I have, at last, found time to complete this story in which the characters do not belong to me at all, and for which I am not getting paid.

Thanks for all the comments. Hope you enjoy the final chapter

Part 4 – Epilogue

In the early evening light, Mon Mothma, retired politician, sat on the couch in her plush quarters on Coruscant and read Bakuran philosophy while she waited. It wasn't that he was late, rather she was early, ready a little before her time. She had to admit that this was a fairly common occurrence for her. She finished the chapter and put down the reader. Picking up the activator, she turned on the holonews to see what had happened over the course of the day. She wanted to be informed when she arrived at the Senate gala in just over an hour. The three dimensional image of the newscaster swam into focus as he discussed the latest events. It always relieved her to find her face absent from the screen. Sometimes holojournalists took a sensible approach to their jobs and realized that no one really needed to know about the lives of a retired politician and military man. They didn't need to broadcast the ins and outs of an old friendship anymore; and if the old friends decided to alter that friendship in such a fashion that it made breakfast dates much more convenient, then it wasn't necessary to share that fact with the galaxy.

She watched segments on the diplomatic negotiations at Iphigin and a slightly intrusive profile of Leia's children speculating on their degree of Force sensitivity relative to some non-existent statistics. She'd met Garm at Iphigin. They'd both been sent there as senatorial representatives before the Emperor had seized power. In fact, they'd been there when he'd taken office. She remembered meeting the freshly engaged young senator from Corellia and wondering why they'd sent him, why Corellia had sent a soldier to the Senate. Despite his good looks and slightly daring smile, her opinion of him was rather low. Then she saw him handle the crowd and bring the two sides to agreement on a sticky point. Then she realized that he was a strategist and tactician, almost annoyingly good at what he did. Over the course of the negotiations they'd become friends and when they'd returned to Coruscant to discover that Palpatine had managed to put himself in charge, she was sure they'd worn the same shocked expression.

Not having an Imperialist spouse and then children to deal with, her decision to resist had been instant. She'd spent the next years in wary observance, and then the beginning of the Clone Wars convinced her that her worst fears were about to come to life. The Republic had been enormous and corrupt for years but Palpatine was more than the average self-serving politician. His charisma was bewitching but there was something about him that frightened her and she always felt Garm agreed with her.

He'd acted with far less certainty, refusing to look at the Emperor-to-be in the same stark light she had, but he respected her enough to send her information and take part in the occasional operation despite the disapproval of his wife. She'd always wondered how much Arianna Bel Iblis knew about her husband's involvement in the early rebellion, and despite their current closeness, Garm shared very little about his wife. Most of the time, Mon Mothma understood his decision to keep that private. He did not want to look too closely at his memories of his family, and she would not disturb them either.

All she'd ever known of their marriage had been the tension. He was always tired in those days, always fighting with her and with himself. Sometimes she'd find him sitting in silence by a window stretched so tightly she didn't dare disturb him. Once he'd noticed her looking his way and he'd snapped at her, telling her that if he wanted to sit in silence and think, then she should let him do it whether she agreed with what he was thinking about or not.

She hadn't been able to understand his pain and his feelings of betrayal. Sometimes she feared that she still didn't fully grasp what his choices had cost him. He hid it so well. She wondered how much of him she might never know. She wondered about the life that they could have led if they hadn't spent so much time walking in different directions, masquerading as those with impossibly different opinions.

And in these fears, she would wonder how much of that mattered. They were old, past their time. So what if the match wasn't perfect, it was enough; and in the seventh decade of one's life, perhaps one shouldn't seek more than enough. She stood up to place the reader on a shelf and looked out the window beside it. Was there a time in her life when she believed that there was more than 'enough'?

When it came to her career, certainly. She had never settled for anything. Politics flowed through her veins where most sentients had some sort of vital, life giving fluid. She'd long realized that, no matter what the cost, she couldn't imagine her life being much different from the way it had been. She couldn't imagine making decisions much different from the ones she'd made. If she had to do it again, she'd make the same choices and the same mistakes again.

Garm wouldn't. He'd told her that one night as the two of them were drifting off to sleep.

"Are you still awake," he'd asked quietly into the dark room. Something in his voice suggested that part of him hoped she wouldn't be.

"I am," she'd responded, "just barely."

There was silence.

"Was there something in particular you wanted to say?" she'd asked, "or were you just wondering if I was suffering from insomnia too?"

"It's nothing." He'd said, after awhile.

She reached out and grabbed his hand in the darkness.

"No it isn't".

Garm's whole life had been about making the right move at the right time. If he'd started such an obvious conversation, at least part of him wanted to finish it, and he knew her well enough to expect her to make him finish it.

"If I'd made some different decisions in my life, I wouldn't be here right now," he'd said, "Sometimes I wish I'd made those different decisions."

She'd nodded and squeezed his hand, trying to shunt away the pain in his comment. She regretted the lives she'd sacrificed with her decisions. So did he. Even after so many years, cuts that deep cracked open. Then all they could do was let them ooze. She couldn't solve it for him any more than he could solve it for her. As he would, she waited for him to return from the emotional ride of guilt and justification.

She held his hand and listened to his voice in the darkness as he told her that he regretted his choice to dabble in the rebellion. It had been the right decision, he said with a tight throat, but he would not have made it again. If he could have those years to live again, he would put his family first. At the first sign of rebellion he would take his wife and children to some far corner of the galaxy where they would be safe as civilization collapsed upon it itself.

Mon Mothma switched off the holonews and walked to the window. She stared out over the city as the memory ran through her brain.

And, in that safe corner of the galaxy, she believed, he would have grown old with Arianna. He would have held his grandchildren. He would have felt no regret.

And the Rebellion, without his strategy, would have failed. Mon Mothma would have died fighting for what she believed in. She would have died, and he would not regret it.

That truth had bothered her for a long time. They'd found each other through loss. They'd found happiness in the wake of pain. Still, in all that, surely it was only natural to wish that pain had never happened; to, given the option, choose the life that had been stolen rather than the new one they'd found.

And yet, she wouldn't.

Because, she would admit to herself reluctantly, in Garm, she'd found something that was far more than enough. Her hours with him meant more to her than she'd ever believed anything possibly could. She would not give these years up for anything.

But he would, if he'd had the choice.

She thought of the memories they'd been building for themselves. They'd taken trips solely for pleasure. They'd slowly walked the streets without any sense of urgency. They'd worked through a thousand rounds of Holochess and Flimsiscramble. He'd lost to her Sabacc face and been stuck with the dishes or sweeping more times then they could count.

They could laugh together. They could play together.

She considered this the key to their relationship. After all, they never could work together. Hailed as a great team, they'd blended their efforts and achieved great things but the division of labour had been strictly observed. She did her part and he did his.

Separately.

What they did fit together like cogs in an astromech: synapse for synapse; but like those cogs, each spun on their own axel. The only time they'd blended their work while it was in process had ended in Garm's withdrawal from the rebellion. And she remembered all too clearly how he would not return until she promised him his own axel.

It could never have happened like this when there was so much work to be done. She'd never have seen in him what she could see now were it not for her years of leading and fighting.

They never would have found this sooner, no matter what decisions either had made, no matter what losses they'd faced. This love was only possible now that the work had given way to play, now that the losses had been given the respect they deserved. This Garm, was hers.

Mon Mothma glanced again at the sun setting over the clocktower. It was time to go.

She turned and started towards the door, reaching the entrance to the hall at the same time as Garm reached it, having exited the bedroom in full ceremonial uniform. With that Corellian twinkle in his eye, he offered her his arm and she linked her own with it, smoothing her cream coloured gown with the other hand as they walked down the hall together.

It was true what the old philosophers had said:

Timing is everything.

The End