Title: Selfish

Author: Kian

Warnings: MAJOR SPOILERS for KotOR & KotOR II: TSL, LSFE, cliche, one night stand, unhappy ending

Pairings/Characters: LSFExAtton

Disclaimer: The video games, Knights of the Old Republic and its characters are copyright to the appropriate creators and companies, specifically LucasArts and Bioware. Any businesses, logos or characters not belonging to the author are the intellectual property of the appropriate creators and owners. Any of the content (prose, plot, original characters, etc.) that does not fall in the above categories in the intellectual property of the author "Kian" and said intellectual property is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. The individual under the pen name of "Kian" is receiving no profit from the distribution of this story, nor does said author have any intention to receive compensation beyond hopefully some verbal praise.

Author's Note: A oneshot unrelated to any of my other KotOR stories, this was supposed to be an entry in the DCC February Challenge, but I grew frustrated with it and didn't finish it in time.

Selfish

She could still remember the laughing lilt of Revan's voice over the noise of the crowded cantina, could still remember how Alek had sputtered around his mug of Tarisian ale as their friend had teased him mercilessly, long before the days of drawn faces and lengthy campaigns against the Mandalorians.

"There's no better way in the galaxy to distract a man than to bring sex into it."

No better way, indeed.

He had been watching her for weeks. Whenever she had strayed near the hangar the Hawk was docked in, he had turned up only a few moments later, claiming to be checking on the status of reloading the ship or some other mundane task.

She knew better, of course. He had never been that dedicated of a pilot, never worried overmuch about what tomorrow would bring. No, his worry was not for the ship or its repairs. It was for her.

Returning to Malachor V had always seemed inevitable ever since her return to the Force. Kreia had been inelegant about pushing her to remember the Wars, to remember her own failures. Bao-Dur was a constant reminder of that particular failure which had pushed her from the Jedi, from her friends, even from herself. It was not long before she had been able to feel the insidious tug of the half-dead Sith world on the edges of her growing presence within the Force.

She had not expected to escape its jaws a second time. When she had walked its surface again, almost a decade after she had seen the planet splinter apart under the unbearable weight of its increased gravitational pull, she had prepared herself to finally give in to the fate of all who walked the face of Malachor V.

When Mical and Visas had found her, standing above the heap of robes and limbs that had once been Darth Traya, swaying with the rumblings of the angry planet, she had been too lost to register more than mild surprise. It had not been until she had seen the place finally destroyed out the small observation window in the cockpit of the Hawk – a death that had been noiseless despite its ferocity, though a wild scream reverberated in the Force – that she had begun to tremble from the shock, the disappointment.

Atton had made the decision to return to Telos, had guided them back to Citadel Station, where the Republic sheltered them and provided medical care for their wounded. Apartments had been commandeered for their use and a small account set up by the command of Revan's Admiral for their use while on-world.

But the exterior securities had done little to ease her mind. Darth Traya – Kreia – had given voice to her fears. She did not want to separate from the people she had come to depend upon – she was almost afraid that after so many years alone, that she might not be able to remove herself once more. But she had to believe what she had been told. Kreia may have been a Sith, may have wanted to punish and torture her out of those sensibilities that had always guided her, but the very Force that the old woman had so loathed, so wanted destroyed, was also the master to which she answered. Kreia saw through the Force and had known that the truth was a greater weapon than a lie could ever have been against her erstwhile apprentice.

And the truth was that she had to let go of the few friends she had left in order to seek out the one she no longer knew. The galaxy needed the Jedi she had made, but she was no longer one herself. In making them Force users, she had wound them close to herself, as she had always done. The bonds she had made were fresh and deep – she would not easily extract herself again.

One bond, in particular, had tied itself to her with ferocious tenacity. His was a personality that once encouraged was not easily denied again, and to refuse him was made all the more difficult by her own hesitance to sever their relationship. No other threat could have made her abandon him, save the knowledge that he would fall. Death she had learned to accept, but the falling…she could not bear witness to another tumble over that precipice. She would not.

But how to trick a trickster? How to deceive him so that she may make her escape? He was not the kind to be thwarted by cruelty or anger. He would not believe any such display even if she had attempted it.

It was then that Revan's words had come back to her, out of place though they were. What had been a jest was also a statement of fact.

Revan herself had never felt a need to say anything that was untrue, so the joke had also carried a barb of censure, even all those years ago. Alek had deserved it, and it had been meant kindly, but that it was the truth remained the same. To best distract Atton from her intentions, she would need to give him something else to focus his attention on. If that something else was their unspoken, fledgling affections, then so be it, no matter if she ran the risk of alienating him forever by taking advantage of this tender thing that lived between them. It would be an easier burden on her heart than to watch him once again give in to his shameful, darker impulses.

That belief had lead her here, standing naked in a darkened room, pointedly ignoring the other occupant of the apartment's soft snoring. She stared at nothing as she began shrugging into her robes again; covering skin that still tingled and trembled with the safe, familiar weight of cloth. With each fold that was tucked into place, she felt more herself; with her belt cinched about her waist, her calm returned; with her boots on again, she felt her control return.

Wholeness, on the other hand, seemed to elude her. She had left that in the bunk and she steadfastly would not retrieve it.

He would sleep for hours yet – she had made sure of it – but she slipped out of the apartment carefully all the same. It would not do to have her handiwork undone by a moment of clumsiness. She did not look back.

It was well into the night cycle on Citadel Station and few others wandered the halls of the great city, no one who had any interest in her anyhow.

She collected the few belongings she had left in her designated apartment for appearance's sake, slinging them over her shoulder in a military issue rucksack, and found herself wandering a bit as she left the complex and made her way up to the shuttle port.

The cantina's lights hummed and glowed, strains of music echoing from within as she passed it slowly. A patron stood here and there, some blind-drunk and some still waiting for that kind of oblivion to sink in. She walked on.

The shuttle port was livelier than the sleepy halls beyond; the place rarely slowed down at all between trade ships and the military's continual presence. But even here, her entrance went mostly unnoticed by the scurrying dock workers and foot soldiers.

Tension she had not realized she carried uncoiled like a spring released upon stepping into the Hawk's hangar. The massive room was empty and relatively quiet, the great ship resting patiently as ever in its place, fueled up and ready to go. The familiar smells of grease and metal soothed her as she paced up the loading ramp, dumping her rucksack beside the workbench before moving into the heart of the ship. T3 hummed around in the main hold and the light panels softly illuminated the place that had become home to her over the past few months. She could understand how Revan had loved the ship; it spoke to the soul, this hulk of mismatched parts and metal sheeting.

She ran her hands over the consoles, but didn't linger. Further off, she could hear Revan's assassin droid clanking about in the cargo hold, undoubtedly making rounds in his AI's self-appointed security protocol for the ship.

She made her way to the cockpit, passing the communications room and the soft hum of its systems by. She had figured out long ago that the smaller of Revan's two droids held the key to the navicomputer's encryption and she expected that T3's programming to direct the ship to his former master would kick in once they were outbound. She wondered idly whether Revan had put a failsafe into the programming against activation if certain people were on board. She wondered if one of those certain people might have been the woman she had killed on Malachor V.

She stopped short upon entering the cockpit when she saw a man seated in the captain's chair, looking out over the empty hangar and beyond, through the bay's opening out upon Citadel Station below. Her hand reached for her lightsaber automatically, but the hilt remained clipped to her belt when she discerned who was inhabiting her ship.

"You're heading out then?" he asked without turning to face her.

"Yes."

The Admiral turned then and smiled at her ruefully.

"He's going to be angry when he finds you missing tomorrow morning."

"Perhaps."

"He will be. I know."

A silence stretched between them for a moment and she realized that she was prepared to physically throw him off the ship if she had to. A panicky trembling seized her, but she forced it down again.

"I'm not going to stop you. I want you to go – for purely selfish reasons, of course."

She didn't reply.

"I just want you to know," he continued, "that a goodbye might have been easier, for both of you."

"A goodbye would have given him time to come up with a way to follow."

"And Force help us if he does that," said the Admiral wearily, the bite of his words gone from his voice.

"Just…tell me that it's the right thing to do, leaving him."

"It's the only thing to do."

"Is it?"

She met his eyes and found herself saying, "No."

"Then why?"

"Because I'm selfish as well."

He looked at her hard then, before snorting softly and shaking his head ruefully, "I never thought I'd hear a Jedi admit they were like the rest of us."

She smiled back softly, "You forget, I'm not a Jedi anymore."

"Aren't you?" he asked, looking up at her from underneath his raised brows. "Funny. Seems I only get along with your kind of Jedi – the kind that aren't anymore."

He stood slowly, stiff from his time sitting and she wondered at how long he had been here.

"Admiral, are you sure you don't want--"

"Yes," he cut her off, as he passed her on the way out of the cockpit. "The only message you could give me that I'd want to hear is the one I want her to tell me herself."

With that, he was gone. A few moments later, she saw the signal light for the lowered loading ramp blink off and she was alone on the ship.

The seat was still warm from where he had been sitting and she tried not to think of another man who was used to occupying this spot. With a sudden fierceness, she started putting the Hawk through takeoff procedure, noticing absently how much more quickly the ship responded now that it was fully repaired and working as it should.

As she lifted landing gear and drifted carefully out of the hangar, turning the ship as she went, she noticed a shape standing in the observation deck to the hangar, watching silently. For a moment, her mind's eye painted a different man in the place of the lone Admiral and her heart leapt frantically in her breast. But his ghost was gone again a moment later and only a weary Republic soldier remained.

She was breaking atmosphere when she felt him stir in the Force, heard him call out lazily to her through the bond they shared. Her silence disturbed him and she could feel him wake fully, felt the strong pull he made on her, demanding an answer. His panic fed hers and her fingers fumbled at the first attempt at inputting navigational coordinates. The ship responded smoothly and a few moments later she was outbound, the ship's controls set to auto pilot.

She leaned back in the captain's chair. The heat was gone now and only the cool sturdiness of the material greeted her. Through the Force, she could feel others calling her, pulling at her, one voice more persistent than the rest.

With great care, she unraveled them from her, blocked them out, one by one. When she came to the last, came to that thread that kept him with her, she paused. His fear was near palpable, as was his anger.

Unconsciously, she moved to soothe him. He took advantage of her openness and whispered to her savagely through their connection, promising those things she wanted and feared most.

I love you.

And she cut him out of herself.

END