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Bode gave him a lazy grin, as warm as the late afternoon sunlight. It was all softness and familiarity, as if their past was simple and they hadn’t traded tentative brushes of fingers for clawing fists and crackling fury. As if the blaster wound in Cal’s shoulder had healed and the faded yellow bruises on his cheekbones had never been there.
Something stirred in Cal’s chest, but he didn’t duck his eyes away like would have done before. He held Bode’s gaze, steady and unflinching. Traitorous warmth settled deep into his bones like a bogling nestling into its burrow, and the worst thing was that it felt nice. Comfort radiated off Bode in waves, and under the softness of his eyes, the lingering tightness in Cal’s chest eased and his breath came easier. Here in the dusty Koboh sunlight the world seemed to stretch on forever and hope was so close he could almost reach out a finger and touch it.
He would never be that naive again.
Cal turned away. Bode was not safe. No matter how gentle his hands were when he’d patched Cal up after they’d fought Dagan, or that the low rumble of his voice eased him to sleep when little else could. He was not safe. He had shown exactly what he was capable of.
Logic didn’t make any difference. The feeling curled in Cal’s chest all the same. There was no point putting a name to it — he knew what it was. He’d known for far longer than he wanted to admit. Naming it would only complicate it further, tangling it deeper into the mess of pain that was bubbling inside him. It was only a matter of time before he burst.
Some days he could barely look at Bode, too full of grief and rage to be anywhere near him. When it happened he left Rambler’s Reach and explored further into Koboh, over near the Jawa Settlement or up into the mountains. If he stayed, he’d do something he would regret, like smash his fist into Bode’s familiar grin until it shattered and he hurt as badly as Cal did.
Then there were other days, like today, where old tenderness bled through the cracks of the distance he’d so carefully built. Bode had been so charming, so kind, that Cal had let his guard down. He had completely fallen for it. It left a bitter taste in his mouth now, guilt and longing mixed into something poisonous, and the leftover warmth bubbled in his chest with nowhere to go.
He couldn’t breathe again. Damn Bode and his kriffing rancorshit.
Bode’s smile faded. His eyes were still soft, but no longer creased and bright. Cal couldn’t return it, not yet. He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to. Bode seemed to acknowledge this, inclining his head and staring back out over the valley.
Koboh was gilded by the glow of late afternoon sunlight and long purple shadows stretched across on the dusty ground. From the rocky outcrop above the Mantis’ landing bay he could usually see to the far corners of the valley — over to the southern reach and the path towards dredger gorge, or the ancient gate that lead to the basalt forest — but today the distance was hazy.
Pyloon’s and the ramshackle assortment of buildings that made up Rambler’s Reach looked small from where they sat. More like projections on a holomap than real buildings. Far away, he could see a family of boglings hopping cheerfully down the path. Another flash of movement dragged his eyes over to the roof of Pyloon’s, and in amongst the brightly coloured spine fluffs and cactus balls of the cantina’s rooftop garden, Cal could see the tiny figure of Kata sitting beside Pili. She was talking animatedly about something, her hands gesturing wildly around her and even at this distance Cal could make out the laughter on her face.
“She looks happy here,” he said. They were the first words he’d spoken since him and Bode had settled up there.
Bode nodded. His voice was rough. “I haven’t seen her smile like that since her mother…”
The words drifted off. Bode always went quiet when he talked about Tayala, the shadow of her death darkening his memories of her till he could barely speak her name. Cal knew the feeling well enough. Too well. He swallowed down the spike of anger that fought to get out of his chest, bit down the harsh words rising in his throat.
“I can’t trust you,” he said eventually. “Not like I did before.”
“I know.” Bode’s expression hardened, a mask of composure. It was not unlike how he had looked on Nova Garon, and Cal was distantly aware that his hands were shaking. Bode’s face was carefully guarded. “I can’t apologise for what I did to survive. To keep Kata safe.”
And I would do it again if I had to. The words hung in the air between them, thick as the tar that still clung to his boots. They both knew it. No matter how much pain he’d caused, Bode would do the same in a heartbeat if he needed to.
And that was what was dangerous about him.
On Tanalorr, Cal hadn’t pulled the trigger a second time. He’d almost done it, reflex and instinct and anger and fear tightening his grip on the blaster until his knuckles were white and shaking, but he caught himself before putting a second laser through Bode’s chest. It would have killed him. Would have ended the threat. Would have been another death on his hands.
He didn’t know yet if he’d made the right choice.
“But Cal, I am sorry. I am so sorry for everything that happened. For Cere and Cordova. That was never part of the plan.”
“What did you think would happen?” The words exploded from him, violent and uncontrolled and hurt. Cal made no effort to keep his voice down. “You told the Inquisitorius where we were, said there were Jedi, mentioned Vader’s name.”
“I had to say something that would grab their attention. Distract them while Kata and I escaped. I swear Cal, on my life, on her life — you know that’s worth more to me than anything — that that’s all I wanted.”
Cal’s hands were shaking so hard he had to ball them into fists to keep them steady. He could barely hear Bode over his own pounding heartbeat. He should never have tried to have this conversation, it was all still too raw.
After a long moment, Bode said quietly, “You’re a better man than me, Cal. I should have trusted you.”
“Yeah, you should have.” Cal was distantly aware that his nails were cutting into his palms, that his voice was getting louder, but he couldn’t stop it. Blood rushed in his ears. “You should have. Kriff—” His voice broke, “Why didn’t you trust me Bode? I would have listened, I could have helped. We could have worked it out together instead.”
Cal should have known better than to try and talk. They didn’t talk. They just dug the knife in deeper, twisted it, let the blood soak both of them.
Maybe the ending had been inevitable.
“No, you wouldn’t have,” Bode said, his voice low, face twisted like the words hurt to speak. “You weren’t listening, nothing was getting through to you once you got the idea of Tanalorr into your head.”
And maybe Cal knew he was telling the truth, knew that he had gotten so blinded by his hope for Tanalorr that he hadn’t been able to see anything until it was too late, but he still spat out, “You should have tried.”
Bode didn’t say anything. Cal couldn’t look at him, and didn’t trust himself to be able to calm down if he did, but he could imagine his expression well enough and that only made it worse. He could feel the faint outline of Bode’s aura in the Force, hollow and haunted. Now that Cal knew what he was looking for and Bode was no longer shielding, it was impossible not to feel it, and his stomach twisted under the weight of Bode’s guilt.
He took a ragged breath. Tried to steady his hands. “But you didn’t. What’s done is done, and we can’t change it. Doesn’t matter how much we want to.”
“So where does that leave us?” Bode asked.
“I don’t know.”
They sat in silence for a long while after that. The shadows lengthened, the soft oranges of dusk fading into the purples of early evening. High in the sky beside the glowing, shattered moon, a star destroyer hung ominously above them.
Cal didn’t know how long they stayed there. Until his legs had gone numb and the cold began to chill his feet even through his thick boots. His body ached, stiff from the bruises and burns that had yet to heal, but instead of reaching for the stim BD had insisted he put in his pocket, he sat with the pain.
Eventually Bode got up with a heavy sigh. “I’m going to go put Kata to bed.”
Cal flinched at the words and a flash of guilt passed over Bode’s face, but he still asked, “See you around, Scrapper?”
The nickname stung, an intimacy that had been buried in the sands of Jedha, burned on a pyre on Tanalorr. It was no longer Bode’s to use.
“Cal,” he replied shortly.
It would be so easy to lose Bode in the galaxy, and a large part of him wanted to, but he couldn’t. Not yet. Not when so much needed to be said, and they both needed to untangle their pain enough to say it.
He sighed heavily. “And yeah, I guess I will.”
Bode nodded. The moonlight caught the side of his face, and without the warm glow of the sun, he looked exhausted. Almost as bad as Cal felt, hollowed out by the last few weeks. It had been nice to pretend, just for a moment, that things were normal between them — to bask in the sunlight and the warmth of Bode’s smile like he had done in the weeks before —but just like everything else, the illusion had been thoroughly shattered.
Not that they’d done a good job at pretending anyway.
Without another word, and without the signature, cocky salute that Cal had come to love, Bode stepped backwards off the cliff, and was gone.
Cal stared out into the growing dark a moment longer, before getting up to make his own way down. The blaster burn in his shoulder ached as he reached for his lightsaber, and for a brief moment he wondered if Bode’s felt the same. It felt fitting, in some terrible way, that they’d both been scarred by what had happened. That each of them had irrevocably marked the others’ skin. The damage they’d done to each other was too big for it not to be visible.
Time could not undo the wound. There would always be a scar. But maybe with care, with time and patience, it would begin to fade.
They could only go forwards.