He doesn't even remember how long it's been.

Atton Rand's destiny has always been filled with unforeseen twists and turns, taking him to places he never imagined that he would see and some he wishes he could forget. His time on the Ebon Hawk had given him something greater… purpose, for once in his life. He was outfitted with this purpose, and he set out as a Jedi to fulfill it.

But now, nothing is truly important to him anymore, and he thought he knew who he was, but he's just denying that he really doesn't.

Atton remembers a time in which this wasn't his name. He remembers when he thought he really had something to fight for, where the ever charismatic Revan had called out to his soul all those years ago and convinced him that defecting was the right choice. He woke up so many years later, and thought he could put the past behind him.

But he really can't.

The Force has such a sick sense of humor, pulling him here. He's drowned in his sorrows a little too much and can't place this face before him, the face that should be familiar to him, and he has to wonder if that's a good or bad thing. Just another empty face that he has buried within all those other ones, mixing in with the all the Jedi that he's killed, captured, tortured… worse. Now he's a Jedi himself and just wants to laugh at it all if he could. Atton Rand was someone that was important, once. But he, like all things, is subject to the withering of time. He still has so many years ahead of him, but every part of him feels so old and worn. He himself is a fading, dying, burning memory, like a jaded deck of pazaak cards. He bets this assassin feels the same, but he can't really bring himself to care anymore.

After her, nothing was the same. He should've known there was no such thing as a happy ending, after all, this Force-forsaken galaxy is too cruel for that.

He's fighting and slipping into his old training but now all he can do is continue to drown in the thoughts and memories of her. When she left, he should have known that she would never come back. He thought he'd had purpose, then, but lost it all after that last warm embrace and then nothing. Now, he has to keep his head in the clouds, in the stars, in order to delude himself into thinking that she's not gone, that she never left him.

I do love you, Atton. From the moment I first saw you, I knew… I never really said anything because I didn't know what to say, but I'm sorry. I have to go…

Atton can barely even remember her voice. It scares him.

It's been years, so many years and he can't even remember how many, since he played a game of pazaak with her. "Because you'll be right here with me, playing pazaak, where they can't reach you." Why would he tell her to dream if he can't even do it himself?

Destiny had called out to the woman he loved. It would never give him that mercy.

Revan was the epitome of destiny. He'd learned from her, and from himself, that the galaxy was tied to Revan. Atton knows it's too late to lash out now, too late to beg the Force to give her back to him. He should have kept her for himself, or tagged along. He's tied to her.

If he even cared a tiny bit about the fight that is going on, the fight that will mean absolutely nothing in the future, Atton would have realized it was getting close to the endgame. The victor of the duel will get to go home tonight, and the loser can expect a painless death.

Atton couldn't really care less, so his lightsaber, the color of a dying sunset, continues to move to the will of the Force, until his opponent narrows their cold eyes and says, very deliberately, "Jaq." Atton's cast out that name. She helped him both embrace his past and leave his memories littered behind, so he doesn't even falter a little.

They continue to dodge, and parry, and do tricks every so often. It's an elaborate dance and Atton just bops along to its beat, tuning out the words of his enemy.

Until he hears the words "Jedi Exile" and stops, completely frozen in place and time, as the memories slide around his crumbling walls and flood his mind.

He can't move, but he should have known. He should have known all along that it would come to this, that the past would come back to haunt him again like this-

He doesn't even notice the double-bladed lightsaber lodged in his chest.

Atton wakes up from a dreamless sleep in an achingly familiar ship. It's void of any other lifeforms but still somehow manages to make him remember his journeys, remember all the fighting, and he chokes on them. He makes his way to the ship's cockpit and sits down, slowly, stares out at the galaxy that used to be so beautiful. And he'll wait for Meetra as long as it takes.