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“How do I look?” She asks, spinning around to face him.
His was the most useless answer to that question in the galaxy. “Like a goddess.” But she always looked like a goddess to him. His goddess. His Riyo.
One of her most beautiful smiles parts her lips and she crosses the room to him. “Then that makes you a god.”
“Can I be god of properly executed blaster safety?”
“I was thinking protector of soldiers and senators, but that works too.” Her delicate fingers reach up and remove his helmet and Fox finds himself leaning down to kiss his beloved. She smells like she always does in the Senate, of makeup and formal clothing, but her touch is as soft as it is in her apartment where no prying eyes could ever see them. “I’m not worried, Fox.”
“I am.” He confesses. Assassination threats were standard for all senators and nothing ever came of most of them. But there were a few threats, often around the time of a bill’s proposal, that were acted upon.
“I’m not. Thire will be watching over me. And you, I suppose.” Another brilliant smile.
Thire possessed only a meager amount of the suicidal drive that had fueled his mentor, but in place of that he was utterly loyal to the duties of the Guard. Fox had no doubt that if the assassin struck that they would have to shoot Riyo through Thire’s body.
Fox felt his lips move to mirror her smile. “I’d be offended, but he’ll be the one glued to your shoulder all night.”
“I look forward to it, we haven’t talked in a while.”
Another thing he loved about Riyo, that she loved his brothers.
“Then you’ll have the whole evening to catch up.” He raises a hand to her face to stroke his fingers across the golden arcs that highlight her cheeks. “I need to go gather the boys. I’ll see you later, Ri.”
“See you later, Fox.” But she doesn’t step away and neither does he.
Raising his other hand to her face, Fox bends down and kisses her again, holding her to him longer than he had before. “Let’s get a drink on the way home.” He whispers as he draws his lips back, keeping their foreheads pressed together.
“I would love that.” She whispers back, her breath hot on his face. “Go.” She raises her voice back to a standard speaking level. “Take care of your men.”
With the pain of leaving her in his heart, Fox kisses Riyo one last time and goes to fulfill his duties.
Fox watches from the rafters as Riyo takes the stage, Thire on her left with his blaster rifle drawn in his hands. The theater below is small compared to many of the rooms in the Senate, and from his position Fox can see everything happening below. Riyo is speaking now, but Fox isn’t listening to her speech; he has heard everything practiced before and he knows that if he allows himself to become distracted by her voice her life will be at risk.
His comm buzzes to life. “There is a being on the right wing who is fumb-blaster!”
Fox had begun moving the moment he had a location, and now he watches as the being raises the sniper rifle before being felled by a shot from one of his men. With the danger passed, Fox allows himself to relax. Then there is the crack of a rifle and the crowd below screams. Three more shots follow.
In the chaos, Fox loses sight of the stage.
“Requesting a medic on the stage, the commander and the senator are down!”
“The medics are dead!”
“Then call the medical facility and get more here!”
The words on his comm are meaningless to him as Fox races to the stairs, desperate to be at Riyo’s side. He carries bacta with him, he can keep her alive until the medics arrive.
There was nobody on the stage but two of the beings he loved most. Fox pushes through the crowd of onlookers, some of the few beings who hadn’t fled, and falls to his knees beside them. Thire is draped over Riyo, his head resting on her stomach. Two black holes are burning on his back with a third char mark between his shoulder blades. One shot to the front, two to the back. He took the blasterfire for her and tried to shield her until- Fox had to stop his mind from analyzing the injuries any further. There’s nothing he can do for Thire anymore. He has to save Riyo.
She was still, so still. One arm lay over Thire’s shoulder, the other spread at her side as if it hadn’t had a chance to react to the shot. Fox gathers her head and shoulders into his arms, ignoring the bit of training that screams at him that all wounded should be left where they fell except for extenuating circumstances. The dying and the dead could be moved, but Riyo, his Riyo, could have never been either of those things. But she was still unmoving in his arms.
“Riyo.” He whispers, reaching one hand down to gently push away the loose hairs from her face but never letting his fingers come close to the dark hole that burns on her forehead. “Ri.” But her blank eyes don’t turn to meet his. He tries to say her name again, but it catches in his throat and he falls silent, doubling over from the agony in his chest.
He pulls Thire up so that he can hold both of them in his embrace, burying his head between them. He wishes that he could press his bare forehead to them, feel Riyo’s skin under his touch, but to remove his helmet he would have to let go of them, and he cannot let go. Not when he knows this will be the last time he will be permitted to touch them. Not when he knows that Riyo is about to be taken from him forever. Not when he knows that this will be the last acknowledgement of their love that he can give her.
When a medical team arrives, they have to restrain Fox to separate him from Riyo before they take her away, leaving Fox kneeling over Thire alone.
Fox didn’t feel anything after that day.
Hunger, thirst, texture, temperature; all ceased to exist.
Physical pain? He could feel that. But even that was distorted into something different than before. Dulled and lifeless. He’d have given nearly anything to feel something as small as a papercut as he had before. He wished more than ever that Thorn was alive so that Fox could tell him that he understood now, so that he could ask him how to live. But Thorn was gone too, and all Fox had left was Stone.
Stone, who immediately took command of the Guard, who had taken it upon himself to promote and delegate their men to fill the void in the chain of command, and who had learned how to grieve, was the only thing that kept Fox alive. He forced him to eat, drink, shower; sat beside him on the days Fox insisted he was feeling well enough to work; slept by Fox’s side to comfort him from the nightmares both sleep and wake brought; and arranged it so that they carried out all of their duties together so that he would never have to leave Fox alone.
When Fox found himself pinned down beside Stone in the middle of a shootout, there was no question of what to do when a blaster was pointed at his brother.
He didn’t feel the shot. Only Stone’s embrace as he caught him even as he fired back at the being who had shot him. When the being hit the ground, Stone holstered his blaster and gently brought Fox to the ground, cradling him.
Fox opened his lips to try to speak but found himself unable to find the breath. He still couldn’t feel the wound.
Stone, helmetless now, gently removed Fox’s helmet and set it aside so that he could rest his hand on the back of Fox’s head. “Ssssh. You don’t have to say anything, Fox.”
Fox still struggled to try to speak, even as Stone’s expression sunk deeper into pain watching him fight. There was so much he wanted to tell him. He wanted to thank him for his love, reminisce with him about the time they had spent together on Coruscant and the few interactions they’d had back on Kamino, assure him that he would be the perfect successor as the commander of the guard. But breath escaped him and he was too tired to mouth the words he wanted to say.
“It’s okay, Fox. You can rest.” Stone’s grip tightened on Fox’s body as he brought their foreheads together. “Give the boys and Riyo my love. Rest.”
With Stone holding him, safe, Fox closed his eyes. The sensation of Stone’s body against his was fading, but a new sensation of smaller, delicate and soft hands was upon his face. He thought that he could smell the scent of makeup and formal clothing as the hands brushed across his skin. When everything but the soft touch had faded away, he gave in to Riyo’s embrace.