Work Text:
The ISB didn’t take the gallery.
Kleya returned after some blurred number of weeks, the bags under her eyes still prominent and her lack of sleep palpable. One of the Yavin pilots agreed, with Draven’s approval, to take Kleya back to Coruscant. The general only agreed after seeing her work on their radio systems. She meandered into a seat after the first week, fixing a problem on their radio the other rebels seemed to not be able. Afterward, when the rest of the base—the rest of the planet was asleep—he found her back in the same seat.
She didn't see him. Her face was tucked into her pretzeled arms strewn across the table, her head rocking back and forth along her bare skin, either in a nightmare, or fighting some semblance of sleep that Vel told him she wasn’t getting.
He’d heard from Cassian that she was all work, all business. Melshi backed him. They didn’t mention it was at the expense of her stability, both mentally and physically, but Draven caught that at the sight of her, and almost felt bad. It was endearing to see someone so young hold so much fight, yet equally as heartbreaking in the same way.
For Draven, Cassian and Melshi’s short-lived verbal support of her and her obvious strength gained his trust, enough for a trip off-world. Even Vel finally recognized the part Kleya had in what they built, though to a naive degree, but it didn’t stop her from putting in a word for Luthen’s ‘assistant.’
She was given an outfit from Mon for the journey back to the galaxy's capital. Her old clothes didn’t feel right. They were a part of something else—a time that seemed so unbearably close, old habits seething under her skin, and somewhere that felt light years away, a line that grief seemed to blur. Different people, different promises, different goals, all dissipated into the unknown, perhaps the Force.
An outfit nice enough for the Imperial City of Coruscant, and far enough removed from the baggage that clinged to the threads and fibers of her dusty old clothes that continuously reminded her of Luthen.
She didn’t need any more than the gallery would already offer her, strangle her with. Mon’s dress had a short V-neck down the crisp white fabric, already exposing Kleya more than she’d ever been since Luthen exposed her hiding spot in his ship.
When she glanced in the mirror, her chest was more pale than she ever believed it to be. Her collarbone was prominent, noticeable in an eerie way that would make most people stare. Her jawline grew more defined, but not in any way that would make someone proud, nor a stranger impressed. Her arms seemed smaller, more fragile. Faint bruises still lingered across her body—her face, arms, and legs from the blast in the safehouse. Her eyes showed lack of sleep, or the presence of demons in her dreams. Her shoulders were slouched, her hair half brushed and no longer put up.
The look in her eyes stretched a thousand yards.
She wasn’t who she thought she was.
Her outfit was different, uncomfortable, and unfit for her—just as Yavin had been since she arrived. It fit like a puzzle piece in her already consistent mental and physical jigsaw, now having lost not only Luthen, but Cassian and Melshi, too.
A brilliant idea to return to the very planet that her discernable life was built upon, and the lingering years that she wasn’t yet willing to let go of, or able to.
Luthen often claimed, especially to first-time clients, that the gallery was Coruscant’s ‘unofficial temple of patience.’ That time stood still.
For once, that wasn’t true.
From the moment she stepped off the ship and her eyes met the glass, time raced. Every memory of her coming back to check the fountain, or her being the one to return prematurely from an outing to listen to the radio. The rare occasion early on in the days of the shop when they’d leave, her hand gently tucked into the nook of his elbow, to gather intel from neighboring shops and clients.
Their steps flowed like stop motion, their fake smiles and tandem walk replaying over and over in her mind, so as to not lose the moment; that if she were to stop seeing it, seeing them, she’d forget for good.
The inside smelled… for a moment, it smelled like it always did. Nothing.
Her nose adjusted quite early to the many scents of the job. Cleaning supplies, different metals, the occasional foreign scent that she couldn’t place, depending on where a certain piece came in from.
The same went for their apartment upstairs. A new cup of caf in the mornings would cut through the mundane, but the rest faded into background noise after their first few days. To anyone else, they’d notice the every day scents—a gentle perfume, stew, or even messy bedsheets and the natural scent that followed anyone.
It all smelled of home. Every morning cup of caf that he made before her. Every individually cleaned coin. The distinct scent of every piece she somehow managed to memorize. Every quarter portioned sized meal she ate. Every time that Luthen descended the stairs from their apartment and stopped in the doorway to see her on the comms—even that carried a scent.
Slowly, she danced her way around the many stands, podiums, and displays, every piece now gathering dust and forming rust in untouched crevices—the hue of the lights amplifying every imperfection of her old home. Effortlessly, she avoided the sharp display corners as she allowed her fingers to linger across the top of each, exhaling as she moved between them all. She crossed the center walkaway toward the left side of the room—toward the mount for the Nautolen Bleeder.
The handle of the unsheathed blade laid at the tip of her shoe; the thick dagger, a crisp white, uneven in texture, was covered in dry, cracked blood. Speckled drops of crimson surrounded the tip of the weapon, hardly elevated off the cold floor.
A pool of blood waited above the Bleeder. Uneven, haunting, and empty, she stared at the deep red imprint on the floor. The longer she focused, the more she could see his body lying there, helpless.
Messier than the hospital. Less pure, less private, less protected. The giant window at the front of the shop gave a birds eye iew into the gruesome scene and a memory that Kleya herself wasn’t present to develop, but a moment in time she managed to path out, knowing her former… him so well.
She could see the way his body collapsed and how it was left to lay there, blood trickling from his wound, his face growing more pale, and his body growing more cold. The cling of the Bleeder as it crashed to the ground reverberated in her ear, and the rush of imperial medical personnel, at someone’s command played through like a film. The room grew loud as she stood alone.
Dedra’s command brought more ISB in, and that drew Kleya’s attention to the opposite display. It was standing off-center, like it was pushed by substantial weight, as if someone dropped to their knees—shocked, full of adrenaline.
She turned back to Luthen’s body. His dying body, choking on his own blood, manhandled by imperials in an attempt to save his life for no other reason than interrogation and torture on the flourishing Rebellion. Imperials who got their hands the dirtiest—physically—that they’d ever been; people no longer hidden behind genocide or quiet assassinations, and those unable to fix their tight uniforms without tainting them with the blood of a rebel, were all that surrounded him.
Even as he was lifted onto the medical droid to be stabilized, he was still bleeding—dying in and tainting the one place he eventually found himself comfortable enough in considering to be their “home.”
Kleya’s breath caught in her throat. She stabilized herself on the nearest display, unable to take her eyes from the scene and the phantom imprint of him lying there, lifeless.
Not as she last saw him.
She looked back on the steps.
“Go,” he ordered, and she listened. She knew it was the last time she would ever see him, and she fought to be in his place. Do the burn, suffer the inevitable consequences… at least he would live and deliver the news to the rebels on Yavin.
Dedra was after him. It only made sense for it to be her.
She would die for him.
“Please don’t argue,” he demanded. There was no discussion. It had to be him.
She was unsuspecting. No one ever thought anything of the innocent assistant—quiet, polite, and only ever needed to wrap a piece for a buyer.
She could make it out, deliver the news. She could live and save the world with Lonni’s intel… or die trying.
Still, she turned, and his back, growing ever distant into a crowd of strangers, was all that greeted her desperate goodbye.
The last time she saw him of his own volition, alive, and breathing without aid was his back turned to her.
Kleya gripped the nearest podium until her knuckles turned white. Her body began to tremble as her breathing grew sharp, uneven, and unlike any composure or mask she trained, corrected, and created over the years.
What was this mask? What version of Kleya was she now, halfway to the ground in her own gallery, her body trembling in sweat and nausea? Was she the real Kleya—broken and alone, the ways that she always managed to find herself embracing in the solitude of her mind?
Was she ever her raw, complete self? Could she allow herself such a privilege for her place in the galaxy?
No, and that made it worse. The masks she had with Luthen, the ones for show, and the ones in the quieter moments, those were gone. He was the only one who saw them and the only one who could possibly understand her in those particular moments. No one knew her like him, nor vice versa.
As her masks with him vanished, so the parts of her that she kept most secret followed suit.
She dry heaved, contorting her body toward the podium—away from the image of his bloody corpse—still gripping the top of it as tight as she could. Heavier gags escaped her mouth, and the smell of sickness creeped into her throat and burned in the bridge of her nose. Saliva dripped from her lips and onto the floor as she fought the acid trying to rise from her severely empty stomach. Sweat pooled at her hairline and poured down her temples.
It was a disappointing sight. The concierge, the hidden gem of the Rebellion—its spine—crumbling under the weight of taken-for-granted memories and a conjured image of a dying man she hated as much as she loved.
It was nothing she was immune to, nor anyone else. Everyone lost people. Everyone met their end. So was the way of the galaxy. So was the sacrifice meant for those seeking a greater world and desiring the downfall of the Empire.
She had to keep moving, even if that meant dragging herself half dead down the road.
Kleya forced herself to push up on the display and stand, even as weak gags escaped her mouth. As she rose, her knees collided, and a twinge erupted in her back. She supported her weight across the rest of the display as she dragged her feet toward the back, her muscles limp, hardly supporting the journey.
Everything was as she last left it. Every drawer closed, every repair technology set at its location, every piece that needed fixing was untouched. The radio that Luthen burned was still ejected from its home in the side of the table. No longer burning from the acid, the liquid was stuck in and between the different channel jacks along the face of the device, though many were left untouched at the abrupt arrival of Dedra.
She traced her fingers over the uncovered jacks and the many ridges of the carefully crafted piece. Out of everything in the gallery, the radios were her favorite. She could find every part of each with her eyes closed and, if she garnered much artistic ability, could trace all of their intricacies, as individual as some were.
Around the table, she approached the large drawer. it’s key, hidden inside a nearby device, was still hidden there. Often fluid and unrestrained in motion, Kleya struggled to unlock and pull out the comms device. It caught on the first pull. Trembling with a heavy sigh, she slammed a weak, bruised fist against the metal and pulled it the rest of the way, setting the large radio its usual angle.
A heavy, shaky breath escaped her. Her life, her history, her work, the very thing that kept her in the fight was once again under her skin. Her fingers danced along the face of the board as she searched the channels and glided the pad of her finger along the massive dial for frequencies. Her ear piece sat where she always left it, and the gentle noise reduction of the attachment brought a sigh of relief to her lips.
She plugged into channel after channel, hearing current news stations, occasional static, and empty bugs.
She plugged into the following one.
“It certainly cost enough—” came through, and she immediately ripped the piece from her ear.
Her broach. Sculdun’s party. The bug in the Tinian Codex.
It was years ago. A mission completed, and something long forgotten since Luthen. Their walk out afterward wasn’t the only time they’d laughed about the situation, and not the last time they, privately, joked about killing Krennic.
It became a sour memory in Yavin. Remembering his laugh somehow made her sleepless nights worse.
She rewinded it again to know for sure that she could. That it still worked. That the captured memories the board stored still worked. If it kept a party from years prior…
Kleya plugged herself into the next channel jack, one associated with a comms in the display room. She spun the dial, urgently searching the frequencies for the very last one in the gallery.
It started with the ding overhead from the doorbell, signaling a client. Following that was a heavy pair of footsteps, and a gait that she was all too familiar with. Slow, confident, poise.
“You’re open.”
“Please, join us.”
Her breath hitched. The timbre of his voice, and how the inflection of it painted a picture of his exact movement in her mind.
She could still remember the day he tried “Coruscant Luthen” on for the first time. The wig, his outfit, even the way he talked with his hands. He brought his A-game to Kleya that day, asking her if it was a fitting character to play for the Axis Network. She made some comments that mocked his look, said he looked ridiculous… but believable. He continued around their living space at the time acting this persona out, perfecting his act and ruining Kleya’s day in the process.
Jutting her hips out behind her, she leaned forward, barely reaching over the device enough to rest her forearms atop the table to brace herself against the cold metal.
Anything was better than the hot sweat on her exposed skin that was beginning to soak through her clothes. Dehydration, clammy skin, a racing heartbeat. Burning memories struck her nervous systems like pins, dragging the sting of their puncture to the tips of her fingers and toes. Out of rhythm her heart pounded against the cavity of her chest, begging for a release.
It felt like she was going to shut down. Her usual responses when he faltered—anger—ceased to exist. No other fear, no concern, nothing but the end of any response from her mind or body now overloading to the point of a black out.
The playback continued.
“Luthen Rael,” and she could see the way he extended his hand for his typical greeting.
“Dedra Meero,” and she sighed at the thought of Luthen’s talk with Lonni.
Their slow footsteps echoed in her earpiece. Their pace, both parties equally analyzing the situation—analyzing each other. Eager to keep up their act until the inevitable break in the facade of each, and the conclusion to a years long game of cat and mouse.
“Is everything… real?”
“…only two pieces of questionable providence in the gallery. Any guesses?”
Kleya almost smiles at his language. Subtle, dangerous, observant. Her lips straighten—a smile not noticeable from any lines on her skin or squint of her eyes, but one that Luthen would recognize, namely because she began to mimic his gesture.
“Impressed?” flew off her lips after their first deal together… or her first deal as he stood and listened to her bark numbers at the woman she convinced to go higher than nine.
“Yes,” he said, nothing more.
“You don’t look like it.”
“Get used to it. You need to learn how to conceal your emotions.”
It sounded like some code the Jedi make their padawans repeat, but he wasn’t wrong. For their field, the work they were going to start, she had to learn. She learned some by herself—survival instincts—but some went far deeper than just survival. An open book would never make it far, let alone convincingly.
Concealing a smile, or faking one to get her way, was an early lesson, and a well executed one.
Kleya heard him step from Dedra, and the rest of the recording became but a blur when he picked up the Nautolen Bleeder. The scene in the gallery flashed in her mind again, the catastrophe hidden behind a half wall not fifteen feet from her.
She didn’t need to hear to know what would become of their conversation. Her hand hovered above the earpiece, ready to tear it out at a moment's notice to keep herself willfully ignorant to something she’s speculated from the moment she emerged from the crowd and watched the Empire fly him away.
But would it be worse than listening to the fading heartbeat and breaths of her best friend after she cut his life support?
She stood her ground, gripping the metal at the sides as the audio flowed in and out at her willingness to listen, her hesitance to feel what it would do to her.
Knowing they were some his last words stirred in her. A last string of carefully articulated language meant only for Dedra as an insult to her character and the ISB as a whole, in a place that served as a proving ground of the depth of the Rebellion. Directly under the Empire’s nose, and no one was the wiser. He was flaunting.
As impressed as she was by his last efforts, it was nauseating to hear him. No shaking breath, no dithering, no anxious pacing; and for the last words that she hears from him don’t come from his authentic voice, but a conjured act for the Rebellion. Not the Luthen she knew privately, better than anyone. Not her Luthen’s voice, but Coruscant’s.
But the message… the message was her Luthen.
“The Rebellion isn’t here anymore, it’s flown away. It’s everywhere now. There’s a whole galaxy out there waiting to disgust you,” and she does smile, because she sees it now. Yavin. Different species from across the galaxy. Different ages, experiences, levels of intelligence, all working to spread the hope of the Rebellion.
Kleya anxiously tapped the side of the console as the recording quieted down. Dedra’s hasty retreat from Luthen toward the backroom echoed in her ears. His slow, secure gait flowed in the other direction, silent.
“What have you done,” erupts in fear, and she hears a blaster drawn.
“Turn around, or be stunned,” and she hears a grunt, the tear of flesh, and the Bleeder clattering at his feet.
She pulled the earpiece from her ear and sunk to her knees.
Luthen was never one to verbalize much discomfort early on. He didn’t want that behavior sinking into the way Kleya held herself, knowing her so young. The one time she remembered him doing so was when he was shot in a firefight with some stormtroopers when they were still on the road scavenging. He had her use what mednog he had left to soothe the blaster burn.
His pain was verbalized enough to anger young Kleya. She shouted at him, telling him to cut it out—they were in hiding, and he would compromise them. Without a word, he listened.
Only once they got the gallery did that reverse. He grew more willing to share discomfort, anxieties, but only because he knew she understood him, could bear them, and would keep a level head about them.
Where was her level-headedness now, kneeling beside the only tangible receipts of him that she had?
Muffled voices came through the discarded earpiece on the table above her. Without a glance, she pulled it down to her level and stuck it to her ear.
“No, no… no, no… all units, engage! I need a medteam, now!”
Kleya could hardly move. She went from kneeling to sitting. The radio sat too low, so her lower back was all that pressed against the cold metal, her shoulders and neck craned toward her bent legs.
She hiked her loose dress up over her knees and wrapped her shaky arms around her legs. A weakened, terrible state, and not the one she was even in behind the grate in his ship after narrowly surviving the massacre of her people.
Was this worse? Was it worth it to compare them? Her biological family that she knew for less time than she knew Luthen, and certainly forgot the many traits and quirks of.
He was with her for more than half her life. Was that the difference? Was it age? Level of maturity? The amount of memories she held for each? The amount of love?
Both times, she was broken, seemingly beyond repair. Losing the people she loved the most… it was a fate worse than death.
She stared ahead toward the rest of the dark shop, soldiers in her ear, hoping somehow, someway, she’d see his face in front of her again.
Tears fell from her eyes when she didn’t find him there.
In her ear, twenty more sets of footsteps filled the gallery, clogging the channel. It was muffled, chaotic, and nearly unbearable to listen to. The channel was completely disrupted, no more clarity was being received and transmitted.
It didn’t matter.
Luthen was dying. She knew where it went from here. There couldn’t have been much left to hear.
“I need him alive, keep him alive. He can’t die.”
Kleya pulled herself up from the ground in an instant as the weight in her head sunk to her stomach. She secured her earpiece and laid her fingertips on the dial and rewound.
He can’t die.
He can’t die.
She should’ve spoken those words, or some variation. She should’ve been the one to beg for his life. She knew she'd be the only one who would ever do such a thing with pure intentions. She should’ve been there in the haunting moments of his fading life to plead directly to him, something familiar, or even comforting.
You can’t die, perhaps.
As personal as she could get.
Come home.
No longer a location.
We have clients in the morning.
A phrase repeated a thousand times. Meant for them, built as a team.
Now Kleya, remaining only as a fraction of herself, and an incomplete half to her whole.