Archive of Our Own

“Baze.” Chirrut’s staff whacks soundly across his ankles, though it is more a noise than an actual strike and Baze simply arcs an eyebrow instead of hissing out pain. “Meditate with me.”

“This is not normally how it is done,” Baze says by way of explanation, looking over at Luke with some trepidation, but the Jedi looks awestruck, enraptured by this idea that has been shown to him, explained to him of a way to feel the Force, a way to understand it and focus on it that allows a breadth of feeling, that does not shy from attachments or the power that intrinsically exists in them. No, Luke does not look aghast at the scene in front of him as Baze sighs and then settles himself into a lotus position in front of Chirrut, their knees touching as always, and Chirrut reaches for him instantly, instinctively as though he knows no other way to pray, which is a farce, but Baze cannot help but adore the show regardless. When Chirrut leans forward to press their foreheads together, Baze’s shoulders stiffen, which earns him the tongue click, and repeats, though unable to look at Luke now because his cheeks are flaming at the spectacle that Chirrut seems set upon creating, “This is not how it's normally done.”

“Except that it is,” Chirrut interjects, voice prim and proper as if he were explaining things to one of their orphans instead of embarrassing his husband in front of a man still a boy who is quite possibly the last Jedi in the universe. “This is how it is normally done for us. My husband is just being shy.”

“It's not,” Baze stops to clear his throat. “It's not the way of the Whills.” Which is mostly true though the temple never forbid it. In truth the temple forbid very little, understanding that each person found faith and truth in their own way, but it’s the look of the thing. If they are to teach Luke the Whills, Baze thinks they should begin simpler, closer to the core tenants, not the ways in which they have altered them to fit themselves better. It’s best to try a garment on before beginning to tailor it instead of forcing your frame into something that will never fit you.

Chirrut, of course, as always, has other ideas, his own ideas.

“Aren't you the Whills now?” Luke asks, but it's quiet and kind and full of wonder, not etched with anything bitter the way that he thinks it could be. Luke, who reminds him of Scarif, bright blue and yellow and warm, is nothing like that planet except that he holds some dark and steady pain deep in the heart of him that Chirrut has been working him towards, convinced that it keeps him from shining the way in which he ought.

“Yes!” Chirrut proclaims happily in the same instant that Baze says, “No,” and their voices trip and tangle together, wrapped as surely around each other as their stands are in the Force itself. Baze sighs, exasperated but fond because it is impossible to not be fond when Chirrut smiles with all his teeth and pink gums showing when he inclines his head in such a way that it means everything is for Baze, only Baze, even if they do have an audience.

“Yes,” Chirrut says again and tightens the grip of their hands, presses his forehead more firmly to Baze’s without even a care as to what Luke might say or think about it. “We are the Whills now.”

“We are the representatives of the Whills,” Baze corrects.

“What difference does that make?” Sometimes Chirrut asks things for other people, because they might not be able to find the words on their own, might not know that they are allowed. Baze is used to Chirrut performing this act for him instead of utilizing it against him, but he understands the reasons. Luke is their guest, and Luke is a Jedi. He is polite almost to a fault, and neither of them are sure that he will ask what he wants to, what he needs to know. They try to make the leaps and bounds for him when necessary, though it is hard because they have never been Jedi.

Luke is seated on the ground, near enough to hear but still far enough away that no one is going to touch him accidentally. “It’s okay. You’re the only Whills I’ll know.”

Baze isn’t sure why this idea bothers him; he wishes that he could take Luke to Jedha, to see NiJedha, to see the temple, to see the statues in the sand. Even after the temple fell, some of it remained, the Whills remained because it was of Jedha. With their moon gone, it feels like someone has ripped them out by the root. What they have planted here is not the same tree; it is simply a cutting. When it grows, it will not look the same, not really, even if only a few of them are able to see the difference.

Chirrut does not fuss when Baze turns his head, though he also does not move, keeps their knees touching and their fingers curled together, tight and wound as though he worries about Baze slipping away into something. Baze understands. They have both known darkness before and separation. He does not miss the way that Luke’s eyes linger on their hands like someone seeing something they never knew was possible to have before, like a revelation.

It hurts him. To think of what the Jedi may have told this boy he could not have, he could not want, he could not need. He wishes he could show him the temple of the Whills and all the writings, the scrolls and datapads, the murals and the statues, all the depictions of the Force, all the depictions of love within the Force and the words about how it can make you stronger, a better vessel, more understanding of the way that the energy in the universe works. None of that exists anymore. Nothing material, no images save the one that he and Chirrut create, no words save for the ones they speak and what he writes down, badly remembered—perfectly remembered Chirrut says when Baze reads them to him looking for suggestions, mistakes, but all he gets is perfectly remembered and Chirrut’s hands in his hair, Chirrut’s lips on his throat until neither of them have words anymore—but something that can be immortalized regardless, something of the Whills. For when he and Chirrut have finally been embraced by the Force, when he and Chirrut are home.

“I wish you knew Jedhan,” he says in Jedhan, more a murmur than anything else, though it is loud enough for Luke to hear because he tilts his head, mouth set in an obvious expression of confusion, and Chirrut digs his knee into Baze’s bad one sharp enough to make it sting.

“He’s lamenting the fact that he has to speak to you in Basic,” Chirrut explains. “He’s not good with languages the way I am. I’m sure you’ll forgive an old, slow fool.”

Baze glares.

Luke softens, worry leaving the set of his shoulders and his face, making him look younger. “Oh, no. I mean yes. I mean.” He spreads his hands and the rays of the sun fall onto him, make him look like some sort of glowing savior. This, Baze thinks, is how the Rebellion saw him, how the Jedi masters he found to train him saw him. Baze sees a boy too young for his skin, for his responsibilities.

Baze remembers himself and Chirrut at Luke’s age. Chirrut was wild, a shouting windstorm making its way from one end of the temple to the other, Baze on his heels, glaring between peals of laughter. They spent quite a bit of time huddled in the library sharing kisses and stories and ideas. They dreamed as much as they studied. They kissed as much as they sparred.

Luke looks like someone denied these things, forced into the role of Jedi far too soon and with little instruction. Luke looks like battered starlight.

Luke smiles in a way that is meant to be calm and careful, but it looks desperate, please like me, please let me stay. “You’re not old. Either of you. Or fools. Or slow. I’m very happy to be here. I’m very pleased with everything you’re willing to share with me and how kind you’ve been. I’m sorry that it’s harder for you to explain in Basic. I wish I knew Jedhan. I don’t think I can stay long enough for you to teach me.”

How long can you stay? Baze wants to ask but does not. He knows how important Luke is to the Rebellion, to the new order of things that is slowly sliding into place out there. Even if Bodhi hadn’t told them in a rush of nervous, too fast for anyone but him and Chirrut to follow Jedhan, Baze would have known. It’s in the way that Luke holds himself; it’s in the way the Force clings to him, close, lingering, almost smothering. The Force shouldn’t look that way, shouldn’t feel that way. He wonders if Luke knows that he is inches from drowning.

“I could have brought my translator droid. I didn’t think of it. He can be,” Luke’s face does something that makes Baze smile and he’s sure the next words are an understatement because of it, “a little tiresome. So I thought it would be best to leave him behind.”

“My husband does not lie,” Baze says, deciding to stop Luke before he can manage to carry himself further into anxiousness. “I am not as proficient in Basic as he is, but I make do. It is alright. It is no bother. Some things I just may not explain as well.”

“Still a fool,” Chirrut adds, but he tightens his grip on Baze’s hands to let him know that it is fine, that they are each other’s fools, always have been.

Baze keeps his eyes on Luke as he speaks. “The Whills are not just two people speaking words remembered from texts destroyed. The Whills is a living, breathing thing. It changes and grows like the people it inhabits. We are not the Whills because the Whills cannot be contained like that. You are the Whills now, too. It knows you.”

“I don’t understand.” Luke looks pained all over again.

“I know.” He has no way to make it easier. There are no simple words for this, just a lifetime of learning, just ages of understanding and tradition and beliefs, some of which seem to contradict each other. When he cannot look at Luke’s face any longer, Baze turns back to Chirrut, settles his forehead back in its rightful place, and knows that Chirrut is frowning. He will apologize later.

“Luke, you should meditate with us,” Chirrut says.

“I don’t know how.” It’s the voice of a very young boy, and Baze can see him in the darkness behind his eyes as a youngling, short, small for his age, with eyes too wide for his face and hair as bright as starlight, both hands flesh, unbroken. It makes him feel like weeping.

“That’s fine.” The cadence of Chirrut’s voice is the one he uses with the orphans when he takes them through their lessons, the one he employs when Jyn or Bodhi (or Cassian on his rare visits) are having a rough day and need something, something that Baze despite all his careful listening and infrequent but well-meaning hugs, cannot provide. “Just close your eyes and listen to my voice. Don’t reach for anything. Just feel. This is how we all start.”

“Yes, master.”

Neither of them corrects him. Baze feels Chirrut’s knee dig into his own again even as the warm wet trail of tears begins to course down his face.

“I am one with the Force,” Chirrut begins, and his voice is steady, strong; it does not quake, unlike Baze’s heart inside his chest, which feels like it is rending itself in two.

They would settle on a Force planet. They would have a Jedi come to them. Baze is so scared of failing him the way it seems others have before them. He listens to Chirrut’s voice, though he cannot focus on the words. He just thinks about sunlight reflecting off blue water, clear, clean; you can see straight down to the bottom.

Sometimes Luke says things that make Baze or Chirrut – or both when it is especially odd – chuckle or sigh in frustration, in astonishment at what the Jedi order, linked and yet so far removed from their own beliefs, teaches (perhaps taught is better but Baze still has trouble thinking about it like that, especially when a Jedi stands there, small, young, looking him in the eye and all Baze wants to do is ruffle his hair and tell him it will be alright) in regards to the Force, in regards to how to live and love and stand side by side with it.

“They said my father was supposed to bring balance to the Force,” Luke says one day while he is walking the forests of the planet with them.

They are arm in arm because Baze still doesn’t think Chirrut has their new world mapped out, and he doesn’t quite trust the staff or the echo box or his husband’s senses because of how their new home can tilt and twist and manipulate the Force around them. Chirrut mutters complaints, small arguments about how he is fine, how he can manage himself, but he always relents, and Baze is certain that he enjoys the gesture, the touches, the ability to just be the couple who do things like this together instead of the couple always at war together. It has been a long time since they have known each other during a type of peace, during more good times than bad, and Baze is glad that they still remember how, that the war has not jaded them in ways that make it impossible for them to fit together once it is paused. Baze refuses to believe that it is gone, conflict is never gone; it may change, but it will come again. For some reason, people never seem to learn, not really. He only hopes that they will not live long enough to see it. He would like to raise the orphans and release them into a galaxy still and united, a galaxy imperfect but okay at its heart. One that will not do its best to tear them asunder.

There are some things Baze Malbus knows he cannot live through again.

Chirrut scowls and clicks his tongue, something that Luke learned how to interpret quickly for he is as bright as the flashing waters on Scarif were, but doesn’t say anything, not yet, leaving it for Baze because Baze will be gentler with words.

“The Force is balance,” Baze says and does not add the modifier that he used at the beginning of their time together, that this is what the Whills taught, this is what the Whills did, this is how the Whills understood things because it feels wrong to qualify it this way, and he knows that Luke understands.

Luke who walks with his hands clasped behind his back. Luke who is small and inward-turning, who took weeks to shed away all those layers of fabric so that they could see him properly without a word of explanation as to why he finally felt comfortable enough to do so. Luke who casts long, lingering glances at Bodhi like a man who wants a thing he can never have, a thing that he doesn’t even know how to properly want or hold so he just looks, like a child at a market stall, overwhelmed and captivated and aching with no means to acquire what he’s set on.

(“Another child for you,” Chirrut chided Baze one night shortly after Bodhi brought Luke to them, shortly after Luke agreed to stay, to let them teach him about the Whills and the Force, to try and right some of the wrongs that had been done to him.

“This one. I think this one might be yours,” Baze had said.

Then they spoke of it no more because Baze was busy tracing fingers across Chirrut’s arms and collarbones and then down, down the perfectly maintained and fine muscles of his chest, down, down further until Chirrut shivered and his breath caught and morphed into soft moans.)

As they walk, he and Chirrut side by side, arm in arm, and Luke just a step behind, always polite and cautious and following, he still thinks about how it is true, that Luke was meant more for Chirrut to meet, for Chirrut to guide. The lightsaber, the one Chirrut had reached for the moment he sensed it, the one that Luke hastened to move from his grasp, is left behind, locked and stored on the ship. Baze does not want it near the children or even near Jyn for that matter who would likely attempt to take the contraption apart to figure out how she could make her own. If Luke and Bodhi look at each other with wanting, Jyn looks at Luke with envy, and Baze understands. For everything they did, it was Luke who brought the first Death Star down, and it was Luke who dealt a crushing blow to the Empire itself later.

Jyn would want that. Not the acknowledgment of the Rebellion or the universe so much, not the fame or the glory or her name known because Jyn doesn’t like to hear her name in other people’s mouths. Ever. Too many years spent a secret, too many years spent as a potential causality of the war, a danger. Jyn Erso pauses before giving anyone her name, and Baze can see it, behind her eyes, the way she spins the catalog of people she has been in the past before settling on who she is, who she wants to be. They are not always the same person. He knows that, too. It’s impossible to overlook. It’s a place that he has been over the years as well.

No, Jyn looks at Luke with envy because of the power he holds, the fact that he was able to make such a change, that the universe bequeathed it to him. Jyn shimmers in the Force but darkly, the way that real people do, people burdened with secrets and pain and problems, people who would not always use power for the betterment of the universe if it were placed in their hands. People who could be tempted and may be swayed.

If Jyn had possessed the type of power that Luke has, Baze knows that things in their lives would have been different. Galen Erso would not have fallen. Krennic would have died pooled in rain, all of his pristine, too white clothing ruined, as red with blood as his hands. Jyn would have changed things in her own way. He is not sure whether it would have been better or worse that way. He does not know. Slowly, he is learning not to ask, not to wonder, not to gather all the threads of maybe and never was and could have been and tear them apart under his fretting fingers. There are so many things that need doing, there are so many children to care for, and there is Chirrut, there is their new temple of the Whills, though he can barely let the name roll off his tongue because the Whills is dead; technically, this is something new, a reincarnation, a phoenix, rather than the thing itself. And yet Baze cannot even contemplate the idea of a new name. He is of the Whills, and Chirrut is of the Whills; what else could he ever be? What other name could possibly fit?

Chirrut makes a noise in his throat that means there is more that Baze needs to say, and Baze sighs,. It was never his intention to become the master when this whole thing began or the lecturer. They both know the sutras and the teachings, they both know the duans. They are both receptacles for the knowledge of the Whills, but Chirrut, more and more, seems to place himself in a role that is Guardian over Master when Baze had always assumed that it would be the other way around.

Perhaps it is simply Chirrut knowing what he needs better than he could ever know himself.

Perhaps it is simply that Chirrut reaches into the Force, into his faith, and still feels a lack that he has not completely reconciled with yet. There are nights when he knows that Chirrut still wonders why they did not die when he had committed to that, when he had come to terms with being done. Maybe it is that which stills his tongue. Or, maybe, he just wants to listen to Baze talk, something that they both know has always been one of his favorite pastimes.

What he wants to say is that the Jedi tore the Force apart, ripped it into two parts, imposed a dichotomy that never needed to be there, and look where it got them? He wants to point out how the Force, broken and understood as being light and evil thus became a vehicle for evil. The part of him that is still angry, that will always be angry and hurt and scared, remembering cradling Chirrut in the sands of Scarif and before that, when the temple fell, when his eyesight waned, when everything that Baze had ever known was dashed apart and lost to him forever, wants to point out to Luke how the Jedi took the Force and created themselves, created the Sith in the absence of themselves. How the Jedi doomed themselves and their younglings and the entire galaxy because of their shortsightedness, their inability to properly discern the Force, their unwillingness to listen when the Whills attempted to intervene all those years ago.

Baze Malbus will always be angry somewhere deep down inside of him. There will always be a pit, simmering with rage, that remembers the hurt. The trick is not to linger there anymore. The trick is to forgive and remember that for all the pain, all the loss, there are things that he has gained, wonderful things beyond his imaginings. There is a future for him to raise up; he cannot linger in the past.

And Luke, bright-eyed, starry in the Force, is not the fault for all of this even if he represents a bit of it. Luke has been betrayed by the Jedi as much as any of them. This is not Luke’s fault, and he will not allow himself to take any of that out on him.

“The Force is in all things. It is not light or darkness. It is not that simple. The Force is in all things, and the Force, in its natural state, is balance. And it just is.” Chirrut squeezes Baze’s arm as he speaks as though to impart courage or simply to agree with him. Baze is not quite sure which one it is but he welcomes it either way.

Baze glances over and slightly behind to look at Luke who seems solemn, still, rapt, and this amount of concentration makes his voice falter slightly as he continues. “If the universe is full of hate then that will be reflected in the Force, but it does not mean the Force itself has been corrupted. It means that we have allowed ourselves to become corrupted. One man does not have the power to twist and fold the galaxy, Luke. One man does not decide the fate of the universal energy that resides in everything.”

There is something in the blue of Luke’s eyes that reminds Baze of water, of the sky, of thinking that life was finally over, that he could rest, that the Force would embrace him or regale him, but that he did not have to make attempts and fail anymore. Luke’s eyes are like Scarif. Baze wonders when he will stop thinking of Scarif as a death knell when it was actually a harbinger of hope for the Rebellion. Without Scarif, there would be no Lyra, no clutch of orphans laughing in the distance, no buzzing Force planet with all its ghosts to send them reeling, no Chirrut on his arm, no energy dripping boy dressed up like a man looking at him as though he knows everything when Baze knows that he knows nothing. “That is the secret,” Master Adair said to him, once, long ago, “to know that you know nothing. That there is always so much more. That is the secret, initiate Malbus.”

No human mind can properly comprehend the Force, the massive energies of the universe. The attempt itself is folly, but they better themselves with the quest for knowledge. This is all they can do, this is all they can attempt, shadows on a wall playing at being the real thing. The best that they can do is try to understand by looking for the Force inside and by looking for the Force of others.

“It’s too much of a burden,” he continues, and Luke’s face is different now, relieved, as though he feels seen. “That’s too much of a burden to place on anyone, Luke. I cannot imagine how trapped your father must have felt if that was the destiny they attempted to force on him. Too much for anyone.”

“Too much for you,” Chirrut adds, and they continue walking in silence.

There are several times during the journey back to the settlement when Baze thinks Luke is crying, weeping into his hand that is still flesh and bone instead of the prosthetic one that is always covered with a glove despite the fact that they have told him it is unnecessary, they don’t mind, the orphans won’t mind. Luke said that it was a precaution for the apparatus itself, to help keep the moisture in the air from getting into the delicate gears and making the whole thing seize up. Jyn and Bodhi both offered to fix it, but Luke would not be swayed.

Cassian arrives like he has never been gone and yet also feels like he is never there. The orphans who crowd and cling to both Bodhi and Jyn don’t know what to make of him and the new version of Kay that follows him, tossing sarcastic comments at the other droids. It turns out that Cassian and Luke know each other, their circles overlapping in the Rebellion in ways that Baze would not have anticipated, though this does not make interactions warmer. If anything, it seems to make Jyn even more prickly than normal.

They’re at dinner, Baze and Chirrut seated next to each other at the round table in the main dining hall, the rest of them having left empty seats between as though that will stop things from being awkward. Luke eats slowly, face quiet, hair glowing slightly in the flickering lights. He and Bodhi steal glances at each other across the table that remind Baze of how he and Chirrut were at seventeen. Cassian is tight shouldered, tight-mouthed, his entire body humming with some strange energy that makes Baze think the man has still not slept longer than four hours at a time. He looks at the plates or the table or at Kay who, despite not needing to eat, lingers just behind him, still listing the reasons why their droids are inferior to him.

Jyn is the most active person in the room, her legs propped on the empty chair next to her, ankles crossed, arms crossed, like a gate to keep everyone away. “You’ve been gone awhile.” There’s no need for her to spell out who she’s talking to because it’s apparent.

Chirrut makes a warning noise in his throat as he shows off his chopstick skills, managing to shovel more rice into his mouth with each pass than is courteous, but Baze is too preoccupied to chastise him for it.

“What?” Jyn starts, and Baze can hear the way her voice shifts, as though she wants to lapse into Jedhan but doesn’t because there are guests here. She will never be soft and light and polite, his girl, but she is trying to be courteous. He would not want her to be any other way. Jyn is a riot, and that is needed sometimes, but she is learning not to cut everyone, including herself, with her own sharp edges.

“Perhaps this is not the time,” Baze says.

Jyn looks about two seconds away from putting her feet on the table to fully express her exasperation with the entire situation.

Cassian just seems like he wants to dissolve into the ground, disappear from view, where nothing and no one can find him. More than any of them, Baze thinks, Cassian needs rest. The Rebellion has asked so much of him and given very little. Unlike Luke, he is not seen as a hero. There is too much darkness in the path he’s had to walk, too many deaths, too much blood. When he doesn’t think anyone is looking, Cassian makes motions with his hands that look like they could be washing, as though he’s trying to get something off that no one else can even see.

“You’d think we’d be here more,” Kay says, and Baze puts his chopsticks down and sighs because once this starts, he’s sure it will only end in disaster.

“Stop, Kay.” Said as though Cassian actually expects the droid to listen for once.

“Considering how much he talks about it.”

“Stop.”

“Lyra this.”

Baze imagines that even Chirrut can probably tell how hard Jyn flinches when Kay says the name, and he doesn’t understand why because it’s usually a comfort to her when other people mention it.

Kay, though, continues like nothing has happened. “Lyra that. There’s always the discussion about whether it’s on the way as though it might have moved from being completely out of the way of anything to being right in the middle of everything.” If Kay had a tongue, this is where he would click it, an echo of Chirrut’s own noises. In the absence of one, however, he makes a mechanical noise that more than lives up to the flesh version. “To bring the rest of you up to speed in case you weren’t following along, it’s never on the way.”

“Yes,” Cassian’s voice is tighter than before now, something that Baze didn’t think was even possible, “we get it.”

Luke, who had been having a difficult time with the chopsticks, switches to other silverware and looks around the table, at the tenseness of it, and just smiles as though he knows something no one else knows. Though Baze can see that it is not all mirth, that smile. There’s a keen sadness lurking there, too, a remembering of other tables and other meals, perhaps. Things that are gone now. “Have you ever been to Hoth?” his question is open, but his eyes are on Bodhi. His eyes seem to constantly be on Bodhi; Baze has known that look before, Baze has worn that look before.

“Cold pit,” Jyn remarks with no emotion in the words at all.

“Yes,” Bodhi says in his careful, practiced Basic, slow like he is making sure he’s speaking properly. Most of the time, they all chatter in Jedhan or, on rare occasions, in Bodhi’s family language. Going back to utilizing Basic feels foreign, and Baze wonders if he’s the only one who thinks of being occupied with every syllable uttered. “We were on Hoth. We did some recuperating on Hoth.”

It’s a quiet, polite way to say the Rebellion took them there when they did not die, but Baze remembers Hoth fondly even though it was the beginning of the end of their association with the Rebels. He remembers the snowflakes in Chirrut’s eyelashes, rolling in the crispness of it, the silence of it, the way that it was soft and harsh at the same time, a beautiful, deadly danger. Some of his better recent memories are of Hoth, holding Chirrut’s hand and telling him about the sun on the ice, listening to Chirrut prattle at any of the Rebel soldiers who would come to talk to him. Most of that was Chirrut heaping praise on him, speaking about his husband who had been an integral part of the Scarif retrieval. They healed on Hoth. Baze found himself again, the first handhold of himself at least, on Hoth as though it were a jewel buried in the snow.

“Me too!” Luke perks up at a shared experience even though Baze is surprised anyone would think recuperating anywhere to be a pleasant thing. Though this is Luke, and Baze is quickly learning that normal expectations do not quite apply to him. “I was there with my friends. I guess we missed you. I don’t know how the time frames line up. But I was there with Leia, and Han, and Chewie. It’s funny.” He’s looking down at his food now, stirring it with his utensils but not eating any of it, and his face is glowing. Bodhi looks at him with something like rapture on his face. Luke doesn’t even notice, caught in his tale.

Baze knows, of course, that they did not miss each other, not really. They overlapped, his group and Luke, somehow, because he remembers that bright shimmering in the Force that Chirrut talked of noticing, the one they never tracked down because they were busy with learning how to live again. The funny thing, he thinks, is wondering what would have changed if they had made an effort to find Luke then instead of now, when everything is already over.

Undeterred, not noticing anything out of the ordinary, Luke continues. “It’s funny. I got caught by this snow beast. I think it was going to eat me.” Luke’s story is told in the most blasé manner as though there is nothing out of the ordinary about almost being eaten by a strange creature in the snow. “I got away. Han found me. I was freezing. I’ve been told I was lucky I didn’t die.”

Everyone at the table, Baze thinks, has been lucky not to die.

“Very lucky,” Kay’s voice interjects, and he sounds as bland and judgmental as ever. “Do you know the odds of surviving outside for an extended period of time on Hoth?”

Luke lifts the gloved hand as though waving off Kay’s words. “Never tell me the odds. That’s what Han says. Han found me, and he put me in his tauntaun, and he made sure we got back to the base.” Luke glows like a child reciting good deeds, though the rest of them sit in silence, shock.

Surprisingly since he has been silent during most of the meal, it is Cassian who is first to speak. “Excuse me, but General Solo did what?”

Baze isn’t sure he wants to know the rest of this story, but he puts his chopsticks down for good this time and pushes his food away in case what he thinks might happen actually happens. Chirrut continues eating like nothing is the matter even going so far as to snag Baze’s plate and begin picking the best bits off of it as well. How he manages that without his sight Baze still wonders over even all these years later. Chirrut says it’s the Force; Baze thinks it’s simply because he subconsciously saves the best parts for last for his husband, the product of a lifetime’s worth of behavioral training.

Luke shrugs. “It was cold. The tauntaun was the warmest thing he had. He cut it open and put me inside.”

For a long moment, Baze can look at nothing other than his hands folded on the table.

"Well. That sounds even more ill-advised than most of General Solo's plans." Kay has folded his arms over his chest, looking just as indignant as Jyn.

Cassian simply has his head in his hands, a gesture that reminds Baze of when they were together in Saw’s prison.

“The Force provides aid in mysterious ways,” Chirrut pipes up, having cleaned both their plates of any remaining traces of food, his chopsticks neatly stacked to the left of his place setting. His head is turned toward Luke, tilted, appraising. “It sounds like he did the best he could with what he had.”

“Exactly!” Luke goes from somber to excited in moments, and Baze is still getting used to these switches. “The Force provides.” Luke grins and glows, his hair seeming to catch all the light in the room and reflecting it back, filling the space with something strange and ephemeral.

Jyn glares and pushes her plate away from her. “Sounds disgusting.”

“It wasn’t pleasant, but it worked.”

“We’re all quite glad of that,” Bodhi’s voice is small, wavery instead of controlled, and Baze can see the slight blush high on his cheeks.

“Yes,” Cassian agrees. “Without you, things might have taken a different turn for the Rebellion.”

“That’s not exactly what I meant.”

Kay shifts the way a person might, and Baze is reminded, once again, of how human he seems. Of all the droids that Baze has ever dealt with over the years, Kay is the one that seems the least mechanical. Even though he knows that he is circuit boards and wires, watched Cassian piece parts together, helped him when allowed, Kay seems like he simply inhabits those bodies, that he could inhabit anything, a shred of consciousness that flows from place to place, smarter than he should be, sometimes more human than Cassian even seems. “You could enlighten the rest of us as to your meaning.”

“Kay,” Cassian warns, and the droid seems to visibly sigh as though he simply cannot believe how much he has to stopper himself in order to not be shamed in front of company.

Bodhi’s focus has gone back to his dinner, which he pushes from one side of the plate to the other without eating much of it at all.

Chirrut has started to forage through the leftovers on Jyn’s plate for more tasty morsels, and if they hadn’t confirmed—thrice even—before parting ways with the Rebellion that Chirrut was not hosting a parasitic organism, Baze would be prone to thinking that was the driving force behind his appetite. Though they both know that he has been this way since he was a child, his body burning through fuel almost before he could even put in it his mouth. Jedha had been a hard moon to live on, scarcity a well-known member of the family in every house. Even the Whills sometimes had trouble feeding all the sentients under their care, though only in the lean years, the ones before it all went to ruin. The temple was the richest thing in the city despite the fact that they lived slim. It was only when they were young, initiates up until just turned guardians, that Chirrut had his fill. Until now. Lyra provides well for them, and it is just another sign that helps Baze know they are on the right path.

“You should be grateful for the family meal. It’s so seldom that we get to have them,” Chirrut says between bites.

If Jyn minds the fact that her food has been claimed, she makes no outward sign, her eyes still settled on Cassian. “I wonder why that is.”

Luke nudges his plate forward to join Jyn’s, close enough where Chirrut’s chopsticks will inevitably find it. “I’m surprised no one offered to fix your eyes.” It comes out of nowhere and makes Chirrut’s fingers stop.

Baze settles his face in his hand, blocking the grin that pulls the corner of his mouth up, and watches his husband as Chirrut tilts his ear towards where Luke sits.

Luke who has obviously decided to try and diffuse one tense situation and yet who continues to watch all of them with wide, wonder-filled eyes, like he is glad to be at a table that is half bickering and half silence, like he looks on it fondly. He holds his gloved hand up, flexing the fingers. “They fixed my hand, after all. Fixed might not be the right word, but they replaced it. When I lost it.”

“Lost it?” Kay’s voice makes it sound like he should be lifting an eyebrow up in indignation. “Like a misplaced spanner? You humans should be more careful with your belongings. If I left my hand somewhere, I’d never hear the end of it. Cassian would be unbearable. Even more so than he’s been recently. I’ve had to come up with a new rating scale for him since Scarif.”

Baze winces at the mention.

Chirrut, though, still has his head tilted slightly toward Luke, who has started picking at the ends of his gloves. “It would have been a waste.”

“Hmmm?”

“My eyes,” Chirrut says as though that explains it all before taking pity on a crowd of young people who have not been privy to his awful jokes for their entire lives. “It would have been a waste to fix them or replace them or whatever medical marvels the Rebellion might have done. One smile from Baze would have burned them right out again. He’s like a star. He’s like kyber. You should never stare at any of them for too long. That’s how I lost my eyesight in the first place.”

“It’s not,” Baze corrects, but Chirrut simply waves his chopsticks in his direction before going back to scavenging from Jyn’s plate.

“It is.”

Baze shakes his head, mouthing “no” at Luke while Chirrut eats.

“I can hear you. You’re never quiet enough for me not to hear you. The Force gives you away every time, husband.”

Luke looks transfixed, but Baze isn’t entirely sure which part of Chirrut’s teasing might have struck him so. Knowing the way the Jedi feel about attachments, it could simply be the intimacy inherent in the statements. It’s nothing for them, simple candid banter, not nearly approaching anything embarrassing enough to have made the others bat an eye, but he wonders what it seems like to Luke who, since reaching for the thing that has allowed him to save the universe, has been told that this is a thing he is not supposed to have, not supposed to even want. And then there is the way he looks at Bodhi, like he is a cup full of something he would like to drink.

“The Force is different for you,” Luke says after a moment. “It doesn’t even feel the same around you as it normally does.”

“It’s just the planet,” Jyn adds, and Baze can hear the slight bit of jealousy that lingers in her voice, the envy. No matter how much she meditates with them or trains, no matter how many mantras she learns, the Force stays an arm’s length away from her. Sometimes he thinks that she simply wants it so hard that she has scared it away.

Luke looks over at her. “That’s only the smallest part of it. The Force is more alive here, more alive with you.”

“Maybe we treat it better.” Jyn always clicks her tongue and huffs in frustration when Chirrut tells her what they know of the Jedi, how it differs from the teachings of the Whills.

Luke does not rise to the bait. Instead, he says, “Maybe,” and draws a finger across the table slowly, still focused on Jyn. “You should meet my sister. I think you’d like each other. I could introduce you.”

“I don’t know if I’m welcome in the Rebellion anymore.”

“Technically,” Kay starts, and Baze is certain that he’s going to go into an in-depth explanation of why rebellion is no longer the right word to apply. Fortunately, Cassian puts a hand up to halt him.

Fortunately, it works for once.

Elbows on the table, Cassian leans towards Jyn. “What happened?”

Jyn shrugs, face as impassive as ever, as though this is nothing. Baze has always felt that their connection to the Rebellion was tenuous at best, haphazard. None of them, save Cassian and Kay, are the sort to linger in such an institution once it is no longer necessary, once it is no longer for the greater good. And the Rebellion, even though they are the better option, are not as shiny and clean as their outward face would make them appear. All of them wear the scars to prove that, even Luke. Luke and his prosthetic hand, the real one lost in the middle of a fight for freedom. Hope has a price, Baze knows, and they paid it. Sometimes the Rebellion does not seem to acknowledge this fact.

“Nothing happened,” Jyn says in a tone that belies the fact that something happened but that it was not extraordinary enough to be of note. It’s Jyn. Baze has seen her moods, and he knows that, out of all of them, she is the one the least inclined to settle anywhere. It’s not her fault. She was raised flitting from one life to another, one name to another, expecting that to just change, to just fall away would be foolish.

“If nothing’s happened,” Cassian leans a little closer, and Baze considers suggesting that he might not want to do that, but it’s probably folly trying to convince the captain to do something other than what he’s decided to do, “then you should be more than able to meet Commander Skywalker’s sister.”

Luke holds out his gloved hand. “Please, just. Luke is fine. There’s no need for the formalities.”

Baze thinks that Luke might be a child of war, but he has somehow managed to miss becoming a child of the military system for which he’s become an emblem, a hero. Cassian, on the other hand, is ever formal, deferring to rank whenever he can, especially when he doesn’t personally know someone very well. Luke is more careful about using titles for himself and Chirrut, though, Baze has noticed, and wonders if this is a carryover from the slight Jedi teachings he was given. Baze is sure that it’s true for Luke as much as it is for them that the Force will ever trump the Rebellion.

If Cassian has heard Luke’s protest, however, he gives no sign, his attention remaining fixed on Jyn who is pointedly looking at her fingernails as though anything interesting could possibly be found in them when they are too short, chewed down, and the skin underneath stained with dirt and engine grease that cannot be scrubbed away. “Jyn, what’s happened with the Rebellion?” Cassian asks again even as Kay makes his mechanical disappointed clicking at the word.

Chirrut, Baze notes from the corner of his eye, has finished with Jyn’s plate and moved on to tapping his chopsticks over Luke’s for any favored morsels. Bodhi is the only person at the table who has managed to finish their own meal, though slowly, and Baze has a lifetime of experience to tell him why that might be. On Jedha, especially outside of the Whills, it could be hard to know when you might get to eat again so any meal put down was one that should be finished. Some habits are harder to grow out of than others. When Bodhi first came to stay with them, Baze would heap more and more servings on Bodhi’s plate when it was clean, and Bodhi would empty it each time, never asking him to stop even when the sheer amount of food became too much. Chirrut was the only who finally noticed how lethargic and miserable Bodhi would seem after meals, especially the family dinners, and remarked to Baze how he should stop stuffing the boy. Since then, they’ve come to an easier agreement about it, and Baze will not refill the plate unless he’s asked, which Bodhi has started to become comfortable enough to do. Cassian’s plate has been abandoned, pushed in front of Kay where Chirrut cannot reach it, probably the captain’s way of saving it for later. No one at the table has just a causal relationship with food.

“Nothing,” Jyn says again, and Baze isn’t surprised to see her pull a knife out of one of her many pockets and start spinning it lazily around her fingers.

He sighs. Besides him, Chirrut continues to eat anything within reach, his head tilting this way and that to follow the turbulent flow of the conversation. Even without his sight, Baze is certain that his husband can tell Jyn’s blade is out by the way the lines around his eyes crinkle in amusement. It shouldn’t be amusing, not really, all the ways in which Jyn hides herself, but Baze knows Chirrut is reminded of other things, other people, Baze, himself. In some, there is always a need for secrecy or simply something to do with one’s hands.

Bodhi clears his throat, the sound small enough that it could just be normal but Bodhi isn’t keen on making noises when he doesn’t have to, so they all know there’s a reason for it. “Something might have happened, with the Rebellion,” he says, but in Jedhan, which is how Baze knows it’s bad. Bodhi has been excessively careful to speak only in Basic since Luke’s arrival, doing everything possible to make the young man comfortable.

“Bo,” Jyn says dangerously, and she has stopped spinning the knife.

Cassian’s attention shifts and he pivots himself towards where Bodhi is sitting instead of keeping Jyn under his scrutiny. “Bodhi,” he says, carefully, and there’s more than a small hint of the Rebellion interrogator in his tone, which makes Baze frown at him ever so slightly. Cassian is wary of their signals, however, and the tone drops as he manages to mutter through his Jedhan, “What happened with the Rebellion, Bodhi?”

Baze is not sure what is happening, and one questioning gentle poke to Chirrut’s ribs earns him a shrug, indicating that, for once Chirrut doesn’t know precisely what is happening, either. Jyn and Bodhi have gotten closer since coming to Lyra in a sibling-esque way that seems completely natural for Bodhi to fall into as Baze knows that families on Jedha were always large, rooms full of siblings and cousins so close that they were practically siblings so it’s likely not difficult for Bodhi to just see Jyn as one of his own; yet the attachment seems potentially strange for Jyn, raised as a weapon, as a secret, more than a person, kept at arm’s length always.

“Maybe now is not the time,” Baze interjects in Jedhan because he knows that this could all very easily dissolve into a pile of squabbling that might get loud enough to wake all of the slumbering orphans. Then, he and Chirrut would have to weave their way through the beds, calming and rocking and drying eyes. The children they tend to on Lyra have suffered through wars and fighting and all manner of things that Baze does not like to dwell on. They have more than earned peaceful rest, and he intends to keep it that way. “It’s late for this,” he continues, and then gestures to Luke, who is sitting there with a wavering but still friendly smile, hands folded in front of him on the table, looking wildly lost and only slightly uncomfortable. Probably, they should have warned him. “Also, we have a guest.”

“I don’t care,” Jyn snaps, and her Jedhan is crisp, textbook perfect, harder for Cassian to follow than the rest of theirs, which is comfortable and broken in even if Bodhi’s dialect tends to dip toward different bits of slang than either his or Chirrut’s. “I didn’t invite him.”

“Jyn,” Baze and Chirrut say as one with varying levels of stern. Chirrut manages to outdo him, of course.

Luke does not stop smiling even as he admits, in Basic, “I’m sorry. I really do not understand what’s happening, but I can retire to my tent if that would be better.”

“No, please,” there is something pleading in Bodhi’s voice. “You’re fine, please stay. It’s just a.” He breaks off and wrings his hands as though unsure of how to categorize what is currently unfolding.

Chirrut’s chopsticks scrape across Luke’s plate, loud in the moment of quiet.

“It is simply a family disagreement,” Baze explains in his slow, steady Basic.

That explanation does not seem to calm Luke who twists his hands together and looks pointedly at the table and then up, at the stars spread across the sky, at the canopy of trees rustling slightly in the distance, and Baze thinks that he is probably caught between listening to the hum of them or the din of the Force planet. “It’s not about me, is it?” he asks.

There’s a chorus of “no”s from Bodhi, Chirrut, Baze, and Cassian, a “yes” from Jyn, and a “odds are you’re at least involved” from Kay. Baze puts his face in his hands and tries not to groan even as Chirrut settles one hand on his knee under the table without dropping a single grain of rice. When Luke had arrived, glowing, draped in colors as soft as the sand of Scarif, Baze never imagined that getting through a dinner would be the hardest part of his stay. Where they have managed to extol the virtues of the Whills, while softly pointing out the downfalls of the Jedi teachings, in a gentle, careful way, the simple family dinner has managed to crashland spectacularly. He can feel tense knots gathering in his shoulders and knows that Chirrut will prattle well into the night while he works them out, one by one.

“If you’re having difficulty with the Rebellion, I could say something to my sister. I’m sure she’d be happy to help,” Luke offers as though anything in the world is that simple.

On someone else, Baze might see it as a mark of ignorance, but it feels different on Luke. Luke has been through war, has been right in the thick of it, has lost. The way he offers something, simply, kindly, speaks of who he is at his core, looking for the softer way to remedy a situation, tired of the harsh. Baze has been both men in his time, more and more coming back to the former, his preferred version of himself, Chirrut’s preferred version of him, as well. There is no need, he almost hears in Luke’s words, unsaid, for more fighting. There is no need for more pain.

There is no need for more pain. A lesson that Jyn does not seem to be able to understand. A lesson that Cassian does not seem to be able to accept.

“Thanks,” Jyn says in a way that makes it clear she’s not actually thanking anyone. “But I imagine the princess is a little busier with more important duties at the moment.”

Luke presses his palms together and places them near his chin, a move that Baze imagines he chooses to hide the frown, which doesn’t completely work because of the way the rest of his face, especially his eyes change. Based on how involved Jyn and Cassian are in their own dramatics, however, he doubts they’ll notice. “I think I might be able to guess why you’re having difficulties with the Rebellion.”

“It’s not really an accurate term anymore,” Kay starts but then rolls his eyes and stops speaking immediately as everyone at the table looks his way, Chirrut even making an attempt.

Kay is not wrong. For all intents and purposes, they have won. Well, the Rebellion has won. The Empire has been ground to a standstill and the long process of picking the universe back up and starting again is occurring. Out there anyway. Away from Lyra. Here is just where they send children with no one else to go to, orphans with no family, some not even with worlds to call their own anymore. It is the Rebellion no longer because there is, technically, no longer an opposition, no fascist, power-hungry regime to rebel against, but it is a name that sticks anyway because that is what it was when they were in it, and that is what they have believed themselves to be, and because it is hard to let go of your place in a war when it is over. It is easier to hang onto it and use it as leverage to believe that you were in the right. Baze knows this outcome was the better one for the universe, for the Force, but that knowledge does not make the rest of the knowledge any easier. He has killed, Chirrut has killed. The whole of the universe is bruised and bloodied and hobbling and will be for quite a while yet. Every inch of survival is caked in pain and wounds.

Things are not clean yet. Things may not become clean while he still breathes, but at least he still breathes, at least they all do. That is something.

“I’d like someone to tell me what happened,” Cassian says in his captain voice, which is different from the spy voice or the interrogator voice because it at least allows for a shred of his actual feelings to soak through. Captain Cassian Andor shakes with so much anger, it’s a wonder his body hasn’t blown apart by now. Baze has been that man, too.

Bodhi runs a hand through his hair and looks from Jyn to Cassian and then, longingly and a little despondently at Luke, almost as though he thinks any admissions of guilt in this situation he might have will somehow wreck the prospect of Luke liking him. In a less public place, Baze would very firmly explain to him why that assessment would be wrong. He has seen how Luke looks at Bodhi, and it would take something calamitous indeed to shake it. Still, though, Bodhi worries his hands together and looks at Jyn again, inclines his head just slightly, asking her to take the lead.

Jyn, stubborn beyond all measure, looks away.

Bodhi sighs.

Cassian looks ready to throw his plate into the encroaching darkness of the forest, and Kay moves it, a gesture that makes Baze grateful for the droid.

“I really could go back to my tent. It’s been a lovely evening, but this doesn’t seem to be,” Luke starts, even makes to stand up but never gets to finish because Bodhi sighs again, not his long put out one, but a huff of air that signals he’s done with whatever game Jyn is playing.

It takes quite a lot to get Bodhi to that point. Especially where Jyn is concerned. “We told them they were ruining you and should have released you from duty already. And then when they suggested that Jyn might not know what she was talking about, she might have told most of the higher ranking officials to go fuck themselves. Basically.”

Basically, Baze knows, means that Jyn went on a colorful, terrifying tirade of exactly how and with what said officials could fuck themselves with, probably in the coldest tone of voice possible, which just makes her anger that much more unnerving. Some people run hot, so hot that they could melt planets, and others, well, others run cold enough to freeze anyone in their wake. Some manage both, of which Jyn is one, and those are the people who should be given the widest berth.

Baze thinks he understands now why Jyn showed back up on Lyra, and why she has not made any mention of leaving. Heedlessly rushing to someone else’s defense seems very much like someone else he knows, but not quite as much like Jyn as he would have expected when they first met. It’s rewarding to see how she has grown, the lengths to which she is willing to go for others, even though he thinks that this particular decision might not be the wisest one that she has made. The Rebellion, or whatever it will become now, might not have been anywhere near suitable for Chirrut and himself to make a home in, but it could have been beneficial to Jyn, though now it seems like she has soundly closed that door. On Cassian’s behalf. Yes, that is growth.

Cassian blinks. “Ruining me?” he repeats the phrase as though he doesn’t quite understand what it means, as though they haven’t, all of them, stood in messes of debris, toppled buildings, bombed out homes, gutted streets and known how they were just a physical representation of their own internal landscapes.

“You just let them take whatever they want. Haven’t you given them enough by now, Cassian? They don’t even seem to care that you’re injured, they just keep pushing you along from one assignment to the next and you let them.” Jyn’s voice is rising in pitch, emotions evident in it for once, loud, instead of quietly fuming.

Even Chirrut has stopped eating, his hand on Baze’s knee pressing silent messages into his flesh, and Baze can only nod and swipe a thumb over his hand, try to calm him. It doesn’t take someone strong in the Force to feel the ripples of Jyn’s anger, Cassian’s irritation and confusion. It’s a riptide pulling everything under, threatening to drown. Baze is surprised that the rest of them are able to breathe considering how the combination of the Force heavy planet and Jyn’s kyber necklace are amplifying everything.

Luke has a hand held over his mouth, looking sick to his stomach all of a sudden, and Baze didn’t even stop to think about that. If he and Chirrut are uneasy in the Force presence of what is happening, how must Luke feel?

“I really do not believe this is the time or the place for this,” Baze says, trying to maintain his own equilibrium when it feels like the world is set to pitch out from under them at any moment.

“Did you quit the Rebellion?” Cassian asks, very quiet, very stern.

“Technically,” Kay begins, but Cassian’s hand launching into the air is enough to stop whatever was going to be said next.

“Not now, Kay.” It is the quietest yelling that Baze has ever heard. “Did you quit?” he asks again and the question is softer than Baze would have anticipated considering the frown his face is pulled into, the tension thrumming through every inch of Cassian’s body. That, Baze thinks, cannot be good for the man’s spine, but he says nothing.

“Technically,” Jyn says, casting a look over at K2 as she does so, “I was never officially in their employ. I’ve just stopped deciding to offer them my services.”

Baze cannot decide whether Bodhi looks more pleased or vindicated but either way he doesn’t seem upset by what’s happening. Luke, on the other hand, has taken on a slightly green cast that Baze doesn’t imagine bodes well as far as him keeping down his dinner. Clearing his throat, Baze pats Chirrut’s hand and then stands. Considering he’s lacking his assortment of weapons and cannot yell because of the nearby sleeping orphans, it really seems like the best option if he wants to get the attention of those gathered in the room. “I think we can safely say that dinner has come to a close.”

The fact that Chirrut hasn’t physically climbed over the table to get at Cassian’s abandoned plate is a sure sign that everyone gathered is done eating. The quicker he can break this up, the faster the bottled up energy can dissipate and stop making half of them Force nauseous.

“Please,” Luke manages to say, holding up one hand, trying to smile despite the fact that he is sweaty and pale. “Don’t stop anything on my account. I’m not here to report anyone to the Rebellion or get in the way. That’s not really my place. I just wanted to learn more about the Force and the Whills.”

There’s the sound of Kay’s mechanical neck as it turns. “I’m quite sorry,” only not really, they all know, “to inform you that this is not about you.”

“Oh, I mean.” Luke waves a hand in the air and manages to somehow look even more miserable due to the fact that he is chagrined about being misunderstood. “I realize that. I just. It doesn’t need to be ground to a halt on my behalf.”

Chirrut clears his throat, but he is not smiling. “It would not simply be on your behalf, but I think it would be a good idea nonetheless.”

Baze is pretty certain they’re creating some sort of emotional Force loop that just keeps increasing in intensity. It’s not quite as strong as what drove him to his knees on the ground, sunk him into his own despondency when they first arrived, but it is staggering nonetheless, and he would very much like to lie down. Besides, Jyn and Cassian no longer look ready to trade blows at any moment. Instead, Jyn has turned her chair, and even scooted it closer, a sure sign of the miraculous will of the Force, toward Cassian, and they are speaking to each other rather quietly, though Baze does overhear Cassian saying, “It wasn’t necessary for you to do any of that for me. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

“Only you’re not,” Jyn insists, but Baze knows the look on her face because he and Chirrut have directed it at each other too many times to count over their years together.

It’s not some big, grandstanding proclamation, but he thinks that it is definitely a sign that things are settling where they need to be. Or are at least on the right track for settling. And yet, despite the heaps of support he gives these children who are and are not his own all at once, this is not something that he can work them through, not this time.

“Bodhi,” Baze says, and the man quickly looks at him, rising in the next instant as he figures out what Baze is going to say before he even gets to it. Baze thinks that Bodhi is one of the least impacted by the Force, potentially an aftereffect of what Saw put him through, but it’s good for situations like these where Baze and Chirrut are both almost brought low by the currents. “Would you be able to take Luke to his tent?”

“Of course,” Bodhi says too quickly, moves too fast, almost tripping over himself in the process of getting from his chair to the other side of the table.

“No,” Luke protests weakly, though it’s obvious he doesn’t mean it, would appreciate any assistance provided. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. It’s just.” He breathes out as though that will fix everything.

Baze could have told him that it wouldn’t.

“Everything is just so loud here,” Luke says even as Bodhi wraps an arm around his waist and helps him get to his feet. Bodhi is not a large man, but Luke looks small in comparison, especially the way he hunkers slightly as though the Force will not be able to find him if he evades.

“This, Luke, is what the Whills has always termed to be a Force loop. Something catches and resonates,” Chirrut explains, and Baze knows that he is on edge because he gets straight to the point instead of dragging it out to give Baze the chance to step up as teacher. “With distance, we should be able to disrupt it, hence why it’s a good idea for everyone to part for a bit.”

Baze settles a hand on his husband’s shoulder while Chirrut closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose, enduring. Jyn and Cassian are still tuned in only to each other, talking quietly and more companionably than Baze thinks he has ever observed. Besides Cassian, Kay merely manages to look annoyed and entirely too human.

“How are my inferiors doing?” Kay directs the question at Baze, apparently having given up any hope of Cassian or Jyn acknowledging that he remains next to them.

“You’re welcome to see for yourself, Kay,” Baze offers, unsure what else to do in the given situation.

Huffing like something that possesses lungs, Kay pushes his chair back and slowly sets off into the night, aimed directly for the building where the droids are housed. “I suppose since there’s nothing else to do, I might as well,” he mutters as he goes.

Baze spares a moment to look over the table at the strewn dishes, and he knows that he really ought to gather them up and get them washed and put away, but Chirrut’s shoulder is trembling under his fingers, and his husband’s comfort has always been more important than cleanliness. Though he will try and remember to come back out in a few hours when the severity of the loop has waned to take care of everything.

“Baze,” Chirrut says, just one word, just his name, and Baze is moving again, pulling out his husband’s chair and offering his arm. The air around them is still tight, thick, stagnant, thrumming with too much Force and too much emotion, all of it wrapped and smothering. Even Baze’s head is beginning to throb, and he knows that getting away from it will be the only solution. Still. He cannot help but to pause and look over at where Jyn and Cassian are, talking, animatedly but quietly, neither of them looking like flint, like something that will break but pliable, bending towards each other.

“They will be fine,” Chirrut insists, prodding him in the side with his cane, and Baze can tell by the way Chirrut has closed his eyes and turned off his echo box that it has all become too much for him.

With just one more glance over his shoulder at the two remaining at the table, Baze leads them across the grounds to their own residence, into the darkness where they can relax, where Chirrut can meditate and try to pull the whorled, knotted threads of the Force loop apart while Baze breathes beside him and lends him his strength.

Several hours later, after the pressure has almost completely disappeared, Chirrut tugs at the ends of Baze’s hair until he stirs enough to roll close to him. “Yes, my love?” he asks, voice slow as though drunk, and it has been so long since Baze felt like this, since the early days in the temple when he and Chirrut would drift too far for too long.

“The table is still covered in food and plates,” Chirrut says as though nothing at all abnormal has happened tonight.

Oh, right, Baze had told himself that he would rectify that situation later in the night. Now, though, reminded of it, he wants nothing more to do than hold Chirrut close to him and sleep. “Tomorrow, love.”

Chirrut’s eyes flash in the darkness as well as all of his teeth as he grins, large and wicked. It is a smile that Baze knows well, having seen it so many times over the years.

“Out with it, Chirrut,” Baze mutters, digs one finger gently into Chirrut’s ribs, which makes him squirm closer to Baze instead of further away. In response, Baze drapes an arm over Chirrut’s side, pulls him nearer still, drags a kiss across the top of his head.

“So,” Chirrut says, sounding not at all like someone who was dealing with the intense brunt of a Force feedback loop only hours ago. Baze has always envied his husband’s proclivity for healing. “All of the children are settled.”

Baze is about to insist that, of course, all of the children are settled, they had seen to the orphans before that catastrophe of a dinner, and he’s not heard or felt one of them stir all night, but then he catches on to Chirrut’s meaning, the way his teeth shine in the dark, the teasing tilt of his head. Baze catches on, and something in him warms like standing in the light of the Jedhan sun, or holding Chirrut’s hands while carefully kissing. In his heart, spring has come, everything blooming like a riot, like a crescendo. “Ah,” he murmurs, pulls Chirrut closer still. “Stop eavesdropping and go to bed, you fool.”

Chirrut presses his lips to Baze’s in the sort of gentle kiss that takes no effort at all and yet means everything. “Perhaps there is kyber here,” he says, and Baze only makes a noise and swipes his fingers over his back. “It’s in the strongest of hearts, after all.”

Then, mercifully, he is silent because Baze drags him into longer and deeper kisses. Chest to chest, heart to heart, which beat in time, throughout the dark and into the morning.