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 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?"

[grandadmiralartcritic]

"Ah."

His voice is quiet. But --

"Yes, I'm afraid I did."

[for_everyone]

She takes a breath, opening her eyes. It seems strange, for it to strike at her so deeply. This was all such a long time ago, many other lives ago. But she'd also rarely thought about so plainly as she does now.

"He was - a little over a year younger than me. And until I was six, I was never alone."

[grandadmiralartcritic]

"I . . . "

How to put this? Thrawn trails off briefly, searching out what will hopefully be a series of accurate but non-offensive words.

"I might have expected such a loss, so early in life, to harden your heart rather than . . . open it."

[for_everyone]

She takes another deep breath, and then -

"Why?"

[grandadmiralartcritic]

"Pain is generally unwelcome, and most, I should think, prefer to run from it where they can."

Is Thrawn such a one?

It is beginning to occur to him that --

Well.

Yes.

[for_everyone]

Her eyebrows furrow, like she's really considering a strange, foreign sentiment. Then, slowly, she speaks again.

"My father asked me to light the pyre for my brother."

Her hands fidget, eventually folding into one another.

"It was rare for - a parent always lights for their child, if they have to. He told me I'd known him, as they hadn't, so I should be the one to say goodbye to him."

Very slightly, she tilts her head. "But I'd heard him with my mother. Telling her I needed to learn - because I'd light many after it."

Hera blinks down to the floor again. "I'd never expected a life without pain."

[grandadmiralartcritic]

"He prepared you well for the life that awaited you, your father. I am sorry for your loss."

A pause.

"Among the Chiss, avoiding pain is a sign of wisdom, of skill, of -- "

His fingers open and close away from the water bottle, as if he is grasping for something he cannot quite touch.

"It is physical pain to which we refer. A being who is not captured, who does not fail -- what has a person such as that to worry about from pain?"

[for_everyone]

Again, Hera tilts her head, slightly the other way this time.

"Plenty, once they do fail."