systemcritical | (closed) we do the impossible

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(closed) we do the impossible

CHARACTERS ▶ Luke Skywalker & Wedge Antilles
LOCATION ▶ Shipyards
SUMMARY ▶ Luke and Wedge meet outside their Matrix for the first time
WARNINGS ▶ None
NOTES ▶ Gross feelings incoming

The shipyards never sleep. And it's a good thing, too.

Wedge works under the belly of a hovercraft, cables spilling out of its insides like the viscera of a mechanical whale. Four ships lost means more work for mechanics, tighter, hastened schedules. Hovercrafts must be replaced. There can't be gaps in the Zion Defense Grid. Their lives depend on it.

There's grease tracks on Wedge's forehead, dark brown fringe gone coal black. By now all the mechanics stink of metal and sweat and oil. It's an unspoken agreement not to bring up each other's stench. Politicians get to stay clean. Mechanics and engineers and soldiers and people who get shit done don't.

His shift ended two hours ago. But Wedge doesn't want to leave. He'd rather work past his feelings than acknowledge them. He's just come off a successful tour, he's primed to become a captain. Yet it's a hollow victory.

The people he truly wishes to celebrate with are not here.

Sithspit. He misses them so, so much.

"I need a break." Wedge jumps off the platform, clocking out. Heart-aching, gut-wrenching melancholy isn't an excuse for frying delicate electrical and mechanical parts. Wedge refuses to be the guy that pushes them off schedule.

So to clear his mind, he takes a stroll.

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There's still a small part of Luke that has remained in a state of denial, that all of this is just a dream and he's about to wake up. In reality, it was the other way around.

In an attempt to solidify that in his head, Luke's taken it upon himself to venture through the shipyards and talk to other crews, see if anyone could use a pilot. He doesn't know much about the hovercrafts, but he's eager to learn and his past experience should give him a big advantage. So long as he plays to his strengths he should be able to find something to do. Luke hates feeling useless.

The long walk is a bit tiring as Luke's body is still recovering from extraction and he's had to wrap himself up tightly to keep warm.

There are several mechanics and other members of various crews around. Luke tries to keep an eye out for someone who looks at least moderately approachable. One mechanic shuffles past him and as Luke locks his gaze onto the man's face, his heart thuds and he stops dead in his tracks, then turns around to face him.

In a choked, hoarse voice he manages to utter the first word that comes to mind, "Wedge."

No, this isn't—

This can't—

"Luke?" Sometimes Wedge sees the rest of the Rogues as ghosts-in-action: in the mechanic who likes to prank the rest, he sees Wes Janson. There's a blond whose dignified, cold aristocratic demeanor has Tycho Celchu written all over it. And Hobbie, well, Hobbie is all over Zion.

But Luke? No, never Luke. No one compared. Wedge didn't mean it as an insult to the rest of the Rogues, but measuring up to their illustrious leader was an impossible task. He was just too moral, too caring, too daring, too...

Wedge steps forward. His fingers shake as they reach for Luke's shoulder, afraid to touch, to hope and be wrong.

"Sithspit." Wedge bites his lower lip, keeping it from quivering. "...leave it to a kriffing Corellian to beat the odds again."

Edited 2015-03-27 07:07 (UTC)

It's so rare, so very, exceedingly rare to find someone in the Real who you knew in your Matrix, that Luke never dared to hope he would. Now he's face-to-face with not only someone he knows, but one of his closest friends.

In fact, Wedge Antilles was probably the one person from home who best knew the deep intricacies of the daily stresses, trauma, and horrors that Luke had faced while fighting for the Rebellion. Only because he had faced them too in almost the exact same way. The bond between a commander and his executive officer was unlike any other.

He's different, older, there are things about him Luke wouldn't have expected. He's obviously been unplugged for a while, but it's him. He knows Luke, recognized him even though Luke is thin, pale, nearly bald and somewhat haunted in his expression.

Wedge reaches forward to touch him and though Luke doesn't move, he doesn't really react in any positive way either. There's a distance about him and a demeanor akin to that of a lost child.

"Wedge..." he repeats, a bit strained as if the weight of loss is crushing his vocal chords.

Then for a moment his eyes shift back and forth, and his jaw hangs slightly. In a quieter tone he murmurs, "We're not supposed to be here." He doesn't to elaborate on that but it's clear that seeing Wedge has awoken something inside him.

Wedge rubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms, pressing them into his eyeballs until stars burst and explode, supernovas at the back of his eyelids. They look like Yavin, and Endor, and Garven and Porkins and Biggs...

His face is so filthy the tears leave tracks behind. Wedge isn't the type given to sobs and wheezes and loudness, but his shoulders rise and fall with each sniffle and that, to someone that knows Wedge, says a lot.

Anger, he realizes, comes first. Luke looks so thin, so lost. It's not anger he necessarily has a right to, but it's the same sort of protective wrath he felt whenever a TIE threatened his commander: distract, evade, destroy.

But then it's relief. Because half a year without a friend took its toll. Sure, the people of Zion were cordial, generous, even open-minded. But they weren't his commander. They weren't a best friend, a brother-in-arms, a brother.

I'm not alone anymore.

Seeing Luke has too awoken something in Wedge. Feelings, ends up, don't disappear. No matter how hard Wedge tried to hide them.

"I don't care where I am," he wipes his eyes, looking at the floor, at his shoes, anywhere but at Luke, "As long as I'm not the only Rogue."

It's really something else to see Wedge cry, and not only that but a real, shoulder-shaking cry. Luke was already in shock but now he's utterly lost. There's a hope there that maybe now Luke can begin to heal, now that he's found something comforting and familiar in a strange world, but it tears at him to see Wedge like this.

Finally the shock has worn off enough that Luke can move and he reaches out to grasp at one of Wedge's sleeves, then the other.

He hates this place, Luke finally admits to himself. He hates what it's done to people and what it's done to him. Sometimes he thinks it would be better if he'd just never woken up, but with Wedge here maybe... just maybe Luke can find something to fight for.

Luke knows he was one of the few people Wedge ever revealed much emotion to, but even knowing that it still digs at him to see this kind of emotion. He can't help but be pulled along. It's in his nature to feel what others are feeling and it's somewhat of a relief to know that trait is still with him even without the Force.

He uses his grip on Wedge's sleeves to pull himself forward, and to pull Wedge closer to him at the same time, though he does it to hide his face. It's not quite a hug as his hands don't move from their death grips, but his forehead comes to rest on Wedge's shoulder and he seems to shrink, exhaustedly, mentally and physically.

Tears begin to dampen the shoulder of Wedge's coveralls.

Luke pulls Wedge close, but not close enough. So, to bridge the distance, Wedge wraps his arm around Luke's torso, letting Luke cry on his shoulder.

They've been through worse together: their friends, their families dying before them. Learning how the road to hell might be paved with good intentions, but how they all ride to hell, alone.

Wedge's eyes might sting with tears, but they're not tears for himself anymore. They're for Luke too, for Wedge realizes Luke has lost a lot more than he has: the Force.

"Hey, boss," he whispers, quietly, "As your XO—no, as your best friend, I'm going to do everything I can to help you get through this."

Seeing Wedge again has brought Luke hope. Hope that he might someday find others from their Matrix, maybe make this place feel like some semblance of home. But it's also brought him a terrible ache for familiar things. He's homesick and it hurts so much... and Luke doesn't know how to soothe the ache anymore; not without the Force.

Wedge's whispered promise brings about another wave of emotion, but it's a grateful one. Luke chokes on a sob and his fingers finally release their grips on Wedge's sleeves to slide up around his neck.

Luke thought he was stronger than this. He'd rolled his eyes when he was told that the transition would be difficult. It had seemed no more difficult than anything he'd gone through back home. But in retrospect, this is the big one. It's the one that made all of his other experiences obsolete except in memories. They don't mean anything anymore. Is Anakin Skywalker even still his father? Probably not. It doesn't mean anything.

But this friendship is still real, Luke tells himself. Wedge is here and he's still one of the most important people in Luke's life. That has to mean something, and if it does then there's more hope to be found.

Luke's calmed his breathing and he turns his head so his temple is against Wedge's shoulder now. The ache is lessened but now Luke feels fear; fear that this familiarity might go away. He can't let it go. He needs this.

"I want to go with you. Wherever you're going."

Luke needs the familiar to anchor him to this unfamiliar world. Wedge too underestimated the difficulties he'd face in this world—running with nothing but the clothes on your back and making something out of the pieces was a skill rebels developed early.

But this isn't mere reconstruction. The realization hit Wedge the hardest, the part that's likely hitting Luke just as hard. On the outside, they look just fine—again, facades of competence were another specialty of rebellion leaders like himself and Luke. No one should (or would) see the commanders crumble.

Sithspit, does he understand what Luke's going through. And because he had no one to go through it with him, he's not going to abandon Luke.

"Come on, I know just the thing to show you." His fingers rest on Luke's lower back, patting it in what Wedge knows is so needed around these parts: tactile contact. To feel was to be and for people like themselves, it was the difference between an illusion, and the real thing.

Wedge takes Luke on a series of hallways until they open up into the giant cavern that is the shipyards. Absentmindedly, he waves at various mechanics as he directs Luke into a service platform. Wedge presses a button, and the platform lifts upwards, to the side of a hovercraft in the middle of repairs, and a breath-taking view of the entire Zion fleet.

"They're no X-wings," he begins, unable to resist the comparison, "But they're a lot like our rebel blockade runners. They use magnetism to fly instead of engines. Which is a limitation I hope to fix once I find this world's equivalent of tibanna gas."

"Probably nuclear, which is why no one wants to approve my schematics."

He barely notices the hand at his back, but only because it's Wedge. This is his familiar, safe haven and he's more at ease now than he has been in weeks. He'd be more aware if Wedge removed himself entirely.

The short walk isn't protested at all. In fact, if Wedge can show him anything else of comfort he's more than eager. At some point Luke will have a multitude of questions to ask him but just basking in the presence of someone he knows so well is enough for him right now.

At the top of the service lift, the view is pretty spectacular. It's no field of green grass and blue sky but it's still a far cry more impressive than anything he's seen here so far. Luke's lips part as he stares across the shipyard. The comparison to ships they knew from their Matrix feels bittersweet to Luke and he gives a very small hint of a sad smile.

It grows just a little at Wedge's last comment. "It doesn't surprise me at all that you've already drawn up your own designs."

His eyes pause on each hovercraft, trying to catch glimpses of crews. "So do you think I could find something to do out there?" It's not that Luke doesn't believe in his abilities, he's simply suffering from a momentary funk that will fade with time. He hates feeling useless.

"Oh, definitely." There's shouts from mechanics all around them: requests for tools, to watch out for lifts, sparks, other workers, jokes and complains and even singing from two hovercrafts down. It stinks of burnt cable and fried electronics and engine oil and sweat and there's not a single place in Zion Wedge feels more at home than this grease pit. "You could easily become a mechanic. These ships are, in comparison to what we repaired on a daily basis, rather primitive. No hyperdrives, no astromech ports. Just your standard wiring and swapping and repairing parts."

"I could sign you up right now, and you'd be working by tomorrow. We lost four ships not that long ago. So we're on a tight schedule." Wedge exhales, then throws a spanner to a mechanic who requested it below them. "I signed up to be a captain. To be honest, I'm not sure that was such a great decision..."

"Well, too late now," he says. "Listen, I'm off duty and I was going to go back to my place and work some more on those schematics. I don't know where you're staying, but I have space. And, unlike the Council, I doubt you'll be concerned about the sort of stuff I've been drafting in my spare time."

Truth be told, though he'd be grateful for a job, Luke loathes the idea of being a mechanic for an indeterminate period of time. He knows that he probably wouldn't be allowed to hop right into piloting, but he spent his entire adolescence doing nothing but fixing things, and then being hounded by his uncle to fix more things.

Luke is very good at it but he'd rather stick his finger in an electrical socket than to make it his job once again.

"... Maybe," he tries to say with as little dread as he can manage.

Perhaps he should just put that out of his mind for now. It's been a very short period of time since he was unplugged and he's still recovering. Luke's not even sure it's a good idea to go straight to work at the moment. He sometimes gets tired just going for long walks. There'll be plenty of time to agonize over his limited and depressing options later.

Then Wedge's offer to share his space gets a far more enthusiastic response from Luke. His face actually lights up and he gives his first real smile since... well, probably ever if nothing in the Matrix actually happened.

"There's no way I could turn that down. Besides," he smirks knowingly, "I think you're sort of stuck with me now." He tries to self-deprecatingly make that sound like a bad thing but it doesn't exactly seem like Wedge is trying to get rid of him.

As little dread as Luke put into that sentence, Wedge still picks some hesitance. Luke's always been a bit impatient, and Wedge's willing to bet a good trade that he'd rather be flying than fixing the hovercrafts. Sometimes different approaches lead to the same ship. Wedge has a good inkling that he and Luke are going to end up in the same hovercraft anyways.

"...there's a pilot training program," he reveals to Luke. "I, uhh, over-achieved and signed up as both a mechanic and a pilot trainee. I figured being a mechanic would get me in shape faster." Not to mention that, for someone with a mind as technical as Wedge's, he isn't comfortable flying anything he doesn't know intimately. There are other ways to get to know a ship besides working on it, of course, but a crash course is just the sort of sink-or-swim philosophy Wedge subscribed to and thrived in.

"You, with me? How will I cope?" Wedge inserts as much sarcasm as possible into the sentence, finishing with a rarely sincere smile. "Come on, it's this way."

The path takes them away from the hovercrafts and into housing that's rather close to the shipyards, but still a level below the dock. A deliberate choice by Wedge, no doubt. "Sorry, I haven't had time to clean up," he mentions apologetically, opening the door to the apartment he's lovingly named 'the tincan' due to its minimalist size and ample use of metal all over the place.

It's spartan living: a small entrance/living room, a smaller kitchen, then a room with two beds and a refresher. It's obvious why Wedge picked it: it resembles the commanders' quarters at Hoth and Home One, where expediency of space in case of attacks won over luxurious comforts.

There's schematics on top of every surface, it seems. Which Wedge unceremoniously removes from the unused bed to his. "If you're expecting good cooking, I'll remind you that I'm a Corellian. But I have a caf machine."

Edited 2015-03-30 01:31 (UTC)

Mention of a pilot training program piques Luke's interest and he makes a mental note to ask Wedge about that later. That will probably be his key to finding work he might actually enjoy... or at least not loathe entirely.

The point about building up strength through work as a mechanic is a good one, though. Luke wouldn't entirely be opposed to it, so long as he's not doing it day in and day out. There certainly are benefits and Luke has been rather anxious to feel more like his old self. Being without the Force and feeling so weak on top of that has left him rather vulnerable and it's an incredibly uncomfortable (and scary) state of being.

As Luke walks with Wedge he really can't say that the architecture here is all that unfamiliar. It's vaguely reminiscent of certain underground dwellings on planets with metropolitan regions from their Matrix.

Wedge's place makes Luke instantly feel at home though he can't immediately say why. The schematics and drawings bring a smile to Luke's face, and he wanders around trying to study each of them, but then seeing another that's even more fascinating than the last. He doesn't even notice the supposed mess.

He's quiet for a while, too caught up in the schematics spread everywhere to have much to say.

As much as he loves these drawings, they make him sad. "This reminds me of nights when you have a dream that you don't want to wake up from... and then when you do you try to write it out or draw it so you don't forget it, but you can never really do it justice. Our Matrix was just one, long dream."

He's dangerously close to spiraling downward into despair again and for a while he just stands in the middle of the room, trying to keep himself together for Wedge's sake. It's been over a week since he had his last meltdown and he'd really hate to have to start that count all over again.

Edited 2015-03-30 02:49 (UTC)

Wedge directs Luke onto one of the beds, getting him to sit with his legs dangling off it. The utilitarian mattress, thin and off-white, reminds Wedge of the ones the rebel transports dragged from base to base. They all complained about their lumpiness and dinginess, but after so many brushes with death, they all found more important things to complain about.

"It wasn't," the words come out of Wedge's lips before his tongue catch up with his thoughts. But, as he rests his arm on Luke's shoulder (both as comfort and to buy himself some more time) he realizes he doesn't disagree with the statement. Just another rare moment where his heart was fuller than his logic. Those happened a lot around other Rogues.

"It wasn't, Luke. Look, I know what they must've told you when they pulled you out of your pod, when they sent you to the Shangrila...it was the same crap they tried to feed me. But it's wrong, alright?"

"It's wrong. The universe itself might've not been real, but the people in there, and my emotions for them, are. If none of that were real, then I wouldn't be the same person in there as I was in there. I'm still Wedge Antilles. It doesn't really matter, anyways. Not like they think it does."

"Listen, I...I've spent six months, alone. I thought I was going insane. Sometimes it hurt so much to remember the Rogues that I cried myself to sleep. I'd wake up screaming, or to a new star chart on the wall I couldn't recall drawing. But I would still wake up, with the same memories, with the same adoration and gratitude and love for the people who made me who I am today."

"It hurts, Luke. And it's going to keep hurting. But it hurts because it was real, and in that hurt you'll find that, despite it all, you wouldn't take it back."

"And hey," he says, patting Luke on the back, "Sometimes dreams do come true."

Edited 2015-03-30 03:16 (UTC)

At first Luke stubbornly doesn't want to listen, staring sullenly at the floor from his spot on the bed. It feels like nothing will be okay and everything he's ever loved is lost forever.

But when Wedge tells him about his own hard times, being alone for so long, Luke feels a visceral ache in imagining what that would be like. It makes him realize how lucky he is to have run into Wedge so soon, to have someone so familiar here in the real world where everyone else is surrounded by strangers. He'd been told that it was possible but very, very unlikely to find anyone he knew from his Matrix.

Well, this is it. He found someone, and not just anyone but his best friend. Luke already has it better than almost everyone else. He doesn't have to face this alone.

And not only that, but Wedge himself is a piece of home, and also hope that they might someday find more of such pieces. More people will wake up and maybe the Real won't feel like such a strange, heartless wasteland. There's unrest here that Luke could find a place in aiding with his extensive experience, but he can't even dredge up the heart to care. He feels no connection and some days it's difficult for him to find a reason to even take care of himself.

Clinging to his memories and hope for the people he knew are the only things that have kept him going. A lot of people tried to discourage that but he simply can't find any other way of doing things.

He's brought back from his reverie by Wedge's hand on his back, and what he says actually makes Luke smile. It's true. They've found each other and have already proven that such a thing is worth hoping for.

As Luke is finally able to look Wedge in the eyes he can feel more emotion threatening to spill over. He takes a deep breath and his chest is so tight that it actually hurts a little. Tears start to stream down his cheeks but he sits quietly, breathing evenly.

In a hushed, weak tone, Luke attempts some humor. "Thanks for the recon, Rogue Two."

Wedge doesn't think his coping mechanism are better than Luke's—he joined this rebellion not out of revenge as he did against the Galactic Empire, but because it's all he's known most of his life. His happy childhood, with his parents and his sister in a grimy-but-idyllic fueling station, is light-years away. Now ends up that wasn't even true.

He's joined because being a rebel is in his blood, but, at the core of it all, because he has nothing better to do. To not have something to do would be the death of Wedge. Regardless of the morals and ethics of this world, Wedge doesn't want to be idle. Idleness invites thinking and right now, he doesn't want to think too much.

But he understands that his approach isn't Luke's. Luke needs to truly, wholeheartedly believe in something before he can throw his life at it. And, considering the losses he suffered, it'll take longer for Rogue Leader to return to his former glory. It isn't a criticism against Luke, just that Corellian pragmatism that's guided Wedge through so much of his life.

"You're welcome, Rogue Leader," he says, reciprocating the joke. The truth is that Wedge is just as lost as Luke, just in a different direction. But just because he doesn't have all the answer doesn't mean he can't help his friend figure out his. Wedge is, unlike Luke, rather secretive with his emotions. He doesn't expect Luke to help him with his wound while Luke's bleeding all over the floor. Someone can't pull you out of a hole they too are falling into.

And Luke's hole is much, much deeper.

This time, against his usual demeanor, Wedge wraps his arms around Luke, and hugs him tight. Luke smells clean, safe-clean, that astringent, sour note a days-long dip in bacta left behind. It was wrong. People shouldn't smell like this. "We'll get through it, Luke. They'll never stop us."

All of this physical contact after spending weeks feeling so alone is bringing all of Luke's emotions to the surface. He leans against Wedge, his head against his shoulder, and tries not to feel wrong for inflicting all this on Wedge. This is probably good for both of them.

Then Wedge says something that sparks a memory. They'll never stop us. Biggs used to say that to him. In fact, it was the last thing he told Luke before—

Realization sweeps over him slowly; the realization that here in the Real, Biggs could still be alive. It's not likely and finding him unplugged is even less likely, but there's still that chance. That hope.

And then Luke tells himself that he really shouldn't be thinking about things that way. People don't just go unplugging people. At least... they've been told not to. But maybe that's wrong. Maybe they should.

Luke discovers that his face is dry now but as he regains awareness of Wedge holding onto him tightly, he begins to crumble again. This is all too much to think about and there's still so much that Luke doesn't know. His thoughts and emotions are everywhere and he's feeling things that are too strong to ignore... the possibility that Biggs may be alive somewhere being one of them. Years ago he'd felt especially strongly for Biggs and his death hit Luke harder than just about anything else in his life.

With his face tucked against Wedge's shoulder he takes in a shaky breath. "You probably shouldn't have said that."

Wedge isn't sure if it's the obvious age gap between them—which grows more obvious by the second—but the protectiveness he's always had for Luke as his wingmate takes on a different angle. He's always felt as close to Luke as brothers, but now the difference in age makes it even more so.

Big brother protecting his little brother. Which sounds cliche, something that Wedge avoids as much as possible, but it is the truth.

"I'm sorry." Against instinct, Wedge stops himself from pulling away. That's probably the worst thing he could do right this moment. He's not exactly sure why his words hit Luke as hard as they have. His brows furrow in confusion for a flash of a second, then settle back into impassivity.

"Do you want a glass of water? Or maybe I can go get you something to eat?" Something more flavorful than protein soup, for sure. People around owe him favors. Maybe calling in some to get some broth and bread would do Luke some good.

Belatedly Luke realizes that Wedge has no idea why he was bothered by that statement. At Wedge's apology he shakes his head dismissively. "Forget about it."

It's going to come up again, he knows. Sooner or later, the hope that Biggs is still alive will claw at him until he can no longer ignore it. For now, though, he has to. There's nothing he can do about it anyway. Not immediately.

At the offer of food and water Luke shakes his head and pulls away from Wedge, just far enough so he can look at him. "No... no, that's alright. I just want to talk to you." In truth, he doesn't want Wedge to leave him right now, he's just afraid to say that out loud.

"I mean I—... I don't think our time in the Matrix was lined up." He's trying to figure out the nicest way to say 'you look old'.

No, Wedge won't forget about it, but he also won't push for it. It's not Wedge's style to badger people. Luke will tell him when he's ready.

Wedge raises an eyebrow. "I didn't want to point out the bantha in the room, but yeah." Luke looks positively Endor-ish, which was around 4 years after Yavin. Wedge comes from 13 years after Yavin, which makes him... "I'm thirty-four, Luke."

"Or at least I was, until they pulled me out." Thirty-four, going on sixty. War ages people. Wedge feels much older than he really is. It's likely the same for Luke. "Last thing I remember is the mission to Adumar Cracken strong-armed me into. I was going to retire," he says with a sharp laugh, "But then of course a mission only General Antilles could do popped up."

"Eh, at least I got to take Tycho, Wes and Hobbie with me. Never a dull moment with the Rogues."

Luke's jaw goes slack in mild surprise. "Thirty-four?" It sounds so old to him and it takes him a second or two to curb his reaction a bit. It's probably not helping. Maybe he should have focused on the part about him being a general. Much more respectful way of showing surprise at just how much further along he is than Luke.

"That means you've got almost ten years on me. Endor happened just before I was unplugged. I'll be turning twenty-three in a couple weeks, I think." It's tricky to keep track of time here, but Luke knows his birthday was only two months away the last time he was in the Matrix. It should be coming up soon.

Luke sits back a bit, setting his hands into his lap. "I'm almost afraid to ask what's happened in the last ten years."

"What, you didn't notice the grey hairs?" Wedge parts his hair at his temple, showing off a sizable strand of grey hidden beneath a layer of dark brown. "Wes' pranks are catching up to me."

A decade. Sithspit, this will be awkward. Wedge will have to be careful not to divulge certain information that could hurt Luke. Absentmindedly, he wonders why this happened, and how it could've happened: in their Matrix, this particular problem is the stuff of spacer myths.

"You want me to hit the highlights?" Wedge shifts in place, settling for what could be a very long conversation.

Luke immediately shakes his head in response. "It doesn't matter. Maybe it's best if you don't tell me for now." In the future he might want to know but for now Luke is in too fragile a state.

Thinking about all of the things that might have been, the things he could have experienced, the people he could have known, will only make him sad. That's not what he needs right now. They'll save it for another time when Luke is stronger.

As he pushes away those thoughts, Luke gets an eager glint in his eyes and he scoots forward slightly. "I want to know more about that pilot training program." It's clear that his mind is set on it, even if he might be forced to take a mechanic job for a while just to get his bearings.

"Ah, alright."

In retrospect, that wasn't an empathetic offer, but Wedge isn't known for his skills with emotions. Not these kind of emotions, at least. He's rather emotionally stunted, and that's something Luke knows for a fact.

Wedge smiles an easy, lazy grin. "I knew you'd ask about it," he teases. "Well, we just lost some ships, so we need captains more than ever." Job openings through death are never pleasant to talk about, but this is a familiar situation to career rebels like he and Luke. "It's simple, really: you sign up, they put you through a battery of physical and psychological tests, some sims, and then they'll let you know if you're in or not."

"I just came back from a test tour. I did pretty well, all things considered." He ruffles his hair, mulling over his words. "It was an emergency situation: a ship crashed outside the dock gates, reporting that other ships went missing. We found a single survivor."

"Aside from the usual problems with green recruits, my crew did pretty well."

Edited 2015-04-04 07:57 (UTC)

Being a captain is something Luke could see himself pursuing in the distant future. It's one of those high goals he might set for himself that others would be quick to shoot down. Impatient and idealistic as ever. Sure, he's only been unplugged for a few weeks and he's still weak and learning his way around, but all he has to do is give it a little time and a lot of focused effort.

Luke's always been a very fast learner and his recovery has been very quick. He's never been one to gamble but he'd be willing to put down money on the bet that he could get captaincy well within six months if he really set his mind to it.

Getting his head out of this gloom first is a must, otherwise he won't be much of a leader, but there's no doubt in Luke's mind that he could do it.

Hearing Wedge talk about his test tour makes Luke smile sadly. He could almost pretend that Wedge is telling him all about a strafing run that he did with the rest of Rogue Squadron.

"It sounds like you're well on your way to gaining that position permanently," he says proudly. "Just remember to think of us little people, won't you?" Luke's been in such a high position of command for so long that it almost feels like a novelty to be back down at the bottom again. It's strange not having the authority, but there's something nice about being free of so much responsibility for a while.

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