Zeb had puttered around the kitchen after Chava left one dinner was done, leftovers put away and some sent along with Chava for her dinner the next night, doing some tidying up here and there before bedtime. Alex had done the dishes and put them away before Chava had left, shooing both Lasats away since they had made dinner together, and had gone to bed early to read; this time it was a bound book he had found at one corner of the market in town. Bound paper books weren't common on Lira San but they weren't rare either, Zeb had a couple on the nightstand next to his side of the bed and both of them would often stay up and read a chapter or two before going to sleep. Maybe when we expand the house we can have a couple bookshelves made, Zeb thought to himself as he turned off the living room light and headed to the shared bedroom. Alex glanced up when Zeb came in, leaning forwards when Zeb leaned over to give him a kiss before heading into the refresher to brush his teeth. It took all of a few minutes for him to finish in the refresher and came back into the bedroom, yawning and stretching.
"I've put us down for going to help with the temple reconstruction Gron was talking about, Chava mentioned that anyone who's helping will get some pay for it," Zeb said as he walked around to his side of the bed and started to undress for the night. Alex looked up from the book he was reading, surprised; the few times Gron had mentioned the temple reconstruction he hadn't mentioned any type of compensation for it. Not that he'd complain about it, the small amount the New Republic gave him and Zeb every month for helping take down the Empire was not a lot but it was enough to cover their monthly expenses with some left over to put into savings and to use as they wanted. Chava was right, though, about getting jobs and doing small off-the-books like this – if he understood the meaning behind Zeb's words – wouldn't help in the long run. They'd need more steady income to help with any unexpected financial strains that might come up.
"How much?" He asked carefully, hoping that whatever funds the reconstruction had wasn't all going to help pay the volunteers. As much as he'd like to have the extra income besides what he and Zeb got, it wouldn't feel right taking more than just enough to cover expenses getting to the temple and back. Those funds could help with whatever needed to help get things back in order with any future reconstruction projects the government needed.
"Not a lot, a few hundred credits, but it'll help." Zeb put his worn clothes into the hamper – they'd need to wash a couple of rounds of clothes by the end of the week – and began to dig into the drawers on his side of the dresser for a pair of clean night clothes to wear the next couple of nights. "We'll be getting food and a tent while we're there, the credits are just to cover anything that might come up. For us its just fuel for the speeders and extra for later."
"Fair enough," Alex said, mentally relaxing. Watching Zeb get dressed into his night clothing, he smiled and thanked the Ashla that he could watch his lover casually get undressed and dressed again in front of him; that was one thing Zeb had been surprisingly bashful about doing in front of him at the beginning of their relationship. Both of them had spent time bunking down in barracks during their younger years, both of them had been naked as the day they were born in front of others, male and female alike, while getting ready for their day, so it came as a surprise to Alex that Zeb was a bit shy in getting undressed in front of him. Took the Lasat some time to admit that while he had been used to changing in front of others, this time was different because he was more emotionally attached to the person who was watching him change. That he wasn't sure how Alex would view him in complete undress, but eventually felt more comfortable as time went on and they had a few good rounds in bed – and if Alex had his way, he'd shout to the entire galaxy that Zeb still was the first one, both human and non-human,that continued to give him the best blowjob he'd ever receive. "Doesn't sound like a quick fix."
"We'll be there for a few weeks, might be able to come home once or twice to check on things. Make sure everything's okay," Zeb said as he finished getting dressed and got into bed, well aware that Alex had been staring at him hungrily the entire time. Smirking, he didn't get under the blankets right away, instead put his bare legs on top of the covers and leaned back onto the headboard. "You still going?"
"Yes." Sighing, he put his crude bookmark – a scrap piece of paper he had long since been meaning to throw away – where he'd left off, closed the book, and set it on the night stand beside his side of the bed. Zeb was becoming too tempting to think straight but he had to keep his mind focused on something else besides the wonderful Lasat laying next to him. "It'll give me a better chance at seeing things outside of the town and our home, besides I don't want to be by myself while you're gone."
"Is that the only reason why you're going?" Zeb asked, giving Alex a look of disapproval. "Not because you feel like you need to atone for something?"
"Part of me wants to go help just because of the history that might be in there, but another part of me wants to help ease the guilt of what I did on Lasan." That part was true, even if he couldn't help Lasan he he could try to help the Lasat here on Lira San better if he did some work instead of the craziness that some of the atonement rituals had."I know that doing anything else besides that won't help matters, even if I do decide to find better ways of showing I'm not the same person."
"I'll back you up on anything that you want to do, besides doing any rituals." Zeb's ears flattened against his head for a moment before they relaxed. "Just, please don't."
"I promise I won't." Putting a hand onto Zeb's, he squeezed it hoping that he could convey that he was serious about it. "Besides, I think I got some atonement for getting myself caught by Thrawn. That...helped some."
Zeb turned his head to Alex, ears up and eyes wide. Alex hadn't spoken much about what happened right before and during Atollon, even years after it happened he had only shared a few snippets of what he had gone through at the hands of Thrawn, Pryce, and the other Imperials, and those were with those that he could trust or a small piece of random information during a briefing. That was one of two things that no one dared to press him about, the other being Onderon, the few times he had been were eventually made as an example as something that others didn't press on about. No one who knew him best held it against him when he lashed out when someone started demanding more information about those two instances, Kanan once had to hold Alex back when someone decided to pry more than needed about Onderon and the Jedi struggled to hold him back.
"It couldn't have been that easy," Zeb said softly, squeezing Alex's hand back. "Not with the way you were looking then, Thrawn had done a number on you between the transmission going through and us picking you up in the escape pod."
"No, no it wasn't. Thrawn wasn't the only one who had a go at me, he was just the worst one out of all them." At least with Atollon he had someone there for the afterwards, that made it all more bearable; with Onderon then Bahryn, there had been no one he could've turn to. Even if anyone else in the Empire hadn't understood what he had gone through, he wished then and now that had someone to talk to about things that had happened. Which was made his deflection to the Rebellion that much easier. "Some of my worst injuries came from him, he knew about my leg from my medical file and many other things. Pryce wasn't much better, but at least she gave me a way to escape and get out before things got worse." Alex then laughed a little. "You know what scares me the most?"
"Hmm?" Zeb rubbed Alex's hand and wrist to keep him calm even though Alex didn't seem to need it.
"When Ezra and Thrawn are found again, I'd like to have another go at him. Just to get back at that bastard, but I also want to thank him." Alex had spent the better part of his first year or so with the Rebellion wanting to have another chance at facing Thrawn, just as he had spent years after Onderon wanting another chance to have an encounter with the Lasat who had molded him into the spiteful human he had become. Then his temper and spite had cooled after realizing it was Onderon all over again and he made damn sure he wouldn't go down that path once again. Not unless he wanted his anger to turn into something worse than just anger.
"Thank him?" Zeb stared at Alex, mouth hanging open. "For what?"
"For finally allowing me to drop the charade I had when I was Fulcrum. Deep down I knew that he knew I was sending information to the Rebellion, yet I didn't want to believe it and continued on like I wouldn't get caught so soon." Looking up at the ceiling, he knew that he wouldn't have gotten away with it for much longer but his arrogance had blinded him once again. "I thought I was doing the right thing by staying in the Empire and just sending information out, that it was for the best that I stay there. I knew I would eventually be caught, I just didn't think it would happen like it did."
Even though it had been spelled out for him, Zeb couldn't fully understand the reasoning why Alex wanted to thank Thrawn for what he had done to him. But then again, it didn't have to make sense and Alex didn't say he wanted to forgive the Chiss for doing what he did, however if that was the path Alex wanted to walk down then Zeb would back him up on that. It was a better path than Zeb would've taken and if Alex would eventually forgive Thrawn, as Zeb had done with Alex and many other former Imperials who had deflected after coming to similar conclusions about the Empire, then he'd back him up on that as well. He didn't have to agree with it to give him the support he needed with that.
"You still should've taken Ezra up on the offer to get out," he pointed out, giving the human a look which, in turn, only made him roll his eyes and shake his head with a half smile.
"I had debates with him on numerous occasions afterwards about me leaving with him over staying on the inside, neither one of us backed down in our arguments." Alex smiled sadly at the memory of the many times him and Ezra had butted heads over him leaving when he was sent for. "In the end, however, we both conceded that while I should've left when I had the chance to, it might not have been the best idea. If I hadn't then the base on Atollon would've had a worse outcome than it had."
"But then you wouldn't have gotten so badly hurt when it did happen," Zeb pointed out, yet he knew that argument had been given by more than just himself and the rest of the Specters.
"Yeah, I know." He looked over at Zeb. "You remember how much I resisted getting help for my injuries? How much I fought despite how bad I looked and felt?"
"Yea, I remember." Zeb had to forcibly push those memories away, he still felt some guilt about not finding the former Imperial sooner once he had seen the injuries he had. "You believed that there were others who were worse off than you were. Almost had to get Kanan to use the Force on you to get moving to medical."
"Some of that was because I still saw myself as the enemy, the ones who needed the medical attention the most were the ones that the Empire hurt directly." He gave Zeb a look to not add on that he himself had been hurt directly by the Empire that day. "But I also knew that my suffering meant that I could finally start easing some of what I had done as an Imperial, it wasn't something that I could show that I was no longer on that side but something that could ease that guilt some."
"And you can still ease more of it by helping with things like this reconstruction, that's a start," Zeb pointed out with a yawn. "Just like you started asking questions and finding out the truth."
"And, for that, I will always be grateful for you pushing me onto that path." Pushing the blankets off of him, Alex moved onto Zeb's lap and put his head onto Zeb's shoulder. "I am grateful for everything that I have since then. Now, come here – I want to show you just how I feel."
xxxx
The last two weeks seemed to have gone by very quickly. With tidying up the house before they left, Alex packing and repacking their traveling bags at least four different times, and them only getting a few perishable food items to eat as they wouldn't be home for some time, Zeb was relieved that they made it to the temple grounds in one piece. With the amount of fussing Alex was making about packing extra just in case and double checking to make sure that they had the necessities, Zeb was beginning to lose his patience with him and almost had commed Gron to tell him they weren't going. By the time they got there, Zeb silently thanked the Ashla they were out of their home and Alex had mellowed out on the way there; not that he wasn't quietly fretting that they had forgot something at the beginning, yet he kept that to himself. The sideways look Zeb had given him on the way most likely was one of the reasons why he didn't voice his unneeded concerns more vocally, that and the stern talking to he had earlier in the week helped.
They had parked their speeders behind the main temple Chava called her own, taking a small transport ship an hour and a half outside the town's limits and out into the wide open land with a small group of other volunteers that were heading out that day. Zeb learned from another volunteer that there would be two more groups arriving in the next three or four days, all similar in size to the one they were in, and they'd get assigned to different tasks suited to their strengths. Alex soon forgot about his worries once they were on their way when he learned this, chatting excitedly with four others about what they hoped to be doing while the reconstruction was going on; Zeb just leaned back and listened to him chatter about what they would find and the history behind it. It didn't take long for Zeb to become a little excited himself, no matter how many times he had been to Lira San during the war and no matter how long they'd lived there already, there still was so much he didn't know about this planet. Here was a golden opportunity to maybe learn more about how the Lasat lived prior to branching off into the galaxy and settled elsewhere, when he thought all of that was lost.
"Hey, we're here." Alex nudged Zeb out of his thoughts, nodding to the temple when the transport ship landed in front of a very ancient temple. Zeb blinked, looking out the window and staring out into the land outside as the other volunteers gathered their belongings and headed out once the landing ramp had been lowered. It took them several minutes to exit, when they did they both got a better look at where they were. The temple itself was situated on a large grassy plain that, at first, seemed to be in the middle of no where but glancing around they saw what looked like a small town not far from where the temple sat, to the right of it – at least a fifteen minute speeder ride away. There was a mountain range some distance behind the temple and to the left the wide open plain stretched out as far as they could see; behind them, in the distance, there was more plains that was dotted with small groves of trees. Zeb made it a personal mission to climb one of those trees at some point before they left for their home, he hadn't climbed a decent tree in years and wasn't going to miss this opportunity. "Looks like this is the temple we're helping to reconstruct."
"Looks like it," Zeb grunted as Gron approached them after he spoke to the other volunteers. It was then that the pair took notice of three different rows of tents not far from where they were standing, all lined up neatly with their group moving towards them. There were several fire pits dug near them, all of them with large rocks around several piles of wood in the middle and several chairs near each fire pit, enough for several volunteers to sit at.
"Good, you're here," Gron said after they greeted each other, looking down briefly at the data pad in his hand then pointed to the first row of tents. "Your tent is in the front row, there's a sign in front of yours that you'll be staying in, and there's enough tents for you two to share with just the two of you in it."
"We're not sharing with others?" Zeb asked in surprise, glancing at the amount of tents.
"No, we made sure that we had enough for the volunteers we have plus anyone who wanted to be in a group larger than three. If need be you might need to share with one other, but there's enough tents to go around so we don't see that being a problem," Gron said with a quick shake of his head. "Work inside the temple won't start for more days as we wait for the other groups to get here, but there's a few things that have been found already that Chava and several of the other elders needs help with."
Alex's face lit up. "When can we start on that?"
"After lunch tomorrow," Gron said with a smile. "We will still be getting the next batch of volunteers settled in by then but anyone who is already settled in can start helping if they want. One of the other elders is also getting a small group together tomorrow morning to go to the town for a few supplies."
"Good, neither one of us needs to be sitting for long. I'll sign up for the supply run," Zeb said, looking over to Alex. "If that's okay with you."
"Yea, that's fine," Alex said with a wave of his hand. "I think we're okay with things and don't give me that look, either."
"What look?" Zeb asked innocently as Gron laughed, telling them that he'd give the elder in charge of supplies Zeb's name to be down on the list and that he'd be by later to give him the time they'd be leaving in the morning. After they said their goodbyes for the time being to Gron, Zeb turned to Alex and gestured to the tents. "Lets go see what our accommodations look like."