Alone in his shuttle, Theron stared at her blue image over the HoloNet, listened to Alico's touching broadcast. She was trying so hard to make things right by him. "I love you, Theron… Please," she implored, "Come home."
Home. She had only ever used that word once. Her ship was her home, she had said. It took him awhile to realize what that meant for her. It was more than just a place to lay her head at the end of a long day or a sense of belonging. Home, for her, was something sacred. He couldn't fully understand it but he knew just how serious it was. And now she was using that word again—home. Come home. Not to Odessen or the Alliance, but to her. And if she was calling it that, it meant she felt it, too—that he was her home. Home had become that space they shared when they were together.
"I love you, too," he whispered into the quiet cockpit. "But I can't…"
He set up the auto-pilot for his rendezvous with Atrius and rested his forehead in his palms as the horrible moment on Umbara replayed over and over again in his mind. He had hurt her so much, and yet… I still love you, Theron! She was trying to fix it, dedicating those one hundred ships to the fight for peace, offering him command of them. It was like she was asking him for forgiveness. She believed him when he made her think she had let him down.
"Damn it," he rasped into the quiet.
He couldn't take the agonizing oppression in his chest, that invisible hand tightly squeezing his heart. He had to do something, had to say something. Even if GEMINI 16 was watching, it would be okay. He could word it just right to get the point across without sacrificing his cover. The droid already knew he loved her. Pretending otherwise would draw attention to his ruse.
He pulled up his message center and began typing up a quick letter. In the title, he wrote the first thing that popped into his mind. I love you. And then, unlike every other time he had tried to compose a letter to her, his fingers raced across the keypad without reservation.
I saw your message on the HoloNet. I wish I could drop everything and leave with you, somewhere away from all this war and death. But that's just a nice dream—reality is much harder.
Theron swallowed the lump forming in his throat. His fingers stilled over the keypad as he struggled not to confess too much. When he finally started typing again, it was chopped and heavy and he hated the lies he had to tell.
Feels like I've fought for peace all my life, but everyone has let me down. The Jedi, the Republic, even the Alliance.
Part of it was true. The Jedi and the Republic had let him down. But not the Alliance, and especially not her. He was afraid of how she would perceive it but he couldn't not say it and risk rousing GEMINI 16's suspicions any more than was already riled.
The galaxy doesn't deserve this endless war for power. I just want it to stop. But now, I've finally figured out how to end the destruction. Trust that everything I do is for the good of the galaxy. I don't expect you to understand—
But he prayed she would. He desperately hoped she would read between the lines, understand what he meant when he said he figured out how to end it, when he asked her to trust in what he was doing. Figure this out, he pleaded as he finished typing the paragraph. But he couldn't help but believe he had destroyed what they had, that there was no coming back from what he had done.
The look on her face! He slammed the console in anger at his own actions, however necessary. He stared at the blinking caret as a feeling of dread plummeted straight to the bottom of his gut. He took a shaky breath and started a new line.
But however this ends, I just want you to know…
Theron paused. What did he want her to know? That he loved her? Yes, but it was more than that. What he felt for her was…
He leaned back in his chair and stared at the starry expanse beyond the cockpit. He thought of the very first time he had met her on Carrick Station. It was over holo. He had read her profile, seen her photos. He thought she was beautiful, and his mental reminders that trillions of women in the galaxy were beautiful didn't do anything to alleviate the slight tingle of nervousness he felt. His training kept him calm and collected on the outside, but Alico Starwind had a reputation. She had accomplished some incredible things. Even if she had been a two-headed freak show, he still would've been awed.
He saw her before she saw him, through the droid's holocam as it approached her. His mouth felt a little dry and his palms a tad bit sweaty. He was positive a primary contributor to his nervousness was the fact that she had been so damn hard to track down, which meant he had actively been looking for her. It made him feel like a stalker—of course he was a stalker, he was a damn SIS agent. His interest levels had spiked as a result from the mere fact that, even to an SIS agent, she was difficult to reach.
He almost chuckled when he saw the wary look she was eyeing the droid with—like she had been down this road before and it had led to bad things. And then he appeared in front of her.
"You're not easy to find, Captain…" he said much quieter than he had meant to, "but I imagine that's a good thing in your line of work."
She looked at him with all the confusion she could muster and said, "I sincerely have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."
The lie rolled off her tongue so easily and so quickly that Theron could only stare at her for a second, processing it. And then he laughed—he actually laughed, and it was real, not an ironic chuckle or bitter snort, but genuine laughter. At that, she grinned and his heart suddenly started racing. In an instant, he wanted nothing more than to get to know her better. He wasn't sure to what extent or how that would even happen, but he was not about to lose the chance to be closer to her, even if it was just for work.
But it wasn't. She flirted with him, and it surprised him so much that he responded in the only way he knew how: ignoring it or redirecting it to business. He was terrible at relationships, at flirting, at just…any interaction with others outside of work. But she didn't seem to mind. It didn't scare her off. It didn't slow her down. And more and more of his thoughts became consumed by her.
It was a slow, smoldering burn as the galaxy brought them together and pulled them apart, over and over again. And every time he found himself face-to-face with her again, he was more nervous than the last, heart hammering in his chest, stomach fluttering, palms sweaty, and his mind betraying him into believing she had forgotten him or lost whatever interest she may have had in him.
But every time, she would give him one of those little grins and say, "Good to see you again, Theron," until he finally broke. On Rishi, when she said, "After all of this time, I was starting to think you didn't care," the words popped out of him before he could even think about them. "Is that a fact?" he asked. "What are you thinking now?" Lana's interruption reminded him of the circumstances, of the fact they weren't alone, and he felt embarrassed and stupid, but that gleam in her eyes made him feel something else, too. He knew what she was thinking—he was thinking the same thing, and it made his pants fit a little too tight.
It happened quickly after that, and he would never forget the first time they kissed or that afternoon they made love in a shuttle on Yavin IV. He didn't know what that made them or what it meant to her, but it had meant the world to him. He couldn't say it back then—didn't have the words, was too scared to bumble his way through it, wasn't sure she felt the same way. Maybe he was just a hot stop for her on this crazy ride she was on, but for him…since that very first meeting, he had known…
Theron sat up as he realized what he wanted to say.
I just want you to know that I loved you from the first moment I saw you. And I always will.
He hit send before he could regret it, before he could agonize over the wording, before he lost his nerve. He may have lost her forever but it wasn't about him. It was about her, protecting her, no matter what it took. Because he loved her.
"And I always will…"
