Mending Mistakes

Summary: Some mistakes, he realizes now, can never be mended.

Rating: PG for some language

A/N: I know, I know, it's not my usual Exile/Atton. I wanted to try a different pair of characters. Well, it's still Exile. The guy's different, though. I don't see these two as a couple, so much, but I do find their relationship fascinating. So I wanted to work more on their characters, especially Kavar, just because he's so cool. (To any fangirls out there: I sincerely hope I did him justice. If not, feel free to flame me in a review. Just as long as you leave a review. Actually, you can leave a review even if I get the character right. I don't mind. I promise. )

Disclaimer: If I owned Kavar, I know a large mob of rabid fans who would have my head on a silver platter. And then they would steal Kavar, glomp him, and desecrate him in other ways unbefitting a hot blonde Jedi. So I'm afraid that, for his sake—and because I like my head where it is, thanks—I'm going to have to tell you allthe painfultruth… I don't own Kavar. It's a shocker, I know.

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It took him a long time to find her.

She was standing alone in one of the large, cavernous hallways, staring out at the temple grounds through the wall-sized window. The views from these upper-level halls had always been her favorites, he remembered, but there were so many of them for her to hide in. He had searched through a dozen before finding her, just outside the meditation rooms.

He stood there for a few minutes, watching her. There seemed to be nothing to say between them, so he was startled when she actually spoke. "If you've come to chase me out," she said with a bitterness he'd never believed her capable of—at least, not toward him—"then there's no need to worry. I'll leave at sunrise."

Something about the bitterness tore at his heart. He had betrayed her, he knew, at some level… even if it was only by sitting through her trial without saying enough in her defense. Guilt stabbed through him, though he had done nothing truly wrong. "Corsela, I'm s—"

"You did what you had to do," she cut in flatly. "And so did I, and 'sorry' won't help either of us anymore."

She turned at last to face him, and he noticed the stiff set of her jaw, the too-straight posture, the clenched fists. She was uncomfortable around him, whether it was an angry discomfort or an awkward discomfort. Either way, it didn't matter any more. It was all too obvious that things were no longer the same. The past was gone; the bond between them was gone as well.

But it was her eyes that really got him. They were full of hurt, anger… betrayal.

You lied, that gaze said. You told me it was okay to trust my instincts and maybe slip a little and even make a mistake, but that was all a lie.

He sighed wearily. Not few were the times when he wished hopelessly for the past, and such fruitless wishing was tiring at best. Things had been so perfect back then, when all anyone had to worry about was passing the next examination. When "training" had meant meditation and calm, not military camps and blasters.

When mistakes had been mendable.

She might have been his Padawan, eventually. They both knew it, and while Kavar was not foolish enough to think that a Master-Padawan bond would keep things from ever changing, he'd still held a tentative, semi-formed hope.

"I guess this is it, then." Corsela turned back to the window, where the other spires of the Temple were visible. The darkness outside had a thin quality to it… it wouldn't be long until sunrise. "They've changed the rules, I guess, haven't they? You make a mistake and you live the rest of your life an exile."

"You directly disobeyed the Council's orders—"

"So did a lot of people."

"—and millions of lives were lost because of it," he finished.

"How many of those lives were innocent, d'you think?"

Kavar gaped. Surely she could not make so light of the deaths of all those people! "There were innocents on Malachor V!" he nearly shouted, suddenly angrier than he'd been in a long time. "You killed innocents, Corsela, and if you believe otherwise then you're—"

"Lying to myself?" she finished, her voice colder than he'd ever heard it before. "Or dark, Kavar? Is that what you were going to say?" She took a step toward him now, and he was too lost in the intensity of her emerald gaze to move. "But there was a time when you understood, wasn't there?"

He said nothing.

"Because all those innocents on Malachor V… they can't outweigh the innocents that we saved, can they?" She was standing right in front of him now, almost inappropriately close. "Those people needed someone to fight for them. You knew that, and that's why you almost came with me."

He finally found his voice. "The Council understands that," he began, calmer now. "But you have to realize that—"

"They don't!" She was shouting now. He could feel her fury rolling off her in waves. "They don't, because if they did they wouldn't have exiled me!"

Yes, he could feel her fury. He could feel it growing, could feel it become his own. It was a void, a black hole, and it was sucking him in, the same way it would suck in all those who got too close to her. It was a dangerous thing, that void—and that was why the council had exiled her. Not because she had run off to join the War; that was slightly more forgivable. But she could no longer be trusted around other Force users, not with her uncanny ability to bond with people. It would be far too easy to lead others down whatever path she chose to take, and that was far too risky.

But he couldn't tell her this without betraying the Council's confidence. She deserved an explanation, but he couldn't give it to her. "It's… it's complicated."

"Enlighten me."

He sighed again. He could understand her anger—and that, perhaps, was what scared him the most. "It'll be sunrise soon," he said, changing the subject abruptly. It wouldn't work; he was well aware of that. Still, it was worth a try. "Perhaps you should go gather your things."

"They already took my 'saber," she said dully, "and I don't have anything else."

There was a long pause.

"Corsela,listen-- I hate to see you go, butthe longer I stand here the harder it'll be for me to watch you leave." He forced a smile. "Perhaps we'll see each other again sometime... Good luck, my friend, and may the F—"

"You bastard."

Kavar blinked.

"You lying, hypocritical bastard."

"What are you—"

"Why won't you answer my question?" Her voice was beginning to rise again. This time, he could hear the tears. "Why is it that you can pester me and push me into telling you things but as soon as I want to know something, Force forbid that we have a real conversation?"

Defeated, Kavar said, "Fine. What is it you want to know?"

He already knew the answer, of course.

"Do I really deserve this?" she whispered. "I made a mistake, but why can't the Council understand—"

"The Council does understand," he said gently. "But understanding can't bring back the lives that were lost."

She dragged a sleeve roughly across her eyes. "But it wasn't all bad!" she protested, her anger suddenly replaced with a confusion and despair that was so much worse. "I helped people too, Master Kavar, and I never m-meant to hurt anyone—" And she broke out into tired, grieving sobs, no longer bothering to fight the tears.

He didn't know what to do. He'd only seen her cry once before, and that had been over something much less serious than this—she'd been having her first go at constructing a lightsaber, if memory served him right. She had thought things through for a long time, but she had stubbornly ignored her instincts, and had ended up putting a few pieces in backwards thanks to her habit of double-guessing herself. In the end, she'd finally fallen to her knees and wept as weeks of planning and hard work had begun to smoke dismally. I'm sorry, she had wailed miserably. I've messed it all up.

For reason unknown to him, Corsela Drace had always been terrified of failure. She spent longer than anyone else thinking out her plans, making sure there were no holes—which was good, unless you were in a situation where you needed to move quickly and trust yourself and your instincts. So he had picked up the charred casing of the lightsaber and removed the important pieces. He placed them in her hand, folding her fingers carefully over them, and said, Nevermind that. Try it again, and trust yourself—it's all right if you mess up. Mistakes can be mended. And those green eyes had stared up at him with such an expression of adoration that he had felt his heart swell with it.

Those same eyes met his now, but there was no love or adoration there. All he saw was a betrayed sort of hopelessness that was horrible to behold. Try to mend this, screamed that reproachful gaze. It was a mistake and you almost made it too and just you try to mend it now.

He stood there awkwardly, watching her cry. There was a time when he would have run forward immediately to comfort her, but there was nothing he could do for her now. She had made a choice, and nobody could lessen the consequences.

Still, it wasn't entirely fair. Corsela was dark void in the Force, and the Council was sending her off to deal with it on her own, completely unprepared. It would destroy her eventually, and it would destroy anyone she chose to be close to, and she didn't even know. She would be completely unawares when the blackness and death began to eat at her from the inside out.

For one awful moment he felt the full potency of her despair. It was overwhelming, suffocating, and although he knew that he could only feel it because of that void, it still managed to embed itself deep in his heart.

No, he thought angrily as he gathered the weeping exile into his arms, it wasn't fair. He could feel her loneliness as it consumed her, and nothing that painful could ever be fair.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her forehead nestled in the crook of his neck. "I've messed everything up, haven't I?"

He wanted to tell her what he knew she wanted to hear: that she hadn't messed up that badly, that everything was all right. That he would help her through this somehow.

That mistakes were mendable.

But they're not. He pressed his cheek to the top of her head and stroked her hair comfortingly, but he did not tell her what she wanted to hear.

Because a fried lightsaber casing was one thing. This—this darkness, this black hole—was not something that he or anyone else could mend for her. Even she could not hope to put a stop to it.

Only it, pulsing and growing and hungry, could destroy itself now. And it would take her with it, and to tell her that everything was all right would be a complete lie.

"I didn't mean to," she whispered against his chest. "I never meant to mess it up, you have to believe me—" He could feel the desperation in the tenseness of her body, but he said nothing. The unfinished end of her sentence hung between them:

You have to believe me because nobody else will.

He wanted to say I do, so don't worry. He wanted to tell her that, because she wanted to hear it. But he'd never lied to her before, and he didn't plan to start now, no matter how much she thought she needed to hear it. So he stood in the center of the empty hall and he held her tight and he said nothing, because there was nothing to say.

And in the end, sunrise came all too soon.

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A/N: So… yeah. I've just realized that, thus far, Angel is the only KOTORII story I've written where my exile doesn't freak out or cry for any reason. Which is weird, considering that she's not the type I'd imagine as being a freak-out, crying kinda girl. Maybe it's just 'cause all the good story opportunities are angsty and freak-out-y. Whatever, I'm working on a more happy piece right now. Involving Bao-Dur and a drunk Atton.

Not the way you're thinking.

>

But seriously, keep checking back. shameless plug I'll have it up eventually.

Force Persuade You will check back. You want to check back. /persuade Okay, I'm done.