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She finds him looking at the calendar one night when she manages to sneak away from the Jedi, so absorbed in his thoughts that he doesn’t even react when she enters. From what she can tell, he is scanning through previous years and she frowns as she moves to stand beside him.
“Anything important?”
Jace starts before putting the pad down, a faint smile on his face. “Nothing particularly important, no. Or, at least, not exactly related to the war.” Even as he moves about, neatening up the tent, his eyes keep straying to the pad and she waits, knowing that there’s more.
“You know, it’s been a full month since the attack on Malgus?” he says at last, his voice casual. Too casual.
She blinks, casting her mind back. “It has, hasn’t it?” Without thinking, she moves to him, reaching out to ghost her fingers over the lingering scars, the marks that will forever prove his participation. “A full month since all of this. Since us.”
He catches her hand with his own and she can feel him smile against her skin as he turns his head to press a kiss to her palm. “And fifteen years since Korriban.”
“Is that what you were looking at earlier? The start of the war?” She tries to make her tone light, teasing, but something in his gaze catches her attention, something warm and heady and tender, that makes her tremble with emotion she doesn’t dare name.
He ignores her weak attempt at flippancy, still watching her with an intensity that is at once nerve-wracking and electrifying. “Fifteen years since we first met.” His voice is as gentle as his touch when he brushes his fingers over her face, as though still marveling that she is there with him.
It takes her a moment to find her voice again, and even then, she has to force out words that stick in her throat, a secret that she doesn’t even know she’s kept. “You were the only thing that seemed stable.” Master Darach gone and the Sith Empire returned. The level-headed trooper was the only thing she could anchor herself on, could use to steady herself.
And his dependability has never changed.
His grip on her hand tightens, as though he too can see the images, the memories, that flit through her mind. “If it weren’t for their return, we may never have met. Not like this.” He hesitates, a look of something that could almost be shame crossing his features. “It almost feels wrong to be glad that something like that happened, but I am.”
And as he kisses her, she can’t help but agree.