A/N: reposting this chapter solely for a name change. Everything else is the same.

Chapter Eight

The fish tank glowed in the dim light of Shepard's cabin. She stared at it, open terminal forgotten. She was still preoccupied with the events of their first day on Omega; or, more specifically, with the enigma that was Revan.

The woman was good. Very good. Based solely on her power and skills she would make an excellent addition to the ground team. And yet, Shepard still wasn't sure she had made the right decision by recruiting her.

She had hoped that after seeing how Revan fought and behaved as part of a team, she would feel more certain. But there was something… volatile about the woman that worried her. Most of the time there was a sort of eerie calm about her, but Shepard suspected that was a façade. Not necessarily a deceitful one, but a consciously cultivated façade just the same. The moments when Revan was not calm seemed a whole lot more genuine. The brief flashes of humour. The fierce joy she had exuded when diving into battle against that group of mechs.

Shepard crossed her arms on the desk and leant on them, frowning to herself. But there had also been that moment when she had briefly considered taking Cathka out before he could fix the gunship. Revan's angry response had startled her. And, although Shepard was loath to admit it, it had scared her a little too. There was something… unsettling about the way anger affected the woman. As though the potential was brewing for something entirely terrible to happen…

Shepard shook herself and got to her feet, snapping her terminal closed. She was being silly. Revan might be powerful, but she was just one woman. Clearly she had spent too much time stewing up here by herself. She threw on the black, white and grey jacket Cerberus had issued her with and headed down to the mess deck to grab some dinner.

When she rounded the partition she spotted Revan sitting at one end of a table by herself, quietly eating her own dinner. Her droid stood nearby, eyeing anyone who ventured near its master with a strangely human malevolence. As Shepard watched, Zaeed ambled over to the table, plate of something greasy in hand, glaring a challenge at the droid. He sat down noisily directly in front of Revan, the droid tracking his movements with its ocular receptors.

Shepard grimaced. That could be trouble. She made her way over to Master Sergeant Gardner to collect her own food, keeping a wary eye on the three of them. "Anything I should be worried about over there?" she asked him quietly.

"The mech's giving everyone the heebie-jeebies," Gardner grumbled, passing her a plate of chicken and veg. "But it hasn't done anything," he added reluctantly. "The other two… well, that remains to be seen."

She nodded in thanks and headed over to join them. Zaeed and Revan were staring at one another, but Revan was calm and Zaeed seemed less confrontational than she had expected. As she walked up, Zaeed finally spoke. "So, what makes you special then?"

A slight frown creased Revan's forehead. "Special?" she repeated. She glanced over and nodded at Shepard as she sat between them on the short edge of the table. The gesture was almost… regal, though unconsciously so.

Zaeed tilted his chin in her direction as she sat. "Everyone on her team is special, somehow." The word 'special' dripped with mockery. "We got the best thief in the galaxy, a genetically engineered perfect human, a turian superhero, and me," he thumped his chest, "the unkillable merc. Oh, and I guess soldier-boy," he jerked his thumb up in the direction of the armoury, where Jacob had set up shop, "is good at soldiering, or something. What are you good at?"

"She fights with laser swords," Shepard told him wryly, trying to lighten the mood as she set to work on her dinner.

Zaeed gave Revan a sceptical look. "Laser swords, my good eye," he scoffed. "You get yourself one of those monomolecular blades like the thief has and stick Christmas lights on it?"

Revan didn't seem as annoyed as Shepard herself would have been, thankfully. She pulled out one of her laser swords and set it on the table between them, emitter facing safely away. "They're called lightsabers," she explained. Then, without warning, she hit the activation stud and the brilliant purple blade thrummed into existence. The trio of Cerberus crew members eating at the other end of the table all jumped.

Zaeed, however, just smiled a slow, crooked smile. "Well I'll be damned," he muttered. He raised a calloused hand and lowered it to just above the quietly humming blade. "No heat."

"The weapon of a Jedi Knight," Revan said, as though with those few reverent words she was explaining everything. "The kyber crystal within the hilt absorbs and concentrates excess heat to within the blade itself. If you were to touch it, your finger would melt." Zaeed didn't move his hand.

"A Jedi Knight," Shepard repeated thoughtfully, gathering some peas onto her fork. "Your droid introduced you as a dark lord of the Sith back on the Citadel. Is that a type of 'Jedi Knight'?"

"Correction: the Dark Lord of the Sith, meatbag, and no, it is not a 'type of Jedi Knight'." The Cerberus crew members jumped again at the tall droid's interjection. This time, apparently deciding they'd had enough excitement for one night, they all got up and returned their trays to Gardner before hurriedly leaving the mess.

Shepard eyed the droid in consternation. Meatbag? "Sorry. The Dark Lord of the Sith. I'm not familiar with your galaxy's titles."

Revan was also scowling at her droid. If Shepard didn't know better, she would have thought Revan looked a little sheepish. "HK gets a little overenthusiastic sometimes. I'm not the Dark Lord of the Sith. Darth Malak has that dubious honour."

"You've been referred to as 'Darth Revan'," Shepard noted. "'Darth' is another title, then?" Revan nodded, and Shepard thought for a moment. "All right, if you're not Darth Revan, Dark Lord of the Sith, are you a Jedi Knight?"

Revan sighed. "I… don't know. I'm not sure I hold any claim to that title either."

"What the hell is a 'Jedi Knight'?" Zaeed asked impatiently.

"The Jedi are the protectors of the galaxy, the defenders of peace and justice," Revan began, and that wistful look of reverence was in her eyes once more.

HK-47 made a noise that sounded like a mechanical snort. "Correction: Jedi are beatific, pacifistic do-gooders who believe they can fix the galaxy with sunshine and rainbows. Assessment: You were much better off before you decided you wanted to embrace that particular outdated philosophy, master."

"Quiet, HK," Revan admonished him, but Shepard noted she wasn't quite as firm as she could have been. "Jedi are the opposite of Sith," she explained, turning back to Shepard and Zaeed. "Jedi draw on the light side of the Force, and Sith turn to the dark. Jedi are calm, thoughtful, reasoned. Sith are passionate, erratic, and impulsive. The dark side is easier, arguably more powerful… and seductive."

"I like the sound of that," came a disembodied voice from beside Revan. Shepard started in surprise as Kasumi pulled off her tactical cloak with a flourish, cocking a hip and grinning at the reaction, obviously very proud of herself. "Hi, Shep."

Revan didn't seem surprised at all; Shepard supposed she had sensed Kasumi's presence long before she had revealed herself. "The dark side is dangerous, Kasumi," Revan warned. "A Dark Jedi's abilities are fuelled by anger, hate and rage. The further you fall, the easier it gets, and the more strain it puts on your mind and body. It eats you from the inside out."

The thief shuddered dramatically as she pulled out a chair beside Revan. "I take it back."

Revan had been angry when Shepard had been thinking about killing Cathka, but she had suppressed it quickly. Shepard frowned to herself. Suppressing emotions like that didn't sound healthy, but if they led someone with Revan's powers down a dark path it made sense. Shepard had seen quite a few flashes of emotion from the woman, in fact, which made her uneasy, now she thought about it. Perhaps she was finding it difficult to keep her feelings under control.

Shepard suppressed a frustrated grimace. She needed to know more, to understand better what she was dealing with here. "Tell me about the Force," she requested.

"The Force… is hard to explain." Revan sat back in her seat, crossing her legs and folding her hands over her stomach in a very casual, but also very alien, gesture. It underlined the fact once more that she wasn't from this galaxy. Her lightsaber hummed on the table between them. "It's like an energy field, or a power source… something intangible to most people. Jedi – and Sith – draw on it to aid them in battle and in life. The Force is everywhere, surrounding everything. Within everything. Every living thing is a part of the Force, and the Force is a part of every living thing."

Zaeed snorted, but Shepard ignored him. She frowned speculatively. "It sounds almost religious."

Revan shook her head. "The Force is not a deity, or a religious concept, although there are some obscure sects that worship it. When you examine the religions of all kinds of different species more closely, invariably you end up finding that their gods are borne of myths and stories, with no basis in fact – but the Force is real. The Force is a fact, just like gravity is a fact, and I respect it." She raised a hand and her lightsaber rose up from the table, deactivated itself, spun around a couple of times, and gently floated back down again. She picked it up and reattached it to her belt. "I use it like a tool. Like any tool, there is a right way and a wrong way to use it."

"The light side, and the dark side," Kasumi murmured, obviously entranced with the romance of it all.

Shepard supposed it was a romantic notion, but she had more pragmatic concerns. "Forgive me if this is a sensitive question," Shepard began, "but you seem very familiar with the dark side. Have you… fallen to the dark side yourself?"

"Explanation—"

"Quiet." Revan's hand shot up in the air, straight as a board, and HK-47 cut himself off mid-sentence. The woman's expression had turned to stone, and Shepard imagined that she could almost see darkness billowing up around her as she withdrew inward. The back of her neck prickled, and she found her fingers tensing over the under-skin trigger for her omniblade. Revan abruptly looked up, locking eyes with her, and Shepard was certain she knew what she had just been thinking. However, she made no move to protect herself. Instead, she spoke. "It's… complicated. And personal."

In answer to her question, that was a resounding yes. Shepard nodded slowly, an icy chill running down her spine. She had thought as much. Revan had almost killed that asari C-Sec officer back on the Citadel, after all. Zaeed and Kasumi were silent, for once, watching. "Is that how you know how destructive it is?" she asked softly.

Revan didn't reply, but she didn't shift her gaze either. She didn't need to say anything. Shepard supposed the question had been mostly rhetorical, anyway.

The door to the main battery slid open behind them with a quiet whoosh, and Garrus and Carth emerged, talking animatedly. The spell was broken. Revan sat back and folded her hands over her stomach again, frowning to herself, and Shepard returned to her meal, silently mulling over what she had just learned.

So Revan had fallen to the dark side, once. She had been Darth Revan, Dark Lord of the Sith. The Dark Lord of the Sith, since apparently there was only one of those at a time. Although Shepard was certain she didn't fully comprehend the implications of that title, she knew Revan must have done bad things to earn it. The dark side was fuelled by anger, hate and destruction. Had she killed people? Almost certainly. A lot of people? Possibly. Even probably.

But then, so had Zaeed, and she was sure he hadn't thought too hard about whether it had been absolutely necessary. Revan, on the other hand… Shepard hadn't known her for long, but she didn't seem like the type of person to kill on a whim. She certainly didn't appear to enjoy hate or destruction – battle lust toward a bunch of mechs aside.

Fuck, Shepard thought vehemently to herself. What was going on with her instincts? Even after everything she had just heard, and everything she had seen on Omega, they were still telling her Revan could be trusted. Was this some side effect of being brought back from the dead? Was the woman who had confessed she could twist weak minds twisting her mind? Was she weaker than she thought she was?

Or was Revan just a very, very complicated – but ultimately good – person?

She had no way to know.

Revan yawned, leaning her elbows on the railing overlooking the Normandy's drive core, staring at the huge metallic sphere that was somehow responsible for powering the entire ship. Its humming was hypnotic, and she could feel herself drifting into almost a meditative state. She was tired, both physically and mentally.

Simply existing in a different galaxy was exhausting, she was coming to realise. Everything was different, even the small things. The food, the body language, the doors, the clothing, the smells, the computer systems… almost everything she looked at took a split second of processing to work out what it was or how to use it. It was starting to catch up with her, and the dinner she had just shared with Shepard and some of her crew hadn't helped.

It had turned into somewhat of an interrogation, but a necessary and overdue one. Taking on a mysterious, enigmatic persona was all well and good for Korriban, or even the Republic, but it would do her no good on board the Normandy. She needed Shepard and her crew to view her as powerful, yes, and therefore useful—but also as part of the team. Certainly not as a threat. Explaining more about herself, as well as the Force and how it worked, would hopefully go a long way toward accomplishing that.

It had been exhausting, though, and she wasn't sure she had done a good job of it. She had never needed to explain such basic concepts as Jedi and the Force to anyone before. Everyone in her own galaxy understood them from a very young age, even if they only thought them to be myths. It felt like she had been explaining things non-stop, ever since the three of them had appeared on the Citadel and run into Shepard – or, more accurately, since Shepard had charged straight into her.

"Revan."

She cast a glance back over her shoulder and suppressed a grimace. Here was another overdue, but necessary, conversation.

"Carth." She was too tired for this, so tired she hadn't even sensed his presence, but they did need to talk. She had been expecting him to come and find her for a while now. They hadn't had a chance to talk properly since first boarding the Normandy.

He stopped a metre or so away and leaned a shoulder against the bulkhead, crossing his arms over his chest. A safe metre, she thought with a muted pang of sadness. "Are you all right?" he asked, somewhat grudgingly.

She sighed. At least he wasn't going to yell at her straight off the bat. "What about any of this is all right?" she asked rhetorically. "We're trapped here while Malak kills millions more innocent people and does who knows what to Bastila. Nothing here makes sense, and the woman who is our only chance to get out of here may want to kick us off her ship now she knows who I was."

Carth raised his eyebrows. "Wait—you told her?"

Ugh, that wasn't what she had meant. Revan turned and rested her back against the railing, doing her best not to match his rising anger. "No, not really, but she had a lot of questions about the Force, and the Jedi and the Sith. Telling her a little bit about me was the best way—"

He made a frustrated sound. "We need her, Revan. You can't tell her the full story."

Stars, didn't he think she knew that? Dinner had been a minefield of trying to be honest without revealing the fact that she had essentially been a galactic terrorist for a good few years, even if she couldn't remember most of it. She wasn't sure she had done a good job of that, either. Shepard certainly hadn't seemed at ease when they had finished talking. "Of course I didn't tell her everything, Carth… not yet. But I'm not going to lie to her," she told him firmly. "The Force is telling me we can trust her. I won't abuse that trust."

"The Force is telling you, huh?" he muttered bitterly. Here it comes. "Just like it told you we need to be here, helping these people with their problems, rather than trying to get home to solve our own?" He turned away and paced a few steps, his tension obvious in the tightening of his muscles. "What were you thinking, Revan? Promising our help in a suicide mission, when we have people back in our own galaxy who need us? I have a son who needs me!"

"Dustil is a grown man, Carth, he doesn't need you," she snapped back, then instantly regretted it as she saw the hurt look on his face. A headache was starting to pound behind her eyes. She sighed, running a hand through her hair and turning away from the rail to face him. "I'm sorry, I'm tired, I didn't—"

But Carth wasn't ready to hear it. "Maybe you're right, maybe he doesn't need me," he cut her off angrily. "But what the hell gave you the right to promise my life to this mission, as well as yours? I've been following you because I understood the stakes of our mission, because I knew we had to stop Malak before he got too out of hand. I did not agree to put my life on the line for something that has absolutely nothing to do with us, because of some vague feeling you got through the Force!"

"These 'vague feelings' have saved all of our asses more than once!" She felt her own tone rise to match his despite her best intentions. "And it was your choice to jump into that beam after me, Carth. You didn't have to. You could have left, found Dustil, convinced him to leave Korriban, and gone back to that normal life you say you want so badly. Hell, you can leave right now if you want. I'm sure Shepard will find you somewhere safe to stay. We can pick you up once the mission is over."

Carth glared at her, opening his mouth as though he was about to say something, but nothing came out and he snapped it shut again. She could see the muscles in his throat working beneath the skin. Anger and frustration radiated off him in waves. She returned the glare, peripherally aware of the anger simmering in her own gut.

Let it simmer, she thought. She didn't need it to fuel anything, but she was too tired to deny that she was feeling it.

Finally, Carth took a deep breath and braced his hands on the railing, turning away from her. "I don't want to leave," he forced out. "That's not what I'm saying. It's just… Asha would never have done something like this. She would have worked hard to get us home, and maybe she would have made a trade for that, but she wouldn't have promised we would stay and help fight these… Reapers. Not without at least discussing it first." He looked up and met her eyes, and she didn't need the Force to see the hurt there, the betrayal. She had to look away. "I feel like I don't understand you anymore."

Revan swallowed. All her anger drained away, leaving an aching emptiness in its wake. He was right, Asha would have behaved differently. With each day that passed, she became less Asha, and more Revan. She didn't know exactly who Revan was yet, but she certainly wasn't who the Jedi Council tried to force her to be. She wasn't Asha. But Asha was all Carth knew, and Asha was who he had formed a relationship with. He missed her. She couldn't blame him for that. "I'm sorry, Carth," she said quietly, and meant it.

"I… yeah. I know." He looked down at the deck below. "I'm sorry too. I know it's… this…" he gestured vaguely at her, "what the Council did to you is not your fault. You're doing your best." He ran a hand through his hair. "Revan… I'm not saying this to try and be hurtful, but… do you really believe stopping these 'Reapers' is worth Bastila's life? And the lives of all the people Malak will kill, with or without her help? Because that's what it'll cost, you know."

Subconsciously she had understood the choice she was making when she told Shepard she would stay and help them, but she hadn't really confronted it head on. If she could have run and hidden from the vivid images Carth's words conjured, she would have done it without a second thought. He was right: by deciding to stay here in this galaxy longer than absolutely necessary she had likely condemned Bastila – her surrogate little sister, Bastila – to death or the dark side, along with a lot of innocent people.

Both her head and her heart hurt at the thought, but… "Yes," she whispered.

Carth raised his arm, hesitated, then laid a hand on her shoulder. "I do trust you, Revan," he told her quietly. "And I trust your intentions. Despite everything. I wish it was different, but I'll back you up. On your six, like always."

She met his eyes again. There was trust there, and respect; he wasn't lying about that. But the wall he had raised on the day he found out who she really was was still there too. Some small part of her had hoped…

No. She had to let it go. It was time to move on. "Thank you, Carth."

He nodded and dropped his hand. "I'll uh, leave you to it then." With a weak smile, he turned and left, boots echoing on the metal grating beneath.

She watched him go, fighting a sudden wave of emotion. She grimaced and gripped the railing, angrily blinking back tears. She had already dealt with this, dammit, she knew how he felt!

But she hadn't just lost a potential relationship here… she had lost a friend.

Suddenly, she heard a throat clear from behind her. She spun around and scowled at the intruder, a man in yellow and black Cerberus uniform. "Who are you?" she demanded coldly, tired brain somehow slipping into Darth Revan-mode again.

He wasn't intimidated in the slightest. He frowned back and crossed his arms over his chest, tablet clutched in one hand. He wore a tool belt stuffed with implements of all shapes and sizes. "Hi, I'm Matt," he said pointedly. "Engineer Matt Cherry." He tilted his head in the direction of the terminal behind her. "I need to run the evening diagnostics on the drive core."

Which she was standing directly in front of. She grimaced, forcing Darth Revan back down where she belonged. "Sorry," she apologised briefly, stepping to the side.

He eyed her warily as he approached the terminal – but it dawned on her that he was doing that because she had been rude to him, not because he was afraid of Darth Revan's wrath. He had no idea who Darth Revan was. It put things into perspective quite neatly. "I'll get out of your way," she added, softening her tone.

"Wait," Matt spoke up as she moved to leave. "You're that woman from another galaxy, aren't you? The one with the laser swords."

She blinked. "Uh… yes. Lightsabers."

"What?"

"They're called lightsabers," she explained briefly. She didn't really want to have that conversation all over again.

"Oh. Well, you scared the crap out of Townsend, Rogers and Liang when you lit one of those up on the dinner table," Matt told her, tentative grin slowly building. "We heard all about it down here."

Revan winced. "That wasn't my intention."

"Really?" he asked her wryly, as though he thought perhaps she had been trying to pull a prank on them or something. She frowned, confused. Matt shook his head and stood up, reaching out his hand. "Sorry, I don't know you well enough to be joking around with you. Can we try this again? Hi, I'm Matthran. You can call me Matt."

She eyed his hand, suddenly realising she had no idea how people in this galaxy greeted one another. Did they shake hands or grasp forearms? Or was this something else entirely? Tentatively she took hold of his hand. "Revan."

His grip was firm, but felt warm and friendly rather than controlling. "Nice to meet you," he said. He glanced back at the terminal apologetically. "Look, I have to get this done. Donnelly can get real bitchy if he doesn't get his evening readings on time."

"I was just heading up to my quarters anyway," Revan told him, feeling a little awkward. "It was nice to meet you too."

"I'll see you around," Matt added, and the way he said it, it sounded like he was planning on it. "Maybe you can tell me more about lightsabers."

"Uh, sure." Revan stared at him for a moment longer, then nodded quickly and left, wondering what had just happened.

The guy was… nice. And completely casual. No hidden fear, no wariness, no pity. There had been nothing behind his eyes but a desire to get to know someone interesting.

She frowned to herself. Had he been trying to let her know that he found her… more than interesting? That he wanted to get to know her in a more intimate way? Had there been flirting buried in there somewhere? She had been far too tired to get a decent read on him with the Force, just a bundle of surface feelings like irritation, followed by curiosity, then humour.

She palmed the elevator door open and stepped inside, hitting the button for the CIC. Matthran – Matt – was definitely a good-looking guy, with his thick build, darker skin and easy, infectious smiles. And he had been slightly shorter than she was! She had noticed that immediately. Few human men managed that feat.

No, he hadn't been flirting with her. She was just reading too much into it because she was tired. Maybe she was projecting, she thought wryly. If circumstances were different, if she was back home, if she didn't have to worry about Malak holding Bastila, if Carth wasn't involved, maybe she would have…

She grimaced as she stepped off the elevator and into the darkened CIC, her thoughts pulling her right back down to reality. She wasn't home. She was stuck in an unknown galaxy billions of light years away, unable to do anything about Malak or the Star Forge… or Bastila.

For now, she thought grimly, walking past HK and into her makeshift quarters in Starboard Observation. The stars through the viewport shone brightly, only slightly dimmed by the running lights of Omega. If she peered at them hard enough, she imagined she could see the familiar constellations of home.

She would get back there, somehow. She would help Shepard defeat these 'Reapers', then get back home and save that goddamn galaxy too.