#Like had Fixer been able to do that with Watcher when Watcher was still a shell

[milfbrainrot]

I assumed all the sisters had done communion to become sisters or something but bbf seemed surprised at the memory of rain

[haru-sen]

Imperial Forces

I’ve written...a lot of words for a fanfic no one asked for, and only one person has confirmed knowing what the hell I am even talking about.  My god. This is a preview of the IAL anniversary gift and may be changed down the road.  Certain people instigated this, you know who you are, and I’m still salty at you.

TW:  This is a darker piece of work compliant with some of the unpleasantness that one expects the Sith Empire.  Includes: dubcon, mentions of previous sexual assaults, attempted sexual assault, bad boundaries, bondage, and improper use of the Force.  Edited: Posted some minor corrections. Part 1/?

You sat at the table, ramrod straight, focusing on the silverware, and your glass of wine. The cut of the crystal was exquisite, and the wine was a Dathomirian Fury Red, if you recalled correctly, which you might not, because the entire day had been an absolute disaster, and you would be so very lucky if you made it to the dessert course. Surviving this situation was highly unlikely. You’d known for awhile that your time was extremely limited. But having dessert before you were murdered by a Sith lord, would be kind of nice.

You glanced up at the masked Sith, and then the bored moff across from you: dinner, dessert, death. At least the dining room was luxuriously decorated. You’d always expected to die in a dark, gross alley. This was an upgrade, really.

But for some reason, all these high-end pre-murder amenities were not making you feel any better.

**

They called you Cipher 13, because your real name was classified, and because the previous Cipher 13 took a one-way trip down a sarlacc pit the night before your spontaneous promotion. In all fairness, the name was probably cursed. You were the “unluckiest” of the Cipher agents, often getting the worst assignments or having your missions interrupted by the most unbelievable accidents.

It was an old joke by now, but you still got regular comments about your unenviable misfortune. Like today, when you’d gone to the quartermaster to stock up on the special blend of stimpacks Ciphers used. Fixer 3 had made an awkward joke about how your formula had “unpredictable results” and looked uncharacteristically scared when you took one right in front of him. Fixer 3 was normally a sensible guy and you liked him. You weren’t sure what he had been thinking today.

But it had been a long week, and you had not been given the regular rest break between assignments. Something “urgent” had come up. Watcher 5 had briefed you of your next mission, which was something convoluted and political. You were working for a Dark Council member. Watcher 5 had slipped in a snide remark along the lines of, “try not to let your personal chaos spill into this operation. Sith Lords have little tolerance for surprises.”

He said this, like you had control over these things. Ridiculous.

For example, how could you anticipate that a rancor would get loose at a diplomatic banquet and eat the person you were supposed to interrogate (along with half a dozen or so other very important people)? Not your fault, and certainly not within your control, and despite slicing the needed information from his personal terminal, the mission had been judged (unfairly!) to be a failure. Then there was that pazaak tournament on Nar Shaddaa where you had been burned by another Cipher, who outed you to the Hutts. It didn’t matter, in the sense that you won the game, shot her in the face, and received the boon you had entered the tournament to acquire. (The Hutts didn’t care who you worked for, as long as you weren’t crossing them.) You received demerits for having your cover blown by another agent’s blatant betrayal. (But she didn’t get any, because she was dead, and Minder 2 was pissy with you after that forever.) Then, there was that time you’d walked right into a Jedi strike team ambush meant for Darth Baras on Corellia… You were lucky to only lose a hand that day. Coincidentally, the officer who had given you the bad intel had also been fatally unlucky. He had a rare and deadly allergic reaction to the nuts in his ryshcate pastries, served at a diplomatic fete that weekend. How tragic it is when one can’t even enjoy their pastries.

But it wasn’t just misfortune. The current Keeper did not like you, had never liked you, and was growing more and more frustrated by the fact that you kept coming back alive, when many others did not. (You knew for a fact that the Minders had a betting pool regarding your survival. Minder 12 had been very helpful in providing you the behind the scenes information. You missed her.) As Keeper effectively ran the ops division of Imperial Intelligence, this was a definite problem.

Watcher 4 had been instrumental in keeping you alive. But now that he was gone, you were on your own with very few allies within your organization. That was why you had been given this newest assignment. (You missed Watcher 4 as well, and while you could not and would not try to prove it, you thought he and Minder 12 might have faked their deaths and run off together. It was a purely fanciful notion, but you could dream, right?) Imperial Intelligence agents didn’t get happy endings. And Ciphers usually didn’t make it to five years.

You had seven.

By all rights, you should have been able to transfer to a Watcher position a long time ago. But that never happened. It was probably because Keeper hated you. You did not know exactly why. You suspected it was because you were not born into the upper echelons of Imperial high society. You had started out a slave, earned some freedom, and trained as a Cipher; but on the Imperial capital planet of Dromund Kaas, that wasn’t enough. Your continual survival offended him, a constant reminder of his own failure to erase you.

And so here you were, assigned to the whims of Darth Thanaton, a member of the Dark Council, a crusty overpowered madman, and worse, an absolutely unmitigated boor. He was urbane enough in his public appearances, but behind closed doors? An absolute drama queen.

You stood in his foyer, Thanaton was shouting now, and you got the impression that he did this a lot, having an audience present was optional. The man himself was older, fit enough to show his face (no mask or rebreather), and had been quite the assassin in his day. The room was black marble, filled with ugly stone antiques, and it felt like a mausoleum, only louder and more oppressive. Your head was pounding and your stomach churning as you struggled to pay attention to his spiel. You were professional enough that you could maintain a mask of respectfulness, despite your growing physical discomfort. You had powered through worse.

Like that time on Tatooine when you’d broken a leg in melee combat with Tusken Raiders…That had been a bad day. Or that time you’d gone undercover as a Hutt’s dancing slave on Nar Shaddaa. Or even when…

Focus. Thanaton was bad enough. You did not need to take a trip down traumatic memory lane in the middle of a Darth’s monologue.

Thanaton spent a good quarter of an hour railing against the failing morals and falling standards of the Sith academy on Korriban. And then another quarter of an hour complaining about the bureaucratic delay in assigning a “suitable” Imperial Intelligence agent to his cause. He went into great detail about how much the Council needed this work done, and how important it was, and how Lord Messor’s habits were unseemly, and Moff Kiljack needed to know his place, and...and...and… It went on much longer. He sprayed spittle when he spoke. It was painfully distracting.

You nodded along, like a good Cipher, even though you could feel the nastiness of his aura crawling along your skin. It worsened your nausea. You were no saint, but being near powerful Sith made you queasy. There was something fundamentally wrong with most of them, and your body knew it. But you stood at attention, masking your disgust, because to cross a Darth was a clear-cut and uncomfortable death, usually with choking, sometimes lightning. You’d seen it up close many times and experienced lighter versions of those punishments yourself. Best avoided if possible.

Keeper knew what he was doing. There was a fifty percent chance that you wouldn’t even make it to the mission. Snotty old Darth Thanaton would take offense at you for simply existing and smite you before you had a chance to get to work.

But you were not unaware of the situation. Lord Messor was an unconventional dark lord, taking more than his share of apprentices from Korriban (and doing who knows what with them? Sith Lords didn’t usually keep more than one alive at a time). Moff Kiljack had been one of those apprentices, and had shown an extreme aptitude for military strategy. He had then been put on a different career track, promoted to head of Messor’s security forces, and given free reign. Eventually however, things between the men soured, and the former security chief had managed to wrangle a promotion from the Imperial army, instead of just wasting away as Messor’s lackey. He gained some powerful allies and rose quickly to the rank of moff. To no one’s surprise, Messor hadn’t taken the change of allegiances well, and now things were awkward, to say the least.

Thanaton claimed that he found the entire situation offensive. You didn’t think it seemed any different from any other horrible day on Dromund Kaas. There were so many betrayals, atrocities, and political cliques, you just tried to keep your head down, and your heart beating. It was more likely that Thanaton feared Messor’s growing power and wanted to eliminate a rival.

If only you had gotten another off-world assignment. You’d already disabled the kill-chip implanted in the base of your skull. You could just fake your death, move to some peaceful, secluded farming planet, and not worry about being flayed alive for accidentally making eye contact with a power-mad sorcerer.

You’d always suspected your cause of death would be “someone else’s ego” or at least “collateral damage,” but you didn’t expect it to play out so literally. By the time Thanaton actually got to the point, you had been standing in his foyer for an hour, watching him froth and rant. Lord Messor or Moff Kiljack had just been assigned to deal with a situation on Hoth or Voss (you couldn’t tell because Thanaton had been going at it for so long that he kept switching the names and not giving you any kriffing context…) But you were to sabotage those efforts, make Messor and the moff lose credibility, fall from grace, and be tossed into the bone pile in the waste dumps outside the city.

That’s it. Ruin them on the basis of his disapproval and use his tenuously plotted scheme to do it. Failure would be met by death.

Success would also probably be treason, and that too was punishable by death.

Hell, if you did succeed, Thanaton would have to kill you to tie up loose ends.

Death, death, or more death, with no obvious way out. Normal mission parameters, really.

Nodding, you told him, “I understand, my lord. It will be done, my lord,” while preparing to take a shuttle off-world and commit very public suicide on Nar Shaddaa. Hell, you could just go throw yourself at the mercy of Theron Shan. He probably would only torture you a little, as a formality, before taking pity on you, and ending your misery himself.

OK, clearly you had been in Darth Thanaton’s dark energy radius for too long, because his madness and depressive thoughts were now rubbing off on you. Plus you still wanted to throw up. And Thanaton might have sensed your urge to flee, because he sent you back to the Imperial High Command with an escort: one of his security advisors, a pompous man of “good breeding” named Captain Prince, and a dozen heavily armed guards.

Druk.

The soldiers weren’t really there for you, you realized once you were already seated in the convoy listening to Prince further explain Thanaton’s “plan.” Lord Messor was taking on a greater role in the war effort against the Republic, and Imperial High Command was providing more men for his military gambits. Prince and his men were being overtly assigned by Imperial High Command, though they were actually loyal to Thanaton. Prince would be reporting to Messor tonight. Your cover was as Prince’s assistant. Your job would be reconnaissance and sabotage, and you would be reporting your progress to both Prince and Thanaton. You also would be expected to produce reports for Keeper, not that Prince understood the workings within Imperial Intelligence.

...It was shit plan. You knew it even before you heard it, though Prince seemed confident that his background would pass muster. That was a little more reassuring than Thanaton’s mad ramblings, but still amateur. Prince was a decorated military man, and had seen some very vicious combat, committed atrocities, and been rewarded for his service. He was not the man you would have put in charge of any operation that required subtlety. If Keeper had wanted this job done right, he would have assigned it to you himself, and given you free reign. There was a lot of subtext to unravel, but right now you had to nod along to Captain Prince’s blathering. He wasn’t nice, he stared at your chest longer than was polite, and he put a hand on your knee. You lightly brushed it off, reminding yourself that you could not kill Thanaton’s representative on the first day.

Like any highborn noble, Lord Messor had an estate outside the city. The route was straight forward, and you were taking a regular speeder to get there. Contrary to your expectations, the ride actually helped clear your head. You were still a little shaky, but less nauseated. Getting away from Thanaton helped. Wind lashed at your skin as you watched the jungle pass by, and you wondered how much of a lead you would have if you left for Nar Shaddaa tonight. With any luck, it would be hours before anyone noticed you were gone.

You waited, hands steady, even as you and Prince exited the vehicle. It was raining, as usual, and the air stunk of ozone. Three more men followed from another transport, and Prince did not offer any introduction, though you could feel them watching you with predatory eyes.

The Messor estate had several outbuildings, and the gates were high. A large fortress had been partially carved out of the cliff, the jungle providing more strategic cover. Though solid, it had the columned facade of an ancient Sith temple. You studied it, not quite sure what Thanaton had been complaining about. Lord Messor seemed to have traditional Sith tastes (gothic and imposing), at least when it came to architecture.

“Come on, kitten,” Prince said with a leer. “If you want to marvel about size, I have something to show you.”

The men behind you laughed.

You just smiled politely, and decided that maybe Prince would lean too far out a window tonight. The jungle provided a lot of ambient noise to cover any screaming. The winds were dangerous. Accidents happened, especially around you. Hell, if Prince was defenestrated, they’d probably be too busy mopping up the meat confetti to look for you…

Prince led the way to the fortress, frowning as an HK droid met you at the bottom of the steps.

“Greetings, Captain. Lord Messor is expecting you. Please come this way.” The droid pointed to a more discrete entrance: a small path leading to a recessed door. With the foliage and the angle of entry, it was well-concealed.

Prince’s upper lip curled in aggravation, but he adjusted course. You followed, noting the placement of the turrets, the thickness of the walls, and the fact that the droid that met you was a high-end assassination model. It spoke like a protocol droid, it had those functions as well, but you were very familiar with the HK series.

You followed Prince through the heavy durasteel door and to a narrow set of stone steps. The lights were low, and the stairwell was mostly in shadow. Then the door slammed shut behind you, leaving the HK droid and the other three men outside.

Prince stopped, he glanced at you questioningly.

“I didn’t shut it,” you said.

Prince pushed past you and tried the handle. The door did not budge. He frowned and drew his blaster pistol.

“Let’s go,” he told you, gesturing with the pistol for you to go first.

“Of course, Captain,” you said, maybe a little sarcastically, as you marched up the stairs, keeping an eye out for trip wires, pressure plates, or any of the other nasty surprises that Sith lords liked to keep around their homes.

...Druk. Sometimes there were creatures. The local fauna was bad enough, but the Sith liked to import nasty things as well as craft their own monsters. You’d seen plenty and you had no desire to face Sithspawn again any time soon.

You stepped lightly. The stairs went up for at least three stories, and then there was another door. You glanced back at Prince.

“Hurry up,” he growled.

You opened the large metal door, and stepped into a cavernous room big enough to serve as a huttball field. Dim lights shone in wall sconces, and two rows of black pillars lined a path to a massive carved throne. All these features seemed to be cut from the same mountain stone.

There was a figure on a throne, black and red robes under a heavy breastplate, a black hood and stylized skull mask covering his face. He wore heavy metal gauntlets, tipped with dangerously sharp talons.

“Captain Prince,” Lord Messor spoke quietly, his voice smoother than you expected, a lot calmer than some other dark lord whom you had met earlier today. The acoustics of the room were amazing, his voice carried through the hall.

“Ah, my lord,” Prince stepped past you, his blaster already holstered. “I am honored to finally- be in your presence.” He gestured for you to follow as he led the way toward the throne.

“I did not give you orders to approach.” He sounded almost bored.

Prince stopped. “My apologies, my lord. I did not-”

“You don’t need to explain,” Lord Messor said, resting his chin in one palm. “And I don’t have patience for your excuses.”

Prince cocked his head to the side and looked almost comically confused.

And then Moff Kiljack – you recognized that striking blonde hair and those icy blue eyes - stepped out from behind a pillar, and pressed his blaster to the back of Prince’s skull. There was no hesitation. He blew the captain’s brains out right there in Lord Messor’s throne room. Prince dropped with a thud.

You barely had time to avoid the splatter, let alone wonder what Moff Kiljack, Lord Messor’s sworn rival, was doing in his throne room. You glanced between the Sith lord and the moff, wondering if you had time to dive for cover while they battled.

Instead, Lord Messor just sighed. “Ensign De Veo,” he said, using your cover name, and giving you hope that he didn’t know exactly what was going on. “Also known as Cipher 13,” he added, crushing that hope. “I’m sorry for the mess. Kiljack can be so...uncivilized.” He stood and began descending from the dais.

You glanced over at Moff Kiljack, not at all surprised to find the blaster pistol aimed at your head.

“That’s unnecessary, Kiljack. I’m sure our dear Cipher understands her position.” Messor swept down the stairs from his throne, red and black fabric swirling behind him. He circled you like a hungry sleen. “Now, I realize this isn’t what you expected. But I’d be delighted to explain everything. So why don’t you join us for dinner, and we can discuss what you’re doing here, why you’re still alive, and what you need to do to stay that way. This should be easy enough for a woman of your caliber.” He chuckled.

There was no room for panic. You survived because you could think on your feet. Because you didn’t get caught up in “what should have happened.” You kept your mouth shut and most of your insubordinate comments in your head.

You gave a stiff bow from the waist. “I would be honored, my lord,” you said, already tasting lightning in the back of your throat. It was very unlikely that you would get through the night without a demonstration of Sith might.

Lord Messor laughed, like he found you genuinely amusing, and headed toward the eastern doors.

“Cipher,” Moff Kiljack was at your side, offering you his right arm. He was a tall man, very fit in his officer grays. There was blood on his cuffs and glove. He stood like he was carved from ice.

You swallowed and tentatively placed your metal hand on his bicep, wondering if you could scratch him with one of your poisoned needles without him noticing.

“I wouldn’t,” Kiljack said, not even turning his head to look at you. “Be a good girl, and you’ll make it out of this alive.”

You shivered, suddenly very cold in your officer’s tunic. The fear crept down your spine, threatening to freeze you in place. But that would not do. You forced yourself to breathe. You had forgotten that the moff had once been a Sith apprentice. Force-users could pick up surface thoughts. Normally though, you were better at shielding. You steered your mind back to nav-charts and the asteroid belts of the Outer Rim. Head held high, you walked with Moff Kiljack to Lord Messor’s banquet hall.

**

And so here you were now, seated to the left of Lord Messor, a very bored Moff Kiljack sitting across from you, watching you with cold eyes.

The table was long, almost the length of the room, and also carved from the same obsidian stone as the chamber. The same with the high-backed chairs, though they were not attached to the floor, and had plush cushions on them.

Your brain was working almost too fast, panic welling in each heart beat. You tried to calm yourself, as you stared at the vividly colored salad in front of you. You turned some of your hyperfocus on that. It was very aesthetically pleasing, and would not be out of place at a restaurant on Alderaan or Coruscant. Perhaps it would pair well with-

-So what the hell was going on? Moff Kiljack and Lord Messor shared a well-known enmity. But now they were working together, likely because they had learned of Darth Thanaton’s intent to bring them both down. Prince’s men were definitely dead. HKs were ruthlessly efficient like that. You were a loose end, but one they could bargain with. They would want to use you against Thanaton, of course, but you were an experienced Cipher. You still had some resources-

-a Starblossom spritzer or a Coruscant blush wine. You weren’t sure what the next course was, but traditionally there would be a protein and a starch, and-

-This wasn’t a con you could pull off alone. Not that it had much of a chance before. The original plan was half-baked garbage and you didn’t really want to-

Wait.

You willed yourself still, taking a moment to breathe. Your mind was moving too fast. There was something wrong. Had been wrong all day, your focus slowly sliding into the abyss. But trying to figure out what was exactly was wrong, was like grasping at fog. And with both a moff and a Sith lord watching your every move, now was not the time to buckle.

Your memory coaxed up a tiny epiphany. This started around the time you met Thanaton. Was it him?

Kiljack took a bite of his salad, his flat expression not changing, even as he chewed.

Lord Messor was not eating though. He raised his mask to sip his wine, but given the kinds of damage Sith lords did to their bodies, it was possible that he did not have a normal digestive tract.

“Is the food not to your liking, Cipher?” Messor asked, curling those metal talons against his palm with a rhythmic tap tap tap.

“It is exquisite, my lord,” you said, picking up your fork, and taking a bite. The vegetables were crisp, fresh, and lightly vinegared. There were sweet berries mixed in with crumbles of salty cheese. If this was your last meal, you could have really done worse. “Are these Alderaanian fickleberries? They’re a wonderful addition to the dish, just the right amount of sweetness.”

“Indeed,” Messor practically purred. “You have a sophisticated palate. I understand that you are well-traveled.”

“Or she’s used them before,” Kiljack said, still eating his salad. “Likely when she mixed them with the nuts in that Corellian ryshcate to poison Ambassador Morrow. Clever move: I understand the symptoms mimic an allergic reaction. Never thought to mix fickleberries with vweilu nuts and a decoction of grillig-juice. All are harmless on their own, but when combined together, the enzyme produced causes catastrophic organ failure in most humanoids.”

You froze.

“Do you think that would work on Darth Thanaton?” Kiljack asked, tilting his chin up “No, that’s far too radical for him. Mixing foreign nuts and berries, he’d never go for that.” He flashed you a predatory smile. “You might have better luck with a rancor.”

They knew.

This wasn’t just about Thanaton. No one in Imperial Intelligence decisively knew everything that you had done, or how: just that you got results. But Moff Kiljack and Lord Messor, two mortal enemies had just sat you down to dinner and they karking knew. And if these two knew what Imperial Intelligence did not, that meant they were far more driven and dangerous than you initially expected and how did they know? Why did they go through all that effort-?

Terror, still fresh from your encounter in the throne room, blossomed in your chest once more. Dozens of scenarios played out in your mind: the consequences of your exposure. There was no need to go into graphic detail, though you kept getting distracted with colorful visions of your own evisceration. No matter what you thought of, it all ended very badly for you.

In that moment, you cursed your premature deactivation of your kill-chip. They knew. And if it was you versus a Sith lord and his moff ex-apprentice, you would not win. They had already done the hard part, already figured out what you did and how. And then you had just walked into Messor’s home, a gift-wrapped sacrifice. They wanted something from you, and judging by what they already knew, what it took to find that information out, they had the will and means to break you. You’d seen the inquisitors work, seen the aftermath too, the piles of mewling meat begging for death. Being on the wrong side of Sith and moff persuasion wasn’t any kinder. Electrocution or a snapped neck were far better.

You were on your feet in seconds, already turning to run, hoping Moff Kiljack would take you out in one shot.

“No!” Lord Messor raised his hand, and you slammed back down into the chair. Something in your body cracked as you struck the stone, and the world went black for half a second before you snapped back into your body.

You tried to move, but the force held you in your seat, pressing tightly against your chest, your arms pinned down on the armrests. You could barely breathe, let alone move your limbs. Shuddering, you could only watch as Moff Kiljack leaned against the edge of the table in front of you. He reached out, one gloved hand tilting your chin up.

“You hit her too hard, Messor,” his voice was calm. “She’s bleeding and her pupils are uneven.”

“Couldn’t help it. She moved too fast, and she was planning to self-destruct.” Messor’s voice came from behind gritted teeth.

“That, or hoping to get one of us to do it for her.” Kiljack shook his head.

Cold sweat dripped down your neck. Your breaths came in short bursts. You were trapped, back flat against the stone chair. You couldn’t move. And you were at the mercy of men who didn’t know the meaning of the word. A strangled sob died in your chest as you vainly tried to move your limbs.

“Shhhhh, don’t struggle,” Kiljack reached for your napkin and then gently blotted your nose. “Messor, she’s having trouble breathing.”

“I know,” Messor shuddered, and took a deep breath. “She’s very scared.” There was a note of something like hunger in his voice, but he raised his hand again, and suddenly you could draw in a little more air.

“Mmm,” Kiljack nodded, those blue eyes studying your face. “That’s it, stop fighting us. This doesn’t have to hurt.” He set the napkin down, watching you intently, like a puzzle he wanted to dissect. He smiled then. “You are very loud, Cipher.”

You gritted your teeth and tried to stifle your breathing. You must be badly injured if you were making too much noise. Ciphers didn’t make a habit of being loud. For obvious reasons.

“That’s not what I meant,” Kiljack said. He leaned in, nearly nose to nose with you. “Quiet your mind.”

You stared at him, trying to swallow, but your throat was dry and your vision blurred. You dropped your head, too dizzy to stay upright.

Kiljack lifted your water glass to your lips. “Here. Take small sips. We don’t want you to choke. On the water.”

You flinched, waiting for one of them to follow up with a traditional Sith demonstration of force choking.

“Just drink your water,” Kiljack ordered.

You opened your mouth, closing your eyes as the glass touched your lips. The cool water tasted better than you hoped and the light steady stream cleared your throat.

“That’s it, good girl.” He stroked your cheek, his black glove soft against your skin. “Is that better?”

You managed a nod, feeling queasy from the motion alone.

“Now, are you going to behave?” Kiljack asked coolly. “Or do we have to keep you restrained? Another stunt like that, and I won’t be so nice, do you understand?”

“I’ll be good, sir,” you said, voice weak, and you had to grit your teeth, because speaking hurt. That force blow had done some damage to you. You couldn’t pinpoint the exact location, because your whole body ached. You still couldn’t move. And to make things worse, Moff Kiljack, of all people, was trying to gentle you like a wild tauntaun.

“Does it hurt?” He asked.

You closed your eyes, focusing on the different routes off of Nar Shaddaa instead of your current location. And you waited for the next threat of more pain, or the lightning, or whatever Kiljack wanted to use.

“Now, she’s gone silent,” Kiljack muttered.

“She’s in pain,” Messor said, his voice still low. “And while I find nav-charts far less tedious than endless streams of pazaak, someone really needs to teach you how to shield your mind better. I don’t know how you’ve survived this long with such loud and irreverent thoughts.”

Normally, you were better at it. But Kiljack had said your pupils were uneven...OK, concussion. That made sense. You took an inventory of your injuries: bad concussion, something fractured in your chest or abdomen, and you still were trapped here with a dark lord and a moff who wanted you for nothing good. Druk. It would have been so much easier if one of them had just killed you outright. They were supposed to be good at that kind of thing. Hell, you could still bite your tongue off and-

Kiljack gripped your chin, prying your jaw open. “I thought you were going to be a good girl, Cipher.”

You whimpered.

“I will get the bit and the slave collar,” he said glaring at you.

You relaxed your jaw. You weren’t trying to upset him. You were concussed. And you didn’t have complete control of your faculties right now.

Kiljack narrowed his eyes at you. “Is that so? Do I need to get the bit for your own safety? Or would you prefer I make you a cloth gag? Messor, can we borrow your sash?”

“Sah-ee, sir,” you said. It was not the first time you’d given a disingenuous apology with another man’s fingers in your mouth at the dinner table, and quite frankly you were a little embarrassed to be in that situation again.

Then came the spasm of pain that would have bent you in two, if you could move that far. Instead, you twitched, teeth clamping down on the moff’s fingers as you struggled to breathe. You tasted blood in your mouth, though you weren’t sure whose it was.

Kiljack’s eyes widened, but he didn’t move, and the slap you expected did not come. He waited for you to unclench before withdrawing his fingers. He examined his torn glove with a sigh. “We’re going to need kolto, Messor.”

A kolto pack floated over the table to Kiljack.

Nimble fingers began unbuttoning your collar. You opened your eyes to see Kiljack unfastening your tunic, a kolto pack in hand. His gaze lingered on your thin undershirt for a moment, and then he applied the cool healing gel onto your stomach, along your sides, and around to your back.

“I don’t think we’ll be finishing dinner out here any time soon,” Messor said.

“Messor, I’m not making do with just a salad, no matter what kind of fancy berries you put in it,” Kiljack said, wiping his hands off and checking his fingers. There were teeth marks, and some broken skin, but nothing severe. After the kolto application, the wounds started closing up as you watched.

Messor laughed. “We can take our meals in our rooms. Why don’t we call the medical droid and put our guest to bed first?”

The pressure on your body suddenly lifted, but before you could regain your bearings, Kiljack scooped you out of the chair.

“Is this causing you more pain?” He asked, one arm supporting your back, the other under your knees.

“No,” you said, though breathing was still uncomfortable. Rib damage, likely. You didn’t struggle, too woozy to make good decisions right now. On the bright side, it looked like they weren’t going to kill you just yet, but also, you hadn’t made it to dessert, and you were a little sad at the prospect of missing whatever Lord Messor’s chef had concocted. Even if it was fickleberries mixed with vweilu nuts and a decoction of grillig-juice.

Despite the danger, you could not keep your eyes open. The world faded away.

You dreamt.

**

You were back in that dining room, candlelight casting eerie shadows on the walls. You saw yourself bent over that banquet table, Lord Messor’s hand on your back, your face pressed against the stone, your wine glass rolling on its side, the red liquid dribbling onto the floor. You felt a spark and flinched, that light crackle of electricity as those metal talons trailed down your spine.

“Scared?” Messor murmured, his breath hot on the back of your neck.

“Yes, my lord,” you panted, squirming under him, feeling his cock pressed against you through his robes.

“Good.”

**

You were on your knees, staring up at Kiljack, the tip of a riding crop under your chin. You didn’t recognize the room. There was a small fountain flowing in the corner. It was an office, probably aboard a starcruiser from the shape of the window. You did not recognize the orbit. But Kiljack was in full moff regalia, gray tunic coat and jodphurs, black boots and gloves, and a heavy belt. Was this his battleship?

“I told you to open your mouth,” Kiljack said coldly.

You hesitantly parted your lips, noticing that your hands were unbound. You could-

Kiljack pushed a piece of silicone into your mouth, the ring shape holding your teeth apart. He fastened the strap snugly around your head.

“That’s better,” he said, an edge in his smile as he cupped your cheek. “This wouldn’t be necessary if you were more careful with those teeth. Now be a good girl and stick out your tongue.”

**

The bedroom was large and dimly lit.

The bed was enormous, draped in scarlet silks and pillows. It was comfortable, but you could not actually move very far. You poked at the gold collar latched around your neck. You wore matching bracelets and anklets, but there was a chain attached to the collar and secured to the headboard. You rolled your eyes at the outfit: the dancer’s garb with the red and gold harness top, chain belt and lashaa silk loincloth, and knee high boots.

You had worn these before – what spy hadn’t? But you didn’t remember getting here, or where here even was.

There was someone else in the room, somewhere in the shadows, just watching you. You looped a length of chain – your best bet for a weapon, and began examining where it connected to the headboard.

“I thought you were going to behave today.” Messor’s voice came from somewhere in the darkness.

“But if this is how she wants to play, why should we deny her?” Kiljack laughed.

The lights went out. And suddenly you weren’t alone on the bed.

**

“So do you like the view?” Kiljack whispered. “You’ll have to be quiet, or everyone will hear us.” He tightened his grip around your waist. “Or maybe that’s what you want.”

You sat on his lap, looking around the throne room, in all its sinister glory. Crimson imperial banners hung from the walls and pillars, the firelight casting harsh shadows. There was a second story balcony overlooking the throne room. It was too dark to see if anyone else was up there. But the rest of the cavern was a vast expanse, easily surveyed from the throne where Kiljack sat: Lord Messer’s throne.

He was right. If you made any noise, it would echo.

You swallowed roughly, eyes drifting to the spot where the moff had executed Prince. There was no body or blood.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Kiljack growled in your ear.

You opened your mouth to speak.

“You’re in my seat,” Messor said, the words echoing off the walls as he materialized from the shadows. His tone was dangerously mild. He stalked up the stairs toward you.

You started to move, but Kiljack held you tightly against him. “About time you got here,” the moff said. “I was getting bored giving the tour. Maybe we can move on to something more exciting.”

**

You sat up with a strangled gasp, your head pounding. Another unfamiliar bed, but when you looked down, you were covered in blankets. You peeked underneath, finding yourself still dressed in your thin tanktop and uniform pants. You ached, like you’d been in a fight. But there wasn’t pain between your legs, a small, but important reassurance. The inside of your mouth felt like a stable floor and you winced as you looked around, the dim lights still aggravating your eyes.

It was a large elegant bedroom, the furniture silver with red trim. It was neat, but it felt lived in, not a guest room. You started to look around, but your vision swam. Holding your head, you gave yourself a moment before trying to focus.

Yesterday was an absolute sarlaac snarl. You’d been sent off on a poorly-planned suicide mission, and your reactions were...wrong. Judging by how awful you felt right now, you’d been drugged. You gritted your teeth, forcing yourself to analyze each location step by step. You started feeling ill in Darth Thanaton’s presence, but you neither ate nor drank there. Maybe he did have some secret force brainwashing powers, but that was unlikely. That ability was too subtle for a bombastic coot like him.

...The stims. Something had been wrong with the stims. Fixer 3 wasn’t being a smart ass. Fixer 3 had been trying to warn you. Echuta! It had been right there in front of your face and you were too distracted and arrogant to notice.

You growled, throwing the blankets off. You tried to stand, but found you were still too dizzy.

“Well, I’m glad to see that you’re feeling better.”

You blinked.

Just off to the side, nestled between a wardrobe and a table, sat Moff Kiljack. There was a blanket on his lap and a blaster pistol on the table. He yawned, stretching his arms above his head, before he stood, fully dressed, though his jacket was unbuttoned. A faint dusting of stubble shadowed his jaw. He looked you over. “That’s better.” He tapped his left temple. “You’re not so loud any more.” He gave a sigh that sounded a lot like relief. “I know that wasn’t entirely your fault. You were out of your head. The medical droid analyzed what was in your system, if you’re curious.”

“Someone sabotaged my stims,” you said, resting your head on your knees. “Someone in Imperial Intelligence.”

Moff Kiljack nodded. “Makes sense. You also had a bad concussion, cracked ribs, and some bruising. The kolto pack helped a little, but a localized injection sped it up.”

“Thank you,” you said, even if you were not so sure that you were grateful to be saved. Because you still had a lot of questions about what was going on, why these two “enemies” had put so much research into your accomplishments, and how much they knew about Darth Thanaton’s intentions.

You closed your eyes, knowing a few things already:

Moff Kiljack and Lord Messor had a complex relationship; this was likely Kiljack’s room and Messor would not keep it for him if they were really enemies. You needed to figure out the exact nature of their alliance and how much of that infamous enmity was a smokescreen. They worked too well in tandem for all of that showboating to be real.

Keeper was now actively trying to kill you. It would be very difficult to tamper with the stims otherwise. Thanaton was probably meant to be the instrument of your death. He was old, powerful, and no one would bat an eye over a Darth executing a Cipher.

The sensitivity was getting worse. Once it had been an asset, just enough insight to give you an advantage. Now it was opening you up to too many other things. And you lived in the capital city of the Empire, where so many hungry Sith congregated. No, this was bad for you. Kiljack was right, you needed to shore up those shields, and hide yourself better. Anything less would get you shipped off to Korriban.

“Can you hold down food?” Kiljack asked, suddenly standing beside the bed. He set a glass of water on the night stand.

“Not sure. Thank you.” You eyed it for a moment, knowing that he could have slipped any manner of drug in there, but at this point, what choice did you have? They needed you for something, and that meant they probably needed you alive and functional. You took the water, sipping it slowly.

The moff watched you like a hawk, probably worried that you were going to choke or throw up.

You studied him, noting his bare hands. There were scars on them, but it looked like the bite marks had healed. “Sorry about biting you last night,” you said. Apologizing seemed like a good idea. It would be wisest if they thought you were docile and amenable to them. You still weren’t certain that you were going to thank him for sparing your life. But you were a little more confident that they weren’t planning on torturing you to death. Not immediately, anyway.

“You need to be more careful with those teeth,” he said, without a hint of inflection, that handsome scarred face stoic once more.

You stared at him for a second, a moment of deja vu. You shrugged. “I need to be more careful, period.” You dropped back onto the pillows, another wave of dizziness skewing your balance.

The moff picked up a personal comm. “Echo, let Messor know that our guest is awake, and have something mild brought up from the kitchens for her.” He glanced over at you. “I can send for the medical droid.”

“You already had me checked out, right?” You asked, staring up at the stone tiled ceiling.

“Yes. There was a small amount of bleeding in your skull. We took care of it. It can provide some painkillers and anti-nausea meds if you want.”

We took care of it.

That was an interesting way to phrase it. The medical droid might have accomplished it on its own, though the procedure would be more invasive.

“I think I should go for the anti-nausea meds,” you said, one hand over your eyes. “But if you give me a minute, I can try to get upright and-”

“Just stay there,” Kiljack said. “Messor will be along shortly. Finish your water.”

You sighed and downed the rest of the glass, spilling a little down your chin, and not really caring because your head hurt.

**

The comm unit chimed and Kiljack stepped out of the bedroom. When he returned, he was carrying a large platter of flatbread, grilled fish, and some fruit. There was a small glass of anti-nausea medication too. He set it all on the nightstand and poured you another glass of water from the carafe.

Your stomach rumbled, so you took a few berries and ate them slowly, letting the sweetness roll down your throat. You downed the medication in one shot.

When everything stayed down, you took a few more berries, and then a piece of bread, passing on the sauce, just in case.

Kiljack settled back down in his chair, watching your every move.

You had taken a break from trying to eat, when there was a knock. It was distant, and you realized this bedroom was probably part of a suite. Kiljack got up, giving you a stern look.

You pretended not to see. You were still too messed up to make a run for it, and even if you did manage to escape, where would you go? Keeper was trying to kill you. Thanaton was not going to be happy about Prince. And Nar Shaddaa with its flashing lights and cacophony of sounds, would give you a migraine bad enough to make your head explode. You could stay here in the comfortable bed for a moment. You needed a more accurate picture of the situation, before you did anything rash. You did not need a repeat of last night.

“No, it’s fine, I don’t have to get back to the fleet, I’ll just stay here and babysit your new pet spy,” Kiljack said sharply as he returned and practically threw himself into his chair.

Lord Messor followed, still in those sweeping red and black Sith robes, that stylized skull mask in place. The Sith had several skull motifs, though to be honest, his reminded you a little of the Mandalorian mythosaur skull symbol, without the horns.

“I’m glad to see that you’re feeling better,” Lord Messor stood in the doorway. There was a slight mechanical quality to his voice that you had not noticed last night. The mask had a built-in vocoder then. Interesting.

“My lord,” you said, attempting a bow at the waist and feeling your head swoop dangerously close to your knees.

“Don’t-” He sighed. “We can do this informally, Cipher. You’re still recovering from your ordeal.”

You nodded, wincing as you leaned back into the pillows. “I appreciate that, my lord.”

“We’re in private, Cipher. You can forego the title as well.”

Thankfully, you were already lying down, because otherwise you would have fallen over in shock. You had never actually expected to hear a Sith lord say that. After Thanaton, it was a pleasant reversal. But you did not trust that magnanimity.

If Messor and Kiljack knew about the “extra” missions you did, then they had to have a fairly accurate psychological profile of you. They had to know that people who forced you into bad situations ended up having freak accidents. Being polite was just a good way to manage you. You had no illusions about the altruistic natures of moffs and Sith lords. But you could appreciate the effort and you would work with good manners. This was certainly better than spending an hour being shouted at by Darth Thanaton.

You waited for one of the men to speak. They were the ones who wanted you here, after all.

“You were recently tasked by Darth Thanaton to sabotage our strategic efforts on Hoth and Voss. You were assigned to Darth Thanaton by Imperial Intelligence, but that does not mean Imperial Intelligence condones his actions. However, as Thanaton is a member of the Dark Council, politics must come into play.” Messor’s hands twitched. He wasn’t wearing the gauntlets today. He had large hands, dark skin, and thick callouses, probably from handling weapons.

“So someone in Imperial Intelligence tipped you off?”

“Your...Keeper saw fit to warn me,” Kiljack said, fingers steepled.

You frowned. “But not Lord Messor.”

“I think you’ve already figured out that Messor and I are...exaggerating our feud.” Kiljack gave a wry smile. “But that is very guarded knowledge.”

“Yes,” you nodded, and then winced, because you did not need to be bobbing your injured head like an idiot bird. Your brain had taken enough of a blending.

A secret political alliance gave them an interesting cover and access to a wider range of intelligence. But Moff Kiljack did not have the wealth and prestige that Lord Messor did. He would be at a fundamental disadvantage. A Sith lord was not likely to trust anyone outside their control. There were a lot of disadvantages to this tactic and you could not see a clear payoff. You sat with that for a moment. There was an important reason for their ruse, though you doubted they would tell you anything but a plausible cover story today. But the layout of the game started to form. You looked at the empty spaces, trying to find the details that didn’t make sense.

...There it was. There was a third party in play, aiding and abetting this ruse. Someone with enough clout to help Kiljack get his promotion. Someone that even Keeper did not want to cross...

Another Dark Council member then. And given Kiljack and Messor’s military interests and mostly low-key behavior, you had a good idea whom that Council Member was, though again, not why they were using this exact ruse. But if Kiljack’s patron was who you thought it was, you did not blame Keeper for wanting to stay on his good side.

But you were also pretty sure that you were not supposed to survive that meeting with Thanaton yesterday. The exchange would go something like this:

“Send me another minion, peon!”

“I’m so sorry, your Decrepit-ness, you killed my only available agent and we’re very shorthanded! There’s no one else to send. You’ll have to wait.”

Keeper would be off the hook with Thanaton and Kiljack’s patron. You would be dead. Three problems solved.

Except you were alive, and no problems were solved. You looked up to see Kiljack studying your face.

“Do you suspect that Keeper knows the feud is fabricated?”

“No. That’s very exclusive knowledge,” Messor said without a trace of doubt.

You wondered how he could be so confident – not because he wasn’t ruthless – but because your business was secrets: keeping them, stealing them, rooting them out. If people wanted information badly enough, they would find a way to get it. No matter how well you thought you covered your tracks. Your stomach soured a little at that thought. They’d figured out some of your secrets. You’d have to return the favor, if only for your own pride. And maybe some leverage.

“So you want to recruit me as a double agent against Thanaton,” you said.

“Partially,” Messor admitted. “But I had a more permanent offer in mind for you.” He cleared his throat. “My current intelligence chief will be retiring soon. You were recommended to us.”

You blinked. “I can’t just quit Imperial Intelligence, believe me, I’ve tried,” you blurted out.

“You can if you have the right patronage,” Kiljack said. And he had some experience there, having gone from Sith apprentice to moff.

“You want me to help you bring down Thanaton, get you onto the Dark Council, and then you’ll hire me?” Your lips twitched at that tall order. Sith expectations.

“I will hire you now as a house intelligence agent, at double your current pay with all the usual amenities one expects from the well-to-do estate of a Sith lord,” Messor said. “Promotion to intelligence chief pending results.”

That would have been extremely generous, except Imperial Intelligence was criminally cheap. Sure you had some good benefits, but they didn’t have to be competitive when their employees literally weren’t allowed to quit. Still, it was not a bad offer. Better than a lot of the alternatives.

Messor continued. “Handling Thanaton and the Council are longer term problems. If we succeed on Hoth and Voss, I will have enough clout to extract you intact from the employ of Imperial Intelligence. And it will be easier since you’re already assigned to me: possession is nine tenths of the law.”

You sat with that for a few seconds. You could play the long game, letting Thanaton think you had wormed your way into Messor’s confidence. That would sit well with Keeper – it kept him out of the hotseat. You could go back to Keeper and see which way he wanted you to go – for intel purposes only - and then do whatever you wanted anyway. You could say no outright, and get shot in the head by Kiljack…

“You have questions,” Messor said, still keeping his distance.

“How long have you been tracking me? And what brought me to your attention?”

“A man once called “Sparrow” recommended you to us a year ago. He is around here if you want to catch up later.”

You sighed, of course Sparrow was still alive. That explained a lot. He knew you well enough to guess which missions you had purposefully altered. He knew your expertise well enough to conjecture methodology. That he shared this information with a strange Sith lord should not have surprised you entirely. The former Cipher 7 was a skilled assassin; he’d been declared KIA with his brother two years ago. But it seemed he had found a safe haven here.

“His brother?”

“Didn’t want to work with us. No one was going to force him. He took a shuttle to Yavin 4. Sparrow visits him occasionally,” Kiljack said.

“Why me?” You asked, not because you doubted your abilities, but because you still did not quite understand how this coalition worked.

Messor was silent for a moment. “You are a reasonable woman. And looking at your track record, we thought your methods would align with ours.”

“And why do you think that?” You asked.

“The Rancor Incident,” Kiljack said with a smirk.

You kept your face neutral.

“Lord Vilhus was there, a very nasty individual. But the casualty list also included Ieyak the Butcher, Margrene the Bloody, General Arus, Enso Chain-Maker, and Lord Casten. Coincidentally, none of the slaves, servers, or civilian bystanders were hurt. And everyone thought it was just a terrible accident. That took planning, skill, and finesse.”

You stared at your lap, trying to remember if any of those people had good or bad ties to House Messor. Vilhus wasn’t anyone’s friend and Arus wasn’t related. Casten might have attended the Academy at the same time as Messor. You pondered that connection.

Because once you’d had a close...friend, a lower ranking analyst in Imperial Intelligence. A smart and pretty Twi’lek who didn’t deserve the things Lord Vilhus did to her. Lord Vilhus was a Sith lord and could do as he pleased to those weaker than him. So when you saw him there and that rancor… It was just an opportunity.

You looked up to see Kiljack studying you intently. “None of them were allies to House Messor or myself,” he told you.

“Am I...broadcasting?” You asked, trying to make sure your mind was quiet.

“No, it’s just the next logical question,” Kiljack said. He cleared his throat. “But there’s something else we need to address.”

“You’re a Sensitive,” Messor said.

You winced. Of course they’d picked that up yesterday. “A little. Nothing kinetic level, just intuitive boosts every now and again. Came along later in life.” Though it still might be enough to get you sent to Korriban. And now they knew. Which was a manageable thing. You knew about their fake feud, they knew about your force sensitivity. Mutually-assured destruction ensured that the balance of power remained less complicated.

Messor nodded. “Kiljack is very good at shielding. You should consult him about how to better protect your mind.”

Kiljack gave Messor a side-eyed squint, but did not protest.

Accept the offer, take a hard job, and maybe get out from under Keeper’s thumb. Or decline and end up dead. It wasn’t much of a choice.

“What do I have to do to sign on?” You asked.

**

Different Sith lords had their ways of ensuring loyalty, or at least compliance. You had undergone years of conditioning to be kept under the authority of Imperial Intelligence. A lot of that conditioning had come undone in your term as an active operative. You had worked hard to slough the restraints that would have otherwise hobbled your thinking. They might have had your service, but your mind was your own. Ciphers had a lot of leeway to run operations as they saw fit, because an obedient drone could not do their job. But there were still ticks, involuntary habits ingrained in your mind, pathways worn in by years of unpleasant reinforcement. Oh, you weren’t loyal to Imperial Intelligence, but you knew to instantly bow your head to a “superior,” to mask your emotions with a lie, and that the mission came first at the expense of all else... You knew these things in your bones, because of the conditioning. And you understood intimately how those rituals did psychological damage.

So when Lord Messor stepped into the room and drew closer, you prepared yourself for something unpleasant.

“Give me your hand, the flesh one.”

Permanently, or just to hold? You wanted to ask, but you kept your mouth shut and extended your right hand. He took it gently between his palms. His skin was warm and rough. You swallowed, preparing to be overwhelmed by your reaction to the Sith.

The world turned black.

Then heat and light poured into your skull, a waterfall rushing through you, and you screamed under the torrent. It cut through your perception, and tethered something in your head, to that little spot of intuition that always knew when a weapon was being drawn or when someone was lying to you. That metaphysical aperture expanded, wedged open by the hooks of Messor’s connection. He was in your head, and for a moment, you were face down on the dining room table, those claws tracing along your spine while he pinned you there, while you squeezed your thighs together, squirming at his touch…

Then you felt the weight on your left arm, felt Messor squeeze your right hand, and you forced your eyes open.

Kiljack held you to the bed, your left hand pinned over your head.

You could feel Messor through the force. He was in your mind, had his own private backdoor in, a new sort of violation. And that realization enraged you. Snarling, you thrashed, “You bastard! Get the hell out of my head!”

“If you shield well, I can’t see what’s in your head,” he said calmly. “And I won’t go looking.”

Cursing, you lunged at him, but Kiljack held you down, his full weight on your body.

“It’s not mind control, it’s a minor force bond,” Messor said, tone even.

So this was how he kept Kiljack in line. And you had just willingly submitted yourself to the same treatment. Maybe death was preferable. Fury overtook you and you tried to throw Kiljack off you. When he didn’t budge, you sunk your teeth into Kiljack’s shoulder.

He jerked, then braced himself, hand tightening on your throat. “I thought I told you to be more careful with those teeth,” he rasped, pupils huge.

You waited for the leash or the neural bolt.

It’s not a leash. It goes both ways. And it fades with time. Messor said quietly in your head. Also, if you keep biting Kiljack, he’s going to choke you out.

Groaning, you released the moff, feeling his fingers begin to loosen around your neck. You kriffing piece of sarlaac scum! I’m going to feed you your teeth!

“I hope you’re talking to Messor, because you’re not in any position to threaten me,” Kiljack said gruffly, running his thumb over your throat, before letting go of your neck.

“You’re on the list too, don’t worry,” you hissed.

Messor released your hand, a hint of amusement in his aura. “Get some rest, Thirteen. We can talk more later.”

I know so many annoying drinking songs from dozens of planets. I will be screaming them into your skull all night!

“Charming,” Kiljack said, rubbing his temple. He glanced down at his ripped jacket and glared at you. “If you’re going to be a nuisance, you can go crawl into someone else’s bed, because-”

There was the ghost of a memory, a shirtless Kiljack laughing as he lay in the bed, another man pinned under him, like you had been, a flash of heat pulsed between your thighs-

Messor inhaled sharply.

Kiljack pinched the bridge of his nose. “I told you-” He pushed his hair back, suddenly very tired. “Just go. Your proximity is probably making things more difficult.”

“Your shoulder,” Messor said softly, he stepped out of the room and returned with a medkit.

You watched silently as Messor carefully cleaned Kiljack’s wound, and treated it with kolto.

Kiljack leaned into Messor’s hands, his head resting against Messor’s shoulder, and it clicked.

There was more than one reason why Kiljack did not betray Messor, one you had not anticipated. You gave a dry laugh, how utterly ridiculous. These stories never ended well for the Sith or their lovers. Suddenly very drained, you dropped back into the pillows.

Rest.

I hope you get eaten by a gorryl slug, you bastard. You pictured the giant carnivorous slugs of Kashyyyk, arboreal hunters that dropped onto their prey and were nearly impossible to pry off. They would exude digestive juices and slowly digest their victims. An unlucky person could take a very long time to die.

What are those- oh that is awful. I’ll have to remember that one. A low laugh in the back of your skull. Kiljack is very good at shielding. He will help you if you ask, nicely.

I’m going to gut you like a ghest.

Get some rest, Thirteen. You’ll have plenty of time to threaten me later.

[ghostshadow1312]

A Hope to Fix the Future: Intro for A Time for Change

“This....” The soft voice trails off for a moment. “This could be their last hope. You know what to do. Hopefully the timelines split in the favor of them and the world.” A nod. A flash of silver. Then, silence.

——————————————————————————————————————————

2018

A sleek black ‘67 Chevy Impala glides down the road with a rumble. Four figures sit inside. Two as if it has always been home. One as if it is the home he has embraced. And the fourth, as if it is a home he could come to love in time. These four are the Winchester brothers, their best friend Cas, and the one that they are starting to think of as a son, Jack. They are headed home after taking care of a ghoul when a flash of silver envelopes Baby. All four boys are gone.

——————————————————————————————————————————

2017

Another sleepless night for the mother Winchester. Another night spent reading John’s journal and thinking about how much her babies had changed. Another night where the offer to join the British Men of Letters seemed even more tempting than normal. She gets up to give into her sleeplessness and get some coffee. Silver light engulfs the room. Mama Winchester is gone.

——————————————————————————————————————————

2010

The ring of holy fire starts to flicker and fade as the newly revealed Archangel Gabriel watches the Winchester brothers and Castiel walk out of the warehouse door with a mixture of horror, sadness, and something that borders on indignant rage. His mind is reeling from the events of the last hour. Not only had he been outed as Gabriel, he has been scolded by the Righteous Man while his little brother and the Vessel of Lucifer watched. As he contemplates where to go from here, what path he might possibly take next, there is a flash of silver and the warehouse is silent and empty once more.

——————————————————————————————————————————

2010

Sheriff Jody Mills walks away from Bobby Singers house to think for a while. She knows she doesn’t want to go back to the place she once called home. She’s not sure if she’ll ever be able to make herself fo back into that house. She’s not sure she’ll be able to fully process the day for a very, very long time to come. She was devastated. She wanted to know why. She decided that maybe walking to the local church would help her find some peace when there is a flash of silver and the sidewalk is deserted.

——————————————————————————————————————————

2009

There are books and bottles everywhere. Sam is passed out on the couch with his face in a book. Dean went to bed an hour ago. Bobby is picking Castiel’s brain about the information he’s finding. The angel may be stiff but he’s a wealth of knowledge and lore. After a while Bobby goes to get more coffee going when there’s a silver flash and both Bobby and Castiel are gone.

——————————————————————————————————————————

2005

Sam is tucked away in a remote and quiet corner of the library. He’s currently spread several books across half the table with another several notebooks tucked amongst them. He’s fiercely scribbling down notes for one of his assignments and pointedly ignoring the text messages from Brady and Jess about some party or something. He needs to focus. The LSAT is next week and he needs a good score. His phone starts to ring and he sighs. As he reaches for it to tell them to leave him be, there is a flash of silver and the quiet corner of the library is empty.

——————————————————————————————————————————

2005

“Dean behind!” The voice of John Winchester and the sound of a shotgun both ring through the forest. His eldest boy, Dean, is helping him track down a particularly nasty ghost in the pine forests down south. They’re having issues tracking down the bones to burn and the ghost is getting very angry. Very quickly. They make several more attempts but soon the ghost has both of them pinned to the trees. Just when it looks like it’s the end of these two, there’s a flash of silver and both men are gone. And the ghost has been moved along.

——————————————————————————————————————————

Somewhere at Sometime not now disclosed or ever to be disclosed. (Aka timeless bubble)

Several bright silver flashes in a row flood the room. There are now 12 very confused people standing around a rather plush room. There are nine comfy chairs in a vaguely U shaped arrangement. There’s several large pillows across the floor. Everything is facing a large screen. The elder set of Winchester brothers as well as their Castiel look around and seem much calmer than the others in the room. Jack is very clearly curious but sticks close to the Boys and Cas. Mary looks highly confused and holds John’s journal closer to her chest. She’s looking at Sam and Dean but hesitates to go over because of Jack being an unknown to her. Gabriel is already frustrated because he has found he can’t snap himself out of there and Jody looks tired. And done. She goes ahead and plops down into one of the chairs to let someone else sort it out this time.

Cas, Sam, and Dean are the next to sit down and Sam guides Jack to sit in front of them to keep him close. After a few moments Mary, though she’s still unsure who Jack is, sits next to him on the floor keeping closer to Dean. Bobby, after looking around, nods to the boys and pulls Castiel to the chairs next to Jody and sits down tugging Castiel into the chair next to him. He spots Gabriel and recognizes him from the Trickster hunt with the boys. “You there. Come on and sit. Obviously you can’t get out of here right now.” Gabriel looks at him for a minute before sighing and sitting on the floor in front of Jody and Castiel. “Fine old man. But as soon as I can I’m out of here. I’ve had enough of being trapped by Winchester’s.” Sam looks at Gabriel with a soft look. “For once this isn’t us. I’m not sure what’s going on but I’m sure we’ll figure it out soon.” The younger Sam looks around nervously he still has his notebook and pen for his notes in hand. He recognizes Bobby and sits in the chair next to him while giving his older self a curious look. He seems to be pointedly ignoring the fact that his brother and father are in the room.

John and Dean are still in fight mode when they land in the room. Dean is the first to realize the change of scenery. When John realizes that they’re not still in the forest it does nothing to deescalate his fight instincts. He starts reaching for the pistol in his belt as Dean spots the younger of the two Sams. “Wait dad no! Look its Sammy!” The younger Dean tries to pull the gun away from John, who’s currently yelling that “That’s not Sammy” and “Someone better tell me what’s going on here!”, the older Dean gets up from his chair and crosses the room before helping his younger self disarm and restrain his father.

There’s another flash of silver and there’s a smirking redhead in the middle of the room. She’s short, dressed in mostly black, with sharp grey-blue eyes that clearly pick up every detail very quickly. “Well. They did gather the right people to make sure I can help then.” She looks over at John struggling against the Deans. “Oh no no no. We can’t have that Johnny Boy.” There’s a soft snap and John is in the seat on the end of the U, duct tape over his mouth and held into place in the chair with some rope. She directs both Deans back to their seats. The younger one taking the seat between his father and his little brother. Older Sam is the first to speak up. “So. You mentioned a “Them”. Who are they?” “And for that matter who are you?” demands Bobby.

The girl smiles. “I’m glad you asked. I’m Raven, the apprentice of the Fates, fixer of timelines, and watcher of the multiverse. The ladies of Fate have sent me to you because you are the people who can fix the timeline and hopefully save even more people than you already do and have. And for that, I have something for us to watch.” The older Winchester’s groan but she ignores them for the moment. “To clarify some things. While we are here, your every need will be catered to. Food, drink, sleep, etc. Also. We have some duplicates here. So while we are here watching the show the older Winchester brothers will be Sam and Dean. The younger ones will be Sammy and De. And the Castiel from Sam and Dean’s time will be Cas while the one from 2009 will be Castiel. Any questions?” She summons the remote to her hand and the screen on the wall flickers to life. “No? Well. Then let’s start at the beginning.”

[dingoat]

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”  That’s the snapped answer one would get, if they asked Watcher Five directly about the ‘flagpole incident’ that Thirteen so delighted in alluding to. “It’s not my problem if he still doesn’t understand that he needed to better compensate for the possibility of a shifting updraught, or that half of the point of the exercise was to prepare for the chance that during a hazardous mission I could be taken out of the picture at any moment. But he likes to behave as though he can hold this over my head, as though he can influence and therefore threaten my reputation, as if every opportunity currently presented to him didn’t hinge directly upon my direction…”

Five would shake his head with a tight little scowl, an artfully perfected act. “I’ll have to have another word or two with him. I daresay there’s something he’s trying to gain, if he’s gone back to spouting that old story around the place. Pay it no heed.”

But Five’s memory of the incident paints a decidedly different picture.

No matter how hard he tries to smother it, rewrite the events in his own mind, he hasn’t yet managed to do away with the sick, tight feeling in his guts whenever that particular exercise is brought up.

---

Every Cipher has to put a great deal of trust in their Watcher, if they are to meet any measure of success. They have to trust that they don’t need the full picture, that they will be given what information is relevant and necessary, they have to trust that they will be directed toward what they need to focus on, that the parameters set for them, difficult or painful or unpalatable as they may seem, will always be with a bigger picture in mind that they need not be privy to. Always for the greater good.

And Cipher Thirteen was part of a program that necessitated an unprecedented level of trust.

Watcher Five reveled in it. He was just as delighted as his new charge to explore the new possibilities that Imperial Intelligence had to work with, just as hungry to push the limits and test the boundaries. But his excitement came with an edge; a new avenue of power, a new method of control. One couldn’t exactly call him reckless, he was far too methodical in the planning of his exercises for that. But some might consider the fact that he preferred to test Thirteen’s abilities in situ as an unnecessary risk.

Five would argue that utilizing the full extent of terrain that Kaas City and its surrounds had to offer was invaluable in regard to training purposes, and he’d argued long, hard and frequently enough, with impressive enough results to back up his words, that Keeper no longer tried to curb and redirect his enthusiasm.

He was expecting the flight to run through without a hitch, as every other one had. Thirteen had been put through every area before, after all, just not following the particular route Five had mapped out for him this time around. Five had assured him he’d calculated it down to the second, boasted that if Thirteen could maintain a steady speed he could operate his side of the exercise with his eyes shut.

Five was confident, and Thirteen trusted him.

Five was confident, and he didn’t think the comm call from a fellow Agent would impact his response time in the slightest.

---

Thirteen had been given the option of a running start, or to be pushed off the ledge. He’d chosen to be pushed, if for no other reason than to see the look Five got in his eye when he shoved him backward, naked, into the yawning chasm beneath them.

There was as much glory in falling as there was in flight, and Thirteen was able to experience the best of both worlds and everything in between as Five tracked his progress from his monitor and controlled his shapeshifts to best fit the situation. A man one moment, tall and lean and fit, a brilliant beast the next, impossibly huge and brimming with strength and chaotic energy. Then small and lithe, building up speed and angling his wings and body vertically to slot through a narrow pass, feeling the change come on again as he exited the crevice at the precise moment that let him kick off the rocky wall with legs that were both humanoid and reptilian, and land with precision on a scaffolding beam overlooking one of the great unfinished Sith monuments being worked on below. Wings turned back to arms, human feet found purchase on the textured metal surface, and then he launched again, ready for the agile hawkbat shape again that would let him catch a thermal and send him once more skyward.

He was ready.

Any second now.

Five was really cutting a fine line with this one, wasn’t he?

If he wasn’t careful someone working down there was going to see-

Five Five Five where are you what are you doing that pole is coming awfully cl---

Thirteen had trusted, trusted implicitly that Five knew what he was doing, that making such a close call was all part of the exercise. He encouraged it half the time, after all, the element of danger being something they both enjoyed to a slightly irrational degree. It was impossibly difficult to believe that his Watcher would actually allow him to become skewered on a flagpole over half a klick up, even if, in the last half second, that absolutely looked to be the case. He should have reacted sooner, but the idea that Five would knowingly let him be damaged was so unthinkable… Thirteen shouted voicelessly into the rush of wind as he tried to twist away mid-air, suddenly not knowing if the plan was for him to simply keep falling or to try and grab a hold of the pole; in that half second his body contorted, shrunk down, his holler turning into an animal screech, but he was already moving wrong and the next thing he knew was a shock of pain that nearly blacked him out on the spot, and he suddenly couldn’t move.

Reflexively, he tried to flap away, but only one wing was moving and that action blistered so much agony through his chest that he immediately gave up and hung limp, only for the pressure of sagging in place to become rapidly unbearable as well. He wrapped his good wing around the post, clung desperately for purchase with his legs and beak, and waited while stars spun in his vision.

---

“Well make sure you send it along as soon as y-“

Five stared at his tracking screen and immediately ended the call as his heart leapt into his throat.

Thirteen had stopped moving.

Why had he stopped moving? For a few furious seconds Watcher Five’s eyes, wide with unprecedented uncertainty, roved his monitoring equipment. The shift had gone through successfully, all of his Cipher’s readings demonstrated that he’d reacted properly to the implant’s signals, his heart rate was up though and his…

Five didn’t bother looking any further to try and determine remotely what might be wrong. He was in his speeder in a heartbeat, traveling at a speed that would earn a six digit fine to anyone else in any other circumstance. And he knew; he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’d made an error, that he’d let his attention lapse for a few crucial seconds, that he’d cut it too fine and he’d triggered Thirteen’s change too late. He knew, when he saw his precious hawkbat wrapped around a flagpole, that it was his fault. Shame and loathing twisted his insides into churning acid, and as he set his speeder to hover his hands were shaking. Thirteen’s normally green eyes were bright, solid silver, and he thrashed and cried out and hooked his beak into Five’s hands as his Watcher attempted to pry him free. His beautiful sleek body patterned in purple and gold was wet and red, and Five realised that the pole had gone through him twice, one of his wings wrenched and twisted and stuck taut behind him.

Five realised that pulling the bat free was not an option, not if he wasn’t going to bleed out in the time it took to get him to the med labs.

It almost took too long to laser cut through the top of the flagpole as it was, and there was smoke pouring from underneath Five’s speeder when he skidded up to the landing pad outside Intelligence headquarters, bowling the taxi droid clean over the edge.

Guilt was not an emotion Five knew how to handle particularly well, and in the days that followed he was absolutely intolerable. His temper was hot, and his was just as quick with his fist as he was with the sharp edge of his tongue. He made sure that the recruit who’d commed him during the training exercise was fired, for perfectly sound and unrelated reasons. The Fixer who’d asked too many questions about what had happened found themselves stationed on Balmorra for seventeen months. The workers in the expansion district, upon whom Five had officially laid blame for the incident in his report, found themselves with pages of new documents to fill at the commencement of every day’s work outlining all of their communication relays, so that their signals wouldn’t ‘interfere’ with Intelligence work ever again. The project manager who argued about it being a waste of time had a nasty fall the following week.  Keeper finally agreed to Five’s insistence that they fast-track development of a system that allowed the Ciphers to control their implants internally, and Thirteen was to be the first fitted with the new tech.

Thirteen himself was left wanting for absolutely nothing during his recovery in Five’s Citadel apartment.

And Watcher Five’s comm was set to silent. Never again was it answered during any mission in which he was overseeing Thirteen’s work… not that he had to, after long. Balmorra was getting awfully full of recruits who’d tried to contact Five at the wrong time.

[ @halibellecter​, ask and ye shall receive! Five, of course, is my horrible character and Thirteen belongs to @askshivanulegacy​ who maintains all right to veto/retcon as necessary! These guys exist in our werewolf au where Imperial Intelligence has some very specialised technology and procedures for their top Cipher agents. Five and Thirteen are the best of the best of the best, sir, with honours... which means that for anyone on the other side of the conflict (or, frankly, on the other side of Five’s moods) they are the absolute worst. ]

[tams-writeblr]

The Rise of Skywalker - Ending Fixer upper

So, um, I kinda did a thing? I was super disappointed by the ending of The Rise of Skywalker and I couldn't really get over it, until I fixed it. Just for me, just for my own peace of mind. It's not good. English is not my first language, I initially wrote this in German and it's a little better there. I wrote this in between going to the hospital (my dad is still hospitalized after his stroke on Dec. 21th) and work and taking care of my mother so it may seem inconsistent at times since I sometimes could only write two sentences before hurrying to the next appointment. But I have the urge to share this, somehow. I don't want that writing to go wasted and maybe, just maybe someone out there feels better after reading this too. Shout-out to all the great fan fiction writers out there, that made the time after TROS more endurable especially to @shruggyben that's trying to fix the whole mess that TROS is in their fan fiction.

Word count: 4.569

#BenDeservesBetter

_____________________________________________________________

Ben's torso collapsed feebly on the ground.

Rey didn't have the slightest chance to catch him but her hands were right at his chest and neck. “Ben! What's wrong with you?“

But Ben Solo couldn't answer. Her words only got through to him like through a long tunnel. Well, seems this is the end, it crossed his mind. But he wasn't afraid of death. He got ready to become one with the force. Maybe he would finally be reunited with his mother, for sure with Luke. And maybe, if he allowed him to, he would finally be able to speak to his grandfather Anakin. The force wrapped comfortably warm around his heart and his soul. Using the last of his strength, he got a glimpse of Rey beautiful, gracious face. No, he didn't want to see tears on it. Of course, Rey, she won't be lonely without me, will she? She does have her friends. She was ready to die for those people up there. They'll be good to her, right?

“Of course they'll be good to her. But nevertheless Rey will be lonely without you. Have you already forgotten what Palpatine just revealed to you?“

Ben twirled around. Without any warning he found himself within a blazing white light. He couldn't identify a room and the voice he had heard was unknown to him until now.

Behind him stood a young man with wavy brown hair.

Ben's lips parted and he gasped for air in disbelieve. „Are you … Anakin?“

The man nodded and smiled softly. “Finally you are listening to me. I'm impressed by you capabilities. If only I had had half your abilities and half your dedication, maybe I could have saved your grandmother Padme from death too.”

“I wanted Rey to live. She deserves it more than me. But … I don't want her to be lonely. She will get over it, won't she?”

Anakin looked down. “You are two pieces of the whole. Do you know the term ghost pain? When I was alive I lost all my lips and even with the best prostheses I got, I kept on feeling pain in places that weren't even there anymore. And I fear, that Rey will feel that too.”

“No!”, Ben screamed at this grandfather, his idol, at the top of his lungs. “I won't allow that! Send me back to her! She must not suffer! She doesn't deserve this!”

“No, she doesn't.”

Ben froze. Without turning his head he set his eyes on a second person that appeared out of nothing on Anakin's left. “Mother”, slipped out of his mouth. Red spots spread on his cheeks, endless pain mirrored from his face.

“That's why I am here.” Leia walked towards her son. Her face was full of determination – and love. “Ben, I have seen this day coming when I finished my training as a Jedi. I swore off the force to protect you, to protect my then unborn son. I collected my energy all my life for this moment. Give me your hand.”

Hastily Ben grabbed both hands of his mother. “I'm so sorry. There are so many things I need to tell you.”

But Leia shook calmly her head. “This is not the time for that. Rey is worried about you. But bear in mind, my son, when you need me, I'll always be there for you.”

“All of us.”

Ben looked up watching into the faces of dozens of Jedi, whole generations of them. They all nodded cheering at him. In the front row Anakin and Luke Skywalker.

“And now take my force and be there for Rey. She needs you.”

Ben's eyelids started flickering and his brown eyes opened.

“Good gracious Ben, are you alright? I was so afraid you'd die!”

Ben found Rey's worried glimpse. She had tears in her eyes but hadn't started crying yet. Ben smiled. “No, rubbish. It just crossed my mind that I have to face your friends now. And for them I'm still Supreme Leader Kylo Ren.” Painfully he sat up. Too bad, his mother wasn't able to heal his broken bones.

“Of course I'm going to explain everything to them. When I say it's okay, they'll accept that.”

But Ben only shook his head. “No Rey. I don't want that. They are right. I've done so many unforgivable things. I'm the last one, that's gonna forgive me. I have to receive my just punishment.

“But you've been possessed by the dark side - “

“But I have let myself be seduced by the dark side”, he cut her word harshly. “I can’t shuffle out of my responsibility.”

Rey yielded some inches away from him. He had never been so harsh to her before. “I am not going to accept that”, she said determined and got on her feet. Troublesome she walked over to one of the dead Sith guards and ripped his cloak. “Leave your clothes here and escape. You shouldn't struggle finding a ship in this tumult. I am going to tell everybody that you saved my life and became one with the force. Only someone with a really pure heart can become one with the force. And if they need evidence, they'll find your clothes here. I don't think that anyone will come check, but we should play it save.” With her face averted Rey held out the long, black cloak to Ben.

Ben ran his fingers through his hair and pulled his brows towards his hairline. “You want me to get undressed? That's not quiet the right moment for that, is it?”

Rey countered his words with a strict view of her eyes. “It is not the time for some Solo-joke! I did explain my plan to you, didn't I? To calm you, I'm going back to my ship and return to the resistance's base.” Her eyes got softer when Ben finally took the cloak out of her hand. “I am going to find you.”

“I know”, Ben answered and looked after her, as she vanished form the cave system. Painful he got out of his clothes and wrapped the heavy cloak around his body. It had to look natural, if really somebody came to check Rey's story, so he draped his clothes like he had died lying on the ground, like he almost did. Should he tell Rey the truth someday? He limped his way back, had no idea how he managed to climb the iron chains back to the top and reached the surface as the last ship of the resistance made his jump into hyperspace. Around him, everything was in flames. It smelled like spilled fuel and burned, organic material. Soon Ben found an X-wing that was taken from the sky by Palpatine's force flashes. The pilot was sadly decreased but the ship was in a good enough condition to not call it suicide to fly off with it. So Ben pulled her out of the cockpit and took of her helmet – red seven was her identification. Ben closed the green eyes of the pilot and put on her helmet. Then he got into the ship and hasty started all systems. But where should he go? Soon the resistance would be the new government of the galaxy, so it had to be a remote place. His mind crossed Jakku for a second. That place was so remote that even Emperor Palpatine couldn't find Rey there for over ten years.

“Tatooine”, suddenly rang Luke's voice in his head. “Go to Tatooine and find Owen and Beru Lars' hut. I was raised there. So the hut more or less yours anyway. I wasn't found there for nineteen years, while still carrying my fathers last name.”

“Tatooine”, Ben murmured. “Yet another desert dump. If Rey would be happy with that?”

“I thought it's you going into exile?”

Ben rolled his eyes. “I don't wanna talk about that now, uncle Luke, okay?”

Uncle Luke chuckled knowingly and vanished from Ben's head.

“So it's Tatooine!”

~

Ben landed the X-wing ungently yet safely on Tatooine's desert ground. Two suns stood high on the sky and burned into his pale skin. Life on a space station had taken its toll. His bare feet touched the hot sand. Not a soul was seen anywhere or … Was that a market back there on the horizon? Clunky he dragged himself through the desert, still the pilot's helmet under his arm. The market seemed to never come any closer and Ben was more than once assured, he wouldn't make it. But finally, mobilizing all of his left energy, he reached the last stand before the desert began.

An old lady served the stall and sold strange dried fruit.

“Please”, Ben panted. “I need your help.”

“Watcher!”, gasped the old lady. “Young man, sit down!” With impressing speed for her age she placed a stool right behind Ben, so that he only had to dump down. “Here, take a sip!” She placed a bottle with some red liquid on his lips.

Ben took a tiny sip and looked intensely at her. “I'm looking for the hut of Owen and Beru Lars!”

The old lady pulled her eyebrows up in surprise. Then she pulled her arms confidently into her sides. “First, you need a doctor. You are lucky, my friend Maisie owns a medidroid. I'll take you to her.” With that, she turned over her shoulder and shouted at an other stall owner: “Hey, Butchwaa! I've some small emergency over here. Could you please shut down my stand?”

Butchwaa, a humanoid, winged life form, made an approving noise in a language Ben didn't know and the old stall lady helped Ben back on his feet.

While they walked over the market towards a small settlement, she pointed at the helmet in Ben's hand. “You're from the resistance?”

Ben nodded briefly. “Yes, you might say that.”

“What happened to your stuff?”

Awkwardly Ben realized that he still was only wrapped into a single cloak and avoided the lady's glimpse embarrassed. “I can't talk about that right now.”

The woman nodded understanding and took him quietly to a small, dark mud-walled house.

~

Ben, where are you? Rey sat in the middle of a roaring celebration, her eyes closed, her mental hand pulled out to the farthest edges of the galaxy but she didn't get a response. It was so strange, usually she could always feel Ben at the back of her mind but now there was only emptiness.

“Rey!”, Finn's voice took her out of her meditation. “You should also have some fun!”

Rey opened her eyes and saw Finn, Poe and Rose standing under her den and waving with some beer jugs up to her. Finn even held two jugs in his hand, one of them was for her. Rey slowly came down to them, a small smile on her lips. She took a jug out of her friends hand and took a deep drag out of it, then she smiled labored at her friends. “Yes, it's a good day for the galaxy.” She let her view run over the celebration resistance fighters. All of them were happy and danced, drank and whispered sweet nothings to their loved ones. Only one of them let his shoulders hang even with the big golden medal, that he always dreamed to have, hanging down his neck. “Excuse me for a moment”, Rey murmured and pointed at Chewbacca with her chin. She paved her way though the celebrating folks and knelt before the Wookie.

A sad buzzing left his throat.

“I know, I'm so sorry for you, that they all left us.”

Chewie whined for a heartbreaking half of a minute and then dropped his head into his hands.

Rey looked at her hands. “Well, you know … About Ben …” She struggled with herself, could she really include him in her secret? “Ben isn't dead Chewie. I'm in contact with him. He went into exile and he's going to tell me where he is. Would you like to join me, when I got to Ben?”

A deafening relieved whining left Chewbacca's throat and Rey quickly told him to be less noisy.

“Nobody must know about it. I haven't heard of Ben yet, but I'll leave tonight. There is something else I need to do. So you'll join me?”

Chewie nodded quietly, relief and real happiness was on his face. He snatched behind his back, where he had left his bear jug. The beverage in there was already flat but he touched her jug so hard, that half of her beer slopped around.

Finally it was a happy party for even the last members of the resistance. They celebrated until deep into the night and when a small stripe of light scratched the horizon, Rey was already back on her feet.

She trailed her way through drunken bodies and overtired soldiers and finally reached Finn's den.

He was asleep on his back with his mouth wide open and his arms spread away. Loud breathing sounds left his throat. Rey had to smile. She would miss him the most, he was her best friend. She put her hand into her leather bag where she carried Luke and Leia's light sabers and the old Jedi writings with her and pulled the tiny blue fragment of a crystal out. It was a part of Luke's kyber crystal, broken from the big part of the crystal during her fight with Kylo Ren. The fragment of course was too small to fuel a light saber but if Finn was only half as force sensitive as Rey thought, he knew what to do with it. Rey leaned over her friend to place the crystal into his hand when his blanket moved.

The dark haired head of Poe Dameron came twenty centimeters out of the blanket, still a comfortable smile on his lips, his face snuggled at Finn's broad chest.

Rey wasn't surprised at most amazed. Smiling she placed the crystal between Finn's fingers and turned away from her friends. On quiet soles she sneaked through the sleeping resistance fighters.

Chewie was already at the falcon, eagerly standing at the ramp, the engine running. He asked her with a quiet roar to hurry up.

Rey stepped next to her co-pilot. “Chewie, set our course on Endor. I have to go get something there.”

The ramp of the falcon closed behind the two that left without looking back.

Chewie let the falcon fly off on half power. Him and Rey didn't want to risk being noticed and followed by someone.

But of course their action wasn't unnoticed. A former storm trouper opened his eyes as the falcon rose from the surface. Finn rubbed his eyes in disbelieve and noticed the crystal fragment in his hand. He looked at intensely it for a moment and then looked behind the falcon. Take care, Rey, he thought and pulled the crystal at his chest. We'll meet again for sure. He buried his face in his best friend's hair. Poe still was his best friend,, no matter what happened between then tonight right? Finn looked once more back to the falcon, that than made his jump into hyperspace.

“Hyperspace jump successful, autopilot activated”, Rey resumed, pulled some flip switches and stood up from the pilot's chair.

Chewie road pleased and tried to stand up too, but a muted beeping from the engine room stopped him.

“Did you hear that?”, Rey asked.

Chewie got energetic on his feet and almost ran Rey over as he passed her. He pulled the engine hatch open and pulled without effort an in protest piping BB-8 out of the shaft.

“BB-8, what are you doing here?”, Rey asked terrified. On BB-8 piping her facial features fell. “What do you mean, you listened in on us and preferred to follow us? What about Poe?” Again BB-8 piped his answer nervously. Rey’s face got soft. “Oh, of course, Poe now has other responsibilities and doesn't fly as much as you used to, but that doesn't mean he likes you any less. But to be true, I'm actually glad you're here, we didn't take a board droid with us …”

Chewbacca murmured apprehensively and BB-8 beeped in protest.

“I know you won't betray us BB. But you must not overreact when you find out where we're about to go.”

~

“Rey!” Ben startled up from a deep almost coma-like sleep.

“Good evening, my name is ZB-29, I'm your medidroid in charge. I splinted your multiply broken leg as well as stopped an inner bleeding. Against the broken rips only helps quiet and relaxation, I am afraid. I therefore ask you to stay in bed for the next five to eight days.”

Ben looked skeptically at the medidroid. An old, outdated model with rusty hinges but he hadn't expected more. And he didn't intent to listen to ZB-29. He pulled the blanket away and found his legs covered in ugly brown trousers.

“Please young man, remain laid down. Such a behavior is not beneficial for your healing. Lay down or I have to call for my master.”

“Just call her”, Ben murmured and tried to stand up but his splinted leg failed to hold him.

In this moment the old lady from the market and her friend, who introduced herself as Maisie, entered the room. “What did I tell ya, Anuk, he already tries to get lost. Nothing is so hard as a man's ingratitude!”

So Anuk was his rescuer's name. “I didn't want to get lost and I am very grateful for both your help. But I really need to go. I have to find the hut of Owen and Beru Lars!”

“Oh my, Lars, I haven't heard that name in centuries”, it slipped out of Maisie's mouth. “Beru and her man have been very good to me and my Jericho when he had that attack on the field back then. How long ago is that horrible story? At least thirty-five years. She and her man have been killed in such a horrible manner and their foster son vanished. He is reputed to have become a hero of the republic but he was never to be seen around here anymore. Anyway, new or old republic, Empire or first Order, out here that doesn't matter. We don't feel a difference here. I'm turning one hundred years soon, boy, I've seen so many systems come and go. Of us, nothing ever changed. We don't care who takes our taxes. Senators, Grand Morffes or Generals, for us as small system, nothing ever changes. We've always been the last ones of the food chain.” “Geez Maisie. He only wanted to know where the farm of those two is. Nothing about your political views. Once you feel better, boy, we'll take you there, okay? Anyway, what's your name? How do you know the Larses?”

Ben looked briefly at his hands. “I'm Ben, Luke's nephew.”

“Nephew?”, it slipped out of both women's mouths. “I didn't knew Luke had any siblings.”

“A sister”, Ben answered and smiled at Anuk. “My mother.”

Anuk and Maisie returned his smile. “Very well, then get some good rest, Ben. The farm of the Larses is empty for more than thirty-five years, it won't run away within a week.” The two women left Ben alone only with ZB-29 at his side.

Rey, Ben sent his thoughts back out traveling. Rey, I'm on Tatooine. Come here in a week. I'll transmit the exact location where we'll me to you later.

~

A week passed surprisingly fast and finally Rey landed the falcon on Tatooine, the planet, that looked so shockingly like the place she grew up on. Almost with disgust she left the falcon into the boiling sand, felt the heat of the soil through her canvas shoes.

BB-8 didn't like the sand either as he got stuck in the Sand again and again.

“A desert planet of all things”, Rey murmured an Chewie howled assuring. She had landed pretty near to the Lars moisture fare. Surprised Rey noticed, that the sand had taken over more than half of the main building. It must have been abandoned for a very long time. Sadly there was nothing to be seen of Ben. Rey killed some time with sand sledging on a metal plate and inspecting what was left of the Larses household. Then she finally heard steps above her head.

“I'm sorry, I'm late. The medidroid wouldn't let me go.”

Immediately Rey's eyes welled up in tears. “Ben”, she gasped and levitated with the help of the force the dune up.

Ben walked with a stick, wore rundown brown clothes that were way to short for him and sandals of which his toes came out. “The people around here, have been really generous to me. They took me in like I was one of their kind and shared everything with me, they could do without.”

Rey hugged Ben happily. “I'm so glad to see you. I was worried sick, when I didn't hear of you for more than a day.”

Ben places his giant left hand on Rey's hand and lightly kissed her hairline. “I was pretty much incapacitated. But ZB-29 has put me back together pretty well.”

Rey gave him her bright and shining smile and Ben forgot all the pain that had pestered his body before, the stiff leg the probably stayed like that forever and the countless new scars he had taken. This smile, this warm loving welcome, redressed him for all that. He hoped to see that smile every day for the rest of his life. Did he deserve to be happy? Probably not. But Rey did. And as long as he was the one to bring her happiness, he had a reason to be alive.

“I've got them with me”, Rey remembered impetuously and dug in her big leather bag. She pulled out Luke and Leia's lightsablers.

“You want to do it here?”, Ben asked, not without a hurt glimpse at both sabers.

Rey nodded. “Yes, I will be nice, to have them near us, wouldn't it?”

Ben wasn't quite sure about that. Jedi-relics were known to attract the force ghosts of their former owners and he didn't know if he really wanted to be haunted by his crazy uncle for the rest of his life. But he agreed with a little nod. He was physically just not able to disagree with Rey.

And so he watched her from a distance as she knelt down into the sand and placed the lightsabers next to each other. Then she placed both her hands above them and the sabers started to sink to the ground. Deeper and deeper they sank into to chilly, almost damp soil. Rey was adamant that they gave his mother and uncle a symbolic grave and bury their lightsabers there. That was a typical Rey idea, how could he have said no to that?

Rey slowly turned around and faced him. There were red dots on her cheeks but she didn't start crying yet. “There is something more I have to show you, well actually more than one thing …“First she took a grip into her bag again and pulled out a completely new lightsaber. The handle was beautifully done and from a dark material with a ring on the one end being the fuse. Rey turned the ring and a yellow light-sedge evolved.

“Yellow?”, Ben breathed doubtfully. “But yellow lightsabers … “

“Are made of refined, red kyber crystals.”, Rey ended his statement. “It's your kyber crystal. I've been on Endor to get it. It's your, if you want it. I can build myself a new lightsaber.”

But Ben only shook calmly his head. “No Rey. I don't need a lightsaber anymore. I don't want to be a warrior anymore.” He pulled his hand around her wrist and she deactivated the light-sedge again.

“Good, then I'll keep it for me for now. I hope it brings me more luck than you.” She clipped the lightsaber on her garment as she always had done with Luke's and looked shyly at her feet. “You should know, that I haven't been alone on Endor. And I'm not alone here.” She quickly looked at Ben and pointed at a place behind him with her chin.

Puzzled Ben turned around. Who should Rey take with her? Wasn't it her plan that he went into hiding? And then he recognized Chewbacca, standing next to the falcon.

BB-8 was standing next to him, beeping in stir.

Chewie protested against BB-8's objections with an unnerved barking and kicked the small round droid to the side. After that he sprinted to his good-son and pulled him into a might and hearty hug only a Wookie was able to perform.

“Chewie”, Ben gasped and dropped his stick to return the Wookie's hug. “I'm so sorry for everything … “

Chewie cut vocally his words. He didn't want to hear any excuses. Of course the loss of his best friend still did hurt but having his good-son alive and well was enough for him for now.

“He would like to stay here with us. And BB-8 too. It'll take him some time to get used to you, but he promised to stay quiet about our whereabouts.”

Ben looked leery down at the little droid that still beeped nervously and carefully kept his distance from Ben. He would have to keep a close eye at the bucket.

“So that's our new home”, Rey noted and walked back towards the main house. From that point she could see a local woman walking past them in a distance with her pack animal.

When she noticed the foreigners too, she led her beast away from the invisible path the were walking and came towards them. “How unusual to meet new people around here”, she stated in her native dialect. “But it's also nice, to see some new faces. Who are you?”

Rey turned over her shoulder to look at Ben, Chewie and BB-8. Surprised she noticed Luke and Leia's force ghosts standing right behind them. No one except from her had noticed them yet. “My name is Rey and they are Ben and Chewbacca.”

“Rey and Ben … “, echoed the native woman. “And further?”

There Ben stepped next to Rey and took her hand with a proudly swelled chest. “Skywalker, Rey and Ben Skywalker.”

Chewbacca hollered pleased and offered to help the native woman to carry her goods bring home what she accepted gladly.

Slowly the two suns of Tatooine sank behind the broad horizon. “Do you think you can get used to this place?, Ben asked, still holding Rey's hand. “I know that you hate desert planets.”

Though Rey shook her head, her eyes fixed on the two suns. “No, I don't hate them. I'm coming from such a planet. They are exactly my line.” She looked at him with a smile. “We only have to get the farm free of the sand.”

Ben nodded and smiled. He didn't know that the future would hold for them, but with Rey at his side, he knew he could face all adversities.

[mosylufanfic]

Prompt: something involving Cisco and Caitlin vs. either Ammunet or Warden Wolfe? please?

I started this last weekend and hoped to have it done within a few days, but it just kept getting longer and longer and longer . . . until I looked up and it was 8k words and your very long week was almost at an end. Hope this helps anyway. 

Also, I wrote this entire thing before I went to check the Flash wiki for something and remembered that Warden Wolfe died at the end of "True Colors." Ooops. But let's all assume that this is the reality where he somehow escaped, and go on our merry way.

Cisco on the Inside

On the other side of the bulletproof glass, against the dour grey walls of the Iron Heights visiting room, Caitlin stood out like a sunbeam in her light summer dress and yellow blazer. She looked like she should be having brunch or something, not visiting a prison.

But damn, he was glad she was here.

Cisco picked up the handset and felt his whole body relax when her voice said, "Hey," in his ear.

"Hey," he said.

"How are you?" Her anxious eyes scanned his face and chest, presumably looking for gaping  wounds.

"It hasn't been my best couple of days ever," he admitted. "But would you believe it hasn't been my worst, either?"

She made a face. "Really, how is it?"

"Food's bad, wardrobe's pretty dismal." He plucked at his orange jumpsuit. "But other than that, it's actually sort of okay. I figure I can hang in here for awhile."

She bit her lip. "That's good. Because the preliminary hearing's not set yet."

"What's taking so long?"

"I don't know," she said. "I can't believe you're even in there. I can't believe you couldn't make bail."

"That'll teach me to blow my savings on a fixer-upper Corvette off Craigslist."

"Don't make jokes. This is awful."

"Well, I mean, I did build the cold gun for Snart. And he did do a lot of crime with it. And none of his gang are around anymore, so I guess someone had to be the fall guy."

"You weren't an accomplice, you were coerced!" she said fiercely.

"We'll get it all cleared up in front of the judge," he said.

She fiddled nervously with the silver crescent moon pendant she wore and glanced over her shoulder at the guard standing against the back wall. “Are they treating you okay?”

He shrugged. "Nobody’s beaten me up yet.”

She looked horrified.

“Kidding! It’s fine. I've been able to stay off the warden's radar, so that's a good thing. Right?"

She worried the crescent moon again. "Right. Yes. Just - just keep your head down, okay?" She lowered her voice. "Don't use your P-O-W-E-R-S - "

"Shhh," he hissed as one of the guards on her side looked over at her. "Christalive, Caitlin, they're not toddlers. They can spell!"

"I'm just saying," she mumbled, cupping her hand over her mouth as if she thought they might be able to read lips, too. It was about as subtle as a brick to the head. "Don't use them."

He scowled at her. "Fine," he said. "I won't. I'll keep my nose clean and my head down and I'm gonna have a totally uneventful stay in Iron Heights."

"You promise?"

"Cross my heart and hope to - "

"No," she cut him off. "Anything but that."

"I promise," he said instead. He ran his finger along the steel-wrapped cord that connected the handset to the wall. "So, uh. How's everybody? How are you?"

"Not great," she said. "But we're not the ones in prison. We - "

A hand landed on his shoulder, and he winced. "Time's up," said a guard's voice.

Cisco wanted to slap that hand off his shoulder, but he'd just promised that he'd behave himself. Instead, he twisted around. "I thought we got half an hour."

The guard shrugged. "Warden says your time is up."

He gritted his teeth, then turned back to Caitlin. "So, I gotta go," he said.

"Now," the guard said and took the handset out of his hand and hung it up.

"Jesus," he hissed between his teeth, but he got to his feet. Caitlin was watching through the glass, her eyes wide. Come back, he mouthed.

She nodded. He let the guard shove him toward the door to the rest of the prison, but as he went through it, he looked over his shoulder again.

She was still watching him, face pale, fingers wrapped around the crescent moon pendant.

The door shut between them.

One of the worst things about being in prison was the unbelievable boredom. The inmates were told when to sleep and when to wake up and when to shower and when to eat and when to go outside and when to come in and how long to do all of those things. But within that structure, there was very little to actually occupy his mind. No machines to fix, no music to listen to, a severely limited choice of TV.

In the yard, he saw one of the other D-Block guys sitting at the picnic table, reading a book. He tapped him on the shoulder, and a guard barked, "No touching!"

Cisco yanked his hands back, holding them up, until the guard looked away. He'd forgotten about that rule.

The reader hadn't looked up. But he said, "What."

"Just, uh, wanted to know if I could borrow that when you were done."

Without looking up, he asked, "What'll you give me for it?" in a way that didn't suggest please was what he was looking for.

Cisco recalculated very, very swiftly. "Actually, you know what, I think I've read it. So never mind."

The reader grunted and turned a page.

He fiddled with the cuffs of his jumpsuit and asked another D-Block inmate, "So, when is our library day again?" They got an hour in the prison library once a week.

"Friday, but you're not missing anything. They won't give us anything good. No Playboy, no Guns & Ammo. Not even nasty lady-porn books. Just fucking Martha Stewart and cat mysteries and shit."

"You dissin' on Martha?" a third guy growled, and Cisco pretended he wanted to go use the hand weights because even on his third day, he could tell when someone felt like fighting.

Barry had filled him in on a lot of how prison worked, from his dad's experiences and his own time in there, but Cisco was also a lifetime watcher-of-currents, and he knew how to avoid sharks.

Or if he couldn't avoid them, at least he knew how to swim alongside them so peacefully that they didn't think about eating him.

He nodded at the other guy doing curls. His name was Brixton and they'd sat at the same table for dinner the night before.

"Hey, man," Brixton said under the noise of the scuffle on the other side of the yard, and the guards rushing in to break it up. "How's the tat?"

Cisco rolled his shoulder a little and rubbed his chest through the jumpsuit. "Still sore. Little itchy." Two days before getting arrested and put in prison was probably about the worst time to get your very first tattoo, but he hadn't exactly had a choice in the matter.

"You wanna take care of those." Brixton pointed at a star inked just below his elbow. "When I got that one, it got infected."

"Eeesh," Cisco said. "Looks okay now, though."

"My lady put witch hazel on it until it healed up. Worked like a dream."

"You think they'll give me witch hazel in the infirmary?"

"That's a dream too," Brixton said, picking out his weights. He did a few curls with a weight the size of Cisco's head, as the yard went quiet again after the fighters had been taken away. "Saw you got a visitor today."

"Yep," Cisco said, picking up one of the available weights, testing it in his hand. He glanced around, set it down, and picked up the next largest size before settling in for his first set of bicep curls.

"She was fine. Was that your lady?"

“Don’t have a lady.” The pang he felt at saying it was starting to dull. It had been three months since he and Cynthia had called it quits, after he’d turned down Breacher’s job offer in the spring. "The woman who visited - she’s just a friend."

Brixton smirked. "Can't seal the deal?"

"Never tried. Like I said, friends." He started doing curls, counting out the Fibonacci sequence in his head.

He snorted. "Sure, whatever."

Cisco gritted his teeth, focusing on his counting. Was he on the five set, or the eight set?

"Those buttoned-up types always get me," Brixton said dreamily. "Makes you wonder what she'll do when you rip off those buttons. You think she's a screamer? Ahhhh, even if she's not, I could make it happen."

Cisco lost count and switched arms. "You remember the part where she's my friend?"

"Relax, man, I'm just speculating."

"You're talking about her like she's a piece of meat."

"You telling me how to talk now?"

He dropped the weight to the cement yard with a clang and stood. "I'm telling you to talk more respectfully about a human woman, is what I'm telling you."

Brixton dropped his weight too, with a much louder clang, and unfolded himself to a much greater height than Cisco. "Say that again."

Cisco stepped to him, clenching his jaw. "Shut your face. About my friend."

Brixton punched him. Or he tried, anyway. Cisco ducked and tackled him around the waist. it was like running into a slab of meat. And then it was like the slab of meat picked him up and flicked him four feet away.

He landed on his ass, skidding across the cement in a way that promised road rash later on, when his adrenaline had burned off. He looked up to see Brixton charging, and he instinctively flung out his arm and threw a blast.

As Brixton reeled backward and guards charged in, he said, "Oh, shit."

Warden Wolfe sat across the table, stone-faced and silent. Behind Cisco’s shoulders, the guards stood with the same expressions.

Cisco sat in the middle, sore from the fight, his head hanging. "Look," he said, picking at his thumbnail. "Uh, I'm sorry. And I won't do it again."

"Prison regulations state that metas cannot be held in the general population.” Warden Wolfe flipped through the file in front of him. “You didn't disclose your meta status upon arrest."

"I didn't think it was relevant!"

Wolfe gave him a hard look.

Cisco swallowed. "I mean, it didn't have anything to do with what I was arrested for. Sir."

"Failure to disclose meta status is a misdemeanor."

"Oh, that's not bad. That's, like, community service? I'll build houses or something."

If possible, the warden's face went harder.

"Come on, it doesn't have to be a thing. Sir. I swear I'll stay away from that guy, I won't use them again - "

"Them?"

"It," Cisco said hastily. "It, singular. I just have the one. Just one meta ability."

Wolfe eyed him coldly. "One or five or fifty, it doesn't matter. Prison regulations state that metas are to be held in the meta wing." He jerked his chin at the guards, who grabbed Cisco by each elbow and pulled him to his feet.

“Wait,” Cisco said. “What about - do I get visitors?”

“Warden’s discretion,” Wolfe said, making a note in his file.

Caitlin turned away from the prison door, pulling out her phone. “He’s been in the meta wing since last night,” she growled to the person on the other end of the line. “I hope you’re happy.” She listened for a moment, and said, “No, I wasn’t able to see him. They said maybe tomorrow. Give me a moment.”

She walked around the corner to where her car was parked, as close to the prison's north wall as permitted. She stood looking up at the high walls, the barbed wire, the merciless guard towers. “Please be okay,” she whispered, twisting her moon necklace in her fingers.

Cisco regretted ever complaining about boredom in gen-pop. Shit, gen-pop had been a never-ending pachanga compared to the meta wing. Their food got delivered to them on trays and they got half an hour of yard time a day, each of them with a guard looming over them and power-dampening cuffs on their wrists. Otherwise, they were confined to their cells. No library privileges or weight room time.

“Warden’s discretion,” was the only answer he ever got when he asked about visiting hours. But from the little sneers and snorts that he heard from the other cells, he gathered that hardly anybody got to see their visitors.

When he found himself doing push-ups in his cell to pass the time, he understood how dudes got so jacked in prison.

It was a different set of guards in the meta wing, too. The gen-pop guards were okay. Still prison guards, obviously, so it wasn't like they were anybody's best friend. But they could be friendly and they would call you by your last name, at least.

The meta-wing guards were harder-faced, and called everyone "inmate," and spoke mostly in orders. When Cisco asked a question or made some comment, all he got was a one-word answer or a flick of the eyes in response.

If they responded at all.

It was a full day before he saw Warden Wolfe again, and when he did, he jumped up from his cot so fast, he got dizzy. "Hey!" he yelled through the bars. "Hey, Warden! Did I get any visitors? Hey! It was visiting day, did I get a visitor?"

"Yes," Wolfe said.

"Why didn't I see her, then? I get a half an hour on visiting day, up to four hours a month."

"That's gen-pop," the warden said. "You're in meta wing. Visitors are at my discretion only."

"I want to see my visitor," Cisco said. "I want to see her next time she comes. And I want to get a library book or something, I'm bored as hell."

Wolfe turned his back and left the meta wing.

Nothing daunted, Cisco kept it up whenever he saw a guard, or the warden, asking to see his visitor, asking for something to read or write or do, asking for more time in the yard or a chance to go the weight room.

The way the cells were arranged, he couldn't really see and barely even talk to the other metas confined with him. He did see them in the yard, during their half hour. Mostly they all kept to themselves, but one day, one of them gestured at him. "Mijo, come here."

Her name was Fabiana Duarte. She was plump and middle-aged, with streaks of grey in her black hair and comfortably wrinkly skin a shade or two darker than his. She gave off the general air of a daycare teacher.

He was kind of sure she was the one who'd stolen thousands and thousands of dollars by lifting people's bank cards and reading their minds for the PINs.

But she looked like one of his aunties and her dampener cuffs were brightly lit, and their guards were sharing a cigarette in the shade, so he went.

She started to put her hand on his arm but a guard barked "No touching" and they stepped back from each other.

"Mira," she said. "I'm going to give you a hint for your own good. Knock it off with the asking for stuff."

It was pretty sweet of her to try and save him from himself, but he said, "No, no way. That's all, like, basic stuff. It's my right as a U.S. citizen to - "

She snorted. "You're not a U.S. citizen anymore. You're an inmate of the Iron Heights meta wing."

"Well, we should still have rights. Like, to more exercise than walking around this yard, or to get stuff from the library, or - "

Thoroughly exasperated now, she said, "Are you stupid or do you just like pain?"

He blinked at her. "What do you mean?"

A bell rang, and all the guards started gathering up their charges.

"Hey, hey," Cisco said in a low voice as their guards started toward them. "What do you mean, Fabiana?"

She let out a grunt of exasperation. "Just behave yourself. And shut up."

Yeah, just like his aunties.

He ignored Fabiana's warning, and kept asking for anything and everything he could think of, top of the list being his visiting hours.

"She's here, I know she came," he said."She promised she'd come every day. I want to see her, okay? I just want to see her."

He couldn't see the occupants of the other cells, but he could hear them, letting out groans as he wheedled and pestered. Even occasionally a bellow of "Shut the fuck up!"

It was hard to blame them. He was annoying himself, even. But he kept it up, stubbornly, using the time he lay staring at the ceiling to think up new and ever-more-obnoxious ways of pestering the prison hierarchy.

The third evening of his stay in meta wing, Wolfe came after dinner..

Cisco sat up on his cot. This was unusual. Wolfe had a schedule and he stuck to it. Instead of speaking to the guards or looking in on any of the other metas, Wolfe walked directly to his cell and stood there, just outside the bars. His arms were crossed and his face unreadable.

"Hey, Warden," Cisco chirped. "Any news on my asks there? How about visiting day? Tomorrow's visiting day. My friend'll be here. I wanna see her. Am I going to see her?"

"You're going to stop asking for things, inmate," Wolfe said.

"Uh, no, I'm not because these aren't that big of a deal, honestly. Seeing my friend and getting something to read and getting a little fresh air, why is that such a big deal? I think it's very reasonable, don't you?"

The warden nodded once, his face as blank and hard as ever.

Then the pain hit.

It was like all the muscles in his body had suddenly decided to play tug-of-war with all the other muscles. He felt like pork in the process of being pulled, like he was being put through a blender and then run through again.

Then it was over, and he collapsed, gasping, against the wall.

The warden watched him with shark eyes. Flat and cold. "There won't be any more requests, Inmate."

"Wha - what was - what did - "

The hellish pain hit him again, like his skin being peeled away and his bones being hammered into dust from the inside.

Someone was screaming, very far away.

Then it was gone again, and the wall was there, hard and cold, but cold was good because he felt like he'd been lit on fire and holy Moses, what kind of hell-spawned meta power was that?

"I said, there won't be any more requests, inmate," Wolfe said again. "Will there?"

"Nnnnnooo," Cisco mumbled through trembling lips. His throat felt raw. He wondered why.

"I didn't hear you."

At the words, he tensed up, anticipating what came next. If anything that made it worse. He writhed helplessly on his cot, fingers digging into the blankets as his body tried to tear itself apart at the molecular level.

As it subsided, he figured out who'd been screaming.

It had been him.

"Will there be any more requests, inmate?"

"No!" he shrieked, a high thin noise. "No, no, no, no, no - "

"That's what I thought," Wolfe said, and left.

Cisco wheezed against the agonized twitching of his muscles, feeling cold sweat run down his face and spine and collect in the bend of his joints. Whimpers escaped his abused throat and he was helpless to stop them.

Every little pain and nagging stiffness he'd had before had been ratcheted up to eleven. The occasional soreness in his shoulder from breaching, the knee that he'd twisted last year and still sometimes got stiff, even his bruised tailbone from Brixton tossing him across the prison yard, were all magnified to horrific proportions.

His tattoo beat like a drum against his heart.

When he tried to lay down, his stomach revolted, and it was dumb luck that he managed to vomit up the bland prison fare over the side of his cot onto the floor. When there was nothing left but thin, acid bile, he collapsed, face buried in his pillow.

From a few cells over, Fabiana called out, "You alive in there, fool?"

He made some kind of high-pitched keening noise in response.

"I tried to tell you," she said. "He's been holding off on you - "

"And us," another voice grumbled.

" - because you're a short-termer and he didn't want you getting out and blabbing." She snorted. "But you just had to be that annoying, didn't you?"

With a herculean effort, he pushed himself up far enough to pull his face from the pillow. It was smudged with sweat and tears and snot and drool and bile and even a little blood. It took him two tries to flip it over, and then he collapsed again. He groaned as random muscles twitched in the memory of pain.

"Yeah," the second voice said. "He's probably learned his lesson."

With his face buried in the cool, coarse material of his pillowcase, Cisco mouthed, Gotcha, you rat bastard, just before he passed out.

One week ago

Silence fell in the cortex as Joe finished telling them about the meta who'd come to him, secretly, and told a story of torture and punishment in the meta wing of Iron Heights.

"What kind of horrible power is that?" Caitlin breathed.

"What kind of sick fuck uses it?" Cisco added.

"You guys, this is on us," Barry said.

"We didn't know this was going on," Caitlin objected.

"That doesn't matter. We arrested them, we put them in there, and now Wolfe is hurting them. Because he can."

"Why didn't he do anything when you were in there?" Iris asked.

"Didn't want to damage the merchandise, probably," Barry said. "But now he's not selling them to Amunet Black, so he can do whatever he wants."

"What do we do?" Cisco said. "Can we bust in there? Prison break?"

"We put them in there for a reason,"  Iris said. "They don't deserve what Wolfe is doing to them, but they can’t just be let go, either. Some of them are dangerous."

"We need to remove Wolfe," Joe said. "Legally. He needs to be convicted in a court of law and imprisoned."

"That'll be hard to prove," Caitlin said. "There's no injury site, their description is very nebulous, and we've never encountered him as a meta."

"He's smart," Joe said. “Only using it on people that most of society doesn’t care about, who aren’t going to tell and who might not be believed if they do.”

Iris frowned over the report. "What exactly is he doing to them?"

"It's hard to say from the testimony offered," Caitlin said. "They didn't report an entry or exit burn, so it's not electrical in nature. He could be stimulating the pain centers of their brain. It could even be a kind of bio-kinesis, where he can temporarily control their muscles."

Cisco shuddered. "Gross."

Barry's eyes narrowed. "Hard to prove what he's doing, hard to prove it's even him unless we can actually record the dark matter activity."

Cisco reached over for his tablet. "Well, I've got something that might help. You know that dark-matter scanner of yours, Caitlin? I've been tinkering with it so we can wear a small version out into the field and detect the kind of surges that accompany meta powers.."

Her eyes lit. "Pair that with a biometric scanner so you can cross-reference the pain reaction with the dark-matter surge, and that's proof he's causing it. Yes, that could work!"

"No," Barry said. "It won't."

Cisco scowled. "Hey, my tech always works."

"I know, but we can't get it to any of the metas on the inside. Everything that comes to any of the prisoners from the outside is thoroughly searched. Even if it did get past that, nothing would be safe from theft or guard searches unless it was implanted under the skin. And even if we could somehow manage that, who would agree to intentionally provoking Wolfe into using his powers on them, unless we gave them some kind of immunity or amnesty?"

"What are you saying?" Joe said, frowning.

"We need to send somebody in."

Now

Cisco spent most of the day after Wolfe's visit trying to find a comfortable position for his sore carcass. He was stiff all over, like someone had poured cement into his clothes. Sometimes he could doze, but mostly he stared at the wall or the ceiling.

He'd gotten the proof of Wolfe's torture. Now he just needed to make sure it got back to Star Labs, and then they could get him out before they arrested Wolfe.

Please get me out of here, he thought.

He tugged painfully at the buttons on his jumpsuit, and slid his fingers under the orange cloth. Pressing on his chest through his cheap prison undershirt, he could feel the three little hard spots under his skin. Biometric scanner, dark matter sensor, wireless transmitter. He chanted them like a prayer.

They'd painted that tattoo on him to explain any redness or swelling from insertion. It was henna, though, and it would start to fade soon. If anybody noticed, they'd know something was up.

After he got the proof, before he got out safely - this was the most dangerous part of the sting.

He heard his meal trays clang onto the floor and left them where they lay. His stomach hurt too much to get it to accept food. But when yard time came, he dragged himself to a sitting position, and then to his feet, and then forced himself to take slow, stumbling steps toward his cell door. With his guard at his back, he made his way to the yard. All the other meta inmates and their guards followed at his pace, complaining that they were losing out on yard time.

The sun blazed down, beating on his shoulders and the top of his head. He let it bake him as he took a slow, shambling lap around the yard, coaxing his body to move and wincing as it fought back. He'd become the opposite of Barry, he thought sardonically. Slowest Man Alive.

He made it halfway around, and then just leaned against the north wall. Caitlin had sworn to him she would be there every day, parked just on the other side of that specific wall. With the dampener cuffs on, there was no way to tell if she was there right now, but he pictured her there, waiting for the signal from the device in his chest.

Please let the transmitter work.

Please let the range perform like it did in tests.

Please just get me out of here.

Too soon, the bell rang and they led him back inside. When he got back to his cell, he dropped into his cot and was asleep almost before the lock on his cell door engaged.

He dreamed that Wolfe came back and hurt him until his heart shorted out like a bad connection.

He dreamed that Wolfe somehow knew about the sensors and had them cut out while he watched with that non-expression and Cisco screamed.

He dreamed that Wolfe didn't know about the sensors, but that they shorted out anyway from whatever Wolfe did to him.

He dreamed that he'd somehow been forgotten, and he spent the rest of his life in the meta wing of Iron Heights prison, alone and hurting and desperate for an escape that never came.

When he woke, sweating and shivering and hoarse from shouting, someone from one of the other cells said, "Bad dream?"

"Uh-huh," he mumbled. He couldn't tell who it was.

"Yeah, I got those too, after the first time." There was a creak as if his faceless, anonymous comfort had rolled over in his cot. "You get used to them."

When he woke again, it was morning. He didn't know that by the sunlight or the clock, neither of which were present in the meta wing. He knew because when he opened his eyes, the tray that had just clanged onto the floor had a blob of scrambled eggs and a triangle of toast on it.

He considered it. Although the soreness had eased up some, he felt wobbly and weak even though he was still lying down. Probably because he hadn't eaten a thing yesterday. He had to get some calories in him, even shitty prison calories.

He managed to choke down about half of the cardboard-tasting eggs before they came back for the tray, and that helped him get to the shower when that time came. The hot(ish) water helped more. He tugged his fingers through his wet hair, wincing. Crappy lowest-bidder shampoo - he didn't want to think about what it looked like.

Remembering his dream, he peered down at the tattoo high on his chest, cleaning it carefully and gently. The sun with its squiggly rays was only about three inches across and done in simple reddish-black lines. The swelling and redness had mostly gone down over the past few days. It hurt, but everything hurt.

He shifted a little so his arm blocked his motions from the rest of the shower room. He ran his fingers around the edge of the sun and felt three tiny, hard bumps under the skin, evenly spaced around the perimeter.

Biometric scanner. Dark matter sensor. Wireless transmitter.

Yep. Still there.

After showers came the long, dull stretch until lunch. He lay dozing on his cot, trying to escape his aches and pains. They weren't as bad as yesterday, but he also wasn't about to go out and run a marathon.

A shoe scuffed outside his cell. He rolled over to see who it was, then flinched backward. The warden stood on the other side of the bars.

His stomach churned. He hadn't seen Wolfe since two nights before, and the memory of pain jittered through his body.

"Inmate," Wolfe said. "On your feet."

So you can hit me with that power again? Watch me fall on the floor instead of writhing on this bed? It all ran through his mind, but his tongue wouldn't let it out.

"I said get up."

Cisco swung his legs over the edge of the cot and hauled himself to a standing position. He winced as he straightened up, and some flicker of expression crossed Wolfe's face for a split second.

Like satisfaction.

Or pleasure.

Distantly, he noted that there was a guard behind Wolfe. What kind of a sign was that? He hadn't noticed any guard the other night. Would Wolfe whammy him again if there was a witness?

Of course, he hadn't had any trouble doing it in front of the other metas.

Wolfe unlocked the cell door, and Cisco took a step back. But the warden didn't come in. Instead, he said, "Come out here, inmate."

It wasn't yard time. Visiting day had been yesterday. But Caitlin had promised to come every day whether it was visiting day or not. Maybe Wolfe had decided that he could see her today.

Maybe Santa Claus existed.

(His brain whispered, Maybe you're going home.)

"Come out here. I won't say it again."

Cisco stepped out of the cell. A pair of dampener cuffs wrapped around his wrists and clicked closed. A hard hand nudged his shoulder - not Wolfe's. The guard. Wolfe, as always, stood and watched.

Cisco crossed the meta wing. Possibilities waterfalled through his brain. Some horrifying, some wonderful. None of them felt entirely real.

The door to meta wing shut behind them, and Wolfe stopped. Turned.

Cisco had to tip his chin up to look Wolfe in the eye. There was a camera up in the corner. There were always cameras in the hallways, in the gen-pop halls, in the yard and the weight room and the dining hall and the commissary.

The only place without cameras in Iron Heights, besides the showers, was the meta wing.

The eye of the camera felt like the only thing between him and . . . something. He didn't know what.

"You're being released," Wolfe said.

It took the words a moment to sink in. He said, "I - what?"

"The charges have been dropped. There's no reason to hold you here anymore."

He blinked a few times. "Oh."

The warden stared at him with those flat shark eyes. Cisco stared back for a split second, and then looked down, hunching his shoulders.

When he looked up again, that flicker of satisfaction, or pleasure, was just leaving Wolfe's face.

He glanced at the guard over Cisco's shoulder. "Take him to discharge." He turned away, down another corridor, and the guard gave Cisco a nudge in the small of the back.  

He stumbled forward, caught himself, and started walking, the guard right on his heels. The corridor seemed to stretch out forever

Occasionally the guard said, "Right" or "Left" or made him stop while he badged through a door. The walking went on forever, and Cisco wondered how deep in the bowels of Iron Heights the meta wing actually was. How thick the walls were. How impossible it would be to get any kind of signal through it.

His stomach trembled.

Was he seriously leaving? Or was this something else Wolfe was doing to him? Or maybe the paperwork was through, the charges really were dropped, but all his cowering hadn't fooled Wolfe into thinking he didn't need to worry about Cisco. Maybe he was supposed to suffer a mysterious accident on his way through these endless corridors. Maybe they were going in circles.

He counted cameras, checked live lights, calculated blind spots, and held his breath until he was through each and every one of them.

They stopped in front of one last badge reader next to one last door. Unlike the others, this one actually had a window, a skinny pane of glass with wires cross-crossed through it. Through the glass, he could see the room where he'd gotten signed in to Iron Heights - what, a week ago? Was that it?

Amazing how long seven days could feel.

He thought, Maybe I really am leaving.

Behind him, the guard said in a low voice, "You're going to tell them something."

"Tell who? What?" Open the door already. Open it and let me out.

The guard's breath stirred the hair at Cisco's temple. "Warden never touched you," he said.

He stared at the window, focusing on the wires embedded in the glass. "What?"

"The warden," the guard repeated. "Never touched you, did he? Never laid a finger on you."

". . . no?"

"So that's what you're going to say," the guard said. "The warden never touched you."

"Say to who?"

"Say it. The warden never touched you. Did he?"

". . . no," Cisco said.

"No, what, inmate?"

"No, the warden never touched me."

"Good," the guard said. "You're going to say that whenever anybody asks. Or that ginger who visited you is going get a visit from us."

He went stiff. "No. Please."

"Skinny thing, isn't she? Breakable, those skinny chicks."

"Don't hurt her. I'll say anything you tell me to say. To anybody you tell me to say it to. Just don't hurt her."

"You don't have to lie, inmate. Nobody's asking you to lie. Just tell the truth. The warden never touched you."

Cisco shook his head hard. "No, he never did. Never laid a finger on me."

"That's right," the guard said, and opened the door.

Cisco walked through.

It seemed like being released from prison should be a triumphal thing. Trumpets, choruses of angels, et cetera. Instead, it turned out to be more paperwork, under the apathetic eye of one of the regular prison guards. The one who had threatened him had left - back to terrorize more metas, presumably.

He had to turn in his orange jumpsuit and everything issued to him by the prison. After a search of his naked body to ensure that he wasn't smuggling anything out - he stared at the wall and thought about sunlight and Big Belly Burger and his own bed -  he did get his own clothes back, the ones he'd been arrested in.

They smelled institutional, like they'd been run through the prison laundry along with a hundred other guys' clothes and cheap, harsh laundry detergent. He put them on anyway and decided that when he got home, they were going in the trash can.

He filled out forms that attested he'd gotten his clothes back, his wallet, his phone. The latter was dead, of course. It had been sitting in a box for a week, running the battery down.

He signed everything they told him to sign, his hand shaking a little.

The release officer shook his hand and said, "Someone's waiting for you. Lucky. Not everyone gets that." He badged Cisco through the last door.

Caitlin was in the waiting room, clutching her purse to her stomach. When she saw him, her face lit up, and then he was in her arms.

He shut his eyes and soaked in the feel of her. The familiar smell of her shampoo and the iron-band tightness of her hug, like always when she'd been distressed for a long time, and how soft she was against him.

Getting released was slowly starting to feel real.

But she was also here, in the prison. He couldn't stop thinking about the guard who'd mused about her breakability, just a few walls away.

"Get out," he muttered against her ear. "Out, out, out."

"Yes," she whispered, and pulled away. He grabbed her hand, unwilling to not be touching her.

"Is that everything?" she asked the release officer.

"Yes, ma'am, you're free to go."

"Good." She pushed open the last door and the sunlight hit Cisco like a hammer. He flinched away from it, and from the vastness outside the door. No walls. Outside felt way too big.

She squeezed his hand - he hadn't realized he'd tightened his grip - and said brightly, "I'm parked right over there. Close. Let's go. Everybody's waiting. They want to see you."

They crossed the parking lot. Still no walls, so big. Cisco felt like a bug on a tabletop, waiting for someone to smash him. Them.

"Faster," he said, trying to lengthen his stride, but he was still just a little too sore to go any faster than he was. She made soothing noises.

They got in the car - he had to let go of her hand - and the enclosure of the vehicle around him felt safe, even as she pulled out and drove through the gates.

She hit a button for speakerphone and when the call was answered, said. "We're out. We're driving away."

The reply sounded brisk and official. "Copy that, ma'am."

She ended the call. He reached out and took her hand again. She held it and drove one-handed, her face tense.

The road to the prison was long and empty, but a few minutes later, two cars roared by them, going the other way.

Caitlin turned a corner into a convenience store and parked next to a plain white panel van. They hopped out and immediately the back door of the van popped open to reveal one of CCPD's mobile command units inside, and Iris and Joe.

Joe helped him up into the van and Iris hugged him hard. "How are you?" she asked.

"Eh," Cisco said, hugging her back. "I'm out, so."

Joe looped his arm around Cisco's shoulders and pulled him in for his own hug. "It's almost over, son." He reached behind him for a pair of headphones. "You want to listen in on the big moment?"

Cisco had thought he would, picturing this in his cell all those dull hours. Warden Wolfe, you're under arrest for torture and abuse. You're going to jail forever, you sick fuck.

But he shook his head. Suddenly the idea of hearing Wolfe's voice again made him want to heave.

Joe nodded and put the headphones on his own head, turning to some screens.

"I'm sorry it took so long," Caitlin said.

He scootched over next to her, and as if she knew what he needed, she slipped her arm around his waist. He leaned into her body, ignoring the way Iris's brow quirked up.

He hadn't realized it until her first hug, but the week undercover in the prison had left him touch-starved. Having hands on him - kind hands, that didn't want him to move or stop or turn, that didn't shove or nudge like they were trying to get a farm animal to change direction - felt like a big bottle of cold water after crossing the desert.

"I was worried you didn't get the last data drop," he said, reaching out to touch her moon necklace. "I spent my entire yard time yesterday just hanging out on the north wall."

"Oh, I got it," she said grimly. "And it sealed the warrant on Wolfe."

"But regulations state that releases have to happen in the morning," Iris added, "and we couldn't push that without tipping him off. Otherwise we would have had you out last night."

"That's okay," he said. "I wasn't in great shape yesterday and besides, he left me alone."

She gave him a quick, concerned look, and he shook his head. "Just the aftereffects. Soreness."

Caitlin grabbed her purse, dug in it for a moment, and handed him two ibuprofen. "Enough for now?"

"Yeah," he said, swallowing them and drinking deeply from the bottle of water she gave him next.

She pulled a tablet over and tapped a few buttons, lips pursed. She reached up and took off the moon necklace, touching two stones. The tablet beeped and the screen filled with data from the biometric scanner, transmitted to the necklace and then uplinked to Star Labs servers.

He looked down at his own scanned body on the screen. "See?" he said to Caitlin. "All there."

"Full checkup later," she told him. "No arguments."

"Wasn't gonna," he said.

Joe let out a triumphant grunt, and they turned toward him. "They got him, Dad?" Iris asked.

"In custody," he reported. "Being transported to Central."  

The last knot of tension in Cisco's chest snapped, and he sagged where he stood, letting Caitlin's arm hold him up for a moment.

This was no guarantee of anything. He might escape; he might get off. They might be hearing a lot more of Gregory Wolfe. But for right now, he wasn't hurting or killing any more metas under his care at Iron Heights, and that was enough for Cisco.

A moment later, a knock sounded on the back panel, and Iris leaned over to open it. Barry climbed inside, flushed with victory. "Got 'im," he said. "It's over. We did it."

“Cisco did it,” Caitlin said.

“Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You did it, man.” He stretched out his long arms and pulled Cisco in for a hug.

Cisco hugged him back, but pushed away after a moment. "Hey, Bare?"

"Mmmm?" Barry was peeling his cowl up off his face. His hair stuck out all crazy.

Cisco steeled himself. "Don't ask me to do something like that ever again."

Barry's face scrunched up a little. "Hey, man, I'm sorry, I know it must have been rough. But it had to be you. Wolfe and the guards knew me and Iris, and Caitlin doesn't have any powers anymore, so she wouldn't have gotten put in the meta wing."

"I know," he said. "I know all that. I'm glad Wolfe is going down and I'm glad I did that. But I'm still saying, don't ever ask me to do that again."

Barry's mouth opened and closed a few times, and finally he nodded. "Okay," he said in a subdued voice. "Never again."

"Good." Cisco brushed his hair behind his ears, suddenly self-conscious. But that had been running through his mind in all those hours staring at the ceiling, too. "So, uh, what now?" He looked at Joe. "You need my statement or whatever?"

"Not right away," Joe said, looking at him keenly. "Lot of stuff for the cops to do first."

"Good," Caitlin said. "That means there's time for a full checkup back at Star Labs."

Barry offered to run them back, but Cisco wanted to test out his breaches, after a week of exposure to power dampeners. They felt a little sputtery at first, but Caitlin put her hand on his back and the breach spewed open, the same as it always had. They jumped through to the comfort and familiarity of Star Labs.

She checked everything she could think of, and he let her, smiling a little as she fussed. When she checked his back, she frowned. "There's some bruising."

"Yep," he said. "Not from the warden. From when I had to get caught using my powers so I'd get transferred into the meta wing."

She eyed him. "You don't bruise in response to your powers."

"I do in response to another prisoner trying to kick my ass."

"Cisco! You were in a prison fight?"

"It's fine!" he assured her. "Funny story, actually. First night at dinner, I run into this guy I went to high school with, Andy Brixton. We were in a bunch of AP classes and the GSA together. Anyway, he agreed to scuffle up with me in the yard so I had an excuse to use my powers out in the open."

"Cisco - "

"I know you had fun being extremely unsubtle and trying to tip the guard off during your visit, but the warden wasn't noticing me. It's okay. Andy didn't hurt me, not really. He's always been a good guy." He thought of what he'd vibed when he'd managed to touch Andy's shoulder. "One who made some bad choices in life, maybe. But a good guy."

She shook her head. "Prison fight," she muttered.

"It worked," Cisco said. "I saw what I needed to see in gen-pop and then got transferred into the meta wing and got right on Wolfe's shit list. Three birds, one stone."

"How was he in the general population?"

"All the guys I talked to said he was a stickler for rules but otherwise ignored them. I guess he just wanted to hurt metas."

"That says something about him, doesn't it?" she said.

"Nothing good."

She had to numb his skin with cream before she took out the sensors, but when she had, that was the work of a few moments with scalpel and forceps.

"Biometric scanner," she said, dropping the tiny device into a sterile dish with a clang. "Dark matter sensor - " clang "- and wireless transmitter." She smiled at him. "All out."

"Yay," he said. "Officially not a cyborg anymore."

She cleaned the small wounds, put a stitch in each of them, and taped sterile gauze over his chest. She stripped off her gloves, but instead of telling him he was clear, she pulled a chair over. “How are you really?" she asked.

"I'll be better after some Big Belly Burger," he said. "The food was seriously shitty. And such small portions!"

"You lost seven pounds in there," she said absently. "So yes, Big Belly Burger it is. But I mean you. No jokes, please. How are you doing?"

He met her eyes and found he had to look away. He picked at a fray in his cords and said slowly, "I keep waiting to wake up again."

"Again?"

"I had bad dreams last night. Being out - it feels like a good dream that's about to turn bad."

He reached out for his hand and she let him take it. He held it, feeling the softness and warmth of her skin, her thumb rubbing soothingly over his knuckles.

"It's not a dream," she said. "You're out, and you're staying out. And in case nobody else says it, going in was the bravest thing I've ever seen you do."

"I went to prison," he said. "People do it every day."

"You went to a place where someone was going to hurt you. Where you had to make someone hurt you. And then you had to wait on us, until we could retrieve you. And you had to do all of that without your powers. I can't imagine the number of times you daydreamed about breaching out."

"Like, thousands."

"But you went. And you let him hurt you. And you stayed." She squeezed his hand. "I've always known you were one of the bravest men I knew. This just confirms that."

He swallowed. "Thanks."

She smiled and squeezed his hand again before letting it go. "If you want to go home right now, there's a protective detail waiting for the word to go to your apartment."

His stomach sank. "Shit."

"What?"

"You'll need one too. A protective detail. One of Wolfe's pet meta-wing guards - he threatened you. Right before they released me."

She drew in her breath and let it out.

"Nothing concrete," he said quickly. "All very plausible-deniability. But he was talking about how if I blabbed, they'd have to pay you a visit and stuff. Their boss getting arrested had probably got them mad enough for . . . stuff."

She nodded. "Okay."

"Okay? Caitlin, I know it doesn't sound like much, but these were bad dudes, they - "

"I know," she said. "I'll ask Joe for protective detail. Or maybe I can stay over at your place tonight and share yours."

He squinted at her. "You're taking this well." Almost too well. "Caitlin, this is -"

"Scary," she said, and her voice shook. "Serious. I know. I get it. But I always knew it was a possibility I'd be targeted, being your contact on the outside. None of us thought Warden Wolfe would be happy about getting arrested. So, yes, I've been prepared for the idea pretty much since we came up with this sting." Her mouth worked. "Alongside being scared for you."

"But you agreed to be my contact anyway."

"Of course I did. We needed the data to take to the judge and get a warrant."

"Barry could have run by the prison every day," Cisco argued. "You didn't have to be my visitor."

"I wanted to. Even though we only got to see each other once. I wanted you to know I was coming, every day. I didn't want you to be all alone in there."

He studied her a moment, then smiled. "I wasn't."

This time, she took his hand. He held it and they leaned together.

It was good to be home.

FINIS

[inyri]

Equivalent Exchange (an SWTOR story): Chapter Seventeen: Backfire

Equivalent Exchange by inyri

Fandom: Star Wars: The Old Republic Characters: Female Imperial Agent (Cipher Nine)/Theron Shan Rating: E (this chapter: M) Summary: If one wishes to gain something, one must offer something of equal value. In spycraft, it’s easy. Applying it to a relationship is another matter entirely. F!Agent/Theron Shan. (Spoilers for Shadow of Revan and Knights of the Fallen Empire.)

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(Long chapter is long. Hopefully that makes up for the delay?)

Backfire

16 ATC. Rishi.

Vector’s research was right- there are definitely Mandalorians on Rishi, though she hasn’t been able to get anywhere close yet. But the clans aren’t going anywhere, as far as she can tell, so that lead’ll keep until she can work her way around to it.

Nine’s first priority is to find whoever sliced her ship.

Nobody messes with her ship.

At least no one recognizes her here. More properly, no one on Rishi seems to know who the captain of the Howling Tempest Gang actually is, so the charade’s holding nicely so far. Pretending to be a pirate is extraordinarily tedious, especially in an Outer Rim shithole like this where there’s no hierarchy, just group upon group like rats gnawing on each other, squabbling for dominance. She’s had to kill a dozen cocky idiots trying to prove themselves against her.

But after only a few days’ work she’s nearly on top of her target, finally, after months of failed leads and dead ends, so if it means acting like something out of a holiday pantomime- why was it always pirates?- she’ll act the part.

(Not like Hutta, at the beginning of everything, where not ten minutes into her sojourn as the Red Blade she’d had the bad luck to run into someone who not only knew the real Blade- who wasn’t human and definitely wasn’t female- but who had him in hock for more credits than her whole operations budget.

Thank the Force for stupid men. For all his bragging Dheno had been a pretty mediocre fuck, but at least he hadn’t blown her cover.)

When the message comes in, then, she mishears it at first - but no. The droid definitely said Red Blade.

It gets her hackles up. Old business like that raises a few possibilities- besides Kaliyo there aren’t many people left who knew her that well that long ago- and none of them are good. Most of them ought to be dead and ashed. She should ignore it.

She doesn’t, of course. No point in delaying the inevitable.

When she gets to the meeting point he’s already there, facing away from the door with his head bowed over a console, but she knows the slope of his shoulders at a glance. He’d always stood up so straight one could practically hear his heels click together, like the soldier she’d always suspected he once was, when anyone else was watching. But when they’d been alone, the day Intelligence died, or the day she pressed the Black Codex into his hand-  

“Minister.” Her hand’s still halfway on her knife as he turns around toward her; in the end he gave her freedom, but he let them chain her in the beginning. They would have executed you, otherwise, he’d said once, a whisper of rationality beneath the storm of her rage. It was better this way. Wasn’t it? “I thought you were dead.”

(Lana startles. They told me- she shuts her eyes tight, face contorting in anger- the Council assured me that he’d been dealt with. No loose ends. They promised-

She curls her hand around Lana’s fist, unfolding her tense fingers one by one. The Council lies. They always have. They controlled what they could, they destroyed what they couldn’t, and when they couldn’t do either one…

They lied. And I believed them.

You were lucky, she says. You only got a lie.)

***

She wouldn’t have agreed if it hadn’t been Shara.

When she was young and stupid and fresh out of the Academy she thought the Watcher program was brilliant. Training field agents was hard enough; only three out of sixty of her cadet class went to the field, with another eight in support roles and the remainder shunted off to the Diplomatic Corps, and field work didn’t require a quarter of the skillset that Watching did. Why wait for natural talent to turn up when the ability could be bred?

The program was an abomination. She knows that now. Calling it “conditioning” made it sound somehow respectable, to say nothing of what must have happened to the failures, but it warped Shara just as badly on so many levels as the Castellan restraints had altered her. In most ways it was worse: even now, just the thought of the word onomatophobia makes her shake and sweat, but at least she’d known when her actions weren’t her own. The Watchers were so controlled, so restrained by their conditioning-

“I do have to be scared,” Shara says, her tongue tripping over the words, her magnificent brain still shattered years after Hunter’s vicious little trap. “The Empire altered my limbic system.”

Poor Shara. She deserves the chance to choose, for better or for worse.

(Sometimes, even now, she wonders what else the program altered.

She’d seen other field agents go to bed with their assigned Watchers. Intelligence encouraged fraternization on a shallow level, a sort of trust-building exercise as long as one didn’t take it too far; with Fixers or Minders it was one thing, but with Watchers she’d begun to wonder, as the years passed, whether it was genuine affection or something else. Something less voluntary and more calculated: not force- never force- but a tendency engineered, seeded deep and cultivated and shaped into thoughts that seemed spontaneous but weren’t, not really, not at their heart.

And then she thinks of other things- a hundred half-remembered medical evaluations of her own; dozens of injections she never thought to question; the Advanced Interpersonal Negotiation seminar, officially optional and available only by permission, that unofficially meant shortlisted for Intelligence assignment and that they’d unofficially subtitled Lie Back and Think of the Empire-

And she stops thinking about it at all. It’s better that way.

She’d had a choice.

She’d had a choice.)

She leaves the Minister behind, a drive full of dossiers tucked into her jacket pocket and a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Even with her own file purged, the Council knows her history, at least in part; unless she takes herself entirely off the board it’s only a matter of time before the game catches up with her. If Intelligence really is reforming, with a Darth at its head-

Well. That’s a thought for another day.

***

I gave the files to you, after Yavin. Do you remember?

Lana nods. I do. Darth Marr never quite approved of most of them, but the ones that came aboard were some of my best agents. Why didn’t you keep them for yourself?

He made you the new Minister, not me, and I thought you might need a little leverage. It’s a hard game, Intelligence, she says, especially when you don’t know the rules.

***

Kai Zykken was an idiot, and she had to chase a larcenous monkey-lizard through the entire marketplace and electrocute a droid- that earned her more than a few raised eyebrows- but at last she’s headed toward the rendezvous point.

Face covered and voice distorted, the woman in the holorecording isn’t familiar. Either Zykken was even dumber than she’d first thought, though, or there’s Force trickery in play, which wouldn’t surprise her at all. The Revanites are recruiting from both sides, and with the war back on it hasn’t only been the soldiers growing more and more disillusioned with every passing year. If the woman is a Jedi, or a Sith, hopefully she’s a friendly one.

Still, she brings backup, just in case. Since they got to Rishi she’s tried to keep her crew on the ship as much as possible- if someone’s watching, they’ll only see her- but this time around she sends Vector up to the rooftops, close but not too close. When she looks up, he’s there, half-hidden behind a smokestack.

At her signal, he disappears.

Then, of course, she’s halfway down the alley when-

“You! Howling Tempest!” The thing that’s shouting looks like a Wookiee fucked a tusk-cat and it’s (he, maybe? She’s guessing, there) completely blocking her path. “You killed my brother, pirate.”

This pirate thing is getting decidedly old. She looks the creature up and down, considering: no, she definitely hasn’t killed anything that looks like that recently. “I don’t think so. I feel like I’d remember that.”

“Liar. Gorro’s dead,” he snarls, drawing a nasty-looking vibroblade, “and I’m going to rip your arms off.”

She tilts her head. She does remember Gorro, but- “The mouthy little Rodian was your brother? You’ll have to explain the genetics once you’ve stopped bleeding.”

When he lunges for her she sidesteps and draws her rifle, pops off three quick shots- kneecap, kneecap, right shoulder, launching a dart along the barrel into the side of his neck just for the sake of caution. He hits the ground hard and she grinds her heel against the back of his hand; the vibroblade clatters free and she kicks it away, out of his reach, as he scrabbles for its handle along the cobblestones of the alley.

“Cipher. If you wish us to take the shot-” Vector’s a shadow at the roofline in her peripheral vision, a voice in her ear- “step to the left, please. You’re in our line.”

“That won’t be necessary. Stand down.” She looks down at her opponent as the shadow withdraws. “What’s your name, idiot?”

He doesn’t answer. She steps on his other hand.

“Well?”

“Grumm.”

“Okay, Grumm. Lucky for you, I’ve got bigger fish to fry, but you’re still in my way.” When she lifts her foot off his fingers he flinches, but doesn’t look to his blade. “You’ve got thirty seconds to get out of it. Starting now.”

He doesn’t move particularly quickly. Then again, she did shoot both his kneecaps.

She watches Grumm hobble back down the length of the alley, rifle trained on him just in case he decides to try anything stupid, and when he’s out of sight she shoulders it and turns back toward the rendezvous point.

The woman from the holo’s leaning against a wall at the far end of the alley, arms folded across her chest and a lightsaber hilt clipped to a low-slung belt. “The Howling Tempest, I presume?” Even face to face, the woman’s voice is distorted by her mask; she can’t get a sense of an accent. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

Oh, honestly.

She sighs. “First of all, the gang is called the Howling Tempest. Their leader is called- frankly, I have no idea what their leader is called, because I am not their leader, although I’m quite sure you know that. And as you probably saw-” she gestures back toward the blood spatter on the cobbles behind her- “I’ve already shot someone today, so let’s just skip right over the pleasantries and get to the part where you tell me why I’ve got every idiot on this planet gunning for me, yes?”

The woman laughs, reaching up to pull off her mask, and shakes her hair free from where it was bound up in her hood-

“Lana Beniko,” she says, resisting the urge to take her by the shoulders and shake her like a disobedient child. “You realize you could have just called me.”

“It’s good to see you, too.” Lana grins. “Come inside. We’ll explain everything, I promise.”

“We?”

Theron steps out from the doorway behind Lana, looking impossibly smug. “Took you long enough. I gave you directions and everything.”

“You.” That’s it. She is going to murder him. “You sliced my ship.”

(I hate you.

Liar. But aren’t you glad I stopped you? Lana reaches across her lap to steal the last of the biscuits off the plate.

Now, yes. At the time, the only thing saving both of you was that I couldn’t decide who to strangle first.

She might be pouting; it’s hard to tell mid-bite. Oh, be nice.

Do you remember how many damned pirates I had to kill that month? She breaks a piece off the biscuit as Lana, squawking objection around a mouthful of crumbs, swats at her hand. And whatever gave you the idea I was nice?)

An hour later, mostly placated by Lana and Theron’s explanations, she sends Vector back to the ship to grab her field duffel. If they’re really being tracked as closely as the two of them seem to believe (and she doesn’t doubt it- she’s only had to dodge the Revanites, not the Empire and the Republic, too) then the less often she goes back and forth between the safehouse and the dock the better; she’ll stay there, they’d all agreed, and make do with a bedroll and a camp mattress if they can’t scrounge up another cot.

“Now, this isn’t a vacation.” She doesn’t have to tell him that, of course. Vector, like her, never really switches off. Still, she grins into the shadows as he hands her the heavy bag. “Take tonight off, but be ready for my comm first thing tomorrow. Kaliyo, too.”

“An entire evening free? We’ll need a new hobby at this rate. Knitting, perhaps.”

“Don’t get too used to it. And don’t let SCORPIO do any major upgrades. If things heat up, we need to be mobile.”

Vector nods, and she turns to set the bag down in the doorway; when she turns around again, he’s gone.

So she settles into her new quarters, setting up her bedroll in an empty corner. The safehouse isn’t exactly the lap of luxury- a few cots along the walls, an inexpensive holoprojector on a central table, a few maps- but she’s had worse: there’s a ‘fresher and a lock on the door, and the security’s actually not bad when she looks more closely, with motion sensors in the entrance hall and an exit to the roof hidden behind one of the projection screens.

It’ll do, for now.

Lana, apparently on dinner duty tonight, puts her hood back on and slips away to the market; Theron, who’d been sitting at the table with his head bent over a datapad, looks up at her once Lana’s out of earshot.

“I hope you brought ration bars, or you’re going to be hungry. I ran out two weeks ago, and the market here’s only got those vanilla ones that taste like chalk, so-”

Her duffel half-unpacked, she pauses. “Those are awful, yeah. But isn’t Lana bringing food back?”

“Yup,” he says, nose wrinkling. “It’s her night to cook.” To judge by his tone of voice she probably shouldn’t expect much. “Yesterday was my turn, so you’re up tomorrow. We go by rota.”

“I don’t cook.” (She doesn’t. She never learned to make much beyond caf and instant noodles.) “There’s a stand in the market that’s got good sandwiches. Tomorrow’s takeaway night. And as for ration bars-” she rummages in one of the side pockets. “Chocolate chip, or peanut?”

“You offering? I’ll take chocolate chip.”

She aims right between his eyes, lobbing the bar at his head. “No, I thought I’d eat them all and let you starve. Tell me there’s caf, at least.”

“Caf, yes. Cream, no.” Theron gets his hand up before the ration bar hits him, snatches it out of the air and peels the wrapper back, shoving it halfway into his mouth with the first bite. “This is seriously the best thing I’ve eaten in a month. Including my cooking.”

“I’ll take that as a warning.” As she watches, he demolishes the rest of it. “Missed you on Port Nowhere, by the way. The party didn’t pick up until after you left.”

He blinks, mouth full, and narrows his eyes. “I didn’t-” he starts, then swallows. “What makes you think I was on Port Nowhere recently?”

“You sliced my ship, you asshole. Of course you were there.”

“And here I thought we were bonding.” Theron flicks the folded wrapper in her direction; it arcs wide and she bats it down. “Okay, maybe. But I had to get you here somehow. How’d you-”

“Free advice? Lose the jacket. I recognized you on description alone, and I wasn’t even looking for you.”

“I like this jacket.”

He really is impossible. “What were you doing there to begin with?”

“Just a quick trip. Someone picked up the bounty contract on Lana. She was worried about it, but it turned out to be nothing.” He shrugs. “Random hunter. No ties to the Revanites, as far as I could tell, so I let it go. The better question is what you were doing there.”

“Me? Oddly enough-” she sits down in one of the empty chairs, kicks back and takes a bite of ration bar; she may as well eat, if Lana’s cooking is really that bad-

(I beg your pardon, Lana grumbles at her.

She winks.)

“-I was bounty hunting.”

Setting his datapad aside, Theron tilts his head and looks at her. He’s staring, really, for a solid half a minute, and she’s almost ready to pull out a mirror and check if she’s got something in her teeth when he closes his eyes, pressing his hands to his temples. “It was you. You’re Vairavi.”

“When I need to be. Or she’s me, more properly, or was. Won’t be using her anymore, I don’t think.”

“The description didn’t sound anything-” he trails off, head still buried in his hands. “Oh, Force. I am an actual idiot.”

“You won’t hear me argue.” She’s got a holo on her own datapad, now that she thinks of it, that she’d taken that last night- her and Vesja and Eri, drunk and laughing at the bar.  Pulling up the image, she slides the pad across to him. “Here. I’m sure you can pick me out.”  

Theron mutters something under his breath, staring down at the holo. “Yeah. I remember the tall one from the Rancor, too.” After a moment, he pushes it back. “Dark hair doesn’t suit you.”

“Opinion noted.” She tucks it back into her pocket. He’s right, actually. It doesn’t; the one thing she inherited from her father was his coloring, too-pale skin and red hair shading more into brown as she gets older, and the black wig makes her look sallow. That he has an opinion on it at all is-

-interesting.

“Is that your name? Vairavi?”

She doubts it. The sound of it doesn’t trigger anything, at least: no headache, none of the warning pressure that tends to kick in when she gets too close to things locked away. They’d said her name, just once, after they took it (they had to check the algorithm, Keeper said), and she couldn’t even hear it for the pain it caused.

“No,” she says. “My name is Cipher Nine.”

Angling his chair to face her more directly, Theron sighs. “Look. I know we got off on the wrong foot, and I don’t expect us to be friends or anything, but the rest of us are on a first-name basis. What-”

“I’m not trying to be difficult, Theron. That’s the only name I have.”

“You’re kidding, right?” He just looks at her again; she meets his gaze and doesn’t blink, and he’s the first to turn away. “You’re not kidding. Okay. I thought you were a freelancer.”

“I am. It’s just-” Where would she even go looking, if she wanted to remember? At the Academy, probably, but- ah. Too close, that thought. That hurts. “Old habits die hard.”

***

Theron does call her Cipher after that.

He talks more, too, though he hasn’t gotten any less prone to blushing since she last saw him (which has yet to lose its entertainment value. She’s like a serpent that way- the more he squirms, the tighter she circles- and oh, stars, she needs something to keep her mind off the ceaseless tedium of fight after fight after fight). She ought to stop. She really ought to, except that every so often she catches him watching her, appraising, and after weeks of them all stuck in the safehouse together he actually starts to answer back and-

Nothing’s likely to come of it, of course. But it helps to pass the time.

(He really is cute when he blushes.)

***

They do work well together, she has to admit.

Lana and Theron can’t join her in the field, not yet. It’d blow her cover and expose the two of them, and without any real objectives beyond “find out what the Revanites are up to and try to stop them” it’s too likely to get them all killed. But Lana’s a meticulous planner (you’re welcome, she says, preening), and with Jakarro scouting and Theron slicing from the base she’s got maps and schematics and security systems rerouted to her advantage.

They’re getting closer. They keep telling themselves that.

Rishi’s tropical, even this early in the year, and with the heat clinging like a damp blanket she can’t sleep so she stays up, working. Lana’s gone to check on Jakarro- poor Jakarro,  too conspicuous to even enter Raider’s Cove proper, except in the middle of the night- and she and Theron are crunching numbers, exactly the sort of analytics busywork she loathes. The more data they gather and the more of the Nova Blades’ network she dismantles, camp by camp, the clearer the plan becomes: the pirates are rerouting the hyperlanes one by one until every single route in the quadrant converges over Rishi.

“But why?” She shoves her datapad away in frustration, lets her forehead hit the table an inch shy of her mostly-empty beer and her entirely-empty caf cup. It doesn’t make sense. It’s a lousy strategy for piracy, since it’d only work until everyone figures it out and then not at all, giving them perhaps a month or two of easy pickings before the traders just bypass Rishi entirely. Worse, it reroutes patrols directly past the planet, Republic and Imperial both.  “What are you playing at, Revan?”

Theron makes a noise from across the table, and when she turns her head he’s pulling headphones out of both ears. (Despite the implant on his temple he usually wore them while they worked- probably more so he wouldn’t be bothered, though he swore it was something to do with the acoustics.) “Sorry, what? I didn’t catch that.”

“Oh, nothing. Just grumbling. I’m sure I’m missing something here, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out what.”

“I know what you mean.” He pokes at his own screen, then sets it aside with headphones piled on top. “With any luck you’ll pull something off Margok’s computers, but I’m not getting anywhere with what we’ve got now.”

She nods. “If I don’t get turreted to death. That ship’s a fortress.”

“As soon as you can patch me in, I’ll try to get them offline. Assuming you don’t get shot in the meantime-”

Her arm’s still healing from the last run. For far Rim pirates, the Blades have some serious artillery. “Funny.”

Theron makes a face. “Wasn’t meant to be a joke. I know you’re getting stomped out there.”

“Only a little. I’ll manage.”

“You know, you say that a lot.”

“Power of positive thinking.” She finishes off the last of her beer- beer’s pretty well toward the bottom of the list of things she’d prefer to be drinking, but anything decent here’s at least a hundred credits a bottle in the market and since her scrap with Gorro she pretty much has to stay out of the cantina unless she wants to pay for her drinks with knife fights- and flips the bottle backward into the trash bin. “If I say it enough, it might actually be true.”

That makes him laugh, at least, before his headphones crackle as the volume of whatever’s playing through them increases exponentially and he grabs for them, pressing down on the control switch. “That song got loud, sorry.”

“You apologize too much.”

“Probably, yeah. It’s a common trait in perpetual fuckups, or so my therapist tells me.” His chair scrapes along the floor as he pushes back from the table. “Not in those exact words, obviously, but I got what she meant. You want another beer?”

She snorts. “Therapists. Like they have any clue what this is like.” She gestures broadly at the room around them. “And maybe, if it’s still cold, although Lana’s probably going to roll her eyes at me when she gets back. She thinks I drink too much.”

(You do drink too much, Lana says.

She looks down at the bottle sitting between them, mostly empty, and back up at Lana. Said the pot to the kettle.

She probably does. Good luck finding an intelligence agent who doesn’t, though- it’s practically a job requirement, and frankly none of them live long enough that it ever really matters.)

“You’re still awake, right? You’re fine.” He crosses the room to the ice chest they’d rigged up to replace the broken refrigerator, since they can’t exactly call the landlord to come fix it, and flips it open. “They are… mostly cold.”

“Good enough.” When Theron hands her the bottle she presses it to the back of her neck with a contented sigh. “What are you listening to?”

“Just music. It’s too quiet in here.”

She nods, pops the bottlecap off with the flat edge of her boot knife. “Does your datapad have speakers? I wouldn’t mind music.”  

“If you want.” His method’s more conventional, a bottle opener built into a pocket multitool. “I should probably mention my music preferences are apparently not to Imperial liking. Hence-” he hooks his finger under one of the earpieces- “compromise. Hang on.”

A song’s just ending as he switches over to the speakers, not one she recognizes- but the next one to begin makes her laugh out loud.

“Yeah, yeah.” Theron goes to skip over it. “Teenage me had questionable taste.”

She catches his wrist before he can tap the screen and he blinks at her, startled. “No, leave it. You know this was the first concert I ever went to?”

“Calling bullshit on that one, Cipher. There’s no way they ever went anywhere near Imp space.”

“Concert might be overstating things, but that was what we used to call them- about ten of us sixth-formers crammed into a locked room in the sub-basement and one very degraded album recording.” Letting his wrist go, she taps out the beat along the neck of her bottle. “And it was still the best thing I’d ever heard.”

He laughs. “Teenage you had questionable taste, too. You didn’t get caught?”

“Of course we did. We were all copying lines out of the Imperial Code for days.”

“Worth it?”

“Totally.”

She doesn’t recognize all the songs he plays, but she hums along with the ones she knows and before too long Theron’s singing under his breath and-

(He has, she thinks, a very nice voice.)

“What in the Void,” Lana says, rounding the corner from the entryway, “are you listening to?”

***

The next day, when she gets back from scouting, there’s a datachip sitting on her bedroll. Fourteen songs.

It’s a much better copy than the one she remembers.

***

The raid on the main base was a bust.

When she finally got close to Margok, she wasted too much time taking on the lackeys he threw at her, afraid of getting flanked and of the turrets (Theron did his best, she knows, but the Blades had four of their own slicers countering him and he’s good but not that good), and he wiped the entire mainframe before she finally took him down. All that work for nothing.

Damn it all.

They’ve got one option left after that- two, technically, but she’s not optimistic about the second. Jakarro’s been tracking a pair of Revanites for three days, watching them go back and forth between a house on the outskirts and a boat slip, arriving every day at dusk and gone by sunrise. If they hit the house in the middle of the day, Lana says, it should be empty. Maybe they’ll find something they can use.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” She’s getting suited up; their only other lead is the Mandalorians, and knowing Mandalorians she’ll almost definitely have to fight her way through. “It’s a big if. Let it sit until tomorrow, and I’ll cloak in with Kaliyo.”

“Let us do some of the work for once, Cipher.” Lana slides the last kolto syringe into its pouch, then hands her belt over to her. “It’s just an empty house. Between the three of us, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“And besides,” Theron mutters around a mouthful of ration bar- he’d eventually decided he preferred the peanut ones and her stash dwindled accordingly, but they’re toe to toe on caf consumption and his is better so she lets it slide- “‘m getting bored cooped up here, and maybe you’ll finally stop giving me shit about not doing field work.”

She winks back over her shoulder as she fastens her belt. “Doubt it. But if you think it’s safe-”

“It’ll be fine,” Lana says again. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

(Lana sinks down, hands over her face, until all that’s visible among the pillows are a few strands of pale-blonde hair.

Ahem.

You were right. She sighs. I know. I know. )

***

The Mandalorians are a bust, too.

She gets the nickname, now. Shae Vizla makes her run the gauntlet of both creatures and clans before she’ll even show her face, then roasts her to medium rare until finally they’re both exhausted, her armor smoldering and Torch half-blind from poison before she signals and the ring of fighters around them withdraws.

Even then, even defeated, all she does is confirm what they’d already suspected. As far as the Revanites are concerned, it is Revan leading them.

“Sure, the clans have history with Revan, all the way back to Mandalore the Preserver.” Shae scowls as the antivenom runs in. “But that was a long time ago, and when he came back-” she shakes her head. “If that’s really him, the old stories forgot to mention the crazy. He doesn’t want to save the galaxy. He just wants to watch it burn.”

“Do you know what he’s planning?” The salve on both her hands smells of lavender, sweet and floral, easing the pain of her blistered fingertips.

“No. He’s got a whole fleet in reserve, but that’s all I know. The minute he contracted with the Nova Blades I picked up my people and moved. I kept the peace with those fuckers for years, but Margok is-” she pauses- “was always a monster and with money and power behind him he was ten times worse. Hear I’ve got you to thank for taking him down. I’ve wanted to do it for years but it wasn’t worth the war it would’ve started.”

She inclines her head. “You’re welcome. There’s still plenty of fighting coming, though. Sure we can’t convince you to join us?”

“Sorry, Imperial.” Shae chuckles, pulling the syringe out of her arm, and rolls her sleeve back down. “I was fighting your wars when you were in primary school. I’m retired.”

“I know. We used to read stories about you.” She stands. “If you ever decide to un-retire, look me up. Or if you just want someone who’ll fight you properly.”

Vizla must be well into her forties- what she’d said wasn’t wrong; the Sack of Coruscant happened just before her own eleventh birthday- but her grin takes years off her face. “I might just do that, Cipher Nine. If you’ll hang on a minute. I’ll have the Beroyas run you back over to the mainland. Jos! Valk! K’olar. ” At her wave, two of the nearby warriors approach, the woman in white armor painted with wide grey stripes and the man in grey and red. “You beat them, so they owe you one.”

The woman in white shrugs. “Sorry, alor. Just distracted.”

She remembers, then. She was a Beroya before we got married. “Valk Beroya? Your sister’s name was Haniya?”

“Yeah.” When she pulls her helmet off her eyes are wary. “Do I know you?”

“I met her last year, before- well. Jori mentioned you when I went to pay my respects. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“D’you know,” Valk’s lip curls, her husband’s hand on her back and the pitch of her voice lowering to a growl, “he still won’t talk about how she died? Damn him. How am I supposed to mourn her if I can’t tell the story properly?”

“I don’t know the details,” she says. “But if it helps, they were hunting a Jedi.”

The woman blinks, nodding slowly. “A Jedi.” She turns to Shae, the next words too fast for Nine to pick out with her rudimentary grasp of Mando’a, but whatever Valk says, Shae nods and answers back, her tone surprisingly gentle.

“A Jedi,” Valk says again. “Good. Good. Come on, then. Let’s get you back to your camp.”

***

Something’s wrong.

When she gets in earshot of the safehouse she can hear Jakarro somewhere inside, raging. The sun’s just setting, and even then he never comes to the base- they always go to him.

Something’s really wrong. She runs the rest of the way down the alley. Screw being inconspicuous; if the roaring Wookiee hasn’t brought the neighbors out to stare yet, she doubts one woman running will manage it.

The door’s unlocked and open, another bad sign, and when she rounds the corner from the hall into the main room Jakarro’s pacing back and forth and Lana’s got one finger on the switch of her saber.

“There were only ten of them! We could have fought them all!”

Lana raises her other hand, her tone brooking no argument. “I know you don’t agree with me-”

“-but you let them take him, Sith!”

He’s about three seconds away from going for Lana’s throat before Dee-Four notices her. “Oh! Cipher, we have terrible news. Theron-”

“Theron’s been captured by the Revanites.” Lana looks to her, too, and takes a careful step to one side, slowly putting her between the two of them. Which is not a place she thinks she would like to be, not at the moment.  

“What does he mean, you let them take him?”

“They only saw Theron. It’s possible we could have intervened, yes, but I thought it was better-”

(It’ll be fine, she’d said. It’s just an empty house, she’d said. What’s the worst that could happen?

There are things worse than dying.)

She draws her pistol, and before any of them can stop her she aims it squarely at Lana’s face. “I think,” she says, “you ought to choose your next words very carefully.”

***

Up next: Thicker than Water. A rescue, a battle, and something unexpected.

[milfbrainrot]

kdksjf wait so presumably the Fixer Watcher runs into in Chapter one in the memory thing is actually Principal manipulating the simulation.

So. "She whispers to an Occupant" and "We were supposed to fight the Occupants, not fuck them" thing is... so much more interesting through the lens of Principal's obsession with Iris. Like she's jealous that Iris is close with an Occupant the way she wants Iris to be close to her ??? Absolutely insane implications