A pounding on the door jolted Valentine out of her brief moment of security. With a gasp, she sat upright, rigid with fear. It hadn't taken long for the personnel to catch up to her--and here she was, thinking she had outsmarted them by ducking into the medical wing. Her thoughts turned sour at the memory of the nurse.

She probably went off and told on Valentine. Stingy.

"Na--" she stopped herself, her brow furrowing. It would take some time to get out of the habit of using his fake name. "No, Kanan, I--"

"It's alright," he cut her off with his usual smile, a gleam in his dark eyes. "I'll do the talking."

Dazedly, she nodded and pulled away from him. He rose to his feet--slowly, at first, like it was something he hadn't done often. The door burst open, allowing the same personnel from the Ki-Wing to flood in. Kanan purposefully planted himself between them and Valentine, ignoring their pointed looks as he slipped his hands into his pockets.

"Gentlemen, ladies, how might I assist you?" he started, before anyone else could speak up.

Valentine held her breath, hands tightly gripping her skirt in search of comfort. Kanan didn't truly have any power over the personnel--or so she understood--yet he confronted them with an aura of confidence. It was reminiscent of the way he would halt intruders of the Vault, holding them until Ti came to finish the job. Briefly, a thought crossed her mind: did the personnel ever fear the awakened Vault Guards? They had undergone a significant portion of time in a setting filled with violence, fear, and confusion. She could only assume most awoke in a state of anger, perhaps some even lashed out.

Yet the personnel seemed unarmed and rather unfit to stop the Vault Guards. They had let Valentine slip through their fingers after all. Valentine, whose athletic abilities had never been anything of note, had gotten away.

Or perhaps it spoke only of those who worked in the Ki-Wing.

That thought sent a shiver of uncertainty crawling down her spine. In an effort to hide the growing fear in her chest, she forced her gaze to linger on the wall to her left rather than the piercing stare of the woman from the room she had woken up in.

"Na-729108, please do not cause any more trouble for us," the woman forced the words out through gritted teeth. "Do you not hear the alarms? This girl has not yet been discharged, she cannot roam the facilities freely. Do not stand in our way."

Kanan chuckled, bitter and humorless. "I would never be the one to stand in the way of your research. I only ask for a few more minutes to speak with Ki--we served in the same Vault and have been separated for quite some time. We just want a moment to catch up."

The woman hesitated as if she were surprised by this. Valentine risked a quick glance to see her dismissing the rest of the staff that had come into the room. The group quickly filed out through the small door, taking with them their suffocating presence. Valentine exhaled in relief, her shoulders slumping.

"Five minutes," the woman snapped as she turned to the door. "I'll be waiting outside." Her glare landed on Valentine, sharp and pointed. "Don't try anything funny this time."

"Yes, ma'am. We wouldn't dream of it." Kanan waved goodbye as the door shut behind the woman. His hand immediately dropped to his side, still and motionless once more. He remained in place for a moment longer, his breathing so soft Valentine might have missed it if she weren't searching for something to cling to in the silence.

"Kanan?"

"I... really hate this place," he murmured, so quietly she almost missed it. Then, he shook his head and perched himself on the edge of the bed. "Anyway. Our time is short so I'll be brief."

Valentine studied him, a frown pulling at the corners of her mouth. She sat down beside him, ignoring the creak of the thin bed frame. "What did you want to talk about?"

"The Vault." He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "The Vault and my theories about it. I need to make sure I pass this message to you in case I don't get another chance."

A thorn pierced her heart at his words, sending a jolt of fear racing all the way down to the tips of her fingers. Her mouth went dry, the words stuck on her tongue. She bit down on her lip, gripping her skirt even tighter. "What are you...?"

"Just hear me out. Our time is brief and this place is riddled with uncertainty. I don't intend to do anything stupid, so just listen to me, okay?"

"How can I believe that?" she bit back in a harsh whisper. "The last time... the last time you promised not to do anything stupid on your own, you went and did exactly that." Ignoring the look of surprise in his face, she took his hand in her own and squeezed tightly. "Please promise that, whatever it is, this time, we'll do it together. No matter how complicated or difficult things get. I'll find you again, and we'll get through this together."

He gently squeezed her hand back, adjusting his grip to slide his fingers between hers. Holding up their interlocked fingers, he smiled softly, a light touching his dark brown eyes. "I promise."

Warmth flooded Valentine's face. In an effort to hide it, she ducked her head and leaned against his shoulder. Strands of pale blonde hair obscured her vision, but most noticeable was the warm feeling of his hand against hers. She could get lost in that feeling. She had many times over already.

"Okay," she murmured. "I'll take that then."

He had promised before already, but she couldn't shake the anxiousness that gnawed at her mind, along with the memory of being left alone in the Vault. The confusion, the fear, the anger, the frustration, the pain. All of it hung heavily over her, pieced together by his fragile words. If a promise was all she could get out of him, a promise would have to be enough.

How long before he grew impatient and impulsive like last time? How long before she was left alone again?

"Have you heard the legend of the Vault of Dreams?" he asked.

Recognition and bewilderment raced through her mind in a chaotic tangle of thoughts. She lifted her head, her brow furrowed. Cold sank into her bones. "What?"

Flint had asked the very same question before. He had told her the legend when trying to deter her from her plan to return. Why would it matter to Kanan? And now of all times?

They were outside the simulation, the Vault, and the Chamber, weren't they?

"The story of the Vault?" She ran her tongue over her lips, thinking for a moment. "Yes, Flint told me--the guy I met outside the Chamber."

"Then you know the gist of it." Kanan withdrew his hands from hers and folded them together before resting them in his lap. "They say there is more to the story. The simulation is bound to it, not the other way around."

"What are you trying to say?"

"The simulation is a cover for something greater: a search for something in particular, maybe." He leaned against the mattress, gazing emptily up at the ceiling above their heads. "Haven't you ever wondered what the purpose of all of it is? And why they only search for a Ki and a Na?"

Valentine froze. At first, the statement left her feeling more confused than before, but the more she pondered it, the more memories came crashing down on her. The morning her tattoo appeared on her wrist, how she had requested to be shifted to the Ti-Wing, how she had been refused because the Wing was full. Originally, she had tried to refuse the test in the first place.

Refusal was not accepted by the officers who oversaw the Vault Test.

"Do they... still claim the Ti-Wing is full...?" she asked, barely above a whisper.

"Yes." Kanan flung an arm over his face, exhaling a deep sigh. "But there has never been a single person inside the Ti-Wing. I went over there myself one night. It's a ghost town there, Valentine. There's nothing there."

"B-but our Ti! She has to be here somewhere, right?"

He gave a feeble shrug, a motion that pained her as she thought back to his shoulder wound from the Vault. "I heard they've only ever had one success from the Vault Test, and that that person is still undergoing the simulation as we speak. The only success is Ti. Doesn't that... bother you? This test, this one success, how much our Ti knew that we didn't, the Master, all of it." With a growl, he tore his arm away and sat upright again. "I hate all of it. I hate what they won't tell us."

Valentine couldn't ignore that it seemed off, though her memories of the start of it were still fuzzy and disjointed. Kanan had been awake for much longer, he had plenty of time to think things over. She still needed time. She doubted he would give her time.

She swallowed hard. "What do you plan to do about it?"

Another one of his dry, humorless laughs slipped through his guard. "There's only one thing to do, Val."

Frustration darkened her thoughts, twisting her expression into a tight frown. "And what is that?"

"I'm going to shut the whole thing down."