The Meaning of Life (Is to Make it Back)
by imp

The Meaning of Life (Is to Make it Back)

imp

Summary

After everyone but himself and Jyn died on Scarif, Bodhi did his best to hide from anything resembling excitement. Unfortunately, the Force - and the New Republic - had other plans.

Notes

None

Chapter One

He'd never really thought about survival, in that mad dash to procure the Death Star plans. He'd been scared until he thought he'd die, and then he'd felt pretty calm. It was only after the last-minute rescue, after hearing from Jyn that Cassian and K2 had died, and Chirrut and Baze had disappeared, that the panic had set in.

Jyn had been a good friend before they'd gone their separate ways. Of course, that friendship had presented its own set of...complications. He thought about telling her, sometimes, what had happened on Eadu before he'd defected. But he always, at the last minute, decided to wait.

As it turned out, you didn't go from being a coward to a brave hero overnight. That had been one of the harder lessons to learn.

"Gyan."

He jumped at the sound of his assumed name, fumbled with the transistor he'd meant to install, and barely righted himself in time. "Sorry! Sorry. Yes?"

His new employer, who he knew only as Ten, cocked an eyebrow. "Visitor for you outside," she said. "Shall I tell her to wait?"

Who on earth would be here for him? He'd picked the Ring of Kafrene for its obscurity. A customer? "No, no, it's fine. Send her in."

The woman who walked in wasn't anyone he recognized. She looked shady, actually: baggy clothes that almost certainly hid weapons, a way of looking about that said she knew when she might need to make a quick exit. He swallowed past his nervousness and said, "I'm booked on speeders for the next two weeks."

She arched an amused brow. "Excuse me?"

"Speeders," Bodhi said. "I assume that's why you've come, I'm—I repair them here. That's my job. But I'm busy."

"Well, thank you for that," she said, "but I'm more of a starship person, really."

"Oh."

"Do you know anything about starships?"

"Not...so much."

"Hmm." She looked around. Her eyes traveled from his toolset to the holoscreen behind him, down to the datachips on his table and then up to his eyes. Suddenly, her mien changed. Where she looked guarded, she became honest. Her expression didn't soften, but it became more serious, almost regal. Bodhi found himself sitting up straighter without thinking about it.

"I apologize for being blunt, Bodhi Rook, but I think you know quite a bit about starships."

He dropped the transistor.

"No! Oh, I—augh." He scrambled to his feet, grabbed his tools, and backed up three steps, into the wall. There was an exit to the left—if he dropped down, crawled, he might make it, then up the wall, over the buildings—

"Wait. Bodhi, wait. Jyn sent me."

Bodhi blinked, coming back to himself. The woman still stood there, but her brow now wrinkled in concern.

"Jyn?"

"We're friends," the woman said. "I'm not here to kill you, or kidnap you."

"Then why are you here?"

"I've come to offer you a job."

"...oh," Bodhi said. "Oh, no, that's very inappropriate, I decline. Thank you." He sat back at his workbench, staring at the table and waiting for the woman to leave.

He should have known a friend of Jyn Erso's wouldn't be put off quite so easily. "We need pilots, Bodhi," she said, sitting across from him. "The New Republic, that is."

"I'm no one." He'd worked so hard to make that true again. "You don't need me."

"I have to admit, I thought you'd at least let me give my pitch."

He didn't want to. But Jyn...she had been a good friend. She hadn't even blamed him for running away, even though he'd blamed himself, too often, late at night when no one was around to contradict him.

He looked up. "Go, then."

"We're woefully short on staff, spread thin across the galaxy. We can recruit and train people, but that takes time. We're hoping to reinstate pilots who worked with the Rebellion before. You'd be doing pretty dull work, I won't lie to you about that, but you'd have your own ship—a transport vessel, to be precise, and fighter pilot training." She folded her hands. "And, of course, a crew."

He felt a rushing in his ears, as though he'd suddenly returned to the storms of Eadu. "You're telling me you want me to be a Captain."

"That's the rank, yes."

"A Captain, you're saying Jyn sent you here to offer me a job as a Captain—wait, what's Jyn doing?"

Dry as the desert, the woman said, "Intelligence work."

Following in Cassian's footsteps. Of course. "Yes," Bodhi said, before he had the time to talk himself out of it.

"Excellent," the woman said. "We've packed up your apartment. Tender your resignation; I'd like to leave before the gate closes for the day."

She smiled in the face of Bodhi's slackjawed expression. "Welcome back."

-

The woman's name was Kiara; the ship was called the Sunrise, and when they returned to Yavin Four, Kiara told Bodhi that it was his and had him pick a crew. In the end Bodhi chose a droid and some automation upgrades, because people were difficult.

It was a very empty ship. He spent his first night on it lying in his berth, staring at the ceiling, hoping and fearing that he might wake up.

He expected to see Jyn, but she was apparently off doing some black ops mission. She had recommitted, it seemed—or committed for the first time; she'd never been a fan of the rule of law, but then the New Republic promised to be both better than the Empire, and better than the Old Republic. Bodhi didn't know what to think.

Well, no. He'd just worked not to think about it at all, these past several years.

He'd been briefed as part of enlisting. Fighting still flared up here and there, most notably along the wild edges of the galaxy. He had to be prepared, because that was where he'd be going; he'd been told to land on a planet that had coordinates but no name, and to pick up a shipment of ranite.

It wasn't really that different than what he'd been doing for the Empire: scientists, minerals, shipping back and forth. But he set out this time with a different feeling of confidence, one that came from the briefing where Kiara had told him that they were getting the ranite for energy experimentation, and that he was welcome to get more details of the project at one of the many records halls the New Republic was re-opening.

The world hadn't changed very much, but at the same time, it was already remade. Bodhi was almost relieved to get to the Unknown Regions, because it meant he wouldn't be constantly confronted with evidence of the rebels, evidence of the war that he'd tried to repress all thought of.

He got the shipment of ranite and took it Coruscant, as directed. After a month alone with nonverbal droids, even telling the dockmaster about his manifest made him stumble a bit. Luckily the woman didn't care; she waved him on, and he took his cargo to New Republic Science Building D4, room E367.

Or, well, he tried. Unfortunately he almost immediately got lost.

"Excuse me." He darted in front of a passing Republic science officer, smiling nervously when the man looked from the ranite cart to Bodhi and then back again. "Can you tell me where room E367 is? I've got a delivery."

"To the traitor?" the man snorted. "We're a coddling lot, aren't we?"

"Uh."

He must have looked panicked, because the man's expression eased a bit. "You're just the messenger, I get it. You're close. Down that hall, take the elevator up to floor 15, there's another elevator at the end of that hall, then you'll be able to get to 36."

Bodhi nodded and hurried down the hall.

Traitor? Well, there were a lot of them—presumed or proven. The New Republic couldn't prosecute all collaborators, and thank the Force for that; Bodhi himself might've been prosecuted, otherwise. And he did deserve it a bit. But he'd come to treasure freedom, to take his drive to do the right thing and turn it into determination.

Still. There were traitors, people even he knew not to trust. He kept going with apprehension heavy in his stomach.

He reached E367 after only doubling back once more. He raised his hand to call in, but the door said, "Rook, Bodhi. Access granted," and slid open before he had a chance.

Beyond the door he saw carefully sanitized surfaces, white walls, and holocharts everywhere. He stepped in gingerly, suddenly very aware of his flight-dirtied clothes. "Hello? I've got a ranite shipment here?"

He hadn't seen the man at first, as he was half hidden behind some mechanical model, looking down at a table. But when the man straightened, looking directly at Bodhi, he was impossible to ignore.

Unsurprising, said the very small part of Bodhi's mind that wasn't wrapped in panic. You weren't able to ignore him the first go round, either.

"I understand why he called this the traitor's room," he blurted out.

Galen flinched.

"That—I'm sorry. I got lost, I asked for directions, it's not important. Ranite? You? You're dead, are you a droid?"

"I'm not dead," Galen said. It was definitely Galen's voice. The last time Bodhi had heard it, he'd just been kissed goodbye. "Nor a droid. It's good to see you."

Bodhi had never been the sort to start screaming fights, but in that odd moment he gave a lot of thought to it. How else to handle this? "You sound. Normal."

Galen's smile was a ghost of what it had been that last time. "How else should I sound?"

"You were supposed to be dead."

He didn't flinch this time, but Bodhi was unfortunately sharp-eyed enough to see the space where he might have flinched, the long pause where Galen absorbed his words. "I was placed in a cryo-chamber, actually. Quite a few droids survived the bombs."

And there he'd lain, alone. Bodhi did his best to ignore the pang that caused in his stomach, said instead, "Have you seen Jyn?"

"Sometimes."

Not often, though, if he was on Coruscant and she was always undercover. "Right. It's none of my business. I've got the ranite." He gestured to the cart. "Where should I put it?"

For a moment, Galen's eyes narrowed in that old analytical way of his. His lips pursed, and in rushed all the old power he'd had over Bodhi.

Though he'd been loath to exercise it even when Bodhi practically begged him. For a moment, Bodhi stopped being on Coruscant and returned to Eadu, to a darkened room just off the main lab. He'd been so scared then, even as he'd fumbled with Galen's buttons, even as he'd whispered, "Please," over and over again like a prayer, until Galen had -

Taken pity? Given in? He'd never asked. Galen had never said.

"Apologies," Galen said, and Bodhi realized they'd both been staring, not quite at each other. "We have a store-room. Follow me."

He shouldn't ask questions, Bodhi thought as he walked down the hallway. In the old days, he'd have been demoted again for asking questions. But now he was a Captain, who could request of the Republic a crew and information. He was someone now, though admittedly not someone very important.

But still, he could ask. So he said, "They said the ranite was for energy experimentation. I thought your specialty was kyber."

Galen stopped in front of a narrow door, more like a locker, and pressed his palm onto the pad next to it. "It is." He motioned for Bodhi to load the ranite in the narrow shelving exposed by the open door.

"Then why..."

For a moment, as Galen closed the locker door and didn't look at him at all, Bodhi thought he might be told off. He wasn't sure he didn't deserve it. But Galen only said, "Kyber and ranite share certain properties; ranite is thought to be less pure, less attuned to the Force."

He stopped, but he hadn't finished. Bodhi waited, feeling again that odd double-presence: here, impossibly, with Galen, but also back on Eadu, asking questions Director Krennic would've had him keelhauled for even thinking of.

Galen had explained then, too. In spite of it all.

"We're running out of kyber," Galen said finally. "Or, more precisely, weapons-focused expansion within the Empire has left us with a critical shortage for infrastructure improvements, energy upgrades...everything I thought I was working for." He shrugged, a sad, almost ironic movement. "And so: here I am. Working on a project I hope to see the results of."

He didn't say it was new for him. Bodhi understood. "Thank you."

Galen nodded. "Anything else?"

Bodhi looked at him, at the face that had been so briefly very dear, at the lips that had kissed him the last time they'd stood this close, at the fingers that had once been buried inside him.

"No. I've got to get going."

It was the smart thing to do. The mature thing. They had so much work to do, and Bodhi had his own life now. It really was the smart thing to do.

Maybe if he thought it enough, he'd believe it.

-

His life settled back into a routine that was unnerving in its dull familiarity. He rejected the starfighter pilot lessons all three times he was offered them. He went to and from Coruscant, around the core worlds and outward again, dropping off at multiple planets, picking up passengers and cargo. The end of his route was always Galen's lab; the beginning was always the ranite mine. It created a kind of symbolism that Bodhi didn't really want.

And it was really kriffing awkward, too. They didn't talk about Eadu, or Jyn, or Scarif, though Bodhi knew people still gossiped about the destruction of the Death Star. He had Luke Skywalker to thank for that, he supposed; all the credit had gone to a later crowd, and the Rebellion's spies had melted into the background, as per usual. That included him.

But Galen was still there, and Galen knew. Galen, in fact, knew too much: about Bodhi, about the Empire, about the hopes and dreams he'd confessed in a fit of terrified honesty. About Bodhi's cowardice.

He supposed that he knew too much about Galen, too, but that didn't help. It just made it more awkward.

But he had a ship. He had his freedom, he had a life. So he continued making the shipments, six months' worth, awkward back-and-forths that never got easier.

Almost six months to the day that Kiara had found him on Kafrene, he got a transmission from Yavin Four. Assuming it was Jyn, he patched her through. "On the way down to Coruscant," he said. "Thought I wouldn't hear from you for awhile yet."

"Captain Rook, it's good to see you," said New Republic senator Mon Mothma.

He didn't have anything to drop or fumble this time. At least he thought that, before he tripped over his own feet. "Senator! Ah, to what—that is, why—"

She didn't quite smile, wasn't a smiling kind, but her expression did soften a bit. "Relax, Captain. I'm simply a messenger for this. I'd like to ask you to bring Galen Erso back with you, for a rendezvous on Yavin Four. You'll be receiving the updated route after this call, but I thought you could use a bit of background information."

They always did. The New Republic had treated him with kid gloves so far, like they expected him to second guess them all the time, maybe fall apart completely, or commit treason again.

Since they weren't entirely wrong, he said, "Yes. Thank you."

"We've received certain communications from Jedha that led us to believe information relevant to ending the Empire permanently may still exist. Both yourself and Galen Erso have been named as persons of interest related to that investigation."

Bodhi's mouth went very dry.

"I can tell you more when you return, of course."

He thought he'd heard enough, really. She sounded implacable; this was a conscription.

"Yes," he managed to make himself say. "Thank you, uh, Senator. I'll—I'll do that."

"May the Force be with you," Mon Mothma said, and disconnected.

Bodhi slumped against the control panel. Himself and Galen? It couldn't have to do with Eadu, certainly not. No one knew what had happened there. He'd been careful, so careful to hide it, even when it meant hiding his own grief. If they knew—if Jyn had known all along, what would she say? How would he explain?

That was useless speculation. He forced himself to breathe, to relax his muscles bit by bit.

Right. Pick up Galen. Sure, that was fine. Of course then he'd be the only other person onboard for the trip to Yavin Four. Bodhi didn't want to think about that, wanted to scream about the unfairness of it. He'd worked so hard to forget those days on Eadu. Surely Galen had as well.

Orders were orders. He'd known that when he joined up. And the New Republic's orders were worth following, weren't they?

"They have to be," he said aloud, and went to see to the necessary navigational adjustments.

-

He could tell as soon as he saw Galen that he'd also received new instructions.

"The New Republic's touch is lighter, at least." Said with the almost-ironic smile Bodhi had thrilled to be given years ago.

"Do you know what it's all about? She was vague with me."

Galen looked surprised. "I was only told to travel to Yavin Four with you."

Right. Kid gloves treatment, right. "We'd, uh. Better get going, then."

For a moment Galen only looked at him. And there it was again, Bodhi thought, Galen's peculiar version of perception that seemed to see right to his core, to make him want to do better. He'd been awed and humbled by it, before Scarif. Now, as he tried again for a normal life, it just scared him.

"Come on," he said, and took off without waiting for Galen to follow.

-

They spent an uncomfortable night on the ship's deck as hyperspace flew by them.

Galen had a tablet out and was working on some calculations that Bodhi very deliberately didn't ask for details on. Bodhi had a spool of wire and a mini-solder, and was working on what would eventually be a new joint for one of the engine room droids. They were both too silent for it to be anything but awkward, and yet neither of them departed for the privacy of belowdeck.

Bodhi had always let his mind wander while tinkering. Now, without his permission, his mind took him to another reality, one where this ship was truly his: his home, his to fly and make decisions about. And Galen...

It was a big ship, meant for transport of heavy cargo. Galen could have a traveling lab here. In another reality, perhaps they'd managed to make some kind of relationship work. They could sit together like this, but the silence would be companionable, devoid of the unspoken pain and grief that lived between them now. In that reality, Bodhi had always been brave and had never doubted; in that reality, Galen had always seen him as worthy, rather than a good-enough one-time almost-hero.

"Do you know if Jyn will be there?" Galen said.

The not-reality disappeared on wisps of Bodhi's self-loathing. "I don't know. She's doing a lot right now."

"Intelligence work."

It was impossible to tell from that whether or not Galen approved. But Jyn was a friend, still, when he saw her. Bodhi couldn't help but say, "She went through a lot. It's good work, necessary."

"It keeps me from her." Galen raised a shoulder. "Or she keeps herself from me. It's difficult for us both."

For a moment, all Bodhi could think was: why? Why of all people, of all conversations, was this the one Galen chose to have, with him? "Um," he finally managed to say.

"Not your lookout." Galen smiled ruefully. "I know. My apologies." He went back to his notes.

There was no daydreaming after that. Bodhi waited and waited, almost twitching right out of his skin, until they finally made it to Yavin Four.

He was given a docking station without comment or request for authorization. When he disembarked, the Republic soldier on the ground stood at attention and said, "Captain."

It felt deeply strange. "Right. Yes. Here we are."

"Take us to Mon Mothma, if you please," Galen said from behind him.

He wore authority so much better, despite being one of the least popular figures of the New Republic. The private gave him a bit of a dirty look, but he scurried to obey.

Mon Mothma's situation room had changed from what Bodhi remembered. This was more of an office, better kept up and better lit—though still a war room. Charts decorated the walls, and the holopad over the center table showed Jedha.

Bodhi froze to see it. There was the crater that had once been NiJedha, right in the middle of the hologram. Radiating out from the city, for what must have been hundreds of kilometers, were deep cracks in the moon's surface.

Was this the end, then? Had the Death Star simply condemned Jedha to a long-term death?

"Ah, Force," Galen said quietly behind him.

"Galen. Bodhi. It's good to see you both," Mon Mothma said. She rose from her chair at the far end of the circular table. "Please, sit. Tea?"

Having a New Republic Senator serve him tea while his dead home world hovered above them would break Bodhi, he knew. He said, "No, thank you," and waited.

She picked up on the tension immediately. Returning to her seat, she said, "I'll have answers for you in just a few minutes. I promise."

It was only then that Bodhi saw the familiar figure at the far end of the room. There weren't shadows to lurk in anymore, yet she'd managed it anyway. That was one of Jyn's many talents. "Papa," she said, drawing abreast of Mon Mothma.

She didn't sit. She kept her arms behind her, in a ready stance. Things really were tense between them.

"Jyn," Galen said.

Silence.

Jyn's eyes moved to Bodhi. She looked tired, with creases under her eyes and dust in her hair. "It's good to see you, Bodhi."

Bodhi wanted to ask why, then, they'd chosen to meet in an uncomfortably large and cold room. Instead he only nodded. "You too. I'm sorry, I—Jedha. That's Jedha, isn't it?"

"Nearly live," Senator Mothma said. "This is from two days ago."

"It's getting worse," Jyn said. "I'm sorry."

Senator Mothma frowned. "Jyn—"

"Let me do it," Jyn said. This was an old argument, evident in the intensity in Jyn's tone, her tense shoulders. "Please."

Senator Mothma looked between them, then at the hologram of Jedha, slowly and uselessly rotating. Her shoulders bowed, as though she'd seen or heard something far worse than what the rest of them could perceive.

Then she straightened and smiled, the image of wealth and serenity. In that moment, she embodied everything Bodhi might expect a politician to be.

"Of course. It was good to see you both." She bowed her head to Bodhi and then Galen before making her exit.

Bodhi sat and waited. Only a moment passed before Jyn said, "I'm sorry to call you both back so abruptly."

"You made the call?" Galen said.

Jyn shook her head. "I'm just an operative. But I named you as people who might be able to help."

"Help with what?" Bodhi said. "What's going on? How did you even find me?"

Jyn gave him a 'don't be stupid' sort of look. "You were vague about where you were hiding out, but I'm a spy, remember? It's my job to know this stuff. As for what's going on..." She sat down then, across the enormous table, and motioned upward at the hologram of Jedha. "How much do you know about Saw Gerrera's activities on Jedha?"

"Not as much as you, I imagine." He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth; he could feel Galen's wince.

"Fair enough," Jyn said. "Except I don't know that any of us were expecting this." She took a deep breath, still avoiding looking at Galen. "Saw left information behind. A lot of it."

"Operatives?" Galen said, a little too quickly.

Jyn shook her head. "Reams of information on the Empire's finances—funding, operations across the galaxy, important sources of private funds, banks...enough to fill several datatapes. Impossibly detailed. We only heard about it a few months ago. It's all still being stored on Jedha, in one of his old hideouts."

"You're sure that's what you'll find?" Galen said. "He wasn't a very straightforward man."

Jyn kept her eyes on Bodhi when she said, "We're sure. We have some evidence; we demanded it. And now Senator Mothma has tasked me with assembling a retrieval team." Here she hesitated, and finally looked at her father. Bodhi studied his hands, not wanting to get involved.

Well, yes, he didn't want to get involved; who would? The Ersos had so much going on between them that it beggared belief. But he also had to resist the urge to try and comfort Galen. It was a ridiculous bit of mental treachery, that. They weren't—couldn't be—anything. They'd only ever been almost something, and the years that had passed since then had weathered it down to nothing. But...

Some part of Bodhi was the most stubborn optimist to ever live, apparently.

"The team will go in and get the information; we don't need you for that," Jyn told Galen. "But we'll need you." This to Bodhi. "And if it contains the information we think it does, we'll need both of you, and a whole team, to carry out our assignment."

"Which is?" Bodhi said.

"Sabotage."

"Saw's wishes," Galen said.

That made Jyn's expression flash in annoyance. "And something that's of tactical advantage to the Republic."

"Many things are, now," Galen said.

If Bodhi didn't know any better, he'd have said Galen was trying to provoke Jyn. Certainly Bodhi would've assumed it of someone who wasn't as calm as Galen had always been, as steady.

"If you're not up for it, you can tell me now. I'll recruit someone else."

There weren't a lot of survivors out of Jedha. Bodhi forced himself to ask. "Is it. I mean. It looks like it's dying."

Her expression shuttered. "I'm sorry," she said, which was enough of an answer.

"I'm just a pilot," Bodhi said. "Again. You can't possibly need me for this."

Jyn didn't pause for more than a breath. "You're a regional expert, and, technically speaking, a decorated hero of the Republic."

Bodhi grimaced. "Right, but—"

"We need people we can trust. We need a pilot who knows his way around Jedha. The intersection of the two is pretty small."

He looked at her then, really looked. She looked exhausted, and like she wasn't used to giving command-esque speeches. Her weariness looked like a ghost of what he remembered of Galen, in those last few days on Eadu.

It was that, more than anything else, that made him say, "One mission. Jedha. I'm not going to hang around for the other stuff."

Jyn nodded, like she hadn't expected anything else.

"I can't refuse the Republic," Galen said.

The words lay heavily between them for slightly too long. Then Jyn said, "You've both got rooms. They're keyed to you. There's a guide droid waiting at the ship."

Bodhi wanted to protest, to say he could sleep in his ship. Part of him still felt like if he left it, then it might be taken away. Of course in a technical sense, that was what he wanted. He wanted to be left alone until the hole in his heart healed, or he died; the latter seemed more likely to happen first, most days. But then he thought of being grounded again, of never being the pilot, of losing the rank of Captain.

He'd never really dug the Empire out of his bones. He didn't want to face the possibility. Even as he cringed away from it, he wanted to be someone.

"Thanks," he said, and left the room before Jyn and Galen could speak to each other. Or to him.

The guide droid took him to his room. His door was one of many in a long, anonymous row. The walls were as thin as any barracks, but he didn't hear Galen arrive in the adjoining room: mere moments after he lay down on the narrow bed, he fell asleep.

-

The dream began as it always did, with the bor gullet slithering into his mind, slowly splitting him apart. As always, he had a moment of terrible self-awareness, a few heartbeats to worry that he'd truly lost his mind this time. Then even that concern disappeared among the nightmares.

Dying on Eadu, after the Rebellion opened fire. This Bodhi hated the Rebellion's recklessness, their arrogance. He hated his back being on fire even as the damp cold of Eadu closed in on him. He hated knowing he'd die here, a nobody, never even setting foot in a starfighter.

A shift, suffocation like quicksand. He was a child now, and his mother stood above him, disappointment marring her features. He couldn't remember why, but she said, "Do you want me to be afraid of you? For you?" and Bodhi shook his head, felt the weight of her sadness and pain.

The bor gullet squeezing his mind, whispering in his ear. It always wanted the truth. His mother's face and the warm browns and oranges of his childhood home faded. He stood in a room hung with blue: blue curtains, blue sheets, a cold blue durasteel table. Galen sat across from him, deep lines etched into his face. Shame hung around Bodhi like a cloak, shame and fear and hopeless almost-love.

The truth. He'd die like this, alone, never quite loved or wanted enough. A coward, a false hero.

Now Bodhi began to scream. The bor gullet liked this part. It encouraged him to think more, to think further, back to Galen kissing him, fucking him, to the way Bodhi had longed to feel his touch again, even years after the mission was done, after he'd watched Galen fall on Eadu. He'd never been enough, he'd only ever been convenient, and the loneliness tore at him like the greedy vacuum of space.

"Bodhi. Bodhi!"

The bor gullet slithered back into the recesses of Bodhi's mind. He woke all at once, opening his eyes and flexing his hands against the fingers that had tightened over his own. An apology was already halfway out of his throat when he registered who the fingers belonged to.

"You were screaming." Galen leaned away, but he didn't get off his knees, didn't stand to leave. "Does that happen often?"

"I'm rarely sleeping where anyone can hear me."

It was a non-answer that Galen clearly understood as such. "You never mentioned what happened to you."

"It was war." Another non-answer. He had a whole library of them. He'd use them, too, because he hated this: lying on a pallet, sweat-soaked and vulnerable, Galen hovering over him like a nanny. This was everything he'd wanted to avoid, this imbalance, this hatefully transparent weakness. On Eadu, he and Galen had been something like equals, in cowardice if nothing else. Here, Galen had moved on, had rebuilt himself. Bodhi's mind was still on Jedha, broken into tiny bits.

And now he'd have to return to try and sift through them.

"I'll see if I can get a sound shield," he said, and tried to roll away in dismissal.

Galen's hands tightened, pressed down. A horrible spined thing twisted in Bodhi's chest.

"I didn't come here for an apology," Galen said. "I wanted to see if I should send someone."

"To fix this?" Bodhi found himself laughing, an offputting, hysterical titter. "No one can fix this."

"At the very least, some kind of comfort or care—"

"Like a grandfather?" Bodhi shook his head. "I'm sorry I disturbed you, I am, but please. Please leave." Leave before I ask you to stay, his traitorous mind offered.

Back on Eadu, Galen had told Bodhi about being a terrible liar, about the doom Krennic had built for him from that failing. Looking at Galen now, Bodhi found it ever more impossible to believe. He had no idea what Galen was thinking behind the implacable mask, no clue if he was a subject of contempt, or worry, or...other things.

Other things that he'd beg for if he thought he'd get them.

"Please," he said again, aware and yet no longer caring that he sounded pathetic.

Galen bowed his head, looking at their clasped hands. He pressed his lips together and nodded, then left.

The room felt terribly dark after he'd gone, but at least the only people watching him came from Bodhi's own nightmares.

-

Two days later, they shipped out to Jedha.

Bodhi had been doing his best to prepare himself. He knew they'd be arriving on a dying world, and he knew he'd have to revisit Saw's labyrinthine hideout. He'd only been there for a day at most, yet he knew seeing the earthen cells again would give him more nightmares, more trembling in his hands that he couldn't help but attribute to slowly encroaching madness.

Still, stepping out onto the now-unstable Jedha soil was worse than he'd hoped it would be. "How long?" he asked Jyn as they walked across the flat-blasted shelf of desert that had once been a temple of the Whills.

"Three years," Galen said from behind them.

Jyn very conspicuously didn't look back at him. "The Republic's models indicate five to ten years of loss of surface integrity, followed by a period of planetary disintegration."

Cold words for a horrible process. Before Bodhi could say as much, Galen said, "Your models are wrong."

"The Republic's models—"

"Are based on Imperial research, which makes certain assumptions that likely weren't true in the Jedha attack. I've worked on the Jedha problem in its specificity in the last several years. Three years, and the planet's mass will fail. It will break apart in orbit in a matter of months, not decades."

Bodhi tried not to think about that, about Galen locked alone in his lab, running numbers for when Bodhi's home would cease to exist. He tried not to think about the terrible weapon that had done the job: Galen's own weapon, something he understood down to each durasteel bolt. Jedha was gone—would be gone. There was just no sense thinking about it.

Jyn, after a long moment of silence, said, "We'll want to get that research from you. Later. Let's go," and led the way across the field.

They picked their way across the aboveground ruins. Jyn used a sensor to find a viable entrance into the underground tunnels, and then they descended in silence, each keeping a light on, unsure of what they'd find.

Saw's hideout had long since been cleaned out. Refugees had been evacuated from Jedha in waves ever since the Senate took power, but before those evacuations, the vast majority of evidence that these caves belonged to Saw Gerrera had been erased. Bodhi saw evidence of hatred in smashed pottery, but evidence of reverence, too, in the holes where holoscreens had once hung: they'd been carefully removed, the holes themselves buffed over to hide the evidence as best as possible. No one on Jedha had been able to agree on how to view Saw Gerrera. In that sense, it was fitting that he'd died here. NiJedha had been a place of deep convictions, a city of people who believed fiercely or refused to believe just as fiercely. Saw himself had stoked that conflict for his own gain—but he'd done it to hurt the Empire, as well.

Bodhi still feared him. He still feared these caves. But looking around them now, he felt an odd kind of pity, too.

"May the Force be with them," Galen muttered. "If he was hiding data, it'll be this way."

"How do you know?" Jyn said.

"I'm surprised you don't remember," Galen called over his shoulder. "He dug out the same pattern across planets."

Bodhi shivered. But, like Jyn, he followed Galen down the long, dark hallway.

The datatapes were stored at the end of a long, downward-sloping hallway. It got cooler and cooler, and more and more silent, until Bodhi felt like he was breaking something very fragile when he said, "Is it safe to keep going? Should we send a droid?"

"These hallways were engineered to withstand fifty years of neglect," Galen said. "It's safe."

Bodhi thought about asking if Galen had helped with that engineering, before deciding he'd rather not know. They found the datatapes soon after, stored in a dug-out part of the wall, carefully labeled and indexed.

Jyn plucked the top one out and set it in her reader. The screen displayed a long list of typed items, several columns of numbers and cryptic labels. It meant nothing to Bodhi, but Jyn narrowed her eyes and said, "This is it."

Bodhi glanced over at Galen. The light of the hologram illuminated every exhausted line on his face. "You're sure?"

It was Galen who reached out and pointed to one of the line items halfway down. "That's code for Tatooine...human cargo. Expensive stuff."

It seemed obvious when laid out so bleakly like that. Bodhi swallowed past the sudden nausea. "Right. We should—"

The ceiling moved.

Jyn swore and turned off her reader. They stood tensely for a moment, but the earth settled again, the only sound around them Bodhi's ragged breathing.

"Load them," Jyn said. "We need to get out of here."

The tapes were light. They all fit into the packs Bodhi and Jyn carried. As soon as the last tape was secured, Jyn took off down the hall, not waiting to see if Bodhi and Galen would follow.

"Bad memories," Galen said quietly enough for only Bodhi to hear.

"I have them too." He spoke too sharply; his own tone made him wince. But Galen only nodded, wearing that same expressionless mask.

It took longer to get out. Jyn kept pausing to take recordings or, Bodhi suspected, to gather herself together for the next step of the mission. Bodhi himself just tried to stay upright and conscious. It was okay, mostly, if he didn't look around too carefully, if he didn't think about what had become of the bor gullet. Still, by the time they got back to the cave opening, he was more than ready to see the sky again.

But the opening had been closed.

Jyn pulled her blaster out. Bodhi got his back to a wall, surveying the large room. There was nothing to see; it was as empty as ever. He looked for tracks and saw none, only the long lines of shifted dust that indicated water or airflow. Erosion.

Unless...

Something shifted in his mind, crept between his synapses, whispered terror in the quietest part of his head.

"The monster," he said.

"What?" Jyn said.

"Run," Bodhi said, and the wall at the far end of the room exploded.

The bor gullet had spent years in the dark, waiting, soaking up the misery of a dying planet. It was hungry for life, for true sentience.

Bodhi whimpered.

Jyn didn't even look at them. "Run! Take the datatapes! I'll hold it off—find an exit!" She fired her blaster, two quick bolts that the bor gullet absorbed. "Go!"

Galen took her backpack. Bodhi couldn't move.

"Bodhi—Papa, take him out of here!" Another blaster round, then another.

The earth shifted again. Struts in the earthen walls groaned. The bor gullet advanced, inexorable, drawing ever closer even as Jyn backed away. Its tentacles lashed out; when she slashed at them with her knife, the bor gullet howled in pain. But it didn't stop.

Bodhi took a step forward. He could stop this. He understood. He reached out a hand.

When durasteel tears, it screams. The sound reverberated through the cave, followed almost instantaneously by darkness.

The bor gullet fell silent, outside and in Bodhi's head. Bodhi let out a slow breath, reaching for the light at his belt.

And then the rocks fell, striking the side of Bodhi's head, and he knew nothing else.

-

A hand held his head. Large fingers, cool and very human. He opened his eyes into the darkness.

"Bodhi," Galen said. He let out a long breath very slowly, but didn't move from where he sat, half-under Bodhi. He was solid, strong and steady, but for the trembling fingers Bodhi could just detect against his temple.

"Jyn?"

"She's gone for help."

"How long was I under?"

"Moments," Galen said. "No longer, thank the Force."

He nodded, then winced: his head wasn't bleeding, but he could already feel a bruise forming. "Thanks."

"Of course." Galen stiffened then, moving out from under Bodhi.

It was fine. There was no need to touch him, now that he was awake and lucid; he could monitor his own condition. Bodhi'd been through Imperial training, he understood these things. There was no need at all, it was only his own paranoia insisting otherwise, his own weakness telling him that the walls were inching closer and closer, that he could feel the bor gullet's presence still, wrapping around him, taking and taking and -

"Are you all right?"

"Fine," Bodhi said too quickly.

Galen put a hand on his shoulder, and then, with a sigh barely louder than a whisper, shifted closer again. He propped Bodhi up against him, shoulder to shoulder, Bodhi's head resting against the curve of Galen's neck. "I told Saw not to use it."

"It?"

"The bor gullet."

Bodhi flinched shamefully, but Galen only pressed his fingers into Bodhi's lower back. "It's a dangerous beast," Galen said, "but Saw was desperate, taken in by too many spies." He sighed. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"Significant parts of our current quandary are, legally speaking." So dry, so close to convincingly uncaring.

Bodhi had no answer to that. It was true, and to deny it would be to unearth another, scarier truth: that Bodhi had already forgiven Galen, that he'd forgive Galen every day he was permitted to. The terror and devotion that had driven him from Eadu to Jedha that last time wasn't only related to the Empire or the Rebellion. It was all wrapped up in Galen, too.

Beyond the broken rocks, something rustled. Bodhi sat bolt upright, hand tightening on his blaster.

"...nothing here," a voice said. "Just a bunch of rocks, same as always."

"Ah, Baze, I thought I'd taught you optimism by now." A tapping on the rocks. "Shoot this, would you? Hey, behind the rocks! Stand back!"

Impossible. On multiple levels, really. That couldn't be Chirrut talking on the other side, and also, they couldn't move back. "There's no room!" he called back.

"Make room, Bodhi Rook!" said the man who couldn't be Chirrut.

That repeating gun Bodhi remembered from Scarif fired. The rocks in front of them simply melted, exposing a small opening that a staff whacked its way into, widening the opening until Bodhi could see their rescuers.

It was them. But it couldn't be. "Bor gullet," Bodhi mumbled.

But Galen kept his hand on Bodhi's back, stroked the skin there, under Bodhi's now-filthy shirt. "No," he said. "This is real."

"Stand back!" Chirrut called out.

"I told you—"

"Not you." A cheery smile, and Chirrut backed up.

Baze grunted and followed him. Bodhi blinked and the rocks began to crumble, one by one, sliding over each other in an unholy roar until all that was left between him and Chirrut was a few meters of knee-high rubble.

"There," Chirrut said. "I told you this was worth a stop."

"That remains to be seen," Baze said. "Come on." He held out a hand to Bodhi.

Bodhi swallowed and steeled himself for it, and then moved away from Galen. Baze's palm was rough and not nearly as comforting as Galen's, but he pulled Bodhi over the rocks and said, "Watch for the tentacles," prodding a dead one with his foot.

Bodhi shuddered against a wave of nausea, staring at the far wall. Chirrut said, "The Force is still with us," which Bodhi supposed meant 'it's good to see you', or maybe 'don't puke on my robes'.

"Yeah, you too," Bodhi said.

Galen rejected Baze's offer of help, clambering over the rocks himself. He'd been hurt, Bodhi realized too late: he held his arm at an odd angle, and his hands were covered in cuts and bruises. It wasn't the first time, of course. Bodhi had seen the scares before, on Eadu: white lines along his fingertips, a deeper one over his thumb knuckle, a shiny burn scar on his wrist.

But even thinking of those made him fidget and look away, because he'd seen those hands as they touched him, as they—Bodhi'd thought—loved him. Such things were long past.

"Nothing is ever really past," Chirrut said. "Or all things are. Jyn's arrived."

"I should have known," Jyn said from down the hall. She carried nothing with her and had no one behind her.

"Reinforcements?" Bodhi said.

She made a face. "I was working on it."

"We know a way," Baze said. "Follow me." He traipsed past them, putting a hand very briefly on Jyn's shoulder before continuing to retrace her steps.

Bodhi watched her then, as her expression did a complicated thing: pain, some kind of hope quickly-suppressed. He wanted to say something; he knew she'd mourned their deaths, mourned them almost as much as she mourned Cassian. But he missed the moment he ought to have spoken, and then there was no time. The ground was moving beneath them, and he and Galen needed medical attention.

He wouldn't even be able to say goodbye to Jedha, on this mission they'd brought him on as a supposed expert. The irony of it lay heavy on his heart.

"Your ship?" Jyn said to Chirrut as they neared the Sunrise.

"Gone," Baze said. "Swallowed by an earthquake."

"I did tell you we'd get off here," Chirrut said.

"And here we are." Jyn sounded amused, not quite disbelieving. "Bodhi, can you fly us out of here?"

Bodhi nodded.

"He needs rest," Galen said.

"We need to get off this planet before it kills us," Jyn said, "which I'm not willing to bet on any more. And he's the captain." She looked at Bodhi. "Can you do it?"

He understood what she was asking: would he do it, could he do it without hurting himself more. He nodded.

Galen said something under his breath that neither of them caught. Without looking at him, Jyn said, "You ought to go to the infirmary, Papa."

She had no idea, Bodhi realized as he prepared to get them into the air. Well, she might have some idea; she knew they'd known each other. But she had no idea of how badly Bodhi wanted to touch Galen, how much he'd been hurting when he'd thought Galen was dead.

Good. No one should know or needed to know. He could just bury it, and do work for the Republic until they sent him back on a shipping route. There was no reason to complicate things further.

He could finally go to the infirmary once he'd gotten them back into hyperspace. He wasn't that hurt; he put a bacta bandage on a scrape on his arm and had the med droid scan him, and then went off to his bunk with a relatively clean bill of health.

Then there was only the quiet of his room. The ship hummed, but dimly, a background noise he'd long since grown accustomed to. The little bits of gadgetry he'd been tinkering with lay dormant on his desk. If Galen hadn't moved rooms, he'd be two bunks down. Sleeping, Bodhi hoped, injured as he had been.

Bodhi rolled onto his side, back against the wall. He knew this room. It was his, and he'd lowered the top of his bunk, given himself a small and quiet space, a safe place to close his eyes. But now, in the silence, he heard the bor gullet in the darkness. He saw the glinting flesh of his torturer in his coat on the back of the door, felt its fedit breath in the heaviness of the humidified air.

He clenched his hands in fists and resisted the awful tearing feeling in his chest, the conviction that his body, certified whole and hale, might give in to the influence of his mind at any moment and fly apart. He was alone in this room; no other living being shared it with him. That was the blessing keeping him safe from the bor gullet, and it was the curse keeping him awake. His mind went in circles and circles, trying to remember and trying not to remember, until finally sheer exhaustion claimed him.

-

For the next week and a half he avoided Jyn, Galen, and the dual unit of Chirrut and Baze, choosing instead to focus on getting the Sunrise ready for a long-term cargo haul. Jyn's boss's boss's boss, or something to that effect, was reviewing the data tapes, deciding on next steps.

Bodhi had asked if that meant he'd no longer be needed, and could go back to hauling ranite. Jyn's expression had lodged between disappointment and annoyance for the entire rest of the lunch hour.

The problem was—well, the real problem was there weren't enough pilots, else the Republic wouldn't have contacted him at all. If he'd been left alone, he could've spent the entire rest of his life in obscurity, fixing speeders and trying to forget the heat of the beach on Scarif and the wet blood that spattered him as soldiers died to protect him.

There'd been a ceremony; there'd been medals. But a medal couldn't hold Bodhi's mind together, and a ceremony couldn't bring the dead back.

And so they mostly didn't talk to each other while planetside. The long silence had to end eventually, though. They all convened in one of the smaller meeting rooms, ringed around the table as far from one another as possible. The first thing Bodhi noticed was how tired Jyn looked. The second was that Galen and Baze had picked almost opposite ends of the table, and Baze was glaring at Galen like he might rip his liver out.

"Well," Chirrut said into the silence. "I don't suppose we've been summoned here for dinner."

"Unfortunately not," Jyn said. "We've extracted the data. It took a bit longer than expected. Some of it was heavily encrypted with algorithms the Rebellion hasn't—hadn't—used for a long time."

"Meaning?" Baze said.

"We have a lot of work ahead of us." Jyn shrugged. "We've narrowed down the areas the Republic can target effectively to a hundred or so operations."

Galen inhaled sharply. Jyn didn't even glance at him. "Still daunting, I know. Senator Mothma sent me here to see if I could—we've got a history of messy effectiveness. This work, it can't be out in the open. We have to dismantle these operations, get rid of the banks they're using..."

"You're asking us to rob banks?" Baze said.

"Unfortunately."

Baze's grin disagreed with that summary. It disappeared when Galen said, "Is Senator Mothma prepared to accept the ethical consequences of what she's asking?"

"That's pretty rich, coming from you," Baze said.

Baze was glaring as though he might get out his blaster at any moment; Galen only looked back with that achingly familiar patient expression of his, the one that was half penance and half affection. Bodhi dropped his eyes to the table, but that barely helped. He could feel the tension in the room ratcheting up.

"Right," Jyn said when Galen didn't respond. "Well, she is. We have the mandate to arrest those collaborating with the Empire; the intelligence branch isn't even needed for that. The problem is that a lot of the infrastructure Saw uncovered—" and here her voice hitched. "It's complicated. And it's hidden beneath layers of money laundering, false schemes, all the usual strategies."

Bodhi couldn't imagine Saw Gerrera piecing all that together. It implied a dedication to subtlety that seemed wholly out of character for him.

"Saw never did anything with it," Jyn said. "I'm not sure why. But he understood how they operated better than anyone. If we want to stop the Empire from re-emerging, this is likely the best way."

"That's years of work," Chirrut said. "I think Baze had planned for us to move on more quickly."

"I'd hoped to already be gone," Baze said.

"But of course, we'll stay," Chirrut said.

"Chirrut!"

Chirrut only smiled. Something passed between them, tangible and wholly obscure to Bodhi. Baze settled back in his chair, grumbling.

"I'll help in any way I can," Galen said. "Though I'm not sure what that will be."

"Simple. You're our double agent."

Bodhi watched Galen absorb the blow. After a moment, he spoke slowly. "They know my face, Jyn. They're very unlikely to trust me."

"You won't be on-site. You'll be the one to initiate contact, and the person tracking us from the ship. We'll be the face-to-face contact; you'll just be using your knowledge of the Empire to convince them there's a credible person at the other end of the 'net."

Bodhi glanced at the door. He had no reason to be here, then.

"And you're the driver," Jyn told Bodhi.

His stomach fell through his feet. "Uh. No. That's—a very bad idea, I think, I'm not—you know I can't lie very well! And I'm only a cargo transporter, so—"

"Senator Mothma cleared you for this, and I specifically requested you."

"I didn't specifically request this! There are others."

"Not many. None that I trust."

He wanted to argue further, to point out that there was no reason for her to trust him, that he'd only ever been a middling pilot, that he was the exact wrong kind of person for any undercover work. But when he looked at her, the words caught in his throat. She looked stubborn on the surface, ready to fight, but he'd seen that facade on her before, and recognized it for what it was. She was frightened; Senator Mothma had handed down a massive assignment, one that would take years. Jyn had never been committed to the Rebellion before Cassian had died. She likely still didn't trust her fellow Republic Intelligence officers.

She'd saved his life in many ways. Her father had as well, literally.

He didn't want to. All he wanted was to be left alone. But he made the mistake of glancing at Galen, which twinged his conscience in that horrible, familiar way.

"All right," he said.

She buried her relief as soon as it surfaced. "We'll rendezvous on the Sunrise at the beginning of tomorrow's B shift," she said. "There's a lot to go over, but we already have our first target."

"Which is?" Baze said.

Then and only then did Jyn smile. "You'll find out at the briefing, won't you?"

-

"Welcome," Bodhi said as Baze and Chirrut filed in. "Make yourselves comfortable."

"I plan to." Baze dropped a bag in front of the cargo bay. Bodhi didn't need to see inside it to know it likely contained several deadly weapons.

"I like this ship," Chirrut said, "It feels warm."

"That's the climate," Baze said.

"Interiority—"

"Right," Bodhi said. "I'm just going to go wait for Jyn."

The pilot's room, at least, was quiet. He took several deep breaths as he rechecked the autopilot controls and confirmed their route. Tatooine wasn't that far away, but they'd be docked at a nearby station for at least a week as they worked to establish contact with their first target. He wasn't sure yet, but he doubted Jyn would be approving sojourns to explore the local nightlife; thus, he triple-checked their energy stores and made sure that everyone would have the space they needed not to kill each other.

Or, he thought, do other things to each other. Chirrut and Baze would be occupying the only double bunk on the ship. He hoped they took it as the invitation for discretion it was.

He was halfway through the manifest for Tatooine, reviewing the plausible lies contained therein, when Galen said, "May I come in?"

"Uh. Sure." He wanted to say no. He knew Galen would listen; he'd never doubted that, not even back on Eadu when they'd been lying to each other even as they shared a bed. "Have a seat." He motioned to the copilot's chair and tried to ignore the sliver of traitorous happiness that wormed its way through him when Galen sat down.

He expected a conversation of some kind, and thus spent the next several minutes on edge when Galen didn't speak to or look at him. The window outside showed the oncoming dawn; various other members of the Republic's intelligence branch were starting to walk around, though none of them gave Bodhi's ship more than cursory attention.

Bodhi envied them. None of them looked like they were ready to fall apart, internally or otherwise. He hated being the coward like this, the odd man out even when no one knew he was there.

Jyn summoned them all to the kitchen, and still Galen didn't say anything. When they arrived together, Jyn looked between them; whatever she might have said was cut off by Chirrut saying, "I like the kitchen as a base of operations. We should keep it."

"The Sunrise doesn't have many better options," Jyn said. Ignoring Bodhi's frown, she launched into an explanation of their mission.

Tatooine had long been a hub of criminal operations; the Empire's shell corporation was engaged in mineral removal, but Saw's information indicated that they were primarily involved in human trafficking. Jyn and Baze would be posing as potential buyers, "Entrepreneurs from NiJedha, looking for a new base of operations," as Jyn put it. Bodhi would be staying on the ship with Galen, information he'd known already but that still made him feel overly exposed. Chirrut would canvass the streets for information.

"I don't like it," Baze said.

Even Bodhi could've predicted that one. Jyn countered smoothly, pointing out that he'd be in contact with Chirrut over comms, and they'd have significant off-planet support in the form of the Sunrise.

It was a neat plan, all sewed up and ready to go. It still terrified Bodhi, of course, but he could mount no significant objection. Less than an hour after Jyn gave their orders, Bodhi was back in the pilot's chair to begin their ascent.

No one bothered him as he took them into hyperspace. He'd grown so accustomed to the quiet that he kept forgetting for brief moments that others were aboard. After engaging the autopilot, he walked back to the mess for a protein drink; he didn't realize he wasn't alone until he heard a loud sniffle from the table in the corner.

"Sorry," Jyn said, turning away. But he'd already seen the telltale signs: red eyes, wet cheeks. She'd been crying.

"I can leave if you like," he said.

She shook her head. He could see even now, the ways she pulled back into herself, fighting for composure. It reminded him of Galen, which in turn reminded him of how wrong he was for this mission, a chain reaction that ended in him turning away.

"Wait," she said. "I might—company. Might be nice."

He sat across from her in spite of his better judgment. He'd never been good at this kind of thing, had never even really been the sort of person people confided in. When she looked at him through almost-composed eyes, he said, "I'm told it's normal to cry."

That made her snort. "Me too. But I'll hardly look like a convincing slaver if I'm blubbering all the time."

"You've done a lot."

"Not enough." She shook her head. "I just never thought about it. Saw was always tactical, but his tactics were dangerous. Suicidal, sometimes. It didn't occur to me that he'd do something like this."

"I had the same thought. But you knew him more."

"You knew him later in life."

Bodhi thought back to his time in NiJedha, to the tension that arose in any room where Saw Gerrera was discussed. "I wouldn't say I did. Knew of him, more like."

"The Empire poisoned him. I think he knew it." Jyn bit her lip. "And I still miss him. I still worry I'm not up to it, not worthy—"

"Of course you're worthy." Louder than it should have been. And he couldn't say what he was thinking: she hadn't tortured anyone with a bor gullet, hadn't blown anyone's daughter up to make a point. "You're worthy," he said again, at a loss for anything else.

She didn't believe him; he knew he couldn't make her. But she smiled a bit, saying, "Thanks."

He nodded, and they fell silent again.

She left a few minutes later. Bodhi drank his protein, trying not to think of that look in Saw's eyes as the bor gullet had descended. Saw had watched the whole time, but Bodhi didn't think he'd been there, not really. Hard to bear witness to your crimes if you'd checked out of caring or acknowledging them.

"How is she?"

Bodhi jumped and almost fumbled his drink. "Fine, I think."

But he couldn't hide his tension. Even as Galen sat down across from him, he made one of those almost-a-grimace faces and said, "My apologies."

"You keep sneaking up on me." He meant it as a joke; it came out as a petulant accusation.

"I'm not accustomed to being around people," Galen said. "Particularly not people I..."

He was silent for a long time, more than long enough for Bodhi to fill it in with: fucked? Betrayed? Dragged into the Rebellion?

"Care about," Galen said.

It was enough of a departure for Bodhi to stare at the table, flummoxed.

But eventually he felt he had to reply, to deflect. "You could always ask Jyn for dinner. There's an observation deck, a few nice areas."

"I'm not entirely sure Jyn wants to talk to me."

Bodhi looked up then. Galen, Force take him, didn't reveal anything on his face. Bodhi felt like an open book in contrast—a desperate, pathetic open book. "You're her father. Of course she does."

"As you say."

It was a diplomatic response, an Imperial response. It bothered Bodhi even as he shied away from arguing. "Well, you could talk to her. I've got to go check some...diagnostics." He grabbed his drink and beat a hasty retreat.

-

He dreamed about Galen again that night, and this time he didn't even have the bor gullet to blame.

The first time they'd kissed had almost been an accident. Bodhi had wanted it for awhile, had in fact thought about it extensively, during cargo runs and when docked on Eadu: lying down in his narrow little bunk, closing his eyes against the force of his want, touching himself and trying to remember that Director Erso didn't know of or want him. But the kiss itself was different. They came after Galen had singled him out, after he'd begun spending one of his standard two nights on Eadu in Galen's rooms, discussing history, playing board games, trying to flirt and learning how bad he was at it. He'd had no one to talk to about the growing whatever-it-was between them, so the first kisses had come after a little too much to drink and a lot less sleep than he ought to have gotten.

Galen's hands had been rough. After Bodhi had kissed him impulsively, he'd looked alarmed, and Bodhi had rushed to apologize. In the dream some things were more important than others. He remembered the warmth of Galen's hands, the arousal he'd felt. And in the dream they had no awkward back-and-forth about ethics; Galen only pulled him close and kissed him again, deeper, more confident than he'd ever been in reality. But the memories were still there, woven into the fantasy: the texture of Galen's uniform, the way he'd whispered, yes, good, more, as he'd gone to his knees for Bodhi.

When the dream faded, he woke up, achingly hard and so lonely it felt like a physical wound. He didn't jerk off. He didn't want that to be how he thought of Galen; it had to stop. Instead, he curled around his pillow, pressed his head into it, and did his best to clear his mind of any thoughts at all.

-

As soon as they docked at the station above Tatooine, Galen sent a message down to the contact named in Saw's records. Bodhi spent the rest of that shift working on a small messenger drone. The sub-AI came hardwired, a lot of smarts that wouldn't quite tilt it over into being a droid, but he was working on his own circuit. He'd nearly completed the quantum partition when Galen sat down across from him.

"You did say the observation deck was picturesque," Galen said when Bodhi looked at him questioningly.

He thought for a moment about leaving, or pulling rank—for here he had it—and ordering Galen to leave. They'd been companionable once upon a time on Eadu, but Bodhi had never stopped being aware of just who he was: Director Erso, famous and if not beloved by the Empire, then at least protected. Now he was a civilian, and Bodhi was Captain of his own military vessel. He could tell Galen to go, simplify this whole thing, and be unbothered by him in the future.

He'd have sooner tossed himself into space. He wanted more, not less, and his heart was as much a traitor as it'd ever been.

When he didn't answer, Galen nodded at the circuit. "Special project?"

"Nothing interesting to your eyes," Bodhi said, but he passed it over.

And, oh, he'd missed this in the years past: Galen's thoughtful, ever-analytic gaze on something Bodhi'd made, Galen's fingers tracing the lines of his workmanship. Bodhi had grown up assuming genius to be an aloof thing, but Galen's was so present that it was like sitting too close to a sun. His intelligence, his attention, was so tactile that Bodhi found himself moving a bit closer in spite of his better judgment.

"I am interested, actually," Galen said. "You could buy this premade at the station quicker than it took to do this wiring."

Bodhi couldn't quite hide his flinch.

"That—I meant it's impressive, that you're doing it. A worthwhile hobby. Attention to detail, engineering—I'm not surprised they sent for you after—" He broke off, clenching his jaw and looking away, and Bodhi realized with a rush that he'd managed to fluster Galen.

Or Galen had flustered himself. "It's fine, I get it," he said. "I did say it wasn't that impressive."

"It was my intention to compliment you, not embarrass myself. I'm out of practice."

At what Bodhi wanted to say. He couldn't tell if Galen was being diplomatic, if he wanted something, if he was lonely, if he hoped for more information on Jyn—there were a thousand options and Bodhi had never been good at understanding people's intentions towards him. It'd gone badly enough the first time, hadn't it, a few stolen kisses, illicit sex, and then torture and near-death -

He didn't realize his hands were shaking until Galen caught them. Then he couldn't look away.

"I had hoped for us to be friends," Galen said.

Bodhi willed his hands to stillness, focused on the words. Friends. No reason to be disappointed there. He'd hardly expected anything else, really.

In the dimmest recesses of his mind, something that might have been the vestiges of the bor gullet stirred in sickening agreement.

No. Put the pieces together, be in the here and now. The med droids had said as much, over and over. "Yes," he managed to make himself say. "I'd like that."

Galen smiled. He looked exhausted and the smile only made it worse, but it was, Bodhi supposed, a beginning of sorts. "Good. I'll bid you goodnight, then."

There was a pause then, of the sort that even Bodhi knew was usually filled with a kiss. Then Galen stood.

The last thing he said before he left was, "I meant what I said, you know. The circuit. It's good."

Bodhi didn't get any more work done that night.

-

Galen was a different person when communicating with the traffickers.

Bodhi remembered this person from Eadu, a bit, but the change had been so gradual that he hadn't realized how extensive it was. This Galen's posture was carefully stiff, his face devoid of any expression that wasn't almost-rude condescension. His tones were oilier, somehow, and he looked into the communicator with a distant, cold expression.

That last was most of what he remembered, the cold. He'd once been determined to chip away at it. He'd once succeeded, in fact.

Now, he just kept to his pilot's seat. He didn't need to be involved in this part of the mission at all. Even if eventually there was fighting ("if we get unlucky", Jyn said; "if we're very lucky," Baze replied), he'd be needed to drive them out. He wouldn't be out there with a blaster.

Even that thought brought the memories: the hot sun of Scarif, the impossible odds, the smell of death all around him. No, he wouldn't be involved in any kind of battle, probably not ever again. He wasn't capable.

But he worried and worried all the same, all week, as they got closer and closer to an in-person meet. Finally, his communicator lit up with a landing location on Tatooine. He hurried to prepare the flight plan, but even as he got it into the computer, a furious crash announced someone else's arrival.

"Bathroom's down the hall," he said instead of looking up.

"I don't need one, thank you," Galen said.

Bodhi jumped up, couldn't help himself. The walls of the ship couldn't be damaged by any one man's fist, but Galen had managed to scuff them. He didn't look injured, but he did look furious, and doubly as exhausted as he'd been earlier that day. "What's happened?"

"I'm to view the merchandise," Galen said.

For a moment the words meant nothing. Then: "The people?"

"The children," Galen said.

It had been years since Bodhi had left the Rebellion, and so it had been years since he'd experienced this impossible tension: inevitable, horrible words, hearing and absorbing things that no human should have to know or do or feel, and moving on anyway. He was out of practice. It took him several breaths, several moments of the blood rushing in his ears, before he managed to say, "No."

Still out of practice. Nothing was beyond the reach of the Empire, and so nothing was too terrible for the Rebellion to deal with. He'd known that.

"Yes," Galen said, and reached to wipe sweat off his brow with a shaking hand.

"Why—how—"

"They're often sold for labor." Galen's mouth twisted. "Other things too."

He didn't need to be directly told what other things were. "Being sold for labor's bad enough."

Galen nodded.

"We're getting rid of it. Right? Ending the business, confiscating the—" Not wares. "Fixing it. These kids'll get homes. Right?"

"I trust Jyn," Galen said, which wasn't exactly an answer.

Bodhi waited. Galen glanced over at him, and the lines on his face deepened in a near-grimace. "I'd like to trust the Republic, too."

"But you don't." Halfway between a question and a statement.

"I never did. Many say that's a flaw I'll carry to my grave."

Bodhi had learned not to defend Galen. He'd come up a lot in those early days, as lower level members of the Rebellion tried to make sense of the Death Star. He hadn't wanted to mark himself as Galen's...whatever he'd been, and on top of that he wasn't sure he could defend Galen and keep his own newly evolving morals, so he'd gotten into the habit of just staying quiet again. But when it was Galen himself saying it, he found he couldn't keep to himself.

"Don't say such things."

Galen didn't argue. He said, "I'm going down to Tatooine in two days."

"How's everyone else?"

"You could ask them, you know. Or accompany us down."

Bodhi looked away. "I'm the pilot. I stay up here."

"As you say. No one's excited about the mission. Jyn's confident it'll be over quickly."

The whole thing was so strange, a hodgepodge of people who never should've been together: Galen under his daughter's command, Bodhi pining after Galen, Baze obeying Jyn but glaring all the while. Bodhi said, "Good luck. May, uh, the Force be with you."

Another thin-lipped smile. "Thank you."

He left without touching Bodhi at all. Bodhi tried not to think about it.

-

The mission went south very quickly, and it wasn't even Baze's fault. On the radios, Bodhi heard one of the slavers tell Galen, "This is Mariposa Andor, of good slave stock."

Jyn said, in a tightly furious voice, "Andor?"

And then the bomb had gone off.

Bodhi would never remember the next several hours, when he'd been trapped in the ship with no information on anyone else's status. He wound up flying the Sunrise down for direct retrieval; the blast crater was visible from miles off, and he'd been completely panicking, certain everyone was dead, when he saw Jyn fighting an Empire loyalist, back-to-back with a man whose face was hidden.

Everything went into an uproar after that. Bodhi's old training kicked in as he performed the evac. No Empire loyalists made it onto the ship, but the man Jyn had been fighting with did, and the child Galen carried. Baze had to physically lift Chirrut to convince him to get back on the ship. As Bodhi took them back into orbit, dodging blaster bolts from furious loyalists, Jyn slapped a bacta patch on a cut on her arm and said, "Take us back. We've got what we need, and I don't trust the stationmaster."

Bodhi plotted the course, then went back to the loading bay, saying, "There's room in the main passenger area, if people want to start going up."

Jyn looked at the man she'd been fighting with and nodded. He turned around, and the ground fell out from under Bodhi.

"Hello," Cassian said.

"You're dead," Bodhi blurted. "You're—you're dead, you're really dead, confirmed and all, what—"

"It's a long story," Jyn said.

But Bodhi didn't think it was, really, because Jyn didn't look like she was in shock at all. "You knew! You're going to be court-martialed!"

"Likely," Jyn said.

"How—what—" He stumbled over his words, mostly because he had no idea what he meant to say. There was no way for him to shape his feelings of furious betrayal, feelings he knew were unfair; he'd only ever known Cassian for a few days, and there were things he hadn't told Jyn, too. Still he spluttered, glaring at anyone who'd make eye contact, and at the side of Cassian's head when he refused.

"Bodhi," Galen said.

"What," Bodhi snapped, then winced when he saw the child Galen still held cringe.

"This is Mariposa Andor." Galen gave him a speaking look.

Right. A child, Cassian's relative, probably, given the name and Cassian's presence. Bodhi forced himself to smile. "There's bunks enough for both of you. Galen, can you show them?"

Galen didn't hand the child over to Cassian; when he motioned to Cassian to follow, his expression fell very short of being warm. He was angry too, thought Bodhi wasn't quite sure why.

As soon as they were alone, he turned to Jyn. "You'd better tell me now what's going on. We're already on our way back to Yavin Four." At which point she might be thrown into a cell. This was much too big a secret to have kept.

Jyn either had an even better card-table face than he'd known, or she wasn't as upset about facing jail as she should've been. "He contacted me a few weeks after Scarif. He'd grabbed a ride with some late defectors just before the planet blew. After...it was bad for him. He wanted to lay low. He told me he was tired, that he thought the Rebellion might kill him." She shrugged. "I made a calculated decision."

One she'd been confident she could get away with, Bodhi guessed. She might not even be wrong. They'd all been heroes, in story if not by name, but Jyn had been the one who'd carried the bulk of the mythmaking, after Skywalker had proven her right. "The Senate's not going to be happy."

Her eyes narrowed to flinty slits. "The Senate approved the use of six-year-old operatives in the Rebellion. I'm not sure I care what they're happy with."

"Right." Younger than Mariposa, thought possibly not as ill-used. Bodhi swallowed past the sickness in his throat. "This whole thing's gone south."

She nodded. "We killed the kingpin, though, and we got the documentation they gave Galen. We can send a task force. They're all but done for."

Bodhi hoped so. He hoped more children wouldn't be hurt in the time it took to send law enforcement after the slavers, too. But hope wasn't faith; he'd been running low on the latter for a long, long time.

"I had to keep his secret," Jyn said with sudden urgency. "I didn't have a choice. I owe him so much—I couldn't bring myself to do anything else."

Here was his opening, Bodhi thought with a furious twist of his heart. Jyn loved so much and so openly these days; she clearly cared for Cassian a great deal. He needed to say something about himself and Galen, something about their friendship and what it'd been on Eadu. He'd just verbally keelhauled her for lying; he owed her honesty.

"I know," he said. "I'll speak in your defense."

Her smile was genuine, if small. "Thank you. You're a good friend." She went down the hallway, towards the passenger's quarters.

"I'm not," Bodhi told the space she'd left behind. But the Sunrise, of course, didn't answer.

-

Mon Mothma was indeed not pleased.

Bodhi missed most of her fury, but he caught the rumors in the intervening days, as he worked on installing better medical facilities on his ship. Pilots liked to talk, and people forgot Bodhi was lurking about. She'd apparently gone completely cold and told Cassian he'd be tried for desertion, and then when Jyn had threatened her, reduced it to a misdemeanor - while threatening Jyn right back.

He didn't see Galen at all, but that was to be expected. He might not even be planetside anymore. He did his best to put Galen out of his mind, got dinner with Jyn when she asked and didn't mention hers or Cassian's impending court martials, tended to the Sunrise's droids, and got some defensive flying drills in. He managed, for over a week, to convince himself that his life was staying more or less normal.

Then Mothma summoned him, and greeted him with, "Doctor Erso has requested you be assigned to his diplomatic mission to Grange."

Bodhi blinked, then did it again when his mind tried to make the world around him spin. "Excuse me? Ah, he has?"

"He's in need of a ship, and modest military support. He requested the Sunrise specifically."

Bodhi willed his mind to work. Instead it presented him with an image of Galen in one of the Sunrise's berths. "He's a civilian. Isn't he?"

"He is. We have a...sensitive situation on Grange. Not Empire insurrectionists, but a group of would-be dissidents who refuse to work within Senate channels."

Rather like the Rebellion, Bodhi carefully didn't say. "Thanks," he said. "But I'd rather—I mean, I had the freight route. And isn't Galen—Doctor Erso—I mean, he's—"

When he failed to come up with more polite or official words for in deep shit, Mothma said, "He's still, officially, on probation. But Grange is his home world, and in spite of his crimes, the prime minister there has agreed to speak with him in a diplomatic capacity."

Like a cracked riverbed suddenly hit with torrential rain, Bodhi's mind filled with pure, unadulterated panic. "No. Definitely not. I'm a freighter pilot, I'm not some kind of operative. No."

Mothma had clearly expected objection; she didn't even blink, only said, "This won't be a combat position, Captain Rook."

Eadu hadn't been a combat position, either. He knew if he said that, she'd say the Republic wasn't the Empire. It was almost more painful for being true. The Republic was better, more transparent, more fair; and yet, despite that, Bodhi himself was still the same person he'd always been. He was too tired, too prone to panic, for any even remotely important post.

For a moment, a wisp of a memory brushed against his mind: his mother, her eyes sad, kneeling to his eye level and saying, "My Bodhi, you must learn caution."

The hows and whys of that memory were lost to time, but he'd definitely learned, and learned well. "I don't want it. Give it to someone else. Please."

"Captain Rook," Mothma said. "You will report, with your ship, to transport dock 10 at five hundred hours."

She didn't need to elaborate: it was an order, and Bodhi had to follow it. The same cowardice that made him want to beg for his freighter position prevented him from refusing a commander. He said, "Yes, sir," and saluted.

His panic didn't abate when he returned to his room. If anything, it got worse; he had a single bag that he had to re-pack, and then all he could do was look around his room and wonder what in the world a diplomatic posting on Grange would even look like.

Was he to wait on Galen? Shuttle him around? The thought of Galen buttoned up in some kind of governmental dress again, ordering Bodhi around as absently as he'd directed Bodhi's first few shipments of kyber, bothered him more than he'd ever thought it could. He didn't want to be something more, didn't want to be the kind of person Galen couldn't give orders to. But—seven Tatooine hells, he also didn't want Galen to be Doctor Erso, who took his pet lackey back to his home world for fun.

Even the thought made him flush with fury. "Pull it together," he muttered, pressing a hand against his forehead.

"She was supposed to allow you to refuse," said a quiet voice from the door.

Bodhi didn't turn to look at Galen. He stared at the wall when he said, "I'm reporting tomorrow morning. I'll see you then."

It wasn't a dismissal. He wasn't brave enough for that, he thought with half-hysterical bitterness. Behind him, Galen sighed. "I requested your presence because you're a competent pilot. I—"

"I really think you've done enough," Bodhi said, and shut his mouth with a click of teeth.

"Will it really be that bad for you?"

Bodhi whirled around before he thought better of it. "No, of course not. Why would it be? It's just the opposite of what I thought I'd be doing, what I want. It's just being ordered around again, same as the Empire when you get down to it. More information, sure, but I still can't say no. It's just someone I kissed, someone I fucked, telling a Senator I'm the only person who can do my very common, dull job. Why would I be upset about any of that!"

He didn't realize he was yelling until he stopped and heard the silence that followed. Galen lifted his hand; the stone ring he wore glinted oddly in the light.

"I will not apologize," Galen said, every word slow and precise, "for thinking you're wasted as a ranite courier."

"And I won't apologize for telling you to kriff yourself." He took a step forward, then another, some ugly part of his mind thrilling to see Galen backing up. "Is that what you want to hear? Or would you rather I said, oh, Director Erso, thank you so much for believing in me, you're my hero, how can I repay you—"

Later he would wonder which one of them moved first, and realize that he had no idea. One moment his entire nervous system was screaming at him to run or fight or do anything but stand there, and the next Galen was kissing him, or he was kissing Galen; the semantics disappeared in the sensation of Galen's fingers on the back of his neck, of Galen's lips against his own.

The history of the Guardians of the Whills had been a subject of equal parts mockery and mourning when Bodhi had been growing up. They'd embraced a kind of faith that said everything that happened in Jedha, the fighting and invasion, the deaths and imprisonments, was directed by the Force, somehow both a travesty and an inevitability. When he'd first gone to flight school, many of Bodhi's classmates had assumed he had some sort of natural affinity for such thinking. The truth was Bodhi had never understood it, and when he thought about it, it terrified him.

That was still true—truer, even, now that the bor gullet had so thoroughly rearranged his mind. But in spite of it all, he felt the good side of the chaos in Galen's harsh breathing, in the sense that they'd both cheated death too many times. His mind spun and his heart raced and fear clanged its way up and down his veins, but something in him reached out, too. Something said this was right, slotted this furious and strange moment in alongside the impossible movements of ships among the stars.

"Come with me to Grange," Galen said when they finally moved apart, long minutes later. "Please."

Bodhi's lips stung. His heart raced. Something sung in the back of his mind, moved with invisible urgency against his skin. He'd always been a Jedha kid; he didn't want to believe in the Force, but he knew that wouldn't stop it from meddling with him.

He said, "Yes. Okay. I will."

Galen smiled. Bodhi didn't know if he meant it as compromise or benediction, but it was that smile he carried with him after Galen left.

Sleep came easily that night, but so did the nightmares. As a child he'd felt overwhelming foreboding that he'd learned to connect to stormtroopers coming to his home to arrest his father or his uncles, to question his cousins. When he began hauling kyber on Eadu, that same foreboding moved into his mind permanently, a parasitic cause of anxiety that he told himself he'd have to learn to ignore.

Galen hadn't removed it, but talking to Galen about Jedha, drinking ale with him in Galen's rooms, had eased it temporarily. Bodhi remembered thinking maybe the rich just didn't have such feelings, and he was getting a bit of their lives by spending time with Galen.

In his nightmares, the bor gullet laughed. Stupid.

There was so much evidence for that. Had Galen ever kissed him without an ulterior motive? Not that Bodhi could recall, even in dreams where his memories weren't quite so blocked off. And of course enlisting, thinking he could defect and really fix things, all that was stupid, too.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid like taking a blaster bolt to the shoulder in the name of the Empire. Stupid like flying to Scarif and letting Rebellion soldiers, fighters who could make a difference, die in his stead. Stupid like thinking he'd be left alone, finally, on the Ring of Kafrene. Stupid like watching Galen and hoping he saw something other than a tool when he looked at Bodhi.

He woke with a start, drenched in sweat. Stupid, the walls whispered.

He got out of bed and made his way down the barracks, out to the open stretch of dirt that served as a ball court during the day. Yavin Four had once been a planet where no one slept. Now, though much of the same military work was carried out here, the Republic enforced a more normal workday. The occasional night watch officer crossed the camp far from Bodhi, but he was otherwise alone. Or at least, he thought he was, until someone cleared his throat and shuffled out from behind a stack of spare ship parts.

Cassian didn't look that different. If anything, he looked better-rested and thus younger. He nodded to Bodhi and said, "My mind thinks it's high noon."

There was no limit to questions he could ask. Why Cassian had chosen to stay on Tatooine, what he'd been doing, what he'd do now that he was back. But instead of saying anything, he just nodded and went back to his study of the sky.

They spent a peaceful few hours like that, sitting together, not quite touching. Cassian had more to carry with him than even Bodhi did, but that was kind of comforting. It meant he wasn't alone, wasn't crazy to have trouble with this new, more functional, impossible world.

Cassian left first. He stood up from the plastic crate they'd been sharing and said, "Good luck with everything."

"You too." Bodhi wouldn't want to face a New Republic court martial for all the gold in the galaxy.

Cassian's smile looked more than a little off kilter, like there was some kind of joke Bodhi wasn't in on. He waved a goodbye and disappeared, taking what Bodhi assumed was a paranoid and circuitous route back to his own room.

Bodhi reported to the launch pad after throwing back enough caf to make his eyes vibrate. He'd thought he would be alone, but when he approached the pad, Baze stood from a storage crate and said, "Finally."

"You're lost," Bodhi told him, as civilly as he could manage.

"We're not," Chirrut said, "though Baze tried to tell me so."

"I told him not to trust you," Baze said.

Bodhi's first impulse was to snap back that he'd never trusted the Guardians, either. They'd been decimated shortly after Bodhi was born, but he'd grown up with the understanding that they were, ultimately, a weak order; they'd left Jedha to be mined by the Empire and had never so much as raised a hand to fight back. But Baze, with his repeater cannon, would likely laugh in his face if he said that. Instead, he said, "I might not trust me, either. But I'm going to Grange, not—wherever you want to go."

"I'd like to go back to Jedha," Chirrut said, "but Baze tells me I can't bury myself in the core of a dying lanet just yet."

Bodhi blinked. Chirrut smiled, head cocked, playing the part of the fool despite the horror in what he'd just said.

"Right," Bodhi said. "Well. Are you Galen's guards for Grange, then?"

Baze gave him a look Bodhi remembered from his days trying to haggle the butcher down, before he'd even been tall enough to see over the counter. "No."

Bodhi should've demanded an explanation. As a captain, it was certainly his right to do so. Instead, he bobbed his head in a nod and almost ran up the Sunrise's loading dock.

It was Galen whose presence triggered authorization for takeoff; they left with no ceremony beyond that. Bodhi, who'd learned to be suspicious of politics, understood that Mothma didn't want to publicize Galen's status as New Republic ambassador. Galen himself stayed in his cabin, not saying a word to any of them.

Once the autopilot had been engaged, Bodhi went to the common room. Baze and Chirrut had dice out, though the game appeared paused for some story of Chirrut's that involved stray cats and zoonitic vaccinations. Bodhi tried not to listen, focusing instead on his food, but Chirrut was as provocative as ever.

"Of course, some who are closer to kyber carry Jedha with them even when they leave."

Baze mumbled some kind of assent.

"Men have gone mad with the Force in their ear. It's lucky that I learned to listen."

The back of Bodhi's neck prickled. He stabbed his spoon into a chunk of potato, then moved to stand. He'd eat in the pilot's seat, then.

"As long as Jedha's children remain among the stars, Jedha will live on. Which is good, Baze, because you and I are old."

"You're babbling, man," he heard himself say. He dropped his bowl back to the table with a too-loud clatter.

"Am I?"

"Yes," Baze said.

"Perhaps," Chirrut said. "But if it's babble, why listen?"

Bodhi was used to listening to the part of him that urged quiet, consideration, keeping his head down and doing his job. Maybe it was the fact that he was on his ship, maybe it was the Rebellion-turned-Republic's influence finally sinking in, maybe it was nothing more than the pain of knowing he'd never see Jedha again. Whatever the reason, he didn't back down. He said, "The time to defend Jedha was before it got blasted to dust. Your stories just sound like delusion."

"The Force—"

"Didn't exactly pan out, did it? You can ramble about it protecting you all you like, but there's nothing and no one out here that's protecting you except Republic money."

"You forget Skywalker," Chirrut said. "There are others, too."

"A fluke." He forced himself to say the words. Jedha had still been heavy with kyber when he was young; neither the crystal nor the Force had stopped the stormtroopers from sending his father to a work camp. "You're living in dreams, like a fortune-teller who guesses a birthday and thinks it means she's a prophet."

He didn't, couldn't, give Chirrut a chance to argue. He left right away, finishing his breakfast while looking out into the darkness of space.

He wasn't really surprised when Galen sat down next to him. If he'd heard the argument in the common room, he gave no sign. He only said, "Grange is likely busier than you're used to."

"Yavin Four is plenty busy."

"Fair enough."

Galen's willingness to live in silence was one of the more maddening things about him, to Bodhi's way of thinking. "Did you tell Chirrut and Baze to come?"

"I assumed they were part of your crew."

"They're not. I think Chirrut hitched a ride just to mess with me."

Galen let his silence function as interrogation. Bodhi lasted only a few moments before he had to continue. "He keeps talking about the Force, about Jedha, like it means anything."

"You think it doesn't?"

"I've never had much use for the Force," Bodhi said. "Nor it for me. If it's—if it's real, it's something I don't want to think about."

"The Guardians of the Whills did a lot more than thinking."

"You don't have to tell me." Bodhi had no memory, really, of the time before the occupation. But he did remember a Jedha before the mining had intensified. The Guardians had served as law-keepers; many of Bodhi's friends had aspired to join them. By the time he got to flight school, he'd had almost forgotten the wonder he'd initially regarded them with.

"I think I might," Galen said. "Forgive my confusion, but I'd always been under the impression that you regarded my work with kyber as...related, shall we say, to the Force."

Bodhi would've agreed that kyber could cure Tatooinian leprosy if it'd meant Galen would smile at him.

"I'm only a scientist. But I can tell you that the Force, generally understood, is real."

"That doesn't mean the Guardians controlled it."

"I suspect Chirrut would assure you they didn't. They were protectors; they rarely even wielded it, the way Jedi might."

Of course Galen had known about them. That raised an entirely different sort of anger in him. Galen knew more about the Jedha-that-had-been than Bodhi himself did. Had he toured the temple before the Empire destroyed it? Had he thought it was worth it, cannibalizing a holy moon to power Coruscant? The Death Star was a monstrosity, a horrific fulcrum upon which Galen had moved; what would Galen have thought of a Jedha boy if his research had actually gone towards Core planet infrastructure?

"I could tell you about them," Galen said, "but I suspect you don't need to hear it from me. Ask them. Chirrut's on this ship because he wants to tell you."

Galen stood to leave; Bodhi didn't respond. When Galen put a hand on his shoulder, a brief, warm, and thrilling contact, he closed his eyes and enacted his usual credo. He kept his head down and didn't argue, waiting until Galen left.

-

Grange was indeed incredibly urbanized. They received the kind of welcome Bodhi'd never experienced as a pilot, waved onto the closest landing dock and then ushered into the embassy by droids who carried all their luggage. Galen went first, and seemed to accept it all as his due; he hardly even glanced at the protocol droid who took charge of the others. Chirrut cheerily followed the droid to his appointed quarters, but when Bodhi moved to join them, Galen said, "He stays with me."

The order rankled, doubly so since Bodhi couldn't reasonably object. He gritted his teeth as the protocol droid said, "A pilot is not considered a necessary part of a diplomatic retinue."

"Your master knows this isn't an ordinary diplomatic visit," Galen said. "Captain Rook is my witness to the privations and crimes of the Empire. He will accompany me at all times. Please update your protocols to reflect that."

Bodhi clenched his jaw still tighter.

"Updated," the droid said. "Please follow me to the receiving room."

The receiving room turned out to be the most overly done-up affair Bodhi'd seen in years, with strings of precious crystals lining the walls and heavy precious-metal furniture bare of cushions to soften them. Galen sat down in the chair the droid proffered, and then, when he saw the smaller chair Bodhi was offered, said, "Captain Rook is to be considered my equal in rank in all things."

"But sir—"

"Protestations will be seen as a grievance against the New Republic."

This droid wasn't independent enough to grumble after that. Bodhi got his own comically large, uncomfortable chair to sit in as they waited on the prime minister.

The New Republic, Bodhi thought. It was almost funny, how Galen acted here. He sounded Imperial more than anything else, giving out orders and seeing a slight in an inches-smaller chair.

"I apologize," Galen said quietly.

Bodhi blinked. His instinct was to accept the apology, even through his anger. But... "For what?"

Galen laughed a little, bitter. "All of it. But especially their—mistaken assumptions."

Now he was truly angry. "Are they mistaken? You're Grange's most famous export. I'm just the pilot."

"Never just," Galen said in low and tense tones. But then the protocol droid clacked in again, bringing a tray of local fruits and infused water, and he cut himself off with a false smile.

The metal chair was probably worth more than all of Bodhi's belongings times a thousand, but that didn't make it comfortable to sit in for long periods of time. Galen had already mentioned that the prime minister would likely leave them alone for some time, in order to impress upon them his own status, but the reality was considerably more, well. Numbing.

Finally, though, the protocol droid returned. "Rise for Prime Minister Nissni, if you please."

Nissni turned out to be a short man whose features vaguely resembled Galen's. He greeted them both with surprising warmth, then sat down in his own chair, a near-throne decorated with half a dozen plush pillows. "My apologies for subjecting you to all this ceremony, but I'm afraid the Council will understand it better than if I had you escorted to my own receiving room."

Galen's answering smile gave very little away. "Of course."

"Especially given why you're here." Another smile, looking like little more than bared teeth. "Tell me why I shouldn't get my majority in the Council by aligning with the Partists, Galen."

Bodhi had expected to have to testify, but instead he sat there, mostly silent, as Galen and Nissni debated. It seemed utterly impossible to Bodhi that Nissni could be considering breaking from the New Republic and potentially letting the Empire gain influence over Grange just because it'd get him the votes to put his policies into place, but he was no longer new enough to politics to be truly shocked by it.

After the long discussions, they were told they'd be brought dinner privately, and escorted from the room by a droid. "That's a mark of respect," Galen told Bodhi as they walked down the narrow, raised walkways.

"It's an odd status symbol." It sounded lonely to Bodhi.

Galen nodded. "But a sign of success that I'm happy to have."

Bodhi wasn't happy about much of anything related to this trip, but he held back from telling Galen that directly. The droid had placed them in adjoining rooms; Bodhi tried not to notice or think about the door that would let him into Galen's sitting room, instead unpacking his tiny amount of luggage and surveying the room for possible security risks.

The Republic had insisted he'd learn such things, back when it'd still been the Rebellion. Bodhi had his own bug detection tool, build and tested on the Ring of Kafrene. It turned up nothing; visual surveillance, similarly, showed the room was clean. Of course, that might just mean that Grange had technology unknown to him.

Even that was a familiar situation. He hadn't, after all, known to sweep his rooms on Eadu for bugs. Back then he'd thought himself, and Galen, honest. He'd thought Director Krennic honest, too. Or at least as honest as any government agent, Imperial or otherwise, could be.

"Why the long face?" Galen said from the adjoining door Bodhi had been working on forgetting.

"It'd be more suspicious if I was cheerful, don't you think?"

"This isn't meant to be an espionage mission."

"That's not too comforting. All that means is Nissni might not've been honest with you."

"Bodhi. I understand you don't want to be here, but—"

"I don't think you do, actually." Galen raised his eyebrows at the outburst, but Bodhi had more to say, and it bubbled out of him like superheated oil. "I shouldn't be alive right now. None of us should, maybe, but especially not me. I never thought about—what I'd have to do, how to do it. Any of it. And now I'm here, because of you, and it's not whatever you think it is, mentorship or friendship or—whatever. It's just someone making me do something I don't want. Again."

Galen flinched at the last bit, probably thinking of Eadu. Bodhi certainly was. It lived between them all the time, and more than anything else, that not-talked-about fact exhausted him, made him want to give up.

They couldn't return to what they'd been at Eadu. It'd never even really been what Bodhi had wanted to think it was, romance or even just comfort. It had always been about getting the message out.

Bodhi was surprised to find, in this strange and uncomfortable room, that he still resented Galen for that, more than almost anything else.

He'd thought Galen would speak, so of course Galen stayed silent. The quiet between them stretched, and stretched, and with every breath he took, Bodhi thought of another way he could've said his piece, another flaw in his logic.

Oddest of all was the quality of the silence. It almost whispered in Bodhi's mind, tickling an odd part of his thoughts, like leaving a room and knowing you've forgotten something. He kept trying to grab something that wasn't quite there.

Bodhi was on the verge of asking Galen to leave when Galen finally spoke. "I had hoped that you'd understand the utility of working for the Republic. The necessity."

"It's not necessity for me."

"It's necessity for us all. The Rebellion—"

"I was only barely part of it."

Galen had the nerve to look condescending. "You delivered the Death Star plans and stayed on as a pilot, did you not?"

"I was a pilot for the Empire too! That hardly makes me integral!"

"And yet, you told me you wanted to make it right. To find a way to live with your conscience."

Bodhi had said that, and more. He'd been so guilt-ridden, so sure he was betraying his home. And, well, he'd been right, hadn't he? Even now, Jedha was collapsing in on itself. But still: "I'm tired. It's not just me. There are others. There have to be."

"Sometimes," Galen said. "Then again, sometimes not."

"There are other witnesses to the Empire's atrocities."

"Very few with your skills."

Bodhi thought of Galen's cock on his tongue in lurid and unwelcome detail. Blood rushed to his face. "Listen here—"

"I'm referring to your persuasive abilities," Galen said. "And your status as one of just a few survivors of the Death Star, as well as a hero of Scarif."

"There are still others!"

But he knew there weren't, not really. Certainly there were very few with his reputation, however unearned it may have been. That was what Galen meant, why he'd asked for Bodhi to come. If Bodhi had been braver, he'd have just acknowledged that and moved on. As it was, he stood there and said nothing else.

Galen took two steps forward. They stood closer together than Bodhi liked, close enough that his traitorous mind imagined reaching out, catching Galen's hand, leaning in...

"Talk to Baze and Chirrut," Galen said. "They'll be able to explain what I mean a little better."

And then he left Bodhi alone.

-

"Well," Chirrut said at lunch the next day, "I think he means you're Force-sensitive."

Bodhi dropped his crusty bread. "What?"

"Or he just means he's in love with you, but—"

"Stop toying with him," Baze said.

"Who's toying? There, there." Chirrut patted Bodhi on the back.

"I'm fine," Bodhi said, though of course he wasn't. "I'm not Force-sensitive. What would that even mean?"

He directed the question at both of them, but Chirrut only grinned; Baze grunted.

"And he's not in love with me!" Bodhi said as his still-stunned brain caught up with the accusation. Or statement.

"Okay," Chirrut said. "But, anyway, you're definitely Force-sensitive. I can feel it almost as strongly as I feel Baze."

Bodhi didn't particularly want to think about Chirrut feeling Baze at all. "Even if I am, and I'm not saying I believe you, but even if, what's it got to do with anything? Not everyone who's—like that—has to become a public servant."

"No, there's always mercenary work."

"Chirrut, please."

Chirrut nodded. "No, you're right. But Galen knows you're persuasive, he can feel it. He wants you here because the consequences of Grange defecting to separatism are almost certainly another war."

For a moment, Bodhi felt the overwhelming bleakness of the war return. How was it even possible? How could they be back to this again? All he wanted, all anyone wanted, was a peaceful life, and it seemed more and more that he'd never get it, that no one would—there'd be endless war, endless strife, pain and suffering until -

"Bodhi." Chirrut touched his hand with his staff. "Focus."

"On what?" Bodhi all but yelled.

"The Force," Chirrut said. "Or how good the sausages taste. Anything to get your mind away from the shadows."

"I'm fine."

"You're slipping," Chirrut said, "which is just to be expected, really. Grange might fall to separatism because politics are the province of arrogant people. If it makes you feel that way, perhaps you'd better go back to the negotiation table this afternoon."

And then Bodhi realized he'd been played. Baze knew it, too, judging by the smirk and knowing look he gave Bodhi. And yet Bodhi couldn't be angry, because he'd been manipulated only with the truth.

Chirrut and Galen had that in common, he thought with no small amount of bitterness.

"Tomato jelly?" Chirrut said. Bodhi accepted the proffered jar, and they finished their lunch in more or less companionable silence.

-

Really, it was all well and good to say they'd be fighting for Grange to fully enter the New Republic. The reality was considerably less exciting than 'fighting' implied. Bodhi sat through four more days of negotiations before Nissni finally said, "Captian Rook, Doctor Erso, this is Lady Eris. She'll be taking Captain Rook's testimony back to parliament for evaluation."

Lady Eris, a short, dark-haired older woman, gave them a dignified nod.

Bodhi said, "I could testify to them, if they'd like to ask me questions."

Nissni gave the narrow smile that Bodhi had come to recognize as utterly false. "That won't be necessary."

"Then—"

"Captain Rook," Lady Eris said, "I very much appreciate your contribution to this effort, as does the Prime Minister. I have a list of questions, if that's all right. After you've answered them, you may offer a full testimony of your own preparation."

Of course, he hadn't prepared anything. They were stacking the deck against him. Bodhi knew a rigged game when he saw one.

He could tell without even looking over that Galen felt the same way, but there was nothing to be done. He said, "Right, then. Let's go."

"You began your career as an Imperial pilot, is that correct?"

"Yes."

"And did your ideology align with then-Emperor Palpatine?"

"No! I mean—it was a job. I needed a job. They'd already started sucking Jedha dry, I couldn't stay there."

"Can you elaborate on that, please?"

He spoke for hours, about Jedha, about the planet's beliefs and how it'd been violently taken over by the Empire. He talked about his own scramble to survive and what it meant for the planet as a whole: beaten, colonized, used. Hollowed out long before the Death Star had been fired. And he talked about that as well, the totality of destruction and the terror of seeing the Death Star's power. He spoke of how it had felt to see the slim hope for better days that still lived in NiJedha obliterated.

He didn't know what he'd hoped for. Nissni's respect, perhaps, delivered as awe or sorrow for what Bodhi'd lost, and what the galaxy had lost, by allowing Jedha to die. Instead he got an impassive nod and an expressionless, "Thank you for your testimony, Captain Rook."

Then he had to sit there, like a vassal, as Galen continued negotiations. Grange wanted agricultural subsidies; the New Republic wanted tariffs for luxury exports of kilma seed. The New Republic wanted military and weapons support; Grange wanted the source code for fourth-generation shield generators. The list went on, and on, and on.

Finally, Nissni released them to the city, with his hearty thanks and a not-too-subtle suggestion that they not eat in their rooms. Galen smiled at Bodhi after Nissni left, though it was obvious his heart wasn't in it. "My apologies."

"Don't," Bodhi said. "This is your mission." This is what you want, he didn't add.

But Galen heard what he didn't say. He always did; that had been a foundation of their time on Eadu. "And not yours, because you didn't want it."

He had no right to sound disappointed in Bodhi. "I'm tired."

"We all are."

"I meant I'm going to bed." He turned away very deliberately, took one of the five steps that would end in his own room.

"I've always been a coward," Galen said quietly behind him. "About this as well, it seems."

Anger sparked in him. He turned back around, opened his mouth to dress Galen down, tell him exactly what he thought of this self-satisfaction dressed up as moralizing.

And somehow kissed Galen instead.

It was a bad idea, a miserable one. He shouldn't have done it. Every tentative action of his life, every time he'd ducked his head or turned a corner upon sighting a stormtrooper or, hell, hidden from the Rebellion's hero-worshipping elements, he'd been smarter than he was right now. But his body and his heart overruled his mind. He clutched the lapels of Galen's jacket, felt Galen's lips shift beneath his as he kissed him again, harder, open-mouthed.

It was a bad idea but it felt so good, too good. His skin sparked where Galen touched him, and when he felt long, strong fingers at the back of his head, it was all too easy to drop to his knees.

Galen wouldn't say no. Bodhi knew right then, though he'd unlearn it later, that Galen would never say no to him. He did lick his lips and say, "If you don't want this, if you're doing it because of me—"

"No," Bodhi said, and pulled Galen's cock out.

The room was utterly silent. He heard Galen's shaky breath, felt his hand moving in a staccato rhythm against Bodhi's face. He licked Galen's cock and savored the almost-suppressed moan, then wrapped his lips around Galen and sucked, fingers digging into Galen's hips to hold him close.

This had never been his favorite thing to do, but somehow Galen made it perfect. He fucked his way into Bodhi's mouth so gently, almost tenderly, whispering endearments and praise that set Bodhi aflame. When he was close to coming, Bodhi got a free hand on his own cock; when Galen pulled away to jack off into his own hand, Bodhi rested his forehead against Galen's hip and came, hard and fast, into his fist. He was shaking when Galen came back to himself, pathetically grateful when Galen invited him back to bed.

He knew it was a bad idea. He knew he'd come to regret it with time. But it had never been as easy as this, before: falling asleep in Galen's arms, the truth of Galen's regard humming around him like a comforting, invisible net.

-

At first he thought it was only a nightmare.

The alarms were distant and nonstandard, of a tone and pattern that the rest of the New Republic didn't use. It was only when the first missile crumbled the wall between his and Galen's rooms that he realized Grange was under attack.

"Go," Galen said. "I'll find Nissni." He didn't have to explain; if Nissni was dead, so was the alliance.

He met Baze and Chirrut in the hallway. "Any info?"

"Imperials," Baze spat.

A Grange pilot ran down the hall, away from the three of them. Chirrut shifted his grip on his staff. "If it comes to a ground invasion, I can fight."

Baze's gaze darkened, but he didn't argue. He looked ready for a fight himself.

Bodhi, in contrast, didn't have weapons, wasn't ready at all. He said, "Radios. They'll need people—they always do for this kind of thing. Where should I go?"

"Follow me," Chirrut said.

They had to fight their way there. The Imperial ships kept to the air, but they sent swells of troops down as well, stormtroopers who began firing even as their boots hit ground. Baze provided the cover fire, and Bodhi sprinted up the steps two at a time, to the command tower Chirrut had indicated.

"I'm here with the delegation," he said. "I'm a pilot—"

"Captain Rook," said a man he didn't know. "Yes, we know."

"I'm here to help," Bodhi said.

Later, he'd wonder why the man didn't tell him to get in the sky. Right then, only panic lived in his mind. The man said, "Sit there and relay commands," and so Bodhi did.

He was the one who turned his radio to New Republic signals; he was the one who, thus, heard Skywalker say, "Backup's here, Grange!" It was he who directed the two sets of troops, sending commands back and forth and giving advice. It was he who called an evac when a Rogue squadron plane was grounded.

Hours and hours passed. He didn't break for food and only sipped water when it was brought to him. They lost two ships, Skywalker's thankfully not among them. Apparently it was General Organa directing them from orbit; they'd had to break an Imperial blockade just to get in.

"Major to ground, anyone down there?" Skywalker said.

He sounded exhausted. Bodhi replied, "I'm still here—Captain Rook, here and ready to relay."

"Bodhi, hey. The Empire's surrendered."

"There's still fighting on the ground. The stormtroopers—"

"That's the problem," Luke said grimly. "They say to kill them."

Bodhi's head went still. He suddenly felt very cold.

"We're not going to, obviously," Luke said. "But can you direct containment?"

Stormtroopers could rarely be deprogrammed. Many elements within the New Republic, as well as separatists, would argue they shouldn't even try. But Bodhi looked at stormtroopers and saw his cousins, so he said, "Of course," and relayed the orders to their ground troops.

By the time the surrender had been secured and Galen had checked in to confirm Nissni's safety, Bodhi had been awake twenty-six hours. His body remembered this even if his mind screamed at the unfairness of it; when someone banged the door open behind him, he jumped, nerves screaming at him to be ready.

"Captain Rook?" said the woman who'd arrived. "I'm Layla, I'm your relief."

"Oh! Right. Right." He scurried out of the chair. She watched him with the odd expression he knew all too well, the expression that said, you're not what a Rogue One hero ought to be.

Which was true enough, he thought as he retreated. His mind was hazy and he half wanted to cry. They'd lost good people—no one Bodhi knew, but certainly he'd find out that one was a friend of a friend, or relative of Galen, or...

Galen. He'd checked in, as formal as could be. Bodhi had no way of knowing if he was in his rooms or not; if he was, he was probably sleeping, and Bodhi shouldn't disturb him. He'd be responsible, he thought muzzily as he climbed into his own large and cold bed. And then tomorrow he'd help convince Nissni that he needed New Republic money and ships and firepower.

He slept long and dreamlessly. When he woke, though, his too-vigilant mind informed him someone else was in the room.

Carefully, slowly, he sat up, only to see Galen slumped against the doorframe, legs akimbo on the floor, snoring so softly the HVAC almost covered up the noise.

It was such an odd image that Bodhi didn't know what to do for long moments. Finally, he climbed out of bed, walked over, and poked Galen with his toe.

Galen slumped backwards against his own closed door, and continued to almost-snore. Bodhi prodded him with his foot again—and then jumped back when Galen stiffened and opened his eyes.

"Sorry."

"Don't be." For a moment there was something in his face, something painful. A memory, a bad dream, or just a trick of the light, Bodhi wasn't sure; it disappeared as soon as he noticed it, hidden once again behind Galen's perfect mask. "I apologize for, ah. Falling asleep here."

"Why did you?" Bodhi blurted.

He didn't know what he hoped to hear, but apparently it didn't matter. Galen said, "I'm not sure. I was very tired."

He took another step back as Galen stood. "Nissni?"

Galen's smile was as dry and brittle as aged herbs. "Swears yesterday's attacks haven't changed his resolve to do what's best for Grange, not the New Republic. We'll see."

"Do you ever think about farming?"

It was enough of a non sequitor that Galen's brow furrowed. "On Grange? It's difficult to find farmland like I had here as a child."

"You mentioned it once." Long ago, on Eadu. He probably didn't even remember. "I'm sorry, I should get some caf and let you be."

"No need. I do think of it, occasionally. The truth is I made a very poor farmer, when I tried it."

When he'd lost his wife. Right. Good job, you idiot, Bodhi thought. "I'm going to go find some food. You should sleep more."

But Galen was already shaking his head. "It's Alpha shift; I have to find Nissni eventually. I'll go with you."

That was how they wound up eating together in one of the diplomatic building's cafeterias, while everyone around them not-quite-stared at them.

"I heard good things about you yesterday," Galen said.

Bodhi poked at his porridge. "I didn't do much."

"You mean you weren't in the air?"

He meant more that he'd wished very much to be anywhere else for the whole battle. He didn't answer.

"It's hard," Galen said. "Being back out there. Isn't it?"

"What would you know about it?"

Galen didn't appear to think the question was rude, though of course it was. "This is a bit like being back on Eadu. Less dangerous, obviously, but still much the same work. Lying." He let out a breathless laugh. "I'd hoped to retire with my ranite research, not try to convince another self-serving bureaucrat to do the right thing."

Bodhi couldn't think of anyone on Eadu who merited that description, except perhaps Galen himself. His confusion must have shown on his face, because Galen said, "Orson was like that once."

Orson Krennic, now-reviled Imperial war criminal. Right.

"Nothing is ever easy," Galen said. "This is my penance, which of course Senator Mothma knows. But—"

"Penance?" Blurted out stupidly. "That's ridiculous. You sabotaged the Death Star."

"You and I both know my agency in that debacle is...debated."

Bodhi did, but he'd never thought about what it meant for Galen himself. He found himself suddenly, unreasonably angry. "That's not fair."

"No," Galen said. "But it's true. I could've done more. I could've stood stronger." The ghost of a shrug. "Jyn asked me to go here. Senator Mothma ordered me to. I'll be back in my lab soon enough."

"And you told me I shouldn't go be just the pilot," Bodhi said. A spark of anger, tiny but still easy enough to feel, lit within him. "That's some nerve."

Galen managed to look surprised. "Bodhi—"

"Papa," said a cool voice behind Bodhi.

Again the mask came on. Bodhi hadn't even realized he'd dropped it. "Jyn."

"General Organa's debriefing Nissni. He claims you haven't reached an agreement yet."

"We haven't. I did say it'd be difficult."

"Why are you here with a combat squadron?" Bodhi asked.

"Just passing through." He heard a movement that was likely a shrug. "Grange's distress call wasn't going to go unignored."

"The Force called her to us."

Bodhi twisted around at that. Standing behind Jyn were Baze and Chirrut. Baze had a bandage on his shoulder; Chirrut was completely unharmed.

"The Force," Jyn said, "has an odd sense of humor." She looked at Bodhi. "May I sit?"

Galen cleared his throat. "I'll be going—"

"You should stay," Jyn said.

"Yes," Bodhi said, though he doubted Jyn would've abstained if he'd told her not to.

As Baze and Chirrut moved on, Jyn sat next to him and said, "I received new orders this morning."

"I thought you just detoured here," Galen said.

"I did." Jyn's glare looked more than a little testy. "Don't doubt that. But we intercepted messages from the nearest Loyalist ship. The Imperials think there's more to Grange than just big cities."

Galen raised his eyebrows. "Oh?"

"Power." For a moment, Jyn looked very like Galen: her expression went a bit bleak, her jaw setting in a stubborn line. "Kyber."

Bodhi couldn't hide his shocked intake of breath. Galen, on the other hand, just looked still more exhausted. "That's impossible. The planet's been scanned six times."

"Eight, now," Jyn said. "The last time with more detailed knowledge on how kyber behaves at rest. Based on your research."

"And they think they found kyber?"

"Enormous stores of it, near the planet's equator. It wasn't looked at before, because kyber wasn't thought to exist in such fertile conditions. Which you know."

Bodhi suddenly understood where she was going with it. "Jyn—"

"No. This is part of my mission, too. Tell me, Papa, did you know you were lying to the Empire when you said there was no kyber on Grange?"

"Of course."

"And did you know you were lying just now?"

"Naturally."

"Why?"

"Kyber mining is inherently destructive, and I'd hoped to work with ranite to minimize New Republic dependency on the mineral. All of that is in my file."

"Not the lying, though."

"No."

For a moment Bodhi thought the tension couldn't hold, and one of them would break into shouts. Instead, Jyn just turned, abrupt and brittle, to look at Bodhi. "He's staying on as a scientist, in a diplomatic post. Grange is about to become a major transit range. We need people running diplomatic security. You acquitted yourself well in the attack."

No. "I don't think that's—"

"You're being assigned here." Jyn glanced again at Galen, then looked away, impossible tension bringing out new lines on her face. "You'll receive your new orders in the next day's cycle. I have another assignment half a galaxy away."

He took it as the sort-of peace offer it was. "Cassian?"

"Busy."

Being court-martialed. Right. "Thank you," Bodhi said.

Jyn nodded and stood to leave.

"Jyn," Galen said.

She didn't stop to listen. Galen's expression was so bleak watching her leave that Bodhi stared at the table, trying to figure out if it'd be unforgivably rude to leave.

"I wonder," Galen finally said, "if this is some kind of abstruse payback from the universe."

Bodhi blinked.

"I did, after all, force you here. And now I'm being kept here."

"We all have orders to follow," Bodhi said.

"Indeed." Galen went back to his food.

-

He tried not to think about it. For most of the day, he did a good job. He'd told himself countless times these last five years that what was done was done; he had no real power to fix Jedha or save it. Galen had lied to save his own world while ignoring Jedha's pain: what of it? The Empire had known Jedha contained significance to the Guardians, to the Jedi, and to a dozen other Force-worshipers; the existence of kyber there wasn't in any way a secret. Galen couldn't have saved Jedha.

All of that, Bodhi knew. But his heart still ached.

Galen came to his room towards the end of the day's cycle, after overnight shifts had taken over all the constantly-manned posts. Bodhi had programmed the room to let him in no matter what. He only regretted it a little.

"I'm sorry," Galen said.

He liked to dance around the point, usually. Bodhi tried to hide his surprise.

"I've tried to get the council to approve restoration funds for Jedha, at least to allow citizens access to a new planet. I have very little sway. It hasn't been prioritized."

For a moment Bodhi's breath was trapped in his chest. He ought to say something, knew he ought to, but anything he might say escaped him. When he'd fought with his sisters as a child, his mother had told him that a true apology wasn't a matter of pleasure or pride, but humility. Galen looked close to dropping to his knees and begging for forgiveness right then.

Bodhi hated it.

"It wouldn't help," he said, then winced. "I don't mean—it was more than just the planet. More than the people." Or, more precisely, the people and the moon had been so close together that he'd once thought them inextricable. He'd met very few survivors since then; none of them had been untouched by the Empire's destruction.

"I know. Still."

Bodhi, at a loss for anything else to do, nodded. "Thank you."

Galen didn't leave. He hovered, instead, with a frustrated look on his face.

"Yes?" Bodhi said finally.

"On Eadu," Galen said, then stopped.

The silence was more than Bodhi could take. "What?"

"Did I...that is, did we..."

He'd never before known Galen stutter. Of course, this was a subject that made Bodhi feel as though his throat was being squeezed, that made the ghost of the bor gullet snicker as panic slowly overtook his mind. Maybe that was how Galen felt, a bit. Maybe he had his own bor gullet equivalent. "Did we what?"

"I took advantage."

Bodhi blinked. Then he blinked again as he said, "Excuse me?"

"Back on Eadu. I wanted—well, that's beside the point. It was unethical. Wrong. I shouldn't have—"

"We had this argument already, I'm pretty sure." The bor gullet had ruined his mind, but it hadn't been that thorough. "I almost begged you. I wanted you so badly." He laughed in spite of himself. "I thought I was in love with you."

He watched as Galen absorbed that blow. Then he continued. "I also thought this would be easier, you know. I figured I was done with the days of feeling like—like everything was wrong, like I didn't know anything. But here I am."

"This isn't like Eadu." Not quite a confident statement.

"No," Bodhi allowed, "but it's not comfortable, either. And that's because of you. Again."

"You weren't happy," Galen said.

Bodhi didn't know if he meant on Eadu, or delivering ranite. He was right either way, but he was also wrong. "Jedha kids haven't been happy for decades. I had a living."

"You'll have a living here, too."

Bodhi shook his head. "But it won't be quiet, and that's what I wanted."

"And so," Galen said, "you see, I was right after all." A small smile, bitter and self-hating. "I took advantage, back on Eadu. I continue to take advantage."

The trap of his logic closed around Bodhi, and he found himself unable to speak.

"I came here to apologize," Galen said. "And it's selfish; I'm well aware of that. Ultimately, I hope you'll forgive the unforgivable."

"I did," Bodhi said. "I mean, I do. I said yes. I'm not angry." Though of course he had been, these last few days.

"I was lonely on Eadu." Galen smiled a little. It wasn't flattering; it made him look still older, and very tired. "And so I followed the tradition of lonely men, and found someone warm."

The worst part of it was, he wanted to reach out to Galen even now. He tried so hard to do the right thing, but in the end he twisted himself up over it the same way Bodhi did.

"I'm not just someone warm," he made himself say.

"No. You're someone extraordinary."

He didn't say it like a flowery compliment, didn't phrase it as a come-on. And yet Bodhi felt himself flare up in response. 'I thought I was in love with you'—what a crock. He still did, he still was. He might never stop.

He wanted to step forward and kiss Galen, to pull him down on the bed, to find out how long he could fuck Galen before they both collapsed. He wanted to forget about the last several years and believe in a simpler, happier life.

Even as he thought about such things, the bor gullet laughed in his mind. He sighed. "Thank you for apologizing."

Galen nodded and took a step back. "Sleep well."

Bodhi didn't. He lay awake for hours, burning with want, his heart tight in his chest.

-

Diplomatic work was difficult, because people kept treating him like a hero.

Most of the people involved in Intelligence knew enough not to bring it up to him. But the diplomatic corps was different. The people here were younger, and both more idealistic and less...determined. They'd enlisted after the fall of the Empire, mostly. They understood very little about what had been required to bring that about.

And so, in their ignorance, they'd ask Bodhi about himself as he directed them to land or welcomed them to Grange. They'd say things like, 'it must've been scary, on Scarif'. And because Bodhi was an attaché to the diplomatic corps, he couldn't say, "Yes, it was very scary watching good men die on a suicide mission." He couldn't say, "well, I'd been tortured half mad, so it wasn't as bad as it could've been." He had to be calm, and polite, and endorse the good name of the New Republic.

He didn't hate all of it. He enjoyed being involved and getting to make decisions about the diplomatic fleet, setting up patrols and sending cargo to and fro. But he hated the parts that involved talking, and that was a lot of it.

As the ranking officer managing communications, he could have avoided as many of the less plum shifts as he chose. Under the New Republic's command, however, he felt bound to manage things fairly, and so he took quite a few late shifts. They had the added benefit of being quiet, most of the time.

On this particular night, he'd been on duty for several hours and was scanning the New Republic's wavelengths for the third or fourth time when he caught a bit of static that, upon halting the scanner, resolved into a voice he didn't recognize.

"...tired of this," the voice said. "The Senator has my respect, of course, but the fact remains that her estimations have been...optimistic. Funds to rebuild Grange will never be allocated the way she's promised."

"I agree," said another strange voice. "But—halt."

Bodhi stiffened.

"Compromise," the second voice said. "Alpha fallback."

The signal band went silent.

He spent several minutes searching the radios, looking for the same communication signature. He found nothing. He logged it as a strange communication, but didn't include any details. What he'd heard put his back up. If whoever'd been on that band had access to the logs, he didn't want them to know how much he'd heard.

After sending a slightly more complete report to Jyn, he went back to work. It was Intelligence's job to deal with potential threats. He had nothing more to do.

He had the following day off. In the last couple weeks, he'd taken to meeting Galen for a meal on days like this. Galen had few friends on Grange; he never talked about it, but Bodhi'd gotten the impression that his status here was closer to infamy than fame. He seemed perfectly content to sit with Bodhi in mostly-silence. If he felt the horrible pull to touch that Bodhi did, he didn't mention it.

Today, however, Bodhi struggled to hide his distraction. The fourth time he replied to something Galen said with only, "Hmm," Galen put his fork down. "What's on your mind?"

"Sorry?"

"I could announce I'd found a way to turn ranite into Jedi-quality sabers right now and I think you'd just say, hmm. What's happened?"

"Nothing." But Bodhi had never been a good liar. "It's classified. Probably."

That got a smile from Galen. "In all likelihood I have clearance."

Bodhi picked at his food. It wasn't like he hadn't known the Rebellion wasn't universally loved. But this felt much bigger and scarier than anything he'd done on Grange so far. Worse, in some ways, than the Imperial loyalist attack. "I'd rather not say."

"Did you report it? Whatever it is."

Bodhi nodded.

"All right, then." A pause, and Bodhi felt a tweak of something odd. He looked up to find Galen looking at him, nervousness obvious.

"What is it?"

"The Prime Minister tells me I can expect to have you as an attaché, should I travel to Lisma City to speak with the separatists."

"What?"

"Ah, so no one mentioned it to you."

"No."

Galen smiled sadly. "It's fine. I can book civilian passage, if need be."

"We could get you a ship." The route-flow management software planned several trips to Lisma City per day; it was a popular destination. But—"Why would you need me?"

"Testimony, still," Galen said. "And, frankly, I trust you to fly me out of there if it gets bad."

Bodhi swallowed. His throat felt dry, his stomach churned. He wanted to call Galen on the lie, to point out that he could testify via holovid, live or recorded. He wanted to say: when will you ask me, I'm waiting for you to ask me. He wanted to remind Galen that he was a coward, and if Galen was waiting for him, he'd be waiting forever.

But then, maybe Galen wasn't waiting. The only way to know was to ask, and Bodhi wasn't about to do that.

He said, "I suppose I'd better go, then."

"Only if it won't interfere with your other duties."

He thought of the malicious voices on the other end of the radio. He could listen in just as easily in Lisma City. "No. It won't."

"Good." Galen's smile felt like those moments in Jedha when the sun had begun to warm the frigid sand, so full of hope and possibility. "I've missed the Sunrise."

Bodhi had, impossibly, missed having Galen on it. He said, "We'll rendezvous tomorrow, then," and all but ran away.

"You need a friend," Chirrut said that night, in the Communications Department's common room.

Bodhi looked up from where he was charting potential points of defense for Lisma City. "Excuse me?"

"The Force moves around you restlessly. You're churning beneath the surface, like an iced-over ocean."

Chirrut's similes had only grown more flowery as he'd spent more time away from Jedha. "I see."

"If you're not careful, you'll leave your destiny in the ruins of NiJedha."

He recoiled at that in spite of himself. "Don't talk about Jedha that way, man."

"If you seek to honor Jedha, you shouldn't hide from the Force's intentions."

In a sense, Chirrut's obtuseness was comforting. The Guardians had always been like this, borderline impossible to communicate with and maddening to disagree with. "Why don't you tell me what you want, then?"

"He's trying to say we're going with you to Lisma," Baze said.

"Lisma City," Bodhi said. "And—what?"

"Not with you, actually," Chirrut said. "Baze got his own ship." Something about the fact amused him. "But we'll be there. You should spend time with us, as friends do."

"So you can try to convince me to take whatever military post Senator Mothma tries to shove off on me?"

"So we can help you find the person who threatens Grange's existence."

That was a trap, of course. Doing sleuthing was joining the war effort as surely as accepting the datachip from Galen had been. But then, he'd never really had a choice, and he knew it. "How do you know about them? Don't just say 'the Force'."

"Bad news," Baze said.

Bodhi groaned. "Fine. We'll work on it when we get there."

"There you go." Chirrut patted his shoulder.

Bodhi very much wished it didn't feel like a court sentence.

-

Lisma City was old, by galactic standards. The kyber generators that powered significant parts of the city were housed in ugly ferrocrete outhouses that attached to much more graceful metal and stone facades. Upon stepping into the transporter that would take him from the Sunrise to his suite, Bodhi's first thought was that the buildings looked a bit like Galen, or he looked like them. Then he mentally smacked himself for being a romantic fool.

But Galen was definitely more at home here, far from Nissni. He oversaw a team of fifteen, outfitting a research lab as well as preparing his remarks for the first of several months of talks between the New Republic, Grange, and the Separatists. Bodhi hung around the edges of the preparations and learned that the semi-permanent outpost was a compromise between Senator Mothma and Galen. He could continue to work on ranite most of the time, and his presence would help along negotiation efforts that would now be led by others. The kyber mining that would eventually happen near Grange's equator would be carried out as delicately as possible.

Bodhi himself reported to a Lieutenant Glautern for his assignments as the chief communications officer of the new base. Glautern was an older woman with a level gaze; she'd been, he learned via whispered gossip, an embedded communications operator with the Rebellion. She had a scar across her left eye that made look overly fierce even when she smiled, but she regarded and treated Bodhi with kindness.

"I'm overseeing the air patrols; you'll be responsible for more mundane flight paths, docking, and so on, as well as maintaining communications with the Republic's station." So they can land if the Separatists try anything was left unsaid. "Of course, that means if we're attacked again, you'll have to coordinate various units."

Bodhi nodded. "I've done that before."

She raised an eyebrow. "So I'm told."

Bodhi was pretty sure she laughed at him after that, as he stuttered and fumbled with his things. But it wasn't too bad. Even if it wasn't hauling ranite or repairing speeders, both far away from the action, he had a job that mostly wasn't exciting. That was all he wanted.

And best of all, though he was technically Galen's attaché in addition to being a New Republic officer, he hardly ever saw Galen. After the first few weeks of occasionally retrieving Bodhi to have lunch, Galen stopped doing even that regularly, and then Bodhi only saw him once, to record his testimony for the court. Something had changed, something beyond Galen just deciding Bodhi wasn't needed as much. Bodhi thought he might've been supposed to ask about it.

He didn't. Every day that went by without him seeing Galen, the twisted mess of emotions in his gut became a bit easier to bear.

A month and a half into his new position, though, everything went to hell.

It started off innocuous enough. Bodhi received a request to land from a New Republic fighter. Military vehicles being common, he didn't question it, assigned them a landing pad and an inspection officer.

Then the voice came over the radio: "Actually, Officer Rook, I'm supposed to meet with you. General Skywalker out."

Bodhi had heard that Skywalker had a flair for the dramatic. Experiencing it was more than a little disconcerting. He could only sit there, waiting, until Luke Skywalker himself entered the bridge, looking out the window at Lisma City like he popped in for a visit all the time.

"It's wonderful to meet you," Skywalker said. "I've heard so much about you."

"Augh," Bodhi said.

Skywalker smiled. Either he was used to stunned responses, or he was one of the more clueless people Bodhi'd ever met. "Bodhi Rook, right? One of the people from Scarif who—"

"Pilot, I was the pilot," Bodhi said. "It's, um, nice to meet you." What did you say to a legend?

"You're like a legend with us, still," Skywalker said.

Bodhi blinked, and for a moment, the world shifted. He sat in front of Skywalker, but he also stood on the beach, with blaster shots flying every which way and terror forcing its way up his throat.

No. "Thanks," he said. "Are you, um. Why are you here?"

So much for diplomacy. But Skywalker again didn't seem to notice or care. "Actually, I got a message saying you might be looking for a teacher."

"I know how to fly." Just because he'd failed the Imperial exams for starfighters -

"No, no, I meant with the Force."

It was like being told a Wookiee had contracted him for marriage on Coruscant. The words simply didn't process for a moment, and then when they did, he could only say, "What?"

Finally, awareness appeared in Skywalker's expression. "Oh. They didn't tell you."

"No. And I'd appreciate it if you did—I mean. If I knew what was going on. I'd like to know, actually I need to know." He clenched his jaw shut before he could keep babbling.

"I'm here to train you in the Force," Skywalker said.

The bottom fell out of Bodhi's world.

-

Once, on Eadu, after Galen had kissed him but several months before he'd fucked him and sent him to the bor gullet, Galen had made a confession.

"There are people," he'd told Bodhi over a bowl of noodles, "who will always know you better than yourself. People who see where, and how, to press buttons and to find levers."

"That's manipulation," Bodhi'd said. "Which I'm not too naive to understand, thanks."

"Of course. But you're not one of those people; you can't be. I'm telling you it will be useful to you, to look out for them. To guard against being used for others' agendas."

Bodhi had looked at Galen then, at the intense expression on his face, the confused and raw honesty he saw there, and thought: does he think he's one of them? He couldn't possibly be.

He hadn't had time to revise his opinion, before Scarif. After, it hurt too much to think about at all.

-

"I heard you caused a bit of a ruckus today," Galen said.

Bodhi didn't turn around. He'd allowed Galen automatic entry to his rooms because, given his current career trajectory, it seemed polite. He should've removed it. "What did you tell them?"

"Nothing," Galen said. "Or, rather, I told them you wouldn't welcome training, even from the last Jedi."

Bodhi shook his head, unable to make sense of the words. "Someone had to have—you had the kyber—"

"Someone did," Galen said. He looked at Bodhi with an expression Bodhi wasn't used to anymore, halfway between condescension and pity. "The Empire kept up testing for several years after the death of the Old Republic. Jedha City was a famous outlier; most Force sensitive children were hidden early on, or taken by the Guardians."

Bodhi closed his eyes. "No."

"Records were kept, encrypted and hidden within the temple's records." Galen at least had the grace not to sound happy about it. "Your name was on them. You'd have been six years old."

His mother looking down at him with disappointment and terror; his uncle gone on an errand he didn't come back from. "So that's how Chirrut knew. Because of that."

"Not directly. Suspected, perhaps. He knew how to decrypt the records. You're one of Jedha's only Force-sensitive survivors, certainly its youngest."

Bodhi swallowed past nausea. It wasn't like he hadn't known Jedha's children had died. "If you know this much about Jedha, you'll know we're not—we weren't too big on Jedi training. There are other faiths, other disciplines."

"You've told me about them," Galen said by way of agreement. "Luke was chosen due to a dearth of options, and due to your own potential, even late in life."

Bodhi almost laughed at that. "Right, sure. I don't want it."

"There are others who will find you and attempt to exert influence."

"Then let me talk to someone who teaches me to control it, not to use it." Bodhi clenched his hands. "I'll tell them, I'll tell Skywalker directly. I don't want this."

Galen could've left then. He should've, Bodhi thought, since he'd made it very clear what he thought of Galen's explanation. Instead, Galen said, "Skywalker can teach you control. You needn't carry a saber."

"Thanks, that's really comforting."

Galen looked at him a bit more sharply then. "You can't just avoid it. The potential will be there no matter what."

"If I could carve it out, I would."

"Don't."

Bodhi lost his breath. He'd seen Galen upset before, sad, furious. He'd seen Galen on Eadu, after all, and they'd both been desperate then. But now, it was as though a dam Bodhi hadn't even noticed had cracked open in front of him. This Galen looked wild-eyed and very close to doing something terrible.

"Don't ever say that." Galen took a ragged breath, clenching and unclenching his fist. "There are so few of you. Fewer every year, it seems, and you'd rather spend your talents fixing speeders on the Ring of Kafrene?"

Bodhi didn't know how to make Galen understand. He was, in fact, uncertain that it was possible. How to do it, when he wasn't sure himself? He liked the idea of being a hero, and in some ways always had. He liked thinking about doing his mother proud, ensuring that the memory of Jedha would be carried on even after his bones had crumbled to so much dust. But when he tried...

Who had said trying was noble? Bodhi'd like to have a word with them. Chirrut carried on like he was still a Guardian, but Bodhi startled at loud noises. Baze dealt with everyone with the same grim competence, but when Bodhi encountered newly made citizens of the New Republic, he wanted to scream that them: were you happy under the Emperor? Did you think it was normal when the Death Star destroyed planets? How could you? Who are you?

"I suppose I would," he said finally, knowing and hating himself for a coward. "It was quiet there."

Something was going on here, Bodhi thought, beyond simple recruitment. Galen looked at him with haunted eyes and gave him a smile so brittle and bitter that Bodhi half expected it to cut him. "I suppose it was," Galen said. "You should talk to Luke, at least. Explain yourself to him."

Because he was a hero, a real legend, who'd traveled far to investigate the pilot with sensitivities. Right. "Sure."

Galen's shoulders relaxed a bit; his hands unclenched. The deep lines in his face didn't fade—they never did—but his face managed to become less harsh anyway. He was again the Galen that Bodhi remembered from Eadu, the one he now knew was a falsehood: generous, kind, rich, complacent.

"Stop," Bodhi found himself saying.

Galen raised his eyebrows. "I beg your pardon?"

"This. All of this." Bodhi waved a hand in Galen's general direction. "You're lying, again, still. Stop it. Unless you really want me to just—hop in a speeder and go back to Yavin Four."

"You'd do that?"

"You know I would," Bodhi said. "Grange is humid. I'm not fond."

"No, I don't suppose you would be. Though Yavin Four is humid too."

A smirk, now, which looked like it had taken lessons from Orson Krennic's old slimy-toad expressions. Bodhi gritted his teeth. "You don't have to lie to me. Not here." Inches from Bodhi's bed, much as they'd been when Galen had handed Bodhi the chip -

Much as he'd been in the dreams the bor gullet stole away, and the nightmares it put in their place.

"I don't know what you mean." Still those oily, lying tones, that same expression which, all on its own, communicated falsehoods.

"This—you were like this before. Don't pretend you don't remember, don't say—"

Galen fell to his knees, and Bodhi went silent.

"I lied to Luke Skywalker," Galen said. "And, of course, he knew I was lying. He's young, but he's not stupid."

I'm young, Bodhi didn't say.

"The truth is I'd rather ship you off than risk someone else taking you. Even Skywalker." He took a ragged breath. "Taking you from me."

The world went very still.

He'd known, of course. Not in any kind of conscious sense. He didn't wake up in the morning, look at the ceiling, and think: Galen loves me. He didn't eat his lunch thinking about Galen wanting to protect him. He didn't go into the canteen at dinner with the confidence of someone who had the ear of a traitor, or hero, depending on the day and the faction discussing him.

And yet he'd known all the same, the same way he'd know if his heart suddenly stopped beating, the same way he knew when a storm was rolling in. He looked at Galen and he saw, only and impossibly, the same person he'd always seen.

He discovered an inconvenience: he couldn't speak. But Bodhi had learned to be resourceful; he leaned forward instead, closing the space between them and pressing his lips against Galen's.

Galen sighed, then kissed back. He'd always been like this; the bor gullet had stolen some memories, but not the ones of Galen hesitating, almost pulling back even as he used his own hands to hold Bodhi's head and press him closer. And Bodhi had missed this. He'd dreamed of it, of Galen tilting his head up to kiss back, slightly-shaking fingers combing through Bodhi's hair.

"I'll talk to Skywalker," he said when they pulled apart. "I'm sorry—I'll talk to him."

"Don't apologize," Galen said, but relief spread over his face, and he pressed his forehead against Bodhi's for a long moment, breathing deeply. "Thank you."

"It's not for you."

Galen smiled at that, an honest and real smile. "I know."

Bodhi wanted very desperately to pull Galen onto the bed and finish what he'd started. But he'd always been scared of moments like this. Impulse made it harder to panic, but now he had time to think that perhaps Galen had only been humoring him, or indulging in nostalgia, or lying to him—again, or placating him, or a dozen other motivations that had nothing to do with the horrible, desperate hunger Bodhi felt coursing through him.

He still wasn't brave. He was starting to think he'd never be brave. He found he couldn't make himself move.

"What will he do?"

"Skywalker? He'll train you. Teach you to understand...what you can reach, and how."

"In the Jedi tradition."

Galen didn't miss a step. "That's what it implies. I know it's not the Jedha way."

"There is no Jedha way."

"The destruction of Jedha-"

With this, Bodhi could stand up for himself. "There were a dozen ways in NiJedha alone. That's what I mean. The Jedi never understood it, but me..." He shrugged. Even as a kid he'd never questioned that plurality. Explaining it now felt like explaining why space was silent.

"Tell him," Galen said. "You can make him understand."

Bodhi stared at Galen. Then he stared some more, because Galen didn't understand, really. He didn't understand at all.

Finally, he managed to say, "I didn't tell you this so he could understand."

Galen looked frustrated, for some reason. "He needs to. If he's to train you, to help you—"

"I wanted you to understand."

"I won't be training you in the ways of the Force." And for some reason, he spoke like he'd sucked on a sournut, all pinched expression and disappearing lips. "That's Luke's—Skywalker's—job. I'll be doing what I've always been, which is of little relevance to you. As you've told me."

"Unbelievable," Bodhi said before he could think better of it.

"What?"

He shook his head. "You'd better leave, then." In his chest his heart beat in rapid time. He wanted to shout, or at least to demand an answer: had they not just kissed? Had Bodhi lied to himself about it? Had he imagined sucking Galen's cock before the attack? Perhaps it was the bor gullet again, twisting his understanding of the here and now. He thought he'd felt something, care or at least lust, but now—now it sounded like Galen thought himself a bureaucrat, securing Bodhi's consent for some dull procedure.

"Bodhi," Galen said, in exactly the sort of placating tones a licensing officer would use.

"Get out," Bodhi bit out. "If you're here to make me amenable to being told to stand on my head and feel the wind, just leave."

Galen stood. Bodhi's heart twisted in his chest as he looked up, determined to outlast this horrible, ridiculous, shameful moment. Galen looked down at him with a blankness and near-condescension that he very simply could not bear.

"I'd hoped to convince you this was worth fighting for," Galen said. "Though truth be told, I've never liked Skywalker much. I see I was mistaken. He'll be on his own, then." He turned, finally, to leave.

And Bodhi knew himself to be a fool right then, because he hopped off the bed and half-ran to the door. "So that's that? You're giving up?"

"On advocating for Skywalker? I should have done already."

"On—"

Me. This. The words were trapped in his throat and he cursed himself in every language he knew. Galen watched him with too-alert eyes; Bodhi wasn't sure if he saw fear there, or if it was only his own cowardice, forever reflected back.

The universe whispered to him then: they'd stood like this before, once. Bodhi with his back to a door he'd back out of, never to return. Galen looking haggard, tired, and bitter.

They'd won. He wanted to scream it. Against all odds, against all rationality, they'd won and they lived, and neither of them had any right to be the same people they'd been before. The sheer fact of living through it should have lifted them up.

He was still so afraid.

And yet he knew suddenly that if he stepped aside, that'd finally be the end of it. He'd leave Grange, or be transferred; Galen would leave him alone. He wanted that, he reminded himself.

But he wanted Galen's touch more. The body again overruled the brain: he reached out and took hold of Galen's hands in a bruising grip, pulling him forward, pressing his own back against the door as he kissed Galen.

It wasn't a gentle kiss, or a slow one. What started as furious cowardice rapidly became need, coursing through him and lighting his nerves on fire. Galen slumped against the door like he'd never really intended to leave, and Bodhi pressed him against it bruisingly hard, kissing and biting him, pressing a hand against the spot where Galen's cock strained against his pants.

"Don't move," he said, and dropped to his knees.

Galen had always wanted this. That was the secret that, Bodhi suspected, kept him up at night: Galen wanted to see Bodhi on his knees, had half entertained Krennic's offer to transfer Bodhi's assignment to Galen's lab. He'd have never agreed to it, but the want was there.

It scared Galen, and it thrilled Bodhi down to his toes.

Galen scraped his nails against the door when Bodhi nuzzled his cock. He looked up and said, "Touch me, c'mon," and so Galen did, his breathing coming in broken gasps even as Bodhi took his cock in his mouth.

This time, he didn't quite want Galen's tenderness, and Galen didn't quite want to give it to him. He petted Bodhi's hair one moment and jerked his hips the next. He rubbed his thumb over Bodhi's lips as his cock moved against them, then fell back against the door, moving helplessly as Bodhi sucked harder.

It was messy, he'd have bruises the next day, and Bodhi didn't want it to stop. He drew it out, pulling back when Galen seemed close, digging his nails cruelly into Galen's thigh. Finally, though, he couldn't resist; he pulled off of Galen's cock, licking the tip and jacking him hard and fast, until Galen came in his mouth, moaning almost silently, one hand twisting in the fabric of Bodhi's jacket.

They wound up on the bed somehow, even though Bodhi had thought Galen would leave. On Eadu they'd been secretive and rushed, and Galen had jacked Bodhi off with his eyes closed and hands shaking. Now, Galen was the one on his back, pulling Bodhi on top of him, kissing him and using his quick hands to get their clothes off.

"Are you," Bodhi said, with no real idea of what he intended to say. But it didn't matter; Galen nodded jerkily and spread his legs.

It felt like being hit with a concussive blast. For a moment he couldn't breathe. Then he scrambled, slicking his fingers and pressing them into Galen, watching as Galen arched his back and moved with it.

His cock was soft, but he didn't seem to care. He watched Bodhi with narrowed, intent eyes. When Bodhi twisted his fingers, pressing up, Galen's lips parted on a quiet gasp—but he still didn't look away, didn't still his hips or his fingers, which stroked up to Bodhi's neck and down to his elbow over and over.

He hadn't expected this: shocking intimacy, overwhelming desire. He hadn't thought he'd be the one pressing Galen's legs apart wider and wider, tilting his hips to get a good angle as he slowly pressed inside.

It overwhelmed him in the best possible way. He couldn't stifle the noises he made then, and didn't bother trying not to move. The greediness, the want, the sheer desperation of it all overcame him; he fucked Galen, bent in half to kiss him, let the pleasure fill him over and over. And Galen—Galen moved with him, lifted his hips and whispered, "Harder," even as Bodhi reached the edge and fell over it, sparks igniting behind his vision.

When the world stopped spinning, it was Galen who disengaged them and pulled a sheet up. His too-quick fingers went to work stroking Bodhi's hair, and it wasn't even that comfortable, lying surrounded by Galen's arms, because Galen's knees were knobby and Bodhi's arm was falling asleep, but none of that mattered. He had the warmth and the safety he'd only half dreamed of, even if it'd leave in the morning.

The bor gullet did not trouble him that night.

-

He didn't expect to wake up the next morning, roll over, and see Galen sleeping mere centimeters away. For a moment his mind gave over to absolute panic: he'd never slept over with anyone, and on Eadu Galen had kicked him out early, datachip in hand, knowing that if he didn't the cameras would catch something they shouldn't.

But he was safe here, he tried to remind his racing heart. No one was out to kill anyone else—well, almost no one, rogue Senators aside. And he had privacy, and freedom. It was completely different.

If only he could convince his idiot mind of that.

"It gets easier," Galen said softly.

Bodhi went very still. "I don't know what you mean."

Galen's hand reached out, gently covering Bodhi's wrist. "Respiration. Heartbeat. You're scared."

Bodhi closed his eyes as shame crested in his heart.

"Do you remember what I told you, on Eadu?"

"You told me a lot of things." You can make it right.

"I thought it'd be over after I was rescued from the Separatists." Bodhi watched Galen smile, thin and bitter. "Then I thought it'd be over after I was persecuted by Krennic. But it's not, you see. It never is."

"Thanks," Bodhi said, disbelieving. "That's definitely what I needed to hear." In bed, when struggling with a love Galen clearly didn't realize he carried.

"It's never over," Galen said, "But there are reasons to continue. And it does get better with time." He touched Bodhi's hip, stroking a calloused finger over his skin, making him shiver.

Still, it wasn't enough. "Until the next war, you mean."

"If we're lucky, there won't be a next war."

"Do you think we will be?"

He meant it as a loaded question. Galen responded in kind, pulling away.

"I'm sorry."

"No, no." Galen's smile felt a bit like a slap. "I was just thinking of other, cynical old friends."

Saw Gerrera's deadened eyes flashed through Bodhi's mind. "I hope there won't be. Another war."

"So does Skywalker. He's optimistic about it, even. But I almost think you should talk to Senator Organa. She thinks similarly to you."

Bodhi couldn't, for the life of him, figure out if that was meant as an insult or not. "I have to get back to work."

"As do I."

"Ranite research?"

"You don't sound nearly as contemptuous about it as my colleagues."

"Technically, I am a colleague," Bodhi couldn't help but say. At your bidding, he didn't add.

But Galen clearly also thought of what he wouldn't say. "And yet, you believe in what I'm doing."

"You've proven competent in the past."

Galen's smile was more than a little bitter. "I suppose that's true enough."

"I'll be on the radios."

Galen nodded. Bodhi waited, and waited, and waited.

Galen blinked. "Ah," he said, and removed himself from Bodhi's bed.

There was a moment, then, when Bodhi might have pulled him back down. When he might have leaned down himself and kissed Bodhi, seduced an invitation to stay out of him.

But they'd both grown either too honest or too cautious for such things. Galen left before another five minutes had passed, and Bodhi prepared for the rest of his day alone.

-

"I've been told to try again," said Luke Skywalker from the door of Bodhi's office.

He turned, unsurprised. "And I've been given less work than usual. What a coincidence."

Bright teeth flashed in a smile. "Well, don't worry, I can keep you busy. Um, with learning the Force, obviously."

"Right. I got that part."

"We can start here, I guess." Skywalker looked around. Bodhi had kept his office mostly clear; it was reminiscent of Jedha in that way, unadorned compared to a Coruscant bureaucrat's dwelling. "How much do you know about the Force?"

"How much do you know about Jedha?"

"After reading up on the Rogue One crew, a lot. But of course I'm always ready to learn more."

Bodhi almost wanted to laugh. Here was Luke Skywalker, the last living Jedi, biting his lip and looking hopeful like he thought Bodhi might cut him a deal on the season's last precious fruits. "We know a decent amount about the Force. It's hard to ignore there. Or it was."

"Ah," Skywalker said quietly. "May the Force be with those you lost."

Warmth filled him, even as his mind rebelled. "It was years ago now."

"Still."

Still, the moon that had been Jedha would be in the process of disintegrating for years yet. Still, Bodhi would carry the memory of Jedha, the cold nights and community, the faith and the fighting, until he died.

"Solitude doesn't work for some people," Luke said. "But I suspect it will for you." He put a hand on Bodhi's shoulder, warm and heavy. "You probably won't want to control the Force."

Bodhi snorted. "Even I know it can't be controlled."

"That's not quite true." But Luke's voice was warm with amusement. "The Jedi focus on directing it, and it works pretty well. But people like Baze and Chirrut have a different perspective."

"Guardians."

"Yes. And there are monks, other factions, spiritual practitioners...you know all this."

He did, but he didn't want to talk about it. Before the Empire had really ramped up kyber extraction on Jedha, you could pick any block of NiJedha and find sixteen different faith traditions represented in the crowd. He'd grown up with that, and to be told now of the sterile Jedi understanding of the Force was almost more than he could bear.

"If you don't want to control it, that's all right," Luke said. "We can just go over the basics for now - uh, or permanently," he added when Bodhi glared a bit.

But he'd told Galen he'd try. "That might work."

Luke's smile was so bright and naive it almost hurt to look at.

He went over the usual stuff, how to meditate and concentrate, how to feel the Force around them. Bodhi found himself almost shocked by how easy it was to latch onto. Luke left him meditating alone, then, and for once Bodhi turned his thoughts away from the bor gullet and its creeping insinuation of death. Instead, he thought of the quiet of space, the beauty of Jedha after a rare storm, the smiles he'd drawn from his mother as a child.

The universe could go on without him. That was a fact he'd clung to for some time. But sitting there alone, feeling the Force all around him, he understood something else: the universe in all its indifference still saw each and every one of them.

-

He couldn't stop thinking of the Senator on the unknown frequency.

He'd passed on a report, and it had been received with the usual 'thanks, we'll check it out' almost-brush-off. He understood; they had nothing to go on, and they must receive reports of near-insurrection regularly. But the malice of the voice, the sheer hatred Bodhi had heard...

It was difficult to think about. He half wished he could forget it, so that if he didn't do anything, he wouldn't remember enough to feel guilt. Instead the necessity of action haunted him. Working with Luke almost made it worse, because the Force was disturbed on Grange in a way he knew Luke also felt.

"I tried to send in a report," he said one day. "I heard people talking about pushing out the New Republic, on a hidden radio band. So I tried."

"They get dozens of reports a day. I've tried to tell them everything's disturbed, but of course things are, given how much is going on."

"Is there anything I can do?"

Luke's mouth twisted in that way that meant he was thinking of something else, something he wouldn't tell Bodhi. "They should listen to you. You're a hero."

Bodhi shook his head, not responding. If only it was that simple.

He felt the Force more and more now. Or, no, that wasn't quite right. He acknowledged the Force more and more, and came to realize he'd been feeling it often. It was in the wind and rain on Grange, and it was in the ranite crystals that hummed whenever he went into Galen's lab.

That was happening more and more, too. Galen didn't touch him again, but he looked at Bodhi with exhausted, wanting eyes. At night the bor gullet laughed at him; he often woke drenched in sweat.

In an effort to avoid a third consecutive night of bad dreams, Bodhi found himself drinking in the common room. Pilots and techs that he knew came and went, but no one stopped to talk to him until Chirrut and Baze entered the room. Then, Bodhi didn't get a chance to take another drink; Chirrut made a beeline for him and said, "The Force is strong with you."

"That's the ale, I think," Baze said.

"He jokes because he can feel it, too." Chirrut cocked his head. "Skywalker's not so sure about how to teach you."

"He told me his training was different." And then, because Chirrut was also of Jedha, because Chirrut knew what they'd lost, Bodhi said, "I'm not so sure about it, really. I don't want to have a lightsaber or commit to the New Jedi Order."

"He won't ask you to," Baze said. It sounded like a threat more than anything else.

Bodhi understood why when he looked back at Chirrut. His expression was shadowed, his emotions unusually banked. "I know," Bodhi said, "that the Jedi weren't Jedha's favorite."

"They were dogmatic and dominating," Chirrut said. "The Force was strong with them, but they used it as a servant, and then were surprised when the Sith returned."

"The Dark side—"

"Is still the Force," Chirrut said.

Bodhi couldn't think of anything to say in response. Certainly he couldn't argue. Luke had taught him as much, but even if he hadn't, he'd have felt it. He did feel it.

"Enough of sad memories," Baze said. "We came here to drink."

"I'll get you a round." Bodhi hastened to the drink dispensers, returning with a pitcher of fluorescent green Grange ale.

"To Jedha, and her memories," Chirrut said, raising his tankard.

Bodhi drank more deeply than he should have—and that, it turned out, was only the beginning. For a monk, Chirrut wasn't exactly devoted to abstinence, or even moderation. He goaded Baze into trying to keep pace with him, laughing when Bodhi asked how it was that Baze couldn't drink all of them under the table. For all Bodhi knew, Chirrut was using the Force to keep himself sober; the fact of it was that by the beginning of the overnight shift, Bodhi was drunk enough to feel joyous and friendly towards, Chirrut, Baze, the Force, and even Grange, humid political nightmare that it was.

"I should go," he said.

Chirrut clapped him on the back. "So you keep saying. Another?"

Bodhi yawned and fell off the bench.

"Oh," he said, blinking at the ceiling.

"I've called a droid." That wasn't Chirrut or Baze, but another woman, one of the pilots—one of Bodhi's pilots!

"I'm in charge of you," Bodhi said, lifting his head from the floor so he could peer at her suspiciously.

She smiled, apparently at peace with her insubordination. "Yes, sir. And you'll be in charge of me tomorrow at the overnight shift, too."

"Good, good. I can sleep it off." His neck gave up on him, and he found himself again looking at the ceiling.

"Captain Rook," said the droid. "I have been instructed to return you to your quarters." It leaned down and picked him up. "Please follow me."

"May the Force be with you!" Chirrut called, waving as Bodhi was wheeled away.

"Drink some water," Baze added.

Bodhi waved weakly. The spinning of the room wasn't exactly lessened by the droid's movements. "I'll need a tincture," he said. "For the hangover."

"All remedies will be delivered to your quarters," the droid said.

Time again went a bit fuzzy. The Force swirled and bent around him. "That's the alcohol," Bodhi said to no one in particular.

"I imagine it is," Galen responded.

"Galen?" Bodhi tried to lift his head. What on Earth was Galen doing outside Bodhi's room?

"We have arrived," the droid said. "Scan results indicate intoxication. Commencing partial detoxification."

"Ow!" Bodhi said. But the droid was doing its job: it had injected the alpha-sixty particles that would remove most of the alcohol from his bloodstream.

Most. Not all. He still wasn't sober when the droid left; he swayed when he looked at Galen, then past him to the door. "This isn't my room."

"No," Galen said. "I'm not sure why...but no matter. I can walk you back." He offered Bodhi his arm.

Bodhi couldn't help but laugh. "This isn't some courting dance," he said.

Galen's face did something odd, something a more sober Bodhi would have been able to interpret. "No, I know."

"I missed you," Bodhi said. "You've been gone, you know, I don't like it. But you're here now." He took Galen's arm and used it to pull the rest of him forward, against Bodhi's body. The Force hummed around him, around them both; he leaned his head into Galen's neck and sighed happily.

"I can feel it now," he said when Galen didn't speak—didn't move, either. Galen was a bit of a stick in the mud, even now, when they were free. Well, mostly free.

"Feel it?" Galen said, almost inaudible.

"The Force." He rubbed his nose against Galen's skin. It was rough, a little cold. It felt like the most interesting texture Bodhi had ever encountered. "All around us. In us." He inhaled slowly, savoring the scent of Galen's skin. "Can't you feel it?"

"I never could," Galen said, some emotion thick in his voice. "We should get you back to your room."

"Mm." Bodhi kissed Galen's neck, felt the responding shiver. "We could, I suppose."

"I'm not going to—"

"No, you wouldn't," Bodhi said. He knew what Galen meant. Galen wouldn't touch him like this, wouldn't fuck him.

But he might kiss him. He might let Bodhi sleep next to him, open and honest, the way they'd never been on Eadu. "I'd like to kiss you," he said. "May I?"

Galen gripped his chin with one firm hand. He kissed Bodhi, a dizzying moment that Bodhi let blend with his newfound feeling of the Force, until it felt like kissing was somehow also singing to the stars.

"Don't make me sleep alone," Bodhi said.

Galen pulled away and looked him in the eyes. A more sober Bodhi would know what was happening between them, would read the cues. A more sober Bodhi would also have been too much of a coward to be here at all. Bodhi, drunk and careless, smiled at Galen.

"Ah, my heart," Galen said, impossibly tender. "Come to bed."

Bodhi fell asleep suffused with quiet joy, clutching the arm that Galen had laid over him. He woke in the morning alone, humiliation a brick in his stomach.

-

Two days later, he found it.

It was hidden in a column of mundane numbers, on one of the many files Saw had squirreled away. It only stood out because Bodhi knew Grange didn't export caf bean; there were still some small farms, but as Galen had said, nothing like what had existed in his youth.

But this record Saw had saved showed exactly that: weekly exports of caf, sold by a Senator Ratzinger to the Empire's Deep Space Engineering project.

Was he dealing laundered Jedha kyber? Or something more fictitious? Laundering money, perhaps, but that was really the worst of it: dirty dealings were many and varied during the height of the Empire's power, and a Grange Senator, an Empire loyalist helping to perpetuate the farce of the Imperial Senate, might have been doing anything.

Bodhi thought of the dark voice on the tapes, and shivered. Then he put in a request to meet with General Organa.

It was granted sooner than he'd expected. Just a few hours after he put it in, he followed a protocol droid onto a shuttle where General Organa sat, waiting.

"I'm told you have news for me."

"Nothing interesting," Bodhi said. "Nothing that made it that far up the food chain, last time."

"I reviewed the files you sent. They're worthy of consideration."

Bodhi blinked. He'd beamed them up not more than an hour ago. "His financials—"

"Caf off Grange in the middle of the Imperial era. Very impressive for a young senator." Her voice could've dried an ocean. "I assume you've found footage of him, to confirm he's the man you heard on the radio?"

Since Bodhi couldn't say 'no, I was too busy wishing Galen would kiss me,' he settled for shaking his head.

"That would be my first suggestion. After that...I suppose my brother would tell you to let the Force guide you."

Bodhi felt, for a moment, like a braver facsimile of himself. "What would you say?"

Leia looked at him for a long, long moment. Finally, she said, "My own training is classified."

Bodhi inclined his head and looked at the floor.

"But I suppose I'd say something similar," she said. "Or I'd say you should keep your head up—which I know you're good at." He looked up in astonishment to find her smiling at him. "You hid from us, Captain Rook, but you're still a member of Rogue One."

"I don't want to be." He swallowed past a dry throat. "A survivor of Scarif—a hero—"

"No," Leia said. "You are all that, I'm sure the New Republic would pass a resolution to that effect. I only meant you were a member of the Rebellion. Someone who stood up to the Empire, found his conviction. I have every faith that you'll resolve this matter."

It was then that Bodhi understood exactly what her power was, exactly why people followed her. It was in the energy that sparked in the Force, practically dancing around her, but it was also just her: her charisma, her strength of character. When people praised him for defecting, Bodhi normally just thought about how wrong they were. Right then, with her looking at him full of calm confidence, he believed it.

"I'll contact you when I have news," he said.

"Thank you." She reached out and squeezed his hands, then waved him out.

He brought it up to Galen that night, during dinner in the least rowdy corner of the cafeteria. Galen smiled a little at his disjointed recounting. "She was always like that, you know. Even when she was a teenager."

"You knew her then?"

"Only in passing. Alderaan was known as a rebellious contingent, but they had wealth and power." Galen's expression held not a little bitterness. "You'd have been a student, then."

He knew what Galen was trying to say; he knew Galen was trying to call himself an old man. And, well, he was, but the self-denigration still made Bodhi feel a little hot under the collar, a lot angry. They weren't even doing anything, not really. Couldn't Galen leave off pushing him away when Bodhi wasn't even actively trying to get in his trousers?

"I've been meaning to ask," Galen said when Bodhi didn't respond. He picked up a bit of some spongey vegetable and examined it closely, avoiding Bodhi's gaze. "My sister, she lives in a farm city in the south, on our parents' old farm. She'll be in Lisma City for an agricultural convention in a week's time. Do you have a night off to join us for dinner?"

Bodhi managed not to squawk, but it was a near thing. "I—"

"She's a great admirer of Rogue One, and she'd love to hear about your work on Grange's new freight issues." Galen put the vegetable down and met Bodhi's eyes, squared off like a boxer at the start of a bout. His smile felt like a punch. "I'd love if you could join us."

Bodhi licked his lips and swallowed past his dry throat. "Yes. I do—I'll—you have access to my schedule, actually." Since Galen was why he was in Lisma City to begin with.

"Yes. I wanted to ask you."

"Yes." Bodhi bobbed his head, feeling like a prize fool. "Yes, I'll go to dinner with you."

Galen's smile could've cleared the clouds of Eadu. "Thank you," he said, and went back to his dinner.

Bodhi smiled around the bor gullet's disdain, around his own panic, around the Force's horrible pressure. "You're welcome."

-

Bodhi had only very rarely been to the sort of restaurant Galen chose for dinner.

It occupied space at the top of the Lisma City Crown, a building whose boastful name aligned perfectly with its gorgeous stone walls and brilliant floating lamps. A veritable army of droids traversed the floor, and once Bodhi sat down at their table, he discovered that the restaurant, too, was staffed almost exclusively by very expensive, well-maintained droids. It was the sort of place a Jedha boy could expect to bankrupt himself in.

"I told him it might be a bit much," said the woman across from Bodhi.

He'd been staring. "Apologies," he said. "It's lovely."

"It is, rather," Galen said, "but since they got that write-up in the Coruscant Courier, they've certainly been a bit eager to embrace ostentation."

Bodhi murmured and nodded, a combination that had stood him well in the past when Galen went all Imperial High Society at him. Galen's sister, however, smacked him in the arm. "Stop showing off and introduce me."

Showing off? But Bodhi had no time to wonder. Galen said, "My apologies. This is my sister Sanne."

"It's lovely to meet you," Sanne said. "And, I must say, an honor."

He swallowed and forced himself not to look away. "It's lovely to meet you, also. Galen spoke very highly of you."

"And he told me you don't like talking about your time in the Rebellion," Sanne said. "I won't press the matter, of course." She offered Bodhi a conspiratorial smile. "He'll talk your ear off about kyber at the drop of a hat, so it's not like we'll run out of things to discuss."

"He told me you have a farm?" Bodhi said.

"Yes, of a sort. It's a larger operation than the name implies, really. We ship out tropical flowers, Grangian melons, and some modest natural-growth minerals."

That was, indeed, a larger operation than Bodhi had imagined. "Forgive me, I'd imagined a vertical garden, I suppose. Or a plot of land and some sheep."

She laughed, thankfully. "That's what our parents had. But we've come up in the world—though not without strife, of course."

"There is no dishonor," Galen said very quietly, "in a plot of land and some sheep."

"Of course not," Sanne said.

"I'd rather I'd have stayed in my humble origins than aided the Empire."

Bodhi was familiar with this sort of about-face in conversational tone; not for nothing had he survived months of the Rebellion. He worried that Sanne wasn't, though, right until she said, "Hush, you know you're doing important work. It's Captain Rook you're worried about, and he's a Captain."

Galen scowled.

"He told me a lot about you," Sanne said, turning back to Bodhi. "I want you to know, I'm sorry for your loss."

Hollow words, fundamentally inadequate. He could tell from her expression that she knew it, so he nodded, saying, "Thank you."

Galen waited a long few moments, then said, "The fish here is very good. Please, everyone, order whatever you like."

"Well, of course," Sanne said. "You're paying."

Bodhi frowned and opened his mouth.

Galen held up a hand. "You're here at my request, technically as my employee. It'll be on my credit, too."

"Wait," Sanne said. "Your employee? Really, Galen?"

Galen flushed bright red at that, for reasons Bodhi didn't quite understand. "I'm not directly under his command," Bodhi said. "Well, I am, kind of, but I'm an attaché, not..."

"Not?" Sanne said, tone so dry it could preserve meat.

Bodhi didn't know what to say. His mind was very blank of anything that wasn't full of innuendo. That might be the point, he realized, looking between the two of them. How much did Sanne know about them, really?

"I'm here because I care about Galen," he said finally. That was reasonably neutral.

Or at least, he thought it was. Galen's blush intensified somehow, and Sanne looked even more slyly amused.

The rest of dinner was significantly less fraught, if still tense enough that Bodhi felt like he might be going through a job interview he hadn't agreed to. Sanne was simultaneously subtle and hilariously blunt, interrogating him for long stretches and then joking when he realized what was going on. Eventually, after several rounds of food and drinks, Galen settled the bill, and Bodhi found himself abruptly pulled into an embrace.

"I understand it's tempting," Sanne said, lips brushing the crown of Bodhi's head, "but if you didn't leave Grange before my brother comes to his senses, I'd really appreciate it."

There were a hundred ways to take that, but most of them pointed to things Bodhi didn't want to think about. I'm not his fancy piece, he didn't say. He hasn't asked me, he didn't say. "I'll try," he said instead, and sighed in relief when Sanne released him.

Galen was silent after they bid her goodnight; he didn't say a word on the shuttle back to their building. He was silent in the elevator and silent in the hallway.

It was only once they stood outside Bodhi's bedroom that he let out a breath and said, "I'm so sorry."

"Don't be," Bodhi said. "She was very nice."

"She was presumptuous and rude." Galen shook his head. "She thinks I'm robbing the cradle."

Bodhi's heart flip-flopped in his chest.

"Of course, you're an adult, and we're not—and I've done many worse things, anyway, which she still prefers not to think about." Galen gave him a weary smile. "And now I'm burdening you doubly. I apologize, again."

"No," Bodhi said. But he couldn't think of anything else to say. He'd had a few drinks, and so had Galen; he looked at Galen's red-rimmed eyes, at his not-quite-genuine smile, and he felt the weight of their shared history pressing against his chest.

"I could've told her," Bodhi said finally. "The truth, I mean."

"Do you know the truth?"

It sounded like an honest question and Galen delivered it with bland curiosity. If he'd been defensive, Bodhi would've said of course he did. As it was, he had to think about it, and the longer he thought, the more he realized Galen was right. "Not really, I suppose." He'd never had much of an idea what was going on in Galen's head.

"You have a skip-and-hop board, right?" Galen said. "Let's play a game."

In Bodhi's room, where he'd hardly let anyone in since coming to Lisma City. Right. Bodhi shook his head, feeling a hundred years old and exhausted. "I should sleep."

"Ah. Yes."

A horrible moment, awkward and liquor-sodden, passed between them. Bodhi said, "Right, then. Goodnight," and scurried into his room.

His dreams that night were awfuller than they'd been in ages. He'd become accustomed to the dreams of death and dying, the ones where he never made it out of the bor gullet's grasp, or where he gave up his mother and sisters to the Empire to save himself in an act of final, horrible cowardice. But this dream was much crueler than those.

In this dream, light filters through the sheer curtains of his mother's kitchen. It's a rare, temperate Jedha day, cool desert breeze and warm sunlight combining for perfect comfort. He's chopping veg as his mother prepares a sauce, and he hears his sisters laughing outside. When the door opens, he looks up to see Galen, arriving with a bouquet of sweet-smelling summer grasses, perfect for the table.

It's wonderful. In the dream, he doesn't question why Galen's there, and his mother only smiles as Galen kisses him. Bodhi doesn't think of the Empire or the Death Star; his only focus is on dinner, on coaxing the best taste he can out of the veg as he grills them.

He woke with a brilliant light of joy in his chest. It lasted for two breaths, as long as it took him to remember the truth.

Lisma City's watery sunrise had begun. He closed his eyes against the grey light and struggled to keep breathing.

-

Galen didn't talk to him for several days. Bodhi wanted to be annoyed, but he was mostly just grateful. He still had to work with Luke on occasion, and he spent a large portion of each day scanning the radio waves, hoping to catch Ratzinger again.

He found it almost impossibly frustrating. Ratzinger wasn't an Imperial true believer, but he wasn't a New Republic loyalist, either. He seemed to care about money in general and money for Grange specifically, and he was willing to do any number of unscrupulous things to secure funds. But he wasn't showing his hand, so Bodhi had to wait, and search for evidence, and wait some more.

So when his quarters' computer informed him someone was at the door, he didn't bother trying to smother the irritation, only called out, "Enter." He felt like a fool—a somewhat greasy, unsociable fool—when Galen stepped inside.

"Bodhi," Galen said.

Thump-thump-thump, Bodhi's heart said in response. He swallowed. "Ah. Hello? Apologies, I'm. Busy." He fiddled with the radio, dropping his headphones.

"Yes," Galen said. "I looked for you at dinner."

"It's a twenty-six hour cafe," Bodhi snapped. When Galen raised his eyebrows, he forced himself to modulate his tone. "Sorry. I'm just in the middle of this, and—"

Galen walked over to the table and put an insulated food jar down across from the radio. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"No." Bodhi opened the food jar and began eating the mix of vegetables and meat he found. It was very Grangian, which meant heavy dill and lots of oil. It reminded Bodhi of Galen; consequently, he almost hated it. "It's a private project."

"Ah," Galen said.

Bodhi looked up at him. He didn't look hurt, but somehow, that lack of an expression told Bodhi that he in fact was. "Why were you waiting for me? Do I need to set up a meeting with the governor?"

Galen shook his head. "No. I..." He pressed his lips together.

Even that simple movement made Bodhi want to touch him. This couldn't continue. "Out with it," Bodhi said. "Uh, please."

"I've been made aware of a flaw in the visitor's protocol configurations," Galen said.

Bodhi blinked once, twice.

"Specifically." Galen took a deep breath, then released it. "A protocol droid informed me this afternoon that you haven't been sleeping."

Bodhi went very, very still.

"I apologize," Galen said. "I didn't want to know. I've since set the system straight on your own expectations for confidentiality."

"It took me to your room," Bodhi said. "The droid, it thinks...oh, God."

"Marriage protocol," Galen said. "It's common on Grange. I should've known to specify. I apologize."

"Stop saying that." Marriage. Bodhi felt the blood rushing in his ears. It wasn't real, of course, but he could feel so much now—the Force danced around him and Galen. He could tell Galen was agitated, could almost—but not quite—feel the emotion radiating from him. And he wanted, more than anything, to reach out and make it real.

Galen would never forgive him. That much, he knew. "Thank you for dinner," he said. "I'm not angry."

"Good." A hand entered Bodhi's range of vision, covered his own. Bodhi tried and failed not to shiver. "But I'm also worried. Three hours of sleep nightly isn't much sleep, Bodhi."

"I'm fine." Very clearly a lie, even to his own ears.

"I'd like to believe that." Galen's thumb swept over Bodhi's wrist. "But if it's anything like what I've experienced, you're not. How can I help?"

There was no answer to the question that wouldn't expose Bodhi's lusts and longings for what they were, cowardice mixed with foolishness. Instead of answering, he took another bite.

Galen didn't let go of his hand. Bodhi ate as quickly as possible, but then he found himself in even more trouble, with nothing to distract him from the unsettling way Galen kept looking at him.

He hadn't ever answered the question. He licked his lips and searched for something, anything, to say. "I—I guess I just—"

Galen was blushing, he realized. Blushing bright red, and Bodhi only noticed now because Galen was also leaning in, squeezing Bodhi's hand and kissing him.

He couldn't have moved away any more than he could've stopped the tides. Galen had made subterfuge his priority on Eadu, but he'd always been exactly like this with Bodhi, giving as much of himself as Bodhi would take. He leaned over the table now, stroking Bodhi's hair gently and taking shaking, shallow breaths, kissing with a desperation that Bodhi understood, that he knew as intimately as if it came from his own soul.

Maybe it did. As Galen drew him to his feet, walking them both over to the bed, he felt very desperate indeed.

The kisses were becoming familiar: the way Galen held his head, the movement of his lips, the pressure of his long legs against Bodhi's. He loved this unabashedly, felt arousal sing through his body as Galen scraped his nails down Bodhi's neck. And, too, he loved touching Galen, digging his fingers into Galen's ass and arching against him when Galen found Bodhi's nipples.

He loved it so much he almost didn't hear the intruder. His only warning was the sickeningly familiar sound of a blaster charge. He reacted without thinking, rolling to the side and dragging Galen with him, leaping up as they both hit the floor and reaching for a weapon—any weapon. But of course there were none; he'd left his blaster in its lockbox, and he'd never seen Galen handle a weapon in his rooms.

"Bodhi Rook," the man with the blaster said. "The first coward of Rogue Squadron, though not the last."

He barely registered the words, because the voice that spoke them was unmistakable. Here stood Senator Ratzinger, the man on the radio.

He must've given it away, because the Senator laughed. "And here I thought you'd protest."

"I know what I am. You're a coward too." If he kept talking, Galen might be able to signal for help, or the computer system might send an alarm—if it hadn't been disabled. "You'd rather rebel than compromise, work within the system."

"The system gave rise to the Empire."

"And it's given rise to representative government now," Bodhi shot back, "but that's not what you want. You don't care. You want to enrich Grange and damn the rest of the system."

He didn't deny the charge. He only smiled again, cruelly, and said, "Duck, little coward."

After, he tried to remember if he'd made a conscious decision one way or another. He didn't know. In truth he didn't think he had time: Ratzinger spoke one moment and fired the next, and Bodhi's body moved on pure instinct when he leaped in front of Galen to absorb the blaster shot.

It hit his shoulder instead of Galen's heart. The smell of burning flesh filled the air. Too late, he remembered the Force; as Galen shouted and Ratzinger fled, he reached out and called to the universe itself for help.

-

He woke up feeling the Force all around him. For a moment he thought he'd died; then he opened his eyes and saw that he was in a Grange hospital room, not his old Jedhan home, and so he couldn't possibly be in the afterlife.

"Hello," Galen said from beside his bed.

"Hi," Bodhi tried to say. It came out sounding a bit like a fatally glitched droid.

"You nearly died." Galen sounded almost casual—almost. His voice didn't quite shake. "I'd prefer if you avoided doing so."

"Ah." His eyelids were so heavy. He closed his eyes again.

But he had to open them when Galen's familiar hand lifted his. He turned his head to see Galen kneeling, now, his chair pushed aside.

"I have no graceful way to say this," Galen said, "but I need you to know—I need you to understand. I don't think you could stop doing heroic things even if you worked at it, but it will always end up like this, for as long as I'm alive." He squeezed Bodhi's hand, leaving no doubt as to what he meant by this: the New Republic's finest kyber expert and leading disgraced ranite researcher, waiting patiently at Bodhi's side as the bacta repaired his shoulder.

But Galen wasn't quite right. "I did stop, until you pulled me back in again."

"I didn't do this."

Galen didn't elaborate, but Bodhi knew what he meant. Galen had dragged him out of his would-be retirement, but no one had forced Bodhi to do his own detective work, to try and protect the New Republic. No one had even forced him to work with Luke, really. He'd railed at Galen and he'd protested and dragged his feet, but in the end, he'd never actually refused and returned to his shop on Kafrene.

He let out a breath. "That's true."

"I never thought I'd hear you admit it," Galen said, his voice unamused, still shaking.

Bodhi didn't trust himself to answer. Instead he mustered his strength and used it to lift Galen's hand, pressing a kiss against his knuckles.

"I'll keep the job," he said. "But if this keeps happening...I want to keep other things, too."

Galen raised his eyebrows.

But he didn't say anything, and Bodhi understood why. In the end, he was going to have to be the brave one, one last time.

"I mean you."

"Ah," Galen said. A smile, so small it was nearly undetectable, stole across his features. He put Bodhi's hand back down on the bed, leaning over him instead and pressing their lips together.

It wasn't the best kiss Bodhi'd ever gotten, but it was definitely the kiss that promised the most.

-

One year later, Bodhi discovered that Cassian had located K2's backup tapes when the droid himself subjected Bodhi to a two-hour lecture on the risks of eating one-day-expired yak cheese.

Two years later, Bodhi sat with Chirrut for six days and five nights and learned what, exactly, the Guardians of the Whills were guarding.

Three years later, Bodhi inadvertently announced his candidacy for senatorial office by turning a communications department speech into a call against kyber mining on Grange.

Five years later, Bodhi sat on the New Republic Senate as a representative of the Jedha Diaspora, and Galen published his findings on the high feasibility of using ranite to achieve a 75% reduction in kyber dependency over the next five years.

Bodhi voted for ranite investment. Jyn and Cassian took out an Imperial mineral laundering base with more explosions than good sense. Time passed, and the New Republic lived on.