The chill bit into Pellaeon's skin even through the thick material of his uniform. He fought off an urge to shiver as he continued into the room, his eyes shifting around to check if it was truly as empty as it seemed.
There was no light other than what spilled in from the open door behind him and the massive viewport that took up the wall on the other side of the room. A nearby moon could be seen through the transparisteel, the surface brightened by the light of the system's star. The pale white glow reached the Chimaera and poured in around the port, but was not enough to penetrate the darker corners and only made the shadows of the scattered pieces of furniture stretch even farther.
The beauty of the satellite did not detract from the oppressive weight that hung in the room. He knew that the room was routinely cleaned just like every other, yet the air still felt heavy as though it were filled with dust.
Pellaeon did his bet to ignore the visualization of his lungs clogging up as he moved his feet onwards, allowing himself to be led into the room one step at a time. He did not glance back until he heard the first few steps of Thrawn following him inside, followed shortly after by the sound of the door closing and the lock as it clicked into place. But then there was the soft echo of a beep that indicated the door's override had been shut off.
It was then that Pellaeon finally turned towards Thrawn, eyebrows drawn up in a question.
Thrawn stared back, but before Pellaeon opened his mouth to ask him what he thought he was doing, his hand dropped away from the door's panel. "For privacy," he answered softly.
Pellaeon considered telling him that on the off chance that anyone walked in here they would more than likely stumble back out once they saw just who was inside, but he kept his mouth shut. There was some merit to be seen in taking such precautions against interruptions.
And Pellaeon supposed that if he had trusted this man enough to talk with him in a private, closed off area, he trusted him enough to do it with the door locked from the inside.
Yet he watched the other man as he slowly made his way towards Pellaeon, his red eyes falling to and lingering on those darkened corners and stretched shadows.
Pellaeon turned back around and took the last few steps until he stood before the viewport, staring out at the moon as it – in its ancient knowledge – continued on without a care.
He tried to find some solace in the sight but was unsure if he succeeded as Thrawn came to a stop beside him.
They stood in tense silence.
It could almost be felt like a presence. It filled the space between them with its viscous weight and stretched on and outwards until the whole room felt pulled down.
The vacuum of space would have been filled with more warmth.
A part of Pellaeon did not know why he felt so bothered by it.
Grand Admiral Thrawn had always been a hard man, as cold and calm as a glacier. It nagged at Pellaeon, that he couldn't quite put his finger on what exactly had changed.
He snuck a glance at Thrawn in the dim light and wondered.
Perhaps nothing had changed with Thrawn at all, and it was Pellaeon who's perceptions were so radically shifted when he saw the man get stabbed.
Perhaps somewhere during that period when he had been grasping at straws trying to keep the Empire afloat, something had changed him. Maybe it was being forced watch the slow death of everything that he had ever known. Or even the realization that no one else had mourned Thrawn to the extent or length that he had. How everyone else seemed to miss the military genius, while he had missed the person.
Maybe, just maybe, it had been the trauma of realizing that he had been in love with the man years after he had died.
Maybe that was why Thrawn seemed so different.
It had been only him and his memories for so long, of course the person would seem different.
He looked back to the viewport and the moon, and his eyes were immediately drawn towards a handful of craters that looked like a smiling face. Pellaeon frowned back at it.
Here Thrawn was, alive and in the flesh. He had gotten something he thought he had missed forever, a chance that was not even available to him before this point – yet everything had changed too much.
The New Republic had won, the Empire would never again see it's former glory, and he was in love with a man who hadn't given him a second thought until it was convenient.
Damn it all, Pellaeon didn't know what was worse: the silence or his own thoughts.
But the longer it went on for, the harder it was to break it. It felt wrong to speak up, despite Thrawn having told him that they needed to talk.
However, the other man had yet to speak.
That seemed rather unfair. Thrawn had been the one to come to Pellaeon's door and waited so he could speak to him. He had forced the issue to be addressed now, rather than later, and so he should have been the one to start their dialogue.
Life was rarely ever fair though, and the silence remained unbroken.
Perhaps, like Pellaeon, Thrawn hadn't a single idea of what he should say. How did you begin a conversation with someone after such an argument as yesterday's? How did you talk to someone after so much time has passed, when it is so clear that they were now two radically different people?
He decided that perhaps honesty would be the best choice at this juncture. It was easier than just standing here and allowing the quiet to suffocate them.
"I don't even know what to say to you right now."
Silence met his remark like an old friend.
He refused to glance over at the other man to gauge his reaction properly, but he could see Thrawn shift his weight from on foot to the other out of his peripheral vision.
"That is an appropriate way for you to feel given what happened yesterday."
"I didn't know what to say to you before that debacle either," Pellaeon huffed.
Thrawn tilted his head slightly to the side. "Is that why you hit me?"
Pellaeon could taste his own annoyance. Thought he felt his eyelid twitch and his jaw set. He put a lid on it and pushed it back down for the moment. "If your fishing for apologies then I'm afraid that you're going to be disappointed."
"I'm not trying to get an apology nor am I attempting to reignite an argument," Thrawn continued. His voice sounded like the hollow glass of an empty bottle. Smooth, but vacant. "I genuinely would like to know why."
A small part of Pellaeon wanted to turn his head and see if the alien's face was as calm as his voice sounded. If he was as empty as he sounded. But he wouldn't, although he was not sure if it was out of fear of what he thought he would see, or what he wouldn't.
Which would be worse? To glance over and see a truly aloof man who was carefully inching the noose around Pellaeon's throat? Or to see a man trying to hide himself behind a mask of indifference, hiding something that neither of them wanted to see?
If it was the latter, then perhaps they were both wearing that ill-fitting mask.
Maybe they were just two play-actors making pretend and the reason Thrawn hadn't hurried up and finished snapping the rope shut on his neck was because they were already dead and this was just his own personal hell.
The thought made him sick with himself.
"I hit you because I was angry with you," Pellaeon began. "I've lived my life under the belief that you were dead. My emotions were run thin, considering you decided to show up very shortly after the mess with the conman was solved, and when I very suddenly learned that you were alive this whole time I felt that you had abandoned the Empire."
It hurt to say it, but he tried to keep his voice calm as he continued. He found it easier to find the words if he kept his eyes on the orbiting moon outside – on that stupid smile that had been pounded onto its cratered surface. The moons and the stars cared not for the short-lived trifles of people. "I still feel that way because you have yet to explain anything to me. The only reason I'm not losing my mind on you again now is that I don't think it would get us anywhere and I am just too damn tired for that."
"Tell me, Pellaeon," Thrawn quietly began, "if knowledge would have soothed your anger quicker than violence, then what would you have asked me?"
His nose curled at the implication that if only he had asked one question then all his problems would have been solved and his anger would have evaporated. His eyes glanced over at Thrawn in the glass and found him already looking back in the reflection.
"I will answer more of your questions, if I can," he said and Pellaeon thought that he had heard some sympathy buried off in his voice somewhere. "I would like for us to begin again with a better understanding. Allow me address your most pressing concern first."
"What if I won't like the answer?"
"You very well may not, but you have my word – as much as it is still worth to you – that I will be honest. I suspect you may leave this room angrier than when you entered, but I hope that will not be the case."
Pellaeon's eyes left Thrawn's to find the bruise. It was difficult to see in the reflection of the viewport but the dark blotch on his skin was still visible.
There were so many things he could have asked about. Numerous concerns and thoughts that had haunted him during long sleepless nights. They all ran through his head then, rolled together into a viscous boil until one question bubbled to the top.
"Why didn't you tell me you were still alive?"
Why did you think that information would burden me?
If it was not about trust then what was it about?
Thrawn didn't look surprised by his question.
"Over the course of the last seven or so years, I have been carefully crafting a plan to put in motion. It required a great deal of time to prepare and only recently has it come close to completion, which is why I have returned now and not earlier. Telling you anything about my survival would have jeopardized that plan. It would have tainted your leadership, made you question your decisions."
Thrawn paused, and Pellaeon watched as the corners of his lips twitched downwards. He was thinking about something, and Pellaeon knew from that single change in expression that he was not going to be happy with it. "However, that plan is not quite ready to be fully revealed yet."
Pellaeon felt his own mouth twist in a frown and his eyebrows furrow. He didn't bother attempting to hide the vitriol in his own voice as he spoke, "I thought you said you were going to be honest?"
"I am being honest. What I have been preparing has been a very delicate operation, and one single upset could destroy everything. I will not play my hand before I am ready."
That was always how it was, wasn't it? It was always Pellaeon being left in the dark while Thrawn would explain the need to know parts of his seemingly absurd plan, leaving out pieces of information in hopes that Pellaeon would figure it out himself – or simply because he felt it unnecessary to full explain himself.
Except there would be sudden burst of clarity awaiting at the end of a shocking victory, when all of the careful pieces the grand admiral had set up fell into place. There was just the dark pit of ignorance, and the gaping rift that still laid between them.
It irritated Pellaeon that Thrawn felt he held such power even now. Even more so when he knew that Thrawn would dig his heels in if Pellaeon pushed him for more, and there was little point in pushing the subject unless he wanted another confrontation.
"Then what else can you tell me?"
"That I needed an example to make a point against the New Republic. The Empire served that purpose, but as time went on I realized that I needed something more." Thrawn sighed. "I didn't tell you anything because I don't think you would have fought as hard to keep the Empire alive if you knew. You would have vehemently disagreed with what I had planned."
He trailed off then, and as his eyes moved to break contact with Pellaeon's, a weight settled deep in the admiral's gut. Thrawn's face had not changed in expression, but Pellaeon swore that he could see something in his eyes. It creeped in from those red depths, something cold and dark and miserable.
Pellaeon felt the crushing weight of his words before he had even spoken them.
He parted his lips, prepared to tell Thrawn that he didn't want to hear it. That whatever his purpose was in staying dead for so long, Pellaeon did not want to know it.
Yet the words never came, caught somewhere in his throat and Thrawn spoke unheeded.
"I needed a martyr."
The noose snapped shut. Pellaeon breathed in deeply through his nose to fight the tightening of his throat muscles. He felt as if he had been punched in the chest.
"You knew."
A sense of horror overtook him as a handful of the puzzle pieces fell into place. He turned his head to stare at Thrawn, who did not dare return the look.
"You knew."
The years of loss overwhelmed him. The endless list of Imperial soldiers and civilians lost to pointless fighting, and deep within Pellaeon's core he felt a pit open up. He turned towards Thrawn and has him shoved up against the transparasteel by his collar before he could think. Pellaeon was somewhat aware of the hands that grabbed at his wrist and shoulder but Pellaeon is focused solely on the face in front of his.
"You never told me you lived because you wanted this to happen. The Empire was dying and you let it happen on purpose."
Pellaeon's voice seethed. Vitriol dripped from his words. His hands shook and he couldn't tell if it was from a desire to throttle Thrawn or from holding himself back from doing just that.
He allowed himself to tighten his grip and he shoved Thrawn a little harder into the hard surface behind him. "Why?"
He doesn't even know why he has asked the question. There was nothing Thrawn could have said that would have validated what he had done. There was nothing he could have said that would have made any of this better.
Yet there was some part of him that still wanted to hear him say something, anything to explain himself.
There was nothing that would make up for ten years of struggle but he wanted to hear Thrawn try for once in his damned life!
Thrawn eyebrows furrowed and something that almost looked like actual anger slipped into the edges of his expression. "Do you think that I wanted this?" His grip on Pellaeon's wrist tightened as something sharp slipped into his tone. "Do you believe that I would have chosen this path if I did not think it was the only option?"
Pellaeon balked. "What gave you the right to choose any of this?"
"I still had the authority to make my decision at the time I had done so. I was within my rights."
"And no one else need to be consulted on this?"
"There was no one I needed to consult."
"I needed to be consulted!"
Thrawn blinked at the volume in Pellaeon's voice, startled. If Pellaeon didn't know better he would have thought that he had shrank back a bit, because there was no way that was anything more than a trick of the lighting.
"You're off on some backwater planet making decisions but I'm the one who has to stay here and watch our men and women die!
"You don't have to watch as morale plummets among the few who still manage to themselves up every morning, knowing that there's nothing awaiting them but failure. You don't have to order people back to their quarters to rest when they're falling asleep at their terminals because they're pulling two or three shifts for weeks at a time."
Thrawn stared at him with a blank expression. There was no hint as to what was going on in his head even as Pellaeon tried to read his thoughts. Then he felt Thrawn relax slightly, and he gave Pellaeon a single nod. A careful, minute motion, barely more than a dip of his chin. "You're right."
Pellaeon's hands shook.
He didn't want to be right.
He wanted ten wasted years of his life back.
"Yet someone had to make this decision," Thrawn continued, unaware or uncaring of Pellaeon's internal struggle. "It had to be done. The Empire has been dying for a long time, long before either of us were ever in command of it. I had to salvage what I could from the situation."
Pellaeon couldn't find words to respond with. He wanted to, wanted so desperately to say something – to tell him that's he was wrong – but his tongue doesn't move. It felt thick in his dry mouth. Useless.
Once again he found himself at the end of his emotional rope. What anger he had been holding onto has slowly seeped out of him, and it left him with little to clutch to than a single conclusion.
There is no point in arguing about this any longer.
It was time to move on from the situation, for now. There were bigger things at stake than either of them, and Thrawn had made his position firm. Pellaeon would not be receiving any sort of information any time soon, no matter how hard he pushed. An unsurprising realization, he supposed, given how stubborn Thrawn had been in the past.
The Empire would continue on with what it had been given.
Pellaeon could only hope that Thrawn had some sort of salvation to offer.
He sighed and let his hands loosen their grip on Thrawn's collar until they were back at his sides. "You said that you would answer more of my questions."
"Yes."
"Put a pin in that promise and save it for later then. I'm afraid we may have bigger issues that need to be dealt with."
Thrawn nodded. "I'm sure the crew has been quite a nuisance to handle."
"I'm sure Ardiff has been having a hell of a time with them," Pellaeon agreed. "But then there's the second problem. I'll be meeting with Senator Organa in a standard month to formally adopt the treaty into practice."
Thrawn cocked his head slightly in question and Pellaeon gave him a half smile that didn't reach his eyes. "It'll be interesting, considering we had agreed on holding that meeting aboard the Chimaera."