Private Could I Leave You?

[Reima Vitalis]

ANAXES​

Leave you? Leave you?
How could I could leave you?
How could I go it alone?​

It started off so innocently. Reima picked up Wedge's datapad to check her messages, thinking it was her own. She was rather disorganized, staying as she was on Anaxes in a foreign environment, visiting with Wedge's family. Wedge had recently come into some unexpected free time, and though Reima was uneasy about how that was going to play out, she had dutifully taken a leave as well. Not as much standing by her man as a silent rebuke to the whole sordid affair. The most decorated pilot in recent Galactic Alliance history, a war hero several times over, crumpled and discarded like so much flimsiplast. It was disgusting.

And yet in that innocent moment of mistaken identity, Reima discovered something shocking. A shadowy D-Mail that she would have immediately dismissed as spam if not for the context.

Her blood went cold.

Then her blood went hot.

It was, perhaps, lucky for both of them that Wedge was out of their shared accommodation for the moment. She might have said something they would both regret. Something that would damage their partnership irreparably. There were some things that even the deepest of loves could not survive, after all. So Reima Vitalis did what she usually did in situations that made her anxious and angry: she chain-smoked on the balcony and brooded.

When Wedge finally returned from his errand, he would find Reima coiled like a viper around herself, as if to shield herself. Aside from the stiff coldness evident in her, the jagged remains of her thumbnail and her wide dark eyes belied fear. The fear of being in a place not her own, dependent on someone she was no longer sure could be relied upon, and terrified. But when she turned to him, her voice was cold like the void both of them had narrowly escaped so many times. Every practiced opening gambit, every sly opening salvo designed to suss out the truth slipped from her mind like marbled through her fingers and what came out was cold and hard and sharp, escalating in both volume and incredulity as the bewildered demand ran its course.

"Have you completely lost your mind?"

Wedge Draav​

 

[Wedge Draav]

I was unbound by duty, but bound to revenge

Wedge’s errand was short. It was something simple, a caf run for the two of them. Sweet for him, plain for her. He took a deep breath as he entered their new home- temporary as it was. Anaxes was a good place to land, a soft place with soft people. His family was here- and the visit had gone well. The rest of them would be coming back in the next few days.

Wedge wondered when he stepped through the door if he’d survive the next few days. Her reaction was the sign that he didn’t need to ask- the datapad being opened, the smell of chain smoking. She found out. She knew.

Wedge stood still for a moment, his mind playing through his options. How to respond. How to justify himself. But that anger- that repressed rage from it all. It came out. The hothead in Wedge spoke first.

“I haven’t promised a fucking thing to them- and they came to me! And frankly I have half a fucking mind- THAT I HAVE NOT LOST- to maybe share with them some ideas and things after what the fucking-“

There was a small table near the door, a place to read a book or drink tea when you got home before the dining room and before the rest of the house. Wedge used it mostly to take off his boots. He lashed out in his rage, kicking the chair.

“Alliance did to me! I gave my life to them, and they threw me away for some fucking bullshit treaty with some bullshit Mandalorian! At least the Empire respects me a little bit more than those fucks in the Alliance Navy! Not one fucking person stuck up for me above my station! Not one! They just cut me loose!”

He let it all out. But he knew he’d get it flung right back at him.

 

[Reima Vitalis]

She didn't know what to expect.

Reima and Wedge rarely fought. She couldn't remember the last time. They disagreed sometimes. They had discussions. But this was a different thing. A different scope, a different scale. Something she didn't recognize in herself took over then, when Wedge kicked the chair and it came tumbling toward her by virtue of her position at the other end of the entry. Not at her, she recognized, not his intent to strike her, and it wouldn't have. But she reached out to catch it all the same, then carefully righted it and set it by the wall.

When she spoke again, she had wrestled that fury back under control. She was frostbite. "I understand," she said. The disconnect between the words and tones should have been chilling. "I understand that the Alliance has treated you badly. No one but you could understand that more than I do." She took a step forward. Another step.

"But this?" Reima brandished the datapad like a weapon -- one implicated in the commission of a crime more than one she was using to threaten him. Her lip curled. "The Empire? Wedge, what were you thinking -- even meeting them?"

Wedge Draav​

 

[Wedge Draav]

From spit shined to spit on.

He clicked his teeth, throwing up his hands. He was angry, sure, and this was Reima, but he still- was just angry. He lifted up a finger, straining his eyes, his pent-up rage barely contained.

"You still have a career, you still have all your rank, pay, entitlements. So no, I don't think you understand. Badly doesn't even come close."
He took a step forward, matching hers.

"I've killed so many people, Reima. Men, women that had families, hopes and dreams. I killed them and I killed them for the Alliance. I can NEVER take that off of my ledger. I had to believe in what I was doing. I have all the medals, the scars, the attempts on my life- I killed and killed for them. And then-"

He pointed at the datapad.

"Then they kicked me out, they cast me out because I spoke up against an enemy. You, me, Revenant, god damn heroes all of us, and now what!" He threw up his hands in frustration, pursing his lips, his eyes welling with frustrated tears. "Nothing. No trial, no letter, nothing. I was dragged out by the people I protected for almost two decades." He tapped his forehead.

"So when the Empire came and approached me- I heard them out. I didn't agree to anything, I didn't say anything. They sought ME, out."
He stood there, breathing heavily, a lot of things on his mind- and none of them particularly good.

 

[Reima Vitalis]

Reima's jaw set as the two aces squared off across the foyer from one another. Two blasters away from an old Tatooine western. Town ain't big enough for the two of us. To call Reima Eleanor Grace Vitalis affronted would be like calling Wedge Draav a skilled pilot -- true, but almost comically understated. She stared at him a moment, then tucked his datapad under her arm like the world's least stylish clutch, before going to the side table and getting her cigarettes. She stayed silent for moments, the only noise her breathing. Almost labored. The adrenaline of having been shot down at Coruscant was nothing to this.

She lit a cigarette and sucked at it, hoping the sweet Southport t'bacc would sooth her fraying nerves. It didn't work, not a bit, and in fact the silence allowed her to stew on her grievances -- the ones she had before he walked in the door, and the ones they were uncovering together on this hellish journey of self-discovery. She bit a curse when the ashes, which she hadn't tapped into an ashtray from the beginning, fell from the tip and onto her blouse. Brushing with the back of her hand she rounded on Wedge, dark eyes like frozen Galidraani mud.

"First of all, you're wrong," she said bluntly, pointing at him with the two fingers holding the remnants of her cigarette between them, accusatory, multitasking "I sleep next to you every night, Wedge, so even if I didn't have the intellectual and emotional capacity to identify with someone who's not me I would have some inkling of what you're going through. And if you think I don't understand -- independent of the fact that since your objections, I have had the brass's eyes on me all the time, been questioned and suspected and whispered about -- " She placed the cigarette back between her pretty lips and brandished her hand again, this time showing him the fourth finger on her left hand, the sparkle of a precious metals there, " -- then I might as well give this back to you."

She made no movement to do so, though, whether motivated by her lingering affection or merely a magpie mind.

"Second -- if you're suffering in silence, you only have yourself to blame. You made the choice to mouth off yourself. You didn't consult me. You didn't make use of the resources we have available to put your objections -- however well founded -- in the appropriate context. My mother is a communicator call away. And," she said, brandishing the cigarette again, an unimpressively stubby rapier by this point, "Before you shit all over the concept of politics, I'll remind you that you're not a fucking cadet. You were a senior officer, a decorated war hero. In short, a grown up. You don't have to like politics but that doesn't immunize you from the consequences of pretending they're not there."

She stopped herself, drawing a shaky breath, and turned away from the altercation to retrieve the ashtray from the nearby table, which she used to stub out her cigarette. As good a chance as any for Wedge to interject his position, though of course Reima had more to say. What kind of lunatic started a list with only two action items?

That was the thing about Reima; she always had more to say.

Wedge Draav​

 

[Wedge Draav]

Stung, worse than any hornet

"You can question my commitment or my loyalty to anything else in the whole fucking galaxy Reima Vitalis, but so help me if you ever question my loyalty to you-" He stopped, as if the statement hurt him more than any other accusation of traitorism. "I love you more than anything else that I have ever known or care to know about, Reima. But you cannot possibly know what it's like to do what I have done. I know you've suffered and I know you've ached but it's still there for you. They cut me off, without a word, a warning, a sentence, a trial, a message- anything. Gone."

He sniffled, running his hand across his nose and eyes.

"I don't need to consult you. That Mandalore the Steel or whatever the fuck, told us to speak. And when the Alliance didn't like what I had to say about the THOUSANDS of troops the Mandalorians killed- you know what they did? They didn't back me, reprimand me, anything. They let me go. So yeah, I know there's a place for politics. But don't ask for my opinion and then get mad when I give it, is what I say to them. I read the reports, all the Senate drovelings about the Mandalorians."

He pointed to the door for emphasis, just a direction for him to fixate his anger.

"POLITICS and POLITICIANS dragged me along for wars since I was 19, Reima! I have killed more people than any other pilot in the Alliance's history! Not won, not victories, not air to air wins, people! They were people, and I fucking killed them! And then- they didn't even have the decency to even show me the door. Those cowards didn't have the gall to face me."

He sat down in the chair, defeated, almost. He took a shaky, deep breath, looking up at Reima, noticing her use of cigarettes to wind herself down. His tone softened- he realized his voice was raised. He didn't mean for it.

"The Empire came to me. They want me to fly for them. Teach their pilots what I know about flying, and about the Alliance. Revenant is gone, Reima. We're the only two left that I know are still flying. And now, it's just you- I didn't say yes, but I didn't-" He looked down at his feet.

"I didn't say no, either. Part of me wants revenge on the Alliance. I don't recognize it, anymore, Reima. The Alliance I believed in, fought for- killed for. I watched so many of my friends die, I killed so many people- and for what?" He took a deep breath, shaky. Tears welled in his eyes again, despite his efforts to fight them back. He leaned back in the chair, staring up at the wall. He spoke at the wall, and not at her. A way to avoid the conflict towards his wife-to-be, but more importantly- the lack of barriers. Staring at someone

"It's a different faction of them- Imperials. Not necessarily the same Empire we fought at Coruscant not too long ago. They all hate each other. Maybe- maybe I thought, I think, I can just cause them to kill each other. I don't know. But- for that moment, when they asked me. I wanted my little revenge. My petty revenge. I know what I can do, and what I know- every move the Alliance has. Every countermeasure, every flight pattern... I could do so much damage. And that's all I thought about when they asked, Reima. Just what they did to me. What I gave up for them."

Silence.

"And what they did to me."

 

[Reima Vitalis]

"Yes," Reima said, her voice glacial. It was scary how like Natasi Fortan Reima Fortan could be -- and it wasn't just the dark eyes and hair, the angular features, the slender frame. "I gathered that much from what I read here," she said, lifting the datapad again. "You have a certain set of skills, Wedge. Your understanding of the fundamentals of starfighter combat is second, perhaps, only to a man my mother used to know. Certainly of anyone living, you are it -- the expert, sin qua non."

It wasn't just complimentary; it was true, and it was building to something more. "So when asked by the Empire -- who are, if history teaches us anything, probably at this moment planning to strike at the Galactic Alliance -- you didn't say yes. And you didn't say no." Her lips pressed together until they were very nearly white.

"You do understand that I, at least for the moment, have a commission in the Galactic Alliance Defense Forces, yes?" she asked. "So what you are considering -- just weighing up the options -- is giving the enemy the strategic understanding they would need to shoot me down, to say nothing of the other pilots that we shared a squadroom and a barracks and a life with -- who were in no way involved in the brass' decision to give you the finger. You say you love me and I don't dispute it, Wedge, but you are also suggesting that you could vindicate your betrayal by giving the enemy what they would need to know to kill the possible mother of your children. I shudder to think where we would be if you didn't love me."

She half-turned, her dark eyes half-lidding. That last bit, that shard of ice, she hadn't meant to sling at him. It slipped out.

"What they did to you is inexcusable," Reima told Wedge, her voice losing some of its chill. She lifted the datapad. "But we don't do this," she said. Feeling slightly matronly, as a matter of fact, but that was neither here nor there. "It's returning betrayal with betrayal. It's not what we do." Just who 'we' was was unclear -- the pair of them? possibly. More broadly, heroes? Yes. Those in possession of honor, most of all.

Wedge Draav​

 

[Wedge Draav]

"I'd be lost."

He said, to her last remark. That icy, cold statement. It was cruel, it was hurtful. But she was right. She was the mother of his future children. His wife-to-be.

"I'd be lost without you."

He said, his baby blues finally turning towards her.

"What do I do now? The Alliance I fought for is gone- baby it's. It's not the same. I just sat there and listened to him- I haven't said a damn thing to him. It's all been... a blur, since."

He reached into his pocket, pulling out the Imperial coin they left for him.

"I should've said no. I just- didn't. Some dark part of me I don't want to admit just didn't say no right away." He leaned forward, rubbing his hands together, wracked with guilt. He might've never said anything more to the Imperial. He might've said nothing at all. But he didn't say no. He didn't shoot him. He didn't do any of those things.

Why?

"A lot of people are going to die when the Empire finally attacks the Alliance, Reima. And I won't be there to help stop them. I know the Starfighter Corps is worse off without me. They talked about giving me purpose, order, all this-"

He sighed, reaching up to hold onto Reima, anywhere he could. Just to touch her, to ground himself.

"I didn't think I'd ever be here. Just lost."

 

[Reima Vitalis]

Reima didn't feel ready to be conciliatory. She felt hard, brittle, like superheated metal plunged into ice. When Wedge reached for her, she tensed momentarily and then softened. One arm draped over his shoulder while the other cradled his head to her midsection. She took a slow, steadying breath and let her fingers curl through the hair at the back of his head.

They stayed like that for a few minutes and then Reima gently held him at arm's length and then settled into the chair opposite him.

"The Empire won't give you purpose any more than the Alliance did," Reima said quietly, reaching over to take one of his hands. "You did that. You chose your purpose. And you can choose another. There is good, hard work still to be done." She squeezed his hand softly. "We can always go to Aegis until we find what that is."

A beat, and Reima's eyebrows drew together. The answer could have been staring her in the face the entire time. "You know -- when we marry, you'll be a member of the royal family. That has -- certain expectations. Public service of some kind. That could be charitable work, or it could be military service. You -- we -- could speak to my mother about a role for you in the Renascent Defense Legion. No one could argue you aren't qualified."

Reima rather liked the idea, though it did raise a whole slew of other potential issues. Like, for instance, under which palace's garden Natasi Fortan would bury Wedge Draav if he behaved toward her government the way he had toward the Senate. But that was -- details.

Wedge Draav​

 

[Wedge Draav]

"You know -- when we marry, you'll be a member of the royal family..."

Heavy words, heavy sentiment


The words, the echos, the sentiment hung in his mind. He took a deep breath, consoling himself as much as he let Reima do it for him. She was gentle, she was kind. She might've not realized it all the time, but she was the broom that cleared the dust from his mind. The light in the garden.

"So- for you." He took a deep breath, glancing up at the love of his life. "That would mean that we both leave the Alliance- if we do that. I don't want to have..... that kind of pressure over us anymore. I think- Reima. I'm going to ask you to do something very hard, that I think we both knew was coming since the end of Coruscant." He rubbed his hands together, glancing to the wall. On it, a shadowbox. Medals, accolades, ranks, pins. His and hers, a matching set. A meticulous project he undertook, hand-crafting it.

"I think it's time that we formerly- or at least, you, now... leave the Alliance. And we go... away. Together." He took another deep breath, looking up at her. "What you said to me back home- people looking at your family. I need to be part of that. And so do you. And that has to mean now, that we... give up things. I think we outgrew the Alliance, baby."

Another pause, another deep breath.

"I wanna marry you. I want everything with you, royalty and all. I get that, I'll grow-" He stuttered, the reality of holy shit I'm going to be royalty by marriage settling in. "I'll grow into it- but we can't do that if we both have ties to the Alliance now." He took one last deep breath.

"Reima, I'm sorry for what I did and didn't do with them. And now, I-" He stopped himself, wiping away tears of shame, guilt, pain and heartache he'd been hiding.

"I'm going to ask you to renounce your commission with the Alliance and go home. With me. And we- we make our own way from here."

He stopped for a second, taking another deep breath.

"Mom said dinner would be ready in an hour."

 

[Reima Vitalis]

"Don't be ridiculous," Reima scoffed, and for a moment it could have been that she was going to tell Wedge to go screw. Give up her commission? Her career, the very most important thing in the world to her. More than her name, it was the thing she had worked hardest to build, to nurture, to protect. She had earned it, along with the slew of medals, the promotions, the accolades that she had so pathologically avoided appearing to care too much about. The thought of giving it up had been the only thing on her mind since Wedge's drumming out.

She would miss the challenge, the thrill, the sense of accomplishment. But there was no question that she would be able to stay in the long term. "If this -- insanity -- " she said, gesturing toward the datapad as a stand-in for Wedge's dalliance with the idea of flying with the Imperials, " -- is over, then of course, of course I will have to leave the Alliance." The young aristocrat took a sharp breath through her nose and settled on the seat next to to him, their knees touching.

"But I have to tell you, Wedge, you get one of these, where you jump off a cliff and I jump off after you. If we're going over a cliff in the future, we'll do it together." She paused a moment and then reclined against the back cushion of the chair. "Of course, I still have one in my back pocket and I can use it at any time, so you'll want to stay in my good graces, hm?"

Wedge Draav​

 

[Wedge Draav]

"Got plenty of crazy left in me, baby girl." He said, sighing, leaning his head against the wall. He took another deep breath, his hand finding her knee. He just needed to hold her again for a moment. He took another deep breath, the gravity of what he was asking his wife-to-be to do weighing on him.

"I'm scared, Reima. Of the- the future, you know? The Alliance, it's breaking apart. I can feel it. Fracturing- maybe not right now, but soon." He took a deep breath, staring at the wall.

"What happens to all that killing, all those wars we fought? All the scars we got? What's it all for?" He looked back at her, knowing damn well how far this cliff was going to be. "There's only together from here on out, baby girl." He wanted one of her cigarettes. Or maybe a hit of something stronger. Something in a little blue pill that made you hear colors and see sound.

Reima Vitalis​

 

[Reima Vitalis]

"I hope not," Reima said carefully, pinching the bridge of her nose lightly. "Without the Alliance, the Renascent Heirate can't hope to stand up to the Empire. They have a navy, they have starfighters and troops, but -- " She fell silent, her eyes dropping to her lap thoughtfully. It was too awful to contemplate, and yet the galaxy as it was demanded contemplating things that were too awful.

Her hand went to his shoulder, squeezing softly. "I can't think about it in terms of killing. I have to think about it in terms of the people we saved. And we did, Wedge. Of course we killed people, but we saved many, many more. Whatever happens -- the political bullshit, whether in the long run Coruscant stands or falls -- we saved people's lives by giving them time to get away and eliminating those who would have pursued them." Her hand went around to his other shoulder, shifting closer so that she could embrace him.

"Do you ever think there's something to all those pamphlets they gave us? And those trainings we had to take? About how to spot the signs of post-traumatic stress?" Her dark eyes turned on him, drinking him in, all the anger having evaporated from her. In its place was empathy and worry.

 

[Wedge Draav]

Reima Vitalis​

"Do you ever think there's something to all those pamphlets they gave us? And those trainings we had to take? About how to spot the signs of post-traumatic stress?"

Her words fell not on deaf ears, but onto a man that wasn't quite in that room. His eyes glazed over, hardening, pushing out the thought that he wasn't well off. There was silence in his ears- a ringing, a terrible silence overtaking him. He was cold and quiet for a moment- before all the sounds came back to him at once. Her words repeated themselves in his mind, the noises from their accommodation. Other sensations came back at once, sights, touch.

Her turned his eyes towards her, realizing where he was and what he was experiencing. He embraced her back, quietly and gently.

"Something to it, for sure."

He took another deep breath, before speaking again.

"The Alliance is already gone, Reima. We watched it die." That statement was heavy- awful to even think of, to consider. Wedge was a career man, a patriot. A hero. And they threw him away, cast him aside. That's when he knew the Alliance died. There wasn't anything left for him to defend anymore. It was simply a skeleton. A cruel, walking corpse of an Alliance.

​

"I can't- stop, thinking. Thinking about them, though. The people I killed. Twenty years, almost, of killing, fighting, dying- and now, for what?"