#specifically what could they have done to make Callista angry at them

[abeltownshipslittlebitch]

So true, the 5/Simon dynamic is just *chef's kiss*!

Can I ask what your 5's relationship with Simon was like pre-betrayl? What kind of things did they do together and we're they just friends or was there maybe something there that could have been, in a different life?

Also (because I have to sneak in a question about my other fav ship), what was your 5's relationship like with Peter pre-reveal? And did your 5 see it coming or was she completely blindsided?

Sorry if you've answered/talked about this before. Feel free to just link the posts if you have. 💛

I really haven’t talked much about my specific five so thanks for asking! It’s kind of long so I have a read more.

Pre-Betray my Five, Callista, and Simon were besties. They loved going on runs together and Callista cared about Simon quite a bit and vice versa. Callista didn’t have any attraction to Simon romantically or vice versa during early seasons, although their friendship was strong in a way that made them almost seem like platonic soulmates. During the time Callista couldn’t speak, she taught him sign language (she’s American but she knows British sign language) although it didn’t help much because I say that Simon would always grab her wrist while they ran together. It made running a bit awkward and uncomfortable, but it became a habit and it kept Simon from having to worry about Callista being the little crow she was from running off to collect a new trinket and nearly giving him a heart attack when he turns around to see her gone.

They hung out a lot, but usually with some OCs I made just for my world that were people Callista cared about. Callista loved reading as an escape so she babbled to Simon about books a lot, and she is a pretty good cook so cue her dragging Simon into the kitchen to help her with a recipe. And since she is American and lived in the southern region she cooked those kinds of foods which Simon always was skeptical about but tried anyway because she looked so happy to be reminded of home again.

Speaking of her being American, when she regained the ability to talk, it became pretty common for the two of them to make fun of each other’s accent. They teased each other a lot but it was always in good fun.

Basically in those early seasons my Five and Simon were best friends who loved each other platonically but much more than most friends did.

In the seasons with Peter pre-reveal, Callista did feel drawn to him and she trusted him way quicker than she normally would. It confused her, honestly. But it felt nice to be close to someone again in that platonic way, although this time there were romantic notes in there that was the start of an a extremely slow burn… because neither of them actually believe they have feelings for each other until much later. Peter didn’t realize he had romantic feelings for Callista until near the end S7 and Callista didn’t realize she had feelings for him until the gap between S8 and 9, and neither of them even admit it to each other until about 1/3 way through S9, and things are complicated because of other failing relationships they were both in but not sure if they should let them go.

Back to pre-reveal though, Callista has smart and stupid moments. She’s an amazing runner and is quick in coming up with plans and spotting things but she always did not see the reveal coming for two reasons:

1. She can be really fucking stupid and oblivious when it comes to these things.

2. After Simon “died” in S3 finale she refused to believe there was a chance he might be alive because if she gave herself that hope and then never saw him again and he was actually dead it would destroy her. (She was so devastated by Simon’s “death” in S3 she actually stopped talking and only spoke via sign language, which she hadn’t done since she regained her ability to speak in early S2. She was mute during the entire time skip between S3 and 4 and only spoke again because her sister came to Abel and she was so angry because she and her younger sister have major beef that she started speaking just to curse her out.)

Back to the point, there were obvious signs, but Callista was oblivious and in denial so she never saw it coming. Peter even did the same habit of grabbing her wrist while on runs and she would just awkwardly pull away and tell him only one person had that privilege (but Peter still did it out of habit and Callista eventually just let him). Callista tries not to think too much about it.

When Peter admits that he’s Simon, Callista’s brain short-circuited and she nearly had to be dragged to safety from the zombies around them because she just froze. There was an argument later because Callista wasn’t sure how to process all of this, but it ended in tears with Callista’s much shorter frame hugging Peter right enough to hurt as she sobbed “I missed you,” over and over again.

I hope that answered your question! And thank you for the ask about my Five!

[project-feive]

Teenage Sara: Uh-oh.

Teenage Adora: What?

Teenage Sara: I see an angry parent walking our way.

Teenage Adora: Yours or mine?

Teenage Sara: Does is matter?

Teenage Adora: If it’s yours, there’s a chance we can make it out without being grounded for the rest of our lives. If it’s mine, then we might as well lock ourselves in our room because we can’t even outrun my mom.

[atamascolily]

So I want to talk about one of Luke’s less publicized fails in Legends, namely with Cray Mingla and Nichos Marr in Children of the Jedi by Barbara Hambly. It’s not as flashy and obvious as his failures with Kyp Durron and Kueller, since only two people die, and the New Republic government doesn’t get involved. It’s framed as the result of his students’ choices, rather than their teacher’s, and Luke benefits a great deal from the fallout. But the more I study the backstory for fic purposes, the more convinced I am that Luke Majorly Screwed Up, and I want to call him out on it.

When we first meet Cray and Nichos, the situation is presented as both a tragic love story, and also a Done Deal. Two Force prodigies (and childhood best friends?) fall in love and come to Yavin to train, only for one to be diagnosed with a fatal illness, and the other uses their life’s work to save them. It’s a Nicholas Sparks novel with robots.... except it doesn’t work.

Instead of successfully transferring Nichos’s spirit into a new body, Cray creates a droid replica straight out of the Uncanny Valley, with life-like face and hands. a metallic body, and all of Nichos’s memories. (How she does this is handwaved as techno-wizardry, with a little bit of Ssi-ruuvi techniques thrown in the mix, which is... even more horrific if you start to think about it.) The result isn’t the “real” Nichos--it’s not the man she fell in love with. It’s a construct, a copy, not a human being.

I get where Hambly was trying to go with this meditation on what constitutes personhood, but I feel like dismissing the new Nichos as “just” a droid” is kinda sketchy, given that machines and droids in the Star Wars universe have emotions and personalities and are clearly capable of independent agency not directly contradicted by their programming. Maybe this new Nichos is “another Corellian by the same name”  and not the original, but does that make him any less deserving of autonomy and personhood? I don’t think so.

Droid-Nichos is clearly aware that he’s not human--he pretends because he wants to please Cray (and there’s a not-so-subtle implication she programmed him to do that, which is hella creepy)--but his conversations with Threepio make it equally clear that he sees that as his only function, and he’s not of much ‘use’ for anything else. His very specificity makes him an outlier among droids. He doesn’t fit into either world, which is why he’s so willing to sacrifice himself at the end of the novel--besides the fact that Cray asks him to and he’s not in position to be able to say no.

But Cray is so deep in denial she refuses to admit that this isn’t the original Nichos until droid-Nichos is unable to rescue her from torture because he’s wearing a restraining bolt. Then she breaks down completely, sending droid-Nichos up to shut down the ship and be shot to pieces while she commits suicide by letting Callista’s spirit take over her own body.

So where does Luke fit into all of this? Isn’t it unfair to hold him responsible for Cray’s decisions, given that he was unconscious at the time and determined to sacrifice himself instead? At twenty-six, Cray was a grown-ass adult; if she wanted to create a walking RealDoll with the memories of dead lover, that was her business, right? Right?

The thing is that Hambly makes it clear during Cray’s breakdown that Luke knew all along that Cray hadn’t saved the “real” Nichos.

“Luke …”

He looked up quickly, to meet the blue glass eyes. In the shadowy gloom the face that he’d known so well was almost a stranger’s, affixed monstrously to the silver cowl of the metal skull.

“Am I really Nichos?”

Luke said, “I don’t know.” He had never in his life felt so helpless, because in his heart—in the secret shadows where the truth always lay—he knew that this was a lie.

He knew.

Luke knew exactly what the new Nichos was, and he never sat down with Cray and talked about this or staged an intervention of any kind. He let her deceive herself, even though one of the foremost principles of being a Jedi is self-knowledge and facing grief and failure directly. He knew and he never said anything, because....  I don’t know, exactly.

The Doylist answer is that Callista needed a hot young body to inhabit, and Cray’s entire existence was to provide her with one, more or less guilt-free. (I still think it’s incredibly creepy, and I know I’m not the only one, but most of the characters in-universe let it slide, and I just... can’t even...)

“Am I ‘another Corellian of the same name’?”

“I’d like to tell you one way or the other,” said Luke. The bolt came away from the brushed-steel chest, lay thick and heavy in Luke’s hand. One hand real, one hand mechanical, but both his. “But I … I don’t know. You are who you are. You are the being, the consciousness, that you are at this moment. That’s all I can tell you.” That fact, at least, was true.

The smooth face did not alter, but the blue eyes looked infinitely sad. “I had hoped that, being a Jedi, you would know.”

And Luke had the uncomfortable sensation that, having been a Jedi, Nichos knew perfectly well that he was keeping something back.

It’s worth noting here that Luke is one of the few people in the GFFA who we see treating droids as people. He’s not dismissive of Nichos’s existential angst, and he’s not going to dictate what Nichos is, no matter how much Nichos wants to be reassured one way or the other. I don’t know if other characters who are less sympathetic to droids would react this way.

I also like the juxtaposition between Nichos’s metallic body and Luke’s mechanical hand. Luke is human; Nichos isn’t--where’s the line between them? Isn’t Luke’s point here is that the line is where you define it to be?

Or at least that’s the image Luke wants to project. He’s still holding something back--namely, the real truth, which he shares with Callista:

“Is Nichos all right?”

Luke nodded, then caught himself, and shook his head. “Nichos … is a droid,” he said.

“I know.”

Callista sees right off that Nichos is a droid; she calls him “the droid with the human eyes” and asks if he’s some new creature of Palpatine’s when she and Luke first meet. Luke can admit to her that Nichos is a droid, but not to Nichos or Cray--not even when Nichos directly asks him. So, #TeachingFail there, I think. What the hell was Luke thinking?

This gets even worse as Callista continues:

“Luke,” she said gently. “Sometimes there is nothing you can do.”

He expelled his breath in an angry gust, fist clenched hard; but he did not, after all, speak for a time. Then it was only to say, “I know.” He realized he hadn’t known that, two weeks ago. In some ways, learning about Sith Lords and cloned Emperors had been easier.

So if Luke didn’t know there was nothing to be done but accept the situation as it was, why didn’t he try to do something for Cray before now? Why did he let her coast along in denial with her robot boyfriend for months?

Which makes it all the more ironic that the conversation turns to the role of mistakes in the education of a Jedi, as well as recounting of Luke’s other teaching mistakes.

“I just wish some of those one thousand eighty mistakes didn’t involve teaching students. Teaching Jedi. Transmitting power, or the ability to use the Force. My ignorance—my own inexperience—cost one of my students his life already, and threw another one into the arms of the dark side and caused havoc in the galaxy I don’t even want to think about. The whole thing—the Academy, and bringing back the skills of the Jedi—is too important for … for ‘Learn While You Teach.’"

Luke isn’t responsible for Nichos’s illness or his death, but he is responsible for letting Cray keep her illusions for so long. He isn’t responsible for the dramatic, over-the-top way in which Cray’s fantasies come tumbling down--but why did he let it get to that point in the first place?

Here’s Cray’s reaction when Luke does try to talk to her about Nichos:

“I know he had a scum-eating motherless restraining bolt, you jerk!” She screamed the words, spat them at him, hatred and fury a bitter fire in her eyes; and when the words were out sat staring at him in blind, helpless rage behind which Luke could see the fathomless well of defeat, and grief, and the ending of everything she had ever hoped.

Then silence, as Cray turned her face aside. The nervous thinness that had advanced on her during Nichos’s illness had turned brittle, as if something had been taken, not just from her flesh, but from the marrow of her bones. Over the torn uniform, grimed with blood and oil, the blanket hung on her like a battered shroud.

If they had had this conversation before now--after Nichos’s death, or at any point before that trip to Ithor--would matters have come to this?  Is Luke culpable for all the things he didn’t say to Cray, as well as the things he did say to Gantoris and Kyp (cited above)?

Does Cray fall prey to the Dark Side here? Is that why Callista loses her powers? I don’t know. I love this novel, but so much of its logic is incomprehensible to me, and I don’t understand it. Maybe that’s why I love it so much, because it keeps me thinking about it.

“Don’t hate him for being what he is,” he said, the only thing he could think of to say. “Or for being what he’s not.”

The words sounded puerile in his own ears, like a half-credit computerized fortune-teller at a fair. Ben, he thought, would have had something to say, something healing … Yoda would have known how to deal with the wretched ruin of a friend’s heart and life.

The mightiest Jedi in the universe, he reflected bitterly—that he knew of, anyway—the destroyer of the Sun Crusher, the slayer of evil, who’d defeated the recloned Emperor and the Sith Lord Exar Kun, and all he could offer someone who had been disemboweled was, Gee, I’m sorry you’re not feeling so well …

Luke, you should have had this conversation with her months ago. Or if you didn’t feel up to it, you should have insisted she go to THERAPY as a condition of her continued training at your school, you knew damn well she wasn’t okay, and you just let her go on her way as if nothing was wrong and I just... 

As a result of his screw-ups with Cray and Nichos, Luke survives, his ghost girlfriend gets a body, and the Eye of Palpatine is destroyed, so I guess it works out pretty well for him. Cray and Nichos, not so much, sadly. Does he learn anything from the experience? I don’t know, because nothing quite this weird happens ever again.

Anyway, I don’t know why I’m so mad about this one point from a novel published twenty-five years ago that only a handful of people remember, but I can’t read it anymore without wanting to smack Luke here for his part in this whole mess. Even though I think I understand why he holds back, why he’s afraid he’ll make matters worse, and why it’s easier to just to leave Cray alone and hope it all works out, it’s still the wrong decision and Obi-wan and Yoda and I are all shaking our heads at him, because really, Luke, why did you do that--??

[weneedtherooks]

Realization

Oh My God This Took Forever

PLEASE READ THE TAGS! LET ME KNOW IF ANYTHING ELSE NEEDS TAGGING!

Okay...I can do this…

Callista took a deep breath as she walked up the steps to the apartment she’d been sharing with Armin. She hadn’t seen him in over a month. Not since.. No, she thought, I won’t let that get to me. I’m here to get my things and leave. That’s it. Besides, he was probably staring at the bottom of a bottle anyway. She'd known he had a drinking issue, he'd told her right at the beginning about it. It hadn't been a problem in the beginning; a few drinks in the evening, maybe one on a bad morning. But after he hit the front lines…? The army had been in need of a good doctor on the front lines once the battle at Verdun started. Armin had been a willing volunteer, and Callista had suggested she go as well, considering her prior work with shell shock patients. That was when the drinking got worse: sneaking off during slow moments, every morning started with a drink, and every night ended with one. Finally, by the beginning of November, he was working drunk. He's gotten extremely lucky that no one had actually died in his care, but that was partially due to Callista shadowing him. One day she just...snapped. Called him out, slapped him for giving her a pathetic excuse...told him to go home. “Armin, just leave. Please. I can't...I can't handle this anymore. Not here.” She sent him a handful of letters, but he never answered. She half wondered if he even opened them, but had shoved the thought aside. Callista was through with trying right now. Maybe later, if/when he figured out what he was doing wrong, she would come back. For now, her heart just couldn’t take it; watching him destroy himself was too much to bear. She was going to their apartment right now to grab some personal things. She stopped in front of the door, steeling herself. Go in. Get your things. Get out. Simple. Turning the handle, she pushed open the door slowly, immediately noticing the foul odor coming from inside. Her whole face scrunched up. Why the hell does it smell so bad? she wondered. It smelled like old urine and vomit, mixed in with...liquor? Something else as well...old food maybe? A quiet clinking sounded behind the door as she opened it. Broken glass? She gasped at the mess as she stepped inside. Broken bottles, books all over the floor, dirty dishes with food still on them...she saw a spot where the vomit smell came from and the attempt at cleaning it. Shock felt like an understatement. What in God’s name hap- Callista froze with a sharp inhale. Armin stepped into view, looking up at her in surprise. “Cal…?” He looked terrible. He hadn’t done much more than put on a pair of pants over his underwear (both looking a little worse for the wear), and he’d forgotten socks all together. He was altogether unkempt; his hair had grown just a little, and he hadn’t shaved at all. The bags and redness around his eyes spoke volumes as well...when was the last time he slept? And had he lost weight? She was also quite certain he hadn’t bathed at all, either. “Are...are you okay…?” No answer. She slowly made her way to him. “Armin, please. Can you answer me?” she asked, stepping in front of him. He gave her a once over, seemingly unsure if she was real or not. She tried to reach out and touch his face, but he flinched slightly, taking a step back. He couldn’t make eye contact with her. “I’m sorry...I’m not...entirely sure how to explain all of this,” he muttered, looking around the room. “My memory is...patchy. At best.” “You don’t remember if you did any of this?” His lip curled up in disgust, looking over the room once again. “I blacked out a few times.” How much drinking did he do? They stood in silence. For how long, only God knew. Callista sighed heavily. “You look like a mess,” she whispered, brushing his hair out of his face. He didn’t step away this time, so she took that as a good sign. He looked at her for the first time. He looks so defeated. Callista cupped his face, her chest hurting a little when he leaned into the touch. “Callista, I…” She hushed him. “Stay here, okay?” He nodded, turning his head to watch her go into the bathroom. It was in desperate need of cleaning before she did anything. Gathering the appropriate supplies, she went to work on scrubbing the bathtub. She gasped at the straight razor sitting in the bottom of the tub, both of which had old bloodstains on them. Don’t tell me he hurt himself…! She pursed her lips, choking down the urge to cry she felt with each passing stain she cleaned. She resisted the urge to throw up herself as she cleaned the toilet. I guess I should be grateful he even managed to make it in here at all. “I’m sorry.” Callista looked over her shoulder. “It’s alright, Armin.” She stood up, wiping the thin layer of sweat off her forehead. “Come here,” she said, motioning for Armin to come into the bathroom while she filled the bathtub. “Okay...get undressed, please.” He cocked his head to the side, but obeyed. When he finished, Callista took his hand. “Let’s get you cleaned up...okay?” He sank into the tub, closing his eyes with a sigh. Cal couldn't stop the soft smile forming on her face, but it quickly faded as she looked at the assortment of cuts and bruises on his body. Okay...it looks like he has a few small cuts on his hands...possibly from trying to clean the broken glass. Bruises are probably from stumbling through the apartment. He’d said he couldn’t really remember all that happened, so maybe it happened during a blackout moment? Her face bunched up in concern. He has at least two-no, three-cuts on his left arm that he stitched on his own somehow, and it looks like another two on the right? She reached over and gently lifted up his right arm. Four cuts. The stitches needed to be replaced, and it looked like one had popped out as well. Two of them had minor infections. “When did you do these?” “Last week, I think,” he answered, staring at one of the infected cuts. He held up one leg, looking at the ones that had scabbed over. “I don’t know when these happened, though. They’ve healed some, but…well, this whole month has been something of a blur.” Cal nodded, grabbing a washcloth and some soap. Carefully, she helped bathe him, removing the old stitches in the process. She cleaned them out as best she could, trying not to hurt him. He seemed grateful for the help; the alcohol induced daze still hadn’t fully worn off, and his attempts at helping her clean himself had been poor. Every time he moved, he groaned. “Everything aches, Cal. I’m fairly certain I can feel my organs aching.” “I’m not surprised. Do you remember anything at all?” Armin’s head lolled back. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “Vaguely. I got home and drank a bottle of...schnapps?” He stopped, trying his best to remember what he’d pulled out of the liquor cabinet. Shaking his head in frustration, he continued. “Um, I blacked out for a few hours. I must have fallen asleep during that, because I woke up on the table with a screaming headache. After that...I don’t know, most of it was a mess of throwing things and passing out. I abandoned my position at the hospital, you know. I couldn’t take myself seriously. I thought…” “Thought what?” “That I couldn’t function without you behind me. I didn’t want to risk it.” He turned his head to look at her. “Destroying myself is one thing...but letting someone else die because of my own self-loathing?” “And that wasn’t enough to make you stop?” “Callista, I didn’t even know what the hell to do after you told me to leave. I was angry at you, myself, the world and everyone in it! I’m not so stupid to have kept practicing in my condition!” That wasn’t the answer she expected. They looked at each other in silence again. “Wait here. I’ll get you some clean clothes.” When she returned to the bathroom, Armin had managed to pull himself out of the tub. He was sitting on the floor, but he made it out on his own without falling. “Oh! I could have helped you out!” “I know, but I figured I should try. I’ve barely moved all month, getting out of the damned bathtub feels like an achievement.” Cal giggled. “Should I give you an award? A metal for your efforts?” “Hey, everyone’s fighting a war, aren’t they?” Callista nodded, picking up a pair of scissors and a new razor from on top of his clothes. “Will a haircut and a shave work?” She laughed at his relieved expression. “You have no idea.” “Well, let me grab a chair then!” When she returned to the bathroom again, Armin had gotten halfway dressed. “Look, I managed underwear. I’m really getting the hang of this ‘living’ thing.” Callista feigned surprise. “A true work of God!” Armin rolled his eyes, smiling as he pulled up his pants. “No shirt?” “Let’s start small, Armin. Think you can shave on your own if I give you a mirror?” He nodded. “I think I can manage that much.” They filled the empty space with idle chatter; he asked what work she had been doing, if any new soldiers were going to be assigned to her care, etc. She had a couple of men that needed specific attention, but nothing beyond what Armin already knew. I miss this, Callista thought. She missed the small talk they had at night before bed, about how their respective days went...she missed not eating and sleeping alone, and judging from his reactions during their conversation...he missed it to. “Hey...Armin?” “Yes?” “What made you so angry that you had to empty out the whole liquor cabinet?” His shoulders dropped, as if a heavy weight had been laid on him. “I was more than aware of the problems I was causing. I’d wake up every morning and, as I threw back yet another glass of liquor, I’d begin to wonder: When, exactly, did I let my life get so out of control? At what point had I let myself become wholly reliant on another person? Every time I looked in a mirror, I hated myself, and after a while, it just became blind anger.” Callista set down the scissors, moving around to kneel in front of him. She held out her hands, glad that he was willing to put his in hers. She absently stroked the backs of his fingers. “I was...13. I’d been in America for a short while now. They all claimed I was some kind of genius; it isn’t exactly common for children to be so well known in the field of medicine. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I’d just picked up some books when I was younger, and had even less patience to explain that I was simply well read, but they invited me to their little parties nonetheless. I learned that alcohol was a great method of drowning the pretentious bastards out.” A long pause followed. “Soon, it had become something of a remedy for me: good for softening a headache, great for easing social gatherings, worked well with most foods I didn’t particularly like. Before long, it turned into what you saw upon meeting me.” “A few drinks in the afternoon, and a few at night.” “Yes, in that simple order. Not something to be proud of, I understand, but better than...this,” he finished, gesturing at himself slouched in the chair. “I willingly volunteered to go out to the front,” he started, now sitting hunched in the chair. “I wanted to help so badly, but...I couldn’t take it.” He drew a ragged breath, tears pooling in his eyes. “All the moaning and screaming and constant gore, I...I just couldn’t,” he bit out, the tears falling down his face. “I wanted it all to stop. I wanted it all to go away, and…” “You got away...in the only way you knew how…” His face twisted in self disgust. “I couldn’t abandon my post, that much I knew, but I’d learned well how to sneak in my drinking. So I did. Constantly. Anything to dull the pain of the world around me. I started to get angry with everyone and everything. I hated the people that started the war, I hated the men fighting it,” his voice began to raise, “I hated that stupid excuse for a hospital, I hated it all! And I couldn’t find a single damned reason to!” It hurt to listen to him, to watch him. He had fallen so far before finally looking up, she realized. His words came out broken between sobs now. “I didn’t have the strength to look at myself and say ‘Hey, maybe we should think about stopping this whole being battered constantly gig we have going?’, and when you approached me...it broke me.” He inhaled deeply, trying to calm himself. “I hated that everything you said was right. I hated that I knew you were right. I hated myself for letting it get that far. When I shoved you…” His eyes shut tight, and Callista remembered vividly what happened. “I think that slap tipped the scale. Forced me to see what I was becoming. When I came home, I was torn between drinking further to ease that pain and destroying every ounce of the damn liquor that brought me to this point.” He finally broke down, sobbing into his hands. Callista felt the tears running down and between her fingers. Calming him wouldn’t help, so she chose to let him be. How long had he been holding this resentment in? “Did anyone in your family know about this?” she asked softly. He shook his head. “No,” he replied. “My mother hated my drinking, I didn’t want to tell her about this. And Derrick frets about enough as is.” “What about Friedrich? Or Erich?” “I haven’t heard from Erich in weeks. And Fritz? He’d be the first to say ‘I told you’, but that would be in retaliation for all the times I’ve chastised him on his sexual habits. They weren’t who I was concerned about.” “They...weren’t? Then who?” He sat up to look her in the eye. “You.” Callista leaned back. Armin looked off to the side. “I’m not sure if you noticed, but I had been drinking less after you came around. I didn’t feel like I needed it. I could handle the withdraw, as long you were just...there.” That’s why he’d been slowing down…? Was because of me? “Why…?” “I...loved you.” She teared up as he looked back at her. “Callista, I still do.” She bit her lip, trying to hold back tears of her own. “However,” he began, taking a slow breath, “I won’t be so selfish as to ask you to stay here.” Cal was surprised. “Wha-” “No, let me finish, please. I won’t sit here and try to give you all the reasons you should stay here with me. I understand the process of becoming sober will be...difficult. And I don’t wish to hurt you further.” Callista looked down at the floor, sighing heavily. The nerve. “Armin-” “Callista-” She put a finger over his lips. “Promise me.” He looked confused. “I can handle difficult, Armin. I deal with shell shock patients, getting over drinking is not a big deal.” She looked him in the eyes. “But you need to promise that’ll you give it your all. That you won’t quit when it gets hard.” Cal leaned up, kissing him softly. Armin let out the breath he’d been holding, molding his lips against hers. There was relief in his kiss, desperation seeping through as well. Callista parted the kiss, gasping a little. Armin pressed his forehead against hers, both of their eyes shut tight. “Armin Rosenthal, I love you. I want nothing more than to be with you. Just promise-” “Callista Hawkins, I want you by my side forever, if you’ll have me. You already possess my heart, there is nothing I can’t give you.”