#shimmersing

Still nothing beyond another flicker of a glance toward him. He sighs and slips his fingers into the gap between hers, forcing a pause in the pattern of their movement that finally breaks her focus. Eyes closing, Nine exhales for what seems like forever. “I’m fine,” she whispers, hand wrapping around his and gripping tight. “Go back to sleep.”

“No, you aren’t.” Last year he would have teased her- for a Cipher you’re a terrible liar, punctuated with a kiss- but she’s still too brittle for that. Instead he kisses her eyelids, one and then the other; her lashes flutter against his lower lip. “What’s on your mind?”

“It’s nothing. It’s stupid.”

One arm threading beneath her, he pulls her in toward him until her head settles on his pillow. Her skin is warm despite her shivering, her pulse steady against his chest, and when he rests his other hand on the small of her back she curls into him out of pure reflex and makes a little soft sad noise that pierces sliver-sharp into his heart. “Tell me.”

She shakes her head.

“Please,” he says, the word a brush of his mouth against her forehead. “I know that look. Stupid or not, whatever it is is eating you up. Talk to me.”

Her eyes open; her mouth twists. “Promise me you won’t be angry.”

“You know I won’t.” He won’t. He doesn’t have any right to be, not now.

Nine curls in tighter against him, silent for another long moment, before she starts to speak again and the words all come out in a rush. “When you trapped me in the train on Umbara, you said- you said I was corrupt. Rotten. A symbol of oppression. Did they tell you to say those things, Theron, or did you think of them yourself?”

(They promised not to lie. Not to each other.) “I had to say what they wanted to hear. It wasn’t a script, no, but I had to-” he swallows hard- “it had to be convincing. They needed to believe that I believed that.”

“But the words were yours.”

“I-”

“Do you know,” she says quietly, face turned toward the ceiling, “I wished you’d shot me instead? I wished you’d just shot me and I wouldn’t have had to hear those words. I wouldn’t still hear them in my head in the middle of the night and wonder what you saw in me that made you think of them. I wouldn’t wonder if there was a part of you that believed what you said- a part of me that believed what you said, that maybe you were right all along-”

He needs her to look at him. He needs her to look at him but he doesn’t want to let go of her so he nudges her cheek with his, insistent enough to make her turn her head so he can catch her mouth with his and kiss the words away into silence. He never meant- Force, he should have known better than to think she could endure only because she’d done so for so long. “None of it was true, Nine. None of it-” no, no, that’s not right; he corrects himself carefully- “except for one thing.”

She makes a noise against his mouth, a wordless question, and he kisses her again and again, a hundred kisses scattered on her perfect face, on her forehead and her eyelids and the bridge of her nose, along the arches of her cheekbones and the line of her scar, the curve of her jaw and the bow of her lip. A kiss for every word he hadn’t meant, for every wound she didn’t deserve, for every day they’d been apart. It isn’t enough, but it’s a start.

“I told you I love you. Do you remember that?”

Nine nods, repeating his words back like a recording, even the tone a perfect mimic of his own. “‘You know I love you… but this is bigger than us.’ I remember.”

“That was the true thing. Every single other word was a lie.” One more kiss, hand in her hair, a reassurance as she clings to him- he thinks she knew it already, but-

“See?” Her voice trembles. “I know. I know. I love you, too. I told you it was stu-”

“I am standing on them,” Grey insisted, hand not leaving its vice-like grip on his arm, “but this is not practical footwear.”

“We just have to look the part long enough to get in close enough to identify both the buyer and the seller, and make sure they’ve got the data on them. You’ll be sitting down most of the time.”

“I don’t see why that requires heels,” she pouted.

Theron resisted rolling his eyes, and just pointed to the rest of the ladies milling about in line, or visible inside the restaurant’s patio — and about eighty percent of them were wearing similar shoes. Her lower lip protruded as she took that in, face still set firmly in a frown. The disdain over her current footwear was just the latest in a series of recurring complaints. At least it was a far less distracting one than her annoyed mutter about how uncomfortable it was to feel her thighs constantly brushing together, or the long diatribe on how the underwire on the bra she’d had to change into kept digging into her ribs. He was fairly proud of the fact that he’d managed to stay as focused on the mission as he was despite the fact that she kept obliviously reminding him of the very attractive form underneath that dress.

The line moved up and despite the tight grip on his forearm, she wobbled with the next step they took. One of the Zeltrons hanging off the arm of a Neimoidian looked back at the unsteady Jedi with a disdainful look, and Theron immediately adjusted his grip, pulling his arm free so he could wrap it around Grey’s waist and steady her. The Zeltron sniffed haughtily, but quickly lost interest.

“What are you doing?”

“Hopefully convincing our fellow patrons that I brought an actual person with me on this fake date and not a newborn equus learning how to walk for the first time.”

“I know how to walk!” she protested. “It’s just these stupid heels.”

The phrase “just use the Force” was almost out of his mouth, but he quickly thought better of it as she leveled him with a dark look, as if sensing his next words. So he bit back on that and instead said, “You’re attracting attention.”

“I’m not trying to,” she huffed quietly, “but I am also not sure what I’m supposed to be doing right now.”

“For now, just pretend like you’re my girlfriend.”

“I am your girlfriend!”

“Good, then you should already know how to play this part.”

That earned him a glare and a sharp pinch to his side. “That is not helpful.”

He let out an annoyed sigh, but before he could respond the line in front of them opened up, finally clearing a path between them and the maître d’s station. He tightened his grip around her waist, and she leaned into him as they approached it. With the extra support, any wobbliness just appeared like any overly affectionate couple on a date.

“I am not in my element here,” she added softly as they stopped in front of the empty station, waiting for the maître d’ to return.

“Just follow my lead,” he muttered absently. Now that they were right at the entrance, he had a better view of the tables inside the restaurant. He quickly glanced around, but there was sign of the Nikto from earlier. “Act natural, like you would on any date.”

There was silence at his side, almost unnoticed by him as he kept scanning the tables. From what he’d gathered from the reservation list he’d sliced into, the sale would take place out on the balcony overlooking the Promenade — but there was no telling if either the buyer or seller had thought to bring extra muscle and stash them throughout the restaurant. 

“And how would you do that?” came the quiet question after a long pause.

“Do what?”

“Act… on a date?”

He frowned, looking back to see an uncertain expression across her face. “You have been on a date before, haven’t you?”

“This… might be my first.”

If there had been any convenient holes to crawl into, Theron might have done so — mission or no. He had a tendency to get absorbed into the job, so much so that it was easy to forget the normal boyfriend things. Between the natural rhythm they’d fallen into since their reunion on Odessen, and the long five years they’d been apart, sometimes it slipped his mind that this relationship thing was just as much of an oddity for her as it was for him. Perhaps moreso, since somehow between the two of them he had more experience with actual romantic relationships — which considering that it hadn’t even occurred to him to take his girlfriend of several months out on a single date once in all that time, probably didn’t bode well long-term. Adding in the fact that now their first one wasn’t even real, combined with his general irritability this entire evening had him flashing her a look of contrition.

Unfortunately this was also the moment the maître d’ decided to reappear, and Theron had to slip back into his role for the evening — the attentive and smooth boyfriend he very clearly was not — and fixed a wide smile back in place for the benefit of their cover.

“Do you have a reservation?” The well-dressed Kroctari asked in the nasally tone typical of his species. 

“Yes,” Theron answered smoothly, “it should be located under Balkar. Jonas Balkar.”

The Kroctari wheezed in response and pulled up the datapad to confirm the reservation, completely missing the arched blond brow quirked in Theron’s direction. He narrowed his ever-so-slightly at her in warning, but kept the wide smirk fixed in place as the maître d’ looked back up at them.

“Ah, right this way, Mr. Balkar,” the Kroctari’s pronunciation of the name sounded almost more like a burp, “we have your usual table set up on the balcony.”

They made it to the table without any incident, even with the climb up the stairs. He decided that the fingers digging into his side hard enough to leave a bruise were probably justified considering he was the architect of this awkward evening. Grey sunk into her seat with a quiet sigh, seemingly grateful to be off her feet, and Theron took a moment as he sat down to scan the area. Their table was off in the far corner, and had a good vantage point of the entire restaurant. The table that had been marked for the Nikto from the Promenade on the reservation list he’d sliced into was still empty, waiting for its occupants to arrive. 

He let out a quiet sigh of relief. There was still time to turn this whole botched operation around.

“Trouble?”

“Not yet,” he said after a moment, “looks like we got here first.”

“Well, that’s not surprising. I thought you were going to force your way through that line for a moment there.”

Theron had the grace to look slightly chagrinned. “The thought had crossed my mind, I won’t lie.”

“I know you’re concerned about the mission, Theron,” she reached out across the table, wrapping her fingers around his where they rested on the rather large drink menu, “but it will be fine. I promise.”

He tried not to let his frown show, but it was a struggle. It was difficult to not take this whole thing a little personally. It was his job to take care of everything, make sure he sniffed out anyone unfriendly to the Alliance before they ever made their way onto Odessen. It was the only place in the galaxy relatively safe from Arcann’s considerable influence, and now even that wasn’t certain unless he didn’t screw this up. Considering the woman sitting across from him was on the top of Zakuul’s Most Wanted List, that made the stakes pretty high.

But now wasn’t the time to dwell on that, he needed to keep his mind sharp. Focused on the task at a hand. Something that was a little more difficult with the warm feeling of her hand on his. The action was both comforting and distracting at the same time, although it was nothing out of the ordinary for any normal couple on a romantic night on the town. It was a sweet gesture, even if a little distracting. He compromised, and gave her fingers a soft return squeeze, before gently withdrawing his hands and picking up the drink menu.

There was only the briefest flashes of disappointment across her face, and he squirmed uncomfortably in his seat as he tried to ignore that, and instead look like he was more interested in the menu. If he twisted in his seat a little and tilted the menu just so, he had a perfect view of the table where the meet was going to go down. Across from him, Grey seemed to be trying to actually read the text on what he was holding up.

She let out a quiet noise of disbelief. “That’s a lot of zeroes for a drink.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up briefly. “Wait until you see what they charge for the food.”

“Are all of your undercover missions this extravagant?”

“You know what they say,” Theron shrugged a shoulder, “when on Nar Shadda… blow your entire salary on one bottle of Crème D'Infame.”

“That’s not how I’ve heard that phrase go.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Well, it’s probably more truthful.”

“Perhaps it would be more financially sound to order water.”

Oh, of course. Because that wouldn’t be suspicious at all.

Theron finished his fake perusal of the drink menu just as the waiter came up to take their order. Before his financially conscientious companion could speak, he quickly put in a request for some Corellian Twisters. He ignored the frown directed his way, instead made a show of ordering a round of cracknel for an appetizer as if they were settling in for a long evening. Actually, it was possible they were.

Theron checked the chronometer in the HUD on his ocular implants, realizing they still had a wait on their hands. As far as stakeouts went, he’d been on worse ones, with less enjoyable company. With nothing else to do but wait, he should try and repair at least a little of the damage he’d done.

“That was not water.”

“Nope,” he said, “but it’s less likely to attract attention. We’re supposed to be on a date, remember?”

“Is expensive alcoholic drinks usually part of the dating experience?”

“It is for Jonas Balkar.”

“Well, Jonas, you like to throw around money, don’t you?”

“Nothing but the best,” Theron shot her a smirk, “and I figure my old pal wouldn’t mind lending his name out for the sake of galactic security.”

“Old pal, huh? So that’s not just one of your aliases?”

“Hardly!” His bark of laughter seemed to startle her. “He’s a good guy.” Theron paused, then added, “Although if you ever tell him I said that I’ll deny it.”

“I would have to meet him first,” she said with a hint of a smile. 

“I don’t know,” he paused, “he’s got a way with the ladies. Not sure I want to deal with the competition.”

That got a roll of the eyes and a resigned sigh. “Do you honestly believe there is something to compete over?”

“Well, considering that at least as far as this restaurant’s concerned, he’s taken you on your first date, maybe.”

She gave him an exasperated look. “Theron.”

He let out a sigh, sending one glance back at the still empty table, before deciding to try out that fabled work-life balance he’d heard people talk about before. Mimicking her action from before, he took her hand in his, brushing his thumb across her knuckles.

“Look. Sometimes I get a little caught up in the job and I forget things I shouldn’t.” He swallowed, mouth a little dry. Perhaps that order of water wasn’t completely impractical. “Normal everyday things. Like taking you to nice places outside of missions.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Well, I do,” he said with more conviction, “you deserve more than an absentee boyfriend.”

“You’re not absent,” she said firmly, “you’ve been by my side all these past few months, trying to keep things running. Trying to make the galaxy a better place.”

He couldn’t keep the sheepish smile from forming, although he did his best to smother it quickly before anyone else saw. “Still, it’s kind of a lousy experience for your first date ever.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s so bad,” she said, tilting her head with that soft look that had a tendency to make Theron forget what he was arguing about. “I certainly can’t complain about the company.”

There she went again, shorting out his higher brain functions and common sense with nothing more than a look and a few words. It would have been maddening if she didn’t have him completely pulled into her little spell. The harsh lighting of the Promenade was more muted out here on the patio, bathing his dining companion in hues of blue and pink that seemed to accentuate the sparkle in her eyes and the curve of her lips. He was leaning forward without really thinking about it, closing the distance between the two of them.

“Theron—”

“Yeah?” he murmured.

She leaned forward as well, her free hand sinking beneath the table as she fidgeted. “They’re here.”

Her words were like a bucket of cold water being thrown over him, and he nearly bolted upright, but stopped himself at the last moment lest he tip them off. He tried to dart his eyes in the direction of their table, but his position made it difficult. She continued to fidget and squirm under the table with one hand, grimacing as she apparently encountered some sort of trouble.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking off these damned heels.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m fairly certain they recognize us. And I refuse to break an ankle because of these death traps.”

Theron risked glancing over, and sure enough, the Nikto and a small pink Nimbanel—probably the buyer—were staring in their direction. As he looked over, the Nikto pointed very emphatically at him. “Damn it!”

The Nikto cursed in Huttese and the Nimbanel very clearly shouted something about the Alliance, just as two golden, spiked pieces of footwear flew at Theron’s face. He caught them and sputtered an incoherent noise that was meant to be a question, but Grey had already leapt to her feet. She had in fact leapt onto her chair, the square set to her shoulders and the ornate silver hilts of her unlit lightsabers already in her hands indicating that she had shifted into Jedi mode.

“Hold on to those for me!”

“But—”

His protest was cut off by a loud crash as the two criminals upended their table throwing it a few meters in the direction of their pursuers before taking off. Without a single thought otherwise, Grey took off after them in a single bound. Her unnatural and graceful leap was fueled by the Force, the flowing skirt of her dress billowing dramatically with the movement as she soared above the overturned table and landed on the one beyond it to the great surprise of an Arconan couple. This was also the moment that Theron belatedly realized he really should have taken a few extra minutes to find a pair of shorts or something else to help cover her propriety, as he and the rest of the patrons of the restaurant caught sight of everything underneath her dress, lacy black garters, undergarments, and all.

“Kriff!” Already several moments behind on the action, he surged to his feet, high heels still in hand. In the heat of the moment, and a little too distracted by the sight of girlfriend accidentally baring more than intended, he forgot about the blaster stowed in the inner pocket of his jacket. “Grey, maybe you shouldn’t—“

He didn’t know why he was shouting, she was clearly not listening to him. She hopped from table to table as if she were an ash rabbit, using the extra height to keep an eye on their quarry. Theron followed as best he could in her wake, occasionally shouting an apology to his fellow patrons as he passed by, and glaring at others who looked as if they were staring up his girlfriend’s skirt. It did not make for a very effective method of giving chase.

He was about halfway across the patio, when he misjudged one of his landings. His foot landed with a wet squish on something, slipping precariously. His arms pinwheeled wildly as he fought to keep his balance.

“Are you serious?” Someone exclaimed. “Right in my salad?”

Theron looked down into the blue face of an especially irritated Wroonian whose plate of artisanal Khoonda salad he’d landed in. The delicate plate the dish had been residing on cracked in half under his weight. A thick violet dressing had splattered across the fine linens covering the table, the tritacale and kibla greens kicked in every direction.

“Sorry,” he said absently as he picked up his foot, trying to fling off the oily dressing that was dripping off his boot and the ruined appetizer scattered across the table and surrounding patio.

“Hey! I was going to eat that!”

“Really? Even after my foot was in it?”

“Maybe,” Salad Guy muttered petulantly. “It cost a lot of credits.”

“You know you can get the same thing at Biscuit Baron for like a tenth of the price.”

“You expect me to eat at Biscuit Baron?” Salad Guy shrieked, yellow irises typical of the Wroonian species going wide in foodie umbrage.

“Suck it up, wuppa, I’ve got bad guys to catch.” 

He decided to ignore the indignant patron and focused on trying to find his quarry amongst the chaos of the restaurant. He spied them a few more tables over where Grey had caught the larger of the two fugitives. Theron couldn’t suppress the surge of pride when he saw that she had the Nikto pinned face down in some poor patron’s soup bowl, her bare foot pressing into his leathery neck. That was his girl.

A flash of pink beyond her grabbed his attention, and he could see the Nimbanel bringing a blaster pistol to bear. Without even thinking about what he was doing, Theron hurled one of the objects in his hand at the threat. The golden spikes of the high heels beamed the alien between his two bulbous eyes and he let out a cry of distress. A deep thrum echoed across the patio as Grey activated her lightsaber and pointed it directly at the Nimbanel’s face, who raised his hands in defeat.

She tilted her head back in Theron’s direction with the hints of a smile. “Thank you.”

He flashed her a smirk. “Anytime.”

“I have to admit, those work far better as a projectile weapon than footwear.”

“Did… did you just throw a shoe?” The Wroonian sputtered.

“Shut up, Salad Guy! No one asked you!”

“I believe you have something that doesn’t belong to you,” Grey said firmly.

He let out something in Huttese that sounded like an angry denial, and she put a little more pressure on the Nikto’s neck. After a moment of sputtering in the bowl of soup, he reluctantly pulled a data cylinder from his pocket. She grabbed it with her free hand and tossed it across the distance to Theron, who caught it easily. Without preamble he plugged it into his datapad and quickly decrypted its contents.

“Is that it?” she asked.

His custom code made short work of the decryption, and he quickly glanced through the contents of the data spike. He had to press his lips together to keep from laughing as all of the tension drained out of him from the start of this whole ordeal. It was the coordinates to their outpost on Lysatra—apparently someone had mistaken their activities there as the main base. They would still have to evacuate the outpost just as a precaution to prevent any fallout on the local populace. But Odessen was still safe. Thank the stars.

“We’re good,” he called as he pocketed the datapad and the spike.

“Excellent news.” Grey activated her other lightsaber and pointing it at the Nikto, raising her foot from his neck him before he drowned in the bowl of soup. “Do not try and leave, gentlemen. My agents have a few more questions for you.”

Veeroa was already on her way, and Theron was happy to turn the interrogation duties over to her and the rest of the Nar Shaddaa resistance cell. It was just clean up work at this point, and it had been a long day as it was. 

“Does your friend realize that we can all see those garters and up her—”

“Keep your eyes on your food!” Theron snapped.

“Your foot’s still in it!”

“I still have one high heel left,” he warned, “do you want to test me, Salad Guy?”

“My name is Phred!”

“I don’t care!” 

Theron brandished the weaponized footwear menacingly at the poor beleaguered patron, who wisely decided to drop his gaze lest he further offend the lunatic ruining his dinner. Over at the end of the patio, the victim of the first shoe rubbed his forehead and groaned miserably.

“What I don’t get,” Theron mused aloud, “is how these two recognized us so quickly.”

“Chut chut uba na joka?” The Nikto shook his head. The rough translation of that was, “You’re kidding, right?”

Both Theron and Grey frowned, and the Nikto waved a hand angrily in Theron’s direction, spitting out the word “baopah”.

Baopah. Huttese for jacket.

Grey translated the word at the same time it clicked in Theron’s brain, and let out a triumphant, “Hah! Told you!”

“Really,” the Nikto muttered, “you couldn’t change into something else?”

“It’s not that distinctive of a jacket!”

“It’s red!” The Nimbanel chimed in, still massaging his forehead. “It’s like you’re waving a giant flag saying ‘look at me’!”

“Plenty of people wear the color red!” Theron protested.

“The triangles on it look like an arrow pointing at your head and that ridiculous haircut,” Salad Phred said, still looking pointedly at the table lest he get maimed by a shoe. “It’s like you want everyone to notice you.”

“I thought it looked more like a hazard symbol,” the Nikto added oh-so-helpfully in Huttese.

The spy wrinkled his nose and glared at the Wroonian, then the bad guys, and then the Jedi smiling just a little too serenely at him.

“Quick poll!” He snapped to the restaurant at large. “Anyone who thinks my jacket is extremely eye catching and distracting raise your hand!”

About half of the hands of the patrons watching the proceedings raised their hands, including Salad Phred. Both of the captured criminals did the same, and Grey quickly moved her foot back to the Nikto’s neck so she could raise her hand as well, lightsaber still lit.

“Really?” He said to her, trying to keep the hurt from his tone. “You’re agreeing with the bad guys?”

She simply shrugged. “You asked for honesty.”

Theron snorted out an angry breath, but before he could defend his beloved jacket any further, the Kroctari maitre’d burst out onto the patio, looking at the chaos wreaked upon his five star restaurant aghast.

“Y-you monsters…” The maitre’d wheezed. “Look w-what you’ve done to my restaurant!”

“Um, Commander,” Theron said, “perhaps we should take our citizens’ arrest and… go.”

Theron quickly hopped off the table and hauled the Nimbanel to his feet. The injured alien shrunk away from the high heel that Theron still held in his hand, apparently not ready to feel the wrath of the other half of the pair. Grey deactivated and stowed her lightsabers and leapt down from the table. She pulled the Nikto along with her as they both beat a hasty retreat.

“Jonas Balkar,” the maitre’d shouted at their retreating backs, “you’re forever banned from this restaurant!”

“Uh oh,” Grey muttered.

“Eh, he’ll be okay,” Theron hedged. “He’s got a dozen hook-up joints like this.”

“And I’ll make sure your name is blacklisted on every high-class eatery on this planet! You’re ruined here!”

“Oops,” he muttered, and then shrugged. “Ah, well. Guess he’ll have to kick his seduction game up a notch.”

“You have very peculiar friends,” she said simply.

The corner of his mouth crooked up in a half-grin. “I like to keep things interesting.”

“Speaking of interesting,” Grey said over the shouts of the maitre’d, “how does tonight compare to your other first dates?”

As they continued to herd their prisoners across the Promenade, Theron tried to give that some serious thought. The date portion of the evening was really a mission cover for them to try and recover stolen intel and had quickly gone awry and turned into a high-adrenaline chase. They’d wreaked havoc on one of the fanciest restaurants on the planet, Theron had weaponized a piece of footwear, his date had taken out a dangerous criminal with her bare feet, and they’d gotten themselves banned from ever returning. Or well, they’d gotten Jonas banned.

Theron couldn’t help but grin, and answered in complete honesty. “Best first date I’ve ever had.”