(author's note: a moment, post-KOTET. Vaguely NSFW. Theron POV.

Nine's different today.

Victory suits her, true- there's an ease in her that he hasn't seen in months, the tension that's lived behind her eyes for years finally, finally gone. Of the two of them she's always been the fiercer and when she reaches for him, inexorable, the weight of the world falls away under her deft hands and her mouth, hot and wanting, and the graceful curve of her body as they move together; he thinks, every time, if this was the last minute of my life it would be enough but oh, Force, please, just a minute longer-

-but he was always the one, at the end of it, to pull her back in close. She indulged him at first, he knows; he'd feel her shifting sometimes, restless, when she thought he was asleep.

(He'd wondered if he'd overreached, those first few times on ships and shuttles when they didn't have to pretend propriety. War being war and circumstances being what they were, they'd fucked half a dozen times before they'd shared a bed on purpose- passing out half-drunk and exhausted on a couch after that first party didn't count; he's pretty sure he fell asleep in the middle of something but she didn't complain when they finally woke up, so he's pretty sure she did, too- and he'd thought maybe it was more than what she'd wanted, that she was going to wake up some morning and tell him to go.

He would have learned to live with that.

But on Odessen she asked him to stay, an extra toothbrush and two caf cups on the table and empty drawers in her closet only for him, and they realized both of them somehow got through thirty-something years of living without knowing how to do any of this-

Someday they'll stop teasing each other about it. Someday.)

Tonight, though, she clings.

Most of her wounds from the last days are mental. Still, he tries to be careful, on his knees before her with his tongue and hands moving slow and deliberate at the apex of her thighs like an act of silent worship- oh, sweetheart, you've done so much, he says, let me do this, and it is quiet but for her moans and the soft slide of fabric as the sheets bunch up, little by little, beneath her clenching fists.

Please, she whispers, Theron, please, please (she so rarely says it that it's a surprise every time; she commands, his Nine, even like this- yes, like that- more, harder, there, oh-

She's spent so long refusing to surrender that there is a strange delight in the rare moments where she yields.)

Please, she says again, and at first he keeps going, a little quicker to match the tempo of her words, but then she's reaching down for him, the gesture a guidance but her words failing her- I need-

He knows.

He knows. It's familiar as breathing, familiar as his hand in hers, when he uncurls to match the sprawl of her body below with his above; she lifts up to meet him and stars, there will never be anything better than this, not if they live a thousand years-

She clings, arms around his neck and ankles locked behind his back, mouth pressed to the side of his neck still moving in words he can read against his skin, and somehow the only words she has tonight are the same he's already heard, again and again and again.

Please, Theron-

And later, as he murmurs to her, running his fingers through her hair in the way that always helped her sleep, she turns to face him and she clings then, too, and burrows against his chest.

It's quiet, she says. It's finally quiet.

(It finally is, isn't it? It finally is.)

He pauses. Do you want me to stop?

She shakes her head; he can feel her smile. No.

She's different today. It's good.