A/N: Special thanks go to Adria for hosting this behemoth at www.kotorfanfic.com --Adria, you are something else for feeding us Kotorians and Carthaholics! Adria's got the best collection of KOTOR-related fanfic and fanart. Stop by and check out her site if you're a fan of KOTOR. I'd also like to thank everyone who sounds off every time I put up new chapters. Knowing someone out there is reading this really means a lot to me as a writer. I hope I continue to meet your expectations.
Review thanks: To the guest book contributors--Barachiel, Matt, Amy, Fred, Courtygurl, Linda, Jeffrey, Julie, Implode, Skydiver, Skarben, Carrie Ann, Strikeaxe, and Linda. To the emailers: Aroseb and Nima, as always, and to my reviewers on ff.net: Sol7MBP, Shadow39, Winterfox, RomanMachine, and welcome to MadisonDesdemona--PS...MD, fear not, Mission and Dustil's story is far from over.
Janitorial Services
Revan
Mission stepped over Dustil without a backward glance. My Jedi senses chose that moment to kick in and tell me she had a destiny of her own beyond the Star Forge. Or maybe it was just my human senses that told me she wasn't a little girl anymore. I balked, because I had come to think of her as my own. She is one of my own, and will always be. "What's next?" she asked me. It wasn't the question of a kid.
"I'm betting somebody's gonna want to know why we've all been rolling around in the jungle," I said in a resigned voice. "In excruciatingly thorough detail." I rubbed my temples. "All right, who here can walk?"
We were saved from having to attempt to levitate each other back to the settlement by the arrival in the temple of several Republic soldiers. We hitched a ride with them on their troop transport, sitting on the floor, our feet dangling over the edge of the transport's open back. I wrapped one hand in the webbing of straps along the edge of the floor, and the other around Carth's waist. I leaned heavily to the right, my left side a throbbing, painful testament to the ahem, pitfalls, of being a woman--a Jedi--in love.
The transport lifted from the ground on thick, ponderous repulsor jets. We rose above the trees and he groaned when the vehicle jolted from VTOL to forward motion. "I feel like hell," he said.
"I thought--" my voice broke and sudden tears thickened in my throat. "I thought I lost you." I buried my face in the back of his armor and bit back silent sobs. I'm a Jedi, I'm not supposed to fear loss. If I kept turning into the Naboo Waterfall Festival every time Carth got a hangnail, I didn't deserve to be the savior of the galaxy.
But this was different. I feared the worst on the Leviathan, feared it just as much when I believed my own dark side leaked out to pollute the people I cared about. But those, I could battle--I could fight Saul Karath, I could weasel or bluff our way out of trouble, I could contain the dark streak that ran through me.
I could not stand with him when the duel took place in his own mind.
I sniffed into his armor. The scent of dried blood, mud, and jungle rot was pungent, and I will forever associate it with death. He put his free arm around me and shifted to face me. "Hey," he said softly. "It was you who found me."
I sniffed again. "We keep saving each other like this, maybe they'll let us share a padded cell at the looney bin."
He laughed, then grimaced. "Ow." He unwrapped his arm from my shoulders and put his hand over his sternum.
I remembered being on top of the Rakata temple with him. I unfastened the catches on his armor and pushed it aside. The tattoo stood out in stark relief against his pale skin, the red drops of inked blood lurid. "One for Morgana, one for Dustil, and one for you," I said softly, looking up into his eyes. They gleamed back, the rich, deep color of Corellian brandy in a smoky cantina. I wouldn't mind either right now. I reached up and traced the ink with my finger. He put his hand over mine. "It was a dark time," he said. "I was in a dark place."
I licked my cracked lips. "I know," I said. "I saw."
He looked away. "Remember when I told you I noticed you giving into your baser instincts?"
I nodded. "Tatooine," I said. "After I killed Calo Nord." I remembered the intoxicating satisfaction of seeing that rat-bastard's face go pale when my lightsaber flickered to life. Canderous and I had far too good of a time pasting the little monkey-lizard and his goons. Looking back, I might be able to blame it on the Star Map, behind us in the Krayt Dragon cave, its dark powers rolling over us, but I knew that wasn't all of it. Calo Nord scared me badly on Taris, and seeing him rise from that graveyard to pursue me halfway across the galaxy--for free, if he was to be believed, made me want to show him what fear felt like. "You said you'd been down that road."
He nodded. "I gave up all my hope." Shadows darkened his eyes. "I was worse than suicidal," he said. "I wanted to take as many of those bastards down with me."
"I thought The Unforgiven were an urban legend--a soldier's story."
"Believe me," he said harshly, "you have to be in a damn low place to find out they're not."
I could sense him closing away from me again, wrapping up the layers of his soul like moonflowers closing their petals just before dawn. I burrowed under his armor and put my cheek against his skin. I knew what it was like to suddenly wake up to realize you were living in a nightmare. But at least I had the quest for the Star Forge, and Bastila's rescue, to keep me from falling into the pit. And I had friends.
If I could have called on the Force and let it flow through me into him, to heal the scars on his soul like I could heal the wounds on his body, I would have. But that's something we both know--there's no speeding up the healing of hurts on the heart. "Carth?" I said, my voice thick.
He looked down at me, his eyes remote and depthless. Remember Rakata, I thought. "I love you," I said. "All of you."
He rested his forehead on mine for a long moment. I felt as connected to him as I did to Bastila right then.
I looked across to where she sat next to Canderous. Her eyes were closed and I could feel her attempting to meditate, but her thoughts through the bond were thready and weak. His expression was stony, but he watched her closely. The transport hit an air pocket and we jolted. Canderous's arm shot around her waist and he dragged her against him. I raised my eyebrows.
He glared at me. "What?" he muttered.
"Me?" I said. "Nothing. Nothing at all." Suddenly, I felt like laughing again. I buried my face in Carth's sticky armor and dissolved into giggles. Each one sent a lance of pain into my side, courtesy of a few broken ribs, but I laughed anyway. We still walked among the living, or at least did a really good impression of it.
Juhani sat between Mission and Dustil. Her ears twitched. "Once again, we have cheated death as a group," she said.
"We make a pretty good team," Jolee said. I felt a warm flush of happy go through me.
"He's not on any team of mine," Mission said sullenly, glaring at Dustil. I felt a sudden stab of sympathy for her. Dustil turned away from her to look at the soldiers and I saw the Sith tattoos on his back. I wondered where my own Sith tattoos were. I surely must have had them--Malak's bald head was covered with them, and I remember from the academy at Korriban how important they are in Sith culture. I made a mental note to ask Bastila about it when I got the chance. The fact that I'd have the chance at all put me in such a good mood that I didn't even mind when we hit another pocket of turbulence and pain shot through my backside. My shoulders shook at the irony of it. The Council, indirectly as it may seem, did get to tear me a new one, after all.
The transport landed in the vehicle depot of the Republic base just outside the settlement. We were greeted by the Base Commander and the Jedi Council. The august presences all looked unruffled, well-kept, and most significantly, clean. A real, live, professional doctor and her staff emerged from a triage tent to the side of the transport hangar and began unloading wounded. My rear end gave a painful throb at the thought of kolto. But I didn't relish the thought of having the Jedi masters witness firsthand the humiliating consequences of my disregard of the code. Knowing Master Vrook, I would be ordered to display the mortifying evidence to auditoria full of snickering apprentices.
The august presence himself stepped forward. Against all my will, a blush heated my cheeks. I looked to my right and Bastila met my eyes. She, too, looked slightly scandalized, but thankfully, she seemed to have lost the apathy she'd worn when we first went before the Council--had it only been this morning? By the elements, no wonder I was exhausted. Again, hysterical laughter bubbled into my throat. I offered Master Vrook a sketchy bow. "Ebon Hawk Janitorial, at your service."
A medic approached me. "This way, please," she said, dragging me away from Vrook and my team members. The triage tent was set up in many curtained-off cubicles, and she put me in an empty one. I stood while she performed some diagnostics, and then she came to my wound. "That's a nasty one, in a nasty place." She patted the triage table. "Lie down and let me have a look-see."
I obeyed, stiffly shucking my trousers. "I think I've got some broken ribs, too." I lay facedown on the cot and pillowed my head in my arms. I could fall asleep right here if my ass didn't hurt so bad.
"You're a Jedi, aren't you," she said. The unspoken part of her question was, "why didn't you heal yourself, you nitwit?"
"Just clean it and put a kolto patch on it," I said tiredly.
The curtain swung back, and the medic snapped, "Occupied."
"I'm here to see the occupant." I groaned silently. Master Vrook's voice brooked no argument. "Well," he said. "It appears the Order's faith in you was once again accurate," he said somewhat sullenly.
I really can't stand his attitude about me. He doesn't like me, and I'm not crazy about him. All the more reason to be brutally honest with him. "No," I said. "I didn't really do much of anything. And in fact, I'm sure you'll be overjoyed to hear that I was brash, and impulsive, and I went off half-cocked. I acted like a galaxy-class jackass, and I paid the price." I looked at my trousers, crumpled on the floor. The soft, bantha-suede garment was the most comfortable I'd ever owned. That I could remember. Darth Revan's robes might have been glittersilk and star-satin, for all I knew. But I bet they didn't have really useful pockets like my banthapants did. The medic jabbed me with an anesthetic and I winced. "I got a big hole in my favorite pair of trousers, and one to match in my butt. I won't be able to sit down for a week." I looked up at him. "Feel free to gloat, before the painkillers take effect. But before you do, I want you to know that Bastila was the catalyst for fixing your little jungle problem."
"Child," he said reproachfully, "it was never my wish to see you brought low. It was my fear."
The medic applied a kolto patch to my now-blessedly-numb rear end. "There you go. Are you sure you don't want a re-stitcher on it?"
I looked at Master Vrook. "I'm sure," I said. "It's meant to be a reminder about--foolish choices."
I thought I saw the ghost of a smile around his lips.
"I'll leave you for now," the medic said. "Someone will be in to bind your ribs shortly."
She slipped out between the panels of the sterile-smelling plastimesh curtains, leaving me in relative privacy with Master Vrook, who looked at me through narrowed eyes. "I sense a further change in you."
"Besides the puncture wound to my pride?" I smiled wryly.
"You still have much to learn," he said. "But you have earned the right to be called Jedi Knight."
"No, I haven't." I can't believe I'm saying this. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. "Master Vrook, being a Jedi has brought meaning and purpose to my life in a way I never knew I needed so badly. I feel so much--at home, I guess, in the Force, that I can't imagine life without that awareness anymore." I rested my chin on my hands. "But I can't live within the Order's restrictions. I'm tempted to try to stay, and find some way to change from within. I--I don't know for sure, but I think the first time around, I felt the same way, and that sort of didn't work out."
He sat down in the chair vacated by the medic. "The Order has very good reason for its tenets and strictures."
"I know," I said. "I don't agree with some of them, but I--I understand." The path opened up before me, and for the first time, the fact that it diverged from that of the Order filled me with sadness. They annoyed me, manipulated me, betrayed me, and meddled in my life far too much, but they also saved my life, brought the human back out of the monster, and gave me a second chance to live my life and make better choices this time around. I couldn't say if I'd ever be able to come to terms with all they had done.
"Understanding leads to wisdom, Padawan."
Wiser always seems to come hand in hand with sadder. "Yeah, yeah. Funny thing is, though, I didn't gain my real understanding by learning lessons in the enclave on Dantooine. It took a stick stuck in my butt to, uh--"
"Drive the point home?" He asked.
I laughed, even though my ribs reminded me they still hadn't been treated. "Like a lightsaber, with the wit."
"The actions of you and your companions have given the Council much to consider over the days since the Battle for the Star Forge." He shifted in the chair and I sensed a sudden hesitation from him. "Bastila has spoken to us about the events in the temple."
"Really?" I tested the bond between us, but within the link, all was serene. I no longer worried so much about her--as I learned when trapped in the Force, she can take care of herself. Like me, she's learning the value of anchors, but unlike me, she doesn't have the instinctive knowledge about how to bond with people. If there was anything I wanted, it was for her to learn the difference between rote and experience, and to trust her own instincts.
"I sense much change in her, as well, though the implications have yet to manifest themselves," he said.
I wrinkled my nose. "That sounds like you know something, Master Vrook." What did he see in the ebb and flow of the currents of Force that surrounded us?
"The Force gives us glimpses of potentials and possibilities. We are not fortune-tellers. But the wars with the Mandalorians and the Sith--perhaps even stretching back to Exar Kun--well, suffice it to say that perhaps the Order has been a bit more--reactive in our policies than we should have been, especially with Padawans like Bastila."
I blinked my eyes at him. "Master Vrook, are you saying I might have been right about something?"
"I wouldn't presume," he said. "Merely that the opinions of others outside the Council are being considered."
I began to feel hope. "That's good to know," I said. "But it doesn't much change my situation. I can't give up my feelings, when they've led me down the right path so many times." I thought about Master Nayal, Dustil's "passenger," and his remarks about literalism and interpretation. "And my gut tells me I shouldn't. But a Jedi cannot know love, or attachment, can they?"
He looked at me sadly, and shook his head. "The emotions of which you speak are dangerous waters in which to tread with Force powers at your command."
I nodded. I wondered if he'd ever been in love, or cared about someone beyond casual compassion. How do you walk away from that? And more importantly, why would you? Probably the wisest thing Jolee's ever said to me was, "Love can set you free." That, and, "I did it all for the Wookiees."
"It's a sad fact that our numbers have dwindled. Between the Jedi lost to the dark side and those lost to the war, we have lost too many," he said solemnly. "No one regrets that more than I." This was a very different Vrook than I was used to.
I tensed. Shifting uncomfortably, I turned on my side to get a better look at him. "What, exactly, are you saying?"
"There comes a time when a Jedi must be tested outside the safety and the confines of established boundaries. When safety becomes a weakness. To be a Jedi means many things. There are an endless number of ways to serve the Force."
"I can't argue with you there," I said. My breath came short--my sideways position dug sharp pains into my lungs every time I attempted a deep breath. "In spite of all you've done to me, I have to thank you for all that you've done for me." Now the decision was made, I felt at peace. Nobody ever said doing the right thing wouldn't hurt.
"I'm glad we understand each other," he said. "Now--" he held out a hand and I felt the Force pour through me, mending my ribs. "I'll leave your other wound alone, as you wished it. But you'll need to be in better shape for tonight."
"Why, what's tonight?" I asked. "Has the galaxy spawned another Sith Lord already?"
"Worse," he said darkly. "Your activities drew the attention of the planetary governor, Ch'uul Bethra. You and your companions have been invited to stay with the governor as his guests in his compound."
My stomach dropped out of my newly-healed ribcage. I knew what was coming and I feared it. "You want us to go to another party, don't you?" Did he not realize that too many parties right after the Star Forge had been a contributing factor in my unhinged flight to Rakata?
"If the governor knows you're here, then the media does, as well. You can feel free to refuse the governor's offer and have no buffer between yourself and the reporters who are even now gathered outside the garrison's main gate, waiting for a glimpse of the Heroes of the Star Forge. Or you can allow the governor and his entourage to escort you back to his secure compound, where you can meet the press on your own terms."
I groaned. "Very neatly done, Master Vrook. Very neatly done." I didn't bother wondering if the awareness of our activities had been helped along by someone in the enclave. They might be out-of-touch old men, but they were very canny, out-of-touch old men.
"The Force works in mysterious ways, Padawan."
"Mysterious and sneaky ways," I said to his retreating back.
* * *
