Chapter Three: Helpless

The water to Revan's shower had shut off nearly five minutes ago, but there was still no sign of her. Carth had been waiting in the common room for her to come join him for some tea and snack cakes, and in the process drifted in and out of a light sleep. After ten minutes had passed since Revan's shower ended, he decided to go looking for her. Had she fallen back asleep after the shower? Carth walked down the hall towards her quarters and knocked on the door. "Revan?" he asked. "Revan, you awake?"

Silence.

Carth gently opened the door and poked his nose inside. "Revan?"

He found Revan collapsed on the floor, softly sobbing.

"Blasted!" he softly cursed as he quickly entered the room and closed and locked the door behind him.

Revan must have collapsed right after emerging from her shower. She lay on her left side on the cold, metal floor naked, her towel barely covering her. Judging by the way the towel lay across her body and the clean clothes on her bed, she must have been in the process of getting dressed when she collapsed. Revan's long hair was still wet and clung to her body. Carth could see her shivering in between her soft sobs. He grabbed the wool blanket off the bed Bastila once used and draped it over Revan's naked body. He tried as hard as he could to keep Revan's dignity in tact as he helped her sit up. Carth tossed the towel off to the side and wrapped her tight in the blanket. He sat on the ground, leaned his back against the frame of Revan's bed, and once again cradled her in his arms. This was slowly becoming a reoccurring theme. The cynic in him wondered if every hour on the hour Revan was going to turn the waterworks on. Then again, he didn't know any who had their entire world turned upside-down due to a Force mind wipe. Maybe hysterics is how people dealt with it? He could only imagine, and hope that it never happened to him.

Revan shivered in his arms. He held her tighter. "What happened?" Carth asked, his voice filled with infinite sadness. "Talk to me, Rev."

"Carth," she softly cried. "It was so real… So real…"

"What was real, Beautiful?" he asked, tucking her head underneath his chin.

"I… I was on… the Star Forge," she forced out. "I was… was there. And Malak… Carth, I was Revan… I, I…"

Carth brushed strands of wet hair away from her face and tucked them behind her ear. "You had another Force Vision, didn't you?"

"I've never been so scared," she whispered.

"You've had Force Visions before," he said.

Revan squeezed her eyes shut. "But ever since Malak told me I was Revan, they've gotten worse."

Carth almost uttered a sarcastic phrase, but bit his tongue. She didn't need that now. "Talk to me, Revan," he said instead, his tone tender and full of concern. He cupped the side of her face and mindlessly massaged her temple with his thumb. "Tell me what happened."

Revan searched for the right words, then gave up and said what came to mind. "I was Revan… I, I could see what she saw; I could touch what she touched. I… I could feel the Star Forge." Carth wiped away her tears with his thumb. She slowly began to relax. "I just… I just couldn't control… my actions. I could see everything, but I couldn't… couldn't do anything about it."

"Maybe it was more than just a Force Vision," Carth carefully said, his tone grave. "Maybe, maybe it was an old memory."

Revan let out a faint sob. "I don't want to remember! I don't want to know what I did! How could I have been so wicked! How could I have done those things! I would never… never…"

Carth gently rocked her back and forth. "I don't know what to tell you, Beautiful."

"I, I saw her kill someone with Force Lightening through her eyes," Revan blurted out. "It was me… I could never do that… Never… I… I would never…"

"Shhh," Carth soothed.

"I could never hurt you," she continued. "I, I just…"

"You're not going to hurt me," Carth said. "I know what I said before, and I'm sorry—"

"Saul was torturing you." Revan was crying again. "I wouldn't answer… answer his questions…"

"You were protecting the Republic," Carth assured. "That was more important. I'm not angry with you for that, or for anything that happened. I—"

"I screamed for him to stop," she continued. Carth wasn't sure if Revan was even listening to him anymore. "I begged him to stop, Carth. I, I tried… tried so hard… You collapsed and… I thought you were dead…"

Carth didn't remember collapsing while in the torture cell.

"And then she was there," Revan said. "She was there, Carth! She, she choked you… I screamed… I screamed so loud and so hard… But she killed you. She snapped your neck and you fell—I couldn't do anything… I couldn't do anything!"

Revan wasn't talking about the Leviathan anymore. Now Carth wasn't sure if she actually had been talking about the Leviathan in the first place. "Is that what you dreamt earlier? You dreamt that Darth Revan killed me?"

Revan didn't answer. She just sobbed into his shoulder.

This was way out of Carth's league. Revan had been quiet ever since he had yelled at her in front of the entire crew, not saying a word to anyone but Mission and Jolee. And now she was a basket case. Had she been holding everything inside since before they reached Korriban? She was going to drive herself crazy trying to adjust to being the former Dark Lord of the Sith if someone didn't do something. The last thing anyone needed was a hysterical Revan facing Lord Malak. But Carth was helpless.

"I wish there was something I could do, Revan," Carth said. "I wish I could somehow make it all better, to make you forget what you just went through. But Beautiful, I'm no Jedi. I don't know how to help or what to do."

She looked up at him with her tear-filled bright eyes. "You're doing it," she whispered.

Carth smiled. "As wonderful as that is to hear, I really think you need to talk to Jolee. I can hold you while you cry, but I can't help you work through the visions. All I can say is that if these visions are as real as you're saying, it says an awful lot about the person you are now."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Darth Revan never hesitated to kill anyone who stood in her way," Carth answered. "And when you witness first-hand something that she did, it turned you into one, frantic Jedi. You, you keep repeating that you could never do what she did in either vision, whether to someone you didn't know or to the sexless marshtoad that's holding you."

Revan let out a soft laughed and smiled.

Carth smiled back. "If those visions were to teach you a lesson, to test the character of the person you are now, then I think you passed, Gorgeous. But I still think you really, really need to talk to Jolee."

Revan didn't say anything. She just nodded that she knew. Together they sat in silence, Carth still gently holding her, Revan sniffling. She eventually stopped, then pulled the blanket around her even tighter than before.

"What's wrong?" Carth frowned. "Cold?"

Revan blushed. "Embarrassed."

"Over what?"

She sighed. "I… I can't believe you found me naked."

Carth chuckled. "Don't take this the wrong way, Gorgeous, but remember: I was married for a good number of years. I know what women look like. You're just… a variation of a theme."

That caught her attention. "A variation of a theme!" she snapped. "Here you are with a naked woman in your arms, one you've been calling 'Beautiful' since Taris, one who you said you could love and who said she could love you back, and now you're calling her a variation of a theme! Is that all I am to you! Of all the—" She stopped. Carth's grin could have split his face in half. "What!"

He just grinned.

Revan blinked. "You… You just did that on purpose, didn't you?"

Carth winked.

Revan huffed. "That was a dirty trick to get my mind off of things, Onasi."

Carth smiled and kissed her forehead. "I'm sorry, Beautiful. But I couldn't resist."

"I'm very vulnerable right now, ya know," she grumbled, pulling the blanket as tight as she could.

"Would you rather I tell you I enjoyed the view?"

"So you're not a sexless marshtoad after all then?"

Carth blushed. "Well, I, uh…"

Revan giggled.

Carth coughed. "Why don't you get dressed, and then come meet me in the common room? I've still got our drinks and food waiting."

Her face fell. "Oh Carth, I'm so sorry—"

"There's nothing to be sorry for," he assured. "The drinks can be re-heated, and provided Mission hasn't found the snack cakes, they should still be there, too."

Revan smiled. "You're too good to me, flyboy."

"Just get dressed, okay?"

She nodded. "Okay. I'll, I'll be out in a minute."