A/N: It should become obvious very shortly that my Exile is not the canon version Meetra Surik. The story is marked that way because that's the only tag for the Exile. So if male Exiles aren't your thing, you might want to turn back now.

Chapter One: Bitter Men

When Canderous wanted to sleep on the Hawk, he went to crew quarters. When he wanted to eat, he went to the mess in the main hold. When he wanted to burn off some excess aggression, he went to the cargo hold to spar with the Echani. When he wanted to drink, he found the so-called leader of their little band—Nico Kor-Vas, the Jedi Exile—and they raided whatever stashes they could find and holed up as far away from the old blind witch as they could get on a Corellian freighter.

At least the witch wasn't a problem anymore; they'd left her corpse on Malachor V. The Echani and the others had departed on some other backwater world, full of noble intentions of restoring the Jedi Order.

But even without them, thanks to the fracking fire-suppression system, the only place Canderous could go when he wanted to smoke was the fracking swoop hangar. He leaned against the wall, cigarra hanging from his mouth, flicking the lighter in his hand and staring holes in the black scorch mark burned into the deck by a fire extinguished five years before.

The hangar door hissed open and Nico walked through. With his bloodshot eyes and his rumpled robe hanging off his shoulders, it looked like he just rolled out of bed—or more likely scraped himself off of the 'fresher floor. He stopped in the middle of the hangar and scratched his bare stomach. "Dammit, there'd better be something left to drink around here."

Canderous pulled the cigarra from his mouth and blew a stream of smoke at the deck. "Try the workbench."

The exile grunted and crouched, rooting through the crate under the bench. Prize in hand, he popped the seal and took a long draw. Then he pulled another bottle from the crate and tossed it in Canderous's direction.

"Drink," he demanded as he pushed himself to his feet. "And kill whatever the hell has crawled up your ass and is slamming into my senses. It's giving me a fracking headache."

"Stay out of my head and it won't be a problem," Canderous replied. But he opened the bottle and swallowed down a generous drink.

"I'm not in your head. You're broadcasting your misery like a ten-cred joygirl." Nico dropped himself on a nearby stool. "Which I don't get since two Sith assholes are dead, we're free of the Jedi, and we're on our way back to people who aren't so uptight that they can't appreciate a good fight. Seems like a win to me."

Canderous just grunted. "You check our position?"

Nico answered as he dug through the pockets of his robe and pulled out a pack of cigarras. "Six hours according to the bucket of bolts." He didn't bother with a lighter. Instead a spark arched in his cupped hand. He paused as he took a drag. "So what happens when Mandalore returns all triumphant? Feast? Booze? Women?"

Lungfuls of smoke chased Canderous's next drink. He dropped the cigarra butt to the deck and ground it out with his heel. "More likely lectures from tight-ass Clan members on neglecting my responsibilities."

Nico's brows rose. "Can't you just order them to shut the frack up? Or challenge them to a duel and make them shut up?"

"How the hell did you become a general?" Canderous asked before taking another drink.

"Because I'm that goddamn awesome." After a thoughtful pause and another drag of his smoke he added, "And because your people took out half of the chain of command by the time we joined the fight. We were Jedi and they were desperate. How the hell else do you think a twenty-two-year-old kid like Revan got control of the fleet so fast? She was brilliant, but if the Republic hadn't been getting its ass thoroughly kicked, there's no way they would have put her in charge.

"And me..." He shrugged. "I was one of the few who joined her that wasn't still in short pants, so they made me a general. I didn't have to worry about people questioning my orders. Even Republic soldiers shut the hell up and listen to the Jedi in charge when basilisk droids come barreling down. Peacetime is a different thing, of course, but I would have thought it'd be like that all the time for the Mando'ade."

"When all your warriors are Clan, everyone thinks they can question orders." Canderous glared at the bottle in his hand, as if the amber liquid had somehow doubted him. "And tell you how to live your own fracking life."

Nico grimaced. "That sounds as bad as the Jedi Council."

Canderous drank another long swallow, until the alcohol sat warm in his stomach. "Reuniting the Clans may have been the stupidest thing I've ever done." A glance at the blackened deck made him grunt again. "Second stupidest."

"Oh yeah? And what was the first?" The exile asked, pulling the bottle up for another drink, pausing as his lips split into a bitter smirk. "I bet it was a woman. It's always a woman."

Moving to a large cargo crate, Canderous dropped onto it, fishing for the pack of cigarras in his pocket. He lit one, replaced the pack, and mixed another smoke-and-whiskey cocktail, this time smoke first. "Why'd you follow Revan to war?" he asked.

The Exile shrugged. "Lots of reasons. She had the greatest ass I've ever seen, and the rest of her wasn't too bad either. And Revan knew that real Jedi don't hide behind platitudes when the greatest fight in generations comes their way. Even with all of the banthashit she pulled afterward, she wasn't wrong about that." Nico's eyes narrowed, as he looked at Canderous for a few seconds before asking. "Why'd you follow her?"

Canderous scowled back. "The Sith were destroying the whole fracking planet. I didn't have a hell of a lot of choice." Slouching back on the canister, he drained several swallows from the bottle. "I should have left her the second we hit ground," he muttered.

"But you didn't. She probably looked at you with those big dark eyes and told you she was going to save the galaxy and you followed right along, just like Malak and me and every other man stupid enough to believe her." He jabbed a finger in Canderous's direction. "I bet you even fracked her. That's why you're so damn bitter, isn't it? Revan has a special talent for screwing over the men she fracks. She's probably doing it again to some poor asshole right now."

Anger and alcohol mixed to heat the blood in Canderous's veins. "I didn't just frack her," he spat. "We took vows." He took another drink before finishing the thought. "We have a son."

Nico's eyes widened, and then he threw his head back and laughed. The bitter sound rang throughout the swoop hangar. "No shit? No wonder you're so pissed. How the hell did she convince you to do something that dumb?"

"She didn't," Canderous growled.

"It was your idea?" Drunken laughter continued as Nico shook his head. "You sorry son of a schutta. She must have had you wrapped around her manicured fingers even tighter than that dumbass Malak." His eyes narrowed in an appraising look and the laugher stopped. "Although that didn't stop you from having some fun with the Handmaiden, so maybe you're not completely whipped. Malak would have never had the balls to cheat on her."

"She left us. I don't owe her anything." Burning away any shame or regret had been a simple matter of alcohol and remembering his last conversation with Revan, when nothing he said was enough to make her stay, to convince her to let him come.

Nico shrugged. "Fair is fair. Besides, she's probably out there screwing around on you too. Being Mandalore has to open up a lot of possibilities. Wasting them all would be fracking tragic."

Another man's hands on Min's dark skin intruded on his thoughts during the day and his dreams at night. His hands clenched into fists. The burning tip of the cigarra seared into the flesh of his palm and he threw it to the deck with a muttered curse.

"We get off this ship, I'll probably be handed a list of Clan girls to knock up," he said. He knew what the gossip at the camp said. That it served him right for becoming besotted with a Jedi, for taking an old-fashioned vow. That now was the time for him to do his duty to the Clan, to spread Mandalore's seed and breed a new generation of warriors.

Nico threw his hands wide as his exasperation made his voice rise. "So pick a couple of the best-looking ones and forget about Revan. As long as they don't actually expect you to raise the brats, I don't see what the hell you're pissing and moaning about."

"You wouldn't," Canderous said before draining more of the bottle, then pinning Kor-Vas with a slightly bleary glare. "How the hell did you make it as a Jedi anyway?"

"Being a Jedi isn't a choice. I was taken from my parents when I was about four. Don't even remember them." He paused while he finished his smoke and ground it out on the edge of the workbench. "Is that what you're going to do with Revan's kid? Dump him on the Jedi after they rebuild? He has to be damn strong in the Force."

Canderous paused in raising the bottle to his lips and spat on the deck. "My son is a Mandalorian. He'll be trained as a Mandalorian. The Jedi try to dispute that, they'll have another war."

Nico snorted. "As if there are enough Jedi left to pick a fight. They've got bigger problems than your kid."

"For now," Canderous replied. "Someday some new Master will get a stick up their ass about Revan's son being on the loose. That's how the Jedi operate."

"It's the Sith you should be worried about. Do you have any fracking idea how huge of a prize Revan's kid would be?"

After draining the last of the whiskey, Canderous tossed the empty bottle into the scrap crate beside the workbench. "Let them try. I've fought four Sith Lords in the past five years. I'm the one that walked away."

A smirk split Nico's lips. "Really? Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like one of them still has you by the balls, Mandalore."

Canderous narrowed his eyes. "You're about to walk into a camp full of your heavily armed former enemy. Don't piss me off."

"You're already pissed off. Have been the entire time I've known your sorry ass," Nico hopped off of the stool, half empty bottle still in hand. "Now I know why. Here." He tossed the whiskey to Canderous. "You definitely need this more than I do."

Canderous scowled after him as the former Jedi sauntered out into the corridor, but he took the bottle with him when he retired to crew quarters.