"You don't have to do this, you know," Max Veers said gently. Piett sat across from him in some small hole-in-the-wall diner on Coruscant, staring down at a mushroom-and-nuna pasta in serious trepidation. "You can order something else."

Executor was a warship, and a busy one. Her crew was all trained military, the apex of their kind, serving an exacting and active Sith Lord who was also Supreme Commander of the Imperial Forces, in an active war. They were, all of them, used to high-stress, dangerous situations. They made a living on thriving in such an environment.

Yet after the Floria-veridian fiasco, Vader, of all people, seemed to think the crew – all the crew, not just those who had been infected – needed shore leave. It was not that Piett disagreed, precisely – the former infectees needed to get used to feeling human again, while those who had never been infected had been shouldering twice their normal workload and more while their colleagues were affected – but the idea of Vader deciding to give his entire ship a vacation boggled the mind. Yet here they were, dumped on Coruscant for a month or two while the Dark Lord hared off in his shuttle and TIE doing galaxy-knew-what.

More specifically, here he and Max were, in this podunk diner in the middle of Nowheretown Coruscant. And here he was, staring at a pasta made with a food he had previously loved and now gave him flashbacks.

"Firmus." Veers' voice interrupted his scattering thoughts. "It's okay," his friend said gently, brown eyes worried as he peered into Piett's face. "Order something else."

Piett took a deep breath. "I think… I think I will," he decided, shoving the pasta aside. Maybe one day he'd be able to eat mushrooms again, but he just wasn't ready yet.