A/N: I couldn't make up my mind about the ending, so I wrote all of them. Take a break between each, or else you're liable to get a bit of mood whiplash.

Juno does not pace. That would be unprofessional, like crying; she sits in the pilot's seat and monitors the readings and keeps the ship in a wide, looping orbit out of the range of the Death Star's scanners. This is not because the Death Star's scanners are active. This is because she cannot stand the thought of drifting any closer to a distance where she would have to keep the ship stationary; not having anything to do, at this moment, would be unthinkable.

Perhaps they haven't even installed the scanners yet. It is still mostly unfinished, after all.

Galen, when he contacts her, sounds as detached as always. It isn't fair, Juno thinks, that he should go through all this unaffected while she is sitting here on the Rogue Shadow with her heart in her throat; it is not fair that he must go through this alone, it is not fair that she loves him, it is not fair that he could die and she might never see him again—

But her voice, when she replies, is just as cool and professional as his. "Beyond that door is Palpatine's private viewing room," she tells him. "Are you ready?"

"Yes," Galen says.

And his comlink cuts out.

Frantic, Juno leans forward in her seat and tries to call him. But he has switched it off; there are no flashing diagnostics, there is no error report—not even the faint humming buzz between conversations. Dead, she thinks.

And, because she cannot think about that word, Juno turns back to the ship controls and brings the Rogue Shadow in a sweeping path back down to the Death Star; the rebels will need extraction, after all, and Galen has asked her to do it—

She waits: a minute—five—fifteen—

Something explodes beneath her.

"Galen!" she gasps into the comlink, before remembering that it is dead; she tries it again, just in case, simply because she cannot not try. There is no answer.

But in her mind she hears him, a long, drawn out cry of horror, and she knows that something has gone terribly wrong. The ship shudders beneath her, not under her directive, and Juno scrambles to catch herself. No, no—they have been discovered, and it will all be for nothing—

She fires up the engines but there is something more powerful than the engines pushing down on the ship; they are going down, down, with terrible force—

Juno hears his screams in her mind as she loses consciousness

--

Galen is different when she sees him again.

They drag her from her dingy cell in the prison block up to Palpatine's audience chamber, but she does not notice any of this—not the guards, not the officials, not even Palpatine himself—she sees only Galen, who has changed but is still the same, beneath his mask and his new-forged body of steel and despair.

"Galen," she says, and her voice comes out in a whisper.

He approaches her. She cannot see his face, so she closes her eyes; but she can feel him, against her mind, and she does not flinch when the razor-blades of his fingers reach up to touch her cheek.

Palaptine's order echoes from very far away. She nearly does not hear it.

Juno, Galen says into her mind, Juno—

She does not cry. She has never cried.

There is the bleak misery of his mind against hers. There is the touch of cold steel against her skin.

She dies.

He loves her, so he makes it quick.

A/N: Seriously. Go walk around or something.