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It had been a few hours now. With the hyperdrive in the background humming and the stars streaking by, they were absorbed in their game. She wasn’t sure exactly what time it was, nor where the others were or what they were up to.
She liked this—the stillness of it all. It was the same, but also not, as her years in exile had been. Spending time in the quiet was not a new concept to her. But now, she spent a lot of her time in the quiet with him. He always seemed to know. Always knew when she needed it, she’d muse on her nights staring up at the Hawk’s roof.
Tonight was no different. Or so she thought.
“So, how do you do it?” His voice broke the silence, low but steady. Nearly startled, she almost chose the wrong card to play.
“What do you mean?” Playing the winning card, she gave him a smirk before waving at him to reshuffle the deck. “Win?” She tried to stop the grin from turning too cheeky.
He huffed and rolled his eyes, gathering the cards. “No. How do you balance it all?”
“You mean my gorgeous good looks and winning hand? Atton, come on, it’s like you don’t even know me.” She lost the battle at keeping the grin from being cheeky.
Sighing, he dealt the next hand. “Meetra…” He trailed off, unusual even for him. That alone piqued her curiosity.
“All right, just ask what you want to, you bloody giza.” She laughed under her breath as she studied her cards.
Atton leaned back in his chair, a card twirling between his fingers. “Fine. You ever get tired of this?”
She raised a brow. “Of winning?”
“Of…everything. Saving people, fighting the good fight, playing Jedi babysitter to half the galaxy.”
Meetra chuckled, shaking her head as she arranged her hand. “If I said no, you’d call me a liar.”
“Maybe.” He smirked, but his eyes stayed on the deck. “But you never show it. Doesn’t matter if it’s Czerka, Sith, or the crew arguing about food rations. You just…deal.”
“That’s what I do.” She set down a card, casual. Too casual.
“Yeah, but how? I mean—” he tapped the deck before drawing, “—I’ve seen Jedi break for less. Lose it over less. Yet, somehow, you just keep going.”
Her smirk softened. She tried to keep the tone light. “Maybe I’m just better at cards than they were.”
Atton snorted, though the sound lacked real amusement. “You dodge more than my sabacc hands.”
Her shoulders tightened. She dropped her cards to the table. “Then spit it out, Atton. What are you really asking me?”
He hesitated, then shrugged as if to mask how serious he felt. “Why? Why are you so hell-bent on saving everyone? I mean, you could walk away, let someone else bleed for once. But you don’t. You never do.”
“Well, what would you have me do? Ignore them all?” She mirrored his pose, crossing her arms.
“I don’t know. Maybe. But that’s not really it, is it?” He pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling hard. “No, what I want to know is—how don’t you get tired of it? What in the galaxy is actually driving you to keep doing this?”
She stared at him for a long moment, then let out a humorless laugh. “You think it’s that easy?”
Atton leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “I mean, it wouldn’t be for me. Hell, it wouldn’t be for anyone except maybe Mical. So, that’s what I want to know. How the hell do you do it?”
She could feel the familiar bubble of dread creeping up her chest. It was happening again, someone else looking at her like a mentor—a leader; someone else she was going to lead into death.
“It’s just who I am, Atton. I don’t know what to tell you.”
“That’s bullshit. I know it.” He jabbed a finger toward her. “And you know it.”
He leaned forward in his chair, elbows on the table, eyes boring into her.
“I’ve seen you waver. Back on Nar Shaddaa after we docked. Those thugs were trying to shake down that old man. He was bruised and bloody, hell, even I felt the rage at seeing that. You could’ve convinced them to go jump into a pit and he would have thanked you for it. Nobody would’ve blamed you. But you didn’t. You let them walk. It was like something in you snapped the other way, forced you to show mercy. What is that? How did you do that?”
Her throat tightened, and she tried to push the heat rising in her chest back down. “It’s just who I am.”
Atton tilted his head, eyes narrowing. “You ever wonder if it’s not really you?”
Her brow furrowed. “What?”
“I mean—maybe it’s some kind of Jedi trick. Something drilled into you so deep you don’t even notice it anymore. Always picking the good choice, always sparing the bastard who deserves a blade in the gut. Maybe you don’t get tired of it because you can’t. Because the Order made sure of it.”
He leaned back, twirling a card between his fingers. “I don’t know. Just seems…unnatural. Normal people break. Normal people get angry, want payback. But you—” he shook his head, almost like he couldn’t decide if he was impressed or unnerved, “—you never do. Not really.”
Something in her snapped.
“Always pick the good choice?” She scoffed louder than she meant to before anger flooded her. “What do you want from me, Atton?” She almost shouted, barely keeping her voice level. “You want me to tell you that truly, I don’t give a fuck? That all I do this for is so that at the end of it all, I hope I can die with some semblance of ‘it was worth it,’ hell, maybe I made someone’s life better? That every fucking decision I’ve ever made, I doubt, because who knows who it will kill? That at every moment, I wonder what my choice is going to do?”
She leaned forward, her voice shaking now with anger and something else, something rawer.
“After the war, I was almost petrified about what I was going to have for breakfast, for fuck’s sake! Will another world be destroyed if I decide on toast this morning? That’s what it feels like, Atton. Every damn day. So no, I don’t think about the dark side. I don’t have the luxury. I just pick what a good person would pick, because if I let myself feel all of it—really feel it—I won’t survive it. And neither will anyone else.”
They sat there in silence. The hum of the Hawk’s engines filled it, heavier than before.
“I left.” Her voice cracked. “I left everything I ever knew, everything I was ever taught, because I was absolutely terrified I would have to be important again. That I would be the judge, jury, and executioner again. I never wanted it. I didn’t want this. I spent years alone, on the fringes of civilization.” Her eyes burned as she tried to keep tears at bay. “And now I’m here, doing it all fucking over again.”
She let out a heavy breath.
“So yes. I try to be the good guy. I force myself to be the good guy and not to fall back into my old logical habits. My soul may be damned, but I want at least a shot at making sure more don’t go down with me.”
Atton leaned back slowly, the chair creaking under his weight. His eyes dropped to the cards scattered across the table, like if he stared hard enough at them they might give him the right words. For once, the smirk was gone.
“For what it’s worth…” His voice was quiet, rougher than usual. “I don’t think your soul’s damned.”
He swallowed, fingers drumming once against the table before stilling. “I’ve…met damned souls before. Hell, I’ve been one. You’re not that. Not even close. At least… not anymore.”
The silence stretched. He risked a glance at her, and his chest tightened at the way she looked—tired, angry, but more human than she ever let herself be. He wanted to tell her that was why he followed her, why he always would. But the words caught, stuck somewhere between his throat and the walls he’d built around himself.
Instead, he huffed out a breath, softer this time. “You carry all that weight, and you still keep the rest of us moving. You know, that’s…that’s more than any trick. That’s you. That’s more than I’ll ever be.”
He gave a half-shrug, like it cost him something to say it out loud, and reached for the deck again, fumbling to gather the scattered cards. “Anyway,” he muttered, forcing his voice back into something steadier, “your deal.”