Chapter Text
Wolffe, do you remember that night I woke up screaming? A few months after Gregor died, I’d dreamed about him, about Cody—a nightmare, though I don’t remember exactly what happened. When I woke I thought you were them; your faces blurred together in front of me, and I didn’t know where I was, or who you were, only that I was crying. I still feel bad about that. I didn’t realize I was so loud I woke you up.
I also didn’t realize you knew how to soothe pain like mine—like ours; I know you carry it too. You stayed close and rubbed my shoulders until I was calm enough for you to go make tea. You brewed it so easily, like you’d done it before, and in the moment I was too shaken to wonder. But now I do—where did you learn to make tea in the first place?
What mission, what moment of quiet between battles taught you to heat the water just so, when to pour in the leaves, how long to let it steep? It’s such a civilian thing to do, an action of peace. The Republic never taught us that; the Kaminoans wouldn’t have dreamed of it—not that they gave us tea anyhow. Did your Jedi teach you? It would make the most sense. I can imagine General Koon standing at some stove, some cobbled-together heating unit, his long-fingered hands pouring water into a kettle, his low voice telling you, We’ll let that sit for a few minutes. What was it like, the training to be something other than a soldier? How did it feel, to be gentle?
You probably didn’t learn to hug from General Koon—that would have been too far. Anything more than a nudge or a punch or a clasp to the shoulder was usually too far, for us, with anyone. Even with our closest vod’e. Yet you put your arms around me, laid your temple against mine, a circle of warmth in the cool salt-desert nights. You held me until my trembling stopped. And you didn’t mock me or ask questions. You seemed to know.
It’s been three years since I buried you beside Gregor, in the warm earth of Lothal. I’m still here, rattling around this old junker of an AT-AT, your helmets beside mine, faces we no longer wear. Sometimes I wake and it’s cold, and I put my arms around myself and imagine it’s you, or Gregor, or Cody, or someone else besides me. And still I wonder—where, in our lives of sterile halls and bloodstained fields, did you learn to hug?