to his hilariously apparent metaphysical exhaustion. “Obviously.”

“Good enough,” he’d sighed.

What that means is mostly just that Ahsoka gets to watch the distant star at the center of Coruscant’s system grow rapidly brighter. She can pick out the constellations she’d grown up with, the stars the creche had projected on the ceiling every night, the ones that she may not have seen from the surface, but had greeted her and then sent her on her way every time she left on yet another campaign that lost her men their lives for a Sith Lord's wretched plans. These were the shapes and stories she’d never seen again as Fulcrum, a woman so hunted that to come within a dozen subsectors of the planet was to court her death.

For sixteen years, she hadn’t ventured closer than Alderaan, save for a single trip to Chandrila.

And now, maybe twenty minutes away at this speed, was the Temple. It was home.

A home that didn’t know her, that had sentenced her to death, that had hosted the rampage of her former master... but home nonetheless.

“Stable?” Fett grunts.

“Thrusters are good,” she confirms.

“I meant you.”

Ah. “I’m... fine. As good as I could be, anyway.”

She hesitates, but manages to speak before he does. “You?”

“I’m not the one walking into an entire building of triggers.”

“Only because you’re not entering it,” she says. “It’s the home of your ancestral enemies who, bad info or no, killed off a whole lot of your friends.”

“I get to leave,” he says. “You don’t.”

She plans to needle him a bit more, maybe on something a little less based in both their traumas. She needs to talk, if only to fill up the silence and keep herself from reaching out to all the lights in the Force. It’ll be too much, she knows.

Tholme enters the cockpit. “Change of plans.”

“Better be a good reason,” Jango says, voice flat.

“Leia’s crying.”

Ahsoka’s unbuckling herself before she can process the words fully. “What?”

Leia doesn’t cry for no reason. Her emotional control is as difficult as the body makes it, but she doesn’t just cry. There’s always a cause.

“I don’t know. Rex said to get you,” Tholme explains. “She was saying a name. He seemed to recognize it.”

Not good not good not good. If Leia was feeling the Emper--No. She cuts the thought off there. No catastrophizing. Information first.

“What name.”

“Luke. Mean anything to--and she’s gone.”

Ahsoka ignores him, just sprints to where she knows the ‘young ones’ are. They’re all in Maul’s room, because nobody wants to be alone with him now, but it’s the worst time to leave him without supervision. It’s not the worst option; he mostly refuses to talk, still.

This holds true, because he definitely isn’t talking when she bursts in. He’s sitting on the bench, in a corner, hugging his knees and watching Quinlan try to calm Leia down.

“Captain, sitrep.”

“Vos and Tholme attempted to show Leia how to reach out to feel the Temple from a distance. They felt that it would be a good use of the time, and an interesting exercise at this distance. She attempted to do so, struggled for several minutes, and then reacted with shock. She has repeated the name ‘Luke’ several times since then, and we’ve been unable to fully calm her down. I asked Tholme to get you, as you are the only Force-Sensitive on board that understands the situation in full.”

“Understood.” She nods to him, and then goes to nudge at Quinlan. “Vos, move.”

“Torre--”

“You can sit behind her, hold her in your lap like you did when we had lunch the other day, but I need to get in her face.” She waits for him to comply, and then drops to her knees and takes Leia’s hands in her own. She radiates calm and assurance, even though she knows Quinlan’s probably been doing the same since this started. She dips her head enough to get in the girl’s line of sight, waits for her to meet eyes.

“Princess,” she says, and meets Leia’s eyes. “What did you feel?”

“Luke.”

From this distance... they’ve got half the system to go, at least, and Leia’s training shouldn’t reach that far for anything more than the fact that the Temple is there. Ahsoka could feel unshielded individuals from here, if she focused, but she’s also been doing this much, much longer. The twins theory holds more water than ever.

“Can you show me?” Ahsoka asks, instead of asking for more clarification. She squeezes Leia’s hands and smiles. “In the Force?”

Leia nods, and closes her eyes. It’s not the first time they’ve done this, but it’s the first time in a while that Leia’s needed Ahsoka to guide her through.

Luke’s light, for all that it’s unfamiliar to Ahsoka, is brilliant among the rest of the signatures in Coruscant. Like Anakin and Leia, he’s a star in his own right, but he’s brighter. He doesn’t have Anakin’s bitterness or Leia’s righteous anger, just... light. Ahsoka had asked Leia to show her instead of looking for herself because she’d expected to not recognize the boy, but she needn’t have. He’s unmistakable.

He’s so bright that she almost misses the other signature that she does recognize. She shies away, knowing that it would be there, but... but it’s almost twinned with another nearby. Not identical, but different in a way that comes with age, with trauma, with... death.

Leia hadn’t arrived alone, after all.

Why would Luke?

Her eyes snap open, her hand coming up not-quite-fast enough to clap over her mouth as she gasps. She feels a shudder, one that starts in her shoulders and reaches deep into her ribcage, finds a home in her chest and doesn’t stop.

“Oh fuck,” Quinlan whispers. “Torrent? Um, Sokari?”

Rex steps closer. “Commander?”

“That shabuir faked his death again,” she manages. “Three times, Rex!”

He blinks at her. “...I know way too many people who fit that description, Soka.”

“Master Ke--” she cuts herself off. He might have changed his name, just like she had. There’s already an Obi-Wan here. Rex seems to be figuring it out, but she needs to give him another hint.

“He pulled a Hardeen,” she stresses, and Rex’s eyes snap shut with a tired groan.

“Who?” Leia asks, her own tumult of emotion paused in the wake of Ahsoka’s shock. There’s a hope and relief to her, and Ahsoka belatedly realizes that her main worry had been that she’d misidentified what was going on, that she’d given herself a false hope. Ahsoka’s internal reaction, her approval and awe at Luke’s presence, had trickled over enough to give Leia the reassurance she’d needed.

Unintentional as it was, Ahsoka was glad that she’d succeeded in helping her charge.

“Er...” she trails off. “I don’t know what name he’s going by, right now. We’ve spent so long in hiding...”

“The man Luke knew as Crazy Old Ben,” Rex says, and Leia’s eyes light up.

“Oh,” she breathes. “General O--no, names. The High General, then.”

“Yeah,” Ahsoka says, not a little soft. “Yeah, I guess death didn’t stop him any more than it stopped me.”

“I could have told you that,” Leia says, smiling far too widely. She squirms where she still sits on Quinlan’s lap. “He was... he taught you, right?”

“As much my master as the official one,” Ahsoka says. She glances as Quinlan, feels Maul’s gaze on the back of her head. “Your f... my official master was very young when I was assigned to him. He wasn’t ready to teach, wasn’t even ready to be a knight, entirely, so my training was split between him and his master.”

Quinlan pops in at that moment, “Your grandmaster was military, too?”

We all were, she thinks. Even you, in your own way.

“I landed in their care mid-battle,” she says carefully. “It was a complicated situation.”

He nods, and she vaguely notes that he’s got his arms wrapped around Leia, and his chin tucked on top of her head. She isn’t sure if Leia’s noticed, but Quinlan’s picked up ‘baby’-sitting duty so often recently that she’s fairly certain he’s all but declared her ‘little-sister shaped.’ It doesn’t matter that Leia’s older--she’s still taking the juice boxes and gummy snacks that Quinlan shoves at her every single snacktime.

“Do you think...” Rex trails off, something uncomfortable twisting in the Force, even though his face keeps it mostly hidden. “My brothers. If the General survived and... and made it back...”

“I didn’t feel any,” Ahsoka says, because she knows she’d have noticed if it was anyone she’d met, and likely any clone at all. They all felt different in the Force, but they all held a spark that made her know it was one of them. “I’m sorry, Rex’ika.”

“A long shot,” he says, that dash of hope shriveling up. He must see something in her face, because there’s a curl of warmth in him, even if his smile is brittle. “It’s fine, really. I have you, ‘Soka.”

Rex and Ahsoka. Two halves of one whole.

She can’t wait to hear the lectures on attachment, the way people who haven’t seen her wars try to criticize her for clinging to any chance at still having a will to live. She can’t wait to see them justify telling her that it’s selfish to hold her sanity in her hands and refuse to let the grief take it away. She can’t wait to stare someone down for asking her to ‘learn to let go’ after she’s lost her family, her life, her universe three times over.

Most of the Jedi are more sensible than that, are reasonable enough to see those shades of grey and how to approach rules in the spirit they are meant instead of the rigid letter, but there will be some.

There will be more than enough telling her she is wrong to hold her oldest, closest, best friend as dear as she can.

Attachment, they’ll say.

What they’ll mean is ‘codepedence.’

They won’t be entirely wrong.

She reaches out for him, lets him fall into her side and stay there, closes her eyes and reaches out for the man she’d long called father, when they’d still been in each other’s lives.

This time, past the deafening flare of surprise-love-hope of the little star next to him, she can feel him reach back.

---------------------------

The second the ship has landed, even before Tholme and Fett are done with the checks, Ahsoka’s waiting at the exit. She strains her hearing so she’ll know the second the system will let her open the massive door of the cargo hold.

Leia clings to her side, and the boys stand to her back.

Quinlan’s stressed enough that she can feel it like a cloud. She is very much not trying to feel that stress. Quinlan’s stress levels, back where he’s got Maul so he can keep an eye on Ahsoka and the Baby Sith at the same time, are so low on her priorities list that it’s a a little sad.

It doesn’t take long for her to be able to punch the button and open the damn door.

It opens slowly. She bounces on her toes, because there’s a beacon of light and a steady, familiar glow on the other side, and she’s so, so close. She can’t see through the crack yet, because it’s day in this part of Coruscant, and the sunlight is blinding against the dark of the hold. So close. She’s so close.

“The hell’s wrong with you?”

Fett? Fett. He’s already here to get off? This door’s slow.

She doesn’t answer him, because the door is finally open enough to let her out, and she leaps through the gap.

She lands on a pourstone floor, feels pebbles and grit compress under her boots, frantically looks around as her eyes adjust to light and--

The High General, the Negotiator, Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, looking just as he did when she first met him, if a little less armored and a little more fed. The hair, the beard, the crinkle in the corner of his eyes. His spirit is a little older, his smile a little more strained, his posture a little more tired, but it’s him.

He spreads his arms, low enough that she could have dismissed it if she’d cared less for hugs, except she’s almost as small as she was when they met.

And every other hug she’d given back then had been, functionally, her being a living missile aiming her montrals for someone’s organs.

She’s a little more aware of how to avoid stabbing her friends in the intestine now.

“Master!”

She sprints for him, collides and sobs, feels him stumble back and then sink to his knees on the too-hard floor, and can feel the tears pouring out of her already. Her breath hitches, and she wails like a child, and that last part of her that couldn’t even grasp at safety shreds itself. His arms are tight around her, warm and strong and Master Kenobi don’t you dare leave again.

It doesn’t matter that Sidious is out there, that the Republic’s been building towards war for a century, that even now someone’s kicking up the Trade Federation. Her dad is here.

“I’ve missed you too, my dear,” he says, pressing a kiss to the side of her head, the bristles of his beard scratching along the skin of her forehead. Off to the side, the binary suns that are Luke and Leia grow brighter in proximity, so bright she can barely bear it.

(“Fett, why the kriff are you reaching for your blaster?!”)

(“Torrent said her master tried to kill her.”)

(“Different guy, that was a different guy, put the blaster away.”)

(“You could have just warned me.”)

(“I didn’t expect you to go for a shot on sight!”)

(”Calm down, Jetiika, if I was going to shoot on sight, we’d already be in a firefight.”)

She ignores everything.

“If you fake your death one more time, I swear I’m going to kill you myself.”

He tries to pull away to talk to her more directly. She does not let him. He apparently resigns himself to this, because he just adjusts how he’s sitting and pulls her in closer.

“In my defense, I was far from the only one presumed dead that took advantage of that status, by the end,” he says, letting her slump into his lap and cry herself dry. “I’m proud of you. You know that, I hope.”

She nods against his chest, smearing tears and snot across the linen and wool. She doesn’t care that they’ll need a thorough washing. She can have her public breakdown and it’s fine because Master Kenobi is here.

He doesn’t even know what she’s spent the past fifteen years doing. Luke wouldn’t have known. He doesn’t know she’s thirty-two and broken, beyond a shadow and cut down by her own master. There’s so much he doesn’t know but the Force rings with the truth of it: he’s proud of her anyway.

“I’m going by Ben, now,” he mutters against her montral. “There’s already an Obi-Wan here, after all. Still, I remain a Kenobi.”

She can’t make the words come out of her mouth. She’s overwhelmed, so much so that speech is a mite bit beyond her.

Sokari Torrent, she presses along the frayed bond that’s knitting itself back to life with every breath they take. Leia was already calling me Auntie Soka, and Rex and I both took Torrent, for...

“For the men you lost,” he mutters. “Yes, that’s fitting.”

He smells like sapir tea and a spiced beard oil.

There’s a whirl of activity about her, greetings and ‘a Sith apprentice?’ and introductions. She distantly notes when Fett almost shoots Dooku before Rex shuts that down and advises the Master to leave the area before things spiral out of control. She feels Ben stand, and she stands with him, clings to his side like a child and trusts that whatever happens, whatever needs to happen, he’ll take care of it until she can stand on her own two feet without swaying.

Rex grabs her free hand, and she feels herself settle back into her skin, bit by bit.

She’s back at the Temple. The twins are safe. Her grandmaster is here. She has her other half.

They can save the galaxy this time.

She’s alive she’s home she’s okay.

She’s okay.

Everything’s going to be okay.

[therenlover]

Therenlover’s Official Fanfic Glossary!

Hey hey hey! This is the place where you can find all my up-to-date fanfics linked nicely, read about what projects I have upcoming, and learn what requests I’m taking at the moment! Cheers!

This post is massive so, for the sake of your dash, everything is under the cut

A NOTE ABOUT REQUESTS!

I will do my best to fulfill any requests I get while my ask box/requests are open! That being said, I cannot promise every request will get done, and that if they do, they’ll be done in a timely manner. I’m currently working on a long-form project that needs a lot of time and energy to come out consistently, so unless I’m doing a writing event most of my writing juice will be focused on that. That being said, if you want something ask! The worst I can possibly do is direct you towards someone else who might be able to write what you want if I cant.

If I choose not to do your request based on personal preference (it makes me uncomfy/I don’t write for the character at that time/I don’t feel I can write what you want/etc.) I will do my best to contact you and let you know! That being said, if you think your ask got buried/forgotten, feel free to message me again and let me know, but please tell me when you message me if I should be looking for a prior request.

Characters/Fandoms I will write for currently

 💙 = I’m Currently Super Inspired To Write For This Character

Marvel/X-Men

Bucky Barnes

Loki

Peter Maximoff 💙

Pietro Maximoff

Helmut Zemo 💙

Hank McCoy

Ralph Bohner 💙

Vision

American Horror Story

Tate Langdon

Kit Walker 💙

Kyle Spencer (Pre- and Post- Death)

Jimmy Darling 💙

James Patrick March 💙

Kai Anderson

Fallout 4

Nick Valentine

Hancock

Star Wars

Poe Dameron

Armitage Hux 💙

Kylo Ren/Ben Solo

Finn

Han Solo

Assorted/Random

Diarmuid Ua Duibhne - FGO

Cu Chulainn/Cu Alter - FGO

Warren Lipka - American Animals 💙

Enjolras - Les Miserables

Grantaire - Les Miserables

Gabriel - Supernatural

Imagines - REQUESTS CLOSED

Songs From Musicals Y/N Would Sing To The Evans

Characters: Tate Langdon, Kit Walker, Kyle Spencer, Jimmy Darling, James Patrick March, Kai Anderson, Peter Maximoff

Rating: T

How The Evans (+ Quicksilver) Would React To Yoplait’s New Gushers Yogurt

Characters: Tate Langdon, Kit Walker, Kyle Spencer, Jimmy Darling, James Patrick March, Rory Monahan, Kai Anderson, Peter Maximoff

Rating: T

Would The Danny Bunch Survive A Holiday With My Family?

Characters: Laszlo Kreizler, Alex Kerner, Niki Lauda, Andrea Marowski, Ernst Schmidt, Helmut Zemo

Rating: T

Headcanons - REQUESTS CLOSED

Modern! AU Armitage Hux Boyfriend Headcanons

Zemo With A Well Dress S/O Headcanons

Zemo Getting Jealous Headcanons

Oneshots - REQUESTS CLOSED

Marvel/X-Men

Helmut Zemo

One Last Night In Madripoor

Synopsis: Baron Helmut Zemo is a lonely, wanted man looking for some fun, you’re a piss-poor bounty hunter in search of a connection before leaving your life of crime behind, and fate has brought you together at a party the likes of which has never been seen before. You only have one night left in Madripoor, so why not take a chance?

Rating: 18+

Word Count: 4200~

Still Some Catching Up To Do

Synopsis: As a member of the criminal underworld, people walk out of your life all the time. Some are killed, others kill themselves, most get caught and only a couple get out of the life unscathed, disappearing into the world never to be seen again. Very few walk back in. So when your supposedly incarcerated ex-lover, the Winter Soldier, and the Falcon waltzed through your door and made you murder your boss, needless to say, you were surprised and more than a little bit pissed.

Rating: 16+

Word Count: 6800~

Nine Years Starved

Synopsis: It had been a little over nine years since Helmut Zemo lost his family, his country, and his sanity. Nine years since his last kiss. Nine years since he felt like a human man. Finally, he was ready to start over again, but first, he had to pay his penance back where it all began; Novi Grad. That’s when, by the grace of the fates, he met you.

Rating: G

Word Count: 7000~

Daddy Dearest

Synopsis: Not everyone gets lucky enough to go from being a broke college student in New York to being the sugar baby to literal royalty, but not everyone is you. Most people would be worried about messing things up or losing him to someone else, but you knew he would never find another baby just like you. Besides, you knew exactly what to do to keep him wrapped around your little finger. He may have been the daddy, but you pulled the reins.

Rating: 18+

Word Count: 8000~

In Fleeting Touches & Airy Sighs

Part One   Part Two   Part Three   Part Four

Synopsis: As a wanted man, Helmut Zemo spends most of his time jumping from place to place in the hopes of avoiding a trip back to prison. Unfortunately, that means he can’t always be home in your arms. When he is, though, in the rare moments of calm, you’re reminded of just how worth it it’s been to wait, even if that wait was only shortened by the arrival of your enemies.

Rating: 18+

Word Count: 35,700~

Two Bodies In The Rain

Synopsis: It was raining the day you finally had to admit your feelings to Helmut. You hated to tell him the way you did, under the grey skies as your blood pooled below you, but at least you knew, in the end, he had seen the real you, even just once. That was enough.

Rating: T

Word Count: 5600~

Rest

Synopsis: Living life on the lam with your escaped super-villain lover means things rarely slow down enough for a real rest. When the exhaustion starts to take its toll on you, though, he knows exactly what to do to ease the pain. He may not be a good man, but he’s a good husband when it counts.

Rating: T

Word Count: 3200~

American Horror Story

Jimmy Darling

Red Nights In Jupiter

Synopsis: At the end of another long day, you fall into bed with Jimmy Darling. The men you served throughout the day don’t matter then, nor do the coins in the mason jar by the door, or the women scheduled to attend Jimmy’s next Tupperware party. No, in that quiet darkness it’s just you and the man you love, bone-tired and happy to be home. Who could ask for more?

Rating: 16+

Word Count: 3000~

James Patrick March

Heartsick

Synopsis: When you fall ill, James is given a forceful awakening about how he’s been neglecting your needs and what he must do to prevent harm from befalling you again.

Rating: 16+

Word Count: 3700~

In Sickness And In Health

Synopsis: Normally people don’t have their wedding and funeral on the same day, but you and James don’t quite have a normal relationship, do you? Besides, you wouldn’t wanna go any other way.

Rating: 18+

Word Count: 5500~

Fallout 4

Currently Empty

Star Wars

Currently Empty

Assorted/Random

Currently Empty

Long Form Works/Series

Young Artist!Zemo AU

Chapter One: The Boy With The Easel

Synopsis: About a month into your first semester at Novi Grad’s top university, you finally meet the strange young man that you’ve taken to calling “easel boy” in the back of a bookshop. From a distance, he always seemed cold and aloof. As you get to know him, though, you realize things aren’t always what they seem.

Rating: T

Word Count: 7000~

Till Forever Falls Apart (A Peter Maximoff/Reader Series)

Chapter One: Welcome Home

Synopsis: As if getting thrown through the multiverse, trapped in an attic (albeit a cool one), mind-controlled to manipulate his grieving sister, and subsequently dragged out of Westview “for his own safety” by the FBI wasn’t enough, Peter Maximoff has now been shipped off to New York to live with a glorified baby sitter like some tragic orphan in a comic book until they find a way to get him back home. Things are not always as they seem, though, and this change might just be for the better.

Rating: T

Word Count: 2400~

Chapter Two: The Doctor Is In

Synopsis: Peter’s first few days in his new home are mostly uneventful, so he decides it’s the perfect time to dust off his running goggles and steal some shit. The building with the massive circular stained glass window seems like a great place to start! People with buildings that lavish are usually rich and weak, so what could possibly go wrong?

Rating: T

Word Count: 2800~

Chapter Three: It’s Always Been You

Synopsis: After a month of adapting to his new universe, Peter Maximoff can confidently say that he likes his new life more than his old one. Sure, he misses home sometimes, but he’s been far too busy flirting with his new roommate to spend time crying over the things he’s lost. Everything is smooth sailing until a strange journal in his roommate’s study leaves him with more questions than he knows what to do with. Now he’s on a mission to discover who he’s really living with before she has the chance to turn against him.

Rating: T

Word Count: 8600~

Chapter Four: Before You Go

Synopsis: Peter, after days of contemplation, has realized that part of him loves Y/N no matter what she is or what she’s been through. Unfortunately, he can’t find her anywhere. When she finally returns home with the intention of leaving again, Peter realizes it’s his last chance to tell her how he really feels. Will he succeed, or will he fail to be fast enough once again?

Rating: T

Word Count: 4000~

Chapter Four And A Half: Gimme Swayze

Synopsis: Now that the issue of Y/N leaving is out of the way, and Peter has finally kissed her, he falls into the motions of learning how to love someone for the first time. It’s easier than he thought it would be.

Rating: T

Word Count; 2600~

Cakes For The Evans: A Blogging And Baking Adventure!

Kai Anderson’s Disaster Cake

Hey you! If you’ve made it this far down the list, thanks for supporting me as an author! I’ll be linking my AO3 here. I post everything there shortly before I post it here, and there are some older fics there you might enjoy along the way! It’s also easier to drop comments over there and I keep them open for non-members, so give me a shout if you liked what I wrote!

I love you all, you make me so happy, and without you support I would never be motivated to write! Cheers!

[javisjeanjacket]

Hello old buddy, old friend, old pal, do you have any headcanons about going to Lowe's/any general hardware store with Frankie 🥺👉👈 (or hey, if you wanna write it as a fic, I definitely wouldn't complain...)

Meet Me at Our Spot  (Part 1/4) - (frankie morales x reader)

A/N: Oh, so my favorite gal wants a Lowe's boyfriend?? I got you buddy!! :) I love this premise so much a bitch is gonna turn it into a series! OOPE

Word count: 1.6K

Warnings: it’s for Cass so there’s none! she’s just a fluffy boy :)

A cool breeze whipped through the Lowe's parking lot, sending a chill across your skin and your hair dancing upon it's shoulders. You tugged your thin jacket closer and stepped through the sliding double doors, smiling at the door greeter as you wormed your way through the bustling entrance. You leaned and slid to the side to avoid a blonde haired mom and her screaming child as you made your way through the store and towards the Garden Center.

The noise and business of the store around you seemed to fade away the closer you got to the Garden Center doors. You let out an exhale as the double doors slid apart and you crossed the threshold. The grounding energy of the plants and the subtle sunshine they carried with them helped to settle your thumping chest. You took your time, looking over each succulent and flower, your face beaming and your fingers dancing atop each leaf and petal. Something about the plants, brought here together in a kind of makeshift jungle, was sovereign in your mind. Their ability to continue on, to become more, to grow until they physically couldn't anymore, was something you held close to your heart and these moments in the Garden Center reminded you of that.

~~~~~

Frankie hated Lowe's. He hated the clanging of people loading lumber, the whirring of the paint mixer, the screaming children who were tired of walking. The noise brought back memories of gunfire and screaming across a battlefield.  He could feel tension rising in his chest as he looked over the endless sea of drill attachments and when a blonde haired woman and her screaming child passed by, he decided to make a run for the Garden Center.

He stepped through the sliding double doors and let out a deep sigh, the quiet of the plants soothing to his pulsing hands. His dark eyes shifted over the outdoor area, searching for possible screaming children or snickering teenagers. The coast seemingly clear, he began his sojourn through the brightly lit aisles. The warmth of the sun and from the succulents around him helped to settle his chest. He looked up as he turned a corner and noticed the shape of your form, almost hidden by the branches and palms of the saplings you were admiring.

Frankie stopped in front of a display of grey teaspoon plants, but kept his eyes focused on you. He could see your smile as you turned to look at the different trees, bright and beaming. He could feel your warmth all the way from where he stood. He watched as you brushed your hand over the leaves, careful not to disturb the trees. You seemed to be mumbling to them, enraptured by their power.

He smiled and chuckled to himself as he watched you. Your complete awe of a couple of saplings in the Lowe's Garden Center amusing to him. He could hear his heart thumping in his ears and his throat went dry as he looked up and down you again. His eye catching on your outstretched hand and the absence of a ring on it.

~~~~~~

You stuffed your hands in your back pockets as you took one final look over the saplings, trying to reel in as much of their energy as you could before you left.

"Excuse me." A male voice sounded from beside you.

You jumped and gasped, looking towards it.

The voice belonged to a stranger, a stranger who's face you felt you had seen before. Someone you had known in childhood or another life maybe.

"Can you tell me anything about these?" He asked. His face was square with patchy stubble decorating his jaw. Dark hair flipped out from under a baseball cap and his eyes were so dark they seemed to have their own gravity. He wore a tan jacket over a plain black t shirt and his smile took up the entire expanse of his face.

"Uh-" You jerked yourself out of his trance. "I don't," You snickered in embarrassment. "I don't work here."

"Oh!" He said, nodding. He chuckled, "The way you were talking to them," He motioned to the saplings beside you. "I just assumed you guys were already friends."

You laughed and replied, "No, we're still in the talking stage right now. Don't want to come on too strong, you know." Heat built in your chest as you met his eyes again and you licked your lips.

The man's gaze shifted from your eyes to your lips and he smirked, "Yeah, you want to play it cool. Just come up to them at Lowe's and ask them to tell you about trees."

You chuckled and broke your gaze, looking down at your shoes.

He laughed and pulled at the brim of his cap, pushing it over his face and then fixing it back in place. "I'm Frankie." He said, holding out his hand towards you.

Your eyes caught on the small circular tattoo beside his thumb as you took his hand and shook it, replying with your name and a "It's nice to meet you, Frankie."

He echoed, "It's nice to meet you too."

A beat of awkward silence passed between you.

You sighed loudly and began, "Well, I guess I uh,"

Frankie said at the same time, "Are you-"

You both stopped and smirked at the other.

"You go." Frankie said and motioned for you to speak.

You shook your head, "No, what were you saying?"

Frankie blushed and said, "I was going to ask if you were looking for a tree to have your boyfriend plant for you."

You could feel a warmth surge through your hands. "I don't have a boyfriend." You almost whispered, air resting just out of your reach.

Frankie took in a deep breath and stepped closer to you. His eyes ran up and down your body and then landed on your lips. "A girl as pretty as you doesn't have a boyfriend?"

You shook your head no and beamed at him.

"Oh, so you're a serial killer then?" He asked, a dark eyebrow quirked upwards.

You laughed and reached a hand out to touch his arm. The weight of him under your touch was enough to send electricity popping and crackling down your spine. "No, of course not."

"That's what they all say." He teased, his eyes now planted firmly on your lips.

You beamed at him and moved your hand back to your side. Nervousness careening through your system at an alarming rate.

Frankie said your name, his voice heavier than it had been just moments ago.

You looked up from your shoes to meet his gaze. "Yes?" You whispered.

He moved one of his palms from his side to rest on the small of your back. "Can I kiss you?"

There was no telling why you said yes, maybe it was the depth of his eyes or the way his hair flipped out over his ears. The quirk of his lips or the softness around the creases in his eyes.

You nodded yes and let out a tiny gasp as his lips brushed against yours. His hand on your back pulled you closer to him, his chest pressing against yours and his thumb rubbing up and down.

His lips pulled softly on yours, testing the waters and getting a feel for you. His mouth tasted like coffee and something sweet, like maple syrup maybe.

You moved your hands to his face and cupped it gently, afraid to become too tangible and scare him away. You could feel the brim of his cap resting atop your head and it made you smile against his lips.

His patchy beard scratched at your hands and the tips of your fingers reached for the hair peeking out from under his hat.

He broke the kiss, his eyes searching your face and his eyebrows dipped as he watched for your reaction.

Your mind lagged, the feeling of Frankie completely overtaking any other functioning pathway in your brain. Snapping to, you smiled brightly at him and scratched your head. "Um," You chuckled.

Frankie blushed and looked down at his boots, he tucked his hands in his pockets.

"Well, Frankie, if you have any, uh, questions about these," You looked down at the tag resting around the sapling closest to you's trunk. "Benjamina Ficus trees, I can give you my number so you can call me, you know..if you want to."

Frankie's face blanked and then jumped to life as he processed your words. "Oh, yeah, yeah. I definitely- I have a lot of questions about Benjamin Ficus." He said as he wriggled his phone from his pants pocket. He quickly unlocked it and handed it over to you.

You entered your number and your name followed by a tree emoji and then handed it back to him.

"Okay." He nodded, smiling back at you.

You returned the smile and took a deep breath, "Well, I guess I'll see you and Ben Ficus here next time."

Frankie's cheeks filled and his eyes seemed to sparkle as he watched you slowly step away. "This will be our spot."

A weight slammed into your chest and you had to gasp for breath. "Okay, bye Frankie." You flashed him one last smile before exiting the sliding double doors.

~~~~~

Frankie sighed loudly as you left the Garden Center. He ran his clammy palms down his jeans, took off his cap, and then ran a hand through his hair as his mind whirred to process what had just happened.

'God, I'm turning into Pope.' He thought.

He looked down at the phone in his hand and your contact there, a little tree emoji at the end of it. He smiled to himself and slipped the phone back in his pocket. He scratched his head through his cap as he tried to remember why the hell he had even come to Lowe's in the first place.

FRANKIE TAGLIST: @lostgirlheather @yougottakeeponkeepinon @artsymaddie @din-damn-djarin

GENERAL TAGLIST: @softly-sad

I hope everyone is where they want to be taglist wise! If not, please let me know and I will change it for you! :)

JOIN THE TAGLIST HERE

Hai Hits 300 Followers!

[brandyllyn]

War makes thieves, and peace hangs them (pt5)

Told from POV of Triple Frontier characters and while it’s an OFC she is never described. Her “name” is a radio handle (Wildcat). 

Summary: Getting ready for the op, Wildcat and Santiago find themselves on a private channel. (Santiago Garcia x Reader)

Other chapters... My Masterlist

Word count: 2100. Read it on AO3.

Rating: R? NC-17? (Explicit) language. dirty talk.

"Here," Wildcat presses a small piece of silicon into Santi’s hand and he held it up. "They work off bone conduction, can just about pick up your thoughts." She hands him a cell phone. "I’ve got everything wired right now through this handheld. It should automatically temper the sound so it won’t matter what volume we’re talking at - it’ll modulate it into a narrow range." She grins, "Don’t want to blow out your ear drum."

Santi turns the earbud over in his fingers before pressing it into his right ear. "Comms check?"

She glances up at him, "Loud and clear."

It’s an odd sensation, he hears her voice like normal, but also simultaneously like she’s right inside his head with him. "What’s the range on these?"

"About a hundred yards." She taps a button on the phone in his hand and he no longer hears her echoing. Then she pulls a black beanie out of her bag, settling it on her head and making sure all her hair is tucked away. "Please remember that I won’t be on main comms. If there’s anything I need to know you’re going to have to repeat it to me."

"Yeah, about that-" he starts but she cuts him off.

"One of your giant radios is going to be too obvious. No way. I need to at least be capable of blending in."

Santi looks her up and down. She’s got on a pair of dirty jeans and a grey t-shirt. The jeans are loose, falling straight down her legs and hiding the curves of her body. The t-shirt… "What did you do to your-" he gestures at her chest.

She squats at her bag, slipping a knife into one boot and another behind her belt. "Left them back at the hotel." At his raised eyebrow she grins. "Didn’t you know all boobs are detachable?"

"We talking about boobs in here?" Will’s voice precedes him into the room.

Wildcat turns to him with a smile. "We should always be talking about boobs. They’re amazing."

"I don’t like it," Santi grunts.

"Boobs?" Benny asks with an incredulous look following behind Will, Frankie a few feet behind him.

"This," Santi gestures at Wildcat. "I don’t like you not being on primary comms. The delay could cost you." He looks at her once more, "I also wish you’d wear some armor."

She sighs, heavy and strained. "If someone sees me from the corner of their eye I need to look like I belong. One of your radios and a flak jacket will ruin the mirage."

"Ain’t no one mistaking you for a narco Wildcat," Frankie points out and Santi gives him an approving look before looking back at her.

"Yes. Exactly," Santi agrees vehemently.

She kicks her bag under the nearby table and then stands up to her full height, hands on her hips. "Look. You hired me to do this because I’m really fucking good at my job. So back off and accept I know more than you about how to do this." She holds up the keyset she lifted just fifteen minutes ago, "Unless one of you wants to gather the intel from an active safe house? No? Then I’ll say it again. Let me do my fucking job."

A quick dip of his chin is all he gives her and she doesn’t say anything in return. Instead she checks her watch, leaning to look out a crack in the papers covering the window. "How long we got?"

"Hour, give or take." Ben replies, sitting and leaning a chair back against the wall.

Santi pulls his 9mm out of its holster. Checks the magazine, checks there isn’t one chambered, and then hands it and the holster to Wildcat. "You’re going in there with more than a knife on you. And you can’t tell me a gun will be out of place. It will look odd if you don’t have one."

She wrinkles her nose but nods, repeating his motions and checking the safety before hooking the holster onto the back of her pants. 

"Might as well have kept the bullets Pope," Ben says with a smirk.

"You can fuck off," Wildcat mutters, looking out the window.

Pope raises an eyebrow. "What’s this?"

"Wildcat can’t shoot for shit," Ben laughs.

"Really?" This from Frankie who had finally stopped blushing every time he looked at her.

Wildcat grunts, turning away from the window and back to them. "I have a different skillset."

"How bad?" Will asks.

She shuts her eyes for a moment before shrugging. "Bad."

"Hey didn’t you wash out of SEAL training 'cause of it?" Ben asks.

She spins on him, "Why are you asking questions you already know the answer to?"

"How did you even make it out of basic?" Ben continues to needle.

A thunk echoes in the room and Ben turns his head slowly, his cheek grazing the knife that had appeared in the wall next to him. Frankie gives a low whistle and even Will gives her a more appraising look. Santi hadn’t even seen her move.

"I said I have a different skillset," she grits out before walking over and pulling the knife out. Santi is watching but as soon as it comes out of the wall it just… disappears. Somewhere.

"Enough," Santi snaps and everyone stands up a little straighter. "It’s time to get into place." No one needs a reminder, the moment the words are out everyone starts moving. Wildcat takes the phone out of his hand, turning the screen on and showing him the earbud controls before turning everything on and tucking the phone into his vest.

"Be careful," he tells her and sees her brows draw down but she nods and slips out the back door.

Santi grabs their gear and heads up to the empty apartment. The narcos knew his face which meant he was stuck running ops. From the apartment above he had a good view of the street out the window and Will and Frankie would be placing cameras. Ben would be on the corner, doing a much better job of pretending to read the paper than Frankie had. Will would be with Wildcat, ready to boost her up and then move to the extraction point. Frankie was on getaway car.

-Pope Pope, Ironhead.-

Santi reaches down to his radio. -Ironhead go.-

-Wildcat is up, moving to secondary.-

-Copy that Ironhead.-

"I see my babysitter has already contacted you." The voice purrs inside his head and Santi shifts his weight on his feet, looking down at the building across the street. He can’t see her, knows he can’t. Until Will got his camera setup he wouldn’t be able to see her.

"Shouldn’t you be keeping quiet right now?" he asks, scanning the street for signs of her anyway.

A low laugh, "I’m twenty feet off the ground. And I’m whispering. I can barely hear me."

"Well, you shouldn’t be distracting me," he says.

"From what? We’ve got at least fifteen minutes to kill." A pause and he can almost hear her brain working. "I can think of some fun ways to spend fifteen minutes."

He groans, "No. Absolutely not."

"Aw, Pope, why so serious? Don’t you ever have fun on these jobs?"

"No," he says again, even more firmly.

"That’s too bad," he hears a low hum and can feel it travel through his body, curling his toes. "I guess I’ll just have to entertain myself."

"Do not," he warns but she just laughs, low and dark. "I’ll turn your channel off," the note of caution in his voice should be enough to scare anybody.

"No you won’t. You won’t risk something happening to me while you’ve got me muted." Fuck she was right. Had called his bluff. "Which means that you, sexy man, are at my mercy."

Santi leans his head against the windowpane for a second, careful not to disturb the curtain he was peering around. "Didn’t you get enough of me last night?"

"Oh no," she is definitely purring now. Her voice low and sensual. "I don’t think I did. In fact, I think tonight you should let me tie you up."

"Not a chance," he says, shifting to look at the three camera feeds, of which only two are up. As he watches, the feed from Will’s camera comes through and now he can see her. Tiny on his screen and squeezed into a corner where two buildings meet, near a window. He tilts his head, trying to figure out the logistics of what she’s doing. She got one foot wedged into a crack, the other on maybe a half inch of exposed brick, her hands pressed out to each side. Her legs at an angle he’s never seen from a human before. Just looking at her makes his knees hurt.

"I didn’t know you were that flexible," he comments and sees her lift her head, eyes scanning until she spots the camera Will set up across from her. The camera is too far away to see her expression but he can somehow tell that she grins at him.

"Oh honey, this isn’t even half of it."

He groans and then tries to stifle it when he hears her low chuckle. Damn these earbuds are sensitive. He’s not used to them. Not used to having instant communication with the team like this. It’s nice, or at least would be if she weren’t using them for evil.

"You know I still have marks on my wrists from last night."

He did in fact know that. He had forgotten to untie her for far too long, until his belt had chafed her skin and she’d actually had to ask. He also knew better. He’d played these games before and generally wasn’t so careless. There was just something about her that made him want to push. Push things just a little further than was safe.

"I’ve also got a scratch on the inside of my thigh. I think it’s from your zipper."

He bites back the groan this time, clenching his fist so hard his knuckles hurt.

"I’m sad I didn’t get to see you. You have a beautiful cock, don’t get me wrong, but I’d’ve liked to have seen the rest of you."

The cock in question was already half hard. Santi grits his teeth.

"I mean, I barely even got to touch you. That’s really a shame. It is. I like touching. And tasting. Running my fingers and tongue over someone’s skin."

Why was she doing this? He’s watching the cameras, he really is, but he keeps coming back to her. The way her body is twisted against the building. She can’t move. Not really. But she doesn’t seem like she needs to. As uncomfortable as it looks to him, her voice in his head doesn’t seem at all fazed.

"I really enjoyed sucking your cock you know. I would do that again for you, anytime you’d like."

"Fuck," he breathes and he hears a low hum from her.

"Maybe you’ll be nicer next time. Let me take my time. Go slow. Draw it out for you. Suck on you til my lips go numb."

"Cat," his voice has an edge to it.

"Are you touching yourself Pope?"

He grunts, shifting in his chair. "No."

"Do you want to be?"

He doesn’t reply. Lets the silence stretch between them before he hears her sigh. "I wish I could touch myself right now. I’ve gotten myself all wet thinking about you." Another sigh, as heartfelt as the last. "Or even better, I wish you were here touching me."

He can imagine it easily. The way her legs are spread and the angle of the camera mean that he’s looking right into the V of her thighs. Hell, if she weren’t wearing pants he could probably see inside of her in this position. But she is, and he can’t, just sees the tight stretch of denim. His brain is more than happy to fill in the rest.

-Pope Pope, Catfish.-

Santi groans, shifting his attention to his radio. -Catfish go.-

-I’ve got eyes on the delivery truck.-

-Copy that.- The next bit is as much for Wildcat’s benefit as his own. -Eyes on the delivery truck. Allcom sound off.-

-Catfish go.-

-Ironhead go.-

-Benny go.-

"Wildcat go," a whisper in his ear.

"What do you hear Wildcat?" An old litany. One he’d said a thousand times before.

This time he doesn’t imagine her twist towards the camera, the grin she gives him. "Nothing but the rain Pope." Then she’s twisting against the building, a small jump and her hands catch the lip of a window just above her.

"Drop zone is clear," he tells her, watching the cameras. He can see her body sway, she’s holding herself by eight fingers and a single toe-hold. The delivery truck pulls up and he waits just a second longer before speaking one word.

-Go.-

Pt6

[gloryofluv]

Order Up! Chapter 20

The big 2 0. Wow, when I started this thing I had no idea this was going to be so fun to write. Over 50k words and Alex is now one of my favorite people!

This chapter just had me gooey for Solomon, seriously!

Previous Chapter

Cameron was on break, and there was a lull in customers. Lucifer had come and gone earlier, but he was slightly more attentive this morning. He asked if she had breakfast and if she was drinking water. Jordan noticed.

“So, the elephant in the room. What happened with you and Mr. Black Coffee?” He asked while looking over his clipboard.

Alex twitched her nose and walked up to him. “Jordan,” she said in a timid voice.

“Yes?” He arched his eyebrow revealing the glitter eyeshadow in detail.

“Do you think I’m naturally submissive?” she whispered.

Jordan dropped his clipboard and blinked. “What?”

“I’m asking you,” she puffed and shifted. “Do you think I’m naturally submissive?”

He retrieved the board and examined her. “Well, I mean,” he paused, and his eyes grew. “Babe, I didn’t see it!”

She bloomed with color and straightened her apron. “We talked last night. He wanted me to talk to you about this later.”

Jordan leaned on the sink and waved his hand with his pen. “Alex, I swear, I mean, I just never realized.”

Alex licked her lips. “Do you think my dad and I had a normal relationship?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Jesus, Alex, you’re going through a lot of shit right now. Between the new career, a new home, and this? No, your dad was a control freak. I mean your mother and you always had to dress presentable and be polite. Seriously, I loved him, but he was an asshole.”

She rubbed her neck and nodded. “I think so too. I was doing some reading on my break today. I want to learn more.”

Jordan ducked closer to her and scowled. “Did he do something to you? Did he do something you weren’t ready for? I will go get my fabric scissors and cut open his balls,” he hissed and snapped.

Alex shook her head frantically. “No, that's the thing. He told me to come to talk to you. He said there are rules on the house and that it would be convoluted if he answered my questions.”

Jordan relaxed and adjusted his hat. “Okay, that makes me feel loads better. Yes, we’ll have a long chat about this. You can ask anything you want. I promise not to be gentle about it either if I think you need to know.”

“Alex, you need a firm hand?” Someone chuckled.

Alex pivoted and smirked. “Well, hello, mad scientist,” she smiled and wandered over to the POS screen.

Solomon smiled and swished his hand, pulling a playing card out of thin air. The queen of hearts. “She is beauty, magnetism, and idealism,” he voiced and handed it to her.

“Your little trinkets are building up on my dresser, Sol,” she laughed and placed the card in her apron.

“So, what are we talking about on today’s TED talk?” Solomon questioned.

Jordan leaned over the glass and waved his hand. “D and s relationships,” he murmured.

Solomon tilted his head and touched his chin. “Interesting topic for the early afternoon, but I'm intrigued. I have extensive knowledge on the subject.”

Alex blinked as her eyebrows reached for her hat. “You do?”

“I do,” he agreed. “Too much knowledge is never enough.”

She beamed and tilted her head. “I wonder when your cup will ever runneth over.”

“Never,” Solomon chuckled. “I plan to find a way to live forever and keep learning.”

“If anyone could, it’d be you,” Alex replied.

“I would like to join this discussion,” Solomon said and then glanced around. “Just not where it could be incriminating.”

Alex giggled and rocked her head. “Okay, I could see this being a decent group discussion.”

“You could?” Jordan scowled. “Honey, there’s alotta weird stuff you’re going to be learning about.”

“He’s a genius, J,” Alex gestured to the man in a grey turtleneck.

“Doesn’t mean he’s,” Jordan sighed and waved his hand. “You know what, fine. I think if we’re going to do this, we’re going to invite Asmo too.”

“Oh, he’s a great person to add to this,” Solomon agreed.

Jordan glared. “Don’t even mention another word about you two together, okay, toots?”

“Toots?” Solomon smiled. “Can you please put that on my cup?”

Alex was trying so hard to stifle her giggling. “Solomon, how do you get everyone but me to hate you?”

“I don’t like them as much,” Solomon said.

Jordan exhaled and tilted his head. “When are you going to ask her out? You’ve been coming here handing her trinkets for months.”

Alex glared at Jordan. “Stop that.”

“How about this,” Solomon hummed, drawing her attention back to him. “We’ll go out on a date when she’s ready? I don’t believe in the social parameters of making a woman feel pressured to say yes.”

“You mean you’re too afraid she’ll say no,” Jordan smirked.

“I wouldn’t say no,” Alex shook her head.

Solomon beamed and touched his chest. “Then, when your interesting life gets into the new rhythm of your promotion, we’ll have our date.”

Alex was glowing. “Solomon, you really do pay attention to my texts.”

“I do,” he nodded. “I told you, I may not always answer immediately, but I do read them.”

“I can see why you’ve had so many hearts fall in love with you,” She teased and waved her fingers.

Solomon’s cheeks darkened, and he cleared his throat. “Alex, you flatter me.”

“Okay, okay, enough with this weird lovefest. What are you drinking today?” Jordan asked.

Solomon scowled up at the menu and twitched his nose. Oh, a new one? “I don’t know that one, Solomon,” Alex admitted.

He chuckled and breathed. “I think my mind has gone away with me again. How about you order me what you usually drink?”

Jordan rolled his eyes. “Sounds good, toots.”

“Half Green tea, half passion tea, no water, 3 pumps raspberry, 2 pumps cane,” Alex declared.

Solomon grinned and nodded. “That is now added to my list, Alex,” he said and handed her his credit card.

“So, does afternoon work tomorrow? You can come over when Jordan and Asmo are available,” Alex voiced as she finished the transaction.

Solomon pulled out his phone and checked the screen. “Ah, yes, tomorrow shall be fine. I don’t have anything until that evening with a few colleagues.”

“Perfect,” Alex smiled as she handed him the receipt and card.

“I’m quite proud of you, Alex. You spent a long time not acknowledging things about yourself and are tackling them at an inhuman rate. It shows fortitude and tenacity,” Solomon declared as he pocketed his card.

Alex blushed and shifted against the screen. “Well, life is about holding on tightly and taking all the dips on the rollercoaster.”

Solomon grimaced. “Roller Coasters. Very unamusing things.”

“You don’t like them?”

“Not in the least,” Solomon sneered.

“I would have thought you’re a thrill-seeker,” Alex hummed.

Jordan handed him the tea and collected his clipboard again.

“Well,” Solomon shifted with the cup in hand. “It depends on the thrill,” he smiled before sipping his straw.

“How is it?” She asked.

Solomon placed a tip in the jar. “Well, it reminds me of you. So, refreshing, sweet, and I’ll be returning for it again.”

Fucking smooth. Occasionally, this man pulls off the greatest lines, completely straight-faced. “I’ll see you soon, Sol,” Alex laughed.

He waved and walked off toward the door. Alex smiled and shook her head before turning to Jordan. “I honestly don’t know what you see in that hydrogen peroxide pimple popper,” he hummed.

“Come on,” Alex groaned. “It was years ago. Are you really going to be jealous of it? Is it because Asmo hasn’t agreed to be exclusive?”

Jordan scowled and shook his head. “No, and I understand I’m being a baby.”

“You are, but I do like him,” Alex sighed. “Please like him for me? Please?”

“Oh, alright,” Jordan groaned.

Cameron skipped back out and beamed. “So, what did I miss?”

Alex shrugged and went to restocking the gift cards. “Just one of my regulars.”

“Oh, he’s going to love him,” Jordan chuckled.

“Who was it?” Cameron questioned as he went to the screen, and Alex moved to the bar.

“Well, it was Solomon,” Alex declared.

“Ah, Mr. Can’t-make-up-his-mind,” Cameron nodded. “He came in yesterday.”

Jordan snorted and marked his inventory from the stock above. “She knows his hand gestures by mood.”

“That’s impressive,” Cameron smiled.

Alex beamed and checked the syrups. “It took many visits. J, I need some more caramel.”

Jordan reached above and handed her the bottle. “We shall mourn many days when she becomes my boss,” he snickered.

“Oh, stop, you’re amazing. Besides, I’ll likely be here all the time working,” she said.

“No favoritism, Alex.”

Alex glanced up from writing on the bottle and beamed. “Well, hello, Barbatos,” she laughed.

Barbatos was standing next to the hand-off station. He was smiling and tilted his head. “Good afternoon. Diavolo is finishing a conversation on the phone, and he’ll be in momentarily.”

“Would you like your tea?”

Barbatos nodded.

Alex glanced over to see that Cameron was working on it and returned her attention to him. “So, how are you today? Anything notable?”

“I found a new recipe I plan on cooking tonight. I’m positive Lucifer will enjoy the fusion,” Barbatos nodded.

“I haven’t tried your cooking yet, but I truly am looking forward to it,” Alex voiced as she wiped down the counter.

Barbatos beamed and rocked his head. “It will be quite enjoyable to cook for more than Lucifer and Diavolo’s tastes.”

“So, do you enjoy doing anything other than working like a madman and cooking?” Alex questioned.

“Gardening. I have a greenhouse with my own vegetables. I also enjoy poetry on occasion,” Barbatos explained as Cameron set down his cup.

“I couldn’t grow mushrooms in cow poop,” Alex snorted.

“Patience and dedication, Alex. Two traits I hold dear,” Barbatos explained.

“And that you have in abundance,” she giggled.

Barbatos tilted his head and glanced at the door before returning to her view. “Did you receive my questionnaire this morning?”

She nodded. “I was going to fill it out tonight after dinner.”

“Excellent, that will be a basis for you to start with the roots next week,” Barbatos explained.

She bent closer and narrowed her eyes. “Are you superhuman?” she whispered.

He actually laughed and shook his head. “No, Alex, though I appreciate the compliment.”

“Barbatos, I haven’t heard you laugh in years.” Diavolo skipped over and beamed.

“She has a wonderful personality,” Barbatos declared.

Alex straightened her form as Diavolo was glancing down at her. “Good afternoon, Diavolo.”

“And a great one it is, Alex! You already have a Superfan,” Diavolo nodded.

“Superfan?”

“Oh, yes, Michael and I were talking about the charity dinner, and he said how much you had such good energy when he was in here the other night! Simeon had nothing but pleasant things to say about you as well,” Diavolo explained.

Oh… shit. “That’s pretty wonderful,” she smiled.

Diavolo rocked his head. “Yes, I’m pleased. We’re going to have a wonderful weekend.”

Cameron was waiting patiently, and Diavolo finally approached. “Good afternoon, Diavolo,” he smiled.

“How are you doing, Cameron?” Diavolo asked.

“Excellent. It was very eye-opening to see her work at the register. I really had the chance to see how much of a stellar portion of your brand, Alex is!” Cameron beamed.

Alex shook her head with a smile and organized the milk below. It was the first time in a while she just had the chance to listen.

“I don’t want you to feel too much pressure. Just find what makes it work for you and bring it every day,” Diavolo chuckled.

“I will definitely try. All the customers are so animated and wonderful. Not to take away my experiences from the other store, of course,” Cameron declared.

Psst. Alex glanced up at the sound. Leviathan? She walked over to the hand-off, and he grimaced. “Alex, do I really have to order from him?”

It was cute that as long as she had the counter between them, he could actually look at her. If only she could find a way to get him from running from her at home now… Alex exhaled and nodded. “Levi, I’m going to be going on a top-secret mission for Diavolo soon. I’ll be out of commission as a barista. You have a new operative memo,” she whispered.

Levi gasped and leaned closer. “W-what is it?”

“For operation Sea Serpent you need to help me find the best barista. Your mission, if you choose to accept and are successful, will grant you two full levels in speechcraft,” she breathed with a gasp.

He fist-pumped the air and grinned. “Accept, I do.”

Alex grinned and leaned closer. “I have a side mission for you.”

“I like side missions,” Levi hummed and looked amused.

“I need your help setting up my computer because Asmo did it wrong. If you help me with that, you get half a full level of intimacy,” Alex whispered.

He rocked his head several times. “Okay, yes.”

“You’re my savior,” she smiled.

Levi blushed, but he beamed. “Alex, you want to come to watch ‘So, you want to be a demon?’ with me tonight?”

She tapped her chin. “I will after my dinner with my boss, okay?”

He rocked his head. “Affirmative.”

“Objective stored,” she replied with a thumbs up.

Levi waved and walked over behind Diavolo, who was paying. “Hello, Leviathan,” Diavolo said in a lower tone.

Oh, this was new?

Levi waved and shuffled. “Diavolo.”

“Did you receive my new coding commissions?” Diavolo asked.

“Yes, I did. I re-coded all of the characters for it,” Levi nodded.

“Excellent! Well, I’m really excited. I can now walk around with a suit of armor and a pig for a sword,” Diavolo laughed.

Levi smiled and looked away from him. “That was pretty good.”

Diavolo beamed and held out his hand. Levi carefully high-fived him before moving aside. How fucking adorable is that? Levi was nearly glowing with the conversation’s end. Alex was making Diavolo’s drink and smiling to herself.

There was no way on earth that man had time to play whatever game he wanted Levi to code skins for. Damn, what a fucking decent guy. Then again, he did live with them for many years too. It was interesting that none of the boys really talked about it. Maybe their wounds were just so deep?

“You seem quite amused,” Diavolo murmured as he leaned over the hand-off counter.

“I am,” she smirked. “I didn’t know you played video games.”

“All the time,” he smiled with a hint of humor.

“You know something,” Alex hummed as his shots finished.

“What?” he asked.

She placed his drink down in front of him. “I’m really looking forward to spending the afternoon shopping for this event.”

He was giving her the best toothy smile she’d seen him give to date. “Me too,” he paused and checked his watch. “In about twenty minutes, my day gets extraordinarily better.”

She laughed and nodded. “Mine too.”

He stood up and winked before walking toward the register. He waved to Cameron, put a tip in the jar, and left the cafe. Levi was bouncing by the hand-off counter, and Alex got started on his drink.

“You know, I find it so amusing that you just can read people so well,” Cameron mused.

Alex hummed and glanced over. “What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what to say to make everyone smile. That’s not an exaggeration either,” Cameron nodded.

“It’s just about finding empathy, right, Levi?” Alex asked as she filled his cup with syrup pumps.

Levi rocked his head and bounced on his heels. “Right, Alex.”

“How do you do that so well, though?” Cameron questioned.

Alex was mixing the shots in with the syrup and hummed. “I guess I just ask them what they like and relate. Find something I can reach across the counter to them with. Give them a bit of me that they want,” she declared and shrugged. “Levi, you’re doing Almond milk today?” she frowned at him.

“Yeah. We’re having pizza tonight,” Levi puffed.

She rocked her head. “No need to explain. Affirmative Admiral.”

He beamed and held up his thumb and index finger in a heart as she handed him the iced latte. “Bye Alex, see you at home,” he rushed out and paced toward the door.

Cameron smirked and crossed his arms over his chest. “Unbelievable.”

Alex shrugged. “They’re my favorite people in the world. All the misfits like me.”

“Well, you’re their queen,” he laughed.

Jordan came back around the corner and puffed. “Okay, honey. I’ll relieve you now so you can do last-minute checks before you’re off.”

“Thanks, J,” she nodded and moved toward the end of the counter.

She took off her apron, washed her hands, and got to work. Her afternoon and evening were booked, but at least it was going to be wonderful several hours ahead. Oh, she should get some caffeine.

@rsmrymnt-tea @otome-scribbles

[creepy-spooghetti]

A Hapless Endearment [Creepypasta x F. Reader]

Chapter 11 - Anonymous

_____

Jack opens the door, stepping aside to allow a pale girl with medium-length blonde hair into the small house. She's clad in slightly ripped jeans, a pair of sneakers, a maroon tank top, and a black jacket. In her hand is a plastic bag that looks to have been taken from some kind of store, and what resides inside isn't completely clear, although judging by the shape of the objects Y\n assumes it to be shoes. Her violet-grey eyes land on Jack, then shift over to Y\n, who remains leaning against the wall and watching the scene warily in front of her. 

She nods in silent greeting before walking through the door frame and into the living room, being followed by yet another girl, this one much younger and, instead of gripping a bag, a brown, old-looking teddy bear is tightly clutched within her arms. Her eyes are a bright, piercing shade of green, her chocolate-brown hair cascades over her shoulders and down her back. She wears a multi-colored hoodie splashed with shades of pink, lemony yellow, blue, and purple, and the hood itself has cotton cat ears attached to the hem. She has on a pair of black leggings, a pink mini-skirt, and rose-colored tennis shoes.

Faint freckles are scattered along her cheeks and across the bridge of her nose, and her gaze travels from the floor and up to Y\n as she tilts her head shyly. There's a kid here, too? Y\n furrows her eyebrows and glances between the three people now standing ahead of her, two of which she's never seen before in her life. She assumes the teen to be who Jack called 'Wisteria', but who the younger one is she hasn't a clue. She never heard a kid being mentioned, so the news is a bit surprising to her. 

That's when she takes notice of the blood slowly trickling down the side of her head, hidden previously by her long locks of hair, and dripping down onto her hoodie, forever staining the brightly-shaded piece of clothing with quite a large blotch of crimson. The child doesn't appear to be in any pain, but how would that be? If she had just been bashed in the head by some blunt object, how would she be able to ignore it? Come to think of it, how would she even be standing right now? Shouldn't she be knocked cold? 

Y\n's heart rate increases from concern, and she's tempted to comment on it or even lunge forward, pull the girl toward her and get her away from the two teens standing in front of the doorway. They don't seem even remotely worried about it, either because they're the ones that gave her the damage, or they just haven't taken notice of it yet. "What is Sally doing here?" Jack questions, shoving his hands into the pocket of his black hoodie and taking up a casual-looking posture. He doesn't sound mad, just curious, and perhaps a little surprised. 

Wisteria shrugs, wrapping a hand around her hair and slinging it across one of her shoulders. "Because she wanted to come."

"You couldn't have just left her with Ben or somethin'?" She shoots him a mildly annoyed expression. 

"Are you stupid? That'd be a terrible idea." 

"You've done it before."

"And that's a mistake I will never make, again." After a moment, Jack murmurs a half-hearted "okay, fine" in agreement before shutting the door and propping his back against its solid wooden surface. Wisteria briefly motions toward Y\n with a raised eyebrow. "This the girl?"

"I have a name," Y\n says, narrowing her eyes at the blonde and unable to stop glimpsing down at who she presumes is 'Sally', stomach churning with unanswered questions. She gets an impatient glance in return.

"I don't care," she responds, crossing her arms. Sensing a brewing disagreement, Jack interjects before it can go any farther. 

"Yes, this is Y\n. And Y\n, this is Wisteria and Sally." The young brunette takes a small step forward, bringing her hand up and giving Y\n a timid wave as she clings tighter onto her stuffed animal. 

"Hi..." Her voice is soft, so soft in fact that Y\n has to strain her ears just to hear and understand the words that leave her mouth. She offers the ghost of a smile in response, mostly one of concern for Sally's well-being. Who did that to her? Surely she didn't hit herself straight in the head, and even if she had, then she couldn't have made that big of an injury. She's just a kid, after all, no older than eight or nine, there's no way she could manage that kind of strength. Then again, there do seem to be some pretty...unusual people here. Is she one of them?

Wisteria stares her down as if studying her appearance, waiting for her to do something, silently judging her. Wisteria seems to be the only normal-looking person that Y\n has come across so far, save for the odd color of her eyes, though that can easily be overlooked. She'll still use it against her if she has to, though. 

Y\n shuffles on her feet uncomfortably, meeting the slightly taller girl's gaze and refusing to break contact for fear of looking weak. She is not weak, and she doesn't want anyone to think that she is. Jack runs his fingers through his hair, standing to his full height once more, and steps toward Wisteria. "So, you brought the stuff?"

Without looking away from Y\n, she nods. "Yeah, I did." A barely-noticeable, sly smirk etches itself across her face as she uncrosses her arms. "Here. Catch." Before Y\n can even blink, the bag of shoes is being launched at her head, and she only just catches it before it can hit her in the eye and temporarily blind her. Huffing indignantly, she holds the plastic bag by its handle and places a hand on her hip, glaring at Wisteria and earning a haughty grin in return. 

"Thanks." Her voice comes out in a sarcastic drawl, contemplating on throwing the bag back at her and giving her a taste of her own medicine. Instead, she focuses her attention on the child standing right beside Wisteria, then down to the large gash on her temple, unable to quell the curiosity about the unexplained wound and the worry for her safety. "What happened to your head, Sally?" She tries to keep her tone mild as she bends down a bit so she'll be closer to her height, as to not further intimidate her. Sally looks down nervously, stepping to the side until she's hidden partially by the taller girl's legs and the lower part of her torso. 

"I...It's, uh..."

"None of your business," Wisteria snaps, suddenly becoming defensive and putting an arm in front of Sally protectively. Y\n takes a stride forward, boldness swarming inside of her chest. 

"I'm not gonna stand aside and let some kid bleed to death while you're not doing anything about it."

"Alright, alright." Jack puts his arms out in front of him and steps between the two girls, facing Y\n with a peaceful tone to his voice. "Y\n, Sally isn't in danger."

Her eyes widen and she points at the green-eyed child mostly obscured by the larger frames of both Jack and Wisteria in exasperation. "Do you not see her head? Somebody clearly split it wide open!"

"Yes. Yes, they did." She presses her lips together and scowls at Jack, not understanding why he's acting so mellow about an eight-year-old kid being injured. "But that was a long time ago."

"So then why is it still bleeding?"

"Because it doesn't stop. It can't." Raising a skeptical and, distinctly confused eyebrow, she stares at him, waiting for him to continue the rest of his explanation. "Look... she isn't normal, not by a long shot. Not anymore."

"She doesn't need to know all of this, Jack," the blonde spits from behind him, though he only turns his head back to face her for a moment to say his reply. 

"If she's going to be staying here, yes, she does." He shifts his attention back onto Y\n, ignoring the scoff of protest that erupts from behind him. "And what I mean by that, is... she's not human anymore. She's a ghost."

A ghost? He's talking about ghosts, of all things now? How crazy is everyone? She's never been a strong believer in ghosts or hauntings or anything like that but considering everything that's been happening to her as of late, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to start believing that things like ghosts do exist. But to be a ghost...you'd have to die. Does this mean that Sally died? Come to think of it, that wound does look pretty fatal... 

"But ghosts aren't real," she says quietly, mainly to reassure herself that things like what he says are only in movies, and books, and TV shows. But are they, really? There has to be some reason that Sally isn't hurt by that exceedingly large gash in her head. Could that be why? Because she's already dead?

"They are, Y\n. That's why she isn't in pain." He points down toward Sally. "Because she's not alive, anymore." Y\n stares at Jack incredulously, then over to Sally, trying to process the information in her head. A dead person walking around? Like a zombie? Except, one major difference between Sally and a zombie is that Sally isn't currently trying to eat her alive. At least she's a friendly ghost, right? 

She blinks, finding herself not completely in-touch with her surroundings. Next Jack will be telling her that there are aliens from another world about to invade Earth and that they need some time-traveling machine to stop them. It wouldn't be a big surprise, at least not at this point. Okay, so ghosts are apparently real. Yeah, that makes sense.

Though she really can't understand how such an idea works, she figures that dwelling on the matter won't do her any good. Just go with it, right? It'll make it easier on herself if she doesn't think about how bizarre this whole situation is. She just has to keep her mind on more plausible explanations, but like what? She hasn't any other theories for everything that's been taking place lately, what more does she have to go off of? The best idea she has is that this is all one massive hallucination, but even that's a far stretch of her imagination at this point. It all feels too real to be imagined. 

Wisteria scoffs, rolling her vivid periwinkle eyes and drawing Y\n out of her hysteria of scrambled thoughts. "See? She can't even handle the simple truth." She furrows her eyebrows at the shorter girl still standing on the other side of Jack. "I still think we just shoulda killed her—"

"Wisteria." Jack cuts her off, voice austere as he shifts around to better face her. "That wouldn't have been a smart move."

"And why not?" She places a hand on her hip audaciously. "She wouldn't be our problem." He sighs in reply, shaking his head in disagreement. 

"You know why she's here. It's better for all of us this way." Y\n stares at the two with a look of mild disbelief—like, hello? They do know that she's still right here in front of them, yeah? She can tell that Jack is trying to at least be subtle, but Wisteria on the other hand just acts like she doesn't care at all. Which is likely the case. "Y\n," He looks back at her, "are you ready to go?"

"I don't want to go." She eyes Wisteria, backing up farther into the wall behind her. "I'm not living in some stranger's house." At least she's been acquainted with Jack prior to all of this, and she's been talking with him for the past little while so she feels the most comfortable with him. What if this 'Brian' person is as obnoxious and appalling as Jeff? Or even more so? She really doesn't want to deal with someone like that, much less stay with them. 

"Brian isn't going to hurt you, he's one of the most mature people here." Jack tries to sound reassuring for the most part, though it hardly works. "And Wisteria won't do anything either, she's just taking you to him." Y\n crosses her arms in protest, choosing not to verbally respond and instead send a stink eye his way. 

"Don't be afraid..." A soft voice erupts from below her, and she glances down to meet the green eyes of Sally, who had somehow walked closer to her without Y\n even realizing it. Her facial expression melts into one of compassion as she once again looks at the open gash still bleeding on her head. If the little girl trusts them, shouldn't she? 

Absolutely not. To be fair though, if Sally really is a ghost then they couldn't hurt her, anyway, so she wouldn't have a reason to fear them. Can she really trust her when she says not to be afraid? She could be in on it all, for crying out loud. Although, maybe she should be a bit more compliant just to see what happens. Other than kidnapping her among some other, more mild things, they haven't hurt her. Jack is the only one that's really even communicated with her, and as much as she hates to admit it, he's been nothing but patient with her since she woke up here. He didn't even seem to hold anything against her at the fact that she kneed him in a place no boy wants to be hit.

Plus, he provided her with an explanation for everything that's been happening. No one else had done that. She brushes a strand of hair behind her ear and releases an inaudible sigh from in-between her lips before turning and strolling down the hallway, stopping once she gets into the room she originally woke up inside. The broken glass that had been previously in front of the doorway seems to have been cleaned up, and she's more than grateful. It would suck stepping on shattered glass, it's a wonder she was able to avoid it to start with. Sitting on the bed, she takes the pair of shoes and a couple of old-looking socks out of the plastic store-made bag before beginning to slide them over her feet. 

She tries not to bump her ankle, though her attempts prove futile when the top of the sock constricts around it, making a bolt of pain shoot up her leg. "I hate that stupid dog..." she mutters, remembering the very recent sensation of a canine's teeth clamping down on her ankle and refusing to let go until his owner told him to. She rubs at the bandages, trying to give the inflicted area some kind of relief before pulling the shoes up and slipping them, too, on her feet. She ties the laces, inwardly rejoicing at the fact that the shoes aren't high-tops, otherwise, it would bring her even more pain. 

From the living room, Y\n can hear faint talking from who she assumes to be Jack and Wisteria, one of the voices slightly hostile and the other calm and collected. Well, what now? Go with Wisteria, she guesses, although she really doesn't have another choice. It isn't like she can run away in the state that her foot is in—she would surely be caught before she made it ten feet if even that. Jack said that Brian, whoever that is, won't harm her. Is he telling the truth? Who even knows. He's lied before, how can she be so sure that he isn't doing it again?

She shifts her gaze up from her shoes to the brunette girl standing in the doorway, looking a little timid though offering an affable smile nonetheless. She bounces on her heels, teddy clutched to her chest, and speaks. "Hi..."

Y\n tilts her head curiously, sitting properly once again and staring at the young girl. "Hi..." Sally slowly makes her way inside the room, face displaying innocence and a friendly desire. 

"There aren't many girls here," she says, eyes averting down to the floor shyly. "You'll be the fourth, if you stay..." 

"Fourth, huh?" She folds her hands into her lap tentatively. "Who's the third?"

"That's Zero...but she isn't here right now. So it's just me, and Sissy...and you." That comment makes her eyebrows furrow in mild puzzlement.

"Wait, Wisteria's your...your sister?" Y\n can't see any resemblance between the two, not even their eyes are the same color. And their personalities definitely seem different, with one being brash and the other being quiet and timid. Then again, having just met them she can't be too harsh of a judge but first impressions are everything. Sally parts her lips a moment as if she's about to say something only to cut herself off. She twirls a strand of long, brown hair around her finger as she collects her thoughts while Y\n waits patiently. 

"Well...no. Not really, but...she treats me like her little sister."

Makes sense, she thinks, She did seem pretty protective of her. 

"You're staying, right?" She steps a little closer, biting her lip hopefully. "Bad people are after you. They're after all of us. This is the only place we're safe."

"Sally...I have a family to get back to. They need me. I...I don't think I can stay here, not—not for long, anyway." Her facial expression falls, and she dips her head forward in what Y\n recognizes as discouragement. 

"Oh..."

"You can...come with me, if you want?" She can tell that Sally seems perfectly happy here, but it doesn't quite sit well with her that she's still in a place with multiple people that could have, and likely did, do very bad and illegal things before. "My grandparents would be happy to give you a place to stay."

Sally flashes her a look of mild disbelief, green eyes widening slightly before she shakes her head. "I'm not leaving. This is my home."

"Are you sure?" She nods in response. 

"And...and I don't think you should leave, either. I think you'd like it here if you gave it a chance."

"Sally...I don't belong here." Her voice lowers as she speaks, looking down and into the young girl's wide eyes. "I have a family back home, important people that I need to go back to."

"We all had a family at some point." She lowers her gaze to the floor, her tone becoming sheepish. "But...that was a long time ago." Y\n tilts her head. She knew that the people living here had to have some kind of backstories, though she never gave it much thought. Just how tragic is everyone that lives here? What happened to them to turn them into these...sadistic-looking things that likely have a natural lust for blood? "And now all we have is each other. We're our own family."

Not sure what to say, Y\n shifts a little on the edge of the bed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and biting the inside of her cheek. 

"The monster wants something from all of us. It wants you, too." She nibbles at her bottom lip. "If you stayed with us, you'd be safe. It can't get you here." Taking a small step forward, she avoids eye-contact shyly and squeezes the stuffed bear tighter to her chest. "And you could be part of our family."

Y\n parts her lips to respond, though before she gets a chance, Wisteria peeks her head through the door, eyes landing on Sally then over to the girl still sat on the bed currently conversing with her. She meets her mild glare, expression hardening at the intense look being thrown her way. "Sally, c'mon. We're leaving." 

She glances behind toward the blonde standing in the doorframe, then back at Y\n, her face lighting up slightly as a friendly smile spreads across her cheeks. "Yeah! You're gonna meet Brian. Don't worry—he isn't so crabby once you get to know him."

"Yes, he is," Wisteria says, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow. Sally shakes her head, taking Y\n's hand somewhat hesitantly and beginning to drag her toward the door. Y\n complies reluctantly, walking slowly behind the small-framed brunette. 

"Not to me! He's only like that to you cause you're annoying." She scoffs and turns, disappearing from sight and heading outside. Sally glimpses up at Y\n as they begin to stride down the hallway. "He's nice, don't worry. He's just wary around new people."

Sounds like this 'Brian' dude isn't going to be too easy to get along with. Not that she's intending to try and 'get along' with anyone here, though it would be in her best interest to not make the people residing in this area hate her. As far as she's heard, they're not aiming to cause her any harm, but better safe than sorry, right? The last thing she'd want is to make one of them mad, especially the one with a smile carved in his face and an intimidating knife in the pocket of his hoodie. 

They soon step into the living room, Sally momentarily releasing her hold on Y\n's hand as she swiftly catches up with Wisteria, who is walking off the porch and glancing around, as if checking the surroundings for possible dangers. Y\n slows her pace when she gets in front of Jack, meeting his oozing, soulless pits attentively. "There are no more dogs, right?"

He curtly shakes his head. "Brian isn't big on dogs. Smile's the only one here." He shoves his hands into his pockets, noticing the look of disdain on her features and attempting to bring her a sense of reassurance. "I'll be over in a couple of days to check on your bite. Until then, medicate and dress it each night before you go to bed. He should have plenty of resources to work with."

"That's comforting," she mutters, briefly averting her eyes down to her bandaged ankle, partly hidden by her shoes but still in clear sight if one were to look closely enough. 

"I know you don't want to be here. I get it. But if you want your grandparents to be safe, you'll have to stay put, or get out and get them killed and possibly yourself, too." His voice has a solemn sound to it, his deep tone contributing to the daunting factor.

"Y\n, come one!" Sally calls from outside, drawing Y\n's attention and making her release a defeated huff. 

"I'll see you, I guess," she says quietly, gaze falling to the ground before following the two girls, Sally taking hold of her hand once again when she steps onto the ground. The very same ground that she had run across just an hour prior in a rushed attempt to escape, and could have succeeded had it not been for Jeff and his stupid dog. Merely thinking about the series of unfortunate events, she's unable to stop from glancing down at the bandaged area in which Smile chomped down upon in order to catch and bring her back here, where exactly 'here' is, she still hasn't figured out. In the middle of a forest, obviously, but in the middle of what forest? Where is she at? What state, what area is she in?

Wisteria takes a sharp turn left, beginning to stroll in-between the tall trees, some skinny and some quite large, and Sally follows suit, dragging behind a nervous and mildly resistant Y\n by her hand. After a moment, she hears a soft click from the house, signifying that Jack closed the door and is likely in the process of forgetting about her and her miserable situation. 

Figures. "So...do you not like dogs?" The question takes Y\n a little off-guard, and she meets the curious eyes of the curly-haired girl walking in front of her, still clinging to her hand gently.

"Um...well, I never really minded them, but...that was before one of them John Cena'd me earlier so now, I'm not so sure." She shrugs, and Sally grows a knowing look on her face. 

"Are you talking about Smile?"

"Yes. Yes, I'm talking about Smile." She inwardly winces as her left foot lands inside of a shallow hole, stumbling slightly and having to take a moment to gather her bearings. She hopes that they don't have to walk too much farther before they come upon Brian's house, not that she's looking forward to meeting another freak, but because if she has to stand on her leg all day then it's going to be throbbing very badly. 

"Smile's usually a really sweet dog. He may just not like you."

"Yeah, cause his owner is a huge jerk."

"You mean Jeff? Yeah, he's kinda mean." 

What a shocker. 

"A couple days ago he replaced the sugar with salt and it tasted terrible on my Rice Krispies." She makes a moderately disgusted face, scrunching up her nose and reliving the memory. Y\n furrows her eyebrows.

"Did he?"

"Yeah. Wisteria made him leave and threw my Barbie doll at his head..." The image of Jeff having some kid's Barbie being yeeted at his face and hitting him in the eye or some other important area almost has her smiling bitterly, eyes shifting down to her ankle once more and reminding her how much pain he just recently caused her, unnecessarily. 

"What was...Jeff, doing at your house?" 

"He was over to return something that he borrowed before," Wisteria suddenly speaks from ahead of them, not looking back and continuing to walk through the expansion of woods. "There's no way I'd allow him to come otherwise. And for the record, that Barbie doll was a piece of trash anyway. I was just putting it in the garbage where it belonged."

Y\n snorts quietly at that comment, not expecting the sudden insult toward someone who isn't even currently present though definitely not disagreeing. Through her brief encounter with the blue-eyed male, he did not seem like a favorable person by any standards, and as much as she'd hate to admit it, he is frightening and she wouldn't want to cross him. He's a big dude and there's no way she'd stand a chance against him, especially not with her leg the way it is.

"Well...we're here." Y\n looks up and sees yet another house, this one also shrouded with plants and vines likely to obscure its appearance from anyone who may stumble across it, assuming they actually didn't get caught by the psychopaths that live here and made it out alive, oblivious to their existence. It isn't very big, the paint is chipped and faded, and there's a barbed-wire fence surrounding the outside of it. 

Sally grins up at Y\n excitedly. "Welcome to Brian's house!"

[taesramenhair]

Set Me Free [MYG]

The abbey has been a constant in Yoongi’s life: his home, his school, his workplace. Now it’s burning, pillaged by invaders - and it’s up to him to keep their relic safe. The strange man he meets at the high altar doesn’t seem to understand that, but he does understand staying out of harm's way.

word count: 5.7k // genre + rating: SFW (12)

warnings/tags etc: violence, injury, minor character death (unnamed characters), mention of corporal punishment, some Not Nice People, as you might have guessed - angst with a happy ending, monk!Yoongi (sort of), vague middle ages AU, religious imagery, religious references, mainly ft. Jimin but the others have a cameo at the end too. [This is my first fic so I'm not used to tagging - please, please tell me if I've missed something important!]

Masterlist

Yoongi never thought he’d be grateful for a childhood spent chasing chickens, but here he was. With the wind snarling around his reddened ears and loose pebbles rolling under his feet, he was immensely thankful that he’d always been given the outdoor duties. At the time, he’d hated it, of course, but it had built his stamina - and if there’s one thing you need when fleeing up a mountain, chased by murderous bandits, it’s the ability to run.

Not that he was going that fast anymore. The terrain was difficult, path narrow and winding, and the cut on his arm was distractingly painful. It wasn’t bleeding so much now, thankfully, but it throbbed with every beat of his worn-down sandals against the dusty rock. His one advantage over his pursuers was that he knew this path well and they didn’t. He had gained a lead on them in the twisting corridors of the abbey – his abbey, now nothing more than hollowed, blackened stone burning violently in the valley below – and left them scrabbling foolishly in the dense foliage at the base of the mountain. It wouldn’t be long before they made their way through, though, and he had to reach the top first. He had to make it to the altar.

A misjudged footfall coming around the last corner slid Yoongi into the floor, landing heavily on his left shoulder as the strap of his sandal broke apart. Every ache in his body rose now that he wasn’t moving, screaming up towards the bright midday sky even as he forced himself to let out nothing louder than a pained groan. He couldn’t let them know anything was wrong. Let them think he was safe. Let them think he was long gone.

Testing his shoulder with a gentle roll – ah, painful – the young acolyte turned onto his knees and rose shakily. The broken sandal was all but useless, barely staying on his foot as he stepped forward. This high on the mountain, though, the ground was harsh and stony, the only foliage being the flowering apple tree next to the altar Yoongi couldn’t yet see but knew was just over the next rise. He’d have to hobble to keep the shoe on but it was preferable to tearing the sole of his foot on jagged stones. If only he hadn’t given his best shoes as an offering, he thought bitterly – and then instantly chastised himself. The gods had ben pleased with that offering, had taken it quickly and sent plentiful rains in response. It had been a worthwhile sacrifice, even if he was now struggling to reach sanctuary.

A noise below told him the bandits had broken through the tree cover already. They were gaining on him. He hobbled faster.

No one had expected an attack that day. Yoongi had been by the stream when it started, bathing his battered hands in the cool waters, breathing in the dews of the spring day and hoping they would sweeten his tears.

(It had been his turn to watch the blessed fire, but he had been sick all week and the abbot had caught him sleeping at his post. The welts of his punishment would linger for a few days: they always did.)

Hearing the tower bells had pulled Yoongi from his mournful reverie – it was not yet dawn, and those bells should not have been ringing. Something was terribly wrong.

Cold grey stone was already dripping red warmth by the time Yoongi reached the doors to the place he had called home since his seventh winter. Prayerful silence had given way to terrible screams, like the great oaken entrance had buckled beneath the force of the invaders’ battering. Centuries of monastic tradition was no match for the terror of a freshly forged blade baptising itself in the blood of the aged brothers, it would seem.

He could have run there and then, abandoned it all to its inevitable oblivion and fled towards the slowly rising sun. There were things he had grown to value there, though, lessons that had been drummed into him by chant and fast and blood. To run with no attempt at saving the abbey’s great treasure would be an insult to the gods too grave to contemplate. Sure, he would survive – but it would not be a life worth having, cursed to his final breath.

So he had waded through the wails of his brothers, the dying agony of those who had raised and formed him, taking the hidden passages to reach the inner sanctum before the newcomers did. They seemed to plunder aimlessly, unaware that there was only one prize worth having within the abbey walls, more valuable than the golden triptychs or the silver-wrought chalices. For the blessed fire – the one Yoongi had been punished so harshly for failing to attend – burned to light the presence of a great relic: a priceless stone that betokened the favour of the gods. That favour had passed now from the vaulted corridors of the abbey it had settled on for centuries, that much was clear. Even so, as Yoongi crawled past the death-closed eyes of the kind, wizened man he had once playfully addressed as halabeoji, he knew the stone must be preserved and taken to the high altar until the gods chose to bestow it anew. If he could just get it there, he could beg their protection in return – he could beg preservation from the terrible fate that had fallen out around him.

Now, finally dragging his trembling limbs over the last mound, Yoongi saw the goal he had been fighting towards since daybreak. Half-shrouded in bruised blossoms from the apple tree stretching lazily by its side, the high altar basked in afternoon sunshine, dark stone glistening where droplets from the nearby waterfall had lost their way. He had seen it many times, in all weathers – sent far up the mountain in deepest winter to offer penance for a drifting mind; honoured to represent the community in late summer and give thanks for a bountiful harvest. Always the end of his journey and always a place of refuge. Looking at it, he could almost forget about the horrors he had seen. It was almost relaxing.

Only almost, though. Not only was he aware of the toll his journey had taken – not to mention the danger still snapping at his blistered heels – but when Yoongi looked at the altar today, he saw something he had never seen there before.

A young man – small, lithe, delicate – was sitting on the altar, back against the sacred tree. He was a vision in the dappled light, so beautiful next to Yoongi’s swollen eyes, bloodied robes and dusty feet. Looks were deceiving, though, and apparently Yoongi was to add another sacrilege to the list of crimes committed against everything he held dear. The man, damn him, was eating the offerings left upon the altar for the gods. Had he had more energy, Yoongi could have burst into tears at the sight.

“What are you doing?” he cried, voice cracking and distraught. “Get off! Go away! Those are offerings, we need them! I – please. I need the gods’ favour. Go away!” The boy did little more than blink at Yoongi and tilt his head slowly to the left. A child-like hand raised a flask of blessed water – blessed water – to full, pink lips and Yoongi choked on air, disbelieving.

“There are no gods here, silly.” A soft, high voice came from the young man, sure and unconcerned. “Only me.”

Angry tears did slip from Yoongi’s eyes then. How dare this – this boy say such things? Yoongi had not endured the destruction of his home for some spoiled brat to anger the gods and leave him defenceless and a failure. Marching towards the altar, he bowed quickly and muttered an apology to the tree before taking a firm grasp of the boy’s black hair and yanking him down unceremoniously, heedless of the responding cry.

“I am the last acolyte of the abbey and I will not have you defile this altar and the offerings left to our gods.” His speech would have more impact if he weren’t gasping through tears and physically shaking, but Yoongi was doing his best. “We have been beaten and burned and murdered today and I am here to return the stone of favour to the gods for safekeeping and beg their protection from the evil that has pursued me all day and you – how dare you treat this place with so little respect?” Wide eyes and a soft pout looked up at him from the ground, the boy not having moved from where Yoongi had thrown him. He realised that the ground was still harsh here and felt a little bad – even if he was a sacrilegious blasphemer, this boy seemed a couple of years younger than Yoongi and the fall must have hurt him. Still, there were more pressing matters at hand. Yoongi did his best to rearrange the remaining gifts on the altar (so few, the boy must taken so much of it, the gods would be displeased) and placed the stone carefully in the centre before dropping stiffly to his knees. Wiping his tears and bowing his head to the ground, he muttered out a series of chants and then sat back on his heels, chin lifted to the skies and streaming eyes closed against the light.

“Great gods above, hear my call,” he declared, loudly as his ragged throat allowed him. “We know not why you have withdrawn your blessing from us. We thank you for having granted it at all, for letting us live such charmed lives for you for many years. We return now your stone. Please retain your grace in it and bestow it anew upon others. Do not abandon us all, oh great ones. Hear me when I call to you, worthless as I am. Do not forget us all.” His voice faltered and Yoongi tipped his head forward again, barely managing a whisper. “I ask your protection. Please. I know I have not served you perfectly, but I have tried so hard. I wanted to please you. I want to deserve your favour. You’ve always answered me so graciously – and I know better servants have died horribly today, but please. I don’t want to die. Protect me.” The thunderous footsteps of the bandits started to reach his ears and Yoongi gasped, pressing his face desperately to the ground once more. A soft noise behind him reminded him he was not alone and he spoke again. “Protect us both.”

For a few moments there was silence, and then Yoongi heard the stones to his left shifting quickly, as though someone were running towards him. He tensed, still bowing before the altar and praying that somehow the gods would protect him. A pair of hands grabbed his upper arms and pulled, and he couldn’t help but let out a sob. He knew he had never deserved anything from the gods, but he had hoped so dearly that they would spare him.

“It’s just me, acolyte, get up.” The words filtered through his distress like thick cream through muslin, slow and awkward. He couldn’t quite grasp them. “We have to go, now.”

“Can’t,” he stuttered out, managing to open his eyes and twist away from the young man’s grip, crawling back towards the altar. “I have to be here. The gods –“

“The gods won’t help you.” Though his words were harsh, the man looked concerned, reaching a hand out towards Yoongi again imploringly. “Let me help you, please. Come with me. They’re close now: we have to go.” Yoongi knew he was telling the truth – he could hear voices as well as footsteps now, could almost hear the singing of the blades he knew the bandits were carrying. But he couldn’t leave the altar – could he? It had always been his safety and it was the last remains of his abbey – his faith. He had run this far for the gods. If he ran further, for himself, did that make him a coward? Would he have betrayed them all? Would he prove himself as unworthy as the abbot had always told him he was? Teary-eyed and shaking, he set his mouth and looked the young man right in the eye.

“Save yourself if you can. I cannot leave.” It had the desired effect. The man nodded curtly, stood and began to leave, pausing by the altar as he did so.

“Fine,” he called back. “But I’m taking the rest of this food with me. No point letting it go to waste. This stone is pretty, too. I don’t know about it being blessed or anything, but I think I’ll take it.” Sure enough, he picked it up, tossed it in the air and pocketed it with a stunning smile that all but closed his eyes. Then, he started simply sauntering away, all sense of urgency gone.

He’s baiting me, Yoongi thought. He hadn’t managed to convince him to leave on his own, so he was taking the stone like some sort of carrot, hoping Yoongi, like a donkey, would follow. Yoongi half wanted to be stubborn, to sit there and die like a fool just to prove that he had a stronger will than this brattish stranger presumed. The louder part of him, however, was relieved at having been given permission to abandon the altar, a reason beyond self-preservation to stand up and follow him to safety. He couldn’t leave the stone of favour in the hands of someone with so little respect that he would lean against a sacred tree and eat the gods’ offerings with his feet on their altar. Impossible. It was his sacred duty to stagger up and stumble after him, calling chastisements as loudly as he dared and trying to match pace when the stranger sped up, leading him around the corner from the altar to a hidden path he had never thought to look for.

The altar was at the top of the mountain path – Yoongi had never considered that there might be other paths down beyond it. It was the destination, the end of the line. Going further just wasn’t something he’d ever considered, and that this man was leading him like it was second nature was the last straw for him. Lost in a haze, he followed wordlessly, almost blindly, the ache of his arms and his legs and his feet whispering somewhere but barely decipherable through the thick fog of his mind. At some point they entered a dark tunnel and the young man took his hand gently, perhaps aware of how feeble Yoongi’s grip on awareness was. Between the soft touch and the pressing darkness around him, Yoongi let himself go.

Waking up again was a far less pleasant experience than drifting off had been. It wasn’t a slow rise to the surface, lazy and comfortable like waking to a summer dawn – it was a sudden dive from absolute nothingness into decided somethingness. All at once Yoongi was aware again of the stiffness in his calves and the ache of his arm; the throb of his head from a week of sickness, a lack of sleep and the dehydration of having cried his frustrations out on the mountaintop. The fog lifted and he sat up quickly, huffing softly through his nose as the movement made his stomach lurch and his vision swim. He could remember being annoyed at a bright smile, and fluffy, black hair disappearing into a tunnel – and the stone! Right, yes. Dangerous bandits, bratty stranger, following the stone. That’s what had happened.

“There’s some water next to you – you should drink it,” he heard the stranger say from somewhere off to his right. Yoongi glanced around him, twisting on the bed roll laid out in his corner of what seemed to be a small, wooden room. Sure enough, there was a whole pitcher of water beside him. After a few seconds of blinking at the floor failed to magic a cup into existence, Yoongi picked it up and hesitantly tilted it against his lips. The water was lukewarm and hardly counted as refreshing, but he hadn’t had anything to drink since the abbot had woken him before, well, everything and his throat was grateful to be soothed.

“What did you do with the stone?” Even after a few mouthfuls of water, his voice was deep and gruffer than he had meant it to be. The stranger just giggled and Yoongi managed to make out his shape in the low light, sitting against the opposite wall.

“Don’t worry, acolyte. It’s safe here. I’ll give it to you in the morning, if you like.” Yoongi grumbled and the stranger laughed again. “You know, you were cute when you were half asleep. All whiny, like a kitten.”

“I’m not a kitten.” (He had a vague notion that his mother used to call him that. He hadn’t seen her for years, not since she had given him away in the hope of pleasing the gods and bringing a good harvest. Maybe he had dreamed it up. He certainly hadn't had a nickname since joining the abbey.)

“Who are you, then?” The question took Yoongi by surprise and he cleared his throat as he shifted back a little, resting against the wall behind him and drawing his knees painfully up. From the feel of the fabric under his fingertips, he was still in his robes from earlier and whilst he was relieved that the stranger had not undressed him, he desperately wanted to be clean. He wondered whether there was any chance of getting a bath, just soaking in hot water and letting it steam away everything that had happened. Probably not.

“Yoongi,” he said shortly. “Who’re you?”

“My name’s Jimin. How old are you?”

“Twenty-three.” Yoongi didn’t like where this was going.

“Hyung!”

“No.” He thought he could see a flicker of a pout and was glad of the cover of darkness. Living around older monks meant he hadn’t really been exposed to much cuteness – he hadn’t been anyone’s hyung ever– so he didn’t think he’d be able to hold out against it. At least if he couldn’t see this Jimin’s face, the only thing he had to resist was the whining that started up immediately.

“I saved your life, let me call you hyung!”

“You desecrated my altar!”

“I told you, Yoongi-hyung, there are no gods here! If the altar’s not really sacred, how can I have desecrated it?” That stung worse than the other injuries vying for Yoongi’s attention. He had devoted his life to serving the gods. It was all he had known. He had put up with long nights and early mornings for years, allowed the other monks to literally beat him into shape, all in the hope that it would appease some deity with the power to improve people’s lives - and now this clueless boy wanted to tear it all into pieces.

“There are gods, Jimin-ssi. We have left them offerings for centuries, and they have always taken them and given what we asked for in return.” He thought he heard a snort, and it was his turn to pout.

“Like what, hyung? When have the gods taken something and given something in return? How would that even work?” Yoongi didn’t have to think.

“Last autumn. The rains were late so the farmers were worried the fruits wouldn’t ripen properly and they would have to feed their livestock from reserves, which might mean they would run out before the frosts ended. I’d been working on a new pair of sturdy boots all year because mine had fallen to pieces, but we needed an offering, so I brought them up to the altar and left them there. Two days later, the rains started, and the boots were gone. We gave the boots; they gave the rains.” He sounded smug. He knew he sounded smug, but he also knew he was right. Traditions existed for a reason, and the abbey existed because it worked. It helped. The monks prayed and trekked up the mountain to offer sacrifices because the gods listened to them and protected their people. Or at least, they used to.

“Oh.” There was the sound of shuffling across the room, and then a hiss as a flame was struck. Yoongi blinked blearily as Jimin lit a candle, picked something up from the floor and shuffled over, nearly tripping on the long, woven blanket he had wrapped around his narrow shoulders. “Um, Yoongi-ssi – those boots, they, um. Well. They didn’t look like this, did they?” Kneeling next to Yoongi’s bed roll, Jimin lifted the candle and proffered a muddy pair of boots with his other hand. Slightly crooked teeth worried his lip as he waited for the acolyte to respond. Yoongi took the boots reluctantly, fingering over the caked mud and peering closely. He couldn’t see much, in truth – and he had only ever felt his boots when they were brand new, unworn. His fingertips didn’t recognise these ones, leather both soft with wear and rugged from the elements. Guiding Jimin’s hand closer to gain more light, he turned them over and picked at the dirt dried into the arch.

“You’re terrible at looking after boots,” he muttered as a large clump came away in his hand, revealing the sole. Jimin didn’t respond. The last bit of mud fell to the floor and Yoongi coughed on a harsh sob. There, tucked next to the heel, was the mark Yoongi put on all his things.

“I’m so sorry,” Jimin whispered as Yoongi’s eyes drifted blankly to the wall beside him. “I didn’t realise you had offered them up. I always – ever since I was tiny, there have always been things there and we always took them, so I thought they were meant for us. I thought you all knew we were taking them. I thought you were looking after us.”

“You’ve been taking the offerings for years?” Maybe if he asked the question quietly enough, the answer would be different. It wasn’t.

“All my life. Yoongi-ssi, I’m so sorry. My parents showed me and when they were gone - I guess I didn't think about it. I didn’t know it meant anything until you shouted at me earlier, and then I thought you were just being… I don’t know. Sanctimonious?” Yoongi huffed, still not looking at the younger man.

“Big word.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry it wasn’t what you thought – but those offerings didn’t go to waste. We’d have died here without them.” A silence stretched tensely between them, Jimin left without words to explain himself and Yoongi winded by how abruptly his world was turning itself inside out. Apparently, it wasn’t enough that he had lost everything that had ever been familiar to him. He also had to have his faith shaken and his understanding of how the world worked ripped out from under him. There was only really one thing to do.

“I’m going to sleep,” he mumbled, curling up to face the wall even though it meant lying on his wrenched shoulder. Behind him, he heard Jimin place the candle on the ground and move the boots – his boots? Yoongi’s boots? it didn’t matter anymore – away.

“Hyung,” came the soft voice again as a small hand reached over his hunched shoulder, “here. I think you should keep this. We can talk again in the morning.” Firm fingers prised Yoongi’s hand away from his side and pressed something cool and round into his palm. The stone, he thought. There is still the stone. He fell asleep with it pressed against his chest, safe.

They didn’t speak the next day. In fact, Yoongi gave Jimin the silent treatment for three weeks, only staying with him because the heavens opened during the night and refused to close again for long enough to allow Yoongi to even hope to venture off the mountainside. He didn’t have anywhere to go in any case – and whilst he was furious with Jimin and completely lost without his routine and the guidance of the other monks, he knew being somewhere warm and dry, with a reliable source of food and someone to offer to massage his aching shoulder was better than dying in a ditch somewhere from stubbornness.

(He never accepted the massage offers, of course, but it felt nice to know that someone cared enough to ask.)

When the rains finally cleared, Yoongi had Jimin show him the way back up to the altar. The blossom was all gone now, flushed away by the rain, but the leaves were strong and the waterfall babbled happily. Yoongi didn’t think the tree would fruit this year, since the flowers hadn’t had time to set before the storms, but it still stood. The altar still stood. That was something.

Sitting on the edge of the mountain, he could see the charred ruins of his home below – joined now by more ruins to the west. Though they hadn’t found him, the group who had attacked the abbey had travelled back down the mountain and continued their rampage, working through the nearby villages and taking what they could. Bright sunshine was no remedy for such heaviness, and Yoongi felt his face crumple watching the birds fly down towards the blackened remains of thriving communities. Maybe Jimin was right and there never were gods – maybe it was better that way. To think that they had been abandoned to such death and ruin hurt more than believing they had never been blessed by anything more than good chance in the first place.

“Hey, hyung – look!” Jimin called excitedly from the waterfall, oblivious to the destruction right below him. Jimin, it turned out, had never really come down off the mountain. His parents had retreated to a small cabin in a hidden glade after a particularly nasty feud with a distant cousin, and he had been raised in near solitude. He knew about the villages, of course, but he had never been to one. Their loss was a sad idea to him, but no more than that. Flowering daisies were all it took to distract him, and he sought to do the same for Yoongi, even if he was ignored.

“Hey, Grumpy-hyung! I saved your life, you know, you can at least pretend to be interested when I try to show you the finer beauties of this world!” A thought struck Yoongi, finally back in the place where he had thought for certain his life would end. It hit him hard enough to make him gasp, head tilting up to the sky so quickly that Jimin forgot his flowers and came rushing to see what the matter was.

“You’re wrong!” he declared as soon as Jimin settled beside him, before the younger boy had even spoken. “You’re wrong.”

“Something tells me you’re not talking about daisies.”

“There are gods.” Yoongi brought his chin down again and looked at Jimin straight, eyes still red from his tears but perfectly sure. “You said there weren’t gods. There are.”

“Um. Ok.”

“There are. I asked them for their protection and they protected me.” Jimin’s brow crinkled a little and his eyes followed Yoongi’s movement as he stood and paced to the altar, one hand reaching out gently to touch the bark of the apple tree.

“I mean, not to be pedantic, but I protected you, hyung.”

“Sure.” Yoongi had never admitted that before, no matter how much Jimin wheedled for acknowledgment. He figured either this was a minor miracle or the pressure had finally cracked him. “I’ve been coming up here for fifteen years, Jimin-ah. All times of day, all seasons, all weathers. I’ve never seen you. None of us have. And then the one day I need someone to be here, when I’m being chased and I’m completely alone for the first time in my life - you’re just sitting on the altar." For the first time, Jimin saw Yoongi smile – a bright, full-toothed, gummy thing that lit up his eyes and transformed his face. “Like an offering. We gave them offerings, they gave them to you – and then they gave you back to me.” When Yoongi chuckled and leant against the tree, Jimin couldn’t help but giggle as well.

��I don’t think that’s compelling theology, hyung, but if it makes you happy, you go ahead and think that.”

“Just admit it, Jimin-ah. You’re wrong. The gods exist and they’re here and they care and we’re going to be alright. Just you wait.”

It had taken two years for the invaders to take everything they could from the land, and three more for life to start again once they abandoned it to decay. Now, though, from his rock on top of the mountain Yoongi could see white smoke rising from chimneys once more, could follow the path of trundling carts along the roads between each growing settlement. He had taken Jimin down there a few times, to see how the people lived and to do what he could to help them. Although the abbey and the men who had raised him were gone, the skills he had learned remained and he had a lot to offer. If in time it meant he could earn a little money and make life a bit easier, that was a blessing too.

Life with Jimin had taken some time to adjust to. He had considered leaving after his revelation, heading north in the hopes of finding a new monastery and enfolding himself once more in the familiarity of an ordered life. He'd got as far as packing a small bag of food and reclaiming his boots from Jimin. When he had put them on to leave, though, it had all felt wrong. Officially, the boots had worn to Jimin's feet already and Yoongi refused to make a long journey in uncomfortable shoes. Jimin had accepted that excuse without fuss, thrilled to keep his companion, but they both knew that wasn't the real reason. After all, Jimin had watched Yoongi stumble into a mountain clearing with a sword wound on his arm, a dislocated shoulder and a broken sandal all for the sake of a small stone. Uncomfortable boots were hardly going to stop him leaving if he really wanted to.

For whatever reason, he had elected to stay, to learn how to live with just one person for company and without orders and punishments and bells to mark his day. Chasing chickens was also useful for catching rabbits, it turned out, and he taught Jimin the skills he needed to find food now that there weren't regular offerings to pilfer. Jimin taught him to dance, and sang real songs to him. He taught him to laugh again, and if anyone were to suggest they be parted now, he would probably growl at them and pull his dongsaeng behind him for protection.

The altar would always be special to him. When the weather was good, Jimin would often find him up there long past dark, listening to the waterfall or leaning against the tree. One autumn, he even convinced him to sit up on the altar itself.

("Hyung," he had whined, "don't leave me up here alone. If the gods didn't like it, they would have struck me down years ago. Live a little."

"Brat," Yoongi had muttered in reply, hiding his smile even as he climbed up onto the stone. Since he was yet to be blasted to smithereens, he figured he was alright to keep doing it.)

It was there that he was sat the day the monks returned to the mountain. The afternoon sunshine was lazy, winding its way through the apple tree's branches and kissing its growing fruit softly. Yoongi had brought a cushion and was leaned back against the tree trunk, legs stretched out across the altar and mind drifting when an outraged shout made him open one eye and smirk.

"Yah!" a tall stranger exclaimed, pulling his robes up with one hand and gesticulating wildly with the other as he strode purposefully towards Yoongi. "Get off of there! Get down! That's a sacred altar!" Behind him was a group of four men, two looking nervous and carrying large baskets of food and one cradling a ceramic pot like it was glass while the last glared at him. Yoongi thought the glare might have something to do with the fact that the pot was missing one handle - which he located in the glarer's hand. Good to know every monastery had its own god of destruction.

"I take it you are the monks in charge of rebuilding the abbey?" Yoongi drawled, crossing his feet, completely unbothered by the new arrivals. Their leader halted in his striding, pulling his head back slightly in confusion.

"Uh - yes. That's us." One of the food bearers turned to the other with wide eyes, but received no more than a shrug in response. They looked very young - Yoongi hoped they were close. He thought he saw the one holding a pot begin to say 'hyung' and stop sheepishly when his hyung's heart-shaped mouth frowned even harder. Cute.

"Excellent." Hopping off the altar, Yoongi pulled a string from around his neck and took the stranger's hand. Unfurling crooked fingers, he placed the object in his palm and patted his shoulder familiarly, smiling at the gawk he got in return. "You'll need this, then. I've had it these past five years and I've been more blessed than I ever thought I would be. Guard it well, brother." He turned to walk away as the leader looked behind him, proffering the stone to one of his followers and saying, "Namjoon-ah, is this -" The answering gasp suggested they knew exactly what the stone meant.

"Oh, by the way," he called back at the corner where the path down to his and Jimin's cottage started. "If you ever need anything, just come here and leave a note. My friend and I will be happy to help. You never walk alone." With a soft smile, he disappeared around down the mountain and left them to their offerings.

(And if Jimin bounced home that evening with fine wine in a pot with a broken handle - well, Yoongi wouldn't be surprised.)

[angst-fairygodmother]

Since you do Umbrella Academy now, can you do one where you visit Klaus in jail/the hospital/rehab and have to say your his spouse/partner in order to get in even though you're not actually together, but you wish you were so it stings?

A/N: Fake dating? I like the way you think ;) Word Count: 3255 Rating: M - references to drugs and rehab, swearing, self-depreciation

‘Guess who got thrown back in rehab’ calls were a not uncommon part of your friendship with Klaus Hargreeves, made as a courtesy so you’d know he wasn’t dead when he missed your weekly breakfasts. It would happen every couple of months when, in his impaired state, he pissed off a cop, or when he decided that the beds there were easier than trying to find one elsewhere (no matter how many times you offered for him to just move in with you he’d remained stubbornly against ‘becoming your burden’). He’d do the required time, get his sobriety token, and be right back where he started.

What was unusual was that this was not one of those calls, because you had already gotten one a few days ago and there was no way he would have been discharged, and for all the crap he pulled, he was smart enough not to get kicked out for misbehavior.

“Heeey Y/N!” his voice echoed, tinny and distorted, over your answering machine. “This place is swanky.” You tolled your eyes at his exaggerated tone. “They give us phone privileges and free time to do crossword puzzles or whatever ex-addicts do. Anyway, I’m very lonely and very bored and I miss you. You should come see me. Guests can come whenever, how weird is that? But they also do a big ‘family dinner’ on Sundays if you’d like to be part of something terrible. Love you! Come visit!”

You could hear the manic grin on his face as the message cut off with a slam. He didn’t mean anything by the words, he never did, but still they made your heart skip a beat. Anyone with half an ounce of common sense would know better to fall for their best friend, especially when he was a hopeless drug addict with, understandably, no desire to change his ways. And you knew that. Yet here you were, already mentally rearranging your schedule to let you go see him sooner rather than later, thoughts half-consumed by the idea that his gorgeous green eyes might have a special spark for you, shining on your account.

~

You shifted uncomfortably behind the woman at the reception desk ahead of you, fretting at the slightly frayed edge of your shirtsleeve, waiting for your turn to speak to the dour-looking man.

“Next!” he called gesturing for you to approach as the woman moved aside to sign in on a clipboard.

“Um, hi,” you said awkwardly, pressing your lips together. “My name is Y/N. I’m here to see Klaus…Klaus Hargreeves? He called me and asked me to come and visit, but I wasn’t home so he left it as a message and I don’t know if there are any other permissions I need or anything I was supposed to do first, he just said to come by…” you put on your most apologetic look.

He barely looked up from whatever he was doing at the desk behind the counter.

“Are you family?” you weren’t sure whether boredom or annoyance was the stronger emotion in his tone, only that it somehow carried both. “The first two weeks are limited to one designated visitor and they have to be family.”

“Oh…I…”

Your mind raced. Klaus’s message had sounded like he really wanted you there, and you were one of the few people who could say they put up with him long-term. His family were never there for him and basically saw him as a hopeless failure, so if they were the only company he was allowed to have then he would be spending his time completely alone, and probably disappointed that you didn’t stop by.

The receptionist raised an eyebrow expectantly.

“I’m his fiancé,” you blurted out before the thought could fully process.

“Fiancé?” he echoed incredulously. “Hargreeves didn’t mention a fiancé.”

“…our…families don’t like us much, so we keep the engagement secret. I mean his family doesn’t like me and mine…think…well…”

“That he’s a waste of space and you could do much better?”

“Excuse me?” you bristled at the way he sounded like he was stating the obvious.

“He’s here because he decided to mix a truly stupid amount of cocaine and ecstasy. I’m sure he’s every parent’s dream match for their child.” He rolled his eyes. “Wait here.”

He slapped a cardboard sign onto the counter that read “Please Wait, Someone Will Return Shortly” and walked briskly off down the narrow corridor.

The minutes seems to drag on like years as you waited, sure that your half-cocked story would be blown out of the water and you would be banned from the facility, maybe even escorted out by burly, terrifying security guards. You chewed anxiously on your lip, rubbing the skin of it raw.

Then, the man was back, sitting at his desk with a sigh.

“Sign this waiver.” He gestured at you vaguely with a clipboard.

You skimmed the document, noting that it mostly contained affirmations that you were not smuggling drugs, weapons, or other contraband to the patients in the facility or from them to other people, and signed it quickly, nearly throwing it in your haste to return it and get to Klaus before anyone caught on.

“Room 31, on the left. Visiting hours are over at 4pm. This isn’t the honeymoon suite at the Ritz, and Steve gets very angry when he makes his rounds and catches anything hinky.” The man waved you down the hall and you felt your face burn in embarrassment as you scurried away from him.

You stopped in front of the indicated door and hesitated, unsure whether you should knock or just walk in. The decision was made for you seconds later when the door flew open and a skinny blonde woman stumbled out, nearly crashing into you and staggering down the hall with a slurred and mumbled apology. You turned to watch her go, puzzling over how someone in rehab could seem so utterly sloshed and jumped when you heard someone cheerfully call your name. Turning back to the still open door, you spotted Klaus dangling upside down from the top bunk of the set of beds in the little grey room.

“Well don’t just stand there, get in here and give your fiancé a hug!” he laughed, arms outstretched.

A soft smile on your face, you walked over to him, closing the door as you passed. His arms wrapped around you, face pressed to your torso and soft curls tickling you. You tried not to blush as you returned the oddly positioned hug. After a moment, you both let go and he nimbly swung himself upright before dropping over the rail to stand beside you.

Gesturing dramatically to the man sleeping on the bottom bunk, very naked body only barely covered by a sheet, he shouted, “Y/N, this is my roommate Brady. Brady, my future spouse. Brady here has just gotten done having some amazing sex and will be out completely cold for the next several hours, don’t mind him.”

“Why are you shouting?” you asked, giving him a puzzled expression.

“What?!” you rolled your eyes as he rubbed at his ear and it became clear that he was, as usual, exaggerating. “Well as I just mentioned, Brady decided to hook up with one of the girls from the klepto hall, but decided to bring her here even though I was already occupying the room, and the two of them needed a truly heroic volume to drown them out. Frankly, it’s a damn shame we were warned against this visit having a conjugal nature, or I’d invite you to help me return the favor.”

He winked at you and you flushed cheeks hot with embarrassment and the knowledge of how easily you would have agreed to such a suggestion.

“Is there somewhere we can actually sit to hang out, or do we have to cram into the eighteen inches between your mattress and the ceiling?” you asked, looking more thoroughly around the room which held little more than the bunks, two sets of clear plastic drawers, and a wire shelf which held towels and toiletries not unlike what would be found in the bathroom of a cheap motel.

He held up a finger, indicating for you to wait, or possibly that he liked your idea, you weren’t sure which, and scrambled back up the ladder to his bed. A moment later he had stripped it down to the mattress and used the bedding (a sheet, a pillow, and a thin, scratchy blanket) to arrange a makeshift seating area in the corner.

He gestured to the pillow as if it were a grand throne. “For you.”

You sat, squirming a bit to get comfortable, and leaned back against the cool brick. As soon as you settled, he attempted to flop down beside you, long, leather-clad legs draped over your lap, and smacked his head against the wall in the process.

“You know Klaus, head trauma is probably not the best way to score an early release,” you teased.

He rubbed his head, wincing dramatically.

“I’m not trying to get out this time,” he said after a moment. “I’m really going to do it, follow the steps and get clean.”

You raised an incredulous eyebrow.

“I mean it. I don’t want to leave and get high again right away. I’ll…see someone or whatever about the ghost thing.”

“Who are you and what have you done with my Klaus?”

A strange expression crept over his face when you called him before his stubborn pout quickly returned.

“I’m serious, Y/N.”

“Okay,” you nodded, reaching out impulsively to take his free hand in both of yours. “I’ve always believed you can do whatever you set your mind to, and I’ll be here for you no matter what. But can I ask just one question?”

“Well sure, anything.”

“Why now? What’s different this time that you want to do this?”

“Technically that’s two questions.”

You narrowed your eyes. “And you’re deflecting.”

He shrugged sheepishly. “There’s…someone. They mean the world to me. And as Ben pointed out, no one wants an addict around, not long term. We just waste space and cause frustration. So I have to change if I want to be worth their time.”

“Woah, hey. Back up. You are more than your addiction. I am happy for you that you want to get clean, but you shouldn’t do it for someone else. For one thing, if they care about you, they’ll learn to accept that part of you and support you through it. Until and unless it’s the right time for you to get clean for you. Otherwise, you’ll end up hurting yourself, and probably self-sabotage, and it’s going to be worse in the long run. Or they’ll be your only reason to stay clean and if you lose them…”

“I…” he stared at you in silence, at a loss for words for possibly the first time in all the years you had known him.

“They make me want to be better though. They deserve better than the gutter trash, the absolute garbage, I’ve become.”

“Stop putting yourself down like that,” you growled in frustration. “It’s not helping and more importantly, it’s not true. You are funny and kind and give the best damn hugs in the entire world, even when with anyone else they’d be hella awkward. And that is worth something. Someone doesn’t see that, then you’re the one that deserves better.”

“Well…I’ve never exactly talked to them about it before, but I get the feeling they only see the best in me, somehow, and I want to be that version, their version…”

You sigh and nod. “Like I said, I’m here for you, no matter what. And I’m proud of you for wanting to make a serious try at sobriety, I hope that’s clear. I just…don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“I know. I love that about you, Y/N. You’re always looking out for me.”

He smiled softly at you, shifting to rest his head on your shoulder, making it so that he was practically sitting in your lap.

“So, do I know this mystery person?” You asked, returning his smile and absently running one of your thumbs across his knuckles. “Because if not, I insist on meeting them soon and assessing for myself whether they’re good enough for my best friend.”

Your voice felt forced, strangled by the lump in your throat at the thought. You cared enough about him to want him to be happy, but it still stung in the little, jealous part of your brain that he couldn’t open his eyes and really see you, find that happiness with you.

He was silent for long enough that you wondered if he had fallen asleep on you. But when you turned to check, you found his bright green eyes staring up at you in awe and adoration. You bit your lip as you met his gaze, his focus briefly drawn downward to it before returning to the rest of you.

“You are so beautiful,” he murmured, breath tickling the side of your neck and sending shivers down your spine. “And so fucking clueless.”

You shoved him playfully to hide the way your heart raced as it dawned on you that he returned your feelings just as strongly, but he was not deterred in the slightest. He turned to lean over you, a charming smirk plastered on his beautiful face, bracing himself with one hand pressed to the wall beside your head and the other still caught between your own.

“Do you have any idea how badly I want to kiss you right now, Y/N?”

You looked up at him through your eyelashes coyly. “What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation?”

His lips dropped to yours in an instant, a growl of desire escaping in the last seconds before you connected. Your hands slipped over his shoulders, toying with the curls at the nape of his neck, and his newly freed one rose to cup the back of your neck, pulling you closer. His tongue ran along your bottom lip before he nipped at it playfully and you parted for him, sighing happily into the kiss. Your tongues danced together, exploring, teasing tasting. His fingers tangled into your hair, and one of your hands curled to grip his shoulder, nails dragging against his shirt. You couldn’t think straight, hazily aware of the need for oxygen, but not caring, not when you had him, like this, finally.

Reluctantly he pulled away, laughing as you leaned forward, chasing his retreating lips, and the two of you gasped and panted for air.

“That was even more amazing than I could have dreamed of,” he sighed dazedly. “And believe me, I’ve dreamed of doing that a lot. And…more than that.” He waggled his eyebrows at you.

You laughed, shaking your head in mock annoyance at him and he pouted.

“Why haven’t you ever said anything before?” you asked. “We could have been doing that for ages.”

“Ages? I like the sound of that. Let’s start now.”

He straddled your waist and leaned in, your second kiss just as hungry as the first, but much shorter as you pulled back.

“You’re deflecting again.”

“I had hoped that ravishing you would be enough of a distraction you wouldn’t notice.”

“You should know me better than that,” you teased. “Just answer the question and we can return to the ‘ravishing’ sooner.”

“Is that a promise?” his brows arched flirtatiously and you rolled your eyes.

“Because, fundamentally, I am a coward,” he sighed. “I know you can do better and I’ve never done anything in my life to deserve someone even half as incredible as you and I was too scared to risk losing the one good thing in my life.”

“Oh Klaus,” you tilted your head to one side and looked at him a little sadly. “You could never lose me, no matter what.”

He smiled, hopeful and tender.

“And if we’re going to be together, you can bet your ass we’re going to work on that dreadful lack of self-esteem.”

“Later.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Right now, we’re doing the fun stuff.”

Grinning, you leaned forward to kiss him again, and you both jumped at the sudden, pounding knock on the door.

“Your visiting time is up,” a voice called, drill-sergeant loud even through the wood. “You have ten minutes to clear out before I throw you out.”

Klaus sighed.

“To be continued I guess,” you said, and this time it was your turn to pout, but he remained in his spot, seated over you.

“I’m not quire done with you,” he countered, voice low and seductive, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to your jaw. “And I can get a lot done in ten minutes.”

You felt him smirk against your skin as your pulse fluttered at the suggestion in his tone. Practically melting under his touch, you let him shift you so that you were more stretched beneath him, head tilted back to still rest on the wall and chest thrust slightly upward, opening up access to a wide swath of skin. His teeth trailed lightly down the column of your throat until he reached the point where it met your shoulder and bit down. The sound you made was somewhere between a yelp and a moan, and he chuckled, filing the sound away and resolving to try and draw it out of your again in future contexts.

He continued to lavish attention on the spot, alternating soft bites and suckling with soothing his tongue on the mark, while you ran your fingers through his curls, nails scratching against his scalp in a way that drew purring groans from his lips.

“By the way, you know,” he murmured, tracing kisses back up to the spot beneath your ear and from there along your jaw. “I’m all for getting married, but don’t you think you should at least buy me dinner first?”

“What?” you frowned, the cover story you had used to get in completely forgotten in the wake of all that had happened.

“I’ve never even been in a long-term relationship, so imagine my surprise when I was informed this afternoon that my fiancé was here to see me.”

“Oh. That. I, uh…I panicked. The receptionist said family only and that was the first thing I thought of.”

“The first thing you could think of was promising to marry me?”

“Oh shut up. He bought it, and you didn’t challenge it or he wouldn’t have let me in.”

“And boy am I glad I did.” He paused, drawing back to look down at you, eyes tracing your face as if memorizing every pore. “But I don’t mind it. I like the sound of it, the idea is quite nice actually…”

You could tell he was just speaking his thoughts as they came to him. Still it made your heart skip a beat and your face flush at how quick he was to leap to the idea of the two of you getting married for real, and how completely okay, more than okay, you were with it too.

“Slow down there Klaus,” you cautioned, placing one hand on his chest to rest over his heart. “Let’s stick to pretend, for now, and maybe we can discuss the real thing once you get out of here…”

He grinned, standing and pulling you to your feet before wrapping you in his arms in a hug that you never wanted to end.

“Deal.”

[kylorensdestroyingthings]

Secure

read on a03

warnings: angst and fluff (nothin to bad though)

____

Sleepily, Ben's fingers outstretched to the side of the bed, reaching for his wife. They'd been married for over a year, and she'd given birth to their daughter Alba soon after the wedding. Alba quickly took after her fathers features. With a tuft of raven hair and ears that he prayed she would grow into. Their wedding had been small. Only his mother and a few of Rey's friends. She had worn her traditional Jedi garb, denying Leia's requests to have an extravagant dress. Nevertheless she was stunning. Patting the torn brown sheets for a moment, he realizes Rey's side of the bed is cold. Freezing actually, like there hasn't been a body there in a while.

Almost instantly, his eyes shoot open and he sits up frantically looking for his wife. Ever since he left the First Order he's been on edge. He had left abruptly, faked his death with the help of the resistance. Mostly his mother and a few higher ups. If the entire resistance knew he had even been near the base there would have been an abundance of uproar. Despite the entire galaxy thinking he was dead (there was no reason anyone should've been able to survive the wreck that 'Kylo' had been in), word had gotten around to the first order that he was alive and kicking.

The order wasn't necessarily an order anymore. More of a crew of Hux's miscreants that wanted return the galaxy to its rightful state. Still, the knowledge that they were out there was enough to run chills down his spine. Ben tries to steady his heart rate, and slow his breathing. Listening around the house for any sign of noise that would signal that Rey or his daughter would be there.

Much to his dismay, there wasn't. There was absolutely nothing. The only thing he could hear was the uneasy sound of his breathing. He reached over to a wooden chair where his robes had bene draped on. After the fall of Kylo Ren he had made his wardrobe primarily dark grey. He would always be tainted with the horrors he committed as Kylo Ren but he was different now. He wanted what was best for his family. Even if it was only the three of them.

When they learned Rey was pregnant with Alba, both of them were equally as terrified. There was so much that could go wrong. Even them being together had been a large risk to begin with. The way they were connected made it very possible to use either of them against the other. Any time someone harmed Rey, Ben could feel her pain coursing through him. Which put his mind at ease for the smallest moments knowing she wasn't currently being tortured. Still, that didn't mean that someone wasn't holding his wife and daughter hostage.

He grabbed his lightsaber from the night stand, placing it on his hip as he exited their tiny bedroom. Their home was small and inconspicuous. Anyone that passed by would just think they were another pair of nobody farmers. Rey had begged him to help her create her own garden. Plants continuously made her the happiest woman in the world and he loved watching her and her green thumb go to work. Besides, the more they lived off of their land, the less they had to go to town and could remain out of the public eye.

Looking into Alba's room, there wasn't a sign of Rey in there either. Her crib was neatly made, like their daughter had never even been there in the first place. The window was shut, the room looked like nobody had ever occupied it. Alba's bottles were neatly lined on the shelf, the books he had read to her that night were no longer on the nightstand were he put them but tucked away on the bookshelf.

He was slowly but surely beginning to question his sanity. Where was his family? Had he imagined all of this? Having a life with Rey and a beautiful daughter? He didn't understand what was happening. Sweat began to perspire on his forehead and he felt his hands begin to shake.

"Rey?" He called softly. There was no response.

He closed his eyes, allowing himself to fully tune into the force around him. He reached out to their bond carefully. She wasn't in harms way, she was okay. Rey felt his side of the bond open and opened hers.

"Ben? What's wrong?" She asked soothing him with her voice in a way no one else could.

"Where?" He croaked out his voice cracking as he spoke. "Where are you? Where's Alba?"

"We went on a walk, she's being quite fussy." Rey spoke softly, reassuring her husband. "We're okay, she just wants to watch the sunrise."

"I thought, that maybe-"

Rey stopped him before he finished the thought. "We're safe Ben, come to the garden."

The bond closed, and he found himself rushing into the garden where sure enough Rey was holding Alba, pointing at the sun making its ascent into the sky. Rey heard the door to their hut close and turned around.

"Look who it is Alba! Is that your Daddy?" Rey spoke softly sitting up Alba a little bit so she could look at her father. Rey met Ben in the middle who embraced his girls in a tight grip, but not tight enough to crush Alba between her parents. "We're okay Ben. We're here with you."

Alba made a noise, as if agreeing with her mother and reached a weak arm out to Ben who took her gently. He adjusted her blanket so I would cover her body and keep her warm as Rey nuzzled herself into his side, stealing his warmth. "Whatever scenario happened in your head, it's not true. You're safe, Alba's safe, and I'm safe. Nothing is going to happen to us."

Ben wanted to argue with the uncertainty of his wides statement, but didn't have it in him to do so. He only nodded and kissed his wife's forehead and held them both a little closer. Alba making little noises as she watched the sky burst into pretty colors. She loved watching the sunrise. It was one of her favorite things, despite being a very young infant she was already developing quite the personality.

"Look at the pretty colors Alba!" Rey cooed tickling their daughters chin a little bit causing the baby to squirm, and let out a gummy grin. Slowly the girl yawned causing her mother to laugh. "So now you're tired huh?"

"Why don't we head back to bed?" Ben suggested rubbing Rey's shoulder.

"We have a busy day Ben-"

"That can wait." He cut her off.

"I suppose you're right, and I think Alba agrees." Rey spoke pointing to Alba who had dozed off in her fathers arms. "Look at that, I birthed her and you can get her to sleep without even trying"

"Don't hold it against her love." Ben spoke opening the door for his wife. "She loves you too."

"You're right." Rey spoke. "Besides, maybe I'll have better luck with the next one."

"Next one?" Ben spoke shocked looking down at his wife.

"What, you think Alba is the only one who likes fresh air in the morning?" Rey asks. "Helps with morning sickness."

"You're pregnant." He spoke.

"Yep. Alba is going to be a big sister soon."

"I love you so much." Ben spoke embracing his wife.

"We love you more." She said cheekily.

[bexterbex]

A Soul to Mend His Own | Ch. 25

(Gif by @huxsmug-deactivated20200201)

Warning, if it hasn’t been obvious in the movies there is Nazi symbolism within the First Order. I will expand on this much more throughout the story. If this is something that bothers you, please just exit the story. The author does not condone any Nazi ideals, this is just for fictional uses only.

A Kylo Ren x Modern! Reader in a soulmate au with some canon divergence. —————————————SLOWBURN————————————–

He is already the Supreme leader, searching the universe to find you, his Empress. Your name on his wrist has been the only constant in his life, while you have doubts about his existence and his acceptance of you. He isn’t in the database and why did the name Kylo Ren cover Ben Solo?

MASTERLIST

Chapter 25: Of Pride and Pryde

“Now where do we begin? I believe we should pick up some societal and cultural structures. Now First Order started in isolation on the far side of the Unknown Regions. Under the guidance of the Imperial veterans, we grew to learn that we had been robbed of victory over the galaxy by terrorists and rebels. Who now make up the New Republic. 

We are the only ones who have the power necessary to wrest the galaxy from a path of chaos and corruption. The New Republic’s corruption and ineffectiveness are plain to see across the galaxy. This corruption is one of our crucial weapons. Because of this, our citizens see the Rebellion as a false shepherd and that Rebels can only tear down governments and not build them.

The Republic is depraved, they allow famines to continue on Ibaar and Adarlon and the brutal suppression of the people of Balamak. The First Order has victories of liberating labor camps on Iktotch and we have won a fleet battle in the Bormeea sector.”

You could see the pride in his chest as he was speaking of the First Order victories. 

“In fact, we utilize a commemorative rank insignia system, issuing armbands bearing the names of famous units and heroes during the Galactic Civil War. Lieutenant would you kindly show her your rank armband,” ordered the general. 

The short brunette man sitting next to you showed you the sleeve of his uniform. In the armband, there was a group of symbols you could not read. 

“What does it say,” you ask. 

“Ah yes, I suppose we will have to teach you. We will add it to the list. His band says ‘Power.’ In memory to Admiral Clyss Power of the Galactic Empire. I shan’t get into why he is important at the moment as we will save that for another time but anyone who ranks from a squad leader to a colonel has an insignia that designates rank on their sleeves. Black uniforms denote combat positions, grey usually means mid-level officers who may see combat and teal denotes higher-ranking officers who run sections. Generals and admirals are denoted with silver for generals and red for admirals,” he said gesturing to his own uniform.

“Now the lieutenant and I are similar in many ways. We were recruited at young ages like I discussed yesterday. We were instilled with First Order doctrines to have a strong sense of duty, loyalty, patriotism, and obedience to the state of the First Order. We were taught to forgo our own personal desires for the greater good of the First Order unless that personal desire is for the betterment of the First Order. 

Our military ranks do emphasize individual strength and improvisation, both physically and mentally. Our training programs that are mandatory for all recruits, beginning at a young age, become more aggressively severe into adulthood. We like the Empire before us believe the naturally strong rise to power, while the weak are left to serve their natural leaders. Power is not a means; it is an end.

First Order citizens are educated to believe that the pursuit of individual selfishness and desires is what allowed the Rebel-Alliance to topple the galaxy-uniting Empire. The Rebels and similarily the Resistance are short-sighted terrorists who cannot see the benefit of an Empire. Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. That is why we must win. The Resistance is chaos and disarray, we are better.”

This time you did not even bother to attempt to take notes as you saw the lieutenant’s fingers fly across his data pad at an unbelievable rate. You were correct in your assumption that he was going to send you them as your phone received them in a new document.

“Now my lady, I believe it is time for you to join General Pryde and me in the officer lounge for dinner,” said the general. You followed him out of the room and down the hallways to a large lounge that high-ranking officers were milling about in. All attention in the room shifted to you, before the general shot a look to the other officers. They then proceeded about their business. It seemed that no matter where you went either on the ship or down on Earth you seemed to draw attention--unwanted attention.

You followed the general to an alcove in the room that held a table that General Pryde was already sitting at. General Hux dismissed Lieutenant Mitaka for dinner and you watched him for a moment go sit with a group of young officers. 

“My lady it is a pleasure to have you eat with us,” said General Pryde dripping with morbid infatuation.

You could see General Hux shooting him a look as you both sat down. “It is my pleasure, but the person you have to thank is the Supreme Leader. He is the one who set this up.”

“Yes, the Supreme Leader asked to make sure that you were not to spend this evening’s dinner alone. He does believe that he will return for tomorrow’s dinner,” replied General Hux.

A waiter came to your table and took your order, both men encouraged you to join them in a drink as well as the entree. 

“So, have you been enjoying your time with the Supreme Leader,” asked Pryde. There was something lurking behind his eyes you just couldn’t tell what it was yet. 

“Well, I am on day four of officially knowing him and everything seems to be going relatively well. Why do you ask?”

You could see the generals exchange glances. “We only ask to make sure everything between you two is alright. We care about your safety and the Supreme Leader has a tendency to be a bit of self-destructive in more ways than one,” responded Hux. 

Before you could respond the waiter came back with your food and a refill of your drinks. “But Allegiant General Hux has informed me that your education on the First Order is going well,” said Pryde. The pair exchanged glances again. You could tell that there were parts of this conversation that you were missing entirely. 

“Yes, you’ll have to excuse my lack of conceptualizing the information yet. I am learning about a world or rather a large part of the galaxy that until six days ago I didn’t even know existed.”

“Of course my lady, no one expects you to learn galactic history overnight,” replied Hux nonchalantly.

“You have been a natural in the Health Committee meetings. Rather dignified if I do say so myself m’lady,” replied Pryde. Hux shot him another look, to which appeared to you to be a signal to back off. 

“Thank you. But that reminds me of a question that I have had. Who is the First Order High Command?”

You see both men straighten up in their chairs. Allegiant General Hux replied: “the First Order High Command are the admirals and generals within the First Order meaning both General Pryde and myself are members m’lady.”

You look between the two men, with some scrutiny. “So can you tell me who it was that suggested the two-child policy should be enacted immediately?”

Now there was a look of slight fear in their eyes as they exchanged glances once again. 

“M’lady I informed the First Order High Command of your wishes,” replied Pryde quickly. 

“The Supreme Leader made the ultimate decision,” said Hux defensively. 

“But that does not answer my question,” you replied. 

“My lady, that policy does not apply to you and the Supreme Leader it only applies to the majority of First Order citizens,” responded Pryde. 

You stood up outraged. “That was not my question. And that is none of your concern!” You quickly left the lounge and started to make your way down the hall before Lieutenant Mitaka caught up with you to help guide you back to your chambers. 

Reaching the door you told the lieutenant you were to see him in the morning and that you did not want to be disturbed for the rest of the evening. 

Shortly after entering the living room you received an alert on your phone from the First Order messaging system. It appeared to be a ship-wide alert informing everyone that you did not wish to be disturbed. 

How convenient.

You paced around the living room for a bit trying to blow off some steam. Ultimately you went to your room and changed into something more comfortable. You exited your room to return to the living room but before you did you spent a few moments looking at Kylo’s empty bed. For how angry you were at him for the moment, tonight would be the first night since you met that you would be without him. You wondered for a moment questioning if it would be childish to sleep in his bed tonight. You pushed aside that thought for now and retrieved your laptop from the living room coffee table. 

You glanced at the time seeing that it was only 7:30 you thought you should pull up a movie. You scrolled through your favorite streaming platform and found something to pass the time. After it ended it was around 10 p.m. you decided you should head to bed. Climbing the stairs to your room you once again looked at Kylo’s empty bed. One night sleeping in it wouldn’t hurt right? Would he even notice? You made the decision to crawl under the covers. One night wouldn’t hurt, especially when the sheets smelled of him.

You awoke earlier than usual the next morning. You hoped you beat the lieutenant usual arrival and tried to hurry back into your room and got ready for the morning. If the lieutenant noticed anything different then he failed to mention it during his usual morning greeting. You did the usual of ordering your breakfast and his coffee and sat in the dining room. 

“Are you alright m’lady,” he finally asked. 

“Of course I am. Why do you ask?”

“Last night you seemed very unhappy leaving dinner and you gave me the order that no one was to disturb you.”

You breathed a small sigh of relief. He was only asking about dinner last night and not your sleeping in Kylo’s bed. “I’m fine, it was just something General Pryde had said, that is all. Nothing you did or anything else for that matter.”

“Would you like me to inform the Supreme Leader that he offended you? Allegiant General Hux might have already done so, but I can send another message to him if you wish.”

You pinched the bridge of your nose out of slight frustration. “No, it isn’t that important.”

“Ok, ma’am. Would you like to go over your schedule for today?”

“Yes please.”

“You have nothing once again until the Health Committee. Since the Supreme Leader will still be a way you are open for lunch but he will be back in time for dinner. After lunch, you have your lesson with the allegiant general. Is there anything else you would like to add?”

“No, that is all. Thank you.”

You then went about reviewing what you had discovered yesterday and you opened the meeting topics agenda that Dr. Koroban sent over. Exercise, vaccinations, sickness prevention, and injury prevention was the list of upcoming topics to discuss. This time you would be discussing the topics without the health experts and you were less than thrilled. You figured you should do some preemptive research before meeting so you pulled out your laptop and got to work. 

A/N: Special thanks to the discord chat for helping me with words last night. 

[mapache-lector]

Coffees & Cactus. (Part 3 of 5)

Rating: T Pairing: Ben Miller x chubby!fem!Reader. Summary: Reader and two friends are owners of a café, Benny comes in and finds more than the perfect gift for Maria, Frankie’s daughter. (I hate doing this, sorry)

Warning: I think I wrote Reader pretty much general, but the characteristics I mention are that she’s chubby, has a genderless wardrobe and she’s dealing with depression and anxiety (the way I do, which I know it’s not the common stuff… or maybe yes?). So, have that in mind.

Author’s notes: Introducing Maria and Franklin the plant!

Author’s notes.2: Hello, yes, it’s been a while since I wrote a fanfiction and the beautiful asks to @de-profundis-ad-astra​ lit the spark of this story. It’s -not only the first one I write in a while- but the first in English! So, bearing in mind that, feel free to point mistakes and let me know!

•·················•·················•

Ben kept coming to the café, buying more amigurumis, and she avoided him as much as she could. She stopped being flirtatious to him, trying not to get silly hopes with his answers, and her friends kept filling the silences between them. His brother came too, which made the situation more bearable, and all of them joked and chatted about everything and anything, she was often being outside the circle in silence, barely participating, observing, aware of other customers and whatever the café needed.

What threw her off was the fact she kept finding glitter in everything. Ben wasn’t even touching her that much, why is every surface shining? Also in her house and her bedroom, like a reminder of what couldn’t be.

“Honey?” Brit knocked on her door and waited for an answer, next to Eva. “We’re coming in, okay?”

The three friends decided to live together in a big house, trying to save money for the business, sharing the rent. Each one had a bedroom for themselves and respected the privacy of it. But sometimes someone needed a rescue, and it has been more than a day since they saw her friend.

She was on the bed, curled up in herself and barely moved when Eva and Brit sat by her side. They thought she was sleeping, then she slowly sat up. Her face was a little swollen, clear sign of crying.

“We were worried about you.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Her voice was croaky. 

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.” Eva reached and took her hand. “What happened?”

“It’s silly…” She hoped they would settle with that answer, but had to add, “I have a crush on Ben.”

“Good news, what else?” Responds Brit with fake surprise. “Did you tell him?” 

“Of course not! It’s my own trap. We were flirting, you know, and I believed his words.”

“Darling, he has heart eyes for you too.”

“He’s a golden retriever, his eyes are shaped like that. It’s like he lives in a world of bones and treats.” Her friends made a few more jokes till she laughed with them, then laid with her to sandwich her.

“Do you want us to tell him?”

“We can talk to his brother.”

“Nah, it’ll pass. I’ll manage.”

•·················•·················•

After Will started teasing him about “your café lover”, Pope and Frankie made inquiries. And he discovered he could spend hours talking about her and all the things he loved about her. 

“Can we go to the café with you the next time?” Asked Pope.

“We have to meet this lady.”

“Yes, the reason for all the butterflies!”

“Grow up, dickheads.” And a lot of bottle caps flew to his head.

“¡Mi tío!” Came running Maria, hugging his plushie and jumping in his lap. “Don’t be mean to him.”

“OOOOOOH my sweet, little baby.” He hugged her tight.

“María, a la cama, es tarde”, her father admonished her and she said goodbye with a loud kiss and a hug to her uncle Benny, her uncle Will, her uncle Santi, and her papá.

Once she was upstairs, they returned to the conversation.

“You should make a move, Ben.” Advised Frankie. 

He started to play with the sticker of the bottle of beer.

“You know she’s being nice to me because I’m a customer, right?”

•·················•·················•

A few weeks later, two men entered the café and had a sit in a table, not looking to the street but to the counter. She was replacing the pastries and cookies at the display and could feel their gazes fixed on her. She could see them through the glass, they were being ridiculous. Maybe they knew her? She didn’t remember their faces: One with a baseball cap and a few locks at the nape, moustache and patches of beard; the other with a stubble and wavy black and grey hair. 

Brit took their orders at the table and kept a little chat with them. Then, after making the coffees, leave the tray on the counter. “Could you please take this to their table? I need to go to the bathroom.”

She greeted them, put their coffees and pastries on the table and hugged the tray. “Do you need something else?”

“Your name?” Said playfully the one with the stubble.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” He laughed quietly, the one with the cap did it too.

“Santiago.”

“¿Santiago? ¿Hablas español?”

“Sí, ¿tú también?” She answered that yes, excused herself and went behind the counter. “Pero, ¿cómo te llamo?” Shouted.

“Sólo levanta la mano e iré.”

“Te atrapó, Pope.” Laughed the other, hiding his smile behind the cup.

“Hey, Brit. Do you know those guys?” She asked, turning her back to the men.

“No, I don’t. Why?”

“Why are they looking at us so…?” She made the “I’m looking at you” gesture and her friend giggled. “What are they doing now?”

Brit glanced behind her friend’s shoulder. “They’re talking to each other. The one with the cap looked at you and… Don’t know how to say it… they’re doing the same as us?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake…”

“Don’t pay attention to them, I have your back and you have mine.”

•·················•·················•

Ben was in the shower of the gym, washing away all the sweat in automatic movements. His mind was occupied with the memory of a certain beautiful lady behind a counter. 

After the tea party with Maria, she had fallen into silence, suddenly shy and distant, and he didn’t know why. It was something he said or did? Did he overstep asking the tea for the next morning, giving the impression he was charming her to get away with asking stuff she couldn’t deny? Did he overstep in another way he couldn’t think of now?

His head was spinning with worry and slowly the anxiety was coming in waves. Just thinking in her expressive, beautiful eyes, her smile cracking broad in her face before she pushed her lips into a timid one; how she looks away when she gets struck by one of his compliments; the way her hips swayed through the tables and her thighs fills every pant she wore. Thinking in her beautiful cheeks, who deserved all the kisses in the world, and that he –somehow and for the worse he didn’t know how– had made something to disgust her, made his heart ache. 

“You should talk to her, bro.” Repeated Will for the millionth time. This time, although, it was different because he didn’t do it before while shopping groceries. “I can’t stand another day of you with your head low.”

“Listen, did you know if I did something to upset her? I can’t find the moment, and I keep watching over and over again all the times we were together.”

“You did nothing, for God’s sake! Or ask her about it and get over it!”

“I can’t go and ask her broadly: Hey, listen, I wanted to say I’m sorry without acknowledging what I did wrong.”

Will stopped mid step and said “Yeah, you should say that.” A bag of chips landed in his head, because that’s how grown up brothers communicate with each other. “I’m being serious here– Look,” he faced his brother and put a hand in his shoulder, remarking his words, “I know you wear your heart in your sleeve and they broke it many times. I understand you have doubts now, but unless you go and ask her, you won’t have answers and you’re breaking your own heart now.”

He looked forward to going to her café, to chat with her and her friends, to joke with her. He bought her dolls of wool because he adored them, and because was another excuse to say to her how talented she was. He was still awestruck how such tiny things could be made, the patience she had, and that she self-taught how to do them, she told him once. He was awestruck of how smart she was, the kindness she showed to strangers, the passion she put in everything her fingers touch. Her friends talked nothing but wonderful things about her, and were reluctant to tell him why she was gone that morning, trying not to break her privacy and he admired their loyalty to her.

“This is the best coffee I had in months.” Pope texted fifteen minutes ago, while he was in the shower.

“What do you mean?”

And he responds with a photo of a mug and table he recognizes straight away. 

Little shit. •·················•·················• Traducción: Mi tío: My uncle. María, a la cama, es tarde: Maria, go to the bed, it’s late. ¿Hablas español?: Do you talk Spanish? Sí, ¿tú también?: Yes, you too? Pero, ¿cómo te llamo?: But, how do I call you? Sólo levanta la mano e iré: Just raise your hand and I’ll go. Te atrapó, Pope: Got you, Pope.

[midnightartemis]

A Spotless Detention

Chapter 19

Read Chapters 1-19 on A03

***SFW***

Professor Tarkin had a mind for punishment. Not two steps into the classroom, he directed Rey to the small door at the side of the classroom and the bucket and brush sitting beside it. Her task was to clean and organize the potion ingredient storage room to Professor Tarkin’s satisfaction. Rey took that to mean clean enough to eat off of. She had almost laughed at the punishment, wondering if Tarkin knew how many hours she had spent cleaning the orphanage top to bottom with nothing but a toothbrush and a bowl of soapy water.

That was until she saw the inside of the storage room. Shelves reaching meters above her were filled with thousands of bottles and vials and jars of various sizes. They extended far back beyond what Rey could see in the dim, grimy green light.

Rey ran her finger along the nearest shelf’s edge and studied the mound of black grim that came off on her skin. If someone had told her that no one had cleaned the potion cabinet since the founding of Hogwarts, she would have believed them.

Forget a week, it was going to take her years to turn the room into any form of clean and orderly. Rey pulled out her wand. “ Lumos .”

Not a second later from back in the classroom, Professor Tarkin stated, “No. Magic.”

Bloody hell.

“ Nox.” The light from her wand went out. She’d have to clean the lights first if she was to have any chance of seeing her work.

Rey picked up the empty bucket and looked around for a faucet. There wasn’t one in the storage room, so she stepped back into the classroom knowing she had never noticed one before.

Professor Tarkin sat in his office, the door left just a crack open. Rey braced herself and knocked gently.

“What is it?”

“I need water, Sir.”

“Then go get it.”

“From where?”

“I’m sure there’s a bathroom somewhere.”

Rey gritted her teeth. There was a bathroom a level above. She’d have to climb several flights of stairs just to get there. No telling who she might run into on her way to and from.

She hurried out of the classroom towards the bathroom. The sooner she got started the faster she could be done.

☽✹☾

“You wanted to see me, Professor?”

Rey froze at the low, muffled voice coming from the classroom. It sounded like Ben. But what was he doing here? She supposed he had just as much reason as any to talk to Professor Tarkin. Tarkin was Slytherin’s Head of House after all.

Professor Tarkin said something else that she couldn’t quite make out. Then Ben again, more muffled this time. Rey moved closer to the storage room door, trying to hear better. Maybe she could get Ben’s attention.

“Ah, yes. Solo.” She heard Professor Tarkin ask from his office. The door shut after that.

Rey wilted. Still, she stayed close to the door, in full view of the classroom. She absentmindedly ran her brush over one of the shelves she had already cleaned (though it still looked just as dirty as before). The professor must have had a noise-dampening spell on his office as she could hear no more of their conversation.

A few minutes later, the door opened again and both Ben and Professor Tarkin stepped out of the office. Rey’s eyes caught Ben’s. His face was hard as stone, expressionless. It almost seemed as though he was looking through her, but Rey saw his eyes. Tired, sad, guilty. He looked away and hurried out of the classroom. She had to talk to him even if just for a minute.

“Professor-”

Professor Tarkin turned and set his stony glare on her. “No.”

“It’s only- I have to use the-”

“No.”

There was no dissuading Professor Tarkin from his answer it seemed.

Certain that Ben was avoiding her and that there was no leaving this room until the Portions cabinet was clean, Rey sighed and returned to her work. Her heart fell even further at the sight of how little she had done already. At this rate, she’d be here all night, every night until she was one of the ghosts who roamed the halls.

A soft rustle interrupted the empty quiet of the cabinet. Rey turned slowly, brandishing her wand. The hairs of her neck stood on end. Who knew what could live in the dark crevices of the room?

Before Rey could scream, a floating hand appeared from the darkness and covered her mouth. A moment later, the hood of the invisibility cloak dropped to reveal a frowning Ben.

“Ben?” Rey whispered angrily as she pushed away his hand. “Merlin’s beard!”

“How the hell did you end up in detention with Tarkin? You shouldn’t be here Rey.”

“Well, I-”

“Miss Niima,” Professor Tarkin rounded the door’s corner and peered into the shadowy room. In moments Ben had disappeared again. “I can and will keep you here all night. Stop talking to yourself and clean.”

Rey nodded. “Yes, Professor.”

He glared at her incredulously for a moment before turning on his heel and striding away with a swish of his grey cloak. Rey held her breath for a moment before looking at the spot Ben had been only moments before.

“I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t being an arse,” She hissed.

“What do you mean?” Ben tipped the cloak’s hood back to reveal his face. It was a bit strange to see only his face just floating there in midair. Even if Rey knew that the rest of his body was still here.

“Don’t tell me you don’t know.”

Ben shook his head.

Rey scowled and gathered bottles off of a dirty shelf. “I waited for you and you didn’t come. And when I left, I ran into Hux and his friends instead. Apparently, Hux made Mitaka follow me.”

“I did hear about that,” Ben murmured.

“I’m guessing you heard about the article as well, then.”

Rey took his silence to mean that he had.  

“If you had just shown up instead of avoiding me for whatever stupid reason, I wouldn’t be here. So the least you could do would be to help me get out of here.”

“I wasn’t avoiding you.”

“Really? What were you doing then?” Rey laughed miserably. “It’s fine. I get it.”

“Get what?”

Rey opened her mouth to retort but found herself choking on her own words as tears built up in her eyes. Her hand went to the necklace he had given her on Christmas. She hadn’t taken it off since then. She swallowed thickly and went back to sorting through the shelves. “I’m nothing. I’m no one. Nobody.”

His lips pressed into a tight line as his dark eyes drifted away from her. “You heard that.”

“If you don’t want to be friends with me, I’d prefer you say it to my face. Not just… Abandon me. Leave me wondering why and-” Rey fought back her tears.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I was angry at Luke and my mother. I just wanted them...” Ben took a deep breath. “I just want them to see how much it hurts to not be chosen. Or wanted. And I was… Angry at you. For not telling me about Christmas. Hearing it from my mother.”

She refused to look at him, to let him see how hurt she was, even if she was struggling to hide it.

“I’m sorry I didn’t show up. I’m not… I’m not used to having friends.”

“I’m not used to it either.” Rey wiped away her tears as she thought of Rose and Finn. Perhaps she had been too harsh with them.

“Really?” Ben asked quietly. “You’re a Hufflepuff.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m any good at it.” Rey set down the bottle in her hand after realizing she had been staring at it and not really looking at it. “Before Hogwarts, I didn’t have anyone. Everyone was scared of me. Or weirded out. ‘Cause all of this weird stuff always happened around me and they were all normal. Muggles. So they blamed me.”

“The only people who want to be my friends think I’m destined to bring darkness to the world.”

“So you get it then.” Rey laughed softly.

“Yeah, I think so.”

Rey swallowed at the gentleness of his voice. She still didn’t want to look at him. Didn’t want to see her own sadness and loneliness reflected back at her.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Christmas?”

Rey was quiet for a moment as she thought back to that day. How empty she felt without Ben there. How upset he was when she found him. She didn’t want to upset him further. But, a deeper part of her knew her avoidance came from that strange fear that crept into her chest, crushed her lungs, and made it hard to think. She could manage only a shrug.

“Rey-”

“I didn’t want you to be angry with me.” She blurted out. “You’re my friend. I didn’t want to upset you more or- or- I don’t know.”

They were both quiet for a moment and Rey could feel Ben struggling against his emotions. Rey huffed and stared at the boxes she had gathered in front of her. She grumbled softly, “It wasn’t even that fun without you there.”

It was the truth. While she had enjoyed the companies of her Professors and the Minister, she had felt the rift of where Ben was supposed to be.

She could feel Ben’s eyes on her now and hear the mechanics of his brain trying to figure her out. He often did that- get lost in his own head. Think too much. “Are you going to help me or do you want me to stay with Tarkin all night?”

Ben scowled, but he took out his wand and pointed it at the shelves. “ Scourgify.”

In a blink of an eye, a small portion of the shelf had been cleared of decades of grime and grit. Rey’s mouth dropped open as she stared, amazed at his work. “I am never cleaning by hand again. Where does it go?”

“Where… Does… It go?”

Rey raised her brow and stifled a laugh at Ben’s confused face.

“You know, I’ve never thought about it.”

She scoffed playfully, “Wizards.”

In the dim green light, her eyes met Ben’s. They were warm, soft as they looked back at her. No matter what the rest of his face said, Ben’s eyes told the truth. I’m sorry. You’re not no one. Not to me.

Before Ben could protest, Rey stood up on her toes and pressed a kiss to Ben’s cheek. Her stomach erupted into butterflies as she pulled away. Ben stood frozen in front of her.

Bollocks.

Rey laughed nervously. “Er- Tarkin said no magic. So, as much as that helped… I think he’ll notice if the whole place is spotless by the end of the night.”

“Right.” Ben cleared his throat. “Right. I’ll work on gathering up broken bits then.”

“Great!” She agreed a little too brightly. Her voice was far too strained from embarrassment. Rey scooped up the pile of bottles and vials she had gathered and moved closer to a light source to sort through them.

What she failed to see in the dim light was Ben lifting a hand to touch where her lips had been and smiling.

☽✹☾

The rest of the week’s worth of detention passed quickly after that. Every evening after dinner Rey would show up at the potion’s classroom for detention. And every evening, Ben would show up a few minutes later in his invisibility cloak and slip into the storage closet with her.

They had to work quietly by hand to avoid detection by Professor Tarkin, but just having Ben there made time pass all that much faster. By the end of the week, the storage room looked almost beautiful. Due to her time cleaning and polishing the glass on the magical sconces that lit the room, one could actually see what they were looking at on the shelves. Each bottle had been cleaned and clearly labeled before being placed in alphabetical order. They shone like little crystal jewels in the light.

For it being detention, Rey felt remarkably proud of her work. She was almost sad for it to end. Tarkin was terrifying, but her hours in the storage room with Ben were the only hours of peace she could find. The whole school knew of the article; everyone had read it. Hux had been telling everyone that would listen that she was crazy and should be locked up. It had taken her an entire night to talk Ben down from doing something to Hux that would get another article written.

The worst part of it all was that Rey knew once the week was over, she would hardly see Ben the rest of the year. Finals were coming shortly which meant more studying for everyone. They couldn’t risk sneaking off to the Room of Requirement anymore, not with all eyes on the two of them.

She’d be staying at Hogwarts over the summer. Rey had meant it when she said she would never return to the orphanage. Ben, on the other hand, would be traveling with his Uncle Luke to India. Luke was studying the defense systems of Buddist monk wizards and Leia was forcing Ben to go along. According to Ben, she thought that getting Ben out of the country would do him good. Ben was convinced his mother just wanted him far out of the public eye and out of trouble for as long as possible.

Finn and Rose and Rey did their best to make amends. Rey apologized for hiding things from them and they apologized for trying to spy on her. It seemed that they were more than willing to forget about the whole thing. Rey was content to let that happen. To listen to Finn rant about Quidditch and giggle about Poe and hold Rose while she stress-cried over her final Charms paper.

As Winter turned to Spring and Spring to Summer, Rey did everything she was supposed to. She stayed out of trouble and stuck to the rules and eventually the school seemed to forget about Hux and the article. Nothing beyond her detention came of it, though she knew Hux was going nowhere.

Across the hall, Rey watched as Slytherin celebrated their House Cup victory. Though her eyes were not on the hats thrown high into the air or the snotty look Hux was giving everyone but on the only one not celebrating. A boy with dark hair and kind brown eyes who understood her better than anyone.

Their story was not over yet.

Their story was only just beginning.

Read Me On AO3

[theoriginalsuki]

Because if you like what I write, we probably have the same taste!

There’s a glut of well-written, well-crafted post-TROS Star Wars fanfiction out there, from fix-it to AU’s – not that I’m complaining! – but I’m-a just throw out some of the ones that have hit my sweet spot.  Please reblog!  It keeps the fic life cycle going.

Complete

The Ocean: A TFA Divergence by Journeying_Jane

I’m a die-hard TFA Kylo Ren fangirl (it’s my favourite of the trilogy, I know), and this divergence tugs the threads unravelled in the interrogation scene to a very satisfying conclusion, re: Rey and Kylo see their shared future a lot sooner, before the elevator scene in TLJ, and start to understand what they mean to one another.  Soooooo good.  (Rated G)

Air and Water by Flaignhan

The tender and thorough examination of Ben and Rey’s relationship, what it is, how it completes her, and their wholesome being-together that we ache for across three films.  Better than cozying up with a hot cup of cocoa on a rainy day.  (Rated G)

What She’s Worth by g_girl143

If Rey had been taken in by the Jedi Academy as a child and basically raised by Ben Solo.  Hear me out.  This love story is innocent and organic and is so well navigated that by the end you’re just like, yeah, of course, there was no other way that could have happened.  The *potential* is what it gives us.  I need to read it again, slowly and to savour, and happily await the sequel!  (Rated T)

Dead Space by Solia

Kylo Ren sacrifices himself to save Rey when they are stranded in a malfunctioning ship.  If you’re like me, and you like angsty grand gestures of love more than sexy times, this one is gourmet Reylo.  I’m so into the not-looking-directly at their feelings and extending that sweet pain for as looooong as possible.  Because, one brain cell!  (Rated G)

Paradise by englishable

Post-TROS, the only epilogue I will accept (except for Cleave, also by englishable).  Ben is brought to trial; Rey stands by him throughout; they figure out how to go on together.  It’s so wholesome and satisfying.  Let the healing begin!  (Rated M)

Near Kinsman by englishable

In post-Civil War America, Rey answers a bachelor ad and the most classically romantic love story since the Brownings unfolds.  (Rated T)

Delicious Ambiguity by Juulna

Some people like smut.  I like dangerous male-types harnessing their aggression toward protecting women and their unborn children.  That’s hot.  Some good TFA Kylo Ren being inexplicably soft with Rey and her Force-conceived twins.  Both of them have issues.  Both of them really, really love those babies.  It earns the happily ever after, which you know I appreciate so much in a fic.  (Rated M)

until you return to me by lovefrompluto

Rey accesses the WBW and looks in on every incarnation of Ben, all the lives they live together.  Such a cool meta on fanfics with a satisfying ending, giving Rey the agency she was denied in TROS.  (Rated M)

Killing Me Softly by AlbaStarGazer

I’m not a big AU person but the premise of this is so good and works really well with the characters as we know them in canon.  I also really appreciate a fic that isn’t afraid to look at the work of love.  

Ben and Rey, childhood sweethearts, married, are put to the test for three years after Ben gets in a terrible accident and forgets Rey.  She’s won’t give up on him, but she’s too hung up on the past.  He’s in love with her but afraid that all she sees is a memory, and not the person he is now.  Some really good character study and hurt/comfort with a happy ending.

WIP’s

The Argent Coda by BetweenTownleys

A deeply involved and well thought-out fix-it that makes me soft.  It’s not happily ever after (yet) and I am 100 percent okay with that.  The Force bond intimacy between Ben and Rey hurts soooooo good!  (Not Rated)

Conversations by acowlorsomething (suchlostcreatures)

Takes place after TLJ and moves effortlessly into the kind of interaction we want to see between Maybe-Ben and Rey.  Okay, what *I* want.  Nothing too easy, nothing too sexy, more of the same of the tender conflict we got from The Last Jedi, playing out in a believable way.  (Not Rated)

Bride of Fortune by SharKohen

Cute arranged marriage AU.  Rey is supposed to be a lucky bride.  So Leia Organa-Solo brings her into the household as her son’s wife.  They’re only young, so will they have time to chose one another before the age of consummation?  (Rated T)

Chains by Veggieheist

Rey is a slave on Jakku.  Kylo Ren picks up on her Force sensitivity and “buys” her.  Cue side comments from everyone that he just wants to sleep with her,  to which he is bewildered and frustrated.  Kylo doesn’t understand why someone so powerful would act so lowly, but when he pushes Rey hard, he finds out there’s more to her than he bargained for.  Or did he see it all along?  (Rated M)

hear my plea (and come save my life) by nouveaulove

Rey finds Ben alive but with amnesia.  I’m so soft for pining and protective Rey having to woo back Ben.  (Rated M)

Halfway, Between The Black and Grey. by PunkForTheMoment

Anakin helps Rey go back in time to the interrogation scene in TFA and she is anything but smooth.  Inspired by that meme.  Very promising!

My Fic

Epilogues by TheOriginalSuki

My initial self-help fic in the wake of The Rise of Skywalker.  Kinda dream-like with a hazy plot that is basically me just making myself feel better.  Maybe you too?  Some mature content, I don’t think it’s smutty, though.  (Rated M)

Rey goes into self-imposed exile on Tatooine.  After refusing to let Ben go, they break the laws of physics to be the family to one another they never had.  Healing can at last begin.

Battlefield by TheOriginalSuki

After The Rise of Sywalker I could see things getting worse before they got better.  If Kylo Ren had buckled down on the darkness after soul-crushing rejection from Rey and the trauma of seeing Luke again, how in the world would he walk back from that?  I’ve got it tagged “dominant Kylo Ren” but I’m not into abusive stuff, so don’t expect that!  I do however love the angst.  (Rated T)

Kylo Ren took the galaxy, and Kylo Ren takes Rey.  There’s nothing left for him to accomplish, Vader’s vision is complete – only he’s still in pain.  And no matter how he manoeuvres around the scavenger girl, it’s not easing up.

what stars are made of by TheOriginalSuki

Me trying to make a place to dump one-shots and dead-end ideas and probably failing.  Every time I pull a thread of “how things could have gone” in this universe, a whole world unravels!  Oops!  The tone of this one is completely different, inspired by the adorkable Ben Solo we got a glimpse of in TROS, and how he and Rey’s relationship plays out afterward.  (Not Rated)

Rey has a minor objection to being abducted.  Good thing Ben didn’t ask her, then!

The Stray by TheOriginalSuki for itsinthestars

Written for the RFFA fic exchange.  A modern AU!  (Rated T)

Rey moves in across the hall from Ben; a former foster kid alone in the city, aspiring to be an actress. Ben is a ladder-climbing white collar businessman with a horrible boss and zero social life. Which is just the way he likes it. So why in the world has this insufferable creature made it her life’s work to adopt him? From sharing her dinner to doing his laundry, she seems determined to make a connection. In the end, it’s easier for Ben to just let her. But opening up means letting your heart be vulnerable.

Hiraeth by TheOriginalSuki

A passion project.  I even have a plan!  Bonus – there’s Tai!  (Rated M)

Rey crosses over the World Between Worlds and finds herself in a time before Kylo Ren.  it’s been twelve years since her Ben dies, and she’s achingly in love.  But he has no idea who she is.

Beatrice by TheOriginalSuki for englishable

Illustrates the principle that good art generates good art.  Rinse.  Repeat.  (Raged G)

A brief character study from Ben Solo’s point of view, encompassing the three films and then a positive resolution.