Hey there, I'm just a huge fan of Star Wars art and of course Obi-Wan Kenobi. I come here to appreciate it all. Someday I might get my shit together and draw something too.
Thanks to @unconsciousxreality, @tobyig, and @greatcrestednewt for tagging me :D
Last song(s): Her - Jvke ft. Annika Wells / Neon Odyssey - The Midnight & Avantris / Never Love an Anchor - Crane Wives
Currently watching: Tornado/Storm Event studies on Youtube and various Star Wars things (Animated, Live Action, just whatever tbh)
Current obsession: At this EXACT moment? That'd be Fi and Jesse lol But also Kes and the Batch/the long fic I'm writing of them, as well as the DnD AU of them.
Currently reading: Fics. All the fics. Been on a ObiMaul kick tbh
Currently working on: The Kes/Batch long fic (Working title is Blur of Consequences), a one shot of when Kes and Echo met before the events of Blur, and I'm currently in the planning stages for Fi/Jesse fic (ᵕ ó ᴗ ò)
Last Google search: How to un-fold our electric lawnmower lol
Last song: Not by Big Theif
Currently watching: Rainworld lore videos on YT, specifically on the Watcher DLC
Current obsession: Star wars,,, specifically Mandalorian culture + my ocs
Currently Reading: Started the Republic Commando novels, halfway through Triple Zero
Currently working on: Tattoo 'map'/showcase for my oc Roscoe Arazu, as well as worldbuilding for mandalorian culture again
Last google search: "raptor tail dinosaur" - I was doing some creature design and needed a good ref aha
Tagging (no pressure !!):
@ladyknight33 @whoops-junk-drawer @dick-djarin
Last songs: I Want To Know What Love Is - Foreigner, Everybody Wants To Rule The World - Tears For Fears, Time - Pink Floyd
Currently Watching: nothing in particular. Mostly tornado videos on the ol ‘tube
Current Obsession: STAR WAR!!!! TAR WARS!!!! CLONES!!!
Currently Reading: my own writing! I’ve passed the “writing spree” stage and entered the “reread your own fics and then kick yourself for not finishing them” stage.
Currently Working On: Various outfit/set design pieces for my ocs! I’ve finally pushed myself to flesh out the places these people are visiting/living. I’ve had them for almost three years and I’ve only just gotten around to it. But hey! I’ve gotten round to it! Yay!
Last Google Search: Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (I may have it, I was googling symptoms, lmao). And the one before that was “normal blood pressure by age group”. So I guess I’m more of a hypochondriac than I thought i was?
Tagging (first time, kinda nervous 👉👈)
@t9909-gk @qalanthe @mistycatt (can I tag people who aren’t my mutuals?? What is etiquette) @eobe (oh no I don’t have ten. Send me to the plinko or something)
hi I’ve never done one of these even though I’ve been tagged in a bajillion of them
here we go..
last song: graduate by third eye blind
currently watching: clone wars… again
current obsession: obi wan still. Specifically I’ve been thinking about obi wan directly after order 66 but haven’t drawn it because I don’t usually like drawing sad stuff.
currently reading: rogue planet !! Yay Star Wars book
currently working on: drawing Obi wan. I want to draw him in mando armor and also do some codywan art. I have a whole list of things my friend Finn wants me to work on lol. Also my codywan fic I’ve been working on for months that I’ve hardly made progress on. I’m no author lol
last google search: “jar har” I was trying to type Jar Jar but something went wrong in the process 😔😔💔💔
tags (you don’t have to lol): @finlayflop @atomicheart99 @therestlessbones @coolskeleton66 @coquette-corpsie @saigesays @yapofalltrades
last songs: gommene gommene ft hatsune miku by kikuo, ego renegade boy ft kagamine len by flavor foley, king for a day by green day
currently watching: heated rivalry, South Park, and sw rebels
current obsession: anakin, Vocaloid, and friedrich Engels (I know everyone's favorite trio). Also vtubers cause im getting back into live2d
currently reading: random medical and forensics case studies and also fan fiction (for Star Wars and Dexter!)
currently working on: 3 indie game projects, a vtuber rig who I've been procrastinating, 2 fan fics (one which I posted and is time travel but hasn't had an update in like idk how long and another which I hope can see the light of day one day), a cal kestis and oc drawing for a moot (I love them/p), a codywan drawing that's stuck in the idk what I'm doing stage, and an anidala drawing in a similar stage
last Google search: ao3 (pretty self explanatory)
Last Songs : Exile - Taylor Swift Ft Bon Iver, Come What May - Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman, Hall of Fame - The Script ft will.i.am, Send my love to your new lover - Adele
Currently watching :- Maul: Shadow Lord, The Rookie
Current Obsession : - Star Wars, Obi-Wan, Mando and Grogu, Harrison Ford
Currently Reading :- Organic Chemistry, Anatomy of Flowering Plants 😢
Currently Working on :- Polishing fics for Obitine week 2026
The scent of wet earth, soaked leaves, and damp wood filled Qui-Gon’s lungs as he breathed. The forest lay in thick darkness, and the Jedi Master relied on all his senses to find his way back to the mine and the ship that had become home over the past few months. He huffed, adjusting the heavy rucksack on his shoulders, his lightsaber ignited in his right hand to cast a soft glow along the path. Frigid air tingled against his cheeks, but the Force flowed through him in warm waves, softening the bite of it.
Almost there, he thought, his attention inevitably drifting toward his two young charges. Two young hearts. Quietly breaking beneath the canopy of wet leaves and sleeping birds. And he felt it in the silence, interrupted only by their footsteps in the soaked muck. He glanced over his shoulder, and even in the dark, he could see them. Walking side by side, hand in hand, but something felt off. The quiet between them was like the distance separating two sides of the same canyon. A gap so wide, so deep that for a moment it seemed impossible to cross.
Was it like that… when Master Tahl left you? Obi-Wan had asked, searching for guidance. In that moment, Qui-Gon knew his Padawan was trying to make sense of his own feelings, desperate for something, anything to ease the burden of imminent loss. But the question… it struck a nerve best left alone.
Chapter 23 is up!
Special thanks to @slinkygail for her amazing help!
I’ve been thinking about why my fic doesn’t get a lot of kudos or comments, and after a brief conversation with a friend, she pointed out something that really made sense.
My story includes a lot of characters beyond the usual Obitine trio—Obi-Wan, Satine, and Qui-Gon. There are several parallel storylines unfolding at the same time, and I’m starting to think that might be where some readers lose interest.
Some people might come in expecting romance—maybe even a bit of smut—but instead they find politics, war, and some fairly graphic violence.
As a reader myself, though, I always found myself wondering about the bigger picture when reading Obitine fics. What was happening in the conflict? What was going on in Mandalore? Who was in charge if Satine wasn’t there? What about Bo-Katan?
So when I started outlining this story, I tried to answer those questions—the ones that had always stayed in the back of my mind.
At this point, I think the best way to describe my story is that it isn’t really a love story. It’s more of a war story where love happens. And because it’s centered around war, there’s a lot of violence, and those events shape who the characters become in the end.
I just wanted to say a big thank you to @slinkygail for bringing this up—it was a really helpful moment of reflection for me.
Meanwhile, I’m still working on it.
We’re getting closer to the final lap now, so stay tuned!
Hiiii, my commissions are open again! 🎉
If you are interested feel free to check for more infos here or send me a message! 🥰
(Patreon supporters get 5-10% discount (depends on the type), please write your username in your request if you commission me, thank you!🤗)
sunflowersinheaven's digital art commission form. On Artistree, human creators are fairly paid, organized, and environmentally conscious. Ar
That was a very challenging chapter to write. At the same time that I had a lot of fun working on it, I thought this chapter was going to be the one which was going to make me give writing up once and for all. Tying all the characters arcs together in a meaningful way is no easy task, and I am grateful I was able to do it.
Now, there are a few hidden eggs in this chapter, and I would love for you to find them!
If you happen to come across any of them, please let me know in the comments. I’d loooove to hear your thoughts.
Thanks again for bearing with me, everyone!
Enjoy, like, comment and share! ❤️
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
summary: Faces from the past return and it’s harder than you thought.
warnings/tags: ANGST, medical procedures, some swearing, canon violence, mentions of injury, death, tension and feelings, big on feelings, ex's and oh's.
word count: 4k
pairing: obi-wan kenobi x f!reader
author’s note: we are so back baby! got out from my burnout and hopefully things will start to look good here. this chapter is a filler, there will be more Obi-Wan in the next one I promise. as always let me know what do you think about the new characters! I’m a sucker for some feedback 😅
masterlist | prev | next
You opened your mouth, desperate to say something—anything—to bridge the distance that had yawned between you in the span of a heartbeat. Your tongue felt thick, your voice betraying the storm of confusion and disbelief that churned inside you.
“I see you’re still alive,” he said finally, his tone neutral, almost clipped, as though he were stating a fact rather than acknowledging a shared history.
The words hit like a slap. Not cruel, exactly—but stripped of the warmth you had expected. No trace of the boy you remembered lingered in them. Only cold assessment.
“You’re in charge of the camp?” you asked finally, your voice steadier than you felt, trying to anchor yourself in the present. His eyes flicked to the rows of injured behind you, taking in the camp with clinical precision before returning to you.
“Don’t sound so surprised,” he said, flat. “I expect reports on triage efficiency, resource allocation, and any civilian complications. Start at the northern quadrant. I’ll review your findings at 1800 hours.”
“Bryce—”
“Doctor Halven, if you will.” he wasted no time to correct you, glaring at you like you’ve made a grave mistake. “Focus on your assignments. I’ll need your reports in order.”
Your hands, gloved and trembling, clenched at your sides. You wanted to reach out, to bridge the gap, to find the Bryce you remembered—but a part of you hesitated. That part whispered that maybe he wasn’t there anymore. That it wasn’t him. Not the Bryce you remembered. The warmth, the reckless energy, the spark of mischief—gone. Replaced by a cold, calculating stare that seemed to measure every inch of you, as though you were nothing more than a variable in some strategy you couldn’t understand.
Your hands curled into fists at your sides, knuckles whitening beneath your gloves.
Each step you took toward the northern quadrant felt heavier than the last, your boots scuffing the cracked stones, stirring the dust that settled on ruined walls and broken cots alike. You passed a child with a scraped forehead and a grimace that mirrored your own internal panic, and your fingers twitched, wanting to reach out, wanting to fix what could not be fixed. But you pressed onward.
You reminded yourself of the rhythm you had relied on in the past—the methodical assessment of injury, the triage priorities, the calm detachment that allowed you to act when chaos threatened to swallow you whole. You counted out the steps in your mind, noting the medics moving like shadows, the stretchers being shifted, the wounded being stabilized. You catalogued the damage in cold, clinical terms even as your heart protested.
The juxtaposition twisted inside you. Duty demanded focus, yet every instinct screamed at you to reach across the invisible gulf he had erected. You pressed your hands against your thighs, willing the tremor to stop, willing the nausea of betrayal, disappointment, and disbelief to fade. You had to focus. You had to be useful.
Memories you had tucked away—laughter in sunlit courtyards, arguments that had ended in teasing grins, shared secrets whispered under the stars—clashed violently with this new, disciplined version of him. How had he become this?
You forced yourself to inhale slowly, feeling the dust cling to your lungs, feeling the weight of the sun-scorched air in your throat. You repeated the mantra silently, over and over: I am here to help. I am here to help. I am here to help. Not for nostalgia—but for the people scattered across the camp.
*******
I am here to help, I am here to help….
You repeated the mantra until the work swallowed you whole.
Not all at once—not like a wave, not like something dramatic and clean. It crept in through your hands first. Through the rhythm. Through the quiet, relentless demand of one more patient, one more wound, one more life balanced on the thin edge between enough and too late.
Gavos Minor had become a convergence point. Not just of suffering—but of response.
You began to notice it in fragments.
Accents that didn’t belong to this system. Techniques you hadn’t seen before. Instruments too finely made for a backwater relief effort. Robes, armor, insignias—some worn openly, others tucked away beneath necessity. The galaxy, it seemed, had answered. Not with armies.
With healers.
With hands.
With people who had chosen, in the middle of a war designed to break things, to put them back together.
You learned it fully when you reached the third row of the northern quadrant, where the triage shifted from chaos to something almost resembling order. A cluster of medics moved with precision that caught your eye—not the frantic efficiency of overstretched personnel, but something… practiced. Harmonized.
You stepped closer.
And saw her.
The Tholothian woman stood at the center of it, her silhouette unmistakable—tall, composed, her cranial tendrils wrapped in functional, minimal bindings rather than ceremonial ones. Her hands moved with fluid certainty, fingers stained faintly with antiseptic and blood alike, her voice low and steady as she directed those around her.
“Rotate him—no, support the head. Yes. Good. Now breathe. Slowly.”
The patient obeyed.
So did everyone else.
You hovered for half a second too long—long enough for her to notice.
Her eyes flicked up to meet yours. Assessing. Not unkind. Just… immediate.
“You’re from Alderaan?”
You shook your head. “Field medic.”
“Good, you’re with me then.”
No ceremony. No hesitation. Just absorption.
You stepped in.
Time lost meaning after that.
There was only motion.
Hands passing instruments. Voices calling vitals. The low murmur of pain, the sharper edge of panic, the quiet—too quiet—of those who had slipped beyond reach. You worked beside her—Alma, you learned, between one patient and the next—your movements gradually syncing with hers.
She was… extraordinary.
Not in a way that demanded attention. Not like a flare or a spectacle. More like gravity. Constant. Unavoidable. The kind of competence that didn’t need to prove itself because it simply was.
She anticipated before problems formed. Adjusted before mistakes happened. Where others reacted, she guided.
And you found yourself matching her.
Not perfectly. Not effortlessly. But enough.
Enough that the work began to flow.
“Hold that,” she said once, pressing your hand more firmly against a compress you hadn’t realized was slipping. Her fingers lingered for half a second—correcting angle, pressure, intent.
“There,” she added. “You’re thinking too far ahead.”
You blinked. “I—”
“You’re anticipating the next crisis,” she said, already moving to stabilize a breathing mask. “It’s useful. But not if it costs you the present one.”
You exhaled slowly.
“…Right.”
A pause. Then, quieter: “You’ve done this before. On a large scale.”
You hesitated.
Images flickered—dust, blasterfire, white armor streaked with ash.
“Yes,” you said. “With the 212th Attack Battalion.”
That got her attention.
Not outwardly. Not dramatically. But you felt the shift.
“Frontline unit,” Alma said. “High casualty rotation.”
You huffed a faint, humorless breath. “That’s one way to put it.”
“What’s your survival rate?”
You glanced at your hands.
At the blood that wasn’t yours.
“…Depends on the day.”
She accepted that. Just a slight nod, as if you’d given her a precise statistic instead of something fractured and human.
“You learned efficiency,” she said.
“I learned not to freeze,” you corrected.
A flicker—something almost like approval.
“Good,” Alma said. “Freezing kills more effectively than most weapons.”
Hours passed.
Or minutes.
Or something in between.
You stopped trying to measure.
Instead, you worked.
A child with a collapsed lung—stabilized.
A man with shrapnel embedded too deep to remove—managed, not saved.
A woman who wouldn’t stop asking for someone who wasn’t coming—you held her hand anyway, because sometimes that was the only treatment left.
And through it all, Alma moved like a constant.
At one point, during a rare lull—if the word even applied—you found yourself sitting back on your heels, flexing your fingers, feeling the tremor you had suppressed finally begin to surface.
Alma crouched beside you, passing you a canteen without comment.
You took it.
Drank.
The water tasted like metal and something faintly medicinal. It grounded you anyway.
“You’re far from your unit,” she said.
You stared ahead at the rows of cots, at the endless procession of need.
“…Yeah.”
“By choice?”
That question lingered.
You thought of General Kenobi—of a presence that steadied and unsettled you in equal measure. You looked back at her.
“Not really. I’m 50% sure he guilt-tripped me into this.”
“He?”
“My supervisor.”
“Ah, yes. They tend to do that. Lucky for you, everyone in this camp is their own boss.”
“Really? What about the leading Doctor?”
“Who?”
“The guy that coordinates the sector?” you hopefully tried again.
“Never seen him.” Alma shrugged.
You wished you could say that.
You hovered for a moment before stepping closer.
“Did you finish the report?” you asked, your voice quieter than the chaos warranted. “The one we are supposed to give him?”
“No,” she said.
Just that.
You blinked. “No?”
Now she glanced at you. Not defensive. Not dismissive. Simply… direct.
“I didn’t have time.”
Your gaze flicked briefly toward the command post at the far end of the camp, where order was supposed to be compiled, quantified, translated into something legible for those making decisions far removed from this dust and blood.
“He will ask for it,” you said. “They need those numbers. Triage efficiency, mortality rates, supply usage—”
“I know what they need.”
There was no edge in her tone. No irritation. Just certainty.
You hesitated, then pressed, quieter still, “Then why—?”
Alma exhaled through her nose. Not quite a sigh. Not quite impatience. Something tighter.
“Because,” she said, turning back toward the next cot, already reaching for fresh gloves, “saving lives is not about checking if the numbers are right.”
The words landed heavier than they should have.
You followed her, slower this time. “It’s not just numbers,” you said. “Those reports decide where resources go. Who gets reinforcements. Who gets left behind.”
Her hands stilled for half a second as she adjusted a patient’s bandage.
“I am aware.”
“Then why are you—” You stopped yourself, then forced it out anyway. “Aren’t you worried about the consequences?”
That did it.
Not a dramatic reaction. Not anger.
Just a small, sharp huff of breath.
Alma glanced at you again, and this time there was something in her eyes—something harder. Not directed at you. At the question. At the premise of it.
“I am worried,” she said.
Then she pressed her hands gently but firmly against a patient’s chest, guiding their breathing back into rhythm.
“I am worried,” she repeated, quieter now, more to the space between actions than to you, “that if I spend the next ten minutes documenting the last ten minutes, someone in front of me will die while I am being correct.”
The word carried weight. Not contempt—something more complex. Experience, maybe. Or the memory of having chosen differently once.
She reached for a hypospray, checked the dosage without looking, administered it with steady precision.
“You think the consequences come later,” she went on. “From missed reports. From incomplete data.”
Her gaze lifted briefly, meeting yours.
“I see them here.”
A shallow breath. A failing pulse. A hand that goes slack because no one was there quickly enough.
Another beat.
Then she broke eye contact, already moving on.
“If they want numbers,” she said, voice returning to that calm, grounded cadence, “they can count the ones still breathing.”
The conversation ended there. Not abruptly—just… conclusively. Like a door that had never really been open.
You stood still for a moment, the weight of her words settling into the same space Bryce had hollowed out earlier. Different, but not unrelated.
Duty. But defined differently.
Measured differently.
You looked down at your hands again. At the faint tremor still threading through them. At the dried blood caught in the seams of your gloves.
Reports mattered.
Structure mattered.
But so did this.
You stepped away when the moment allowed it—not because the work was done, but because it never would be. Another medic slid seamlessly into your place, hands taking over where yours left off, and you forced yourself not to look back.
The command post stood at the far end of the encampment, a fragile imitation of order amid ruin. A folding table, its surface cluttered with datapads and half-organized stacks of supplies. A flickering holo-display cast pale blue light over everything, its projections stuttering faintly with interference.
You approached it like crossing a threshold.
From immediacy into abstraction.
From blood into numbers.
Your fingers hesitated only once before reaching for a datapad.
Then you began.
At first, the details came too quickly.
Faces instead of figures. Voices instead of vitals. The child with the soot-streaked cheek. The man whose breathing had rattled like something broken deep inside. The woman who had clutched your wrist with surprising strength, as though anchoring herself to you alone.
You forced it away.
Not erased—just… translated.
Severe thoracic trauma. Stabilized.
Multiple fractures. Non-ambulatory.
Burns, second degree. Responsive.
You reduced them. Compressed them. Filed them into categories that felt too small to contain what they represented. Your stylus moved steadily, even as something in your chest resisted the act—resented the neatness of it, the way it stripped the human edges from everything you had just witnessed.
Time blurred again.
But differently.
Quieter.
The chaos dulled to a distant hum as you worked, the sounds of the camp filtering through in fragments—distant calls, the metallic clatter of instruments, the low murmur of voices that never quite stopped.
You checked and rechecked your entries.
Triage efficiency.
Mortality projections.
Resource depletion curves.
Cold, clinical, necessary.
By the time you finished, your hand ached—not from strain, but from the strange tension of holding two realities at once.
The droid was waiting near the edge of the station, its photoreceptors glowing a soft, neutral blue as it processed a steady stream of incoming data.
You approached it, datapad held a little tighter than necessary.
“These need to go to Doctor Bryce,” you said, your voice steadier now, worn smooth by repetition and restraint.
The droid turned its head with a soft mechanical whir.
“Acknowledged.”
You hesitated for a fraction of a second.
Bryce.
No.
Doctor Bryce.
The distinction sat heavily in your throat, but you let it remain there, unspoken.
The droid extended a manipulator arm. You placed the datapad into its grip, watching as it secured the device with precise efficiency.
“Transmitting to command authority,” it intoned.
Just like that.
Done.
Reduced to transfer, to signal, to delivery.
You exhaled slowly, a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding.
Then you turned away.
Your comm beeped sharply against the dull hum of the camp. You froze mid-motion, hands still on the patient’s arm, and glanced at the device clipped to your belt.
You straightened, letting the posture fall into habit—the reflex of years under the weight of leadership.
“General,” you acknowledged, voice steady despite the tight coil of exhaustion in your chest.
“How is the situation in the camp?” he asked and your heart fluttered in your chest at the sound of his voice.
Your mind flicked across the triage zones, the medics, the injured, the relentless work that had stretched into hours that felt like days. You catalogued the facts—the number of patients stabilized, the number in critical care, supply levels, rotations—but left the raw truth unspoken. The shock, the despair, the small, personal tragedies that had clawed at your stomach—those remained behind a careful barrier of data.
“Casualty stabilization at seventy-nine percent. Northern quadrant under control. Supply rotation on schedule. No critical failures in triage operations,” you recited, the words precise, clinical. Enough to assure, enough to satisfy.
You tilted your head, a faint edge of mirth threading through exhaustion. “And how are things in the capital?”
The reply was quieter. Measured. “I… found something. But not enough. Nothing actionable yet.” A beat. “I’ll have to meet you.”
You swallowed, the weight of that simple acknowledgment pressing in. Not a report. Not a request. A recognition that whatever he had found demanded presence.
“When should I expect you?”
“Not very soon,” he said, letting the words fall easy, neutral, almost detached. “But I’ll try my best.”
Another pause. Then:
“Understood.”
You released a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding, returning your hands to the patient before you. The hum of the camp reclaimed your attention—the dust in the shafts of late afternoon light, the shuffling of medics, the low moans of those too injured to rest.
Even as the weight of the conversation settled in, a quiet thread of anticipation wound itself beneath your ribs. Not fear. Not hope. Just awareness.
You didn’t notice how slow your hands had become until Alma caught your wrist mid-motion.
“Stop.”
The word wasn’t sharp. It didn’t need to be.
You blinked, refocusing, realizing you’d been holding the same compress in place half a second too long—long enough for hesitation to creep in where instinct should have carried you forward.
“I’m fine,” you said automatically, adjusting your grip, trying to move past it.
Alma didn’t let go.
“No,” she said, calm and immovable. “You are functional. That is not the same thing.
You exhaled through your nose, a faint edge of frustration flickering beneath the exhaustion. “There are still patients waiting.”
“There will always be patients waiting.”
Her gaze held yours—not unkind, not harsh. Just… certain.
“You are slowing down. Your reaction time is slipping. You are compensating with effort instead of clarity.” A slight tilt of her head. “That is when mistakes happen.”
“I don’t make mistakes,” you said, too quickly.
Alma’s expression didn’t change. That, more than anything, made something in your chest tighten.
“Everyone does,” she replied. “The question is whether you make them on your feet or because you refused to sit down when you should have.”
Silence stretched between you, filled with the distant sounds of the camp—the low murmur of voices, the clatter of equipment, the ever-present undercurrent of pain.
You wanted to argue.
You wanted to insist.
But your hands betrayed you, a faint tremor threading through your fingers, impossible to ignore now that it had been named.
Alma released your wrist.
“Go,” she said, already turning back to the patient. “Someone will cover your rotation.”
“I can still—”
“Go.”
You weren’t the one to argue when your knees almost threaten to buckle beneath you. Maybe, you thought yourself, maybe this time it’s a good idea to rest.
The tent felt… wrong.
Too still.
Too contained.
The canvas walls muted the chaos outside, turning the world into something distant, almost unreal. The air inside was thick with the scent of antiseptic and stale fabric, the ground beneath your boots uneven but mercifully free of debris.
A row of narrow cots stretched along the interior, some occupied by medics catching brief moments of rest, others empty—waiting.
You moved toward one without thinking, your body heavier now that it had been given permission to feel it. Each step dragged slightly, fatigue settling into your limbs like lead.
You reached the cot.
Paused.
Your hands hovered at your gloves, fingers slow, clumsy as you peeled them off. The faint imprint of pressure remained on your skin, a ghost of the work you had been doing for hours.
You sat.
The shift in weight sent a dull ache through your spine, your shoulders protesting as tension finally began to loosen its grip.
For a moment, you just… breathed.
In.
Out.
The quiet pressed in around you, unfamiliar, almost suffocating in its absence of urgency.
You leaned forward slightly, elbows on your knees, head dipping—
The tent flap snapped open.
The sound was sharp. Violent in its suddenness.
You looked up.
Bryce didn’t enter so much as invade the space, the canvas falling harshly behind him as his gaze locked onto you with immediate, unfiltered intensity.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
The words hit before you could even process his presence.
You straightened instinctively, fatigue shoved aside by something sharper, more alert. “I—”
“Submitting incomplete reports?!” he cut in, striding toward you, each step precise and controlled in a way that only emphasized the anger beneath it. “Do you have any idea what kind of position that puts this entire operation in?”
Your stomach dropped.
“Incomplete—?” you shook your head, pushing to your feet despite the way your body resisted. “No, I filed everything. Northern quadrant, supply projections, casualty-”
“Partial data,” Bryce snapped, holding up the datapad as if it were evidence of something far worse than numbers. “Gaps in time indexing. No cross-sector comparison. You call this operational reporting?”
The words came fast. Clinical. Cutting.
Not loud but sharp enough to slice.
“I reported what I had,” you said, heat rising in your chest now, pushing back against the exhaustion. “I was working triage. There wasn’t time to—”
“There is always time to do your job correctly.”
Something in your chest twisted, anger flaring now, raw and immediate. “My job was to keep people alive.”
“And my job,” Bryce shot back, stepping closer, his presence suddenly overwhelming in the confined space, “is to make sure this entire camp doesn’t collapse because someone decided that procedure was optional.”
The distance between you closed to almost nothing.
You could see it now—up close.
The difference.
Not just in the way he spoke, or the cold precision of his words.
In his eyes.
There was no hesitation there. No flicker of the past. No recognition beyond utility and failure and assessment.
“You don’t get to improvise at this scale,” he continued, voice low, controlled, every word deliberate. “You don’t get to decide what matters and what doesn’t.”
Your hands curled at your sides, exhaustion and anger tangling together into something volatile. “And you don’t get to stand there and pretend those numbers matter more than the people bleeding out in front of us.”
A beat.
Sharp.
Tense.
Something flickered—brief, almost imperceptible—but it was gone as quickly as it came.
Bryce’s jaw tightened.
“This isn’t about more or less,” he said. “It’s about both. And right now, you’re compromising one for the other.”
Your breath came a little faster now, your pulse loud in your ears.
“I did what needed to be done.”
“No,” he said, flat. “You did what was easier.”
It landed harder than it had any right to. Because somewhere beneath the anger, beneath the exhaustion, you knew he wasn’t talking about the reports.
“Is that what this is about?” you asked, the lump in your throat swelling with each second. “It’s been six years, Bryce. We should be past that by now.”
“Oh, don’t give me that. I have every right to be in this position—”
“What position? The one you got because of me? The one I clawed my way to only for you to take it? That position? You’re a lot of things, Bryce, but liar should be top three—right up there with complete asshole and obnoxious jerk.”
He didn’t respond. His jaw clenched.
“This is the last time you pull a stunt like this. Next time…” His words hung in the air, each syllable heavy. “…you’ll be on the next shuttle off the planet.”
He turned on his heel and left, making the room even smaller. You let out a shuddering breath and lowered yourself on the cot that creaked softly under your weight. Your hands found their way to your face, getting the strands out of your eyes with a small tremor.
Get a hold of yourself! your consciense screamed. You are here to help those people!
But who will help you? the tiny voice at the back of mind whispered, forcing you to wonder if this was a good idea to come here at all…
“You know, they’re saying he was good looking,” she mentioned, trying to pry more information from her friend. “A ginger fox, one of our co-workers said. I’ll admit, I’ve never heard that description of anyone before. I don’t think I know that many red headed guys, either. Just Ben-”
Satine rolled her eyes and made a face. “Padme. Stop it.”
Chestnut eyes wide and leaning forward, the beautifully dressed lawyer looked less than fashionable as she insisted, “Oh, come on, Kryze. What kind of friend are you? I’m out here in the trenches! I’m getting my intel from Sheev, of all people! Haven’t I been loyal? Haven’t we been close? You really think I should be left in the dark?”
At the mention of one of the senior employees in their firm, the questionable Sheev Palpatine, Satine cringed and muttered, “I hate that bitchy, old queen.”
“So you understand my predicament then,” Padme insisted, seeing an opportunity to appeal to her friend. “He’s out here speculating and I, as your closest friend here, am none the wiser. Meanwhile, you were the first person I told when I found out I was pregnant. I didn’t even tell Sabe.”
“Well, let’s be honest, here: From what you’ve said, Sabe doesn’t like kids. She loves the twins, but that’s because they’re an extension of you. If I found out I was expecting, the last person I would tell would be Bo-Katan,” Satine mused mindlessly. “It’s like she was dipped in some kind of kid-repellant or something. What’s that line from that TV show? ‘There are terrorist cells more nurturing than she is?’”
The sitcom quote made Padme snort comically and for a moment, her efforts were forgotten as she remembered the time Bo-Katan had accompanied Satine to the Amidala-Skywalker home to meet the three month old twins. Bo had declined on multiple occasions to hold Luke, the more easy-going of the two, and had settled for sitting on the other side of the room and asking, “So when do they start doing things?”
But the reprieve was short lived.
Padme persisted, “Come on, you have to tell me. Who was the guy? It was Ben, wasn’t it?” Then she placed her hands up in surrender and said gently, “No one’s going to judge you or think anything inappropriate about it. You two are grown and you’ve remained civil with one another. It seems like a perfectly reasonable solution to bring him. I mean, he’s always good company. I can’t think of anyone else I’d invite if I needed a friend to go somewhere with me.”
Keeping Ben’s identity a secret seemed like an impossibility and so Satine sourly admitted, “Fine, fine. It was Ben, but we went just as friends! Don’t turn this into some kind of thing where you start thinking we’re together and then you put that idea in Anakin’s head, okay?”
“I didn’t say anything!” Padme exclaimed, beaming at the confirmation.
“You were thinking it, though,” she accused her friend.
--
Chapter 13 is up. (Chapter 12 is NSFW fan art. :D)
