Soulbreaking

[Meeristali Peradun]

Bright orange eyes lifted from the second helping of stew and he chewed, his reaction withheld on account of a full mouth. His gaze was steady on her face, he blinked once or twice, his face tinged with a sadness that was infringed on by the fondness in his eyes that was only for her. The love that was there in his mind, his heart, his soul. He shook his head.

"I can't do it without you," he said once he'd swallowed, "you're what keeps me going, Avalore."

He dug the spoon into the stew again, and left it there.

"I wish I could say that the 'greater good' and 'galactic peace' were what drove me, but it's you," and he held out a hand over the table, a want to hold her hand, "it's my want to do everything I can so that you never feel the pain of loss again."

The curve of his mouth turned sheepish.

"And I'd be lying if I said I didn't want you closer, and safer. Being this near to the territory of the Sith makes me worried for you when I'm not here, and coming home to you is... well..."

His eyes turned serious.

"...I love you, Avalore Eden."

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

Avalore Eden sat equal parts terrified and dumbstruck in her chair, brown eyes slowly glancing between those eyes and that hand. Manaan suddenly filled her mind. Visions of the Library, of Hal standing over that infernal Archive hub, the slow ticking of the data transfer. She remembered the sting of hot tea on her front as though she'd just spilled it. The thunderous sound of the Sith invasion. The bite of aggravation at Hal's insistence to remain behind while people were trampled by the oncoming hordes of enemies.

The snarl of his voice as he bellowed out his professed love for her.

Shock. Hurt. Pain. Regret. How she turned away from him in one of his most profane, human and vulnerable moments.

And then she never saw him again. Not as the same Hal she knew. Her negligence to his words had wounded him far deeper than she had known and now could only guess or imagine at. Before she knew it, too late to take anything back, he was gone from her life. Avalore's greatest regret had been that she'd never told him how much she cared. She hoped, feebly, that he somehow knew it anyway, if he was still alive somewhere out in the galaxy's shadows.

Now here she was, yet again at an impasse. The deep want to reciprocate but the overwhelming fear of loss at odds with one another. Brown eyes under a strained brow looked anxiously at his hand, desperately wanting to take it but terrified of stepping over that cliff where history had shown her there was only death to follow.

"Stali..." her expression tightened, a subtle turn of her head as she met his gaze again, "I'm scared...of losing you."

[member="Meeristali Peradun"]

 

[Meeristali Peradun]

"I'm scarrred, too."

Hearing that after what she said before, about not letting her hold him back... those words were a relief, and at the same time they called upon the want and need to comfort her that, in his estimation, had been present from day one. Her fear was real, interfering with the light in her soft, brown eyes as it often did, company to worry and sorrow. He pushed out his chair from the table, rose, and moved to stand over her.

"Let me help you underrrstand that I'm going no-wherrre without you," the words came, with conviction, "that I'm not leaving you behind. That I need you, that I carrre and want to see you happy and filled with purrrpose."

He lifted a hand and brushed loose strands from her cheek with the backs of his fingers, tucking them behind her ear and returning to the fore with fingertips running down the line of her jaw to her chin, pausing there.

"Come herrre. Let me hold you," he said, "let me comforrrt you."

The hand dropped from her chin, seeking her hand again.

"Let me love you and keep loving you. Let me help you heal."

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

No matter how many times he might've said the words I'm scared too Avalore would never believe it. Meeristali Peradun, the Felacatian warrior. The Jedi Guardian. Fierce, strong, powerful, courageous. Things she could only dream to be. Avalore looked away as he stood, feeling chastised for her unspoken faith in his ability to move on without her. For her moment of weakness in giving up - that faint desire to let him go and save herself the heartache.

The purr of his voice reverberated within her very core in much the same way it always did. Disarming touches, so gentle for the strength she knew he had. Avalore closed her eyes as his fingers lingered at her face and leaned ever so slightly into the caress. Force but how she would miss those hands, his voice, his touch and presence if she ever lost him.

Brown eyes opened in response to the drop of his hand and the Healer slowly lifted one of her own to meet it, scarred fingers and palm weaving into his. She pulled it to her face, pressing knuckles to lips and holding them there for the warmth and the scent. After a moment she looked up and in feeling an insistent tug from the man slowly rose to stand before him, diminutive in comparison. Her free hand lifted to rest against his middle as her forehead, too, leaned to settle against his chest. Breathing quietly in his scent.

Avalore squeezed his hand in her own while the other slid across his side to loop around his back, pulling him to her ... or herself to him. No words to speak, no response to utter. Didn't matter, there wasn't anywhere else she wanted to be and she didn't need words to tell him that.

[member="Meeristali Peradun"]

 

[Meeristali Peradun]

It had been said, and there was no taking it back. He wouldn't have wanted to, and he couldn't have planned to if he tried. Some things were't meant to be planned, as the planning increased the pressure on the doing. He loved this woman, and couldn't quite put a finger on when that had become the case, for life had been too busy imposing upon him its own plans for all of the years he had known her; the presence of her in his life had simply become a constant, the one that remained while other people and places vanished or were rendered to dust. Home was where she was. It couldn't be attributed to any building or planet.

He held her, in this room, on this planet. Her touch ventured where words were not yet ready to, might not ever be ready to, didn't need to, his free hand laying a soft, lulling cadence on her head, her hair, into which he buried his nose for a few short moments, drawing in the depth of her scent. A pressing of his lips to where his nose had once been, and his face lifted, eyes half-lidded in the intimate calm and silence they occupied for an uncounted measure of time until he made to put his lips to hers.

"I have designs on taking you to bed," he said when faces separated, whenever that was, his voice just above a whisper, "so let's clean up from dinnerrr."

Corners of his mouth upturned, lips separated to show a little tooth.

"Then I'll give you morrre rrreasons to keep me arrround."

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

She had grown fond of his lips over the last several months. This was not to say that she had not grown fond of his other physical attributes, but it was his lips that constantly left her breathless. Every single time. Avalore was convinced he'd learned some esoteric Force Power to accomplish this task, but the truth of the matter was not meddled with magic. It was the intensity of his gaze and the direct purpose of every touch and every movement, every minute change of expression or subtle inflection of tone.

It was that rumble in his voice that reverberated within his chest.

Perhaps it was because he always seemed to sure of himself and everything he did - he the foil to her own second guessing and layers of doubts. She smiled, thinly, as she thought about this, and gently bit the taste of his kiss from her lower lip.

"Just as well," the Healer answered back, "I didn't make anything for dessert." Brown eyes flickered up at him with a meaningful glance before she pulled away, fingers trailing along his middle as she turned to clear the table. There was no rush to her movements, only the same methodical way she always worked. Stove off, dishes rinsed in the sink and loaded into the washer. The remaining stew stored in a container and set in the fridge with the foil-wrapped bread nestled alongside it; meals for the upcoming week.

Avalore was running the water in the sink, waiting for hot water to rinse out the cooking pot when she felt Stali at her back, one arm snaking around her middle and the other reaching forward to turn the water off.

Seemed he was done waiting to carrying out his designs.

[member="Meeristali Peradun"]

 

[Meeristali Peradun]

The next morning he was a well-rested, satisfied man, and a hungry one, breaking his fast with controlled abandon. His tail had a gentle sway of contentment as he consumed bite after bite, only slowing down when he got eyes on the slower pace of Avalore's eating. He looked sheepish a moment, chewing on a mouthful of grub, watching her thoughtfully. He went back to last night, where an important discussion had derailed into reassurances; he didn't want to put on much pressure, but he wanted to be sure she was at the very least paying the motion some attention in her thoughts.

"So, have you given it some thought?"

He dragged the tip of his tongue over some side-teeth, where a morsel had tried to hang out, eyes on her another couple moments before he resumed eating. No qualifying, no easing off, pussing out. He would give her time, give her his patience as he always had, but he would never speak without confidence and surety in his words. Gentle nudging, not cautious.

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

She knew that question was coming, it was only a matter of time. Avalore silently grieved at the lost hope of it being later rather than sooner. Stali was nothing if not persistent.

Three bites into a bowl of oats--with honey, raisins, and white chocolate bits--while casually perusing the daily holofiles, the Healer looked up as she felt her partner's eyes boring a hole into her. Cats. You could feel their gazes from across the room. She did not smile in return but not for a sake of being unhappy, simply for the fact that she wasn't quite prepared to answer.

"Yeah," she said and not reassuringly, "I need...time, Stali."

[member="Meeristali Peradun"]

 

[Meeristali Peradun]

So many of his days put time as a luxury, yet this instance held time in abundance; even if he had no answer by the time he was called out again... the positive bend of his lips tensed, thinning, but the matter the question broached was the line with which he tried in earnest to lure her into the part of his life she was outside of, and that was it. She was outside, and only she could open the door once the invitation had been given. His eyes went to his oats, and he took in another spoonful, chewing in thought.

"Then I won't ask again," he said a few moments after swallowing, only raising his eyes after the words had been said, "if, when, it's in your hands, Avalore. I'll wait for you to come to me."

He did worry that she might not, no matter how confident he was. Even in this, he was always prepared. He went back to eating in silence, concerned about where the limitations of his patience might lie.

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

Avalore had her doubts of that promise but as she had come to learn and would continue to come to grips with, Stali was nothing if not true to his word. Days, weeks, months would pass and still he had not uttered a word of it. He'd left and returned numerous times on more missions, each one longer than the last, and she couldn't help but wonder if those indecipherable cat stares were her only hint to the waning patience of the man.

Felt like the question was there on his face every time silence fell between them. Avalore was not oblivious to the manner of his silence - the man's tail often gave away his mood even when his face did not.

But the weighing of fear against love was by far the most difficult thing she'd ever experienced. There were days it made her feel downright sick to her stomach. Those days she didn't say much if he was around - took to reading one of her books or staying late at work. She imagined this would be it. This would be the stressor that finally pulled apart the seams of their relationship, and the notion kept her awake at night worrying and wondering.

When she began thinking that the reasons behind his extended leaves might be another woman she hit her breaking point.

After having traveled with him by speeder taxi to the Chasin City Starport and kissed and hugged the man goodbye as she always did when he left for missions, she watched him walk away with a rising sense of sand through her fingers.

"Take me to the Chasin City Hospital."


One week later.

Stali's comm rang. It only rang when he wasn't active duty. Avalore bit at her lower lip, watching ships sail by through her seat window.

Klik.

"Stali... listen, I wanted to wait until you got back so I could do this in person but I knew if I waited I wouldn't follow through. I resigned from my job at the Hospital and I-" she cast a glance around starship, a simple Cato Neimoidian civvie transport waiting for clearance for departure onto the Hydian Way, "...I'm coming to Sullust."

[member="Meeristali Peradun"]

 

[Meeristali Peradun]

Location: Soccoro Guardian Academy

Days, weeks, months passed, and he kept his word. His concern over something happening while she hemmed and hawed with indecision made him frequently morose, while not interfering with his job. While at first he was genuinely patient, as time passed he relied more and more on the mantra of 'fake it 'til you make it'. Smiles became pasted on, he'd grin and bear it, but his thoughts to the situation became progressively worse, and he had begun preparing his heart and his mind for what he had begun to believe was coming.

Then the call came, one evening when he had been two days into an off-duty stretch and was coming out of the training area, fully intent on taking a wander through the 'fresher. Where Julius was, he didn't know, but being alone was what a monotheistic society might call a god-send; the tone of his comm stopped him in his tracks and he fished it out of one baggy trouser pocket, and would have followed through to answering before he caught from whom the call was coming.

His heart dropped, his breath caught, and after the second ring, his eyes raised to check the corridors; he knew no-one else was here, but... he looked at the comm on the third ring, swallowed, and answered. He didn't say a thing, but the voice on the other end came through quick enough, the sound of her voice triggering him to steel himself for what came next.

"Stali... listen, I wanted to wait until you got back so I could do this in person but I knew if I waited I wouldn't follow through..."

...I can't do it.

...I'm sorry.

He tried not to grip the comm so tight that it would be crushed, hearing only what he believed he would hear and not what she was saying, in truth.

"...I'm coming to Sullust."

He blinked, pulling the comm away, and looking at it in confused disbelief. When he finally spoke, there was only one, shaky word that came out.

"What?"

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

"I'm-"

Interference as the loud speaker within the ship sounded in garbled Neimoidian, followed immediately by a Basic translation; the ship was preparing to enter hyperspace. A steward walked the aisles performing the age-old check of devices. Seatback in the full upright position. Tray tables up and locked.

Devices off.

Avalore hunkered down in her seat, plugging her other ear, "I said I'm coming to Sullust. Can you hear me? ...Meer?"

[member="Meeristali Peradun"]

 

[Meeristali Peradun]

She repeated herself, but he'd heard her clearly the first time. He breathed out, pinching the bridge of his nose between the tip of his thumb and the larger knuckle of the parallel index finger, as thoughts whirled and the pieces fell into place. His heart had taken up jogging, his body and mind sorting themselves out.

"Ava, I..."

The hand dropped from his nose, and his head dropped back. He was starting to feel restless with all that was pent-up, and what her news did to all that.

"...I'm glad."

Head dropped forward to level.

"I'm on Soccoro right now, I might not be back to Sullust by the time you are..."

And he started walking again. He could hear the noise of whirring up to hyperspeed in the background.

"...thank you. Thank you for giving me an answer," he said, swallowing down a lot of everything, "I love you. I'll see you soon."

[member="Avalore Eden"]