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Lodestone: A Wynston/Ruth Alternate Universe


bright_ephemera

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The answer is that I will take the treatment an Imperial affords an alien over the career options available to a Chiss citizen, and the treatment a respectable Chiss affords a near-casteless countryman, any day.

 

 

 

I don't know how close that is to canon though from what I read their system does sound like that would be plausible... *hisssss* poor Wynston. I do love his background and Wynston/Ruth are just *yay sweetness*.

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The answer is that I will take the treatment an Imperial affords an alien over the career options available to a Chiss citizen, and the treatment a respectable Chiss affords a near-casteless countryman, any day.

 

 

 

I don't know how close that is to canon though from what I read their system does sound like that would be plausible... *hisssss* poor Wynston. I do love his background and Wynston/Ruth are just *yay sweetness*.

 

The question that came to mind repeatedly as I played through my Imp alien runs (Zabrak Warrior, Chiss Agent, parts of a Chiss BH) was...what would possess any alien nonresident to choose to immigrate into the Empire? One might hypothesize that no one voluntarily does and all alien Imperial subjects are the product of annexation or slave imports, but that probably doesn't cover 100% of them and it doesn't account for the fact that the immigration scenario has occurred in real life. Look at the treatment of, say, Chinese or Irish immigrants to America in the 1800s, or any of the dirty unwashed race du jour in other time periods. Why would anybody walk into that and still say, for the rest of their lives, that moving to America was a good idea? The alternative must have been worse. I find that concept mindblowing, but then, I'm a pretty privileged creature, so I've never had to weigh anything like that kind of decision.

 

Unlike America the Empire does not reward hard work particularly well, but it rewards smart work brilliantly when you arrange to make it benefit/have it noticed by the right people. Then, on top of a successful professional career, happening across a sane Sith girlfriend is about as good as it gets. Then cuddles happen! :)

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I seem to recall you commenting at some point during the mean Ruth Means Compassion thread that Wynston wasn't very deep. Lies! Take that back immediately. :)

 

Look at the treatment of, say, Chinese or Irish immigrants to America in the 1800s, or any of the dirty unwashed race du jour in other time periods. Why would anybody walk into that and still say, for the rest of their lives, that moving to America was a good idea? The alternative must have been worse. I find that concept mindblowing, but then, I'm a pretty privileged creature, so I've never had to weigh anything like that kind of decision.

Just speaking as an Irish person, our reasons for emigration have been predominantly economic. Of these, the greatest in the 1800s was a famine caused by potato blight that hit the poorest worst of all because they had little to no other food; potatoes were the only crop that allowed them to make a living on the tiny amounts of land they could rent (largely renting from the rich landlords who controlled our country but didn't live there, to whom the export of other foods continued even as poor people starved due to the lost potato crop). Leaving that behind didn't mean people didn't love their country or their families (in fact, there's a huge tradition of songs lamenting leaving family, sweethearts, and the beauty of the landscape). It meant people had no other choice. I'm not sure how comparable it really is with what you just described from Wynston's life.

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I seem to recall you commenting at some point during the mean Ruth Means Compassion thread that Wynston wasn't very deep. Lies! Take that back immediately. :)

 

He was shallow! He was a shallow shallow man! This is what I get for thinking about things. Details happen. :D

 

Just speaking as an Irish person, our reasons for emigration have been predominantly economic. Of these, the greatest in the 1800s was a famine caused by potato blight that hit the poorest worst of all because they had little to no other food; potatoes were the only crop that allowed them to make a living on the tiny amounts of land they could rent (largely renting from the rich non-Irish who controlled our country, to whom the export of other foods continued even as poor people starved due to the lost potato crop). Leaving that behind didn't mean people didn't love their country or their families (in fact, there's a huge tradition of songs lamenting leaving family, sweethearts, and the beauty of the landscape). It meant people had no other choice. I'm not sure how comparable it really is with what you just described from Wynston's life.

 

Eee, history lesson! :) Though I'm of Irish extraction I know very, very little of my own family's history.

 

I will say that Wynston's parents and at least some of his other siblings maintained closer ties to the old community than he did. I don't know how realistic it is that they had the option to stay and chose to go anyway. Wynston personally was (economic reasons/more economic opportunity driven by parental choices) + (screw you all I'm leaving and assimilating as hard as I can because I hate the old country and, as a running theme in my life, I am prone to the sudden and complete cutting of ties.) He's definitely glossing over the fact that he had a community of social equals.

 

The above account is all the thought I've ever put into his family; I've never really thought about his siblings and how they would have adapted. If I were really awful I would dub my Chiss BH his big sister...think, think think *taps head, Winnie the Pooh style*...

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He was shallow! He was a shallow shallow man! This is what I get for thinking about things. Details happen. :D

Delicious details. Wonderful details. Wynston has become more and more interesting as you've written him and I think that's great.

 

Eee, history lesson! :) Though I'm of Irish extraction I know very, very little of my own family's history.

Oh wow! We do get around, don't we? There's way more people of Irish extraction living around the world than back here in Ireland. Waaaay more. As in, multiplied several times.

 

I will say that Wynston's parents and at least some of his other siblings maintained closer ties to the old community than he did. I don't know how realistic it is that they had the option to stay and chose to go anyway. Wynston personally was (economic reasons/more economic opportunity driven by parental choices) + (screw you all I'm leaving and assimilating as hard as I can because I hate the old country and, as a running theme in my life, I am prone to the sudden and complete cutting of ties.) He's definitely glossing over the fact that he had a community of social equals.

 

The above account is all the thought I've ever put into his family; I've never really thought about his siblings and how they would have adapted. If I were really awful I would dub my Chiss BH his big sister...think, think think *taps head, Winnie the Pooh style*...

Maybe I'm picking up on what you wrote wrongly, but I got the impression that he hated his family for accepting their place in society and not fighting against it. On reflection, that really fits with his personality overall. He's never been one to roll over and just say "this is how it is, I can't change it." Everything he does post-chapter 3 seems to be part of an overall attempt to make things better, whether on a huge galactic scale or in Ruth's life in this fic.

 

As for the possibility of making your BH his sister, I wonder why you say "If I were really awful..." Would this be bad for Wynston? Would this cause him discomfort? Would this possibly... somehow... end up giving him (wait for it)... an air of noble tragedy? :D

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  • 2 weeks later...

In honor of Valentine's Day, some 3600 words completely devoid of nutritional content. Because reasons, that's why.

 

L + 23 years 9 months

 

 

 

Ruth offered the use of the Niral estate for the wedding, but Colrand declined; he and his fiancée, the human Sith Avanna, were set on a palace owned by a friend on Alderaan.

 

Avanna was a sweet girl, of the school of decent Sith that Jaesa's Academy had been developing for nearly a quarter of a century. The Empire was still a dangerous world for them – indeed, many of them ended up emigrating to Republic or neutral space – but the enclave was a good community.

 

Ruth offered to help with arrangements. So did Wynston. Cole and Avanna smilingly, firmly declined. It took considerable badgering for Cole to even accept some credits to help with whatever he was planning, but Ruth was determined to at least do that; he didn't need to start out in debt.

 

The Aegis set course for Alderaan and Ruth prepared at the vanity in the bathroom. For once she didn't put on armor. Cole hadn't made any such request, but he and Avanna were both of a diplomatic bent – not what she had expected from the weaponsmaster Cole had grown into, but he was happy with his chosen work. So today Ruth would not come arrayed for battle.

 

A blue gown, modest scoop neck, nothing too likely to grab attention away from the bride. Her appearance wasn't what she usually used to command the room anyway. A gold choker set with blue gems, a thank-you gift from a Lorrdian businessman after a complicated intervention several years ago. Wynston had offered on several occasions to find her more jewelry she would like, but she found that plenty of it was spontaneously offered to her in a number of dealings anyway and she wasn't accustomed to wearing even that. From him she had accepted the plain gold ring she wore everywhere, and that was enough.

 

She decided to wear her hair half up for the day, pulling the front locks back to braid them behind her head. She brushed the free waves smooth – it was nice to have an excuse to let it down once in a while – and then, after a last mirror check, opened the door to where Wynston was waiting.

 

His grey-and-red formals were straight out of the society pages of Dromund Kaas; he had no extra ornamentation outside his own ring, a gold band matched to hers. It was the closest thing to an official mark they kept. He didn't wear it when he was disguised for work, but on a day like this he was free to show it.

 

The years and the mission had put slightly more in the way of lines and scars on him than they had on her, but his red eyes had lost none of their brightness, nor his lips their expressiveness. He met her eyes and smiled brilliantly. "You look amazing. Would it throw our schedule off terribly for us to undo that all right this minute?"

 

She seriously considered it. She always did. "I'm afraid it would. They'll notice if we show up late."

 

"You're quite sure?" Allowing himself a moment to look her over, he walked up close, placed his hands lightly on her hips, and gave her one, questioning kiss.

 

"Quite sure, I'm afraid. Sorry." She said it with a smile.

 

He nodded and let his hands fall. "As you wish," he said softly, then returned her smile. "Shall we away, then?"

 

"We shall." She presented him with a lightsaber. "Carry this for me? I don't want to go for the bristling-weaponry look today."

 

"You could probably deal with any problem wedding guest even without it," he said, but he pocketed the saber anyway. "For that matter Colrand could probably suppress any rebellion that comes up."

 

"I'm not expecting trouble. This is just in case." Which reminded her of something less entertaining: the fact that this would be the first time Wynston and Quinn had been put in the same room in over eight years. "You'll be all right with…him, won't you?"

 

"There won't be a problem," Wynston said mildly. "This is Cole's day, I think even he can recognize that."

 

"He will." She kissed him. "We all will."

 

"I love you," he informed her. "Let's go."

 

*

 

Ruth had to hand it to the Alderaanians: their idea of grandeur delivered. The long window arch over the great hall had only the lightest silver tracery to support the transparisteel; the sky was blue and close above it, and sunlight flooded the galleries and the broad marble floor. The carpet and banners were of the light green Avanna favored.

 

A reedy dark-skinned youth, one of the bride's brothers, bowed to her and Wynston and led them down the center aisle towards their seats.

 

The hall was crowded. For all that Cole had few blood relatives, he and Avanna had a lot in the way of friends. She saw several of the Sith he had met at Jaesa's academy, along with Jaesa herself; the matronly Sith was seated near the front with her husband. Her twin daughters were nowhere in sight; they were likely in the wedding party, then.

 

Vette had made it, much to Ruth's delight. General Pierce for once was not alone in looming over the general audience even while sitting; he had his clean-shaven son at his side. Pierce Junior, in turn, had a slim cyborg on his arm – possibly the prettiest man there, Ruth noted.

 

Her stomach flopped a little when the grey-haired man in the front row finally turned to see who was approaching. Quinn rose unhurriedly, crisp as ever in his dress uniform, and bowed with one hand on his heart. When he raised his eyes he fixed them on Ruth to the exclusion of anyone else. "My lord Wrath," he said quietly.

 

"Moff." She was aware of Wynston moving past her to take his assigned place two seats past Quinn. "You're looking well."

 

"It is a happy day, my lord." Cautious, formal. But not cold.

 

"It is."

 

No sooner had they seated themselves than Colrand himself emerged from a side door, smiling ear to ear. He was a perfect image of his father, now in black robes with a touch of light green trim. His eyes were sparkling as he took a few long last paces toward the Emperor's Wrath, swept her up by her waist, and spun her in a near-full circle before setting her down and planting a kiss on her cheek. "You look great," he informed her while she was still breathless with laughter, and then he turned to clasp Wynston's hand and hug his shoulder. Once Wynston stepped back Colrand turned again and hesitated for a moment, facing Quinn, very nearly settling for a respectful nod before the older man enfolded him in a tight hug instead, grey head contrasting with black in a tableau that Ruth would not soon forget.

 

Cole flitted away after that to confer with his groomsmen, two of Avanna's brothers; and then, very suddenly, the music was already starting.

 

There were Jaesa's daughters, Cole's childhood friends, side by side in green, coming up to stand opposite the groomsmen and beam at the hall in general. At some unseen signal both Parvin and Grega blew Cole playful kisses, which prompted snorts of laughter from the Pierces and set Cole blushing furiously.

 

Then Avanna appeared, wearing, in defiance of all Imperial tradition, pure dazzling white. Ruth hadn't realized anyone could make that look good until now. Cole's face fairly glowed as she came to take his hand.

 

While Ruth listened to the readings her eyes were on her son and his bride. They seemed completely unselfconscious standing up there, smiling at each other and, for all Ruth could tell, ignoring the ceremony around them entirely. She found herself seeking Quinn's right hand with her left. He started when she took hold and squeezed; she met his questioning look with the proud smile she couldn't seem to shake and didn't want to. She held his gaze and nodded toward the bride and groom with a look that said See? We made him for this.

 

And he nodded, and squeezed back, and returned to looking forward, his expression a little brighter than before.

 

Avanna came close to singing her vows in her flutelike voice; they carried high and clear through the hall. Colrand, in contrast, had to cough through a couple of nervous false starts before he got talking. When he did, though, his voice was strong and steady – more so than Ruth had ever heard, in point of fact. This ceremony, with these words and motions, was exactly where he meant to be.

 

Once the readings were read, the vows were vowed and the kiss was lingeringly kissed, the crowd was reasonably orderly in gravitating toward the couple. Ruth hugged Colrand – with less getting picked up and spun this time – and then embraced Avanna, kissing the shorter woman's cheek. "Welcome to the family," said Ruth.

 

"Thank you," whispered Avanna. She managed to make brimming with tears look gorgeous. She looked so very young, young and radiant. Ruth smiled and took her place down the receiving line.

 

The reception consisted simply of moving to the other end of the sun-soaked grand hall. Supper passed in pleasant chatter with Avanna's family, which got progressively smoother as the Force-blind parents and siblings got over their slight awe of the Emperor's Wrath. Wynston had assured Ruth a long time ago that she would never be able to really turn off the commanding presence she had cultivated for so long, but she was pleased to find that she was managing something less than "scary". Better yet, Quinn and Wynston, by tacit agreement, kept up a cordiality maintained by their genuine affection for everyone else at the table. Wynston finished and got up a little early to go confer with the musicians; he returned in time for the first dance, leading Ruth to the floor with a smile and a word.

 

He closed until he was leading more with his chest than his arms. Ruth followed comfortably and kept turning her head to follow where Colrand was sweeping Avanna around, quite clearly lost in her eyes.

 

"I can't remember the last time you were this distracted while dancing," murmured Wynston.

 

"Hm?" she said playfully. "I think I got more distracted that time a fire broke out in the Mos Anek cantina."

 

"Ah. I stand corrected. This is a close competitor, though."

 

"I can't help it. My son's over there." Where her mind was, her eyes followed. "He's an adult, and he's gotten involved with a Sith, which is terrible for one's health, I can't imagine why he thought that was a good idea."

 

"Sith women can be all right."

 

"You're only saying that because–"

 

"You're amazing," Wynston interrupted firmly, "and I love you. And she is a wonderful young woman, who is obviously crazy about him."

 

"She is." Her doubt passed as quickly as it had come. "Well then, maybe I'm just admiring how they look together."

 

"True. Cole's a very handsome fellow, and he is with the second best-looking woman in the room."

 

"Hush, you, this is Avanna's day."

 

He grinned. "As you say." Still maintaining a steady lead, he leaned forward ever so slightly to touch his cheek to hers. "They do look very, very happy. As is right and proper."

 

After that they fell silent and enjoyed their closeness, the instinctive way they moved in sync as they did every time they came together. And Ruth watched her son, and felt a steady little glow.

 

Colrand made a beeline for her the moment the song ended. "Hello, you two," he said, flushed and smiling. "I hope you're not danced out yet, Mom."

 

She let go of Wynston. "Nowhere close. Is there time to pick up a drink first?"

 

"A quick one, sure. – I'll give her back by midnight, Wynston, promise."

 

"Nobody's 'giving' me at all," Ruth said, faux sternly.

 

Wynston and Colrand exchanged looks. "Make it eleven," Wynston said seriously. "I worry, you know."

 

"It's a deal." Cole grinned and sidestepped Ruth's swat. "Come on, Mom."

 

She followed him. "You've gotten nervy in the last, oh, hour or two."

 

"I'm a grownup or something now." He laughed and took two glasses of water from the side table, handing one to her. "It's good."

 

It was with an entirely new assurance that Colrand led her onto the dance floor when the next song started. Avanna was paired off with her father; Cole shot a dazzling smile at both of them and then turned his attention to Ruth. He was surprisingly graceful in adapting to her shorter steps.

 

"You know," he said, "I never actually believed Wynston when he said knowing this stuff would come in handy."

 

"Wynston's a resourceful person, you should've listened."

 

"I did listen even if I wasn't convinced. It worked out; teaching Avanna to dance gave us something to do when we weren't studying."

 

"See? Wynston knows what he's about."

 

"Yeah. I'm glad you'll have him."

 

She raised her eyebrows. "Was this a concern?"

 

"Well, you know…now that I'm elsewhere, I hate to think you're…"

 

"You haven't lived with us for quite some time," she said, amused.

 

"Yeah, but it's different now. At least 'til Avanna and I get a house in order enough for you to come."

 

"I think your ageing mother will survive, but I appreciate your concern." She grinned. "By the way, today was your last excuse ever to pick up and twirl the Emperor's Wrath."

 

He made a face. "Yes, Mom."

 

"Also I am happier for you than I know how to say."

 

"Thanks. I'm glad…" He looked around, then shrugged and smiled. "I'm glad."

 

He let her go with a last hug when the song ended, and she retreated to the sidelines to take up a glass and join Vette and Jaesa.

 

"You're not tired out already, are you?" said Vette. "Lightweight."

 

"Good to see you, too. Hi, Jaesa."

 

"Hi, Ruth. You got a nice turnout."

 

"I had nothing to do with pulling this together. That was all Cole and Avanna."

 

"Color me impressed. Avanna…never showed the best organizational skills at the academy."

 

"No? I guess they've both grown up a little."

 

"Yeah," said Vette. "I can now officially say that I've seen a Sith survive from infancy to marriage. I was never really sure how that ever happens."

 

"I never allowed murder attempts in the house," said Ruth. "That helps."

 

"Some would call that a scandalous oversight in your kid's education," said Vette. "Mostly people I don't want to be friends with, but they would."

 

"He seems to have turned out all right. You know, for a graduate of 'Jaesa's School of Bad Sith'."

 

"I repeat, you oughta inscribe that over the door."

 

"I won't," Jaesa said imperturbably. "The school is succeeding just fine."

 

"At making bad Sith."

 

"Would you rather we break into a violent power play at the alumni reception here?" Ruth asked archly.

 

"…When you put it that way, no, I think I'm okay with bad Sith."

 

"That's what I thought." Ruth looked to Jaesa. "You know, the girls will be doing this themselves before you know it."

 

"Don't say that," giggled Jaesa. "I'm still not used to Cole changing his own clothes. Personally I vote for those two next." She tilted her head toward Pierce Junior and his date.

 

"We don't even have his name, do we? I don't see a Pierce marrying any time soon."

 

"That's because you're a cynic," sighed Vette.

 

"And this from her," said Jaesa. "Ouch."

 

"Hmph. This cynic is going for pastries," said Ruth. "Do either of you want anything?"

 

"Nah," said Vette. Jaesa just shook her head. So Ruth left them to head for the refreshments table.

 

She noticed Pierce Junior and his cyborg date chatting Quinn up, or possibly just cornering him, where he stood by a pillar not far from the edge of the dance floor. Quinn noticed her movement and gave a subtle gesture that served for a discreet summons, so she approached to see what was going on. "My lord," he said, probably more quickly than was strictly necessary, when she got close. "Would you grant me the honor of a dance?"

 

She looked at a maliciously grinning Junior and his utterly innocuous-looking friend, but decided to delay questions until after Quinn was safely away. "With pleasure," she said, and took his hand to return to the dance floor.

 

He allowed her to set the distance of their square formal hold, then took the lead. "Thank you," he said in a low voice.

 

"I never thought Junior was that bad a conversationalist."

 

"If you'll forgive the observation, my lord, Junior probably doesn't feel compelled to comment on your attractiveness."

 

She didn't laugh. Not quite. Even if she felt her eyes going wide while she was busy suppressing a smile. "I'm sorry."

 

"I'm here for Cole and Avanna," he said with his old harried brusqueness. "I'll survive the evening."

 

"Thank you for coming. It means a lot to him."

 

Quinn nodded stiffly.

 

"And…I'm glad he has you in the first place."

 

When he pulled her a degree closer she didn't argue. "It has been a great joy to have him in my life, Ruth."

 

"If I'd known how he would take to you I'd have let you in earlier."

 

"I understand your reasons," he said roughly.

 

She disentangled one of her hands to touch a finger to his lips. "Please. Nothing sad today." She brought her hand back to close her hold. "Sorry, I was supposed to be a more pleasant conversationalist than Junior."

 

That got him to break a smile. "I assure you, you are."

 

"It is really, really good, after everything, to see you smiling."

 

He gave her a long look of the kind that had finally matured into deep and undemanding affection. "Then I shall keep doing it."

 

Whatever else she felt about him, she loved him for being a good father to their son, and so she danced and for a while forgot to look at anything else.

 

He took a slow step back away at the end of the dance and bowed, smiled once more, then looked around. "I should find Cole. I must depart soon; I need to be in the Sullust sector by morning."

 

Of course. "Thank you for the dance," she said. "Even if it was just an excuse to get away from Pierce Junior. –But truly, it was good to see you."

 

"It was good to be here, Ruth. Take care."

 

"You, too, Quinn."

 

*

 

Ruth was startled by the pang she felt when her son left some time later. It was, after all, the natural conclusion of getting married in the first place, but seeing Colrand walk out arm in arm with Avanna made Ruth suddenly, intensely aware that he was building a life away from her.

 

Wynston slipped an arm around her waist. "Are you all right?"

 

"Hm? Of course I am." She leaned into him, still watching the empty doorway.

 

He took the excuse of kissing her to cup her face and brush away a tear she hadn't realized she was shedding. "Good. He's got someone to keep him in line while we're off on missions now, and that can only be a good thing."

 

"Right. Because Cole was always such a wild boy."

 

"Always watch for the quiet ones," he murmured, smiling. "What's the plan for the rest of the evening?"

 

"One more round of the guests?"

 

"With pleasure. I'm still holding some tiny hope that I can trick Junior's boy into dropping Junior's first name tonight."

 

"I'm not sure Junior releases that information to the men he dates."

 

"I have to try. It's my job to know everything; if I can get the elder's name, I'll get the younger's one way or another."

 

"Maybe Pierce never gave him one."

 

Wynston scowled. "No, that'd be too easy. He's wilier than that."

 

"You're never going to forgive him for not putting it on record anywhere in the galaxy, are you?"

 

"Never? Nonsense, there are no hard feelings that won't be resolved by me winning. Let's go, darling."

 

*

 

Once Wynston and Ruth finally did depart the return to the Aegis was quick. That was just as well; Ruth discovered a powerful inclination to stay in contact with Wynston on the way, one that did not lessen when they reached their quarters. The energy of the day was still riding high and, after all, none of their dances really ended until they were in bed, the part of their never-ending conversation that was carried out mostly in the singing of nerves and the language of expressive breath and subtle varied motions.

 

They did get back to words, eventually, once he was lying beside her with a hand resting at her collarbone. "I love you," he whispered.

 

Pleasant exhaustion made her speech slow. "I love you, too."

 

"Let's talk tomorrow. About maybe celebrating."

 

"Celebrating what?"

 

He slid a hand up her arm to the ring on her finger; he tapped it a couple of times and then laid her hand on his cheek and rested. "We have our private promises, but a party might be fun."

 

"Copycat," she murmured.

 

"I'm too tired to dispute that intelligently. We'll see if it's still a good idea in the morning."

 

"Hmm. I think it might be."

 

"Did I mention I love you?"

 

"I love you, too," she said.

 

"Good. Sleep well, darling."

 

And so, warm and spent and contented and loved, Ruth slept.

 

 

 

 

 

If you need assistance escaping the sap, allow me to offer you a little imaginary rowboat and paddle. This was hard work; even though I set out to be all mushy, I still had to remove several bittersweet exchanges from the draft because Bright's brain keeps doing that. NO SAD. ONLY HAPPY.

 

There is a significant chance that Larr Gith and Doc crashed the reception – I mean, they're practically family, right? and everybody loves a party – and i was just too lazy to write out that train wreck.

 

If Pierce Junior was born before RMC's main timeline happened, then he must also exist in Lodestone. :D

 

 

Edited by bright_ephemera
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alskdfjalkhgldakh everyone is happy omg squeeee *falls over*

 

...

 

*picks self up*

 

Um, I suppose a more articulate response would be to say that it is delightful to see everyone getting a happy ending, particularly in light of other universes where the ending is far from happy. The sap infiltrated through my skin and made its way up into my brain until every neuron was singing a triumphant chorus of "D'awwww." :D

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Here, have a smattering of shorter pieces. The two in this post are crossposts from the AU thread's As Time Goes By prompt.

 

L + ~20

 

 

Wynston kept Ruth in a close dance hold as he made one of his habitual rapid scans of the room.

 

"You know," he informed her, "I'm starting to suspect we're too old for this crowd."

 

She looked around as well. The other dancers, as well as the musicians, many of the diners, and half the staff of the Nexus Room Cantina, did indeed appear to be in the under-thirty set, a demographic Wynston and herself hadn't fallen into in quite some time.

 

"We still buy drinks," she said cheerfully. "I don't think they're going to kick us out."

 

"I know that, I was just thinking that we get more conspicuous every year."

 

"Not necessarily. Look over there." Her head movement was only barely distinguishable but he knew enough to follow where she meant. "There's a whole booth of older people engaging in skulduggery as we speak."

 

"But for once we're not engaging in skulduggery. We're engaging in dancing."

 

"The casual observer might assume we're engaged in skulduggery, too. See? We fit." She beamed at him. "...Unless you're saying you want to be someplace else?"

 

His pulled her closer. "Stars, no. This was good enough for a first date, I like coming back here."

 

"All right. Well, we could go look conspiratorial in a corner after if you think that'll make us seem less conspicuous."

 

"Darling," he said, straight-faced, "I hate to say it, but you've never really gotten used to the secret-agent thing."

 

 

 

And potential further future; this may be just an AU branch, I'm not sure. I'm reluctant to put it as Official Lodestone but it's certainly plausible.

 

L + 33

 

 

"My ankle still isn't back up to spec," said Wynston. "I'm seriously considering mechanical replacement; that break was bad. I can't afford to let it happen again."

 

"You could not let 'having to jump from that height during an escape' happen again," suggested Ruth.

 

"One of these options is less limiting in the field."

 

He sounded very casual. Ruth knew better. "What's on your mind?"

 

"What's on my mind? That landing shouldn't have been a problem. It wouldn't have been, years ago. My body may not be up for this much longer." He pulled her into his arms, nuzzling her hair. She waited a while and was about to speak up again when he abruptly said "Chiss age faster than humans. It's becoming clear that I'm subject to those rules. I've got more than half your life expectancy, but not by much, and I personally have seven years' head start on you."

 

She raised his blue hand to her lips. "It's true," she said, and kissed his fingers.

 

"It's no help that I'm no Force user. You're more durable than I am several times over."

 

"You pull your weight, Wynston."

 

She felt his half smile. "I know," he said. "That doesn't change certain facts. Looking at the numbers, in a couple of decades you'll still be brown-haired and beautiful while I'm exhausting the limits of what life-extension technology can do."

 

"Brown-haired may be a generous assumption. And I know all this. I still love you. It'll be all right."

 

"Has anyone ever told you you're irrational?"

 

"You, on several occasions." She twisted around to lay a hand on his cheek. "Please don't talk like this."

 

His smile had turned sad. "I just don't know how much longer I'll be of use, darling."

 

She laid her other hand on his other cheek and, placing two fingertips very lightly against the lines at the corners of his eyes, met his gaze. "As long as you are with me, you are welcome, and wanted, and if you want me to say you're of use on your performance review I'll do it."

 

"You're a very kind manager. Still, I'm sixty now. My productive years are fast drawing to a close."

 

"Stop saying that. It isn't true."

 

"It's going to be a problem. If I get even a little less sharp, if I miss seeing or hearing something on the job, if I'm not steady enough to take the shot, that's lives and missions lost."

 

"So we scale back the field work."

 

"No. You're needed out there."

 

"Then I'll go and you support me remotely. After that I'll come home to you."

 

"You're a practical woman. Even if you are irrational." He trailed his hands up to her shoulders and held her firmly. "Work is what I do. It's what I am. I always assumed I would die on the job, out there. To be honest I was supposed to be dead by thirty. I didn't mind the idea. It's a lot less unsettling than the alternative."

 

"Stop it. Please. You're not going to die any time soon, and you're making a difference, a real difference, no matter what you decide to work on now."

 

"I know. And I have a few more years. Ten, maybe. Twenty if I'm lucky. As if just collecting years was cause for celebration. It is if it means I'm with you, but still." He gave her a long, thoughtful look, and his face conspicuously didn't betray any negative feeling. "You should've chosen a human. Someone who could stick around."

 

"I love you, Wynston. That would be true no matter if you were human or Chiss or something that springs up and fades overnight."

 

"I have the very inconvenient timing of getting to steal your prime without being able to hold you into old age."

 

"You're not stealing anything. We're in this together."

 

"I'm glad to hear it, but I can't guarantee it for much longer. It is…extraordinarily difficult for me to look you in the eye and say that I won't be there."

 

"Then don't say it. I could die before then. You could end up freakishly long-lived. Any number of things might happen. If you're here with me now I can handle it."

 

"I'm here with you." He squeezed her waist. "I've wasted a lot of time, Ruth, and I'm starting to think that that's not a resource I can arrange more of. But yes. I'm here with you now."

 

"And we still have years, love. Years I mean to spend with you."

 

A little worry finally made it onto his face. "Is this how you felt all those times you insisted that I should go find a plaything because you were getting old and unlovely?"

 

"Maybe? This is harder for you."

 

"Oh? You were hurting when you asked those things. You really thought I would find something more appealing than you. As if you could ever be anything but beautiful." He kissed her, slowly, and she was grateful to return it. Afterward he rested his forehead against hers. "I've cheated death on a number of occasions for the sole purpose of staying with you, but I don't know if I can outmaneuver this one."

 

She struggled for a moment to choose her words. "For what it's worth,' she said, "I'm keeping you today."

 

He picked up a little smile. "I should hope so, it's half past ten. If you're going to get rid of me you'd better make it fast."

 

"Nope. You're stuck." She touched his neck, his cheek, the hair that she never mentioned she knew he dyed. "We haven't run out of hours in the day yet. Let's make the most of it."

 

It was rare they took an entire evening just to hold each other, but on this night they were both willing to lose sleep for it.

 

 

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Now, silly fluff of the sort that has been running through my head lately. No particular timeline on either of these.

 

Lazing around between adventures of galactic import:

 

“If I could make love to you from now until the galaxy burned down around our ears…well, don’t think I haven’t given the idea serious consideration.”

 

“It would be a major black mark on your performance review. –Job performance review.”

 

“Yes, that’s the problem. It’s the kind of terrible consequence I can’t ignore, no matter how much I might want to.”

 

“I love that you’re so professional.”

 

“I think you might love the other approach, too, but I appreciate the sentiment.”

 

 

And, lazing around whenever, I don't even know, the exchange just occurred to me while I was walking into work (leading to a most unprofessional snicker around the time I was stepping into the lobby):

 

 

"Ruth," Wynston said reflectively, holding her close in bed, "it occurs to me that you are perfect. An actual perfect woman, right here."

 

"I'm pretty sure these aren't in the specs for perfection," she said, taking his hand to run down the length of the biggest scar across her torso.

 

"I told you those don't matter."

 

She smiled mischievously. "Ah. So I'm a blend of perfection and irrelevance."

 

"You are contrary today."

 

"Yes." She kissed him. "It's fun. I like you when I'm contrary."

 

He raised an eyebrow. "Then what do you think of me the rest of the time?"

 

"I like you then, too."

 

"Ruth, that's not what 'contrary' means."

 

"Hush, you. I do what I want."

 

 

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Don't mind me, apparently affection is on the brain lately. This is a crosspost from the AU short fic thread.

 

L + ?? (really any time after Wynston got around to acknowledging love. This talk happens sometime when they're working together on one of his projects. Variants of it may have come up more than once over the years.)

 

 

 

"I'm never sure how much of a difference it makes to you that I'm Sith."

 

"That's a complicated question."

 

"That's why I'm never sure."

 

"It's not a make or break factor," Wynston said lightly. After a few more moments he turned from the window where they had been looking over the sweep of their host's gardens falling away to the gorgeous vista of another new planet. "You…awe me, Ruth. With both your strength and your determination. You're impressive to watch in a fight and it's very satisfying to assist in setting your battlefield.

 

"But what has always mattered to me is that you use this incredible power for the right things, for the right reasons, and then you put it aside. To be a mother, a lover, a friend, instead of just running around asserting your dominance because you can. Do you know how few people do that? How terrible the people who go the other way can be? You never made me bow before you, never put me in my place except in your worst moments and you truly believe that those were bad moments. Even though you had the prerogative. You never made me your servant, even though you could have, and that above all is what makes me want to be everything I can be for you. I don't love you for your power, but even if nothing else about you appealed to me – let's leave aside the absurdity of that idea for the moment – I would love you for choosing to use it the way you do.

 

"So I suppose it makes a difference to me that you're Sith. But only because of what it shows about you as a person."

 

"Oh," she said softly. It was one thing to have good intentions, and something very different to be recognized for them by someone who mattered. She looked back outside, from here across beauty to forever, and felt like her happiness might overflow it all.

 

He took her hand. "Speaking of significant social modifiers, did it ever matter to you that I'm Chiss?"

 

"No," she said. "It didn't even occur to me until other people stared at us together that the galaxy might think there's something…unseemly?...about it. But I like you very much, Chiss-ness and all. Your skin, in every shade of color all over you. You're utterly, unreasonably handsome, you know. I love the way your eyes glow. And, alien or not, I love the way you hold your head high no matter what."

 

He chuckled. "Darling, when I was younger I ducked my head any time it was necessary, which was any time I was around less friendly and less reasonable powers, which was any time I was anywhere near, for example, Sith. At least the ones who don't walk up to freelance jobs with the express purpose of foiling someone else's cruelty."

 

"There is something, to be honest. I was a little afraid when we first slept together that something might be different. I worried that something a properly cosmopolitan woman was supposed to know about would come up at the wrong moment."

 

He returned her sheepish smile with a gentle one. "If there were I could have talked you through it, if you wanted to learn."

 

She raised her free hand to stroke his hair and settle at his neck. "But there wasn't anything different about you except absolutely everything."

 

"Thank you, darling." Gently he encircled her waist and kissed her nose. "So to summarize my answer, I know you're Sith, but you own it instead of it owning you, and that's the part that makes you dear to me."

 

"And I love you as you are, no matter what anyone else thinks."

 

"And together we essentially overturn the natural order of things every day before breakfast. From a certain point of view we're questionable Imperials."

 

"If anyone has a problem with it they can take it up with me. I'm Sith, you know. And I have no problem using that power for what matters."

 

 

 

History note:

 

 

The two of them first met over Lord Drowl's brilliant "let's give everyone an agonizing death with the Quell poison" quest. Wynston was sure that a Sith's arrival dashed any chance of the LS solution. He was very pleased to find that he was mistaken.

 

 

Edited by bright_ephemera
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Just for fun! There's nothing polished here. I was just consolidating drafts and gathering things together for a PDF text-plus-comment-record like I did for NDOW and (sans comments) RMC, and I found some passages that never fit anywhere.

 

First, I found six distinct drafts of the Wynston/Quinn conversation on Corellia (and I know I deleted/cannibalized more). Yeah, that conversation drove me up the wall. Some of the fragments in the reject pile just displayed too much anger on Quinn's part; as a character he had to stay on message more than he did in most of these drafts. I really do like trying to maintain Quinn as a consistent and rational actor. Consistent, rational, but terribly limited.

 

*

 

Quinn didn't shy away from Wynston's stare. "Agent Vulture," he said with that patented conversational disgust. His eyes spoke of desperation shaped into something fine and brilliant and deadly.

 

Wynston very briefly debated the level of courtesy to extend. "Captain Carcass. I have nothing to say to you."

 

"Noted. I have something to say to you."

 

~

 

His nostrils flared. "Has the Wrath told you she's with child?"

 

Hm. The man was prodding to determine or demonstrate who was closer to her. Well then. "Yes," said Wynston. "My deepest sympathies go to any child who can claim no better than you for a father."

 

Quinn looked him over. "There are those who would make even worse replacements. I am confident in assuming that you're grasping at 'replacement' as hard as you can."

 

"That's between me and her. There's no part of it I would sully by calling your attention to it." Not strictly true; if Wynston could be sure no one else was listening, he would take full advantage of any relationship he had or could invent to make the worm miserable.

 

~

 

Quinn paused, examining Wynston's face. "Are you going to tell me you haven't done worse for the mission?"

 

Wynston kept his voice level. It took some effort. "Everything I've ever done I've done for the right cause. So far I've seen you serve nothing but your own advancement. And the whims of a master as contemptible as you are."

 

"Advancement? I'm not the one who insinuated himself into the only occupation that would take him only to embark on a desperate campaign of sleeping with enough authority figures to evade the consequences of his own disgrace of a career." Quinn tilted his head and smiled thinly. "But that wasn't what we're here to discuss."

 

~

 

"I was never the one blinding her."

 

"Oh, really. Tell me, agent, when did she learn your real name?" Quinn looked Wynston over and continued in a tight cold tone. "Did you mention it before the first time you got what you wanted out of her? How about the second? Did it happen to come up while she was bleeding for you in the operation that went wrong because of your faulty intelligence on Alderaan? You're scarcely a reliable source. Her chances are better with me."

 

"I think she would disagree," Wynston said dryly.

 

~

 

Wynston shook his head. "I've served the Empire the entirety of my adult life, and I can honestly report that you are everything I hate about her. At least there's some comfort in knowing you're here in shackles, and everything I love about her is out there, free."

 

(Wynston tends to anthropomorphize the Empire. I don't know how often it comes up in conversation.)

~

 

"Suddenly deciding not to oppose Ruth really limits your career prospects vis-à-vis the one man you haven't voluntarily obliterated your chances with."

 

"He has no hold over me now. I have nothing left to lose. I do have one thing left to offer, and the Wrath is the only one I would offer it to."

 

~

 

"You really did come to care for your target, didn't you." Wynston said slowly. The depth of Quinn's conviction surprised him. "And then you pulled the trigger anyway. That makes you a failure coming and going, agent."

 

"Captain," snapped Quinn.

 

"'Captain' isn't the job that put you in here."

 

~

 

Quinn and Wynston: Infinite hatred in infinite combinations!

 

Other early-Lodestone passages heavily altered or rejected entirely for publication:

 

*

 

"Jaesa, I've never tended a wounded animal." This wasn't technically true, but delivering gundark-grade tranquilizers by long-range rifle and patching up the target as quickly as possible so as to get back to indoor civilization was not what people meant when they talked about saving wounded creatures. "But the principles still work. Slow approach." Unless it was him hunting her down to see her as soon as he could. "Keep talking, gently." Or alternately guilt-trip her and give her long physical periods of silence. "[something something hey bright put words here]." Come to think of it, he was pretty bad with tending the emotional wounded.

 

*

 

Her warmth was perfect as always, her curves no more than the occasional subtle softness between muscle and scar, present in just the right places, surprising every time. Wonderful. Not enough to justify self-immolation.

 

*

 

Falling in love is like enjoying Nautolan cuisine or being able to curl your tongue. Only some people can do it.

 

*

 

"My work was my first love. The one that's most likely going to kill me."

 

*

 

Vette being Vette:

 

"Is everyone all right?"

 

"Surprisingly, yes," said Vette. "I've gotten pretty good at hiding behind the Sith deathblenders."

 

"We're not deathblenders," Jaesa said with a patient air that suggested this wasn't a new objection.

 

"Tell that to the Republic," said Vette.

 

*

 

Wynston first meets the crew on Corellia, an earlier draft:

 

They all looked at Wynston with varying degrees of surprise and suspicion. "Hello, everyone," he said evenly, taking his place facing them. "You're the best-equipped team out there to take down Darth Baras. That means I'm joining you for the time being."

 

"I'm sure you are," said Lieutenant Pierce. There was a cool challenge in his eyes.

 

"Convenient timing, I know. That could go either way. But I came unarmed and I'll submit to security as Lord Ruth dictates."

 

"We're glad to see you," Vette said firmly. "We could use a little more sanity around here."

 

"It's good you came," added Jaesa with a shy smile.

 

Broonmark stayed quiet. He looked ready for a fight.

 

Ruth walked in to stand beside Wynston. "If you came unarmed you'll need equipment. Pierce, do we have a blaster to spare?"

 

"Hm. One got freed up just a little while ago, actually."

 

Ruth paled. "Not that."

 

"I'll take it if there's nothing else available," said Wynston. "I'll be using it the way it should have been used."

 

Pierce disappeared in the direction of the storage compartments and came back moments later with a standard-issue Imperial pistol, the signs of a couple of custom modifications visible above the grip. That was Quinn's.

 

When Wynston reached out for it Pierce seized his wrist in a grip just hard enough to remind Wynston that the bigger man could crush him without even trying. Wynston held still. From a standing start, Pierce was right.

 

"You came to beat Baras unarmed, did you?" Pierce said quietly, running his hand down Wynston's sleeves one at a time, feeling for hidden weapons.

 

"I came to see Ruth unarmed. I'm staying to beat Baras with anything I can get my hands on."

 

Pierce looked to Ruth, and whatever she did, he relaxed a little and handed Wynston the blaster. "Watch yourself, mate. We're the only people on this planet who won't chew you up just for existing. And we're only that nice because of her."

 

"Uh, sometimes I'm that nice just for the heck of it," volunteered Vette.

 

"Much appreciated," Wynston told her.

 

*

 

And, finally, more hanging out in rainy gardens:

 

 

"I think I'll try the florists instead," he told her. "There are some nonnative species you might like. There's one bred to be sensitive to temperature in humanoid ranges. It'll change color to suit you when you hold it. Very slightly different for everyone." It was one of the few nonpoisonous plants he knew anything about.

 

"And what color would I get?"

 

He took the chance to touch her hands, run a quick caress across her forehead. "Hm. Assuming my temp scale isn't off, very light violet."

 

Her smile widened. "And you?"

 

"Oh, Chiss run warm, and I'm bad even by Chiss standards. The poor thing would saturate through red to black. They look like they've died after I touch them."

 

"Does it come back when somebody cooler comes along?"

 

His hands were back in hers, and she was tracing his with her fingertips, light and suddenly extremely pleasant. He took a second to gather his thoughts because her touch was lighting up a bright trail of nerves while she held his gaze with her own, and then he firmly reminded himself that he wasn't a schoolboy. "We'll have to find out."

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  • 2 weeks later...

I wrote this for the AU and SFC prompt The Morning After, but in the end it takes far, far too much Lodestone context to be worth posting over there. So I post it here instead! 1600 words.

 

L + 15 years 37 days: The Morning After (following from the finale)

 

 

 

The Emperor was dead, and Ruth was worried.

 

She woke up early, despite having stayed up late the night before. There had been too much to do last night: Escape the Emperor's fortress. See that Wynston's critical wounds were tended to, and that he was placed in kolto to mend. See that Jaesa was ready to keep Doc and Larr Gith from doing any damage. See that Colrand got to sleep. Collapse.

 

Winning merely felt stressful. Compared to losing, it was a good thing.

 

She dressed quickly and headed out to Colrand's quarters on her ship. It was yesterday that he had first experienced the Emperor's mind control. It was a hard thing; she had been older, stronger, and more experienced when first subjected to it. Cole had nothing in his favor, nothing but his parents' support, and Quinn wasn't here right now.

 

Cole answered her knock after half a minute or so. His blue eyes were dull and a little sunken within dark circles.

 

"Good morning," said Ruth. "I wanted to check on you."

 

"I didn't sleep much," he said quietly. He slouched into the hallway and let the door fall shut. Everything about him was tense but subdued. "How's Wynston?" he said anxiously.

 

"I was just going to check. Would you like to come with me?"

 

He hesitated, clearly struggling to keep his expression controlled. Remembering the chilling aftereffects of the Emperor's touch, Ruth understood why. She pulled him into a hug, stroking his hair, and waited for him to return it. The warmth would help. The mere presence of somebody who loved him would help.

 

He did hug her, then turned a little and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Let's go."

 

They walked in step to the medbay and its lone kolto tank. The room was quiet, its lights out until Ruth touched the switch. There in the tank was Wynston, the slashes across his shoulders and torso still an obscene red against the blue of his skin. Rough-edged vibrosword wounds from a fight only hours before the final battle, torn open again when he struggled out to the Emperor's battlefield, damaged further when Colrand, under the Emperor's compulsion, assaulted him. But Wynston was still breathing.

 

Seeing him like this tied a cold knot in her stomach, but Doc had said he would be all right. It would be a while. It was silly of her to watch his eyes for the first opening gleam. But it would happen.

 

Then she could breathe. Then they could see each other without the Emperor, without anyone, in the way. Time after time, year after year, Wynston had left because of his duties; what they didn't talk about as much was that time after time and year after year she had stayed pinned in place because of hers. It kept her busy in its own right and, more significantly, when the galaxy's most powerful Dark Side Sith could read her mind at will there was too much she couldn't know.

 

But that was over now, and there was no one else to come between her and Wynston. There was only this one transparisteel wall and a great deal of healing.

 

She couldn't wait for their life together to start.

 

Cole's voice called her back to the present. "Can…can I call Father today?"

 

"Yes. Absolutely. You never need my permission for that." She should have thought of that. Cole didn't entirely understand what had happened between her and Quinn, both the brief affair and the sudden cutoff. She would not welcome Quinn into her life again, but she did recognize beyond a doubt that he was good for Cole, and she didn't want the parents' estrangement to ruin their son's chances with either of them. "When you do call, it's all right to let him know if he asks that I'm all right."

 

"Um. Okay." Cole sounded terribly lost. She knew how much he had hoped she would stay with Quinn. He'd never known how doomed that effort was. "What…happened, there?" he said.

 

"We can talk about it later." She was too tired to go over it again just now. "It will take a little time between him and me. But what matters is he did the right thing in the end. He did it for you."

 

"For you, too," said Cole.

 

Ruth just hugged him tighter. Quinn had never rebelled for her, and never would. But that was a talk for another day.

 

Cole kept his arm around her shoulders. "I guess you've got things to do today," he said.

 

She wanted to stay and make sure her son was all right. Of everyone who had been harmed in these last few weeks, he was by far the one least equipped to cope. But necessity called her. As always. "I have to go help Vector retake the Aegis from the Emperor's forces. We can't let Wynston's work be destroyed now, it's needed more than ever. I'll want the ship, and Wynston, nearby when I'm done, but if you want to get home right away, go. Jaesa can bring the ship back."

 

"I'd rather stay here," he said shortly.

 

"All right." She rested her head against his shoulder, hoping that the contact reassured him as much as it did her. "The cold passes, Cole. And…anything you did under his influence wasn't your fault. Nowhere close." He probably didn't believe that now, but it was true.

 

"I practiced with you. The same exercises you did to learn to resist him."

 

"A month wasn't nearly enough, not with the amount of Force training you've had in your life so far. You're powerful by nature but it takes years to learn to direct that. I didn't practice with you with the expectation of your having to resist the Emperor." He took a shuddering breath. She settled her arm further around him as he exhaled. "You did nothing wrong," she insisted. "And nothing the Emperor did through you was irreparable, Wynston saw to that."

 

"Yeah." He nodded uncertainly and then held quiet for a few moments. "How did you stand it all this time? Those orders. His…will, in your head."

 

"I didn't realize there was anything wrong when it happened. Not for years. It seemed to make sense until Wynston noticed how I behaved under its influence."

 

"Oh." He stared at the thin wounded figure in the tank. "I guess he forgave you. Right?"

 

"The Emperor's acts through me were never what hurt him." Wynston had said he forgave her the rest of it, too. Leaving him. Not the physical separation required by the coerced kill order on him, but giving up. Turning body and heart to the nearest comfort when she knew the nearest comfort would end up an enemy, making herself a hypocrite and above all doing it with the person she did. Wynston had said he forgave her. Time would tell. She had hope. "As far as he's concerned you didn't do anything that needs forgiving."

 

"You think so?"

 

"I know so. He loves you, Cole."

 

"Yeah. He said that. Before he had to leave, when all this stuff started." He scuffed at the floor. "Before I tried to ditch him."

 

"It's true. He still does." Cole's enthusiasm at meeting Quinn for the first time, his asking and hoping for his parents' rapprochement to last, that wasn't any kind of malice or attack on Wynston and everyone involved knew it. Wynston was too generous a spirit to hold it against him.

 

Cole just looked forward.

 

"You know that he didn't save your father for your father's sake," Ruth said gently, "nor even for mine. He stopped what the Emperor was doing through you so you would never have to be the instrument of your father's death. No other reason. He does love you. In fact…" and here she moved around to face him, and set her hands on his shoulders – when had he gotten so tall? – "You're the reason we all came together, in the end. And I don't mean because the Emperor sent you after us. Your father, finally turning down the Imperial Guard's command to come to our side. That wasn't any argument of mine, Cole, nothing I've ever said or could ever say would have saved him. But he made the decision the instant they threatened you. And then Wynston, going out there to see that you were all right, stopping you before the Emperor could make you do anything permanent. And stars know it was you three I was thinking of when I needed strength at the end."

 

She hugged him tightly. He hugged her back, pressing his cheek to her hair. He was trembling a little. She squeezed and backed off to smile. "You're in one piece," she told him warmly, "so it worked out for all of us."

 

He managed a troubled half-smile. "I am. Yeah. And the galaxy, too, right?" He looked over her shoulder to the kolto tank. His voice dropped to a whisper. "I hope he wakes up."

 

"He will. He'll be all right." She hadn't been sure for a little while the previous day. But Wynston had clung to life through the night, and in time he would heal. "We all will."

 

Cole took another deep breath and finally relaxed a little. "Mom?"

 

"Yes, Cole?"

 

"I'm glad we won."

 

She took her son's arm and looked with him at the man she loved, the one she only had to wait for this one more time. "Me too."

 

 

 

 

 

Commence alternating "whirlwind of securing strategic objectives and stabilizing the political situation re: her own forces, her temporary Jedi ally, and a ton of Wynston stuff she had no prior briefings on" and "chewing her nails over this, what might be the last meaningful separation she'll have to endure."

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Another burst of AU crossposts. I have new brooding after that, to come in a separate post.

 

L + 3ish years: Memories of Coruscant

 

 

"Tell me about Coruscant."

 

"Hm?" said Wynston. "I think he's asleep." He nodded down at the chubby toddler in his arms who had been holding his attention. "What was it you were asking?"

 

Ruth slouched further into the armchair opposite him and tilted her head. "Tell me about Coruscant. You were there, weren't you? When the first war ended?"

 

"I was well away before the Sith hit the ground, but I did spend several months laying groundwork beforehand. I was new in the service back then, but at the time they didn't have enough agents fluent in Cheunh to be picky for certain tasks. So yes, I was there for a little while, and I've been back once or twice for brief visits since then."

 

"What's it like?"

 

"Smaller than you might expect given its raw population. It's just that it's a hundred layers deep. She's a marvel of engineering – old planned areas, new planned areas, old I can't say with any confidence that the original owners put a moment's thought into it but they have since been repurposed into something very clever areas. And everywhere, all the time, there are people. Hundreds of billions of people from all over the galaxy. She's got species the Empire has yet to discover selling news flimsis on the street corner. Coruscant suffers badly from corruption and mismanagement, but there's much more of good than of mess about her. If she were Imperial she'd be perfect."

 

"From you, that's high praise."

 

"I liked the place." He smiled absently. "To put it in symbolic terms she is very much the living, sentient-made heart of tens of thousands of years of civilization. I couldn't invent any greater victory than to make us the ones to build on her legacy. We should be the ones who do." He lapsed into silence.

 

"Wynston?"

 

The Chiss resummoned his smile. "That's the difficult part. I don't like to dwell on what's done, Ruth, but we had her. The damage was horrific, and completely securing the surface would have been more so, but it would have ended the war, not just paused it. All that's left would've been cleanup, and I can manage matters like that. Think how many lives would have been saved if we'd just pressed the advantage to break the Republic's government that day. But we didn't. After all we did to get there Coruscant is the one that got away, and no Imperial who ever met her can forget that." His gaze sharpened. "If your employer ever tells you why he ordered the Empire to stand down, let me know."

 

"I will. I never realized you felt this strongly about it."

 

"Ask any veteran. I'm not even a real veteran, I’m just a spook who happened to be around for part of it, and it's still hard to forget Coruscant." He relaxed a little. "You would like the planet very much, anyway. The tech, the people. Traffic spinning like three Nar Shaddaa skylines colliding at any given time."

 

"A completely artificial planet must be your dream," she teased.

 

He returned her grin. "Like I said, if she were Imperial she'd be perfect. They tell me there's original dirt somewhere in the middle of all that, but they keep it well hidden. They still do have gardens, for what it's worth. Indoor complexes, entire artificial forests on some levels. – That's what you're actually after, isn't it? I just can't take you anywhere without flowers."

 

"That's a preference, not a requirement. It's just that the day job rarely sends me anywhere pretty."

 

"Then I'll find you gardens when we go to finish the war. I bet there are some on the surface, even, complete with real sunlight. Something fit for a new territory's queen."

 

"A queen, am I? I'd be a pretty bad one."

 

"I've seen worse." Colrand was squirming in Wynston's arms; Wynston raised the toddler to eye level and asked earnestly, "What would you think of your mother establishing a monarchy?"

 

Colrand crowed and threw a punch at Wynston's nose. The Emperor's Wrath dissolved into giggles. Wynston snorted and launched a flurrying counterattack of tickles against the cheerful aggressor, who did not in any way change his opinion.

 

 

 

L + 3 years 2 months: Alternate perspectives, prepping for a mission

 

 

Hyperspace always felt like dead time. With limited comms and only rare company, Wynston spent most of this time reflecting on mission analysis. Or just watching hyperspace, one of the commonest, most mundane views in the galaxy but one that few people appreciated for what it was – the hidden underpinnings of the galaxy made visible. Inner workings given use and meaning by sentient ingenuity. A tool was only as good as the use it was put to; in his career, hyperspace travel was a good one.

 

And nice enough to look at. What's better is that I'll see Ruth when I get there. A little work for mercy's sake and for strategic reasons I'm not free to explain, but I'm doing the right thing with them. If we tie this task up early I can probably come back to Dromund Kaas with her for a while. It's been a few months now. I wonder how Cole's doing?

 

Cole. I still think it beggars belief that such a father as Malavai Quinn could have produced such an adorable son. Then again, he's Ruth's, too. Hard to turn out wrong with her there. Stars, they're wonderful together.

 

I'll definitely arrange to go with her after this.

 

There's a child there I can come home to. He knows me. In his rowdy way, he likes me. I like him. I have this, and a woman who wants me, whom I want, not just because she's there. A woman I think of after I leave, one I go out of my way to come back to. She welcomes me, even when I'm tired and can't give her the image she wants. She trusts me. She loves me so much it hurts. This is what a family is supposed to be like, and every time I turn around it's still there.

 

Wynston stared out into hyperspace for several long minutes.

 

What the hell am I doing?

 

This isn't my specialty. I'm not the man who does this, I never was. My work is what matters. That's the only skill set I've ever maintained, the only one I ever had any talent with. This, what I feel for her, it's one long delirious fluke.

 

I should have stopped it at sex. And maybe the professional alliance. The friendship, and admiration, and common aspirations and more…I don't have the substance for those things. She's tried hard to tease some realness out from under my fakery but there's nothing there. The only thing that makes me useful is adapting to be the temporary measure that adjusts a situation and then vanishes.

 

I was glad to go to her on Corellia but I should have stayed away after. I helped her through the hard part, helped her get back on her feet and remove her enemies. Now I have nothing more to offer her. That's why I'm away working nine weeks out of ten and why I ought to be away the tenth. If I really had half the decency I pretend to I would just end this and let her forget me. Let her love someone who can commit to her and her alone.

 

Would she come with me if I asked her? Leave the master I can't serve, come make some kind of life with me? But she can't. Even she wouldn't survive saying no to the Emperor. And she does so much good even with her current job, sometimes almost in spite of her current job. The Wrath as a warrior of protection is a force I could never have imagined when I first started in this business; she has made it hers and she's perfect at it. Besides, my organization is all about skulking in the shadows. It's no place for her light or her child.

 

And, if she had to see me all the time, then for all her patience she would tire of me. Worse, I might tire of her. That's what I do. Get bored, stop caring, walk away. I saw her heart broken once; I can't let it happen again. I won't be the one to disappoint her.

 

But that will happen either way, won't it? And if we're to be separated I don't have to be so blunt as to just abandon her. She'll give up on me anyway under the conditions I've set. Merely the difference between fast heartbreak and slow, maybe, but it'll be easier for her if she comes to the decision herself. I can't give her what she needs: constant companionship, complete unity of purpose instead of the game of shadows we play on those occasions when even she can't quite reconcile her employer's Sith orders with the people's interest. Personal openness – I try for her sake but let's be realistic, this is me, the opportune lie will always be my first instinct – and then physical fidelity, and a real father for her son. A genetically compatible father for more children. She would like that.

 

I'd like to be that.

 

She never counted the advantages she might or mightn't get from me, but she does always insist on the truth. The relevant truth is this: she deserves all these things, every possible good thing, and I can't give them to her. I won't abandon my work, I made that clear from the start. She has held on for a long time, but sooner or later she'll accept that and find a better man. A decent Sith who can at least match her in power, or a servant who can match her in dedication, or somebody.

 

It's for the best. And it can be done without my just walking up to her and breaking it off suddenly enough to wound her again. I don't have to be cruel to lose her. I just have to be myself.

 

She'll come to that conclusion in her own time. I can stay for a few days anyway. I've missed Cole. I've missed her. Being with them makes everything ten times better. And she does like seeing me. Just as long as I don't make promises I can't keep, it'll be all right to let this go on. But wishing things were different, wishing I could stay for her to wake up beside me morning after morning without interruption or end, so I could give her something worth calling…something worth calling…

 

Bloody hell. I have a job to do.

 

Wynston consciously suppressed the smile that snuck up any time he was thinking of Ruth, even during these familiar, somehow perpetually postponed worries. He reeled back toward analyzing the dynamics surrounding the Czerka strike he had planned. Before him rolled the hectic brilliance of hyperspace, and whether he let himself think it or not, it was doubly beautiful because it was taking him to her.

 

*

 

Ruth meditated alongside Jaesa on the way to the rendezvous point. Jaesa was establishing her own household back on Dromund Kaas nowadays, but she still came out for some missions, and Ruth was glad for the company.

 

Half of Ruth's meditations weren't really communion with the Force at all. Just quiet times to think. She was going to see Wynston, and it was hard to keep anything else on her mind.

 

It's been a few months. The time flies, with Cole, with my friends, with everything. It'll be good to accomplish something with Wynston; it always is. Maybe he can come stay with me for a few days once the job's done. Obviously we both have things to do. His work is important. So is mine; I can't just walk away from my job. But everything's ten times better when we can arrange to be together.

 

I won't trouble him with the words, but he must know by now that I love him. I've tried not to, for his sake. It wasn't supposed to happen. We were just friends. And allies. And lovers. With common goals and tastes and other things. And if he thinks I could have all this and see so much of his character and not love him, that's…very much a blind spot he would have, actually. Given the relationships we were staggering out of on Corellia I can't blame him for being wary of the word. It never did either of us any good.

 

In theory, even leaving love aside, I shouldn't trust him for such on-faith-alone gestures as this matter I'm helping with now. Don't trust: that's the chorus of being Sith, isn't it? Of having any kind of power. I tried to ignore that condition once and it failed, spectacularly. And yet, Wynston knows that influence is the currency of my world and he doesn't try to deal in it, not with me. It is such a relief to come home and be no one but myself, with someone who is no one but himself. Maybe it's unfair of me to ask him to do that, but he's worth knowing like this. I'm not sure when he'll figure out that he doesn't have to be useful for me to want him. He just has to be himself.

 

I've missed him. I wonder what his schedule looks like…at best we'll have a few weeks before he leaves again. The job needs him. He has his work, his secrets, the ones that do and must exist entirely outside my role as Wrath under a dark Sith. I understand that. And admire his courage in doing it. Could I even care for him this much if he weren't committed to something greater than himself? If he weren't, he wouldn't be him.

 

Still. Sometimes it seems like duty in the Empire exists for nothing other than to drive people apart.

 

Well, I can hope the Empire can spare him for a few days. Cole will be glad to see him. I was so afraid at first that he would hate Cole because of his father, but he doesn't. Wynston is so affectionate, so happy, around my son…he would've made a better father in every way. If it were possible I would ask someday about…

 

No. Even if we could, Wynston wouldn't want a family. He can't be tied too closely to one place. That he even comes back to me is more, I think, than he's ever attempted with anyone.

 

For that I'm the luckiest woman alive.

 

I can tell part of him wants to stay, every time I offer. He'll only turn me down again if I ask. I know he doesn't want to get too close to the Emperor's service, but we're both resourceful people, surely we could work something out. I'll respect his wishes, always, but…I have to wonder, sometimes. Is it that there's something else for him? Is it that there's someone else? A lot of someones I can ignore, because what he offers them during a job isn't the man he is with me and can't possibly be the depth I adore, but one…one would hurt.

 

He told me that's not the case. I believe him. He works hard to keep nothing but truth between us, in this, in everything. I'm not sure he has any idea how important that is to me. Just as long as he keeps being honest, as long as that look in his eyes when he comes to me is genuine, it's enough.

 

In fact the distance is easier in some ways. I work my work without having to slow down for a Force-blind – he's worth all the galaxy and more, but there are physical limits to what he can do – and I can have tired irritable off days without inflicting them on him. I'm not sure how much he would like me if he had to see me all the time. I worry for him, but at the same time he's safer from some things when he isn't near me. The target my enemies have to fire at is smaller when he's far away.

 

So he's out there instead. A cynic could say he's out there lying, killing, bedding strangers, flipping through deceits like some people flip through their wardrobes in the morning. He admits all of that freely. He isn't sorry for it. If there were ever a kind of man I shouldn't be with it's this.

 

Is there something I'm supposed to prefer? They don't make squeaky-clean innocents in this galaxy and I'm not sure I would know what to do with one. So should I seek a Sith who'll play the miserable power games I remember from Korriban? Or an agent who never sets a toe out of line, one so blindly obedient that any suitably impressive authority's order might sway him? Wynston answers only to his conscience, and I trust that conscience. I have ever since the start. It's why I'm here for him today and why I'll always be here for him.

 

In the end I don't have to justify it. He makes me happy.

 

When Ruth opened her eyes Jaesa was sitting opposite her, smiling at her.

 

"What?" said Ruth.

 

"You're very emotionally loud when you're happy," said Jaesa.

 

Ruth made a face. It didn't quite succeed in clearing her smile or her flush. "That's allowed."

 

"While I take our work very seriously, you should know that half the reason I clear my schedule for these is to see the Emperor's Wrath melting when you-know-who shows up."

 

"One of these days you're going to meet someone, Jaesa. I'll have my revenge then."

 

Jaesa dimpled. "If I ever find something as sweet as you two, I don't think I'll mind."

 

 

 

L + 23 months: Song

 

 

Ruth was down the hall putting Cole to bed. Wynston settled in the living room to read over his correspondence and some news bulletins. One of the first items in his feed happened to be a minor news note on a direct and positive consequence of a job Ruth had completed a couple of weeks back – just the sort of thing she found encouraging when she got to hear about it. He took the excuse to freeze the display and go find her. The necessity of staying connected notwithstanding, he took every excuse he saw to bring the conversation back to her while he was in town.

 

He paused outside the door. Within the nursery, Ruth was singing.

 

Wynston shied away from interrupting; there was likely a reason she was so quiet about it. But her voice was nice. Low, smooth, without the command that habitually edged her public speaking. He was no musical expert – far from it – but he could tell she carried the melody faithfully, and the flow of it soothed.

 

He had known her for years, and still she surprised him.

 

The song ended and Wynston stepped back to wait. Ruth emerged within moments and stopped, wide-eyed, just inside the hallway.

 

"I never knew you sang," said Wynston.

 

"I don't," she said quickly. "Or not…" She blushed pink, looking as off balance as he'd ever seen her. And as lovely in embarrassment as she was anywhere else. "Just for Cole."

 

He stepped forward to gather her warm small hands in his. "The rest of us have been missing out, then."

 

She squeezed his hands, taking up some of her usual proud carriage but keeping the blush. "You really don't have to say that. This isn't my talent."

 

"There's enough about you to praise without exaggeration, darling, I hardly need to make things up. You have a beautiful voice."

 

Her smile turned definite, and she met his eyes for a surging-heart second. When she once again cast her gaze down at nothing in particular, the smile stayed. "I sang more when I was little. My father played the mandoviol, some nights he would teach me folk songs from places he'd been." Her brow and her hands contracted both at once. "It feels like a very long time ago."

 

He guided her hands to his chest so as to free his own arms to wrap around her. "You'll have to let me hear the start of that song sometime," he said gently.

 

It worked to ease her away from her discomfort. She met his eyes again. "What, the lullaby? It's really nothing special."

 

"I didn't recognize it. It sounded like Mirialan?" He didn't know much of the language, but the sound was right and a few words seemed familiar.

 

She nodded. "Yes. I don't know what the words mean. Father said there was no Basic translation that worked as a song in its own right."

 

Wynston nodded. The words, whatever they were, were irrelevant to her and him and the loveliness of her voice and the quiet strength of it when she was addressing her son. He kissed her cheek. "Sometime," he said softly, "before I go, I would very much like to hear the rest of it. If it's not just for Nirals, that is." Again, if he had never heard it before, there was likely a reason. Still, he was selfish enough to ask.

 

"If it's mine it's yours," she said. Her blush was rising again. "But I can't just launch into it. Tomorrow, when I put him to bed."

 

"Tomorrow, then." He kissed her nose and then shifted his embrace to turn a little. "Come with me, there's something I wanted to show you."

 

 

– 13 years later –

 

 

Wynston floated in the sole tank of a private medbay on the Aegis. He'd been in there for two weeks now and might have to be for longer. The damage sustained in the last battle they had faced together had been close to fatal; now, slowly, he mended.

 

Ruth watched. Someone had set up a chair in here but she felt too tense to do anything but stand. His injuries were in part her fault. If she had done things differently he wouldn't have had to suffer this. Now he was right in front of her and she had never missed him this much in her entire life.

 

But he was alive, and he was close, and because of him the greater danger was past. The mission was accomplished, and the two of them were home.

 

Ruth set a hand on the transparisteel tank wall and sang.

 

It was the same simple lullaby he had asked about ages ago, its melody suited to her voice and its words soothing in their syllables. She never had gotten around to looking up what the words meant. It didn't really matter between her and him anyway.

 

The barely-audible hum of the monitors changed. A few life signs subtly shifted. Ruth had studied, in the last two weeks, what normal Chiss ranges were and what meant danger, but this wasn't danger. Just his heart rate stepping up a little, the way she had found it did when she sang.

 

She repeated the last verse just to have a little longer with him. After that…the fallout from the big battle was ongoing and she was the strongest fighter Wynston's people had in their efforts to stabilize the situation. If there was more she could do for him right now, it was out there.

 

"I love you," she told him. "There's work to do, but I'll come home as soon as I can."

 

She restored her command presence and headed out to face the galaxy. When she and Wynston were back together and whole, she wanted to have something good to show him.

 

 

 

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L + 6ish years: Thinking about the limits

 

 

 

The rooms provided for the two visiting diplomats were spacious, well appointed, and very, very difficult to get out of if their hosts willed it so. Wynston didn't mind. He and Vector had to do this job right, and if that meant living in luxury and a little comm-static bubble for a few days, he could manage.

 

It was a delay for no reason more than for their hosts to demonstrate how much power they had over the situation. That much was annoying. But it wasn't unprecedented, and at least the company was good this time.

 

"Wynston," Vector said from the sitting room doorway. Wynston turned to face the Joiner. "You have been standing perfectly still for close to ten minutes now."

 

"Yes, I was just thinking."

 

"There is only one subject that makes your aura streak like that."

 

The Chiss's half smile was wry. "Of course. You have my word, if there were anything else we could accomplish here right now I'd be thinking about that instead of daydreaming."

 

"We were not asking to accuse," Vector said with a smile of his own. "You are perhaps the only agent on our staff who makes such an effort to push away personal thoughts even during off hours."

 

"I'm a professional, Vector, you know that. I'm just a professional stuck in a…particularly long wait time."

 

He didn't just mean the two days they had spent under "friendly" guard here and they both knew it. "You will have the opportunity to see her soon," said Vector.

 

"I intend to. It's not a great priority for a man in my position to have, but…I will get back." He fell silent and turned just far enough to look out the window, his gaze a little abstracted.

 

"What's wrong?"

 

"At any given time? A number of things, somewhere or other. I'm just…sorting. You know I think about retiring sometimes? At the tender age of thirty-three, no less."

 

"To return to Dromund Kaas."

 

"Or wherever she needs me. I belong with you and the organization. But I can't bring myself to abandon her entirely. Sometimes I am tempted to simply delegate the to-do list, grab my bags, and be on my way to her. To stay. I imagine I could come very close to giving her everything she deserves, if I tried." He folded his hands behind his back and redoubled his interest in something beyond the window. His voice when he spoke again was low and distant. "I never will."

 

Vector watched him steadily. "That is no cause for shame. Your calling is your work, with the Tenebrous. It is critical and it has always been your passion."

 

"Perhaps. Or perhaps I'm just too much of an egotist to give up what I've built." He turned to face Vector, his face blank now. "I am forever astonished that she accepts what I can spare. I go to her and it's like there was never any separation, like I haven't left her a dozen times before. Most people would lose patience, knowing how loudly I'm declaring my priorities every time I walk out. Somehow with her it's never blame."

 

"Ruth knows you will return when you can."

 

"That only satisfies her because she's used to being abandoned, Vector. Everyone she's met since she first left home to face Korriban has put her second. Jobs, ambitions, vices; there's always something more important. Amidst that cohort I'm sure I look very good, but she deserves better." An absent smile tugged at his lips. "She deserves someone who, given the choice between the galaxy and her, would choose her, and never hesitate to let all the rest of it burn if that's what it takes."

 

"All your previous observations of life seemed to indicate that that manner of dedication, while pretty, would be impossible," Vector said mildly.

 

"All the more reason why it should be me providing it. The impossible and I get along very well." Wynston shook his head then, and the last of his smile faded. "I have…changed, for her, these last few years. But there is a limit. I won't go back to a master, not even if it's her. And I won't compromise what we do to fit with what's safe around her employer. And if I were half the man she should have I wouldn't let either consideration stop me." He held very still for a long moment, then shrugged. "So here we are. That's really as far as those thoughts get before they loop around again. It's one of the less productive preoccupations I've ever had."

 

"Wynston, we think that your distress is unfounded. She loves you. Completely and unconditionally."

 

"Yes." Wynston shrugged. "There is that. Frankly, there are days when that's the thought that keeps me sane." He raised his eyebrows, hesitated. "And there are days when I think it will drive me out of my mind."

 

 

 

 

 

"She deserves someone who, given the choice between the galaxy and her, would choose her, and never hesitate to let all the rest of it burn if that's what it takes."

 

You did, hon, eventually.

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

L+23 months: The Flatterer

 

 

 

"Wynston, have you ever stopped to wonder how much time you spend just lavishing praise on me?"

 

Wynston eyed her from where he stood by the dormant fireplace. "No," he said. "It's a perfectly good use of what time we do have. I like praising you."

 

"You do it with everyone else, too. At least Vette and Jaesa for sure. It's been described as over the top."

 

"But not unwelcome, I hope? I don't make it sexual. Jaesa never seems to object, and I do like ribbing Vette but I'll stop if it bothers her."

 

"Not unwelcome. We just wonder sometimes why you put so much time into it."

 

"Why shouldn't I, darling? I may be gone tomorrow. You may be gone tomorrow, though I hope with all my heart you're not. Less morbidly, it's possible that no one else thinks to say these things to you, such that you're not even aware, or you don't really believe, that you're as wonderful as you are. Why would I take part in a conspiracy of silence about something you so richly deserve to know?" He leaned on the mantelpiece and kept smiling at her. "That goes for your friends, too. All three of you are highly praiseworthy people, it's not like I'm fabricating anything. Just pointing out what's there."

 

She cocked an eyebrow. "At least you keep it rational with the other two. So you're just that enthusiastic about me in every conversation we've ever had?"

 

"Stars, yes. I thought that was clear by now. If it makes you uncomfortable…well, first, I wish you'd told me a long time ago, and second, I can tone down the expression. If not the feeling behind it."

 

"Could you really?" she said archly. "I don't think you've ever gone five minutes in my presence without saying something extravagant about me."

 

"Darling, there are times I have trouble going thirty seconds without informing you that I've noticed something wonderful about you. But I can stop if that's what you want."

 

"You could? Starting, say, right now?"

 

"I could."

 

"All right." She grinned and settled in one of the big armchairs. "Do it."

 

He shrugged with a small suffering sigh. "As you wish, darling. – Is 'darling' acceptable?"

 

"For purposes of the experiment, no."

 

"Really? That's very harsh, my lord."

 

"Don't do that!"

 

"You told me I couldn't call you the other thing," he drawled.

 

"No 'my lord'ing, either."

 

"These restrictions are adding up rapidly."

 

"You're an experienced social creature, you'll figure it out."

 

"If I have to play this like I'm dealing with someone new, which I practically do if I have to pretend I don't know…" his lip twitched briefly…"you – no praiseworthy details – generally I have a motive directing the conversation, some topic it's safe and necessary to stay on. It's nothing like just being around here with you, where we can talk about anything or nothing, which I'm not saying is in any way special or that I enjoy."

 

She relaxed further into the armchair, her smile widening. "You're pushing it."

 

His smile faded a little. "I'm not saying I enjoy your company," he said seriously. "As a matter of fact if I clear away a number of subtleties that I'm not going to enumerate or dwell on, I could really choose to be anywhere right now. I happened to end up here, I may as well make the best of it. How's the weather been?"

 

"Fine," she said blandly, suppressing the urge to laugh at the indifference they were both faking. "Just about the level of pouring you hate most, steady for the last week or so."

 

"Dromund Kaas in a nutshell. Frankly, not to insult your homeland, but the only thing I really like about this planet is the Citadel and its city, and I would skip even those most of the time if I didn't have business there." He raised an eyebrow and offered a tiny, fleeting smile. "Anyway, I suppose we've already been over the highlights of work. Obviously, I'll repeat, if you need any support following up on the tasks you mentioned, feel free to call. Believe it or not, I can be useful quite apart from moral support if necessary."

 

The self-deprecation wasn't needed. "Of course I believe that, Wynston," she said warmly. "…I still get to say nice things about you."

 

He inclined his head. "Thank you. Anyway, what are your plans for the evening?"

 

"I was going to spend some time with Cole. He's been sitting still long enough for me to read to him lately. Whether he'll do that when you're in the room I don't know."

 

His expression warmed again as he chuckled. "He can climb me and listen both at once. I hope I'm not really that much trouble, you know I very much enjoy being near him." He caught her look and smiled even more. "Don't ask me not to say nice things about him, too. My self-control has limits."

 

"You may praise Cole," she said graciously.

 

"Good. He's very good company. I could look after him this evening if you like, give you and the staff a break. Failing that if I can sit in on your reading, I'd like to; if not, I'll catch up on correspondence."

 

"You can stay with him."

 

That smile was brilliant. "Thank you. I can head over now, I don't want to take up your time."

 

"I like our chances to talk, though."

 

"Ah." His expression abruptly damped down. "I'm flattered. I'll stay, then."

 

His coolness was a little unnerving. She smiled a little for reassurance. He returned the smile politely, but it was missing something.

 

"You can still be friendly," she said. "It's possible to be warm and still not start reciting my praises."

 

"You're detailing an extremely specific implementation, Ruth. Set the parameters and I'll do it, but you should know you're changing terms a little faster than I tolerate from most of my associates."

 

Usually an expression of that kind of discomfort was wrapped up in the assurance that he would be glad to do it for her. Not now. "Is that really what you're thinking most of the time?" she asked nervously.

 

"No. Usually I'm focused on you to the exclusion of all non-dangerous worries. It's just that it's difficult for me to separate thinking of you with giving my opinion; with most people I could act away the difference, but my feelings for you, the nature of which is not itself relevant right now, make it extraordinarily difficult to refrain from saying some things unless I completely redirect my attention elsewhere. Hence I take note of things I usually ignore. But, you're right. There's no need to make this unpleasant." His smile was a little warmer. A little. "I haven't had the chance to tour the gardens since I got back. I trust they're not unduly suffering from the weather lately?"

 

"That may be the most screamingly insincere question you've ever asked, Wynston."

 

"You told me not to be sincere. My options are insincerity or silence, and the small talk is generally considered more polite."

 

"Don't be mad," she said uneasily.

 

"I am never mad at you, Ruth."

 

Easy chance to redirect the conversation? "There are times I wonder whether you actually do get mad, ever."

 

"I do. Rarely. There are levels of wanton cruelty, from people who should know better, that do in fact anger me. Never for long. I don't like to stay around people like that; I prefer to deal with them and then return to more pleasant company." That last was spoken in a very noncommittal tone while he looked away from her.

 

She didn't like this manner at all, she decided. "I think your five minutes are up."

 

"One minute forty-five seconds to go by my count. I leave the question of whether to call it early to your discretion." Coolly and smoothly he went on. "If it doesn't violate the rules I'd like to submit a preference for ending it sooner rather than later."

 

"Then it's over. You're free to speak."

 

"Thank you." He straightened and gave her a cordial smile. "If you'll excuse me, Ruth."

 

"I called it off, Wynston. You can be nice now."

 

He raised his eyebrows and said briskly, "I don't think I will. I'm going to talk to someone who can appreciate a little kindness." Mischief might have flicked at the corners of his mouth for a second before he headed into the hall and toward the nursery.

 

"Cole hits you more than he really shows appreciation," called Ruth.

 

"Yes, but we're both happy about it," he called back. "Go away."

 

She followed him anyway. Wynston poked his head into the nursery and then leaned back out. "I'm afraid he's asleep," he said. "I suppose I'm stuck with you, then."

 

She stopped in place. "Is that so bad?"

 

His eyes glowed in the half light of the hallway. He took several fast steps toward her and kept moving, pushing her bodily back into the wall and pressing his lips to hers with a force bordering on ferocity. "Please don't ask me to pretend I'm not crazy about you," he whispered hoarsely. "I see so much of corruption and falsehoods and things I can't say. You're the one who opened my eyes to better things." He kissed her again. "You want the truth, I'll give it, darling, and if what I say sounds too good to be true it's because you are. I never want to pretend otherwise."

 

She touched his face, arched a little away from the wall to press into him. "You're wonderful," she said softly.

 

"And you are, as I've said before, as I'll say again, everything I admire." He slipped his hand around to her back and ran down her spine, using the hard slide to pull her even closer. "I'll elaborate in any language you desire, just don't ask me to stop."

 

She didn't.

 

 

 

Reading this in the M!IA's voice is awesome. This is a fact.

 

I did read aloud to get the time duration of their conversation.

 

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