[ Wedge never thought it possible that someone from his Matrix would ever be unplugged. He'd been told the ratio of plugged humans to unplugged humans was a ridiculous 10 to 1. Mathematically, the chances of someone who'd shared his illusion joining him in the Real World were slim to none.
Leave it to a Corellian to beat the odds once more.
Luke had beenβno, wasβhis commander, his best friend. The medics were afraid Wedge's presence wouldn't allow Luke to accept true reality, but Wedge successfully argued Luke and himself were too strong for that. Neither Luke or Wedge had ever been adept at lies, though Wedge compartmentalized and suppressed his feelings more than Luke ever did.
Really, if they had to worry for someone's grip on reality, it was Wedge, not Luke.
He still remembers the day they found Luke, how he'd been, curiously and thankfully, part of the crew who pulled him out. That'd been when Wedge truly began questioning the conundrum of their 'fake' versus 'real' lives. Because to accept that their past lives were fake meant that he, Wedge, was fake too.
But Wedge knew that not to be true. Just because the world itself wasn't real doesn't mean perceptions of and emotions from it aren't. In his case, he'd been torn away from the life he knew and had to start over from scratch once already. Yet that hadn't made Wedge, at his core, a different person.
So why would it be the case this time? ] I got you. [ Wedge grins flatly. He unzips the top of his coverall (the only clothes he felt comfortable in) and pulls out a bottle wrapped in brown paper. ] Not Whyren's, I'm afraid. [ He says it not like a shameful secret but rather an inside joke. Luke looks pallid, hairless, like a newborn rather than the Tattooine-tanned, hotshot pilot Wedge knew him as. And it broke Wedge's heart, made him want to reach out and be gentle, caring, a friend. ] But still whiskey. Got it off an Irkallan who needed some...discreet repairs to his ship.
[ He presses the bottle onto Luke's hand. ] Come on, give it a pop.
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Leave it to a Corellian to beat the odds once more.
Luke had beenβno, wasβhis commander, his best friend. The medics were afraid Wedge's presence wouldn't allow Luke to accept true reality, but Wedge successfully argued Luke and himself were too strong for that. Neither Luke or Wedge had ever been adept at lies, though Wedge compartmentalized and suppressed his feelings more than Luke ever did.
Really, if they had to worry for someone's grip on reality, it was Wedge, not Luke.
He still remembers the day they found Luke, how he'd been, curiously and thankfully, part of the crew who pulled him out. That'd been when Wedge truly began questioning the conundrum of their 'fake' versus 'real' lives. Because to accept that their past lives were fake meant that he, Wedge, was fake too.
But Wedge knew that not to be true. Just because the world itself wasn't real doesn't mean perceptions of and emotions from it aren't. In his case, he'd been torn away from the life he knew and had to start over from scratch once already. Yet that hadn't made Wedge, at his core, a different person.
So why would it be the case this time? ] I got you. [ Wedge grins flatly. He unzips the top of his coverall (the only clothes he felt comfortable in) and pulls out a bottle wrapped in brown paper. ] Not Whyren's, I'm afraid. [ He says it not like a shameful secret but rather an inside joke. Luke looks pallid, hairless, like a newborn rather than the Tattooine-tanned, hotshot pilot Wedge knew him as. And it broke Wedge's heart, made him want to reach out and be gentle, caring, a friend. ] But still whiskey. Got it off an Irkallan who needed some...discreet repairs to his ship.
[ He presses the bottle onto Luke's hand. ] Come on, give it a pop.