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[imthepilot]

Bodhi can't help but get up and fiddle. He's slept so much since the accident, he finds it hard to stay still for too long. Even if holding Galen in the afterglow is magnificent.

Instead he investigates Galen's little kitchenette, seeing what he might have to work with. He's starving!

Comments

[imthepilot]

"It's nothing." He shakes his head. "How do you like the omelette?" He deflects, a little desperately.

[galen_erso]

Galen gives him a deep look.

"You don't like to think the Force works for you?" he says gently. "Perhaps, after everything that changed in the last few years, it has been found to not be real?"

Galen has a point in asking; after all, the Empire tries to deny the 'Jedi religion' even as it excoriates Jeddha for the very kyber crystals that power the lightsabres, something they both know to be deeply schizophrenic.

[imthepilot]

Bodhi chased a bite of food around his place. "It's not that." He clears his throat, trying to order his thoughts. "I've never... had faith, not the way some of my family do. Not because I don't believe it's real. I've seen the Guardians do things that... I can't explain. I just..." He puts the fork down, aware that there's no way to say this without sounding self pitying. "If there is a Force, I'm not important enough for it. I'm just- I'm no-one."

He closes his eyes. "And after what I've done, helping the Empire destroy the temple, why would it do anything good for me?"

[galen_erso]

Galen listens quietly while Bodhi talks. "The Force isn't personal," he says. "It's the thread that connects all beings in the universe. You exist, so do the stars. Nothing is too unimportant for the Force. Touching it, working with it, seeing it's patterns -- that is the talent and privilege of the Jedi, the Guardians and their like. But everybody is part of it, and is moved by it."

[imthepilot]

"Do you feel it? When you work with the crystals?" He didn't ask about Galen's work much. Because he was fairly sure there were things he didn't need to know. But Galen's... philosophical side fascinated him.

[galen_erso]

"Yes," Galen says. "You can't, if you don't. Still, it's a long way from wielding it."

[imthepilot]

"Tell what you feel?" He asks softly. A mix of hope and awe in his voice.

[galen_erso]

"I feel the connection, the natural flow of reality," Galen says. "An energy that slightly collapses time, which means a path from the past to the future and back. In hindsight, I know I had that with Lyra; now, I clearly feel that I have that with you."

[imthepilot]

Bodhi reaches across the table to touch Galen's hand lightly. He wants to believe that. With all his heart.

"What was she like? Lyra." He ducks his head. "I want you to know, I'm not- I won't ever be jealous of her, of you. I want to know all of you."

[galen_erso]

"Infinitely more practical and sensible than me," Galen says. "A geologist. Explorer. Surveyor. Guide. At home in worlds like these. She made my blood sing and ordered my world. We sometimes argued, of course, but there was a secret pleasure iin giving in to her better sense."

Pause.

"Old friends kepg telling me in strict confidence that she wasn't beautiful, that she was plain and unrefined, but they must all have been blind."

[imthepilot]

Bodhi strokes his fingers over Galen's inner wrist, listening. Just listening. "Beauty isn't in looks. You're not... that's not the way you see things." Otherwise, why would he notice Bodhi.

[galen_erso]

"Beauty is in the energy, hers or yours," Galen says. "It's iin the way you touch the Force un me. Then, the way you look becomes the most precious thing in the world, and you focus me."

[imthepilot]

"I would have thought I'd be a distraction, the way I've taken you from your work."

[galen_erso]

"No," Galen says. "You make the world find coherence again, now you are here. And you are very beautiful."

[imthepilot]

Bodhi shakes his head and leans across the table, kissing him softly. He doesn't have the words, he never has. Not for the way Galen makes him feel.

Valued, special. Worthy.

He settles back into his chair. "Will you tell me how you met?"

[galen_erso]

"Working," Galen says. "She worked in a team that had surveyed caves on Espinar where I went with another group of scientists because there were crystals there which we thought might be similar to kyber. On the end, though, they weren't."

[imthepilot]

"But you connected?" He asks softly.

And then pulls back a little. "Don't... don't let me push you, if you don't want to talk about it."

[galen_erso]

Galen closed his fingers around Bodhi's hand.

'No, I want to. And yes, we connected. No great fuss or drama: we came back from that expedition and were one, and made our plans and moves together after that. She was so beautiful to me -- strong and stern and regal in her solid boots and large warm coat, queen of all she surveyed."

He smiles -- a fond pun, and a terrible one.

[imthepilot]

Bodhi can't help but smile. The pun is awful and adorable at the same time. "It's wonderful, that love happened so fast and so completely."

He rubs his fingers over Galen's knuckles. "Twice."

[galen_erso]

"Oh yes," Galen says. "Twice. Necessary to the flow of the universe each time. Nothing big, I don't claim that -- but necessary like a smooth pebble in a stream lying just so."

[imthepilot]

"Necessary pebbles." Bodhi echoes. That he can live with. He can't see himself as more but as long as it means getting to be here, with Galen.

[galen_erso]

"There are millions of them, to one or two big dramatic rocks," Galen says, "but still, they make up the bed of the stream, and they must be there, each one."

[imthepilot]

"And in just the right place." Bodhi smiles, caressing Galen's hand. "Like we are now."

He loves Galen's hands. The dichotomy of them. By all rights they should be smooth and soft but Galen's hands carry a history of far more than a lab.

[galen_erso]

"Yes," Galen says. "Just so. So you see, it's not that strange that we fell so fast, or that Lyra and I did before. Just in the right place."

[imthepilot]

"It makes me wonder, if I'd never been assigned here. If I'd never entered the academy, would we have still found each other." Would he have ever known that he could feel like this.