Seeha Kallig watched Umbara draw away through the shuttle viewport. Her heart was screaming, but her face was placid. She was the leader of the Eternal Alliance and she couldn't afford to show any more weakness than she already had with that holocast. Acina and the Sith Empire were likely already laughing behind their hands at her for being so foolish as to show mercy, let alone lay her heart bare to Theron with the galaxy watching. Crippled as the Republic was from the loss of Jace Malcolm and with former Chancellor Saresh tucked safely in the Alliance's own prisons, they wouldn't be able to take advantage like the Sith could. Lana shifted in the captain's seat, and it released a little trace puff of Theron's aftershave.

She lost whatever Lana was saying in the sudden, stifling feeling. A ghost she couldn't consume and then discard hung in the air in that tiny whiff of scent, and tears suddenly burned in the back of her eyes and a sob died in her throat as she stood abruptly.

"I'm going to lay down and try to get some sleep." It came out calm, like nothing had happened on that train, and she was as collected and on top of everything as ever. Lana nodded, then turned and gently grabbed her arm, "Commander-"

"Don't." Seeha shook off Lana's hand. She had to get out of the cockpit, or she wasn't going to be able to keep it in long enough. As soon as the cockpit doors shut, she ran to her personal quarters. The doors had barely snapped shut before she dropped to her knees and curled in on herself, her scream of anguish muffled in her palms. Tears released from turquoise eyes and ran over her burnt-sienna cheeks. She squeezed them shut, not wanting to see the bed that she had been sharing with the treacherous son of a Hutt during the flight to Umbara. Her hands slid from her mouth to her cheeks as she let out another scream, this one trailed off to a sob.

The edges of her metallic headdress dug into her cheekbones, and suddenly Seeha was tearing at it, flinging the bits of silvery jewelry away from her. They had been a gift from Theron when she had taken command of the Alliance, and now she couldn't stand the feel of them against her montrals and lekku.

She wanted to tear things apart, she wanted to smash things to pieces and most of all, she wanted to fight waves of enemies and hear them scream in agony while her lightning danced across their skin. To set a world on fire to get some relief from the tight, painful, shattering in her soul. That was the woman she had been, that she still was at the core. Andronikos had understood that and just kept himself out of the line of fire, but he was dead, or so she had to assume after so long with no word. Neither Talos or Xalek had heard anything from him, Lana and Theron had come up with nothing, and with that cold certainty in her stomach and heart, she had turned to Theron.

Oh, she had flirted on Rishi and Yavin, even during the crisis on Ziost. Andronikos had enjoyed watching her ruffle the SIS agent. He understood that she needed the freedom of being able to flirt with, and even bed, men who she genuinely expressed interest in after spending so many years as a slave. While she herself had never been a dancer sold for those kinds of things, she had been pretty enough to attract unwelcome attention and advances she couldn't turn down due to her status. The Force had freed her to become a Sith Lord, and Andronikos had freed her from her past by marrying her with no petty jealousy or possessiveness.

Once she had been woken from her carbonite sleep, Theron had been on Odessan to help pick up the pieces of a shattered life. Nothing had been there for her. No more Empire, no more Andronikos, her crew scattered. Nothing from her past but Theron seemed to anchor her. When had he become the one she turned to in a crisis? When had she started reaching for him in the dark when the nightmares from Valkorion became too much? She couldn't pinpoint it, but it had happened. And she had started changing. Little changes, at first. A decision to keep Kaliyo from hurting civilians. Stopping Skytroopers from burning exiled Zakuulans out of their homes.

A few times she had been the Dark Lord of old. Helping kill Lorman (she refused to refer to him as Minister, even after his death) with Empress Acina, choosing to side with the Empire on Iokath even though it meant that Theron had ended up losing his father.

The tears still hadn't stopped, and she stuffed a hand against her mouth as a soul-deep, heaving sob tore from her chest. Theron had shot at his father, would have killed his father for her sake. How had a few short months changed him from that man to the one who had tried to kill her only hours ago?

"You know I love you... but this is bigger than us."

There was something wrong about what Theron had done. The look on his face when she'd told him she still loved him didn't gel with the words he'd spoken. Her datapad chimed from the depths of the rumpled sheets on the bed. Seeha ran her hands over her face, wiping away the traces of her pain. She ended up having to dig through the sheets to find the datapad. It was next to a pair of Theron's boxer briefs, and Seeha briefly considered laughing until she cried or crying until she laughed over the thought that Theron had likely broken her heart while commando. The datapad chimed again, reminding her that duty always called, even when she felt like a scraped out husk.

Her mail showed three received messages, and the first one popped open, from Bey'wan. Besides Torian Cadera-and what a surprising and strange little bromance that had turned out to be!-the Bothan commander of the Alliance's forces was the only real friend Seeha could remember Theron making in the months since they'd set out to stop the Eternal Empire and Valkorion. Seeha shuddered out a breath and opened Bey'wan's message.

I've dedicated a large portion of my troops to the hunt for Theron. Hylo has put out feelers among her underworld connections, and Sana Rae has informed her Force users stationed on Voss and Iokath. If he pokes his head above ground for even a second, we'll find him.

We want you to know we're loyal to you-to the Alliance-to the very end. We all swore an oath to defend the Alliance and take that very seriously. Theron may have lost his senses, but the rest of us have your back. If you need any extra support from us, just ask.

How did he-Lana, of course. Already the news had gotten back to her people. She dropped the datapad into her lap and pressed her fingertips to her forehead. That meant the other two messages were likely from other members of the Alliance offering either moral support or indignant outrage. Force, there had better not be a smug message from Acina or she'd be seriously tempted to send the Fleet to pound the Dark Citadel to rubble, allies or not.

Seeha marked Bey'wan's message as read and flicked to the second one. Arcann. What would the former tyrant Emperor of Zakuul have to say?

We've spent such a short time as allies, but already I feel a connection to the Alliance, and to you. Your victories give me strength-and I feel the sting of your setbacks. This betrayal unsettles me.

I realize you're strong enough to take care of the matter yourself. I witnessed your power, not so long ago. But as you protect the Alliance from this dangerous man, know that I am a weapon for you to wield however you see fit. My hand is yours. You need only ask.

The datapad trembled. Seeha knew she wouldn't be able to kill Theron if it came to that. Maybe once, before the Eternal Empire, she could have looked one of the men she'd loved in the face and slain them. Now… She exhaled a trembling breath. Now, if Theron did need to die, she wouldn't have to do it herself, and she didn't trust Lana to do it in a way that wouldn't be unnecessarily painful or drawn out. Arcann would understand the mercy of a swift and painless sweep of a lightsaber. Seeha let out a half-sobbed laugh; more the fool she that she didn't want Theron to suffer.

She marked Arcann's message as read and saved it, then her fingers froze when she saw the sender of the final message. Theron Shan. Anger bubbled up. Was this some kind of trick? Was Theron going to gloat over how he'd fooled her? Had everything he'd said back on Umbara about loving her still been a lie?

Jabbing at the pad, she opened the message, and the subject line tore through her like a vibroknife. I Love You. Seeha forced herself to scroll down and read the rest.

I saw your message on the HoloNet. I wish I could drop everything and leave with you, somewhere away from all this war and death. But that's just a nice dream-reality is much harder.

Feels like I've fought for peace all my life, but everyone has let me down. The Jedi, the Republic, even the Alliance. The galaxy doesn't deserve this endless war for power. I just want it to stop. But now, I've finally figured out how to end the destruction. Trust that everything I do is for the good of the galaxy.

I don't expect you to understand. But however this ends, I just want you to know that I loved you from the moment I saw you. And I always will.

Trust. Seeha's mind whirled around the word. The sense of wrongness between his actions and how he'd spoken returned and buzzed in her head, then the Force gently nudged at her. She was onto something. Pinching her eyes shut, she replayed the scene in her mind. Theron was a crack shot. If he had been aiming to kill her, he wouldn't have aimed for her torso, where the shot would quickly cauterize the wound and give her time to get to a medic, whether Lana had jumped to intercept the shot or not. His shots had also taken out the window she and Lana escaped through.

Then there was the oddly forced-sounding speech. Theron was good when he was doing his spy work, but in retrospect it was a performance. He was up to something. She needed to stay out of the loop so her reactions were believable, because she was no spy.

She typed out a response, knowing that it would likely be chewed up by an encryption algorithm and spit into one of Theron's dead-end holonet addresses.

I love you, too. I trust you and believe in you.

This fic and the title were inspired by the song World on Fire by Sarah McLachlan. I suggest giving it a listen! Letters are taken directly from the game. I don't own anything SW:ToR, I just play in the Bioware sandbox (obviously).