Not As Much of a Jerk As You Could Have Been AU

[for_everyone]

Hera left the bridge as they fell out of hyperspace near the edge of the Unknown Regions. It was their first opportunity to make contact with the rest of the Resistance in nearly three weeks, and she had decided to do so in her ready room, fully expecting back and forth with Admiral Ackbar and General Organa concerning her overtures toward the Chiss. It also meant that she took the very rare step of leaving Thrawn alone on her bridge.

It takes longer than expected for her to get a signal through to Leia. And when she finally does, she's quickly glad she chose to have this conversation in private.

It's nearly an hour before she has sent word back to the bridge. Coordinates, closest to the Reviya system, nearly on the edge of Wild Space. These are the only instructions, along with a note to Thrawn to join her as soon as possible.

Without a pause for confirmation, the officers move to their stations to calculate the jump.

Comments

[for_everyone]

Hera shakes her head. "Working together, not against each other, was supposed to be the solution."

But her voice fades out as she speaks. She has long since learned that it's easier to spot problems than solutions.

[grandadmiralartcritic]

"I daresay it can be part of a solution. But few people are naturally selfless, I have found, which can lead to trouble."

He's just saying.

[for_everyone]

Hera stays quiet for a second, her eyes forward.

"Sometimes I feel like I've only lived at this strange edge of the galaxy, where I've only seen it at its worst, or at its best."

[grandadmiralartcritic]

"It is conflict that breeds that," Thrawn says, voice quiet. "This has so often been a galaxy at war, and some have always been on the front lines."

[for_everyone]

"All right."

She can agree with that. Hera turns to look back to him. "But I don't think it's easy for you to see the people behind those conflicts.

[grandadmiralartcritic]

Thrawn inhales and exhales, reaching out to take his half-empty water between his hands.

"No. And that, I am afraid, is no accident."

[for_everyone]

She keeps her eyes on him now.

"Is that something you want to change?"

[grandadmiralartcritic]

He could say that this is what he has been asking for help for. It would not be strictly true, because he has not known, all this time, precisely what it is he wanted assistance in changing.

And so --

"Yes. I am not sure how to begin, but -- yes."

[for_everyone]

Hera nods, at last blinking away, back out to the empty room.

"I can - help you with that."

She almost says try, then catches herself.

"But I can't change you."

[grandadmiralartcritic]

"Is it wrong to say I find that comforting?"

Thrawn's voice is very dry.

"It will, indeed, be much for efficacious if I am capable of changing myself. I should prefer to think I am, but -- "

[for_everyone]

She lets it end there, waiting though not expecting him to continue.

When she does speak, "If you want my help, you might have to tell me about yourself."

[grandadmiralartcritic]

He frowns, turning his thermos over in his hands.

"Surely you have already looked through my records. What else is there to know?"

A momentary silence.

"Ah, you mean those pieces that are generally not contained in such files. Those things most who study such files would deem irrelevant."

[for_everyone]

"I'm not sure how to help," she says, slowly (because that was another very Thrawn answer), "without knowing why you need my help."

[grandadmiralartcritic]

"Perhaps it began with the Chiss," he says, frowning a little as he speaks.

"You've seen, I think, how much respecting the hierarchy means. When one has attained a place, a position -- when one has discovered what one's work is meant to be -- it is imperative not to deviate, not to question."

[for_everyone]

Hera listens, looking down to the floor now.

"Do you think another Chiss would've done the same in your place?"

[grandadmiralartcritic]

He wants to let go of his water, clasp his hands behind his back, take shelter in the bedrock of old commands and old habit, but --

"Many, yes. But . . . no, not all. Not all by a not-insignificant margin."

[for_everyone]

Again, she waits.

She's not really sure what to ask, and even less sure of whether she should voice the next question coming together in her mind. But -

"What do you think made you different from them?"

[grandadmiralartcritic]

"I have always fostered a certain . . . distance. It proved useful when I was young, and only grew moreso as I grew older."

No Chiss is particularly demonstrative, but there is a certain set of tenets and personal loyalties that any citizen of the Ascendancy is expected to honor and understand.

[for_everyone]

Her eyes stay down.

"I don't remember having the option of 'distance.'"

[grandadmiralartcritic]

"You would, I think, have had to cut some part of yourself away in order to choose that, General."

Thrawn's voice is mostly matter-of-fact.

"Would you have let yourself truly look at such a choice?"

[for_everyone]

She raises her eyes, up from the floor, but doesn't look back at him.

"How much did you study my kalikori?"

[grandadmiralartcritic]

Thrawn does not flinch back. If he did not, then, and in fact taunted her with his possession of it, to do so now would be . . . cowardly.

"As well as any outsider could, I had imagined. Though not, it would seem, well enough."

A pause.

"I am sorry. That was . . . unkind."

The whole of it, really, from beginning to end.

[for_everyone]

Again, she listens, eyes still forward, not a glance flickered toward him this time.

"What did you deduce from it?"

[grandadmiralartcritic]

"That your family was tight-knit but . . . much diminished in this time. Is tight-knit, I hope, even still."

This is . . . really considerably awkward.

"Is it that closeness that made some things no choice at all? Or was it the freedom fighters in your line of descent?"

[for_everyone]

Hera lowers her head, her eyes flickering closed.

"I had a brother."

Her words are slow, like it takes effort to keep them still. "Did you know that?"