A/N: Two themes in this one: our narrator's reaction to The Big Reveal, and Juhani's romance plot. The game does have a (possibly cut? I can't remember) scene for the latter later on, but the two strands fit so well together that I wanted to do a different take.

I don't own KotOR or its characters.

"No Emotion" (Juhani)
Ebon Hawk, en route Leviathan—Manaan

What do you do with a revelation like that? Maybe it would have been fitting if I'd gone on a sobbing jag or a drinking binge, locked myself in my quarters, stared at the walls and refused to eat, punished myself with combat training until I collapsed, or tried to kill myself. Or all of the above.

I didn't. Partially because our mission didn't leave a lot of room for that kind of indulgence, partially because I've never been all that big on self-pity. I wanted to make a go of keeping things normal, to show everyone that I was fine. I was Revan but I was just the same as ever.

So I meditated. I got into stupid arguments with Jolee, who had always known and so treated me the same as ever ("Wait, so I was the bantha?" I demanded—he just smirked). I probably played more rounds of Pazaak on that trip than I ever had in my life; Mission and Zaalbar and I bet spare blasters and they bled me dry, just like always. I even cleaned the synthesizer the next morning, in accordance with Bastila's chore rotation system. The former Dark Lord of the Sith, mucking out the synth with an old rag. Nobody in the galaxy would have believed it.

I was Revan. Except I wasn't, because I was smart enough to get that Mission's acceptance of me, and Jolee's, and the acceptance of anyone else who adhered to the light side, was contingent on my not being Revan. Not remembering her, not feeling like her, and definitely not acting like her, at least not the way she'd been at the end. Carth's acceptance…I didn't think I could ask for that.

When Juhani came into the women's quarters the day after, I was meditating—on my knees, like Bastila, which I guess was penance in a way. I sensed her standing in the doorway watching me, and when she didn't leave I let myself come out of it and twisted to face her.

"How do you feel, Re—Padawan?" she asked.

"The million-credit question." I got up and sat on my bunk, against the protests of my stiff legs. The beads in her hair clicked softly as she turned her head to follow me. "I feel…angry, if I'm honest. Frustrated. Deeply troubled. Disgusted, more than anything."

"Are you truly so upset at being Revan?"

"No, I just cleaned the synthesizer, and the gunk was so thick I almost had to cut it out with a lightsaber. Does anyone even look at that damn chart except me?"

She ignored this sincere outburst of anguish and wit and kept pressing. "And how do you feel about your identity?"

"Don't try to change the subject," I told her.

Juhani smiled. "I am only following your example."

She sat down on the edge of the bunk, tentatively. I scooted toward the pillow to make room for her and tried to find a comfortable position between the wall and the ridiculously low support beams overhead. Whoever designed those damn bunks must have been planning to run a shuttle service for Jawas.

"There is something I have been wanting to tell you," Juhani said. "Something of an—origin story, I suppose. The Jedi on Taris shared it with us children; I must have heard it half a dozen times. It was my favorite, for reasons I'm sure you will understand."

I motioned for her to continue.

"I have spoken of the massacre of the Cathar by the Mandalorians. Because so few of my people survived, at first little was known to the rest of the galaxy about what had happened. Years later, when the Mandalorians attacked the Republic, you and your followers came to Cathar to learn the truth."

"Revan's followers," I said, very deliberately, drawing the line.

"Yes. The Council sent a group of Jedi to stop her. Master Vrook was their leader." Juhani smiled a little sheepishly. "I confess I never really forgave him for that, although it was not his fault. In any case, you were surrounded by these Jedi, who were to order your followers to disband."

She'd slipped right back into "you" again. I let it go. You don't get to be Dark Lord of the Sith without learning how to pick your battles.

"But then you found something on the ground, an object that led all the Jedi there to have a vision of the battle. Such as it was. It showed everyone the true nature of the atrocities the Mandalorians committed on my people's home world, and was what led many Jedi to join your cause."

"What was it?" I asked. It was so surreal to hear my own life story for the first time.

"It was the mask of a Mandalorian," she answered. "A Mandalorian who was killed by her comrades even as she attempted to stop the slaughter of my people. The Jedi told us you swore to wear it until the Mandalorians were defeated. Yet they said you wore a cloak even before that, believing your message to be more important than your identity."

Yes, I thought, of course. There was something to be said for being anonymous, like a walking embodiment of the cause. The robes I'd seen in the visions wiped out any real sense of identity completely, just like the legends. Canderous hadn't even known Revan was a woman. In fact, now that I thought back I could hear how careful Bastila had been never to give me any pronouns, just "Revan" this or "the Dark Lord" that. Cautious to a fault until the last.

The fact that almost no one had known my face probably helped with not getting busted by the Jedi, too.

"Do you remember that?" Juhani asked.

I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes, trying to dig that or anything else out of the recesses of my mind. "No," I finally had to admit.

When I opened my eyes again, she was looking at me. Her yellow gaze was intense. "And—and Taris? When you freed me from the slavers of the Exchange? Do you remember?"

"No," I repeated. We both knew she'd known the answer before I said it. Why had she wanted to hear it? "All I have is the Star Maps and facing Bastila's strike team, when Malak attacked the ship. But I don't—I'm not even Revan in some of those memories; I can see Revan. I'm outside myself. Or maybe I'm—because they're Bastila's visions too?"

Of course Juhani had even less of an idea than I did; I just needed someone to work those visions out to. Bastila and I had gone in circles dissecting them, over and over until her patience finally wore thin and she'd told me the Force worked in mysterious ways and that was that. I remembered those conversations in a new light now that I knew she'd been lying to me.

Juhani almost hid her disappointment. "Well, it does not matter. Perhaps you will remember more, in time."

Holy kriffing hell, what? "Why do you want me to remember?" I asked. "Isn't that exactly what every Jedi in the galaxy shouldn't want? Not to mention every other sane being out there?"

"Because they have forgotten! They did not know you as I did. The fools—"

She checked the snarl.

"There was so much good in you, so much light. I told you the Jedi who followed you spoke of you constantly. And I have no doubt you have heard the stories—the legends, really. Of Revan's tactical genius, her charisma, her—her passion for justice. With your memories, you could truly come into your own again."

Ah, yes, Revan the Hero. I felt a sharp swell of bitterness, which Bastila would have sensed instantly but which went right over Juhani's head. The only thing harder than freeing myself from the sins of my past could be spending the rest of my life—which might be pretty short, under the circumstances—trying to live up to myself.

"I also built the most obnoxious assassin droid in the galaxy," I reminded her dryly. "Let's not leave anything out."

"Well." Juhani gave me a small smile. "No one is perfect."

I laid my hands flat on my thighs—another mannerism of Bastila's—and contemplated how the hell to say this. "Listen. I know Revan has been an inspiration to you, but trust me, you're in the minority. I'll accept the responsibility for being Revan—for all the things I've done, light and dark—and for whatever that makes anyone think about me. But I don't know if I want to be Revan going forward. I don't know if I could even if I wanted to."

"Are you ashamed?"

"Are you kidding? Juhani—" I leaned forward, keeping eye contact with her to make sure she was listening. "I betrayed the Jedi Order. I started a civil war. I brought the Republic to its knees. I can't even guess how many deaths I've been responsible for. If the day ever comes again when I'm not ashamed, you should be very, very afraid of me, because it doesn't get any darker than that."

She sat still for a few seconds, and then she deliberately pulled back several inches and folded her hands in her lap, putting some distance between us. Studying the far wall with more intensity than it deserved, she said, "I am—I am proud of myself. A healthy pride, I believe. I still have so much to learn—and yet, I am able to stand tall, as a Jedi." Juhani turned her gaze back to me. "And I have you to thank for this. It was you who rescued me from slavery, you who turned me away from the dark side, you who helped me to stay strong even against striking my worst enemy in anger. It was you who taught me that everyone can be redeemed. As long as you walk forward on the path of the light, there will never be shame in being Revan."

"And if I fall? You think the Jedi would recapture me and see if the third time's the charm?" She was frustrating me, the way she'd sugarcoated Revan in her mind. I wanted to keep bringing her back to the truth, what the rest of the galaxy remembered about Revan: Revan fell. For the first time, I wanted to be the bad guy, because at least being on the same page as Carth and everyone like him about that would mean I'd know how to move forward.

She wasn't going to let me. "You will not! I said to you when we first spoke of this that I could see you have truly changed. Neither of us will fall again."

I opened my mouth to say something Jedi-like about overconfidence, but Juhani anticipated it and held up a hand to stop me. "I…I wish to help you be strong, to give you cause to remain on the right path. I want to stand at your side in the light."

The blush that spread across her pale cheeks didn't leave a lot of room for misinterpretation.
I probably should have seen that coming, but I didn't. My only defense is that we Jedi are predisposed to be preternaturally dense in the ways of love. We ex-Sith are even worse.

"What about Belaya?" I asked. No one had ever been explicit about it, but the connection been impossible to miss, those early days on Dantooine. Both of them kept their passions just under the surface, just waiting to rise and spill. Bastila would have called it a lack of self-control, but in the end I'd come to realize she wasn't much different. Neither was I.

I had thought the question might be a gentle way of deflecting Juhani, but instead she gave me a look of such anguish that the feeling crashed down over my mind like a storm. "What am I to say?" she burst out. "I have no more news of Dantooine than you, and the Force shows me nothing. I—I hope she is safe, but it may be that…" She swallowed thickly. "But knowing the answer could not change my feelings toward you. I can keep silent no longer."

Tears were pooling in the corners of her eyes, and she didn't blink them back. What an idiot I'd been. Even my anti-self-pity campaign had been so focused on what I was feeling—on being Revan, losing Bastila, losing Carth, losing Dantooine, and my stupid Sith-like pride in not showing weakness. The crew had jumped so quickly to support me that I'd convinced myself I was the only one who might have anything to feel sorry for. But Juhani had studied at the academy a hell of a lot longer than I had. Not just studied—lived. She was grieving for her home, for people she'd known for years, maybe for almost everyone who'd ever been kind to her. Now that I bothered to try to get a sense of her mind, the hints I caught were of survivor's guilt, anger, grief, love tinged with hopelessness. Right then, I probably had more in common with her than with anyone else in the galaxy.

So I should have known the right thing to say. As usual, I thought of the best lines hours later. I could have told her that even though I couldn't return her feelings, our friendship would still help keep us strong. I could have said I realized she was suffering and asked if she wanted to talk about it. There were so many damn things I could have said.

But at the time all I could think of was Carth, and all I could come up with was the Jedi response.

"Juhani," I said, like a hypocrite, "there is no emotion."

She took a shuddering little breath and turned away.

"There is peace. Yes. Yes, you are right. I am sorry I…allowed my foolishness to get the better of me. I will leave you to meditate in peace."

There was no anger in her voice, just naked pain. I wanted to reach out to her, to say something—anything—but nothing came. And so she slipped quietly out of the room, shutting the door behind her, leaving me alone.

Revan did try to meditate after that, but I can't say it brought her peace.