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By the time Chirrut had arrived at the public clinic, it was already well into the evening. He’d barely stopped to pay the speeder’s pilot for driving him before he was already stumbling past the threshold, ignoring every bit of his instinct that commanded him to stop and immerse himself with his surroundings first.
So it was that the Force compelled him to halt at the mouth of the expansive room, although it felt more to Chirrut like a blow to the guts than a guiding hand. A gust of voices in every decibel known to the galaxy, littered with the noise of movements and walls. It was worse that the world had been sealed off all around him, trapping him with the din and the din with him but that was only one part of the problem. The other was the dark energy that pulled at him from all sides of the room, heavy and anchored to his lungs. The place was so full of it, bursting at the seams like a smoke that won’t seem to run out—but this was something that Chirrut could still live with. Darkness was a part of the Force inasmuch as light was. It was the absence that was abnormal.
Baze’s presence was not among those that he felt.
He stood helplessly, frozen in place. His hands were wrapped and stuck around his walking stick, held up to his chest as though he was alive only because of it, the very last of all that he had and the fear of it was too much, he whispered a prayer to the air. He caught himself too late and would have chided himself for the silliness of it but in the absence of Baze, nothing seemed silly. He reached out to the room, extended himself to his frayed edges, sought again and again for Baze’s familiarity but it wasn’t there. It just wasn’t there.
“Can I help you?”
Chirrut whirled to the voice that came up beside him, too surprised to make a sound. He stared at that tender light, gaping, but he could not seem to make sense of its existence. How could it exist in the midst of so much darkness?
“Excuse me, I’m here…oh. Are…are you blind?”
“Yes,” Chirrut breathed, seeking out the voice of the girl to redirect his sightless gaze. “I am. I am looking for a friend.”
“Oh umm…” she paused, as one would if they were uncertain about their next action. “Sorry but since we’re so full, we only allow family relations to visit our patients.”
“No you don’t understand, I am not…just his friend, we are together. We live together. He is my partner!”
“I’m afraid that’s just not gonna cut it, sorry,” the young woman apologized, uneasy perhaps to turn down a blind man. “The rules are strict: only family relations allowed. It’s not enough that you live together, you’ll have to be married for instance.”
For a second there, Chirrut felt as if he was standing at the tipping point of his patience, on his toes. Something hot like fire had surged up to his chest, stayed there to smolder. What did it matter if they were married or not? The Force cared not for such trivial relations so why should she! What fact of life did that change?
Mustering the dregs of his kindness, Chirrut breathed in as deeply as he could, and let the air out through his nose slowly.
“Yes,” he said evenly. “You are right. I had lied. We are married. He is my husband.”
After that, there was no longer any question about his presence in the clinic. He took hold of the young woman’s shoulder as she led him through the first room, past rows of groaning and snoring patients, and into the next which saw a remarkable improvement in his mood. The darkness still swelled within, exactly like a living, breathing being should but the difference this time was that there was a particular shadow in it that belonged to someone who made Chirrut’s heart feel light.
“Baze Malbus? Your husband is here.”
Perhaps if this place wasn’t teeming with all sorts of hazards to a blind man, he would have fallen to his knees and wept by Baze’s side—but that prank would have to wait. Instead, Chirrut waited for his escort to arrange him a chair near Baze’s cot and thanked her as he sat, suddenly the perfect image of patience and understanding.
“Kaya told you?” Baze asked.
“By way of a messenger,” Chirrut answered. “She could not be away too long from her sister and the children. It is a particularly bad day for Killi Giim,” he said, sadly.
“Kaya was the one who brought me here,” Baze shared. “After they found me a spot, I sent her away.”
“What happened, anyway?”
Baze’s hand alighted upon Chirrut’s right, and he let the man carry it to his hairline where he felt the rough surface of a linen strip plastered to his forehead. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” the deep voice assured him. “After the rain last night, one of the houses in Khubai Shanty gave and I helped with the heavy lifting. Someone lost his footing and shoved my face to the rubble.”
“Was there a lot of blood?”
“I could not say. Kaya said yes but the wound isn’t deep. I will be out of here later.”
Chirrut smiled and nodded.
“So,” Baze said, removing his hand from Chirrut’s who removed his hand from Baze’s bandage. “Husband.”
“They would not let me see you otherwise,” Chirrut explained, resting his hands at the top of his staff.
“They didn’t ask for proof?”
“I told them we lost our home to the stormtroopers and sold off our rings for food and shelter. Besides, this is NiJedha. Our civil offices have ceased pretending to work for a long time now.”
“And you are okay with that?”
Chirrut shrugged. “What difference does it make? We live together and we are a couple. Everyone knows we are always together. If it makes things more convenient, then let it be so.”
Baze chuckled. “Because you have married yourself to a poor man, Chirrut Imwe. I have no job, no wealth. You will get nothing from me when I die.”
It was a morbid prospect, but Chirrut smiled. “This may sound embarrassing,” he began, “but that makes two of us. They did say for richer or for poorer.”
“And in sickness and in health,” Baze chuckled.
This time, Chirrut grinned. “Just so,” he said.
Funny how easily it fit them, this lie that Chirrut had made just so he could be allowed to see his friend. That at least made it easier for him to play the part he had signed up for.
As it turned out, his first duty as a loving husband was to watch over his poor husband and to stay by his side.