Location: Hyperspace
The noise of the CSL Trinity was gone now, replaced with the low mechanical groan of a transport still traveling through the dark, and Ace standing somewhere quiet enough that he could hear his own breathing again. He hated the quiet. Quiet left too much room.
He stood with one shoulder against the cold wall, head tipped back slightly, eyes half-lidded beneath the lights. His glove creaked faintly as his cybernetic hand flexed once, then stilled. For months now, all he'd really felt was hollowness and rage.
No more grief, fear, or even guilt. Just emptiness where other things should have been, and anger hot enough to fill the space when the emptiness got too loud. He'd been moving inside that for so long it had started to feel normal. It was easier to function when everything softer had been burned out of him. Easier to keep going when there was nothing left to protect except the objective. The next move. The next target. The next necessary thing.
But Sibylla Abrantes 's voice kept cutting through it anyway.
So another lie then? That you knew what it felt like to cross a line and hate yourself for it.
Ace shut his eyes. The words came back exactly as she'd said them, polished and sharp as glass. Somehow that made them worse. She hadn't pleaded with him, tried to save him. She'd just looked at him and laid him bare piece by piece, like she was reading off a truth he'd been too arrogant to admit.
I suppose you were right after all. How can I lose someone… who I already lost?
The muscle in his cheek twitched. He pushed off the wall, paced two slow steps, then stopped again, restless energy crawling under his skin. The Dark side still lingered in his nerves like static after lightning, but the fight was over now. There was no one left to hit. No one left to drown out the noise.
His thoughts turned, unwillingly, toward his older brother Kenji Verd .
Coruscant. Rain. The storm in the sky. That conversation between them sitting heavier now than it had at the time.
From one Son, to Another. The only thing that is inevitable in this life is that every happy moment you've ever had will be tainted, stomped on, and ruined for you.
Ace exhaled slowly through his nose. He hadn't argued then, he'd already known Kenji was speaking a language he understood. And Ace's response?...
…As long as they're happy. Safe. I don't care.
Ace looked down at his hands. Flesh and glove. Metal and wire. A weapon built out of loss and whatever had survived it.
Sibylla's final words replayed next, quieter now, but heavier than before.
I suppose that was my folly. Believing you were more than what you showed yourself to be.
Then there was Lorn Reingard . The hand on his shoulder... the disappointment. And worse than that, was the certainty in him. The awful steadiness of it.
I will be there for you when you come out of it.
Lorn had meant it. Even then, before the arrest, before the fight, before Ace tore the blast door apart and proved every warning right. And after that? Something in the way Lorn moved had changed. Like he was looking at Ace and seeing someone he could no longer reach.
Sibylla's hurt was one thing. He'd expected that, maybe even prepared for it. But Lorn... Lorn had given up on him. Enough to draw the line, to stop treating him like someone standing on the edge.
Ace dragged a hand down his face and laughed once under his breath, humorless and dead on arrival. It was better this way. No one close enough to hesitate. No one left expecting anything better from him. No one waiting for him to come back to something he wasn't sure he still believed in.
The thought... should have settled him. Instead it left a strange ache behind his ribs and he went still again.
Sibylla's voice.
Lorn's hand.
Kenji's rain-soaked certainty.
Fatine's face slipping uninvited into the spaces between them.
For one brief, treacherous moment, his resolve wavered. Not enough to break. Not enough to turn. Just enough for the question to rise, quiet and venomous:
What if they're right?
Ace's eyes opened, looking out through the narrow viewport at the hyperpace beyond the ship. Then his mouth set. Whatever doubt had surfaced, he pressed it down the same way he pressed down everything else. Beneath discipline. Beneath anger. Beneath purpose.
He stood with one shoulder against the cold wall, head tipped back slightly, eyes half-lidded beneath the lights. His glove creaked faintly as his cybernetic hand flexed once, then stilled. For months now, all he'd really felt was hollowness and rage.
No more grief, fear, or even guilt. Just emptiness where other things should have been, and anger hot enough to fill the space when the emptiness got too loud. He'd been moving inside that for so long it had started to feel normal. It was easier to function when everything softer had been burned out of him. Easier to keep going when there was nothing left to protect except the objective. The next move. The next target. The next necessary thing.
But Sibylla Abrantes 's voice kept cutting through it anyway.
So another lie then? That you knew what it felt like to cross a line and hate yourself for it.
Ace shut his eyes. The words came back exactly as she'd said them, polished and sharp as glass. Somehow that made them worse. She hadn't pleaded with him, tried to save him. She'd just looked at him and laid him bare piece by piece, like she was reading off a truth he'd been too arrogant to admit.
I suppose you were right after all. How can I lose someone… who I already lost?
The muscle in his cheek twitched. He pushed off the wall, paced two slow steps, then stopped again, restless energy crawling under his skin. The Dark side still lingered in his nerves like static after lightning, but the fight was over now. There was no one left to hit. No one left to drown out the noise.
His thoughts turned, unwillingly, toward his older brother Kenji Verd .
Coruscant. Rain. The storm in the sky. That conversation between them sitting heavier now than it had at the time.
From one Son, to Another. The only thing that is inevitable in this life is that every happy moment you've ever had will be tainted, stomped on, and ruined for you.
Ace exhaled slowly through his nose. He hadn't argued then, he'd already known Kenji was speaking a language he understood. And Ace's response?...
…As long as they're happy. Safe. I don't care.
Ace looked down at his hands. Flesh and glove. Metal and wire. A weapon built out of loss and whatever had survived it.
Sibylla's final words replayed next, quieter now, but heavier than before.
I suppose that was my folly. Believing you were more than what you showed yourself to be.
Then there was Lorn Reingard . The hand on his shoulder... the disappointment. And worse than that, was the certainty in him. The awful steadiness of it.
I will be there for you when you come out of it.
Lorn had meant it. Even then, before the arrest, before the fight, before Ace tore the blast door apart and proved every warning right. And after that? Something in the way Lorn moved had changed. Like he was looking at Ace and seeing someone he could no longer reach.
Sibylla's hurt was one thing. He'd expected that, maybe even prepared for it. But Lorn... Lorn had given up on him. Enough to draw the line, to stop treating him like someone standing on the edge.
Ace dragged a hand down his face and laughed once under his breath, humorless and dead on arrival. It was better this way. No one close enough to hesitate. No one left expecting anything better from him. No one waiting for him to come back to something he wasn't sure he still believed in.
The thought... should have settled him. Instead it left a strange ache behind his ribs and he went still again.
Sibylla's voice.
Lorn's hand.
Kenji's rain-soaked certainty.
Fatine's face slipping uninvited into the spaces between them.
For one brief, treacherous moment, his resolve wavered. Not enough to break. Not enough to turn. Just enough for the question to rise, quiet and venomous:
What if they're right?
Ace's eyes opened, looking out through the narrow viewport at the hyperpace beyond the ship. Then his mouth set. Whatever doubt had surfaced, he pressed it down the same way he pressed down everything else. Beneath discipline. Beneath anger. Beneath purpose.
