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Walk Me Home: Chapter Twenty-Nine

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Word Count: 13.5k (OOPS) Rating: Explicit (18+ only) Chapter Summary: Cherise and Wolffe talk. And then they don't. Warnings are listed at the end of the chapter A/N: another CHONKER of a chapter. the next few are going to be more reasonable lengths -- and i know this because i've been possessed by the writing gods and wrote 3 chapter drafts in 3 days. let's fucking go, babes.

Wolffe has been awake for a short while when he hears the door open downstairs, but he hasn’t left the bed. He would’ve gotten up, but… there’s not really much for him to do. He didn’t think he could stomach just sitting around in the house, empty and lonely and lifeless.

But Cherise brings life with her — by nature, and by way of Whisky.

The dog is running laps around the main floor when Wolffe reaches the bottom of the stairs, stopping briefly to bark once at him before zooming back into the living room.

“C’mon!” Cherise laughs, and it’s only when Whisky growls that Wolffe realizes she isn’t talking to him.

He leans against the wall and takes in the scene in front of him. Cherise is facing away from him, a bright blue and orange toy in her hands, waving it in front of Whisky’s face too quickly for the dog to snatch it away.

“Get it, get it!” Cherise’s voice is the lightest it’s been since Wolffe got here. It probably would have taken a while to see her like this if Whisky wasn’t around.

Maybe the dog’s not so bad.

Whisky’s jaws snap at the air, missing the toy every time, and Wolffe can see that he’s starting to get agitated. Cherise notices too, because she finally relents and tosses him the toy. The dog happily shakes its prey before gnawing on it.

Cherise stands up straight and puts her hands on her hips. She’s slightly out of breath, but smiling as she turns toward Wolffe—

—and jumps out of her skin.

“Oh my—! Fuck, you scared me!”

Wolffe can only grin as Cherise tries again to catch her breath, forcing herself to relax her arms from their protective position over her chest.

“I thought you were still asleep,” she says. “Gods, you’re quiet.”

He shrugs himself off of the wall and closes the space between them, kissing Cherise on the forehead.

“Sorry,” Wolffe offers, but they both know he isn’t. Cherise laughs again, airy and carefree, before she leads him over to the couch.

“‘t’s fine, it’s fine,” she says as she leans back. Wolffe lays an arm along the top of the couch and smiles when Cherise leans into his side.

“How was the rush?”

“Not as bad as this morning,” Cherise shrugs. Whisky, realizing that he’s not the centre of attention anymore, trots over to her with the toy in his mouth and big, pathetic eyes. She grabs the handle built into the toy, bracing herself for Whisky trying to yank it out of her hands.

Wolffe watches, amused, as the dog nearly pulls her off the couch while Cherise’s expression doesn’t change a bit. They do this often, then.

“How old is he?” Wolffe asks. He spreads his leg a little wider, just enough to brush up against hers.

“Six months.”

“Six months?”

Cherise laughs. “I told you he was still a puppy!”

“Holy shit,” Wolffe mumbles. “He’s going to be massive.”

Whisky, as if he understands, wrenches the toy from Cherise’s grip. Wolffe imagines that in a few months’ time, that same action might dislocate her shoulder.

“We’re assuming he’s half… well, half some kind of wild dog.”

Cherise grabs the toy again when Whisky offers it up. She looks at Wolffe apologetically, even though she’s the one getting yanked around the couch.

“Sorry,” she says. “I woke up too late to take him out before work, so he’s… well. You see.”

“That I do,” Wolffe chuckles. Whisky snatches the toy away again, but Wolffe has his eyes on Cherise. “Though I can’t imagine he’d wear himself out on a walk.”

The toy hits the ground with a soft thud as Whisky freezes.

Cherise sighs, but she’s smiling. “Now you’ve done it.”

“What?”

Whisky whines.

“You said the magic word,” Cherise tells Wolffe. “Now he thinks we’re taking him outside.”

The dog stares up at Cherise. Wolffe hasn’t seen it blink.

“Well, are we?”

Cherise turns to look at him.

“I didn’t think you’d want to.”

Wolffe hums and rests his hand on the nape of her neck. It was a fair enough assumption. But Whisky isn’t the only one feeling antsy, and Wolffe knows that he and Cherise are bound to have some difficult conversations soon enough.

“We could walk and talk,” he suggests. “Might be easier than…”

He gestures to the way they’re sitting, and he knows Cherise understands. Wolffe doesn’t particularly like that it’s easier for him to talk about difficult things when he’s not looking directly at Cherise, but he can’t help it. It’s why most of their serious talks happened in Cherise’s bed on Coruscant, holding each other close but unable to see the other’s face.

Cherise nods, but still looks wary. “We’re probably going to run into people.”

“What if we go outside the town?” It’s not like they don’t have the space.

She chews on her lip.

“Is that… bad?” Wolffe asks.

“No, no,” Cherise says quickly. “I just never have. I don’t really know if people do.”

“Where do you usually walk him?”

Whisky whines again at the sound of the word, and Cherise laughs.

“I usually just play fetch with him,” she says. “Pretty easy to just stand at the treeline and keep throwing things. But it’s not exactly hidden away.”

Wolffe strokes the back of her neck. “We don’t have to.”

Cherise is suddenly filled with conviction. “No, let’s do it. We can head to the rocks — I don’t trust him near the road yet.”

When they stand up, Whisky starts jumping around like— well, like a puppy. He trails after Cherise as she fills up a water skin and tosses some protein bars into her bag.

“You’ll want a jacket,” she calls to Wolffe. “The temperature can drop quickly out here.”

“Got it. Do you have a glow rod?” He pauses. “And maybe your blaster. Just in case.” He’s thinking about those wild dogs Cherise mentioned. If Whisky is only half wild dog, and he’s still just a puppy, Wolffe doesn’t want to come across a fully grown creature with nothing to protect them.

“Blaster, yes,” she says. “Glow rod… We can stop at a neighbour’s.”

Wolffe raises an eyebrow, but Cherise waves him off. “They live right on the edge of the neighbourhood, we’ll have to pass by them anyway. And no,” she says, pausing in front of him and pressing a quick kiss to his lips, “you don’t have to meet them yet.”

“Yet.”

Cherise makes a noncommittal noise.

Within a few minutes, Whisky is practically dragging Cherise by the leash as they make towards the far side of the neighbourhood. Wolffe dug through the duffel bag for his holster, and it’s almost silly how much better he feels with a blaster against his thigh again. He itches to take her hand as they walk, but even if she wasn’t holding onto Whisky’s leash with both hands, he’s not sure if he should touch her in public. He has no idea if anyone knows that he’s here yet, or who he even is.

Cherise hands Wolffe the leash when they reach the last house. “I’ll just be a minute,” she promises, and then he’s standing alone.

Feels wrong.

He focuses on Cherise instead of letting his mind wander. She knocks at the front door, and after a few seconds, a young boy opens it.

“Auntie Riza!”

Cherise quickly ushers both her and the child inside, but not before Wolffe can hear the child say: “Who’s that? He’s holding Whisky!”

The door closes. A few seconds pass, and then a curtain shifts and the boy’s face appears in the window. Wolffe can’t see much more than a mass of black hair, but he also can’t look away. Inside, the curtain opens fully, revealing a woman holding a baby. He can’t make out her expression, but she doesn’t hide the fact that she’s staring at Wolffe.

A few seconds later, the door opens again, and Cherise is walking swiftly toward him.

“Got it,” she says, a little breathlessly. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice.

They weave through the trees at the edge of the neighbourhood, and then Amaronthe’s full landscape is in front of them. The world is wide and rocky, but plants still poke up through the ground. Not quite a desert, Wolffe thinks, but still plenty of sand and dust. A few klicks ahead, the flat ground starts to jut sharply upwards. They’re not mountains, not really, but they’d be quite a hike. The rocks, as Cherise called them, seem to extend all the way past the horizon, where the pale and dusty orange rocks meet the piercing blue sky. The sun is to their backs as they walk, and there’s not a cloud in sight.

Once they’re a fair ways away from the town, Cherise lets Whisky off his leash.

“He’s not gonna run away?”

The dog in question has already bolted away from them, tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth and ears flopping with every bound.

She shrugs. “Despite his energy, his recall is pretty good. He’s— well, I think he’s pretty attached to me.”

Wolffe chuckles. “I’ve noticed.”

The silence that follows isn’t exactly comfortable. They both know that they owe each other some explanations, and Wolffe has so, so many questions for Cherise. But for some reason, he can’t quite crack them open yet.

He can feel the same hesitancy coming from her, so he pulls up something that he knows will make her happy — a topic that had her snuggling closer into his chest just before she fell asleep last night.

“So,” he says, bumping her shoulder with his and taking her hand.

She beams up at him. Gods, Wolffe could stare into those eyes forever. “So.”

Wolffe smiles. “We forgot something.”

“Oh?”

He watches her expression. “We didn’t buy a bed today.”

Cherise’s eyes don’t light up like they’re supposed to. In fact, they drop to focus on the ground right in front of Cherise’s feet. Her hand feels a little slack in his grip, and Wolffe’s heart twists. Last night, when he said they’d just need to buy a bigger bed — when he said out loud that he’d be staying — Cherise had been so happy. It was frankly adorable how she nuzzled even closer to him on that tiny bed. But… had he misread something?

“Right,” Cherise says, voice quiet.

He tries one more time. “S’alright. We can do it tomorrow.”

She doesn’t even respond to that.

Wolffe gently squeezes her hand. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She says it too fast.

He brings them both to a stop. Slowly, just in case she wants to pull away, Wolffe nudges Cherise’s chin with his knuckle, guiding her to look at him.

“Hey,” he murmurs. She’s not crying — a low bar, but he’ll take what he can get — but she’s struggling to look at him.

Wolffe strokes the bottom of her chin with his knuckles, back and forth, hoping for Cherise to say something.

He stays quiet while she takes three deep, shaky breaths.

“I just…”

She ducks her head again.

“...don’t know if I have the credits for that right now.”

Wolffe frowns. The bar had been packed when he visited earlier.

“The bar… it’s not doing well?”

Cherise sighs, and pulls Wolffe forward to keep walking. They fall into step again, watching Whisky run zig-zag ahead of them.

“It’s doing well.”

“And you have a house.”

She snorts. “Didn’t exactly pay for it.”

None of this is adding up.

“All of the money I had went into the bar,” she tells him, “...and the trail for you.”

He does some quick mental math. The bar makes sense, of course it does. It seems like it garners enough business that she should be making far more than what Wolffe assumes the monthly payments would be. But the trail? A job advertisement, a dropbox, a hotel room, a storage locker… they were expenses, of course they were, but they shouldn’t have been that much.

“Where did you pick it up?” Cherise asks, breaking his train of thought. “The trail.”

Wolffe frowns. “Corsin.”

There’s nothing happy in the smile she gives him. He hates this — he hates seeing her upset. He hates being out of the loop. He hates that he feels guilty, but doesn’t know what for.

“When I was setting everything up, I didn’t know where you’d go, or what you’d do. If you’d be discharged from the Empire or if you needed to get some other way. You saw the database — it didn’t give me much to work with. Everything was up in the air, so I planned for a few different outcomes.

“I had a few other things up and running in case you escaped and were on the run. Researched prisons that I thought they would most likely send clones to, and paid for some signs and ads nearby. Made a tourism poster for Zeltros with a woman who had red skin and silver hair and had it up in a bunch of spaceports. Stuff I thought would be easy enough to grab your attention as long as you were keeping an eye out, in places where I thought you’d go if you were on the run. I stopped paying for all of that stuff when I found out you were discharged. Honestly, the discharge made it easy. Well, easier.

“Still, all I knew is that they dropped you off on Corsin, but I didn’t know if you’d stay there — actually, I was pretty sure you wouldn’t. So I paid for the job ad on Corsin, but also other places I thought you might go — Coruscant, Pamarthe, all the major planets between them and Corsin… a few others.”

Wolffe looks at the horizon. She thought he’d leave Corsin. Before the Empire, he would’ve thought so too — why would he stay where they kicked him off? Why wouldn’t he jump into action trying to figure things out? Why would he just… just let himself fade away?

“And then on Coruscant,” Cherise continues, “I got billboard ads near 79s and by my old apartment. I thought that’s how you’d catch on, to be honest.”

She starts to count on her fingers. “So the stuff in case you were on the run. A bunch of job ads. The billboards. There’s the comm frequency from the job ad, which I’ve been paying to keep active since I set it up on Zeltros. Then there’s the drop box on Gorse, the storage locker on Zeltros, plus extra for the owner’s ‘discretion.’ I think that’s all the recurring payments.

“There was the hotel room, which wasn’t too much in the grand scheme of things. But all of the tech equipment I needed to keep track of you, plus some extra I thought I might be able to use to actively seek you out, which obviously didn’t work. Then the rest went to the down payment and overhead for the bar.”

Cherise’s eyes zone out, running through the list in her head again to see if she’s missed anything. It doesn’t matter. Wolffe is already running hot with shame, staring at her with his mouth agape.

“Oh!” Cherise snaps her fingers. “The stuff in the storage locker. That’s what I forgot. Again, relatively it wasn’t that much, but…”

She glances back at Wolffe when he stops in his tracks. When she was rattling off all of her expenses, her tone had been casual. As though it wasn’t a big deal. Now, seeing the shock on Wolffe’s face, she angles her head away from him and her voice turns sheepish.

“The point is… there was more than just the stuff you found. Just in case. That’s why I needed to go into work today — so I could cancel everything.”

He’s lost count of the running total he was trying to keep in his head. It’s far more than he ever could have expected. And she did all of it for him.

“I have money coming in now,” Cherise says, wrapping her arms around herself. She’s elected to look anywhere except at Wolffe. “We could probably get at least a mattress in a few days — maybe a week if I’m not there to help Soda.” She laughs nervously. “Actually, I don’t know how much a mattress costs, so don’t quote me on that.”

Wolffe wets his lips and tries to say something, but no words come out. He’s still just staring.

Cherise bites her lip. “I mean, it’s not like I started from nothing. I had my savings and everything in the 79’s bank account. And I worked out all the expenses while I was still on Zeltros, so I knew I’d be able to get by.”

And that is what finally gives Wolffe the ability to speak again.

“Barely,” he says. “I saw how much food you have in the house.”

He’s immediately cursing himself for not being able to think of anything better to say, because Cherise’s eyes start to shine with tears and she drops her chin to her chest.

Wolffe closes the distance between them in two strides.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I just—”

He sighs out his frustration. What the hells is wrong with him? He places his hands softly on Cherise’s upper arms and leans in to press his forehead against hers.

“I’m just worried about you.”

He feels Cherise shake her head. “I’m fine.”

I’d beg to differ, Wolffe keeps to himself. She’s not eating enough. She’s working herself too hard. She’s not taking care of herself — and she’s doing it all for him. The fact that she’s been sacrificing her wellbeing just for him makes Wolffe sick to his fucking stomach. And he had the audacity to feel bitter that she went into work today.

“I don’t want you to be fine,” is what he tells her. “You deserve so much more.”

Cherise sniffs, and finally lets go of the hold on herself to fully lean into Wolffe.

“I’m really alright,” she tries. “And like I said, I’ll have money coming in now.”

Wolffe doesn’t know what to say, so he just bundles her up in his arms. All this time, she wasn’t just waiting for him. She didn’t just lay some breadcrumbs and hope he’d catch on. She was working to help him get here this whole time — even trying to track him down, though she had to know she wouldn’t find anything.

He’d been hurting her every single day since he got discharged.

How could he ever make this up to her?

He doesn’t know. But he knows he’ll be doing it every damn day for the rest of his life.

“And you can’t just judge me off of my kitchen,” Cherise says, muffled by Wolffe’s chest. “Renae feeds me.”

“Renae?”

“The one who gave us the glowrod.”

Ah. Right. “The one with the baby.”

Cherise pulls back and looks up at him with a frown.

Wolffe purses his lips. “She was staring at me from the window.”

Cherise snickers, making Wolffe smile. “Yeah, that sounds like her.”

They’re both almost knocked off their feet as Whisky runs toward them at top speed, carrying something in his mouth that smacks Wolffe in the thigh.

He curses under his breath and Cherise breaks their embrace to stare at her dog.

“Where did you even— doesn’t matter.” She plucks a dry, scraggly branch from Whisky’s mouth and motions with her hand. “Okay, go on then— go on!”

Whisky runs only a few steps before turning back to her, expectant.

She hands the stick to Wolffe. “Do you want to do the honours?”

Chuckling, Wolffe takes the stick and tosses it far over Whisky’s head. The dog bolts after it, pausing only to gnaw on the stick before racing back to drop the prize at Wolffe’s feet.

“Good luck getting out of this,” Cherise grins. Wolffe huffs, but dutifully throws the stick again. With his non-throwing hand, he intertwines his fingers with Cherise, and they set off again.

Whisky learns that Wolffe won’t stop to pick the stick up off the ground, and starts depositing it directly into his hand. It’s a nice little rhythm as they make their way toward the rocks, bit by bit. The sun still hangs in the sky, although there’s a sudden chill in the air as it crawls towards the horizon.

As lovely as it is, Wolffe is still processing what Cherise just told him while also trying to figure out everything he needs to tell her. He knows she can feel the growing tension between them from the way she chews on her lip — though whether she’s more concerned about what she needs to say or what she’s about to hear, he doesn’t know.

“I don’t know how to start,” Cherise says eventually. She’s still looking straight forward, her eyes almost glassy.

Wolffe squeezes her hand. “Me neither.”

She sighs, and Wolffe throws the stick twice more before she says anything.

“I guess it’s only fair if I go first. I feel like you know so much less about my story than I do about yours.”

Wolffe was thinking that, but wasn’t going to say anything. Secretly, he’s relieved she offered. Maybe he’ll get the answers to the questions that kept him awake all night.

“Thank you,” he says.

Cherise smiles at him and takes a big breath. “Okay. So…”

“Wait.”

She raises her eyebrows. “You can’t possibly be interrupting already.”

Wolffe brings them to a stop. His hand slips out of hers and moves to the side of her neck, palm against her warm skin. The wit drops from Cherise’s expression at the sign of tenderness, and the way she looks up at Wolffe with such concern in her eyes only makes his next words harder.

“I’m sorry about… about that last night,” he says quietly. “At your apartment. I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t have gotten so mad.”

He can see how the memory still stings her — the pain in her eyes makes Wolffe’s heart sink deep into his stomach. There’s a lot of things in his life that he regrets, but leaving her that night is at the top of the list. He couldn’t put his hurt aside, and for that, he’s spent the last year convinced that the last he’d ever see of Cherise’s face were the tears that he put there.

“It’s okay,” Cherise says. She blinks a few times. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what I was doing.”

Whisky is nudging the stick at Wolffe’s hand, but he ignores it for now.

“It wasn’t even that. I was…”

It’s too much to meet her eyes right now, so Wolffe sets his gaze on the horizon.

“I never thought I would make it through,” he tells her. “I never let myself think about a life with you, because… because I knew once I did, I’d be so angry that I couldn’t have it.”

Cherise wraps her hand around Wolffe’s wrist, still cradling her neck, and smooths her thumb over his pulse point.

He takes a shallow breath. “And I didn’t want to get your hopes up, because I knew it would just break your heart, whether I survived or not. And 79’s… it meant so much to me,” he says, voice dropping to a whisper. “Not just as our place, but as a place for the clones. Losing it felt like I’d lose you too.”

Tears sting the corners of his eyes and he drops his head forward. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Cherise says again. Even though she sounds more sure this time, Wolffe still opens his mouth to protest.

“It is,” she cuts him off. There’s certainty in her eyes, but it only lasts for a moment. “And, I mean… you were right. You were right about everything.”

He wants to protest, but he can’t. Because he was right. He was right about how the Republic wouldn’t just let the clones go after the war. He was right that Cherise needed to know how to shoot a blaster. He was right that nowhere, not even Coruscant, was safe anymore. And Cherise had been so, so wrong: she’d thought that she’d never be in any danger. She told Wolffe that she was safe, that she’d be fine. And then he came back to her trashed office at an abandoned 79’s with no clue what happened to her.

He was right, and for the first time in his life, he hates it.

“I wish I wasn’t,” he murmurs.

He leans down to press his forehead against Cherise’s before he can think about what he’s doing. He knows she’ll be able to feel the shudder in every breath.

“I didn’t sleep that night,” he admits.

Cherise whispers back to him. “Me neither.”

“I regret it every day.”

“We couldn’t have known.”

Wolffe sighs. “I suspected it could be the end of the war. But it doesn’t matter. I knew every time I left might be the last time I saw you. I told myself I’d never leave like that. And the one time I did…”

“I knew you loved me.”

He pulls back just enough to meet her eyes. “You got the message? I thought it didn’t go through.”

Cherise tilts her head. “What message?”

Wolffe exhales, shaking his head as he thinks back to that day, to the last message he got from Cherise.

I meant what I said. I’ll never just wait around, but I’ll always wait for you. I love you.

“I got yours just before we jumped,” he says. “I tried to send one back, but…”

Cherise cups his face in her hands, and Wolffe can see a glimpse of the fire he fell in love with.

“I knew you loved me anyway.”

Wolffe waits all of a heartbeat before kissing her.

It’s the goodbye kiss he never gave her. If he hadn’t been so angry, so cowardly, he would’ve left Coruscant with the lingering taste of her lips. He would’ve left her with a last memory of him that would warm her heart instead of break it.

Regret has been eating away at them for over a year now. Back then, they shouted past each other, both of them trying to force the other to realize how much they loved them. It’s no wonder it didn’t work. In this moment, Cherise’s soft lips against his own, with her hands on his face and his fingers gripping the fabric around her waist, Wolffe makes a silent promise that he will never, never, walk away like he did that night.

Her nose is cool against his skin as he deepens the kiss, another hint that the day will soon be ending. Wolffe doesn’t feel it. He’ll stay out here all night with her — as long as she wants to talk or listen or just kiss. But if Cherise is getting a chill, well, that’s a different story.

They ease out of the kiss only for Wolffe to press his lips to the tip of her nose.

“Cold?”

Her nose brushes back and forth against his with a shake of her head. “Not at all.”

She’s the one who starts them off again, but not before she tosses the stick for a whining Whisky.

“Now can I start?” she says with a grin.

Wolffe chuckles. “Yes.”

She squares her shoulders and looks into the distance, and Wolffe braces himself for the story he’s about to hear.

“It was only a couple days after you left…”

Fives muttering about mind control. The officers coming to the bar — threatening her, accusing her. She gets a little shy telling it, but Wolffe is nothing but proud to hear how she shut them down.

“Right after they left, I got a call from F— the Coruscant Guard.”

Wolffe doesn’t miss the way her breath catches in her throat. He also doesn’t miss the way a lump forms in his own.

“Fox?”

Cherise gives him a sideways glance. “Y-yeah. At least, I assume it was him. He said you asked him to keep an eye on me.”

Wolffe swallows hard. “I did.”

“He said… well, he implied that they were either going to throw me in jail or kill me. So he told me to run. Right then, right there. I didn’t even go home. And, because it was Fox… I did.”

His hand nearly crushes hers at the words “or kill me.”

Fox.

Fox, who had been losing his memory, who thought he was going crazy. Fox, who had tried to push Wolffe away the last few times they saw each other. Fox, stuck under the boot of the Chancellor and the fist of the Republic. With everything going on, he remembered the favour Wolffe had asked him so long ago.

Fox was forgetting who he was, but he remembered the one thing Wolffe asked him to do.

He saved her life.

Cherise reaches her free hand to wrap around Wolffe’s wrist. Warm. Skin on skin — here, alive, because of Fox.

“I thought you were…” Wolffe pauses to clear his throat. “They trashed the place looking for you. 79’s. I went back as soon as I could. I didn’t know…”

Her hands tighten. I’m here, the grip on his arm tells him. I’m safe.

“Did you find the note?”

Of course I did. I wasn’t leaving without a trace of you. I kept it so that I could have a piece of you. I still have it. I still have it. I’ll never throw it away.

“I did.”

Cherise smiles apologetically. “I know it wasn’t much help. I didn’t know what to say. I just wanted you to know I was alive. Even if I wasn’t scared that someone else would find the note first, I couldn’t leave anything helpful because I had no clue where I was going — just got on the first ship off of Coruscant.”

“Where did you end up?”

He gets the story about Taanab, of waiting for some kind of sign from Fox or Wolffe or anyone she could trust. She tells him about the day the clone troopers showed up, and he touches her scars when she recalls how she got them. His heart swells with pride — his blaster and self-defense lessons finally came in handy — but it’s soon to fade.

She tells him about Zeltros, about her conclusion that Fives must have been right — at least partially. She tells him about her weeks of poring over technical texts, schematics, models, theories. She tells him every step of her plan — and apologizes for making it so complicated. Wolffe, who swore he was going to needle her about that, finds that his frustrations haven’t lasted.

Except for one.

“So you never went to the farm,” he says, once Cherise gets to the part about setting up the bar.

Cherise frowns at him. “What? No.” She blinks. “Wait— did you go to the farms?”

“You left me the hiring promotion!” Wolffe huffs. His cheeks are starting to burn.

“Yeah, so you’d pass through here! You would’ve had hours to kill, probably even overnight. I figured you’d stop in while you waited.”

“Yeah, well, you figured wrong,” he says, but he’s smiling even before Cherise elbows him in the ribs.

“So, what, did you just wait at the repair shop?”

“Not exactly. I got on another transport.”

Cherise just stares at him. “The drivers don’t let people do that.”

“I didn’t want to wait,” he mutters. “I thought you were at the farm. So I paid some guy for his spot on a transport that was leaving.”

“And then?”

Wolffe pointedly reaches for the stick in Whisky’s mouth and tosses it as far as he can.

“...and then I broke into their system to see where you were. Got caught. Got kicked out. Only choice was to get back on the transport.”

“And that’s when you got to the bar?” Cherise snorts. “No wonder you were so grumpy.”

“Your fault,” he grumbles. “Stars, Cherise, we should’ve had you in covert ops meetings. You didn’t make it easy on me.”

Cherise hums out a laugh and steps in front of Wolffe, preening up at him.

“When have I ever?”

Wolffe can’t help but laugh along. She said the same thing on the recording she left for him on Gorse — but here, on Amaronthe, sun glowing on her face, she sounds so, so much better.

For the first time since Wolffe arrived, their kisses are playful. When he leans down enough, Cherise leaves quick kisses, one after the other, on his lips. She’s giggling in her chest as she does it, and soon she’s just kissing his smile.

Whisky barks for attention, and Cherise begrudgingly relents.

“So you’ve been here ever since?”

“Yep,” Cherise says. “But it took a while for people to— oh. Oh gods.”

Wolffe’s heart stops at the panicked look on Cherise’s face. He scans in the direction that she’s looking, trying to find whatever is scaring her. “What? What is it?”

“No, no— Wolffe,” she says, and she’s got the same look as she did earlier today just before she showed him the communications room. “Ahsoka. Ahsoka’s alive. I’m sorry, I completely forgot, I only talked to her the once—”

Oh.

Ahsoka.

Relief and anger battle for control of his emotions. Wolffe hasn’t spoken to Ahsoka since she left the Jedi— since she teamed up with Ventress and forced him to hunt her down. The betrayal burned hot for a long time, and while it was now only a simmer, the mention of her name threatens to stoke those fires again.

But he’s so fucking happy that she’s okay. His little sister. As angry as he might have been, and as hurt as he still might be, he would’ve jumped in front of a blaster for her. Clearly, though, she’d figured it out on her own — and that thought brings Wolffe back to the present.

“Wait. You talked to her?”

Cherise purses her lips. “She called me.”

Wolffe just raises his eyebrows and waits.

There’s that nervous look again. He’s not particularly fond of it.

“Well… I bought the comms equipment to check on your profile,” she says slowly, “and to try and search for you. But I might have been doing a little bit more than that…”

“Cherise.”

“Long story short—”

“Don’t,” Wolffe interrupts. “I want the long story.”

Cherise practically winces. For a few seconds, he can practically see the internal dialogue happening behind her eyes, trying to decide whether to push back or to let him in.

Her defeated look tells him which side wins.

“I started by searching for you,” she admits. “I thought that I could maybe get something helpful from comms above the planet, so I started tapping in. But I knew that I’d probably only get something helpful from Imperial chatter, so… I tapped into theirs too.”

Wolffe clenches his jaw. She did what?

Cherise takes advantage of his silence and starts spilling much faster. “I was hearing things, awful things, and I couldn’t just let them happen, so I— well, I started to step in and help out. And apparently some of the people I, um, helped were part of some kind of network, and it just so happens that Ahsoka is also a part of that network, and she tried to recruit me. To, uh, work against the Empire.”

Wolffe’s head spins. It takes Cherise whispering his name and trying to pry his fingers off of her hand for him to realize how tightly he’s been gripping her. She stretches out her hand as he clenches his hands into fists instead. He’s— he doesn’t know what he is. Angry. Scared. Shocked. Confused. Annoyed. Terrified.

He gets his next words out with great effort. “What did you say?”

“I said— well, I told Ahsoka no. I just… I couldn’t stop thinking about you. And she had broken your trust, and if you couldn’t trust her, then I couldn’t either.”

Wolffe doesn’t have time to absorb the statement before she’s continuing on.

“But then she sent Rex down — that’s how I know he’s alive, by the way, he came to Astilbe to try to convince me to join anyway. He gave me the blaster, too.”

He looks at her. Hard. That nervousness is still there. There’s still something to tell him.

“You said yes,” Wolffe says. It’s not a question.

Cherise’s throat bobs as she swallows. “Conditionally.”

“The condition?”

Cherise wrings her hands in front of her. She takes the chance when Whisky returns to kneel beside him and sink her fingers into his fur. She doesn’t look at Wolffe.

“I don’t know how you’re going to take it.”

“Tell me,” he urges quietly, as though part of him doesn’t want to hear what’s got her so anxious.

“It’s… Okay, you know Renae? The one with the baby? Her husband… well, I found out that he was imprisoned somewhere, and I told Rex I’d help them if they broke him out.”

She’s still not meeting his eyes. There’s something else. Her eyes shut tight, and Wolffe waits for the other shoe to drop.

“He— Cane, the husband, he— he’s a clone.”

Wolffe feels his whole face curl into a frown. It doesn’t make sense. He supposes a clone could have gotten married after the war, but the Empire didn’t start phasing out clones that quickly. Unless they somehow escaped during Order 66, or—

“He deserted.” The coldness in his tone surprises even himself, and Cherise winces again, but nods.

“You wouldn’t know him,” Cherise says, answering his next question. “It was right at the start of the war. Geonosis— his squad— he was alone. He came to Amaronthe, met Renae, and, well… their son is five years old.”

“That’s not possible.”

“It is,” she says with a humourless laugh. “Just barely, but it is.”

Wolffe tries to piece it all together in his mind. A deserter. Took his first chance to abandon the Republic and snatched it up. But—

“You said he was in prison.”

Cherise nods again. “The chip activated.”

Cold adrenaline surges through Wolffe’s blood at the mention of it, but he pushes it aside for now. “What happened?”

Cherise sighs, fully sitting down and still scritching Whisky behind the ears.

“He just… left. The chip activated, and he left. Found his way back to a division somewhere. When I found him in the system, he was… they sent him to Kashyyyk.”

Wolffe can’t help but grimace. Everyone knew that the Empire was trying to ruin Kashyyyk. Only the Imperial military knew the extent of the atrocities that were committed — that are still being committed.

“I know,” Cherise says, meeting his eyes with an expression that’s almost guilty. “His chip wore off eventually, and when he tried to escape, they threw him in prison. So… I told Rex that if he could bring Cane home, I would help Ahsoka’s network. I-I’m sorry. But you’d been discharged for months, and I was trying to find you, and I had no idea where you were, and Rex didn’t know anything, and—”

“Hey.” Wolffe snaps himself out of his paralysis to kneel down beside Cherise. He never saw this nervousness with Cherise back on Coruscant, and he wishes he could take it away from her. There’s practically nothing she could say that would turn him against her — how could there be, when he’s done worse?

He nudges her chin until she’s looking at him — those brown eyes, not quite shining with tears, but getting close to it.

“It’s okay.”

Cherise bites her lip but doesn’t look away.

“I wanted to find you more than anything,” she whispers. “I promise.”

Guilt sinks into his bones, but he ignores it for the moment. “I know.”

“And— Renae was pregnant.” She sees Wolffe’s raised eyebrow and continues. “I know, I know. The way she tells it, it happened the night before the Order came through.”

“They’ve got some timing.”

Cherise’s lips quirk into a small smile. “They do. But when I found Cane in the prison system, Renae was almost full-term, and she wanted to leave Amaronthe and find him herself, and… Cane needed to come home. So I made the deal, and Rex got him back. Renae gave birth just a few days later.”

Wolffe had thought the complicated part of Cherise’s story was over once they went through all of the steps she took to make the trail. This, though — deserters and Rex and spy networks — this is more than Wolffe was ready for.

“Congratulations,” Cherise says softly, “you’re an uncle. Twice over.”

Wolffe tries to smile back at her, but he really hasn’t processed this yet. He doesn’t know what to say, so he just joins Cherise in petting Whisky, who is thrilled to have two pairs of hands giving him attention.

“You don’t have to like him,” she says. “But I think you will, eventually.”

Wolffe prods at Whisky until the dog is splayed across the ground, raising his paws and trying his darndest to earn himself some belly rubs. Both Wolffe and Cherise oblige.

“They’re good people, Wolffe. Renae was there for me long before anyone else in town was. Mata — their son — calls me Auntie.”

“I heard,” Wolffe says, finally breaking his silence. When Cherise shoots him a confused look, he shrugs. “When you stopped for the glow rod. Kid’s not exactly quiet.”

Cherise laughs, and the sound makes Wolffe's heart ache for a time when he heard it more. “He is not. But he’s a good kid. Loves being a big brother. They named their daughter after me, actually. Tahi Cherise Nahokin. Oh, right— my name is Riza Beckett.”

Wolffe makes a displeased noise. “Nice to meet you.”

“Fugitive, remember?” Cherise says. “And you used t— you call me ‘Reeze’ as a nickname sometimes. That’s kind of why I picked ‘Riza.’ It’s close enough to be at least a little familiar. Made it easier for me, too.”

“...okay.” Wolffe concedes to her logic, but something else grabs hold of him. She was thinking of him when she picked her fake name. She picked something not just hoping that Wolffe would find her, but also thinking about how he’d react. She’s been thinking of him this whole damn time.

It’s not like he hasn’t been thinking of her too, of course he has. But he can’t deny that he cowered away from the thought of her at times. Too wrapped up in himself to really face the fact that she was waiting for him.

Cherise rubs at her eyes. “I think… I think that’s pretty much everything. I don’t know.” Her eyes flicker over to him and there’s that nervous expression again. “I’m sure I’ve missed a lot. I’m not trying to keep anything from you, or—”

Wolffe kisses her. He didn’t do this often, cutting her off with a kiss. It usually just earned him a huff. But he needs to stop her from going down that road again, the one that ended with her convinced Wolffe would be mad at her. The only thing, the only thing, that he could possibly be mad about is the fact that she’s playing with fire by working against the Empire. It’s not even anger, really. It’s fear. What she’s doing is dangerous, and he needs her safe — but that’s a conversation to have later. Now, she’s curling into him, and Wolffe is wrapping his arms around her in what he hopes is a reassuring gesture. Their kisses are slow, growing softer and softer until they’re just barely kisses at all.

He reaches for her cheek and curls his fingers into the hair at the back of her head.

“Why do you keep thinking I’m going to be mad?”

Cherise tries to duck her head, but Wolffe presses his forehead to hers and keeps her where she is.

“I don’t know,” she whispers. “I just don’t want you to be.”

“I’m not,” he says, firm but full of love. “I’m not mad. And I’m not going to be mad. If anyone has the right to be mad, it’s you. I… I should have looked for you sooner.”

Cherise’s voice is smaller than he’s ever heard it.

“...why didn’t you?”

Wolffe’s throat tightens. He kisses her forehead before pulling away and running a hand through his hair.

“Guess it’s my turn, huh.” It’s an attempt at humour, but neither of them smile.

He leans back on his heels, knees aching from kneeling for so long.

“Can we keep walking?”

To his relief, Cherise nods. He’s not sure he could just sit here and tell her everything. Besides, they’re nearly at the base of the rocks.

He pushes himself to his feet. Not bothering to brush the dirt off his knees, he extends a hand to Cherise and is silently relieved when she takes it.

“I guess I should start with the Order.” Every cell in Wolffe’s body is begging him not to live through that again, but he knows Cherise deserves answers.

She doesn’t interrupt him once. Wolffe just goes — he tells her about Cato Neimoidia and everything that’s happened since then, hardly stopping for breath. He tries to describe how the chip felt — that strange voice in the back of his head, those strange compulsions that he knows he could have resisted if he just tried hard enough. He tells her about finally waking up, and about the shame, the guilt, the disgust with himself… and he tells her how he got himself stuck in a cycle that only broke because he almost died. He expects Cherise to interrupt and berate him for it, but while he can see the frustration and pain in her eyes, she lets him keep going. Then he gets to the good parts: Daisy, Darren, and the kindness they showed him.

“I thought I woke up when I got the chip out,” he says. “But Daisy and Darren… they’re the ones that really woke me up. I started to feel like myself again.

“That’s when I decided to look for you. Knew I’d need credits, so I looked at the job boards again. As soon as I saw yours, I knew it was you. Commed the frequency you left, and… well. Now I’m here.”

They’ve reached the edge of the rocks now, and Cherise silently starts to climb over boulders and up the incline. Whisky, who seems to have run himself down, trots after her. Wolffe follows, just as silent, until Cherise sits down on a little outcropping. Whisky is quick to lie down next to her and rest his hand in her lap. The way she immediately pets his head without even looking tells Wolffe that they must sit like this often. It means Wolffe has to climb up a little higher to come around to Cherise’s other side, but when he does, her free hand is waiting for his.

Wolffe sits down beside her, lacing his fingers with hers, and looks out at the scene in front of him. They’ve covered a lot more ground than he thought. The little bundle of trees, houses, and buildings that makes up Astilbe is nestled close to the horizon. The sun is just starting to set, the blue just barely turning to pink. There are no transports in sight, no animals other than the one in Cherise’s lap — nothing but peace in the world.

Cherise tilts her head until it falls against Wolffe’s shoulder. Taking a chance, he pulls his hand away and wraps his arm around her instead. She waits, palm-up, for his free hand to take hers.

They both speak at the same time.

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you—”

A beat passes.

“For what?” Wolffe asks. He doesn’t deserve thanks, of all things.

“Thank you for finding me,” Cherise says.

“I should’ve gotten here so much sooner,” he says. “I should’ve left the Empire earlier. I shouldn’t’ve picked up the first job I saw. I should—”

“You got here right on time.”

Cherise looks up at him, quiet until he looks back. There’s no anger in her face — no disappointment, no frustration, no impatience.

Wolffe tries to make his mouth form words, but he can’t.

“That little girl needed you,” Cherise says. “You were there at the exact time she needed you. If you left Corsin right away, you wouldn’t have been there for her. You got here right on time.”

And that’s all it takes for Wolffe to start crying.

Cherise wraps her arms around him the second she realizes he’s about to cry.

It’s not an expression she’s seen often — if ever. Wolffe liked to save most of his emotions for the few people that he trusted, but even then, Cherise only ever saw him cry when they were alone together. He wanted the tears to be obscured in the darkness of her bedroom right before they fell asleep.

But even though she may never have seen this expression, even though she could only imagine his face for over a year, she knows. The hasty pursing of his lips, the twitch in his cheek, the blink that’s just a millisecond too long, and she knows.

Wolffe resists neither her touch nor his tears. The sobs come out of nowhere, harsh and sharp enough to make his shoulders shake. All she can do is run her fingers through his hair and let it happen.

But the sound of Wolffe’s choked breaths are enough to break her heart all over again, and she feels tears welling in her own eyes. Cherise finds herself wishing she could take some of his pain, to share the burden between them, but she can’t.

Not only that, but her heart is still raw from Wolffe’s story.

She knew it was going to be bad. He’d given her a glimpse last night, but it still didn’t prepare her for everything she just heard. She aches for him: he’s bearing guilt for that which he bears no blame. Yes, he said that the chip hadn’t fully taken control of him, but she’s heard enough from Cane and Rex to know not to underestimate how it ripped away their autonomy. Cherise knows that if Wolffe had been fully himself, he wouldn’t have left Cato Neimoidia alone. He wouldn’t have stayed with the Empire as long as he did. He wouldn’t have done the things that made him pull away from her last night.

It stung that he didn’t look for her earlier — that all of her pain and heartache and doubt over the last six months could have been avoided had he just taken one extra step — but it doesn’t linger. With Wolffe crying in her arms, there’s nothing in her heart that wants to hold onto that hurt.

He had been alone, dealing with trauma, addiction, and grief beyond measure. He didn’t have a Lucy to escort him away, or an Aubrey to let him rest, or a Wynne to support his next steps. He didn’t have a Vesa or Renae or Nel. He didn’t have an Astilbe. Cherise couldn’t have gotten here without the kindness of strangers and support from her new community — how could she possibly be bitter when Wolffe hadn’t had anyone?

And she meant what she said: Daisy needed Wolffe. She may have stopped the debris from crushing them, but Wolffe gave her a new life.

But there’s more to it than that. There’s no doubt in her mind that Daisy and Darren saved him. He was the one who intervened, but they saved him. Their kindness was all he needed to come back to himself.

So yes, it still hurts. The blend of disappointment, heartbreak, and fear that accompanied her darkest moments for the last six months is fading, but not quite gone. But in the end, his reasons for taking so long to find her are irrelevant. Their paths and stories are complicated, but it comes down to the simplest thing, one that Nel told her months ago:

“When someone loves you, they will come back.”

He loves her. He came back to her. And that’s all that matters.

Cherise runs her fingers through his hair, but otherwise she just lets him cry. There’s nothing she could say right now that would take this pain away… and even if she could, it’s clear that he needs to feel this. It’s different than earlier today when she found him in the communications room. Then, his whole demeanour both screamed and sparked panic: curled up on the floor, shaking, yanking at his hair, barely breathing. Her heart fell right through the concrete floor when she saw him like that, and all she could think was he can’t die now. I just got him back.

Now, as the sobs begin to slow and Wolffe’s breathing evens out a little, Cherise knows that Wolffe is okay — overcome with loss and guilt, yes, but he’s okay. Hope swells in her that he feels safe in her arms even after all this time.

“Sorry,” he mutters, wiping his face and sitting up a bit. “I don’t— I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

She presses a kiss to his temple. “Nothing to apologize for.”

After a few breaths, Wolffe pulls away enough to meet her eyes. He takes Cherise’s hand, still stroking his hair, and brings it to his lips.

“Don’t know what I did to deserve you,” he says with a half-smile, and then he’s kissing her.

The beard is still a new sensation, but kissing him feels exactly how it used to: all-consuming, dizzying, and so damn full of love.

The first time she kissed him, it had been a surrender. She gave up on guarding her heart and pretending that she wasn’t already in love with him. She surrendered into Wolffe’s kiss that day, knowing that her soul was laid bare for him. When he kissed her back, it felt like a promise to treasure that vulnerability as the gift that it was — a promise that his soul was just as bare to her.

There’s always a hint of that surrender, that promise, in every kiss they share. Now, sitting on the cliffs with no secrets between them, Cherise surrenders herself once again.

Wolffe has one hand on her cheek and the other resting on the back of her head, not coaxing her to deepen the kiss — she does that all on her own. He tastes like salt and the Amaronthe breeze and him, of her two worlds colliding, and she can’t get enough. Their kisses are slow but desperate, and Cherise could sit here for hours just like this—

—if it weren’t for the setting sun and the weight of Whisky numbing her legs.

The dog whines just as the wind sends a shiver through Cherise’s body. Wolffe, attentive as always, eases them out of the kiss with a gentleness that makes Cherise’s heart sing.

But before he lets go of this moment, he rests his forehead against hers. His words are just loud enough for her to hear.

“I thought about you every single day. I dreamt of you. Of us.” He exhales hard. “You never gave up on me.”

“I almost did.”

The whisper is out before she can think about her words. She feels Wolffe stiffen slightly, and finally pulls her head away and wills her brain to work.

“I didn’t mean it like that. I was just…”

Cherise lets out a shaky breath and closes her eyes.

“It hurt to see Renae and Cane together,” she says. “It was too much at first. And I was so tired.”

Wolffe hears the weariness in her tone, and the flash of guilt starts to ebb away. When Cherise opens her eyes again, there’s nothing but care in Wolffe’s expression.

“I wouldn’t have made it on my own,” she says. “The people here are good people. They take care of me. They want to help.”

Wolffe’s face curls into a scowl, and Cherise only catches the words “take care” when he grumbles to himself.

It’s such a familiar sight that Cherise can’t help but laugh. “What was that?”

He wraps his arm around her and tucks her into his side. From the way he nuzzles his cheek against the top of her head, Cherise knows that his lips have pulled into a pout.

“They could be doing better. You’re not eating enough,” he grumbles.

Cherise grins. “I said they want to help. Never said I was great at asking for it.”

“Really?”

His sarcasm earns him a pinch to the arm, and Wolffe makes an indignant noise.

“Oh, shush,” Cherise says, trying to delicately extricate herself both from the man enveloping her torso and the sleeping dog draped on her thighs.

Wolffe takes the hint; Whisky does not.

By the time Cherise has nudged Whisky enough for him to wake up and stretch, Wolffe is already standing with a hand extended to her. He pulls her up easily, and doesn’t let go of her hand once she’s on her feet.

“It’ll be easier now, right?” he asks. The grumbling has mostly been replaced with softness, softness that seems to be kept only for Cherise. “The bar will bring in credits. You’ll have more than enough to eat.”

Cherise squeezes his hand. “I think we both will.” Her free hand slides up his side and splays over his ribs, missing the soft layers of fat and muscle that used to cover his torso. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

Wolffe shrugs. “‘S better than it was. Daisy and Darren—”

He cuts himself off. “I should let them know I found you. They gave me a comm.”

“Encryptor?”

“Yeah. Looks old, though.”

“You can use one of mine.”

Wolffe raises an eyebrow at the implication that Cherise has multiple encryptors.

“Besides,” she continues, “we need to head back anyway. Sun’s starting to set, and the temperature will drop as soon as it’s gone. And if Whisky gets too comfortable again, you’re going to have to carry him.”

She spurs the dog forward and starts down the rocks.

“I’m going to have to carry him?” Wolffe asks.

Cherise tosses a grin over her shoulder. “You’d say no to two pairs of puppy dog eyes?”

Wolffe huffs, but there’s a hint of a smile on his face.

Once they reach the ground again, Wolffe catches Cherise’s arm. His eyes search her face, brown and blue-white flitting over her features for something unknowable.

“We’re okay?” he asks quietly.

Cherise reaches up on her tiptoes to kiss his forehead. “Of course we are.”

He strokes her cheek with one knuckle. “I wouldn’t blame you.”

All teasing is gone from his voice now, and Cherise squares herself to face him directly. She puts her hands on his shoulders.

“We both had our doubts. We both had struggles. And we both had people who helped us through.”

Wolffe bites his lip, and Cherise knows he wants to believe it.

She moves a half-step closer to him. When she speaks, her voice is softer than before, but is still weighty enough to hold the truth.

“I’ve already forgiven you for everything you could’ve done, Wolffe. What’s done is done. We’re here now. Leave that guilt behind.” Her hands hold him a little bit tighter. “Let me love you.”

And the way he kisses her tells her that he wants her to love her just as much.

Whisky uses the last of his energy to jump up on the couch.

About halfway between the escarpment and Astilbe, the dog had started to slow down. He was no longer interested in running through the open expanse of land, and when he slumped to a halt, Wolffe wondered if he really would have to carry him the rest of the way. Luckily, a few gulps of water was all Whisky needed to continue on, and Wolffe was off the hook.

Cherise laughs when Whisky collapses in a soft whump on the cushion. She flicks the lights on, kicks her boots off, then goes to stroke the dog’s head and neck.

“He is conked,” she calls back at Wolffe. “I’ve never seen him like this. We might have to do that more often.”

Wolffe smiles at her. “Anytime.”

And he means it.

He had expected it to take a while before he and Cherise fully relaxed around each other — so much time apart, so many changes in that time. Throughout their entire conversation tonight, Wolffe felt like he was holding his breath. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But as soon as they started walking back, something shifted. With everything out in the open now, Cherise had no lingering fear that Wolffe would be upset with her. Likewise, Wolffe’s guilt for taking so long had subsided, her words repeating over and over in his mind: let me love you.

They had walked hand in hand across the unfamiliar space, but it all just felt natural. If he had closed his eyes, he could’ve convinced himself that nothing had changed between them. She laughed the same laugh and rolled her eyes like she always had. He couldn’t stop the smirks that have been so scarce on his lips lately, nor the way he teased her.

Seeing her again… it was everything he imagined it would be like.

He would let her love him. And he would love her right back.

In the fresher, Wolffe rinses the dust and sweat from his face. Belatedly, he realizes his shirt is probably filthy, and pulls it over his head.

“I was— oh.”

Wolffe turns, shirt in his hands, to find Cherise frozen in the doorway. Her eyes are wide, but the blush darkening her cheeks tells Wolffe that she’s more than just surprised.

It’s her first good look at him. Last night was all dim lights and rushed touches, and even when he was cleaning her up, she was far too tired to keep her eyes open for long. Now, the way she stares at his chest fills him with a familiar pride.

He hums out a laugh and starts to fold his shirt. He sets it on the counter, and when he turns around again, Cherise shakes off her stunned expression and closes the gap between them. Her hands find his chest — skin on skin, warmth on warmth. The bitter chill of the night air is forgotten as her touch warms him from the inside out.

She looks up at him with searching eyes. When he softens his gaze, he barely catches a glimpse of a smile before her lips meet his.

Their kisses last night were desperate; their kisses earlier today were coloured by worry. With no secrets left between them and no reason to rush, Wolffe lets himself fully melt into Cherise’s lips.

Her hands smooth up and down his chest — not cataloguing the changes in his body, just feeling him. Touching him because she wants to, and because she can.

She runs her hands over his shoulders, his back, his neck, all while pressing soft lips against his own. With one hand, she runs her fingers through his beard, and he wants to ask her if she likes how it feels… but he stops himself.

They’ve done enough talking.

Wolffe coaxes Cherise down from her tiptoes and presses his chest flush against hers. She left her jacket downstairs, and Wolffe takes full advantage of the skin she’s bearing to him. He places his hands over hers, which have settled on his hips, and slowly makes his way up her bare arms. When he reaches her shoulders, she shivers against him, and he slides his hands under the straps of her bra and tank top. When his thumbs trace along the lines of her collarbone, she sighs the sweetest noise into his mouth, and Wolffe wants more.

Cherise brings Wolffe with her as she walks backward into the bedroom. He fumbles to close the door behind them, and Cherise takes the opportunity to free Wolffe’s hair from its tie and sink her fingers into the loose curls. He doesn’t need to wonder if she likes his hair like this — her hands don’t leave it as he finally breaks away from her lips and trails kisses down to her neck.

Her hips roll into his as she tilts her head, and Wolffe can’t help but suck gently at her pulse point. When he feels her nails dragging across his scalp, he grazes his teeth against her skin and sucks just a little harder.

She stumbles backwards, but the way she pulls him along is still unhurried. She sits on the edge of the bed, and when her hands leave Wolffe’s hair, he finally pulls his lips away from her skin. He wants to be the one to undress her.

Tonight, they don’t yank each other’s clothes out of the way. Wolffe’s hands replace Cherise’s at the hem of her tank top and peels the fabric up her torso and over her head. He slips two fingers under each bra strap in a silent question. Cherise nods, and Wolffe takes the time to nudge each strap off of her shoulders before reaching around to the clasp. The bra drops to the floor, and Wolffe’s touches are no longer inhibited by clothing.

With one hand on her shoulder and the other cradling the back of her head, he lays her down on the bed and steps between her open thighs. Breath catches in Cherise’s throat, but there’s no impatience in her gaze. Last night was sudden, impulsive; it was a surge of adrenaline and desire shared between them. Tonight, neither of them are in a hurry.

And Wolffe is ready to take his time with her.

He plants his palms on either side of Cherise’s head and kisses her. It’s as soft and sweet as the ones before, but they’re both deepening the kiss now. Cherise’s lips are parted further than before and Wolffe dips his tongue into her eager mouth. She tries to suck on his bottom lip, but he’s already moving down, down, down.

Down her neck, and her hands find his hair again. Down her shoulder, and his chest brushes against her bare nipples with enough friction to make her shudder. Down her arm, covered in scars, trying to cover every remnant of her pain with new memories of his lips and tongue. Cherise’s chest rises and falls with her deepening breaths, and Wolffe wants to indulge her in the pleasure she deserves, but he doesn’t stop his ministrations.

He can be patient. They have all the time in the world now, so he takes his time working all the way back up her arm only to start down her chest.

He’s trailing kisses down the valley between her breasts, along her stomach, and directly to the old scars crossing her waist. During the war, he did this so many times that Cherise started to get huffy about it, but now she sighs at the familiar gesture. A broken beer bottle was all it took — and Cherise’s decision to step into a fight — and Wolffe would never forget the way she flinched away from his hand when he unknowingly grabbed the angry wound.

He wants to replace all of her pain with pleasure. When she thinks about these scars, he wants her first thought to be about how his tongue sends shivers across her whole body, how his kisses and gentle drag of teeth do nothing except stoke the fire in her belly.

Or how her breathless noises makes Wolffe harden and grind into the bed.

Wolffe adjusts so that he’s propped up on one elbow, his other hand settling on Cherise’s hip. She arches her back at the touch, and he can’t resist her tits any longer.

Cherise lets out a ragged sigh when he closes his lips around her nipple, and he chases the reaction by circling the nub with his tongue. Her hands sink deeper into his hair until she’s holding him there, unwilling to let this feeling go just yet. He can practically hear her voice whimpering please, please, please with her actions alone.

Wolffe couldn’t be happier to continue.

They didn’t get this last night. They were too focused below the belt for him to give her breasts the proper attention they deserve. She’s so responsive — every movement of his tongue against her, every slight change in pressure as he sucks and releases the sensitive skin has her squirming and tugging on his hair.

Wolffe shifts his head just enough to move away from her nipple. Cherise’s hands tighten in his hair in protest, but when he sucks at her skin she’s more than happy to let him. Hickeys slowly bloom across Cherise’s tits at Wolffe’s whim until her gasps and sighs are too tempting to resist.

The next kisses are more intense, but no less sensual than before, and pure desire starts to pump through Wolffe’s veins. He breaks away only to unfasten and pull off her pants, smirking when Cherise pushes her panties down with them.

Needy. Impatient. Desperate.

When her legs are free, Wolffe tries to slide her further up the bed so he can taste her again, but Cherise is already working to rid him of his remaining clothes.

His mouth waters at the thought of her arousal on his tongue, but he recognizes the glint in her eye, and he can’t resist it.

Fuck me.

He doesn’t know how he’ll deny her anything ever again.

Cherise fully lies down on the bed — and how the fuck did he ever get so lucky?

Her cheeks and chest are flushed such a deep red that her white freckles stick out like stars in the night sky. Inky purple-black marks — ones that he put there — are scattered across her breasts. She spreads her legs just enough for Wolffe to see how she glistens for him, and he’s had enough of just looking.

Without a word, Wolffe climbs onto the bed and cages Cherise under him. He’s met with her hands pulling him against her mouth in a deliciously sloppy kiss. She takes Wolffe’s bottom lip between teeth and sucks, harder this time. Wolffe moans into her mouth, and then her tongue slides against his and their chests and pressed together and Wolffe will never get enough of this.

No, they don’t need words — but that doesn’t stop them from filling the room with broken moans and sharp gasps as the heat builds between them.

Wolffe’s cock is hanging hard and heavy between his legs, but he doesn’t notice the ache until he brushes against Cherise’s inner thigh. She meets his groan with her own whine, and they both immediately adjust their bodies until Wolffe’s cock is close enough to Cherise’s cunt that he’s sure he can feel the waves of heat radiating from her.

He drags the head of his cock through her slick folds and fights the urge to jerk his hips into her. It would be so easy to fill her up in a single thrust right now — her pussy is practically dripping with arousal, so much so that he wants to abandon his plans and lick the nectar right from the source.

But Cherise wants his cock, and he’s in no position to fight back.

He focuses on the whimpers Cherise is making, how he wants to draw this out and hear all the beautiful noises meant only for him.

Cherise holds her breath when he notches himself at her entrance, and Wolffe lets out a ragged sigh as he finally starts to press himself inside her.

It’s agonizingly slow, but that’s what he wants. He wants her to feel every single inch of him as he fills her up. He wants to feel her cunt swallow his cock bit by bit, feel her sopping wet arousal coat him as he presses against her walls.

Her eyes are half-lidded and her lips are parted as she watches Wolffe push himself deeper into her. Her head falls back against the pillow, and Wolffe has to pause his movement to place a hand on her chest.

Breathe, he urges silently. Her chest falls with a sharp exhale as her breathing starts again, and Wolffe plants his hand back on the bed.

He has to pause once when he’s almost there — just to slide out a little and make the glide easier on her. Finally, blessedly, his hips meet Cherise’s skin, and fuck she feels like heaven.

If this was the first time inside her after so long, he’s sure he would have spilled himself inside her by now. He stays there, letting them both adjust, flinching when Cherise clenches around him.

Last night, he held her up while he fucked her. He couldn’t wait a second longer — he needed to be inside her right then and there, and the way she begged him had him acting on pure instinct. He took all of her weight while thrusting up into her, and while it was fucking incredible, he couldn’t manage to get his cock deep enough.

Now, though, he gets to fill her.

Cherise bites her lip, her eyes fluttered closed, as she takes his length. Wolffe indulges himself by leaning down to kiss that beautiful little pout that asks for more, please, more. He rolls his hips forward to prevent himself from slipping out even a little bit. She keens at the movement deep inside her and Wolffe swallows the noise. Her nails are digging into his shoulders and Wolffe knows neither of them can wait any longer.

He keeps his eyes on Cherise as he rocks his hips back, then fills her with one long thrust.

Her eyes snap open and they both sigh in unison — relief, sweet relief as Wolffe starts a slow but even pace. It’s a near-torturous drag of his cock in and out of her heat. Gradual, patient, indulgent, even though they both know they’ll need more to reach their peaks. But this way, he can make sure he’s giving her his full length every single time he rolls his hips. This way, he can watch the bliss that overtakes her every single time he bottoms out against her.

Wolffe moves a little faster, and they’re both lost to each other.

There’s still no need to speak. They still know exactly what each other’s sounds mean. Wolffe knows which of Cherise’s wordless breaths mean “please” and “yes” and “don’t stop,” and he knows Cherise can distinguish the “so good” and “fuck” and “I love you” within his soft groans.

There are lower, quieter noises too: sounds that ask “like this?” or “more?” or “harder?” without the need for language. Cherise’s higher noises, shaky as they may be, are clear as day: “yes, yes, yes, yes.”

All of these sounds are panted and whispered into each other’s mouths, lips parted against each other, tasting their breath and feeling the vibrations on their tongues.

It’s a wordless symphony, but it’s anything but silent.

Wolffe settles into a delicious pace — slow enough that he can keep his face just above hers, but fast enough to build the heat that’s rising in both of their bodies. He could live just off of the way her cunt swallows him over and over again, but that’s far from the only place he feels her.

A tongue sweeping over a lip; a barely-there kiss planted on the corner of a mouth; harmonies of “mmmf,” “ah, ah, ah…” “mhmm” and a hundred other nonsense sounds that make complete sense to both of them. The closest they can get to speaking is the bare beginnings of words: “Wo—” and “cya—” and “pl—” and “Che—”, all of them cut off by a gasp or a sigh or a kiss.

She’s clinging to him, and as his arms start to shake, he lets her pull him down. He can’t quite thrust into her like this, but it doesn’t matter — she just wraps her legs around his waist and rocks herself into him.

She fucks herself on him with shallow grinds, and fuck if that doesn’t make Wolffe’s cock impossibly harder. Her movements are fueled by the debauched chase for pleasure, and Wolffe’s heart soars knowing that he’s fucked any coherent thoughts out of her brain and left her with heady, carnal need.

He leans in, barely propped up on his elbows, and latches onto her neck with a filthy kiss. Cherise preens when he sucks at her skin, trying to move faster against him, and Wolffe takes it as free reign to make this mark as deep and dark as possible. He lavishes her neck with greedy kisses and love bites that he’s sure will match the ones on her chest, and he only stops when she cries out in pleasure-pain and grabs at the pillow under her head.

Seamlessly, he takes it from her hands and slides it under her hips just as she lifts them off the bed.

Wolffe pushes himself back up and starts fucking her again, and the change in angle has Cherise making the most gorgeous noises high in the back of her throat with every thrust. Her lifted hips means Wolffe can fuck down into her — his cock somehow even deeper inside her and Wolffe swears he’s nudging her cervix every time he bottoms out. She’s always loved it like this, and it’s clear that hasn’t changed a bit.

He’s been watching her reactions this whole time, but when Cherise’s breaths start coming in fits and starts — alternating between sharp gasps and breath caught in her throat — he knows it’s time to pay even closer attention. It’s not often she gets there just from Wolffe’s cock, without fingers or a toy against her clit, and the thought has Wolffe biting down on his lip to stop himself from getting carried away.

Her body starts to tense beneath him and Wolffe surges down to catch her lips in a half-kiss as she comes. Her stomach and legs and ass tighten and spasm with her orgasm, and Wolffe can feel her trying to kiss him, but she can’t stop the sweetest fucking sounds from falling from her parted lips. Her thighs squeeze his waist and her nails leave long scratches down his back, but Wolffe puts all his energy into keeping his exact pace and fucking her all the way through her orgasm.

Her cunt is still clenching around his cock when her lips fully find his. Wolffe pulls back to catch his breath — or try to. He can feel a bead of sweat dripping down his neck and when Cherise catches it on her tongue, when she licks a stripe up the side of his throat, Wolffe finally abandons his restraint.

He coaxes her down again, pushing himself up enough to grip her hip with one hand as his body chases its pleasure deep within her pussy. She’s hot and wet and tight and perfect around his cock, her hands are in his hair and she’s staring up at him with those eyes—

Wolffe’s hurtling towards the edge of the precipice within seconds. He can’t even hold his head up anymore as he comes hard inside Cherise. A hand guides his forehead to rest against hers as he slams his cock into her one final time. She’s moaning alongside him as he grinds into her, trying even now to get deeper, deeper, to pulse inside of her as far in as possible, to fill her up with his cum and keep it there.

When his orgasm finally recedes, Wolffe has nowhere to collapse except right on top of Cherise. She hums in satisfaction at the weight of him on top of her — thank gods, because he’s not sure he’ll be able to move for a while.

His cock slips out, but the feeling is mitigated by the gentle fingers on his back and the kisses to his shoulder. Cherise keeps their sweaty bodies pressed together while they both try to recover from the sheer intensity of the moment.

Convinced that she can’t breathe beneath him, Wolffe tries to fit on the thin strip of bed between Cherise and the wall, but she wraps him in a bear hug and refuses to let go. He doesn’t mind a single bit. He’ll happily wait for a new bed if it means he gets to have this.

But Cherise has been awake for a lot longer than Wolffe, and it’s not long before he can no longer feel her fingers drawing patterns on his back. He shifts just enough so that he can brush his lips against her cheek, then settles so he’s only half lying on top of her.

Just before her breathing evens out, Wolffe hears three whispered words.

He doesn’t think twice before saying them back.

map of astilbe is posted here!

header art by @purgetrooperfox

beta and hype duties by @spacerocksarethebestrocks and @baba-fett

taglist:

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