Solace [Book 2]

"I Will Haunt Your Ass"

Time kept moving. Quinn and Rex kept living. They were officially married a year after Han's disappearance. It was a small ceremony on Kamino. As rain had fallen around them, and Quinn's white dress had whipped around her in the wind, they had sworn to love each other until the ends of their lives. They both knew that this was more than just a marriage of love. They needed each other. They were a team, a partnership. They leaned on each other, and had been through more pain and suffering in their lifetimes than most beings in the galaxy. Even as they vowed to love each other, they also vowed to protect and strengthen each other. 

Quinn had held his hands, and half shouted over the storm, as they stood where they had first kissed, over four years ago. "I love you Rex. First you saved my life, and then you changed it, and then shaped it into something better, and now you've become more than just a part of it. I never want to be without you, for as long as I live. I vow to be by your side in this new world. Whatever you face, I will be by your side." she smiled, "Probably telling you that you're doing it wrong, but I'll be there."

Rex had laughed, wiping the rain from his face, and one or two tears as well. He slipped the ring onto Quinn's finger, and then said, "When I first met you, you confused me. I couldn't understand the way that you thought, or how to acted, or really anything about who you were. But I knew that the things that I didn't understand were what made you more than just a fighter. I could see your goodness, and I fell in love with our differences. Though I'm not the same person that I was all those years ago, it's because you've played such a big role in my life, and I've changed because of you. You gave me a son, and your love, and in return, I give you my heart, and my vow that I will never leave you." 

Thunder rumbled in the atmosphere, as Rex kissed her, sealing their marriage. 

From Kamino, they had set a course for Alderaan. When Rex asked her about the location, Quinn had sighed, poorly disguising her smile of excitement. "It's about time that I explained to Gill, Armada and my sister that I'm not dead."

"They're going to kill you." he said, enjoying seeing the smile of anticipation on his wife's face. She nodded, "I know."

Quinn had cut her hair short, and it now came to above her shoulders, the dark curls floating around her head like a cloud. Since losing Han, the lights in her eyes had never come back, and the look of cracked glass had spread around her entire eye. When her emotions rang high, such as now, yellow light shone out of the cracks, like candles had been lit behind them. Rex never tired of looking at her face. Looking at the tiny stars that crisscrossed over her nose and cheeks, and the smile that, though it came more rarely, still made him to smile back. 

As for Rex, he looked different too. His cheek had never fully healed after the wookie attack, and now the thin, white scars webbed across the left side of his face. He had grown a beard, in an attempt to hide them, but Quinn had shaved it for him after only a few days. "It's not that it looks bad, but I just don't think you should need to hide them." She had set a hand on his cheek, and caressed one scar with her thumb. "They're part of our story. It's how I got you back. For me, it's a reminder that we can come back from anything."

"And you just don't like to beard." he'd teased, and she had laughed, admitting that it was part of the reason. He had tattooed the outsides of his shoulders with two sets of coordinates. One was the location of where he had first met Quinn. The other was where Han's last known location, Corellia. 

They were both scarred, and marked by their time; the time spent together and apart. But they had lived, and now, Quinn felt as though they were going back in time...or going home.

The ship broke through the atmosphere of Alderaan, and she heard Rex sat quietly, almost to himself, "It's beautiful." And it was. They flew between the peaks of two mountains, from which hundreds of smaller waterfalls poured into a crystal blue lake. On the other side of the mountain range, was a forest of pine trees, dark and waving in the wind, and further beyond that was a valley, created by an even larger mountain. In that valley, rested Fletch, the capitol city of Alderaan.