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Cere awakens to the sound of rainfall. It's strange because she knows Greez closed and sealed the hatch when Cal returned for dinner. He’s determined not to let any of Bogano’s wildlife sneak aboard, as though an Oggdo wouldn’t wake them all up the moment it lumbered up the ramp. So why can she hear...
Ah. Cal.
Worried now, because he’s a proven sleepwalker, Cere gets up. She grabs her robe, a blanket, and heads out. Tepid air cools the Mantis, the sound of rain sharpening now she’s out of her cabin. How long has he been up? Stepping into the galley, Cere finds Cal sat just inside the ship, gazing out at Bogano's rain soaked plains. BD is quiet at his side, ever watchful. Cere fights back the urge to sigh. Not because she hasn’t got to go running out into the night to drag him back, although she is extremely relieved. No, it’s because they came to Bogano for rest, not for Cal to be up at all hours.
“Hi, Cere,” he says without turning. BD-1 greets here with a bounce. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Don’t worry,” she tells him, even if that’s exactly what she’s busy doing. “What’s keeping you up?”
"I…” He trails off. The rain’s hush fills the gap. She waits for him to gather himself. “I miss it." He still hasn’t turned to look at her. "Can you believe it?" He manages a laugh. "I actually miss the sound of rain."
She sees him run a hand over his eyes. Entering in the galley, Cere flicks the kettle on to boil. Rummaging through her tea collection, she fills the teapot with her most soporific blend. If a few cups of calloweyn couldn’t mellow him out, nothing would. "The rain is a peaceful sound," she says.
"It is here," Cal says. "Bracca's rain is an assault. It finds every gap, every weakness, and breaks through. I remember thinking I might drown in all that rain." He shifts, rests his head against the bulkhead. “Prauf said no one managed that in all the years he’d been there. I told him maybe I’d be the first. He laughed at me and said if I did, he’d make sure they named a street after me.”
“Seeing as you’re here, I assume there isn’t a street on Bracca known as Kestis Boulevard,” Cere says. She finds the tea tray and sets it out, ready to load up. “Or were you looking for something grander? Kestis Square?”
“Is a square grander than a boulevard? Whatever. I was thinking more Kestis Corner, home to Bracca’s greatest cantina, but I like the idea of a whole boulevard. There might’ve been one somewhere on Bracca. It’s not like I travelled the whole planet.”
BD-1 tells him he’s worth more than a corner, but if not a boulevard or a square, maybe an avenue instead. Shaking her head at the pair, Cere takes the kettle off boil and fills the teapot, allowing the leaves to swirl and brew. She places it and two cups on the tray and carries it to Cal. She sits next to him, albeit slightly further from the hatch. Raindrops bounce off the ramp, running in rivulets. It falls with a soft roar, singing where it springs off the ship. Cal doesn’t seem to mind being slowly drenched. He hasn’t even thrown a poncho over the sweats he uses as pyjamas. Cere supposes he’s used to it. If Jedi training taught him that discomfort was a necessity of life, Bracca drilled it into the very core of his being. She doesn’t expect to break him of that habit anytime soon.
Although she’s damn well going to try.
“Have you slept at all?” she asks.
“In general, or tonight specifically?”
“Cal.”
“Twenty minutes?” he offers, suitably apologetic.
Cere stirs the pot, willing the leaves to brew faster.
Cal takes her silence as a need for explanation. “Twenty really good minutes though, promise. Total power nap. I slept hard and woke up feeling good to go. Thought I’d stretch my legs. Maybe check in on the boglings.” Maybe he can feel how tense Cere’s shoulders have become, because he quickly adds, “And then I figured running around Bogano at night probably wasn’t my best idea.”
Neither is running around outside in his pyjamas without socks or boots. Cere lets it slide.
Oblivious to Cere’s dismay, Cal continues. “It’s like you said, the rain here is peaceful. It sounds nice. Feels nice. Softer, somehow. Can rain be softer?” BD tells him it can be. “Oh, okay. Anyway, I was gonna go sit under the ship, but Greez would be mad if I got mud everywhere. Figured I’d sit here instead.”
Cere silently thanks Cal’s vague sense of self-preservation for the small mercy it bestowed when he hadn’t gone with his first plan to go for a late-night run across Bogano. Greez will be even more grateful Cal hadn’t opted for plan two. Force, give her the strength to deal with this young man. “You are drinking this tea and going back to bed.” Her tone is sufficiently strict and kind.
And it doesn’t work.
“Cere, you don’t need to worry about me. I’m not tired. Probably won’t sleep again. You don’t need to wait up with me.”
She stares at him. BD-1 giggles in that buzzy, beeping way of his. Betrayed, Cal stares at him. “What? I’m not!”
“I wonder how often you told your creche masters the exact same thing at bedtime,” Cere says, laughing as he tries, and fails, to respond with any kind of grace.
“Jedi can go longer without sleep,” Cal eventually mutters, the tips of his ears distinctly pink.
“They certainly can,” Cere says with masterly serenity. She pours the tea and passes him a cup. “I myself once went three days with no sleep.” And then proceeded to sleep for the better part of an entire day afterward to compensate, much to Master Cordova’s amusement. “Did Master Tapal teach you the techniques?”
“No.” Cal takes the cup, cradling it in his cold hands. Steam rises. “How hard can it be? You just use the Force.”
“Ah, yes, truly the answer to every quandary we face. Use the Force.” She’s suddenly worried he’s going to put it to the test, and she’ll find him awake after an entire week. “You could also use the Force to help you get more sleep. You may be a Jedi, but you’re also Human.”
Turning his back on the rain, Cal stares at her. “Your wise master act won’t work on me.”
Sipping her tea, Cere cocks an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Nope.” He drinks his own tea. Cere silently celebrates. “I am immune.” He turns away, leaning on the bulkhead again. “Immune to wisdom.”
Cere can’t hold in her laughter this time.
After completing a quick scan on the teacup, BD-1 looks to Cere, head cocked. Cere gives him a wink. BD-1 bobs from side to side, his laughter muted. Cal’s completely unaware, staring out at the rain as he drinks his tea. Deciding he’s finished getting wet, BD retreats to Cere’s side and burrows under the blanket she’d brought from her cabin.
Finishing his first cup, Cal reaches for the teapot and refills it. He offers Cere more. She shakes her head. She’s not finished yet. She won’t be anytime soon. “You really don’t have to stay up,” he tells her. “I’m okay. Just can’t lie in bed awake. Feels like a waste of time.”
“Why?” Cere asks. “Late for something?”
“About thirty shifts, yeah.”
This earns Cal a telling off from BD-1.
“I’m joking,” he says. “Promise. Although it does feel weird to have nothing to do.”
“Rest is not nothing,” Cere says.
He smiles sweetly at her. “Maybe you should go and get some.”
Immune indeed. Cere wonders when that soulful, I-am-but-a-mere-child look last worked for him. Probably on some poor sap in the creche. Jaro Tapal wouldn’t have stood for it, and she can’t imagine he dared try and pull anything like it on Bracca. Cere offers Cordova a silent apology for all her teenaged antics. “Maybe I like the rain too,” she tells Cal.
Retreating to his spot at the hatch, he pats the rain-speckled deck next to him, a silent and knowing invitation.
“Maybe I like the rain in theory,” she amends. “From the safety and dryness of an indoor space.”
“Cere – ”
“You’re stuck with me, Cal.” She’s not interested in his protests.
“And if I told you I wanted space?”
“Then you really would’ve gone out into the night.”
Cal groans. Cere smirks. Not so immune after all. And before long, he’s trying and failing to hide his yawns. BD-1 manages to convince Cal to at least come inside and listen to the rain on the hull, telling him the last thing he needs to do is catch a cold. Agreeing, Cal steps inside, closing the hatch. He’s still working on his second cup of tea when he joins Cere on the lounge couch. She offers him the blanket, and, after putting his tea on the table, he accepts. His attention drifts for a moment, the tell-tale sign he’s reading an echo. She wonders what he’s picking up. She’s had that blanket for a while now. It was one of the first things she’d made after…
Well, after.
She’d needed a project, something to do while she pulled the broken parts of herself back together. She’d made the blanket here, aboard the Mantis, during the early days of her and Greez’s partnership. He’d introduced her to the practice, showing her how his great grandma had taught him. She’d lost herself in the method, found a strange kind of peace in its monotony. It was plain beige, the lack of ornamentation a hangover from her Jedi days. Greez mentioned other colours existed, and let it go when she told him beige was fine. Maybe she’d make another one. Brighter this time. Cal needed something that was actually his.
Cal blinks. Says nothing as he reaches for his tea. Cere hopes she didn’t leave anything too revealing in its fabric. He’s not putting out any vibes he’d witnessed something awkward, and he’s not quite practiced enough at schooling his expression into total Jedi neutrality. Not yet. He’s got quite the eyeroll on him, and Cere can only imagine the lectures he would’ve received had he demonstrated it under Master Tapal. No, he’s looking bleary, blinking hard to compensate for the tea’s soothing effect. She watches him cocoon himself in the blanket and finish his tea. He puts the cup on the table and leans back on the couch. The sound of the rain pinging off the hull fills the air. Cere’s feeling the effects of both the tea, the noise, and her own weariness. No matter. She can hold on until Cal’s well and truly resting.
“Refill?” she asks, not that he needs it.
“No, thank you.” Swaddled, eyes closed, Cal looks cosy. He’s swaying, like he can’t quite make up his mind if he wants to lie down or not.
She’d rather he didn’t sleep here. Greez would be up in a few hours and likely wake him. “You’d be more comfortable in bed,” she says. “You can listen to the rain there.”
“Not tired,” Cal insists, this time with his eyes shut.
Time for a new tactic. “I am,” Cere tells him. “And BD, don’t you need a recharge?”
BD-1 oversells it, dramatically stating the dangers of his not staying fully charged. Mostly he seems worried he’ll miss crucial scans or won’t have the opportunity to dive into some long forgotten supply chest. Cal’s eyebrow twitches, and for a moment Cere worries they’ve lost him. Instead, he stands with a hefty sigh and tells BD to start charging, he’ll be there in a minute because now he needs to pee after all that tea.
Satisfied her work here is done, Cere takes her half-finished cup, places it on the tray, and puts Cal’s alongside it. She takes her time carrying it to the galley, worried Cal might fall asleep in the refresher. He doesn’t, and both he and her blanket emerge a few minutes later. He’s blinking heavily, yawning freely. She ushers him back to bed, telling him to keep the blanket when he tries to hand it back. She just throws it over his head. BD-1 laughs from his charging station.
“Cere?” Cal’s head pops free of the blanket, hair messy, eyes closed.
“Yes?”
“Why do I miss Bracca?”
“Home is home, Cal, no matter where it is.”
He hums thoughtfully, the long note trembling. “I’m never going back.”
“No,” she says. “You’re not.”
“‘s nothing there for me.” His words run together.
“No, not anymore,” Cere says.
“Yeah,” he says, rolling onto his side, back to Cere. “I still miss the rain.”
“I know,” she says.
He offers a sleepy grunt of acknowledgment.
“Sleep well,” she tells him, even though he’s already dropped off.
Wishing BD-1 a good night, Cere heads out, returning to her cabin. She slips inside, sleep calling to her. She slips out of her robe and sits on her bed. Her tea works its magic, and she can’t resist. She climbs into bed and closes her eyes. Cal’s safe, tucked up and finally getting the rest he needs. Cere finally allows the sound of rain to carry her off.