Atton Rand: Explain something to me.

Kreia: I do not have the years required nor the desire to indulge you.

Chapter 9

5000 YEARS AGO…

Atton watched as a mere Spector in the force as Yukiko walked towards her finale battle. He could see the tears staining her cheek as she grieved for him. "Forgive me for leaving you Yukiko…" He whispered as he closed his eyes hating he hadn't been strong enough to be with her, to protect her from this. He wanted to take her away from this place and have a normal life with her. Where they were just Atton and Yukiko, not the Jedi Killer and the Exile…He had ideas of what life he wanted for them after this was over, one far away from the misery and hell they'd both suffered through these wars.

Atton never left her side. He followed her to watch her fight Darth Traya, he watched her grieve for him for days in the Jedi Enclave on Dantoonie. She wanted no part in training new force users in the force. No matter how many had attempted to cheer her up, she pushed them away. Telling them to leave her be and give her a time of grieving.

Yet she was still in pain he saw. No matter how much he longed to touch her and pull her into him he couldn't save her from that pain. He could only watch her in silence, refusing to move on to become one with the force.

The day she set out to find Revan in the unknown regions of space, he watched the Exile grieve alone in the cockpit, holding his jacket. She had loved him just as much as he did for her. "God…I hate this. I don't want to see you like this Yukiko, please smile for me." Atton pleaded to her as he attempted to touch her, his hand only going through her.

This forum was pure torture to him.

As the days passed on the Ebon Hawk he watched her even still, staying beside her, finding he could comfort her in her dreams. Yet it was all he could do to warm her broken soul. Showing her the life he had wanted to give her after that fight…What normal lives they could have lived away from the Jedi and sith, and how he had wanted to ask her to be his wife. He had never felt such feelings in his human flesh with any other woman, but Yukiko…She was the one he wanted to have that normal life with.

When the Ebon Hawk went crazy, the hyper drive going out of its mind as it sent her through space completely past the point Revan had been rumored to be, but when it exited hyperspace Atton didn't even know these charts. Where they were was someplace completely different. Drifting in space at a point that met nobody would ever find her, nobody would ever save her. She would die alone here.

As Atton watched over the Exile who lay unconscious on the floor under some rubble he wanted to scream, to pull his hair out, he wanted someone to help her. She couldn't die here. He didn't want Yukiko to be forgotten here.

"You love her with all your being." A voice spoke.

Turning around Atton's jaw dropped as he saw a woman, well only her face in a glowing body that was almost vibrant, and warm. "You can see me?" He asked in shock.

Smiling the woman nodded, "Yes Atton Rand, I can see you. I felt your pain, as did the other Ascended ones. You want to protect Yukiko, want her to remain alive and be found?" She asked him again.

Atton couldn't forum words, he was in shock, she knew his name, heard him pleading almost to have her be found and saved, "Yes I want her to remain alive, and she cannot die here. Not like this. Not alone on a miscible ship in the depths of unknown space."

"We can help you save her Atton, but in return you must do us a favor. When the time comes you will lose some of your memories, but you will be reborn in human flesh, and in that flesh you will save her, and she will complete her role she was destined with. Only then will you both have that life you share in dreams." The woman said softly and held out her hand to Atton. "However that forum you have must go, you must ascend like the rest of us."

Atton looked from the woman to the Exile. He could be with Yukiko again…If these ascended people could save her, and give him another chance he would take it. Whatever it took he was willing to do it to be with her again in human flesh. "I agree to your terms…I don't think Glowing alien lady will be too polite though." He said rubbing the back of his neck as he reached out to grasp the glowing hand. What he felt was warm, it felt like the force but different.

What happened next was Atton found his bluish form becoming much like hers, his flesh taking back on its normal look. "Wow…I'm shiny." He said looking at himself.

Laughing softly at Atton's remarks about the form they both shared now the woman smiled lightly. "My name is Chaya. To your people where you come from we would be considered the very oldest of Jedi, but sadly we did have bad apples that were the ones whom created the sith. We foresaw your coming and one among us before she passed on from her human life saw the fate Yukiko would have when she awoke and you in a new body." Chaya spoke softly as she moved to the Exile pressing her glowing trendily into the woman's head, beginning to input information for her to create something to protect her body.

"What was that fate?" Atton asked.

"Revan to be in this part of space, but captured and locked away by ones we thought we destroyed, but we didn't. They seek to find the second Starforge, and want its power. Something we were foolish to make and hide away." She admitted as she drew away from Yukiko.

"WHAT!? Are you people crazy! That ship alone was a walking monster soaked in the darkside of the force." Atton snapped.

"Calm yourself Atton, we know this. However we are not allowed to meddle in affairs of things we never took care of while in human flesh. Yukiko, we can only do so much for her, but after we must leave her be, you will still be permitted to see her in her dreams, but that will be all you can do to ease her mind as she sleeps for 5000 years." Chaya said, as she rouse away from Yukiko. "Come with me Atton, you will be filled in and taught to use your new form." She gestured to him to follow her.

Follow he did, Atton was no fool. When Chaya showed him the others, Atlantis, the history of the true Jedi he was in awe. They were kind of like the stuck up ones back in his area of space, but not entirely snooty Jedi Masters and Knights. If that made any sense. In a short period of time, he learned a lot of things. When he wasn't with them, he was with Yukiko, in her dreams. He had created a world for them, one to comfort her, to give her peace. To keep her from seeing his death.

He wanted to tell her in these dreams he would see her again, that he was truly with her, but the others were always watching him, making sure he never let certain information slip. It was hell, so much power, so much of it and yet he couldn't use it to help her.

As time went by he watched how people advanced, how things changed on different planets. He was however put off when the higher ups told him to head to Earth and take on human flesh and mate with a woman. It was the beginning to him resuming human life. He felt nothing for the woman, every part of him felt sick, and this woman wasn't whom he had wanted. The woman he loved, and wanted lay slumbering on a ship ghosting through space.

When he completed is job he remained with that woman for 10 years, getting 4 sons out of her. One morning he lied to her, saying he was going fishing. He faked his own death an rescinded that afternoon leaving her widowed, but he didn't care. He had known the woman never really loved him either, wanting just his seed.

It was 60 years later he was ordered to leave the rest of the glow worm club. Atton held no regrets about leaving them. He was tired of it…Always watching, never able to do anything. He knew he would lose his memories, but he never cared about it. It met he would one-day see Yukiko again. He entered the womb of one of his kid's wives and inhabited the soulless vessel that would later become John Sheppard.

Yet sometimes as he grew from a small child into a man he dreamt of a silver haired woman in brown robes smiling at him, telling him she was waiting for him to save her from her prison.

John's marriage to his wife hadn't been the best, part of him always screaming at him she wasn't the one, that it wasn't her he should spend his life with, no woman could ever really capture John Sheppard's pallet. He didn't know why, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

That day the naked form of Yukiko had fallen into his arms from her prison, John had felt a surge run through him, the trigger that had started to open the doors to his past as Atton Rand, there force bond even becoming alive again.

The force always does work in mysterious way…Walking through uncharted worlds of the lovers walk.

TBC…

Yeh, it's a short chapter, but it was something easy to write and explain how Atton/John managed to come back and walk among the living again.