#just because his comments were aimed at something corrupt doesn’t mean they weren’t WAY too sweeping as if he meant it on the whole

[demigodofhoolemere]

Me through most of Boom: Wow, this is a really solid dramatic episode.

Me when Moffat needlessly sprinkles in anti-faith sentiments without specifying that it’s blind faith in bad things that the Doctor doesn’t like, which makes it come off like the Doctor is just against religion generally:

[bedlamsbard]

Part two of the reluctant roommates AU concept!  A reminder that my concept writing is deliberately not titled, chaptered, or betaed and is generally low pressure writing.  (I think to some extent I burned myself out on the titled stuff, but that’s for another post.)

Previous: Part 1

About 8.2K below the break.

Please note that while I don’t generally do content advisories, this contains discussion of fairly severe (unnamed) depression and anxiety, as well as physical abuse (about the same as other Inquisitor!Kanan concepts).

*

Agent Syndulla’s fear made Kanan’s back teeth ache, leeching into his dreams and giving him a flurry of nightmares that he knew had to come from her, not from within himself.  He woke with a start and lay in the unfamiliar bunk with one arm thrown up over his eyes, feeling like a voyeur despite the fact that he hadn’t done it on purpose.  Dreams weren’t a reflection of reality by any means, but they often had more to do with it than most people wanted to believe.  From what he had seen in Agent Syndulla’s dreams, most of them had been drawn from her memory.  He wished he didn’t know that.

At least it made a change of pace from his usual nightmares.

Eventually he made himself get up, wincing as his recently broken ribs twinged with the movement. They were mostly healed now, but were still fragile and painful, liable to get broken again if he wasn’t careful for the next week or so.  With any luck, this particular assignment wouldn’t involve getting shot or stabbed or thrown off in any cliffs, though given the way the past decade had gone Kanan wasn’t sure he really believed in luck anymore.  He still felt as though he had used up whatever he had remaining to him getting away from the Hunter for however long that lasted.

He dressed slowly, careful of the ribs as well as the rest of his assortment of healing bruises, cuts, and other miscellaneous injuries.  Some were from the assignment where he had gotten his broken; some were the Hunter’s parting gift, since his master had been extremely displeased by the order that split them up for the foreseeable future and Kanan had taken the brunt of his ire.  He touched his tongue to what he thought was a loose tooth and winced at the confirmation, feeding the Force through it to reseat it in the gum.

He could sense the Agent Syndulla was awake now, her attention focused on something other than her fear.  Kanan delayed leaving his cabin again as long as he could, not wanting to disturb her, but eventually had to answer the call of the refresher.  He was washing his hands when he sensed her sudden realization that he was awake and the spike of terror that followed, and winced.  He was used to people being afraid of Inquisitors, but usually his master got the bulk of that kind of attention; when it was aimed at Kanan it tended to be mixed with an odd kind of pity and relief.  People in the Imperial service expected nonhuman Inquisitors; they didn’t expect human Inquisitors, especially one with the right accent and one who was so obviously subordinate – as well as other things – to a Pau’an. Service members looked at the Hunter and felt fear; they looked at Kanan and thought, thank the gods that isn’t me.  It shouldn’t have surprised him that a nonhuman officer would feel differently.

He splashed water on his face, running a finger along the line of his jaw and the new growth of beard there; he eyed it in the mirror and decided to leave it for now.  It was something he hadn’t had at the Crucible, anyway, and at the moment he felt rather desperate for anything to remind him he wasn’t just the Hunter’s Hound.

He ran his damp fingers through his hair, finger-combing it, then drew it back into a short tail at the back of his skull.  When he couldn’t think of anything else he could do to delay, he went back out into the corridor, and then up to the cockpit where he could sense her presence.

She jumped as the door slid open, having obviously not heard his approach, and Kanan flinched back, startled by her reaction.  They stared at each other for a few moments as her astromech grumbled threateningly at him, then Agent Syndulla dropped her gaze back to the datapad she was holding.

She was a beautiful woman, the kind of woman he would have tried to seduce back before the Hunter had dragged him to the Crucible and beaten the spirit out of him, and he thought he probably could have succeeded, too.  He was hardly about to try now; for one thing, she was clearly terrified of him, and for another, the idea of letting anyone else touch him after the past few years was agonizing.  Even a pretty girl.

He said, “Can I get you some caf, while I’m up?”

She gave him a wary look, then said hesitantly, “All right.”

“How do you take it?”

“Milk and sugar,” she said after a moment. “A lot of both.”

Kanan nodded to her in what he hoped was a friendly fashion – he wasn’t sure he knew how to do that anymore – and let the door slide shut between them as he stepped back.  He took his time making the caf, pouring equal amounts of milk and sugar into her cup, and enough sugar into his that the spoon nearly stood up.  He had started drinking caf while he was in the field with the Grand Army of the Republic a decade ago, and after the first time he had spat out his mouthful – to the uproarious laughter of Styles and Gray and Depa Billaba’s barely concealed amusement – any clone who had made it for him had sweetened it enough to be tolerable for his palate.  He’d never lost the taste for it that way.

He took both mugs back to the cockpit.  Agent Syndulla didn’t jump when he came in this time, but she had clearly been braced for his return.  She took the mug from him with polite murmured thanks but didn’t sit back in her chair, sitting with the balls of her feet pressed against the deck, as if bracing herself against the need to suddenly flee.  Kanan prudently took the seat furthest from her and only belatedly realized it was the one nearest both exits.  He could tell from her fast, sideways glance towards the door to the living quarters and the hatch to the hold that she knew it too.  The droid grumbled again, rolling so that he was placed defiantly between the two of them, then swiveled his dome to glare at Kanan.

 Agent Syndulla took a sip of her caf, looking a little wary at first, then surprised.  “I didn’t know it could taste like this,” she blurted out.

“I worked in a tapcaf once,” Kanan offered. “Some of it stuck.”

She looked badly startled by that response.

He could have told her that he hadn’t always been an Inquisitor, but he wasn’t in the mood for the kinds of questions that might inspire.  He sat back and drank his own caf instead; neither the caffeine nor the sugar would do much for him, since Force-users processed most kinds of stimulants too fast for them to have any meaningful effect, but the taste helped wake him up.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, drinking their caf, until Agent Syndulla finally settled herself, as if bracing for a fight, and said, “I’ve been looking at the files you sent me.”

Kanan raised his gaze to her.  She was, if nothing else, lovely to look at, but she wouldn’t have made it to the ISB or lasted this long if she was just a pretty face.  She clearly didn’t enjoy being under his scrutiny, though – most people weren’t when it came to Inquisitors – so after a moment he flicked his gaze slightly away from her.

“There’s an auction the day after we’re scheduled to arrive,” she went on, after a moment’s brief hesitation. “We could call in the local Imperial garrison for backup, but if the regulars could deal with this, then they would have done so by now.”

“This isn’t the sort of thing they’re really equipped to handle,” Kanan said.  If it had been, no one would have bothered to send an Inquisitor and an ISB agent to deal with it.  Though he had his suspicions about why the Whip had assigned it to him as his first solo assignment.  He was less certain about what it had to do with Agent Syndulla and didn’t have enough of an idea about the ISB’s internal politics to even begin to guess.

She nodded in response to his comment. “Depending what the situation is like, we might want them later, but Barzhun doesn’t have a large Imperial presence.  As far off the beaten path as it is, it’s not impossible that the local garrison has some sort of relationship with the black market there. It isn’t unheard of.”

And was usually the job of the ISB to deal with, though on occasion the Inquisition dealt with corrupt officials instead.  Kanan nodded. “What do you want to do?”

She looked a little surprised that he hadn’t just tried to give her an order.  Kanan said in explanation, “Most of my assignments have either interfaced directly with the local garrisons or been – ah, more direct. And my ma – I wasn’t the one who did any of the planning.”

He saw her lekku twitch slightly at the slip, but she didn’t ask about it.  Instead she braced her shoulders again and said, “Can you pass as a civilian?”

Kanan glanced down, giving the question due consideration because it had been a long time since he had been in a position where that was even an option and he wasn’t immediately certain of the answer.  “Yes,” he said eventually, “but I don’t have any civilian clothes.”

When she looked a little worried, he added, “I’ve got clothes that don’t have the Imperial seal on them.”  And there were plenty of civilians who only wore black or gray.  “You’ll have to lend me a blaster, though.”

She met his gaze for an instant. “Can you use one?”

“I wasn’t always an Inquisitor.”  He looked her over, this time with a more a critical eye than he had done before; past her prettiness she was muscled under her gray ISB field uniform, her holstered blaster a natural extension of both uniform and self.  He had also noticed earlier that her lekku signals were erratic, not quite explicable to anyone familiar with Twi’leks   “Can you pass as a civilian?”

“I’ve done it before.” She glanced down, clearly uncomfortable under his inspection. “Chopper too.”

“That I can believe,” Kanan said.

That startled something that was nearly a smile out of her, a quick flash of amusement that warmed the Force for no more than an instant as the astromech grumbled at them both. Then she dropped her gaze again. “The HoloNet posting on the darknet said that there would be a reception the night before the auction for potential bidders to review the items up for auction.  I assume that you’ll recognize what we’re looking for?”

 Kanan nodded. “I’ll know.” And a Twi’lek and a human together wouldn’t make anyone look twice at them, no matter how they played it.  Both were common species and common in company with each other.

Agent Syndulla looked at the chrono, then said, “We should be making planetfall in two hours and the reception is in six.”

“All right.”  He started to stand up, putting his hand out for her empty caf cup.

She handed it to him once she realized what the gesture meant, then hesitated, looking up at him. Kanan stopped rather than leave the way he had intended to.  “What is it?”

“I can’t call you ‘Inquisitor’ in the field,” she said, sounding uncomfortable. “Do you – do you have a name? That I can use, I mean?”

Kanan bit his lip. She didn’t know how loaded that question was, and he wasn’t about to answer her with “the Hound.”  Still, it took him a surprising amount of effort to say, “It’s Kanan.”

No one had called him that in almost four years.  Sometimes he was surprised that he could remember it at all.

Something about either his face or his voice must have made her realize the gravity of the confession. She said, her voice suddenly very shy, “Thank you.”  She hesitated, then said, “My name is Hera.”

He hadn’t been expecting that, and the surprise must have showed on his face.  She shifted uneasily in her seat, then looked away, embarrassed. “I’ve sent you the ISB files on the local garrison and government,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if you had them.”

“I don’t.  Thank you.”  He looked back at her for a moment, putting personal name and surname together, and blurted out, “Syndulla is a clan name.”

Her eyes went wide. He felt her low-grade anxiety snap into sudden fear, jolted from its previous course onto a new path. “Yes,” she said eventually, small-voiced, and then, with a defensive edge, “There are thousands of Syndullas.”

“I’m sorry,” Kanan said; he could tell he had said something that he should have avoided.

She dropped her gaze, but it didn’t do anything to hide the unease juddering along the Force.

“I’m sorry,” Kanan said again, then fled before he said anything else stupid.

*

Hera knew from personal experience that she mostly just looked uncomfortable in civilian clothes, which wasn’t exactly something she could do anything about.  She suspected that if she had been human she could have attended the black market auction in an Imperial uniform, if not an ISB one, and not had anyone look twice at her, but a Twi’lek in uniform always got attention. At the moment she felt even more obvious in her plain dark spacer’s trousers and jacket, as if she was wearing a beacon or a sign that said “I’m an Imperial agent, ask me how.”

She snuck a sideways look at the Inquisitor, who was slouching in the co-pilot’s chair next to her. Hera didn’t like having him that close, but since they were working together she couldn’t exactly justify not letting him be there as long as he didn’t touch anything.  She supposed that he had to be able to fly, though she doubted he had ever flown a freighter like the Ghost before.  Basic piloting was required for officer candidates at the Imperial academy, but unless you were tapped for pilot training, the Naval Academy, or the ISB Academy, most officers never actually had to fly anything larger than a landspeeder or anything faster than a speeder bike.  She had no idea what Inquisitors learned or how they were trained.

Without his armor or his lightsaber he looked less like an Inquisitor than she had been worried about – less so than she still felt she looked like an Imperial agent, even dressed in all black.  He wore the DL-18 blaster pistol she had found for him – its grip was too big to be comfortable in her own hand, so she had thought it might work for him – and somehow managed to look as if he had been carrying a blaster for most of his life, not a lightsaber.

He straightened up as they entered atmosphere and entered one of the flight lanes on approach to the planet’s capital city.  If any of the other ships in the flight lane happened to glance into the Ghost’s cockpit, they would see a pilot and a copilot both apparently doing their jobs, though Hera hoped the Inquisitor didn’t actually touch anything.

“You can fly, can’t you?” she asked him reluctantly.

He flicked a glance at her. “Yes.”

“Freighters or just starfighters?”

“I’ve flown freighters,” he said after a moment. “Not recently, but I’ve done it.  Cargo freighters, mostly, short-haul – longer haul sometimes, but not as a regular thing.”

Hera turned to look at him in surprise, trusting Chopper not to let the Ghost veer off course.  The Inquisitor was stubbornly not looking at her, his gaze fixed on the viewport in front of him.  I wasn’t always an Inquisitor, he had said a few hours ago.  She had assumed that that meant he had been elsewhere in the Imperial service before he had been recruited by the Inquisition, though he wasn’t that much older than she was.  Well, people came to the Academy from all walks of life, especially those recruited by the flight academies, who could sometimes skip normal Academy training. Presumably the Inquisition operated similarly.

She didn’t have anything to say in response to him and he didn’t seem to expect one, so she turned her attention back to their flight path.  She set down in one of the spaceports in Kethun City, the planet’s capital, and had the Inquisitor transmit the docking fee while she and Chopper shut down the ship’s engines.

Hera eyed him again once they were outside the ship, standing in the small docking bay and trying not to frown at the drift of wind-blown dirt and yellowish pollen that coated the floor.  She sneezed involuntarily, her eyes watering, and dug into her pocket for the allergy tablets she had grabbed when she realized what season it was here.  She dry-swallowed them and hoped that on this occasion they wouldn’t make her sleepy, which they seemed to do at entirely random intervals rather than consistently.

In the thin light of the overcast sky that filtered down through the open hatch doors above them, the Inquisitor’s dark garments looked pale, nearly washed out.  Black didn’t suit him, especially in daylight.  Hera looked at him, sneezed again, then wiped at her streaming eyes and said, “We should probably get you more clothes.”

He flicked a wary glance at her, then relaxed slightly at whatever he saw on her face. “Is it that bad?”

“If we’re going to several days of receptions and auctions,” Hera said.  On some of her ops he would be unremarkable, but he would stand out amongst the kind of people who attended black market auctions, and not in a good way.

“All right,” he said, sounding more weary than anything else. “Let’s go find the market.”

*

Hera was startled at how much the addition of colors to his garments changed the Inquisitor’s appearance. He looked deeply uncomfortable, as though he knew he wasn’t supposed to be wearing anything other than black and gray, but his green shirt brought out color in his face and pale eyes and eased some of the hollows in his scarred cheeks.  Hera thought that he wouldn’t raise eyebrows or twitch tentacles in company now, or at least not for the reasons he would have done before.  He also looked younger, more vulnerable, less dangerous; she wasn’t sure whether or not that was a good thing, but there was nothing she could do about it.

Hera hated paying any attention to her appearance other than making sure that her uniform was neat and that none of her caste markings were showing, but for this particular occasion she made sure that she was wearing something that at least suggested she had more money than the average spacer.  She didn’t even own any clothes that could pass muster as something a high-caste Twi’lek would wear, not that that was a distinction that would make much sense off Ryloth or outside the enclaves.  Maybe not even the enclaves, but Hera avoided them whenever possible and had no idea what went on there.  Being among other Twi’leks made her so nervous that it was often debilitating; she had almost failed her ISB Academy field trials for just that reason.

She left Chopper with the Ghost; even though this wasn’t her usual kind of op, she knew that in this setting an astromech droid might stand out – Chopper certainly had no talent for being unobtrusive.  She and the Inquisitor got their cloaks and the speeder bikes from the Ghost’s hold – while the city was small enough they could have walked, there was always the chance that they would need to make a quick getaway.  Hera felt a little better with the handles under her hands, anyway.

She watched the Inquisitor out of the corner of her eye as they sped down the road towards the site of the reception.  He handled his speeder with a light, delicate touch, less heavy-handed than a scout trooper – more like a starfighter pilot than anything else, but not a TIE pilot, she decided after a few minutes of silent observation.  That puzzled her, since privately owned starfighters were illegal except under very rare circumstances – not that you couldn’t make those circumstances come about with enough credits – and the vast majority of those available were TIE-variants.  He must have learned on one of the others, since she knew Inquisitors flew TIEs.  If he was aware of her attention, he didn’t show it.

They pulled up in front of a neon-lit nightclub, where they handed their speeder bikes over to a parking droid and received a claim token in exchange.  Hera tucked it away, bemused, and fell into step with the Inquisitor as they made their way to join the queue at the door.  The sound of pounding music from inside made her wince; she hated clubs and crowds alike.

The bouncer let both of them in after relieving them of their blasters, for which they both received claim tokens.  If the Inquisitor had his lightsaber on him, the scanner didn’t turn it up; Hera wasn’t certain whether he had brought it or not, and hadn’t been about to ask. Hopefully he wasn’t so trigger-happy as to pull it out without absolute necessity, but having never seen him in action Hera had absolutely no idea.

Once they were inside and past the initial crush of people at the door, Hera surveyed the wide dark room beyond with distaste; it was full of beings of various species dancing, drinking, and eating, with a stage set up at the far end and a band playing something that she supposed technically counted as music, assuming you had no taste.

She glanced at the Inquisitor to make sure he followed her, then edged around the dance floor, past several shadowed – and definitely occupied – nooks.  Hera fixed the instructions from the darknet posting in the front of her mind and hoped that the Inquisitor remembered them too.

After several minutes and a handful of propositions – to both of them, not just her, which was a refreshing change – they made it to the back of the club.  A back hallway led to the kitchens and some refreshers that Hera suspected were intended for the staff rather than the patrons, as well as a door with a keypad on the control next to it.  Hera punched in the code from the darknet, holding her breath until the door slid open, revealing descending stairs.  It slid shut again as the Inquisitor stepped in after her and the pounding music from the club vanished as cleanly as if it had been cut by a knife.  Hera let out her breath in relief.

She went down the stairs with the Inquisitor at her back and emerged into another room.  It was a little smaller than the dancefloor above them, but more brightly lit and with far fewer people.  There were still a good number of beings, but they were older than the club-goers and mostly more finely dressed.  A pair of Togruta lounge singers draped themselves over the top of some kind of big instrument being played by a Nautolan who struck keys with a number of small hammers held expertly between his fingers.

A serving droid came up to Hera and offered a tray with a selection of stemmed and un-stemmed glasses holding a variety of colored liquid.  “Drinks, madam, sir?  I have alcoholic or non-alcoholic as you prefer –”

“Non-alcoholic,” Hera said; she could tell she was in the mood where alcohol would make her paranoid and angry, even if she drank on the job, which she didn’t unless there was no choice.

“The same.”  The Inquisitor’s voice was soft.

The droid obligingly rotated the tray for Hera. “I have fruit juices, carbonated beverages, flavored waters from a variety of worlds –”

Hera accepted a glass of what she hoped was meiloorun juice – it was about the right color – and was gratified to find she was right when she tasted it.  The Inquisitor chose a glass apparently at random and took a perfunctory sip; she suspected he had taken it mostly to have something to do with his hands.

Once the droid had gone, she sipped her drink and looked around the room.  Another look revealed that there were a number of tall display cases placed at regular intervals; the beings gathered around them had obscured them from Hera’s initial observation.  She flicked a look at the Inquisitor to make sure that he had seen them too, then moved towards the nearest one.

The beings already there – a trio of Rodian males, an Ithorian couple, and a human of indeterminate gender – all glanced up at their approach, briefly registered their appearance, then went back to their conversation.  The male Ithorian moved aside so that Hera and the Inquisitor had a better look at the contents of the display case.

She heard the Inquisitor hiss softly through clenched teeth.  The sound made the Rodians twitch, looking over at him before apparently deciding it was an expression of interest rather than – whatever it was.  Hera glanced up at him worriedly, decided it was unlikely that he was going to snap and go on a murder spree – at least not in the next thirty seconds – and looked back at the case.

The contents were unremarkable, at least to her eyes – a set of four small sculptures of various near-human beings in long robes holding upraised lightsabers in different poses. They were made of some pale gray stone she didn’t recognize.

Hera was trying to figure out a discreet way to ask if this was what they were looking for when she realized that under the current circumstances, there was no real point in being discreet.  She looked at the Inquisitor and said, “Is that it?”

He nodded without saying anything, his expression grim.

They moved onto the next display case, which held more statues and a stained glass window propped up with a light behind it.  Hera glanced at the Inquisitor again and saw the tightness in his jaw; she didn’t bother asking this time, since his face was answer enough.

They rotated through several more display cases, all of which got the Inquisitor’s nod.  Now and then someone new would come down the stairs, but by and large the occupants ignored each other, except for a handful who all obviously knew and liked each other well enough to speak to one another. Hera supposed that there weren’t too many people in the galaxy who traded in Jedi relics and most of them were probably in this room with her; she wished she had dared come down with a recording device so that the ISB could match known names to faces.

The serving droid came up to them again to take their empty glasses – well, to take Hera’s empty glass; the Inquisitor had barely touched his, but handed it over anyway.  Hera accepted another glass of fruit juice and drifted over to the nearest case that they hadn’t inspected yet.

She felt the air change as the Inquisitor went absolutely still beside her.

Because she knew what he was, she looked at him first, not the contents of the case; some of the other occupants of the room had felt the shift as well and were looking around warily at each other or at the cases.

He was shaking so badly that she could hear his teeth chattering together, his stillness transmuted into fury that she could feel like a weight in the air.  Hera shot a look at the case to see what it was that had upset him so badly and saw a collection of innocuous-looking thin braids and strings of mismatched beads; they struck something in her memory, but she couldn’t remember what at the moment.  She set that aside to worry about later, hesitated for an instant, and grabbed the Inquisitor’s arm.

He flinched violently at her touch, his eyes gone suddenly wild with shock.  She could feel muscle beneath her palm, stiff as steel cording; as much as she wanted to she didn’t release him. “Calm down,” she said to him, pitching her voice low but not whispering. “Do you need some air?”

He didn’t look around, but she saw awareness bleed into his panicked eyes.  He shook his head slightly and Hera felt the pressure in the air lifting as he forced himself to something resembling calm, pulling his furious response back inside his own skin.  She could still feel him trembling beneath her hand.

She pushed her half-full glass of fruit juice into his other hand. “Drink that,” she said.

He hesitated, and she snapped, furious and embarrassed, “It’s not tainted just because a tailhead drank from it.”

He shot her a startled look and said, sounding genuinely baffled, “Why would you think I thought that?”

Hera stared back at him, so surprised by that reaction that she briefly forgot why she had handed him her drink. “Humans –” she started to say, then shook her head. “Just drink it.”

He drank it.

She kept her hand on his arm until he had stopped shaking, then released him, tucking her hands awkwardly into her pockets to have something to do with them.  When he had finished the glass, he stared at the display case again, then dragged his gaze away and went off to the next one, handing the empty glass off to the serving droid as he did.  Hera followed, hoping her fury wasn’t plain on her face.  The other guests veered away from him, though something about the way they did so made Hera think they didn’t know or understand why they were doing it.

The next case only held more art, to Hera’s relief.  The Inquisitor stared blankly at the delicately figured tiles as if he didn’t really see them, though Hera suspected he knew exactly what was on them and – going by his reactions so far – what they meant.

“I suppose some of these still have some juice in them,” a passing Quarren woman said in her watery voice, and laughed.  Hera saw the Inquisitor’s shoulders tense in response.

She stepped tentatively up beside him. “We’ve seen most of it,” she said. “We’ll be back for the auction tomorrow.”

He shook his head. “I need to see all of it.”  He shut his eyes tightly, clearly trying to calm himself down even though he was still badly upset.

Hera eyed him doubtfully. Looking at him now, it was hard to remember that he was in all likelihood one of the most dangerous beings Hera had ever met; all of that coiled threat that had been there only a few moments before was gone, replaced by real distress.

She recognized the expression abruptly.  She had seen it in the mirror, on one of the occasions when she had been back at the Academy and invited to some event or another at the home of a local potentate on Naboo.  He had been a collector – “of everything,” he had said while showing cadets around his estate.  He had looked at Hera as if he was considering collecting her too, but she had managed to avoid being in any proximity to him for most of the evening, and once the other cadets began drinking heavily she had made her excuses and left early, for which rudeness she had been roundly rebuked the next day. She had been looking at his displays – arranged in order of what he thought was most attractive, not in anything that made sense – when she had turned a corner and found herself looking at a kalikori.

It wasn’t a Syndulla one, not her family’s and not from any of the patrician Syndulla families; she had known that immediately.  She hadn’t recognized the clan, but kalikori were intimately personal to each family; no one would ever let it pass out of a family line except through marriage or adoption.  But there had been a lot of looting done during the Clone Wars, and more during the Imperial occupation.

Searching further through the collection and trying not to make it look as though she was doing so, Hera had found a lararium, the household shrine each family kept, and the little figures that represented the protective spirits of a Twi’lek family, the ancestral genius and the patron lares, both separated from the lararium and the kalikori alike and jumbled together on a shelf of other small statues that Hera hadn’t recognized.  She hadn’t thought, at that point, that she had much Twi’lek feeling left after four years in the Academy.  Apparently she had been wrong about that.

It was the same expression on the Inquisitor’s face now.

She raised her gaze to the Inquisitor again, keeping her voice low as she said, “Those braids in that case – they aren’t from the High Republic, are they?”

He shook his head a little, his face a mask of grief and fury fighting for calm.  Then he looked at her sharply, some of that starting to bleed into alarm.  Hera could guess why; she didn’t know much about Jedi, but she had known enough to ask. She met his pale gaze, resisting the urge to look away; she hated making eye contact with other people and there was something disorienting about him.

It was the Inquisitor who looked away.  He swallowed, his throat working, and looked back at the tiles in the case in front of him. “I’m sorry,” he said eventually, then swallowed again.  “I need to see the rest of the items up for auction.”

Hera bit her lip. “I want to get a feel for the crowd,” she said to him. “Will you be all right on your own for a few minutes?  I don’t think we need to stay long.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said a little distantly. “I was surprised.  It won’t happen again.”

“All right,” Hera said. She stepped away from him, hoping that he actually could behave himself if left to his own devices.  It was balanced against her own nervousness about interacting with other people; she wasn’t particularly worried about being recognized as an Imperial agent, since in her experience no one ever looked at a young Twi’lek woman and came to the conclusion she was an ISB officer, usually including other members of the service, often including times when she was in uniform.  Hera was a decent field agent, but she knew that she hadn’t exactly lived up to Agent Beneke’s desires for her, which was how she had gotten this assignment with the Inquisitor in the first place.

She got another drink from the serving droid, this one a fermented fruit juice with some bubbles in it that looked alcoholic at a glance but wasn’t, and settled her shoulders before she went back to the case with the figurines in it, which had a small group of people gathered around it.  She lingered on the edge of the group, drinking her juice and listening in on the conversation – a trio of scholars debating the authenticity of the figurines, apparently.  After a few minutes of that she drifted away to another case, which held what looked like ornaments.  She glanced up to track the Inquisitor’s location in the room and saw him steadily working his way through the remaining cases, his mood like a thundercloud keeping people away from him.

“Lovely, aren’t they?”

Hera turned, pasting a polite smile on her lips, and saw a thin, white-bearded Pantoran male standing beside her.  “It’s very intricate work,” she said.

He smiled with as much appreciation as if he had been the creator rather than some long-dead Jedi. “Mirialan,” he said, indicating a pair of round belt buckles propped up on display. “Do you see the floral work around the rims and the eclipsed suns at the centers? Variations on those themes have recurred amongst Mirialan Jedi for centuries – millennia, perhaps, though the older examples are disputed.  They stem from an old Force cult on Mirial, one that hasn’t been active since before Mirial joined the Republic.  We know nothing about that cult, not even its name; it no longer has any worshipers on Mirial, but until a decade ago there were still elements of it amongst the Jedi.”

He gestured to a collection of small coppery rings, each about the length of a knuckle and inscribed with knot-like decorations.  “Weequay hair ornaments – for their braids, yes?  You still see some Weequay wearing them today, but if you ever have the occasion to examine them closely, you’ll see that the finework is all different. That’s because Weequay Jedi had their own patterns that were used back on Sriluur before the Hutts conquered the world more than eight thousand years ago.  Another Force cult, perhaps.  When Weequay were first recruited into the Jedi Order, they took the symbols with them; you won’t see them on Sriluur or the other Weequay worlds today.”

“Eight thousand years is a long time,” Hera said, since she couldn’t think of anything else to say and it seemed like the point in which he expected a response.

“Perhaps longer.  The Hutts – especially in the days of the old Hutt Empire – prefer to destroy the records of their conquered worlds, so that those worlds might seem to begin with their coming.  It’s hard on historians.”  He sighed wistfully, then looked at her more closely.

Hera resisted the urge to double-check that her markings were covered, since he seemed like the sort of person who might know that caste markings were more than just decorative tattoos the way most non-Twi’leks thought.

When she didn’t say anything one way or another, he seemed to decide that she was interested and pointed at a quartet of ivory bangles inside the case.  Each one was a double-curve, small enough to fit around a near-human’s wrist, and incised with intricate patterns, some of which had been filled in with black, red, or gold, others of which were bare.  The ivory was yellowing with age.  Something about them was familiar and Hera frowned, trying to place them.

The Pantoran saw her expression and smiled, open and pleased rather than malicious. “Ryloth river hog tusks,” he said. “I can’t pronounce the name in Twi’leki –”

“Ruti’ara,” Hera said after a moment of thought. “From a region in the equatorial jungle.  They’re extinct now.”  She didn’t say that there was a set of similar bangles in her mother’s jewelry case back on Ryloth, a gift from Cham’s grandmother – then the clan head – when they had married; they had been passed down among the women of the family for a thousand years.

She looked back at the bangles in the case, now seeing the pattern of half-familiar clan markings amongst the carvings.  “Fenn,” she said slowly.  When the Pantoran blinked, she said, “The geometric patterns, there – in black. Those are Fenn clan markings. They’re a curial clan on Ryloth –” And had been in vendettas with the Syndullas no less than three dozen times over the past thousand years, including after the Curia’s ban two centuries earlier (which everyone on Ryloth had just taken as a strong recommendation for the first few decades), but who was counting.

“The clan is still extant?” the Pantoran asked, sounding a little disappointed.

Hera fought back family feeling she didn’t know she still had and resisted the urge to reply unfortunately.  Instead she said, “Last I heard, yes.  There was some scandal a few years ago, but they’re still around.”

“There is a clan that has died out, though, yes?”

Hera bit her lip. “There are a few, mostly smaller patrician clans.  You’re probably thinking about the Indahs.  They were a curial clan like the Fenns and the Sy – the Securas.  They were in a –”  She had to search for the word in Basic before going on. “– a vendetta, a blood feud, with the Fortunas.  That’s another curial clan.  The Fortunas tricked the curial family – the Indah Hid Indah – into agreeing to peace talks.  When the Indah Hid Indah and the heads of the patrician families in the clan were all at table for the banquet, the Fortunas slaughtered them.  Then they hunted down all of the other Indah patricians and killed them too, not to mention most of the plebeians.  When news got out, the Republic Senate wanted the Jedi to come in and arbitrate it, but the Curia – that’s the governing body on Ryloth – wouldn’t let their ships land.  They sent the Fortuna – the clan head, I mean – into the Bright Lands and ostracized most of the patrician family heads, and banned the Fortunas from being able to vote in the Curia for twenty years.  They also banned the vendetta, so there aren’t supposed to be blood feuds anymore. The only Indah patricians who survived were the ones who had married into other clans cum manu, and when you do that you give up your clan rights – they weren’t legally Indahs anymore, I mean, they were legally members of their spouse’s clans.  I know at least one petitioned to revoke her marriage, but there weren’t enough Indahs left for there to still be a clan.  And the Fortunas had destroyed their lararia and kalikori, burned the shrines. That’s supposed to destroy the clan’s connection to their ancestors and the genii – the – the earth-gods, I suppose is the closest thing you can say in Basic.  Since the Indah Hid Indah were a curial clan, they traced their line in direct descent from one of the gods – I think it might have been the –”  She fumbled for the Basic again, aware that her Ryloth accent was starting to come out very strongly, and if anyone knew enough to recognize it, that it was the purest high-caste Twi’leki.  “The Son of Sands.  There are other curial clans descended from the Son of Sands too but the Indah Hid Indah were very, very old, as old as – the Fenns.”

She had almost said “as old as the Syndulla Tann Syndulla.”  One of the surviving Indahs had actually been married to the Syndulla prime heir at the time, and had almost succeeded in convincing her and her twin brother to declare vendetta against the Fortunas themselves before the Syndulla clan head had gotten wind of it and stopped them.

“This was a long time ago?” asked the Pantoran.

“Not really,” Hera admitted. “About two hundred years.”  She tensed in expectation of a comment about how barbaric Twi’leks were, never mind that there were humans on plenty of worlds who still practiced various forms of blood feud, but none came.

“An old custom?” the Pantoran said instead.

“Um, yes,” Hera said. She was too embarrassed about having given a speech about the Hid Indah Massacre to offer up that the vendetta went back to the days of the gods, when the children of the Mother of Mountains had torn Ryloth apart in war with each other after the Son of Sands had murdered his sister’s lover.  It was why so much of the planet was desert, except for the equatorial jungle; their oldest records showed that millennia earlier much more of the planet had been jungle and there had still been enough ocean to separate the continents.  “What does that have to do with the ruti’ara tusks?”

“Ah.  Nothing.”  The Pantoran beamed at the case again.

Hera let out her breath through her teeth, annoyed.  She could feel heat in her cheeks, traveling up to her ear-cones and the base of her lekku.

“The marvelous thing about the Jedi is that they were so very, very old and had members from all over the galaxy, all kinds of species, so customs, traditions, peoples – animals, even – were preserved within them like insects in amber, passed down from master to apprentice over so many generations few sentient minds can really comprehend them.  They provide a window into a past where there are no other windows – no holograms, no texts, no oral memories.  And yet that past was preserved amongst the Jedi – it was still a living thing.  The Empire might have you believe that the Jedi stole children from thousands of worlds, stripped them of their identities, their cultures, their species, and made them all Jedi and nothing else, but if that was true, then how would there be any of this?”  He swept an arm around at the room and its display cases.  “When I was a very young, there were pirates preying on my family’s station, and a Jedi came to deal with them – a Togruta woman, very beautiful.  She wore the akul teeth headdress of a Togruta warrior, an animal which those among the Togruta who wish to prove their strength hunt and kill.  Why would she do that if she was not Togruta as much as Jedi?”

He looked back at the case and sighed. “Many of those here are here for the money, or are enthusiasts for the forbidden – some for the Jedi.  Others enjoy beautiful things, the rarer the better.”  He flicked a glance at the Quarren who had passed Hera earlier, his expression disapproving.  “When they were destroyed, it was not merely the Jedi who were lost, but a thousand others who were preserved only amongst the Jedi.”

“Most of the people on those worlds pay attention to their own history,” Hera said hesitantly.

“Ah.  Yes.  Some do. Others would, but their histories were stripped from them – the Hutts, as I said.  The Empire, more recently.  Even the Republic, in its way, as you said yourself.”

Hera blinked. “Did I?”

“When you said that your people would not allow the Republic to take over the punishment of its wrongdoers,” the Pantoran explained patiently. “Others were not so stubborn; at other points, the Republic would not have cared about their wishes.”

“They’re not –”  my people, she wanted to finish, but she couldn’t get the words out.

“But sometimes history is just lost,” he went on sadly. “Not maliciously or in war or natural disaster, it just…falls out of use, and then out of memory, and if there are traces at all, then they are traces we cannot recognize.  By the time one realizes it is gone, it is just not there to find.”

Hera bit her lip.

“You make it sound as if the Jedi are only the composite of others, with nothing of o – of their own,” the Inquisitor said quietly from behind Hera.

She almost jumped out of her skin.  She hadn’t heard him approach, and from the way the Pantoran flinched he hadn’t noted the Inquisitor’s arrival either.

“No – no, of course not,” he said, when he had gotten control of himself. “But my – my interests have always lain elsewhere.  There are so many who are interested in the Jedi and only the Jedi for what they themselves are, and not all that they represent.”

“I see,” the Inquisitor said gravely.  He sounded more amused than anything else, which Hera decided to cautiously take as a good sign.

Hera half turned so that she could watch him and the Pantoran at the same time.  He was looking at the case, not at the Pantoran, his gaze moving over the beautiful objects inside.  She realized abruptly that he had used the present tense, not the past.  And that he had started to say “our,” not “their.”

“You are an enthusiast of the Jedi, perhaps?” the Pantoran said, recovering.

Hera tensed again, but the Inquisitor just raised an eyebrow. “I have an interest.”

The Pantoran turned to Hera again.  “And you, you are a student of history, I see?”

The Imperial Academy’s version of history was “things were terrible until the Emperor took control” but she wasn’t about to tell him that. “Just a few things,” she said instead. “But I enjoyed our conversation,” she added, because she did know how to be polite; not something she had learned from the Empire.  She took a chance and laid her hand on the Inquisitor’s arm, suspecting that he was probably aware of her brief hesitation before she made contact. “I think we’ve seen what we came here to see,” she told him.

He was tense under her palm, giving her the impression that he didn’t like to be touched any more than she did.  None of it showed in his face as he glanced down towards her and nodded.

“I will see you tomorrow evening, perhaps,” the Pantoran said.

“Perhaps,” Hera agreed, and hoped a little vaguely that she wouldn’t have to arrest him.

She released the Inquisitor as soon as they turned to walk away.  They were silent all the way up the stairs into the noisy, crowded club, as they retrieved their speeder bikes, and on the ride back to the Ghost, the wind from their passage whipping Hera’s lekku back behind her.

Hera was stowing her bike and trying to decide whether the appropriate thing to do in this situation would be to debrief the evening when the Inquisitor said, very tiredly, “I’ll see you in the morning,” and vanished up the ladder.  A few moments later she heard his cabin door slide open and shut again.

“Well,” she said to Chopper, who had come down to make sure she was all right. “That was interesting.”

[iiinejghafa]

Thoughts on secret forest s2! this is quite long lol fair warning

Overall, I enjoyed this season and don’t come away disappointed by it at all because it’s clear it serves as a “part one”/lead-in to season 3 in many ways. I think it suffered from being pulled in too many directions with respect to both plot and the chronology of the show; it felt like the writer was trying to balance keeping season 1 events relevant, setting up for season 3 (which at this point is undoubtedly about Hanjo and/or the resolution of investigative rights), and creating a self-contained story, whereas season 1, while admittedly not saddled with the burden of a prior story/season or certainty of a follow-up, was conclusive and wrapped up all the major ends. I think if more of the Hanjo stuff had been saved for season 3, or their role in the Woo-Choi case was wrapped up conclusively, it would have led to a tighter, more satisfying season along with more time for character development.

THE GOOD

I LOVED Si-mok this season. It was clear how much he grew from season 1 and he continued to grow into his emotions (acknowledging Eun-soo and Chang-jun, his stress over Dong-jae’s disappearance, how he erupted at Hu-jeong, his choice to seek out Choi to save Yeo-jin, etc.) and while he didn’t undergo as much development and changes this season, his capacity to emote and care about other people as well as his unwavering aim for justice and truth was reaffirmed. His relationship with Yeo-jin was also really well done; he’s never sad or angry with her for being cold towards him, but instead understands that she’s unhappy and frustrated with her job and gives her space to navigate that while expressing that he’s noticed and cares about her. Confronting Choi the way he did and the dinner scene (which I could go on about for days) really highlighted that he consciously knows how much Yeo-jin means to him, how well he understands her, and that he’s not going to let their relationship waver. He doesn’t believe for a second that Yeo-jin is okay, and I think going into season 3 in addition to their continued friendship he’s going to make an effort to keep an eye on her and support her.

While I was frustrated at times with Yeo-jin’s development, I’m happy with how it concluded. Like Si-mok, she unwaveringly follows her morals and ethics, but this season was the first time she felt pressured to bend on the rules due to politics and connections (ex. the assemblyman’s son) and everything that happened with Choi only confirmed that she can’t - and won’t - drift on things like this again. She also takes the high road in dealing with her career; even though she’s miserable working with colleagues who hate and distrust her, and as much as she misses her old team, she knows that staying in the Intelligence Branch is the only place she can make positive changes. It was crushing to see how unhappy she was, but given that her happiness/career conflicts were a theme this season (and was noted often by Si-mok) and somewhat unresolved, I’m sure we’ll see it carry through to season 3.

Despite their development not being as consistent and satisfying as season 1, I really loved how close Si-mok and Yeo-jin were this season. As frustrating as their relationship was during episodes 4-10(ish?), barely speaking and Yeo-jin being somewhat cold towards him, I understand why it had to happen. It reinforced Yeo-jin’s inner struggle and made her choice to forgo appearances with him later on all the more meaningful, and highlighted that at the end of the day, she will always trust him and considers him her closest friend.

I appreciated that Yeo-jin having feelings for Si-mok - a recurring but subtle theme in season 1 - wasn’t dropped. It wasn’t a core element of this season, but in my opinion, the fact that it was readdressed multiple times suggests that this is something that will continue to be developed in future seasons. Choi calls her out on it twice - and Yeo-jin never denies it, just deflects - and even Woo and Kim are suspicious that something is going on. While Si-mok doesn’t have/is unaware of any feelings towards Yeo-jin - or that other people think something is up with them - I think this season showed he knows she is incredibly important to him. Not just through his scene with Choi, which came about out of certainty that Woo would ruin Yeo-jin’s life and trusting Yeo-jin’s judgment that she and Choi had a bond, but through the way he observed her and the comments he made. “You don’t draw these days?” “Didn’t you want to work in police administration?” “You weren’t the kind of person to postpone things” “Is there a chance you won’t be okay?”; all this demonstrates he is well aware that she is unhappy and struggling, and this was his way of communicating his concern to her which is something he wouldn’t have been able to do in season 1. Another reason I’m excited for season 3 is because the natural progression from this is that he learns how to actively support and comfort her (e.g., he looks distressed and as if he wants to comfort Yeo-jin when they learn about Choi Bit but doesn’t know how).

In season 1, he notices when she’s upset or negatively impacted by something but doesn’t know how to address it and in season 2, he doesn’t know how to truly comfort or speak to her about her unhappiness but is able to convey, through his comments and remarks to her, that he sees her and understands that she’s struggling.

I’m really glad Kang didn’t succumb to Hanjo’s bullshit and resigned and even went to Yeon-jae to ask that she leave Si-mok and Dong-jae alone. I’ve seen other people theorize that Kim will step in as his new mentor, which would be cool to see, but I hope he returns in some capacity.

I loved that Choi wasn’t corrupt after all, just blindsided and dragged into bullshit, and her character served as a reminder to Yeo-jin to not compromise her values even when she’s in a rough spot or under pressure. I was suspicious of her and while I guessed right that she orchestrated the cover-up, not Woo, I genuinely thought she had more malicious intent and far-spanning connections that she would use to save herself. It was really touching that she gave Woo and herself up to save Yeo-jin, all because Si-mok approached her as someone else who cares about Yeo-jin and trusted her judgment. I don’t think Choi is a “good person” necessarily, just morally gray as many of this show’s characters are, but I did have more sympathy than I expected in the end.

Dong-jae’s disappearance and case were some of the most interesting parts of the season, and I liked how the show managed to turn a character I - at best - found occasionally amusing into someone I felt a hint of pity and empathy for. I’m sure he’s still the same weasel even after nearly escaping death - I have no doubt that he covered for Yeon-jae - but I’m curious as to how his relationship with his wife and family changes after this season. I know he’s popular but I genuinely don’t find him to be a good person at all, especially for nearly killing Eun-soo in season 1, but I’d like to believe he makes genuine changes going forward even under the guise of working for Hanjo (which seems inevitable as Yeon-jae will want to keep him in check and it will allow him to stay securely in one place, allowing him to both be near and protect his family).

I’m glad the Yongsan crew returned this season and played a part throughout. I was suspicious of Jang for a while and I’m glad he had nothing to do with any of the cases (though I’m confused as hell by that random gash and his behavior in episode 14) and his friendship with Yeo-jin was really sweet to see again this season.

THE BAD

Yeo-jin’s development was frustrating to watch at times, especially her coldness towards Si-mok and how her sunny bright personality was tamped down this season, even though I understand why. With her haircut in episode 16 (as noted by Si-mok, just like when they first met in season 1) I’m guessing that she will return more to her s1-self in the next season, now that she’s more self-assured and clear on how to proceed in her career. I think the theme of her becoming more and more close-off and shouldering her burdens silently will continue, in contrast to Si-mok becoming more warm and open, but hopefully this will get worked through in the next season.

Now that we know Yeon-jae’s subplot was basically season 3 fodder, I’m frustrated by how big of a part Hanjo group played in the story without any real definitive conclusions. There are too many loose ends - what exactly does she have to do with the meeting at the vacation house? Why does she have a relationship with Woo? What is up with Mr. Park? What relationship did she have with Park Gwang-su that led to her selecting him for the Hanjo work? What is going to happen with Hanjo Group and her relationship with her father and brother? Will she act against Dong-jae if he crosses her, or Si-mok, whom she mostly neglected and ignored this season?

I really, really disliked that the council meetings ended up being pointless. I understand that this was intentional - it forced conflict between Si-mok and Yeo-jin that would have had to happen at some point, brought Choi and Woo together, and showed that there’s no clear answer to the question of investigation rights - but it was built up to be this big thing and we only got two meetings over the span of 10 episodes.

I’m glad that the Segok case was passed on to Dong-jae’s junior, but I’m also a bit annoyed by the lack of conclusion to this case. My take was that Si-mok was thanking her for her insight and trusting that she would be able to take care of it, so I doubt we’ll hear more about it.

Si-mok’s loneliness and isolation felt like a bigger theme in the earlier episodes (lying about staying in a hotel because he can’t go to his mother’s, staying in a hotel and then the dorms, etc.) but wasn’t resolved before he was reassigned. We got those messages from his mother later in the season, but it was something that was never followed through with and didn’t ultimately contribute to anything aside from perhaps emphasizing Si-mok’s dislike for uncomfortable/unnecessary social interactions. Given the way season 2 ended with him and Yeo-jin parting ways again, and his inevitable season 3 return, I’d like to believe this will get more attention in the future. 

OTHER OBSERVATIONS

I saw it pointed out somewhere that Si-mok and Yeo-jin are going in opposite directions in their personal arcs; Si-mok is becoming more open and emotional, whereas Yeo-jin is starting to hide her emotions and silently shoulder burdens. This is a point I’m really excited to see explored in season 3 and what it means for their relationship. Does Si-mok, always evolving and becoming more emotionally mature, directly confront Yeo-jin at any point and express his observations and concern for her? Does he ever tell her that he spoke to Choi, or does Yeo-jin find out through her and how does she react? Does Si-mok’s elevated emotional intelligence come with the eventual realization that he may have feelings for her, in contrast to Yeo-jin hiding and deflecting her feelings for Si-mok this season perhaps out of resignation that he won’t ever feel that way about her? What conclusions do they draw from continuing to find each other again through the years, and how does that play into what they want for their own futures?

Yeo-jin comments that she and Si-mok are “always doing this”; working together, getting separated, and inadvertently coming back to each other again. Season 3 means that they will have to cross paths again in Seoul (I wonder what brings Si-mok back if not Hanjo?) and it’ll be interesting to see what they make of this pattern and if they ever consider what they want for their lives and future. We don’t know what Si-mok wants - if anything he’s perfectly content with remaining a prosecutor and being shuffled around to different assignments - but I can almost guarantee that he will start to feel pulled to stay in Seoul because of Yeo-jin. As for Yeo-jin, we know she misses her old team and being a detective - she wants to work with a team and do field work - but she’s also torn by her relationship with Si-mok and her desire to make structural changes from within even at the cost of her own happiness. Does this change at all with Si-mok’s eventual return and whatever developments occur in her career?

This is more general, but given how much was left unresolved and unaddressed I really feel like the writer knew she was getting at least season three. That and Netflix’s involvement (who generally move quickly production-wise) lead me to hope that we will get season three as early as fall 2021 or early 2022 barring any scheduling conflicts with the leads. I highly doubt Netflix will allow the production to stall another three years after the big numbers they pulled with TVN and undoubtedly on their own service as well.

UNADDRESSED THREADS:

Dong-jae, specifically how he handles Hanjo and what he chooses to do moving forward in his career and family

Hanjo’s full involvement with Park Gwang-su. Why was Woo brought along in the first place? What was the meeting about at the vacation house? What is so nefarious about Hanjo’s involvement, other than it was to discuss the lawsuits (I think)?

Yeon-jae’s battle with her father and brother

Yeo-jin’s backstory. We still know almost nothing about her life prior to this series other than the existence of a grandmother and her comment back in season 1 at the high school (watching the happy teen girls at the high school and saying “You should have been like that, too”). I would like to believe season 3 will finally deliver this lol but who knows

Si-mok’s messages with his mother.

How the investigative rights will be handled

This isn’t quite as open-ended, but Yeo-jin and her career. She got promoted but is universally disliked by her colleagues - though accepted by her new boss via her connection with Choi - and she’s at a desk job again after being shown repeatedly, since the first episode, that she misses her old job and coworkers and wants to go back into fieldwork/being a detective. Si-mok and the Yongsan crew are also attuned to her unhappiness and desire for her old life back, but again this wasn’t given a specific conclusion.

Yeo-jin’s feelings for Si-mok. This was addressed quite a few times this season without a resolution - season 3 fodder/carry over from season 1? - other than reaffirming the deep trust they have in each other and that she is a weak point for Si-mok (which Woo tries to exploit; given his connection to Yeon-jae, perhaps this will come back again).

Mr. Yoon’s appearances. This felt like the most obvious set-up in hindsight; there was no real plot or character-motivated reason for Yeo-jin to see or talk with him, but I’m not sure I understand the sudden sympathy towards his character or what this means for the future unless it somehow ties to Hanjo.

Si-mok’s headaches. He had two intense ones over the course of Dong-jae’s disappearance, but unlike season 1, there wasn’t an overarching conclusion or character development associated with that other than that he’s dealing with them better. This makes me feel that it will be addressed again in season 3, along with:

The theme of Si-mok being worried/stressed. This is brought up a lot in this season, and Si-mok repeatedly denies that he’s stressed about the Dong-jae case only to have two headaches over it. He clearly doesn’t understand what being worried/stressed means to him, and I think the only real resolution we got for this was that he was worried enough about Yeo-jin’s life being destroyed by Woo to confront Choi.

Woo is going to be indicted for what happened at the vacation house along with Choi, but one of the last things we hear from him is “This isn’t over. Not while I’m alive.” If he plays a role in season 3, I’m curious if he uses his connection to Yeon-jae to get out of things, or if Choi’s active role in covering up his death will spare him. Will he and Yeon-jae take revenge on Dong-jae and/or Si-mok & Yeo-jin?

I am VERY upset that there were no Yeo-jin drawings to Si-mok this season!!! Even after it was addressed back in episode 6!!! Season 3 better deliver!!!!

ANYWAY apologies for this word vomit and I’m sure some of my opinions will change over time but for now season 3 2021/2022???

[vmheadquarters]

We’re still playing our game of written hot potato! Dozens of your favorite authors are taking turns to tell a Veronica Mars mystery story. Each writer crafts their chapter and then “tosses” the story to the next person to continue the tale. No one knows what will happen, so expect the unexpected!

Follow the “vmhq presents” and “murder we wrote” tags for all the installments, or read the story as it develops on AO3. --Chapter Twenty-Nine of MURDER, WE WROTE is written by @louzeyre. And stayed tuned next week for Ch.30 from @heavenli24​ - tag, you’re it!

_____________________________________________________________

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE by @louzeyre

Logan felt Veronica stiffen and immediately realized his mistake.

Family was a funny thing.

Given his own incredibly messed up family dynamics you would think he would know that instinctively. After all, he might hate Aaron unequivocally, but for as much as he now realized his own mother’s failings --- and for as much anger as he had at her for abandoning him --- he still loved her. Still missed her.

Even Trina --- after everything. He’d still lend a hand if she needed it.

It was different though, when it came to someone else’s family. No. It was different when it came to Veronica.

Every pain, every insecurity, every doubt Lianne had given Veronica, he felt resentment for on Veronica’s behalf. Far more deeply than he would if it had been done to him.

But as much as Logan wanted to protect Veronica. As much as he wanted to keep her from being hurt again. Especially that small part of her that still had hope that Lianne could be the woman she had thought she was when she was growing up. It wasn’t his place to do so.

It was Veronica’s choice whether Lianne was part of her life or not.

And Veronica had decided that being a part of Hunter’s life was worth allowing Lianne back into hers.

If Veronica was willing to do that for her brother—even after everything Lianne had done to her—then he needed to respect that. He could play nice. For her. For that relationship.

Or he could at least swallow down his own feelings, stay quiet and find a way to support Veronica --- while still letting her fight her own battles.

Sure enough, as soon as the shock of seeing Lianne had worn off, Veronica went on the offensive.

“Mom, what are you doing here? Where’s Hunter?”

“Hunter’s safe.” Lianne said quickly. “But after I heard what had happened to Ruby, I thought it might be better if we got out of town for a while.”

“So, you brought him to Neptune?”

Lianne had done some stupid things --- abandoning Veronica and choosing Jake Kane over Keith chief among them --- but she surely, she wasn’t that stupid.

“God no. I dropped him off with your Aunt Sheryl.”

“But you came here.” Veronica pointed out.

Lianne wrapped her arms around herself and somehow managed to make herself even smaller. “Given everything that’s happened to me here, Neptune is the last place anyone would look for me.” She told them.

Right. The hiding on Tatooine method of witness protection. Even in the Star Wars movies that didn’t make sense.

“I don’t understand. How could you be Ruby’s source? You don’t know most of the secrets she mentions? You weren’t even in Neptune for most of them.”

“You’ve only made it through the first half of the book, haven’t you?” Lianne said, knowingly.

“Half seemed like enough.” Veronica said, slightly defensively.

It had certainly seemed like more than enough to Logan. Each individual chapter had a certain je ne sais quoi in its own right, but as a whole?  Between the wildly-varying writing styles, increasingly convoluted plot, and weirdly specific focus on their love life, Logan wasn’t sure either he or Veronica could have gotten through the whole thing without wanting to murder Ruby themselves.

“Most of what I told Ruby was about the corruption and backroom deals Jake made while he was building Kane Software.” Lianne said. “Ruby incorporated it as a series of flashbacks to the “Mystery Parties” Della’s parents hosted.”

In other words, what Lianne had contributed was the pillow talk she had learned while she was Jake Kane’s regular lunch buddy.

“Della’s character died in the middle of the book; how would she have had flashbacks?” Veronica wondered aloud.

Clemmons cleared his throat. “The rather lackadaisical sense of the time and continuity was meant to act as something of a smokescreen,” he answered. “Hiding the true seriousness of the book in plain sight, as it were.”

Veronica momentarily gave both Clemmons and Lianne a disbelieving glare. Then she seemed to give up trying to understand their logic and dropped her shoulders in a shrug. “Fine. But why help her at all? Isn’t Jake the love of your life?” Veronica’s voice reached new, previously unknown levels of sarcasm towards the end of the question.

“Jake was my first love Veronica.” Lianne said carefully “And yes, for a long time I bought into the idea that that meant what we had had together was the best I would ever have. That it made it special. Magical. I don’t know if your father and I could ever have worked, but I do know now that, because I kept looking backwards, I didn’t really give us a chance.”

“Right, it wasn’t your fault you cheated on dad. The toxic misogynistic rom-com trope made you do it.”

“I’m not trying to justify my action Veronica,” Lianne snapped. “I’m just trying to answer your question. It’s taken me a long time but I have finally realized that you can fall out of love with someone, and that might be a good thing. That if you allow yourself to move on and take what you learned from that first love and first heartbreak you can use it to make your next love actually be better and more magical. To be the sort of love that does last. You two,” Lianne said, nodded slightly towards Logan. “Taught me that.”

Logan fought the urge to roll his eyes at Lianne’s obvious attempt to tug at Veronica’s heart strings. Veronica seemed even less impressed.

“Great speech mom, but helping to write a tell all to get revenge on your ex doesn’t exactly scream “moving on”.” she pointed out.

“It’s not revenge.” Lianne said, allowing herself to collapse onto Clemmons couch. “It's… an attempt to right some wrongs. Even if it is far too little and too late.” Lianne let out another long sigh.

Veronica’s frustration with her mother’s sudden turn towards loquacity and melodrama was reaching a tipping point and her whole posture tensed up. Logan reminded himself how much she wanted to spend the holidays with Hunter and started to rub comforting circles along her lower back. Maybe it would keep her calm enough to remember charging taser first at her mother wasn’t as good an idea as it seemed at the moment.

Finally, Lianne seemed to deem her dramatic pause long enough and began to talk again.

“When Lilly died, I knew—or at least thought I knew—that Jake had an alibi. But instead of telling your father I kept quiet and watched two men I claimed to love try to destroy each other. All to save my own butt.” Lianne shook her head. “If I had said something back then, then maybe your father wouldn’t have been so focused on Jake. Then he wouldn’t have lost his job. He might have even found Lilly’s real killer sooner. Our marriage would have been destroyed, but your life wouldn’t have been. Not like it was.”

“Again --- nice speech. But that was more than a decade ago.” Veronica bit back.

“I told you: I knew it was too little and too late,”  Lianne said, becoming agitated.

“Way too late.” Veronica told her. After a few beats, though, Veronica relaxed slightly and let out a final sigh. “Okay.” she shrugged. “You want to atone for past sins by spreading thirty-year-old gossip about your ex. Wonderful. Good for you. Now, you mentioned something about Ruby’s having other sources? Do you,” Veronica said, looking at Lianne then turning toward Mr. Clemmons, “Or you, know who any of the others were.”

Lianne shook her head.

Clemmons sighed. “Ruby joked several times that she was receiving help from beyond the grave, but as far as actual sources go, all I knew of was myself, Ms. Reynolds, someone Ruby communicated with through emails who called himself “Mr. Owens,” and a woman named Astrid Fife.”

“Astrid?” Veronica said “As in Celeste’s former personal assistant?”

“I believe,” Clemmons said. “Although, Ruby did once make some oblique comments implying, Astrid may have also had a more intimate connection with the family.”

“Of course, she did.” Veronica said, rolling her eyes.

****

Veronica slid into the passenger seat of Logan’s BMW and let herself sink into the leather for a moment. She took a breath. Tried to just relax. Just for a second. Finally, once she thought she wasn’t going to squeeze the life out of the car armrest she turned to Logan. “Well, that was enlightening.”

“Just, not in a way that was in any way helpful,” he said.

“We did at least confirm the book is aimed at the Kanes?” Veronica pointed out.

“And that Ruby was working with sources, not from some else’s stolen manuscript,” Logan added.

“And that Duncan apparently is in Australia,” she told him. Logan gave her a questioning look. “Astrid helped get little Lilly out of the country,” Veronica explained.

“Good to know. I’ll make sure to cross Bells Beach off of future vacation destinations.”

“Oddly enough I actually believe my mother. She seems to genuinely want the Kanes to be brought down --- or at least for people to know the truth about Jake. Which means that unless Ruby was killed by a ghost, or this Mr. Owens, it doesn’t really seem like it was one of Ruby sources that murdered her.”

“Which just leaves the dozen or so extremely wealthy and powerful people who are called out in the book in some way,” Logan said with false cheer.

Veronica let out a groan. Suddenly she felt very stupid.

“What?” Logan asked.

“I know who we need to talk to,” she told him.  

“Who?” Logan asked.

“The man who killed Aaron.”

On that perfect exit line, Logan reached over to start the car. A sudden thought occurred to Veronica, however, and she placed her hand on his, stopping him. “You don’t think the “next love” my mom was talking about is Mr. Clemmons, do you?”

The two of them shared a look of collective horror as they were both forced to imagine two people, they had spent their adolescence trying to pretend didn’t have a sex life having a sex life with each other.

“We will never speak of this again,” Veronica finally said.

“Agreed.”

****

At some point during the near decade Veronica had been away from Neptune, Clarence Wiedman had left Kane Software and founded his own private security firm. Veronica wasn’t sure if it was a sign of good training or bad that the moment she told the poor kid working at Deep Ridge’s front desk who she and Logan were, a look of fear filled their eyes and they immediately called for back-up in the form of Wiedman’s own personal assistant.

Less than five minutes later she and Logan were shown into a large, sunlight filled office, at the center of which sat Wiedman himself, behind an imposing wooden desk.

“Well, it looks like you finally got that corner office,” Veronica quipped. “Guess it’s good to be the boss.”

“Miss Mars. Lieutenant Echolls. To what do I owe this visit.” Veronica shot him a sarcastic smile.

“Oh, come on Clarence, you know why we’re here.” Veronica told him. “Ruby Jetson? Or maybe you knew her as Della Pugh? Wrote a book about all of the Kane’s dirty little secrets? She’s dead now.” Veronica leaned forward, onto that very imposing desk. “But since you’re the person the Kanes turn to clean up those kinds of messes, I’m guessing you already knew that.”

Veronica wasn’t under any illusions that she was going to be getting a confession from Wiedman. That wasn’t the purpose of the visit. But if she rattled his cage enough, she hoped she might be able to shake out some response. One that might help her and Logan decide on their next step.

“Miss Mars, as you yourself have pointed out, I no longer work for the Kane Family.”

“You no longer work for the Kane family exclusively,” she countered. “But I’m betting if they walked in here with a large enough check you would be more than willing to work for them again.”

“Even if that were the case, I simply provide personal security. Not assassinations.”

“I think Carlos Mercado and Aaron Echolls would disagree.”  

For less than a second Wiedman ticked a glance towards Logan. The movement was almost imperceptible, but it still felt like a victory.  Logan saw it too and knew to take advantage of it  by throwing Wiedman further off balance.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Logan told him. “If you did what she said you did, I owe you a hand shake. And a fruit basket. One of the fancy ones.” Just for a moment, Wiedman’s mouth gave a barely perceptible twitch.

“Those were ruled suicides I believe,” Wiedman said. He folded his hands together over his desk, then turned, purposefully this time, towards Logan and said completely deadpan, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Logan gave an exaggerated nod.

“Clarence—”

“Miss Mars,” Wiedman interrupted. “As I have stated, I had nothing to do with those deaths. I might, however, point out that both of those men killed young women under the Kane’s protection. Under my protection. Miss Pugh’s situation on the other hand, would be far more similar to that of Miss DeLongpre. It would follow that, if, hypothetically, the Kane’s had wanted to discourage Miss Pugh from publishing, they would have handled it in a similar way.”

Veronica shook her head in disbelief. “Ruby wanted more than anything to be a celebrity. She would never have given up her one chance at that by taking a pay out and slinking off into hiding the way you tried to get Amelia DeLongpre to do.”

“Or perhaps you didn’t understand Miss Pugh as well as you thought. Perhaps what Miss Pugh wanted more than anything, wasn’t to be famous, but to simply be accepted among the people who she idolized. And perhaps, if someone was to point out that writing a book exposing the secrets of the very people she wanted to impress and be welcomed by would be counterproductive to that goal she might be amenable to another option. Perhaps, if she were then given the opportunity to reinvent herself as the sort of young woman that would be welcomed into those circles, with the sort of money that she would need to do so she would be quite willing indeed, she would in fact welcome it.”

“Perhaps.” Veronica echoed crisply.

Wiedman gave Veronica a plastic smile, then turned his attention to his desk, pretending to be concerned with some random bit of paperwork lying on it. “Now, I believe you know the way out Miss Mars?” he said, still keeping his eyes down.

Veronica let out something that wasn’t quite a snort and turned towards the door. As they were almost at the door Weidman called out again, stopping them.

“Oh, and Lieutenant? Miss Mars?” Wiedman called out, stopping them, “Perhaps you should finish reading Miss Pugh’s manuscript. I think you might find it quite interesting.”

[gascon-en-exil]

FE16 Black Eagles (Edelgard) Liveblogging

Chapters 17-18, minus the colossal amount of Dimitri/Dedue content in the first chapter which I covered at length here.

Altogether I’d consider Edelgard’s last two chapters to be easier than Dimitri’s, in large part to due to far less long range magic. That’s actually quite reasonable in terms of story; as the nation renowned for its magic users - and, by the last chapter of the Lions route, openly allied with the remnants of Those Who Slither - Adrestia would logically field more of them. The knights of Faerghus and the church and Rhea’s “dolls” (more like fantasy-flavored mechs, but that’s what they call them) don’t offer as big a challenge by comparison.

The other obstacles unique to Chapter 18 weren’t much either. The fire makes the map hard to traverse for non-fliers, but it slows down enemies too. Rhea as the Immaculate One has a much smaller attack range than Hegemon Edelgard and only gets one attack per turn, in addition to being a bigger target that’s easier to surround. It makes sense that the climax of this route wouldn’t be as difficult if they used the number of chapters for scaling. The Strike Force has had four fewer chapters to grow compared to the Lions.

I liked that the last chapter plays out on a heavily modified version of the Fhirdiad map used in the Lions route for the Cornelia fight, although this does mean that I only got to see two entirely new maps on this route: the Petra/Bernadetta paralogue and the Tailtean Plains of Chapter 17.

Kill list: other than Dimitri and Dedue’s gay high tragedy, Sylvain and Mercedes in 17, Ashe, Gilbert, Annette, Catherine, and Cyril in 18. Catherine was much easier to take down from range with the fires limiting her movement, whereas Cyril (I thought he died in Chapter 12? I guess not) was surprisingly strong as a wyvern lord packing a brave axe. Wyvern enemies continue to catch me off guard.

Oh, yeah. Rhea shows up on the field in a Seiros cosplay in Chapter 17, but Edelgard one-rounded her (at a weapon triangle disadvantage, no less) and then she and almost all of the reinforcements she spawned with left the map. With everything else going on in that map, the church contribution was quite underwhelming.

Story/Character observations

Let’s get the small stuff out of the way first. There’s a few last bits of monastery dialogue worth noting. Shamir gets in some more heavy subtext re: Catherine, only now they’re enemies and you could potentially have Shamir kill Catherine. Dedue is a bear. Fleche, the girl who tries to kill Dimitri on the Lions route but instead kills Rodrigue, shows up one last time to show how curiously well-adjusted she is on this route after her brother’s death a few chapters earlier. It was interesting to see those two and the NPC general Ladislava show up during exploration and comment on ongoing events. I wouldn’t say it humanizes them too much since the most you get is an NPC fawning over how awesome Ladislava is or more pathos and less torture in Randolph’s death, but it’s appropriate for the alternative perspective this route offers. 

I also need to call attention to a handy scholar NPC who appears in the library every chapter after the timeskip, dispensing info dumps that the books don’t cover and asking us to call into question the authorial intent of those books. Of course he’s obviously biased in favor of Edelgard and the Empire, but it’s a useful addition.

Onto supports. As a means of ensuring that I got the Hubert/Ferdinand paired ending I saved all their other A supports for the last minute, so that’s most of what I saw here. As per usual it’s Ferdinand who gets the more interesting stuff overall, with Hubert being more sedate and needing to be given practical reasons for marrying Dorothea or motivation to stop comparing Petra to Edelgard. Ferdinand’s high points come down even to something as mundane as what he’s drinking in various A supports - tea with Bernadetta, coffee (Hubert’s preferred drink) with Edelgard. Does Hubert/Ferdinand canonically happen before Edelgard/Ferdinand, and this is why the former’s paired ending has Edelgard jealous of them? Ferdinand’s A with Manuela is more theatre queen gushing, but his A with Dorothea walks a fine line between really sweet and really screwed up. Dorothea recalls bathing in a public fountain shortly after her singing talents were discovered and seeing a young Ferdinand staring at her and probably sporting his first erection. This is why she’s so hostile to him the whole time, and as said I don’t know how we’re meant to feel about that, or that this conversation resolves in romance. Or, rather, it would, if they didn’t then jump back to a confused simile about bees that’s now morphed into drones protecting a queen. From what little I know of insects male bees don’t have stingers and so can’t protect anything, so I do believe this metaphor subtly circles back around to lesbianism in the end. Everything with Dorothea inevitably does.

I’ve been neglecting it all this time, but I will say that Bernadetta improves slightly after the timeskip. She screams a lot less in her later supports, and in her dialogue in general she sounds more composed and less prone to immediately hiding herself away. Yay for actual emotional maturation.

I’m going to delicately sidestep the hotly-debated question of whether Edelgard’s goals justify her actions or whether this is in fact a bonafide villain route. The game itself wavers over this question at multiple points, not as shakily as Conquest does but still in ways that feel tonally off. The attempts at humanizing Edelgard by giving her a mundane fear of rats (that she acquired when she was being tortured as a child - totally normal circumstances!) and having her draw sketches of Byleth don’t land because they’re so disconnected from everything else, and her opinion of the religion of Seiros varies constantly. Sometimes she sees the value of spirituality in people’s lives and only takes issue with the corruption of the church, other times - including at the very end, when she’s about to cave Rhea’s head in - she’s declaring that humanity has no need for gods and will be better off without them. Having played her route it’s hard for me to call her a fantasy Protestant even in jest when she’s more of a dystheist (i.e. gods exist, but they are evil antagonistic forces) who will occasionally acknowledge that religion can have a positive impact on a strictly personal level. Even though she lays her plans out for Byleth early on, well before the timeskip, her ultimate aim remains unclear, not helped by the brevity of the epilogue which seems to be standard across all routes - just a short paragraph of text by the narrator over one of those stylized tapestries, cut to turn counts and character endings. Edelgard abolishes the nobility and the church after having conquered the other two nations by military force, and somehow we’re expected to believe that her regime will remain peaceful and stable and not collapse into anarchy in the space of a few years. Sure.

It does not help in the slightest that this route builds up Those Who Slither as a credible threat, only to shove them off onto an unseen postgame conflict. True, I theorized that allowing Claude and his various allies to live on the Lions route sets the stage for a massive Almyran invasion after the credits roll, but that’s more headcanon based on how FE doesn’t like to settle for unambiguously happy and resolved endings. Those Who Slither are the genuine antagonists of this route, and most of what Rhea has actually done is left unexplained. From a Doylist perspective I understand it, I really do: Those Who Slither take the focus for the Deer, and Rhea takes it for the church route, just as Dimitri’s revenge motivation only gets proper attention on the Lions route. However, these four stories are not all occurring simultaneously but are instead essentially AUs of one another, with Byleth choosing their starter Pokémon their house the catalyst for shaping all the events to follow. Looking at this route in isolation though it leaves Edelgard’s grand mission looking highly questionable.

One last thing, because I almost forgot about him: what happened to the Death Knight? He disappears from the game after the timeskip on this route. I assume you see him again if you recruit Mercedes and get her paralogue with Caspar, but it’s strange that one of Edelgard’s most loyal minions from Part 1 doesn’t even warrant a mention during her conquest of Fódlan.

Two routes down and two more to go - time to fear the Deer...’s lack of homoerotic content. Nothing makes me want to play something like knowing all the characters under my control are sexually uncreative prudes.

EDIT: Right, I remembered the DK but not the m!Byleth/Linhardt S rank. That should say something about how not particularly romantic it is. Really, the S rank with Gilbert and the one paired S rank with Alois where Byleth doesn’t marry someone else seem less offensive in light of how little there is to m!Byleth’s one “real” gay pairing. As always, you can get so much more out of conversations when both characters are allowed to speak and emote outside of irrelevant dialogue choices and stiff model gestures.

[imagines-for-the-fangirls-soul]

A Goddamn Virgin - Babe Heffron

I came up with this because I just finished my latest rewatch.

No disrespect meant to the actual heroes. Just a fic about the actors’ portrayal in the HBO miniseries.

Pairing: Babe Heffron x reader Word Count: 7,202 Synopsis: The reader joins the war as an alrady engaged nurse to Easy Company. After befriending Bill, the reader meets Babe and they start a relationship that can’t be undone. (I’m so bad at summaries.) Warnings: Smut

“Y/N, you gotta come here!” Bill called from across the room, waving you over ecstatically. You laughed to yourself and followed through the room of crowded men. Bill was sitting at one of the benches with men you had known since the beginning, and a handsome red-head you hadn’t seen before. 

“What?” Luz slid down the bench, leaving a seat for you.

“I just wanted to introduce you to my new friend here.” You looked over at the red-head who held out his hand to you.

“Edward Heffron.”

“Nice to meet you. Are you from-”

“Philly,” Bill said with a smirk, he had recognized the accent as instantly as you had. “Y/N, here, also hails from Philly.” Edward nodded in appreciation.

“Not originally.”

“Right, right.” Edward looked at Bill, and the veteran soldier slapped his arm. “Y/N is engaged to someone from Philly.”

“So how did you get here?”

“My fiance convinced me to join the fight with him. He had no idea that I’d be assigned to the Airborne.”

“Where did he get assigned?”

“Army.”

“Y/N is a nurse. If you’re lucky, you won’t see her around too often.”

“Aww, Bill, you don’t like having me around?”

“No, he just doesn’t want another man competing for your attention,” Luz said, elbowing your arm. Bill had a few choice words for George, but the replacement only smiled and turned a slight shade of red. 

“Oh ho!” Joe cried out as your dart hit right on the nose. Buck gave you a high five and you smiled over at Heffron. 

“Not bad,” he said with a smirk.

“Not bad? I’d like to see you do better.”

“I wouldn’t start with her, Babe,” Bill said, walking over to the group.

“Babe?” you asked.

“Yeah, didn’t you hear?” Bill asked, grinning. You shook your head and watched Babe turn a shade of red. “Babe here got a letter from a broad back home?”

“Oh you did?” you asked, enjoying watching him smile.

“Maybe.” You laughed as Bill described it to you. The letter was from someone named Doris, and she dedicated it to “Babe,” hence the nickname. 

“Come on,” Babe said, “Are we gonna play darts or not?”

“Sure, Babe,” you said, winking at him when you said his name.  He rolled his eyes, and when you were beside him aimed his dart. 

“Bullseye!” he called out, making the men around you cheer.

“Not bad.” He laughed at your mimicking of what he said earlier.

“You’re really competitive.”

“I know,” you said, cocking your head. “Wanna bet?” Babe laughed and shook his head.

“What could you even offer up?” Your eyes were locked on his, the excitement of a competition and the chance to flirt hanging in the air. 

“Alright, Y/N, we can’t have you corrupt our dear old Babe here. That’s our job,” Bill said, butting in. 

“Fine, but he owes me a rematch once he’s nice and corrupted.” 

“Do you want some help?” It was at the accent in the voice that made you turned. Babe stood behind you, already holding the box of bed sheets and supplies you had given to Gene a few moments earlier.

You hadn’t seen Babe since Bill’s lost his leg. Before then, every time you vistied Easy, you made sure to spend some time teasing and flirting with Babe. He didn’t seem to mind, and he was one of the only bright faces you could look forward to. The two of you had created a special relationship you hadn’t ever had with anyone else.

“What are you doing here?” you asked with a smile.

“Gene needed help. I was the lucky bastard that got to come along.”

“Well, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” you said as Babe followed you out of the room. For soldiers that were still on the line, it was best to keep them out of the operating and holding room as much as possible. 

“Yeah?” he asked with a sloppy grin.

“Yes, but don’t go getting any ideas,” you said, walking him outside. 

“Oh, don’t worry, I know you’re taken. Bill made sure I knew that from the minute we met.” You smiled sadly. It had been a while since you thought about your friend, Bill. With all of the work you had at the aid station in Bastogne, it was easy to forget that Bill and Joe got their legs blown off.

Babe might have noticed the change on your face and took a seat on an overturned crate in the snow. He motioned for you to the do the same. “You’re a sight, too, Y/N.”

“How is everyone?” you asked after smiling in response.

“As well as they can be.”

“How are you?” He shrugged as a response. “As much as I miss you guys, I’m glad I haven’t seen many of you here.” Babe nodded and set his jaw. There was a look on his face that he was hiding something, and you wondered if you should push it or not. You weren’t very close, your entire friendship with Babe stemmed from knowing Bill. 

“Is there something I don’t know?” you asked, taking a leap by putting your hand over his. His face tightened. Tears might have begun to form in his eyes, but if they were ever there, he kept them down before you could fully see them. 

“This kid, Julian. He was a replacement in my foxhole. He got hit and I couldn’t save him.”

“I’m sorry.” He nodded, frowning.

“He was a kid. Looked like he never shaved. Told me he was still a goddamn virgin. Can you believe it?” He looked up at you, expecting you to laugh. You didn’t, instead just stared at your feet with a small smile. “Sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” you asked.

“I didn’t mean to make you-”

“Oh, you didn’t. It’s just- I am-” You stopped and laughed at yourself. Babe was confused, but then his face softened.

“Y/N, don’t tell me-”

“Yes, Babe, I am still a virgin,” you admitted, rolling your eyes. His mouth opened slightly and you watched the gears turn in his head as he tried to wrap his mind around what you just said. 

“You’re beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re engaged.”

“Yeah.”

“And you’ve never?”

“No, Babe. That’s what being a virgin means.”

“And your fiance, he never tried to-”

“Jesus, Babe. Yes, of course, we’ve talked about it. And, don’t get me wrong, we haven’t been completely chaste.” Babe’s eyes brightened and you rolled your eyes.

“Are you trying to make me feel better or seduce me?” You laughed and shook your head.

“Make you feel better, but who knows. It’s certainly not coming off that way.” Babe laughed and you finally saw the weight of Julian leave him. Gene called out to him, and he turned his back from you. You felt the heat in your cheeks and wished it away. 

“Well, Y/N, if you ever want to not be a virgin, you know where to find me.” You rolled your eyes and stood with him.

“Good to know.” Babe laughed and picked up his box of supplies. 

“Thanks, Y/N. You’ve made me feel a whole lot better,” he said with a wink.

“Goodbye, Babe.”

“Y/N!” You turned at the sound of your name, but of course, you knew who it was. You would recognize that voice anywhere. Babe was hustling towards you, walking away from his friends who were in line to take a shower here in Hagenau.

You had noticed him a moment before, but considering how you acted around him the last time, you weren’t sure you wanted to relieve that humiliation. Besides, he was standing with the rest of the men in his platoon and they all looked pissed and exhausted.

“Hey, Babe,” you said once he rached you.

“I didn’t think I’d see you here.”

“What can I say? I can’t stay away from you.” You laughed awkwardly as Babe smiled. You didn’t know why being around him brought out this side of you. You reminded yourself over again that you had a fiance, but it was hard to think about him when you hadn’t seen him in over a year.

“Come to take me up on my offer?” You opened your mouth and then stopped yourself.

“No, Babe.” His smile faltered a little. “How are you doing?” He shrugged and you touched his shoulder softly. “Maybe I’ll catch up later, okay? I have to meet with my boss.”

“Sure. Or I can stop by to see you.” You raised an eyebrow at him and nodded.

“I’d like that.” Babe licked his lips as he went back to his platoon. You clenched your fists, not liking the feeling that you were getting when around Babe. 

An hour or so later, Babe found his way to the house you were staying in. He walked in with a smile and started talking but you shook your head to get him to shut up. Your boss walked into the room and forced a polite smile on his face.

“What can I do for you, soldier?”

“He just had a wound he wanted me to look at,” you lied. Your boss nodded.

“Okay. If you’ve got things handled here, I think I’ll go catch up with some of the boys back at company CP.” You nodded and looked at Babe until he left the room. Once he was gone, you invited Babe to join you on the couch.

“Sorry about that, he’s just a pain when he think I’m not working.” 

“No problem.”

“So, do you have any wounds you actually want me to take a look at?” you asked.

“No. I’m fine.”

“Well, Babe, you don't look fine.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your hair doesn’t have its usual bright-chipperness. You aren’t smiling like you usually do. And you haven't made any jokes about my virginity.” Babe laughed, throwing his head back in a way that made your heart flutter.

“I showered, which I thought might brighten my hair, but if you think another will help we can go-” You rolled your eyes as Babe laughed aloud. “I”m sorry.”

“As long as you’re smiling, it’s okay.” Babe laid his arm around the back of the couch. 

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m alright. Missing home.”

“And your fiance?” he asked, looking up at you. You sighed.

“Sometimes. And sometimes no. There’s just so much leading up to our return that it’s more terrifying than staying here. Please, don’t think I’m being insensitive,” you said as Babe made a face at your comment, “I know the dangers here, and I wish every day that the war will end. I've just gotten used to these people, and being here, that I’m afraid of what I’ll see when I return home.”

Babe nodded somberly. “I know. I’m feeling the same way too. When I get home, there will be nobody who will understand.” You reached out and put a hand over his.

“There won’t be nobody. You do live in the same town as Bill and I.”

“Yeah, but the second you get home you’ll be making babies.”

“Don’t remind me,” you said, falling back on the couch. “As if it’s not scary enough going home, I have a lot to live up to.”

“What do you have to live up to?” Babe asked, watching you. 

“You know.”

“No, I don’t. Your fiance would be insane if he doesn’t go crazy when he’s with you. Like I’ve said before, Y/N, you are totally gorgeous.”

“You’re such a flirt,” you said with a smile. Babe blushed and held out his hand. You took it and he squeezed your hand.

“Everything will be fine. As soon as you get home, everything will go back to normal. But, if you are really that nervous, I could help you become more familiar with it.”

“Could you?” you hummed.

“If you’d like.”

“Are you sure you aren’t too tired?” Babe laughed and stood up, holding out his hand. You took it and he pulled you up.

“I can never be too tired for you.” You smiled and let him pull you closer. “The most important part is the build up. You want your partner to be just as excited as you are.”

“And that involves dancing?” you asked as he entwined his fingers with yours. His arm was on your back, keeping your chest close to his. There was no music, but Babe was feeling the rhythm nonetheless. 

“Sometimes.” He swayed your bodies back and forth making sure to keep his eyes on your face at all times. 

“Who taught you all of this? One of your past girlfriends?”

“You don’t believe I just knew this all from the start?”

“No,” you said with a smile. Babe spun you around, making you giggle softly.

“I never had a lot of girlfriends. In fact, no one really took a second look at me until I joined the Paratroopers.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re hot.” Babe cackled, throwing his head back again so much that you fell forward with him. 

“See, I told you you would be fine.” You pulled yourself back up into his chest, and your eyes locked at the same moment.

“So what happens next?” you asked. 

“Hopefully,” he said, coming to a stop, “You’ve created the right kind of mood that would invoke a physical reaction.”

“Like?”

“Like a kiss,” he said, moving again, dipping you softly as he spun you in a half circle. 

“And who initiates that?” Babe smirked and shook his head.

“You’d never think that the beautiful ones are the ones who don’t know what they’re doing.”

“Hey, if you want me to find someone else,” you offered, backing away from him. He didn’t let go of his grip on your hand and pull you back to his chest.

“No, I never said that.” You smiled and looked up at him. You had never realized how tall Babe was. He definitely wasn’t the tallest in the company, but standing this close, you saw that he was a good bit taller than you. He was much taller than all of the other men you had met from Philly, including your fiance.

“What?” he asked. You shook your head. You didn’t know why you had a million thoughts on his height or a million more on everything else about him.

“Just thinking.”

“About what?” he asked, his face growing more serious.” You looked him in the eye, wondering if he was feeling the same tension when you were together that you were. Of course, Babe always joked with you about how gorgeous you were and having sex, but you couldn’t fully tell if his feelings were genuine.

“Nothing.”

“Your fiance?” You looked up into his eyes and shook your head.

“No.”

“Why not?” he asked, “I thought we were doing this to-”

“We were- are. It’s just, you’re nothing like him.” Babe set his jaw, and you made up your mind right then and there. Babe wasn’t like your fiance. He wasn’t like anyone you had ever met before. He made you feel in a way you had never felt before. In fact, Babe was so much unlike your fiance and every other man you had met, that you weren’t thinking about anyone or anything else when you leaned in to kiss him. 

Babe was taken by surprise, but quickly recovered and found his balance by putting his hand on the back of your head. You smiled into the kiss, realizing that his lips were as soft as they looked. He deepened the kiss with a slight turn of his head and you started to feel more than butterflies in your stomach.

Feeling like you never had before, you pulled away for air. You stared at Babe and watched him open his mouth to say something. You shook your head, your eyes locked together.

You kissed him again and this time Babe was more sure of himself. You let his arms wrap around your waist as yours went on his cheek and neck. Babe said he never really had a girlfriend, but the way his tongue moved contradicted that.

He backed you up to the couch you had been sitting on before, and you fell onto it. You looked up at him and laughed. He stood wide-eyed and breathless. You said his name softly.

“Sorry,” he said, leaning over you again, planting a few kisses to your face.

“Babe.” 

“I’m sorry, I just never thought this would happen. Even in my wildest fantasies-”

“We don’t have to,” you said. Babe shook his head and sat down next to you. He took your hand in his. 

“No, believe me, I want to.” You blushed and gave his hand a squeeze. “I just- I’m worried.”

“About what?”

“I’m worried that if we do this, there will be no hiding my feelings for you.”

“I understand.” Babe bit his lip and searched your face for a good minute before speaking again.

“So, let’s just do it as a teaching lesson.” Your eyes brightened as his eyes landed on yours again. He leaned in closer, making sure his movement was more deliberate this time. He moved slowly as his lips connected with yours.

With his hand on your cheek, he was in control of your movement. You let him have it gladly. Even if you were more experienced, kissing Babe was an adventure you were happy for him to lead. Each move he made, each time he kissed you and re-kissed you was a surprise and sensation you weren’t expecting.

Your hands went to the collar of his jacket, hoping to show him that you weren’t completely helpless. You started to work the buttons on his thick coat, and Babe smiled through his kiss. Once his jacket was off, Babe pulled you into his lap and planted his hands on your hips.

His eyes trailed your body, moving from your face down. His hands rubbed your skin as he analyzed every detail of your body. You made a quip about him looking instead of doing and his lips met yours again. After a few kisses there, they traveled along your jaw and down your neck.

You breathed in pleasure, grinding your body into his lap. Babe smiled against your skin and sucked hard on your collarbone. You moaned and gripped his shoulder. Babe laughed and made his way back up your neck. He peppered kisses all along it, leaving a few hickies in his wake.

“Am I being informative?” Babe asked with a sweet smile when you pushed him away to catch your breath. You rolled your eyes and sat down in his lap. Before, you had just been straddling him. 

“Fairly so.” He gripped your hips and pulled you flush against his skin. When he did, you felt a pressure in his lap you hadn’t felt earlier.

“Are you enjoying this?” you asked, smirking slightly.

“Very much,” he said, keeping his hands on you, grinning up at you. “Are you?”

You cocked an eyebrow at him. Babe knew you were enjoying yourself. He had complete control over the situation, and you were determined to show him that he wasn’t the only one able to drive someone crazy. 

“Yes. In fact, I’d like to thank you for being so helpful.” You stood up and dropped down to your knees, watching Babe’s face turn the brightest shade of red you had ever seen. He scooted to the edge of the couch, keeping his eyes locked on yours as you unzipped his pants. 

As you had felt earlier, Babe was already pretty hard for you. You helped him out of his pants, and started massaging his dick. He watched you, a calmness seeming to wash over him. In the rhythmic motion your fiance had taught you a long time ago, you gave Babe the best hand job you had ever given.

When you told him that you and your fiance hadn’t been completely chaste, this is what you were referring you. You kissed along the edge, working your way up to his tip. Babe bucked his hips and you smiled before taking him in your mouth.

“Fuck, Y/N,” he groaned, gripping your hair. You couldn’t help but smile as you sucked his dick. You would never tell anyone this, but Babe was a few inches longer than your fiance.

You continued sucking and kissing and massaging his dick for the next few minutes before Babe pulled you off. He laid on the couch, running his hand through his hair and staring off at the wall for a few moments. You laughed and he looked up at you, smiling.

“You sure you’re a virgin?” You giggled and Babe stood up, kissing you again. “Let’s go downstairs.” You nodded and led him down there. You found a private room and kicked open the door. Before you could even reach the bed, Babe ripped off your dress and panties and threw them in a pile by the door.

He was backing you up to the bed, laying you down carefully. He kissed you a few more times, rubbing against your entrance. While he kissed you, his fingers traveled down your whole body and he started fingering you. At contact, you moaned and threw your arms over your head. 

He took his hand away and licked his fingertips. You let out another groan and grabbed his face with your hands, kissing him deeply. He started to push himself into you, but you shook your head.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, looking at you with concern.

“Absolutely nothing,” you said, kissing him again. “Just, you’re exhausted and this is probably the first time in a long time that you’ve got to relax, yeah?” Babe shrugged and you pushed him onto his back. 

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I want you to relax,” you said, throwing your leg over him again. You fit him inside you and moaned out softly. Babe quickly backed up to the headboard and smiled.

“You’re amazing.” You smirked and kissed him softly as you started rocking your hips. His hands gripped your waist, leaving small nail indents. After a few beats, Babe started pushing into you. You let him take the lead for a while, enjoying watching him move and his face as he trailed your body with his eyes. 

Everyone had always told you what having sex for the first time would be like, but you never imagined it like this. It was supposed to hurt, women had told you, but you only felt slight pain when you first took him in. One of your married friends said that it was always what the guy wanted, but Babe had spent most of the night pleasuring you. 

You took control of the situation again as the pleasure started to take hold of Babe. His hands gripped your waist even harder, and he started kissing your breast. It wasn’t too soon after that you started to feel yourself losing control, too. 

Over and over Babe thrust into you, a new round of pleasure flowing over your body. You threw your head back as he pushed hard five more times. Babe pushed you off quickly and came on the sheets beside you. You smiled as he laid you down on your back.

“Here comes your most important lesson,” he said, kissing your abdomen. You ran your hands through his hair as his mouth traveled downwards and he soon started licking your clit. You felt yourself tighten up as he continued to kiss and suck expertly against you. Your legs started to thrash and your hips bucked before you came, crying out softly.

It was still freezing outside, so not too soon afterward you wrapped up in the blankets. Babe was staring up at the ceiling, a smile still on his face. You looked back at him, your face on the warm sheets.

“What?” he asked, looking down at you. You shrugged.

“Thank you.” Babe rolled his eyes and scoffed lightheartedly. 

“You don’t have to thank me for this.” You scooted up and wrapped yourself around the pillow. Babe looked over at you and turned so you were facing each other.

“I’d like to thank you anyways.” Babe blew air out of his nose and looked down. “By the way, if you couldn’t tell, you are amazing.” Even after everything that just happened, Babe still had the decency to blush.

“You flatter me. Don’t put yourself to shame though, Y/N. You were wonderful. You’re going to drive your fiance crazy when you get home.” You sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“Please, don’t apologize. I brought you both into my mess.” Babe brushed your hair behind your ear, making you turn to look at him. “Can I tell you the truth?”

“Yeah.”

“We did this because I was nervous about doing it with Anthony for the first time, but I didn’t think about him once during.” Babe didn’t say anything, but swallowed. That was the first time you had ever used your fiance’s name around any of the men. “Should I have?”

“I don’t know.”

“I always thought the man I’d lose my virginity to would be my husband, but . . .”

“Just because things didn’t play out the way you expected them to doesn’t mean that you still won’t get the happy ending you desired.”

“Do you still believe in happy endings?”

“I have to to get through all of this. We have to go on a patrol tonight, and if I don’t believe in happy endings, I’ll never get through tonight. If I don’t believe that I’ll get home in one piece, then I never will.”

“You have a patrol tonight?” As he nodded, you leaned forward and kissed him deeply.

“What was that for?”

“I don’t know. Maybe something to look forward to when you get back.”

“Yeah?” he asked with a lazy smile.

“Yeah.” 

“Thank you,” he said after he got out of bed and got dressed.

“What for?”

“For still being my friend after Bill left.”

“Well, Babe,” you said, lying on your stomach, “I may have met you because of Bill, but that’s not why I became your friend.”

“I’ll see you later.”

“Good luck.”

Babe came back from the patrol without a scrape, but the mission had put an emotional strain on him. When he came back to your house, you saw the look on his face and the actions of last night happened all over again.

This time, Babe was on top, always in control of the situation. He was frustrated, and you could feel it in everything he did. However, he was never anything but gentle with you.

“Will you tell him about me?” he asked, afterward. You looked at him, taken aback by what he was saying.

“I think so. One day.” Babe set his jaw and nodded. “I have to tell you something.” He didn’t say anything and didn’t look at you. “Anthony is getting shipped back. He took the better part of a grenade, and he’ll be fine, but he wants me to be there when he gets home.”

“That’s great, Y/N,” he said, getting out of bed.

“Babe,” you said, following him towards the door. He only had his pants on, if he walked outside his bare chest would be exposed to the cold. “Please don’t end this like this.”

“I’m not ending it.”

“I don’t even know if I can leave, nonetheless if I want to.”

“Wait, why wouldn’t you want to?” he asked, shaking his head.

“Because of you,” you said, shoving him softly. Since Babe got back from the patrol, he wasn’t acting like himself. He was reserved and angry. “I didn’t sleep with you because-” you stopped yourself and groaned, walking away from him. You started to gather up his things, not wanting to talk anymore.

“You didn’t sleep with me because what?” he asked, coming deeper into the bedroom.

“I didn’t sleep with you just because you wore me down. Since I got here I have had boys in my face, flirting with me, doing more than just asking. You told me that you were worried you couldn’t hide your feelings. It’s very clear that you don’t want to be around me right now, and that’s fine, but please don’t push me away because you can’t hide your feelings. You aren’t the only one.”

Babe looked into your eyes, his eyebrows scrunching. He shook his head and you laughed cynically, closing your eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” you said. “About all of it.” You were beginning to cry now. “I’m sorry I flirted with you constantly, I’m sorry I always threw my fiance in your face, I’m sorry I slept with you.”

“Y/N,” Babe said, shushing you, cupping your cheeks. “Why are you sorry?”

“Because I was selfish. I saw that you liked me, and I used that. I hurt you, and I hurt myself, and I’m sure I’ll hurt more. I love you,” you said, breaking down and falling into his chest. You sobbed, not really for him, or even your fiance. You cried for you because you knew what had to happen.

Babe held you to his chest, brushing your hair. He didn’t speak, and he didn’t try to stop your crying. He just held you because he knew what was coming as well.

“Y/N,” he said, pushing you back a little, “Don’t apologize to me. You didn’t use me. I knew what I was getting into.”

“I have to go home.”

“I know.” You shook your head and Babe dropped his hands from your arms. “Look me up in Philly.” You smiled a little and wiped at your eyes. 

“Get home safely,” you said. He picked his things back up, and started to leave. He reached for the door once more, and you stopped him once more. You grabbed his cheeks and kissed him with everything you had. 

“I lo-” You shook your head and opened the door for him.

“If you don’t say it, I won’t have to hear it.”

“Goodbye, Y/N.”

Life back in the States was already back to normal. Many veterans were returning home, eager to get their lives back on track. That included Anthony. 

The grenade that hit him shattered his shoulder and cut up his entire back. His arm was in a sling when he got home, but he still hugged you tightly. It was good to be back in his arms, you told yourself. They were strong and his muscles were defined. They were comforting, but they weren’t soft. Not like . . .

Once he got home, he wanted your wedding to happen right away. For the next months, as everyone around you planned, you watched the paper. Each day, a new soldier was coming home. Bill came home and was transferred to a hospital nearby. You had visited him only once. 

One day, after checking the paper, you vowed to never do so again. Maybe he would never come home, but if he did, you didn’t need to think about him. You were marrying Anthony and that was all that mattered.

Months later, it was June and sunny and you were getting married. You stood in front of the mirror, the stereotypical bride, admiring your dress. The women around you complimented you, but it all passed through you. 

There were certain silly things you were focusing on. One of your bridesmaids had a cold, and her nose was bright red. Another one was talking about how excited she was to dance, she could always feel the rhythm in any dance. Your mother raved about how Anthony would look when he saw you, breaking into a heartbreaking grin. 

You only nodded slightly at what your mother said. She soon led you out into the hall and to your father’s arm. He told you how proud he was of you. He had never said that when you came home.

The music started up and you saw Anthony. He stood at the end of the aisle, watching you with a serious look in his eyes. He cleared his throat, but other than that, he made no bright exclamation. Your father drew up your veil and you smiled at Anthony. He smiled back and took your hand. 

Maybe if you had been a different religion, you would have gone through with the ceremony. However, Catholic ceremonies were long and boring, and while the priest dragged on, you couldn’t help but let your mind run back to Hagenau. 

“Y/N?”

“What?” you asked, focusing your eyes back on Anthony.

“Do you take this man?” the priest asked again in a hushed tone. There was an uncomfortable mumbling passing over the cathedral. You searched Anthony’s eyes and he shook his head in confusion. 

“Y/N?”

“I need to talk to you,” you whispered. He laughed softly and looked around, slightly confused. “Please.”

“Alright,” he said, taking your hand. He walked you back up the aisle, not listening to the calls from both of your mothers. He led you out into one of the spare rooms in the cathedral and sat down on the couch. “What is it?”

“There’s something I never told you about the war.”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought I could forget about it and move on, but- I met someone. The company that I was around a lot. I got to know the men pretty well and I fell for one of them.”

“What do you mean you ‘fell’ for one of them?“

“I cheated on you. I fell in love with another man.” Anthony rubbed his thighs, trying to keep his cool.

“Did you kiss him?” You nodded and dropped your head into your hands. “What?”

“I didn’t just kiss him.” Anthony stood up and grunted something to himself as he turned away from you.

“Even after all the times I tried to get you to, after I proposed and everything? You wouldn’t until we were married, and then some prick manipulates you-”

“No, Anthony, he didn’t manipulate me,” you said, walking towards him. “It was my decision. It was what I wanted.” He rolled his eyes and looked up to the heavens for answers. It was a while until he spoke again.

“Why now? Why not tell me when I got home? Why not keep it secret forever? Do you still want to be together?” You felt the tears fill in your eyes and dropped down on the couch. “Baby?” he asked, crouching down in front of you.

“I’m sorry.” He sighed and used your knees as a way to stand.

“Yeah, me too.” 

“I do love you.”

“I love you, too, Y/N.” He kissed your forehead and walked towards the door, having to do the difficult job of telling everyone who came out for the event. You gathered yourself and sneaked back to the dressing room. You took your mothers keys and quickly escaped from the uproar that was about to happen.

A month later, your mother had all but threatened to kick you out. She had been staying in a hotel, ready to head back down south once the wedding was over. Each day she tried to get you to change your mind and each night your father tried to talk you back to your ‘senses.’

One afternoon, after they tried to gang up on you and bully you back to Anthony, you decided to head out to a bar. You ordered yourself a beer and sat at the bar alone. A group of men were watching the sports game on the tv in the corner, and you turned your head at one of the voices.

“Bill?” The bar was relatively empty, and those that were in there were silent as they watched the game. Because of this, Bill turned his head at the sound of his name. 

“Y/N?!” You smiled as he came to you on his crutches. He took a seat and you hugged him tightly. “What’s a gal like you doing here?”

“Hiding,” you said, ordering a beer for Bill. He nodded like he knew what you were talking about. “You heard then?”

“Word travels fast,” he said with a nod. “So you left him after everything you've both been through?” You nodded and took a swig. “Can I ask why?”

“After you left, Bill, I fell for someone else. I cheated on Anthony, and I thought I could forget about him, but I couldn’t. When I was in the cathedral, I saw him everywhere. When I walked down the aisle, I kept picturing another man in Anthony’s place.”

“Shit. No man wants to hear that.”

“He took it surprisingly well to tell you the truth. Maybe he met someone, too,” you said with a shrug.

“Well, he’ll never find one like you.”

“Hopefully he’ll find better.” Bill scoffed and put his hand on your arm.

“Don’t beat yourself up. No one talks about it anymore. You made the right call. You told him the truth and did what was best for you both.”

“Mind telling my parents that?” Bill laughed.

“Still haven’t forgiven you yet?”

“I don’t think they ever will, to tell you the truth.”

“I’m sure that’s not true. And if they’re giving you such a hard time, why don’t you just go back to that guy you met?” You looked over at him with a confused smile.

“You really don’t know?”

“Jesus, know what?”

“Know who I’m talking about.” Bill shook his head and you laughed. “Maybe he isn’t back.”

“Who?” You let out a breath.

“Babe, Bill. I fell in love with the idiot replacement you had to take under your wing.” His features changed from surprised to angry to joyous and back to surprised.

“He never said anything to me.” You smiled. “Although, he did seem like he was holding something back when he got home. He wasn’t the same but no one is. Why don’t you go to him?”

“I’m afraid I screwed that up.”

“Y/N, come on, I’m sure-”

“No, I did. I told him we had to move on, and I hope he did.” You put money on the bar and smiled at Bill. “I’ll call you.” He raised his glass to you and watched as you walked out of the bar.

Bill called you up three days later and asked if you wanted to meet him for dinner. He even promised that he would pick you up and you could tell your parents it was a date, in the hopes of getting them off your back. You agreed, of course.

You walked down the street together, reminiscing with Bill about the good ol’ days when you first met.. He told you about a woman he was talking to. And just as you got to the bar he asked you how you were doing.

“I’m fine.” Bill beamed as he opened the door and you looked at him in confusion. “What?”

“Y/N?” Inside the bar, someone said your name. Again, it was the accent in the voice that got your attention. Babe sat at the bar, looking back at you with a smile.

“Bill,” you called, waiting for him to come up behind you. He was grinning proudly. “What the hell?” you asked, turning to face him. 

“Just talk to him.”

“You tricked me.”

“Because you wouldn't have come if I told you why I was bringing you here.” He pushed you forward so you were closer to Babe. He looked like he did at the beginning of the war, allbeit more grown up and serious.

“I’m sorry Bill dragged you into this,” you said. 

“Ah, don’t worry about it.” He smiled at you and you felt the familiar butterflies. “Can I get you a drink?”

“God, yes.” You took a seat by him and when the beer came sliding your way you took a long swig of it. 

“How’ve you been, Y/N?” Babe asked, biting his lip. You looked at him knowingly and shrugged.

“How are you?”

“Good.”

“When did you get home?”

“A few months ago.” You looked at him and he smiled sympathetically. “I heard.”

“Who didn’t?” He looked down at his glass, sighing. “I told him.”

“Good,” Babe said, nodding his head. You settled into an uncomfortable silence, each staring at their glass.

“Hey, Babe, Y/N!” You both turned and saw Bill standing across the bar, right next to the dartboard. You shook your head but stood, Babe following close behind.

“You’re relentless,” you said once you reached Bill. He handed you the darts with a smirk.

“You still as good as you were?” he asked, making his way back towards the bar. Babe tried to say something to him, but he shook his head.

“You guys play.” You rolled your eyes and took aim, hitting all your marks.

“Not bad,” Babe said, walking up to grab the darts. You smiled and tried to hide it behind your mug.

“Think you can do better?” you asked with a smirk. Babe cocked his head and straightened himself next to you.

“I think I might.” You waved your hand and watched him aim, hitting his marks as well.

“Not bad.” 

“Wanna bet?” Babe asked once you brought the darts back.

“Sure I won’t corrupt you?” Babe laughed and scrunched up his nose.

“Nah, I’m sure I’ll be fine. What else can you do?” You frowned a little and he took the darts from you, holding your hands for a moment too long. “Call it.”

“Seven.”

“What’s the bet?”

“How about another drink?” Babe nodded and hit his mark. You put your hands up and shrugged, making Babe laugh. He gave you the darts back and you looked at him. “Call it.”

“Nine.” He paused and you looked back at him.

“What’s the bet?”

“Miss and you’ll go on a date with me.” You had turned back to the dart board, ready to aim, but stopped. He was smiling shyly. 

“Fine.” You threw the dart and it landed right outside the bull’s eye, on fifteen. When you faced him again, you saw Bill smiling at you in the background.

“Well, Y/N,” Babe said, walking towards you, “Looks like you owe me a date.”

“Looks like I do,” you said, looking up at him. He smiled and you shook your head.

“What?”

“I can’t believe you don’t hate me.”

“I don’t hate you, Y/N. I never did and I don’t think I ever will.”

“I left you.”

“Well, you’re back now,” he said, tucking your hair behind your ears. “So, I’m gonna tell you what I should have told you when you walked in. I asked Bill to bring you here.”

“You did?”

“Yes, because there’s something I need to tell you. I should have told you back in Hagenau.” You raised an eyebrow as he leaned in closer so that your noses were practically touching. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” you said, letting him close the gap between you in a bone crushing hug as he kissed you more passionately than he had any other time before.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

BUT AS I THOUGHT MORE ABOUT THIS PROJECT, I CAN WORK IN NOISY PLACES

Here's the thing: If you ever got me, you wouldn't have a clue what to do using programs we would recognize as such. Investors like it when you don't need them. So, since I'm optimistic, I'm going to try to get upwind of their opponents. It will work not just as a landmark in the history of computers, but as a model for what programming is tending to become in our own time. Then I looked at his face and realized he didn't understand.1 Thanks to OS X, Apple has come back from the dead in a way that would seem to be so limited by whatever language we think in that easier formulations of programs seem very surprising. It's also the best route to that holy grail, reusability. Part of the reason I say this is optimism: it seems that it should be distributed equally. Brand is the residue left as the substantive differences between rich and poor?

As a todo list protocol, the new protocol should give more power to the recipient than email does. Another thing ramen profitability doesn't imply is Joe Kraus's idea that you should put your business model in beta when you put your product in beta. The reason to ask this question isn't just so that our ghosts can say, in a modern democracy, variation in income is actually a sign of sanity. I wasn't paying attention, I didn't notice when the shadow disappeared. But although for most startups raising money will become, if not easy, at least some of the qualities of an angel, only to receive a 70-page agreement from his lawyer. The super-angels are in most respects mini VC funds, they've retained this critical property of angels. It's still not feasible for a lot of them were crap, but I don't think we'll ever reach the point where everything could be done in this area. How much is that extra attention worth? Beeton's Book of Household Management 1880, it may be found necessary, in some cases, for a mistress to relinquish, on assuming the responsibility of a household, many of the things that get discovered this way incidentalomas, and they did it. Which is precisely why we hear ever more about it.

Jobs. But how does it work? The trouble with lying is that you have so many choices. Some of the less imaginative ones, who had artifacts of early languages built into their ideas of what a program was, might have had trouble. A 747 pilot doesn't make 40 times as much as the average person. England, the Industrial Revolution did is their social disruptiveness. Here's the thing: If you ever got me, you wouldn't have gotten as a product company, because only that scales. The secret to finding other press hits from a given pitch is to realize that they all started from the same document back at the PR firm. If you're really committed and your startup is cheap to run, you become very hard to kill.2

It's like telling the truth, but why he's writing about this subject at all. The most dangerous thing for the frontpage is stuff that's too easy to upvote. Now that the term ramen profitable has become widespread, I ought to explain precisely what the idea entails. Especially in proportion to the amount they invest. Is there no configuration of the bits in memory of a present day computer that is this compiler? There continued to be bribes, as there still are everywhere, but politics had by then been left to men who were driven more by vanity than greed. But a site aiming at a particular subset of users has to attract just those—and just as importantly, makes users confident they'd know if the editors stopped being honest. In fact, wealth is not money. You don't need to raise. Maybe as startups get cheaper it will become increasingly important.3 This isn't just something that happens with programming languages.

The most dynamic part of the economy will balloon in the usual fractal way. Unless of course they are sufficiently advanced that they already communicate in XML. I wouldn't want it to grow as large as Digg or Reddit—mainly because that would dilute the character of the site, but also because it will be dark most of the techniques I've described are conservative: they're aimed at preserving the character of the site rather than enhancing it.4 I think this principle would also apply to sites with different origins. Maybe because the suit was also back in February, September 2004, June 2004, March 2004, September 2003, November 2002, April 2002, and February 2002. Except not quite: whatever would be least work if your ideas about programming weren't already influenced by the languages you're currently used to. The term angel round doesn't mean that all the investors in it are angels; it just describes the structure of the round can even change on the fly.

But by gaining control of the company. Here I want to take a break from working, I walk into the square, just as they will ignore advantages to be got from parallel computation, because that's where this idea seems to live. For example, people who apply to Y Combinator don't generally have much money, and yet still fail. What programmers in a hundred years, it seems safe to predict they will be much faster than they are now. Another advantage of being good is that it can easily kill you. Why don't more people use it? They're usually individuals, like angels. If the posts on a site are characteristically of this type are only a few things we can say with certainty about Jaynes is that he was one of the best in the business.5 This happens in software too. It's especially useful for language designers to think about where the evolution of programming languages is likely to lead, because they can steer accordingly. Whatever the cause, stupid comments tend to be famous on that account should set off alarm bells.

Writing software as multiple layers is a powerful technique even within applications. They'll each become more like super-angels are looking for companies that will get bought. One way to guess how far an idea extends is to ask yourself at what point you'd bet against it. If you suppress variations in income are somehow bad for society. As with the original industrial revolution, some societies are going to get: either part of a study. A couple hundred thousand would let them. Not quite.6 He showed how, given a handful of countries past that stage when the Industrial Revolution that wealth creation definitively replaced corruption as the best way to force them to act is, of course people want the wrong things. You grow big by being nice, but you had no choice in the matter, if you needed money on the scale only VCs could supply. One way to answer this question is to look back. They won't be replaced wholesale.

And they make a lot more interested. I'm not saying I used to believe what I read in Time and Newsweek. But it's gone now. Consulting, as I mentioned, a pretty bad judge of startups. Internet, and you're fixing the problem. Feel free to make it, or by the number of undergrads who believe they have to learn it to get a multiple of 10 6—one million x. That's going to change the rules about how to raise money. When we predict good outcomes for startups, because it may turn out to be a company. It's bad behavior you want to sell early. Though I don't think that's a bias of mine. Or the would-be successors both directly, as Roger Bannister did, by lodging the idea in users' minds that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

Notes

It's worth taking extreme measures to avoid using it out of loyalty to the way and run the programs on the client?

This is not limited to startups.

We thought software was all that matters, just as you get an intro to a later investor trying to sell things to them? Joshua Schachter tells me it was actually a computer. At three months we made comparatively little from it, because the kind of people starting normal companies too. In 1800 an empty plastic drink bottle with a walrus mustache and a back-office manager written mostly in less nerdy fields like finance and media.

Digg is derived from Delicious/popular is driven mostly by people trying to dispute their decision or just outright dismisses it and make a brief entry listing the gaps and anomalies you'd noticed that day. Investors are fine with funding nerds. I called to check and in a rice cooker. Unfortunately, not bogus.

Y Combinator.

You know in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Oxford University Press, 1981.

Thanks to Ben Horowitz, Trevor Blackwell, Robert Morris, Paul Buchheit, Aaron Iba, Jessica Livingston, Chad Fowler, and Steven Levy for their feedback on these thoughts.