Just a warning: this story does dance around the topic of suicide a little bit, so just a heads up. As always, I do not own anything.
Read and enjoy!
"Legate!" Silence followed the shout, the echoes bouncing from wall to wall and back again. There were a few more blessed moments of silence, before the name cracked through the quiet like a whip once more.
"Legate!" the shout echoed once again through the halls, bouncing back to Ardun unanswered. A faint twinge of concern twisted the former Jedi's gut, followed immediately by a sense of surprise at the previous feeling. As much as he hated to admit it, the Chiss agent had actually grown on him, between the cocky, smart ass comments to the smooth efficiency with which the former Cipher completed her tasks. Loathe though he was to admit it, he considered the ex-Imperial to be a valued team mate, and even would dare to call her a friend, which was the last thing that Ardun had expected to happen. The SIS operative found himself using the trigger word for the conditioning less and less over time and actually trusted the turn coat Imperial.
Well as much as one could actually trust in this field of work at any rate.
Sitting up in his chair, the former Jedi probed the Force searching for any indication of the Chiss. Ardun had learned quickly that the agent was very skilled at not only hiding her signature from searching eyes but also at barricading her mind from inquisitive force users. It was strange to not see another living being in the Force, the usual swirling mass of life replaced with nothingness. Through time however, the former Jedi had grown used to the strange sensation and didn't even think twice about it now. So when he found the Chiss operative's Force signature and discovered the iron walls surrounding her mind in shambles, the sense of wrongness that had been lurking in the back of Ardun's mind came screaming back with full force.
Before he even knew what he was doing, the former Jedi was up out of his seat and down the hall with a speed he hadn't known he still possessed. The Chiss's mind was a chaotic mess of screams and writhing darkness dripping fear, rage, guilt. Waves of emotion pounded on Ardun's mind, making the agent pause for a brief moment to recapture his breath from the intensity of them.
Finally after what seemed to be a decade, the SIS operative reached the door to her room, the thick metal hiding the source of the pain inside.
"Legate! Open the door!" There was no response to Ardun's call. Banging on the door he tried again, disregarding the agent's code name, her given name sounding foreign on his tongue.
"Ree'z! Open the door now!" There was no sound from the interior of the door and no change in the roiling mess that was the Chiss's mind. Shaking his head slightly, trying to rid his head of the screaming demons that bled from Ree'z, Ardun gathered the Force in his mind, forcing himself to work through the pain. Moments later the doors lock slid back and he burst through the door into the dark room.
Looking back, the SIS operative wasn't sure what he expected to find behind the locked door, but what the light from the hallway illuminated inside froze him in his tracks and made his heart drop to the pit of his gut. Ree'z sat slumped on the unmade bed, leaning over to the side so that her head and shoulder lay on the mattress. An arm still clad in the shredded uniform stretched across her body, limp fingers hanging off the edge of the mattress, dried blood still staining the midnight blue skin. Shards of glass glinted in the dim light where an empty glass syringe had slipped from the agent's unfeeling fingers to the hard floor, pointed needle at the end gleaming dangerously.
For a moment, time seemed to stop still, the scene in front of Ardun searing into his memory, melding with his nightmares and deepest fears. The life of a spy was a difficult, sometimes a horrific one and Ardun had seen many good agents succumb to their demons in the dark of the night, but he had hoped to never see it in one of his own. He never expected to see it happen to one of the strongest of his team, former enemy or not. The strain of the life of a spy added with the deep horror and fear of the conditioning done to her had finally broken Ree'z, and Ardun had never seen it coming. Guilt nearly crushed the SIS agent as he stared at the shattered Chiss.
What had he done?
A sound at his side snapped the former Jedi out of his trance and without even bothering to see who was there, he crossed the room in three great strides and knelt on one knee, finger searching for a pulse. Guarded relief flooded the agent as he found it, beating softly, proof of the agent's grasp on life. A presence made itself known next to Ardun and he found Chance kneeling next to him, examining the glass shards on the floor. The agent sniffed lightly at the drops of liquid still left on the sharp glass, shoulders tensed slightly.
Out of all the members on the team, Chance was the one who had gotten along with the former Cipher the best and seeing Ree'z in this state stung him badly. A little voice in the back of the slicer's mind whispered warnings against the sudden stab of worry for the spy, but for the moment he ignored it, focusing instead on what was in front of him. Relief flooded him, surprising Chance with the intensity of the feeling as he recognized the scent of the substance that coated the glass piece.
"It's non-lethal. Well at least to Chiss. Although a little bit more and we would be having a completely different conversation right now." His voice cracked a little on the last few words, though both agents chose to ignore it.
"The most that will happen is that she's out for a bit and gets a nasty headache, but there shouldn't be any other major side effects." Chance paused, then continued speaking, still studying the shard between his fingers as he spoke, refusing to look up. "This mostly used as a poison, but Chiss grew a pretty good immunity to it so now they use it as a hallucinogen or a very strong sleeping drug. Not really lethal unless in very large doses."
A sigh of relief filled his lungs and was expelled into the now silent air. He was not going to be losing an agent tonight, former enemy or not. Chance shifted next to him, tan fingers brushing against deep blue skin. Both agents watched as rust colored flakes fluttered to the ground, mingling with the glittering glass fragments on the floor. Neither of them moved for a few moments, almost entranced by the image and the realization of how horribly wrong this night could have gone.
Chance was the first to move, a sharp inhalation of breathe the only warning as he moved to shift the Chiss into a more comfortable position. Ardun was still for a few beats more before he too finally got up and moved to the fresher. Retrieving a cloth and running it under warm water, the former Jedi began to clean the dried blood off of Ree'z's hands and arms.
At some point during this, Chance had found a loose shirt and a pair of pants and was gently removing the bloodied uniform. Silence reigned as the two completed their tasks, both immersed in their own thoughts, neither willing to speak out loud of what had happened. They had gotten lucky, Ardun realized. What if it had been lethal, what then?
Letting a small sigh escape him once more, the SIS agent wrung out the cloth in the fresher sink, watching as the clean water washed away all the scarlet blood. Ree'z had sustained no other injuries beyond several scratches and the blood was evidently not her own. Whose it was, Ardun did not know, and probably never would know. The former Cipher could be notoriously tightlipped when she wanted to be, and this didn't warrant use of the code word. That blasted code word. It had played a role in this, of that the former Jedi had no doubt. Dropping the rag in the sink, Ardun ran a hand through his short hair, staring blankly at the wall.
He had known that he would have to do things he did not like or agree with, but this situation was something else entirely. Brainwashing was something that had always seemed distant to him, almost inconsequential. Seeing it now however, up close and personal, it changed his perspective. Ardun had seen the look in the Chiss's eyes every time he said it, a look of terror, immense pain and hopelessness. The look of a caged animal. He wasn't sure if he could ever forgive himself for everything that he had put the former Cipher through.
Ardun broke himself out of his thoughts and moved back into the room, where Chance had cleaned up the glass and moved the Chiss into her bed, pulling the blankets up around her shoulders. He looked up as his leader entered the room again, the look in his eyes unreadable. Ardun nodded his head slightly and gestured towards the door. Chance's face twisted and for a moment he looked like he was about to argue the clear command, but stopped himself and sighed, shoulders slumping as he looked down.
A gentle hand rested itself on her shoulder for a moment, and then Chance was gone leaving Ardun alone in the room with the unconscious Chiss. A few beats of silence followed the departure of the slicer, with no sound but of gentle breaths. Dragging a chair from the far corner of the room to the side of the bed, Ardun seated himself next to his team mate, settling himself in for a long night.
If the former Imperial woke from horrific nightmares to the calming presence and silent comfort of the former Jedi, she made no mention of it. And if the SIS spy was still there in the chair the next morning, not a single mention of that was made either.