Bad 48h, sorry - forgot to post.

Enjoy!

Chapter 35: Homewards

"I have an injury I could use your expertise in," Korkie ventured, finding the surgeon in the ship's main hold, servicing her assistant droid. "If it's not too upsetting for you."

Sewlen looked up from her work with a lined, but earnest, smile.

"Of course not," she assured him, as she rose to her feet. "I'm sorry again, Korkie, about before. It was terribly unprofessional of me to-"

"You're my family, Sewlen. You always have been. I don't blame you."

She shrugged, her smile wry.

"Doctors aren't supposed to operate on their family."

"I know," Korkie acquiesced.

It wasn't fair of him, really, to ask her. But he trusted her like no one else.

"You don't have to," he told her. "I was just hoping for an opinion. Bail Organa's medical droid won't touch it. Says it's too late."

He began to unbutton his sleeve and paused, guilt settling in.

"Although I suppose I could always get my second opinion from a surgeon on Alderaan," he offered. "I just haven't had a chance to go yet. I-"

Sewlen folded her arms.

"Let me see."

Korkie complied with a rush of gratitude.

"It's my arm. About a half-year ago, now. An Inquisitor hit me right there."

He indicated at the lumpy bone near the point of his elbow. Sewlen frowned, taking his arm in her hands to examine more closely.

"What did she hit you with?"

"Can't remember. Some piece of a broken building. Stone or metal. Using the Force."

Sewlen shook her head in grim disapproval of her assessment.

"Wake up, T12."

She plugged a few wires and her medical assistant droid buzzed to life.

"Arm here for the x-ray. What treatment has it had?"

"Uh…"

Korkie grimaced.

"I wore a sling as often as I could."

A sling he'd made from a spare t-shirt. A sling he'd never managed to keep on for long, between battles and hasty escapes. The surgeon emanated a predictable disappointment.

"That's it? No splinting? No casting?"

"No," Korkie sighed. "I was on my own at the time. Not really taking the best care of myself."

He saw the flicker of sympathy in Sewlen's grey eyes and hurried on.

"By the time I joined up with Bail's forces it was kind of serviceable again, so I didn't bother anyone with it. I just can't exactly straighten my elbow all the way. Or use it for heavy tasks."

Sewlen drummed her fingers against the x-ray image.

"It's healed terribly, Korkie."

It was obvious even to his untrained eye.

"I suspected as much."

"How did you manage the pain?" Sewlen asked. "It must have been awful."

Korkie shrugged uneasily.

"I mainly just dealt with it. Might have used a couple of not-quite-legal painkillers when I needed help sleeping."

Sewlen turned over his arms, traced her fingers along his veins. Korkie read her easily and gave a bark of laughter.

"Kriff's sakes, Sewlen, just the tablets. You know I hate needles."

"The only blasted thing you're afraid of," she grumbled, with weary good humour. "Are you still taking them? I can help you with safe replacements and a weaning plan."

Korkie shook his head.

"I already got myself off the hard way."

The surgeon raised a brow, impressed.

"Well done."

She flicked the droid back into standby mode once more and fixed him with careful gaze.

"And who's been looking after your mental health, Korkie?"

"Uh…"

It had been getting better, certainly. Much, much better than where he had been when he had left Yaga Minor, shattered into what felt like irreparable pieces. He was some sort of loosely stitched back together now. Missing a few bits here and there, but solid enough. Never mind that he'd never actually seen any sort of mind-healer, despite everyone's nagging insistence that he do so.

"Ahsoka?" he suggested tentatively.

Sewlen seemed more pleased with this answer than Korkie had expected; she brightened visibly. She had met the Togruta when she was a runaway Padawan taking refuge in the palace and mended the wounds from her flight through Coruscant's lower levels.

"You're working together?"

"Almost every mission. She's been very good for me. Making me meditate and all that bantha-shit."

Sewlen nodded her approval.

"Well, I can do the arm, if you want. But I'll only do it if you can seriously promise me you'll stick to the recovery plan. It needs to be re-broken and set with pins. At least a month in an above-elbow cast."

Korkie groaned.

"The droid who refuses to operate on you," Sewlen went on. "Are they at least doing primary care for you? I'm not the right person. As you said, we're family. But you'll need someone for mental health and sexual health and-"

"Did Ba'vodu dob me in for having a boyfriend?"

Sewlen gave a guilty smile.

"She might have mentioned it."

"Well he didn't give me anything," Korkie grumbled. "Stupid droid insisted on running all the tests while it was busy refusing to fix my arm. And I don't think I'll be having any other boyfriends for a very long time, anyway."

Sewlen's smile faded.

"I'm sorry."

Korkie tried for some levity.

"One less health risk to live with, I suppose."

"I didn't mean to reduce it to that."

"I know you didn't."

Korkie dropped Sewlen's gaze, picked at a ragged fingernail.

"Is it crazy to wish that he had given me something?" he asked. "That I still had some part of him with me?"

He could feel but not see Sewlen's wry smile.

"I never did train as a psychiatrist. I won't say whether that's crazy or not."

"It's probably a little crazy," Korkie admitted.

The surgeon's hand came to meet his, eased his fingers from where they had begun to pick at loose skin.

"You still have your memories of him, Korkie," she reasoned. "A much nicer way to keep him with you."

Korkie nodded.

"I'm scared about losing them," he confessed.

Sewlen pondered this for a few moments in silence.

"You can tell me anytime," she offered, eventually. "Any story you want. To keep his memory alive."

Her gaze was bright and earnest and Korkie knew as he looked at her that she, too, had a past full of ghosts she was frightened to lose her grip upon.

"His name was Mahdi," Korkie murmured.

He didn't know when his lips had last formed the name. On waking, perhaps, from his nightmares. Crying out for him, trying to pull him back, out of the Second Sister's fatal grip. But not like this. Not for a very long time like this. An aching warmth swelled in his chest.

"His name was Mahdi and he was a bartender. He was the kindest person I've ever met. And he had the most beautiful dark eyes."

The warmth was rising in Sewlen's eyes too.

"How did you meet him?"

"My very good friend Kawlan had the bright idea that I go out dancing at a club called The Yagai Hive at the ripe age of sixteen-standard…"

Over a bleary-eyed breakfast on the moon of Trask, Korkie swept his meagre belongings back into his pack.

"It's been lovely. But I really should go. I'll be late for the weapons negotiations. Bail entrusted the task to me specifically."

"You will not be attending any negotiations," Bo-Katan decreed, decidedly un-bleary-eyed and looking every bit the commanding officer even in her black under-armour, "Until you've shown us what you've learned from all your lost years of fighting. It's sparring round-robin day. We're doing hand-to-hand, unarmoured. You're invited."

Korkie raised a wary brow.

"Invited?"

His aunt's grey eyes glinted, an ominous half-smile upon her lips.

"Summoned, perhaps. It's mandatory, in any case. You have to fight."

Korkie groaned and found Sewlen with pleading gaze.

"Don't look at me for help," the surgeon protested. "You've already kriffed up the arm so badly that nothing you do today could really make it any worse."

"I wouldn't have drunk any of your stupid tihaar experiment last night, had I known we were sparring this morning," Korkie grumbled, rubbing a hand over his face.

"Don't call my tihaar stupid!"

"No Force allowed," Bo-Katan added tritely.

Korkie scowled.

"And will you be fighting blind-folded?"

Bo-Katan lowered her voice, taking Korkie by the shoulder. She walked him from the kitchenette, mirth disappearing from her eyes.

"This is about earning the respect of your people, Korkie. You're going to fight like a Mando'ad."

Korkie sighed. He'd suspected as much. Last night he'd drunk and played cards with Bo-Katan's squadron of survivors and had been keenly aware, beneath the superficial camaraderie that inevitably formed between any sentients sharing a bottle of tihaar, that they did not trust him.

And why should they have trusted him? They did not know him. They had known him on the cusp of adolescence, standing upon the palace balcony with Darksaber in hand and Maul's body at his feet. Their prince. Their Mand'alor? His mother had shielded him from the responsibilities of that role and he had been grateful for it. They had told their people that the decision would be made once he had come of age. But then the world had collapsed and he had disappeared and fought the battles of which they knew nothing, while they, too, had eked out their own harrowed survival. And now he had returned to them, fully grown. Made their doctor cry. Brought out glimpses of vulnerability in their stoic leader.

"You want your runaway nephew to stop being such an embarrassment, Alor'ad," Korkie observed.

It was Bo-Katan's turn to scowl.

"I didn't mean-"

Korkie raised a sceptical brow. Bo-Katan folded her arms.

"It wouldn't hurt for you to demonstrate," she grumbled, "that it was worthwhile hiking all the way out to Trask to find you."

Korkie grimaced as he flexed and extended his stiff elbow the best he could.

"Fine. Just for you, Ba'vodu."

After eight bloody rounds and what felt like a bucket of sweat gone from her body, Bo-Katan Kryze stood before her nephew with her fists raised. Their eliminated opponents lined the walls, boasting split lips and swelling bruises, watching the final bout with keen interest.

"Are you sure we can't call it a tie?" Korkie asked. "A joint victory for the Clan Kryze, perhaps?"

They had never fought with each other like this. Bo-Katan had always been the teacher and Korkie the child: every punch pulled, every takedown cushioned. She'd watched him fight her soldiers today, learned of the new power in his limbs and watched the agility that had always been remarkable turn to absurd. But she had watched him, too, wear many blows on his wounded arm and watched as he favoured it less and less with each bout of sparring.

The Jedi's son might have towered above her but she was in with a good chance.

"What would be the fun in that?" Bo-Katan taunted.

The fight began tentatively, skirting across the damp floor, each throwing tight strikes that were easily evaded. She'd watched his long limbs hold her soldiers at a distance. She would not make the same mistake. Danced around him again. Drew out, in his impatience, an unbalanced kick. Twisted beneath him and used his momentum to topple him. They grappled on the floor, Bo-Katan's shoulder very nearly wrenched in a dangerous direction. She twisted her way out and landed an elbow in his face. Had nearly regained her footing when her legs were swept from under her and they rolled again. She caught his wounded arm with her legs, forced the elbow into extension. And with a cry of pain he seemed to find new strength. A kick to her body. Pressed onto her front. A knee between her shoulder blades and an arm around her neck. A brief moment of crushing pressure that would have ripped consciousness away from her had he not pulled back.

"That's you out cold, Ba'vodu."

Vision swimming, Bo-Katan pressed herself up to her knees. There were murmurs of approval from the watching crowd. Korkie was back on his feet already, bleeding from a blow just beneath his eye, extending an arm to help her up.

Extending his good arm. The other dangled limp at his side, deformed. Bo-Katan grimaced with a twist of guilt. There weren't hard and fast rules, exactly, for what was allowed in a sparring bout, but breaking an arm…

It must have been phenomenally painful. And yet he had found it within him to fight even harder.

"Mand'alor," she murmured.

The word was echoed by their spectators. Bo-Katan accepted Korkie's hand and rose shakily to her feet.

"It's a hand-to-hand unarmoured sparring bout," he protested, self-conscious.

"No matter."

Bo-Katan took a steadying breath. The oxygen was finding its way to her brain once more. It had never felt so good, she realised, dizzyingly, to lose a fight.

"Where in the hells did you learn that chokehold, anyway?"

Korkie gave a wistful half-smile.

"Maraki Cielor. Rani Talapa's Iron-Cage Super-League."

"Pardon?"

"In Coronet City on Corellia. An underground fighting league. Years ago."

He wiped the blood from the split skin beneath his left eye.

"I'll call the arms dealers," he decided. "Tell them I've been delayed."

He looked to Sewlen with a lopsided grin; there was pain, too, contorting his expression.

"I think I'm ready for that surgery now."

Korkie next arrived in the palace of Aldera on a wind-blown day of cascading autumn leaves, looking decidedly less picturesque than the spectacular view of the lake and darkening mountains.

"By the stars Korkie, what happened to you?"

Bail rose hastily from his seat, clattering his desk.

"Did you make it to the negotiations? Was there some sort of foul play?"

"I made it to the negotiations," Korkie reassured his leader. "A few days late. But they went very well."

Bail appraised Korkie's appearance, from wounded face to plastered arm, aghast.

"Did they?"

Korkie chuckled.

"Truly! You'll have more weapons than you know what to do with in the not-too-distant future. All of this-"

He gestured to his injuries.

"-happened before the negotiations. I was waylaid on Trask."

"By the Empire? Bounty hunters?"

"By my aunty."

Even after a week, the thought of Bo-Katan's survival still made him grin like a fool.

"Oh."

Bail found a tentative smile of his own.

"That's good news… is it?"

"The best news I could have hoped for," Korkie affirmed. "Although she took our sparring competition a little too seriously, I thought."

"Mandalorians," Bail murmured, in faint disapproval, arms folded as he beheld Korkie's injuries more closely. "What is that?"

Korkie lifted his left arm, bound at a right angle, and shifted the sling to allow Bail's inspection of the plaster underneath.

"It's a plaster cast, Bail."

The Senator screwed up his nose.

"I've never seen a cast like that before."

Korkie gave a lopsided shrug.

"My surgeon trained during the Clan Wars. She's a low resource specialist."

"You should have told me you needed an operation," Bail grumbled, rubbing at his forehead. "On Alderaan we could have had this set with something much sleeker."

He ran a cautious thumb over the plaster.

"Something waterproof, for starters."

"It is a little clunky," Korkie conceded. "But on the bright side, you can write on it."

"Write on it?"

"Like flimsi."

"Why would you write on it like flimsi?"

Korkie directed the bewildered Senator's attention to the two scrawled messages upon his cast.

"My Ba'vodu Bo-Katan wrote: Fight better next time," he translated, from the written Mando'a. "And Doctor Sewlen has advised: If you break this cast, I will kill you. Take care!"

The latter part of the surgeon's message was underscored with several emphatic lines.

"If you're too solemn and dignified to write me a message, Bail, I can think of someone who would manage a delightful scribble. May I visit the young Princess?"

Bail softened with a generous smile.

"She is in her mother's office, I believe, receiving education on welfare policy."

Korkie had grown like that; the photographs were filed away in The Family Book. Nestled against his mother's chest in parliament. Sleeping in his capsule upon her desk while she wrote speeches and proposals. Presented in her arms at high-profile negotiations, a diplomatic gift swaddled in fine silks, the colours selected to match the flags of visiting foreign ambassadors.

"And the Queen won't mind the interruption?"

"You know she always looks forward to seeing you, Korkie. Mind you don't let the Princess Ariarne drool through your plaster cast."

And the Princess Ariarne did indeed attempt to drool through his plaster cast; she could grip a marker now, but had little interest in its application. The Queen Breha instead traced an outline of her tiny hand upon the plaster as best she could while the baby squirmed and babbled.

"Shall I write our names on it? Or will you be captured by the Empire in the near future and put my regime in danger?"

The question was asked by Breha in jest but affirmed their sober reality. Korkie certainly didn't plan to be captured by the Empire in the near future. But the future was always in motion.

"Best not to write your name," Korkie agreed. "Just in case."

From your winter baby, Breha scrawled beneath the handprint instead.

Did you just break your arm for the attention? – Ahsoka.

It was supposed to have been a low-risk mission. Korkie had abjectly refused to be confined to the desk of a rebel base for the entirety of his six-week spell in the plaster cast and insisted that he was accompanying Ahsoka on her latest freighting trip to Kashyyyk. Ahsoka had indulged him in part because it seemed like a reasonable idea but mostly because the long journey would be dull without a friend to talk to, and Bail had signed off probably because he was sick of Korkie's incessant chatter while confined to administrative work.

It should have been low-risk. They'd not had any trouble at all with their routes to Kashyyyk; the Empire, having felled whole forests, had lost interest in the planet. But whispers of their work on-planet must have emerged eventually because they left Kashyyyk to find themselves almost immediately entangled amongst a fleet of waiting Imperial navy.

"What the kriff is all this?" Korkie asked, looking through the viewport with alarm.

They both knew, silently, exactly what and who it was. Ahsoka knew that presence in the Force. And Korkie, by the look of the five-pointed scar she had seen on his chest, knew him as well.

"Look," Korkie grumbled. "If we're fighting Grievous, I can really only be here for moral support. If I damage the cast, Sewlen says she'll kill me."

Ahsoka wrenched the ship into a sharp dive as the fighter fleet began to rain cannon fire upon them.

"You'll not have to worry about Sewlen killing you if Grievous kills you first," she pointed out.

"Where's your optimism?" Korkie asked. "If we simply avoid capture-"

But the matter of avoiding capture did not turn out to be simple. They found themselves caught in a blasted traction beam with the prospect of a duel becoming imminent.

"You look after your arm," Ahsoka sighed, unclipping her two newly-forged lightsabers from her belt. "I'll sort him out."

"I was joking, 'Soka," Korkie protested, reaching for his own 'saber. "I'm coming with you."

Ahsoka raised a brow, disapproving gaze upon his cast.

"I'm not defending dead weight."

"Dead weight?" Korkie sputtered. "I've got three good limbs, thank you very much."

There was not much time left with which to argue the point. Their ship was nearly engulfed in Grievous's now.

"Plan A is taking out the traction beam and flying our own ship back out of here," Ahsoka listed. "Plan B is stealing something of theirs. If everything falls to shit, Plan C is we let them take us up to the bridge and regroup from there. Take control of the whole star destroyer if it comes to it."

Korkie's eyes sparked.

"Plan C sounds like the most fun."

"Plan C," Ahsoka advised grimly, "is the one we're least likely to pull off. Aim for that traction beam generator, okay?"

They leapt from the ship the moment they were drawn into the star destroyer's hull, drawing the blaster fire from their precious ship and directing it instead to their own twisting frames. Never mind Korkie's three good limbs; Ahsoka fought in front of him as best she could, buffering the bulk of the attacks. She was not deaf to the effortfully repressed anxiety of his Force signature. Korkie spoke sparingly of the people he had lost but Ahsoka had no doubt he had known defeat in battles like this. That Grievous had hurt him – and those he had cared about – before. And she wouldn't let him be hurt again, blast it.

"Generator's out!" Korkie hollered, having successfully pierced Siri Tachi's lightsaber through the traction beam control panels.

It was with this good news that the bad news emerged, in the shape of a hulking cyborg wielding four humming blades.

"General Grievous!" Korkie called in greeting. "I've missed you, truly. You're a reassuring constant in a galaxy changed for the worse, you know?"

He pulled his lightsaber from the destroyed traction beam generator. Ahsoka leapt to stand between them, wielding her white-bladed 'sabers.

"Korkie, now's not the time for poetry."

The young man sprang to stand beside her.

"I don't imagine his boss gives him many compliments, Ahsoka. It's important to hear a positive affirmation or two-"

And whatever hypocrisy he had about sentient wellbeing and positive psychology was cut short as Grievous's blades began their dizzying spin and the battle began in earnest.

"That's Plan-kriffing-C, Korkie!"

Korkie hadn't meant to defy Ahsoka, exactly. But Plan A was certainly out the window – Grievous was far from delicate in battle, and had done the rebel ship a great deal of collateral damage – and he had leapt, evading Grievous's strikes, to a suspended walkway that granted him a view of the main bridge. It had been, he reasoned, a nudge in the Force in favour of Plan C.

"It will be easier to win the duel," he gritted out, ducking blaster fire from Grievous's stormtroopers, "when this lot are otherwise occupied."

"Occupied by what, Korkie?"

But below him Ahsoka was deeply entangled in her duel with Grievous, the Force flowing mightily around her in a way it had never flowed for him, and Korkie thought it really wouldn't do to distract her with the finer details of his plan. Shielding his plaster cast at his chest, he fought his way through another cluster of stormtroopers and harnessed the Force to cast aside a pair of magna-guards, against whom he hardly fancied his swordsmanship in his current state. The main controls glinted before him.

"Korkie!"

Ahsoka's voice echoed from the hold beneath him.

"Stay close, di'kut, I'm supposed to be looking after you!"

A swelling of warmth in his chest.

"I adore you, Ahsoka!" he called over his shoulder. "Don't worry about me."

He had arrived at the star destroyer's main controls. Identified the guns and the steering control. It would be a great deal of fun from here.

"I haven't done something that stupid since missions with Anakin!"

Ahsoka wasn't sure whether she was ecstatic or furious with him. She leaned on the side of ecstatic, as Korkie gunned their stolen Imperial craft forward and they watched the listing star destroyer fade into the distance behind them.

"I told you to stay close and you took on half the ship instead!"

Korkie grinned at her.

"But you took the only actually competent duellist aboard. So it was a fair split."

"It wasn't supposed to be a fair split," Ahsoka pointed out. "You're injured."

Korkie brushed at a fragment of chipped plaster from his cast.

"It's almost entirely untouched."

"Almost."

"Sewlen won't even be able to tell."

"I'm sure she will."

But the arm was still encased at its correct square angle bend and the bone suspended within would be undamaged. Ahsoka's anger, which had arisen, of course, from her fear of hurting him, faded further.

"I can't believe we pulled that off," she murmured faintly.

Korkie gave a wry smile of agreement.

"The Force was on our side," he decided, after a moment's consideration.

"Perhaps so."

It had been a very long time since the Force had been on Ahsoka's side.

Fighting that battle beside Korkie today had felt a little like the early days of the war against the Separatists, she thought, when she had been fourteen-standard and it had seemed almost like some surreal game. Quest after quest with her Master by her side. With Obi Wan never far. They'd always had a smile for her. They'd always found a way to win. In those days before they sensed the great evil lurking beneath it all. Before they'd learned that the war was not winnable.

She'd almost forgotten what it felt like, to have that optimism. To see some sort of light in the future.

She hoped that it wasn't all a trap this time. Silently pleaded of the Force, as no Jedi ever should, that this glimpse of light was finally the real thing. She didn't have the strength left to withstand another false hope, to carry on in the desperate search for water after another flickering mirage.

"I'm still not sure I'm happy about this," Bo-Katan muttered.

They met on Commenor under the protection of a local rebel group; the Alliance to Restore the Republic had nothing even beginning to resemble permanent, militarised bases of their own. Most of Korkie's meetings occurred on ships in transit through Wild Space, or in smoke-filled bars or in claustrophobic alleyways, speaking without eye contact, never pausing in his brisk strides. Visits to the House Organa on Alderaan were a rare privilege and one they could not risk today.

"You still get to run everything your own way," Korkie promised. "This is a collaboration, not a merger."

Bo-Katan gave a curt nod, helmet held against her hip. Her eyes darted in the manner she'd taught him – entry and exit points – as they awaited the third party of their meeting.

"How did that arms deal go?"

"Charmed them," Korkie assured her. "The black eye and plaster did something for my credibility, maybe. We'll soon have lots of weapons coming in."

He found a teasing lilt to his voice.

"If you behave, I'll give you some."

Bo-Katan snorted in derision.

"Since when were you in charge of weapons distribution?"

"I'm not. But I could put in a good word."

The soldier raised a brow.

"I trust your word holds good weight?"

"Of course," Korkie assured her. "I'm the Chief of State's favourite. Have you heard about my promotion? Captain Kryze."

"Captain?"

"Of a sector under the Special Forces command. Ahsoka and I both received promotions after that damage we did to Grievous's forces."

Korkie gave a rueful grin.

"Ahsoka's promotion is deservedly more impressive than mine," he admitted. "She's a commander now. Leader of rebel intelligence."

Bo-Katan did not seem to be listening.

"When are you planning to lead your people?" she asked.

Korkie rolled his eyes.

"We're leading them together, aren't we? Do you really want me to fire you?"

Bo-Katan tutted and grumbled her disapproval. Korkie smirked.

"That's what I thought."

Bail arrived a few minutes later, almost unrecognisable with an artificial scar upon his face and in poor man's garb. But his diplomatic airs were, as usual, unfailing.

"We are grateful for your meeting with us today, General Kryze," he bade, with a deep bow before Bo-Katan. "And grateful in particular for your consideration of playing some role in our fight against the Empire."

Bo-Katan, meanwhile, looked about as comfortable as she usually looked in a royal court – which was to say, not at all.

"No offence, Senator, but if I can be blunt, the way I see the deal…"

Bail gave a grudging smile.

"Go on, General Kryze."

"My forces won't take commands from you or from Senator Mothma or whoever is in charge of your operation," Bo-Katan declared. "We recognise Korkie as the Mand'alor while I serve as the Alor'ad commanding beneath him. If we join you, Korkie must be the conduit between Mandalorian and Alliance interests. We will fight for those joint interests only under Korkie's command."

"That's very reasonable."

Bo-Katan did not join in his smile but Korkie felt her relax in the Force.

"We will expect resources and protection from the Alliance in exchange for our service," she went on. "All of us are homeless, still."

"As best we can," Bail acquiesced. "The Alliance boasts little infrastructure of its own at this stage."

"I understand, Senator."

Bail turned his gaze – usually a warm brown but today in disguise a piercing blue – to Korkie.

"Anything to add?"

And Korkie, the silken-tongued child of Duchess and Negotiator, fumbled for words. Bo-Katan had called him Mand'alor upon the sparring mat but to hear it now in diplomatic negotiation before Bail Organa was bizarre.

"Nothing to add," he managed. "Ba'vodu has covered everything."

He found a grin.

"I can only say that I'm very happy that we're all finally working together."

Korkie accompanied his Ba'vodu back to her ship. It was strange, still, to hear her insist upon his leadership. To place her trust in him. Korkie couldn't quite decide exactly what he felt about the Darksaber at his belt – his mother would have called Bo-Katan a "primitive object-worshipping savage" for insisting upon it as an indicator of worthiness. But he had won it and he had kept it by his side for all these years, through all these battles. It must have counted for something, he supposed. Although the confidence of his Ba'vodu counted for a great deal more. No matter his mother's teasing, it could not be denied that Bo-Katan Kryze was a brilliant military mind, and far more a politician than she was prepared to admit.

"I've been thinking about what you said," she murmured. "About growing and measuring up to your parents."

They paused beneath the ship's hulking frame.

"You're already very much the soldier your father was, Korkie," she told him. "I think that you've done him proud."

She gave a small smile. But there was something reserved beneath this praise.

"I wonder if you've almost become too much like Obi Wan, and not enough like Satine."

Korkie blinked his surprise.

"But we've got to be soldiers, Ba'vodu, don't we? In this galaxy?"

Bo-Katan shrugged. Korkie, with a strange sort of nausea rising within him, pressed on. For he had failed his mother. He knew that he had failed his mother. But he'd been able to push those thoughts away until this moment.

"Mum talked to the Emperor, remember?" he appealed. "But she couldn't save us. She was my hero, Ba'vodu, truly she was. But her politics and her words couldn't save us."

Bo-Katan nodded.

"You know I'm no pacifist, Korkie," she acquiesced. "What I meant is that you've become stateless. Like your father was. That's why I need you to become the Mand'alor now. To fight for us."

She looked to him with piercing gaze.

"Satine lived and fought for her family. For her Clan. For Mandalore. You're going to do the same, Korkie. You must."

Korkie sighed and steadied himself. He could feel a question he had never once allowed himself to ask rising to his lips.

"If she believed so strongly in Mandalore, Ba'vodu… If she believed so strongly in the future…"

He looked to her with pleading gaze, as though hoping that perhaps she could read his mind, could save him from articulating those words. But she could not.

"Why did she let herself die there?" Korkie asked. "With no successor but a fourteen-standard-year-old adrift in space?"

Bo-Katan's shoulders slumped with the question. But she spoke with solemn conviction.

"Satine did everything right that day," she told him. "There weren't enough ships to evacuate the whole planet. She was the leader of Mandalore and she did the right and proper thing by allowing others to evacuate before her."

"There was room for her," Korkie breathed. "With Padme and me."

Bo-Katan gave a heavy sigh.

"Your mother put you and Padme on the first ship out of Mandalore, hours before the attack even began. Her people needed leadership in those hours. She had to negotiate with the Emperor, coordinate the evacuation, prepare the troops."

"It didn't have to be her!"

The words were childish and wrong. Korkie felt tears pricking at his eyes.

"It did, Korkie," Bo-Katan told him. "She was the Duchess of Mandalore. She believed in the responsibility of that role. I hope that you come to understand it too, one day."

Korkie put his face in his hands and breathed through that pain. Bo-Katan was right. She was right about all of it. And he would find that strength, one day. But right at this moment-

"She told me she loved me more than anything."

Bo-Katan's face crumpled; she was not impervious to that pain.

"Korkie-"

"She didn't," Korkie reasoned. "Not more than anything. Not more than her people. Not more than her duty."

He took a steadying breath, found his full height again.

"I suppose that's the way that I need to be."

His Ba'vodu laid a hand upon his shoulder.

"I don't know the right way to be," she confessed. "I'm sorry, Korkie. I guess I don't really know what I'm talking about. All I meant is that I want to go home, one day. With you."

Korkie found a watery smile.

"I think we will, Ba'vodu. One day. I think we'll go home together."

And with that, we conclude Part II (Homewards).

Time to begin our Homecoming phase of the story. What a journey! And we've got a long way to go.

Next chapter will be the first of a sprawling expanse across a decade in the galaxy. I've written some sections I hope you'll like, LordAries. Still room for me to take any more requests :)

xx - S.