You Must (Not) Let Go

Part 10

The shuttle touched dirt. Bastila wrestled with the door control, the seat harness grabbing at her as she stumbled into searing daylight. Her boots slipped in the thin veneer of mud over hard ground, the entire universe seeming hellbent to keep her from the thin figure running towards her in the distance. The figure tripped, disappearing into dense, scrubby brush, thorny leaves fat with moisture swallowing them whole. A cry caught in Bastila’s throat. She raced, lungs burning, heedless of the rocky, uneven earth beneath her feet. The figure staggered up, swayed, blood running down bony shins. Bastila shot forward, wrapping her arms around her partner’s gaunt body before she could fall again. Sera collapsed into her, returning the embrace with fevered fervour. Bastila tightened her grip, incoherent with emotion, saying her name over and over again. Sera let out a croaking gasp. Bastila’s brain kicked into gear. She fought to open her pack, bringing her water bottle up to her partner’s parched lips. Sera drank gratefully, rivulets of water spilling down her dusty skin. Bastila’s eyes darted over her, cataloguing the changes, the harm done to her beloved. She was thin. So thin it made Bastila’s insides twist in fear. There were unknown scars and the remains of chemical burns patterning her hands and forearms. The skin of her shoulders and back was red and blistered from the sun, her hair dirty and unkempt. And, most obviously, where her left eye should have been was an angry knot of scar tissue drilling into the sphere of her skull.

Sera drained the bottle, coughed, and wiped her mouth on a bare shoulder. A tired smile lit her face. “Hey.”

Bastila let out a cry and crushed Sera’s mouth to hers. Sera stiffened in surprise, then melted, tasting of dusty earth and too many days without access to a toothbrush. Behind them, The Galactic Star roared into the atmosphere, a light tremor running through the ground as it set down. Bastila pulled away, everything becoming too much all of a sudden.

“The Myndraav family systematically embezzled the pension funds of Sabos II,” she blurted out stupidly.

Sera stared at her, gobsmacked and dazed, mouth hanging open in utter confusion.

Bastila felt her face growing hot. “Sirra Ukarme,” she barreled on, “drove the entire Kothunus race to extinction because their livers contained a compound she used in her skin care routine!”

“The fuck are you on about?” Sera said, finding her voice at last.

“The Xerda of Vih’Torr changed their mineral supplier to an inferior alternative because their profits weren’t increasing fast enough. The alternative was essentially agricultural waste from one of their subsidiaries, making their nutrient paste, their largest export, basically poison!” She heard the others approaching in the distance. Without relaxing her grip on her beloved, she dug one handed for a medpac, snagging a kolto injection and the emergency blanket from within.

“The fuck has that to do with… Is this about our last fight?” Sera snorted. “You came all this way just to get the last word in-- Ow!” She hissed, clutching onto Bastila as the injection pierced her thigh.

Bastila tossed the empty syringe aside. “A quarter of the galaxy relies on that nutrient paste, Sera,” she said around the blanket held between her teeth. Sera laughed into her shoulder. Bastila scowled, ripping the blanket out of its packaging and spitting the packet out. “How many are going to grow up with congenital defects, have years of their lives shaved off to satisfy one man’s greed!” She drew the thin silver sheet tenderly around Sera’s blistered and burnt shoulders, took her head between her hands and stared intently into her remaining eye. “You are nothing like any of these people, no matter what you were before! You are the most precious thing in the galaxy to me and I will fight every single person who tries to say otherwise.”

Sera stared at her, lips parting speechlessly.

Bastila slid her hands down, grabbing the edges of the blanket hanging down Sera’s bare chest and drawing her closer until they were almost nose to nose. “We are getting married, Sera. Today! No more ‘once we’ve settled down’ or ‘if we still feel like it’. I want everyone to know--”

“Yes.”

Bastila stopped, the soft reply stealing all the breath from her lungs. Sera was smiling at her, sweet and almost shy, a pool of tears collecting in her eye. She took in the look on Bastila’s face and laughed.

“What, did you think I’d say no?” she teased. Her laughter toppled into a sob. She clapped a hand to her mouth, thin shoulders shaking as tears pouring one-sided down her dusty face. “You’re really here, aren’t you?”

“Yes! Yes, I am!” Bastila pulled Sera against her chest, their tears mingling on their cheeks. “You’re safe now. I’m never letting you go again.”

A high-pitched squealing, poorly muffled, sounded surprisingly close behind them. Bastila jumped, reflexively tightening her arms around Sera. Zaalbar was standing not far away holding a datapad up, record light blinking, a massive grin on his face. Mission was standing in his shadow, both hands covering her mouth as she bounced up and down in glee.

“You guys…” she said wetly, her voice distorting oddly in her excitement. “That’s so sweet!”

Sera craned her neck around the protective bulwark of Bastila’s shoulders. “Wha… Who did you bring, the entire circus?” She gasped, eye widening as she took in the sleek champagne monstrosity lounging on the hot earth. “What did you… Babe,” she said uncertainly. “Did you… did you steal that?”

Bastila scowled. “Why would that be your first thought? I could have gotten it by perfectly legitimate means.”

Sera flicked her hand out disbelievingly. “It’s a fucking solid gold ship!”

“Make sure you get all this, Big Z. It’s good for posterity.”

“Why did you bring all those people up?” Ran interjected suddenly. She was standing a little way apart, sweating and frowning in the sun. “Why would it matter what she was before? I don’t understand, none of this makes any sense.”

Bastila stiffened. She had forgotten Ran was there. She couldn’t remember, had she said anything she shouldn’t have? Was that suspicion in Ran’s voice? “Um, well, you see…” Thoughts bounced around the inside of her head as she tried to pin down exactly the right combination of words to defray the situation, to not spiral Sera into another meltdown. Please. Don’t do this to me. I only just found her again.

“Because I’m Revan, I guess,” Sera said simply, like it was nothing at all.

Bastila whipped her head around to stare in shock at her partner. Sera offered her a smile and shrugged, looking a little sheepish.

“What?” The word came out soft, confused. Like she hadn’t quite heard what Sera had said. “What?” Louder this time. Angry, disbelieving. Her hand came up, lightsaber flying into her palm as if by instinct alone. She ignited it, a blade of trembling blue pointed directly at Sera’s face. “I’m sick and tired of your games, Bastila. You are going to give me the truth right now!”

~~~

The beam of light danced violently before her eye, snapping and buzzing angrily in the hot air. She squinted, blood throbbing in her temples as the kolto worked its way through her. She leaned into the circle of Bastila’s arms, soaking in the warmth, letting it soothe the pain of her body and brain. Wait. This is important. “Uh…” Sweat sprung from the back of her head and neck, empty stomach twisting in nausea as blue flashed and wavered in a wrong, sickening pattern. “That is, like…” The big woman’s hand tightened on the hilt, wide, frightened eyes darting between her and Bastila. Zaalbar cried out in delayed shock, reaching for weapons he did not have. “It’s not what you think.”

“What does that mean?” the woman barked. “What are you--”

The muscles in her arms and legs contracted, pulling her and Bastila to the ground faster than Sera could think. There was a bang. Light blazed over their falling heads, singeing the tips of Sera’s hair. Her knees hit dirt, gravel biting into lacerated skin as gravity threw her into the soft part of Bastila’s torso. Her head came up, the hand gripping her close telling Sera that Bastila was alright. The remains of the lightsaber lay on the ground, its metal casing split like an overripe fruit peel, bright flames pouring from the exposed and ruptured power cell with the heat of every strike it would ever make. The big woman was on the ground, stunned, the right side of her face scorched and blackened with soot. Her right hand hung in her lap, limp and useless, blood running from her fingertips.

“Holy fuck!” Sera pushed herself to her feet with the last scraps of her willpower. She kicked the lightsaber away, angling her foot into the drying mud to roll over the tiny inferno. The big woman shied away from her as Sera knelt down, jerking her hand out of Sera’s grasp.

“Idiot! Stop moving!” Sera tilted her head, inspecting the damage to the other woman’s face.

“Ran, what were you thinking!” Sera could feel Bastila bristling with spiky emotions behind her.

Zaalbar roared incoherently, echoing Bastila’s frustration and fright.

The skin on her face and neck showed no sign of blistering or swelling, the soot more dramatic than dangerous. Sera gently turned the woman’s hand over. There was a shallow gash running across her palm, blisters beneath the blood forming in a pattern where the lightsaber burst. Her face was tight with tension and she was letting her hand hang, not moving her fingers at all.

“Motherfucker!” Mission exploded. She plopped down next to Sera, eyes wide. “Is she alright? Are you alright?” she said to the fallen woman.

Sera looked up at Bastila. “Have to got a…” She held her fingers loosely in a fist and made a clicking motion with her thumb.

Bastila stared at her tight-lipped for a moment. Then her shoulders relaxed and she sighed.

“Not here,” she said, searching through her pack anyway. “We’ll have to get her back to the ship.”

“Well, alright then,” Sera said, groaning a little as she made to stand.

“You are not walking anyway,” Bastila said, a fierce glint in her eye. “Zaalbar, would you please.”

“Ah, come on. If you just give me a hand up, I’ll be right on my--aawrrp!” The air rushed out of her lungs as Zaalbar scooped her into his furry arms. The thin, silver sheeting around her shoulders flapped up over her head, sticking to the sweaty skin of her face. She pulled it away with some difficulty. She had to admit, they were approaching the pale gold monstrosity faster than she would have been able to manage on her own. Zaalbar ran up an open ramp. Everything went black. Sera blinked, curiosity warring with logic as she waited for her vision to adjust. She saw a narrow hallway, then Zaalbar was pushing a door open to a very white room.

“Sorry if I shook you around a bit,” Zaalbar said as he deposited her gently on a raised bed. “Mission always says I mess up her aim when I carry her.”

“Hey, don’t worry you about it,” she said, adjusting the blanket more securely around herself. “It’s greatly appreciated. Best lift I ever had.”

Zaalbar nodded graciously. “I see you’ve finally embraced Wookiee wisdom and freed yourself of unnecessary trappings,” he said with a grin, gesturing towards her bare knees.

She lifted a leg and looked down at it with some consternation. “Yeah, I’m sure I had some pants.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re back.” The classy, minimalist countertop running along the wall on her blind side creaked softly as Zaalbar leaned his weight back on it. Atop, a box the size of a heater unit sat in a corner next to a sleek wall-mounted diagnostic panel and the least dinged up bottle of oxygen that Sera had ever seen. “Things have been really topsy-turvy since you disappeared.”

“It sure has been a week, hasn’t it?” She scrubbed a hand over her face and through her hair. She felt like a baked tuber that had been dropped on the floor and thrown in the bin against the cool freshness of the bed’s sheets. “Thank fuck that’s over with. Sorry about the fuck up. Out there, I mean. Guess I don’t quite have my head screwed on straight yet.”

Zaalbar was giving her an odd look. “Uh, yeah. I don’t think anyone was expecting that. Not that you should feel any shame for speaking what’s in your heart with honesty. Um…”

Mission burst through the door, flapping her hands self-importantly at Zaalbar. “Move, move!”

He sighed and slumped off the countertop, stuffing himself into a corner of the room to get out of the way. Mission threw open the cupboards, pulling bandages and medpacs out onto the floor. Bastila bustled into the sick bay, the big woman, her face pale with pain, supported on her shoulder. The frayed cuff of the big woman’s robe was red with blood, running in a line down to her elbow. Both scowled as though they’d rather be anywhere else.

Sera sat up, her head spinning a little with the motion. “Is she alright? That was a helluva bang.”

“Her hand’s broken, I think,” Bastila said, helping the other woman into what had probably once been the doctor’s chair in front of what Sera was beginning to suspect was an actual solid timber desk. “I’m not sure how extensive the damage is. There don’t seem to be any shards in the wound.”

“It was amazing!” Mission said with fascinated horror, medical supplies overflowing from her arms. “I’ve never seen anything like it! You could actually see, there was a split, and then a pah! And then, and then the blade, it just went…” She shot her hand off into the air, spilling boxes of headache pills and condoms over the floor. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve just, I’ve never seen anything like it!”

“Mission dear, would you mind doing something for me?” Bastila said calmly as she pulled on a pair of surgical gloves and opened a fresh life support pack, hooking a stool for herself with a foot. “Would you go into the kitchen and in a cup mix together just half a scoop of instant mash with a little electrolyte mix and some hot water?”

“I can do that!”

“Shouldn’t we get her to a hospital?” Sera said as Mission charged from the room. She scooted down the bed, needing to be closer to Bastila. The big woman glanced down at the bare grubbiness of Sera’s scratched up legs, lip curling up in disdain. “Oh. Sorry.” She pulled the silver blanket further down her thighs.

Bastila stopped what she was doing and stared at her. “Darling, we can’t.”

“What, why? Are the cops involved or…?”

The big woman snorted and turned her face away, shaking her head.

Bastila shot the other woman a hard look before turning back to Sera. There was a worried line forming between her brows. “Sera… There are no hospitals to go to. We’re in the Unknown Regions.”

Sera blinked. “Uh?”

“Did you not know this?”

She blinked again. “Huh?” she demanded after a moment. “Buh… Whuh…”

Mission returned, a plastic cup wrapped in a napkin in her hand.

They have to be joking. “But that’s the wrong way! Ooh, it’s pink.”

Mission gave her a wink and a thumbs up. Sera returned the gesture, fully laden spoon already held between her teeth.

Bastila carefully squirted a drop of liquid kolto into the big woman’s wound, examining it for some sign only she knew before returning her gaze to Sera. “Sweetheart, I searched everywhere for you. Everywhere! What in the world happened? How did you get so far out here?”

Sera licked the spoon clean of the brightly coloured goop. “There was a hijacking. Some kind of fucking scam, I don’t know. I got some of the ships free, there was a fight and then…” The strangely fruity mash stuck in her throat, her body refusing to swallow. The light seemed too bright, the stink of her own sweat clawing at her nostrils. She clenched her fist around the cup, forcing the stuff down. “But this can’t be the fucking Unknown Regions! You can’t fucking sell a ship or ransom off some asshole… ah fuck. I almost spaced myself. Fucking hell.”

Mission leaned forward. “Are there people after you? Are we gonna have to get out of here quick?”

Sera cocked her head. “No, there’s no one here. Just me.” She scraped the dregs from the cup. “I know you want me to watch my sugar, babe, but this is ridiculous.”

“There’re still some leftovers,” Mission said, gesturing with the anti-fungal cream she was putting away. “If you want, I can…”

“No,” Bastila said to Mission. She pointed at Sera. “You do not have the energy to digest much. I am not losing you because you decided to gorge yourself on cream puffs!”

Sera winced. “Fuck, I was doing okay until you mentioned cream puffs.” Her stomach rumbled. “You know, I’m sure I’ve eaten a whole bunch lately. If you, if you just let me have a bit of cheese. Or even a slice of toast, I’m not picky!”

“No!” Bastila said, her jaw set stubbornly.

Sera threw herself back onto the bed. “Argh! I’m going to die!” She sniffed. “You really brought me cream puffs? All the way out here?”

“You said you had something to eat,” Zaalbar rumbled from his corner. “Do you remember when that was?”

“I don’t know. Little while ago, maybe?” She scratched her cheek, inside of her head fuzzy and soft. “Was something I found, I think.” She snapped her fingers. “Fried! That’s what they needed! Oh, fuck. My stomach! With butter and a little bit of pepper.” She draped an arm over her eye and drummed her heels rapidly against the timber supports of the bed.

“You’ve been gone for two years,” he said. “Or a little over now. I only mention it because before you said, and I’m not good with human expressions, so…”

Sera stared at him, eyebrows raised, then put her hands over her face and took several deep breaths. Then she folded her arms across her chest, gazing up at the ceiling. “Well, that makes sense.”

Silence fell over the room, cramped with so many bodies in it. Mission resumed her tidying. Zaalbar covered a yawn and settled more comfortably into his corner. Bastila was frowning intently over the other woman’s hand as she alternated between syringe and a pair of tweezers but there was a stormy tension brewing in the way she pressed her lips together. Sera reached out a foot and rubbed it soothingly along the back of Bastila’s knee. Bastila glanced over at her, surprise melting to warm affection as their eyes met. Bastila gave her a smile, a sweet curve of her lips that Sera knew so well, and returned her attention to her work, tightening her leg subtly around Sera’s foot. A warmth she’d been missing curled through Sera’s stomach. She let her eyes rove over her partner, basking in the reality that she just could, at last.

Something in the corner of her vision caught her eye. The big woman, sweat beading on her forehead, her skin pale and taut with pain, was scowling at her disapprovingly.

Sera squinted. “We’ve met before, haven’t we?” Maybe her face was just like that.

The woman hissed in a breath. “Why would I associate with the likes of you, lout?”

Definitely disapproval then.

“Sera, this is Aleran Staulkie,” Bastila said with more politeness than she was feeling if her face was anything to go by. “You met shortly after the end of the war-- please stop moving, I’m trying to make sure everything is connected in the right order and you’re not helping!”

Sera shook her finger in the air. “The roommate! Now I remember.” She looked the woman in the eye. “I’m not interested in rejoining the Jedi Order.”

“I wasn’t asking!”

Sera held her hands up. “Just so we’re on the same page.” She scratched idly at a bare patch of skin. “Uh, not to be antisocial or anything but could one of you guys point me to, like, a shower or something? I feel like I’m accreting dirt here.”

Mission popped up. “Oh! Oh! You gotta see the shower up in the master suite! It’s like…” She swung her hands in a wide circle while making whooshing noises, nearly hitting poor Zaalbar in the face. “Man, if I had known it’d be like this, I would have snuck up to the Upper City more often as a kid.”

“Shit. I guess I gotta see it then.” Sera wriggled awkwardly off the bed, wincing as her feet hit the ground. Careful to not contaminate the clean zone of Bastila’s gloves, she slid her arms around her partner’s waist and kissed the spot on her neck just below her ear. “I’ll be back soon,” she murmured softly. “Hope your hand gets better,” she said to the still-fuming Aleran, giving the woman’s shoulder a gentle squeeze as Mission shuffled her out the door.

~~~

“—-that was before the cops arrived, of course.” Mission pushed open a pair of doors covered with a matching pair of large, stylised birds done in gold filigree and gestured for her to go through.

“Of course,” Sera said automatically as she tottered into the room, mind reeling. What the fuck had Bastila been up to these past two years?

“Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you snort that much spice in one go. Ah.” Mission snatched up a rumpled pile of clothing from the floor and threw them into an open cupboard, hurriedly kicking mismatched cushions under a sprawling, unmade bed. She stood up straight and dusted imaginary lint from her shirt. “Ahem. Sorry about the mess.” She shot out a hand to keep the overstuffed cupboard from popping open. “We just cleaned all the Wookiee hair out the shower, so you don’t have to worry about that,” she reassured Sera.

“Thanks.” Sera stood looking blanking around the lavishly fitted room, feeling a little disorientated.

Mission left the cupboard to its devices and walked up to Sera, folding her in a gentle hug. Sera returned the embrace, noting the oddness of the girl being taller than her now, of being touched with such easy casualness by another sentient.

“Real glad we found you again,” Mission said quietly.

Sera leaned into her shoulder. “Yeah, me too.”

Mission tightened her arms briefly, then stepped back. “The controls are in the door if you want some music. You just gotta kinda,” she pressed her thumb into the air and flicked it up, “and it should all be fine.”

Sera thanked her again and Mission left her to it, promising to find Sera something suitable to wear. Sera wobbled gingerly into the bathroom, her collections of aches and pains making themselves known as the adrenaline and euphoria of the morning wore off. She hissed as her feet touched the smooth stone tiling. She felt like she’d run a mile over gravel. What the fuck had she been doing? Peeling the crumpled emergency blanket off, she folded it, badly, and laid it over the— was that a full-sized porcelain toilet? On a ship?

“I mean, alright. It’s your fuel consumption, I guess.”

She smiled. There were little touches, dotted here and there, ruining the refined, masculine aesthetic; a neon pink loofah in the sink, a heavily scored log for Zaalbar’s claws behind the door, many, many bottles of creams and lotions scattered everywhere. She took a step into the shower and snorted.

“Why is it its own room?”

She stepped further in, letting the glass door swing gently shut behind her. It was tiled with the same pale stone as the rest of the bathroom, here lit by an unseen source to give the impression of firelight on cave walls. Stretching out both arms, she was just about able to touch opposing walls with the tips of her fingers. At least she wouldn’t get claustrophobic!

She searched the unmarked glass of the shower door and experimentally repeated the gesture Mission had shown her, pressing her thumb into the glass and flicking it up. Immediately, a thumping dance beat hit her, pulsing off the walls like the thudding of a great heart. Apparently, one thing that hadn’t changed since she left was Mission’s taste in music. Foot tapping despite herself, she pressed a button on the silver console on the wall. Water shot up from the floor and smacked her in the ass. Sera yelped and stabbed the button off. Bracing herself, she began trying different buttons, eventually landing on a combination of a gentle rain from above and twin jets of water massaging her shoulders. She lathered up with a sweetly scented shower gel, washing what felt like an eternity’s worth of grime from her skin. Shutting the water off, she wrapped a towel the colour of old ivory around her, the thick pile stirring strange emotions within her gut. She rubbed the soft material over her body, patting the hollow of her eye socket dry with awkward carefulness. There was no unused toothbrush in the medicine cabinet, so she settled for mouthwash, eye watering as the kolto laced fluid did its thing around her gums and teeth. She spat the stuff out once it stopped stinging and stared at the woman looking back at her in the mirror. Her face was thin, tired, the bones of her cheeks and skull standing out more prominently than she remembered. Her skin was more deeply tanned than she’d thought it could get and she seemed to have collected a few extra lines around her mouth, her forehead. Her eyes… Her gaze skittered away automatically, heart pounding in her chest. Sera stopped herself and forced her gaze back to her own reflection. The pit… The pit was the colour of cured meat, its edges rough and uneven where her tear duct had been torn away and scarred over. Her skin crawled to look at it but she refused to let herself stop her examination. Not until her brain accepted its existence as normal. The crawling sensation lessened but didn’t stop. It was enough.

Sera rubbed the side of her face. She’d been sweating. She splashed her face with water and patted it dry with the towel, restoring the cool freshness from her shower. Looking into the mirror once more, she saw herself. More imperfect than she liked but nothing that couldn’t be fixed. The corners of her mouth turned up and, for the first time in a long time, her reflection smiled back.

~~~

The knotted bulk of Ran’s shoulders shoved the medbay door roughly aside, storming from the room in a thundercloud. Bastila watched her go, pent up tension twisting her down heavily onto her stool. She tore the gloves from her hands and threw them into a wastebasket. They flopped into the basket with a pathetically unsatisfying plop.

“Bad day?”

Bastila turned towards the voice. Sera was leaning casually against the doorframe, shorts and a faded t-shirt hanging loosely off her body. Like she had a thousand times before. Like she had never left. There was a warm smile on her face. Bastila felt her own lips answering automatically, a light sweetness blossoming in her chest. She shook her head.

“Not anymore.”

Sera moved forward, straddling Bastila’s lap and bending her head to meet Bastila’s lips. Bastila opened her mouth into the kiss, sliding her tongue languidly against Sera’s. She was too bony to pretend that nothing had happened but Bastila didn’t care. Not when she was here.

She pulled back slowly, nuzzling Sera’s cheek. “I missed this.”

“Yeah, me too.” Sera pressed a lingering kiss to Bastila’s lips, winding her arms around her neck.

A heavy knock thumped at the door. “Um. I’m just going to check on the shuttle,” Zaalbar said, his voice muffled by the door. “I won’t be long.”

His footsteps retreated down the hall, both still frozen in position. Sera laughed, a soft chuckle against Bastila’s lips.

“I forgot what living with others was like. Don’t miss that.”

“It does rather put a crimp on roleplaying night,” Bastila said, smiling.

This got a proper laugh out of Sera.

“I guess that means no more naked wrestling matches either,” she joked. “So much for stress relief.” She sobered and gazed into Bastila’s eyes, a concerned frown forming between her brows. “Seriously though. Are you alright? You looked like you wanted to throttle someone a minute ago.”

The washed away tension came flooding back into Bastila’s torso. “It’s…” She blew out a breath. Then smiled as she felt Sera’s fingers kneading her shoulders. “I tried to speak to Ran about what she did and I… I lost my temper. None of the words came out right. I’m not even sure what I accomplished.”

“Oh, yeah. I passed her in the hall on the way down here. She looked pissed.” Sera turned serious. “Is she going to be alright? Not that I have any right to judge but…”

“You have every right to judge!” Bastila said fiercely. She paused. Sera was smiling at her, a self-deprecating edge in the way she held her head. “Are you alright?” she said carefully, laying a comforting hand on her beloved’s bare thigh. “Do you want to talk about it? What started all this nonsense?”

“Ah, you know…” Sera scratched her cheek, looking embarrassed. “I feel dumb for running out on you like that. It was a stupid thing to do, taking the ship and not just going for a walk. And then I got frightened when you didn’t pick up my call and… It was dumb.” She shrugged.

Bastila’s heart twinged. She reached out, cupping Sera’s cheek ever so gently, stroking a thumb against her skin. Sera’s calm stoicism slipped. She leaned into Bastila’s hand, vulnerability stealing over her face.

“I actually took a detour on the way back,” Sera continued, “to get flowers to say that I was sorry. I wanted you to know. I wanted to show that I’d do better. That’s how I got caught.” Sera inhaled sharply and jerked her head away.

Bastila stared, shocked at her partner’s sudden reaction. Then it dawned. Without thinking, she had swiped the pad of her thumb up over the curve of Sera’s cheek, too close to her scarred and ruined eye socket.

“Ah! Did it hurt? Did I—”

Sera grabbed her wrist and brought Bastila’s hand up to her face, forcibly placing it over the wound. She covered Bastila’s hand with her own. Bastila could feel it trembling.

“It’s fine! It’s fine!” Sera gritted her teeth, eye wide, staring at nothing. “I just have to… I just have to get used to it.” She swallowed and closed her eye. Bastila say stock still, watching the heaving of Sera’s chest slow and return to its normal rhythm. Sera’s grip on her hand relaxed, trailing down to rest lightly on her wrist.

“Does it hurt?” Bastila whispered, inching questing fingertips over the structure of Sera’s face, across her forehead, down her cheekbone.

“No.” Sera tilted her head, allowing Bastila more access. “I haven’t really touched it much. I don’t know what would happen if I stuck a finger in.” She rubbed her cheek against Bastila’s palm. “I can’t feel you right. I thought the tingling would go away with the kolto but… Ah, well.”

“Well,” Bastila said lightly, grief quivering in her stomach. “I suppose I’ll just have to pay extra attention to my technique from now on when I touch you.” She slid her fingers into Sera’s hair, stroking the back of her head. Her fingers dipped, skating over smooth scar tissue at the junction of Sera’s brain and spine where her implant port should have been. A chill ran through her. She couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Who did this to you?” she demanded, pouring every ounce of healing she had into Sera.

“I don’t think you can fix something once it’s healed, babe,” Sera said dryly.

“Sera!”

“It was, uh…” she started. And flinched at her own memories. “Um…” She stopped, a thousand emotions twisting her features. Bastila clutched her closer, regretting her own impulsiveness. Sera let out a bitter laugh and shook her head. “I thought I’d dealt with this. I thought it was over, same as all the Revan bullshit. Fuck’s sake… Fuck’s sake!” She swung sandaled foot out, kicking the wastebasket Bastila had impotently thrown her gloves into.

Bastila tucked her head into the crook of Sera’s neck, feeling Sera’s pulse beneath her lips as she kissed her skin. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Why not? You’re my partner. You deserve to know.”

“I’m more than that, dear heart,” Bastila said, kissing her way up Sera’s jaw. “I’m your fiancee.”

A smile spread across Sera’s face like the sun rising over a darkened land. “That’s right.”

Bastila grasped a fistful of Sera’s collar, pulling her down until their lips met. Sera pressed herself against Bastila’s torso, molding their bodies into one. Bastila moaned, raking her hands down the length of Sera’s back, drawing her hips into herself.

“Uh, hey guys?” Mission called through the door. “Big Z found something outside the ship. I think you should come take a look.”

Basitla sighed. “I don’t remember it being this difficult to steal a moment alone on the Hawk,” she muttered.

Sera smiled. “I remember you getting good at not making a single sound,” she said, running a thumb seductively over Bastila’s lower lip.

Bastila let her fingers wander up the soft skin of Sera’s bare thighs, skating under the hem of her shorts. “Oh, do you now?”

“Um, I know you guys are, like, catching up and stuff,” Mission said, undeterred, “but this is really important.”

“Dammit all to hell.” Bastila reluctantly withdrew her hands.

“This is because I didn’t get my cream puff earlier,” Sera said, clambering off Bastila’s lap.

Bastila scowled at her retreating back. “Bollocks!”

Mission rolled her eyes at both of them when they met her in the hall. Sera grinned unrepentantly.

“So, what’s this magic thing we have to come see?” Sera said, using one arm to support herself against the hallway wall as Mission led them aft towards the service ramp.

“Eh.” Mission shrugged. “I haven’t seen it actually. Big Z called me over the comm while I was tidying up. You know that lightsaber is still burning down there?”

“Holy shit!”

“It does need enough power to cut someone in half, darling,” Bastila reminded her. She winced as the bright overhead sun pierced her eyes. Blinded, she felt herself collide with her companions as she exited the ship. She steadied herself on Sera’s shoulder and raised a hand to shield her eyes. And saw what it was that had arrested the others’ footsteps. Zaalbar and Ran stood at the base of the ramp, Ran standing rather glumly over the incandescent rod of her lightsaber’s power cell. Before them were arrayed a group of… individuals. Larger than a human, a little larger than a Wookiee. Their heads were topped with a short yellow crest, swept back towards the rear of the skull, over a long snout of red and orange skin. The rest of their heads were a pale blue, down a long neck into black feathers speckled with white. The clothes on their lean torsos and the fierce intelligence in their large, black eyes told Bastila that they were sapient. One of the group, a set of long implements on their hands folded close to their chest, rumbled and whistled something that took Bastila a moment to process.

“See, Werradi, I told you. It’s civilised. You can’t eat it.”

~~~

Sera stared at the contraption, mentally turning it over in her head until she gave up and perched gingerly atop it. She shifted a little, her ass still feeling like a well-shaken martini after the long, smelly, noisy ride in the locals’ cart thing on wheels.

“My god. Did you finally give into your predilections, Werradi, and start breeding the vermin out there?”

“Zip it, tailfeather, before I decide to do something permanent.”

Out of the corner of her eye, the Aleran woman made a valiant attempt at bending her legs through the struts to mimic the reverse-hinged knees of their hosts, refusing to be beaten until she too capitulated.

“Calm down, Weillith. More of the creatures had appeared out of a craft from the sky by the time we caught up to the first one, Mr Xak’kis. We dealt with them as we saw fit.”

“Oh, of course. No offence meant, sir.”

“I went along to capture the alien.”

“Yes, thank you, Dareel.”

A warmth settled in the blindness of her eye, nudging at her hip. She twisted her head round to see only to feel a familiar hand squeezing her knee. She smiled, slipping an arm around Bastila’s waist. The last of their hosts, the one with the ragged scarf up to their chin that Sera had noted keeping a wary distance from the others, entered the building slowly behind the skinny, fragile one. They caught sight of the mouthy Mr Xak’kis wiping his long, blunt claws on his apron and froze.

“What are you doing here?”

“Ha! I could ask you the same thing,” Mr Xak’kis replied. “I thought you would have killed yourself already.”

“The Honourable Chairman claims to understand these creatures,” the Werradi-Weillith fellow said. Their unmoving faces and strange body language made it difficult to tell what any of them were thinking. “We brought him along to translate.”

“Yes. And apparently they’re people, so we can’t slaughter them just as much as we can’t tame and collar them. So meat is, in fact, not back on the menu, boys!”

“We have an entire frozen fish in our hold if meat is what you desire,” Bastila said frostily.

“Oh my god, it does talk!”

Mission leaned across the broad table, cupping a hand over her mouth. “What are they talking about?” she whispered.

“They’re—” Sera started.

“They’re talking,” Aleran interrupted, throwing a stern frown Sera’s way, “about whether we are edible or not.”

“Uh, yeah. What she said.”

“We are not animals!” Zaalbar roared, surging to his feet. “Tell them!” He pointed at the scruffy loner. “Tell them we are thinking, feeling creatures and deserve to be treated with dignity!”

“They’re not animals!”

The feathers around Mr Xak’kis’s neck began rustling, the fine quills on his head rattling against his crest. Sera realised that he was laughing. “I like this newcomer.”

Sera let out the breath she’d been holding. She considered the situation, then turned to Aleran. “Would you mind translating for us, please? So there’s no confusion?”

The woman narrowed her eyes suspiciously at Sera.

“Could have fooled me that they’re not animals with the way the first one pilfered all of my pies right out of the window,” the calmer one Mr Xak’kis seemed to answer to muttered, tugging on his waistcoat.

“Oh, shit!” Sera felt blood rushing to her cheeks. “Um, sorry about that. I was, uh, having a moment for a while there.” She wracked her brain. “It was very tasty. I think.”

“I’m sorry,” Bastila said to the man, waiting for his friend to translate. “This may seem a bit odd but can you tell me when this was? It’s very important for my partner’s treatment.”

“A few days ago? It was right before the storm, right before it went racing off into the desert like the devils of hell were behind it.”

“But that’s right here,” Sera blurted. “I was all the way over there, two-whatever hours away in the desert.”

“You led us on quite a chase, I think,” Mr Xak’kis said. He glanced over at Mr Ressais. “Oh. Not that I was involved in any way. Of course, sir.”

“Smashed up my traps too,” Werradi-Weillith added, lounging insouciantly in his backwards chair.

“It’s been a rough week for me, okay?”

“Then would it be too much of a bother to trouble you for some sustenance for my partner?” Bastila said, laying a quelling hand on Sera’s thigh. “It was quite a long ride and I’d rather not wait.”

“I didn’t get my tea because we went out so early,” Dareel said, his voice noticeably more querulous than the others.

“You see, Mr Ressais,” Mr Xak’kis said. “All this excitement has made you a bad host.”

They brought her a brightly painted ceramic plate covered with heavily seeded crackers, various pastes and spreads and a small pile of sweet-smelling golden things. Mr Ressais bustled about making sure everyone had a glass of something Sera couldn’t quite translate but that looked and smelled not unlike tea, as well as a small, dense, cake-like thing. Mr Xak’kis followed close behind, dishcloth over his arm as he placed a covered bowl in front of her and Dareel and set a pair of utensils on a cloth napkin before each of those seated. The old bugger’s head had dropped to his head and he was snoring softly, his tea forgotten. Sera suppressed a yawn herself, smiling as Bastila inscribed slow circles on her skin. She peeked into the covered bowl. Its contents were a pale, watery yellow. And chunky. She let that be and picked up the utensils. They were longer than any fork and knife she had used. Thinner too, with a hollow, tubular structure where a handle would have been. This made more sense when she saw their hosts smoothly fitting them over their blunt claws, extending their grasp with graceful dexterity. She rolled them between her fingers, admiring the simplicity of the rough metalwork that belied the quality of craftsmanship involved in their construction. Picking up one of the thin crackers, she chose a spread at random and smeared it on with the knife, letting her eye wander around the room. There was a metal fireplace at one end, wide flue piercing the white, plastered wall at an angle. Unlit but with the look of recent use. The other end had an unfinished bar area, a wood shaving laden tarp covering several table-shaped objects. An open toolbox sat on the floor next to the door from whence food had manifested. She munched slowly, only half listening as the others discussed their particulars. The scruffy loner’s name appeared to be Seiliu, although the stiff formality with which the others treated him seemed to hurt him. Aleran was having difficulty keeping up with her translation duties, the long fork lying clumsily in her uninjured left hand as she fought with the dense cake and the strange local syntax. Mission kindly took the plate from her and cut the cake into more manageable portions, passing it back with a smile. Sera polished off her cracker and sampled another of the spreads, a brown and pungent thing that stuck to her teeth and the roof of her mouth. She washed it down with some of the tea-like substance and took another bite. It wasn’t bad, not bad at all. She smeared a careful square of the stuff onto a fresh cracker, yawning into the crook of her elbow, and held it out for Bastila to try. Sera felt the pressure on the cracker as Bastila bit down, felt her steadying hand on Sera’s wrist as she went back for seconds, warm lips brushing the tips of her fingers.

“Hey, do you think I could rent this place out for my friends’ wedding?”

Bastila choked, spraying crumbs all over Sera’s hand.

Sera’s gaze snapped across the table to Mission’s face, sleepiness violently peeled back from her mind. “Eh?”

“What?” Aleran demanded.

“Rent?” Mr Ressais said. “Why would you want to…”

“A hundred thousand—mmph!” Mr Xak’kis interrupted, moments before Mr Ressais’s claws closed around his snout.

Mr Ressais gave the other man a stern look, before tilting his head towards Mission. “We have no need of your money. Besides, what would we spend it on?”

“Maybe we can work out some kind of exchange,” Mission persisted. An odd energy seemed to radiate from Seiliu as he translated. “You see, my friends have been apart for a long time and I wanted to help them celebrate their reunion. You said you wanted to get married today, right?” she said to Bastila.

“Yes, well…”

“And I suppose by ‘friends’ you mean these two pansies?” Werradi-Weillith said, waving a claw between Sera and Bastila.

“Gentlemen,” Seiliu said sotto voce. “I believe you will agree with me that it would not be entirely appropriate…”

“Actually, I think it would be very appropriate,” the other man said abruptly. “In fact, I can’t think of a better way to consecrate everything the future holds of this great land. Besides,” he said, all of his teeth showing, “this is a private enterprise. It wouldn’t be right for us to interfere in their business, now would it?”

“Yeah, when’s opening day?” Sera interjected. She gestured at the paintings on the wall and the unsullied view of the river and the wooded hills in the distance through large, open windows. “You got a nice setup here.”

The same odd emotion seemed to flicker over Mr Ressais’s alien face. “Today!” he said, his feathers rustling with incongruous cheer. “No time like the present.” He tugged several times on his waistcoat. “I hope you don’t mind the mess. We’ve been doing some renovations but I can assure you that it won’t affect service.”

Mission tossed his concerns away with a flick of her hand. “Pfft. What’s a few nails lying around the place? I thought these two were gonna get hitched on a beach in the middle of blown up shipwrecks. This place is practically a museum in comparison to that!”

Sera picked at another cracker, gazing over the carefully crafted and placed furnishings. “Lotta work’s gone into this place.”

He joined her in her admiration of his dining hall. “I’m glad you think so.” He ran the softly feathered edge of his hand lovingly over the timber surface of the table, polished to a glowing yellow-gold hue. “All of the materials were so different after we woke up. I was worried none of it would match.”

“Is it okay if I record the ceremony?” Zaalbar said. “Our friends who aren’t here will want to be able to see it.”

Bastila rubbed a hand over the back of her neck. “You don’t need to make a big spectacle of it all.”

Mr Ressais tilted his head back and forth. “Uh, certainly. We have no development facilities onsite, unfortunately, but if you have them on your craft…”

Mission leaned close to Aleran. “What’s he saying?”

“Just give me a minute!” the woman said, her glass midway to her lips.

“Do you need me to take over or…” Sera said.

“It’s fine!”

“Why can more of them understand us and we can’t?” Mr Xak’kis muttered to Mr Ressais. He waved a hand over the dome of his head. “Is it the tendrils?”

“My friends and I, the three of us,” Bastila said distractedly, “we all have training in the ways of the Force. Not unlike your compatriot here.” She gestured towards Seiliu.

Every eye snapped to the tattered man.

Sera hummed thoughtfully, lifting one of the golden crescent things to her mouth. “Ah!” she said, as tart sweetness burst in her mouth. “That was you! In the, you know, the place. With the rocks and the everything.”

The tips of Werradi-Weillith’s quills tapped derisively against his crest. “You’re still living in that hole behind the waterfall?”

Seiliu straightened, his coarsely filed claws digging into Mr Ressais’s fine tabletop. “I attempted to render aid to the creature. It had collapsed and was raving on the forest floor. It was the civilised thing to do.” He cast a baleful eye in Sera’s direction. “The beast repaid me by sinking its wretched teeth into me.” Aleran snorted as she translated this.

“Hey, it wasn’t personal,” Sera said, resting her head on Bastila’s shoulder, another yawn overtaking her. “It’s survival instinct. You can’t get mad at a creature for holding on to life.”

Zaalbar nodded emphatically.

“Be that as it may, thank you,” Bastila said. “I cannot begin to express my gratitude for what you did for my partner. You don’t know what you’ve given me.”

Sera rubbed her cheek against Bastila’s shoulder, eye drifting shut. “Seconded. And I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

“That’s fantastic,” Mission said, clapping her hands, “but we need to talk about canapes.”

The warmth of Bastila’s shoulder was hypnotic. A cool breeze blew at her back from the open window.

~~~

Sera stirred from her shoulder, hand coming up to probe her jaw and neck as she drew herself upright.

“Uncomfortable sleep?” Bastila said, keeping her voice low.

“What? No, I was just…” Sera stared around blearily, taking in the open verandah and the stoop they were sitting on. Bastila smiled. The side of Sera’s face was all rumpled and lined from her nap. “We changed locations?”

“We were evicted from the dining room,” Bastila said, smoothing the lines away with the pad of her thumb. “I think the locals have gone rather mad with this whole wedding affair.”

Sera grinned. “Just the locals?”

Bastila laughed and rolled her eyes. “The others have all gone in that noisy contraption to collect food and outfits and… Ugh!”

Sera let out a quiet chuckle but looked deep into Bastila’s eyes. “Having second thoughts?”

Bastila sat up very straight. “No. Nothing could make me more honoured than being recognised as your wife.”

Sera smiled. “Good.”

“It’s just…” Bastila made a face. “The fuss…” she whined, flopping back onto the cold concrete floor and covering her eyes. “All I wanted was something simple onboard the ship!”

Sera followed her down, covering Bastila’s body with her own. “It’s good that other people want to celebrate our relationship,” she said, pressing tender kisses to Bastila’s neck. “And just think of it. We don’t have to do any of the planning or anything. We don’t even have to pay for it!”

“Always looking on the bright side, aren’t we, darling?” Bastila said dryly.

“Hey, there’s still time to elope. Take the ship up, fly around for a couple hours and tell everybody, sorry! You missed the ceremony!”

“Don’t tempt me!”

~~~

Sera tugged at the straps of her shoes, a cool breeze blowing against her legs as she sought the most comfortable fit. The door behind her banged open, heavy footfalls thudding into the solid concrete. Aleran stopped dead, red faced and shocked. She stared awkwardly at Sera, then back at the door swinging shut, then looked askance at Sera’s foot up on the balustrade, looser than normal skirt sliding all the way down to her hip.

Sera gave her shoe one last tug. They just weren’t going to fit like they did two years ago. “Bastila’s taking a shower if you wanted to talk to her. She shouldn’t be long.”

The woman grunted noncommittally.

“Mission did my hair,” she tried again after a long moment. She ran a hand over the freshly shaved sides of her head. “Not like she had much to work with. But I think it turned out pretty good. Ah, dammit…”

Aleran just stared as Sera fought with the now loose handkerchief of finely spun blue silk sliding down her head that Mission had provided as a makeshift eyepatch. Sera pulled the stupid thing off and retied it, tightening the knot as much as her skull could stand.

“Um, hey,” Sera said, gently touching the other woman’s hand. “The others told me what happened to the Order. I am so, so sorry. I can’t imagine such a thing would happen.”

Aleran frowned down at Sera’s hand resting on hers just below the bloodstained and frayed cuff of her robes. Unreadable emotions flickered across her face.

Sera softened her voice. “Do you know what happened or…?”

“No.” She turned brusquely away, marching back into the building.

Mr Xak’kis appeared from the other end of the verandah. “Hey, newcomer. We need you for rehearsals.”

Sera glanced helplessly at the shut door. “Uh, sure.”

~~~

“Friendship binds us and friendship is what brings us here today.”

Bastila took a deep breath. The sun was setting slowly behind blue hills in the far distance, bathing the simple garden next to the main hall in a soft, golden light. Sera’s hands were warm in hers.

Seiliu cleared his throat, eyes darting over the notes encircling his claw, subtly moving the cylinder of paper past the section of text she and Sera had objected to.

“For it is in friendship,” he continued smoothly, picking up after the rather long monologue about seniors and their love for their devoted and pure juniors, “that sacred bond that warms the hearts of men, that these two kindred spirits come into our circle.”

She could hear Mission sniffling in the front row. Bastila tilted her head, catching sight of a watery blue face buried behind a voluminous handkerchief. Zaalbar stood at the rear, behind Ran and behind their odd hosts on chairs dragged from the dining room, his arms raised above his head as he recorded the proceedings on his datapad.

“Let us bear witness and let us faithfully hold in our memory the passing of this day until the seas run dry and the sky is torn from the earth as a cover is pulled from a painting.”

Seiliu stopped talking. Bastila realised, anxiety trickling down her spine, that it was her turn now.

“Uh.” She swallowed. Sera gave her an encouraging wink, the corner of her mouth turning up in a smile. “When we first met,” she began, trying to recall all she had planned to say, “on Taris, the second time, I did not plan for Sera to mean anything more to me than as a colleague, a trusted comrade-in-arms at best. I did not plan for her wit, her charm. Her good looks,” she said with a cocked eyebrow. A grin lit Sera’s face. “I did not plan for the loyalty and warmth with which she treated me in some of the darkest moments of my life.” Bastila cleared her throat. “I got so caught up looking for any sign of what had come before, for who you had been and what you had done, that, in the end—” she gazed into the deep brown pool of Sera’s eye, “—all I could see was you.”

A soft trickle of tears spilled down Sera’s cheek. “Oh, shit.” She wiped her cheek on the coat around her shoulders, vulnerability quivering in her face. “How am I going to follow on after that?” Her hands trembled in Bastila’s grasp. “Um. I, uh… If you had told me two years ago, not this two years, the two years before I left. If you had told me that I would be standing here today, this wonderful woman by my side, I don’t know that I would have believed you. Thank you for giving me the chance to love you, babe. You are the best person I know and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to express just how much you mean to me.”

“Then let these two spirits be melded to one—” Seiliu opened the small box on the sturdy pedestal Mr Ressais had provided him and placed two coins, one on top of the other, on the flat surface, “—and let no force split them apart, no matter what the eyes of the world might say.”

He handed Bastila a metal engraving stamp, Sera smoothly taking the accompanying hammer in her left hand.

“Thus are you joined for all of time.”

Bastila stood unflinching as Sera swung the hammer, vibration ringing through her knuckles as the blow struck the stamp squarely, molding and splitting the coins neatly in two. A whistling and rattling of quills started up amongst those gathered. Zaalbar took this as his cue to whoop his congratulations at them. Bastila wrapped her arms around Sera’s neck, pulling her wife’s mouth to hers.

~~~

The cheese sauce was bright with delicate savouriness on her tongue as Sera jammed her fist against her mouth to contain the yawn threatening to burst out of her. It subsided and she returned her attention to enjoying the novelty of food that was meant to be hot and was.

She poured more sauce over the wealth of roasted vegetables on her plate, dousing each glistening bite in pale golden perfection. Their texture was imperfect, frozen produce being better suited to long distance space travel than fresh. But to her, scarred by two years of the closest thing being rotting waste charred by an explosively faulty heating vent, they were simply divine.

“Can anything be done for him?”

The words came softly down the table. Seiliu sat at the far end away from Sera, half turned in his chair to talk to the passing Mr Ressais, the rest of his attention on Dareel, crumpled and snoring over a cooling fish steak.

Mr Ressais cocked his head, tapping his quills slowly against the side of his crest. “Just old age. Happens to the best of us, I’m afraid, Mr Chairman.”

“I wish you at least would still call me Deohrrien,” Sera’s erstwhile rescuer said wistfully, his borrowed coat bulging awkwardly around his bony torso.

There was a bitter stillness in the way Mr Ressais held his head. “As you say, Mr Chairman.”

“Hmm,” Sera said to herself musingly, shoveling more vegetables into her mouth.

Mission leaned across the table. “You know,” she said, gesturing with her fork towards the open windows, “that’s been kinda bothering me. Being this close to that river and not even having, like, a bug lamp out to protect all this food and stuff.”

“Maybe the frames have anti-bug properties,” Zaalbar said, slicing into his second steak.

Sera chewed slowly on her food. “I don’t think I recall seeing any bugs here, actually.”

“Maybe they’re invisible.”

Bastila nudged Sera’s shoulder. “What’s invisible?”

Warmth flooded Sera’s chest. “The invisible bugs down by the river that I didn’t see any of,” she said, slipping an arm around Bastila’s, her wife’s, waist. She felt a silly smile tugging at her lips.

“Hmm.” A line formed on Bastila’s brow as her gaze turned inward, the soft glow from the fire bringing out the red and gold highlights in her hair. “I was rather surprised to find anyone here at all. Our scans didn’t detect much.”

“Maybe the ship can’t pick up hydraulics or however the fuck their engines… Oh, fuck me…” The yawn cracked her jaw wide open, squeezing her eye shut, becoming all-encompassing.

“I mean, I would, darling. But I thought you weren’t into exhibitionism.”

Sera burst out laughing. Bastila sat up straight, a cute little satisfied smirk on her face that drew Sera forward to claim Bastila’s lips as her own.

There was a clatter from across the table. Aleran was staring at them like a wounded animal.

“It was a joke,” Sera clarified.

Mission let out a long, tortured sigh. “I should have brought my datapad along,” she said, swinging her legs. “Then we could at least have some music instead of sitting here all quiet and boring and stuff.”

Bastila reached under the table and swatted at Mission’s feet as they came into range. “You can get it tomorrow!”

Zaalbar licked first his knife, then his fork clean. “Does anyone know when dessert’s coming?”

~~~

“Don’t worry, Zaalbar. I can carry her myself.”

Bastila shook her wrist out in the cool night air while Sera snored peacefully against the sturdy timber post Bastila had propped her up on. From the other end of the walkway, the sound of whistling and clapping poured out of the open dining room door as Mission led Mr Xak’kis and a few of the other locals in a song.

“She’ll get haemorrhoids if you leave her sitting on the cold concrete!” Zaalbar gestured vaguely with his long, sinewy arms. “It won’t be a problem. I’ll be back in less than a minute.”

“Oh, she’ll be fine. And…” Bastila stroked a finger down Sera’s cheek, her beloved’s face serene and untroubled in her sleep. “I want to be the one to take care of her.”

Bastila bent to pick Sera up as Zaalbar loped back inside, cradling Sera’s thin form in her arms. It wasn’t that much farther to the room Mr Ressais had set aside for them.

“How could you do this?”

Bastila turned. Ran emerged from the darkness of the garden, her body coalescing in the light of the walkway like a murdered soul. There was a sheen of moisture on her skin from the fine, misting rain falling from the sky.

Bastila shifted her grip under Sera’s legs. “It’s already been done, Ran. I’m not sure what you want me to do about it now.”

“How can you spit in the face of everything we were taught? You know what she is.”

“Ran…” Bastila sighed. Her back was starting to hurt. “This has all already been dealt with. You will just have to catch up.”

Ran stared at her wordlessly, her face pale. Then she slipped into the shadows, the soft, tilled earth behind the main building swallowing the sound of her footfalls. Bastila sighed, again, and walked the rest of the way to the bedroom. She flipped the door latch open with her mind and used the light from the walkway to lay Sera gently down on the broad bed. She gave herself a moment to stretch her back out, groaning like an old lady, and pulled the switch for the bedside lamp. The room was rather pleasantly appointed, the pale linens and timber furnishings lending the space a rustic charm. Her pack that she’d asked Mission to fill with various toiletries from her room sat at the end of the bed, slouching atop a folded, handwoven blanket covered in strange floral patterns. Bastila removed her coat and slung it over a chair sitting in the corner, sliding the jacket out from under Sera with tender care. Reaching for the buckle, she undid the belt cinching the loose, yellow dress to Sera’s waist.

“Unhand me, ruffian,” Sera said, slapping weakly at Bastila’s hands. “I’m a married woman, you know.” She crossed her arms over her eye, giggling groggily to herself.

Bastila regarded her partner with a bemused smile. “Is that so?” She climbed onto the bed, positioning herself between Sera’s legs. “Your wife can’t care all that much for you to leave you here alone and unguarded.” She trailed her fingers up Sera’s thighs, skimming lightly below the hem of her dress. “And to let you traipse around outside, completely unchaperoned, dressed like this.” Bastila flicked disdainfully at the edge of the cheerful dress. “She’s practically begging for someone to have their way with you.”

Sera laughed. “Got you all hard, did I?” She thrust her hand between Bastila’s legs and fondled her lewdly through her leggings.

Heat curled deliciously through her core. Bastila fought against the urge to press herself into the firmness of Sera’s hand. “Careful.” She slipped her hands under Sera’s skirt. “You don’t know what kind of deviant might take that as an invitation.” She grabbed ahold of Sera’s panties and pulled them sharply down her hips.

Sera obligingly lifted her legs for Bastila to fully remove her underwear. She smiled up at Bastila, her skirt bunched around her waist, her hips and thighs laid utterly bare before Bastila’s eyes. “Baby, you can take me whenever you want.”

Bastila rushed forward, crushing her mouth against Sera’s. Reaching beneath the fabric of the dress, she ran hungry hands up her wife’s naked body, devouring every curve and contour. Her fingers found soft, unprotected breasts, ripe for the taking. She gasped, the thought of Sera walking around braless all day heating her blood. Needing to feel more of Sera’s skin, Bastila pulled the dress over her head, urgency throbbing in her groin.

A hand to her mouth stopped her. Sera was breathing heavily, her face pinched with discomfort.

Bastila sat up sharply. “Are you alright? I didn’t hurt you anywhere, did I?” Her hands darted over Sera’s body, scanning for any injury or bruise.

“What? No. Hey, that tickles!”

Bastila pressed her cheek against Sera’s forehead. Her skin was hotter than it should have been. “Do I need to get a medpac?”

“I’m fine,” Sera said, poking the sensitive part of Bastila’s waist. “I’m just… I’m more tired than I thought. The past two years have been rough on me.”

Bastila’s heart ached. She caressed Sera’s cheek. “Do you want us to stop? It won’t make tonight any less special if all we do is fall asleep in each other’s arms.”

Sera smiled tiredly. “I do still like orgasms, you know. I might just need you to take the lead for me.”

Bastila answered with a soft kiss to Sera’s lips. “You’re in luck, Mrs Khan. I happen to be an expert at just such a thing.” She kissed Sera again, tracing the shape of her bottom lip with her tongue. Sera leaned into her kiss, winding her fingertips into Bastila’s hair. Bastila moved to her jaw, the faint taste of sunburn cream lingering on her skin as Bastila kissed and licked her way down Sera’s neck, across her breasts, down the length of her torso. Sera squirmed as Bastila fondled her ass, sliding her hands down to push Sera’s legs apart.

“Tell me if anything gets too much,” Bastila murmured, mouth hovering inches from Sera’s exposed vagina.

Sera nodded, a beautiful flush of desire spreading over her skin. Bastila waited the barest moment, keeping an eye on her face to make completely certain she was as well as she claimed to be, then dipped her head, touching her tongue to Sera’s soaking folds. She moaned, inhaling deeply. It had been far too long since she had been here, between the soft walls of Sera’s thighs, her mouth full of arousal. She dragged her tongue through slick heat, enjoying the answering buck of Sera’s hips, the needy whimper floating down to her ears. Her tongue delved into Sera’s cunt, licking around her opening, gliding closer and closer to the throbbing point of Sera’s clitoris with each stroke. Sera writhed and moaned, the phantom sensation of her arousal echoing loudly between Bastila’s legs, the anticipation becoming almost unbearable. She raked her nails down Sera’s hips, sucking the sensitive bundle of nerves into her mouth. Sera cried out, her back arching, pelvis thrusting urgently into Bastila’s mouth. Bastila sucked greedily, riding the wave of Sera’s orgasm. Then she backed off, letting her beloved subside before she spent herself entirely. Sera collapsed, every scrap of tension wrung from her body. Bastila waited, watched Sera’s breathing slow and become regular. Then she nuzzled at the soft skin of Sera’s inner thigh, gently licking her clean. She tugged Sera’s shoes off, then removed her own, placing the pairs next to each other at the foot of the bed. Taking the clips out of her hair with one hand, she reached into her pack for some face wipes with the other. Sitting back on her heels, she realised Sera was watching her affectionately.

“I thought you would have been asleep by now,” Bastila said, wiping away the remains of her makeup.

Sera smiled. “Now, why would I do that instead of spending every moment that I can with you?”

Bastila laughed. “Charmer.”

Sera pulled at the folded handkerchief around her head, her movements clumsy and inexact in her exhaustion. “I still can’t quite believe we’re here together. Everything feels like it’s moved so fast, a million lightyears away from yesterday.” She tossed the handkerchief at the bedside table. It missed and flopped to the floor in a little, overpriced pile.

“I know.” Bastila undid the buttons of her blouse, reaching around to unclasp her bra. “I looked for you for so long. To actually have you here…” Her mouth snapped shut, the weight of everything that had passed since they’d last shared a bed overwhelming her.

Hands rough with unfamiliar callouses drew soothing circles on her skin, stroking at her sides. Bastila smiled, letting Sera’s touch comfort her, unravel her cares. She pulled a fresh wipe out of the pack and ran it over Sera’s face, tenderly cleansing every dip and crevice.

“I could do that,” Sera said. Her voice was muddled with sleep, her eye already drifting shut.

“Darling, you can’t even hold your head up straight,” Bastila said, not unkindly. She skirted around the empty eye socket, hollow and black in the shadows from the bedside lamp.

Sera pouted but did not complain. Bastila made one last pass, taking her time reminding her fingertips what her beloved’s face felt like. She threw both wipes in her pack when she was done and finished undressing, pulling the blanket at the base of the bed over Sera and climbing in after.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it.” Sera tugged the cord for the lamp, plunging them into darkness.

“I am perpetually amazed by your ability to remain awake when your body so clearly does not want you to.”

Sera chuckled. “I told you…”

“I would rather you not kill yourself spending time with me.”

Sera’s chuckle turned into a laugh, rough and tired and happy. “I’m so glad I get to spend every day with you again. No one else I’ve ever met is quite like you.”

A pleased warmth tingles in Bastila’s chest. She felt normal for the first time in two years. “I highly doubt that.”

“It’s true.” Sera pulled Bastila into her arms, nothing between them but their skin and their love. “I’ve checked.”

~~~

She was alone. Her limbs felt like glue. Fire roared around her, deafening, the sound of a thousand furnaces eating through the kitchen she was trapped in.

“Babe, wake up! Something’s going on outside!”

Bastila’s eyes shot open, her heart thumping. The roaring was coming from outside her head. Sera was already up, switching the bedside lamp on and wrapping the blanket around herself. Bastila flinched at the sudden light, fumbling for a bedsheet to follow her partner. The open walkway was a clatter of people, everyone disheveled, everyone disorientated.

“What in the name of this blessed earth is going on around here?” Weillith demanded.

The roar became unbearable. A spear of light, champagne gold and ivory, blazed through the sky, rattling the roof over their heads.

“Ah!” Cold wrapped around Bastila’s ribs, creeping up her chest. Ran was nowhere to be seen.

“Is that the ship?” Mission sounded tense, frightened.

“Pah! Outsider nonsense!” Weillith shouldered apart the clustered pair of Mr. Xak’kis and Mr Ressais, disappearing back into his room.

“We…” The cold had reached her head and neck, filling her throat with ice. The Galactic Star was half the size now, ascending, growing smaller and dimmer with every sluggish heartbeat. “We have to go after her! You!” She pointed at a wide-eyed and ruffled Mr Ressais. “Get me your vehicle! I have to get to the shuttle!”

“What are you going to do when you get there?” Sera said softly in her ear. “You can’t bring a whole ship back with just a shuttle.”

“That is our only way off this planet,” Bastila whispered urgently. “Without that ship we are stuck here!”

“Yes, but what can you do about it now?” Sera slipped her hand into Bastila’s, lacing their fingers together. “Baby, come on…”

Bastila turned her head to meet her wife’s gaze. Sera’s face was drawn, tired circles ringing her eye.

“What are you going to do about it now that can’t be done in the morning?”

Bastila stared at Sera, lost. Her eyes felt gritty and there was a sneaky breeze slithering up her bare legs through the thinness of the bedsheet.

She sighed. “Alright. First thing in the morning, we’ll deal with this.”

“Okay. First thing.” Sera wrapped her arms around Bastila, warming her chilly bones. “We’ll figure this thing out, baby. I promise.”

Bastila sank against Sera’s shoulder. In the far distance, hidden by an overcast sky, The Galactic Star slipped out of the atmosphere.

*****

Writing sex is hard.

Part 11 will be coming... sometime. I'm in the middle of a lot of work at the moment and I needed to plan Part 11 anyway but in the process of writing Part 10 I made some changes to how I wanted things to go, it should be a liitle better now but that means I have even more to plan out. So it might take a while.