Lydia had expected a lot of things. More yelling, a lot more yelling. Maybe one of them would finally get fed up enough to storm off to another section of the ship until Lydia's ride came to her rescue. At least a thousand different possibilities would have seemed more likely to her in that moment than what actually happened, which was that instead of exploding, Matt immediately deflated, right before her very eyes.
There weren't many things that successfully undid Matt Silva, who was annoyingly good at going toe to toe with her for long periods of time without slowing down. The use of his full name happened to be something that stopped him in his tracks, and Lydia still didn't totally understand why. It was a card she didn't pull out very often, mostly because she rarely had to use it. In all honesty, she hadn't needed to use it now, but this time her decision had been more personal than tactical.
She was slowly but surely losing the war in keeping him at a distance, and now Lydia's moves were getting desperate.
It was too early in the fight for either of them to be caving, staring after him in astonishment as Matt brushed past her to sit down in defeat instead of try and get in one last dig. This certainly didn't feel like winning. Even more puzzling, but hearing her name come out of his mouth instead of some variation of 'princess' or 'worship' was just as much of a shock to her system. It undid her almost without her realizing it, until some of the anger that she held onto simply on principle had already been stripped away before she could stop it. The will to keep fighting left her as swiftly as it had emerged in the first place.
Maybe she could understand a little why it unraveled him so thoroughly after all.
Did she wish that things could be different? Of course she did. If anything, their time in the closet had only made matters worse for Lydia. The memory of what it was like to be held by Matt and the physical reminder of it? There was no comparison. She thought about him all the time, and not just out of worry. That's what was still so hard for her to admit out loud. The only reason she got so furious when he accused her of it is because he was right, whether or not the idiot knew it.
Lydia could sense that she was teetering back into dangerous ground, but at his final confession, she felt something in her soften against her will that way it inevitably did. For her and for Leia.
She missed talking to him. She missed when their fights were only a precursor to something happier, instead of more of the same misery. More than anything, she just missed him. Despite all appearances, things used to be... pretty good, between them. More than good, actually. Never perfect, but Lydia hadn't wanted perfect. She'd only wanted him.
Against her better judgement, after a long pause Lydia crossed the short distance to the booth and sat down next to him, returning his gaze with a knowing look stripped of all its usual superiority. "Did you honestly think after everything that things would still be the same?"
Maybe another time, those words would have sounded condescending, but now they were surprisingly gentle. Maybe even sad. They did used to talk, it hadn't all been yelling. Why was even talking to each other so hard now? This time it was Lydia who had to look away, training her eyes on some invisible point elsewhere in the room as she shivered. Whether that was due to the sudden shift in their conversation or that she'd finally cooled down from their heated argument enough to realize she was cold without her jacket, she didn't know. Lydia swallowed. "I miss it too."