Author's Note: Apologies for the long absence. If any of you follow my other SW story, "Time, and What Came of It" you will notice that I have been on leave for too long. I've gone through a break up, a death, a move, and a slew of other things too exasperating and exhausting to list at the present that has prevented me from doing my writing justice. Just know that I'm doing the best I can to stay motivated, and I appreciate the loyalty of anybody who's still willing to read. I'll try to pick up the pace. Thanks again.

By the time I'd made it out of my bed, it was early in the afternoon. I began to wander around when I heard her voice. Like a bug to light, I was drawn to it, and I found myself lightening my own steps to listen in.

She was speaking with Bao-Dur. Or rather, I'd heard her greet him and he was speaking to her. He sounded like he was in pain.

"I…am sorry, General. I must have lost consciousness in the crash."

My skin rolled several times at the way he whispered her title. There was so much reverence there that it made me feel both jealous and irritated. I remembered that feeling, like an echo I couldn't hear anymore.

Of course, she answered plainly.

"Do not apologize, Bae," she said affectionately.

I heard Bao-Dur make an appreciative noise, and I slunk harder against the wall nervously, wondering where her hands were, if she was putting them on his shoulders. Suddenly, the horrible thought of Bao-Dur with her crawled into my head and I just couldn't get it out.

Sure, Bao-Dur was an alien. Sure, that was an offensive way to look at it, but that was what he was to the two of us. We were both humans. I should have had the edge over that Zabrak and yet, here she was, whispering to him while I was away in bed.

I was jealous, and something deep, deep inside of me laughed and laughed and laughed at the thought, shameful and humiliating as it was. She was a Jedi, and I was jealous of who she spent her time with. Of how she spoke to the man. He was her senior, I thought, but it was hard to tell after people got back from war. Everyone looked old.

Even Neli looked old sometimes. It just couldn't be helped.

"I am fine, General," he was replying.

Had she spoken? I'd missed it.

"Even power has been restored to my arm."

Neli laughed a little bit appreciatively.

"I'm glad to hear that, friend," her beautiful, melodic voice said softly.

Too softly for my liking.

"What is this place?" Bao-Dur went on to ask. "Where are we?"

"We're at a Jedi academy," she said, her voice now strained. "It was concealed on the northern pole of Telos."

There was what seemed to be a well-understood silence between them.

"Are you okay?" he asked her gently.

It made me clench my fists. I should have asked that. Why hadn't I asked that?

Because I was too busy making her feel badly about herself. I was awfully good at that.

I have to get better at that, I managed, my ears flitting back into their conversation.

"I met Atris," Neli whispered. "She was my good friend before the war."

Bao-Dur didn't reply for a while.

"Why is she significant?"

"She knew me before I was General Hyrra, the great and terrible!"

Her voice had taken on a mocking quality to it, and I smirked, despite myself. It was childish, and I loved it. Her accent was beautiful.

"Is she one you asked to go with you?" Bao-Dur asked.

"Yeah," she said tightly. "Not the only one, but one of them."

"She has upset you, it would seem," Bao-Dur whispered in that way of his, cautious as ever.

"Well, that's okay," Neli said dismissively.

I could just see her trying to smile, brave through it.

"I just wanted to let you know that we're safe. That I'm fine. That we're all fine here. We have to wait to depart – some snow storm outside – but after that we must leave."

Bao-Dur made an affirming noise, and I heard her move to stand up. Scrambling away like a little kid, I jolted a little down the hallway, as if I was just emerging out of my room. She emerged at just the right time, and she glanced in my direction.

"Oh, you're up?" she asked. "How are you feeling?"

She looked even more tired this time than she had before, and as we met in that metallic hallway, I found myself wishing she'd just go lie down someplace.

"Pretty tired," I managed cautiously.

"Yeah, me too," she conceded, stifling a yawn.

She raised her hands to her mouth, and I noticed darkened-black bruises on each of her knuckles. She'd been in a fight.

When I moved to ask her about it, she snorted and shot past me.

And I just stood there in the hallway, wondering how she'd bled, wondering why she was bleeding, wondering if we were in any danger but afraid to commit to doing the very job I'd been blackmailed into doing.

It was late when I saw her again. I had been pointedly avoiding her for obvious reasons, but she came straight for me now, having turned a corner and making her way with determined steps in my direction. I glanced over my shoulder once, taken up with the bizarre sensation of wondering how to flee. I couldn't, so I just settled with staring nervously out at the snow storm through the large window.

I linked my fingers together loosely to prevent her from seeing that I was shaking and leaned over the railing so that she wouldn't know I felt unsteady.

She didn't speak.

I felt crestfallen.

"Neli…" I began.

"I use the Force, Atton," she said abruptly.

I leaned back, stunned. Not only was this random, it was also a very new development, and I couldn't tell the affect it had on my inconvenient and budding affection for her.

She turned to look at me, and the look in her eyes was frightened. I felt as if I'd been punched in the chest, and that strange and increasingly familiar guilt inundated my bloodstream.

"Isn't that the whole goal?" I asked quietly. "For you to be the way you were?"

But even I could hear the hesitation in my voice, and she looked upset.

"I don't want to be the way I was," she told me vehemently. "I really, really don't."

It was like a desperate plea, and I was her last, best line of defense – which, all in all, was very strange, considering how unkind I'd been these last few days.

"It doesn't sound like you have much of a choice," I admitted half-heartedly.

"But…I…"

She was struggling, and it pained me. I glued my eyes to the snow outside, determined not to look at her, because if I did I wasn't sure what I would do.

"You know, I used to be strong," she said bracingly.

I couldn't help it. I glanced at her at this, a little surprised. Her past was always this way, intoxicating.

"I used to be strong. And people told me I was bright and funny and fun."

I winced. That barb had really gotten to her.

"Sorry, princess," I managed.

She shook her head.

"No, but you're right," she said, hysterical in all but the tears. "You're right. I'm not fun. I can't smile or laugh. You know, I used to be fun. I used to…make jokes and I could do this thing…" She laughed pensively. "I could do this thing where I could commune with animals. Something about my upbringing or culture from before the Jedi or something. And I used to make the kath hounds on Dantooine charge the lessons of masters held when I was really angry with them."

She shook her head, sniffling.

A giveaway.

She was desperately fighting off hysteria, and there was nothing I could do but watch and listen.

"I mean, now they want me to use the Force again," she said seriously. "Use it and use it to fight. To hurt people. I don't want to hurt anybody."

"I know," my mouth said before I could stop it, surprising the both of us.

"Do you know that I'll be a Jedi?" she asked me, voice high pitched.

"I do," my mouth said again.

"You're not mad?" she asked me.

I stopped breathing, and she did too.

She'd picked up on it. I was hesitant, fearful, those should have been obvious. But the rage? The blame? The anger? Maybe I was just too dense to think that she'd know about it. Or maybe I didn't give her enough credit. Maybe I wasn't nearly as clever as I thought I was.

"Why would I be mad?" I asked, a little too loudly.

My tone was accusatory, but I couldn't stop it.

"I don't know…" she admitted half-heartedly. "I just…"

She ended up shrugging, her voice trailing off to nothing.

"Seems like something that might make you mad," she finally offered, continuing to walk by me again.

Something about this conversation hurt my heart, and I didn't understand why. It seemed to be moving too quickly for my brain to process it, but, as usual, my heart was quick to anger when my head didn't catch on fast enough. I reached out and took her by the forearm, yanking her over to where I stood once again. I didn't miss the instinctive yank backwards, the struggle that she, admirably, quelled just before it overtook her like before.

"What are you saying?" I asked her, narrowing my eyes. "You think I'll turn on you now that you're a Jedi?"

She glanced up at me once, and the fear didn't recede. It was telling and all too familiar.

If only you knew, my mind warned, and I felt disgusting.

"What the hell, Neli?" I nearly shouted, storming past her now, just trying to get away.

I wasn't sure who I was angry with, myself or her.

"I'm really glad to know you have that much confidence in me!" I snapped sarcastically.

"And what reason do I have to believe you?" she shouted back.

She took my shoulder and yanked me backwards to face her. The lingering feel of her hands on my shoulder, separated only by a thin cloth, throbbed, even as I tried to focus on yelling at her.

"I've stuck by you this long! Why don't you just – "

"Why don't you just shut up?" she shouted at me. "Every single time you make some kind of snide remark about Jedi, you're basically spitting on me! And you're nasty and rude! Why would I trust you to be okay with what we're about to go and do? I am a Jedi!"

There it was. The final plunge, the slip we all knew was coming. The admission that was obvious to everybody but her. Her eyes were alight with a determination that had been missing before this. The meaning of being a Jedi might have changed for her, but the cause, the reasons, they were all the same. And her shoulders were squared to me, her fists clenched, her chest held high, her neck lengthened to reveal that jaw I wanted so much to just take in my mouth and taste with my tongue.

She was so beautiful, and she was a Jedi. It was all at once abundantly and irrevocably clear. She was a paragon, a beacon. She was everything that all the Jedi I loathed weren't. She was perfect and god-like, and, despite the fact that she was a head shorter than I was, I felt small in front of those eyes, that mouth, those two, small, quaking fists. It was if she was a physical embodiment of the Force, and it was staring back at me, omniscient, penetrating and unwavering.

I felt my limbs, so tense just the moment before, hang limply against my sides now.

I didn't know how or when, but my mind had separated her from other Jedi. It was her and them. It wasn't all of them collectively. And she, Neli right here, just like this, she was beautiful, and she was perfect. I wanted to explain this, but I felt afraid. I felt overwhelmed.

I needed to get out. These things were too slow. I was used to quick, fleeting moments, few acquaintances, no friends. What was I thinking, getting involved here with her like this? How could I possibly mean anything to somebody with so much purpose?

At the same time, looking at her, I knew the whole galaxy had changed for me.

It would never be the same.

I didn't know what to do.

And then something happened. Something changed. The light went out again and the Neli I'd come to know was back.

The shift was alarming.

This Neli was weak. She was tired, she was hurt. No, hurting. She was volatile, desperate, anxious, afraid. This Neli was no paragon.

It was like she'd become lost in herself.

"Look…" she said, sighing. She put her forehead in her hands. "Maybe I can just go. If you don't mind."

I felt suddenly lost, and a primitive, inexplicable force inside of me wanted my arms to reach out and to hold her. She just walked a few paces and stopped.

"I'm sorry," I offered her, feeling almost naked. "I didn't mean…I keep forgetting you're a Jedi."

She sneered.

"For what it's worth, right?"

I didn't know what to say.

"I feel so…disgusted and angry, Atton," she finally whispered.

I couldn't move. There was malice and spite in her voice for the first time, really, and that frightened me.

"Why?" my mouth managed.

"They left me!" she hissed into the air.

Still, I couldn't speak.

But this drove what little air was left out of my lungs.

"They left me all by myself! The Republic, the Jedi – everyone! They left me, and I'm just supposed to pretend like it's okay to waltz around like a Jedi, to follow the rules. I'm just supposed to smile and laugh and forgive." She crossed her arms, her back to me. "Well, I'm tired of doing that shit. I'm not a good Jedi, which means I don't have to smile, I get to cry, and I sure as hell don't have to forgive anybody!"

"I've never heard you talk like that," I whispered finally to her.

I didn't like it.

It made me feel guilty, like I was somehow responsible. She was too beautiful, small, and good to feel bitterness. There was no harm in owning up to that. And I didn't want to be responsible even in a small way for causing her to be act and think and feel the way I did.

"I think you're rubbing off on me," she said, laughing lightly.

As if to read my mind.

Scary when that happened.

But I just murmured,

"You wish."

She laughed now, a real laugh, and I felt the tension in my shoulders relax a little. I felt like I could finally breathe again.

"Maybe I do," she said, turning back to look at me.

The light from the snowstorm spilled in onto her face in a way that made me feel suddenly very out of place.

"Um…" I tried, but words were difficult. "I…okay."

I winced. So much for smooth-talking.

She laughed again, this time under her breath, and her eyes, so even and clear, peered into me like I was naked and beautiful. I was terrified, suddenly. Nobody, not a single person, had ever looked at me the way she was looking at me right then. So clear and focused, so intense and honest. There was no judgment in her eyes. No questions. Just acceptance and gentleness.

How could anybody look at me that way?

"I never got a chance to say thank you to you," she finally managed, smiling a strained smile.

Her white teeth stuck out against her darker skin, and it made her smile light up her face as light from the white storm outside reflected off of them.

"For what?" I asked, just blinking, powerless to move under her gaze.

"When we crashed, Bao-Dur said you saved me," she replied calmly. "Back at the base."

In the paradoxical light of the white snow, I saw that she was flustering herself a little, and I tried hard not to look at her lips. My curiosity fought this urge – because they were suddenly completely fascinating to me.

"And for…letting me sleep on your cot. Before. And for just…I don't know. Looking out for me. Being you."

Something about the tone in her voice had some small, hidden morsel of finality to it that made my heart beat so loudly that I was sure she could hear it. My hands felt weak, and I did too, staring deep into her eyes. I found myself not even wanting to move. Just to smile at her dumbly, just to stand there and look at her.

"No problem," I managed to say, a little weakly.

I couldn't think of anything else to say.

She laughed now.

"Hey…" she said, leaning forward a little closer.

I felt a pressure inside of me as her lips came just slightly too close, as her breath left her body just slightly too far away for me to tingle all over. It was like dangling a piece of meat just in front of a starving man.

I was starving for her lips.

"Your eyes are really nice," she said to me, smiling, totally unaware of the heat she was bringing into me with her closeness. "I never noticed that before."

I nodded now, unable to speak because of the lump that had made its way to my throat.

Why was I feeling this way?

She leaned back all at once, letting a deep breath tumble out of her lungs hurriedly, like she'd been holding it.

"Alright, so…"

She looked around, her body now perpendicular to mine, but her profile was no less enticing than she'd been head-on.

"I have something I want to say, but I'm a little nervous, so…why don't we just…talk for a bit?"

I blinked.

"Talk?" I asked.

The concept seemed foreign to me.

"What about? Is something wrong?"

She laughed again.

"No, no, I mean…" She cleared her throat. "Let's just talk."

My guard was up now, and that agonizing but not necessarily unpleasant sensation went away.

"What do you need to know?" I asked cautiously.

Disappointment flashed in her eyes as she turned away.

"Never mind," she finally said. "Dumb idea anyway."

I felt weak all over again, this time for a different reason.

"No, what did you want to talk about?"

She shrugged, but I could see she looked defeated.

"I could ask you the same thing," she said to me gently.

Her smile was weak now, and sad. Not as strong or as clear as it had been. Now, it was diluted with something that might have been a precursor to tears.

Guarded as ever, on high alert now, I cleared my throat.

"Uh…what do you mean?" I asked, hoping to sound cavalier.

"You mentioned before you wanted to rescue me from Atris," she said casually.

"Yeah? So?"

"Well…the women here told me that you were trying to protect me…with…Echani training."

Almost as if she was disappointed, her eyes took on an orb-like quality, wretched and clear.

Play dumb, I ground out from my subconscious somehow.

I was good at that.

"Huh?" was all I allowed myself to say.

"When we met the Handmaidens at the entrance, you assumed an Echani combat stance. Where'd you learn that?"

I juggled feeling angry and denying it completely before settling on another lie. Like a roof full of holes. I was just patching up the holes so her eyes that were the stars couldn't see my cold, dying, wretched form within.

"Oh," I mumbled. "That…"

I feigned laughter and felt awful at how easily it came back to me.

"Don't tell anyone," I said, leaning forward slightly, "but you wouldn't believe how many fights you can prevent by just pretending to know that stuff."

She didn't move, which was scary.

"I mean…" I continued, scrambling to sound unabashed. "It doesn't compare to wearing a lightsaber, but then again, that doesn't seem to help you much."

"Cute," was all she said, folding her arms.

She furrowed her brow.

"No need to change the subject though," she quipped, smiling wearily at the ground between us before glancing back up at me. "I'm just asking."

I found it more endearing than ever that she was still so interested in me after I'd been so unkind.

I had to make up for it.

"Are you…are you all done here?" I finally managed. "I know we're leaving but…do you plan on seeing your friend again?"

She scoffed loudly.

"If Atris had her way, we'd be spaced already. She is not my friend."

"Things went that well, huh?" I quipped, smirking at her wit. "You make friends wherever you go, don't you?"

"You know, it's a burden," she said, a budding smile taking shape on her tired features. "Being so utterly likable is just so hard."

"Well, chin up, gorgeous, you'll find somebody eventually."

"There are, after all, countless other people in the galaxy to spit at me and turn me away."

I found myself laughing, despite the dark tones of the joke-not-joke beneath.

"Nothing like a steady stream of people who hate us or want to kill us to keep the heart pumping, I always say," I declared heartily.

Our laughter faded and a somewhat uncomfortable silence ensued.

"You sure you're okay?" she finally asked me, glancing in my direction.

"What? Me? I'm fine," I said, feigning exasperation.

"And you're sticking with your pretending to know Echani story?"

Now I was getting annoyed.

"Yeah," I snapped curtly. "Why?"

She sighed, defeated. She was no fool, and, therefore, was not fooled. But she just said,

"No reason, I just…thought it might come in handy. Later on, I mean."

Pride, for the first time in a long time, morphed a smile onto my face, plastering it there as her wonderful eyes surveyed me and turned up pleased.

"Thanks. But you've got the wrong guy."

"Do I?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah. I'm good at shooting people, cracking wise, and pretending to know how to fight with my hands."

I raised them in a mock stance, and she laughed.

That smile…

I couldn't help it. I was trapped.

So much so, we spent the rest of the night arguing until she finally couldn't take it anymore. She became cold quickly, her tan skin proving to be as exotic as her blood, evidently, and she retired to bed sooner rather than later.