AUTHOR'S NOTE: I just tidied up the format a bit and added a few technical details that I ascribe to all my works.

This was my first creation here, and the one that I hold most dear. I certainly hope that you guys enjoyed it :) - SV

Characters property of LucasArts/Disney, artwork and story by yours truly.

IMPASSE

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away...

The end came swiftly.

He knew that when the blaster bolt tore into the synthskin gutsack that held his living parts, he was doomed.

In the infinitesimal amount of time that is the line between life and death, he saw his life flash before his eyes.

A lifetime of war. A lifetime of blood and rage and sadness.

In the black night that was his life shone a single star; a star which was bright enough to illuminate the inky sky. He let go of everything else once he had seen it.

Only the star mattered.

Only she truly mattered.

How he remembered the first time he had ever lain his eyes on her, back on Hypori.

They were enemies then; he, the Supreme Commander of the Confederacy of Independent Systems' droid army and she, a distinguished Jedi Master who served the Galactic Republic.

She had lasted longer than the other three; parrying or blocking the unimaginably fast and powerful flourishes his mechanical limbs delivered. He felt giddy in fighting a warrior of such skill, and felt some tiny measure of admiration of the kind only a male could feel for a female as his eyes hungrily scanned her.

He watched her body move, her sinuous, lithe frame perfect in both form and function. He practically heard her heart pounding in her chest, seemingly beating away the last few minutes of her life.

Or so it was.

Just as he disarmed her and was poised to deliver the finishing blow, she was saved; violently Force pushed out of the way by one of her colleagues whom he had assumed to be dead.

A better set of memories then called out to him. Memories which he knew from the moment they were conceived in his cybernetic brain were those he would carry to his grave.

He was momentarily amused and somewhat comforted by the reality of the thought.

Then he once again lost himself to the timeless recesses of his memory...

The alarm klaxons were blaring wildly in a CIS transport bridge. Droids and organics alike ran amok in sheer terror as Republic and CIS forces proceeded to do battle there and then. There were three Jedi on that day, one master and two knights.

She was that Master.

She proceeded to do battle with him while the knights duelled four of his IG-100 Magnaguards. The knights put up a good show and he would have applauded them for their effort even if, in the end, it resulted to their violent deaths by electrocution from the Magnaguards' electrostaffs. She, however, was an even better combatant. She had learned from their previous encounter, and he welcomed her second attempt on his life with open arms.

Each of their blows was a step, and each of their steps was a blow.

They were performing a deadly dance on the deck of the transport, a veritable tango between two masters of the lightsaber, his two blades against her one.

As they performed their waltz of death, the surviving pilots who remained in their posts managed to get the hyperdrive to work. In a few seconds they would have been set for the jump to lightspeed and escaped the onslaught from the chasing Republic ships.

Then came the boom.

In the last possible bit of time before the hyperjump, the CIS transport took a critical hit from one of the Republic ships, damaging the ship's navicomputer. Though their original destination was seemingly wiped out from the navicomputer, the transport nevertheless managed to achieve hyperjump—to nowhere.

He remembered dramatically crossing blades with her when the hyperjump occurred. The next things he remembered were searing heat and the cacophony of agonized screams and twisting metal.

Then came darkness.

"Ugh..."

He woke up growling with a start. The neurosimulators in his joints were screaming electronic signals into his electrode-studded brain.

Even as a cyborg, he still knew what it meant to feel.

Due to that and the damage he had sustained, there he lay, wracked in pain. He didn't see daylight at first, a large piece of wasted durasteel lay on top of him.

With an irate growl, the cyborg tossed the hulking scrap out of his way with his still-powerful limbs.

He rose on aching duranium limbs and observed that he was more-or-less on a strange scrubland planet. His gaze saw, far and wide, a nigh-endless field of sparkling silvery-blue crystal sand, punctuated here and there with bizarre crystalline rock formations and large patches of exotic vegetation.

He immediately paused to examine his joints and was pleased to see that they were intact enough to prevent this potentially lethal sand from getting in and totally immobilizing his cybernetic limbs. His irritation returned however after finding out that only two of his trophy lightsabers had survived the crash of his shuttle. The other two were crushed along with most of his armorweave cape in the shuttle's charred wreckage.

As if on cue, a piece of the wreckage was flung out of the way and out came a surprise; she too had survived!

She was not in good form; he saw that her robes were torn & charred in many places and that she was bleeding from several cuts and grazes. The female Jedi stood up shakily and only then noticed the also injured cyborg general.

Their eyes met; the golden pair into the pair of ebony.

Simultaneously, they lit their blades and prepared to do battle once more.

"Give it up, Grievous." said the female Jedi, a trickle of blood running down her chin, "you're damaged enough and I don't think you plan on going back to Coruscant in a scrap barge."

General Grievous' vocabulator sneered at the truth of the statement, "Don't forget, Master Shaak Ti, that you're hurt as well. Unlike myself, however, you cannot spare any lost parts."

"Then I have no choice."

"As if you ever did, Jedi."

They struck again, albeit more clumsily then before. From what was once an elegant, deadly tango was now an awkward lightsaber two-step; their injuries had taken their toll.

The cyborg General roared as he struck, his damaged joints sending splinters of agony up his mechanized brain. Master Shaak Ti did not fare better; her usage of the Force was taking a heavy toll on her injured self, and she felt as if a bit of her life was ripped away even as she wordlessly blocked the cybernetic butcher blow by blow.

After what seemed to be an eternity, with simultaneous overhead strikes, they again met as one.

"You're tired, Shaak Ti," sneered Grievous as he strained to break the saberlock, "Why not just let me put you out of your misery?"

The Togruta Jedi remained silent, the narrowing of her ebony eyes her only reply. They seemed to be fated there to be locked in combat forever when they heard an almighty bellowing roar and saw a colossal shadow looming from above.

They never saw it coming.

As the great creature swooped down it opened a set of razor-toothed jaws, large enough to have gulped down a starfighter, ready to swallow the two tiny beings with glowing, humming swords that stood directly beneath it. The two combatants abruptly let go of their lethal embrace, leaping away just in time to avoid the massive beast from turning them into bite-sized snacks.

General Grievous took his attention away from the injured Shaak Ti to the hungry monstrosity that had swooped back into the air.

Before he could retaliate, the creature had struck him hard on the chest with some of the numerous, muscular tentacles it had in place of a tail. The cyborg nearly blacked out from the additional damage the blow had inflicted along with the pain already clawing the inside of his duranium skull.

He came to moments later, still weak, only to see a gaping maw ready to swallow him whole.

Come at me then, filthy beast, he thought irately, as he raised his lightsabers in a futile attempt to defend himself.

What happened next was something General Grievous could have never predicted. Shaak Ti could not believe what she had done either.

She had Force-pushed the cyborg general in the nick of time before the creature's jaws could crush him to scrap.

Grievous flew back, hit a tall rock formation headfirst and collapsed immediately.

Stars end...I meant to save him, not kill him! Shaak Ti thought frustratedly.

The creature's immense jaws snapped shut at air and roared in anger at being cheated of its meal before turning toward the other morsel standing nearby.

She leapt high into the air, away from the lethal jaws that threatened to swallow her whole. She gathered all that was left of her capacity to call on the Force. Vitality once more flowed within her body. As she dropped, she screamed in defiance and gathered all this strength in one last strike aimed at the creature's midsection.

Please...just enough to finish this!

Her blade met the creature's back.

At another time, it would have been a fatal blow. The lightsaber would have effortlessly charred through whatever organs had been in there with the strength that a Jedi Master of Shaak Ti's calibre had channelled into the blow.

But it didn't happen.

It couldn't happen.

The beast's hide held.

Somehow its leathery, armorlike skin was resistant to energy attacks of even the most intense kind. The creature, however, noticed the attack and responded by screeching and twisting in the air, flinging the astonished Jedi Master from its back and hard onto the ground.

The Togruta Jedi Master had not even recovered from the delirium and pain her contorted fall had given her when powerful, leathery tentacles wrapped around her body. There, a familiar, horrific roar greeted her along with great flecks of foul smelling saliva showering her face. Her powers exhausted, she closed her eyes & accepted her fate.

Shaak Ti heard him roaring in fury at the same time as the creature. A veritable symphony of fury, pain and hunger mixed into one.

So he wasn't dead after all...what difference does that make?

She expected the intense heat of his two lightsabers burning through her exposed neck. What she didn't expect was the creature's crushing caudal tentacles releasing abruptly along with the creature squealing in pain.

The shock of this happening was enough to open her night colored eyes as just as she dropped softly on the sands.

She saw that all around her lay pieces of the tentacles, all bloody, some still spastically twitching. What really got her attention though were the severed ends of the mangled tentacles. There were untidy strips and uneven chunks of flesh marking their points of amputation.

These were not cut, she gasped, these were torn apart by brute force!

Only then, above the creature's agonized bellows, did she look up into the sky.

What met her sight left her rooted to the ground in sheer astonishment; Grievous was fighting the creature with nothing but his prodigious, unnatural strength, speed, and agility.

The same boons which made the cyborg general the deadliest Jedi hunter the galaxy had ever seen were serving him just as well in the fight against the beast. The monstrous creature lunged, dove, twisted, bit and thrashed. All in an attempt to crunch the tiny metal being which had somehow ripped a good number of its caudal tentacles to bloody pieces.

At first, the creature seemed too slow and the cyborg too quick. He kept punctuating the creature's pain and anger by slashing & ripping chunks of flesh here and there with his sharp duranium claws, dodging and leaping out just in time before the beast could snap at him with its mouth, smack him with one of its four great wings, or lash out with the remaining tentacles it had.

But the creature was not stupid.

Learning from its mistakes, it managed to time a critical strike from its remaining caudal tentacles just as the half-droid general attempted to avoid its razor sharp teeth. Just as he was about to get struck into scrap metal, Grievous' cybersynapses fired and in the tiniest fraction of a second, he had managed to arc his body just right—or wrong it seemed.

The creature was even smarter than he or she could have ever imagined.

His avoiding of the tentacle strikes had sent General Grievous into a contorted dive right into the creature's waiting maw.

It swallowed him whole.

Shaak Ti practically heard the relish in the creature's gulp.

This is it then...Shaak Ti thought as the creature dove down, mouth wide-open to swallow her whole.

She had no strength left.

She had no hope left.

She could not even use the Force to protect her.

With these realizations, Master Shaak Ti closed her eyes in solemn defeat. In the back of her mind, however, a question brewed.

Why Grievous...why did you save me?

She had expected it to be incredibly painful, but at least brief.

She held no fear as she watched with open eyes her expected death as this monster's snack. She had already made peace with the Force in anticipation of her demise. What she did not expect was the beast to abruptly halt its dive, and rise upwards howling.

She did not understand what was happening until a sword of green fire suddenly erupted from the creature's midsection, followed by a blue one.

Apparently, its immunity to lightsabers only applied to the outer part of its skin.

General Grievous hung out from a slash on the creature's ruined stomach, covered head-to-toe with all manner of blood and gore from the creature. It attempted to flee with its mangled entrails hanging out, swinging pathetically and liberally showering the ground beneath with blood.

The cyborg warlord would not have that.

Using a severed intestine as a line, he swung himself onto the creature's flank and, with his clawed hands and sheer strength, ripped off and amputated what tentacles it had left.

Shaak Ti was on her knees, dumbstruck and numb as she watched Grievous do battle with the creature. Using the same intestine, he swung himself forward toward the beast's head.

Awestruck she was when he hurled himself onto the top of the beast's head and heard his victorious roar as he drove both lightsabers to their hilts into the creature's vulnerable pair of eyes.

The creature gave one last piteous howl as its life was ripped away by the twin bars of plasma that incinerated its eyes and roasted away its brain.

Grievous leapt from the monster while it dropped with an almighty crunching thud on the ground, dead and mutilated. In the back of her mind, she expected him to kill her there and then as she knelt there, helpless.

Strangely, only peace and a numb detachment encroached their way into her heart at the thought.

Fate would not have Shaak Ti die that day.

General Grievous stood tall, the light from the desert planet's star illuminating his bloodsoaked form.

He could have been a mighty god of war standing triumphant after some indescribably vicious battle.

But his majesty only lasted a moment and then he fell.

Shaak Ti could not remember when she started running to her unlikely saviour.

It didn't matter.

She was a Jedi. To them, all beings had a right to live, even if they were as capricious as Grievous was.

Deep down inside though, she understood there was something different there.

I have to save him this time around...in any way I can!

"Oh...you're finally awake. I was beginning to worry that you had slipped into a coma. I...managed to revive you."

Her gentle voice was the first thing he heard as he woke up with a groan. Sitting up slowly, Grievous snarled as his neurosimulators continued to fire shards of pain up his skull. He opened his eyes and saw that he was near the entrance of a cave. He vaguely registered that the gore he had been covered in was gone. He also assumed that it was nighttime as the mouth of the cave had no light save for a dim glow which he took as starlight or moonlight.

Slightly dazed and suffering from a most terrible headache, he had practically forgotten that Shaak Ti sat nearby beside a fire she had made. The only words that managed to escape his vocabulator were, "What happened?"

Shaak Ti was silent for a moment. "You passed out after slaying that creature. I hope you'll allow me to express my gratitude, General. You saved my life." She had said this with her back to him, her eyes gazing into the fire.

Had it been someone else, he would have laughed. He would have scoffed at the impertinence of those words.

He thought he had the answer and was about to say I saved you because you are an opponent worthy of an honorable death in battle.

But he hesitated.

Those words were true but there was just something else.

Something more profound had caused him to save the Jedi who had unabashedly expressed her gratitude to him. So there he sat, not knowing what to think, not knowing what to do. He didn't understand what had just happened or what he was feeling.

General Grievous, Supreme Military Commander of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, was for once left dumbstruck.

He would have blushed had he still a face.

All the while, he neither noticed the flush of color in Shaak Ti's cheeks nor the small smile she gave as she said her reply.

"Why did you save me?" Shaak Ti said, still crouched with her back to him. The Jedi Master's words finally punctuated the long silence and snapped Grievous out of his stupor. "I...I do not know..."

It was the truth. He really did not know why he had saved her. He could have let the beast devour her earlier while he watched with an unnerving amount of satisfaction.

He could have left her to die.

But he didn't.

Instead, he had saved her. By some inexplicable reason, one as mysterious as the dark matter that binds galaxies, he did. Another silence followed in which Grievous gathered his scrambled thoughts.

This has been one strange day... he thought.

As the cyborg general let his thoughts simmer into order, he noticed that the female Togruta had lain down to sleep, still with her back to him.

He then remembered what he had planned on doing before the creature had interrupted their duel.

His duranium hand dropped down onto his belt and he was slightly surprised that both of his remaining lightsabers were still there. Deciding that he probably wouldn't have another chance, he slowly and silently made his way to her, his screaming joints notwithstanding, like a nexu stalking its prey.

When he finally reached her side, he ignited one of his lightsabers and held it high.

He would take her life with one merciful stroke.

In the very deepest recesses of his cybernetically-enhanced mind he pondered, What am I doing?

Hadn't he killed Jedi in ways where he had gratuitously prolonged their pain and suffering?

Hadn't he basked in that?

What made her so different?

All the while, he couldn't help but plant his golden gaze all over her.

With her robe tattered in several places, he studied the exposed patches of her smooth, white-striped scarlet skin. His gaze found the elegant, striped montrals and the long head-tail that lay relaxed behind her. He noticed her long legs, once always covered by the flowing robes customary for all Jedi, now laid bare in all their glory as she slept with her head turned to the side away from where had sat. He found his eyes hungrily admiring her lithe, feminine form and lingered especially on her face.

He never had the opportunity to look at her face in this manner.

Every time they had met, after all, they were trying to kill each other or in her case, capture him.

Grievous allowed his burning, golden eyes consume every inch of her.

So calm, so serene, and so beautiful.

He could have said there and then that he had never beheld such beauty before.

His duranium hand was quivering, his alien heart was thumping...but not out of anticipation from the most reluctant kill he was to make in his miserable life.

Forgive me...

"Do it."

For the second time that night, Grievous was struck dumb, the arm with the lightsaber in its grip left frozen.

With two, whispered words, just two, she had disarmed him utterly.

So she wasn't asleep after all.

Her large, ebony eyes were closed, completely vulnerable yet completely at ease with her would-be executioner.

And then it hit him.

It was as if he no longer felt the pain in his joints or his head anymore. Alas, a shroud was lifted before his eyes.

He felt relieved.

At last, Grievous finally understood the why that had plagued him that entire day as he deactivated his lightsaber.

"I cannot..." the cyborg said in an uncharacteristically soft voice.

Shaak Ti sat up slowly and looked around to see the cyborg general his back toward her this time. She had expected him to take her life. She thought she owed him that much.

It was her turn then to be lost for words. She reached out with the Force to have an idea of what he felt. She expected anger and frustration at not being able to kill her for some misplaced sense of gratitude as per a warrior's code.

Instead, she perceived what she had thought impossible and let out a small gasp.

"Why did you save me?" came Grievous' query. It was from the same soft voice she had never thought possible from him. "You could have left me there in the sands to be ravaged by the elements or the beasts of this world. Why did you choose to save me?"

He still had his back on her, apparently focused at the starlit sky beyond the mouth of the cave.

"I...I..." she stammered, "I am a Jedi. I...am obliged to help all those in need. Even beings...like you..."

Grievous chuckled slightly at the remark. "I am your enemy. I am the enemy of your entire Order...your entire Republic."

His vocabulator let out a credible attempt at a sigh, "Why did you save me, Shaak Ti?"

Hearing his deep growl of a voice speak her name out loud was usually enough to make her skin crawl. This time however, with the tenderness in which he spoke, the sensation came differently. She didn't feel at all repulsed. She felt drawn like a moth to the flame toward the half machine that stood only a few meters away from her.

She had felt these emotions before...when she had been a Padawan she had had her share of romances from her fellow Padawans.

She had even felt some vestiges of these feelings toward her old master, who by coincidence—no, she thought, not coincidence—had been Kaleesh himself and a proud warrior to boot.

Never though had she expected these to emerge again upon her knighting and eventual rise to Mastery.

Moreso, she had never expected to feel this way to a creature like him.

She had tried to get up, to walk to him, to let her actions do the talking. After a few steps however, she fell abruptly on her face.

She had never felt so weak before...she couldn't even muster the strength to sit up.

Only then did she realize, ever so cruelly, that she had not a drink of water for that entire exhausting day.

As the blackness took her, she heard him say her name out in anguish...

Shaak Ti slipped in and out of consciousness, each time vaguely registering the cool night wind whipping past her face, her motionless form cradled in powerful metal arms and a curious sensation that implied she was moving exceptionally quickly.

She didn't really care about those. Only the thought that Grievous was there trying to save her again mattered.

Time seemed to have lost its meaning in her dazed, dehydrated state.

Seconds, minutes, years or centuries later...she could not tell, only that she felt her mouth being opened gently by metallic fingers.

She opened her eyes weakly and saw those same fingers tenderly giving her a drink of cool, life-giving water.

She accepted the gift and lifted her head to look at the face of her saviour.

For the first time, the eyes of ebony and the eyes of gold locked in a union of something else rather than fury or desire to fight.

Their time together, however short, had given them so much to say to one another and all these were being wordlessly spoken by their locked gazes.

Time itself seemed to stop.

For one moment, the universe was but the two of them and whatever bond it was that they shared.

'Twas an all too short eternity, but finally her mortal form surrendered to exhaustion but not before his voice welcomed her into dreamless sleep.

Sleep well, my love...may your dreams light up the stars...

It was well past midday when Shaak Ti roused from her long slumber.

She was aching all over; a side effect of her dehydration.

She sat up and saw that she was situated inside a makeshift hut of sorts composed of rocks and desiccated vegetation. She looked around to see half of a spherical, nut-like fruit beside her, the hollow inside brimming with fresh water.

She took it and drank down the refreshing liquid, thanking the Force for her blessings. The Jedi Master then stood up and stretched in order to get some of the aches out of her lithe form and to get a better register of her environment.

She lifted the makeshift door of the pyramidal hut and heard the gentle lapping of waves along with the initial glare and oppressive heat of the desert planet's sun. She rubbed her eyes and saw that the little encampment was on the shores of a great lake whose blue waters blended beautifully with the shimmering silvery blue sand of the planet.

Beautiful, she vaguely thought.

"Awake at last, I see" remarked a deep voice behind her.

Shaak Ti twisted around slowly and beheld the form of Grievous, still in his tattered cape and with a small animal of sorts slung lifeless above one of his duranium shoulders. Without waiting for her to reply, the cyborg set his kill down on the sandy ground and lifted the female Togruta off her feet.

"Come...you have lost enough water already. It would be most unwise to stay exposed in this sun," All she could muster to say in this display of chivalry was "What about you?" as she laid a tender hand on his mask of a face.

"It is of no consequence to me..." he chuckled, "I am self-sustaining," he then laid her down onto the makeshift porch of their shabby hut.

The cyborg general then lit a fire using tinder and a lightsaber strike. She watched as Grievous tuned said lightsaber into a lower setting to carve and clean the creature he had caught into smaller, more manageable pieces.

He then skewered these onto wooden stakes he had fashioned while she slept and left them on the fire to roast.

All the while, Shaak Ti simply admired him and all that he was doing.

After a few minutes, he grabbed one of the sticks and offered the grilled morsel to her.

"Go on. Eat," he said, "you must regain your strength."

She felt a very unfamiliar feeling of playfulness come to her in that moment, "Don't tell me you intend to let me consume that whole thing by myself," she teased, "I'll get fat!"

He looked shocked at first at the absurdity of the moment but then slipped into that uncharacteristic persona of gentleness and laughed with her. "Then fat you shall be! I won't find you any less beautiful, anyway."

In the days that followed, both the Jedi Master and the cyborg general had concentrated on their efforts in salvaging what they could from the wreck of their ship. Together, they managed to recover a portion of the navicomputer and succeeded in sending two coded hyperwave signals, one for the Republic and one to the Confederacy of Independent Systems.

During those days they hadn't just worked together as allies. They knew deep down that they could not even call each other friends at that point.

They were something more, though they never spoke of it.

Though they spoke frequently, simply conversing about their storied lives or what to do next to eke out a living on the blue scrub world, their words never conveyed quite enough of what they truly felt.

At last, after two weeks, a return signal from both parties had been received confirming their rescue.

Their last night there must be one they'd remember until the end of time, Grievous promised, oblivious that Shaak Ti had made up the same decision in her mind.

It was a brilliant full moon that night.

With the cloudless sky, the great silvery orb cast down its light onto the cerulean sands and the lake making both seem to scintillate in unison with the countless stars overhead.

Perfect ambience, both of them thought, oblivious that the other had come to the same conclusion.

They were sitting side by side by a fire they had made. No words were exchanged at first and both seemed to be entranced by the beauty of the scenery laid in front of their eyes.

It was Shaak Ti who broke the silence.

"It's a beautiful night is it not?" she asked trivially, trying desperately to hide the vigorous beating of her heart.

Grievous was gazing in the starlit sky when he calmly replied, "Indeed. But it's nothing..." he chuckled, "Nothing is as beautiful to me as you are, Shaak Ti."

The Togruta Jedi master blushed at the compliment and noted that despite his being a fearsome warlord, the General was nonetheless one who knew how to charm a woman.

She wasn't even a member of his species and she was attracted.

While contemplating on whether or not he knew the effect he had on her, Grievous stood up and spoke, "Whenever I look onto a scene such as this...I remember...her."

Shaak Ti blinked. Who? What did he say?

"My dear beloved, Ronderu..." he lowered his head and closed his reptilian eyes as if deep in thought.

Shaak Ti was relieved her breathing had returned to normal but she was disturbed by the fact that Grievous already had someone to love!

No...this is the way it must be, she thought and yet deep in her heart of hearts she was weeping.

Grievous continued to speak, golden eyes closed, remembering long-gone tales from ages past.

"During the Huk War. That was when the gods saw fit to make our paths cross. Saviours we were to our people. We fought against those repulsive insects with all the valour we could muster. In time, we went beyond being comrades-at-arms," Grievous opened his eyes again and looked into the stars, "We grew to love each other intimately—no—she was more than my lover. What we shared...went far beyond that."

"She is my other half," he choked, "as much a part of me as...my own beating heart."

"What happened to her?" Shaak Ti said in a resigned, yet sympathetic voice.

"She rests with the gods now," the cyborg wistfully said while tears silently flowed down his golden eyes for the first time in many years, his gaze set upon the countless stars overhead.

Shaak Ti rose and wrapped her slender arms around the weeping cyborg, "She would have been proud of you," she ignored the hypocrisy in her words when she thought of the deeds General Grievous had done.

But to her those no longer mattered.

It was as if that was another being in another universe altogether.

In the few days they had spent together she had seen beyond his duranium frame and seen the heart inside the machine.

He continued to tell his story and that of his beloved Ronderu's while she lent her compassionate touch and ear to the anguished General the entire way.

She heard of how they had fought against the Huk hordes.

She beheld his horror when he saw her butchered and dragged out into the Jenuwaa Sea by the insectoid aliens' bladelike appendages and listened at how he had mourned her for days on end.

She lent her ear when he spoke of the arduous voyage he took to the island monolith Abesmi to beg the gods to present her to him for one last time.

He told her of the madness he felt when the gods saw fit to keep silent and she understood then why he had chosen the name Grievous.

She kept listening and comforting him and all the while let her thoughts process what she was hearing.

When it seemed that he had finished his story, what she bore witness to completely turned her heart; no longer did she think that this half-living being was the soulless monster that trillions feared. In her eyes, he was truly a tragic figure, a fearsome warrior whose endless grief had become rage due to an eternally broken heart.

She understood everything then and it just made her love him more than she already did.

She didn't need to use the Force to make sure.

She knew in her most secret heart that all of it was truth.

He then tried to stand up and grunted in pain.

That time, it did not escape her notice.

"What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

"'Tis nothing. Just some structural damage my armor obtained in the crash," he said, still wincing from the fresh bout of splinters his neurosimulators had hurled into his brain.

"No, this will not do," Shaak Ti said gently, "Let me help you."

She then requested him to lay down and he quietly obeyed her instruction. She then knelt down and laid her hands on his duranium chest plating and started to call on the Force to heal him somewhat. He immediately felt better as the constant pain he had endured for the days past started to subside.

"What are you doing?" he asked in an awed voice, his eyes wide and plastered on her scarlet hands.

"A Jedi healing technique and mechu deru," she said smiling, "I'm not an expert healer nor am I that well versed in the arts of artifice as some other Masters, so please do forgive me if I cannot abate all of the pain."

"You've helped enough already," he said.

How he wished at that moment that he still had a face so that he could smile at her!

He realized how intimate her act had been and decided it was time.

"You never did answer me..." his question took Shaak Ti by surprise.

"What do you mean?"

'Why did you save me?"

He then sat up slowly and moved closer to her. He then locked his gaze into hers and stroked her face with a duranium hand.

She started to breathe rapidly and felt her heart rise into her throat.

He's too close...this isn't how it should be!

"I...I...as I've said...I'm a Jedi and I—"

Her words stopped dead in her throat as he tenderly stroked her cheek with a metallic hand.

"It was never your being a Jedi, Shaak Ti...I need not the Force to tell me your true feelings."

She gulped. She then started to feel afraid.

He knows! But what did that story of his mean then?

This question added anxiety and confusion to her already clouded mind. The eyes of gold never left hers and she was helpless under their power.

Oh no...No, I can't...I just can't...this can't be happening!

Grievous spoke again, his gaze never having left hers, "I wasn't quite finished with my tale yet, you know," he then gently took her into his arms.

"Our story doesn't end with her passing. She is alive again and she...is in my arms right now."

Upon hearing him speak those words, the Togruta Jedi let go of her inhibitions and let her unspoken love for him take her utterly.

She kissed Grievous on his vocabulator with a passion she never knew she was capable of and embraced him tight while he responded in kind.

It no longer mattered that she was a Jedi. The Code and its staunch stand against love held no meaning to her at that point.

She was in love.

In love more than most beings could ever be.

What was more, she could feel the same emotions simmering in the Kaleesh cyborg's soul and could practically hear the staccato thrum of his heart.

Shaak Ti couldn't deny herself anymore; and so, without pretense and in complete abandon, she started to slowly take off her ruined robes.

"I'm yours," she said presenting all of herself to him.

Grievous couldn't speak.

His eyes and his heart consumed her.

He too was in love with the scarlet skinned goddess that stood with nothing to hide in front of him.

The being who had vexed his many attempts to kill her was now that only thing that mattered.

The whole universe no longer existed for him beyond her.

He knew what she desired and he had no intention at all in denying her.

They embraced each other and she kissed him once more on his mask of a face. He let his hands wander all across her exposed form, intimately touching every bit of her that he could reach. It all felt so divine to her that she could only moan and cry out in ecstasy.

He too was intoxicated in passion, love and lust; the neurosimulators which for the days past had given him nothing but anguish were now feeding his mind with a gratuitous deluge of pleasure as her lips touched his face and her hands ran about his form.

They never looked back.

All the cruel memories of the Clone Wars and everything else which had caused them grief in their lives seemed to just fade away in their union.

Everything which they had kept to themselves during their whole time together on that planet they set loose out in the open and left these free to soar into the beautiful night sky.

In their minds and hearts, it was all over too quickly.

Shaak Ti was laying down beside Grievous on the silvery blue sand, panting in the echoes of pleasure. Muscles which she had never used before were still tingling and she closed her eyes just to bask in the glory of the moment.

"That...was the first time I've made love in ages," Grievous said gently, taking her slender hand in his.

She opened her eyes and blushed, "That was the first time I've ever made love to anyone."

He laughed, "I'll take a guess that you liked it."

"You have no idea..." and they laughed together in mutual understanding.

"I never thought I'd fall in love like this...apparently the Force had other plans," Shaak Ti said as she sat up. "I thought that attraction ended for me after my traditional visit to my homeworld, Shili, when I became of age. That was when I was but a Padawan," Grievous moved to her side and held her other hand.

"Why is that?"

"Well...there were the rites of passage like capturing an akul and obtaining some of its teeth," she motioned to the small ornamental band on her forehead where several sharp teeth were attached, "The process was similar to how your people would capture a karrabac or mumuu except we usually left the akul alive,"

She then giggled.

"Those rites also included that I be presented to some of the most eligible bachelors of my home tribe," she smiled, "I couldn't help it. What with their beautifully sculpted forms...like they were carved from marble," she teased, sitting up from the sand.

Grievous harrumphed in mock jealousy as he sat up as well, "Marble has no say against duranium, love."

Then he sensually drew her closer to himself by her voluptuous hips.

Shaak Ti embraced Grievous and whispered into one of the audio receptors that served for his ears, "I was about to say that," she then turned her head toward the lake and said in a seemingly trivial manner, "You know, Grievous...the lake looks exquisite tonight"

Indeed it was, shimmering just like the stars in the heavens above.

"I suppose next you'll ask if I want to take a dip in the lake with you?" Grievous purred as they locked gazes.

"Not quite...a 'skinny dip' would be more precise," Shaak Ti teased before she led him into the moonlit surf.

She woke up the next morning naked as the day she was born and was not surprised to not find him beside her.

She wasn't surprised either when she heard the merry crackling of a fire outside their ramshackle hut.

She had grown accustomed to his uncustomary displays of chivalry over the time they had spent together and was perfectly happy about it. As she stood up and stretched, she registered the vestiges of last night's lovemaking in her body.

She was pleasantly sore.

For a man who is a bit 'lacking'...he sure can give a woman one hell of a kriff!

How she had giggled at the naughty thought!

She then put her tattered clothes back on before exiting the hut.

"Good morning, love. Good news!" the cyborg general said when he saw her striding towards him, "the battalion sent to retrieve you has made contact. They will be here in a standard hour." He then presented to her a stick with grilled vegetables they had harvested in prior days. Then she realized how hungry she was and accepted the food with gratitude.

"What about you? Have your forces sent word?" she inquired.

"Yes, they have. They will be here later in the day though," he said, a note of melancholy in his tone.

This did not escape her notice. "What's bothering you, love?" She moved to his side and laid her hand on the jaw of his mask.

He closed his golden eyes as he spoke.

"The thought of you kept from me...I can't bear it..."

"They'll never keep me from you. You know that!" then her tears started to well into her ebony eyes.

"They'll never keep you from me and neither will they keep me from you! I would see this whole universe burn before you're taken from me! But this war...the circumstances..." and the cyborg general shook his head in anguish.

"Come with me then...I...I can offer you sanctuary!" the Togruta Jedi Master said, shocked at her own boldness.

The cyborg general gave a hollow laugh, "Sanctuary for me? In the Republic? Please, Shaak Ti, let us be real..."

"Yes! I know it sounds foolish! It is incomprehensible but not impossible!" she chided him through her tears, "I can offer you sanctuary in the Jedi Temple. I am a Master, in case you've forgotten, Grievous."

"And what of the other Jedi? They are more likely to welcome me with ignited lightsabers than with open arms."

"I won't let them!" and she cried openly into his arms, "Please, Grievous...I love you!"

He embraced her as she wept on his duranium shoulder, railing and ranting about the unfairness of it all.

"And I love you...with all my heart, I do...perhaps in another life, Shaak Ti, I would have taken that offer. But we have our duties to abide to. I simply cannot let mine go. My people...they need me..."

His vocabulator then spoke in a choked voice, "and the Republic...the Jedi...they need you...You are one of their finest warriors. One of their finest teachers...they...they will be lost without you..."

She calmed down and continued to silently shed tears even after hearing him speak the truth.

He continued to hold her in his duranium embrace, silently offering her solace in the face of the coming hopelessness.

That dream of theirs was about to end and both wished with all their heart that it could have lasted forever.

The beeping of Shaak Ti's salvaged beacon interrupted the silence.

Her ship had landed.

The Republic forces would have started their search for her immediately.

"'Tis time for you to go, beloved..." Grievous said, his grief beyond tears then.

They were still in each other's embrace and that gaze of gold threatened to rend her heart asunder even more than it already had.

She couldn't speak at first, and only nodded.

Resigned they were, and both understood their impasse despite the agony it caused both of them.

"I shall never forget this, Grievous. I will love you...always."

"And I will love you too, Shaak Ti. Until the stars themselves have burned out."

"Do you think...our paths shall cross again?"

The eyes of ebony and those of gold locked together for the last time.

"I pray that if our paths do cross once more...that it be like this...not in battle. I can never strike you down, Shaak Ti. Never..."

She then turned her back and ran as fast as she could through the azure sands, tears flowing freely down her face.

Away from him.

Away from the only being she had truly ever loved.

It was several standard hours later when Grievous was retrieved by his forces.

It was already nighttime when they found him meditating on the shores of the great lake.

In the landing craft dispatched by his flagship, the Invisible Hand, a viewport offered him the last chance to admire the scintillating silvery-blue world and all that had transpired.

He knew in his heart of hearts that he would carry all the memories they had made there until the end of time.

With the recollection complete, as fire and lightning crackled up his cybernetic spine and started to shatter his mind, he was at peace with all.

Her memory had given him absolute comfort in the face of oblivion.

He didn't even harbor a futile grudge against the Jedi who had fatally shot him with his own blaster.

Above all, he had finally found peace within himself.

The soft hand of death finally took him and General Grievous could have sworn he had heard her calling to him from beyond...

Sleep well, my love...may your dreams light up the stars...