Author's note: This takes place in the same timeline as my "Redemption" story, although as they really don't interact much, it doesn't really matter much. This does not take place in the same timeline as "Two Tarisian Ales", much to the disappointment to all two of my fans, as that is clearly the better story.

Additionally, this was written in response to first Dueling Circle challenge.

Please review. I'm very self-conscious.

I'm so screwed.

There was nothing else to it. His opponent's twirling blades kept coming, kept finding their marks, kept putting him on the defensive. Every feint ignored, every stab knocked away, every move of preternatural acrobatics just staved off defeat for a few seconds more.

He was outmatched. That saber-staff would hit him sooner or later, and unless something extraordinary happened it would be very soon indeed.

So he thought back to the training. He looked at every aspect of… her teachings in a hope that something might come of it. And, what the hell, something did.

It wasn't the something he was looking for, of course. What he found mostly amounted to notions of running, but he found the idea he needed, just not where he expected.

A simple move: find a wall, and push off of it right at your adversary, and hope that they blink before you do.

And so he did. He kept dodging, weaving, jumping, flipping, parrying, and stepping backwards, to the cargo bay door.

Back-flip, plant the feet, and push.

And throw yourself at the hard steel deck while she moves to the left, swinging both of her blades through you as you pass.

"Ow."

She sighed. He hated that sigh. "You have improved, Atton, but all of your acrobatic abilities can't make up for a lack of offensive ability."

"Hey, didn't you tell me that a good defense always beats a good offense?"

"I expected you to understand that both were necessary. You've only, pardon the cliché, delayed the inevitable."

"You know what, princess? You can just bite me. Ya hear that? Bite me! I'm sick and tired of your insults!"

"Very well. Feel free to find another Jedi Master to annoy. I'm sure that Master Bindo is ready for someone to train."

Atton just stared at her. There was nothing else to do.

"Don't even joke about that."

"Who said I was? Jolee remains, even at his old age, one of the most talented Jedi alive."

"Yeah, and maybe if all of the other ones weren't dead or missing, that might impress me a bit."

"It's either myself or Master Bindo. I apologize if the loss of some of the greatest of our order, as well as a number of my friends, is an inconvenience to you."

If there's one thing I hate more than her guilt trips, it's when they work. "Alright, fine. Now then, master, I think I'll go get some meds for what's left of my shoulder."

"Please refrain from drinking too much. I've gotten a bit tired of dragging you to your room every night."

"Damn Jedi," Atton muttered, storming out of the Ebon Hawk's cargo bay. "I don't even know why we train here…"

"Damn Jedi"? Something's not right…

It wasn't like he was hard to find. She knew exactly where he would be, since on more than one occasion Bastila had to drag his drunken form back to his quarters. It was more that she just didn't know what to do.

I must talk to him. There seem to be a great many things he has yet to reveal, and should any of his history be as dark as I fear it is, than he may become a danger to all around him.

And still she sat.

I wish Kyle were here. He would know what to do. He always knew how to make the others open up. If he could get Carth, Canderous, and even Jolee to open up, then he'd have no trouble getting Atton to tell his story. But I must do it in his stead.

And still she sat.

Damn it, I am a Jedi! I am strong, fearless, and more than capable of discussing the past of a man with the maturity of an infant! I can do this!

And still she sat.

And she would probably never get up, if it weren't for Atton himself. "Ya know, if you want to talk to me, then just get over here and talk. No point in just staring at the back of my head for the entire night."

And finally she stood up. "My apologies, Atton, but at least it seems that your awareness of your surroundings has improved recently."

"Cut to the chase, master. I don't exactly feel like small talk right now."

"Of course not. It occurred to me that you've never told me much about your past. For all I know, you were a male prostitute since birth living on Nar Shaddaa."

The spray of Juma Juice arced perfectly, straight onto the tunic of the Twi'leki waitress who had the unfortunate luck of being directly across from Atton upon the utterance of the words "male prostitute."

"Wow. For such a prim and proper Jedi, you certainly have a strange mind."

"You can blame Kyle for that. I fear sometimes that he's rubbed off on me in far too many ways."

"Yeah, yeah, the almighty Revan."

"The point is that I don't know enough about why you want to become a Jedi. To be perfectly honest, I don't understand why you wish to follow this path."

"Hey, you know why. I loved Kyri, back before she went all bleached-skin. It was the old Jedi Council that did that to her. How did they expect her to stay goodie-goodie after they exile her for actually coming back and accepting what she did? They gave Revan a better deal than that, and he did things she never even came close to his crimes!"

Slam. "Kyle's redemption is not why we are talking!"

The anger in her tone threw all involved off guard. While it is well documented that love can be the fatal flaw of a Jedi, the degree upon which it affected her wasn't quite so well known.

Bastila looked down, seeing a dent in the steel table, likely corresponding to her fist, sitting within it. "My apologies. Nevertheless, we are here to talk about your past, not mine or Kyle's or the Exile's or anyone else's."

"And why do you need to know? Why should my motivations matter if all you're going to teach me is to not jump off walls?"

"I admit I may not be the best trainer for your skills, but I cannot properly train you if I cannot understand you."

"Yeah, well tough luck, princess, cause I ain't telling."

"Please stop calling me that. I can't imagine why you would imitate Canderous, of all people."

"Hey, the title fits."

"Look, I need to know. I'm hearing many different things from you, most notably the sentiment you shared while leaving the Hawk today."

"So I don't like Jedi. Or at least the Jedi that practically ran the order into the ground. So what? Is it a crime now?"

"And how am I to train you when I fear that your hatred will lead you down the Dark Side?"

"Because I won't go that way. I saw what it did to Kyri."

"Not good enough."

"Oh, so you're gonna play hardball now? No getting beaten day after day by a stuck-up little schutta unless I tell you my life story?"

"Precisely. No training in either the ways of lightsabers or the ways of the Force. Or perhaps I could talk with Master Bindo about this as well. While I am not strong enough to reach into your mind, I doubt that he will encounter such difficulties."

"Hey, now that's a step to far. No way is that senile old fool going into my mind!"

"I'd welcome you to try and stop him. What he lacks in physical capabilities he more than makes up for in the Force."

She had him. She knew it, he knew it, and the Twi'lek waitress with the new shirt knew it. There was no way that he was going to be able to leave the cantina without telling about his past.

"…fine. So, where should I start, Oh Ever-Curious Princess?"

"Enough with the sarcasm, it doesn't become you. And the beginning would be nice, although I doubt that you will start there."

"Yeah, well, if I knew what the beginning was, that might make things a bit easier. But I'll begin where I always have, when the Mandalorians invaded."

And he told his story: his decision to join the army, Malachor V, and the turning of many Jedi during the Civil War. Her ale and his juice were drained and filled and drained again, over and over for more times than either could remember. And she sat there, taking it all in, comparing it to the Atton that she now knew.

"So, any questions?"

"Well, for starters, I can't say I'm supportive of your actions as part of the Sith, but I suppose I can't really lecture you about that too much."

"Damn straight."

"And I suppose you learned that little maneuver that worked so well earlier from the Sith?"

"Yeah, saw some Dark Jedi practice way back when, but they recommend actually hitting your target."

"Nevertheless, you are still hiding something, and I feel that it is the something that may be the key to why you wish to become a Jedi."

"What, the whole 'redeeming past sins' thing didn't do anything for ya?"

"Sadly, no. That doesn't exactly fit with my impression of you. Why did you leave the Sith?"

"Hey, I suppose I can't really get out of telling you, huh?"

"Not at all. Relax, you have nothing to fear from me. I have done far worse than anything you could imagine, let alone anything you've done."

"No, you really haven't. You want to know why I left the Sith? Fine." He took a very long, large drink from his glass. "Just like every other salvation recently, it was a girl who did it. Well, more like woman. She came to me, sought me out, which is what really surprised me. It was like she knew who I was even before she had actually seen me."

"What did she do?"

"She gave me the speech. About how the Dark Side is evil, the Jedi and the Republic must prevail, etcetera etcetera. You know, what a Jedi always tells a Sith before they start fighting."

"It's hardly that simple. We give our adversaries a chance to avoid conflict."

"And has it ever worked?"

"Admittedly, it tends to fail far more often than it succeeds. However, I would not be alive right now if no one ever tried, and that is reason enough for me."

"Good point. Anyway, after that she told me the truth."

"The truth?"

"That I was Force sensitive. That my weird mental shields were a manest- manifes-"

She sighed. "Manifestation."

"Yeah, that, manifestation of the Force. Hey, honey, mind getting me another?"

That same Twi'lek girl, who had been hovering near the table if only to stay within earshot, seemed almost disappointed. "Yeah, sure, give me a sec."

"Thanks. Anyway, where was I?"

Another sigh. "She told you were force sensitive. Don't you think you've had enough to drink?"

"Nope. Well, she tells me this, and I turn the knob a bit. Ya know, on the torture thingy. She screams, and yells at me, tells me that once the Sith decide to develop my powers, that I'll become pure evil and all that crap. And then…" He pauses as the fresh glass arrives, just staring into it, for nearly a minute.

"Atton?"

"Yeah, I know, just thinking how much better the world is when you're drunk."

"Atton, please continue."

"Right. Well, she opens my mind to it all, shows me what she sees. Shows me the Force." He takes a long drink, trying to both remember and forget what he saw. "I tell ya, I've never seen anything like it. Since then I've learned to, you know, filter some of it out. But that first time…"

"What did you see?"

"Everything. Life and death, all around me. Its like everything, all around me, was glowing brighter and brighter, practically blinding me. A shimmering panorama of everything. And then I saw Korriban. The darkness. The gaping maw, the eternal abyss, whatever you want to call it. It seemed hungry, of all things."

"Hungry?"

"Yeah, hungry for me. And then she broke it off. It was like flicking off a light. Everything seemed so dark and cold and lonely after that. And then she said 'That is the Force, that is your destiny. Don't turn from it.'"

"And then?"

"And then I killed her. Wrung her neck without a second thought."

First a muffled gasp from the waitress, then the clatter and crash of a fully loaded serving tray falling to the ground. "You… you killed her?"

"Hey, I'm not saying that what I did made perfect sense, even back then. All I knew was that I saw the most wonderful thing I could ever imagine, and she just took it away from me. What would you do?"

"I highly doubt that I would just kill her."

"Yeah, well, that's you, and this is me. I killed her and then I ran. I just knew that I had to get out of the Sith. After what I saw, I couldn't even imagine going red, ya know? I ran and ran and ran some more and before I knew it, I was on Nar Shaddaa and was hiding form a pair of Gammorean thugs. You know the rest, doncha?"

And he drinks. And she drinks. They just drink and sit and drink some more for what feels like hours, even though it was only a few minutes. It would be a perfectly normal scene, until you noticed how neither one could look at the other.

And as she finishes her glass of ale, one last question seems to spring to mind, which may indeed be the last piece of the puzzle that is Atton Rand: "Who was she?"

"You know, that's the funny thing. I can't remember. Don't know why, but as hard as I try, I can't remember her face. Don't think she ever told me her name."

"Of course. We lost so many in the wars, and I know that some of them were merely hiding as I was. We should know the fate of the members of our order."

"I think I loved her. For a second there, I loved her. She showed me so much. And then she took it all away, and then I hated her like… I don't know. Sort of the hate that the Sith Masters teach, the kind that drives the Force, I guess."

"I see." She puts the empty tumbler down, and stands up on legs that seem to be acting completely out of sync with the rest of her body. "I'll see you tomorrow, although I doubt that either of us will be able to think straight for a good while now."

"Yeah, don't expect me to wake up at dawn, whenever that is here."

"Since I will be asleep then myself, I highly doubt that will be a problem."

Tarisian Ale can fell even the best of the Jedi, and given the path Bastila takes, any observer would easily be able to tell that Bastila was not immune to its effects. Soon enough, the waitress comes over to lend a hand in getting her home. And just as quickly, Atton motions for more juice, trying to drown these memories, one glass at a time.

And while he drinks, the Jedi and the Twi'lek walk and talk and do the things old friends do on the way home from a bar.

"So, that's Atton, huh? I gotta say, that's one cheerful fellow."

"Just give me a moment. It is entirely too difficult to use the Force while intoxicated."

"Really? I thought I'd be easier."

"Far from it." Bastila's eyes close, and she focuses inward, on her health, on the toxins that run through her body, on how much of a damn fool she was to have that much to drink in the first place. A minute of this, then two, and then she finally opens her eyes and walks a perfect line. "Much better."

"Damn, you got it lucky. When us mortals get drunk, it takes us all night to recover. Your method is less fun, though."

"Mission, are you even old enough to drink?"

"Hey, I've been telling you this since we met! I ain't no kid! Of course I'm old enough!"

"Of course."

"By the way, you owe me big. Do you have any idea how many of those Gammorean pig-men were grabbing at me in there? And then there were the actual humans!"

"My apologies, but Atton when intoxicated tends to be even more unpredictable than normal. That, and I needed a fresh set of ears, someone with a neutral opinion of him to start with."

"Yeah, well, it ain't neutral anymore. Hey, I have an idea! Let's train a former Sith, torturer and murderer into a Jedi! That's sure to go well!"

"Please, Mission, sarcasm doesn't become you."

"At least you recognize it this time. Well, did you at least find out what you were looking for?"

"Partially. He has seen the Dark Side, and walked away from it."

"Ran is more like it."

"Regardless, he's done it twice. That shows exemplary resolve. I feel I can trust him with the force."

"Okay, you're not telling me something. And its something you don't want me to know. Fine, okay, whatever. I've got a ship to take care of. See ya around."

"Thank you for your help Mission, and feel free to call upon me should you need my help."

Fear.

Bastila knew the feeling all too well. She had felt it within herself, seen it upon everyone around her at the sight of her lightsaber, and felt it pour off her foes when they see her spinning blades. But never from Atton.

And, because of that, she didn't know what she was seeing. He was always so calm in battle, even against some of the worst opponents imaginable. For the first time since she had known him, he was afraid.

To her, it was that old, familiar feeling: Not fear of another, for there was no threat present, not fear of the truth, for he had always known it, not fear of death, for if anything Atton seemed to welcome death.

No, it was fear of the past. It was the fear of when sins committed would rear their ugly head and bring those wrongs into the light for all to see.

A fear that every child knows when looking upon its parents. A fear that Kyle had to deal with for so many years, before finally accepting that the galaxy already knew of those sins and just didn't care anymore. A fear that Atton would just have to learn to deal with, for there was no way to know when or if the ghosts of his past would ever catch up to him.

A fear that Bastila has known all to well, for the ghosts of the Republic Fleet live with her today.

And with that fear center stage in her mind, she does what must be done.

She washes up, brushes her teeth, changes into her pajamas, and goes to sleep, for there truly is nothing else to do.