(Prompt request: a kiss... because the world is saved. Post-Nathema.
In Equivalent Exchange continuity, meaning one primary difference from canon- Lana knew.)

everything

It takes an hour to cycle the tank.

It would have been faster on her ship but the little shuttle's all they've got, just big enough to carry the three of them home, and its stores only have enough kolto to keep the tank full. It's got to last until Odessen, or-

(She's not going to think about that right now.)

She and Lana agree to simply pretend neither of them is hurt at all- their wounds will keep; without the kolto, Theron's might not. But she could never carry him by herself, even at full strength, let alone with a dozen half-healed saber wounds and her hands still numb and tingling from killing a machine-god- how many gods has she killed, this last year?- and so Lana helps her lift him free of the emptying chamber and, together, teeth gritted against their own pain, they settle him onto the bed.

"You should sleep," Lana says. "I can keep watch until it's time to move him again."

"No. If he wakes up, I need to be here." She shakes her head stubbornly, wraps a blanket around him and then a second and a third- it was cold, she remembers, when she woke to her injuries for the first time after Asylum, there in the medical bay on the Gravestone.

(She always imagined she could hear it whispering to her, the voices loudest at its heart. But she'd thought it was one of Valkorion's tricks. Stupid, stupid, stupid-)

"We'll be there soon. He'll be-" The monitor chimes softly over Lana's words and they both look to it. His heartbeat stutters, steadies out, stutters again; Lana reaches for a syringe of painkiller and presses it into her palm. "They'll be waiting when we land. It'll be all right."

"I need to be here," she says again. Theron's forehead creases as the needle pierces his skin, and she strokes his face with her free hand, whispering soft apologies, until the lines of tension fade. "Do we have any stims left?"

"Yes, but you've already used three since we-" Lana sighs, long past argument, hands trembling. Her last attempt at healing took too much out of her- the energy had to come from somewhere, she said, and with nothing else to draw from she pulled it from herself. "Never mind. I'll put a pot of caf on."

She nods. "And could you bring my datapad from my pack? I ought to respond to Satele's last message."

"Did you tell her?"

"She already knew. She-" she frowns, trying to imagine. Had it been the same when Jace- oh, stars- "she felt it, she said."

Lana flinches.

"She wants to help, and if she's been hiding out where I think she has she may beat us to Odessen. I need to send the passcodes, and-"

"I'll see to it." Lana's hand rests on hers, just for a moment, before she pulls away. "It's the least I can do. We knew Theron was taking a massive risk, but if I'd had any idea how dangerous the Order truly was I would never have-"

"We knew?" She's been looking at Theron while they talked but that gets her attention properly; she snaps her head round, staring straight at Lana. "We. You knew."

(-and in that moment it all makes perfect sense, the way they'd looked at her that morning on the way to Umbara, the stun shot, the silence afterward that at the time she'd mistaken for confusion, for shocked disbelief but no, it was guilt-)

"Only at the beginning," Lana says quietly, eyes closed. "We didn't know then how they were watching us, and it was too dangerous to send messages back and forth. Once he was gone, I was as blind as you."

"But you knew. You knew, and you let me believe he thought I was a monster who deserved to die. You let everyone else think I was delusional for believing that my own husband loved me enough to forgive what I've become. You- you saw the way they looked at me, Lana, and you didn't say a word. Why?"

Hands clenched into tight fists, Lana presses one to her mouth. "I promised him. I promised him I wouldn't tell you. I promised him I'd keep you safe, if-"

They both look down at Theron, then, as he shifts and shivers despite the layers of blankets.

"He would have done anything for you." It's a whisper, barely audible over the slow burble of the kolto tank and the beeping monitors. "Anything. Everything. Even if it meant you hated him for it."

There's nowhere to sit in the tiny medical bay and suddenly all her wounds ache terribly. She leans forward against the bed, holding tight to its edge. "And you?"

"And me. If my being beyond forgiveness is the price of the galaxy's survival, I'll pay it gladly."

Oh, she's so tired, so tired, oh, Force-

She closes her eyes. "We've lost the Gravestone. We've lost the fleet. I think we've paid enough of a price already, don't you?"

Lana's silent.

"I'd like to be alone with him, please," she says, "for a little while."

There's a gentle pressure against her mind, just for a moment, that feels something like gratitude; when she opens her eyes again the room is empty.

Theron's stirring again on the table but it's far too soon for more painkiller and they're out of blankets and she hates this, this awful helpless feeling. He came back to her. Somehow, she always knew he would. But to lose him now, after everything else they've lost- she won't. She can't. But there's nothing she can do but make him comfortable.

When he couldn't sleep, back in the days before he left her, she used to hold him; he'd rest his head in her lap and she'd trace patterns on his face and through his hair, talking about nothing, singing quiet little songs. (He used to tease her when she'd sing: she knew so few childhood songs, so few lullabies, that she'd simply start with whatever came to mind. Don't they sing their children to sleep, he'd say over some silly pop song, in the Empire?

But he didn't know any more than she did. The Jedi didn't sing their children to sleep, either.)

There's just enough room at the head of the treatment bed for her to climb up. Settling there, cross-legged, she lifts his head carefully off the pillow and shifts herself into place.

"It's okay, Theron." She leans forward, presses a kiss to his fluttering eyelids, one and then the other. "I'm here."

He doesn't respond- it's better that way, probably, remembering how much her own wound hurt. The monitor readout's a little steadier, though. She keeps talking.

"We match now, you know. Lucky for you, I like scars." He's got kolto in the corners of his eyes; she wipes it away carefully. "I'll make sure to nag you every day about patching them, too. Front and back."

That might have been a smile. Was it a smile?

"Us and medical bays, right?" Her voice wavers- she's got to be stronger than this, she's held it together this long and he needs her to-

Theron blinks up at her, slow and sleepy and bleary-eyed from the meds but oh, it's definitely a smile. "That's my girl," he whispers. "Such a romantic."

"Don't try to talk-" she can see it hurts him as he inhales, trying to respond- "just rest. We'll talk properly when you're better."

He wrinkles his forehead and shifts beneath the blankets and after a few false starts he lifts one hand to catch at hers where it's resting against his cheek and presses his fingers flat against her palm. I'm sorry, he spells out, letter by letter. I'm sorry. I wasn't watching, I thought he was-

"Don't be sorry. Not for that."

Lot of things to be sorry for. He turns his head to kiss her fingertips. Everything. I love you.

She lets her fingers curl over his, as close a thing as they can manage right now to an embrace. "I love you, too."

But you stopped them. I knew you would.

"That's me," she says, and bows her head low; he smiles when she kisses him and the lost time of the last year's a promise in the curve of his lips on hers. "Always saving the world."