Waves on the Sand

Chapter 2

Ten enjoyably exhausting minutes later, Ahsoka was sitting with Lux, snuggled together in the hot tub on their balcony. Ahead of them, over the ocean, the sky was a glorious orange, banded with reds and golds, as the sun dipped slowly below the horizon. The only sounds were the rush of the waves over the sand of the beach and the cries of the local avians.

Ahsoka wasn't entirely surprised by the way Lux was holding her, tightly and possessively. She knew he had flashbacks sometimes. She did too.

A crumbling cliff...

An outstretched hand...

A blaster shot...

Sudden pain breaking her focus...

A scream...

A sprawled body on the ground...

Ahsoka curled herself against Lux, tucking her head against his shoulder as the moments ran through her mind again. Every medical assessment she'd undergone had told her there was nothing wrong with her left shoulder. It still hurt regularly, as if burnt.

Especially when she looked at Lux, in their unguarded moments together.

Sometimes, late at night, she found herself going over those moments again and again. Could I have realised the turret was active? Could I have somehow deflected the shot? Could I have caught Steela before she hit the ground?

Lux seemed to realise what Ahsoka was feeling. His left arm rose from her shoulders, and he gently stroked the back of her third lekku with it.

"'Soka..." he said, soothingly. "You did everything you could."

"No!" She shot back, suddenly angry at Lux. "I could have focused through the pain! I shouldn't have lost my grip! You should be holding her here, looking at the sunset! Not me!"

"Ahsoka..." Lux repeated, more calmly than before. "You. Didn't. Fail. Steela. You. Didn't. Fail. Me."

The response was a togruta pressing herself against him, sobbing brokenly. Whatever she was saying was incoherent, lost behind the snot, sobs and raw emotion.

Lux just held her. She might be a Jedi, but Lux had learnt about what that actually meant when it came to mental healthcare. It meant meditation, coming to peace with your emotions. Letting go of your attachments to those events.

That wasn't something that was going to ever help her PTSD. Meditation took her back into that moment. It meant feeling that sense of failure chopping through her again. Smelling her own burnt flesh. Hearing the dull, awful sound of Steela hitting the ground at nearly 70 miles per hour...

She whimpered and pressed herself harder against Lux. Something inside her was generating a mental image of Lux falling away from her outstretched hand in that moment. She felt him tilting her head upwards.

Then he kissed her, assertively. The sensations took over, and she gave into them, gratefully, until her body screamed at her that it needed oxygen.

Lux just held her, gently.

"I love you, Ahsoka Tano." He whispered, his mouth close to the mid-point between her lekku and montrals, where a human's ear would have been. "I forgive you. I know Steela would forgive you."

He knew better than to leave her alone when she was in this mood.

The last time he'd made that mistake, he'd gone to get them both a cup of caf from a dispenser two minutes from his office. He'd returned five minutes later to a senate guard standing outside the door.