He sat on the edge of the cot, smoking a cigarra. Steady, even drags, the smoke drifted from his nostrils as steel-gray eyes stared at the far wall.
He wasn't talking which seemed like it would have been a relief. But that tightly coiled knot of tension in her gut said very differently.
Rian Vega was a joke. Malak had said as much, Bastila had said as much and now Revan, former Dark Lord of the Sith and currently half-assed Jedi Padawan and potential savior to the galaxy wanted nothing more than to break her skull against the hard durasteel hull of the ship.
Canderous flicked the cigarra butt at the ground and quietly reached for a second out of his pack. The dim, fluorescent lighting cut dark grooves of shadow into the musculature of his back. Even exposed as he was, there was a stiffness about his shoulders, a readiness. She could recall the feel of his hand at her jaw, at her throat and how it had kept her from crying out too loud as much as biting into his shoulder had.
It felt like there would be bruises. She wondered if they would be visible.
Rian, Revan, Revan-Rian pulled the sheets away from him and tugged them up over her breasts. Manaan was a drag. If Ahto City felt so restrictive and claustrophobic to her with those eerie, silent tunnels being the only thing that separated them from crushing waves, she didn't want to think of how much worse it must have seemed to the Selkath who would've had a planet's worth of ocean being cut off from them.
She was angry at Bastila for being arrogant and self-sacrificing enough to get caught. She was angry at Malak for not having the decency to just die. She was angry at Karath for letting Carth know. Carth… goddamn him, anyway. She was angry that Canderous was content to continue smoking on the bed instead of getting up and leaving.
Her thigh muscles hurt. She needed a shower.
He'd seemed so certain down in the Hrakert Station. Carth. Then again, they'd been alone at the time. Or as alone as they could be. She'd just beaten Kono Nolan into unconsciousness and Juhani and the remaining scientist were attending to him. Carth had grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her away with the excuse she needed to cool down before Nolan woke up.
Dirty and sweaty, Carth kept rubbing a hand over his hair. He'd reach out, graze her shoulder, her elbow and immediately pull his hand back towards himself. Always, those dark eyes watched cautiously.
Canderous leaned back and bumped up against her like he'd forgotten she was even there.
Maybe that was it; a solid, frackable wall of nothing. Hate him, use him, kill him. No overwhelming swells of emotion. No betrayal, no hurt, no broken trust, no compassion, no headache. She wondered what it must've been like in Canderous' mind, slamming the warrior Revan's bare back into a shock of cold metal wall. He seemed quiet now, contemplative. Maybe it had been a disappointment. She'd have to discuss it with a bottle of rum later.
It was those eyes that did it. Unwavering and penetrating. Like Carth had been searching for something. If he did find it, he didn't let her know.
"I wanted to hold you responsible for all the things you've done," was all he'd say to her. For his wife, for Telos for Dustil. All with Kono Nolan's blood drying on her knuckles.
If she'd been smart, she'd have been able to say, "I want you to, too," but the words were caught somewhere in her throat. She'd forgotten to breathe and the only thing that mattered was the way her heart was pounding at her ears.
And then he said, "But I can't." And it was all over.
Too soft, too vulnerable. It had been easy enough to find Canderous by the workbench and to give him a left hook to his cheek without any provocation. When she moved to hit him again, the Mandalorian caught her fist in his hand and crushed it.
"I'm some kind of monster, huh?" She jerked her fist back roughly and heard something pop.
"A damn idiot, sure," Canderous snorted dismissively. "I never said that."
"I'll show you what a monster is." After that it was simple. She just had to be herself.
Carth was gone with Mission, out trying to sell those gizka, Juhani was talking with diplomats. There was a brief pause of shock as Revan registered that cosmic frack-up of a bond between her and Bastila. When the other woman had been taken by Malak, she'd thrust up a block with so much force, it had felt like someone had taken a mallet to Revan's head. It was kind of nice, to know for once that she was truly alone inside her own head, that all her thoughts and urges were her own. That she was a person again. She just wished the circumstances had been better. She tried to console herself with the fact that because of that, she'd be the only one onboard that knew what the Mandalorian looked like naked.
But maybe that was the problem. Maybe that was what had Revan wanted. For them to know. All of them.
That she'd ripped a nail down to the quick as she clawed that plate armor off his chest. That his fingers dug into her limbs hard enough to get a whimper as they pushed aside their clothing, removing only what was necessary. That there was such a teeming hatred and loathing behind every movement because they weren't who they were supposed to be.
She wasn't the Revan of his wars. He was just a man.
"I would hope that my standing by you would mean something to you, but maybe it doesn't. Maybe it just can't." Carth had that soft timbre to his voice, the one he got when he was being deadly serious. It made it sound like a secret.
In a way, it would always have to be a secret, wouldn't it? Screw that. She had enough trouble trying to recall what she ate for dinner the night before, she didn't even want to think about how she was going to sift through the fractured, broken memories, shattered life that she had once.
Powerful enough to crush an empire. What a bitch of an expectation. She certainly wasn't going to let him think she needed someone to hold her hand while she processed it all.
"All I can think of now is the promise I made to protect you from what's going to come. It's given me a reason to look past simple revenge."
She ran a hand over her jaw and continued to glare a hole into Canderous' back. With a flick of ash, he finally stood up, scratched his chest and zipped his fly. She thought about threatening him, thought about inviting him back for more, but in the end just watched silently as he lumbered off.
"Despite whatever part of Revan is inside you, the... the darkness that must surely be there, it isn't who you are. That's why I can't hate you, why I don't want any more revenge. You don't have to be Revan, you can be so much more. Whatever the Jedi did to you, they gave you that chance. You have this huge destiny waiting for you, and I just fear that if you're alone it could swallow you whole."
Now she truly was alone. If she couldn't be strong by herself, really, what was the point?
Her cheeks had been rubbed raw by stubble, her muscles ached. Damp with sweat, damp with him. She grabbed for the crumpled robe wedged between the mattress and wall. Frack them all for trying to understand. She didn't want to be anything.
"I mean, is there room in there for me? Will you let me help you?"
The robe smelled like sex. Her fingers smelled like sex. Her hair smelled like sex. It was obvious; they'd look at her, they'd have to know. No turning back now. She just had to push her panties back where they belonged, cinch the robe at the waist and rejoin the group. Smile in a way that said, "frack you."
"I think I could love you, if you give me the chance."
It worked both ways, didn't it? That's why the Jedi discouraged it. Love was sort of a conglomerate. Too many different emotions and thoughts combined to the point where something could spill over and out. Jealousy, preferential treatment, thinking with your heart and genitals while your head was ignored.
Twist on love correctly, it could turn into despair.
With no love, no feeling, you were safe in your own pretentiousness. That was the way of a true Jedi. She pulled tight on the laces to her boots.
"But does that really matter if we love each other?"
She grimaced as she pushed herself off the cot. So many hoops people would jump through just for a chemical reaction they could just as easily get by gorging themselves with chocolate. She didn't need their goddamn handouts, their hollow second chance.
"Well then I'm... I'm glad."
And for what? What was the point?
"Let's face the future together, then."
A future that involved jumping on a lightsaber, maybe. She was doing Carth a favor in a way. He'd understand someday. Maybe when she finally did, herself.
Revan was dead, anyhow. If the news reports were to be believed, she died a year ago when Malak fired on her ship. Futures were for dreamers.