Sitting up wasn't quite the ordeal that his caretaker had thought it would be, but a trickle of sweat rolled down the side of Theron's face all the same. Between the perspiration and the general funk that developed after three days in captivity, he had to have reeked. He distantly wondered if she was plugging her nose with the Force or something as he finished sipping the water she had given him. He probably could have chugged several liters if she gave him the chance.

"What are my chances of stealing your sonic shower?"

She just gave him a look. "You're hardly sitting up as it is."

"Sponge bath then?"

She rolled her eyes up to the ceiling, actual exasperation breaking through her veil of worry. That was at least a step in the right direction. "Is that really your main concern right now?"

"I feel like I just rolled around in Zakuulan swamp muck. And probably smell like it too."

"Our first priority is to finish addressing your injuries."

"Then a sponge bath?" He bobbed his eyebrows lightly, although his heart wasn't quite in it.

She sighed wearily. "I will see what I can do, after you've rested some."

Normally she had a seemingly endless well of patience when it came to his antics and sarcasm, but he sensed that it was probably a good time to not push her any further. Her angry outburst from earlier was still fresh in his mind, and he didn't want a repeat of that. Especially since Valkorion was apparently taking an interest in the proceedings. Her attempts to disguise her true feelings from the ghost were likely futile, but at this point it was probably more of a coping mechanism than anything else. Theron wasn't the one with a monster trapped in his head, and he wanted to be as supportive as he could. Sometimes he just felt like collateral damage in their never-ending war for control.

The empty glass was taken away before she retrieved more kolto. He would have worried about how much she had in stock, but that was one thing he had made sure the quartermaster knew to keep in abundant supply on the Defender. She might have been the heaviest hitter in the galaxy, but she wasn't invincible no matter how hard she tried to project that image.

She gently applied another patch of kolto to one of the deeper bruises that started at his ribs and wrapped around his back. That had come from a particularly angry outburst from Dirai. It was possible Theron might have said something sarcastic in response to one of his questions. (That sounded like him.) He was surprised that the scan revealed they weren't cracked, but he'd take what he could get at this point. Her touch was light, but not enough to prevent his flinch. She caught the movement and flashed him an apologetic look.

"I'm sorry, I'm almost done."

"Just do what you got to do, don't worry about me."

"It's a little late for that at this point, don't you think?" Her tone had an air of forced levity, but the wrinkling of her brow let him know it wasn't really meant as a joke.

"Poor choice of words."

She seemed to busy her hands with very, very gently applying more kolto to the large section of mottled skin, but the frown was still in place. "What were you doing on Skeressa?"

"Looking for Arcann. It turned out to be a bogus lead." He'd hoped that perhaps if he left it a bit vague, she'd let the subject drop.

"Exactly how did Dirai and his followers factor in, then?" Then again, he'd neglected to factor in that he was dating a particularly stubborn breed of Jedi. "I am not naive enough to believe this was purely Alliance business."

He pressed his lips together, staring over her shoulder so he didn't have to look her in the eye. "Things didn't quite go as planned."

"This isn't the only time something hasn't gone to 'plan' though, is it?" She straightened up, looking him square in the eye. "Like the time you and Torian came back from Tatooine looking like you'd fought a minor war?"

"That was… complicated." Theron was trained to withstand any interrogation, had just survived three days of hell without breaking once, but found his resolve crumbling as he stared into her stormy blue eyes. "In my defense, we brought back Gault and Blizz in one complete and unbruised piece."

"What is going on with you, Theron?" She gently cupped his chin, gaze softening. "You have disappeared like this more than just twice recently, but it's getting worse each time."

"I don't really think worse is the right—"

"You were just held captive and tortured by a death cult filled with Dark Side users who routinely practiced blood sacrifice and old Sith traditions actually banned by the Empire."

This was probably the wrong time to ask her how she had found out about those rumors. It had taken him several days getting acclimated to the locals to hear those tales. Exactly how long had she been on Skeressa looking for him? From the dark circles under her eyes, it was possible that she had been on the planet longer than just the time it took to walk from her ship to the warehouse.

"Am I really supposed to believe this had something to do with Arcann?" As she continued, her stare did not soften, but the naked concern shone through. "What aren't you telling me?"

He shut his eyes, unable to take her staring at him with such open worry and care. If he wanted to, he could give her some excuse. Even as muddied and unorganized as his thoughts were right now, he'd probably be able to think of something that would satisfy her curiosity and ease her mind. He could lie to her face and she probably wouldn't even realize. It was what he had been trained to do after all. It was a hallmark of the profession he'd chosen after the one he'd been raised for didn't pan out. But if he were being honest with himself, he didn't want to. He didn't want any of this. He just wanted this damned dance to stop. Wanted things to go back to how they'd been before Valkorion. But more than any of that, Theron just wanted her. That's all he had wanted for a long, long time.

When he looked at her, he didn't say anything immediately. The truth got stuck in his throat, like he had forgotten what it sounded like to not pretend. He tried again and opened his mouth, but the first word died on his lips when he realized there was an extra set of incorporeal ears listening. A cold sensation ran down his spine as he contemplated for the first time exactly what Valkorion's reaction might be to learning that Theron was actively trying to find information to eliminate him. Would it matter? Would he even care? If he did, would his reaction tend more towards detached amusement or anger? If it was the latter, would he be able to act on it and lash out as his intended target, or would he just find some new and worse way to torture the Jedi he was haunting? Theron couldn't suppress the chill that ran through him.

She frowned, a look of disappointment and hurt stealing across her face as she assumed he was clamming up on her again. He shook his head fiercely, reluctantly catching her eye again as he very slowly and deliberately traced the shell of his ear with his thumb. He may have hated their secret gesture at this point as it had become a symbol of what kept them apart, even if they were standing side-by-side. However she needed to know that he really wanted to tell her what he had been trying to discover while on Skeressa, but he didn't want Valkorion to overhear. It took her a few moments to put together the signal with her previous question, but she connected the pieces together quickly enough. From the way her eyes slowly widened in understanding, it seemed she might have also started to guess the type of information Theron had been searching for when he'd gotten captured, and who he'd been conducting his investigation on behalf of.

She let out a horrified gasp, hands flying to her mouth as she shook her head violently, unshed tears forming in her wide blue eyes. Watching her reaction was not quite unlike feeling like someone had just punched him in the gut. He knew there was probably something reassuring that needed to be said, but he had difficulty swallowing past the lump that formed in his throat.

Amazingly, she was the first one to find words. "Why?"

He wanted to ask if it was obvious, but he couldn't get a sound out. In all his life, no one managed to tie him up in knots the way she could with just a single look. He would think it was unfair, but it was far, far beyond just that.

"Why would you…"

The words had been exchanged years, hell, almost a lifetime ago. But they were still fresh in Theron's mind as the day they had first been uttered. He could still feel her fingers digging trenches into the red leather of his jacket as she brokenly asked what would happen if she fell again to the monster that had forced her to murder civilians, locked her in her mind as she tortured her crew. The words had left him before he'd even had time to think them through:

"You're not going to fall," he had said. "Because I'm going to catch you."

The words were nonsensical, but he hadn't been thinking. Just… acting on instinct. Maybe he should have just held her and let her cry, but he'd needed to let her know she wasn't facing that fear alone. They should have just been words of comfort, but he'd meant it as a promise. Even if he hadn't a single clue how a Force-blind Padawan-washout-turned-spy would ever be able to stop a Jedi Master from sliding down into darkness.

With everything that had happened since Yavin, he wouldn't have been surprised if she didn't remember exactly what had been said up on that crumbling plateau with only the stars as their witness. But he couldn't forget, no matter how hard he had tried. And he had tried.

Theron forced himself to look at her, managing to fight past that damnable lump that made his voice sound far too rough with emotion. "I made you a promise a long time ago."

"I…" Her brow crinkled into a frown, before her eyes widened. She did remember. "No…"

"I don't want to be someone who breaks promises to you. Not then, and not now."

"Please… I'm not worth—"

"You are." Heedless of any damn Force ghosts listening in or injuries he grabbed her hand, fiercely squeezing it. "Nothing is going to change that for me."

"Maybe it should," she whispered and tried to pull away. "I would rather have you alive than dead with your word intact."

Perhaps it was the cocktail of painkillers and whatever drugs were still left in his system, the distant ache and searing pain, or the fact that thinking straight was like swimming through the muck — but he couldn't force himself to let go of her hand. They'd always had a silent understanding that when either of them needed space, they'd respect that. Normally he didn't have this much difficulty, and was usually better at not holding on too tightly both literally and metaphorically. But her hand was too warm in his, and everything around them was so cold. Had it always been this frigid? Maybe he should ask her to check the environmental settings.

She looked at him with a torn expression, but whatever she was going to say was drowned out by a shout in the hall from their friendly neighborhood Mon Calmari. Grey let out a long breath, and the mask of the Alliance Commander slid back into place as she stepped away from the cot. Theron's fingers loosened his hold on her and slipped around the edge of the bed. He hoped that the quick motion and white knuckled grip looked more like he just needed to hold onto something for support than a guilty reaction for his moment of weakness.

"Commander! Good news!" Guss's face popped into the doorway a second later. "I think we'll be able to shave off an extra few hours if we—oh, it looks like he's awake. Feeling any better, Theron?"

"Oh, yeah." He swung a miserable look at the latest interloper into their conversation, feeling a prickle of gooseflesh raising. Someone really needed to check the thermostat. "Ready to run the Coruscant 5K."

Theron's other half let out an annoyed breath, but Guss continued on as if the sarcasm didn't phase him at all. "Oh, that's good to hear. You were pretty out of it for a while there. I had to carry you back to the ship in my strong arms. Swaddled you in your jacket, just like a little baby."

It was possible the angry noise Theron made in the back of his throat could have been more articulate (he had planned on asking for his blaster), but that required more coherency than he seemed to possess at the moment. A calming hand was laid on his shoulder, almost blazing in its warmth.

"Perhaps you can give us a moment, Guss?"

"Ah, of course," the Mon Calmari said conspiratorially, tapping the side of his face knowingly. "My old captain would always turn up the music in his cabin very loudly when he needed a moment or three with his lady. Or ladies. Do you prefer classical music or synth rock?"

She blinked before her cheeks blazed red as she caught onto his meaning. "Guss!"

"What?"

She shook her head, trying to keep a hold on her composure. Theron briefly thought about trying to repeat his suggestion on finding his blasters (with the added benefit of actually saying that this time around), but she cut that off with a stern look. "I believe that bath you asked for will have to wait a bit longer."

Bath? That was the last thing he needed right now with the temperature around them plunging like it was. He slid his glance over at his dirty, grimy jacket longingly. It was too far to reach, and the thought of standing up and walking even that small distance seemed like a monumental task. A gentle pressure on his shoulders gained his attention and he looked up to see her staring at him with that same look of concern.

"I think you should lay down for a little while."

"But…"

"Come on, I'll help."

With an offer like that, how could he refuse? Not that he had much strength to fight back if he wanted to. He might have held on to her a little tighter than needed as she guided him onto his back, and his hold on her lingered far longer than necessary. She gave him a reassuring smile before extracting her hand to accept a blanket being handed to her. The action of her carefully draping it across him was strange. He wasn't used to someone to treating him so tenderly, and he wasn't exactly sure how he felt about it.

Her fingers began to card through his hair again, the small action sending a small measure of warmth running through him. Not enough to chase away the chill completely, but it warded it off enough to where his eyes began to feel heavy.

"It's time for you to rest now," she said quietly, the soothing note seeming to break through his muddy thoughts as if carried through on a wave. "I'm going to step away for a minute, but I'll be right back, I promise."

He watched her, trying to fight the sleep threatening to pull him under. She continued to run her fingers through his hair, staring at him with that gentle smile. It was possible he was already dreaming, because he could have sworn that she was bathed in the most beautiful light. It was far too easy to get lost in the sensation of it all, and before he knew it his eyes had begun to drift shut.

Satisfied, she gave his head one last pat before extricating herself. As she stepped away, the cold began to creep back in like a slow rising flood. It was a struggle to crack his eyes open, fatigue trying to drag him under, but he managed to spy her form walking away from him. She was still haloed in light, but the further she got, the dimmer it glowed.

The chill surrounding him intensified as an angry purple haze seemed to leak out from the fading light, coiling around it like a serpent moving in for the kill. Theron tried to get up, but his limbs refused to cooperate. He could only watch on helplessly as the hazy darkness filled the room. It snuffed out the light completely, leaving nothing but dust motes in its wake.

It was too late, but Theron tried to reach out all the same, his voice catching in his throat. This action only seemed to gain the attention of the darkness, which seemed to shift and turn before suddenly rushing forward and overtaking him completely.