The Way Home

(Dark Side Redemption)

She lowers her twin lightsabers slowly, their red glow pulsing eerily on the body of the young woman… Bastila… her savior… her nemeses… her friend… now vanquished at her feet. With an audible swish, she extinguishes the blades and looks slowly down at their hilts cradled in her palms. She feels the evil pulsing from the blood red crystals that she had embedded in them and has to choke down the bile rising in her throat. Closing her eyes tightly to try and shut out the call of those darkly evil crystals, she flings the hilts from her and hears them skim across the floor of the metallic room. The sound echoes in the eerily silent room. The silence is cut deeply again by a rough, pain-filled cough.

Miranna whirls at the sounds and mouths his name, though no sound emerges… Carth. She stumbles to him, keeping upright by sheer will alone. She is soaked in sweat and tears of pain when she finally reaches him, although in truth he was no more than a few steps behind her. He was never more than a few steps behind me, she sobs in her mind. She falls to her knees before him and half lifts her hand to touch his face. He sits slumped in front of her, his legs buckled under him. His head and shoulders bowed and his breath coming in short, jerky movements that seem endless moments apart. His hands, still clutching the grips of his blasters, hanging useless at his sides. Taking stock of her own injuries and what little Force she still has in her control, she knows that there is not enough to heal them both or even one of them fully. What have I done?!

Frantically she looks around the room looking for help and sees nothing, until her eyes pass over and then jerk back to the one still glowing chrio-chamber left in the huge room. Oh, the evil of this room… the evil of the ancient Star Forge. What a prize it must have felt like to her former self! She still remembered very little of her life as Revan… the Dark Lord of the Sith. Although since turning once again to the Dark Side, she remembered a bit more. She remembered discovering the Star Forge with her young Jedi apprentice. How he, Malek, had been hesitant at first, fearing the ancient evil that they had both felt. She had laughed at him and reminded him that she had been made a full Jedi younger than anyone in the written history of the academy. She was a prodigy among Jedi. Her command of the Force was stronger than even the oldest of Masters. If anyone could harness the energy of the Star Forge and use it to protect the Republic once and for all, it had been her. Ah, pride. Her greatest sin and her ultimate down fall. She had harnessed the Forge, but in truth the reverse was probably more accurate. For it had turned her and she had, in turn, turned Malek. How many had she doomed with her pride? It had been Bastila, whose command of the Force had almost rivaled her own, who had finally ended her life… and given her this new one. Bastila had kept the spark of Revan's… of her own, she reminds herself… life alive and brought her to the Jedi Council. It was they that had rebuilt her memories, giving her a new life, a false life. Sending Bastila with her into the unknown in the hopes that their connection, forged during her "death", would lead Bastila to the weapon that the Sith, now led by Malek, were using to crush the Republic. What a chance they had taken! But, how could they have foreseen what would happen? How could they have foreseen that keeping Revan's life suspended had not only forged a bond between she and Bastila, but had also infected Bastila with the evil taint of the Dark Side that had ravaged her former self. Oh, Bastila. How sorry I am!

Shaking off the pain in her mind, Miranna reminds herself that there is little time. Bastila's unique gift of Battle Meditation had kept the Republic Fleet from being able to get close enough to the Star Forge to do any damage, but with her death, they would soon break through and bombard the Forge. She had to get Carth to the Ebon Hawk and away before then. She needed more power. It would be the only way to save him… this beautiful man who had never given up on her. Not after the revelation of her former self, even though, indirectly, it was the actions of Revan… herself… that took his beloved family from him. Not even after she had joined with Bastila in order to kill Malek. She looked again at the glowing chamber, nestled amongst all it's now dark brothers. In this chamber, suspended between life and death, was a Jedi, captured at the fall of the Jedi Academy weeks before. Malek, with the help of the ancient evil that lay within the Star Forge, had devised a way to suck the Force from these living corpses to fuel himself with endless power. The thought of such evil, even in her current state, made her shiver. But, she reasoned with herself, I only need the one. I only need enough Force to save Carth. The end justifies the means… surely?! The glowing chamber seemed to call to her as she slowly raises her hand.

"Miranna… no," Carth moans softly.

Miranna jerks as if struck. Her hand falls abruptly to her side, her breath coming in great gulps. Trembling, she raises her eyes to Carth and sees the faint line of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth and the fear and pain in his soul-baring brown eyes. He's dying, her mind screams. Take it. Take the Force. Her head whips back to the glowing chamber, but before she can raise her hand, it is suddenly trapped by Carth's once strong one… now trembling heavily.

"Please… no," he repeats. "We… know where that leads and…" a spasm of coughing hits Carth and shakes his body. The blood from his mouth now a river. "I am not… not strong enough… to pull you back."

She has to lean in towards him to catch his final words. Yes, we know where that path leads, my love. She had only joined with Bastila, embracing the Dark Side, in order to beat Malek. She had not been strong enough alone to do it and she refused to risk the lives of her friends… the life of her love. She would join with Bastila, just this once, and then she would turn from the Dark Side and, hopefully, be able to bring Bastila back from that hell with her. Pride, again, had been her down fall. She had not been strong enough to turn away and it had been Carth who had paid dearly for her mistake. He had come to her just after she and Bastila had defeated Malek… just after she had agreed to join with Bastila to defeat the Republic Fleet. She remembered his words, spoken with such love and patience… I love you; even now… I love you like I haven't loved anyone or anything since my wife died and I didn't even think that was possible…I believe that there is still some part of you that I can reach… There is a part of you that believes in hope and mercy and love and that part knows that it will soon be gone forever… He had saved her, turned her and she would not be able to save him now.

Beaten, she raises both of her hands to cradle his face and closing her eyes, uses what remains of her Force to heal some of his wounds. When she has finished, her eyes open and dart down to the blood by his mouth. She gently rubs the blood from his skin. She is surprised when he raises his hands to her face as well. His hands are steadier and she closes her eyes in relief.

Carth pulls Miranna's face gently to his own and kisses her softly.

"We have to get away. I have to get you back to the Hawk," Miranna says, starting to stand and trying to drag Carth up as well.

He groans softly and his eyes close. When they open, she sees the truth in his eyes and sinks back to kneel in front of him.

"There is no time now… and nowhere else I'd rather be," Carth adds as he wipes the tears from her cheeks that she hadn't been aware that she had cried. "This is all that we could've ever hoped for, beautiful. They… the Jedi Council… the Senators… they would have never let us be."

She starts to protest, but he silences her with a soft touch of his fingers to her lips.

"No. You know that I am right. Even if you hadn't made this deal with Bastila… even if you had somehow been able to defeat Malek alone… they would have torn us apart… and I… I couldn't have lived without you." With a gentle hand under her chin, he raises her eyes to his own and kisses her again, softly. "I… I love you. You know that, right?"

"Oh… Carth! What have I done?"

"You fulfilled your destiny, Miranna. As did I. It was my destiny to love you."

"And I you," she all but sobs, falling into him.

"Then stay with me here, my love," he whispers against her trembling lips. He kisses her then… pouring the love of a lifetime that would never be… could never have been… into this one single kiss. Breaking the kiss, looking one last time into her crystal blue eyes, he smiles slightly and gathers her into his arms, cradling her face against his chest. "Let me hold you in my arms and feel your heart beat with mine. There is nothing else… just your heart and mine. There isn't much time. It should be over soon. We're almost home."

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A dying man holds a broken woman as, in a shower of sparks, the Star Forge is destroyed and the Light triumphs once again over the Dark.