Pella shrugged, "He was really afraid you'd kill him for it."

"A year ago, I might have."

"Now?"

Andronikos shrugged. "She has that effect on people. But she's mine at heart."

"How are you so sure? Especially with how she left you?"

"A flower chain in glass," Andronikos said roughly.

Pella blinked at him. Then her head tilted and she nodded. "I heard that story. Why does that mean so much to you? I mean, I know why that meant so much to her."

Andronikos took a long sip of his drink. "She became real to me at that moment. She wasn't this crazy powerful thing I should treat with kid gloves. She was a woman, a lonely one at that. In the middle of a field on Alderaan, with her master about to try to kill her and she took the time to make a flower chain and enjoy the day. That pretty much summed up everything about her. How much she hated the politics, how not into the whole Sith experience she was. She would rather be in that meadow. Fun was important to her."

Pella refilled her drink as he went on, "I should have still been careful with her, but all that wariness and distance between us sort of faded that day. That was the day I started to fall for her, although I had no clue at the time."

"She said you asked her for a flower chain."

Andronikos smiled at the stars, "Yeah, I did."

"Why?"

"I was flirting, teasing. Seeing her like that threw me. Removed all my expectations and assumptions."

"But she left you."

"You should have seen me when she did," he said, picturing that moment in the hangar when he'd realized she really was walking away from him. His pack on the ground at his feet and he'd thought if she'd just turn back and look at him he could bear it. She hadn't looked back and then Fury was up, away. He'd cursed himself for whatever he'd done, for not fighting harder for her, although he couldn't imagine what else he would have done. It felt like the world had ceased to exist. He shook it off.

"But once she told me about the flower chain in glass. In her office on Dromund Kaas, where anyone who came to see her could see it." Andronikos paused, trying to figure out how to explain it. "It was a fuck you to anyone who was trying to keep us apart. It was our love on display. It was her missing me every moment her eyes hit it." He shook his head. "I find it hard to believe that you of all people don't get it."

"I get it." Pella sipped from her glass, "I like to hear you talk about it though."

"I always knew you were the romantic sort."

"There's all kinds of romance, Nikos."

Liri shifted behind him and he knew, somehow, that she'd heard him. She moved off the bed and planted a soft kiss on his neck that sent shivers all down him. He caught her hand and pulled her around him to sit on his lap. She leaned against him sleepily.

"I was always curious how rough you got," Pella said, out of the blue.

"You saw how rough I got."

"I meant with Liri."

"We tried a bunch of stuff," murmured Liri. "We stuck to the stuff we both really liked."

"I figured if you'd been into actual pain, there would be more scars."

Andronikos snorted into his glass. "She's a Sith. There are only scars if we want them."

Pella's head tilted thoughtfully. "Can I have a scar from you two?"

Andronikos choked on his drink and started coughing.

Liri patted him on the back, asking, "I don't know if that's such a good idea. And I did promise Andronikos that we wouldn't do certain things with other people."

"I could do one from each of you? But I thought one you both helped make would be the best."

"I don't scar women," Andronikos managed to get out.

"You leave bruises."

"That's different." He paused, gulping air and glaring at her, "And she likes that."

"I like being scarred."

"You don't have that many," Liri said speculatively.

"Kolto mostly and reconstructive surgery."

"Then why get scarred?" Andronikos asked.

"Because it feels good to me?"

"And you want me to scar you. And then for Liri to shoot lightning into the wound or something?"

Pella's eyes lit up, "Please!"

Andronikos shook his head, "I need to think about it."

Pella sighed. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, she said, "So you think Jorif is always going to be the first to pass out?"

Andronikos snickered.

The oddest thing to Andronikos was how much the craziness of Liri's aura seemed to bring the whole crew together. They all adored her and begged for another night like that. The dancers went home, except for the few who were staying for the wedding.

Andronikos regretted that Liri's parents wouldn't be there. He'd met them after he and Liri had gotten married. They'd been the sweetest Twi'lek couple he'd ever met, not that he'd met a lot. They were so grateful that she'd brought him by, that they were married. Her dad had pulled him aside for a beer and told him to watch out for her, because she wasn't so good at taking care of herself. Andronikos realized what it meant that Ravage had gotten to them and not to him. It meant she'd protected him better by sending him away. There was even a chance she'd sent Decimus his way.

Pella was back to insufferable, but he had a better understanding of why now. She and Decimus had resumed their relationship, if it had even been interrupted, but Andronikos caught her watching him and Liri more.

He and Liri started sparring regularly again. He even helped her train Xalek and Ashara. Xalek treated him like a superior now, which had been surprising.

"You are my Master's consort."

"I'm her husband," Andronikos responded.

"Yes. So because she has chosen you and you have proved yourself, you have obtained her status."

Andronikos fired off a shot at Xalek's head which Xalek only just dodged. "Don't be distracted," Andronikos scolded. "Regardless of the conversation."

Xalek nodded, rolling to the side.

The wedding came up faster than he expected and he made final preparations for their Nar Shaddaa trip. He also rewired his door panel to make sure Pella couldn't use her emergency code and gave the new code to Jorif.

The day of the wedding, Andronikos woke from a nightmare, Liri stretched beside him.

He sat up, the memory of the dream burning within him and he grabbed for her.

"Lir-" he whispered.

"Rev?" She sat up blearily, her arms moving to hold him. "What's wrong?"

"Nightmare." He caught her up in his arms and stayed there for awhile. When his heart stopped racing, he started to kiss her frantically, his hands at her lekku and her back, pulling her against him.

"We said we were going to wait until tonight?"

"I can't," he panted. "I can't, I'm sorry." Andronikos pushed her down on the bed then.