You will be mean, and I'll drink all the time.
We should be lovers.
We can't do that.
We should be lovers, and that's a fact.
Though nothing would keep us together.
We could be heroes forever and ever.
Soniee looked back at her father once and then continued on silently with Saw. He led her down a path to the stone edifice that marked the entrance to the subterranean caverns. She knew the place from her mother's description. It was the place Melaana had gone to meet Bremon's Uncle. Still she didn't comment until they were a good way down the stairs.
"I don't know what got into me back there. Maybe having a parent bossing me around again or the fact that I've been hanging around with the leader of Onderon's Partisans."
"You are starting to sound a little rebellious." Saw smirked.
"You're a bad influence on me." And then she was quiet again surveying her surroundings.
They entered through the office that had once belonged to her Great Uncle Nadd and continued on into what appeared to be a very comfortable living quarters. Obviously they belonged to a bachelor and Saw left her side a moment to hurry about picking up a few discarded dishes and clothing items. "I would have done a better job of cleaning up if I'd known you were coming."
"It's alright. It's a nice place. Not at all what I was expecting. This connects with the other caves where the refugees are housed and where you're hiding your army?" she asked with a smirk. It connected to other things too, she knew, something deeper. She could feel it, calling to her.
"Yeah. Right through that door." He frowned and went to it and turned an old manual nob. "Better lock it so we don't have Zal bursting in on us now that I think about it."
"Zal's not so bad." She smiled nervously. She liked the big Lasat.
"Still..." Saw shrugged, looked thoughtful for a moment and then asked. "Can I get you anything, a drink or..."
"No, I'm fine." She crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the couch.
He shuffled over and sat beside her but didn't didn't make any further move. "We could watch a holo or something." He suggested.
"No, I think I'd kind of just like it quiet." Almost without meaning to she projected a sense of calm.
The big man's shoulders relaxed. He settled back against the cushions.
Soniee curled up next to him and he put his arm around her. "Saw," she needed some distraction, an escape from reality. "Tell me a story."
"Tell you a story?"
"Yeah," she warmed to the idea. "Tell me what it would have been like if my mother never left Onderon, if I was born here and we grew up together."
"Hmmm..." he thought for a moment stroking her hair, letting it loose from the knot Bremon had twisted it into and letting it fall long over her shoulders. "Well, to start with when you were born I was almost 5 so after the initial, 'Oh! Isn't it great! Uncle Brem and Aunt Mel had a baby!' I really thought you were pretty boring."
"Oh thanks." she swatted him.
"Only telling the truth." He smiled grabbed the hand that swatted him and kissed her palm. "You and Steela were friends of course. So you were always over at the house."
She decided it was nice, being alone with him like this, and led on the pretend memory. "Did we annoy you terribly?"
He made a noise of disgust. "All the time. I could never get a moment's peace."
"What about Lux? Were we all friends with him as well?" She asked, rolling onto her back with her head in his lap and looking up at him.
He grinned down at her. "If your Grandma Rash had anything to do with it, you were going to be thrown together with that sweet little Bonteri boy as much as possible. Once the shock wore off that your mother had gone off and married Bremon Kira, she was bound and determined that one of her progeny would have some connection to the Bonteri family."
"So Lux and I were betrothed from birth. You and I never had a chance." She sighed sadly.
Saw chuckled. "Don't count your rupings before they're hatched. You and I got together eventually."
"Oh good. How did that happen?"
"Well, you never really cared for Lux, not romantically anyway, but Steela did and she was your best friend. You decided to help her out. So, you introduced them. You started spending a lot of time around the house again, like you did when you were little but now... I guess I didn't mind so much." Saw seemed to be enjoying the fabrication as well.
She picked up the story from him. "I didn't let on but I thought you were very handsome, so much older and more mature than Lux and the other boys."
"Oh did you now?"
"Of course. I think I always did really, but seeing Lux with Steela and how well they got on, I began to think how nice it would be if someone looked at me that way." She smiled sweetly up at him.
"Well, uh..." He smiled back at her and gently ran a hand down her cheek to her shoulder and down her arm. "Someone was definitely looking."
Soniee shivered, tickled by his caress.
"When you'd come over to stay the night with Steela and the two of you would go off into her room to talk and giggle and then you'd come out again to watch a holo with the rest of the family dressed for bed. I knew you were too young but the way you started filling out those little nightgowns..."
"And I'd accidentally brush against you while I was reaching for the snacks." She smirked.
"Oh yeah, I'm sure it was purely accidental. But still, you were just a kid."
"And then?" She asked. "When did you finally decide to pursue something with me?"
He looked as if he were remembering. "It was that awful argument your parents had."
"My parents, argue?"
"Oh yeah! Your Grandma Rash decided it would be great to send you off to finishing school. There was one in the inner rim, an all girls school that was sort of a sister school to the military academy out there. That was where the Bonteri's were sending Lux so the two of you would be able to see each other all the time." Saw was almost as good at storytelling as Lux had been for the gossipholos.
She wasn't about to make that comparison now, however. "Thanks Grandma. Let me guess, Daddy didn't want..."
"No," he interrupted her. "Uncle Brem was all for it. It was a good school and your great Uncle Nadd had been saying that he should be the one to oversee your education."
"So Daddy didn't want to do what Great Uncle Nadd said and Mother didn't want to do what Grandma suggested." She nodded.
"Right, and you hated that they were fighting over you. You didn't want to go, but you didn't want to disappoint your dad either. So to get your point across, you ran away."
"Only out to mom's old cave." She frowned. "You know where that is by the way, don't you?"
He grinned but ignored the question and didn't break from the story. "The only person you told where you were going was Steela but I overheard the conversation and took it upon myself to go and find you."
"I was afraid when you showed up that Dad had sent you or that Steela had ratted me out."
"And I told you that nobody sent me. That I was there because I didn't want you to go either but if you did I'd be here waiting for you..."
Soniee rose so that she was kneeling on the couch beside him. "And then you kissed me..."
"I couldn't help myself." He reached out for her and she bent toward him to relive that kiss that had never really happened.
"And then I went away to school..." She couldn't meet his gaze.
"I missed you every day."
"I wrote you all those letters." She was already practically sitting on his lap but he guided her leg over his so she was straddling him. In the back of her mind something was telling her to slow down or stop this altogether but she didn't. "The datapackets must have been huge. Your parents must have wondered what I was writing to Steela to take up all that space. But there were my letters to you and..."
"And Lux's letters to Steela." He finished for her smiling. His hands were resting on her hips. "I lived for those letters until you came home for the Summer Fete."
She was enjoying the game. It was like acting wasn't it? Playing pretend. "I invited Lux and convinced Mother and Daddy that you and Steela could be our chaperons."
"Yeah that worked out great. Lux and Steela were all over each other."
Soniee laughed. "They were terrible."
"But it left you and I to be alone. Do you remember?" He studied her intently.
It didn't feel like play acting. "How could I forget?"
His hands slowly traveled up to her waist. "It was nice to find someplace quiet after being apart for so long... Holding you... My Sanya..."
She closed her eyes and she could almost believe it was true. "When you touched me that first time, Saw..."
He pulled her closer and they were kissing again. Real, solid kisses that she knew weren't from her imagination or any pretend memory.
And then she pulled back, ashamed and confused. "Saw I... I don't think I can..."
"You don't have to be that person anymore." He told her firmly, or was he telling himself?
"I - I don't?"
"Soniee Ordo was blamed for something she had no control over. She was used by politicians and hunted by an Empire." He pushed a piece of her hair back behind her ear. "You were always meant to be Sanya Kira. We didn't get to have that history together but we could have a future. You've got your father back and a home and me." He urged. "What do you want to be, Sanya? Anything you want."
She thought about reinventing herself, about all the pain she had left behind on Mandalore. She had had good times there as well, friends and family, but so many of them were gone, and those who were left were really safer without her. Was he right that she could really be anything now? Just leave all that behind and make a new life here with her real father and a man who was offering her a new start. She looked into his eyes. "I want..."
He must have seen her answer before she said it out loud or maybe he was trying to convince her, or to convince himself. He pulled her close and kissed her hard, holding her there until her own arms went around him. Then his hands went to work on the rest of her and she moaned against his mouth.
She realized her cheeks were wet with tears just before he muttered, "I'm sorry." And she found she wasn't the only one who was crying.
He tried not to meet her eyes. "I thought our being together like this might help us both to forget," Saw whispered. "But it just seems to bring it all back."
She stood, giving him some space to recollect himself while she struggled to do the same. "We… we can't make love pretending to be people we aren't."
"True." He stood behind her and laid his hands on her shoulders. She could tell by the tone of his voice that he was attempting to cover with humor. "But we are two consenting adults, neither of whom, I'm assuming, have seen any action in a long time."
"Saw." She turned to face him. "We're friends, good friends. I don't want to ruin that with a night of… instant gratification and all the awkwardness to follow."
He nodded with a frown of concentration but she could see the relief behind his eyes. "So we're too important to each other for a night of meaningless kriffing but not enough to start something that requires more commitment."
"Elek."
His smile turned more genuine. "Good. I'm glad we're in complete agreement." He opened his arms to welcome her into a hug and she went into them gladly.
"Still." She sighed. "No matter what happens tonight my father, Zal, the girls, they're never going to believe… "
"We'll just tell them the truth."
"Oh and what's that?" she asked ironically.
He answered with a laugh, "That we're sleeping together."
"Sawyer!" she pushed him away.
"What?" he grinned and then sobered. "I don't want to be alone tonight, and forgive me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you do either."
Soniee shook her head. He was right. All she wanted right now was to be held in the arms of someone who understood.
"Then you'll stay with me?" It was almost a pleading whisper.
"Yes."
He nodded gratefully and then rolled his eyes. "And you won't tell anyone that the indomitable Saw Gerrera still cries over the loss of his baby sister?"
"If I can trust you to keep all my secrets, it's only fair."
