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[Bernard]

"I've given nearly every waking moment and every scrap of strength of mine to the Jedi."

From childhood, as the son of two Jedi, to the day the temple burned and their light carried on through his, to now, where he’d nearly died during the barely-avoided cataclysm of the galaxy, all of it had been done in the name of the Jedi.

"I don't want to give away and lose this too." He sat still. The conviction in his voice didn't match the worry he held in his eyes, burying those emotions under the same resolute facade he held up in war.

 

[Ishida Ashina]

It took a few seconds to really understand what he was saying. The huge moments in life seemed like they should have more ceremony and effects. The important words — the life changing one’s — should echo a little. But they didn’t. They sounded just like everything else. And they weren’t said anywhere fancy. Today, it was just an archaic diner and the speaker wore a tea-stained sweater.

The one consistency, and expectation important words always met, was their firm association with important emotions. She felt them stirring within her now. They’d been there this whole time, but the impact of what he was saying made them rise and spike. It was like a rush of adrenaline that made her hands tingle and her legs go numb.

Her question had been more about how he would step away from all his responsibilities. He answered her with how he saw it to be possible. How he’d convinced himself so far.

“I’m not sure I understand. You’re not talking about abandoning your duty entirely, are you?” Ishida said, her voice low. Her hands moved from her face to the table.

Duty was one of Sardun’s favourite words. He clothed his student in it until it was all she knew how to wear. Without it, she would be naked.

“Just..changing it to.. what? A galaxy where we can be together all the time?”

 

[Bernard]

“You don’t need to be mocking about it,” Bernard said quietly.

He sat back and crossed his arms.

The rain gently tapped against the window. His jacket still covered the heater. It’d be quite warm by now. Thin strands of steam rose from the small opening in the tea cup atop the table. Behind it, Ishida’s hands sat neatly on the plasteel. Her nails were painted, a nice off-shade of white. Somehow she always managed to appear elegant.

“Even if I fulfill one duty, there are a dozen more waiting for me. I’m never going to be free of them,” he sighed. “But duty can’t be all there is for us, can it?”

 

[Ishida Ashina]

“I’m not mocking you.” Ishida frowned, fighting the urge to sit back against her chair and kept herself leaning into the conversation. “It’s just..what I think you’re talking about is hard to imagine.”

He was right, of course. One good deed begot another, and another, and another, and another. Once upon a time he’d proclaimed that it was his duty, until his last breath, to carry the torch of light for all those who could no longer. Fallen to early on the same path the lovers tread now.

“Because of exactly that, picking and choosing where we put our attention and where we don’t isn’t the life we’ve been trained for. The other side of all there is…is just…. It’s hard to picture.”

 

[Bernard]

Bernard’s expression tightened for a moment. He shifted to lean on his side in the chair, and rubbed the side of his neck.

“What do you think I’m talking about?"

 

[Ishida Ashina]

It took a few seconds for Ishida to consider his question. Her mouth half-parted to repeat what she’d just said, and then clicked shut again.

“I need you to tell me.” She admitted. “I’m hearing what you can’t do anymore, which is where we are right now. In a place of can’t, and not enough.”

Ishida’s voice dropped in volume as if what she was saying was already dishonourable.

“We don’t even know what enough looks like, do we?”

As if the answer were in her tea, she peeled her eyes from his and down to the tea in front of her. She wrapped her hands around its base, and pressed her thumbs against the lip of the lid to lift it and let the steam rise freely.

The vapours weren’t full of any wisdom. Nothing further than what she could already assume: Enough was probably all the gaps between their interactions that they longed for. All the space that needed to be filled. All the milestones sacrificed their relationship was subject to out of respect for responsibility and creed. But she was having a difficult time conceiving how to close that gap.

 

[Bernard]

"We won't know until we make an effort to find out," he said.

Laughter echoed from a table somewhere.

Bernard shifted again, resting his arms on the table. He sat quietly hunched over his tea for a moment, in thought.

"I'm … afraid it will destroy one of us if all we do is go on absolutely adhering to duty. Fanaticism like that can justify most anything as reasonable, and I don't buy into the stories that Jedi don't deserve happiness, too."

 

[Ishida Ashina]

Tython was still too raw. She drew in a sharp breath at the mention of being destroyed. For too long she’d thought she lost him, and there was a sting to that memory.

Because duty got in their way and they’d split up. Because duty got in their way, they never visited the waterfalls of Akar Kesh. Or the silent desert.

“You’re right. I can’t do that again.”

Around their small table near the door, other conversations sounded much livelier. She tried to pick one to drown herself in, but the noise was just white static with scatterings of gasps or laughs that, without really concentrating, she couldn’t pinpoint. It was just loud enough to not be distracting. For all intents and purposes, it was just the two of them in the crowded café.

Her stomach was in knots. Twisted up almost right to the base of her ribs. She sighed and tried to resolve the tension coiled up within.

Even though he was gone, she could feel Sardun’s disdain for what she was about to say. He’d be rolling in his grave so vigorously it could have been a turbine to power Coruscant.

“Alright,” Her thumb stroked along the side of her cup. Inside, the amethyst tea grew richer and richer in colour. She realized she’d forgotten to remove the tea bag, and pulled the string, letting it sit in the lid she’d removed earlier.

She sighed again, just to try and resolve the final twists in her belly.

Pulling at the string in up-and-down motions, but it not going anywhere, she finally looked back to him, “When we reunited, and I said I want to find out with you what being together looks like, I meant it.” She stopped tugging. “I’m having trouble wrapping my head around what you’re saying entirely.”

Perhaps this is why the Jedi of yore forbade attachment. It got in the way of total servitude to the people.

“But I want to find out.”

 

[Bernard]

Bernard breathed out the breath he'd held anticipating an argument that never came. In its stead, Ishida agreed and reaffirmed her commitment to the promise she made.

"Thank you," he said quietly, and leaned forward to take her hands into his.

He was leaning half-way over the table to reach her. She still held the string connected to the loose bag of leaves, and the steam rising up made her hands feel much warmer than he was accustomed to, though maybe he'd just forgotten how warm they always felt. In thoughts he cursed the table's obstructive presence, but overwhelmingly a sense of relief overcame him. He didn’t give any credence to the doubts and fears still lingering in the back of his mind. They couldn't find any purchase to settle in here.

He looked up at her after a moment.

"You seemed afraid before, of going down this path. What changed?"

 

[Ishida Ashina]

She barely heard Bernard’s thanks above the roar of her mind. Somehow, it squeaked in, and her eyes snapped up at him. It seemed imbalanced for him to thank her, undeserved, and she hastily looked back down. Her cheeks flushed.

With his hands covering hers, the last few knots in her abdomen unwound.

“I am afraid.” She murmured back, keeping her eyes low. The words tasted bitter and wilted her posture.

“But I'm more afraid of losing you.” Those words were worse. She straightened and looked up once more.

“And..” her voice was still thin “I won’t go back on my promise.”

 

[Bernard]

Bernard's hands slowly lowered and dropped back onto the table. His expression turned thoughtful.

"You're…are you sure you want this? To compromise and discard who you are and what you are out of fear? For me? A promise doesn't need to be a prison. You don’t owe me or our relationship what makes you you."

 

[Ishida Ashina]

Ishida frowned.

“Yes.” Adamance triumphed over hesitance. “I’m sure. Otherwise I wouldn’t have said it.”

It was complicated, this world they were in.

“It’s not just fear.”

Again, she sighed.

“I don’t know how to explain it, but.. duty is always there. It will always be there. It always has been. I didn’t choose it. It’s not really a choice, it’s an instinct.

That’s what I’ve been trained and raised to do. Someone I’m supposed to be. Duty to Ashina or duty to the Jedi, or duty to the Light — those are expectations to be met.”

She mulled over her next set of words for a second. Choices were few and far between. Real choices. The kind that shifted direction and life, adding definition to the eventual outcome.

“I’m not compromising who I am by making a choice. If anything, it’s the opposite. Like I’m leaning into who I am, or who I want to be.”

 

[Bernard]

Bernard smiled, slightly. He didn’t radiate joy, nor amusement. The emotion fell closer to awe, but much more understated.

"You're sure of yourself in ways I could never be." His gaze fell to the cup on the table.

The small smile widened at one corner of his lips.

"I guess that's one of the things that make me fall in love with you each time over."

He tapped the plastic top of the cup with his finger in an absentmindedly rhythm.

"Now that we'll be seeing a lot more of each other, what's the first thing you want to do?"

 

[Ishida Ashina]

Every time they reunited after a stint of time, it seemed easier and easier to say they loved one another. Even slipped into a comment about personalities, it sounded all the sweeter than the technically modulated blue-holo-version of Bernard.

Ishida felt a blush rush through her cheeks. Her eyes darted away, sheepishly, to watch a tray of soups sail past them and be delivered to a group of friends around a table by the main window.

What was the first thing she wanted to do? The question settled over her, letting a laundry list of activities rank themselves out in her mind. They’d trekked through deciphering, as they always had to when reunited, and were ready to transition to simply enjoying one another’s company.

There was still an edge of disbelief that loomed around the peripheries. There had been so many moments that felt untouchable — like dancing under Onderon’s stars to a private tune — that had been dashed to pieces because something had called them away. Who was to say one or the other wouldn’t receive a call in the next few minutes that wouldn’t recreate that scenario?

The list continued to expand, and she took a sip of her tea and made a slight face. She’d left the tea bag in too long, and the Deychin’s licorice notes were more prominent than she usually liked.

“Just this.” She set the tea down, and pushed it off to the wall-side of their two seater table. “If we can treat this afternoon like we’re not in a rush, and just….be? Then the concept might feel more real. Imagine making it all the way into the evening uninterrupted?”

A smirk made its way to the corners of her mouth.

“Actually, first thing?” She spoke as if she were about to undo the request she’d just made. “I haven’t seen you in weeks and you haven’t kissed me yet.”

 

[Bernard]

It wasn't as rare as she often insisted it was that he found her deep in thought. Those moments provided ample time to observe. The lines she’d drawn around and away from the corners of her eyes were precise. Details that accentuated their elegant sharpness and made her eyes seem to cut the air with her glances when she focused.

She brought her tea up for a sip and he followed the motion with his eyes, taking in the small details that made her her and not the fuzzy blue miniature facsimile he was too used to seeing. The tea, her expression said, seemed too bitter, and she pushed it aside to explain her request.

Bernard’s brows quirked subtly, but he understood her desire for a day without disruptions. His brow quirked more visibly after the request's addendum, but not without a small smirk of his own. Before anything else, however, he leaned to pick through his jacket and tapped his holocom off.

"I don't think I can fulfill that request." He brushed his hand over the table and settled back into the chair. "There seems to be a serious and insurmountable obstacle preventing me from doing so," he smiled.

 

[Ishida Ashina]

Off. She saw him turn his holocom off. Anything short of Master Varobalder, or Henna, reaching out telepathically, made him unreachable. Her heart and mind leapt at the same time, and she felt herself melt while the areas around her knuckles tensed. Anxiously happy and hopeful all at once.

When he rejected her request, she huffed out her disappointment and shook her head. Her palm met her jaw, and her elbow rested on the table. She leaned into it, faux glaring at him.

Another individual whooshed into the cafe, bringing with them a slight chill from the rush and the rain, and within a few seconds the register dinged.

“What did you say earlier?” Ishida countered, and flattened her palms against the edge of the table.

Elsewhere, someone’s spoon clattered to the floor.

Her fingers drummed, 1-2-3-4-5, against the sharp border. “A very movable object against an unstoppable hunger?” Her shove against the table was subtle, only an inch in Bernard’s direction. That was his only warning — the indication of the very movable object.

The place was busy enough to be intimate. She’d learned that from the commotion they’d caused when she’d entered with the Rodian — and barely captured any interest until the waitress had stumbled — and all the conversations she’d tried, unsuccessfully, to immerse herself into. Everyone was too busy in their own worlds, enough for her not to feel too self-conscious about lifting from her chair, leaning over the surface that was half her length — tippy toes and all — and reaching for the stained collar of his sweater to drag him toward her and give him that kiss she’d asked for.

 

[Bernard]

Bernard lifted his cup up just in time for the table to skid toward him. Ishida’s cup teetered on the edge on the verge of spilling over, and Bernard reached out through he Force to catch the cup and its contents before the planet's gravity could claim them.

Unexpectedly, he also felt a sudden tug forward. Ishida pulled him over the table by the collar of his sweater, herself leaning in to close the rest of the distance.

Preoccupied by the cups, he didn’t have time to pull back before she'd successfully managed to steal a kiss.

 

[Ishida Ashina]

The kiss was brief, mostly because of the table’s border pressing against her thighs. And he felt distracted.

Hovering in a half-sit at the edge of her chair she pulled back, and loosened her hold on his tea-stained sweater.

“At least the table’s easier to cross than the usual distance, no?”

 

[Bernard]

Barely a moment later her lips were gone, and the force pulling on his collar too. Her sweet perfume lingered in the air.

Bernard sat stunned frozen for a moment. He released the cup from the Force. It tipped back upright on the table with a quiet clack, and he set his own cup down next to it.

A smile moved through his lips, and a slight blush made his cheeks and nose glow up a little more red.

"We nearly lost the tea," he managed quietly, staring intently at the cup in front of him.

He felt dumb about the stupid smile he couldn't make go away, and the warmth in his cheeks further threw him off balance.

"Was that what the unstoppable hunger was after?" He glanced up to her.

 

[Ishida Ashina]

She sat back down, fully, and crossed her ankles beneath her seat. Her elbows remained on the table’s face, and she braced her jaw with one palm and leaned into the infectiousness of his lopsided smile and the flush of love still pink on his cheeks.

The comment about the tea explained the edge of distraction she’d felt.

“Then your pants might have matched your sweater.”

Outside, the rain refused to let up. It pitter-pattered softly against the window. Tables who finished their lunches or coffees dressed in bulky overcoats to counter the wetness outdoors. A few pairs of patrons paused a second before they opened the door to leave, bracing themselves for the transition to a less friendly environment.

“Yes.” Ishida answered. ”I’ve been starving.”