Archive of Our Own

Try your best to slowly withdraw
From the darkest impulses of your heart
Try your best to feel and receive
Your body is a blade that cuts a path from day to day

...

..

.

Merrin has spent much of her life accustomed to the cold and the darkness. On Dathomir, nights were dangerous and chilled, even moreso when her sisters were no longer there to shelter her from the worst of it. In the vacuum of space, she has often found herself without the radiance of a sun nearby to pull the chill from her bones. 

The Mantis was warmer than most ships, though Cere told her it probably had more to do with sheltering more bodies than its design intended and less to do with its build or shape. But even Cere did not have it completely right — the warmth on the Mantis was due to Cal Kestis. He would bring her blankets, or hot soup from Greez. After a while, the warmth would come from him sitting next to her and leaning close to whisper a joke or share a story from his days as a scrapper. 

But even more than that, Cal’s warmth came from within. He thrummed with the Force, as unfamiliar as his techniques for wielding it remain to Merrin. For so long, all Merrin had known was the empty void that her sisters left behind, and the aching tear that Malicos felt like. Cere felt like water, steady and cool. Cal was fire, a burning star.

And fire he remains.

She doesn’t bother to tell him this now, huddled in a strange cave in the middle of a Jedha sandstorm with his arm around her shoulders and her head nestled into his neck, close enough to feel every breath he takes. She has already used one fire metaphor with him today, another would probably pull a teasing joke or two from him about her lack of creativity. 

Sleep has never come easy to her, but with him so close after so long, she is tempted to drift away, lulled by the sensation of his body pressed against hers. She’s never felt peace like this in the arms of anyone else. Not even Fret, for the short time she’d had her.

“Careful, or I might start to think you’re relaxed,” Cal murmurs, voice low and amused. His fingers are drawing nonsensical patterns on her shoulder. It’s a comforting motion.

“Hypocrite,” Merrin throws back. “You sound more relaxed than me.”

There's a moment, a hesitation before Cal's next words that wouldn't have been there before the messy business with the Haxion Brood, before Merrin left Cal behind to see the galaxy through her eyes and hers alone. For the slightest moment, Merrin longs for the ease with which conversation once flowed between them, before baggage and hurt brought the river of their words to a halt.

“I haven’t felt this calm in years,” Cal admits, finally.

“I have that effect on people,” Merrin deadpans, drawing a small laugh out of her companion. “Or maybe it’s just you.”

Ah, but even with the weight of unsaid words and lost time, it is so easy to tease him again, to slot right in at his side and feel like she's home. It's almost frightening, she muses, how natural having him close is. 

It's frightening, an intrusive thought sounds, because he is not just an old shipmate or friend. He is more.

“Definitely just me,” Cal replies with a snort, bringing her back to the present. She can feel him smiling into her hair as he turns and presses a light kiss on the crest of her head. “Greez still talks about you like you belong in a ghost story.”

Some things never change.

“Good,” she says. “I like it when people are scared of me.” A thought strikes her, and she sits up, turning towards him. His arm falls, settling by her waist, hand flat on the floor. “Are you scared of me now, Cal Kestis?”

She cannot remember him ever truly being frightened of her, save the very first time they met when she wore a hood and resurrected the bodies of her lost sisters to destroy him. Every other encounter they had before she joined his crew, he looked at her with compassion, not fear. He spoke to her as if she were just another person he had stumbled across, if only a little more cautious with his words.

At first, it had exasperated her. Then, it had aroused her curiosity (and perhaps other parts of her she will not put to words).

Now, she cherishes it. So many in the galaxy fear those they do not know or understand. Cal Kestis has always been kinder than that, genuine and curious in a way she imagines Jedi were always supposed to be before the Clone Wars mutated them into weapons. 

“Not the way most are,” he responds. “But you know that.”

“How do I scare you, then?” she asks. Cal arches a brow.

“What if I told you most Jedi my age would be terrified of a pretty girl?” he asks sardonically.

Merrin ignores the childish way her heart skips a beat at the compliment. “Does my beauty intimidate you?” she asks.

“Of course,” Cal replies with a smile, not looking at all intimidated. A few years ago, he would have blushed as red as the skies of Dathomir. This new, teasing Cal is a welcome change. Confidence suits him. “And you know it, which makes you even more dangerous.”

“Even after all these years apart?” Merrin presses. Something shifts in the air, then. She can see the moment Cal registers how serious she is.

“Merrin,” Cal says firmly, uncanny in the way he can sense her unease and immediately seek to soothe it. He’s always read her so well. “I was upset when you left, yes. But only because I always want you near. That hasn’t changed. And it won’t change, no matter where your travels take you.” He hesitates, then adds, “And you’ll always be pretty.”

The sentiment is so achingly sweet that Merrin considers kissing him. She has wanted to for a while now. And his face is so close, it would be so easy.

But she doesn’t. Not yet, at least. Not until Cal is ready; for now the Force ebbs and flows around him with too much confusion and fear. They might fit together like old times, but they have still changed. They are not in old times anymore. Whatever is between them going forward will be something new, as they are new.

Still, though, she leans in and lets her hand reach up to gently caress his cheek.

“Then it is good I am near now, yes?” she asks softly. Cal nods, eyes a little wide. “Sleep, Jedi,” she instructs, pulling back. “I will take first watch.”

Behind her, BD-1 whirs grumpily.

“The droid will too, I suppose.”

BD-1 trills a series of beeps that sound suspiciously like a compliment.

A strange sense of ease fills Merrin as she sets foot inside the Mantis for the first time in years. Cal has kept much of it the same, if a little less full of greenery than when Greez was in control. Greez is at the kitchen counter, chopping up vegetables to make Merrin a stew because, as he says, “You need to eat more. Even witches need good grub!” 

The ship smells of disinfectant. She wonders how much notice Cal gave Greez of her arrival. judging from how fresh the scent is, not enough.

She feels his eyes on her as soon as they jump to hyperspace. She has always been attuned to Cal Kestis’ attention. In the old days, he wouldn’t try to hide his curious gaze, and she had enjoyed his genuine attention, so open and honest and different from what she had grown accustomed to. Now, however, when she looks back at him, he averts his eyes.

The cave had felt akin to a dream. Now, here, they are in reality together.

Distance has had its effect on him. Very well. She will allow him his space, if he requires it. Plenty of space to be had in, well, space.

Greez, more perceptive than he lets on, notices the awkward exchange and gives Merrin a curious look, which she ignores in favor of wandering to Cal’s collection of old items. She picks up his headphones with a small smile, remembering a quiet night what seems now like a lifetime ago when he had told her to close her eyes and listen to his music.

“There’s some new songs on there, if you’re ever bored,” Cal says from behind her. “There’s a DJ at Greez’s cantina, she added them for me.”

Merrin eyes the dust that has collected on the headphones. “And in your gratitude, you elected to ignore them?”

Cal blinks. “Huh. I guess I haven’t had much time for music lately.”

“That’s a lie,” Greez pipes up from the kitchen. “You and Bode just like to sit in silence in hyperspace.”

“Brooding?” Merrin guesses. Cal rolls his eyes, and she smiles. “You are predictable as ever, Jedi.”

“And you are cruel as ever, Nightsister,” he throws back, offering her the headphones. “Here, pick a song you like, and I’ll request it when we get to Koboh.”

Merrin arches a brow. “Request it for what?”

Cal’s new friend Bode looks at her in bewilderment. “Is she serious?”

“Always,” Cal says, chuckling. “I’ll request that the DJ play the song.” Understanding dawns on Merrin, and she nods, satisfied, putting the headphones on over one of her ears and listening as the familiar bass tones of a band she remembers Cal enjoying ring out.

“Guess your travels never took you to many clubs, then?” Bode asks her. Cal coughs.

“I traveled to many places,” is all Merrin decides to say in reply before she heads back to the bunks, still listening to her music. Cal’s kept much of the area the same, right down to his messy workbench piled up with lightsaber tech.

She did visit a few clubs during her travels, but she never thought to request a song, and she never lingered. Space can feel even lonelier in crowds, oddly enough. But this Bode Akuna's unshielded curiosity will not yet draw trust from her. She'd rather have Cal's full trust first.

She hears Cal’s familiar cadence behind her as she turns, sitting on his cot.

It crosses her mind, then, that she kissed him. Deeply.

She can’t regret it — won’t regret it — but she realizes now that she may have unsettled him. Jedi are confusingly strange about physical affection or connections of any kind. 

That kiss may very well have been his first. Some wild, feral part of her thinks, good. So many of his memories are tinged with sadness. She wants his first kiss to be a good one, if she was indeed his first.

It also crosses her mind that she might not be ready to deal with what their kiss implies for their futures yet.

Very well, then. If he can let it lie, so can she. It's better this way.

She notices, on his cot, a holoframe with an image of what she can only assume is his new crew. She smiles softly as she picks it up, examining the faces of his band of rebels. 

“You’re smiling,” she observes, holding out the frame to him as he sits beside her. He takes it, and she removes the headphones from her ears.

“It was probably something Gabs said,” he says, pointing at the young woman with a bright expression. “She was always poking fun.”

“This was your new crew?” Merrin asks. 

“They were,” Cal confirms. “You would have liked Bravo,” he says, pointing at a darker-skinned man with kind eyes. “He was quiet, but he saw everything.” He looks down at his lap. “They’re all gone now.”

Merrin feels the Force pulse around him with grief, and she reaches out, quiet and gentle, offering what cold comfort she can. This is a part of him she cannot truly know. She was not here. Perhaps, if she had been….

But no. That is the past. Her choice to leave was her own, and it was the right thing to do.

Still. She wishes he did not have yet another loss to grieve. The galaxy has taken so much from him already.

“That is the peril of war,” she observes. “There is no fight without loss.”

Cal glances at her. “And what has the Empire lost?” he asks.

“Is the loss of one’s soul not the greatest loss we can suffer?” Merrin asks inr eturn. Cal looks back at her then, thoughtful.

“That’s a good point.”

“I am known to make them.”

Cal huffs out a laugh, and looks back at the picture of his crew. “They were a great crew. The best. It wasn’t the same, though. I, uh, missed you guys like crazy.”

He’s said that already, but Merrin doesn’t feel the need to remind him. She leans against him, enjoying the support of his lean frame. He rests his head over hers and gently kicks her her ankles with his boots. She kicks back. It’s a silly game, but it reminds her of late dinners on the Mantis, of all the ways he would find to amuse her.

She wishes she could have met his old crew. Thanked them, for taking care of him when she could not. No matter, however. What is done is done. She will honor these friends of Cal she never met by caring for the Jedi they shared.

“Sometimes, in my travels, I would see someone with the same color hair as you,” she says suddenly. “I knew it couldn’t be you, but I would always get closer. Just in case.”

Cal lifts his head and looks at her curiously.

“And if it had been me?” he asks.

Merrin shrugs. The answer feels obvious. She needed to go, and he has acknowledged it. She needed to build a version of herself not defined by any cause, any power. She needed to see the galaxy for her sisters who never would, to lay the foundation for a version of herself who was ready to deal with the bond she had formed with Cal.

But Cal still does not seem to understand. He, Cere and Greez may not have been with her all of these years, but they are the points on her compass, leading her home. Cal Kestis is, and always has been, more to her than any dalliances, any affairs she may have had along the way.

Fret was passion, discovery.

He is home.

“I would have said hello.”

Cal brings them back to Jedha to run some information by Master Cordova before they pursue Rayvis to the shattered moon labs, so Merrin keeps herself busy by helping Cere sort through some intelligence and reports for the Hidden Path. Aside from their first talk on the Mantis, she hasn’t spoken to Cal much beyond brushing his concerns over the meaning of their kiss aside, and he likewise has only approached her to check on how the food at the saloon is, or asking her for some advice on scaling some of Koboh’s vast temple networks.

“You’re troubled,” Cere observes, not even having to look up from her scrolls and holodisks. “Did something happen with Cal?”

“Cal Kestis is not my sun. I do not orbit him,” Merrin replies, but it sounds weak even to her. Cere looks up then, an eyebrow arched. She and Cal both do it when they know she is lying. It's completely frustrating.

“I did not intend to imply such,” she says calmly, never one to rise to any bait. “But I did spend a good amount of time with the two of you on the Mantis. And I can sense how your emotions shift around each other.”

Disconcerting, Merrin thinks, but unsurprising. And still, somehow, less invasive than Greez’s pointed comments and questions and Bode’s curious glances.

“I thought Jedi did not bother with emotions,” Merrin says.

“That was, in theory, supposed to be true,” Cere cedes with a wry smile. “But I think you and I both know that in practice, things are often very different. Especially now.”

Merrin remembers the whirlwind of fury and anguish that she felt from Cere at the Fortress Inquisitorius, so long ago. The open affection she displayed for Cal aboard the Mantis. The kindness with which she cares for Eno Cordova now. 

“I do not think Cal subscribes to that notion,” she says at last. “Forming attachments is not the Jedi way. He is a Jedi.”

Cere hums. “Yes, he is.” She looks at Merrin. “Do you know why Jedi were forbidden from forming attachments?”

“Only what you have told me.”

Cere's following smile is infuriatingly patient.

“There was a belief that attachment would lead to possession — that a Jedi’s heart and mind could get clouded by the dark side — if one were to succumb to temptation.”

“That is foolish,” Merrin says bluntly. “That would imply that a Jedi is weak.”

“Perhaps we were,” Cere says, stacking a holodisk over another. “And the possibility exists. It is far easier to lose our grip on control when the strongest of emotions are involved.”

Merrin remembers her despondence, fresh and raw, when her sisters were slaughtered. For years, she has channeled that loss, honed it into a deadly weapon. The Dark Side, for her, flows as easily as water. She imagines that, for a Jedi, that power can become consuming. They do not understand what it is to bend darkness, to compromise with its ebbs and flows. To cut it off when it threatens to overtake your intuition.

Cere allows her to sit with the silence for a long moment, and then says, “I do not think you would drive him to darkness, Merin.”

And there's the crux of the matter, tackled as if things were simple. Cere will be Cere.

“Wouldn’t I?” Merrin challenges. “My powers are rooted in it.”

“But your spirit is anything but,” Cere says gently. “You are a beacon of light in a dark galaxy, my dear. I see it. Greez sees it. And I know Cal sees it too, even if he struggles with how to tell you so.”

The sentiment warms Merrin, even as she is tempted to ignore it. 

“When you have already lost everything,” Merrin murmurs, “there is little in the galaxy to fear. But with Cal… I fear for him. That he will lose his way, that I will drive him to become that which he dreads. And I… I fear-“

“-losing him?” Cere finishes. “I fear it too. I once thought that fear had to be ignored, brushed aside. But we must face our fears if we are to have any hope of conquering them.”

It is as utterly Jedi of a sentiment as Merrin can imagine, while at the same time being the least Jedi kind of sentence she has ever heard.

“I kissed him,” Merrin blurts, for the first time out loud. It feels freeing. “I told him to not think on it, to let it lie.”

Now, Cere just looks amused. “And do you really think he’ll be able to do that?”

“He seems to have so far,” Merrin says, a little embarrassed. “Perhaps it was a mistake.”

“Merrin,” Cere says firmly. “Don’t for a moment think that.”

Merrin rounds on her. “Shouldn’t you be discouraging this?”

“There’s no Jedi Council to censure me,” Cere says with a shrug. “And like I said — I spent a good deal of time around the two of you together. That boy has been through so much. But when you are around him, I feel more peace from him than I ever felt before he met you.”

Unspoken, of course, is the knowledge that it is true for Merrin as well. Cal Kestis may not be her sun, but he is her solid ground.

“I do not know our path forward,” Merrin admits. Cere nods, eyes understanding.

“Lead with your heart,” she says simply. “And trust in the Force.”

“I heard you,” Merrin says without preamble, blinking into Cal’s quarters in the basement of Greez’s cantina in a flash of verdant magick. Any other man probably would have jumped, startled by her sudden appearance. But Cal doesn’t even flinch, and she smiles at the idea that he has grown used to her eccentricities. Not many stick around long enough to.

Cal, seated in the middle of the chamber with his eyes closed, does not move.

“Heard what?” he asks, eyes still closed. Merrin cocks her head to the side, considering, then makes up her mind and sits in front of him criss-crossed, close enough that their knees touch. She feels him reach out to her with the Force, a gentle nudge to the edge of her mind. He used to do this aboard the Mantis in the early days, a way for him to gauge her mood without inviting everyone on the ship to chime in.

“What you said to Jetpack, about hallucinations that the fallen Jedi gave to you when you fought,” she clarifies. She feels Cal’s presence in her mind retreat, and he opens his eyes. “You said you saw your friends suffering because they followed you.”

Cal is quiet for a moment, holding her gaze before he nods. “I did.”

Dagan Gara is lucky it was Cal who pursued him and not her. She would see him burn for eternity for making him hurt so.

Merrin purses her lips. “Is that what you fear?” she asks. Cal laughs without a trace of humor.

“I fear a lot of things,” he admits. “Some Jedi I am.”

“Fear does not mean you are weak, Cal Kestis,” Merrin says quietly. “It just means you are alive.”

“You sound like Cere.”

Considering Cere is the one who taught her this lesson, it feels right for him to realize it.

“She is wise.” 

“Cere once told me to live in the moment, and not be ruled by fear even as I acknowledge it,” he says. “Easier said than done. The stakes feel so high.”

“They are,” Merrin agrees. “And what of it?”

Cal nods, then looks back up at Merrin, eyes open as they have ever been. She reaches out, taking his hands in hers. They are rough, calloused from his gloves, from his lightsaber, from his days as a scrapper. They are also warm. “Following you, all those years ago. It changed my life.”

She sees the doubt flash across his face before he can even open his mouth to retort.

“Merrin-“

“Silence, Jedi, and listen,” she scolds. “You brought me out of the darkness that had consumed me. You introduced me to a new purpose. You let go to me explore the galaxy, and now you are bringing me to a new world where we can save lives.” She squeezes his hands and leans forward. “That is far from suffering, Cal Kestis. And even if this path does bring pain, I will walk it with certainty because you are on it as well. It is my choice. You are my choice.”

Cal says nothing, staring at her with the same awed disbelief that he did right after she’d kissed him on Jedha. His hands remain in hers.

Kindness has never felt natural for her. On Dathomir, it was taboo. But something had shifted in her when she first met Cal, as if he had opened the floodgates to a different chamber of her soul she hadn’t known existed, had never been able to foster, to allow to grow.

“I tried to kill you when we first met,” she recalls softly. Cal smiles, a small, precious thing.

“You nearly succeeded,” he adds. Merrin smiles too. He’d threatened to strike her down, such big words from such a young man. She supposes she’d found it charming, even then. 

“And still you returned.”

Cal’s eyes grow distant, as if lost in the memory. “I did.”

She remembers how he looked, so young and soft on the outside, but solid and strong within. Open and clear and gentle, where Malicos had been vague and callous and distant. He had been the first oasis she had found in so very long, a small salvation disguised as a slightly awkward boy with a lightsaber and sincere words.

“And you were kind to me,” she says.

His thumb brushes her palm. “I knew we were more alike than different.”

“You did,” Merrin confirms. “You showed me that day that you were with fighting for. Fighting with.” She leans forward, drawing back a hand to gently caress his face, angle it so that he cannot look away. “You still are. Do not let that relic of a Jedi convince you otherwise. He is dead now. We remain.”

“I don’t want to get you hurt,” Cal whispers. Merrin nods, dropping her hand. That is his way, so concerned for those around him and so careless with his own needs and desires. She does not wish to see him stuck, paralyzed by a future that has not yet come to pass. He deserves so much more. 

“I’ve heard,” she says, “that life has a funny way of forcing you on the path forward anyways.”

This time, Cal’s smile lingers.

There is very little in the galaxy that can make Merrin, Nightsister of Dathomir, feel weak at the knees.

But then Cal Kestis puts his hand over hers, and says, “I know what I want now,” and she realizes that he is the exception.

He always has been.

She leans in and kisses him once, softly, hand coming up to cradle his face, scratching against the scruff of his beard. He exhales when she pulls back slightly, and leans in again, claiming her lips in a firmer, longer kiss. She returns with fervor, body relaxing into his as his arms pull her closer. Cal groans as she moves to step between his legs, backing him against the sandy ledge.

Merrin chuckles, pulling back to take in his dumbstruck expression.

“You look, confused, Jedi,” she teases. “Do you need instruction on how this goes?”

“You’re hilarious,” Cal deadpans, but she sees the smile in his eyes and the blush staining his cheeks. “It’s what drew me to you from the start, actually.”

“Nightsisters are known for their humor,” she agrees. Cal laughs and leans in, stealing another kiss. Merrin’s heart leaps. This is something they can do now. She leans her forehead on his. “It is good to see you like this.”

“Completely at your whim?”

“Happy,” Merrin corrects. Cal hums, a hand traveling down her spine and coming to rest on her hip. “And bold, apparently.”

“Putting a hand on your waist is bold, now?” Cal asks. “What would you call how you wrapped yourself around me on the spamel, the first time?”

Merrin pauses, thinking back. “An experiment.”

“Oh?”

She smirks a little. “I wanted to see how you would react.”

“And how did I react?”

“Like a loth-cat in heat.”

Cal snorts. “That’s an exaggeration.”

“I felt the Force swirl around you in many fascinating ways.”

“You do realize you’ve admitted you did that on purpose?”

Merrin rolls her eyes. “Of course I did. I have been attracted to you for a long time. I am not embarrassed by it the way you are.”

“I am not embarrassed by how I feel for you.”

Several yards away, someone snorts. Cal jumps away from Merrin and she sees Greez, all of his arms crossed, wearing a very knowing smirk. Cere stands just behind him, face suspiciously impassive.

“I love ya kid, but that was a lie,” Greez says, moving forward. “You turn red as a setting sun whenever I say the witch’s name. Did I miss something here? Who made the move?” Cal's blush deepens.

“Me, weeks ago,” Merrin replies, and Cal swats at her shoulder playfully. Greez’s eyes widen in surprise. Cere no longer looks impassive, but amused.

“That doesn’t matter,” Cal says. “We’re… together now.” He looks at Merrin, then, uncertainty in his eyes. She offers him a nod, and his face lights up. She loves that look. She wants it to never leave his eyes.

Cere gives Merrin a knowing look. “Pay up, Greez,” she says. Greez groans, tossing a few credits at the Jedi Master.

“You knew something,” he accuses.

“I know everything,” Cere corrects before glancing at Cal. “The paths we choose matter little if we don’t have the right people at our side. You have chosen well.”

Cal takes Merrin’s hand in his and brings it up to his lips, pressing a light kiss on her knuckles.

“I know.”

The way of the galaxy is this: joy is fleeting.

Their family has one perfect night, with smiles and laughter and hope, bright and vivid and beautiful. The Force around Cal feels lighter than when they even met; he keeps an arm wrapped around her as long as he can, presses light kisses into her temple, gazes at her with open adoration.

But it does not last.

The world comes crashing down around them in every way. Bode betrays them to the Empire and kills Cordova. The Archive is lost. The compass is lost.

Cere is lost.

Merrin has not felt a pain this devastating since the massacre that defined her life for so many years. Cere's absence in the galaxy burns at her soul, a bleeding gash made by a jagged blade. She feels constricted by thorns and fire, stuck in slow motion, lost in a waking nightmare of existence. She feels the pain of her companions with equal vigor, not even Greez can find a way to feign a smile as they make their way back to Koboh following Bode’s escape at that wretched ISB base.

Cal retreats to the back of the Mantis when they make the jump to hyperspace, the heaviness of what Merrin only just barely stopped him from doing sitting thick in the air between them. Merrin gives him his space, unsure of what she could possibly say or do to help him, and stands in front of the holotable, mindlessly browsing through a list of planets she saw during her travels.

Cere had understood her wanderlust, even though she did not share it. She’d offered advice on cultures she knew of, helped Merrin find small tasks to fund her passage.

Merrin lets out an unsteady breath and looks up as she hears Cal’s familiar footsteps approaching. He's removed that awful uniform, and now just wears simple robes. He pauses, for just a moment, then comes up by her side. Merrin lets her eyes close and leans toward him, relieved as his arm comes to circle around her waist and pull her into his side. His presence calms her, dulls the pain in her soul, balances her misery with comfort.

“The Jedi expected us to find our comfort in the Force alone,” he whispers. “Cere showed me that we can find comfort in those around us as well.”

“She was wise,” Merrin replies. Cal turns to face her fully, eyes shining.

“I want you to know,” he says fervently, “that if I pull away or have trouble voicing what I am feeling, it is a failing on my end and not yours.”

This is his way. He takes every burden he can find and places it on his shoulders, more at ease with the pain of responsibility than with facing his troubles head-on. A Jedi trait, she thinks. One he could stand to let go of.

“Grief is not a failing, Cal,” Merrin murmurs, bringing up her hands to cradle his face. “There is no correct way to deal with it.”

“It is not the grief that I am struggling with now,” Cal admits. “It is guilt.” Merrin frowns, confused.

“Bode’s betrayal was not-“

“Not that guilt,” Cal corrects. “This guilt… it is because when I woke up this morning, the first thing I thought about wasn’t Cere, or Bode, or Tanalorr. It was you.”

Oh. Her heart constricts, for a moment forgetting to beat as the weight of his implication sinks in. Oh, how she adores him. Merrin leans forward, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“I am flattered.”

Cal rolls his eyes, just a little, and Merrin’s heartache eases at the sight. His humor is a small treasure, she is relieved she can still draw it out, even now. 

“It feels selfish, to focus on us when…” Cal trails off and sighs, angling his head to press a kiss to the palm of her hand. “I am just… I have been a little in love with you since you first joined us, and to finally have you….”

Merrin surges forward, now wrapping her arms around his neck, tangling her hands in his disheveled hair, and kisses him deeply. He kisses her back with something akin to desperation, sighing into her mouth.

“This galaxy has taken much from us,” Merrin murmurs into his lips. “You cannot fault yourself for cherishing what you have.”

“Try me,” Cal mutters, trailing kisses down her jaw and towards her neck. Merrin guides his face back up so she can look him in the eye.

“You are in my thoughts from the moment I wake until I find sleep at night,” she says firmly. “It has been like this for as long as I have known you. That does not make me selfish, does it?” Cal shakes his head. “We are Jedi and Nightsister, together. A team. You do not need to punish yourself for thinking of me.”

“A team,” Cal echoes. This time it’s has hands reaching out, cupping her cheeks. “It still feels like a dream.”

He had been so close to the chasm of darkness, choking the life out of the Imperial who had set Bode on a crash course with their crew. A hint of her desperation from before crawls back into her chest. But beside her now, she feels none of his anger from before. 

He'd stepped away from the ledge. Because she'd asked him to.

That means something. (It means everything, but Merrin isn't quite ready to face that yet.)

“Then do not wake,” Merrin murmurs. “Stay with me in this dream awhile, Jedi. For the next few moments, it is just us. Survivors, together.”

“Shared dreams are difficult to wake from,” Cal says, echoing her words to him from before.

“Then we will keep this one a good dream,” she replies.

They remain, entangled, foreheads pressed against each other and eyes closed, until Greez tells them they have reached their destination.

...

..

.

Try your best to slowly withdraw
Try your best to slowly withdraw
The body is a blade that moves while your brain is writhing
Knuckled under pain you mourn but your blood is flowing