Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by George Lucas. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. The character of Ryn Orun belongs to DestructiveGlory; I am simply borrowing her for the purposes of this story.


This part is rated M for het sexual situations.


(10)

parsecs asunder

In his spare time, Ferus Olin wrote poetry.

It wasn't very good poetry, he admitted. Mostly a lot of angst and heartbreak, typical musings of a tortured artist.

Every night in my dreams
I see you; my heart yearns
For you. Alas! we are parsecs asunder,
And time may not heal the pain
I bestowed upon thee,
But near or far, wherever you may be,
My heart beats on – for you.

After writing the fifth poem, Ferus looked back over them for further inspiration. It was then he decided he was just writing the same thing over and over again with different words, and should probably stick to slicing from now on.

He hid the poems in his bedside drawer with every intention of deleting them later.


Roan had a girlfriend. When and how this happened, Ferus had no idea but Roan seemed happy enough. (A healthy dose of sex, his mind snarked once, sounding far too much like Ryn for his own liking.) She also lived in another system with an entire livelihood, and neither Roan nor the girl were willing to make the move just yet. Ferus wondered how they were going to do the whole long-distance relationship thing and asked as much over dinner one night.

"Well, it's not too bad, she has her own starship and I can get messages to her easily enough, even though we're –" Roan seemed to choke on his words. Ferus faced him to ask what was wrong, but stopped when he noticed that Roan was biting down on his lower lip dangerously. "P-parsecs asunder…"

Ferus paled, and Roan couldn't hold it anymore and doubled over, laughing.

"Did you go through my things?"

(He didn't squeak. Ferus Olin did not squeak.)

"I was looking for a spare datapad, you left it in plain sight!" Roan protested through another laughing fit, and Ferus scowled. "My heart yearns for you, Ferus!"


(At least it was just Roan. If Anakin Skywalker had found the poetry, Ferus didn't think he'd ever live it down.)


Over the months, Ferus got to know the old man in the house next door. Decent fellow, if a bit eccentric, but Ferus liked visiting him from time to time to hear stories, usually ones that started with "Back in my day…"

"I think I scored about fifty-three back in my day!" He exclaimed one morning over a cup of caf. Ferus didn't know exactly what the fifty-three he was referring to actually was, but he assumed it was sexual conquests – a common topic with this man.

(He wondered if he even had a name. Ferus asked him a few times, but the old man feigned deafness whenever he did.)

"…and number twelve, dear kriff she one was a hard one to get, fought me every step of the way she did. Feisty, that one! Those are the best. But I got her in the end! Eheheheh…"

This was nice, Ferus thought. Not the topic, that left something to be desired, but… just this. Listening to someone else's life, living his own, working with Roan… He could admit it to himself now: he would be all right without Ryn. He hoped she was all right, whatever she was up to these days.

(He still missed her terribly, though.)

"…So, anyways, I got back to the organisation and they gave me another kill, but I said –"

Ferus blinked. "Wait. Kills?"

The old man snorted. "Of course kills, you delinquent juvenile! I've been talking to you about it all day! Back in my day, men like myself had proper careers, like becoming assassins! None of this timewasting stuff you do with your flashy computers. Honestly. Back in my day, we respected our elders and didn't interrupt them mid-speech! You watch yourself, young Mister Olin. Now, as I was saying before you rudely interrupted me, they gave me another kill, but…"

Ferus just shook his head, and stayed to listen to the rest of the story, unsure whether to be horrified or amused.

(He settled for somewhere in between.)


Roan was off-planet in a coincidence of good timing when Ryn arrived at his front door. "I think we need to talk," she said with a tentative smile, and Ferus let her in.

He offered her a drink first, to hold off the inevitable Talk she all but promised. She accepted it but didn't drink, and didn't start by skirting around the issue like he thought she would.

"You hurt me, Ferus."

(Of all the ways to start…)

"I – I trusted you, and…" She sighed, and he felt awful all over again but didn't say anything. "What you did was wrong. You know how much my life means to me."

He bowed his head. "I know. I'm sorry."

"But…"

He didn't raise his head in hope.

"…I've had a lot of time to think about everything. You were also trying to do something good for me."

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, he remembered she once told him. Ryn's hands gently cupped his chin and prompted him to look up and meet her gaze.

"And you did do something good for me. Maybe not for Loreth in that moment, and maybe not for the Republic, but Kenobi was sort of right. The Jedi have a seat in the Senate now – my situation would have come to light, and political activists could have caused major problems for Loreth. At least this way, we're out of the glare. And…" She smiled. "I'm free in all but name, now."

There was a light to her eyes he never remembered seeing. He held her hand nervously. (She didn't pull away.) "So… you forgive me?"

"On one condition."

"Anything."

She bit her lip sheepishly. "Forgive me for giving you a concussion with the plates."

Ferus smiled and touched his head where the ceramic cut it. "To be honest, I'm more impressed that you managed to turn a kitchen appliance into a lethal weapon than anything else."

She laughed. "Is that a yes, you forgive me?"

He could say something sentimental and cliché there – something cringe-worthy, like, no, because I have nothing to forgive you for, but that would just sound contrived even though it was true. So very him, of course, but it'd ruin the mood.

So he said it anyway, and she laughed again.

"So… start over?" he tried when she finished.

"I'd like that," she said, smiling, and stood a bit too close for someone supposedly 'starting over'. She raised a hand to his stubbly cheek and laughed a bit. "What have you done to your face?"

"I, uh – forgot to shave."

"Feels like you forgot to shave for three days in a row."

"I've been busy."

"Oh? Busy doing what?"

Writing poetry.

"You know. Slicing."

(Force forbid she ever found out about his poetry…)

She smiled again and his heart nearly skipped a beat. (She hadn't looked at him that way for years.) Her thumb made a slight movement on his cheek and he resisted the urge to close his eyes and lose himself to the intimacy. I've missed this. Then he realised she'd moved even closer and started to pull away, startled. "Ah, Ryn –?"

"Shh," she whispered, pressing her finger to his lips. She looked beautiful close-up – she looked beautiful no matter what. "You talk too much. Did you know that?"

"You might have mentioned it once or twice before."

Ryn kissed him, and he didn't resist at all. It was gentle and desperate at the same time, passion they'd lacked in their last months together reigniting, and his hands quickly moved to her waist as she wrapped hers around his shoulders, parting her lips and kissing him deeply.

"I thought we –" he gasped when they pulled away to tug at clothes, "ah, we were going to… start over…?"

("Starting over" generally implied "taking things slowly", but he never exactly knew with Ryn.)

She grinned against his lips. "This is starting over."

When her hand slipped inside his pants, Ferus couldn't exactly argue.

(He'd missed this – he'd missed her, everything about her, her unpredictability, her passion, her –)

He choked when she teased the head of his erection with talented fingers. He stopped her ministrations before he came, and instead pressed his lips to hers in another kiss as they stumbled out of their clothes and staggered over to his bedroom, clumsily navigating through heavy kissing. The backs of his knees finally met the bed and he fell back onto it, pulling a laughing Ryn with him. She straddled him and kissed his mouth softly before positioning herself over him and sinking. Ferus groaned and his head fell back, the sensation of Ryn rising and falling on him enough to send him spiralling over that edge he knew he would, any second – she seemed to sense this and kissed him and stilled, holding him tightly.

"R-Ryn –" he moaned, trying to gather a modicum of control. She pushed a few strands of his hair – clinging to his forehead – away, and gazed at him tenderly before she started to move again. He traced a finger down her abdomen to her clit and rolled his thumb over the sensitive nub. She took a sharp intake of breath when he rubbed, gently at first then applying more pressure in all the spots he knew she liked, until her whole body was trembling as much as his.

"Oh Force, F-Ferus –" she gasped incoherently. She was so close, so close – he just needed to find that movement that would tip her over the edge and rubbed her clit in earnest, straining against his own need to come, until he felt her body clench around his and shudder her release. The sensation of her clenching around him was enough to bring him to completion. He groaned into her shoulder as he felt himself come apart, ecstasy shattering his world, and together they fell back into the sheets, gasping and heavily spent.

"Good start, wouldn't you say?" he breathlessly muttered, pulling out of her, and she smiled into his shoulder.

"Very good start," she agreed, and he kissed her.

"I missed you," he whispered into her hair, and her hands settled around his sweaty shoulders.

"I missed you too," she replied, and settled her leg over his.

And then they confess their undying love for each other as the sun sets blissfully in the distance.

…I have got to stop writing poetry.


The next morning, he woke up – still very naked – to see an equally naked Ryn (not that he was complaining about that) rummaging through the drawer, teeth biting her lower lip and face turning red.

"…Is this poetry?"

Ferus didn't give her the chance to tease him. He grabbed her and pulled her back into his arms, and smothered her laughing mouth with his own.