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Farzala didn’t think he’d ever been more exhausted in his life.
That was a pretty high bar, actually. For the past three or four years or so, it didn’t seem like he’d ever felt rested for more than two days at a time. Fighting the Nihil and the Drengir had been awful and terrifying and he’d thought that was the most exhausted he could possibly be, and then he’d ended up on a Nihil prison barge trying to keep both himself, Buck and Ishnar, the younger padawans, and their new friends alive until they could either be rescued–not all that likely, with how much the guards liked to taunt them about the Stormwall, as impossible as the thing sounded–or escape. It had been a year of grueling, monotonous danger, somehow worse than the stop-and-start of intermittent battling. And then they’d come back through the Stormwall, and there had been Republic ships overhead like silver birds against the stars, and they were so close–
He’d had only just enough time to exhale. Some of the other prisoners hadn’t even had that much.
The seconds, or minutes–he truly wasn’t sure–had blurred into a dim, staticky haze, the terror keeping him awake and the sheer stubborn determination keeping him moving, even as his vision tunneled and darkened.
He had never, ever been so glad to see someone as he had when Kantam appeared before him, looking at him with eyes kinder than anything he’d seen in over a year, and told him he could rest.
He’d barely managed to stay conscious as they brought him on board, just long enough to hear that they’d gotten Ishnar and Bindal and Sevran and Buck was on his way in, and then he’d sunk into the bacta tank and the sedation gratefully.
Now, Farzala was huddled on one of the cots, a blanket around his shoulders and a cup of some kind of lukewarm sugary juice in his hands, and the tips of his ears and fingers still ached and burned with the near-frostbite but he was alive, and he was safe, and it was…
He didn’t even know how to put words to it. Dreamlike, maybe.
Kantam had stayed in the medical bay, walking between the beds to offer smiles and water and quiet reassurances, and Farzala wasn’t the only one watching them from the corner of his eye, unable to fully convince himself they were real.
Footsteps sounded in the hall. All of the prisoners–former prisoners–went still, but without even looking up, Kantam smiled.
When the first face appeared in the doorway, Farzala thought for a moment that he was still in the void, his mind spinning soothing pictures as he died.
Qort paused just long enough to rake his gaze across the room, and then as soon as he settled on Farzala, he broke back into a sprint.
Farzala’s breath caught in his throat, and then was abruptly knocked from his lungs as Qort flung himself onto the bed and knocked him flat.
The juice went flying for half a second before a twitch of Kantam’s fingers stopped it, but Farzala didn’t process it, or anything else besides Qort seemingly attempting to burrow his way into Farzala’s ribcage. Farzala still wasn’t processing right–it felt like his brain kept skipping seconds, the world vanishing and reappearing every time he blinked–but it took no thought at all to return the embrace, and he buried his face in Qort’s pale hair.
He tried to speak, to say something, but his throat just clicked, and nothing came out.
Qort was making a sound, no word in Basic or Aloxian or anything else that Farzala knew, but one he recognized–a scratchy trilling, more thin and high than Farzala’s own purr but similar nonetheless. Something between euphoric joy and shattering relief.
He felt, more than heard, another set–two sets–of footsteps approaching. Another weight dropped on top of them, then another, and Farzala wheezed.
“Careful,” Kantam called, their voice just a little sharper. “Let him breathe.”
The two new bodies slid off, each to one side, and he lifted his head to find that leaning into his vision were two more familiar faces, one pink, one brown.
“Hi,” Zeen said breathlessly, one hand coming up to cup Farzala’s face, her fingers soft against his fur. “Missed you.”
“Zeen,” Farzala croaked, staring at those red-pink-purple eyes, so much brighter than anything on the Korvix Vorn had ever been.
And when he looked to the other side–
Lula grinned down at him, broad and bright, her hair a disheveled cloud behind her. She looked different, somehow, but still Lula, still the girl he’d played and fought and learned with, the same Lula he’d bitten hard enough to scar when they were five over some slight he couldn’t remember. Still his not-quite-sister Lula.
Qort was still curled against his chest, hands trapped under Farzala’s back and probably going numb, his face pressed into the space under Farzala’s jaw. He was trembling, or maybe Farzala was, or both of them, and Qort’s chirping stuttering purr vibrated through him all the way to his marrow.
Farzala’s eyes watered. He let his head fall back even as his grip tightened on Qort’s hair, and tears streaked their way down his temples as he bit his lip, a year’s worth of habit telling him to hide his weeping but unwilling to let go long enough to wipe his eyes.
“It’s okay,” Zeen whispered, thumbing away the droplets, and pressed their cheeks together. “It’s okay. We’ve got you now.”
Qort twisted his ankle around Farzala’s, and Farzala realized that the sounds he was making had turned into actual words–just one, actually, and one he recognized. It was his name, morphed into something pronounceable in Aloxian, the way Qort had learned to say it as a child, repeated over and over against Farzala’s throat like it was the only thing that mattered.
“Qort,” Farzala rasped, his tail twisting itself thoughtlessly around Qort’s knee. “Qort.”
Qort lifted himself up just enough to meet Farzala’s eyes, his body still warm and reassuringly solid against his ribcage. He pressed their noses together and murmured, “Hi,” the sounds curling it into a hai in his mouth the way it always did when he was particularly distracted or emotional, even years after he’d first started using Basic.
“Hi,” Farzala choked out, laughing or crying or maybe both.
Qort smiled and said, “Farzala.”
Farzala tightened his grip on the back of Qort’s robes and managed to loosen his death grip on Qort’s hair with his other hand. He put his hand instead on the back of his neck, careful of his claws.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Farzala managed, lifting watery eyes to address all three of them. Buck had promised him, over and over, that he’d seen Qort safely off of the station, but that was no guarantee of anything and even then, with Zeen halfway across the galaxy and Lula lost somewhere in the guts of the station–
He’d barely had time to think about it, or maybe he’d just tried not to, but there had always been that wretched balance in the back of his mind, gladness that his friends weren’t trapped in the same hell he was placed against the fear that perhaps they were somewhere worse. And the time clearly hadn’t been kind to them, by the desperation in Qort’s grip and the shadows lining Zeen’s face and the new scars across Lula’s skin, but they were alive, all of them unmistakably, glowingly, beautifully alive where their bodies pressed against his, and that was the only thing that could possibly matter.
“We made it,” Lula said softly, tracing the fur on his knuckles with a fingertip, the motion clearly unconscious but so familiar he could weep. “We made it back, all of us.”
“Somehow,” Zeen agreed. Their eyes locked, both of them remembering some untold horror he hadn’t been there for, but they were both smiling, even if it was sad.
Qort trill-purred again, and to his own surprise Farzala found himself returning it, low and unsteady but real. It wasn’t the first time he’d purred since Starlight fell, but… maybe–probably–the first that didn’t feel fake, that wasn’t a halfhearted soothing gesture to reassure Bindal or himself or sometimes Ishnar. He was, impossibly, safe.
He didn’t need to be alert, or wary, or ready. He didn’t need to make sure that all of the hidden Jedi and their allies were accounted for, or figure out what the Warden was planning, or keep himself alive in space long enough to save the others.
Squished beneath the protective weight of the three people he’d missed the most, Farzala slept, and did not dream.