You did not belong here.

Dedra was convinced of it to the very marrow of her being: your presence in this place was a glaring mistake, kind of a violation of some unseen yet immutable order of things. This conviction crystallised at the precise moment the sole of your shoe first touched the mirror-polished threshold of the Imperial Security Bureau.

On paper, the grounds for your being under those shadowed arches appeared impeccable: your reputation was without stain, and your education inside the walls of the Coruscant Academy had taken place under the sign of exemplary academic performance and flawless compliance with the standards presented.

But your appointment to the position modestly described as assistant to Lieutenant Meero might, to an outside observer, have looked like nothing more than a misallocation of your abilities, a kind of condescending trust in young talent by the system. However, Dedra read in this move a much more cynical subtext: such a post, by nature secondary and limited in authority, was a clear indication that you would never (at least not yet) be entrusted with anything of true consequence.

Which, of course, was no bad thing. Quite the opposite.

In truth, the very idea of you in this hell of bureaucracy and hidden intrigue was almost physically repulsive to Dedra. She resisted with every fibre of her being the thought of you spending your days here, immersed in this poisonous mire. To the cold-blooded creatures inhabiting these state-owned walls, you were something altogether different: too unguarded in your humanity. She could find no better comparison than that of a gentle doe. And to place such a creature in a den of snakes was tantamount to a crime against the very nature of your fragile soul.

What, then, did her heart truly long for? What took shape in the most secret corners of her imagination, when harsh reality briefly gave way?

The woman yearned for you to belong to a completely different world.

Her soul, beyond all doubt, trembled sweetly at the image of you in her kitchen at her flat. Dedra pictured the soft glow of a lamp falling across your hands as you busied yourself with simple, homely tasks; your figure in an apron adorned with some naïve pattern or excessively sweet frills, so cloying that they were almost comical. But to her, that vision of domestic tranquillity, untouched by danger, was the embodiment of an unattainable ideal.

But her imagination knew no boundaries. In another vision, you appeared dressed in black velvet or silk.

Yet the most exquisite, the most torturous, and the most coveted image in this kaleidoscope of dreams was that of closeness. More than anything, the lieutenant longed for you to lean towards her ear, for your lips to spill a stream of whispers (…sweet as honey, warm as a summer breeze…) chirping words so unbearably pleasing that they robbed the breath from her chest and set her head spinning.

Oh.

Your footsteps tore her away from her reverie.

That was not good.

Frozen a half-step away from her desk, you cautiously extended a datapad, careful not to interrupt your supervisor at her work. The flickering reports on the device's screen seemed the very embodiment of boring routine against the sudden constriction of space between you both. Her gaze snapped up from the papers. A heartbeat later her hand closed around your wrist.

Dedra pulled you closer. The lieutenant shifted her stance, forcing you to stand between her legs. Her face, its features sharp and almost aristocratic, was so near that you could discern the smallest streaks in the depths of her grey eyes, the shadow of her long lashes, and the noticeable tremor at the corners of her tightly pressed mouth.

Her thin lips finally parted. The woman's voice, hoarse from the long quiet, cut through the tense silence:

"Stop flitting about in front of me." Her hand tugged you lower. "You're an irritation."

Your cheeks had turned pink, and for her it was nothing short of a miracle.