#don't follow me expecting more of this my next fic blurb will be in approx 2028 at this rate

[ghostace]

it's been a long while since i did the writing thing, and never really for swtor. everything is 🤷

doc x jedi knight

on ossus, sometime during the kotfe/et separation, wherein doc misses his wife

There was more grey in his hair these days. Distinguished, he'd call it, when Nadia caught him examining it in the mirror. Everyone loved a sexy, older-but-not-old-old doctor, and it just added to his charm.

Was she out there somewhere, getting older too? Laugh lines deepening, skin softening, only ever growing stronger? Any other possibility couldn't be considered, even if the ache in his chest said otherwise. Heartburn, he'd say, to wave off any concerns. The wrong diagnosis, perhaps, but who were they to argue with a doctor?

Maybe they were just too polite to point out the lie.

It wasn't like he understood how the Force worked. Maybe she was the only one who could read him; dark eyes narrowed, words cutting right through the bluster to the heart of the matter. To his heart.

There was hope, once, that she would find him, find the rest of the Jedi, that somehow his need and desperation could reach across the galaxy to bring her home. Kira insisted she was still out there, distant but alive, but Kira wasn't here to repeat those daily platitudes.

The others asked, sometimes, about travelling with the Jedi who had taken on the Sith Emperor. Before, they'd called him an ally, a friend, and he'd wink at her across the room. Now he had to smile through gritted teeth, pretend as if he wasn't her husband, vague generalisations instead of loving anecdotes, left wondering just how much they could sense he was hiding. They thought her a martyr, a mythical hero to add to the archives, and each day he came closer to slipping, to revealing just how little they knew.

Even cut off, they kept a galactic calendar, to celebrate milestones and life days. Time passed strangely on this orange planet, so occupied with the need to simply survive, that he might have missed it if it weren't for that.

Ten years.

Ten years, and more than half of it apart.

Ten years since he'd pulled himself together to admit what he really wanted.

Ten years since she took his hands and repeated those words back again.

And here he was, alone on a barren rock, surrounded by people who didn't, and couldn't know.

That was the crux of the issue, wasn’t it? The secrecy, so enforced because he couldn’t risk her position: Jedi rules. They’d argued about it, talked in circles into frustration, and now? It was time wasted instead of appreciated, time he could have spent lost in her arms, her eyes, her smile. What would even happen if he told this group of Jedi, so cut off from the galaxy? Would it tarnish her memory, or ruin a future when she returned?

If she returned.

More than half the colony weren’t Jedi, other regular people fleeing the destruction and seeking protection. There’d been looks, moments when tending a sprained ankle could have turned into something else, but the charm wasn’t always there when he reached for it these days. What would be the point? His heart had been ruined– saved– so it didn’t matter how hard they flirted, no one else could hold his attention now.

The colony had a working still, which was built approximately ten seconds after the first building’s roof was installed, and it pumped out some sort of clear alcohol that would knock even Gnost-Dural on his back. It lived now in a spot dubbed “the watering hole”, and most nights that was the place to be, with both Jedi and civilians sharing stories, dancing, playing cards– whatever sort of pleasure they could derive from this hellhole of a planet. He’d gotten to know a lot of them over a drink, but tonight he waved a polite decline to the usual carousers inviting him in.

There was a rock near the perimeter sensors that he’d spotted a while back, wide and flat and out of sight of most of the habitation buildings, the perfect size to stretch out and watch the stars. When he’d arrived, he’d tucked away a bottle of good Ralltiir rum with an ever-despairing hope that he might crack it open someday, to share in a reunion, a celebration. This might be as close as he’d ever get.

He could taste the memories as he sipped directly from the bottle, could almost see her eyes in the stars reflecting off the glass. Darkening cheeks, unrestrained laughter, falling into each others’ arms; it used to be so easy to love her.

It still was.

“Ten years, beautiful,” he said into the night. “You better be raising a glass wherever you are.”

Not that he’d hold it against her if she wasn’t.

“Remember the first time we went to Ralltiir together?” he chuckled to himself. “My parents hated both of us so much that we just got a hotel and stayed in bed all week.” The humour felt hollow even to him. “Then we dressed up to go to the ritziest restaurant on the entire planet and you, you looked like a princess from a holonovel, but you couldn’t stop worrying about how expensive it was or whether you’d get recognised…”

We really shouldn’t be wasting credits on such frivolous things, she’d fret. Jedi are supposed to live frugally, Archie.

Archie. He missed that name, as ridiculous as it was. From her lips it wasn’t a curse, but a gift. What he’d give to hear her say it, even one more time…

“Sounds like someone who means a lot to you.” Shit. Gnost-Dural’s filtered voice floated over the breeze, and like a teenager caught out, he instinctively hid the bottle of rum in his coat. Idiot, the Jedi don’t care about that.

“Something like that.” He leaned back, but Gnost-Dural waited, patient yet present. He wasn’t going to accept the deflection.

“My wife’s been missing a long time now,” he admitted, eventually, trying to shut down the line of questioning. If the Jedi really could read lies there was probably a holosign above his head right now.

“You’ve mentioned her, on occasion.”

“She’s a very private person, even if she’s…” he struggled to get the word out, “even if she’s gone. I wouldn’t want to…” He sighed, trailing off. What could he say? He would shout from the very highest point of this planet, plaster the holonet with hearts, graffiti their names on the walls if he could, but he’d made a promise.

Even if it was going to kill him.

“Well, I hope there is someone here you can talk to.” Gnost-Dural’s voice grew sorrowful. “We all need support sometimes.”

“I’m fine, really,” he lied. “It’s just an anniversary.”

#swtor #swtor fic #swtor doc #jedi knight #doc's romance is good actually and i will die on this hill #don't follow me expecting more of this my next fic blurb will be in approx 2028 at this rate #i've just been having teness/doc feelings as of late and i love them