Ahhhh running late to post before work.

Hopefully no typos.

Chapter 34: Rebel Frolics

"What do you mean you sleep dressed like that?" Ahsoka asked. "And travel without any sort of blanket or pillow at all?"

Korkie mirrored her horror.

"And what do you mean you travel without any tea?"

Allocated together to their first Alliance mission – a simple skip over to Chandrila to deliver some resources and perhaps more importantly properly introduce themselves to their leader Mon Mothma – they were both similarly aghast by the other's preparations.

"Leaf water does not sustain me," Ahsoka declared.

"Leaf water is more sustaining than pyjamas," Korkie countered.

"Maybe this is why you have insomnia."

"I don't have insomnia!"

In the end, Ahsoka heaped Korkie's bunk with blankets and cottons and Korkie stocked the cabinets with tea and both were quietly pleased to embrace the other's luxury. There was a strangeness about being in hyperspace again, after all those years of ricocheting around on his own. It felt different with Ahsoka by his side. Before the Alliance, Korkie had started to lose belief that any journey held any meaning anymore. It had been a very long time since any sort of victory. But there was a warmth, now, in the cabin, even as the blue lights of freezing space raced past them. Korkie hadn't quite known this feeling since he was a young teenager and in awe of her. The steadiness of her companionship was like finally stepping into a shelter as rain poured outside. Like a campfire lit in the wild darkness. Ahsoka's glow in the Force was that same gentle gold.

"You know the other luxury I tend to enjoy on my journeys?" Korkie asked, setting aside his cup of empty tea.

It had not so much been a luxury as a desperate attempt at escape his rampaging thoughts, to bridge the hours in which he could not – alright, perhaps he had known insomnia – for the life of him get to sleep.

"Tihaar and uj cake?" Ahsoka guessed.

Korkie chuckled.

"I'm not that much a prince."

He reached for the control panel and loaded a data chip. A gentle thrum of music filled the cabin around them, instilled a new looseness in Korkie's weary muscles.

"Music?" Ahsoka asked, with a quirking smile.

"You seem surprised."

"It's not a Jedi pastime. I never listen to any."

"Too busy listening to the Force?"

"Something like that."

"I find this far more restorative than Jedi meditation."

The music swelled and pulsed around them. Korkie rose to his feet and deposited their empty mugs in the ship's tiny wash-unit, then extended a hand to Ahsoka.

"What are you doing?"

"I want to dance with you."

Ahsoka laughed.

"I've never danced in my life."

"All the more reason."

He took her by the hands, swayed and turned her.

"You don't know how satisfying it is to find something that you're not good at."

"Shut up."

"You'll soon be excellent."

But for now they were clumsy and it somehow made it all the sweeter. Korkie felt the last of his nagging worries lift from his head, pouring out and becoming lost in the growing bond between them. He was immersed in Ahsoka's glowing light, in the sound of her laughter.

"What are you- don't drop me!"

"It's a dip, Ahsoka. I'm not going to drop you."

"This is very romantic. Are you sure you're not in love with me?"

"Ahsoka, I am wholeheartedly in love with you."

"You're full of shit."

"Just not quite in the way you're suggesting."

It wasn't really a song for dancing. They fell in and out of the beat. Ahsoka's long limbs tangled inexplicably at every chance he gave her. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. They held hands and jumped and stomped and tossed their heads as the music swelled to its riotous peak. Came close as it faded to its simplest chords. Found each other in a gentle sway.

"Have I converted you to a love of music and dance yet?"

Ahsoka gave a grudging smile.

"Better than tea," she conceded.

"Better than pyjamas and bedlinen too, I daresay."

"You can't say that until you've tried it."

"Maybe not. But I think we have time for a few more dancing lessons before we go to bed."

Kawlan dialled the comm when he was lying on his back in his bunk and could imagine that the lost Prince of Mandalore was lying above him. They never did rebuild on Tanalorr. But cheap canvas was cheap canvas galaxy-wide and the bunks in their new base on Mon Gazza – Korkie-Ben's fictional homeworld, and in far more convenient proximity to Tanalorr – uncannily resembled their first.

"Thank you for answering."

"I'm sorry for not answering your last few calls."

"You were busy, I take it?"

"Yeah. The good sort of busy. Safe, I promise. I'm with Bail and Ahsoka and the rest of them."

Nothing could have made Kawlan happier. A wave of tension released from his body.

"I'm so glad to hear it, Korkie."

The young man's voice reluctant over the crackling comms.

"I'm sorry, Kawlan. I'm sorry I'm not with you."

"It's alright, Korkie. As long as you're safe."

"It's not about you. It's just that I don't really like Tanalorr and Cere and I had that fight-"

"I know."

"Did she tell you about it?"

"Yeah."

It was your Padawan who killed him, Cere, if you care to know.

The truth of the matter had been explained to Kawlan after that heart-wrenching comm call and had been recounted again upon their latest return to Tanalorr. Cal Kestis and the other older Padawans, never deceived, would trust Cere Junda in a way that Korkie perhaps never would again.

"She only ever wanted to protect you, Korkie."

"I know."

They fell into the soft static lull of their distant comm connection.

"And what about you, Kawlan? Are you doing okay?"

The teenager and then young adult, in all their years of travel together, had never asked Kawlan that. Had always been enswathed in his own many griefs. And Kawlan had never resented him that. The Prince of Mandalore had lost just as much, if not more, than he had, and had suffered those losses at a far younger age.

But it felt so precious to be asked. To know that despite the great distance between them, Korkie was seeing him. To know that he cared.

"I'm doing really well, Korkie. Especially now that I know you're okay."

"You must miss Relya still."

"Of course."

Every day. Four years, now. But he missed her every day.

"We used to share a single bed," he found himself saying. "Like you and Mahdi did."

"A bunk?"

"No. A pallet. On the floor in her parents' house. Even on those suffocating summer nights…"

And Kawlan was no Jedi but he thought that Korkie, too, might have had the warmth of quiet tears upon his cheeks by conversation's end.

"Did you see the briefing, vod'ika? They've allocated the two of us a mission to Kashyyyk."

Korkie rolled his eyes.

"I'm entirely too old to be called vod'ika any longer, you know."

Ahsoka wrinkled her nose.

"You're still younger than me."

"And a whole head taller."

"You wish! Are you not counting my montrals?"

"I am! But you're still-"

"That's speciesist, Kryze."

Life was easier with Ahsoka Tano and her very own special kind of sunlight by his side. After their journey to Chandrila, Bail continued to allocate them missions together – presumably in a bid to keep Korkie out of trouble – and he couldn't quite say that he minded, even when Ahsoka hassled him into meditation, morning and night in their shared bunk room and seemingly any other time she could pin him down.

"I don't mean to sound like some grumpy old Jedi Master," she'd told him, "but it really is important. To be able to centre yourself even on your very worst day. Without resorting to music and dancing and all that."

They did not speak aloud of what he had told her, of his slip into darkness. But Korkie knew that it had worried her, quietly, and that she was prepared to channel the grumpiest old Jedi Masters in history if she could stop him from slipping again.

"You helped me meditate, remember, when I left the Order and came to Mandalore?" she had reminded him, when he had protested that she surely had better things to do than sit with him and help to tame his racing thoughts. "It's high time I returned the favour."

Korkie was fairly certain that the exchange of favours was rather lopsided but acquiesced with gratitude. Ahsoka sat with him and matched her breath to his, nudged him with each wandering thought and brought him back to her glowing centre. She meditated with the unerring patience of a Jedi who learned to meditate not from Anakin Skywalker, but in spite of him.

Life was easier too, Korkie could grudgingly admit, under Bail Organa's leadership. The Senator of Alderaan filled the great chasm that had been opened up by Mace's death: that of a leader with conviction. A leader who Korkie could trust. A leader who kept sight of that distant glimmer of hope in the future and steered their ship steady, instead of ricocheting about haphazardly from one wound to the other in the way that Korkie had inadvertently made his trademark.

There was structure to his days now, and to his weeks and months. For the first time since he had been the Crown Prince of Mandalore, since he had belonged to the Clan Kryze, Korkie lived within the safe walls of a well-structured (although technically illegal) capitalised-letter entity: the Alliance to Restore the Republic. He had petitioned for uniforms but Bail had told him that he was jumping the gun.

"We'll head to Kashyyyk after the leader's summit, then?" Korkie ventured, loading up the map.

Ahsoka's eyes bulged.

"You were invited to the leader's summit?"

Korkie smirked.

"Weren't you?"

"I was," Ahsoka grumbled. "For the first time in all my work here. Whereas you've been with us for what, a couple of lunar cycles, and you get an invite for the very first-"

"If it helps," Korkie offered, "I have absolutely no interest in participating in the leader's summit."

"That makes it worse! Besides, I thought you were a budding young politician."

Korkie shrugged.

"In my childhood, perhaps. But I think I prefer to be a soldier, these days. Follow orders with an empty brain. Like a battle droid."

"And they invite battle-droid-Korkie to the leader's summit?" Ahsoka seethed. "It's just because you're Mon Mothma's favourite-"

"That's not my fault. I don't do anything to invite-"

"Don't you?"

Korkie lifted his hands in protest.

"I have no desire to be the Chief of State's favourite," he told her. "Truly. Being around Commander Mothma is… unnerving."

He grimaced.

"She's a hero, obviously. I'm honoured to work with her. But… she reminds me too much of my mother."

Ahsoka shook her head in stunned disbelief.

"How is it that whenever I think we've finally given you enough therapy, Korkie, you reveal that you in fact need more therapy?"

"I don't need therapy."

And he didn't. At least, not really. He'd learned how to sleep again. How to breathe through the grief and allow the tears upon his cheeks every time he woke from seeing Mahdi again. The pain of it would never leave him but it was dimming, slowly, replaced now by a dragging sort of guilt. He would find glimpses of joy in Ahsoka's company, as they smiled and joked and danced with each other, but he always lapsed back. Back into the nagging knowledge that he'd done wrong. The memory of all that he had lost. And it seemed right, in a way. He had no desire to be truly know happiness, to wake and sleep in its embrace. It was unfair to Mahdi to ever again know happiness. And what good was it having therapy if he didn't want to be happy all the time? Was it so very abnormal to not want to be happy all the time?

"You need more therapy than there are years left in the galaxy," Ahsoka decreed. "The suns will burn out before-"

"Oh, shut up."

Han regarded his Imperial-stamped helmet in his hands with distaste. The equatorial regions on the planet Qhulosk boasted stifling humidity and his hair was already damp with sweat without the kriffing piloting gear.

"I'd say wiping out the whole damn city is overkill."

He had grumbled this more to himself than anyone else. But Valance shot him a sharp glare from the corner of his gaze.

"Better not let Yurib hear you say that."

"Can the best pilot in the squadron not say what he wants?"

Han reclined back against the dormitory wall. He didn't have the blasted energy to go destroy the city of Howlan and he was in a sour enough mood that he didn't care who knew it.

"I'm serious, Valance. Who's going to clean up the goddamn mess when the city's up in smoke? Who's going to mine all that farium we apparently came here for?"

Valance snorted.

"You part of strategic planning for the Empire now?"

"I'd just like to know if there's any point," Han grumbled. "I'm not sweating myself to death for nothing."

Valance mirrored his posture, slumping against the wall and wiping sweat from his own brow.

"Leadership's nervier these days," he mused. "They don't pull any punches."

"Yeah," Han agreed. "Didn't think they could get more heavy-handed than they already were."

"I'll tell you something if you promise not to tell Yurib I said it."

"Shoot."

"I think they're getting nervy because there's talk of growing rebellion."

And despite the stupor of the suffocating climate, Han's chest heaved with laughter.

"Rebellion?" he repeated. "There's always been idiots in the galaxy, Valance. That's old news."

"There's more of them now than there used to be," Valance insisted. "They're organising themselves. I heard some officers talking about it on Carida."

Han shook his head, chuckling still.

"Sounds like bantha-shit to me. If there were a Rebellion, Valance, we'd out flattening it instead of messing around with a few misbehaving farium miners."

"But we can't," Valance protested. "Because we don't know who or where they are, exactly."

"And you're telling me you're sure they exist?"

Valance gave an agitated sigh.

"I don't know. Maybe you're right. But I think leadership's more stressed out than they used to be."

Han smirked.

"Maybe it's the financial cost of flattening so many cities starting to catch up with them."

"You're a keen economist."

"That's a nice way of saying I plan to be rich one day."

"Nothing wrong with that."

With the stomping of boots – Han didn't know how anyone could bear to wear them in this heat – their commanding officer entered the dormitory.

"Departure's in ten minutes! Get off the karking beds!"

The pilots complied with muttered apologies. Han pulled on his socks and then his own boots with heavy, reluctant limbs. His thoughts drifted to the life he had known so many years ago. It had never got humid like this in Coronet City. A perpetual breeze had blown off the ocean. The scent of salt and electrolysis vapour.

He didn't miss it. He would never return to Corellia. But he looked back with softer gaze upon that place now. The escape had gone all wrong. He'd lost Qi'ra and found himself in this stupid business of flattening cities for the minimum wage. The thrill of flying was small comfort. Nothing compared to the first time he'd taken out a TIE fighter. Wobbled through atmosphere on the galaxy's first Empire Day.

And when he thought of that day he could not help but think of Ben. That bright-faced idiot optimist. Who was apparently in growing company, if Valance's gossip from Carida meant anything. (It probably didn't.)

Han groaned as he rose to his feet and carried his helmet into the hangar.

He didn't really believe in any rebellion. But if by some miracle he stumbled across them, he thought his blaster fire might go just a little wayward. For his old friend.

Korkie hadn't been back to the Arkanis sector since he'd left the Hidden Path. But the scrambled distress signal came from the ocean moon of Trask to find him almost exactly after he and Ahsoka parted ways – she to continue their work constructing the rebel network on Kashyyyk, while Korkie had been waylaid by Bail's request that he sweet-talk their way through an undercover arms deal – and who was he to ignore it?

His thoughts flitted to the Hidden Path. Perhaps an expedition had stumbled into trouble and they'd veered off course from Tanalorr. Perhaps they needed him. He'd have liked to see Kawlan again. To see Cody again. He'd never meant to hurt them when he left the Path; he'd been acting in self-preservation and owed them an apology. The least he could do was-

-land on the moon and stumble almost immediately into a ray shield trap like an idiot.

Korkie stood motionless within the walls of humming electricity and felt no fear. This was a far better ambush than the Empire could ever coordinate. Someone interesting, he thought, would come to collect him.

There was the synchronised marching of heavy boots. Heavier than Imperial-armour plastoid. A glint of dark silver, warped by the ray shield. But the silhouette of the armour unmistakable as they approached him.

Mando'ade.

"We'd heard stories of a young lightsaber-wielding menace to the Empire."

The female voice was heavily modulated by her helmet.

"I didn't want to get my hopes up. Could have been anyone. And then I heard of Bail Organa's new specialist negotiator."

Korkie knew that armour. The white upon her helmet. The blue upon her shoulders. Not the deep royal blue of the Kryze Clan. Of a clan she'd forged on her own. The bravest soldier he'd ever known.

"Ba'vodu?" he croaked.

She pulled off the helmet and extinguished the ray shields. It was her. Just as he had remembered her. Korkie stumbled, ran to her, enveloped her in a crushing hug. The feeling of her was strange in his arms. He'd grown so much taller, since he had last held her.

"I thought you'd died, Ba'vodu!" he breathed. "I thought everyone had died. I thought there were no more Mando'ade-"

"Because you were too busy on your kamikaze rebel exploits across the galaxy to find any."

Korkie's breath caught in his chest.

It was not coldness, exactly, that he felt in the Force. But there was caution. Something restrained. She stood before him and glowed with none of his riotous joy.

"Have you forgotten the weapon at your belt, Korkie'ad?"

Korkie brushed his thumb across the hilt of the Darksaber.

"I've fought a hundred battles with it," he told her, in his own flimsy defence.

She nodded. Her lips were creased into a thin line.

"Not the battles you should be fighting."

Behind them, a soldier broke ranks, pulling off her own helmet and approaching them.

"Kriff's sakes, Bo. Be nice!"

The young woman shot him a smile.

"What your Ba'vodu is trying to say, Korkie, is that she missed you. And that she wishes you could have been with us all these years."

Bo-Katan scowled.

"Ruma, I never said-"

"You never say what needs to be said," Ruma countered blithely. "You two have a lot to talk about. But really, Bo, if Sewlen hears you're not being nice she'll take her scalpel to you."

Bo-Katan and Korkie spoke at the same time.

"Don't you dare tell Sewlen-"

"Sewlen's alive?"

Ruma beamed at him.

"Come aboard, Vod. We'll take you to her."

Korkie looked at his aunty, her gaze stony still.

"Ba'vodu Bo, may I-"

"Of course you're allowed on the kriffing ship," she grumbled, turning on her heel. "I'm angry but I'm not that angry."

And that was enough. The sun seemed to shine in the Force again as Korkie followed the soldiers back to their ship.

Bo-Katan sat back with arms folded as Sewlen conducted herself in a very un-surgeon-like manner, crying as she tried to tell Korkie how glad she was to see him and touching his face like a mother might.

"Look at you! Look at your nose! You should have had someone fix it, Korkie, I'll bet you can hardly breathe at night-"

Korkie fidgeted with his sweater in a manner that suggested he was protecting further injuries from the surgeon's notice.

"It's not so bad, Sewlen, I-"

"But you've grown so tall," she managed, sniffling back tears, in consolation. "A bit thin, really, but you've grown so tall that you must have been eating enough and-"

"I have been. I really am alright."

She nodded, wiping at her damp cheeks with the backs of her hands.

"You are. You're alive and I'm so happy. It feels like a miracle."

Korkie chuckled.

"You've already witnessed my miracle, Sewlen. The past few years have been far easier on me than my birth was."

"That's probably true."

"When did you turn so tender-hearted?" he teased.

Sewlen gave a watery laugh of her own, spilling the last of her tears.

"Only when you walked onto this ship, ad'ik, I swear. We've never stopped thinking about you. Never stopped hoping for you. But it was beginning to seem-"

"I'm sorry. I really am."

Korkie's earnest profession was directed first to the doctor, as he clasped her tear-soaked hand. But his eyes darted, then, to his watching aunty.

"Ba'vodu, I should have looked for you. I'm sorry. But I had heard such horrible things about what happened on Mandalore and I was-"

His voice broke off and he swallowed effortfully.

"I was-"

"Come, Korkie. Walk with me."

Bo-Katan led him from the main hold to her on-board office and closed the door heavily behind him. She didn't mean to turn the exchange into a kriffing business meeting. But she didn't entirely trust herself not to turn into a wreck as Sewlen had, and the Alor'ad couldn't be seen crying. Neither of them sat.

"You were what, Korkie?"

He looked pleadingly at her. His mother's eyes. He fixed her with Satine's brightness, that piercing blue, and broke Bo-Katan's heart.

"I was scared, Ba'vodu," he professed. "I was scared by what I would find if I went looking for you. And there were so many other battles to fight. I've been-"

"I have spent the past four years," she interrupted, "finding the Mando'ade scattered around the galaxy and bringing them together. That is the battle of the soldier who carries the Darksaber, Korkie. The Mand'alorcannot shy away from that task."

He dropped his head, strands of hair falling like the sun.

"I know, Ba'vodu. I'm sorry."

She would have liked to embrace him. To hold him as Sewlen had. But she wasn't done with him yet.

"Actions matter, Korkie," she counselled. "Not words."

He lifted his chin once more and there was a crackle of fire about him.

"You don't know my actions," he told her.

Bo-Katan snorted.

"I've heard quite enough about your cute little rebel frolics across the galaxy to know that-"

"Kriff you, Ba'vodu."

Bo-Katan had never once heard him speak with such anger. She froze, mouth agape.

"Pardon?"

"Kriff you," he repeated, unapologetically. "You don't know a thing about what I've been through."

There was heat rising in his cheeks and Bo-Katan suddenly felt fifteen years old again. Her beautiful sister had towered over her like this. Satine's high-boned cheeks had turned that particular shade of burgundy.

"Do you think the Mando'ade are the only sentients suffering in this galaxy, Ba'vodu?" he challenged. "The only sentients worth saving?"

"You ought to save your people, Korkie-"

"I've been from one end of this miserable galaxy to the other," he went on, "and everyone is suffering. Everyone. And I have fought for everyone. Because I know that it was never exactly politically ideal for you, Ba'vodu, but my heritage is more than simply Mandalorian."

They stared at each other, chests heaving.

"Are you done?" Bo-Katan asked.

"No," Korkie retorted viciously. "I am not done. I will not be done until you understand that I have not spent four years frolicking across the galaxy. I have-"

He took a deep inhalation and Bo-Katan knew that she had a tidal wave coming.

"I have been beaten and starved and burned and half-drowned," he listed. "I've fought the Inquisitorius and I've fought Grievous. I've saved hundreds of lives, Ba'vodu, hundreds of Force-sensitives and rebels, and I won't have you tell me that those lives don't matter or that I shouldn't have been there saving them."

"Korkie, listen, I just meant-"

"And I've had so much kriffing blood on my hands," he pressed on. "You wouldn't believe it, Ba'vodu. You know I could never stand blood."

His voice was shaking now.

"I held Padme as she died. I held Windu as he died. I held my boyfriend as he died and that was kriffed up, Ba'vodu, not that you'd know anything about it."

Bo-Katan felt as though she'd been slapped in the face. He fixed her with wild gaze.

"And now I've finally found the Rebellion where there are people who care for me and they tell me 'hey, ease up Korkie, you don't have to go on a suicide mission every other week to justifying the guilt of still living, you can fix the galaxy without killing yourself.' Which makes it a little hard to swallow when I've got you here, Ba'vodu, telling me that I go on cute little rebel frolics across the galaxy. Can you understand that?"

Bo-Katan nodded. She could not form a single word. She watched the colour drain from Korkie's face as he lifted a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. He might have argued like his mother but he could not hold onto anger as Satine had. Bo-Katan could see it leaving his body just as snow melted under the midday sun. He was gentle like his father had been.

"Sorry, Ba'vodu," he mumbled, lifting his apologetic gaze to meet hers. "It's just that I wasn't in the best place when the Rebellion found me and I still haven't quite…"

He sighed, sat on the desk.

"I've not had the best year, really, Ba'vodu. My boyfriend died and I lost Dad's cloak and-"

And Bo-Katan had prepared to be so angry at him, no matter what excuses he made, but her anger spasmed and flickered then died in her chest.

"Ad'ik…"

She took him in her arms and embraced him. She wanted to tell him that she was proud of him but now was not the time. The boy was dead. It was not the time to tell Korkie that he had done at nineteen-standard what she had not been able to do her entire life.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. "I got it wrong. I shouldn't have said-"

"I shouldn't have said all of that either," he sighed. "I'm not angry at you. I just…"

They sat on the desk, side by side, each with an arm wrapped around the other.

"I think you ought to understand," he articulated levelly, "that the enemy that took Mandalore from us was the Sith Emperor. And he'll never let Mandalore return to any strength so long as this Empire exists. One cannot fight for Mandalore without fighting to defeat the Empire."

Bo-Katan shook her head.

"They call themselves the Alliance to Restore the Republic, Korkie."

He grimaced.

"I know. I know that the Republic never protected us and that we never wanted any part in it. But we have to acknowledge, Ba'vodu, that this is the best-developed resistance against the Emperor. Our enemy is the Emperor. We must remove him from power."

He gestured beyond the office, to the sporadic clunking of beskar boots.

"If we don't defeat the Emperor," he reasoned, "then the remaining Mando'ade will never reunite. Boba Fett tried to arrest me – can you believe it? He doesn't speak a word of our language. And I'll bet he's not the only Mando'ad out there who is far happier hunting bounty than returning to the desolate home where their ancestors were all killed."

Bo-Katan shook her head in vague wonderment.

"His father fought in the Clan Wars."

"I know. Yet he tells me he doesn't care for my lost home. And I can't say I blame him, Ba'vodu. We cannot unite the Mando'ade until we can promise that things will be better, this time."

Bo-Katan sighed and realised that she could not argue with him. The idealistic child had grown into an astute politician.

"Look, Ba'vodu, I promise, after we take the Emperor down, I'll be everything you want. I'll call for my people and we'll take back that land again. But we can't do that yet. We need to work together to defeat the Emperor first."

Bo-Katan leaned back to behold him, a wry smile upon her lips.

"If you are going to be the Mand'alor, Korkie, then your days of being the rebellion's errand boy have to end," she advised. "The Mand'alor doesn't go chasing mysterious coded messages on meaningless moons. The Mand'alor gives orders and fights battles."

Korkie sighed and conceded the point with a half-smile of his own.

"I guess you're right," he muttered.

"Your mother would never have deigned to do those jobs."

Korkie snickered.

"She'd have made Dad do them."

Bo-Katan rolled her eyes.

"Your mother was lucky to have such a loyal first soldier. But it is time to be your mother's son, Korkie. You're royalty. By blood and, more importantly, by deed."

Korkie unlatched the Darksaber from his belt and ignited it.

"I haven't fought with it for months," he confessed. "I broke my arm and didn't get it treated properly and now I can barely hold the weight of it."

"Sewlen will fix your arm."

"I know. But I'm not telling her about it until she's done crying."

Bo-Katan laughed.

"You might have to give her a few days."

They watched the blade's flickering darkness in reverent silence for a few minutes until he extinguished it once more.

"My parents used to tell me that I'd be better than them both," he mused.

Sobriety had returned to him; his voice was bruised and his eyes downcast.

"They used to tell me that all the time. But it's not true. I'm not half as good as either of them."

He placed the hilt of the Darksaber on the desk beside them. There were tears welling in his eyes.

"I haven't lived up to anything that they-"

Bo-Katan enveloped him in her arms, brought his face to her shoulder.

"You are so good, cyar'ad. You are so, so good. Truly. I mean it."

Beaten and starved and burned and half-drowned. The Inquisitors and Grievous. Blood on his hands. His broken nose and his broken arm and every other scar he was hiding from Sewlen. Lost from his home and from everyone he knew, but fighting all the same.

"You know what Satine said to me, when she was dying?"

Korkie looked at her, cheeks glistening with tears, mouth ajar. He shook his head.

"She wanted me to tell you…"

She'd never finished her sentence. Her brain had been bleeding and she'd never found the words.

You know what to tell him, Bo.

"She wanted me to tell you," she decided, with certainty, "that you were the best thing she ever did. And that she knows you'll do everything right, in the end."

Say it with your chest, Korkie!

Very glad to see the family healing.

Next chapter will be the end of part 2 (of 3). We are very soon going to accelerate through time (after next chapter). Let me know anything you're especially keen to see as we power through a decade in the early rebellion.

xx - S.