Though nothing had been said, Corso was starting to feel like the guest who'd overstayed his welcome. He used to be ignored or followed by curious stares when he strolled through the temple. Now he was met by averted glances and hushed whispers when he walked by. Master Finn had returned to Coruscant days ago, med staff and cleaning crew came by daily, barely uttering words of greeting, and Doc visited every afternoon. He waited for the other shoe to drop when the Jedi Council decided it was time for them to leave.
His eyes scanned his datapad trying to find the place he'd left off in the book he was reading to Ky. Part of his daily ritual; reading, talking and watching for a sign.
Akaavi, Bowdaar, and Gus were back from their four-day rotation, shuttling supplies and personnel back and forth to Coruscant. It kept them busy, but they chafed under the routine of the past five weeks. Scourge checked in every few days but spent most of his time with Sayonar and Kira tending to and teaching the boy they'd rescued from Tajno's base.
Corso joined them when he needed a break and fresh air and walked the temple grounds observing the boy and finding some small joy in the laughter and discoveries of a child. The boy improved daily in stumbling steps, stuttered words and a smile that would break your heart. He'd given himself the name Ethan and was so adamant about his choice that no one dared argue. Ethan. Whether an echo from his past or something he'd heard, it was a good, strong name.
Doc walked through the door, chipper as always. "So, how's my favorite patient today?"
Corso turned off the datapad and rested it on his knee. "She's your only patient, and nothing has changed. And before you bring it up again, the answer is still no."
Doc monitored the readouts and checked the tubes keeping her alive. "You know I could force the issue since you aren't her husband or a blood relative, but the thought of eating my balls, with or without sauce, gives me pause and indigestion. As far as I'm concerned, the matter's closed."
Corso's gaze followed Doc as he moved around the room. "A wise decision."
"We'll call it vested self-interest and move on." Doc straightened one of the tubes and re-taped it to her arm. "You know Scourge, and the rest of us will be leaving soon. What do you intend to do?"
"Scourge said we're welcome to follow him to Untuar where you can continue Ky's treatments. I'll likely take him up on the offer. The Jedi will very politely ask us to leave and then not so politely boot us out the door. I've come to grips with a lot of things these past few months. Picking my battles is one of them."
"Huh. Maybe wisdom is contagious."
Corso rubbed at a kink in the back of his neck. "Nah. I just feel old is all."
"Happens to the best of us. See you tomorrow."
Corso slouched down in the chair and rested his head on the cushioned back. He was twenty-six going on fifty and the weariness of years he hadn't lived yet burrowed deep in his bones. He'd fought since he was thirteen and lost everything more than once, but it was the waiting that aged a man. It tested his mettle and his patience and whittled away at his life leaving pieces behind like shavings on the floor. Stars, he was tired.
He reached across the bed and wrapped his hand around hers. Just going to rest his eyes for a minute and then find out if the space pirate ever saved the lady. He drifted in that half slumber that descends on lazy afternoons when the mind is numb from routine and too little sleep.
Her hand twitched.
Corso's eyes flew open, and he sprang upright in the chair. Thunder boomed overhead, nothing, and again and still nothing. Please, babe. Please. Another rumble echoed through the corridors, then another, and... there it was again, the faintest twitch of her fingers. He knew what he had to do.
They'd think he was crazy, but Tython was all wrong, weaker sun, too cool, forested with the tangy smell of fir and pine. He needed the hot sweet aroma of orchids, moisture-laden air with the sharp bite of salt and thick with memory. He was right about this. He just had to be.
He fished his com out of his pocket. "Akaavi, fire up the ship."
Twelve days and each second scoured Corso's nerves like the sands of Tatooine, scratching at the tender places already abraded by weeks of not knowing what to do. He paced the ship, ate with the others and slept with his head on the edge of her mattress cursing his cramped legs and aching back each time he woke up.
Doc traveled with them to see to Ky's health, Scourge also for reasons of his own. Corso thought his heart would hammer through his ribs when they exited hyperspace, and Bowdaar eased the ship through the layers of atmosphere to land.
"I never thought to see this place again," grumbled Scourge, his voice hollow behind the respirator mask that hid the bottom of his face.
Prying eyes followed them as they made their way along the boardwalk of the ramshackle town. Bowdaar and Akaavi all but guaranteed no interference, the Sith enforced the warning for the curious to stay away.
The inn and room were the same as the day he'd walked out of her life and memory stretched behind Corso in a ribbon of road already traveled. Ahead he saw the storm roll in, obscuring the light of the late afternoon sun. The breeze transformed into a steady wind that flattened his shirt against his chest and blew his hair back from his face. Lightning flashed in the distance and thunder drummed its fists against the ozone charged air. It was time.
He turned from the balcony and strode past the billowing curtains. "Set her free, Doc. She and I have a date I don't want to miss."
Her weight was nothing more than a shadow, her arms, and legs dangling as he carried her down the steps and across the sand. He propped his back against the trunk of a palm and slid to the ground, holding her in his lap, her head on his chest, tucked under his chin. "Wait for it, baby. It's almost here."
#
Ky glanced up when something wet splattered on her forehead and ran into her eyes. She hadn't brought rain to this place with all its memories too precious and painful to recall. Another fat drop fell on her hand, leaving a shining trail of wetness as it rolled across her skin. The sky was cloudless, it doesn't rain here. Another drop and another and a voice calling her name, booming from the azure sky like thunder. "Ky? Baby?"
She covered her ears. "Shut up! Shut up! You're not supposed to talk. I'm not supposed to hear you. You'll ruin it all. It's a trick, a horrible, sick, twisted lie." She railed against the impossible rain, the taunting voice, and the storm that shouldn't be.
Her sanctuary shrank the portal opening, trying to spit her out into a cruel world. She couldn't go back, not to him, not to the horror of what he'd do to her. She'd break if she went back and that sonofabitch would win.
Nowhere to hide. Her blood sang in her ears, thrummed in her veins. Corso and Skavak stood waiting by the shore shrouded in fog that thickened like layers of gauze, hiding them from sight. The fog slithered forward, an evil, hateful thing, devouring everything in its path. It burned like acid, forcing her to run toward the portal, to run through the pouring rain. Terror had claws that ripped the air from her lungs. She was suffocating in the realization that she would die alone, caught in the web of a madman who'd found the means to force her from her perfect world.
She closed her eyes. Lightning flashed in brilliant strobes leaving coronas of light on lids crushed tight against the deluge.
"Ky, I'm here. Open your eyes and look at me. Please come back. Please."
She took a shuddering breath. She'd never been a coward and was damned if she'd die like one. Her eyes fluttered open, the portal shattered into a million glowing shards.
#
Corso's face appeared through the curtains of rain. Blurred around the edges, coming into focus. Brows knit, blinking away the droplets caught in his lashes, one unruly curl plastered to his forehead. Strong and fragile, suspended in expectation, a portrait frozen in a lightning strike. Her sense of reality tilted, unsure of what to trust, she sought truth in the depths of his eyes. "Are you real? Are you here?"
His body quaked with the long exhale. His hand cradled the back of her head, holding her face against the sodden fabric of his collar, his arm hugging her to his chest. He rocked her like a child too long lost in the storm and found at last. "The rain kept its promise, Ky. I'm real, I'm here, and you're home."
Her body shivered, chilled and wet and held tight to the heat of his. Panic settled around her like a thorny vine, brain to body connection not quite right. "I can't move my arms. My legs."
"Shh," he crooned and lifted her palm to his cheek, held it there and cracked wide open like he told himself he wouldn't. Tears welled hot in his eyes, cooling as they ran down his face and merged with the rain flowing over their hands.
A simple phrase fell from her lips, resurrected from hope she'd left abandoned on a prison cell floor. "You came for me."
One raspy word hung on the edge of a vow he'd never break. "Always."
Promises kept by love and rain and a tattooed face that wasn't there. She settled into the storm and Corso's arms and into a silent promise that she'd never leave him again.
Shafts of light pierced through the tattered edge of the fast-moving storm that had better places to be. Only the two of them lingered behind, soaking up the warmth of the sun and each other. Questions and answers faltered behind lips pressed into kisses that said everything. Hungry and tender and all brand new as if they'd just met and trying to break through the shyness.
They clung to each other in the failing light. A giant orange ball lay half buried on the horizon, the harbinger of purple twilight and a million glittering stars. The sounds and smells of dusk rose around them, and Corso lifted her from the sand. "We'd better get back. The others will want to see you and Doc will want to check on your recovery."
"Do we have to?"
"Afraid so. Your clothes are still damp, and Doc will wring my neck if you come down with a cold after all he's been through."
She kissed the underside of his jaw. "Don't let them stay too long."
"Tired?"
"Not really. I just want it to be you and me for a bit longer."
"I'm good with that."
Ky felt the nudging pressure in her head the moment Corso stepped through the entrance from the balcony. Scourge stood by the hall door, eyes half-hooded, boring into her, scanning, searching deep, his gaze hot, intense and frightening. "The others will see you tomorrow, and we will speak later. I leave you to your rest." A rustle of fabric and he was gone.
Corso carried her to the 'fresher, sat her on the edge of the sink counter, folded her knees and placed her feet in the basin. "What was that all about?" he asked as he turned on the water and began to rinse the sand from her legs and feet.
She held herself upright with hands locked around his neck, turning her face from the mirror, afraid of what she'd see. "I guess he wanted to make sure I'm still human."
He gave her the side-eye over his shoulder. "You're human enough for me."
He swung her legs around to dangle off the counter while he grabbed a towel to blot her dry. "Hands and arms next."
"I'm not a baby, you know, and we could have used the sonic."
"You'll always be my baby, and the sonic's too risky. Hands please."
Corso placed her between the sheets, sand-free and stripped of the damp hospital gown. The springs squeaked in welcome or a curse, could be either or both. He went to the sonic to clean up, and she lay on her back, eyes fixed on the ceiling fan. The tingling sensation of nerves reborn and muscles newly wakened prickled under her skin. She flexed and stretched and struggled to turn on her side. It was a start.
Corso stood by the fresher door, broad-chested, lean-hipped and just as beautiful as the night all those months ago when she'd traveled the roadmap of his body with her fingertips. A look of wonder and disbelief played around his eyes as if she'd disappear if he blinked or looked away. "Come to bed, love, but leave a light on. I don't think I can face the dark just yet."
The springs squealed in protest when Corso's weight settled behind her and groaned again as he curled himself along the curve of her back. He stretched one arm under her pillow, the other lay across her ribs. She took his hand and clutched it to her chest folding him around her like a blanket.
A tear trickled across the bridge of her nose, a soft shuddering, a broken sigh. Images flashed across her mind, she lived the pain again. The snapping bones, the taste of her own blood, the needles flooding her veins with fire. Tamp it down, it's over now. He came for me.
Paradise found, and lost and found again. She was no longer alone.
His lips kissed the back of her neck, the crescent of her shoulder. He pulled her close, his breath a promise across her skin. She cried, and he held her safe from the demons of the night.