Did you honestly think that after everything things would still be the same? Matt had to laugh at that, a short, rueful sound that echoed in the belly of the Falcon. “No,” he said honestly. “No, I didn’t.” A ghost of his old grin flashed on his face, not quite reaching eyes that watched closely as she joined him. “Why d’you think I keep acting like this?”
He didn’t expect an answer any more than he expected this moment to last. Maybe it could have before, when they used to arrive at some unspoken agreement in the middle of a fight and hung up their metaphorical blasters for something better. But this was just the eye of the storm, a temporary reprieve before the clouds rolled back in. How could it last, just like she said? After everything. Too much had happened. Didn’t matter how much he regretted the biggest mistake of his life every day since he made it. Those days were gone.
Matt wasn’t good at losing except when the opposition was himself. He could turn anything into a war of attrition, from an argument over laundry to a showdown with the Resistance, but his only weapon against himself was denial. Eventually, supply ran out and all that remained was the kind of naked self-awareness he tried so hard to avoid. Maybe that was why he admitted defeat in this argument with Lydia. The real adversary wasn’t her at all. It was him. Who he used to be versus who he was now, without her. That wasn’t a fight he could win. Ever.
And, truth be told, he was pretty tired of his own shit. Being Han Solo and Mateo Silva was exhausting. Here on the Falcon, it was easier. He could almost pretend that he wasn’t a fuck-up who was probably going to die alone because he’d ruined the one thing that made all the fighting worth it. Around other people, Lydia especially, he couldn’t pretend anything. And so he acted like the world’s biggest idiot and made everything worse. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Still. It was nice to know he wasn’t the only one missing how they used to be. Hearing Lydia admit to it didn’t give him hope that things could change, exactly. For that to happen, he would have to change; if he were capable of that, he’d have done it a long time ago. Rather, it reminded him that he hadn’t made it all up. The good stuff was real. The days they spent tinkering on the Falcon together, the dinners back at Camelot with her family when Matt tried to embarrass her on purpose and she rewarded him with pink cheeks and pointed glares, the quiet nights when he could just hold her and they didn’t need to say a word. It was too easy to push those memories to the back of his mind when he was going on a tear about all the ways she drove him crazy, but he hadn’t forgotten them, not really. Neither had she. And that they both missed it meant they still had something in common after all. After everything.
Matt didn’t know what to say after her admission. Letting the silence hang around them wasn’t comfortable for him, but at the same time it felt necessary. What more was there to say? Hey, remember that time when we loved each other and acted like it and everything was great? No. A walk down memory lane would hurt them more than traded barbs and old tricks. Matt didn’t care so much about hurting himself, but, hell. He was tired of hurting her.
After a long moment, he leaned forward on the dejarik table. “Lydia.” Without thinking, he reached out and touched her arm to pull her back from whatever was putting that lost look on her face, a look he recognized all too well but didn’t have the heart to name. He glanced down once at her arm when he touched her, brows drawing together. She shivered, her skin curiously cold. The desert air blowing in from the boarding ramp had long since dried the sweat from his hours working outside, but he hadn’t noticed the dip in temperature on board. Too distracted.
Another confession was on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it at the last moment. “… jacket’s behind you,” he offered instead, tipping his chin at the only article of clothing he had any emotional attachment to. Not that anyone would know, with how he'd haphazardly thrown it over the back of the seat. He'd never been very good at taking care of the things he loved. “If you need it.”