Seven times it came when you were not awake
Seven times the flame, too much to take
—Fleurie, "Hurricane"

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"Fragile and Composed"

I.

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He knows he's staring. He knows he should stop.

It's the same as it was outside the temple; he finds himself drawn to her, as helpless as a tide beneath a moon. He can't look away.

(he doesn't want to look away)

To be fair, her friends are making a lot of noise, talking way louder than necessary for how close they are to each other. If he was actually trying to read, it might be sort of obnoxious.

It's a damn dining hall, Dorian, he imagines his brother saying. Get over yourself.

She's nowhere near as loud as the others, and she watches her friends with a smile, content and amused and maybe a little curious. He listens to their conversation, datapad forgotten as he hangs on every softly spoken word.

Just stop it already, he tells himself, as if it'll actually make a difference. Don't be a creep.

She does have a pretty smile. It's kind of hard not to stare.

Frag, she's looking at him now. His eyes snap down to the datapad almost instantly, and he tries to remember what line he was on, realizing after several fruitless seconds that he's completely lost his place. Not like it really matters, she's probably used to being stared at. She probably hasn't given him a second thought.

An excited murmur ripples through the students near him, and he senses someone – no, not just someone, her – approaching his table. He keeps his eyes on the datapad, pretending not to notice she's there.

(pretending not to notice the princess of Hapes, who the hell does that)

There's no annoyance or impatience in his sense of her, though. If anything, she seems curious, maybe even faintly amused.

"Hi," she says. "I'm Allana."

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II.

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"You could love me for real."

She laughs at that, mirthless, wishing she could cry instead. She can't though. All her tears are spent, and there's nothing left to do but laugh at how irreparably broken they both are. Is there a world where this sad story ended differently? She used to hope so, but even that's gone.

"I did love you once," she says from behind glass-gray eyes. "Maybe I always will, somewhere."

He kneels before her, hands grasping the arms of her chair. "Tell me what I have to do." He bows his head in her lap, and she wonders if he has any idea how easily he could break her, if he tried. "I'll do anything."

Her father's first lesson: Be a still surface. Be a mirror in the dark. Reflect nothing. Reveal nothing.

"You could start by letting me go," she says, watching for his reaction. He goes still against her. Seconds tick by, and neither of them moves. "You're a liar," she continues, resisting the urge to wind her fingers through his hair, to tease him and bend him and rule him. Be ice, she thinks. Be colder than ice. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised."

He lifts his face toward hers, his brow furrowed, expression shifting too quickly to pin down. His voice is soft. "I learned from the best, didn't I?"

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III.

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They sit against the outer wall of the enclave, watching the sun paint the sky in flame-colored hues as it dips below the horizon. She leans into him, head tipped against his shoulder, fingers brushing his for just a second. He feels that touch like a spark.

This, right here. He could stay like this forever. And he knows how ridiculous that sounds, and maybe hopelessly naïve, too, especially with the way things are now. There isn't much peace to be found these days, not for anyone. Maybe that's why he wants to cling to this moment.

(maybe that's why he never wants to let her go)

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IV.

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The heat clings to her like a second skin, damp jungle air heavy around her, weapons discarded on the ground as their hands roam and drag and claim. It's too much and not enough, this strange, twisted thing between them.

"Come on, Princess," he murmurs against her lips before trailing down to her throat, "is that really all you've got?"

Too much, her head tells her, defenses crumbling under the onslaught of sensation, aware of how dangerous and wrong this is.

Not enough, her heart whispers back, wanting more, willing to risk everything just to feel this.

She threads her fingers through his hair and answers his question – his challenge – with a murmur of her own.

"Not even close."

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V.

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She wakes from her nightmares screaming, more often than not. She's not embarrassed by it, exactly, but she does get tired of the raw, aching pain in her throat, and the panic that wells up in her chest, making it hard to breathe, and the way she feels herself slipping back into that twisted embrace even here, even now.

He tells her it will change. He doesn't promise it will get better, but it will change. Less screaming and thrashing, he says with a dark, wry grin. She hardly ever wakes up before him, but when she does, she notices he takes a long, deep breath before raising his arms, as if testing them against invisible restraints. He doesn't scream out often. When he does, she pretends not to notice.

He's always at her side when she wakes like this. Sometimes she insists she's fine, tells him to go back to sleep, not to worry about her.

Sometimes she slips her fingers around his wrist, and she asks him to stay. He always stays; there's really no question that he will, but she still makes sure to ask.

She thinks how strange it is, that of all the people she could sail the stars with, she ended up with him. Enemies brought together by the twisting of fate's web, by mutual need, a desire to escape and survive.

Mutual need? Is that what they call it? She tries to ignore the sly, knowing tone of her inner voice as her fingers trace the inside of his wrist once again. It's never gone that far, but she knows he wants to, knows she has only to say the word and he'll be with her in every possible way.

Sometimes she thinks she wants that, too.

He slides into the bunk beside her and draws the thin blanket up over them both, and he curls one arm around her waist to hold her close. His breath rustles her hair and flutters across her skin, and she leans back against him, more content in moments like these than she is at any other time. And that's strange, too, isn't it? That it takes her worst nightmares to give her some semblance of peace?

(that even knowing the darkest parts of him, she still feels safe here)

She will fall asleep before him, lulled by the warmth of his body and the sound of his breathing and the beating of his heart – and when she wakes in the morning he will be there.

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VI.

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Not yet, he thinks, sensing his brother approach, knowing what it means, what has to happen.

(gods, not yet, he's not ready for it to end)

Weak. Pathetic. Naïve. He's played his part to perfection, if that's the opinion she thinks he holds of her. Funny, because he's the one who is so pathetically weak, and hopelessly naïve, too, if he thought there was even the slightest chance that this wouldn't end in disaster. Better to keep playing that part, right? Better to hide behind a lie, because he can't face knowing what could have been. It's easier this way.

I doubt that, he hears a voice whisper, remnant of an old, old memory. Simpler, maybe, but not easier.

He tilts her chin up toward him and leans down, lips brushing against her ear.

(so soft, he could still kiss her, she's right there, he might never be this close again)

—say it, tear it all down, stop lying to yourself—

The words are lodged in his throat, and even if he doesn't say them, his brother is about to ruin everyone's night anyway. He only has a second to decide.

—just a few little words, that's all, break her heart like it's nothing—

—distracted, distracted, distracted—

—she's not yours, she never will be, don't you know that by now—

His second is up. Time to choose.

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VII.

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"You got what you wanted," she says in that impossibly gentle voice. "I'm here. Let him go."

All he can hear is the sound of his own ragged breathing; all he can feel is the coral crust beneath his fingers as he kneels on the ground, and the iron grip of his master's will, ready to crush his throat, or stop his heart, or throw him into the Embrace of Pain and let it do its worst.

"He would have killed you," his master says, quiet.

She takes a breath, and he watches as she straightens ever so slightly and squares her shoulders. "I know."

"Do you know?" His master is skeptical, rage still simmering beneath a deceptive mask of calm. "Do you understand what you'd be allowing to live?"

—what kind of monster are you—

"Yes," she says, so soft it hurts, "and I'm still asking you to spare him."

He's only vaguely aware of being released, of the cold fury in his master's leave us, of his brother reaching down to yank him off the ground – because all he can see is her, turning back to look at him. All he can see is her fear and her strength and her mercy and her eyes and why is she doing this for him, he hates her, he hates everything about her, he deserves to die—

—why, why, why, why—

His twin hauls him to his feet, leaning in close. "Come on," he whispers quickly. "Move, move." Ferrus growls a few obscenities under his breath as he drags him backward toward the turbolift.

She doesn't look away, and neither does he, and it makes him sick, the way she watches him, pitying him. She's wrong to save him, doesn't she know that? Doesn't she? Why should she look at him like that, after everything he's done? Why?

He and his brother cross the threshold, and Darth Festus stares back at Allana Djo until the turbolift doors close between them; and in that moment, that last second before twin layers of durasteel separate him from her completely, he knows the image of her standing before the Master of the Sith will be forever burned into his brain, and he wonders if he'll ever see her again.

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