She's a Rebel [Star Wars | Luke Skywalker] *EDITING*

Preparing for Battle

I lay with my head on Luke's shoulder for a long time, simply coming to terms with the events of the past three years. However, our peaceful silence is interrupted by a knock on the door.

I sigh and push myself up from Luke's bed, and head over to the door, pressing the button to open it. It slides open to reveal Zach's face.

"Hey Nat," he says, strolling into the room casually, swinging what seem to be clothes and my boots in his left hand. "Luke," he adds, nodding at him.

Luke shifts uncomfortably in his bed, as if Zach has come to throttle him, and nods back at him.

Zach turns away from him and looks around the room, grimacing at Ayotunde's blood on my bed.

"What do you want?" I ask, exasperated, as I close the door behind me.

"You're needed in the command centre," he replies. "That is, if you're well enough."

I frown. "What? Why?" I demand.

He waves my boots and the clothes at me, and I roll my eyes, annoyed at how he can be so nonchalant in a time like this.

"Hey, what's up?" he asks, and this fills me with more anger than before.

"I think you know perfectly well 'what's up'," I snap, gesturing to the blood on my bed.

Zach sighs at me. "You're not still mad at me, are you?"

I glare up at him, not caring that Luke's watching us. "Oh, no. Not at all. But I guess you didn't just see Ayotunde's arm, or what was left of it. Or Peter's face, splattered with blood as he tries to cope with the loss of his brother."

"Natalie..." he begins, but I refuse to be silenced.

"Or Shara, who has just accused me of running away from a fight, and pretty much had a breakdown, post-traumatic stress clearly evident. Or Zyana's face as she stared at her friend, your so-called 'Padawan'. And we abandoned them all."

"We're in a battle, Natalie," he argues sternly.

"We could have gone back," I say. "We're good pilots, and they were helpless."

"They're all soldiers!" he yells at me suddenly. "They should know what they're doing. They need to learn how to cope with this."

"Alina's a kid!" I shout back at him. "As are Ayotunde and Zyana. They don't deserve to go through that!"

"None of us do, Nat," he retorts. "And, for the last time, you can't save everyone. We have to put ourselves first sometimes."

I take a deep breath and snatch my clothes from his hands. "It's the way you did it," I say monotonously, going to walk off to the adjacent room to change, but he grabs my wrist. I refuse to look up at him.

"We're at war," he snaps.

I slowly look up at him, pulling my wrist from his hand. "Aren't we just."

I take the rest of my clothes and walk into the adjacent room and throw them down on another medical bed, pulling off my gown and starting to pull on the trousers.