Hello there. Narya's Bane here… but you can call me K. Lee (or Shiny. If you're lucky, I won't even hurt you.
This is a little one-shot that I got in the car. Must have borrowed someone else's "muse" for a while, because mine usually has a distaste of Wedge Antilles. But this idea was so vivid that I had to try it.
Disclaimer, as always. Lyrics at the beginning belong as cited… and the characters are only using my playground for a moment, belonging to the Great Lucas and his minion Stackpole. Still, I hope you enjoy.
Well I was moving at the speed of sound.
Head-spinning, couldn't find my way around…
Didn't know that I was going down.
Where I've been, well it's all a blur.
What I was looking for, I'm not sure.
Too late and didn't see it coming.
And then I crashed into you,
And I went up in flames.
Could've been the death of me,
But then you breathed your breath in me.
-Daughtry, "Crashed"
It was a perfect night. Wedge couldn't believe his luck at having such a perfect night to himself. He'd finished reporting on the Adumar situation, and finally had some much deserved time off to spend however he chose.
Wedge was not, therefore, completely alone. That was very clear. As soon as he had been released from council meetings, justifying his actions of war on Adumar, Iella had grabbed him by the arm and made it very clear that he was going to spend his time with her. Not that Wedge Antilles minded. It was precisely what he'd had in mind for the evening anyway.
Now, hours after they'd snuck in dinner with Corran and Mirax, joking the whole time and undergoing the onslaught of "I told you so"s, Wedge was pleased to be slowly dozing off with Iella tucked in beside him. She moved ever so slightly against him, snuggling herself even closer- if that was possible. Wedge ran a stray finger through her hair and yet again wondered how he had ever managed to gain her after all the mistakes he'd made.
When you lived your life as quickly as Wedge did, it was surprising to find that anything outside of the constant battle for holds in the galaxy could really penetrate. Fascinating, then, that Iella had so thoroughly gotten under his skin. Even after their first meeting, Wedge had found himself wondering what could pass between them…
It hadn't been for years after that when Iella had made him stop, coming to a full skid, pulling him out of a tailspin he hadn't even realized he was in. It was one thing to admit that most of the allies whose faces you remembered were no longer around to joke with, and another to look back on your life and see that it was hardly being lived. Because in spite of the battles, and the close calls, and the destruction of warlord after warlord, Antilles had never let himself feel.
Sure, there was Tycho. And Corran. And Janson, and Hobbie, and several other pilots that he considered close friends. But not even they could really see him at his most vulnerable, because they were- in spite of everything- people he commanded, and had commanded since his earliest days in the Rebellion.
Qwi Xux had been nothing more than a reach for something frilly, for something pretty, but that shouldn't have been attainable. They hadn't had anything truly in common, and when it had ended… well, that was for the better. She had never been someone Wedge wished to confide in, because she wouldn't understand.
Iella would. Whether she realized her part in it or not, she had been the person at the end of his freefall, stopping it just before he crashed…
No, Wedge admitted. He had crashed. But at the end, at the very end, he had crashed into a safety net- found out it was all a training exercise.
Before that moment, he had known Iella- but he'd never found her.
None of it made sense. Iella had accepted him, accepted everything.
Wedge hadn't thought he could be so lucky. The odds were high enough not even the most gambling-addicted Corellian would have taken them. Yet here he was, and she was snuggled right up beside him. And in that moment, when it came to his emotions, Wedge Antilles made a mental note to crash more often.