A/N: Ending the second. (Should follow right on chapter 8.)
She does not know what to think when he doesn't come back.
Juno does not pace; that would be unprofessional, even now, when it is all over and the world (it seems) is celebrating; she stands here, before the bank of windows that looks out into the starry vastness of the universe, and feels very cold.
Still, it is a lovely view.
The Corellian system has one of the most complicated orbital patterns in the galaxy—the proximity of the planets, the size of the sun, the influence of the binary system nearby—all wreak havoc with the trajectory of these bodies. Still, it is a calculable havoc. She had memorized the basic patterns—once for her Astronomy and Navigation class at Corulag, and again, years later, when she had made a practice run from one end of the system to the other for a training exercise.
Two planets are moving toward each other. Alignment, Juno remembers, is rare; there are only a handful of times when such a thing happens. She recites them all, quietly, to herself.
She is still cold.
Which is strange. Because the room is not cold.
She thinks of the Rogue Shadow and how it is always cold on that ship, except for that one too-brief moment in the engine room when Galen held her and she was warm; she remembers how cold it always was, but how he never seemed to feel it as much as she.
She had only ever kissed him once. It still does not seem fair.
A warm hand touches her shoulder. She turns.
"He's at last one with the Force," Kota says.
She wishes he weren't; selfish, perhaps, but Juno thinks that Galen would have agreed with her. She wraps her jacket tightly around herself and shivers. "You always knew who he was," she says. "Didn't you?"
It is not really a question. Kota is a Jedi.
"I suspected," he tells her.
"Then why did you help us?" A foolish question, but she cannot help herself.
Kota is silent for a moment.
He tells her, finally, that Galen had loved her. It is unhelpful; she had not needed Kota's words for her to know that, and she still does not have an answer, and Galen is still dead.
But it is a foolish question, so she does not press the issue.
--
There are speeches for him afterward—fine speeches by fine orators, spreading through the holonet like wildfire. Galen is a hero, they whisper; he is a martyr, he is a rebel, he was the very first champion of the New Republic. Juno is never quite sure what to make of these speeches.
She wishes he had not died. She misses him.
He had carried the thought of her to his death, and so she carries the memory of him now—a bright touch of fire blazing against the icy darkness of the universe—and it is sentimental nonsense, all of it, but Juno does not care.
It is cold there in the vast empty spaces between the stars—lovely and perilous—but he had gone forth unafraid, and she will not falter when she follows.