“ my name’s _____, by the way ”
“Myname’s Eleksha, by the way.”
Ahidden part of her instantly empties, panic overflowing where safetyand code-names previously took place. -Forgetyour name, your family, yourself. You are Cipher Five, and you areours.-
It’snot even her real name. Her full Chiss name is kept somewhere deep inthe secret Imperial Archives, next to her past and all the otherthings she left behind.
Shecan hear the silence, taste it, bitter on her tongue.
Balmorrais never really quiet, but they found a safe spot, an abandonedbunker, half-dug in the ground, half kept up by durasteel planches.
Themission was a disaster. It all went to shit so quickly, the Jediattack, the rebels, the explosions. She still has blood and dirt andsweat muddying her cooling skin, still feels the ghost of the fireand of the flashes, burning her retinas every time she blinks. Theysucceeded, but she knows that, for a long moment, they were bothready to die and would have done so without caring for a glance back.
Theirsurvival came unexpected.
Theyhad looked each other in the eyes, battered and hurt, the dust causedby the explosion still floating in electric clouds around and overthem, their ears ringing, their hearts stopping.
Hiseyes crazed, a mirror, she is certain, of her own. He glances to thebunker’s opening, a few feet further, unscathed by the explosion, andthen back at her. They rise together, instinctively comm theirWatcher, assuring the success of their mission and making up areception issue.
Theyare kissing as soon as the line goes down.
Nowshe dares. Aspiring, in the aftermath of the frenzied adrenaline rushthat took them, to be called something else than “Cipher Five”.-Namescome with an identity, and she has none. But she can dream. Aftersurviving that,she can dream.-
Theyare still mostly clothed, survival and training still dictating therules despite the passion. The environment is hostile, and her nakedback wouldn’t have appreciated coming into contact with the rustingconsole she had lied on to facilitate him, anyway.
Helies beside her, breathing so quietly she can’t hear him. -Spytraining. More machine than living creatures. Trained to be able tolook like the perfect little corpses they are in the inside.-
Shelooks at the ceiling and lets the softening beating of her heartcirculate in her whole body, relaxing her strained muscles, lettingher enjoy the life that still breath in her.
Sheturns towards him, surprised. She meets deep beautiful eyes, colour of the dawn.
Hebrushes, almost hesitantly -shecan tell-,her naked arm with his soft black fingers. He trails them down untiltheir hands meet. It’s not hand-holding, nor a handshake, because ofhow the hands are the wrong ones and of how they’re lying next toeach other, but it’s a bit of both. A bit of “human” contact.