A/N: Yes, there will be an Epilogue as usual. I'll try and post it within a few days, but it may take longer as I'm revising for exams at the moment.

Part 4

When Revan woke the next morning to see daylight streaming in through the windows, it took him a few moments to work out where he was. He had spent so much time on starships over the past few months that it seemed almost strange to be sleeping on firm ground again, lacking the faint, ever-present sensation of movement and the distant hum of the engines in his ears.

He sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and looked around the small room which the Jedi had assigned to him the previous evening. It was much like the rooms at the Academy on Dantooine: comfortable enough, if not exactly luxurious. The bare walls and simple furnishings lent it the slightly clinical air of a hospital room; if he was to be his home base, he decided, he would have to see about brightening it up a bit.

He swung himself off the bed and walked over to open the door, wondering if any of his friends were around. But the only person in the corridor outside was HK-47, who stood with his back to the door in a defensive posture. "Hello, HK," he said in surprise. "I thought the Jedi took you to have your memory analysed?"

"Response: Indeed they did, Master," replied the droid, with a hint of reproach. "But I persuaded them that I should be returned to you as soon as possible. I am your property, after all."

Revan wondered exactly how he had persuaded them of this. "You didn't kill anyone, did you?" he asked, only half-jokingly. You could never be quite sure with HK.

"Reassurance: Indeed not, master. Much as I would have liked to, I am bound by your orders." There was an ill-disguised tone of dissatisfaction in the droid's voice. "Question: May I enquire as to your programme of activities for the day?"

Revan looked at him in amusement. "Are you my secretary now, HK?"

"Response: It was only a simple question, master. I merely wished to know if there is likely to be any gruesome violence involved."

The Jedi cupped his chin in his hand and thought. "Hmm, let's see... Morning, meeting with the Jedi Council to find out whether they're going to kick me out of the Order. Afternoon... well, I'm not sure yet, but probably no violence. But if anything comes up," he added quickly, "you'll be the first to know."

"Resignation: Very well, master." HK's tone expressed mild disappointment, but no surprise. "In that case I will enter sleep mode until you have further need of me."

Having stashed HK safely in a corner, Revan dressed himself quickly and sat down on the bed to await his summons to the Council. As he expected, it was not long before he heard a sharp rap on the door. On opening it he was surprised to see a very familiar face: an attractive Twi'lek woman in her late thirties, her lilac skin covered with the distinctive tattoos favoured by the Sith. "Yuthura?" he asked, momentarily disorientated.

"Jacob." She corrected herself hastily. "Revan, I mean. I've been sent to bring you to the Council chamber."

He noticed that she now wore Jedi robes. "Are you studying here now?" he asked.

"Yes, I've taken up my studies again under my old Master. He cried when he saw me." A shadow of discomfort passed across her face. "It hasn't been easy to adjust, but I am glad I chose this path. I feel far more at peace here than I ever did with the Sith."

"I'm glad to hear it." Revan couldn't help feeling slightly uncomfortable in her presence. Of the many things he regretted about his recent behaviour, flirting with Yuthura Ban on Korriban came pretty near the top of the list. True, he had only done it in order to gain her confidence, but he couldn't help feeling somewhat guilty – especially now that he knew what Bastila had been going through at the time.

They said little to each other as Yuthura led him through the Temple. Finally, as they stepped out of the elevator outside the Council chamber, she turned to him and gave him a quick smile. "They're waiting for you inside," she said in a low voice. "I have to go now, anyway. Thank you for everything you've done for me."

The doors closed behind him before he had the chance to respond. Shrugging, he turned away and walked down the hall to the entrance of the chamber; no one was there to greet him. He wondered for a moment if he should knock, decided against it, and instead pressed the door release panel to let himself into the room.

The Council chamber was smaller and lighter than he expected. Twelve Jedi of various species sat on a circle of chairs around the edge of the room; amongst them he recognised Vrook, Vandar, Zhar and Bastila's master Hestra, though Bastila herself was nowhere to be seen. He hesitated for a second, then walked into the centre of the room and bowed to Vandar, hoping that this was the correct procedure.

"Good morning, Padawan," said the Council chairman briskly. "Let me introduce my fellow members of the High Council. Some of them are known to you already, of course."

Zhar smiled warmly at his apprentice. "I'm glad to see that you have come to accept who you are, Revan," he remarked. "Many people would not have come to terms with it so easily."

Revan tried not to think of those few awful days after he had first found out the truth. "I know who I am, Master," he said simply. "I saw on Korriban what the Dark Side can do to people. Besides, the life I thought I had... it's not real. Any of it." Try as he might, he couldn't hide the edge of resentment in his voice.

Some of the Council members shifted uncomfortably. "You must realise that our decision was not taken lightly, Revan," Vandar stated quietly. "The war was going badly and we were faced with two equally unpleasant choices. At the time, we thought it the least dangerous course of action." He paused. "And the kindest."

Revan had his own opinions on this, but he also knew that he had no right to complain; given the nature of his crimes, the Council's treatment of him was indeed merciful. He remained silent until Vandar, seeing that he had nothing more to say, took up a datapad from the arm of his chair. "Very well," he said, switching on the pad and glancing over his notes. "Perhaps we should begin?"

As Revan had anticipated, relating the events of their mission took a considerable amount of time. He faced a barrage of questions from all sides: about his interrogation on board the Leviathan, his brief stint at the Sith academy, and his encounters with Malak. Rather to his surprise, however, no one asked him any probing questions about his relationship with Bastila.

Finally Vandar laid his datapad aside and leaned back in his chair. "And now let us discuss your duel with Bastila," he said, clasping his hands in front of him. "Your friends say that after disarming her, you actually handed her your own lightsaber and challenged her to strike you down. Is this true?"

He took a deep breath, and looked steadily into the Jedi Master's eyes. "Yes, Master, it is true," he admitted. "It was the only way I could think of to persuade her that she could turn back."

There were several sharp hisses of breath. One of the Council members murmured something to another behind Revan's back. "You took a great risk, Padawan," Zhar said darkly.

"Not really, Master," he answered calmly. "I knew she wouldn't be able to kill me."

Vandar was looking at him through narrowed eyes. "Were you absolutely certain, Revan?"

The young man hesitated. He wanted to answer a definite 'yes', but he couldn't deny that there had been a tiny flicker of doubt, a fleeting moment... "Let me put it this way," he said finally. "I was certain enough to risk the future of the Galaxy on it." Was that a faint snort he heard from somewhere in Vrook's direction?

Vandar, however, seemed prepared to accept this. "I suppose we must all be thankful that you were right," he remarked; then his expression grew more sombre. "And if you had not been so certain, do you think you could have taken her life?"

"You mean, if I hadn't thought I could save her?" Vandar nodded, and the young Jedi's face darkened. "I hope so," he said grimly. "For her sake. Seeing her turn into something like Malak would be worse than seeing her dead."

There was a long pause as the Council members studied him in silence, trying to judge whether he meant what he said. At long last, Vandar nodded and made another note on his datapad. "Very well... I think that will be all for now, Revan. Bastila will arrive soon for her own interview."

Revan bowed once more and was about to leave, when a sudden instinct made him hesitate. "May I stay to hear her, Master?" he asked.

The Council members exchanged glances. "I see no reason why not," said Vandar finally, "as long as the questions don't pertain to you. But you must not try to influence her answers."

Revan nodded and walked to the side of the room, whereupon Vandar pressed a button and the door slid open once more. Bastila stood on the threshold, looking pale and tense but reasonably composed. "Enter, child," said Hestra softly.

She walked into the centre of the room and bowed, as Revan had done. "I am ready, Master."

"You must realise that this is not a trial, Bastila," explained Vandar. "We simply wish to hear, in your own words, exactly what happened to you while you were held prisoner by the Sith." She nodded, but said nothing. "Could you begin at the point where the others fled the Leviathan and left you with Malak?"

Bastila lowered her eyes to the ground. Haltingly, in the same dull, expressionless tone in which she had described her rape to Revan, she began to recount her experiences during Sith captivity. He had known it would be unpleasant, but nothing could have prepared him for the cold, clinical description of each successive torture, each act of physical and mental cruelty her captors had inflicted on her with pitiless regularity. He could feel the pain deep inside her, the hidden rage; yet she continued to speak in the same quiet monotone, as if it was the only way she could bring herself to speak about the horrors she had suffered.

Only when she reached the part with the Dark Jedi did her voice suddenly begin to tremble. For a moment she had to break off in order to regain control; her hands were shaking, and it was obvious that she was close to tears. Hestra began to rise from her chair in concern, but Revan was there before her; he strode over to Bastila and took her in his arms without a word, in full view of the Council. Quietly he held her there until the surge of emotion passed and she grew calm once more, her laboured breathing gradually returning to normal.

"That will be enough, child," said Vandar at last. "Hestra has told us the rest. Is there anything more you wish to say to us?"

She shook her head, blinking the tears from her eyes. "No, Master. I beg you to forgive my foolishness, but I will accept whatever the Council decides."

"And you, Revan?" enquired the Jedi Master.

He too shook his head. "I can't ask for forgiveness for what I did, Master," he said sombrely. "All I want is another chance – just to try and put right some of the damage I've done. That's all."

Vandar nodded. "In that case, you may both leave. You will be summoned again when we have made our decision."

-----

The two young Jedi waited outside the chamber for what seemed like hours. Food was brought up to them at one point, but neither could eat very much; instead they sat in edgy silence on their adjacent chairs, close enough to touch, yet barely meeting each other's eyes. When the door finally opened again signalling that the Council had finally ended their discussions, it was almost a relief.

They entered the chamber side by side, not daring to look at each other. Zhar gave his pupil a slight smile, but whether it was meant as a sign of reassurance was unclear.

Vandar stood up as they reached the centre of the room. "Let me not keep you in suspense, children," he said. "We have discussed both your cases, and we have come to a decision."

The pause only lasted a second. To the anxious pair, however, it seemed like an age before he finally spoke the words they had been waiting for: "Both of you are to remain in the Order, and be promoted to the rank of Jedi Knight."

Revan's heart missed a beat, and Bastila's head jerked up. "A Knight?" She sounded astonished, almost indignant. "Master, you – you can't! I failed the Order, I betrayed the entire Republic. How can I be worthy of a Knighthood?"

"On the contrary, Bastila," countered Vandar, "you showed great courage and loyalty under extremely difficult circumstances. As for your fall, I very much doubt that you will make the same mistake again." He eyed the former Dark Lord. "Nor you, Revan."

Bastila bowed her head in submission, but Revan knew they weren't finished yet. "Master," he began, "Bastila and I – "

There were nods from several of the Councillors. "We are not blind, Revan," said Hestra with a faint smile.

"Such a love is dangerous," Vandar said gravely. "And yet... all of us have seen how strongly the Force binds you to each other. We have decided it would be best to let you stay together... on one condition." They waited with bated breath.

"You must undertake no further missions together," continued Vandar. "Both of you will still be greatly needed in the fight against the Sith. You will see each other whenever you have leave to return to Coruscant." He paused briefly. "Do you accept these conditions?"

Bastila and Revan looked at each other in silent dismay. Were they to be separated again so soon? But they both knew that they couldn't ask for anything more; the Council had already bent the rules on their behalf. Slowly, as one, they turned back to Vandar and nodded.

"Good." For the first time, the small Master's face broke into a wide smile. "But first you must rest and recover from your mission. Did we say a month, Hestra?"

"At least a month," she replied firmly. "The last thing we want is for either of them to collapse in the middle of a battle."

"So be it." Vandar waved a hand towards the door as it slid open. "May the Force be with you, young ones."

-----

They walked in silence through the wide, echoing halls of the lower Temple, Revan conscious of a strange numbness inside him. He hardly knew what he should be feeling – happiness? Relief? He glanced at Bastila to try and gauge her thoughts, but she looked more dazed than anything else; her eyes stared blankly ahead, riveted on some imaginary point in the distance.

They were passing one of the gardens now – a tranquil-looking circular courtyard, with a central fountain overlooked by tall, shady trees – and on a sudden impulse he turned aside and beckoned her to follow him out through the door. They walked over to one of the benches, where he sat down next to her and took her hands in his, holding them gently in his lap. Slowly she raised her head to look at him, finally meeting his eyes for the first time.

"It is over, isn't it?" she murmured.

He squeezed her hands in his. "Yes, it's over. For the moment, at least."

She nodded and let out a long, shaky breath, as if she had been holding it in all morning. "I'm sorry for behaving like this," she said wearily. "But I'm so tired." For the first time he noticed the dark rings around her eyes; she must barely have slept that night. "I'm so tired," she said again, her voice close to a whisper. "Sometimes I thought all this would never end..."

Revan stared at her in consternation. To his profound shame, he realised that he had hardly even thought about what her recent life must have been like for her. Shouldered with the enormous burden of being the Republic's last line of defence; mercilessly hunted across the galaxy by a ruthless megalomaniac; bonded against her will to the former Dark Lord, a man who repelled and attracted her in equal measure; and finally, forced to bear the responsibility of keeping both of them from the Dark Side, even while she herself was still an apprentice. It would be all too easy to blame the Council for treating her in that way, but that would simply be shutting his eyes to the ugly truth: that he himself, more than anyone else, was responsible for everything she had suffered over the past two years.

And yet she had never complained, not once, nor shown the slightest sign of resentment towards him for stealing away years of her life. How bitterly he wished that he could take back all the times he had mocked her, or laughed at her, or thoughtlessly said or done something to cause her pain. But it was too late for recriminations now; as he himself had pointed out, what was done couldn't be undone.

"How did you cope?" he asked, in genuine bewilderment. She shrugged and stared down at her hands again.

"It wasn't so bad, Revan," she said at last. "Truly. I simply had to trust in the Force." She sighed. "I kept telling myself that when the Sith were finally defeated, everything would go back to normal."

Revan's mind flashed back a conversation he had had with her near the beginning of their acquaintance, not long after their arrival on Dantooine. He had asked her if she was happy with her life as a Jedi, and on receiving an ambiguous answer, had pressed her to say what would make her happy. "Peace," she had replied, "and safety... and being with people I know can trust." At the time he had dismissively remarked that this didn't sound like much of a life; now, however, he could understand all too well.

"I'll make it up to you," he mumbled, though in his heart he knew that it was impossible. The things she had suffered would always be a part of her, just as his dark past would always be a part of him.

"You don't need to make up for anything," she said gently. "You always treated me well, even when I behaved appallingly to you." She half-closed her eyes, thinking back, and winced. "The worst thing was not being able to tell you who you were. I felt as if everything we had was based on a lie."

Much as he hated being deceived, he couldn't blame her for it. "Bastila, why did you save me?" he suddenly blurted out. "I mean, when I was the Dark Lord. Was it really just because of your orders?"

"No. No, it was..." She hesitated, trying to find the right words. "Do you remember when you first saw me on the Rakatan temple, after I fell to the Dark Side?"

He remembered all too well. He'd known immediately that something was wrong; she'd blocked his attempts to sense her through their bond, and there was something in her eyes... "You were different," he mused. "It was like looking at... a clone of some sort, or an identical twin. You didn't feel like the person I knew..."

She nodded slowly. "That's how I felt when I faced you on the ship. It was you, and yet... somehow, it wasn't."

"But you still..."

She grimaced. "I'll admit there was a moment when I thought it might be better for everyone's sake to let you die," she confessed. "But when I took off your mask and saw you... I knew I couldn't. I knew there had to be a chance that they could bring you back."

"And now?" he asked softly.

"I'm sorry?"

"Am I like the Revan you knew back then?"

She gazed into his face for a moment, trying to compare it with the images of the Revan she had known as a young girl. Older, less incorrigibly self-assured, perhaps wiser... but still with the same warmth, the same strength and kindness. The same man who, so many years ago, had taken pity on a spoiled, silly little girl and helped to turn her into a Jedi.

"Yes," she said quietly. "I realised that on Kashyyyk. Do you remember that night you were wounded by the terentatek?"

He nodded, wincing at the memory. "How could I forget?"

"I was terrified," she said in a low voice. "I was so afraid of losing you again. By the end of that night, I knew I was still in love with you..."

Revan saw the haunted look in her eyes, and something inside him suddenly snapped. He caught her up in his arms and hugged her almost savagely against him, crushing her lips against his, wanting only to give her back some of the peace and security she had sacrificed for his sake. She responded with a passion he hadn't felt in her since the Star Forge, and for several minutes they simply held each other close – warm and safe in the knowledge that for now, at least, nothing more could come between them.

"Sheesh, you guys, get a room!" The sudden realisation that they were being watched had the same effect as a shower of cold water. They broke apart hastily to see Mission Vao standing in front of them, rolling her eyes with a mixture of amusement and disgust.

"I've been looking for you two everywhere," she continued, oblivious to their embarrassment. "Bastila, I brought these for you." She withdrew her hand from behind her back to reveal an enormous, very expensive-looking bouquet of flowers. "Because you've been... ill."

Bastila stared at the flowers in astonishment, a lump beginning to form in her throat. She guessed that this was largely a peace-offering, motivated by guilt and pity rather than affection, but she couldn't help feeling very touched. She knew that none of the others liked her very much, and she also knew that this was largely her fault; the last thing she had expected from any of them was a gesture like this.

"They're beautiful," she murmured, with a slight catch in her voice. "Did you buy these, Mission?"

The young girl looked at her in disbelief. "Hey, I'm not a millionaire! We all paid for them. Except the droids, of course."

Bastila raised her eyebrows. "Even Canderous?"

"Yep, even Canderous." She grinned. "He kicked up a stink about it, but he still paid up. I think hearing about the medal ceremony put him in a good mood."

Revan and Bastila looked at each other, then back at Mission. "Medal ceremony?" they said in unison.

"Sure! You mean they haven't told you yet?" She looked astonished. "They have to give us something in return for saving the galaxy, don't they? Anyway, I'd better get going. I promised Big Z we'd take a tour of the 'real' Coruscant, if you know what I mean."

She spun round with a flick of her head-tails and ran off into the building. Revan looked questioningly at Bastila, who shook her head. "Please don't ask me. I assume someone will explain it to us sooner or later."

He shrugged and nodded. "So what are you going to do now?" he asked, after a while.

"Well, first I would like something to eat," she said, making Revan suddenly realise how hungry he was himself. "And then I should go and visit my mother in hospital. Will you come with me, Revan?"

A meeting with Helena Shan? Revan couldn't hide a grimace; all at once the Council's interrogation seemed like a cakewalk in comparison. "Can I bring HK with me?" he asked drily.

For the first time in days, Bastila found herself laughing. "Oh, Revan." She shook her head affectionately. "You faced down the Dark Lord of the Sith and yet you're afraid of my mother?"

"At least I had a way to fight Malak," he joked, then grinned and laid an arm around her shoulders. "Just kidding. Of course I'll come with you." He leant in to kiss her once more, no longer caring who saw them. Then, hand in hand, they stood up and walked back across the courtyard towards the Jedi Temple.