Amazingly, and to my constant, baited-breath disbelief, he didn't. Boba stayed that night, while the nurses gave me detailed baby-care instructions – Ipa explained that, to be effective in the care of visiting diplomats, Ryloth's royal medical staff was well-trained in the care of over 100 (politically high-ranking) spiecies. He stayed while Ipa and I had tea and she explained her conversion, upon returning to her home planet, to the priestess-hood. After her near-death experience she had a spiritual awakening, and had been working toward religious enlightenment ever since.
" Of course," she said, smiling at me, " This was all fated to happen, my awakening. Without my strict meditation schedule and new awareness of the universe, I would not have sensed your pain on the day Wedge was born."
" You know," said Boba, who was rummaging through the food stores in the kitchen, now replenished at the hands of the nurses, who had gone home the day before. " The Jedi would call that 'using the Force'."
Ipa shrugged. " I never had much use for the Jedi religion. They claim Pacifism, but they are quick to fight, and quick to judge." Boba clamped his hands on Ipa's shoulders and looked at me.
" My kind of girl," he said with a grin. I rolled my eyes.
" My brother is a Jedi working on Corasaunt, and he has recently been called to war," Ipa said as Boba left the kitchen with his snack. " We've had long debates – well, feroucious arguments – over the family dinner table reguarding his role as a warrior. The Twi'lek religion – the order I've pledged my life to – calls for strict Pacifism in all situations."
" So the war has begun?" I said with a frown, feeling suddenly very separate from the rest of the world. I thought of Darren, and wondered if he had seen battle yet.
" Yes," Ipa said. " Some would say it began here more than ten years ago, when Dooku first revealed himself to be a Separatist leader."
I bristled at the name of the man who was responsible for the death of my parents.
" It has been a cold war since then," Ipa said, sipping her tea, " Perched on the very edge of combat for years – but now the real conflict has begun. Ryloth has managed to stay out of it so far," she told me. " And I pray every night that we will be able to remain neutral." She gave me a look that told me she wasn't sure that was possible.
" There are dark forces behind the Separatists," she said, echoing Mace's claim that the Sith were fueling the movement. " And I fear for the galaxy, for all of us." She cast a glance toward Wedge's crib, where the baby was sleeping soundly.
I stood up, went to the crib myself, and looked down at my slumbering son. I remembered Mace's premonition, that my child would offer some hope against the coming forces of darkness. I touched Wedge's back softly and prayed that Mace was wrong. I didn't want my son to face the horror of war. I turned to look at Boba, sitting at the mouth of the cave munching on jerky, and remembered his premature experience with the horrible battle that had killed his father.
I walked over, sat down beside him, and let him drape an arm around my shoulders and pull me closer. For a moment I thought of asking him what he was doing here – how long did he plan to stay? My insides were constantly churning with the possibility that he might leave, and yet I was terrified to bring it up – I almost felt that if I just kept quiet, maybe he wouldn't notice he was staying.
" Have you been to visit your father's grave since you've been back?" I asked him. He shook his head. " Maybe we could go tonight," I said, " Before the sun goes down. I mean, if you want to. I wish – I wish I had a place to go, to visit my father. I don't know where he's buried – somewhere on Corasaunt, I guess. I remember my mother's grave at the orphanage – how you used to go with me when I brought flowers. I – always appreciated that."
He turned and kissed my cheek. " Sure," he said. " I guess I've been avoiding it since I've been back. Because – well. I'm ashamed to face his spirit. I have nothing to show him in the way of avenging his death." He looked down at his hands.
Something swelled in me – maybe, I thought, maybe this is where we can end all of this. I tried to quickly come up with a few well-placed words that would convince Boba that devoting his life to revenge wasn't what his father would have wanted. Of course, from what I'd heard of Jango, that was probably exactly what the man wanted from his son, but maybe in death his enlightened spirit would have seen the error of his hard-edged life on earth, and wouldn't have wanted his son to waste his life on anger and regret.
I opened my mouth but couldn't get the words out – I was too afraid they would rub him the wrong way and send him running off again to find the Jedi who had done the deed. Instead I rubbed his back and said, " We'll take my speeder. It'll be a little less conspicuous than Slave 1." He offered a small smile, and nodded.
As we were getting ready to go, something occurred to me – another stop we could make on our little journey out of the cave. A smile crept across my lips.
" Ipa," I called, " Would you mind keeping an eye on Wedge for a few hours?"
" No problem," she said with a smile, " Mind if I ask why?"
" Oh," I said, grinning, " Boba and I will be out for a bit. Visiting some old friends."
The sun was going down as we reached Jango's grave. Boba climbed out of the speeder and approached the boulder that shadowed Jango's makeshift gravestone. He knelt down, brushed the sand away, and gazed for a long time at his father's name, scrawled there by himself as a child.
I climbed out of the speeder after him, and walked slowly to the gravestone of the man who had been Boba's father – sort of. In the truest sense, Jango was just the man Boba was cloned from. But I knew that Jango must have treated Boba like a son, or Boba's undying devotion to his memory would not remain so strong.
I thought about how it must feel to be a clone, to have no parents, not even dead ones that you had no memory of. To be the legacy of just one man, born not of a union but of a single image.
" Dad," I heard Boba whisper, shutting his eyes. He turned back to me. " I wish he was alive, to see his grandson. I think – I mean, I wonder if he would be proud of me."
" Of course he would, Boba," I said, " You're an extremely respected hunter – he would be happy that you were living up to his own reputation." Of course, I was less than happy about it myself, but it was true.
" But," Boba said. " I have you and Wedge – I have attachments. I have friends – Dengar and Karmac, friends that I wouldn't betray. I don't think he would approve of that."
" Isn't it wise to have some alliances in the business?" I asked, thinking of the respectful way the hunters at the tavern had viewed Boba and Karmac's pledge to avenge whatever had been done to Dengar by someone called Garko. " You don't want to have everyone hating you, right?"
" Dad would say," Boba said, " Its better to have everyone fear you. But I guess he did have some allies. There was a woman – well – a Clawdite, who looked like a human woman when Dad was around. I guess she figured transforming into a beautiful woman would be the quickest way to win him over. Anyway, she was around a lot when I was young . . . I liked her. She and Dad worked together. But . . ." he stopped for a moment, and sighed.
" He had to kill her one day, when she betrayed us. She was going to give his name to some Jedi – one of the Jedis that later tracked him down and tried to kill him. And he had to kill her." He looked up at me. " I know if I had to, I could do the same thing to someone I believed to be a friend who had betrayed me. But . . . not you, Calli. I could never – I mean no matter what – and the same goes for our son."
I almost laughed out loud: was this the way Boba Fett said 'I love you': I won't kill you?
" Boba," I said, " Stop worrying. Wedge and I aren't about to give your name to any Jedi."
" But what if," he said, standing, running his hands frantically through his hair, " I mean, what if they had Wedge, and would kill him if you didn't?"
" Boba!" I said, " Stop it. No one is trying to kill us, or betray you, or any of that nonsense."
" How do you know?" he asked.
" We live in a cave, Boba," I reminded him dryly. " On an outer rim planet where, yes, a horrible battle once took place, but where there hasn't been much action in years. You might be a big deal in Corasaunt, but here, nobody cares. All the Geonosians want to do is eat bugs and watch executions. They don't have any secret bounty hunter elimination agendas. Trust me."
Boba sighed, and looked back to his father's final resting place. " I just feel like I'm doing everything wrong," he said.
" Boba," I said, " Don't you think your father would have sacrificed himself for you, his son? He was breaking his own rule when he took you under his wing."
" I don't know," Boba muttered. " Maybe."
" Look," I said, taking his arm. " No one is going to hurt our son. I won't let them. And don't worry about me – I can take care of myself. There's no need to worry about us." He closed his eyes.
" I need a drink," he muttered. I grinned.
" I was hoping you'd say that," I said. Boba made a confused face.
" You were?"
" Yep," I said, pulling him back toward the speeder. " I know just the place."
When we got back in the speeder I took the controls and piloted us toward the ghost town, and Eulee's bar. The sun had gone down, and there was a crowd that was beginning to gather – the place looked lively, and with Boba by my side, I felt completely different than I had the last time I'd made the trip there. I'd also been careful to try and make myself look great before we left – not the usual vagabond clothing and messy hair stuffed into a bun. I wore my hair down, neatly combed, silky smooth and curled at the ends, and wore my most (okay, only) stylish shirt and skirt, things I'd bought on Corasaunt for a post-graduation dinner.
" What's this place?" Boba asked, climbing out of the speeder.
" Its popular with bounty hunters," I said, " Thought maybe you'd like it." I decided not to mention that Tinka and the others had been nasty to me a few weeks before and that I wanted to really rub her face in the fact that I actually knew Boba – I figured just seeing me with him would be enough.
Boba shrugged. " Sounds okay," he said.
I don't think I've ever held my chin so high as I did that night, walking through the doors of the tavern with Boba at my side. The bar was packed to the gills with hunters, smugglers and other various riff-raff, but, most importantly, all of the groupies – Tinka included – were at their usual table.
The first one to catch sight of us was Eulee, who gave us a huge Gragarian grin.
" Hey!" she said, " Here's our girl without her big belly! I guess you had your kid?"
" Yep," I said. " He's fine, I'm fine, everything's great." I was beaming. Behind me, Boba yawned and waved to a few hunters who seemed to recognize him.
" So is this the outlaw husband you've told us about?" she asked, peering around at Boba. My cheeks burned when I remembered the lie I told the first time I'd come to the bar – I was afraid Boba would think I'd been going around telling people we were married.
" That's me," he said without missing a beat. " I'll have a Vistulo, if you've got them."
" Sure do," Eulee said, happy to break out the expensive liquer. " And you, hon?"
" Just a Veronian wine, please," I said.
" I'll have Rikki bring them over. Go ahead, your usual table is empty."
" Thanks, Eulee," I said, and led Boba over to my corner table, though I knew we wouldn't make it there. Sure enough, some more hunters spotted him and called out his name.
" Ey, Boba!" the red, fish-like hunter, who I'd come to know as Werrell, cried out. " Over here, we've got an extra seat!"
By now Tinka's - and the rest of the girls' - eyes were on us, and even though she was trying to play it cool, I could see that she was boiling. Some of the other girls were less concerned with their images, and waved and called out to Boba, giggling excitedly over his celebrity.
" Hey Werrell, Oity," Boba said, waving to several others. " Have you got two seats?" he asked, placed a hand on my waist. I nearly melted with the satisfaction of Tinka's stare, which was glued to the two of us.
" I'll just sit on your lap," I offered sweetly, and loud enough for the girls to hear.
" Lucky girl," I heard someone whisper.
" Hey Tinka," another girl said, " Was she the one you were talking about, who said she was –"
" Shut up, Chima," Tinka snapped. " Hey," she called, and I realized, with some surprise, that she was talking to me.
" Yeah?" I said, as Boba pulled me into his lap, and laughed with the other men at the several comments of surprise that he got at being seen without his armor.
" Look," she said. " Whether I believed you or not, I did give the message to Karmac. And it looks like it worked."
I shrugged. " Yeah," I said, " So? What do a want – a thank you?" I scoffed.
Tinka gave me an annoyed look. " Maybe I don't deserve that exactly," she said, and I couldn't believe the difference in her tone, now that she was talking to me on Boba's lap. " But, well. They're kind of boring . . . I mean, they mostly talk about guns. So . . . why don't you come sit with us?"
I considered it for a moment, turned back to the table to find them indeed asking Boba what kind of guns he had used to take down Garko's gang, and decided to forgive her and join the girls.
" Alright," Tinka said, patting my shoulder as I sat down. The other girls at the table stared at me with a mixture of awe and furious jealousy. I suspected what they were thinking when they were looking at me was something along the lines of: a human encyclopedia of Boba information.
" My name is Calli," I said, figuring that was a good enough start. Tinka went around the table introducing all of the other girls.
" So all that time, this boring little thing that sat alone in the corner is Boba Fett's best girl," Chima said with a sigh. " Who'd have thunk it."
The girls quizzed me for most of the night on all things Boba. Did I know he had slept with other women? Well, yes. How long had we been together? Hard to say.
" Is he as great in bed as everyone says?" Chima finally gushed toward the end of the evening.
I made a prim face. " I'm not one to kiss and tell," I said, letting a smile slowly creep onto my lips, which caused the girls to burst into laughter, as they knew well enough what my answer was. I felt hands on my shoulders, and looked up to see Boba.
" Ah, Calli," he said, " I think its time to go home."
As we were riding back in the speeder, I looked up at the stars, shooting past above us.
" It was wonderful to go in there with you," I admitted, grinning. " They all love you, you know – those girls. They're just dying to know everything."
" Please don't tell them everything," Boba warned.
" Oh, I wouldn't. I didn't even mention Wedge. I think they're more interested in the size of the crotch-guard on your armor than the effects of your daily life." He snorted with laughter.
When we arrived back at the cave, Ipa was washing dishes and Wedge was still sound asleep.
" He woke up a few times," Ipa said as we crept over to have a look at him. " But I sang to him, got him to go back to sleep."
" Ipa," I said, placing a hand on her arm. " I really appreciate all you've done – you've paid back your debt to me ten-fold. And I love having you here, but I know you have a life at home, and I don't want to keep you from it any longer."
She turned and smiled. " Are you sure?" she asked. " If there is any other way I can help . . ."
" Really," I said, " Your help means a lot to me, but I feel selfish when I see you doing our dishes. You've done more than enough, and I'll be grateful to you forever."
" Alright," she said, " I'll contact my father's convoy tonight and have them pick me up in the morning. I do wish to get back to the temple and worship properly. But," she added, " I will miss you." I grinned and gave her a hug. " And," she whispered in my ear when I did this, " I'm sure you're ready to be alone with your love, who has finally returned." She gave me a knowing smirk when we separated.
" Well," I said, turning to look at Boba, who was kneeling by Wedge's crib and watching him sleep. " Who knows if he'll stay."
" Oh, I think he will," Ipa said, " Look at how enamoured he is with his new son – you know, my father was one of the most ruthless rebels on Ryloth when he preformed a coup and de-throned the previous dynasty's ruler. The people were terrified that they would have a bloody, fearsome tyrant for king . . . but when my brother and I were born, he re-discovered his faith, and was a changed man. Fatherhood can really put things in perspective, I think."
" I hope so," I said quietly, watching my son and his father together. " I really hope so. I hope he doesn't end up breaking both of our hearts."
That night, Ipa slept for the last time on the cot the nurses had left for her near the kitchen, and Boba and I went to bed together as usual. In the middle of the night, after we'd strayed to our opposite ends on the bed, I felt his arm slide around my waist, and the heat of his body pressed to my back. I moved back and settled against him, enjoying the familiar but often fleeting feeling of sleeping in his arms.
" Calli," he whispered near my ear, his warm breath on my skin sending a happy shudder through me. " You awake?"
" Uh huh," I muttered into my pillow.
" Are you, um, still healing?" he asked, " From . . . you know, the baby?" I shook with laughter.
" Boba," I said, grinning and keeping my eyes closed and he propped himself up on an elbow to get a look over my shoulder. " Are you trying to seduce little old me? What for?" I teased, " With your many conquests you'd think you'd be bored with me by now."
" C'mon, Calli," he said, kissing my ear. " You know that's just a bunch of Bantha crap. I'm not exactly in the company of many women on Corasaunt – unless they're bounty hunters themselves. And in that case they're usually more interested in beating me out for a bounty than getting me undressed."
" Sure, sure," I said, rolling over and letting him wrap me further in his arms. " Anyway, the nurses said I have to wait six weeks. So you're out of luck."
" Oh, okay," he said. " I was just, you know. Wondering." I giggled into his chest, and then realized that this could be an opportunity to try and find out how long I might be sharing a bed with him.
" I'll, um, look for human birth control supplements next time we go to the market," I said, " That is – if, you know – I mean, I don't want to waste my money."
" You won't be," he whispered, stroking my hair.
" Boba," I said, burying my face against neck and sliding my arms around his shoulders, " I missed you so much," I admitted, growing serious. He squeezed me tighter.
" I know," he said, and I couldn't tell if he was telling me he'd missed me too, or just acknowledging the fact that it was obvious that I would miss him.
Because we couldn't make love, that night and on many that followed, we would lie in bed talking instead. At first we mostly talked about Wedge, marvelling over his existence, the fact that we were suddenly someone's parents, and the every detail of his daily life, which consisted of little more than nursing, sleeping and crying, but fascinated us all the same.
Eventually, during these late night talks, I ended up asking him about his life on Corasaunt – what a typical day was like (I learned that there wasn't a typical day when it came to bounty hunting), where he slept, what he did for fun.
" Sometimes I go to bars," he told me. " But its not . . . I mean, the men there just want to tell me how great my Dad was, and that's nice but it gets old. And the women are a little . . . silly."
" Silly?" I said, " What about Luna Organa?" He laughed.
" How do you know about Luna?" he asked, " From those girls at the bar?"
" You might say that."
" Well," he said, rolling onto his side, to face me. " My father kidnapped her when she was seven years old; some guy with a political plot had paid him to hold her until a movement in the Senate that he wanted rejected was dimissed by her father. I was eight at the time, and Dad wasn't exactly explaining his work to me yet, so I figured she was just visiting us or something. Actually, I remember thinking that she might have been some kid he picked up as a playmate for me." I grinned.
" Anyway, she was a princess, so she acted like a real brat," he said. " At first I couldn't stand her – she whined and threw temper tantrums all the time. But eventually we became friends, sort of. I mean, she was there, I was there, we were both kids, and no other options were around. Its not like we were soul mates or anything, we were just stuck together for a few months, and I guess when she was returned to her parents I was a little upset, just because it was a bit more boring without her. But I got over it. Karmac tells me all time that she asked about me once, like it's a big deal. I'm sure its not. What does she care? She was probably just curious about what happened to me." I nodded, though somehow I doubted that this woman would let even a passing whim go, based on what I'd heard.
Occasionally, Boba even had questions for me.
" How did you find out about your father's death?" he asked me one night, catching me off guard as I was putting Wedge to bed. I held a finger to my lips and flicked my head away from the crib, signaling that we should discuss it elsewhere.
For some reason, when he brought up this subject, my heart rate increased. Maybe only because of the nature of the thing – the murder of my father at the hands of a bounty hunter, and the fact that I'd gleaned the information from a Jedi. I told myself that it was only because of Boba's prejudice against the Jedi that I hesitated before telling him the truth.
I don't know what it was that stopped me from mentioning Mace – I still don't. All I know is that I heard a voice in my head, telling me with frightening clarity:
Don't tell him what you know.
" I, um," I stuttered when we reached the bed. " He had been a pilot for the Republic himself, I found out. There was – an older officer, who'd known him. He told me about him, and about how he died."
If Boba sensed that I wasn't being entirely honest, he didn't show any sign of his doubt. We sat down together on the bed, and he was silent for sometime before he got the nerve to broach his second question.
" Did he tell you," he asked, hesitant, " Why – why a bounty hunter killed him?"
Here, I didn't feel that I had anything to hide.
" He had information about a politician, Count Dooku – I believe he's a principal supporter of the Separtists now," I explained, curtly, not letting any emotion rise in my voice. " Dooku hired the hunter to kill him."
" Dooku," Boba said, seemingly automatically. I turned to him.
" You know him?" I asked, a cold feeling growing inside me.
" No," he said, turning away from me. " But I've heard the name. Who hasn't?"
Something stirred uncomfortably in the pit of my stomach – he was holding something back, same as I was.
We gravitated to our separate sides of the bed, blew out all of the candles but the one we always left burning, used in the middle of the night for finding the way to Wedge's crib when he cried. Though I was tired from the typical day of tending to the baby's endless needs, I couldn't sleep. I could sense a new tension between Boba and I in our bed – something icy hung in the air. Something I couldn't quite put my finger on – though it wouldn't be too much longer until I learned of the serpentine irony we had been spiralling around since before either of us were born – since the day my father was assigned to be a pilot for a Jedi named Mace Windu, whose name I couldn't bring myself to speak, for reasons that were beyond my concious knowledge, to Boba.
As much as I wanted to resist it, I began to believe over the following months' time that Boba had ended his quest for revenge, and that he would be satisfied with a life with Wedge and I, his eyes focused clearly on the present and on his son's future rather than trained with deadly vigor on the past as they had been. I told myself not to, I warned myself against it, but I still came to the conclusion that had smashed me so completely in the past: Boba would stay.
Maybe because Wedge had become the center of our world, I let the lessons I had learned before slip away from me, and naively believed that Boba had changed. We spent our days watching our son grow at what seemed to us an alarmingly quick pace: we celebrated his first smiles, his new ability to wrap his tiny fingers around ours, his increased mobility, his first bout of adorable laughter, and every other baby obstacle that he overcame with age.
Any worries that we may have separately and silently had about being unprepared for parenting after our abnormal childhoods were quelled with Wedge's happy demeanor and healthy development. Despite the ease and softness of our days then, outside our little cave the world was falling apart – the Republic's Clone army declared its alligence to Palpatine, who had defected from the Senate and announced his partnership with the Separtists. There was combat on Corasaunt, and all over the galaxy kingdoms were falling to Separtist control, which was growing more and more hostile. Boba and I would listen to snippets of fuzzy news reports on the radio in Slave 1 after dinner and would cast each other worried looks over Wedge's grinning and oblivious head.
" We'll be okay," Boba would always say, busying himself with small repair work on the ship and pretending to be completely confident in this assertion. " We're fine."
But during the nighttime, which, mercifully, Wedge had begun to sleep through peacefully, I could feel something approaching, coming to crash our party of three. I would roll over in the middle of the night and bury myself into the cradle of Boba's arms to try and glean some feeling of being protected, but I was too afraid that the ruin of our lives could still come from my protector himself.
All quiet doubts aside, I was more in love with Boba then than I had ever been. Something about the birth of our son seemed to have settled the storm that had been raging inside him since his father's death – there was a happy justice to it, being given a chance to be there for his own son as his father couldn't be for him.
I was feeling more complete than I ever had before as well – when I was with the two of them I felt I was a part of something untouchable, a tight circle that the war outside and the forces that had hurt us in the past could not touch. This was less than a feeling, I came to realize, than an entitiy that I had never had and had always longed for: a family.
Even though I'd never been a part of one before, the ease with which Boba and I had both lost the families we should have belonged to should have warned me that the bonds we formed were not so strong: no matter how fiercely we loved and wished to protect each other, the circle was fragile; it could be, and was, easily broken.
But the possibility of the dissolution of the tiny clan we'd formed was far from my mind: Wedge continued to grow, sitting up on his own, learning to drink from a cup and feed himself (though this was still more messy than it was worth), and, most heartbreakingly sweet, speaking his first word when he was seven months old.
Boba had been working on Slave 1, but was distracted by Wedge, who could see his father and the ship from his crib and was babbling and pointing while he worked. He walked over and began giving Wedge a lesson in tool recognition.
" See this?" I heard him say as I was putting away the groceries I'd just bought in the kitchen. He was holding up a wrench. " Fifteen millimeters. For tightening bolts." He held up a bolt, and Wedge responded thoughtfully with some baby gibberish.
" Pass that over here when you're through with the lesson," I called, opening and closing the cabinet on our makeshift cupboard several times and listening to it creak. " This needs some work."
" Alright," he said, hopping up and jogging over to hand me the wrench. He froze in his tracks, and I in the midst of my cabinet handling, when Wedge caught us both off guard:
" Da-da!" he called out, reaching for Boba, obviously hurt that he'd walked off so abruptly. Boba and I looked at each other as if to say: did you hear that, too?
" You talking to me?" Boba asked when he turned back to Wedge, grinning and gesturing to himself with the wrench.
" Uh!" Wedge whined, opening and closing his hands as he reached up toward his father over the edge of the crib, and making a pitiable face. Boba laughed and went to him, grabbed him and spun him around in his arms, making the baby giggle with glee. I laughed out loud, too.
" Wedge!" I squealed, rushing over to them. " Did you just say Da-da? Who's this?" I asked, pointing to Boba and trying to get him to say it again. " Who's this, Wedge? Is this Da-da?" This went on for almost an hour, resulting, to the joy of his parents, in Wedge getting out about ten more 'Da-da's.
When we went to bed that night we were both completely giddy over our baby, who we were sure, after his speech at barely seven months old, was a genius. We put our heads together between our pillows and kissed each other congradulations between bursts of speech.
" Seven months ago, if someone told me I'd have a kid by know I would have laughed my ass off," Boba said, grinning. " But now I understand why my father wanted a son, wanted me. Its got to be the best feeling in the galaxy, to watch this little person you created grow up." I nodded.
" He'd be so proud of you, Boba," I said, feeling bold. " I know he would." Boba smiled slowly, and then grew serious.
" I still miss him, all the time," he said, rolling onto his back and looking up at the ceiling of the cave. " I – I never want Wedge to feel like I did when my father . . ." he trailed off.
" He won't," I said, propping myself up on my elbow and leaning over Boba, letting my hair fall around his face. He smiled and ran his fingers through it gentley.
" How do you know?" he asked quietly. I sighed.
" I don't know," I said, " But – after having Wedge, I've learned that we don't have to repeat the past. We're not our parents, Boba. We still have a chance to learn from their mistakes." He looked up into my eyes and there was a jolt of electricity between us with his understanding of my meaning: that I wanted him to stop hunting, to step out of his father's armor forever and let his ghost fly free. I held my breath, waiting for his response.
" What would have happened to me if we hadn't met at the orphanage?" he asked, his voice cautious, maybe embarrassed at our closeness after the easy distance that Wedge's distractions provided.
" I'm sure you would have been just fine," I said, flopping onto my back beside him.
" I don't know about that," he muttered quietly. We were both silent for a while afterward, listening to the sounds of the planet's landscape outside.
" You really sort of – took me off guard, when we became friends," he finally continued. " I'd never met anyone who just . . . wanted to be my friend, without anything in return. I – I remember the first time you hugged me, if that tells you anything." He laughed.
" Really?" I said, my cheeks burning red. " When was it?" I asked, pretending I didn't remember myself. Of course, it had meant the same thing to me that it had to Boba: growing up in the orphanage I had been comforted as a child by the occasional friendly matron, but I hadn't exactly been lavished with physical affection.
" It was when we were visiting your mother's grave, actually," he said. " You – you were kind of upset already, because we'd gotten in trouble for something. You ran off, and I followed you, and you were saying, if only your mother was alive, things would be so much better. Of course, I felt the same way every day about my father. While you knelt there crying I thought of his grave – of how much I missed him. I felt like – I felt like you were the only person in the world who understood what I was going through. I knelt down and touched your back, told you it was okay, and you just spun around and grabbed me up in your arms."
He turned to me a grinned. " I didn't know what to make of it," he said with a dark little laugh. " My father hadn't exactly been the hugging type. I think it was the first time anyone ever – well."
I turned wordlessly and put my arms around him. He returned my embrace and buried his face against the crook of my neck. I kissed his bare shoulders and tried not to cry, remembering how much it had meant to me – how much it still meant to me – when Boba had held me for even a few short moments in his arms.
" We're going to make up for all of that," I whispered in his ear, " For all of that loneliness, all of that loss. We found each other, and now we have our son. If we were ever cheated, we'll find what we were missing in each other." He nodded with his face still pressed tightly against my neck, but I could feel a tremble of uncertainty move through him. No, no, I thought, squeezing him tighter and letting a tear roll down my cheek. This has to be enough. Please, I begged inwardly to whatever fates would hear me, release us from our past.
When we fell together that night, we felt remarkably like those two children we once were, and all the while the fates were turning their backs on the two orphans once again. When we curled up to fall asleep, I turned over onto my stomach and let Boba pour himself over me, his muscled chest hot on my back, his arm draped over my shoulder and his breath falling progressively softer on the back of my neck. I savored the feeling of being pressed benneath him: here is where I want to exist I thought, groggy with sleep and pleasure, in just this spot, under the weight of this man.
To some extent, I would always be crushed under the weight of Boba: under his legacy, under my longing for him, which wore on me constantly when we were apart. It had, that night and in the months that had proceeded it, again become very hard to believe, but we would still be apart for most of our lives.