4.

"What did you do to me?"

Atton groggily blinked himself awake, his stomach churning and head throbbing from the lingering effects of the gas used to knock him unconscious. It left him feeling disoriented, making it difficult to tell if it had been minutes or hours since he blacked out.

"Please Atton, snap out of it!" Hands grasped the Sentinel's shoulders, shaking him ruthlessly. "You need to wake up and tell me what you did!"

"Huh?" Atton gasped eloquently. He blinked again, drawing a breath as awareness gradually filtered back into his mind. The first thing he realized was that someone was manhandling him with a sense of urgency, their fingers digging into his flesh. The next thing he realized was that somehow someone was touching him.

Biting back another groan, Atton glanced around in an attempt to gauge what exactly was happening. While his metal cell was still overly illuminated and completely barren, the familiar shimmer of the force cage was gone. That would explain how someone was able to make physical contact. He lifted his head, the sound of frantic panting filling one ear as someone's hot breath blew across his cheek. As he regained focused he was able to discern the identity of the face now pressed against above his own. It was Surik, her blue eyes wide and her normally-sleek ponytail unusually mussed.

Before Atton could speak, a slender hand lashed out and slapped his jaw with a sharp crack, the impact stinging his skin and snapping him fully awake. "Ow!" he yelled, rubbing his reddening flesh. "What was that for?"

"Sorry, but you weren't waking up!" A mixture of concern and impatience filled Surik's budding Force signature, mingling with a cold stream of fear. "I need you awake so that you can tell me what you did!"

"I'm awake, I'm awake!" Atton yelped, attempting to take a step back despite the hands still holding him in place. "Let me go and we can talk."

Surik released the Sentinel in a flurry of movement, practically throwing him to the ground as she began to pace the tiny cell, her eyes darting around suspiciously. She nervously chewed on her bottom lip as she watched her captive, her gaze cataloging his every move. "Alright, talk!"

"Err," his head still slightly foggy from the gas and the abrupt wake-up, Atton scrubbed his palm over his face. "What did you want me to say, again?"

Pausing mid-stride, Surik growled in frustration as she turned to the man and grit out, "Tell. Me. What. You. Did!"

Pausing to massage his temple, Atton winced. What exactly had he done? He remembered that he accidentally disabled his collar, which had restored his connection to the Force and enabled him to sense the Sith's latent Force sensitivity. And then he somehow… awakened the Force within her. Which, in retrospect, was probably as bad an idea as holding on a fifteen in pazaak when your opponent still had a full side deck.

"I, er, I'm actually not sure how to explain what I did," Atton admitted. "All I know is that the Force was dormant inside of you. Asleep. And I… woke it up."

"Then put it back to sleep." Surik's hands balled into fists at her sides, her voice terse. "Better yet, get it out of me."

"Lady, that's not how it works." Shaking his head, Atton chuckled. "Once you become aware of your own Force sensitivity you can learn to rein it in or cloak its presence. But you can never get rid of it. The Force is always a part of you, as integral as breathing."

A sharp whine escaped Surik's throat and she glared pleadingly at the Sentinel. "But I can feel everything! The people on this base and the animals around it and..."

"Yeah, that's the Force for you." Nodding knowingly, Atton tried to keep his tone soothing. "It's life and death, the flow of the stars and the heartbeat of planets. It's the web that ties the galaxy together, a single stream that flows through every living thing. It's beautiful."

"It hurts."

Atton had never heard the Force described as 'painful' before, but he supposed that suddenly and unexpectedly becoming aware of its existence on some type of Sith military base used to imprison and torture Force-sensitive individuals might cause that effect. "The pain you're feeling? It's because of this place. It's from the prisoners here and whatever else ties this location to the dark side."

Stepping forward, Surik reached out and grabbed her captive's shoulders, her grip more gentle than before. "I don't care what's causing it. I just want it to stop." Her hands slid up to desperately cup the man's cheeks. "You made this happen so please, just fix it."

"Like I told you, I can't just make the Force recede inside of you." Voice apologetic, Atton shook his head against the Sith's palms. "That's something you might be able to learn over time, with training."

"I don't have time!" Surik cried plaintively, her teeth clenched and her terror a cold torrent around her. "Fix it now or we're both in trouble!"

Draw your first card, it's a two. Your opponent draws their first card, it's a nine. Breathing slowly, Atton cleared his mind and tried to stay calm while assessing the situation. While suddenly discovering herself to be Force-sensitive might be enough to cause Surik's unadulterated dread, he sensed that there was more to the situation. The source of the emotion seemed to run deeper, a horror born of personal experience.

"I can't 'fix' anything," Atton finally explained. "Especially since I'm not entirely sure what I did!"

"What?!" Surik's eyes went wide and her hands fell away, hanging limply at her sides as she stared numbly at her prisoner. "But, you're a Jedi! You're supposed to know these things!"

Offering a guilty smile that felt more like a grimace, Atton responded, "I'm not a Master. There's a lot about the Force that I don't know."

A faint shiver ran through Surik's body, passing over her shoulders and down her torso until she was trembling uncontrollably. She drew a breath in an attempt to steady herself, one hand reaching to touch the blaster pistol holstered at her hip. "Then we might as well both be dead." Without another word she drew the weapon, thumbing off the safety with practiced efficiency as she aimed the muzzle at her captive.

"Hey, woah! Wait a second!" Atton yelped as he threw both hands into the air. "We can figure this out. Nonviolently, might I add!"

"You don't understand," Surik mumbled, her voice full of feral panic. "This is better, far better, than the other option. Because when Revan and Malak find out..."

"Find out what?" Still holding his arms aloft, Atton attempted to remain calm. "That you're Force-sensitive?"

"That I'm… this." Surik's words shook as she nodded to the Sentinel. "And that you woke it up inside of me."

"Really? I'd think that the Dark Lords would be happy to have another Force-user at their disposal." Atton shuddered a little at the thought. "Though I don't see what this has to do with me."

Slowly shaking her head, Surik stared worriedly at Atton. "You don't understand, Rand! The Dark Jedi who serve the Dark Lords aren't born like that. Nobody is! No, they're created."

"By causing Jedi to fall. Yes." Atton couldn't help but roll his eyes. "I've noticed."

"Not just fall." Surik lowered her gaze for a moment, though the pistol remained steady in her hands. "Making a Jedi fall is easy enough, you don't even have to hurt them. Just offer them forbidden knowledge while telling them that it will help the galaxy at large. Get them to reach for the dark side in a moment of curiosity. Falling like that, it's a quiet thing."

Using one finger to gesture around the small cell, Atton wondered, "So, then what do you call all of this?"

Surik looked into the Sentinel's eyes, her expression apologetic even as she continued pointing the weapon at him. "We don't just make Jedi fall. We break them. We crush their will until they don't just fall to the dark side, they're consumed by it. For them, there's no way back to the light."

The image of the gaping void reaching out to swallow him whole flashed through Atton's memories, joined by the sensation that tiny tendrils of ice and shadow were still tugging at the darkest recesses of his mind. He swallowed hard. "Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh.'" A nearly-hysterical laugh escaped Surik. "When the Dark Lords find out that I'm… like you, they'll put me in one of these cells and torture me the same way I tortured you. Worse, maybe. I didn't live my entire life with the Force in my head, so I'll probably be harder to break."

For a moment Atton wanted to point out that maybe his captor deserved to experience just a taste of the pain and suffering that she had inflicted on others. Maybe the Force did believe in justice, albeit in a roundabout way. But he couldn't bring himself to be that cruel. 'My home was destroyed… my family was slaughtered. I followed Revan because he was the only Jedi to have the courage to stand-up to your Council and enter the war.' In the end, this woman was just another victim of an unjust war who put her trust in the military when she had nothing left. A trust that had caused her to be corrupted by whatever taint Revan and Malak brought back from Unknown Space.

"As for you," The Sith jerked the blaster at her prisoner, causing him to wince. "After they learn that you're the one to… awaken me, they'll make you do it to others. Or they'll just use us against each other to break us even faster. It doesn't matter. Either way, you'll become another weapon in their arsenal."

The very thought made Atton's blood run cold, though he did what he could to release his fear and focus his attention on the problem at hand. Draw your second card, it's a five. Two and five are seven. "Surik, put the pistol down," he urged, carefully keeping all traces of Force persuasion out of his voice. "We can figure this out together."

"No… No. I can't let them do this to me. To us…" With a quickness honed from years of training, the guard flipped the blaster around so that the muzzle was pressed beneath her own chin, her finger hovering over the trigger.

Desperate to defuse the increasingly hopeless situation, Atton jerked his arm forward and sent out a wave of Force energy, using it to yank the pistol from the Surik's hands. When she realized what was happening she tried to tighten her grip, but surprise delayed her reaction time. The weapon crashed to the ground with a loud clatter, skittering across the smooth floor until it was a meter away from either human. For a moment the pair's eyes met, and then they were both diving for the object at the same time. The Sith had a look of utter determination on her face, but the Sentinel was just a little faster thanks to a subtle burst of speed from the Force. His palm closed over the cool metal grip and he picked up the blaster, holding it a bit awkwardly as he quickly scrambled to his feet.

Without a second thought, Atton flipped on the safety, neatly stowing the pistol in the waistband of his pants as he rushed over to Surik who was now slumped dejectedly on the floor. Reaching out he placed a gentle finger under her chin, urging her to look at him. She did so reluctantly, unshed tears shining in her eyes. "Hey, it's going to be okay," the Sentinel insisted, even though he didn't quite believe his own words.

"It's not. I've seen what they do. I've done…" Another shiver ran through Surik's body and she blinked, the tears now running down her round cheeks. "I've done terrible things."

Atton could feel the regret that seeped out of his captor, the emotion almost thick enough to disguise the rest of her presence. She can feel the ramifications of her past mistakes through the Force. The pain that echoes through this place and radiates outward. "I'm not going to lie and say those were good things," he stated, releasing a strained chuckle. "But at least you admit that what you've done is wrong. And besides," he smiled a little as he used the pad of his thumb to wipe away a tear. "No matter what you've done, you don't deserve to be tortured. Nobody does."

Drawing a shaky breath, Surik attempted to collect herself, sniffing back her sobs. "What difference does that make? It doesn't change the fact that we're in danger…"

"If we're in danger, we should leave," Atton finally declared.

Blinking back her surprise, Surik sputtered, "What? It's not like we can just… go!"

"Why not?" Grinning, Atton placed a comforting hand on the woman's shoulder before shrugging curiously. "I don't know what this base looks like, but I'm sure we can steal a speeder or a ship or something. You seem clever enough."

"But I can't just…" Swiping the back of her hand over her eyes, Surik exhaled heavily. "And even if I could, what are you going to do? I might be able to walk out of here, but you're..." She made a general gesture to the Sentinel's worn clothing.

"So, make it look like I belong." Atton offered the idea like it was the simplest thing in the galaxy.

"How?"

"You know this place better than I do." Gesturing between the pair, Atton added, "Can you disguise me as a Dark Jedi or steal a guard uniform or something?"

"I can't just steal a random uniform!" Surik insisted, even as her expression grew thoughtful. "Unless…"

"See, you're already getting ideas!" With a nod of encouragement, Atton explained, "And I… Let's just say that I did a lot of covert work for the Order. I'd sneak in somewhere, slice a computer or steal a datapad, and get out without being noticed."

Surik's brows arched in surprise. "That sounds oddly clandestine. I thought the Jedi were peacekeepers."

"Sometimes peacekeeping requires information." Waving away the subject, Atton pressed on. "Anyway, that's not the point. You know the location, and I have a pretty useful set of skills… plus, I'm not a bad pilot. If we work together, I think we can get out of here alive."

"And you're just going to trust me?" Looking down at herself for a moment, Surik's tone became quieter. "The person who tortured you for the past week?"

"A week!?" Atton blurted out. "It's only been a… Nevermind." Leaning over, he pressed their foreheads together until they were almost touching, letting his Force presence move and dance around her own. "I've seen you in the Force, I've felt you. And I know that you're not an inherently cruel person. So yes, for now, I trust you."

There was a moment of consideration from Surik, and then, "Why are you helping me?"

"Like I said, nobody deserves torture at the hands of the Sith. Especially not someone who was dragged into this because they lost everything else. Someone who only became the villain because they were tired of being the victim." As he looked into his former captor's eyes, Atton felt her Force presence flare with hope. "At this point, we're each other's only chance at escaping. I think we're in this together."

Sniffling awkwardly, Surik managed a weak laugh. Raising her head up she patted the Sentinel's cheek before drawing back. "Yeah. I guess you're stuck with me."

Arrogantly cocking a brow, Atton quipped, "More like we're stuck with each other."

"Alright." Surik nodded. "I can live with that. Anyway, I think I have a few ideas…"

Author's Notes

Thanks for reading! Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome.

1. Meetra's comment that, "Falling like that, it's a quiet thing," is obviously a reference to Kreia's in-game dialogue.

2. If Atton seems a little quick to trust Meetra, remember two things - The first is that canon Atton fell in love with the Jedi who connected him to the Force. The second is that canon Meetra innately forms Force bonds with others, enabling her to influence them subconsciously.

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