#viios

[fortnightart]

@hoiist‘s vii is a lovely lady who deserves the most relaxing vacation

[hydrospanners]

every doubt we had

"the force flows through all things. it surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together."

it's been years since he last saw his wife, but when doc starts experiencing strange sensations and having odd dreams, he knows it's the force bringing them together somehow. but trapped on ossus with no communications and no way out, seeing her again may bring as much pain as it does joy. SWTOR. Established F!Jedi Knight x Doc. Angst. Hurt/Comfort. 2400 words. AO3.

written as a gift for @hoiist featuring her knight, viios.

At first, he thinks it’s a cramp. Doc wakes from sleep with a clenched jaw, an echo of pain shooting up his thigh, and thinks maybe he needs to lay off the energy pudding for a while.

When it happens again, he figures it’s time to accept he’s not as young as he used to be. He figures he might need to work more muscles than the ones he’s building for the extremely athletic sex he hopes to have with his wife again some day soon.

Time waits for no man, he figures, so he makes changes. He eats whole foods, straight from the pilgrims’ fields, and he stretches with the Junior Jedi at dawn. He cuts back on the caf, drinks more water. He spends some quality time with his bunk. And after a few weeks, he thinks the problem is solved. He might not be immune to the effects of age, but he won’t be crippled by them either.

Then it happens again.

It happens again and it’s worse than before, liquid fire pouring through his veins that leaves him gasping for breath when he jerks awake. Awake, but blinking up at a ceiling that isn’t his, hearing the low murmur of voices he doesn’t recognize, with the feel of sheets softer than anything the Jedi have against his skin. Awake, but somewhere else. Somewhere different.

Someone different?

Doc drops back into his quiet, scratchy reality with no warning, and he barely has time to grab the bin before the wretching starts.

It goes on for a long time. Over and over and over until his muscles ache and his vision blurs and his throat’s scraped raw from the acid. Until he’s collapsed on the floor of his bunk, sweating and exhausted with nothing left to heave and echoes of a burning pain still pulsing through his leg.

He pings Nadia from the floor, too tired to get up. He might not know much about the Force, but he recognizes these symptoms, knows them like the back of his own hand, and he knows they don’t belong to him.

He must really look like shit because Nadia doesn’t tease him at all when she shows up at his door, clutching her robe against the cold and blinking sleep from her eyes.

Stars, but he hopes Force visions don’t go both ways. He hopes she didn’t see him like that, hopes the first glimpse she’s had of him in five years wasn’t sweaty and pallid with hair stuck to his forehead and bile crusting on his lips.

He tries not to think about how she has bigger problems right now than the relative sex appeal of her errant husband.

“I saw her,” he croaks, his throat raw and burning. “Vii. I saw her.”

Nadia does him the kindness of not looking at him with pity. It’s why he called her. She’s not going to give him that look the other Jedi sometimes do, the one that says he’s an object lesson in the dangers of attachments. She’s not going to doubt his sanity because of his heart. She just gets him a wet rag and a glass of water and asks for every detail of what he saw.

He tells her. All of it, every color and every sound, every agonizing sensation. He tells her everything he experienced and every worry it awoke in him. He tells her about Vii’s cybernetics, about the poison and the failures, about what he thinks it all means.

Nadia doesn’t have any answers; Jedi rarely do.

Doc figures he won’t need their answers if he can get them from Vii herself. If he can get to wherever she is. But no amount of pleading or threatening will move the Jedi to open communications. They won’t let him leave, either. They can’t risk the safety of the whole colony because he had a bad dream.

He’s trapped. Helpless. Vii needs him and all he can do is wait for her to reach out. Wait for her to sneak into his dreams and share her pain with him again.

He sleeps as often as he can. He gives up caf and energy pudding and every other stimulant that’s ever helped him get through the day. He meditates with the Jedi and when that isn’t enough, he medicates too. He sleeps more than he’s awake, always thinking of Vii, always waiting.

Days pass, then weeks.

Nadia starts looking at him with the same knowing pity as the rest of them, her eyes flicking from his too-long hair to the beard covering his jaw. To the streaks of grey at his temples and the bags under his eyes. No one who sleeps so much should look so tired, but here he is.

And none of it matters.

There are no more cramps. No phantom pains, no voices he doesn’t recognize. No dreams. Nothing.

It’s just him and the weight of all his knowledge, all his skill that feels so fucking meaningless when he can’t use it to help her.

“If she isn’t reaching out to you,” Nadia tries to tell him, “it could just mean she isn’t suffering anymore. It could mean she’s fine.”

There’s another way her suffering could have ended, but Nadia doesn’t mention that.

“She wouldn’t want you to tear yourself apart like this,” she says. “Take care of yourself, Doc. Think of the good times.”

He does.

It hurts, like the way too-sweet food stings your teeth. It hurts, but it feels good too. It feels like relief, like warmth and sunshine and happiness he hasn’t felt in years.

They used to be so happy.

On the beach that day, one of the few perfect days in his life, no one had ever been happier than they were. Sand on their shoulders and salt in their hair--Doc closes his eyes and he can almost feel the heat of the sun warming his skin, can almost hear the crashing waves.

He opens his eyes and he can see it, can see everything just like he’s back there, like he’s living the moment all over again. Vii’s legs draped over his, ice cream cones in both their hands, the galaxy’s problems a million lightyears away. She looks just like he remembers, hair loose and tangling in the breeze, that ridiculous pineapple shirt falling off her shoulders. They bought a matching pair, but even the smallest size swallowed her. He made that hideous thing look good, but Vii--

Vii makes it almost unbearably sexy. Almost unbearably cute, too. It’s so unfair how she can be both at the same time. It’s more than a man can take.

He watches as her tongue slides along the curve of her ice cream, as the top scoop starts to slip from its perch. He watches her face, savoring every moment as she realizes what’s happening, as her expression pinches in utter betrayal, as the ice cream plummets right into the--

Into--

--her hand?

Doc blinks.

Vii smiles at the half-eaten scoop of ice cream melting in her sandy palm. “Not getting away from me this time.”

“Vii?”

She looks up at him and her smile melts into shock. “Doc?”

She reaches for him without thinking, her hand still full of ice cream when she rests it against his cheek. He can feel the cold of it just like it was real, like all of this is real and not just some distant dream. Like this isn’t just a memory warped by longing and sedatives.

He leans into her cold, sticky fingers. “Vii,” he sighs.

She’s looking up at him with her eye wide and her mouth gaping open, her perfect, plush lips rounded in a way that’s just begging to be kissed.

So he kisses them. Gently. Tenderly. His lips on hers, all sweet pressure and soft caress. All delicacy and longing.

Vii sighs his name into his mouth and he can taste the sweetness on her breath, feel the heat of it on his tongue. He shivers, his mouth opening for her as she pulls him closer. Closer and closer, their noses crushed between them, breathing as one, moving together, touching, tasting…

He’s never tasted anything better than Vii, salt on her lips and sugar on her tongue.

Her kiss isn’t as delicate. It’s hungry and urgent, all nipping teeth and gasping breaths and long strokes of tongue. She’s devouring him, desperate in a way he rarely sees her, her hands all over him, sticky and gritty where they drag across his jaw and through his hair, where they slide down his throat and his chest, where they dig into his shoulders and his arms.

She kisses him until he’s dizzy, until he’s breathless and burning, hard for her though she’s barely even touched him.

Vii’s fingers cup his jaw, drawing his forehead down to rest against hers as she brushes her nose alongside his, shallow breaths mingling in the narrow space between them.

Doc doesn’t realize he’s crying until she kisses the tears from his cheeks.

“I’m here,” she whispers. “I love you. I’m here.”

His thoughts are so hazy, swallowed up with lust and longing and love, but there was something he needed to ask. Something important. Something--

“Your leg.”

He looks down, his throat closing up as her leg changes before his eyes, as warm, supple flesh melts into unyielding durasteel. “Gorgeous,” he chokes. “Gorgeous, your--”

Her thumb brushes the tears from his cheeks as she shushes him. It’s absurd that she’s trying to comfort him when it’s her leg, when it’s her pain, but--

“I wasn’t there.”

“It’s okay,” she whispers back. “I’m okay.”

But Vii’s never been good at lying, and she didn’t marry a fool. “If you were okay, you wouldn’t be here,” he says. “Gorgeous--” He gasps as phantom pain pulses in his hip, and Vii gasps with him, sagging against his chest, her hands clutching at his shoulders. It burns and it aches, stronger with every beat of her heart.

“Vii. Look at me, Beautiful.” She does. Her eye is glistening with tears, the color draining from her skin as she trembles, gasping shallow little breaths of air. He doesn’t need her to describe what she’s feeling because he can feel the echo of it, but he needs her to know what it is. He needs her to hear him, to tell whatever dipshit slapped this thing on her--”Your body is rejecting the implant, Vii. Something’s wrong and they need to--”

“I know,” she gasps, not quite looking him in the eye. “We waited too long and it’s not taking. I know.”

His heart clenches.

“I’ll be fine,” she insists, but the tremor in her voice does not reassure him.

“Tell me where you are, Gorgeous,” he pleads. “Let me fix this.”

“I can’t--” She winces, her lips pinching together. “I can’t think. I can’t remember.” Then another lance of pain strikes, and all she can do is bury her head in his chest, her fingers clutching at his shoulders tight enough to bruise.

He holds her. One hand on her back, gently stroking the places where hard metal meets soft skin, the other in her hair, fingers on her scalp, kneading and rubbing. He feels hot tears against his skin and presses kisses to the top of her head. It’s all he can do. All he can give her with so many lightyears between them.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

She trembles and she gasps and he keeps holding her, keeps whispering soothing nothings as the pain comes in waves like the water that laps at his feet. He doesn’t know how long they stay like that, doesn’t know if the rules of time work the same here as they do in the waking world. But he holds her and she clings to him and eventually, the pain passes.

Eventually, Vii slumps boneless against him, drawing in a long, shuddering breath, and there is nothing but the two of them and the memory they share, nothing but melted ice cream and the ocean and the sand and the sun.

“I just wanted to see you,” she whispers, once she has caught her breath. “Everything hurt and I just wanted to feel--”

“Happy?” Doc finishes for her. He smiles despite himself, despite everything, and he can feel her smiling too.

She presses a sweet kiss to his chest and looks up at him, her face so full of longing he almost can’t stand to look at it. “Did you think of this too?” She asks.

He nods. “It was a good day.”

“The best.”

He wants to kiss her again, to run his hands and his tongue all over her body, to give her as much pleasure as she’s had pain, but there’s clouds starting to cover the sun and he knows, somehow, that their time is running out.

“We’ll have good days again,” Vii says. And this time she isn’t lying. This time she isn’t just trying to take away his pain.

This is a promise.

“We’ll have good days again,” he says.

And Vii kisses him. Sudden and hard, her lips pressing hard enough to bruise, her eyes screwed shut. His eyes are still open, surprised, when the clouds move in front of the sun and--

Darkness.

Darkness and quiet, a sliver of moonlight coming through the window of his bunk, his sheets scratchy and hot against his skin.

Doc sits up in bed, throws back his quilt and swings his feet to the floor. He rubs the sleep and crusted tears from his eyes, the wisp of a dream dancing at the edges of his mind. Something about the ocean…

He limps to the fresher, his leg aching again, and curses the Jedi for trapping him here, for not having answers and not letting him find his own. He flicks on the light and stares at himself in the mirror, not recognizing the man who stares back. Not recognizing the swollen lips or the bloodshot eyes or the purple bruises blooming on his shoulders. He touches his fingers to his cheek, to the tacky, blue something that’s stuck to his beard, that he can’t remember being there when he fell asleep. It smells sweet, and against his better judgment, he licks it from his fingers.

It tastes like ice cream.

[desuex]

Commission of @hoiist‘s Viios

[hydrospanners]

fill my lungs with sweetness

when you love someone, let them know. (vignettes about the ways doc shows his tiny jedi wife viios that he loves her; a valentine’s day gift for @hoiist.) part fourteen of fourteen. female jedi knight/doc. fluff. 560 words. ao3.

orange blossoms.

“Yes--oooh-- yes . Right there. Right there.”

 Vii tips her head back against the pillows and moans. It’s a thing of beauty, a sound long and low and shuddering, a sensual thing, drawn from the whole of her body. A sound that can only come from bone-deep satisfaction. A sound good enough to set any man’s veins to burning.

 “Oh, Doc.” Her fingers dig into the upholstery of the sofa as her back tries to arch off her nest of pillows. “You have no idea how good this feels.”

 Doc just laughs, driving his thumbs deeper into her swollen flesh. “I think I have some idea, Gorgeous.”

 He thinks everyone on the ship has some idea; maybe everyone in this sector . Luckily, he happens to like when Vii lets him know he’s doing something right.

 “You’re the best husband.”

 “I know.”

 She sighs again, blissful and frustrated all at once. “If I wasn’t aching in every single part of my body, I’d--”

 “Trust me, Gorgeous, I know.” He’s been characterizing her appetite for sex as ‘robust’ on the charts, but that’s doing it a disservice. ‘Robust’ was the first trimester. It’s been nothing short of ‘insatiable’ since the start of the second.

 Not that Doc’s complaining. He wasn’t exactly hurting for pleasure before, but there’s something about Vii that makes him greedy. And even when he can’t entirely keep up--that Jedi stamina is gonna be the death of him--he’s discovered all kinds of new ways to send Vii into rapture. He hopes their kids grow up to be the kind of people who will appreciate it when their father thanks them for improving his sex life. Not even born yet and they’re already doing things he never would have thought possible.

 He moves his hands to the sole of Vii’s foot, delighting in the trembling little sigh she gives as he rubs deeper and deeper, his thumbs sweeping across her skin in a well-practiced motion. It’s good to know he has a career as a masseur to fall back on if he needs it. Ideally at one of the more exotic massage parlors, and with a client list of one.

 “Mmmm,” Vii moans, sinking her teeth into her bottom lip in a way that really tests Doc’s commitment to generosity and selflessness. “I love you so much right now.”

 Doc laughs, massaging his way up to the ball of her foot. “Just right now?”

 And Vii lifts her head up, just high enough to look him in the eyes over the mountain of her pregnant belly. Her expression is scrunched and very serious and he knows what she’s about to say, has heard it a million times, knows it like he knows the sound of her voice and the taste of her lips, but the anticipation still sends his heart racing. Still sends a tremor down his spine.

 “Always,” she promises. “I love you always.”

 And it washes over him, a palpable feeling like nothing he’s ever felt before. Like nothing else in the galaxy. He can feel the way Vii loves him, bright and pure and hot. It tingles across his skin and sinks his bones, hot and liquid. It’s consuming and it’s blissful and he will die before he gives this up.

 Doc swallows around an unsteady breath, savoring the feeling. Savoring this moment.

“I love you too, Gorgeous. Always.”

[hydrospanners]

fill my lungs with sweetness

when you love someone, let them know. (vignettes about the ways doc shows his tiny jedi wife viios that he loves her; a valentine’s day gift for @hoiist.) part thirteen of fourteen. female jedi knight/doc. fluff, seasoned with a lingering angst. 450 words. ao3. 

forget-me-nots.

6 years. 2208 days.

 How many times does he kiss Vii in one day? Ten? Twenty? Thirty? How many kisses did he miss in 2208 days apart? How many thoughtless touches; how many sighs?

 How much did six years cost them?

 If he were a different sort of man, he would be angry. He would curse Valkorion or Vitiate or whatever the old evil fuck was calling himself for all the pain he caused. He would swear revenge on Arcann for stealing them from each other. He would be full of rage and bitterness and lie awake at night wondering what might have been. Wondering about what they lost.

 (And if he’s being honest, some nights he does. His fingers brush the cool metal of a leg he remembers being flesh and blood and he asks himself if they would have a family right now if not for Zakuul.)

 But Doc’s never been the sort to live in the past. What’s gone is gone and he’s not about to waste the time he has with Vii now mourning it. There’s worse things, he thinks, than spending his days trying to make up for all those missed kisses and sighs.

 He presses another—number 168 —to that ticklish spot behind her ear. Vii giggles his favorite of her giggles, all lightness and sweetness and warmth.

 “You’re supposed to be taking a tour of your new workspace,” she says, “not of me.” But the hand toying with the downy hairs at the back of his neck suggests she really doesn’t mind.

 Doc kisses her again, just a little lower this time. 169. “But the desk never giggles when I kiss it, Gorgeous.” She laughs again, and he makes another mental tally mark—170—as he puts a little teeth into the kiss he gives her earlobe.

 “I knew I should’ve had Oggurobb show you around.”

 Doc grins against her skin. “If you think I wouldn’t kiss a Hutt—“

 Vii pulls back to give him a very serious look that’s a little ruined by the way she can’t stop smiling. “You’d better not be kissing any Hutts.”

 “Trust me, Gorgeous.” Doc twines his fingers into the tightly bound strands of her hair, looking directly into her eye with what he knows is the stupidest, most lovesick smile he has. “There’s no one I want to kiss but you.”

 “Good.” Vii smiles back at him with a smile every bit as dopey and adoring as his and Doc’s pretty sure his heart actually stops. He’s pretty sure this will be what kills him one day, and he can’t think of a better way to go.

 He leans in and presses another kiss to her smiling lips. 171.

 Just 2037 more and his debt will be paid.

[hydrospanners]

fill my lungs with sweetness 

when you love someone, let them know. (vignettes about the ways doc shows his tiny jedi wife viios that he loves her; a valentine’s day gift for @hoiist.) part one of fourteen. female jedi knight/doc. fluff. 380 words. ao3.

daffodils.

There’s something about the way she blushes. The way she does it with her whole body, how her posture opens and her brow lifts and her eye seems to glow that little bit brighter. The way the color spreads across her cheeks and those full lips of hers part for him, just barely. Just a tease of teeth and tongue and possibility.

Vii never just blushes. She blooms.

And maybe it’s the novelty of it, the refreshing openness of her, but Doc is captivated. He can’t help searching for ways to draw her out and make her blossom.

She never makes him work too hard for it, either. Vii’s always happy to be appreciated and, much as he loves a challenge, it’s kind of nice to lay all his charm at the feet of someone who unabashedly enjoys it. He hasn’t had that for a while. Not since Pr--Well. Not for a while.

He can feel his smile turning a little stupid as he looks at her, can feel it getting a little too sincere, and this time he just lets it happen. Vii is watching him watch her, her head canted in that way she has, a million questions tied up in three degrees of movement. He doesn’t let this smile loose often, but from the way it’s got the color rising in her cheeks, he thinks he might just have to change that. It’s too pretty a sight to resist; too pretty a feeling to know that he made it happen.

Vii doesn’t bloom for just anyone.

The silence stretches between them, warm and gooey, for a long, breathless moment before her curiosity gets the better of her. “What is it?” She asks, and there’s a quirk to her lips that tells him she already suspects the answer but wants to hear it anyway. For all the blushing and swooning (if tripping into his arms sometimes counts as swooning), Vii isn’t exactly shy about enjoying his particular brand of attention. He thinks she tries to be sometimes, for the sake of some Jedi propriety or something, but it isn’t in her nature to shrink from anything.

There’s a spine of steel under that tender, open heart.

“Just admiring the view,” he finally says, eyes fixed firmly on the little Jedi in front of him.

Vii blooms.

[hydrospanners]

fill my lungs with sweetness

when you love someone, let them know. (vignettes about the ways doc shows his tiny jedi wife viios that he loves her; a valentine’s day gift for @hoiist.) part two of fourteen. female jedi knight/doc. fluff. 660 words. ao3.

gardenias.

You, Doc reminds himself, are a professional.

It’s not like he hasn’t had attractive patients before. He’s had the privilege of stitching, wrapping, injecting, and otherwise laying his hands upon some of the finest anatomy the galaxy has seen fit to produce, and he’s done it all without so much as a single wandering look. Blinding the man so the doctor can see usually comes to him pretty easy. Because, he reminds himself again, he is a professional.

And yet here he is, prodding at a blaster burn a little too close to circuitry for comfort, having to remind himself to not let his eyes roam any farther down the dark expanse of Vii’s back. Vii’s lean, muscular back.

He isn’t exactly surprised by the curves and edges usually concealed by her robes. She’s a starsdamned Jedi and a certified, pint-sized badass. He’s seen her and her laser swords in action. He knows there’s power in her body and he knows it has to be packed pretty densely to fit into such a small space. It’s just easy to forget about when it’s hidden away under all that flowing orange fabric.

Only it’s not hidden away right now.

“Everything okay, Doc?” Vii’s voice is soft and sweet as nectar, completely unsuspecting because why shouldn’t it be? She trusts him.

Guilt bubbles in his chest, thick and black as tar. You are a professional.

His eyes suddenly find it very easy to stay focused on the burn and the ointment he is gently massaging into its ragged edges. “It’s about to be, Gorgeous. How’s that feel?”

Vii hums a pleased little hum, nodding her satisfaction. He can’t see her face and he doesn’t have the Force to help him, but he’s pretty sure he can feel her smiling anyway.

“Then everything’s okay. Be even better if you’d stop running directly into blaster fire.” He hands her the robe from the back of the chair and makes a show of keeping his back turned, trying to focus on cleaning his tools and not the heat of her skin or the shape of all the musculature being covered up behind him. Trying to not think how nice it would be to run his tongue—

Dammit.

Doc swallows, and makes a desperate decision to run his mouth just to slow down his treacherous brain. “You know you don’t have to keep getting yourself hurt to spend time with me, Vii. You can just ask. Ol’ Doc always enjoys the company of a beautiful woman.”

“Oh,” she says, and her voice is closer than he expects. The rustle of fabric has stopped, so he figures it’s safe to look again.

But it isn’t. It isn’t safe at all.

Vii is standing there, close enough to touch, blushing that pretty blush of hers and smiling that secret smile, the corners of her mouth quirked as she tugs her lip between her teeth, her eyes dancing this way and that, fingers tugging at the edges of her hood. Her nervous energy buzzes around her like a bee around a flower and she finally gives in to it, hiding the smile she can’t resist in the fabric of her robes as she meets his gaze.

Doc thinks his heart might be in danger of stopping. It has to be against the law somewhere, to be this cute and this far out of reach all at the same time.

She’s looking straight in his eyes, courageous as always, and says, “I’ll have to take you up on that.” From the way her perfectly rosy cheeks swell over the edge of her robes, he thinks her smile must be growing. He’s pretty sure his heart is. And if she keeps looking at him like that, like he’s the only flower in a field of weeds, it might not be the only part of him that grows.

(His ego. He means his ego.)

His voice is hoarse when he says, “I’ll look forward to it, Gorgeous.”

[hydrospanners]

fill my lungs with sweetness

when you love someone, let them know. (vignettes about the ways doc shows his tiny jedi wife viios that he loves her; a valentine’s day gift for @hoiist.) part eight of fourteen. female jedi knight/doc. a little angst. 500 words. ao3.

hyacinths.

The door opens with a hiss, stirring a cloud of powder blue and lilac blossoms into a storm. Vii stands frozen at the threshold, light from the corridor pouring in around her like some kind of halo.  Doc suspects there’s poetry in the sight, but he always suspects poetry where Vii is concerned. She has that effect on people.

 The blossoms settle and she looks around the room in open-mouthed wonder, her glowing eye wide as she takes it all in. Every flower in every vase. Every flat surface covered in blue and purple petals, the air sweet with the scent of it.

 “Evening, Gorgeous.”

 Doc steps forward, an elaborate bouquet of hyacinths in hand. The subtle sheen of his suit, silvery grey and elegantly cut, catches the flickering glow of the holocandles in just the right way, leaving him damn near shimmering in the dim light. He smiles his most winning smile and hopes it’s all enough. Or a start, at least.

 Vii drops the chipboards she had tucked under her arms. “Doc?”

 “Surprise.”

 “I thought you were—How did you—“ He can see every question she has playing out across her face, already red-cheeked and torn between amazement and confusion. She’s always so open, so expressive. Stars. “What is all this?”

 Doc swallows. “An apology.”

 She doesn’t have to ask what for.

 “What I said—“

 “Hey.” Vii is suddenly there, right in front of him and smiling that tender smile, one hand twining with his around the bouquet and another pressing against his lips. “It’s okay.”

 It really isn’t. “Listen, Beautiful—“

 “No. You listen.” Her fingers slide from his lips, brushing along his smooth, freshly-shaved jaw and down the side of his throat. “I know what you meant. Maybe I should have said what I said differently. Maybe you should have too. But I—“ Vii’s gaze slips from his eyes, dropping to the safer territory of his shoulder as her bravado starts to wither. But Vii isn’t like him; she doesn’t need false confidence to be brave. Her resolve is stronger than her fear. “I just don’t want you to leave again.”

 Something sharp and hot rises in his chest. Had he really not thought what that would look like? Did she really think that he would—

 Yes. Of course she would. He had never given her any reason to think he wouldn’t, had he? That stupid thing about the wookiees…

  Stars.

 Doc cups her cheek with his free hand, his thumb brushing the swell of her cheek as he tilts her head back, draws her eye back up to his. “Viios.” Her lips part, hope and expectation and fear racing across her face as she waits for him to go on. Waits for the words to unstick in his throat.

 They don’t.

 So he presses a kiss to her open mouth and hopes she can hear what he isn’t saying when he says, “You aren’t getting rid of me that easy, Gorgeous.”

  ( I love you. I love you and I’m sorry.)