Silencing the clicking of her boots on the durasteel walkways was a trick Cordira had long since perfected as a young woman. As she closed the distance between her and the darkened, deteriorated shop that had once belonged to the Sheridans, she knew she'd be relying on a number of other stealth techniques her mother had taught her years ago. She had always been best at physical skills - close combat, telekinesis, strength, flying - but she had a sinking feeling she'd need a completely different set of tools, depending on how sideways this confrontation ended up going.

She pressed herself against the exterior of the shop just beside its broken windows, slowly edging her head around the periphery of its jagged transparisteel to survey the situation inside. Only a few lights further within allowed her to see the layout of the small shop, its unorganized mountains of droid parts and its four occupants towards the back. One young man was alarmingly bound at his wrists and chained to the floor, and she she didn't recognize him at all. Until she could understand what exactly was going on, she decided to pull herself back, remain hidden, and listen for clues.

"Baxer, you have to let him go," Wil pleaded weakly. Her relief at hearing her friend's voice after previously presuming the worst was only fleeting, though, as the conversation continued. "I know you're trying to make amends, you're trying to make it up to us, to me and to Horatio, but killing this man is not the way to do it. I'm asking you, please...let him go."

A long, tense silence was finally interrupted by the sound of heavy chains being cast aside and a lone set of timid footsteps approaching the front of the shop. As the freed stranger practically fell over himself to escape through the half-open door, Cordira lifted her empty hands so as to not appear threatening to him as he scrambled to regain his footing. The man was human and barely twenty years old, petrified of even his own shadow after seemingly being held hostage by Baxer inside for an unknown amount of time, and she couldn't put enough compassion and gentleness into her voice to stay his terror.

"Are you hurt?"

Pushing himself away from her on his back end, the man looked up at her with fear, trembling too much and too overwhelmed to answer her. She pressed him further, though, slowly extending her palm to him.

"I'm a Jedi, I can heal you. Please, let me do this for you."

He had shuffled himself away from her as far as he could until his back met the alley wall, still petrified. Though he briefly appeared to feel trapped as he nervously glanced up and down the alley, he eventually met her gaze and felt comfortable enough to hesitantly lift his arms towards her, turning his shaking hands palm up to show her his raw, swollen, and bloody wounds.

"The...the binders... They cut my wrists..."

Feeling her heart wrench into a searing knot, she kept her movements calculated and graceful, slowly lowering herself to her knees just beside the poor man. She rested her hands atop his wounds with the gentlest of pressure, closing her eyes to draw on the Force to heal them as her father had taught her. Thankfully, the cuts were largely superficial and small, allowing her to mend them closed quickly. She channeled Master Rys'tihn's cool touch to soothe the irritation and swelling, hoping to leave him with a lasting feeling of calm, as well. Opening her eyes and looking to him once more, she could tell he appreciated her gesture as his features had somewhat relaxed with relief. She didn't want his thanks, though.

"...I'm so sorry."

She knew her words were an empty consolation for what he had just been through, but he managed a small nod, returning to her an even smaller voice.

"...I just want to go home."

Understanding the feeling more deeply than she could say, she agreed with a wan smile, carefully helping him to his feet. "Take care of yourself."

He turned away blankly and had begun to leave, but a parting thought stalled his steps.

"...you shouldn't go in there," he warned, his voice breaking. "That guy, the Arkanian... He is crazy."

"I know," she nodded to him, sending him on his way. "But my friend is in there, too, and he needs my help."

The man warily continued on into the yawning alley and disappeared into the darkness while rubbing his freshly healed wrists, but Cordira wasted little time in returning her attention to the shop, listening just beside the broken door to determine what she had missed.

"...agree, you have done so much hard work to keep this shop stocked and primed, and it's...just how I left it. Just how I remember it. Don't you remember it, Horatio? Just like this?"

Her heart frantically beat against her chest; Wil was intentionally feeding Baxer's delusion?

"I was three," Horatio returned flatly. "I don't remember any of this."

"You...y-yo-you you blocked it out, you m-mus-t-must must have."

"No, I didn't," the elder Sheridan countered Baxer angrily. "I've never blocked anything out. I remember every single horrific, inhumane, and cruel thing I have ever done in my entire life. Every person I've ever killed. Every friend I've double crossed. Every cut, every burn, every blaster bolt I've ever taken. I remember it all. Because it reminds me...about what I don't deserve. What I shouldn't have...what you almost took from me."

A swirling warning sounded in the back of her mind, swiftly urging her forward through the shop door and further inside as she frantically reached out with the Force -

- a single blaster bolt rang out, ricocheting off the floor then embedding in the ceiling, showering the rear of the shop in a curtain of sparks. But she fervently maintained her invisible grip with her hand outstretched, holding Horatio's blaster just barely lifted from his side as she stood steps behind him. He struggled against her control briefly before turning to glare at her, a blazing fire raging in his eyes.

She held his gaze with righteous determination, making good on the promise she'd made to him just an hour prior. "I warned you."

"Horatio!" Wil begged with alarm. "Stand down! Baxer...Baxer has done nothing that can't be fixed. You don't want to do this. Don't make it worse."

Nearing the end of his physical stamina reserves, Wil struggled to keep himself upright as he held his arms extended to both Baxer and to his father, and Cordira had only just spotted the blood that had been spilling down the side of his head onto his shirt. He even had a fresh trickle of blood trailing down his upper lip to his chin from his nose, worrying her further for his current state. He couldn't maintain his sway over the two for much longer.

"I..." Baxer began weakly, his eyes sad and full of regret as he stared at Wil, "...I-I-I I hurt you. D-d-did-didn't I? It was me."

"Yeah, you nearly caved his skull in - "

Wil interrupted his father with surprising strength, repeating himself. "Nothing that can't be fixed." He softened his voice to answer Baxer with kindness in turn. "I know you didn't mean to hurt me, not really. You grieved and mourned for so long, it completely tore you up inside. Right? And over time, it stole your mind from you, too. You lost your friend and his family, and you believed it was your fault, all these years. But I'm telling you, it's not. Sometimes things are just...out of our control, and we can't do anything to change it or to stop it. You have to let your guilt go, Baxer. You have to."

As if seeing and understanding Wil properly for the first time in a long while, Baxer's posture sagged with remorse and clarity, slowly seeming to realize what he had done. Cordira watched him glance between the two Sheridan men as tears welled up in his eyes. "...I'm sorry. I...I-I I failed...again. I failed you." Looking to Horatio directly, his voice trembled. "...can you fo-fo-r-forgive forgive me?"

Another long, tense silence was punctuated only by faint crackling sounds from the back of the shop, but all focus was on the elder Sheridan who hadn't yet answered. Wil drew in heavy, trembling breaths to sustain any remaining strength he had as he looked to his father once more, begging him to end their standoff. "Dad... Tell him."

Matching Baxer's penitent gaze with a tortured one of his own, Horatio appeared defiant for an eternity...before he finally nodded, his anger and fury slowly melting away with his pride. Cordira felt his hand gripping his blaster at his side release its handle, and she allowed it to slowly float to the floor as she heard his response. "...I forgive you, Baxer."

Baxer collapsed to his knees almost instantly, dropping his own blaster beside him as he covered his face with his hands as he sobbed. While Horatio stepped up to Baxer and carefully kicked his blaster away from him, Wil's hands fell to his sides as he staggered with relief, and Cordira rushed to aid her friend. She was only just able to catch his upper torso as he fell backwards to the floor, too, barely keeping his head from striking the unforgiving durasteel under him. Though he had a much sturdier frame than she, she cradled his unconscious form as best she could while another alarm began blaring in her head, the intense crackling sound distracting her and becoming louder and louder -

"Fire!"

Her husband Ethan's voice pierced through to her like a vibroblade as he sprinted toward her and Wil on the floor. Stunned, she looked up to see flames violently erupting from the back end of the shop, engulfing entire walls in seconds and crawling across the ceiling above her as it rapidly spread. The terrifying moments passed both as minutes and as split seconds alike, leaving her in a state of utter shock as Ethan dug his hands under Wil's arms to drag him out of the shop. In her daze, she managed to pull herself to her feet - just as a heavy CRASH briefly blinded her and made her backpedal. A burning support beam from the floor above them had fallen diagonally across the shop, suddenly separating her from Horatio and Baxer in the back with a curtain of raging flames between them. She had just taken in a breath to call to them, about to create a safe path for them to escape, when a powerful, unseen blast punched her square in the chest, sending her flying backwards and abruptly sealing her in darkness.