"Admiral Onasi?"
He glanced up from where he stood near the windows of the Intrepid. The Republic capital ship looked out over Citadel Station from where she was docked, blocking one or two modules from sight.
"Admiral Dodonna will see you now, sir."
Carth nodded, running a hand through his hair before concealing it under his hat; tugging on the front of his uniform and breezing past the lieutenant who had admitted him.
He had been surprised the uniform still fit him at all. It had been sitting in his closet for at least six months, collecting dust and declined command opportunities.
Little snug around the gut, he thought with a rueful smirk. It was a pretty unrealistic expectation to hold onto the abs and pectorals of a Captain when he was an Admiral fast approaching fifty. Most exercise he got these days was chasing after a five-year-old.
But despite all the office hours, admiralty still had its perks. One was being bumped straight to the head of line for a meeting with one of the heads of the Fleet.
Another was that he wasn't required to tell anyone other than the woman sitting at the desk in the back of the office he entered exactly why he'd scheduled the meeting at all.
Forn Dodonna stood as he approached the desk, taking his salute with a curt nod of her head.
"Carth. It's good to see you again."
"Likewise, Admiral," Carth replied, clasping his hands behind his back.
Dodonna smiled, reseating herself.
"All business today, it seems. Well, let's hear it. How are things going on the Citadel? I haven't heard anything of another attack. Telos's reconstruction seems to be going smoothly."
The Citadel…well, the Citadel never changed. It just spawned more and more modules, and even he and half the Lieutenants of the TSF couldn't keep track of them all.
He'd been down to the surface of Telos, however, and what he saw made him happy if not out of place. It wasn't exactly the home he remembered- there were canyons and hillsides that hadn't existed decades ago, plants and animals he couldn't remember smelling or avoiding.
"Reconstruction's going fine. The Ithorians are upping their percentages almost weekly, and the first residential complex is almost finished."
Not that it'll mean much in the long run, he thought, rolling his eyes. Only the obscenely rich or influential could afford one of the housing units; built for publicity and symbolism. Like every other Telosian on the station, he'd briefly entertained the idea of getting one. Unlike every other Telosian, he had both the credits and the influence to make it a reality.
I don't want it without her. Besides, she probably doesn't want to live on Telos for the rest of her life-
"I've heard something about a certain young man running an excavation up on the polar ice caps too."
The only other construction going on was private and out of the Ithorians' jurisdiction. It was being conducted by a number of men and women in light brown robes, coordinated by the Jedi Council. When finished, there would be quite a lot of Jedi traffic on Citadel Station; masters, padawans, apprentices and eventually a mini-Council in charge of affairs at the Telos Jedi Academy.
The snow from the boots of the leader of the construction left a wet trail in his apartment nearly every day. Dustil never could remember to wipe his shoes off.
Carth smiled proudly.
"Jedi Knight Onasi's determined when he wants to be. Me, I would have just left it an icebox." He chuckled along with Dodonna.
"Still giving you grey hairs, I see," his commanding officer murmured, glancing at the patches of slate creeping into his dark brown hair behind his ears.
"No more than you," Carth replied with a smirk. Forn's hair, once the color of rust, was now completely white.
Dodonna's fingernails tapped on the glass surface of her desk as she nodded. He kept his hands behind his back and his posture straight, even though he could feel her eyes narrowing on him, her scrutinizing gaze taking him back to his days as a Captain.
"And the Sojourn? She's due for a few hyperdrive upgrades soon, so you can tell your officers to stop barraging the Department of Fleet Readiness and Logistics with complaints about her speed."
"She's making pretty good time to Onderon from what I've heard."
Dodonna frowned.
Probably shouldn't have reminded her that I've passed on the opportunity to command the Sojourn at least twice in the past month.
"Well, Admiral Onasi," she finally replied, sitting up in her chair and leaning forward over the desk, folding her hands over her computer console. "I'm at a loss to understand then just why you requested this high priority meeting with me. Sounds like both the station and the ships under your command are doing fine."
Her voice was dry and formal. Carth tried to keep his face as impassive as he could.
"I'm here to propose a covert operation, Admiral Dodonna. In regards to the possible Sith threat brought to our attention by Republic agents and members of the Jedi Order."
Dodonna sighed heavily, and he struggled not to let his shoulders slump. He was reasonably sure of how this was going to turn out.
You're just a soldier; you give them your name, rank, and serial number. Nothing else. Certainly not how damn much you need her to approve this mission.
"The Sith are believed to be massing somewhere in the Unknown Regions, specifically regions one and two, outside the Atravis and Vara sectors. I'm proposing a mission to ascertain the threat to the Republic, one that doesn't risk the lives of an entire crew or take a ship away from the Fleet."
He retrieved a datapad from the pocket of his jacket, handing it to her. Dodonna took it wordlessly.
"The datapad contains a complete proposal for the execution of this mission, as well as suggested personnel, required clearances, and a contingency plan if it happens to fail."
Admiral Dodonna glanced over it, one eyebrow rising higher and higher as he watched her eyes go from line to line.
"I see you've listed yourself as commanding officer."
He nodded.
"And listed no other personnel to accompany you," she added sharply.
"That's your prerogative, Admiral. I'm requesting your permission for an extended leave of absence to begin this mission."
To no great surprise of Carth's, Dodonna shook her head.
"We're in a fragile position, Carth. The Republic is finally gaining some semblance of stability again. You're one of my top officers. I can't afford to lose you right now."
"With all due respect, Admiral," he continued, keeping his hands clasped behind his back, making his voice carefully neutral. "Unless we start giving this threat its due attention, we could have another war on our hands in a few years."
Dodonna's grey eyes, which looked more and more critical the whiter her hair got each year, bore down on him.
He struggled to remind himself that they were the same rank, that he had no reason to start squirming like a nervous recruit.
"You and I have had this conversation before, Carth," she murmured in a low voice.
"About six months ago, Admiral," he replied evenly.
When her transmissions stopped. When the last thing I got from her was: "Found your homing device today. HK used it for target practice. Love you."
Carth had reacted immediately, coming straight to Dodonna, requesting his leave and his clearances. And been denied both.
Admiral Dodonna stood, folding her arms and stepping out from behind her desk.
"It is my understanding, Admiral Onasi, that a representative of the Jedi Order has already been dispatched to discover the nature of this threat."
"Yes," he answered. It was easier than trying to explain to Dodonna that the Council hadn't sent her, that she was on some kind of mythical quest for a redemption he'd thought she'd already earned.
"And that that representative happened to be none other than Jedi Knight Katrina Onasi."
It made him feel oddly proud to hear his name attached to hers, even though the entire goal of this meeting was to get permission to rescue her from what he considered to be a really stupid idea.
"Yes," he repeated. Dodonna sighed again.
"Carth, may I ask you a personal question?" She paused only a moment, and then continued without waiting for his reply.
"Are you standing here in front of me because you're concerned for the Republic or worried about your wife?"
Don't tell her how you wake up in the middle of the night, so sure you heard her come in. Don't tell her how your daughter has nightmares through the Force that you can't do anything about.
"I would hope that either would be enough reason for Republic command to consider my request," Carth said smoothly.
Dodonna scoffed.
"Republic command knew nothing of this. We weren't notified about her trip or her departure. To my knowledge, neither was the Jedi Council."
He watched her cautiously as she leaned up against the front of her desk, staring him down.
"The only ones who knew about this were presumably you and your wife. And it sounds as though even you don't know much more than the rest of us."
"That's why I'm proposing this mission, Admiral."
"She's been gone a long time, Carth," Dodonna added softly.
One year and six months, almost to the day. He sighed.
"What are you getting at, Forn?"
"I agree that there's a possible threat in the Unknown Regions that should be weighted and considered, as well as investigated. You, however, are not the man for the job."
His hands tightened behind his back and he frowned at her.
"Are you questioning my ability to do my duty?"
"No, I'm not-"
"Don't ever question me on that, Admiral," he interrupted sharply. "I lost a wife and almost a son to doing my duty."
The reminders still hurt, even a decade later. He used to wonder why he tortured himself by mentioning Morgana. Eventually he'd figured out that he was terrified of forgetting her.
"Don't presume to lecture me on duty, Admiral Onasi," Dodonna snapped, standing at her full height, almost taller than him but not quite. "I'm aware of your loss, just as I am aware of the losses of every other man and woman in this fleet. Many of these civilian deaths were incurred during the ending of the Mandalorian Wars and the beginning of the Sith War."
She glared at him for a moment as though he were to blame.
"A war that was, if you'll remember, brought about from two Jedi we thought we could trust. One of which is still alive and walks among us."
"Did it ever cross your mind that perhaps she's stopped sending you messages for a reason?" the Admiral continued without pause. "Other than the possibility that something's happened to her? Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps she's on her way back with a fleet, just like she was a decade ago after the last war?"
"That's completely ridiculous, Forn-"
"Is it?" Dodonna broke in, cutting him off in the middle of his outraged sputtering. "She's done it before, Admiral. Who's to say she isn't doing it again?"
"I don't trust her, Carth," she finished, folding her arms in front of her. "And it's been all I can do to keep my mouth shut all these years, to keep from doing my duty and informing the Republic that Lord Revan is still alive."
Don't try and tell her she's wrong, that she doesn't know her like you do. Don't try and explain that if you can love her unreservedly despite the past, everyone else should be able to too.
He finally let his hands unclasp from behind his back, and he rubbed the sweaty palms against his trousers, lifting his hat and running a few fingers through his hair.
"How's your daughter?" Dodonna said suddenly. "Must be around six or seven. That's a good age."
Carth gave the Admiral a withering stare.
"Five. And she misses her mother."
Carth blinked a few times, groaning and pushing himself up slightly. He waited until his pupils adjusted and he could make out the lines of his bedroom, the figure standing next to the bed, barely tall enough to reach him.
"What's wrong, Jawa? Did you have a nightmare?"
She shook her head, grasping his arm through the covers again. It would have surprised him if she was. She didn't come to him with her nightmares anyways.
"She's gone." Her voice was insistent, more surprised that he hadn't noticed yet then scared of whatever she thought was gone.
He was half-asleep, he was getting older; for a moment he struggled to think of what she was talking about.
Of course- she didn't come to him with her nightmares; she went to her mother. Her mother who was not Morgana, with long black hair and a dazzling smile.
Her mother who was Katrina; Revan, a pair of direct hazel eyes and soft brown tresses.
"No, Celyn, she's not gone yet," Carth murmured, sitting up in bed. "She's here, she's right-"
He gazed at the empty spot in the bed next to him, the outline of where her body had been lying what seemed only a moment ago.
Celyn whimpered quietly.
"She left…" his daughter said. "She didn't say goodbye to me."
His half-conscious brain scrambled to figure out where she was, why there was the same tightness in his chest that he felt in his daughter's trembling body.
"Mommy isn't going to leave without saying goodbye," Carth murmured, rubbing her back as she clung to him. "She promised, remember?"
Celyn only wailed into his chest, beginning to hiccup as tears gathered near her eyes.
If Dustil had cried when he had left, Carth hadn't known about it. Celyn was born from the same proud, stubborn genes. She never cried either.
Only at night, when she couldn't find her mother.
"She's your wife, Admiral Onasi," 'She' came out from Dodonna's lips like it was a particularly unappetizing pronoun. "And thus I can't trust you to be objective when it comes to dealing with her-"
"She's not a Dark Lord anymore. She hasn't been one for practically eight years now. You haven't had to 'deal' with her since-"
"I understand that. That's exactly why I've never said anything about her identity. That's why I've let you live your lives on Telos. But when she disappears and leaves no word for months- plenty of time to rebuild an army or recruit whatever Sith might be out there, I start to worry."
"If you're worried, then give me my leave and let me go find out," Carth said slowly, trying to keep the words from coming out like the impatient hiss that had been building in his stomach for six months.
"Look, Forn, I'm a soldier," he began tiredly. "If you order me to stay here, leading checkups on Rimward planets and watching the Citadel get fatter, I'll do it. But expect me back in this office as soon as my orders are fulfilled."
Dodonna studied him quietly.
"Your leave is granted, Admiral Onasi."
Don't show her how relieved you are. Don't let her know that you were about five seconds away from resigning.
"That is, if you truly think it's going to benefit the Republic. That your departure isn't in your own self-interests," she added.
When your wife's the former Dark Lord Revan, the two are pretty much the same thing.
"Thank you, Forn."
Dodonna waved him away, frowning. "You're dismissed, Admiral. I don't want to see you back in this office until we have some answers."
Carth nodded, saluting again and exiting the room. He deftly navigated the corridors of the ship- identical in design and layout to many of his own; through the airlock and back onto the Citadel.
He felt a thousand light-years better than he had stepping onto the Intrepid; so sure that he would be told that he was needed here, that he would be denied his request. So sure that he would hate himself for staying, for being unable to desert the Republic or shirk his duty.
Carth Onasi was not a man who broke promises. Either to a group, an individual, or even to himself.
The light from the fresher blinded him for a moment as the door opened. Katrina stood in the doorway, watching them.
Relief floored him, woke him up from his drowsy state.
"Look, Jawa," he murmured in the little girl's ear, motioning towards Katrina. "She's not gone."
Celyn immediately began to wipe her tears, sniffling and trying to hide the fact that she'd been crying.
Katrina walked over and picked their daughter up.
"Mommy…don't go-" Celyn said, her voice reaching a petulant, temper-tantrum kind of tone.
"I have to go someday, Celyn. You know that." Her tone wasn't harsh, but it wasn't gentle either.
Carth watched her carry Celyn out of their bedroom and through the sitting room. He waited until she had opened the door to the little girl's room, and then he pushed himself out of bed, crossing to where T3 sat regenerating in the corner.
He powered up the droid, who beeped inquisitively. Carth put a finger to his lips, glancing after Katrina to make sure she hadn't noticed.
"Quiet, T3. I don't want her to hear. There isn't much time."
He exchanged nods with a few TSF patrols as he passed them, breezed past a pair of women making eyes at him.
Carth smirked to himself. Had to appreciate the latter when he could get it- Years had passed, he'd collected more scars, and he was no longer the HoloNet heartthrob he used to be. There were more starry-eyed ensigns around him now than women.
The door to his apartment opened, and he hissed loudly as he tripped over a pair of boots.
"Oh, sorry." He glanced up at where Dustil was sprawled on the couch.
Should have known, Carth thought, glancing down at the standard knee-high boots of the Jedi Order again and noticing a small puddle beneath their heels.
The sight of Jedi robes flung over chairs and tables wasn't an irregular sight in his home. It had taken him time to get used to seeing Dustil with a lightsaber hanging at his side, but eventually that had become normal too.
"Hey, at least I took them off," his son added, sitting up and folding his hands behind his head.
"Good to have you home, Dustil. You get back from Coruscant early?"
"Yeah," his son murmured, standing up. "Yeah…"
Carth cocked an eyebrow, watching Dustil put his hands in his pocket. He had a vague memory of that exact look on his own face- that blissful smirk and faraway gaze, like there was an entire world only he could see- but it escaped him now just what that look meant.
"Are you going to tell me what the hell you're so happy about?" he prompted.
"She said yes," Dustil answered, grinning.
"Who?"
His son rolled his eyes. "Admiral Dodonna. Tova, Father! She said yes."
It took a moment to decipher exactly what it was Dustil was trying to tell him, and it slowly dawned on him that Tova's 'yes' meant that his son was getting married.
"That's great, Dustil," he replied, gripping his arm and patting him on the back. "Third time's a charm I guess, huh?"
His son smirked.
"I guess so."
My son is getting married. My son is happy.
Dustil was still slightly shorter than him, clean-shaven and beaming like a twenty-something in love; a role Carth occasionally forgot the young Jedi Knight played.
"I bet…I bet Mom would be ribbing me about how many tries it took," Dustil suddenly said, glancing up at him.
Our son is getting married. Our son is happy, Ana.
"She'd be so proud of you, Dustil," Carth murmured, giving him a sad smile.
There was no promise that could bring Morgana back. He wasn't about to make the same mistake twice.
T3 hummed quietly in front of him, waiting for whatever instruction or message he was about to give.
"She's got you and HK back and completely repaired. She's gathered all her information from the crew of the Ebon Hawk. She's found herself a new ship, had all the markings and ID signature changed, and it's practically stocked and fueled. Any day now…"
Carth paused, peering back through the doorway. He watched Katrina enter Celyn's room, closing the door behind her.
"She's got that look in her eyes, T3," he continued furtively. "And every time I ask her to promise me she'll come back, she just walks away."
He sighed heavily, kneeling in front of the droid.
"I can't accept that as an answer. She has to come back. Celyn needs her. I need her."
The words brought it home; that one of these mornings he would wake up and she would really and truly be gone, and he would be left with only his traumatized daughter and that flat outline in the bed next to him.
"Now she's promised to send messages and coordinates as she goes, but I know her, T3. They're going to stop coming as soon as she finds these Sith she's looking for. She thinks she has to protect us, and she won't let me try and protect her anymore."
He rose and crossed to his nightstand, rifling for some tools and hurrying back to the droid.
"I need you to be my eyes and ears, T3. Follow her everywhere she goes, even if she says she doesn't need you or tries to leave you on the ship. Watch out for her. Record anything you think is important. I'll encode this message in case she tries to do a memory wipe on you."
The droid hummed quietly, beeping once more.
"If…if she's in trouble, you find a way to get help. If not me, then other Jedi, the Republic- do what you can. Reprogram HK to do the same if you have to."
He finished encoding the message, running his hand over the droid's scorched plating.
"She's strong, but she can't do this alone. I only hope she figures that out before it's too late."
The droid beeped quietly as though he agreed.
"I can't lose her, T3," Carth finished. "Even if she wants to be lost."
"Father!" He turned to see his daughter bolt out of the doorway of her room and throw her arms around him.
'Father' rung in his ears. She'd picked it up from Dustil, and no one had ever bothered to correct her, not even him. He felt stupid trying to explain to a five-year-old why he'd rather be called 'Dad' or 'Daddy'.
"There was some kind of annoying buzzing in my ears when I got off the Chaser," Dustil said, winking at Celyn. "I think it was some Jawa trying to talk to me, but I'm not sure. So I went to her school and found her."
It was impossible to look at the impish smile on his daughter's face and not recognize the lines of her mouth; impossible to watch the way she burrowed into her neck when she laughed and not know who she had inherited it from.
Carth powered down T3, heading to Celyn's bedroom.
Katrina sat on the edge of the bed, leaning over Celyn. The little girl was no longer crying, but her arms were folded stubbornly in front of her, her lips curved into a tight frown.
"But why?" she whined. "Why do you have to go?"
"Because, son, I'm a member of the Republic Fleet," he murmured, ruffling Dustil's hair. "It's my duty to defend it from whatever threatens it. I'm trying to protect you and your mother."
He remembered the sigh Katrina gave now; knew that it came from exasperation or sadness, and sometimes a little of both.
"There are bad people in the galaxy, Celyn. People that want to hurt us. Do you remember what those people are called?"
"Sith," Celyn replied automatically. Katrina nodded.
"And it's the job of the good people in the galaxy to stop them. Do you remember what the good people are called?"
"Jedi."
"That's right." Katrina looked away for a moment, out the windows of the station at the innumerable stars, the traffic of shuttles and ships of the Fleet.
"Sometimes the good people make mistakes and they do bad things that hurt people."
"Why?"
"They don't know," Katrina replied hoarsely.
He forced himself to stand in the doorway, even as most of him wanted to grasp her shoulders, remind her that she was a good person, that he loved her, that she deserved this even if she didn't believe it.
"Celyn, when good people do bad things, they feel very sorry for the things that they've done. And they want to fix it by helping people."
"You did bad things, Mommy," Celyn said softly.
He didn't understand the Force. Certainly didn't understand how it could make a four-year-old grasp something that had taken Katrina the length of the Star Forge mission and years beyond to realize.
"Yes, I did bad things," Katrina whispered, and she ran her fingers through their daughter's dark brown hair.
"How was school, Jawa?"
"Good. We watched the ship come in. Dima said it was a Republic capital ship," his daughter replied, sounding out the last few words.
Celyn pulled back from him, a frown suddenly on her face. "Is the ship that's here your ship?"
Carth shook his head. "No, it's Admiral Dodonna's."
"What's she doing here?" Dustil murmured.
"Routine inspection. I requested a meeting with her too."
Carth waited until Celyn lost interest in their grown-up conversations about Admirals and meetings and wandered back into her own room.
"Anything wrong?" Dustil continued as the door shut behind the little girl.
"I feel very sorry for the bad things I did, Celyn," Katrina finally continued. "And I have to make up for it by helping people and stopping the Sith. Do you understand now why I have to go?"
Celyn sighed, yawning and burrowing further under the covers.
"No. You're not bad, Mommy."
For a moment he nursed the faint hope that maybe Celyn could convince her, maybe Celyn could give her better reasons than he could for forgetting this whole thing.
But the independence and petulant temper that his daughter had were inherited from her mother, who only shook her head again.
"Not anymore. But I still have to go and fix the things I did when I was bad."
"Promise to come back," Celyn demanded.
Katrina frowned.
"Go to sleep now."
"Mommy-" There was an iciness unbecoming of a child in his daughter's tone. "Promise to come back."
"I promise…that I won't ever let anything bad happen to you, Father, or Dustil."
In a child's mind the two promises seemed to mean the same thing, and Celyn yawned again, dropping back into sleep.
Katrina rose, stopping short as she noticed him standing in the doorway.
He put his hand around her shoulder as she walked past him and back towards their bedroom. He traced the lines of long-incurred scars down her back and neck; lines his fingers had memorized.
"I wish I could promise you that I'm coming back. I wish I could promise her that I'll be here whenever she needs me." Her words were sudden, abrupt, jarring. They hit him like a blaster shot to the stomach.
Or, more appropriately, to the heart.
"You will be if you call off this whole plan and stay here."
She slipped out from under his arm, frowning.
"Don't make this harder-"
"You're the one making it difficult on yourself."
"You didn't happen to meet with the Council when you were on Coruscant, did you? The real Council, I mean," Carth added, smirking at the sudden redness in his son's cheeks.
"Not directly, no. Talked with Master Jolee about not getting kicked out of the Order."
At long as Jolee Bindo's on that Jedi Council, there's going to be an influx of Jedi marriages, Carth thought, rolling his eyes.
"So you haven't heard-"
"No," Dustil said, glancing up at him. "Is that what you met with Dodonna about?" He nodded.
"This whole thing is because of what you think you owe to the galaxy," Carth continued, watching Katrina pace slowly back and forth. "You don't owe them anything, Revan. You made it all up when you turned back, when you killed Malak-"
"I didn't turn back," she snapped. "I couldn't even remember falling. How could I have turned back from anything? And Malak-"
Katrina trailed off, exasperated and idly pulling on her earlobe for a moment.
"Look, I don't expect you to understand-"
"Make me understand," he interrupted. "Because you're not going anywhere otherwise."
Katrina folded her arms in front of her, raising an eyebrow in amusement.
"Oh really?"
"I've got an entire fleet at my disposal, beautiful. If I want to keep you from going, all I have to do is say the word."
He was amazed at how threatening she could look even when clad in a short nightgown, her hair sleep tousled and without a weapon in her hands. He had a vague feeling that he should want to kiss her instead of wondering where his blaster was in case he needed it. Regardless, Carth stood his ground under her icy glare.
"I've told you what kinds of tactics were being used behind the scenes in the wars. The conversion of Jedi. Changing their memories, manipulating their feelings, giving them doubts and making them turn. You know where I learned them from?"
She paused, giving him a disgusted look.
"Or are you still pretending that I'm not the one that did all these things? That I'm not the one that started the Jedi Civil War? I brought ancient methods of betraying and converting the Jedi back to the galaxy, Carth. I single handedly began the extermination of the Order I belong to. These tactics hurt…very few Jedi turn away from them. Ask Dustil; he experienced them first hand. So don't try and tell me that I don't owe them anything."
"She's alive, Father," his son murmured.
"How do you know?" Dustil shrugged, ambling around the room, inspecting items on tables and shelves that Carth knew he had seen a hundred times over.
"Bastila Shan and whatever bond they have can feel it. I can feel it. I'm sure Celyn can feel it too."
"Well, I can't," he muttered. "And I'm going to do something about it."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Following through on my plans."
Dustil sighed exasperatedly behind him. "What plans?"
"I'm going after her."
He felt his son's frown on his back as he crossed to his desk, idly shuffling through datapads and belongings, picking up his blaster and looking it over carefully.
"Revan? You don't even know where she is."
"I have the coordinates her last message came from, plus the signal from the homing device up until she found it. I helped her buy that damn ship she's in and I know it like the back of my hand. It might not be easy, but I'll find her."
"You're just going to leave the Fleet?"
Carth turned, raising an eyebrow at him. There was a sudden tension in the room, taut and sensitive to mentions of the Fleet, mentions of leaving.
"You're just going to leave Celyn?" his son added defensively.
"You'll watch her."
"Oh I will, will I?"
"She's your sister, young man," Carth snapped, taking his hat off and tossing it across his desk. "If I ask you to watch her, you'll watch her, got it?"
"She's your daughter, Father. But I guess leaving your children never was a big deal to you, was it?"
The tension snapped, leaving a resounding silence and a sudden bottomless canyon between where he stood on one side of the room and where Dustil stood on the other.
I thought he forgave me. I thought all that was forgotten.
He heard Dustil sigh, and he realized that some things were never forgiven or forgotten.
"And what's going to happen if you don't come back, huh?" His son's voice was calmer, probably the result of his Jedi training kicking in. "Am I supposed to raise her too? What the hell am I supposed to tell her, Father, if both you and Revan die out there?"
"Why isn't this enough?" Carth replied, trying to keep the rising volume of his voice under control, aware that Celyn was asleep a few meters away. "Why does your self-ordained redemption have to involve running off on your own to fight some threat you know nothing about? You're a great Jedi. Everywhere you go you help people. You brought Bastila back from the dark side. You saved Dustil- hell, you turned him into a half-way decent Jedi Knight too."
He grasped her tightened elbows.
"Before you came along, I was planning on living out the rest of my days with the Republic, chasing Saul and eventually dying in battle somewhere."
"But…look around me…I'm an Admiral in the Fleet, Telos is practically rebuilt, I have my son back, I'm married again and I have a daughter. And I sure as hell didn't bring any of that about. It was all you."
"Isn't this enough, gorgeous? I'm happy…aren't you?"
For a moment, he'd thought he'd won. Katrina let his hands move around her waist, let him pull her closer to him.
But he hadn't. She stopped him before he could kiss her.
"I have to stop this. I started it; it's my responsibility."
Carth sighed heavily. "Then don't be stupid, Revan. We'll send the Fleet; scouts, Bothan spies, whatever's necessary. Take other Jedi with you. You don't have to do this alone-"
"It's not fair to put them in danger-"
"Everyone's going to be in danger if you can't stop them anyways-"
"No. There's only one way this is going to work, and it's if I finish what I started as a Sith. I contacted them, and I was planning on meeting with them. I have to go to that meeting alone, just like I was planning."
Words like 'alone' and 'Sith' frightened him more than any others, and he was suddenly desperate and panicked.
"You don't have to do this," Carth repeated. "Celyn's not going to think any less of you. No one is-"
"I will," Katrina snapped, and he knew that the argument (this round, anyways) had ended, that it was time to go back to bed.
He followed her wordlessly into their bedroom, back into bed and under the covers. She moved herself away from him, towards the edge of the bed, and he curled up on the opposite side, glancing at T3 in the corner.
The minute those messages stop, he swore, I'm coming after you, gorgeous. And I'm going to save you.
Even if it's from yourself.
Carth reached up to unhook the collar of his uniform, suddenly stiff and confining.
"If I stay, Dustil, if I don't go help her…" He sighed in frustration.
"What are you supposed to tell her? How about you tell me this, Dustil: what am I supposed to tell Celyn when she starts asking me why her mother had to die alone out in the Unknown Regions? What am I supposed to say when she asks me why I couldn't help her or at least try?"
He hesitated under Dustil's skeptical gaze. Carth took another deep breath, his voice low.
"Forget me leaving you. What would you have thought of me if, instead of crawling through the burning rubble on my hands and knees and screaming for a medic until I lost my voice, I had just left Morgana to die?"
Dustil's eyes were suddenly different, and Carth couldn't help but remember when he had seen that look on his son's face before.
On Korriban. He was looking at me just like that, and if we hadn't managed to calm him down…
Carth was a solider, and he had seen that hard look in the eyes of a thousand enemies. He knew what it meant.
"Right," he murmured nervously. "So I'm going after her. I'm not going to give both my children reasons to hate me."
Dustil sighed, running a hand through his hair.
"I don't hate you, Father-" he muttered.
"But you did. And I'll regret that for the rest of my life."
He idly moved things around on his desk, grateful for noise to counteract Dustil's contemplative silence.
"I still can't watch her," his son finally said.
"And why the hell not?"
"Because I'm going with you."
To the Unknown Regions? To face a threat that might be larger than the galaxy itself and Sith that can touch you in ways they can't touch me because you're Force sensitive? Hell no, son.
Carth groaned, holding out a hand in protest.
"Dustil-"
"Father, you're dealing with Sith," Dustil began in what Carth was beginning to dub his 'Future Jedi Academy Headmaster' tone. "You need a Jedi with you if you're hoping to actually accomplish something and not get killed. If you think I'm going to let you run off by yourself just like she did, you've got another thing coming."
"I wasn't going to go alone," he replied defensively. "It's also an intelligence gathering mission for the Republic. We need know exactly what this threat might mean to all the non-Force users in the galaxy."
"Good. Then you won't mind if I come along."
"Come on, Dustil. Meet me halfway on this thing-"
"I don't go halfway on anything, Father. Sound familiar?"
