Embrey's deeply sympathetic expression was the most telling.
"I'm sorry, Wil," she sadly apologized for them all, squeezing his hand gently. "We tried to get him to stay..."
Liaa looked just as remorseful and hurt. "But 'e wouldn't listen...'e was too upset."
Of course he was upset, Wil mused angrily, frustrated that he hadn't been around to talk Horatio down himself. His father's longtime friend had died in front of him after protecting him from the blast, and knowing Horatio, he had completely internalized the blame. He used it as further proof that he was a danger to others and he needed to remove himself from their lives, just as he had done months before, leaving Wil behind as he moved away with Liaa and Jewel...
Defeated, Wil settled himself into the minimal comfort of his bed, completely ignoring the residual burning pain in his chest. It was becoming as constant a companion as his furry pet Phantom, although he noticed that she was absent from his company, as well. Hopefully she had secretly stowed away with his father when he left; if anyone needed a steadfast guardian at the moment, it was Horatio.
"We'll be heading home to Paneau in a few hours," Embrey earned his attention again as she brushed her fingers through his hair. "We wanted to be sure you were stable first."
Already weary of being confined to bed a second time, Wil put as much strength behind his response as he could. "I'll be fine, Em." He looked to Liaa behind Embrey, searching her face. "You're coming with us, right? You and Jewel?"
Liaa's expression lightened with promise. "...if we are allowed."
Wil's heart sank, recognizing her fear of rejection because of her association with his father. "Of course, you are. You and Jewel are always welcome on Paneau, I want you to know that. I'll always take care of you both."
Liaa smiled graciously, immensely relieved and appreciative of his offer as she nodded. He shared her levity, though only briefly, as he looked to the opposite side of the room. "And what about you, Max?"
Before his cousin had the chance to respond, Wil felt Embrey's grip on his hand tighten with anxiety. He returned to her and met her infuriated gaze, and the sudden, dark shift in her voice was jarring.
"Wil."
"...he's family, Em."
Her eyes widened even further in alarm. "Family we know nothing about! He told us his brother, another Sheridan, was the one who took Jewel, the one who tried to kill you on Dantooine!"
Stealing a quick glance at Max who appeared unaffected by their open discussion about him and remained calmly in his place in the far corner, Wil lifted Embrey's hand and held it against his chest to implore her reason. "Max kept me alive, Em, just long enough to get me here." He saw no change in her expression, prompting him to plead further. "If he had wanted to kill me, he had ample opportunity to do so while we were on our way here. Dad was...broken... He couldn't have done anything to protect me or help me. But Max did everything he could to save my life with hardly any resources. I trust him."
But Embrey was unconvinced, strongly shaking her head. He looked to Thaylan and the other three covert agents for any sign of support, but he found the same resolve in them all, disappointing him immensely. They all had known just how important finding his cousins had been to him mere months earlier; now that one finally stood in their midst, though, they'd completely changed their minds against him?
"It's alright, Wil," Max soothed from the corner, waving off his concern. "They have every right to be cautious."
And of course, Max wouldn't fight for himself, either. Venting his frustration with a forced sigh that pained him, Wil returned to his girlfriend, his voice suddenly sounding tired and rough against his will. "Then at least let me talk to him...alone."
Embrey began to deny him a second time, but his exasperated expression seemed to earn her sympathy once more. With a furtive glance at the other covert agents, she let go of a slow breath as she stood from his side, releasing his hand with a gentle squeeze. The covert agents all filed out reluctantly but wordlessly, Thaylan most especially so, but Embrey gripped her brother's arm and tugged him along behind Wyliaa.
"We'll be watching just outside."
Wil waited until the door swept closed behind them before returning to his cousin, inviting him to his side once he was certain they were alone. Max obliged, albeit slowly, keeping a watchful eye on the gazes locked on him from outside the room.
"I'm really sorry about that..."
But Max shook his head with a small smile. "Really, Wil, it's okay. It's good that they're so protective of you."
"Doesn't give them an excuse to be rude. Especially when you're standing right there."
"Like she said, they don't know me. I haven't earned their trust yet, so I understand why they're wary. It doesn't upset me. Besides," he paused, his voice becoming briefly weak as he crossed his arms over his chest. "...I know I don't belong on Paneau."
Wil furrowed his brows. "You sound like my dad."
Max shrugged casually. "We both have our reasons. Mine don't really have anything to do with me, but...I've come to terms with it."
Curious, Wil wordlessly sought an explanation, though he refrained from demanding it. Thankfully Max answered without appearing too bothered by it, even seeming somewhat eager to share. "I'm a Redgrave, and it's...not widely known the connection my father had to Paneau and to his younger brother. Joshua was a good man. Honorable. A highly decorated, respected pilot for the New Republic. So I stayed away because I didn't want my presence on Paneau to...dredge up that connection and tarnish Joshua's standing for his family. They'd already suffered enough, losing him the way they did, so I didn't want to be the reason they suffered even more. I kept an eye on things, on you and the Redgraves...but I kept my distance, too."
With everything Wil had learned over the past few years about Max's father, a brutal, sadistic crime lord operating a spice empire in the Outer Rim, Wil wasn't exactly expecting his cousin to be so...genuinely wise and kind-natured. Perhaps that had also fed into why Max had so staunchly hidden his identity from Wil as they had conversed for months; as he'd said, Max was plenty well aware of his father's reputation and knew how much bias he would face because of it, so he buffered himself as much as possible. The two cousins weren't so dissimilar; it was a feeling with which Wil was also intimately familiar.
But to Wil, Max had proven himself a worthy ally in the short few hours since they'd met on that Rishi station. Max had endured some kind of awful torture at Azira's hands, just as Mand and Horatio had, and yet he had remained willing to help the Sheridans and the Jedi Master escape. How easily he could have left the three of them behind after Wil had freed him, but he stayed true to his word and rescued Mand as he had said he would. Even though Mand ended up making the ultimate sacrifice for them, without Max's help none of them would have survived at all.
Looking Max over as he suddenly remembered the sporadic pain that gripped him while inside his cell, Wil couldn't ask him fast enough. "Are you okay? Have the medics seen you? Did they treat you?"
Max lifted his hand to calm Wil's frantic questions, a soft laugh escaping him. "Yes, yes, they treated me. The medics found some kind of...electrodes embedded in my muscles. It's what made them seize and contract the way they did. Part of Azira's wide variety of interrogation tools I was lucky enough to take with me. But yes, the medics scanned me, found them all, and removed them, all before they'd even finished your surgery, and I haven't felt so much as a cramp since."
Relieved, Wil nodded. "I'm glad to hear that."
Max agreed with a nod, but his expression began to fall with the brief silence between them. He sighed, hesitant a moment before he continued on a solemn track. "...I'm sorry about your father, Wil."
Feeling another pang deep in his chest, Wil lifted his gaze to the ceiling, desperate to not choke himself with worry.
"They weren't exaggerating earlier," Max added softly. "They really tried everything they could think of to keep him here, everything short of chaining him to a bulkhead, but...it was like he didn't hear any of it. He didn't say anything, either, which...just made it worse when he left."
The words had already left his lips before he could stop them, and he instantly regretted it.
"Leaving is what he's best at."
Bitter tears burned fiercely at the corners of his eyes, but he refused to shed them, taking in and releasing a few slow breaths to calm himself. His sudden anger surprised him; he was truly concerned for his father's well-being, so why had he responded with such venom?
Max waited out Wil's fury with such patience. "...I know he has a terrible way of showing it, but your father cares so much for you. Right before we landed here...he thought he was losing you, too. I think that, more than anything, was what finally broke him...he couldn't handle losing you both. After I had taken you inside, I came back and told him that you were going to be okay, but...it was like it was too late for him. I think he'd already given up.
"I know you're worried about him," Max softened his voice even more, "but you can't go after him. Not right now. They," he nodded toward the crowd watching them from the window, "aren't going to let you out of that bed for at least another week. Your heart needs more time to properly heal before you can become active again. I still have access to plenty of resources, though, so I should be able to find him."
Though he was appreciative of Max's offer, Wil still felt horrible for what he had said and what little he could do to help. He sighed with frustration, his gaze finding the ceiling once more. "I don't even know where to tell you to start looking. He'd want to go somewhere...familiar, to reset himself. To escape the pain. But everywhere familiar is just...more pain. Coruscant would only remind him of the first time he met his sister when they were kids. Malastare would only remind him of the last time he'd seen her alive before she died. Hoth, Corellia, Dantooine... He just escaped from one pain to the next. He was always running. He needs somewhere that would be a safe haven, a respite from everything that's been hunting him, somewhere he thinks we wouldn't expect him to go..."
The answer came to him like a soft whisper in his ear from a voice that was as familiar as a long, distant, pleasant memory...
"...I need to talk to my brother."
Tired.
It was the only thought he could process.
Tired of running. Tired of hiding. Just completely and utterly tired.
He hadn't allowed his body to rest at all since he'd left his family behind, attempting to outrun his guilt and pain that was eating him alive. But everywhere he went, it followed him, unrelenting, until he realized he had nowhere else left to go...except back to her.
The passage of the past three days hadn't truly registered with him, save for the extreme exhaustion he felt having gone just as long without proper sleep or food. He'd managed to navigate and land his ship well enough, but the trek he'd begun through a dense, mountainous forest kept him locked in a foggy haze. His son's tooka had remained by his side as a faithful, careful guide, expertly leading him through the thick brush and preventing him from giving up though he'd tried a dozen times. She was just as stubborn as Deilia; she wouldn't let him.
The forest eventually gave way to a familiar open, grassy field at sunset, bordered by a tranquil lake and an even quieter building. Just eight years prior, he had stood on the open veranda, gazing out onto the very field he was crossing, and it looked just as picturesque as he remembered it. He had just learned that he was a father to an eighteen year old boy, a meeting that was both unexpected and unwanted at the time. But Wil's sincerity and honesty had won his hard-hearted father over the more time they spent together, and the boy's gentle insistence had even opened Horatio up to rekindling a connection with an old friend who would eventually become his partner and the mother of his daughter...
Even as Phantom brought him up to the main entrance that willingly opened for her, Horatio felt himself slowing. The purple panna flowers perfumed the entire walkway on either side of him where they spiraled up the archway columns, flooding him with memories of the months he'd spent there learning about what kind of person his son had become without him. About how to unconditionally love. About what it felt like to be loved.
Before he was even fully conscious of it, his feet had carried him well inside the building just on Phantom's heels, and after a maze of stairs and hallways, all completely empty and devoid of the bustling staff he remembered...he found himself face to face with Deilia once more.
The static holo, her pleasantly smiling face preserved for eternity, floated in a recessed alcove just before a wall adorned with fresh panna flowers and small memorial trinkets. The items were all sweet keepsakes, handmade gifts; maybe even Wil himself as a child had made the simple doll that rested against a delicately carved stone, or perhaps he'd brought the flowers week after week, keeping her memory alive as he grew older without her. The thought saddened him, but only for a short moment as he met the holo's gaze once more, recalling the warmth of her hand on his cheek when he'd encountered her just days ago...
Phantom affectionately brushed her body against his legs, bringing his attention to their fatigue in earnest. A simple bench was positioned just before the memorial, and Horatio lowered himself down onto it carefully, his muscles protesting their prolonged abuse. He felt like he could collapse at any second, but her eyes alone kept him upright. They were so full of life, of compassion, of determination, of everything he'd come to rely on during those dire weeks he'd spent in her care. One last question remained emblazoned in his mind, though, one he hadn't been able to answer as he'd searched for days for something redeemable within himself, and he had to know.
"...why did you save me?"
The holo remained silent and gave him no response, much to his dismay. Perhaps, he thought bitterly after a moment, it wasn't actually Deilia's answer to give. He wanted to ask the same of his former partner who had died protecting him, but she couldn't tell him, either. He was left with an empty feeling, a mystery that gnawed and chewed at his very core, preventing him from healing his damaged heart. How could he possibly move forward if no one could answer him?
Though he hadn't heard any approaching footsteps, a familiar, quiet voice gently broke through his thoughts.
"...Horatio?"
Startled to his feet, Horatio turned to face his visitor...but the rush of movement was too much for his frail body, and he collapsed to the floor just as quickly.
