Atton's hazel eyes opened at a laborious pace until he was looking hazily up at a ceiling he didn't recognize. There was a familiar hangover feeling he did recognize in his head and stomach, however, and based on the pain it had been a rough night.

He rolled over to see a naked yellow back with a sheet partially drawn up. A Twi'lek. He could hardly remember picking her up, much less recall if she was any good. Must have not been that good, then.

The night before was coming back to him in sips now: Mandalore and Bao Dur calling for shots of juma with him, and the progression from patiently enjoying themselves til Avery returned to Bao Dur laughing at Atton and Mandalore drunkenly lamenting the lack of female company they'd endured for long periods. Mandalore's was far, far longer than Atton's, but Atton had been in perpetual agony from wrestling with the Exile in Dxun, the hyper-realistic dreams he had, teaching her how to move in a cantina, and watching her dancing in a tiny outfit. The frustration built up to a point where he was pissed. He'd never have her, never, and the thought was unendurable. The only way he'd be able to stand it is if he let out his frustrations with someone else, prove to her that she wasn't important. And that's when he sauntered over to a Twi'lek who was obviously appreciating his good looks.

As he watched the female next to him with disinterest, he sighed. Even though his looks were all genetics and he could care less about them, they sure were handy for getting women into bed. Sometimes he didn't even have to work at it: they approached him. And the fact that it happened last night was pure luck. He probably wouldn't have had the heart to pick one up unless she was already quite willing. Avery's face kept coming up in his thoughts, blocking his progress. At one point he'd shut his eyes and pretended it was her, willing and needy underneath him, and only that allowed him to finish. Avery was the only one he wanted.

Shit. He loved her.

Atton groaned and rolled over, which woke the Twi'lek. She sat up, looking at him in bewilderment, as he buried his head in his pillow, making despairing noises into it. As she hurriedly dressed to leave, she told herself to avoid the handsome ones from now on. They were obviously insane.

Atton was as presentable as he was gonna look after a night of drinking and meaningless sex, so he walked the streets of Nar Shaddaa doing his best to recall where Mandalore and Bao Dur had gone. The Zabrak, ever reserved and decent, hadn't even had much to drink, so it was doubtful he'd hooked up with anybody. Mandalore, on the other hand? It was unlikely he didn't.

Despite himself, whether she was around or not, he was always aware of Avery somehow, like a pull toward whatever room she was in. Now, however, he couldn't sense her, which meant it would take even longer for him to join the team. She'd probably be beyond pissed, too. This was gonna be a fun one to explain.

As he cut through an alley, a couple of Twi'lek girls clad in leather walked down head-on. Atton was instantly weary, but he had a part to play in case they were harmless.

"Hey there," he said in his typical flirtatious tone. "You two lovely ladies work down at the cantina on the street?"

"We are dancers, yes," the pale one replied in the typical breathy tone of her people. "Slaves once, now no more."

"Yeah?" His tone was clipped. "What happened to your Master?"

The jet-black twin spoke up. "He was made deceased. We serve no one but ourselves. Tell us why you have come to the smuggler's moon. Are you looking for something? Perhaps us?"

His muscles were already tensing, preparing. "No, actually. I'm here protecting someone. Keeping her out of trouble- by acting as a distraction for people looking to harm her."

"Harm her?" The pale one laughed. "Do you think we are assassins?"

"We are not assassins. Assassins kill for money. That is not what we do. We only wish the Exile submit, or else we shall kill you and find other bait."

"Why don't you two schuttas try it, and we'll see what happens?"

In unison, the twins brought out steel vibroswords, crouched in preparation. Like lightning, Atton drew out his blaster and shot the pale one in the gut.

The Twi'lek gasped, clutching at her abdomen. As she sank to the floor, Atton's eyes cut to the dark twin. There was alarm evident on her face, but she must have been quite determined, for she ignored her sister and charged.

Atton fired a shot, which the sister blocked, and he just managed to sidestep her first swing. So the blaster was out now. He had to get her weapon.

When she swung up and across, he ducked and shoved his forearm hard into her wrist. The weapon fell with a clatter, and before she could react, he had picked it up and ran it through her heart. He had fought enemies they would never stand a chance against- this had been an easy fight.

The two were collapsed on the deserted alley, just like any other murder in Nar Shaddaa. Atton had to find everyone else now. The deal was off.

When he found the rest of the party sitting in the central square, Avery was not with them. Even as the question formed on his lips, Kreia was answering. "She received an invitation from one of the main crime lords of this city, Visquis, to meet at the Jekk'Jekk Tarr. He has a great deal of information that she needs."

"Alone? Are you insane? He's obviously not going to just tell her shit and let her walk out! That place is filled with cyanogen gas. One whiff of that and it'll be the last breath she takes!"

"I already outfitted her with a full space suit," Bao Dur said patiently. "She'll be able to breathe just fine."

"I can't believe you all didn't stop her-"

"If you had been here," Kreia interrupted smoothly, "you could have."

He halted, then rubbed his stinging eyes. "Look, the truce between the bounty hunters in the city is off. There's going to be war. A trap in the Jekk'Jekk Tarr is bad enough, but having a hundred bounty hunters on your back is something else. How long has she been gone?"

Mandalore crossed his powerful arms and huffed. "A while. A long while."

"She needs time, in order to hear what the alien has to say," Visas protested in her small voice. "We can't go too soon."

The scoundrel looked back at Mandalore, who was clearly wrestling with himself now. She had been gone quite a while, and the alien likely wouldn't waste too much time with some human unless…

Unless he had other plans. "No," Mandalore said firmly. "It's been enough time. Let's go."

With the leadership in his voice, the team stood. Either they butted into a conversation, or they saved the Exile's life. The previous risk paled in comparison.

In the courtyard, a redheaded woman in full bounty hunter gear walked up with an air of familiarity as if she'd been traveling with them for months. "Uh, you're running a little late. Avery already walked into a trap. We took out Visquis, but Goto has her. And that means no bounty for me. Before you ask," she interrupted as Bao Dur opened his mouth, "there's no way to get her back. No one knows how to reach Goto except Visquis, and that squid-head is dead now."

Atton and the redhead got into an involved and heated argument concerning ship orbits, freighters, and transponder codes, until finally Atton called for T3-M4. When the droid arrived, he muttered a long line of orders until the droid twittered at him and rolled away.

"That sounded complicated," Mandalore remarked.

"You have no idea. I really don't like bothering with trash compactors, but we have no choice. We have to get to Goto's yacht."

"Oh shit," Mandalore replied in alarm.

"Yeah, oh shit. Let's go find somewhere to wait. This will take a while."

"I'll be going with you," Mira interjected. "Goto's yacht is full up on defense systems, so you'll need me, I promise."

"Not to be rude here, but who are you and how do you know the General?" Bao Dur asked.

"Uh, the girl, you mean? Well." She clapped her hands on her knees as they sat. "It's a good damn thing we've got a lot of time to kill."

"Alright," Atton said with satisfaction as he poked his head out of the ship. "The ID's changed. We'll be intercepted by Goto in no time. And I honestly never thought I'd say something like that and be happy about it."

As they boarded the yacht, there was an astonishing number of scrap heaps littered along the hallways. Everyone had their weapons drawn, progressing room after room as droid bodies began to mix with human bodies, until the trail led to a closed door with the swishes of lightsabers behind it.

Mira promptly stepped ahead and began to override the door controls. "Everyone get ready," she told them. "There's probably a bunch of Sith in there or something, and we've gotta kill 'em quick."

When the door opened, the party saw a girl, dressed in black robes, with blue and green lightsabers flashing in her hands. Bounty hunters were flying around the room, blasters firing off, and when the girl swiftly holstered one and violently waved in an arc with her bare hand, a hunter crashed hard against the wall and became a heap on the tiled floor. There was a sudden silence, and Avery turned, panting, to her teammates. "Oh. Hey there. Glad you all could make it. There's a lot more up ahead. Got another lightsaber," she wheezed to Bao Dur as they all approached her. "Not great, but better than an empty hand."

"Wow. I'm so glad we came to rescue you."

"Oh come on, Atton. You did. I just figured I'd keep myself busy until you showed up to save me."

He snorted as the next door opened, and waves of bounty hunters charged screaming towards them. Two shot directly between the eyes, and he turned to her as she swung a lightsaber across one's neck, severing his head. "You don't need to be condescending, Kess." Heart shot, the man dropped. "From the looks of, you know, the entire ship up to this point, you were doing just fine without me."

Bao Dur had dropped one, Kreia Choked another, Visas Pushed one into three and knocked them all over, and the Exile threw one lightsaber into the chest of a hunter so that Visas easily pulled it out to slice open another. "No. I really was having a hard time. Youare rescuing me."

"I'd better be, for all the work I put into this. Well, that I made T3 put into this."

The last hunter went down at Atton's shot. He replaced the clip and looked over at the Exile, blood smeared on her cheek. "We almost done? I'm tired already."

"Yup. Mira already decided we're going to blow it up. The yacht, I mean."

The redhead peered over the Exile's shoulder and winked slyly. "Good idea, right?"

Uh oh. He'd seen that look on a woman's face before. He took back what he thought before- his good looks were definitely a pain in the ass.

Mira informed the Exile that Zez-Kai Ell was on the planet now, and since Goto was dealt with, he'd come out of hiding shortly. Everyone took the opportunity to get alone time and drifted away from each other. Visas, dreading the tumultuous energies of the planet again, stuck close to the Exile. Atton knew that unless he told Avery about his past now, when there were so few team members around, he'd never get the courage to manage it.

He finally got his bearings as the three of them passed by a few scattered tables near the city fountain. One of the few nice-looking spots in the city, even. The smell was slightly less terrible here. Now how would he…?

"Hey, Visas," Avery said to his surprise, "this is going to sound odd, but Atton has something he wants to tell me and it seems pretty urgent. Would you mind if we sat and talked for a while?"

The woman's expression didn't change. She merely nodded, and Avery smiled at her reassuringly. "Those benches by the garden look like a quiet spot, and it will only be a few minutes, I promise. We'll get some peaceful meditation time on the Hawk when we return- I think we both need it."

Visas' mouth flickered only a little, but it was the closest to a smile and nod she'd made, and she walked across the courtyard.

Avery sat wordlessly, looking up into his face expectantly. He would have laughed if he wasn't so terrified. When he sank into his chair, he had to take several deep breaths. This would be even tougher than he'd initially expected.

"I need to tell you about my past."

She started. "What? Why?"

"I told you a while ago that when I wanted to talk about it with you, I would. I want to."

"Alright," she relented, blinking. "I'll listen."

It took a few seconds, but finally he blurted it out. "I was in the wars. Both of them. After Malachor, after the Mandalorian Wars, that'swhen the Sith teachings started spreading through the ranks. We knew where our loyalties lay: to the Jedi who came to help us, not the ones who sat back on Dantooine and Coruscant, watching us die. So when those same Jedi who watched us die decided to start fighting us during the Jedi Civil War, we fought back. I…fought back." His head was drooped so he just barely met her stare when he raised his eyes. "I killed Jedi. A lot of them."

Even with the surprise on her face, it was coming easier now, the words. "People say killing Jedi is hard. It's not. You just have to be smart about it. No blasters, no getting close to them, no attacking them directly when you can gun down their allies instead. They get emotional- it makes them weak. There's ways of gassing them, drugging them, making them lose control, torturing them. I was really, really good at it."

Avery was flinching, her features twisted into shock, but he kept going, caught up in the relief of letting it all out. "Killing them wasn't the best thing. Making them fall…making them see our side of it, that was the best. It was all easier since I taught myself techniques. It's hard for Jedi to sense what you're really thinking if you throw up walls of strong emotions and feelings. Impatience, cowardice, lust…" His eyes were trained on her. "Most Jedi awareness doesn't cruise beyond the surface feelings, to see what's deeper. And I was good at that, throwing up walls, and my superiors knew it. Like I had an instinct, and a great leader saw that potential in me."

"You worked under Revan," Avery whispered.

He nodded. "I know that you left at the Mandalorian Wars, so you don't know much about what went on behind the scenes in the Jedi Civil War. But Revan understood that the real battle was going to be fought between the Jedi on both sides. That was the only battle that mattered. So Revan trained elite Sith units into assassination squads, whose duty was to go out and capture enemy Jedi. I was in one of those units. Then…" He shrugged. "One day I decided not to do it anymore, so I left. Ended up on Nar Shaddaa, became someone else."

"What made you decide?"

"There was a woman. A Jedi. She sought me out, told me that Revan was doing terrible things to Jedi, breaking them. She said that's what would happen to me- that I had the Force inside me. That's why I was so good at killing Jedi. I knew what she meant, but I didn't believe her. Or want to. So I did what I did with all Jedi. I hurt her. I hurt her a lot. And then, right when I thought she couldn't take any more, she showed me the Force in my head. I felt everything she felt, and I heard just an echo of what the Force was." His line of sight had wandered off to the floor. "I think…I loved her, but it wasn't that kind of love. It was the kind where you're willing to give up everything for someone you don't even know. And I killed her for showing me that. She sacrificed herself to keep my secret, to prevent the Sith from knowing about that touch of the Force inside me. She wasted her life to save me. After that, I couldn't keep doing what I was doing. So I left."

He raised his head again, and his expression was full of a sort of tenderness Avery couldn't define. "And I thought maybe…maybe she saved me so I could help you. And if I can't, then I have to try."

Her face became brighter and brighter as he spoke his next hesitant words. "Once, I felt the Force. At the time, there was too much pain to confront it, because if I did I'd be changed into something else. But now, I'm not afraid anymore. I-I think that by learning how to use it, I can help protect you." The soft expression vanished, and the joking one returned. "Uh, or at least buy you some time when disaster comes screaming in."

He caught her hands in both of his, the determination plain on his face. "Avery," he said gravely, "I want you to teach me how to use the Force. I want to learn how to use it to help you."

He searched her eyes, his heart beating hard, until a slow smile spread across her face. "Then I will train you, Atton," she replied quietly.

With a whoop, he stood, caught her up in his arms, and spun her around. By the time he brought her back to earth, she was breathless and laughing. He kept his arms around her for just a second longer than was absolutely necessary before he let go. "So, what do I have to do? Is there some…some ritual, or…?"

She gestured for him to sit. "Just close your eyes," she replied softly. "And open your mind."

He did as she said, aware of her so close to him as she sat across the table: her smell, her even breaths, the warmth coming from her skin. He heard her voice again, half physically, half in his head.

"You must learn to feel it around you. Feel its currents, its eddies. Listen to the echo of your thoughts, your heart- separated from war, separated from hate."

The awareness shifted from Avery, spread wider. There was a flow in everything, and he could sense it bit by small bit. His past, his nightmares, were falling away from him in the current. Even when he started to feel overwhelmed, Avery was coaxing him gently, steering him in the right direction. Now her voice was fully in his head. "Think of what you feel when you felt the need to help me, to protect me."

That was easy. He'd been trying so hard to suppress how he fell for her, keep it secret, not make a fool of himself. But for once, he allowed it to wash over him. He sighed.

"And at last, Atton," she whispered, "…awaken."

His eyes opened, and it was as if the world had gone from black-and-white to color. He was connected to the energy in the room, in the city, in the planet, and to Avery, vivid and beautiful in front of him. The tiny, inexplicable stirrings in him were now full-fledged sensations that he understood. He was more complete than he'd ever been.

"I'd spin you around again," he said in a voice that shook only slightly, "but I think we've had enough of that."

The Exile just smiled.