"Close your eyes."

She had the vague notion that they were already closed, that she was floating in a pool of warmth, and somehow it had wrapped its arms around her in the form of a man. A man whose arms were bigger than she'd remembered, whose torso stretched on much longer than hers and his smile was straight as he watched her intently, his fingertips playing against the smooth skin of her back, bare and honest before him.

"No," she said, keeping her eyes fixed on his, perhaps out of disobedience to his order, but mostly just to see them, memorizing his gaze as her hands pressed firmly against his chest, just as honest as hers.

He nudged his head closer, just to barely press his forehead against her jawbone, as firm and upstanding as she was, and she could feel his breath against her neck, "Close your eyes," he said again.

At first she wasn't sure why she couldn't do it, why she was so intent on ignoring this will of his as he wanted her blind to him. She drew her hands away, and her head back to meet his gaze once more, her expression serious as she watched his smile fall.

"Don't do it."

"Why?"

She pressed her lips together, wishing that she weren't such a coward as she looked away. Trying to control her breath, her pitch, and her grace as she spoke, though she found that she couldn't, and her brows pushed together, "Because I'll say no."

His hands stilled, though he didn't pull away. And though his smile was long gone, his eyes remained the same, watching her with the same honesty that had been there before, that perhaps had always been there and she wondered idly to herself why it had taken her so long to see it.

"Malak, I—"

"No," he said too quickly, "You don't have to say anything."

She went to speak again, but his hand moved from her back, leaving a trail of warm skin now exposed to the cool air, and she winced before it landed to cup her cheek, "You are the ocean," his voice echoed quietly, "And I will drown in you before I will let you push me away."

But the soft walls melted away into nothing as her eyes were opened to the real world around her. A world that was devoid of life, of love and a happiness that she hadn't known in a very, very long time. Of death, of his death and all the repercussions that followed. Repercussions that she had created when she was young and couldn't commit to the man she loved, instead dragging him into the darkness, taking his promises and using them against him. All to get what she wanted, utter selfishness destroying him and creating a monster that she sent her blade into, that she let fall to his knees before her and yet she did nothing to help him. He found no salvation and she did nothing for him to find it.

Like some plot, as if the darkness had been watching them for a very long time, long before they'd met and grew close, even longer before they kissed and fell into each others arms every night. Long before the wars, when he would watch her as she lost her mind, when he told her that she wasn't completely lost, that there would always be something there, some semblance of the girl he'd follow anywhere, and that she was on her way, to a point where her power would culminate in a moment that would define her. They always thought it was the war, that driving back the Mandalorians was it, that they could return, that they could find a home.

But no, he'd predicted his own death. For he was indeed the culmination of everything she'd ever done. That fateful day on the Star Forge had been hurtling towards them for a very, very long time, and it had left her empty, left her to face the galaxy alone. Left her to face her memories as they ate her alive, and it wasn't the first morning that she'd awoken in an empty room, plagued by guilt and rolling emotions that she didn't think she would, or perhaps could, ever understand.

And all was quiet.