-THOUGHTLIFE-
(A Knights of the Old Republic Fanfiction)
(Carth/Revan Oneshot)
Warning Sign
By: Coldplay
A warning sign
I missed the good part then I realized
I started looking and the bubble burst
I started looking for excuses
Come on in
I've got to tell you what a state I'm in
I've got to tell you in my loudest tones
That I started looking for a warning sign
When the truth is
I miss you
Yeah the truth is
That I miss you so.
A warning sign
You came back to haunt me and I realized
That you were an island and I passed you by
When you were an island to discover
Come on in
I've got to tell you what a state I'm in
I've got to tell you in my loudest tones
That I started looking for a warning sign
When the truth is
I miss you
Yeah the truth is
That I miss you so
And I'm tired
I should not have let you go
So I crawl back into your open arms
Yes I crawl back into your open arms
And I crawl back into your open arms
Yes I crawl back into your open arms
A spectrum of lights blinked and danced before Carth Onasi's eyes, casting a rainbow of colors on the scowling façade of the Republic soldier. His vision was fixated on the screens reading his destination as he sighed heavily, his fingers skittering across the ship's controls in a driven, nearly frantic motion. His mind raced, and space whizzed past him, the darkness washing over him like an ice cold shower. He was drenched in it; drenched in the eerie silence, the unbearable chill, and the grave atmosphere of the cockpit that continued to remind him of a single unsettling fact:
He was now utterly alone.
It was his choice; he would offer to nurse his wounded conscience. It was his choice, and it was, furthermore, the right choice. Over and over again, he recounted the many reasons for his departure in an anxious attempt to assuage his prodding indecision. Still, something in the back of his mind was prickling, telling him that he was wrong, and as he waited to jump to Hyperspace it was persistent in bothering him to the point of physical discomfort.
He hadn't just departed. He hadn't simply excused himself. He deserted them. And he hadn't done it quietly either.
No, not quietly at all—he could remember the look on Mission's face as he feverishly crammed his belongings into a backpack, grumbling to himself irritably. She had caught him in the height of his despair, rage, and frustration. The way the Twi'lek girl had inaudibly snuck up on him, leaning on the doorframe watching this strange ritual infuriated him the most. Though honestly, it wasn't strange at all. With one single glance Mission appeared to have known exactly what he was doing, and devastatingly she didn't appear to have any inclination to stop him from carrying out his plans.
"You almost forgot this." She said to him gently as he jammed a final medpac into the front pocket of his bag. When he looked, she was holding out a small republic model blaster he had let her borrow in Taris when she joined them on their search for Bastila and later on, the Star Maps. The old blaster gave the impression of an old treasured relic: polished carefully, and thoughtfully upgraded since he had lent it to her. Seeing her hand it over to him so easily, with a blank emotionless face, only fueled his anger.
"Mission—you don't just barge in on people anytime you feel the need, got it?" he had barked back at her, not even reaching for the blaster. Mission had retained the same look on her face, still steadily holding out the blaster for him with one hand.
"In case you hadn't noticed, soldier, you left your door wide open." She replied; her head falling lightly to rest against the doorframe like the rest of her body, "Big Z and I could hear you griping and making a racket from way back in the storage room."
Carth regarded her levelly before waving his hand dismissively and turning his back to her, "You keep it." He whispered, kneeling by his bag, starting to pull the zipper closed. At that, a much appreciated silence fell over the room and Carth concluded that Mission had taken her leave. Unfortunately, moments later, she suddenly appeared at his side kneeling with him. Carth huffed and attempted to move away until a dusty-blue skinned hand brushed his, halting his actions. Exasperatedly, he cut short and jerked his head up to meet her gaze, only to find her eyes glassy.
"Carth," Mission began, her voice still surprisingly stable despite her tearing eyes, "There's an escape pod on the lower deck that T3 and I have been doing some repairs on. We even upgraded it so it can make Hyperspace jumps. We thought it would be useful if we got into a jam…"
Carth cocked his brow at the teenage Twi'lek in confusion, "Why are you telling me this?"
Mission only shook her head. Carth could tell that she was holding her breath, trying to keep in tears, and everything else he was sure she wanted to say to him. It was surprisingly mature of her. His visage softened as he nodded to Mission and patted her hand lightly. With that, he stood and slung the packed bag over his shoulder. As he was leaving, Mission's voice halted him once more.
"Where will you go, Carth?"
He paused, considering this for a moment.
"Away. Far away." He supplied.
Mission had let him leave in silence without arguing with him or desperately attempting to change his mind. Carth chewed his lip a bit, his brow furrowing in thought. It was just like her brother Gryff, he realized. He was just as big a slime bag as him, walking out on his 'family' when they needed him the most. Carth's gut wrenched painfully as this agonizing revelation hit him. Jadedly, he let his eyelids fall closed as he leaned his head back—his hand hovering eagerly, but apprehensively over the command to jump to hyperspace.
The Ebon Hawk was long gone by now, he realized, but the memories still burned freshly in his mind. Saul Karath had told him the truth on the Leviathan; that the woman he trusted and even vowed to protect was not who he thought she was. Furthermore, in his moment of disbelief and denial Bastila had only gone the final stretch to prove all of his greatest fears true. Juriah was not the skilled Republic Soldier, nor the prodigy Jedi Padawan he thought she was. No—she was the cause of his horrific past, the reason he didn't trust or let anyone in, the one who destroyed Telos and slaughtered his beloved family. She was his torment, his anguish, and fear all embodied into a single living human being: Darth Revan. And yet, he'd let her inside to peer and poke around at his raw and battered heart. He was a fool.
Whatever trust had been built between them had been shattered in that single moment. Carth himself had been the one to shatter it, immediately reconstructing his icy walls once again, blockading himself in, and locking everyone out—locking her out. She had been too late in trying to persuade him other wise. He remembered it so vividly.
Once the issue of her true identity had been discussed publicly on the main deck, the crew of the Ebon Hawk had retreated to meditate on this information and sort things out in their own various ways. Evidently, Revan had been left pacing the halls frantically, desperately hoping to overhear some fragment of a discussion. After getting no clue as to what was on the minds of her companions, she had made the rounds to each one—talking to them individually about their thoughts on this new piece of the puzzle. Carth had picked up on scraps of some of these meetings. He found most of them appalling. The rest of the crew was still behind her, blindly trusting as ever. Those conversations, he found, were quite short and positive, even that with Jolee Bindo as verbose as the old Jedi tended to be. It seemed that Carth had been the last on Revan's rounds. She must have known that talking to him wouldn't be so easy.
She was correct. They had been locked in the cockpit together hurling reasoning and retorts at one another nearing on a half an hour.
"Carth, I am NOT Darth Revan anymore, I'm Juriah. You must believe me" She had insisted firmly, her Copenhagen blue eyes wide, locked intensely on him.
"Oh you are, are you?" He shot back pointedly, casting a heated glare in her direction, "You're just nothing-special-Republic-Soldier Juriah, oh yeah, and that's a perfectly reasonable explanation for your strength in the Force and visions of your past."
"Carth please—"
"No, Revan—YOU please." He cut, his voice escalating to new heights, "You murdered my family. My wife is dead because of you. Not only that—but you destroyed my home. Thanks to you it's nothing but a bunch of rubble!"
"Carth, you have to trust me." Revan choked, her voice subdued, her defenses broken, "That's not me anymore."
"How can I possibly trust you?" Carth rasped, "Have you ever thought that maybe you might revert back to what you were, Revan. You could do it all over again, couldn't you? You could whisk away everything precious to me—poof—just like that. Couldn't you?"
At that, Revan's face twisted with expressions of shock and rage. Carth was taken aback when she bellowed, "Stop calling me that, Carth!! I am Juriah—and the woman who stands before you today would never even dream of doing such a thing to anyone. Especially to you, Carth!"
He took no time to hold her gaze at all. Turning on his heel and slamming his fist on the security override button on the console, he punctuated the silence with a sharp breath.
"You already have." He whispered.
The bridge doors swished open, and then slid closed with a bang behind Carth.
As he walked away, he heard her begin to sob, yet he was too numb to care.
When Carth's thoughts returned to the present he opened his eyes and found his face to be quite damp. Tears stung his ruddy cheeks, salty liquid dribbling all the way down into his scruffy beard. Ashamed at this unconscious reaction to the memory of Revan he quickly dried his face with his coat sleeve. Unfortunately, the tears continued flow. He wasn't quite sure why.
Clenching his jaw and rubbing at his eyes once more, his mind wandered. It wandered to resurfaced memories of her; memories, he could not deny, had so easily become the focal point of his journey.
On Taris, he had watched her slumbering, unconscious rather, for days before he even knew her name. Still he could not deny the fact that she was beautiful. Her midnight hair was silky, he discovered by brushing it out of her face as he laid her on a bed he found at the apartments in Taris. Her skin was smooth and soft, he discovered by touching her forehead to see if she was feverish. These duties were routine then but now he treasured every one, realizing that he had learned something so new and exciting about her every time. Then, when she finally awoke he found that she had a stunning electric personality to match her striking appearance. Despite all of this, he hadn't trusted her. They argued, yes. He had been defensive, yes. But she still persisted: always caring, always chasing after some dark shadow within him as if to destroy it to ease his pain. It was almost as if over time it had become her job. When finally he spilled his guts to her, the story of his past, as he had to no one else, she had dedicated herself to being the guardian of his heart. In doing so all along the way she had somehow befriended him which was the first mistake in letting her do. Then…it happened.
It was on Kashyyyk that he began to notice her differently. Suddenly her raven-black hair shone brighter in the sun, surprisingly he saw a glittering ocean in her deep blue eyes, and then unexpectedly her laugh was as contagious as her smile was infectious. Whenever she neared him, he could hardly breathe. Whenever she spoke to him, his heart jumped out of his chest. She had made an unspoken vow to protect him, and so—he made a verbal vow to protect her. From there, it was no turning back. Now that he'd gotten revenge on Saul Karath, Juriah had kept up her end of the bargain in protecting him along the way. He was so sure that his promise to protect Juriah would sustain him. He was so convinced. But he knew, she wasn't Juriah—she was Revan, and therefore Juriah, his Juriah was dead to him. With his guardian dead and gone, Revan had swooped in and destroyed the very thing Juriah had promised to protect: his heart. This black and white distinction was harsh reality to Carth, and there was absolutely no doubt in his mind anymore.
He had fallen in love with Juriah.
He was so weak.
Mission must have known, he thought to himself. The Twi'lek teenager had ended up seeing him off. After giving him short directions on how to pilot the escape pod she stopped him as he clambered into the compacted hunk of metal.
"Did you say goodbye to Juriah?" she questioned softly, fiddling with a head-tail as if to look nonchalant in her inquiry, "She was looking for you after you left the cock-pit…"
Carth remembered brushing Mission aside curtly, "Revan and I don't have anything else to say to each other, Mission."
When he jettisoned the pod from the Ebon Hawk it hit him that earlier, as he had been packing up, Mission was crying for Juriah. He could imagine Mission reporting the news to the crew—that he had left them. Carth could almost hear Jolee cursing the Onasi family name, vowing that somehow he would live to regret this, all decorated with vulgar language. He could see Zaalbar and Mission hanging their heads in shame together. Canderous was no doubt disappointed in him too—honor being so important to Mandalorians. What he had done was far from honorable, Carth was well aware, he was running away. Juhani would be confused, he was sure, and feeling betrayed none the less. Even the droids would be sulking, he presumed. Well…at least maybe T3 would be.
And then he began to picture Revan receiving the news—no.
His vision swam and he could no longer read the controls. At last he gave in and let himself breakdown. Regrettably, it didn't bring him the satisfaction he thought it would. It felt horrible. He hadn't cried in ages, not since the destruction on Telos, and now years upon years of sorrow were flowing down his cheeks and into his hands cupped over his face.
It was all pointless. Running away like this was just futile. Afterall—he finally realized that he wasn't running away from Revan or the rest of the mission, as daunting as the task seemed. No; he was running away from himself and he couldn't run any longer.
Was it even possible though, he wondered, to go back? Would they accept him again? Would they let him back into their lives? Would they trust him not to wander off again, to see this thing through until the very end like he wanted to desperately to? Was it feasible to once again…be her guardian?
He had to try.
Taking a moment to compose himself, and smear his tear stained hands on his pant leg, he punched in the coordinates to Korriban, the Ebon Hawk's next destination, and slammed his fist down to engage the Hyperdrive.
The pod was fast; as Mission had promised when explaining the upgrades she and T3 had done. Yet, speed was not the first thing on his mind. He thought of Revan, now so unstable and disconcerted going to Korriban. To Korriban—the Sith home planet! It was now that she needed him more than ever, especially since Bastila had been kidnapped. Not even Bastila wasn't there to back her up or to steer towards the path of the light, and now, neither was he. It was no secret that the three of them: Bastila, Juriah, and Carth, and been close; closer than the rest of their party. It didn't seem to upset anyone…but now it was vital. What would happen to her? Revan was strong and fiery, but so impulsive, just like his Juriah. She was driven and motivated, but seemed to be deeply affected by circumstances. He was absolutely sure that at Korriban Revan would face much more than even she could handle alone, even with the help of everyone else. No one could catch her fall—no one but him.
"Nearing Korriban." The computer chided. Carth's heart leapt and he laughed mirthlessly at the irony of the situation.
He had fallen in love with Revan.
The pod dropped out of hyperspace shortly before reaching the planet and he gasped as he drank in a familiar sight. The Ebon Hawk had never looked more beautiful to him, orbiting the planet with the sun glinting off its red and grey, blaster burned hulls. Without a moment's hesitation Carth hailed his ship.
"This is Commander Carth Onasi…" he fiddled with the communications button as he delayed the end of his sentence. Heaving a great sigh, he finished a little more hesitantly, "Permission to come aboard?"
There was a gripping silence.
"Granted."
It was Jolee Bindo's voice.
--
It took Carth a few minutes to navigate the pod back into the slot it left the ship—but as a pilot of his caliber it was a piece of cake. Still, his hands quaked nervously with every button he pushed and lever he pulled. When he emerged from the pod back into the Ebon Hawk—he had expected a 'welcoming' as well as a relentless stream of questioning and admonishing. His expectations were not at all met. The room was as empty, grey, and silent as he remembered it. His heart plummeted down into his feet as he started slowly towards the bridge.
"Carth?"
He stopped dead in his tracks, every inch of his body prickling at the sound of the all too familiar voice. It was Revan. He became motionless, back still to her, uncertain of what to do or say. Then, she was touching him, her slender fingers tracing over his shoulder, his skin burning and tingling under her fingertips. Mustering all the confidence he had, he turned slowly to face her.
Oddly enough, he found her not to be crying or looking as if she had been crying. Her silky black hair still framed her lovely face, bangs falling to just below her jaw line, but surprisingly not pulled back into the normal bun. Her eyes held pure light, he was sure of it, as she looked at him simply. She moved, reaching up a hand to touch his face, studying his reaction to her. When he did not stop her, she touched his face, rubbing his cheek gently with her thumb.
"I knew you'd come back, Carth, that's why I told Jolee to just stay in orbit around Korriban. Everyone didn't believe me, they said that we were only wasting—"
She never finished her sentence because suddenly Carth was kissing her, long and tenderly, explaining away every question she could have ever asked.
Perhaps it was the Force that had told her he would return to her. Perhaps it was just because she knew him well…to Carth, the reasoning, however rational or irrational, didn't matter at all to him at the moment. He was absorbed in one single thing—her.
Revan or Juriah, Sith Lord or Jedi Padawan, in the midst of his tangled thoughts and scattered emotions, Carth was sure of only one thing: he loved her unconditionally.
Author's Notes:
Okay, so it was my first try at a Star Wars fanfiction of any type and I wrote it yesterday (August 8th, 2007) in about 4 hours--then revised it this morning. Sheesh, heck could I meet deadlines if I was a novelist!
Anyway, my friend Ian let me borrow KOTOR and I was completley obsessed with it for two month straight. I finished it, then he got me to play Battlefront and my Star Wars obsession flared back up. I was inspired to write a fanfiction after reading an amazing story called "Remnants", which is a Carth/Revan story I HIGHLY suggest.
I know that I write mostly oneshots, and oneshots are not all that interesting sometimes--but it makes for a good one hour read. Hope some of you guys like it, give me feedback. I'm gonna keep working on Destati now. :) Loves to all.
Stormy