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The explosion knocks you back into the dirt. Smoke and ash fill your mouth. Sticks to the back of your throat, stings your eyes. You will yourself to sit up because this time, you tell yourself, it will be different. The ringing in your ears makes you lightheaded, the heat of the billowing smoke gets in the way, but you don’t need to see, you would know these winding streets in the dead of night.
You run.
You don’t have to tell your feet which way to go; you know all the shortcuts, avoiding the white helmets with their flamethrowers. You’ll beat them this time. Your heart pounds twice for every stride you take in the packed dirt, the smoke gradually thins the farther away you get, and they don’t even see when you dart across the main path. Climbing the wall, the familiar chase stars and you’re ready for it. Narrowly missing the jump over the ledge, climbing up to the next roof, higher and higher, until your boot catches on a loose edge. You hear rubble fall, knocking the helmet down with a grunt but you can’t look back, there is nothing there for you anymore. There will be nothing ahead of you either if you don’t get there soon. And warn them.
The burn in your muscles doesn’t come as soon as it did before, but you’re older now, stronger. You’re through the trees by the time it hits and like last time, you push even harder. They’ll still be there. They have to be. You will get there in time. You’re older now, faster. You’re getting close, the taste of hot coals once again thick in your mouth and you try to call their names, to warn them, but your voice doesn’t carry. It’s dry as parchment, singed and black.
The house glows orange from inside and no one is here. No no no. Not again. Where are they? There is nothing left of your mother’s curtains in the summer kitchen. The blue enamel flowers on her pottery blister in the heat and no longer match the embroidery on her linens. You smell the scorch of thornwood as the flames lick along the beds and doorframes.
Eyes burning with smoke, the rubble bites into your knees. They’re gone. Everything is gone. Where are they. Clawing at the gravel, every breath scorches against a raw throat, you wish the flames would swallow you too. The grief that comes is like an old friend.
From some hazy distant place, you hear your name; a gloved hand touches your knee.
In a rush of fear, you don’t look to see who it is, your instinct is to kick it away but your feet feel like they’re stuck in mud and it takes an enormous effort to get away from the looming figure beside you. Wiping the sweat and soot from your eyes, you try to focus on the reflective round head beside you. He’s speaking but you can’t understand the words. Something familiar tugs at your memory but you don’t trust your memory because familiar means grief and heartache and misery. And familiar doesn’t matter anymore because you couldn’t save them.
You never will.
The hand won’t let go; no matter how hard you push on it. Please. Where are they?
In your desperation, your other foot finally connects with a plank of metal so hard you cry out, sitting up, scrambling away.
“You’re okay,” he says again, his hand still on your knee, “it’s just a dream.”
He’d been startled out of a light sleep; the sound of choked sobs echoed from the other side of the hull, filled his stomach with panic. Detecting your frantic pulse and he’d scrambled over to you. A broken name falls from your mouth, a name he doesn’t recognize, sounding slurred like you were underwater. Under the soft light from the panel over your head, sweat and terror shine on your forehead.
“Hey,” his soft voice blankets your senses with calm. “It’s me. You’re okay… you’re okay.”
The voice tugs at your brain again, the blurry figure is still here and your body reacts to his soothing words. You stop struggling and sit up against the wall, hugging your knees to your chest.
The sharp pierce of your own fingernails digging into your palms brings you back to the Crest.
Just a dream.
Face wet, your lungs are no longer burning from ash and dust, they burn from exertion. In your exhaustion, you make out the beskar helmet through wet eyelashes. It was just like all the other ones. The same explosion, the same suffocating panic, the same fire.
Cool air fills your head as you struggle to catch your breath but your muscles droop like lead, you start shaking.
But that’s ok because he’s holding you up.
With his broad chest and sturdy arms. You weren’t alone.
No matter how many times you relive it, you would never get home before they were taken away. You’d never get a chance to say goodbye. You turn your face against the fabric of his worn shirt to quell the hurt in your chest but the piercing shock of fresh grief claws at your throat, your mouth starts trembling unable to stop.
“I tried but I couldn’t get there.” They were innocent. “Why couldn’t they take me instead.”
Stomach heaving, the agony of memories spills down your cheeks. It all comes out. It’s the kind of sobbing that leaves your heart ragged and hollow, as if you were a child, bawling on your knees. You cried for all the things you’d never get to tell them, you cried for the years you didn’t dare let yourself grieve, for the years you’d spent fending for yourself.
There are no words in Basic that comfort demons like this. His other language snags inside his mouth and he almost whispers the mantra he knows for protection. Does it still count if he didn’t say it aloud?
Taking your trembling hand, he places it flat on his chest, holds it there. He feels your fingers curl into his shirt over his heart, clinging to the fabric. Your head sags against his shoulder.
“Hear my heartbeat?” the gentle vibration of his voice curls in your chest. “Just… focus on that.”
He knows dreams like this. He wonders what else you’ve kept hidden for so long. You’d not had a nightmare like this the whole time you’d been flying with him, he would have known if you did. Vicious memories can resurface without warning, but he still finds himself wondering what brought this on.
Your day together had been uneventful, nothing out of the ordinary: a stop for supplies and fuel, a quiet couple of hours at one of the markets. The only uncharacteristic thing that stood out in his memory was when something had caught your attention that afternoon and you’d backtracked down the alley, your eyes on one vendor in particular. Like a pinhole, his memory zeroed in on that little cart where it stood behind everyone else on the corner. Two young girls were selling soft-crusted loaves and baked sweets and you’d dropped enough credits on their table to pay a small army. He’d noticed the looks of awe on their dirty faces when they saw the pile of credits, way more than what the Quinn cakes and spiced rolls were worth. He didn’t understand why you’d decided to purchase the contents of the entire cart, but he’d noticed the tender longing beneath your smile when you crouched down and spoke to the smallest one, pulling a wrapped candy out of your bag and giving it to her.
When you’d rejoined him, arms full on the way back to the crest, you spoke before he could frame a question. There’s a children’s shelter on the other side of town, and I’m going to bring it all there tomorrow before we leave
Something bites painfully into his heart, swallows his stomach whole. His shirt is tear-stained and soaked and your breathing has evened out but he has no intention of letting go of you anytime soon.
He wonders if you were that young. When you got left behind. He wonders if you were as young as he was, by the time everyone you’d loved was dead and gone.
He pulls you closer to his chest, carefully tucks your forehead against the soft fabric of his cowl under the edge of his helmet. You don’t object to the closeness, exhaustion quickly takes over and you curl yourself into him.
“I’m sorry,” your voice scratches, a lonely sob still hitching in your throat, “didn’t mean to wake you-.”
His chest expands under your head; a deep breath crackles through his helmet. The soft brush of his palm on the back of your head, he murmurs. “Don’t be sorry.”
Maybe you won’t remember this in the morning, he thinks, as he reaches over your head and taps the light panel. His visor adjusts to the blanket of darkness and the faint glow of emergency lights. Eventually, he breathes a sigh of relief when his newly emitted readings finally tell him you’re in a deep sleep.
You’re oblivious to how he carefully shifts himself and lifts your knees, bringing your limp body down on the cot with him, giving you a soft place to sleep, cocooned inside his arms.
In your sleep, you’re unaware of how you turn towards his touch when the backs of his fingers trace feather-light along your cheekbone. You don’t know that his breath catches in his throat when a soft contented hum slips from your lips. You don’t hear the whisper of his voice from the modulator. I'm right here.
The soft home-y scent of fresh pastries fills his nose, but that was because the lot of it was currently piled in the Crest’s galley.
He’d go back there tomorrow and buy more.