Disclaimer: I still don't own Star Wars or the song Every Thug Needs a Lady by Alkaline Trio, but as far as I know I'm still supported by the Star Wars Unlimited Fan Club. I'm placing another song by Alkaline Trio called Blue in the Face in with Revan's nighttime reminiscing. I think the lyrics to this song give it a bit more feeling, and I really like this band. And I was listening to it while I was writing and thought to myself, what if I placed this in, so I did and it was fitting, enjoy.

You know I came here when I needed your soft voice
I needed to hear something that sounded like an answer
Now I stay here, and everyday I get one

It's nothing I'll forget when the moon gets tired
You are stuck to me everyday
Believe in what I am because it's all I have today
And tomorrow who knows where we'll be

Every Thug Needs A Lady, Alkaline Trio

Dantooine, Night

Bastila had fallen asleep hours ago, which surprised Revan because normally she couldn't sleep through storms. She probably had to get used to sleeping alone when I was away, he thought to himself, I should have never left her. He sat up in bed and gently stroked her hair.

It's about time that I came clean with you
I'm no longer fine, I'm no longer running smooth

He had been gone for nearly five years, five wasted years killing an enemy he couldn't fully defeat. If only he had taken them with him, he might have been able to destroy the Sith. He looked back at the sleeping figure next to him, her pretty face relaxed for the first time in a very long while. How long could he keep telling her everything was going to be fine, that he was okay?

I thought that I found myself under something new
Just one more line I repeat over and over again
'Till I'm blue in the face with a choking regret
Because I talk in circles 'round you on my bed

A soft rumble of thunder could be heard approaching. The last storm had ended hours ago and another was approaching. Summer was Dantooine's stormy season and they happened many times a day almost every day. Bastila said she understood him, that now that she knew why he had left she could understand and help him, but he wasn't sure how to move on. He had left her alone for five long years, without contact, without letting her know that he was okay or what he was doing. It must have been torture on her. It certainly was for him.

Can't say I blame you one bit when you kept it all inside
When you left that night

She still wanted to be with him, even after he left her without even a goodbye. He loved her desperately and needed her. She stirred in her sleep, moving closer to him and draping a small, slightly suntanned arm over onto his lap as she snuggled her head against his leg. Revan gently lifted her head into his lap and ran his fingers through her hair and he listened to the approaching storm.

It's about time that you got sick of me
No longer fun, and so far from interesting

All those lonely nights, he had barely slept in years. If not his nightmares, but his aching heart kept him awake at night. What little sleep he had was often unfulfilling and dreamless. Sometimes he thought about how Bastila must be taking it, having to sleep alone and probably feeling great anger at him. That kept him awake as well.

I thought that I found me a cure for feeling old
Just one more line to keep me sleeping loudly and cold
In disgraced with a shameful regret
As I talk in tongues to myself in my bed

Now he could see the lightning and the thunder was much louder. Bastila was tightly griping his waist; she was having a bad dream. Revan tried to sooth her by massaging her temples and sending his love over their bond, but to no avail. He gently entered their bond to see what was troubling her so and saw that she wasn't having a vision, but simply a bad dream. Slightly relieved, he left her mind and reentered reality. Of all the people in the galaxy, she wanted to be with him, no matter what the past had done to them or what the future held.

Can't say I blame you one bit when you kept it all inside
When you left that night

It felt like the galaxy was collapsing in on them all, like they would never be happy again. They were about to go off to war, Revan knew that this war could be shortened greatly if only he could find a way to massively destroy the Sith without killing the civilians or Republic soldiers, it was like finding a needle in the middle of a vast ocean.

And all that followed fell like mercury to hell
Somehow we lost our heads for the last time

The only thing he ever wanted was her. Well, except during the Mandalorian Wars when he forgot what it felt like to love someone and turned to the dark side. When they were growing up together at the academy, he loved her, but could never tell her. She had told him years latter that she had loved him all those years ago, that was why she couldn't bring herself to kill him as he lay dying on his ship, not some silly Jedi oxymoron on killing. They took his memories and killed him anyways. But Revan was stronger than that his memories came back.

And all that followed fell like mercury to hell
Somehow we lost our heads for the last time

He didn't want to have dreams again, not after the ones he had in her absence, even the ones before he left had been terrible. But he couldn't go on with out sleeping and he knew it. Bastila had helped heal some of his wounds, physical and emotional, but seeing her again brought back his old memories even more. But still, he would never go without her again. He loved her more than anyone could love another person; well at least in his eyes.

And I don't dream since I quit sleeping
And I haven't slept since I met you

Bastila was beginning to sweat in her sleep, hugging him desperately now. He wasn't sure if he should wake her or not. It hurt him to see her suffer. She took his breath away.

And you can't breathe without coughing at daytime
And neither can I

He decided he would wake her; she deserved that. He could at least make her feel comfortable and safe. She made him feel that way too. Former Dark Lord of the Sith, Revan, felt safest in the arms of a woman who was much shorter than he and physically smaller muscle wise. Yet, he was not ashamed.

So what do you say?
Your coffin, or mine?

He placed his hand on her shoulder and gently shook her, "Bastila, love, wake up honey." Bastila groaned and hugged him even tighter, and then she opened her eyes slightly. She sat up and leaned against him. She felt Revan's arms encircle her from behind and wipe the sweat from her brow. She leaned her head against his shoulder as she breathed heavily.

"Oh, Revan," she whispered.

"It's okay, everything's going to be alright. I'm here." Again the lie, the lie that everything was going to be fine that everything would be okay. Again war's looming presence weighed down on his heart as he comforted the woman who stole his heart.

"I know, it's just a dream, not even a vision just a really odd dream. I'll be okay, thank you for waking me. I couldn't bring myself to do so." She hugged him in appreciation.

Hugging her gently and running his hand up and down her back he said, "It's no trouble, I love you. And if you ever wake up in the night and need me, don't hesitate to wake me up, I won't be angry." She nodded and began to relax as her breathing finally slowed. She kissed his jaw line gently. "Are you okay now?"

"Yes, thank you love," but would he be fine? Bastila knew that Revan wasn't sleeping well, that he had nightmares and visions. He couldn't hide it from her. "But will you be okay?"

"What do you mean?"

"I know you haven't slept in a long time," she rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, enjoying his warmth. "I know that you're scared of what's going to happen when we go to war. Revan it's going to be fine. I just want for you to feel safe and loved, for once in your life to feel protected."

"I do feel safe, only when I'm here, with you. But how can you be sure, we don't even know how to destroy the enemy?"

"Because I love you and you love me, we have each other. I need you Revan, and I know you need me too, so let go of the pain. Let me in, let me love you. Let me protect you and make you feel safe." He held her and kissed the top of her head. They both lay down and Revan moved nearer to Bastila. He pressed his back against her chest lightly and placed his head under her chin. Bastila wrapped her arms around him and said, "It's going to be okay, just close your eyes and try to sleep. I'll keep your nightmares away." He could feel and hear her soft heartbeat against his ear, it soothed him and he felt like he could finally let go of all the pain he felt inside that had built up since the Mandalorian Wars. "Sleep, my love, sleep and be happy; we're getting married tomorrow." And with that, he fell asleep in her arms. "Goodnight, my love," she whispered as kissed his forehead and fell asleep next to him.

Caleb Veers' quarters

Brianna awoke to the sound of thunder, another storm was moving in. It sure does rain a lot here, she thought to herself. Caleb stirred slightly next to her as she sat up. He's so cute when he is sleeping, she thought as she gently brushed his hair off his face. Another flash and some more thunder soon woke Caleb from his peaceful sleep. He saw that Brianna was already up and lying at his side, brushing the hair from his face. "Hey love, you ok?" he asked her, concerned that the storm had scared her.

"I'm fine," she said, "the storm just woke me up that's all." She moved closer to him and let him hug her from behind as the storm moved in. She stared out the window at the pouring rain and lightning. Caleb watched with her in his arms. Every time a large bolt of lightning struck she would jump a little and he would pull her closer for comfort. The heat coming from her naked back warmed him as she let him hug her and gently kiss her shoulder, neck, and face after each white-hot bolt.

"Shhh, I'm here," he whispered as she whimpered slightly when lightning struck a tree near by, causing them both to jump slightly. "You're safe, I'm right here." He gently held her hands in his across her chest. His warmth comforted her and she relaxed, giving his hands a gentle squeeze of gratitude.

She could feel his heartbeat against her ear as she rested her head against his warm chest. He felt hot, but not uncomfortably so. He warmed her entire being and the feeling of his hands gently moving in circles against her stomach sent shivers down her spine. "So, what exactly did the counsel want from you earlier?"

"Well, mostly it was just Atris who wanted to see me, the council wanted to see Revan."

"What did that woman try to do to you now?"

"Well that's an interesting story…"

:Flashback:

Atris walked out into the fountain room where Caleb had been sitting. "Veers, you know you should have never trained her!"

"Why hello Atris, what crawled up your butt and roosted," Caleb said with a smirk.

"You know exactly what!"

"There's a thousand things I can say to that, but won't because there might be younglings around, and which 'her' are you referring to? I've trained several 'hers' in the Jedi arts."

"Kae should have never been trained as a Jedi, it was her oath to protect the Jedi and never to join them. Then you come in, with all your pompous talk of saving the galaxy to cover your darker intentions, so she leaves with you with the intentions of spying on you. Then she trains you in the Echani arts, and surrenders herself to you so you train her, AS A JEDI!" Atris was fuming now.

"She did not surrender herself to me, yet."

"Then after you train her you manage to get her to fall in love with you! Probably taking her innocence along with it! So now you and your love boat voyage around starting wars and bring home a criminal and former Sith Lord! You have brought about the destruction of the Republic!"

"First off, I did not take her innocence! Second of all I did not force her to fall in love with me it was a mutual choice, third Revan saved the Republic, and fourth off it's a ship not a boat!"

"You insufferable man!"

"You're the one being insufferable, Atris! Why can't you accept the fact that Brianna is a Jedi and that we're in love?"

"She broke her oath to me. An oath she swore at penalty of death never to break. After breaking that oath, she goes and breaks the Jedi code by falling in love!"

"She wasn't under the Jedi code when we fell in love, and neither was I. I trained her to use the force, not to be a Jedi." The gray clouds were bringing a darkened background to Caleb as he stood up for the woman he loved. The wind began to blow and his hair moved across his face. Atris stared back with equal hatred. "I know you had feelings for me before, everyone does. But you are about thirty years older than me, were my master, and a schutta! Why can't you accept that fact that I love her! You know what, I'm ending this conversation right now, I don't want to fight anymore. The fact that we're so in love and that you would rather see us dead than together sickens me and what you say about Bastila and Revan makes me just as ill. You know what Atris, I'm on my way right now to ask that woman to marry me and there isn't a damned thing you can do about it!"

"Fine you do that, and if you think I ever had feelings for you then you must have been licking gizkas during your exile, Exile. So go off and war take your woman with you!"

"I have a name and I would like you to use it, incase you forgot its Caleb Bail Veers. And my woman has one too, and since you probably never even bothered to learn it since you had her degraded to being known as the Last Handmaiden her name is Brianna Arren Kae. And you know what Atris, from now on I should just call you old woman, would that make you feel better since no one seems to use proper titles anymore? And you want to know what else? I'm leaving right now, and I'm going to tell her how much I love her and that I want to be with her for the rest of our lives. That she saved me from myself!" And with that he walked away and didn't look back.

:End Flashback:

Brianna shook her head and hugged him. It wasn't that she didn't have anything to say about that, it was that she just didn't want to. Caleb held her close to his chest, his head resting against hers. He could smell her shampoo, and her hair was soft and smooth. "You know what we should do?" she asked him against his warm, muscular chest.

"Am I going to like it?"

"Probably, we should first send her an invitation to our wedding, then after we're married we describe to her our honeymoon in excruciating detail," she said with a huge smile. Normally she wouldn't have said something like that. She had always been proper and sensible. But since meeting Caleb, things had changed for her, for the better.

"I think, I'm rubbing off on you, your starting to sound as crazy and perverse as I am, not that I mind." Caleb lay down and she joined him resting her head in the crook of his arm. "Right now I wouldn't be surprised if she got in a ship and never came anywhere near me or you again." Brianna burst out laughing. "What?" he asked.

"The love boat," she sniggered.

"Its not a boat it's a ship."

"Is this going to turn into the Daddy joke, as in it won't die?"

"Probably." They both laughed and enjoyed each other's company. So much had happened to them, and so much more was sure to happen yet. But they could at least be together to face the coming darkness. Soon they were both asleep as the rain began to fall outside.

Revan's room

Bastila lay awake with Revan in her arms. He had finally fallen asleep and hadn't awakened from nightmares or visions. She didn't want to go back to sleep, she had gone without him for so long. Hadn't been able to simply hear his voice, his lips upon her skin, and his warm arms around her. She heard a soft knocking at the door. Taking one last look at Revan and kissing him lightly she got up to answer it. There stood her mother outside the door. "I'm sorry to wake you dear but I couldn't sleep and had to talk to you about some things."

"It's okay Mom, I wasn't sleeping anyways. What did you need to tell me?" The two women walked in to the room's sitting area and Bastila shut the bedroom door so they wouldn't wake Revan.

"Bastila, I know that when you were younger, you thought that I didn't love you as much as your father did. I just wanted you to know that I have always loved you and always will. I was thinking about him tonight. It pains me that he will never get to see his little girl again. He didn't get to see you grown up, get married, whatever the future brings." Helena Shan was near tears and her daughter went to embrace her.

"I miss him so much Mom, but at least I still have you," she hugged her mother tight and both women wept. Suddenly they heard the door open and saw a groggy Revan walk out in his pajamas.

"Hi," he mumbled and made his way to the refresher. Bastila just stood there shaking her head, tears still in her eyes, while Helena raised an eyebrow and let go of her daughter.

"Did Daddy,"

"He did worse. When my parents were over once on New Years before you were born, your Father and I were both young and well, he was three sheets to the wind. He thought we would appreciate it if he came downstairs in the nude and strike up a conversation with my parents on how much I meant to him and how cold it was this time of year. Then he passed out."

"Oh my," well this was something she could never picture her father doing.

They heard a flush and Revan walked out of the refresher, came over to Bastila, hugged her, said goodnight to both of them, and walked back to their room and shut the door.

"Well then, at least he loves you."

"Yes, he does. Well Mother, tomorrow is going to change a lot of things, I'm going to try to get some sleep. Are you going to be okay?"

"I'll be fine, Bastila. I'm so proud of you. I also want you to know that no matter what, I will always love you, and I always have. You will always be my little girl."

"I love you too, Mom. Goodnight."

Helena gave her child a hug and said good night as she walked back to her own room. Bastila headed back to her bed where Revan was asleep in bed. She could hear his slow, steady breathing and see is chest rise and fall in the pale moonlight. She got in bed next to him and put her arms around him. With one hand she rubbed his back as she sighed. It had been a very long day and an even longer night. Tomorrow seemed like it was going to be just as long. But tomorrow was different tomorrow was for them. And tomorrow night was going to be even better. Tomorrow they would start a new life together. At last.

The Next Morning

Bastila awoke when the sunlight hit her face. She could feel its heat against her skin and Revan's heat against her as well. She decided to lie in the warm bed a while longer until Revan woke up. It didn't take him very long. "Good morning sexy," he said to her groggily.

"Revan!" she said, slapping away the hand that snaked up her leg. "Not now, it's too early for that."

"It's never too early for that," he said as he began to kiss her neck.

"Can you please just wait for tonight? I promise it will be fun."

"I already know that, but fine, I'll stop," he gave her one last kiss and pulled away, instead settling for gently hugging her. Bastila lay in Revan's arms for nearly half an hour before the two decided to get out of bed and search for her mother and prepare for their wedding. The Ebon Hawk crew and her mother were the only people going. It was going to be small and even though the council had said that they didn't care, they didn't want everyone to know right now. Atris seemed to have a thing against everyone on the Ebon Hawk, and was hell bent on having them all shipped off to Hoth to mine ice or something. And she seemed to utterly despise Caleb and Brianna. Caleb had said that the woman had turned from the dark side, but Revan found that hard to believe. Atris seemed to just reek of every quality associated with the dark side. She was arrogant, self centered, angry, spiteful, possessive, and had several young girls that were like slaves running around in her Jedi academy on Telos. Bastila knew what he was thinking about.

"Its not right is it. That awful woman turns to the dark side, tries to kill several people, has a bunch of girls in their twenties waiting on her hand and foot, then has them all killed, but yet here she is on the council. When you turned to the dark side they took your memory! She doesn't even get a slap on the wrist! I got suspension for six months!"

"Bastila, you can't say you didn't thoroughly enjoy your half year suspension, but your right it truly isn't right. But I guess the need for Jedi is so great that they don't care right now. I mean, their letting us do the number one no no of being a Jedi."

"I thought number one was don't get pregnant, getting married was number two, and falling in love was number three."

"No number one is married, two is love, and three is getting pregnant depending on the circumstance. We've already broken one and two, want to shoot for three eventually?"

"After this war is over and not a minute sooner. You can't bring up a child in this current situation. Wait wasn't sex number two. Yes its marriage one, sex two, love three, and pregnant four depending on the circumstance."

"The thing is Bastila, either way we've broken almost everything in the top ten. And everything in the top 3."

"Exactly. And I still don't care if we did." Bastila began laughing.

"I thought you lived and breathed the Jedi code?"

"Not since I meet you, you ruined me."

"Oh, I see. So I took you away from your mommy and ruined you."

"No the Jedi took me away from my mommy, Malak took me from the Jedi, and you took me from Malak and then ruined me." They continued walking towards the courtyard bantering about who ruined who. Revan eventually made a suggestive comment that earned him a hard slap on the face. Now he had a red hand mark on his face as they meet up with their friends and a holy man in the central courtyard of the academy.

"It's about time you two showed up," said Carth. "Your late for your own wedding. Nice face."

"Nice mouth Onasi, would you like to keep it?" Bastila slapped him again. If it was anyone else he probably would have slapped her back but he could never hit her no matter what she did. Instead he just picked her up roughly and carried her to where the holy man was waiting for them. Then he "accidentally" dropped her unceremoniously on her bottom.

"Oh crap, I didn't mean to drop you that hard. Are you okay?" People began to quietly laugh from behind them.

"I'm going to hurt you," she said over their bond as she stood and the holy man began to speak. Revan swallowed hard knowing that she wasn't kidding. Bastila still stood beside him and took his hands gently in her own. With her right thumb she gently caressed his hand as she began to speak her vows, permanently tying her to him. He simply stood there, looking into her eyes, those deep, wonderful, blue eyes. The eyes that could burn him, but could calm him as well. Those eyes stared back with furry and even greater love. She slipped a ring on his finger breaking through his thoughts. It was his turn to speak now. To try to show her how much he loved her by saying a few simple words was impossible, but would have to suffice, for now. As he finished, he slipped a ring onto her finger. If either of them had any second thoughts, it was too late now, they had said their vows. The holy man placed his hands over theirs and then stepped away. Revan leaned in to kiss his new wife and as their lips met, it was like fire. When they pulled away, their friends all started to clap.

Revan looked at Bastila, now his wife, and smiled. This was the happiest day of his life. But the shadow of war was looming over them all. War's drums were beating in Revan's ears every day and all the happy good times were bound to end for a time again. He took her hand and stared into the sunrise as they began a new life together.

TBC…