The glass of the windowpane was cold to the touch, and it had been touched by many fingers that day. Still, the one pressing his fingertips against it now did so for a different cause. Somewhere far in the distance, beyond the reach of the light of any of the stars he was seeing, the woman he loved fought for her life. How that was, he didn't know. He just knew he wanted to see her alive again; the face that haunted his dreams, the voice he could swear calls to him in his dreams. As stereotypical as it sounded, he began to see why thousands of sentients had written about love that way for millions of years. It dually made him feel powerful and helpless, ecstatic and despairing.

As his fingers trailed off the glass and onto his face, he felt a surge of empathy. He was not the only soul left waiting in that place. The creeping lonliness turned them both into shadows of what they were, and of what they could be. Why did they wait? Why keep hope that shouldn't even exist? And their anger... why was it not directed at the ones they waited so faithfully for? The answer, in all simplicity, was that it wasn't what the women had wanted. Whatever had spurred the departures of the two had been terrifying. But how was he supposed to sit idly by?

His hand came down to his side and clenched into a fist. The brown-haired man was possessed by the urge to break the pane and scream, but she wouldn't have wanted that. He could see the prints of the people who had pressed their hands on the glass before him, and felt a sickening jolt. All of these people, whether they knew it or not, depended on his would-be lover as much as he did. Yet, they carried on as close to a normal life as they could.

Even though it hurt, he had to move on. His resolve knew that it was the right thing to do, and he promised himself he would. Seconds passed, and seconds turned to minutes. The man lacked the ability to leave his position. There was not a bone inside him that wanted to give up yet. It was not unheard of to wait for years for the one you adored, was it?

Then, there was the fear. The fear that she wouldn't make it; or that all she did had been in vain. Her innocent voice had once remarked that it would heal the universe, if given the chance. No one person could do that, and he saw her buckle under the weight of her heart. What if that downfall had led to a fall?

his nails dug into his skin, and he couldn't bear it. The exile wouldn't have died so easily. She'd survive. She i had /i to. It was the only thing that had to be a truth in the galaxy. Her death would be the death of every good thing left inside him.

Anger then took the place of fear inside of the vulnerable pilot. If only he had said something to her before she left-if only he'd asked her why. Had he failed somehow?! Was he such a defenseless hound that she would leave him behind?! But, if he had to get angry, he couldn't bear to be angry with her. Revan was the cause of all of the poor girl's troubles. If it hadn't been for Revan, perhaps the exile could have still been a healthy, happy person. She would have had a name and a life, not battle scars and secrets. There would have been no Jedi Civil War, and perhaps then, even he could have been something other than a monster.

Rage erased his pain, if only for a moment, and he felt his fist make contact with the wall by the window. There was shame in that act. For all his devotion, Atton had forgotten the one thing the exile had stressed so thoroughly.

i "There is peace..." /i he heard her say in his mind's eye, and took a deep breath. All he could do was send a silent prayer into the force, and hope it would listen.

"Come back safe..." he pleaded, and walked away from the view of the stars.