Thrawn's eyes shot open, his breath catching in his throat as he was jolted to consciousness. For a blissful moment, there was nothing – no pain, no intruder forcing him awake. But then it came, the stab of agony that brought a growl ripping at his throat.

Thrawn pulled his head back, grimacing and forcing his arms at the binds still holding him.

His entire body was softly trembling from simple and utter weakness. He needed sleep. He needed sleep so desperately. The pain racking his shoulders refused it.

Thrawn pulled again at the binds.

Involuntarily, he kicked his leg, as though trying to drive himself away from the pain. It wouldn't stop once it started. He leg kept kicking, somehow finding a life of its own. Somehow finding enthusiasm to move when the rest of Thrawn's body had none.

Thrawn didn't want to focus on how badly his shoulders hurt, but it was impossible to ignore. It was as if the way he'd been held – for hours – had ripped apart his muscles fiber by fiber… It felt as though every rip had been filled with ice, and now his entire back was erupting in a sharp burn.

He closed his eyes and tried to focus his mind. His breathing was getting rapid, random. And now that he'd regained consciousness, he couldn't fall asleep.

The irony was nearly as painful as the actual agony his body had been put through. After all the struggling he'd been forced to endure to simply rest, the way he'd silently begged for the chance to rest… now his body was free and he couldn't fall asleep.

His consciousness came and went fitfully, as crescendos of pain brought him out of his moments of clarity. Thrawn knew he had to find a way to escape… a way to gain an upper hand in his captivity. No matter how small, he had to have something in his control.

And once that idea took hold – the idea that he had to find something he had control over – the panic started to set in. Because if he had desperate to find something, it meant he had nothing.

iThis isn't you,/i Thrawn tried to tell himself. He wasn't one to give in to panic.

Then again, he'd never been in a situation like this.

He'd never been subjected to such torture before, and it was making his mind do terrible things. Things that were unlike him. Things like….

iNo…/i

He remembered what had given him this moment of peace, this respite from the torture. He'd given numbers… but no matter how hard he tried to remember, he had no recollection of which ones he gave. Did he give actual coordinates for Csilla? Or had he given something at random…

Thrawn closed his eyes, feeling a wave of shame settle over him, smothering like a blanket.

All of his meticulous planning… all the years away from home… all the sacrifice… and it would end here… in a prison cell.

He hadn't been able to anticipate his enemies… it wasn't his fault… It wasn't.

His interrogator's promise came into focus… the man promising to draw out the torture until his body simply gave up on living.

So there was no hope. No reason to fight to live….

Thrawn winced, bracing himself against the stab of pain jolting suddenly up his spine, returning with a vengeance upon his awareness. The best he could hope for now was that he might die before he might betray his world.

But even Thrawn knew he couldn't count on that.

-SWR-

If Eli had been tired before, he was wide awake now.

The spike of adrenaline all but made up for the lack of sleep, and he struggled as much as he could. Thrashing was more like it. A valiant effort, but utterly pointless. The man who had drove him to the ground remained on top of him, pinning him with minimal effort. And he was much, imuch/i larger than Eli.

Panting after a good minute of effort left Eli exhausted, the man finally said, "Are you finished?"

Eli scowled as he tried his best to drive an elbow into the man's ribs. Without much room to maneuver in, though, his elbow just barely tapped the man's side.

"Hardly," Eli growled in response.

"If you give me a moment to explain - I'm trying to help."

Eli's body went slack as the scowl on his face deepened.

"So… you knock me to the ground, call me a traitor, holding me down like, and you expect me to believe you're helping?"

"I'm not sure you would have let me talk if I'd tried anything else. I iam/i an ISB agent."

If Eli hoped the sudden influx of panic would be the valiant savior to deliver him from the clutches of this foe… he was sorely mistaken.

"Would you stop that!? I. Said. I. Was. Helping."

"Yeah, well, did you spend last night trying not to get yourself killed? ISB agents aren't high up on my 'trust' list at the moment."

"If I wanted to arrest you, I would have simply arrested you."

"WHAT DO YOU CALL THIS?!" Eli growled in exasperation. "This is holding me against my will. It's an apprehension. An arrest."

"Fine."

And Eli felt his body go slack again with pure disbelief as the man got off of him. He didn't even scramble to his feet, but stood up slowly, his eyebrows glowering and his mouth in a thin line. The turn of events was testing his every last nerve. He was too tired to even be polite anymore.

Eli got his first good look at his assailant. Or friend.

The man was tall, nearly as tall as Thrawn, intimidating with his black ISB uniform and armor, with strawberry blonde hair and… barely in regulation mutton chops.

Eli wondered what might happen if he risked trying to run away, but the man didn't make any other moves. And… he couldn't have easily gotten Eli into a pair of hand irons…

"Alright, now what?"

"What do you mean?"

Eli's shoulders slumped.

"I mean…" he lifted his hands as if trying to explain something, and dropped them to his sides again. "Look, iyou/i approached me, you… you knocked me to the ground. What do you want?"

"I thought maybe you'd want some help."

"Some help? Like… some… insider ISB help?"

Eli's heart gave a feeble flop in his chest. Maybe it was possible then… somehow, this random stranger could be his ticket to bust Thrawn out of-

"What? No, I thought… you needed help finding… weren't you defecting to the Rebellion?"

"The iwhat!?/i" Eli raised a hand to his head. The leaps in this conversation was making him a little lightheaded. "Just wait…. iwhy/i would I join the Rebellion? My lo- my friend is …. I don't even know what's happened to him. I had stormtroopers at my hotel room. I ikilled/i somebody. I don't even know what any of it is even about. What part of any of that makes you think I want to be a Rebel?"

The man standing opposite him looked absolutely deflated by his outburst.

"Well… okay," Eli said. "I could see how me killing a stormtrooper might make you think I wanted to be a Rebel. But… really all I want is to rescue Thrawn."

The man gave a kind of noncommittal shrug of the shoulders.

"Look," he said, as though coming to a conclusion. "It's not that easy."

"There you go," Eli said, sarcastically encouraging the man. "I need help. I need iyour/i help. If you're really an ISB agent, then you have access to information I need. We need. We need to find out what they did with Thrawn."

"I might not have access to that kind of information," the man said. "And going into the system to retrieve will look suspicious."

"Hey, but you're a double agent, right?" Eli asked. "You've done this before… right?"

The man's face hardened.

"Figures," Eli muttered. It would be his luck that the random stranger offering to help him would turn out to be a first time double agent. Still, it was all he had.

"I'm guessing you already know my name," Eli said.

"Kallus," the man picked up on Eli's prompt, offering him his hand to shake. "Come on. We'd better get you off the streets before you're recognized. You can stay in my quarters while I see what I can dig up on your friend."

-SWR-

Thrawn's body jolted violently awake, a sputtering breath shaking his chest as he lifted his head.

This time, it wasn't the pain which had woken him. It was his interrogator entering his cell.

"I gave you a chance to determine the nature of our relationship," the man said, crouching next to Thrawn and smiling a disturbed smile. "Those coordinates you gave doesn't start us off on the right foot. I'm ecstatic."

The man grabbed a fistful of Thrawn's hair, lifting the Chiss's head off the ground.

"I was hoping you wouldn't cooperate. You have no idea what it's like being me… having to hold back. But the Emperor wants me to do my worse, and… I'm so glad you're being uncooperative."

The giddy tone underlying his words unnerved Thrawn more than anything. Even the relief that he hadn't betrayed Csilla after all didn't feel like a relief.

"I'll need to get us on… equal footing again. You lying about that home planet of yours makes me think you have hope you might escape this."

Thrawn knew it was coming but didn't have time to brace for it. Before he could even wince, the interrogator had slammed his face back down into the permacrete.

"Attempting to assassinate the Emperor?" he whispered. "The news is already reaching across the galaxy. They say you murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent Imperial workers on Batonn… and the gracious Emperor tried to confront you about it… my dear. If I'm feeling compassionate later, I'll let you know how the rest of the galaxy is reacting to the news. I imagine it might kick off a new wave of xenophobia."

The man smiled. "Of course, your shipmates were devastated. Disgusted, rather. Absolutely repulsed to have any association with you."

The man set a pile of clothes neatly next to Thrawn.

"They all hate you. All except one."

Thrawn felt the horror like a cold vice clamping down on his heart. The uniform… he could tell immediately. The fabric, the very sight of it… perhaps the scent. There was no mistaking it. It was Eli's uniform.

"He put up a terrific fight," the man said. "But in the end…. There's only so much anyone can do. Such a waste. Does he know how to withstand torture, do you-?"

But Thrawn's muffled laughter cut off the man before he could finish his question.

Thrawn couldn't help it. He smiled. He'd found it – the one thing he still had control over.

"You don't have him," Thrawn whispered. "Commander Vanto was not wearing his uniform when I left him, meaning you had nothing when you went to our hotel room. Nothing to bring back to taunt me with except an empty uniform."

The interrogator stared down at Thrawn, the lazy smile gone from his face.

"You're right where I want you," the man said after a long pause. "Someone who still has hope is that much more fun to break. Shall we begin then?"

Thrawn's smile widened.

"You can try."