Private The Harvest of Presence

[Talin Treicolt]

Consciousness had proved more fickle than a newly broken mare on the ride back from the plaza. Once the adrenaline and whatever other drugs Dax had administered wore off, agony returned, and rooted deep. Everything after the the marshal's had hauled off Kyric's friend was a series of flashes. Talin's companions loading her into a taxi. Fire hair, shaking with disapproval. A hand, stroking her arm. Kyric's river of apologies as he picked her up, despite her groggy pleading, and the wailing which followed. The reprieve of total darkness finally took her after.

She awoke in a single bedded sickbay. A certain ginger hovered over her, reminiscent. Laying still, she waited for reality to flee again. It didn't. Pain had subsided to something she could deal with. With a long blink, crust cleared from her eyes. Dax's outline became more clear. Screwing the lid on the container of bacta, he eyed her wound, oblivious to her return to reality.

"You were right again." Her voice came out hoarse. "Didn't die. Super annoyin' if you keep doin' that."

The soft smile that accompanied her words disappeared as she went to sit up. The world swam momentarily.

"Whoa. Okay. Not one hundred, yet."

For once, Talin did not ramble on. Silence stretched on between the pair as she shied away from the words which insisted they be spoken. Blue eyes looked at everything but the boy - the lines of neatly kept cannisters on the countertop. The stains on the sheet which indicated she was not the first needy to see this bed. The hole that had been patched over following their departure of Jedha. A reminder of the problems they had brought gave her the power to swallow her pride.

"Thank you." She started, then took a deep breath. "For the doctorin', the ride, and... everythin'. I know we've been nothing but trouble. I'm sorry. And I'm sorry I pointed that gun at'cha. S'no way you could be evil. You're not even a zeltron."

The few days they had spent together seemed a hundred, and their initial encounter felt so silly.

"Uhm. S'wat're ya thinkin' now?"

 

[Dax]

"You were right again."

A quick, "I usually am," came without missing a beat.

"Super annoyin' if you keep doin' that."

"Can't help it."

Dax shook a freshly mixed stim in his fist. Closing the cabinet he'd been rummaging through with his other hand. Striding toward Talin's bedside, the liquid inside the syringe hissed as the air was automatically expelled from the concoction. It slowly simmered into silence after he placed it on the thin bedside table.

"It could have been a lot worse, you know?" Dax skirted around her gratitude with a warning. "You really should be careful." After a moment of hesitation, he continued, "I'm sorry I threw your gun."

Just as quickly as he came, he began to move away. Turning around in the exit's threshold, he held a silence stare at Talin for a moment that lingered on awkward. "Every two hours you need to stick yourself with that stim. Should be three shots in total."

"Uhm. S'wat're ya thinkin' now?"

Dax shrugged. "You got where you needed to go. We picked up your cousin. Not a lot left for me." Truthfully, he wasn't even sure why he'd followed them out to begin with. Maybe he wanted to belong, but the events of that shootout gave him other ideas. "I only went so far as Castell on a lead for work. I was broken down so long I don't think it's still available."

BD-9 squeaked out a confirmation from the other room. The job was closed.

"Maybe I'll head back to the rim, I dunno." Dax scratched the back of his neck. "I uh, I hope you guys find what you're looking for. I'll stay until you're ready to leave."

Dax turned his back, leaving the room with, "Rest for now," as his farewell.

 

[Talin Treicolt]

Frustration struck. It was stated so plainly, so simply, as if practically was the end all be all. The path of least resistance was not always the best, Talin would die on that hill. Coincidence and the force did not coexist. Some whisper on the wind had convinced the twins to put their trust in him, and the same voice told her he was meant for more than just a short chapter in their journey. Against advisement, she pushed off the bed. One hand swung out to keep her on balance. Teeth gritted, she steadied, and made her way out of the sickbay.

By the time her hobbling pace caught up, he was already in the cockpit, tinkering. Preparations for the ride back. She joined the copilot’s seat and greeted him with a pallid face. Sweat had soaked her hair from the nape of the neck down. A hard stare bore down upon him.

“I ain’t finished. You can’t just say oh yeah, see you later and walk away from me! We’ve seen war together!”

Eyebrows knit together, she let out an exasperated sigh. Every encounter they had up until now had been a performance to varying degree; but there was some sort of passion which marked her words as borderline authentic. Battle was the foundation that had built her parents love, their lifelong friendships, and their safe haven on Concord Dawn. Then, realization struck. She had just assumed him solo based on demeanor. What if he had people waiting on him?

“What’s in the rim, besides work? You got family out there?”