Chapter Text
Pazaak Lesson — En Route to Nar Shaddaa
The ship was quiet. Not the stillness of peace, but the lull before Nar Shaddaa came to swallow them whole. Kreia had disappeared into her quarters with the trailing edge of her robe and her judgment coiled like smoke in her wake.
Meetra stood at the entrance to the cockpit, hesitant. Atton hadn’t looked back yet. He was sitting in the pilot’s seat, one leg up, arms folded. The stars outside rolled in lines, distant, unreachable.
She stepped forward. “Atton…”
He didn’t flinch, but his head dipped just enough to show he’d heard.
“Before,” she said, voice soft, “I felt your mind. With Kreia’s help.” She paused, forced herself to finish it. “I’m sorry.”
For a moment, nothing. Then, he snorted once, dry and humorless.
“Of course you did.” He leaned back in the seat, just enough to see her over his shoulder. “You see, Jedi… light or dark… do it, more often than you'd think. But I never heard one say they were sorry before…” He looked at her now, and something about the set of his mouth made it hard to meet his eyes. “That’s a new house rule.”
The guilt settled deeper in her chest. She didn’t try to defend herself. She hadn’t done it out of malice—but intent didn’t erase the fact that she’d gone in.
“You play pazaak to shield your thoughts,” she said quietly.
“No,” he corrected, turning fully toward her now, one brow raised. “I play pazaak in my head.”
Her arms crossed, mostly to hide the way her hands fidgeted at the hem of her sleeve.
“But while you're doing that... it’s harder for someone to walk in.” His gaze didn’t waver. “It’s better than listing engine sequencers, memorizing hyperspace routes, or counting power coupling ticks. But yeah. While I’m playing, it’s not just static. It’s noise with a rhythm. And it helps.”
“Is that something you can train me to do?” she asked.
Atton paused.
“No.” His tone was careful. “I can only teach you to play pazaak.” His look sharpened, as if weighing her reaction. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
There was a beat of silence between them, thick with the things neither of them were saying.
Then: “I want to learn to play pazaak.”
Something in his posture eased—just slightly, like a blade slipping half-back into its sheath.
“Good,” he said. “Now you understand.”
Atton tapped the edge of the console beside him, a phantom shuffle. “All right, I’ll deal, then.”
Meetra took a step closer, until she could see the flicker of something measured behind his eyes. He kept it light, but not empty—like he wanted her to understand this wasn’t just about cards.
“If you’re ever fighting someone who has power over your mind,” he said, tone edged and dry, “whether light or dark… play pazaak. Start listing hyperspace routes. Recite engine sequencers. Run diagnostics. Count wires if you have to.”
The rhythm of his voice shifted, as if he were repeating something he'd said before. Maybe not out loud, but to himself. Often.
“And when they try to use their powers on you,” he went on, “suddenly, it’s not as easy as they thought.”
He paused—then his voice softened, the edge gone, like a door opening just wide enough to let her glimpse the warmth he usually kept buried.
“Because you’ll be right here with me,” he said, quietly, “playing pazaak. Where they can’t reach you.”
The cockpit fell into silence. Not awkward—just heavy, full.
Meetra looked at him then, really looked. He wasn’t smiling. For once, he wasn’t hiding behind anything. Not jokes. Not filth. Not cards.
Something settled in her chest—unexpected, raw, and strangely safe.
She sat on the edge of the co-pilot’s seat, closer now. “Then deal the cards, Atton.”
He blinked once, like he hadn’t meant to say all that. But then he gave a soft huff of breath—half-laugh, half-relief—and nodded.
“Yeah,” he said. “All right. Let’s play.”
He reached under the console and pulled the deck from its slot—worn, familiar. The cards made a soft whisper as he shuffled, the weight of the moment gentled by routine. He dealt with practiced flicks of his wrist, and she watched each card like it meant something.
She wasn’t playing to win.
She was watching the rhythm.
He laid a card. “What’s the count?”
“Ten,” she said quietly.
Another card. “And now?”
“Eighteen.”
“Stick or draw?”
She hesitated. “Stick.”
He smiled, a little. “You’re not bad.”
She didn’t answer. Her eyes had gone distant—not unfocused, but inward. He could feel the way she was retreating behind the game. How she clung to the numbers like armor. Each count, each pattern, a thread she could hold on to.
She laid down her next card without looking up. "You ever get tired of it?" Her voice was quieter now. "Holding a line. Playing the part someone else needs you to play."
The question landed heavier than he expected.
"All the time," he said.
She nodded, just once. Not at him—more to herself, like she’d confirmed something she already knew.
She placed her hand down. Nineteen. A solid hold.
But her shoulders were trembling slightly, tension coiled beneath every movement.
He leaned forward, lowering his voice. “You don’t have to play that version of yourself with me.”
Her eyes met his. There was fear there—not of him, but of being seen. Of being known.
“But I do,” she said. “Because if I don’t… someone else will see. And I won’t know how to stop them.”
Kreia. He didn’t need her to say it.
He reached out, tapped the next card. “Then start here. Just keep playing. I’ll keep count with you.”
She drew another card. Her hands were steadier this time.
The cockpit was quiet but not silent now—filled with the rhythm of their thoughts, moving in tandem.
And if something in her posture loosened—something old and heavy neither of them could name—they didn’t talk about it.
"Thank you."
She said it so quietly he almost missed it.
“For letting me be tired.”
Atton blinked, like the words needed a second to settle.
And when they did — they hit harder than anything he was ready for.
It wasn’t the kind of thank you people threw around to be polite. This wasn’t thanks for fixing the comms, or thanks for patching me up after Goto's thugs jumped me. This was the kind of thank you that came with years behind it. Exhaustion. Loneliness. The kind of thank you that said no one else had let her drop the act in so long that she'd forgotten she needed to.
He could hear the weight in it. The fracture.
And he hated it.
Not because it was her weakness — because it wasn’t.
Because she’d never let herself admit she was carrying too much until now.
And because he didn’t know what to do with it.
He swallowed. His throat was suddenly dry.
“Yeah,” he said, trying to keep it light, defaulting to humor like it was oxygen. “Well… we’ve all got to be good at something. I guess I’m the guy you come to when you want to fall apart in peace.”
He expected her to push back. To smirk. Maybe toss a Jedi reprimand his way.
She didn’t.
She just looked at him.
Not like a general. Not like a Jedi. Not even like a woman trying to pretend she wasn’t looking at someone she shouldn’t care about.
Just... her. Meetra. Tired. Real.
“Would it kill you to take a compliment?” she asked, but her voice was warm, and not entirely joking.
“At this point, probably,” he replied. “I’m holding onto deflection like it’s the last line of defense between me and—”
He stopped himself.
Between me and what?
The truth? You?
He looked away, back out at the stars. The Ebon Hawk creaked around them in the silence.
He didn’t want her to see his hands shaking a little.
“You know,” he said after a beat, quieter now, “if you ever do need to fall apart… you don’t have to wait ‘til everyone else is asleep.”
There. Said it. A little too honest, a little too raw.
He risked a glance back at her.
She was watching him again, eyes unreadable. That Jedi mask started to pull back over her face, like muscle memory. But she didn’t say anything to deflect it.
Didn’t retreat.
Didn’t laugh.
She just nodded, and said, “Okay.”
And that “okay”—Force help him—felt more dangerous than a dozen Sith Lords.
Because it meant she trusted him.
Because it meant he was in too deep.
And because some part of him, traitorous and stupid, wanted her to fall apart in front of him.
Not to break her.
To catch her.
He looked away again, this time pretending to adjust the nav readouts.
“Better get some rest,” he muttered. “Nar Shaddaa’s coming up. Whole moon full of people pretending to be someone else. You’ll fit right in.”
She stood, slowly. And as she turned to leave, her hand brushed his shoulder—brief, light, but deliberate.
And then she was gone, back down the corridor.
He sat there for a long time, still staring at the stars. The warmth of her touch lingered longer than it had any right to.
He ran a hand through his hair, then scrubbed it down his face like that might smear the expression off it.
Too much. He’d said too much. Or not enough.
Hard to tell anymore.
She’d touched him like it meant something. Like she trusted him.
He didn’t know what to do with that.
Hell, he barely knew what to do with his own hands half the time, let alone hers. Especially when they weren’t holding a saber, or bleeding. Especially when they were warm.
She shouldn't touch things she doesn't want to keep.
His jaw clenched. He flicked the nav readout again, like it might distract him, but the numbers just blurred.
Nar Shaddaa glimmered ahead like a dying star. Bright. Crowded. Rotten.
He was going to lose himself there. He always did.
Maybe this time, he wouldn't come back alone.
And stars be damned, he missed her already.
Nar Shaddaa — Arrival
The Ebon Hawk broke through Nar Shaddaa’s cloud-hung upper atmosphere like a ghost, the skyline rising in layers of steel and neon, smog and flickering signs. It was always night here. Always noise. Lights that lied, shadows that saw too much.
Atton had seen the moon from every angle—through a target scope, from the back of a speeder, upside-down in a bar brawl—but watching it through the Hawk’s viewport with Meetra standing beside him made it feel different. Like bringing a candle into a graveyard.
She stood at his side, arms folded, her gaze locked on the mess of vertical traffic and distant fire. She didn’t say anything, didn’t frown, didn’t react at all. But he could feel it. The tension underneath. The way her shoulders drew just slightly in. Like she was already bracing for impact.
“Welcome to the worst place in the galaxy,” Atton muttered, hands skimming the controls. “Where the drinks are overpriced, the people are fake, and the death sticks are probably safer than the food.”
She didn’t laugh, but the corner of her mouth twitched.
“I’ve been here before,” she said. “During the war.”
“Yeah,” Atton replied. “So have half the bounty hunters. And most of the corpses.”
He expected her to bite back, but she didn’t. She just kept watching. That Jedi quiet. That Exile stillness.
He hated this place. Not because it was dangerous. Because it remembered him.
The Hawk touched down with a judder and a hiss of cooling engines. The landing pad groaned beneath them like it regretted letting them land.
“You sure you want to walk out there first?” Atton asked.
She looked at him, and for a moment, the answer wasn’t in words—it was in the way her spine straightened. The way she drew that invisible cloak around herself. The leader. The General. The one who never faltered.
“I’ll be fine,” she said.
He didn’t argue. But he watched her walk toward the loading ramp like he wanted to.
And he told himself—again—that he’d keep her safe. Even if it meant lying. Even if it meant dying.
Especially if it meant she never had to be just Meetra in a place like this.
The crew had already started bleeding into the moon’s underbelly—T3 off chasing some encrypted signal, Bao-Dur calibrating local sensors, Kreia doing whatever unsettling thing she did when no one was looking.
Atton stayed close. A shadow pretending to be a bodyguard. And maybe he was. People didn’t look twice at her lightsaber, not after they saw the way his glare cut through the alleys like a vibroblade.
She asked him for directions more than once.
“Which way to the Refugee Sector?” “How well guarded is that cantina?” “What’s the easiest route out of this district?”
He answered every question without hesitation, voice low and sure. And she didn’t second-guess him. Not even when he led her down a side passage so rank with death it clung to their boots. She just followed.
And that meant something.
Not trust like the Jedi defined it—ritual, earned, cataloged in codes and creeds. This was something rawer. Older. You know this place better than I do. And I know you won’t let me die in it.
He didn’t say it out loud, but he lingered on every question she asked. Every time her eyes met his like she actually wanted his answer. Not as a leader to a subordinate. Not even a General to a soldier.
Just her. Just him.
Because he could feel it shifting already, under their boots and behind her eyes. Every choice she made, every voice in need pulling her forward, drawing that line between who she used to be and who they needed her to become.
Right now, she was still walking beside him.
But for how much longer?
They helped people. Of course they did.
Atton watched her kneel beside a starving kid, voice soft, eyes steady. She didn’t speak like a leader. She just listened—really listened, like what they said mattered.
She wasn’t a Jedi, not in those moments. And he hated how much that meant to him.
Because he remembered Jedi who stood on high ground and let cities burn. Who made peace with suffering as long as it followed The Code. And yet…
“You don’t think you’re making things worse?” he muttered once, after she’d scattered a couple of thugs with little more than a flick of her fingers and that steel in her voice.
She glanced at him, a half-smile playing at her mouth. Shrugged. “I’m not here to make things easier for slavers.”
No lecture. No moral crusade. Just those words—sharp, clean, real.
And that was the thing, wasn’t it? The Exile didn’t lead anyone—she walked beside them. Beside him.
But Nar Shaddaa was starting to pull more out of her. People looked to her. Followed her. Bao-Dur called her General. She said she hated it.
She turned from that alley—cloak dragging ash, boots tracking the dirt she hadn’t risen above—and he felt it again. That distance.
Not because she’d changed. Not really.
But because with every step she took to lead them, she stood a little taller. Shoulders straighter. That faint flicker in her eyes, somewhere far away already—thinking five moves ahead, planning how to keep them all alive.
Still her. Still Meetra. But the Exile walked beside them. The General walked ahead. And the Jedi? The Jedi walked alone.
The cantina was half-dead, like most places on Nar Shaddaa that weren’t trying too hard to kill you outright. Sparking wall panels. A broken holo-dancer projection twitching in place. The stink of cheap ale and older blood.
She sat hunched over a busted terminal, elbows braced against the metal console like she could bully the interface into cooperating. Her sleeves were rolled past the elbow, one glove discarded on the floor beside her. Her brow furrowed, lips pressed tight in frustration.
She wasn’t swearing—not out loud. But the terminal was definitely losing.
He lingered a step behind her, arms crossed, pretending to look at the datapad he wasn’t actually holding.
She muttered something under her breath, jabbed at the screen with two fingers, then leaned back, sighing.
“You ever try to slice something that just hates you?” she asked no one.
He chuckled. “Yeah. Every droid I’ve ever met.”
She turned slightly, gave him a look. “You’re good with this kind of thing, right?”
He shrugged. “Define good.”
She tilted her head, amused, not annoyed. “Can you get into this archive without it electrocuting me again?”
He stepped closer, peering at the mess of wires and burned circuits. “Probably. Depends how attached you are to your fingerprints.”
She smiled. Not one of her rare, haunted ones. A real one. Crooked, almost shy.
Then, just beneath it—barely there—he saw her glance sideways. Her lips moved, faintly. Counting, maybe. Wires. Circuits. Anything. A rhythm to anchor her. Shielding her thoughts in the quiet way she’d learned to.
Not from him.
From someone else.
Then she said it:
“Well, you’re the expert.”
Something tightened in his chest. Stupid. It was just a word.
She stepped aside, gesturing to the terminal with a little sweep of her hand like she was offering him something valuable. “Be my guest.”
He stared at her for a beat too long.
She wasn’t testing him. Wasn’t fishing for answers or reading him with Force-sight. She just… trusted him.
No follow-up questions. No careful Jedi neutrality. Just her, next to him, being terrible with tech in a way that made her feel… real. Tangled hair, scraped knuckles, faint scent of starship oil and burned circuits clinging to her robes.
Not the Jedi General. Not the Exile.
Just Meetra.
And he was useful to her.
He should’ve been happy with that. Just being good at something. Being needed.
But the way she said it—expert—like she meant it, like she saw something in him worth naming, not just for utility’s sake but something real—it landed deep, lodged under the ribs.
He crouched beside her, slower than he needed to, careful not to jostle her, not to make her shift away.
Because he knew how this went.
Any second now, the smile would fade. Her spine would straighten. The war would crawl back into her eyes, and she’d square her shoulders like she was carrying the whole damn galaxy again.
Like she’d remember she wasn’t just her anymore. That she had to be something bigger. The one people followed. The one who walked ahead.
And he'd still be in the same place—right behind her.
So he didn’t speak. Didn’t crack a joke. Just let the silence hold, let her warmth at his side linger.
And he worked.
Quietly. Deliberately.
Drawing the moment out one wire at a time, like if he was careful enough—slow enough—it might not end.
Later, he found himself alone on the Hawk again, nursing a headache and trying not to think about how much she was changing things.
How much he’d already changed.
It was quieter without her. Not peaceful. Just… hollow. Like the ship had exhaled and forgotten how to breathe in again.
He sat slouched in the copilot’s chair, eyes unfocused, thumbing through the same datapad screen he’d read four times already. Nothing stuck. Everything slipped.
She had asked him to stay behind. Just for a while. Said she needed to handle this one alone.
He hadn’t liked it. But he hadn’t argued.
He was trying not to argue with her so much lately. Trying to be what she needed. Or maybe just trying not to need her back.
The soft whine of the ramp brought his head up.
Bootsteps. Two sets.
Then she came.
Not Meetra.
The other one.
Dark where Meetra was light. Silent where Meetra burned.
Visas Marr spilled into the ship like a secret no one had agreed to keep. Limp in Bao-Dur’s arms, her crimson robes clinging like dried blood, her face half-veiled in something that wasn’t fooling anyone. Not the Force. Not Atton.
He stood slowly. Every instinct coiled tight.
“What the hell is that?”
Bao-Dur didn’t answer. Just laid her on the med-cot with hands gentler than Atton had ever seen him use.
That’s when Atton felt it.
The wrongness.
Not just her.
In the walls. In the silence. In the still air that smelled too much like waiting.
Like grief.
“Where’s Meetra?” His voice didn’t sound like his own.
“Outside.” Bao-Dur’s eyes were fixed on the Miraluka. “She’ll be in soon.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just stood there, arms crossed tight like they were holding in something loud.
He watched Visas breathe. Watched the rise and fall of her chest, measured and steady. Too steady. Like someone who’d learned how not to panic. Like someone who’d been here before.
The lights dimmed. The ship slipped into night-cycle.
She didn’t move.
Didn’t twitch.
Didn’t pretend to be anything else.
Meetra hadn’t killed her.
She should’ve. That’s what Jedi did, right? That’s what warriors did. When someone came for your throat with a blade drawn—you ended it.
But she hadn’t.
She’d brought her here instead. A Force-tied assassin. A Miraluka.
And Atton knew—deep in his bones—that wasn’t a mercy. It was a message.
He rubbed his temple, jaw locked, the ache in his skull like a pulse under his skin.
She should’ve told him.
Should’ve trusted him.
But something colder than doubt slid through his gut, curling up behind his ribs.
The warning wasn’t her.
But it was already here.