General Aayla Secura's Quarters
Debriefings done; berating done; delivery done; congratulations done; bathing done; dinner done; sex done, repeatedly and quite satisfactorily; Aayla Secura lay in her bed, listening to Leo's heartbeat slow down to near sleep. Her hand traced over the skin of his back. It was smooth to her fingers, but to her mind there was a terrible scar there. A puckered wound gouged deep into his back.
"What happened here?"
One dark eye opened, "I'm impressed you can tell. The surgeons did a good job getting rid of the scar. That's where I got shot in the back on Correllia."
Without any conscious thought, the hand circled to his bicep and traced a line down it towards his elbow.
"And this?"
"My first meeting with Spaceways did not go so well. It took a while, and some blood, to convince them I wasn't just another Trade Federation goon."
The hand ran back up his arm to his shoulder and spread, nails digging just a touch into his skin, provoking a small spike of arousal and waking him up a bit more. "And these?"
"A Cathar hand-to-hand specialist. Long claws and a bit of a temper." Leo rolled over to face her and touched the scar on her thigh. "And this?"
"Training accident. We were both Padawans, I missed a block. The training master got there in time to save the leg, but it gave me that."
"You train with live lightsabers?" Leo asked.
"If you're good enough. Or if you're young and stupid enough to think you're good enough. You know, I've never been entirely sure that Master Drallig didn't let us do that to teach us humility. And probably other things, though I can't think of what they might be at this moment."
"I could tell you some stories about my training…" he smiled slightly, but she felt the concern underlying it. "But I won't, because it's secret."
"Good," her hands ran through his hair. "Attached to each other, but still loyal to who and what we are. That's how I always thought it should work."
Leo relaxed against her, one hand tracing over her back.
Aayla had meant the words she said, but with an extremely heightened sense of his body, she could feel far more than mere scars. There were implants throughout his body. Far more cybernetics than she'd expected, or than Bly's medical scans had turned up. She meant what she said, she did. But some part of her couldn't help but be curious. Another part could not help but fea—be concerned that their disparate loyalties would some day put them on opposite sides.
She accepted the fear and put it aside. That was not today and she would not let fear of an uncertain future deny her the pleasures of the moment. So she didn't.
Laughter filled her quarters as she rolled atop him and pinned him to the bed.