Chapter Text
Something stirs you awake. Is that? What was that?
FWUMP!
Whatever just hit your window, and keeps hitting your window, is bound to wake the whole building up.
Without thinking, you rush out of bed and walk over in your not necessarily modest nightshirt. The chill of the room hits your bare legs as you clumsily comb your fingers through your hair and tuck it behind your ears. Through squinted sleepy eyes, you peek out the window.
“Vaughn?!”
Oh, merciless gods. My parents will kill me.
Quickly, you undo the latch and shove open the window. In the loudest whisper, you call down to him,
“Lieutenant Vaughn! What are you doing?! It’s two in the morning. My parents are sleeping down the hall!”
After months of forced separation, there he is, waving like a goofball from the street. That signature cocked-hip stance in his armor only makes him more attractive. Your eyes take him in once more. His hair is shorter, but it’s your Vaughn, for sure. You know, because it’s still somehow messy on the top. Both the heart in your chest and your frozen, shocked face are heating up with forbidden desire.
“Hello mesh’la. I had to come and see you. I’m climbing up!”
“Vaughn, you—you can’t!”
You whisper-shout the words furiously, but you absolutely don’t mean them. You know that you’ve wished for this to happen almost every night since the last time you saw each other. It’s practically how you lull yourself to sleep most nights. And now, you see him in the flesh, moments from being exactly where you’ve longed for him to return. His well-practiced ascent up the four stories of small ledges, railings, and drainage pipes brings back those happier nights when the two of you were the strangest pair of friends.
It started with you and Vaughn sitting on your floor and just talking. You played him music that he had never heard and told him stories of what it was like growing up as a nat-born with a family. Vaughn was so curious what a strict and loving family was like, as he only knew the severe conditioning of trainers and the cold, distant hands of Kaminoan keepers.
Eventually, your talks moved from the foot of your bed to sitting on your bed. Then the two of you found yourselves talking, giggling, and comfortably laying in your bed. You were just as fascinated by his life as he was with yours.
He was always tender, always kind, impossibly funny— just a quirky friend. Just friends. Yes, you were an innocent, unmarried young woman who lived at home and indeed was just friends with an equally innocent, unattached, parentless, galaxy traveling, young clone lieutenant.
Until that unexpected night, months ago, when your friendship with Vaughn turned into more.
The night he first kissed you.
You both had been laughing in your bed, desperately trying not to wake up your family. So you put your hand over his mouth to keep quiet. Vaughn’s laughs seized, his expression changed to a desperate stare. He brought his hand to yours, both of you practically trembling. He gently kissed your palm. Then he kissed the pulse point on your wrist, his eyes never leaving your face. He shifted his body up over you so that he could slowly press kisses all the way up to your shoulder. Your lips beneath his, only a few breaths apart and locked at the moment, anticipating the kiss you both wanted and knew you absolutely should not share.
That first kiss.
You will never forget the feeling of how he melted into you with his kiss. It’s impossible to erase the memory of feeling like your spirit was ascending unto him. Feeling like you would float away, you had clung one hand to his broad shoulder plate, the other running busy fingers through his messy locks of dark brown hair.
Stop— I can’t think about that!
You curse yourself for forgetting the heartbreaking circumstances that have led to you quietly whisper-shouting to the man you love but cannot be with,
“Vaughn, my father will kill you!”
Finally, he grunts the last shuffle to your window ledge.
“No, he won’t. He’s a pacifist...by order of The Gods!...right?”
Vaughn’s beautiful face and messy hair were now before you—your chest heaving with excitement, anxiety, and longing. The smile that brightens on your face matches Vaughn’s equally gorgeous smile reacting to seeing you again after so long.
Lt. Vaughn really, really cannot be here.
You are promised to another. In thirty-three rotations, seventeen hours, and now nine minutes on the Chrono, you will be married to a complete stranger but one of your faith. A custom of the religious order your family has been worshiping, strictly devout, for generations ad infinitum.
But right now, all you want is for Vaughn to stay forever and never leave your sight.
“Captain Rex almost caught me sneaking out, mesh’la. I risked it anyway. Something told me I just had to see you before I go.”
It’s as though no time had passed since that devastating night when your parents eventually caught him sneaking out. One comm message from you (dictated by your father) and one reply from Vaughn,
“I understand, cyare. Your friend, always. -Lt. Vaughn”
“You have to go?! What do you mean? You, you just got here! Where this time?”
“It’s an exciting one, mesh’la…The 501st is heading to Mandalore!” Vaughn’s smile stretches from ear to ear and straightens his shoulders with pride.
Not you though, you are paralyzed in place. Your mouth turns down with a heavy dread. The chill in your bones froze what little wetness left in your mouth. A dry, painful swallow burns your throat and down to your heart. Your sporadic, untrained gift of visions and foresight plagues you with images of blood, horns, fire, darkness, broken glass, and bright blue eyes looking upon death, looking upon Vaughn.
“Don’t. You can’t,” you frantically motion for Vaughn to come inside finally. He dutifully responds and crawls through the open window, locking it behind him like he always used to, exactly like he always used to do.
“Can’t what? Kiss you? Of course, I won’t if -if you don––”
“NO, Vaughn! I mean you cannot go to Mandalore. Please…please don’t go.”
His golden eyes are searching your face, worried now and confused. He doesn’t know how to respond.
“I have to. I can’t just leave. You, of all people, should understand that.”
You take his gloved hand in yours, squeezing it tight to communicate something more than just begging words.
“I do. Just please, Vaughn, my love, listen to me….”
He steps closer to you. Closer enough that now you have to embrace him, your face pressing against his armor, his arms wrapping around your trembling frame.
“My love, my beautiful cyare, if I could be with you, I would stay and risk it all. You know I would. But we both know that can’t happen, you are promised to another, and I’m a soldier bound to fight or die.”
In this desperate moment, you have a decision to make—the significance of it weighing on your heart, locking up your gut, and spinning your thoughts. You squeeze the armor covering Vaughn’s broad and rugged frame tighter. He kisses the crown of your head, and every hair on your scalp reacts to signal the genuine love the two of you share. The coursing energy surges through your body right down to your toes.
You know what you have to do, and it will mean a sacrifice that will change your life forever. Knowing exactly what you want to happen next, you look up at Vaughn and say…