That wasn't really the kind of face Atton liked waking up to in the morning: grey and seamed with nightmarish stormy yellow eyes. Focused right on him, burrowing deep into his soul. Ugh. He'd never awakened before that that horrific visage, even when he'd alienated Jay, and he'd been convinced she'd left him to "that damned schutta's" mercies. A chill made its way down his spine. Leisurely, almost. A slow stroll along a bright, sunlit beach. What the hell was he rambling on about? He felt her warmth and the tickle of her growing awareness next to him. The chill vanished just as Revan opened his damned mouth.

"Good morning, Atton. Jane."

"Damn, I was hoping this was all a dream. A really bad one."

Jay giggled as she rolled over to face him. "Not my favorite sight, either. Morning, Sy."

"Finally, some proper manners."

"Since when did you start worrying about manners, Revan?"

Jay's giggle turned into a deep laugh that rolled out of her like the endless rippling of Dantooine's grasses. If Revan hadn't been there, he'd have gladly listened to that laugh all day.

"I…" He'd never known the old man could be rendered speechless.

"Feeling better, Sy?" She had to gasp the words out.

"I was."

"Good. Now get the hell out of here!" Digression from the path of the light or no, it felt damned good to say those words.

Jay's look was one of pure sympathy, and her thoughts, Force, I hope he'll leave. So he hadn't slipped.

"I feel her waiting, Jane."

"Look, Sy, much as I'm glad to help you back from the darkness, we need to bathe. Alone. Wait just outside if you want, but leave."

"Jane."

"What, you wanted to share a tub, Revan? You're really not my type."

So, grey flesh could turn purple, and the blood that flowed in those blackened veins really was still red. He felt the man's wave of anger like a physical shove, but behind it was something he knew all too well: the shrinking feeling he'd had in Atris' force cage.

"You're scared. Didn't think the great Revan was capable of fear."

"Sy, you're strong enough to handle a few minutes in the hallway. After that, the room is yours for the day. I'll see if I can get Irvesh to spare a man or two to keep Bastila away."

"You think that stops her pull? That a simple, quiet room is enough to silence the ties in which the Force entangled us?"

"I… Look, Sy—I trust that you want to change, at least a little, but you're too damned dangerous to unleash on these people."

"And I'm supposed to change in isolation, except for her screams, her whispers, her lure in my mind? Bonds don't work that way, Jane. I don't control it any more than she can. I feel the Emperor was counting on that when he sent her after me."

"Dammit!" he muttered. He sensed what was coming and the chill began its stroll anew.

"I'm not an expert on bonding, Sy. That was always you. And Kreia, from what I remember."

"You calm me. The pieces don't grate against each other as they do when I'm alone. She knows that, and I sense the Emperor read my weakness in her memories."

"So, no peace and quiet for the sake of the galaxy, hunh? The Force is a damned murglak!"

Jay's laugh startled him. "Life itself is a murglak?"

She kissed his cheek and let the peals take her over. Only you could say something like that, love. Even her thoughts shook with her belly. But what truly stunned him was the wave of pure warmth and devotion that followed. He felt it slice through every last shield, every last all of his being, tinged as it was with the sharp tang of her desire. For just a few minutes as she clung to him and choked and gasped with the force of her hilarity, the room itself blazed with her aura. He imagined the galaxy infused with her light, and his mind rebelled. Nothing could live with that brilliance, even if his every last cell craved it. He grabbed her and pressed her belly against his to feel her spasms as his own, and without even a hint of forethought, she wrapped herself around him, legs and arms in a tangle. Her light tickled him and made his fingertips tingle. He felt Revan's glare on both of them, and that set her light ablaze in his gut.

"And you wanted to end this," he said. "End her laughter, her brilliance, to destroy her beauty, and the joy she brings to the galaxy. What kind of monster are you, Revan? Even if you say you want to change, to break away from the nightmare you chained yourself to, you still want to break her somewhere deep in your heart. I feel it. I don't trust you. Not for one second, when the only reason you want to 'come back' from the pit you dug yourself into is because you don't want to be as stupid as the little monster you created."

"Very light thoughts, Padawan. Selfishness is as valid a motive as any, isn't it, Jane?" He could have sworn Revan leered at her.

She lay entwined about him, gasping for air. She giggled in bursts punctuated by long, deep, choking breaths. He clutched at her as he stared into Revan's eyes and challenged him over the honeyed silk that adorned crown of her head. She isn't yours, and she never will be.

"You think I don't know that? You think I'm lying to you when I tell you that I know I can never break you apart? You're a bigger fool than even you think you are."

"I know enough of you and your 'tools,' Revan. You might believe what you say right now, but you'll be back to your 'old' ways the second it's convenient."

"Old ways die hard. One afternoon away, and you returned to the path of weakness."

"And sometimes, some 'old ways' are better," Jay said, her voice harsh from her laughter. "The oldest ways were best for you, Sy."

"Bathe. I'll be out in the corridor. But hurry—Bastila awakens."

"The room is yours after that, Sy. I'll hail T3 and have him watch her."

"That remains to be discussed. Take your damned bath."

Revan hung over the bath thicker than the steam that rose from it. He couldn't relax, no matter how much better the suds and the actual water felt than the damned sonic shower on the Hawk. Jay set to work on his shoulders, but her expert touch felt like nothing. She sighed deep though and leaned against him as he fumbled around with hers. He felt her awareness as a gentle caress, and he knew she sensed his dread, just as he felt a strange lightness in her. He couldn't begin to understand why he felt the freedom in her when it felt to him like the chains he thought she'd imposed on him were pulling ever tighter around his throat.

"At least he won't be staring at me."

"What?"

"I sense a turning."

"And I sense a monster just waiting to take advantage of us. You think this is it? You think that his crazy plaything is going to make things easier?"

"She'll be a distraction, a valuable one, I think."

"You've lost it, Jay. Completely. You know he's going to find a way to stay with us. All the time, every night."

In the corridor, something stirred. It didn't feel like Revan's madness, or the arrhythmic background spurts of Bastila's thoughts. He reached for it beyond the quiet, and felt something he hadn't since Jay had helped return him mostly to himself. The howl reminded him of Jay's endless screams when she'd look at him, and he'd look away, the shriek she'd let out in the shyrack cave on Korriban. The howl was female, distinctly female, and even if he couldn't read her half-alien thoughts, he knew the depth of it and the pain of it all too well. One of the Sith? The room's insulation kept him from getting a proper read of the woman's despair, but he could feel hints of her revulsion. Revan?

"The turning," Jay said and smiled at him.

"She needs us." He tried to probe the strange woman's mind further, but flinched back at the memory of Jay's own screams. "We have to help her, Jay."

She nodded.

So much for a nice bath, she thought. As if she should have expected anything else with Revan around.