-Moonlight-

After the ball, back in their borrowed quarters, Jaina changes into the red dress that Tenel Ka has kept for her, somehow, all these years. It doesn't fit quite the same way it did when she was nineteen. She's not as slender and, frankly, malnourished as she was then. The corseted bodice emphasizes this point really well, and Jaina's glad she didn't wear the dress to the gathering. That isn't the kind of attention she wants from anyone except Kyp.

Their room has an exterior door to a courtyard garden, and Kyp waits there for her. Leaving her hair down and her feet bare, Jaina pushes the doors open and steps out into the moonlight. Hapes has two moons, and both are full and high in the sky above them.

He's changed into his robes, Jaina notes with amusement, as she crosses to him over the cool stone tiles of the walkway. He in his robes, her in the dress, just like that night.

He turns, watching her approach. Though the garden is lit with tall torches and the moonlight, his face is shadowed. Only the thrum of heat through their bond tells her he likes what he sees, until she gets close enough to look up into his face.

"Still fits," she says, then adds, "Sort of. I don't remember the neckline being this low last time."

Kyp grins and holds out his hand. "I do, but I had a different vantage point."

Jaina laughs and places her hand in his. "Yeah, I'll bet you did."

He pulls her close. "I've fantasized about this dress for almost twenty years. You're even more beautiful in it now than you were then."

"You think so?"

Kyp tucks a lock of her hair behind her ear and cups her face in one hand. "Goddess," he says roughly, "I told you, I don't give you unnecessary flattery. It's the truth. You're the most beautiful woman in the galaxy to me, and I've loved you helplessly since you were nineteen. The first time I saw you in this dress . . . Force help me, I wanted to kiss you."

"You should have," she says softly. "Maybe if you had . . . Everything would have been different."

"You didn't want me then," he reminds her softly.

She shakes her head. "Not exactly true. I did, and I was scared. I ran from it. On Borleias, when we had that kriffed up picnic? When I said that we weren't boyfriend and girlfriend, that that wasn't quite right to describe us . . . I'd thought about it. About us. But I was so young, Kyp. You were a man, and I was barely older than a girl. You wanted me, and I couldn't deal with it."

He smiles wryly. "When I realised you were with Jag, I thought I could wait it out, be there for you when it fell apart. Then I tried to tell myself I wasn't in love with you. I tried to convince myself for so long. I had no idea that what I told myself that day on Borleias would come true, that I'd pick up the pieces when you needed me to."

"I did need you," she whispers. "I've always needed you, even when I told myself I didn't. I walked away from you and into a really messed up marriage. I let Jag control me too much. I wasn't . . . me with him. I feel like I lost myself after the war, and I've only now really found myself again. With you."

Kyp slides his arm around her waist, tugging her against him. "If I'd kissed you that night, in the hallway . . ."

"Yeah?"

"Would you have hit me, or kissed me back?"

Jaina thinks for a long moment. "Pretty even odds on that. I don't know. But . . ."

"But what?"

"If you kiss me now . . ."

He lowers his head, covering her mouth with his. Jaina raises on her toes to return the kiss.

She squeaks in surprise when he bends to sweep her up in his arms, the crimson shimmersilk of her skirts a voluminous pouf nearly in his face. Jaina smooths them down as he carries her back into their room. She waves her hand at the doors to push them shut, and then she's entirely too distracted to worry about anything for a while.