This time, when I woke up, I was engulfed in a sweaty film that I knew no amount of fiddling with the environmental controls would solve. There was no hope of going back to sleep. There was less hope of me achieving the serenity of meditation. I was shaking and my head hurt. I felt like vibroblades were being jammed into every crack in my skull.
There were a few more hours until dawn came and I had no idea what to do with myself. I didn't want to wake Carth, he'd already suffered through one memory and this was one I really didn't want to share with him. We may be working on our trust issues but I wasn't willing to push it yet.
Canderous was out also. I had no idea where he was during these nighttime hours. HK would just want to kill or maim some meatbags. Mission, for as old as she acted, was still a kid and shouldn't be roaming right now. Big Z needed to keep Mission out of trouble.
All of these considerations left me with very little recourse. I opened up my mind and felt for the other Jedi. I felt Bastila's presence right away. She was meditating but her heart wasn't in it.
Bastila? – I queried with my mind.
Revan? – Guess my message got through loud and clear.
Could we meet? I need to talk to someone.
Why not Carth or Juhani or even Canderous? Why me? – Her voice showed that she was hurt by lack of reliance on her.
I need someone a little less involved in my life. I've been having dreams. You helped with them before.
Of course, where would you like to meet?
I'll come to the Temple. – I could feel Bastila's mental nod and got dressed. I didn't really need to run around Coruscant in the wee hours of the morning in my raggedy underwear. I realized I still hadn't gone shopping for new clothes.
I surprised myself by making it to the Temple on my own. I added a mental thank you very much, Canderous as I entered. Bastila was waiting for me in the foyer. She was staring at an esoteric piece on the wall. It was a sculpture that seemed to pulse with energy, I could feel the dark and light energy pulling at the figure.
"It's called 'Neutrality'. It's by a Jedi artist. It's supposed to reflect the nature of the forces working within a Jedi." Bastila started speaking as I crossed the empty room towards her. The room was barely lit, the only real illumination came from the small lights illuminating the works of art.
"I know how that feels. It's an interesting piece." Personally, I thought it was garishly colored and ugly with the twisting pieces of metal. Then again, who am I, an art critic? I couldn't draw a stick figure with the help of a computer program.
"You use the word interesting the same way others use hideous." Guess I didn't do a good job of hiding my low opinion of the beauty value of the piece.
"It's not a pretty piece, that's for sure. However, when it comes to looking beyond the exterior, it's a moving piece. I can feel the two sides pulling at each other, forever locked in a battle. You and I know that battle better than most." I turned to her as she continued her contemplation.
"This is the piece that I examine the most. Other pieces are pretty or interesting" Her use of the word made her smile a quick smile before it was replaced by the lack of emotion that graced her face in the beginning. "or even ugly. They don't make me feel like this one does, though. This one draws me."
"Bastila, the fight between the darkside and the light is an ongoing war. Just because you lost a battle, it doesn't mean that you'll lose the war." Bastila seemed relieved at my words, as if I'd lifted a weight off her shoulders.
"Is that how you think of the darkside and your fall?"
"I don't know what to think of my fall. I don't know what led to it and what kept me on that path. When I know my motivations, I'll know what to think of my fall."
"We didn't meet to discuss me, although I appreciate your words of wisdom. We met to discuss the memories that surfaced." Bastila moved to sit on a bench in front of "Neutrality". After we sat, we both looked at the piece some more. It took me a bit to gather the courage to tell Bastila about the dreams.
"I remembered my address to the Council at the conclave." It was a quiet admission. I couldn't bring myself to baldly state the other memory. I knew Bastila's feelings towards both Malak and the Council.
"You were very passionate, very persuasive, had I been old enough, I would have joined you." Bastila's admission was equally as quiet as mine was.
"Why?"
"You sounded so right and just. I, too, thought the Council waited for too long. However, I was too young and I stayed behind to train, like many of the padawans did. When you left for war, Revan, you took the best and brightest of the knights and padawans. You even had a few Jedi Masters join you.
"You left behind too many students for not enough masters and knights. There were not enough trainers to help the padawans. We lost many of the future order because of this. Quite a few prospective students were unable to train. That is one of the reasons the Order is so weak today."
"I wasn't aware of this. I don't remember any of that."
"How would you, Revan? You were at war, not here at the Temple or the Enclave. You didn't know what happened here, at least not while the Mandalorian Wars thrived. The Jedi Civil War, that is another situation. I don't know how much of the weakening you knew." Bastila and I were almost whispering as we discussed my actions. There wasn't anyone else in the foyer but still we whispered, almost as if we feared what we were discussing.
"I remember more, Bastila."
"More of the conclave?"
"No, I remember my reaction to the destruction of Telos. How do I tell Carth?" I turned to her as she sat next to me on the bench. "How do I tell him that I plotted other ways to convert and subvert the people of Telos to the Sith? All of the plans would have succeeded, too."
"Why do you even need to tell him?" Bastila sounded genuinely puzzled by the idea of my honesty with Carth.
"We're working on our trust issues. I'm trying to trust him with more and he's trying to trust me more. I have to tell him, I can't use my memories to build a wall between us."
"Then try the forthright manner that you've always dealt with things. You are not one to mince words."
"Thanks, Bastila. We may not get along all the time, but you are a good shoulder to cry on. Perhaps, if we work on it, we could be friends in the future, now that we don't have all the lies between us."
"I'd…I'd…I'd like that, very much. Thank you." Bastila looked as if she were going to cry. "If you will excuse me, I need to get some sleep before my day starts in a few hours." Bastila stood up and bowed. I quickly stood, bowed back and then left the Temple.
Luckily for me, bounty hunters must not like this hour of the morning. I was preoccupied but at least I didn't get myself captured by a couple of idiot bounty hunters. I slipped back into the apartment, much more at ease than when I left. When HK made to acknowledge me, I waved him off.
The bedroom was quiet and I lay back down. Carth rolled over and lay his head on my chest.
"Where'd you go, beautiful?" Somehow, I'd hoped to get away with my little jaunt.
"I needed to talk to someone. It wasn't anything important. I'll tell you about it in the morning." I heard a sleepy 'k' and Carth drifted back to his dreams. I wondered what he dreamt about, did he dream of past battles? Did he dream of his wife and the happiness they had? Did he ever dream that I was normal and he could come home to me on shore leaves? Did he dream of Dustil?
Oh crud, I'd forgotten once more to tell Carth that I'd found Dustil. I debated telling him about my near death experience with him. No good would come of it but we were working on those trust issues.
I drifted off to sleep once more. This time, I stayed that way until HK came in and acted as an alarm.
"Statement: It is now the pre-set time for the Master and the Master's Love Puppet to awaken. Oh, how demeaning, I am truly built for better than this." When we barely stirred, HK exploded a sonic charge in the room. Carth and I woke up the rest of the way, completely deaf. I would have ranted and yelled at HK, but I really like the satisfaction of hearing my own voice when I'm chewing on someone.
Instead of yelling at HK, I used the 'fresher, with no interruptions. It already looked to be a better day than yesterday. I came out of the 'fresher whistling. As I entered the kitchen where Carth waited for his breakfast, I Force-healed us.
"Carth, how soon do you need to leave? I have something I need to talk to you about, probably several somethings." I sat down next to him and watched HK prepare breakfast. That didn't really seem like enough punishment, maybe I'd have him do my laundry today too. It wasn't like my clothes didn't look like they had been blasted already so I wouldn't notice the holes that HK put in them as he used all of it for target practice.
"For you, light of my life, I have all the time in the world." Carth winked at me to accentuate his cheesy statement. "Which, at this point, consists of about twenty minutes. What do you need?"
"I had another dream last night. That's why I needed to go to the Temple and talk to someone."
"You went all the way to the Temple, by yourself? Didn't you learn anything from yesterday afternoon? You're lucky you didn't get abducted or killed! Revan, how could you!" Carth sounded seriously upset with me.
"I wasn't really thinking about that. I was thinking about the dream."
"You need to start thinking about your reality, Revan. There are plenty of people in Republic space that would love to kill you and that's not counting all the Sith remnants!"
"I know, Carth, I know. Will you please stop focusing on my stupidity and focus on the dream?"
"What dream?" Carth sounded confused but at least he wasn't flopping his hands in front of him and back down to his sides. I'd seen the gesture enough to know he was aggravated with me when he did that.
"The dream I've been trying to tell you about, I remembered Malak and I discussing Telos." As soon as I said Telos, Carth got ominously quiet. This was a very taboo subject for us. I was really working on our trust issues.
"What were you discussing?" Carth's voice was deceptively quiet. I was just waiting for him to blow a fuse when I told him about the confrontation. I gave him the highlights, stressing the fact that I remembered being really upset at Malak for destroying the planet. When it came to Darth Revan's plans for the corruption of Telos, I glossed over the subject by telling Carth that I'd had other plans for Telos.
By the time I was done, Carth was sitting there completely expressionless. He didn't say a word for a few minutes. He just mechanically started eating as he absorbed what I'd just told him.
"At least you didn't want the complete decimation of Telos. From what I know of Darth Revan, you probably planned on surgecically removing some of the key political figures. You would've then replaced them with people loyal to you and then Telos would secede from the Republic and ally itself with you." Carth knew more about my past than I did.
"Yeah, that's about what I remember. There's more, though, Carth." He turned towards me and looked like I was about to hit him. "It's not bad news, well, at least, I hope you won't take it as bad news. It doesn't have anything to do with the dreams."
"Lay it on me, Revan."
"It's Dustil, Carth." Carth's face looked, at the same time, hopeful and fearful of what I was about to say. "He's here, on Coruscant. He's training at the Temple." Carth's face lost its fear and remained hopeful. "It's him, he recognized me." Not a complete lie, but it wasn't the complete truth either. "We exchanged words in Juhani's class."
"Dustil is here? He's on Coruscant? I have to see him!" Carth leapt off his stool and pulled me off mine. He hugged me and we did a little dance around the tiny area of the dining room.
"Statement: All this emoting is going to cause my circuits to overload. I feel a need to terminate a meatbag to reaffirm my programming." We both looked over at HK and burst out laughing. It felt good to laugh with Carth. We fought too often and laughed too little.
We parted quickly and, as Carth made his way to headquarters with a spring in his step I hadn't seen since we'd left Korriban, I went back to the Temple. At the first information terminal inside the Temple, I looked up Dustil's room. He was housed a little ways from the rest of the padawans.
Dustil didn't look trusting or happy when I opened the door. He had every right not to trust me. I was Darth Revan, after all, and he had tried to kill me yesterday.
"You and I are going to have a talk without lightsabers pointing at each other. So, show your manners and invite me into your room." He gestured, somewhat sarcastically, for me to enter. "There's an Onasi for you, always a gentleman." I sat on the only chair available in the cramped quarters.
"What do you want?" Dustil's voice was self-assured and condescending again.
"You, basically, I want you." His eyebrows winged up in a patented Onasi style. I'd seen that expression of Carth's face too many times as I did one hare-brained thing after another. "Actually, to be more specific, I want you to go meet your father for lunch or something. I want you to head to the Republic Naval Headquarters and find his office and make his day. He's been stressing over your well-being for far too long for you not to give him a chance." I innocently twirled a lock of my hair that had fallen out of my ponytail.
"Why am I going to do this? What's in it for me?" Dustil leaned against the bed railing and crossed his ankles and his feet.
"How Sith of a reaction, Dustil. What's in it for you? A chance to get to know your father as a man, not as a jealous little boy who didn't know what real life was all about. It's time you grow up and realize that sometimes there is other obligations than you to Carth's life. You owe your father." I wasn't surprised to see that I didn't have to wait long for the inevitable eruption. I barely shocked myself when things worked out for me in conversations.
"I owe him? I owe him! He owes me! He abandoned my mother and me. He left us to die on Telos! He ignored us and left us alone all the time! How can you say I owe him!"
"Juhani's right, you know, you need to control that temper or you're going to fall so far to the darkside there won't be any chance of redeeming you." Dustil looked flabbergasted at my gall. "I'm not here to lecture you on the darkside. I'll explain why you owe your father in terms you'll understand. You owe your father because you blame him for Telos and your mother's death. You haven't even heard his side of the story. You are not the judge, jury and executioner for him. He deserves a chance; your relationship with him deserves a chance. Do you know, when Carth has nightmares, it's your name he calls out? He has nightmares of where you are, what's happening to you. He feels like a failure.
"Finally, you owe him because you allied yourself with those that committed the atrocities you blamed your father for. You owe him because as he sat bathed in the blood of your mother as he tried desperately to save her, you walked off with your replacement father figure and presented yourself to Darth Malak as a new recruit." Dustil started shaking his head negatively. "You may lie to yourself, but don't lie to me. I don't remember much of my past but I do remember Malak telling me about you. He claimed you as a great conquest of Telos and the future of the Sith." Dustil's face crumpled. "I don't say this to hurt you, Dustil. I'm trying to get you to stop reacting and start thinking. There are consequences to every action, every word. You need to let go of your anger and think rationally about the past and the future."
"I…I…I…" Dustil just kept stuttering. He collapsed onto the floor next to the bunks. He sheltered his head in his knees with his arms over the back of his head.
"That is exactly what I want you to think about, Dustil. All your life, it's been you you you. It's time that you allow others to have some importance in your life. Your father would give anything for a kind word from you. Why don't you surprise him for lunch? Maybe you could hash out some of the past. Try listening to him, like you did on Korriban." I got up from my chair and sat down next to where he sat crumpled. His tears stopped eventually and he nodded. I knew that it meant he would go see Carth and talk to him.