Home is far away. And it is not his home anymore. Cipher Nine's home is whatever the Empire needed to be his home. And yet for someone whose home changed on a daily basis, he thought an awful lot of a planet so far away, lost in a region of space these Imperials didn't even have maps of.

Try as he might, the man whose home it was would not let him go. Vel'dessian'eshdo persisted in sticking his head up out of the now icy ground, clawing at Nine's feet, "Remember." Remember a city built into a glacier, lit just so, to cast ripples of light and shadow all around. Remember frozen lakes that reflected like mirrors, where you had no choice but to see the truth when you looked into them. Remember clear skies. Remember snow to your chest. Remember icicles melting onto your head in the warm season. "Do not forget."

Self and home. Homes are where each person comes from. A carefully crafted false identity remembers a home Nine did not have. The fracture runs deep. The flaws and the greatness in each person comes from home.

But it is strange to realize the cover you're using is your own personality. Your face has hardened to become the mask.

And when it finally reflects clearly in the ice - no, the Mystic's smoke - the fracture is visible. It is thin, stretching down from the top like lightning. Like glass, a single tremor could break it. There is nothing underneath to be revealed.

If the lie the Empire needed Cipher Nine to tell was Vel'dessian'eshdo's truth, was it truly a lie? 'Cipher Nine' is not a name, it is a title, which is only as full as the person inside, and so it is a poor replacement for a person who needed a name. Unless he is a person no more? Unless he is still Vel'dessian'eshdo?

Vel'dessian'eshdo clawed at Nine's knee, pulling himself up farther from the ground. Remember. Remember the Aristocra who chose you, remember Mother who urged you. Remember a city built into a glacier. Remember biting winds. Remember cold water.

Keeper, the Minister, the Watchers, Hunter - they are hollow definitions for the hollow Cipher Nine. They are not yours. They sowed no seeds. They left you for a famine when no one tended the crops Home had planted.

Cipher Nine sat outside the Temple of Healing. Red and orange turned to blue and white. Goosebumps ran up his arms and back, though it was warm. Beside him sat Vel'dessian'eshdo, covered in dirt and catching his breath for being buried so long. Nine did not know what to do with him. There was no place to put him. He should probably suffocate him, or smash him into a thousand pieces. But they'd begun to carry each other again on Hoth. Vel'dessian'eshdo pulled Nine through the wastes, through the blizzards, had sat him next to a wall of ice and made him look. In turn, Nine pushed him into the Chiss base, out of the storm, and left him there to catch his breath and to find sanctuary. Somewhere between Hoth and Voss, Vel'dessian'eshdo had caught up to Nine. Remember.

"Agent?" Vector asked, finishing his conversation with the Voss man nearby.

Cipher Nine closed his eyes and reached blindly beside him. I will act on your behalf, he told the man beside him, I will be your agent. He leaked in through the cracks and filled the holes. Cold water leaked into parched ground. The face softened. In time, perhaps, it could accept new crops, when the rains ceased, when the mists cleared.

"Are you alright?" Vector leaned in, eyes a single block of color. He saw himself there. And Vector saw himself in his. They smiled. Vector extended his hand. Behind him, the sun was setting.

Veldessian, whose name was a butchered shortening for something Imperials could not pronounce, gripped the hand and pulled himself up.

"Yes. Of course."