❛ why does it feel like this is goodbye? ❜ from the sentence starters 👀
(I’m not sure if we’ll get here in long form- I’d thought so once, but given the current pace of my writing I suspect I’ll bring Equivalent Exchange to a natural close before we reach this point in the story, then continue Nine and Theron’s tale in shorter pieces. It's a bit of a cheat, but that's authorial prerogative for you.
Something lost is found. SWTOR. Nine/Theron.)
*
She sits on the edge of the bed, looking up at Theron as he scuffs nervously at the floor with the toe of his boot. (Stars, she’s missed this bed, missed this whole apartment even if she doesn’t miss the Kaasi rain falling in sheets against the windows or the periodic assassination attempts- but ah, the view from the balcony toward the sea-)
“You look,” she finally says, considering his expression carefully, “like the tooka that ate the bulabird. What exactly did you do while I was off with Acina?”
He turns to make sure the door’s closed before he answers. “Oh, you know. Took a tour of the place. Sliced a few things- databases, mostly. Census data. Population records. The Intelligence database, for about ten seconds.”
“You-” she chokes. The fact that he’s still standing here means he probably got away with it, but- “I thought I told you to behave yourself. If they figure out what you did- I know you’re not keen on parallel work with the Empire, Theron-”
“I didn’t get caught.” He rolls his eyes and rummages in his jacket pocket for his commpad. “I didn’t get caught last time either, for what it’s worth, but I did find what I was looking for.”
(Last time? That’s- oh, lovely brilliant reckless idiot boy, he’s going to get himself into far more trouble than she can fix one of these years.)
She raises an eyebrow as he holds the commpad out toward her.
“I found you.”
She gestures up and down along her body. “Of course you did. I’m right here. I know that mess with Lorman looked like a near enough miss, but-”
Theron shakes his head vehemently, pressing it into her hand and curling her fingers closed around it. “No, you don’t understand. I found you- pre-Cipher you. In the archives.”
“Impossible.” Or it ought to have been; after Hunter she’d watched the Minister purge her file with her own eyes and even then there was nothing left of an old life in it, nothing left but a ghost. The Ghost. “Not in the Intelligence database. They burn all that out when we CIpher.”
“Not in the Intelligence database, no.” He crouches down next to her as her heart twists in her chest. It ought to have been impossible. It ought to have been. “But I followed a thread from the personnel records, and then another and then another and then I found this. Imperial Academy prospective cadet interview number 00-828317. Locked subfolder, but-” he shrugs.
The number doesn’t hurt. They didn’t take that from her, before, but there’s a pressure building behind her eyes- too close to something that they did, then. Far too close. She takes a deep breath. “Did you see it?”
“Only the first few seconds, and not with audio- didn’t want Lana to notice before I could pull it off the network. She looks like you, though.”
“I suppose she would.” She lets the commpad settle on her lap, looks down at it like it might bite. (It might.)
After a moment Theron stands. “I should go. You don’t have to decide if you want to watch it now- I shouldn’t have assumed-”
“No,” she says, reaches up for his hand without looking and her fingers lace through his. “Stay.”
He sits down beside her; she presses play.
[she is eleven years old.
she is eleven years old and wearing a white blouse and a black skirt and her hair in two neat plaits down her back and she is standing, hands folded, in front of a table where four men and a woman sit in identical uniforms, backs to the camera.
we’ll begin, says the man second from right. please state your name for the record.
she nods, and opens her mouth. mustn’t smile too much or they’ll think she’s silly, mustn’t pull at her plait or at her shirtsleeves, mustn’t-]
(oh Void oh Void oh Void it HURTS and he holds on to her- should I stop it? I can stop it- and she shakes her head furiously so he just keeps holding on)
[yes, sir, she says. it is important to show respect, father said. my name is N-]
It’s impossible. It’s impossible.
It’s her name.
She does stop the recording then, not because she wants to but because she’s going to bleed all over his damned commpad if she doesn’t. Her nose drips down onto her shirt until she pinches it closed and then she turns her head toward Theron as he mutters apology after apology into the top of her head. “I had a feeling,” she murmurs, “that was going to happen.”
“So that’s your name? N-” he almost says it aloud but stops himself, free hand pressed against his mouth. “Stars, I'm sorry. I don’t want to hurt you again.”
“It may get easier with time. We can try more of the video later- I only remember a little bit. I thought it might all come back at once, but-”
Theron nods. “I hope so- that it gets easier, I mean. That it comes back. But your name, it… it suits you.”
“Does it?”
“Yeah.” He kisses her hair, then her forehead, then the tip of her nose beneath her still-pinching fingers. “Though it’s weird- why does this almost feel like a goodbye?”
“To Cipher Nine? No. it's not-” she shakes her head. “It’s- hello, Theron Shan. My name-” she breathes in and the pain lessens and it wouldn’t matter anyway, all the pain in the universe would be worth it to see that look on his face again and again- “is Nyriala.”
