Wildfire


The news spread like flame over dry tinder, tearing through the ranks with a single-mindedness that would have been impressive if it had anything to do with the Alliance's war against the Empire.

And Luke had to admit that he understood why. Anything regarding Leia tended to be that way; what she wore, how she looked, what she ate. All of it was fodder for the gossip-channels. There was something larger-than-life about the young princess of Alderaan, something tragic and fascinating, and so it was only natural that people would latch onto the current news like a zaln's sharp talons gripped a field-mouse.

Oh, he got the looks, too; of course he did. The gossip was three-fold: Luke and Leia were twins, therefore Leia was Force-sensitive, and also Han and Leia were sleeping together. But, inevitably, the center of the maelstrom was Leia and he watched as everything unfurled around her like the inferno he wished it wasn't. Clearly, she wasn't handling any of this well.

Walking into the Rogue's briefing theater with a sense of resigned trepidation, he knew precisely what he would hear.

Twins. Can you believe—?

knew they were together—

is it possible? The odds, man—

And then they saw him and the whispers died down into nothing. He hadn't so much as opened his mouth and he could hear a pin drop. Unusual for the Rogues.

Moving to the lectern at center stage, he rested his hands on the sides of the small desk and eyed the hushed group in front of him. The best the Alliance had to offer, miracles in the cockpit, all of them. Courage to spare. The brightest stars, the most competent pilots with the thickest hides. They sat with discipline, orange flight suits donned and boots shining in the low light of the theater, eyes expectant, mouths set in grim lines.

"Good morning," he offered.

What he got in return was a muted chorus of good mornings, overly respectful and hushed. Luke rolled his eyes.

"Cut it out," he demanded.

And it was Wes—of course it was Wes—who broke the ice. "Do we call you Commander Organa, or Prince Skywalker, or—?"

"Very funny," Luke answered.

"What happens when she whips your ass in a lightsaber fight?" Hobbie chimed in.

"She doesn't even have a lightsaber," Dak pointed out.

Hobbie shrugged. "If she wants one, doesn't one just show up in her hand? Isn't that how that works?"

Soft laughter. Luke let it slide for the moment, unsure whether the teasing would become unmanageable but fair enough to offer one warning before it did.

"You can stop now, unless you want KP duty for the next month," he said.

Hobbie sat back with a nod and Luke queued his presentation. "Today is moving day, guys. Welcome to your new home."

A three-dimensional holo glimmered in front of him, showcasing a white-and-blue ball of ice formally named Hoth. A small planet by most measurements, it looked like someone had taken a marble and frozen it solid, then thawed it out and frozen it again. It hardly rotated at all and was so far from its sun that its ice had ice on it. Temperatures were below freezing even at the hottest time of day in the hottest month of the hottest year on record.

At the very least it has water, he thought as he brought up the planet's specs. It's like the total opposite of Tatooine.

"Echo Base," he said, as an image zoomed into a rough holo of an underdeveloped and unimpressive base.

Somebody hissed.

"It's not much to look at," he admitted. "But we've been cooped up and complaining about ship life for months. At least now you'll get some fresh air."

"Will I survive the fresh air, though?" Dak asked.

"You'll be a Dak-iscle," Wes offered.

Dak pursed his lips into a comical kiss. "Come and lick me, big guy."

"Alright, alright," Luke said, knowing full well where this was heading. "Landing coordinates will be sent to your navicomputers. We'll land the X-wings and then switch to training on what High Command is calling snow speeders."

"Creative name."

He ignored the comment. "We drew the short straw and will pull the first scouting shift. HC's official line is that we're the quickest to train, so there we go. Clear your bunks and report to the loading bay in one hour. Any questions?"

Luke prepared himself for more teasing; there was a healthy respect for Leia among the Rogues, but this was considered a safe space to express concerns. Among Alliance squadrons, debriefs were kind of sacred. Squadron-mates bonded over them, teased in them. Debriefs were how they knew each other personally, not just as dots on a targeting computer. And if anyone was going to seriously ask about any of yesterday's revelations—

"Is it true?"

He licked suddenly-dry lips, fully knowing what Wedge was asking. The Corellian hadn't said much and neither had Salla, now that he thought about it. They had both been pretty quiet after the battle: a kind of pact not to talk too much about it, and the seriousness in the grim line of Wedge's mouth was sobering enough.

Apparently Han had acted pretty publicly on the barely-intelligible directives Luke and Leia had given him. Over the comm, no less.

Is it true?

He meant all of it, the sum total of the revelations of the past few days. Was it true that Luke and Leia had somehow warned the Alliance of Vader's presence? Was it true that Han had based every decision during the battle on the whims of two Force-sensitive, long-lost twins? Was it true, was it true, was it true…?

Luke looked over his pilots, their serious faces, the intensity in their eyes. He'd thought a lot about how much to disclose to the ranks, to his own squadron, how to weigh his and Leia's privacy against his own integrity.

He wished she had answered her comm this morning.

"It's true," he confirmed.

"And she's a Jedi? Like you?"

Luke hesitated. "She's Force-sensitive. We aren't Jedi."

Mumbles under breath: a low reaction, a note of surprise. He'd said this often, but people in the Alliance never quite seemed to get it; Force-sensitivity was a quality he'd been born with. Being a Jedi and wielding that quality in a functional way was another matter entirely. He felt more hope now, a flicker of excitement, really, to be able to share this experience with Leia, but he wouldn't call them Jedi until they understood what that meant.

Ben had been woefully unhelpful in that area, alive and dead.

"Look," he began. "I know it's a lot to take in, but I'd really appreciate it if you'd… keep Leia the person in mind when you think about gossiping like a bunch of Bothans. She's still, you know, Princess Leia, even if she's now my twin sister, too."

"And if she's fucking Solo," said a low, teasing voice, ripping through the air like a bolt of lightning. "Don't wanna get your lip split."

Luke blinked, feeling the first notes of true anger, not just because someone had felt the need to say that during an oficial debriefing, but because of the way it was phrased. Fucking was not the right word. It was a relationship, companionship, and it was a really good development for both of them, too.

He opened his mouth, commander-voice at the ready, but was beat to the punch by Wes.

"Shut the hell up," he said, eyes turned to the human male sitting behind him.

The pilot put up his hands. "Hey, man. Cool your jets."

"Just stop talking about her like she's a… a piece of meat," Wes said. "It's her business who she's fucking."

Luke winced but let Wes continue.

"And it's bad enough that Dodders arrested Solo right after he flew circles around the Imps out there, but it wasn't even a real charge! They still haven't reinstated his command of the Mercs and that's bullshit."

Luke felt a rising tide of aggravation replacing the gossipy pique that had run rampant around Home One. The interest in Leia's love life was not new—the Rogue's betting pool was proof positive of that—but the general consensus of awe when it came to Han Solo's unique ability to walk away from stupidly low odds of survivability was. As he looked at his pilots, really examined their facial expressions and postures, he felt bolstered by a changing tide of appreciation for the commander of the Mercs.

Luke smothered his instinctive smile, knowing he needed to demonstrate clear comportment as a commander holding a group debrief. And yet, despite his best efforts, warmth bloomed in his chest, calm and peaceful. The Mercs had accepted Han as their commander with relative ease: his roster had been extremely popular and he'd managed to enlist quite a few of the Alliance's best contractors. But the Rogues had been wary, reticent even, as they played sabacc and were willing to run supply missions with him before his commission. Leia had called it boneheaded elitism, but Han had shrugged, saying that he was used to showing people that he was worth their time right before he shot them dead.

And Han had been instrumental in the disastrous evacuation. Its denouement had been worse for him. But some hard truths had come to light and a soft appreciation for Han might be a long overdue benefit. The best part was that the Rogues didn't even know the extent of Han's courage and acumen during yesterday's crisis.

They had no idea.

Luke hadn't seen Han since he and General Rieekan had left the Falcon after watching the holo from Nar Shaddaa. He and Leia had been nowhere to be found since yesterday evening, and he couldn't blame them. Leia had been quiet and withdrawn when they'd told Han the news. When he now thought about the conversation, he felt a trickle of unease, felt like maybe he'd acted a little too eager to accept her as his twin. He hadn't meant to hurt her feelings but he probably had.

Since then, he'd heard that Salla had been given temporary command of the Mercs for the planet-side transfer and that Han had been put on leave for the time being. Even though Rieekan seemed to think it was more for recuperation than anything else.

In all honesty, Luke agreed; Han might need a day or two to deal with… all of it. Him and Leia, both.

"Look," he said to the Rogues as they settled down, as the wave of anger on Han's behalf began to dissolve. "We're all trying to figure out how to proceed. The best thing you can do for me, or for Han or Leia, is to do your jobs. Get yourselves safely down to Echo Base and start working through the snow speeder training packs that have been sent to your holopads. Once we're planetside, we'll hit the sims first thing, 0800 tomorrow morning. All goes well, we start actual test flight recons that afternoon. Any questions?"

No one said anything and so Luke dismissed the group, thinking that this was a new beginning, a place to start over. Maybe Han and Leia could find some resolution now that their relationship was public knowledge. Maybe the twins could learn about their Force-sensitivity and their shared history. There was so much they still didn't know about their family tree. So much they didn't understand about the tragic circumstances of their birth and the death of their parents.

Hoth, he thought. Let's hope you can bring us a new start.

—0—

Leia awoke quietly, brought out of sleep by absolutely nothing. No alarm, no unsettling nightmare, no dark voice threatening everything and everyone she loved. One moment she didn't exist and the next she was safe and warm in Han's bunk on the Falcon.

The familiar space was like a balm, the recycled air so comforting that she took a deep breath just to feel the expansion of her lungs. She hadn't yet come to full wakefulness, had no concept of struggle or time, and she cherished this quiet moment: alone, and yet not alone at all.

Shifting to her side, she took in the softly-snoring heap of Corellian in the bunk beside her. He lay facing her, shoulders relaxed, hair a riotous mess on his pillow, and full lips slightly parted in sleep. She itemized his beloved features, ran through them in her mind: dark lashes against the tanned skin beneath his eyes, the long slope of his nose, the scar that slashed his chin in the most ridiculously attractive way. Throat exposed, collarbones kissable even now, even in sleep; the biceps that extended toward her leading to a hand splayed on the mattress between them. His chest, muscular in functional ways and without the narcissism of body-building, hair-dappled and broad. Spacer-thick sheets fell over his hips, not because he needed them there but out of consideration for her much-lower body temperature, allowing a glimpse of the lowest stretch of skin between his hip bones, right before the rest of him dropped out of sight.

Catalogue complete—although she supposed it was missing the invisible aspects she adored about this man, his courage, his wayward empathy, the fight that lived in his eyes like some wild nexu on the hunt—she tried to remember the date, the time, what beautiful circumstance had allowed her a quiet moment in bed with Han during a time of unbridled war…

A catch in her breath.

The events of the past day scrolled by her like a holofilm, harrowing and terrible in their impact. Nightmares. Vader. Luke on the Falcon's ramp and a battle that was not so much won as… as survived, itching on her skin like a rash.

Han's arrest.

Luke. Her twin brother.

The last one didn't have the same effect it had had yesterday. Shock, absolutely, yes, and questions abound: had her parents known about Luke? And if they had, why hadn't they adopted him as well? Had the Lars known? Had Obi-Wan?

In a different moment on the Falcon, after Han had first said the word Jedi to her, she'd had a flash of a man, a much younger man than the old hermit she had only just glimpsed on the Death Star, waving his hand over her and saying a few soothing words. She now wondered if that had been Obi-Wan himself. And the long-buried glimpse of the kind but sad woman she'd thought she imagined and that Bail had insisted she'd never actually met? Her mother. Their mother.

But these weren't gut-punching, terrorizing thoughts anymore. They didn't fester the way they had before, and she didn't rise into anger or fear or horror as she had yesterday. Like the soreness the day after a session in the training room, this felt productive.

Maybe Luke and Han had a point about not being alone.

She let that sink in, tried neither to embrace it nor analyze it, but just let it exist. Returning her attention to Han, she strived to match his breathing, the slow rise and fall of his chest and the peace it brought her.

She'd hurt him. It hadn't been intentional and he wouldn't admit it, but she had. By not revealing their relationship to High Command writ large, she had triggered a handful of events that had done exactly the thing Han worried about most: judgment about his suitability for her. Separated because of that judgment. Forced to admit what belonged to her and her alone, that he loved her, that he was vulnerable to her pain as much as his own, that he was more human than he liked to admit.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to him.

Sorry that he had suffered on her behalf. Sorry that she hadn't seen through her own actions. Sorry that he had endured all of it because she'd decided her privacy was worth more than his pride. It trickled out of her now because it felt like if it didn't, she might combust—

"You better be."

She shouldn't have been surprised that he was awake but his show had been very convincing. Conceding his fake-sleep prowess, she smiled ruefully and slid closer to him. She could feel his body heat, Corellian blood running through his veins as his left hand settled against her hip.

"You're very gracious in the morning," she teased.

"Only when I wake up outside of a jail cell."

Awkward.

It wasn't like she was experienced with apologizing and so far they hadn't dealt with that kind of situation, anyway. How playful should she be? He was the injured party here. The light of the morning brought her a new perspective, a fresh field to survey. Because what price was she willing to pay for privacy? And was it worth him?

No.

"My fears were no excuse to put you and... and us at risk," she said, and the words flew faster than she thought they would, staring at the deep green of his eyes. "Please don't think you don't matter to me."

"I know that. Nothing's at risk."

"Don't do that," she warned him. "Don't ignore your own frustration to make me feel better."

He opened his mouth in what she knew was a clear retort, but in a motion that said more about his feelings than his words ever could, he stopped and nodded instead. "Okay."

If she lived a million years, an eon, she would never be able to predict this man. What he'd do, what he'd say, how he'd feel. Unfathomable in the best of ways, except in his love and respect for her.

She gave him a tentative smile. "Thank you."

A strand of his hair had fallen into his eyes and she reached her right hand to sweep it back unsuccessfully. As it fell back onto his forehead—as stubborn as the soul in that incredible body—he caught her hand and brought it to his lips in the most genteel kiss she'd ever received in her life. The softness of it, the purity and intimacy almost threw her back into the pit of her own guilt. He seemed to sense it in time.

He scrunched his nose and sniffed in such a small, human gesture that she almost smiled. "Two," he said.

"What?"

"That's two apologies," he clarified. "How uncomfortable does that feel, Highnessness?"

She rolled her eyes. "Shut up."

"I bet you can count on one hand the amount of people you've ever apologized to, and now I take up two royal fingers."

Leia fought to hide the light that surely shone in her eyes, lifting them to the Falcon's hull as if asking the goddesses for patience. Snickering, he hauled her closer to him, skin-to-skin, the contact more invigorating than any stint in the medbay could possibly be.

"Incorrigible," she whispered as she threaded her legs through his.

"Mm-hmm," he mumbled, lips pressed to her forehead, his throat so close that she could feel the rumble of his voice.

"Stubborn and ridiculous," she continued her list, well-prepared.

He slid his lips down the ridge of her nose, ducked his head to kiss her right cheek. "Sure."

"Courageous, I suppose," she whispered. "Smart."

He paused and pulled back to see her eyes. Leia brought her hand to his jaw, fingers rasping against the stubble she found there.

"And a good man," she finished.

He let the moment linger, watching her carefully: still and quiet. She saw him swallow, his Adam's apple working for a furious second. She knew he didn't have a great amount of reinforcement in this area; what he'd shared with her about his childhood had been utterly horrific. And she had told him that she loved him, had tried to show him how much he meant to her, but maybe this was what he needed more. Kind but honest words about the genuine wonder of the man in her arms.

He kissed her, a small, soft kiss. Closing her eyes, she returned her hand to his hair as he kissed her again and again, longer, fuller, sweeping her into his warmth.

For a moment they kept it small, manageable: the fire controlled between them. Playfulness gone, they were familiar with each other enough to know this was different. Not the ramshackle tumult they both enjoyed, the power play, the competition.

When he pulled back she followed, leaning into him with soft insistence, feeling the familiar heat flicker to life in her chest. More than anything she wanted reconnection, reaffirmation. She wasn't sure any threads had been cut in the first place, but the edges of this moment felt transformative. Healing. And if there was one thing her relationship with Han had taught her, it was that physical intimacy could be restorative even as it burned tension into ash.

And so she followed the line of her desire for him, the pathway forward that led her into calmer, cooler waters. She kissed him hard even as she held him tenderly to her, feeling the gratitude for who he was and what he stood for build in her. Her hand swept down the beautiful line of his body, over his throat, his chest, his hip, until she felt him hardening against her fingertips.

"Okay?" she asked, softly breathless against his lips.

He nodded, swept his nose against hers, kissed her again. Gentle, loving fingers against vulnerable skin, he caught his breath when she slid her palm beneath him and squeezed, gentle, gentle, always gentle, but clear in what she wanted.

"Leia," he breathed against her lips.

She withdrew with one long sweep of her fingers. Kicking off the sheets he rolled to assist her efforts, then focused on the undergarments she hadn't removed the night before in the frustration and confusion of their conversation. She'd fallen asleep in a camisole and pair of Alliance-issue briefs, not her preferred nighttime attire, but the weight of the day had made it impossible to care.

Now all she wanted was to be completely exposed with him.

He rolled her to her back once they'd gotten rid of the clothes, bare together and cocooned in heat. Sliding between her thighs, his hips cradled in hers, she ran her fingers up his shoulders, threading her fingers through his hair. He moved his left hand—ambidextrous always, she didn't even think he realized—to the apex of her legs, pressing soft fingers against her to gauge her readiness.

She knew she wasn't. She knew that the anxiety she felt had kept her from being fully prepared for this moment. A flicker of doubt: Han was always ready, always, nothing blocked him the way her brain sometimes blocked her, the way her brain couldn't shut off entirely, no matter where she was or what she was doing.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "My head—"

His kiss, hard and confident, silenced her. "Happens to the best of us," he said, and he lied, he lied, but there was nothing malicious there so maybe...

"No," she whispered and she couldn't stop touching his face, couldn't stand it when he ducked his head and hid his eyes from her, even in service to her own pleasure. "Just touch me."

He gave her a soft smile and Leia could feel how he didn't fully understand but trusted her nonetheless. He kissed her, his tongue slick and warm against hers as his hand disappeared down her body once again, lighting her nerves on fire. Tilting her head, she adjusted herself on his pillow as his careful fingers whispered against private skin. Overwhelmed, she caught her breath, breaking his kiss. His lips pressed against her cheek and then swept toward her ear, nibbling with teeth that knew what she liked. Starting slow, building in intensity.

Leia focused on the sensations he created, on the running heat he called forth with a practiced touch. His thumb found her clitoris and applied gentle pressure, a sharp spark of pleasure shooting through her body, settling deep within her lower abdomen, heightened by the scrape of Han's teeth over the lobe of her ear.

Sighing, she ran her hands over the muscles of his back as he shifted to the side to give his hand more room. She could feel his breath against her ear as he worked with expert precision, sliding his index and middle fingers over her sensitive skin, igniting fire as he went. Embers and bubbling passion, synched with his ministrations, like a stone buttress being torn down piece by piece.

"More," she whispered, biting out the word because they'd learned together that Han needed her bluntness in bed. Not subtlety, not hints. Directives.

Tipping his head down, he brought his lips to her neck, to the pulse point that sang beneath her skin and he finally slipped a finger inside her, then two, gently testing his progress. Her nails sank into his shoulder-blades and her breath caught when his fingertip reached a place that caused a sharp contraction of muscle, when he opened his lips on her throat and pressed the flat of his tongue against her skin. Overcome, she bit her lip, sighed his name into the warm air of the cabin, and shifted her hips toward his hand.

"Better?" he whispered as he continued, as he commanded a surge of warmth that rolled through her like ocean water, powerful and magnificent.

Better? To be the sole recipient of this single-mindedness, this fierce determination? It was breathtaking to be loved like that by this man with such intensity, such exclusivity.

"Please," she said to him in response, finding her words lost to the kinetic wilderness surrounding them. "Come here. Please."

"How do you want me?"

Leia paused, taking a deep breath even as she felt him continue his work. Her biggest need at the moment was to see him lost, to watch and feel him find his own consuming fire.

"I want to see you."

He pressed a kiss to her cheek as he removed his fingers and knelt between her legs. He wrapped his hand around her knee and reached for her pillow, slipping it under her hips in a movement that was so fluid and quick it spoke volumes about his need for her. Then, bracing her knees apart with his thighs, he leaned over her, pressing into her with an insistence that was so quintessentially Han it would have made her smile if the feeling of him entering her hadn't made her throw her head back and close her eyes.

Fullness so thick it was consuming. A sense of widening as he nestled inside her, careful but also so sure in a way that was uniquely him. She exhaled and found a place within her that was purely physical, that could feel him within her body—hand in glove—like he fit where no one else could. An unstoppable force for pleasure and strength.

A breath, two, as they adjusted to the world-crashing feeling, as she memorized the back of her eyelids. Then a low, hoarse laugh in his deep rumble: "How are you gonna see me like that?"

She swallowed and smiled at his goading as her eyes opened, as his amused expression came into view. When he rested his weight on his hands, she framed his face with her hands, still too tall to align perfectly and yet that, too, was perfect.

"I love you," she said.

Dropping his eyes, he pressed a kiss to the skin just above her heart. "Never doubted that," he murmured into her skin.

And then he leaned back so that she could watch his face, exactly as she had requested. She missed the touch of his chest on hers, missed the controlled flame of his body. But it was either/or: she was too small and he was too tall for both close contact and a clear visual. And one of those felt paramount in this moment; a kind of repentance for the pain she'd put him through.

He began a slow rhythmic thrust, testing, adjusting. His hands settled on her hips and she reached to run her hands up and down his forearms. He looked haunting in the dim light, eyes closed, brow furrowed, focused and lost in his own sensations, and she understood; the feeling of these shallow thrusts—he never left her body, remained fully ensheathed within her—the cyclical rotation of his hips against hers was like an altitude drop in atmosphere. Her stomach plummeted and she sensed a precipitous freefall on the horizon.

Opening his eyes, he took in her exposed breasts, then glanced down where his hips pressed against hers and made the softest of sounds deep in his throat. She ached to press her lips against that beautiful column, to taste his skin just above where he made those sounds, but settled instead for focusing on the sensations within, the hypnotic plunge of his body in hers even as she kept her eyes on him.

"Leia," he murmured.

She smiled softly, squeezed his elbows. "Yes?"

"Know you wanna watch, but this is going to kill me," he admitted. "It's like you're a kilometer away."

His hips jerked into hers, more forceful than he had been so far, and Leia realized that he'd been tempering his pace for her sake, always ensuring that she was ready for him. She bit her lip, gripped his biceps and leveraged her weight against his. Catching on quickly, he slid his palms under her lower back, helping her sit up on his thighs. With his steady hands bracing her back, she wrapped her arms around his neck and brought her forehead to his.

"Better?" she asked, repeating his question from earlier.

He sighed then, as if a weight had been lifted from him, as if her skin had eased some pain within, and she kissed him before he could answer, knowing as surely as she knew her own name that, yes, that was better, that he had what he needed. His hands slipped to her waist and then lower, squeezing as he started a controlled thrust of her hips, as he directed her body against his own.

Leia loved taking control of their time together; it was invigorating and powerful and, best of all, Han took cues so well that she could take and relinquish the reins as she needed to. But here, in this moment, she recognized a need in him to set the pace, to have her close and feel what he felt honestly, knowing she would tell him if he went too far. She felt safe and loved and so she whispered a yes into his lips, an answer to his unasked question.

Where are your words now, Han? she thought.

And of course he didn't hear, but he thrummed like a plucked string instrument, radiating want and tempered desperation. Sitting on his thighs meant that he didn't have to duck to kiss her, that she didn't have to strain her neck in kind. Her position indicated shallower thrusts and she worried that he wouldn't be able to get the leverage he wanted. But orgasm was only part of the goal here, and she was pretty sure Han knew that as well as she did.

He broke the kiss to mutter a charged fuck before he lightly bit her lower lip, and she took the opportunity to sweep her tongue to his ear, to nibble on the lobe, his hands squeezing her hips in response. Controlled fire turned into a frenzy then, burning a swath through the air around them, and she exhaled against his ear, unintentionally erotic, the chasm closing around her, her world pulling inwards, the outline of the cabin rolling and twisting into nothing as all that remained was the hoarse sounds Han made into her shoulder.

Leia bloomed like a fire-flower. She burst into red, beautiful flame tempered only by the insane urge to crawl into Han's physical body, to dissolve into him like ash, particles integrated until no one could tell who she was, who he was. Ridiculous and insatiable, and if she had been thinking clearer, she might have realized that she did somewhat understand what Luke meant when he said that he saw people's colors.

A heavy groan into her shoulder and she tightened her arms around his neck, holding them together until their flame consumed everything. They were a dual inferno, consuming and consumed, fed by each other until nothing existed, nothing but carbon particles milling together on top of the bunk's soft sheets.

Falling to his side to avoid pinning her, she felt bereft the minute he left her body. She understood that rationally there was no way to keep them merged, that they hadn't actually dissolved into ash together. And yet in one last surge of heat she wished that they could remain like this forever, that clarity came when they tore down the walls between them.

"Can't lose that," she heard him, soft beside her. "Can't lose you."

Turning onto her side, she noted they had returned to the same positions they'd started in: him on his back, her nestled into his side. And yet the difference was startling, too: the protections gone, the vulnerability sweet on their skin, the air, the sweat between them.

"Never," she whispered, and kissed the tip of his shoulder.


Author's Note: I hope you are all staying safe and healthy. For those of you asking, yes, I'm okay and doing my best to remain so. Special thanks as always to AmongstEmeraldClouds for the thoughtful edits and contributions to the flow of the story. There is no story without her hard work! Chapter eleven of Specter will be posted Saturday, August 1st. Thank you! -KR