Author's Note: My first fanfiction with dialogue, it's a what-if story about Carth not apologizing to a LSF Revan after everyone finds out who she really is. I had this storyline in my head a couple of months now, but then I became obsessed with the new show White Collar and forgot about it. I apologize for how this turned out =-/
Disclaimer: I do not own any Star Wars games or movies, nor am I making any profit off of this.
~oOoOoOo~
A knock at the door woke him up.
For a few quiet moments, captain merely lay motionless on his bed, staring through the darkness to the metal door across the room. At first he thought he was still onboard the Ebon Hawk, but memories of a previous battle – of battleships brighter than stars weaving around a large, mechanical instrument of enormous power, of a young woman fighting her old apprentice and succeeding, of the self-loathing he'd felt when his claims of a spy in their midst were proven wrong – made him realize otherwise.
Forcing back the pain and anguish of his own stupid mistakes that threatened to engulf him, he contemplated whether or not he wanted to get up and answer his caller, or simply go back to sleep. Or at least attempt to.
Another knock, sharper this time, broke through the captain's thoughts. He sighed. Sitting up, he turned on a light that flooded across the bed, just reaching a metal footlocker a few feet away. The soldier rubbed his eyes and, still fighting off sleep, stumbled to the footlocker to search for a worn orange jacket that had lost its brightness throughout the preceding months. He put this on as he made his way to the door.
Pressing on a button next to the door revealed a young man, dressed in a Republic uniform. Looking at the young man, the elder highly doubted that he had seen much combat. Just another raw recruit, eager to kill a Sith for the mere chance to brag about it, ignorant of the consequences of war. He had never much liked new recruits; they wanted to please the veteran soldiers (who couldn't have cared any less), and would talk about how they planned on killing a thousand Sith soldiers before the war ended. And then they died.
Luckily this soldier didn't have any Sith to face.
"Admiral Dodonna wishes to see you on the main deck, Captain," the young man said, drawing himself up into a salute. He didn't seem to notice the tired look the other was giving him.
The soldier nodded. "Alright," he said, suppressing a yawn. The young man saluted him once more, and then began walking off towards the mess hall. He stood still for a little while, watching the young man walk away, and began walking to the main deck. After walking for five minutes through the maze of hallways and rooms, tipping his head to soldiers he came by, he finally came to the deck's door.
The deck was a hub of computers and electronic graphs, worked on by soldiers the army believed to be too smart and valuable to send out into the front lines. They barely glanced at the man that walked in, being used to the swooshing sound of the door. One person, though, a woman older than the captain that entered, looked up from a computer monitor towards the end of the deck.
"Nice to see you're finally awake," she greeted him.
The captain stifled another yawn. "Good to see you, too, Admiral. What's this urgent news you have to tell me?"
"It's not so much urgent as important," the Admiral replied. "At least to you, that is."
The captain looked at the Admiral through heavy eyelids. Admiral Dodonna was one of the few female admirals throughout the entire galaxy, not because of any ridiculous laws created out of a sexist and chauvinist nature, but because there were few women who could successfully command an entire ship like Dodonna did.
There was a swooshing sound as the deck door opened, and the two looked as Bastila walked entered in her usual Jedi uniform. She nodded to the two of them and then walked over to the side of the door. Carth looked back at the Admiral. "What are you talking about?"
"The other Admirals and I have been talking," Admiral Dodonna began, "and we believe that, due to you and your crew's recent accomplishments, that you deserve another award."
The man blinked. "What do you mean?"
"I mean another award besides that medal we gave you. I've heard that you've been hoping to become the head of your own ship one day, and I was wondering if you still had that hope."
The captain merely stared at the Admiral for a few moments, and then began to laugh nervously. "You're going to pull this on me now?"
"I can understand that it might be a little too early for you to be thinking about this, Carth" said the Admiral. "But I couldn't be sure how long you were going to stay on the ship, or Coruscant for that matter. Bastila told me you wanted to look for your son on Telos."
If he's still there, thought Carth. "Well, I did want to look for Dustil. I promised to meet him there after all of this was over. And you're right about it being a little early. But are you sure about this? I mean, it's not like I'm the only one on that ship. There was Bastila, Mission, Zaalbar, Juhani, Re –" Carth stopped, then swallowed and added, "Aren't they going to be rewarded as well?"
"Juhani and I are awaiting orders from the Council," Bastila said from her post near the door. "Mission, Zaalbar, Canderous, T3 and HK have decided to stay with us until we reach Coruscant, then they plan to decide where to go from there. Jolee will stay with us until Coruscant but wishes to go back to Kashyyk, if the Wookies will take him."
Carth surveyed the Jedi for a couple of seconds, not wanting to point out that she had forgotten an important part of the crew. Or perhaps she didn't forget, but knew better than to talk about her in front of him. If that was so, then she was more merciful than he had ever given her credit for.
"So what do you say, Carth?" asked the Admiral, pulling his attention back to the present. "Would you like to become an admiral, or stay a captain?"
"I… I'm not sure," Carth sighed. "Is it alright if I think about it for a while?"
Admiral Dodonna nodded. "Of course. But don't think about it too long; the other admirals get testy when loose ends are left unattended for more than a few days." With a small smile on her face, she turned back to the computer monitor she had been previously looking at, giving a subtle hint that their meeting was over.
Carth turned and walked slowly over to Bastila, who watched him with a look on her face that told him she had some important news to share.
"What's wrong?" Might as well get to the point, he thought.
"I thought you would want to know," the Jedi said in smooth tones, "that Revan left."
Silence....
"Wait a minute – you mean she left? As in, she left the ship? Why? I thought she was heading back to Coruscant with everyone else."
"I'm not sure," Bastila said simply. "Perhaps she felt there was no need to be around people that didn't want her there."
Carth closed his eyes, almost exhaustedly, and an expression mixed with disappointment, concern and self-loathing came over his face. His shoulders slumped as he said, "This is my fault. I shouldn't have freaked out on her earlier, but I honestly thought that she might have been a spy."
"What made you so sure?"
"I don't know," Carth sighed, his shoulders still slumped. "I guess when Saul told me who she really was, I didn't stop to think about whether or not she knew, or if it could hurt her. I just got angry – and I took it out on her."
"Does she know that?"
"No, she doesn't. I never apologized to her while we were on Korriban, and now she's gone before I could get a chance now."
"Well, I don't think she's really gone, Carth," said Bastila thoughtfully. "She's just in hiding."
Carth nodded instead of saying anything. Around them, soldiers still worked on their computers and electronic graphs, completely oblivious to the captain and Jedi standing near the door. Carth stood up straight and glanced around the room, wondering how in the world people could think that the galaxy was peaceful now. It was far from peaceful – there were wars and battles still being fought on distant planets, people being suppressed while dictators and tyrants crush them into ruin. It was a never ending cycle of death caused by illnesses, starvation, murder, war and other unnamable factors.
"Carth."
He ignored her.
"Carth," said Bastila with a little more force behind it.
"Yeah?" he replied, looking once more around the deck's occupants before turning back to the young Jedi.
"You could go looking for her, you know. I doubt she got far; she left only a few minutes ago."
"She probably took a fighter plane, Bastila, or something else that could get her anywhere she wanted within a few seconds. She wouldn't take a slow plane if she wanted to get away quickly."
"Perhaps," said Bastila, smirking to herself now. Carth almost wanted to hit her for trying to piss him like this. "But that doesn't mean you can't try."
Carth shrugged and took a deep breath before he answered, almost so quiet enough that Carth thought Bastila didn't hear him, "I could try."
Trying didn't always bode well with Carth. He had tried to stay with Morgana and Dustil on Telos, but left anyways. He had tried to find Dustil after Telos was destroyed, but never could until Revan helped him. He had tried to save his fellow soldiers on the Spire, but failed drastically. There was a pattern Carth followed throughout his life that he couldn't quite get out of – try, fail, try, fail, try, fail.
But he wouldn't be the legendary Carth Onasi if he didn't try to find and apologize to Revan, even if it took him years and he lost everything he had doing it. He could try.
There was just one thing he needed to do first.
"Admiral Dodonna!"
The Admiral turned to him with a questioning look on her face. "Yes, Carth?"
"I need to get to Telos, as soon as possible."
Admiral Dodonna smirked. "Certainly."