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The passenger freighter is old. Class IV, pre-Empire, capacity for a hundred, at a push. It’s seen better days; the seats are fraying, bunks creaking under their weight. The sleeping compartments are so small even Vel has to duck.
Cinta doesn’t like the look of it, but they don’t have many options. They only got off Ferrix because they were quick, and nobody was asking questions.
The journey back to Coruscant is harder. They can’t be direct. It would raise too many questions. So this is what they have to do: take a commercial freighter from a nearby planet, blend in with the businessmen and families, the troops and the troublemakers.
It’s only been a few hours since Cinta stabbed a man in a dark doorway. But nobody here even knows what’s happening on Ferrix. Nobody cares about the overreach and the violence and the Empire, indiscriminate in their ire.
They have returned to normal without a second glance. Cinta is numb to it by now.
‘We could go to Chandrila?’ Cinta says, sarcastically, as they climb through the entry way and snake their way through the crowds.
‘Kill me now,’ Vel laughs, sidestepping a Trandoshan hurrying towards a late connection.
‘With pleasure,’ is Cinta’s reply.
They bought their tickets separately, using credits Cinta hid beneath the floorboards of that grotty place off Rix Road. It mostly means they’ve been assigned compartments on different ends of the ship.
’We could stay together,’ Cinta says. ‘It’s not an issue.’
Vel just drones on about protocol.
She is particular about these things. It’s not the cover. Cinta’s learned that. Because here, right now, it’s not the Empire she’s afraid of. Vel Sartha would shoot a stormtrooper between the eyes without a second glance. She would.
It’s home Vel is afraid of, deep down. She dresses it up like it's for the mission. Like they have to be apart to keep each other safe, but they don’t. Not a single person on this shuddering ship to Coruscant cares where they’ve come from.
But Vel does.
…
Later, when they’ve escaped the atmosphere and are slipping through the endless starscape, Cinta finds herself crossing the ship. It’s the middle of the night and no one gives her a second glance. There are sabacc tables and a live band, a bar fit to bursting.
It’s loud and grotesque and Cinta shudders at the frivolity of it. She wants to take every single person aboard by the shoulders and scream at them. Can’t you see!
But she doesn’t. She just holds it inside and walks.
When she reaches Vel’s compartment, the other woman answers the door slowly.
They look at each other, standing on different sides of the door, and Cinta sees then, the weight of the entire galaxy in Vel’s eyes. It twists violently in her own chest, a reminder that despite everything, that this hollowed out body can still feel.
Vel swallows, eyes wide, an open ocean of worry. Instinctively, Cinta reaches out, runs her hand across the other woman’s cheek. If only she could take it away. All that sadness. If only. Vel brushes her away, a reflex formed long ago. Cinta ignores the pain of it, let’s her hand fall uselessly to her side.
Cinta is expecting an argument. She shouldn’t be here. Vel asked her to stay away.
But it doesn’t happen. Vel doesn’t even protest. She just climbs back onto her bunk.
Cinta considers getting in beside her, but she doesn’t. Instead she sits at the end, by Vel’s feet, and pulls her knees to her chest.
They haven’t spoken a word since Cinta came in. She’s glad for it, really. After everything, the quiet is beautiful, unbroken.
Vel falls asleep almost immediately, her breath evening out into shallow little gasps. Cinta just sits there, staring out the small porthole to the stars, watching the galaxy pass them by.
The vastness of space. Vel; softly sleeping, quiet and still.
Cinta closes her eyes.
…
In the dark, fumbling. Vel’s hand in hers.
‘Come see me,’ Vel mumbles. ‘When we’re back. Don’t disappear.’
‘I don’t disappear,’ Cinta says.
‘You do,’ is the whispered reply. ‘You do.’
…
A mission takes her away almost immediately. There’s no time to talk.
The rebellion comes first.
…
It takes weeks, not months. Cinta is glad, but she doesn’t tell anyone.
She goes to an apartment at the top of one of Coruscant’s tallest towers, following a mental map Vel described during those long, early days on Aldhani. When returning here felt like a dream, survival a bonus, not a necessity.
A penthouse, befitting a woman of Vel’s standing. It is the complete opposite of Ferrix, Cinta notes, as she types in the code and waits for the door to buzz.
It occurs to her that this is a breach. Her being here.
Cinta won’t stay long. She promises herself that. It is a condition of coming here at all. She can’t risk it. They can’t.
But she needs to see Vel. There has to be something to hold on to. She’s no droid, even though she wishes sometimes that she was. It would be easier. Cut out the emotion, have only the cause.
It’s impossible. Vel has made it impossible.
…
Waiting. Vel said she would be back in half an hour.
Cinta cleans her blaster methodically. She sits at the kitchen table, gleaming white, and watches the oil drip onto the immaculate surface.
There's something in that. In the small destruction of it.
In the quiet, comes the steady beep of the key-lock, the beat of it. Cinta counts in her head. One two three. It’s not Vel. Whoever is here is unfamiliar with the system.
Cinta sits stock still and waits, curls the blaster into her fist.
And then, the door slides and a woman strides in. A woman who is not expecting Cinta to be sitting at the kitchen table. Her face crumples into confusion, then rights itself. A second of vulnerability before order is restored.
Cinta recognises the woman instantly. It would be impossible not to, even if she wasn't invested now in Vel and her life.
Mon Mothma, politician. Her robes as white as the countertop, her hair magnificent and perfect. A smile that only wavers momentarily. She notes the blaster, and her eyes go wide. A sudden, innate kind of fear.
Cinta lets it drop from her hand. There's no use frightening her, she's not a target.
The blaster clatters against the table and the senator flinches.
Cinta swallows. This is not part of the plan. Luthen would shoot her on sight if he could see her now.
But Luthen’s not here, and Mon Mothma is standing in Vel’s apartment, all stately and elegant and Cinta wishes that this wasn’t a mistake. She wishes she could know this part of Vel’s life and it not feel tantamount to a betrayal. Of who, Cinta is not quite sure. Vel. Luthen. The rebellion.
Cinta, herself, in some mixed up way.
There’s a hesitation about Mothma, and she starts circling the room. A slow, anxious pace staring at anything that isn’t Cinta. She takes particular care to examine a collection of cut glass tumblers which stand in a neat line on the countertop, as if they’re the most fascinating thing on this side of the galaxy.
'Are you a friend of Vel?' Mothma eventually asks, glancing only briefly towards Cinta.
'I have friends everywhere.'
On the other side of the room, Mothma stops, visibly relaxes. But the flicker of a smile is instantly replaced by a frown.
'You're not supposed to be here,' she chides.
'Neither are you,' is Cinta's curt reply.
Mothma laughs, heady and clear, and comes over to the table. She takes a seat opposite Cinta, and there’s an undercurrent of desperation in how she moves. A well concealed panic. Most people would miss it, but Cinta recognises it well.
It reminds her of Vel.
‘Falling in love in a war,’ Mothma says, more to herself than to Cinta. ‘Vel does make it difficult for herself.’
‘Who said it was love?’
‘You’re here, aren’t you?’
‘We don’t know each other.’
‘Oh no, I’m aware of that.’
Cinta rolls her eyes.
Mothma reaches across the table and pulls the blaster towards her. Cinta snaps up to grab it but stops short. There’s something odd about watching a senator hold a blaster; the shape of it in her clean palms.
‘She’s not safe, is she?’ Mothma says, slowly, tapping her fingers along the hilt.
Cinta shakes her head. Mothma absorbs this carefully, in the diplomatic way of a politician. No fighting, no denials, just a sharp, ‘I thought as much.’
She pushes the blaster back across the table. Cinta takes a steadying breath.
They slip into a silence, a truce; the two of them examining each other. Vel’s cousin is shrewd, clever. It is difficult to take the full measure of her. Cinta wonders what the other woman makes of her.
‘You’re her type,’ is the verdict.
‘Type?’
‘She’s always liked broken people.’
‘I’m not-’
‘You are,’ Mothma says, cutting across. ‘What was it they took from you, the Empire? Your family? Your world.’
Cinta doesn’t reply straight away. She shifts in her seat, swallows.
‘Everything.’
‘Bastards.’
Cinta laughs at that. It seems conviction in the cause is a family trait.
In a parallel universe, one with no Empire and politics and secrecy, they might be friends. The senator and the assassin. It seems laughable right here, but they are more similar than you might think. They’re only here, of course, because they both love the same woman.
In this other universe, they go to parties and laugh and Cinta has a family again, at last. And that pit at the bottom of Mon’s chest goes away, that sinking sick feeling of helplessness when it comes to Vel. Because there is no war here, there is only being happy.
There is just Cinta and Mon, and Vel, of course.
But in the real world, there’s no time to sit around and unpack their hearts. They have closed them off, anyhow. A requirement of the cause.
So instead of swapping histories, Mon Mothma pushes her chair backwards and says, ‘I need to leave.’
‘Vel will be back soon.’
‘I think the moment’s passed. I’ll catch her another day.’
Mothma rises, smooths down her robe.
And as she goes to leave, she turns back, just for a moment.
‘Don’t hurt her,’ she says, eyes fixed and steady.
‘It may be unavoidable.’
‘The rebellion?’
‘The rebellion.’
‘Still…’
Cinta allows herself a small smile. Mon Mothma, the celebrated senator, is standing before her and she is begging.
Any other situation and Cinta would revel in this power. In Mon Mothma pleading with her, but she can’t. Because it’s Vel they’re talking about and Vel has always been an outlier.
Cinta can barely admit it, but everything is different now Vel is in her life. She still preaches the rebellion, of course, and knows in her very bones how important it is. But for the first time in a long time, Cinta wants to survive this. Knows the odds are low, of course. But there is an ache in her chest now. Vel is a light, small and stubborn. Flickering, and oh so alive.
It is odd to have hope again. Cinta hasn't had it in so long.
Suddenly, from the silence, Mon says ‘Luthen will use it against you.’
Cinta just goes back to cleaning the blaster, Mothma’s studious gaze on her. She knows what the other woman is talking about of course. It is love. The greatest equaliser, which makes mortal all people, however powerful. Even Cinta, made flesh again for it. Transformed from the perfect soldier into something, someone capable of this.
And it is a weapon, Mothma's right about that. A weakness that can be wielded. It makes her less valuable, she's not stupid. An overreliance on certain personnel, that's how Kleya put it when they got back from Aldhani. Trust her to make love sound like a mission failure. Luthen just shook his head, kept his thoughts to himself. But Cinta could see it on him. The disappointment that she had been so unfortunately human.
‘You’re afraid of him,’ Cinta says. It’s not a question. It should be but it’s not.
‘Of course I am. Aren’t you?’
And with that, Mon Mothma leaves. No answer needed.
…
Vel comes home after an hour. Cinta doesn't mention her visitor, knows that Mothma won't either.
‘Any damage?’ is the first question out of Vel’s mouth, as she rushes towards Cinta, looking her over, once, twice, three times. Vel has taken to worshiping Cinta’s scars, as if she is the only person in the entire world who can heal them.
Cinta has started thinking she’s right.
‘No,’ Cinta says. Not this time, hangs in the air between them.
Vel presses a quick kiss to her lips and then steps back, hands folded against her chest.
‘Successful?’
‘You know I can’t talk about it.’
‘Yes or no?’
‘No.’
Vel nods, presses her lips together in a thin smile. Cinta doesn’t know what to say. No, that’s not true. She knows what she wants to say but she forces herself not to.
I love you. I’m sorry.
It waits in her. Waits for the right time, which will never come.
Vel crosses the room, purposefully. Cinta has no idea where she is going, but watches with a growing interest. Over to the far side, where a small radio sits on an elegant table. The radio is old, an antique perhaps. Cinta can imagine Kleya giving a sales pitch for it. Some technology never goes out of fashion.
With a small click, the radio bursts to life. Vel turns through the channels until she reaches a station broadcasting choral music. It’s beautiful, in a haunting way. Vel’s hand hovers over the button.
‘Chandrilan,’ she says, softly. ‘They play this at weddings.’
‘Oh.’
'Let's dance,' Vel says, resolutely. The reply is so astoundingly out of the blue that Cinta gapes like a speared fish.
‘What?’
‘Dance. You and me. To music.’
Cinta shakes her head, but Vel is smiling now, like she can't believe the woman in front of her is real. Cinta, too, doubts this sometimes.
Vel holds out her hand, her smile spreading wider across her face. It is infectious. Cinta can’t help herself. Vel is beautiful like this. Happy in bursts, fragments.
There is only now, Cinta thinks. This moment, and nothing more.
Vel, standing before her, laughing despite it all.
'Come here,' Vel says, reaching out with a fumbling hand. Cinta takes it gratefully to find that Vel is cold to the touch. She shivers.
'There's no point to it,' Cinta starts. Vel's smile doesn't even flicker. It should, but it doesn't.
'There's always a point, you're just a cynic.'
'We should all be cynics.'
'Well, yes, maybe. But it's impossible when I'm looking at you.'
Cinta smiles. She can't help herself. Bone tired, broken. She smiles.
And they dance. Clumsy and out of practice, holding each other in the half light. Cinta is no good, but Vel teaches her. Slow and steady, a quiet kind of patience. The music spins around them, ghostly songs from Vel’s homeworld. Cinta spins with it.
Sometimes, just sometimes, time stops, or it feels like it does. We are all so briefly infinite. And you close your eyes and you think, I will remember this. And Cinta knows, oh she does, that this is one of those moments.
Stretching ever outwards. Her hand in Vel's, their bodies pressed close. And outside the window, the galaxy goes on. It does, but Cinta swears she can't feel it anymore.
The world is so big, and they are so small, and for just one second the fragility of that calculation doesn't matter.
It's just Vel.