As soon as we land on Dantooine, Linami gets help for Yusuf.  I take the droid to the mechanics shop and head to the control room for a full report.

When I finish, Mothma informs me, and everyone else in the room, that there will be a midnight remembrance for the men lost on Scarif.  It's a new tradition we've just adopted.  Some Twi'lek kid suggested it for a squad he was in that was ambushed, and we decided to keep it.  He had his own vigil a few weeks later when the grief and stress and PTSD got to be too much and someone found him drowned in the canyon.

Once I'm released, I go to find Linami.  On the way, I'm intercepted by a mechanic. "Andor?"

"Yeah?" I turn to look at him.

"You left something in the shop. We don't want it."

"It's an Imperial droid."

"We know." He holds out a bag.

I don't take it. "It could have information."

"I ran a diagnostic on his data chip. He was wiped, I presume by the rebels on Scarif." He gestures with the bag towards me, indicating that I should take it.

I do, and carry the hunk of disassembled trash to my barrack.

There. Now I can go find my wife.

She's standing right outside the medbay, looking worried.  I wrap my arms around her.  "How's the kid?"

"He's not looking good.  Even the droids looked droopy when they looked at him."  She drops her head to my chest.  "I thought I'd get used to this."

"Used to what?"

"Failure.  Death.  Everything.  Working to try and help a fellow Rebel and failing."

"Not every mission will be a success," I say into her hair.  "We just have to accept that our overall mission is worthy of occasional failure."

"I suppose so."  She sighs.  "I wish we could have stayed a while longer, on a rest."

"Me too.  But we're needed here.  Two of their best pilots and captains."

Linami leans up and kisses me.  "When's the vigil?"

"Midnight.  Do you want to get some rest first?  I can stay here and tell you when he comes out of surgery," I volunteer.

"If."

"Now, you're usually the positive one," I chide.

She chuckles.  "You don't have to wait.  Let's go rest."

I twine my fingers with hers and we head down the halls and out into the open, then back inside and through more halls to the barrack.

When we first started holding hands, I would swing our hands foolishly, trying to alleviate the awkwardness of it all.  Unfortunately, that made it just embarrassing, and she told me that.  I stopped when she did.

I never thought I could be as comfortable as when I was a little boy and would fall asleep on my mother's lap.  But here, with my wife sleeping with curled against my warmth, it's even better.

I'm actually surprised she's sleeping at all.  I can't.

After that explosion, and imaging the men down there in their last moments, every hint of sleepiness is blown away.

I've set an alarm on my holopad, to tell me when it's time for dinner, and I'm starving by the time it goes off.  Linami doesn't wake up, so I slide out of bed, half hoping she wakes up and half hoping that she keeps sleeping.  She just rolls over into the warm dent where I was.

Gaspard is surprised to see me in the mess hall alone.

"Where's Linami?"

"Asleep." I put the tray down. I grabbed extra to bring back to the barrack. I probably didn't have to, since I don't end up eating much.

After the first mission I failed, Gaspard comforted me.  Now, there have been so many casualties on missions that neither of us bring it up to the other.  There's no use in reliving the event to each other.

I bring a plate of food through the halls back to Linami.  She's sitting up when I get back, the blue blanket wrapped around her.

"I have some food for you," I tell her, placing it in her lap.

"No utensils?" she asks, picking up the bread and attempting to sop up the sauce.

I pull metal utensils in their sterilized packages out of my pocket and hand them to her.

She starts eating gratefully.

Instead of sitting next to her, which could overturn the plate and just overall make a terrible mess, I pull up one of the two chairs we have and sit in front of her.

"Get some good rest?" I ask.

She nods and talks around a mouthful of food, hiding it with her hand.  "Yeah.  Did you?"

I shake my head.  "No.  No, I saw it.  It's always a bit harder when you see it happen."

Linami nods again, then reaches out and rubs my knee.  "I'm sorry, Love."

I put my hand on hers, and we just look at each other for a minute.  Then, she pulls her hand back and finishes eating.

"I don't think I can sleep anymore," she proclaims when she finishes eating.

I take the plate from her, gently, and put it on the table.  Then I climb on the bed and lean against the wall, pulling Linami onto my lap and connecting my hands around her waist.

She rests her head on my shoulder and shuts her eyes. "Do you think that, someday, after we win, we won't have to do any of these vigils anymore?"

"Maybe," I say.  "There'll always be death though.  Nobody lives forever."

"The Force—"

"Doesn't make you live forever.  Trust me.  I grew up near a temple.  The Force didn't help them from being slaughtered eighteen years ago."

She tilts her head back to look at me.  "Why so cynical?"

"Sorry."

She eventually drops off again, and at midnight we put on warm jackets and hats and go out to stand vigil in the fog.

Mon Mothma gives a speech, ending it with their names.  "Jeron King. Quinn King. Thrash Fiol. Erwan Gaël."

I tune out the rest. Erwan? Erwan was there? I look over at Gaspard. He looks shocked also. I guess none of us had enough connection to him to even realize that he'd been gone. I suddenly feel guilty that I didn't try to get the sullen man to warm up to me.

The vigil concludes with a lit candle left to burn itself out.