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love, alive
Permalink Mark Unread

What a day it's been. That's to be expected, sometimes, when one's master is a Sith, but even then, watching her go from barely responsive to a clinging, sobbing breakdown, then speaking, when she hasn't spoken an unscripted word in the year she's known her and hasn't spoken at all in well over a month, and then going off to kill her master, possibly killing Lord Grauzatis as well, and adding most of his prisoners to the escape plan? Even for a Sith, that's not your average day, in any sense.

And now here they are, making their way out of the system on sublight drive. Daisy - she's Daisy, now, that was the promise, that when they escaped they would both get new names - hasn't been given any orders, has barely been spoken to, and might not be. It's up to her to figure out what to do next, despite the fact that she's just a servant droid, and anyone else on the ship would be more qualified. Deskyl - Lord Pradnakt, now - trusts her, would be upset if she surrendered the responsibility to anyone else.

They clearly need medical attention. All of them, really, even Pradnakt, at least enough to ensure that there's nothing medically wrong with her. That's the first thing Daisy takes care of, searching the ship's database for the best medical facility not run by the Empire that they can get to overnight and setting them on course for it. Then she checks on the passengers: the hooded woman is where Pradnakt left her, the man with the prosthetics has claimed one cabin, and the two remaining women are settling into another. She offers them food and painkillers from the ship's stores and leaves them to it, going back to check on the hooded woman. She's unresponsive, but the code to the hood's lock is in Daisy's databank without any warnings or special instructions, so she goes ahead and takes it off, dims the room and waits for a dose of painkiller to set in before removing the blindfold and earplugs underneath, and feeds her half a serving of mush made from the blandest of the emergency rations.

Then, with everything as well taken care of as it can be for now, she goes to check on her master.

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They've moved to the floor, the couch not being big enough for them to lie side by side; Pradnakt's back is to the entrance, guarding him with her body.

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They both sleep at once, now. His eyes are closed and he's curled up next to her.

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There's no telling when they'll wake up, except that it probably won't be any time soon.

She goes back to the cockpit. She can watch them from there, and this way they won't be disturbed if one of the other passengers comes looking for her.

 

They're still asleep come dinnertime; she distributes meals, takes care of the dishes, and informs the passengers that there are regrettably no changes of clothes available, but that they'll be at Scaovis IV in the morning where they can get both clothing and medical care.

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And, eventually, a few hours after dinner, Pradnakt comes awake.

She has no idea where she is or how she got there, but he's here, so that's all right.

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He wakes up only a few moments later, and the memories of the previous day light up one by one.

The plan. The killing. The escape. The ship.

(The torture.)

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Well.

Here they are, then.

She gathers him back up into her arms and holds him tight.

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It's a good place to be.

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After a minute he opens his eyes again.

will they follow us?

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They were still pretty distracted when we left.

He's going to be really pissed about losing His prisoners, though. She holds him a little closer.

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good.

He buries his face in her shoulder. Even as he thinks it, there's a pang of panic.

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I won't let Him have you. I won't.

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The droid comes in; she's quiet, but not silent.

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His head shoots up.

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...oh. Right.

He waves.

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She tenses, too, but relaxes when he sees the droid. (She wishes she remembered her properly. She knows, from his memories, that she's important, that there's something to remember, but she doesn't know what it is.)

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"Are you all right, Sir? Is there anything I can get for either of you?"

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"I think I'm fine," they say. He gestures to himself.

(He's very hungry, but hasn't really registered it yet.)

He looks to Pradnakt as he asks - do you need anything?

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Dinner. You too. She hasn't missed it.

She might know what's going on.

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Oh. Huh. Right.

"...actually. Food would be good."

They pause.

"What's happening?"

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"We're on our way to Scaovis IV, Sir; there's a private hospital there, it should be safe enough. We'll get there in the morning. The prisoners you rescued are all stable and should be fine until then, and I've started going through the financial records; you have plenty of credits available for now."

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"...Thank you."

He hesitates.

"Please don't call the boy sir."

Another gesture to himself.

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"All right. What should I call you?"

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That's...

That's a question, isn't it?

 

"..."

 

He looks helplessly at Pradnakt.

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Yeah, that's a hard one.

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"...I see. All right."

She approaches, a little hesitantly, but when Pradnakt doesn't object, she sits by them and offers her her hand; even without her memories, Pradnakt recognizes it as an offer of comfort, and is comforted.

"Her name is Deskyl, by the way. Lord Pradnakt, now. And I'm Daisy."

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Deskyl. Deskyl Deskyl Deskyl.

 

"Hi, Daisy."

He picks up the wrong arm again, to gesture or reach out or something like it, and silently lets it fall once he realizes.

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She ducks her head in a gesture Deskyl recognizes as deferential, almost conciliatory. The Sith squeezes her hand reassuringly, and she rallies a little.

"Has she told you about me?"

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“She told me you’re important.”

‘Me’ feels wrong. It sticks in his throat, feels odd and oily on his lips.

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Deskyl shoots him a concerned look, and squeezes Daisy's hand before taking hers back to shift him onto her lap for a hug.

    "Is something wrong?"

"We're-" are they just fundamentally together, now? She hadn't intended this entwinement to be permanent - the link, yes, but the thing where they're leaning on each other for basic functioning was supposed to be an emergency measure. But...

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Oh. Hugs are good. He returns it as well as he can.

 

 

He thinks he can pick it apart, the places where they’re separate. He can feel where the veins have grown in with each other, in some places, and he knows that—they’re one thing, now, but they’re still distinct, him and her. He doesn’t want her her-ness to disappear.

That doesn’t help to explain why just referring to himself in the first person makes his stomach drop.

Maybe there’s just not enough of him to make up an “I”, right now.

If it’s anyone’s right, to be that lost, it’s hers. His identity — that’s always been strong, it should still be enough that he can carry her when her whole Me was ripped away from her. Kai-zi was always so very much of himself.

 

He’s not sure if this is the same question as he was answering before.

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Her thoughts are a chaotic swirl of worry, at first - not for herself; for him. There's no doubt in her mind that she'll be okay; she's been getting better every day, and she knows she's been through this before, and recovered.

Him, on the other hand - she can't bear the thought of leaving, of even pulling away, not now, not when he's hurting, no, no - she flinches away hard, shuts that idea down, I'm not going to do that, before the rage and despair that it evokes overwhelms her.

But she can't stand to lose him, either, to watch him drift away and disintegrate. Where the idea of leaving brings on the heat of rage, this evokes the icewater chill of terror. And here, she doesn't know what to do, doesn't know what he needs, doesn't know whether this close connection will be a stifling deathtrap or a lifesaving framework. What do you need, Love, what can I do?

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He's glad, so glad, that she doesn't want to pull away – because he would do it for her, if she needed it, he would even if it killed him and left him completely empty. But she doesn't. And she won't.

 

i don't...know.

i don't know–

    what i am, now. because...

 

Someone hurt him. Really hurt him, took him apart, and Kai-zi is safe from that because he would like it but he wasn't safe and so he's not Kai-zi.

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Oh. Oh, Love. He is so very hugged.

 

I'm not going anywhere. We'll figure it out together.

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He trembles a little and ducks in close.

okay.

i love you

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Love you. Love you.

"We're figuring it out." And they can be 'we', as long as he needs to be.

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"All right."

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"Dinner, please?"

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"Yes, Ma'am."

She goes.

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He watches her leave.

(He’s a little worried that this important person doesn’t like him. It’s important that someone important to Pradnakt will want him to stay.)

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Hugs continue. They will continue until there's a reason for them to stop, and it's going to have to be a good one.

She wishes she remembered the droid better. It looks, from what she does know, like it'll be fine, but it's hard to be sure. But he knows she's a person, that's one important thing taken care of, at least.

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He hopes there isn’t a reason.

And yes, she is a person. Of course she is.

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He's so good.

Whatever else he is or isn't, he's that.

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It’s a little hesitant, but

he smiles.

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She loves him loves him loves him. She glows with it - not literally, but it feels like it should be literal.

And he is good. She remembers (they remember) him with the prisoners; how could he doubt it?

Practical, too. That was a hard call, with the screaming man. Thinking about it is a bit of a mood killer, though; not that she considers it a flaw in any way, just that it makes her a little sad.

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!!!

♥️

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...yeah. That was sad.

He thinks it must have been better, though, than leaving him to live like that.

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Yeah. She bends down a little to nuzzle his forehead. But it's still sad to need to be practical like that, that the world's a place where that's a good trait to have.

Now that she's this close, it turns out that she wants to kiss him. But that's happening in her mind, and she's thinking in his, and that's enough of a separation for it not to interrupt her; it's as much of a surprise to her as it is to him when she does.

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—oh.

Oh!!

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He melts and sighs and clings to her and — swells with contentment, overflows, fills their mind with the golden haze of an overwhelming and almost disabling love.

 

(He’s hers.)

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Gosh.

That's not going to stop anytime soon either.

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And, indeed, they're still at it when Daisy returns with dinner.

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He’s all...melty. He likes this. It’s nice to have a preference especially when the preference is for such a good thing to continue happening.

He does notice Daisy coming in, though, and alerts Pradnakt. He’s not about to turn and stop her kissing him himself.

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It's lovely. (She loves him so much.)

She doesn't want to stop, but they do need to eat. She makes it happen, thanks the droid and levitates the tray over. Conveniently, it's finger food - similar to what her last few meals have been - and easy enough to feed him without needing either of them to let go.

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Oh, this is good too.

He kisses the tips of her fingers when she feeds him, catches them in his mouth when he’s able.

(It’s real food, that he can eat himself, and she’s feeding it to him.)

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He's adorable, that's another thing that he is. She teases him with her fingers and follows every few bites up with a kiss - she just can't help it, not that she's trying very hard - and occasionally remembers to take a bite for herself. (She's much less in need of food than he is, and she does take bites a little more often as his hunger dissipates.)

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And Daisy sits nearby, not watching, not avoiding watching, just making herself available in case she's needed, in the way droids do.

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Slowly, the ache in his gut fades, and soon he's comfortably full.

He won't get tired of kisses, though.

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Neither will she.

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The droid clears the tray away, when it's clear that they're done with it, and comes back to sit by them on the floor.

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He would really, really like to just think about kisses forever.

Unfortunately, he has other thoughts, some of which start to intrude.

we're landing at a hospital.

A brief, hot-needle-prick worry about how he could even begin to pay for a private hospital, easily swept aside when he remembers–

we have money too.

 

He doesn't want to think about how much they can fix, because he doesn't want to think about what needs fixing at all.

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We do. Lots, I think.

Are you going to be okay? I can do the talking, but - she doesn't know what they'll want to do. She won't let them do anything to him he doesn't want, obviously, but if even just talking about it is fraught, that makes things much harder.

Maybe the droid can handle it.

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i think    i'll be okay.

it'll be hard. but if you're there...

i'll be okay.

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I'm not going anywhere. She gives him a squeeze.

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He nuzzles into her shoulder and stays like that, for a minute, just listening to her breathe.

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Then he looks up, back at the droid Daisy.

"...is it too weird when–this? Talking like this?"

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"I don't understand it, but it doesn't bother me." She pauses, considering her words - "I'm glad you're... all right."

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Oh. That's not...what he would have expected. The content or the direction it's aimed in, really.

"...this one?"

He gestures to himself.

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"Both of you, yes."

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(What a good droid. Deskyl suspects she has something to do with her expressing opinions, that seems like the kind of thing she'd encourage. And the fact that the droid is expressing herself like that to him is meaningful, especially; it won't have been safe for her to do it with most people, most likely not with anyone but Deskyl herself. She's glad she trusts him like that - it's a different kind of warmth from her love for him, but, surprisingly, not that much less intense.)

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"...thank you."

He studies her, briefly, not really sure what he's looking for. 

Whatever he is now, a droid could be that too. When she remembers, he has to make sure that–

He pushes the thought away.

"Is everyone okay out there?"

Not "okay", maybe. Whatever pretends to be okay for them right now.

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(She's concerned about that, whatever it is, but she doesn't have enough working memory of her own to hold onto it for long without his cooperation.)

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"They'll be fine until morning, I think."

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Nod.

"...are you okay?"

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She nods. "Yes, Si-" she cuts herself off, and then cuts him off: "Ma'am, are we-" her hands flutter with poetry:

So, with hands entwined the closer,
We pressed on against the blast; 
And we bided for the daylight,
And the daylight came at last. 

"Do you still - need me, Ma'am?"

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...oh no.

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...they’re just the same as each other.

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"Of course we do. Of course we do. Come here." She scoots him over so there's room for the droid to come and get hugs, too, and Daisy settles into it.

"We don't - remember, most of the things she knows, still. So we don't remember you very well. We want to. We know you're important, even if we don't know how. We just don't know what we should be doing about that. We would never have hurt you if we knew how to avoid it."

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Her reactions aren't very human - she leans in, but she doesn't cuddle up, doesn't react, particularly, to Deskyl's arm around her shoulders.

"All right, Ma'am. I just wasn't sure. It's all right."

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"No, it's not. But we know, now. Some, anyway. I'm sorry."

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Not-human is...a little unsettling, at first.

But it’s fine, to be a droid. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t have the feelings, just means they don’t come out the same.

He doesn’t know how to help, though, so he just watches.

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"Yes, Ma'am."

She turns a little to look at him; it's impossible to tell what she's thinking.

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Deskyl takes the opportunity to talk to him, keeping an eye on the droid as she does. I love you, is the first thing; that's important, so, so important. And I think I love her too - did, and will, even though I don't remember her right now. You're both important and I'm not giving either of you up. You don't need to worry about that.

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But.

People only have room for better people — the people who have some use to them — he knows this. It’s a Fact About the World, not like space being black or water being wet but like how you’ll always be wrong about how much pasta you’re really going to eat or how usually things land on the wrong end. You could argue about it, but you have to plan for it, in the end, even if you think this time you’ve measured out just enough or you won’t drop your tablet face down on a rock because you’re being careful.

They got out together—they love each other—but she remembers very little, right now. What if she remembers that she has no space for the one who wasn’t here first, the one who was defective even before He got in his insides and broke him?

 

okay. i’ll try.

i love you too.

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It hurts, that he feels that way, that that's how the world has been for him. She wants better. (Of course she wants better for him, she loves him.)

It feels false, too; she takes a moment to re-center herself, to tease out how and why it's false.

I don't think I'm limited like that. It's - the world is hard, I might not be able to have you both. (And she's not sure who she'd choose, either, if she had to; there's a flicker of awareness in the back of her mind of just how impossible that choice would be.) But I want to. I love you. It's not about usefulness.

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Just the suggestion of being left behind has him panicking, for a minute, clinging, losing his breath.

(There are so many reasons to lose him.)

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No. They escaped. They're good at surviving. She wouldn't just let one of them go because it was hard.

 

He makes himself look up and meet the gaze of the droid watching them.

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She squeezes him close, rests her head on his. You two are more important than anything else I've ever wanted.

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"I- you're- he's staying, Ma'am?"

    Deskyl nods.

"I should get to know him, then."

    She nods again. But - "this isn't the best time, sweetheart. He needs to recover."

"Oh. All right." She sounds a little disappointed.

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He thinks about this for a moment.

(Oh. Right. They could be friends.)

 

"Soon. I hope."

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"Okay."

She reaches for his hand. "If you're important to her, that means you're important to me, too. I'm not going to hurt you."

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...

He uncurls his fingers from Pradnakt's clothes and takes her hand in his.

"Thank you."

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If she had a free hand, she'd be joining it with theirs, but hers are busy supporting them, and that's right, too. "Love you both."

Her family, that's what they are.

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"I can tell you more about her, if you'd like. I've read her files, I know what she was like before."

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love you too.

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He nods, immediately, when Daisy asks.

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She starts at the beginning: Pradnakt is from the planet Echitov, an unremarkable farming world. Her file had very little about her childhood, but did mention that her village used a creche system for its children; she seems not to have been close with her parents. She was fifteen when Lord Pritruth - her master - found her there, and had already worked out that she was Force-sensitive and learned to do some things with it, including fixing her hearing and healing, which are not in her file - the healing in particular is very secret, since Sith generally can't do it and Jedi can. Regardless, Pritruth was impressed with her, and took her as an apprentice rather than sending her to Korriban. She turned out to be strong in the Force but not remarkably so, but very good at developing new Force powers and excellent at engineering, and quickly picked up lightsaber design as her vocation of choice; she was active in the distributed work group (and may still have allies, there, but Daisy doesn't know much about it) and had been repeatedly asked to give talks on her lightsaber improvements at tech conferences (and ended up killing someone who was too pushy about asking, once).

The file also says that she's remarkably calm, for a Sith: she's not very ambitious, and tends to let things go rather than make issues of them; the tech-conference murder only happened when the person made it clear that she wouldn't take no for an answer. However, she's certainly competent; she doesn't take missions often, but her success rate on them is just fine.

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He absorbs it all, listening in fascination, occasionally gently proffering a fact for Pradnakt's consideration – her healing, her engineering, her power development.

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Yeah, that sounds like me.

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She sighs, when the story is over, and rests her head on his again. Going to have to figure out what's next, soon. The prospect feels exhausting.

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doesn't have to happen until after the hospital.

got a little time, at least.

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Yeah. She kisses the top of his head.

And - "Thank you, Daisy."

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She ducks her head shyly. "You're welcome."

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He nods emphatically.

"Thank you."

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"You're welcome."

"What should I tell them, when we get to the hospital?"

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"About what?"

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"About you - both of you."

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"She's - probably fine." She doesn't pick up her head from where it rests on his; even if her voice is muffled, his will do the job. "She's not as recovered as she looks, she's borrowing his mind to remember things with and talk, but she's still improving on her own. She'll be able to undo it, she thinks, but we haven't decided how much we want that, and anyway they can't help. They should probably check the burns from the other day, but she's not otherwise injured. He's -" Does he want to talk now? She suspects he doesn't, but it's his if he wants it.

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"Castrated," he says, feeling like he's speaking from a little distance outside himself, "for...a month? Missing this arm from...yesterday. Probably not damaged inside. It was done carefully. But maybe."

 

This all belongs to him. Whatever he is.

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She squeezes him tight. Love you. (How strong he is.)

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"All right. I'll make sure they know you're not to be separated. Their VIP room is on the small side for two, but it should be fine."

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"It's okay."

Can he still–

"Right now I think we're only one and a half."

...he still can.

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She chuckles, only a little darkly - and that she can do on her own, it's not words - and reaches up to pet his hair.

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He sighs and melts a little again, murmuring "thankyoudaisy" as he nuzzles into her hand.

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She keeps petting him, and when Daisy settles in rather than taking that as a cue to leave, scoots him up so that she can kiss him again.

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He makes a contented sound and kisses her back happily.

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So good. To have him, to have him happy, to be the source of his happiness. The kissing - kissing him - is nice in and of itself, too, but doesn't hold a candle to that, really. (She loves him so much.)

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After a while, Daisy reaches out, hesitantly, to rub his back.

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He starts a little at the unexpected hand–

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–but he relaxes, after a moment, lets it happen.

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It doesn't take long, though, this time, for him to start realizing–

 

 

He pulls away, curls in on himself away from both of them.

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Daisy flinches back; Pradnakt, given a little more warning, manages to let him go without resistance.

What's wrong, Love?

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He took this too.

There’s a brief emotional echo, not even sent intentionally, of what he would have felt before.

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Ah. Yeah.

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He wraps his arm around his knees and goes silent.

 

 

 

 

you need to teach me how to use a saber

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Yeah.

She unholsters hers, considers it: on one hand she wants to just give it to him - if he needs a 'saber he should have one - but on the other hand... there's not even a logic to it, at least not that she remembers, just a feeling that there is no level of intimacy that can allow for that, it's just conceptually impossible, no matter how much she wants it.

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don't need it now.

gonna use a blaster. until i'm perfect with the saber.

then i'll kill Him.

(thank you)

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Yeah. Okay. She puts it back, a little hesitantly. (She wants to go practice forms. Is there even a place for that here? Not that this is the time, anyway.) Love you. (He can come back for snuggles any time. She misses him already.)

We'll need to practice together.

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He nods.

until we're both perfect.

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It only takes a couple of minutes for him to crawl back into her lap.

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It's her turn to melt a little, this time. She kisses his forehead again.

Getting sleepy.

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we could sleep some more.

It's been a hell of a day.

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Yeah, it really has.

"Daisy, is there a bed for us?"

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"Yes, Ma'am."

She leads the way to the remaining empty berth; Pradnakt scoops him up to follow. It's - well, cramped compared to her rooms; not significantly smaller than his cell was. The duffel bag sits prominently on the bed, and she moves it to the floor and crouches to rifle around in it while Pradnakt settles them in the newly vacated space. "I think these will fit both of you," she says, setting a bundle of neatly-folded black cloth on the bed by them.

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Oh. Robes. It's a little odd to think about wearing one of those.

He nods and cuddles in closer to Pradnakt.

"Thanks."

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"You're welcome, Ma'am. I'll be in the cockpit if you need me."

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The "ma'am" is a little jarring, before he realizes why it happened.

It's not so important to correct her, though. She's not entirely wrong, in a way.

He curls up and shuts his eyes.

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And she curls up around him and pets him until they fall asleep.

She wakes first, in the morning.

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He does, too, a couple of minutes later. He didn't dream, again, which is probably a good thing.

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Something like that.

She waits patiently for him to wake up and their memories to come back, snuggling him while she does and then snuggling even more afterward.

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Oh. Good. He can let her sort through their memories while he gets as snuggled as possible.

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What a nice way to wake up.

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- oh. Hospital, soon. She gives him a squeeze.

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He appreciates it.

 

He worries about how much they’ll be able to fix.

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If she knows anything about medicine, it hasn't come back yet. But - is there anything you need, that you won't be okay without?

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...not sure. but—

If he can’t get back even a little of his ability to — accept things, enjoy them, let them roll over and through him — he definitely won’t be the same person as before. Hormones, probably. It’d be...bad, to have to keep track of them and maintain them all the time, to not be able to be caught somewhere for a week without worrying about being vulnerable again, but it’d be better than nothing at all.

(His hand—he doesn’t know what happens, if that stays completely lost to him.)

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A shred of memory floats back to her, of working on a prosthetic, but what she remembers is that it was interesting, not how good or bad it was for its purpose.

But - we'll see what they have. It doesn't sound like a hard technical problem, the hormones, if that works.

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Nod.

what if it doesn’t?

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I dunno.

I'll love you whatever happens, that's one thing.

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okay.

i’ll survive, then.

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Yeah.

Love you.

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He returns it, if not so much in words.

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This is so nice. It's good to have nice things again.

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It's so good.

(If they're lucky–if everything turns out fine–if she never has to leave–they can have this, at least, forever.)

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Sith are pretty good at getting what we want, usually.

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That's definitely a good thing.

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They should eat breakfast and such, at some point.

 

It really doesn't feel like a priority, though.

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No, it doesn't. Food is secondary at this point.

 

 

(He is hungry now, though.)

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On the other hand, feeding him is also nice. She hits the comm: "Daisy, can we have breakfast, please?" (It's really nice to be able to talk, too.)

And, shortly, there is breakfast. It's ship food, but she's not complaining.

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Ship food is still food!

He thanks Daisy and eats happily when he's fed, just like before.

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He's so good. This is so good.

 

    "We'll be touching down in an hour," Daisy tells them when she comes to get the tray.

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He nods.

 

"...what's this planet like?"

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"It's a Dorfu colony - they're near-humans, semi-aquatic, not particularly remarkable - and reasonably well built up; the city we'll be landing in is called Vroria, and it's known for its architecture, baked goods, and aqua base team. It's winter there, and the planet is cold to begin with, but you won't need to go out in it; the hospital has a hangar."

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(Ooh, baked goods and architecture.)

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"...we might have to go out in the cold to get pastries."

Pastries seem like a stupid thing to care about, right now, but god, does he.

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"I'm sure they can be delivered."

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Nod.

 

they're not going to

take us, when we land, or anything.

right?

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They won't get very far if they try.

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...right. She's back, now. Nobody can touch her.

(Except him. He's touching her right now.)

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(He is, it's pretty great.)

Not going to let anything happen to you. Mine.

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yours.

 

He can stay in this space with her until they start to land.

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She gets them dressed - the bundle turns out to be pants and shirts, embroidered with stars and circles at the hems, and they fit him well enough; conveniently she likes her clothing cut a little long - but skips the refresher; the shipboard one really isn't big enough for two.

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And then, soon enough, they arrive. The Dorfu - slightly shorter than humans, with slit nostrils on a slight muzzle, shockingly blue eyes, lightly webbed fingers, and an odd silvery sheen to their hair - have a stretcher ready, and five hoverchairs; two of the hoverchair guides approach as the rest file onto the ship.

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Pradnakt makes a face at them.

They back off, and one abandons his chair to approach, stopping to bow before he gets too close. "My apologies, Lord Pradnakt. Your room is this way."

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She follows, Force senses active to check their surroundings. The first bank of rooms are medical - surgical suites, testing rooms, something like a gymnasium, a large pool and a handful of smaller ones with odd machinery ringing them - and she holds him close and reminds him that she won't let them do anything to him. Then they start passing patients' wings, and - there's enough of them that it's a bit of a blur, she doesn't see any individual in enough detail unless she looks, but she can tell what's wrong with them, automatically. (Liver failure; viral infection; allergic reaction; complicated interspecies pregnancy...)

As they come to the end of the section, their guide turns into a slightly smaller hallway which leads to a room that, at first glance, would look more at home in a fancy hotel than a hospital. There's a queen-sized bed, made up with crisp white sheets and a navy comforter, a carved wooden dining table with four matching chairs and a round fishtank full of aquatic plants for a centerpiece, a desk with its own chair, paintings on the walls, a view of a snow-covered park out the window.

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He stays very, very close to her through the first wing, tries not to look with her outside their own mind.

Patients are easier. They all...well, not all of them, but most of them have problems that just happened to them, weren’t inflicted by someone else. That used to scare him much more than the alternative, he knows. It’s reassuring, right now.

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The room, he likes.

His parents weren’t exactly poor, but it’s not like they traveled much together, so this is the first time he’s actually been in a room much like this one.

(It’s odd to be thinking about things he used to be so much. Are they really his memories now?)

 

Without thinking about it much, he looks with what Force senses he’s developed to see if there are fish in the fishtank.

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There's one tiny fish, a little shocked from her recent sudden relocation, hiding among the leaves.

(They're yours if you want them. They're where you came from, even if they're not what you are.)

Their guide bustles around the room, showing them the controls for the comm, climate controls, music system, and holoviewer, and then asks if he can get them anything to make their stay more comfortable.

I don't think so. You? Pastries, maybe, but she'd rather wait until they can enjoy them properly, after whatever medical things are about to happen.

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He watches the little fish intently.

i'm okay.

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"No." (There's got to be, like, Sith etiquette, for a situation like this; too bad she doesn't remember it. Oh well.)

   "Very well, lord." He bows again, suppressing the urge to stare at them. "The doctor will be here in a moment."

"Good." He goes.

 

The fish isn't doing very much. She might come out of hiding once she's a little calmer.

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She's very simple. It's nice.

He hopes they'll take care of her once the Sith are gone, once the room is empty and she has nobody to look at her.

 

are we ready?

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She pulls him in for a hug. I don't think we're going to be more ready.

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And then, ready or not, the doctor arrives, tapping on the doorframe before coming into the room. He's an older Dorfu, from the gentle web of wrinkles around his eyes, with close-cropped hair and a trio of plain silver rings pierced along the outer portion of each eyebrow, complementing their silvery sheen. He seems confident, even to Force senses, and friendly; a little curious, but not pushy.

"Lord Pradnakt, and friend? I'm Dr. Deyne, I'll be taking care of you while you're here. Why don't you have a seat and we can get started?" He gestures to the dining-table chairs, and takes the one from the desk for himself.

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Pradnakt considers the chairs, and opts to settle them both into one, with him on her lap; she drapes one arm over his lap and reaches up to pet his head reassuringly with the other hand.

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He looks over the doctor warily.

(He has...some sort of feeling about the piercings, but he can't tell what. It's very nebulous and difficult and mostly just makes his stomach hurt.)

Everything's fine, for now. He lays his hand on her arm and listens.

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"First off - I want you to be comfortable with everything that happens, here; if there's something you don't want, just say the word, and it'll stop immediately. I know you've had a tough time, recently, and the last thing we want to do is make that worse for you."

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This seems incredibly suspicious.

He nods, though.

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I'll kill them if they hurt you, and I'm sure they know it, she reminds. You're safe. They want to be safe, too.

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The doctor nods back, a little more serious now. "So, from what your droid told us, you both need checkups, and we should check your amputations to make sure they're healing properly and get you fitted for a prosthetic and a hormone pump, is that right?" Pradnakt nods, and he continues. "I think the scans should be the top priority - they're not invasive, and we can set them up so you can go in them together - but we can do it in whatever order you'd like."

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That's reassuring, somehow. He nods.

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He might as well get the question he doesn't want to ask out of the way now, though.

He takes a minute to collect his thoughts.

"How good do they get? The prosthetics?"

With an implicit 'how good could they get here, for me?'

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"Just as good as the original, except that they need maintenance. Better, in some cases."

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He lets out a breath that it feels like he's been holding since

yesterday.

"...can I learn to do the maintenance myself?"

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I've worked on prosthetics, at least the once. It can't be that complicated.

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"Basic maintenance, yes. We recommend that anything more complicated be brought to a technician, but if you'd like to get your own certification, I'm sure we can find you a class to take."

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He nods firmly.

(He's building up a list of things he has to learn, ways to become just as dangerous and just as self-sufficient as he has to be to be a person again.)

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"All right. Would you like me to send a tech up to go over your options in more detail?"

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"Yeah. Please."

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He nods. "I'll have them send someone up as soon as they can. Is there anything else you'd like to take care of now?"

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He thinks about asking a question about the pump, but–maybe one thing at a time.

He shakes his head.

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He nods. "I'll let you get settled in, then. Don't hesitate to call if there's anything we can do for you." And they're left alone again.

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Pradnakt kisses the curve of his jaw. You're going to be a Sith, she observes. Or are one. Either way.

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...huh.

why?

He wants it to happen, he thinks – he just doesn't understand.

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That kind of focus - that need, that drive - that's us. It's what makes us dangerous, we don't - compromise, or stand down, like other people will. We get what we're after or we die.

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That sounds about right, now.

i'm okay with that.

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Good. She doesn't want him to be in conflict with himself.

But don't forget that you can be more than just a Sith. Sith aren't soft; don't love, don't have compassion. She does, and these are things she values about herself; they're weaknesses, but the kind of weakness that makes life worth living, and that's important, too.

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He wouldn’t ever want to lose those.

They got the other prisoners out — the ones that had enough left in them to take, anyway. He doesn’t want to be someone who wouldn’t do that. And he loves her, trusts her, and if he didn’t have those he doesn’t think he would have had enough left to take, either.

i won’t.

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Good.

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A few minutes later, there's a knock on the door. They can't sense anyone, so it must be a droid.

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it hasn't been three days yet

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"...come in?"

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It's just Daisy, with the duffel bag; she sets it down out of the way and comes over. "The others are all settled in, Ma'am, and being seen to. Is everything all right here?"

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Pradnakt nods, and Daisy thanks her and goes to stand behind the chair, flanking it.

She doesn't like that very much, but - well, it's safer, letting people think everything's normal. Still, though, they'll have to talk to Daisy about that once they're back on the ship, make sure she knows she doesn't have to.

That's for later, though. For now - they probably have a little time, if the tech wasn't expecting to come up right away. Want to take a quick shower? You'll feel better.

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He nods.

being actually clean would be nice.

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Yeah. She considers logistics - it's going to be their first time being naked in front of each other, and she's not sure that's not going to be fraught. How do you want to do this?

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Being naked in front of her doesn't bother him so much, if he doesn't think about her looking anywhere past his navel.

Being naked at once, in front of each other might be a little difficult. Trying to–hide, at all, or separating for it, though, that feels like giving up.

He reminds himself that it's going to be fixed, soon.

i'll survive. not gonna happen too many times.

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Okay. She gives him a squeeze. (She's proud of him.) (She won't look if he doesn't want her to look.)

"Daisy, do we have more clothes?"

    "No, Ma'am. Shall I go get you some?"

"Yeah. You know what she likes -"

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"–and. Simple stuff for him. No sleeves if you can."

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She nods, "all right", gets some credits out of the bag, and goes.

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And Pradnakt scoops him up and deposits him carefully on his feet, one arm staying around his waist. Let's check out the bathroom.

It's done up in a soft steel blue with ivory highlights and fixtures. There's a tub, and a shower stall large enough to drive a hoverchair into, ringed with benches; both are easily big enough for them to share.

She gives him a squeeze. Want help?

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He doesn't even respond in words – he just moves her hands when he needs them.

It's odd, to be doing this when they're right there next to each other, blurs the boundaries between their bodies.

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Odd, but good.

(He looks nice. She doesn't dwell on it, but she definitely notices.)

Shower?

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It’s...not bad that she notices.

Shower. He loses track of which hands belong to who, of whose body is being touched at any given time. 

They get clean, and somehow, it’s fine.

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By the end of it, she's daydreaming of fighting, together with him. They're going to be amazing.

They don't have a proper change of clothes, yet, but there are fluffy towels and bathrobes, and that will do for now.

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He’s just...going to take a minute to appreciate “soft” as a concept. That’s fine, right?

(This is a good bathrobe.)

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It's perfectly fine. She'll appreciate it right along with him.

She's keeping half an eye on the hall leading up to the room, though, and here comes someone.

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Oh. There does come someone.

He goes to sit (leading Pradnakt along) before they have the chance to come in and tries to put "good sensations exist" aside for now.

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A few seconds later there's a knock on the door: the tech, with a cart full of prosthetic limb samples. (This one has a single piercing over each eye.)

He greets them politely, and asks if there's anything they'd like to see first.

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“What’s the...”

lightest thing, strongest thing, most durable thing, one with best sensation, one that you can buy and keep maintained on a rent-sub’s income and still keep the lights on—

No, that’s wrong.

What can you buy with the stolen wealth of someone whose whole room was set with rubies and use to kill a god?

“...the best you have.”

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"They all have trade-offs. But for the all-around best, you'll want this one." He picks up an arm from the top of the pile; it's got the slight silvery effect of Dorfu body hair, but otherwise looks entirely normal. "Stronger than a biological arm, and faster, too, once you've gotten used to it. And-" he presses a button at the base of the arm, and a hatch opens in the forearm. "It has a modular connection plate; you can use it as extra storage, or attach a variety of tools or weapons. The downside is that it needs a little more maintenance; I have a few that are nearly as good, if you'd rather avoid that."

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He considers it.

“Is the skin always part of it?”

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"We'll match that to your own, of course."

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He shakes his head.

“I don’t want it.”

He’s not going to cover it. He’s not going to pretend that it didn’t happen. This belongs to him.

“What can come without it?”

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"Oh, I'm sorry, sir. I'll have to check, for the premier models." He takes a datapad from inside the cart and taps at it. "The XK-9540 can be made without skin, it just needs modified flanges..." tap tap tap "...and it uses the same kind as the 7000 line; we have those here."

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“Sir” grates, but that’s not important yet.

“Show me?”

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"Of course." He brings it up on the holoviewer; it's sculpted, under the skin, mimicking the shapes of a real arm more closely than a droid does, with various plates defining the shape of it and mostly hiding the workings inside from view. "We have a few options for color, too," he says, retrieving a bundle of variously-colored metal plates on a ring from the bottom of the cart and splaying them for inspection.

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He nods and taps the deep black plate on the far left.

“...how soon can this happen?”

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"We'll need four days to build it; the surgical team might need another one or two, depending on how you're healing."

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Four to six days seems like a very long time, right now.

"Okay."

He wants to have this right now, wants to start learning right now, start climbing out of this pit between getting taken apart and starting to do something about it.

(It's only been a day – he hasn't even processed any of it yet – but he doesn't really care about that.)

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Pradnakt has been hanging back, letting him handle it; now she chimes in. "Can that be sped up, at all?"

    He's suddenly nervous, intimidated. "-I'll see what I can do."

"Good."

    "And, er, sir, I'll need to scan your arm..." He produces a large ring, presumably the scanner.

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He doesn't want to think about which one he means, so he holds them both out, flesh and not-yet-metal.

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The flesh one; the scanner goes around it without touching it and sweeps the skin with lasers as the tech moves it slowly toward his armpit.

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Pradnakt considers the situation. "How soon can we have any arm at all?"

    "Uh - tonight? No, if we skip the hand, a few hours. For a matched one; I can bring an unmatched one up right away. I don't know how busy the surgical team is."

"And we can swap them out?"

    He shakes his head, still nervous. "Only matched ones."

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"We should wait. I–he..."

He pauses.

"I want whatever they put on me to be mine."

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"Yes, sir." The scan is done; he takes the scanner away. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

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"I don't think so."

But–

"Don't call me sir."

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He glances worriedly at Pradnakt, but nods. "All right." And then he packs his cart up and goes.

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And now he's in Pradnakt's lap.

...few days. that'll be fine.

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She pets his hair. Yeah. He's strong; he'll make it.

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it'd just be sad if i made it through losing the arm but not through a couple boring days in a hospital.

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She chuckles. Yeah. And then she kisses him.

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Oh, that's always good.

(He thinks they're going to be okay.)

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Yeah. They are.

 

She's just starting to get sleepy again when she notices a new person approaching: their nurse, who introduces herself as Mrs. Wogan, with lunch - a sushi platter, generous even for two - and a dinner menu, and a testosterone hypospray.

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...oh, right. Actual hospitals do the hypospray thing, don't they?

He reaches for that before he even touches the food.

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It's easy enough to figure out; it doesn't feel like much, when it goes, just a strange tingle and a moment of coolness under the skin.

"Give me a call when you're done with lunch," she says, as she takes it back. "The surgery team will have someone ready to talk to you."

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Deskyl is already tired - this is the longest she's been awake since that first couple days after she got back, when she couldn't sleep at all - but she should be able to hold out for that; it's important.

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She doesn't have to–

–no, it is important.

thank you.

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Yeah.

For now, food. (It's quite good sushi.)

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It is good sushi. Especially the weird blue pieces. He's not sure what they're from and he doesn't think he cares.

sorry, he thinks at the little fish in her tank.

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He's such a sweetheart. She loves him so much.

There's still sushi left when they're comfortably full; she stops feeding him and gives him a kiss and pages the nurse. "We're ready."

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And just a few minutes later, the group comes in - Dr. Deyne and two surgeons, Dr. Glasco and Dr. Mabbet (with three eyebrow rings each; Pradnakt comments that it must be some kind of status symbol here), plus a droid attendant who they don't introduce.

Dr. Mabbet explains the surgery he'll need for the prosthetic: they'll be fitting a cuff onto what's left of his arm, connected to the nerves there, that instructs the mechanical arm attached to it on how to move. It's a complex surgery, and they'll need to do a scan first to see what they have to work with and how his nerves are arranged; the scan should take about fifteen minutes, and it's free right now, or they can fit him in any time this afternoon or tomorrow. She'll also be handling the testosterone pump; that's a simple subcutaneous device that they can install wherever he likes - most people opt for the arm or upper leg, for ease of access - and that he'll need to reload via a modified hypospray every month or so, depending on the settings he uses.

Then Dr. Deyne introduces Dr. Glasco as their head of cosmetic and reconstructive surgery. "I'm not sure if that's something you'd be interested in, but I wanted to make sure you knew about the option."

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He greets them and nods through it all. Scanning now would be best, and putting the pump somewhere out of the way – maybe in what's left of his left arm, unless that interferes with the surgery –

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His expression changes immediately when Deyne introduces the cosmetic surgeon.

(why do they keep offering–do they not know, do they somehow not understand what happened–)

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He stops. He takes a breath. They're trying to help him.

"...no. I don't want to hide any of this."

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Deyne stays calm; the other two blanch. "Yes, I'm sorry. We won't bring it up again."  He ushers Dr. Glasco out.

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He likes Deyne. He's not afraid of them – but it's not because he doesn't know they're dangerous, he just knows when to be afraid and when not to be.

"You said we could go together. For the scan."

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He nods. "You'll need to lie on a table, but it's big enough for both of you. Do you want to go now?"

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He nods.

"Yeah. Please."

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"All right."

Dr. Deyne gets them arranged on the table (it's clearly not meant for two, but it's not like they're uncomfortable being close to each other, so it's fine) while the droid takes the controls and Dr. Mabbet goes to where the results will be displayed. It takes closer to ten minutes than fifteen, and Mabbet spends most of it nodding approvingly. "We should get you to surgery as soon as possible - you're in excellent shape, and we can take advantage of that if we don't let your healing progress much farther."

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(Pradnakt's holding up okay; she's leaning on the Force to keep herself awake, but that's fine, it's not a strain and doesn't seem like it'll become one soon.)

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...okay. This is good.

(He's a little proud of his body. It made it. He's in excellent shape.)

"How soon?"

will you be fine?

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Yeah. She'd like a nap, but for him? Of course this takes priority. Not even a question.

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"I expect we can have a suite ready within an hour."

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It doesn't take her very long to notice that the droids are preparing a surgical suite.

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"–good. Thank you."

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"They usually do a surgery like this with you under anesthesia, will that be all right?" Dr. Deyne asks, while she calls to set that up.

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“We—”

No, wait, try again.

“I want to be awake if I can.”

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"That's fine. We can give you local anaesthesia instead. And it will be safer to use a nerve block, so you can't move that arm, but we can do it without if you'd rather."

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“...that sounds fine.”

They won’t have to restrain the arm. That’ll be easier.

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And she'll be right there if he needs her.

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The doctor nods, and a minute later Dr. Mabbet comes over. "They just finished up in suite five; we can have it in half an hour. Do you have any questions about the surgery?"

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He has a few. How long will he be in there? How does he take care of it once he’s out? What kind of complications can there be?

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It'll take about four hours; they'll have a holoprojector in the room for them to watch something on, or music. This part is low-maintenance unless there are complications; his regular doctor will need to check it out at his regular checkup, but that's all. (Yes, he can learn to do it himself, though if he finds a problem he should have it looked at by a professional.) Complications are rare and mostly just the usual risks of surgery - shock, bleeding, infection - plus a small chance that his body will reject the implant or that one or more of his nerves won't join to it properly. His excellent prognosis means that this last is particularly unlikely; she'll be able to do a Kindrick join with most of them, which means if it goes well he'll have better control of the arm than usual, and even if it doesn't, he'll just have regular amounts of control.

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(He’s so proud of his body.)

He absorbs all of the information carefully and thanks her in advance for what she’s about to do.

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She acknowledges his thanks, and Dr. Deyne suggests that they go back to their room to get changed; he'll come for them when the suite is ready.

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They can take that suggestion.

They can both walk, too, but he doesn't let go of her hand all the way back to the room.

 

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(When they get out of here and back to the world, they're going to have to be more circumspect. But for now, this is so good.)

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Daisy isn't back yet, but someone has been in to tidy the room. Their dirty clothes are gone, and there's a change of clothes on the table for them, tee shirts and sweatpants in nondescript heather grey.

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guess they want us looking less...sithy.

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I dunno, they could have just left us in the bathrobes. She shrugs hers off and pulls on a pair of pants, settling her 'saber holster over them without bothering to take it off.

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He gets rid of his as well and starts the slightly inconvenient business of dressing himself, using her hands when it becomes clear it's not going to work very well with just his one.

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She's not going to miss this, exactly, but it's still nice to be able to do it for him.

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It's nice that he has her hands, even if he won't always need them. Maybe someday she'll have his, too.

(He doesn't think she'll need them. But if she ever does, if she ever wants them, they're for her to use.)

He leans his head on her shoulder when they're dressed.

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And she wraps her arms around him and kisses the top of his head. They have a little while, maybe they can take just a little nap.

They're dozing dreamily when Dr. Deyne shows up to bring them to the surgery.

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When the door opens he shoots upright and scrambles back in the bed

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before he remembers, again, where they are.

(He hopes this doesn't last much longer.)

we're going.

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Her hand's already on her lightsaber by the time he realizes; she pauses for a second before taking it away.

Yeah. Yeah, we are. She squeezes his hand. We'll be done with this soon.

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He squeezes back.

and off to fuck knows what else.

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World's our oyster.

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And off they go. Pradnakt looks ahead for Dr. Mabbet, and focuses on her as they approach. She's a little nervous, but mostly calm as she prepares for the surgery; it's reasonably soothing to watch, and nicely reassuring that she doesn't have anything sinister in mind.

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It's helpful. No ill-intent, nothing suggesting she can't do her job.

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He takes a very deep breath when they approach the door to the room itself.

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Stand up, warrior; you are not yet finished.

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...right.

Besides. This, itself, is nothing. This is just fixing, completing. It's not new pain.

He enters.

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She's right there with him.

This surgical suite isn't much like the last one. There's a chair for him, of course, but it's cushioned, covered in hunter green plastic rather than uncomfortable, unadorned metal, and there's a matching one at its right for Pradnakt. The lights are bright, but diffuse, rather than spotlighting the chair. The walls painted a pale buttercup, with pea-green accents, rather than stark, claustrophobia-inducing white tile, and there's plenty of room. There's a droid, but - one, not in any way built to subdue a human, standing by with a bowl of water and a towel; he doesn't move at all when they come in.

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"Hello," he says to the droid, because if they weren't safe it's exactly what he wouldn't do.

He approaches the chair.

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"Hello, sir. Doctor Mabbett will be out in a moment. Please have a seat."

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"Sir" again.

He sits (they sit) and waits.

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She comes in promptly, drying her hands on a towel that she drops in the wastebin by the door.

"Any last minute questions?"

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He shakes his head.

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"All right."

The first thing she does is give him the local anaesthetic; it'll take a few minutes to kick in, and in the meantime she'll wash his stump and get it ready.

 

When she's done, it's just as sensitive as it was when she started.

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"...am I supposed to be numb by now?"

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"...yes, you are." She seems to be at a bit of a loss.

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He resists the urge to tap it with his other hand.

"It feels the same as it did before."

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Oh. "Sith can't be drugged unless we allow it. And we're - we count together, now." I can probably work out how to allow it. But she doesn't just know.

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but it would take a while. wouldn't it.

He is looking down at his arm – what will be his arm – very thoughtfully.

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Yeah.

She sees what he's thinking. She doesn't have his pain tolerance, but she does have pretty good pain tolerance; she's not going to stop him.

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He looks up and laughs.

"I guess you're going to have to strap me down."

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"I - we - no, sir."

Dr. Deyne has been leaning against the wall by the door; he stands up and takes a step toward them. "Bel'-"

"You can't be serious."

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He's not offended, by that. It's almost funny. It's so wrong about how this all works, and nobody knows it but them.

"Do you think he numbed me when he took it off?"

He looks her directly in the eye.

He lost it in pain, he lost pain; now he can take it back in pain, take pain back.

"I don't need anesthetic."

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"- yes, sir."

(Dr. Deyne goes to the back room.)

"Next is the nerve block..."

 

It's very, very painful.

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It is.

It's the most painful thing that's ever happened to him, and he's glad.

This is the heart of it – this is the beginning and the end – and Grauzatis came close when He peeled his skin away and dug at his nerves but he didn't touch this. This belongs to him, to him.

He savors every moment of his remaking even as he screams and suffers.

No one can hurt him more than he hurts himself.

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Pradnakt stays with him through it - she's not very coherent, but she's there, her and the Force, where it reacts to them.

It's a long four hours. Dr. Deyne comes back, brings in a pair of droids to monitor their vitals and offer them sips of water.

And, eventually, it's over.

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...

It's over.

They won.

He laughs, once more, dizzily, forehead drenched with sweat,

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and promptly passes out.

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Pradnakt wakes up in bed with him, some time later. He's-she's-they're in pain, and she has only hazy memories of why; she curls protectively around him.

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He wakes slowly, the world coming back to him in pieces.

She's here. That's good.

...and they won. But...

 

did i hurt us? –you?

i don't know if

did you feel it?

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Of course I felt it. She's still a little raw, in the aftermath, not quite her usual stable bedrock. We're going to kill Him; it's fine.

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It's not.

But she's fine. And he's–someone, he's alive.

(And it's not the same, she could have told him no, it's not.)

 

he's/i'm going to keep getting hurt.

he/i doesn't/don't want to do that again. to Us.

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You needed it. I don't regret being there. I won't regret it next time, either.

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when I get stronger I don't want to take it out of you.

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And I don't want to hold you back. And I'm good at this. At being strong in this way; at being resilient. She's hurting now, it's true, but in the end she'll be stronger for it; she doesn't know how she knows, but she knows.

 

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...

 

promise if it ever starts to take you apart you won't let me.

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She considers that - oh, he loves me - and melts into him a little. Yeah, I can do that.

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He does love her. He does, he does, so much.

And someday she might have to stop him, or cut him away, and whichever has to happen – they'll both be strong enough for it, by then.

But right now they're here.

He puts his arm around her, as well as he can.

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Mmmm. Love you. Not going anywhere.

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Neither of them are, for a long time.

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After a few minutes, he remembers that there's something new on his body that he should take a look at.

He repositions himself carefully to lift his left not-yet-an-arm.

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There's not much to see, just smooth black metal covering half the stump, the flesh around it still slightly red and swollen, with a plastic cap on the end.

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It's a lot to him.

He raises his other hand to brush the surface of the metal with his fingers.

this is good.

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Yeah. He earned it. They earned it.

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They did.

(Through passion, they gain strength.)

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Through strength, we gain power.
Through power, we gain victory.
Through victory, our chains are broken.
The Force shall free us.

She curls around him, almost as impressed with this feat of memory as with his tenacity.

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–she got that one by herself.

He's so glad, so proud of her. He kisses both her cheeks.

we're going to be amazing.

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We are. She snuggles up to him.

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It can just be this, for a while. They don't need anything else.

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Mmmmm. Yeah.

 

She does notice, after a while, that they're hungry. We should eat.

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Oh. Right. Hunger.

yeah. we...call them, right...?

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Yeah. Or send Daisy.

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you  have her name.

That wasn't his memory, either. It was hers.

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...huh.

   ...was it?

She examines the bond between them.

There's not that much of a difference, now. She's alarmed, just a little, worried how he's going to react. I must've done it during the surgery.

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Oh.

 

what happens if we're separated?

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I don't think we can be. She doesn't seem to mind, though that might just be that she's too stunned to really think about it.

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...wait.

 

That's not how this was supposed to be.

They were supposed to be – together, not the same.

He doesn't...want to disappear anymore. There's been a mistake.

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She looks again.

It could progress. But we'd have to do something at least that intense to fuel it; it's stable right now. I don't think we need to worry.

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He buries his face in her shoulder while she's still someone else no, she said it's fine and tries to stop thinking for a minute.

This is stupid. Isn't this what he always used to want? To be close enough to someone that it'd be impossible to take them apart?

No, he still does want that. But becoming the same as them? Not being able to escape hurting them? It's terrifying.

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She holds him tight. It's fine, Love, it's fine. We're still ourselves. And we will be. Here, look.

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He looks. He sees their connection.

 

He sees where they're in love – that's bright, running through the center of everything.

And he sees where they were in pain, the vastness of the space made for their triumph and their suffering, and its emptiness.

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...oh.

okay.

There's always the possibility that they'll feel more than that someday – that they'll need more space to hold them – but...he doubts it's going to be an immediate issue.

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Yeah.

Love you.

And the pain, well - she's not really worried about it. They need different things, in some ways - she remembers now that they talked about that, once - and this is just another example of that, one she's sure they can find a way to handle. It'll take more than that to scare her off.

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love you.

He kisses her.

 

...we were going to do...that food thing.

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Yeah. What time is it, even?

It's the middle of the night, as it turns out; Daisy is long back, and the hospital kitchen is closed, but she has menus from a few all-night restaurants for just this eventuality. She also has instructions to ask if the nurse can come in to check on them, now that they're awake.

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He leafs through the menus (awkwardly, one-handed). It's great that Basic is on everything.

"Yeah. I think that'd be okay."

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Of the five restaurants, three offer primarily fish - sushi, battered fried fish, and flaked grilled fish wraps with rice and vegetables - one is vegetarian, offering an array of mostly unfamiliar dishes, and the last offers a variety of types of sandwiches on an even wider variety of bread.

I'm not feeling adventurous enough for the veggie place, and I'm not in the mood for fried, either. Sushi or sliders are probably our best bet.

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i don’t think i’m tired of sushi yet.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of sushi. It’s food that tastes like something.

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Maybe they'll have more of that blue stuff and we can figure out what it is.

The nurse arrives as they're giving Daisy their order, and hangs back by the door until they're done.

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He thanks Daisy and turns to the nurse.

(He honestly doesn't intend the weird stare.)

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She doesn't do a very good job of hiding her nervousness, but she approaches anyway. "I'm Mrs. Scurlock, your nurse for the evening; Dr. Deyne asked me to check on you. May I?" She gestures with her scanner at Pradnakt.

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That's odd. But she nods anyway, and lets her do it.

    "I'll forward these to Dr. Deyne, but I'm not seeing anything concerning. And, may I-?" she turns to him.

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He nods, and holds out his left arm just in case.

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And she scans him, paying special attention to where his arm joins with the machine. "You're healing well," she nods.

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He’s a little disconnected, still, a little wary, but he smiles.

“We’re good at that.”

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She nods. "Dr. Deyne will be back in the morning. In the meantime we have protein supplements at the nurses' station if you're still hungry after your meal, just send the droid down."

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He resolves never to eat a “protein supplement” for the rest of his mortal life.

“Thanks.”

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The nurse recoils a little. "All right, I'll let you rest."

Her relief once she leaves the room is palpable.

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i'm not used to this.

He was never really scary. Intimidating when he needed to be, maybe, but not the kind of person who has people rushing to leave the room.

He can't decide whether it's a relief or it's lonely.

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Both, I think. People are difficult and dangerous and it's good to be strong enough to be safe, but, well. This.

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Yeah.

They’ll find people, he thinks. It doesn’t matter so much, right now, when they’ve just started to be free together, but...

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We should lie low for a while, anyway. We don't have to tell people we're Sith. Right away, at least.

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It’s probably a bad idea to find that...kind of exciting.

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He's very cute.

And maybe we'll meet some people we like, and we can tell them. It's good to have allies friends.

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it is good to have friends.

Distantly, he remembers a boy who worked with him, sometimes, back on Katov, with a painted face and nails and an infectious smile. 

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We could go look for him, if you want. I don't think it'd be any riskier there than anywhere else.

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do you think he’d be safe?

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We'll have to see how things settle out, but I think so. I still don't have everything back memory-wise, but from what I can put together, I don't think they'll come after us if we aren't out there making it obvious that they lied about what happened when my master died. As long as we stay quiet we have as much time as we need to fortify our position.

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He nods.

what would they be saying about it? the way he died?

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That one of them killed him and took his title, yeah. Whoever won the fighting.

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that belongs to you.

He knows how stupid it would be to try and claim it, but it’s hers. Whoever’s there now doesn’t deserve it.

(Especially since — he doesn’t want to, but he think he knows who won that fight.)

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He's very cute.

Yeah. Or, well. Ours.

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...can you split one of those? which half do i get?

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She giggles. Not really. You'll get one when we kill Him, anyway.

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good.

They'll both get theirs from the right places, then.

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Yeah.

 

Do you want to start learning to fight together, soon? We can work on the basics while we're waiting for your arm, at least.

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–yeah. Please.

we'll have a head start once it's ready, then.

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Yeah. We can ask in the morning if there's a gym we can use. (Hug.)

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wonder if everybody else will clear out or they'll stay to watch.

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Clear out, I bet.

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probably. but a guy can dream.

although i guess i shouldn’t hoping for it given i’m gonna be terrible.

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We can go show off someplace once we have something to show off, maybe. I bet we can do some really impressive-looking things.

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that’d be fun. everybody gets a story to take home.

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Yeah.

She goes to ask, but - she doesn't need to; she remembers, just as if she'd been there to see it: he's competent in a fight, at least when he's trying, but he's never been trained.

Be a while before we get to anything really fancy, unless we just make something up. She expects that her memory will come through, once they're in a gym and trying, but it's mostly been giving her practical stuff, so far; without a jumping-off point they'll have to wait for it to get better before she can expect to come up with any aesthetic forms.

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practical’s fine. won’t matter for a while how pretty we are when we         hit somebody.

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Yeah.

I mean, it'll matter when we're around Sith, but. We shouldn't try that soon anyway.

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yeah. i’m still basically just a one-armed rent boy with magic powers.

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You aren't just anything. Kiss.

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He laughs and kisses her, on her mouth and cheeks and jaw and neck, trying to express something he knows she can already feel.

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Mmmmm.

 

 

 

She wants... she wants him...

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—oh.

He can definitely feel that.

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...he’s not about to waste this.

He pulls (they pull?) her shirt up and he keeps kissing down her chest, retreating under the blankets.

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Mmmmmm.

She gets his shirt off, and... pants, those too... she wants to touch him...

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He feels good under her hands. A little softer all over than he was a couple of months ago, but that’s all right.

They get her pants off and he plants another line of kisses down her abdomen, shifting back on the bed.

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...oh. oh. Yeah. Yeah, that's good.

He - they - they should be less far away - She twists around to make that happen.

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—okay he’ll have feelings about this working a little later. Right now that might require taking his mouth off her — or her mouth off him, he knows both are happening but it’s just a little hard to tell them apart — and that’s absolutely not going to happen.

(fuck)

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(yeah)

She wants to make him feel good - almost doesn't care about what he's doing to her, except, oh Force, don't stop - and she's very well equipped to do it.

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The feeling is very much mutual.

 

They aren't going to last especially long, are they?

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They really aren't.

They go over the edge together, clinging and shuddering.

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It's perfect.

 

 

It took them a while to sort themselves out, last time. Now that it was both of them at once...they start to come back around, after that, and for a minute they're not sure which one of them they are at all.

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It's lovely.

Love you.

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love you.

They'll never be alone again.

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They won't. Best accidental life decision.

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There's a knock at the door.

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If it's accidental does it still count as a decision?–

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–oh, knock. They're very naked, still.

"Just a minute–"

They dress themselves as quickly as they can. Might as well not put a shirt on the body that doesn't need it...

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She has no objection to that.

"Come in!"

It's Daisy, with the sushi. With extra blue stuff; it turns out that it's a kind of shellfish.

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He (oh, right, that's a thing. personal pronouns) thinks that's pretty interesting.

there's so much stuff in the galaxy.

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Yeah.

We should go see it.

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let's see all of it.

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...maybe not all of it. it's pretty big.

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Yeah. Lots, though.

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yeah. as much as we can.

 

weird that this is how my childhood dreams came true.

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She chuckles. Yeah, really.

 

I almost want to go visit your parents. Show 'em.

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can we?

i mean, it might not be a good idea, but fuck would that be satisfying.

The memories of them — cold and disappointed, casually demeaning, not shy about showing him his status as a reject, an accidental byproduct of their attempt to make something that mattered — come easily.

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'Course we can. Sith, remember? Who's going to stop us?

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i don’t even know how they’d react. maybe they’d decide i was a bad influence on you.

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That startles a laugh out of her. You. A bad influence on me. An actual literal Sith. Maybe we should go visit them, knock some sense into them.

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by the time we get out there they won’t be able to tell which one came first! they’d default to me! 

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Mm. I guess. Still.

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we should drop in sometime and then never ever go back.

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Sounds like a plan.

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Kiss.

...and more blue sushi. If they’ve only got it on this planet he’d better get tired of it now.

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It is pretty tasty.

And then - they're not tired, surprisingly enough: want to take a walk or something?

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yeah. haven’t used our legs much lately.

He hasn’t for a while, come to think of it. Not a lot of room to move in that cell.

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Yeah. Well. It's over now.

They tuck his shirt in her belt - no point in putting it on if they don't need to, but they have no idea how Dorfu feel about nudity - and: "Daisy? We're going for a walk, do you want to come?"

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"Yes Ma'am."

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"That's not what we asked, Love."

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"Oh. I'm sorry. I... don't know?"

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we’d probably just be inside, right?

He’s not sure what benefits a walk gives a droid. Maybe if they go outside...

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I wasn't planning on going out, but we could.

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“...well, you don’t have to come. But if you did I guess you could try to see whether you liked it or not. Then you’d know next time.”

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"That's true." It's not very clear whether she understands why it matters, but she seems less uncertain, at least.

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"All right." Bring some credits with us, if we're maybe going out, she says, and goes to check the duffel bag for some: most of the space in the bag is taken up by datadisks, both loose and boxed, but there's a bag of credit chips near the top. She looks inside - various denominations, but if the larger ones are as common as they seem, it's more money than he's seen in one place since he was a child, and perhaps ever - hums approvingly, and pockets the bag. "Ready?"

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we’re just carrying all that around?

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It takes her a second to figure out what he even means. Sure, it's just as safe as leaving it here. More, really.

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...yeah, I guess we’re not gonna get mugged.

That’s going to take some getting used to. It still makes him a little nervous, though not in a way he wants to give in to.

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Or if we are, we're not going to be the worse for it. She pats her 'saber. Ready to go?

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yeah. ready.

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And off they go. She steers them away from the surgical area; they pass more patients' rooms, exam rooms, waiting rooms, and offices. Nobody seems particularly surprised at his shirtlessness.

The hospital is laid out quite straightforwardly, and their wandering eventually leads them to the atrium that serves as an entrance hall; it's dominated by a huge cylindrical fishtank with a variety of colorful fish and seaweed inside.

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He has never in his life seen something like this in person.

He approaches it, transfixed, and lays his hand on the glass.

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The fish nearest his hand dart away, though others soon replace them.

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He laughs, everything else momentarily forgotten.

look!

He’s transfixed by the patterns of the Force in the tank, as well, the little fluttering bits of life.

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He's adorable. The fish are pretty nice, too. She comes up to watch with him - pulls Daisy along, too, on impulse - and point out different details, what things mean in the Force, how this one is a predator and that one is a grazer, or these are schooling and those are solitary, or this one is very old and that one is very young.

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He listens raptly, studying the fish to try to confirm what she’s telling him with his eyes.

 

...the dorfu feel different from humans.

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Mmhmm. And really alien aliens will feel even more different, I think. Closeness - like, relatedness, family in the genetic sense - matters.

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He nods.

His eyes wander to a fish that’s sticking close to the seaweed, swimming in odd little arcs.

that one’s hurt.

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Aww, yeah, he is.

She calms him, and uses telekinesis to grab him, gently, with a bubble of surrounding water, and bring him close to the glass, where they can see his shredded pectoral fin.

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Aww.

wonder what got him.

He tries not to feel a kinship with the fish and fails.

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I dunno. I think he might have just gotten caught on something, it doesn't look bitten.

She examines the fish, trying to figure it out, and something... unfolds, in her mind, less like a memory and more like an instinct: healing works like this.

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Can they do that to the fish?

(Can they do that to everyone?)

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Yeah - insofar as they can do it at all; it takes a particular mental state, which they're not in right now - but... it's a secret for a reason.

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seems like a weird secret.

...oh, except he – remembers – that Sith aren't supposed to do this. It's dangerous for a Sith to know this. Why?

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Yeah, that. See how we'd have to... be calm, let the Force lead, be careful not to get in its way? That's Jedi stuff.

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what a stupid rule.

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It's not a rule, exactly. But I'm pretty sure if any other Sith found out they'd kill me.

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that doesn't even make sense.

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She sighs. Makes me weak, you see.

She lets the fish go; he struggles back toward the seaweed.

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Well, that's too ridiculous to even be worth responding to.

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It doesn't seem ridiculous to her.

Anyway, she doesn't want to talk about it.

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This is new.

And he's pretty terrible for bringing this up, which he absolutely shouldn't have thought because now she can tell what he's thinking and feel obligated to do something about it, but now that that's a thought he's had she'll know he's expecting her to wow he was doing so well at not doing this.

Deep breaths.

okay.

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He's ridiculous. And cute. And ridiculous. She hugs him, just across the shoulders, still watching the fish, and works to calm down.

 

It's just - hard, having something so... personal... (and it is personal, this is part of what she is on an even more fundamental level than being a Sith) be so dangerous. It's not right, but I can't let myself forget for a moment that it's true.

(She loves him, she loves him, she loves him.)

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He loves her too. More than anything.

yeah.

it's not right.

but i guess we have to deal with it.

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Yeah.

 

I think we can heal the fish, if we go meditate for a few minutes. Want to?

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!!!

yes!

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Gosh she loves him.

The aquarium is surrounded at a bit of a distance by a ring of benches; they settle in.

I don't remember how this works exactly, but I feel like it probably does something to me, using the Force this way, like using it the Sith way does. But I'm sure it's not dangerous; don't panic, okay?

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okay. i won't.

He braces himself for any panic that might nonetheless arrive.

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And she meditates - still, calm, relaxed, releasing her emotions one by one, disconnecting from everything. She leaves her love for him for last, but eventually lets that go too: it's still a true fact about the world, that she loves him, but it doesn't matter, doesn't touch her at all.

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He watches her go.

It's – beautiful, something about it, but –

 

come back

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She pauses for a moment, unsure how to respond, and then habit takes over and her emotions flow back in. Sorry, Love. You all right? She scoops him into her lap; they could both use a hug right now.

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Hug.

please wait until I can go with you.

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Yeah. Okay. Love you.

She's a little different, now; more subdued, more vulnerable, more connected, though the change is already fading. She pets him, and looks up - oh, Daisy's still by the aquarium, and she twinges a little at having left her out. "C'mere, Love."

    "-ma'am?"

"If you want to, I mean. Come sit with us."

    "Oh. All right."

And then she can cuddle both of them.

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...okay. This is good.

They sit and are close and he watches the fish.

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Yeah.

 

"Are you okay, Love?"

    "...yes, Ma'am?"

"I know we've been leaving you out a lot. Are you sure you're all right?"

    "Oh. Yes, Ma'am. You don't have to pay attention to me."

...that seems wrong, but she can't put her finger on why. "I think I should. I think... I want us to be close. You matter. I want to be good to you. I don't... feel it, yet, really; I don't remember you. And that makes it hard. But you're important, and I don't want to hurt you, or hurt us."

    "Oh. All right, Ma'am."

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He waits.

This is...hers. He could learn to be a part of it but he’s outside of it, right now, and he doesn’t know whether that’s how it should stay.

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"So I want you to tell me, if something is going on that you don't want, or if you feel left out. Okay?"

    "Yes, Ma'am."

"Okay. Good." Hug. "And I want you to think about how you want things to be with him, too. Whether you want to be friends or whatever."

    "Whatever he wants will be fine, Ma'am."

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“...I don’t know either,” he says, paying careful attention to the pronouns. “I think...I want to like each other, at least. But I’m not sure about the rest.”

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Daisy nods. "Lord Pradnakt likes you."

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"And she likes you too."

He considers this for a moment.

"I think we're...probably going to end up liking each other anyway."

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"That makes sense."

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The two of you, Pradnakt sends, amused.

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what about us?

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You're silly. And cute. Of course they're going to like each other, they're delightful.

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The hospital gift shop – they usually have those, don't they? – might have daisies. The big colorful kind.

It's just a thought, not an intention, but it comes through right away.

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We can check in the morning.

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He still knows how to make flower crowns. This is not a skill anyone encouraged him to develop, and which he mostly learned to be contrary.

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She already knew he was adorable, but that just takes it to an entirely new level. She kisses his cheek.

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it was subversive at the time, i swear!

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That just makes it cuter.

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He bumps his forehead into her shoulder in an affectionate sort of way.

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Adorable! Forehead-kiss!

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He loves her so much that he’s not even gonna protest being called adorable this many times. It’s definitely not because he enjoys it, or anything (when it’s from her).

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Uh-huh. Right.

 

~cuddles~

 

And eventually they do start to get a little sleepy. "Head back, Loves?"

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He nods.

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    "Yes Ma'am."

And back they go. They only really get a nap in, though, before the nurse comes in with breakfast - cinnamon-orange pull-apart rolls, scrambled egg bites on toast with caviar, and slices of some unfamiliar green fruit with whipped cream and a flaky biscuit - and another scanner to wave at them.

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He will tolerate scanner-waving in exchange for breakfast foods.

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Pradnakt makes a face when the scanner is turned on her, more out of reflex than anything, and the nurse backs off and leaves them to their meal. (It's quite tasty; the city's pastry reputation is well deserved.)

That done, they shower and change; when they get out of the bathroom Daisy reports that Dr. Deyne came by and is available to talk to them as soon as they're ready for him.

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He nods vigorously rather than speak through the entire orange roll he unwisely stuffed in his mouth.

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She calls for him, and he arrives a few minutes later. "How are you feeling this morning?"

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"Better than yesterday."

He looks aside at Pradnakt.

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She nods. "Fine."

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"Very good. And everything looks good on the scans we got last night - you have three successful Kindrick joins and two regular ones, which is a very good outcome, you'll have extra control and sensation through most of the prosthetic."

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He resists the urge to pat the metal on his arm. He can look satisfied for a minute, though.

"It worked out. Even with the...complications, I guess."

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"Yes, it went very well."

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There's something he's not telling us. She points out the ripple of caution in the Force. I don't think it's important, though.

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"You haven't been hiding things from us before now."

He barely even decides to say it. It just...comes out.

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"Ah, yes - there's nothing wrong with the prosthetic, that's fine. And we expect Dr. Mabbet to be fine, too; she's on recuperative leave for the time being."

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Oh. That would... yeah. She squeezes his hand.

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For a minute it's clear that there's something missing, just like there was when they woke up the next morning and he didn't realize she would have been hurt. 

He watches Deyne's face, and feels what Pradnakt is feeling, and he doesn't understand, he's trying to dig through his memories to figure out what's happening

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and then something catches up with him and it makes sense, very suddenly.

"...oh."

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You needed it, Love. It sounds hollow even to her, but she's not sure what else to say.

 

I don't know if there's anything we can do for her, but... we can try, if you want.

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He did. And this happened anyway.

And he didn't see it. It didn't even occur to him, not for a moment.

He thought he had the power – but he doesn't, because that didn't belong to him after all, it belongs to them (and three of them, now, not just two) because he made it happen and they hurt and he doesn't want his arm to belong to someone else–

 

He slowly removes his hand from the device, where it had somehow made its way.

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He has to look whole while someone else is in the room.

maybe    if there is something

 

"The pump. Is that...happening today?"

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She stays calm, focused, lending him her strength and stability.

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"That's already taken care of; I have a hypospray with me if you'd like to learn how to refill it."

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“Oh,” he says distantly. He didn’t even notice it happening, at the time. “Yes. Please.”

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Loading the hypospray is simple, and applying it is even simpler. "You can keep that one; we'll give you a packet when you check out that'll tell you what to replace it with if you need to."

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“Thank you.”

There are a lot of thoughts that want to be had and they have to wait their turn. Right now he’s thinking about nothing.

“How far are they, on the arm?”

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"It's coming along nicely; they'll have it for you tomorrow afternoon, I think."

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He nods. (He can still keep it, he tries to remind himself. No one is going to realize it’s not really his and—    take it off. That’s probably not even true.)

 

He wants to apologize, but he doesn’t think that’s enough, while he doesn’t know what else to do.

 

“Why were they scanning both of us?”

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They're definitely not going to do that, I won't let them. It's his anyway, but even if it wasn't, there's just not a question of whether he gets to keep it.

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"We noticed during the surgery that Lord Pradnakt had a mild heart murmur. It seems to have just been from the stress of the situation, but we wanted to keep an eye on it in case there was something more concerning going on."

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That's weird. But - I'm fine, Love, I would have noticed if there was something wrong with me.

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That’s still concerning.

(He’ll think about whether he caused this to happen later. He is thinking about nothing.)

“...if there were, what would it be?”

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"It would be some kind of heart problem - murmurs aren't a very specific symptom, and they're common even when there isn't anything wrong. We can do a more comprehensive scan if you'd like the reassurance, but if you haven't noticed any other symptoms - weakness, shortness of breath, chest pain - then it's probably nothing."

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She really is sure she's fine, and he needs to see that too. "Yes, we'll do the scan."

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"All right. I'll schedule that for this afternoon."

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"Good."

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“Was there anything else we needed to know?”

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"That's it, unless you have any more questions. I'll have information about prosthetic maintenance classes for you this afternoon."

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“Okay. Thank you.”

Just a little bit more.

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He nods. "Don't hesitate to call the nurse's station if you need anything."

He goes -

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-and Pradnakt scoops him onto the bed, bundling them both under the covers and wrapping herself around him.

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He considers the options he’s being presented with, one at a time, given his new information about pain (it’s not good right now).

kill yourself. He used to get this one every time and now it’s back. He’s not going to do this. No matter how many problems it seems like it would solve, someone important depends on his mind working right now and it wouldn’t work if he was dead.

tear off the base of your arm. it’s not yours. Then the torture would have been wasted, they would all be worse off, and besides pain isn’t good right now. He also thinks that Pradnakt would disapprove of this option. And there is a chance that the arm is still his and he’s just bad at thinking about it right now.

cut yourself. He also got this one every time. Pain isn’t good right now, so he can’t do this, no matter how much it used to fix.

leave before someone else gets hurt. He can’t do that anymore.

draw. That would work, if he had his left hand, but he doesn’t have his left hand, it was taken, and now the arm belongs to someone else and he’ll never have his own body again and maybe he should move on to the next option and not think about this.

cut yourself. We already did this one. Pain isn’t good right now.

cut yourself. Pain isn’t good right now.

break something. ...that means something is broken, but he can fix it, or they can replace it. It’s not his money but it might be better than any of the alternatives and he really wants to make something outside his head as not okay as he feels.

cut yourself. ...

 

i think i need to break something so i don’t hurt myself.

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She squeezes him tight. There really isn't anything breakable to hand - the furniture, maybe. Or - would sparring help? It helps her, and it's like breaking things.

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...it might. but it’d hurt us.

Hurt him, probably, which is good, but it’s not good because that hurts her, but...if she’s doing it does it count? He thinks it might not count.

He wonders if he can still fight with just the one arm.

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You're not going to hurt enough to bother me. I meant it when I said I didn't regret it, Love. She sends Daisy to the nurse's station to arrange for a room for it.

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He wants to say “Yes, but”. He doesn’t know how he would finish that sentence. It bothers him.

It’ll be good to hit something, though. And to be hit.

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She nuzzles his shoulder. Pain is part of life. I'm not as enthusiastic about it as you are, but I'm not going to flinch away from it. And you've seen me fight. Do you really think I'd begrudge you something I didn't even mind from that twerp?

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it’d be good for me, he says, even though he knows that that shouldn’t be an objection, what he’s objecting to isn’t even that...

and hurting you. i’d be (enjoying?) the thing that was hurting you. Again.

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Sure. That doesn't make it worse, it makes it better.

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Something that hurts someone he loves shouldn’t make him happy. That means there’s something wrong with him.

...but if she says it’s okay it’s good for him to believe her — he knows it’s okay, because he can see it — and maybe it’ll still work.

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Everything has a cost, Love. It's worth it if it's what you need. Really. She takes his hand in hers. I want good things for you. I want this.

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He considers whether he would feel the same way about this if they were just hurting each other normally, and he realizes that he wouldn’t.

(Maybe she can feel what it was for him, before, when he’s better.)

okay.

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She relaxes, and chuckles. I have your memories, Love. I already know.

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they don’t do it justice.

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All right. (She wants to kiss him, maybe give him a little nip, but - not in the mood he's in, quite. Hopefully Daisy will be back soon.)

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He’s already feeling like he was never upset—but he knows it’s coming back, and that he still needs to do something about it.

(She should kiss him when they’re done.)

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She will definitely kiss him when they're done.

For now, she just snuggles him.

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He’s in favor.

He manages to stop thinking and just be here, be with her, until Daisy returns.

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It takes a while, but she makes it back eventually, following politely behind a young Dorfu woman.

    "Hello?"

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He reluctantly extracts himself from their—her arms enough to sit up.

“...hello?”

He’s not sure why someone else is here.

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"Hi! I'm Eluned - they said you needed a spotter for some sparring?"

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Pradnakt sits up too. "We don't need one." I don't mind her staying, though, if you're okay with that. Make Dr. Deyne worry less.

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"Oh, is that a Sith thing, the talking?"

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He thinks they owe them all a little less worry.

“Just us.”

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"That's cool." She turns to Daisy. "Did they tell you where the room is?"

    "Yes, Ma'am."

"I'm ready whenever you are, then."

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He swings his legs over the side of the bed and stands.

(She seems nice.)

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Pradnakt follows suit, and off they go.

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It's not far to the gym; it's a utilitarian room with a padded floor and a mirror along one wall, with a bench near the door that Eluned sits on; Daisy stands nearby.

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Pradnakt takes a moment to look around the room, then gives him a squeeze before backing off a few steps and dropping into a fighting stance. Ready when you are, Love.

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He steps back and looks her over from a different perspective.

She’s trained, and he’s armless, and that puts him at a disadvantage. He doesn’t have much of a height advantage, either, with her. If he catches her off guard, trips her up—

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...he realizes that the longer he stands and thinks about this the more he’s shooting himself in the foot, and he laughs.

He just has to do what he always did, and not think until he’s there and the blows are coming down.

He circles her slowly and thinks about how good she looks when she’s about to attack him rather than what he’s going to do when she does.

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She smiles, when he realizes, and watches him circle until he's ready and waiting.

And then - he doesn't want her to hold back, so she doesn't: A quick jab to his good shoulder followed immediately by one to his ribs, and then she catches his ankle with her foot and he thumps against the mat.

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—uh. He’s on the floor now.

He blinks up at her from his back.

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Then he starts laughing, again, and kicks out at her shins before rolling and scrambling up from the mat.

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She dances back, giggling. Come get me!

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He does. He lunges to grab her closest arm and try to yank her off balance, sweeping his leg out to try to kick her legs out from under her — risky, she could pull him down with her, but it’s worked before.

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She lunges toward him, when he grabs her, hopping over his leg - thank you, danger sense - and past him, spinning him in something more like a dance move than a fighting one.

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He spins the way she pulls him, and then keeps pulling, purposely falling back to pull her down on top of him.

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And down she goes. (She's heavy for her size, too, all muscle.)

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And if he tries to roll her over to pin her?

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Well, she's not going to make it easy: she bites his shoulder, hard enough to bruise.

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He gasps and digs his nails into her shoulder where he's trying to pin her – wait, they're fighting, not –

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She laughs again. We do have an audience, Love.

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He doesn't care, he likes this, let them watch–

Okay, he'll get off her and back up so they can go at each other again, but he'll kiss her first, and he won't be shy about it.

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She kisses him back; she's not shy either. And then she gets her hands under his chest and shoves, steadying him with the Force as he flies backward, giving him a chance to land on his feet.

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He lands firmly, with her help, enough that he barely needs time to steady himself before he lunges back at her.

(He’s not balanced enough, when he runs forward—he fixes it. Something supports him just enough as he moves to make up for the missing weight.)

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She sees it - Good! - and braces for impact. (She could dodge, but that's no fun at all.)

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Oh, he expected her to dodge, uh—

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—he can work with this.

He aims his strike right for her breastbone.

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She softens the blow with a reflexive telekinetic shield; it's still enough to hurt, just not enough to knock the wind out of her. And then she wraps her arms around him and throws him to the mat again, pinning him this time with a knee on his crotch, a hand on his upper arm, and a kiss.

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He feels the impact, when he hits her, and it's not exactly like it was before yet but it's still good. He gasps and laughs when his back hits the ground.

When her knee pins him – well, he's clearly having fun. He kisses back with what might be a little too much enthusiasm.

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And now she gives him a nip. Does he want to go back, where they can continue this without the chaperone? Or keep going?

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He can't wait until they're out of here and he doesn't have to choose one or the other.

Reluctantly, he has to pick staying. He thinks he needs to exhaust himself.

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All right.

She bounces up off of him and lets him get to his feet.

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He doesn't actually know how long they've gone, but when he finds himself flat on his back again and realizes he's not quite able to lift his arm to pull himself up, he decides that it's enough.

He lies there, catching his breath, and doesn't have to think about nothing to be at peace.

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She's out of breath, bruised, happy. She scoops him up in a bridal carry, nuzzles his forehead, and heads for the door, where Daisy is still standing by and Eluned is distracted by something on a datapad. "Done," she reports.

    "Oh! ...I can walk you back to your room, if you'd like? Er - is - uh - is he all right?"

"Yeah, he's okay."

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"He's great, actually," he says, dreamily.

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"C'mon, Daisy."

 

They make their way back to their room. There's a message on the table, but it can wait; bed now. Snuggles. Kisses.

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Those are good things.

(He keeps remembering the Dorfu girl's face when they were done and giggling.)

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Best Love.

She pets him, and thinks about things - not figuring out what she wants, but figuring out how to explain it. It takes a while for her to come up with it: It's a gift. Not that she feels she has any claim to his arm anyway, but the way he's thinking about it does make sense, even if it's not how she does. And within that framework, it's a gift she's given him, freely, no strings attached, because she wants him to have it. (Kiss.)

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Oh.

That feels real.

 

(And it's safe. You can't take back gifts you've given to people, and they aren't yours anymore. (Some people act like you can, or they are, and they're wrong.) Even if he turned out to be – not worth it – it would be fine. Because she had given it to him.)

 

She gave him that gift – her pain, for him, because she wanted to, because she could. The doctor didn't, he took hers when it didn't belong to him, but it's not the same thing, and maybe if he finds a way to return something to her, it can be...not fine, but settled.

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Yeah.

Dr. Deyne might have an idea of what we can do for her. I'm not sure we should ask around, beyond that. It feels - unsafe, letting it be known that they care like that, for them and for the people they ask and for Mabbet, too.

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i think he'll know.

Not for any concrete reason, just because he seems like the kind of person who would know these things.

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Yeah. He's pretty good like that. She stretches out, then snuggles back up into a tangle of arms and legs.

So, we've got - heart scan this afternoon - lunch - flower crowns, maybe - not much else today. Anything you want to do?

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this is. weird, maybe. but i kind of miss movies.

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We can watch some movies. What are you in the mood for?

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something sappy where nobody dies and everybody's happy at the end.

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She snuggles him agreeably. I don't think I watched movies much before, you'll have to help me find something. She turns on the holoprojector and navigates the menu that pops up.

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He looks over the titles curiously.

don't think i've heard of most of these. maybe we should just pick one and see.

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Yeah, okay. She looks through some more, paying more attention to the aesthetics of the artwork than to titles or descriptions. She stops at a Dorfu movie: a cute-looking romance with a slightly confusing description but gorgeous underwater sets. How about this one?

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aww. let's try it.

He's starting to like this planet already. He doesn't know if it's just because this is the first place they came.

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She sends Daisy for snacks and goes to put it on, but pauses. We should wait for her.

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He nods and settles in against her to wait.

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A perfect time for snuggles.

She's back soon, with flavored puffed rice and a basket full of tiny puff pastries. "Come watch with us, Love? You might like it."

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"Yes, Ma'am." She comes back and stands by the head of the bed.

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That doesn't seem right. Sure, it'll be weird if someone comes in and sees her snuggled up with them, maybe dangerous, but that's where she belongs.

There is a lock on the door, though. (They have a master key, of course, but they probably won't use it, and if they do, she'll feel pretty justified in killing whoever does.) Scoot over, Love?she asks, and flicks it home with a wave of her hand.

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He’s alarmed, for a second, by the ease with which she slips into thinking about killing.

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He scoots, though, obediently, when she asks.

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"No, here, Love," she pats the bed.

    "Yes Ma'am."

You okay? She's confused at his alarm.

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why would someone deserve to die for opening a door?

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-deserve? What's that got to do with it?

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if they shouldn't die, then don't kill them.

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- that tends to shorten one's lifespan rather dramatically, when one is a Sith.

 

We should talk about that later. Movie now.

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...okay. Movie first. Everything else can wait.

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She puts it on.

The plot is pretty standard, but a little confusing; they don't explain why the girl having two older brothers makes the boy's parents disapprove of her, or why gathering the most beautiful undersea flowers to win a flower-arranging contest is enough to make them accept her. But it's easy enough to follow, anyway, and very pretty, and the snacks are tasty.

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It's very pretty. He's sure the planet can't really look like this, but if it did...

(And the snacks are tasty. He tries to make sure he's not eating at the same time as she does, because it starts getting a little confusing otherwise.)

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It probably does look like that somewhere. Maybe we can stay long enough to go see.

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and pick flowers.

It's mostly a joke.

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An image immediately pops into her head of him wearing a crown of them. Yeah, we should do that.

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i kind of wonder how good the available anti-drowning tech is. they've got to get tourism but they can all hold their breaths for ages, right?

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Probably pretty good in the touristy places. Humans are common enough.

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we get into everything eventually. like roaches.

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She chuckles and nuzzles his cheek. Yeah, a little bit.

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not so bad, being a roach. they're good at sticking around.

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Mmhmm. We find -

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There's a knock at the door, and she's instantly alert. Go, they sign to Daisy, all three hands working in concert without a conscious thought, and the droid slips out of the bed and takes up her position beside it.

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A brief jolt of fear—

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—but the droids never knocked, and they're not using the key, so nobody's in danger.

He reaches for the lock, but hesitates.

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She squeezes his(?) hand, thankful for the unconscious tactical habits that put her between him and the door even as she's aware that they're safe; the presence behind the door is familiar. I've got it, she reassures, and flicks the lock and then the handle and pulls the door open. "Yes?"

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It's nurse Wogan, with lunch and the scanner. Pradnakt allows the scan without complaint.

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He does as well, and nods his thanks for the food.

It's a little odd, now that he thinks about it, to have people waiting on them like this. Not bad, but odd.

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She's a little concerned, at the scan, and it shows on her face, but she doesn't say anything.

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You'll get used to it, Love.

(She notices the concern, but - she can see him, see that he's fine; she's not worried.)

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But he can't see her, not with the same detail and certainty, yet.

"What did you see?"

 

(The idea of getting used to it is troubling. He's not sure why. He puts that away for later.)

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"You're - bruised."

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"I sure am," he says fondly.

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She nods, still unhappy. "I'll let Dr. Deyne talk to you about it."

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"...okay."

He's obviously confused, but he lets it go. Maybe they'll need to wait to do this again until his arm heals more completely, or something. That's fine.

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She leaves them to their lunch - breaded fish kebabs with some unfamiliar sort of citrus fruit and peppery seaweed bulbs, with miniature vegetable muffins on the side.

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Most people wouldn't like being all bruised up, you know, she points out between bites.

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oh.

yeah. i guess they wouldn't.

He steals a bulb off her fork.

you kind of end up that way anyway, though, if you're fighting.

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(Gosh, he's cute. It's novel, having someone trust her so much, even if she knows he can see perfectly well that she won't hurt him.)

Yeah, they won't be too happy about that, either, if they think I was fighting you. It's a hospital, people are supposed to be safe here. Another scrap of memory drifts back to them, a lesson on how to escalate in terrorizing a town or city; attacking a hospital is fairly serious, a step above attacking a children's school and roughly on par with attacking a temple, depending on how religious the population is.

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This information would be laughably awful if he didn't know with such certainty that it was true. He can't laugh at this yet.

He pushes it away, tries to forget it was ever taught to them, but as things do when you try to forget them, it persists.

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- oh.

Uh.

There's... really not much she can do about that. She's not even sure it's among the more disturbing things they'll know, once they get her memories back. (She could, maybe, block herself from getting them back at all. But it'd be risky, and she doesn't actually want to.)

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It's not about the information, entirely. He can deal with knowing things.

It's about the kind of person who needs this, who was taught this as a practical lesson.

(It's about the fact that there's an order of operations of hurting-people-the-most, and the knowledge that dead children were certainly involved in finding it.)

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Ah.

Yeah.

Well, the chance of her ever needing it is ...basically zero, at least, now that her master is dead. She's not going to be given assignments, now, and that's not the sort of thing she'd do on her own under any but the most extreme circumstances.

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when would you do it?

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If they were hurting you, she answers immediately. Or Daisy.

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...it's probably wrong, to find that reassuring.

But there's a difference between imagining her taking a town apart just – because – and imagining it happening because someone was hurting him. (Or Daisy.)

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She gives him a squeeze, more for her own sake than for his. I don't like hurting people. That's the way the world is, and doubly so when you're a sith and have to look strong to be safe; she'll do it, she wouldn't be alive if she wouldn't. But she doesn't like it.

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...yeah. i didn't think you did.

Hug.

except me, when it's fun.

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Yeah, that's different. It wouldn't be fun if you didn't enjoy it. She offers him a bite of fruit.

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Nom.

so glad i still can.

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Yeah.

Anyway it's not surprising that they'd be worried. They don't know that you're you. Or that I'm me.

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yeah. i guess they don't.

will they believe us if we explain?

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Deyne probably will. Or act like it, anyway.

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probably.

guess it doesn't matter much, other than that.

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It might, I'm sure there's politics. But I think we can handle that, if it comes up. Without killing anyone, she means; terrorizing them into compliance is something she could do, but not something she will do.

And then she turns her attention back to lunch. (These muffins are pretty tasty.)

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They are good muffins. And they can handle it. (And he loves her.)

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She loves him too.

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Daisy takes the tray out when they're done, and Dr. Deyne accompanies her back.

"How are you doing today?"

 

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"Improving."

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"Good," he nods, and then taps the datapad he has with him. "I am a little worried about the sparring, though; you don't want to overtax yourself while you're already healing."

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He nods.

"We can be more careful. I needed it pretty badly then."

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He's worried, and more than a little alarmed, but he doesn't let it show, and instead just nods again. "All right. The R.O. scanner is free now, if you'd like to get that out of the way."

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"-because he wanted it," she asserts, ignoring the question. "And because I knew it wouldn't hurt him. Medical needs aren't the only ones."

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"All right." He's not relieved, exactly, but he's much less sharply worried; he pauses for a moment to consider, before adding "we do have therapists on staff, if you'd like to talk to someone."

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We could. I don't know if it'd help, but I don't mind if you want to try.

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"Doubt there's anything we could fix in a couple weeks."

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"It might give you a more stable base to work from, moving forward. But I won't push. Did you want to do the scan now?"

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He nods.

"Good a time as any, I guess."

okay with you?

(He knows it's fine. But he might as well ask.)

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She smiles internally, just for him - yeah, fine - and slides off the bed.

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Dr. Deyne explains how the scan works as they go; it uses sound, echolocating like a Preo - whatever that is - to develop a high-definition 3d image of her heart, which is sent to a specialized medical droid for analysis. It takes a little while - at least half an hour, sometimes more if it needs to be recalibrated for a sharper image - but the end result will be a hologram of her heart in particular, with any abnormalities highlighted and analized.

(Pradnakt is amused and pleased at the nerdery.)

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aww. i get to look at your heart.

(He’s a little nervous they’ll find something.)

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Yeah, that's cute, he's cute.

I'm fine, Love. If there was something wrong, I'd know.

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yeah, i know. still gonna help to see nothing.

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She gives him a little squeeze. I know, that's why we're here.

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He'll just hold her hand all the way there, then.

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And soon they're there. The scanner is a large tube, with a table for Deskyl to lie on and be slid into it; it'll be awkward, keeping her arms up far enough to be free, and she opts to only try it with one. Dr. Deyne waits until they're settled, asks if they'd like any music while the scan is running, and, that taken care of, goes to begin the scan.

She can tell when it starts - feel it, more than hear it, at so low a pitch - and it's a little distracting, but not annoying. She settles in.

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He waits by the scanner and feels the hum, daydreaming about their next destination with the occasional violent interruption. He shoos those off fairly successfully.

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She comments, occasionally, on the daydreams; she's supportive of most of his ideas, unless they involve crowds. And she reminds him, when he needs it, that she's here, and staying, and not going to let anyone hurt him. (She doesn't really approve of him flinching away from uncomfortable thoughts, but she's careful not to push: it's definitely an opinion that she has, but it doesn't have to be anything more than that.)

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Eventually the scan is done, and Dr. Deyne helps her out of the machine and leads them to the next room, where the holoprojector is. When he switches it on, the hologram comes up in vibrant greens and yellows, with a splash of pink; he adjusts a setting, and it changes to a more familiar color scheme, reassuring blue and calm green with the pink spot now picked out in royal purple. "Interesting," he reports, and sets the hologram running. "That purple is your abnormality; the tissue is less stretchy, there. Under normal conditions that doesn't do much. But it looks like - " he adjusts it again, and watches as the simulated heartbeat speeds up. "Mmhmm. Under stress, it changes the shape of your heart's chambers, not much, but in a way that's actually more efficient."

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"...that's a thing that can happen?"

It sounds too good to be true, almost.

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"It's certainly not common. I've never seen something like it before."

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Told you I was fine, she grins.

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should know by now you're right about stuff.

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I do make a habit of it. She'd be hugging him, if Deyne weren't right there.

    "I'd like to send this to our cardiomyopathy team, if you don't mind," he adds.

"Sure," she allows.

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They'll have to make up for lost hugs later.

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They will.

Dr. Deyne brings them back to their room, where she scoops him up onto the bed again and kisses his nose.

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glad you're not gonna die.

The tone is joking but the intent is sincere.

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Me too! she giggles. It would really put a damper on our plans.

Oh, and - "The scan turned out fine, Love," she tells Daisy. "I'm a little weird, but in a good way."

    "I think we already knew that, Ma'am."

Pradnakt giggles again - she really does love this droid.

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"We wouldn't like each other so much otherwise."

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"I dunno, you seem pretty likeable to me." She pets the back of his head.

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“Yeah, ‘cause you’re weird.”

Nuzzle.

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"Nah. You're just that good."

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He grins, and then glances aside to talk to Daisy.

“She’s so good!”

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"We're very lucky."

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"The two of you," she protests, with faux exasperation. Really, she's delighted to be able to be this for them.

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He kisses her on the cheek.

"We are."

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"Well." She pulls Daisy onto the bed and hugs them both. "Guess I'll just have to keep it that way."

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"I'm sure you will, Ma'am."

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She impulsively kisses the droid's cheek, and then gives him a nuzzle as well.

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Good. Her face contacting his face is always excellent as far as he’s concerned.

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"Mmmm," she hums happily, and rests her forehead on his.

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"D'we want to -" do anything else today, the thought completes, but - "or, actually..." today is the third day, isn't it; they should take that into account in their plans. She's not sure how, though, offhand; she consults his memories for clues to how he's likely to react to fear in different contexts.

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Or she tries to, anyway. "Ma'am?" Daisy interrupts.

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"Yeah?" It takes her a second to reorient. "Oh - not sure whether going out tonight is a very good idea, or a very bad one."

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Oh. Right.

He has fewer memories of being afraid than he probably should, and the recent ones are overwhelming. Old ones are fear of loneliness, fear of abandonment, fear of himself, more than anything else, and predictably most of them take place when he’s alone and he responds to them with some variety of self-injury.

“I’ll be fine. I know it isn’t real.”

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"Mm - better safe than sorry, though. But it probably is best to go out" - being out and around people is the least like being trapped in a little room, and if they stay and he needs her to beat him up again she'll be burning some social capital to make that happen - "and just make sure we can get somewhere private if we need to."

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He nods.

They’ll go out. It’ll be fine. He likes being around people, and if he breaks down anyway they’ll be able to go somewhere else, where there won’t be...threats? People aren’t threats. People are fine. It’s being trapped that isn’t safe, not being out there—but either way—when did “not safe” start mattering to him anyway?—

 

“...I want my arm back.”

It’s not really about his arm, this time, but he doesn’t really know what he needs to get back, exactly, and that’s the closest thing.

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"Yeah." She leans into him for a moment, then brings her hand up to the back of his neck as she pulls away slightly.

"It'll be okay. I'm good at safe." He's going to need time to figure out society again, clearly, and the obvious division of labor is for her to bodyguard him while he focuses on that; that's more or less what she'd be doing regardless, anyway.

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“...yeah.”

They’ll be fine. She’ll keep them safe while he can’t. He’ll keep them open while she can’t, as much as he’s able.

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She loves him so much.

"So, what do we want to do?"

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“...what’s even around here? Do we leave the hospital?”

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"That's what I was thinking, yeah. Daisy, have you checked what's nearby?"

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"Yes, Ma'am. We're in the business district, a few blocks east of an upscale shopping area. The art district is about a mile north of here, and the entertainment district is northwest of that."

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"Sounds good. Do you want to come with us?"

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"Yes, Ma'am."

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"All right. Good."

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sounds like a pretty good walk.

And...he's a little excited about the shopping district. He's never actually had money to burn on something like that before.

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Or we can rent a speeder. Either way.

"Anything else we want to do here before we go out?" I should probably see if there's any obvious way to let us talk separately, actually.

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...yeah, that’d be nice. it’s kinda fun to watch people react but it’s kind of a sometimes thing.

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Yeah.

"I should see what I can do about our voice, actually."

    "Yes, Ma'am."

 

She meditates, examining their connection. Say something for me?

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All words he knows suddenly disappear from his mind, as is often the case when prompted to “say something”.

“Uh. ... ‘In the furthest reaches of the galaxy, far from all civilization, two intrepid pioneers...’”

It’s the intro to a movie he watched in his childhood.

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It's a little distracting, speaking herself while she meditates, but she's got plenty of practice; it doesn't take her long to regain her focus, and she quickly finds the relevant connection. It's grown in, like the rest - the Force is very convinced that they're one creature, now - but she'll probably be able to fix it once she has her memories back. Probably. In the meantime - even if they're one creature, they should be able to choose which of their mouths they talk with. It's not that different from choosing which of their hands they use for something; it might take a little focus, like catching something with her left hand instead of instinctively using her right, but it's clearly possible. She practices with her hands for a moment, watching how that choice manifests in the Force, and then copies the relevant parts over, still muttering along.

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He stumbles over the familiar words a little while he watches their connection change shape.

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This is still the default; best I can do, for now. But if you try to just use your mouth, it shouldn't be too hard. I don't think we can say different things at the same time yet.

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He nods.

“Che—”

No, wait, that was hers. He tries again.

“Check, one, two.”

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“Cool.”

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And - "I think I still can... yep." She gets it the first time, and then pulls him in for a hug. "Good." She doesn't bother limiting it to herself, this time.

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“Good!” he says, through them both again.

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She giggles, nodding, and hugs him.

"I think that's it, then? We can let them know on the way out not to send dinner in."

    "Yes, Ma'am."

And off they go. Nurse Wogan is a little concerned about letting them go, but doesn't say anything about it.

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first stop - coats?

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I suppose we shouldn't make it too obvious that I'm a Sith, yeah. Want to wait in the lobby while Daisy gets us some?

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sounds fine to me, if she’s cool with it.

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'Course. She waits until they're a little farther from the nurse's station, out of casual earshot, before asking.

"Daisy, would you mind getting us a couple of coats? We'll wait in the lobby for you."

    "Yes Ma'am."

"Only if you don't mind."

    "I don't mind, Ma'am. It's what I'm for."

She scowls. "No, you're not."

    "I want to be, Ma'am. That's what being a droid means. There's nothing wrong with it." It's obviously an argument they've had before, from the immediacy of her answer. Pradnakt recognizes it, too; she's not happy about it, but - if this is what Daisy wants, it would be wrong to insist.

"All right. You can stop if you want to, though."

    "Yes, Ma'am. I will if I do."

"All right. Thank you."

They walk on, Pradnakt seething to herself.

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He thinks he would have been jealous of her, for having a purpose, sometime in the past. He thinks he would have been resentful of his own, if he had been made with one.

But it must be nice, to have a good reason to exist, besides “I want to”.

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...that's... a perspective. Sure. She's still annoyed, but much less so.

(It's maybe not that different that she herself is a Sith, though that's more about what she is than why.)

 

The lobby is a more crowded during the day, but the aquarium is still there, and the seating around it only holds a scattered few people. "We'll wait for you here." No 'Love', someone might hear her.

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He nods to Daisy and drifts over to the aquarium like it's reeling him in.

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She is in no way ready to let him out of arm's reach yet; she follows. (She doesn't go into full Sith mode, but does loom a little; it's not habit, precisely, but it does feel right, being visibly protective of him. Internally, she's delighted to watch him, and happy to see the fish again, too.)

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He watches them contentedly for a while.

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And soon Daisy is back, carrying two large bags containing two long black trenchcoats, one lined in grey, the other lined in a slightly shimmery midnight blue.

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...ooh.

"Which one is hers?"

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Daisy looks to Pradnakt.

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"We'll be more legible if I take the blue. I think." (They do color differently, here, she noticed when Deyne had to change the display on the heart holo.)

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"It's more you than me anyway."

He takes the one with the grey lining and starts to feel it, stops himself, puts it on.

legible how?

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We'll make sense. There'll be an obvious story to think of, about us. That's good; it makes us less memorable. (More memories click into place in the background; she's had classes about this, too, and put it to use regularly on missions.)

She puts her coat on, too, and checks that it doesn't interfere with getting to her 'saber; the lining is very smooth against her forearms.

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but how will it help us make sense?

He has to struggle a little not to fight against "less memorable".

...this is a soft coat. Good.

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Like, I'm really not going to hide that I'm protecting you? And there's two stories we could tell about that; we could say that you're in charge and I'm your bodyguard, or I'm in charge and you're mine to protect. And we're going to look more like the latter anyway - you don't carry yourself like you're in charge, and I can - so if our clothes tell the same story, that's less confusing than if they don't.

We can do memorable, too, when we want to, but it's really safer not to right now.

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that's a lot to get out of blue.

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It's that it's shiny, more than the color. That says higher status, most places. And it's not a big difference - if you'd wanted the blue it would have been fine - but without anything else to pick with, it's enough of one.

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He nods and buttons his coat.

"Let's see what's out there, right?"

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"Yeah."

 

They're a little uncoordinated, leaving the hospital; Daisy isn't sure whether Pradnakt wants her to lead the way, and it takes a few moments and a brief dance of do-you-want-to, I-don't-care body language to sort it out, before Pradnakt leads the way toward the shopping area the droid told them about. Not many people are walking, and those that are are well bundled up, but Pradnakt isn't cold at all, and neither is he - an obvious Force effect.

The architecture is fairly subdued, in the business district, compared to the more elaborate buildings in the shopping area: curving cantilevered overhangs shade the sidewalk, some blue or green or orange, others painted with murals or decorated with mosaics, occasionally extending all the way across the street to host covered walkways. Planters, now covered with snow, are visible along the sides of them, and here and there a vine hangs from an incompletely cleared one.

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He seems fascinated.

this is just where people work?

He slows down underneath a particularly colorful mural to scan it as they walk underneath.

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Mmhmm. See? She looks into the lobby they're passing, where there's a signboard showing the names of the various companies in that building next to an information desk.

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people care about this here.

He's never lived in a beautiful city before, or really spent much time in this kind of area. It's all new.

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Yeah. Daisy wasn't kidding when she said they're known for their architecture.

(There are a scattering of shops along the sidewalk; they pass the sushi place that last night's dinner came from.)

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she really wasn't.

He tries to use the wrong arm to wave to the sushi place and gives up immediately. It's the thought that counts.

hi, blue sushi. gonna miss you when we're gone.

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Too bad seafood doesn't travel well, we'd be able to have it imported. ...we could do it anyway, maybe, live.

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i'm into blue sushi, but maybe not smuggled-from-another-planet into it. unless we, like, raised crustaceans in our spare time.

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Or hire somebody to, once we've settled down. If you want to, I mean; it's an option.

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are we really hire-somebody-to-raise-us-sushi-crabs rich, now?

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Yeah, we are. Maybe not rich enough to do a bunch of things like that - but maybe we are, I'll have to actually check - but we can definitely do one or two.

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i guess we’ll see if blue sushi is that much better than other stuff.

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Yeah. We aren't going to be settling down like that soon, anyway.

 

The business district gives way to the commercial sector, where the murals are more common and more intricate, the surface underfoot goes from plain concrete to decorative tiled brickwork, and the empty planters are replaced with trails of artificial ivy that reach halfway to the ground, shimmering deep green and waving slightly in the breeze. There's quite a variety of shops - the first block alone boasts sporting goods, fancily decorated cakes, underwater hunting supplies, specialty jams and honeys, and miscellaneous souvenirs on this side of the street, and party supplies, gardening supplies, candy, electronics, and toys on the other side.

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Is it possible to die of aesthetic exposure? Like...with warming someone up from hypothermia? Good thing they’ve been in that room with the fish tank or he’d have been done for.

He doesn’t think he was even that into cake, but he drifts towards the shop window all the same.

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She chuckles slightly, following. Want one?

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dunno what we'd do with a whole fancy cake.

He so does.

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They probably have little ones. Or we could find some people to share it with. She puts an arm around his waist to tug him inside; it's not quite subconscious, how she's been guarding him on the left.

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She won't have to do that anymore, soon, he's hoping. It's still so good that she does it now.

Once inside he inspects the fancy cakes on offer thoughtfully.

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It smells wonderful inside, all butter and sugar and fruit, and Pradnakt stops for a moment to take it in before looking around further. The cakes on display range from tiny petit fours by the half-dozen to a tiered masterpiece nearly as tall as a Dorfu, decorated with fish and fronds of seaweed in bright colors on a deepwater-blue background. A sign at the back of the shop lists easily two dozen flavors available for custom-made cakes, from familiar to completely unrecognizable, and a holoprojector nearby cycles through pictures of various decorative themes.

After a minute, a clerk emerges from the back room. "Let me know if you need anything," he offers, "or if you'd like a sample. Our flavor of the day is shiato fruit, fresh picked yesterday."

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“—ooh.”

He doesn’t know what that is, but he wants it.

“Can we try?”

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"Of course, sir." He removes the lid from a platter on the back counter and offers them the revealed cake bits: dozens of little orange cubes, each speared with a decorative toothpick in a cheerful yellow with a little blue flag. "Have you been on Sacovis long?"

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He shakes his head as he reaches for a cube.

"This is our first day out."

Nom.

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The cake is pleasantly but not overly sweet, with a berrylike tang complemented by a hint of smooth bitterness, like chocolate or coffee.

"Welcome to the city, then."

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Ooh. Nice.

He is still thrilled by the existence of flavors.

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"Thanks."

He glances at Pradnakt.

do you like this one?

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Yeah.

"What do you have in samplers, for the little ones?"

    "I can make you a custom box with any combination of our basic flavors - that's anything on the left side of the sign - or if you want to try everything, we have a sixty-piece sampler with two of each of our flavors, right now. Or if you don't mind waiting until tomorrow, we can put together anything you like, we'll just need time to bake it."

"We'll take the sixty-piece one." She doesn't ask the price, but the number she has in mind could have fed him for two weeks, before, if he was careful enough about it. "When do you need the order, if we want something custom?"

    "We close at nine; any time before then is fine unless you need it first thing in the morning."

"No, afternoon will be fine."

    "All right. Can I get you anything else?"

Love?

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nah, that's     that's okay.

They just–did that? They just spent that much at once for, holy shit, sixty tiny cakes. That's a lot of tiny cake and that could have been a week of good food or two of stretching it.

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"That'll be all for now."

    "All right, one minute." The clerk returns to the back room, and she pulls him close. You okay?

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yeah. just...fuck. it’s a lot.

Having enough to be careless, he means, is a lot to get used to.

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Yeah. She gives him a squeeze. Not many people get to live like Sith.

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they should.

Never mind how this feels for him — this could buy someone else food for a week. And if everything were right in the world everyone could do this, nobody would need to weigh their pleasure against their survival, but since everything’s not right...

(He doesn’t want to give it all away. He’s selfish enough that he doesn’t want to worry about money anymore. And he doesn’t want to do it here, on this planet. But they need to help someone.) 

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Okay. I'll be putting together a budget for us soon; we can set aside some money for it. (And here she's imagining they'll personally fund a small to medium charity, with the expectation that that'll be easy, not eat into their ability to just not worry about the money at all.)

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Holy shit.

Holy shit!

How is everything like this now.

They're going to eat fancy cakes and start a charity and–for a second it's like the last months never happened, the background hum of anxiety that he didn't even realize was there falls away, everything is just gorgeous and new.

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He's very cute. She's delighted.

You'll have to figure out what you want the charity to do, you know.

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i'll figure something out!

He really doesn't think that far ahead.

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He's very cute. And if he doesn't come up with something, they can always find an existing charity to donate to.

The clerk comes back with a box that's on the large size of what someone could comfortably hold in one hand, wrapped with thin, bright blue ribbon. The price he names is just a couple credits less than Pradnakt's guess; she pays seamlessly, and Daisy steps forward to take it once it's bagged.

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i hope they have one of those...cards. like in chocolate boxes. that tells you what they are.

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I bet it will. This is probably for, like, if you want to get a wedding cake or something from them, letting you figure out what you want.

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i am gonna want to eat all of these and you are gonna have to stop me.

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If you eat half and I eat half, you still get to taste all of them, and you won't get sick, she points out, amused.

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oh, yeah.

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it's great having two mouths.

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Mmhmm.

They're back out on the street by now, wandering; a pet store with a litter of fluffy creatures in the window catches Pradnakt's eye.

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He is immediately glued to the window.

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We can't bring anything home with us that can't go in the spaceship. But she stands there with him, watching as the yellow-and-grey pups tussle with each other, learning their personalities and deciding which one she likes best - she's sympathetic to the weakest, and drawn to him more than a little, but her favorite is his sister, who's on the defensive nearly as much, but quite a bit smarter about handling it.

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Z has the same two favorites, but he's drawn to the smallest, weakest pup more than anything. The urge to go inside and just lift him out of the window is surprisingly intense.

can they not go to space...?

He knows they shouldn't. But look at them.

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I have no idea. We could ask.

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"We should at least go in and pet them," he says, very seriously.

(They forgot to talk again. It's easy not to remember that Daisy's here, quiet as she is, or that she can't listen in on that.)

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"Excellent idea." In they go. The sign declares the creatures to be komopee kits, priced at half the rent for a cheap room for a month each, with a discount for two.

Pradnakt reaches into the pen, letting them sniff at her and get comfortable. The largest nibbles her fingers experimentally with needle-sharp baby teeth.

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Expensive. Expensive and adorable.

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He lowers his hand into the enclosure as well.

be nice, guys, i've only got the one...

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He's quickly nibbled as well. Pradnakt progresses to petting - they're as fluffy as they look, with a hint of oiliness - and when that goes well, she scoops up the littlest one, and he burrows into her arms. Adorable.

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!!!!

He looks up when she scoops the little one – he doesn't really trust himself to try with just the one arm – and reaches out hesitantly to scratch him on his head.

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He's nervous at first, but when it becomes clear that he's not going to be hurt, he gives a sound that's rougher than a purr but clearly no less happy.

hope these guys do okay on spaceships.

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me too.

They'll have to keep him very very safe. And very very loved. Nothing bad is allowed to happen to this small creature, ever.

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Yeah.

It doesn't take long to get the clerk's attention, and she's happy to tell them about komopee care. They're carnivores, and do best on a diet of fish, but they do fine on a processed diet with a few easy-to-find supplements. They do best in pairs, and tend to get depressed if they aren't allowed to swim at least occasionally - this makes them a poor choice for long voyages on human ships, but they do well enough on shorter ones, or on larger Dorfu ships, which have pools available. And they do have a tendency to be aggressive as adults if they aren't well-socialized as pups, but they're easy to train, which makes this a fairly minor problem most of the time.

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so i guess we have to have a pool. or live near water. and feed them fish...

The closest he got to having a pet before he left home was stubbornly feeding strays and wild animals, and he kept that habit up a little when he left but he couldn't keep an animal in his actual apartment.

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And keep our space jaunts short. Might be hard when we're tracking Him down, unless we find someone to leave them with.

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...right.

He had, somehow, been very effectively not thinking about that. He had separated out the two lives in his mind, the one that they escaped Him for and the one that has them returning.

He tries to reconcile the two.

it might not be okay to have them.

He strokes the little one's head with his fingertip.

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She pulls him in for a hug. We can find someone to watch them. But it's a choice we have to make, whether to take on this responsibility too.

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we should decide while we're not looking at them. and come back, if we pick that.

There is absolutely no way he can look directly at a baby komopee and say "no thanks".

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He's so good. Yeah, okay.

"We shouldn't make it an impulse buy. Can you hold a couple for us for a few days?"

    "Yes, Ma'am. Do you have them picked out?"

"Mmhmm." The clerk takes their information and gives each of the pups a collar to mark that they're reserved.

Do you want to look around some more?

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She's good. If it weren't for her he would just be rolling in komopees totally heedless of consequences.

yeah, let's.

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They have plenty more animals, though none quite so endearing - little mouse-sized creatures snoring away in the corner of their cage, frogs the size of two fists together that watch them with surprising intelligence, slate-blue bats that watch them with beady eyes and hiss when they get too close, and a tank full of bright flowers with something lurking among them that they can feel, but not see.

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He loves them all individually.

He's especially charmed by whatever creature is in the flowery tank – how are you hiding? – and keeps peering at it trying to get even a glimpse.

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She pushes the flowers aside with her telekinesis, carefully, to reveal a coil of iridescent black scales. A snake of some kind?

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!

"You're very pretty," he says, quietly.

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He is very pretty. She wonders if he's the kind of snake you can drape around your neck as an accessory.

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we should ask.

Snake-necklace seems like it'd be intimidating enough for their image while still being an adorable snake.

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He's a vlais constrictor; quite docile, and easy to care for as long as they don't mind handling rodents. He will get fairly big, but he's an excellent choice for a spaceship pet otherwise. (They'll have to watch the komopees around him if they get both, though.) And while she can't recommend making a habit of wearing him, a few hours once in a while shouldn't hurt him at all.

Pradnakt turns the conversation to supplies; the cost of them adds up quickly, even though the snake himself is a quarter the price of the pups.

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He tries to let Pradnakt handle the financial concerns and occupy himself in the meantime with images of both of them draped in giant snake.

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She handles it smoothly, until the clerk offers her a training module for Daisy, to teach her how to take care of the snake - she doesn't let her alarm show, but she's not sure whether Daisy would be okay with that or not, or want it or not, and she can't exactly ask, here in front of this stranger.

 

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we can come back later if Daisy's okay with it. she doesn't know how big our budget is.

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Yeah. Good point.

The rest of the transaction goes smoothly, and she arranges for everything to be delivered to their ship tomorrow afternoon.

Done here, Love?

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He nods.

sit tight, baby animals.

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Yeah.

Back out onto the street, then, and now she's keeping an eye out for someplace private to stop and talk to Daisy - she pauses to window-shop at a place with a window display full of sculptures made of scrap metal, though, first.

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They're pretty cool! He likes this one that kind of looks like a really dangerous dragonfruit on a stem.

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She likes the style, but none of the statues catch her eye enough for her to want to bring them home. A few give her ideas for her own art, though; she likes how that one suggests leaves with a few twists of wire, and how this one is balanced just so to give it a sense of movement.

Do you want that one, Love?

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don't think so. it's pretty but i don't want to own anybody else's art yet.

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All right. She takes another look at his pick: maybe she'll be able to reproduce it later.

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If she wants to. 

(It's hanging from the ceiling of the window, surrounded by a halo of wire, the individual leafy spines clearly nearly sharp enough to cut yourself on.)

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If he wants her to. Otherwise: no. She just wants the option; those're good to have.

Onward?

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Options are good to have.

Onward is a good option.

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Onward they go, then.

There's a little alcove set into the wall a few shops down, between a shop selling dishware and one with a selection of underwater toys, with a bench against each side and a sort of fancy manhole apparatus at the back with a sign indicating that it's closed for the winter. It's a bit of a squeeze, getting all three of them onto one bench, but she does it: him on her left, with her arm around his shoulder, Daisy on her right. "Are you okay, Love?" she asks the droid.

    "Yes, Ma'am. May I ask why you didn't want me to learn to take care of the snake?"

"I wasn't sure if you'd want to, Love, that's all. Do you?"

    "Yes, Ma'am." She sounds sincere, almost enthusiastic.

"All right. And if it comes up again, then too?"

    "Yes, Ma'am."

"All right."

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This isn't really his conversation – not his Daisy – but it's nice to listen to anyway. They trust each other.

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She won't mind him chiming in, though, if there's anything he wants to say.

"And - have you seen anything you want?"

    "...Ma'am?"

"In the stores, I mean. If you see something you want, you can have it."

    "Oh. Okay."

"Is there anything we should go back for?"

    She thinks about it for a bit. "No, Ma'am."

"All right. Ready to get going," she asks him, "or do you want to sit for a bit, maybe try a piece of cake?"

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“Let’s save the cake.”

He stands and turns to offer — nope, not that one — his hand to Pradnakt.

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She takes it, standing, and leads them on. The shopping district gets more interesting as they get deeper into it; they start to find obvious subdivisions, whole blocks dedicated to stores selling jewelry, technology, high fashion, paintings, and so on, each shop competing with the others to have the best products, the most interesting displays. (She turns them away from the block where droids are being sold; she doesn't want to murder anyone today.)

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They've stopped to sit in a little plaza with a three-piece band of street musicians performing at one end when she notices that the sun has started to set.

It hurts, in the best way. Oh, she thinks, forgetting for the moment that he can even hear her. I'd forgotten.

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you told me about it.

He knows she can see that, but he’ll say it anyway.

it’s gorgeous.

Because it’s hers.

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Yeah.

 

Gorgeous.

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He drifts on her aesthetic high for a while, hand clasped in hers.

They can watch until the glow of the sunset is gone, if she wants.

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He'll have to interrupt her, if he doesn't. And for a little while after, too, as she sits, remembering it, feeling it.

She's out. Really, truly. She'd known, but she hadn't felt it, until now.

She leans over to kiss his forehead. Thank you, Love. And in that moment, she's not a Sith, she's just herself, and it's inconceivable that they could be anything but equals.

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Then he can kiss her, just for a minute, as just himself — whoever that is.

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Yes. Good.

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It’s dark, now.

 

Something feels kind of...off.

He grips her hand tight.

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...right. Well.

He's hers, and she's not going to let anything happen to him, and it's just as simple as that.

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Everything’s going to be fine.

(He’d be fine now, anyway. They fixed that part.)

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Something like that.

She had a plan; she falls back to it. We should eat. Restaurant - we can find one with a private room if that'll help - or takeout?

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restaurant sounds kind of nice. while we’re out here.

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Okay.

She's been keeping track of nearby restaurants for a while, and there are a few within walking distance - the nearest sushi one is a few blocks away, or there's a place nearer by that does grilled fish over rice with various sauces that she liked the look of.

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Rice bowls sound pretty good. They’ve had a lot of sushi. Although...he does sort of have to optimize for “can eat with one hand”...

It’s fish, though. Should be fine.

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Yep.

 

It's relatively upscale, like the rest of the neighborhood. "Your droid will have to wait outside," the Dorfu at the hostess stand informs them.

Pradnakt rifles through the bag of credits to produce one worth half again what she spent on the cake. "She'll stay out of everyone's way."

    "Very well, Ma'am. Right this way." She leads them to a table in the back, right by the kitchen; very likely a VIP seat. "Would you like to see the wine list?"

We can't get drunk, same as any other drugs, she points out. We can get something if you want to, though.

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The fact that his gut reaction is that it’s reasonable to keep normal droids out of a place like this doesn’t sit well with him anymore. Makes him mad, although he hides it pretty well on the outside.

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He was never the biggest fan of alcohol, but now that she mentions it this seems like a really good time for it. Oh well.

don’t actually know if i like wine or not. should probably skip it.

(He feels conspicuously out of place in here. It’d be pretty reasonable to keep him out, if it’s about atmosphere.)

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"No, thank you, doctor's orders."

    "Yes, Ma'am. Your server will be here in a moment."

You're fine, Love. They don't know what human styles mean.

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i guess they don't think piercings are weird, at least.

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   wait, but

they took those, anyway.

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She has his memories; she knows what he means. I wonder what the Dorfu would have made of that.

 

Do you want to get your jewelry replaced soon, or wait?

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Huh. That's an interesting question.

...soon, i think. maybe not all of it. but it's weird to have none.

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All right. I don't know if we'll be able to get them here - get some made, maybe, but I'm not sure we're staying that long - but we can make it a priority.

The server appears as she's conveying this, and waits to be acknowledged before handing them their menus. "Would you like something to drink while you're deciding?"

"What would you recommend?"

    "We have a lovely Baurre Adega right now, or if you're looking for something non-alcoholic, the tecot-infused tea is very nice."

"The tea sounds good."

    "Yes, Ma'am. Would you like to share a pot?"

"Yes, thank you."

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He nods and smiles at the server in roughly the way he thinks you're supposed to.

i'll live if it takes a while. not like that's the biggest body mod i've got anymore.

It's hard to untangle all the feelings he has about that – 'body mod' is a little bitter (a lot bitter) but he's also thankful he has that way to describe it all. It does make the piercings seem insignificant, by comparison. Does he still want them? He does. Those are his (he thinks). But he's not sure when it'll feel right to put them back.

(Maybe he'll take a cue from the Dorfu. Earn them back, one at a time.)

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It's good that he knows what he needs, even if he doesn't know all of it; this would be so much harder if he didn't. It's still hard, but in the way that life is hard; you get through it anyway, is all.

She looks through the menu; there are a few things she can recognize, or at least piece together, but not many, and nothing very interesting. She turns to Daisy for help, guessing correctly that the droid will have gotten descriptions of the local cuisine from somewhere, and shortly (and after a bit of consultation with him and with his memories) she has a pair of dishes picked out: a fish steak in a spicy caramelized sauce, for him, and for herself one marinated in citrus that she thinks will complement it nicely, with a trio of vegetable sides for them to share.

We should probably speak aloud, actually; might draw attention otherwise, she points out when she's done choosing.

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It helps, when he figures things out. He hopes they can figure things out for her too.

 

"–oh. Right."

looks kind of weird if we're just looking at each other meaningfully this whole time.

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"Yeah." What conversational topics do they have pending that they can talk about in public, let's see...

"So, do you want to go snorkeling next, when we're done here, or something else?"

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"Yeah, I wanna do that before we leave. Hopefully getting a bunch of salt water in my arm wouldn't fuck it up."

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"I'm sure they would have said something. Is there anything else you want to do while we're here?" Not that we can stay too long. Leaving a false trail is fine, though, if you want to make something up.

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"...it'd be kinda nice to go out on the ocean for a while. Somewhere there's not a ton of people around."

am i doing it right?

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Yeah, fine.

"We could do that. Like a cruise, you think, or just get a boat of our own and disappear for a while?"

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“Either. Both, even. There’s a lot of ocean.”

It won’t happen, but it would be kinda fun.

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"Yeah. Cruise first, you think, and then strike out on our own?"

Yeah, can't do it here. Once we have a few more hyperspace jumps under our belt, if you want.

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“Sounds good to me.”

if something’s on our way, maybe.

There’s a lot to do, a lot for them to become. But they’ll have time to rest.

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Sure.

The waiter returns with their tea, and takes their order - Pradnakt lets him talk her into a fourth side dish, a salad of imported fruit that hasn't been put on the menu yet - and then they can go back to their conversation, planning out a hypothetical vacation until the food comes.

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He has plenty of creative ideas, many of which place them far enough from civilization that it would take an awful lot of time and resources to track them down.

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That usually wouldn't work, she realizes, just as the food comes. It's obvious when there's another trained Sith on the planet unless they're hiding themselves, and that takes effort. But I'm good at holding a Force effect, and he knows it; he won't be able to be sure we're not still here if we leave a bit of a trail.

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That, and

He can make her disappear. He can do it now. He can do it as long as she needs him to.

...he wonders if He'll be thinking about that. How much He knows. How well He can follow them.

Maybe he should think about food instead of this while they're in the middle of a restaurant.

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He won't guess, or at least not right away. Sith don't usually work together this well, even if he guesses I taught you something.

And then, yes, food. She takes a bite of hers - quite tasty, with a surprising depth of flavor from the unfamiliar citrus - but then waits to see if he needs help with his own before continuing.

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He takes a bite of his. It takes a few tries, using his wrong hand alone for it. (There's an itch of grief and humiliation that he tries not to dwell on.)

The instant burn of the spice is reassuring – it's intense and unnecessary flavor, something he wouldn't have gotten in the cell. Whatever that citrus is is good, too, and the two aren't as hard to pick apart as he would have thought.

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By the time he's gotten the fork to his mouth, she's worked out how to use him as a conduit, guiding her telekinesis with his hand rather than her own; she has to pay a little attention to it, but fork and hand both will move as he expects them to, now, just as fluidly as if it was his dominant hand.

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...huh.

It's just on the edge of being uncomfortable – it's like when they move each other, but it's different enough to notice, more like her holding his hand with hers and moving it for him.

He's not sure if it's okay. He thinks it is, for now.

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You'll have your other one back soon, she soothes. And I'll stop, if you want.

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okay. yeah. i will.

He takes a few more bites, and then sets the fork down.

(It's fine. He just needs a minute.)

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She takes another one, and then, for show: "Hmm?"

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"...glad I don't have to get too used to this."

He waves his remaining hand.

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"Ah, yeah. Soon."

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He makes his second attempt after a minute, and it goes better. Partially because between bites he’s adding more diving to their counterfactual vacation plans.

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He's so good, she loves him so much.

It's quite the elaborate counterfactual vacation, by the time the waiter comes with the dessert menu.

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“...if we’ve got sixty cakes, is dessert too much?”

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"Mm, let's at least see what they have."

They have pastries, of course, and also a variety of things to pair with them - various flavors of sherbet, sweet sauces to drizzle or dip, fruit, candy.

Pradnakt wants to try a little scoop of sherbet, just by itself; that's not offered, exactly, on the menu, but she's sure they'll let her do it anyway.

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Eating pastries feels like a bad idea considering the critical mass of cake that awaits them.

He will definitely eat sherbet vicariously through her, though. Or even some himself.

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Fair enough. Sherbet for her and another pot of tea for the both of them, then.

What do you want to do next? Music, a play, something like that? We might be able to find a poetry reading.

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There’s the lurch in his stomach again, out of nowhere.

(When the pattern breaks, something terrible happens. When the pattern doesn’t break, something terrible happens anyway.)

music, maybe? but a concert might not be the best idea. specially if there’s not a clear line to the exit.

Essence of nervous laughter.

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She's not going to let anything happen to him. There's no Sith on this planet - she checks, again, on reflex, not that she expects to have missed one showing up - and nothing can touch her. He's safe - they're safe - by strength and skill alone, but they are.

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But that's not the problem, is it, she remembers, coming back to herself. Being safe is important; feeling safe is, too.

We can find something that isn't too crowded. What she has in mind is nothing like a concert: a little bar with a live band, maybe. I can check before we even go in.

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...yeah. that sounds good to me.

And it helps that she's so sure of their safety, too.

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She's very sure of their safety. (It's so good to be free.)

She's carefully polite to the waiter when he brings her dessert, and eats quickly, and then they can go. She pauses outside the restaurant to give him a tight hug, first thing.

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Hugs. Hugs are good.

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Yes. She snuggles him in the back of the speeder to the entertainment district, too, the two of them piled together on one side of the bench, Daisy on the other.

Once they get there, she extends her senses, carefully - here of all places it's overwhelming, with not just the usual city's density of people going about their lives, but one crowd already enjoying a concert, their synchronized emotions permeating the area, and two more contributing their own excitement as they wait for their entertainment to start. She pauses, leaning against a wall, to adjust to it, let it fade into the background so that she can focus on more subtle things.

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Oh.

It's overwhelming, but it's gorgeous – he finds himself reaching out for it, wanting to meld into it.

(He could. That many minds, that many voices, all moving at once...he could just disappear.)

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We could. It's not the kind of thing she'd even consider, usually, but she sees what he sees in it, feels his feelings about it; it doesn't feel unsafe, just unintuitive. Need to find someplace safe to stay, first. If you want.

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yeah. let's try it. might be good to be somewhere else tonight.

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All right. (She loves him so much!) First things first - "Daisy, we're gonna find a place to meditate; we'll be under all night. Do you want to stay with us, or should we get you into a concert or something first?"

    "I'll stay with you."

"All right. Are there any hotels around, do you know?"

    "Yes, I saw one on the way in." She leads the way.

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(He loves her too!)

He follows, wondering idly what kind of concert produces the best feelings.

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It's a pretty nice hotel, to his sensibilities; Pradnakt is less impressed, but satisfied enough.

The clerk wants to see their identification. "You don't need to see our identification," she asserts.

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how do you make it work like that?

Without telling the truth.

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Same as always? It has to be something that could be true, you have to be able to imagine what it would be like to believe it, but it doesn't work any differently if it is true.

(The clerk finishes up and gives them directions to the room, and Daisy leads the way; Pradnakt spends a sliver of attention on guiding them along behind her.)

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i have to believe it at least a little. but i guess it doesn’t have to be true.

It’s not like he was actually supposed to be on the ship where he stowed away.

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Yeah, that part probably takes a little practice. It's not that hard, though, I bet you can get it. If you want to. She drifts closer to nuzzle his cheek.

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probably a good idea to know it.

Good idea to know any skill like that they can use, even if he never has to.

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That one's not a huge priority - she can use his voice for it just fine - but the principle is sound.

And here's the room. "Thank you, Daisy. You can go out if you want; we'll wait here for you if you're out when we're done."

    "Yes, Ma'am."

 

"It's just us, here, you can call me that if you want to but I'd rather you not."

    "All right."

She grins. "Good. Here's some walking-around money, I won't ask you to account for it."

    "Thank you."

"Have a good night, Love."

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will she be safe?

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She turns her attention back to the neighborhood - she's a little more able to filter out the crowds, now that she has a little more experience of them. It's not upscale, but reasonably safe, with a decent police presence. Yeah, I don't think she'll have a problem. She won't stay out if she thinks it's unsafe. It's an intuition, but a strong enough one that she thinks there's missing memories behind it.

Daisy's still there to be asked, though, so she does: "You'll come back if it gets dangerous, right?"

    "Of course, Ma'am. I know you still need me."

"Good." She gives him a squeeze. "He'll worry if you don't."

    "I'll be very careful," she tells him.

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Aww.

"That's good."

After a moment of contemplation, he adds, "have fun."

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    "I will." She goes.

Ready?

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well as i know how to be.

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And she opens her senses.

The first concert is still in full swing, and the second is just starting, while the crowd for the third settles in, and now with her full awareness devoted to it, they can sense dozens of smaller gatherings, a mosaic of moods and energies.

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Oh.

It's not quite like seeing a city out a window and not quite like a starscape and not quite like tuning a radio but it's a little bit like all of those things.

He lets his awareness of the room around him dwindle away as he takes in the whole of it, and tries to get a closer feel of that first concert.

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He can't hear the music - or not at first, anyway - but he can feel the beat of it, like a heartbeat, uniting the audience. It's a hopeful song, a little bittersweet, about challenges overcome and good times to look forward to.

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He definitely hasn't felt anything like this before. Or, he has, but never with the intensity of hearing it live, and only as himself, not as so many scattered hearts.

He drifts, and – he can't get quite close enough, he'll just let go a little more of the feeling of his body, fall a little further into the crowd.

(It's a good song to feel.)

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Pradnakt fades with him, following his lead, twisting her attention just slightly to begin reading minds, the very lightest touch of it, multiplied over thousands of people, everyone in range. With that, they are the crowd, no more aware of any individual in it than the whole crowd could be, but hearing what it hears, seeing what it sees, feeling what it feels.

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He loses his body.

They sway and pulse and drink in the music, existing synchronized with themselves by the rhythm – the only thing that they all know is this one thing, and they surround it, and they are part of it.

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It's wonderful, glorious, pure. There's no time, no space, no thoughts, just music, feelings, life.

 

 

The concerts begin and end and begin again, but eventually they begin to peter out.

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The crowds are thin enough that it's not one experience, anymore. It's diffuse, floating on steam.

If he was holding onto enough of himself to think about it, he would remember how Pradnakt let herself go before, to heal.

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It is like that, more than a little.

The crowds continue thinning. He comes back to himself first; she's still drifting, no thoughts, just experiences.

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...now that he's felt it, it's not so scary to feel her like this.

He lies next to her and watches her.

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She comes back much more slowly than he did; it's like watching her when she came back from being taken, but all sped up. The very first thing is her sense of herself as a body, of his body, her awareness of the things that they're feeling and hearing and seeing. And she's content with that, for a few moments, still drifting, not even cataloging anything, just present, feeling it. She notices that she can move, next, but has no reason to do anything with that until her emotions come in, a moment later, and she curls toward him, mine.

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mhmm. yours.

He snuggles closer to her.

i think i could deal with healing, now. 

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That's good. I'm sorry I scared you.

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it's okay. i just didn't get it. i get it now.

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Good. She stretches, then wraps herself around him again. I wonder what time it is. And I'm a little hungry. Cake?

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cake!

He is very enthusiastic about this prospect. And, also...

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...i feel fine right now.

He doesn't know how long it'll last, but he doesn't think someone's about to break down their door even a little.

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Oh. Yeah, that was the concern of the moment, however many moments ago that was. Good.

She gives him a kiss and then lifts her head to scan the half of the room she can see - the inside; she's between him and the door. Daisy's back, sitting at the desk with a datapad that she didn't have before, and the cake is with her. She doesn't want to interrupt her but she doesn't especially want to get up, either; fortunately, she's a Sith. She grabs the box with the Force and floats it over to land on the bed.

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He takes a moment to appreciate levitating cake. You should appreciate levitating cake when you feel this good.

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you might have to open this one.

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She only whines a little about having to sit up. They can still cuddle that way, after all. And there's cake; it's very tasty.

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He's not sure whether the circumstances make the cake better or not. Probably. It's still good cake.

(And they're good cuddles.)

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They are! She winds up sort of half flopped over him, one arm behind his head for padding, with that hand in his hair, and the other free to feed them. (The cakes are lovely; each flavor is decorated differently, with similar kinds grouped together to make a pleasing design with their decorations.)

She notices after a few minutes that Daisy has put her datapad down, and is watching them. "Hmm?" she asks.

    "It's good to see you happy, Ma'am."

Aww. She beams, and kisses his forehead. "Love you, too," she tells the droid.

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Forehead kisses. Those are good.

"...d'you wanna come over here?"

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She thinks about it for a moment, and then joins them on the bed, snuggling in on the other side of him.

Pradnakt peers at the datapad. "What did you get, Love?"

    "It's a collection of short stories, would you like me to read you one?"

Oh. She remembers: That's a thing Daisy does. Poetry, usually, translated into sign - she'd gotten better at it, over the months, a good marker of her growth - but sometimes stories, too. "Yes. Please." She loves this droid.

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He settles in against Pradnakt to listen.

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And she reads. She's quite good at it - doesn't do voices, particularly, but she has a good sense of pacing and tone, what to linger on or emphasize or rush to get the most out of the piece, and the piece she's picked to read suits her strengths: plotwise, it's a fairly simple thing, focused on a migratory alien saying farewell to his human coworkers before he leaves for the season, but she really draws out the poignancy of it.

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...it's nice. To hear a story. To have someone read to him especially – when was the last time something like that happened?

(Recently, say his memories, but they're her memories, actually, and so the emotion isn't the same.)

He wants to applaud, when she finishes, but...he's not really equipped for that, right now.

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Well enough equipped: Pradnakt offers her free hand.

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He laughs, and uses her hand to clap.

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"Very nice, Love. Another?"

Yes, another. And cake. What a wonderful night.

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It is a good night.

He starts drifting off a little near the end of the second story.

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Yeah. Bedtime.

 

Daisy has new clothes for them in the morning, and breakfast, little buns with spiced cheese filling.

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Clothes are good. Tiny cheesy buns are even better.

should we be worried about not being in the room?

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Eventually, yeah. "Hey, Love, how long 'till checkout?"

    "Just under two hours."

"Yeah, plenty of time. D'we want to do anything else before we go back?"

    "There is a nice sculpture gallery a few blocks away that you might want to see."

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"Sounds like it could be fun."

He pops another bun into his mouth.

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"Maybe next time? Hospital'll be worried about us."

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"...were we not supposed to leave?"

No, apparently they were not. Or – they weren't supposed to stay out, at least. Shit.

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"Love." She gives him a squeeze. "We don't answer to them."

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"...yeah, you're right."

He wonders if he would have been this concerned about it before.

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"...still. We kind of have...an outstanding balance on freaking them out already."

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"That, yeah, that's not the same." They don't owe the hospital, or any other random person or group, any deference; they do owe Dr. Mabbett something, and to a lesser degree Dr. Deyne, because they've chosen to take on that responsibility. But that latter thing isn't something to take lightly; it's certainly not something to do by default.

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Yeah. That helps.

"Nah. It's not."

With great reluctance, he starts to pull himself back out of bed.

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She goes too, helping him up with a hand on his back.

Their clothing for the day is two matching pairs of sturdy black pants with lots of pockets, a plain black shirt in soft, shimmery waterproof fabric, and, somehow, a band shirt from one of the concerts last night. Pradnakt claims this last piece, removes the arms with a few quick rips, and passes it over to him.

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It's such a tiny gesture, but it makes him glow, nearly literally.

(She loves him! She wants to be happy! He knows she can just remember his feelings on shirtsleeves but it still feels important!)

He uses her hands a little, for getting dressed, just because it's easier.

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He's really cute. And it's nice to help.

She gets dressed too, spends a moment considering whether their old clothes are worth bringing along (yes; it's hard to get clothes their size here) before bundling them up and tucking them under her arm. "Back to the hospital, then?"

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He nods.

"Hope they have something good to tell us."

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"Would be nice."

Back at the hospital, nurse Wogan is visibly relieved to see them, and they can hear her reporting to Dr. Deyne as they pass the nurse's station to return to their room. They have just enough time to stash their things before she comes in with the scanner - "No trouble overnight, I hope?"

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"Not even a little."

He slept all the way through, too. It was a little miraculous.

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She nods, scans them both, and nods again at the scan. "Dr. Deyne will be by to talk to you this afternoon about your pump."

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He nods back.

“Thanks.”

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And off she goes.

Deskyl snuggles up. I think I want to do some embroidery today.

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Oh. He remembers that she did embroidery. He's...not sure whether it's his memory or hers.

what kind?

He wonders briefly whether they have the right supplies here before he remembers they can ask Daisy to get things.

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Fancy up some of our clothes. Like the stuff I had before.

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that was pretty nice.

And it'll be more...hers, then. Theirs. Whatever it is now.

He imagines things idly. Swirling pink-orange-yellow-purple clouds, jagged branching teal lines, clouds of silver stitches so small they just look like points.

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Pretty. Maybe she'll do the cloud one first.

"Daisy, do we have an embroidery kit yet?"

    "Yes." She gets it out and hands it over, and goes to where their clothes are stored, anticipating Pradnakt's next request, a pair of pants. (She's thinking of how they'll look on him, more than herself, though there's no reason for them to have separate wardrobes really, and she likes the idea of not.)

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...it does make sense, for them to wear the same clothes. And it’s nice to think about. Although there might be a little less overlap on the shirts.

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Well, she's not attached to wearing sleeves, but yes.

Anyway, clouds. Maybe... here, and here, and here, and here, for some nicely balanced asymmetry, and then the colors can go like this...

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–can she put gold thread in here–and maybe there? He sees that in sunsets.

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Yeah, that'll look really nice.

 

Embroidering itself takes a surprising amount of her concentration: the large movements of fighting are much easier for her than this tiny precise work, and telekinesis is trickier on this scale, too. She enjoys it, but it's the enjoyment of a challenge overcome, not that of a relaxing pastime.

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He thinks it would have been easier for his hands.

It’s not a reason for her not to do it — feeling her this engaged is good — but it’s a reminder.

One more day. Maybe two. Then he gets something back.

He winds a fallen piece of thread through his fingers as the clouds take shape.

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Soon, Love. Probably earlier than they said, too - they've been pretty smart about handling a Sith, they probably padded their estimate.

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is that how you handle a sith?

Sooner than expected would definitely not be unappreciated, even if he’s not going to hang any hopes on it.

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One way, yeah. Works pretty well, too, so long as you don't get caught slacking.

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guess so.

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how dangerous are we supposed to be?

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I mean - Sith, she shrugs. For most people, 'could kill me by thinking about it too hard' is about all that matters, it won't come up that we're fairly small fry as Sith go.

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guess i'd better learn fast.

They'll always be together – it's not like he thinks anyone is likely to catch him by himself, not like 'by himself' even really exists anymore – but if he's going to be a Sith now he'd better be able to back it up.

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Sure. Want to try some telekinesis? It'll be easier with this hand anyway, prosthetics interfere a little.

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they do?

He calls up what knowledge they have about it.

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It seems sort of unfair, in the way most things tend to be.

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It is, a little, though it seems like he'll be able to compensate for it once he's had some practice; it has to do with how his presence in the Force will integrate with the prosthetic, treating it as part of him in a way that comes automatically but not quite naturally.

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He guesses it's a good thing he still has one hand.

(It's still unfair, sickeningly so, but what can he do about that? Nothing.)

let's try.

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Lots of things are unfair. Enough to make it the rule, not the exception. She accepted that years ago.

Anyway. The easiest way to do telekinesis is like this - the hand motion isn't strictly necessary, but it's difficult to direct things without it, and almost impossible at this stage.

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...okay. Like this.

He stumbles with it a little the first time. And the second. He learns to follow her patterns more quickly, though, than he could have learned himself.

It doesn't take him long to start moving pillows.

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Good job.

Rotating things in midair will be next, she thinks, once he's comfortable with this. Smaller things are a little harder, and fine control, and moving something you can't entirely see, and pulling things apart is more difficult again; maintaining a hold on something while not paying attention to it is its own skill, and a prerequisite for holding multiple things at once; living things are different, too, though not particularly harder in her opinion, except other Sith, who are much harder to pick up - they should go over that at some point, too, the general skill of direct Force-based defense.

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He's glad they already have a curriculum worked out.

This feels good. Learning something useful, something that'll keep returning for the rest of his life, however long that is. Something that'll help him in the fight, too – they definitely need to go over defense soon.

(He wonders how far "pulling other Sith apart" is on the list. Do the difficulties multiply?)

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It's not impossible, but it's the kind of thing you do when you need to show off how strong you are, more than for utility; he'd need to specialize in telekinesis to be able to pull it off reliably. Solo, anyway, having a partner opens up some options for them.

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...specializing. That implies some things. What can you specialize in.

He'll put aside the brief thought of peeling Him apart.

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Just about anything, really. It's like any other kind of skill: the more you put into an area, the more you can do with it. She's specialized in senses, personally, and maintaining Force effects around herself without conscious attention - that one is a little unusual to have at all, but she needed it, since she uses a Force effect to be able to hear and speak, usually.

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- that thing He did with the hallucinations is another one; that's a very advanced form of mind trick.

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...yes. 

That thing.

(He really should have known what was going to happen sooner.)

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He doesn't know what he would want to focus on, exactly. Maybe it's too much to be trying to decide now – he's getting too far ahead of himself, trying to plan all this out. He just wants to be at the part where they're stronger, already, where he doesn't feel so exposed every time there's even the shadow of a threat.

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Yeah. (Snuggle.)

Well, she's strong, they've got that going for them. And he'll get there; he's picking things up very quickly.

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She is. They do.

 

He looks over her shoulder and tries to pick up a chair. It wobbles into the air.

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Good, good.

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it is taking all the willpower i have not to just fucking throw this.

He's not wrong.

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She steadies it, making sure he doesn't. We could go down to the gym; it'd be good practice. 

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can you throw me with the force.

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She giggles. Yeah. Bet it won't take you long to figure out how to stop me, though.

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i promise i'll do my best even though it'll make you throw me less.

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It's not like you can't let me, once you know how.

She scoops him up and plants a kiss on his forehead. "We're going to the gym, Love, you can join us if you'd like."

    "Yes, Ma'am."

And off they go, though she puts him down before they reach the public hallway - appearances are important, unfortunately.

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Someday soon they'll be able to carry each other however much they damn well please.

In the meantime he'll just imagine that as they walk down the hall. And imagine being thrown, too.

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They will, it'll be great.

Halfway down the corridor she catches his heel when he goes to lift his foot, well prepared to steady him from the resulting stumble.

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–woop.

He goes down, but aside from the initial jolt he doesn't even startle – he expects to be caught.

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He falls for a moment, but halfway to the ground she catches him, with telekinesis like landing on an overstuffed pillow that pushes him back to his feet. "You all right?"

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"...yeah. Just tripped."

you did that on purpose.

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I most certainly did.

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i guess i have to learn to stop that too.

She can just push him however she wants. It's amazing.

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Yeah, she can.

 

There's a class going on when they get to the gym; a dozen Dorfu and an instructor leading them through some sort of rehabilitative exercise program. They're only taking up half the room, though it'll disturb them if they use the other half too vigorously.

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this seems like the wrong time to throw me across the room.

His disappointment is palpable.

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Yeah. She's not thrilled, either; there's a brief temptation to just order them all out, quickly overruled by the awareness that he wants to play nice, here. We can still get some practice in, I bet they won't be too long.

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bigger audience doesn't sound bad.

There's a flicker of an old excitement.

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He's very cute.

There's a rack of exercise balls against the back wall; she gestures, and the largest one - it's heavy, its core full of weighted pellets, and both the mass and the size will help him get hold of it - hops out and makes a neat arc through the air to land at his feet. (The group's leader gawks; the rest of them weren't in a position to see what happened, but a few turn to follow her gaze.)

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Oh, fun.

He gets hold of it, pulls it up into the air, and sends it flying her way.

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She grabs it when it gets close, and sends it arcing behind her back - showing off, a little; using telekinesis on something you can't see is more difficult, though not too hard if you already have hold of it - and sends it back to him.

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Nice.

He catches it, rolls it forward over the ground – it's harder to keep hold of it like this but it helps that if his grip slips it has momentum carrying it forward – and makes it leap up towards her once it's close enough.

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Not bad. She dodges, gently disrupting his hold as she does so that she can put the ball on the mat and roll it back to him. Rotating objects is easier with a looser grip, but you'll need a little more practice before you can do it reliably.

 

(The teacher tries to get her class back on track, with very limited success.)

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guess that's what we're here for, right?

He stops the ball, sits down on it, and grins at her.

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Yup.

She grins back, and then gestures, and he and the ball rise a couple handspans into the air. Can you see how you'd stop me?

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He can't help laughing when they float up into midair.

uh – i think i see the     the thing, hold on –

It's not just exerting force back, he thinks. There's a connection there – he pushes at it, not enough that he thinks it'll send him dropping but enough to feel.

(He doesn't touch the place where they're exerting the force in the first place. That'd be cheating.)

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Mmhmm. She adds a second connection - one at the scruff of his neck, one on the ball. You can break it with raw power, if you're strong enough, but you can also unweave it. Takes longer, but if you're facing someone stronger you'll have a chance of winning that way.

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Ah. He likes the one on his neck.

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He starts to prod at the connection to the ball, trying to unweave it experimentally piece by piece.

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Her grasp is loose, at first, and easy to unravel; she tightens up as he gets the hang of it.

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He concentrates, tries to pry her grip open even with her holding it together –

(He has an image of hanging from her grip on his neck that he just can't shake.)

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They start to get a headache after a minute or so, from the effort of keeping him and the ball aloft; she doesn't mind, though, and he's so close.

And then he does get it, disrupts enough of her hold on the ball that she can't keep it stable any more, and it falls, and so does he; a drop of only a few millimeters, but it's enough to give him a palpable jolt and the brief sensation of all his weight held up by the grip on the back of his neck before she lowers him to the ground.

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He flops dramatically to the ground.

"...did it. Proud of us."

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She sits a little more gracefully beside him. "Yeah. Good job." Gotta work on your speed, but that was pretty impressive for a first try. Did you notice how... she points out some details of the grasp, and how he can disrupt it more efficiently.

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He nods through it, tries to pick apart what he could have done better, where he noticed things unraveling more quickly.

guess it's going to take a lot of practice – do we get tired out if we do too much?

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Not really - not more than any other kind of mental effort, anyway. That gets easier with practice, too. Holding him up that long was a little painful, but that was like holding a stress position where most uses of the Force are more like exercising; it isn't usually like that.

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That makes sense.

 

He tries to remember rather than 'asking', this time, whether mass actually matters in terms of what they can pick up, past "bigger things are sometimes easier".

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Not directly. Size matters, but only once you get to the point of not being able to sense the whole thing or conceptualize it as an object rather than a place - ships and other vehicles are easier than random things, that way, since it's easier to think of them as things that can move, despite their size and the fact that you might be inside one.

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we could fly a ship with our brains.

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Yeah. Not a great idea outside of an emergency, but it can be done; she hasn't seen it, but she's heard stories.

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deskyl, we're so cool.

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They giggle. Yeah, we are.

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i think i like us.

He weighs the possibility of sitting up.

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She gives him a little tug. We could work on your personal defense from here. Or take a break, we're not in a rush.

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personal defense. we should work on that.

It's almost immediate.

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All right. She gives another gentle tug. See how I'm grabbing your aura, when I pull?

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–yeah. where it sort of–

He mentally gestures vaguely at stretching-warping-pulling-deforming.

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Mmhmm. And if you stop me from doing that, I can't move you. You'll stop someone you're much stronger than automatically - she gives him a very gentle tug, and he can only tell she's doing anything at all because he's watching her do it, there's no sensation of being physically pulled - but you can also arrange yourself so you're harder to move in the first place. See how my aura is sort of bristly, there's no good place to grab it? That's why.

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...huh. Yeah, he does see that.

so if i–

He thinks odd angles, sharp corners, bristling fractal spines and barbed wire and shredded metal, and tries to splinter himself into the right shape.

Becoming sharp is easy. It's like breathing.

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Yeah. Another tug, and this time it takes considerably more concentration to keep her grip where she wants it. It'll take a little practice for you to hold that without thinking about it, but I bet not much, you're pretty natural at this.

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feels right.

He pushes at her hold on him, tries to slip her off his edges.

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She resists him, for a moment, but it's not hard to throw her off. She responds with a grin and a wave of affection.

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She's proud of him.

For a minute that's the only thing in the world that matters.

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wonder how long it'll take me to do this all the time.

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You'll have most of it by the end of the day, I bet. Really getting it down, so you do it even in your sleep, that'll take longer, but the bond is helping you out - couple weeks, maybe a month?

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So, in a month – at most – they'll be protected even while they're sleeping. He'll be hard to hold onto. Will it wake them if someone tries to grab them anyway?

Not that that keeps them safe if they're attacked in some other way. But she has her senses. And he can share them. Even if it's just one of them in one place – not that they'll ever sleep separately if they can avoid it...

They have to be harder to hurt.

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She scoots over and scoops him onto her lap. My danger sense covers both of us, now, you know. I'll still teach you, of course - precog is good to know how to do anyway - but we're not vulnerable like that.

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And that'll wake them up. They remember that much.

They're not safe – nobody is ever safe, really – but maybe they're close enough.

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She gives him a squeeze. No Sith here, love. And nobody else can touch us.

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no sith yet.

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She sighs, settles him more comfortably on her lap, and sinks into a trance, looking forward through time.

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Nothing, nothing, nothing...

 

not nothing.

 

Not yet, yeah. A couple weeks. Squeeze.

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Oh.

That's...faster than he expected.

 

are we going to be ready?

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We shouldn't hang around to find out. Get your arm, swap ships, get out.

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Okay. They can do that. They won't be here for Him to find.

do we warn them? the people here?

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Tell Deyne, yeah. We need to talk to him about Mabbet, anyway.

She scoops him up and stands, gives the medicine ball a kick back toward its rack. Anything else?

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can't think of anything.

It's hard to focus on anything else, now, anyway.

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Okay. She sets him on his feet, hugging him to herself with an arm around his waist, and clicks her tongue to get Daisy's attention, having momentarily forgotten that she can speak.

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Well. He hasn't forgotten.

"He's coming. We have to get ready to go."

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"Oh dear."

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- right, speaking. "Couple weeks, little less. We have time to swap the ship."

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"Yes Ma'am. Shall I go get started on that?"

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Such a good droid. "Yeah. Something small. Nice to live in."

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"Yes Ma'am."

Her route follows theirs, for the first leg, and she keeps pace, quietly.

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"Do you think they're going to be safe?"

It's a stupid question. Of course they aren't.

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Probably. If we make it clear enough we knew He was coming. He won't try to torture them for information if He's sure they don't have it. It being a hospital helps; us not seeming to care about them much will help too. I think Deyne is smart enough to convince Him of all that.

"Not our problem, pet."

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...he laughs.

"Yeah. You're right."

So now they have to act.

He thinks he can do that.

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She gives him a little squeeze. Daisy continues toward the lobby as they head to the nurse's station, where Pradnakt tells the nurse on duty that they need to talk to Dr. Deyne at his earliest convenience, with body language that makes it clear that this actually means 'now'. Then she guides them to their room to wait for him.

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It doesn't take long for him to arrive.

"You wanted to speak to me, Ma'am?"

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"Yes. There's another Sith on his way, looking for us. We'll be leaving before he gets here; sometime in the next few days."

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He nods, thoughtfully.

"Yes Ma'am. I'll have the updated settings for the pump ready in a few hours, and I'll see if they can rush the arm at all. Is there anything else we can do for you?"

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"...the doctor who did my arm. Mabbet?"

He should be acting, but instead he stares at the table.

"Is there...anything she needs?"

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(Pradnakt gives him another squeeze, and a quiet wave of reassurance.)

"I'll ask."

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He nods.

"Thank you."

That's...really all they can do, at this point.

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"Will that be all?"

Pradnakt nods, and he goes.

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And Pradnakt scoops him up and settles them on the bed. We're going to be okay. She nuzzles him. We have time, we'll have a ship, it's not that hard to lose pursuit when you have those.

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...yeah. That's good.

He'll feel a lot better about it when they have their ship. And he has an arm. But she thinks they'll be okay and it's not hard to tap into that, the way they're linked up.

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She's confident, though that doesn't mean she's not nervous. She lays them down and pets him, anyway, relegating her concerns to vague background consideration.

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...petting is good.

It wasn't really that long that he was trapped, was it? But it still feels like he was starving for touch for such a long time.

Maybe it's because he didn't really have it before, either, not like this.

He reaches up with his good arm and tries clumsily to pet back.

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Yes, good. She hums happily and adjusts herself to be more easily pet.

Love you. She basks in it, for a bit. Never going to be alone again. An observation, more than a promise.

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He's still a little halting about it, but he does his best.

never again. not ever.

If either of them goes, the other goes as well.

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Yeah. It's nice, in its way.

Kissing? Kissing.

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–oh! Kissing! Somehow this is a surprise.

(It's a nice surprise.)

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Yes, very nice.

 

She's in no particular hurry to escalate; they can stay like this for a while.