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hey batchers!

i'm leaving for a trip to thailand tonight, so i may be slow to respond to messages and comments this next week! hopefully if everything works out, chapters will still be posted automatically, but if they aren't, send me a message and let me know and i'll get it posted as soon as i can!

see you all in a week! 💫 

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Stale earthy air flooded her lungs in the hall. She sucked it in, wrapping her arms tighter around herself as the chill finally danced along her skin. Condensation glittered along the stone in the lamplight and she shivered at how eerily it looked like the tomb walls.

The silence of the hall pressed on her like a comforting weight. She closed her eyes, reaching a hand out to the damp wall to steady herself as her balance nearly gave out. The cavern of her stomach bristled like a void.

The door opened behind her. Concern washed over the current of the Force – so powerful that Saedii knew who it belonged to without turning around.

"Saedii?" Hunter lingered close but didn't touch her, as if sensing she wanted space. His voice was low and careful. "Are you alright?"

"I can't be in there," she admitted.

She tightened her eyes against the image of Crosshair knelt before her, a hopeful hand held out to her glistening with silver.

Saedii didn't want his false promises. They wouldn't give her peace.

Nothing could.

"I'll take you somewhere else," he said at once. "Where do you want to go?"

She shook her head. There was nowhere else to go. Nowhere that she could escape the crush of emotion that sat on her chest. Nowhere she could escape the ghosts that hungered after her.

"Why don't we go to the Marauder? You can sleep in your bunk for the night – or Wrecker's if you want something bigger."

"I'm not tired."

His voice came out ragged. "Please, for me – let me take you somewhere you can sleep."

"I don't want to sleep," she said in a very small voice.

After a week spent living in nightmares, there was no dream that could tempt her. No version of sleep that would offer her comfort.

"You look dead on your feet, kid."

She swallowed. Something bitter hung at the back of her mouth. "I'm afraid that if I go to sleep, I'll be stuck again."

Weighted silence blanketed the hall. It was a very vulnerable admission for her – one that Saedii had hoped to keep to herself. Already, Hunter and the others had seen too much of her suffering. She didn't want to them to see anymore.

It was...embarrassing, what she'd lived through. Degrading. Being back here, standing in the holes she'd left behind, she felt so weak and frail. The Jedi that had left for Eriadu was a far cry from the girl that stood here now, shivering in the hall. Saedii was ashamed by all the pieces of herself that she'd had to give away just to survive.

Hesitantly, Hunter reached out and touched her elbow. "Alright. If you don't want to sleep or eat, where can I take you? Where will you feel better?"

There was nowhere she wanted to go. Nowhere that sounded like it held the kind of peace she sought.

Except...

"Can I see Cere and Kalth?"

Hunter hesitated. His eyes flicked over her face, as if trying to see how close she was to becoming that person she'd been in the dorm only moments ago. Or the monster in the cell only this morning.

Slowly, he murmured, "Are you sure? Why don't we go tomorrow – after you've gotten some real rest?"

But now that Saedii had remembered Kalth and Cere, it would be impossible to ignore them. She shook her head.

He let out a low breath. "Fine. I'll go with you."

As much as Saedii wanted to argue, she knew he wouldn't budge.

The two were silent as Hunter led them back upstairs. Further up than Saedii's own private medbay. Far enough that soon, little windows peered out from the hall around them, letting in amber splashes of light from the setting sun. Brushing swaths of pinks and coppers along the floor in long strokes.

The air smelled cleaner up here. Outside one of the windows, a brief flash of blue petals and healthy stalks told her that she'd been right about the flowers. Their scent was sweet as honey in the airy hall – a far cry from the dusty corridor far below.

A white door sparkled in the dark wall. Hunter paused before it, glancing once at her. Then he raised his hand and knocked.

AZI answered almost at once. His bright yellow eyes narrowed in alarm at the sight of them and he demanded, "General, is everything alright?"

"She's fine," Hunter answered for her. "She wants to see them."

Like Hunter, AZI seemed to find this idea troubling. "I am unsure that is advisable in her current state –"

"Please," Saedii interrupted.

The droid sighed and stepped aside.

Inside, everything was white. The walls, the floors, the beds – it was so bright that it actually stung at Saedii's eyes. She blinked against the glare of the harsh lights that burned in thin strips above, squinting down the row of beds that waited inside.

It was a big room. Big enough that nearly ten hover beds sat comfortably beside each other, each with a collection of medical devices installed into the wall above it. Crisp white sheets had been pulled tight around the thin mattresses.

Only three beds were occupied. One – the closest to the door – had a Clone trooper with a heavily bandaged face, who groaned softly. The other two, all the way at the end of the room, had the curtains drawn around them.

Soft pulses of energy rippled in the Force. Saedii walked towards them.

Kalth was in the first of the hidden beds. When Saedii pulled the curtain back, she physically flinched at the sight of the bandages that wound around his gut. At just how still he was. A thin ringing sound ground in her ears, and from far away, Krell's voice hissed, What a waste.

"Your companion is stable," AZI reported, hovering nervously behind her.

At AZI's words, Saedii forced herself to look at Kalth again. The color had returned to his lips and the soft rising and falling of his chest was timed with the hisses of air from the respirator over his mouth. The bandages that wound around his middle were white – bloodless and clean. Above, his heart rate monitor showed a steady rhythm as it followed the beating of his heart.

He really was alive.

She closed her eyes. She'd been so sure he was dead.

"Krell is a gifted liar," a thin voice rasped from behind the next curtain.

Saedii slid it open, finding Cere Junda propped up in a bed of her own.

She didn't look good. The bandages that bound her chest were bloodstained and gave off the faint, putrid smell of decaying flesh. The skin of her face had gone pallid and gaunt, while her lips were cracked and bloodied. Dark circles pooled under her eyes, which stared up in discomfort, laced with pain.

"Your friend still lives," Cere pointed out. "Krell had him hidden away under care of a medical droid back at the Fortress. He never intended Kalth to die. Not when he was so sure he could control him again."

At once, Saedii went right to her side. Her hands fluttered before her, hesitant, but Cere merely grabbed her hand with her own.

"Hello, Saedii," Cere croaked.

Cere's hand was ice cold and bony. The skin felt thin.

"It's alright, little one," Cere said in response to the flare of alarm that threatened to drown Saedii. "There's no need to worry."

"You're injured," Saedii pointed out. Though injured was too light a word for Cere's condition.

A little smile pulled at Cere's lips. "Darth Vader underestimated my will to live. If he had not been so sure of himself, he would have sensed that I still clung to life, albeit faintly, in his dungeons."

At the mention of Darth Vader, Saedii's throat suddenly felt dry.

Cere's sharp eyes caught the flash of emotion. "I have already spoken to Anakin and Obi-Wan. I have told them of the fate of your old master."

"So it was really him?"

"In a way."

Behind her, so still that she'd nearly forgotten him, Hunter's breath caught as he realized what Saedii and Cere were saying. As he came to terms with the horrible truth that Saedii had been forced to accept in the dungeons.

"You survived him as well," Cere said idly, changing the subject as Saedii's eyes began to burn. Her smile grew stronger. "Another oversight on his part. He did not anticipate just how resilient your mind has grown. How very powerful you have become."

Powerful? Saedii didn't feel powerful. She felt broken. Shattered. A mere fragment of what she'd been only a year before.

"You still have your necklace."

Saedii glanced down. Her hand had wound around the lumpy rock at her throat, unconsciously. She nodded.

"Good." Cere's voice was warm. "It will help you find your way back. Help you heal the scars that Krell left behind."

A grimace split her face before she could help it. Hunter's eyes on her face were suddenly very heavy.

"It will, little one. I promise." Cere's hand tightened ever so slightly around her own. "In time, you will be whole once again."

It was as though Cere could sense the chasm that was inside of her – the black, yawning hole that had swallowed everything Saedii was. To Saedii, it felt infinite. A never-ending infinity that had drowned her. But somehow, Cere saw its end.

"How did you survive?" Saedii asked, changing the subject. She didn't like the way that Hunter was watching her – so intent and focused.

"A trick I learned in my books. I feel into a deep, healing sleep and let the Force preserve my body as it was. When I woke, it was to your friend pulling me from my cell."

"My friend?"

"From the 104th."

Wolffe. He'd saved her.

Equal parts relief and anxiety filled her at the thought of him. As she remembered how she'd brushed him off. How choked he'd been as he'd left.

Cere gave a little cough and bright red bubbles of blood popped on her lips.

"I believe that the time for visitors has ended," AZI said, quietly for the droid, as he moved forward to wipe the blood away with a swath of gauze.

Stubbornly, Saedii refused to move.

"It's alright, AZI. I could use the company," Cere said when the droid looked uncertain.

Hunter slipped out of the curtain. "I'll get you a chair."

Cere's eyes tracked him as he disappeared. A faint smile pulled at her pale lips. "Such loyal friends, the Clones. I am glad to see that is one thing the Empire failed to soil."

The curtain ruffled behind her. Hunter maneuvered a white high-backed chair into the small space between the beds. Then, with a timid nod, he announced, "I'll be out here if you need me. Take as much time as you need."

Cere squeezed her hand. "You're lucky to have them. They will help you heal."

Heal. Right.

Why did everyone think that Saedii was going to have some miraculous recovery? Why couldn't anyone see how truly broken she was to her core? How deep the scars went?

Reticently, Saedii admitted, "I don't think I'm ever going to heal. Not really."

As low as her voice was, Saedii knew Hunter would hear her. And as loathe as she was for him to know the depth of her suffering, she had to get this off her chest. Cere was the only one she felt  comfortable confessing to. She alone would know Saedii's struggle.

Cere's dark eyes fluttered closed. "Why is that?"

"Krell took too much from me." Saedii bit her lip, feeling weak for admitting it out loud. "I don't think there's anything left."

A long silence stretched between the two of them – so long that Saedii thought Cere might have fallen asleep. Then, her sure voice whispered, "My Master was fond of learning. He spent his whole life dedicated to traveling the galaxy and taking in as much knowledge as he could from civilizations both alive and past. He had a brilliant mind."

Saedii couldn't remember who Cere's master had been. Cere had graduated from Padawan to Knight long before Saedii had joined the order.

"Master Cordova," Cere continued, answering Saedii's silent question, "taught me many things. One in particular that you may find helpful."

There was a faint fluttering around the curtain. As though someone was leaning in to listen as well.

"Dh'lain ehvas ni'handra sa tyvorra."

The language was beautiful and alien. One Saedii had never heard before.

"Roughly translated," Cere explained, "it means Healing is not a destination, but a journey."

It sounded like something Plo would have said – though that thought wasn't much of a comfort when she knew Plo's fate. She frowned.

Cere's lips quirked, as if she could sense Saedii's confusion even with her eyes closed. "The ancient Viloridans believed that true healing came not from achieving milestones, but by working towards them. That your journey is more important than its end."

A faint shudder along the curtain told Saedii that whoever had been listening had walked away.

AZI swept through the curtains then, a syringe in his hand. "It is time for more medication, General."

"Do you want me to stay?" Saedii asked, suddenly unsure.

Cere's eyes remained closed, but she tilted her head in Saedii's direction. "If you'd like. I wasn't lying when I said that I'd enjoy the company."

AZI plunged a syringe into Cere's IV bag. A silvery sheen filled the bag of fluid, slowly trickling down the tube that was stuck into Cere's hand.

A slow smile spread across Cere's face. "Thank you, AZI. That feels much better."

"You are most welcome." The droid looked to Saedii next and ran an appraising look over her. She had a feeling that he wanted to give something to her too, but he wisely kept quiet.

Once he'd slipped back out of the curtain, Cere mumbled, "Forgive me if I fall asleep. This medication makes me too comfortable."

"I don't mind." Saedii watched as Cere's eyes flickered closed. As her breathing evened.

The bronze sunlight filtering in through the far windows finally gave way to blue strips of twilight, which fell in long strokes across Kalth and Cere's beds, and cast Saedii's face into shadow. As soon as the sun had set, the lights overhead dimmed and the medbay was finally cast into a comfortable and gloomy light.

Saedii settled back in her chair, getting comfortable. She had no plans to leave. Nowhere she wanted to go. For now, she was most content to sit between the two beds while her friends slept.

Kalth's chest rose in a steady rhythm, breaths quiet and even. He looked peaceful in his slumber. More like the boy she'd known at the Temple than the man she'd allied with at the Fortress.

Gently, Saedii reached out and grabbed Kalth's hand into her own. It was far warmer than Cere's and much larger. Rough calluses on his palm brushed against her own.

Sitting here with them, Kalth's hand in hers, was the closet that Saedii had been to peace in a very long time.