Author's Note: A drabble. Something rattling around in my head. I won't guarantee there will or won't be more.

I watch you address the troops. They respond to your strength and your leadership. You tell me I'm the passionate one-and while that is true, you are not without passion. It is just more controlled.

And controlled passion can be even more powerful like water held behind a dam. My passion has almost no pre-determined course. When your control is relinquished, the force of the passion is overwhelming. It moves worlds with its pure expression of purpose. Your course is steady and true. It is unwavering. I am swept along.

As you hand out the new orders, I see the determination in the set of your jaw and the flash of your eyes. It intoxicates the crowd and enflames their enthusiasm for their duty. No one will fail you, if they can help it. You are their inspiration-and mine.

Sometimes I want to walk away from my duty and follow my passions. But then I see how you make duty desirable. You make it appealing and even sexy. How could I walk away from you when you are part of that duty as well?

Now, you speak privately to several different subordinates. I stalk you from the shadows, knowing that you know I wait for my own private words with you. Our words will be less to the point and more expansive than those you give to others. But no less meaningful.

We will discuss and debate. I will rail and seethe. You will calmly receive the bombardment and wave it away with your usual aplomb. You will help me see as if I am blinded by my own youth and inexperience. My lack of understanding of the wider galaxy sometimes amuses you. Perhaps you see something of you in me?

As the troops file out of the briefing, I move to your side where I belong. The space is familiar like home. It is home for beings like us with no permanent residence.

I can almost predict your actions and thoughts, but you still manage to surprise me. I feel a little thrill whenever it happens. It reminds me that I still have much to learn about you.

I would gladly spend a lifetime doing so.

Then we stand before the ethereal glow of holoprojections. You always maintain respectful eye contact with the nothingness of these images. You never turn away in anger or frustration. I defer to you in this, as in most things. Even speaking to beings sectors away, you are a consummate professional. You accept your calling, your orders, your duty once again. And then we are executing all three.

The satisfaction you derive from committing yourself to you duty radiates out of your very pores. It becomes you and is becoming on you. It draws me in. It keeps me wrapped to you and to our cause. When I falter, you pick me up. You remind me of what is most important.

It makes me wonder if I can satisfy you in any way that would rival your duty. Could pride in me and my accomplishments ever be as good?

We battle evil in many forms, back-to-back to ensure the best safety to be found on a battlefield. I know you sometimes think that I'm showing off, but I'm just trying to keep the burdens from falling to you again.

Your strength seems even more consuming when situations begin to unravel. Plans are destroyed, yet you persevere. And you have taught me to adapt as well. This is beyond just teaching me. This is instilling confidence and capability in me.

You have molded me for my own good. I hope you feel the results are for your own good as well.

My accomplishments here are as much due to your efforts as my own. Your experience, your patience, your guidance have molded me. And while I still remain essentially me, I am forever altered by your influence. Never doubt that.

My mistakes are my own. My successes are shared with you. You are the voice of reason in my noisy mind. I hear your caution and your care for me.

Sometimes I say nonsensical things when I know you most need to smile. My 'antics' as you term them, never seem to fail in clearing the clouds from your brow. It's my job, in a way, to make sure you get a break from your own seriousness. To remind you there is more to life than our worries.

So much more, wonderful and energizing.

As the door of today closes behind us, your hand finds mine. We spark across that small connection as if the very cells in our bodies are aching to combine. This is when we are most ourselves; you are you, and I am me. No other life exists to impinge on us now. Our exteriors fall like shrouds to pool at our feet.

We embrace bodies and spirits. I embrace the essential you. And I feel you embracing me-flaws and all. Smoothing my passion with the cool flow of your acceptance. I sigh into the cool. It washes away my failures and replaces them with understanding.

I am still young. You are my mentor in all things material, spiritual, and physical. You carry my burdens when I need without asking.

And I try to do the same for you. I help you unwind as I worship at your feet-not submitting myself but asking for your submission. To allow me to control you passion-briefly-in exchange for ecstasy. A moment in which to surrender your control to someone you trust to give it back. Someone who wouldn't use it against you because I desire your control for you only.

Control is not what I desire for myself-as much as you try to teach me some.

You have enough for both of us. Until I am able to pleasure it out of you. Your sighs and moans and gasps of pleasure are the music of my heart. The beat of my pulse becomes one with yours.

The tenderness you show me almost breaks my heart-as I know I am still unworthy and impure. But you whisper, no, you are worthy. You have always been so. And then you try to blame yourself for your past hesitation.

I know that your reluctance to cross those last barriers between us was wisely followed. However, I also know that this was one area where my passion would overwhelm us both. It wouldn't be denied. My carnal instincts wouldn't be suppressed in your presence. And I wouldn't be without your presence-nor you mine.

But now you embrace the wholeness we have with each other. The touches we share say more than our words ever could. The smiles you bestow on only me are indulgent and secret. They are for me alone. And I treasure each one, kept in my memory, for cold nights and dire circumstances when I need them most. I will always carry you in my heart no matter what happens to our corporeal selves.

When I remove your clothing piece by piece, it is like removing the outer shell of yourself. The self you show to the galaxy is not the self that I fell in love with. It is not the self that I know when we are alone. The shell is hard and protective. And while you are protective to a fault on the inside as well, there is never any hardness. Well, not never. But it is a pleasurable hardness as opposed to that shown to our enemies.

And oh, the pleasure you bring me. The heights from which I soar out of my own body. The time we spend exploring the smallest points of interest is endless in my mind. I could forever sink into your skin, your eyes, your breath.

But it is not just a physical connection. It is so much deeper than that for both of us. Two people who had never expected to have anyone else who mirrored the soul buried deep within the strong bodies and the stronger callings. We weren't supposed to be connected. But we have overcome that artificial restraint on our spirits.