Private Losing Him is Not an Option

[Shade]

Shade found the contract by accident—or at least, that was what a less dangerous woman would have told herself. She wasn't looking for trouble, not that night. She was doing what she always did when instincts whispered wrongness at the back of her neck: combing through the back-channel networks she once lived by. Assassin boards. Dead drops. Syndicate auction streams. The places where real danger didn't hide, it advertised itself in code.

That was where she saw it.

A half-buried kill order, already marked IN PROGRESS. A four-man strike team. A payout too clean to trace. A target profile she knew better than she had ever known her own reflection:
"Unpredictable schedule. Intelligence background. High threat response. Avoid pattern-based pursuit."

Only a handful of assassins could track a man like that. Shade had been one of them.

Her pulse didn't spike. Her breath didn't change. But the pressure beneath her ribs tightened slowly and cold—the exact sensation she'd felt the night she received the order to kill Verin, when she read the lines that sentenced him, when she realized there was no loophole, no escape, no choice except obedience. She carried out that order. She lived with its weight.

And now someone else had tried to write Cassian's death the same way.

She walked to his office without remembering crossing the halls, her body moving on muscle memory honed over years of entering rooms prepared to kill or to die. His door slid open to reveal him seated in the low lamplight, posture composed but heavy with unspoken exhaustion. He looked up instantly—the way men trained to sense danger always did—but the look that crossed his face at the sight of her wasn't fear. It was recognition.

Shade stepped inside, closed the door quietly, and set a single encrypted data wafer on his desk. The underworld contract, stripped of its anonymity by the hands of someone who had once lived as its architect.

She didn't sit. She didn't look away.

Her voice, when she finally spoke, was quiet in a way that cut deeper than any raised tone. "Four hired assassins came for you."

Not a question. Not supposition. A verdict.

She moved closer, the lamp outlining the cool planes of her face as she slid the decrypted contract toward him. "Professionals," she continued, tone still controlled, still precise. "A coordinated kill team. Someone with resources paid for a clean, efficient termination. You survived that." Her crimson eyes lifted back to his, steady as stone. "And you said nothing."

Cassian's jaw shifted—small, tight—but she saw it.

Shade braced one hand against the desk and leaned in just enough that he could not hide behind silence. Her voice softened, but only in the way a blade softened when laid flat against skin—cool, lethal, intimate.

"Do you think I wouldn't understand what it means to have someone marked for death?" A breath—measured, quiet, but trembling beneath the surface. "I carried out orders like this." Her eyes didn't waver. "I carried out one against Verin." The room went still. Completely still. She didn't blink. She didn't flinch. She gave him the truth she had buried deeper than any scar. "I know exactly what it means to hunt, Cassian."

Her hand curled slightly against the desk's edge, the smallest fracture in her composure. "I know the steps. I know the intentions. I know how close they came to you, because I've been the one standing in their place."

A breath. Slow. Controlled. Breaking. "So why," she asked softly. "Why would you keep this from me?" No accusation. No raised voice. Just the quiet, devastating hurt of someone who had finally chosen trust—and discovered it hadn't been returned.

Shade stood there in the low light, every wall she'd built across a lifetime trembling at the edges, and waited for the one man she'd ever chosen to be honest with her.

Not as a handler. Not as a commander. Not as a shadow. As Cassian.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian sat back in his chair, the dim light casting hard lines across his features as he studied the wafer she had placed on his desk. The data glimmered faintly, the details familiar, too familiar. He didn't need to open it to know what it contained. He'd already lived it. He'd already handled it. The aftermath had been quick, clean, final.

His jaw tightened, a quiet pulse of frustration not aimed at her but at the reality that followed men like him wherever they went. The work never stopped. The danger never disappeared. It shifted, changed its face, found new hands to wield it. And this, this was just another reminder. He let out a long breath through his nose, steady and deliberate, before speaking. His tone stayed even, but there was an undercurrent beneath it, fatigue, understanding, something that came from carrying the same weight too long.

"I didn't tell you because this comes with the job," Cassian said quietly, his voice low but certain. "Every operative, every handler, every analyst with clearance above a certain threshold ends up with a mark on their head eventually. This isn't new."

He looked down at the wafer again, thumb brushing the edge of it. "I reported it through Intelligence. Filed it under protocol, followed procedure. I wasn't trying to hide anything from you, Shade. I promise you that."

His gaze lifted then, sharp with conviction. "I just didn't see the point in bringing it up when it ended the way it did. They're dead. All four of them. They made their attempt, and they paid for it with their lives."

Cassian leaned forward, elbows braced on the desk, fingers lacing together. His expression hardened, not with anger, but resolve. "This is part of what we do. It's part of who we are. I can't waste time mourning every fool who tries to cash in on a bounty."

He paused, the next words leaving him quieter but edged with unmistakable weight. "But let someone else try again. let them come for me, for the people under my command, for you, and I won't hesitate."

His voice dropped to a near growl, steady, controlled, lethal. "I'll kill anyone who gets in my way. Anyone who tries to keep me from my family, from the ones I love."

Cassian sat back again, his tone softening but not losing its steel. "That's why I didn't tell you. Because it's already over. And because it doesn't change anything about who I am, or what I'll do to protect what's mine."

 

[Shade]

Shade didn't raise her voice. She didn't pace. She didn't slam the datapad or let rage twist her expression. But the moment he finished speaking, something in her eyes changed—something deep, cold, and quietly wounded settling beneath the surface like a fault line under pressure.

She stepped closer to his desk with a slow, deliberate composure that made the air tighten between them. Not threatening. Not confrontational. But impossibly focused—so he couldn't look anywhere except at her. Every movement held the precision of a strike she refused to let loose.

When she finally spoke, her voice came low, even, but carrying a depth that cut far sharper than anger ever could. "It might be part of the job, Cassian…" A breath—controlled, steady, but tight at the edges in a way she could not entirely hide. "…but our jobs are part of our lives."

She didn't blink. Didn't soften her posture. She let him see every ounce of truth she meant him to hear. "And our lives are tied together now."

Her hand lifted slowly, fingers brushing the surface of his desk with the same deliberate care she used when handling a blade. The datapad lay there, a quiet threat in someone else's hands and a quiet wound in hers.

"If someone put a mark on me—if someone hunted me—you would be the first person I told." Her voice didn't rise, but the words landed like a silent blow. Not an accusation. Not weakness. Just truth. "Not because I need protection." A soft, sharp inhale. "But because you deserve to know."

The memory of Verin flickered behind her eyes—not his face, but the cold, choking silence afterward. The silence Cassian had almost handed her again. Something in her breath faltered.

"If someone had killed you out there…" Her jaw tightened, but her voice stayed measured, quiet, devastatingly calm. "…I wouldn't have known why. Or how. Or who took you from me."

Her fingers brushed the back of his hand then—light, barely-there, but deliberate. A contact she rarely initiated. A contact she would only ever give to him. Her thumb lingered at his knuckle, tracing one slow, controlled line that betrayed everything she fought not to show.

"You matter to me." She said it like a classified truth, stripped to its core, no embellishment, no hesitation.

"And if something happens to you…" Shade swallowed once, the movement small but unmistakably authentic. "…I don't come back from that."

Not this time. Not again. Not after Verin. Not after him.

Her hand moved fully to his then, covering it with a grip that was steady, sure, and quietly fierce. A vow made not through words but through touch—unbreakable.

Her crimson eyes lifted to his, soft in a way no one else in the galaxy would ever see. "Don't keep something like this from me again." A whisper. A warning. A plea disguised as a command.

"Not when I would burn the galaxy down to keep you alive."

She didn't step back. Didn't break the intensity between them. Didn't reclaim her hand.

Because this wasn't anger, it was care—fierce, uncompromising, and entirely his.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian sat very still.

Her words cut through the air with the kind of precision that could gut a man without spilling a drop of blood. He'd seen that look before, in interrogation rooms, across battlefields, in faces of people who had lost too much to feel anything but control. But never from her. Never aimed at him.

He drew in a slow breath, the weight of it pressing against his ribs. Shade's hand over his burned through his composure more effectively than any accusation could. He didn't pull away. He didn't defend himself. He just felt, the warmth of her skin, the quiet tremor in her pulse, the truth sitting between them like an open wound. He'd told himself it was logic. Containment. Compartmentalization. The same reason he'd buried a dozen other near-misses under classified reports and closed cases. But looking at her now, Cassian realized it hadn't been logic. It had been habit. The survival reflex of a man who'd been taught to handle loss by never letting anyone get close enough to feel it.

But she wasn't just anyone. She was the exception that had rewritten his rules.

His jaw tightened, not in resistance, but in the slow recognition of her words settling inside him. "You're right," he said finally, his voice low, rough at the edges from the restraint it took to keep it steady. "You deserved to know."

He turned his hand beneath hers, fingers closing around hers, grounding the moment in touch instead of distance. "You're part of my life. Part of this, every risk, every decision that comes with it." He let out a breath that carried the weight of exhaustion and truth. "I've spent years teaching myself not to give anyone that power. But you already have it. And I should have realized that means you have the right to know when the world tries to take it from you."

He looked down at their joined hands, thumb brushing once across her knuckles, slow and deliberate. "You're not my subordinate. You're my equal. My partner. My…" He stopped just short of saying the word. "You are my love...."

Cassian lifted his gaze to meet hers again, the faint glint of lamplight catching in his eyes. "You don't have to burn the galaxy down for me," he said quietly. "Because I won't give it the chance to take me from you."

The silence that followed wasn't empty, it was heavy, full of everything they hadn't said yet but no longer needed to. He didn't promise her safety. He couldn't. But he promised her this, honesty, loyalty, and a fight she would never have to face alone again.

"I won't keep something like that from you again," Cassian said at last, his tone firm but quiet, each word deliberate. "You deserve better than half-truths and silence. And I'll never want you to carry that kind of loss again."

His grip tightened just slightly, steady, protective, absolute.

"I love you." Cassian looked deeply into her eyes, as their hands held each other. "I love you, Nys'rei Tal'voss."

 

[Shade]

Shade didn't speak at first. She stood in the quiet of his office, the low lamplight casting a thin glow across his face, and something in her chest shifted—slow, deliberate, almost painful in its honesty. His words hung between them like a force all their own, not heavy in a way that threatened to crush her, but in a way that pressed into the most carefully fortified parts of her and waited for her to acknowledge them.

He had said he loved her.

He had said her name.

He had said it like a truth he had held too long, a truth he had finally decided she deserved, and the weight of it slid through her with a subtle force that shattered a wall she hadn't realized she'd still been holding upright. The pulse beneath her ribs jumped hard once—quiet, traitorous—and she despised how it gave her away. But she didn't pull back. She didn't try to hide the tremor that moved through her breath. She didn't run from the truth pressed into the air around them. She stepped into it.

Slowly, she moved closer to him, each step controlled but carrying the warmth of something she had spent years refusing to allow into her life. Her hand slipped along his cheek, her thumb brushing the faint heat there, grounding herself in the proof that he was real, solid, present, and hers in a way she had never allowed herself to imagine with another person since Verin. She held him like she was memorizing the shape of his breath, the way the light caught in his eyes, the tension in his jaw that unraveled just slightly when she touched him.

When she finally spoke, her voice was low and quiet, the kind of voice she only used when truth—not strategy—guided her "Cassian…"

His name left her with a softness she rarely allowed to touch her tone, a warmth shaped by the weight of everything she had not said until now. She drew in a slow breath, letting the silence gather around them, letting herself feel the tremble she hadn't allowed during the fight or the confrontation or any moment where she needed to remain carved from steel.

"I do not give my heart easily." The admission was quiet but carved with precision, spoken like a fact that had defined her entire life. "I never expected to give it again…not after everything I've lost."

Verin's shadow drifted at the edge of her thoughts—not to haunt, not to hurt, but to remind her of the cost she had once paid for loving someone. She inhaled again, deep and steady, as if anchoring herself against memories she no longer feared, because she was here, with someone who had earned a place that no one else in the galaxy ever would.

She held his gaze, crimson locked to green, and let him see the quiet thing at her center that she had kept hidden from every other living being.

"But you have it." Her thumb brushed him again in a slow, deliberate motion—a gesture she would never have allowed herself to make with anyone else. "You have had it since the festival…since the night I chose you."

Another breath, softening the tension that held her posture so rigidly still. She leaned in until their foreheads touched, the warmth of him steadying her in a way she had not believed another person ever could again.

"And I love you."

Her voice trembled—not with fear, but with the quiet surrender she had fought for far too long. She stayed close as she continued, her words shaping themselves around something sacred and raw. "I forgive you for keeping the attack from me."

The softness in her tone was not weakness—it was trust. The kind of trust that had to be earned in pieces, over nights spent by lakewater, over shared breaths and knife lessons and moments where silence became its own kind of confession. Her hand slid from his cheek to curve gently around the back of his neck, her fingers settling there with a certainty that told him she had made her choice, and she would not undo it.

"But don't shut me out again." Her breath warmed his as she whispered the vow she had no intention of breaking. "Nys'rei Tal'voss is yours."

Then she kissed him—slow, deep, sure—pouring every vow she hadn't spoken, every piece of herself she had once sworn to keep hidden, directly into the press of her lips.

When she finally drew back, her mouth still close enough that her words brushed warm against his lips, she gave him the truth he deserved to hear in full. "I love you, Cassian Abrantes." A vow. A surrender. A truth spoken with absolute certainty. And she meant every word.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade​

Cassian didn't answer her right away. Words had never felt so small, so insufficient for the moment he found himself in. The air in the room felt charged, alive with something he could neither control nor contain, and for a heartbeat, all he could do was look at her. The precision with which she spoke, the unguarded truth in her eyes, the way his name left her lips, soft, unfiltered, cut through him in a way no blaster or blade ever could.

He had told her he loved her. But hearing it returned, watching her step toward him without fear or hesitation, it unraveled everything he had ever built to keep himself intact.

Cassian's breath left him slowly, steady but deep, the weight of her words settling into his chest like gravity itself. He'd lived most of his life as a man divided, duty and desire, loyalty and silence, but now, with her standing there in the glow of his office light, he felt something rare: wholeness.

She said she forgave him. She said she loved him. And he believed her. Completely.

He reached up, his fingers brushing the edge of her hand still resting against his neck, feeling the warmth of her skin, the delicate strength behind her touch. He didn't need to say anything grand or poetic, Shade had never been one for pretty words, and neither was he. What she needed was truth, spoken simply, directly, without hesitation.

"I don't deserve this," he said softly, his voice low but sure, every syllable threaded with something rough and raw. "But I'll never stop earning it."

The admission cost him nothing and everything. Cassian had made countless vows in his life, to the Republic, to the Intelligence Service, to the countless missions that demanded pieces of him. But this one, this one came from the place he guarded most.

He leaned forward slightly, closing the smallest fraction of space between them, forehead resting against hers, his voice a whisper meant for her alone.

" I've loved you since the first night you refused to walk away from me."

His hand slid along the side of her neck, the gesture tender but unyielding, the touch of a man who had made his choice and meant to stand by it until the stars themselves went dark. "You don't have to remind me who you are," he murmured. "Because you're already everything I fight for. Family, heart, hope, and home."

 

[Shade]

Shade felt it hit her—not like a rush, not like heat, but like a gravity drop. A controlled freefall that started somewhere beneath her ribs and sank straight down into her stomach. Cassian's words didn't sweep her away; they pulled at something deep and guarded inside her, something she had spent years training never to react, never to soften, never to break.

Family.
Heart.
Hope.
Home.

No one had ever used those words for her. Not without taking something in return. Not without dying for it. Not without betraying it. And yet he said it as if it were a fact, as if it were obvious, like she wasn't a woman built in shadows and sharpened by loss.

A quiet pressure tightened behind her sternum, a sensation she hated recognizing because it felt too close to being undone. Her breath caught—barely, just enough that she knew he could feel it with their foreheads touching. It wasn't weakness. It wasn't fear. It was the closest Shade had come in years…to letting herself fall.

If her knees were human, they might have buckled. If her heart were less disciplined, it might have stuttered. But Shade held herself steady, even as the ground inside her shifted. Cassian's words struck with a precision even she couldn't defend against. And for a moment—just the briefest, most dangerous moment—Shade felt something she had forgotten she was capable of:

Belonging.

Shade didn't speak immediately. She couldn't. Not because she lacked the words, but because every instinct she'd spent years cultivating—silence, distance, restraint—warred with the very real, very raw truth pressing against her ribs. Cassian's forehead rested against hers, his breath warm, steady, grounding, and she felt the way her own breath stilled, caught, then slowly released, as if her body needed a moment to accept what he had given her.

When she finally spoke, her voice was low and even, but there was a quiet roughness at the edges, the kind that only he would ever hear. "You don't get to decide what you deserve."

Her fingers slid from his jaw to the back of his neck, not pulling him closer, not pushing him away—just there, an anchor she didn't realize she needed until she felt him start to breathe with her again.

"I'm the one who makes that call." Shade drew in a slow breath, her eyes half-lidded, not looking away from him for even an instant. "And I choose you."

Not said with heat. Not said with desperation. Told like a fact. Like gravity. Her forehead pressed a fraction harder against his, her voice softening in the way metal softened under flame—quiet, subtle, dangerous in its honesty.

"Do you know what that does to me… hearing you say that?" She didn't wait for an answer; she didn't need one "You call me home," she said quietly, almost a whisper, "and my body reacts like it's forgotten how to stand still."

Her thumb brushed the line of his throat, the gesture controlled but unmistakably intimate. "You make my center of gravity move." A breath. A truth.

"And I haven't let anyone do that since…" She stopped herself. Not out of fear. Out of choice. Her eyes lifted to meet his fully, crimson, steady, but softer than he had ever seen them.

"Cassian. I meant what I said. I forgive you."

Another breath, warm against his lips. "And I love you." Shade rarely repeated things. But this—this she said again, clearer, for him alone. "I'm in this. With you."

Then, after a heartbeat: "And I'm not going anywhere."

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian stood there for a long moment, her words sinking through him in quiet, deliberate layers. He didn't move. He didn't try to answer right away. There were things a man like him was trained to respond to, threats, orders, intel, but not this. Not something so simple and so disarming as the truth she had just given him.

It hit him harder than he let show. The way she said it, the way she meant it, I'm in this. With you. It stripped away every layer of conditioning he'd ever wrapped around himself. Every instinct to compartmentalize, every habit of distance. She wasn't offering comfort or reassurance; she was offering permanence. And that was something Cassian had never known how to accept easily.

He let out a quiet breath, the smallest trace of a smile ghosting across his expression, something tired, warm, and real. His pulse had steadied again, but his thoughts hadn't. The air between them still hummed with everything unsaid, with the gravity of what they'd both just admitted.

Everything she said had moved mountains with him, and at first he was in awe.

Finally, he found his voice. It came low and even, threaded with a steadiness that didn't quite hide the emotion beneath it. "You always know how to stop me dead in my tracks."

 

[Shade]

Shade's breath moved quietly between them, steady on the surface but warmed by something deeper, something she no longer bothered to hide from him. His words landed with a weight she felt in the center of her chest, subtle but unmistakable, a shift in tempo she hadn't prepared for and hadn't intended to fight. She watched him closely—really watched him—as he said it, the way his voice dipped, the way his posture eased without collapsing, the way he looked at her like she had pulled the floor out from under him and he didn't mind falling.

A faint exhale escaped her, almost a sound, nearly a laugh, though neither fully materialized. It was too soft, too honest, too unguarded to be either. Her hand lifted from the back of his neck to his jaw, fingertips brushing along the edge of his stubble with the kind of gentleness she used on nothing and no one else.

"That's not stopping you," she murmured, her voice low, unhurried, shaped by the quiet warmth of the moment.
"That's grounding you."

She shifted closer by a fraction, enough that their bodies almost touched, enough that his breath warmed the space between her lips and his. Her eyes held his in a way that would have been a warning to anyone else—but for him, it was something entirely different. A certainty. A claim. A calm she offered only when she wanted him to know exactly where she stood.

"You spend your whole life carrying everything alone," she continued, her thumb tracing the side of his cheekbone.
"Someone finally puts a hand on the weight, and you think it's supposed to knock you over."

Her forehead touched his again, slow, deliberate, the contact feather-light but steady.

"It isn't, Cassian."

Another breath, soft against his lips.

"It's supposed to make you realize you don't have to carry it alone anymore."

Shade's other hand slid to his chest, resting over his heartbeat—not claiming, not clinging, just… there. Present. Proof of the truth she wouldn't take back.

"If you stop," she whispered, voice dipping even lower,
"it's only because you trust me enough to."

A beat passed—heavy, warm, electric.

Then she added, barely above a breath, but with a confidence that left no room for doubt:

"And I want you to."

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade
​

Cassian held her gaze and felt the air between them change again, slow, deliberate, the kind of stillness that came not from tension but from understanding. What she said struck deeper than comfort; it found the quiet center of him, the place that rarely saw light. He could feel the pulse under her hand against his chest, strong, steady, almost too loud in the silence.

He didn't try to argue. He didn't try to deflect it with humor or retreat behind professionalism. She was right. He had spent his whole life carrying things alone, missions, losses, decisions that left scars no one else could see. It had become second nature, almost ritual. And yet, here she was, standing close enough for him to feel every word through the warmth of her breath, telling him he didn't have to anymore.

Cassian's throat tightened before he found his voice. "You always know exactly where to strike." he said softly, almost to himself. His tone wasn't guarded this time. It was reverent, quiet, full of the gravity her presence always brought him. Cassian glanced toward the desk, toward the dim light still flickering over the data wafer, then back to her. His tone softening, shifting toward something almost normal, almost human. "You hungry?"

He let the question linger there, quiet but intentional. "Come with me," he said finally, his voice carrying the same calm resolve he used in the field, only warmer now. "We'll get something to eat?"

 

[Shade]

Shade's expression barely changed at first—no wide smile, no softening of posture—but a subtle shift touched her features, the kind only a Chiss would recognize and only someone who knew her as well as he did would understand. The corner of her mouth curved by a fraction, the slightest sign of quiet amusement, and one dark brow lifted in a gesture that carried equal parts dry wit and acknowledgment.

She held his gaze for a long breath, her hand still resting lightly against his chest, her pulse steady now, controlled again—yet he could feel the difference. The tension had eased. The ache had softened. The wound had closed without scarring.

"It took some learning to know where to strike."

The words were soft, but threaded with that precise, understated humor she rarely let slip. A quiet concession that she hadn't always known him so well—but now she did. Better than anyone.

When he offered food, her eyebrow arched a degree higher, crimson eyes glinting with something cool and sharp and unmistakably fond. "Cassian…" A small pause, deliberate. "…it is the middle of the night." Her tone wasn't scolding. It was lightly amused disbelief, tinged with the affection she never voiced directly.

She stepped back just enough to give him space to breathe, her hand sliding from his chest without haste, her gaze tracking him with a quiet, measuring warmth.

"If you can actually find food, at this hour…" A faint tilt of her head. A challenge disguised as practicality. "…then yes." Her voice lowered, the softest thread of want beneath its calm surface. "I'm hungry."

She crossed her arms lightly—not defensive, composed—and nodded toward the door. "Lead the way, Cassian." And for the first time in hours, the air between them felt free, unburdened. She was going with him wherever he chose to go.

Cassian Abrantes