"I'm sorry, my friend," he sighed. "I'm just tired."
"Try exhausted," Monnk said. "You look like shit. What has the 501st been doing to you?"
Notes
So I'm sorry-not-sorry for last week's chapter. I did tag it slow burn, didn't I? I have loved all the screeching in the comments!!!
I'm very excited to see what you think of this week's chapter, for reasons that I think will become apparent very quickly.
As ever -- unending thanks to my beta @cyarbika.
Enjoy!
Rating: T
Warnings
N/A
" – of course, after I ascended to the level of a god and the local population of sentient rocks declared me their supreme overlord and sexiest sentient of the year – "
Kit frowned as he registered what Monnk was saying.
"What?"
Monnk glanced up from his datapad, smirking.
"Well, hey there, General Fisto. Welcome back to this plane of existence," he said.
Kit blinked.
"What?"
Monnk put his work down and crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow at Kit.
"I got bored of calling your name and started making shit up," he said. "That was about ten minutes ago."
Kit sighed. He placed the datapad he'd been staring blankly at for the last hour – or however long it had been – down on his desk so he could pinch the bridge of his nose.
"Forgive me," he mumbled, trying to massage away the headache that had been lodged behind his right brow ridge since he woke this morning aboard the Resolute.
"I don't know if I can," Monnk sighed. "It was one of my best. Twists, turns… romance, betrayal. A highly erotic subplot. You missed out."
Kit snorted, opening his eyes and lowering his hand.
"Truly, I am devastated to have missed it. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me and that you will recount to me your epic adventures, and any erotic subplots, at some point in the future."
Monnk threw his head back and laughed. Kit smiled despite the exhaustion and the headache – and everything else that had transpired in the last twenty-four hour standard period. He had genuinely missed his second in command.
"Seriously though – are you alright? You're a bit out of it."
Kit blew out another breath, his eyes slipping closed as he considered how to answer the question.
"I'm sorry, my friend," he sighed. "I'm just tired."
"Try exhausted," Monnk said. "You look like shit. What has the 501st been doing to you?"
Kit swallowed, looking down at his lap for a moment.
"The 501st were very welcoming," he said, his fingers toying with a fraying seam on his trousers. "It was merely a… tiring campaign."
"I heard. It sounded… bad."
"Is it ever good?"
Monnk snorted softly.
They lapsed into silence and again, Kit's thoughts drifted.
He'd known that eventually he and Rex would have to have a talk, just as he'd known what he'd have to do when that time came. It's exactly why he'd been putting it off, enjoying the vague undefined nature of their relationship – a mere taste of what he could never have.
He'd known it couldn't last. As the tension between them inevitably built, Kit had known it would come to a head. Even though the tension had been so delicious, thrilling and exciting in a way Kit hadn't experienced in a long long time, it had just been the tolling bell of their impending end. The longer he'd left it, the harder he'd known he was making it for himself.
Still, he couldn't quite figure out where it had all gone quite so disastrously wrong.
The image of Rex's face before he'd stormed out – stricken with fury and pain – would be burned into Kit's memory for the rest of his days.
That he'd hurt someone he cared for so deeply… it was unforgivable.
Monnk’s voice broke through the swirling storm of his thoughts.
“Listen, let me take the rest of these pads and get this datawork done so you can get some rest. You clearly need it.”
“Really?” Kit blinked. “But you hate datawork.”
“I said I’d get it done,” Monnk said while smirking and gathering the pads scattered across Kit’s desk into his arms, “not that I’d personally do it.”
Kit snorted, running a hand through his ahwey.
“Well thank you all the same,” he said. “A rest would be… much appreciated.”
“I didn't want to say earlier, but you look like shit. I mean, I know I said it anyway, but still. I felt minorly bad about it."
Kit laughed, squeezing the tresses at the back of his head.
"Thank you for your kind words, Monnk. I've missed you."
"I missed you too, Kit," Monnk said. His arms full of datapads, he used his elbow to hit the doorlock. He grinned at Kit as he backed through the door. "We all did. Glad to have you back – see you in the morning!"
Kit watched him go, then closed his eyes with a sigh. He needed a rest. Actually, he needed a meditative retreat – but that was a distant fantasy. He likely wouldn't find it that relaxing anyway, being out of the loop only served to make him more anxious and stressed.
Whether it would cause more or less anxiety than what was caused by being an integral part of the command structure of a largely enslaved army, currently involved in a pan-galactic war, Kit didn’t know.
He rubbed his forehead and then, with a flick of his fingers, locked the door to his office-slash-bedroom. Another finger flick and the lights dimmed – the relief on his aching head almost instantaneous. Kit kept massaging his forehead as he rose from his desk and walked towards his bunk, pausing only to rifle through his still unpacked bag and grab his personal datapad.
He settled down on his bunk, not bothering to get under the covers just yet. He shoved the thin pillow behind his back to cushion his ahwey from the cool durasteel bulkhead and got comfortable, then opened the comms app. Kit quickly piggybacked onto the GAR’s long range communications system, then scrolled through his contact list. Luckily, the particular comm code he was looking for was saved in his favourites, so it only took him a fraction of a second to find it.
He double checked the standard chronometer, but it was still early morning on Coruscant. She might be busy, but if he was lucky, she wouldn't be. Although, reflecting on the past few days, luck wasn't on his side.
The tides of the Force seemed to be changing however, and the call was picked up almost immediately.
“What’s up, fish breath?”
“Hello Dara, it’s lovely to see you too.”
The hologram form of his oldest friend grinned back at him, settling back against her desk chair. Not the oldest as in the eldest, merely the friend he has known the longest. Plo was his eldest friend, a fact Kit liked to remind him of as often as possible.
It was always a little disconcerting to speak to Dara over comms. A fellow Nautolan, Kit knew her skin to be a rich deep blue – the ends of her limbs tinged with purple – but over comms she was a horribly washed out. To Kit's eyes it always made her look ill at first glance.
At second glance she appeared quite well, though it wasn't always easy to tell with her. She seemed relaxed, happy. She was wearing what looked like her casual robes, softer than the usual ones provided by the Temple quartermaster, sitting in her office.
Dara grinned at him, her fangs catching the light.
“What do you want, kelp head?”
“It’s been a while,” Kit said, scratching his chin. “I thought I should call and check that you haven’t burned down the Temple.”
“Not for lack of trying,” she said, sweeping her ahwey over her shoulder. “I hear Ryloth is still standing.”
“Barely,” Kit said, swallowing. Best to change the subject. “So, how are you?”
Dara pursed her lips as she looked at him, but let it go.
“I’m alright,” she said. “Busy, and tired of course, but I’m doing alright. You know how it is – not too good and not too bad. I’m surviving.”
She reached out, and a mug appeared in her holo hand. She took a sip as Kit replied.
“Assessment season is coming up. How is that going?”
She nodded with her mouth still full, wiping a dribble from her lips before she spoke.
“Well… I made a bit of a rod for my own back there.”
“Oh?”
“Mm,” – another sip of kaf – “I didn’t like the exam structure. It was almost all essay questions, and not much freedom of choice? So I added more maths and some data analysis, and then made the final section a choice between two essays, a big maths problem or some data analysis which is a bit of a mix of both. It's been – a lot of work.”
“Sounds like a good idea though,” Kit hummed.
“It is and it isn't. Better for them, worse for me. It's a lot of work and… have you heard about the assessments for the younglings and the initiates?”
“No?” he said with a frown. “That seems… unnecessary.”
“Tell me about it. To be fair, it’s because there's concern about the quality of education dropping, but fuck – we’re trying our best. Anyway, the Council of Education decided they want us to do formative tests for every fucking level, so they can track progress. I’m going to drown under marking but… well. It’s still up to me what the actual exam entails.”
“What have you decided to do then?” Kit prodded.
“I’ve prepared a few different worksheets. They have to choose a rock. Draw the rock. Label the rock. There's a few questions based on what we’ve done in class but they’re all multiple choice because I’m lazy. Maybe a sentence answer for the older kids. I’m trying to make it fun but… well. We’ll see. Might not even let them know it’s a test.”
Dara sipped her kaf with a soft frown, lost in thought. As ever, it was hard to tell in the washed out blue of the holo – but he thought that the skin under her eyes looked a little darker and more puffy than usual. She was clutching her kaf a little tighter than usual, but that could mean anything. Kit bit his lip in concern.
“What about Molly? Do you get to see her often? I’m sure she’s busy.”
“She is, but we try to have dinner together at least once a week,” she said, smiling widely as she always did when the topic of her old padawan was brought up. “More often, usually. And she comes to my office for kaf and a chat every few days. Bant too, if she can get away. She comes to our dinners if she isn’t on shift – I don't know if she’s mentioned.”
“She has indeed,” Kit confirmed. Dara threw back the last of her kaf and placed her mug back out of the field of view.
“It’s nice. Nadhar joins too, though not as often. He has his own thing with some of the other younger medics. How is he, by the way? Or did you not get to see him before he left?”
“No, we crossed over shortly,” Kit said, resting an arm behind his head. “He seems… alright? Exhausted, but well in spirit.” He frowned. “Though as I said, I only saw him briefly.”
“I’ll make sure to check in with him when he gets back to the Temple,” Dara said. “It should be easy enough to guilt him into joining us for dinner.”
“Your willingness to emotionally manipulate our padawans never ceases to astound me,” Kit said with a grin.
Dara shrugged.
“You call it emotional manipulation, I call it parenting,” she said. “I’ll make him his favourite to sweeten the deal.”
“Creamy fish pie with breadcrumb and crispy bacon topping?”
“You know it.”
“Truly, the depths of your evil knows no bounds,” Kit said, and Dara laughed.
She reached for her kaf cup and brought it back to her mouth, frowning when she found it empty. Kit hid a smirk.
“What about Cherise?” he asked.
“Oh, she’s well,” Dara said, placing her mug back on the desk. “Busy as usual, a victim of her own success. 79s is going from strength to strength, not only with clones but with the locals too. I don’t get to see her as often as I’d like anymore. Even when I sleep in the apartment, which I do most nights truthfully, she doesn't get in until after I've fallen asleep. Some days we have breakfast together and then she goes back to sleep, but more and more she’s just too tired.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It is what it is,” Dara sighed. “I’m no better. I stay up when I can, to see her when she gets in, but I'm too tired as well. We’re both just… tired.”
She shook off her misery with a literal shake of her head, her ahwey swinging wildly.
“Enough about me though. How are you?” she asked, resettling in her chair.
“I’m well.”
“Really?” Dara studied him with a frown. “I heard the Ryloth conflict was… rough.”
Kit sighed and rubbed his brow, frowning.
“It was,” he said. “Wat Tambor and Dooku… The less said about it, the better.” He bowed his head, rubbing his palms together. “In truth, we’ve all seen worse in this war.”
Dara gazed at him, lips pursed and brows furrowed with concern.
“I haven’t, Kit,” she said softly. “Many of us in the Temple haven't. Are you sure you’re alright?”
“You know how it is, Dara,” Kit replied. “Not too good and not too bad. I’m surviving.”
She exhaled softly and they gazed at one another.
Kit couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t know Dara. As children in the Temple, not even toddlers, they had spent hours playing together in the pools of the creche. There was no one, not even his padawans, who Kit knew as well as he knew Dara. In return, there was no one who knew Kit as well as Dara did. Even over comms, where pheromone communication was impossible, they had no need for words.
There was a world of comfort in her eyes as she studied him, pity and warmth and love. He loves her just as much. Neither of them need to say it, though they do often.
Eventually though, Dara cocked her head and squinted at him.
"Go on then, I'll bite."
"What?"
Dara looked at him with one of her brow ridges arched.
"Whatever you actually called to talk about," she clarified. "Not that this chat hasn't been lovely, but something is clearly bothering you.”
Kit shifted uncomfortably. There were downsides to her knowing him so well. For instance: the fact that he had never been able to keep a secret from her in his life.
“What makes you say that?” he asked. He knew what her answer would be. Sure enough –
“Well you look like shit, and you’ve barely let me ask you a question, which is what you always do when you don’t want to talk about yourself. Like you said – Ryloth isn’t the worst combat you’ve seen. What else is up?”
Her eyes narrowed, and Kit braced himself.
“Does it have something to do with that Captain you've talked constantly about for the past few months, and yet haven't mentioned once so far today?”
Kit stared at her for a moment, then sighed. Damn her. He rubbed his hand across his jaw, wondering where to start.
He ended up telling her the whole story. Once she got him started, he found he couldn’t stop.
The first time they met, and all the times after. How they'd only grown closer after he'd been assigned as the temporary General of the 501st. How he'd fallen for Rex's heart, his smile, his strength of spirit.
The way he'd tried to pull away, even when he found himself only falling harder.
The party. The way he'd wanted so desperately to kiss Rex, the feeling of their bodies pressed together and the way Rex had looked at him.
The way Kit knew they could never be together. How he knew Rex deserved so, so much more than what Kit could give him.
The night before when Rex had come to his quarters and tried to kiss him. Kit's attempt to gently rebuff him.
How it had failed, so utterly and spectacularly.
When he'd finished, he looked down at his lap. He breathed out to work through the tightness in his chest. Once it loosened fractionally he looked back up at the image of Dara – these days the tightness rarely went away, so a little looser was all he could manage.
Rex had made the tightness go away.
"Well?" he asked, studying Dara's face.
"Well what?"
"What do you think?"
She stared at him, frowning. After a moment, she shrugged.
"It seems like a perfectly well reasoned and logical decision," she said.
Kit blinked at him.
"Is that all you're going to say?" he asked her.
Usually she had endless rants about Kit's love life, prepared in advance. Now though, Dara ran a hand through her ahwey and sighed, brows creased.
"Well what else would I say, Kit?" she said, obviously aggravated. "That as your friend I'm tired of watching you forgo any chance at happiness because you don't feel worthy of it? That I'm tired of you using logic to push people away?" She fixed him with a look. "It's nothing you haven't heard before. Over, and over, and over again. Why bother repeating myself?"
Kit stared at her. For whatever reason, there was only one part of what she said that really stuck out in his mind.
"I'm happy," he said.
Dara fixed him with that look again.
"Don't lie to me. You aren't good at it."
He swallowed, looking down into his lap.
"It was the right thing to do," he said.
"Was it though?" Dara asked. "The logical decision isn't always the right one."
"But – "
"Life isn't logical Kit. Love isn't logical. It's… it's like the shuttle problem."
He looked back up at her, raising a brow ridge.
"The shuttle problem?" he asked.
"Yeah, you know. That famous ethics problem," she said. "There's a shuttle heading down a track and three people tied to the track. You can't free the people tied to the track but if you push a lever you can send it down a different track, where it will only hit one person."
His brow ridge remained firmly arched.
"I don't see how this is relevant," he said.
But that was often the way with Dara, drawing parallels he couldn't see at first. Her mind may move in away altogether different to his own, but once she drew him a map she was usually right.
She explained.
"Well, the logical decision is to push the lever, sacrificing only one person instead of several. But that doesn’t make it the right decision." She smiled at him, pityingly. He tried not to resent it. "Life isn't maths Kit, you can't live it being guided by sums and logic."
"But you love maths," Kit pointed out.
"I know."
"You've said 'maths is life' on several occasions."
"And I stand by that statement," Dara said, folding her arms. "In any case, your sums are wrong. You never give yourself the right value, in any of your equations."
"If life can't be guided by maths and logic, what does it matter that my sums are wrong?"
Dara glared at him.
"Stop being stupid. You aren't at all, and it's irritating," she said. "You're the one who wanted to talk, so let's talk."
Kit sighed.
"I mean, you said you explained to him why you couldn't be together, but did you give him any chance to respond?" Dara continued. "You keep telling me how damn smart he is, don't you think he would have considered all that himself?"
Kit ducked his head, his cheeks heating.
"No," he admitted. He’d been too caught up in his own head to consider what was going on in Rex’s. Yet another way he'd been an inconsiderate fool apparently.
"And… you know Kit,” Dar said beseechingly, leaning towards the camera. “You know this wasn't the right decision. For you, or for him."
He raised his head when she paused. She was looking at him with naked concern and pity.
"I mean, isn't that why you called me?"
Kit swallowed.
She was right.
She was always right.
It was why he called her. To have her pick apart his thoughts and lay them out for him. To have her hold up a mirror and force him to really look at himself. A different perspective to make everything instantly clear to him, where before it was muddled and confused.
As she says often, she doesn't have time to deal with his bullshit.
"I felt awful as soon as I said it," he admitted.
"See?" Dara said. "You don't need me to tell you this shit, Kit."
He swallowed. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes.
"He was so much more upset than I thought he'd be," he whispered.
Dara cocked her head, frowning a little.
"As in… you didn't expect him to be upset or…?"
Kit shook his head, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye as discreetly as he could manage.
"No, no," he took a deep breath. "It's just… he was so angry with me. I've never seen him so angry."
Dara breathed out through her nose, studying him.
"I mean, I only know him from what you've told me, but that doesn't sound like him."
"It wasn't like him at all… Or not who I thought he was."
The last bit Kit murmured, mostly to himself. Dara sighed, leaning on her hand and gazing at him.
"Well… What exactly did you say?" she asked.
She grabbed her kaf from off screen and took a sip, frowning when her mug was empty again. She rolled her eyes and put it back on her desk, scowling. Kit smothered a smile behind his hand. It quickly faded as he started to talk, recalling one of the most painful moments of his life.
“Well… I started by saying it would be inappropriate for a General to see a Captain. He’s my subordinate and I owe him a duty of care, the power imbalance… that sort of thing.”
Dara frowned at him.
“Well, I can see the problem he had with that right away.”
Kit scowled.
“You can’t be okay with Kenobi and Vos and Secura dating clones and then use that justification to turn your Captain away. And don’t say it's because you’re on the Council or it’s because he’s a captain. It would be embarrassing.”
“You can’t deny the power imbalance would be an issue,” Kit said with a scowl, his shoulder hunching defensively.
“Yes and no,” Dara hummed. “There’s no reason for it to be inherently unhealthy – it’s all about how you act within that power imbalance, and whether you’re conscious of it. I know you’re conscious of it, so… are you planning on exploiting him? Using him?”
“No! Of course not!” Kit said, horrified by the mere idea.
“So what’s the issue? Really?”
“What do you mean?” Kit asked. He knew exactly what she meant, and she knew that he knew, but she humoured him anyway.
“What is your actual problem with starting a relationship with a man who you are clearly crazy about? Because it sure as shit isn’t his rank.”
She was set on making him actually say it, wasn't she?
“It’s because he’s a slave, Dara,” Kit exploded. “It’s not about me being a General and him a Captain, it’s about me being a General and him a slave.”
Dara remained calm in the face of his anger, studying him with quiet eyes. He took a breath and tried to calm himself too. She knew that, of course she knew that. She just wanted to make him admit it.
As much as he hated it, he needed to talk about it.
“That doesn’t change the fact that it seems to be one rule for you and one for the others. And I know you’re genuinely happy for all of them. It’s just about you holding yourself to stupid standards again,” Dara said softly.
Kit grunted.
“If anything… You explaining that you can’t possibly have a relationship with him because he’s a slave when he’s the one who initiated everything and is no doubt intimately aware of that fact is downright insulting, moron. You’re taking away what little agency he has. Hell, I’m kinda pissed at you – we both know you’re smarter than that.”
Kit hummed, turning that over in his head. She was right. She was always fucking right. He exhaled, rubbing his aching forehead.
“Perhaps,” he allowed, “but it was after that that he got really angry.”
“Well, okay. What happened next?”
"He pointed out many of the same things that you did, and then I explained that he deserves someone better than me," he said, "someone who could be there for him in a way that I couldn't. That I was too old for him. I didn’t get a chance to say anything more."
Dara pursed her lips, frowning. After a moment, her brow ridges raised, as if something had just occurred to him.
"Kit," she said slowly. "Did you say you were too old, or did you say he was too young? Because the distinction is quite important."
Her meaning hit him like a runaway speeder, piloted by a particularly hefty rancor. He wracked his brains desperately, trying to remember the exact wording of what he'd said.
"You are so young, and –"
"I’m too young?"
"I… may have said he was too young," he admitted. "I certainly said he was young… and he certainly heard that he was too young."
"Kit…"
Kit buried his face in his hands with a groan.
"You fucking moron."
"I know," he moaned. Force, what an idiot.
"Oh I wonder why a man who's ageing process was artificially accelerated might be offended by you calling him too young?" Dara said, with blistering sarcasm.
"Dara, please –"
"I wonder why that upset him?" she continued, really getting into it. "You absolute fucking kelp head. You shit-for-brains sea slug. You waterlogged fucking sea sponge. Is your massive head actually filled with bubbles? For fucks sake!"
He dragged his face up. His best and oldest friend was looking at him with a mixture of exasperation and fondness, anger and amusement – her scowl periodically broken when she could no longer hold back her smile.
"Well, how do I fix it?" he asked her. The barest fraction of a whine crept in, but if Dara was just going to insult him then he saw no problem with it.
Dara just looked even more amused.
"What do you mean, how do you fix it?" Her tone and gaze was blisteringly sardonic. "Apologise to him, you moron. On your hands and knees. Grovel, and pray that he forgives you."
He sighed.
"I don't even know when I'll see him again…" he said. "It's hardly the kind of thing to discuss over coms."
He buried his face back in his hands.
"Shit."
Dara let him wallow in his misery and self pity for a while. They sat in silence on opposite sides of the Galaxy, the same as they would when they were simply on opposite ends of a sofa in one of their quarters. They could sit in silence together for hours, but it wasn't that long before Dara's voice cut through his thoughts again.
She always knew when to let him be, and when he needed dragging out of his own mind.
"I can't say that I'm all that surprised," she said. "It was only a matter of time before your constant self-sabotaging hurt someone other than yourself." Her tone wasn't kind, but it wasn't as harsh as it could have been either. Not as harsh as Kit quite probably deserved.
Once again he lifted his face from his palms to look at her. This time her face was much softer, her lips gently pursed as she gazed at him. The exasperation had receded, leaving only fondness and a trace of pity.
"I miss you," Kit told her.
She smiled at him – warm, bright and crooked. She was about to reply when her com gave a warning bleep.
"Whatever," she said, rolling her eyes. "I need to go, I have to teach a class in 20 minutes."
"I love you," Kit said, smiling at her.
"I love you too, dickhead," Dara said. "I'll message you later. We aren't done talking about this." She leaned forwards, jabbing a finger at him before she disconnected the call.
Kit gazed at the empty space where her face had been before sighing and tossing his com in the direction of his desk. He missed, and after staring apathetically at where it rested on the floor for a long moment, he waved a hand and lifted onto the desk.
After brushing his teeth and changing into his sleep pants, Kit climbed into bed. Usually he slept in the nude, but the cold depths of space were just that – cold. He pulled the covers up under his chin, noting that he could probably do with a second as he flicked off the light.
He gazed at the darkness above him and thought of Rex, of how badly he'd fucked everything up.
Kit closed his eyes with a sigh, and tried to go to sleep.
Notes
Kit and Dara are each others emotional braincells. They both have to do a lot of heavy lifting.
Some of you may recognise Cherise from the wonderful @cyarbika's Walk Me Home, and of course No Strings Attached. Of course in the Terrible Jedi universe Wolffe is aroace, so Dara got to swoop in there instead >:)
Thank you all for reading. Comments and reblogs are greatly appreciated and endlessly treasured.
