What is a life?

[idontneedluck]

The night is beautiful in the courtyard of the Temple of the Kyber. Summer on Jedha isn't exactly a tropical paradise, but the air is crisp instead of bone-chilling, which is an improvement. Braziers burn in the courtyard, the scent of burning herbs perfuming the air.

Chirrut Imwe sits meditating on one of the benches usually meant for temple visitors during daylight hours. It seemed much more pleasant to do so out here after his evening chores, than to stay inside where he'll be cooped all winter anyway.

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[iprotectyou]

Baze lightly taps Chirrut's shoulder as he passes, settling down on the ground in front of the bench. He doesn't feel the need to alert Chirrut that it's him, thinking that his friend knows him well enough by now that Chirrut can tell. Baze takes in the evening with a relaxed posture and a easy gaze.

Eventually, he presses an earthenware cup of warm tea into Chirrut's hand.

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut raises his head and smiles, accepting the tea and wrapping his fingers around the cup.

"I was beginning to wonder if you brought that out just to tease me with it." He jibes gently, raising the cup to his face to better smell the fragrant brew inside.

[iprotectyou]

Baze laughs, clapping a hand on his friend's knee. "You caught me," he says cheerfully. "And why shouldn't I tease you with it? Tea is a great medium for teasing."

[idontneedluck]

"Blasphemy, to use tea so." Chirrut retorts primly, and sips his tea. Perfect, as usual - Baze is so much better at getting the brew right than he is. "You should be ashamed of yourself, Baze Malbus."

[iprotectyou]

Baze thinks on that for a long moment. He thinks on that hard. "I don't think I will be," he reports, grinning. "In fact, I think I'll be--"

His scream cuts off his next words as blaster fire from the darkness strikes his arm.

[idontneedluck]

That sound sends ice down Chirrut's spine, paralyzing him for a second. He has never heard such a horrible thing, and never wants to again.
"Baze! Baze, what," But the Force is a howling, whirling thing, and he knows. Death has come to the temple, and he's sitting like a wallowing mudhen in its path. Strength born of desperation fills him, and he hauls on Baze's robes, dragging his friend back behind one of the massive stone pillars for cover. A quick flick of his foot brings his stick along as well, loathe to abandon it while under threat.

[iprotectyou]

Baze gasps as he's dragged, kicking his feet against the paving stones to help Chirrut yank him behind the pillar. Shouts echo out from the front of the temple, and Baze peeks around the pillar, wide-eyed.

"I can't see how many there are," he says, panting. His arm is on fire; he tests its range of movement in an agonizing flex. "I can still move."

[idontneedluck]

"... Six." Chirrut answers, with only a momentary hesitation. "Possibly seven, the echos nearest the far wall have always been problematic." Fiery stone chips fly past, sizzling as they go, when their sheltering pillar is splattered with blaster fire. Chirrut ignores them in favor of sliding his hands down Baze's arm until he finds blaster char, delicately delineating the size and scope of the injury.

"It should hold." He loathes, all in a moment, the professional distance in his voice as his training takes hold. He can't afford to show his horror at the wound, however. There's at least six people out there who are disturbing the peace of his home, and this... this is why there are Guardians.

Someone, unwary of the danger, drawn by the sound of blaster fire, runs into the courtyard. Chirrut's head comes up at the sound of footsteps, but he's a fraction too slow. A blaster barks across the courtyard, and the man drops. Chirrut gasps as if he were the one gut-shot instead. The Force, it seems, doesn't like sudden rents in its fabric.

[iprotectyou]

Baze's breaths are coming too fast for him to speak until he forces them to slow down. He closes his eyes. "The Force is with me. I am with the Force," he intones, the mantra calming him enough that he can actually think rather than cling to the pillar in a panic. "If you distract them, I can get within striking distance. I will take cover from the pillars in between their firing, because it's evening and the blaster bolts are bright enough to blind them."

[idontneedluck]

"Yes." Carefully he gathers his staff to him, centering his balance better over his feet in a crouch. "Baze?"

There's a deep breath to find what scattered bits of his peace he can find.

"Be careful." Another deep breath, and he adds, "They are about to fire."

[iprotectyou]

Baze nods. Then he realizes Chirrut can't see him--how often he forgets--and says, "I will be. You, too. May the Force be with you."

The flurry of concentrated shots is all the warning he has before he dives out from behind the pillar. Terror and training drives his scurry across the courtyard. Blaster fire tracks his steps. He runs, bent at the waist, and slams his back into the second pillar as soon as he reaches it.

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut yells, dropping his anger and terror into sound, insults and challenges to catch their attention. Fire marks the pillar he shelters behind, the wall behind him, heat and noise filling his world.

[iprotectyou]

Pain stabs into Baze's arm as he rests his palms on the ground. He crouches, tensing his legs and readying himself to run towards the next pillar. Counting off in his head the next time the intruders will fire, Baze galvanizes his muscles into action.

He launches himself across the courtyard, pumping his legs. Baze almost overshoots the next pillar, but manages to jerk himself back behind it. He's close, so close, to striking distance. He can smell the blaster char, the sizzling scent of lasers.

[idontneedluck]

He wasn't prepared for the waiting. This is nothing like the stillness of meditation. This is raw, this is fighting against the feeling of helplessness, of nearly climbing out of his skin from forced inaction. He cannot wait until Baze attacks, he dreads Baze attacking, he wants to go back to the teasing and tea, he wants to bash these attackers heads in with a vicious bloodthirst that's frightening.

He just wasn't prepared. He isn't sure he could have been.

[iprotectyou]

Baze is more prepared. Not by virtue of having been in a similar situation before, but because he once imagined what he would do should the temple come under attack. First, get Chirrut to safety. Second, disable the intruders.

It's the second plan he's putting into action now. He pitches himself out from behind the pillar, ambushing the nearest raider. The man only has a second to turn and raise his gun before Baze viciously strikes at his head, and he crumples. Baze snatches up his weapon from the paving stones and roars, firing at the next man--and the next--pulling the trigger as fast as Baze can.

The massive Guardian takes out three, four, five, six--and turns to the last man. A burst of blaster fire lights up the night, and Baze catches it in the chest. He staggers. With the flash, Baze sees the man--the boy--and nearly lowers his weapon, not wanting to condemn someone so young. Then he thinks of how this man shot at Chirrut--Baze's Chirrut--and fires.

[idontneedluck]

The blasterfire hail around Chirrut dies as Baze roars, and he takes his chance. He refuses to think how when the Force reacts to these deaths it doesn't hurt him as much. He tells himself it's adrenaline, as he pelts across the courtyard as fast as his feet will carry him.

This is made all a lie when the number of combatants ahead whittles to two. Made a lie when one of those two staggers, and it's not the one he knows is an outsider.

"Baze!" The shout is unwise, it draws the last gunman's attention, but he is close now. Close enough to close the distance before the gunman can shift his aim, close enough to attack. The gunman drops his blaster in favor of trying to block Chirrut's blows, grunting as Cirrut hits knee, kidney, chest, head in quick succession.

[iprotectyou]

Chirrut's howl jerks not just the gunman's attention to him, but Baze's attention, too. Baze's fingers go cold and numb, and slip on the gun; he barely notices its clatter on the stones as his breathing ratchets up. He can't get enough oxygen. The pressure from the injured side of his chest pushes on the functional side, and it's then he notices the pain. Fire burns through him and he sees stars; his body pulls blood to its core, and his limbs grow cold.

He drops to one knee, and then his shoulder hits the ground. Baze gasps and pants, clawing at his fiery chest with his butterfingers.

[idontneedluck]

The Force swirls darkly, cold and clinging as Chirrut whirls in a blurred attack, desperate to take this man down so he can check on Baze, assure himself that Baze is... just taking a breather, just leaving the last one for him.

He howls, an inhuman agonized sound when he hears Baze collapse, and lashes out with all of the strength within him. The strike bulls through the gunman's defense like it isn't there, knocking his head to the side and dropping him to the ground, a limp and crumpled form.

Chirrut immediately dismisses him, turning toward where he can hear Baze's pained breathing.

"Baze? Baze, I'm here, I'm here, it's alright, I'm here." Words fall out of his mouth in a babble as he bats Baze's hands aside and tears cloth away to get at the wound.

[iprotectyou]

Baze coughs. Each movement tears at his wounds, rendering him helpless.

"Chirrut," Baze gasps through a froth, shaking with the cold. He bites at his lip, trying to distract himself from the pain filling his world. "I k-killed them."

He barely registers the shouts and footfalls of the other Guardians' swift approach. They reach him and Chirrut in short order. Scooping him up immediately, they start hauling him back to the infirmary.

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut ends up pushed out of the way, left behind as they whisk Baze towards healing.

This... this doesn't suit Chirrut well at all, and it's just as well as he lost hold of his staff when he dropped to Baze's side. More than a few of the Guardians bear bruises from Chirrut's attack before they manage to get him calmed.

They give up on getting him in a suitable state of mind to report on what happened shortly there-after, and release him to go after Baze with the warning that if he gets in the way of the healers, he will be sent away until he can calm down again.

It's only this warning that keeps him pinned to the wall of the infirmary when he enters. He can hear them talking, voices full of worry and stress and terms he doesn't know. The Force is still a dark maelstrom, dragging against his shredded calm. He strains his ears for signs of Baze, but between the healers and the machines and the general controlled chaos he can find no trace.

[iprotectyou]

Baze would respond to Chirrut if he were able, but he's currently submerged in a bacta tank. He's never really liked them, being three and a half inches too tall and far too hefty for a standard cistern, but his wounds are too extensive for mere patches. Baze's head hangs limp, his arms at his sides--until he spots Chirrut. Then he bangs on the side of the tank with a meaty fist, in a shave-and-a-haircut rhythm.

[idontneedluck]

The rhythm focuses his attention, and he pushes himself off the wall to make his way in that direction. His progress is frustratingly slow, forcing him to use his staff for the reason it was originally given to him - there's too many devices, too many people, too much movement and noise to navigate without it. Chirrut doesn't understand how people can work in this noise, but that is a worry for another day. Or not at all.

Finally his hands encounter the smooth surface of a bacta tank, and he raps his knuckles against it experimentally.

[iprotectyou]

Baze smiles, despite sand weighing down his eyelids. He knocks on his side of the tank in a mirror of what Chirrut did, letting him know that Baze is there. He takes short, shallow breaths through the air tube, bubbles floating past his vision. The painkillers the techs gave him before shoving him into the bacta do their job, and Baze finds himself not entirely free of pain, but enough to be drowsy. He can feel his wounds knitting themselves together.

[idontneedluck]

The return knock shakes some of the tension out of Chirrut's frame, if only for a moment. The heady relief of finding Baze alive drowns his senses. Then, as if given permission, the doubts, fears, horrors pour in, tightening his shoulders and bowing his head. He rests it against the cool surface of the tank, his heads spread against it for balance.

There's blood on his hands. Literal blood, spread there during his desperate search for the wound that was taking Baze from him.

There's figurative blood as well. Forgotten in the moment it happened, he can now hear the sickening crack of wood against bone.

Worse, he's not sure he can feel entirely wrong about the act. He feels he should. He... should. But every second he spent trying to bring his opponent down was one less he had to find Baze.

[iprotectyou]

Now that they're safe, now that the threat is over, Baze allows his tears to flow. The thought of Chirrut being in danger even for one moment is too much to bear, and the thought that chases that one--I killed them--is even worse. There was no mercy in the way he dispatched the raiders; he even fired at the young one. It was the heat of the moment, kill or be killed, but Baze feels that is no excuse for the viciousness of his attack.

Baze drifts in the tank, his breathing evening out as he finally succumbs to sleep.

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut stands for what feels like an eternity, trying to calm his whirling thoughts. The still center he's been trained to hold on to has been shattered, leaving him feeling unmoored. He's just starting to properly regulate his breathing when the chaos starts up again behind him, the cold eddies to the Force picking up with a vengeance.

"Force, what happened to him?" Someone says, sounding stunned.
"They say he was hit in the head with a staff."

They brought the gunman here. They brought him here, with Baze injured so close by, they put him in danger again...

Chirrut roars, startling a nearby nurse and probably saving the gunman's life in the process. His enraged rush is checked by numerous hands, trapping and confining. Something sharp bites into his right shoulder, and shortly thereafter his thoughts slow and slide, moving difficult and, ultimately, unimportant.

[iprotectyou]

Baze wakes up in his own bed, and immediately glances around for Chirrut. His arm and chest have been tightly wrapped, and the wounds still seep through the bandages. His pain is a dull ache spreading from his head to his toes. He struggles to sit up, and then spots his friend in the bed next to him, asleep.

"Chirrut?" he says, slipping out of bed and shaking his friend's shoulder. "Chirrut, wake up."

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut startles, his hand flying up to grab at the hand shaking him before he's truly awake. Then the identity of the voice calling him seeps through his sleep-addled brain.

"No, you should be resting, what are you doing up?" There's an almost frantic tone to his voice as he rises. "I'm not supposed to let you up, your wounds..."

[iprotectyou]

Baze jerks back as he's grabbed, but settles down again as soon as Chirrut begins babbling. Baze gingerly sets himself down on Chirrut's bed, resting his own hand on his chest.

"I'm all right, I'm all right," he protests, waving away Chirrut's concern in the hopes of calming him down. He knows it'll probably have the opposite effect; Chirrut tends to be rather irrational whenever Baze comes to harm. "Are you?"

[idontneedluck]

"On probation, but fine." Chirrut dismisses firmly, scurrying out of the bed so he can at least try to push Baze down into it. "You shouldn't be up." He reiterates, a sob somewhere caught in the back of his voice. He had to listen, all he had left to do was listen, to the healers reports, their worries, the setbacks, the potential consequences.

[iprotectyou]

Baze allows himself to be pushed into the bed, but cups Chirrut's cheek. "Ssh," the older Guardian says. "What are you on probation for? What did you do?"

[idontneedluck]

For a long moment, Chirrut could have been carved from marble, he moved so little.

"... I failed to kill the last gunman." Chirrut's attempt at a shrug is even more of a mess than usual.


"All three times. They took him away yesterday."

[iprotectyou]

Baze's hands move to Chirrut's shoulders, lightly kneading. "Three times?" Baze says, disbelieving. "Force, Chirrut. What kriffing possessed you to attack him not just once, but three times?"

[idontneedluck]

"I failed you." The answer is simple in the end, and he's had a lot of time to think about it. He's going to have a lot more, before his probation period is over. "If I'd come to your aid earlier, he wouldn't have shot you. You almost died."

That, in Chirrut's mind, is utterly unacceptable.

"I couldn't... I couldn't fail you again."

[iprotectyou]

"But the danger was over," Baze says, his heart sinking. He uses Chirrut's shoulders to steady himself, to keep from pulling away from the moment. He just wants to go back to sleep. He's stupidly thirsty. "He was only a boy, Chirrut. Just a boy."

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut swallows, heavily. That has been pointed out - pointed out and underlined.

He feels adrift with the knowledge that even now, there's a rage behind his breastbone towards this supposed boy. That boy shot his Baze.

"One who shot you." He knows he's a mess. The Force hasn't stopped roiling in his presence since that night, making him long for the calm that used to be there.

"You must be thirsty, they said you would be." He pulls at Baze's hands so he can turn to reach the water.

[iprotectyou]

Baze holds on tight, tugging Chirrut closer. The older Guardian licks dry lips, ignoring how parched his throat is. "You didn't fail me, Chirrut," Baze says firmly, with all the weight of his conviction behind it. "But I'm glad you didn't kill him. I killed the others, and I wish I didn't."

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut slumps in Baze's hold, his head hanging low. Between his terror over losing Baze, the disapproval of the elders, and the disquiet of the Force, he is an emotional wreak.

"They were coming for the kyber, and they killed..." He trails off, miserably, as he realizes he was so caught up with his own stress he hadn't stopped to see what would be done for their fallen brother.

[iprotectyou]

Baze encircles his friend in Baze's large, powerful arms, embracing him--and effectively pinning him. "Yes," Baze says, rubbing Chirrut's back. "They did kill, and they planned to kill again. We shall have a pyre. For all of them. There has been too many deaths here."

[idontneedluck]

Normally Chirrut would huff in mock-annoyance at so tight a hold, but now there is only relief.

"I will get better, faster, so you will not have to kill for me." He has not yet reached the point of feeling true regret for wanting vengeance on that gunman, boy or no. He can feel guilt for inspiring Baze to kill, however. He would prefer the evils of the universe never touched that gentle heart.

"Now," He continues as he tries to pull up, with very limited success, "Will you not let me serve you? It is one of the very few tasks allowed to me at the moment,"

[iprotectyou]

Baze sighs and releases him. "I don't want you to have to kill," the larger Guardian murmurs, feeling very, very old. "But you can serve me if you wish. I am awfully thirsty."

[idontneedluck]

He is eager to, near-giddy happiness adding a twist to his already out-of-control emotions. He was worried Baze would show the same remote anger that the elders did, even if it is well deserved.

He would have taken it. He would have accepted it as his due and rejoiced that Baze was alive to give it. ... But he's so very happy this isn't the case.

So now he finds the water, movements slow and careful, and brings it to Baze.
"Are you hungry? I could go find food."

[iprotectyou]

Baze has never enjoyed being fussed over--he prefers to be the one doing the fussing--but he recognizes that Chirrut needs this, for whatever reason. The bigger Guardian shifts in the bed, barely sitting up so that he can greedily suck down the water Chirrut brings. "No, thank you," Baze says, yawning. "Unless you're hungry, you don't need to find food. I'm rather tired, still. Sit with me?"

[idontneedluck]

Part of him objects, unable to square with the idea of requiring penance.. but he could deny Baze nothing in this moment. Never mind that he craves some stillness and quiet right now as well.

"I will have to - you've taken my bed." Chirrut observes, his usually smart tone a little flat and worn... but he makes the effort. His movements are still slow as he makes a place for himself by the bed. He knows he's exhausted, and that makes him clumsy... and he wouldn't jar Baze for the whole of Jedha.

[iprotectyou]

Baze takes Chirrut's hand, squeezing it. "Take mine," he says, closing his eyes. The bacta did good work on his lung; his breathing is hardly impaired at all. The wounds' aches pull on him, but not enough to prevent him from slipping away into darkness.

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut listens to Baze sleep, the sounds subtly different from the unconsciousness he has been listening to since the attack.

Finally he sighs, and shakes himself. If he doesn't move, he'll fall asleep sitting up, and he imagines Baze will have something to say about that. On cautious feet he crosses the room again, curling into the space in the blankets left by his larger friend. He should pray, he drowsily recognizes as the world closes in on him. Tomorrow. In the morning. Then, there is time enough to try and make amends to that wild and powerful guide.

With that thought swirling through his head, he drifts off towards dreams.