Song: "The Mandalorians of Death Watch" from Star Wars: The Clone Wars OST

The village rioted, turning on their Separatist captors. About half the droids turned on Qymaen, shooting with futility as he directed every blaster shot back with the four glowing rods he now carried in split hands.

He cut her bonds. "Blaster!" he shouted over the ruckus.

"Of course!" she retorted, taking the long barrel from the magnets on his hips and joining in the rebellion against the corrupted rebels.

Each droid that went down was another victory for Kalee. The chaos of blaster bolts was as routine to their people as temple prayers. They threw themselves on B1 droids, ripping their blasters away and using them to fire on the larger metallic beasts.

Ronderu signaled to Bent to get Rón and Quemáy out of the line of fire, but he was lost in the crowd. Her eyes scanned the area. She desperately prayed that he had retreated from direct combat.

✺✺✺

Grievous bent down to her eye-level. "We have to get to the ship."

"The ship?"

"We're leaving this place together," he told her. "Come!"

She gazed back at the wreckage, then clung to his torso, shutting her eyes, hoping beyond hope that the chaos would distract both sides from noticing their escape.

He scurried on all six legs into the jungle. "The clearing by Jenuwaa. That's where we'll meet Ay-Four. Hold on tight."

The old clearing, where they'd been separated, would be where they returned—where she'd always imagined them reuniting.

✺✺✺

"Come aboard!" he shouted when they'd reached that spot. "This trip is going to be rough!"

She hurried inside the ship, collapsing on the metal floor as he fired up the controls. "We're going to a neutral planet—one uninvolved in the war." And before she could buckle herself in, he'd already left the atmosphere, zooming into the ever-glow of hyperspace.

It was only once they were in hyperspace that he left the cockpit, bending to his knees to meet her. His eyes were on her own—filled with immense clarity, just as she had remembered them from the morning of Jenuwaa.

She let a breath out through her mouth as he brought his hand to stroke her long black hair, tattered and mangled from the battle. "It's even more beautiful than I remembered."

She shook her head, blinking away tears as she pressed her hands to his own. It had been easy for him to pretend to love her when there was nothing to lose. But after forsaking his status as general, condemning himself to being a fugitive on both sides of an intergalactic war....all for her....

She constricted him in a hug, allowing metal to caress her. "I can't....believe you survived," she whispered as the cage of protection encased her body.

"You can't believe that I survived?" he asked, his body quaking with laughter.

He threw them both on the ground, tickling her, and she screamed with giggles. It's the same person. The same one you love.

As their excitement faded to a soft glow, he spoke solemnly. "Wait here."

He stood and rummaged in a tool box, fishing out a tool she'd seen Arna use when he was tinkering—a fusion-cutter. She tilted her head. "What is this for?"

He sat on the bench, gave her the cutter, and directed it to a chink in his mask. "The only way to take it off." His hands went to her hips. "It will be painful, but I've endured it before. And I will endure it again if it means...."

That I can see who he really looks like now, Ronderu thought. "Just move it along both sides?"

"And peel it off."

His voice trembled slightly, and she touched his head. "Are you sure?"

"Just get it over with!"

Her hands shook as she began the cutting process. She ignored the telltale signs that he was in pain—his tightened grip, his clenched talons, his sped-up heartbeat. First one side, then the other.

She took the mask by the vocabulator, crushed her eyes shut, and lifted upward as quickly as she could. He growled against the pain. But she blocked out all emotion and pulled until it flew across the shuttle cockpit.

He spoke—but the sound came from the vocabulator on the other side of the room. "Open your eyes."

She slowly obeyed, her mouth tightly pursed. His hands were around her own as she ran them numbly over burnt, darkened flesh. Over a face that had been grotesquely rearranged for the mask to fit amidst limited space. Over the place where a sweetly rounded nose, the dearest aspect of his appearance, had been brutally sliced off.

And over a mouth that carried a small metallic cartridge, smashed close to where his nose should have been.

The Separatists had done this to him. They had created this appearance, this sad remnant of Qymaen. But she wanted to see him how he was. And he was the same person she had known—even if his handsomeness had not survived his fall.

And she breathed out at the idea of kissing him again. It will be different. Different than before. His mouth would feel rough, and his face had been rearranged, meaning it would be like kissing a human rather than a Kaleesh.

But she didn't care. She wanted him desperately. Every moment of their separation had only made everything built up inside her worse. His eyes looked miserable as he gazed into hers—ugliness into the face of beauty.

He lowered his face. "The shuttle crash....and Dooku—"

Tears raced down her cheeks. He was still stammering something about having never seen himself in a mirror following the transformation when she noted two tiny buttons on the cartridge. She swallowed, pressed those buttons, and it came out in her hand.

She placed it in his hand. "Just kiss me."

He hesitated for a moment. Then he pulled her close and pressed his scarred, burnt lips against hers. Their bond exploded again, ignited and hot like metal just off the forge, and she let a breath out through her mouth. The world bathed itself in radiant light and color before her closed eyes, and gods....his lips felt so good against hers....

She stroked his audio-receptors, moving her lips against his, for he could do hardly anything of his own accord. There were no regrets to be had—only love. And that love would only increase once they married.

Once they married.

But dare she hope they could still have a future together?

He reached for his mask, but she stopped him. "You can put that back on later," she whispered against his lips. "Don't shut yourself off."

She kissed him again, making up for every lost day together, every hour of pining for him, every tear she'd shed. One thought pulsated in her brain, over and over again: he's mine. He's mine.

After a time, she pulled away. He reached for his vocabulator. "We're going to a planet I once visited during the Clone War. It's called Saleucami."

"It's not involved in the war?"

"Not to my knowledge," he said, taking his mask and stuffing it in the pocket of his cloak. "My pod crashed there once, and the Republic put up a brief fight because they'd been following me when it happened."

"And tell me the story of how that happened."

His eyes darted toward hers. "Certainly. It all began with a certain Jedi named Eeth Koth...."

◈◈◈

Did you know....

● The song above is "Tell-Tale Eyes" by one of my favorite groups, Leaves' Eyes. It's been called weird because it's a love song that uses a lot of hyperbole, but I find it beautiful.

● How much of Grievous' face is left is a discrepancy between Legends and Canon. Unknown Soldier states that he only had his eyes left, but in "Lair of Grievous", during the scene where the medical droid is peeling his mask off, he's still screaming after it leaves his face. That leads me to think it was just rearranged, rather than sliced in half.

● The story Grievous references at the end of the chapter comes from my favorite episode of The Clone Wars, "The Deserter".

Tell me what you think....

● Do you think Grievous and Ronderu can have a future together?

● How will they avoid the Clone War after getting dragged into it?