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a brief recap: ben and lisbet are in mos eisley finishing up the fabric shipment.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
desvelarse
Early the next morning, Lisbet ventured back to the bodega down the street for some breakfast. This time it was staffed by a cheerful humanoid of a species she couldn't quite place, who appeared not to speak a word of Basic and communicated with smiles and gestures instead. Lisbet was so surprised by this friendliness that she bought more than she intended to, but she rationalized that they could just save it for lunch.
The streets were getting busier as she walked back, although not with the same energy as the night before. There were a few drunks stumbling back to their holes, but most of the activity seemed to be business. Lisbet skirted around the sleeping bodies in the gutters and kept her pace quick until she stepped back inside the guest house.
She barely got two steps up the stairs when she saw Ben descending them, his brows furrowed with worry. When he saw her, his whole body visibly relaxed into relief.
"You weren't in your room," he said. There was no accusation in his tone, just a tinge of amusement. Lisbet wondered if he was poking fun at his own reaction to deflect from how concerned he had been.
"I went for breakfast," she replied, sorry to have worried him. She tilted her arms to better show the bag she carried, and he took it from her with a smile.
They returned to her room and ate the same way they had the night before. Lisbet had little appetite most mornings, but she forced herself eat a larger portion than usual, knowing that the day would be busy and long.
It took several trips for Ben to carry all the crates of fabric to the speeder in the hangar below, stacking them two or three high in his arms. He took the first load while she was in the refresher, then he suggested she carry down their leftovers from breakfast. Once they were there, he said that with so many crates of merchandise, the speeder would be a tempting target for theft, so perhaps someone should stay to watch it.
"I'll throw this zuka at anyone who dares," she said with a theatrically mean face, brandishing the fruit.
"That would scare me off," Ben said, hands raised in surrender as he backed away.
Lisbet sat cross-legged in the passenger seat while she waited for him to get back. Part of her chafed at his not-so-subtle maneuverings to prevent her from carrying anything heavy, but she could also see the care in his actions. Even though her hands felt fine this morning, the ghost-sensation of the crate dropping through her nerveless fingers last night made her grimace.
Ben brought down two more loads, and then they were off. This time the deliveries went seamlessly. Ben's system was efficient and methodical, and they ticked through the checklist much more quickly than Lisbet had hoped.
The only drawback was the dust. Just the street traffic could stir up plenty, but there was a steady wind that day which made it even worse. By evening both Lisbet and Ben were covered in a fine layer of grit, even with the windscreen closed on the speeder as they moved from one location to the next.
"I don't know how farmers do it." Lisbet wrinkled her nose, shaking out her tunic in the tenth futile attempt to get rid of the sand against her skin. "I'm so grateful to work inside most of the time, away from this mess."
"Perhaps this is why eopies are hairless," Ben replied wryly as he rubbed his face, no doubt feeling the grit in his beard.
"I hope Rooh is doing alright," Lisbet said. "I've never seen a baby eopie before. They must look ridiculous."
They were finishing up their final delivery. When empty, the crates could be collapsed to save space, so they stacked the last one in the backseat. The first sun had already set, with the second a lazy shimmer on the horizon.
"Let's find somewhere to eat nearby," she said, since the speeder was already secured in a parking hangar nearby and their guesthouse was on the other side of town. Plus, Joran Nalto probably knew where she was staying. They were less likely to encounter him at a random cantina. "Maybe we'll have better luck tonight."
"I've stayed in this area before," Ben said. "There's a decent place a few blocks away."
Mos Eisley didn't have a residential area – or really any structured districts at all – but there seemed to be pockets of less activity. Even though the cantina that Ben led her to was mostly full, the clientele was quieter and instead of a band, there were vidscreens showing current headlines.
"Is this where you come when you are in Mos Eisley?" Lisbet asked once they'd placed their orders and found a booth. "When you are looking for news?"
"One of them," Ben said. "The reports on any official channels are completely sanitized by the Empire, but there's value in knowing what they want to show."
"How do you learn about what's really going on?"
"Any of the cantinas with a bar. Barkeeps hear everything, and there is always a drunk smuggler willing to complain about the state of the galaxy."
"Sounds pleasant," Lisbet said with a sympathetic smile.
A busboy dropped off their food, which was much more appetizing than the previous night's fare. They didn't talk much while they ate, but Lisbet didn't find the silence uncomfortable. Though the cantina had been quiet when they entered, by the time they finished their meal a band had started playing lively music. Lisbet was reluctant to return to the guesthouse and end their day together – but with all the dust and dried sweat on her skin, she couldn't wait to have a shower.
"We could turn in early this evening, and leave first thing in the morning," she suggested, leaning close to Ben to be heard over the music.
"I agree," he said, already getting up.
The second sun had just set as they stepped outside, coating the city in a hazy twilight. The dust storm had ended hours ago, but most people still seemed ill-tempered from it – even by Mos Eisley standards. By the time Lisbet and Ben got back to the guesthouse, she was grateful to be out of the crowds.
"What I wouldn't give for a real shower," she sighed as they walked up the stairs to their rooms. Every step rubbed the sand in her boots against her feet.
"One of the many pleasures of living on Tatooine," Ben replied wryly. They reached the landing, but didn't linger. The sand had become so annoying that getting clean was the only thing on their minds. Ben leaned down to peck her lips before they parted ways in the hallway, she to her room and he to his.
Lisbet dropped her bag at the foot of the bed without stopping on her way to the adjoining refresher. Sonic showers had taken some getting used to, and she still didn't think they cleaned as well as water. But it was the only thing available on Tatooine and she felt grimy enough not to be picky. She stripped off her clothes and shook out her braid, satisfied at the layer of sand and dust that settled on the shower floor.
When Lisbet had been a handmaiden, there was a standard of dress expected even off-duty. Here on Tatooine there was no such expectation, so she shrugged into a loose cross-front tunic and slouchy pants. Her hair went up into a topknot, curly enough to hold without pins.
Usually a shower helped her relax, but she restlessly moved around the room – first to make a cup of tea, then to fuss over her overnight bag, then to scroll through the datapad purely out of boredom. There was no way she would be able to sleep any time soon, which meant she'd be tired on the drive home in the morning.
The nucleus of an idea sparked in her. Would it be so dangerous to go home now? For most people it probably was, but she was traveling with a Jedi. It occurred to her that he had once been gravely injured by Sand People. But from the moment she knew the full truth, she had suspected that he had not fought against them, at least at first. That he had been so distracted by grief that they caught him unaware – or that he hadn't cared if they killed him.
The thought made her ache for him. She stuffed boots back onto her feet and crossed the hall, hesitating for a split second before pressing Ben's door chime. It opened a moment later to frame him barefoot with his hair rumpled from a shower. The sight of him warmed her belly, stirring up flutterwings and something more.
"Are you alright?" He took her hand, his thumb tracing circles into her palm in a way that told her he still hadn't forgotten how they went numb the day before.
"Can we go home?" she asked. "I mean, now. Tonight. I know there are Sand People, but they can't be that bad, and this hotel isn't actually so terrible but I miss my house, and I forgot to pack a holobook so I don't have anything to read here. But if it's too dangerous then I can stay! I don't want– I– I'm rambling."
Ben was trying not to smile, but his dimples gave him away. "Let's go back to Anchorhead."
"You're sure?" Lisbet said, trying not to sound too eager. "We won't go missing in the desert only for our bones to be discovered in a decade?"
"I have no intention of disappearing any time soon." He squeezed her hand before dropping it. "I'll get my things. We can leave whenever you're ready."
It only took a few moments to repack her bag. When she stepped back into the hall with it slung over her shoulder, Ben was waiting for her. He took it from her, handing over his key chip in exchange so that she could check them both out.
The desk clerk didn't bat an eye (or eyestalk, rather) when they turned in their keys, too used to the comings and goings of a spaceport to wonder at their departure other than to say that the rooms wouldn't be refunded.
"That's alright," Lisbet said. There was really no reason for Oona to know they had checked out early, since Lisbet's house was on the edge of town and they weren't likely to be spotted on the way in. When they showed up at the weaving shop in the morning, everyone would think they had come straight from Mos Eisley.
The wind had died down with nightfall, leaving the air much less sandy than the rest of the day. Ben sealed the speeder's windscreen around them anyway. Now that they were leaving, Lisbet found that she didn't mind the drunks stumbling into the street at every corner. What did it matter? In an hour or two they would be safely ensconced in her little house.
The drive back to Anchorhead passed like a dream. Lisbet had never seen the landscapes of Tatooine by moonlight like this before, and she watched the desert and distant mountains roll past in enchanted silence. Looking out at the desolate beauty, she wondered where Ben lived in all that loneliness.
About halfway home, she saw what she thought was a low hill – until they got closer and she realized it was moving. It took a moment for her puzzled brain to make sense of their shapes, but eventually she saw that it was a actually a dozen enormous, shaggy creatures.
"Banthas," Ben said quietly. "I think that's Nara's herd."
"You know them?" Lisbet asked. Bantha products – steak and blue milk, mostly – were ubiquitous on Tatooine, but she had assumed they were farmed. To see a herd in the wild surprised her, even more so that Ben recognized them.
"They're very curious," he explained. "Sometimes when they see me wandering, they join me for awhile."
Lisbet looked back at the lumbering creatures, seeing them in a new way. She reached for Ben's hand, grateful that he had company even in the vast, empty reaches of the desert.
The lights in the shed behind her house automatically came on as they pulled up. Ben parked the speeder inside, although only about half its length fit under the roof, and opened the windcover.
"And not a Tusken Raider to be seen," Lisbet said as she stepped out and grabbed her bag from the backseat.
"No, none to be seen," Ben agreed mildly, but he gave her an innocent dimple at her sidelong glance.
The back door into the kitchen didn't work from the outside – either an attempt at a safety feature, or simply broken like so many other things. They filed through the narrow walkway between Lisbet's house and the next, emerging to an empty, quiet street.
Lisbet let herself in the front door, switching on the illuminators to fill her little home with light. She dropped her overnight bag on the floor of the entryway and toed off her boots, grateful for the feeling of her own rug under her feet, threadbare though it was.
"I'm going to make some tea," she said, turning back to Ben as the door swished shut behind him. His hair was a little windblown, and the sight of him made her heart clench.
"That sounds wonderful." He leaned down to give her a lingering kiss, sending tingles through her scalp and a deep, aching wanting into her bones. "Goodnight."
"Goodnight?" Lisbet echoed, her mind whirring in confusion. What an odd time to say goodnight, as if he was leaving – oh. "Where are you going?"
"To the cantina. It will still be open at this hour, and I can get a room there."
"Ben," she said, brushing his shaggy hair back from his forehead, "I believe the word to describe you right now would be obtuse if you think I have the slightest intention of sending you to any room but my own." A terrible thought occurred to her. "Unless you want to leave?"
He put his satchel on the floor beside hers, the lines of his body still uncertain. "I feared it would be a presumption to stay."
"It really, really isn't," she said as she curled her fingers into the front of his tunic, pulling him closer to her, and went up on tiptoes to kiss him.
His hands went almost helplessly to her hair, twining into the curls at her nape until her topknot unraveled and tumbled down her back. Ben always seemed to touch her hair first, but tonight Lisbet was impatient and bold, and wanted his hands elsewhere, too.
But he didn't move them, and – whether he was just too polite, or perhaps a little afraid – Lisbet realized he was waiting for her to lead. Still busy with kissing any hesitation from his mind, she skimmed her hands down to his belt, unbuckling it by feel alone. Her muscle memory took over as she eased off his tabards with perfect recall of when she had done so five months ago to treat his wounds. Then it had been frantic urgency, but now she took her time, letting her touch linger on his chest, his shoulders, his arms.
"Lisbet," he began, mumbling the syllables in a breath between kisses.
She just hummed a distracted, questioning sound in reply as she found the closures of his outer tunic and undid them.
But he must have forgotten what he meant to say, because his lips instead traced a hot line across her cheek until he found the sensitive spot where her jaw met her throat. Dizzy, she backed up to steady herself against the wall, dragging him with her.
Her palms skimmed across his chest as she coaxed his cream tunic off his shoulders. But pushing his sleeves down his arms meant he had to drop his hands, and this seemed to recall him. He repeated her name, the heat of his breath fanning across her neck and down to her collarbone. He didn't touch her hair again, but instead caught her arms loosely, asking with gentle pressure for her to be still. She curled her fingers into his brown shirt, getting most of it untucked, before she acquiesced.
He searched her face, his pupils blown but his gaze steady. The way he looked at her, with witchlight and wonder, made it almost impossible not to kiss him again. But there was hesitation in his face too, a question that he was struggling to ask.
"What is it?" she said.
"I – I cannot give you anything," he answered, his voice low and a little rough.
She slid two fingers into the waistband of his trousers, loosening it a measure, and felt him shudder as her fingers grazed the skin just below his navel. "That's not entirely true."
"Lisbet," he whispered, half a laugh and half a plea for her to be serious.
She wasn't trying to distract him. It was just hard not to.
"I mean that I cannot marry you," he said. "I cannot give you my name, and I must not give you children."
The mingling of regret and acceptance on his face made her reach for him, putting a palm against his cheek so that her thumb could brush away that worry-line between his brows.
"I must live as quietly as I can," he continued. "I can leave no public record that the Empire might trace. If I am found, you would be in terrible danger." He covered her hand with his, tilting his head to press a kiss to the inside of her wrist.
Lisbet took a moment to consider his words. Nothing that he had said surprised her – she had known from the moment he had told her his true identity that he needed to live in secrecy. But it must have been important to him that he clarify again now, before anything more happened. For him to forsake his Jedi code must be a vow of its own, to her instead of the Order. He needed her to understand everything that came with that.
"I like my name as it is," she said, smiling at the relief that sprang into his eyes. "I have no need to change it. You don't have to give me anything but yourself."
"You're sure?" Ben asked. His hands – his maddening, exhilarating hands – had slid to her waist once more, one thumb pondering the closure at the side of her tunic.
"I'm quite sure." She tugged his shirt up his torso, using the leverage to pull him out of the entryway and toward her bedroom.
"I thought you were going to make tea," he said, his grin all wicked now as they passed the kitchen.
"That will just have to wait until morning," she replied, and distracted him from further cheeky comments with a kiss.
desvelarse, (v., Spanish), to stay awake.
as ever, many thanks to amelia for beta'ing :)
for those who like to know the song inspiration, i listened to several natalie taylor songs, mostly wildfire and cover us. i'm curious - would you like to know these songs at the beginning of the chapter so you can listen while you read?
07.15.18