Revan/ Malak endgame mini!fic because late nights at law school and cough adultbeverages cough. Inspired by the song of the same title from Les Friction, credit to Bisexywebslinger on tumblr for the prompt. Go away if you're reading Mercy, I don't know how that ends yet and this might be spoilers.

The fight is long, and brutal, but her body remembers Malachor, remembers Dxun, remembers the dark wars she fought against Jedi even if her mind does not.

But when it's over, it somehow, horribly, isn't.

Malak's voice, Alek's beautiful voice, is harsh, and mechanical, and wet, but worse than that: it's broken.

He speaks of destiny, says: "As the darkness takes me, I am nothing," and it's as though a maw has yawned jagged and bloody straight through Revan's breast, a gaping horrible emptiness in her heart.

She's looking at the knight who walked beside her into war, and she's holding him, the power she has yet to realize can snuff out suns pouring into him to heal some long-forgotten wound, and she's looking at the Jedi who followed her into hell's teeth, who fell from the light for her, and she's looking at the man who had gone mad because she loved her power more.

Revan doesn't know her own tears until she sees them wet Malak's fading eyes.

She kneels beside him, cradling his head, taking his hands.

The Jedi Order will never condone what Revan is about to do.

She finds that that means much less to her, now, after everything, then it did when she was a much younger woman with still-clean hands and pristine intentions.

Revan abandoned Malak to the darkness once. She won't do so again.

"You were never nothing to me, Alek."

The Star Forge is destroyed. The heroes are decorated.

Revan's friends notice her begin to withdraw. They see her less, and when they do, she isn't the woman they remember. They remember a woman who had fire, and passion. The recruit-turned-Jedi bent on saving the galaxy if it cost her everything.

This Revan has only peace. They can feel her falling away, even as they cannot bring themselves to be sad for it.

And then, one day, she's gone.

There's an unremarkable world.

Simple. Safe.

When Revan arrives, the old Jedi-turned-smuggler is waiting for her. He takes her to the hospital, and then he leaves with the ship.

Revan stays.

In this wing, everything is soft, and soothing. The planet's star is young, and the room is awash in light when Revan enters.

Alek turns around.

And smiles.