Summary:

The mission to capture Darth Revan goes according to plan-except for the last part about returning to the Council with her prisoner. Unfortunately for the Jedi Padawan that rescued the Sith, now she's trapped inside a damaged ship, in unknown territory, and it's possible that Revan didn't suffer nearly enough brain damage to render him unable to speak. Bastila/MRevan.

Author's Note:

I had a short mindblurt one day, just a minor story idea that followed questions like, 'What happened after Bastila captured Revan? Did she have to drag him back to the ship? How did they get back to the Republic? Did she squeeze both of them into an escape pod? Was he just a drooling mess the whole time?' My story basically started off this with for the plot: Before mind wipe, after brain damage, Revan still himself and totally inappropriate with captor.

You were laying on the carpet

like you're satin in a coffin.

You said, "Do you believe what you're sayin'?"

Yeah right now, but not that often.

Are you dead or are you sleepin'?

Are you dead or are you sleepin'?

Are you dead or are you sleepin'?

God, I sure hope you are dead.

-Satin in a Coffin, Modest Mouse

Bright white, safe, whole, all

Beyond pain.

Until—

A scream with a tongue and lips and vocal chords that were not there from the air that nonexistent lungs. Light. It filled the absent eyes and unreal senses. A push into the chest, lung, heart that were so many illusions. There could be no pain as that required what was not imaginary.

"Breathe."

How could one still hear when they no longer had ears?

No, it would not be felt, it would be escaped in that wholeness that could be reached if one stretched to find it—

If one was not being slapped back into consciousness.

Possession of a body, trapped, in here, he (she) was in here

(they were)

Here.

Alive.

The light crushed. Separation. Birthed and shoved out. He, him, halved and parted and unwhole. Alone, again to suffer the crushing blow of consciousness and acknowledgement of a body with all its nerves that screamed.

Alone, he remembered pain.

Oh it hurt please. Throbbing head weighing thousands of pounds. A head. He can almost see himself. He can almost see.

"Breathe."

Live.

Name, a name called. For a moment, he did not know who that was. Who? Who could that be? Hang back. Wait.

Should he answer?

But the voice demanded that a response. You did not disobey it. The voice did not make requests. "Revan."

Revan, live. You must, you must.

"Breathe."

Well, alright.

Her head rose with an audible creak and her jaw clicked. Swallow.

Around them, the fires no longer raged and the turbo lasers had stopped shining with their lethal beauty. Ships retreated, died, winked out. Through the viewer, she had watched all of it with the certainty that any second they would notice this lone weakened ship limping from the embers of the bay, watched the retreat of Republic and Sith fighters together from this area. Rounded and sharp ships alike growing distant. All had left long ago, and Bastila could unclench this fist in her lap and loosen the sweaty fingers so locked and stuck together.

Every sound, every tick, made her tense and pause. Things to be studied. Order inside it, ever pulse, beat-beat-beat under her own thoughts, so cluttered and of animal panic. Inspect herself again and again. The walls, the controls, the figure.

She had escaped. She was here.

Let go of the dumb fear, all of it. Her life had been given up to the Force, surrendered up years ago, she had accepted and known that. Since her first true battle, when soldiers had slipped past the guards and come after her, the Jedi with that Battle Meditation. Drawn her lightsaber in truth. She had not hesitated striking the intruders down, and her concentration towards the troops had lapsed only momentarily. Saw the damage her yellow single blade had done, then eventually turned back to the battle. Her concentration came back to her with such ease that Bastila had been fiercely proud. She was not too young, as her Master had feared. Or too prone to anger that might closer her off from others, those that were under her protection and depending upon her.

Bastila had proved that the reluctant faith they'd had in her was well-placed after all. That she had been right, to rush ahead and to face him, nearly alone at that.

She had been the one to continually strike blows against the Sith, to help the Republic against those that had sworn to save it years ago, risen high in the Order for one that wasn't yet a Knight, led troops through Sith space, had led the strike team to face Revan…now where was she, the one so gifted?

Here was a small freighter. Something for minor journeys, hops to nearby planets, if that. As bad as the warped boards and fried chips that had blazed weakly at her fingertips, there was yet another concern.

What was worse, somehow, was the knot inside her, this pull—sickening, the sudden whole Bastila felt through the Force, so attached to her. Even with that collar, still, she could feel it and knew what it meant. Another thing she had read about but never experienced firsthand, not even with her own Master or her fellow pupils or the soldiers that she had fought with.

Of all people to have developed such an unwanted attachment through the Force with…

And still Revan continued breathing.

She checked the navigation system, the maps that no longer flickered on, the wiped memory. Nothing had changed.

Revan was not one for forgetting the small details. He had been a clever creature. Or at least, not a complete idiot. She had been told more than once, with some disgust, that he had made sure to grab communication relays and important maps. Before he had left and turned traitor, he'd made sure to backup databases. Dutiful and thoughtful, Revan had wanted and known that information could be the most important thing in a war. The Republic (and she remembered the look on that colonel's face as she'd told a younger Bastila of how the Sith Empire had grown so easily) had even known of his plans, if not helping him outright create maps of all he needed. They had given him all the keys.

This ship was anonymous, ominously so.

Bastila could remember the smoothness of that chair before the yolk, the Force so strongly with her still reach out and hold the ship together. Allowed her peace enough to take in the damage and ignore the tendrils of fear touch her heart, and had let Bastila coast this craft away (briefly, so briefly) from the fires that were all that was left of the proud flagship that had stalked around the Republic and whose hulls and shape Bastila knew so well by now.

The Force had given her the chance to hold herself together and retrieve the device from her fellow Jedi's body, to carry Revan through the hallways and steered away all the droids and soldiers. A confirmation that what she was doing was correct, perhaps. The Masters had spoken of such 'luck' and told their students to not question such things.

Thus Bastila wouldn't.

It didn't even matter, not now.

She had brought him here, and was now stuck with him. Perhaps he would awake, if the Force allowed it.

With that neural collar on him, tied up and drugged, she could take him. He was not so physically intimidating, especially out of that armor. No Malak. Unarmed as well for that matter. Exposed, as he hadn't been for as long as he'd stepped into the limelight. Bastila knew all the old stories.

Yet, despite the intrusion, the Sith Lord Revan might not even be her biggest concern.

There was something worse to fear, and it was in the front of the ship. Wires seemingly clipped, and melted. Tangles of them. Previous lessons, on Force manipulations, on the mechanics of ships, piloting lessons. None of it seemed helpful, and Bastila could spend the rest of her life, how little an amount of time that might be, cursing that she'd chosen this freighter—this small freighter, meant for the tiniest of voyages, and all the more useless when damaged. The memory was wiped.

Yet what had been the other options? Escape pods had been far, her previous ship looking too badly damaged from their rough crash through the failing shields, the others too far from her limited acquaintance with the flagships layout, too many soldiers that must crawl through these hall ways, panicking but still prepared to attack. Revan so limp against her. Explosions rocking the flagship, and Bastila had not even to sense for some sign of where to go. What else could she have done but finally settled for this immediate escape?

From Revan, there was not movement, even as she checked their supplies again, did another inventory, checked the boxes again. There were basic medical supplies here, medpacs and sleeping pills and antibiotics. Bandages that would only cover the minor of wounds.

Black and violet almost sheer fabric. Up close it resembled the wings of some creature, a thing that lived in those caves of Dantooine with far too many legs and eyes. A hakama around his waist. Heavy gloves and gauntlets. So covered and hidden away. She wondered how many people had seen him like this, weakened and up close. Unmasked.

What was under that mask was the most mundane disappointment.

But when, then, had she been expecting, anyway?

Bastila looped back around, and this time, nudged him with her foot.

Nothing.

Not dead. Not even that badly hurt, not truly, not necessarily. That was why she had the neural collar, the cuffs that might stretch out his arms and left him as helpless as he might be capable. If it came to it, Bastila had the lightsaber she'd found on his belt. 'Who knew how many had been slayed by this thing,' she had pondered when grabbing it, and had nearly tossed it away. Better to have another weapon, after all. That final decision made while removing what she could of the outer armor and his mask, leaving an exoskeleton behind in order carry and conceal him with more ease.

Carried and half-dragged him here in a fit of pity and compassion, and now here he was. Possibly dying and there was nothing she could do for him right now.

Besides restraining him. Revan was tied him to the heavy bars attached to perhaps the very frame of the ship, impossible to pull out without the use of the Force. Long bars horizontally placed, so he could stand up when he awoke, if not sit entirely comfortable with his hands in his lap. In the center of the ship, no shadowy corner for him to hide weapon or pry anything apart. With that collar on, he would be unable to use the Force, and it would hopefully keep him befuddled enough to be handled.

It was the best she could do.

He still lived thanks to Bastila, but she doubted there would be many appreciative remarks for that. Anyone but a Jedi would have gladly left him behind. When they were discovered, she would almost certainly not be rewarded by the Republic for this act of mercy. Bastila had heard too many stories from those that had been wronged by this man. Gladly, most of the Republic would have been to hear of his death on that ship, grateful to her for making such a heavy blow against the Sith. Already, she was regarded with minor awe by soldiers for her Battle Meditation, well-respected by the people she served with, and to be the one that had fought and survived, no, more, beat Revan…

Bastila stared at his unmoving form, breath coming faster.

Malak was the one to be congratulated on Revan's defeat, however. For even this opportunity, the betrayal. Thanks to the inevitable in-fighting of the Sith, the sneak attack had worked. If not for the other Sith, Bastila and her fellow Jedi could very well have all died there by Revan's hand—for all the skills that were shared among her and the others, this was the Revanchist.

Two wars and countless duels under his belt. He had been so un-intimidated by the onslaught of Jedi on his prized ship. Yet, in the end, the light had prevailed, albeit with some outside help; Revan had lost. Even the betrayal had been so perfect in its own way. Of course the Sith turned on one another, and the Force truly had worked out everything.

Bastila nearly smiled, nearly humbled.

Behind them, his flagship would be fully broken up by now. They were lucky to be here.

The damage to the fallen figure had not been too severe, even as blasts rocked the ship and lights blared and flickered inside and out. If she'd left him there he would have perished alongside everyone else on his flagship.

The biggest loss of the war for Revan. At her hands.

How little there was onboard this getaway craft. How little Bastila had with her. A small pouch on her side that contained a small datapad and nothing else useful.

This craft was meant to sneak away on. Something hidden up the sleeve for an emergency. Revan's? Almost certainly.

Bastila inspected the walls and seats again, just to make sure. Who knew what traps might exist? Booby-traps and poisons and bombs. Remember his ship, dying in blossoms of fire. Sloping black floors and everything had pointed gradually to the bridge, inevitability. That could have been the name of Darth Revan's ship even, 'Inevitability', and the Sith Lord nearly had the ego to name it that. The things they had found on his flagship, the machines that came from the shadows. Slaughtering Jedi as they went, the nameless things. Horrors of that place, so many dying around her, and she had been so close to forgetting herself in the black and red halls.

The others beside her all gone now. Older and stronger and much more powerful than her. Acquaintances, names she had heard only of, fellow Jedi helping the Republic in whatever way they could surrounding her to keep her safe. She mustn't be caught. If she was unable to escape, if she found herself about to be taken alive by the Sith—what Bastila had already been advised to do than risk being captured by the Sith Lord.

For what had they all died for?

He had turned his soldiers against the Republic. Tried to turn the Republic against the Jedi. Promised the Senate in a broadcast that quickly became public that he did not wish to harm their civilians, no, it was the Jedi Order that he and his many soldiers fought. Those that had sat on the sidelines and watched the Mandalorians rape and pillage their way through the Outer Rim, yes, them, if that group was turned over, well, there didn't need to be a war did there? A sibilant voice in a masked face that made such reassurance that none could believe.

There was only peace, knowledge, serenity, justice and the Force.

Yet Bastila's doubts began always to creep in.

What if he never awoke? Instead traveled further and further into the darkness?

With that collar on, he might be unable to communicate. Trapped inside his own body. She could feel the stupor of it, numbing, if she didn't concentrate on separating herself from him. A Bond, yes. That much Bastila did know.

Or what if he awoke, and almost magically, was devoid of anything evil? Or of anything? Brain damage. He would open those eyes and return to being a young Jedi Knight, so eager to stop the war blazing along the Outer Rim. Amnesia. An indignant young man that would want to help her. 'We must stop those Mandalorians! What, try to hurt you, a fellow Jedi? Never.'

Younger than that. Emptied. 'What are Jedi?' And she would need to teach him anew everything and he would prove to be a decent student, and when they were saved, this new Revan would prove to be of great help to the Republic. All while the Sith disintegrated into civil war and Malak was defeated from the inside.

Bastila smiled, grimaced. She could always hope. If only briefly.

Brain damaged, and there would be nothing in that gaze. Glassy eyes staring to some middle distance. Trapped, enmeshed somewhere else; Bastila had seen head trauma before. Ruined and perished. All but dead meat lying there. She would bring back something useless and broken, just to prove a point. His face really was full of bruises, dried blood, veins, yellow-brown-red, and swollen. The faint impression of his mask still marked his face, here and there. Little x's of fresh red.

For this, so many Jedi had died.

Revan The Butcher.

An asset. With him, the war might be ended, and that was why those Jedi had died. For him. They had meant not to kill him if it could be avoided, but to capture and take back to the Council. She knew this, had been told the plan, the strategy, a hundred times. A falter in the security will happen at this time. Long enough to slip passed, especially with her gift. Divert attention and that was all, Padawan. Remain with your guard and do not hesitate to retreat if it looks like the battle is turning for the worst. You are the best hope the Republic has of defeated the Sith.

She was, and had done that—to a point.

Padawans should listen to the Masters, and she should had stayed back. Until another died around her, and she could sense Revan, a heavy pit, a black hole that pulled all Force users closer. A challenge and a call to all. Then she was hurrying on ahead, unheedful of the warnings of her guards. We must, we must. She would not fail. And hadn't. Entirely, anyway.

Bastila had captured him. Had saved him. She had thrown out a rope, and what was left of Revan had grabbed it.

But at what cost? Was it up to her to count the deaths that had been caused so recently, so many loyal Republic soldiers and good Jedi lost for his sake?

He might be just fine.

He might just be faking this to let her guard down. The moment she turned her back, he might strike.

There was dutifulness in him. Careful strikes and keen strikes to hamper the Republic, with no random smashing blows, but none of that meant he was not a monster. No one was finer on the battlefields, and Revan was infamous for the traps he laid.

Compassion should have been the reason why he, why she, was here. There was some of that, but it was to the lesser degree. That had been what made her first reach out for him, but not what made her grab him with such strength. Anchor him firmly to the living, share and tie herself to him, just to make sure that he would make it through this. The unintended consequences were still being sorted out, and right now, Bastila had nothing but time to study it.

Not entirely Jedi forgiveness, and that shamed her. A cold part had looked down at him lying there, helpless, and known it was the chance to, to…capture him and being him to the Council. With him, the war might be stopped if he could be convinced. All by herself, for better or worse. Bastila could have fled and made it to one of the escape pods without him weighing her down, fought her way through any of the remaining soldiers, and safely be headed towards one of the Republic worlds. But Jedi do not run and leave the wounded for dead.

That cold part (what could be the dark side, couldn't it) that reassured her doubts as to helping Revan. Stop and turn him back to the light side. With his knowledge and power, the answers to the questions the Republic and the Order had, they could win this war he had started. There had been very little serenity in that moment, and no peace.

How much would no longer having Revan around slow the Sith? If only she had managed to stop Malak as well. The power vacuum would destroy the enemy. They would turn on each other without their leaders, eat each other alive.

She didn't know his real name. Had never seen him before this mission, and hadn't even been properly sure what gender 'The Revanchist' was. Still did not know what he sounded like without that mask and its voice modifier. Nothing but an ambiguous mystery, exactly as Revan wished to be.

Now she could see him. Even when she paced, when she closed her eyes, she had to see him. Skin stretched tight over high cheekbones, deeply set eyes, the spill of blood on unnaturally gray skin the only color, though now he had bruises to add some life to that face. Under half-closed eyelids, through dark lashes, his eyes had moved, unseeing, indistinct but too pale. Now at least his eyes were closed. He now had a smell as well, unhealthy battery-acid of a sick person, sweat and blood. It was the fact of a sick man, perhaps a Dark Jedi even, but not one of a Sith Lord that was slowly demolishing the structure of entire worlds and systems.

This time, Bastila nearly kicked him.

He surprised her again, Revan did. Made her gasp and all but throw her datapad aside, half-panicked, reaching for the lightsaber. A twitch. The left leg. Some reflex still worked.

Could he be faking? Hiding from her? With that neural collar on, snapped on with so much haste she had hardly been aware the physical contact, it was hard to tell. There was their connection, but Bastila didn't dare explore that.

It was possible he was suffering from damage more psychological in nature. Shock, long-term PTSD. This was a person that had fought in two wars. Though one of which was his own making, that didn't mean there couldn't be psychological trauma induced. If anyone was close to edging into insanity, why not him? Revan had been a Jedi, been raised learning the Code and taught compassion for all life, and what he'd seen must have made an impact. A part, if only in the beginning, must have been wounded at the loss of life. Could anyone do what he had done, and still be sane?

He had killed that Republic soldier whose name she would never learn without a second glance or hesitation. There was no doubt in her mind that he would have done the same to her. Why had she saved him?

She might be able to break him from his previous path, no—fix him. Her datapad was here, and there was so much on it especially to deal with stress and fear. The dark side that such things led down. Bastila had dragged him here physically, so why not drag him back into the light, kicking and screaming. Bombard him, and reassure herself simultaneously of what she was doing. After facing him in combat, or nearly anyway, what was talking with him?

Bastila was already preparing the files. She had not spent as much time in the library and archives as other Jedi, but that didn't mean she was unprepared to help Darth Revan.

Bastila would save him from himself.

From others too, who had been twisted and shaped by his hands. All the Jedi and soldiers that had been turned to the dark side on his orders. There had been talk of rebellions, even in the Republic they heard of them. The nature of Sith. Other Dark Jedi grasping for power and eager to devour their own and would not hesitate should the wrong person expose their throat for them. His apprentice, best friend it was said, (when both had been capable of such) had turned on him the very moment the opportunity presented itself.

The shields had gone down, and the Jedi had slipped in.

Malak had some hand in that, perhaps. Probably. An advantage. Revan was not so invincible after all. Brought down by the dark side and the light.

It had been the Force that led them both together.

Bastila finally found a bomb in an overhead compartment. Unset, thankfully—as far as she could tell. Backup, in case the ship drifted off course, or a secret weapon? Better, she told herself, to die here and take him with her than be found by the Sith forces that might take Revan back to the helm gladly. Those other Jedi and soldiers would not die for nothing.

Bastila watched and paced. Sleep was beyond her.

What might come awake?

Quietly, she explored the ship.

Clothes messily put away. Of a durable, dark cut and for a large man, larger than Revan. Who had been here last? The refresher was searched again, and grimly, she was glad for the niceties to be found. Soap and other such things, though no brush or comb. A bottle of champagne tucked away and a few scattered boxes of food. There were worse ways to spend one's last days. Yes, Darth Revan was there, but at least there was floss—no, Bastila had to remain calm and accepting. Capture her fear and let it go. Lots of other Jedi had been stuck with a Sith Lord, and they had been the ones tied up, for a slower more painful death than this.

Sleeping and pain medication, if need be. Bastila would be grateful that she had been given her gift, had been trained by the Jedi and loved by her father so. Many beings in this galaxy had been given so much less. She had faced the Revanchist and survived, and had tried to spare him. At the least, Darth Revan would no longer be able to continue waging a war on the Republic.

She would meditate, facing Revan.

Perhaps she could reach him, even with the damage and the collar, through their Bond she supposed had been formed.

If given the chance, Revan would torture and maim her. As he'd done to his apprentice. No, worse. He would break and shatter her, for as long as he could. All the things she'd been warned of, Revan would gladly perform.

A pattern in the tatters of his cape and robe could almost be made out. If she studied it long enough, what would Bastila find written there.

Tired. Shock and the draining of her own energy to protect Revan. All that dragged at her.

Finally, Bastila reacquainted herself with the narrow bed.

She would sleep here.

One pillow and a thick blanket and a sheet under it.

She could sleep here.

Theoretically.

Relax and close her eyes. Breathe and feel limbs growing heavier.

Her dreams had been—what had Bastila dreamed of…what had she dreamed? Figures coming at her, hands ablaze and full of light. Raising a blade to the foremost figurant, armed with yellow. Herself? Had it been a dream? Darkness around whoever Bastila had been at that moment in that delusion. Shadows flickering and growing larger, twisting.

It had not been full of darkness and pain, however. Or rather, Bastila had not felt afraid as she'd stood there.

The shadows were comforting old friends that could be gently nudged to see what one wanted. The cold was a welcome respite to the heat under the mask. These before them (her, him) so foolishly displaying their weapons, were nothing more than playthings. This was only a temporary game and soon they (him, her) would be free of all distractions and have acquired another arsenal, another piece.

There had been a sickening triumphant taste in the mouth. A smug satisfaction not quite a joyous thrum in the heart, but a content hum. Pleased for the patience of those that had waited. Finally, it was happening, after all that time: she was here.

And Bastila had been.

But that had not been her own dream, if that's what such a thing could be called.

She stared at the motionless figure in the corner.

The trap had indeed worked rather well. Just as the Jedi had hoped. Almost too well. All had suspected another trap laid somewhere to snag and capture them. One did not take a Sith Lord lightly. Yet Revan was captured and would no longer harm the Republic or kill another soldier or siege another world.

Still, there would be no more sleep.

Using the Force to manipulate the durasteel around his wrists, she double-checked the restraints as best she could with the rest of her kept at safe distance. His hands remained unmoving and anonymous in gloves and charred gauntlets.

Limp, his head remained on his neck. Chin against his collarbone.

He might be dying.

Or he might be faking.

The lightsaber was cool in her hands, nearly plain workmanship. The blade felt wrong in her hand, too slim and light. It could have belonged to any Force user, but for that shiver through the Force that whispered of the taint inside and around it. It had been used to kill Republic soldiers and Jedi Knights and Masters. Bastila didn't dare turn it on.

What had led him to this path? The great Revanchist, so broken. A laughing stock of the Republic he would be if seen like this. Finally, he was revealed to be no machine from the dark gaps of the galaxy, but only a man that could be tied up after being carried through a ship as one might a child. Turned on by his oldest and best friend, Malak, who had followed him to madness and death and ruin. The betrayals Revan had done, only to turn his back both literally and metaphorically at the wrong moment and find his almost-death at the hands of his pupil.

Saved only by the aid of a Padawan! He would have died if Bastila had chosen otherwise. For even the Jedi to have turned their back on Revan would have meant there was nothing believed left to redeem. If she had not listened to that voice that whispered of mercy and continue to cradle his body and spirit, and just left him behind, his betrayal would have been complete. But from where did that betrayal begin? Before even the disagreement with the Order, the feigned offer to the Senate of peace in exchange for their armada and the Jedi and his declaration of war?

There were many Jedi that had come from dark places. Ones they could not speak about, even as they grew older. Some that could learn everything but forgiveness.

She herself remembering the first day and night at the Temple, weeping and cringing, certain that all the unnamable aliens spotted were monsters. A cringing small figure on her bed, half-sure that every shadow would swoop down and eat her. She had, after all, been naughty somehow, and Mother had sent her away.

A new curious thought struck her: Did Revan have his own parents, bittersweet memories? Where had he been born? Had there ever been someone to tuck him in and tell him bedtime stories? Years and years ago, even Revan had been small and helpless, as hard as that was to imagine.

The younger Republic ensigns had half-considered him a machine. Rumors about how he never slept, never ate, apparently just stalked about like a little debutant with his growing kingdom. Dressed in shadows and always masked, who knew what was under there. Sacrificing Jedi and drinking blood while making pacts with other Sith Lords he'd learned from during that time away from all known space. In-between the debauchery and torture of anyone unlucky enough to fall into his hands. No Jedi that faced him ever survived, and even those that had brushed by his presence and the war were changed. The strange droids onboard his flagship…

All claptrap to scare the youngling with, Master Vrook had dismissed, days earlier before the Jedi strike team had left. There had been a human behind that mask, and one that had bled and been harmed. Revan was nothing but an arrogant newly anointed Jedi Knight that had decided not to listen to the Council. The Revanchist was only a—

—Had he moved?

Just then?

Nerves, Bastila dismissed. All in her head.

No, that left boot had moved. Definitely had moved. Again. She had to be strong. He would awake soon. Open eyes in that swollen face. As though she had summoned him back to life at this moment, Revan stirred. Alive, if not entirely robust as he had been once. Hopefully.

Bastila would be strong.

Awakening, finally. To her mixed relief. That movement might signify that he could be whole, or only slightly damaged. Perhaps he could help her. He might want to repent what he had done, and agree to return to the Temple on Coruscant, and he would show her how to get this ship working. Or there would be nothing in him but shivering movements of brain damage, something in-between comatose and catatonic.

There could be anything in that twitching body.

You could not afford to assume he could be trusted. Every word would be a lie, a feint, a warning and a danger. Bastila would have to protect against all of what he might say. Threats and promises and pleads. All of it would have to be ignored and herself kept safe and whole from this monster. A brief second, to inhale and remember the Code, remember her Master.

Then Revan the Butcher began to awake.

A swallow. Lips parting as best they could, scabbed and bruised and sealed with dried saliva. A hum and a very confused huh.

For a moment, Bastila was unsure if this was truly Revan, if she had grabbed the wrong man, if the horrid figure on that ship had only been a feigned actor assigned for this very purpose.

But his eyes.

Revan stared at her.

How he tried to form words, to put together the pieces of what had happened, and Bastila leaned forward. His tongue slipped out to taste the blood at the corner of his mouth, and there was a cough, a whisper. Finally, Revan began to speak: "Are you an angel?"

Then he smiled.

Bastila had never pictured him with such an expression, of being capable of making jokes when before the stories and speeches had been so self-righteous and serious. A person that had the weight of the galaxy pressed to his young, unafraid shoulders. A man making a joke. Blood had dried on his face, tacky and it would eventually flake off, to be peeled off by gloved fingers if his restraints were longer.

Then Revan noticed the state of his hands. So casually sucking in breath and staring back at her some more. The way he raised his eyebrows could make the small hairs on her nape stick up. "But this is a familiar dream."

To her horror.

Then he stopped smiling, and it became worse.

"Malak."

"Yes."

Eyes alit with something terrible that burned yellow and red. "You."

"Me?"

Did he know who she was? It would be not a huge surprise to find out that Revan knew who she was exactly. That dream, or vision, seemed to indicate he had indeed wanted to capture her. More than a minor blip on his radar yet, even as he destroyed another system, destabilized another government. Revan seemed too meticulous to not know even the Republic's best weapon against him at the moment. Good, that he knew who had brought him down.

Chatting with a Sith Lord. That's what she was doing right now.

"The girl, ah, the Padawan. Something about felines? It's on the tip of my tongue." With a slow exaggeration, he licked his lips.

"Bastila Shan."

"Yes, I swear, normally I'm better with names. Once you were caught sneaking into the archive after you set some rare book on fire. Vrook made you scrub pots in the kitchen for a month."

Anew, Bastila remembered the strategies this man had used against his enemies, all his brilliance that had led to him being knighted so quickly. That he would remember such a thing…numb, that's what she felt. Leaden. Aware of the skin and muscle on her face that faced the brunt of his stare. A Knight that had seemingly never been reprimanded a day in his life, from that tone. When all it had been was an accident involving a high-powered telescoping facing the wrong day under strong lights. The damage had been minor, truly. "Two weeks. And I did not sneak into the archives."

"You were a cute kid I bet. So…angry even then."

Angry? Was that what he saw? A vengeful angry Jedi about to punish him? Was she angry? Her hands were balled into fists, and there was always this fear beneath the current, but Bastila did not seek revenge.

"I was not."

"Your later Master, I remember, never quite got along with Kae." His voice dropped, plummeted, from overly-neighborly to hideous. "My replacement is what you are."

Your captor.

Feeling came back to her fingertips eventually. "Everything is about you, isn't it?"

The Sith took notice fully of his collar, of his defenseless state. "Do you think this will stop me?"

His face was an awful, molted thing meant for sneers and disgust. "You're going to listen to me. You will release me. I will fix the ship. Perhaps I will not even kill you." Something cruel flashed across that face, as though Revan just couldn't hold back his own anger. The mask, the lack of a mask, exposed him again. No murder for her. No quick death. Bastila would be tortured, slowly. Until she longed for the chance of suicide. "You will follow my orders. Now."

The Jedi Sentinel leaned back. "Are you done?"

"You have no idea what you've done, little Jedi," Revan hissed. "I have done more to save the galaxy than you ever shall accomplish. Your mind is incapable of understanding the full extent of the danger."

Bastila could almost understand the dark side a little better, after this. Perhaps her Master would have been proud. "I understood the danger just fine."

"You don't have to lie to me, little Jedi." Revan stared, so knowingly even as he asked, "Where are we?"

She didn't know. Even now, she couldn't be certain. Not dead.

Revan could smell and feed off her unease. "Where are we? This isn't an escape pod. The freighter? This is not something for long travel." His voice grew hushed. Understanding sponged more color from his face. He looked nearly young. The Dark Jedi could not use the Force but Bastila had heard of his interrogations. It must be easy to read her face. "What did you do?"

"I saved us!"

"From what?"

"Your apprentice turned against you. You remembered that, didn't you?"

Did he?

When Revan sucked in air, it hollowed his cheeks. "Why didn't you just take an escape pod?"

"They were destroyed. The ship was in ruins. We hardly made it out alive."

"You're lying."

"No—"

"About something. Malak was a firm believer in overkill, but something went wrong."

"Nothing went—"

The entire mission had and hadn't been perfect. They had stopped Revan, but she was trapped in here too. A willing sacrifice though. The Republic would have to go on without her Battle Meditation. Bastila would accept death, had accepted it when she'd agreed to go on this mission and face this man. This was not quite what she'd imagined, but it was a victory.

"—Nothing went wrong!" she insisted.

Yet still they drifted, untethered and alone.

And everything must be there on her face.

"This ship cannot be capable of long travel… and why am I here? Why are we both here?"

"I tried to save you. To show you compassion, Revan. We were trying to capture, not kill you. And no, I didn't have time to check every ship that was left. The crew members were dead, as were the Jedi. This was the only one that could be found. The others were in even worst shape. We're lucky to have made it this far."

"Where are we." His teeth were bloody.

She had heard of him making speeches before, and had read the reports. Words, moving ones, even, about life in the Republic, about the Jedi Order, about why they had to fight, always fight to be greater. Rousing grandiose words meant to inspire. But now, when she heard him use that gift to stir awake fear, Bastila understood a little easier how Revan had been able to turn others to the dark side. He was tied up, restrained, her life already knowingly forfeit, and yet Bastila felt a trickle of unease. Revan must have been very good at interrogations.

Still, Bastila would not lie. "I don't know."

"Are you on autopilot? No. No." He could hear the frightening lack of noise. "This freighter is broken. Isn't it. So, yes, you saved us. From a quicker death. You don't even know how ignorant you are. Why I'm doing this. What is to come."

As though she needed her face rubbed in their predicament further. "Another cryptic statement will surely make things clearer."

"Did you never wonder why I turned against the Republic?'

"Self-aggrandizement. Revenge."

"Idiot child. I turned against them to reshape, not to break the galaxy. There was no ego in that."

Bastila made a sound of derision. His very title was one of vengeance.

"You would laugh? I have seen what the Outer Rim holds. The Republic will not be able to stand against it. It's too old, dying, scattered. That is why I formed the Empire of Sith."

"Wonder who was the cause of that? How convenient for there to be another enemy that only you and the Sith could defeat."

The smoothness of his unnaturally gray skin rippled when he was upset. "Did the Council tell you about this?"

Upset. Furious. An anger she felt rolling across the Force, even with his collar. Malcontent, oh yes.

Eyes of a lizard, a krayt dragon, a Lord of the Sith.

"No."

"They don't know." He stared up towards the ceiling, thinking aloud. "They did know, but they say I'm the cause of what they felt."

"What are you talking about?"

"There must be some way to get the attention of another ship. Sith or Republic. We still have one lightsaber. Between our Force abilities, we should be able to handle most of what comes this way."

She was on her feet, too close to him. "Excuse me? You think I'm going to help you murder anyone else?"

In the flat planes of his face, she saw her own disbelief. "You think this is about teams? No, this is about survival."

"I know that you cannot be let go."

With a strained, fraying patience, Revan licked his lips. "We'll die here. Worse, both our sides will lose. Does that get through to you? Destroyed by something you cannot imagine."

"Better that we die here together, than let you go on. I swore, swore, that I would stop you."

"You would…you're expecting to die."

"I'm always willing to die."

"Frack, but you are a Jedi. You." He laughed, as though helpless not to. "You have no idea what you've done, and yet you're so proud. A minor setback. That's all this is. I have faced so much worse than you and survived, Padawan."

"I won't let you."

"Will you murder me? No? Because I'm your prisoner. But isn't there some Code that prevents you from torture your prisoners?"

"As though you would know."

"But you're not me, are you? No, better to slowly perish here." Another laugh, unhinged, unsteady. "We will die floating in the middle of nowhere, and you're okay with that."

A dry-heave made his entire body clench through the remains of his clothes, scattered armor, and she nearly touched him. He was no longer standing, as high as he could, but stooped from the pain. Anguish, he was capable of that? "I failed. Force. I never saw this coming. The Force."

When he opened his eyes, Revan wasn't that slight man only a few inches taller than herself, narrow shouldered and light enough for her to drag quite a ways.

She remembered anew the warnings the other older Jedi had given her before this mission.

Malak had been a great swordsman. One of the best of their Order, he'd only gotten better with time and the years spent on the battlefield. It was said that his time in the hands of Mandalorians had left him with no fear of pain but lots of experiences inflecting it. Few physical weaknesses, a firm grasp on the Force, a long reach with his single right-handed blade. A bad man to be cornered by.

And he'd never won against Revan.

Lips peeling back from his teeth. His teeth (what he could do with those teeth) exposed and dangerous, Bastila had never feared being bitten by a human before. But Revan wasn't human, not exactly. She had seen marks of the dark side, from fighting Dark Jedi, but never so much of it. More than something as simple as one's complexion, or even the faded irises, but actual possession.

As he never had before, Revan appeared mad. Livid. Insane. He snarled.

He would—what could he do?

There was fear here, inside herself, to be taken and banished from her mind. Nothing but a whiff of pollen to be plucked and set loose.

A ball of ripped fabric, from his robes, was taken and snatched up. It wasn't hard to reach out and yank open his mouth further. Despite his physical strength, he could never be more powerful than the Force. Insert the ball. Five seconds.

She had just gagged Revan.

Tied and gagged the Sith Lord.

Then just use the Force to hold it in place so he couldn't spit it out.

"If you act like an animal, then I will treat you as one."

His eyes held murder in them. Every line on his face promised a certain special retribution for every second of this indignity. The veins that bulged and throbbing a blue under the delicate thin skin. When Revan became mad, his face went flat and pale, but when he was truly enraged, his ears turned red.

She would not be afraid. Of their situation, of the blackness to his pupils that sucked you in, of him and the power he still did possess. This was Darth Revan, but Bastila would not be frightened.

"Go ahead. Continue having your tantrum, Revan. See how far it gets either of us."

She remembered her own Master, dead now due to this war, years ago assigned to help Bastila hone her newly discovered talent at Battle Meditation. Her only talent, she was so told, everything else fell short of this gift. Mediocre…Bastila's Master would have explained the situation patiently to her student and helped them get to a common goal. Facts and hard discipline and commands to control themselves. Failing that, would sent Revan to his room without dinner. Or to the corner to pout after another long speech listing all of the man's flaws and where he'd gone wrong exactly.

This was as close to that as Bastila could go to silencing him so he might listen.

His hostility would never end, go fully into retreat, but it simmered now. Perhaps he could not feel the Force, but that didn't seem to matter on her end. The brunette could feel him digging into himself, questioning the past few hours, wondering how he'd been captured and led here by her. Looking inside for answer, just as a Sith might do, rather than trust the Force.

She did pull the gag out however. What if he grew sick again, more powerfully, and choked? They might die here but Revan would not perish due to her negligence.

He did not thank her. Eyes closed, unhealthy pallor to his skin, even for someone so deeply possessed by the dark side. "Jedi sneaking onboard. I thought perhaps someone was making a move against me, but it seemed too soon. The Republic hadn't yet fallen." Revan licked his lips. "Surprising the Jedi were willing to send you, their last fleeting hope, to come get me."

"I volunteered."

"Interesting." He swallowed, slowly. "Curious? That's good. The worst type of Jedi are not. That closes their eyes and turns away from the truth. Will you let me out?"

"No."

His face was blank, but she could see the poison in his eyes. "You won't."

"To all of what you claim."

A pull at his constraint was another confirmation.

No, she would not let him out or help him escape in any way. No pity or fear. There was no escape from this.

Revan then seemed to understand and fully appreciate their situation.

He didn't seem to care then, about talking to her, about the blood on his wrists and his own physical pain. A wild animal with its paw caught in a trap. He wasn't Darth Revan now, not without his power, this was nothing but the raging of a man not much larger than herself. One unafraid to hurt himself, even bashing the back of his head repeatedly, yanking at the heavy bars keeping him in place.

She had to use the Force to stop him, though didn't even try inserting the balled fabric in his mouth.

Slowly, it burned out.

All the life had burned out of him.

Blank-eyed as a doll. Catatonic, and Bastila feared he really had done severe brain damage to himself.

How long did they look at each other, then?

They could survive for perhaps another month. Perhaps two, using the Force and stretching out their supplies.

Two starved miserable months.

Then he stared at her, focused and aware. The bloodshot eyes yellow poison.

"I'm going to kill you, Jedi," he promised, sincere and flat. "I will make you rue the day you even joined the Order. No one will hear your screams but me, and I will savor them."

"Not if I—" No, she mustn't, she couldn't lose her temper. Not here, not with him. Bastila would not give him the pleasure of seeing her fall to the dark side. Her last act would be of the light, of goodness, not losing herself in a mad rage and harming the man she had done so much to protect.

But there was the beat of an increased pulse in her veins, and it hung in the air, soiled the oxygen. Something sour in the mouth, familiar, excitement and eagerness for this confrontation. Just as she had moved ahead, ignoring the warnings from her guards as more Jedi died around them, fear heavy on her tongue as she ordered them forward because all of this couldn't be for nothing. And so glad every second to still be alive, and sure that every step brought them closer to Revan. They could stop him, they must stop him.

His own livid face reptilian, watchful.

Perhaps they did have a Bond, and one that might affect her. She could feel him, muffled and distant. A person in a room far away, but still with only a wall separating them

At least they hadn't killed each other. Yet.

The bogan had held Revan in its grip for far too long. Once there had been a Jedi Knight, slight and brilliant, always with his best friend and with so many admirers. Everyone had respected and trusted him. For those six months he and the third of the Republic military forces he'd taken with him had disappeared, the entire galaxy had mourned and feared for their loss. He could have been the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, and only enriched their Order with his gifts. Taken and trained many Jedi to Knighthood. This was what he'd become.

Such a waste.

"Get that look off your face. You have no idea what you've done, and yet you look at me as though I were the one to have damned the galaxy to a slow death."

"You will not fool me. I could turn that device on your neck up higher, Revan," she reminded him. Turn him into a drooling invalid, wipe him clean of any intention, good or bad. Finish the job Malak had started.

Sometimes, Bastila felt the headache that wasn't caused solely from her own stress.

"Try it. Just try it." His grin was nothing sane.

They watched each other for an untold time, long enough for her eyes to grow dry and her joints to stiffen.

Until she decided to sit at the small table with its hard chairs, and watch him there.

The Order had hoped he could be spared. Life was never to be wasted. For interrogation. Perhaps they could have gotten the answers they sought, if things had gone according to place. The Masters would have known how to gently steer the conversation, how to use the Force to convince him to talk, how to speak to Revan without angering him and would have known how to calm him and get exactly what they wanted.

She could just see herself demanding answers from him. 'Right now, Revan, reveal all the secrets of your Empire that so far none of us have been able to discover! Right now…please?'

No, she would not get any truths from him. And no, Bastila would not beg him.

There had been too many interrogations and torture from him. Revan knew all the tricks, and had never been afraid of pain. In single-combat he had faced the finest warriors from so many systems, and had never lost. How could she wear him down to the point where he'd betray his own Empire?

He was not a man that dealt in half measures. Only gave exactly what he promised. All under the guise of fairness and justice. Revan had always made a show of offering an open hand to the Jedi, should they want to join him, and Bastila would do the same. "You are being given a second chance, Revan."

"Are you asking for me to cry and beg forgiveness for all my various failings?"

"Only you can find your own absolution."

"Then why drag me before the Council? Forever their loyal kath hound. Is that the way of it? You have no real thought process in that head, do you?"

"Of course I do." But the words were for herself, to stall while she wondered how to ask about the strange droids onboard his ship.

"If you did, you would have let me die there. But even then, you were trying to be the good little apprentice."

Just looking at him sneering made her nauseous. "I am a Padawan."

"A Padawan. I can't believe—you should have let me die on my ship. Force. And you applaud yourself for sparing me. How did you even do that?"

"You were hurt. Not too badly, but that hit on the head…"

His form so limp in her arms. But here he was, still talking and able to follow a conversation.

"And?"

"I used a medkit," she said, finally.

"Yes. And what else?"

Could he feel it, even without the Force?

"The Force, obviously. There was brain damage, that's also obvious—"

His voice cut through the air. "Yes, yes, some showing of supposed Jedi wit. I want details as to what happened."

Bastila kept silent. Bad enough to think that a certain connection might have been formed. Soldered and buried where neither could see it. Could he feel it, even with that collar?

"Now you have nothing to say? Don't you ignore me."

She discovered, realized, something wonderful with that statement, that refute against this entire situation. It wasn't wise to anger him, no, but there was nothing that he could do. And so what if he did become upset? What were the odds that either would survive another, say, month? Bastila could ignore him. Could get up, and use a tea bag found in one drawer warmed on the tiny over with minimum heat and half a cup of water.

"Where are you going?"

Go about moving and just avoiding bloodshot eyes. Ignore his straining arms with the veins so raised and the muscles twitching in his legs. He could not even kick her, if Bastila was careful.

She held up the fragrant bag. Something half-familiar to her nose. "Would you like some?" The brown-haired Jedi even sounded self-assured.

His nostrils flared, but eventually he nodded. As though it physically pained him, but at least it was a start at conversation. Perhaps with his help, they could find a way out of this mess. If this had been his private ship, there would have been failsafe's and security measures for this very incident, but perhaps Revan had some trick to communicate. Hail the Republic and return to the Order with him in chains. For now, Bastila would be grateful for this second of peace.

Making tea for a Sith Lord. They would talk more of this situation and the trap they were in. Later, she would meditate with her back to him, and then sleep with that bed across from him in this narrow freighter. Until they were found by the Republic cruisers that should be in this area. There was a single filament of a fact floating to the front of her mind: she didn't want to be connected to this man in any way, not physically or through the Force.

Revan grimaced at the taste, but did not attempt biting her or spitting at her or kicking. "No sugar?"

"No."

His exhale made her tense, feeling his breathe on her face. "Now will you tell me what happened? If I act like a good calm little Jedi?"

"I used the Force to heal you, as I said."

"Why do you avoid eye contact with me when you say that?"

Bastila saw the streaks of amber, old bruises, the sun of Dantooine that made up his gaze. How could anyone do that to themselves to such a degree?

"After I saved you…we seem to have formed a Force Bond."

Revan didn't need any more clarification. "Joined. Is there anything you don't screw up?"

Better, that he disliked her. Being respected, admired, by a Sith Lord had to be a bad thing. Bastila might come to savor his insults.

Once, years ago, like so many other Padawans, she might have wanted to have this man's respect. More than a strong fighter that wanted to help others, he was an intelligent person that could hold his own in any argument, a man that stood up and proclaimed that they must fight—how many were not moved, if reluctantly, when he spoke? It had seemed in that long ago time, all the Padawans wanted to join him, to be trained by him, to simply bask in the almighty presence that was Revan, covered always and so mysterious. That was a group that must have included her, hadn't it?

"Will you kill me?"

She sipped her tea. Tart. It did need sugar. "Jedi don't kill prisoners."

A crooked grin spread across his face. The skin beneath his nose was too pale, soft, almost limp. Did facial hair still grow there? Limp dark hair, feral and rough sprouted from his head. Features grown less sharp, flattened. What had he done to himself, and his apprentice to himself, to each other? Once, younger Padawans had looked over their shoulders to make sure no Master was around, then had argued over who was better looking, what they supposed Revan looked like, or Malak. Bastila, newly apprenticed, very conscious of her own responsibility, had always made a point to huff and roll her eyes if she was nearby to hear such dreck. Only a few years older than her, and already swept up in the excitement, Revan had become suddenly a figure all noticed.

She hadn't met him before, ever, as far as she could recall. Before he was even The Revanchist and had only been a gifted Padawan.

That entire period was remembered as being a long time of discomfort and alertness. The war beginning to rage, the recent attack of the Enclave and herself so newly aware of her sprouting height and legs grown so clumsy. Excitement in the air as it seemed as though anything could and would happen any second.

There might be a dimple set in his chin, Bastila saw, all but shuddering. "I won't tell."

"I spared you so you might have a chance at redeeming yourself."

"You don't believe that."

"If someone wants to change—"

"I'll stop you there; I don't." Revan was disgusted. "Don't look to me for gratitude for taking your mission so overenthusiastically. You won't get your pat on the head from me, child. What will they do to me?"

Child?

"I can't say."

"I will break out of any prison. Stop making that face. Humility is the mark of a true Jedi, is it not? You shouldn't bristle so." Revan had kept the same level voice throughout the entire conversation.

"I did not 'bristle.'"

"Like a kath hound in the rain. Why should you care that I fail to pretend you're old enough to know what you might be doing?"

Great Jedi before her had brought others back to the light. It could be done, theoretically. Talented, better, stronger Masters had done that, however. Bastila was not even yet even a Knight…Still. Still, if she had managed to find the compassion not to leave Revan to his dying ship, Bastila could try to offer him a choice. "This might be your last chance."

"Yours as well. How many regrets might you have, Bastila?"

"Not as many as you should, Butcher."

"What a nice title. Say, Bastila?"

She mourned the sound of her name; he had turned it into an insult and a warning. "Yes?"

"I think I found a fatal flaw in her diabolical plan to convert me to the light side?"

She all but slumped forward. How many hours had it been? A day? "What's that?'

"I have to pee."

"Wha—"

Oh. Krif. That…had not fully occurred to her. She could not let him out. But couldn't just let him stay trapped like that. Gods, how long would they be like this? How much food and oxygen and water did they have? Even using the Force to sustain herself, there would be a limit. Revan couldn't even do that.

Blazes, she—what could she do?

The price of her dignity was worth more than his life.

"What about showers?"

"There's a small sonic one in the back. In the refresher."

"…May I use it?"

"No. I'm not letting you out."

Muscles in his face rippled with fury held in the checked restraint. "We seem to be at a standstill here. And I still have to urinate. Do I get a bucket at least? And what of food? You may be able to use the Force to slow your metabolism, but I cannot. In case you haven't notice, I seem to have a collar around my neck that prevents that.

More questions were coming to him that she didn't want to answer.

"How much supplies do you even have? Water?"

"Three, maybe four weeks. If I use the Force to sustain me, perhaps two months of supplies?" A dizzying, horrifying prospect that Bastila would not allow herself to think about. How many hours, how many minutes…? No, enough.

"And me?"

"I won't let you starve."

"That's a death I never would have suspected. All these battles." Revan was looking around, closely. "Did you clean?"

"I dusted."

His expression could not be stood any longer. Bastila left him, briefly. There was a handy solution in the refresher. Thank the Force.

She kicked a bucket at him.

He gave her a look of pure disdain. Not even her Master had been capable of looking at Bastila like that. "And how am I supposed to use that?"

Revan could only move his arms so much.

Oh. Oh no.

"What are you going to do?" He nearly smirked. Until he understood. "You could make this easier on us both and just loosen my hands."

She approached him, and tried to watch all of him. He would bite, claw, spit. There was no one here to pull him back, to save her from his madness. Revan watched, those eyes so sly and knowing. Standing up, next to him, the height difference was surprisingly slight. They had all thought it was just Malak's towering form that made the other Knight appear so slim and average.

"This armor is ridiculous." How do I even remove it…?

That was a dangerous, awful question and yet one that had to be asked.

This was just one of those things Bastila would gloss over if they were saved.

Complicated claps hidden away in the dark billowing folds of her robes. What was this loop in the front? Why was there so much fabric? What service did this serve and how did he not trip over it? How did he even get this on in the first place? His main breastplate had been removed by her earlier, in a fit of paranoia in case they did find another person in this ship as it fell apart. Oh, krif, wrong clasp. His bellybutton like a bullet wound. Old scars and torn tissue knitted crudely together. He had fought and not seen enough kolto. Did that mean the Sith were running low on it? They looked old, his wounds. Overlaying those were new bruises and cuts. His armor had cut into himself when he'd fallen.

Ah, at least he was wearing pants under here. One mystery was solved. Should she live through this, she could inform the giggling Padawans of this fact. The hard pelvis cold even through the fabric. Find the folds here. "Black underwear?"

Tight and that absurd of-course color. Of course he wore that.

The Padawan laughed too hard.

"Here's a tip, Padawan. Should you ever find yourself with someone dumb enough to agree to let you touch them, perhaps you shouldn't laugh at them." He kept his voice casual. A man that would ask what time it was. A man.

"What are you talking about?"

"Do you not know? Truly? Surely you can't be so naïve. Haven't you spent time in the Republic military?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Confusion was a tactic Sith were familiar with. It was best to ignore Revan while he rambled.

He watched her all the while she slipped into the role of a nurse, practically and flatly denying the full extent of this moment. It was nothing more than having to drag him here and apply bandages and change fluids.

Bastila didn't even shudder too much. Or vomit. It was all a medical procedure. This was what came from exploring the dark side. A reminder that he was human and needed help as anyone else would in a familiar situation. Thus far, Revan was being treated with far more decency than he'd ever shown the Jedi that had fallen into his hands.

Bastila could live past helping Revan this way. This was nothing, truly.

At least Revan didn't bite her.

She still had a weapon. Comforting to have nearby, despite knowing what it had been used for. At least it worked, and if necessary, Bastila would use it. Revan, killed by his own weapon after having been betrayed by his apprentice had a grisly justice to it.

Her stare towards it lingered too long.

"Is that my lightsaber?" Revan asked.

"…yes."

"Where is yours?" He stared at her belt. "Dare I even ask what happened to your own?"

She had put it down for just one second. To remove his mask and see if Revan was (a machine a woman a man) still alive. Then Bastila had gathered the unmoving but breathing figure closer to drag back to an escape pod, and had simply forgotten about her weapon. An idiotic mistake to be sure, but at the time, it hadn't been the largest priority—considering she was aboard a wounded ship that was being fired upon.

But Revan would accept no such details that might take away from insulting her.

He sounded like her Master. "You are a brainless twit. And I thought those interview were just misleading."

Such an ungrateful, awful man—

Interviews? Krif, he had seen those?

A flood of heat finally filled her face; Bastila remembered the reporters. All the cameras pushed before her, to be aired on the Holonet with only a cowl pulled down low to hide her face. Badgering from the press that wanted to know all about the Republic's newest weapon, would she truly be able to stop the Sith, could she save the Republic, was she was good as Revan, as Sunrider? Feeling again her age before those bright, hungry eyes with their constant questions. What was her next move against the Sith Empire? Did she know of their latest battle plans? The things she could not give an answer to, and only stammer—especially when the questions turned far too personal.

Bastila did not grimace. "You watched those?"

"Of course I did." Revan was annoyed. "After all the comparisons I suffered through?"

How could he ever use that word? "That you suffered through?"

"The next in line. All the hopes of the Republic. The chosen one of some stripe. Surely you heard the same things."

Bastila did remember the comparisons. To Sunrider and with Revan and Malak. All great Jedi, but two of them brought so low with their arrogance. She must not forgot the lessons of such examples. Never lose her way as those two had, control her temper, recall the Code and recite it again. If only she could be as good as the lauded Jedi of the past, such as the woman that had shared her gift. She wouldn't be, especially now, but perhaps Bastila could try for the same courage.

Not everything would failed. Not if Bastila had her way. She pulled her hair back tighter, ignoring his smirk, and found her true weapon. A glow with knowledge and offering comfort.

"I haven't failed. My mission was to capture and return your back to the Council so you could change your evil ways."

"That is not going to happen," the Sith Lord informed her.

Her eyes dropped down to the screen. "We'll see."

Bastila began with the Scroll of Discipline. Ancient before even the Enclave had been settled, passed down from generation to generation of Jedi. It was not her favorite text, but certainly full of things that pertained to the situation she was in. A small bar in the corner of her holopad detailed how many pages it had, how many pages they had to go.

Revan sneered at her.

Then another hour passed.

Gradually, he stopped making that face and found a new expression. "You truly intend to read that entire thing aloud, don't you?"

Bastila nearly smiled, and flipped to the next page.

He leaned back, and both remembered his recent defeat, his most recent defeat. "Perhaps your voice will give out."

Another hour drifted along, and her voice did not give out.

Revan truly was an arrogant child, for all the years spent as a Knight. Perhaps the time as a would-be despot had spoiled him. He was used to others following orders and doing all he commanded. Well, Bastila would make sure to correct that bad habit of his right away.

No, Revan, no matter how you beg, I will not 'shut up.'

For the first time, seeing his grimace and how he yelled, Bastila felt that she must be doing something after all.

All the answers were to be found here, and she would give them all to Revan, shove them right down his throat if need be.

No matter how much he resented being told of what he'd once known and forgotten through his time spent fighting the Mandalorians and plotting against the Republic for whatever maniacal reason. It was what must be done. There was no chance, only the Force, and it led them to this. This was another test to be taken and the most important one of all.

Bastila would turn him to the light side. No matter how often he made that face and pondered aloud the mortal danger of swallowing one's own tongue.

"I did inform you before that you couldn't win."

Revan, it turned out, also did not appreciate more recent reminders of his folly.

When she tried to question him about the war and the Sith Empire's resources, he ignored her or offered only cryptic answers: "It will take more than your clumsy groping to get me to spill all my secrets."

He in turn dismissed all attempts at giving up his empty title, leaving her further disgusted: "No, I will not address you as 'Master'."

When she gave him water and food, he grimaced and pulled away from even that. Up close, the Sith looked worse somehow. All bruises and dark veins under skin turned sallow. "What if I refuse to eat?"

Sly.

While Bastila was feeling her own hunger and exhaustion. As he'd mentioned before, her throat was beginning to ache. Two long months, perhaps, of this. "Starve then. I can't force you to eat."

"You do care though."

There, there was the weapon. He would do the proper Jedi act, and hold only the person he had any right to hostage: himself.

"Will you force me to feed you?"

He tugged at his restraints. "You've given yourself very few choices in that matter."

"Fine." If he wanted to be obstinate, then Bastila would feed him like an infant. Fine then. It wasn't her place to say what he deserved, but if it was punishment that he wanted, then she would assign some. Let him be treated like a child and 'suffer' through another hour of lectures through one particularly masochistic brand of learning: a haranguing chapter on the dangers of the ego from a force user of some minor renown from Celegia. Even she felt weary, reciting such berating.

He, at least, still did not bite her.

After, after she could say that she'd had enough. "I am going to rest now."

Eventually, she settled on the bed and refused to give Revan any pleasure in seeing her discomfort.

"You're going to sleep like that? Not even loosen those braids? They look uncomfortable."

She huffed and rolled over, and resisted the urge to pull the blanket over her head.

Still, she could feel his stare. Hear his breathing. The implied familiarity that came with such sound only further bothered her.

The first true night with the implications of sleep. How had she managed through the first night? A lurking horror right there. Lights never dimmed. Close her eyes briefly. Meditation and the Force and its calm sweat peace served, but only for now. Only for so long. All her senses were needed.

He never closed his eyes, it seemed.

Though he did cough, slow at first, then increasingly ragged.

Bastila wanted to hide her head under the pillow. It drove her to all but asking if he were alright. But that might all but a lie, a feint to get her to let him out of the restraints. Instead, the Jedi would focus on her breathing, inhale and exhale, the weight of her chest and every pull of her lungs expanding. Stretch out through the Force and feel the peace of it, the connection with it that explained her own gift with Battle Meditation.

Somewhere, perhaps nearby, the Republic might be leading a new assault on the Sith. They would be thrown off by the change in leadership, it had been surmised. Darth Malak would continue on, but how many worlds had agreed to the Sith's demands solely because of loyalty to Revan? Did Malak control the Sith fleets and reign as the Sith Lord? Would the Republic finally have an edge on them, without Revan at the helm?

Did the Masters wonder where she was? Was she already considered dead, or captured? Did anyone mourn her, or would the Republic be able to win without her Battle Meditation?

Was he still awake? Could one cough in their sleep? Was Revan sitting there as comfortable as he could get, just watching her? Watching her for what? Could he see her? See her discomfort?

Bastila felt a fool for asking aloud, "Are you asleep?" She swallowed. "Revan?"

"Shut. Up." Then he coughed.

She was able to settle down.

He would be fine. It might all be a ply, and more the fool she was for even letting Revan rattle her. He was the Dark Lord of the Sith, and as such couldn't be effected by head wounds or—the dark side? Perhaps it needed to go through his system like a virus, and that was all. In the morning, Revan would be his usual terrible, demanding and opinionated self.

When she awoken, Revan the Butcher was still tied up and collared, but there was something wrong all the same.

Through the dim trickle of their hypothetical 'Bond,' Bastila noticed his retreat. A lack. The power dimmed.

"Revan?"

"What?"

He was staring at her, and Bastila finally looked back. "You don't look so good, Revan."

"Neither do you."

Her hair felt a mess, and she adjusted the braids as best she could with her fingers. She could feel his gaze on her, and ignored it. Any moment, Revan would have some smarting comment about her appearance. "Is that why you were watching me?"

His face was one for sneers. "I was not 'watching' you. I'm amazed there's even this much oxygen left considering how much of your ego can fill a room…"

Since when did Revan deny his efforts in making her uncomfortable? Why would he after threatening such torture yesterday? "You were. Don't lie to me."

"You're not worth that much effort. To lie to or to check over. Believe me."

Bastila looked at him, perfectly blank until he found a new topic.

"What will you do today? More meditation and reciting the Code? Will there be more lectures? How exciting." Then he began to cough again.

The oddest leaps, some intuitive, others just a mark of his paranoia. Lapses in though, disjointed conversations that led nowhere. He did like to talk. Chatty. Even as his breathe caught in his throat.

"Do you never shut up?"

"Which one of us has spoken more, I wonder?"

"For your own—"

"Is it for me, or to reassure yourself, Shan?"

This too: they both hated to be interrupted.

So they cut in on the other's remarks and conversations, constantly. Stomped and fought each other, as important a fight as any she might have put in on the battlefield. Every parry and stroke met with a counterstrike and a flurry to beat the other back. Bloodless but painful. Language was life to all species, Bastila had read, been taught through cultural studies. All creatures must find a way to communicate with one another. Only the dead had no more to say, supposedly. Thus, it was followed that this arguing was their lifeblood. Proof they were still alive.

That might be comforting.

Eventually, hearing his voice might be comforting.

Revan might need her too. This failed messiah, could he stand to die in silence. His voice must be heard, by someone. Anyone.

Listen to me—

Oh, shut up.

On the third day, he wouldn't move. Or fight. Or argue or insult her or try to convince her to let him go. Rather, he would prefer to just pretend all was lost, he was dead and so was she, so why speak? Why pretend and scratch out another day? Or he was lulling her into a false sense of security.

"I won't just let you die. Not after I dragged you from that ship."

"I don't want to talk to you." His head hung. "I can't anymore. Untie or kill me, but don't draw this out. I ask on your honor as a Jedi."

"You depend on the 'honor of a Jedi'?"

"Yes, it is cruelly ironic." Revan hardly seemed to see her. "Why don't you? Just kill me and be done with this? Jedi: perform justice."

"That would be only murder."

"Vengeance then. I have lived by that particular sword for so long its only fitting to be killed by it. I have surely hurt you. Your entire life has been in service to defeating me."

"I am a Jedi. My entire life will be in service to the Republic."

"To the countless dead I have left behind then. Why should I not join them?"

"Let the dead avenge themselves. There has been enough bloodshed."

His eyes were wide, jaw less tense. "You really do mean to draw this out, don't you?"

Bastila watched him shivering.

This was not her first time out of the Temple, for all his comments. There had been diplomatic assignments and various training tasks. Duties that came with her gift. But this was her first true mission, alone and without anyone else. She had medical training and knew how to navigate and could pilot a starfighter. But this might be her final test, and one that was to be failed.

Later, Bastila would assume that Revan had been closer to exhaustion than he would admit, before she'd even captured him. He had been running on fumes augmented by the Force and held up only through sheer, stubborn will.

With that…

Revan only turned his head, when he did response to her questions at all. He brooded and mumbled nonsense. He referred to her as 'Devourer.' He dozed, then reawakened to blurrily take water but no food. Sweaty curls stuck to his forehead and his color was high, beneath the marks of the fight and the dark side. Marks of his doing, and from his apprentice.

Without his own defenses raised, their connection had never felt stronger, so much more definite. Before, Bastila had wondered what went behind that face, what it must be like to be trapped in one's choices, in literal and metaphoric chains, and now she nearly knew. His thoughts rose to the surface, slow and stupid. She felt the ache in his joints, his gums, the stifling anger and rage over physical pain could turn his brains as useful as jelly.

Rarely had Bastila seen a drug addict, even on Coruscant. Yet she knew the comparison was apt. The drunkard, yes, on worlds during her time in the Republic, on Dantooine even when she left the Conclave. Shaking and dripping sweat that pooled, dark circles under the unsteady eyes. Sober-dry of the Force. Concussion, blood clots, and aneurisms were all words renewed in Bastila's vocabulary, and she tried to keep him talking then and awake.

"I won't let you out, no matter what. So if you are faking, you had better stop it. Or I'll—stop feeding you. Since a sick man obviously can't keep food down."

Nothing.

"Revan?" She drew on the Force to avoid resting herself. "Tell me about how much you despise the Jedi Code."

Time narrowed down to minutes, to his low coughs and tedium. For the first time, truly, she feared for his life.

A voice whispered, a cowardly voice piped up with optimism: 'maybe he'll get better!' But another one, heavier and smarter, quickly spoke over it, 'Or he'll be dead in two days, and you'll be left with a corpse.'

No. No.

She would not allow that.

All the more she would talk to him, poke at him, downright (yes, now she was) harassing him and trying to pry out information. The older voice in her head told her to get as much information as she could, in case he did expire out here with such limited medical facilities. Bastila all but slapped him, and then would watch immediately back away, guilty. No matter if it was a game or not (and it wasn't, no, maybe it was), seemed to not matter at this point. She was helpless. And Revan was uncooperative, all around.

Bastila even tried to smile at him.

Sick, damaged. Something had lapsed in him, and his face was feverish. The softened waxy skin blistered and cracking. When he spoke now, he mumbled of holocrons and Korriban, his Master Kae, of things 'written in blood' and dead apprentices and the Cathar, of someone named 'Squint.' His memories would shiver and distort, and Revan would think she was someone else. Sometimes, he would switch to other tongues, even Mandalorian. There would be orders and threats, pleading; all responses ignored.

Revan told her of what had happened to Serroco and Jebble and Taris. Revan told her of what he had done to the Testament, Foerost,and that there was no victory in destroying a surrendered enemy. 'They didn't have enough faith in me.'

Bastila heard every word and syllable.

When his nose bled, she wiped it. When he shivered, she took the blanket from the bed and covered him. When a fever ran through him, Bastila used a damp rag to wipe his face. When he coughed up watery blood, she cleaned it up.

In this moment, the Jedi sentinel could nearly forgive him. This was the punishment; he might face the vengeance the galaxy wished on him after all. There was nothing strong and noble and deserving of fear here. Only a sick man that might be spending the last moments of life in delirium with a woman whose name he could no longer recall.

Somehow, not despite of, but because of this sickened body, Revan resembled again the young Knight that had gone out to save the Republic from the invaders. He had wanted once to protect, and in those mumbled arguments, Bastila heard of once noble goals gone sour and rotten in the war. From the mouth so blistered and lips so cracked, she heard him speak to dead friends he had betrayed or seen murdered or had turned on him.

Once, he had been capable of so much.

Revan was a good example of how far one could fall. There was always another lesson to be taught, Bastila had been told, no matter where one was. She gave him water slowly so as to not choke him, and asked him more about the war.

He would die soon, she knew. Very soon. She fed him and spoke to him with that knowledge affixed with every motion and word. Soon. "What about Serroco?"

Bastila would listen to every word.

Until one hour, she awoke from a light sleep spent curled in a ball next to his outstretched legs to his voice.

His eyes were still a horrid yellow, but were able to focus. "Hello, pup."

"Excuse me?"

"You look like a loyal hound by my side."

But Bastila could nearly smile. He was making sense, somewhat, and that had to be a good sign. "Better?"

"Were you afraid?"

"I said I would protect you."

"Such a good job. What happened to: 'No death, only the Force'?"

The Jedi rediscovered her pride and legs as Revan relearned speech. "If we are to die here, then so be it."

"I suddenly have lost all faith in you being my keeper."

"Does that mean you did have faith in me?" She looked at him, wondering if anyone had been so glad to be insulted by Revan.

He was blinking, stupid and slow. "You look younger when you smile."

"Excuse me?"

"Never mind. I was sick."

"Still are." She gave him water, glad for the glasses and mugs onboard so she wouldn't have to share anymore with him.

Eager, he drank, and she felt the slightest discomfort watching him. The way his mouth pursed and for that matter, seeing the uneven growth of hair on his face and scalp. Bastila would have thought that Revan awakening from that feverish state would restore him back to that intimidating creature that had killed a Jedi without hesitation, and then turned his weapon towards her. Yet there definitely seemed to be a dimple set into his pointed chin.

It would be incredibly stupid and dangerous to let her guard down, the Jedi reminded herself. Still, when she heard it, the sound made her do a double-take. Darth Revan: hiccupping.

He looked either embarrassed or ashamed. A frightening Sith Lord had no right to be doing such a thing, they both knew.

It wasn't funny, and it was hilarious.

Bastila couldn't help smiling. Even when she knew she must look away and ignore it.

It tampered off quickly enough, and the Jedi Sentinel was nearly disappointed. Such a human gesture, another one. It did help ease her mind to know that was possible from him. He would not be loosened anytime soon, that was not what concerned her so much. For her to chip away at the hold of the dark side, that needed a good crack in his veneer.

That brief bout of illness might have been exactly what he'd needed. Awful though his face still was, perhaps underneath it all he was healthier. Just needed to speak of his past and relive what terrible things he'd done. Perhaps the mumbling had been his own attempt at redemption. One needed to acknowledge what they had done to atone for it.

"There was a bomb onboard," Bastila told him.

"A leftover gift I believe," he said. "From a certain Arkanian whose sales attempt was cut short. The bastard. Right before you got there. How fortuitous."

It might be, too.

"At least we might take a few out with us, should you trigger it if we are found. Captured," Revan explained.

"We won't get captured."

"If we are, ah, what will happen do you think? Parades? Gang rape and then the firing squad? Single combat for the sake of honor? Evisceration? Will they pour molten gold down my throat? Make me long for the days of the war against the Mandalorians? Would let me face that?"

"You are under my protection and I won't let anything happen to you," Bastila promised, looking straight into his eyes.

"Do I have your word, Jedi?

"Yes. I won't let you be tortured and your corpse desecrated. But it won't come to that. You are under my protection, and the Republic would never harm a member of the Jedi Order."

"Such a comforting thought. You'd rather draw this out, Jedi?"

"Are you afraid of facing justice? Of dying?"

"Better to die than face what waist in the dark. Lose now and not face it."

"There's nothing there, Revan."

There wasn't. Just another lie from a Sith excuse for the war was all his story was.

He was musing aloud, "It's not that I fear dying. We will die here, I am certain. But I have no urge to suffer, and then have my hacked body paraded about. If we are caught, you put that blaster to my temple and you squeeze."

"Revan."

"Then put it to your own head." As best he could, Revan raised his hand to cut her off her comment. "I say this as a measure of decency. For your sake. Don't let Malak take you; I know what he'd do."

An odd stab at compassion for a butcher. Why?

"For attempting to save me, if in the most idiotic manner possible," he answered, and Bastila had to wonder of their Bond, of her composure and face. "I do repay my debts. And my apprentice is a man that discovered what it means to be a captive after being in the loving hands of the Mandalorians, I'm sure you've heard. He is the one that destroyed Telos, after all."

"Are you saying that you disapproved of that?"

"It was over kill. Yet to not follow through with a threat would have been folly. Better to be feared than mocked." A shrug. "I punished him. He understood what he'd done wrong after he could think clearly, when the pus and the infection cleared up and the prosthetic put into place."

She felt something unpleasant rising through her stomach, dangerous and too lovely: hope. "So you did have a problem with what he did?"

"Oh, no, you misunderstand; the destruction was supposed to take place later. As I had told him to tell the Republic."

Revan always prided himself on keeping his word.

Malak had been right to turn on this creature. The real enemy was right here, the one that had, yes, led his fellow Jedi Knight down this path. "You two deserved each other."

"So we told each other late at night when we inevitably found ourselves alone." Something silky and knowing in his voice.

"He was your best friend and apprentice." Not quite a question.

"More than that." Revan looked amused at her confused expression. Laughing at her. "I'm sure you've heard the rumors? Or did the Order try to squash even that bit of information about us?"

"What information?"

His smile was slipping away, back to that bored expressionless. A vacancy so complete that it took her until now to realize what might be partially wrong with it: only his mouth moved when he spoke, the muscles around it not stiff but soft. Eyes glazed and half-lidded. Smudged features that half-worked. "Or are you claiming to be so innocent you still don't understand what I'm even talking about?"

"You and Malak."

Him and Malak…? Alone at night. That repugnant smugness.

"Oh."

"Are you surprised at that?"

That put things in a slightly different light, illuminating other certain things. Appalling, and Bastila could remember her fundamental dislike of this man. Anything he touched, he ruined. Every vow they had broken, for their own selfish desire. "When you were still his teacher?"

"There was some overlap."

Bastila had never felt even the mildest pity of Malak until now. The Knight had made his choices, but with this man teaching him and breaking the Code in such a way, the fall might not have been such a surprise. "Of course you'd take advantage of a Padawan like that."

"You think he didn't like it?" Sly, his voice was.

Ugh. How could anyone?

—Even before he had become a Sith Lord? How long had he failed to live up to the Jedi Order's expectations?

This was a man who had been the star of the Jedi Order. Entrusted to watch and care for Padawans, to watch out for his fellow Knights. He'd turned against all of them. Learned too much of war fighting the Mandalorians, it was said. Bastila had been told to look at him as an example, of what to do, of what not to do. Learn from him, when he'd gone by a different name. A hundred questions she'd had for her Master when he'd gone off to war, and now there was this new one: was it possible he had always been like this? That he had had only exchanged one mask for another?

Master Zhar and Vrook had such differing views. The old, worn twilek so regretful, remembering the Knight as a gifted student, his failings were all of the Orders. Master Vrook had been so adamant of Revan's flaws, the arrogance always there, warnings scattered through the years. The Jedi Knight had grown hungry for more bloodshed, and those long months spent waiting for their return had been spent preparing the reveal of his true intentions.

How could the Order have not seen Revan for what he'd been?

"Go on: ask your questions. I have no problem discussing that. Not now, and especially not with you. Why keep secrets from each other? I probably said far too much when I had that brief illness."

What could she ask? Why could you do so many evil things? How could you turn against what you swore to protect?

"I do appreciate talking to someone. We are so freed from cliché about threatening each other a bloody death. Too bad you are such a poor conversationalist. But I'll take what I can get."

She peaked at him sideways. "Did Malak not provide stimulating enough conversation?"

"You make fun of him, but we should ask ourselves: how many more people will die now, with Malak in charge of the Sith?"

"If he's so incompetent, perhaps there will be a rebellion."

"Not stupid. He's not stupid," Revan corrected. "And less willing to take chances. Case in point: what he did to my ship."

"And Telos."

"That too."

"Do you regret how things went? What you did?"

"Innocent sentient life ended because of our decision, because we could make and carry out such a decision. It wasn't justice. But I don't care about such concepts anymore." He paused. "I did however. If that brings you any measure of relief.

"Force, it does." Revan all but rolled his eyes. "You want to know why I turned to the dark side, to defeat my enemies? It was for others that I did it. Because of others. I was sick of waiting for the Force, for the Council, for others. I didn't want to accept that others would stand by and do nothing, so perhaps I overcompensated.

"Kill this one, destroy this one, sacrifice this world. The deaths that came with those calculations. You might not believe me, but I did go out there to stop the Mandalorians. I was a Jedi Knight, doing his duty. There was still 'good' in me, if you will. It was a struggle, to balance the two. To constantly perform the calculus of lives and weighing advantages, all the while having to fear being too close or too distant.

"I grew tired. Why continue with such lies of what I was doing?"

Bastila nearly wanted to write this monologue down. A first. If only they were on Coruscant, at the Temple, and this listened to by Masters that could offer up advice as to how to handle a reply.

A different man had seemingly awoken, bloodier and tired, but saner. This was someone that could not be trusted, but listened to and speak with.

"Mercy and weighting your actions are not lies, Revan."

"That's 'Darth Revan,' Padawan. At least I got away from them, and the ranks that try to use against us. You, though, you still want them to pat your head and say good job."

But there had been more in his feverish whispers and even his orders spoke of something more…gallant in Revan. Before he'd become such a traitor that had lost his way. He must have cared so deeply, if long ago, that he'd begun to avoid dealing with such heavy losses.

No matter how he carried on with bloating his ego further. Blathering on about his accomplishments and ignoring her. "So afraid of war unless it involved them…yet battle must be fought to strengthen the foundation of civilization. Someone must win as well. And it was Revan."

"You sound utterly mad when you talk about yourself in the third-person. That absurd name. It's not even your real name."

Revanchist.

There was so much darkness implied in that name. What type of man would take on that title?

So serene. "Who's to say I haven't gone mad?"

Bastila went still.

"It is said I my lost mind the year after the Mandalorian war. That year I spent beyond the boundary of Republic space. Did I wander so far? For what? What did I find out there? My own insanity?" His eyes remained watchful, even while his lips twisted upward. "Or sanity, rather. My freedom? So loosed of the Jedi shackles and then the Republics. You should try it sometime. Find yourself so far from the Jedi that their words no longer have a pull on you. I suppose you have, now, but it's not quite the same."

There was some clarity, but it was still Revan the Butcher she was facing. "Yes, you did discover what you were on the edges of the galaxy, didn't you?"

"All those titles and names…but I am my own person. They are just roles I used to get what I needed."

"Not the entire time. I don't know what you faced in the Outer Rim, but you were a Jedi."

"Are you trying to convert me back?"

"Once you were the youngest Knight of our generation. You did care, and that's why you went to war, wasn't it? There must still be some flicker of light in you."

"You think you're the first to try and 'help' me? Redeem me? Save your energy. I am not your project."

"But I'm still going to try."

"Or maybe I'd convert you." Those unsettling eyes finally crinkled when he smiled. "You could let me go. Join me, inasmuch as that is possible out here."

Bastila didn't need a second to refute that. "You didn't even say please."

"Has that never occurred to you? We are here, alone, with no one to judge you. Perhaps with your powers amplified with both side of the Force, we might be able to reach someone else?" That flickering smile. "I have thought about capturing you more than once. Your talents turned against the Republic would be marvelous to witness."

"I suppose that's a compliment."

"We'd have such an Empire together, with you at my side. All we could do together. I could even thank you for your obedience in several different ways. Whether you untied me or not."

She stared. "What?"

"So young. So naïve."

"What are you talking about? I should use my talents to help the Sith then?"

"In particular, use them with me. Though I wouldn't hold it against you too much if you had an eye on another Dark Jedi. Is it Malak? Because he's so tall? That handsome holonet hero look, complete with the square ja—oh, yes, never mind. He wouldn't be as much fun though, never was to be honest. You two are both too earnest and straightforward."

Was he saying that she had some disgusting crush on—on Malak? Why? How? Bastila was left staring at him, mouth open. "…what?"

Revan's was grotesquely warm. "Tell me more about your 'talents'?"

She just blinked at him, unsettled.

A long awkward moment passed before Revan finally continued with his point: "Are you truly this daft?"

"What exactly are you hinting of?"

"You really did not leave the Temple much, did you? What a waste of a charming, if controlling and attractive Jedi."

Charming? Attractive? What was—oh.

No.

No, thank you.

Bastila knew immediately that she shouldn't be physically, literally, backing away from him. At the least, it only made things more awkward, and must only give him more ammunition. Yet nothing logical could help the sick thrill going through her. She wanted the bucket right now, to vomit into. Run into the bathroom, all dignity gone, to shower a thousand times. "You were not referring to my Battle Meditation."

"No. But I was joking: you're not charming."

"Were you really—" All but recoiling.

"More neurotic than anything." Revan cocked his head, studying her. "But there is some appeal to that."

She wanted to cover herself with a blanket. Kick him and then run away. Even fully dressed, she could feel exposed under those gleaming eyes. Revan, hinting towards what she could only imagine. Even the soldiers, whom she had been so warned about by a discreet Jedi Knight, had shown her far more respect. Nothing more than obsequious, and polite by comparison. Courteous men and women that treated her with a certain deference, if anything.

"Still your wild, girlish heart, Shan. You don't have to sleep with a lightsaber under your pillow to keep me off you."

Shudders after shudders. "Yes. Thankfully you are restrained."

"Oh, it's not that. You'll find my scoundrel appearance and devil-may-care attitude quite appealing soon enough. So go head and fight it; it would be boring if you just gave in."

"I would never—"

"Tell me more about how bad I am and how I can make up for it." His Adam's apple a bulge as he looked up.

She retreated backwards another foot. "I liked you better when you were mumbling feverish nonsense."

That made his smile shrink, just a little. Then it rebounded. "Yes, I'm sure you did like me helpless. Are you this controlling in all matters, or just when it comes to sexual conquests?"

This was going to be a long journey.

Especially with that now lying between them as a decomposing body might. A joking preposition. Grotesque, Revan's appearance became again, anew. Every time he opened his mouth, Bastila learned something new and awful about him. All these new grotesque angles to gape at.

Bastila had faced similar jests and hints before, requests and polite gestures from those she served with. Briefly. Once or twice, yes. Well. Inasmuch as far as she could measure, given her own limited experience with such things. Perhaps even those had been misunderstandings on her own part, and they had truly been earnest and she had been too cold in her dismissal of sharing meals and answering questions.

Other Jedi had never— there were dalliances among the apprentices, but no one had ever approached her; they had known better than to expect Bastila Shan to ever agree to such a thing. But after having left their company had she become more aware of such things.

Only once she had left the Enclave had she been approached in such a way.

She was young and considered pretty enough ('charming, if controlling and attractive') for those to stare at her and wonder. If that had indeed been what had happened. Miscommunications, perhaps. Some had been simply curious, and others polite and inquisitive; all dismissed with varying politeness. No, Bastila did not want to 'go out for drinks after this shift' and would not speak about her family or where she was from or answer any questions about personal matters.

Especially not ones from reporters that wanted to ask if she had a beau, if there was another truth to the rumors of Jedi celibacy, was she aware of a certain rumor (asked with such a disgusting smile) involving how she planned to convince Revan the Butcher and Malak to turn from their mad reign of terror—no, Bastila would not think about that anymore.

No, surely they hadn't meant…no. No.

Yet, as uncomfortable as all those other time before, none certainly had been so obvious about it as Revan, and none had disgusted her as much as his jokes.

From now on, every word and look took on a new, frightening significance.

No—Bastila would not falter. He had just been trying to scare her and it would not work. Revan could not have such feelings. Look at that face, no way would anyone agree to such a dalliance with that man. He had just tried to see her flinch, and Bastila had shamefully given him what he'd wanted in that regard.

Again, with the bucket and trying to look away. Pretend someone else was doing this, handling him in such a way. A nurse, she had healed people on the battlefield, and Bastila wished she were back there, with soldiers that depended on her. Fighting for the Republic. Anywhere, truly, but here.

With Revan watching her every reaction. Making terrible comments that they both knew were absurd and meant only to wound her in whatever way Revan could. He tried to act like he really wasn't ashamed of all this, and actually relished this attention. That it wasn't mortifying for both of them. Like Bastila might be enjoying this contact.

Perhaps it was whatever Bond might have been formed that gave him such insight into her feelings–or else Bastila had been still making a disgusted expression.

"Normally," Revan elucidated, "I don't find myself preoccupied by such things, but we are Bonded."

Through the hair falling into her eyes, Bastila stared. "What are you talking about?"

"Besides that, this could be our last few days before we join the Force. A little excitement isn't uncommon."

"We aren't going—"

"We'll die terrible deaths. If Malak gets us, or the Empire. Angry Republic soldiers. What they would do to us. A mob."

Is that what he thought? Feared? Nothing would cheer her more than to see Republic ships that would pick up her transmitting signal. If it was a Sith ship…she still wasn't sure what to do then. Revan could not be handed over back to them. Perhaps he wouldn't be reinstated as the Supreme Grand Master of the Sith or whatever grandiose title he referred to himself as, but would be tortured by them for failing. He was under her protection, for better or worse.

Nice, comforting, to see that he did have fears as any other mortal.

Until the Sith continued, "With such high stakes, why not appreciate the others company?"

She would not let him get under her skin (or clothes), and thus would not be sick in front of him. "I will never allow myself to give into such feelings."

"Does that mean you have feelings then?"

"No, yes—not in that way. Stop smiling! I am not attracted to you, Revan." The very fact that her mouth had to form such words was a wound that could never be healed. "And no one will harm you while I am around."

"Or, rather, both of us will be strung up. I am the worst traitor. Followed by you."

"Me!?"

"You spared the worst traitor. Also, you've touched my penis."

Bastila stood up and walked away. Locked herself in the refresher for three hours by her chrono's account, though it felt much shorter. There, she rediscovered calming pace and how much better one felt after washing their face (and hands, again and again she scrubbed them) at least. Only after finally growing sick, not of his wails but of the eerie silence that had followed them, did she come out. You could nearly hear the cogs turning in his head as he plotted.

"Are you ready to be a man again? Or do you insist on acting like a little boy?"

"Oh, I am a man. Aren't I?" His hideous face so alight with sadistic cheer. Lines drawn into his face with that smirk, Force, even with all her training Bastila hated that smirk. Even from a distance, if you didn't know him and what he was, that smile should have sent others running away. "You should probably tuck it away. For your own sake."

She tried not to flinch. He wouldn't eat her alive—no, he would just make her uncomfortable. That was the worst he could do. Yes, she would cover him up and spare herself the sight.

A twitch.

Not enough oxygen. On any planet.

On purpose he'd done that.

Eye contact made her head erupt in flames. He was not the first person she had seen naked, but it had been very different from this. There had been no sexual context then, and it had been solely for the purposes of healing injuries, anatomical studied—and she can nearly hear Revan making a joke about that. She inhaled, sniffed, and went back briefly to being a nurse.

"Like I said, normally I don't care. Maybe it's the brain damage."

"'Care'? Is that what it is?"

Talking about caring with Revan. This is what her world had become. What a strange twist. Perhaps he was still sick.

Or she was. Her own fevered dream.

"We seem to be having miscommunications entomology in nature."

"How so?"

"Love and desire can be different."

"It's still passion."

It still led to the dark side. Attachments that took over another. Bastila had read about such things. Failing from previous Jedi, and how their own loves had doomed them.

"Truly? What of Masters and their apprentices? Did you not love your teachers? Do the students not love each other as well?"

"Did you?"

Had he loved his teachers, and still turned against them. What of his first, of Master Kae? The exiled Jedi Master that had trained Revan Bastila so rarely heard of her anymore. Died, in the Mandalorian war. She had been a historian, a talented seeker of some sort and if her name was spoken of again, it was in a whisper.

"So many secrets in the Enclave. Of Masters and apprentices. Do you want to hear of me and Malak? That will give us something to talk about."

"I don't want to hear about your exploits with Malak." Such a thing might really make her reach for a weapon. To use on herself, as she wasn't so foregone as to hurt Revan. Yet.

"Later, then." He leaned back, away. Eyes closing. "A child she has. My old Master. Did you know that?"

"Who? Kae? The Jedi Master Kae?"

"See? Isn't this a nicer chance from glaring at each other? You're a quick study, Shan. We are two sentient beings that need distraction, no?" He cracked one eye open. There were striations of gold and amber in those eyes. "I do hope we'll become closer in the coming days.

Bastila was able to hold back the shudder, but not the grimacing. Simply to discomfort her, Revan did this.

"I never wanted to screw you before this. Well. Maybe some morbid curiosity. After you joined me, we would have done that, I suspect."

"I have a whole new reason for adhering to the light side now." Her voice was curiously flat. Perhaps her own aneurism was coming.

"You seemed like someone that really has a lot of pent up energy. Malak would have enjoyed—"

"Stop right there."

"At least he would have liked watching us. Then joining in after getting all jealous."

The images. Like a punch to the stomach. How could she exist in a galaxy were such things were uttered? There was no passion, no death, but there were unspeakable horrors. Two thousand showers Bastila needed. "I mean it. I will get the gag."

"Yes, Master." Revan did not mean that title as one of respect.

Bastila huffed, turning away. For a solid ten minutes they looked into their respective air, and tried not to wonder how much oxygen was left.

"They spoke of what you did out there. Rumors."

It was what they wanted to believe. Complete dissolution of Jedi control.

"Murder and insanity, suicides, mass orgies, death pacts and torture, a lot of that." His tone so dry.

Yet, not unkindly, she got up to find a rag to dab at the dried blood on his forehead. At least diminish the signs of what they'd been through. Make everything neat. He might even be grateful, and stop speaking. "Are you saying they were right?"

"Less lurid than you think. After a while it could all be reduced to insertion of one thing into another. All of it."

"Even the death pacts?"

"Wanting to insert a blade or poison or the ground to your head is close enough. All of it just depends on who's doing the inserting."

"I see. Perhaps I did miss a grand opportunity by not following you to war."

"It was fun." Revan sounded serene, unmistakably content.

A nurse cleaning at a wound, that was all. One that did not have to like her patient. "You are a disgusting failure of a man."

"Failure? Enough of that self-pity. Crying as you burn another village you don't even know the name of because someone might judge you? Pathetic. Half the combat training at the Enclave was just to teach us not to flinch when we attacked the enemy. Using those skills on Mandalorians? It was fun. Liberating. Never let anyone tell you otherwise." Revan didn't blink at whatever expression was on her face. "You would have liked it. Losing your control over so much and then finding it in the smallest of things. No one came back for a reason, Shan."

Her pulse beat in her ears. "They were having too much fun?"

"Yes. Like kids at the circus. Ever go to one of those? Sure, someone might throw up, but that's the price of admission."

All lies.

There was evidence otherwise, after all. "Tell that to the Exile."

It triggered something, a flicker of muscle twitching under her hand covered by the musty rag. "You're lucky the Exile wasn't the one you grabbed. What a self-absorbed fool my general was."

Then Revan went silent, to brood.

Later, a day maybe, Revan expanded on that and would go on and on about the Exile. But finally, he did continue to speak of his general, so gone years ago. A trigger for him, some exposed nerves that he did have after all.

After had been a long stretch of time, of silences and watching each other, trying not to argue with him, to flinch away from his stares. Meditate and watch the walls and hear his breaths.

Revan would rant, even while she cared for him.

The deep voice lifted, accent shifting. "'Oh, look at me, so above the fray, so full of angst over what I did, how could I?' Half-Jedi. All idiot. You think my general didn't know what was to happen?"

"What happened to the exile was tragic. Wasn't the general your friend? Your loyal general?"

"But only helpful to a point."

Hair brown, but tinted a richer red than her own, wavy but dense. Mosslike. Stubble finally appearing, and she could count the black dots. Mouth colorless but full. Having to brush this man's teeth. "I feel like a whole new Sith Lord. Thank you."

"The Exile…?"

"That the exile gave up and wanted to do back home was tragic. You tell me I'm sick for treating it like a game? I'm the cold monster? What about those that were never there yet continue judging what happened? What does that make him for returning home like it never happened? Like it was temporary insanity and not discovering a secret of the galaxy."

"What secret?"

"You have to learn it on your own to understand. Maybe you will, when we get closer to the end."

She bit her tongue. Let it go. "You're not saying it was worth it."

"I don't understand that sentiment."

"At least, think of those that died after you turned against the Republic. And Kae died. Your master."

"Like a mother."

"You said she was a mother."

"Did I? They kept certain things hushed. Her own exile, or rather, when she chose to leave."

"Because of having a child? Some sort of disillusionment?"

"Yes. She could forgive either but not both."

"Who?"

"When they forgave her for what they felt were failing and still rejecting her truth. Ultimately, she had to leave."

"I don't understand."

"What she gave up, what she felt she had tainted, it deserved punishment. But not by them. What did they know? Have they ever fought, fallen in love? Yet, who else could she turn to for hatred? It can be a very peaceful experience, in its own way. You know where you stand.

"They didn't though, punish her. So that only made it worse to live with herself after what rules she'd broken. Forgiveness can be a harsh medicine. It meant she might have to forgive herself, and that Kae could not do."

"Why not?"

"She hated do-overs, my Master. Better to always regret and cling to that."

"Why would anyone want that?"

A shrug. "It might mean actually facing and owning up to what she did. Mercy and forgiveness can be more dangerous than anything else. The Jedi are right about that. You see, if she forgave, absolved, herself, she might have to make amends. Would her child forgive her? That was the question she refused to asked, maybe the only one. Poor Kae, it was so obvious, and that only made her hate it more.

"She and Alek were more alike than they realized. All that metaphysics and maudlin narcissism. Making pain something more meaningful than rancor shit."

Charming, the way he had with words. A great orator for their generation.

"Going on about names as even I didn't. Me, I'd prefer tangibles than abstract logic. That gets you sitting in libraries and when you look up from that datapad, what do you find? Your lover running off to fight a war. Too bad you never got to ask Atris about that. Like to imagine that conversation."

None of that could be believed. He was only toying with her, to distract himself from his own discomfort and failure. But Bastila could play along, wait him out until there was an end to stories and fables. "Who did she have a child with?"

"You wouldn't know him. I never got it. He was too exotic for her. Straightforward, exasperatingly so. Opposites attract, yes? We understood each other, though, and how dangerous we were, even if we never fought until the end."

"End?"

"I killed him. I would say that was the end. A year ago? No. More. It runs together, this war."

How many similar stories ended the same for him?

"Do I get a cracker now?"

"Is the child…?"

"Alive? For now. You could say that about a few people."

"You could be lying."

He would make her suspicious, questioning of everything she knew of the Order, if he could.

"Yeah, maybe I'm making this whole thing up. I did hit my head pretty hard and my memories aren't what they used to be. Was Kae my first master? Were you one of the Padawans that slid dopey love letters under my door?"

"Never."

"We'll never know." Voice saccharine.

"If you're not lying, then explain why she felt if she was no longer a Jedi. To ask forgiveness is to be a Jedi."

"Tell me, what will you say if we survive this, and you're brought before the Council? Oh, no, we definitely remained chaste and I'm still a good little Jedi. Please let me become a Knight now."

"We have—remained chaste."

A little boy grin. "Give it a week. When things get rough."

Heartbeats and breaths and neurons firing, all this happening, the conscious awareness of them. A week. Force help her if they were here for that long. Long enough for her to somehow find him attractive enough to forget her vows. How could a psychotic maniac look better after seven more days of being chained up? How bad could she be, to agree to his claims of possessing 'debonair charm'? How could he think that of her?

"I will never do that, Revan."

"I have seen what people do when things get rough."

Curious, how numb her face felt. "What are you saying? That we will have some clandestine affair I'll be so eaten alive with shame that I'd leave the Order than face being judged?"

That they would ever survive this?

"You said it, not me."

Bastila all but shoved a broken stale cracker into his mouth, half-hoping he would choke. "I'm not so filled with loathing, Revan."

With his head cocked and one cheek filled, Revan looked nearly amusing. "That you'd leave?"

"That I'd let myself be seduced by you."

"Who's doing the seducing?" He waved a hand. "I'm the one tied up."

Yes. And that's where you will remain.

Until—until someone comes for us. Someone will find us. Or we'll find them. Another few days. Just give it another few more days.

I can live with Revan for that long.