Neither Wynston nor Quinn noticed when Rylon and Hazard stopped in the conference room's doorway.

"You're the soulless one," Wynston was saying.

"Neither one of us has a soul by any standard," said Quinn. "You're the one more accustomed to lying."

"You have much more extensive experience in pretending to care about your chosen master's wellbeing."

"I trust you can fake it, agent. When it comes down to it, you have the sadism it will take to convincingly play the role."

"You have the fundamental absence of human response that can place you firmly in their inner circle."

"You have all the experience necessary to eliminate the sheer numbers of people that will be required for this job."

"You can just blend in by approving any atrocity they require without blinking."

"You possess the kind of mind that can invent atrocities they haven't even thought of. It will secure your cover in no time at all."

"Stars," muttered Rylon. "Are they starting a war again?"

Hazard shook her head. "No. Just infiltrating Czerka."

"Before you ask," said Wynston, "I don't know where Quinn is."

"Oh," Holiday said. "Well, hello anyway."

"You needn't make it sound quite so much like I'm a monumental disappointment."

"Of course you're not," Holiday said unconvincingly. "I was just working on this really amazing…well, never mind. It's very advanced anyway."

"I'd be perfectly capable of understanding it."

"Honestly, this problem might've challenged even Tharan. I'm amazed at the progress Quinn made on it the last time we talked."

"Yes, he's very…clever."

"Isn't he, though?" breathed Holiday.

"You know, I recovered you for your remarkable processing power and innovative data storage. I was not expecting you to develop a crush on my associate."

"Association with him is very nice," she said.

Wynston folded his arms across his chest. "This is beyond absurd. But maybe you, speaking in your capacity as a machine, can give me a straight answer. What does that man have that I don't? Air of noble tragedy aside."

"Well, he's taller than you are," she said helpfully.

Wynston blinked. "All right, yes."

"More broad-shouldered and muscular."

"I suppose that's true."

"And those cheekbones!"

Wynston tested his own cheekbones with his fingertips. They seemed adequate. "If you say so."

"And he's earned dozens of military awards."

"Hmph. Fair point."

"And that romance-holo coloring – the intense blue eyes, black hair." Holiday sighed dreamily. "The five o' clock shadow."

"Fine, if you're going to be speciesist."

"Romance holo sales don't lie. He's also more reliably…him. He's stable."

"I suppose some people might prefer a predictable man."

"The word is 'reliable.'" Holiday sniffed. "And his strength in going on in spite the tragedy of his love…"

"The love he tried to shoot in the face once? That love?"

"He redeemed himself," cooed Holiday. "And now he's carrying on her work–"

"My work. I'm the one who recruited her for this job."

"–and he never gives up no matter how petty his colleague gets," she huffed. "Maybe the question you should be asking is, what do you have that he doesn't?"

"I'm not an objectively awful human being?"

"Hm." Holiday considered. "None of my files suggest that that's a requirement for romantic desirability."

"With respect, Holiday, you've got some lousy files."

Don't worry, Wynston! Quinn also doesn’t have your cerulean contours. Or the twilight droplets of birthmarks against your azure skin. Or the sapphire shadows cast by your hair, now madly tousled, dark almost to the point of blackness in this light but still not quite enough to conceal the passionate embers of your eyes. Or the fascinatingly changeable face, flickering from humor to challenge to shock to aching vulnerability to raw desire in the space of a single interrupted breath as you realize that every empty seduction through the years was only preparation for – ow, ow! Okay, I'll stop! …for now, sir.

"Victory," Wynston announced to the welcoming party on the Aegis, delivering them a suitable smile. He was exhausted. "We took losses, but the day's won and our analysts are officially going to have their hands full. Spread the word – top secret, do not disseminate outside, of course – the Emperor is dead."

"Mission accomplished," said Raina Temple, beaming and saluting.

He returned the salute. "Mission accomplished. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to check on some things."

The staff dispersed. Hazard fell in step with Wynston. Anyone else he would politely tolerate; the little Twi'lek Joiner he welcomed. She was good about letting him not think about things.

"Losses?" she said, skipping the awkward embarrassing part about how she could tell something was bothering him. All right, sometimes she didn't just let him not think about it.

"Ruth," he said evenly. "She gave it everything and she succeeded, but...she didn't make it."

"Oh, Wynston. We are sorry."

Lead weighed heavy and unfamiliar in his stomach. "So am I, Hazard."

"How is everyone else?"

"They'll go their separate ways," he said. "Scourge has no interest in further public affairs. Larr Gith and her Doc are harmless. Kira and her droid may be allies in the future." They walked on for a little while, letting the remaining question waver and fade. Then, abruptly, Wynston answered it, accounting for the last member of the team.

"I offered Quinn a job here," he said.

Hazard tripped.

Wynston stood eyeing the wall thoughtfully and offered Hazard a hand up once she had sorted her limbs out. Then he set out again at a stroll, looking nowhere in particular. "It's for Ruth's sake, really," he said. "If I want to honor her memory I'd probably better see that her loved ones don't implode from their own idiocy, as he's likely to do if left unattended."

"This is unexpected," Hazard said weakly.

Wynston shrugged. "He could be useful," he continued. "Stars know between his Imperial aggression, his Imperial treason, and his personality he's made himself persona non grata literally everywhere else in the galaxy. From that perspective I'm doing him a favor."

"Yes, but...why? You hate him."

"She trusted him."

"You deemed that insufficient."

"I know." He greeted a couple of staff passing by so as to avoid the thought. But the question hung there, bothering him. "He loved her, and she him," he said at last. He couldn't explain why that was what it was or meant what it meant. Only that the loss on Quinn's face, his wounded son, what he gave up in those last moments, just when he was starting to get things right, were enough to make Wynston believe. It was a deeply uncomfortable sensation.

"This...was clearly quite stressful for you," Hazard said cautiously. So, she had settled on "crazy" as the explanation for this decision. She might be right. "Perhaps in the morning things will be clearer."

"Yes." Wynston considered for a moment longer, then nodded, relieved. "By then I'm sure he'll have declined."

Mwahaha.

Only that the loss on Quinn's face, his wounded son, what he gave up in those last moments, were enough to make Wynston believe as he had never had reason to before.

That's right, Wynston was taken in by Quinn's air of noble tragedy in its very first moments of existence. He would never acknowledge it as such.

Coordinates calculated, and the Phantom Dart streaked to hyperspace. Wynston leaned back in his chair and smiled. “My spies tell me Kaliyo’s in the target sector,” he said. “I may call her when the job’s done.”

Quinn, frowning, looked over from the navicomputer. “You have spies following Kaliyo?”

“If she considered you an ex you’d keep a close eye on her, too. This is self-preservation.”

“And yet despite her ongoing threat to your life, your desperation for sexual contact overcame your differences with her enough to reestablish…relations…the moment you saw her.”

“That wasn’t desperation. Maybe I was just glad to see her again.”

Skepticism rolled down Quinn's nose toward Wynston.

“I’m not pretending I care or anything. In fact kicking Kaliyo out of my life when I did did us both a lot of good.” Wynston cheered up. “I’ll get it right this time. She doesn’t know where I live, what I do, who I work with, what make of personal protective equipment I carry, how to contact me, or when I’ll bother to contact her. I think that’s the safest way to conduct a relationship with her.”

“It’s a relationship, now, is it?” Quinn said nastily.

“Loose association when convenient,” backpedaled Wynston.

“You really are desperate.”

“Hardly.” Wynston leaned on the arm of his chair, his red gaze taking on a malicious cast. “You know, I gave Ruth a great deal of grief about taking you back. I couldn’t grasp at the time how someone could look the worst imaginable idea in the eye and say, with unfaked conviction, ‘Take me now.’ Seeing Kaliyo again really set that in perspective.”

“Do not presume to compare that tramp to Ruth.”

“I’m not. I’m comparing that tramp to you.”

Quinn directed his scowl at the navicomputer. “Are we there yet?”

“Quinn! I have good news!”

It would take a trained eye to detect the relief laced through Quinn’s businesslike manner as he turned away from a dewy-eyed cadet. “What is it?”

“With me.” Strategy talk was rarely too sensitive for this area of the Aegis, but Wynston found that some privacy was required to keep Quinn’s fan club out of the way.

He led Quinn to a conference room and shut the door. “So,” he said. “It’s looking like, matters in the sector being what they are, we’ll be throwing Balmorra to the Empire.”

Quinn arched an eyebrow. “Balmorra? I recommend obliterating it instead.”

Wynston stepped back. “That’s…strong.”

“I despise that planet.” Quinn spat his consonants as though his grudge extended to each and every one of them.

“I should think you’d like the place. You met your wife there, didn’t you?”

“After ten years of languishing with no prospects and insufficient bug repellent I was informed that I was to be placed at the mercy of Darth Baras’s favored apprentice there, yes. It was a less than salutary prospect.”

“Oh, right. Being subject to Ruth’s whims must have been terrible for you. We all know what a monster she was.”

“I didn’t know when the fangs were going to come out! All I knew in her favor was that she was our best chance at destroying our opponents on Balmorra.”

“How sentimental. Well, we’ll have to arrange it ourselves this time.”

“Burn it,” insisted Quinn. “Reduce it to glass and ash.”

“If you’ll recall the mission statement of this organization, Quinn, we generally try not to obliterate populated planets. Or any planets.”

“You’ve never written a mission statement.”

“Well, if I did, not obliterating planets would be high on the list. Look, we can arrange an orbital strike on the arms factory if that’s what you’re bitter about.”

Quinn scowled.

The Chiss tilted his head, eyes glittering speculatively. “She liked Balmorra, you know. I’ve never heard her speak so highly of a war zone before or since. All spillover glow from you, I suspect, but the fact remains, she loved her time there.”

Quinn wavered.

Wynston waited.

“We can leave Balmorra intact,” grumbled Quinn.

“That’s the spirit. Orders out, a little subtle manipulation here and there, Balmorra will be the Empire’s once again.”

“Don’t expect me to visit.”

“And here I was hoping to strand you in Sobrik once it was out of Republic hands.”

“Sobrik is burning. That’s not optional.”

“You really are sentimental.”

“It’s nothing personal. It simply–”

“Is?” supplied Wynston. “Personal?”

“You have my recommendation,” snapped Quinn. “Make of it what you will.”

“I always do.”