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Cal stares out at hyperspace from the captain’s chair of the Mantis, letting its blue streaks send him into a waking meditation. BD hops about somewhere on the console, occasionally trilling Binary at him, but the droid knows more about the ship than Cal does, and doesn’t require any responses.
When a body sinks down into the co-pilot space Cal doesn’t turn. He’s used to the carefully heavy sounds Bode makes as he moves through a space, and even the null sense of him in the Force doesn’t surprise Cal anymore after fighting next to the man, knowing that nothingness has his back.
BD boops at Bode, and Cal smiles. “Greez kick you out of the kitchen?” Cal says, still watching the hyperlane.
Bode chuckles, and Cal feels his cheeks pinken for no reason he can discern.
“He still hasn’t forgiven me for breaking his favorite spatula,” Bode says, and Cal laughs.
“At least you didn’t accidentally pour the entire shaker of mitzagaram in the soup,” Cal says, kicking a foot onto the console. He’s apologized for that several times, but Greez won’t let him touch any of the spices anymore.
“Yeah, you didn’t get a burn from the blasted thing,” Bode says, and Cal finally does turn to see Bode rubbing at the bandage across his wrist. “Not bad enough for bacta but it itches like a rancor tongue.”
“I don’t believe you actually know what a rancor tongue feels like,” Cal says, and BD beeps his agreement.
“It burns, believe me,” Bode says. His eyes flick up to Cal’s, and Cal feels caught. The streaking stars are echoed in his dark eyes, and though Cal wets his lips with his tongue he can’t seem to form any words.
BD chirps a query and Bode blinks. “Say, scrapper, speaking of burns, how’d you get that one on your cheek? Couldn’t have been another spatula incident, with how angry Greez was about the one I broke,” he says.
Cal looks back at the stars, and blames their brightness for the tears pulling at his eyes, for the tightness in his chest, for the ache across his skin. He brushes his hand along the rough line, then realizes what he’s doing and clenches both hands in his lap. He’s not ashamed of his scars but thinking about how he got them makes him want to hide.
There’s a clatter of metal and BD skitters across the console and into Cal’s lap, chittering. “Yeah, buddy,” Cal says, swallowing the lump in his throat. “I’m okay.”
Bode clears his throat. “Hey, I’m sorry, you don’t have to say. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories. I was just—I’m sorry.”
The mercenary pushes out of the chair, and BD warbles a sad note. Cal grabs Bode’s arm before he can leave the cockpit, his thumb just brushing the edge of the bandage. Bode hisses but stays, and Cal can feel his warmth on his shoulder as Bode places his other hand on the back of Cal’s chair.
Cal opens his mouth but nothing comes out at first. When he finally shapes a word it’s a whisper, spoken into the embrace of the Force. “It was the Purge,” he says, and he hears the leather of Bode’s glove creak against the chair. “Our clones attacked us, and I tried to stop them with the Force because they hurt my Master, but I wasn’t good enough. Didn’t know what I was doing. Couldn’t hold it, and when I lost my hold I caught a blaster to the face. Spun me around and into that escape pod, right on top of my Master.”
He tilts his head back and exhaled. “Master Tapal used the Force to jettison the pod, even as he was dying. I could barely breathe around the pain and every tear made it burn worse. And then—well. You know I was a scrapper on Bracca. I’m sure you can imagine the sort of ‘care’ I had there.” And if he’s eliding those first horrible days and weeks and months on the scrapper planet, bereft of his Master and the Force and his brother clones and anyone who knew he was a Jedi, Bode doesn’t have to know. Cal doesn’t care to dwell on them at the moment.
Bode’s gloved hand descends on his shoulder, a comforting weight, and Cal leans into it for a moment, his scruffy beard catching on the leather, the blaster scar rubbing on the greeble on the back of the glove. Just a moment of touch.
The mercenary’s words are almost lost in the hum of the Mantis’ engines. “I’m sorry, scrapper. Nobody should have to go through something like that,” Bode says, and squeezes his shoulder, then draws his hand away. Cal misses the warmth, and relishes the little sting as Bode’s glove pulls on a few strands of his hair.
Cal forces out a choked laugh. “No, I’m sorry,” he says, “you have a right to know how awful a Jedi I am.”
Bode snorts as he sits back down in the co-pilot chair, rubbing at his injured wrist. “You’re probably the least awful person on this ship, Cal,” he says. “Jedi or not. We all have our scars. Some are just less obvious than others.”
BD trills out that Bode has spoken wisdom, and Cal huffs. He wonders what scars Bode carries alongside the new one he’ll sport. But he doesn’t ask, because he’s torn open enough of them already.
Cal gives BD a pat on his chassis, the little droid leaning into the caress, then all three of them stare out at the careening stars.