A stranger stared back at Sarah when she studied herself in the refresher mirror. All she had meant to do was check the color of her eyes, and if necessary, to try to force them back to gray before this all got started. But she'd never really paid attention to just how much she had changed recently. It was as if something barely tangible was fading from her features, some vague taint that had always been there being washed away. The woman in that reflection looked exactly like her, and yet, there were differences that she could not quite put her finger on. Certainly, she'd changed her hair, but that was so mundane that it couldn't just be that.

I am loved. And I love.

Surely it wasn't that, either. Alek had adored her. And she'd adored him. But then, there was a difference between adoration and love. She would make decisions for Carth's benefit that would harm herself, and she'd do it in a heartbeat. She would sacrifice to see him kept whole, to protect him. She had not done the same with Alek. She'd 'needed' Alek, so she had put him in jeopardy because of it. Her unwillingness to protect him had brought him to his end, she'd been too afraid to face the darkness without him, yet she had been too arrogant to turn away from it and keep both of them away from it. She had thought that she loved him so much that she could not do without him, but now she understood that loving someone meant doing without them if that was what was best for them. She'd never do it again, never with Carth. She'd learned from her mistakes.

Good.

Of course it was good. She smoothed down the edges of the robe she wore, Luel had insisted that she come before the Council, before the tribunal, in the full robes of a Jedi Knight. She understood the subliminal statement that it created, along with the glow of the lightsaber crystal suspended around her neck. Even though she did not wield it anymore, it was a reminder as it had always been, of her rebirth, of her new dawn. I am not the same person that I used to be.

No, she'd gone beyond that. Before, taking care of the Republic had been a concept, she'd been more driven by outrage and insult than a real desire to protect it. She'd been challenged, and yet, held away from that challenge. Now, taking care of the Republic meant taking care of Carth... who served it honorably.

"You look...appropriate." There was a wealth of disapproval in Luel's voice, but she ignored it. He wanted to drag this out, to go over things, to clean up her responses for maximum effect. Like she'd ever needed to work at expressing herself...that came naturally. Good, bad, or indifferent, she'd always managed to get her thoughts and feelings across to others.

"My appearance is immaterial." She knew what he wanted, to wrap her up in Jedi robes and present her to the Council as a Jedi Knight, as one of them. As if the masters would be so easily swayed by that. Or did he do it for her? To remind her? If so, it wasn't working in the way he probably hoped...she felt no closer to Amasri Idarn, Jedi Knight, than she had before this. While she was regaining some memories of that person, they were nowhere near complete enough to rely upon in this. All she saw was Sarah Onasi, Carth's beloved, in every feature of her own face. Her hair fell free around her shoulders, her expression was serene, her eyes were steady and an uncommonly soft gray. None of it faded in the least when she screwed up her nose and tried to glare at herself, all she felt was a deep, impenetrable calm and her face reflected that.

"I disagree." He stood in the room behind her. "Would you consider walking into this wearing Revan's mask? Revan's robes?"

Well, he had her there. It would be folly to do so, it would shout an intent, a stance, that was no longer true. And that's what he was going for here, to reflect...an intent. A stance. "I am no longer a Jedi." This was just as false a package as wearing the mask would be...

He made a disagreeable noise deep in his throat, and she craned around to get a better look at him. "I feel that making that decision so firmly now is a mistake. Things have moved very quickly for you, for us. Perhaps all parties involved need more time, more introspection, before any of us make drastic decisions."

She'd forgotten how damned annoying this could become. How long was she supposed to consider things before she made 'drastic' decisions? She'd already made the most drastic of them, with Carth. Even if every sin, every crime she'd ever committed would be forgiven today, she'd never leave him. "You are the one asking me to make a drastic decision." To stay, to try to hold herself together here, to claw herself back into what they felt she was supposed to be would be the reckless path...one that would never be successful.

"I'm asking you to make no decisions, this early."

She chuckled, well aware he expected her to argue. Asking her to stop making decisions was like asking her to stop breathing. She could try, she could succeed...for a short period of time. But then she'd be forced to gasp in air...and she'd be forced to go back into decision making. "Going back to Brentaal is as close to 'no decision' as we're going to get. Staying here would be a decision, you know." Of course it would be. Any of them would be a decision, he understood that. It just happened to not be the decision that he hoped she would make. "I will not be pulled away from him, Luel." Ah, that last one came perilously close to what Carth called her 'pissy voice', dark and ominous. A quick glance back at the mirror caught just the faintest hint of a shadowed darkness in her eyes, but it fled in a heartbeat.

"And anyway..." She continued, her voice rising to its usual timbre. "I will never be entrusted with anything of importance to the Order again. My...career...as it was, is over." Staying with the Order of her own 'free' will would be terrible. Enough of them here now knew exactly who she was, and what she had done, more than she did.

"Do you feel that the Force has forsaken you?" He sounded honestly curious, confused, and she left the refresher, closing the door between her and the mirror. She'd seen enough in it.

"Hardly. The Force has never forsaken me." And that was part of the problem. If it forsook her when she misbehaved, then it would all make much more sense. But it never did. It seemed like the deeper she got, the more powerfully it unfurled in her. "No matter what I did. No matter who I became, it has always been with me. It's an unreliable guide."

That was the first comment she had ever made that she felt he really paused to consider, his brows drawing together in thought. "You feel that were guided into this by the Force?"

Yes. Every step.

"I am a tool of the Force." If only she understood more, if only she had clarity to see what she no longer remembered... somehow, the answers were there. She knew it. And if she had learned those answers, why were they now hidden? She had been allowed to remember other things, but not the most important ones. But the Enclave had deliberately worked to obscure things from her, and the Force had allowed those things to remain hidden even now. The Star Forge was gone, Malak dead. It was over.

No.

Of course not.