Work Text:
Cassian hadn’t wanted it back.
“Ever tried piloting a ship in one of those?”
He didn’t sound dismissive – not as if he assumed that she, the senator, had never sat in a cockpit before. It was more like he was offering a piece of advice, from one comrade to another. Mon wondered why he’d even gotten the coat in the first place. She knew fabrics, this one would have cost quite a few credits. But before she could ask him herself, he had already strode off again. He rarely stayed in the open-air canteen on Yavin longer than absolutely necessary. Mon, on the other hand, had found that it did her good.
At least to have one meal a day at a table that wasn’t being used for work, and to talk with the people who carried out the plans she devised meeting after meeting with Draven and the others. She harbored no illusion that the rebels spoke freely when she sat down among them and insisted on pouring her own tea. That wasn’t how hierarchies worked. The top might hold more power, but it came with loneliness. Mon was used to it. Yet even polite small talk was a sign of appreciation. And sometimes her tablemates nearly forgot that their leader had joined them. Especially when Vel sat beside her – acting as a bridge, not quite part of the inner circle herself, and usually with an anecdote at the ready, one that made Mon seem more approachable without making her vulnerable.
She had offered Vel the coat. For the clothing supply the recruits drew from when they needed it. But Vel had shaken her head firmly.
“The rain won’t stop just because you’re walking to our cabin.“
She squeezed Mon‘s hand.
“Keep the thing. It fits you like it was made for you.”
If it had been tailored to her body the way her dresses on Coruscant had been, the shoulders would have been narrower, the sleeves a little shorter. But still, Vel was right: the coat suited her – in quite a few ways that Mon discovered during her first weeks on Yavin.
When Draven showed her the temple hall where the recruits were sworn in, the morning after her escape from Coruscant, and explained the detailed training program in equally detailed words, she discovered a supply bar in the left breast pocket. Porg-flavored, as she found to her pleasant surprise when she took a discreet bite while Draven led her into the armory. Luthen had teased her once or twice about her occasional hearty cravings, which he thought hardly suited the noble senator from Chandrila, but Cassian, it seemed, shared her taste.
When she actually had to walk to her cabin, rain drumming against the coat’s hood, her datapad was tucked safely and dryly into an inner pocket that seemed made for it. The next morning, Vel slipped into her still-damp jacket, muttering curses, while Mon’s coat had already dried, even though, like Vel’s, it had been lying over a damp crate beside their table.
And, Mon only admitted it when Erskin pointed it out – he who hadn’t lost his eye for the finer things in life even on Yavin – the coat suited her. The color complemented her hair, the cut flattered her figure, and even though that hardly mattered amid the mud and muck of Yavin, at the rebels’ canteen table, or in meetings with the council, there were worse things than putting on a garment each day that was both practical and becoming. Far worse things.
One thing that both unsettled her and stayed with her when, after a few weeks, it disappeared: the coat had carried a scent that seemed familiar to Mon, though she couldn’t place it. For a moment, she wondered whether Cassian and Perrin used the same aftershave, but she dismissed the thought at once. Perrin, with his fondness for musk, smelled different – and Mon bit her lip as she acknowledged the truth of it, though it was hardly new to her – she didn’t associate him with the feeling of safety that came over her whenever she pressed her nose to the coat’s collar.
In the end, the coat only smelled of rain and mud, and like a garment rather badly in need of washing – something Mon rarely had the time for, and she forbade Erskin to do for her. It had become her second skin. In this she was no different from the rebels who sat beside her at the table, at least once a day. Mon had always been good at remembering faces, a side effect of a life in politics. On Yavin, she’d begun to remember the clothes as well; the garments the rebels wore day in and day out, by which she could tell them apart.
⸻
Kleya Marki was wearing blue when she arrived on Yavin.
Not the blue of the gallery uniform, elegant and severe, that made her recognizable from a distance as Luthen Rael’s assistant, and for which it had likely been chosen, along with the intricate updo. Not the blue of the stylish coat she had worn at the safe house, the last time Mon had seen her, with its large hood under which she could hide her long hair and her face. She had looked beautiful like that. Striking. Mon remembered thinking so, for the briefest fraction of a second. She had been surprised and strangely grateful, to have found Kleya enticing as she stood there by the window, framed against the night skyline of Coruscant. If that was possible – in the middle of her escape, after the speech that had turned her secret rebellion into an open one – if such a moment of unexpected desire was possible amid uncertainty and chaos, then many things were possible in this galaxy, weren’t they?
The trousers and vest Kleya was wearing now were neither elegant nor stylish, but made of sturdy fabric, built for combat and for flight, though, as Cassian had told her and Vel had confirmed, the latter had never been part of Kleya’s plan. Mon understood that, in a way. They had all pledged themselves to the rebellion, each in their own fashion, and each had staked their own life on it. And yet she was flooded with a fierce, searing relief that Cassian, stubborn bastard that he was, had kept Kleya from dying a hero’s death. A relief that only deepened when she learned that Vel had kept Kleya from wandering into Yavin‘s jungle – lost in more ways than one, it seemed.
Kleya had been asleep on Vel‘s bed when Mon had seen her first. She made sure Kleya was taken back to the infirmary. She made sure Kleya was properly cared for there and forced to rest, for another 24 hours at least. “She’s important to the rebellion,” she told the doctor on duty. “And she’s important to me,” she added, with a faint smile meant to suggest sentimental weakness, sometimes more effective than hard authority, as she knew. The fact that it also happened to be true was beside the point. “Let me know when she’s discharged, will you?”
Kleya was still wearing the trousers and vest she’d arrived in when she left the infirmary. Mon saw her cross her arms and draw her shoulders up. It was never particularly cold on Yavin, but today an unpleasant wind had risen, promising more rain. Again. She stepped out from the shadow of the wall she’d been leaning against, waiting.
“The first thing we need to do is find you a jacket.”
Mon saw Kleya’s eyes narrow briefly – the only sign that she was surprised to see her. The wounds on her face had already healed well. The rebel base might not have had the resources of an Imperial hospital, but treating injuries like Kleya’s was hardly a problem.
“Senator Mothma. It’s been a while.”
“Indeed. I’ve stopped being a senator.”
“We… I noticed.”
Was there a touch of bitterness behind the sadness Kleya had swallowed so quickly? At least she sounded as brusque as Mon remembered, and there was some fire in her eyes, something Vel had assured her of, but Mon had wanted to see for herself.
She stepped toward Kleya – not a moment too soon, as Kleya wavered slightly. Mon reached for her hands. They were damp. She cursed the doctor under her breath.
“Let’s get you back inside.”
Kleya shook her head. She straightened up again and pulled free of Mon’s grasp.
“I won’t lie on my back one second longer.”
Mon gestured toward a stack of supply crates by the infirmary entrance. She knew when she was defeated.
“Let’s sit for a moment, at least.”
Kleya followed her – reluctantly, but she did. Once they were seated side by side, Mon, on impulse, took off the coat and draped it over both herself and Kleya. She felt Kleya tense briefly, then relax. The warmth seemed to do her good. Mon certainly didn’t mind it. It was nice having Kleya this close, she realized. They fit well next to each other.
Kleya cast her a sideways glance.
“I told Cassian everything I know.”
That wasn’t why Mon was here, but she played along.
“It would be easier if it weren’t true.”
Kleya scoffed.
“Is this how Yavin operates?”
Mon shrugged. Leading the rebellion was challenging and yes, at times frustrating. It would have been dishonest to pretend otherwise. Kleya was far too sharp to be lied to anyway.
“Yavin is the sum of its parts. It’s all of us.”
It struck Mon that they had probably never spoken this much in one sitting. It had usually been her and Luthen. Kleya had sometimes been the messenger, occasionally present when she and Luthen discussed funding. Luthen. She felt the impulse to offer Kleya some kind of condolence, but the right words eluded her. She sensed that Kleya didn’t resent her silence, perhaps even welcomed it.
She could feel the woman beside her shift, letting her back rest against the wall of the infirmary. Kleya’s hair brushed the side of Mon’s head. It smelled of the fresher’s soap they all used – and faintly of something that made Mon’s breath catch.
It was the scent the coat had carried.
The coat had smelled of Kleya.
She tugged at the collar. She had to make sure.
“Kleya, this coat. It’s not Cassian‘s?”
Kleya turned her head fully to look her in the eye. She gave Mon the briefest of smiles.
“I’m sorry about the sleeves. But it had to fit him, too. Just for the start.”
Mon thought of the supply bar in her favorite flavor and the hidden pocket so fitting for her datapad.
“It was always meant for me,” she clarified.
Kleya raised an eyebrow. She appeared amused by Mon’s confusion, and a bit of the old gallery assistant’s persona surfaced.
“I’ve been aware of Yavin’s conditions. Can’t have the leader of the Rebellion looking like a wet tooka.”
Her gaze fell on the coat, then wandered back to Mon‘s face. She hesitated slightly before she continued.
“Or feel like one.”
Kleya’s cheeks had gained some color, and Mon filed away the feelings that had begun to rise in her chest. She couldn’t sort them, not now. She gestured at the garment as it covered them both.
“Let me guess – not a scenario you envisioned.”
That earned a dry chuckle from Kleya.
“You always seemed to like to keep your distance.”
That was an assumption Mon would have to think about another time, as well. Thankfully, coming from Kleya, it was easily deflected.
“Are you projecting?”
Another raised eyebrow.
“You are aware how close I am to you right now?”
Mon was, very much so. Another deflection then, quickly.
“I didn’t give you much choice.”
“Now you‘re overestimating your power.“
Kleya was good at this game, too, Mon thought. She wasn’t surprised.
“Are you going to stay?”
The question was out before Mon had realized she was going to ask it. She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know the answer.
“Am I allowed to go?”
Kleya looked at her again. Her eyes were not matching the playfulness of her tone, Mon thought. Still, she answered lightly.
“Now you’re overestimating my power.”
Kleya didn’t respond, but she didn’t look away immediately, and Mon held her gaze. Whatever passed between them, Mon knew went to the pile she had to sort through. Then Kleya leaned back again, their legs touching slightly. Mon felt the coat’s weight – her coat, the one Kleya had sought out and found on Coruscant, with Mon in mind. That she had prepared for Mon and her time on Yavin. And Mon wondered, once more, what might truly be possible in this galaxy, after all.