The Freehow Monestary was an ancient castle, built into the side of the mountain over a natural hot springs and home to a thousand-year old public bath house. The monks who ran it had three rules. No weapons. No talking. Mind your own business.
It was perfect, as far as Ahsoka was concerned. Everyone was focused on their own well-being and rest, creating an atmosphere of peace. Her favorite part was soaking in the baths. They were formed by trenches dug into the earth and lined with duracrete and lime, just wide enough for a person to float in, their arms loose at their sides. Ahsoka floated, one with the force and one with the water until the bell rang.
Her feet found the bottom and she moved up the broad steps, water streaming off her naked body, still half in a trance. Pristine white drapes hung between the baths, thin enough that the shadows and silhouettes of the other patrons could be seen. Human and not, tall and stooped, broad and slender. On the bench at the top of the steps was another spotless white cloth, small enough to wrap easily around her body.
She always went to the steam chambers after her soak, but as she moved in that direction she caught a glimpse of the shadow on the sheet to her right. A man's shape. Her eyes passed it, and then darted back as her feet turned to stone.
She knew that shape.
It was a shape that had different faces and different names but the angle of his head, the curve of his shoulders, the line of his back, even the way he stood...she knew it like she knew her own name. He raised his chin as he sluiced water from his short hair and his profile cut her open. To run into a clone here, on this remote moon…
He didn't feel as familiar in the force, but there was something there. A presence she'd felt before. Caution stayed her hand when she wanted to grasp the edge of the white drape and fling it back. Some of the clones had continued serving in the Empire's forces, and even a deserter might turn her in if he recognized her. The Jedi purge was only five years past, and she was still a fugitive.
While she stood there, her heart pounding, he wrapped his own cloth around his waist and left. Ahsoka listened to the sound of bare feet padding away. She just wanted to see his face. Even if she didn't know him. Even if he wasn't one of hers.
The bell rang again, a polite reminder that someone else was waiting for their soak. Her feet started moving toward the steam chambers, her eyes searching the dimly lit corridor ahead. There he was, five or six people ahead. Gods, even the way he walked was so achingly familiar. He had the intent, purposeful gait of someone accustomed to wearing armor and carrying gear.
The corridor ended at a wall with the entrances to the steam chambers on the right and left. The wall was inlaid with a pattern of painted and mirrored tile and it wasn't until he stopped abruptly that she realized she could see his face in the reflection. And he could see hers.
She felt a coldness through the force, like the shock of ice cold water. He was not a clonetrooper.
But she knew him.
And he knew her.
Boba Fett stared back at her in the reflection, as still as a statue. His shoulders were drawn tight, and a muscle jumped in his naked back. She could sense his calculation of the distance between them, their lack of weapons, his odds of success. He wouldn't hesitate to turn her in, but he was without his armor and weapons and she had the force.
He was still considering it.
And underneath the cool, analytical slide of his thoughts was something else. Anger. Not because of who she was, but because of her presence here. The place was important to him. She was an invader.
Slowly she raised her hands, two fingers raised over the palm of her opposite hand. The galactic hand-sign for sanctuary. Almost immediately there was a shift in the air, an almost palpable sense of relief. He didn't want to fight her. A shared sentiment.
She dropped her hands and offered him a tight smile. He didn't smile back, but he blinked and the tension left his shoulders and back. The last time they saw one another he was still a teenage boy and she was only a few years older. He would be about twenty now, she thought. He looked so much like her men at the start of the war, in every physical aspect but his eyes. His eyes were the eyes she remembered from final days before she left. Grim. Weary. Guarded.
Ahsoka wondered how her eyes looked to him.
She began to move toward the steam chamber entrance to her right. He stayed still, his eyes following her in the mirror. When she reached the point where she was abreast with him, but still about a meter apart, she stopped as well.
Other beings passed them, like water running past two stones in a river. There was nothing really she could say, nothing that would erase what stood between them. What they had seen and what they had survived. She turned her head to meet his eyes, and then she turned away and walked into the steam chambers.
And he followed her.
The chambers were long duracrete rooms in a row, each about a meter wide and two meters long, with a duracrete bench to sit on. Ahsoka chose the one to the far right. There was one occupant, and he abandoned the bench as they walked in. He had suddenly come to the conclusion that the steam wasn't circulating well in this chamber.
She sat down on the bench and Boba sat beside her, close but not touching. This was her idea. It was her responsibility to make the first move.
And he was nervous. That was sort of touching, apart from the fact that a few minutes ago he was seriously considering trying to kill or capture her to collect the bounty on her head.
Was this really what she wanted?
She looked down at his hand, spread over his cloth-covered thigh. It could have been any one of theirs. How many times had she seen that hand wrapped around a fork in the mess hall, or fanning out a hand of sabacc cards in the barracks? Her eyes followed the line of his arm up his bare shoulder to the tendons in his neck. How many times had she sat behind one of her men in a transport, studying his hairline and the way in ended in two peaks at the nape?
He tensed when her hand moved, but he didn't move away. She lifted her hand slowly and brushed her fingers over the coarse dark hair of those peaks. She dragged her fingertips up to the hard ridge of his skull, and she felt him inhale, and saw his eyes shut briefly. He dropped his head, and she took the invitation to comb through his short hair, smoothing her fingers over the edges of his hair at his temples. As she dragged her fingers back down to those peaks a shudder passed through his shoulders. She let her fingers drop lower and followed the ridge of his spine all the way to where the cloth was wrapped at his waist.
That was when he put his hand on her knee. His fingers curled, drawing up the edge of the cloth until it was just above her kneecap and pressed them into the sweat-slick crevice behind her knee. He didn't look at her. He kept his eyes down, droplets of sweat gathering on his brow in the steam-filled room.
Ahsoka turned toward him, one hand still at the small of his back, and the other on his shoulder, caressing the curve of his deltoid muscle and tracing the line of his collarbone. She drew closer, biting back a soft gasp as his hand moved up her thigh under the white cloth. Her lips brushed over his shoulder, and she had to close her eyes for a second because oh gods he smelled like the shower room at the barracks.
The heat of the room combined with the heat rising between them nearly made her light-headed, and she knew they couldn't afford to take their time. She opened her eyes and her hand dropped to the cloth covering his lap. His mouth went slack as her fingers brushed over him, his breathing raw and heavy as she pulled the cloth away and then swiftly discarded her own covering. She straddled his lap, her knees braced against the duracrete bench and kissed him as his arms came around her.
She ground against him, sweat slicking their skin as they pressed together. She wanted to be submerged in that sweat, in the smell and the taste of it. He needed no encouragement to touch her breasts, to nuzzle and kiss her lekku. He had just as much hunger for her, and just as much of a desire to be consumed. She reached down between them, and felt the guttural sound he made as a puff of hot air on her throat. His hips thrust up off the bench as he found his way deep inside of her, and she choked back her own cry of pleasure.
She rocked her hips against his and his fingers dug into her thighs, and the sound of their harsh breathing filled the small room. She curled into him, her arms around his shoulders and let her pointed teeth graze the side of his throat below his ear. His reaction in the force was something like a flash grenade, accompanied by renewed thrusting. The flat of his tongue swept up her lek and his hands pressed against her back. He wanted more, so she bit down on his shoulder, letting her teeth sink in just enough that it would sting in the shower and remind him of her.
Knowing she was close to the edge, she lifted her lek in her hand and brushed the tip of it over his lips. His eyes darted to hers, and then he willingly gathered it into his mouth. He may not have done this before, but he was a quick learner. Just like his brothers. He sucked lightly, and then with more pressure when she let her mouth fall open in a silent moan. She began to move faster, up and down in a swift, steady rhythm. His hands roamed from the curve of her ass to her breasts to stroking her other lek until everything was blotted out in a furious spiral of bliss and steam.
Her lek fell from Boba's open mouth as the seizing of her body brought his own release. Her mouth covered his, clumsy but eager to swallow every gasp and groan. His whole body was shaking, his arms tight around her as if he was afraid she would vanish into mist. She wrapped her legs around his waist and held on to him until the shaking stopped and his hold relaxed. He let his arms fall to his sides, his palms resting flat on the bench. He was resigned. If she intended to kill him after all this, he felt he deserved it.
But he didn't regret it.
Ahsoka leaned in and pressed one last soft, sweet kiss to his mouth. This would never happen again. It could never happen again. But she didn't regret it either. She stood, her legs a little wobbly and retrieved her white cloth. She couldn't resist taking one last look at him in all his glory, with the mark of her teeth still on his shoulder.
She wrapped the cloth back around her body and he did the same, standing to tuck it in at his waist. Their eyes met, and Boba raised his hands and made the sign for sanctuary.
Ahsoka nodded. Once they left this place, there was no reprieve from enmity. If he was given another chance to collect her bounty, he would take it. She expected nothing else. He gave a single nod in return and walked out of the chamber.
She waited another minute or two before she followed. The air always felt so much sharper and clearer outside of the steam chamber. She filled her lungs with it, and let it refresh her. She had to let Boba go, just as she had to let all of them go.
Perhaps someday it would be easier.