They attempt to sleep. Their shuttle – the Star Dove - is on the small end of spacecraft design but is relatively spacious for a shuttle. There's a closet-sized room in the back of the cabin with a private bunk jammed in between floor and overhead storage. She's either too proud or too humble to take it, until he offers lip service about shifts and urges her back there (with a guiding hand on her lower back that it occurs to him later might have been impertinent). She gives him a last doleful look before closing the door. He dozes a little in his seat, on and off, enough so that he's not sure how much time has passed, but he figures less than an hour. The lights are dimmed but there are shadows cast across his face as she opens the door. He leaps at the chance to escape his troubled dreams and stiffening neck, rising and meeting her in the doorway.
"I can't sleep," she whispers. "The bed is wasted on me."
He sighs: "Keep the bed; I don't want to sleep. My head's not in the right place for it." He wonders if there is anything to read or cards for sabacc – something to get their minds off the situation. He doesn't want to be alone with his thoughts anymore. He glances around in the dark and then feels her eyes on him.
They stare unsurely at each other, and he's keenly aware of the low light, and her proximity. She's such a regal, formidable figure in front of the council, or behind her desk. A tower of rectitude and composure. She seems almost small now – no match for his height and slight under all those robes and coats. He bought into the myth of the woman all this time – he didn't think that he had, but he had. But she's not a myth, she's just a woman.
"We need a distraction," she says. Her tone is matter-of-fact; her gaze is anything but. She backs into the bedroom and then waits expectantly for him to follow her in, which he does. He reaches behind him and finds the button for the door easily, closing it. It's all so easy, as effortless and as exhilarating as falling. He should be shocked, but he's not. It feels...natural, except for the profound hammering of his heart
Inside the room it's darker yet, with no fixed lighting, only the ambient light from the stars via a small porthole. It's enough, though, to see. He sees her in the gleam of the stars as she takes another step back towards the bed. He sees a glint of resentment in her expression, in her quickening breath and parting lips – as if she had always intended to avoid this. As if she would rather not feel this way. As if a man like him is not what she had had in mind.
Perhaps it should, but it doesn't bother him to be wanted in spite of himself. In fact, his confidence only grows. He kisses her - one arm snaked low across her back; the palm of his other hand flat between her shoulder blades. He restrains himself with the kiss, too proud to come across as desperate, even as he's realizing that he wants this and has wanted it. With moderation he deepens it, tightening his embrace and moving his hands with some pressure against her back. She's enjoying it; she's melting in his arms. There's a hint of a moan off her tongue as he withdraws for air. He can feel her panting, her chest moving against his. He can feel every little movement but he wants it to be closer and he wants to feel more.
That glint of resentment, which reminded him so much of the younger woman he met on Coruscant, is gone. Their lips come back together more aggressively. This time, she angles her head. This time, she wraps her arms around his back underneath his jacket, searching under his jacket and under his shirt for his skin. She untucks his shirt and he lets his jacket fall off his shoulders and onto the floor but he would rather kiss her and hold her than undress, at least for the moment. He kisses her neck and she shudders.
It doesn't even cross his mind that it might be inappropriate, given the circumstances. They can't mourn – they don't know yet who didn't survive the battle. Without information, they can't mourn or plan or evaluate. They can only fret and regret and torture themselves with unanswered questions. He's worried about other things, like if the pilot might walk in. The distraction is working. He has never been so distracted in his entire life.
He's impatient to divest himself of his clothes now and it's interminable work: buckles here and buckles there and two of everything. She's shy, in removing her robes. They are careful with her livery, her medal. She has simple undergarments on underneath, and they climb into the bed and under the wool blanket not entirely naked. How long, since either one of them has done this? And they're not kids anymore. Maybe next time – if there is a next time, he really shouldn't be thinking about next times – they won't be so self-conscious.
This bed is worse (and smaller) than his cot in the common barracks on Hoth. There's no springs, just a lumpy stuffed mattress that has – like most things in the Alliance - seen better days. They are awkward and clumsy as they maneuver to discard their remaining clothing and situate themselves on the bed but they laugh about it. He feels the laughter in her chest against his, skin to skin, and he thinks it might be the best thing he has ever felt. It may only be a single moment in a lifetime of struggle but she is racked with laughter and not sobbing and that is good.
He kisses against her laughing lips and for a few minutes he forgets to do anything else because it's so nice. But then he notices her begin to flounder under him, writhe, with impatient frustration and desire and the heat has built and he is ready and she is ready.
Afterwards, she lies draped across his chest. Nestling up together something imposed upon them by the size of the bed and he's not at all certain it would have happened otherwise, but maybe it would have... It's cold enough to cleave together – the one thing that makes him glad that they're not in her former full-sized bed on Yavin IV, staring out her window at the big red planet in the sky and periodically wiping sweat from their brows.
He should have kissed her that night, after the Death Star. In the rain.
Her mind seems to be on Yavin too: "This might have very easily happened years ago."
"Do you regret that it didn't?" he asks.
"Do you?"
"Yes."
She smiles. He can't see her face but he can feel her do it. "I wonder if it was meant to be this way," she muses. "If it had happened earlier it might have been too…casual." She hesitates over the last word, breathless and quiet.
But he's relieved to hear her say it. He rewards her risk with uncharacteristic tenderness and hesitantly kisses the top of her head.
They fall asleep, eventually, to starlight and the hum of the Star Dove's engine. He wakes with a start when the ship drops out of hyperspace, and he finds her eyes in the dark, as wide with surprise as his.
"We should probably go confer with the captain, Ma'am. We may be approaching the rendezvous point."
She laughs at his 'Ma'am'. "I think, in here, you had better call me Mon," she tells him. "General," she adds, teasingly. But then she's all business as she begins dressing.
He wonders if there's any chance the people on the other side of the door are still asleep. Maybe if he walks out holding a datapad they'll think it was a meeting of minds rather than bodies. After all, a tech and a comm operator don't get to be privy to a classified conference just because they're on the same ship as their chancellor. It would make sense to meet in private.
When they emerge, the non-human is still sleeping, or sleeping once more, but the young woman's eyes are shaded with conjecture. She seems more amused than anything and bites her lip to hide a smile. He keeps a neutral face and rushes past her towards the cockpit.
More were lost on Hoth than Draven had hoped. But Cracken, the Princess, Dodonna, and others had made it out alive. Alliance High Command meets briefly on the rendezvous planet and for once comes to a unanimous conclusion: another home base would end in another catastrophe. They may never know how the Empire found them at Echo Base, but it would surely find them again. So they split up and take refuge in temporary camps, scattered around the galaxy for safety.
They send Mothma to the outer rim, away from heart of Imperial territory. 5251977. The planet doesn't even have a name. Draven is needed closer to the field. Their goodbye is rushed and public.
"Ma'am, I worry about your safety."
She musters a weak smile: "I'll miss you too, General."
They exchange nods and board their respective ships for their respective destinations.
The work keeps them apart for months and it feels like even longer. Interstellar communication doesn't allow for any privacy. He has cause to, professionally, send her a few memos. He hopes she can read between the lines, and hear affection in his terms of respect and longing in his assertions of loyalty. But most of his reports go to General Cracken who distills all the information for concise, integrated summaries to the chancellor.
Amidst rumors from the Bothan spynet, he is finally dispatched to Mothma's new camp on Zastiga to brief her when Cracken is too occupied to go and the information is too important to be sent by transmission. Their greeting is also rushed and public, but she meets him at the bottom of the ramp of his ship when he arrives and the gesture is so stocked with meaning that he doesn't care how many people are around.
"You're a sight for sore eyes, General."
"Thank you, Ma'am. I could say the same to you."
The briefing comes first and Mothma invites several of her advisers and generals to stay for it.
"They're building something," Draven says simply. It's the only fact he has to present.
"This is feeling very familiar," she remarks, somber.
"Is it true?" one demands. "Is it another Death Star?"
"Is it operational?" another shouts.
Draven waves them down. "We're still waiting on confirmation of that. The Bothans are close. We'll know more soon."
Most likely, it is another Death Star, another planet killer. This is exactly what Draven had hoped Galen Erso's death would prevent. But Erso had died too late, or the Empire was too determined.
Mothma – Mon, he has come to think of her as Mon during their months apart – dismisses the others.
"You do think it's another Death Star, don't you?" she asks. She's standing, he's sitting in front of her desk.
"Yes."
"It never ends, does it?"
He leans forward. "I think it reeks of desperation."
"They're hardly desperate."
"Let them pour all their resources and men into a battle station that we can destroy with a single blow."
"But it's not a single blow, is it? It's all of our squadrons in the air, at risk. How many will we lose ? And who knows what they've done differently this time. And they'll recover. They always recover."
"It's bleak. But it has always been bleak."
She smiles weakly: "I shouldn't find that reassuring, but I do."
"It's my 'steadying presence'," he says, recalling the phrase she used as they fled Hoth and hoping she'll recognize it. He can tell by her growing smile that she does.
"Your steadying presence has been missed." She's backlit against the sun as she turns away from him to stare out at the barren Zastigan landscape through her window. "I have taken you for granted in the past."
He may have felt that way once, but not since the Star Dove. In some ways, she had given him more credit and trust than he deserved. "No, Ma'am."
"No, Draven, I have. I've learned the lessons that only your absence could have taught me. That was the first."
"What was the second?"
"That I missed you more than I thought I would, in ways that surprised me. And I expected to miss you. I knew that I would. I think I missed most of all the way you put your hands on your sides under your jacket when you're thinking…or when you're arguing."
"Perhaps you'd like to argue?" he jokes. "For old time's sake."
"We have many arguments left ahead of us, I am sure. We needn't fabricate any." She turns around then. "When do you leave?"
"I'm expected back in three days."
"It's soon."
"It's not as soon as it might have been."
"It's sooner than I want it to be."
It seems like they don't even leave her bedroom until the three days are up. It takes them longer to get there than it might have. Maybe it's pride or maybe it's insecurity, or maybe these doubts are based on years of tension and conflict. Had she ever intended for there to be a "next time"? But finally the electric silence is too much and he decides they are wasting time and he kisses her. She throws her arms around his neck and eventually slides a hand into his hair. She's not only passionate about democracy.
Their affair is the worst kept secret on Zastiga, but if anyone disapproves they don't let on. Draven knows they're gossiping but he doesn't begrudge them something to take their minds off of it all.
He doesn't like waking up next to her, serenely bathed in the light of the rising sun, waking slowly and lazily to sensation of her foot against his and the scent of her hair. Because now he knows what it feels like. And soon he'll know what it feels like to miss it. He knows what it feels like to read over a file together lying next to each other in bed. He knows what it feels like to hear her whispering his name – his first name – in his ear as they make love. And he knows what it feels like to have her yank on his hand as he's climbing to his feet, pulling him back into the bed, unwilling to part with him.
"I'm hungry."
"You won't starve."
She'll let him go eventually and he'll bring back an extra caf for her.
He hates knowing these things.
They don't discuss the future. It's bad luck in the Alliance to talk about "after", and Draven and Mothma are as superstitious about it as anyone. They make no attempt to define what they are to each other. He's not worried he'll return to her one day to find she's indifferent. That's enough to get him by.
Draven returns to the field, but it's only weeks later that High Command and the Rebel Council are convening to decide on a course of action based on their new intel, and he gets to see her again. They share shy smiles across a crowded room and stand shoulder to shoulder when they can. The Alliance now has the confirmation that it needs: a second Death Star orbiting Endor, and the Emperor himself there to oversee its completion. They plan their attack, and it requires more good luck and blessings from the Force than Draven is comfortable with, but he agrees that it is the time to strike.
It's the exact trap he had feared with Scarif but it turns out all right – better than all right. Death Star II is dust and the Emperor with it. For the first time the Alliance has the advantage and many systems join their cause to eliminate what remains of the Empire's forces.
They celebrate. It's a celebration unlike any the galaxy has ever seen. They're not on Yavin and it's not raining but he's sure to kiss her this time.
He's busy with the final battles of the war but travel is easier and he's able to visit her. After they win at Jakku and the war is over he goes to Pendarr III to spend several weeks with his family as he had always vowed to do, and then joins Mothma on Chandrila. It's the home for now of the new senate, but she's not Senator Mothma anymore, she's the chancellor.
They don't decide to live together as much as it just happens. She is home, there is no home except with her. That has been true for a long time. Her estate on Chandrila is a paradise but he's not the type to spend the day lazing on the shore, or sleeping in and reading until lunch. (She can get him to sit back and watch the sun set over the water, sometimes. She likes picnics and her campaign to make him like them too is one of the fiercest she has ever waged.) Even though the war is won and she spearheads scaling back the military so that there is hardly a military to speak of, there is still work for him to do serving and protecting the New Republic. The new senators are as troublesome as the last ones were, and while she tries to hold them together he tries to ensure that she doesn't have to worry about remnants of the Empire or insurgencies of their own.
She gave up a man, once, to serve the people. He makes sure she doesn't have to choose again. They see each other when they can. They see each other enough. Or just the right amount of not-quite-enough so that their time together is treasured and special. They still argue, disagree. Slightly less than before, but still. But they argue about things, not at each other, and she values his opinions and he respects her decisions.
He does propose marriage…sort of: "We'll do it when you retire," he says. Their 'engagement' lasts for over a decade but she says she's glad she can think of him as her fiancé during all that time. She finally does retire – later than he would have liked, but earlier than everyone else's preference - and they have an intimate little ceremony attended by a few close friends. Everyone shakes their hands and says, "Finally." Leia Organa is there, the new chancellor, and Draven makes her promise not to come bothering them too much with senate problems: "There's always some crisis going on," he says. Leia laughs and agrees: "Mon has earned some peace." It's not long before Mothma's presence is again required to stabilize senate troubles, but in the end Leia shields them more than she needed to (maybe more than she should have), and Draven has more happiness and peace than he deserves in an era that too many paid too high of a price to achieve.