Carth returned home to a completely transformed apartment, everything that could have been changed, had been changed. The walls were still beige, but Sarah had enough experience with military housing to know better than to mess with those, but everything else was bright, colorful, comfortable and a tad bit luxurious...exactly what he understood she preferred. And why shouldn't she have it? She wasn't living as a Jedi, held to their lifestyle. He was close to being an Admiral, he had years of savings to splurge a little. And he had to admit that what she and Bastila had done made it feel like an entirely different place; a couple of cozy couches, deep rugs on the tan tiled floors, jewel toned curtains. Hopefully, it was enough. If it wasn't, well, he'd just have to find a place on the economy for them, off of the base. He'd make it work, somehow.

Dustil was standing in the living room next to the windows, attention locked on the view beyond the glass. "Hey." He greeted Carth, pushing away from the shadow he'd been obscured in. "Meets with your approval?"

"As long as it meets with her approval." She was the one who had not been content. He'd be happy with it just the way it was, as long as she was. But she hadn't been, and when Sarah was not happy...none of them were. We're all just tied up in a knot. Sarah was the link that held them all together. That, and the force bonds she'd crafted between them.

"Seems to." Dustil tilted his head, frowning in concentration. "No. Don't feel her."

"She's..." It seemed to take a lot less effort for Carth to sense her current mood than Dustil, and he could feel her with even really trying. "Fine." That was pretty much all he got off of her, just a simple grazing nod of permission for him to see that much. "Happy enough."

"Good, good." Dustil shrugged, apparently content with that, his attention already gone to wherever it went when his face stilled and he went silent. So very, very silent... He shifted out of it a second later, his eyes flicking over to Carth. "She's coming. She has Bastila with her."

Of course she did. Every shopping trip seemed to include Bastila. He hadn't been aware that she was on Brentaal, the last he'd heard, Bastila had been on Coruscant. It made sense to hold her away from Sarah when they were planning a trial, but that seemed to be over.

Over. It sounded like a great idea, but he was wary. Everything that Sarah had told him that the Council had told her, given her, was exactly what he dreamed of and that very fact made him nervous. It was too...easy. Too good. It had been so long since it looked like he could be happy again, to let his guard down and relax. But he needed it. He was tired. And Sarah, she had to be beyond that. He wasn't sure how she kept going...

The door opened to Sarah and Bastila, and if Sarah was exhausted, she certainly didn't show it. She looked quite pleased with herself, and by the wide grin she flashed him, quite pleased with him. "Hey." She greeted and he had to smile in return, feeling a large portion of his anxiety and weariness dissipate in her presence. "Bastila's here."

"Of course she is. Dustil told me." He shouldn't be surprised, Sarah attracted people to her side, and Bastila had been one of the first. Bastila's presence here was as nonnegotiable as Dustil's was. And now that her secret was out in the open, she was much easier to deal with. Like the rest of them, she needed a break. Time to heal. It would be too easy to just assume she was fine, but he was one of the few trusted enough to understand that there were deep cracks in her soul that would probably never be healed.

It doesn't matter. They would make the best of it, just like they'd done before. He had faith in that. He had faith in her. He had faith in them. His only problem now was that he wasn't quite sure how to go ahead from here. Before, it had been easy. Get through it. Go home. Get married. Live nice, peaceful lives as a family. There had been no concrete plans on how to actually achieve that after the 'go home' portion of it. Sarah made snap decisions with ease when she needed to, he sensed her losing her edge, losing her focus. She wasn't under pressure, she didn't have to be decisive and she seemed content to float at the moment. He wasn't certain if this was one of those situations when he needed to be the driving force, or if it was one he let go at its own pace. He was willing to wait, but he'd prefer that he knew about how long the wait was supposed to be. Or to know what he was waiting for, exactly. Sarah worked on her own mysterious schedule, but he really hated the idea that this would be dictated to her by some compulsion from the force.

She glanced up at him, giving him a slight head tilt and a shrug. Whatever that meant, he had no idea. It was probably just that she sensed him stewing more than anything else. If he had to guess, he'd say it was a 'later'...with a hint of 'not here'. Valid enough, but he didn't even know what he wanted to ask for when they got to that later, not here. Marriage, of course. She'd even gotten the permission, blessing, agreement to look away from it all, whatever it was that the Temple had bestowed on her, to marry him. That was great, but. The cautious part of him whispered and warned that marrying Revan had every chance to be an unmitigated disaster. Not actually being with her, but the ceremony itself. He couldn't put her in front of a chapel filled with naval officers and honestly think that no one would recognize her. The kindest, safest route through this would be to just get the minimum of people together...the kids and Bastila...and get it done by an officiant in some small corner office away from prying eyes.

That's not what I want.

No, it wasn't. He'd always regretted that he'd lacked the resources to have had a ceremony with a just a little more pomp and flourish than he'd been able to give Morgana. They'd just been kids, he hadn't even been in the Republic Navy then.

I want...

That phrase, even unspoken, had almost always managed to attract her attention and she focused on him. It was his turn to give her the 'later, not here' shrug and she nodded immediately, her gaze dropping back to Bastila. He could feel her close off from him slightly, her attention locked on whatever else she was following.

I want... a wedding fit for...

Them. Both of them. It was easy for him to just try to fool himself that Sarah deserved it, but that assumed that she wanted it. She'd never hinted at what she wanted other than to marry him. No, he wanted it for him and hopefully for her. He had never been terribly good at deserving things before, but this was something he'd fought, suffered and bled for. He just had to figure out a way to make it work.

AN-

I don't often make these and I try not to make excuses, so hopefully this will be more of an explanation than an excuse. To put it mildly, 2019 was a terrible year for me. I'm sure you all do not want to hear that litany, so I'll just say that if I did all of it to a character in one of my stories, I would wonder if I wasn't overdoing the angst and punishment angle and probably try to tone it down a bit. The hope was that 2020 would be better...and honestly, it has been...but as we know it has also been very uncertain and chaotic. Some writers write well in that, I'm not one of them. I am just now getting into a place where I have been able to get the words going again.

Enough whining...basically I wanted to let you all know that I encountered circumstances that were not conducive to writing but that I am not letting any of the projects I have going lapse.

HA