It would be a full year before either saw each other again. When they did, it was in some ways exactly what Kara had feared and expected. In other ways, Lena shocked her to her core. Either way, it was the confrontation they had both been waiting for. Kara had known the day would come when she would have to face her former student head-on but doing so was a great deal more challenging than she had anticipated.

Feeling the distinct, abrasive sensation of the gravely Earth beneath her grinding into her shoulders where her tunic didn't cover, Kara found her fingertips just barely touching the cold metal of her lightsaber, a butterfly landing on a flower petal.

When the former padawan's lips crashed against her own, however, Kara felt her hand clench into a fist. But this wasn't a clench of anger. No; it was all the muscles in her body rebelling against the overwhelming wave of emotion she had so expertly been controlling over the years. Released all at once, in a moment of uncontrollable ecstasy, the pent-up reservoir of energy broke like a dam and made her body tremble as Lena's fingertips pressed into her hips.

In her mind, Kara heard herself say Lena's name, but to her horror, no sound filled the air. Instead, an intense basin of energy vibrated between them, binding the women as one in the Force. Body nearly lifting off the ground, the blonde's hands unclenched before immediately contracting again, this time with her nails digging deeply into the Earth. It was then that Kara felt, for the very first time, the Force compelling her towards a chasm of darkness. The pull was intoxicating, like the finest wine, and it was impossible to ignore. As such, Kara found herself suddenly breathless.

"We're a dyad," Lena whispered, after finally demonstrating a reluctant but controlled willingness to break the kiss. "You need me. You need my darkness."

Finding the air within her lungs stuck fast in her chest, Kara felt her face grow warm with the intensity of her emotion as she watched Lena's eyes bore into her soul.

"Tell me, Kara. Can you taste it? Can you taste the Force within you, pulling you to me? Pulling you to greatness?"

Mouth dry and stuck closed, the Jedi's power and ability to respond waned like the moon. Never having felt a blend of terror and exhilaration like this before, Kara's heartbeat echoed in her ears, a humming drum, reminiscent of the song of her lightsaber.

"Can you?" Lena repeated.

The Jedi thought about lying, despite her moral code against it. She couldn't let Lena win. She couldn't let the Darkness win.

And yet…

"Yes," Kara breathed, sure that she could feel each and every particle of Earth slipping beneath her fingers as she gave in to the magnet that was her former student, Lena Luthor.

"Then give in."

"No!" Kara screamed reflexively, finally finding a burst of rebellion rising within her.

"Give in," Lena seethed, pushing down hard on Kara's shoulders as the woman opened her palms and attempting to use the Force to call her lightsaber into her hand.

"I can't," Kara protested defiantly.

Lena had grown strong beyond measure. Her teacher couldn't deny this, as the woman's use of the Force stopped the blonde's own power from achieving its objective.

"You know I can take what I want," Lena mused, tone suddenly level and calm.

"Lena—" Kara tried, her heartbeat increasing as she realized what the woman was suggesting.

"Give in, Master," Lena ordered, nearly spitting the last word, hate filling her voice.

"You don't have to do this!"

Laughing bitterly, the Sith sat up, still straddling the Jedi's hips, leaving her hands on the woman's shoulders to hold her still.

"You made me this way," Lena cackled. "The darkness in me… it rises now, like an unstoppable ocean tide, and I am beyond 'saving.' You saw darkness in me and tried to destroy it. Don't you see? You lost hope in me. I hadn't turned. Inside, I was begging for help. Begging you to pull me back, away from the Dark Side. But you never did. You lost faith in me and surrendered me to my fate. And now? Now, I embrace it. I embrace who I was meant to be. I see now that your way – the way of the Jedi – is folly. It is meant to subdue the power of the Force, not to control it. But my power – the Force between all things that puts fire in my veins – it drives me forward." Then, after a pause, Lena finished with, "Alone."

Taking it all in, Kara found herself barely able to breathe. When she finally did draw breath, she forced herself to speak with conviction.

"You are not alone."

In the briefest flash of revelation, Kara saw what she barely could have imagined: the possibility of change. And moreover… hope.

Desperately trying to capture this, Kara repeated, "You're not alone, Lena."

But the moment was gone as quickly as it came.

"I will always be alone," Lena told her former master, the woman who had taught her all she knew, besides her own cruelty. "Unless…"

This time, it was the Jedi's eyes that flickered with hope.

"Unless?"

"Unless you join me."

In that moment, when Kara looked into Lena's eyes, she saw only darkness, a black chasm, accented with a flame of drive and ambition that scared Kara more than Lena's powers.

Before Kara could speak – she seemed to be frozen with disbelief – Lena dismounted her teacher, rose to her feet, and extended her hand.

Without much thought, and without unlocking their joined gazes, Kara's fingers twitched, releasing the Earth she'd clenched so tightly in her fists. Before she knew what was happening, she raised her hand and slowly started to reach for Lena. As soon as the Sith saw this, a tiny smirk tugged the corners of her lips, a ray of excitement and anticipation breaking through.

But Kara snapped back into the moment and out of Lena's undeniable magnetism just in time to slap her hand to her side as she lifted herself off the ground.

"Never," she asserted, regaining her composure as she centered herself into a place of deep peace, her hand sliding smoothly over the hilt of her lightsaber. "This ends now."

"Very well," Lena sighed. "I'd truly hoped you wouldn't make this mistake. That you'd see what we could do together. What we could be…"

Lena's words had a pull on Kara that was unimaginable, but the Force ran strong in her veins, and her determination to resist the Dark kept her centered and calm.

She extended the blade, its whirring hum filling the space between them.

"You don't have to do this," Kara repeated sadly, her eyes glistening with tears that caused the Sith to be taken back. "Let me help you. We can take down the Emperor together. We can do make things right. We can restore balance through the Force."

"You already failed me!" Lena screamed, anger rising within her as she extended the blade of her own darksaber. "It's too late!"

"It's never too late," the Jedi asserted.

"You're wrong," the brunette hissed, lunging forward, blade extended, coming down like a heavy mallet, shocking Kara, who had tried to dodge but was a millimeter out of place. Lena's blade cut a deep gash in Kara's arm, but the Jedi remained firm in her stance, without crying out.

"Lena!" Kara cried firmly, the blade of her lightsaber crashing against Lena's with a loud buzz. "Listen to me."

"Listen to you what?" Lena growled, knocking Kara to the ground and hovering over her with the tip of her lightsaber pointed directly at her teacher's throat. "Listen to you beg?"

"No," the blonde said stoically. "Listen to me apologize."

"What?" the Sith asked dumbly, nearly dropping her saber.

"I'm sorry, Lena. I failed you as your teacher." Lena stared in disbelief, so Kara continued, "And I failed you as your friend."

"Shut up," Lena said flatly, under her breath. "Don't speak."

"This ends now," Kara repeated. "No matter how you proceed, there will be balance in the force. Strike me down and another will rise."

"But you will be gone," the brunette growled, dropping her hood.

The angry scar trailing from the middle of Lena's eyebrow, down to her jaw, seemed to glow in that moment, and Kara found herself disturbed by the woman's conviction to align with the Dark Side.

"Is that what you really want, Lena?" Kara whispered softly.

Pausing briefly, the Sith's demeanor changed as she answered, "Perhaps not. Perhaps you need me, Kara. Perhaps I am your balance, and the pull of the Dark Side is what you need to thrive."

A vibration as unsteady as her blade coursed through Lena's body at the sight of genuine sorrow in her teacher's eyes.

"I know how strong the Force is within you," the blonde told her. "Stronger than within myself. But I also know the Light calls to you."

"Well, if it does, I can't hear it."

"Listen, Lena. Close your eyes and listen."

Darkness fell before Lena's eyes as an image of she and her former master appeared in her mind…