"—meanwhile, polls continue to tighten in next week's Iowa Caucuses. Senator Bail Organa from California's Alderaan District continues eating into Sate Prestage's lead, with multiple polling operations moving the race into a statistical dead heat." The female newscaster commentates. "Here's Blake Samia with more from Iowa."

The voice on my TV switches from the female one to a male one, prompting me to refocus on my preparations here in the kitchen.

I'm pretty sure that I've already done most of the legwork. The asparagus is already washed, the foil packets are already made. Cheese is in the fridge. I just finished cubing the potatoes I peeled for the house fries…

It would have been easier if Sabine didn't decide to make herself a loaded baked potato for dinner last night. I grilled a pork chop and was going to make her one until she passed and said she just wanted the potato.

The girl put basically my whole fridge on it. Sour cream, cheese, green onions, or as she called them 'chives', salt and pepper, bacon bits and a mountain of butter.

So now I'll be messing around with hot oil in order to switch it up for dinner tonight.

At least I've done this chicken recipe before.

"—closing with undecided voters. The age gap is stark in the polling, and even more so on the ground. My colleague Lindsay Clift at Politico was in Des Moines today Jessica, and her straw poll found Organa's support to be upwards of 70%, with many undecided voters leaning Organa's way. The Prestage campaign downplayed those numbers, citing the unreliability of that voting bloc. However, the fervor and energy here is undeniable."

I glance over at my phone, which is set off to the side and tap the screen once. The lock screen dutifully papers, with zero new messages to report.

Matt and JJ were texting me in the little group text they threw me into randomly, but both have now gone silent.

I know Matt is doing 'dinner' out tonight. And JJ is, in his words, 'risking it all' to cook for Jaicey.

Matt stopped talking before JJ, but he probably had to get an early reservation or something. Valentine's Day dinner cannot be easy to schedule.

Everybody and their girlfriend literally wants to go out and eat, if for no other reason than the fact that you don't have to do dishes.

Dirty dishes in the sink can be a drag any time, especially when there's…activities to be pursued later on in the night.

I don't expect anything from Sabine. I really don't. I'm just cooking her dinner, got her a card and some nice looking flowers from the grocery store a few miles away.

The big one is the gift card to her favorite art supply store. She's, well, there's no other way to put it. She's been bitching about how she's running out of everything at the exact same time, so I figured I'd intervene.

JJ especially liked the extra touches, with Matt being a little more hesitant. But I'm confident.

"—live from Iowa. Thank you Blake."

"Thank you Jessica."

"And now for the other top story of the day—" Jessica the newscaster reports as I move to grab—

"Today is the sixth anniversary of the Lothal Compound bust down in Texas that resulted in the capture of infamous Sith Lord Darth Sidious."

Wait, that's—

"In addition to the bust, the Jedi Order revealed the surrender and subsequent capture of fellow Sith Lord Darth Vader. Our Washington DC correspondent Renee Walters has more from the Capitol."

That was…today? Valentine's Day?

I remember Cayle saying once that the Order deliberately picked the day they did it in order to try and bury it under the news cycle.

Didn't work.

"Six years on, the largest coordinated operation on US soil still ruffles feathers." A new voice reveals itself. "The operation that resulted in the capture of the infamous Sith Lord Darth Sidious in Lothal, Texas marks its sixth anniversary today, but not without notice."

"I think he should be behind bars."

Oh. You.

"Senator Keith from South Carolina is far from the only one who holds this belief, co-sponsoring a bill today in the Senate, petitioning the reclusive Jedi Order to hand over both Sith Lords." The newscaster takes the lead again before the screen cuts back to—

He's just going to line up and take potshots. I know it's easy to use me to score political points. I'm an easy scapegoat, and Keith sure does love coming after me.

"Senator Keith." The new reporter, the woman who must be named Walters appears on camera before cutting to the Senator, seated across from her. "Why did you and Senator Snapper put this bill before the Senate today?"

Senator Keith replies. "Because I believe that the representatives of the American people deserve to know where exactly Lord Vader is."

"Not Lord Sidious." Walters presses him.

"Renee, you know as well as many. As head of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, I'm privy to more information that I can divulge. At this point in time, I'm not concerned with Lord Sidious."

Oh try to say that more arrogantly you—

"You're not?"

Senator Keith nods. "We've got him locked up good and tight."

"Oh you'd better hope he doesn't hear that…" I shake my head before trying to distract myself.

You can listen. You just can't watch it. You have dinner to make Ezra.

I didn't know that was today. I know that the dates were off, since I sat in that holding cell for two weeks but…

"—Lord Vader is a highly skilled, intelligent and capable individual. And I believe that the Jedi Order has overstepped its bounds in continuing to hold him."

"And you want him?"

"I want to bring him to justice." Senator Keith states for the soundbite.

The report cuts to a voiceover of the interviewer, Walters. "Vader, who has not been heard from since his arrest outside of a brief appearance at the California State Capitol back in October, remains in Jedi custody."

"Are you concerned that he may strike again?"

"I cannot be concerned with what I do not know Renee. And I know very, very little."

"More than the public?"

Senator Keith replies. "Marginally so."

The president had to wait nearly five years for the Jedi to allow him to talk to me. And that was only after I had to save a bunch of students here at home!

What makes you think you've got any sort of a shot to get at me?

"—the Jedi Order is a vestigial group from years gone by. And the broad, reaching powers they wield are being abused by Masters Windu and Yoda in order to grant asylum to Lord Vader."

"How about the one who arrested his father, Skywalker?"

"To our knowledge, Master Skywalker's involvement ended in Lothal."

It did, to a point.

And now I'm in his Sphere of Influence. I get copied on daily reports from him, sent directly to my inbox.

The voiceover returns. "—muted response from his Senate colleagues."

"Now is not the time to be debating matters such as this." A male voice declares confidently.

I don't know who that is.

Focus Ezra. This isn't the point. The point is—

My front door spontaneously swings open, revealing an exhausted looking Sabine with grass stains all over her shirt and shorts. "Hey Ez—"

Sabine's expression morphs at warp speed from exhaustion to near tears before she makes almost a whimpering noise and covers her mouth with both of her hands.

"Hey." I say while turning to her. "I'm making dinner."

"You—you didn't have to, I was thinking of ordering a pizza or something…" Sabine volunteers while stepping into the kitchen.

"Nah, besides the wait on that would have been ridiculous." I reason with her before leaning over to grab the card. "By the way, Happy Valentine's Day."

Haven't seen her all day.

Sabine makes the same, overwhelmed sounding noise before crashing into me for a hug. "You didn't have to do all of this, I wasn't kidding when I said you didn't have to do anything..."

Yeah I did.

"I got bullied into it by Matt and JJ." I joke. "They said you'd have my head if I didn't do anything. By the way, here's your card."

I extend the card to Sabine, only for tears to show up in Sabine's eyes. "You really didn't…I don't deserve this."

"That's not true. Open it." I push the card towards Sabine as she looks like she's trying to hold it together.

Sabine accepts the card, but swallows thickly. "I, uhm, can I wait? I really need a shower and don't want to keep dinner waiting. It smells amazing."

"Yeah." I nod, then set the card back on the counter. "Of course. How was practice?"

Sabine wastes no time in starting towards my bathroom. "Horrible. Weber decided to try and kill us all today. Any mistake we made we had to do up and down, followed by burpees."

Oh no.

"That sounds awful." I reply as Sabine sidles into my bathroom and starts closing the door.

"I'll be right back!"

(10:17 PM Valentine's Day)

The light on Sabine's phone illuminates my comforter, only for Sabine to hurriedly turn it face down.

Thank you…

Impulsively, I stroke Sabine's thigh, eliciting a content purr from her before she pulls me close and—

—

—

—

"How are you feeling?" She whispers before nibbling at my ear.

"Great." I report, getting Sabine to smile. "You?"

"Never better."

…

…

Sabine's speaker fills the comfortable silence of my bedroom before Sabine shifts her position, lying on my chest. "You know I'm supposed to be impermeable."

Huh?

"What?" I ask, then laugh.

I don't understand.

Sabine giggles back at me and peers up to make eye contact with me. "I'm supposed to not feel anything. Affairs of the heart and all that."

Oh.

"But you…you're you." She sighs blissfully then shifts closer still. "You make the impossible seem routine. And here I am."

Here we are.

"I…Don't get all weird on me after I say this, but—"

Weird?

"You…" Sabine starts, then pulls herself so that she's whispering directly into my ear. "You're 1% in the door. The other 99% of me is still impenetrable. But you're the only one in the whole world who I want to be with right now…and I am. And I think you should know that."

"You still don't want anything." I decipher the comment.

Makes sense.

But like she said, I'm in the door.

"Don't…that's the farthest thing from a bad thing. Please, please don't hear that and get sad about it Ezra. You…you're the only one who I'm thinking about like that right now. I don't want you to think I'm using you or taking advantage. I'm not trying to if you think I am."

"I—you're fine." I sputter out.

"I know it's a weird arrangement." She confesses, then nibbles at my ear. "But I think we're both satisfied with it right now."

I can't hold back a laugh, which gets Sabine's Force signature to brighten and for her to curl into a hug. "Word choice Sabine."

"I'm satisfied. Very satisfied. I—"

She stopped.

"What?" I ask, just before Sabine's lips press up against mine tenderly.

—

—

"I love you."

—

—

"I love you too." I whisper back, only for Sabine to grab my face and pull me into another kiss.

—

—

"I know it's not the usual sort of arrangement. And I know you know where I'm at." Sabine begins, before hesitating and looking at me in the eye as best she can through the darkness.

She still doesn't want a relationship. But I'm the most precious thing she's got going right now, and wants me to know that.

"I know."

Her signature swells with relief and happiness before Sabine kisses me again.

—

—

"You're the best. In the entire world. I hope you know that."

"Now I know." I tease her, only to get swatted in the chest.

"You knew. But I wanted to say it again."

"Didn't have to." I reply. "You should have heard yourself last time."

It was…

There was a loving primal-ness to it. I was the only person in the whole universe there for a stretch, and all she wanted.

"I followed my own advice. Just turned my brain off and fucked you. You seemed to enjoy it too."

"Yeah." I monotone out, causing Sabine to break and giggle loudly. "It was alright."

"Shut uppp…" She groans, then shoves my head into one of the pillows. "You're so obnoxious."

"That's why you love me though." I say into the pillow.

I raise my head back up to eyes Sabine, only for her to be smiling at me. "No. I love you for a lot of reasons. Your obnoxiousness is just a cute bonus."

"I—." I start to tease her back before I hear something fall in the living room, causing both of to jump out of our skins.

"What in the hell—" Sabine hisses while diving under my comforter to cover her body as I scramble out and start looking for my shorts.

Where are they where are they—There they are—

"I got this. You hang here." I whisper to Sabine, only to miss her response through the night.

She'll hang here.

Creeping towards the door, I probe just as I find the doorknob and—

Wait, hang on.

—

Why are you here?

I dart through my bedroom door and close it behind me, leaving no opportunity for my guest to discover Sabine before I start towards my living room.

That sounded like one of Sabine's easel stands or something.

"Hi." I bark out halfway through the hallway, spotting Sabine's easel which has indeed fallen with the canvas facing up on the floor.

Cayle whips back around, dressed in a collared shirt and jeans before lighting up and covering up what I assume to be a laugh. "Please don't tell me she worked on that today."

"No, she didn't. I'm busy so make it quick." I press him.

I have better things to be doing here. You shouldn't be here tonight.

"Busy doing better things. Or thing. How's Sabine?"

Satisfied.

"Why are you here Cayle? You know what day it is."

Cayle quickly gives me an apologetic look. "Yeah, I know. And I'm sorry I interrupted. I got ordered here."

"Ordered to barge in here and knock Sabine's art down?"

Idiot!

Cayle's apologetic expression remains. "Must be going well if you're this agitated."

"I'm not—." I roll my eyes. "I'm not doing this tonight Cayle."

I have my girl in my bedroom on Valentine's Day.

Cayle leans over, then spots something and laughs before—

SHUT. UP.

Pinching my thumb, index and middle fingers together, all the oxygen evacuates from Cayle's lungs as I try to contain my fury.

NOT. TONIGHT.

Cayle immediately submits, signaling his surrender with a raised hand while to other pulls at his collar before a tablet thuds to the floor.

Mouthing "sorry, sorry, sorry"

Yeah you are sorry.

Relinquishing my grip on his throat, Cayle bends over and gasps for air as I pull the tablet to me.

This better be really, really good.

"What is this?" I demand of him while unlocking the device.

Cayle lets out another wheeze before responding. "report…from Master Kenobi."

"What's it say?" I ask as I swipe. "Twos, get me in."

I'm not wasting time typing in my username and password.

"Small…remote town near the Nepal, China, Indian border. Two nights ago around 9 PM local time the whole place went dark. Off the grid. Electrical, water, internet, everything. Like it didn't exist."

"Okay?"

So?

It's a tiny village in a very remote part of the world. During winter. These things can happen, infrastructure down there isn't as good as it is in most parts of the world.

"Well one of our informants got into contact with us, saying he'd only just escaped an attack. Talked of human sized robots with blasters for hands and a relish for violence."

"That's not possible." I roll my eyes. "This isn't Terminator."

Dad's blaster tech was a decade away from live fire tests, and nothing's moved on it since.

And there's no such thing as robots.

"That's what I thought, until daylight came and we sent a search party. Look." Cayle sidles up to me and swipes a few times on the tablet.

Holy…

…

"Whoa."

The whole town's been leveled.

There's debris everywhere. Homes destroyed, fires still burning and smoke still dissipating into the air.

Bodies strewn here and there.

"Who did this? Who is the informant?"

Cayle takes the tablet back and starts scrolling again. "The informant is from one of our Indian Temples. Down there they can't exactly operate like we do here. You have to go into these towns and establish contact, then keep up appearances."

"So he's not an informant."

"He informs us on what's going on. But there's nothing of value ninety percent of the time. You know what we're looking for mostly."

"Young children doing extraordinary things."

They'll think it's an act of God, or witchcraft, or divine prophecy or something else. It always varies. When in reality it's a child tapping into their latent Force abilities.

"Exactly." Cayle nods once. "But this village had been resisting overtures from the Trade Federation about putting in a factory down the road, near a river."

"Okay…"

Cayle hands me the tablet back. "This was taken at first light today, their time."

—

Okay hold on.

"Yeah." Cayle summarizes my thoughts.

"And you're sure that's the same town." I ask the redundant question anyway.

It's totally rebuilt. Bustling with new people.

That's not possible.

"Mhmm." Cayle nods once.

"What happened?"

Cayle takes the tablet back and sets it on top of my recliner. "To help rebuild and investigate, we brought a few Masters, Padawans and a few members of the Indian military. Only to be rebuffed at the foot of the town, saying we weren't welcome."

"I bet that went over well."

Cayle laughs. "Yeah. The Admiral marched right in anyway. And Master Singh knew what questions to ask. We think…the Trade Federation put them there."

Relocated?

"That doesn't seem like something they'd do." I counter. "They're…a business. Mega-corporation. They don't care about military force or power."

They just want money and will exploit any local population to do it.

"Until now." Cayle counters.

…

Why would they be that aggressive?

"What provoked them?"

I don't understand.

And that's not even mentioning the military robot element of all of this.

"We don't know. We got booted out after around an hour by some heavily armed people claiming to protect the area in the name of the Trade Federation. They said it's a company town."

It wasn't before.

"That makes no sense. They just wanted the land? Their factory?"

Why'd they just slaughter all the people?

Cayle shrugs. "Don't know. Masters Kenobi and Jinn are en route right now, with explicit orders from the Council not to take no for an answer."

"Awesome." I laugh dryly.

Sounds like a flashpoint to me.

"I'm sorry to interrupt…really." Cayle apologizes, looking sheepish. "But you know how they are. I didn't want to do it. And it's really that weird."

Weird isn't the word. Aggressive is the word.

Imperial really is the word.

The Trade Federation marched in, leveled a town and rebuilt it, filling it with their own people?

That's…

"Weird's not the word."

"I know." Cayle nods before taking a step back towards the porch. "Listen, I'll get out of here so you and Sabine can get back to your Valentine's Day festivities but—"

"Watch it." I warn him.

"Hey!" Cayle raises his hands defensively. "You're the one with scratches on his sides and back, don't turn your fire on me. I'm not judging."

"You're judging."

"Not as long as you're being smart. You got…stuff?"

Condoms?

"I'm fine. We prepared." I ease his baseless concerns.

Cayle's eyebrows raise for a split second, before he smiles and darts for the door. "Okay then. Good luck."

He darts back thru my door, giving me a sarcastic salute before vaulting over the side of my porch.

That's at least a twenty foot drop. Showoff.

—

Oh shit.

The sound of my bedroom door opening causes me to pivot back and see Sabine, clad in one of my larger shirts. "What was all that about?"

…

"Nothing. Cayle, being his normal self." I say, then raise the tablet for her to see.

Sabine's expression turns serious. "Work?"

"Yeah."

"Doesn't he know what day it is? Of course he didn't have a date or anything today. No girl with a brain would—"

"Hey hey hey." I cut off Sabine's insult before she can finish it. "He felt bad. He apologized multiple times."

Let it go.

Sabine frowns, then crosses her arms. "This isn't a Valentine's day buzzkill is it?"

"…No." I say, setting the tablet down on the table between my couch and recliner.

"good." A soft smile appears on Sabine's face. "Because I'd hate to ruin everybody's day with a homicide."

I laugh, getting a bigger smile out of Sabine before she scoops up my hand and starts pulling me back to my room. "C'mon. Back to bed."

Back to bed.