Private With Blood on Your Hands

[Mia Monroe]

Mia expected...well, she didn't know what she expected. A fight? An argument? But then Ijaat had known her a long time, he understood the toll it took and his reasoning for bringing her back had been entirely selfish on his part, he hadn't known where she was.

"I've spent a long time looking over my shoulder, Ijaat. That's a hard habit to break" She chewed her lower lip in thought. Could she do what he'd asked? Kaine's face loomed in her minds eye, a brief expression of darkness crossing her face. Could she let that go? Absolutely not. But it didn't have to be her sole focus, it didn't have to consume her entire being. She could be, and would be, more than her vengeance.

She nodded finally, stepping forward to pluck the snare gently from his grasp, and wrapping it carefully in the cloth. "Thank you." She set it aside, tucking it safely away. A great weight seemed to lift from her shoulder. Granted they still had to succeed in making them, but between the two of them, she was less worried about that.

She settled back onto the bench, the weight of the agreement hanging heavy between them. She wished she hadn't had to ask, that she hadn't had to bring down a lead rock upon them, just when things were becoming so comfortable. Mia looked at him, searching his face, commiting the detail of it to memory now, before they started on what she knew was going to be a long and hard road ahead. This would be the lightest she saw him. That much she knew, the title of Mand'alor came with a heavy price.

Ijaat Mereel

 

[Ijaat Mereel]

For a moment he sat there, just thinking. No words, no real warring emotions. To most, he was stoic and largely unfeeling. To the few who knew him well, like the Betnas, Draco, or even Mia Monroe ... He was almost always roiling with conflicting emotions, a torrent of thoughts and feelings just below the surface, and a mind that never stopped. Always calculating, thinking, and planning. Just never showing the intellect behind the violence and resiliece.

But in this case, all that flowed from him as he looked at Mia was peace, understanding, and in the mind's eye that likely turned to him from herself, a gold lattice of an emotion he hadn't truly known since Aerin and his children. For a few moments, he held her gaze, searching for... Something... Then he leaned forward, planting a soft kiss on her forehead before pulling her to him and holding her, resting his forehead on hers in a tradition as old as the Taung. A gesture as serious and intimate as any kiss elsewhere, philosophically it represented a blending of mind and spirit born from affection. For a moment grief spiked in his chest at the thought of wasted time and their mutual losses, but it was assuaged by that same warmth from earlier. He spoke only once, a bare handful of words (a rarity in itself for him), voice barely a raspy whisper.

"Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum... "

 

[Mia Monroe]

Mia's breath caught in her throat, her chest swelling with emotion. His words burned through her chasing away her doubts, her fears. The voice that screamed at her to run, to keep her distance, to protect him for herself died in an inferno. In this quiet moment, Mia made a promise, to never let this go. To not let her own personal failings come between them. He would come first.

Fingers brushed his cheeks as she drew impossibly closer, one hand resting at the nape of his neck, the other trailing into his hair. She was all fire and heat, eyes fluttered open to see his face. "Say it again." she breathed.

Ijaat Mereel

 

[Ijaat Mereel]

Staring down into her eyes, his own didn't blink, fingertips tracing the lines of her face and lips, taking in the scars, both ones he could see and touch, and those he could just feel. With that, he smiled softly and watched her for a few breaths before speaking again, his voice almost choked this time. For the first in decades, he gave himself permission to crack and feel, to let the iron mask he knew he would have to wear so often now that he had made claim, and just was a man, staring into the eyes of his newly found lover and drinking in a rare and deserved moment of peace.

"Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum... I will always love you, Mia Monroe. And as you are at my side, so will I be at yours. And I will honor my promise just now to you, as well as this one too: I will remind you that your are flesh and blood, and must sometimes tend to your own heart as well."

Mia Monroe

 

[Mia Monroe]

Mia kissed his brow, her heart beating so hard she thought it was going to break free of her chest.

"Ni kar'taylir gar darasuum..." her voice was low "Now, and always Ijaat."

She wanted to say more, to tell him how he'd taught her how to breath again, to feel anything but rage but her voice stuck in her throat, the words drifted out of her mind. She kissed both his cheeks, trembling from head to toe, resting her head back against his. "Ijaat..." she trailed off, giving up on grasping for the words, trusting that he knew.

A gentle nuzzle of his cheek to get him to lift his head, and she kissed him. Gentle, so unlike Mia, but the way her fingers curled in his hair, they way she pulled him closer told Ijaat everything he needed to know. Mia needed him now, more than she needed air.

Ijaat Mereel

 

[Ijaat Mereel]

NEXT DAY

Ijaat had awoken in the pre-dawn light. Rising, he had dressed in fatigues and set about finding his gear. Cycling the ramp down, he took an easy seat on it, observing the passing traffic while casually sharpening the beskar blade of his sword, the traditional Mandalorian beskad. It likely didn't truly need it, just as the field stripped blaster in the cloth next to him hadn't needed scoured and cleaned.

But he had made caf and left a cup bedside for when Mia Monroe woke and took himself outside, decided that she needed the rest. With a grunt and stretch he sheathed the blade, leaning it against the piston of the ramp and grabbing his caf and the Mask he had sworn on.

Many thoughts swirled on his mind as he held the mask in one hand and nurses his caf in the other. A mountain if duty and decisions before him.

But for now he drank a fine cup of caf and rested in the presence of his beloved only feet from him, thinking on the missions ahead.

 

[Mia Monroe]

Mia lay still, the smell of caff drifting over her, the distant shhk shhk of a whetstone along a blade bringing a smile to her lips. Slowly, regretfully, she slipped out of bed, tossing on some loose clothes, and scooping up her caff off the side she padded silently out to Ijaat. "Careful not to climb that mountain to fast." she said softly, recognising the look on his face. She placed a kiss on the top of his head and settled down beside him, running fingers through her hair.

A glance at her hand told her she'd need to change the bandages soon, and get some bacta injections. It was stiff, swollen. Gently she tested it, easing the tightness away. "We should go home." she said softly, looking up at his face. "I need to see it. To see what he did to it." She didn't need to expand on the he, Ijaat would know. Mia had always been a creature of vengeance, charging bull headed into one fight after the next, but this? This needed care, time, planning and patience.

She set her own thoughts aside. Ijaat was her priority. "What say you, Mand'alor?" A rueful smile played at the edges of her lips.

Ijaat Mereel

 

[Ijaat Mereel]

He didn't look up at first, eyes lost in the pits and dents and decoration of the mask, incalculably ancient. Eventually he reached over wrapped an arm around her shoulder, leaning into her. Eventually, he put the Mask on top of the gun parts and nuzzled Mia's neck, sighing.

"We should go back. I have some contacts made already to restoring it. But we need to recruit from within our people as well. It must be our effort. But I admit while I know folk, my list of allies are thin these days..."

Turning to her, he smiled wryly.

"I say we go home, love."

Mia Monroe

 

[Mia Monroe]

Mia gave him a sad smile of knowing as the list rolled off. She wanted to tell him that he had to share the load, that he would not be doing this alone, but he already knew that. It would be up to him to share where he needed to.

"That list of yours will never end, so just start with one thing at a time." She already had her own plands forming, had been doing her own digging for allies though in truth, she'd not really known what for until now.

Mia kissed him, swift and gentle before getting up and heading towards the cockpit. "Finish your caff and then close her up. I'll get preflights running."

Ijaat Mereel