"It happened right there," Brandyn said, trying to focus on the good that had come out of this Shiraya forsaken place. They were under the E'Eeverwest Memorial Gardens, in the chasm-like rooms that were once the repositories of Force artifacts collected by Brandyn's late father.
He moved to stand on the spot again. "This is where it happened…where we kissed for the first time," he stretched forth his hand, beckoning for her to come to him.
Cybelle could feel the change in the location. It had once felt like a tomb where light could barely thrive but greenery and flora above had given it new life. With it, a new perspective. "Things were... So confusing then. But that that was clear. Possibly the only thing."
In all the chaos the Force had led them back to each other amidst turbulent designs. It gave them both an anchor. Personal lighthouses to guide and keep them safe. Cybelle came closer as he willed... Not that he really needed to ask.
He was the sun that she orbited.
"That feels... So long ago."
When she was in reach, he stooped a little to grab her hand and pulled her close. His lips found hers for just a moment, recreating the moment from months earlier. Once the kiss had broken, Brandyn held her gaze. "Let's not allow the past to determine our future," he said to her heart, "whatever was falls away in the face of the future we forge together. Cybelle and Brandyn. The way it was meant to be."
She melted. He had that effect more often than not, especially, when he felt strongly about something. It was almost poetic. His eyes were... Such a perfect shade. "Is that why you wanted to come here?"
Back to the beginning? Cybelle often wished the old E'Eeverwest Estate would have been restored to what it was. Not memorial gardens... But to the place she remembered being happy in as a youngling. But for Brandyn... This place no longer felt like home.
"I think about our future a lot...I know...I'm mindful of the present but...I still do."
He brushed an errant hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. "What do you see in our future?" He said.
She glanced down a moment with a faint flush hitting the tops of her cheeks. Embarrassed for...Wanting something more than what the solitary life of a Jedi could provide. "Lots of things...Lots of cookies," she offered with a teasing smile.
"I see adventures with my best friend. I see love that... Nothing can stop. Maybe... Even..."
She swallowed hard.
"A family. One day."
But... All these things were contingent on her continued hidden secret. It was eating away at her. Every day she kept Brandyn in the dark about something so earth shattering made part of her spirit crumble. The trauma and everything that came with it... "But...."
He didn't hear the trailing off of the sentence, instead cutting in with a look of exuberance. "A family? As in…kids?" He said, shaking his head but agreeing, "seems very grown up…but yeah. That sounds amazing." He couldn't really contemplate a responsibility that great.
Arm wrapping around her, he turned to look at the multi-tiered display room before them. Again, he found himself shaking his head. "In a place of secrets that almost destroyed my family," he said, sadness for his parents' loss tainting his tone, "we stand talking about how the family will continue on. The lies do not win…unless we let them."
"Y-Yes," she warbled a little embarrassed all over again. "I don't mean now just one day... If you wanted."
If he didn't want that she wouldn't press. Brandyn was enough family for her but the idea of having little lights to love was more appealing than she thought possible.
But the talk of secrets and lies brought her back down again. The guilt grew, leaving her feeling raw, and overly emotional to the point where... She felt like she might cry. Brandyn was already upset.
She tried so hard to be strong for him. To wait for a moment when he might be able to accept what had happened but... That moment never came. He needed her. Cybelle. Not..."Brandyn..."
He had stepped away from her, eyes alight with possibility and hope. Spinning about on his heels, he saw that she had just finished saying his name. There was a particular way in which her lips twitched when she said his name. "That's me," he said, taking an estimated guess, "what is it?"
He looked so happy.
"There's something I need to tell you," she spoke softly, though, she hesitated because of how he seemed today. Brighter. As if the shadows were finally slipping away, losing their grip, but if she didn't reach out to him soon... She felt like she might break. Cybelle needed his help.
It was the first time she'd really admitted it to herself.
She needed help.
"I just...I don't know how."
Brandyn's face dropped. Smile fading into melancholy. She had bad news. Was she unable to have children? Did she already have a child? Whoa! Was there someone else before him? He would understand, and it would be fine, but why say something now? His eyes scanned her from across the room trying to figure out the truth without her having to say anything. He tugged at his jacket nervously.
He shook his head. She was suffering. Cybelle. The woman he loved. It wasn't about him, it was about her. He chastised himself for his selfishness, and took a step towards his betrothed.
"You don't need to tell me anything that you don't want to tell me," he said, taking her hands in his, "the Cybelle I know is the Cybelle I love. Nothing you can tell me can change that. So if it pains you to say it…don't."
Her eyes squeezed closed and she tried to find a way...Through. He didn't understand. How could he? It hurt her more than words could say, more than actually dying, to slowly come to the conclusion that she had. "I want..." she trailed off, throat drying out, while she tried so desperately to find her footing. "I want a life with you. Only, you. It's only ever been you."
"But I can't do that if we're starting...Wrong. It's not fair to you."
Even if it hurt. Her eyes averted and found some hollow point to stare at...Her heart was eroded from keeping it to herself. From worrying, it might drive a further wedge between Briana and Brandyn. Afraid it would hurt her family in ways she couldn't predict.
Her words were strangled.
Barely audible.
"I think I might be a monster."
His face had grown more and more sullen as she spoke. Whatever she had to say, he was preparing it to devastate him. His mind raced with possibilities. She was already married, and not yet divorced. Maybe. She thought Briana was a better Jedi. Better not be it. She didn't want to be a Jedi anymore. Maybe. So many maybes. All the possibilities coalesced into a mass in his chest that stopped his heart from beating. And then she said it, in the still of the empty chasm of a room…
…his laugh echoed.
"A…monster?" He said, looking down and shaking his head, before meeting his eyes again, "you most certainly are not. What a preposterous thing to say…of course you are no monster."
He would see her eyes slowly well with tears while he laughed. Her heart was...Aching. Not at being laughed at but because of the very real possibility that he was wrong. "....You don't understand..."
"I really...I really might...Not be me. I might be a monster."
His laugh faded with a few whimpers. An apologetic frown formed quickly as he lowered his eye line to try and grab hers. He was confused, but growing more concerned. This was serious. Cybelle actually believed it was possible. "If there was anyone that would know if you were you…it would be me," he said in a tone that sounded only slightly convincing.
"Something happened on Exegol..." she murmured while her eyes lingered on his, made blurry, with long-seeded pain and confusion. Cybelle could feel her hands start to shake while the memories resurfaced at mere mention of the last large battle between the Jedi and Sith. She winced. The memory of a sordid dance of words and weapons where she had remained carefully on the defensive. So close, she believed, to breaking through to someone to the truth of their choices. The truth of evil.
Before something bright and red pierced her chest. "I..."
Brandyn's demeanour darkened. Indeed, it felt as if the whole room darkened with it. Shadows seemed to creep out from the wall and isolate the couple in their cautious embrace. Exegol. The very word sent a shiver up his spine. A huge part of him did not want her to say anything more. He was fine not knowing, part of him was. He was happy to live in ignorance.
"What happened at Exegol, Cybelle?" He said, his wiser nature winning out.
"I—" she stammered out, not, because she was afraid of him or anything else in the newly made memorial gardens but...memory. Sights, sounds, and an experience that had haunted her freely for months. Her chest started to heave while the words kept getting stuck. Jumbled. Her reaction was very similar to that of a traumatized veteran. A combination of survivors' guilt and something even more damning. "I couldn't—"
"There was a m-man, Sith, fighting another one. A woman. She was familiar somehow but I've never met either of them before. She ran. So we..fought. And I couldn't do it Bran...I had so many opportunities. He made so many mistakes. He acted with so much anger that his footing was all wrong and—"
She inhaled quickly and tried to push everything down. Tried to be strong, to keep, being strong.
"I couldn't do it. I couldn't kill him."
This was very, very serious. She was trembling. What in Shiraya's name had happened. Her inability to to kill came as no shock, and it certainly didn't make someone a monster. Cybelle wouldn't think so. No one would.
He resisted the urge to squeeze her shoulders as if it could squeeze the words out of her. His heart raced. What. What had happened?
"Did you…did you touch the dark side?" He muttered, hoping that was all it was. Every Jedi battled against the darkness, but his heart said that couldn't, no wouldn't be Cybelle.
"I'm here for you," he said quietly, focusing through the Force to push his own fear aside and to cast an aura of calm over them. It was something she had taught him.
"The truth is our ally. Even if it causes pain. We are Jedi. Do not be afraid, my love."
His strength rushed through the Force and settled on her shoulders like a warm blanket. It was enough for her to stop shaking...But it wasn't enough to keep tears from falling. "He noticed," she murmured slowly, using an empty, innocent spot to continue. It was something to hold on to when she could feel calm slipping through her fingers like sand. "He was confused about his place, his purpose, but he had his duty. It was my weakness...I wanted to help. Not hurt. I couldn't kill him."
"...So he...He killed me."
She hadn't touched the darkside, exactly. Quite the opposite. At first.
His calm shook. Shadows rippled through his aura. Wallgof's vision…had been real? "But no…no he didn't," Brandyn said, finding himself stammering, "you are very alive…very much so."
"He did."
The two simple words were berthed with a sadness that held no comparison. There was a loneliness in them that spoke more than anything else could have. A confusion that was twined with honesty...There was no reason she would lie about it. "That confusion he had with following orders... He felt regret. Remorse. He brought me back. I was...Gone. I remember every moment of it."
It was no hallucination, no delirium, and no trick.
"A Sith brought me back to life...Back from the Force...I d-don't know...I don't know what I am. I know it's happened in the past, but, I don't know if it's happened this way. I don't even know how long..."
'I'll be here,' she thought, but didn't finish. Her head hung low...Barely cognizant of how Brandyn had instantly refuted it. Talking about it, even brokenly, was too much. The memory was still too fresh.
Brandyn pulled her close, squeezing her firmly but not harshly. His eyes betrayed his lack of comfort though. Wallgof had showed him the truth. "I can't protect you," he whispered to himself.
She let herself be pulled in and her face found his chest for a moment to hide confused, pained, and long buried tears. A soft sound pulled from her at the way he seemed to pivot in... The exact way she'd thought. As if it were somehow his fault. "That's not..."
She couldn't get it out. Not yet... For the moment she just needed to cry. Just...Cry and be held so she didn't fall apart.
Not powerful enough. The thought began to foment within the mind of Brandyn as he held a sobbing Cybelle. He felt his fingers curl, pulling together folds of her clothing into a tight knot.
"We will figure it out," he said after a long time of just holding and trying to soothe, "together."
It took time. Everything that she'd been holding in just tumbled out while a slow exhaustion began to settle. The sheer stress of trying to bear it by herself was showing... "I love you," she repeated, likely, for the hundredth time.
"I just... I can't do this by myself. I've tried looking into everything I can... But there's no answers."
Not to mention that she was still dimly aware of differences. Changes. Things that hadn't been - And an awareness of the Sith that had brought her back.
"You are not alone," he said, hand moving to hold the back of her head, "not anymore…I can't imagine what it has been like to bear this alone." Now was not the time for the conversation about why she hadn't told anyone sooner. She had now, and of course she would tell Brandyn. He would fix everything, eventually.
"Come on. You need to get some rest. But don't worry. I'm not leaving you," he said. He tried not to blink. Everytime he did, he saw the images that Darth Wallgof had shown him…Cybelle dead on the ground. She wasn't dead. She lived. He held her. He knew her heart. She was herself.
"I love you…no matter what," he whispered.
He would feel her almost sag in relief and her body curled into his as if it were a very literal shelter from the cold. That he loved her still... That was what she was looking for. If he could love what she had become... Maybe she could too. "I'm sorry..."
"I'm so sorry...I tried...I really tried."
Tried so many things. Not to lose in the first place. To be okay with it enough to confidently tell him - To show him she was okay, so he could be okay. Jeopardizing the future she had always wanted but never dared dream of was the last thing she wanted to do.
"You are not alone," he said, taking her arm and leading her towards the elevator towards the surface, "and I promise you…I will find out what happened…and protect you…no matter what."
Cybelle let her fingers curl around his, for the moment, using her hair to hide her face. It was a familiar wallflower habit that she subconsciously fell toward when she felt overwhelmed. She was warmed by his words, promises, but she was still...Worried. He reacted so strongly when it came to things he cared about. Was she not one of those things?
She didn't know what to say.
"Maybe...Tomorrow. Today...If you can spend today with me...I think...I think I would like that."
She swallowed.
"A lot."
"Let's find that spot by the fountain. You remember the one…where you pushed me in when we were kids," he said, with a failed attempt at a laugh, "let's go sit there and listen to the birds sing."
The elevator door opened.
"I'm not going anywhere, Cybelle," he said, as the doors closed.
