Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The faint taste of blood flickered like a hint of adrenaline in your system as you hurried your pace. It rained harshly and the artificial water seeped into the cut of your hand. Instinctively, your hands gripped your books tightly against the pounding pain. You’d gotten cut when you tried to unloose your keys from your inner coat; the fabric forming a bond of steel with your keychain. It had been an added irony to your morning.

This morning on Coruscant seemed another person’s delight. Bending over your books in an attempt to keep them dry seemed futile. Despite the deafening music from your earbuds, you realized the usual noise of hovercars in this area was absent - rush hour seemed officially over. It was then when reality hit you. For the first time, you were actually late for class.

The concrete ailed each time it made contact with your quickening heels. You closed your eyes in frustration when you thought back to last night. You’d been going over extra homework questions until one legal problem made your thoughts come to an absolute standstill. It was one of public law, and yet you found yourself stuck within the pages of private law in the midst of the night. Nothing had made sense. Every question seemed to offer a loophole—there was never a dead end. And yet, you’d reached one.

Today was of importance, but due to your pride — refusing to leave the question unanswered — you’d likely end up sitting all the way in the back of the lecture hall. Professor Valtarić never took latecomers lightly, especially when a guest speaker was involved, as was the case today. The guest speaker would give a lecture about the criminal case that has circulated through Coruscant’s most elitist families like a haunt. Whispers had gone around of rebels wandering the grounds of the underworld, now more prominent than ever before.

Everyone in the galaxy knows of the fugitives filling the space of the lower levels. Since the dawn of the Empire they’ve been terrorizing the planet as much as they could, which has always been nil. Every Imperial officer greets even the slightest chance to arrest them. Still, they’ve managed to nudge their rights, and death was no stranger at these levels.

This case, however—a death of a politician and his wife, leaving a one-year-old behind—makes the tide in Coruscant seem steerable. You share the fear of many that it’s only a matter of time until another case will follow, especially since this death has gone unanswered, leaving the offender’s name lost to the wind.

You could finally see the law faculty, the university buildings’ presence radiating authority. The mixture of cement, glass, and sharp angles representing its essence; everything within these walls moulded to absolute perfection. To get into the faculty, you had to pass the numerus fixus, which consisted of three separate exams. With each exam dropping hundreds of students, only to be left with an approximate number of two to three hundred first years.

When you got your results, you couldn’t believe your eyes. The exams were divided over a year, and it felt like a never-ending challenge to pass any of them. With the help of a handful of TA’s repeating, explaining, and analysing hundreds of relevant laws, you still deemed it all hopeless. Criminal law, however, saved you — surpassing most of the other students, despite your futile attempts at civil, administrative, and commerce law. The latter, which you, of course, chose to specialize in, ignoring your resentment towards it.

You noticed that some of the tabs in your law book started to falter. The relentless rain showed it no mercy, eliciting another frustrated sigh from you. You hesitated, but finally decided to cover the book with your coat. Your fingers moved from the grip of your books to the drained, wool fabric of your coat. You looked down to open the buttons, the icy air meeting your neck, when — in an instant — a sharp pain shot into your upper body.

Your breath was put at a halt as air got knocked out of your lungs. The sudden force made you lose balance and swiftly collapse to the solid, unforgiving ground beneath you. Your already loosened earbuds fell out and the book, along with your papers scattered across the ground. The paper slowly melting at contact with the wet floor. Your vison blurred slightly due to the abruptness of it all and you blinked your eyes in an attempt to refocus them.

“What the hell?” you exclaimed, raising yourself by the arms. You looked back at the stranger who had bumped into you. His face was hidden by the hood of his coat, only a few dark strands of hair sticking out from beneath it. You noticed the logo on his pants, the police insignia, which abruptly changed your demeanour: your eyebrows unfurrowed and your back straightened. To insult a police officer could bring anyone, regardless of background, into trouble, and you had already managed to get yourself into enough for today.

The part of the uniform you could recognize seemed neat and tightly put together. The bottom of the jeans was tucked stiffly yet neatly into the black boots. You noticed its perfectly polished leather as rain carefully slid down the surface without leaving any stains behind. The coat however, seemed completely worn down. Scratches covered most of it along with some lighter, discoloured patches. Suddenly, you realized that it might be a citizen from a lower level who had made it into the police academy. That would explain the contradiction in his clothing.

The stranger turned around, hurriedly grabbing something in the midst of the mess you had dropped, finding what he also lost grip of. Barely audible, he muttered a vague “sorry” before rushing off. You could understand many leaving you behind like this, but a police officer? His unapologetic, almost sarcastic excuse vexed you even further, as if he didn’t just ruin the homework you had worked so hard on.

When you deemed him far enough from hearing distance, you muttered, “What an asshole” at last. You rolled your eyes as you quickly picked your stuff off the ground. Most of your papers were ruined, the once-white colour now dark grey. You attempted to put the ruined papers into your bag, ignoring the overflowing content of it. At this point, you were practically sprinting, your heart pounding in your chest and your breath heaving. You barely had any homework left, and you were late? You were doomed.

The lecture hall was dead silent when you opened the doors. The mechanical doors slipped open without a sound and closed by themselves the moment you entered the hall. Pictures of a crime scene were shown on the holoscreen as the guest speaker paced in front of it, watching and waiting. You figured the class had been been given an assignment related to the pictures. A burn wound to the chest —likely from a lasergun— along with a similar wound to what you believed to be a head, were displayed to the class.

You looked around, scanning the hall for a seat at the front, but to little avail. You resigned yourself to one of the seats in the last row; the worst seats, with their hardwood backs set at a harsh 90-degree angle. These seats were reserved for the last row for one reason: to set an example. Don’t be late or you’ll pay with your back.

You took your notebook and pen out of your bag and let the latter hover above the paper, waiting for the continuation of the lecture. Some time passed before he interrupted the silence. “I imagine that everyone came up with a possible answer, so now I ask you all,” he said, surveying the room, trying to meet as many people’s eyes, “What would the criminal profile for this crime look like?”

A couple dozen of hands raised at the question, some abruptly and others more hesitantly. He picked a woman at the front, gesturing for her to bring up her answer. “There’s a lack of knowledge about their background, but due to the circumstances and their possible intent, it’s likely that the person comes from a lower socio-economic background” The guest looked pensive at the last comment, his eyes slightly squinting as she continued, “Presumed, coupled with a disdain towards the Empire.”

He chuckled softly to himself. “These are but textbook presumptions. Being dictated a lower status or a different social or economic background doesn’t lead people to commit crimes.” A couple of hands lowered in response to this comment. Noticing this, he took a step back, speaking now more to the entire lecture hall rather than the woman at the front. “This is not a usual crime. There hasn’t been a crime committed like this in decades, therefore we cannot allow ourselves to pinpoint just about everything we’ve studied within these halls.”

He turned around to display a new slide. Your heart dropped at the sight of it, and you looked away in an instant. “We tend to latch onto anything we’ve been taught. Certainly in places of authority and adherence. You believe that we teach you to continually stick to the rules we abide you.” You dared to look back at the screen, and the moment you did, the sight instilled a feeling similar to the one you had when you chose to study law.

The screen showed a picture of a roughly cut insignia on a throat. The edges thick and yellow of the fluid of healing, in contrast to the crimson redness of the wounds within. “And even though that is sometimes the way of things, you have to be able to think outside of your customary surroundings. Because don’t be fooled, this could be the deed of anyone. This case doesn’t need more prejudice than it already has.”

Still fixated on the image, you hadn’t noticed that he chose someone else to speak until you heard a man a few rows down rasp his voice. “Doesn’t the cut leave a lot of people out of the case as a potential perpetrator? It’s clearly been done to bring across a message.” The speaker nodded slowly, which made a few strands of his neatly brushed hair fall across his face. His eyes were squinting still, and his index finger laid straightened across his chin.

“It does bring across a message. Though it might just be a pretence; who knows for sure that the offender truly believes in the terrible mess he laid out?”. He laughed as if thinking about an inside joke and pointed at the slide behind him. “I’m not an artist of any sorts, but this is a mess. It’s as if they were in a hurry and could not care less about precising it. No, no… it even looks as if they had to recall what the insignia looked like.”

Some people laughed nervously at the tenuous correlation. “Don’t think it is? Look!” he said in disbelief with his arms spread out, “You all fell for it. You all believed it to be the insignia of the rebellion, no?” He zoomed in on the cut, the holoscreen filled entirely by the emblem. “The phoenix of the Alliance has three arrows, or flames, depending on who you discuss it with — this plagiarist merely drew two.” You saw the wings spread out: two crescent moons coming together, with just two elongated arrows in the middle.

“Think they were too lazy to add another? Perhaps they were in a hurry, and only could manage to draw the two, but you have to be careful and understand that it would’ve shown on the image. Here, you can tell that there was an intent to cut just the two pillars, arrows, or so on.” His finger glided across the screen, focusing on the details he had given.

At first you didn’t see it, but the more your eyes scanned the image, the more you saw how precisely the insignia had been made. Each cut was made roughly yet completely straight, as if they’d been etched with force and a clear image in mind, knowing each time which way to go: horizontally, diagonally, vertically — left, right, straight. The carving appeared detailed, focused. You looked everywhere for a sign of hesitance or fear, but consistency was all there seemed to be.

“Making premature assumptions can lead one to own their case, to make them see and experience things that aren’t there or didn’t happen. That is why a clear and unbiased investigation is of importance here.” He argued as he brushed some of his hair back and put his hands behind him, “As I mentioned before, this could be anyone. It could be someone you know, someone you saw for a second during rush hour. A friend or a family member, or someone in this very hall.” A sudden tension of unease rose amongst the rows in the lecture hall.

You looked across the rows, but you couldn’t imagine anyone committing such a crime. You saw a woman with glasses and brown hair looking at a person next to her, laughing awkwardly at the assumption. A man five rows beneath the woman, all the way to the right, with blonde neatly brushed hair, looking at the speaker still without looking around. Another man, then another woman, and so on, and so on. The thought of it weighed you down.

You tried to imagine that anyone here could have done this to someone who is just like every other person in this hall, even themselves. It brought up an image in your head of an electric system short-circuiting, or cancer in the human body. An individual in a system that belongs and is looked after by the system, and yet disrupts it. Like electricity going against the stream in a circuit, or failing to execute apoptosis as it was supposed to: a fault in the system. And instead of dealing with this difference, this change of mind or action, the system is taken down with it. You wondered what brought an individual to do this. At the same time, you wondered if just about anybody could’ve been capable of it.

“I could spend this entire lecture describing all sorts of different individuals that could fit the criminal profile. I could repeat your many lecturers and explain that people with a lower economic status, specifically on Coruscant, could lead to less trust in the Empire. Why? Because of x, y, z. However, the uniqueness of this case allows us to adopt a broader viewpoint, one that allows us to think outside of our own, usual, understandings.” He loaded a new, empty slide onto the holoscreen. “Simply put, I could better explain why having no hope or trust in the Empire could lead one to a heinous act like this, irrespective of their background.”

Chapter Text

After the lecture your eyes felt heavy and your brain felt similar to a whirlpool of disconnected thoughts. The constant thought of having to be on guard at all times looking out for this perpetrator left you in dismay. It made you believe that something was brewing on Coruscant, and it wasn't something you could let go of. From those same ingredients, a conflict stirred within you, holding a mirror to your mind.

You suddenly realized your luck when recalling that Professor Valtarić hadn't punished your lateness. There had only been a brief moment, shared together, before you left the hall when you accidentally had gotten caught within her peripheral vision.
“I'll take notice of it,” she'd said at the exit of the hall, her gaze before her; dismissing your existence entirely. “Don't let it happen again.”
You had simply nodded and apologized before your leave.

What she had meant by it, you weren't exactly sure of. Normally you would've cared, and your mind chaotic with rumination, but the lingering exhaustion had taken you over completely. You felt content with it.
Additionally, you were mindful of the fact that it could've been worse. Remembrance of one or two incidents appeared abruptly in your thoughts. Cases where students had been forced to take a leave for up to a month, a fate you've always feared to share.
Even missing just one class could dictate the rest of one’s course. An entire month of absence undoubtedly ensured you would not be able to finish the major, the chance to repeat a year being entirely ruled out.

You called for a hovercar, your stuck-out hand feeling the breeze’s cooling touch. The cold brought you back to the guest speaker of today: criminologist Zürim. During the break after the second hour, he spoke a bit about his life. He appeared to be an ex-soldier who had quit the Imperial army after nearly a decade of service. A sudden change, one to “fulfil a need in his life”, had led him to dedicate himself to criminology. The vagueness of it made you speculate—what exactly had made him choose that path? To serve for so long, and then throw it all away for some undefined need. Nonetheless, nobody had asked him further, so you let it be.

The hovercar approached, a subdued whir coming from the engines as it came to a stop.
"To the financial district, please," you told the driver.
His head turned slightly toward you and he nodded. A clean-shaven face and old eyes gave him the look of a kindly man. His cap was fitted tightly on his head, covering most of his blonde hair turning white.
You dropped your book and bag on the backseat and took the remaining seat, the driver heading away from the judicial district.

The skyline stretched out behind the window. Some skyscrapers towered over you, while others dropped out of sight beneath the window. It was just a little after rush hour with the time nearing eight. You wondered what you would do when you reached your destination. Since the guest lecture had taken up most of today's lessons, little homework had been assigned. For tomorrow, a theoretical case was due to be analysed. An analysis on the case of today, along with an obligation case for your specialisation in commerce law.

Secretly, there was a persistent desire to go home. Days and nights were spent on studying, yet it only ever truly left you with hands filled nil, never truly achieving what you wanted to.
The hours and days were long, not to mention the extensive trajectory of eventually being able to make a difference. The more effort put into your major, the further your purpose seemed to fade, hidden behind rules and laws you'll never be able to get through.

For a moment you closed your eyes, wishing any thoughts would cease. Beneath your eyelids the city lights transitioned in colour.
Orange, yellow, white, and red lights beamed across your vision, each melding with one another.
The sense of rest felt near and acknowledging the yearning for it kept you from keeping them closed. When you ultimately opened your eyes again, a radiating light stood high and proud above you: the moon now completely visible in the night sky.

The financial district emerged from behind the canopies of primarily residential buildings. You reached for the pockets in your jacket when the vehicle stopped. With a swift motion the driver held up his hand, gesturing for a halt.
“You're already paid for”
“But I never-?”
“You're registered ma’am,” he said, flicking his finger to the holoscreen. Tapping numerous icons, showing your last name on the faint LED text of the display.
“Aren't you related to—”
“Yeah, sorry. Never mind.” you dismissed him, “Thank you.” An immediate dip shifting your mood. You opened the porter and left hurriedly, your belongings barely carried in your arms.

The streets were still thriving with people, a mix of residents and workers. The district had a different demeanour compared to the judicial one: the buildings continued to convey a sense of authority, yet some also radiated a feeling of livelihood and comfort.
The offices, with their mostly concrete coverings and fewer windows, contrasted with the residential areas, which had more windows than stone. Somehow, the differences and similarities perfectly captured the essence of the district.

The sight of the district slightly took your mind off the previous happenings. However, you kept contemplating it — was it your mother? No, she wouldn't have the funds. Was it him? Did he really just pull that stunt for you?
Then you realized, he would've only done it for you if it were mom that asked him to do so.
Stars, even now — when he finally does something for you — it backfires; only ever acting when someone else tells him to, and controlling you with his assets.
In your mind you spat at him. His money. His power.

Beneath a cantilevered façade, the ceiling’s shadow slightly dimmed your vision. A few people walked past you, wearing suits and carrying briefcases. Their look was authoritative, but their manner relaxed as they laughed together and rambled loudly, constantly interrupting one another before breaking into laughter again. As they passed by, most other individuals pacing the streets seemed calm and collected, contributing to the overall quietness around you.

A right turn. And there it was: the café. The bright lights inside radiated a sense of comfort, a quiet reassurance to overcome your dwelled thoughts. Studying and settling down at any of the cafes in the financial district met your needs as they blended elegance and comfort.
This one in particular was a secluded diner with drinks and food that brought you to life and, most importantly, kept you awake and focused.

The establishment greeted you with its glass doors capturing its essence behind its texture. The establishment warmed you up at once as you stepped foot inside. You found comfort in a lounge seat overlooking the city skyline. Their leather seats were almost making you surrender to its solace; practically sinking into the cushions, immediately remembering the urge to rest. But alas, you took it for a sign to order and start your assignments right away.

Warm drinks and spiced food revived you over time as you went over the case. The data pad displayed all the images shown in today's class, the pictures of the gruesome assault evoking a feeling of unease once again. Your thoughts trailed back to what professor Zürim had mentioned earlier today. Could it have been a set-up, a framing of the rebellion? And if it was, for what end?

Your pastimes frequently included following the news and many criminal cases. You went over them in your mind, but nothing gave you a perception that the rebellion was in full force or even on the rise. Everything they did seemed futile, as they were only ever capable of committing small crimes against the Empire; more apt at agitating it than commencing a full-on revolution.

The screen filled with new text showing background information as your fingertips guided the display. Reading the loaded text, you noticed it included more details than the reviewed information in class. Auxiliary forensic data, a discussion of the possible murder weapon, and information from days, weeks, and months prior about the living situation of the politician and his wife unfolded. It even contained unreleased plans for laws and regulations that had yet to be approved or discussed.

You brought a cup of caf to your lips, sipping it slowly and letting the warmth regain your strength. The see-through doors opened and closed swiftly, their sensors letting in three uniformed men. Their heads were high and their demeanour was in stark contrast with their surroundings. Regaining focus on the code pad, you nevertheless heard their muted whispers to a member of staff. The police logo they carried at the cafe's reception stand was a contradictory sight. A certain loom — or was it a tension — filled the space around. Guests who dared shot a few quick glances to the scene. Not being one of them, you went on with your analysis; starting a commotion not exactly on your to-do list for the day.

Art. 293(1) Cc... He who intentionally takes the life of another shall...

You switched to the Criminal Code, flipping through the pages to find an accommodating article.
A flick of a sheet. Another.
Your eyes were fixated on the sections, when you noticed footsteps approaching — fast. When you looked up, you were held against the table with a fast grip. Books fell onto the ground, law articles kissing the ground, and your code pad neared the edge of the table at the force of your restraint. The caf spilled onto the floor, the brown liquid seeping into scattered pages. A strangled sound escaped your mouth as harsh hands pushed your arms against your back, keeping you in a painful position. “You have the right to remain silent,” was all the sound your ears could catch in the distress. The followed, remaining rights rang into a muted void, ignored by your anxiety that overruled it.

“What's happening?” you exclaimed when a glimpse of clarity cleared your mind. “I haven't done anything!”
You couldn't see the faces of any of the men, your face still latched onto the table. You attempted to perceive anything other than the ground your gaze was fixated on, when you heard one of the men laugh. “And just as I thought.”
Heavy hands pulled you up, nails digging into your arms, your hands already restrained by magnetic handcuffs. The policeman held a black disc in his hand, your bag completely emptied out, discarded like a dead animal on the ground. The object, no bigger than his hand, was something you'd never seen before.

“That's not mine?” you attempted. The words sounding more like a question than a statement.
He nodded, scrunching his nose, tainted with sarcasm as he voiced, “Yeah, that won't hold up in court.”
Court?
Your heartbeat set in your throat, feeling as if punching its way out. Your mind fogged up. Racing thoughts filled your head, ricocheting for a way out. At the same time, you attempted to contemplate what in the Universe was happening.

While your anxiety hit its maximum, you failed to notice another policeman had gotten hold of your code pad. “What the hell is this?”
His brown, thick eyebrows furrowed as his fingers swiped across the screen. “Holy shit,” he gasped, a quick laugh escaping him. “Oh yes, you're fucked.”
He showed the image of the crime scene to his team.
“Is this from Theo's case?” the man behind you asked.
The other nodded, “And never been released to the public.”

Their belittlement and carelessness frustrated you to the bone. “I’m a law student, we were working on the case,” you defended yourself. “And I swear on my life that I've never seen that thing before!”
The policeman with the code pad still in hand slowly walked over to you, never losing your gaze. “Look, I don't care what you have to say. You can keep your confessions for the interrogation,” he scoffed. "All I know is that we have enough bastards looking for an excuse to avoid their sentence." The word ‘bastard’ bit at you, his eyes full of repulsion.

With one last degrading look, eyeing you up and down, he turned away. “We're leaving. Take this,” he commanded, handing the code pad to another policeman. “And the gyroscape. The rest stays here.”
The idea of resisting seemed sweet, yet delicate. Daring.
You felt completely helpless as the Imperial police took you from the diner. Clenching your jaw, teeth gritting to refrain from shoving them off, you were guided past the customers, whose eyes were glued to your face. Sensing their disgust and dismay, you faced the ground.
In your mind, however, you resisted. You shouted in their faces, telling them off and thinking, “You and I are the same.” Their hypocrisy ignited an anger within you as the door shut quietly, leaving their faces and thoughts behind.

An hour later, you were trapped in a room. White-pure light emitted above you, and the smell of sterility was apparent. The buzzing sound was the only noise filling the space between the secure, duracrete walls. No windows, no cameras. If you hadn't known that there were always several cameras in interrogation rooms, you would still have felt them. Their presence bored into you, watching every detail on the surface of your skin.

You faced forward, adhering to the laws of the room, staying silent and motionless in the stone chair. Still attached to one another, your hands lay in your lap as if made out of glass; their fragility reflecting your composure. There hadn't been a single moment where you'd gotten up, or even looked around — something you knew they wanted you to do.
They watched to see you fail.

The cameras were everywhere yet nowhere to be seen, not attached to any corner nor wall. Even so, they hounded over you, their presence lingering in the space all around.
There was a deafening silence in the air. You dared to shoot a look at the lights above, their silence demanding attention. Shifting your focus to your breathing, you recollected your determination. It was just another tactic; one you wouldn't fall for.

Time passed by, however much you didn't know. At a moment uncertain, your eyes started to feel heavy. Your eyelids dragged themselves down, closing and reopening each time awakened by the noise. The sound of the lights would become too much, only to silence when you awoke.
Whether or not it was a piece of your own imagination or reality, that constant buzz was so daunting, so crippling. It acted corrosively in your mind.

With a twitch, you suddenly woke up.
For a moment, you could only focus on your shaky breaths. You could've sworn that you were awake, just before... you awoke?
Looking around, eyes darting from corner to corner, your mouth felt as dry as sand. A quick, involuntary huff escaped your lungs, the feeling of exhaustion suddenly becoming too much.
All you could do was wait.
With a sight that drowned out reality, your eyes closed again, more of a duty than a bodily reaction.

The persistent hum stirred you awake when the shrill noise entered your ears so far that your hands reached up to cup them. Your fingers latched onto your hair while protecting your mind against the noise that would never yield to you.
Like a final form of resistance, you decided to stay awake this time. No more closing your eyes, just watch. Watch everything: the empty chair in front of you, the table, the white tiles all around, the left corner — has that stain always been there?— the lights, the white floors, your chair —
The stone texture scraped against your skin when you rubbed your fingers against the armrest. From a tiny cut, blood droplets emerged, their colour too vibrant for your current existence.
Hypnotized by it, your gaze followed the trail of blood it left, never losing sight of it.

Until, abruptly, the door opened. The suddenness of it gave off a sound like a blaster, making you jump, hands reaching for your ears again.
A detective entered, dressed in all black and white. He wore a suit, the dress shirt fitting just too tight, along with a precisely knotted tie. He locked eyes with you only when he settled in the seat before you.
His stare was scrutinizing. No — concerned? Loathed? Dismayed?
The sclera of his eyes was a light shade of red, sharing the eyes of someone who had recently cried.

A couple of seconds went by. You were too afraid to think of anything to ensure you remained the composed demeanour. Neither of you said anything until he broke the silence.

“You want me to play it again?” he asked, his voice raspy. “Is that what we're waiting for?”
The deep creases on either side of his mouth gave off an overall strictness to his quiddity. He looked at you through thick eyebrows, calm, open. His arms lay at rest on his legs.
“What video?” You scraped your throat, the hoarseness evident in the question.
The electric humming accompanied the conversation.
His face was old, his forehead tainted with slight wrinkles. His eyes looked back at you. Something killing hid behind them. Impenetrable, undecipherable.

The view expanded when the detective fished a code pad out of his bag, something you hadn’t even noticed during his entrance. He slid the screen across the table; metal against stone clashing. His face was careless, his pupils still fixated on you, watching you just as you picked up the screen, as you played the recording, as you saw yourself in the midst of the noiseless video, as you saw yourself inside a ship stealing something — that black disc: that black disc you’d never seen before. You noticed the dark durasteel object as it reflected the overhead lights brightly in the dimly lit hallway.

Your heart sank as deep as your stomach. It was inarguably you — “That's not me,” you insisted regardless. “What is this? Why are you showing me this?”
“That's not you?”
“No! I don’t know who this is, but this isn’t me,” you defended yourself. The screen shook with a quiet vibration in your hands.
“That's not you, you're certain?”
“I — no, it isn't. I’m speaking the—”
“Three people died," he said, his words stern and searing.

You looked back at the screen, the video still playing as your doppelganger took out a blaster, aiming it at Imperial soldiers. Two flashes of light, and charred holes left in the chest of two soldiers.
“Two of which had children—”
Your doppelganger walked over to the third person, taking off their helmet before shooting them right between—
“—And you're telling me that isn't you?”

Eyes switched between the video and the detective. Your heart raced in your chest.
So many questions flooded your mind. What kind of sick joke is this? The justice system you worked for, yearned to be part of, treating you like someone from the lower levels; using their games on you like someone from the Underground.
This video is a fake; it couldn’t be anything other than that. But how — how did they alter it to look so real? You’d never seen such technology before.

You slightly shook your head as you maintained, “I'm not that person.”
“Where were you on the 16th?" he asked. “Two days ago?”
“Home, then university, to a café in the financial district, and back home.”
“Interesting,” he smiled, the likes never meeting his eyes. “That's not what you said last time, or before that. Changing up your tactics now, are we?”
The light flickered above you, followed quickly by the buzz.
You swallowed. “All I know is that this is the truth.”

“So you weren't speaking the truth the last couple of times?” he asked, furrowing his eyebrows at the question.
Your eyes twitched. With a click of a tongue, you opened your mouth as if to speak but said nothing.
He's lying.
It's all a lie.
Where were you on the 16th, though? You tried to remember, but after the lecture, you weren't sure where you went afterward.
Stop.
You felt yourself slipping. This was the first time you met this detective; you knew that. You were certain of it.

Memories of falling asleep here crossed your mind.
You woke up so many times.
You're slipping. Get it together.

“Two had children, and you don't even have the decency to tell them the truth. To give them closure. Justice.” His words were harsh and hit hard. “What am I supposed to tell them?”
He spread his hands toward you. “My hands are tied because of you. A lawyer, for fuck's sake, killing people for—what? The kick of it? Your own selfishness?" He spat the latter. “That's you in the goddamn video. Don't fuck with me.”
It was someone who looked similar; you're not the same.
But could you have done it?
Condemned, you faced the table, attempting to seek something other than his fury.

Sweat trailed down your face. The droplets smeared across your temple, down your neck.
Fuck, you were sweating — were you?
Guilt took over your body, your psyche. That hollow, dark feeling of knowing you did something wrong — knowing you messed up.
“I have to admit, you almost slipped through our fingers. With this footage coming from the only camera in the back of an old ship like this.”

Three people died.
The person in the video was someone who looked strangely alike; you shared the same face, the same movements, the same demeanour. How could it not be you?
The detective didn’t move a millimetre, watching, waiting for you to crumble. He didn’t even have to lift a finger.
This was another tactic. Don’t fall for it.

This system was no stranger to you. You'd die before you yielded to a penetrable, deadbeat system like this.
Your eyes watered, their dryness adding to your agitation. You blinked when the buzz hummed with electricity in the air. The guilt now washed over you like a wave, drowning out all else.

Three men. Was it really you?
Where were you on the 16th? The lecture about property law... you went home—no, the financial district—wait, it was raining—you went home. Stars, you lied to a detective.

Did you finally break? Shit, he’d laugh if he knew.
Not only did you kill three men, but you also gave him exactly what he wanted: for you to make that one mistake that would destroy you completely. Your status, your being.
Annihilate you. Cease your existence.
You never could live up to him.

A tear, a pinch, moved down your face, caressing what would be a last comfort in any other case. Not now. This was the sign.
You were guilty.
A terrifying question lingered in your mind: what does this say about you?

“You can give these people justice, their families, their kids.” The detective clapped his hands, a harsh sound making you jump from your seat. A shiver went down your back, punching its way to your neck.
“You can repent.”
That sweet nothing did nil for your guilt—guilt so present. So looming. So dreadful.

Three men robbed of their lives. Two had kids. Stars, they had kids.
You gave them that fate, that cycle, you never wanted others to experience.

A memory of that day.
Your mother. Her smile that turned chilling. A smile that always reached her eyes died that same day.
The door. The bell rang. She opened it.
Those words. The way your mother sank to her knees. Wailing. You'd never seen that before.
The sink with its dripping combined with her cries.
Your brother's denial. Your numbness. People's empty words.
The condolences. The nightmares.
The guilt for whatever you should've done and didn't do. And for whatever you did and shouldn't have done.

A vivid scene from right after appeared on your retina. The harsh sounds of the planet's livelihood all around as you had left the apartment. The hyperawareness had nearly killed you when you'd hurried your pace and fallen before a hovercraft on a crowded road.

With the darkness beneath and the haziness of your sight, you’d believed it was your end. Nearby screams and shouts for the vehicle to come to a halt. It couldn’t, a protruding piece of metal piercing your skin close to your neck. The wound was deep, and the metal almost dragging you with its weight. The pain had been insufferable, the sharpness of it making you choke when it nearly reached your throat before letting its hold on you go.

You’d remembered hands on you and being raised to your feet. Fingers forcing your eyes open, the thread entering your skin, and the eventual overall quietness when you blacked out as the liquid entered your bloodstream.
Nobody had noticed your absence. The house was empty when you came home the next day. A turtleneck covered your scar, carrying only a black eye to show for the accident. The creaking sliding door. At home. At home with the dripping sink.
You’d gone straight to your room, where soon after, the guilt took you by the scar. That ancient feeling. You’d returned home to that ancient feeling.

The buzzing took you back to reality. Tears streamed down your face by now, your lips trembling. Cheeks burning, throat closed, your eyes twitching. You couldn’t suppress the feeling anymore.
That guilt. That same guilt.
Given to them.
You’d done that.

He moved closer to you, offering a pitiful smile, stretching his arms out across the table. His eyes never lost your gaze when he asked the question.
Your final requiem.
“Did you do it?”
The orchestra of lights rang in the air.
This was just the same cycle: the accident all over again.
Shaking with clasped hands, your eyes wide and the stream of tears never drying, you answered.
The word bleeding with denial as you surrendered to his design.
“Yes.”
A mere whisper did it. A mere whisper ended your life.

Before he left, he’d leaned back in his chair, a finger near his ear, and spoken in a monotone voice: “She's confessed. Bring her to block 75C.” With your head low and still shaking with conflict, the bodily aches of sitting in the chair for so long began to set in. The air shifted from an icy, sterile environment to a metallic, lukewarm one. Your hands fumbled before you as you were once again guided by Imperial police.

Block 75C. Murder suspects.

It was empty at the station, and the few footsteps echoed as the only sound in the hallways. No more buzzing lights, just dark duracrete and quiet whispers, tapping on screens and the clinking of handcuffs. It was a long way to your cell, and as you arrived, you could only fall onto the flat, harsh thing they referred to as a “bed.” When you took off the fitted sheets, it turned out the mattress was just plaster debris.

“You can repent.”

Your fingers reached for the space between your collarbones, feeling the scar beneath your fingertips. The everlasting itch reached a climax at times like this. The scar was a precise, yet rough line sticking out from the flat skin around it. The colour of it blended in with your skin tone, an apostate among its peers.

His words, those words, replayed in your mind like a broken record, playing the same song over and over again. You wanted to refuse yourself sleep, thinking yourself not worthy of it now, but the ache for it was conspicuous.
Locked behind glowing saber bars, you lay across the bed, your mind wandering back and forth between the conversation. Even when you fell into a dreamless sleep, they haunted you.
That was, until you awoke and heard your name called. And again.

Your eyes opened with difficulty, and you scanned the room and hallway from the bed, but all you could see was a guard standing with his back against the wall near your cell. Sighing, you lay down again, ignoring your probable sleep-deprived hallucinations.
“Is it you?” the guard asked, the suddenness of it waking you up entirely. “The person who was taken into custody for the gyroscope, was it you?”

Frustration arose in your stomach. You simply shot him a look to tell him off and resided your focus to the wall next to you.
“I could get you out,” he said softly, a hint of urgency in the tone. Sounds of quick footsteps followed and the bending of knees.

The nerve to play with you at this moment only fuelled your thoughts. You had made the biggest fault of your life, and you deserved it all the same, but was it necessary for him to add extra salt to the wound?
This day felt like unceasing suffering, almost making you beg the stars to bring an end to it.
With patience running at an all-time low, you stood up, disregarding the consequences of your next actions: facing an Imperial police officer head-on.
“Are you messing with me?”

It was then that you saw his face for the first time. He rose to his feet as you met his eyes. His brown hair was brushed back, his beard short and stubbled, and his uniform neat and put together, just like any other officer in the unit. Even so, it seemed too perfect, too forced.
In a place where he had the high ground, he certainly seemed out of place. You had an itch to tell him how he somehow looked like shit, but you refrained yourself from doing so. Realizing that wasn’t the point you were trying to make, you figured he simply looked like he wasn’t supposed to be here.

It was his eyes that were telling. His dark brown eyes met yours as he said, “I mean it. I can get you out of here.”

Chapter Text

The beaming of the bars bordering your enclosure became the only sound between the two of you. His shadow painted the floor as his words echoed in your mind.
It was too simplistic to cede. His words were nothing but a manner of swaying you into a deeper pit. Another tactic, yet – his persuasion was weak. His poise matched the lingering words: completely detached from the institution.
Hesitation overshadowed rationality when you realised your truth: you had nothing to lose.

“I'm afraid the tables have turned,” he decided. He looked around, deeming the sight suspicious and recollecting a sense of authority. “It's no longer a choice. Listen carefully—”
Footsteps at the end of the hall silenced him. With a flick of a switch, he met your gaze, his voice loud and commanding: “Turn your back to me – step away from the bars at once!”
The transition to a power elite straightened your back and you followed his orders blindly, and, in particular, unwillingly.

Your eyes shifted to the other guard walking in the near distance, pacing his way through the corridor. His walk was slow, his demeanour loose, and eyes lazy. With his hands behind his back, he walked the dark duracrete tiles with the stance of a God.
“Do as I say,” the guard before you muttered through his teeth. You swallowed, still breathing through the small gap between your lips. Your limbs felt as heavy as lead as you did what you were told. The beams ceased their noise when you faced the wall.

With a firm push between your shoulder blades, you straightened your back further in response. Calloused hands took you by the wrists, pulling you close. “You're a murderer, act like it.”
His whispers continued near your ear as he bound your hands together. “Murderers get no second chances—” The metal stung your skin as the cold met your warm-blooded hands. “They’re either deemed insane or left on a labouring planet.”
A switch, a click. “Watch the floor. Don't look at anyone.”
He guided you from the cell, the beams returning to their nature immediately as you stepped across the border. “You're a nobody, condemned to your personal hell. Don't act like a person, unless you want this truth.”

Your mind couldn't grasp a hint of silence. As if pierced by a blade, your back arched with injury. The cells that passed sideways in your vision were filled with the daring and the doomed. In the distance behind you, shouts in a language unknown filled the air. The voice croaky and spoken to mute out all else. The guard moved one hand from the metallic collision between your hands, guiding you by the embrace of your upper arm.

You didn't even hear the hurried footsteps until it was too late; the sound of the lashing of a whip far beyond the other end of the hall now, the buzzing electric noise of the prod strident between the white glowing bars. You lifted your head instinctively. The corner of your eye captured the image of the other guard holding the matter of torture between his fingertips and the prisoner behind his protecting cavity. The grip on your arm tightened. “I said don’t look,” his voice demanding.
As if glued onto the scene, your eyes remained fixated. The voice of the prisoner never lowered, even when the guard rid him of the single vessel of protection, shutting off the bars.

Hands forced you around the corner. Block 75C was behind you, the door closing before you saw the end of it. “Get it together. You don't care for other prisoners. You only care for yourself, do you understand me?”
He was seething, his eyes thorough and face intimidatingly near. His grip on your arm persisted as you shuddered. Defeated, humbled, ashamed, your gaze fell.
“I just don't get it,” you whispered, the words lost in translation between realities.

You knew what the system was capable of, but living in the midst of it was a transition you lacked the hands to grasp. Memories ran back and forth like film tapes, moments flickering across your sight. That sizzling electric embrace of threads around the rod.
The red eyes of the detective. You can repent.
His fingers curling up, one by one, around the prod — the Aurodium tooth captivated by those similar, sadistic fingers —

“Leave the sociological discussions for when we get out of here.” His voice snapped you back into reality.
The latter — that thought. It hadn’t occurred to you in years. The shock left you in dismay as you nodded and pressed your lips together. He tilted his head, seeking the reassurance in your eyes you couldn't give him just yet. He dismissed you all the same, scanning the hallway.
His hands sought the same places as before, but now he held you closer, minimizing your chances of jeopardizing.

Nevertheless, you kept your composure. The duracrete tiles turned into stone as you followed its trail. The guard with its cogent grip turned delicate. By the end of the maze that was half the station, you could’ve slipped right from beneath him if you wished so.
A quick turn to the left, stepping into a short corridor, he swiftly glanced behind him before he shoved you into the restroom.
“Couldn’t hold it?” you muttered.
“Funny.”

A hand held you in place before he worked on the restraints. “It's only for these damned things. Or would you rather walk out of here with a huge sign that says ‘prisoner’?”
That was enough to silence you, as the row of stalls looked back at you and time passed by. The overbearing silence, besides the guard's futile attempts, cost you your conscience. With clamped hands, you tried to steady your trembling. The loudness of quietness forced you back into the past and memories, confronting them head-on — the memories so real in your sight, the grey interior being held back vigorously as present and past clashed for an upper hand.
The guard — the prisoner — the detective — your confession.
A headache emerged from the lights above, mirroring the ones from the interrogation room. What have you done.

As if being pulled back to the current state of things, a physical tug pulled you away from the wall beside you. An angry, muted buzz elicited from between your hands. Before you had the chance to recollect yourself, another tug followed, and another.
“What are you doing?” you hissed. Your heart found its way to your throat, and a shiver ran along your arms at the realisation. “I thought you had a key?”
A frustrated sigh escaped him. “I know what I'm doing, it's just—”
Your eyes widened when a harsh pull almost dragged the floor from beneath you. “Quit pulling it. You think you can just pull durasteel apart like that?” you whispered harshly, but quickly followed up with a plead: “Be careful not to break it, please. They'll know immediately.”

Another irritated, muted buzz grunted from the handcuffs.
“If you could stay still for just—”
“I haven't done anything wrong for the past—”
A flush.
The noise of the electric waste disposal made your head whip back at his—the sound crippling your senses, flooding you with anxiety. His eyes narrowed and filled with urgency. Swiftly, he rested a finger across his lips as he shook his head slowly. His eyes telling the infamous words: “don't fuck this up.”

Abruptly, he pushed you to the wall, your back flat against the sterile stoneware. You didn't even have time to take a breath before he wrapped his arms around you with ease, enclosing the cuffs around your hands. Leaning into you, he whispered, “Stay calm and pretend like you belong.”
His fingers intertwined with the lock, pulling the steel as he tried the key simultaneously. A door on the left side of your view opened with a creaking sound.

You were a prisoner. Convicted and bound during an escape. Would you find your end in a restroom?
You watched as the officer brushed his shirt straight and walked to the washbasins just a few paces away from you. He was in your clear sight, saw his movements, as he cleared his throat just when he met your eyes—
“Don't look at them. Look at me,” he commanded, no harsher than a sigh. “Just say something—”

You blinked, fixing yourself back into reality. Fright was set in your face as stone. Nevertheless, the crippling anxiety that overwhelmed you shifted into waters when you realised your current stakes. Watching the guard before you — his face so near, his eyes so brown — a sudden transition into comfort felt a plausible second nature; a face of fear slipping into a mask of comfort.
A smile creased your face, hesitation itching on the edges; an attempted arch of an eyebrow accompanied by eyes filled with mischief. “I didn't know an officer could do all that?”

The words were forcefully loud enough with hope to drown out the previous conversation. Strengthening the act, you desperately met his knee between your legs — a contact so startling, it made him clear his throat, casting his eyes away before breaking into a confident, teasing laugh to reinforce the act.
“I think there's a lot you have yet to find out about me,” he voiced sweetly, his words so delicate it was almost intriguing.

Tiny sunspots scattered below his eyes like stars. His irises were dark, and his face scarred by age despite his younger appearance. What was his purpose here? A guard with a presence so obviously forged, yet oblivious to those he fooled in the heart of the Empire’s legal framework.
A sense of injustice lingered around him like a stain too thorough to erase, but he seemed unlike the classic textbook criminals. He was out of place in here, even if the roles were reversed.

“Really?” you chuckled nervously, pushing away the thoughts. “And when were you planning to tell me all about it?” You raised an eyebrow, a cherished smile across your face.
His teeth caught his lips before he whispered, “I have all the time in the world now...”
The face of the detective appeared briefly in your view before reality cut back. Three people died, and you’re telling me that isn’t you — echoed like crows in your mind. The forged video melding with the lashing of the electric rod.

The restraints buzzed again –
“Excuse me—” the policeman cleared his throat, “Aren't you supposed to be on duty?”
His face turned first, and yours followed, delayed as your throat tightened from the aftermath of your dissociation. The guard took the lead, rambling apologies and excuses like a host on Good Morning, Coruscant.
The lies he spoke rolled off his tongue so naturally, as he followed it up: “You know how the first couple of days are when you just meet — the right person.” The last part you believed was only convincing to the policeman; the hesitation and denial clearly evident to you.

“I still remember the first day we met,” he continued, when suddenly the metal captors gave in and fell loosely from your hands. He leaned forward to grab them, conjoining sideways with your neck and catching the braces just in time, leaving the two of you in an awkward position but smiling all the same. The closeness choked your senses, vividly mirroring the leaning in of the detective. His red-shot eyes piercing your being — “It's like it was today. Do you know that feeling?”
The man simply nodded, his face filled to the brim with indifference. His eyebags were prominent, making you doubt he was even registering any of it.
“Sure,” he said without another attempt at interaction. He washed his hands quickly before leaving, not making the mistake of uttering another word.

With the sound of the door closing, you broke apart instinctively, the guard holding up the cuffs beneath his fingertips. “This is supposed to be the revolutionary technology of the Empire?”
Rubbing the numbness of your wrists you shrugged, the noise seeming so unnatural after the events of today. “Apparently they’re not too keen on keeping them unlocked.”
Walking up to the mirrors, you fixed your hair and straightened your clothes. Each stroke and brush made with trembling fingers.
Pathetic — you couldn’t even hide it anymore. Refusing to see your face, you watched your fingers harshly caress the white fabric of your shirt. “Then again, it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

The guard narrowed his eyes, tilting his head at you. “Says the wrongfully imprisoned one.”
“A rare case,” you affirmed. Indeed it was. You’d never find yourself between these walls again, unless for being on the right side of things. “I can assure you that most of them deserve this wretched place.”
The buzzing of the rod replayed like a vivid, haunting reminder in your view, but as soon as you looked at the guard, the sight disappeared.
He didn’t say anything for a moment, and when you saw him standing there with cuffs in hand, darkened eyes, and a shift in attitude, he seemed to resemble an authentic Imperial guard for the first time since you’d met.
“We have to go,” he said sternly.

The restroom had been close to the exit, no more than a minute apart from your nigh encounter. The breeze of chilled, fresh air did a number on you. The smell of exhaust fumes and rain on pavement—a heartfelt welcome, one you never thought you'd experience.
You stepped away from the building, ensuring a further distance as if it'd make any difference now. Even seeing the happenings within behind the glass windows caused goosebumps across your skin. Facing the guard, you fully realised the hell he saved you from.
“Thank you,” you breathed, shaking your head in disbelief. “Seriously—thank you.”

With a quiet disdain, his lips pressed together into a thin line before he spoke. “Don’t sweat it. At least not before you find a place to hide. They’ll be looking for you soon enough.”
Your eyes widened. “Excuse me?”
“You know the system better than I do, don’t you?” he asked, the look in his eyes penetrating you through and through. “They don’t take crimes against the Empire lightly, or at least so I’ve heard.”

The sarcasm bleeding his words stiffened you. You were appalled that you still had to defend yourself, but even so, your heartbeat raged behind your ribs, the cornered lungs losing their capacity. “I didn’t do it,” you whispered, shaking your head intuitively.
He scoffed underneath his breath, turning away from you as he muttered, “Codeheads never do anything, do they?”
His words felt heavy in the air. You stayed put as if they dragged you down, before he walked away without looking you in the eye once.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” you pressed, matching his pace when you caught up to him.
Ignoring you, he only offered a silence you refused to take. “Hey!” you said harshly, grabbing onto his arm to stop him in his tracks.
His hand latched onto yours immediately as he slapped your hand away and faced you. His face stood hostile and dripped with resentment. The swift change from just a moment ago startled you; the edges of his mask slipped before you even took it for what it was.
“Do not touch me.” The words were low, sharp, and each vowel hit as another strike.
You stepped back but repelled the urge to break eye contact.
“You’re all the same,” he sneered, eyes squinting into slits filled with aversion. “Thinking you’re entitled to everything. Commanding anyone you want to.”

Hypocrisy carved its way across his words, leaving splinters before he realised the works. “Kind of big coming from an Imperial officer, isn’t it?” you shot back.
As if taken aback to reality, his eyes flickered for a moment; showing his sudden awareness of his job, his worn uniform, the place he was at—evident all over him. A bystander passed the two of you on the sidewalk, earning a clear throat-clearing from him as he looked away and avoided your gaze.
“I helped you, didn’t I? Let’s just forget about this.”

The night was dark, but the city lights burned a bright blanket beyond the station. His focus was on the skyline as he continued his pace with you following behind, treading carefully; pushing.
“Wait—” you continued. “You said they’ll come after me. What am I supposed to do?” A hint of desperation slipped through in your words.
You simply wanted to go home to your quarters and rest — stars, you needed to rest — but the fear of the return of the police crippled your way of thinking; nothing seemed desperate enough to try your luck out of this.

“I'm sorry,” he mumbled. “That's not my problem.”
The twinkling brightness of the skyline died out as he looked down, watching the pavement to leave it to rest. And in that moment — the eyes, the hair, the voice…
You almost stopped in your pace as you recognized him, before you reached your hand out to his jacket, pulling him to you. He quickly turned around, raising his gaze and pulling the hem of your shirt towards him as an instant reflex; the fire in his eyes igniting yet again.
“What hell did I just — “
“It was you.”

A curled lock swung near his eye, having escaped the product keeping the rest of his hair in place. You felt his hands shake as his fist held the fabric up. The dishevelled look, the hesitation hidden beneath his uniform, the hatred in his eyes for the wrong party…
It was laughable how you could’ve been so easily tricked into believing that any of the allegations were true; that you could’ve done any of this. And above all, that you faced deceit by someone so incapable.
“You were the asshole who stole the gyroscope and bumped into me,” you asserted, your upper lip pulling up to one side, trembling, “weren’t you?”

His hand lowered, losing its grasp on you, the silence that followed speaking for itself.
“I don't know what you're talking about,” he claimed.
“You fucking asshole,” your hand curled into a pointing finger, jabbing his chest. “You owe me.”
He brushed your hand away with a quick sweep.
“No, I don't,” he scoffed. “I saved you.”
“Yeah, after you framed me?”
He shook his head. “I didn't mean to, but we're even.”

You shuddered at his words. Had your mind forsaken you, or did he truly say that aloud? Your entire world had crumbled into dust because of a mistake he made. A breeze chilled your neck as you straightened your back, creating as much space between the two of you. A tingling found its way down your fingers, and an ancient frustration brewed in the back of your mind. The anxiety from before found its way back, walking the same path beside your anger.

Was this all it took? Was the fragility of your fate so pliable to those that challenged it? Your chest rose with each breath as you watched him; the sight so demeaning, so taunting. When you stood by the stairs in your old house and watched those fingers cage the tooth in their grasp, should you have known that you'd never be able to stand your ground? Should you have known that a low-life criminal could've destroyed it all — everything you've worked for — and thrown away your ambition like waste in a gutter?

He still refused to lock eyes with you, as if willing your presence away. This favour you weren’t going to grant him, so you remained and blocked the sidewalk. In your mind, you knew the clock kept turning as you wasted it away; the second hand moving rhythmically on its axis, feeling the pulse in your ears. You prayed for a stop, but to beg time was to beg a God; no cries would shush your worries, no pleas would spare you a good night. Time would merely look you in the eye, and you’d know better than to stop your pace. Currently, you felt time piercing your skin as your thoughts rushed, seeking a loophole in the laws of now’s state of affairs. In spite of your wavering ability to keep up with the brusque happenings of today; in spite of it all.

His detached demeanour was felt through the air between you. There was no room for manoeuvre within it; his feelings towards you stuck in their tracks. He’d ruined it all for you, yet he neglected to care for it. Your future, your career—you saw them like a deck in front of you, seeing right through the holes in each card; a rigged game for all that’s to come.
He’d set your life on the line for something so futile, and though you didn’t want to ruminate on why and for what, your thoughts still searched to find the logic behind his acts.
What was his reasoning for this? What was he hiding?
Gyroscope—it was a name, a term you remembered. It’d been mentioned in one of your classes. It was related to spaceships, but in what way? Their materials, their cargo, their function, their control…?

“Why did you steal it?” you insisted.
An aching thought lingered in the back of your mind, the question one you knew better than to ask.
“What is it to you?” he asked, a deep furrow between his brows. “I'm not even sure why they made such a big deal out of stealing something so insignificant.”
He looked around, scanning the environment, his eyes still focusing back on the station. “They shouldn't care, and neither should you. I'm sorry I can't help.”
The apology was meaningless to you. His dismissal of a compromise only worked as a catalyst to your raging thoughts. You would not yield to an end like this, you couldn't possibly.
He attempted to walk away, and even if you wanted to hold back your words, you couldn't have — “Was it for the rebellion?”

The sentence had barely left your mouth when his eyes widened, flicking down to yours, fiery and violent. His stance was a silent rejection of any possible understanding binding you to one another; a calm before the storm.
You stepped back, but all was in vain when he pushed you into an alley, your spine colliding with a harsh, cold wall beneath. Your breath hitched and your eyes flickered in reciprocation. The rapidness of it slowed down your senses. With a hand, you attempted to push him away, but his arm pressed against your chest, the angle of his forearm locking you in place.
“Do you understand what you're accusing me of?” he asked with gritted teeth.

“I can help you,” you maintained, your words no louder than a whisper.
Your heartbeat quickened the moment you spoke the sayings aloud. Unsure if you even meant it, wanted to mean it, or only said it in the heat of the moment. He seemed to share your piece of mind as he switched between your eyes, narrowing, trying to decipher the act you were playing.
Your lips were half apart, twitching, as you were left in the corner by your own actions.
Every thought in your mind tried to convince you to leave. To go back. Finding a different way out of this. Nevertheless, like a broken record, you voiced it again, this time with no hesitation weighing the words down – “I can help you.”
“Why would someone like you help me?”

That voice, that sentiment. You looked before you, eye to eye with hope for a way out. He was the Rebellion in real flesh. He wasn’t from Coruscant; his demeanour and resentment were different. A variation of the one that lived in the levels beneath your feet. In your chest, heat arose in the form of assurance. This was the exact path you had to walk, and by the stars you’d run it —
“You don’t even know who I am —”
“I know enough,” he bit out.
“I don’t have anything to lose,” you choked out. “You just said it. They’ll come looking for me the second they realise I’m not in that cell, which could be any minute now—”
The distress and fear in your voice puzzled his thoughts, the shift in his arm easing, though the pressure on your chest remained. “I don’t take criminal refugees,” he said at last, staring you down, “What could you possibly provide that I need?”

“Why did you take the gyroscope?” you repeated, eyes widening as if to allow his answer through them, desperation slipping from your tongue.
Memories suddenly flickered in your view when you thought about the disc. It was a navigation tool. The textbook pictures; its countless blueprints, the ships, the cargo. “Was it because it was worth something to the Empire? Because in that case, I can lead you to something worth much more.”

No, you couldn't.
Mentally, you barricaded doubt; you needed to focus; you needed to mean your words.
Slowly, you raised your hand, reaching for his arm without breaking eye contact, offering a silent truce. Hesitantly, he released you from his grasp and jabbed his head, implying you should continue. A distant light swept across the sky, illuminating it like the rays of a lighthouse, the light flickering in his eyes.
“Why sabotage their navigation system when you could take the entirety; ship, cargo and all.”

You watched as he contemplated it for a moment, his eyes solving the numerous possible ways to handle this. He shook his head, doubtful but seemingly interested nonetheless, as he spoke. “You’re lying.”
This was too good to be true — taking the chance, you rambled your words, your mouth leaving them quick as if not taking responsibility for them. “I can get the codes of certain ships, since they're stored in the judicial district. It'll grant you access to a ship and its cargo where you can alter the engine thrust control,” you explained. “If you manage that – the deliverance will be all yours.”

The silence thereafter drowned out the sounds of the station and its ambience. In the depths of it, you almost wished he would refuse. Certainly tomorrow you'd find yourself regretting it all: what if this wasn’t the way to approach?
You can repent. The sentence practically engraved itself into your bone, each time pinching as a warning; reminding you of the fact that, in truth, you were doomed either way.
The coldness started to fuse with your skin, and a light headache was predicting its transition to greater things.

There was no reason to change his mind further, nor did you want to.
There were entire essays and speeches huddled up in the back of your mind — those your mouth never spoke and your hand never wrote, for fear of being heard or watched. Yet after all these years, they still remained. Even when worn down by time and drenched in your desperation to redeem them all for another glimpse of hope, they still spoke their words in the back of your mind when you were in the midst of what you once feared — still fear.
They had grown softer, their meanings blurred, the wetness of adaptation moulding them down, leaving them faltered in the track of time. You had put them away for a reason, yet this night they were as present in your mind as the day they were born.

But it wouldn't be for him.
None of this would be.
You'll continue what you've started, and if that means committing a single sacrifice, then so be it. He'd forced you into this, but you refused to go down with him.

“What's in it for you?” His trust balanced on a stack of cards, his doubt still as evident as ever. The demeanour he wore as a mask never shifted, your words never cutting through it.
“I'll help you with this, and you get me off Coruscant. We part ways after.”
“If this goes wrong—”
“I have nothing to lose,” you whispered. “I meant all of it.”
It was ironic how the words lingered in the air, weighing their truth. You meant it. All of it.
All of it, until you could restore yourself; until you could hand him over draped in the flag of the Rebellion; until you never had to associate yourself with a corrupted mind like his again.

Thunder rumbled a distance away, and rain accompanied it, the droplets scattering the pavement beneath. He took a quick glance around.
“We'll move tomorrow. It'd be suspicious if we'd be the only ones there now.”
A sigh escaped him, his stance still stiffened and on guard. He met your gaze, finding nothing in it besides your lack of sleep and scattered mind.
“It's best to stay low for a bit. We can stay the night at mine.”

The ache in your back revealed itself again as you matched his pace, leaving the alley. He walked fast but carefully, the police jacket teasingly swaying with each step.
“Where is it?” you asked. Even though you already knew, the question still spilled from your lips, afraid of the answer.
For the first time since you met, you saw a small smile ghosting his lips before he answered, “The underworld. You'll love it.”

* * *

The lower levels had been alive and crowded with people when Cassian led you to his place. The air was thick with all that had been bargained, eaten, and drunk that night. You stuck out like a bruise across a face, making heads turn and wonder what a codehead's business was there.
He’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy watching your carefulness and hint of fear in the crowd, pretending you were prey among predators, when he knew the coin had always been heads on both sides.

The brief time there almost made him forget the liability you were. You’d seen the ins and outs of the Imperial justice system, and yet you were the first to back them up as soon as you found yourself in a safe place. You had nothing left, but still he carried doubt about your ambitions.
The scene in the restroom, the words you had said so easily, the abrupt transition putting all at stake for the Rebellion — Cassian knew you were holding something back, that he had to keep an eye on you; couldn’t trust you. However, he also knew that when it came down to it, he could lose you and gain the winnings either way. You were an amateur, and above all: a criminal amateur with no loyalty left from the Empire.
Once you were done for, he’d leave you be; you’d made your bed of thorns, and he wouldn’t think twice when you made your move.

He hadn’t stayed on Coruscant for long. His original mission was one that required little time, a small bargain, and nothing that involved nuisance, deaths, or the like. He’d gladly accepted it, regardless of the abhorrence he felt towards the concrete jungle of the upper levels. In fact, while walking the roaming streets that night, the lights all around gave him a sense of comfort he associated with the little apartment he’d rented for the time being. The beams and bulbs that illuminated the streets, several stores, bars, and cafés in the area were nothing comparable to the white, killing streetlights used in the upper levels. The darkness of these levels somehow seemed more liveable than the authoritarian streets above.

When both of you arrived at his place, you seemed completely out of it, which he paid little mind to. The accommodation was small since it was only ever meant to fit him.
It was a one-room apartment on the fourteenth floor. His bed stood a few paces apart from a couch covered with paperwork and material he needed for the mission. The kitchen was tiny and in the same space, the stove fitting only two pans at most, and to the right of it, a small section leading to the bathroom. He’d kept a small light on, glowing a small radius in the middle of the room.

As soon as you stepped into the room, you were barely able to keep your knees from forsaking you, your eyes covered in ashes of the night. Cassian offered you a seat, clearing the couch. When he started making a simple soup for the both of you, your mind was quick to leave; you were out in just a couple of seconds, claiming the couch for the night.
He ate the soup himself. The liquid was searing hot, but he gulped it down either way, the prominent ache in his stomach beating as a reminder.

Despite the late hour, he decided to go over his paperwork, debating in his mind about whether or not he should notify the Alliance about your plan. As you lay on the couch, eyes closed and seeming so peaceful, he couldn't see much difference between the two of you.
If you'd met elsewhere, your upbringing had been different and your state of mind not propagandised, he could've met you halfway. He could’ve believed you, or even made you change your mind. Lying there, you looked so human, yet he knew the odds of that were low.
What must living in the most elitist place in the galaxy have done to your mind?

During the journey over here, you’d said your name and he'd offered his own. The name you said was not one he would directly connect with Coruscant. It sounded familiar, but he couldn't quite put a finger on it. He wondered where your family was, if they were looking for you – but particularly who they were. It was a concern that he recognised the name. Could it have been on the news? Were they rich, or politicians? Were they influential?
The light cast your shadow on the floor beneath; the void nearly kissed his feet. He didn't even know who you were. Perhaps the open invitation to this mission was all in vain, merely backstabbing himself in the process.

Yes, he answered in his mind, he couldn't ever trust you. No imperialist turned on the Empire like that, not even in the thick of things. He would notify the Alliance as soon as he'd have access to the case, in the event of your betrayal. He knew it would happen, he just didn't know when. Still, something had made him choose to agree to this precarious plan. Hope alone had kept him from telling you off. Cassian just wished it wouldn't be the death of him.

Seconds had turned into minutes, and minutes into hours, and he still couldn't bring himself to close his eyes. Your breath kept him up, the sound of it telling of the shiver you had. The blanket was futile against the harsh, impenetrable cold. The stone alignments of the wall were incapable of withholding the outside’s temperature. Additionally, the couch was unforgiving; he had known since the moment he lay on it the first day he arrived. Even so, he hadn't had anything else to offer, since he never amounted to keeping another visitor with him. Blinking in frustration, he apologized to his back in advance for tomorrow.

Cassian threw off the blanket and stepped out of bed. Gingerly, he picked you up, your head falling back into his arms as he raised you from the couch. The thin piece of blanket slid off your body as he turned away and delicately placed you onto the bed. The mattress melded with your essence, the shadows sinking into its texture. He pulled the blanket over you and exhaled deeply as he settled onto the couch.

It was then that he decided he’d finish this. He’d started it; he couldn’t back down now, and he refused to. You were going to make that mistake of turning on him, and he’d gladly take it, but he would take the winnings. With the last few holdbacks of the Rebellion, his hope had been faltering. The deaths, the tortures, and those sinister laughs at another expansion, exploitation, extraction, investment—it was enough to bleed his ears. They needed a new success, a new victory — he needed it.
He closed his eyes, doubting he’d sleep for the remainder of the night, when sleep took him as soon as he pulled up the blanket.