𝐒 𝐓 𝐀 𝐑 𝐖 𝐀 𝐑 𝐒 | 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐬 + 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐬

when there is nothing left but us (and of course it had to be you)

A guttural, visceral would-be scream -- the taste of bile and the sound of choked, refrained silence when the scream didn't even come -- that shredded all equilibrium of dignity she had held onto like the shreds of a thin-bare shirt snapped too soon, but not soon enough.

His name was unintelligible — more throat than articulative wording when it fell from her lips — but the pain in her chest that speared through her was no less real. Blindingly so, until she couldn't see anything accept the absence of where he was supposed to be.

"Go!" Was all he had said.

And then he was gone, and she was still there, gasping for air that wasn't there on the cold, hard durasteel of a landing ramp that she didn't even want to be on — not alone, anyway.

Cold, like the barren ebb and flow of the turbulent air whipping about the starship; hard, like the faceless plastoid that held all too familiar faces underneath — ones that mere hours ago were willing to lay down their lives for her, but now were relentlessly wasting their own lives because of her.

"Rex! "

And then she could stay no longer — she had nothing left to stay for — (not that she had anything to go for, either, except maybe the lasting sacrifice of a friend not going to waste), because he had kriffing let go and just left her all alone with her hand still clenched around open air and a cooling sense of absence that felt more like a block of ice than empty particles of oxygen, hand still tingling from the sickening scrape that was the last touch she would ever receive from him as his gauntlet had slid aching against hers until it was just gone .

Until he was just gone.

And she felt so cold .

Cold enough that even the scalding hot burn of a blaster bolt felt lukewarm, muted in comparison to the cruelly personal blizzard around her, chilling everything now that she could feel the crippling absence of where Rex was supposed to be.

But wasn't .

Not a sound fell from her still twisted lips, silent in the absence of her scream that still wouldn't come, even when the impact of a plasma bolt landed a glancing blow over her lowered blade.

Because failure hadn't been an option, but here they were — here she was. Because Rex was gone, and in no way was that a success... more like a pyrrhic victory -- a twisted sort of taunting that laughed in her face, mocking her despair, ardently declaring you're the one that lived.

And that was a failure in her book.

A heinous failure.

And then she had to reel in her reeling head, because she was a commander for kriffs sake — or had been — and she had to go.

And it wasn't until she was gasping for breath, fighting her way to the cockpit and prematurely setting the hyperspace coordinates did she think she should have closed the ramp — because it wasn't until she had cleared the landing deck and slammed down the activation for the hyperdrive to be greeted with the streaking blues and whites of hyperspace did she take a moment to remember to breathe — and then forget how to again all too soon.

"I must commend you, Lady Tano , for that was truly a laudable desertion."

A subliminal instinct, or maybe she had thought it through — either way, her gut and brain alike agreed with her — because not a second after his utterance there was a sharp buzz whizzing through the air and a fiercely glowing blade at his neck.