(A/N): Sorry this took so long to get out guys, I actually started writing this over a month ago but life happens, as you all know. I did wanna really quick thank my two Beta readers Dae and Berix, you guys really helped me polish this chapter up and improve it. I also wanted to thank KarajeJinsta for the lovely fanart, it really means a lot to me that you made that and I hope I can continue to inspire you and any other artists out there reading this. Lastly, thank you to everyone who is still with me or has read up to this point, I know I kind of make a big deal about this every chapter but I can't stress enough how much I appreciate you guys taking the time to review, favorite or follow this story. Hopefully I should be updating more regularly now, if not, I hope I can still bring you guys a little bit of joy through my fic. Thank you everyone, once again.
Steady foot falls had become the drum beat to which the main hangar had become accustomed to as the technicians went about their work. Pilots ran rapidly back and forth, hurrying to and from their LAATs.
New orders had come through thanks to intel transmitted from the surface of Ren Vhar, resulting in the fleet being redeployed onto the surface with a new mission. Adorsha wasn't so sure she was ready after everything that happened, the hurt still fresh on her mind and the lingering feelings of panic still haunting her from the incident in the caves. It wasn't lost on Adorsha that, were it not for Skywalker finding them, none of them would have made it out alive. She was grateful to Skywalker for that, however it had the unintended side effect of planting the seeds of doubt in her mind. Namely, that she did not belong here. Some darker part of her mind, one she was working to suppress, told her she should have been back at the Temple on Coruscant - where it was safe. She cursed herself for a coward's mindset. The people needed her here the most, not studying botany on Coruscant. After all, that was why they had sent her out here to begin with, they needed her here, not at the Temple.
She looked down at the floor, apologizing when she accidentally bumped into a technician, and took a moment to herself before walking on. Adorsha had gotten summons for the new mission briefing, and was actively dragging her feet. It wasn't that she didn't want to go, she was mentally having to fortify herself to face the others, knowing she would likely have to speak about the disaster at the Citadel.
A hand suddenly grabbed hers, yanking her aside into the shadows behind some large containers, snapping her out of those thoughts completely.
"Wha-?!"
"Shhh." A gloved finger was pressed to her lips, shushing her cry of surprise.
Adorsha batted the hand away, her eyes still wide even as she adjusted her tone. "Fives!" she hissed. "What are you doing?! Somebody could see us!"
Fives placed his hand on Adorsha's hip, backing her up against the wall. "Relax," he whispered. "Nobody comes back here when we're being deployed, it's just empty bacta tanks in these." He nodded over to the stack, setting his bucket down on top of one of the lower crates. His other hand joined its twin on Adorsha's opposite side.
The white markings of the Togrutan Jedi's face deepened into a frown. "What if somebody gets suspicious?"
He cocked his head. "I didn't know an ARC Trooper talking to his General was suspicious, should I turn myself in to General Skywalker now or over to you seeing as how I have you?" Fives smiled a little at her eye roll, he'd made his point.
She sighed. "What do you want, Fives? We're going to be late to the mission briefing."
"Am I not allowed to worry about you, cyar'ika? You shouldn't be doing this if you know you can't handle it." Adorsha said nothing, and Fives elaborated further, dropping his voice even more so only she could hear him."You look exhausted, Adorsha," he spoke with a tone of concern. She had been denying it all day long, but he was right, she was tired. She might have been able to lie to herself, but the truth was written all over her face
She sighed out her confession. "Honestly Fives, I haven't been able to sleep, not since we got back, not since-"
"The caves?" Fives guessed, and the Jedi nodded, cheeks flushing slightly in shame. "You're not the only one, Tup woke up screaming two nights ago, about woke up half the barracks with him from what Dogma and Hardcase told me."
Adorsha met Fives' gaze. "How's he been since Kix discharged him?" she asked, remembering just how chipper the younger clone seemed to be when he finally was allowed out of the medbay.
Fives merely shook his head. "He's been coping, the night terrors aren't bad enough to where he needs to go back in, I think Kix is trying to get him a weighted blanket."
Adorsha's shoulders unwound the more he spoke, the husky lilt of his voice when whispering seemed to soothe her the same way a warm, fuzzy blanket would when wrapped around her. Her own arms came up to wrap around his neck, crowding herself up to his armor that, surprisingly, was as warm as he was.
"He's in good hands," Fives finished. "I'm more worried about you,"
"You don't need to worry about me," Adorsha answered him, trying to deflect his concerns. "I can take care of myself, this will pass, I'm sure of it."
"I know you can take care of yourself," Fives pecked her lips softly, then pressed his forehead to hers. "But I'm going to worry anyway."
Adorsha purred, and closed her eyes, reaching out through the Force to feel his warm presence that chased the darkness away from her. Fives kissed her again, and Adorsha responded in kind. It wasn't the inferno of passion that had consumed them both after the Separatist attack, or the slow sweetness they'd had time to savor when they had made up with one another. The serenity both of them felt hadn't been lost, though it was more urgent, each knowing they didn't have much time. However, the little time they did have, they were determined to savor.
They parted when Anakin's voice came through Adorsha's commlink. "Renon-Tir, this is Skywalker, do you have an ETA? Admiral Yularen is waiting on you."
The couple's eyes both flicked down to the blinking button on Adorsha's wrist gauntlet. Raising it up to where the microphone would pick up her voice, she responded as Fives' hand sensually touched her lekku. "Renon-Tir here, I'm on my way now, I just got… held up."
Fives gave her a look of exasperated offence and she playfully hit his shoulder.
"I'll be there, Anakin," Adorsha promised, paused, then added, "I might need to make a detour to check on the engines, the report from engineering is taking too long."
"... Just make sure you are, Adorsha." Anakin signed off and the commlink flicked cut out.
Adorsha didn't even get the chance to say anything before Fives drew her back into a gentle kiss, moving his hand from her lekku to her cheek, cupping her face in the palm of his hand. Even after all she had been through, Adorsha had never had somebody touch her like she was made of glass, nor could she have ever guessed that Fives could be so gentle.
Crackling static coming from the ARC trooper's wrist gauntlet made the couple part again. Rex's voice hailed Fives though the speaker. "Fives, this is Rex, mission briefing is due to start shortly, where are you? I could use your input on this intel."
Fives raising his wrist just so slightly between them to answer. "Still conducting gear inspection, Sir, one of my decee's has a pretty major fault in the safety that could cause it to jam, I'm working to fix it now before we're deployed." Adorsha raised an eyebrow at his overly long excuse, then shook her head.
Rex audibly sighed through the microphone "If you can't get it fixed in the next five minutes, just head to the armory and I'll sign off on a reissue later, I need you here."
"I'll see what I can do, Captain." Fives looked a little relieved as he signed off. "Fives out."
"You're a horrible liar," Adorsha was smiling at him nonetheless, even if their time together was cutting into their duties, neither of them exactly knew when they could be like this again post deployment.
Lowering his arm again, the gloved hand returned to the Jedi's hips "I was never known for having a silver tongue," Fives shrugged. "But… I've certainly not had any complaints."
"So far," Adorsha teased him, and couldn't resist the urge to giggle at the look on Fives' face. She smooched his cheek, adding, "I'm kidding, I'm kidding." She caught a whiff of fresh cedar, with a little hint of fruit combined with a spicy undertone that had Adorsha nuzzling his smooth cheek. "Did you shave this morning?" she asked.
"Just had a clean up after training," Fives answered. "Keeps things easy to maintain that way, why?" he asked, running his hand over his facial hair.
Smiling, she continued to nuzzle and kiss him "You smell really good, and your skin is all smooth," to emphasize her point she kissed along his jaw, purring a little as Fives' hand went to her lekku.
For a long moment, neither the Jedi nor the ARC Trooper said a word. Boots fell, echoing on the tiled floor, yells from the control tower about different spacecraft all became another world away. Though the Jedi were taught to see the Temple on Coruscant as their home, Adorsha never felt that she had belonged in a place more than she did in Fives' arms. Whether that was now, standing up as they were fully armored and raring to go for their next mission or when they had been laying in bed together for warmth. Everything around them just seemed to fade away and time stood still.
Tragically, both of them knew that they couldn't postpone their duties any longer, thus they separated for one final time. Adorsha witnessed Fives tear his gaze away from her to put his helmet back on. He turned back around to talk to her, however she moved first by leaning up on her tip-toes to kiss the red triangle at the top of his brow on his bucket. "I'll go out first," she told him, before he could offer. "You wait a few moments, and then come out the other way, it'll look less suspicious."
Nodding, Fives responded, "Sounds like a plan, General. I'll see you at the briefing,"
"I'll see you at the briefing, Fives." Adorsha departed first, making sure not to look back as she walked out from behind the stack of containers lest people think her suspicious. She just hoped Fives gave it a while, even if he risked the reprimand from Rex. If they were discovered, then things would only get more complicated from there. Not to mention dangerous.
Risking a sneaky glance over her shoulder when she was crossing the main strip of the hangar, Adorsha couldn't see him in the shadows of the containers, and looked ahead once more. The briefings were normally held either on the bridge or in one of the conference rooms depending on the situation or the circumstances at hand. Going into the turbolift to head to the upper floors of the Venator, a hand caught the elevator doors just as they closed, reopening them again.
"Sorry- I'm late for a-ah! General!" The clone who had stopped the lift exclaimed upon seeing Adorsha. She eyed him curiously.
"I'm sorry Trooper but… I don't recognize your armor," She admitted, examining the intersecting and parallel blue lines of his armor that looked hastily slapped on, the lines on his arms looked a little sloppy, but there were little tally marks on his shoulder that totaled up to five.
He scrambled to take his helmet off, revealing the heterochromia in his eyes, immediately identifying him to Adorsha. "Sarid! My apologies, I didn't recognize you in your new armor," she beamed.
"It's okay, General, I hardly recognize myself, f-feels weird being called Corporal," the anxious flone admitted. "I-I didn't mean to be so late, I got distracted by the painting, you don't think I went overboard did you? I'm not sure why Captain Rex requested my presence at the meeting, I-I'm not like, high ranked, or an ARC, or—you know, anything special."
Even Adorsha had to think for a moment as to why Sarid would have been invited to sit in on the meeting. "It might be because you know the layout of the collapsed Citadel better than our Pathfinders right now, after all, you successfully traversed the caves and debris all the way up to the surface," she looked up at the ceiling, the silver durasteel of the turbolift reminding her of the ice crystals that had grown in the caves above them. Her reflection still held the same memories as those icicles. For a moment, she hesitated, her mind drifting back to that dark place of shadows that threatened to consume her. The Jedi could feel Sarid's gaze on her, which brought her back to reality once she realized she had been silent for a while.
"G-General?"
Adorsha smiled. "They wouldn't have awarded you with the rank of Corporal if you didn't deserve it. Sarid, you saved me and all of your brothers that day, you should be proud of yourself." She watched his face grow a little warm from her own proud tone. Sarid might have been a scared shiny on the surface, but she knew he would make a fine addition to the 501st.
The turbolift finally stopped and the two walked out together, heading into the meeting room where Rex, Anakin, Admiral Yularen, Jesse and a few others sat huddled around a table. Sarid went to join his brothers while Anakin came up to Adorsha.
"What took you so long? Everything alright with the engines?" her fellow Jedi Knight asked, folding his arms.
"I got distracted on my way here, nothing to worry about though, everything's fine with the engines," She wasn't going to spin him a tale. Instead she looked over to where Rex was shifting on his feet "What's with Captain Rex?" she asked, pretending as if she didn't know.
Anakin sighed and shook his head. "We're missing Fives, he's normally late to these meetings anyway but he was in the caves too and—speak of the devil," he frowned as Fives came through the door.
Rex pushed past Anakin to talk to the ARC Trooper. "I hope there's a good explanation as to why you're fashionably late this time, Trooper."
Fives merely shrugged, looking at Adorsha as he said, "Sorry, Sir, like I said: I got a little preoccupied."
Groaning, Rex rolled his eyes. "I get ARC Troopers like to inspect and correct their own equipment and all, but next time just drop it off to somebody who can fix it for you, otherwise I'll have no choice but to reprimand you, is that understood?"
"Yes sir, now that I'm guessing we're all here though—shall we…?" Fives asked, gesturing toward the table for the mission briefing to begin.
(A/N): Please let me know what you thought of this chapter in the reviews, I'm dying to see after so long your guys' reactions!