Didn't I?

[Miss Blonde]

[media] https://youtu.be/PZqQT5904_U [/media]​

With the auction over, Patricia had a lot of explaining to do. She had dropped off the face of the Galaxy for a few weeks and that was incredibly dangerous considering not only who she was but who she was with. [member="Darth Abyss"] had probably been worried sick and more than likely had killed a few people trying to find her, but she just needed to figure a few things out. Like if being with him was a good thing, if having a Sith Lord potentially influence her children was alright, and if she was truly happy being with him in his current state. It was all so much that weighed down on her, and well, she had come to a conclusion.

She loved Aton, he made her happy, and despite how their relationship revolved around violent exchanges and intense makeup sex, she knew that deep down he did truly love her and she truly did love him. So she was going to give this whole family thing a shot and make sure she stayed retired from the criminal underworld, since she didn't need that darkness in her life on top of Abyss when raising his kid.

With a heavy heart she stepped into her speeder outside her palace one last time with Mister Orange, her personal assistant since the beginning of the Black Tie Syndicate. Letting out a sigh while holding on to her large nine month pregnant stomach, the woman looked into the front to smile at the driver. Orange who was at the helm gave back a soft smile and then started to drive forward. They didn't need to say anything to each other, everything between them was already known. He was one of her best friends and she cared a good deal about him, she only hoped that he'd continue to assist her throughout her retirement and part time work she was taking up.

And as they sped away from the Nar Shaddaa Palace, the woman opened up her data logger and returned a message to [member="Darth Abyss"] that he had sent during the auction. The first thing was of course a copy of the schematics that sold for almost a million credits, a good "I'm sorry" present to make him feel better for her slight disappearance. The next was followed up by a text.

I'm sorry, love. I know I should of said something, and I want you to know that I'm headed to your bunker. I had a lot of thinking to do and everything is fine. I love you and nothing is going to change that. You deserve to be in our child's life and to be his father. That's right, it's a boy. I wanted to surprise you with it but you know I can't contain myself. I just need you to have a clone body to slip into if we're going to make this work. I'm sorry but I can't be held by dead dudes, it's just a hard limit for me. Again I love you and I hope to see you soon."

Once the message was sent, Miss Blonde would be a few minutes before arriving at the bunker. Sitting outside waiting for the door to open, she sighed and longed for a stiff drink.

 

[Darth Abyss]

The heavy security door opened in front of [member="Miss Blonde"]. Behind it she would be greeted by the angel like body currently inhabited by Abyss A.I. Glory, which then proceeded to walk out towards while shaking her head in frustration. It was hard to make out below her mumbled stream of huttese insults, but the A.I. was complaining about being "nicely asked" to give Abyss and Patricia some time alone. With a slight sigh she turned around, offering Patricia a look of sympathy mixed with mild annoyance.

"Good luck in there. His mood is worse then when he lost Malachor."

With that she was gone, leaving Blonde alone to enter into the darkness of the bunker. The only light inside was produced by the various screens and terminals that filled the structure, painting the whole path towards Abyss in dim blue. Down the corridor, in the command center stood the sith lord, not in a body but his metal self. The darkness did well to hide it, but not once had the bunker been so chaotic. Everything he had was scattered across the whole bunker, books, artifacts, weapons, art and surveillance technology littering the entire floor.

The first few days Abyss had remained calm. Like himself Patricia had many duties, so being gone on short notice was simply something that happened. After the first week without a life sign he started to worry a little, his agents send out to carefully dig into the underworld in hopes of finding a clue. In the second week many of Blonde's old enemies were haunted by a dark entity, a shadow that hunted them to steal their minds. Week number three was the worst. After any conventional and semi conventional means had lead him nowhere he began to delve into the unorthodox. That was the reason why the whole bunker smelled like Korriban Incense, and why rune shaped burns marked the floor of the command center. Even a few of Patricias hairs, slightly burned, could be found there, placed upon some strange stone plate.

Yet all his spells turned out fruitless as well. He couldn't find her, either because something had happened, or because she didn't wanted to be found. In their time together a bond had forged, and Abyss was almost certain that he would've felt it if she was gone forever. Not that the other option concerned him any less. That his darkness would one day become to much of a burden for her to carry was one of the very few, if not the only, thing that he still truly feared.

"I am sorry for the mess. I am also sorry for being here like this."

His twisted voice was oddly soft, the strange echo showing quite a lot of the human somewhere deep below the cursed steal. He didn't missed humanity, but he missed his time with her. His return to flesh would never be final, never absolut, but he was ready to give up his transcendence from time to be with her and their child. That it was a boy was something he hadn't really processed yet, still to caught up in his worry over Blonde.

"I almost thought you finally gave up on me and my darkness."

 

[Miss Blonde]

Spoiler

[media] https://youtu.be/uV5n0AuDZNY [/media]

There it was again staring her in the face. That same cycle of regrettable life choices she continued to make. Those moments when she should of gone right but decided to go far left instead. Moments like how she had abandoned her old family, how despite her no longer being a scared girl she was still making those same choices as before. Thoughts like these ran through her mind as she witnessed the fallout of her actions, the look of utter desperation around her and just how much it hurt not only her but Aton. She needed to make this right, because he deserved so much more than her crappy I'm sorry and followed by make up sex. This was real and lasting pain felt by someone who by all means shouldn't of had any emotion whatsoever.

So when she approached him and he opened the dialogue, she gave a chuckle at it in response. Though it was clear it was laced with copious amounts of sadness behind it. A pain that she felt in the wake of all that she had done, a pain that she knew she didn't deserve to even feel in comparison to his. But despite that she tried to smile, though it failed utterly by her ending up with this crooked and jaded smile of deep sorrow.

"You're apologizing to me?" she said with another one of those sad little laughs.

Taking another few steps forward and stopping at a nearby table. The woman put her hand on it gently and looked over at him with her large melancholy eyes.

"You are so stupid. So @&%#ing stupid!" With a choke in her words, she started to cry a bit though she tried her best not to do so. It was simply unavoidable.

"I vanish for what like three weeks? And when I show up almost completely unannounced you apologize to me?! To @&)#ing me?!" placing her hand on her chest as she yelled at the man, Patricia just continued to let tears run down her face.

"I don't deserve you! I don't deserve to be even standing here in front of you! I push everyone away and I hurt everyone I love and yet even when I do, they just seem to be ok with it?! Like it's just expected of me! Like any of this is ok! It's not ok! You're not ok! I'm not ok! All of this is just @&$#ed!" starting to spiral into tears and regret, Patricia hung her head in almost defeat brought on by having to look at herself and her actions.

"It's all just &$#%ed because of me, and I'm sorry that you chose to love someone like me. I'm sorry, I'm just so sorry." and from there, she just cried at that table standing there knowing she didn't deserve to run to him.

[member="Darth Abyss"]

 

[Darth Abyss]

"There is nothing to be sorry for. I understand what you are going through."

Before he became walking steal he would've embraced her, hugged her to make sure that she understood that it was alright. Now all he could do was to stand there, dead, cold metal that was only kept together by darkness and deranged magic. There were many drawbacks to his new form when it came to his relationship with [member="Miss Blonde"], but one clear advantage was a gain of perspective. Maybe he should be angry, but it was to easily for him to metaphorically see through her eyes, to understand what it meant to her to accept what he had become.

"Please meditate with me. Trust me."

Slowly the twisted armor descend to the ground, legs made out of steal crossed like he had done when he still was flesh. Never before he had asked her to do something like this, for various reasons. The act of meditation was sacred, and quite intimate to sith and jedi alile, but Patricia never had shown any particular interest in this side of the force. Also he had never attempted it to shield her, to never risk that his mind would consume her in an uncontrolled fit of hunger, something he feared as he already held both passion and obsession for her, both key emotions that fueled his most notorious power.

"Empty your mind."

He couldn't physical touch her, or at least not more than a droid. There were few consoling qualities to being touched by lifeless metal, even if you knew the soul bound to it. Yet there was a part of him that could touch her, if she allowed him to do so. His mind would reach for hers, a cold but gentle darkness slowly waving over her thoughts. All she had to do now was to trust him, allow their both minds to become one, at least for the moment.

Should she find the trust in her heart, it would be like waking up from a long dream. Their surroundings were nothing but pure darkness, no floor, no roof and no walls. At first it could be disorienting to awake in this visual interpretation of the endless abyss inside of his mind. In the darkness a figure rested on the ground, shrouded in the black robe that the metal husk wore. Yet the man inside was flesh, Abyss, or rather Atton, as he had been before his ascend.

"Let there be light."

There was no echo to his voice, just the plain and simple sound of a man talking. Suddenly small, bright dots of Light reminiscent of the stars in the endless sea of the night sky formed all around them, each of them a representation of the memories they shared. Calmly the spirit of the sith remained on the ground, waiting for her response.

 

[Miss Blonde]

Of course Patricia trusted Atton, she loved him and even though she had monumentally screwed up. She knew that he loved her as well. So for pretty much the first time ever, she let someone into her mind. The gas mask she wore had always been an ethereal buffer or barrier to keep the unwanted out of her head, all those juicy and tender secrets that she kept to herself. She'd let Abyss see them all. Not just the memories that they both shared, but those dating back to when she was a young adult. He'd see it all. Her abandoning her new born daughter and husband when she was nineteen, the first person she had ever killed and the fallout from it, the young bright eyed republic field agent that wanted to make the Galaxy a better place, and how that young girl was eventually turned into the tortured crime lord responsible for the mass deaths of men, women, and children. If they were going to do this, she didn't want there to be any secrets. One of which was her original intention upon inviting him to her palace was to capture and torture him for information, but Patricia was pretty sure Abyss would laugh at that seeing how she was having his child and practically throwing herself at him at every chance when he was made of organic material.

All of it was available and given to him, and when the two manifested into the astral plane of thought and consciousness. Patricia could see Atton in his physical form without the corruption, the broken bones and scars, just natural and rather easy on the eyes Atton. So what response was he expecting of woman? The woman just stared at him for a few seconds in contemplation of what would best convey her feelings towards him. The regret, the apologetic nature, the confusion as well as the anger. And over the course of those few seconds of awkward staring... Well, this was what he got.

Spoiler

[media] https://youtu.be/hEzuBgeiSnk [/media]

With lips pressed firmly against his, Patricia gripped the back of his head to feed into their kiss. She has missed this, more than even she knew. His touch, his taste, all of it was a familiar sensation that she truly longed for over the course of time that Abyss had been completely inhuman. Did she know it was fake? Yes, but the question was did she care? No, not one bit. This was as much as people like her deserved, and that was just fine with her.

She didn't need to explain herself with this long winded speech, give apologetic remarks or try to distance herself from her emotions of sorrow. This was all she needed to make her feel better, being in the loving embrace of someone she wanted to spend eternity with. It was funny really. The very same person she had often seen as her enemy through her life and wanted to see crushed or dead was now one she couldn't do without. How she needed him in her life and the life of their soon to be son. Life truly was funny in that regard. A beautiful yet terrifying cosmos that could bring the most unlikely of people together to find some semblance of happiness within the chaotic indifference of the Galaxy.

When the kiss eventually did break, a starry eyed Patricia looked up at Atton with a gentle yet completely genuine smile on her lips.

"I love you." She said as she ran her palm against his cheek.

[member="Darth Abyss"]

 

[Darth Abyss]

The fascination of how real it all felt was overshadowed by the kiss itself. Months he had spend encased as a spirit inside a piece of metal had made him numb, both physically and mentally. To now feel her once more, like no day had passed since their last true meeting in the flesh on Nar Shaddaa was a beautiful, yet also oddly terrifying experience. While he loved nothing more than to embrace [member="Miss Blonde"], he couldn't stop his doubts. What was really left of him, was he even Abyss or merely an echo of another man caged in the vast emptiness of the sith lords mind?

When the kiss ended and she spoke the words he had heard so often from her and yet couldn't hear often enough the doubts were gone. He didn't felt numb anymore, instead he felt the burning passion that always took over when she was around. Such a peculiarly human emotion, but powerful nevertheless. His face formed a small grin as he looked back at her, another thing that felt almost alien at first after having no real face for months.

"I love you too, but I guess you knew that already."

Slowly the figure turned around, looking at the small dots of light that broke through the darkness, each of them a burning reminder of why they had come so far. He offered her his right, taking a few careful steps forward. What now would come was far more impressive than this little meeting of minds itself, a less terrifying testament for the might of the Mindeater.

"So what do you want to do? We can do anything, we can be anyone. I could even make you a little bit taller."

He looked down at her and chuckled. It had been a while since he had noticed how small she was, not only compared to him. That this woman not long ago had been the most notorious crime lord in the galaxy sounded like a lie, even if he knew exactly that it was true. He stopped in his slow walk, thinking for just a second. Then he raised his left and snapped, more for the dramatic effect than to actually channel his focus. From the dark a closed door appeared, waiting to be opened.

"This door will lead us wherever you want. I mean I hope it does, I have never used my powers for something like this before."

 

[Miss Blonde]

Patricia only laughed at Atton's comment on her height. While yes she was certainly a bit height impaired, that didn't stop her from doing anything she set her mind to. Also it was a slight advantage in some scenarios, and besides it wasn't like Abyss was complaining when he had an organic body. We didn't want to get into too much details on why exactly, but there was screaming involved and neighbors were woken up in the dead of night. That's about all were at liberty to discuss within this particular setting. Back to the main point though, Patricia simply hugged Atton's imaginary yet fleshy body and held on to it tight. She knew this wasn't going to last very long and at some point they'd have to come out of it and back to the dark reality of their current situation.

"I don't want to be anyone else, and I don't care where it is we go. As long as I'm with you it could be in a box under a overpass and I'd be happy." Patricia then pulled back a bit while keeping her arms wrapped around his back.

Though that smile on her face didn't seem to last very long. A look of pain spread onto her face. Something that caused her to buckle a bit and hold her side. Letting go of Abyss, the woman backed away slowly and began to clutch her rather large and pregnant stomach that bulged through her red dress.

"@&$# you, you little bastard!" Patricia cursed then coughed a bit.

"I'm ok. I'm ok. He's just being a little unruly kicking at my internal organs, nothing serious." After a few moments the woman caught her breath and stood back up.

Keeping her focus on the illusion within their heads, Patricia weakly smiled as a few beads of sweat dripped down the side of her head. It was clear that she was more than a little uncomfortable, but the pain was beginning to settle slightly.

"If you got a bar in here, I could really really use a drink right now. Like a lot, and seeing how this won't hurt the child. Please make it quick." as romantic as the moment was, she had gone almost a solid year without a drink and for Patricia that was pretty much a miracle in itself.

With her composure now slightly back to where it was, the woman would wait for Atton's move which hopefully involved bringing her something with a lot of vodka in it. Probably just leave the bottle.


[member="Darth Abyss"]

 

[Darth Abyss]

"A bar? Alright give me a second to see what I got up here."

The illusion of a man named Atton tapped against his head with a slight chuckle while speaking, which was quite ironic as they already were inside a completely unreal projection created by their combined minds. What he was actually doing was accessing the myriads of memories stored away in the metal crown that rested on the hollow head of his current real body, sorting through them faster than even a droid would've been able to. Being what he was had some pretty good advantages for all the drawbacks that came with it.

Instead of walking through the door, which he had simply placed as a focus point for Patricia desires that was no longer needed now, the endless darkness around them suddenly warped, like a storm that had just risen from below. It was like someone poured color into the emptiness, blurred shapes dancing around them as Abyss mind formed a what [member="Miss Blonde"] had asked him to.

From one moment to another the figure of Abyss was simply gone, while the world around Blonde became more and more realistic. First a few tables and chairs, then shelf filled with bottles, then speakers through which a jazzy tune began to play, then a counter and then finally a window, through which she would able to see a beautiful beach that was at least 300 meters below them. It wasn't an actual memory, but a complex patchwork of many, a mental effort that had been challenging even for Abyss.

Then as quickly as he was gone, Abyss suddenly stood behind the counter, a glass filled with whisky in his right. He downed his drink at once, his face forming a satisfied grin afterwards.

"Really should have thought about this earlier."

The grin still on his face he reached for a bottle and glass from behind him, only to place them back while shaking his head. There was an easier way of doing this. As everythig before a glass would simply pop up in front of her, filled with a vodka tonic.

 

[Miss Blonde]

Holding up a finger towards Abyss in a notion for him to wait for a moment before she could respond, this was of course brought on by her having the glass of vodka tonic pressed firmly against her lips. Second after second the drink seemed to vanish bit by bit until there was only the sound of ice cubes clicking together in an otherwise empty glass. Patricia May of had the slightest of drinking problems, but when you spent the last nine months bone dry sober, you tended to pounce on any chance to drink even if it was an imaginary cocktail in your fiancé's imaginary mind getaway.

Once the drink was finished and set on the bar, Patricia took a look around at her surroundings and the bar in general. She smiled and then chuckled slightly at everything. It was nice, Atton really knew her and what she liked. She'd always been a city girl forced to take in the ugliness of urban life, the crime, the people, the parties, all that was so damaging in her life. So she loved the beach, it was where she wanted to raise their child. Away from all that ugly, at least until they were old enough to grasp it for what it was.

"What are we listening to? Saturday night fever?" She joked as she took a sip of whatever icy drips of watery alcohol that was left in her glass.

Once more setting the glass down, she smiled happily and proceeded to walk around the bar until her small frame approached Atton. Pressing up against him she pushed her head into his chest. All this time apart from him had left her physically starved and it seemed even being separated by a wooden counter was too much for her to bear.

"Pour me another please." She said as she wrapped his arms around him.

"You know this reminds me of the first time we met. Oh I was going to torture the @&#% out of you. She giggled a bit as she continued to bury her head into his chest.

"You know you really need to not be so trusting when a dangerous woman invites you into her bedroom. You're just lucky that you were a solid lay." Really as sad or funny as it might of been if it weren't for alcohol and good sex, that whole night would of been very very different.

"And yet I feel that somehow I've lost, because here I am having your child while standing in your fantasy headspace while I leave my empire behind. You have defeated me, Lord Abyss." She then trailed off a bit with a slight pause as she looked up at his face and eyes.

"And I couldn't be happier for it." If this moment was a cup of tea, it wouldn't need any sweetener.

[member="Darth Abyss"]

 

[Darth Abyss]

Without the need to reach for a imaginary bottle the drink in front of [member="Miss Blonde"] was suddenly refilled, followed by a slight grin from the sith lord. There were a lot of downsides to spending time inside a mental illusion, for example that nothing of it was real, but it also had some clear advantages compared to the relentless darkness of reality. Yet his grin faded as she spoke, leaving him with an expression that emphasised how bittersweet her words were to him.

"Are you really? I never asked you to give up what you created. Is civilian life something that actually fulfils you?"

There was a reason why Atton and Patricia, despite their greatly varying views on what sometimes felt like absolutely everything, had made this relationship work in defiance of who and what they were. They both enjoyed being very good a something, in Abyss case to the point of almost psychotic obsession. In all honesty from what he had seen her do during her time as Miss Blonde she probably shared a lot of that obsession. It didn't mattered that their work was dirty, violent and ruthless as long as they could prove to be better at it than anyone else. Having such a kindred spirit on by his side, not only in the safety of their home but in the madness that was the galaxy, was the main reason why he didn't had fully succumbed into a crippled, hungry monstrosity since his ascend.

"Sorry, I did not mean to kill the mood but I am worried. You have been doing this for longer than me and you sacrificed all those years so we could be together. I fear that one day you wake up and realize that you threw everything away to be with some lunatic."

For a moment there was silence, as the sith lord struggled for words to lighten up the mood again. This should have been a moment of happiness, but Abyss wasn't happy at least not completely. As it turned out seeing around half of the futures that were possible to happen wasn't as much of blessing as he had thought. He knew that there existed many scenarios that could lead to their glimpse of happiness caught in the endless stream of eternity being shattered in a heartbeat. Death, war, more death and the fact that he basically was an disembodied force entity were only a few of the catalysts that had found the way into his sight. Finally after what had felt like minutes to him even if it had been merely a handful of seconds he managed a smile.

"Well at least the type of lunatic who literally talks to ghosts when his fiancée disappears for a while, to see if he has to bring her back from the realm of the dead, but still a lunatic."

 

[Miss Blonde]

Blonde let out a long and drawn out sigh. Though it wasn't one of annoyance or contempt. It was a satisfied and loving sigh that left her lungs and out her mouth. One that let Abyss know it was going to be ok. That everything was alright. Taking on of his hands in her small slender grasp, she placed one on her pregnant stomach. With her free hand she interlocked fingers with Atton's free hand and simply smiled at him. She was never really one for grand gestures or big moments with star fighters flying over head. She just wanted to make sure that her message got across to Abyss. The message that she accepted him.

"We made this together, you and I." Patricia said as she held the position they stood in.

"And this right here, this is more important to me than any palace or empire. Your crazy ass is more important to me. I didn't make this decision because I wanted to be some doting housewife. I made this choice because I want you to know that myself and our child are safe." Patricia then stared Atton in the eyes so he could really grasp how serious she was about her choice.

"I told you that I would never try to change you. I still mean that. So you go be a scary shadow monster out there in the Galaxy at large. I'll whip you up a clone body and when you come home just be dad. I accept you for who you are, Atton. I love you for it and I want you to go and be you. Just be sure to come home."

Standing there with Abyss she kept her head rested against his chest. Though she of course had to do something that might retract a bit of seriousness of the moment. Reaching out with one arm while she held her man, the retired crime lord's hand scratched at the bar in a blind search for her glass of alcohol. Once the vodka tonic was located she pulled it into her and once more took long deep gulps of the magic liquid before setting it back down.

"Also thanks for all this. I really needed it." Back out in the real world, Patricia who was sat next to a large set of spirit filled armor was holding the hand or gauntlet in silence as the trance continued on in their heads.

[member="Darth Abyss"]