Chapter 36

Why?

He…

He's holding onto it…

Elena…What have you done? Why have you…

She could not speak – only watch with trembling eyes which began to water with guilt and sorrow the moment she saw him. The pained expression in his eyes…the anguish, the misery…The man who stood before her looked as if he was a ghost, so lifeless was the look on his face as he grasped onto the wooden necklace.

Bastila's entire body began to tremble as she slowly approached him. He heard her approach, yet didn't care to look at her, for his eyes were fixed upon that which was his – or, what was supposedly his.

"Kael…you…," she stammered, unsure of what she could even say to him.

"Kael Deren…is that was you were going to call me?" he asked, clearly hurt deep within by the sound of his voice. "Can I even trust you to call me that anymore?"

"I…I…," she gasped, feeling her throat go numb and become as barren as the very earth of the planet they stood on.

He panted, stepping forward and placing both of his hands firmly upon her upper arms. Instead of the vicegrip of bitterness and anger she expected, Bastila was surprised to feel desperation and fear flooding out of him. Staring at her were the eyes not of the Dark Lord of the Sith who was incensed at losing his power, but of her old friend and guardian, torn and confused by what was happening. "Bastila," he gasped. "Please. Tell me the truth. I need to hear it from you. Tell me that I am Kael Deren, and not—"

"Revan," she finished for him, taking a deep breath as she closed her eyes. She opened them up again ever so slowly, looking up into his eyes with a pained gaze. "I've missed you so much…"

Bastila felt the hands on her arms release in an instant as Kael stumbled back, a horrified look written up and down his face. The necklace slipped out of his fingers and fell upon the ground and he refused to look at it anymore, falling to his knees as he began to pant and gasp, wheezing and clutching at his chest.

"I'm sorry…I'm so sorry…," she sobbed as she fell to the ground with him, weeping into her hands out of shame. She crawled forward and placed a hand on his shoulder, only to be rejected as he jerked back, stumbling back onto his feet and showing no signs of warming up to her again.

"You…get away from me," he pointed his finger at her, the sand around him seeming to move about in an eerie tremor, so raw and almost uncontrollable was his emotions right now. "You're lying…You're fucking lying to me, aren't you?"

"It's the truth," Bastila hissed, glaring at him. "You are Revan. Former Dark Lord of the Sith. Fiancé of Elena Adarné. My teacher and best friend. Do you remember now?!"

"That…that can't be true," he shook his head vehemently. "Dreams are dreams – nothing more. You…you and Elena messed with my head while I slept, didn't you? Seeded those damn visions in my head. False stories and lies. Nothing more than that."

Her patience was spent. Not willing to put up with any more of Revan's denial, she jolted to her feet, stomped over towards him, each step louder than the last, and then finally slapped him hard across the left cheek – hard enough that Elena could probably hear from behind her closed door. Only a last-second ditch of self-control kept her from outright shouting, instead keeping it down to an exasperated whisper. "Wake the hell up, Revan! You are who you are! You can't deny it any longer! I can't deny it any longer, or continue lying to you!"

Unable to even compose himself enough to stand, Revan fell, gasping as his back thudded against the ground. "How…how can this…"

Frustration quickly turning to concern, Bastila picked up the necklace and knelt before him, laying a soothing hand upon the red sore she left on his face. She cradled his dazed head against her knees, tenderly wrapping her arms around him as she sought to explain everything. "Ssh…I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Revan. I knew we should have told you sooner, even perhaps right after you returned from your final Trial on Dantooine after redeeming Juhani. Elena wanted to tell you more than anyone, but she held back until now.

"I still remember the day we faced you aboard your old star destroyer…how it pained Elena and I to even look upon you, to see your eyes twisted and changed by the dark side. How you spared us after effortlessly slaying the other Jedi in our boarding party, several of whom were far more skilled with the lightsaber than I. And especially how you…protected us."

"What? What do you mean?" Revan asked, showing the slightest signs of accepting the truth.

"With his flanks secure, Malak sought to eliminate both you and our team in a single stroke. He ordered his subordinates to fire at will upon your ship, in an effort to kill us all. After you bested both of us, you refused to harm us even as we outright refused to ever join you. You…you said that you loved us more than anything in the world, and that you'd rather die than hurt us. The moment Malak's forces opened fire, you threw yourself over us, shielding us with your body. When we came to our senses after the shield doors sealed off, we were horrified to see countless shards of shattered transparisteel embedded in your back. With your last breath you said once again that you loved us before you fell unconscious.

"I remember my heart pounding and racing as never before as we desperately tried to heal you. But the light…it just wasn't enough. The Jedi Code meant nothing to me if it couldn't help me keep you alive. I wanted to go home, Revan. I wanted everything to go back to the way it was, at our home on Coruscant. And then…it worked. Your wounds began to heal, and the life in you was kept secure. I knew from that day onward exactly what I wanted. What I needed in order to go on living. And the Jedi Order could never deliver me that."

As he lay in Bastila's arms, Revan knew that she wasn't lying. The way she tensed up as she recounted her story…the tears he could feel falling gently upon his head…These things couldn't ever possibly deceive. Slowly, he reached for his old necklace as Bastila willingly returned it to him. "Then…how did it come to this? Why couldn't I remember?"

Bastila sighed. "The Council did this to you. They reprogrammed your mind, shrouding your true memories with a mist of lies, burying your true self into the deepest parts of your conscience. But as much as they could tinker with your mind, they couldn't do the same with your heart. Your raw emotions. The natural feelings that rustle in your heart with every thought you have."

"Is that why I feel for you and Elena the way I do? Is that why I go through all the hell that comes my way?"

"Yes," she nodded. "No matter how great the danger, no matter how unprepared and not up to the task you think you are, that's why you always put your life on the line for us ever since Taris – because you love us. Your memories of us were shrouded, but your feelings for us couldn't be. That's also why Elena watched over you not once, but twice after you were knocked unconscious, first on Taris and then on Dantooine. You mean the world to her, and her to you."

Revan's eyes turned from confusion to outrage as he suddenly broke out of her embrace and stood upright. "If the two of you treasured me so much, then why did you leave me? Why did you leave me to become the Council's…tool?!"

Bastila's fingers tensed, her fingernails digging into her palms as she stomped towards him. "Do you think that we wanted to leave you to them, knowing how Masters Vrook and Atris felt about you? Do you think that Elena just sat there and did nothing, instead of fighting tooth and nail in arguing against Vrook and Atris, preventing them from convincing the other Council members to do with you what they wanted? Elena and I wanted nothing more than to have been able to take you back home to Coruscant with us. To leave this whole bloody war behind us and get back to our lives! Memories or not, Dark Lord or not, you're family to us, Revan – we wanted to go home then and there!"

"Why didn't you tell me this sooner? Why leave it until now?"

"And just how were we supposed to tell you while we were on Dantooine? Or Taris, for that matter? Something along the lines of 'Oh, dear Kael, we'd like to inform you that your true identity is an amnesiac Darth Revan, Dark Lord of the Sith. The Council are currently using you as a means of defeating Darth Malak, who robbed you of your power. By the way, you were formerly my guardian and mentor, and this Jedi Knight beside me here is your fiancé. She had been eagerly looking forward to your wedding and eventually having a family together before this damn war started, so please, we expect you to help us win this war smoothly and quickly, so that we can get back to our lives'. Is that how you would've wanted it to turn out like, instead?"

Revan gritted his teeth. As cruel as her 'joke' was, Bastila had a point – there was no way that anybody could've revealed the truth to him earlier without major, perhaps catastrophic, repercussions. "So…what now, then? What do you expect me to do, Bastila?"

"We need you, Revan," she softened her tone, tenderly taking his hand once again, bringing it up and making him look at the pendant he gifted Elena, once representing his solemn promise to return to her as the man she fell in love with. "Whatever you feel for us after this, whether it be love, bitterness or even hatred, we will stand by you till the end. In return, we need you to trust us, like you always have. You know that Malak must be stopped at all costs. We can't do this without you."

Despite all Bastila's assurances, Revan felt utterly lost. He didn't know what to do, or even what he wanted to do. No matter how much he wanted to feel bitter against Bastila and Elena and despise them for what they had done, he couldn't. Bastila's words were true – he not only appreciated, but absolutely loved and adored them, wanting to protect them above all else, ever since they met on Taris.

But still…the truth remained.

What if he had been not Revan, but an ordinary rank-and-file Sith soldier? A Dark Jedi? Would the Council have spared him? They wouldn't have seen any use for him. Would Bastila or Elena have let him live? Likely not. Just another foe to slay in the line of duty.

He was a tool to the Jedi Order. Nothing less, nothing more. A pawn, disposable just as any other.

Deep down, right now part of him wished that the Council had simply killed him and spared the insult.

And yet, the beautiful, teary grey eyes that gazed at him showed no signs of deceit. No dishonesty, no disloyalty. They were eyes that desperately wanted him back, and showed just how much the soul behind those windows missed him for the two years he had been absent for. He wanted to wipe those tears away, to see the happiness return to her lips, but sadly he could not.

"Revan…please…Will you trust us…one more time?" she pleaded, placing her hand over his racing heart that pounded against her fingers.

"Bastila, I…" He brought his hand up to the level of her cheek, leaving it hanging in mid-air barely inches away from her face. The necklace dangled from between his thumb and index finger as his hand trembled with indecision. Then, finally, his mind having been made up, the trembling ceased as he stared her in the eye.

His hand drooped downward, leaving the symbol of his heart to slip from his finger and drop onto the ground below. "I can't."

All hope came crashing down in Bastila's heart as she stood frozen in shock, unmoving as Revan walked past her. At her feet lay the object which now represented nothing but broken promises and dreams.

-o-

Pain. Fatigue. Weariness. Those were the only things that came to Mission's mind as she struggled to open her eyes, much less sit up from her bed. Her right leg was still sore as ever from being shot by Xor, but wasn't enough to keep her from making an effort to move towards the voices that were conversing in the portside dorm. She bit her lower lip, fighting down the urge to moan and scream the moment her foot made contact with the floor, tensing her muscles which evidently still needed time to heal.

Clanking and cluttering of steel could be heard from the garage – Zaalbar, by the sounds of it. The more she approached the other dorm, the clearer she could hear Carth and Audrey locked in a serious conversation. From the slightly frustrated tone, it was obvious that they were discussing the long road ahead.

"No, Carth. I don't like this idea at all. You don't know the guy like I did, and believe me when I say that he's not trustworthy," Audrey said. "And by 'trustworthy', I'm not talking about honesty; I'm talking about competence."

"What other choice do we have, though? Look what happened last night," he replied. "What are the chances we'll get so lucky next time something happens to us?"

"You don't know Griff. He fucked up. A lot. I'm not leaving her in his hands."

No…, Mission thought as she backed up against the curving wall leading to the dorm. They're not considering…

"Mission?" Juhani's soft voice spoke from behind her. If Mission had hair on her head, every last strand would've undoubtedly stood up at that moment.

"Holy shhh…!" Mission exclaimed, giving away her presence to Audrey and Carth as she practically tripped over her own feet, prevented from falling only by Juhani's swift hand.

"Juhani? What was that?" Carth asked from the dorm, soon appearing alongside Zaalbar.

"What are you doing out of bed, Mission? You are not well enough to move," Juhani told her.

"I wanted to come over and see Audrey. I got worried about her," Mission told the truth, although not the complete truth, in this case.

"Carth, help her in here," Audrey called, her voice sounding much weaker – and softer in mood – than usual. "I want to see her."

"Okay," Carth obliged her, supporting Mission from her left side, mindful of the sore in her right leg. Zaalbar and Juhani walked in after him, ensuring that Mission didn't fall from pain.

Audrey shifted over, removing the covers on top of her and shifting over until she was sitting at the side of the bed. Mission was laid down again by Carth, but not before wincing and silently cursing after she brought her right leg down on the bed. "Are you okay, darling?" Audrey asked her, laying a gentle hand on her knee.

"It's still so sore," Mission groaned, reaching out her right hand. Instinctively, Audrey held it, fondling it gently to soothe her. For one whose long-standing alias in the Taris Arena was 'Ice', Audrey's hand radiated quite the opposite feeling. "I'm so sorry I put you through this. You got hurt all because of me…because I wanted that stupid little gizka as a pet…"

"It's alright, sweetheart," Audrey smiled. "I wasn't too different from you when I was your age. Strangely enough, it was Brejik who saved my ass when Zaerdra and I got into trouble. How times change people." She looked away and down at the floor, still evidently hurt after Taris.

Mission grinned a little, amused at the thought of such an elite operative like Audrey getting into trouble. Her expression darkened, however, when she realized that it was inevitable what they'd have to talk about.

"What's wrong? Something bothering you?" Audrey questioned.

Mission withdrew, pulling her covers slightly over her mouth with her left hand.

"She heard you," Juhani spoke for Mission. "She heard your plans for her."

Audrey sighed loudly and sunk her head low. "How much did you hear?"

"Griff," Mission replied, pulling the covers down again. "Why did you even bring up his name? How can I go with him, after what he did to me?"

"You're not going with him, Mission," Audrey immediately shook her head, giving her a firm gaze. "Count that out."

"Thank the stars for that," Mission sighed.

"But you're certainly not staying with us, either." Audrey's eyes expressed no emotion whatsoever as she said those words, almost as if she was so broken that she had lost the ability to even show regret.

The young Twi'lek's eyes widened with shock and dismay. "What…what do you mean?"

"This quest…the things we have to do…Everything's too dangerous for you to stick around. You need to be somewhere safe while we deal with all of this. We can't have you with us. I can't have you with us. First the Dantooine cave, and now this. Just what'll happen on the other planets we'll have to go to? We're eventually go to Korriban, of all places, for gods' sake!"

"But you agreed before!" Mission retorted. "Back while we were still traveling to this planet, you me and Carth agreed that we'd stay together no matter what!"

Audrey shook her head in dismay. "No, Mission. We didn't agree on anything. Carth and I warned you of what might happen, but you kept on insisting that you'll prove to us one day that you'd be able to look out for yourself. Before Carth or I could reply, Bastila interrupted us. We didn't say 'yes' to you, Mission. And after tonight, I doubt that'll ever be the case."

"You…can't…Why…?" Mission whispered, tears starting to well up in her eyes.

"Darling," Audrey said in nothing short of a heartfelt way, getting up off the side of the bed in order to kneel right beside Mission. She reached her hands forward, gently caressing Mission's cheeks to let her know just how precious the young child was to her – almost as if she was saying goodbye at that moment. Audrey's eyes were resoundingly sullen and she struggled to part her lips once again. "You mean the world to me. I would keep you by my side at all times if I could. You are everything I've been missing for the past 25 years of my life. Whenever I look upon you, I see my old family. Your safety and happiness is more important than anything to me. We will be together after all of this is over, Mission, I promise you that. But right now, that's not a possibility. I'm no longer at the peak of my abilities or my youth – I'm 32, turning 33 in just a few weeks' time. I'm not as fast or as strong as I was in my prime, and it's not going to get better. I'm certainly not going to get out of all this unscathed – none of us are. But you? How can I even be sure that you'll even make it out alive?"

Mission looked down, wracked with conflict. She was headstrong but not stupid, and knew that there was an undeniable truth in Audrey's words.

"She's got a point, Mission," Carth said. "Not even a combination of Kael, Elena and Juhani could prevent you from being harmed. It's only gonna get worse from here on. I still remember Telos like it was yesterday. The pain I felt was…indescribable. Last night I thought I'd have to relive it all over again, but luckily I didn't. I don't want to lose either your or Audrey, Mission. Please consider what she and I want for you."

After Audrey's hands fell upon her shoulders, the young one looked at her two guardians. Her breathing grew more rapid as she drew closer to accepting the inevitable, which she wished with all her heart could be avoided. Deep down, however, she knew they were right. She still remembered how horrified and fearful she felt for Audrey after discovering the grievous wounds that were sustained in order to save her own life and bring her back to safety. A once energetic and confident Audrey was now seemingly frail and weak, hard evidence that she was indeed not the person she used to be in her youth.

"But…where can I go?" Mission asked, sniffling a little.

"There are many places to choose from," Carth suggested. "I'm not terribly keen to send you off with your brother, judging by what Audrey told me about his character. There's always Dantooine, and Manaan will also be safe, given its special status as a world that's free from conflict for the time being."

"So you're gonna leave me? Just like Griff did when he hooked up with Lena? Is that it? I'm gonna be all alone again while the rest of you keep fighting on against Malak?"

Audrey and Carth withdrew slightly at Mission's retort. Although they thought of where they could have Mission stay, there was still the question of just who was going to look after and stay with her.

"She's got a point, you know," Carth sighed, stepping forward and placing a hand on Audrey's shoulder. "We can't just send her off alone. Someone needs to stay by her side. Someone she's close to."

Audrey drew deep breaths in and out, not needing an explanation as to what Carth meant by his words. A sharp pain rippled up and down her chest, as she was forced to choose between the child she adored and the man she loved. She knew she would be made immensely happy to finally have the chance to live a normal life again, where she would dedicate every day of her life to providing the same love to Mission that she longed to receive from her own mother who was long gone. But at the same moment, that feeling would always be bittersweet, as she would live with the knowledge that Carth was fighting in a system far, far away, and she might never see him again.

Her breathing slowed, the icy pale complexion she was once famous for turned redder as the pressure upon her grew, until she finally made her decision. She swallowed hard, feeling her mouth and throat suddenly dry up as she whispered delicately. "She'll live with me. We'll stay on Alderaan until the war is over. It's part of the Core Worlds, after all, and will be defended well by the Republic fleet. And…I miss home. You should see how beautiful it is, Mission." She peered up and smiled at Mission, having not forgotten the fondest times of her own childhood.

Mixed feelings of both relief and pain struck at Carth's heart as he looked upon Audrey with a longing gaze. Hearing a sigh escape his lips, Audrey looked over her shoulder, trying her best to give him a reassuring smile. No words were needed as she told him that they would eventually be together, that she had faith in their quest and that they would ultimately succeed. No matter where it may be, they would rebuild their lives look forward to the future together. Carth nodded, a twitch of his lips representing his attempt at a smile in reciprocation.

"You know," Mission remarked, intrigued by the idea, "I think it'd actually be nice to go out and see more of the world, especially a place like Alderaan. Being part of a proper family again…I'd like that very much."

Only…

Zaalbar, she remembered, her eyes veering across the room towards her old friend whom she completely forgot to take account of when considering their future paths.

"Hey, but what about—" she started, only to be interrupted by the sudden creaking of static noise from Carth's transponder which he promptly pulled out of his right pocket. A despondent, broken Bastila was on the other side, relaying words which froze Carth where he stood.

"Carth…Kael is…gone…"

A/N: It's been a long wait since just before the New Year, but I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I always thought that the way the game handled it was far too rushed and that Revan took it in and accepted the truth all too quickly without a serious hint of any real conflict or angst at what Bastila and the Council had done to him.

I'll have to write updates to my other ongoing stories as well, so the next chapter for this might take some time. See you all then!