EDIT: Chapter revamped - hopefully more coherent now! I am seeking a beta-reader, please PM me if you're interested!
AN: I just wanted a fluffy happy ending. And a Carth that is as devoted to Light-Side Revan as he was to Dark-Side Revan. And I have more feelings than I do respect for canon. :'D
How long had it been? Time seemed an obscure concept here, with no day, no night, not even the intangible fluctuations of the Force to console Revan. She hung, suspended in a violet cage of resplendent sparks. Or perhaps she lay in a dark corner of forgotten stone cell. They moved her, kept her drugged into a state of near oblivion. But it wasn't enough to dull the pain or block out the dark tendrils that constricted every corner of her mind and reason.
This was hell. The true power of the Sith.
She knew she could not escape the grasp of the evil that now ensnared her. She fought them at every turn but the simple battle of enduring was wearing her to the core. Revan was crumbling slowly, like a great stone weathered into sand by the unending sea.
I should never have left.
She thought this often. It was a regret with no means of atonement.
At the time, Revan had seen few options. Nightmares of her old life plagued her, sickening reminders of a past she could not recall. Each half-remembered dream left Revan feeling more and more a stranger to her own self. She'd thought… if only she could find the truth, it would be enough to put an end to the torment. And she'd hoped, too, the truth would be enough breach the divide growing between her and Carth – a torture all its own, and as much a result of her determination to bear the guilt in silence as the visions themselves.
So she'd left. Not alone, but certainly without those she valued most. How could Revan possibly have asked Carth to join her, with nothing but bad dreams as a guide and great unknown darkness at the end of the journey? Facing her past was one thing. Asking him to face it too… to suffer, perhaps even die? No. Carth had endured enough on Revan's account.
And yet. His memory, their memories – it was her last link to the Force and the light. Love kept her hanging by a thread, and she knew that Jolee had been right. If not for Carth, Revan would have surrendered long ago. She would never see him again…
I always meant to return. But that had been a foolish lie, meant to ease the pain of betraying her love. She'd sensed his agony when he learned the truth, that she was gone to a place he could not follow. It had almost been enough to bring her running back. Almost.
I should have listened. The pain she felt now was fitting atonement for the crime of leaving him like that.
The Sith wanted to break her. But she would die before she turned from the Light. For this, too, Revan had promised Carth. And now, more than ever, she clung stubbornly to her ideals even when it could no longer be doubted that the darkness reigned supreme. Even when he would never learn the truth.
Each day, the connection between them grew fainter. It had been years, now. Despite the constant torture, the battle for sanity that had consumed her being, this last link's weathering remained her greatest focus. At first Revan had hoped for it. Carth – moving on, finding the happiness they'd been denied. She would be alone, then, but she'd thought she could bear it if only he was at peace.
The abyss now stretched before her. Soon the last flicker of Carth's presence would fade and she would be, once and forever more, alone. The Darkness had taken her before. When Carth gave up, Revan would have nothing to hold onto, and how then would she resist?
Let it end before that day.
A well of emotion tugged at her sanity. She felt something fray, and then burst forth. Not fear, not anger. Despair.
How long had she been holding it back? Weeks, months… years?
The prison rumbled. Somewhere, a vent broke – spewing hot steam. Arcs of power spewed from her bonds in all directions, surging through her withered frame. The Force pulsed out of Revan in a mighty flare of raw, unbridled grief - the echoes of a dying star. Soon to become a void from which there was no escape. Her last outcry would go unwitnessed - swallowed by oblivion.
Let it end now.
Yet she knew, as surely as she knew home was lost to her, that fate would not be so merciful.
Four years, seven months, three days.
It took several panicked minutes of backtracking to be certain. The guilt of forgetting strangled Carth. He'd kept counting, even though it was foolish. Like Morgana, Revan's face grew ever less distinct. The Admiral recalled only the ghost of her caress, her kiss, her smile. The way she danced. Trying to summon it was like looking through tarnished glass.
Carth remembered the important things, of course: her indomitable will, her unwavering faith, her undying love. He held onto them like a lifeline. She was still alive, she had to be – he could feel it. But she was fading, and doubt hovered like demon over his every thought and dream. The place in his heart reserved for Revan was nothing now but an empty, gaping hole.
Surely he was only kidding himself. Surely if she were alive, she would have returned to him by now? Surely she would not have left him like this…
But he could not escape the knowledge the Revan had left him, in spite of everything. And told him to stay behind, a longsuffering fool awaiting the return of a lover gone off to war. Whether it was the Force or his own stupidity that kept him believing she was out there, somewhere, Carth questioned the point of it all more and more each day.
If I'd known what you were planning, I never would have let you go…
Wishful thinking, come far too late.
I would have told you how much I loved you.
Perhaps she'd doubted that. Perhaps that was why she'd chosen to make this journey alone. It pained him to think Revan might have ever wondered if his affection wavered. It pained him worse to feel conflicted in his devotion.
Four years, seven months, three days…
Four years…
Calloused hands rested heavily atop the console as Carth shut his eyes. He needed to keep moving forward. For her.
And it was then the apparition struck him. Carth staggered, gasping as a brutal wave of raw feeling assaulted him mind. It hurt. "A-agh!" Lights flashed across his eyes, overwhelming at first, but slowly coming into focus. The Hawk. A strange planet… Revan. And the Sith.
Somewhere beyond the black a man urged, "Admiral?"
Revan. He felt her pain, her despair, and suddenly Carth wanted very much to vomit.
"Admiral?" More urgent now. Someone was trying to lift him.
"Revan." He choked. The impact of the… the vision, only grew more painful as the moments passed. Like an open wound the nerves were only beginning to process. Revan's feelings had touched him before but never like this.
She was hurt. She was trapped. She was dying.
Damned if he was going to waste one more moment counting.
The attendant was looking around wildly, "We need some help over here!"
"Contact the Jedi Council –now." Carth ordered hoarsely as the soldier helped him rise.
"Sir?"
"NOW! That's an order!"
They bolted.
His doubts had been baptized away, the intensity of her despair spurring him to action. I promised to protect you, and that's exactly what I'm going to do. Yet he was shaking, barely standing. Carth was afraid, more than ever before, that fate would not be merciful and he would not reach her in time.
