"you are a carcinogen, i would say to her. you are a tumor, whose malignancy has defined the ebb and flow of all ive done, of all ive tried to do. and yet, in spite of that, do you know how much space you occupy in the entirety of me? this much. you define my life, and yet, this is how much you matter to me. if you hadn't shown up on my door this morning, id have gladly gone the rest of my days thinking of you regularly, but from a distance, flung from your orbit. but now, you are here and the bile is rising and taking the form of words. and what these words mean is, never have i known how closely love and hate are bound than when i think of you and realize you deserve neither."
Michaela Coel did not finger Anne Hathaway’s open chest wound and pull out the physical manifestation of their situationship for some of you to say the movie “wasn’t even gay”
Just pointing out that amongst all the other 36367383 gay things about this movie, Mary literally has a song where she says she wants Sam’s tongue inside her. Very hetero of her indeed.
A/N: No this fic isn't dead, I just had some of the worst busiest months of my life and this chapter was supposed to be much longer but I decided to split it in two in the effort of not posting a chapter 4 in 2027. I know it's been 84 years but I hope you enjoy it!
Any comments/thoughts/feelings are truly appreciated. Hope you enjoy.
-----------------------------------
One. Two. Three. Half. Turn.
One. Two. Three. Half. Turn.
The number fixes itself in her head, the repetition mechanical, stripped of thought. Three and a half steps from wall to wall of the cell they dumped her in.
It is little more than a box, hewn stone that sweats in the Temple’s underbelly. The narrow slits in the metal door bleed faint artificial light into the room. Thin lines across the pavement, no window to tell the passage of time. It could be one hour since they dragged her down here, could be ten.
She flexes her fingers. Clench. Release. There is nothing to busy them with. Her body aches for real movement, something more than pacing the same short, maddening stretch. There are no windows, no drafts of real air. What she breathes tastes stale. It clings to her throat, makes her swallow too often.
She tries not to notice the tightness gathering in her chest. She knows it isn’t real. Claustrophobia is for people who don’t know discipline, people who haven’t learned to command their mind and body like she has.
One. Two. Three. Half. Turn.
There is a guard stationed outside. He rolled his eyes when they brought her in, lazily patted her down and took her eye drops like they were some dangerous acid she could use to escape. She wanted to make him swallow his own teeth.
The cell is cold, but anger stokes heat inside her. This is a waste of time. Their time. Her time. She is not supposed to be here, caged in a stone box while above her head the Rebellion collapses under its own stupidity.
Stupid. Careless. Amateur.
She is as guilty as they are, if not more, because she should know better. She let herself get caught like some petty thief. It is a cut across her pride. She is slipping, Luthen would have never—
She digs her nails into her palms, focuses on the pain.
One. Two. Three. Half. Turn.
One. Two. Three. Half. Turn.
One. Two. Three.
Seven. Eight. Nine. Turn.
The Fondor’s deck plates give a dull thud beneath her shoes as she paces its length. Luthen can walk it in half the strides. Almost four years since he took her in and she hasn’t sprouted past his sternum.
She rubs her damp palms on her trousers to bleed out the static in her skin but it is of little use. The stiffness in her shoulders won’t go away, she keeps grinding her teeth together.
He should have been back by now. He said one hour, two at most. The time to verify the authenticity of the ten-centuries-old Vellnorian relic the trader claimed to have. A statuette of little value on its own, but together with its six twins, it represents all that remains of the Ancient Worship of the long-gone civilization. Priceless to the aficionados. They have three already.
He ordered her to stay on the Fondor. He allowed for no argument; bluntly told her he didn’t want her presence to be a distraction. Everything is up for sale on Giend V; he didn’t want to risk the trader making her part of the transaction. She hears it still, the sharpness in his tone when he said it, as if he knew she would think of disobeying. Fuck him.
Her fingers twitch. She clenches them into fists, feels the bite of nails in the flesh of her palms, then releases them. The twitch continues. She hates all the nervous tics her body betrays her with whenever her mind can’t settle.
He has been gone too long.
She keeps pacing, being still is impossible with the not knowing eating away at her. Her mind runs through the possibilities — the trader was late, Luthen is bargaining, troopers stopped him, he is lying dead in a ditch while she is stuck there counting steps like an idiot.
Fuck his orders.
She punches the panel in the left wall and a secret compartment opens with a whoosh. The blaster she picks is on the smaller side, something that will fit into her hand, but it is deceptively heavy. It will have to do. One day she’s going to learn to be comfortable with a weapon in her hands.
She knows the meeting point. She is small enough to slip through the streets unnoticed. She will keep a low profile like he taught her, will track him down and—
A sound cuts through the stillness. Hydraulic pistons engaging. The ramp lowering, metal groaning as it extends.
She freezes in the middle of the deck.
A moment later, heavy steps echo through the corridor, dragging, different than what she has come to know and recognize with her eyes closed.
She clutches the blaster with both hands, holds it as steady as she can manage.
A shadow lengthens across the floor, then he appears.
Her breath catches in her throat—
The cell door screeches open, pulling her back to her present captivity.
Kleya stops mid-step and turns.
Vel stands in the doorway, staring back at her. Her face seems carved from stone. Kleya pays no mind to it. What matters to her at the present time is getting out of there.
“Finally,” she says, sharp with impatience.
She pushes forward, intent on finally exiting that hole, but Vel doesn’t let her through.
“What the fuck were you thinking?”
It stops Kleya cold. Her eyes narrow. “Excuse me?”
“Do you think this is a game? That you can just break into the command center and tamper with the Base’s security system? Do you realize how serious this is?”
The ferocity in Vel’s tone unbalances Kleya. She is struck in that moment by what she is being accused of. The delayed realization only burns colder.
Her spine locks; her jaw does the same. Armor up, retreating behind steel.
“I didn’t tamper with anything. I was assessing—”
“You shouldn’t have been there to begin with, Kleya! That area is restricted. Sneaking in would’ve been bad enough, but Draven said you also tried to put a hole through the encryption net.”
Kleya’s mouth curls, bitter and humorless. “No. I told him I found a hole. As big as this Temple. It’s a miracle the Empire hasn’t found this base already and turned it into ash. Every transmission you send out is an open invitation. If anything, you should thank me.”
Vel’s eyes flash with anger. “Thank you? How arrogant can you be?”
“You’re only upset because I’m right.”
Vel doesn’t even blink, fury alive in every line of her body. “You think the rules don’t apply to you, that you can do whatever you want without consequences. That’s not how it works anymore.”
A strange ache settles under Kleya’s ribs, quite unlike anything she has ever experienced. Vel’s hostility shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did. She has no friends; she would not know what it feels like to be betrayed by one. This discomfort, she supposes, is as close to it as someone like her can get.
It is so easy for her, reverting to the old instinct to sharpen every edge of herself. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” she says, her voice low and derisive. “Finally you get hold the strings. It’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it, Vel?”
Vel tenses as though struck, and restraining from striking back. When she speaks, her voice is close to shaking. “You think I enjoy it? You think I want to waste my time cleaning up after you? We rescued you. We took you in. And this…” She gestures sharply at Kleya, in the same way one would point at something repulsive. “This is what you do. You spit in the face of everyone who has been helping you.”
“I don’t need—”
“You don’t need help? Really Kleya?” Vel barrels over her without letting her finish. “Be fucking honest for once in your life. You were wandering in a storm when I found you. I’ve been looking after you since you set foot on this moon. Making sure you eat, making sure you don’t collapse. Stars, you are literally wearing my clothes.”
A part of Kleya, perhaps childish but loud and hard to ignore, is ready to tear off the tunic and pants she borrowed and throw them at Vel’s face. Let the spoiled heiress see that she has more pride and dignity than she ever could even while standing naked in a cell.
“You want them back? Fine.”
She untucks the shirt from inside the pants and begins to reach for the fasteners.
“Oh, stop it. You’re just embarrassing yourself.”
“This place is what’s embarrassing,” Kleya bites back. “Arresting me and sitting on the intel I brought you without doing anything about it. That’s security to you? The Empire could trace you at any moment, but I point out a vulnerability in your precious system and I become the enemy.”
“You act like one! We work together. That’s what an Alliance is supposed to be, but you don’t know how to do that. You worry about wasting time? Because of the stunt you pulled, now my cousin is wasting her time, her credibility, trying to convince the Council that you’re not a spy so they won’t have you fucking shot!”
Kleya doesn’t flinch, but something shifts under the surface. It needles her, to be spoken of like this — an unexpected nuisance distracting from what is of real importance. A problematic thing to eliminate, or to defend. That her fate is not in her own hands bothers her far more than the threat of execution.
She buries the feeling, the burn tucked deep where Vel won’t be able to see it.
“They can shoot me for all I care.” Her voice is a blade. “It will only prove their collective stupidity.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“I didn’t ask to be here. If you’re all so angry about what I did, you should be angry at yourselves. Do you know how easy it was to get inside that room? A real Imperial spy would’ve had no issue either. Don’t blame me for your incompetence.”
Vel closes the distance between them. Heat and anger roll off of her, pressing down on Kleya even without touch. It is surprisingly difficult, to hold her ground and not take a step back.
“Always so fucking superior, aren’t you? You’ve been here one day and you’ve already decided you’re above everyone else.” Vel’s voice wavers on the edge of breaking but she doesn’t let it. “Cassian risked his life to save you. We gave you shelter. But you don’t care. You never care. Because that’s what you are. Just an ungrateful, insufferable cunt.” She looks Kleya up and down like she is something poisonous. “At least I recognize you now.”
Kleya feels the strike bone-deep. The hurt is rawer than she would like to admit. She hides it in the only way she knows how. Hurting back.
“Were you grateful, Vel? When Cassian came for you?”
The silence that follows is a void.
Vel’s eyes widen, shock cracking her face open. Kleya knows in that moment, that she went too far; she crossed the line into cruelty.
She cannot take it back. It is pointless to wish it.
Why does she wish it?
She watches as pain flickers in Vel’s eyes, then vanishes, crushed under something harder to name. The blue of her irises turns ice-cold, all trace of hurt folding into steel. Her voice, when it comes, is low and merciless.
“I know you don’t care about the damage you cause. For that to happen you’d have to know what it means to care, and you don’t. You’re too heartless for that. But get this inside your head.” She spits the word out like bile, laced with contempt. “You don’t get to use anyone anymore. The days of you and Luthen treating people like puppets are over. You’re just like everyone else here. Responsible for your actions.”
There is a long moment where neither of them speaks. Vel’s gaze is unforgiving, and Kleya meets it without flinching, but she has nothing to throw back at her. Something inside her has been made hollow by Vel’s words. She has no desire to bite back, to cut deeper and draw blood in return. Her throat feels tight.
“Am I being released or not?” she asks instead. Her own voice sounds distant to her ears.
Vel turns on her heel without another glance. The door clicks shut behind her, sealing Kleya back inside the stone and the cold and the weight of what she is.
The sound of Vel’s boots fades into nothing. And then that nothing is all that is left.
The cell feels smaller now, silence echoes off the walls. It presses down on her. Kleya stays rooted where she stands, staring blankly at the empty space where Vel was. Her arms hang rigid at her sides. She exhales, deliberately slow, and uncurls her fingers, pretends she doesn’t notice the trembling under her skin.
Her knees feel uncharacteristically weak. She lowers herself on the narrow bunk and rests her back against the wall. The stone leeches warmth from her through the fabric of her borrowed clothes. A shiver runs down her spine. She wants to be angry. She craves the burn of it. But anger doesn’t come. What rises instead is something subtler and more insidious, a feeling entirely foreign to her: shame.
Luthen once told her she was like a scalpel. Forged for precision, surgically exact.
She causes pain in the same way.
The echo of her own cruelty circles back to her. She hears the exact timber of her own voice — cold, meant to wound. How natural it came to her, to identify a vulnerability and turn it into a weapon to use.
Regret, she was taught, is a useless emotion. It does not heal anything; it doesn’t mend what was broken. It serves only as an indicator of some form of inner goodness, because good people should care when they cause harm to others. She never cared about being good. She would be whatever the Cause needed her to. Without regret. Without shame. Without anything human to distract her from her goal.
The feeling she never felt sits like acid in her stomach now. Vel’s face lingers in her mind — the fury in her eyes, the hurt she put there with one cruel sentence. In the terrible silence that followed, Vel looked at her like she was something monstrous.
Maybe she is.
She tries to summon the old indifference; the detachment she spent years cultivating. The burn in her stomach doesn’t go away.
She draws her knees up and wraps her arms around them like a small child. She presses her face to them, until bright spots bloom behind her eyelids.
Heartless, Vel called her.
How she wishes it for herself, the heartlessness she was accused of.
She has been wishing for it since she was eleven years old.
-
They bring her a tray with food and water.
The smell of it curdles in the air.
She leaves it untouched.
-
There are cracks in the ceiling.
She lies on the bunk and traces them with her eyes, as though they were constellations. The stone is uneven, darker where humidity seeps through. A single droplet of water has gathered there but refuses to fall, suspended in a way that irks her. She imagines it hitting the floor; then another, formed in the wake of its predecessor and following its path. She tries to calculate how many drops it would take to carve a hollow into the rock. There are so few things left to occupy her mind with. With nothing to plan, to fix, to do, it begins to turn on itself. She can feel it happening: thoughts looping, bleeding into one another, loud in the silence of her imprisonment.
The last time she was stuck in a box, she was begging for silence. In her head, and outside. Her prayer was answered with even louder screams. She can still recall the exact pitch of them. She learned that day the difference between the sound of terror, and the sound of agony, and the sound of death.
Time has no texture. Every moment is the same as the one before, and she exists in this sameness without function, without purpose. She could go mad with it. She could die. She wonders, idly, how long it would take for someone to notice, if she stopped breathing altogether.
Her vision blurs at the edges, fatigue pulling at her eyelids until they feel too heavy to keep open. It is strange, how exhaustion can take hold when there is nothing to exhaust you.
When she finally closes her eyes, in the dark that folds over her like a cloth, she thinks she hears a sound: too faint to dissect, perhaps not real, perhaps existing only in her head. She pretends it’s the hum of the Fondor.
He stumbles onto the deck, breath ragged, a hand pressed to his left side. She sees it right away — the blood, dark against the paleness of his fingers.
She is running to him before she knows it.
“What happened?”
“Close the ramp,” he says, jaw tight.
She rushes to the control panel. The hiss of hydraulics fills the air, followed by the clang of metal sealing shut. She drops the blaster and is back by his side in the time of a breath.
“You’re hurt.”
He waves her off, staggering past her with uneven steps. “It’s nothing,” he grits out, but his breath betrays him. She catches his arm as he sways, unstable, and half-guides half-pulls him toward the nearest seat.
“Stop moving!” she snaps. “Sit down. You’re bleeding everywhere.”
His eyes flick to hers, sharp even through the veil of pain, but he doesn’t argue — it worries her that he doesn’t argue — and drops heavily onto the seat. His body sags with an exhale that sounds too shallow.
She grabs the medpac from the storage compartment. The latch resists her, she yanks it open with shaking fingers. “What happened?” she asks again.
“Trader wasn’t a trader,” he explains, pushing out the words through his teeth. “He brought company. Four of them. They must have done this little scam before. They weren’t expecting an old man to put up a fight.”
She feels the anger rising, sharp and hot and much easier to focus on than the fear hiding underneath.
“I told you,” she barks. “I told you not to go alone. You should’ve let me come with you.”
He lets out a short laugh that turns into a pained cough. “If you had, I’d be dead by now trying to protect you.”
“I don’t need—”
“And you would be in a cage somewhere, waiting to be auctioned off.”
Heat climbs up her neck to her face, something rawer than anger. It’s the truth of his words that burn so bad. She hates it; him. Her palms itch with the urge to slap him. She won’t give him the satisfaction.
“Didn’t go much better without me there, did it?” she spits out.
Something like a smile ghosts across his mouth, gone as quickly as it came. It infuriates her.
She huffs out a breath. “Were you followed?”
He shakes his head. “No one left to follow me.”
Whatever human reaction should exist inside her to such casual mention of murder has gone numb a long time ago. There is only relief — twisted and unapologetic.
He shifts in the seat. The motion tugs the lines of his face into a grimace. He is still clutching his side.
“Let me see,” she says.
“Kleya—”
“Let me see.”
They work together to get his jacket off. The shirt beneath is sticky with blood. She peels it up and the smell of iron fills her nose. The wound is small, right between his ribs, but deep enough to still weep red. Blood spills over her fingers when she unveils it.
“Idiot,” she mutters. “You’re a complete idiot.”
“Thank you,” he grunts.
She snatches the flask of mednog from the pac and thrusts it into his hand. “Drink it.”
He raises an eyebrow at her tone but obeys without protests. Her fingers are steady while she cleans the wound with antiseptic, none too caring of his hisses of pain. She tears open a bacta patch and presses it to the wound with a little more force than necessary. It molds to his skin and swiftly begins its repairing process. She knows how uncomfortable it is, filaments of skin and muscle tissue pulling together unnaturally. Serves him right, she thinks, for not listening to her.
When it’s done and she is sure he is not going to bleed out in front of her, she crosses her arms over her chest and scowls. “Next time, I’m coming with you.”
He pushes himself up on his feet, not without effort. “We’ll talk about it when you know how to shoot.”
“I can shoot.”
“You close your eyes,” he says tiredly, walking past her and heading to the cockpit. “If you can’t pull the trigger without flinching, you can’t shoot.”
“Well, maybe if you stopped treating me like a child and taught me better—”
She stops, because he stops.
At first, she thinks it’s fatigue catching up to him. But the way he halts is too abrupt, his swaying in place too awkward and unsteady. He brings a hand to his chest. A rattling wheeze escapes him.
“Luthen?”
He doesn’t answer. He tries to breathe but it doesn’t sound right, like the air got stuck in his throat.
She stands closer, confusion inching into dread. “What’s wrong?”
Color drains from his face. He staggers once, twice — and collapses.
“Luthen!”
She catches his arm but he is a dead weight. They both go down; the impact knocks the wind out of her, the sound of his body hitting the floor reverberates through the deck plates.
She scrambles up and kneels beside him. She grabs his face to make him look at her, but his eyes are unfocused.
“Look at me. What’s happening? What—”
He wheezes again, his chest barely moving with every shallow inhale. The panic in his eyes is something she has never seen before, not since the day they met. His fingers twitch, reaching toward her. They barely brush her jaw, before curling back in, his arm dropping. His eyes roll back.
“No, no, no, stay awake!”
She shakes his shoulders with trembling hands but his head lolls unresponsively.
“What do I do? Luthen, what do I do?!”
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t move. He looks too human like this, slumped on the floor and entirely vulnerable.
Fear coils in the pit of her stomach like a cold-blooded serpent. She is alone with this, with his life in her hands. She feels useless. She feels every bit the child she is.
“Luthen!” she calls again. “Luthen!”
There are voices outside the cell.
Whispers. Right by the door.
Kleya’s eyes open in the dark. She lies perfectly still, breathing without making a sound, and listens.
“…come on, man, you’ll get me in trouble.”
She recognizes the voice of the guard. It is different than the bored drawl she heard before, hitched and frayed with anxiety.
“Calm down. No one’s gonna know.”
Another male voice. Lower than the guard’s, steady, with a serrated edge beneath the apparent calm.
The guard huffs, uneasy. “You said just a look. That was the deal. You’ve stayed too long already. You have to go.”
The other man says nothing. In the silence, Kleya can almost hear his breathing.
“Hey,” the guard presses on. “You listening to me?”
The stranger doesn’t answer. He asks something else entirely.
“How much for you to open it?”
Kleya freezes.
The words slice through the dark like a blade; she recognizes the danger in them. Every sense sharpens at once, the haze of exhaustion burned away. She shifts soundlessly and sits up with her back pressed against the wall. The bunk is against the side of the cell, shrouded in shadow and hidden from the limited view through the slits in the door. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t breathe. Her heartbeat sounds deafening in her ears.
“Are you out of your mind?” the guard hisses. “You shouldn’t even be here and now you want me to let you inside her cell?”
“I just want to see her face,” the stranger answers. “I’m not going to touch her, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Something in the way he says it makes the back of her neck go cold. There is a tightness in his voice, the forced restraint of someone who wants to do the exact thing he said he is not going to do.
She keeps her eyes on the stripes of light across the floor, watching the shadows of the two men shift with every little movement. They don’t know that she is awake. If the door opens, it gives her a moment of advantage to react. In a space so restricted, even a moment is crucial.
“She is here on Draven’s direct orders,” the guard says. “If he finds out I let you do this, I’m gonna end up in the cell next to her. Do you get that, Jake?”
Jake.
She turns the name over in her mind; she goes over every file, asset, target she can think of. Nothing comes up. It’s a name that means nothing to her. She doesn’t know him, doesn’t know what he wants from her. It makes it worse.
“Do you even know who she is?” Jake asks. “Do you have any idea what you’re keeping inside this cell?”
His tone has changed — colder now, laced with venom.
“I don’t care,” the guard replies. “Whatever you’ve got going on with her, I want no part in it. Now go, man. Please. I don’t wanna have to arrest you.”
A long silence follows. Kleya can feel it — the stranger’s gaze probing, searching for her in the dark, like unwanted fingers brushing over her skin.
Then, finally, a low exhale, followed by retreating footsteps.
She waits, until the sound is far enough. She rises in complete silence and pads to the door. Through the narrow slits, she catches their silhouettes before they round the corner at the end of the hall. The guard, hunched and nervous. And beside him—
Her chest tightens.
Tall, lean, with a blond buzzcut that she recognizes right away.
The recruit from the yard.
The way he looked at her then matches the way he spoke about her now. Cold, and sharp, and hateful.
She was right. He does know her.
But she doesn’t know him.
She doesn’t understand how that’s possible. She wishes she could blame the concussion for a temporary loss of memory but she has never been one to lie to herself. For the first time since the arrest, the gravity of her situation sinks in. She does not fear death, she does not fear violence. But there is a particular kind of fear that comes with the unknown. And here, trapped in a box, there is nothing she can do.
She sits back on the bunk and does not sleep. She sits in the dark, still as death, and agonizes over a question that will not get an answer.
A/N: No this fic isn't dead, I just had some of the worst busiest months of my life and this chapter was supposed to be much longer but I decided to split it in two in the effort of not posting a chapter 4 in 2027. I know it's been 84 years but I hope you enjoy it!
Any comments/thoughts/feelings are truly appreciated. Hope you enjoy.
-----------------------------------
One. Two. Three. Half. Turn.
One. Two. Three. Half. Turn.
The number fixes itself in her head, the repetition mechanical, stripped of thought. Three and a half steps from wall to wall of the cell they dumped her in.
It is little more than a box, hewn stone that sweats in the Temple’s underbelly. The narrow slits in the metal door bleed faint artificial light into the room. Thin lines across the pavement, no window to tell the passage of time. It could be one hour since they dragged her down here, could be ten.
She flexes her fingers. Clench. Release. There is nothing to busy them with. Her body aches for real movement, something more than pacing the same short, maddening stretch. There are no windows, no drafts of real air. What she breathes tastes stale. It clings to her throat, makes her swallow too often.
She tries not to notice the tightness gathering in her chest. She knows it isn’t real. Claustrophobia is for people who don’t know discipline, people who haven’t learned to command their mind and body like she has.
One. Two. Three. Half. Turn.
There is a guard stationed outside. He rolled his eyes when they brought her in, lazily patted her down and took her eye drops like they were some dangerous acid she could use to escape. She wanted to make him swallow his own teeth.
The cell is cold, but anger stokes heat inside her. This is a waste of time. Their time. Her time. She is not supposed to be here, caged in a stone box while above her head the Rebellion collapses under its own stupidity.
Stupid. Careless. Amateur.
She is as guilty as they are, if not more, because she should know better. She let herself get caught like some petty thief. It is a cut across her pride. She is slipping, Luthen would have never—
She digs her nails into her palms, focuses on the pain.
One. Two. Three. Half. Turn.
One. Two. Three. Half. Turn.
One. Two. Three.
Seven. Eight. Nine. Turn.
The Fondor’s deck plates give a dull thud beneath her shoes as she paces its length. Luthen can walk it in half the strides. Almost four years since he took her in and she hasn’t sprouted past his sternum.
She rubs her damp palms on her trousers to bleed out the static in her skin but it is of little use. The stiffness in her shoulders won’t go away, she keeps grinding her teeth together.
He should have been back by now. He said one hour, two at most. The time to verify the authenticity of the ten-centuries-old Vellnorian relic the trader claimed to have. A statuette of little value on its own, but together with its six twins, it represents all that remains of the Ancient Worship of the long-gone civilization. Priceless to the aficionados. They have three already.
He ordered her to stay on the Fondor. He allowed for no argument; bluntly told her he didn’t want her presence to be a distraction. Everything is up for sale on Giend V; he didn’t want to risk the trader making her part of the transaction. She hears it still, the sharpness in his tone when he said it, as if he knew she would think of disobeying. Fuck him.
Her fingers twitch. She clenches them into fists, feels the bite of nails in the flesh of her palms, then releases them. The twitch continues. She hates all the nervous tics her body betrays her with whenever her mind can’t settle.
He has been gone too long.
She keeps pacing, being still is impossible with the not knowing eating away at her. Her mind runs through the possibilities — the trader was late, Luthen is bargaining, troopers stopped him, he is lying dead in a ditch while she is stuck there counting steps like an idiot.
Fuck his orders.
She punches the panel in the left wall and a secret compartment opens with a whoosh. The blaster she picks is on the smaller side, something that will fit into her hand, but it is deceptively heavy. It will have to do. One day she’s going to learn to be comfortable with a weapon in her hands.
She knows the meeting point. She is small enough to slip through the streets unnoticed. She will keep a low profile like he taught her, will track him down and—
A sound cuts through the stillness. Hydraulic pistons engaging. The ramp lowering, metal groaning as it extends.
She freezes in the middle of the deck.
A moment later, heavy steps echo through the corridor, dragging, different than what she has come to know and recognize with her eyes closed.
She clutches the blaster with both hands, holds it as steady as she can manage.
A shadow lengthens across the floor, then he appears.
Her breath catches in her throat—
The cell door screeches open, pulling her back to her present captivity.
Kleya stops mid-step and turns.
Vel stands in the doorway, staring back at her. Her face seems carved from stone. Kleya pays no mind to it. What matters to her at the present time is getting out of there.
“Finally,” she says, sharp with impatience.
She pushes forward, intent on finally exiting that hole, but Vel doesn’t let her through.
“What the fuck were you thinking?”
It stops Kleya cold. Her eyes narrow. “Excuse me?”
“Do you think this is a game? That you can just break into the command center and tamper with the Base’s security system? Do you realize how serious this is?”
The ferocity in Vel’s tone unbalances Kleya. She is struck in that moment by what she is being accused of. The delayed realization only burns colder.
Her spine locks; her jaw does the same. Armor up, retreating behind steel.
“I didn’t tamper with anything. I was assessing—”
“You shouldn’t have been there to begin with, Kleya! That area is restricted. Sneaking in would’ve been bad enough, but Draven said you also tried to put a hole through the encryption net.”
Kleya’s mouth curls, bitter and humorless. “No. I told him I found a hole. As big as this Temple. It’s a miracle the Empire hasn’t found this base already and turned it into ash. Every transmission you send out is an open invitation. If anything, you should thank me.”
Vel’s eyes flash with anger. “Thank you? How arrogant can you be?”
“You’re only upset because I’m right.”
Vel doesn’t even blink, fury alive in every line of her body. “You think the rules don’t apply to you, that you can do whatever you want without consequences. That’s not how it works anymore.”
A strange ache settles under Kleya’s ribs, quite unlike anything she has ever experienced. Vel’s hostility shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did. She has no friends; she would not know what it feels like to be betrayed by one. This discomfort, she supposes, is as close to it as someone like her can get.
It is so easy for her, reverting to the old instinct to sharpen every edge of herself. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” she says, her voice low and derisive. “Finally you get hold the strings. It’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it, Vel?”
Vel tenses as though struck, and restraining from striking back. When she speaks, her voice is close to shaking. “You think I enjoy it? You think I want to waste my time cleaning up after you? We rescued you. We took you in. And this…” She gestures sharply at Kleya, in the same way one would point at something repulsive. “This is what you do. You spit in the face of everyone who has been helping you.”
“I don’t need—”
“You don’t need help? Really Kleya?” Vel barrels over her without letting her finish. “Be fucking honest for once in your life. You were wandering in a storm when I found you. I’ve been looking after you since you set foot on this moon. Making sure you eat, making sure you don’t collapse. Stars, you are literally wearing my clothes.”
A part of Kleya, perhaps childish but loud and hard to ignore, is ready to tear off the tunic and pants she borrowed and throw them at Vel’s face. Let the spoiled heiress see that she has more pride and dignity than she ever could even while standing naked in a cell.
“You want them back? Fine.”
She untucks the shirt from inside the pants and begins to reach for the fasteners.
“Oh, stop it. You’re just embarrassing yourself.”
“This place is what’s embarrassing,” Kleya bites back. “Arresting me and sitting on the intel I brought you without doing anything about it. That’s security to you? The Empire could trace you at any moment, but I point out a vulnerability in your precious system and I become the enemy.”
“You act like one! We work together. That’s what an Alliance is supposed to be, but you don’t know how to do that. You worry about wasting time? Because of the stunt you pulled, now my cousin is wasting her time, her credibility, trying to convince the Council that you’re not a spy so they won’t have you fucking shot!”
Kleya doesn’t flinch, but something shifts under the surface. It needles her, to be spoken of like this — an unexpected nuisance distracting from what is of real importance. A problematic thing to eliminate, or to defend. That her fate is not in her own hands bothers her far more than the threat of execution.
She buries the feeling, the burn tucked deep where Vel won’t be able to see it.
“They can shoot me for all I care.” Her voice is a blade. “It will only prove their collective stupidity.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“I didn’t ask to be here. If you’re all so angry about what I did, you should be angry at yourselves. Do you know how easy it was to get inside that room? A real Imperial spy would’ve had no issue either. Don’t blame me for your incompetence.”
Vel closes the distance between them. Heat and anger roll off of her, pressing down on Kleya even without touch. It is surprisingly difficult, to hold her ground and not take a step back.
“Always so fucking superior, aren’t you? You’ve been here one day and you’ve already decided you’re above everyone else.” Vel’s voice wavers on the edge of breaking but she doesn’t let it. “Cassian risked his life to save you. We gave you shelter. But you don’t care. You never care. Because that’s what you are. Just an ungrateful, insufferable cunt.” She looks Kleya up and down like she is something poisonous. “At least I recognize you now.”
Kleya feels the strike bone-deep. The hurt is rawer than she would like to admit. She hides it in the only way she knows how. Hurting back.
“Were you grateful, Vel? When Cassian came for you?”
The silence that follows is a void.
Vel’s eyes widen, shock cracking her face open. Kleya knows in that moment, that she went too far; she crossed the line into cruelty.
She cannot take it back. It is pointless to wish it.
Why does she wish it?
She watches as pain flickers in Vel’s eyes, then vanishes, crushed under something harder to name. The blue of her irises turns ice-cold, all trace of hurt folding into steel. Her voice, when it comes, is low and merciless.
“I know you don’t care about the damage you cause. For that to happen you’d have to know what it means to care, and you don’t. You’re too heartless for that. But get this inside your head.” She spits the word out like bile, laced with contempt. “You don’t get to use anyone anymore. The days of you and Luthen treating people like puppets are over. You’re just like everyone else here. Responsible for your actions.”
There is a long moment where neither of them speaks. Vel’s gaze is unforgiving, and Kleya meets it without flinching, but she has nothing to throw back at her. Something inside her has been made hollow by Vel’s words. She has no desire to bite back, to cut deeper and draw blood in return. Her throat feels tight.
“Am I being released or not?” she asks instead. Her own voice sounds distant to her ears.
Vel turns on her heel without another glance. The door clicks shut behind her, sealing Kleya back inside the stone and the cold and the weight of what she is.
The sound of Vel’s boots fades into nothing. And then that nothing is all that is left.
The cell feels smaller now, silence echoes off the walls. It presses down on her. Kleya stays rooted where she stands, staring blankly at the empty space where Vel was. Her arms hang rigid at her sides. She exhales, deliberately slow, and uncurls her fingers, pretends she doesn’t notice the trembling under her skin.
Her knees feel uncharacteristically weak. She lowers herself on the narrow bunk and rests her back against the wall. The stone leeches warmth from her through the fabric of her borrowed clothes. A shiver runs down her spine. She wants to be angry. She craves the burn of it. But anger doesn’t come. What rises instead is something subtler and more insidious, a feeling entirely foreign to her: shame.
Luthen once told her she was like a scalpel. Forged for precision, surgically exact.
She causes pain in the same way.
The echo of her own cruelty circles back to her. She hears the exact timber of her own voice — cold, meant to wound. How natural it came to her, to identify a vulnerability and turn it into a weapon to use.
Regret, she was taught, is a useless emotion. It does not heal anything; it doesn’t mend what was broken. It serves only as an indicator of some form of inner goodness, because good people should care when they cause harm to others. She never cared about being good. She would be whatever the Cause needed her to. Without regret. Without shame. Without anything human to distract her from her goal.
The feeling she never felt sits like acid in her stomach now. Vel’s face lingers in her mind — the fury in her eyes, the hurt she put there with one cruel sentence. In the terrible silence that followed, Vel looked at her like she was something monstrous.
Maybe she is.
She tries to summon the old indifference; the detachment she spent years cultivating. The burn in her stomach doesn’t go away.
She draws her knees up and wraps her arms around them like a small child. She presses her face to them, until bright spots bloom behind her eyelids.
Heartless, Vel called her.
How she wishes it for herself, the heartlessness she was accused of.
She has been wishing for it since she was eleven years old.
-
They bring her a tray with food and water.
The smell of it curdles in the air.
She leaves it untouched.
-
There are cracks in the ceiling.
She lies on the bunk and traces them with her eyes, as though they were constellations. The stone is uneven, darker where humidity seeps through. A single droplet of water has gathered there but refuses to fall, suspended in a way that irks her. She imagines it hitting the floor; then another, formed in the wake of its predecessor and following its path. She tries to calculate how many drops it would take to carve a hollow into the rock. There are so few things left to occupy her mind with. With nothing to plan, to fix, to do, it begins to turn on itself. She can feel it happening: thoughts looping, bleeding into one another, loud in the silence of her imprisonment.
The last time she was stuck in a box, she was begging for silence. In her head, and outside. Her prayer was answered with even louder screams. She can still recall the exact pitch of them. She learned that day the difference between the sound of terror, and the sound of agony, and the sound of death.
Time has no texture. Every moment is the same as the one before, and she exists in this sameness without function, without purpose. She could go mad with it. She could die. She wonders, idly, how long it would take for someone to notice, if she stopped breathing altogether.
Her vision blurs at the edges, fatigue pulling at her eyelids until they feel too heavy to keep open. It is strange, how exhaustion can take hold when there is nothing to exhaust you.
When she finally closes her eyes, in the dark that folds over her like a cloth, she thinks she hears a sound: too faint to dissect, perhaps not real, perhaps existing only in her head. She pretends it’s the hum of the Fondor.
He stumbles onto the deck, breath ragged, a hand pressed to his left side. She sees it right away — the blood, dark against the paleness of his fingers.
She is running to him before she knows it.
“What happened?”
“Close the ramp,” he says, jaw tight.
She rushes to the control panel. The hiss of hydraulics fills the air, followed by the clang of metal sealing shut. She drops the blaster and is back by his side in the time of a breath.
“You’re hurt.”
He waves her off, staggering past her with uneven steps. “It’s nothing,” he grits out, but his breath betrays him. She catches his arm as he sways, unstable, and half-guides half-pulls him toward the nearest seat.
“Stop moving!” she snaps. “Sit down. You’re bleeding everywhere.”
His eyes flick to hers, sharp even through the veil of pain, but he doesn’t argue — it worries her that he doesn’t argue — and drops heavily onto the seat. His body sags with an exhale that sounds too shallow.
She grabs the medpac from the storage compartment. The latch resists her, she yanks it open with shaking fingers. “What happened?” she asks again.
“Trader wasn’t a trader,” he explains, pushing out the words through his teeth. “He brought company. Four of them. They must have done this little scam before. They weren’t expecting an old man to put up a fight.”
She feels the anger rising, sharp and hot and much easier to focus on than the fear hiding underneath.
“I told you,” she barks. “I told you not to go alone. You should’ve let me come with you.”
He lets out a short laugh that turns into a pained cough. “If you had, I’d be dead by now trying to protect you.”
“I don’t need—”
“And you would be in a cage somewhere, waiting to be auctioned off.”
Heat climbs up her neck to her face, something rawer than anger. It’s the truth of his words that burn so bad. She hates it; him. Her palms itch with the urge to slap him. She won’t give him the satisfaction.
“Didn’t go much better without me there, did it?” she spits out.
Something like a smile ghosts across his mouth, gone as quickly as it came. It infuriates her.
She huffs out a breath. “Were you followed?”
He shakes his head. “No one left to follow me.”
Whatever human reaction should exist inside her to such casual mention of murder has gone numb a long time ago. There is only relief — twisted and unapologetic.
He shifts in the seat. The motion tugs the lines of his face into a grimace. He is still clutching his side.
“Let me see,” she says.
“Kleya—”
“Let me see.”
They work together to get his jacket off. The shirt beneath is sticky with blood. She peels it up and the smell of iron fills her nose. The wound is small, right between his ribs, but deep enough to still weep red. Blood spills over her fingers when she unveils it.
“Idiot,” she mutters. “You’re a complete idiot.”
“Thank you,” he grunts.
She snatches the flask of mednog from the pac and thrusts it into his hand. “Drink it.”
He raises an eyebrow at her tone but obeys without protests. Her fingers are steady while she cleans the wound with antiseptic, none too caring of his hisses of pain. She tears open a bacta patch and presses it to the wound with a little more force than necessary. It molds to his skin and swiftly begins its repairing process. She knows how uncomfortable it is, filaments of skin and muscle tissue pulling together unnaturally. Serves him right, she thinks, for not listening to her.
When it’s done and she is sure he is not going to bleed out in front of her, she crosses her arms over her chest and scowls. “Next time, I’m coming with you.”
He pushes himself up on his feet, not without effort. “We’ll talk about it when you know how to shoot.”
“I can shoot.”
“You close your eyes,” he says tiredly, walking past her and heading to the cockpit. “If you can’t pull the trigger without flinching, you can’t shoot.”
“Well, maybe if you stopped treating me like a child and taught me better—”
She stops, because he stops.
At first, she thinks it’s fatigue catching up to him. But the way he halts is too abrupt, his swaying in place too awkward and unsteady. He brings a hand to his chest. A rattling wheeze escapes him.
“Luthen?”
He doesn’t answer. He tries to breathe but it doesn’t sound right, like the air got stuck in his throat.
She stands closer, confusion inching into dread. “What’s wrong?”
Color drains from his face. He staggers once, twice — and collapses.
“Luthen!”
She catches his arm but he is a dead weight. They both go down; the impact knocks the wind out of her, the sound of his body hitting the floor reverberates through the deck plates.
She scrambles up and kneels beside him. She grabs his face to make him look at her, but his eyes are unfocused.
“Look at me. What’s happening? What—”
He wheezes again, his chest barely moving with every shallow inhale. The panic in his eyes is something she has never seen before, not since the day they met. His fingers twitch, reaching toward her. They barely brush her jaw, before curling back in, his arm dropping. His eyes roll back.
“No, no, no, stay awake!”
She shakes his shoulders with trembling hands but his head lolls unresponsively.
“What do I do? Luthen, what do I do?!”
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t move. He looks too human like this, slumped on the floor and entirely vulnerable.
Fear coils in the pit of her stomach like a cold-blooded serpent. She is alone with this, with his life in her hands. She feels useless. She feels every bit the child she is.
“Luthen!” she calls again. “Luthen!”
There are voices outside the cell.
Whispers. Right by the door.
Kleya’s eyes open in the dark. She lies perfectly still, breathing without making a sound, and listens.
“…come on, man, you’ll get me in trouble.”
She recognizes the voice of the guard. It is different than the bored drawl she heard before, hitched and frayed with anxiety.
“Calm down. No one’s gonna know.”
Another male voice. Lower than the guard’s, steady, with a serrated edge beneath the apparent calm.
The guard huffs, uneasy. “You said just a look. That was the deal. You’ve stayed too long already. You have to go.”
The other man says nothing. In the silence, Kleya can almost hear his breathing.
“Hey,” the guard presses on. “You listening to me?”
The stranger doesn’t answer. He asks something else entirely.
“How much for you to open it?”
Kleya freezes.
The words slice through the dark like a blade; she recognizes the danger in them. Every sense sharpens at once, the haze of exhaustion burned away. She shifts soundlessly and sits up with her back pressed against the wall. The bunk is against the side of the cell, shrouded in shadow and hidden from the limited view through the slits in the door. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t breathe. Her heartbeat sounds deafening in her ears.
“Are you out of your mind?” the guard hisses. “You shouldn’t even be here and now you want me to let you inside her cell?”
“I just want to see her face,” the stranger answers. “I’m not going to touch her, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Something in the way he says it makes the back of her neck go cold. There is a tightness in his voice, the forced restraint of someone who wants to do the exact thing he said he is not going to do.
She keeps her eyes on the stripes of light across the floor, watching the shadows of the two men shift with every little movement. They don’t know that she is awake. If the door opens, it gives her a moment of advantage to react. In a space so restricted, even a moment is crucial.
“She is here on Draven’s direct orders,” the guard says. “If he finds out I let you do this, I’m gonna end up in the cell next to her. Do you get that, Jake?”
Jake.
She turns the name over in her mind; she goes over every file, asset, target she can think of. Nothing comes up. It’s a name that means nothing to her. She doesn’t know him, doesn’t know what he wants from her. It makes it worse.
“Do you even know who she is?” Jake asks. “Do you have any idea what you’re keeping inside this cell?”
His tone has changed — colder now, laced with venom.
“I don’t care,” the guard replies. “Whatever you’ve got going on with her, I want no part in it. Now go, man. Please. I don’t wanna have to arrest you.”
A long silence follows. Kleya can feel it — the stranger’s gaze probing, searching for her in the dark, like unwanted fingers brushing over her skin.
Then, finally, a low exhale, followed by retreating footsteps.
She waits, until the sound is far enough. She rises in complete silence and pads to the door. Through the narrow slits, she catches their silhouettes before they round the corner at the end of the hall. The guard, hunched and nervous. And beside him—
Her chest tightens.
Tall, lean, with a blond buzzcut that she recognizes right away.
The recruit from the yard.
The way he looked at her then matches the way he spoke about her now. Cold, and sharp, and hateful.
She was right. He does know her.
But she doesn’t know him.
She doesn’t understand how that’s possible. She wishes she could blame the concussion for a temporary loss of memory but she has never been one to lie to herself. For the first time since the arrest, the gravity of her situation sinks in. She does not fear death, she does not fear violence. But there is a particular kind of fear that comes with the unknown. And here, trapped in a box, there is nothing she can do.
She sits back on the bunk and does not sleep. She sits in the dark, still as death, and agonizes over a question that will not get an answer.
Polly/Rebecca from The Hand that Rocks the Cradle is such a tragic and layered character and I think the most complex but also heartbreaking part of her is her relationship with her trauma, which I can't stop thinking about, so here's a post no one asked for.
(tw for talks of rape and csa)
Once Caitlyn killed Rebecca's father and the rest of her family, Rebecca ended up in the foster system where it's implied she suffered all kinds of abuse, sexual too. Due to that trauma, she then became an addict + we also find out she experienced violence at the hands of a partner, which probably wasn't an isolated incident. Essentially, this woman suffered a lifetime of pain after her family was killed. But we find out that before that night, Rebecca's own father was sexually abusing her the same way he was abusing Caitlyn. And here's the thing. That specific trauma? She is in complete denial about it.
Rebecca had everything taken from her. All she was left with was her hate and desire for revenge. If she were to admit to herself that her father hurt her, she would lose her "right" to revenge toward Caitlyn. She cannot accept that she shares her deepest pain with the person who destroyed her life and whom she hates the most. To acknowledge what her father did to her would mean having to acknowledge that he did it to Caitlyn too, and if that's true, Caitlyn would've been justified in doing what she did, which in turn would mean that the years of trauma and abuse Rebecca suffered cannot be blamed on Caitlyn. Rebecca would have to recognize Caitlyn as innocent and her father as the monster he was, and she cannot bear that, because that's a scenario that leaves no space for revenge or catharsis or the warped justice she is seeking.
Rebecca's father is dead. He can never pay for hurting her. But Caitlyn is alive and (from Rebecca's pov) thriving, and her actions indirectly caused a lifetime of pain to Rebecca. She can pay. She can be the monster who hurt Rebecca whom Rebecca can get revenge on.
And she is so devoured by her own hatred and need for Caitlyn to be the sole cause of her suffering that, to feed that need, she completely shut away what her father did to her. Of course she refuses to admit that Caitlyn is a victim: she cannot admit that about herself.
And how could she? Rebecca's last image of her father isn't that of a monster. It's him burning alive while her mom and baby sister die screaming. That's what's seared in her brain. What was, in a way, a liberation for Caitlyn, was for Rebecca just another source of trauma. Caitlyn killing her father took away any chance for Rebecca to heal from what he was and what he did to her. In a way, it gave him the status of victim and deprived Rebecca of it.
Also, it's not as simple as Rebecca not believing Caitlyn imo. I think there is a resentment there. Who knows for how long Rebecca kept quiet about what her father was doing to her. She carried that pain in silence. Caitlyn didn't. And because she didn't, Rebecca lost everything. It's like Rebecca looks at Caitlyn and thinks: "I was quiet, I endured. You couldn't and because of your selfishness my baby sister who was innocent died a horrible death and I spent the rest of my life suffering."
Caitlyn told people, and eventually she was believed and supported. Rebecca can never know if they would've believed her. She was condemned to more silence and more abuse. And that silence turned into denial. She made Caitlyn into a monster and put her real monster into a box.
Maika Monroe is a phenomenal actress, she is so good at expressing emotions, but here she plays Rebecca like there is nothing behind her eyes except in the final confrontation. It's brilliant. You really get the sense that this is someone who put her pain away, put every emotion away, except hatred.
Even when Caitlyn finally confronts her, Rebecca remains collected at first. She accesses her pain through her rage toward Caitlyn, but only the pain that started the night Caitlyn burned her house down and killed her family. What came before, the real evil, she locked it away. Rebecca suffered so much that she doesn't have the capacity within her to process that her father raped her. Because of everything that happened after that night, all she could do was shut the truth about her father inside a box. She didn't have the tools to deal with it.
And that's why, when Caitlyn tells her she knows that Rebecca's father abused her too, that her father told Caitlyn about it, it shatters Rebecca. That box breaks open and just look at her reaction.
Rebecca's entire existence was revenge, and that revenge was predicated on the denial of this trauma. But Caitlyn's revelation makes it impossible for Rebecca to deny it any longer. Her father abused Caitlyn because she looked like Rebecca. It's undeniable, and it is unbearable.
What's fascinating is that Rebecca sees Caitlyn as the opposite of herself. She insists that Caitlyn isn't a good person, that she didn't suffer, that she isn't a victim. But the truth, like the film highlights more than once, is that they are mirrors of one another. But at this point, Rebecca is so broken that she cannot deal with this truth. So she clings to her hate like a lifesaver. By trying to kill Caitlyn, she tries to kill no longer just her monster, but the mirror to a horror she cannot live with. In a way, she does that to herself.
