[He waits, watches, and listens attentively when she speaks. Gives a tiny shake of his head in answer.]
I was Sward for a year. Then a few months on Fest. Then… things were picking up nearer to Jedha.
[Then he shows behind the curtain of his composure to take and frame her face in both his hands and stare searchingly into it.
He's come to know her face and every inch of her body so intimately. But he looks at her now as if he didn't.
His fingertips trace the ridges of her cheekbones, her brow, her nose, her lips—places he'd gently wiped free of blood, applied disinfectant and numbing agent, however many years ago that was now. She'd been so swollen and split, he hadn't even mapped her underlying bone structure. Nor had he registered the green eyes that caught him by throat on Yavin 4 and he's come to love. One had been swollen closed, the other too bloodshot, and too hard to keep open from exhaustion and pain and despair.
But it was so obvious now.
Her face still in his hands, his shoulders and chest curved toward her as if to hold her with everything, he bent abruptly forward to kiss her. Gentle but fierce.
Moves slightly back, still holding her face, still touching her forehead with his—creased from the forcefulness of his closed eyes.
His voice is soft, low, but… had… rage]
I should have known you my whole life.
The war should never have happened to either of us.
[action]
I was Sward for a year. Then a few months on Fest. Then… things were picking up nearer to Jedha.
[Then he shows behind the curtain of his composure to take and frame her face in both his hands and stare searchingly into it.
He's come to know her face and every inch of her body so intimately. But he looks at her now as if he didn't.
His fingertips trace the ridges of her cheekbones, her brow, her nose, her lips—places he'd gently wiped free of blood, applied disinfectant and numbing agent, however many years ago that was now. She'd been so swollen and split, he hadn't even mapped her underlying bone structure. Nor had he registered the green eyes that caught him by throat on Yavin 4 and he's come to love. One had been swollen closed, the other too bloodshot, and too hard to keep open from exhaustion and pain and despair.
But it was so obvious now.
Her face still in his hands, his shoulders and chest curved toward her as if to hold her with everything, he bent abruptly forward to kiss her. Gentle but fierce.
Moves slightly back, still holding her face, still touching her forehead with his—creased from the forcefulness of his closed eyes.
His voice is soft, low, but… had… rage]
I should have known you my whole life.
The war should never have happened to either of us.
We should have had all that time.