Chapter Ten

The trip to Parsnil only took about as long as Tatooine to Bothawui had, two weeks. Saera and Glynn took the time to work on their story for the rebels. It became apparent that luck would need to be on their side no matter what angle they took.

"I'll have to make sure they don't tell Luke that I'm, er, pregnant. Well, because we, uh..." Saera drifted off, unable to explain her concern anymore. It was four days to Parsnil and she hadn't wanted to bring the topic up, but needed Glynn's help.

"Oh, you guys never slept together. Sure. So tell them you wanted to explain it to him personally. I'm sure they'll understand."

"Right." She stared down at her feet. A smile played gently across his lips, though he didn't let her see. He didn't know why, but he found it slightly amusing that she couldn't bring herself to talk about this topic with him.

"Well, I think the most credible situation would be if I were your concerned brother, helping you on your quest. I'll be pretend Skywalker and I hate each others' guts, so I can get 'em not to tell him about your 'brother.'" It wouldn't be too far a stretch of the truth... "Let's see, what do I have..." he pulled out a storage compartment from the closet in the rec/dining room they were in and started rummaging around. After much shuffling through containers and bottles, he managed to find what he needed. "OK, I'll dye my hair black, and I have some of those wierd color-changing eye drops, so we can look a little alike."

"You're going to try to look like me? I've got to see this!" Saera grinned.

"Not until we get to Parsnil. Besides, you have to look pregnant, which will be funny enough on it's own. Grab me a sweater, baggy-ish, non-see-through."

"Geez, ordering me around!" she joked, disappearing into the guest quarters and emerging a few minutes later. Glynn took the shirt with the aid of some heavy-duty tape from the supply closet.

"Put it on." She came out of the room a few minutes later looking just pregnant enough to be pushing five months.

"Behold the wonder of tape!"

"Heh, I do sort of look like a Dewback." She looked down at her stomach.

"Oh, but a very pretty Dewback."

"Dewbacks aren't pretty, silly." She turned slightly pink and pulled off the shirt, which she had thrown over her regular clothes. Pausing for a second before deciding what to do, she ended up sitting next to him on a long chair, looking up at the top of his head.

"I can't believe you're going to have to dye your hair." It was a pity, actually, as it was such gorgeous hair, auburn, alive with highlights. It looked full and thick. Without really thinking about it, she ran the tips of her fingers through the tufts above his left ear. He wasn't looking at her, he was looking straight ahead. Curious, she repeated the motion, but slower, and tracing down the back of his neck. He sharp intake of breath told her she shouldn't have.

"Saera..." his deep navy blue eyes turned to meet hers, and she was even more caught than she had been on Bothawui. His eyes were full of...everything, except the laughter that usually occupied them. A mixture of impatience, frustration, depth, and...what? Desire? Whatever it was, it worried her, because it towered over all the other emotions.

He was seeing mostly naïveté and fear in her. He didn't think it was fear of him, exactly, but more like fear at not knowing what was going on.

"Don't be scared." He reached up and cupped her cheek gently. Slowly, in what seemed like an eternity, as he held her quivering gaze, he moved in to kiss her. At first she appeared a little shocked but slowly began to respond to him. She put her arms around his neck and let him pull her in close to his body. She ran her fingers through his hair again, this time more roughly and more completely, causing him to emit a slight involuntary moan and pull her even closer.

Then she shoved him away. All of a sudden, she was pushing him off of her, breaking away.

"What—"

"Just stop." She jumped out of her chair, and he rose to meet her. "I—I—" she broke off and ran out of the room, leaving him there. Alone.

-

Saera couldn't think. She couldn't sit, she couldn't stand, she couldn't move, she couldn't stop shaking. She couldn't breathe.

She had like kissing Glynn, like it a lot, probably so much that she could have done it all day. In fact, she'd wanted to, desperately wanted to. So why had she stopped?

Luke.

She couldn't get Luke's soft blue eyes out of her head. She'd almost forgotten about him, just minutes before, in Glynn's arms, but now his face was haunting her.

She'd kissed Glynn, a lot, and passionately. Saera had never really kissed anyone before. Technically, she supposed, her first kiss had been at fourteen when she was trying to make Luke jealous, before she'd realized that kind of thing didn't work with him. But Saera didn't really count those kisses, because her heart wasn't really in them, and she hadn't really enjoyed them.

Not like when she'd kissed Glynn. Just thinking about it made her want to go out there and kiss him again, and to crawl into a hole and never come out at the same time. But mostly, she just wanted to slap herself, because she had remembered Luke. Briefly, just as Glynn was coming toward her, her mind had flashed "LUKE!" But a second later their lips had met, and all thoughts of her love were eradicated. She hadn't cared, worse, she'd been eager to have him gone, to enjoy the moment.

She'd acted worse than she had on Bothawui. And this time, there was no wine to blame.

Well. That was a little short, I think, but important to the plot. Maybe. Or I could have just desperately wanted them to make out or something. I can't remember.

Dunder and Blixen: Um, OK. If the summary bugs you that much...