Chapter 29: Guilt
Revan, Carth and Dustil were ushered into a large, luxuriously-appointed suite, decorated according to the same tastes as the rest of the tower. The spacious room was redolent with the pleasant smell of time-aged varnished wood panels, here carved delicately with a motif of leaves and flowers. There was also a hint of spices and herbs in the air, complimenting the smell of varnish rather well.
The subtle scent of fresh flowers pervaded the room, as well, coming from a riotous explosion of color on a table. Dustil blinked, and the colors resolved themselves into a large collection of flowers, set in a glass bowl.
Bekim bowed respectfully. "If you require anything of any nature, please do not hesitate to call." He pointed at a panel of buttons on the wall, set unobtrusively in a niche. "Pressing any one of these will bring a servant. Do you have any needs at this moment?"
Revan smiled and shook her head. Carth and Dustil also shook their heads.
Bekim beamed. "Please allow me to tender my own gratitude for rescuing my lady. I've overseen her upbringing since she was a baby. She is like a daughter to me, though we do not share the same blood."
Revan waved a hand. "I'm just glad we could help."
Bekim returned her smile. "I thank you all the same." He waved a hand at the suite. "You will find that House Vosaryk has provided for every need our guests may have. You may also come and go as you please here--nothing in House Vosaryk is closed to you. If you so wish it, I can arrange a tour. Many guests we receive like to see the premises and the shipyard."
Revan nodded. "We may well take you up on that, Bekim. Thank you." Carth, Dustil noticed, had perked up at the mention of the shipyard tour.
Bekim gestured to a guard who had been following them at a distance, carrying the box Lord Vosaryk's bodyguard had placed their weapons in. The guard stepped into their suite and put the box down, next to the door.
"I would strongly recommend you do not walk about armed. You would normally be allowed to carry your personal weapons, but with this kidnapping attempt on my lady, our security force is quite on edge." Bekim smiled apologetically. "As guests, your safety is of paramount importance to the House. Our guards are on high alert, and will allow no harm to come to you."
Revan nodded. "I understand." Carth sighed and looked disgruntled.
Bekim bowed and smiled his leave, closing the door.
Revan looked around the suite and vented a low, piercing whistle of appreciation at the appointments. She flopped energetically onto a couch. Carth winced. "Careful, beautiful. That thing probably costs more than ten years' worth of my pay."
Revan ran a hand along the silky, shimmering fabric of the couch. "Twenty, I'd say. Pretty posh. A lot better than what we've got on Coruscant, hey?"
Dustil poked around the room, looking at but not daring to touch the knick-knacks scattered around. He suspected just one of them could feed an entire extended family comfortably for life.
"The wealth of this House would explain why someone wanted to kidnap Lady Versenne," Revan mused. "Have either of you noticed that there aren't any droids around here? No droid servants at all, which is yet another sign of just how filthy rich House Vosaryk is."
Dustil looked up sharply from his examination of a porcelain vase. The ceramic was so thin, he could see the light shining through it. "You think that's why she was kidnapped? To force Lord Vosaryk to pay ransom?"
Revan nodded. "But that's only one possible explanation. The Houses on Sluis Van have a very adamant attitude towards ransom, you see. If one House submits and gives ransom, then what's to stop people from repeating the tactic on other Houses? Whoever masterminded this must know that... so perhaps the real motivation behind the attempt is to distract Lord Vosaryk..." She shrugged. "This is all complete speculation."
"Houses like this don't get where they are by being nice. I bet there're a few skeletons in the closet here. I'm sure House Vosaryk has a lot of enemies, like any influential and rich family," Carth put in.
"You're thinking of the Ulgo family on Taris? The one that got wiped out by that assassin we turned in for the bounty?" Revan asked. She grimaced. "She was a nasty one."
Carth nodded. "That's an example of a rich family having an enemy who hated or feared them enough to send an assassin to kill them all. And didn't care about any ransom the Ulgos might've paid."
Dustil raised his eyebrows. "And you two were able to take her out?"
"She put up quite a fight, but yeah," Carth said, with grim satisfaction. He rubbed absently on a blaster burn scar on the back of his hand. "The credits for the job were just a bonus. Vicious woman."
"Do you think they'll ever catch whoever hired those guys?" Dustil asked. He hoped their timely rescue of Lady Versenne had discouraged that unknown person's plans. Then he wondered why he cared so much about her safety. He'd only met her for, what, five minutes? But a pair of bright silver eyes kept intruding into his thoughts...
Carth was shaking his head, scowling. "I doubt it. They had probably been hired through middlemen. And probably lots of them." Revan nodded her head in agreement.
Dustil went over to the window. It gave a magnificent, panoramic view of the Sluissi capital city habitat. The floor they were on was near the top, allowing him to look down at the roofs of many of the nearby buildings. Then he noticed an open-air terrace on the floor below, and a familiar, platinum-haired woman, foreshortened from his vantage point.
"Um, I'm gonna go and, uh, explore a bit," Dustil said, as casually as he could.
"Have fun," Revan said mildly. The knowing glint in her eyes told him she wasn't fooled one bit by his act. Damn all perceptive Jedi, anyway.
"Be polite to the people here, son. We're guests, and we really don't want to piss off someone like Lord Vosaryk," Carth cautioned sternly.
Dustil waved his acknowledgement of his father's warning as he walked out the door.
Carth watched his son walk out the door. Then he went to the couch Revan was sprawled on; she sat up to make room for him. He pulled her into his lap and laid his cheek on top of her head. "I think he's sweet on that girl we rescued."
Revan nodded. Carth felt the slight bumps of the beads in her hair as her head rubbed against his chin. "I think so, too."
"I thought you'd be, I don't know, upset about it. You being a--" Carth stopped what he was saying, because Revan had reached over her shoulder and laid a finger on his lips, silencing him.
He frowned bemusedly at her. She took out a small rod-like device from her vest, about the size of his index finger, and pressed a tiny button on it. He heard a faint hum, and saw a barely-perceptible shimmer in the air. He recognized it now as a white noise generator, used to distort speech to foil any listeners, and the blur would keep anyone from being able to read their lips. He shook his head, wondering whom at OFI she had cajoled or wheedled into giving it to her. One of those things cost as much as a used starship.
"Right, you were saying?" Revan put the generator back into her pocket.
"I was saying, I thought you'd be upset about Dustil being sweet on a girl. You know, you being a Jedi and all," Carth continued.
Revan squirmed around in his arms until she faced him, propping her elbows on his chest. In an exaggeratedly-patient voice, she said, "Carth, I'd have some nerve, telling Dustil to not get involved with someone, when,"--she twitched a hand, taking in their relationship with her gesture--"we're carrying on like this."
"Um. You have a point, gorgeous." He cocked his head at her. "You're a Jedi Knight... I'm surprised the Council didn't attach Dustil to you as a padawan you should train. Isn't that what you have to do to become a Master? Train up a padawan?"
Revan rubbed the side of her nose. "Yes, but... I'm glad they didn't."
"Why? I, uh, I have to admit I'd feel better about the whole thing if you taught him." Carth raised his brows, surprised by her answer.
"Well, for one thing, there's too much baggage and history between Dustil and I. He's not ready to listen to me like that. I don't know if he'd ever be ready to listen to me like that. I mean, hello, former Dark Lord of the Sith teaching someone whose mother was killed indirectly through her actions?" Revan made a pained face, and looked down.
Carth tilted her face back up with a finger on her chin. "Hey. That's all water under the bridge, okay?" If he didn't stop her now, she'd fret herself into a depression. She was all too prone to that, especially when she thought she was responsible.
Revan smiled wanly back at him, aware of his attempt to distract her. "I know." She sighed. "I don't think I'm ready to teach him, or, or anyone. And for another, we're too close. I mean, you're my lover, and he's your son. I don't think I could ever be objective enough. There are some lessons that can only be taught by a relative stranger. And... some of those lessons are hard. Hard to teach, and even harder to learn."
Carth thought about the lessons she, Jolee, Juhani and Bastila had learned. He winced. "I hope Dustil never has to learn such harsh lessons, beautiful."
Revan shook her head. "I think you underestimate him. He's learned some brutal lessons already, and survived them." She flicked a finger. "Did you notice that Dustil was about to ask us if we could stick our noses into this mess, when we took cover?" she asked, trailing her hand along his jaw, enjoying the sensation of his stubble prickling her fingers.
Carth nodded. "Yes, I did." He smiled. "He didn't even hesitate." He settled deeper into the couch, the springy cushions seeming to enfold him in their silken embrace. He wiggled a little to keep himself from sinking any further into its comfortable clutches.
Revan's eyes crinkled a little at the pride she heard in his voice. "It's good that the Sith Academy hadn't beaten every altruistic impulse out of his head--to do things that won't benefit him, or because it would be to his advantage."
He stared thoughtfully at an old-fashioned painting on the wall, done by hand on canvas, colored with real paint. "Huh. I never thought of that. I would like to say my son would never just stand by and let something like that go, but... the things he must've seen, the things he must've done, just to survive on Korriban--they had to have changed him. I'm glad they didn't have enough time to corrupt him completely."
Revan tilted her head back to look into his face. "I'm... surprised you aren't more, mn, upset about that."
Carth sighed, his exhaled breath tickling her cheeks. "I'm not upset, exactly. Well, I am... I mean, I don't like it, but there's nothing I can do about it. He's like a soldier who's seen too much war. Certain... certain habits of mind get, get ingrained. And maybe they're useful in combat, and even necessary for survival, but they're not so good when it comes time for the battle to be over."
Revan took his hand and pressed a kiss into it, silently comforting him.
Carth smiled, forcibly throwing off his darkening mood. "Hey, even shell-shocked soldiers like me recover. It... it just takes time." He wondered if he was trying to convince her, or himself.
"It does take time... He was surely recruited and intended to be a weapon in the Sith's hands. Recruited earlier than most." Revan's face was pensive and solemn, gaze turned inwards, perhaps seeing her own imagined role in Dustil's turning.
Carth brushed the backs of his fingers along her cheek. "Hey. I won't have you moping." As he had hoped, his deliberate echo of her own words, spoken so long ago, made her snort a laugh. She swatted playfully at him. He grinned, feeling his own somber mood lift.
He idly wound a lock of her hair around a finger, rubbing its smooth silkiness with his thumb. "You know... it seems a little convenient, us happening to be in the right place and at the right time to rescue that girl. Of all the places that speeder could've run to, it just happens to fly right at us..." he mused thoughtfully.
Revan's hand brushed up his jaw, and her thumb and forefinger tugged lightly at his earlobe. "I hope you're not suggesting I had anything to do with it." She narrowed her eyes to glittering slits.
Carth raised a hand, palm out, flapping it at her in denial. "No, no, I wasn't suggesting you had anything to do with it!" He raised an eyebrow, when he realized her flashing eyes were full of humor instead of anger. "A little touchy today, huh?"
Revan gave him a slow smile, the one that always simultaneously made his heart race and blood pound, and also want to hide in the deepest hole he could find. "I don't get touchy, I get angry. And if I was angry," Revan tugged at his earlobe a little harder, "you'd be eating your ear right now, with your choice of condiment."
Carth chuckled, shivering in mock-fear at the threat. "Oh, no, anything but that!" He smiled slyly. "But I wouldn't be nearly as handsome with just one ear. I'd look lopsided!"
Revan switched hands and pulled on his other ear. "You're right. I'd cut off both ears, for the sake of symmetry." She laughed at the lugubrious face he pulled. "Still, you wouldn't look as handsome anymore, so I'll spare you. This time," she said, magnanimously.
Carth let out his breath in a loud, theatrical sigh of relief, stirring the bangs on her forehead. He brushed them out of her face gently. "Very kind and merciful of you, beautiful." He fingered the strands of hair at her temple. "But seriously... don't you think it all seems just a little convenient?"
Revan raised her chin, giving him a considering look. "And what does the suspicious bastard in your paranoid head have to say?"
Carth wrinkled his nose at her description of his practical, sensible instincts. "You think I'm being paranoid?" he asked, a little indignantly.
Revan gave him another one of those slow, disturbingly-sexy smiles. "You wouldn't be Carth without it, flyboy. Don't worry, I love you anyway," she said reassuringly.
Carth smiled crookedly. "Gee, thanks."
Revan shrugged, the movement bouncing them both on the couch slightly. "I can't think of any reason that would satisfy you. I say it was the Will of the Force, mainly. But then it's been at work all this time, from the time we were on the Endar Spire to, well, now."
Carth thought back, to how the both of them just happened to survive, of all the hands lost on the Endar Spire. To how Revan was able to get the prototype accelerator, just in time for her to enter the swoop race to rescue Bastila. The list of coincidences went on and on.
"Well, you know me. I don't buy it, not really. It's such a, a catch-all, convenient phrase, but... I can't think of any other reason that isn't out-and-out ridiculous."
"You're not thinking hard enough, then, if you can't manufacture at least five this minute," Revan teased him, eyes dancing.
Carth glowered at her. "It strikes me, woman, that you're in the perfect position for me to give you the spanking you so richly deserve."
Revan wrinked her nose charmingly at him. "You're all talk, flyboy." The look in her eyes challenged him to prove her wrong.
Carth looked at the door. Dustil could come back at any moment. Damn. "You just wait, sister. When we get back to our hotel, I'll..." He leaned forward and whispered into her ear for a while. He had the delightful and rare satisfaction of seeing her eyes widen and her cheeks color.
Revan repeated his look at the door, and he could see the same thoughts race through her head, culminating in a look of disappointment. "You just better keep your promise, flyboy." She gave him a fierce glower. "Or there'll be hell to pay." The threat was undermined by her sparkling eyes and suppressed giggle.
He would have absolutely no problem keeping that promise. He gave her a wolfish grin. "Anticipation, beautiful." He decided to change the subject, because there was a certain region that was definitely rebelling in protest at his restraint. Rising up in arms, even. Or just rising... His armor was both a blessing and a curse, at the moment. On the one hand, it was quite discomforting, especially in one particular section of it. On the other, it also hid a state of... mind he really didn't want her to notice.
"I'm surprised you decided to accept Lord Vosaryk's reward. You usually refuse that sort of thing."
Revan shifted around, sprawling more comfortably on him. "I would've, but then I remembered I'm in disguise. While it would be very Jedi-like of me to refuse, it wouldn't be in character for Nami Kera'al. So I offered a token protest, and took it. Besides, the Houses of Sluis Van are very punctilious and prickly about their honor. To refuse his offer to repay what he perceived as a huge debt would greatly insult him."
Carth accepted her explanation without demur; she knew more about the Sluis Van Houses than he did. She had obviously done more in-depth research into this world, more than any of the OFI briefings had provided.
He pursed his lips. "I'm also surprised you decided to use your Nami identity. It's not something I figured you'd do. I thought you'd create an entirely different persona, not reuse that one." He stared down into her eyes questioningly.
Nami Kera'al had been what she'd called herself--what the Jedi Council had named her--before she knew she was actually Revan, Dark Lord of the Sith. Former Dark Lord of the Sith. And she had been very adamant about throwing off that falsehood, insisting that he and the rest of the crew call her by her true name.
It was quite in character for her to have done that, he realized. She never hid from anything, much less from behind a false name.
Revan shrugged again. "It was a ready-made identity. The records and such for it still existed, after all. No one had bothered to delete them. Waste not, want not. Besides, you're used to calling me that. Fewer slips of the tongue, that way."
Carth looked at her dubiously. Of all the names she could've picked, she just happens to pick the one the Council gave her new self. "If you expect me to believe that, I've got some prime real estate on Dagobah I'd like to sell you."
"I wouldn't buy a used speeder from you, what with the way you look now. Not even if the entire Senate vouched for you," Revan said, smirking.
Carth narrowed his eyes and moved his hands to her sides. "Give, beautiful, or... it's the tickle!" he threatened. He crooked his fingers in anticipation.
Revan's eyes widened in mock-horror. "I give, I give!" she cried, laughing. He relaxed his hands, a bit disappointed at her quick capitulation.
She traced a finger absently on his chest, following a seam on his jacket. "I don't really know. Maybe it's because I'm used to the name, still. Maybe I want to relive the good old days, when I was just plain Nami, smuggler turned Jedi. Whose life may have been turned on its ear, but the only troubles I had were surviving Dark Jedi ambushes, keeping a motley crew together, somehow scrounging enough credits to feed you all and finding the Star Maps. Not..." she waved her fingers, indicating the issues she had instead, as a reformed Dark Lord.
Carth didn't know quite what to say to her confession. He decided to let his actions speak, tightening his arms around her, and pressing his lips to her forehead, in silent support. She seemed to know what he was saying anyway, as she snuggled into his jacket, tucking her head under his chin.
He took in the scent of her hair, smelling something like the light perfume of Dantooine flowers, subtlely sweet, along with the slightly-minty herbal shampoo she favored. The colored beads clicked gently, hard and smooth against his fingers as he brushed his hand through her hair.
"I love you, Revan. Whatever you decide to call yourself."
Once again he pondered the practicalities, or the impracticalities, of protecting her. She could handle any physical threats quite well on her own, thank you very much, but she was as vulnerable to self-doubt as anyone else. More so, because few people had been reprogrammed like a droid, and then sent on a dangerous, almost suicidal, mission. And she carried along all the baggage of a good person who had found out she'd committed countless atrocities in another life. With absolutely no memory of any of it.
He'd played the blame and if-only games himself, done them to death, but how much worse was it all for her?
He wondered if her reckless stunts were an unconscious desire for... an end. If she hadn't always been like that, even before she knew of her real identity, he'd be well and truly worried for her sanity. Psychotherapy was... not an option. She'd be given right back to the Jedi, who would do... what? Could they really resist the temptation, once they had Revan firmly in their hands, to just mind-wipe her again and start anew, this time with a much more pliant Revan?
One who didn't have that pesky emotional attachment to a certain Republic pilot?
He knew he was probably taking his paranoid suspicions of the Jedi to a ridiculous level. Bastila, Jolee and Juhani were all Jedi, after all. They'd watch over Revan and make sure she'd be safe from any such 'benevolent' Council treatment. If the Council would ever suggest such a thing. And they probably wouldn't. It was hard for him to not suspect the worse of them, of their motivations.
A niggling doubt gnawing at the back of his mind whispered that maybe he didn't want her to go in for therapy, because then he couldn't be with her... He told himself, firmly, to shut the hell up.
It was a road he'd stood on before, after all. Knew all the signposts, draped with the cobwebs of regrets, the dirt beneath his feet littered with if-only self-recriminations, and stained with spatters of old blood, where he'd beaten himself up, endlessly, day after day. And the shimmering, coruscating fragments of broken dreams, scattered here and there, shining in the merciless light that beat down on his soul, ruthlessly revealing all of his inadequacies and helplessness. Guilt, of course, smothered everything like a dense fog.
And the horizon stretching endlessly and emptily, all around him, that he would have to endure, all alone, for the rest of his life. He'd thrown himself into his work in the Fleet, grimly clawing his way through another day, and another, and another, in the hopes that he would get his chance to reach Saul. Fighting like he had nothing to lose, because he had nothing to lose. And always feeling... disappointed, that he still survived.
That, of course, had been before he'd met her. He'd understood, so well, her pain when he'd stopped her from throwing herself into the abyss. He'd understood how it must've hurt, that cracking of the barriers she'd placed around her soul, to let in hope.
Was that barren place where she stood, in those nightmares of hers?
A memory rose up, showing him just how much she had endured. And how she sometimes cracked beneath the weight.
Carth stepped into the exercise room, hearing the clash of blades. As he'd expected, it was Revan, practicing. He stood in the doorway, watching appreciatively as she twirled her swords and whirled across the room.
He never tired of watching her move--the fluid grace of her lithe body, supple and strong, for all the slightness of it. Her fighting style was as much acrobatics as martial arts, blended with the techniques of the sword.
He frowned when he saw that her arms and legs were bloody. She was alone in the cavernous exercise room, so there couldn't have been anyone else there to inflict wounds on her. And even if there were, they'd use practice blades, which could bruise and sting, but not cut.
He soon received his answer to his mental question. Revan twisted her body as she flew through the air, and her arms brought her blades close in a tightening circle around her body. Then she cut herself with them, blood spurting from her wounds to join the crimson stains already covering her arms. His heart pounded with a sudden panicked fear.
Carth found himself running towards her. He should've known something was wrong when she hadn't acknowledged his presence. She could always sense him, and always waited expectantly for him whenever he entered the room.
Now that he was closer, he saw that her eyes were vague and distant, horribly empty, as if she were in some sort of trance. Closer to, he saw with some relief that she'd at least had the presence of mind to heal herself. His relief was short-lived, when he realized she'd only done it so that she could cut herself all over again.
"Revan!" Carth called. She was still whirling about in a circle, her blades flashing, taking no notice of him or his cries. Drops of blood flew from her blades to spatter across the floor.
He grabbed her by the arms, his hands slipping on her blood-slicked skin, heedless of the sharp blades held only inches away. He shook her, hard, trying to jar her out of that frightening trance. "Revan! Revan! Snap out of it!" She stared unseeing at him. Through him. He shook her hard enough for her head to snap back and forth on her neck. "Revan!"
Revan's blades dropped from her nerveless hands, falling to the floor with a noisy clatter. Carth saw that her eyes were losing their vagueness, focusing on him. He stopped shaking her, raising a hand to brush a lock of hair out of her eyes.
"Revan?" He patted her sweaty face with a hand, trying to bring her the rest of the way out of her trance. His fingers left red prints on her cheek, her blood standing out starkly against the pallor of her skin.
Revan blinked. "Carth...?" She tried to pull away from him, but he wasn't about to let her go. "I--I never... I never meant for you to see me like this." She hung her head, staring at her boots.
"And just what am I seeing, exactly?" Carth asked softly. He cupped her chin and tilted her face up. "Please... please tell me. You promised me once you wouldn't leave me out of the loop. Remember?"
He folded her into his arms and sat down on the floor, pulling her with him to sit on his lap. She tucked her head under his chin and wrapped her arms around his waist.
"Hey, beautiful, talk to me." He held her out a little, so that he could see her face. One hand cupped her cheek, his thumb stroking the hair at her temple.
"I'm... not sure I can explain it. I'm not sure I can explain it to myself." The color in Revan's cheeks were starting to come back, slowly.
"Try." Carth throttled his anger back down. She was beating herself up enough already; he didn't need to kick her while she was down. "Hurting yourself like this won't help. Please... please stop it. You're really scaring me."
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I was just... I'm not sure what I was doing. I wanted to be sure I was real, I guess. To feel real." The abject apologies wrung at his heart.
His mouth twitched up at one corner in an unwilled, crooked smile. "I've got better ways to make you feel real, beautiful." His half-smile disappeared. "That won't hurt you."
She stared up at him, her eyes pleading for him to believe her. "I... I know what it looks like. I wasn't, I wasn't trying to kill myself. Really. I gave you my promise on the Star Forge."
His arm tightened around her. "Promise me you won't... you won't do this again. Please. It already drives me crazy when assassins try to kill you, but I can deal with those. I also promised to protect you, from yourself," he said, trying to keep the anguished worry out of his voice.
"I... I promise," Revan said, in a small voice. "But I can't... I can't promise that this won't happen again. But I won't hurt myself like this anymore." She looked down, too ashamed to meet his eyes.
Carth tilted her chin up gently with his hand, forcing her to look at him. "Good. But tell me... what brought this on?"
Revan did not reply for a while. Carth could see that she was mustering her thoughts, so he waited more or less patiently.
Revan sighed. "It's those damned award ceremonies. They're the worst. Not only is it the height of hypocrisy for me to accept awards, it denigrates all the sacrifices of the Jedi and soldiers who fought and died in the war I started!" Her hands clenched in his jacket, gripping the fabric in bunches.
Carth brushed the backs of his fingers on her cheek. "I know what you mean. I feel the same way when I'm presented with awards. As if I were the only one who, who accomplished the impossible. I know how much blood and sweat and life each of those medals represent, and I don't wear them for myself, but to honor the ones who died. It gets to be a burden. A huge burden."
Revan nodded mutely. She screwed her eyes shut.
Carth caressed her cheek. "That can't be the only thing bothering you. Come on, tell me."
Revan took a deep breath. "Is it possible to die from too much regret? Sometimes I think I'm half drowning in it." She looked down, then forced herself to meet his eyes. "You deserve better than this, Carth... You deserve someone who isn't more than a little mad, who isn't... isn't broken. Who isn't the one who destroyed your life. You deserve a life without assassins hounding your every step."
Carth stroked her cheek with his fingers. "I'll be the judge of what I do or don't deserve, beautiful." He couldn't help the hurt look that appeared on his face. "Isn't it... isn't it enough that I love you? That you love me?"
Force, that sounded sappy. Of course it's not enough. Obviously. You're a stupid idiot, Onasi, saying stuff like that.
"It is... it is. Most of the time. Most of the time, I'm so happy, I think my heart would burst." She brushed her cool fingers on his cheek, leaving thin streaks of blood. "I never expected this... I never even dared to hope for such a thing.
"But some of the time... some of the time I look at all that Darth Revan has done... And I see it like a, a huge mountain of corpses. How can I possibly dig out from under it? Is it even possible? How much can I pay, and when will it be enough?" She opened her palms, holding them up helplessly. "Can it ever... can it ever be enough? If only I give enough... but I've come to the end of myself. I don't know how much more I can give."
She sighed and closed her eyes, bone-deep weariness showing in her face and the slump of her shoulders.
Carth stared at her, a little aghast. The parades and award ceremonies and receptions were tedious, sure, but he hadn't thought they were so hard on her. He worked his mouth, trying to find the right words. Usually a hit-or-miss effort, but he had to try. He cupped her face in his hands. "I've seen your soul... and it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Everything else, your false memories, the, the things Darth Revan has done... none of it matters to me. None of it. But be honest... is it really my forgiveness you need? Or is it your own?"
Revan shrugged. "Maybe you're right. Maybe it really is my forgiveness I need. I just wish I really was Nami Kera'al, smuggler extraordinaire, who's pretty good using those lightsabers of hers, fighting the good fight."
Carth leaned his forehead against hers. "Wishing won't help matters. You know that. All you--we--can do, is go on. And damn whatever anyone else thinks," he said fiercely. That got a smile out of her, but it disappeared too damned quickly.
Revan vented a shuddering breath. "I didn't want this... I didn't want any of this... I never meant to hurt anyone, least of all you. I failed you, before I ever met you." She looked away.
Carth's mouth tilted up in a lopsided smile. "You didn't fail me... Tell you what, though, beautiful. I'll let you make it up to me."
Revan stared up at him in disbelief, a startled laugh puffing out her lips. He was extremely gratified by the result. At least she could still laugh. She'd made him laugh so often, he was glad he could return the favor.
Carth held her face with both of his hands. "I love you, Revan. You are an amazing, extraordinary woman, the woman I love. The woman who's always teasing me, who always has a joke to cheer me up, who can sing the dirtiest songs I've ever heard with a straight face." He felt her chest heave slightly with another reluctant laugh. "You aren't Darth Revan anymore. No Dark Lord of the Sith could ever do what you've done."
"But... I did, once. It could... it could happen again." She caressed his face lightly. "Will you catch me, if I fall?"
"Always," he said simply. "You know I'll aways be here for you."
She burrowed inside his jacket, and he felt her tremble. He laid his cheek on top of her head, and wrapped his arms around her tightly, as if he might so shield her from the rest of the world.
Revan closed her eyes for a moment, then she opened them again. Her hand caressed his jaw lightly. "I don't know why you put up with me. With my whining. Am I not hideous to you?" Her face twisted, full of self-loathing. "I tell you I am hideous to me
Carth drew her into his arms, hugging her to him tightly. She clung to him with a quiet desperation. "You're not hideous. Not at all. All I see is a beautiful, brave woman, the most courageous person I've ever met," he said earnestly. He pressed his forehead against hers. "You have a soul that outshines a thousand suns. No one who has a soul like that could ever be hideous. Not to me. Not to me."
She started to weep. It twisted at his heart. Crying women always made him feel so damned... useless
Revan's breath puffed in a pained, strangled laugh. "And this is another thing... I turn into a waterworks so often, you must surely be tired of it."
"You've got so much pain inside you, I'd be more disturbed if you didn't let it out. I'm surprised you don't let it out more often." Carth kissed her wet cheeks tenderly, his lips tracing the trails her tears had made, tasting the saltiness of her despair. He brushed his fingers through her hair, in a slow, soothing motion.
His heart ached for her. She presented to the universe the strong face of a Jedi, unflappable and calm in any situation, when inside she was as uncertain and afraid as any other person. He was more than touched that he was allowed to see this other, vulnerable part of her, when she let her guard down completely.
It roused all of his protective urges, and they rushed up fiercely out of his heart for her. But finding a target was easier said than done. All of the overt enemies had already been taken care of: Malak, the Sith, Saul Karath... Which left the hidden ones. And they wore the guises of ordinary citizens.
For a moment, his heart shrank from the perceived enormity of the task. But as he looked at the woman silently weeping in his arms, he knew he would do anything, anything, to keep her safe. Whether it was from Sith assassins, ordinary people with grievances against Darth Revan bent on vengeance, or herself... Whatever.
He suspected it was the protection from herself that would tax his abilities the most. So be it.
A sudden calm descended on him then. As always, once he had a clear plan to follow, his mind was eased. Whatever the future held, it would find him ready for it.
He pressed his lips to her brow, sealing his silent promise.
Carth blinked away the memories. He looked down, looking at the highlights the light struck in her hair, in the beads. She didn't seem to have noticed his silence, or his brief lapse down memory lane.
Revan stirred, raising a hand to look at the chrono on her wrist. She wriggled up out of his arms and ran over to the window. He heard her mutter triumphantly. He stood and walked over, looking down curiously over her shoulder, wondering what she was watching.
"Hah. I knew he'd gone to see her," Revan said smugly.
Carth saw the blonde head of his son sitting alongside a platinum-tressed woman. "Do you think this is a good idea?"
Revan turned her head to look up at him. "Wouldn't you like to have grandchildren to dandle on your knee someday?"
Carth rubbed the back of his head, trying to imagine himself as a grandfather. "Oh, well, sure, but, uh, I thought you'd want him to at least wait until he's trained first."
Revan shrugged. "Well, better he figures out what he wants now, than later. So he knows what he's getting into. And what he'll miss." She stared down at the two figures. "At least Dustil seems to have gotten over Selene."
"It'd be good for him to be around people his own age, I have to admit," Carth put in. He looked at the foreshortened figure of the platinum-haired woman. "She seems like a nice girl."
Revan twisted her head around again and stared up at him. "Wait, did I hear you properly? Carth Onasi, professional paranoid pilot and all-round suspicious bastard, actually taking something on faith?"
He scowled down at her. "Dammit, woman, you're just asking for a spanking, aren't you?"
Revan smirked. "Promises, promises, flyboy," she snickered.
As usual, big old heaping piles of thanks go out to new reviewers: Krazed Kaioshin Fangirl, Rocket, Skydiver88, PinkTinkaBelle, PhoenixFury03 and SubDaemon!
Big ol' Godiva chocolate bricks go out to repeat reviewers VMorticia, Shadow39, arrow maker and Ozziegrl!
Krazed Kaioshin Fangirl: Thank you for the kind words. I thought it'd be great that the perpetually-paranoid pilot gets all the suspicious looks for once. :D Well, Revan does seem indestructible. Although I didn't think the rail slide was all that over the top... But as Chapter 29 may attest, she's not all that indestructible. Or flawless. :) At least, I hope she's not. I try to keep her from becoming a Mary Sue, ya see.
PhoenixFury03: There are lots of fics who pair Mission and Dustil, and I just didn't want to copy them. That was my only motivation for putting him with someone else. :)
SubDaemon: Oh, my. You put up a wonderfully helpful review, thank you for putting the time in to write such a long one. :) And such a long review asks for an equally long response. So. :)
Glad you're enjoying the fic!Sensory details, hm. Well, I took your advice to heart, and hopefully Ch. 29 is better. :)
Re: Ch. 8's flashbacks: The memory is indeed from Carth's point of view. It was on purpose.
Carth coming off flat? Hm. I thought I give him enough of a presence, through the flashbacks, but perhaps I'm wrong. Anyway, Ch. 29 should again address this issue, I hope.
Dustil and Mission: this pair can work, I think. At least, AthenaPrime's done it rather well, I think. I didn't pair them like that because everyone else did it, and I didn't want to.
Other KoTOR characters pushed to background: Sorry, but this had to be done. There's no way I could finish this fic if I also included the other characters. Besides, I don't think I'm up to writing the other characters, especially Bastila and Canderous. They're both very complex characters, and other people do them so well, already. I really feel inadequate to the task. :) In fact, Dustil wasn't even supposed to be in the fic so much, but some darned BioWare poster that shall remain nameless sent this plot bunny poinging through my head...
There's a method to my madness in pushing T3-M4 to the background. Stay tuned. :) Although I thought my reason for having the little guy stay behind was plausible...
Carth's speech patterns are different? Damn. I thought I had his voice down pretty well. :x What do you think I should change?
If I was able to make somebody smile with the things my Revan does, I'll have done my job. :D v
Glad you like the flashbacks! I'm always concerned they interrupt the flow of the story.
Any joy I get from writing, well, it's nothing compared to the joy I get from getting lovely reviews, SubDaemon. So here's me hoping you continue to post more reviews as lovely as your first. :)
Ozziegrl: Nope, Lord Vosaryk is just one of those obsessed people who can recognize a starship's model just from a glance, not necessarily what name it is. And the Ebon Hawk's been given a new paint job, along with more sensors that changed its outline, so he wouldn't be able to recognize the ship like that. :)
