Cela first meets Atton’s eyes on Peragus. Not through the force cage that holds him—the field is too bright, and with her head swimming from sedatives, battle, and the Force, she has to look away—but later, when she falls to her knees from the pain of Kreia's loss, and Atton rushes to her, pulling her back to her feet. She looks at him, then—but through the tears spilling down her cheeks, she sees nothing of his eyes but a blur.

Then comes Nar Shaddaa. Like Telos, she watches Atton keep his head down, slouching to avoid unwanted attention. But unlike Telos, he begins to meet her eyes on his own. Always, though, through some cruel slant of light, his irises themselves remain cast ambiguously in shadow. It's only when he runs up to her to press antidote packs into her hands, moments from the docks, that she sees them in the light. In that brief moment, she can only process the thought that under the neon lights, Atton's dark eyes bear shards of bright, impossible purple.

She remembers that purple, as she stands silently in G0-T0's prison. She remembers it so vividly that when Atton arrives—breathless, scratched-up, smelling of scorched cast-plast and a cold metallic tang—she’s surprised to look again and find his eyes a shade of amber. A reflection of the ship's yellow lights, she catches herself thinking, but warmer. Later, she remembers the color to be as warm as his hand had been, when he had nearly caressed her cheek in relief before he had come back to himself, letting his hand fall to her shoulder instead.

(When he tells her about his past, she does not meet his eyes. At first it is a choice, but it soon becomes a necessity. By the time his tale ends, he begs—without words, without awareness, but the plea reaches her nonetheless—for her to look at him. She can't.)

On Dxun, in the dreary half-light of dusk, she returns to the ship tired. Atton is near the entrance when she steps in, and their eyes meet, though he soon looks away. She thinks, in that moment, that Atton's eyes appear hazel, a matching pair to the moss, the mud, and the pooling rainwater outside.

(When she forgives him, she doesn't tell him, for his sake. But she does tell him that she will train him as he wishes. He leans in—earnest, determined to prove himself—and in his eyes she thinks she catches a glimpse of faint, but full, green. She blinks, and his irises are cast into shadow once more, ambiguous and unidentifiable in the dim light. The afterimage of her lightsaber blade, perhaps—printed upon the insides of her eyelids.)

By Dantooine, she knows what to expect. She doesn't wonder so much as idly predicts that Atton's eyes will appear blue like the vivid sky above. Her prediction is confirmed—and Atton gives her a suspicious, curious look as she peers at him, yet he doesn't say anything, used to her habits by now—but she’s unprepared for the shade after all. Next to Mical's rings of innocent blue, Atton's eyes are muted and dark, like the blue one would find in the shadows of dry stones along a river bank, where the color of the sky has been reflected once, then once again.

Now, on the ship, Atton's eyes again borrow colors from the winking lights of the control panels scattered around him: blue, red, and green. After traveling with him through so many hues, though, she has long seen them for what they are, and a mere heartbeat after the word slips absentmindedly from her lips, Atton's hand shoots up to his hair, self-conscious.

"Wher—I mean, what are you talking about?" Atton forces his hand back down to his side, casual. "What gray?"

"Your eyes," Cela says. "They're gray."

"Oh," Atton says. He relaxes back in his seat with a chuckle. "Yeah. I hear it all—green, hazel, whatever—but they're just gray. To be fair, I don't stick around long enough for people to get it right."

Her comment resolved as a false alarm, he angles his head idly back towards the diagnostics screen, but Cela lingers on the subject.

"What was that about?" Cela asks, and when Atton feigns ignorance, she hazards a guess. "Are you worried about graying?"

Atton gives a slight grimace, but shrugs, noncommittal.

"Well—you know. With all the Sith we've run into, something could've rubbed off on me," he says.

"And the passage of time?"

"Maybe that too," Atton admits. "It doesn't matter, I know. But…."

"For what it's worth, I think you'll age well," Cela says, leaning forward to brush through his dark hair, following the curve of his ear. "Gray running through your hair would only make you look... hmm... distinguished."

"You think so?" Atton asks, amused but now flattered. He leans indulgently into her touch, meeting her questioning gaze with an easy, lopsided smile. "I guess I have to take your word for it. After all, with all the hours you've spent staring at me, you're practically the expert."

"Staring?" Her cheeks warm against her will. "I don't stare."

"Says the Jedi who bothered to figure out what color my eyes are."

"It was—training," Cela says, though she's already aware she's backed herself into a corner. "Ob… Observation training. It's important on the battlefield."

"The battlefield of my eyes, you mean?"

Atton's smile grows smug as her cheeks burn hotter, and Cela is tempted to turn her hand to push his face away, but Atton, sensing it, merely tugs her wrist aside.

"Come on, Cela," Atton says, lower, now closer than before. "Admit it: you like looking at me.”

By now, something would have interrupted them—an alert, perhaps, or a member of the crew, careening in with questions or complaints. Even Atton seems to have that thought, as her stuck voice sends the look in his eyes leaning into uncertainty. He's about to back away when, at last, she makes the admission that’s fresh in their hearts, still new since their matching confessions only mere nights ago.

“I do,” Cela whispers. “I love you.”

Atton freezes, and then he’s away from her in an instant, his hand covering his face.

"Wait—You can’t—That’s unfair," he says. She can just barely make out the color of his eyes through the gaps between his fingers, no longer ambiguous, but as gray as the ship’s metal around them. "What am I supposed to do against that? I’m...."

“Dee-deet deet!”

They both startle; T3 trundles in. Though she can feel Atton’s disappointment next to her own, she reads relief from him as well. She takes the opportunity to stand; Atton lets her go.

As she walks away, though, she hears the last of his voice from the open doorway: