scavenger.

25 - hollow

Bheema's side of the room was still exactly how it was before.

Souvenirs from planets they'd both been based on. Messy hand-drawn blueprints he and Jace had worked on—Jace engineering, Bheema designing. Under his bed, a worn chest full of his most sacred belongings. Next to that chest, a half-drunken bottle of lum.

A small holo glowed by his bedside. It was a picture their father had taken when they were around sixteen. Bheema was grinning, one arm looped around their laughing mother, one hand on top of Jace's head, scruffing his hair—though younger by a year, Bheema had been the first to reach six feet. He was always immensely proud of that fact, even when Jace caught up to him and then surpassed him.

Jace sat on his own bed, staring across the room at that goddamn holo. He'd already sifted through the aforementioned chest, and was now tossing Bheema's beloved holoprojector back and forth between his hands. Part of him hoped he'd drop it, hoped it would fall to the floor and shatter into millions of tiny pieces, with no hope of ever being put back together. But he didn't. Drop it, that is.

A knock on the door--his mother. In one swift motion, Jace kicked Bheema's chest under his own bed and slipped the holoprojector into a pocket in the lining of his overshirt, rising to his feet just as the door was politely pushed open by servants.

With her usual decorum, Ava strode into the room, nodding to the servants graciously as she passed. Jace's heart ached upon seeing her. He knew what she came to ask.

Once the doors closed, Ava spoke in their native Nabooian. "So tell me everything."

Jace gulped. No stops pulled, huh.

"A lot has happened," he said uneasily.

"That I can see." A small smile teased her lips. "The girl you brought here, Anri. She's quite the character."

Jace mirrored her expression, lowering his eyes. "Yeah, she is."

"Tell me what she's like. When she's not so nervous."

Jace looked up at her and found a strange, wistful expression on her face. Why was she asking these questions?

"She doesn't get nervous," was all he could say. Anri nipped at his mind, but couldn't stick.

Stars, just ask me already, he thought. Ask what happened already. Cry already. Grieve already. Blame me already.

She didn't. "Is that so?" A small laugh. "She seemed so terribly worried about me being a queen."

Guilt was eating him alive.

"I suppose you didn't tell her—"

"Bheema's dead."

He'd blurted it.

Ava didn't flinch. Didn't move.

After a moment's silence, she started again. "Poor thing, one look at her and I could see she's been through so much. So much—"

"Mom," Jace was practically pleading. He wanted to grab her and shake her and make her see sense, he wanted to fall at her feet and beg forgiveness, he wanted her to deny him forgiveness. "He's dead, Mom. Bheema's—"

"Don't say such things." Her tone was both mournful and dangerous.

"You know he is. You know."

Her fine, elegant features contorted. "Yes, but—you don't have to—you don't—" Her even tone was breaking. Her perfect balance was wavering.

Jace had never seen her this way.

He wished he'd kept his stupid mouth shut.

"I'm sorry, Mom." For causing your son to die, for telling you about it.

Ava's gloved hands covered her face, and she started to sink. Jace quickly caught her.

"My baby," he heard her saying hoarsely. "My baby, my baby..."

His heart broke.

His face was at her shoulders, buried in her robes. He was gripping her so hard.

"Forgive me, Mom," he choked out. "I tried—I couldn't—forgive me, Mom, he was—"

Nothing he was saying was getting through to her now—nor getting through to him. He wasn't speaking any language. He'd start a word and end with another, and eventually he was babbling pure gibberish, like a child, like a crazed prisoner covered in his brother's blood. His tongue was numb and slimy and there was nothing he could say but "forgive me."

Ava's spine soon straightened and he felt her hands grasp his head, stroking his hair. At some point he'd sunk half to the floor. "My son," she said hoarsely. "Please don't apologize to me, baby. Please don't..."

"It should've been me."

"No!" Ava dropped to her knees, gripping the sides of his head. Her royal makeup was smeared all over her face. "Don't you ever say that! Don't you understand? You can't die now! Don't you go on living as a dead man! You're all I have! You're all—" Her composure was again lost. "You're all I can hope for, my baby, please don't you leave me too, please...he wants you to live, please don't—please don't say—"

They sat like that for a while until both turned to stone.

Jace stared, swollen and dehydrated, at the holo. His mother was leaned on his shoulder, staring with him.

"He loved you, Mom," Jace finally said.

Ava nodded. "That he does. And I love him too."

"He had so much left to do."

Ava wiped her eyes with her veil. "He's still doing it. You know what they say—he's still with you. The air you breathe. It's funny...I dreamt about him. It must've been..."

Silence again.

Finally Ava stood. "Should I cancel the banquet, then?"

"He wouldn't want you to," Jace replied. He felt dull.

Ava swallowed. "You won't have to come."

Jace stirred a little, looking at her. "I'll come." Come get wasted like old times, that is. A fitting memorial.

Ava nodded, offering a somewhat forced smile. "I'll see you there, my love. Chin up..." With that she left. The servants stared at her as she passed, but even with the smeared evidence of her grief crusted to her face she looked as dignified and beautiful as ever.

The door slammed shut.

Jace leaned his head back against his bedpost and shuttered a sigh. He pulled the chest back out, where he'd stuffed the lum Bheema'd left behind.

Popping the cork and offering a silent toast, he downed it.