personalapocalypse | [SWTOR] What Home Feels Like (fic)

I thought I'd posted this here weeks ago, when the challenge was up.

Title: What Home Feels Like
Fandom: Star Wars: The Old Republic
Character(s): Theron
Rating/Warnings: Heavy spoilers through the most recent content.
Word Count: 472(ish)
Summary: He had a home now. That wasn't something he was used to.
Notes: Originally written for

fandomweekly. I know, it's cliche... but I'm still getting used to this fandom. Same universe as the WIPs I just posted, with my large green Sorcerer as the Outlander. (I can't help but wonder if this guy's state of mind will get worse when the Ossus events roll around, but we'll cross that bridge when we see more of it.)

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Theron had never had anywhere that felt like home. And it wasn’t for lack of trying, at least when he was young.

They’d tried to make him feel at home on Tython. The Jedi are your family, they had told him repeatedly. His mother, the Master who’d raised him… they all talked like the Jedi were going to take care of him, that they didn’t look down on him because of how he had been conceived. That he didn't actually deserve to be ashamed - the Grandmaster’s bastard son, an attachment that she’d had to throw away.

They’d been good to him, but every time he thought about it he couldn’t help but think that they’d be this way to anyone, that they didn't actually care. They couldn’t care; they couldn’t show any weakness, couldn’t get emotional or else... what? He really didn’t know how having his own mother acknowledge him was too much to deal with, weren’t these people supposed to be stronger than that?

In a way, being Force-blind turned out to be a relief. Meant that he didn’t have to stick around, and in the SIS, not having a home or a family was an advantage. Less to lose if someone was out to get him. He’d distanced himself as much as he could; he’d gotten the implants put in, volunteered for the messiest jobs, things that Jedi would never approve of. Then he wondered why he resented them all the time, because he was a smart guy who made good choices, clearly.

Odessen and the Alliance had been the first time he’d felt like he’d belonged somewhere. And he’d screwed it up, to make sure that the people he’d started caring about wouldn’t get themselves killed. (And maybe, just a bit, because he still remembered being captured and tortured on Rishi, and as much as he had grown to care about Lana, he just wanted to see what she’d say or do if the tables were turned.)

He’d gotten good people killed; the look on Valss’s face as he’d leaped out of the transport would haunt him forever. And he’d hurt Lana and the Commander... he didn’t know if he could even call him by his name again. All those long nights on Odessen, the three of them together, and he’d messed it up. He didn’t deserve a second chance, and he definitely hadn’t expected a pair of Sith Lords to give him one. He figured, they would get through Nathema, then they’d toss him out, and he’d deserve it.

But... there he was, with the Commander holding his hand and Lana patting his shoulder, promising they’d be a team from now on. He’d screwed up, and they were letting him have a chance to fix things.

So this was what having a home felt like. He’d never known before. It... it wasn't bad, really.