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When Syril accepts the assignment on Ghorman, the last thing he says to Dedra before he leaves is that he’s going to miss her. She responds that she’ll miss him too because she knows that’s what Syril wants to hear and what she’s supposed to say. Privately, she thinks a break might be nice, a little space to breathe.
It’s not that he’s suffocating, not like he was when their paths first crossed. Away from Eedy’s nitpicking, he’s mellowed out, and thanks to this recent promotion, he’s more confident and assertive too.
What worries Dedra is that he’s not her, not even an extension of her. He’s someone else entirely, full of his own ambitions and hopes and beyond her ability to control. She can steer him where she hopes he’ll go, and he’s an obedient and obsessive follower, but she’ll never grasp what he thinks about alone in his own mind. For this reason, he must be kept close.
He calls every night at precisely 19:30, where, after exchanging the requisite pleasantries, they discuss their respective days. They lament together the difficulties of supervising employees who’d rather be somewhere else and appeasing superiors who will never be satisfied.
One night, not long after they’ve said their goodbyes, Syril messages that he misses her. She responds with a picture of his calendar, which clearly shows that in three days, he will board a shuttle bound for Coruscant, where she will be waiting for him, and however briefly, they will see each other again.
That’s so far away, he sends back immediately.
Dedra closes the message and paces around her apartment. This isn’t the first time she’s noticed this feeling, a sort of aching hollow that trails behind her thoughts of Syril. She’s been so careful this whole time, focusing diligently on her job and maintaining the careful separation between her work and the rest of her life, which, more truthfully, is to say: Syril.
And now, staring at the blank screen where his face was a moment ago, it’s clear that this feeling is here to stay. While she wasn’t looking, it made itself comfortable, and now it is demanding her attention. It’s petulant, she thinks, to feel like you need someone’s presence or you might die.
She’s used to transactions, wanting something from someone and then getting it, preferably in exchange for something they want. Dedra avoids debts at all costs. Right now, though, she doesn’t want anything from Syril. She just wishes he was standing in her doorway, fresh off the transport from Ghorman. The way she feels right now, she’d pay any price to bring him home.
She presses her fingers against the speaker, hoping to capture a memory of the vibration of his voice, but when the plastoid under her fingers stays still, she can’t stand it any longer. She calls him.
On the third ring, he answers, and his face fills the screen in front of her. He’s in the middle of brushing his teeth. They stare at each other in silence for a moment.
“What’s up?” he says, his voice muffled by the toothbrush still in his mouth. She wants to wipe his chin with her thumb, and so she curls her hand into a fist.
“Sorry,” she says. The video connection is poor; she’s not sure if he sees the tension in her jaw. “I must have pressed the wrong button.”
She closes the channel before he can respond, his face replaced by the reflection of her own. Before Syril arrived in her life, she was content, certain that she had everything she would ever need. But Syril has awoken something in her far worse than needing: wanting.
She wants to come home to a light on in the kitchen and a house warmed by the smell of dinner cooking. She wants to meet his gaze from across the room and share a knowing nod. She wants to stand next to him at the sink while they brush their teeth before bed, and she wants to hear him snoring softly in the dark.
She wants to see him badly enough that she checks the price for the next shuttle to Ghorman, the one that leaves in half an hour, and it’s only the thought of Syril seeing her like this—desperate, hungry—that stops her. Syril must never know any of this about her. No one in the galaxy should have that much power.