Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Trust your heart if the seas catch fire, live by love though the stars walk backward.”

― E.E. Cummings

The message arrives on Ronnie’s next run, in the form of a small droid.

Cisco puts down the fuelling sell that he is tinkering with as Ronnie appears at the top of the temple steps hissing something rude at the droid that is struggling behind him.

“Tin can!” he gripes at the droid, “I told you I could carry you, it wouldn’t have taken us two hours to get up here that way, I-”

The droid, a small round red and white bot, interrupts him with a series of beeps. Cisco feels himself grin.

“That droid has a dirty mouth,” he calls down to Ronnie who jumps, having not realized Cisco was nearby, sitting on top of a half-crumbled pillar, “And a point. The backway would have been easier.”

Ronnie glares up at him. The foul mouthed droid whirs and rolls its body so it is looking up at him as well, the iris of its one viewer opening and closing as it studies him.

“No way am I walking through that jungle for this hunk of bolts,” he grins ruefully.

Ronnie’s grin quickly turns soft as Caitlin appears from around a pillar and runs towards him, throwing herself into his arms with a flurry of white and cream robes, her hair caught up in a braid around her head. Ronnie laughs and whirls Caitlin around, narrowly missing throwing her into the droid who protests loudly.

Cisco smiles down at his friends and then pushes himself off of the top of the pillar, landing against the stone floor of the temple almost noiselessly. The droid watches him and rolls towards him, throwing a hesitant look at the embracing couple.

“I missed you,” he hears Caitlin sigh, pulling back to hold Ronnie’s face in her hands, “You were gone longer this time.”

“Had to make sure no one followed us back here,” Ronnie says calmingly, adjusting his somewhat grubby red and tan pilots uniform with rueful pride, “Can’t have people finding out that the best smuggler in the galaxy and the last Jedi’s in the universe know each other- let alone live together.”

We’re not Jedi, Cisco thinks to himself but doesn’t say. Ronnie doesn’t get it.

Caitlin pinches his cheek and mock glares at him.

“You’re not telling me something.”

“Yeah, but that’s what my little buddy is here for.”

The droid beeps, vehemently denying that they are in any way ‘buddies’. Cisco laughs.

Caitlin turns away from Ronnie to observe the droid and then looks up at Cisco. He can tell she is feeling the dread he has been avoiding.

“Stein and Jax are making repairs to the ship,” Ronnie continues, oblivious to their exchange, “Jason is waiting outside with a … guest.”

“You bought someone back here?” Caitlin exclaims in shock, “This place is a secret!”

“It’s- look the droid will explain. I promise it’s okay, just- BB3 will explain, just trust me.”

Cisco takes a moment and feels nothing wrong, so he shrugs.

“Okay,” he announces, sending a look to Caitlin, “Let’s hear it then.”

Caitlin sighs face drawn in worry, but nods.

BB3 looks between all three of them one more time then rolls back lightly, mechanisms whirling once again, before a peel of blue light streams out of its eye.

The image of a woman appears at the end of the stream, draped in flowing gauzy robes that cover her from head to toe, the hood extending over her face so only her lips can be seen. Cast all in blue and white she looks ethereal. Like an angel.

“Jedi knights,” she speaks, voice smooth if somewhat garbled by the holographic transition, “I speak on behalf of the Queen of Naboo and beg for your help. There has been an attack on the peace and way of life of our peoples, and several individuals have been struck down in ways that out scientists and doctors cannot understand. The people suffer, not only under the weight of the oppressive first order but also under the uncertainty of their loved ones ever returning to them.”

Caitlin wraps her robes tighter around her in a nervous gesture. Cisco finds he has similarly bought a hand up to his mouth, so he can bite his thumb. They can both tell where this is going.

“Even here in such a tenuous part of the galaxy we have heard tell that the Jedi are not completely gone from us,” the woman continues, “Please. The legends of your abilities are still told here, still held in respect. We have tried everything we know, asked all we can of our allies. You are our only hope.”

The picture of the woman cuts out after she curtsies gracefully, and is followed by the image of a star map. A travel route to Naboo that will take them around First Order controlled territories and hostile trading hubs. Then the droid cuts off the transmission altogether.

And Cisco knows that droids don’t experience the world as ‘living’ beings do. But he can’t help but think this one is looking at him expectantly.

“The Queen of Naboo,” Caitlin breathes, eyes wide, “This is serious.”

“We ran into a guy on the fourth moon of Utapau.” Ronnie explains, squeezing his shoulder, “He said he recognized us from a time on Coruscant.”

“Coruscant,” Cisco curses, scrubbing his face, “Ugh, I knew that would come back to haunt us.”

A few solar rotations ago they had had to go to Coruscant for a medical supply run. They needed specialized mico-droid medicines, for healing wounds that have been improperly treated for years, and the dealer was paranoid. Cisco had insisted on going, even knowing that he would be monitored, recorded, and seen by hundreds of others. It was dangerous and stupid.

But he had done it for his sister.

He guesses that if anyone were to see him and discern him to be a Jedi, it's best that it was a delegate from Naboo rather than a First Order goon. Or a Sith Lord.

“He’s with you?”

“Yeah, he seems … eager to see the temple of the Jedi.”

Caitlin rolls her eyes.

“Bring them all in, we’ll eat at sundown,” She says, laying a kiss on Ronnie’s cheek, “Cisco and I need to discuss this.”

The droid beeps unhappily at their feet. Cisco glowers down at it.

“No swearing in the temple,” he tells it, “You don’t want to upset a Jedi Knight, do you?”

BB3 rolls backward, beeping sadly.

“Good.”

Caitlin smiles at him, pats Ronnie on the arm one more time and then follows Cisco out of the main temple hall. Once they are alone she loses some of her shieldings, radiating worry and caution like a tangible wave.

“Should we do this?” she asks as if they are already part way through a conversation, “Reveal ourselves in such a way?”

“They are asking for help. Begging.”

“It could be a trap.”

“Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe people are suffering, and we can help them.”

Caitlin rings her palm around her wrist. It’s cool in the temple halls but it offers neither of them any relief.

“We are so few,” she whispers, “If we go and don’t return … it would be the end.”

“The force will live on without us. It will always speak to certain people, make them more than they are, even if the Jedi die out.”

“Don’t- don’t talk like him.”

Cisco stops and so dose she. He holds her gaze, letting her see right through him.

“Caitlin,” he says softly, “I’m worried too. But we can’t stand by while people are begging for help. Jedi or not, we aren’t built for apathy.”

Caitlin bites her lip.

Cisco smiles at her.

“Can’t hide away here forever, right?” he says, “isn’t that what you said when we first came here?”

“That was before,” she huffs out a breath, “But I see your point. We can’t be callous. We can’t let them make us callous.”

Cisco nods.

If there is pain and suffering that they can alleviate, people that they can help, then they must. No ifs no buts no maybes. It is their duty to be kind.

But still. A heavy feeling, like a weighted down cloak, has settled across Cisco’s shoulders.

He has a bad feeling about this.

The temple on Ossus is old. Built by what the Jedi were before they were even Jedi and it affords them a certain kind of anonymity that they can’t get anywhere else. Even those who knew the Jedi before the fall don’t know about this place, and Cisco himself only found out about it from an almost debilitating vision he had when they were on the run.

Built from old marble and stone blocks it almost fades away amongst the trees of the forest that surrounds it. Covered in vines and mosses, it shines in opalescent colors as the sun goes down and it catches the fading light. The planet itself is a hot running climate meaning that they can survive in the temple without much, sleeping on the cool marble when they get overheated or hang from the ledges and windows when they are chasing a cool breeze. When it rains the inner chambers always remain dry and homey. And the forest provides them food when Ronnie and his crew are gone.

It’s a fortress and a refuge. The few times that people had stumbled upon them they had simply moved levels, avoiding them until they had gone. There is a chamber at the side that serves as a makeshift docking bay for the crew of the Firestorm, and deep below the temple tunnels lead to a maze of Cyber Crystals.

It’s a Jedi’s paradise.

And it’s also the only place they have to go in the universe. All other refuges and temples have been lost. All records redacted and destroyed. Their very existence is a heresy.

They are the last Jedis. and they aren’t even really Jedi’s.

And now someone is asking for their help thinking they are proper Masters of the Oder. Like they are Obi-wan or Yoda. Like they are Skywalkers.

Cisco sighs and steps out the back of the temple, walking across the crumbling marble landing and into the forest. The cool breeze and the sound instantly surround him. There is no path to follow in front of him, so he follows his gut.

He closes his eyes and when he reopens them he is standing in a clearing by a stream. a tower of rocks is stacked in the middle of the waters flow and his sister is standing on top of them, balancing surely on the toes of one foot.

Cisco sits down beside the river, kicking off his shoes to dip his feet into the water, and waits.

Armando is calm today. He felt her leave the temple this morning, none of the dark shroud she usually carries with her burdening her as she slipped into the forest for the first time in weeks. She’s dressed in an outfit Stein had bought back for her some weeks ago after a trip to the outer system. High necked deep green cropped top with an attached cloak that covered the worst of the burn and blade scars on the tops of her arms and back. Lighter green trousers that cuff in at the ankle that are airy and allow for a wide range of motion, which she has topped with a dark leather weapons belt that covers the majority of her stomach, leaving only a thin strip of dark skin between clothes. She has wrapped her hands and wrists, as well as her feet and ankles, in linen strips.

She blends in seamlessly with the forest. Radiating a steadiness akin to the ancient trees around them, and a steady flow of power just like the stream below her.

After a few minutes, she curls down and steps into the river, moving the rocks back to the river bank without even needing to gesture them to do so. She sits down in the water, crossing her legs and rolling her shoulders as she becomes one with the power of the stream.

Manda looks at him then. Her hair is longer now than it has been since he got her back, almost as long as his own, shaved on one side and falling in a sheet of slate black curls on the other. Cisco can’t help but notice she has kept it long on the side where her scar crosses her face. It makes something in his chest hurt.

“You are troubled,” she rumbles in her deep voice, husky from disuse, “Something is bothering you.”

Cisco hums in agreement.

“I’m going to have to leave,” he sighs, flipping his hair back from his face, “Me and Caitlin and probably the whole crew of the Firestorm.”

“Has someone found us?”

“No, no- gods we would be long gone by now if that happened,” he laughs and smiles wider when her eyes crinkle in humor as well, “No. We got a communication from Naboo, from a Handmaiden of the Queen herself. Apparently, she knows about us and wants our help.”

“She wants soldiers?”

“Healers.”

Manda hums and swirls her hands around in the river, looking thoughtful.

“You want me to stay here,” she says softly, not a question but a sure statement.

“Yes.”

“And Dante?”

“He’ll stay too. I don’t want us all going.”

“It would be a prime opportunity for an ambush. But that’s not why you want me to stay.”

Cisco bites his lip.

He had been very young when his sister was taken by the First Order.  She had hidden him in the basement of their home, so he would not be taken too, his force sensitivity was already so strong it would have been detected instantly. She had let herself be taken so they wouldn’t touch him.

And then almost fifteen years had gone by. Manda had been given to the Sith, trained and tortured and made into a monster by Sith Lord Mordeth.

Two years ago, Cisco had finally found out she was still alive and had done stupid miraculous things to get her back. Had faced her when she was draped in Sith clothes and wielding a red lightsabre. Had faced her with nothing, got on his knees ready to die. Mordeth had made the mistake of trying to turn him to the Dark Side. Manda may have been deeply brainwashed, but no force in the universe could stop her from protecting her little brother. Mordeth had died, cut into parts and tossed into the energy converters of her starship which then crashed into a quasar.

Manda freed herself and came back to him, blood-soaked and broken but alive.

She’s made a lot of progress since then, but she is still so vulnerable.

“I don’t know what I would do if they took you back,” he admits in a near whisper, “What I would become to get you back.”

Manda sighs.

“You wouldn’t change,” she tells him with surety, “You’ve always been true to yourself.”

“Debatable.”

“No. It really isn’t.”

Cisco sighs. He swishes his feet around in the river for a moment while he collects his thoughts.

“If we don’t come back-”

“I will come to find you,” she looks deep into his eyes, her face cast in a shadow, “And lay low all who kept you gone.”

“…I was going to say you’ll be safe here, but okay.”

Manda looks down at the stream.

“When will you leave?”

“Tomorrow morning at the earliest,” he stands up with a groan, “Dante is making us our evening meal.”

Manda grimaces and an unexpected laugh bursts out of him.

“Can’t I just stay here?”

“Nope. Part of being a Jedi is eating together. Even if the food is burnt beyond recognition.”

Manda sighs and stands up from the stream, rivulets of water following her as she steps up beside him.

Cisco claps her on the shoulder.

“There is a stranger in the temple,” she says quietly.

“Envoy from Naboo.”

“Do you want them to see me?”

“I want to have dinner with my family. He can see what he likes.”

The envoy from Naboo turns out to be a young man, bright-eyed and energetic. He has dark skin that glows in the low sunlight, a shock of curly hair, and a smile so wide Cisco is honestly worried it may break his face.

He shoots up out of his seat when Cisco walks into the hall they use for meals, extending his hand to shake.

“Jedi Ramon!” he exclaims, “It’s wonderful to see you- I mean I’ve seen you before in Coruscant, but you didn’t see me so- it’s good to finally meet you.”

Cisco raises an eyebrow at him but shakes his hand anyway.

“Thanks…?”

“Wally! Wally West.”

A cool chill runs down Cisco’s spine.

“Son of Naboo’s ambassador to the Senate, Joseph West? Of the ancient Naboo family?”

“Yeah! I’m a pilot in the royal guard, fastest pilot too.”

Now that Cisco is really looking he can see that he is dressed more like a pilot than a diplomat, or in this case, a diplomat’s son. Dark jacket and trousers and shiny boots, but twined through with the red of Naboo’s current ruling house. He may have loosened his collar and have scuffed his shoes on the steps, but he still carried the presentation and poise expected of a person from his planet.

Cisco smiles politely at him and drops his hand as he takes his seat on the floor. Wally is watching him, but he looks star-struck, not malicious so he pays it no mind.

Everyone present takes their seat, even Manda who has curled up on top of one of the broken pillars, still dripping slightly with river water. She likes to have a vantage point.

Dante bursts in, bowls of fruit and plates of meat balanced all along his arms. He throws them onto the ground along with cutlery, and announces;

“Grubs up!” with a grin, “If you don’t like it, don’t eat it and keep all your opinions to yourself!”

The fruit looks okay, and the meat doesn’t look like charcoal, so Cisco scoops some of everything on to a plate and floats it up to Manda. Wally looks awestruck.

“Woah,” he says, “I didn’t even see her up there!”

Manda peers down at Wally, makes some unknown assessment and turns away to happily eat her food. Caitlin, who is sitting on Wally’s other side, hides her smile in Ronnie’s shoulder. Clarissa and Lilly are sitting in one of the fading sunbeams, rocking Lily’s baby as he eats. She still hasn’t named him and with her husband gone, lost to the war, she seems hesitant to give him a name at all.

Jax and Stein wander in, arguing about some kind of engine problem, with Jason trailing along behind them. From the look on his face, Cisco can guess he’s already solved the problem. Firestorms crew is entirely made up of mechanical and scientific geniuses. You’d think they’d have fewer arguments.

They take their seats and Dante flops down beside Jason, throwing an arm around his shoulders. Ronnie, on Jason’s other side, glares and snatches up Jason’s free hand. Jason looks exasperated. Cisco really doesn’t want to know what’s going on there.

There are others to their rag-tag little family-

(Cindy and Quell, two other force users, are somewhere deep behind enemy lines and while Cisco can still feel them, they are unable to contact him right now. Zari and Amaya have gone underground in search of a new weapon to use against the Order, joining up with the rebel crew of the Waverider. Dale is on his husband Casey’s home planet, trying to raise an army. And Constantine, who they met when he literally fell out of the sky on fire, has disappeared to do something that sounded both mystical and insanely dangerous.)

-but these are all that are here currently. This temple houses so many people, strange people who have become outliers in their own societies and somehow found their way here. And for some reason Cisco can’t wrap his head around, he’s their man in charge. Their leader.

Smugglers, enemies of the state, criminals, heretics, and some of the last Jedi in existence and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

It's strange sharing an ancient Jedi Temple with these people. Living with the barest tech, eating whatever they can catch or pick. It's rustic. And Cisco would rather die than lose it.

And now he is leaving it. A heavy stone settles in his stomach.

Manda catches his eye and he nods at her, raising a slice of orange fruit to her in a salute. The fruit tastes bitter in his mouth.

After the food is gone Cisco turns to Wally, the room going instantly quiet around them.

“We’ve decided to accept your Queens plea,” he says seriously, “We will depart for Naboo as soon as the Firestorm is ready.”

Wally grins.

“Aw man, that’s good to hear,” he sighs, “I was so worried you’d tell me to get lost.”

“You have to understand,” Caitlin continues for him, “We are taking a great risk by revealing ourselves like this. We are a small order, and if the first order were to discover we are alive-”

“No problem, I tracked this route myself,” Wally assured them, “The First Order won’t move through that region of space because of the threat from The Rouges- the smugglers and pirates who run that star section, they have a fleet of ships and specialized weapons that even the Order doesn’t know how to combat.”

“And you can move through their territory?” Ronnie asks skeptically. Cisco noticed his shoulders go tense at the mention of the Rouges.

“We have a temporary alliance with them,” Wally continues, biting into a large piece of pink fruit, “Their leader- Snart, Captain of the Grodd- he may be a criminal, but he knows when to negotiate and when to fight.”

Cisco thinks there is more to it than Wally is saying, but he doesn’t push. They aren’t politicians.

“We’ll leave as soon as the ship is ready,” he repeats and raises his eyebrows at Stein and Jax, “Which will be when?”

The argument starts again, louder this time. Dante laughs so hard fruit snorts out his nose.

They leave before sunrise the next morning. They load onto the Firestorm, and a small leaving party waves them off at the foot of the temple stairs. Something tugs in his gut as the ship powers up. Something commanding that he get off, put his feet back on solid ground and not leave the place he now thinks of as home.

Cisco watches out the window as they grow smaller and then abruptly disappear in a blink of light as they make the jump into hyperspace.

Caitlin lays hand between his shoulder blades.

“I’m going to lay down,” she tells him softly, “If I’m not awake before we arrive-”

“Ronnie will wake you,” Cisco chuckles, “And I really don’t want to be there for it.”

Caitlin smacks him lightly, and then turns and disappears up above deck.

Cisco stays where he is.

He looks down at what he is holding.

Manda slipped him a heavy bag as he left, making sure only he and Dante saw.

(“You’ll need this,” she had whispered as she hugged him goodbye, “I saw you would.”

“And you’ll need this!” Dante cheered, smacking a kiss onto his forehead.

“Urgh!”)

Now, standing on the ship, he opens the bag and feels his breath stop in his chest.

Its customary that Jedi Knights make their own lightsabres. Cisco had made his first one several years ago and then lost it in a fight with the order. The next one he lost in his fight against Manda, though he willingly threw that one away.

He has one now, hanging off the belt around his waist. Its black and silver and can pass for a blasters hilt in the right light, balanced perfectly for his hand and weighted perfectly for his fighting style. It took Cisco weeks to perfect.

And now he has another saber. Apparently. It's sleeker and more delicate, the handle cast in the platinum that runs in veins under the temple. He didn’t know Manda was building it. Cisco has been trying to lead her to a kind of balance between the dark-side she came from and the light-side she sought, but it had been mostly introspective, meditative. He had no idea she was building this.

Cisco bites his lip as the bad feeling settles heavier in his gut.

He remembers some of the visions he has had and wonders if Manda has seen something he hasn’t.

He slips the saber into his pocket and turns away. He should sleep. He has no idea what new trials Naboo will offer.

He finds Stein sitting in the bunks, reading over his correspondence with his family. It almost makes Cisco laugh. He just saw them back on Ossus and he’s already reading over old letters to remember them by.

“Sorry,” Cisco says, “I didn’t mean-”

“It’s quite alright, Francisco,” Stein says with a smile, “I will not keep you from your rest.”

Cisco smiles and lays down on his bunk, rubbing his eyes.

“Is something troubling you, my boy?”

“I just,” Cisco sighs and runs a hand through his hair, “I’m worried about what will come of this.”

“Going to Naboo? Or taking up an aspect of the order that you haven’t before?”

“Both. Maybe.”

Stein chuckles and Cisco hears him shuffle his paper.

“I do not envy you, my boy.”

Cisco opens one eye to look at Stein. He is an odd outlier in their world. He knows the Jedi ways but isn’t one himself. He is a scholar and a holy man, who seeks knowledge above all else. And for that, he is hunted and hated.

He swears he isn’t in touch with the Force but sometimes Cisco wonders. Especially now.

“The Jedi are meant for this kind of work,” he continues, “To heal, to help, to guide but … I don’t know if I’m enough. I know the technique and the history and every lesson but what if, when it comes down to it what if I can’t actually help anyone. What-”

Cisco swallows against the hurt in his throat.

“…what if we weren’t meant to survive this long?”

The room goes silent. Then Stein stands, comes over to him and squeezes his shoulder. Cisco can practically see him seeing right through him, beyond the words he is speaking to what he is really afraid of.

“We are built to remember, my boy,” he tells him with a soft smile, “We are beings of remembrance. But do not get caught in the history of what you come from and forget to write your own chapters. This is your verse. Your page and paragraph.”

His smile turns sad.

“And you are not Vader, my boy,” he all but whispers.

Cisco feels tears sting at the back of his eyes. He feels too much he knows, and that’s what they said Vader was like. And open nerve. He wanted to help, he wanted to save, but he was too raw too powerful and when Cisco thinks about what his own master said about him-

“But what if I am?”

“You would not worry so much if you were.”

Cisco closes his eyes and when he opens them again he smiles.

“What is it about ship rides that gets everyone so emotional?”

“Oh! Well, you see I have a theory about that, I postulate that when our bodies go through the trauma of hyperspace out atoms are vibrating at an-”

Cisco drifts off to sleep listening to Stein ramble. He doesn’t dream.

When they arrive on Naboo the sun is high in the sky and it casts the whole planet in bejeweled colors. The lush greens sparkle and the blues of the rivers are effervescent against them. Sprawling glass and stone cities bleed seamlessly with the wildness of the rest of the planet, working with the elements rather than battling against them.

Cisco thinks it looks like heaven.

He grew up in an industrial town on Corellia. He knew steel and tech and smog. To see something so clear, so bright and beautiful … it seems unreal. Too good to be true. Nothing could be so beautiful. Not without a cost.

It is easy to look at this planet and know why people were so willing to fight and die for it. They had already had a taste of heaven, living here.

But then as much as Queen Amidala had come from here, so had Palpatine.

Cisco shakes his head and jumps up out of his bunk.

“I don’t believe in heaven,” he growls to himself.

After getting dressed he meets everyone else on deck. Caitlin catches his eyes and they share a look. They are the only two people on the ship who really know what they are risking. They are two of the last of a dying breed. Criminals by right and choice and trial. The crew of Firestorm may be smugglers, but they aren’t even considered pests by the First Oder. Caitlin and he, should they be discovered would be treated like enemies of the state. They would be made into examples. Their deaths would be slow and painful. And with them, the Jedi would die even more.

Caitlin looks away, face steeling over. Now she is here she knows her duties. Cisco can feel the same conviction rising in himself as they touch down on a landing pad amongst the lush green gardens of the royal palace.

“We’ll engage in some … business,” Ronnie tells them with a smile, “While you two get acquainted with the Royal Highness. If you need anything you know how to contact us.”

He doesn’t say anything about bugging out or a shipment haul because Wally is still on board, looking out the front of the ship with wide attentive eyes.

Caitlin nods at him and kisses his cheek.

“We’ll be fine.”

Ronnie grins down at her.

“I already know how fine you are.”

“Raymond, please we are all here.”

“Let him be lovey-dovey with his wife, Gray,” Jax admonishes the older man, with a sly smile, “Force knows you and Clarissa are just as bad.”

Stein blushes and the crew chuckles. Except for Wally.

Wally who is looking at Caitlin and Ronnie with wide startled eyes.

“Party approaching,” Jason cuts in on the laughter, “Looks like the royal attachés.”

“Oh!” Wally exclaims, “Yes! We’d best go out and meet them. You’re welcome to keep your ship parked here for the duration of your stay.”

“Thanks, but we have some business of our own on Naboo. We wouldn’t want to be in the way.”

Wally frowns but moves on quickly, gesturing at Cisco and Caitlin.

“Well, we had better go and meet them.”

“If you don’t mind I will come too,” Stein says, wrapping his robes around him as he stands, “I would like to inquire about the Naboo Royal library, some of the texts housed here and one of a kind and-”

“Yes, yes good but let’s go!”

Wally rushes out of the ship and Cisco looks at everyone with a raised eyebrow.

“This’ll be fun,” he says sarcastically, then points at Ronnie, “Don’t get arrested.”

“Yes, sir.”

Cisco rolls his eyes and then he Caitlin and Stein follow Wally out into the warm Nabooian sun.

A small group of people are waiting for them and Cisco recognizes the front two people immediately, even if he has never seen their faces before.

Senator Joe West is taller than he imagined. Dressed casually in dark blue robes the same color as the Solleu river, he greets them with a warm smile but watchful, attentive eyes. Wally rushes him and hugs the taller man, and Cisco hears the Senator let out an almost comical chuckle.

“My boy,” he says in his deep, warm voice, “We’ve missed you.”

The other person Cisco recognizes is the woman beside him. Short but fierce-looking, Cecile, Joe Wests second wife, and Naboo’s most dedicated legislator. She doesn’t even make it up to the level of Joe or Wally’s shoulders, but she radiates a kind of poise and strength that makes her seem much larger than she is. She looks radiant, dressed in a light blue summer gown that falls elegantly around her pregnant belly, and her hair coiled through with polished turquoise gemstones. She cups Wally’s face and tips it down to kiss his forehead.

“You look so handsome,” she teases him, “Like an outlaw.”

Wally tugs self-consciously on the clothes he borrowed from Jax. And Cisco thinks he sees him blush.

Cisco doesn’t recognize any of the others present by face or reputation, but from their uniforms, he guesses they are palace guards. They watch him and Stein and Caitlin with obvious distrust. He doesn’t blame them. Jedi have a bad name in the galaxy these days.

“Father,” Wally announces when the familial reunion is over, “I have returned with Our Queens guests.”

“Good,” Joe says just as seriously back, “We are honored to have you all here. Our Queen will be anxious to see you, if you would like to follow me into the palace, we can have our proper introductions there.”

“Father-“

“Yeah, yeah,” Joe chuckles, informality gripping his tone, “Go on.”

“Thank you!”

Wally zips away, running full tilt across the gardens until he disappears. BB3 rolls after him, beeping obscenely after him.

“Oh, to be that young,” Stein sighs, making Joe and Cecile chuckle.

“He is anxious to see his baby,” Cecile explains, “His X-wing.”

“The way he treats it you’d think it was his actual baby,” Joe says with fake resignation in his voice, “I swear if I didn’t put my foot down he’d live in that hanger.”

“He is a skilled pilot?” Stein asks.

“Our best,” Joe confirms, “But we can tell you all such things later. Come, The Queen awaits.”

Joe and Cecile lead them out of the gardens and up into the royal household. Its open, and airy, not unlike the Temple in some ways. Except for the ornate water fountains, the mosaic sculptures, intentional indoor gardens and the overall opulence of the place.

They pass a mural of a woman, cloaked in blue like a river goddess. Something sharp tugs in Cisco’s chest and he knows her name.

“Padme,” he breathes. 

No one hears him. He trails his fingertips over the paint as they pass and feels a zing up his arm.

They climb a set of stairs and walk through a set of heavy ornate doors into what Cisco guesses is the throne room.

And he guesses this from the giant throne surrounded by handmaidens. They walk into the room and bow, Cisco hanging back behind Stein and Caitlin as he watches how things unfold. Sometimes it pays for people to make assumptions about you, Cisco has found. He’s hoping it will aid him now.

It is not widely known to those outside of Naboo what Queen Iris Sensari actually looks like.

The Naboo leader is smart, elected to be their defense against the First Order, and so far, the young woman had proved she knew which lines to cross and which lines to walk on. Cisco had heard stories. Stories about her meeting with rebel leaders, about her funding and planning anti Order missions, and about the heated debates, she won against Order supporting senators.

But he hadn’t heard anything about what she looked like other than her dark hair and dark eyes, both described as ethereally beautiful.

On the throne sits a woman with dark hair and dark eyes, surrounded by six handmaidens, all with dark hair and dark eyes.

The woman on the throne, who is presented as the Queen is dressed in a thick red gown with wide flaring sleeves that are heavily embroidered with golden thread. Her hair is coiled up around her head in clusters of triangular buns that have tear drips of jewels hanging from them like red icicles. Her eyelids are painted in gold and, her cheeks dotted with red circles, there is a single stripe of golden paint across the middle of her lower lip. Cisco looks and sees that her handmaidens have identical make up to her, excluding the red circles.

The handmaidens are all dressed exactly the same. They wear gauze robes, not unlike that which the woman in the holo-vid wore, but instead of holo blue, these robes are opalescent white. Silver thread runs through the pure white fabric, catching on the light, and Cisco sees that they all have a set of golden rings on their fingers. They all have their hoods up and eyes cast down, obscuring their features only slightly, but enough that Cisco could walk out of here without an accurate disruption of any of them.

“My Queen,” Joe says as he rises from his bow, “I present to you the last Jedi.”

The woman on the thrown nods to him, face cast in impassiveness.

The rest of them bow as well, a beat after Joe and Cecile, but Cisco keeps his eyes moving.

Cisco knows all about cons. He grew up with Dante. And this feels like a con.

“I am pleased that you answered my call for assistance, Jedi,” The Queen says in a flat, monotone voice, “My people will be pleased also, by the treatment you can provide that my doctors and scientists cannot.”

“We are pleased to able to aid to your people,” Caitlin answers.

“Of course,” The Queen continues as if Caitlin never spoke, “You cannot begrudge us this opportunity to familiarise ourselves to you. Jedi are so rare and even rarer seen in this political climate.”

Cisco casts an eye behind him to see that two guards have taken up a position at the door. One of them catches his eye and glares. Cisco turns away again.

“Not at all,” Caitlin replies smoothly, “We expected no less.”

Joe and Cecile move from standing as part of their group to standing in front of them faces cast in severe seriousness. Cisco sees Stein stiffen and reaches out to twitch the sleeve of his robe slightly, where no one else in the room can see. It’s a small message to keep calm. Cisco and Caitlin will take care of this.

“Before we can allow you into our community we have to asses if you are a threat or not,” Cecile continues, tone serious but not outwardly hostile, “The Jedi have been gone so long it is hard for us to completely believe that you are genuinely Jedi Knights.”

“Though you-” Joe points at Stein, “Certainly look the part.”

Steins eyes go wide.

“Oh! I-I must say-”

One of the handmaidens clenches her hand. It’s a minute movement, barely even a movement at all. But it’s enough for Cisco to see.

“Perhaps introductions may help?” Caitlin continues in her calming tone, “I am Caitlin Snow of Courasaunt, trained under Master Christina McGee of Alderaan in the arts of healing and follower of the Jedi teachings.”

The room remains silent but the Queen nods and looks at Stein.

“Oh- I am Martin Stein. I hold several academic accomplishments, I am learned in many scientific fields and religious texts. I am a Rabbi, though rather informally, and I follow the spiritual teachings of-“

As Martin speaks Cisco moves from standing behind him. To his left and forwards so he is standing directly in front of the handmaiden who twitched.

“And your guard?” Joe asks when Stein is finished rambling. Stein blusters, a hint of outrage tinging his tone.

Cisco knew they would make that assumption of him. He’s dressed all in shades of black. Black tunic over a high collared jumper that meets his long black curls at his neck. Black belt around his waist, black trousers that tuck into his worn black boots. The only scrap of color is the flash of silver at his waist where his saber peeks out, and can easily be mistaken for a blaster hilt. He knows what he looks like, dressed like this. Caitlin is dressed in flowing white robes over her cream tunic and trousers, and Stein is draped in a sandy colored robe with a wide flaring hood just like the Jedi were said to wear before the fall. They look the part, and as much as Cisco is dressed appropriately for a Jedi Knight, they are looking for the overt and obvious, not the subtle.

“Our guard?” Stein demands, “My good man I can assure you that-”

“I would be happy to introduce myself,” Cisco cuts in, stepping closer to the handmaiden with a tempered smile, “Though I would much prefer to do so to the Queen of Naboo, not her proxy.”

The already quiet room goes stony with its silence. The woman sat on the thrown glares down at him, opens her mouth as if ready to have him dragged away-

-but then the handmaiden reaches up and removes her hood.

Cisco has to steel himself against gaping. She is the most beautiful person he has ever seen.

Warm brown skin and a cascade of dark tresses that fall to her shoulders, and eyes so warm and bright and intelligent. She is dressed rather plainly for a queen but perfectly to blend in as a royal handmaiden. She wears no jewelry but rings of black have been painted around her forefingers.

She smiles at him and Cisco instantly feels that he has done exactly what she expected him to do.

He bows to her. Because how could he not?

“Thank you, Linda,” Queen Iris Sensari says, “They have passed the test. You have fulfilled your duties, all of you, and may leave.”

The handmaidens around her hesitate, but curtsy and then file out of the room with the guards, Linda leaving last with one last suspicious glance over her shoulder. Joe and Cecile remain.

“How did you know?” Iris asks as soon as the door closes behind them, “Did you sense me?”

“Your hand twitched, your highness,” he tells her with a smile, “I didn’t need the force to see through your con. Your tell directed me to you.”

She narrows her eyes at him, though her smile remains.

“Wait,” Joe cuts in, “you’re not their guard?”

“No, Senator West,” Stein says in exasperation, “As I was trying to say Cisco here is a Jedi Knight of the highest caliber whilst I am no Jedi at all. Perhaps I know the teachings and the texts, but I have no relationship to the force.”

“Everyone has a relationship with the force, Professor,” Caitlin says softly.

“Well, in my case the relationship is one-sided. I do not return its communications.”

Joe looks Cisco up and down.

“Aren’t you a little young to be a Jedi Master?” he asks with a suspicious tone.

Cisco shrugs.

“Maybe.”

Queen Iris looks over at her Senator, her father and rolls her eyes.

“Young leaders are not uncommon, Dad,” she says, “I mean, look at me.”

“I guess. Still.”

“We would prefer them to prove their claims,” Cecile finishes for him, “before we let them see the patients.”

“The Force is no parlor trick!” Stein beats Caitlin to her own indignation, “And we will not indulge it to be treated so!”

Cisco sighs, his good humor quickly fading. He doesn’t want to spend any more time on this planet than he absolutely has to.

He raises his hand and the gemstones in Cecile’s hair quickly detach themselves, swirl information around her head and then stream across to her husband where they arrange themselves in his hair.

Joe’s boggled face is hilarious, and Cisco has to bite his tongue against laughing. Cecile hides her giggle behind her hand.

“You look beautiful, my love,” she laughs.

Cisco looks back to Iris.

“Proof enough?”

“Yes,” she says, “Plenty. I will take you to our patients now if you would follow me.”

She gestures to him and Caitlin and begins to stride out of the room.

Cisco follows her, placing himself between her and his friends. He feels as though he is still standing on shifting ground. He still feels like something is going to drop down on top of them, something big and dark that is waiting just above his head. It came in with Wally and has followed them to Naboo.

Something bad is going to happen.

Cisco just wants to be gone before it dose.

Iris leads them through the palace to a large ballroom, glass-domed so it lets in all of Naboo’s golden light. The ballroom is filled with medical beds and screens and populated with sickly looking people. Droids moving amongst the patients with quiet beeps and whirs.

Caitlin immediately straightens zoning quickly into Doctor mode. She strides towards the nearest calling patient without waiting for Iris to speak. Joe reaches out to stop her, but Cisco shakes his head.

“She was a doctor first,” he explains, “She’ll learn what she needs to, and I’ll fill in the rest for her.”

A droid ambles up to them, breaking the tense moment. It’s a class that Cisco hasn’t seen before, has wheels instead of being bipedal, with multiple arms and a projected display rather than a head.

“Your Highness!” it exclaims in a cheerful feminine voice, “The patients are doing quite well, their conditions have not changed in the last twenty-four hours, and no further seizures or hemorrhages have been detected.”

“Thank you, Gideon,” Iris tells the droid with a smile.

“Will your guests require any sustenance?”

“Perhaps later, Gideon.”

The droid wheels back and forth in the imitation of a bow and then turns away back to the patients.

Cisco looks around at the people with a growing sense of sadness. He can sense something about them, their minds in discord. From the grim look on Caitlin’s face, he can guess their bodies aren’t much better.

“What happened to these people?”

Iris’s face draws in sadness.

“We had a scientist come to Theed some years ago,” Iris says as he takes his arm and leads him through the patients, leaving the others behind, “A brilliant man. The Queen before me was interested in his theories on dark matter and exotic particles. She allowed him to build a machine on the outskirts of the city, and six months ago it turned on.”

She gestures around the room.

“Moments later it exploded. Many were killed, and some, like these people, were harmed in ways we cannot understand.”

“The scientist?”

“Harrison Wells.”

“Dead?”

“Yes. He went down with the building. Along with all his research.”

“Are these the only people affected?”

“No,” she sighs, “There are the ones who either will not wake or have lost portions of their sanity. Others who survived the blast have either shown no effect or … have displayed powers.”

“Powers?”

“I cannot explain them,” she tells him seriously, “Some people can suddenly elongate their bodies, or turn themselves into clouds of smoke or teleport their bodies.”

“That’s-”

“Not why I called you here.”

Cisco makes to disagree but Iris levels him with a look. All at once he remembers she is a Queen.

He nods and looks at the closest patient. It’s a woman, face sallow as she lays motionless. The lines on her face, the ones she earned from happiness, look stark in her suspended state. She looks like someone that people must be missing. He looks over at her attending medical droid;

Sue Dibney.

“The Force holds many secrets of healing,” he relents, “Caitlin is the expert, so I will let her lead.”

“Healing is not your expertise?” she asks with a small smile, “Then what is?”

Cisco hums and moves to the patient's bedside. He places a hand over her forehead and takes in a deep breath. A few years ago, he would have had to close his eyes for this. But now it comes easy as breathing.

He lets himself feel. Let’s the force flow through him. He feels his atoms, and Sue’s atoms and the spaces in-between. He feels out what is keeping her asleep, a small imbalance in her brain and touches it. Guides it into healing. He feels creation itself and so much more, the stream of consciousness between them both, flowing on through them forever and-

Sue sits up with a gasp, knocking into Cisco as she takes in ragged breathes.

“Woah!” he says, placing his hands on her shoulders and guiding her back down, “You’re safe! I promise you’re safe!”

“I-I,” Sue gasps, “My husband he- oh, he will be so worried I have to find him, he’s a mess without me I- My Queen!”

Iris comes around the other side of the bed, smiling so brightly it eclipses the perfect sunlight in the room. She cups Sues face with a soft kindness.

“It is so good to see you,” She tells her softly, “To finally meet you. Rest, and I will find your husband to your side.”

Sue smiles up at her, eyes watering.

“Thank you, My Queen, thank you.”

Iris strokes her face and looks up at Cisco.

With her smile and her wide wet eyes, Cisco can understand why past Queens have been remembered akin to Water Goddesses. If they looked even somewhat like Iris dose right now the comparison is apt.

His throat catches and he looks away.

“Can all of them be healed so quickly?” she asks as she leads him away, almost bouncing with her excitement, “So simply!”

Cisco shakes his head.

“She was already close to the surface,” he tells her in a hushed voice, “A small injury, she would have woken up in a month or so. More complex injuries will require meditation.”

Iris composes herself but she dose not lose her hopeful smile.

“I have complete faith in your abilities,” she tells him, “You and Caitlin.”

In sync they look over to where Caitlin is speaking lowly with one of the medical droids, face drawn in concentrated concern, while Stein and Joe are caught in some kind of conversation that is causing Cecile to hide her smile behind her hand.

“Stein wants permission to read your library,” Cisco tells her with a small smile as they watch the professor wave his arms, probably describing a theory of his, “Though if you let him in he’ll probably never leave again.”

Iris smiles warmly.

“I think that can be arranged,” she tells him in an amused tone, “Knowledge and peace are valued above all else here. And if he is a learned friend of the Jedi, how could I say no?”

Cisco sits up in bed with a gasp as his nightmare slowly forgets itself.

He sucks in long, deep breaths as he tries to center himself again, body shaking as he wakes up. He counts up to three hundred and back again until his heart stops trying to escape his chest and his hands unclench from his hair.

He knew this would happen. Hoped it wouldn’t but knew that it ultimately would. He had spent hours healing people and helping Caitlin treat others, overtaxed his somewhat underdeveloped healing expertise until well after sunset. It had left him spent and tired, and vulnerable to his own mind. They say Vader was plagued by nightmares, before and after his fall.

 Cisco’s nightmares are usually the same thing over and over again. He is a child too little to save his sister, then he is older and unable to keep his brother from going off the rails, then he is himself as he is now and too weak to save either of them.

Tonight, however, the dream had been different. All Cisco can remember of it is a pair of light brown eyes and a streak of bright yellow electricity. Lightning.

Cisco sighs and eases himself out of bed.

He leaves his guest quarters in the Palace silently, keeping his feet bear as the stone floors are still warm from the day's sun. He leaves the majority of his clothes behind only wearing his trousers, rolled up a couple times at the cuffs, and his jumper which without his tunic sits baggy and soft around him. He is no mighty Jedi dressed like this.

He walks through the corridors of the asleep palace. He finds a pool running alongside one of the outer walkways and stops to dip his feet in, to breathe in some of the crisp night air. He looks down at the deep blue pool and sees that his curls are more untameable than usual. Dressed all in black he looks like a curly haired boy.

He sighs again and looks up at the night sky.

Cisco is so far from home here. He dose not have to reach out to the force to feel his siblings. He can almost see his sister as she dresses in the long flowing robes he bought her as she prepares to hike to the village in her ‘recluse witch-woman’ persona. He can feel Dante too, a bright spot on the edge of his vision blinking erratically but blinking the same. Usually, he would be going with them. His heart clenches.

The feeling of foreboding has not left him. He wonders if he should have turned down the Queen's request. But they healed people today, saved people today. Which was more than they were doing in their temple in the forest.

Cisco looks down at the water again. There are creatures, small fish, swimming just under the surface. He can feel each and every one of them, their shape and size and their level of curiosity in the strange things that have disturbed their home so late at night. One brave fish swims up, intent on chasing off the intruders and Cisco lifts his feet out of the water just before he loses a toe to it. Manda would love these fish.

He continues to stroll through the palace, keeping to the open spaces and walkways. He runs into no one, and he would prefer to keep it that way. Queen Iris had been a very gracious host and housed them in quarters much too extravagant for Cisco’s liking, with large silk sheeted beds and pristine views out on to the renowned royal gardens. But she hadn’t said they were free to roam the palace.

She’s hiding something from them, Cisco can tell that much. She wants them here but not too close, doesn’t want them to see something. Cisco just hopes it isn’t sinister. Hopes he can avoid whatever it is long enough to get off world. He has no want for drama in his life. Dante gives him plenty.

He is making his way across an open-air ballroom, hoping he is on the way back to his quarters, when a spark of pure electricity runs up his spine. He stops in his tracks immediately as his senses wake up completely. He reaches out into the force and feels the spark again.

 “Okay,” Cisco sighs, “Time to make wise decisions.”

He follows the spark. He follows it out of the ballroom and up a corridor that winds into the center of the palace, past the room where the patients still sleep, past the room where the Queen received them this morning. It leads him to where there is no open air, no view of the gardens, where the stone underneath his feet gets colder with every one of his steps. It leads him to a small, unceremonious door.

Without breaking his stride he pushes it open and enters the room.

A man is laying in the center of a large bed as still as death. His tall lanky frame is covered by a milky white sheet that looks to be the same shade of pale as his skin. If it weren’t for the shock of brown hair on his head and the dark dots of moles along his skin Cisco would almost have thought all the color had been stolen from him.

The room around him is sparsely populated. There are a few medical machines hooked up on his left side, a vase of slightly wilting flowers just by it. And on his other side, on the bedside table, is a small dish.

Cisco walks up to it and reaches out to pick up a chain threaded through two gold rings. One is bigger than the other, and both have an inscription on the inside in a language Cisco doesn’t know.

The spark races through his head again and Cisco drops the necklace to turn and face the man.

He isn’t just sleeping. His eyelids don’t flicker, his chest barely moves, and his body is unnaturally still. He is in a coma just the same as the other patients Cisco had been attending. Why would this guy be kept separate?

When the spark comes again Cisco sees that a small spark of lightning dances across the man’s skin.

“Woah,” he whispers.

He steps closer and eases himself down to sit on the edge of the bed. He waits and a few minutes later the spark happens again.

“How are you doing that?” he breathes in awe, “How could you possibly be doing that?”

The man stays silent.

Cisco pulls his legs up under him, so he is properly sitting beside the man, and he takes a deep centering breath. He closes his eyes and reaches out to the force, feels his way towards the other man. He feels the turbulence of his mind but feels it like it is lying beneath a sheet itself, muted and cloudy. When the lightning comes again it zings towards Cisco and his eyes fly open with a gasp.

For a second, between his eyes opening and his sight returning to him, Cisco sees something. A flash of red, two people standing in the rain, a read head woman dying, someone running through endless green fields after a dark-haired woman, flying an x-wing, crashing an x-wing, an alarming bolt of light crashing through a plate glass window and coming straight towards him-

When his vision dose come back Cisco jumps in alarm when he sees Queen Iris standing in the doorway.

“Sweet mother of-!” he cuts himself off before the curse can come out, “Your Highness, you scared me.”

Iris dose not reply to him. She walks into the room and sits gracefully on the side of the bed opposite to Cisco. She looks beautiful like this as well, draped in a pale purple silken sleepy gown and robe, her hair free of its careful curls and caught up instead in a scarf with only a few rebel curls peeking out. Her face is free of makeup, but the warmth Cisco had noticed about her is still there, is an essence to her that no product could replicate.

“Can you sense him?” she asks after a moment, voice hushed as if she is speaking in a holy place, “Sense his mind?”

Cisco frowns at her. He senses something off with her but in this strange midnight light she looks like a watercolor painting, and he feels compelled to answer her.

“Yes. It's muted but active. He’s … probably dreaming.”

Iris breathes out and it sounds relieved to Cisco’s ears. She bites her lip and dose not look away from the mans face.

She looks vulnerable. Worried. Scared.

Cisco instantly feels like he is intruding … which is accurate seeing as he wasn’t exactly invited into this part of her palace.

But his curiosity is still burning.

“Your Highness, I have to ask,” he says before he can think better of it, “why wasn’t this guy out with the others affected by the blast?”

Iris looks up at him, eyes serious.

“Can you tell who he is? See his mind?”

Cisco instantly straightens up.

“No,” he says with steel rodded finality in his voice, “That would not only take a lot more effort than I’m willing to employ right now, it would be an invasion. It would be a crime.”

“The legends say Jedi used to read men’s minds whenever they wished.”

“I’m not a legend your highness, and I will not mentally assault someone. Anyone. Ever.”

Anger boils up in his throat and he swallows it back. She wasn’t being malicious but still the implication that he would invade someone mind … it brings up every emotion he has about what was done to his sister. It is a Sith evil to take the mind and bend it, break it. Cisco dose not even like using the ‘Jedi mind trick’ that has become so infamous, if he can help it.

Iris nods looks at the man, and then looks back at Cisco with eyes that look much too vulnerable to belong to a queen.

“He was struck by a bolt of lightning from the storm that combined with the expulsion of the dark matter,” she explains, “The strike was amplified by him standing in a laboratory full of chemicals, and being rain soaked. Unlike the other patients you have seen today Jedi Ramon, he has not shown a single sign of waking. Not a twitch.”

She reaches out and clasps her hand over one of man’s unmoving ones.

“His name is Barry Naberrie, but publicly he goes by Barry Allen,” she smiles, and its so sad Cisco feels it in his gut, “And he is my husband.”

This time Cisco can’t keep the shock off his face.

“Your- your …. Oh.”

“We married before I was Queen,” she explains as she tenderly brushes tawny brown curls off Barry’s forehead, “I am on the older side for a Queen of Naboo so it wasn’t even an underage union. We … we never wanted to be apart. But his father is infamous amongst our people, and his mother’s house is as well. He didn’t want to damage my prospect of becoming Queen, so we have kept it secret to all but my family and maidens.”

“That’s either insanely romantic … or terribly sad.”

Iris smiles at him.

“That is what you have been so shifty about,” Cisco decides as he sleepy exhausted mind catches up, “You thought I was going to invade your mind and reveal your super-secret husband to everyone.”

“…I would be lying to say I didn’t fear that you would,” she relents with a reticent smile, “Though I’m sure my people would not disown me the Galactic relationships Naboo holds are more … tenuous. I did not know if you would jeopardize them, knowingly or otherwise.”

“Well I can assure you we are usually a lot less social than this,” Cisco says, trying for his usual humor, “I’m sure the Ewoks where we live would have been interested in the gossip, but we’ll keep our lips sealed for the sake of Naboo.”

Iris laughs, and it sounds like music. Cisco barely keeps from blushing.

“I also feared you would be frauds,” she continues, “A fear I’m afraid I have not been entirely dissuaded from.”

Cisco smiles and rolls his eyes slightly. He was expecting this to come up eventually.

“Wally told you about Caitlin and Ronnie.”

Iris dose not look ashamed to have been caught spying. She just raises an eyebrow at him.

“A Jedi with a lover? It’s against all we know of you.”

“Ronnie isn’t Caitlin’s lover, he’s her husband.”

At that Iris dose look shocked.

“How could that be allowed?”

Cisco sighs and takes a moment to think on how to explain it. Saying they are Jedi but also not Jedi just won’t cut it here.

“The Jedi of the Old Republic had many failings,” he explains, “They became more than an order, became more strict and militant and modernized. And ultimately it was these things that saw to their demise. It became obvious, in the fall out, that if the Jedi were to survive they would have to become something new. My teacher, Jedi Master Gunn, survived the purging of the order and found refuge in an old Jedi temple in the outer rim. He discovered teachings there that he had no previous knowledge of and realized the Jedi Order has never been a fixed, set in stone following. It has always been changing and adapting to the times as people changed and adapted. So, he taught me to be a Jedi Knight, but not only a Jedi Knight.”

Cisco leaves out the part where Gunn crossed the galaxy to find and train Cisco specifically because of something he read in that temple. That’s too heavy a story for a midnight discussion like this.

“But why change something so fundamental?” Iris asks, genuinely curious if slightly worried looking, “Why adapt away from something so core to the Jedi beliefs?”

“To prevent another Vader.”

Iris sucks in a breath and Cisco belatedly remembers that that name is still feared on many worlds. Of course, it would be an unholy word here, where he had killed a Queen of theirs.

Cisco scrubs a hand through his hair. He needs to explain this better.

“The monk life was not suited to Vader,” he continues, “To Anakin. And the concessions he made for the life he longed for he made against the order, created secrecy and mistrust and ultimately to betrayal. Truth and trust are needed now above all things. Caitlin loves Ronnie. If she was forced to hide that, to deny that it would hurt her and from that wound, something may corrupt her. She already has trouble with her emotions, has trouble being in touch and centered with them, and Ronnie being in her life makes those things easier. Being celibate in body and mind would not make Caitlin a better Jedi.”

Iris considers this.

“I can see what you are saying,” she nods, “To hold all to the same rules disregards inherent individuality and could be oppressive to some individuals suited to only some, or none, of the rules. Inequality in the treatment of individuals … I can see how that may cause some to stray to the dark.”

“We’re Knights,” Cisco shrugs, “Not monks.”

Iris smirks.

“Not monks? Do you have a secret spouse as well, Jedi Ramon?”

Cisco’s mind flashes to Cindy, so far away across the galaxy but he can still feel her. There was something there he knows it, but she had come and gone in a whirlwind before he could do anything about it.

“No. Celibate I am, but not ‘cause of an archaic law.”

Iris laughs and this time Cisco dose blush.

They both look down at the still man between them and feel bad for laughing when he is so far away.

“Do you think you will be able to help him?”

“If I hadn’t found him by accident tonight, would you have even told me he was here?”

“Yes … when I was sure of you all.”

“And are you sure now?”

“Yes.”

Cisco stands and stretches. Iris flicks her eyes along his body and he very much cannot think about that right now in the same room as her comatose husband.

“Then yes. We can help him.”

“You- you can?”

“Well, we’ll certainly give it our all. But Caitlin and Stein will need to know about Barry here. They don’t need to know about the secret husband thing if you don’t want them too, but I can assure you they won’t blab to anyone either.”

Iris looks thoughtful but ultimately nods in agreement.

“Anything you need you can have.”

“Well, I can feel he’s in there real deep so what I’m going to need is a good long sleep, a whole lot more meditating and whatever you drink on this planet to stay awake for long periods of time.”

“That last one sounds counterintuitive to the others.”

“Oh, that’s for Stein. I’m going to need him to remember everything he has ever read about Force Healing and then draft that with Caitlin’s medical knowledge.”

“Ah. I see.”

Cisco bites his lip and leans closer to her over Barry’s sleeping body.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before, Your Highness. I’m- I was trained to be a leader, a Knight, not a healer. And Barry-” Cisco looks down at the man, and he can feel something he can’t explain radiating off him, “-Barry is unlike anything I have ever seen or read about, he’s different from the others we treated today. There is something about him I can’t explain but-“

Feeling bold he reaches over and clasps Iris’s hand where it lays on top of Barry’s.

“-I promise that I will not leave this planet until he is awake.”

Iris looks at him with a soft expression.

“That’s a big promise to live up to.”

“I’ve lived up to bigger.”

“You owe me nothing, Jedi Ramon, and I will not keep you to an impossible task.”

“Your Highness I know what it is like to be unable to reach someone you love. To feel as though you can’t save them even though they are so close. I wouldn’t wish that feeling on anyone, let alone someone as … commendable as you.”

Iris smiles at him and it’s unlike any smile she has given him before. More knowing, more intimate, as if they have known each other an age, not a day. She turns her hand and grips his back.

“Thank you … Cisco.”

“You’re welcome … Iris.”

“I was wondering when you were going to drop the ‘Your Highnesses’. Not even my subjects are as ridged with tradition as to call me that all the time.”

“Well, I didn’t want to lose my head.”

“And yet you skulk around my palace in the dead of night and let yourself into private rooms?”

Cisco feels his face heat.

“Jedi curiosity?”

“Hmm, I guess I can pay that.”

They laugh together and after a moment of companionable silence Cisco stands, bows, and leaves Iris to sit with her husband’s sleeping form.

On the walk back to his room the feeling of dread has eased, but not dissipated. He now believes that it is not coming from the palace but the planet beyond.

His bare feet glide over the stone floor of the palace and he can almost feel the leaves crushing under his sibling’s boots. He sends out a signal, a blip in the line, so they can tell he is alright. They blink back, and he goes to his bed and a dreamless sleep.

Caitlin and Stein take to their new assignment with lightning speed, launching into a rapid-fire discussion about force healing before questions about the new patient can even arise. Iris looks mildly shocked about it but makes no move to stop them. She’s a wise and learned Queen, Cisco can see.

Cisco himself knows that the ultimate healing of Barry will fall to him. As talented as Caitlin is at healing Cisco is stronger with the force. It’s not a brag, his family just has a somewhat alarmingly strong connection to the force woven into the bloodline. Even Dante is, and he has never trained a day in his life.

But he also knows he’s going to need to do a hell of a lot of meditating before he even attempts to heal Barry. The minimal contact they had proved that there is something off balance with him and Cisco will need all the power he can to adapt to healing him. And it quickly becomes apparent that meditating in the palace isn’t going to work.

Every room gets attended to at least once a day, hallways don’t remain deserted for long, and groups of people often traipse through the gardens followed by jovial, garden party laughter. Peaceful, Naboo is, but not nearly peaceful enough.

“Theed is a busy city,” Joe concedes when he brings the matter up during a meeting of them all the next day, “The countryside and swamps are much less populated.”

“The Gungan leader has been asking for an audience with me,” Iris says as she daintily eats her lunch, “If Cisco were to accompany me it would look less suspicious than him leaving the city on his own.”

“And who would we say he is?” Cecile asks, “It would be unwise to advertise the presence of a Jedi in your court.”

“A new guard?” Iris suggests, “If you don’t mind wearing the uniform, Cisco.”

“I don’t mind what I wear as long as I get some peace and quiet.”

“And I would be left here on my own?” Caitlin asks, face drawn into careful emotionlessness.

Cisco winces. He knew she wasn’t going to like this.

“I have invited the crew of your ship to stay in the palace,” Iris says before he can say anything, “You are all free to come and go as you please of course, but I thought it would make you more comfortable to have them here with you.”

Caitlin looks slightly shocked by this.

“You know they are … less than reputable traders, right?”

Iris laughs.

“I am aware. They are welcome in my palace, I assure you.”

Caitlin nods, grateful even if her face remained stoic, and excused herself to contact Ronnie. Cisco can tell she is relieved to not be left alone in this welcoming, but unfamiliar place. If a situation were to arise Caitlin has trained adequately in defense, but she isn’t confident in it. She has told him combat has made her feel closer to the dark side, so Cisco is glad the Firestorm crew will be staying with her. They can kick ass, no question about it.

So, Cisco meets the Queen, her Handmaidens, and one other guard by the name of Eddie Thawne, in the hanger before sunrise the next day. He has dressed in his usual attire, but this time with a Nabooian black and red guard jacket and hat. He tucks his lightsabre up under the jacket and straps a blaster to his hip. To anyone looking or not, he looks like a proper Naboo Royal guard.

Eddie, in his pristine suit and super shined boots, looks like a freaking propaganda poster for joining the noble profession of protecting the Royal Seat of Naboo or something equally as long-winded. He looks like a proper soldier and it makes Cisco’s skin squirm until he turns to Cisco and lets out his saber bright smile. Is no one on this damn planet ugly?

This is also the first time he gets to see the royal Handmaidens clearly. Iris is speaking to the pilot while the women ready themselves for the trip, all of then dressed identically to her. Their dark hair caught up in double buns on top of their heads, and minimal make up that looks to only consist of red powder spread across their bottom lids. They are all dressed for travel in baggy linen trousers, sturdy looking boots, tight golden shirts and long hooded and heavily embroidered coats. He would think it too warm to adventure out into the swamp in those coats, but then he sees one of the women slip several dozen push knives into their sleeve and understands immediately. They aren’t dressed for combat, but they are ready for it.

One of the women looks up at Cisco from where she is slipping something sharp and dangerous looking into her boot and smiles.

“Hi,” she says, “You’re gonna love the swamp, Master Jedi.”

She says it sarcastically like she is teasing an old friend and it makes Cisco smile.

“Call me Cisco please,” he says and drops down onto a cargo box across from her, “I’m not Luke Skywalker or anything.”

“Alright,” she sticks out a hand, presenting her fist, “I’m Terri.”

Cisco bumps her fist and laughs when she pulls hers away wobbling and making a warp engine noise. Cisco notices over her shoulder that Linda, the woman acting as Queen's proxy the day they arrived, is watching them with a stoic expression. He smiles and nods at her, but she doesn’t warm to him.

 “Shawna!” Terri calls to the Maiden with the push knives, “You need a blaster?”

“I’m good,” Shawna replies as she is helping another maiden fix her hair, “Mina?”

“No,” the woman replies and steps away once her hair is fixed, flicking her coat back to show her holster, “I’m all set.”

The last Maiden comes over and sits beside Terri, flicking the hem of her trousers up to place wires around their insides. Cisco recognizes them as self-cauterizing garrottes. He also notices a necklace peeking out from her top and straightens up.

“You’re Mari McCabe.”

All the maidens stop their conversation to focus on him. Mari stares him down, hand coming up to tuck the necklace in her shirt.

“I am,” she replies, suspicious.

“I know your grandmother.”

Mari’s eyes go wide, and she stands up immediately, so she can come and sit by him seizing his hands into hers.

“Is she alright?” she demands, “Is she alive? I haven’t had a communication from her in years.”

A stone sinks in Cisco’s stomach. Of course, his attempt to make small talk with a Royal Handmaiden would get him stepping foot first into a dysfunctional family situation. Mari and Amaya are from an ancient race of semi-immortal beings, and their family line are protectors of their planet. Amaya is educated in the ways of the force in ways that the Jedi have no concept of and had taught Cisco some of his more difficult lessons a few years ago. They had journeyed together through their minds and Cisco had seen images of her family through that journey. It was Amaya seeing images of his that ultimately helped him save his sister.

Cisco had no idea her granddaughter would be on Naboo, much less a handmaiden to the Queen. The galaxy is rather a small place when you get right down to it.

“She’s alive and fine,” he assures Mari, “She and her wife Zari have gone out beyond the rim, I’m sorry I assumed she would have told her family.”

Mari bites her lip.

“She said she wouldn’t be able to speak to me for some time,” she tells him, “She didn’t tell me why.”

Cisco winces.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean-”

“It’s alright,” she blinks and then looks back at him, curious now, “You must be who she had that dream about. The student in need of a teacher.”

“Yeah, that was me.”

“I had no idea she was working with the Jedi,” Mari laughs.

“I had no idea her ‘little grandchild’ was a Royal Handmaiden for the Queen of Naboo.”

Mari nods and releases his hands to smooth down her trousers.

“It’s where I ended up. And where I need to be.”

Cisco chuckles.

“Yeah. I feel you there.”

Terri whistles and jumps to her feet.

“You’re one weird guy, Mr. Jedi,” Terri laughs, “I like it.”

Iris comes over, Eddie close behind her, and all the Maidens stand at attention.

“We are ready to depart,” she announces and when she puts up her hood all the Maidens mirror the motion in sync, “On me.”

Cisco watches the women stream into the craft in a perfect military formation and once again feels out of his depth.

“Come on, buddy,” Eddie says, “We gotta go guard the Queen.”

“Dose she even need guards with her?”

“Nope. But that’s part of the point.”

Halfway to meet the Gungan council at Otoh Gunga, Iris calls the craft to a stop and accompanies Cisco down into the swamp. She lowers her hood as they step out into the clearing and takes his hand, so he can help her off the loading ramp.

“We will come back sometime after sundown,” she tells him as she looks around at the near silent swamp, “Is this place alright?”

“It’s perfect, thank you Your-”

She raises an eyebrow at him.

“-Iris.”

She rolls her eyes at him.

“If you should need us before then here is a tracker that will signal the ship,” she hands him a small metal tube, “Press the end and we’ll come to get you.”

“Thank you, but I’ll be fine. I’m not exactly defenseless.”

He taps his hip where his saber is hiding. Still, she hesitates to leave.

Cisco steps closer so he can look her in the eyes.

“I will be fine, Iris. I promise you.”

Iris holds his gaze for a long moment. Then she leans in and kisses him on the cheek.

Cisco feels his heart thump in his chest. It has been a long, long time since anyone kissed him, cheek or otherwise.

“Thank you, Cisco. For all of this.”

“W-well-I-”

Cisco continues to blubber as Iris goes back into the ship and leaves.

Cisco leaves the clearing and ventures further into the swamp. Into the wild heart of Naboo he ventures, ducking under vines, climbing over tree roots until he finds a part of the wilderness that no Nabooian or Gungan has touched. He feels the undamaged energy of the place against his skin like a gentle breeze.

He strips, leaving the Naboo Guard jacket and hat hanging off a branch with his blaster and saber. He slips off his boots rolls up his trouser cuffs and after a moment strips off his jumper leaving him shirtless. The warm air slides against him comfortably and he shakes out his hair, already feeling it begin to curl out from how he placed it this morning.

The wilderness around him is truly beautiful. Grass grows in curling emerald waves that says it’s never been cut in its life, ancient trees hanging with lichen and vines that stretch over a large lily-pad dotted pool.  Cisco can sense some fish, some insects, and in the trees small mammals, but nothing that would want to eat him.

It could almost be a landscape from back on Ossus. Which is exactly what he wanted.

He steps into the lake and for a moment he feels another set of feet dipping down into much colder and faster flowing water. He wades out into the middle of the lake and lays down till he is floating. He breathes in and out, in and out, slowly and deeply until he can feel everything around him. The hum of the trees as they process the suns light, the glide of the fish beneath them as they disturb the bank mud looking for food, the motes running through the air after the retreating insects and the small birds that flit after them with hungry stomachs. He feels every stream of light, every molecule of his being.

And then when he sits up on top of the water, his connection to the universe keeping him up, Manda is sitting across from him.

She smiles at him and he smiles back. they don’t need to say hello. They never really left each other.

She’s dressed in the same clothes as when he last saw her meditating in the river, but she now has a leather cord around her neck. Cisco looks down and sees a small cyber crystal hanging from the end.

“Dante?”

Manda snorts.

“His newest venture.”

“If he tries selling those we’re going to get the kind of attention we really don’t want.”

“I have told him.”

Manda tips her head to the side, observing him.

“You are worried. But you aren’t sacred.”

“Naboo isn’t as full of danger as I feared,” he sighs, “But I have a problem.”

He explains everything that happened since they left on the Firestorm to her, leaving out the descriptions of how unbelievably beautiful Naboo is and ending on the matter of Barry Allen, and she listens to it all intently. After he is done he waits silently as she processes the information before speaking.

“Healing others is not my strongest skill,” she says, twisting the crystal on her necklace as she speaks, “But when I was with her I once had to wake myself up from a coma.”

Cisco has to fight off the feelings of hate and revulsion that flow through him at that, lest they severe the connection between them and dunk him in the pond.

“It was hard,” she continues, “It took me weeks, but I managed it. The theory should be similar for your man.”

“Tell me what I need to do.”

“You’ll need to connect to his mind-”

“Manda-”

“-not enough to invade it, not enough to impose your will onto him. But enough to speak with him.”

“Speak with him?”

“You cannot force him awake, Cisco. Especially not if you are right and something is holding him down. You need to guide him out of where he is and back to his home.”

“…That sounds too simple.”

“In theory. In reality, you will need to sustain a meditative state for a prolonged period of time. You will need to be completely centered, and you will need someone to monitor you because if I am right you won’t be able to tell if you are weakening or in danger. You’ll be completely vulnerable, and it will drain you fast. And that will only be half the battle.”

“Do you think it will take me weeks?”

“Possibly not, because you will be Barry’s outside tether. But I wouldn’t swear to that.”

Cisco huffs out a breath and Manda smiles. It’s not like her old toothy smile. Just the corner of her mouth quirks up, but Cisco knows what she means.

“Wishing you had stayed here for the monthly Ewok trading day?”

Cisco laughs.

“Yes actually. Did Dante offend any of them this time?”

“A few.”

“Of course.”

“He thinks one of them was flirting with him.”

“Urgh, don’t give me that image.”

They sit in comfortable silence together for a moment, feeling the warm breeze blow through the trees and race across the pool to meet them.

“I wish I could have gone with you brother,” Manda says eventually, in a soft voice that’s almost a whisper, “But something in me is adamant you had to do this without me.”

“I’m never without you.”

There is a sudden flare of emotion through their link and Manda turns her head to her side.

“Dante says that was disgustingly emotional and sappy.”

Cisco rolls his eyes.

“He could tell me that himself if he bothered to stay still for two seconds and meditate.”

There is another flare of emotion, this one a lot more antagonistic, and Manda looks up at the sky imploringly.

“As much as I would like to facilitate a cross-galaxy fight between my brothers I think it is time to go.”

Cisco smiles at her.

“He’s standing in the river next to you, isn’t he? In his leather pants?”

Manda doesn’t glare at him. But it’s a close call.

“Goodbye, Cisco. And good luck.”

“I’ll be home soon.”

Between one heartbeat and the next Manda is gone. It’s probably just in his head, but Cisco thinks it feels colder without her. He shakes off that feeling, places his hands face up on the surface of the water, closes his eyes and lets himself feel.

It’s some hours later when he opens his eyes. The sun has gone down, and the bioluminescent plants have taken up the fight against the dark. The whole world seems to have been painted in blue and black, with small patches of white-gold light. Glowing insects fly around, skating on the surface of the water as large yellow eyes watch them from the pitch-black tree leaves.

And he is also floating a foot above the water.

Sometime during his meditation, he had obviously begun to levitate, and around him pebbles, lily pads, and flowers are gently floating in the air as well.

He flicks his eyes over to the bank to where the noise that alerted him came from and sees Iris standing on the grassy bank. He would not say her expression is slack-jawed awe, but it is certainly the queenly equivalent. Linda stands beside her, blaster at the ready, and she looks to be similarly shocked.

“Wow,” Iris says, her hushed town cutting clear through the quiet night, “I mean … wow.”

Cisco smiles at them.

And then promptly falls into the pond.

Dammit. He lost his concentration for a split second, which cut off his levitation and embarrassed himself in front of not one, but two pretty girls. The universe has a strange sense of humor.

He surfaces with a gasp to see Linda looking at him with wide eyes that clearly say, ‘who is this swamp brain?’ while Iris hides a laugh behind her hand.

Cisco sighs and it makes bubbles in the water. Then he wades over to the bank, shaking off trousers and flipping his water-logged hair back as he emerges.

“Time to go?” He asks as he ties his hair back. He could dry himself pretty quickly, but it would splash Iris and Linda, and he has a feeling their clothes are a hundred times more expensive than his. Probably shouldn’t splash them with swamp water.

“Y-yes,” Linda replies, eyes tracking him as he moves to put his clothes back on, “The ship is waiting nearby.”

Cisco nods and pulls his jumper and boots back on. As he is strapping his blaster and saber to his hips he notices the women share a look. Gods he hopes he doesn’t stink of swamp.

“Did you achieve what you hoped you would?” Iris asks.

“Yeah, I think so,” he throws the jacket and hat over his arm and faced the women again, “I can feel it.”

He can feel everything. He feels as in touch with this world as he does with Ossus. He can feel the water-filled honeycomb of the planet under his feet, the hum of every single tree across the surface of the world, every molecule and fiber of Naboo he feels like blood through his veins.

If he concentrates he can feel the place where Barry and Iris grew up. The rolling green hills and tall paper perfect mountains.

He can feel back where they came to Theed, and through the noise he finds Ronnie and Jason strolling through the palace garden with Caitlin, holding hands and laughing while Stein and Jax barter over something in the marketplace. He feels through the halls of the palace until he comes to Barry’s room, and feels the lightning again.

He feels Naboo and it feels him back.

If being this centered isn’t enough to wake Barry up Cisco doesn’t know what will be.

They go back to the ship, Linda scouting ahead with her blaster while Cisco helps Iris up over the twisting roots that try to trip them in the dark. Her hand feels warm and soft in his.

She’s married you perv, he repeats to himself in his head, and she just saw you fall into a swamp pond so even if she wasn’t she wouldn’t be interested.

“I’ve always liked it out here,” Iris tells him in a conspiratorial tone as he helps her over a log, “The tranquillity of the swamp.”

“Me too. It reminds me of home. My sister practically lives in the forest back on Ossus.”

Iris clutches his arm as they pick over the swamp grass, and looks at him curiously.

“I haven’t asked about your family,” she says softly, “I … I guess I assumed like the old Jedi you had to leave them behind.”

“There’s no leaving my family behind,” he chuckles, “When I went to train my brother Dante came with me. He could have been a Jedi too he was so force sensitive, but he didn’t want to be. He just didn’t trust me to be alright on my own.”

“Did your sister train in the way with you?”

Cisco hesitates. He trusts Iris. And he trusts his gut that telling her won’t hurt.

“My sister was taken by the Sith when we were children.”

Iris’s grip on his arm tightens to bruising.

“Oh lady of the water, that’s horrible,” she breathes in horror, “But-but didn’t you say you live with her now?”

“I got her back from them a few years ago. She had been totally brainwashed and turned into a living weapon. I heard a rumor of an all-powerful Sith, Darth Rupture, fighting against the rebel alliance on the inner planets and I just knew in my gut it was her.”

“How could you rescue her without getting killed? The inner rim is so controlled, so protected by the first order … I cannot imagine it.”

“I had help,” he smiles, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed but Caitlin and I have formed a sort of ramshackle family.”

“Jedi and smugglers.”

“And a few others. We snuck into the territories and with the help of a woman called Cindy managed to sneak ourselves onto the Star Destroyer Piradell where Manda was.”

“And she recognized you?”

“Yes. But her programming was too strong. She had me at her mercy, saber to my throat. I refused to fight her.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing. She broke through herself when Sith Lord Mordeth tried to brainwash me as well.”

Iris smiles.

“She was still your big sister,” she says warmly, “No programming could erase that from her. She still needed to save you.”

“Yeah. And then we stole a fighter and crashed our way across the galaxy till we found our new home.”

“Sounds like a children’s story.”

“If it was a children’s story I would have been much braver.”

“You sound pretty brave to me.”

Cisco’s stomach flips and he looks down, feeling embarrassed.

“You didn’t hear me screaming when we jumped into hyperspace in a half blown up TIE fighter.”

Iris chuckles.

“No,” she jumps over a fallen branch and reaches to help him over it, “And I’m kinda glad I didn’t. You’d lose all of your Jedi mystery.”

“Dropping into the pond didn’t do that for you?”

Iris throws her head back and her laugh cuts through the warm night air. More a lark than a dove. Cisco can’t help but smile.

“I think …” She hesitates as the light of the ship appears in front of them, “I think Barry would really like you, Jedi Ramon.”

Cisco smiles at her.

“Well, we’ll see for sure when he wakes up.”

Iris smiles back.

“When. Yes, we’ll see then.”