Chapter Text
“Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.”
Epictetus
I stopped just abreast of the open doorway and took a shameless moment to enjoy the view. It was one I had seen plenty of times before and yet, it had never gotten old. Time had not changed my appreciation, either. I still enjoyed watching the way Thrawn's body moved as he fought - as much now, as I had ten years earlier.
Once, the two of us had been inseparable. Our differences were what had bound the two of us together - he, an alien of a species called the Chiss, a man of mysterious origin from within Unknown Space. Me, the adopted human daughter of a Mirialan spacer from roughly the same area of Wild Space as the third member of our little cohort, Eli Vanto.
Neither Thrawn nor I could hide who we were. He, defined immediately by his pale blue skin, forehead ridges, and crimson eyes. Me, by the Mirialan tattoos that steepled beneath my eyes and arched across the bridge of my nose. The first two, I’d had when I’d first arrived on the Blood Crow, a year before he and Vanto were also assigned to the ship. The third tattoo, Thrawn had gone with me to get after our success with the crew of the Dromedar - he had understood the significance of marking on my skin, in the way I had been taught, the achievement of passing through my first major undertaking as an ISB agent. I’d always suspected that it had been him who had kept me from being shown the boot out of the military after I’d shown up for duty with fresh, and decidedly non-regulation, tattoos on my face. I had performed an act that was alien, that was non-compliant with Imperial regulation, that was a visible reminder of who I really was in spite of my DNA.
I had also known that he’d had influential friends in high places. How high, he’d never said and I’d never pried. But, I was now willing to bet my eighteen years of service, that whoever it was, had been high enough to bend the rules they’d written.
It didn’t matter, now. It was a decade into the past - it felt like another lifetime, practically. I had other tattoos, incidentally, but they were conveniently covered by stiff cloth and polished leather. I had learned to blend in, as best as I could, as a human with alien roots. Everyone did, in the Empire, in the end.
He hasn't changed a bit, though, I thought as I watched Thrawn take down two droids with nothing more than his feet, fists, and a staff-like weapon of some sort.
It had taken me all of about a month after he and Vanto showed up on the Blood Crow, to figure out that Thrawn was driven, brilliant, and relentless. He sparred with the two hulking droids with an ease and confidence that bespoke familiarity with them...but that familiarity did nothing to hide how hard he drove against them, how single-minded he was in his present task. He was the same way in everything else - he would win, no matter the odds. I'd figured out years before that his civility went only as deep as the uniform. He was, and always had been, ruthless.
His wasn’t the sort of ruthlessness that inevitably came of climbing the ladder of Imperial command, though. This was an innate trait, a flash of hot-red amid all the cool blue. His eyes had always held the secret of what lay beneath; I’d never been afraid to see him for who he really was.
He was a genius. He was driven. He was gracious, condescending, infuriating, and insightful all at once. He was a considerable contradiction, the pinnacle of which was the Grand Admiral’s uniform that usually framed his Chiss body. He was also loyal, perhaps to a fault. To what he was loyal, though, I’d never been able to discern. He said all the right things and talked the right talk about the glory of the Empire, etcetera. But, I’d always watched his eyes when he espoused the party line and I’d often wondered if there wasn’t something else, something stronger, something greater that drove him forward, undaunted, through the ranks of an alien, and often hostile, military. I thought there almost had to be something more to his motivations; I’d almost been broken by the Empire, because of the Mirialan man who had raised me, because of the Mirialan man I had loved, because of my Wild Space origins and blatantly non-human customs. I was still human, though, and that alone had spared me the absolute worst Imperial prejudice had to offer. He’d never had even that much; I’d seen the truth of that first hand, all those years before, during our first and only command spent together.
The two of us had crossed paths plenty of times in the course of our careers since then. After all, the circles of command got smaller and smaller the higher one went. And, the two of us were friends. Always had been. I’d always thought it’d be reasonable to think the two of us always would be.
I’d known him from almost the beginning, before he had fully adjusted to the Empire, to command, to social expectations. I’d never seen him lose his temper, but I’d seen him take his frustration out on training droids like the ones that currently littered the floor of the senior officer’s training room. Over time, I’d seen him channel his obvious passion into peerless technique, seen him learn to wield intimidation through a razor-thin wit, seen him perfect his Imperial mask. By the time we both parted ways from the Blood Crow, he’d started using that mask on me. My only comfort at the time and since, was that his reasons for projecting that carefully crafted persona toward me was for reasons far different than those he reserved for others: I had dared to kiss him, just once.
We’d both been cool toward each other for a few years after. But, once we'd had enough distance from each other through command, time, and age, the past could be interpreted from a different point of view. The warmth had crept back into our interactions with one another; familiarity had followed. But, I never forgot where the line was and I never tried to cross it again.
“Commander, sir,” a voice broke through my thoughts and I finally turned to consider Lieutenant Lyst’s peeved expression; he was no doubt perplexed by my abrupt stop.
The poor fellow didn't have the best situational awareness. He'd been all the way to the Grand Admiral's desk, before he realized he'd lost me several feet back.
“This way -” he gestured down the short passageway, toward Thrawn’s desk.
“No need,” a surprisingly soft voice stropped Lyst in his tracks.
We both turned to face the source of the voice and snapped to attention. One didn’t look their commanding officer in the eye when standing at attention, but after eighteen years in the Imperial military, I had perfected the art of observing my surroundings from the periphery of a “thousand yard stare”. Thrawn had deactivated the droids and was now facing us, his staff planted on the deck between his slightly parted feet, his large hands wrapped around the slim durasteel bar. I couldn’t look at him directly enough to gauge his expression, but his tone was calm and gave no amount of recognition of away.
“Thank you for bringing Commander Deyfitz to me, Lieutenant Lyst,” Thrawn continued. “You are dismissed.”
Lyst uttered a crisp “yes sir”, then pivoted on his heel and marched stiffly down the passageway and out the door of the Grand Admiral’s suite. I stayed at attention, the very picture of Imperial discipline.
“At ease,” that soft voice - so completely at odds with what one might have expected from him - granted me permission to relax my stance and look him in the eye. “An unexpected pleasure.... Colonel Fraira.”
I smiled at the use of my true rank and surname, but the twist of my lips was a bit rueful.
“Admiral. I hope you don’t mind the surprise,” I paused and narrowed my eyes at him, almost playfully. “I did surprise you, yes?”
“To a point. I did just put a request through to Internal Affairs for an additional officer to come aboard for a time. Secretly, of course,” he eyed my black uniform, which designated me as an officer of the Imperial Navy troopers.
It was as far removed from my usual - and instantly recognizable - white-and-black uniform, of the Imperial Security Bureau. I lifted an eyebrow at him and waited for him to finish his thoughtful consideration of my cover.
“I assume that officer will be you?” It was his turn to raise an eyebrow.
“I get bored behind a desk,” I flashed him my best smile. “And incidentally, no. I just tagged along for the ride. An excuse to see an old friend, which no one needs to know about. And to keep a close eye on the developing situation. Internal Affairs has handled many cases of sedition in the past, but this one…” my gaze unfocused a bit as I chose my next words carefully. “We’ve never had to sniff out a traitor in such a high profile position before.”
“What makes you think this individual has a ‘high profile’?” he fished, as he always did.
“They're someone associated with you - either here on your flagship, or down on Lothal. You’ve indicated that you believe it’s someone with enough rank and influence to move through both spheres, which places them, if not in the very center of your activities, then within the circle. There’s very few in the Empire who can claim as high a profile as you, Admiral.”
“I suppose that is so,” he agreed, almost casually; before I could snort over his (admittedly justified) arrogance, he continued smoothly: “So, you’ve invited yourself along, to ensure that all goes well? A bit of a micromanager, don’t you think?”
“This is high stakes,” I defended my decision without taking offense. “If it’s one thing I’ve learned about the Rebels, sir, it’s that things have a tendency to go in their favor, if the right hand doesn't keep control of the situation.”
“How very true,” his voice was deep, soft, a purr; I stifled a sigh.
It didn’t matter how many years had passed between the two of us, I would always be a fool for his voice.
“So, what are you supposed to be? I’m afraid I don’t have any vacancies among the officers in my Fleet company.”
I smirked. I couldn’t help it. I’d known from the start that my answer to this question would ruffle his proverbial feathers.
“You do, however, have the conspicuous lack of an aide, sir.”
I artfully refrained from mentioning the sudden disappearance of our mutual friend, Eli Vanto, who had served as Thrawn’s aide-de-camp for as long the three of us had known each other. I knew Vanto too well to think that he would abandon his duties to the Empire. I knew Thrawn well enough to know that wherever Vanto was, Thrawn had something to do with it...and that the topic of our friend’s disappearance would most certainly be off-limits. Instead, I smiled in a way that I hoped was mischievous.
“I’m here to run your errands for you and to protect you, should your life depend upon it.”
He just lifted an eyebrow, the expression in his eyes sardonic. I couldn’t help laughing and gesturing toward the weapon in his hands.
“Of course, anyone who’s ever seen you pull a blaster, would know that you hardly need help staying alive. It’s good to know my duties here shouldn’t be that interesting.”
“Indeed,” his tone was dry. “An excellent cover, Colonel,“ there was a slight pause and then he seemed to have pieced something together; the look he shot me would have cowed lesser beings. “There would have to have been orders to make your ‘transfer’ convincing. Did you forge my signature?”
“Why, I never!” I tried to act indignant and utterly failed, so I tried instead not to grin like a cocky spacer.
“I will never, for the life of me, know how you have managed to head an entire division of Internal Affairs,” he shook his head as he eyed my roguish smile; I couldn’t detect any hint of sarcasm, however, so I paused and took him seriously for a moment.
“Why? Because I dare to bend the rules here and there? I'll remind you, I learned from the best,” I tried to look down my nose down at him, but that was rather hard to do, since he towered over me by a good head-and-shoulders. “But, I’m with an old friend, am I not? There’s no one here but us,” I waved my hand to indicate the spaces around us. “And I’m not under your command - I’m not even in the same military branch as you. Surely, in private, I don’t have to keep the stiff upper lip and pretend I always obey the letter of the law?”
“Only you, Colonel,” he murmured, his tone almost fond; I found my eyes locked with his. “Only you have ever been brave enough to act as if I were nothing more than, as you put it, ‘an old friend’.”
That wasn’t strictly true, but since we were studiously avoiding the topic of Eli Vanto, I played along.
“Aren’t we?” I crossed my arms a bit defiantly.
He didn’t even pause and that put me immediately at ease.
“Yes, we are. It is good to see you,” he bowed his head slightly toward me. “And to see more of you, for a while perhaps, than what we’ve been able to manage through the years, at military functions and Imperial soirees.”
“Then it’s settled,” I hadn’t realized that I’d been worried over the matter, until my shoulders loosened. “I’ll be at your side, then, until my men finish their work.”
“I find that to be a quite agreeable idea,” he smiled faintly, and then surprised me by turning on his heel and beckoning me to follow him. “Spar with me.”
I gave the droids a dubious look.
“The droids aren’t challenging enough?”
“They can be,” he answered mildly. “You walked in at the conclusion of their warm-up program.”
“I don’t know how well you remember our days with the Blood Crow...but, uh, I haven’t gotten much better since then,” I tried not to sound nervous when I laughed. “Not enough to go up against the likes of you, that is.”
“Perhaps that’s been the problem,” he gave me his first genuine smile, which was rather terrifying to the uninitiated, as it was all teeth and curled back lips.
There was that hint of what lay beneath. No, I thought to myself, he hasn’t lost that part of himself in the slightest.
“You haven’t had me to spar with.”
I just gave him a deadpanned look, straight in the eye.
“Really? You’re insinuating I haven’t gotten better because I haven’t had to fight you?”
“I’m not insinuating,” and there was that insufferable smugness that hadn’t waned a bit since those first days meeting each other; if anything, it’d gotten worse. “I’m stating plainly. And,” he raised a hand to elegantly cut me off. “You sell yourself short - a bad habit of yours. You were always better at wrestling than me.”
Only, I was certain, because he’d been uncomfortable wrestling with a woman. I realized that he was looking at me expectantly, so I shrugged noncommittally.
“Let’s begin with that, then,” he set his staff carefully on its pins, in one of the bulkhead displays. “Let’s see if I’ve gotten better.”
I hoped my expression didn’t communicate the utter dismay I suddenly felt. I looked at the floor and then at him; finally, I shook my head with what I hoped was a self-deprecating smile.
“The first time we get to see each other in five years, and you want to roll around on a mat with me?”
I realized as soon as the words were out of my mouth, what exactly they sounded like. I shut my mouth so fast, my teeth clicked, but I didn’t make any attempt to retract what I’d said. That’d only make it worse. So, I met his gaze and tried not to flush in embarrassment.
That feral smile was back. He said nothing, just bowed sarcastically at the waist and motioned toward the floor between us. I had to work some spit into my mouth, in order to swallow. I hadn’t said this much to Thrawn in one encounter in eight years, never mind been this close to him in all that time. Or...this alone with him.
“I’m hardly dressed for this,” I tried to grasp at the one straw that I could manage without being too painfully obvious about how very much I didn’t want to do this with him.
“One can hardly know when the enemy strikes,” he waved an imperious hand at my uniform, which was immaculate and well-pressed and very much not what I wanted to wear while "rolling around on a mat" with Grand Kriffing Admiral Thrawn.
Not that I’d want to roll around on a mat with Thrawn. Ever. Maybe I would have...once upon a time...when we were junior officers on the Blood Crow. But not now. Not now that we’re both older, wiser, and a lot more jaded. Or, at least, so I told myself.
“The only officer in the whole Empire who’s more manipulative than you, is Orson Krennic,” I couldn’t help but be a bit waspish, even as my hands fell to the belt at my waist.
Thrawn’s already thin lips practically disappeared.
“I’m offended,” he said in that soft, even voice, but his eyes glittered dangerously.
Oops.
“You’re right. That was a low blow,” I winced. “Be glad you’ve never had to meet him in person.”
“Unfortunately, I have,” Thrawn’s tone did nothing to hide his distaste for the man in question.
He held his hands behind his back as he waited for me to pull off my uniform jacket and hang it carefully on a convenient peg by the doorway.
“Although, it’s... entertaining ...to watch him and Grand Moff Tarkin have a go at each other.”
“Not when it happens in your own office without warning,” I muttered with an exasperated eye-roll; Thrawn gave me a look of interest, but refrained from carrying the conversation any further.
Instead, he brought his hands out from behind his back and dropped his weight into his knees. Okay, then. We were doing this. Right now, apparently.
He moved first and I turned to catch his wrist as he moved in. I pulled him forward, while rotating to the side, using my hips and his momentum to flip him forward, quite literally head over heels. I had to follow him down, though, in order to keep a hold of him, and the two of us grappled around on the floor for several seconds, as I tried to catch him in a choke-hold. He was trying to get one arm between my legs, and one around my neck, so he could bend me to an angle I couldn’t break. I won, however, and he slammed his hand to the mat after a few more undignified attempts to break my hold.
Neither of us said anything as we pushed ourselves away from each other and stood up. In the next round, Thrawn took me down with a neat sweep of his foot beneath mine. Some more frantic movement across the mat and he had my head between his legs and my arm at an angle that left no doubt in my mind that the best course of action was to slap the floor in defeat.
The next twenty minutes were spent with variations of the same theme. Between the two of us, there was the rustle of clothing, the slap of skin against skin as we grabbed each other, and heavy bursts of breath that only got more ragged the longer we went on. It had been cool - even a bit chilly - in the room when I entered, but before long, we were both dripping sweat. I hadn’t had such a challenging opponent in years and it only took five minutes for me to figure out that Thrawn had been falsely modest. He had improved. Whatever edge I’d had on him in our younger days, was lost now. I remembered our training as junior officers quite clearly; there had always been the sense of him holding something back, of him being somehow reluctant to touch me as intimately as the fighting style often required. He had no such sense about him now; in fact, every move was fair game and I was gasping for breath and sore by the end of it.
“Stars, Thrawn, I concede!" I finally gasped, my head between his legs for the upteenth, and increasingly uncomfortable, time.
He let go immediately with something that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle. I didn’t even bother looking over at him. I was too winded.
“I’m a mature woman of forty!” I rubbed my throat and tried desperately to catch my breath. “You’re pushing what? The same age, a little more? What do they feed you on these star destroyers?” I asked the overhead above and its searingly bright lights.
“If you’ll recall, I have a significantly higher metabolism than you humans,” he answered mildly from the floor beside me. “Which means I have a higher level of energy to regulate. I do this every morning and night. If I didn’t, especially in the unstimulating environment that is day-to-day shipboard life, I do believe I’d have murdered someone by now.”
“I have heard a rumor about you shooting some poor ensign dead,” I pointed out.
“He had the audacity to lie. Furthermore, there are consequences to incompetence.”
“That’s what a court martial is for, Thrawn,” the familiarity of our present positions made me forget my military courtesies; he didn’t seem to mind, though.
I turned my head to look at him; he was laying beside me, hands folded on his chest. His chest, which had felt glorious, and hard, and strong wherever it had touched my body, was now falling into a steady pace, much more quickly than mine. He lifted one of those elegant hands and waved it dismissively in front of his face.
“An option I would have taken. If he hadn’t lied. To my face.”
I sighed. Thrawn never second-guessed his actions. Sometimes, in the past, his choices had scared me. That, apparently, was a trait of his that time hadn’t changed. He had a different moral code from mine, after all. I always took comfort in the fact that at least he had morals. Unlike some other officers I could name…
I groaned as I flexed my stomach muscles and sat up. I looked down at myself in disgust and swiped at some of the moisture on my cheeks.
“I’ve got your sweat in my hair,” I rebuked him mildly; he had the audacity to chuckle in that low, almost-inaudible way of his.
“Surely, there are worse things,” he side-eyed me and then sat up himself.
“I need a shower and a fresh set of clothes,” I grumbled and chose to ignore the suggestion that it might not be so bad to have his sweat all over me.
“I can’t help you with your clothes, but I’ll show you to the showers,” he stood up and offered me his hand.
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at him. Instead, I grasped his warm hand in mine and grunted as he hauled me to my feet. I was going to feel this in the morning.
“This way,” he dropped my hand and began marching toward the far left corner of the training room in that long-legged, straight-backed pace he’d always used. A door slid open and revealed a short passageway to a second door...
I nearly ran into the bulkhead when he reached up, grabbed the back of his black, sleeveless undershirt, and began to pull it up over his slicked-back hair. If he heard me sputtering at his naked back, he gave no indication, as he passed through the doorway and turned left. He slung the damn thing over his shoulder and began pulling off his gloves, as he took a right, punched a code into a pad on the side of the bulkhead to open a third door, and then stopped. I nearly ran into him, as distracted as I was.
“The senior officer’s showers,” he motioned toward the small, partitioned room in front of us.
He then put his foot up on a bench in the center of the room, between the shower stalls and a row of lockers, and began to pull them off . I stared, nonplussed, as first one boot and then the other, fell to the deck. When his hands grabbed the waistband of his white pants, I finally found my voice.
“What are you doing ?” I tried not to stare at him slack-jawed.
He just looked over his shoulder at me and lifted an eyebrow. As if he didn’t know .
“I’m taking a shower as well. I believe I sweated all over you, yes?”
“But…” words failed me, as I gestured vaguely at the stalls in front of us.
A sly smile crept along the edges of his mouth. I wanted to stab him.
“Everything on board is combined use,” his teeth flashed so very white against his skin; I wanted to melt into the nearby drain. “Men, women - we all use the same facilities.”
“At the same time?” I insisted.
He shrugged, nonchalant.
“If necessary.”
“It is not necessary, in this case,” I abruptly turned my back on him as I saw his thumbs begin to slid down the curve of his hips, his pants traveling along with them.
“I am going to be five minutes late to breakfast, as it is,” he said in the tone of a man who was never late. “As will my new aide, if she doesn’t get over herself. And I shall be forced to be displeased.”
“I’m pretty sure aides don’t take showers with their commanding officers,” I muttered to a locker.
“We’re hardly in the same stall,” he reprimanded mildly; there was a brief pause and then: “Now, please make yourself presentable, Commander. Or I will undress you and toss you under a shower-head myself.”
He wouldn’t.
I knew better.
“You’re abusing a decade of friendship,” I growled, as I reluctantly grabbed the bottom of my white undershirt and tugged it up.
“We did the same exact thing on board the Blood Crow,” he was as unruffled as ever; did anything ever get under his skin? “Or don’t you remember?”
“I remember undressing behind separate partitions and yelling at you to shut your kriffing curtain,” I ground out between my teeth as I finally heard one of the sonic showers behind me start to run.
I didn’t hear anything in reply and I cursed softly under my breath as I pulled my pants and underwear off - a little more roughly than was strictly necessary. When I turned around, Thrawn was safely hidden behind one of the stalls further down the row. I scuttled quickly into the nearest one and yanked the beige duraplast curtain closed behind me.
The Emperor have mercy. I wanted to wonder who this Thrawn was and what he had done with the old one. But, I couldn’t. This was the way our friendship had always worked. Or, at least, it had until circumstances changed it. I paused for a moment under the hard jets of air that blew through my unbound hair.
He was acting almost like he’d had in our early days of knowing each other. Less Grand Admiral, more Young Lieutenant. I wasn’t sure what to think of that…but, either way, it was still Thrawn. Inscrutable and infuriatingly superior as always.
I tried not to think of his hands on my hips earlier, as he threw me onto the mat time over and time again without any seeming effort. Or of his magnificent backside, which I had seen more than once in the “old days” - hence, the constant complaints about not closing his curtain. I hadn’t ever made up my mind about whether he’d always done that on purpose...and I certainly didn’t want to find out whether or not his curtain was closed this time around.
Or, so I told myself.