Notes: Up next is the 4x100 Relay (4x100 words on four types of love: affection, intimacy, friendship, and charity). The title for this set comes from the song "Steady" by Svrcina. Not an exact thematic match, but still some really great lyrics.

For reference: "Affection" and "Friendship" take place concurrent with the final section of What If This Storm Ends?, when Allana and Festus were children in one of the hidden Jedi enclaves. "Charity" and "Intimacy" take place many years later, during and shortly after the events of Forces of Gravity.

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III. "Nothing Would Have Made Us Ready" | 43 & 55 ABY | 4x100 Relay

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Affection | 43 ABY

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She watches him from across the common space, wondering how she never noticed him before now. There's a short flight of stairs leading into the room, with a hollow gap beneath that's just big enough for someone to sit, and he returns to that spot after rescuing her from the bullies.

Days go by. A week. Two weeks. She plays alone in her own corner, and she watches him curl up under the stairs, reading on his datapad. She wants to thank him again for what he did, like a princess should thank her knight. Soon, she thinks. Maybe tomorrow.

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Friendship | 43 ABY

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He sits on the floor of the hangar, just beyond the open ramp of the starship that will take them to their new home. Veeran isn't here yet, so no one bothers him about boarding the shuttle.

He tried to find her, but there wasn't much time. They haven't talked since that day he rescued her toy, but he's seen her watching a couple of times. He wonders if she knows he's leaving. Would it make her sad to say goodbye? He doesn't want to do that to her.

Maybe he could write to her. Maybe she would like that.

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Charity | 55 ABY

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This isn't mercy.

This isn't kindness or concern or charity.

This is a debt repaid, an imbalance corrected.

This is him not wanting his enemy to be killed by a stupid blaster before he's had the chance to defeat her, before he's had the chance to show her exactly how much he doesn't need her or her damned Jedi compassion.

This isn't panic or fear, or his heart pounding at the sight of her under him, a burn seared across her cheek. And it's definitely not relief that she's alive, or a desire to kiss her, just to be sure.

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Intimacy | 55 ABY

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There's no keeping it a secret this time. She couldn't even if she tried.

Allana looks up at Ben, at the concern roiling beneath a thin veneer of calm. If he knew this wasn't the first time she'd encountered Festus, he'd never send her on a mission again. Bringing it up now will only make him wonder why she didn't say anything sooner. And she doesn't want his questions, his lecturing, his worrying. She doesn't want him thinking this is anything other than what it is.

(never mind that she still doesn't know what this is, or what it means)