Days had slipped by since the Tatooine affair — each mission another grain of sand in the crooked mechanism that was their crew. Whatever harmony remained had long since become a well-polished mask, stretched thin over wounds still raw beneath.
Illaoï had withdrawn into a silence almost sacred, cloistered in their shared quarters, where only the stars moved before her eyes. She wrote. She sketched. And sometimes, she played — soft, mournful melodies whispered into the void, as if for ears no longer present.
A routine had nonetheless settled aboard the ship.
Loewen and Scourge trained daily with the relentless fervor of two warriors refusing to admit even a flicker of weakness. The Jedi sought to understand — to feel his body move, to live. The Sith, on the other hand, fought only to control himself. To keep from destroying everything under the pressure of emotions he'd thought long since buried… but which had begun to stir again.
Doc, ever himself, patched wounds with off-color comments. Kira, full of fire, had declared herself the crew's new chef — a position she approached with valiant enthusiasm and the culinary grace of a concussion grenade. No one dared complain.
Not yet.
But one night, as silence cloaked the ship in its velvet hush, Scourge slipped out of their shared quarters. Without a word. Without armor.
He had a purpose.
An irresistible need for truth.
He found T7 at his nightly post and handed over the final piece of their deal: a precious recording — the night Illaoï had sung under Tatooine's stars.
T7 whirred with uncontainable glee, more excited than a Jawa in a junkyard. In return, the droid handed him the final decrypted fragments of Illaoï's journal — a painstaking collaboration, weeks in the making.
Scourge took his place in the war room.
Unlocked the interface.
And read.
All night.
He said nothing. But his eyes burned.
With something ancient.
Something very nearly human.
He had seen things.
Felt.
The next morning, Illaoï was in the galley, up before the others. She waited — composed, calm.
Loewen was the first to arrive.
She inclined her head in a gesture of respect. Her apology was simple. Honest. For the insubordination. For the breach of trust she now recognized as necessary — vital, even.
Loewen stepped closer.
Lifted her chin with a gentle hand.
Her eyes were stormed-over glass, murky with all the things she never said aloud.
He whispered that he'd missed her.
That he regretted the harshness of his words.
Then he kissed her.
Just a moment —
A breath stolen from time —
But she froze.
Nothing in her mind had prepared her for this.
In the shadowed hallway, a presence boiled.
Scourge.
Red flooded his vision. Not rage for battle. Not bloodlust.
Something worse.
Territory.
Pain.
A chaos he didn't recognize as his own.
He didn't move.
But every fiber in him strained like a bow on the verge of snapping.
When she pulled away — startled — and slipped from Loewen's reach, Scourge didn't wait.
He followed.
Determined.
Burning.
She was already in their quarters, the hum of the shower masking his footsteps. He stood just outside, fury in his bloodstream. But not the old fury. Not the bone-breaking, blade-happy violence of his former self.
This…
was ache.
This was confusion.
When she stepped out, wrapped in a towel, he blocked her path.
"We need to talk."
She stared at him, surprised.
Then, wordless, she slipped into her clothes. Not modestly. Not performatively. Just… quietly. Deliberately.
He didn't look away.
After the briefest hesitation, she stood before him.
And nodded.
Yes.
It was time.
He needed answers.
And so did she.
Because this time…
She wouldn't be able to deflect everything.
Not with gestures.
Not with silence.
And especially not with her eyes.