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every night...
When it gets dark, he doesn’t expect to hear the sound of his Para-RAID synchronizing. If it does, he knows that it won’t be her voice that he hears coming through it – knows he’ll never hear that voice again, and so he doesn’t think about it. Focuses all his attention on reading instead. Because even if he wanted to call her, she’d be too far away to answer.
So he doesn’t.
when he hears the Legion...
Which is always, he knows they’re massing for an attack, and he doesn’t wonder whether she’ll survive it – whether she’s taken his advice and run away.
She won’t.
She hasn’t.
She wouldn’t.
So instead he thinks about how he’ll survive.
Even though he can barely see the point anymore.
after the first wave of the large-scale offensive...
He doesn’t picture her face. He’s never seen her, so he can’t. Wouldn’t know where to start and won’t bother trying because he knows the best thing that can happen to it now is a bullet hole appearing in the direct center of its forehead.
He knows she wouldn’t do that. Wouldn’t give up until the very end.
So he especially doesn’t think about what her last words might be.
Whether he’ll start hearing another Legion calling out to him.
at breakfast...
Kurena says that she wouldn’t turn tail and run.
He pretends he hasn’t heard it.
He can’t pretend not to hear the Legion swarming the Republic. So he won’t think of her. It wouldn’t matter if he did – the Republic could never have prepared for the large-scale offensive. He knows that.
Without having to think about it, he already knows she’s dead.
spearhead…
He hears the general say that word and, for a moment, he can’t stop himself from thinking about her. Lets her ghost haunt him. For just that moment, he lets himself admit part of the truth: he didn’t want her to die. He wanted her to do for him what he had for so many others – to carry him on ahead with her.
To not leave him behind.
after he’s defeated the morpho...
He knows it’s not her running toward his Juggernaut across the lycoris field.
It’d be too much to hope for, so he doesn’t bother hoping.
In his mind, she’s already rotting with the rest of his friends.
In his world, hope isn’t a thing that exists at all.
but then…
She tells him her name and he knows it can’t be a dream. His body hurts too much for that. She’s really here. She’s really speaking to him again. She’s really alive.
and so…
He finally lets himself admit it. Because it’s not a dream. Because it’s not hopeless anymore.
She says she’s been following their path, but he knows now that, for all the distance he’s traveled, he really hasn’t gone anywhere at all.
that…
The truth is, he was thinking of her all the time.