Chris rolled over in bed, murmuring softly in that ststae between sleep and awareness, hand reaching across the mattress of the bed toward Andrea's place. He expected her to be there, as she usually was at this hour, or any hour after the two lay down to rest after a long day. The entrance to the smallish room was dark, as was the door to the attached fresher unit. There were no windows to allow ambient light to enter--there never were any on the upper-middle levels on Coruscant.

His hand reached the opposite edge of the bed, taking part of the sheet with it before still-weary eyelids opened to Andrea's half of the sheet--the whole sheet--with his hand wrapped in it. Andrea was not amongst the bedsheets. "Andrea?" his voice came soft and slowly. Silence. Lifting his head from the battered, pumelled, and generally well-loved pillow that was permeated by his smell, he glanced toward the fresher to the door open, lights dimmed to blackness. Sitting up and brushing aside the bed's dark blue comforter, he reached to the nightstand and gathered a few hairties. Sliding his feet to the floor, he began the arduous task of straightening his nearly meter-long chestnut hair.

Fingers slipping through his hair, deftly wrapping it up in ties, he recalled the first time he gazed upon Andrea's stunning figure.

"You want to buy me a drink? I think I should buy you one for asking that of me, and two for doing it with hair longer than my own." Chris blinked once at this off-kilter rejection, the harsh multi-color lights dimmed by the myriad layers of smoke from at least a dozen different kinds of tobac products. He had just been accepted to the Academy, and was feeling like an emperor. That was before being rejected.

"Hey, hun? You wanna buy a real woman a drink?" Chris blinked again, a surprised "Hrm?" escaping his mouth as a woman with long brown hair a few shades lighter than his grabbed his forearm and removed him from the flow of traffic in front of the bar. He realized he was staring at her after a long moment when she placed his right hand in hers. "This is the part where you introduce yourself, flyboy. My name is Andrea." Her accent was slightly Corellian, and sounding slightly drunk at that. It was subdued not by the alcohol, but by what he'd later find out was her NRI training.

What amazed him most was her eyes. A soft green flecked with brown that seemed as if they were taking in everything at once, and seemed as if they were bright enough to do so.

"You do speak, right?" she asked, lifting her azure drink from the bar.

"Oh, uhm, er... I mean, yes. I'm Chris." She drank from her glass, looking as if she was holding in a burst of laughter. Chris' heart sank, and he looked to the floor.

She sat her glass down and lifted his chin with her hand, smiling into his blue eyes. She shook her head slowly. "I don't know what you're trying to do, picking up women in a dive like this. Either you're brave or stupid. That wasn't a woman." She leaned in close, speaking above the jizz so that only he could hear, "His name is Jarad, and he doesn't advertise. I suggest we find a place better than this to get those drinks at."

Chris remained in stunned silence as Andrea took his elbow with a smile and led him out the door. He had come to pick up a woman, and he himself had gotten picked up. That in itself confused him. It wasn't supposed to work that way, was it?

Now, he walked quietly through their apartment, as if any sound would disturb every ancestor to both the Madison and Marceau name. He didn't bother to turn any glowpanels on, as his eyes were already adjusted to the dark. Andrea was never home without the lights on unless she was asleep. In bed. And she clearly wasn't there.

She never left without telling Chris where she was going, in note or verbally, unless she was going undercover. It was a habit she had. A peculiar one for anyone, he thought. But it saved a lot of worrying. Especially now that he was her husband.

They were married a standard year after they met in the nightclub, and after three similar disappearances. Now, he was nineteen and a half, a rising flight officer in starfighter command. They were married just about six standard months, and he still worried when she went out like this.

"So, flyboy, how's about this one?" Andrea leaned lightly against Chris, her hand holding the crook of his elbow. Her face leaned in close to his, and smelled the alcohol that had been subduing her accent on her breath as it worked its way to his nostrils riding piggyback to what he knew was somewhat expensive perfume. More expensive than anyone in that hole of a dive could usually afford, anyway. He wondered what she was doing in an overrated vermin trap like that. He wondered what he was doing in there, for that matter.

Chris shrugged slightly and veered towards the recessed, but well-lit entrance to what he knew was a fairly clean and honest place. He knew because he'd been here hundreds of times in the three years he'd live on Coruscant. His mother had toiled here to put clothes on his back, thoughts in his mind, and food in his mouth. His mother had also died here when a firefight broke out and she had been at the wrong place at the horribly wrong time. Chris knew the owner personally, and the Ithorrian was like the father that he always needed to him. The father he had wasn't much of one. He hadn't shown up since Chris was twelve, and only because he was in trouble. And that was on his home planet of Corellia. As they entered the cool humidity of the nearly-empty tapcafe, the hammerhead's eyes widened on stalks and a warbly exclamation escaped his twin vocal cords. "Chris! So good to see you! Ah, you bring a lady friend. Your table is open." Andrea quirked a brow as she looked at him, whispered a "You know him?" and followed as he led her to the one table that had a window view here. A couple klicks away, straight down the chasm of duracrete monoliths was the Western Spaceport. Chris had seen all the spaceports on Coruscant, and this was his favorite.

She sat down, following his gaze as he looked towards the spaceport. "What is it?" she asked quietly as a young human female barely in her teens deposited menus in front of them. Chris remained silent for a moment. He never expected his father to come home, but he looked anyway. His father's absence angered and saddened Chris, especially now that he was going to be a pilot just like him.

"Nothing... Just... looking for someone, I guess, " he managed at last, sliding down into the comforting warmth of the synthleather bench. The lights of the spaceport twinkled in Andrea's eyes as their gazes met.

The silence was broken by the waitress. "Can I get yas a drink?" she asked, pulling a book of flimsi and a stylus from her smock and prepared to write.

"Ah...I'll have a caf." Chris said, tearing his gaze from Andrea's and looking to the girl. Andrea looked to her after a long pause and a distinterested stare from the girl.

"Make it two, please." The girl was scribbling it down before she finished the last word, and was walking away before that. He looked to Andrea again to find her lost in the streamer of speeder lights above.

"How... Is it that obvious I'm a pilot?" he asked. He wondered how obvious it was he was a pilot, since that's the first thing she called him.

Chris stepped out into the subdued lightning of a cloudy Coruscant mid-morning. The sky was dark and bleak, much like everyone's mood. The vestiges of the Vong invasion was nearing the edge of the Core every day. As if that wasn't enough, they were gathering only a hop, skip, and hyperjump away.

He started walking. He didn't care where his feet took him. His mind did the wandering. He never cared where his feet took him when Andrea went like this.

He was cleaning his footlocker when Dal found the folded up flimsi-sheet. Well, rooting through his footlocker was a more appropriate statement. For the paper Dal had just found. "Hey, what's this?" Dal exclaimed in an interested and teasing tone. His accent was aristocratic and snobbish. Kuati, if Chris guessed right. Chris had never bothered to ask about Dal, had never wanted to.

Dal jumped back, unfolding the paper even as Chris lunged for it. Dal read it quickly before eyes widened and he waved the paper about. "Hey, guys! Chrissy's got a girlfriend!" Chris growled low and turned a deep crimson. He hated being called Chrissy. He hated Dal because he was the only one to call him that.

The paper was actually a poem Chris had been trying to write, but had not yet perfected. It began:

You are the setting sun on a hot afternoon;
You are the brilliant stars in the night sky;
You are the calm blue sky between rains;
And so it continued for several more lines, each metaphor pointing toward the sky Chris so worshipped.

Nat and Sinon came over, fresh out of the shower room with a towel around their waists and another over a shoulder. Sinon was Chris' closer friend and wingmate in training. He stepped forward first, his dark brown hair falling down to his eyebrows, his even muddy gaze falling first over Dal's face. Nat leaned up against the row of lockers Dal was facing--Chris's row. Sinon spoke first, "Give it back already, Dal. Just because he tries to do something nice for his girl."

Nat spoke next, slowly, softly, his ebony skin contrasting sharply with the white towels, picking idely at his fingernails, "And just because you can't even make it with the paid entertainment." He didn't need to say anymore than that. Everyone knew Dal couldn't even make it with some of the cheaper hookers on-planet.

Dal took on his annoying aire of nobility, fingertips on the hand not holding Chris' paper pressing to his hairless chest. "I have no need for those sordid beasts." Kuat. Definitely Kuat, Chris decided.

"Oh, shut up," Sinon growled and snatched the paper from Dal's hand. Dal cringed as Sinon's hand came in quickly for the paper. Chris finally rose to his feet as Sinon handed him the paper.

Nat grinned. "Don't forget to invite us to the wedding, Flyboy." Somehow, above all others, all of them pilots, Chris earned the nickname Flyboy.

He sat in the stool directly across from Harammwa, his Ithorrian friend, who already knew without asking what was wrong. He immediately grabbed a bottle of Whyren's Reserve. It hadn't been as good the last few years as in some, but it worked for when Andrea left. Harammwa shook his head sadly, pouring Chris his drink. He set the drink down on a coaster and set it in front of Chris. He waved away the waitress when she moved to approach.

Chris downed the whiskey all at once, then began to pat his pockets, searching for a few credits. Harammwa shook his head. "Chris, you do not have to. It is on the house." Which was good. He had no money on him.

He stood, nodding his thanks, then walked out the door. Harammwa knew Chris would pay him back, and pay him double as always. Chris started off in the direction of his spot of meditation, an almost entirely unknown queasy feeling settling over his stomach. He had a feeling something was wrong, very wrong. He shook it aside, clearing his head and heading for the spaceport.

Andrea slid smoothly into his arm as they stepped out into the semi-illuminated Coruscant night. The stars above in the clear sky mingling with the moving lights of the airspeeder and spaceport traffic. She walked alongside him, almost hugging him, her head resting on his shoulder. The caf wasn't bad, she thought. This is better, though. She smiled a slightly at the thought, and whispered into Chris's ear. "Lets go back to your place, flyboy."

Chris fell half a step out of stride at those words, blinking a few times. He managed a "Hrmm..." He then changed direction toward a slideway that would take him back to the small apartment that he kept what could be called clean. By a Hutt. But home was home, and he was able to force an okay through suddenly closed vocal chords. On the first date, he thought in wonderment to himself.

Andrea woke up the next morning very pleased, and very disheveled. She hadn't slept much last night, and Chris was still sleeping like a baby. She hummed and smiled as she rose that morning, and continued to do so even as she made them both breakfast.

Andrea dropped to her knees, sprawling. Pain flared up her right calf as the thud bug dug deep. She gasped in pain, dropping her short-barrelled rapid-fire E-11 into the grass. Then she, too, fell. Another thud bug glanced off her left shoulder to throw her to the ground, grass crimson in the fading light of the primary. Brown hair fell from atop her head as the blackened battle helmet departed.

She gritted her teeth, reaching for the carbine. Pain shot up her arm and bone crunched as a scarred and armored warrior stamped down on her wrist. he grinned down at her, a horribly gruesome grin. The bones in her wrist crunched more; her wrist broke under the pressure. She growled, looking up at the hideous figure. Her left hand reached across her chest to a small metal spheroid, the Vong warrior pausing to savor his victory over the infidel. "I'll see you in hell, " she spat out vehemently, flicking the dead-man switch over on the thermal detonator with her thumb. Her final thought was of Chris's smile before she released the trigger. Then she was so much scattered atoms, like the warrior. All that was left were memories and an expanding sphere of exploding gases.

The chiarscuro lasted only for a second, the vermillion and crimson ball of fire dying away. All that remained was a smoking crater.

Chris had taken her to a fancy restaurant tonight. She felt beautiful, all dressed up in a slinky black evening gown. Chris looked absolutely handsome in his white military uniform. Dinner progressed wonderfully, and after the last course of the Alderaanian delicacies which must have cost Chris hundreds, she believed, he had taken her for a long walk on one of the higher levels of Coruscant.

Here he stopped, in one of the few parks open to the public, kneeling before her in the dim light and taking one of her hands. He looked up at her, and as she looked back, she saw the pale light in his eyes waiver. "Andrea... I have something to ask you," he said finally, as if decided if he was going forward or not.

She already knew, but asked anyway, "Yes, Chris?" She stood there, looking to him, and gave his hand a squeeze to urge him on.

"Andrea... I really love you, and... Will you marry me?" It took him a while to get it all out, but get it out he did, and immediately she pulled him from his knee and hugged him so tightly it surprised even her. Chris gasped for breath, and hugged her back.

After a moment, he had drawn enough air into his lungs to say "The ring... can't breathe..."

Andrea realized what she was doing, and released him. He drew the small black velvet box that contained the ring from inside the jacket of the uniform, and holding it between them, opened it.

She gasped, not at the size of the ring, but at the color. It was, as far as she could tell, a Corusca gem. How he got hold of one of those, she didn't know. In the pale light, the gem appeared almost smokey, wisps of blue-black streaking through milky white. The platinum of the band contrasted with the padding the ring sat upon, and the stone itself. "Chris, how did you--" she started, but was unable to finish, as Chris kissed her. She took the ring and slid it on her ring finger, then broke the kiss.

"Flyboy, you never had to ask me. Of course I'll marry you." She smiled broadly and kissed him fiercely, pulling him close.

Continued in Part Two