Chapter Text
The morning of Loren’s visit, Davijaan was possibly probably sort of terrified.
He hadn’t had a chance to really freak out when she’d met Cody, because it all happened so fast. Somehow it had worked out, because Loren was friendly by nature and Cody was polite by default. But Wolffe and Fox were not Cody. Wolffe could be polite when he wanted to be, but he didn’t often want to be, and Fox had never made the effort in all the years Davijaan had known him.
This was going to be a disaster.
“Will you have some faith in us?” Wolffe grumbled as he dragged Davijaan from where he was pacing in the kitchen to the couch and forced him to sit down and breathe. “We know how to make nice with civilians.”
“But she’s not a regular civilian!” he snapped. “She’s— She’s different. And if you make her uncomfortable or upset or—”
“Alright, fine, don’t have faith in us! Have faith in her! If she’s really as stubborn and understanding as you said I don’t think she’s going to run screaming if we tease her a bit.”
“Do not—”
“I’m not planning to! I’m just saying—”
“Something’s burning,” Fox said mildly from his seat at the table.
“Cody!” Davijaan shot to his feet. “Cody, get up here! Your thing is burning!”
“So get it out of the oven,” echoed from the stairwell.
“You put it in, you get it out!”
“I’m busy!”
“Busy with what!? What’s more important than—”
“Can’t you just—”
“Oh for the love of—” Wolffe marched over and shut the oven off with a snarl. “There. Heat’s off. Now how do I get it out?”
Davijaan sank back down onto the couch and half listened as Cody rattled off more directions from the stairs, accompanied by some clattering noises that implied he was in fact actually busy, and tried not to think.
Whatever his brothers did, however Loren reacted— it was out of his hands. It would either be a disaster, or it wouldn’t. The only thing he could do at this point was brace himself.
***
Loren arrived almost exactly on time, and Wolffe stationed himself at the window to watch her walk up the steps.
“Huh. She’s really pretty,” he said, face smushed against the gap in the shutters. “Why didn’t you tell us she was pretty?”
“Was that relevant?”
“I would have liked to have been informed, yes.”
Davijaan yanked him away by the collar as Loren knocked, but Wolffe started smacking at him and he was forced to strike back, and then properly defend himself as Wolffe tried to put him in a chokehold. The sound of someone muffling a giggle broke through the haze of brotherly love and he looked up to realize Fox of all people had opened the door and Loren was standing next to the desk with one hand over her mouth, eyes glowing and cheeks flushed.
And then he lost concentration enough for Wolffe to succeed in putting him in a chokehold, and had to stand there and suffocate while Fox took her coat like she was some fancy senator and Wolffe hollered— “Hello, ma’am! Sorry you had to see this, but my idiot brother forgot to tell us how beautiful you are and that was a mistake that deserved retribution!”
Loren tipped her head back and laughed.
“You show him, Wolffe!” rang out from the stairwell, and Davijaan wondered if dying was really all that terrible.
When she calmed down, Loren asked, “Would you please let my friend go?” sweet and smiling. Wolffe stiffened momentarily and then released him. Davijaan stumbled away, trying not to wheeze audibly.
She turned her smile on him, and it softened. “Hi, Odd Ball.”
“Hello.” He was still on edge, but he found himself relaxing enough to smile in return, small and maybe a bit hesitant. “Um. This is Wolffe—” he elbowed the asshole sharply in the side “— and that’s 1010.”
“Hello Wolffe, and 1010. It’s lovely to meet you both! I’m Loren.”
Fox offered her a nod, but Wolffe stepped forward and took her hand and shook it. “Pleasure’s all mine, Miss Yang. Odd Ball told us all about you and your family. Any friend of his is a friend of mine.”
“I’m just glad to know he has other friends. And please, call me Loren.”
Wolffe’s eyebrow went up and then down in quick succession, but before he could say anything Cody came thumping up the stairs, pushing his overgrown hair back and getting grease all over his forehead in the process. He wiped the rest of the mess off on his shirt and grinned at Loren, relaxed and happy and hopefully momentarily sane enough to balance out whatever was wrong with Wolffe.
“You’re here! I made you something.”
“And I brought you something!” She dug around in her bag and pulled out a small red container. “Or, well. Pa sent me over with something.”
Cody led Loren into the kitchen to inspect whatever it was he’d made— some kind of sweetbread, it was always bread with Cody— and Davijaan and Wolffe and Fox followed a few feet behind.
Wolffe elbowed Davijaan in the side. “Well, what do you know,” he muttered. “She hasn’t run screaming yet.”
The amount of self control Davijaan exerted to keep from full-body tackling Wolffe to the floor would have made ‘17 proud.
Cody carefully dumped the steaming loaf of bread out of the pan and onto the counter as Loren opened her container of fruit spread and dug around in the conservator for the butter. Davijaan slid up to his brother and tugged at his dusty shirt. “What the hell were you doing?” he whispered.
Cody kept his gaze on the bread as he sliced it. “Cleaning my armor.”
“Why. Were you cleaning your armor.”
“I don't know! I had the energy to do it, so I did it! Don't ask me why I do things, I don't know anymore.”
Davijaan glared into the middle distance. “I hate this.”
“Yes, well. So do I.”
Cody placed the coveted end slice into Davijaan’s bare hands, and Loren sighed and pulled a stack of plates out of the cupboard. Wordlessly, she took his bread and buttered it and gave it back to him on a plate, and then collected her own slice and steered him over to the couch.
“They’re terrible brothers,” Davijaan grumbled, slumping into the cushions with his plate balanced on his lap. “The absolute worst.”
Loren patted his arm sympathetically and took a bite of her fruit spread smothered bread.
Wolffe was still at the table, doggedly picking all the nuts out of his slice while Cody complained that if he didn’t like nuts he should have said something before they were added to the batter, but Fox dragged a chair over and settled across from the couch. He ate steadily, pretending he wasn’t paying any attention to the rest of them at all. But Davijaan could see his gaze flicking around the room, and it always landed on Loren.
Fox hadn’t tried to talk to him yet. He spoke to Davijaan when they were all in a group, and asked him to pass something or scoot over or explain how the fresher controls worked. It was starting to make him nervous.
Loren swallowed her bite and said, thoughtful, “You know, sometimes you just have to take the bad with the good.”
“What good? There is no good, it’s all bad, and I can’t believe I have to put up with—”
“So, Loren,” Fox interrupted, not quite loud enough to cut off the bickering from the kitchen. “What do you get out of this, exactly?”
She froze, slice of bread hovering in the air in front of her mouth. Davijaan stiffened and took in a sharp breath, but she squeezed his arm in warning— and he knew this was going to happen, Fox had been so quiet, he knew he was just waiting for an opportunity to be a bastard— but he sat back and watched as she set the bread down and straightened up and smiled, eyes flashing. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” Fox looked utterly at ease, almost bored, sitting in the hard wooden chair like it was a throne. “What do you get out of this?”
“I heard you, but I’m afraid I don’t understand. Get out of what?”
“This.” He waved vaguely at the two of them, sitting pressed against each other on the couch. “Your friendship, or whatever. I have a pretty good idea what he gets out of it, but what’s in it for you?”
“Usually what one gets out of a friendship is friendship,” she said, prim, “and Odd Ball has been a very good friend to me.”
“He works for your parents.”
Her smile thinned. “I didn’t get him his job, if that’s what you’re worried about. He was all but hired before my parents found out I knew him.”
“Uhuh.”
“Technically, I don’t work for my parents. I help out so I have something to do while I look for a new job in my own field. I have no influence over how their business is run.”
The kitchen was silent. Davijaan looked over to find Wolffe and Cody watching the proceedings, tense, but not poised to jump in and break it up. He met Wolffe’s eyes and silently begged for help.
Fox always fought dirty. With words and with fists. He was brutal and ruthless and never pulled his punches. Almost never. If this got out of hand…
Wolffe slowly shook his head. Davijaan grit his teeth and focused back on Fox and Loren, both sizing each other up and neither willing to back down.
“And what field is that?”
“Journalism. I’m a reporter.”
“Really?” Fox raised an eyebrow, words dripping disdain. “Surely there’s nothing newsworthy happening in this part of the galaxy.”
“You’d be surprised. I worked for CorNN during the war, and the slower pace of local planetary news is actually quite nice.”
“CorNN?” He stilled; eyes narrowed. “You're L. M. Yang.”
“I am.” Loren tilted her head, considering. “I take it, you know of me?”
“I know you weren't being paid off by a senator, which is more than I can say for most of your editing team.”
Her polite smile froze. “You know,” she said through gritted teeth. “I wish I could say I was surprised.”
“I also know you bothered a few of my— a few CG troopers about interviews or some shit.”
At that her failing smile vanished completely, and her brow creased with concern. “You were stationed on Coruscant?”
Fox’s face was smooth and blank as stone. “I was.”
She folded her hands in her lap, defensiveness replaced with contrition. “If you were someone I asked for an interview, I apologize. I wasn’t fully aware of the risk to either you or myself at the time.”
He leaned back in his chair, face still closed off but body language openly skeptical.
“She’s alright, vod,” said Kote from the kitchen, soft but with the edge of an order. Fox didn’t relax, but his expression shifted from blank to mildly annoyed. Davijaan tried not to breathe an audible sigh of relief.
“Hmph. Well. If Cody vouches for you, I guess.”
Davijaan crossed his arms over his chest. “I vouch for her.”
“Your opinion doesn't mean shit.”
“Stars, can you two not!” Wolffe threw himself down on the couch next to Davijaan, overturning his delicately balanced plate. “I swear, every time you’re in a room together. Every time.”
“My ma taught me if I can’t find anything nice to say, I shouldn’t say anything at all,” Loren added, looking pointedly at Fox.
“Her Ma’s scary,” said Davijaan, busy picking crumbs off his pants. “I would listen if I were you.”
Loren gasped. “My ma is a sweet lady!”
“You say that because you don't work for her.”
“She has been nothing but kind—”
“She's intimidating! She's an excellent pilot, and—”
“So are you! That’s the silliest excuse to be intimidated I've ever heard!”
He felt his face flush, and rolled his eyes. Shoved a bite of half-crumbled bread in his mouth so he wouldn’t have to respond. When he looked away from Loren he found Wolffe studying him intently. Fox looked increasingly disturbed.
“What?” Davijaan asked.
Wolffe cleared his throat. “You two go flying a lot? What’s your ship model? How’s it handle?”
“That’s right!” Loren leaned forward to peer around him. “Odd Ball said you were a pilot too.”
“Owner and captain of The Pack, my pride and joy! She’s a freighter, Brayl-class, bought her used a few months ago.”
“Glimmer ’s a G9 Rigger,” he said, swallowing his bite. “Perfect for the mountains.”
Wolffe snorted. “Isn’t that the same kind of monstrosity Skywalker had?”
“Oh, yes. But she’s been babied by her mechanic, she’s never been in as bad a shape as that poor hunk of metal.”
Cody dragged a chair over and settled next to Fox, and they talked quietly and ate their bread while Davijaan and Wolffe and Loren discussed ships and ship maintenance and the perils of flying over the mountains, and it was the happiest Davijaan remembered being since the end of the war.
***
When Loren finally gathered her coat and bag to leave, saying she was expected for dinner at home, Davijaan walked her out to her speeder amid a chorus of goodbyes from inside. She gave him a quick hug that he returned the best he could, and then he watched as she disappeared around the corner.
When he made his way back up to the porch Fox was leaning against the railing, blocking his way to the door, looking at him with utter disgust. “A reporter? Really?”
He forced himself to take a deep breath and release the tension from his body. He’d gotten into many a fight with Fox and it had never ended well for either of them, and on the stairs in the snow was just asking for a broken neck. “What's so bad about reporters?”
“Spoken like a clone who’s only met one.” Fox grimaced. “At least she was smart enough to get off Coruscant when she could.”
“She's tough. She would have been fine.”
“She's an idealist. She would have been corrupted or killed in another year.”
Davijaan snarled and shouldered roughly past him to the door. “Stop with the paranoid banthashit. Not all civilians are out to kill each other. Or you.”
“It wouldn't have been direct. But.” Davijaan’s hand stilled on the door controls. “Why do you think a relatively inexperienced reporter was sent right into the heart of a volatile political situation like Umbara?”
Davijaan went cold, his persistent unease over why her family hadn’t been alerted when she was captured or rescued sinking low in his stomach.
He opened the door and stalked inside without another word.
***
When he made his way into the kitchen for another slice of bread, Wolffe slid up beside him and nudged his shoulder and grinned and said, “She didn’t even scream a little bit!”
Davijaan gave in to his destructive impulses and bowled him over with prejudice.
***
Having extra time off work was nice in theory, but Davijaan wasn’t used to having nothing to do. Even his regularly-scheduled off days could be hard to get through unless he planned something in advance.
Having brothers visiting didn’t make much of a difference, because none of them were used to having hours and hours of unstructured time to spend together. Leave was different; leave was mostly about exploring Coruscant. There was plenty to explore in the mountains, but Davijaan hadn’t missed hiking in the cold and he wasn’t eager to introduce the concept to Wolffe. Instead, the day after Loren’s visit, he took Wolffe up to see Glimmer.
It was the Yang family’s collective off day, so the hangar was all closed down, but they stood at the small window and took turns peering inside— Wolffe exclaiming about how well kept she was for such an old model and Davijaan listing off the specs and recounting some of the more interesting incidents he’d gotten into with her. Storms over the mountains were no joke, even if they weren’t the most difficult conditions he’d flown through.
Eventually standing in the snow talking about ships got boring, and they made their way back to the house. It was close to midday, and meals had quickly become an activity that could be dragged out to fill time rather than a simple necessity. Davijaan hoped Cody hadn’t gotten anything started yet.
He pounded up the stairs and flung the door open, and froze.
Fox was laying on the couch, eyes closed, head resting in Cody’s lap while Cody read and absently stroked his hair. At the sound of the door he glanced up from his datapad and blinked. Davijaan opened his mouth— probably to scream in horror— and Wolffe promptly slapped a hand over it and dragged him right back out the door.
“Leave them be,” he hissed, tossing Davijaan against the railing and shutting the door softly. “He can’t sleep anymore unless someone else is keeping watch. If you wake him up, I’ll gut you.”
“I wasn’t trying to! I just wasn’t expecting—”
“Whatever.” Wolffe stalked down the stairs and towards the speeder shed. “You said you and Loren eat in town sometimes. Where are we headed?”
And Davijaan reminded himself that he liked spending time with Wolffe, and that Cody and Fox had been friends just as long as he and Wolffe had, and that restaurant food was actually really nice and eating out was an excellent time filler, and followed.
***
“I can read that for you, if you want.”
Wolffe scowled, but handed over the menu without a word.
Wolffe was just exactly as literate as all the clones. He wouldn’t be alive right now if he wasn’t. But he was weirdly picky when it came to fonts. He hated to read anything handwritten, or where the letters had flourishes. It wasn’t that he couldn’t, he just squinted and complained the whole time until someone gave in and offered to read it for him. Davijaan would have said it was a wiring issue in his eye, but even on Kamino he’d had trouble with the scraps of handwriting they’d come across.
He laid the menu out flat on the table and read the name of each dish out loud, pausing to point out what picture went with what. He hadn’t tried many of them, but he did suggest Wolffe steer clear of the purple soup.
After they placed their orders— Wolffe some kind of fried vegetables and Davijaan the fish dumplings he usually got— Wolffe leaned back and folded his hands on the table and met Davijaan’s eyes with a casual air.
“So. Why didn’t you tell me about Loren?”
He shrugged. “Didn’t seem… necessary.”
Wolffe’s eye twitched. “You mean to say, the lady you spent a week locked up in a cell with and then wouldn’t shut up about when you were rescued just happened to live in the village you moved to, and you got a job at her family’s business, and spent enough time around her to consider her a friend, and you didn’t think that was significant enough to tell me?”
Davijaan took a long sip of his water. “Maybe I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d be weird about it.”
“You’re the one who's being weird about it! You have a bad habit of not telling people shit they need to know and then getting all worked up when they call you out for it, and honestly it’s starting to piss me off.”
“I do tell people shit they need to know! What I don't do is tell everyone everything about my life.”
“And you don’t think I need to know about at least some of what’s happening in your life?”
“I think that my relationship with Loren isn’t going to affect my relationship with you in any way whatsoever, and therefore it’s none of your business.”
Wolffe leaned back in his seat with his arms crossed over his chest, gaze flat and annoyed. “First of all, don’t look me in the eye when you lie like that, it’s disconcerting. Second of all, you’re a coward who can’t put up with some gentle, loving teasing over—”
“No, stop right there!” He flailed in a vaguely threatening manner. “Cody hasn’t shut up about it! Now you won’t shut up about it!” He groaned. “If she ever finds out I said that she’s going to think I have some kind of fetish.”
“Do you?”
Davijaan choked on his water and came up sputtering. Wolffe regarded him with a smirk. “I mean, that’s all you said for a half hour. Just kept asking for the lady with the nice hands.”
He laid his head on the table and wished sincerely that damn Colonel had killed him. “This is why I don’t do spice,” he mumbled into the sticky wood.
“Oh, come on. You’ve only been high, what, twice? On pain meds?”
“It wasn’t just from the meds.” Thanks, Yikes, for letting me stay awake and watch you re-break four of my fingers. “Crying over dumb jokes and going on and on about some lady I barely knew has not encouraged me to experiment.”
“Some lady who was kind to you.”
“No, she… she just…” He sat back in his seat, gripped his glass tight and felt the condensation trickle down over the back of his wrist. “Her hands were cold. And. It was a distraction. From…”
“From the pain?”
He shrugged. Took a sip of water.
“Hm.” Wolf raised an eyebrow, but didn’t push.
They sat in silence until their food arrived, and then Wolffe politely waited until Davijaan had taken his first bite to ask— “So. When are you going to tell her you’re sweet on her?”
He didn’t choke to death, but it was a near thing. “Who said I was sweet on her!?”
“Oh, you didn’t have to say anything. I’m not blind yet.”
He cringed. “Was it… obvious?”
“Well. Probably not to her.”
“Good.” He refrained from breathing a sigh of relief, and poked at his pickled vegetables. “She doesn’t need to know.”
“What?”
“Or. There’s not really a point in telling her?”
“No no, explain yourself. What?”
Davijaan looked up from his plate, surprised. “You heard her. She’s looking for a new job. She wants to move to a city, make it big. She… She wants her work to matter. And I hate to say it, but Fox is right. Not many stories that matter out here. So.” He shrugged. “In another few months she’ll leave. And you know I’ve always been out of sight, out of mind when it comes to this stuff. Not really a point in telling her about feelings that are just going to fade.”
Wolffe stared at him, face completely blank, and then let his head fall back against the seat with a thunk. “Fuck. You’re hopeless.”
“Hey, I know how to flirt! I know how to impress people! I am choosing not to because— Because it feels wrong!” He tried to keep his voice down, sincerely hoping the couple at the table next to them were too wrapped up in each other to pay attention to their surroundings, but he was starting to get frustrated.
“It’s not like there is anywhere this— this could go. If she was interested in anything other than friendship she would have said something. And even if she was interested, I’m not going to hook up with her once and then never speak to her again. I’d like her to at least be able to look me in the eye when she comes back to visit her family.”
“Fucking stars.” Wolffe smacked the table. “You are hopeless.” He sat up properly and looked him dead in the face, the pupil of his false eye visibly narrowing. “Davijaan. Loren adores you.”
His mind went totally blank for almost ten seconds. “She— what!? No! She’s not— She can’t— Cody would have said something!”
“Kote hasn’t noticed a damn thing, because he’s Kote.”
“Whatever. That doesn’t make any sense. Why would she—”
“Why does anybody like anyone! Stars if I know. The fact is, you’re sweet on her, she’s sweet on you, and you’re both idiots for not saying anything. This is the kind of shit you have to tell people, Davi!”
He scowled. “What do you know about it, eh?”
“I know there are plenty of places ‘this’ could go, if you tell her how you feel.” Wolffe shook a threatening finger in his face. “And I’m not talking about one time sex, I’m talking about an actual relationship.”
“It’s not like you’ve ever—”
“Oh, shut up. You know how long it took me to convince Fox I wanted to be his friend? Way too fucking long. But the only reason it worked was because I looked him in the eye and said, ‘I want to be your friend.’ And in an uncharacteristic lapse in paranoia, he believed me. You two are already friends, right? That’s the hard part done and over with.” He raised a considering eyebrow. “You were never friends with anyone you were sweet on before. That has to mean something.”
“Maybe it does mean something.” Davijaan’s gaze slid from Wolffe’s face to the expanse of white in the window. “But she’s leaving. And I don’t know how much of— of this is just because we see each other almost every day. We’re friends, yes. But ignoring other feelings— that I already know aren't going to last— how long is our friendship going to last?”
“I think it’ll last as long as you want it to. It’s not like we saw each other every day during the war, and here we are.”
“But we stayed in contact because of the war.”
I needed you, he didn’t say, but he thought from the way Wolffe’s expression tightened that he heard it anyway.
“Once we don’t see each other anymore—” once we don’t need each other anymore “— how do I know we won’t forget about each other?”
Wolffe let those words hang in the air; stared at Davijaan staring out the window. Finally he sighed, and said, “You know, Plo told me… He told me.” He cleared his throat.
“He could sense when it was all too much, and he’d come find me and Boost and Sinker and sit us down and meditate with us, and talk to us about— everything. And he told me there was a time to let go, but also a time to hold on.”
Davijaan had known Wolffe and his general were close, but even if Wolffe talked about Plo Koon often he didn’t talk about their relationship much. He used to think it was out of consideration for other commanders who weren’t close with their Jedi, but now he wondered if it was because whatever was between them was too personal to share.
“Sounds like typical Jedi banthashit.
Wolffe’s lip twitched. “Maybe. But he explained it as, not living in anticipation of loss? You can’t wake up every morning wondering who’s going to die that day. You just can’t. So you hold on tight to the people you love, and don’t let go until your very last second of time is up.”
Davijaan’s food had gone cold. He shifted his gaze from the window down to the fish dumplings that had been his favorite since the day Loren had suggested them. “General Koon’s the one who helped you get in contact with your batch?”
“Yes.”
“Hm.”
“I told him about you too, you know. About pilot training. Told him about that time the sim machine broke.”
“Your fault.”
“You can’t prove anything.”
A smile flickered across his face, and died. “Isn’t it easier… to forget?”
Wolffe turned his glass slowly in his hand, eyes locked on Davijaan. “Have you forgotten your batch?”
He said nothing.
“Did you forget Loren, before?”
He thought of the flash of sky-blue disappearing down the dark stone hall; thought of the way blue had seemed to catch in the corner of his eye for months afterwards. He thought of the excitement he felt the first time Loren had messaged him— I hope we can meet up again when I come back.
He swallowed. “No.”
“Maybe you’ll forget each other. But maybe you won’t.” Wolffe jabbed his fork at Davijaan’s nose. “A maybe is not a certainty, idiot. Forget about maybes. Focus on what is happening right in front of your damn face. You’re friends, and you’re sweet on each other, and that matters. Don’t you dare let go of her before your time is up.”