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“Tell me about her.” It wasn’t easy to push through, like this, talking at all felt like a pain. The rain pouring down around them was an unbearable racket. In fact, it almost sounded like it was screaming, yelling at them all of its ability to leave it be, to not talk, just stay silently and take in the noise.
Kleya felt the water almost to her bones, clinging, cold and agonisingly real. All her abilities to separate herself from her situation were being tested, she couldn’t escape this. She couldn’t focus on the next step ahead in an endless line, all while never looking back once, because she had looked back, she had remembered, she had seen every single link in this never-ending chain, and she had run out of links to add. The end of the road, her road, whatever was to happen now, she couldn’t outrun it, she couldn’t keep her head high and make sure only to look at the explosion after everyone else knew it had gone off. She was like them now, she didn’t know when it was to go off either. She had to sit in it and linger and watch the fire with the rest of them.
Her opinion of Yavin had been justified, she’d decided. She would have told Cassian I told you so if she’d had the heart to. It wasn’t like he was here now anyway. So many faces, so many people, and yet not a single one of them seemed to understand what had been drilled into her from what felt like birth; they didn’t understand this rebellion, they didn’t understand practical action, what they had all done to even get them here to begin with. It was difficult not to let that feeling build and build beneath her skin like a leaking pipe that would one day burst with the pressure.
Vel knew, in a way she knew at least, Vel had known Luthen longer than Cassian, longer than anyone on this base aside from her. She marvelled again at her ability to move past it. Well, in fairness, she had more practice at it. Seeing her now, sitting just across from her like this, it felt so foreign; there were no longer these infinite layers of pretext and hiding and subterfuge and maddening unknowns and mistrust. They were merely sitting there, each slightly damp, and Vel was smiling. Of all the nonsensical things, smiling, Vel never smiled, at least not at her.
Jedha. Kyber. Erso. What had it been? One standard day? She felt out of her mind with all that had happened, all there was to mourn, to grieve, to take in, the world had tilted when Vel found her there, she was like a child again. Needing to be wrapped up and led, what would have Luthen thought of her if he saw her then? Saw her now? Her hand was wrapped around her cup so tightly as if it would run away if she didn’t, even though it was burning hot, even though it could scald her hand and wound her even worse than she’d already allowed.
I have friends everywhere, you’re here with friends.
Clearly, Vel wasn’t the judgmental sort anymore. In fairness her judgemental nature of the past came from a similar emotional place, and from what Kleya had heard of the last few years she had every reason to react however she damn well pleased to anything. That’s what led to this. Perhaps it was an ill-timed question, though well-meaning, it really felt like it just led back to the same mistake she had been making over and over since the moment she heard Luthen take his final breath. She was being child-like, unthinking, idiotic, entirely unlike her.
Vel was smiling, though, despite her misstep. She didn’t even bother with the pretence that they didn’t know who Kleya was asking about, though neither of them had said her name; there was really only one her that Kleya could mean.
“You knew her,” Vel said teasingly, her voice was stronger than Kleya’s would have been. It had been years now, though time can never truly heal. “She was strong, stronger than any of us, powerful and single minded and fuck she had a way of pushing through anything, anything at all.” The reverence in her voice was impossible to ignore, it sparked that same feeling of undeniable guilt in Kleya’s gut, “Though you knew that too, and I didn’t get much time, the last time,” Vel trailed off for a moment, not quite meeting Kleya’s eyes, hands fiddling mindlessly. “That last year, you certainly heard from her more than I did,” She said it with almost a laugh,
“But we never,” Kleya said before closing her mouth, averting her eyes with some level of guilt. What was she even going to say? But we were never together? We never fucked, we never talked, we didn't live together for months and months undertaking what they all knew was a suicide mission, I never held her body after she was killed. She stared down into her drink, suddenly feeling that heat in her hand again, bringing it to her lips with hesitancy, justifying its presence. Maybe drinking it, accepting the gift that it was, showing gratitude for it, that could be a way to justify her intrusion, her intimate questions.
Vel responded easily to it, easier than she ever would have in the past. Was Yavin really that good for her? The mere felt of it sounded absurd in her head, “Obviously not, but, we both knew she wasn’t the talkative sort, even to me,” She was still smiling, it hurt to see, “You know, we nearly had it again in those last few days, she wanted to," Vel's voice was soft and painfully loving even as she cut her thoughts short before delving too deep. She always had let her emotions control her, "I wonder sometimes, when I let myself, if we had that time, if it would have been even better than Aldahni.”
What would Cinta have thought of that, Kleya wondered. It was one of the things she had in common with the other woman, reticence. Neither gave in to emotion easily, and neither of them would abandon a mission willingly. The thought that Cinta would have given in, and she knew Vel wouldn't lie, felt in contrast to everything else Kleya knew of the other woman. Love and emotion were dangerous things in the time of rebellion.
“It’s not safe to wonder like that, it’s how we get hurt,” Kleya said bluntly.
She had no desire to make this worse for Vel than it already was, to let those thoughts stray too far. Cinta was gone so long after Aldhani and Ferrix, mission after mission carried out in perfect efficiency and accuracy, and by that point, well, they never had a chance. It was Kleya's fault as much as Luthen's, what happened, them being separated, Ghorman. Vel knew that, Cinta knew that, and Kleya knew it; they just didn’t want to say it. Really, Kleya had no desire to remind her when Vel was in this sudden forgiving mood.
“You’re wondering now, Luthen, if he hadn’t, if it had been different. I understand that, and we both know it couldn’t have been.” Vel said, soft, too soft, the words itched under her skin like a horrible spreading disease; she was wrong, blatantly wrong. If she had been faster, if she’d insisted, they could have both made it out. It could have been her instead of him, she could have- “You were perfect, you did perfectly.”
Kleya felt herself stiffen, repressing the urge to scream, to throw the stupid drink across the room, if only that could get Vel to shut up. “That’s insulting to both of us,” She ground out, the words bitter in her mouth, “He could have been here,” Instead of me. She wasn’t delusional about her own worth; she knew that he couldn’t have done it alone, but there was a reason he was the go man, that she was the assistant.
Vel cut it off before it could get any further, “I wouldn’t have been able to do it.” Said so simply, jarringly easy to admit. There was no shame. There was no blame either, no disgust that kleya had been able to, only pride. "I would never be able to,"
Kleya bit back before she even thought her words through, “I had to.” It was an agonising justification. One repeated again and again. It hurt to repeat still. It never got better.
“I know.” No platitudes this time, just simple acceptance. Kleya really wasn’t sure what to make of this new Vel, level-headed, smiling, where were those snappy comebacks? Those horribly heartbreaking betrayed looks she was always sending her and Luthen’s way? The anger, the pain when she spoke?
Kleya felt her face soften, almost involuntarily, and she took in Vel again. The way her hair was tied back, it’s natural red, the way it still glistened with the rain, the stray parts that fell out of her attempt for order amongst the chaos of Yavin, of any more uncivilised place. It mirrored the way Kleya looked now, so far departed from her put-together mask of perfection. She was even more of a wreck than Vel.
Vel looked good, the thought jolted painfully in her chest, it wasn’t one she’d had the luxury to think in a very long time. It was one she would have pushed aside mindlessly at any other time. Ridiculous, insane even to think it, just as they were reminiscing on her, the one that really meant something to Vel, and Kleya couldn’t ever imagine Cinta doing half the nonsense she had let herself fall into these past few days. Years even, she would have never been so stupid to leave the microphone in that piece, she would have never managed to get caught by the ISB, never gotten cornered like that with no way out but relying on a stupid droid, she would have never lost Luthen.
Despite all that, despite everything that Cinta wasn’t, emotionally available for one, and all she was, breathtakingly gorgeous and endlessly competent amongst a million other things, she wasn’t here. She lay amongst the hundreds, thousands even that had sacrificed their life for the rebellion, she lay alongside Luthen in their own personal death toll, strong and powerful and most importantly remembered. Kleya would remember her, Vel would remember her.
So yes, Vel looked good, she was beautiful, the way her hair fell around her face, her eyes, her slight smile, the determination as she spoke. It wasn’t the first time Kleya had noticed it, she had again and again through all the time she'd known her, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Of all the things she had ever sought to deny herself, for all the justifications she could come up with why she should, why this? Why now?
She let that thought stay where it was, she let her eyes linger on the face of her friend. She took another sip of the drink her friend had made her and let it warm her. She let herself be dried by the blanket offered her, her eyes drifted to the coat that Vel had left lying over a chair, the one thrust upon her as though it could undo the work of the rain, the one Vel clearly intended to leave there with her.
“I didn’t want to come here,” Kleya said, breaking that silence, softer than before. Her eyes turned back to the smile on the face across from her, radiating more warmth than anything else here, drowning out the incessant screaming of the rain. The bitterness had gone now, “I thought I'd hate it, everyone here. He didn't want to come here." She took a breath, closed her eyes, "I don’t regret it yet.”
Vel stood, she crossed the table in quick strides, Kleya knew she meant to leave now, still so much to be done, but somehow the thought didn’t weigh heavily on her as it might have only a few minutes ago. She watched her move, graceful and determined, until she was close enough to touch, then a warm hand settled on Kleya’s shoulder, “I intend to make sure you never do.”
It was a promise, one Kleya felt justified in believing in. She looked up at Vel now, and she was sure her face was just screaming that trust, that hope. Part of her was disgusted with that, how blatant she was being, the other just desperately wanted Vel to understand. She found she didn’t care much about her desperation now, she was past all that. She had been made up of nothing but desperation since the second Luthen was truly gone.
“Visit again?” She whispered, half a question, half a demand, cautious and hopeful and so damn scared.
Vel smiled again, it was maddening, her grip tightened slightly, a reassuring and friendly squeeze. “Of course,” she said, another promise that Kleya believed in.
Then, she leaned down and for a truly blindingly terrifying and wonderful second, Kleya thought she was about to be kissed. Instead, those warm and dry arms wrapped around her, holding her there still and protected in Vel’s arms for one perfect moment before she pulled back, leaving Kleya winded and alone with one more flash of that smile before she strode out into the night.
The rain still poured down around them, screaming, drowning and insisting upon itself, seeping into every crack in the roof and leaving its marks through the dampness of her hair and chill pricking at her skin. Yet her drink was still warm, the blanket was still wrapped around her, and Vel’s coat was still left reassuring and solid on the back of the chair. Nothing had materially changed in either's circumstances since the moment they had settled in this room, reuniting as old colleagues, friends if one was generous. Even still, nonsensically, every second that passed allowed Kleya to regret less and less of what led her there.
She heard herself laugh more than she felt herself do it; now she really did feel crazy. She looked down at her drink, her hand tightening around it again to feel its warmth through her fingers, and she let herself take another sip. Breathing in, breathing out, and letting go.