A/N: My first ever slashfic. I find it funny that not a year and a half ago I said in my profile I'd never read slash, much less write it. Somehow, as I was writing, Matt Damon took over Revan's voice. Odd.
Be still, be still
And learn again how to live
Raise your eyes and see beyond this narrow life
Learn to love
Kane Bertram appeared, for all intents and purposes, completely and entirely asleep. Except that he wasn't. He couldn't be; not after learning the terrible truth. There would, inevitably, be nightmares... weird visions. And he couldn't risk restless nights. Not with so much at stake. So, he put himself into a resting trance. Only barely aware of his surroundings. Asleep enough to be rested. Not asleep enough to have dreams. A Jedi trade secret that many sentients throughout the galaxy would pay for.
And he was thankful for his heightened awareness, because were he not capable of at least some form of vision in his half-awake state, he would have been unable to react to the blaster being pressed to his temple.
His eyes fluttered open to see the Republic pilot standing over him, light brown eyes cold and calculating, his face near emotionless, with the slightest twinge of blind hatred below the skin. The Force, however, told a different story: Carth was seething with pain and heartache, betrayal and hate. A few other emotions floated in the background, but Kane dismissed them as white noise; the subconscious result of being prepared to murder a friend in cold blood.
He did not move. "Do it," the Jedi whispered.
"Give me one reason why I shouldn't, Revan," the older man spat, Kane's true name sounding like a curse from his lips.
Kane gazed with weary, submissive blue eyes at the man hovering above him. "I honestly can't think of one."
The former Dark Lord of the Sith couldn't stand himself, if he dwelled on the matter for too long. Destroyer of worlds, murderer of innocents. Indirect killer of Carth's family. The worst part was that he could not remember any of it. Save a few flashes, like he had told them; visions shared with Bastila. A past that damned him for eternity in the eyes of sentients galaxy-wide, and would inevitably haunt him for the rest of his life. Perhaps it was better for him to die; to rid the galaxy of Revan, once and for all.
Carth flinched, clearly not expecting this reaction from his prey. The blaster was no longer held tightly to the Jedi's forehead, but Kane could not bring himself to move away or to disarm the man who seemed poised to kill him.
"Do you know what happens to a human who is killed by a point-blank blaster shot to the head?" He asked his attacker.
A pause.
Kane continued. "The shot enters the brain and essentially melts it from the heat. Brain matter seeps out. Not a pleasant death. Instant, and painless, but not pleasant. Not easy to clean up, either."
Slowly, the pilot pulled the blaster away, not yet holstering it. "You killed my family," he said, his expression unreadable, but his mind jumping, itching for an excuse to act. "You destroyed Telos. You... you stole my friends from me. Fooled me into believing that I could trust you."
The Jedi sat up, looking the other man in the eyes. "Malak destroyed Telos and your family, and everyone accepts that. I don't know anything about stealing your friends, but I have heard that Revan was a rather persuasive man. And everything I have said and done since we met has been the honest-to-Force truth."
"How can I believe you?" Carth seethed, his words hard and biting. "How do I know that you are telling the truth?"
"You know. You just don't want to admit it. You are stubborn, Carth. Admitting that you might be wrong about something is not your style. You don't want to accept that people can change because that would mean admitting that Revan was not at fault for what Saul did to you. It would mean that you haven't been betrayed by me."
"Haven't I?"
"No, Carth. I'm still me, still Kane. Revan is a part of my past that I hope never returns." His steely blue eyes pierced the brown eyes of the man whose life he had destroyed. "If I hadn't woken... would you have pulled the trigger?"
Confusion, calculated horror, and agony wrapped their tendrils around Carth's mind. "I don't know," the pilot choked, finally returning the blaster to its holster.
"You couldn't have, Carth. You don't have it in you to murder someone who has been and always will be your friend."
He scoffed. "What about Saul?"
The Jedi raised an eyebrow. "Had he not shot first, would you have? Or would you have tried to save him, as I would?"
"Why in the Corellian Hells do you do this to me, Bertram? Why?"
Kane stood. The pilot in front of him was shaking, eyes narrowed and pained, reddened from forced-back tears and lack of sleep. Emotions that the former Revan had regarded as "white noise" were now boiling to the front of the man's mind. Fear, insecurity...
Love?
He continued. "All I've been... all I've lived for in the past four years was revenge. Against Saul, against whomever I could think of to blame. Now Saul is dead. But Revan... the man who might as well have pulled the trigger on my life... And I have had every chance to kill him. Every chance. And I can't do it, damn it."
The Jedi raised a dark eyebrow. "Why?" he coaxed.
"I... I can't deal with this right now," Carth said. "Damn you, Revan. Damn you." He began to walk off, opening the door to the man's room.
"Carth, the Jedi Council programmed me." Onasi's head turned to face Kane. Brown eyes seemed as though they were holding back any outward emotions as the speaker's blue ones looked away. "They... strip away every emotion you could think of during training. But the second time through... I don't know if they succeeded. Because I can't think of anything I wouldn't rather do than hurt you."
Less harshly, less accusatory, the man in question whispered, "My home, Kane." It was the first time that he had used the Jedi's true (fake? Kane mused) name since the discovery. "My son. My wife..."
"If I were able to change the past, I would."
Carth's eyes hardened. "But you can't, can you?"
Regret, self-hatred... love, were still at the forefront of the pilot's emotion. Kane could not determine exactly what was causing these emotions; several good ideas came to mind.
"Why," the Jedi asked, eyes narrowing, "do you feel these emotions around me?"
"For the gods's sake, I don't know," Carth blurted. He paused, considering. Scoffed. "Don't you think it's rather funny? Discovering the person responsible for... for the death of your family only to find out you've fallen in love with him?"
The blue-eyed man's heart stopped and realization surged like a wave over him, barriers between Carth's mind and his destroyed as the floodgates of bottled-up emotion opened to release the tension, as he took several steps toward the other man. "Carth, I..."
"Forget it." The telosian pilot started off. A warm hand reached out and grasped his, whirling him around to face its owner.
"Never pictured you as sly," Kane murmured, his face inches away from the other, hand not releasing the other man.
"I said forget it," Carth warned.
Neither man moved for a moment, until carefully, gently, Kane closed the gap and placed a quick, light kiss on Carth's lips. The older man closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the other man's as Kane wrapped an arm around his waist, drawing him closer.
The two stood in silence, neither wanting to break the best moment either of them had experienced in four years.