In The Space Where Lines Converge

by spoomed

Fine lines exist between the two ends of contradiction. What is the nature of contradiction but the coexistence of separates? Between a Republic SIS agent and the head of Sith Intelligence are spaces where the lines converge. -A collection of related writings centered on the relationship and parallels between Theron Shan and Lana Beniko from SWTOR.

7. Cradle of the Horizon (Part I)

Yaaay...it's here! Gosh, it's been sooo long, I'm definitely excited for this update! ^_^ And once again, I am SO sorry for the super-duper long wait... I'm slow, I'm slooowwwww...

Anyway, so I'm trying something a little different this time. There'll be a Part II coming up to conclude this chapter. At the suggestion of some advice received (and...also for my sanity in the revision process), I broke this one into two parts. The second's already been mostly written, so no worries—it won't take another four months to go out, I promise, haha. Just need another week or two for finishing touches, hang tight! In the meantime, hope you guys enjoy this first chunk! :D

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Cradle of the Horizon
(Part I)

No matter how deceptively calm the peace that lulled them to slumber had been, the hours they'd shared that night were not long. But it had not been any passing disturbance from beyond the small confines of their private space, nor had it been any found within the deepest reaches of their unquelled hearts that had awakened them from their sleep.

It'd been as though the simple knowing had been enough. That their allotted time together had been drawing to a close. There'd simply been something that felt inherently wrong about sleeping the rest of it away, no matter how tempting the permissive world of their dreams could be. There would be time enough to dwell within their dreams, their hearts knew. But now was not it. Their time now was limited, and the realm of dreams was no substitute for the waking reality they would always find themselves descending back to.

They'd spoken of dreams the previous night, she remembered. And she'd let herself fall to sleep upon a most divine reverie.

A reverie? No. It wasn't.

It was real. Their embrace was real. Their kiss was real.

Yes, that's right.

There were no dreams she recalled from the previous night. Only slumber. Then the morning after. It would seem that her dreams were no longer necessary once the very visions they'd imparted had come to manifest in their shared reality. How many instances she'd seen him in the distance of her dreams—and now, he'd come within reach, come into her own arms. She'd known it was no reverie when she awakened this time to find that he had not gone with the passing night's slumber.

Once they'd risen from bed, they'd taken their time readying themselves for the coming day—time spent in mutual silence. There'd been enough words shared between them in the previous night. None seemed to be necessary in this following dawn.

Lana lingered in the small dormitory, her presence still anchored by her heart's reluctance to leave it just yet. Even after a sound night's rest, it would seem that her eyes still had not replenished their spent tears. They'd felt raw from dryness when she blinked and rubbed them. Wearied and worn by the morning, her shuffling feet still managed to lead her the scant paces across the room toward the small desk by the door. Here, her blind hands searched for her belongings left in this corner from the previous night.

The first contact her fingers met was with chilled steel. Lana opened her eyes to see the newly bestowed lightsaber hilt lain across the glass surface—Master Ngani Zho's lightsaber.

As she allowed her gaze to rest upon Theron's cherished gift to her, her sight softened until they regained focus. Her fingers gently took hold, wrapping the precious item within their grasp until it laid within her small palm. Lana traced over the silhouette of its details with her thumb.

How modest it'd been. How unassuming. How pure. The culmination of Theron's innermost, plainspoken sentiments—held in the palm of her hand. The very idea brought upon her lips the gentlest wisp of a smile. A glimmer of the bliss she'd known innately such a small simplicity as this had heralded for her.

Lana's hands then reached for her jacket, set draped over the back of the desk's chair. She proceeded to redress herself, absent of mind as she slipped the garment on one sleeve at a time. It'd been then when her eyes glimpsed it. The heartrending correspondence she'd brought with her had slipped from its pocket once the garment was disturbed. Her eyes stilled over the paper, momentarily forgotten over the course of the night's slumber until it'd fallen once again back within her sights. Tragedy and its aftermath were always consummately opportune, it would seem.

Like an unbreakable chain, it'd bound and drawn her lower, deeper into the chasm that she'd only begun to scrape her way back out from. Her fingers had grown raw and bloodied, yet this relentless shadow within her heart knew no mercy, offered no reprieve. As complacent as she'd willed herself to believe she had become, Lana inevitably found herself bending beneath the weight born by her still heavy heart. Lower it'd taken her, beckoning her hand to reach and reach, drawing her like an enraptured moth to its glowing demise.

She bent to pick the folded piece of paper up from her feet, and once her fingers grasped it, she'd felt the world grow cold all around her. By a single touch, it'd all gone barren once again. The only thing left within sight, the only lingering other that existed beside her was the undying sorrow.

How beautifully abject she'd appeared in Theron's eyes. Her luminescent sadness. Her immaculate despair. The profundity of how their lines had come to be so entangled as they were—her heartbreak was now his own. Indistinguishable. Inseparable.

Like the moth, he too, followed the spellbinding light. He'd followed her blinding brilliance, led across the waking trail of the very same steps she'd taken. He came to the light—came to her—and took it all into his arms. He cared not if he would burn trying to embrace it.

Lana froze at the outsider's touch, serving only to be yet another poignant reminder that the grief remained. The only consolation to be had lied in the pleasured distractions found in the elusive warmth he'd offered within those very same arms. And even then, it'd been only fleeting.

No.

The warmth was there. It'd been real. The hearth was real.

How she'd willed herself to draw from its consummate fires once again. A vain attempt, as it would seem that none of its glow could reach her now.

Lana's eyes slowly eased shut once she'd felt the pressure welling behind them, the entire bearing of her countenance crumbling at its foundations. The deeper she'd sunken, the stronger Theron's arms encircled around her. Witnessing her despair, he'd come to take hold of her and keep her taut. To keep the grief from pulling her under. Just when she'd believed the tears to have run completely dry, she felt their bitter, burning sting returning beneath her eyelids once again.

Theron locked his arms tightly around her small frame, as though moved by the unexplainable dread that she would surely fall if he'd loosened his hold just enough for her to slip away. He feared not knowing how much enough had been. So he dared only to hold tighter. Enough to smother. Enough to suffocate. Enough to burn.

He felt her hands stir, locked beneath the vise of his binding arms held crossed over them. The letter remained in her grasp, crumpled between her clenching fingers drawn close to her heart. He'd felt with its every passing beat how much further she'd languished. But Theron did not permit it. He would cling to her and hold her strong and high until she could stand on her own two feet again. Or he would plummet with her straight into the abyss if that had indeed been where she was bound, inseparable as they now stood.

Even while Lana's eyes could not open, he waited until they no longer burned. Even as her spirit crumbled and her body failed, he refused to let go. With knowing Lana, Theron had found and learned the eternal patience that seemed so innate of her. He'd learned to be understanding, to be delicate when needed, knowing that it'd been the same, far-reaching curve that she, too, had found herself testing time and time again.

In a most gentle shift, he allowed himself to envelop her, fitting her against his own softening silhouette—a counterbalance to her faltering frame. He let his face ease into the hollow of her neck until his nose and his lips met her skin. Only upon his first breath drawing her in did he, at last, feel her slowly ease herself by his tender lead. If this moment had not been so ethereally lachrymose, he'd have been washed away by the profound, tidal bliss welling within his very heart. Such a bounty it had been to hold within his arms. So considerable, that it'd even threatened to overwhelm.

Lana took a quiet, calming breath in a bid to expel the last of the lingering heartache from her being. She felt Theron's lips stir against her flesh before his voice bore through the pristine silence.

"Don't."

It sounded hardly a hush above a whisper, but he'd lingered close enough for her ears to discern the spoken word. His pair of hands then roamed in search of hers. Once they'd found them, he gently coaxed her fingers apart, prying from them the rumpled letter still clutched in between them. It did not take much to do so, for the touch of his hands alone seemed enough to ease her entire being.

As soon as he'd claimed the parchment from her grasp, Theron wasted no time in discarding the dreadful memento entirely. It'd been enough for the very memory already evoked by its contents to dampen her heart. He saw no need for the written words to remain—no less a scar upon her than those already born on her flesh.

By his simple, tender command, Lana found the resolve to ward away the tears. No, she refused to allow them. She had shown enough of them the previous night.

Lana felt him draw in a great, sharpened breath as his lips brushed against her flesh where they'd touched. Then the warmth came forth along the flow of his exhale, kissing her skin almost as tenderly as his lips had.

Almighty Force... His touch. His kiss.

It would seem that would be all that was required to quell her ailing heart. But now there remained another lingering sorrow, one nearly eclipsed by the grief that had stricken her so. Where the grief had gone, the whole of their shared lament now filled its void.

"Do you really have to go?" Theron murmured to her, his whispered voice only audible because she'd stood so close, held tightly within his embrace.

The longing in Theron's voice had been enough to draw her eyes. Slowly, she loosened herself from the cradle of his arms to turn around. She shifted until she stood facing him, laying her gaze upon his own. As she let her gentle hands rest on either side of his face, his own found their place, fitted to the curve of her back.

Lana smiled at what her eyes could see. They'd become two reflected mirrors, each revealing yet another layer—another world within a world into infinity. They would look, they would observe, and they would never quite glimpse every detail plain to the eyes. But the whole of the image had been clear, and that had been the heart of what their sights sought within one another.

When the eyes expanded the field of vision, one could discern that the masterpiece of the entirety had been but a thing of simplicity, constructed upon the most vibrant and complex pieces, all incomprehensible and inconsequential on their own. Only when fitted together did the vision become whole. And their eyes had glimpsed enough to know that little else mattered beyond this. The pure simplicity to be found within but a single vision. It'd been almost breathtaking to behold.

It would be at the slightest guidance of Lana's small hands that compelled Theron closer. It had not been sympathy that moved them. There had been no vestiges of lament, no trace of uncertainty, nor had there been a spindling thread of any lingering hesitation. When their lips came together this time, there had only been clarity.

He first felt the reluctance in her hands when she touched him—her reluctance to let go. He'd felt it even more so in her lips when they kissed. Like a promise of assurance, he'd lingered even as they drew apart. He pressed his brow against hers. Let the stippled bristles of his unshaven face tickle her fair skin. Only when he'd felt the contours of her face stir towards a knowing smile had he been content. Their noses brushed. Then their lips upon another kiss in sweet succession.

Theron felt her fingers stir where they'd rested along his face. Felt her thumb's caress right beneath his eye. Its trail traced over the faint scar that still remained from the previous year, though he was nearly certain she neither noticed, nor remembered that she'd been the indirect cause of the wound received that had left it. The very thought had grown comical in his memory, and it would have even made him laugh if he hadn't been so blissfully distracted by her hands, so enchantingly tender in their touch.

"We'll see each other again, Theron."

The whisper of her voice had been even more disarming.

She'd intended it to be akin to a promise, equal to those he'd sung with such exultant sincerity in the previous night between their shared stories. Even if fate had ordained that their paths would cease to cross again once she parted with him, she would defy the law of the universe itself in search of some means to fulfill this promise.

Lana's lament still showed in her gaze as she slipped from Theron's arms, though it had not been over their parting. Indeed, she would see him again. What had shrouded her heart had been the bittersweet taste of the realization—of how brief their time together truly had been. She resolved, then, to make the most of their next encounter to come.

Already, he'd felt the void of her absence once she left his embrace, and it had only grown with every step she'd taken toward his door. How it ached to see her go. He watched her draw to a pause at its threshold, his eyes taking in the sight of her parting smile. Never failing in its spell, it compelled his own countenance to mirror it.

And like air, she'd drifted away soundlessly out of his sight.

Departures.

They were never an easy matter. Never for them. How many times they had faced one another in departure by then. Between them both, neither could count the moments. Yet within the vestiges of their collective memory, each of them could always be recalled with such clarity. While there'd been nothing between their shared moments that could seem to be entirely quantifiable, the fully rendered image of the whole remained clear in their sights. It remained clear and vast—just as it appeared when one's eyes were cast upon the horizon of any world's emerging dawn.

And to consider that there remained, always, ever more beyond the farthest line the eyes could glimpse.

How Theron Shan spent his days, his hours, his minutes pondering such reaches so far from the perceivable bounds. How staggering they'd become at times, when he contemplated the very visions in his most solitary thoughts. How he would consider it all—consider the universe he couldn't see.

He would allow his mind to ponder these thoughts in his found solitude. Allow it to wander and dwell in the distance until it'd all become simply inconceivable. And it'd been among the vastness he'd found himself stumbling upon time and time again that he could bring himself to envision with such profound purity the things his eyes could see.

Just as the light and its accompanying shadow cast existed as polar composites complementing one another, it'd been the vast and distant unknowns that gave distinction to that which stood most clear within sight.

Such contradictions had always been a curious thing to Theron. Although, he'd come to learn now, that all within the universal bounds were very much matters of simple relativity. By what other nature could such a world possibly exist, after all? Definition. Identity. Purpose. No single idea could possibly be without the coexistence of the separates to give them shape. To give them life.

And the lines found between the coexistent parts themselves—they were not boundaries that kept the separates apart. No. Theron had come to know better now. Like any composite vision the eyes could perceive, the lines had merely been one element within the composition. Just as with the relative nature of color—yet another of the many elements—lines had only been a marker. One that gave form to the abstract, weaving together all the individual parts within the masterpiece. They'd been the unequivocal proof that all things, indeed, were bound by universal coexistence.

This had been the day he could recall, when he'd begun to ponder on these bounds. When he'd turned his eyes outward towards the universe to glimpse the whole of it. To see the light as well the darkness upon which it'd illuminated—just as a rising sun upon the horizon gave color to the blackened sky.

###

There'd only been few occasions when time permitted Theron a casual outing with the Supreme Commander. Time for making up lost grounds with his father. Since the man rarely ever left his station in the heart of the Republic capital, it'd only ever been during Theron's returns from abroad when he could invite his son for dinners such as this.

As usual, Theron had kept him waiting before he'd finally appeared at the entrance of the restaurant. If it had been any manner of official business, the punctual Commander Jace Malcolm would have been sorely displeased, but he'd learned to expect this habit of Agent Theron Shan now. Even on official meetings. This time, however, he seemed to have caught his son in between other plans, as he'd seemed tentative about confirming a particular time and place within the sparse window available to reserve for him. But he could spare some forgiveness for the agent, recognizing the importance of any engagement he may have held some prior obligations to.

"Sorry. Got held up," Theron excused himself casually as he took his seat across from his father.

"What else is new?" he remarked in an amused laugh.

"Yeah, just...had to shuffle some things around and make a few calls," he murmured.

Jace handed the menu he'd been reserving for him. "I ordered already."

Just as Theron reached to take it, his eyes spotted the generous bottle of liquor sitting close to the commander's glass on the opposite end of the table.

"Apparently," he noted wryly.

Opening the menu, he quickly began perusing the selection. "Anyway, I had to kind of run down here. Can't really stay for too long, so I'm just going to order something small."

"Yeah?" the older man murmured with mild interest before taking a sip of his drink. "You have plans later?"

Pausing as he thumbed through the pages of the menu, Theron briefly glanced up at his father. "Uh, yeah. Just...kicking back with one of the other agents."

"Balkar?" It'd hardly been a guess for the commander, having grown familiar with their camaraderie through enough conversations.

Theron gave a flash of a grin. "Yeah."

Jace then held up the liquor bottle with an inquisitive nod, a silent offer to his son.

"No, thanks," he declined, shaking his head. "Balkar's gonna want to drink. Wouldn't last too long if I get a head start," he laughed.

"Suit yourself," the Commander shrugged as he set the bottle back down.

Once the waiter arrived to take his order, Theron took a moment to consider his choice before closing his menu.

"You know, I think I'll just go with the house appetizer. Whatever that is."

"Will that be all for you?" the man inquired almost indifferently, his eyes never once leaving the small order pad he busied himself with.

"That's all."

With a curt nod, the waiter tucked the menu beneath his arm before gliding off onto his next task.

Theron shared a glance with his father, perking his brows up in amusement. "Efficiency over service, I see."

Rumbling in a low-toned laughter, Jace refilled his cup with more of his amber drink. As he set the bottle down again, his fingers lingered where they grasped his glass cup.

"So, for real this time," he began, raising his eyes to Theron, "what's new?"

Though he'd known to expect this sort of question from his father every time by now, it never seemed to fail in bringing his thoughts to a stall. Always, he found himself caught on a pause just to consider how to respond. Though it'd only ever been a simple question. All Jace cared to know was what new thing, no matter how trivial, had been going on in his son's life at the moment—small steps.

And small steps were all Theron ever cared to take going about answering questions like these.

Raising his glass for another sip, the commander awaited his response. He'd expected some terse, thoroughly smart-assed remark out of him, as had been characteristic of Agent Shan whenever posed with even the mildest question of any personal nature. In all honesty, Jace had only thought to ask out of habit.

There'd been something about the manner Theron considered his inward thoughts at that moment that drew his curious eyes. His son's idle gaze seemed fixated on his drumming fingers along the table's surface, a strange bout of abstraction he'd rarely ever seen of him.

A wayward sentiment occupying the depths of Theron's innermost thoughts had seemed to draw some compelling desire within him to make some passing mention of it. As though to confirm its almost ephemeral existence, lingering somewhere within his being. Before he could further evaluate the words he meant to speak, they had come fluttering forth, voiced aloud quicker than his near-absent mind could process.

"I, uh...I met someone." Theron almost gave a dismissive little shrug as he voiced this.

Jace had been taken by the very notion that his son simply had no understanding of how arresting his simple statement had been. Stilled by the poignant impact of the merest mention of this, his gaze fell on Theron with the full weight of an almost comical stupor.

"...No kidding?" He'd hardly been able to utter the remark aloud in spite of both his crippling astonishment and quiet joy.

A small part of this seasoned soldier found it impossible to resist the guileless caprice that swelled in his heart—that his son had felt enough comfort to voluntarily share this so openly. He smiled. For his own genuine amusement and for the sentiment of Theron's happiness.

As though reserving the moment to process what he'd just said, Theron was slow to nod. His affirming smile followed once he considered the verity of what he'd just shared.

"Yeah."

The old commander gave a breath of a laugh, still caught up in his own disbelief. "So? When are you going to bring your special friend to one of these things?" he questioned blithely, partly to tease.

"Yeah, we're not even...close to that yet," Theron snorted in dismissal.

Holding his hands open before him, Jace smiled with an steady nod to assure him of his respectful intent.

"Okay, understandable. Well...you got a picture, at least? Show me something."

Theron shook his head, grinning inwardly in his mild amusement of his father's unrelenting interest.

"Nah, she... She's got a thing about pictures," he mused ambiguously.

With a resigned shrug, the commander pressed on with his expectant gaze. Of course his son would mention all of this and leave him nothing satisfying to take from any of it.

"So, you go and drop a bomb like that on me, and you won't even tell me anything?"

Theron's sharp smile then grew in its teeming mischief. "Yeah, and it's still nothing compared to the one you dropped on me, old man—in case you forgot."

He never could forget that night. When the commander had invited him to his apartment for some hard drinks before divulging the truth behind their shared relation.

"Tit for tat."

In thorough acknowledgement of his point, Jace gave a reserved laugh and nodded his forfeiture.

As the two men simmered from the height of their shared humor, Theron once again grew silent as he fell into his own pensive traces of thought while Jace took another sip from his glass.

"Well she's... She's really sweet."

Peering up from his drink, Jace's eyes searched Theron's distant expression. He watched how his son's gaze seemed to float out of focus as he stared down at his casually folded hands over the tabletop. Theron was quite at ease as far as his discerning eyes could tell. He sat with an arm draped listlessly along the edge of the table while the rest of his frame reclined in leisured repose into the very back of his chair. He remained silent, allowing his son to resume his trailing thought.

"And smart," Theron added with a broadened smile. "Like...insultingly smart. You know—don't-tease-her-'cause-she'll-get-you-back-way-worse-with-just-her-words 'smart.'"

"Well, no one likes a dull girl," Jace joked with a snicker. His remark drew Theron's gaze back, prompting him to soften his own in an earnest light. He wanted to hear more. "What's she look like?"

"Beautiful."

Jace read far more beneath the simple word in the awe of his son's smile. He remembered what it was like—to recall so tenderly the memory of an unforgettable woman.

"Yeah?" he asked in a breath of such endearment.

Within the light of fondness so clearly shown in Theron's countenance, a shade of lament seemed to dim its brilliance as his eyes drifted away again. "A lot more than she gives herself credit for."

"What matters is she's a nice girl, right?"

"The nicest I've ever known."

Though he'd only truly known his son for some brief years, there'd existed the unspeakable compulsion within his store of emotions to see more of this—more of the unblemished affluence, of the simplicity and the beatitude. Of the plain and pure bliss Theron's heart had been capable of. For all that he and his son's mother had never known, for all they could have had, having grasped it all but only briefly in their shared time, Jace had found himself confounded by the potence of these precious sentiments, even if only vicariously touched by their merest vestiges.

In the brief time he had known Theron, he'd never seen him come even close to this. To witness such inextinguishable warmth brought by this light, he'd known by certain intuition that it had been genuine. Seeing the radiance of his son's brimming and very visible heart heralded the rare and gentle smile that Jace's countenance had not worn in long years.

So consuming had it been upon his aged, tempered being that it'd even stirred the very tips of his fingers to loosen their disciplined grasp around the half-emptied glass that had become such familiar company to him.

"Well," he murmured as his gaze lowered, drifting out of any lingering focus they'd held, "I hope I get a chance to meet her someday." He blinked upon his mind's returning presence, directing his attention in full regard back to his son. "If you'd like that."

Easing into a distant, fond smile of his own, Theron nodded. "Yeah. Maybe."

For a passing moment, he'd played at a lingering thought held at the tip of his tongue. There'd been more Theron seemed compelled to say, more remaining to enlighten his father about. Though there'd been a welling desire in his heart to speak further, he couldn't ignore the persistent cloud of doubt that held these thoughts back in its haze. Before he could even bring himself to voice anything beyond what had already been said, the abrupt arrival of the same aloof server extinguished what words had been left hanging on his breath.

"I've got a plate," the man spoke as he set the full dish down before Jace. He then presented the smaller item to Theron. "And an appetizer. Enjoy." Just as quickly as he'd arrived, the server glided away and out of sight once again.

"Finally," Jace mumbled in a brush of wry humor. "If I'd known all you were getting was that, I wouldn't have waited," he chuckled as he collected his silverware.

Theron smirked, poking at his own plate. He skewered what appeared to be some kind of fried dumpling with his fork and popped it into his mouth before casually bringing his eyes forward across the table. His eyes then caught a glimpse of the Commander generously refilling his glass with the amber drink again, certain that the cup hadn't even been empty yet when he'd done so. Theron's roving eyes then flitted briefly for a glance at the bottle he'd been pouring from, noting that its entirety had been nearly half-drained once he set it back down.

"What is that stuff, by the way?" he dubiously asked, giving a curious nod toward the bottle.

"Huh?" Jace blinked in an addled pause. "Oh, uh...Corellian whiskey."

His answer drew another wily little smirk across his son's lips. Theron recalled a previous time when they'd sat at dinner like so. He'd been the one to order such a strong drink then.

"How many have you killed so far?" he questioned him with a wry glance. While he'd only commented in light jest, the amount his father seemed to have consumed had been somewhat astonishing.

Theron's offhanded remark caught him along an unexpected pause as he reflected on the progress of the evening so far.

"Well, enough to know this should probably be the last one for tonight," he exhaled, rather surprised that he still hadn't become too bogged down by the liquor quite yet. He'd grown particularly exasperated, as no amount seemed enough to ease the sinking exhaustion that refused to loosen its grip on his mind.

Setting down his utensils with a burdened groan, Jace ran both of his hands over his face. He let his stocky frame buckle beneath all the relentless weight on his shoulders, shaking his head as he blew a drawn, contemplative breath.

"Sorry," he murmured aloud half-mindedly. "Just...all these headaches dealing with those damn Imps. That's all." The wearied commander then gave a wry scoff of a laugh. "You know, for a bunch of assholes who'd been pretty okay with tearing apart our troops, they ask for a lot when they want something from you."

He raised his tired gaze to meet Theron's, who now appeared convinced that his genuine attempt at keeping his waning spirits afloat had become utterly transparent now. "You'd think with the working armistice, things would finally quiet down a little on our end."

Jace's strikingly troubled disposition struck Theron at his core, tempering the hard-gained comfort of his contentedness in his father's presence. He paused only briefly before minding himself with shuffling around the morsels on his humble little plate.

"At least it's not them we're picking fights with now, right?" he mused in a bid to lighten the air once again.

The tentative silence between them now seemed to shift, growing heavy and stark. Jace's hands unconsciously searched for the full glass of whiskey, effortlessly wrapping around it without so much as a thought of regard. His eyes lowered to linger over the sloshing amber liquid within.

"I don't even know why we're wasting our resources on this. And now they're dragging us into the problems they can barely take care of." Another derisive little snort sounded from his curling lips, full in the bitter resentment that had never quite left his being since the moment it'd taken root in his languished heart.

"Honestly," he blinked, waiting for Theron's gaze to meet his own. "This... This is just about the perfect time for them to toss up that white flag, you know? Do the galaxy a favor and go quietly. I don't see this dragging on for long."

There had been a time when Theron would have shared the Supreme Commander's indifference. Only months ago, Theron may well have regaled with ingratiating delight and generous spirits at the very sentiment. But it had been the course of those very months that had done much to shift his once unshakable resolve, his dogged hostility against the enemy he'd been raised and trained to subvert and overcome. Those valuable months had been the brief time it'd taken to undo his very understanding of the places—the lines that defined the boundaries between sides. Between existences.

'Boundaries.' No such thing, really, is there?

What had been the crudely drawn machinations of mere mortals had been just as easily overturned and toppled, smeared and brushed away once the whole of the plane had been illuminated in his sights. There'd been only one clear, complete view—and one shared horizon within it. All the universal troubles only began once individual hands began to disassemble the space of the whole. How remarkably easy it'd been for one to lose sight of it all. Though Theron knew better now, bearing newly trained eyes that beheld an unobstructed, unobscured vision. A definitive line of sight that now encompassed a broadened perspective without diffusing at the peripheral bounds. And he'd known that this was no gift he'd come upon on his own. Like all the universe's beings, he'd always held the potential to see, but his simple eyes never truly looked until beckoned to do so. Beckoned by the thread woven through his heart. The thread held by the small hands of a mere, single woman.

Theron stiffened at the sensation of the spindling chill that crept through his veins with every pulse of the heart, only to feel the cheerless candor of his father's words sear right through it. He willed himself to calmness in order to speak frankly, feeling his jaw tighten at the cusp of his fractious conscience.

"You know if we don't help them tie up loose ends, their problems become our problems." The volume of his voice sank gravely as he spoke this bleak reminder to the Commander. "You've fought in more wars than I have. You know the kind of fallout that comes out of them."

Of course Jace knew. He'd intimately known. But while his own vast experience acknowledged his son's reasoning, the steel-hearted man would, as ever, still find difficulty in reconciling himself with this inarguable truth. In any matter concerning the Empire, Jace Malcom had never found any ease in relinquishing his deeply imprinted malcontent—one that he'd felt entitled to hold, that he'd felt had been pure and just.

A silent beat passed between father and son before the elder, at last, peeled away his eyes as he proceeded to down a great swig of the dark whiskey. His overwhelming gulp did not go unnoticed by his son's observant gaze.

Theron's voice grew sedate upon the breath of his next earnest question. "You do believe we're doing the right thing, right?"

Jace continued to wallow in his own silence, his pensive eyes still fixed on the glass clutched within his two hands.

"It's one hell of a mess that's left behind after the fighting. In any war," he finally spoke. He then gave a jaded, apathetic shrug. "We'll deal with it when it comes. We always have. Might as well let it take its course to do us some good first."

Furrowing his brows, Theron grew disheartened by his father's removed regard. "Don't you think that's a little cold?"

"Theron, they're falling apart from the inside out." Jace's voice regained its presence as he gave his sharp retort. "They think they're good at hiding it, but I know it. We all do." He paused only for another sip from his glass. "Imps should be thankful Saresh and the Senate hasn't greenlit an entire operation to put them out of their misery already..."

"The people who are suffering the most are just civilians. Everywhere. Right now, they're just trying to protect their populace...same as what we'd do."

"And if the roles were swapped, what do you think they'd have done for us, Theron?" The thickening gloom of his father's gaze had not wavered in the least. He'd questioned him in a plainspoken, almost chilling frankness.

Through his profound understanding, Theron had been painfully aware of what the commander intended to say. And it'd become clearer now, where his own moral sense began to diverge from his father's. He'd been reminded of the last time they'd encountered this crossing, of the opposing paths they'd decisively taken from it. And it had been Theron's own daring initiative that forced the commander's hand and averted the very catastrophe his father had been prepared to wreak upon their own populace. All to ensure a mere chance at victory in but one fight against the Empire.

'Theron, sometimes sacrifices have to be made.'

That had been his reasoning. Justified, but unacceptable.

"Doesn't matter—we're not them. We're the Republic. We do what's right, don't we?"

And again, Jace would now see yet another haunting semblance of Theron's mother in him. He was not a man of misguided delusions, a thing he'd judged the Jedi of bearing more and more over the course of the long years. Jace had tried to be a moral man. Protecting and preserving his people and his home had been the simple reasons behind his resolve. But he would not deny how dubitably grey his moral bounds had grown to become. The extent of his resolve, the sacrifices he'd been willing to offer up for the sole sake of his purpose. Too often, such sacrifices would not be of his own, he knew. But indeed, there required such a price to even hope to resist an enemy as great as the Sith Empire, and Jace had willingly stepped into the pyre to accept this fate.

How clouded, how darkened his vision had become now, so many years and decades later. So long since he himself had been a young man like Theron. Though he'd come to grow spiteful of his own sullied conscience, he could not deny the inextinguishable pride he'd felt to witness the undying will within his son's resolve. Theron's ideals were no different from his own, from his mother's, from the rest of the Republic's. And ever since his eyes bore witness to the small shining ray of light through the thickened clouds, he'd resolved never to look away.

Though Jace had long come to accept how far he'd gone from the point of redemption, he continued to look towards the guiding light of his son's unflinching heart. To see that where he had faltered and grown stagnant, Theron would endure. And although he lamented that his own eyes could never view the universe with the clear conscience his son bore, he'd been content by the assurance that it would be upon his hands and that of others like him that the future of the Republic would be entrusted.

And yet.

How difficult absolution came to the heart of a man like Jace Malcom. For all of his pride, for all of his dignity and fidelity in Theron's virtue, his heart simply could not find the will to forget the decades of the galaxy's bloody feuds. To exonerate and forgive. To extend any true compassion across the bounds to those he'd fought for so long.

Jace's hands tightened around his glass as his mouth began to run dry, the internal turmoils exhausting the unspoken words before they ever left the breath of his lungs. He licked his parched lips before finally speaking his next trailing thought.

"You know, it's like... It's like they're infested with disease," his raw, diminishing voice uttered, "and they're using us like a band-aid. A crutch. When what they really need is a cure." Jace peered up from his glass with a firm, sobering look. "That cure isn't us, Theron. For them...we're the means to an end."

The finality of his chosen and deliberate words tolled through Theron's conscience—a pithy, solemn canticle. Like a mockery of a eulogy reserved for the most disdained dead.

"...Just like they are to us."

Theron remembered when he'd once wallowed in the same resentment, the very same silent, boiling contempt that his father seemed so incapable of seeing beyond. It'd only taken the sparse experience—the single, epochal encounter seemingly designed by the movements of the universe itself—for him to begin realizing with certainty just how wrong he'd been. Once enlightened, the knowing had become innate. With the clarity of his morals and his sense came, too, the newfound emotions woven so elementally within them. Never would he forget. Never would he stray. When Theron understood where and with whom his heart lied, all relative things around him had aligned sublimely into perspective within the perennial masterpiece.

Jace's roving, ambivalent gaze found Theron's once again. When he looked into his son's countenance, he'd witnessed the grave, revealing disappointment. How familiar it appeared. It'd been both uncanny and unsettling. In his son's eyes, the veteran read the culmination of his disillusionment, his disenchantment, his despondence. Though he'd uttered none of these words aloud, his gaze spoke volumes enough, and such lament had been utterly heartrending for a father to bear witnessing within his own child. Worse so that he'd known it had all been reserved entirely for him.

Although he'd known that there had been little left to salvage within his own being, he knew there'd still been some worth in recovering the remains of this discourse. And though he suspected nothing he could do would ever amount to enough to regain lost ground, he would not give up the endeavor. After all, it had never been in Jace Malcom's character to forfeit.

Half-feigning exhaustion, he averted his fatigued eyes and blew a great sigh. Furrowing his brows, he let his head hang as he gave it a gentle shake.

"All this talk of...problems," he murmured with a wry little laugh. "Let's... Let's just forget it, huh? Hate for it to bring down what's supposed to be a nice dinner with your kid."

Theron had not been fooled in the least by his father's intentions. Diverting conversations had been child's play for him, and it'd been plainly obvious when others drew upon such tactics in conversation with him. While he had remained somewhat disquieted by where it'd been left, he simply didn't have the heart or the mind to pursue the matter any further.

Offering a halfhearted smile, he gave his quiet agreement. "Yeah. Okay." Theron then felt the impulsive tug along the corner of his lips when the droll thought crossed his mind. "Not like we're on the hour, right?"

With his arms lain casually against the table, he let his weight relax into them as he plucked the fork from where it rested on the edge of his plate. "Feel like I should be billing SIS every time these conversations pop up," he murmured in a passing jest.

Following in his own breath of laughter, Jace, too, returned to his dish. "I'll have to have a word with Trant, there."

Theron glanced across the table to see a surprising restlessness in his father's returning stare. Even as he'd been blissfully chewing away at a generous spoonful taken from his plate, Theron knew there was something on the man's mind he must have been pining to ask.

"What?" he took the initiative to inquire first, his look dry with his unenthused expectance. If Jace wouldn't speak, he would draw it out of him.

The commander almost comically blinked as he turned his eyes away with a cool shrug of his broad shoulders. "What? Nothing."

Jace Malcom was never a man who sputtered casual nonsense.

"That look doesn't say 'nothing,'" Theron wryly pointed out. Tossing his fork back onto his plate, he fell back into his chair with the challenging eyes of a dare. "Come on. You got something to say? Just say it," he nearly laughed.

The commander took his time to graciously set his spoon down before taking his cloth napkin to his lips. He set it back down and folded his hands neatly over the tabletop. The casual posture seemed to be one Theron inherited entirely from him.

"So, uh..." he began, keeping his eyes lowered nonchalantly. "You'll let me meet her before your mother, right?" he asked in a completely deliberate attempt at indifference, one that even he was certain wouldn't fly. He perked his eyes back up for a tentative glance at his son. "Your girl?"

Theron's comically dumbfounded pause was enough to answer his doubts, and it'd taken everything in the commander to keep from rolling his eyes at his own laughable attempts at camouflaging his intentions.

Licking his lips, Theron considered all the inane possibilities for a sharp and efficient comeback that would serve most appropriately for his ends.

"'Hey, Grand Master Satele. How do you feel about meeting the girl your son's dating? How's next weekend over dinner sound? Or would you rather us stop by the Jedi Temple on Tython? Either way's fine with us.'"

His wry hypothetical had simply been enough, prompting Jace to shake his head in rumbling laughter. "All right, all right."

Sitting himself back upright, Theron took his fork into hand again, beaming in his own amusement. "Yeah... Just for bringing that up, you're not meeting her ever."

"Well, if there's ever going to be a wedding, you're inviting your old man, right?"

The very mention of the idea, no matter how offhanded, brought Theron to a complete halt. His silverware clinked against his plate loudly as he let it drop from his grasp once again. Blinking, he turned a most dubious look to his father. "Whoa, okay—"

"—I'm just kidding," Jace laughed, holding his hand out to ease him. "Damn...you and your mom both—never could take a joke."

"Nah, I think it's just you who's got some shitty humor," he quipped sardonically.

"Hey, you get one of those," Jace mumbled over his plate. "You little smart-ass..."

"Yeah, you think I'm bad?" Theron challenged with a smug little grin. "Her shots all go for the 'nads. Exactly why...you're not meeting her. Ever."

###

"You've been quiet all night. The hell's wrong with you?"

Broken from his pensive daze, Theron blinked and furrowed his brow in mild annoyance. "What?" With his retort came a dulled glance as he turned to Balkar, seated beside him. "You've been yakking all night, not like I could even get a word in edgewise," he quipped.

Turning his sights back across the busy bustle of the commons, Balkar brought his drink to his lips for another casual sip. "I think you just need more beer."

Theron wryly stared at the neatly grouped empty bottles on his friend's end of the table, quite the marked contrast to the single emptied one on his own side. "Still working on this one. No thanks," he droned sarcastically, giving the current bottle in his hand a little shake.

"Meh." Balkar's eyes then returned to scoping about the room.

There'd been groups and pairs of other hotel guests about, with only a sparse few lone patrons to be spotted among the crowds. While many had been seated at their tables taking their meals, most patrons came down to the commons at this hour primarily to socialize or drink, not unlike the pair of agents who'd been parked at the very center of the hall's clamor.

"So, you see any?" Balkar inquired with curious enthusiasm, continuing from the seemingly one-sided conversation he'd been carrying with his companion.

Unsurprisingly, the agent appeared oblivious to Theron's complete absence of mind, having been far too adrift in his own thoughts to devote much to anything beyond them. "See what?" he asked with mild disinterest, mindlessly fiddling his fingers over the glass of his bottled drink.

Balkar's expression dropped as he turned to him. "Were you not listening to a word I've said just now?"

He gave an insipid few blinks to further vex his friend for his own amusement. A small and well-intentioned act of retribution for all the times he'd done the very same to him. "Seems pretty obvious I wasn't."

On any ordinary day, Balkar would have addressed his friend's clearly distracted frame of mind. He may well have inquired of and discussed it, as any invested friend would. But as with many occasions, the agent had indulged himself quite generously in drink at this hour of the evening already, and had been all too blithely oblivious to Theron's unusually taciturn mood.

His droll glance had not shifted in the least through the passing silent seconds. "I don't remember a single time when you were ever this bored talking about women."

All Balkar received in response was a dry shrug, to which he scoffed with a shake of the head. His eyes then stopped on a group of attractive young women lounging at another far corner of the room. He grinned, spotting the little cocktails dotting their table and the carefree laughter they appeared to share. "What about those girls there?" he asked with a nod in their direction.

"Sure," Theron inattentively droned once again.

"You didn't even look."

Growing sullen by Balkar's incessant badgering, he furrowed his brows again in a frown. "Whatever, fine," he sighed. "Not interested."

Bewildered beyond what his slightly inebriated reasoning could comprehend, Balkar gave him a puzzled look of disbelief. "'Not interested'...?"

Theron turned a very sobering, deadpan glance to his friend. Before his better judgment could stop the words from being voiced, he found himself abruptly tossing them forth in impulse, no longer caring to be bothered by this conversation any longer. "I've got a girlfriend, okay?"

The loud clap of glass against wood followed as Balkar slammed the butt of his drink down against the tabletop. He gave his own unwitting gesture no mind, having done so only half-consciously with little grasp of his own heavy-handedness in the height of his buzzed stupor.

"Wait. The fuck, Shan?" he babbled suddenly after the delayed realization finally came upon his senses. Incredulous at this unprompted revelation, he turned an expectant look to his friend. "Girlfriend? When? Why the hell am I hearing about this just now?"

"'Cause I don't make a point of telling you assholes everything about my personal life." Theron thinned his lips in exasperation, regretting only too late at having mentioned this at all. He mentally braced himself for the slew of questions to come, all too aware that he'd effectively ended the displeasure of enduring one undesired conversation for another, potentially even less pleasant one.

Balkar's enthusiasm subsided amid the relatively lucid moment of his sudden pause. "Okay. Good point," he mused with a shrug, taking another generous sip. "So?"

"What?" Theron's glance narrowed cynically at his friend's blithe regard.

"Tell me about her. Who's your girl?" Balkar proceeded to pry without an ounce of shame. "She hot?"

"I'm not telling you shit about her."

"She's a Twi'lek, isn't she?"

"No."

"Really?" he paused in genuine surprise. "Hm. You always struck me as a Twi'lek-type."

"I'm not."

Theron's stone-faced glance had gone completely unnoticed by his friend as he continued to blissfully prattle on without any regard. "What about that one Twi'lek girl who pops up every now and then—"

"—Teff'ith?" Theron cut his chatter with a look of utter distaste. The very idea nearly gave him chills to even consider. "She's like a sister."

Having enough of Balkar's half-drunken ravings, he gave an irksome shake of the head as he rolled his eyes. "Okay, you need to cut this crap."

"Well, come on. You gotta give me something."

It'd become clear that Jonas Balkar would make good on his reputation and refuse to relent in his endeavor until his curiosities had been sufficiently satisfied. Though with the stubbornness to match that of the other agent's, Theron, too, resisted firmly in his uncompromising tenacity to remain private about his personal affairs. It would now seemingly boil down to a match of wills and persistence between two of the most proficient agents within the Republic SIS.

Balkar had been first to bend under the weight of the stubborn silence. Another tactic then, his wily thoughts quickly mused. The esteemed Agent Balkar was nothing if not adaptable.

"Okay, fine. Don't talk about her. We can...talk about other girls."

Upon catching a glimpse of the only other familiar face among the crowds, the striking mischief on his face became ever more highlighted in the vibrance of a most ingratiating grin.

"Hey, I've been meaning to ask..." he murmured, giving Theron's arm a small whack with a stroke of his hand. Once he'd drawn his attention, he nodded for him to glance where his own eyes had lain across the commons. "What do you think of Lana?"

Theron did not share in his friend's delighted amusement, now finding himself looking to the corner of the room he'd deliberately kept his eyes from steering toward over the entire duration of the evening.

"What about her?" he asked in a most impassive volume, quickly lowering his eyes back to his drink in his hands. Balkar's timing had always been impeccable, ironically quite unlike his own on far more occasions than he preferred to acknowledge.

Balkar shrugged, his curious eyes still watching the lone minister at her table across the commons. Her attentions appeared rather occupied by the screen of her datapad held in one hand, while she periodically tapped and swiped away at the device with the other.

"I always thought she's kind of hot," he murmured before another sip from his bottle.

"What—Lana...?" Theron nearly sputtered in his curt objection of the idea. Of course, his inner thoughts mused, not because he did not agree. But they'd now tread far too closely along the outermost bounds of his comfort. Even without realizing it, his friend had been disturbingly adept at floundering his way into matters most private—hardly a wonder given his own notorious talents.

"What, you wouldn't go for a girl like that?" he balked in disbelief.

Theron's throat grew arid, prompting him for another drink from his untouched bottle to quench his sudden thirst. "Not into blondes."

"Oh..." the other agent drawled with a telling smile.

"The fuck's that supposed to mean?"

"So your girl's not a blonde, huh? Okay. We're getting closer," Balkar declared with confidence.

Though he'd been only slightly relieved by his friend's misplaced sense of self-assurance, he'd been wiser than to inadvertently feed him anything more.

"I told you—not telling you. Jack. Shit." Although the emphasis in his words had been plain in its stark humor, he'd meant to prove that his dogged resistance would not be so quickly exhausted.

As one would expect, Jonas Balkar's own persistence would match Theron's in every measurable way. There'd been many aspects these two particular agents held in common, and their single-minded tenacity had been one among their many shared merits. Although, Theron couldn't be certain at this moment if Balkar had truly been this eager to know, or if he'd by now simply lost all trace of tact and sensibility.

"So what's your ideal girl look like?" Before allowing yet another short-tempered retort out of Theron, he preemptively countered his anticipated words with a quick afterthought. "We're not talking about your girl. What's your ideal girl?"

Just as the sharp remark formed at the tip of his tongue, Theron paused after considering his friend's ill-conceived musings. It'd have done him no good to persist against it, so he decided to humor him. He'd been half-drunk anyway. Theron figured that little of anything he tossed his way would be retained beyond the following morning if he didn't temper his consumption before the night's end.

In his calculated listlessness, Theron turned his gaze across the room to find Lana at the center of his line of sight. He took a sip of his drink before offering a nonchalant shrug.

"I don't know. Brunette?" he droned with only middling enthusiasm. He focused his sights to digest all that one's naked sight could glimpse. "Longer hair is nice."

"Okay. I can see that," Balkar hummed with a dazed grin, picturing this imaginary woman as her image had been painted for his mind to behold.

"Olive complexion. Maybe...light, hazel eyes," he mumbled, letting the glass bottle perch at the edge of his lips. "Or green's pretty too, I guess."

Balkar gave a nod with his brightened smirk. "Those exotic-looking girls. Yeah, I feel that."

While Theron continued to describe all the things that Lana Beniko was not, the focus of his gaze would not stray from its single fixed point. He'd done so well to keep his sights abroad and untethered thus far, but now that they'd been caught, the line had become tightly anchored and drawn.

As he spoke, his eyes observed how she'd been seated—one leg crossed over the other at the knees, in display of a most elegant confluence of utter refinement and casual repose. The attention of her own gaze focused only upon the small illuminated screen of her datapad held in one hand, while the fingers of the other tapped and swiped away in absentminded grace across its surface. He'd watched her do this enough to memorize every path and flourish of her hands' gestures, their signature felt within his own palms every time he recalled to them the very sensation of their delicate touch. A private memory for only his thoughts to revisit and reenvision as he desired.

The exquisite still-frame had then been abruptly disturbed upon the untimely and unwelcome intrusion of some passing stranger. Theron continued to watch with a now narrowed focus as the seeming gentleman hovered by her table, drawing her attention away by some presumed pleasantries and a most gracious smile. Lana appeared to return them with a sweet and polite one of her own.

What a nuisance—for some perfect stranger to disturb one's peace like so. But of course Lana would not rebuke the courtesies of another, no matter how cosmetic such kindnesses were. Theron then nearly smirked himself once he glimpsed her delighted little smile stiffen at its core following some exchange with this man. Oh, he knew when Lana's patience ran thin—when she'd come to rely solely on her natural graces to remain cordial. Not that she had been incapable of it, but she had never been one with a mind to offend. Surely, he would know.

Offering her a drink, huh...? Kiss my ass.

Theron hid his swelling grin behind another sip of his drink. How familiar the look of interest on this unwitting simpleton's face was. He simply couldn't help himself in the amusement of watching her innocent attempt to charm her way out of the man's undesired generosities. The unmistakable subtlety beneath Lana's propriety was something he'd now come to recognize as plainly as her gaze. Such nuances had always been a most perplexing puzzle for those around her to decipher. And it'd all become transcribed to such simplicity to Theron now, that he required little to no words to interpret any of it.

At the height of his indulgent amusement, her eyes unwittingly caught his in the moment they'd briefly darted away from her uninvited guest. Theron's smile tempered at this, and he watched as she appeared to offer some hasty excuse or other with a mild gesture of the hand and a shake of her head. Only shortly after the man had taken the other seat across from her, Lana had then risen from her own, collecting her belongings. He turned his scrutiny upon the man's countenance, reading from his disposition a most reserved but very clear disappointment. Though he appeared to smile anyway, offering a respectful nod in some form of understanding.

...Buddy, you're so full of shit.

"Whoo... Now, if that ain't a rejection..." Balkar's chuckling remark interrupted the prolonged silence that had passed, unnoticed by Theron's deeply occupied and equally overlooked attentions. He proceeded to indulge in another gulp of his drink as he reclined into the back of his chair.

A sudden dread chilled Theron's spine once Balkar had shown to have been watching this unfold as well. He stole a quick glance at his friend, only to realize upon glimpsing the broad, unapologetic grin worn on his face that he had certainly found a different form of amusement in all this. He turned his eyes forward to see Lana already in stride at a brisk pace across the room toward them. With her eyes casually lowered and her handbag in tow, she'd made every effort to appear as though she'd been moving with purpose. Once she neared their table, she glanced up at the two agents with a blissful smile of greeting before taking a seat across from them.

Setting her bag down in the chair beside her, she leaned in closer toward them. "Pretend you're both socializing with me," she jested in a hush.

"Pretend?" Balkar humored her, remarking as though it'd been an entirely redundant thing to ask of them.

With a gentle laugh, Lana settled into her seat, folding her hands over the table as she devoted her full attention to the two men.

"Looking pretty tonight. As usual," the livelier of the two agents greeted with a wholehearted smile and a quick wink.

"Why...thank you, Agent Balkar," Lana sang back in good humor. She paused to give the two a rather comical once-over, her keen eyes spotting their unkempt, untucked shirts, unbuttoned at the collars with their jackets carelessly thrown over the backs of their chairs. Her smile grew taut in amusement. "The both of you look rather fetching yourselves this evening."

Balkar then slowly leaned in close toward his friend's ear. "She thinks we're pretty, too."

Theron recoiled, both from his drunkenly loud whisper and the pungent fumes of alcohol on his breath. "Damn it, Balkar..." he grumbled, swatting his face away.

With a mischievous snicker, he turned back to Lana. Making some effort to recompose himself, he gathered what minimal attention he'd been able to maintain to properly address her. "So...? What took you? We've all been hanging around down here the whole night, and you come over to these two assholes only now to say 'hi'?"

While Lana held every intention of speaking to them in earnest, her thorough amusement of the comical spectacle that was Agent Jonas Balkar had effectively spawned a perpetual little grin that forced every effort within her to subdue.

"The both of you looked so content with one another, I couldn't bring myself to come and disturb such idyllic bliss," she teased with a tightened smile.

"What are you talking about?" Balkar drawled. "It's a freaking sausage-fest over here..."

As though watching a sleight of hand at play, the agent's expression abruptly shifted once the latent thought crossed his mind. He blinked, turning a renewed look of enthusiasm to her.

"Speaking of which—Shan's got a freaking girlfriend. Did you know this?" he eagerly asked, gesturing in excitement between her and Theron.

The merest pause halted Lana once the blissfully drunken agent had divulged this. It would seem, however, that the stillness beneath her subdued look of surprise had gone entirely unnoticed by him, despite the near-intrusive depth of his intrigue. She blinked, recalling a manner of wonder to her disposition, although she'd remained perceptibly lacking in all the gratuitous enthusiasm Theron observed in either his closest friend or his father.

"Oh," Lana mused. Her incisive eyes met with Theron's once she shifted her attention briefly towards him. "Does he, now?"

"Yeah. But this asshole won't say," Balkar wryly remarked, eyeing the other, uncharacteristically taciturn agent. Another sudden glow of mischief then illuminated his face as he leaned forward over the table.

"Hey, Lana. You can read people's minds, right? Sithy Force powers and all?" He furtively shifted his eyes between her and Theron. "Can you take a crack at his and tell me what you see?"

The Sith minister had been delicate in containing her tickling urge to grin, tightening her lips as she spoke. "I've never been able to read his thoughts."

Quite in spite of her thoroughly innocuous response, Theron's sights abruptly rose, following his attentions across the table toward her. He perked his brow in his discerning gaze. "I didn't know you've tried." Though he'd long figured as much of her, hearing her plain admittance of it was another thing entirely, and he'd now meant to give her some manner of well-intentioned grief for it.

Noting the surprise in his tone, Lana realized only too late what her own inadvertent admission entailed. She stiffened in her chair, assuming a playful air of nonchalance. Offering a perfectly innocent little smile, she shrugged.

"I'd...hardly known you at the time," she suggested in justification of herself. "I needed to know that the man I was to collaborate with would not subvert and deceive me..."

An obviously conceived cover of an excuse. One that would never have flown past Theron's better senses in even his greenest years. His wry look remained unchanged. If she was going to play this game, he wouldn't lose out in front of his own idiot friend, regardless of the blatant advantage of her unwitting charm and charisma in Balkar's eyes.

In the most graceless manner ever observed of her, Lana gave an uncharacteristic breath of a scoff. "Oh, don't pretend like you wouldn't have done the very same were you in my position. You'd have been foolish not to," she added in a poorly disguised fluster.

Oblivious to the unspoken nature beneath their exchange, Balkar failed to take any notice of the slightest smirk that crept along the corner of Theron's lips, or Lana's sudden, anxious flurry of batting lashes. After another sip from his bottle, he set it down with another unseemly clang.

"So, we've been seeing a lot more of you in our parts of the galaxy," he began along another wayward tangent. He then grinned upon a brimming afterthought. "Not that I'm complaining."

As ever, Lana responded in a warm pass of laughter at the agent's typical, unabashed flattery. It'd been all the same whether he was neck deep in his hard drinks or when he'd been perfectly sober.

"Well, as it seems—I'd been the best presumed candidate for an Imperial liaison here. I suppose there'd been none other they could find who would be a better fit to send to the Republic."

Balkar raised his bottle high toward her. "Total agreement here. Definitely not complaining."

"It was a bit of an amusing thing, really," she recalled to mind blithely. "I'd been told of their reasoning. Something along the lines of... 'Beniko is, ostensibly, the only one competent enough—and with the capacity for the patience—to lend the proper efficiency to any foreseeable collaboration with the lot of them.'" As she recited the words verbatim, the almost mocking, nonchalant manner of her candid tone added a gentle touch of humor to the plain statement.

"'And she seems likeable enough to the Pubs,'" she added in afterthought and smiled. "I don't know. Do you find me likeable?" she questioned in jest as if to test the presumptions of the very idea.

"I find you likeable," Balkar answered with a delighted shrug before turning to his grimly silent drinking companion with a look of pretended distaste. "I don't know about him. He never seems to perk up the way I do when you're around," he remarked in wry sarcasm. "But then again, he always looks all pissy, so can't say I really know..."

Theron silently craned his head, steering a dry, unamused glance his way in response.

Taking another casual sip of his beer, Balkar remained unfazed in the line of his wintry gaze. "See? He's doing it now. King of resting bitch face."

"'Resting bitch face'? Well, that sounds familiar," Lana hummed. "I believe I've been claimed to have one on occasion."

The minister had a peculiar, stately manner about her humor, completely free of the astringent sarcasm Balkar had been accustomed to with Theron. But her wit had been of the same sort, he'd come across enough times to observe. The effortless sophistication of even her most offhanded remarks had been an amusement in itself, and Balkar could hardly resist his passing spasms of laughter even when sober, let alone while dazed in half-drunken bliss.

"You?" he snorted, lingering on a lofty little grin. He blinked as his latent thoughts tinkered along within until his present mind appeared to fully process them. "Okay, yeah. When you're like...just sitting alone and really focused on...I don't know, your datapad or something. You kinda do."

The agent's harmless tease won a lively song of laughter from her. Turning to the only one yet to have spoken a word of greeting since her arrival, Lana smiled with a most welcoming patience.

"So? Agent Shan?" she addressed him in a lowered hum of a voice. "Do you find me likeable?"

Theron's sights reserved a brief moment to evaluate her once their eyes met again. She'd goad him into playing along with this little game, it would seem. Although rather muted as soon as she regarded him, her quaint little smile had been more revealing to him than any other. She would press and dare him with her unspoken cues, but he would remain the immovable stonewaller, committing to his lackadaisical ruse for as long as this would go on. Biding a moment for himself to consider his response, he took another sip of his beer.

He set the drink back down as he reclined back into his chair, finally offering a sparse shrug. "One of the biggest pains in the ass I've ever had to deal with, that's for sure," he droned, letting his eyes glaze over the glass of the bottle while he idly rotated it between his fingers. Only when he turned his gaze forward again did he return the same, hidden smile. "But I think I'm leaning more towards 'like' than not."

Lana only responded with a sound of a thoughtful hum. "That's as much of a compliment as I'll ever receive from him, isn't it?"

"I'd run with it," Balkar nodded with a wink of an eye. "So. You...seemed to be hard at work all alone in your little corner there."

"Ah, yes. Many matters about the galaxy," she sighed, her smile dimming as she cast her eyes down towards her fingers stirring within their own grasp. "All about...throughout the Empire, in particular."

Just as soon as the matter had been brought up, Theron noted the sudden, dulling weariness beneath her warm demeanor. His fingers halted, unconsciously tightening around the glass bottle between them.

"Many, many issues to address within our borders... I have been fortunate to have an aide such as Bensyn to assist in handling affairs Imperial-side. He has been performing spectacularly." Lana's words came with a sobering breeze, carrying with it the seeds of her deepest contemplation. Upon realizing the radical shift in her disposition, she released a breath to ward away the heavy thoughts, masking them with a quiet, relieving laugh.

"And, of course...we wouldn't have been able to accomplish half as much as we have without the aid and support of our allies," she noted expressly, regarding her Republic counterpart with an especially sincere smile.

The shared glances between them had once again been passed over completely by the unwitting third agent, interrupted entirely once Balkar threw his arm around Theron's shoulder with a jovial smirk. The blissful agent zealously tugged his friend in closer toward himself. "Yeah, we're pretty awesome, aren't we?"

In light of Balkar's carefree ignorance, Theron brushed off his tactless antics this time. "We're all here to do what needs to be done, right?" he reminded for all at their private little table to hear. "Fallout from a war...it's everyone's problem in the end."

"One I am confident we shall all find a way to resolve," Lana quaintly offered her affirmation of his sentiments.

"Leading by example," Balkar added in his drunken mirth. He nodded, assuming an air of thoughtful esteem. "It's what we do," the agent proudly declared, raising his bottle in a small salute across the table. "And I'd like to think we're doing a pretty fucking good job."

Lana's stilled smile guarded her present thoughts—that the agent may well have been farther gone in his drink than any of them had initially figured. "Well. There is still much ground yet to cover, Agent Balkar. But I admire your candor," she laughed. Better to be witness to his fervor than otherwise, even if slightly inflated by the influence of his drink.

As though the passing thought had just crossed her mind, Lana suddenly blinked and shook her head. "Before I forget, Agent Shan. I wanted to ask," she addressed him offhandedly. "I'd been perusing the newly forwarded documents I'd just received. It's...it's quite a substantial amount to go through. I was wondering..."

She directed her eyes away again, smiling to herself demurely before politely inquiring him of her favor. "Would you have a moment later this evening to stop by my room and assist in sorting through them? An extra set of diligent eyes is always convenient," she commented with a blithe air of laughter, "and yours, in particular, are always most helpful."

Moments like these passed between them too many times to number. The unspoken exchange in the shadow of the spoken words—recurring in different iterations, but all the same in its context each time. There was no visible cue to be seen other than the merest subtleties in her lips, in her eyes, in her fair countenance. And he, too, remained just as immaculate in appearance, untelling in his every returning gaze and gesture. The moment passed with a mere flicker before he shifted his eyes away, offering a bare, obligatory nod.

"Yeah. Sure," Theron answered simply. He then turned to the other agent with a rather dry little smirk. "Sorry, Balkar. This might be my last one, then. Won't be too helpful to her all shit-faced."

Lana supplemented his droll apology with an earnest smile of her own. "I apologize, Agent Balkar, for stealing your drinking cohort away from you tonight."

"You can have him. Been killing my buzz all night," he scoffed, waving his hand inanely in dismissal. "See, if I hadn't already gotten myself a little crapped up, I'd totally offer to help, too. So...I mean if anyone's apologizing, it should be me."

Although his own closest friend remained utterly unfazed by his rambling absurdities, it would appear that the unwitting charm of his humor had still been infallible at drawing the Sith minister's laughter, complemented delightfully by the refreshing light of her mirth.

"You know, Lana—anyone ever tell you you've got a really pretty smile?"

His unabashed compliments, too, never failed to stir her most brightened amusement. And just as well, they'd only served to further draw the other agent's familiar gaze of unadulterated exasperation.

"I mean it. You really—"

"—Why, thank you very much for such a kind thing to say, Agent Balkar." Lana asserted her swift sentiments with such gratuitous zeal, the words had effectively halted his barely-conceived thoughts before they'd escaped his unfiltered lips.

"Now, if you don't mind... I must be preparing to head back to my room soon. Work, as usual, awaits."

"Oh, yeah. I, uh—I gotta go take a leak myself, actually."

"TMI, Balkar," Theron droned in total absence of any surprise or expectation before taking another sip of his drink. "Got a lady here."

"It's fine. It's just Lana," he snorted, languidly waving off his snide reprimand. Rising from his chair, he then hobbled off in search of the nearest refresher.

In her silent amusement, Lana turned her attention to her remaining companion. Hardly able to contain herself, she pressed her lips together in a thin, revealing smile.

Theron gave only a shake of the head as he rolled his eyes, watching Balkar disappear from sight into the crowds. "Sorry about that."

"You're always so inclined to apologize for the misbehavior of your fellow agents, Theron. In this case, it's quite unnecessary, I assure you."

As asinine as Balkar often grew to be after enough drinks, Lana had never taken any offense to his indecorous remarks. Unfiltered as they were, she still found his beaming, unhindered behavior to be rather amusing to engage.

"Yeah, looks like you've learned how to handle his drunk ass pretty well now, too," Theron mused, smiling to himself fondly as his idling hands trailed over his bottled drink.

His eyes didn't stir again from where they'd lain, cast indistinctly against the grains of the table's surface. It'd only been the barest sensation brushing along the tips of his fingers that had been enough to draw his gaze back toward them, looking to see Lana's own reaching and taking hold. Such a small gesture it'd been.

The kindling embers first impelled his fingers in only the faintest traces of life. Its encompassing warmth most gentle in its coaxing until it'd lured them to loosen from the numbingly chilled glass. Until they responded, set alight by the glowing fires beginning to rouse their movements. Until the flames singed his very hand, marking them with her brand, her signature. And the fires would not be quelled until they engulfed him. Such was the very sensation he'd always felt by her barest touch. And this had been but a sample of it.

"...So you'll come by later tonight?" she inquired again in a whisper of a breath, only daring to ask once she'd felt his generous return—when he'd requited her gesture, entwining his fingers with her own by his most exquisite graces.

How he'd kneaded and caressed her hand had been enough of an answer for her. She watched as a playful, muted smile tinted his countenance while he traced his thumb along the contours of her knuckles. He'd appeared entirely fixated by the tactile sensation, until he regarded her at last with a silent nod.

"I said I would, didn't I?" His elusive smile seemed almost designed to disguise a most clandestine secret.

A curious mind by nature—how she loved unearthing secrets. His had been the most rewarding of them all to uncover, and she'd held the most impeccable methods by which to coax them from him. Ones that need not at all require any services the Force could offer.

Knowing her time for departure had come, he watched as she rose from her chair. Drawn by the faintest lead felt in the gentle, almost imperceivable pressure from his grasp, she eased her motions. She smiled knowingly at the all too familiar yearning of his touch. This small gesture would not suffice for him this time, it would seem. Of course not. When had it ever been enough? But she could not stay. There would be time to temper their longing if he would only spare a bit more of his patience.

Theron's patience. That may as well have been the most comical of contradictions she'd have ever conceived.

Lana drifted along by near-tantalizing measures, only releasing her hand from his grasp once it'd slipped far enough away as she turned to go, leaving him with a lingering, departing glance—a simplest intimation of what had still been yet to come.

'Patience...' Theron swore her lips silently whispered. And within the following seconds, she'd disappeared down the adjoining corridor into the moving populace. He'd never fared too ably in the wake of their departures, it seemed, no matter how fleeting the passing time in between each one had been.

###

Theron doesn't like things, Lana knows. He may not say it, he may not show or admit it, but Theron is a bit of a sentimental man. This is something she has only begun to learn. He likes experiences. He likes to know and to feel things—figuratively or otherwise.

At first, she supposes that makes him all the easier to treat, but upon her deep and long contemplation, she only worries more and more. A gifted item can only be wrong or right in the instance it is bestowed. An experience lasts and endures and is not easily forgotten—wrong or right. So Lana worries if she will be good company. She worries if she will say the right thing, worries if Theron would come to realize she is even more so not at all as he imagined. She worries she will disappoint him.

It is almost laughable to pine over such thoughts, she tries to remind herself, knowing that Theron has spent far more time around her than her memory presently acknowledges—long enough to know what to expect. There wouldn't be any surprises. There would only be more, newly shared experiences. Lana has enjoyed them all so far. Even the bad ones, in retrospect. There is no reason that Theron wouldn't either, she hopes.

Such were the constant, relentless streams of thought coursing through Lana's mind on that night. The first night of its kind. How she'd minded her appearance, never quite satisfied with any of her choices. Ironic, she'd mused. She'd never been one to be so indecisive. She'd never been one to concern herself with how others perceived her. Not for some time now, at least. Why, then—of all people—should such apprehension stir within the depths of her being at the merest thought of him? Theron wouldn't care about such trivial things. Yet still, Lana was concerned that he may. She would show him something he'd yet to have seen. She would surprise him. She would impress him.

'Impress' him?

Lana smiled at her own reflection in the mirror, lifted by the humor of her excessive thoughts. With her frivolous concerns sufficiently quelled by the dawning reminder of what had been the purpose of that night at all, she'd at last been contented enough to settle on her choices then.

Even when Lana had made certain not to be late for this appointment, she hadn't been at all surprised to find that Theron had been first to arrive anyway. He was peculiar about his punctuality, as she'd heard often enough from the Director of SIS himself. Simply put, Theron Shan only invested effort in being timely if and when he cared to. Judging by the preliminary items already served to the table he'd reserved, she figured he had likely been sitting in wait longer than simply a few minutes' time. Smiling to herself, she discreetly proceeded through the doors of the restaurant to meet him.

"...Drinking already, I see. Before I've even arrived?" she quipped upon her stately arrival, catching her dining companion completely unaware.

Lana's sudden voice brought Theron's attention snapping from where it'd focused intently at the front entrance. Her whimsical gaze turned from its brief glimpse of the darkly tinted, uncorked bottle set before him, nearly laughing to see the start she'd seemingly given him by just a mere greeting. Though she'd been entirely unaware that his surprise had come only partially from her unexpected arrival.

Theron blinked to dispel his spellbound sights, having lingered just a touch longer than he'd intended once they'd been drawn to her. He disguised his momentary, staggering lapse of composure with a reticent smile. "I had my eyes on those doors the entire time," he regarded her warily. "I didn't see you come in."

"Careful, Agent Shan. It wouldn't do for your skills to slip, now. I am still very much in need of your services," Lana responded with a tease of a smile. "Or... I presume it may just be because you've been expecting a Sith Lord to walk through those doors," she mused, gleaming with her clear intent to bait him, "and not a smartly dressed lady guest with whom you've agreed to share this dinner."

How immaculate she'd appeared that night. Lana Beniko was ever the woman of such fair complexion—light hair, light eyes, light skin—now more so exemplified by her meticulous choice of color that evening. A simple sheath dress of white, revealed only after she'd swiftly slipped from her shoulders the matching wool coat of cream adorned over it. And to top her ensemble—an unassuming cloche of caramel, worn stylishly tilted over her impeccably brushed hair, pulled and clipped into rolling tresses behind her left ear.

Every manner of her appearance had been so tactfully modest. So demure, so unostentatious. All, that was, save for her lips painted red. A bold color. The color of daring, the color of passion. Theron's favorite. He'd have pondered how deliberate her choices may or may not have been, appearing as she had that evening, if not for such an intentional color reserved so exclusively for her lips.

He watched with lulling patience as her fingers tended to her coat's closures. How she'd then delicately folded and draped the garment over the back of her chair. She regarded him with a twinkling glance, tilting her hat with a dapper flair before she slipped it from her head and set it down along the edge of their table. Theron had now risen to his feet to meet her, unable to peel away his drawn sight since her arrival.

Drawn by a distinct detail spotted among his own chosen attire, Lana peered down from his eyes at the unfamiliar accessory he'd chosen to don this particular evening.

"I don't think I've ever seen you in a tie," she mused aloud. "Seems almost...peculiar to even imagine."

Reaching forward, she took the liberty of adjusting its knot at his collar—an excuse for her fingers to sample its finely woven threads of silk. Textile as fine as this was a thing she'd rarely, if ever, recalled of any garment worn by Theron. Though Theron Shan was, of course, a man of simplicity, all but telling in the undecorated wefts of his tie's deep, muted grey.

"But now that I see it...I suppose it is rather becoming," she smiled curiously in her tentative approval.

Theron's own trailing gaze traced every present detail to be glimpsed within his immediate sight until they'd settled upon the brilliance of her countenance. How she peered at him from beneath her lashes. Her exalted smile, holding his gaze suspended by its gracious lure. And her lips—such a color to behold.

"And look at you. All dolled up just for me...?" he grinned, brushing his hand across her face to catch the curled ends of her fastened locks between his fingers in a playful fondle.

Her smile tightened at his faint tease. "Only because you did," she quipped, an elusive nod in return toward his own comely, debonair presence.

Reading the familiar smolder of eagerness in his eyes, she raised her daring gaze when he stirred closer, drifting to close the tauntingly inconsiderable distance between them. She'd been entirely prepared to receive his kiss, only to find herself thoroughly feinted once her lips grazed not his own, but the bare skin of his face instead. He'd eluded her completely, leaving her blanched in her sudden and rather comically awkward discomposure.

"Yeah, you got me." He'd knowingly turned away to whisper his offhanded tease to her ear. "Probably why I didn't notice you slip in."

Theron's intentions had not escaped her wits in the slightest. It would appear as if he'd be the one to initiate the game this time. Not only would she boldly accept his challenge, but she resolved to best him. His utterly transparent play at coyness—how clever he must have imagined his goading smile to have been. A fitting composite to the bland look of wry disaffection she'd worn especially for him.

"You have lipstick on your face," Lana sullenly remarked, factually noting her plain observation of the vibrant imprint of red left smudged along his cheek.

How gratifying it'd felt, when she witnessed his mischievous little smile sink entirely. It'd been upon seeing him grimace in his passing confusion that the stubbornly withheld laughter, at last, escaped her breath. Lana shook her head and reached for the folded napkin lain on her end of the table. Unfurling it, she dabbed one of its corners into the glass of water set beside it before proceeding to wipe the color from his face.

She smiled soundly to herself as she patted the dampened cloth against his skin. When it appeared that the color would not be cleanly lifted so easily, she pressed her lips together at the nuisance of the simple, trying task, attempting to swab at the smear with a firmer touch.

"People are going to think I abuse you..." she mumbled in droll humor, seeing that the smudge still remained, now dubiously appearing quite like the unmistakable rosy blemish left behind by a good, heavy-handed slap.

"Not like it'd be too far off character, I'd say," Theron quipped, perking his brows suggestively. Catching her wry glance as she paused, he grinned. "I mean, I've gotten the crap beat out of me before—split lip, black eye, and everything 'cause of you."

Though spoken in good humor, his jest had only brought with it the regrettable memories of the debacle they'd become entangled in against the Revanites on Rishi. As much forgiveness as Theron had assured her of since then, she'd taken no delight in being reminded again of her grievous faults against him. No matter how much time had distanced the memory from her mind, Lana would never quite be relieved of the lingering guilt that still weighed deeply, buried in the bed of her heart.

He'd first felt her tentative hand ease the cloth away from his face before glimpsing the eclipsed light of her waning disposition. Immediately, he responded to ward away the shadow of her melancholy. He would not have it of her. Not tonight.

Theron's gesture had come in only a playful flicker of a moment. The spontaneous, innocent little peck he'd given to her parted lips left her eyes in a sudden flutter of surprise, and he gently smiled. "That said...I think I can take a little lipstick to the face." He remained unstirring until he'd been assured of her lifted spirits when she finally allowed herself a merest glimmer of a returning smile.

"Come on," he urged with a nod, stepping around to take her chair. Tapping its back, he cued for her to come and take her seat.

It'd been only once she'd sat down at the table that her eyes noted the distinct, deep hue of the drink already poured into the delicate glass set on Theron's side of the table.

"Red..."

In his quiet amusement, he raised his forefinger in a bid for her to stay her thoughts before bending over to reach for something at the foot of his chair. Stowed away in the carrying bag beside him, Theron pulled out another exquisitely branded bottle—full and unopened. He set it onto the table with the rather illustrious grin of his beaming satisfaction and nudged it towards her.

Lana's eyes perused the label of this bottle, quickly recognizing it to be a fairly extravagant brand of white wine. Her breath halted, leaving her lips parted in a quiet and rather charmed astonishment. "Oh. You've...come prepared, I see."

"Looked for the sweetest one I could find. Probably enough to make me sick to my stomach. All yours, Beniko."

A gentle air of laughter escaped her breath once she'd found it again. Her eyes found his when they glanced up from the bottle's label. Beneath their gracious regard, there'd been a layer of genuine appreciation for his thoughtful gesture, far sweeter in its sentiments than she imagined the wine would ever be.

Theron held his menu open in his hands, already flipping through the pages to browse the selection. "Top of the checklist. You only mentioned this like ten times," he murmured in droll dismissal.

"Two," Lana sang, returning with the same casual wit to match his as she peered through the list of options from her own.

"...Tightwad."

His offhanded tease in all its infantile caprice immediately halted her focus. He only deigned to peer from his menu at the cue of her hanging silence. It'd been the endearing chagrin of her glower that roused him to persist in his relentless mischief.

"Hey. I know the kind of trouble guys get into for forgetting this kind of stuff."

Lana's dubious gaze had not shifted in the least. "Speaking from well-learned experience, I imagine?"

Pressing his lips together thinly, he responded by reaching across the table to slide the unopened bottle he'd set down even closer toward her. "Drink your wine."

Brightened by the humor of his gesture, Lana laughed. "I'm not expected to finish it all, am I?"

"Hell no. Did you read the label? This ain't the cheap stuff, Beniko." He gestured at the bottle with pointed emphasis. "I bought it. And as sick as it's probably going to make me feel, I get as many dibs as I want."

"I was not aware the gifts you give all came conditionally. Although..." Suddenly reminded of their conversation the day she'd received his last gift, Lana tugged down the high neck of her dress to pull out the very item in question. She gracefully lowered her delicate gaze, fondly fiddling with the cluster of purple mottled flowers between her fingers. "...I suppose there is a precedent for it."

"Good. You're finally getting my angle on things."

His playful smirk had hidden deftly the gratifying affection in his heart to see that she'd taken to the minor trinket so. It'd been a thing of hardly any notion, really, and he'd never imagined she would do much with it. But seeing it worn by her had delighted him dearly. Such a simple, forgettable little thing. How he adored her reverence of something so unremarkably ordinary. Perhaps that had been the novelty of it—the plain purity of her unadulterated sentiments.

Lana narrowed her eyes across the table, sharpening her knowing smile to such a fine edge. "Oh, I'm quite well-versed with it now."

...So Lana claims.

When it appears, now, that she no longer feels so apprehensive as she was at the start of this evening, she soon drifts into silence in the moments following. It slowly descends on them like a sinking curtain of fog. They read their menus in silence, they consider their choices without any discussion or conference, and once their decisions are settled, they promptly place their orders the next time a server passes by their table. Theron speaks his choices first, and Lana answers after. And just as the server prepares to go fulfill their orders, Theron then asks for yet another dish, a simple appetizer plate decided as an afterthought. He smiles across the table invitingly when the server departs, figuring it is something they may share as they wait for their entrees, but Lana only returns a passing glimpse of her own before lowering her eyes.

Her eyes wander to find her folded hands rested on her lap. It's as though she forgets how to best fill the void in the air between them. The next moment she takes to glance back across the table, she determines to say something—anything—only to see Theron's attention already intently adrift elsewhere across the room, and her reticence overcomes her again. She doesn't have the heart to disturb him, despite being desperate for conversation. For a distraction.

Instead, Lana tightens her lips, suddenly self-conscious of speaking imprudently. In a bid to regain inward composure, she delicately releases a long-withheld breath, vainly willing away the daunting restlessness from her being. Since she cannot bring herself to cross the threshold between them, she inclines herself to instead mirror what he does. Perhaps she may, at the very least, affect the seeming quietude that appears to come so naturally to him. Or so she hopes.

Lana lets herself recline into repose. Elbow set against the edge of the table. Face gingerly propped into the back of her idle hand. One leg crossed over the other at the knee. And as her thoughts finally begin to drift into quiet oblivion, becoming yet another instrument composing the background noise, her leisured gaze, too, follows along in the ongoing symphony. The movement reaches such a hushed adagio that she doesn't even notice the bustling footfalls of the returning server bearing their dinner's first course.

"—Over here's good."

In Theron's hasty attempt to assist the server clear their table space, the back of his hand had unwittingly tipped one of the several glasses standing about. Alerted just a hair too late by the clink of the toppled glass, Lana jolted in a gasp at the sudden disruption.

"Oh, shit—!" Theron muttered, darting his hand forward to pick up the glass as he helplessly watched the stream of red seeping across the cloth surface, trickling over the far end of the table.

Immediately pulling her arm away from the edge as she snapped back upright, Lana had already felt the chill of the red liquid bleeding through the skirt of her dress.

"Fuck. Lana, I'm so sorry," he cursed at himself beneath his breath, quickly rising from his chair as he fetched his clean napkin.

"Oh, dear." Quickly setting down the plate of appetizers, the elderly server retrieved a towel from his apron, proceeding to soak the excess wine from the tablecloth. "Are you all right, there?" he asked politely as he hastened to dry the area of its stained surface.

Lana paused and finally released a breath of a laugh in spite of the mess on their hands. "No, it's—it's fine. I'm fine."

"Fucking idiot..." Theron continued to berate himself as he tossed his cloth napkin into her lap to soak the wine from her dress.

"I'll find some more towels for you folks. Goodness, I'm so sorry," the server graciously apologized.

"No, you're totally fine," Theron assured the kindly old man, "that was all stupid me." Turning a deeply apologetic look to Lana, he scrambled to tend to the stain in her lap. "Sorry," he breathed again aloud to her.

In the desperation of his lament, the comforts of Lana's sweet smile had gone completely unnoticed. "Theron, it's fine."

"Here, why don't we get you seated at a new table? Let us take care of this," the server offered.

With his flailing mind gone completely absent, Theron had barely registered any words that crossed his earshot. "Uh..."

"No, that won't be necessary," Lana looked to the man, graciously shaking her head, "but some extra towels will do, thank you."

With a polite nod, the man then hurried away.

Still fixated on the task of cleaning her dress, Theron's breaths began to deepen at the core of his swelling frustration. "Such a freaking idiot..."

In hopes of quelling his unnecessarily fretful solicitude, Lana gently addressed him. "Theron—"

"—I'm so fucking sorry, Lana."

"Theron..."

"I wasn't—"

"Theron."

Her voice, quiet but firm, beckoned him once more as she placed her hand over his to halt him. Once she'd drawn his attention back, she graced him with all the affection she could bear in a single endearing smile. With the faintest touch, she eased his fingers from the now soiled cloth napkin.

"It's all right," she whispered in all her tender patience. She then slipped the cloth away from his hand and set it aside back on the table.

Brushing her fingertips in the slightest tickle over the trace of color still smeared on his skin, she beamed at the befitting humor of it all.

"A bit of red for your face... A bit of red for my dress..." Lana hummed in a quaint sound of laughter. "Don't we match so well, now?"

As she drew his hand from her lap, she clasped her own slender fingers around his with a gentle press. "Go sit down," she urged him, nodding across the table back toward his vacant seat. "Unless you prefer our first dish of the evening to get cold."

If it hadn't been for Lana's affectionate prompt and calming touch, Theron may well have forgotten their plate still awaiting them entirely. Even so, it had only been when he'd dared to glimpse into her eyes again to see for himself the sincerity of her forgiving endearments, when the racing pace of his heart at last began to settle. Following soon enough, the course of his mind's tumult calmed with it, and in his regaining coherence, he found the confidence within to smile once again for her.

Theron reached his palm forward, cupping the side of her neck to draw her close for a firmly placed kiss on the brow. "I'm so sorry for ruining your dress."

"Dresses can be cleaned, you silly thing. No need to agonize."

"I'll get you a new one. I promise," he insisted in partial jest as he rose to his feet.

As Lana minded herself with reordering the chaotic clutter of her end of the table, she casually dismissed the notion of it entirely. "I have plenty others."

"A purple one."

The plain words of his simple promise drew her to a pause. Just as she peered across the table in her dawning amusement, her eyes, as they often did in these silent interludes, perfectly coincided with his own. There'd been no adequate response Lana could conceive. Once their mutual silence endured enough seconds, she lowered her gaze, the corners of her colored lips stirring as she bore a mere hint of delighted modesty upon her unassuming countenance.

To occupy the unwelcome stillness, she swiftly reached for the dish still awaiting them along the table's edge, sliding it towards the center between them.

"I believe this was your item of choice," she commented in a leisured tone as she plucked her silverware from its place setting. "After you, Agent Shan."

Of course, it had taken an upheaval to dispel the surmounting discomfort of silence that had overtaken them. It would seem that only in the presence of such hapless calamities had they ever been coaxed closer in step toward one another. Little by little, the words had come, streaming back in their natural running flow from the course of their most listless, unextravagant thoughts. It'd been such modes that summoned back to the private realm of this modest little table all the sounds of the teasing and the laughter. All the most forgettable words within the conversations of utter unimportance. There'd been a sense of comfort to be had in the habitual routines of the plain and regular. Although truly, such familiarity had been anything but plain for ones of their likes. Like the rarest, most prized jewels known of the universe, such moments—such experiences—had been precious treasures to be collected and cherished.

Theron was a man who liked experiences. So, too, had Lana found in them the very same pleasures to be had. And between them—ones to be shared.

Upon the close of their well-entertained dinner, Theron had promptly excused himself from the table, leaving Lana to dally until he returned. Sitting soundly as she awaited him, her fingertips idly traced the narrow rim of her stemmed drinking glass. She mused over the trace of pale liquid collected at its bottom, a hue just a tint lighter than that of the studious pair of eyes that now beheld it.

How right Theron was. The wine had most certainly been delirious in its sweetness. And as it would seem, the taste he'd sampled from her portion was more than enough to satisfy his curiosity of its flavor. Her glass had been the only amount poured from the whole of the bottle. She replaced its cork, figuring that it'd be as much as they would consume for the remainder of that evening.

Fetching her coat from the back of her chair, Lana slipped it on over her shoulders. Her eyes looked down to tend to its closures, only to catch the offending sight of the deep red stain on the skirt of her dress, almost forgotten entirely by this part of the evening. For fear of transferring traces of it elsewhere, she then opted instead to leave her coat's closures undone. With a droll smile, she sighed as she reached for her cloche hat at the corner of the table. To think such careless hands had been the very same she herself had witnessed execute with such precision, all the unimaginable tasks and undertakings the most masterfully complex modes of slicing demanded.

Reminded of the very man in question, Lana peered about to see if there'd been any glimpse of Theron returning yet. With her sights abroad, the sudden clinking of dishware and utensils immediately drew her attention back in a start. She whirled around to see a youthful busboy tending to the remaining items on their table.

"Sorry," he smiled sheepishly and continued his task with greater diligence.

Lana released a breath of laughter, shaking her head in dismissal. How silly she'd felt. The sound of blaster fire never gave her quite such a jolt. Her eyes scanned the expanse of the room once more to find Theron still nowhere in sight.

Continuing to idle away her time, she watched as the young man cleared the rest of the table, her empty glass of the white being the last of the items to be collected. Once again, her thoughts recounted, Theron had been so generous as to lavish her with such a gift, when she had none in return for him.

No, her conscience sounded. That would not do at all.

Just as the busboy turned to leave with his filled tray of soiled dishware, Lana called after him. "Excuse me—just a moment."

As the youth lingered at her request, she began fishing through her purse. "If you would be so kind, could you please see that our bill is taken care of as well?" she asked graciously, handing him her charge card once she'd retrieved it.

"Uh, sure..." In spite of the bright-eyed youth's eagerness to be of help, he gave a fretful pause as he peered between the card she presented him and his own full hands, both occupied with carrying the dishware bound for the kitchens.

"Hmm," he mused as he wracked his brain for a solution to avoid an extra trip for himself. "Oh, here," he sang, turning his hip toward her, "in the apron pocket."

Delighted by the youth's friendly spirits, Lana smiled as she tucked the card where he'd indicated. "Thank you."

"Not a problem, Miss. I'll be right back."

As he'd promised, the young man briskly returned with her card and confirmation of payment, which had come, to her relief, well before she'd spotted any sign of Theron returning yet. Before allowing him to resume his duties, she'd then left him with a kind word of gratitude and an offer of a modest tip, an additional amount over the gratuity she'd provided upon payment for the meal. He was a kind young lad who performed his job with diligence and care. No work was so negligible or undeserving of rightful praise and recognition. Even among the laborers of the most humble classes Lana had known, there was not one she did not yield any effort to properly thank when it'd been due.

Lana retrieved the carrying bag from the foot of Theron's vacant seat. Before returning the bottle of wine to it, she turned it about in her hand to satisfy her own observant curiosities. Other than the obvious value of the drink by the rustic make of its label, she was not familiar with this particular brand. Not that she'd held any professed expertise in wines.

"Most people associate Corellia with its whiskeys..."

So absorbed she'd become in examining the wine bottle, Lana had failed to notice Theron inconspicuously ambling back upon his return. Her gaze shot forward from the bottle's label once she'd been alerted by his unexpected voice. It would seem that he'd now effectively repaid her for the start she'd given him earlier in the evening. And as it would now appear to be more evidently so, Theron's punctuality truly had been, at best, contingent on the pure spontaneity of his whims.

He grinned to see her baffled expression, quite decided in his own presumptions of what certain curiosities she must have harbored that very moment. Although he'd gained much proficiency in his ability to read her, by no means had Lana ever shown herself to be predictable.

Theron nodded at the bottle still held in her hands as he came to her.

"...But its wines are apparently just as much a commodity as the hard stuff." He flashed a clever little smile as he shared this bit of trivia he'd been certain she was not aware of.

Lana shifted her eyes evasively as she slipped the bottle back into its carrying bag. "I was beginning to think I'd been abandoned," she hummed in pretended nonchalance, placing her hat back over her head with a gingerly flourish of the hand. "Considering such a blunder of a night it'd been—first, you throw your vulgar wine at me and destroy what had otherwise been one of my favorite dresses."

Theron laughed, shaking his head.

"Then you do nothing but ache and criticize the dinner. Which had been entirely on your own poor choice of dish, by the way—"

"'Ache and criticize?' All I did was ask for more seasoning," he jokingly defended himself against the playful sarcasm of her tease. "I swear, you're a bigger drama queen than Trant."

"Well. Unlike you, I found my dish to be thoroughly delectable. I tell you, Agent Shan—it doesn't become you to be so dour all the time."

"Oh? 'Dour,' huh?" he challenged, drifting closer, face to face with her.

Lana smirked in his daring gaze. "You'll find it easier to enjoy far more things in life if you learn to let go of such trivialities."

"Yeah. I'm not taking lifestyle tips from a Sith. No offense."

Holding back her laughter, Lana gave a tight-lipped smile. She then took the carrying bag holding the gifted wine, unabashedly slipping its handles into Theron's fingers. Surely, she supposed, her teasing had been brisk enough of a diversion to elude the fact that she'd opted to take care of the billing herself. Not that she feared he'd have protested, but she preferred to avoid any mention of the matter entirely.

"Are you ready to go?" she asked blithely in her disarming caprice.

Theron caught her fingers within his own as she handed him the bag. "You got me carrying your stuff now, too, huh?"

"What? You'll agree that I always tip my valets very generously—do I not?"

Her ruse appeared to have succeeded, much to her devilish satisfaction as she glimpsed the burgeoning smile Theron had tried so hard to conceal beneath his droll demeanor. Lana's eyes only narrowed more with her sharpened smile at the glow of her amusement.

"You're lucky I kind of like you," he sneered, holding fast to his part in their little game. "Okay, Darth Tightwad. Grab your stuff," he nodded, "I'm ready to head out whenever you are."

###

One's departure, more often than not, begot another's arrival. Before long, Lana had drifted out of sight, and the reverie's end came once Balkar's face abruptly phased back into view. He'd slipped back to their table, unnoticed by Theron's wandering attentions, taking the liberty of plopping himself into the seat previously occupied by Lana only moments ago. His eyes briefly glanced, following where Theron's had trailed, past over his shoulder along the course she'd followed to take her leave.

"Huh. Thought she would've left the second I got up to pee," he murmured curiously. "She, uh...need something from you there?" he asked Theron.

He blinked, furrowing his brows in confusion at his unexpected question. "What?"

"Looked like you were handing off something to her there. Just before she left?"

For a brief second, Theron's heart quickened its pace.

"...Yeah," he spoke tersely. His saving grace had been that it was never too difficult a task for him to lie even to Balkar when he'd been so thickly influenced by drink. He'd gotten away with it on many occasions before, his assuring memory swiftly reminded him.

"Yeah. Just a document drive." Theron disguised his hesitation with another sip from his bottle. "Wanted her to take a look at it before I stopped by later."

As though biding his time until his buzz would pass, Balkar folded his hands over the edge of the table and nodded rather sensibly. An unusual silence then filled the air between them as he appeared to grow pensive.

"So."

His offhanded murmur seized Theron's attention again.

"What...sort of stuff you think she needs to discuss with you?"

It'd been odd moments like these when Theron could not discern whether his friend meant to speak in jest or not. "What do you mean, 'what sort of stuff?'" he narrowed his eyes as he gave emphasis to Balkar's questionable words.

"Why do you gotta say it like that?" he balked. "I try to be serious and you give me crap."

Dropping his head in exasperation, Theron sighed. "Okay, fine. Sorry."

"I mean, all I'm saying is... Things have been getting kind of deep for them, haven't they?" Elaborating further on his hanging thoughts, Balkar continued, "Trant's even sent me on a few joint assignments with Imperial contacts. And...I gotta say—the crap just doesn't end over there."

Of all people among their half of the galaxy, Theron had known most intimately of these troubles. Such had been the matters he'd been made privy to as liaison to the Minister of Sith Intelligence.

"I get the feeling Lana's probably stretched a little thin." There'd been a discernible touch of solicitude coloring Balkar's words which did not escape Theron's notice.

"She lets Bensyn handle a lot of the load. Guy does a good job of getting things done." For a moment, Theron had been moderately surprised by how lucid Balkar appeared to sound as he expressed his sentiments. But then again, he promptly remembered that he, too, had been an agent whose reputation held just as much merit as his own. When it ever came to matters concerning their work and duties, Agent Jonas Balkar never lacked in his ability to remain observant and aware, no matter the state of mind.

Suddenly drawn by the urge to quench his thirst, Balkar reached for his forgotten beer, left along the corner of the table next to his other cleared bottles. "I don't envy 'em," he remarked plainly before bringing the drink to his lips. "One ordeal gets taken care of. Another two pop up on the other end of their borders. A lot of people getting caught in the crossfire between it all..."

"It isn't anything we haven't seen before. Republic-side, too," Theron noted in a sobering reminder of their own domestic problems, fresh enough in their memory to be far from forgotten.

Relenting in a sigh, Balkar sounded in half-hearted laughter. "Yeah. I guess. And it isn't like they weren't asking for it, right? Not to say they deserve it...but..." Halted by another hesitant break, he shook his head. "It's just such a mess over there. Makes you wonder—if all that rebellion and insurgence can happen in a place like the Empire, what with all that iron-fist 'Big-Brother' government and all... I don't know. I just hope things never get out of hand here."

Turning his attentive gaze back across the table, he glimpsed the stark shade cast over Theron's countenance. "You know as well as I do it ain't always all milk and honey here all the time. All it ever takes is enough pissed off people to start something. Enough people with a cause. Good or bad—it doesn't matter."

The depth of Balkar's insights struck him at his core, and he'd found his thoughts reflecting upon the memory of Revan—how his ancestor's life had been a prime example of this. In his own time, he'd instigated a war in the name of his beliefs. Three centuries later, he very nearly repeated the catastrophe in a second rebellion he'd attempted to reignite. Both times, Revan claimed to have fought for a greater cause for the benefit of the galaxy. So compelling were his convictions that he'd succeeded in bringing armies upon armies into his fold. Even if only for a brief time, he'd been but a single man who'd commanded the will and faith of an entire people in solidarity. If one man had accomplished such a feat twice, there'd been no doubt that another would rise to fill the void and raise the banners yet again. Each iteration always came in different colors, but all bore the same message. How much longer they could continue to number their own victories, Theron couldn't possibly foretell. And he'd remained most circumspect as to banish from mind any erroneous presumption of the Republic's supremacy.

"You know, I just saw Malcom earlier today, and...I'm gonna tell you the same thing I said to him," Theron offered in his purest display of simple, unadulterated pragmatism. His eyes met Balkar's, hanging along their mutual silence before revealing the slightest glimmer of his own lightening humor. "We don't get paid enough to be talking about this stuff during off-time."

Bawling in generous laughter, Balkar basked in his amusement both for the utter sarcasm laced in his words and for the long-awaited return of his familiar wry wit so aggravatingly absent through the entirety of the night.

"Yeah, no shit," he blithely concurred before downing the final gulp of his drink. "All right. Not tonight, huh? I think I'm okay with that."

With renewed enthusiasm, he slammed the butt of the empty glass bottle back down against the tabletop and leisurely dropped into the back of his chair. "You know, not only should we start getting paid for this, but it should technically be overtime."

A daring little smirk then tugged at Theron's lips once the mischievous thought crossed his mind. "Hey, why don't you call up Trant right now? Give it to him."

It'd taken a momentary pause as the innerworkings of Balkar's delayed mind tinkered to process his dare before he'd conceived his own response. "Hey," he drawled, narrowing his eyes at his fellow agent with a clever, knowing smile. "Yeah, okay. I see what you tried to do, there." Just as immediately as the realization struck him, Balkar's expression then grew stone-cold. "Shit, Shan. I ain't that drunk."

"Yeah? So you were just being a dumbass the entire time?"

Again, Balkar stalled on a pause as though considering the insult before furrowing his brow in an unamused grimace. "Don't call me a dumbass."

Okay. Nevermind. Guess you really are that plastered after all...

Realizing how easily Theron's shots had been thrown, Balkar continued to sulk. "You know, it's not as fun when it's the two of us hanging out, and one of us is still sort of sober."

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about. I'm perfectly sober," he twisted his words in a tease once more. With his last indulgent laughter to be had at his friend's expense, Theron set aside his unfinished drink before moving to collect his belongings. "And...I think I'm done."

"What? That was like...a beer and a half!"

"Done," he returned with an emphatic look as he rose from his chair. "Got crap to do, remember?" he murmured, pulling his jacket back on.

"Oh, yeah. Right. That thing. The Lana thing," Balkar recalled with a dull mumble. "Hey—"

Theron halted and turned before his strides took him too far in his departure.

Pointing his forefinger with the conviction no one would have ever conceived of any drunken dimwit, Balkar directed a distinct, emphatic glance his way. "Say 'hi' to her for me," he winked.

Theron's expression blanched as he numbly dwelled on his silent pause. "You could've just said 'hi' to her ten minutes ago."

"You're...very right," he conceded, though he'd shown to be almost unfazed by his own nonsense. "Touché. But not really 'cause I'm still a little buzzed right now, and it's easy to low-blow a drunk guy."

Now perturbed by a most incessant uncertainty for the state of his friend's mind, Theron brushed his hand over his face in impatient exasperation. "If your ass gets into some sort of trouble tonight—do me a favor? Don't call me."

"Hey, I thought we were bros."

"I mean it. If this comlink rings tonight, and it's your number that comes up—"

"Yeah. Yeah, I get it. Got no time for Balkar now, what with your imaginary girlfriend and all?" he muttered in a sulk. "You know, I wouldn't do this to you. At least not for a fake girl."

"Yeah. Okay. I'm just gonna leave our conversation at that." Leaving him with a droll, unresponsive look, Theron then opted to continue on his way. "Have fun, buddy."

"You're a good man, Shan. A good man. Serving the Republic off the clock like a boss!" Balkar's inappropriately loud praises hardly went unnoticed. Among the crowds of patrons around him, those nearest in proximity cringed at his drunken bellowing, while others frowned and turned their heads at his disruptive clamor.

Grinning, he swore Theron's pace only hastened at the sound of his enthusiasm. After he'd disappeared from sight, Balkar at last noticed the unfinished bottle of beer he'd left behind, still sitting at the center of the table before him. Without a single companion remaining to be entertained by, he unabashedly claimed the drink for himself, sliding it invitingly back toward his end of the table.

"Don't mind if I do..."

###

It's an odd thing. A peculiarity. A quirk—that as much as Theron has wondered and asked, Lana declines on keeping photographs. It's only a small thing, he reasons, but still. No, she tells him. Though it isn't ever an adamant 'no.' In fact, she is quite sweet when she refuses, an infallible ploy of hers that never fails to divert him from his intended thoughts or questions when asked. It's a fortunate thing they have yet to meet one another at opposite ends again, he muses. As much as she jests, he is not so sure he can ever be SIS Agent Shan to Lana again. He has and will long be her Theron.

He has his suspicions about why it is she is so opposed to them, but the reasons, in hindsight, still seem all too silly even at best. When he asks, she finds ways to avoid saying why. He knows Lana is nothing if not practical. Even small things like photographs can become a problem. He understands the concern of this risk, but he still believes it a bit absurd. It is already a risk in itself for them to pursue this clandestine relationship at all. Of course, Theron has absolutely no regrets. He is certain as well, that neither does Lana. And because Theron is Theron, he pays little regard to the risks for the pursuit of anything that is worth his while.

Among the many words he has exchanged with Lana, there have been a miraculous few that hold a certain magnitude above others. 'No' is one Theron has come to learn the difficulty in arguing with when it is her voice that ordains it. And it is entirely due to quite another that he now finds himself currently seated in the commons of Lana's dormitory suite, when he'd have otherwise been well on his way back to his own quarters after the evening's end.

"Would you please stay a moment longer, Theron?"

Of course, Lana has no understanding of how powerful the simple word had been.

Please.

A single word that Theron is powerless as ever to refuse.

And of course, she need not even ask.

So here Theron was, sitting in wait. Lana had gone to her room for a change of clothing, leaving him to dawdle in repose, to set his mind adrift wherever it cared to wander, as it'd been prone to do so much more often now whenever suspended in the void of her absence.

Theron had one hand idly tucked away in the pocket of his jacket as he sat reclined into the cushions of the chair he'd occupied. When his fingers traced the silhouette of the tiny device he'd nearly forgotten had also been tucked within its folds, he paused as the gleaming, knowing smile returned to his lips. In a swift flourish of his deft hand, he held the tiny item between two fingers for his eyes to behold once again. A simple data card hardly the size of even his smallest digit. And stored within it, his most treasured little prize of the entire night. His little secret only he would ever know and have.

He recalled spotting him—the photographer. The man had been up and about, offering to take souvenir photographs for the delighted patrons in the restaurant. How Theron had observed with such fascination while he tinkered with the dials and settings of his camera. It appeared to be quite an outmoded model, even. What a novelty.

He recalled how the man smiled at his subject, a sweet-tempered little child some tables away. His patience while he waited for just the right frame. And once he'd caught it—the moment the child's overflowing wonder had coaxed upon her timid countenance a most radiant smile of her own—he'd immortalized that still vignette of this child's life through the lens held in his two hands. Surely, the profound fascination Theron held for this simple little miracle could not be so far removed from Lana's own purviews.

Or...perhaps she'd thought such novelties only held the fascination of commonplace simpletons.

No.

Such conceit was most certainly not within Lana's character.

Am I really having this discussion with myself? I'm not a simpleton.

Theron smirked at the memory. Who knew how long or how keenly she'd been observing him. Apparently, that had been exactly what she'd done before she'd made her grand arrival. And stupid him, for letting her get the jump on him again. Maybe she'd really been getting better at being sneaky after all. Maybe some of him really had rubbed off on her. He'd joked about it all the time, but there'd seemingly been some shred of truth to it.

Or...maybe you're just slipping. Either way, it's all totally her doing.

With an airy laugh, he curled his fingers around the tiny data card. And of course, he had to play it off for the sake of the pride the spy in him still held to. No—there was no way he'd let a Sith outdo him. Especially any named Lana Beniko.

Balling his enclosed fist against his lips, he continued to reflect on the course of the night thus far. And his joke. That stupid little joke. The scars still hurt, it'd seemed. He'd figured that if he'd long put Rishi behind him, she'd have found it in her heart to do the same. Theron had been used to the presence of his own scars, and while some had taken their time to heal, he'd since learned to put them out of mind when they'd exceeded their allotted time. It had still been something his heart worked to become better at, but slowly, he had learned to forgive—much in credit to the time he'd shared with her, of all people. Funny how things worked sometimes. A Sith would be the one to teach Theron forgiveness.

Though apparently, Lana had still yet to truly forgive herself. A shade began to cast its pall over his smile as the somber image of her pensive despondence came back to memory. He'd glimpsed it of her only few times before, but it'd been a face of hers he never desired to see. And he'd known at heart that her regaining smile afterwards had only been but a partial renewal. Dampened by his own faltering missteps, he'd then fallen into reticence soon after. Better to have been silent than inadvertently speak another ill-conceived word, he'd reasoned. Though for all the chastened forbearance that had stayed his words, he'd found the silence between them to have been unbearable. Unable to bring himself to look Lana in the eyes again for fear of catching her wistful sight, he'd known nothing else but to let his own gaze roam across the expanse of the room once more.

It'd been the sound of cheers and laughter that steered his attention then. His eyes followed it to another corner of the restaurant, where a larger table appeared to be reveling in some sort of celebration. There, he'd spotted that photographer still making his rounds. Theron watched as he appeared to show the guests at the table the shot he'd just captured from his camera. Their subsequent smiles of approval. An exchange between him and one of the patrons before he'd handed them a small, black data card upon receipt of payment for his services. The man then shook their hands with a delighted nod before drifting off again.

After briefly inspecting his camera, the photographer raised his vigilant eyes for any other patrons he had yet to engage. That had been when he'd looked their way at last.

At first glance, Theron politely gestured a salute in acknowledgement of him. With a kind returning smile, the man then pointed inquisitively at his camera—a wordless but clear question to him across the room.

Theron did not expect this. Before his instincts had led him to decline his offer, he pressed his lips together as he quickly reconsidered. What he had known without question was that Lana would have indeed declined. Assuming a most natural poise, he shifted himself in the merest manner, just enough to allow himself a discreet glimpse of her.

Nope. Her attentions had been elsewhere entirely, sitting leaned against the table, deeply pensive in her repose, it would seem.

More than perfect.

At a furtive pace, Theron drew his forefinger to his lips as he turned back to the man, who still silently awaited his response. His cue had been given in the most covert manner. Along with the indicative glance he'd exchanged with him, Theron further directed the man with a briefest nod over his shoulder in his great effort to conceal his intentions.

Puzzled at first, the photographer furrowed his brows, prompting Theron to then indicate by pointing at his dining companion across the table, still taking tremendous care not to rouse her attention. Once the man's bewildered gaze discerned the other guest accompanying this strange patron to have been a most elegant, lovely young woman, he'd then understood immediately. With a private smile and a wink, the man then assumed a purposeful gait as he traversed the room in search of the best station from which to capture his next frame.

It'd taken much conscious effort for Theron to make himself appear inattentive, all to avoid giving Lana any cause to stir in the time the photographer had taken to find his shot. Setting his patient gaze to and fro between her and the roving cameraman, his eyes would find themselves invariably drawn and fixed across the small distance of the table. The absolute, unequivocal center of all things in motion to any vantage point from which his eyes observed.

Yes. In the end, Theron had come to see that all the lines always came to convergence here. No matter how much they'd been wound and woven through the terrain and the obstacles that labored him along the paths, they had always inevitably led him back to her. They'd left him no room to stray, no junctures to cross, and yes, they'd led him down difficult detours through the thickest haze more times than he could number—and he'd thought himself lost among them more times than he'd even dared begin to sum—but they had always ensured his safe return home.

Home.

Home was here. Seated right before his eyes. Home was beautiful. Warm. Safe. Full of more belonging than words could begin to articulate. So he never said them. But it never meant that they were unspoken. Words were only a conduit, after all. One of many. 'Home' was only a word.

This time, she'd come coated in white—a color he'd never seen dressed on her exteriors. And her covering—a hat of mild, brown caramel she'd never before adorned. But the most striking to behold then, had been just the hint of deepest red. Like the bold, bright roses in the quiet little garden—the first of greetings to meet all who came to the doors that lied just beyond them.

Such a marveling smile the image of it all had brought upon his lips. When at the dinner's end, he'd made some excuse for a private moment and promptly left the table, gone in search of the cameraman away from her sights.

"Got a really nice one, son," the man beamed, pulling the snapshot to his device's screen to show him. "Ain't she just a doll?"

The perfect candid. Theron couldn't imagine a better image of her than just as she was.

"How much for it?"

The man gave a lively air of laughter. "Ten credits sound okay to you?"

So Theron reached into his pocket and gave him twenty and returned the man's words of gratitude with his own before accepting the memory card with the photo stored inside.

Heading back to their table, he'd then crossed by the cashier's counter. He had kept Lana waiting enough, but there'd still been one more end he'd felt he should take care of.

"Hey, excuse me," Theron addressed the woman as he hovered toward her counter. "Could I go ahead and take care of my bill here? Table nine, I think."

"Certainly," she smiled, tapping away at her screen, "Nine, was it?"

Theron confirmed with a nod.

"Hm. Well, it looks like the bill's already been paid." The woman turned her well-humored glance back to him. "Nine's all set. Guess that won't be necessary. Enjoy the rest of your evening."

How puzzling it'd been for him to hear this, when they'd only finished their meal hardly moments ago. He paused on the baffling thought and meant to ask the woman to check again. That was, until the whispering little inkling drew his gaze over his shoulder and back towards the table in question.

Of course she would have.

She'd appeared so perfectly casual while she minded herself, tending to her belongings. No more than five minutes, and their table had already been cleared, their things collected. Lana had seen to that, it would seem.

He'd made sure to stalk back quietly then. As adept as she'd been becoming at it herself, Theron's skill remained superior when it came to hiding his presence. When he came, he'd lingered long enough to watch her curiosity draw her ever-observant scrutiny—this time, fixed upon the bottle of wine he'd brought her. It'd been like watching a child's exploration of the small world about. And her child's eyes and curiosity never seemed to tire of even the plainest of the mundane. Theron never quite realized until moments like these how much of it remained so foreign to her.

Only meaning to sample the waters, he'd first engaged her. Then came her endearments again in all their golden warmth. Then the jests and the laughter. She'd been relentless with them this whole night. Her veiled challenge for yet another game, it would seem. So Theron determined to brave and best it, matching her mark for mark.

'Are you ready to go?' he remembered her inquiring along the crest of her sweetness and smiles before the matter of the billing could even be brought up. Clever.

If it had been any other night under any other circumstances, he may not have been so chagrined by the gesture. But Theron had already determined that he'd owed this much and more to her for having completely soiled her dress—such an incomprehensible blunder he still couldn't fathom had happened. Even so, in spite of it all, Lana had gone and done this before he'd even been given a chance at a say.

If he'd have been the one to decide, he wouldn't have let her. Though his wits had then duly reminded him not to be too surprised that she'd beaten him to it, as had been habitual of her to do so. And he had ruined her dress after all. He would not argue with it, so long as that mishap remained a hanging cloud over his conscience.

Shit. Lana's dress.

The thought suddenly came over him only then that she still had not emerged from her room after having presumably gone to change out of the soiled evening dress. Theron tucked the little card back into his pocket and briefly glanced at the chrono across the room. Frowning at how much time had passed, he stirred restlessly before finally rising to his feet, drawn by his uncontainable, anxious curiosity toward her room.

He halted before the door, staring blankly at its plain face as he'd been unable to quite bring himself to step any further beyond that. It was but a simple hinged door, unlike the automated ones found at the entrances to each individual suite. Moving ahead of any conscious command, his hand drifted toward its handle, though that had been as much as he could will it to do.

"...Bloody thing..."

Hearing what he'd sworn had been her muffled exasperations from within, Theron pinched his brows curiously, pressing his ear to the door. The room seemed to fall silent again, save for the faintest sound of some rustling. This time, his solicitude had propelled his hand to move, turning the handle with utmost caution. The door crept open by just a hair at his gentle guidance, and he peered through.

Only when he'd seen that his view was obstructed within the alcove of the room's entrance did Theron dare to tread inside. In the silence of his movements to shut the door behind him, his ears had caught yet again, Lana's murmuring frustrations sounding from deeper within the room.

"Lana, are you okay in there...?" he voiced aloud. The moment he turned back around, his eyes had only glimpsed her sudden alarm far too late. Though there had been yet another sight he'd witnessed then that would draw his entire being to a numbing halt where he stood.

So absorbed she'd been in scrubbing away at the persistent stain of her dress, Lana had completely neglected the time she'd spent inside her room. The time she'd unwittingly imposed upon Theron to wait for her.

She had come to her room with only the initial intention of changing out of her soiled dress. First slipping into the black satin robe provided with her room's amenities, Lana had paused upon catching her reflection in the refresher mirror. Following a briefest moment's consideration, she then began sifting her fingers through her hair. Fishing out the pins one by one, she set her locks loose as she'd been most accustomed to. There'd been then no reason for her cosmetics, already disrobed of her dress and her hair undone, so she'd taken another moment to clean her face of it all. It'd been liberating to be relieved of her apparel, to bask in the ease and comfort of her most natural, most simple modesty.

She'd then momentarily recalled when she had looked upon herself like so earlier that evening, so anxious with uncertainty as she minded her appearance for Theron. She could have laughed at the triviality of it all. Theron wouldn't have cared. He didn't care. After the ordeals of the night had passed, Lana could then look at her reflection, free of any restless compunctions, and smile.

But that dress, that damned dress. Before she proceeded to find a change of clothing, her eyes had been unwittingly drawn by the deep red stain among the pooled white of her garment at her feet. Frowning as she picked it up from the floor, she haplessly thought to ease the blemish some, taking a dampened cloth to it as she stepped back out into her room. Falling into seat at the edge of her bed, she'd obliviously continued to scrub away at it, distracted by her inability to lighten the color by even a tinge.

In the absentminded vigor of her scouring, she hadn't even realized when the neck of her robe had fallen from her shoulder. So she'd found herself now, seated with the unkempt mass of her dress at the far end of her bed, unprepared for Theron's unheralded entrance.

His voice, gentle and unassuming as it'd been, startled her to a gasp. The damp washcloth fell from her fingers as she whirled her head around to meet his gaze. It had only taken a moment's heartbeat for her to discern the welling consternation within his stilled eyes. Where the lines of his sight had led him to glimpse.

With a ragged, trembling breath, Lana's panicked fingers clambered to find the folds of her fallen robe, even though it had been far too late. Even when it made no difference now. She hastened to cover herself, to hide away the single mark she'd born that had always gripped her being in entirety by its baneful presence.

Theron only realized by the tumult of her reaction how unwelcome his gaze had been then and quickly averted them, though nothing could erase the vivid image from mind.

"S-Sorry. Sorry, Lana. I didn't mean to—I should've knocked." Stumbling over his words, he prepared his steps back toward the door.

As her fingers tightened their grip at the hems of her robe, Lana breathed a lengthy sigh in a bid to regain her composure.

"No, Theron," she uttered, "I apologize. I..."

She'd been at a loss for words. Her eyes loomed back to the dress in her lap, and she released a shaken, inward laugh.

Lana's gentle apology had barely been able to quell the fermenting discomfiture of his racing heart, but they had been enough to slow his steps to a halt. He'd done badly once that evening already; he couldn't swallow the blunder of doing wrongly yet a second time.

It would seem that in his wallowing guilt, he'd failed to notice how withdrawn she had become in his presence, but Lana might have even preferred it that way. She would have simply willed away all of the inescapable dread if only she had the fortitude to do so. Daring to peer forth into the glass of the window's expanse before her, she'd found its filtering dark so pristine that she'd easily sighted the entirety of the room's space within its surface. Her eyes then glimpsed at its center where Theron stood watching, having stepped back from the alcove into the light of the room. Where her gaze had found his countenance, his own stared back into the very same image reflected, coinciding with hers. It'd been in that moment that she'd known—there was no hiding. That he had seen with his own true eyes the poignance of her unshakable apprehension.

Still, Lana would not stir. She averted her gaze from the glass, retreating back within the confines of her disquieted, but familiar rumination. Yes, there had been a sense of safety to be found within the familiar. Or so, she had led herself to believe.

"Lana..." Theron called gently, as though to coax her from the solitary dolor she'd stonewalled herself within.

"—Well, there won't be saving this dress, it seems." With affected humor, she forced the remark in order to halt his intended thought, though her waning smile had made her attempt to divert his attentions all but fruitless.

Rising from the seat of the bed, she circled around it, draping the soiled dress over the back of a nearby chair as she passed it. She kept her gaze downcast, still unable to bring herself to meet his own even with the remaining distance of the room dividing them.

In the physical space between them, Lana only stood by mere footfalls away. But as Theron's gaze lingered across the sparse distance, those impossible steps may well have been entire galactic expanses. The merest stirring of her restive fingers drew his eyes. They'd been left tightly wound at the hems of her satin robe, excessively clenching the garment into wrinkles at its closure.

The look she had given him the moment she'd turned at his voice. Like terror. And like the most instinctive of her bodily impulses, how desperately she'd hastened to hide it from him. The unimaginable wound. That inhuman scar he had very nearly forgotten she'd born upon her being.

As Theron now searched her withering countenance, he could see that the same desolation had not loosened its grip of her. Her unwilling gaze, turned anywhere but toward his own. Her sunken frame, where he could glimpse the frailty of her waning fortitude from her quaking hands, through all the layers to the heavy core of her heart. Her pale smile, drained of all the color his eyes had memorized of it, held so dearly by the arms of a despairing mother cradling an inconsolable child. Until it'd been gone completely.

"Theron, please...don't," Lana's coarse voice uttered. "Don't look at me like that."

He stepped closer, but came no farther than a single pace when he saw her shrink away.

"Lana, I don't understand. What's the matter?"

Despite being implored to, he refused to leave her be in such a state. When it seemed she couldn't bring herself to speak another word, he beckoned her again.

"...Is it...your scar?" Theron furrowed his brows, unable to comprehend what about it had suddenly overwhelmed her so. "But you...you showed it to me before. I don't get..."

Shaking his head, he tried to make sense of it. There had been something profound that eluded him, and he needed to know what it was.

"I know," she forced from her depleted breath, shutting her eyes tightly as she tried to gather what strength she could to speak. Such a storm of emotions and only mere, incomprehensible particles of scattered thoughts, she was uncertain if she could at all remain coherent enough to speak any of it. And how she desired so to speak them. She would not willfully subject Theron to the torment of not knowing.

"...I know I have...but..." she continued haltingly. She parted her lips with the elusive words just beyond her. Finally, she opened her eyes and swallowed, though she could not bring herself to turn her gaze forward. She couldn't bear to see the bewildered anguish on Theron's face, knowing that all of his present remorse and misgivings had been inflicted by her own doing.

Lana simply could not explain the gripping trepidation that held her heart completely seized. She had never foreseen, had never been prepared for it—Theron's gaze, Theron's response. Before, she had shown him but a glimpse of this fragment of her being, and of her own volition. There had been a distinct part of herself she'd meant to share with him that time. She was not prepared to bear his gaze witnessing it in entirety now, so far beyond what she had been ready or willing to impart.

Theron's gaze had brought with it all the very things this mark had been in constant reminder of—the lament, the bereavement, the heartache. To have seen it all through his mere gaze, begetting the cycle of despairing woes and wretchedness between one another that she knew she could not endure. Her resolve had simply not been enough for her to dare face it.

"I'm sorry. I just..." Lana murmured incoherently, shaking her head. As she shrank beneath the weight of her conscience, her hands drew her robe even tighter around herself.

As willful as she'd been in forcing her eyes away, Theron's own remained unremitting. He watched her with all the world's patience, refusing to retreat from where he stood. Though there had been a sea of words he wished to say, to assure and relieve her of the ailments that had left her so mortally impaired, he would stay them for fear of deepening the fractures already splintering her brittle resolve. Even if she would not look to him, he softened his gaze, as though it would be just enough to compel her words to come.

Lana's next breath came harshly from her lungs. Like a profane laugh in self-mockery of her own reprehensible weakness. The indignity of it all. It'd seared her being more than she could ever imagine, so much so that she'd have thought to ignite within its flames where she'd stood. If only the Force were so merciful.

"...You know when you... When, um..." Lana willed with all her being to force the failing words from her breath. "...The matter of...of Rishi."

Rishi. Again. Hearing her bare mention of this left Theron guilt-ridden as he inwardly berated himself even further for his earlier imprudence. His jaw tensed as he braced himself to hear what Lana had meant to say.

"I just... It reminded me again. Of so many things. All the things..."

There'd been little sense he could make from what he discerned of her trailing words, but he'd understood that there was something imperative that she'd meant to communicate. Seeing her struggle so, when articulation had never been a shortcoming of Lana's most innate peculiarities, Theron scoured his mind for how he might best help reawaken her voice. But all his heart could bear to do was remain silent and open until she'd found it.

"There are things, Theron," she uttered. "Things I can't forget. Or take back."

Lana's countenance withered so that she'd appeared almost on the verge of tears as she forced herself to continue.

"And... Believe me. Please—I never meant to abandon you on Rishi. I never—"

"—Lana."

Theron spoke her name in a bare whisper, hardly a sound above her own. It had been beyond him to think that she had still been so anguished by her regret for such a thing. A matter he had long forgiven and forgotten.

"No."

Like an utter rejection. The simple word rang from her lungs so lucidly. With only this single word, she pleaded silence from him, so he obeyed and quieted himself.

Another deepened breath. An attempt to draw life back into her lungs and her voice.

"I just... I couldn't fail. And it was the only way...the only way I could think of..." Lana pressed her lips together after losing the trail of her intended thought. "I was afraid."

The picture remained unfocused in his mind's eye, but he'd begun to at least discern the blurred edges and outlines. However, the incomprehensible jumble of undefined shapes and blended colors confounded him, their meaning still just beyond his grasp.

"Afraid of what, Lana?" he gently questioned when there seemed no more she would say. He allowed another moment's pause for her to regain the heart to speak, but nothing came.

"Lana, if this is about the Revanites—"

Her expression betrayed her languishing fortitude as she stood reeling only a footfall away from the crumbling precipice. She pressed her lips together and gave a tightened shake of the head.

"Then what? What, Lana? What is it?"

Even the delicate pitch of Theron's solicitude could not hide the urgency within his beckoning tones to comprehend. How troubling it had been to see nothing of her discerning stoicism, the refined and willful temperance that had been so habitual of her character. The woman before him had been a whole other he had never seen, so fragile and infirm of resolve, perilously treading in the deep of her own failing spirit. It had simply rent his heart to witness this. Though he'd only now begun to realize her most intimate and unspoken vulnerabilities, there'd been a part of him that had always sensed its lingering presence. Like a ghostly apparition, it'd passed in mere glimpses of such diaphanous shades, his failure to take notice of it had come as no surprise. But regardless, this left him no less rueful of his own unforgivable negligence.

"Lana," he urged once more, "what is it...?"

Though these ailing vestiges had always been a familiar presence in her heart, she'd never once felt any great need or compelling desire to articulate the unintelligible maelstrom. There had never been anyone else to know other than herself. Never until now.

"I hate these scars," Lana's brittle voice breathed. "Always...always reminding."

Of her weakness. Of her mortality. Of the very real possibility that she shall one day fail. Fail herself. Fail those whom she lived to serve and protect. The almighty Force knew she'd already sampled its bitter taste. This remnant was the remainder of all these inflicted wounds. Physically healed, but forever a disfigurement to bear on her being. A penance.

Locked in the tempestuous battle within, she resolved to overcome herself, even if only enough to simply speak. Theron had glimpsed it, he had questioned her of it, and she'd known she couldn't possibly continue to disclaim its existence now.

"Are you ever afraid, Theron?" she asked in such a barren whisper. "Of what can happen? If you realize you're not strong enough? And you might fail."

The culmination of her undying faith and resolute devotion—amounting to nothing. She'd witnessed such misfortune upon others more times than she could ever remember.

"Failure by death. Mine. Yours..."

Lana's voice trailed into silence, her following, dry swallow arid against in her throat. All things seemed easier in the face of desperation. Upon the unthinking came the words.

"What terrifies me isn't dying. It's knowing what you'll lose."

Loosening herself from the last impediments of her conscience, she blinked her eyes in search of clarity. Slowly allowing them to rise, she turned her gaze forward until Theron's came into view. It'd been nowhere else but within his own where she had at last found it. So she looked straight to him, unhindered, beckoning for an answer. One she'd sensed at heart did not exist in any degree of certainty. But in her dying desire to simply know, she asked him anyway.

"What happens...?"

Such an innocent question. Theron wondered if Lana had any idea how difficult of one it truly was. It'd almost been comical—that even the ones so conversant with the Force dwelled on the very same mortal thoughts and existential qualms as any other being.

Of course.

Life and death and their consequences were the same for all.

Lowering his eyes, he contemplated how to best answer. There were so many words he could speak, but of the multitudes, which had been the ones that could bring her the most comfort? What had Theron been able to offer her that would quell her greatest despair? He was no healer. His hands had never been disciplined to treat or repair that which had been damaged. If anything, he'd been far more proficient with the very opposite.

Truly, Theron did not know what had been the correct thing to do. But when had he ever? He'd always done as his intuition bid. All he had on his hands to offer were his words. His heart. And he could only hope that they would suffice.

Theron breathed, his lips revealing a most tenuous little smile as he returned his eyes to her.

"I've got them too, you know."

Upon his plainspoken whisper, he glimpsed within her a merest, almost indiscernible shift. Though her fingers remained tangled in the cloth of her robe, they no longer stirred with such unease. He could see the breaths returning to her lungs, slowly carrying life back to her stagnant frame. Little by little, it'd reanimated her, stirred her to move. He watched as Lana took her first tentative step toward him. Then the next, and the next following until she'd stopped only mere paces before him. He watched as her lips subsequently parted before daring to utter the lingering question suspended upon them.

"Where are your scars...?"

Only when she'd come close enough could Theron also glimpse the gentle regard behind her widened gaze, bearing the same solicitude he'd revealed to her. His dear, sweet Lana. How effortlessly she could bear her intentions so wholly within the purity of a simple glance. And to think he'd once deemed her gaze so hollow, so elusive, bereft of any warmth or feeling to be had. It'd shamed him to know just how blind his prejudice had led him to become. How willing he'd been to believe the worst of dearest Lana.

No. Never again.

Theron drew a deep breath before proceeding to remove his jacket, letting it fall to the floor at his feet. He'd then undone the buttons of his shirt and loosened his tie, discarding them as well. Untucking his undershirt from the waist of his pants, he then pulled it up and over his head, tossing it away with the other garments.

Watching as he'd done this, Lana felt the sudden, flushing warmth rush through her being, but just as quickly, it'd receded again with her halting breath once her eyes glimpsed what he'd intended to show her. His scar. The mark Theron bore on his own body.

Something within her then compelled her forth, to walk the last measure of distance, to reach toward him until her fingertips found his flesh. Her touch had been but a softest brush, tender in its care against his marred skin. Lana could not quite discern the nature of this wound, but it had undoubtedly been a traumatic one indeed.

Where she had been hesitant where her fingers grazed, Theron remained unflinching in his silent invitation for her to look and touch as she desired. To see that, like him, there had been nothing for her to be ashamed or afraid of. And for all the patience she had given him countless times before, he would gladly return it all in this single moment—as much of it as she required. Lana gently pressed against the wound until her palm covered it whole. With her next breath came a quelling stillness within her. There'd been no other sensation then. Nothing else but the lull of Theron's steady heartbeat beneath her hand.

It had been a relief for him to see her calm. Where Lana had seemingly become immersed with his scar, his attentions remained solely on her. He gazed down on her countenance to see within her sympathetic eyes such tender remorse.

"They had to give me artificial implants. To keep my heart working," he explained in a plain voice, drawing her gaze back to him. "My cybernetics help regulate them."

Seeing her sinking expression, he offered a wry smile. "Not exactly all bad... If my heart ever stops for any reason, the implants know to give it a jolt to kick-start it back up." Of course, the ease of his nonchalant tone did nothing to assuage her grief.

"It's only happened once before," he tried to assure her. Theron's hand then searched for her own, clasping it within hold where it'd lain at his heart.

"It was...one of the biggest fuck-ups in my life. And it terrified me, too. But, you know. Almost losing it all—it really makes you realize. Makes you understand how much it all matters. You die. And just like that, there goes everything. And same as you, I also realized what I was really afraid of. That when you're gone, there goes everything you could have done. There goes everyone who depended on you. Everyone who cared. Lana, I get it."

How profanely clear it'd seemed now. Their meeting. Their actions. All their choices and decisions. It'd now been clear to him what his purpose had been, knowing that he could decide as he willed with a clear conscience because of her presence in his heart. Theron would do it all, always, with her in mind.

Everything for Lana.

He would conspire with fate and its workings within the universe to preserve their world—for themselves, and by extension, for all those whose lives held a stake among their own. By seeing and understanding what it was that meant most to him, Theron now gained sight of what everything meant to all else like them. He and Lana were most certainly two of a kind, but they'd been among a whole shared universe of others whose existence was just as extraordinary. Everything mattered. Everything held inherent meaning and purpose.

This may well have been as close to the Force's divine enlightenment as he might ever come, but it'd been as much as he could possibly have required of it. On some profound level deep within his heart, Theron knew this had been a vision of clarity beyond anything any other had ever tried to impart to him. Greater than that of the Jedi's collective wisdom. Greater even than Master Zho's own faith. This had been something he'd discovered for himself, the very sentiment that had been designed only for him to unearth and shape into his own being.

"That...dread. That fear. That you're no good, that you're too weak, too small..." With profound understanding, Theron quietly uttered his following words. "Because you've sunken so close to the bottom before..."

Though Lana had wanted so for his words to lift her heart, they'd done little more than to echo all the very sentiments that had been drowning it from the moment of his intrusion. As her gaze sank, so too would her hand have fallen from where it'd lain against him, had it not been for his own tightening around it.

"...It's no reason to hide away. And I know it's what you've been doing. For a long time. Yeah, I can tell." Having done the very same to himself long before, the signs she'd shown had been all but unmistakable to him.

"But you shouldn't. You can't. I mean, you're right here."

Lifting her hand from his heart, Theron then pressed it to his lips. "I've got your hand right here."

Lana's fingers loosened within his grasp the moment he kissed them. His gesture had been enough to stir her breath, but little more.

"I won't pretend. Yeah...I'm fucking terrified. All the time, Lana. But it doesn't stop me."

Because you're right here.

"Because you're right here," his softened voice echoed what he'd spoken in his heart.

In spite of his assumed bravery and resolve, his smile grew bitter, betraying the truth of his profound fears. But just as he'd declared, he would never deny them. He would not fool himself. He would not fool her. Theron envisioned how far he'd been willing to tread, how long he would follow the lines of their path. Even without the knowledge, without the certainty of where they would lead or what outcome they would bring him.

"I'll take on the fucking universe. I'd probably die. But I think I can be okay with it." He then gave a wry sputter of laughter. "Yeah," he nodded. Though she couldn't see it with her downcast gaze, Theron looked straight to her with an assured smile. "You're with me."

This had been all the reason he needed. He would go forth in complete spite of all his fears because he'd known he had all that was needed to make his time, however brief, full with meaning and purpose.

"Hey," Theron whispered, brushing his hand against her face, only to see her shy away once again. He knew she had only done so because she'd wanted desperately to hide the tears that had not yet come. He loathed to see her weep, but this had been yet another thing she need not ever be ashamed of.

"Hey. Lana," he gently coaxed again. Cupping his hand at the nape of her neck, he urged her not to turn away from him anymore. "Look at me."

Reluctantly, she'd done as he bid her to, only able to manage a somber gaze as she turned to him. Though she'd indeed been so close to tears, the sight of Theron's calming, reverent eyes gazing back and the gentle, assuring smile he bore stayed them. Lana simply could not weep when she looked upon his face like so. She sank deeper into his hand, deeper into the tenderness of his touch, allowing its guidance to usher her closer.

"It's an ugly memento, I know," he spoke faintly with each stroke of his fingers. "But it reminds you—no one is invincible."

It would seem only now that the realization had just as well settled within his own heart. Upon his discovery of it, Theron found himself coming to a place of certainty, and with it, his own peace.

"And it's okay," he smiled, "because no one is invincible. But that's why we're here, right? It's why you're here. It's why I'm here."

Feeling her reluctance slowly wane, Theron's hands softened where they'd held her.

"It's why I'm here."

With you.

Lana understood the meaning behind all that he meant to share. Just as she'd done before, he, too, meant to impart these pieces of himself to her. Of all people, he would be the man who could make a fool of Death, to show her that at the front of its towering shadow had been but a small thing. That her mortal weaknesses meant nothing. He would tell her that she was as breakable as every other living being, just as capable of failure and of suffering, and in the same breath, convince her that it had all been the greatest might she'd held in her own two hands.

He would be the man who could draw her within his arms, when she had spent the greater length of her life keeping all others just outside of reach. That in the face of her own professed fears—of the void left behind in the wake of Death, he would step forth and stand right in its path beside her. He would fill its space and dare it move him from it.

As she'd once sworn to herself, she would walk where Theron's hands led her. She'd already taken them into her own and resolved never to let go. And only he, in this moment of weakness when her heart threatened to break and shatter completely—only he could continue to hold her high and remind her of the strength to be found in those same small hands.

She'd never known where Theron meant to take them. She wasn't sure that he had ever known himself. But when she'd glimpsed upon his face—his eyes—she'd seen now, that they'd always looked afar. It didn't matter where. Everywhere. To all directions.

What had it been that his eyes sought? How she'd longed to know. To know what light, what passions, what yearning stirred him so as to draw him across the very universe toward a destination so far beyond his sights.

Lana glimpsed the tender affection of his endearing smile, always unfailing in its capacity to persuade. More so than even his words.

"So we've both got some patches of bad, messed up skin..."

She was beautiful, he wanted to tell her.

"...The worst scars are usually the ones we don't see..."

Always.

But there'd been no more words Theron cared to speak then, knowing they would be woefully insufficient. So he would show her.

Theron brushed his fingers across her face, tracing the gentle contours to her neck, to her shoulder. When he'd seen that she no longer withdrew from his touch, he followed them beneath the hem of her robe, and with most delicate care, eased the silken cloth away. Like water, the folds fell from her skin, pooling at her feet.

As the sudden chill of the air against her bare flesh seized her next breath, Lana snapped her eyes shut. She'd felt the demure reticence within compelling her to hide, but she refused this time. She would let his touch ward away all her lingering doubts. Even the cold soon melted beneath his hands, drawing her close until the entirety of his being enveloped her. Lana's own pressed against him, unconsciously finding once again the place where his heart lied. Just as her fingers brushed over his marred skin, he trailed his own from her waist to the curve of her back as he took her into his arms. And when his hands then traced her disfigured flesh, Lana no longer withered from his touch.

From within the entwined arms of their shared embrace, their lips had been next to meet. Then their hands. His, gently ushering her back until she'd fallen into her bed. Hers, drawing him down to lie with her. And from their hands, they'd explored every inch of each other, until everything fell together. Until everything touched and became whole.

She would let herself forget the Sith, forget the Empire and the Republic and all the woes of the galaxy, forget where the lines are drawn, only remembering at that moment where they coincide—here. Between her and the only other man in existence.

And he would follow—losing himself in the moment, in the feeling, the experience. The present is the only reality that his heart cares to know. This moment. Here. With her.

For this brief time—the first of many—they would let each other become lost within one another. Abandon the world and simply feel. It is in this space where they may. In this space where they find the safety to do so. Their lament is shared by the passing time, for even within the most secret and sacred spaces, time never ceases. Time only becomes even more precious.

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(Part II to be posted within the next week or so! :)

Whoo! First update of 2016! So...hello again, friends! Hope everyone's year has been going well. ^_^

So, I guess as usual, I tried at something a little experimenty and different again for this chapter, lol. Tinkered a lot with the idea of contrast—in the characters, the POV, narrative structure/style, etc. Haha, well I'm honestly not sure how well it turned out...

And you guys probably could see, I played a little with some brief tense shifts sprinkled around in this chapter. That was definitely a kind of...nutty, spur of the moment, for-funsies thing, lol. It really just started as idea blurbs, and for some reason I'd written a few blips using present tenses...'cause...my brain's special...? I ended up really liking how bits of it sounded (some of it just didn't quite feel the same written in past). I don't know! Was it strange? Kinda working? Kinda...not? 'What the hell were you thinking, NEVER do this again'? Lol. Again, not sure how well any of it had been executed. If...anyone cares to share their thoughts/opinions? ^_^ It's probably just a one-time attempt (this and a liiittle bit more in upcoming Part II). But, who knows! If it wasn't a total disaster, I might revisit it. :D

I do hope the flow and consistency in this one didn't take too much of a dive, though. Since I'd taken such a long time on this one, a lot of chunks were written out of sequence (which is actually totally a weird normal thing for me). And over such a long duration, I did find some difficulty picking parts of it back up between long breaks and stuff. It's such a small...'nuancy' kind of thing, I'm not sure if much of it had gotten ironed out in the revising. Oh well...I done mah best... :/

^_^ As always—thanks so much to everyone who's been amazingly awesome and kind enough to review (all the usual folks/friends—I 3 you guys and your support! A big, HUGE thanks!) :D And wow, got a few hefty ones since the last update, haha! Yayy! I've got a few responses for some of the comments here:

-To sari5156 and dakkie: Wow, you guys managed to dig this long un-updated thing from the scores and scores of fics and read it? ^_^ Haha, I'm so happy that you enjoyed it all! Hope you guys also liked this one, and hopefully the next part and future chapters to come! :D

-To cirithewitcheress: Omigosh, your big, kind review made me blush! Lol, thank you so much for your compliments! I did send a brief response to you via PM at some point (I'm not sure if you'd gotten a chance to see it, hehe.) Well, we've sooorta gotten a glimpse of Jace Malcom's brain from his 'dad talks' here. All I'll say is...don't forget about that conversation! And in time, Satele's going to come into the picture for sure. ;) And while I usually don't specifically plan to include game dialogue ('planning'? pfft), I'll keep your suggestion in mind and see where it might just fit in, heehee. :D

^_^; Uh, once again, I do have another big chunk of response for some of the longer, unsigned reviews! I'll stick it after this break here. (Another one for you, Maryz! And to Koa Dan, as well! :)

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Ah, thanks so much for pointing out those details, guys! I know I've looked some stuff up about Sith/Imperial titles and designations before, but the info does seem vast and sometimes a little loosey-goosey depending on what specific era, I guess. I get the feeling it might've been a little more clear or obvious if I were actively playing the game (as opposed to watching playthroughs, which is...sadly all that the time I have usually allows for). But yeah, thanks a bunch for explaining it a bit more. :) I don't foresee it really coming up so much ever again, I don't think...at least not in this story, lol. But I'll try my best to keep following the SWTOR era's conventions.

At the very least, what I've done is usually try to stick to some sort of consistency. What I've always felt a teensy bit odd about, though, is the kind of gender-blind titles of address used in-game. I don't know...it's probably just my personal taste speaking, haha (which, I KNOW...shouldn't mean anything!) But, especially for the sake of what had been written in the last chapter, I really couldn't imagine a clean way to differentiate between Lana and her father (or even another Sith, like Arkous or something) speaking or being spoken of without using particular forms of address... And what kinda mixed it up even more were some moments in the game like...apparently Acina is most definitely referred to as "Empress" rather than Emperor. Though generally, every Lord is a Lord, male or female? Maybe it's a preference thing (or we can pretend it is, lol)?

And would I be somewhat on the mark to equate a Sith with a 'Darth' title to, say...a Jedi Master? I've always kind of seen it in that sense, since all the game's 'Darths' seem relatively powerful and experienced in some right, and each seemingly has trained some sort of apprentice. I think there are also at least a few examples of Sith just as powerful who aren't titled either. It makes me inclined to think the acquisition of some Sith titles can be a little circumstantial...kinda like...haha, how you might have an easier time getting that driver's license if your examiner isn't a total hardass?

And (there might actually be an answer I just don't know for this one) how to best formally designate a lower or moderately ranked Sith? It felt a little bare not to tag on some distinct form of address when there'd still been a clear structural hierarchy of some sort...maybe amongst the Imperials, at least. And I wasn't quite sure how to best designate someone who may be of status who isn't necessarily a Sith Lord? There must exist such people in the Empire! Lol...but yeah, the more I thought about it, the messier it started to get in mah brain. Especially for written prose, when we don't have faces and voices to go by, haha. So for the most part, I related a lot of it to how title conventions of aristocracy and nobility seem to generally go for us Earth people, since it seemed like something most of us could readily distinguish and understand. ^_^;

And to Maryz, especially—haha, please! Feel free to be as detailed as you want in your comments! For sure, I take the questions you or anyone else might have and definitely consider them for future reference. :) It really helps me get an idea of what sorts of details some readers might be thinking about when they read certain parts. I'll know to maybe spend a line or two to address a certain detail or perhaps let go of another that might be a little unnecessary or something, haha. But thanks so much for your praise, too! :D I'm definitely happy to hear that you're still enjoying the story and that you're also thinking about a lot things along the way! And omg! Lol, you pulled like an all-nighter on the last chapter? . I'm...in awe, hahahah! I definitely hope this one wasn't as long to get through!

And Koa Dan—yeeah! Lana x Theron FTW! :D:D:D I agree! I think characters should be allowed romances with people who aren't main heroes, too...lol. I mean, what could've been fun is something like 'if player doesn't romance A, A will romance B by default'? Ah...wishful thinking, I guess. ;) And it really still blows me away to know that there are a lot of non-native English speaking readers following this story! Lol, or probably it's just my lame 'murican self who's just super oblivious to how vastly international this whole darn site definitely is... :3 ANYWAY. Thank you for your kind words! One of the things I have been paying a little more attention to is trying (keyword, lol) not to overcomplicate the writing...it definitely can get away from me sometimes, haha. But I hope you enjoyed this chapter and the next ones to come! :D

3/19/16