PROPOSAL

Back to the Clone Wars, it's time for Dalla to put her plan into action. -LS

...

Dalla starts counting when Saw drags himself into the kitchen to drink his morning caf. That was the first tip Lux gave her: Saw's grumpier than anything until he's had caf. Wait until he's halfway done and then the kitchen will still be empty and Saw will be caffeinated enough to speak in complete sentences.

She uses her few minutes to run over the rest of Lux's tips in her head. Don't beat around the bush. Don't get sappy. Be honest, remind him of the benefits, and keep calm no matter what.

Keep calm. Right.

Ten minutes after she first smells caf, Dalla heads for the kitchen.

"Hey, Saw." she says and knocks on the door frame.

"Hey." Saw raises his caf mug, three-quarters of the way empty. "Want some caf?"

"No thanks." Her hands are already threatening to shake; the last thing she needs is caffeine. "I actually wanted to ask you something."

"Shoot." Saw takes another sip of caf.

Dalla grips the counter and spits it out. "Will you marry me?"

Saw's mug freezes at his lips and then he lowers it, laughing. "You know, I wasn't sure about bringing you in at first, but I like you. You're funny!"

He thinks she's joking. Of course he thinks she's joking. But Dalla's so shocked she can't explain. She just stares at him and his caf mug with her hands still clenched around the counter.

Saw stares back until realization hits and his smile disappears. "You aren't joking."

She shakes her head and Saw puts his mug on the counter before leaning against it himself. "Oh man, oh man…"

She shuts the kitchen door. "Are you okay?"

"What?" He realizes what she's saying. "Why wouldn't I be? I woke up, got dressed, got my caf, got proposed to in the kitchen. Normal morning routine."

"You look like you're going to pass out."

Saw doesn't respond to that. "Uh, do you want to sit down or something?"

"I'm good, but I really think you should."

Saw hoists himself to sit on the counter and exhales.

"I was not expecting that." He says.

That's pretty obvious. "Do you want me to -?"

"No." He grabs his caf mug, downs the rest of its contents like a shot, and then refills it. "I am not caffeinated enough for this."

She waits for him to chug before she speaks. "Are you caffeinated enough now?"

"No, but if you don't go now it's never going to happen."

Right. The benefits. "I'm my father's heir. If we get married, you'd have a command position in the navy." Best to start with the military option. Saw's the military type. "You got the hang of rowing pretty quick and you led everyone until Steela was elected; I don't think you would have any problems captaining a ship. There's credits abound in the fishing industry so you'd never have to worry about money. The Hold's not exactly a shack either. I mean it's not the Royal Palace, but it's a close second. You'd get to live there, with a lord's title and the entire north to rule with me. Authority, prestige, my eternal gratitude, any dowry you ask, it would all be yours. We both have a sibling here to act as witness; we could do the ceremony right now if you want."

Saw looks into the caf mug. "Can you stop talking about it like it's a business transaction?"

Dalla stops. "What did I say?"

"It's like you're trying to hire me." He puts the mug down. "You're going over all the perks, but you're ignoring the part about us being married. That's so much more than a naval position and a place up north. That's being with each other for the rest of our lives. The rest of my life is a long time! And to be honest, I think a week isn't a lot of time to decide if you can be together that long. My parents courted for almost a year."

Hers didn't court at all before they were betrothed, but her father with the assistance of Glover Harkon, the alias "Nolram", and some slightly dubious spying helped them to fall in love. "Most of the married people I know didn't court much at all. From what I've learned, what comes before the marriage doesn't really matter. It's how you look at it and communicate and more often than not, that leads to a good marriage. My parents loved each other. My best friend's parents loved each other, and they'd only met once before they got married."

"Please be honest with me." Saw slides off the counter so they're both standing. "Do you love me?"

She pauses to weigh her answer.

"I don't love you," she admits. "I don't feel warm inside when we talk, or think about what could have happened on that rowboat, or try to do little things to make you happy all the time. But I do like you. I like how you'll go to the ends of the earth to get the job done. I like how you don't let anyone change the way you see the universe. I like how you aren't afraid of a joke during serious times. I like you, Saw. I like you very much."

"Thank the gods."

"Thank the gods for what?"

"That you don't love me, because I don't love you. You're nice, but I don't love you."

That's...nice. At least they're on the same page. "I guess that makes things less complicated."

"It does," Saw agrees. "My parents loved each other and after seeing that...look it's nothing against you but I can't marry someone I don't love and who doesn't love me."

And with that, Dalla's plan tanks. Marrying Saw was the only surefire way to end the nightmare with Rash.

"I understand." And she does. "I can't say it's the answer I was hoping for, but I understand."

"Just a question. If things were different, if this whole mess with Rash wasn't happening, would you still have proposed?"

It's a flicker of hope and Dalla grabs onto it quick. "No, but only because I would already be married to someone else. And I'd be disappointed I missed out. You would be a good husband. You treat Steela like a queen, and that's a reliable sign you would be kind to your wife too."

"If I wasn't my father would probably rise from the dead just to dress me down," Saw takes another gulp of caf. "He always said that if I got married I was going to treat my wife like she was the queen of the entire planet. When I was little they even had a prospect picked out."

"They did?"

"Uncle Brem's baby. I asked if I could have a starship as my betrothal gift and he laughed."

"That's one heck of a betrothal gift."

"Most high lords don't get gifts like that," he smiles to himself. "Of course, it took a while for me to realize I'd be the one giving the gift, not getting it."

"Who knows? You just got proposed to. What's saying you won't get a betrothal gift." But it's not going to be a gift from her. "Well, thank you for listening. And not continuing to laugh at me."

"I swear, I thought someone was pranking me. If I'd known you were serious - oh gods, that's awful. Laughing at a marriage proposal. You probably think I'm an ass."

Dalla shrugs. "All apologies will be accepted."

"I'm sorry." He looks like he wants the floor to swallow him. "Really, I'm sorry. Please don't tell Steela. Oh my gods. I can't believe I did that."

"If you pour me some of that caf I might forgive you." Now that her adrenaline's gone she feeling the effects of staying up half the night refining her shoddy proposal with Lux.

Saw grabs a mug from the cupboard and pours. Dalla accepts the mug, blows on it, and takes a sip.

"It's really bad," he explains. "But it's caffeine."

She shrugs. "It's better than caf tablets."

Saw looks at the chronometer, displaying a time twenty minutes since he walked in. "You've got ten minutes to drink that before Hutch comes in and starts making a racket with his breakfast."

"I can do it in ten minutes." She stares in shock as Saw pours himself another cup. "Salt gods, how much caf do you drink?"

"Usually the whole pot. I don't eat breakfast."

No wonder everyone leaves you alone in the mornings. If Saw needs this much caf to function and he's still grumpy, then she doesn't want to imagine what he'd be like without it. At least it's a smaller kettle.

"So for the rest of today. Did Steela fill you in on any of our plans? I was busy." Really? You go from marriage proposal to daily schedules? That's a bad segue if there ever was one.

"Yeah," he grunts. "She's somehow got ahold of supplies from a warehouse and she needs them moved over. If the bad weather continues that'll take a while. And then there's recon. She said something about sending me to scout the royal palace."

Dalla sets her mug down. "Do you think she's considering a rescue mission?"

"I can't think of many other reasons. She could be looking at troops but they would mainly be palace security. If we rescued the king and your cousin, we'd have every Great House but Rash on our side. And it would open up the northern fleet."

"Are you going around the perimeter or trying to get inside?"

"Perimeter, but as close as I can get. Past identity checkpoints." He pulls out his wallet. "I have a fake, but it's not very good."

Dalla examines the ID. The image is definitely Saw, but the card itself isn't quite right. Too flimsy, and the measures built into legitimate IDs to stop fraud are working on this one. "You're going to need some luck."

Saw's face flashes as if he's suddenly gotten the best idea in the universe, and then sobers up.

Dalla raises an eyebrow. "What is it?"

"Nothing."

"It didn't look like nothing."

Saw takes a second to decide. "Don't punch me for this."

"Why do you think I'd punch you?"

"Because somewhere I heard it was good luck to kiss a sailor."

Dalla has no idea what he heard - probably something a sailor in harbor for the night told a pretty girl, or he's crossed one superstition with another - but she does know what he means and she's surprised to find her cheeks warming. It's not like she's never been kissed; that ship sailed when she was fourteen at Harkon Hall and taught a bookish vassal's boy how to kiss mostly out of pity. Miranda laughed for years that considering Dalla's own inexperience it was a miracle the lad actually learned anything, and to be honest he probably didn't. But offering a kiss to a wide-eyed, chubby fourteen-year-old and having a good-looking man older than herself ask her for one…

She leans back on the counter trying her best to look nonchalant. "Only because your mission will help my cousin and you need all the luck you can get will I indulge that."

Saw's usual smirk returns and he crosses the kitchen in two steps, so close she can smell the caf on his breath and her heartbeat quickens.

"I can live with that," he says.

Judging from Saw's reaction when their lips meet, it's a wonder she didn't scar the vassal's boy for life. But he doesn't pull back or freeze up, and for that she's grateful. For the first time since Thias appeared she lets herself forget about the war, about Rash, about anything but Saw.

"Oh my gods!"

Saw's eyes snap open and Dalla pulls back at the voice, though she doesn't push Saw away. Hutch stands in the doorway with wide-eyed shock.

"Get a room!" he shouts and bolts away.

Dalla and Saw snap out of it. "Hutch, it's not what it looks like!" He shouts and scrambles into some position that might look like they weren't just tangled up with each other. His arm catches the pot of caf and knocks it and their mugs onto the floor. Boiling hot caf bubbles out.

"Kriff!" he swears and lifts Dalla onto the counter to get her away from the scalding liquid. "Are you okay?"

"Aye." Thank goodness both she and Saw are wearing leather boots. "Did it hit you?"

"No." He grabs a towel and throws it onto the spilled caf, swearing when he accidentally touches it.

Gripping the counter for security, Dalla leans down and picks up the pot and one of the mugs to put in the sink. Saw tosses the towel in after them and grabs another.

"Of course it had to be today Hutch has his breakfast early," he spits while mopping up the spill. Dalla takes another towel and slides off the counter to help. "He's probably telling everybody right now."

"What do we do?" Her stomach knots with worry. That good luck kiss was supposed to be the send-off for her marriage proposal and die in the kitchen along with it. It was never supposed to spread to Steela and Lux - and oh gods, what if someone tells Thias?

But Saw isn't listening to her. "The door locks. Why didn't we lock the door?" he laments while wiping up the caf. "You were the last one through it."

"Saw!" She grabs his hand to stop his scrubbing. "What do we do?"

He slows down and meets her eyes. He looks just as scared as she is, but of what she doesn't know.

"Okay," he rolls back onto his feet. "Okay, I have a plan. Or rather, two plans. We just have to decide which one will work."

Dalla thinks she knows where this is going. "Do either one of these plans involve us pretending to be together?" That only works on holosoaps.

"Uh, none of them do. Which one we use depends on how many people Hutch told already."

She scrambles to her feet. "Then shouldn't we go stop him?"

Saw beams their towels into the sink. "Yeah, we should."

...

When Dalla and Saw corner Hutch and demand the names of every person he told, the situation is not pretty.

In the thirty seconds he had to tell people, he told Hero, Ahsoka, and Lux. The only reason Steela wasn't included was because she was in the refresher. which Dalla can only pray she still is.

"You couldn't keep your mouth shut for thirty seconds?" Saw demands.

"You guys looked like you were going to do it in the kitchen!" Hutch protests. "You know, we have some perfectly good closets. We have a storeroom and a briefing room, all of which have locking doors. You know, the things that you activate to make sure other people can't open the door. All those options, and you go for the kitchen? The place where I prepare the food I put in my mouth? That's where you decide to do it?"

Dalla rolls her eyes. "Not like it's any of your business, but we weren't."

"How did you even think that?" Saw scoffs. "There was space between us."

Hutch snorts. "Yeah, a micrometer!"

Dalla glares at him and Hutch shuts up.

"Is that what you told the others?" She asks. "That we were 'doing it'-" she punctuates the phrase with air quotes - "In the kitchen?"

"No." He suddenly looks sheepish. "I said you were making out."

That's better, but not much. Force only knows what people can fit under the umbrella of "making out."

"Making out?" Saw repeats. "Gods Hutch, what are we, twelve?"

"You were!"

"It was one good luck kiss! That's not making out!"

Hutch looks like he wants to rebut that, but the looks on Saw's and Dalla's faces stop him. "How was I supposed to know?"

"Maybe you decide it's not your business and just keep quiet about it?" Dalla snaps.

"It's not my fault you two don't know how to lock a door."

"It's not our fault you don't have brain cells," Saw argues. "Hutch, you don't know half the stuff that happened before you walked in. There's more to the story."

Dalla throws him a pleading look before he can mention the proposal. "One last time. You only told Hero, Ahsoka, and Lux?" Lux she can safely ignore, but the other two could be a problem if they talk.

"Yes, that's everyone I told," Hutch sighs. "They were going into the main room and what was I supposed to do? Pretend like nothing was going on?"

"Yes!" both of them shout in unison.

Hutch raises his hands in mock surrender. "Okay, I'm sorry!"

"Hutch, you have no idea how tempted I am to hit you."

He's not the one who'll hear about it for the rest of his life if this gets out of control. Dalla speaks up. "Saw, we need to set the record straight before the others squeal."

Apparently she sounds desperate enough, or Saw just doesn't want to revert to his damage control plans. "If we can get them to meet with us in private -."

He's cut off by the faint sound of the refresher door opening.

Steela.

"Go get the rest of them!" Dalla orders, already bolting for the 'fresher. "I'm going to stop her."

…

"Steela, can I talk to you in the kitchen?" Dalla skids in front of the refresher door, blocking Steela in. She's taking no chances of someone coming up and blowing the secret.

Steela looks like she doesn't want to deal with anything this early in the morning and with the effects of the rainy weather reaching inside. "Sure," she acquiesces and straightens her scarf. "Do you want to go to the briefing room instead, in case we need the holoprojector?"

"We don't need the holoprojector," Dalla says and holds open the kitchen door for her. This time she locks it behind them.

Steela takes one look at the room's occupants: first Hero, then Lux, then Ahsoka, and she groans when she gets to Saw. "What did you do?"

"More like what did Saw and Dalla do," Hero snickers.

Steela's eyes narrow. "What do you mean, 'what did Saw and Dalla do'?"

Dalla stuffs the dish towels under the door to stopper in the sound. "Saw and I were talking this morning -"

"Talking?" Hero giggles. "Is that what you're calling it?"

Dalla ignores her. "Hutch walked in on something he didn't understand and he told these other three -"

"Oh, it's pretty easy to understand, all right."

"We're here to set the record straight." She glares at Hero. "And since you're the leader, we thought you should know."

"There's no record to set straight. Steela, I wouldn't touch that part of the counter if I were you -."

"Hero," Ahsoka says ever-calmly. "Look at Dalla's face. If you keep talking like you are and she suplexes you, I'm not going to stop her."

But the damage is done. "Did you two - in the kitchen?" Steela demands. It looks like she wants to kill Saw or Dalla or - nope, it's mostly Saw. "Sawyer Drokko Gerrera! I thought you were above seducing girls!"

"It's not like you think!" Saw announces before Dalla can. "Not even close. We were kissing."

"It was one kiss," she explains.

"Like she said. One kiss, for good luck on the mission."

A proverbial lightbulb goes off over Lux's head. "That makes a lot more sense than what I heard."

Hero flounders. "Hutch said you were -!"

"Well Hutch either needs a vocabulary lesson or an eye exam." Saw glares at the man in question. If looks could kill…

"In my defense, it looked like you were going to do exactly what I said you were."

"Hutch, I don't need the force to know that's a gross overstatement," Ahsoka deadpans.

"I saw what I saw and I drew conclusions. Nothing wrong with that."

"That's assuming. Want to know a good way to spell 'assume'?" For a second it looks like Saw's about to take a swing at Hutch but Lux steps between them.

"There's no reason to fight," he reasons. "We're here to clear up the situation, not make it worse. If I understand correctly, the only thing that happened between these two was a kiss."

"That's correct." Dalla risks a look at Steela, who doesn't look very impressed. At least she's not angry at Saw's nonexistent seduction.

"And nothing else?" Lux raises an eyebrow to ask the question he can't say aloud.

She answers with a tiny shake of her head. "Nothing else. Just a good luck kiss."

Lux flashes her an I'm sorry expression. "Well that sounds rather open-and-shut. I see no reason to say otherwise, or to say anything at all." He directs the last one pointedly to Hutch, who shrinks.

"Sorry," he mumbles.

"You should be."

Now that she's assured no extracurricular activities took place in her kitchen, Steela's rage simmers away. Saw can kiss every girl in their ranks for all she cares. "I'm for filing this under 'Topics That Shall Never Be Discussed Again.' Any objections?"

Silence.

"Great. Oh, and you two?" She points to Dalla and Saw. "Next time, lock the door."

Dalla blinks. "B-but -!"

"That's all," Steela says and walks out, the others swarming around her in retreat.

There isn't going to be a next time, Dalla sourly finishes her sentence in her head.

Saw stares at his sister, caught equally off guard, but he has the presence of mind to keep the door wide open when they leave him and Dalla alone in the kitchen.

They stand there trying not to make eye contact with one another (what is there to say in a situation like this?) until there's a knock on the door frame and a "Hey, Dalla?"

She didn't think she was ever going to admit this, but thank the salt gods for her little brother. "Hey Thias. Did you just wake up?"

Thias nods and enters the kitchen, eyeing the conservator and the cupboards. "Can I have some breakfast?"

"You don't need to ask me for food." She opens another cupboard and tosses him a jogan from her and Steela's grocery run. It's probably been a long time since he had anything with vitamin C and she's not about to let him get scurvy on dry land. "Just go with shipboard rationing protocol and you'll be fine unless Steela says something else."

"I have a better menu option." Saw opens a cupboard, and pulls out a half-empty bag of cheese curls.

She raises an eyebrow. "I thought you didn't eat breakfast."

"I don't." He whispers and holds the bag of processed, cheesy goodness out to Thias. "This is Hutch's personal stash. I'm getting revenge."

Thias stuffs a handful of the snacks into his mouth without hesitation, then goes for a second. Dalla hopes the crunching is enough to drown out Saw's whisper.

"What was going on in here?" Thias asks between bites. "Dono wanted to get in for a drink of water but the door was locked."

"We were having a meeting," she says

"In the kitchen?"

"No Thias, in the conservator." Hopefully the ridiculousness of that will derail his train of thought. "Make sure you eat the jogan too, or Father and Aunt Shara will kill me for letting you eat cheese curls for breakfast."

Thias takes one bite out of the jogan before going back to the cheese curls. "Wouldn't you guys usually have meetings in the briefing room?"

Kriff. "We have meetings wherever it's convenient and private. Saw needs his caf in the mornings."

"Either that or I'm a monster," Saw says from the sink where he's rinsing out the caf mugs. He tosses Dalla the towel to dry and a wink along with it. She doesn't know whether to go with it or smack him with the towel. They just got out of one bind; the last thing they need is a second.

But Thias is still absorbed in the cheese curls. "Cool," he says, clearly not paying attention.

"Don't eat the entire bag," Dalla cautions him.

"Do eat the entire bag," Saw replies. This time she lightly whacks him with the towel and he rubs his arm. "Ow! What do you have against payback?"

"I don't want him to get sick off them," she explains and wipes down one of the mugs.

"Who ever got sick off cheese curls?"

"Nobody," Thias says and shakes the last few crumbs into his mouth.

"Saw, if he throws up you're helping me clean."

"Hey kid?" Saw looks over his shoulder. "Don't throw up, got it?"

Thias gives him a thumbs-up in reply and continues his work on the jogan.

Dalla dries the last mug and rolls her eyes. "I take it you two are the best of friends?"

"No, we hate each other," Thias snarks and gulps down the last of the jogan.

"Some serious hate there," she sighs. "I'll have to go talk with Steela. We'll team up to survive...whatever this is. Prepare yourselves."

"Ooh," Saw says in mock horror. "I'm so scared."

…

And there it is, the origin of Some Say I Got Devil's reigning banter champions and their biggest joke. Thank you to everyone for reading, and please leave us a comment!