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Mace opened his eyes, feeling twin spots of warmth on his left and right sides, and a crawling sensation down his back.
He was aware that some time had passed, even though it felt like only a few minutes since he’d sat down against the door to their room and closed his eyes. Judging by his level of exhaustion and how gritty his eyes felt, he’d probably slept less than 6 hours.
He’d crashed after they had left Naboo, and had expected to sleep at least 12 hours after everything that had happened, if not longer. It was a testament to how unsettled and stressed he was that he’d woken up now.
Depa was asleep, slumped against his left shoulder. She’d made a joke before Mace had crashed, saying that they really shouldn’t make sitting on the floor a habit. Mace had told her that he was only guarding the door, and that she didn’t have to sleep next to him - the crew had provided them with plenty of bedding, even if they couldn’t provide a bunk room, and Skywalker was already asleep on a pile of blankets in the corner to Mace’s right - but she had simply settled down next to him.
Skywalker had apparently moved while Mace was asleep, dragging a few blankets with him, and was the source of the warmth on his right. He had wrapped several blankets around himself, with his head on Mace’s thigh, and was half buried inside Mace’s cloak. Mace carefully pulled it further over him. Space would likely be cold to a kid who’d been living on a desert planet, he mused.
He wondered if Skywalker had been cold on the trip to Naboo, and just hadn’t told him. Mace would have to watch for that. Depa had been pretty good about letting him know what she needed, but based on what Mace had seen so far, Skywalker had trouble with that.
The Force was quiet and calm, which was the only reason Mace had ignored the crawling sensation of being watched this long.
Mace tucked his cloak more securely around Skywalker. Then he finally raised his eyes and met Maul’s cold stare.
Mace was tired, and he hadn’t slept enough to rid himself of the headache he’d fallen asleep with, but he supposed that Sith, even baby ones (especially baby ones?) delighted in being inconvenient like that. Asking for a few more hours before they talked would probably be met with derision.
Maul’s gaze was calculating, but not particularly angry. He didn’t seem to be shielding in the Force - or at least, not shielding very much. Mace could feel Maul’s emotions clearly, a tangled snarl in the natural currents of the Force, lashing out at intervals.
Mace knew that Maul could shield, because he’d been shielding during the fight on Naboo, masking his presence and hiding himself completely from other Force sensitives. It was how he’d nearly taken Mace’s head off in the palace hanger. Why he wasn’t shielding now was a mystery.
Maul was still on his own pile of blankets, in the far left corner of the room where Mace had dropped him, but he was now sitting up against the wall. He looked almost casual sitting there, despite the fact that his arms were snugly tied behind him, using the rope Mace had managed to acquire.
Mace had tied the rope into the most obnoxiously difficult knots he knew. He was aware that they wouldn’t hinder Maul for long if the Sith wanted to escape. If he’d known he was going to spare Maul’s life, he might have requisitioned a pair of Force-blocking cuffs from the Temple… but as he’d told Depa, plans change.
Maul must have noticed him eyeing the rope, because he smirked. “This rope,” he said, voice hissing, “is laughably insufficient if you are trying to keep me from escaping and killing you all. You underestimate the Power of the Dark Side.”
Mace ignored the taunt, tilting his head at the Definite Capitals in that sentence. Time to start pushing, and see what Maul was made of. “Is this a verbal quirk of yours?” he asked, just on the edge of drawling.
Maul faltered. “What?”
Mace kept his manner casual, designed to provoke. “I’m asking if you always sound like a secondary villain in a space melodrama, or if this is something you had to practice.”
When Maul only stared, Mace relented and said, a little more gently, “You don’t have to extoll the benefits of the Dark Side in every single sentence. I’m well aware of what the Sith believe about the Force and the Jedi.”
From both research, and personal experience.
Maul managed to rally, glaring. “You have not restrained me in any meaningful way,” he said, but Mace noticed that he wasn’t hissing his words anymore. “What do you plan on doing if I decide to kill your fellow Jedi and commandeer this ship?”
Mace raised an eyebrow. “You are overestimating your abilities.”
Maul was, after all, in a small room with Mace guarding the door. Mace had already beaten him once, and this time Maul didn’t have his lightstaff, the two pieces of which Mace had very deliberately stashed somewhere else on the ship.
Maul sneered. It still looked just a bit too practiced. “Am I? I rather think you are underestimating me. I can admit you are the better dueler, but I was able to hold my own.” Which certainly was one way of looking at it. Mace didn’t think Maul was stupid enough to truly believe that, but stranger things had happened. “And you,” Maul continued, silky and dangerous, “are the one who decided to keep me in the same room as the brat and the other Jedi. She’s a friend, I imagine?” His voice went cold. “You can’t blame me if they end up with broken necks while you sleep.”
Mace forced himself not to stiffen, breathed through his anger at the threat, and tried to figure out what Maul was doing. Threatening and taunting was a tried and true Sith method, particularly when cornered. But if Maul was planning to escape, it seemed unwise to so clearly broadcast his intentions.
Also, he hadn’t attacked yet. It had been a bit of a risk to sleep in the same room as Maul, but leaving Maul alone had even greater risk. There was little to no space on this ship, and Mace hadn’t felt comfortable leaving Skywalker alone with any of the crew. And Mace had known that the Force would warn him if Maul tried anything.
It was telling that Maul had chosen not to try anything.
Well, aside from the attempted strangulation about 7 hours ago. Which the Force had warned him about, and he had dealt with. This time, however, Maul seemed to have woken up perfectly civil.
“And leave you alone on a ship that you’ve already told me you’re planning to commandeer? I don’t think so,” Mace said. “All that aside, however, I wanted to talk to you.”
“I don’t care,” Maul said precisely, sneer growing larger, “about what you want.”
Well. Mostly civil.
“That’s understandable,” Mace said calmly, switching gears. “Let’s talk about what you want, then.”
Maul looked at him as if he’d suddenly gained two heads. “I want to kill you, and everyone on this ship, and then leave,” he enunciated, like Mace was an idiot.
Which definitely was an answer to his question. But Mace wondered, again, if the Baby Sith had any experience doing anything of the kind. And it wasn’t what Mace was driving at.
“Alright,” Mace said calmly. “Then what?”
Maul sneered again. “Why do you care? You’d be dead.”
“Humor me,” Mace said. When Maul only stared at him, sneer faltering in his bafflement, Mace continued. “Would you return to your Master, now that you’ve failed in the mission that he assigned you?”
“ I did not fail!” Maul hissed, with an aborted lunge towards him. Mace felt the Force ripple a warning, but it quickly subsided, and Mace raised an eyebrow. Seeing this, Maul composed himself, and said, “I will not fail. I will kill you, and my Master will be satisfied.”
There. Time to push, Mace.
“But not pleased, because you got captured halfway through,” Mace said. Maul’s shoulders twitched, like Mace had hit a nerve. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I get the sense that your Master is much more focused on your failures than your successes.”
Maul didn’t say anything, his face a mask of stone, but in the Force his emotions roiled, spiking every which way.
“Also,” Mace continued, “I doubt your Master will be pleased with you just killing us. Master Jinn and Knight Kenobi are still alive on Naboo. You’ll have missed two Jedi. And even if you killed us, took charge of this ship, and headed back to finish them off, they are on a planet that has recently ousted an invasion. Everyone will be on high alert. Do you really like your odds?”
Maul didn’t answer. He had turned his head away while Mace was talking, and Mace couldn’t see his expression anymore. His emotional tangle in the Force was hard to parse, but there was a growing anger. Mace needed to keep pushing, if he was going to make any difference here.
“And I have a feeling that your Master has… particular ways he makes his displeasure known,” Mace said. He pushed away the memory of victorious laughter. The phantom pain of lighting twisting through his body was harder to ignore, but he continued speaking. “And his punishments are likely arbitrary. You never know what exactly will set his temper off. You only know that no matter what, you face punishment.”
“Pain is what makes the Sith stronger,” Maul said, but he didn’t sound angry. His face was still turned away. “It allows them to gain more power from the Dark Side.”
The anger in that swirl of emotions was slowly growing larger, but his voice didn’t reflect it. Mace frowned. He wanted to examine Maul’s emotions in the Force more - something was off - but he needed to focus on answering Maul. He was pushing, but if he pushed too far, Maul would refuse to listen to anything else he said. He would have to be careful.
“That may be the case,” Mace said, almost gentle. “But at a guess, I don’t think he’s punishing you so you can be a better Sith. He punishes you because he wants to take his anger out on someone, and you’re a convenient target.”
Maul didn’t answer. The anger was now the largest emotion spiking, but it had stalled in a weird way. Mace wasn’t sure he’d ever seen someone’s emotions do that before, and couldn’t figure out what it meant. Maul was just… angry.
“If you go back to him-”
“There is no ‘if’ in this scenario, Jedi. I will return to my Master.”
“Alright, when you go back to him, then,” Mace said. “I suspect that he will punish you, but he will take you back into his service. And then he will send you on another mission with no backup, and another, and another, until you find yourself facing death again.” Maul gave the slightest flinch, which told Mace that he had thought about their fight and knew that Mace had chosen not to kill him. So much for believing he’d held his own.
“If you manage to escape that and return to him, he will keep using you until he determines you are no longer an asset to him,” Mace said. “Which, to be honest, I think will be soon. You are not very discrete, after all, and the Sith have been hiding for quite some time. When that day comes, your Master will send you on a final mission that will kill you. Or, he will do the deed himself.”
Maul’s shoulders were tight. “I am his apprentice,” he said dully. The strange, still anger had gone almost as quickly as it had appeared. “I will learn and grow in power, and one day I will kill my Master and take his place. It is the way of the Sith.”
“Tell me you really think he is willing to let you achieve that,” Mace said. “Tell me that you honestly believe that he won’t kill you before he lets that happen, and I’ll leave this topic alone.”
Maul said nothing.
In the previous timeline, Maul had been left for dead so easily. And then Palpatine had chosen Dooku to be his next apprentice, from what Mace could piece together, although there had been plenty of contenders for the position that Dooku himself seemed to be training up. But then Dooku was killed by Skywalker.
...In Palpatine's presence, actually. Palpatine must have already had his sights set on his future apprentice. And it only proved that Palpatine was willing to get rid of whomever he deemed no longer useful.
“Your Master is only concerned with his own power, and if you threaten that, he will discard you without a thought,” Mace said. He added pointedly, “Are you really so willing to go back to that?”
Maul took in a ragged breath. “You say that like I have a choice in this. And it's not like you actually care.”
“I'm saying,” Mace said, “that you have options.”
Maul laughed bitterly, his emotions flaying the currents of the Force around him, swirling everything in his vicinity into a muddled mess. Skywalker shifted in his sleep, curling towards Mace. Depa didn't move, but Mace had the sudden instinct that she was now awake and listening.
“And what option-” Maul sneered the word “-do you have for me, hmm? Your plan is for me to, what, renounce the Dark Side and become a Jedi? You expect me to throw my lot in with the Light Side, trapped in that temple of yours as your carve your self-righteous pedestals ever higher? I wouldn't be interested in any such thing, even if my Master wouldn't kill me for merely considering it.” He met Mace's gaze, darkly intent, and promised, “Force me into that, and I will carve a bloody hole right through the middle of your vaunted temple, including through any Jedi that stand in my way.”
Mace closed his eyes, trying the will the flashes of his vision away. Dead, all dead, scattered and crumpled on the ground-
One of those flashes had been located in the Temple.
“That wasn't-” Mace breathed, and made his tone even again. “That wasn't exactly what I had in mind, no.” Even if it kind of had been what he'd had in mind, when he'd had a moment to imagine the best possible scenario. It had been a fleeting thought, anyway. “I said that you have options.”
“I have grave doubts that any of your options contain a fraction of something I would be remotely interested in,” Maul said. Which wasn't promising.
“You sure are eloquent when you want to be, huh?” Depa's voice, layered with deliberate amusement, came from right next to Mace's ear. She hadn't moved her head from his shoulder, but Mace felt her squeeze his waist gently, out of Maul's sight. She'd noticed his pause, and was giving Maul someone else to focus on. “You practicing for an audition in a soap opera?”
Mace bit his cheek to keep from laughing. Trust Depa's thoughts to run the same way his did.
Maul apparently didn't appreciate the humor. He directed his sneer at her. “Your compatriot already made that wisecrack, I'm afraid. You Jedi aren't very original, are you?”
When Depa lifted her head from his shoulder and glanced at him, Mace admitted, “It's true. You were asleep and missed my comment about villains in space melodramas.”
“Oooh, good one; I like it,” Depa said cheerfully. “Anyway, I don't think being a Jedi is to blame for this. Mace has simply influenced me in all the worst possible ways.”
Mace raised an eyebrow. He appreciated Depa lightening the mood, and thought it best to add to it. Didn't want her efforts to go to waste, after all. “Oh, it's me influencing you, hmm? I rather think I wouldn't know what a villain in a space melodrama sounded like if it wasn't for-”
Depa flailed and tried to slap her hand over his mouth. She smacked his chin as he dodged, and he gave her an arch look, even as he closed his mouth on the rest of his words. He was about to tease her further, when Skywalker made a noise of distress.
They both froze, glancing down at him. Skywalker moved, shoving himself further into Mace's side, and then subsided.
Once Skywalker was no longer in danger of waking up, Mace turned back to teasing Depa. He frowned at her, whispering accusingly, “You almost woke him up.”
“I almost woke him up?” Depa hissed. “You provoked me!”
The sheer outrage in her tone was too much for him, and his mouth twitched, betraying his amusement. It was gone an instant later, but Depa had already clocked it.
She hit him in the arm, right where her head had been. “You are a menace,” she said, reluctantly amused. She did not, he noted, hit him hard enough to jostle Skywalker's position against his side.
Mace happened to glance up and see Maul's face, and immediately felt like he'd seen something private. Maul was expressionless, like he was carved out of stone, but there was a stillness to it that gave Mace the impression that the stone was about to shatter into a million pieces, exposing something raw and aching beneath it.
Maul noticed him looking and immediately looked away, but the damage was done. Mace was unable to get that stone-cracked expression out of his head. Should he say something, or would it be taken all the more poorly now that Maul had exposed a weakness? And what in the galaxy would he say, anyway?
Before Mace could decide, Depa had followed his gaze. “I'm sorry, that was rude of us,” she said casually. “Maul, isn't it? I'm Depa.”
Maul blinked at her, and then his emotions in the Force disappeared abruptly behind shields.
Uh oh.
After a few seconds of silence, where Mace tried to figure out what had set Maul off, Depa continued. “This is the part where we exchange some meaningless platitude like 'Nice to meet you.' Well, I would mean it, a little, but with the way you're looking at me now I think you wouldn't mean it at all.”
“How do you know my name?” Maul asked, deadly calm.
Ohhh, Force above. They'd done it now.
Depa's hand tightened on Mace's forearm out of Maul's sight, the only outward sign that she'd realized her mistake. The rest of her continued on blithely. “Some people call me Master Billaba, but you can call me Depa. This is my former Master, Mace Windu.” She looked at Mace. “People usually just call him Windu, or Master Windu, if they want to be fancy.”
“How,” Maul said, carefully enunciating each word, gaze not wavering from Depa. “Do You Know. My Name.”
Maul wasn't going to take a refusal to answer well. At the beginning of this conversation, Mace might have still refused anyway, testing how far Maul could be pushed, but now that he'd seen that stone-cracked expression on Maul's face, he was reluctant to do so.
Not that Mace trusted Maul with the entire truth. But he could still give him part of an answer.
“She learned it from me,” Mace said.
The intensity of the stare Maul gave him was a little unnerving, but Mace had plenty of practice not flinching. He'd faced an enraged strill in an animal fighting pit once, during a mission. He could handle the predatory stare of a Baby Sith.
“I know some about you, Maul, but not very much,” Mace said. “More importantly, I know a great deal about your Master, and his plans for the galaxy.”
“My Master has more plans and plots than you could ever dream of, Jedi,” said Maul, sneering again, though it looked unsettled. Mace still couldn't feel his emotions.
“I know that his plans have been years in the making, and that those plans extend years into the future,” Mace said. “Do the words 'galactic civil war' mean anything to you? If not, your Master might have mentioned 'tearing the Republic apart.'” He almost added 'and destroying the Jedi in the process,' but thought that might be showing Maul his hand too much.
Someone well-versed in politics and history might be able to see how planets and systems were becoming dissatisfied with the Republic and were even now starting to consider secession. It was, reasonably, a thing that Mace could have figured out in this current time. But what happened to the Jedi...
Well, no one could have predicted that.
At Mace's words, Maul froze. Mace would have counted that as a victory, if it wasn't for the sudden vice-like grip on his arm. Depa was staring fixedly at his face now.
...Well, he was going to explain more about the war eventually, even if he'd been hoping to break it to her more gently than this.
“How do you know that?” Maul asked, bewildered. His eyes scoured Mace, like the answers to all of Mace's secrets would somehow be found in the folds of his robes. “Who are you?”
“Someone who is very interested in destroying your Master's plans, before he destroys the lives of everyone in the galaxy,” Mace said.
“If he finds out, he will kill you,” Maul warned, almost... frightened, if Mace was reading him right. His emotions were hidden behind duracrete walls.
Mace considered Maul's nearly well-intentioned comment for a moment. “I think that in a fair fight, I have a chance,” he said, with some hidden irony. “Although I would like to dismantle a few more of his plans before I face him. And I'm not planning on letting him find out that I know until it's too late.”
Maul hesitated, and then said, “But you told me, even though I said I'm returning to my Master. Are you planning to kill me?”
“I'd rather not,” Mace said honestly. “I was hoping that I could give you some other options than returning to him. I'm not,” he added quickly, when Maul bristled, “saying you have to become a Jedi. In fact, if you wanted, I would allow you to leave us on the next planet we stop at, if you wanted to escape from your Master's grasp that way.” When Maul's eyes widened and Depa opened her mouth to protest, Mace added, “It's not my favorite option, I'll admit; it feels like an easy way for your Master to make you disappear. But there's other options.”
Maul's eyes narrowed. “Like what?”
“Well,” Mace started, rallying his thoughts. “You could stick with us. Currently I'm obfuscating our trail. It will only give us a few days before your Master figures out where we went, I'll admit. But I've created enough plausible deniability that he might not be able to prove that you're with us. And by then, I believe we can find a way to keep you out of your Master's grasp.”
“And I do what, exactly? I know a great deal about my Master, I can't imagine that you'll let such a valuable asset go to waste,” Maul said bitterly.
Which wasn't an unfair assumption. “I won't deny that some of what you know might be useful to me,” Mace said calmly. “But, I'm planning on going against your Master whether or not you help me. If you choose not to help, that's your decision, but I've already made my choice, and I'm still offering you a chance to escape him.”
Maul stared at him for an uncomfortably long time. Finally, he asked, “Why didn't you kill me?”
When Mace frowned, trying to figure out what that had to do with their conversation, Maul huffed and said, “If it truly doesn't matter whether or not I help you, if I'm truly not of any practical use to you, then why did you spare my life?”
Mace opened his mouth, then closed it again, trying to figure out what to say. It was true that part of it had been about how useful Maul could be, but the other part...
In the pause, Depa snorted. Both of them turned to look at her, and she said, “It's obvious to me. But then, I've known Mace for a long time.” She looked at Maul and said gently, “Mace saw you, and knew you were being hurt. And if Mace has the ability to help someone, he does what he can.” She shrugs. “He's super intimidating at first glance, but it's to hide how much he cares.”
Maul looked disbelieving.
“I mean,” Mace said, “sure, but I was also motivated by spite. Because I thought that sparing Maul's life would be the last thing that Maul's Master would expect.”
Depa looked exasperated at this, but Maul cracked a smile – a real one, even if it had more teeth than was polite. “Now that,” he said, “I can believe.”
Mace shrugged. He asked, “Will you take my offer?”
Maul stopped smiling. “You're idiotic if you think we'll survive my Master's wrath.”
It wasn't an answer. Mace waited.
“I won't be a Jedi,” Maul said firmly, glaring.
“Alright,” said Mace peaceably.
“I still believe that the Jedi are hypocritical and selfish,” Maul said, “and if any of them provoke me I will not hesitate to kill them.”
Mace thought about this. “Could we downgrade that to a light maiming?” Maul narrowed his eyes at this, but Mace had to add one more caveat. “And if they're younger than you, maybe tell me first if someone is provoking you? I'll make sure to set them straight.”
Maul frowned. “I make no promises, but I will consider it,” he said, like it was a concession.
...Yeah. So they were going to need to work on that. Mace had a sudden vision of a 10-year-old asking Maul an insensitive question and getting kicked into a wall.
If they were going back to the Temple, Mace was going to need to keep Maul away from everyone until his first instinct wasn't physical violence. Make sure he stayed with people who could handle him, and introduce him to new people gradually.
Which was going to be difficult when Sidious figured out where Maul was. How long would they truly be able to keep Maul safe, even in the temple?
...Could they somehow convince the public that Maul had escaped on the way back to the temple, and then smuggle him in later?
Mace was going to have to think more about this. He was a fairly public Jedi, and couldn't hide in the temple with Maul forever.
“I'm still a Sith, you know,” Maul said with a studied casualness. “This doesn't change that.”
Mace raised an eyebrow. “I'm aware.” But the fact that Maul felt he needed to clarify it said something.
“But if I'm going with you willingly, then I don't think there's any need for the rope,” Maul said, almost demanding.
Mace looked at him, until Maul squirmed and looked away. “Forgive me if I'm a little wary,” he said. “Would you be willing to swear you mean no harm to us or the crew of this ship?”
Maul swallowed back some retort, and after a moment carefully said, “I swear.”
“Swear on something important to you,” Mace said, still pushing. He couldn't afford to be wrong about this, and if Maul snapped now, Mace would deal with it.
There was a long silence, and Maul sized him up. His eyes flickered to Skywalker, still sleeping next to Mace. Before Mace could bristle, Maul glanced up again, steeled himself, and said, “I swear on my brother's life, I mean no harm to you or the crew of this ship.”
A secret given freely. Maul didn't have to admit to having a brother, much less one he cared about, and it was a weakness he was giving Mace on purpose.
Mace tried to think about whether he'd heard about a brother in the previous timeline, and drew a blank. “Is he alright?” he asked. When Maul only blinked at him, confused, Mace clarified, “Your brother. Is he safe?”
Maul looked surprised. Depa started laughing. “What?” Mace asked, bewildered.
“You beginning to believe what I said, then?” Depa asked to Maul, ignoring Mace.
Maul glared at her, but turned back to Mace. “He's as safe as he can be, for now. He's not with my Master at least, thank all the stars.”
Mace nodded, but Depa was frowning. “Forgive me if this is rude,” she said, “but it doesn't seem very Sith-like to care about your brother. I didn't think the Sith cared about anything, except power.”
“My Master doesn't know about him,” Maul said carefully, “and I would like to keep it that way. His existence, after all, is a valuable asset to taking my Master down.” He threw a superior look their way. “Attempting to kill your Sith Master is expected of a Sith, after all. In fact, I would argue that I'm even more of a Sith now that I've decided to kill him.”
“Sure,” Mace said dryly. “Fully-fledged Sith now, aren't you?”
Maul narrowed his eyes at Mace, like he could tell Mace was making fun of him but wasn't sure what the insult was.
“Everyone has to have a hobby,” Depa said sagely.
“Being a Sith is not a hobby,” Maul said, looking outraged and a bit wounded. Mace decided to cut him some slack, and turned his teasing towards toward Depa instead.
“Are you sure you want to talk about weird hobbies, Depa?” Mace said. “If you're going to pick on Maul, I think he should have some ammunition to fight back with. Granted, he'd probably have to watch The Umbrellas of Sedri Minor in order to properly ridicule your taste in holos, but something tells me that spite is a great motivator for him.”
Depa gaped, outraged and unable to even come up with a defense. Mace caught Maul's eye, and gave him a conspiratorial grin. Maul received it with some bewilderment, but after a few seconds, he seemed to catch on.
He looked at Depa, considering. “I would be interested in watching, if only to figure out what is so terrible about it. Do you have a copy I could borrow, Windu?”
When Mace opened his mouth to reply, Depa finally found her words. “Nope! I'm cutting this off now.” She pointed at Mace. “You, shush. Also, you like the space melodramas.” She pointed at Maul. “You – just – don't pick up these habits from Mace. He is a terrible role model. You two are not allowed to gang up on me!”
“What are you all doing?” came a very groggy, very petulant voice from Mace's hip. “You're so loud.”
Mace burst out laughing. Depa immediately looked chagrined. “Sorry, Anakin,” she said.
“Don't be sorry about it, sleep about it,” Skywalker said, which probably had made more sense in his head.
Mace, still chuckling, tried to puzzle this out. “What?”
“Go to sleep, it's nighttime.” And with a wriggle that tangled himself even further into the blankets around him, Skywalker yanked Mace's cloak over his head as if to block out both sound and light.
Mace looked at Depa, who was biting her lip to keep from laughing, and then at Maul, who just looked confused.
Eh. He'd have time to figure it out.
“Depa,” Mace said, “I believe Maul asked to be released a while back. Since Skywalker has me trapped, would you mind doing the honors?”
Depa levered herself up and over to Maul. A few minutes later, with a few grumbles back at Mace (“Seriously, Mace, where did you learn these knots?” “Master Myr, actually.” “Figures.”), Maul was finally stretching his arms out and rubbing his wrists.
He froze when Depa caught his hands, and didn't move while she checked his wrists for any serious damage. When she finally glanced up and saw his startled face, she quickly let go.
“Sorry,” she said. “I should have asked first.”
“It's fine,” he said.
Depa frowned, but didn't argue, instead asking, “Do you have enough blankets over here? There's plenty more.”
Maul blinked. “...No, I have enough.”
Depa nodded, then made her way back to Mace.
When she had settled herself at Mace's side again, Mace said, “If you two don't mind, I think I'm going to follow the kid's orders. I need 6-12 more hours.”
“Of course!” Depa assured him brightly. Mace did not trust that tone. “You need your sleep after all, don't you?” When Mace squinted at her, she added, “Now that you're old and everything.”
Mace sighed. “When will you let that go?”
“Are you kidding me?” Depa said. “I'm never letting this go. I will come up with every iteration of this joke I can, and will continue to use them until Coruscant's sun goes out.” She considered her words for a moment, then added, “Possibly longer.”
“I'm too tired for this,” Mace decided, then closed his eyes and firmly ignored everyone in the room.
He must have managed it well enough, because before he knew it, he was asleep again.