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Bo-Katan did not know how much time had passed.
Sometimes it felt like a day. Sometimes it felt like a decade. She hadn’t had a coherent grasp of time since that awful day - the day she lost her sister, and lost her nephew, and her entire world, both physical and personal, collapsed in on itself - and she doubted said grasp was coming back for a while.
She’d been found a few hours after her fight with Korkie by one of her women, one of the Nite Owls who had remained loyal to her even in her departure from Death Watch. Apparently she’d passed out while holding onto Satine. Brigit had thought she was dead.
Bo decided against telling her that she wished she was.
The days, if it had been days, were all blurring into one. She barely slept. When she did there were nightmares. Of Pre and the things he’d done to her. Of Satine. Of her death. Of what Korkie said to her.
She had no right to be upset by what he said. He was right. It still stung.
But she couldn’t sleep, because there were nightmares, and there was no Satine to comfort her after them.
And she was so tired, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.
She should be doing more, she thought. She should be out there looking for Maul. She should take him down for what he did to Satine. Or die trying. Maybe she should die trying.
Regardless, she would try. Eventually. Just as soon as she was able to distinguish one moment from the next.
If that ever came.
She was curled up on a chair, in front of a dwindling fire that she had no energy to attend to. The blanket over her legs was Satine’s. It was the one thing from home that Bo had brought with her, and kept with her all the years since their separation. She’d even managed to acquire a vial of Satine’s favourite perfume, and she’d cover the blanket in a few spritz of it whenever it lost her sister’s scent.
She ran a hand through the blanket and brought it up to her face to inhale that scent as deeply as she could. Miss you, vod. Maybe I’ll see you soon.
Bo hadn’t seen a soul since Brigit had left her. She’d made it clear that she was to be left alone until her say-so. No one was to disturb her. Not with news, not with condolences, not with anything.
So imagine her surprise when there was a knock at the door.
She almost ignored it. But whoever it was knocked again. And then a voice came through the door too.
“Bo-Katan?”
Korkie?
What the hell was he doing out this late? Bo-Katan didn’t know a lot, but she knew it was night. It was too cold and dark to be day.
Bo jumped up and moved to the door at a speed she didn’t think herself capable of anymore. She opened the door up to find her nephew stood, with a bag slung over his shoulder, shivering in the cold.
“Korkie-” she breathed out, unable to continue to ask him anything before he cut her off.
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Bo, I was really horrid to you and I shouldn’t have been. Auntie Satine would’ve hated that, I know she would’ve just wanted us to be there for each other, I was just hurting and I lashed out at you and it was wrong and I’m—” the boy’s breaths were ragged. Bo wondered if he’d ran all the way here. She looked over his shoulder. Looked like no one had followed him. She couldn’t take the risk, though, neither of them could.
“Shh. Don’t worry about that right now.” She told him softly, putting a hand on his arm.
“But I—”
“I know, Korkie. We can talk in a moment. Just come in. It’s freezing out.” She guided her nephew through the door, closing and locking it behind them. She hadn’t locked it since she’d set foot in the building. She hadn’t cared about her safety like she cared about Korkie’s. “Come on. Sit down.” She guided him towards a table and chair set, lowering him into one of the chairs. She went back over to where she’d been sitting moments earlier, grabbed for the blanket, and placed it around Korkie’s shoulders as she returned to him. “There you go. Get warm.”
Korkie was shivering. He grabbed at the blanket and pulled it tightly around himself. He relaxed, and Bo wondered whether he’d caught the scent of Satine’s perfume on it. “What are you doing out at this time of night?”
“I fought with Tala and Jafan.” Korkie’s parents. Or, at least, the people who were supposed to have raised him. Did a pretty shoddy job of it, if you asked Bo-Katan. There was a reason Korkie spent most of his time with his “Auntie”. A reason he only ever used their given names, not titles like Mum or Dad or buir . “Can I stay with you?”
Bo blinked. With her?
“I— manda, Korkie, of course you can. If you’re okay with that I mean.”
“I just can’t be in that house anymore. They’re awful.”
Bo realised he’d come to her because he couldn’t go to Satine anymore. It was simultaneously a hammer and a hug to her heart. Because stars, it hurt that Satine wasn’t there anymore. But he chose to come to her. To her. Even after their fight. Even after she caused Satine’s death. He came to her.
“Did they hurt you?” Of course that was her first concern. It always would be. Call it trust issues, a trauma response, personal experience, whatever. That would always be her first worry. She breathed a small sigh of relief when Korkie shook his head.
“No. They’ve never been like that.” He didn’t say more. Bo frowned gently.
“Did you want to talk about it?”
“I… I don’t know.”
She smiled sadly and rubbed his arm.
“That’s alright. Talk when you’re ready. Have you eaten?” Korkie shook his head again. “Well you wait here. Keep getting warm. I’m gonna get you something to eat and a hot drink okay?”
“I’m not really hungry.”
Bo hummed. She stood anyway and walked to the kitchen, warming up a ration of food while she made him a drink. She found herself, by instinct, making it the way Satine would’ve had it. She hoped that was right.
She returned with both and set them in front of Korkie. As she suspected, as soon as the food was in front of him, he started to bolt it down. The colour was returning to his cheeks, and he’d stopped shivering. Bo took both as a good sign. She sat with him in silence, not wanting to press him or cause another row.
“They said really horrible things about her.” Korkie’s words shattered the silence as he finished his meal. Bo let out a hum of confusion, prompting him to clarify. “Tala and Jafan. They spoke awfully about her.”
“… About Satine?” Bo could barely get the words out. She felt her stomach twist. She knew as well as anyone how much it fucking sucked to hear people speak so dreadfully about someone who really did not deserve it. Korkie nodded.
“It’s like they completely turned on her. Or like they only used her for her title and now she’s gone they can speak freely about her. But they were so horrible. I don’t want anything more to do with them, not after everything they said.” He picked up the drink Bo made for him and took a long sip. Then he turned his eyes to her. “They said things about you, too.”
Bo chewed her lip.
“Oh.”
“I think they still believe you’re my biological mother.” Bo wasn’t, and she’d told Korkie as such. It was what most of Mandalore believed. Most of Mandalore also believed her - the Lady Bo-Katan, sister to the Duchess - to be dead, though. That was better than letting the people believe she’d been an integral part to the group that had terrorised them all for so long. That would have to change. She knew that. She just wasn’t ready to face anyone yet, other than the boy in front of her. “They were saying all these horrid things about you. And it made me so angry . And then I realised what they were saying was just as bad as what I’d said to you. And I started to feel awful. I never should’ve spoken to you like that, Bo. I really am sorry, there’s no excuse for it.”
“No, there is. You’d just gone through your first major loss and you were hurting. And you’re a Kryze. Anger is how we cope with those things.” Bo chuckled sadly. Korkie did the same. “If we don’t get angry we shut down.” That was what had happened to her, she realised. She sighed. “It’s alright Korkie. I forgive you. And you were right, anyway.”
“No. I wasn’t. I absolutely wasn’t. And I don’t want you thinking I was. It wasn’t your fault at all, of course you tried to help.” A small lapse of silence. “Ben was here, wasn’t he? Her Jedi? And he couldn’t help either, could he?”
Of course Korkie knew Kenobi as Ben. That was what Bo had known him as, before finding out his real identity. Bo wondered if Korkie would ever find out Kenobi’s real identity… or his connection to the Jedi. She swallowed.
“No. He couldn’t.” She thought that Kenobi might be the one person, other than Korkie, who shared and understood her pain. She wondered, for a moment, how he was doing. “We both tried.”
“I know.” He looked over to her again and studied her. “You look tired.”
Bo laughed, a teary, tired laugh. She brought a hand to her eyes and caught a tear before it could fall.
“Yeah, well, I haven’t been sleeping all that good.”
Korkie looked at her for a moment longer before shrugging the blanket from his shoulders and draping it over Bo’s instead, his hands lingering on her shoulders.
“You look like you could use this more than me.”
Another teary laugh from Bo.
“Kid, I’m meant to be the one taking care of you.”
“ Aliit takes care of each other. It’s a two-way thing, Bo.” There was a light tease in Korkie’s voice. Aliit. Bo’s heart stopped, for just a moment. From never wanting to see her again, to calling her aliit. He saw her as family? Despite everything?
She smiled thinly - that being the best smile she could muster - and placed a hand over his. Korkie entwined their fingers together. “I’m going to guess you haven’t eaten either.”
Bo shrugged and looked down. Korkie sighed. “Well, I’m going to get you something to eat. Kitchen’s just through there, right?”
“Korkie, I’m—”
“Don’t try to tell me you’re fine. You’re not.” For a split second, Bo heard Satine, not Korkie. She looked back up at him. “I’ll get you something to eat, then I think the both of us could do with some sleep.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Bo agreed softly, no strength in her to fight against it. Korkie stood, headed across the room in the direction of the kitchen. Bo looked down again, playing with the blanket again. She tried to pretend the feeling of the blanket around her shoulders was actually the feeling of her sister’s arms around her. It didn’t work. She sighed, bringing her knees up to her chest.
“Auntie?”
Korkie’s voice, and what he said, startled Bo. Considering her family was one thing. But giving her the honour of bestowing that title on her? That, she never saw coming. Her head snapped up, and she saw him stood at the doorway, clearly having stopped to turn to face her again. She tried to hide the surprise she felt from her eyes, and from her voice.
“Yeah, kid?”
“Thank you. For letting me stay.”
Bo smiled. This one, she thought, felt a little more genuine.
“It’s alright, ad’ika. You always have a home here.”
Korkie smiled back and disappeared into the kitchen.
Bo pulled the blanket around herself tighter. She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent. Now, she thought, she could pretend Satine was holding her; she could’ve sworn she felt her presence.
I’ll look after him, Sat’ika. I promise. I won’t fail you this time.