Chapter Text
Shit shit shit—
Quinlan ducks under a low-hanging branch in his mad dash away from the Imperial enforcers on his heels. A yank on his bond with Tho has him veering left and scrambling up a short cliff, leaving the stormtroopers cursing while the single Inquisitor with the group leaps after him.
He is really, really sick of getting chased by Inquisitors.
The youth isn't anyone he recognizes; he isn't sure if that's a blessing or a curse. The lithe Mirialan is cackling as she runs, clearly lost in the sauce of the Dark side. Quinlan has got to shake her, can't risk leading her to Fox and Tho, so he throws himself straight up into a tree and thinks of nothing but not here not here not here.
The Inquisitor slows as she reaches the copse of trees he'd vanished into, her expression twisting from maniacal glee to thwarted rage. She swings her saber through the underbrush and Quinlan holds his breath as the smell of burnt foliage drifts upward. The tree immediately to his left crashes down as she sweeps her saber through it in rage. "I know you're still here, Quinlan Vos! You cannot escape the Empire forever!" He's already escaped it once; he's not that concerned about himself. Honestly, it had been hilariously easy to escape the Fortress Inquisitorious, though that was at least partially because of Reva turning a blind eye. The young woman keeps screaming into the air, threats growing more and more nonsensical as she gives herself over to rage. He's not going to risk influencing her with the Force—he's not sure he'll be able to pull it off without alerting her to his presence—so instead he tugs down a branch fifty feet behind her. Her head whips around like a hunting dog and she darts away.
The dark side, it seems, gives power but no wisdom.
He waits in silence, focused entirely on existing outside of perception. Time ticks by, each second marked by his beating heart, until she vanishes in the distance and all he can hear is the birds in the trees around him, entirely unaware of their unplanned visitor. He drops from the tree and moves silently back towards Fox and Tho, tucked away in a cave about half a kilometer north. He slips through the forest a ghost, passing within feet of the native fauna without a single one startling. Of all the lessons Tholme taught him, this one has certainly served him best since the Order fell.
He slips behind the conveniently-placed pile of rubble and through the entrance, dropping his concealment once he's far enough in to not be heard from the outside. "Honey, I'm home!"
A snort; a giggle. Tho and Fox pop out from a hidden bend in the cave, invisible until you're right on top of it. The teen barrels at Quinlan, who catches her in a tight embrace: every time he holds her could be the last, especially when he darts off as a distraction so Fox can get her safely out of danger. Thahthos—Tho for short—is fifteen now, the daughter of Quinlan's favorite cousin. When the girl had shown too much Force sensitivity to be kept safe from the Empire, she had commed Quin—her favorite fugitive—and asked him to take the girl with him. Tho's done well in the three years she's been under their guardianship, the quiet child blossoming into a teen who can handle any weapon you hand her with as much ease as she can pull on the Force, her armor a second skin. She'll be a woman to behold when she's grown; for now, she's his to protect.
Fox follows a few steps behind, posture intentionally loose as he steals a kiss. "There's something back here. I'm not sure if it's Jedi or Sith, but it's calling to us."
"Probably Sith—Thyferra was ceded along with Kiffu in the Treaty of Coruscant. We need to be careful, but let's see what we find." In the past, Quinlan would have never risked taking a teen into a potential Sith temple. But the risk of an unsuspecting person finding this place and some horrible ancient weapon is too high; at least Quinlan knows how to deal with it if they do find one.
The answer, for reference, is to launch the damn thing into a star.
They creep forward on silent feet, the natural cave giving way to carved hallways almost immediately as they turn the corner. Quinlan leads the way, carefully scanning for hidden traps or other dangers, Tho behind him, and Fox in the back in case the Empire manages to find them here. It's a few tense minutes before the hallways opens into a cavernous chamber, dripping water echoing loudly though the room. The carvings are time-worn, the water that drips down the walls deepening some grooves and erasing others, but Quinlan can see well enough to tell it's of some great battle between Sith and Jedi. If he had to guess, he'd say it's probably the Sacking of Coruscant, but he doesn't particularly want to look close enough to confirm.
Tho is all but stepping on his heels as they walk, clearly unnerved by the seeping cold of the Dark permeating this place. Quinlan scans the room for another exit and realizes there's exits in almost every direction. This temple—and it's definitely a temple, one for venerating the Dark—is a maze, one designed to trap outsiders, keep them lost until the Sith pick them off at their leisure. He can't sense anything specific, no trapped spirits wandering the halls and looking for prey, so he suspects the curses and tricks here are probably inert by now. Still—"Don't touch anything."
"Yes, sir," Tho mutters back, catching his belt with her hand like she's afraid of losing him. It's sweet, and Quinlan can't argue with the necessity of it: every exit is dark, the dim light from cracks in the ceiling high above not reaching down the hallways and leaving oddly-shaped shadows in every direction. Even the glowing green of his saber can only reach so far from where he holds it aloft.
Quinlan wishes he were less used to Sith temples. He's unphased by the gruesome sculptures in one room; the library he glances inside and immediately backs away. If there's curses still active in this place, they are definitely tied to the books. The written word has staying power far beyond what spells the Sith cast during their lifetimes.
He feels a faint tug in his chest, one he cautiously follows. He doesn't think it's the dark side getting to him, but it's always best to be cautious in a place like this. It leads them deeper and deeper until they're standing before two large doors, carved with the image of a Sith pureblood holding a pike and shield. He takes a breath, fortifies his mind, and pushes the door open.
The room is an armory, packed with wickedly sharp blades and all sorts of objects Quin thinks haven't been seen in a millennia. Tho leans out from behind him, curious, as he scans the room, eyes peeled for anything particularly cursed-looking. Fox tucks his hands behind his back and moves a bit deeper, glaring down at each blade with an assessing eye.
Quin swears he looks away for just a moment, tugging at one of Tho's braids to keep her attention on him. But her eyes go wide and he whips back around—Fox is reaching for a nasty sword with an odd look in his eye, fuck—
He dives forward, Tho pulled along with her hand still in his belt, and he grabs Fox's arm just as his hand makes contact with the dark leather of the hilt.
Quinlan just about passes out at the shift he experiences: one second he's holding his light close, keeping it to himself and Fox and Tho, the next he can feel it everywhere, seeping in from every direction. The temple itself is still Dark, sure, but this—
He looks at Fox, who's let go of the sword as if he's been burned, and reaches behind himself for Tho, who's all but collapsed against his back. "Check in."
"I'm good," she replies, voice faint. "What the hell?"
He doesn't reprimand her for cursing. Frankly, there's some filthy words he'd like to be saying, but he is a grown-ass man and a Jedi Master, so he won't. He squeezes her arm tight and tugs Fox back against his chest, reaching for his mind to make sure he's not possessed or worse.
Fox wrinkles his nose at the brisk search Quin does of his mind. It's the kind of thing that could be painful if Fox fought against him, but their bond runs deep and their trust deeper. Satisfied his lover isn't possessed—or worse—Quin leans back with a sigh. "What the hell, Fox?"
Fox shakes his head, scowling at his own gloved hand. "I don't know. I'm sorry."
Quin rubs a hand over his eyes. "No, I should've remembered. Ancient Sith focused on ensnaring people less Force-sensitive than them, so their thralls wouldn't be a threat to their power. That thing was probably tailor-made to pull you in."
Fox nods, leaning into Quinlan's grip. "Let's get out of here."
Quinlan can't help but agree—he needs to know what in the Force he's feeling. Why is the galaxy suddenly so flooded with light?
…
…
They're extra cautious when they return to the outskirts of the city, all three wary of the change in the air they feel. Tho and Fox have both tugged their helmets over their heads; Quinlan slouches to minimize his imposing height. They're well-used to fading into the background, but when they pass by the copse Quinlan had hidden in he stops dead. It's—it's not the same at all. The trees are different, none toppled, and all the grasses look healthy and green, no blackened char where the Inquisitor had swung her saber with wild abandon. His gut twists at the mismatch, senses on high alert as they continue.
Fox and Tho both pick up on his unease. Fox catches his hand in his own and drags a thumb over his knuckles, squeezes it while Tho walks nearly touching his side. "What's up?" His voice is quiet.
"Something's wrong. The Inquisitor all but destroyed those trees when she was chasing me, but now…Keep your eyes and ears open. Something is different and I don't know what." The Force ripples and shifts around him like a summer breeze, sweeping away stale air and replacing it with cool relief.
The city itself is different too—buildings where there had been none; all Imperial structures just gone. Quinlan swallows down the fear that tries to envelop him at the undeniable changes. The Empire not being here is a good thing, but where did it go?
The answer slams into his chest and knocks the wind out of him. He instinctively catches the teen before they can fall and loses his breath when he meets their eyes. Golden qukuuf cutting across his nose, Padawan braid hidden in his ponytail, brown eyes wide as he stutters out apologies. Quinlan blinks down at the kid; he's yet to hit the growth spurt Quinlan knows is coming. The kid blinks back at him, apologies trailing off into silence. Fox looks between the two, disbelief ebbing off of him. "You've gotta be kidding me, Vos." His shift to formality bodes poorly for Quinlan's chances of getting out of this without a lecture, though in his defense—
"I'm not the one who touched the sword, babe. That was all you." Tho giggles, amused by their banter even in this absolutely absurd situation.
Fox tilts his head, conceding the point, as he looks to the teenage Quinlan Vos they've managed to run right into. "Hey, kid. Sorry to interrupt your op. Can you tell us where we are?"
"Thyferra." The youth squints at them. "Do I know you?"
Thyferra with a teen version of himself...the Stark Hyperspace War. Unfortunately, this is one of the events Quinlan had lost his memory of and never regained, so he won't be much help here. He shakes his head to Fox's questioning noise, grimacing. "It's complicated—"
"Quinlan!" All of his breath leaves him in a rush as his Master's voice rings through the air. Tholme—his Tholme—died years ago covering Quinlan's escape from Inquisitors with some younglings before he'd even stolen Fox back from the Empire; not a day goes by he doesn't miss him and T'ra, who had given herself over to grief in the aftermath of his loss. He doesn't turn in response to his name; Tholme had trained him out of that habit shortly before his Knighting. The kid does, though, so Quinlan counts one second, two, before turning to face his Master.
He's certain not a shred of emotion escapes him; he's tricked Vader himself into thinking he was a Force null (and weren't those the most nerve-wracking moments of his life). But Tholme looks at him, and then he looks at him, and Quinlan knows he's already theorizing about who this unaccounted-for member of Clan Vos might be. Quinlan has painted a careful picture of their situation, Fox and Tho clad in their Mandalorian armor and he dressed in heavy-wearing fabrics, boots sturdy but with his hair left loose. He hopes it stands up to scrutiny.
"Apologies for Quinlan's clumsiness. He has yet to master looking where he is going." The teen looks appropriately apologetic; Quin knows with a certainty he's faking it, playing along with Tholme to learn more about the man who looks unnervingly like him and the two Mandos who seem to be his companions.
"No harm, no foul." Quinlan leans into his Kiffu accent; Fox and Tho will follow his lead without question. He needs to take control of the conversation, and quickly. "Is he of clan Vos?"
"He is, yes. Are you? I am familiar with the clan, but I do not think we have had the pleasure to meet." Tholme's eyes are sharp as he catalogs the three of them, drawing exactly the conclusions Quinlan wants him to if they have any luck at all.
"I am, yes. We have not been home in many years, but my njilluhdclan member asked me to take her child to see the galaxy." Stretching the truth just enough, but not lying, not at all, and the way Tho has painted her clan markings onto her helmet in ultraviolet paint is certainly visible to the teen. "She had duties she could not abandon and wanted her girl to grow up free in the stars."
Tholme nods, face calculating. "It is always a pleasure to meet a member of clan Vos. Unfortunately, Quinlan and I are on a bit of a time crunch—"
There's yelling from behind them; Quinlan raises an eyebrow at his Master. "I see. Good day, Quinlan and friend." He tugs Fox and Tho into an alley just in time for shots to start flying, Tholme and his Padawan whipping out their sabers to deflect the shots back at the paid thugs coming down the street. Tho gasps quietly as the green blades swing through the air, wielded expertly by Tholme and a little less expertly by young Quinlan—barely thirteen now, if his math is right. Quinlan sees some more thugs coming up from behind them—knows neither Jedi has seen them—and moves before he thinks, snagging Tho's blaster from her belt and stunning each of the troublemakers, not a single shot wasted. He sees Tholme's gaze cut back to him, gives a jaunty little wave, and pulls his companions away from the scene.
He's painfully grateful he'd listened to Tho this morning when she'd frowned at nothing and told them all to carry their most precious possessions with them. Quinlan had assumed this meant the ship would get ransacked or blown up; instead, they've ended up almost 40 years in the past. His saber is hidden at the small of his back; his parents' and grandfather's stones are zipped in hidden pockets in his coat. Tho had worn her mother's jewelry; Fox, the bracer from his old armor, his brothers' names carved inside it in neat, tiny letters. He has a pouch full of credit chits in varying denominations, as do Tho and Fox; taking into account the inflation the Empire did nothing to stop, they're set for life. They could go find somewhere nice to settle down, enjoy a rare bout of peace after a decade of running. But Quinlan recognizes the glint in Fox's eye; knows somehow, he's going to get all tangled up in changing things for the better.
He doesn't actually mind.
…
…
Running on instinct and memory of this city in the far future, Quinlan tracks down a hotel in a nicer part of town and rents them a room. If his memory is correct, Thyferra itself is not where the fighting occurs—that would be Troiken. The receptionist takes one look at Fox's armor and asks no questions, simply gives them a key and tells them to let her know if they need anything.
The outsized tip Quinlan leaves probably helps.
They're efficient in scanning the room for listening devices, but the galaxy isn't quite paranoid enough yet to bug random peoples' hotel rooms. Tho collapses fully-armored on one bed while Fox curls on the other, Quinlan kneeling in the empty space between the two and centering himself in meditation. He's not quite sure what to do. He's sure the current conflict was somehow manufactured by Palpatine, the Trade Federation and Tarkin both strong allies of the Emperor. But what was the goal? And how much should he change? He wracks his memory, digging deep for the mission reports he'd read way back when he'd been trying to relearn who he was. The bacta shortage is fake; surely Tholme has figured that out already. Is Tyvokka dead yet? Should he warn them?
Quinlan barely has to think—he wants to save as many Jedi as he can. Knock-on effects be damned, he'll still have the one-up of knowing there's a Sith in the Galaxy and who it is. He tugs his comm from his bag and types in a code he's never forgotten, burned into his memory twice over. He trusts his Master to answer even if he doesn't recognize the code—he's too curious to not.
"Tholme."
"Master Jedi." Quin lets his accent carry his introduction, opting to instead get straight to the point. "Stark intends to assassinate the Senator and his entourage. If they are not prepared, Master Tyvokka will fall."
Tholme's voice is sharp when he responds. "Is there anything else you can tell me?" First rule of surprise tips—get as much information as you can. Information matters more than the source nine times out of ten, so that is what should be prioritized. Quinlan wracks his memory, tugging out relevant information.
"Senator Tarkin intends to lead an unauthorized attack on the Combine, but Stark has some way to corrupt their hyperdrive computers. I assume you've already pieced together the bacta shortage is faked?"
"Yes, that is why we were being chased this afternoon. Someone does not want this information getting out."
"No, they don't. You must warn the Jedi of the attack and make your way to Troiken, where the conference is being held—they will need your help." The Force swirls around him. "Call them now—there isn't much time. Tell them not to trust Gunray's droids." He disconnects the call, the discomforting itch of wait and watch and wait and watch settling under his skin.
Fox blinks at him from the bed, where he's laying still fully-armored besides his helmet. "I didn't realize Gunray was already a major player."
Quinlan shakes his head. "He's not, yet—this is what gets him prominence. I did a lot of reading on him before I went undercover with the Seps. The botched handling of this conflict is part of what inflamed tensions between the outer rim and the core. Stark was a folk hero of sorts, so Senator Tarkin—not Wilhuff, he comes later—trying to kill him and all his allies looked bad. Stark cooperated in the end, but it wasn't enough to put out all the sparks of dissent."
Fox's gaze is intent. "So what do we do? I know there are a bunch of battles on Troiken before the conflict ends, and they almost fell to a siege—it was one of the examples they held up as to why we were ordered for the Republic."
Quinlan blows out a breath, sitting back on his heels as he thinks. "You probably know more about the battles themselves than me. We could buy a ship and fly out there, but we run the risk of getting shot down or otherwise taken out of commission—our own hyperdrive getting corrupted, for example. We could threaten the local Neomodians into compliance, but that wouldn't be a great start to talking to the Jedi—"
"What are we gonna tell the Jedi?" Tho interrupts, woken from her brief catnap by their discussion. "We'll sound a little nuts, you know."
Quin shrugs. "Genetic testing will confirm I'm Quinlan Vos, too. Full-body cloning is fringe science, and the Force will back us up. And if they don't believe us," he tilts a head towards Fox. "I'm sure Fox already has some ideas to stir things up."
"Do I ever." There's a gleam in Fox's eye, one that promises the mysterious disappearance of several Palpatine-affiliated Senators. In this galaxy where there hasn't been a major conflict in hundreds of years, no one is trained like Fox; the clones were always in a class of their own when it came to combat.
"The main thing is," Quinlan continues, sitting back on his heels, "I don't know enough about when things happened to be sure we won't make it worse by showing up guns blazing."
"So we don't show up guns blazing." Fox grins. "I did the math—we are loaded; I hadn't realized how worthless the credit had gotten. So we get ourselves a ship, deck it out, and then we'll have no trouble sliding past whatever shitty blockade these pirates have. Then we start making trouble on the ground. It can't be any harder than hiding from the Empire."
No, Quinlan thinks, it cannot. He grins widely, Tho and Fox's answering smiles just as sharp.