Chapter Text
Depa likes to think that for all her flaws, she is a relatively rational woman. She may not be a master of her feelings, but neither did she let her feelings master her. She had nearly three decades of experience to guide her.
That said, this is unquestionably the worst day of her life.
She remembers Harrun Kal vividly. It had stood as the previous “worst” she could look back on. When she first felt the tearing ache in the Force where her master’s light had always stood, she had thought back to how many had died then and had tried to breathe through the grief. Her padawan was in trouble - hurt and scared and terribly clouded in the Force. Styles had him for the moment, she had seen, so she needed to help her Commander and make sure Caleb hadn’t hurt him.
It wasn’t as if she thought Caleb would ever hurt Grey, but there was something so wrong about her padawan’s demeanor she couldn’t help but worry.
And then, then, when she had almost reached Grey, the entire galaxy shattered.
So many dead, all at once. Jedi, old and young, Master and Knight and Padawan and Initiate and Crecheling. Cut down without a second thought, their lives screaming in the Force like exploding stars.
It was Harrun Kal, but a million times worse. Not because she valued the lives of Jedi above the lives of their troops, but because of the sheer number of dead.
And…
On Harrun Kal none of the deaths had been children. All of their troops had been battle-worn and fully-grown.
Now, now everyone is dead.
Depa can’t take it. The Council had worried, incessantly, about the state of her mind, and she had thought it overbearing. It appears they had been right to worry.
Everyone is dead. Depa holds on to her padawan’s bond for dear life and does not let go. She can’t even breathe through her tears, because there is an endless amount for the endless dead.
The Force is weeping and so is she.
Compared to this, Harrun Kal was delightful. At least she’d been able to control the success of Harrun Kal. It had been her fault the troopers had died, but how can she fight whatever is killing the Jedi when she doesn’t even know what it is?
A monster, surely, to be able to look younglings in their small faces and bring up their weapons. Depa hopes whatever monsters are killing the Jedi die painful deaths.
Depa turns her head and cries.
Time passes. It feels like ages or moments but is probably somewhere in the middle. The tears die. Depa stops crying not because she has stopped being unimaginably sad but because she has dehydrated herself past the point of being able to create tears.
She feels dizzy. There is no handle on her emotions now, only trying not to drown under their waves. She has lost control of the metaphorical sea and is floating alone in the ocean. It’s so dark.
She doesn’t have it in her to be scared. Hours ago she was fine. Now, the Jedi are dead. She can think of nothing else.
This does not feel like a crisis. There is no fight-or-flight moment. It is only unbearably painful. The crisis has already occurred.
The Jedi are dead. Her master, gone just before them. Her family has died twice over. First on Harrun Kal, now here. Jedi and clones. She has felt so many die.
Depa has always been emotional. Her master had not taught her to stifle this but rather to use it for good. To toe the line between darkness and light. To acknowledge her feelings without letting them consume her.
But this is not the kind of feeling one can experience without being consumed. Agony in its purest form is not survivable without darkness. Depa is off-kilter.
Of course she is. The Jedi are dead.
The Force tells her she has time to compose herself. She will be protected by the Force, it says, but the Force had not protected the Jedi from their deaths. Depa does not waste time. She cries, and she grieves, and she is inconsolable for hours. She lets herself feel. She is consumed.
And then she gets up. She is not done grieving, may never be, but she lets go of the armor of the trooper in front of her and reaches out a hand to grab a wall. She releases her feelings into the Force and goes to stand.
They’re back in the Venators. She can feel the pattern of the troopers’ life forces around her, how they’re clustered together in spaces that say bunks here, mess hall, medbay. Someone must have moved them while Depa was drowning in her grief.
Her padawan is rooms away. He is sleeping, half-sunk into the Force. She needs to see him. It is more important than almost anything.
The trooper that had been holding her makes a short noise of distress as she stands up. “General, you need to be lying down.”
Depa wipes her eyes. She knows this trooper without feeling for his Force presence. His voice is one she has become closely acquainted with. His armor sits familiar on his body.
“Apologies, Commander,” she tries to say. It comes out cracked and garbled beyond comprehension. He hands her a bottle of water from a desk and pushes her back down into sitting on the bed.
She takes it with a nod of thanks and downs it in one go. “Grey,” she says afterward, voice still throaty and horrible, “Caleb. Where is he?”
Grey straightens immediately. “In the medbay, sir. Captain Styles is watching over him.”
“I need to see him,” she says, and Grey frowns. It’s clear he wants to keep her bed-bound for longer. Still, he nods.
“Of course, General,” he says, but insists on helping her walk there.
He is very careful not to ask what happened. Depa can feel his confusion and concern roll off in waves, but he still doesn’t ask. He has not once called her by her name. General, he says instead, like they did at the beginning of the war.
He, too, is very off-center. The situation is jarring even without the details. Depa cannot fault Grey for leaning back on his training.
“I don’t know why,” Depa says without prompting, staring at the ground of the hallway as they walk. The troopers’ life forces pulse around her, helping to soothe the ache around her eyes. Still, the rest of the Force is still like an echo chamber. There is no life, only faint mockeries.
“We’ll figure it out, sir,” Grey assures with a hand to steady the shaking of her shoulder. It’s a small touch, but enough to keep her grounded. Depa appreciates it even as she shakes her head.
“I don’t know that we can.”