Work Text:
Mira Tovaan first meets Lieutenant Cinder because somebody has filed him under war crimes.
Not as a witness.
As evidence.
She discovers this at 0817, halfway through her second cup of caf and thirteen minutes before the tribunal preparation meeting begins.
The provisional war-crimes office occupies three reconstructed floors of the old Republic Judiciary complex. Every corridor is crowded with attorneys, investigators, military witnesses, civilian survivors, and enough badly organized evidence to bury a small moon.
Mira stands behind the reception desk reading the intake screen for the third time.
EVIDENCE ITEM 73-B: CLONE OFFICER, 327TH STAR CORPS.
She looks across the waiting room.
The clone officer looks back.
He is broad-shouldered, dark-haired, and still wearing battered yellow-marked armor rather than formal greys. A scar cuts through one eyebrow and disappears into his hairline. His helmet rests beneath one arm, and a sealed evidence case is cuffed to the other wrist.
He is also extremely attractive.
This is inconvenient.
Mira clears her throat.
“Lieutenant Cinder?”
“Yes, Speaker.”
His voice is low and rough, probably from too many campaigns conducted around artillery.
Mira looks at the intake screen again.
“You’ve been classified as an evidence item.”
Cinder glances down at himself.
“That explains why they tried to put a barcode on me.”
“They did what?”
“They stopped when I threatened to eat the label.”
Mira stares at him.
His mouth twitches.
She realizes he is joking only after picturing him actually doing it.
“That would’ve complicated the chain of custody.”
“I’ve been told I’m difficult to store.”
Mira should be fixing the paperwork.
Instead, she notices his eyes.
Brown, tired, and much warmer than his expression suggests.
He notices her noticing.
For one strange second, neither of them says anything.
Then the receptionist returns carrying a handheld scanner.
“I found the correct tag.”
Cinder steps behind Mira.
It happens so smoothly that she doesn’t register it until a six-foot-two clone lieutenant is using a five-foot-one Rodian political aide as cover from office equipment.
The receptionist stops.
Mira looks over her shoulder.
“Lieutenant.”
“I’m exercising my recently acquired right to refuse unnecessary labeling.”
“You’re hiding behind me.”
“Strategic positioning.”
“You outweigh me by at least forty kilograms.”
“The scanner’s still on.”
Mira turns back to the receptionist.
“Delete the evidence classification. Lieutenant Cinder is a protected military witness.”
The receptionist examines the screen. “The archive system says evidence.”
“The archive system also listed a Separatist torture chamber as miscellaneous furniture yesterday.”
“It had chairs.”
Mira takes the scanner from her hand.
“Thank you. I’ll handle this.”
The receptionist leaves.
Cinder steps out from behind Mira.
“You’re terrifying.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“I meant it as a compliment.”
That warms something low in Mira’s stomach.
She hands him the corrected witness credential and points toward the tribunal rooms.
“Conference Room Six. You’re testifying regarding General Korr’s conduct during the Kiros campaign.”
Cinder’s amusement fades.
“Yes.”
Mira knows the file.
General Jace Korr had ordered the 327th’s Fourteenth Company through a mined civilian district despite repeated warnings that evacuation was incomplete. When the clones refused to fire on fleeing residents, Korr had threatened their commanding officers with reconditioning.
Forty-three clones died clearing mines by hand because the general didn’t want to delay his advance.
Cinder had been one of seven survivors.
Mira’s voice softens.
“Your advocate is already inside.”
He nods, then lifts the evidence case cuffed to his wrist.
“This is the helmet recording.”
“I know.”
“They said it might not be admissible because we weren’t legal persons when it was made.”
“They’re wrong.”
Something changes in his face.
“You sound certain.”
“I wrote the argument.”
Cinder looks at her for a long moment.
Then his eyes crease at the corners.
Not quite a smile, but close.
Mira understands suddenly why Senator Chuchi once described clone smiles as something that happened around the eyes before the mouth caught up.
“Thank you,” he says.
Mira has received formal praise from senators, generals, and three planetary heads of state.
None of it has ever made her forget what she was going to say next.
Cinder waits.
Mira realizes she is staring again.
“Conference Room Six,” she repeats.
“You said that.”
“Yes.”
“Should I go there?”
“That would be ideal.”
He nods solemnly. “Excellent strategic advice.”
Mira watches him walk away.
His armor is scorched across the back.
That should not make him more attractive.
It does.
This is going to be a problem.
Their second encounter occurs twenty-four minutes later when Cinder enters Conference Room Nine instead of Six.
Mira is briefing a delegation of Pantoran legal observers when the door opens and he steps inside.
He looks around at the blue-skinned officials, stacks of constitutional records, and absence of anyone from the 327th.
“You’re not my advocate.”
“No,” Mira says.
Cinder checks the number outside.
“This is Nine.”
“Yes.”
“I was told Six.”
“By me.”
“Yes.”
One of the Pantoran observers looks between them.
Cinder points vaguely down the corridor.
“I’m going to leave now.”
“That would be wise.”
He backs out.
Mira waits until the door closes.
The oldest observer smiles at her.
“Charming.”
Mira pretends not to hear.
Their third encounter happens in the archive lift at 1240.
Cinder is inside when the doors open, now without the evidence case but still in armor. He has a packet of military ration biscuits in one hand and a tribunal transcript in the other.
Mira steps inside.
The doors close.
“Speaker,” he says.
“Lieutenant.”
The lift begins descending.
Silence settles between them.
It is not comfortable silence.
It is the silence of two people thinking too hard about where to look.
Cinder offers her a ration biscuit.
Mira looks at it.
“Is this an attempt at bribery?”
“Possibly courtship.”
She turns toward him.
Cinder freezes.
The tips of his ears go red.
“I meant hospitality.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
The admission escapes him with the defeated honesty of a soldier realizing his position has been overrun.
Mira takes the biscuit.
It tastes like compressed wall insulation.
She chews anyway.
Cinder watches her with visible concern.
“You don’t have to finish it.”
“I’ve survived Senate catering.”
“That bad?”
“Worse. At least this admits it isn’t food.”
He laughs.
The sound is startled out of him, rough and brief, and Mira immediately wants to hear it again.
The lift stops on the next floor.
Neither of them moves.
The doors begin closing.
Cinder catches them with one armored hand.
“I think this is your floor.”
“It is.”
Mira steps out.
“Thank you for the biscuit.”
“You’re welcome.”
The doors close between them.
Mira stands in the corridor holding half a ration biscuit and wondering whether she has just been courted through military-grade fiber.
Their fourth encounter happens because Cinder’s testimony is postponed.
One of Korr’s attorneys challenges the witness order, then challenges the admissibility of clone-recorded evidence, then challenges whether clone memories created before personhood can qualify as personal testimony.
Mira spends three hours dismantling the arguments one at a time.
When she leaves the hearing room, Cinder is sitting on the floor outside with his back against the wall.
“You could’ve gone to the witness lounge,” she says.
“It has windows.”
Mira understands.
The office overlooks Coruscant from the ninety-third floor. Some frontliners struggle with open heights after years aboard ships and elevated command stations.
She sits beside him before deciding whether it is appropriate.
Cinder glances at her.
“You don’t have to stay.”
“I know.”
“The floor’s uncomfortable.”
“I’ve sat through eleven-hour budget sessions.”
“Is that why politicians are angry all the time?”
“That and committees.”
Cinder looks down at his hands.
Without his gloves, Mira can see old burns across his fingers.
“They’re trying to say it didn’t happen,” he says.
“They’re trying to say it can’t be prosecuted.”
“Same result.”
“For them, perhaps.”
He turns toward her.
Mira keeps her voice level.
“They don’t get to erase what happened because the Republic corrected its legal definition of you too late. The Charter’s protections existed before the Senate admitted they applied. That failure belongs to the Republic, not to you.”
Cinder studies her face.
“You really believe that.”
“I don’t waste this much time arguing things I don’t believe.”
His shoulder presses lightly against hers.
Neither of them moves away.
“Do you always talk like a legal brief?” he asks.
“Only when I’m flirting.”
Cinder nearly chokes.
Mira smiles.
That evening, they run into each other in the Judiciary cafeteria.
The next morning, they meet at the security checkpoint.
Two days later, Cinder somehow ends up carrying her case files because he claims her organizational method is a spinal injury waiting to happen.
Cinder starts bringing real caf instead of ration biscuits. Mira begins scheduling his testimony reviews personally despite having six perfectly competent aides.
By the fifth day, three tribunal clerks are watching them with the kind of interest usually reserved for live explosives.
Mira decides the situation has become intolerable.
Cinder is standing outside Hearing Room Two, adjusting the collar of borrowed dress greys. Yellow piping marks the uniform as 327th, though the fabric sits too stiffly across his shoulders.
He sees her and smiles with his mouth this time.
“Speaker.”
“Lieutenant.”
“You look like you’re about to issue an order.”
“I might.”
Cinder straightens automatically.
Mira stops in front of him.
She has delivered speeches to the full Senate, publicly contradicted the former Chancellor, and once informed twelve defense contractors that their testimony constituted a coordinated confession.
This should not be difficult.
It is somehow extremely difficult.
“Have dinner with me,” she says.
Cinder blinks.
“Dinner.”
“Yes.”
“Not tribunal dinner?”
“No.”
“Not witness preparation?”
“No.”
“Actual dinner?”
Mira folds her arms.
“Lieutenant, I’m going to need you to stop repeating the word before I reconsider.”
“I’m confirming the objective.”
“The objective is dinner.”
“With you?”
“Cinder.”
“Yes.”
She waits.
He continues staring at her.
“Was that an answer?” Mira asks.
“No. Sorry. Yes.”
“Yes, it was an answer?”
“Yes, I’ll have dinner with you.”
His smile appears slowly, as if he does not quite trust it yet.
Mira feels her own answering before she can stop it.
“Good,” she says. “Tomorrow at 1900.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Wear civilian clothes.”
Cinder looks alarmed.
“I don’t own civilian clothes.”
Mira considers this.
“Then wear the greys.”
“They make me look like I’m attending my own sentencing.”
“You look handsome.”
Cinder goes completely still.
Mira realizes she has said that aloud.
His ears turn red again.
“You’re terrifying,” he says.
“So you keep telling me.”
“I still mean it as a compliment.”
Mira walks into the hearing room before either of them can overthink the matter.
Behind her, Cinder quietly says, “Yes,” to himself one more time.