A/N: I'm really trying here. Thanks for reading my second chapter!
Twisted Recovery
Bastila watched as a small bubble formed inside the kolto tank, drifted to the surface, and then popped out of existence. But the kolto was of little importance to her; what she really cared about was what was in the kolto tank –or rather, who.
She sighed and sat down in the lone chair that was in this secluded recovery room, her eyes never leaving the unconscious Revan. His dark hair floated around his head, and despite the breathing mask, he looked almost at peace as he recovered in the tank.
Bastila closed her eyes and let her head drop into her hands. Leaning forward, she massaged her temples with her fingertips. The past week had been stressful for her, and having to watch over the cause of the stress was not helping.
A quiet tapping sound caught her attention, and she lifted her head up to see what the noise was. She was utterly shocked to see Revan pounding a closed fist against the glass of the kolto tank, eyes still closed. His movement was slowed by the kolto, so his pounding was reduced to a soft patter.
Slowly, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a comlink. She pressed the button and spoke quietly into the device. "He's awake, I think. You might want to come anyway, to make sure."
A few minutes later, Master Dorak, one of the only people with access to the treatment room, entered. The whole time, Revan had kept hammering against the glass. Master Dorak studied him for a moment before speaking. "I am not quite sure if he is awake, he could merely be moving in his sleep, but either way, it seems he does not need the kolto tank anymore." He gestured at Revan's healed wounds, the gashes and punctures from shrapnel that had sealed up thanks to the kolto.
"What do you propose?" Bastila asked.
"He'll be transferred to a bed and the kolto tank will be moved back to the Enclave's main recovery room. Of course, he will still be administered daily doses of kolto."
"Will I still be required to watch him?"
"Yes," Master Dorak replied. "But not for much longer. You can resume your training as normal when this whole ordeal is finished."
"Thank you."
"I know this has been hard on you. You have the Council's utmost gratitude."
Master Dorak left soon after, leaving Bastila alone for the moment. Not quite alone, she corrected herself, letting her gaze settle on Revan. He had ceased banging on the glass, and yet again the room was silent.
Suddenly, Revan's eyes opened. Bastila was startled, but she made no move to contact anyone. He didn't move either, but simply stared at her. Air bubbles formed around his breath mask, a clear indication he was trying to speak. Finding that his voice was useless at the moment, he reached forward hand traced letters on the glass with his finger.
Help.
Bastila stepped back and muttered, "I can't help you. It's too late for you."
His deep brown eyes were pleading. Again, he formed letters on the glass. Please.
"It was your choice to do what you did," she said, keeping her voice low. "Now you have to face the consequences."
Revan was persistent. Redemption?
She shook her head, at the same time feeling ridiculous for playing charades with the former Dark Lord of the Sith.
Help, he wrote for the second time.
"With what? I'm not going to let you go."
T hem.
"Who's 'them'?" Bastila asked, sensing she already knew.
Jedi. After that, he made a slicing motion across his throat.
"They aren't going to kill you," she said. I think, she added silently.
Revan shook his head then pointed to himself.
"Not you? I told you that already, they won't kill you."
Once again, he dragged his finger over his throat.
"Okay, let's say they're going to kill someone. But if it's not you, then who?"
Revan.
"But… you are Revan," Bastila replied, struggling to comprehend.
The next phrase was longer. Not for long.
Bastila sighed, knowing she'd never be able to grasp his meaning. In turn, Revan leaned back, letting the kolto support him, and his eyes held a sad and distant look.
Although she was ashamed by the mere thought, a small part of Bastila was tempted to help him. She silently scolded herself, knowing that Revan was surely trying to trick her.
At that instant she felt extremely exhausted. A little rest wouldn't hurt, she mused. At first, she found it difficult to fall asleep, with Revan watching her intently, but after a few minutes Bastila had dozed off.
*POV Switch*
Revan sighed in defeat, or at least, he tried to. The breathing mask restricted him from any vocal communication, so his sigh was muffled and the action briefly surrounded his face in air bubbles. Once they had cleared, he noticed the Jedi was purposely ignoring him, and he let the hopelessness wash in.
Normally, Revan would never have given up, and would have sought some way of escape. But there were complications. He knew he was on Dantooine, at the Jedi Enclave, and that he was surrounded by Jedi Masters, Knights, and Padawans. Efforts to escape would be crushed.
For a great deal of time, Revan had been hiding his strength. He no longer needed the kolto tank, but he continued to let the Jedi believe he was weak and pathetic. The kolto still healed him, and he had hoped that by the time he was removed from it he would be healthy enough to slip away during the night.
He smiled as he saw the Jedi fall asleep. Bastila, that is her name, he remembered. What a burden she must carry…
Revan despised pleading for her help, making him seem desperate. But he was desperate. He had a small inkling of what the Jedi were going to do to him, as he had a vision. The Force had shown a future version of himself strolling about the Jedi Enclave and conversing freely with the Jedi. He knew that he wasn't himself in that vision.
He also knew the reason he was there in the first place. He let a small smile creep onto his face as he remembered how his friend Alek had changed. They had been best friends once, but Malak had turned on him in the end, as was Sith tradition. Revan would still enjoy making him pay, if he ever had the chance.
A beeping sound jerked him out of his thoughts of revenge. He saw Bastila jolt away from her sleep and answer a comlink. He could barely make out what was being said.
"All Council members present on Dantooine will be coming," a voice said. "This is urgent."
"Of course, Master Zhar," Bastila answered. "May I ask what is happening?"
"You will know soon enough."
"Yes, Master." Bastila shut off the comlink and then noticed how Revan was looking at her.
Revan was staring at her, his eyes wide with fear. His mind raced, trying to think of something. It seemed his night escape would never come. He drummed his fingers on the glass of the kolto tank, thinking.
"What frightens you?" Bastila asked him quietly.
Revan ignored her. He drew back his bare foot and kicked against the glass, but his movement was slowed by the kolto, so nothing happened. He uselessly beat his fists against the glass. He knew that Bastila could sense his unease and his fear. Even if she couldn't, she'd have to be blind not to see his desperation.
"What's happening?" she repeated.
He stopped his futile attempts to break the glass. Revan traced a word on the glass: Council.
"You're afraid of the Council?"
Revan nodded. He then outlined a longer phrase, pausing every now and then to make sure Bastila was following along: Don't let them do it.
"Do what?"
He didn't get a chance to reply when the door opened and four Jedi Council Members entered. He recognized all of them. Master Dorak, Zhar, Vandar, and Vrook were all present. Revan resumed his pointless barrage against the glass, but again his efforts were in vain.
"What's happening to him?" Bastila asked the Council members.
"He knows his time is up," Vrook answered.
"Time is up? You aren't going to kill him, are you?"
"He is a monster. A menace. An animal. But no, we will not end his life." Revan grimaced at Vrook's harsh description of him.
"What are you going to do?"
Master Dorak answered the question. "We are going to give him a new identity, replace his memories with ones we forge."
At hearing this, Revan increased his bombardment on the tank, gaining everyone's attention. Don't, he wrote on the glass. Please.
Bastila eyed him with pity. Finally, she looked back at the masters. "This isn't right."
"Don't tell me you are defending him?" Vrook demanded.
"Maybe I am. The Jedi are tasked with defending the defenseless, are we not? It is clear that this man is at our mercy! While I trust in the wisdom of the Council, I also trust in what is right."
"Padawan Shan," Vandar said. "Stand down. The matter has already been decided."
Bastila bowed her head. "Yes, Master Vandar." She cast a glance at Revan, who simply looked away.
Deciding to try one last attempt, Revan closed his eyes and let the Force flow through him. He drowned out the voices around him, filling the spaces with raw energy. After half a minute of waiting, he released the energy he had been storing, and the glass of the kolto tank shattered, spraying glass shards and kolto all over the Jedi. Revan rolled to his feet and ripped off the breathing mask. Small splinters of glass protruded from his bare back and healed wounds reopened, but he ignored the pain. He stumbled out of the treatment room and into the hallway of the Enclave.
Only barely aware of the Jedi's shouts, Revan took off down the corridor. He raced past a group of Padawans and noted that one of them was carrying a lightsaber. He called it to his hand with the Force and continued on his path. Rounding a corner, ducked behind a bunch of shrubs as the Jedi ran past him. Revan sank back against the wall, breathing heavily and at that moment just noticing his injuries.
Checking to make sure the coast was clear, Revan stood and dashed towards a door at the end of the hallway. He slid it open a crack and slipped out and into the Enclave's courtyard. Oblivious to the frightened cries of civilians, he leapt over a group of bushes and ran until he couldn't run anymore. Finally, he found refuge in a tree that was covered in foliage. He hoisted himself high into its branches and rested, catching his breath.
"You knew," a feminine voice said.
Revan cursed himself. I was followed! "Please," he started to say, his voice raspy. He stopped himself from saying what he was about to, and craned his neck to look to see who the voice belonged to.
Bastila, he thought, her grey eyes meeting his.
"You knew," she repeated. "You knew what the Council was going to do."
Revan nodded and twisted out of her view. He began climbing higher in the tree, trying to flee.
"Don't," she called up to him. "You could either talk to me, or talk to one of the Council members. I doubt they'd be less inclined to discuss anything."
He paused, pondering her words. At last, he began to descend from the tree. When he stepped down, he regretted his decision. As he released his hands from the last branch, he dropped into a fighting stance.
Bastila sighed and pulled out her saberstaff. "Just come peacefully, Revan." He could tell she felt uncomfortable trying to coax him into surrendering. "We won't hurt you."
Revan shook his head. "You lie, Bastila," he said softly. "Perhaps not physically, but you will rip away my identity!" He raised his voice with the last sentence.
The comment stung. Bastila tightened her jaw. "I tried. You wouldn't understand. If you surrender, things can go back to normal."
"So that's what this is, self-preservation. You say normal, but I won't even be myself. I suppose you'll remake me into some pawn like you, won't you? A puppet, without control of my own mind?"
Bastila activated her saberstaff, a wild look in her eye, and Revan turned on the lightsaber he stole from a Padawan. She laughed curtly. "That's a training blade. It won't kill."
"I sense arrogance, and anger as well. You know fully well that those are tools of the dark side. You have potential, the potential to be great, but your power is wasted on the Jedi."
That succeeded in angering her further, and Revan used that bought time to hurl the blade at Bastila, and he used the Force to guide it at her arm. It struck her shoulder, but she barely gave it a second thought, even as a small burn mark appeared. Her focus was on Revan as he dashed into the plains, making his getaway.
Bastila was unrelenting, however. She soon caught up with him and used the Force to knock him off balance, and Revan tumbled onto the ground. He struggled to get up, but his legs seemed to fail him. He let his head fall onto the dirt.
He felt hands grab his shoulders and roll him onto his back. He let out a grunt of pain as the shards of glass buried themselves deeper into his skin and blades of grass grazed his open wounds. His breathing came in rugged, sharp gasps. Revan finally was ready to admit defeat as he saw Bastila approaching.
"Someday, I will get revenge," he vowed. "On you and everyone else."
Bastila was silent as she pulled Revan to his feet. She put his hands behind his back, causing him to wince, but he hid his pain.
Once back inside the treatment room, the Council members thanked Bastila quickly, and then turned to Revan. Vandar, one of the kinder Council members, gestured to a medical bed. "Lay down. I know you know what is about to occur, so the less you struggle, the less painful this will be for you."
"I hope you're happy," Revan said, spitting the words out as if they had a bitter taste, venom dripping from his voice.
"This brings us no joy," Vandar replied patiently. "But it must be done."
"And I hope you know what I am leaving behind today."
"We do," Vrook interrupted. "You are leaving behind your Sith Empire."
Revan shook his head angrily. "It's more than my empire… Malak will just take it over anyway. He is not fit to lead. He will turn the Sith into something they're not!"
"And what are they now?"
Revan stayed silent, and Zhar walked up to him. The purple-pink skinned Twi'lek put his hand on Revan's shoulder and made him sit down on the medical bed. Revan struggled against his grip, but other Council members assisted Zhar and they eventually forced Revan to lie down, which caused the glass in his back to fully embed themselves into his skin. Clenching his teeth, he continued to fight against the Jedi, but to no avail. They used restraints to bind his limbs to the bed, and finally stepped away.
"Padawan," Zhar said to Bastila. "If you wish to stay, you may, but nothing that happens here will leave this room."
"I understand, Master Zhar."
The Jedi Council members gathered around Revan, and they all closed their eyes and channeled the Force. Revan could feel them edging into his mind, and he fought to keep them out. He desperately threw up mental barriers, but he was no match for the four Jedi Masters. He felt one of them smash through his defenses, and soon all of his walls came crumbling down.
They took over his now defenseless mind and began combing through memories, destroying them, and replacing them. Revan cried out, the mental pain becoming physical, and he gripped the metal railing on the bed, his skin turning pale and blood pounding in his skull. He knew it was useless to seek aid from a Jedi, but he looked to Bastila for support nonetheless. He begged for help with his eyes and eventually with his mouth when his cry turned into a long, drawn out scream. At that point, the pain had evolved into outright agony, and Revan felt like someone was constantly electrocuting him with Force-lightning.
Bastila bit her lip and turned away. Typical Jedi, he thought, though with much effort since his energy was being used to fend off the Council. Always turning a blind eye to those who truly need aid. He didn't hold Bastila accountable for it, however; the Jedi had turned her into something she most likely was not.
Suddenly he forgot his entire time at Dantooine as a child. His past was being yanked away from him, and he tried to grasp it. He was able to snag bits and pieces; a fond memory here, an unimportant reminiscence there.
Then he forgot his time as a Sith. He was again able to hold onto small fragments. Finally, he didn't know where his was anymore, and eventually who he was. To him, he was just a broken man, his arms full of another man's memories. He didn't even have a name. The last thing he saw before consciousness left him was an unknown woman with soft dove-grey eyes staring at him with pity.
