My Heartbeat Sound: Epilogue

[Dissero]

There comes a time when a man must make difficult decisions around his needs and the needs of others. Dissero found himself at one such junction in his life faced with the choice to help a friend in dire need or remain where he was needed by his fiancee and family.

The difficulty did not come in the making of the choice - no, it was an easy decision to stay rather than go - but instead came in the moments following where his mind wandered back to those days where these sorts of things didn't matter. Years ago putting his life on the line happened with nary a second thought. He could recall on numerous occaisions where his choices had been rather stupid but yielded fruitful results. High risk, high reward.

Once upon a time he'd been enamored by the lifestyle.

Dissero stared at his nearly empty mug of tea growing cold on the table, right hand forward thumbing the earthenware, left hand planted firmly on the armrest of his chair. Jared had taken his leave minutes ago, seen out by Amorella. He could hear the ship engines ignite, their despondent chugging nattering at his realigned moral compass.

[member="Verie Lacroix"]

 

[Verie Lacroix]

Verie stood in the front hall, her slender hand pulling the curtain aside from a window by the door as she watched the retreating forms of Amorella and Jared Ovmar. She should have felt relieved -- relieved that there were only two figures there, instead of three. She wondered idly if [member="Dissero"] had left the 'seeing your guest out' duties to Amorella because he didn't trust himself not to throw himself onto the ship at the last second. Or if he thought she didn't trust him not to throw himself onto the ship at the last second.

But she didn't feel relief. She felt --

Verie didn't know at first, couldn't quite put it together in her head, or didn't want to put it together. But the moment she turned inward, she saw something much more interesting, and less charming, than two friends walking in a beautiful lakeside setting.

There was something about her fiance's eyes in that conversation. Something like -- regret, perhaps, or wistfulness. Like there was something pulling him, propelling him, but he was tied in place. Bound down by Verie, weighed down by their child. She felt cold, suddenly, frightened. The ex-ballerina let the curtain fall back in front of the window, and she turned towards where Dissero was sitting and inhaled sharply, then walked over and knocked on the door before pushing it open. "Do you mind if I come in?" she asked cautiously.

 

[Dissero]

The Archivist jumped slightly at the sudden knock, so lost in thought and memories. Took him a very countable few moments before he realized that the voice coming through the fade of his ruminations belonged to Verie. That he was sitting in his new home. That he was staring at a mug begging to be refilled.

Where had he been in his mind moments ago? Not here.

Blinking, Dissero gently cleared his throat and shifted in his chair, "N-no, course not," the man smiled to Verie as she stepped inside, "you're feeling alright? I hope we didn't wake you from your rest. I wasn't ..." he searched for the words as his hand finally left the mug to brush across the surface of the table, "wasn't prepared for that."

[member="Verie Lacroix"]

 

[Verie Lacroix]

Verie pushed the door open and shut it behind her. The study was Dissero's territory; she didn't feel quite comfortable in this room. She had her own room not far away that served as her own study, but that didn't quite feel like home, either. She shook her head at his remarks. "I wasn't resting. I was researching. And it's no problem." She walked towards him, stopping in front of Dissero's chair. Verie cradled her unborn child with both hands, her fingers lacing around her swollen abdomen.

"I don't remember if I'd ever heard of [member="Jared"] Omvar before today," Verie said quietly. Her words expressed fact, her voice manifested mild curiosity, but her eyes... her eyes hinted at something between reproach and discomfort. Someone important enough to stand beside Merovign at his wedding, and she didn't know him? Had never heard of him? It didn't seem to bode well for their marriage, though Verie was still a believer that love conquered all, and that love bonded them together. They were connected, the two of them. It had allowed her to find him across space and time, to find him while trapped in the prison of a mind, to forgive unspeakable things and see the man for what he was.

It was the counterbalance to the mercurial nature of [member="Dissero"], which would always take him away. Love would always bring them back together. Always.

"He's in some kind of trouble," Verie said.

 

[Dissero]

"You have no idea how grateful I am for that fact," the man smiled blithely at his wife-to-be. Jared Ovmar was, first and foremost, a multi-billionaire playboy Master Mentalist. There were many good reasons why woman like Verie were better off not knowing he existed at all, his status as a Sith Lord only third on the list.

His eyes lowered slowly to her belly as she neared and his hands lifted to warm at either side. Smoothing over the fabric of her outfit with his palms, he thought he felt a kick.

Dissero gave a thoughtful murmur at her last statement. He leaned forward and gently pressed his face against her middle.

"For as long as I have known him he's always been in some kind of trouble. He's made a lot of enemies for himself over the years..." not that he hadn't done the same for himself, but certainly not to the extent that Jared had. Of course they both had powerful friends in high places, but that was neither here nor there. Where Jared would be calling on those friends to bust his child out of a Mandalorian prison cell, Dissero meanwhile was calling on them to conduct a private marriage ceremony. It was all about how you placed your values, he supposed.

"...and now he'll likely have one more. Where he's going is nothing less than a hive of trouble," he breathed slowly, deeply, enjoying the curious new scent of Verie in her late-stage pregnancy. Curious how it had changed over the course of several months. Dissero found he rather liked this scent.

"I won't involve us in that. Not with how close we are to their borders."

[member="Verie Lacroix"]

 

[Verie Lacroix]

"Are you sure?"

Verie hadn't wanted to say it. She was, in truth, afraid of the answer that would come. She sighed and perched on the arm of his chair. "It's not like you to stay away from something like this," she said. "When I came in before, I thought I got the sense that you were... I don't know. Jealous? That there was some big adventure to be had, and you weren't included." She paused and then added: "Stuck. With me. Or, because of me," she amended quietly, her dark eyes looking away from [member="Dissero"] for a moment.

"Of course I'd hate to see you go," she told him earnestly. "But I would hate even more for you to stay and resent that your life is so different from what it was. I'd hate for you to feel that you were giving up too much because of me -- because of the baby, or our family, or whatever. I watched that kind of resentment kill my parents' marriage. I would die if it happened to us."

 

[Dissero]

At times he wondered where Verie's womanly intuitions ended and growing connection to the Force began. How much of this was her gut speaking to her? How much of it was her fishing, prying for something. He found he didn't mind it either way. The former simply met that Verie was as astute at reading him as she always had been, the latter meant she was maturing in the esoteric ways of the Force. Neither would disappoint him.

He smiled into her belly. A tired look of guilt.

"Maybe I was jealous," the man breathed in her warmth, closing his eyes while his hands moved to encompass Verie, "part of me is nostalgic for the life I once lead."

So many things he could not undo, could not forget. The sensation of the Darkside saturating his blood, bringing his very soul to boil. Raw power, freedom of choice and will. He could have been a Master of the Galaxy, could have made entire civilizations bow, bend, break. He remembered that train of thought and found, much to his own disappointment, that it still returned far more easily than he would like.

He also remembered there had been little in the way of fulfillment in that life. Certainly pride. Greed was an absolute. And always a hunger for more - never sated. It was an addiction.

"I think that is normal, isn't it? Don't you sometimes wish you were back on stage? Don't you ever miss dancing in front of the crowd with your name highlighted on the marquee? Do you ever dream about your fame and wake up yearning to go back?"

Perhaps ballet was not the best comparison to the Darkside, but the role was in part a selfish one. A ballet star rose to the spotlight of her own accord - it was not a profession one took for the sake of others.

[member="Verie Lacroix"]

 

[Verie Lacroix]

Verie rested her hands around [member="Dissero"]'s head, her dark eyes closing as she reached for him in the Force, enveloping his presence with her own. She felt his emotion -- the sense of nostalgia that he felt. She struggled with it -- not for the first time recognizing that for whatever they were to each other, there were needs of his that she didn't meet. It wasn't the same on the opposite side of the street. Never in her life -- not at the height of her personal fame or when she was secure in the knowledge that she was the best dancer in the company -- in the galaxy -- never had she felt more fulfilled, more whole than she did now.

"I wouldn't say wish," she answered, letting her fingertips brush through his hair lightly. "Fame was ... nice. I saw it as a reward for my hard work, all the hours and hours of training, of denial. It was -- I don't know, it's hard to explain. I was La Lacroix but I wasn't me -- at least -- I don't know, it sound stupid when I say it out loud. I never felt like I was reaching my full potential, or living life as my true self. Not until -- well, you know." She gently pulled his head back and leaned over to kiss him lightly, and when she spoke, her lips brushed against his cheek. "Not until I found you and brought you back. Not until I knew we would be together."

The former ballerina frowned and sat back a little. "But your point is well taken. There is something rather special about being applauded, about being adored by so many. But it's not real, is it? This -- you and I and this baby -- this is what's real for me. That's not to say it has to be the same for you."