The door to my private chambers aboard the Supremacy slid open, and I didnt have to look up. I already knew who it was.
I didn't speak, waiting for him to say what he needed to say so that he would leave, and I wouldn't have to feel what losing Vicrul had done to him. He was hurting, from pain that I caused, and I felt it through the Bond, what little remained. And, I still had the uncontrollable urge to protect him, protect my brother from what tormented him.
A part of me wanted his wrath, wanted him to scream and cry and curse me for all the things I'd cost him, because his stoic indifference was excruciating.
He hated me, and I knew that I'd earned every bit of it.
His resentment grew with every day of silence, every day our brother kept his part of the Bond closed. Kuruk had taken The Buzzard, and Trugden with them. It'd been three weeks, and even Ushar's shadows hadn't been able to tell him where they were.
After an eternity of tense silence, I turned to look at the man I'd loved as a brother most of my life, finding his sea blue eyes full of contempt and it ripped a new part of me, a fresh wave of pain making me wince. I wondered if he would ever look at me with anything else.
My relationship with him, and with Vicrul especially, was always what I held higher than everything else. My brotherhood was the one place I was safe. And, I'd fucking ruined it.
He glanced at the bottle of gin on my desk, his expression giving me nothing as he looked back at me. But, I could feel it, his disappointment, his exasperation. He was hurt, and he was angry, but he loved me too much to walk away, to leave me in my ruin.
It was crippling, even feeling it secondhand.
"I really don't have time for this." I told him, and grabbed the bottle. I wished that it could burn away the mistakes I'd made.
"You're leaving again?" He asked.
I took a drink and nodded. "As soon as we're done not talking, or whatever this is we're doing."
"Where?"
"Nar Shaddaa."
He blinked, and looked down. Nar Shaddaa was the heart of Hutt space, and a festering haven for the scum of the galaxy. I'd released a statement weeks ago, offering fifty thousand credits to anyone who could give me Zaugustus's whereabouts. I'd gotten hundreds of tips, all of which I'd followed into nothing, but I'd learned, from several sources, that he frequented the Palace of Grakkus when he needed to stay off the galactic radar.
He turned his eyes back up to me. "And, when you don't find her there?"
I set my jaw as I shot him a glare. "Then I'll follow the next tip."
"And, the next, and the next, and the tip after that. Ky, when does this end?"
"It doesn't." I told him. "It never fucking ends until I find her."
He swallowed, thickly. "And, if you don't?"
I hadn't let myself think of that, of what I would do if I couldn't find her, if I never got her back. Having to live without her was excruciating, and I didnt think it was possible, but the thought of having to continue this existence was even worse.
I pushed myself up, and took a long drink of gin before putting the bottle down, and walking past him toward the door.
"How much more are you willing to lose, Ky?" He called after me, and I stopped in the doorway, gripping the frame.
The truth was that my life had ended the second i'd laid eyes on her. The man I thought I was, the man I'd thought I wanted to be, he ceased to exist the second I said my vows to her. Loving her was inevitable, despite how hard I'd fought it, and she'd changed my life, changed me as a man, mended my heart and healed my soul.
Loving her had fucking ruined me. She was mine, made for me. Hers was the soul mine was matched with, and with her was the only place I'd ever felt home.
Losing her had cost me more than the heart that she'd mended. It had cost me my sanity and my soul. My actions and my addiction had cost me my home, countless innocent lives caught in the crossfire, my brethren, and my brothers. If I couldn't get her back, if I couldn't find her, there was nothing left for me.
I wasn't going to say outloud what he already knew.
I walked out of my room and down to the hangar, climbed into my Silencer, and jumped into drive.
When I landed, I stalked toward the palace, reaching out into the Force for any glimmer of Rey, any sign that she'd been here. Two low level thugs guarded a set of double doors, and I rendered both of them unconscious with a wave of my hand.
The room was unremarkable, a bed, a dresser, and a nightstand, discarded shoes and clothing littering the floor. The stained mattress sagged in the middle, topped with one pillow, and a puffy comforter.
I unbuckled my saber, and eased toward the closet, finding it empty. Further into the room, was an open door that led into an adjoining bathing room, and I spotted the bare back of a man, nude except for a pair of black boxers.
I rushed him, wrapping an arm around his throat and hauling him up, against me. I twisted his arm to pin it behind him, holding him in place. "Where is she?" I growled, into his ear.
He thrust himself forward, then snapped his head back, delivering a headbutt so brutal it had black spots clouding my vision.
He twisted out of my grip, and swung, his clenched fist landing square on my jaw.
The gin is weighing down my movements, but I was able to focus on the pain, and get ahold of myself just as he lunged, and I sent an elbow into his stomach, throwing him back enough to bring the hilt of my saber down into his face.
He stumbled back, covering his destroyed nose with both of his hands, before pulling them away to gape at the blood now staining them. He growled in frustration, and charged, only for my fist to connect with his face. I punched him again, and again, losing myself in a fury of blows until his legs gave out, and he fell, gurgling in his own blood as he tried to breathe.
"Where is she?" I asked again.
He sputtered, but didn't answer, and I went into his mind, searching for her, for where he was keeping her.
He huffed out a laugh, smiling up at me with red stained teeth, and I heard the others rush in.
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, as I felt the cold metal of a blaster barrel behind my right ear.
I looked down at him, realizing that I'd been bested. "You're not Zaugustus." I said.
He spat out a mouthful of blood and shook his head.
He'd been bait, a set up to distract me while the others moved in.
"What you are doing with the ports, it's bad for business." He said. "And Zaugustus cannot ignore it any longer."
Business. Saving the women he'd kidnapped and stolen was bad for business. Of course that's all this was to him.
More men filed in, blasters drawn. No one advanced, no one moved to take my saber. They thought that they could take me in numbers alone.
"You don't all have to die." I told them. I was so sick of fighting. I just wanted Rey. "Just tell me where she is, and I'll let most of you walk out of here."
He sneered, and nodded to the man holding the blaster to my head. I ignited my saber, spinning, and sliced him in half.
They rushed forward, the room erupted into the scream and red glow of blaster fire.
I sent them back with a wave of the Force, and unleashed myself, hacking my way through the men, deflecting the bolts, suspending them in the air until I was out of their path. I brought a hand up, catching a bolt aimed for my face, then spun, diving my saber into a man behind me. When I wrenched my blade free, I looked up, just to see the barrel of a blaster glow red as it was fired once, twice, a third time.
I threw my hand up, catching them, inches from me. One, two….
I couldn't see the third one. Where was the third one?
There was a burn that scorched through my chest, and I felt warm blood splattering onto my face, tasted the small drops that hit my lips. I fell back into the pool of blood coating the floor, the burn in my chest worsening with every shallow inhale of breath as I stared up at the ceiling and waited.
I wouldn't have to live this lie of existence anymore, wouldn't have to suffer another day without her. Relief was coming.
Amber eyes flecked with green and gold gazed down at me, her hair framing her face in chestnut waves. She reached up to pin it behind her ears as she leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to my lips.
She smiled at me, the smile that made her cheeks crease and her eyes sparkle. I tried to move, to lift my arms to pull her closer to me, or at least touch her, but they were heavy, weighted, impossible.
"Tell me where you are." I breathed. "Please." I felt warmth returning to my arms, my fingers, and saw a bright light shining behind her as I fought to stay with her. "Tell me how to find you."
Her lips parted, and she began to speak, but the distant voice I heard calling me wasn't hers.
"Ky! Stay with me!"
Ap'lek.
She faded from my view as the light swept across my vision.
"No, please." I didn't care that I was begging, pleading, or willing to barter the tattered remnants of my soul just to get her back. "Please don't go."
She pressed another kiss to my lips, her thumbs tenderly stroking my cheekbones.
"Come on, Ky! Fight it!"
I was fighting it. Fighting it with everything I had. I was safe here with her, in her arms. I couldn't go back. Not to a life without her.
"Please." I begged again, watching her start to fade, still smiling as she whispered words I'd literally give my life to be able to hear.
The light seared into my head, and I lost her, blinded as it burned my eyes.
Then, the pain was everywhere. I gasped, as a woman's face came into view, hovering above me, blocking the burning light. My eyes focused on her long enough to tell me she wasn't Rey.
Rey wasn't here. She'd never been here.
"I've got him." She said, and I moved to pull away from her.
"Ky, no." I heard Ap'lek say as warm hands pushed my shoulders down.
I struggled against him, ripping at whatever the woman who wasn't Rey was trying to do.
But, I knew.
She was trying to save me.
And, I didn't want to be saved.
My tongue tasted like copper, and I couldn't speak, couldn't tell my brother to leave me, to let me go back to Rey.
He screamed for Ushar, and then they were both holding me down, the infernal woman on my right trying to reassure me that everything was alright, I was going to be alright.
She didn't know that I'd lost every glimmer of light in my life, and that she was dragging back into the black abyss of my meaningless existence without it. Without my sun, without my moon, without every single star in between. I'd lost everything when I lost her.
Yet they wanted me to keep breathing when I had no reason to.
A memory sparked of a man, a palace, an ambush, a blaster bolt aimed for my chest. The red glow that I thought would release me from this hell of trying to live without her.
That bolt had fucking failed me.
'Let me go.' I silently sent into Aplek's mind.
His ocean blue eyes were etched with worry and pain as they locked with mine. "I can't." He said. "You're all I have left."
I woke up slowly, my head a fog of imagines, memories, dreams, and I didnt know which were real. I tried to swallow, but my tongue was cemented to the roof of my mouth.
It hurt to breathe, and when I opened my eyes, the light speared a bolt of agony through my skull. I looked down, finding tubes and wires hooked to my fingers, taped to the backs of my hands, connected to monitors and bags of fluid.
The lower half of me was covered in a light blue blanket, while a thin cotton robe with pastel colored triangles was draped over my torso.
I recognized my surroundings as a hospital room and furious tears sprang to my eyes.
I was back to a life that I didn't want, a life without her. The steady beep beep beep of the monitor told me that my heart was still beating when it had no reason to.
That godsdamned bolt failed me.
Ap'lek sat in the only chair in the room, his attention out of a nearby window.
He looked as if he hadn't slept, deep rings of purple under his bloodshot eyes, and he was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and a pair of blue jeans.
'Where are we?' I asked, through the Bond.
"Kashyyyk." He answered, not looking at me.
I tried to get my brain to work, through the haze of the pain medication in my system. 'How long have we been here?'
"You were in a Bacta tank for five days, and you've been sedated for another three." He said.
I did the math. 'Eight days?'
"Nine." He corrected. "They had to do surgery before putting you in the tank."
Nine days. I tried to remember how I'd gotten here, but everything was a blur.
'What happened?'
"You followed a tip to Nar Shaddaa, but it was an ambush. You managed to kill most of them, but took a blaster bolt to the chest. It shattered some of your ribs, collapsed your lung, and it nicked an artery so you were hemorrhaging." His eyes clouded. "We almost didn't get to you in time."
A flood of memories, of seeing Rey as I bled out, as they worked to save me. 'How did you know?' I asked.
'Ushar's shadows warned him." He shrugged. "He told me, I went after you."
My head started to clear, slowly, and the full weight of the past two months sharpened into focus.
"Have-" My voice cracked, and I cleared my throat. "Have you heard from-"
"No." He said, cutting me off before I could even say his name. His pain, his resentment, his anger, it weighed on me as heavily as my own.
He hadn't been able to let me go, because I was all he had left. He hadn't said it, but I knew that I was to blame, and a new wave of guilt washed over me.
I took a breath, opening my mouth to speak. To apologize, or beg his forgiveness, I didn't know which.
But he spoke first. "I have something to say to you."
I snapped my mouth shut, and waited for him to continue.
He let out a slow breath, then looked up at me. For a long moment, we just stared at each other. Whatever it was, he didn't want to say it, and immediate dread circulated through me as I tried to prepare myself for the worst. That I'd finally pushed him too far, and he was also leaving.
"You've gotta call it." He finally said, and I felt my face contort in confusion.
"Call what?"
He sighed, and brought his hands up to rake through his hair. "It's been two months, and you're no closer to finding her."
My heart splintered. Oh, call that.
"Please don't think I want to say this to you." He pleaded. "But, you've abandoned your responsibilities, your throne, and effectively abandoned your kingdom and your people. There's still the threat of another attack from Brendol, and without Vic-" He stopped short, and looked away, as if the admission that Vicrul was gone was too much to bear. He took a quivering breath. "I've owed you a blood debt since I was seventeen years old, when Vic and I tried to kill Snoke and you took our punishment to keep him from killing us. And I would gladly step in front of a blaster for you, no questions asked, but I can't-" his voice shook. "I can't continue to sit back and watch you destroy yourself."
I stared up at the ceiling.
"The drinking, the recklessness, the look on your face when you get your hopes up and it's just another dead end-'' He sniffled, and I could feel the Bond trembling with his sincerity. "You gotta call it, Ky."
I shook my head, my throat thickening to the point of pain. "I can't." I couldn't give up. I couldn't stop looking for her. I couldn't let her go.
"What you're doing to yourself, who you've become-" he sniffled again. "This isn't what she would've wanted."
The truth was like a solid punch in my gut, and I squeezed my eyes shut, gritting my teeth as pain ripped through me. I'd let my rage consume me, I'd only focused on finding her, drowning my demons in booze so I wouldn't feel what losing her had done to me.
I shook my head again, my chest festering, though it had nothing to do with my wound. I couldn't let my wrath whither, I couldn't let myself think, and I couldn't let myself feel. Because if I did, I was accepting the fact that she was gone, that she wasn't coming back. My bottom lip quivered. "I can't call it."
I could never call it.