who_is_she | (no subject)

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The alarms start blaring and he starts, turning away from his station to look at the flashing light. He shares a look with the soldier next to him, but doesn't have time to do anything else before yelling starts to echo down towards them.

"Reinforcements! We need reinforcements!"

"This is clerical support," says his superior, confused and startled.

"Not anymore," says the officer, "They've all been changed to troopers. We need reinforcements. The cargo must not be compromised at any cost."

The full meaning of that sentence doesn't occur to him until after he's been ushered into armor and handed a blaster, then made to stand awkwardly next to a group of other recently-promoted troopers. He realizes what that officer meant by cost, she meant him, she meant them, and not one of them has combat training. He realizes with dawning horror that this must be some kind of last-ditch effort to save the important people on the transport, at the cost of all the unimportant personnel.

He's not sure if he's the only one who's come to this conclusion, as these helmets cover a hell of a lot, and he doesn't have time to talk about it as the moment the blast doors open all he can hear, all he can consider is the screaming and the blaster fire. They all rush out together, someone's shouting orders but he can't make sense of it in the chaos. The ground is already strewn with white-armored bodies, and the rebels are shooting at them from behind the cover of a few collapsed buildings. They're clearly at a disadvantage, and his blaster hangs limply from his hands as his head spins.

They sent him out here to die. To last for a few minutes maybe, just enough time to get the ship going. That's what he's worth. A few minutes.

The terror is consuming and the blood is everywhere. His allies are dropping like flies around him, screaming, shrieking flies, and his vision starts to darken.

The last thing he sees before he falls is the head of the trooper in front of him exploding in a shower of gristle, and he's glad for the unconsciousness that takes him.

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Rumors of the battle that had taken place between the rebel and imperial forces reached the nearby settlements quickly, and Roddie, as always, hopped on his hoverbike and took off towards the site the moment he got the news, armed with a blaster a days supply of food and water. Accompanied only by his droid, AJ-4X, he left early enough in the morning that the sky was still dark, and by the time they arrived at the scene the suns were only just beginning to peek up over the horizon.

Much to Roddie's disappointment, he found that most of the corpses that littered the ground had already been thoroughly looted (and, in some cases, partially eaten or gnawed on. He'd heard talk of how neither side had really won the fight - the rebels had successfully eliminated key Imperial personnel, but both sides, as well as a great number of the civillian residents of the nearest settlement, had been almost completely wiped out. Seeing the grisly scene for himself, Roddie believed it - this had been a massacre.

An hour of digging through the corpses leaves Roddie with an assortment of weapons, two way radios, and various mechanical parts that were too busted for him to make sense of. On one of the storm troopers he finds a strange looking blue chip, which he turns over in his hand consideringly before calling AJ4X over and holding it out to him.

"Hey, Ajax," he says, kneeling down next to him, "What do you make of this?" The droid ponders a moment, focusing his camera on the chip, before letting out a series of indecisive beeps and whirrs.

"Yeah, me neither," Roddie shrugs, "Here, why don't you hold onto it. It's small, I'm scared I'll lose it." AJ4X opens a compartment on his chest, and after placing the chip inside Roddie hoists himself back up to his full height and looks around.

There was one intact body that he hadn't searched yet, he notices, and although he doubts at a glance it'll have anything on it, he heads over anyway, just to be sure.

"Okay, buddy, if this one's empty we can head on home," he says as he pats the body down, feeling up and down the legs for any concealed weapons.

He drifts in and out of consciousness for who knows how long, hearing snippets of conversation or exclamations but never staying awake enough to make sense of it.

He's wondering if the pounding in his head means some kind of injury and what he should do about that, if anything, when another sensation occurs to him. There's done kind of pounding in other parts of his body, and after a moment he realizes it's external.

He sits up with a shriek of terror, scrambling back away from the figure crouched over him.

"Oh, please, don't kill me, I didn't mean to-- I-- I didn't--" his head is still spinning and he can't make out the figure in front of him. He's shaking so badly he can barely see and moving at all is difficult, and he wishes he could just pass out again.

Roddie jumps and yelps at the sudden movement, pulling his pistol from his belt and pointing it at the apparently alive body that was cowering on the ground in front of him.

"Don't move!" he shouts, "Hands up. I said put your hands up, man, right now!"

His pistol was shaking in his hand, and to his surprise the storm trooper in front of him seemed to be quivering himself. It occurs to him, once the panic from the surprise fades, that holding a lone, possibly wounded, definitely frightened soldier at gunpoint might be overkill. Still, he was a storm trooper.

"...I'm not gonna shoot you if you don't shoot me," he says slowly, lowering his weapon slightly, "So, like...chill out."

Edited 2015-12-20 04:26 (UTC)

"Shoot...?" he replies distantly, blinking over at the figure and then realizing he'd had a blaster at some point. He glances around but sees it nowhere, and as he's looking he sees the carnage left in the aftermath of the battle.

Suddenly short of breath he reaches up to yank off his helmet, casting it aside carelessly as he gapes at the horrors surrounding them. His breathing is quick and panicked, and he wonders how many of these bodies he knew or had worked with.

"Oh, shit," he says, his voice faint, "I'm going to throw up."

Roddie feels a twinge of sympathy when he hears the panic in the man's voice, and it grows harder to ignore when he wrenches off his helmet and reveals his reddened, sweaty face. Roddie pushes his goggles back on his head to get a better look at him, and lowers his gun the rest of the way.

"Well, if you do, you got a bucket right there," he says, grinning at his own joke, but when it falls flat he clears his throat, "Hey, why don't you, uh, not look at all this blood and guts and head over to my bike. I'll take you back to camp. Are you hurt at all?"

He just stares at the comment about the bucket, not comprehending, and when the stranger offers to take him somewhere his eyebrows furrow and he takes a good look at who's talking to him for the first time.

"I'm.... I don't know," he says blankly, "Who are you?" He takes a good look at the stranger's clothes, searching for any resistance insignia, "Are you... With the rebellion?" He shrinks back a little as he says this, unsure if this is just some kind of ruse to kill him.

"Nope," Roddie says, shrugging, and it's mostly true. He wasn't, not in any official capacity, other than the tip offs he often supplied them with, and the guns he gave them when he could spare them, and the fact that he'd sheltered several operatives when they'd needed housing or needed to hide from Imperial troops, and the fact that he was currently considering whether he should radio them to alert them that he'd found an enemy they might be interested in questioning.

"Well, okay, I kind of am," he admits, "But look, I'm not gonna hurt an unarmed guy or leave him to die in the desert, that's not my style. So do you want my help or not?"

"You... what?" he exclaims, his voice taking on a shrieky quality again, "What does that mean? Help? Help from someone who's kind of in the resistance? Am I kind of your prisoner here?" He gestures wildly as he says this, unable to make logical sense of this stranger's actions.

"You do realize I'm on the other side, right?" he says, and his face falls as he glances around, "Or... was, I suppose. It's not like they'll come back for me." He frowns again, considering that thought and considering the swirl of emotion that followed it. He couldn't say he was sad, exactly, not for the organization that had used him as cannon fodder, but he'd enjoyed his position. It had made sense. This situation made no sense at all.

"Whoah whoah, calm down buddy," Roddie says, holstering his gun and gesturing placatingly. The guy's reaction furthered the sympathy Roddie was feeling; he knew their soldiers were either cloned or taken from their families at a young age and brainwashed into their merciless lifestyle, but he'd never actually met one of them and seen the results of this for himself.

"Just take a deep breath, okay?" he says, "What's your name? You got a name?"

"Name...?" he repeats, shaking his head, "No, I have a designation code. TNY-7007." He looks down at his hands, the black gloves and white armor covering his knuckles, and doesn't recognize them. He has no purpose in the world outside of his work, and now his own incompetence has taken that away. He has nothing. Not even a name.

"I don't have a name. I have nothing."

"Yeugh, that's a mouth full," Roddie says, scrunching up his face, "TNY-7...whatever. TNGY...What about Tony? Can I call you that?"

He looks over at the stranger, surprised, and considers it. Names were for important personnel, those who had earned individuality, nothing he could have ever hoped for. He swallows thickly and then nods, his eyes a little misty.

"Do as you like," he says, the emotion in his voice betraying his shrugging response, "Do you... have a name?"

"Call me Roddie," he grins, wiping the grease on his hands off on his pants before outstretching his hand to shake Tony's, "Now look. We're gonna get on my hoverbike and head over to where my ship is docked, get you fixed up, and figure out what to do from there. Cool?"

Not waiting for a response, he claps the young man on the shoulder and leads him over to his bike. Following them is AJ4X, and when they reach the bike he hoists the droid into his side car before hopping on himself and offering Tony a hand up.

Tony looks at the hand offered to him, considering it for a moment, and the man it was attached to, before swallowing again and taking the hand. Before he has time to do anything he's settled on the bike behind Roddie and they're speeding away, way too fast to be safe. Tony shrieks immediately, his arms going tightly around Roddie's waist.

After a moment or two listening to Roddie's laughing he manages to calm down, distracted by the presence of this very odd man who quite literally picked him up off the ground. No one has ever treated him with such kindness or care, or given him any kind of notice whatsoever, and being confronted with it now is overwhelming.

He had no idea such kindness existed in the galaxy, and as they zoom past structures and trees he stares at the back of Roddie's head. All he can see is Roddie's hairline and he sees a dark mole just below it. Roddie's hair is whipping around in the wind, the curls not quite long enough to be hitting Tony in the face. He thinks the curve of his neck is oddly alluring, and he wonders if that's just the head injury and the incredible soreness he's feeling.

It doesn't take them long to reach the settlement, and Roddie's ship is parked a little ways from a small cluster of dirt huts. Normally, he would have taken his day's haul to get appraised, but seeing as he has company he opts to lead Tony to his ship and look him over first. A quick push of a button lowers a ladder down to their level and climbs up ahead of him.

The ship is small and cluttered, but in a homey way, with comic books and guns and toys and other clearly treasured junk strewn across every available surface. Roddie smiles before shrugging off his jacket, taking a cigarette out of his pants pocket and lighting it while holding it between his teeth.

"Alright, now, are you hurt?" he asks, heading over to a compartment on the wall and pulling out a first aid kit, "Looks like you bumped your head at least."

Tony's eyes widen comically when he follows Roddie onto his ship, looking around at the mess.

"I-- what?" he says, turning his wide eyes on Roddie, "I'm--fine," he says haltingly, giving Roddie an odd look, "Don't you have to-- To clean this up? Are you just-- allowed to put things wherever like this? Won't you be..." He trails off before he says punished, realizing how stupid he must sound to Roddie. He gapes a little as he considers the freedom Roddie must enjoy-- no nightly room checks, no personality checks, no strict rules to follow whatsoever. He stares at the mess, unable to shake the knee-jerk fear and panic at the sight but shaken by the realization that there wasn't anybody to punish Roddie if he didn't stick to regulations.

Roddie raises an eyebrow quizically at him as he blows out a puff of smoke.

"Uhh, well, there's nobody here but me and Ajax, so, not really," he says, opening the box of medical supplies and fishing through it. He pulls out a roll of bandages and some disinfectant, and motions for Tony to come closer.

"Can you get out of your armor so I can get a better look at you?"

"Oh, um, sure," he says, still dazed as he starts to strip off pieces of his armor, leaving them strewn on the floor. He's still wearing his uniform underneath, but it's rumpled and torn in some places. There are a few spots of blood here and there, indicating that his uniform is likely hiding some more serious injuries.

"I feel fine," he says, though his voice is distant and his posture is sagging a little.

"Sure you do," Roddie says dismissively, rolling up his sleeves and revealing his mechanical right arm for the first time since he'd met him. He applies some of the disenfectant to a cloth and begins dabbing carefully at a cut on Tony's forehead.

"You gotta take off your uniform too, man," he says gently, careful to blow the smole from his cigarette away from Tony's face, "You're bleeding, and I can't do anything for you if you don't."

"Oh," Tony says, looking down at himself as if it had only just occurred to him that he was wearing clothes, "Right." He strips off his uniform top and drops it on the floor, stepping out of his trousers in the next movement. His skin is pale and pasty, and it looks even paler compared to the myriad of bruises and open wounds on his torso and legs.

He stands there, almost naked and dazed, looking up at Roddie who is very close now.

"Your eyes have many more colors in them than I originally thought," he says, his voice distant as he reaches up to steady himself against Roddie.

Roddie furrows his brow before shaking his head with a laugh.

"Yeah, all right, you need to sit back down," he says, his face burning slightly in spite of himself as he eases him back down. His wounds didnt look too serious, the worst of them being a deep burn in his left shoulder, where a blast from an energy weapon had clearly grazed him. He begins there, and slowly works down the front of his torso, cleaning and bandaging as he went. For a moment, he considers making small talk, but he's not sure how well he could steer the conversation away from topics that might make the man panic again.

"So...what do you think of Jaaku?" he asks dumbly, deciding that any questions about his past or his job might be a sore spot.

Tony stares into the distance while Roddie works, thinking this is much more pleasant than the medical examinations he would get on the station. His mind wanders a little, wondering if they think he's dead or if he's been marked a deserter and a traitor.

Roddie's question stirs him from his stupor and he glances around, like he expects to be about to look through a window.

"I'm not sure, honestly. I didn't see too much of it before I passed out. And the ride here was very fast," he pauses, considering, and then glances over at Roddie, "I'm sure it's... very nice," he adds, not wanting to insult Roddie's home.

Roddie lets out a snort at that and shakes his head.

"Nah, it's a shithole," he laughs, smirking at him as he finishes off the end of his cigarrette. He drops the end of it on the floor and grinds it ouf with his heel.

"I was only gonna be here for a couple more days, but now I dunno," he says, scratching the side of his face, "I guess I should, uhh...radio in and let the resistance know about you. Not like, they're gonna imprison you or anything. Well, I mean, I can't really...you know, take you back to the Imperials. Sorry about that. But you'll be safe, promise, they'll probably just want to ask you some questions."

Roddie wipes his slightly bloodied hands on his pants before giving Tony a quick once over, looking for anything he'd missed.

"Well, nothing's broken and you won't need stitches," he says, "Unless you want them just for fun. Otherwise you look good to me."

"What's fun about stitches?" Tony asks, deadpan, and then the rest of Roddie's rapid fire information catches up with him, and his eyes widen in panic.

"Ask me some questions? What does that mean?" he says, his breath quickening, "I don't have anything for them! I don't know anything!" He thinks about how Roddie had said he wasn't really with the rebels, and the faces he had seen shooting at him when those blast doors opened. Chances were, they wouldn't be as kind to him as Roddie had been.

"They're just going to find out I don't know anything and kill me!" He exclaims, reaching out to grab Roddie's jacket, "Please, you can't," he pleads, his voice and expression taking on a truly pathetic amount of fear and desperation.

"Relax, relax!" he says, pulling back a little when Tony pulls on his jacket and gently removing Tony's hands from where they were twisting into his clothes, "Easy, buddy, look, I promise nothing's gonna happen to you, I just have to radio in and let them know you're here so they don't think I'm backstabbing them keeping a storm trooper hidden on my ship, okay? They'll ask you a few questions, if you've really got nothing they'll let you go. Promise! I've been through this kinda thing before and they're the good guys, really. Plus, I'll stick with you the whole time, if that makes you feel better."

Tony visibly calms, more at the last sentence than the rest of Roddie's assurances. He sags a little, letting out a sigh and glancing away as he mulls it over.

"The good guys," he repeats distantly, mostly to himself. He'd never thought about it like that, in terms of good and bad. He'd just focused on doing his job the right way. He'd never thought of the rebels as anything but a faraway opposing force, the unreasonable and unquestionable Enemy.

He realizes abruptly that Roddie is holding his limp and clammy hands, likely he'd just forgotten after prying Tony's hands away from tearing holes in his clothes. Tony colors at how warm and comforting Roddie's hands are, gently pulling away and taking a step back. Surely he doesn't deserve such comfort, not if he's one of the bad guys.

"Okay," he says quietly, nodding and not meeting Roddie's gaze, "I should... get dressed."

"Yeah, go for it," Roddie says, grinning at him and patting him on the shoulder before rising to his feet, "I'll leave you to it. I'm gonna go radio in and ask where they want to meet, and we can get on our way here pretty quick. It's gonna be fine, all right? I swear."

He leaves, allowing Tony enough time to get dressed and have a few moments to himself before returning, announcing his presence with a light knock on the door.

"All right, we're headed out to Yavin 4 as soon as you're ready," he says, "Cool?"

Tony gets back into his uniform and then sits down, realizing how tired he is as soon as he has a moment to breath. He stares around the room, inspecting everything and marveling at the differences from what he was used to.

When Roddie returns he nods immediately, and sticks close to Roddie's side as he leads the way up to the cockpit. He sits in the place for a co-pilot, though he has no idea how to even begin to understand flying this ship. Roddie seems to have no problem doing it alone though, and easily chats with Tony while he flies. His chatter puts Tony at ease, and it doesn't take long for Tony to be laughing and smiling with him.

His joy is short lived though, because a few minutes into the journey an alarm starts to blare and Tony jumps and cowers back.

"What's-- What's that?" he yells, badly startled, "What does that mean?! What's happening?!"

"Ajax, talk to me buddy!" Roddie shouts, keeping his cool as best as he can. A series of beeps in response lets him know that, as he guessed, they had Imperial soldiers on their tail.

"We're taking fire," he says, flipping a few knobs on the dashboard. He swears under his breath as the red light reading "critical engine failure" begins to flash.

"God, they got us real good already, fuck!" he swears again, grabbing the controls to the mounted gun and firing several shots through the viewfinder at the top of the ship's front window. He manages to send one of the jets spinning out, but another one simply pulls into its place.

"They must have intercepted my message -- shit, man, shit, I can't shake 'em. Come on, Tony, come on, Ajax, we gotta get out, go go go."

Roddie unbuckles his seatbelt and puts the ship on autopilot before hopping out of his seat and stumbling quickly out of the cockpit to the evac pod. There was only one available, and he ushers Tony quickly inside before handing him the droid and the radio off his hip.

"Take this," he says, pressing it into his hands, "And my gun. Use frequency 46903. Tell them your Roddie's friend and let Ajax back you up, they'll come get you."

"What?" Tony says, taking the things that Roddie hands him and staying back dumbly, not understanding what's going on, "What are you talking about? You... you're coming too, right?"

Tony is suddenly filled with intense fear and dread that Roddie isn't going to escape with him.

"You can't! You have to come! You promised you'd come with me!"

"I'll take the other escape pod," Roddie lies, hoping Tony didn't notice that there was only one as he closes the glass doors to the pod and bumps his metal fist against the window

"You'll do fine," he says, giving him a thumbs up, the confidence in his expression wavering a little as he does. It isn't until the door is completely down and the countdown to ejection begins that he begins to process the fact that he's sealed his own fate.

Tony just nods and lets Roddie usher him along, too overwhelmed to question it, until the pod seals and the countdown starts and on the other side of the porthole Roddie's expression falters a little.

"Wait, wait, no!" he shouts suddenly, pounding on the door, searching for a release valve, "There's only one pod! Wait, stop, don't--!" Roddie's expression perks up again and he winks, and Tony gapes at him for the second or two before the pod launches away from the ship.

It doesn't take long for Tony to get knocked out, because he'd been too busy hollering to strap himself in.

He makes up slowly, feeling even more horrific than he had the last time he'd woken up. Roddie's droid is poking him gently, and Tony groans as he sits up and looks around. He'd been thrown clear of the pod crash-landing apparently, or maybe the droid had dragged him away from it, and he can see the ruined remains of it a few feet away.

"Oh, God," he chokes, remembering how he'd gotten in this particular situation, "We have to find the ship." He struggles to his feet with the help of the droid, who seems to be keen on the same task. As soon as he stands up and turns around, though, Roddie's fate seems sealed. The wreckage of Roddie's ship is at the bottom of a steep hill, which Tony seems to be at the top of, well concealed in some foliage.

The wreckage at the bottom of the hill is not concealed at all; it's torn apart and still smoldering.

"Roddie," he groans, his heart aching with what must have happened-- but there's still a chance. Tony starts to scramble down the hill, ignoring his protesting body the whole way. The bottom of the hill is further away than it had looked from the top, and it takes Tony hours to get there.

When he finally stumbles onto the wreckage there's not much left outside of smoldering metal. Tears come to Tony's eyes as he surveys it, sure that nothing would have survived. The droid gives out an attention-grabbing trill and Tony turns to see him gesture to a scrap of fabric. At first Tony has no idea why the droid has such an interest in some trash, but as he gets closer he realizes it's the red jacket Roddie had been wearing. He clutches it desperately to his chest, the last remnant of the man who had shown him more kindness than he'd ever known, and scrambles back just in time to miss the wreck exploding and destroying whatever might have been left.

Edited 2015-12-22 14:09 (UTC)

Roddie scrambles out of the wreckage as best he could after the crash, blood dripping from both nostrils and a gash on his head but otherwise unscathed. As soon as he's a safe distance from the flaming wreck, he flops down in the sand, heart pounding and chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath and keep his vision from fading to black. Gradually, as he comes to grips with the fact that he'd prepared himself for a death which hadn't come, coherent thoughts begin to return to his mind once again, and the most urgent one (other than his despair at watching his beloved ship reduced to a pile of rubble) is to find the crashed escape pod.

Roddie stumbles off, the loose sand making him slip and lose his footing several times, in the direction of a trail of smoke which ended not too far from the site of his crash. To his disappointment, this turned out to be a piece of the hull which had caught fire and fallen off during the crash. He repeats this process several times, and after hours of walking and searching and yelling himself hoarse calling out the names of his friends, he very reluctantly decides that he'll have to continue his search later, once he's out of the woods himself. He pulls out his compass and heads off in what he hopes is the direction of a nearby settlement with which he was familiar, hoping against hope that the other two would make it there as well.

Eventually, 4J4X convinces Tony to leave the wreckage and seek out the rebels Roddie had been taking him to. His urging becomes quite forceful even, when Tony feels more inclined to wrap himself in Roddie's jacket and sit in a spot of shade for the foreseeable future. Ajax won't let him wallow though, no matter how many times he explains that Roddie's death is solely and completely his own fault.

Eventually he agrees that carrying out Roddie's dying wish is an all right thing to do, if he's going to do something other than wallow in misery, and Ajax takes off in the general direction of the rebel base.

The rebels are actually shockingly nice to him, and don't exactly seen to know who Roddie is. They care that he's dead even though they don't know him--which comes as something of a shock to Tony.

It turns out the first order had come back for a lost data chip that Roddie had found and given to Ajax, and they'd intercepted Tony in the search. Tony hands over the data and explains his general ignorance towards everything and wishes that Roddie were here with him every step of the way.

They give him a room and once he gets settled into it and figures out how to lock the door he wraps himself up in Roddie's jacket and starts to cry. The guilt is eating him up inside-- how he'd met the best person in the galaxy and caused his death within an hour. There wasn't anything that could make up for that.

Tony doesn't get much time to wallow before a series of quick knocks comes at the door to his room. An older Zabrak woman is there when he answers, and she clears her throat before speaking.

"You are the former storm trooper who identified himself as Tony, yes?" she begins, and continues without waiting for a reply, "You reported that you were sent our way by a young man named Roddie, who you described as a scavenger captain-for-hire of sorts. We don't have records of anyone by that name, but one of our contacts, a smuggler who we know as Kizzmy Gryts, arrived here a few days ago and has been...insisting we inform him if anyone matching your description was to contact us."

She grits her teeth a little as she says the last part, trying to keep her language professional despite the annoyance the boy had been this past week.

"It's up to you whether or not to speak to him, I suppose. I know you reported your friend was unquestionably dead, so this could be someone else. Whoever it is is very persistent, either way. If you wish for me to send for him, just say the word."

"Kiss my grits?!" Tony repeats disbelievingly, and the zabrak woman's eyebrows go up.

"Is that how you say it? I've never heard it pronounced," she says, shrugging, "So you do know him?"

"I... I'm..." Tony stutters, unsure what to do with this new information. He hadn't known Roddie very long, but he did seem like the kind of guy to pick a terrible pseudonym like "Kizzmy Gryts". Or maybe Kiss My Grits was his real name and Roddie was the fake name. It would make more sense for Roddie to give his real name to the rebels than to a storm trooper.

The zabrak is giving him an odd look, as he's been standing here smirking, and Tony clears his throat and makes up his mind.

"I don't... I mean, that guy was very dead, but if... someone's looking for me, I should talk to them, right?" He says unsurely, and the zabrak just shrugs.

"It's no skin off my horns," she says, turning away, "I'll send him your way."

And then she's gone, and Tony gapes after her. Could it really...?

No, no, it wasn't possible, he tells himself, shutting the door and sitting down uneasily on his bed. Roddie was dead. Maybe it was one of the friends Roddie had mentioned briefly, who was just... kind of similar to Roddie. They probably just wanted to know what happened. Wanted to know who to blame.

Tony sighs, steeling himself for a difficult conversation. He wouldn't lie about his involvement in it, no matter what, and he'd take whatever punishment he deserved.

As soon as the words "he says he'll see you" leave the Zabrak's mouth, Roddie is pushing past her down the hall towards the room number he'd been given, almost running past it in his fervor. The last week had been excruciating; not knowing whether or not his droid or the poor soldier he'd sent him with had made it out alive, and his desperation to see both of them alive and well leads him to bang heavily and frantically on the door to the room.

Tony startles when someone starts banging on his door, fear jumping up his throat because whoever's on the other side of that door cannot be happy. He swallows and stands, hurrying over to the door and opening it quickly, wincing back as it opens like he expects whoever's on the other side to start throwing punches.

But nothing happens for a few seconds, and there's just silence, so Tony cracks his eyes open and peers around the door. He gasps, his eyes watering almost immediately as he recognizes the figure who he'd been so sure had perished in an explosion.

"Roddie?!" he says, almost shrieks, his voice cracking.

Roddie feels like an enormous weight has been lifted the minute he sees him standing there, and he rushes forward, hugging him so tight he almost knocks him over.

"Buddy, hey!" he says, pulling back and shaking him gently by the shoulders as he beams at him, "You made it here! Man, I was so worried about you!"

"You were worried about me?" Tony repeats, wiping furiously at his eyes, "You were-- you were dead!" He returns the hug because he's not sure what else to do, and because the physical warmth of Roddie is the only thing that can convince him he's really here.

"I-- I saw it, it exploded! The-- the whole ship!" he pulls back enough to gesture explosively with his hands, "Nothing could have... All that was left was..." His hands curl into the lapels of Roddie's jacket, which he embarrassingly realizes he's still wearing.

"I know!" Roddie says, not immediately noticing the jacket, "I was long gone before that happened, though. I looked everywhere for you, seriously, but when I couldn't find you guys anywhere I headed to town. I had a friend there - Zakeef - he took me back to look some more and see if we could do anything about my ship, but when we finally found the escape pod it was empty and my ship was in pieces."

His face falls a little, recalling how worried he had been that Tony had been captured or killed by the troopers that had shot them down, but within moments he's beaming up at him again.

"I just had to hope you made it to the rebels," he says, gripping his shoulders again, "And you did, and I did, and...hey, is this my jacket?"

"Oh, yeah, um," Tony flushes and leans back, starting to pull the jacket off his shoulders, "I thought you died in the explosion so I... I didn't... want you to be totally... gone." Tony looks away, stopping halfway through taking off the jacket as his voice wobbles. He's embarrassed about being so emotional but he's past the point of being able to choke back tears and he makes this obvious by sniffing loudly.

"Sorry, I... Shit," he says, his throat closing up as he wipes at his eyes and nose.

Roddie's smile falters when he finally notices the tears falling from Tony's eyes, and he takes a step back, patting his cheek lightly with his metallic hand.

"Hey, hey," he says gently, biting his lip and frowning, "What's the matter? Did I say something wrong, what's going on? They're treating you all right here, aren't they?"

Tony shoots Roddie an annoyed look, assuming he's pretending not to know, but the look in his eyes is totally honest and genuine. Tony pauses, considering, and then shakes his head a little.

"You're kidding, right? You were dead up until a minute ago. I thought... I thought you died because of me and nobody has ever been so nice to me," he says, pulling away from Roddie's hand to wipe at the tears that won't stop falling, "Forgive me if I'm a little emotional."

He finishes taking off Roddie's jacket and hands it to him, then turns back into his room to find something to blow his nose into.

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