"I'm scared, Raider. I feel lost. Like there's a Jin shaped hole in my soul."
Kira could barely remember a time when he wasn't there, crouched in his corner of her mind. Their connection a constant. The thing keeping her going when the rest had fallen.
Raider couldn't quite hide his hint of worry. "He's alive. You'd sense it if he was gone."
"My head knows that, but the rest of me—"
The rest of her wasn't convinced. It felt the dead space where Jin should be and grieved.
"The primus is maintaining my mental state." At least it had been until Graydon's arrival shredded the balance she'd established. The primus was still there. Just a little more distant than it had been. "Without it—"
"You're afraid you'll go into a fugue state again."
Kira's nod was shaky.
"This isn't the first time, is it?" he asked.
"No."
"Rothchild." There was a flicker of pain on his face as he looked away from her. "That's why you were different. Why you were so cold despite—"
"Yes." Kira's answer was little more than a whisper of sound.
Raider closed his eyes, grief stamped on his features. "Ah, Kira, I wish I'd known."
She shook her head. "You couldn't have."
She hadn't been in a sharing mood back then. It was all she could do to bury everything. She'd had to become a creature of vengeance to keep putting one foot in front of another. Her relationships with Raider and a few others were sacrificed in the process.
"What a broken pair we make," Raider said before giving her a serious look. "You watch my back; I watch yours? We keep the other from going too far."
Kira nodded, liking the sound of that. "Just like old times."
They shared a look, remembering those times. The battles they'd fought and won. The impossible odds they'd always managed to tilt in their favor.
Yes, old times in that they'd lay waste to anything that interfered with the pursuit of their mission.
A narrow, oblong shape arrowed across the sky from the direction of the Hold, interrupting the moment. It landed on the edge of the space port.
"Looks like Blue made it," Raider observed.
"We'll get underway as soon as she's on board."
"I'll wait here for her." Raider glanced at the oshota waiting on the Wanderer's landing ramp. "You should deal with the big guy. I'm betting he has a lot to say."
"I think you’re right about that," Kira said with resignation as she headed toward the ship.
There'd be no dodging this conversation. One she'd known would be waiting for her the moment she'd decided to leave her oshota behind.
In the last few months, Kira had become versed in Finn-speak. Right now, the inscrutable expression on his face proclaimed his extreme displeasure.
She'd had no idea a person could be so verbose without ever saying a single word.
"You couldn't have come," Kira declared, immediately taking the offense.
"I'm a shield. A shield is useless if you leave it behind all the time," Finn said, falling into step beside her as she started up the ramp.
"We've been over this. I'm less interested in a shield than I am a partner."
