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When he got home and the house was dark, he knew what he’d hear even before he called out, “Bee? Where’s Bix?”
“L-l-left,” the little droid said from his charging station. “S-s-sorry.”
“Not your fault, Bee. I’ll go get her.” He ran a hand over the top of the old droid’s casing. "Any idea where?”
“Sh-she just s-said out.”
“Right.” He’d barely started calculating where she might have gone when the house comm buzzed. With a mix of relief and dread, he answered.
“Brasso, right? This is Cal at the Doktam’s Head. Come get your girl.”
“Right,” he said. “On my way. I’m sor - ”
The click sounded in his ears. He put the comm away with a sigh. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to living somewhere that everyone he spoke to hadn’t known him for decades.
He had some tenuous goodwill built up, from his job. It wasn’t hard for a man built like a brick shithouse to find work. It wasn’t salvaging; they didn’t do that here. He missed it sometimes, the careful and patient work in the wreckage of old ships, finding what was still good. But that was back on Ferrix and he wasn’t there anymore, and he should remember that.
His new job was at the docks, loading and unloading, but he’d always learned fast and he was willing to work hard. So the other dock workers said, “Brasso’s a good sort. Quiet. That girl of his, though … ”
Bix was not doing well.
Sometimes he thought he’d like to go back to when she would lie, catatonic, in the bed under the window, staring out at the sea birds wheeling over the shore. Even the nightmares, he knew how to handle - just hold her and let her feel the warmth of another body against hers, the pressure of his arms grounding her until she remembered that she wasn’t in that hotel room in Ferrix, with … whatever it was they’d done to her.
She’d never talked about it.
The screaming wouldn’t always stop right away, but it worked eventually.
This new phase, though …
Often it was drink. Sometimes it was spice. Sometimes she would just disappear and he’d scan the shore for her body, his heart in his mouth, for a day or two before she turned up, refusing to tell him where she’d gone to.
“You’re a good lad, Brasso,” Jezzi had told him before she left.
“Lad?” he’d said. “I’m pushing forty.”
“And I’ve seen it come and go,” she shot back. “What’s your point?” She’d turned serious again. “Those bastard Imperials broke something in our Bix. And it’s not your job to put it back together again. You can’t do it, and that’s a fact. Only Bixy can. And only she knows if it’s possible.”
“I’m not trying to do it for her,” he said. “I’m just trying to be here.”
“She’s not your father,” Jezzi had said. “And she’s not Cassian Andor. Being here isn’t going to fix her. You need to know that.”
“I do know that,” he’d said very, very evenly.
“Do you?”
He did his best. He scanned junk stores for the kind of things Bix had repaired back on Ferrix and left them on the table. He scraped together money to take her to the kind of doctors Gangi Moon offered. He scraped harder for the medications they prescribed and tried to make her take them.
She sometimes fixed the things. Sometimes she destroyed them. Sometimes both.
She went to the doctors and refused to talk. She only wanted the sleeping tabs, and she wanted those more often than he was comfortable with.
The Doktam’s Head was about the only watering hole that hadn’t barred Bix already, and he had a feeling that was about to change. It was a shitty little box of a place with shitty alcohol, but even they had their limits.
She was slouched in a booth toward the back, head lolling back into the corner made by the booth and the wall. There was a smudge of blood under her nose and a puffy red mark on her cheekbone. On the table was a mug lying on its side, and the puddle next to it smelled of spotchka, the cheapest thing you could get around here.
At least she was inside, not crumpled in the gutter. It would have been heartening if there hadn’t been people scattered around the bar, nursing bruises and glaring at him.
“Bix,” he said. “Hey."
She didn’t respond.
"Bixy?” He rapped the table.
Nothing.
Cautiously, he shook her shoulder. Touching her without prior warning was how Wilmon had gotten his nose broken. Poor kid. He hadn’t held it against her, mostly.
But she still didn’t move.
“Did she take something?” he demanded of the bartender, presumably Cal, who’d wandered over to look on.
He shrugged. “How should I know?”
Brasso sighed through his nose and tugged one side of her shirt open. Shifting to block the bartender’s view of her chest, he rubbed his knuckles hard along her sternum.
She coughed, and her face crumpled. She swatted at his hand. “Stoppit.”
“Bix,” he said, pulling her shirt closed again. “You’ve got to get up.”
Her eyes peeled open and she glared at him. That was a good sign. It was more worrisome when her eyes were empty, as if all her Bix-ness had just rolled itself into a ball somewhere deep inside. “Don’t want to.”
“I know. But you’ve got to.” He checked her eyes, confirmed the pupils were the same size, and got an arm around her back. He half-helped, half-hauled her out of the booth.
“She can’t come back,” Cal said.
“Okay,” he said, trying to get her on her feet.
“Hear me? And you owe - ”
“Tell your boss to talk to me tomorrow.” The last time he’d paid Cal off, none of it had made it to the owner of the bar.
“No, now.”
Brasso straightened himself up to his full height, still holding Bix against his side, and glared down at Cal.
“Tomorrow’s fine,” Cal muttered.
“Wan’nother drink,” Bix said.
“No,” Brasso said, and took her out.
It was tempting to heave her up on his back, but the walk to their rented house in the cold air might work some of the drink out of her system. It was slow going, but by the time they reached their street, both her eyes were open at the same time and she was moving under her own power. Even if she was swearing at him as she did.
“I just wanted a damn drink. That’s all. Didn’t need you playing savior.”
“You got in a fight.”
“Some ass wouldn’t leave me alone. And he had friends.”
He stopped walking. “He touch you?”
“Only once,” she said with a certain grim satisfaction.
He let out his breath and started moving again. “Was it the bartender?”
“Nah. Some shithead.”
“You’re out of there, you know,” he said. “Banned.”
“I heard him.”
They made their slow way almost to their door. He stopped because if they had this talk inside, it would distress Bee.
“Bixy,” he said. “You can’t keep doing this. Drinking and drugging and fighting. I know you’re in a bad place, but you’re not making it any better. What would Cassian think, huh?”
“Cassian’s not coming,” she spat.
It shocked him into silence. He’d known that. Almost since the moment his old friend stepped off the ship before they left Ferrix, he’d known that.
He just hadn’t known Bix did.
“Bixy,” he said gently.
“Don’t call me that. It makes me feel like a damn child.”
“Well, then, stop acting like a child!” Almost before the roar had died away, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry. That was - I shouldn’t’ve shouted.”
“Don’t apologize,” she said. “It’s what you think. Poor little broken Bixy. Aren’t you the big strong man, hanging around to pick up the pieces.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Isn’t it? Then leave. Go on,” she snarled. “Leave. Everyone else did.”
“Cassian … was going through a lot.”
“Aren’t we all,” she said bitterly.
He persisted. “Wilmon joined the Rebels. And Jezzi wanted to go back home. It had nothing to do with you. Is that what you want? You want to go back home?”
She went pale.
Another sin to be added to the Imperial Bastards’ tabs. They’d taken Ferrix away from Bix, who could count six or seven generations on the wall and now couldn’t even think of the planet without folding in on herself.
He wasn’t so sure he could go back himself, even if he wasn’t probably wanted for his part in the riot at Maarva’s funeral. The Empire had cracked down after that. There were stories of hangings on Rix Road, interrogations, imprisonments. And they hadn’t let anyone who’d died in the riot get a proper funeral.
Someone said the Empire had demolished the wall. But that couldn’t be right.
He shook himself. This was no time for a spat. Bix was drunk and miserable. In the morning, she’d be … probably still miserable, but probably not drunk.
“Come inside, Bixy.”
She shook her head. “And don’t call me that.”
“You need to sleep it off.”
“I can sleep it off out here.”
“You’ll freeze to death out here.”
“Fine by me.”
“You don’t mean that, Bixy.”
“Don’t tell me what I mean,” she snarled. “And stop calling me Bixy.”
“Everyone called you that for fifteen years,” he said. “It’s a habit.” For some reason, he added, “Bixy.”
“Call me that again. See what happens. Go on.”
He leaned forward until their noses brushed. “Bixy,” he said.
She grabbed the front of his shirt and slammed her lips on his.
She tasted of shitty alcohol and blood, and she kissed him hard enough to grind his lips against his teeth until his own blood sprang bright in his mouth. But he forced himself to stay still, hands dangling at his sides, until she dropped back on her heels and glared up at him.
“Is this it, then?” he said softly. “The next cudgel you’re going to use to beat yourself until you feel something?”
“Go fuck yourself,” she snarled, and slammed the door open so hard it stuck.
Bee said, “B-bix? B-brasso w-went to look f-for you.”
“He found me. I’m going to bed.”
Brasso stepped inside. “I’m here, Bee, it’s fine.”
“Sh-she’s an-gry.”
“At him!” she yelled from behind the curtain around her bed. “Not you.” The bed creaked as if she’d thrown herself on it.
Bee didn’t say anything else, but swiveled his head until his single eye peered at Brasso.
“It’ll be all right,” he said quietly. “She’ll pull through.”
He examined the door, found it had bounced off the track, and pushed it until it clicked back and creaked closed. Then he leaned back against it with a heavy sigh, wishing with all his heart that he hadn’t wanted to kiss her back.
FINIS