Private And All the Rest

[Yula Perl]

If Yula had to estimate, half of her life had been spent in one safe house or another.

Well, around half, maybe. It certainly felt that way. Would she have put money on it? Nah.

Coruscant wasn’t the safest place to be right now. A shattered Order, who knows how much deception, and remnants of sithspawn stalking through the streets. She could’ve left, but that felt even too irresponsible for Yula.

The kids. She spent much of her time skulking around the lower levels, looking for leads on the younglings she’d been evacuating during the siege. One airstrike and the building had collapsed. When she woke up, the kids were gone.

Gone gone. No bodies to exhume from the rubble, no signs of foul play. They’d been leaving just before the hit, with Yula as the last one out. She clung to the idea that the lack of communication from the Padawan she’d left in charge was a good thing. That they’d successfully made it off-world and we into hiding.

One of the safe houses she and Dag had operated out of was still standing, so there she stayed. She was hoping to find some sign of him there. Discarded jacket, second toothbrush, a bottle of painkillers moved from the cabinet to the counter. Maybe a used glass. He was alive, sure—they’d had brief holo contact in the wake of the aftermath. But they hadn't seen eachother since.

If she knew Dag even half as well as she did, he was still on Coruscant. Probably tearing his way through the sithspawn, putting all of his focus into being able to do something and working off the frustration of betrayal and blood.

For her part, Yula was asleep on the couch. Instead of numbing her mind with spice, she’d opted for another route to soothe her nerves. A nearly finished carton of ice cream, tipped onto its side, spilled a sticky puddle of strawberry swirl onto the coffee table. A bag of chips, crumbs and all, rested on her chest while she snored away.

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

AND ALL THE REST
STAY AWAKE WITH ME vol. II
Issue #1

There was no time to rest.

Not because another Sith attack was imminent and not because they were severely lacking manpower to remedy the impact of the catastrophe but because the moment he sat down and closed his eyes the guilt and misery would all come rushing through like a sixteen ton piledriver straight to the heart.

Coping mechanism. That's how psychiatrists called such a condition.

Torn, beat, scarred and with bandages hanging loose off his chest and limbs - a walking deadman - Dagon Kaze hurried silently into the safehouse. He wore nothing but a shirt ripped at his chest by a crimson saber, space leather trousers that had seen better days and boots that had walked through hell and back. When he followed the trail of junk food up to a sleeping Yula, Dagon nearly stepped back out of the door.

A soft and tired smile broke on his laden with soot and scratches face. Yula was alive. The relief washed over his fatigue like a hot shower on a cold winter's day. It had been repressed for too long. He gave himself a moment to cherish it as when they had last seen each other over the holo, Dagon's mind and heart had been completely empty. Drained of all emotion but blame and anguish.

It lasted half a minute before the guilt began to rise up and Dag moved in silence - take two painkillers, hope you don't OD, press down the urge to kiss her on the forehead and bail. Three steps complete and it was on the fourth - at the threshold of the door - when he heard his name being called.

"Love you, pink. I will see ya later."

He couldn't allow himself to stop.

Not when the feeling of letting a whole world down weighted on his shoulders.

Not when his adopted home burned.

Dagon Kaze would burn with it until the last man made it out.

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

Yeah, no.

A pink hand circled Dagon’s wrist and tugged. Either he’d turn around, or Yula would place herself in front of him. Her face softened at seeing him here and alive, and even if he walked out the door right now, he wouldn’t be able to escape the grave expression in her single eye.

Yula appraised him for only a moment before pulling Dagon into a two-armed beorni hug. It had been a while since they’d been alone together, and for the time being, she was simply grateful that he was alive.

“I missed you.”

Then reality set in.

Pulling away with a measure of reluctance, she cupped his chin in one hand and clung to his arm with the other.

“Dag, you look…half dead.” She tilted his face this way and that, frowning as she did. She’d seen him in worse shape before, but this was something different. Layers of damage, slowly eroding him from lack of care. What startled her the most was the disparate look in his eyes.

Bright blue, mischievous, always looking towards the future. She’d fallen for those eyes, and now they looked…hopeless.

“A little more than half, actually.” She muttered. It would have been funny if…well, maybe it just wouldn’t have been.

“Dag, if you don’t make time to rest, your body will choose for you.” She started soft, but there was a heaviness to her words. Yula didn’t have it in her to yell at him, and he’d heard it a thousand times over. He didn’t deserve it, not this time.

“And then you won’t be able to save anyone.”

Both hands reached for his temples as she spoke, rubbing soothing circles against the sides of his head, swiping back matted locks of dark hair with gentle movements.

“Sit down, just for a few minutes.” Yula didn’t beg, she didn’t plead, but there were things more important than her own ego. Like Dagon’s well-being.

“For me?”

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

He was yanked like a fish out of the water straight into her bullish hug. The strength of this woman squeezed all that remained of his. And yet her warmth could melt even a heart of ice.

"I ugh--" he snorted trying to get his footing right so he wouldn't fall like an idiot, "--missed you too." A lot. A soft smille tugged at his lips when their eyes met and her hand cupped his chin. As callous as her hands should've been from working through all sorts of techy stuff to seeing the worst of battles, they always were heavenly tender.

“Dag, you look…half dead.” She tilted his face this way and that, frowning as she did. She’d seen him in worse shape before, but this was something different. Layers of damage, slowly eroding him from lack of care. What startled her the most was the disparate look in his eyes.

His gaze fell upon the mirror when she tilted his head.

A little mo--

“--re than half, actually.” She muttered. It would have been funny if…well, maybe it just wouldn’t have been.

“Dag, if you don’t make time to rest, your body will choose for you.” She started soft, but there was a heaviness to her words. Yula didn’t have it in her to yell at him, and he’d heard it a thousand times over. He didn’t deserve it, not this time.

“And then you won’t be able to save anyone.”

She was right.

The empty stare, lacking the glow of life, shifted from the mirror back to her. He remained blank assimilate her words and trying to filter away those which he did not want to hear. But the extreme fatigue, the days gone with no sleep and the ferocious wounds gone through a half-assed attempt at bandaging made no solid ground for his innate stubbornness to stand.

Her hands moved from his chin to massage the sides of his head and all he suddenly wanted to do was crash to sleep over her.

Something deep, something he repressed inside did not let him to.

It came free.

And from that blank gaze that seemed as if no God could carve an emotion onto it, tears emerged piling up in his blue eyes giving them once more life. What a life that was.

"I--I... I failed... Yula." Dag barely said through the lump in his throat obstructing his airways. All the guilt, all the blame wrapped around his throat and squeezed the life from his body.

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

“You had a lot working against you, Dag”

She spoke as gently as possible, voice dipping into a low murmur that was just between the two of them. Not that there was anyone else around to hear. Wordlessly, she guided him to a seated position on the couch. This one was somehow more uncomfortable than the one at home.

Home being Denon.

Yula cocked her head to the side with that thought- was Denon his home too? Or was Coruscant? In the end, she supposed, the label didn’t matter. Perhaps Coruscant was to Dagon as Zeltros was to Yula: an integral part of who you were.

Her thumb wiped the corner of his glistening eye. First one, then the other.

“We all did the best we could.”

Her own words, from the heart they may be, felt too cliche to be meaningful. What could she say? That he was just one man, that he couldn’t have done anything in the face of what had happened? That he, and by extension, the rest of the Jedi had been set up to fail?

What good would that do?

She’d been maneuvering her hands over the medkit on the table since they’d sat down. At the very least, she’d get some bacta into him in case he decided to take flight. “Little pinch,” she muttered before pressing the needle into his deltoid, not bothering to give him any heads up beforehand.

“What…exactly happened after I left?”

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

He maneuvered to sit on the couch beside her, guided by her careful maneuvering. Shoulders slumped down as if carrying the burden of a whole universe and eyes emptily staring into nothing. Everything seemed to blur through the tears in his eyes. Her thumb moved to wipe the corners of his eyes tenderly. For the first time in ages - maybe even ever - he felt so vulnerably, so openly.

The walls he had erected to keep all the blame, all the issues crumbled and came crashing down. He struggled to lift them back up but it seemed all the strength of mind and body had departed him, and he could only succumb to Yula's loving care. His flesh, like his spirit, felt numb to the puncture of the bacta injection. The rejuvenating sensation surged through his system but its cure was only limited to the wounds of the body and not the mind.

She asked what happened and he forced all his will to mutter that he did not want to revisit the nightmare. No words came from his mouth. The walls had collapsed and his lips involuntarily began to move.

"The Senate... they issued an order to lock us down until the... war crime investigation was finished." he said hoarsely, almost whispering. "It was all a ploy, Yula. A long game Solipsis played to put us all where he wanted us... and then they attacked." he winced as the fresh memories of the Temple's Gate caved in with the bodies of fellow friends, Jedi, beneath it. "We kept them at bay until those that were new -- younger -- could escape... but the tide just didn't end."

"I've seen nothing like it..."

"...the Stygian, those Sith... it... it just pales in comparison..."

"... maybe because it's home or... I don't know." a painful sigh escaped his lips,

"I barely made it, Yula..."

His glistening eyes shifted from the floor to her single, green eye, "... I-I don't think I should have."

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

Dagon was talking to her, which was good. He had a penchant for pushing things down, and all Yula could do was give him the space to find his words, offer a sympathetic eye, and pat the bacta gel into his wounds. A ruptured bruise at his midsection caught her worry, visible through the tears in his shirt.

"... I-I don't think I should have."

Yula’s jaw loosened, lip parting as her heart leaped into her throat. Her hands left the contusion at his torso, each one sliding along the strong curve of his jaw.

“Don’t you ever say that!”

The fire that had been crackling beneath the tinder had roared to life. Dagon was used to being its recipient, but this time it was directed on behalf of him.

“Dag, you…you try harder than anyone I know. You and the others put your lives on the line so that others could escape!” Yula always found it easy to work herself up, and now a storm roiled inside her, one that had her practically yelling in his face.

A storm to protect him.

Her face hardened in severity, but her eye crinkled with hurt. A beat passed, and the echo of her voice, on the verge of shouting, faded. Yula attempted to clear her tightened throat and then her voice shifted into a strained softness.

“I hate how you do this to yourself. Beat yourself up over everything, I mean. You couldn’t have predicted what was going to happen, Dag. And even if you did, then…”

She trailed off, unable to piece together something that would have sounded right. There wasn’t really any way to fix this situation, was there?

“It was hard on all of us.” Yula decided on, murmuring as her hands dropped into her lap. “But Coruscant was your home, wasn’t it?”

She hated his savior complex. Told him so almost every chance she got. But damn if Dagon didn't believe in a better galaxy and put in the work to get there. Privately, she admired his tenacity and passion.

“You’ve made sacrifice after sacrifice for the galaxy…if anyone deserves to live, deserves to thrive, it’s you, Dagon Kaze.”

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

She took him by the lines of his jaw, soft digits cupping his weary head. Her words persistently struck, like tinder against rock, to spark a fire in his lifeless form and hopeless spirit. Any other time, perhaps, his soul would've caught the fire but now...

...now the flame was like but a candle against a storm.

And yet, Yula remains steadfast.

He wants to listen. He wants the words to break through the gloom of guilt. To accept.

But how could he?

How could he when he knew that the Sith were moving in... through the Senate, through the Alliance, through everywhere to get to them.

Her face hardened in severity, but her eye crinkled with hurt. A beat passed, and the echo of her voice, on the verge of shouting, faded. Yula attempted to clear her tightened throat and then her voice shifted into a strained softness.

Yula knows him too well, she knows he takes everything to heart, takes every wrong in the galaxy as his personal responsibility. Berates him over it. It takes a toll on their bond and yet...

Yet she's still here.

Mending, healing, patching.

Even when deep inside both know that his duty seems like it will always come first, she loves.

He lifts a hand to wipe a streak of tears too numb to have felt a moment ago but her words, her passion - they could warm a dead man back to life.

“You’ve made sacrifice after sacrifice for the galaxy…if anyone deserves to live, deserves to thrive, it’s you, Dagon Kaze.”

The lump in his throat softens, only a little but enough for him to speak a bit more clearly, "...why, Yula?... why me?"

"Any one of those that now lie dead have made sacrifice after sacrifice... and I failed to protect them."

Swallowing hard, he continues with contempt and frustration suddenly flaring up, "...and you-- I nearly lost you, Yula... and all I did was run... run across the tops, across the streets, run everywhere... but back to you. Here." a demon of his past resurfaces in his thoughts, "...maybe my father was right--"

"-- maybe I really am cursed to hurt those I love... their blood on my hands..." he glances at his hands as the ghosts of Ossus whispered the death of a loved one.

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

He hit at her weak spot.

It was the thing they struggled with the most, the thing they pushed down and never spoke of. The thing that neither could reconcile, that had caused them the most pain, more than any botched job or screaming argument.

She withdrew from Dagon, remaining seated as her hands curled together in her lap. How much further could she take this with a man who placed his duty above all else, even her? In theory was one thing, but in practice it had stung worse than losing her eye. It was too hard to face, too much of a reality for her to confront. So she swept it back under the rug, as much as she could.

“You’re not your father.” She whispered through a strained throat, lowering her head and allowing a curtain of black hair to obscure her view of him.

It took nearly a half minute for her to collect herself.

“And I don’t believe in curses. ‘Cause that’s just an excuse for your own actions.”

Inhaling deeply, she turned towards him, shifting to sit with her legs crossed and her face hardened once more. “Dag, what happened there was…bad. It’s normal for you to feel survivor’s guilt- you ‘aint the only one, I bet. I mean, I…spent a lot of my life karking off in the ‘rim while my own family loses limb after limb to the Sith and Bryn. Lots of times I think that I should have been the one in Kyra or Nida’s place.”

Her voice was low in earnest, and Yula found that she was idly playing with his hand in her own. Silence settled between them while Yula considered what would come out of this conversion. His words conjured up a thought that struck her, albeit delayed.

"-- maybe I really am cursed to hurt those I love... their blood on my hands..."

I won’t become a casualty of your duty.

Eye wide, she asked him carefully.

“Dag...who else that you love have you hurt?”

 

[Dagon Kaze]

You are not your father.

The statement coming specifically from Yula, the daughter of the same person his father wished dead, seemed to lift a layer of gloom from his existence. A confirmation that her nightmares on Ilum were nothing more than just that. That Dagon was his own man, his own self and that there was no curse that burdened his shoulders. That all he had for Yula was love and no ill will forced upon him by fate. He'd broken that cycle.

Survivor's guilt, she calls it, and Dagon wants it to be true. A natural reaction to a disaster of this magnitude. She's been through it a countless times before every time she glances at her sisters' eyes. The happy-go-lucky attitude, the shopping sprees, overdramatic menial fights and overblown... 'bed reconciliations' - it all made Dag sometimes forget how much burdens Yula carried. In his stubborn mission to maintain all that by erecting walls to keep his issues away from her, he'd failed to realize that there's no one in the galaxy that understood him better than her.

Not a single soul.

Silence permeates the room and as the revelation dawns upon him and he tightens his hand around hers in quiet gratitude and comfort, she utters a question he never expects.

His heart sinks.

Up until now it had seemed that everything he'd wanted to do and everything that needed to be done were always perfectly aligned. Or so he thought.

But now?

A struggle between knowing he has to tell her something he'd carried for so long and the hefty reluctance in doing so. "It...I-I..." a tempest of guilt and shame but in the end Dagon folds with a coarse sigh roughened by hurt.

He looks at the floor, eyes too heavy with regret to look back at her and a heart aching for the floor to open and swallow him away.

"...there was a girl I love...-d. She was, uh... a medic in the Defense Force and we, uh--... we were on Ossus when the Sith attacked the Silvers." he began, each word, each syllable drawn out with agony as if he was relieving every single moment from that day, "My brother was there and... we clashed..." a heavy pause. No nightmare was harsher than reality.

"He-- he knew. Felt there was something between her and me and... I just had to-- had to end him, Yula, before he could... exploit...Force--" he drew in a sharp breath against the lump and wiped the tears clouding his vision, "-- I ran at him without care about anything but stopping him... and he, he pulled her in my wa--"

Finally, his head lifts to meet her eye as if seeking forgiveness, "--I killed her, Yula."

"... I.. killed her."

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

A weighted silence dragged the mood around them to a darker place.

It was funny, Yula realized, how you didn't need words for that. At the same time, the somber tone of their conversation shifted abruptly into something far more sullen from her own question.

Her thumb drew slow, soothing circles on the back of Dagon's hand. Her ministrations paused only once, at the mention of a girl who he loved.

Love? Love….d? …. …. ….Loves?

He struggled with the story, reluctant but stubborn, battling his way through painful memories. The girl. His brother. Ossus. A death. Guilt. Yula sat beside him in silence, aching for his pain. It was tricky to be an empath in a sad situation, but she knew how to breathe through it. Dag needed her to, and supporting him in this moment came priority.

"No."

The look in his eye, the pleading gaze, had shattered her heart. Her lips folded into a firm line. Two fingers pressed their tips to the point of his chin, trying to lift it further and meet her gaze on equal footing.

"You didn't….you didn't kill her, Dag. I know you were the one who…but…" She let out a heavy breath, deflating suddenly while trying to figure out how to put her scrambled thoughts into words. Instead, she fiddled with his hand in her own. What do you even say to someone who'd experienced such a loss, by their own hand? Dagon blamed himself for a lot, for things that weren't even his own fault, and this…

…this was just a mess.

Even though Yula cleared her throat, her voice still squeaked awkwardly.

"…What was she like?"

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

She lifts his head to her only to be met by an empty glare as if life had departed him. He wants to latch onto that sweet, sweet comfort and compassion in her emerald eye but there's no strength left and both deflate into the couch as a long and painful exhale escapes his lips. The couch swallows his aching back and he hopes it would drown him as memories he'd locked away far from the surface reemerge.

His eyes shut for a long moment before he opens them again against the last glint of Coruscani sunset. There, among the thousands of identical high rises, his gaze discerns that one sacred spot. The rooftop, the sunset, the hands held tight and a love confessed as the sun lazily falls beneath the endless vista of concrete and steel. The rooftop that, after Ossus, he never visited again, believing his presence there would desecrate its sanctity.

How do you talk about the girl you had loved to the girl you love now? It's a scramble for words but it's in that disorder in which he finds a shred of his spirit back, coursing through the warm touch of Yula's hand. The girl you love. She's alive, and you're gonna fight to the last drop of blood, the last draw of breath for her.

"Pure." Dag finally replies with a voice suddenly rejuvenated as his brow furrows at the smoldering horizon, "Good."

"With a heart of gold that even Jedi can only dream of." he adds, then fear chills his bones and grips his throat. What had occurred on Ossus should never-- will never occur again.

"... what happened there, on Ossus, Yula, I... it'll never happen again."

The Jedi looks back at her, a glint of dread faintly flickers in his blue eyes, "I-- I'll never... you, me-- you know that, right?"

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

It was a hard question to have asked, on top of a hard memory, on top of a hard situation. If Dagon had simply shaken his head Yula would have backed down. Each moment of silence that passed between them, each painful shift of Dagon's features made her regret asking more and more.

Did she even want to know the answer? Did she want to know about the girl he'd loved long before they met for Dagon's sake or her own? Would it have helped anyone?

Just when she thought that she'd tread too far onto hallowed ground, he answered her.

"Pure."

"Good."

"With a heart of gold that even Jedi can only dream of."

A thin, sad smile settled in the curve of her lips. To her selfish relief, hearing that made her…not jealous. Dagon deserved to love and to be loved by someone who was pure and good, with a heart of gold.

Her brows tilted in confusion when he brought up Ossus, alluding to the fate that befell his first love there. The terror glimmering behind his eyes gave her pause, and slowly she understood the promise he was trying to make.

"So then we won't go to Ossus, Dag."

Her tone was controlled and gentle, something unusual for a woman who was so used to yelling. It didn't matter that it wasn't exactly what he had meant.

Exhaling softly, a breathy sigh that sounded more forlorn than she'd intended passed through her lips as she brushed back the short hairs at his temple. Maybe this was treading too far out of the appropriate realm, but…

"It's not my place to say, but I'd imagine that someone good and pure who loved you…



…would have also forgiven you."

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

He purses his lips and they curve into a thin, sad smile as both drown in the silence that follows. Yula's words - soft and light - brush his heart and drift from the solitude of their room into the sprawling city and beyond, to that sacred rooftop there in the distance. The magic, the curse, is finally lifted and the weight is absolved from his burdened shoulders.

He is forgiven.

Pulling his legs up and stretching them over the couch, Dag pulls her in close to lay on his chest but this time... this time she's the one doing the mending, and he - the one vulnerable. Brushing her locks away from both eyes as the last glint of a Coruscani sunset disappears, he whispers to her ear.

"Stay awake with me, Yula."

This time, the galaxy could wait.

Yula Perl