Private A Signal Only One Man Will Hear

[Shade]

The cell on Desevro was cold in a way Shade understood instinctively. Not harsh, not biting—simply indifferent, a chill that seeped into the walls and settled there like an old habit. The stone around her carried the dampness of the planet's sulfur fog, dim light catching in narrow seams along the ceiling, humming softly with the cadence of the power restraints. Shade sat with her back straight against the wall, legs folded neatly, her hands resting loosely atop her knees. Her breathing remained unaltered. Nothing about her posture suggested captivity, only calculation.

The hours blurred in familiar patterns of silence. She had grown up in places far less forgiving than this; stillness had never been an enemy. It had always been a tool.

Footsteps broke the quiet—the steady, measured gait she had come to distinguish easily from the others. Lysander. He paused outside the cell, the faint shift in the air signalling the momentary drop in the energy barrier as he stepped inside. Shade did not rise or look away. She simply observed him with the same calm, unblinking precision she used to analyze terrain before a kill.

He studied her in silence, his presence controlled, grounded, entirely unbothered by the oppressive stillness of the confinement chamber. His attention moved across the walls, the floor, the way she held herself—as if searching for the fault lines she refused to show. When his evaluation ended, he turned and left as quietly as he had arrived. The barrier snapped back into place, and the corridor swallowed the sound of his fading steps.

Only then did Shade shift her attention toward the minor irregularity she had been tracking for days—a nearly invisible seam in the corner panel where one inattentive acolyte had failed to reseal properly during a maintenance rotation. She rose soundlessly, crossing the cell with a fluid certainty that seemed out of place in a prison. Kneeling beside the panel, she brushed her fingers along its edge, feeling the faint warmth of the conduit beneath.

From the interior hem of her sleeve, she withdrew a sliver of metal wiring—nothing more than a scrap salvaged during one of Lysander's observation sessions. She had pieced it together carefully over time, scanning the cell's cycles, memorizing the pulse timing of the energy barrier and the secondary grid. Shade only needed a breath of interference, a flicker the system wouldn't register as a threat.

She slipped the wire through the seam and grounded it with practiced precision. The cell lights dipped—barely a heartbeat—and returned to normal. No alarms. No alerts.

Shade withdrew a second object: a transmitter hardly wider than her fingernail, its surface matte, its components scavenged and reconfigured from tiny details no guard had considered worth noticing. Primitive by her usual standards, but more than sufficient.

She encoded the message quickly—compressed, layered, and routed to hitch a ride on the Academy's external maintenance signal. If intercepted, it would burn itself into nothing.

Her thumb hovered for a single second. No hesitation—just acknowledgment of the weight behind what she was about to send.

Then she activated it.

A faint pulse of light vanished into the conduit.

<BEGIN BURST // ENCRYPTION: SHADE-TAL'VOSS>
— Alive.
— Location: Desevro Academy, Sublevel 3 — Holding Bloc C.
— Status: Controlled. Observed. Stable.
— Extraction not advised without planning.
— Stand by.
<END BURST>

Shade dismantled the transmitter with the same care she had assembled it, pushing the remnants back into the seam before pressing the panel flush with the wall once more. The cell became whole. Silent. Undisturbed.

She returned to her place on the slab, posture composed, hands folded once again on her knees. The faint hum of the restraints resumed their steady drone.

In the corridor beyond, Lysander's presence returned—a subtle shift in the air, a shadow lengthening across the floor as he paused outside the cell again. Shade did not acknowledge him, nor did she turn her head. He needed no reaction to confirm that she remained unbroken; the silence itself told him everything.

Her eyes lowered, steady and unreadable.

Patience had always been her strongest weapon.

She closed her eyes just briefly, exhaling with the quiet precision of someone who had already set the next stage of her plan into motion.

Cassian would receive the message. And when he did—everything else would begin.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade
​

The air in Moenia carried the muted chill of late evening, dew gathering on the glass façades of the security compound, the faint hum of repulsorlifts somewhere down the hill. Inside the operations room, Cassian Abrantes stood over the comms console, jaw set, the light from the monitors tracing sharp lines along his face. The faint green line pulsing across the monitor marked the passage of time far too precisely. She was late. Not by hours, by a whole day.

Shade Tal'voss never missed her window.

He'd told himself that a dozen times already, like a mantra meant to make the absence reasonable. Weather interference, system lag, encrypted relays taking longer to clear Desevro's storms. Every explanation had a neat, logical shape to it, none of them felt right.

His reflection in the duraglass showed a face drawn taut with fatigue and restraint. He'd run missions with her long enough to know what her silences meant, and this one was wrong.

"Still nothing?" a voice asked from the side console. One of the analysts, cautious, respectful.

Cassian's hand rested briefly on the edge of the desk. "No," he said quietly. "Keep the channels open. If she pings, I want priority override."

He turned away before the officer could reply, moving toward the broad viewport overlooking the city.

The seconds stretched. Then...

A soft chirp. One of the analysts sat bolt upright. "Sir, transmission incoming. Encrypted. Origin tag… it's hers."

Cassian was already crossing the room. His hand moved faster than thought, keying in the decryption sequence Shade herself had designed. The holographic projection flared once, static, distortion, and then the coded burst unfolded in compact lines across the air.

— Alive.
— Location: Desevro Academy, Sublevel 3 — Holding Bloc C.
— Status: Controlled. Observed. Stable.
— Extraction not advised without planning.
— Stand by.

He exhaled through his nose, steady but sharp, a soldier's way of forcing the emotion back into discipline. Alive. That single word steadied him, and enraged him in equal measure.

Cassian straightened, gaze sweeping toward the command center beyond the glass. "Get me the Alpha strike team," he ordered. "And patch through to Command. Quiet channel."

"Sir?"

"She's alive," he said, voice low but fierce. "And we're getting her out."

Rain streaked the glass behind him, the sound of it soft but relentless. Somewhere far away, Shade Tal'voss was sitting in silence, trusting him to move. And Cassian Abrantes, was not going to lose her.

 

[Shade]

The cell was silent. Not the kind of silence that unsettled lesser minds, but the familiar, insulated quiet Shade had grown up with on Csilla—cold walls, regulated air, and the soft hum of a power-field that never changed pitch. Predictable. Contained. Almost comforting in its consistency. She used it.

Her day unfolded with the same deliberate precision she applied to everything else.

She woke at the exact moment every cycle—not because they scheduled it, but because she refused to let anyone else dictate the rhythm of her body. She sat on the narrow cot, legs folded beneath her, back straight, breathing slow and controlled. She catalogued the minor changes: the humidity shift when the vents cycled, the faint variations in footsteps outside the door, the way the guard rotation clicked into place every ninety-four minutes.

Information was never insignificant.

Breakfast came—ration bars, soured caf, and nutrient paste. She ate none of it until she had tested the temperature for tampering and compared the composition to yesterday's. Then she consumed exactly enough to maintain physical performance. Nothing more. Hunger sharpened the senses.

Interrogation happened sporadically.

They brought her into a chamber lit too brightly, with floors designed to echo footsteps for psychological effect. It did nothing to her. Shade listened to their questions, calculated their angles, and gave them answers measured down to the syllable. Not resistance, not submission—simply control.

They learned quickly that she did not break.

She learned far more quickly what they wanted.

When they returned her to her cell, she did not pace. She did not sleep. She moved.

Silent drills. Balance work. Micro-movements to maintain muscle memory. Breath conditioning. Stretching. Combat simulations done in stillness, mapping trajectories only in the mind. She imagined the courtyard above—the turning columns, the slick stones, the fog—then traced the angles of every possible escape route over and over until the timing aligned with instinct.

At mid-cycle, one of the newer acolytes passed her door and lingered too long. She didn't look at him. She didn't need to. The shift in air pressure told her his curiosity warred with fear. The faint scrape of his boots revealed that he leaned closer. She waited until he held his breath—then said, calmly, without raising her voice:

"Looking too long at predators is how prey is identified."

He left quickly after that.

The guards did not comment.

Evening—if such a concept existed underground—brought the only reprieve: stillness. The faint quiver in the power field told her they were changing watch. Shade sat on the floor, arms resting loosely over her knees, eyes half-lidded but never closed, mapping the timing of every routine again—every vulnerability.

She did not wonder if Cassian would move. She knew he would. Waiting was simply another discipline.

When the next rotation of boots stopped outside her door, when the metal slid aside, when a voice told her she was being transferred to the training grounds for "evaluation," she rose smoothly, hands bound, posture composed.

A change in routine was an opportunity. She walked without hesitation. And her captors did not notice the faintest flicker of a smile—too controlled to be visible except to someone who already knew her. She had sent her message. He had received it. Now all that remained was timing.

"Lead the way."

Her voice was calm. Her pulse was steady. Her mind was already moving three steps ahead.

As it always did.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

The mist over Desevro was dense enough to blur the outlines of the Academy complex into a silhouette of metal and shadow. Cassian Abrantes crouched behind a fractured retaining wall, the faint shimmer of his visor reflecting the heat signatures of the compound below. The strike team was already in motion, five operators, each handpicked, each silent as the planet's poisonous fog.

Their approach had been long and careful. The transport had set them down kilometers out under the cover of an electrical storm, forcing them to move on foot across the ridges that flanked the Sith training grounds. Now, sometime after midnight, they watched the Academy's walls pulse faintly with light from within.

"Generator's there," Varo whispered, pointing toward a low, domed structure east of the main compound. Through the infrared scope, Cassian saw the steady vibration of coolant lines feeding from it into the complex. "They're running two circuits, main and reserve. Disable the backup first, or the alarms will flag within seconds."

Cassian gave a curt nod. "Take who you need, disable the back ups. Then kill the power. By that time I'll be well inside on on my way to her."

Varo disappeared into the fog with two of the operatives, moving like wraiths. The remaining pair, stayed with Cassian, scanning the perimeter.

"Main power's routed through that west tower," Dray murmured, marking it on his datapad. "Security grid's local. Cameras run independent feeds. When the generator drops, they'll lose lighting first, but comms might stay hot for another thirty seconds."

His tone was low, steady, not cold, but deliberate. "We will be coming out the exact same way, there won't be anyone to stop us."

Senna hesitated, glancing toward him. "You're really going in alone?"

Cassian adjusted the dark hood of the Sith agent's cloak draped across his shoulders. The insignia glinted faintly a crimson seal of the Academy. It wasn't real, but it didn't need to be for long.

"I'll be fine, we don't need anyone getting capture, you guys stay out here, make sure we aren't running into any issues, we will be out quick.

He checked his weapon, a compact blaster modified for close-quarters engagement and then holstered it beneath the cloak. His face was already hidden by the mask's lower half, its voice modulator tuned to the clipped, confident tone of a Sith operative.

Overhead, the hum of the Academy's energy fields deepened, a low, resonant vibration that pulsed through the ground. The backup generator was about to go.

Varo's voice came through comms, rough and tight. "Backup down. Ten seconds to main grid cut."

Cassian's gaze locked on the complex. "Execute."

A pulse rippled through the night, faint, then total. The lights along the walls flickered, the shields flared, and then the entire compound dropped into near-darkness.

In that heartbeat of confusion, Cassian moved.

He advanced toward the service corridor, his stride purposeful, his presence cloaked in authority. The outer gate scanned his ident-chip and hesitated, just long enough for him to override the prompt with a security code lifted from Desevro's old Imperial archives. The door hissed open.

Inside, the air was sharp with ozone and coolant vapor. Red emergency lights pulsed faintly through the hallways, throwing long, skeletal shadows against the walls. He could hear the distant clamor of voices, guards confused, systems recalibrating.

He spoke quietly into the comm. "Varo. Hold position until you see me bring her out. If I'm not back in twelve minutes, burn the grid and extract."

Then he silenced the channel.

Every step deeper into the Academy drew him closer to Bloc C, Sublevel Three. The cell she'd mentioned. Shade's message still replayed in his head over and over. Alive. Controlled. Stable. Extraction not advised without planning.

He'd done the planning. Now, there was only execution.

Cassian pressed through another doorway, cloak trailing faintly in the dark, the crimson sigil catching the red light like blood. Guards ahead straightened instinctively at his approach, uncertain but deferential. His forged credentials pinged across their scanners, Sith operative, inspection authority.

They didn't stop him.

He walked past them in silence, the smell of damp metal and restraint fields thick in the air. Beneath the mask, his jaw tightened.

"Hold on, Shade," he murmured under his breath. "I'm here."

And with that, Cassian Abrantes, soldier of Naboo, general of the Republic, and now shadow among Sith, stepped into the heart of the Desevro Academy.

 

[Shade]

The power fluctuation came first.

Not the alarms—those followed—but the subtle wrongness in the air, a pressure shift she felt through the floor before the lights ever dimmed. Shade's breathing did not change. Her posture did not shift. She remained seated on the narrow bench, hands loose at her sides, head slightly bowed as though still meditating through captivity rather than counting heartbeats and exits.

The Force moved. Not violently. Not loudly.Deliberately.

It threaded through the stone and metal of the sublevel like a held breath finally released, familiar in cadence if not in signature. Someone was inside the perimeter who did not belong to the Academy—and who knew how to walk its corridors without drawing the wrong kind of attention.

Shade did not smile. But something in her posture loosened by a fraction.

She closed her eyes for a brief moment, letting the sensation resolve—not searching for him, not reaching, simply acknowledging the presence as one acknowledged gravity or momentum. The calculations she had been running since the door first sealed around her adjusted smoothly, effortlessly. Confirmed.

Footsteps approached the holding corridor, measured and unhurried. Authority in the stride. Not rushed. Not cautious in the way fear made people cautious. This was the gait of someone who expected doors to open and guards to step aside.

Shade lifted her head as the field on her cell flickered once, twice. The door unlocked. Red emergency light washed across the stone, catching the edges of the restraints, the faint metallic sheen at her wrists. She rose in one controlled motion as the door slid open, posture straight, expression neutral, eyes lifting to meet the figure standing just beyond the threshold.

The disguise was competent. The presence beneath it was unmistakable. She did not step forward. She did not reach for him. That would come later—when walls and watchers were no longer factors. Instead, she inclined her head the barest degree, a gesture so minimal it could be read as acknowledgment rather than recognition.

"I was expecting you."

No accusation. No relief made visible. Just fact.

Her gaze flicked once—quick, precise—past his shoulder, mapping the corridor, the angles, the timing of the next patrol by sound alone. Then her eyes returned to his, steady and unflinching.

"We have a narrow window," she added quietly, voice level enough to pass for instruction rather than intimacy. "I can walk."

And with that, Shade Tal'voss stepped forward out of captivity—not hurried, not hesitant—already moving in sync with the man she had accounted for from the beginning.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade​

Cassian didn't say much, they would have their moment later, in private, but now his main priority was to get her out.

Cassian's pulse stayed steady as the corridor stretched ahead, dim, red-lit, the air thick with the scent of ozone and cold metal. Shade moved beside him, her steps silent and even, matching his pace without a word. Around them, the Desevro Academy trembled faintly with the aftershocks of the power disruption; alarms flickered but hadn't yet screamed. The window was still open. Barely.

He kept one gloved hand near his concealed blaster beneath the folds of the Sith agent's cloak, the other resting against the encoded datapad clipped to his belt. The disguise had held this long; they'd cleared the lower levels without a challenge. But as they approached the junction leading to the outer hangar, he caught the subtle shift of motion in the reflection of the polished durasteel, guards closing in, too synchronized, too quiet.

"Keep walking," Cassian murmured, low enough that only she could hear. "We're almost clear."

They made it another six steps before the deception cracked.

"Hold!" barked a voice, young, uncertain but armed with authority.

Some acolytes rounded the corner, their crimson training armor gleaming under the flickering lights. One of them raised a pike, its edge sparking to life. "Identification, Agent. We've had an unscheduled power drop. Orders to verify all personnel."

Cassian turned slowly, posture imperious, expression hidden behind the dark mask. "You're interrupting a classified transfer," he said, voice filtered through the modulator to carry the clipped inflection of Sith command. "Stand down."

For a moment, the bluff held. Then one of the acolytes' visors pinged, registering a false ident frequency.

The alarm in his tone was immediate. "That's not—!"

Cassian moved before the word finished.

His right hand flashed beneath the cloak, blaster clearing its holster with a whisper. Three shots, precise and clean, center mass, center throat, left flank. The first acolyte went down before his pike hit the floor. The last acolyte lunged blindly, shouting something that ended in a choke as Cassian sidestepped and drove a knife-hand strike up beneath the helmet seam. The body hit the ground before the echo of the alarm reached them.

He nodded, already moving again, guiding her forward. They stepped over the fallen acolytes and turned into the outer access corridor, where the faint, cold wind of Desevro's night bled through the emergency shutters. The entrance lay ahead, one last checkpoint, one final stretch between captivity and open air.

Cassian keyed the comm at his collar. "Varo, prepare the transport. We're inbound."

Static crackled back, then a steady voice: "Acknowledged."

He looked to Shade, steady, focused. "We're not stopping," he said quietly.

And together, they advanced towards the front exit, no alarms, nothing, freedom waiting just ahead.

 

[Shade]

Shade didn’t answer him—not because she hadn’t heard, but because there was nothing that needed to be said. Her awareness had already shifted, attention narrowing to the angles of the corridor, the rhythm of their movement, the timing between flickering lights and the gaps they created. She stayed half a step behind him, close enough to move when he moved, far enough not to tangle their lines. Where he was momentum, she was silence.

When the acolytes appeared, her posture never changed. No flinch. No pause. She let Cassian take the lead, reading the moment with the same precision she brought to every operation. The bluff. The hesitation.

The split second where it might have held. When it failed, she was already in motion—not forward, not back, but laterally, positioning herself to cover the blind angle as blasterfire cut the air.

She didn’t draw attention. She never did. As the first body fell, Shade shifted just enough to intercept the second acolyte’s line of sight, a flicker of movement that drew focus away from Cassian’s flank. Her hand came up once—fast, economical—redirecting a sparking pike just enough that it scorched durasteel instead of flesh. The weapon clattered away a heartbeat later as the acolyte dropped, but Shade was already past him, boots silent as she cleared the corridor ahead.

The alarm still hadn’t fully caught. That mattered.

She swept the access corridor in a single glance—shutters half-cycled, pressure seals struggling, night air leaking in with a bite of cold that carried the promise of distance. No additional movement. No secondary response yet. They were still ahead of the curve.

Shade angled her body toward the exit, pace unbroken, presence folded inward and tight, her Force signature damped to a whisper that blended with the background noise of the Academy itself. If anyone was watching now, they would see nothing but a shadow moving where shadows belonged.

When Cassian spoke again—quiet, resolved—she didn’t look at him. She didn’t need to. Her agreement came in motion, in the way she adjusted her stride to match his exactly, in the way she took the outer edge of the corridor without being asked, clearing the final approach with the same calm certainty she’d carried through the entire extraction.

Freedom was close. She could feel it—not as relief, but as a narrowing of purpose.

Whatever waited beyond the doors, she would meet it with him.

And nothing inside Desevro Academy was going to stop them now.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

The night air outside the Desevro Academy hit Cassian like a shock of clarity, cold, sulfur-tinged, and heavy with the scent of fuel from the distant hangars. The fog swirled low across the landing pad as he guided Shade forward, their steps quick but composed, every motion calculated to look like authority rather than flight.

The plan had held. Every point, every signal, every movement through the corridors, clean. Efficient. They'd slipped through the final checkpoint under the cover of the blackout before the system's failsafe had even finished rebooting. He'd half-expected resistance at the outer gates, a last-minute inspection, but the Sith personnel stationed there had simply scanned the false credentials and waved them through, none the wiser that the agent walking past them wasn't one of their own.

Now, the strike team's shuttle waited ahead, its engines already humming low and ready. Varo stood at the ramp, signaling with two fingers, clear sky, all systems green.

"Move," Cassian said quietly, hand brushing Shade's back just enough to urge her toward the ship.

They didn't run. Running drew attention. Instead, they walked with the calm certainty of people who belonged where they were, two figures cloaked in authority, gliding through the fog toward their exit. The hum of the engines grew louder, the vibration of power thrumming through the durasteel deck.

For the first time since they'd entered the compound, Cassian allowed himself a breath that wasn't half tension. They moved up the ramp without hesitation.

Then the shouts came.

"Stop! Stop them!"

Cassian turned sharply, his gaze cutting through the haze. A squad of Sith enforcers had spilled out from the hangar's west side, weapons half-raised, confusion breaking into realization.

Too late.

He spun back to the cockpit. "Punch it!" he barked.

Varo didn't hesitate. The engines roared, the landing struts retracted, and the shuttle surged upward just as the first volley of blasterfire streaked through the fog. Bolts glanced off the hull, harmless against the reinforced plating.

Cassian braced against the bulkhead, watching the shrinking complex below them, its towers swallowed by the clouds. He exhaled slowly, the adrenaline fading into focus.

"Desevro won't take kindly to being embarrassed," Varo said from the pilot's seat, glancing back at him.

"They can file a complaint," Cassian replied dryly.

Cassian waited until the hum of the engines steadied, until the last shudder of the shuttle's ascent smoothed into the rhythm of hyperspace prep. The noise of the crew faded into the background, replaced by the low thrum of the ship's systems and the hollow echo of his own pulse. He turned toward her. Shade sat where he'd left her, the faint emergency lighting casting pale lines across her face. She looked whole. Composed. But Cassian knew better than to trust what composure tried to hide.

He reached out, his gloved hand brushing her arm, not to restrain, just to make contact, to anchor her to the here and now. "Come with me," he said, voice low, the command softened by something that wasn't command at all. He guided her down the short corridor toward the ship's med bay, a small compartment tucked behind the main hold, sterile and dimly lit. The moment the doors hissed shut behind them, the pretense fell away.

"Have a seat." He said gently, as he began to check her for injuries. Each movement, careful and gentle touch. His fingers traced along her forearm, checking for any sign of discomfort. His hand raised to her chin just lightly, checking each side of her face more thoroughly.

"Are you sure, you are okay?"

 

[Shade]

Shade didn’t pull away when his hand brushed her arm. She followed him into the med bay without resistance, posture composed even as the doors sealed behind them and the last remnants of urgency stayed outside.

The sterile light caught the angles of her face, the faint marks left by restraints at her wrists, the stillness she carried like armor. She sat when he asked, not because she needed the support, but because she understood what he needed to see. She let him work.

His hands were careful—too careful for a battlefield commander—which told her more than his words did. She felt the quiet assessment in every touch, the way his fingers traced rather than searched, the way he paused just a fraction longer at her pulse, at her jaw, as if confirming something beyond injuries. Shade didn’t rush him. She had endured far worse examinations by people who meant her harm. This one mattered.

When he lifted her chin, she met his eyes steadily. No flinch. No guarded distance. Just truth, offered without embellishment.

“I am.”
Her voice was low, even, unstrained. Not dismissive. Certain.

“No fractures. No internal trauma. The restraints were calibrated to limit output, not cause damage.”

She shifted slightly, enough to demonstrate range of motion without dramatics, shoulders rolling once, hands flexing with controlled ease. The marks would fade. They always did.

“They observed more than they tested,” she continued, watching him closely now, not clinically, but with the quiet awareness she reserved for moments that mattered.

“They wanted compliance. Understanding. Not pain.”

Her hand lifted then, unhurried, resting briefly against his wrist where it hovered near her shoulder. The contact was light—intentional—but unmistakably grounding.

“You came when I needed you to,” she said, softer now, not emotional, but weighted with meaning.

“Everything after that was manageable.”

She let her hand fall back to her lap, posture settling once more into calm readiness. Her crimson eyes didn’t leave his.

“I’m here,” she added quietly. “And I’m not broken.”

Not reassurance. A fact. And this time, it was meant for him.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian stood there, silent, the hum of the ship filling the spaces between her words. He listened, really listened, to the even cadence of her voice, the calm certainty that had always set her apart from everyone else. Shade didn't embellish, didn't soften, didn't hide behind sentiment. She was direct, unflinching, composed even now after everything.

And still, something twisted inside him.

He'd believed she'd survive, he had to. He had clung to that belief when the reports went dark, when the trace routes came back cold, when every contact on Desevro told him she'd vanished without a trace. But beneath that faith, a small, gnawing terror had waited. The thought of losing her, not as an operative, not as a partner in the field, but as her, had lived in him like a blade lodged too deep to remove.

Now, standing in front of her, seeing her alive, hearing that steady voice again, he realized just how close that fear had come to breaking him.

He took a slow breath and stepped closer.

"You have to forgive me," he said quietly. "For how I am right now."

"I know you're capable," he continued, voice low, steady but frayed at the edges. "I know better than anyone that you can take care of yourself, that you don't need saving. But…" He exhaled through his nose, the next words heavier than he intended. "Aside from everything else, aside from you being the best damn agent I've ever worked with, you're also the woman I love."

An understanding forged not through words, but through every mission, every night apart, every near loss that had threatened to hollow him out.

Cassian's restraint faltered.

He reached for her, one hand at her jaw, the other curling behind her neck, pulling her in. His mouth met hers in a fierce, unguarded kiss, no hesitation, no calculation. The contact was immediate, consuming; a collision of all the fear, relief, and longing he'd kept locked away for too long.

The kiss deepened, slow but deliberate, his tongue brushing hers in a rhythm that said everything he hadn't been able to voice in the field, the desperation of nearly losing her, the relief of finding her again, the promise that he would never take her presence for granted.

When he finally drew back, their breaths mingled in the narrow space between them. His forehead rested against hers, his voice low and rough with emotion.

"I thought I'd lost you," he whispered. "And I can't, " He stopped himself, swallowing the rest. "I just can't imagine this galaxy without you in it."

 

[Shade]

Shade felt the shift in him the moment his restraint gave way. It wasn’t sudden or explosive—it was the kind of collapse that happened quietly, when something held too long finally loosened its grip. She felt it in the way his hands framed her face, in the heat of his breath, in the urgency that replaced discipline as he pulled her into him. And she didn’t resist it.

When his mouth met hers, Shade answered without hesitation, without calculation, without the distance she usually kept between herself and the rest of the galaxy. Her hands came up immediately—one sliding to his jaw, the other curling into the fabric at the back of his neck—holding him there with a strength that was steady rather than frantic. She kissed him back fully, deliberately, letting the depth of it speak where words never could. This wasn’t just relief. It was recognition. It was the unguarded truth of what it meant to almost lose someone you had already claimed as your own.

She stayed with him in it—matching his intensity, grounding it—until the sharp edge softened into something slower, deeper, more sustaining. When they finally broke apart, it was only enough to breathe. She didn’t step away. She rested her forehead against his, their breaths still tangled, her hands unmoving as if letting go simply wasn’t an option anymore.

For the first time since he’d found her, her composure fractured completely—not into weakness, but into honesty.

“You don’t need forgiveness,” she said quietly, her voice lower now, stripped of the clinical edge she used as armor.

“Not for this.”

Her thumb brushed his jaw once, slow and grounding, as if anchoring him to the moment, to her.

“I know what you know,” she continued, breath steady but warm against his skin.
“I know my limits. I know my capabilities.” A pause. Not hesitation—weight.

“And I also know what it feels like to think you might be gone.”

That was the crack. The truth she didn’t often give voice to. Her arms slid around him then, drawing him in fully, her cheek resting briefly against his shoulder as she held him with quiet, uncompromising certainty.

“I felt you the moment you crossed the perimeter,” she murmured.
“Not as a rescuer. As… you.”

She pulled back just enough to look at him again, crimson eyes steady, open, unshielded in a way only he had ever been allowed to see.

“You didn’t fail me,” she said softly. “You came.”
Her forehead touched his again, her voice dropping further, intimate and sure.

“And if you ever think you’re alone in that fear…you’re not.”

She kissed him again then—not fierce this time, but deep and intentional, a vow given in motion rather than words.

When she finally rested her head against his chest, her arms still firm around him, she spoke one last truth, meant only for him.

“I’m here, Cassian,” she said quietly.
“And I’m not going anywhere.”

No walls left between them. Only the steady certainty of having found each other again—and choosing, fully, to stay.

Cassian Abrantes