Overall, Karrde thought the evening he'd planned to celebrate Shada's lifeday had gone very well.

Although he may have made a slight miscalculation with his gift. He couldn't deny that the necklace was perhaps a little too extravagant. When he'd seen it at the jewelers, the deep blue of the sapphires had made him think of the blue velvet gown she was wearing tonight. It was his favorite gown of hers. He could hardly keep his hands to himself when she wore it. He loved the contrast of the soft plush fabric and the warm exposed skin of her back and he would pay dearly to give her a reason to wear it again. He'd also had a slight ulterior motive in buying her the jewels as well. They had been forced to attend more and more political functions lately and she needed more fine jewels to wear besides the black Mon Calamari pearls. He liked to have her as resplendent as possible at those events.

He was very pleased to see that once she got over the shock she truly seemed to like the necklace. He noticed she kept looking at herself in every mirror she passed. He thought it looked wonderful on her. The deep blue of the stones contrasted wonderfully with her ivory skin.

The nervous energy that had surrounded her dissipated and she relaxed considerably once she'd had a glass of wine at dinner. He'd taken her to her favorite restaurant in the city. The food been excellent and the company had been even better for Shada was all smiles.

Karrde had been correct in thinking that she would enjoy a concert of selections from the most famous Harbin-Re operas. She had been entranced from the moment the music had begun and the look of rapture on her face had entranced him. He could hardly look away from her, but she was far too engrossed in watching the performers to notice him at all. He didn't mind, because at the very beginning when she realized how much she was enjoying the music she looked over at him giving him a delighted smile and reached for his hand. She hadn't let it go all through the concert and gripped it tighter when she was particularly moved.

Following the concert Shada had seemed not yet ready to return back to base, so Karrde had suggested they go to a quiet tapcafe for a few drinks and dancing. During their time together, he'd discovered Shada quite liked dancing and he quite liked any reason to have her in his arms.

They moved slowly across the dance floor as he held Shada close to him. One hand pressed to the warm flesh of her back exposed by the low draped back of her dress. The other clasped her hand over his heart. Her cheek was pressed to his and he was intoxicated by the scent of her perfume. He felt her sigh then say quietly, "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For not being very good at all this."

"Don't be silly. You dance divinely. You haven't stepped on my toes once," he said lightly.

"That's not what I meant." He had known that of course, but he had been feeling so content that he almost didn't want to disrupt that. "A romantic relationship is the one situation the Mistryl never prepared me for. I feel like some ignorant green girl all the time."

"Well, romantic relationships, as you say, aren't exactly something I've ever had as excessive amount of experience with either." He'd never really had the time or desire for such entanglements before. "We'll figure it out together." Icy dread filled his heart at the thought that they wouldn't. He was disturbed by the fact that he had never wanted anything to work so badly in his life. "We're not conventional people, Shada. There's no reason that this situation should be any different."

"I suppose." She sighed releasing the tension from her body. She pulled back from him and gave him a dazzling smile. "This has been a beautiful night. Thank you so much."

He couldn't help but smile back. "Anytime." She was such a strong person, but she was also fragile in her own way. She'd had such a hard life. He would never admit it to her, because she would probably injure him severely, but he desperately wanted to take care of her and make sure those periods of blackness that occasionally over took her never returned. He wanted to show her the marvels of the galaxy that the Mistryl had no time for. He wanted to give her beautiful things that she never imagined during her hardscrabble existence on Emberlene. He wanted to her to enjoy life as much as he did.

She slid her hand from his shoulder to his cheek and then leaned in kissing him softly. "Let's go home."

It made him very happy to hear her call the base 'home'.

Shada awoke with a start, looking about unsure of what had awoken her. The room was dark, but she knew where she was. She was lying in Karrde's bed, although she couldn't quite recall how she got there. She was wearing one of his soft silk shirts and still had on her sapphire necklace. He was asleep beside her. She vaguely recalled running into Aves, Chin, and Faughn as she and Karrde were leaving the tapcafe, but that was all.

Her head was aching and she felt like she was dying of thirst. There was a glass of water on the nightstand and she reached for it.

"Shada, are you alright?" Karrde asked, his voice rough with sleep.

"I think I drank too much last night." That was the only explanation.

Karrde chuckled and pushed himself into a sitting position turning the lamp on low. "How do you feel?"

"Thirsty and a headache." She drank the rest of the water down.

Karrde got up and took the glass from her. Shada lay back against the pillows. She mentally replayed the last hour or so of the night. She could remember Aves had offered to buy her a drink for her lifeday so they had stayed, but it hadn't just been one drink. Aves, Faughn, and Chin had kept handing them to her and she had kept drinking them. Everything else was blurry.

"Why did you let me drink so much?" she called after Karrde.

"Me? Tell Shada D'ukal what to do? I'm not brave enough," Karrde said looking very amused as he came back in with another glass of water and an analgesic pill.

That made her wonder exactly what she'd done. "Did I do anything foolish?" she asked after she swallowed the pill down.

Karrde laughed and got back in bed. "No, you just fell asleep against my shoulder and I took you home."

Shada thought back. She had a fuzzy recollection of Karrde helping her undress and then giving her a shirt to sleep in. She hadn't wanted to take her new necklace off. She glanced over at him. His eyes were sleepy, but he wore a bemused smile. "I'm sorry your romantic evening didn't end quite the way you planned," she told him.

He looked even more amused at that. "Haven't you learned yet that I just like having you beside me?" He reached out and pulled her across the bed to him. She looked down at him. Still after all this time with him, she could not completely puzzle him out. She imagined any other man who had gone to such obvious and expensive effort to romance a woman, he would have been at least a little put out that she had gotten drunk and fallen asleep on him. "As long as you had a good time, I'm happy," he told her. "Besides, getting drunk on your lifeday is what you're supposed to do."

"I did have a very good time." She lay down and rested her head on his chest. He wrapped an arm around her, holding her close. "It's the first time I've ever celebrated my lifeday. We didn't exactly celebrate births on Emberlene." She must be still drunk if she was telling him this. "A new life just meant another mouth to try to feed. Most people couldn't afford meds for illness or injury, let alone for birth control, so children were still born even if they weren't wanted." His arms tightened around her and she felt him press a kiss to her hair. "I've never thought much about it other than to mark myself another year older. Another year I survived against the odds." She pushed herself up on her elbow and traced the contures of his face. "Thank you for making me feel wanted on my lifeday."

"I will always want you, my darling."

Shada relaxed back against him and closed her eyes. She felt his breath even out with sleep, but she couldn't seem to fall asleep herself. She was hungry.

"Talon?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you know what would really show me you want me?" she asked tracing patterns on his bare chest.

"What's that?" he asked sounding a little more awake. He ran a suggestive hand under her shirt caressing her bare skin.

"A bowl of prunchti noodles."

His wandering hand stilled on her hip. "Now?"

"If it's not too much trouble." She was definitely still drunk. "There should be some leftovers in the commissary kitchen."

"What? You need something startchy to soak up all that booze?" he said sounding a little grumpy.

"I'm hungry," she said trying to sound as pitiful as possible.

"Alright." Karrde pulled away from her and sat up with a groan. "You're lucky it's your lifeday."

"Why?"

"Otherwise, I don't go traipsing across the base for prunchti noodles in the small hours of the morning for drunk women." He flung his cloak over his shoulders and slid his feet in his slippers.

He really did look quite absurd in nothing but sleep pants and a very elegant cloak. She bit her lip to stop herself from laughing. "You're a good man, Talon Karrde," she called after him.

He paused in the doorway and turned back to her, saying with a great deal more affection than irritation, "I believe the proper term is sucker."

The End