Revan stood in the central room of the Ebon Hawk, his arms folded across his chest. If there was one thing he couldn't stand, it was being kept waiting. He had to continually remind himself that the leisurely schutta in question was a rescuer, and that he was going to have to be gracious, but it didn't help much. After all, he wasn't too fond of being rescued either.

He drummed his fingers against the side of the computer console. After some tinkering around the ship's engines, he and T3 had managed to get the Hawk airborne, but the hyperdrive was still a mess. They were stuck orbiting Xendrin, their ship just a tiny grey dot amidst the star-strewn Redoubt. As much as he hated to admit it, they needed help and they were damned lucky to get it. He didn't recognize the ship that had responded to their distress signal, but it was a Republic freighter, the kind of rusty old clunker that only saw service in the Outer Rim.

Revan was evaluating the state of his fingernails, which were abominably torn and ragged, when he finally heard the voice of his rescuer.

"Where is she?"

It was not the greeting he'd been looking for, but then everything about this visitor was decidedly unexpected. He was a lanky, broad-shouldered guy with artfully rumpled hair and a lop-sided smirk that Revan immediately wanted to wipe off his face. His leather jacket was at least three sizes too big for him and had probably been rolled off the body of some back-alley drunk. One glance at the schutta was enough to tell Revan that he probably played a mean game of pazaak, skifting included.

"Who are you?" Revan demanded.

"I'm someone who's looking for Shira. Where is she?"

The man start to saunter toward the nearest corridor, but Revan blocked his path. Shira hadn't mentioned a love affair, but he should have known she'd pick a swaggering smart-ass, the kind of guy calculated to give any Jedi Council heart palpitations.

"Slow down a second," Revan said. "I'm just looking for a name, maybe a little bit of an explanation. I consider that a reasonable request."

The man arched a thick eyebrow, his crooked mouth twitching with impatience.

"Fine, have it your way. The name's Atton Rand. I was just in the neighborhood and I figured I'd drop by and say hello," he drawled. "So now that we're through with pleasantries, you mind telling me where I can locate a certain lady?"

Revan hesitated, evaluating the guy's face. He looked like a shady customer, a little secretive, a little sleazy, but underneath the scummy exterior, he could sense an odd sort of sincerity and even, sadness.

Atton stared back at him, his brown eyes a silent challenge. He seemed to resent the appraisal.

"She's in the med-bay," Revan answered. "I'll take you there."

Atton slid past him with astonishing ease. "S'okay. I don't need the guided tour."

The scoundrel managed two steps before Revan's voice intercepted him.

"Wait. There's something you should know."

There was some urgent power in those words or perhaps in the way Revan said them that stopped Atton cold. He reeled around, his smirking face suddenly deadly serious.

"Yeah? What? Tell me."

"She suffered an injury, a grave one. And well - just be prepared."

"Prepared for what?"

"For the worst."

Atton drew himself up to his full height. He was taller than Revan had guessed. For a moment, he could have mistaken the man for a soldier.

"I want to see her. Alone. I get your concern, but I need to talk to her."

"Go ahead," Revan said. "Just...be careful. Take care of her."

The scoundrel blinked. His seen-it-all eyes almost managed an expression of surprise.

"You're not what I expected, Revan. I always found it hard to imagine a face under that mask," he said. "You don't need to worry about me and Shira. I couldn't hurt that woman if I tried."

Atton disappeared down the passageway before Revan could answer him, before he could ask him how he'd known his name.

Sleep still weighed heavy upon her eyelids. Her eyes opened for a moment, thick lashes rising, and then drowsiness overtook her and her eyes would close again. She wavered between slumber and the pain that came with wakefulness, cocooned under layers of white sheets.

A hand pressed gently against her head, stroking through her tangled hair. She sighed, pushing her cheek deeper into the pillow, half-asleep and uncomprehending. It was only when she began to roll over and the hand darted away with guilty speed that she woke up enough to realize there was someone else in the room.

Her eyes shot open. The sound that escaped her lips was too sharp to be a gasp but too soft to be a cry.

He stood over her, his dark eyes soft and solemn.

"Hey."

"Atton."

She wasn't sure what she intended when she spoke his name, whether it was a murmur of pleasure or a quiet admonishment, but she knew it was a complete sentence. No other words could follow it.

"It's good to see you," he said. "It's been a long time since I last saw your face."

He looked dead-tired, but as carelessly handsome as ever. Exhaustion suited his face somehow, lending him a gravity he didn't usually possess. Yet there was also still a boyish helplessness in him, an ache behind his eyes that she knew came from seeing her like this.

"Atton, why did you come here? Why did you come for me?"

"I don't know. I just needed to see you. There're a lot of things that I want to tell you, and I'm not sure if I've got the words to say it all."

She closed her eyes and tried to control the quaver in her voice. "If it's about Tahet, I know. And I can forgive you, because I know that she has forgiven you. She wanted to save you, Atton."

"Shira, I honestly didn't know that she was the one. All I knew was a face and a number. I found out the truth when you did."

She drew a deep breath.

"I need to believe that there is a reason – for you and me, for all of this. All I can think is that if she drew us together, it was done out of love. She knew that you needed me and that I would need you. She loved us both. She forgives us."

Shira took his hand and pressed it against her cheek. His face crumpled and for an instant, she thought he was going to break down and cry. In all their time together, he'd never shed a single tear.

She rubbed her fingers against the rough skin of his knuckles, watching as he struggled to calm himself, to pull back from the verge. He couldn't allow himself to be that vulnerable, even if she was just as exposed, lying half-naked under cold sheets, a red crescent carved out of her flesh.

"I came for you," he rasped, "because I thought the force bond between us was changing me. I thought I wanted to get free from it. It took me a while to realize that this - this bond we have - it's the best freedom I've got. It's the only one I want and I'm not willing to let it go."

She stared down at the outline of her legs under the sheets. Her eyes blurred with tears. A fat droplet rolled down her cheek and plunked onto the pillow.

"Then stay," she said. "Stay with me. I won't run away this time."

Suddenly, the absurdity of the last statement hit her and she gave a rueful laugh. "Not that I'm going anywhere right now. You don't have to worry about me rushing away in the dead of night."

He chuckled. "See, you made a joke. You're getting better already, sweetheart. I just wish I'd brought you a romantic present, like a nice bucket full of kolto."

He paused, eyeing her body veiled beneath the sheet. "How's old Revan been treating you, anyway? The guy may be a military genius, but he doesn't look like much of a nurse."

"He's been good to me, really good to me, in his way. He's not like anybody else. I guess that's why he practically runs the galaxy and the rest of us just live in it."

Atton's eyes didn't stray from the sheet. "Can I see where you're hurt? I just – I want to know what they did to you."

Her hand went up protectively around the edge of the fabric.

"It's not pretty, Atton."

His hand wrapped around hers. Slowly, gently, he lifted each finger away from the sheet.

"It's okay. I just want to see how the wound looks. I might be able to help out a little bit. I mean, I'm not Dr. Mical or anything, but hey, I know a thing or two about getting hurt."

Shira pulled back the sheet then eased away the top of the first bandage, its fabric clouded with dark blood. Her hands trembled as she did it.

"This is it."

Atton kept his pazaak face, but she could spot a glimmer of shock in his unflinching eyes. She hated to have him see her like this, a broken shell of the fighter she had been. It was his love, his desire, the bluster of his bawdy, incorrigible humor that she wanted, not tepid compassion, not bloodless regret.

She pressed the bandage back into place and pulled the sheet back over her bare skin.

"You're going to get better," he said. "I'm going to make sure of it. I'm not too great at this force-healing thing, but I can do it. It will help."

He rested his hands on her shoulders and gazed down at her intently. He obviously thought that staring a hole in her forehead would help the healing process.

Shira smothered a smile. She always found it irresistibly funny watching Atton act like a Jedi, but she knew that if she let on, it would hurt his feelings. He always insisted he'd rather marry a Wookiee than join the Order, but it was a dire injury to his pride if anyone suggested that the Jedi weren't desperate for him to join their ranks.

"There," he said. "Do you feel any better?"

His attempt at force-healing hadn't worked, but she nodded her head and smiled anyway. It wasn't a lie. She did feel better. Just his hands on her skin and the earthy warmth of his brown eyes were enough to comfort her.

He leaned down and kissed her. She squeezed her eyes shut, enjoying the pressure of his lips against her own.

When he drew away, yearning flooded through her body. She felt as if she could kiss him for days, drinking the air from his lungs, living on mingled breath. It had been such a long time since he'd last touched her and it had been such a brief kiss.

Atton looked down at her and this time it was hard to miss the grief in his face. His hand on her arm was gentle, almost pitying, as if she was unbearably frail, a woman sculpted out of egg-shells.

"It's gonna be okay. You'll see. We've made it out of worse scrapes before."

She knew he was scared and trying to calm himself just as much as he was trying to reassure her. Atton needed her to tell him it was going to be alright. He wouldn't rest unless he heard it. He was superstitious that way, endearingly, almost childishly so.

"You're right, Atton," she said. "We've been through much worse than this. Everything's going to be better now. I can promise you that."

He sighed, brushing dark hair back from his forehead. "I should let you rest. Revan seems to think he needs to play chaperone. I'm pushing my luck already just coming in here."

Atton turned to leave, but her fingers encircled his wrist.

"Stay," she whispered. "If you go now, when I wake up again, I'll just think I dreamed you. I won't believe you're real. Stay with me. It's been so long since I've seen you."

"Alright," he said. "You don't have to ask me twice."

He pushed the empty gurney up beside hers and interlocked the metal sidings. Sitting down on the far edge of the gurney, he pried off his mud-crusted boots and folded his long body onto the make-shift bed beside her. His hands curled around the curve of her hips and his chin nestled against the back of her neck.

"You've got one little freckle, right here," he said. His finger pointed to a remote location on her shoulder. "You know that?"

"No, I don't usually look back there."

"That's too bad. It's pretty cute."

She smiled. "Yeah? Maybe you should kiss it."

He kindly obliged her.

"Shouldn't you get some sleep or something?"

"Why? Don't we have anything better to do?" she teased.

He snorted. "Come on, you know I'm usually all for recreational activities in bed, but you're wounded right now. We gotta be careful. Besides, there's a former Sith lord standing down the hall who isn't going to tolerate any hanky-panky. He just finished giving me the eye like he's your disapproving dad. The way he looked me up and down, you'd think I was some punk kid asking to take you out for a date on my speeder."

She laughed. "I don't know what you're talking about! Why would 'recreational activities' in bed bother Revan? I just wanted to know if you'd like to play a couple rounds of pazaak."

He chuckled and his breath tickled against her skin.

"Nah, I'm not in the mood for pazaak right now. And this is probably the only time you'll ever hear me say that, so enjoy it while you can. C'mon, sweetheart, I'm tired. Let's catch some shut-eye, huh?"

A few minutes later, he was snoring in her ear.

She stayed awake, staring at the blank white walls of the med-bay. Bao-Dur's words kept creeping back into her mind, his soft voice lulling her: "I forgive you. I healed my wounds. Now go and fix yourself, General. Do it before it's too late."

He was right. Whatever had been broken inside of her, she needed to repair it. She couldn't ignore the wound anymore, not when it gaped as red and terrible as the gash Asmortis had sliced through her skin.

Having Atton back made it better. His arms wrapped snugly around her, the rise and fall of his chest as he slept, hell even, that wheezing sawmill of a snore; they all made her want to be better, to love him, to heal.

Revan paused at the threshold of the med bay door. He wasn't fond of long goodbyes – anyone who knew him could attest to that. Still, he had to say something. He owed the woman that much.

Shira glanced up from the datapad she was reading. Propped up on pillows and smothered under layers of bedsheets, at first glance she could have been mistaken for a spoiled Coruscanti socialite unwinding at a swanky day spa. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips curled up as though she were enjoying a secret joke. She looked so happy, so consummately pleased with herself, that it was easy to forget that a Sith lord had torn through her chest two days ago and she was hopped up on more painkillers and stims than a camp full of Mandalorians.

"Come on in," she said, dropping the datapad onto her lap. "Since when did you get so shy?"

"I've come to say goodbye, Shira. I've received a transmission from the Chiss admiralty and I'm needed back at Rhigar. The situation is urgent," he said.

It was a terrible lie, but he wasn't about to tell her the truth and make her sacrifice seem worthless. He'd made Atton promise to do the same. As far as Shira would ever know, the True Sith had been defeated and the galaxy was safe. If she recovered, she could go back to the Republic and have whatever life she chose for herself. He almost envied her that freedom. Her journey was over, but his had just begun.

She stared at him. "A transmission? But I thought –"

"I repaired the communications systems," he said, almost too smoothly. "I've been speaking to Atton and he says that he'll stay here and take care of you while you heal."

Shira just nodded. This latest piece of information didn't appear to be a source of much surprise. Perhaps they had made plans already, started scheming what they would do when he cleared out. It should have made him happy, but instead, he felt resentment, perhaps even a tinge of envy. It'd had been a long time since he'd been able to conspire with someone that – intimately.

"I assume it will be okay? My leaving?" Revan asked. "I expect your friend won't mind. He's quite eager to get you – and the Ebon Hawk – all to himself. I've never met anybody so willing to trade a good ship for a rusty old wreck, even if it is the rusty old wreck that saved the Republic."

Shira smiled. "Atton loves the Hawk. I think he'd sell his own mother to Hutts rather than see this thing scrapped. No, I don't mind. It's probably best this way. I couldn't stand to leave the ship either."

She glanced at her small hands laid out on the white sheets and rubbed them together as if they were cold.

"I'll miss you, Rev. I know that may be hard to believe, but even when I hate you, I love you half to death. You're the closest thing I've got to family now, so it's probably fitting that most of the time we want to gouge each other's eyes out."

He chuckled. There was some truth in that. After all they had been through together, they were no closer to understanding each other, but there was a tie between them now, a bond like blood.

"Maybe so," he said. "You fight well and you have a lot of the Jedi left in you, exile or no. Wherever you go and whatever you do, I wish you well."

"What will you do now, Revan?"

He kept the answer appropriately vague. It was better to tell half-truths than outright lies. "I'll do what I've always done, what I have to do. I'll keep going on, keep working, keep fighting. There will always be work for Jedi in this galaxy and you know that work is what I live for."

"You'll go back to the Republic then?"

He paused, wetting his lips. "One day, perhaps, if the Force allows. I'm a divisive figure, a source of bitterness, whether I like or not, and I believe that the Republic is better off without me for a time. After a while, the name 'Revan' will cease to hold much terror and I'll return. When they see me again, I'll be just another old man creaking back home to live a quiet life and see old friends in his last years. Other threats and other heroes will have risen to replace me."

Shira watched him, her green eyes glittering with tears. "Are you sure? Exile can be difficult, Revan, even if it is a self-imposed one. I just hope you'll remember that there are people who care about you. You were our leader. You were our ideal."

"Yes, I was once," Revan replied. "But it can't go on forever. Send my regards to-"

He stopped himself just before he spoke their names: Bastila, Carth, Mission, Juhani, Jolee, Zaalbar, Canderous. It was better to leave those feelings behind for now. They could do him no good.

"Yes?" Shira eyed him expectantly. "To who?"

"Nevermind. Thoughtless words. A bad habit of mine, I'm afraid. I must go now. Goodbye, my friend."

He turned and walked towards the door, but he couldn't stop himself from taking a last backwards glance.

"May the Force be with you."

"And with you," she answered, a sorrowful smile on her face.

He strode away as quickly as he could. He didn't want to feel her gaze burning against his back or hear her sniffle quietly as she wiped the tears from her cheeks.

He hated long goodbyes.

Atton met him in the bridge. He was still a smarmy schutta, but he'd proven surprisingly useful when it came to information.

The scoundrel sidled up to him with a wolfish grin. He was already swaggering around the Hawk like he owned the place. "So I take it you're on your way?"

"You're very observant."

"I pride myself on it," Atton quipped. He paused, his face suddenly serious. "Be careful with those True Sith, whatever you do. They're different, different than anything you've ever seen. Don't underestimate them."

"And the Star Map is on The Direstar?"

"Yeah, I got it all rigged up for you."

"Good. Well, Atton, it's been – interesting." That really was the most honest way to describe it. He shook the man's hand, gripping it just a little too hard for comfort. "Be good to her. Have a safe trip back to Republic space."

Atton raised his arm in a mock salute. "Aye- aye, Captain."

Revan turned his back on the sarcastic son of a twitch and started off towards the docking bay but Atton came chasing after him.

"Hey Chief, I almost forgot to give you this."

The scoundrel's leather-glove hand darted out and passed him a package. The wrapping job was obviously Atton's handiwork. It was hastily done, balled up in cloth and tied up with string. It was an awkwardly shaped parcel, all edges and corners, about the size of his fist. It lay heavy in Revan's palm.

"What's this?" he demanded.

Atton rolled his eyes. "You're not good with surprises, are you? Open it up."

Revan sighed. He wasn't in the mood for practical jokes, but since it was the last time he'd ever see the schutta, he'd humor him. He began to unwind the string holding the cloth together. "What's the occasion?"

"Eh, what can I say?" Atton shrugged. "Life Day comes early this year."

Pulling back the cloth, Revan saw a glint of bronze metal and then a cluster of wires. It was a vocabulator from an advanced droid model.

"Um, thanks? It's just what I always wanted," Revan deadpanned.

"Look a little closer."

Revan squinted down at the identification panel running along the side of the vocabulator. The number was worn, nearly scratched off, but once he'd made out the first three digits, the rest were unmistakable.

Atton grinned. "HK says hello. The rest of him is waiting for you on the ship."

"What? Where'd you find him? I had him disassembled and scattered across half the fracking galaxy."

"Well, I guess he missed you. Or I don't know, maybe the Force 'ordained' it. You Jedi always have an explanation for everything."

Revan pocketed the vocabulator. "Alright, then. It has been interesting, very interesting indeed."

"Just a word of advice: you might want to give his memory a good wipe. I have a feeling he'll be pretty glitchy, probably talking a lot of nonsense."

"I've got it," Revan muttered.

As he trudged away, he couldn't resist a parting shot. He chucked it over his shoulder like a frag grenade. "Goodbye, meatbag."

He didn't turn around to enjoy the startled look on Atton's face.

"You sure this is a good idea?"

Atton thought she was rushing the recovery process, but he knew better than to contradict her when she really wanted something. It would just make her more damnably determined.

"I can do it," she said. "Trust me on this one."

Wrapping a sheet around her body, Shira slowly lowered her legs over the side of the bed. Her dark brown hair fell in messy waves around her resolute face and cascaded over the white hills of her shoulders. She edged forward on the bed and hoisted herself up on to her feet.

She stood, smiling at him, the sheet draped around her sinuous curves, and for an instant, it was as if they were back on Alderaan, in days when time stretched out as long as the afternoon shadows and youth, health, life itself, had seemed eternal. She stood for a moment, then her legs baulked and her knees buckled beneath her.

Atton caught her under the arms before she hit the floor. He could feel a spasm of pain ripple through her body. She grimaced and he heard her teeth clench together, her jaw grinding as she tried to stifle a moan.

"I'll do it," she insisted. "I just have to get my space legs back."

"You did it already," he said. "You got yourself up. Let me help you out now."

"You're sweet, but I think you're mistaking me for a damsel in distress. I'm quite capable of walking to the cockpit."

He scooped her up in his arms even she struggled against him and began walking towards the med-bay door.

"That's probably true," he replied. "But right now, I'm not capable of watching you half-kill yourself trying to do it."

Shira fluttered her eyelashes and pretended to simper. "My hero!" she cooed, waving a hand in front of her neck as if she was fanning herself from the flames of passion.

He laughed. "Sarcastic and stubborn. I think I may have started to wear off on you, sweetheart."

"Don't give yourself too much credit, Rand. I was like this long before you met me. You just have a wonderful way of bringing out all my worst qualities."

She kissed his neck, her lips full and yielding. "Some of my best ones, too."

He turned to the side, maneuvering so that they could squeeze through the cockpit door. "I'm glad you made that last addition. If you hadn't, I might have been tempted to bump your head on the door frame. I'm kind of a schutta like that."

"You wouldn't!" she laughed.

"The lure of the dark-side is strong, babe. I'd resist with all my might, but still, you gotta be nice to me sometimes. Let me play hero once in a while, huh?"

He lowered her down into the navigator's seat. "There you go. See? It wasn't so bad letting me help you out a little."

"No," she said. "You're good to me. I appreciate it. I just don't cope very well with being sick. You know that about me."

He sat down in the pilot's seat beside her, leaning over the armrest so that he could wrap his arm around her shoulder. Her bare skin was petal-soft and cool to the touch.

"Look at it out there," she murmured, nodding at the window. "It's beautiful. We've been all across this galaxy and I don't think I've ever seen so many stars."

He looked out the window at a wall of stars. Burning white, yellow, red, ethereal blue, the lights looked like tiny shards of glass in a cosmic mosaic. It was easy to forget that they were light-years apart, moving in their separate orbits, distant and unknowing. For just an instant, the Force seemed to sew each star together with silver thread, constellations formed before his unbelieving eyes and the galaxy made sense.

He glanced over at Shira, her mouth curving into a spellbound smile, her green eyes languid. "It is. Beautiful." He craned his neck forward and kissed her cheek, then the side of her mouth.

She tilted her head towards him, her drowsy smile widening.

"When I was very young at the Enclave, maybe 5 or 6, I used to look at the stars and pretend that they were watching me. I used to imagine that they knew me and everything that happened to me, whether I had a good day or a bad day, whether I behaved or I slacked off in my lessons."

Shira hesitated for moment. She was suddenly alert and seemed to watch his face carefully.

"I've never told anyone this, but I had this idea that maybe if my mother or my father were looking at the sky at the same time as me, maybe they'd know that I missed them, that I wanted to see them. I used to wonder if maybe they'd realize that they really wanted me and bring me back home. Pretty silly, right?"

"Nah. Not for a kid. I used to believe in all kinds of stupid stuff."

He'd always hated the way he grew up, what his family had been and what they'd made him, but it was hard to imagine having no point of origin at all, nobody to love, not even someone to blame for royally screwing you up.

"Jedi, even padawans, aren't supposed to do those sorts of things, to think about attachments like that," she said. "In any case, it took me a couple years to realize that the stars were different on each planet and my parents wouldn't even be looking at the same sky."

"Eh, everybody gets crazy notions in their head when they're kids. When I was a kid, I used to think I was going to be some big-deal Republic pilot who got the girl and had more credits than a colony of Hutts."

He grinned at her, giving her arm a squeeze. "It may not have all worked out according to plan, but at least I got the girl. One out of three ain't bad."

"This place looks like the end of all things, doesn't it? I'm glad, Atton. I'm glad that you're here with me now at the edge of everything."

"What do you mean 'the end'? This is just the beginning. We can go anywhere."

Her eyes were transfixed by the star-strewn sky, a ghostly beauty in her haunted face. "Sometimes beginnings and endings are the same thing. All that holds them together is love. That's the middle."

She looked at him and her smile was tantalizing. "Force, you're handsome. Did I tell you that enough? Did I ever tell you how much you make me laugh, how happy you make me even when you get me mad, even when I'm so damn infuriated I could kick you out an airlock?"

He gaped at her, unsure whether to laugh or to declare her delirious. "You didn't have to, sweetheart. I already knew."

She kissed him hard on the mouth. "Good. Keep knowing it. Know it past breath, past life, past all knowing. Promise me that you'll never forget."

"I won't," he said, stroking her hair. "But I think you're getting tired. You're starting not to make much sense, babe."

She rested her head on his shoulder, nuzzling her cheek against the side of his neck. "You're right. I am tired and I'm probably just babbling now. I don't think I've recovered quite as much as I hoped."

"Don't worry. You'll be better in no time. No reason to rush it. Just relax, huh? Get some rest."

Shira gave a faint sigh and closed her eyes. He remembered the night they danced on the pier in Aldera, their locked bodies revolving in the same slow orbit, the still water flecked with flashes of light. They had been silent then, and they were silent now, her head pillowed against his shoulder, his arms around her.

"I love you," he said.

She didn't answer. Her sleep was peaceful and deep. He would not wake her. She could not hear him now, but something told him she already knew.