Chapter themes! Against the Black Knight for the fight with Sion! Knights of Sidonia for the fight with Kreia! And finally, your closing credits song, a return to GitS: Living Within the Shell! Also, teasing the Sion shippers whoo! lol

It does get a little bit awkwardly religious in tone near the end. Dang Jedi and their mystical Force. Atton’s totally right about them.

For the record I think Mical/Brianna is a decent pairing. >.>

Part 13

 

Part 14: Will of the Force

 

She blocked Sion’s lightsaber with her own, barely, sparks flying. He had weight and reach on her, and she was tired, exhausted after fighting through dozens of Sith and saving Atton’s life.

But she had saved it, had saved him, the one she loved most of all, and she had the first inkling of proof that the Light could be used for as great, impossible deeds as the Dark. Nihilus stole lives through the Force, and both Sith and Jedi used the Force to speed their natural healing processes, but this was the first time she’d seen someone brought back from so-near death with the Force alone.

She broke the block by sweeping her blade through Sion’s arm, but was no longer surprised to see that it healed immediately, a new grey-red scar creasing the line and no more. He didn’t react in his face or stance at all. It was like fighting a droid. A droid that couldn’t even be dismembered.

He spoke at last, grimly triumphant. “Now you realize the true power of the Dark Side. As long as the dark places of this world flow through the cracks in my flesh, I cannot be killed.”

She met his look with an earnest look of her own. “A very wise droid once told me that this battle would never be about the flesh, but about belief.”

He shook his head, stepping back momentarily. “You are strong… as strong as I had believed. But you cannot kill me. She knows this. Surrender now, return to the surface of Malachor… do not force me to destroy you.”

She stepped back too, and studied him carefully. His face might be as stoic as granite, but his feelings surged within him, pushing and pulling, this way and that. “And you cannot defeat me. She knows this, too. She has chosen me because I gave up the Force – and you could not. Let go, and you will understand.”

A swell of anger and incredulity. “There is no life without the Force… the Force is a blade; without it, one is defenceless.”

The anger surrounded her and pressed in on her, but she lifted her head, her expression open. “The Force is only a part of what life is, Sion. You feel it, but do not understand it.”

“The Force is pain. The Force is focus. The Force is that which drives the strong and kills the weak. I shall teach you this – and in so doing, spare you the pain that awaits.”

Perhaps each of them was correct in their own point of view – the irreconcilable void ever between Sith and Jedi. “Do you think I am so weak? No, Sion. I will not give up or retreat. But I don’t want to kill you, either.” She didn’t. He was… pathetic, in his own way.

He raised his lightsaber again. “If you will not leave this place, then I cannot allow you to pass. If you go before her, you will be broken. If killing you will spare you what lies ahead, then kill you I must…”

It might not be possible for him to live without the Dark Side, when it was all that kept his body from falling apart. But for all his terrifying power, despite all the horrible, evil things he’d done in his life, despite the way he’d tortured Atton and murdered Master Vash and cut off Kreia’s hand, she felt for him. He would vehemently hate her compassion, she knew, but there was nothing in his life, no real purpose, besides that which hating Kreia and pursuing her gave. He was alone like she had been in exile, but with even less hope than she’d had, sunk so far into the Dark Side that the way out could not be seen. She’d rather never feel the Force again than drown in its cold depths, but it was all he had.

He fought her because he loved her, in his own way. Perhaps this was his own strange attempt at redemption… or maybe it was only his final act of revenge against Kreia.

He was slicing through the pillars of the room with his lightsaber, knocking them into dust, as she retreated before him. But she wasn’t dead yet, and she was steadily getting small hits in on him. She wondered if it only fueled his rage and pain and control of the Force. But… he was reacting now, more than he had before; slight twitches in his face and limbs whenever her lightsaber touched him.

HK’s advice must be working. She was unraveling his self-control, his beliefs, his implacable will, one word, one scar at a time.

She goaded him into stabbing the wall, and slashed him across the gut in the brief moment it took him to free his blade again. He snarled, his face cracking horrifyingly. “If I die here, then you will have sealed your fate.”

He’d accepted that she might be able to kill him. But killing her wouldn’t help him, either. “Even if you defeat me, Kreia has marked you for death. She will never accept you. You know this. Why do you still fight me?” She looked at him with sadness, even as she parried his attacks and stepped back, always stepping back. There was no way out for him now. Unless he abandoned his goal of killing her, but he was proud. He would not.

Kreia had broken him on her will, once. Selyn would rather die than be subjected to the same fate, bound by eternal hatred and agony, living only to cause death and grief. But she would not die to Sion, not before she’d seen Kreia and either saved her or found herself wanting.

He glared at her with his one good eye, with a cold blankness. “There is truth in your words… but there is nothing left for me except my master. I fight because it is the power that the Force fills me with. To survive, to inflict the pain on others. I can die a hundred times, Exile, and still I will rise again, as strong as before.”

She had nothing to say to that. But she couldn’t think of anything more wretched.

Perhaps one way to convince him would be to give it up, as she had given it up for the battle with Nihilus. She felt for her Force-bonds as he approached her, and closed the gates of her soul, and immediately felt its absence. She felt naked without it, vulnerable, empty, like there was something missing from the universe. There was no safety net for her now. Even her other senses seemed more dull… but they were all she could rely on right now, so she waited, upright and relaxed.

He stared at her, a flicker of disbelief crossing his face. “If you wish to die so quickly…”

But he knew that not all her skill came from the Force, and he was more cautious in his next approach. She was an unknown to him now. He couldn’t sense what she would do next, as much as she couldn’t sense what he would do next. And she could not sense his hatred and fury anymore. That would not be a distraction now.

He lunged forward, and she met his attack with only the strength of her body, counterattacked with only the reflexes of her body. She was tired, and without the Force to support her she was even more tired, but she had trained well. He loomed over her and yet she was not afraid.

She dodged and blocked and met him inch for inch, always giving way but never giving up. He cut her in the arm, in the cheek, but only shallowly. She kept going, her lightsaber whirling, beating his scarlet blade out of the way and hopping over his return swing.

She lunged forward as he was left wide open and stabbed him through the chest, just as she had on Korriban not that long ago.

He stumbled and fell to his knees before her, dropping his lightsaber, which switched off. He groaned in pain, and took a few breaths before he growled: “I will not fall. I cannot die.”

She switched off her own lightsaber and knelt on one knee before the fallen giant. Her voice was soft and gentle. “You have already been defeated, Sion. Surrender, and I will spare you.”

Slowly, he raised his head, and she was struck by how his one good eye was a living brown, the eye of a normal human. “Why… why did she choose you? What makes you able to defeat me, defeat me here?”

“Because I was able to turn away from it. And you could not.”

“It is not possible to walk away from such things unscarred. To keep living when the universe dies around you.”

She sat back on her heels. “It is difficult, and it leaves scars on the soul as deep as the ones on your body. But… it also leaves room to heal.”

He shook his head, looking at the floor again. “The Force is who I am. The Dark Side fills me. It is what I am.”

“Kreia hates the Force, even as she wields it.” The revelation came to her even as she spoke it, but she said it with certainty; she knew it to be true like she knew Kreia loved her. “But it is possible to live without it. And die without it.”

He stood, and his hand went to his wound, but then he let it fall away. It was useless if his fury was gone. She stood, too, and reached up to touch his face, his poor mangled face. “It is the truth, Sion… you feel it. Let go. It is not such a terrible thing.” She smiled at him, a tiny smile of reassurance.

He reached up to cup her hand against his face, briefly, and his other hand touched her cheekbone, her forehead, brushing her hair away from her eyes. “Kreia will try to break you, to teach you how far someone can fall. Her weakness… is you. As you were mine.” He withdrew his hands and took a step back, his eye fixed on her, and he sighed wearily. “I am glad to leave this place… at last.”

His eye closed and he fell forward, dead before he struck the floor.

“May the Force be with you, Sion.”

 

There was nothing more she could do for him, but she waited for a moment of silence, resting. She was so very tired. And Kreia would not help her. But after that moment, she left him. Her final challenge was upon her and she didn’t want to delay it.

The great door behind him led into a giant cavern, dimly lit, but filled with dark, vivid reds and greens. A platform like a crown was suspended over an abyss, with a double ring of points shaped like giant teeth, the smaller ones about ten metres, the larger ones twice that size. Kreia knelt on a raised portion at the centre, on a great glowing red disc. Perhaps from above it looked like a monstrous eye.

Kreia rose at her coming and turned to her, robed and hooded in black, with black bindings in her long white hair. “At last you have arrived. Is Malachor as you remember?”

“Kreia…” Yes, her teacher was the same. She had not changed with her clothes, as Selyn had irrationally feared for a brief moment. She didn’t know the answer to her question. Malachor was the same, still steeped in Darkness, or had it been that her mind had been shrouded in Darkness when she fought here? Or was it both, coupled with the mass slaughter that had scarred her to the core and spread ripples of agony through the galaxy?

It was the same and not the same. Atton would snort at her cryptic Jedi-speak, but it was the best she could do.

“You no doubt have many questions. I would be a poor teacher if I did not give you the answers you seek here, now.”

Selyn spread her hands. “Why did you do… everything?”

Kreia was silent a moment. “Because I hate the Force. I wield it, but it uses us all, and that is abhorrent to me. I hate that it seems to have a will, a destiny for us all, that it would control us to achieve some measure of balance, when countless lives are lost. But in you…” She turned towards Selyn and her voice grew soft. “I see the potential to see the Force die, to turn away from its will. And that is what pleases me. You are beautiful to me, Selyn Tekeri. A dead spot in the Force, an emptiness in which its will might be denied.”

“But you use it as much as I do.” She had encouraged Selyn to use it, in the beginning.

“I use it as I would use a poison, that in the hopes of understanding it, I will learn the way to kill it.” She sighed. “But perhaps these are the excuses of an old woman who has grown to rely on a thing she despises.”

“You were manipulating me all along.”

“Yes, always. From the moment you awoke, I have used you. I have used you so that you might become strong, stronger than I. I used you to keep the Lords of the Sith from condemning the galaxy to death with their power unchecked. I used you to lure them to Telos, where they could be, at last, fought and killed. I used you to reveal Atris’s corruption, so that her teachings could be ended before they began. I used you to gather the Jedi so they could be destroyed, although… I did not intend their deaths. And I used you to make those who wounded me reveal themselves, so they could be killed by the Republic.”

“You didn’t intend to kill the Masters?”

“I would not have revealed myself to them, but they were still as deaf to your words, to the meaning of you, as you were to the Force ten years ago. Stubborn fools. They could not let go of the illusion they had created together. In threatening you, they forced my hand. I wish they had not. They might have been useful. But they will not harm you – or your students – now.”

“Why did you destroy Atris? She had fallen, but there was still good in her.”

“I never destroyed Atris – she had destroyed herself. I merely stripped away the illusion, and brought her truth. Her teachings could not be allowed to continue. And like Malachor, she was part of your past, unresolved. She needed to be something you could confront – and defeat, one last time. It was part of your training. Part of what was needed to make you complete. She loved you, you know, as one loves a champion. You were all that she could not be.”

“She never told me such feelings…” But she had fought Atris, had felt her emotions running wild. Love had not been among them, but she could believe it was at the root of them, the perfect example of why the old Jedi Council had forbidden Jedi to love. If she had sparred with her when she was young, would she have realized Atris’s feelings sooner?

“Yes… it is all that is left unsaid upon which tragedies are built. More echoes, traveling through the Force.”

There was only one other important question she had. “Why me?”

Kreia smiled softly. “Perhaps you were expecting some surprise, for me to reveal a secret that had eluded you, something that would change your perspective of events, shatter you to your core. There is no great revelation, no great secret. There is only you.”

“But there were other Jedi you could have chosen.”

“No, there were not. In times past and in times future, there are Jedi who will stop listening to the Force, those that will try to forget it, but maintain unconscious ties. And those,  just as I in the past, who have had the Force stripped from them. But no Jedi ever made the choice you did. To sever ties so completely, so utterly, that it leaves a wound in the Force. It was a mistake to make you feel it again, I see that now. There is no truth in the Force. But there is truth in you, Selyn. And that is why I chose you.”

She didn’t agree. But that didn’t matter. “What happens now?”

“The apprentice must kill the Master – if you do not, I will kill you. If I do not, then all you have achieved will be as nothing, as empty, and as violent as Malachor itself.”

The final test; the final exam, even. Kreia knew as well as she did how pointless it seemed to her; to pretend to be evil, when she was neither evil nor good, only herself. But she also knew that Selyn would not fight her at all if she pretended to be good, and it was almost like fighting herself – if she could beat Kreia, then Kreia would acknowledge her as strong. Even though Selyn didn’t care about that. And it was good that she did not; if she did, she would have run the risk of corruption, of being broken as Sion had warned, to willingly kill someone so close to her, especially for something as arbitrary as strength. It wasn’t worth that.

But Atris’s warning… If Selyn died, here, if her wound in the Force was wounded again violently, it would create another echo, one that would spread until it killed the Force itself, and all the life that felt it, depended on it. In that sense, it was not so pointless.

Kreia would win either way, it seemed. And Selyn would not be a sacrificial victim. She was a Knight.

Kreia lit a red lightsaber and remained imperially motionless. Selyn brandished her violet blade and took a two-handed stance with it. Then she charged. The Force flickered around her, a blazing corona of power.

Anyone who had seen them before they began to battle would have thought it one-sided – an old woman and a woman in her prime, a sage in a black robe and a warrior in blue armour. But it was anything but one-sided. Kreia was fast, as fast as Selyn, and her age had not made her weak. Their lightsabers clashed, again and again, as the fighters stepped and spun, their blades carving lethal paths through the air. The air boiled with the Force, with telekinesis and suggestion, and Selyn switched back and forth between shutting it off, between shutting off Kreia’s sense from her mind, and pulling her full control around her. In this last decisive fight, life and love were as much her tool and her weapon as her lightsaber. When she used it, she felt stronger in it. Her students were thinking of her; their prayers were reaching her.

I forgive you. I do not fear you. I love you. Could Kreia read her feelings in their battle, in her sense in the Force? She showed no sign of it, and her sense in the Force gave away nothing either. There was no crack in her mental armour, no weakness in her physical defence. And Selyn’s mental armour was full of holes, wearing her weakness as strength, indomitable in her faith.

But there was no time for her to think, only to act and react, instinct and training taking over from conscious thought and strategic planning. Kreia was immovable, a pillar at the heart of Malachor, and Selyn was the wind that assaulted that pillar.

Kreia flung out her hand and her lightsaber, and Selyn saw it too late, was thrown back until she struck one of the teeth three metres above the floor, and was impaled through the stomach with the lightsaber a moment later. She hardly felt it, shock and adrenaline protecting her; she ripped it from her body and hurled it back, collapsing to the floor onto her side. Only then did her wound register with her nerves and mind, and she screamed, and Kreia was upon her.

Not yet. She swept her lightsaber upwards, blocking Kreia’s downward strike, and pulled all the Force she could reach into her stab wound, like she had done for Atton. She spun to her feet, her eyes filled with determination, and stepped forward on the attack again.

Kreia hadn’t been affected by the stab wound? Or had she only disguised her reaction well while Selyn was distracted, using her immense self-control? There were no residual ripples in her sense, nothing but a wall of implacable doom behind misty barriers. She switched off the Force. It could tell her nothing now.

Their blades locked again, and Selyn suddenly thrust her hand forwards, summoning the Force back to her.

Kreia was blasted back like she had done to Selyn, but Selyn did not throw her lightsaber at her, too. She let Kreia fall to the floor, defenseless, and lowered her lightsaber. “Yield, Kreia. I don’t want to kill you.”

“If you do not kill me, I shall end you,” Kreia hissed. “Strike me down, finish this.”

“No. Your life is yours, Kreia, and you cannot teach me anymore.”

Kreia’s face twisted in prideful wrath. “You will not show me mercy. I will see you break before you do.” She gestured viciously and suddenly from nowhere, three crimson lightsabers attacked Selyn, hanging in midair. She had to jump back to avoid losing her head.

It was like fighting three Kreias at once; they were lightning fast, with the weight of the Force behind them like the weight of a warrior. She had to keep moving, retreating around the room, trying not to let her exhaustion slow her down. She needed the Force now, all of it, all the time, to support her and her failing physical strength. There was no limit to the Force, but there was a limit to biology and even adrenaline could not help her for long

But it must be difficult for Kreia to control three sabers at once, and she couldn’t have been unwearied from fighting directly with Selyn. Sooner or later, she’d make a mistake in her anger.

The first lightsaber she caught out, she stabbed in the centre of the hilt, and it popped and clattered to the ground in a tinkle of parts and crystal shards. She heard Kreia grunt in pain, and did not let herself wince, but kept her guard up.

Let it flow. She couldn’t cut Kreia’s connection to the lightsabers, but she could feel it, was beginning to feel how they worked, how to anticipate them. She slashed at them, tapping their deadly touch away from her body. How to end this lethal light-show? Red, violet, red again, all she could see were the colours dancing in front of her.

She yelled, focusing her concentration down to the silver points at the base of the red blades, and lunged for one, slicing it in half. The other cleaved into her side, through her lightsaber-resistant armour, but though she stumbled and almost fell, the last lightsaber was wavering. Kreia’s strength was waning.

One more. Just one more. She yelled again, raising her lightsaber. End this. End it now.

I’m sorry, Kreia.

The last lightsaber went spinning away into the darkness, sparking as it shattered, and on the other side of the chamber, Kreia swayed and crumpled quietly to the floor.

Selyn ran to her, holding her side and trying to heal the lancing pain there. She staggered to kneel at Kreia’s side, taking her in her arms, resting Kreia’s head on her shoulder and holding her withered hand in her own.

“Kreia… I’m sorry.”

“Do not be sorry. You are greater than any I have ever trained. By killing me here – you have rewarded me more than you can possibly know.”

She had wondered if she would cry. It seemed she would not, but she could feel the tears inside her still. “I had no choice. You left me no choice.”

“No… no, many choices were there, but… you made the right ones.”

She dropped her head. “All my life, I have been used; by the Force, Revan, you… I never felt like I truly made choices, because the alternatives were so much worse.” She looked at Kreia and smiled. “But I realize that, now. My life has never been my own while I devote my life to the service of others – and I do not wish to do otherwise. I have made the choice to live a life in which I give up my choice. And if I am used along the way… that is the will of the Force. As long as I also achieve my goals, to protect, to save, I will be content. But I will make my sacrifice matter.”

“I know you will. What you say is true, and yet the Force has no hold on you.”

“But if the Force has a destiny for us all, then everything that has happened was according to its plan. If Mandalorians did not go to war of their own accord, but were meant to go, then perhaps Revan was meant to oppose them, and Malak and I were meant to follow… so that Revan could discover the true threat in the Unknown Regions and fight it.” She raised her head and looked off into the distance. “Only at this moment am I truly free, and I suspect not for long.”

“A great decision lies ahead of you, but it is all your own. I had hoped you would follow Revan’s path, but you and Revan are different, and your path is your own. There is no dishonour in any choice you make. I only ask that you make it without regret.”

“I may follow Revan, in the end. She shouldn’t have to fight all alone.” As she spoke, her nebulous plan took shape in her mind, until her goal became certainty. Revan needed her. She’d been gone for four years already.

“Very well. There is nothing holding you here, not any longer.” Kreia smiled, weakly. “I would have killed the galaxy to preserve you. I would have let the galaxy die. You are more precious than you know; what you have taught yourself cannot be allowed to die. You are not a Jedi. Not truly. And it is for that that I love you.”

“I love you too, Kreia, as a daughter loves her mother – perhaps unspoken, most of the time, but felt all the same.” Selyn squeezed her hand. “What will happen to my friends? Do you know?” They could not come with her. They were all that was left of the Jedi. The galaxy needed them more than she did.

A shadowy smiled crossed Kreia’s face. “You traveled with your companions for so long, yet you do not know them still. Feel them through the Force, feel what they feel, hear their thoughts and know them, as I fought to know you. They were the Lost Jedi, you know. The true Jedi, upon which the future will be built. They simply needed a leader, and a teacher.”

She began to ask “If I leave…” and stopped. If I leave, will they be all right without me? Will I be all right without them? And Atton in particular– That was a moment she would have to endure in the future; it was already written in her intentions, in her being, that she would leave. They would have to be all right without her. But she knew they would. She trusted them. And Atton… he would endure, too.

“If you go, you must go where Revan did, into the Unknown Regions, where the Sith, the true Sith, wait in the dark for the great war that comes. She came here because she remembered what lay buried here – this place, its teachings. And she came because Malachor, like Korriban, lies on the fringes of the ancient Sith Empire, where the true Sith wait for us, in the dark. They have forgotten it… for a time. They will remember.”

“The Sith already struck against the Republic, haven’t they?”

Kreia frowned. “Have we? You thought that the corrupted remnants of the Republic, the machines spawned by technology that Revan led into battle were the Sith? You are wrong. The Sith is a belief. And its empire, the true Sith Empire, rules elsewhere. Revan knew the true war is not against the Republic. It waits for us, beyond the Outer Rim. And she has gone to fight it, in her way. She left the Ebon Hawk and its machines behind, for she knew she would not need them. And, like you, she knew she must leave all loves behind as well, no matter how deeply one cares for them. Because such attachments would only bring doom to them both in the dark places where she now walks. It would have helped had she made him understand, but a hero of the Republic, no matter how brave, cannot understand war as Revan did.”

No one understood war like Revan did, not even Selyn. “Why did you not follow her?” Kreia loved Revan, too, maybe even more than she loved Selyn. Revan had been her best student.

“Because I did not know where she had gone. If she had asked… would I have gone? I do not know. But she will need warriors, Sith and Jedi, any who can be sent after her into the depths of space, any who know the way. Perhaps you shall go there with her, and do battle at the end of all things. Instead, I remained here… and now show others the way.” Kreia sighed a deep sigh. “And now I am done.”

Selyn pressed her hand to her heart. “Rest now, Kreia. Your time in this place is over.”

Kreia closed her sightless eyes and sighed again, and her Force-sense departed from her. And Selyn was left, a little colder, a little tireder, but alive, her heart beating in the centre of Malachor V.

 

The ground began to shake, more violently than it had done before since she arrived, and she jumped up in alarm. Had Remote already set off the Mass Shadow Generator? She wasn’t going to say goodbye to Kreia and then immediately get killed! She ran out of the inner sanctum, through the Academy as fast as she could pull her battered body along with the Force, and to the door to the outside.

She started in surprise when she reached the door. Familiar senses, familiar engine whine, and the boarding ramp was extending before her, and Mical was reaching out from it towards her with a smile. She took his hand and was pulled on board, and was greeted by everyone – Mira, Visas, Mandalore, T3, even HK – where was Goto? HK reported that he was dead, and there was no time to look for him now.

They gathered in the cockpit as Atton gunned the engine, putting the ship safely into space, outbound for hyperspace, and watched the rear sensors as the planetoids split apart, releasing massive bolts of green lightning into the surrounding nebula. No one spoke for a minute.

Then Atton said loudly: “Thank the frakking Force no one has to go back to that dump ever again! …We don’t have to go back, right? No one forgot their credit chits there, right?”

She began to laugh, helplessly, and the others joined her, and somehow she and Mical and Mira and Visas ended up in a slightly awkward group hug, partly leaning on the back of the pilot’s chair in an effort to include Atton as well. “Hey, hey, trying to fly a ship here!”

The stars turned into streaks, and they were in hyperspace, speeding across the galaxy to a well-deserved rest.

 

Telos wasn’t exactly a resort, but there were real beds, and food that hadn’t been reconstituted out of a can, and alcohol, so it was a fine place in his book to take some downtime after everyone almost died again. Especially him. Was saving the galaxy always this much trouble?

At least he felt like he’d repaid some of his debt to the galaxy. Each of the scars Sion had given him, to him now stood for one of the innocent lives he’d taken when he served the Sith. Not as a reminder of guilt, but as a reminder that he was free from the guilt. That he’d finally turned his life around properly. Although everything was thanks to Selyn. She’d pointed him in the right direction, she’d inspired him and supported him, and when he’d thought he’d given everything he could give, she’d brought his life back from the edge of the grave. He’d never, ever be able to repay her. He was even more lucky that she didn’t want him to.

The jacket was a total loss, though. And he’d loved that jacket. But thank goodness the scars didn’t stand out too much. A pretty face was one of the few things he really had to offer her. He trusted that if he’d been really messed up, she would have loved him anyway for whatever was left of worth inside, but sue him, he was still a little vain.

The first thing that they did was to hold a memorial for Bao-Dur. It was old-fashioned, but instead of setting him adrift in space, they buried him in the ground of Telos, under a green field near the seashore, where he’d once said he liked to walk. Over his grave, Visas placed a holo-marker, which simply read: “Bao-Dur, Jedi Knight”. Some of the Ithorians from the station joined the crew of the Ebon Hawk to honour him, although their rituals were kind of long and tedious, and Ithorian was hard to understand. He sat through it anyway. He missed Bao-Dur. And his annoying Remote.

When they returned to Citadel Station, the mood changed. It seemed like Telos was still celebrating, just a little, even though Darth Nihilus had already happened a week ago, but Mira also wanted to celebrate their triumph over Malachor and their safe return against all odds, and Selyn thought it was a good idea. Mira got them a private room at the cantina, and they all gathered, eating, drinking, talking about what they’d shared. Even T3 showed up to beep incomprehensibly at everyone, although HK couldn’t be found.

Things were so much lighter now. Even Selyn seemed no longer to be carrying the entire galaxy on her shoulders. Just for tonight, she could hide it better than usual, was just a woman enjoying herself with her friends. Although she mentioned something about the four of them, her students, being the new Jedi Council that left all four of them speechless and Mandalore helpless with laughter.

Whatever else he had to say about Mira, she had picked out good music for this get-together, and he turned to Selyn once the food part of the evening seemed over. “Hey, wanna dance?”

Selyn’s eyes slid away from his. Was she… embarrassed? “I don’t know how.”

He was better than her at something besides Pazaak? Shocking. But she hadn’t said she didn’t want to. “C’mon, I’m sure you’re a natural. Just follow my lead.” He stood and held out his hand to her, and she blinked at it and took it, following him to the open part of the room.

“You dance?”

He pretended to be offended at her surprise. “Sweetheart, I’m Alderaanian. We learn to dance in grade school.”

She giggled, and let him put his arms around her waist. “I’d have liked to see that.”

“Little Atton, little Jaq dancing? Yeah, it was real freakin’ cute. I was just as adorable as a bratty kid, I’ll have you know. Now, just keep stepping in time with the beat. I’ll guide you.”

She showed no fear on her face, but her sense in the Force drew closer to his, a little nervously. He chuckled and opened his mind to hers, so she could anticipate what he was doing next. It worked; at least, she kept up with him as he stepped her through turns and spins. She seemed to be enjoying herself innocently, and it made him smile.

Mical was staring at them wistfully, and he wondered if she noticed. Probably. She was probably making plans to go dance with him next, so that he didn’t feel left out. Even though everyone knew what her choice was. It was all right. He could be gracious in… not victory, that was too possessive. Whatever. He wouldn’t gloat.

Besides, Visas was asking Mical to dance now. Mira was already dancing by herself, too independent to be bothered with this ‘couples’ nonsense. Mandalore had already left.

 

He walked her to her room from the cantina after she’d decided she’d had enough for one evening. People recognized her on the walk, and greeted her, thanked her in the street. It seemed she wasn’t used to being made much of, after being in exile for ten years and coming straight out of the Wars. Had she ever been made much of? It didn’t matter, she was getting her due now.

He paused in front of her door, unwilling to let go of her hand, and cleared his throat a little awkwardly. “Well, uh… goodnight, I guess?”

That was lame even for him. It seemed she agreed, because she reached up and pulled him into a kiss. He made a tiny helpless noise as his arms went around her, as her arms went around him, and their kiss deepened. What she did to him, this tiny, sweet, unstoppable woman, the most beautiful woman in the galaxy. She drew him gently into her room, still kissing him.

It was like he was drunk on her; he couldn’t get enough, and it seemed like she couldn’t get enough of him, clinging to him like this was the last time she’d see him. Well, this was the first time they’d had enough privacy and downtime to be really affectionate like this, and also seemed like the first time she’d ever kissed or been kissed like this.

He only became suspicious when she invited him into her bed, too.

 

He woke up alone; the room was empty, and not just of her – of her stuff, too. She didn’t have a lot, but she was definitely gone.

Frak. Frak, frak, frak. He’d guessed this might happen. She was going to leave, she was going in search of Revan and her mysterious Sithy danger, and he was not going to be left behind like Carth Onasi. Not yet, anyway. It was much too dramatic and cliche.

He dashed back to his own room, creeping in so as not to wake Mical, grabbed his own kit, and took off in a tearing hurry for the docking bays, hoping against hope that she hadn’t actually left the station yet. People looked at him funny as he ran past at full speed, boots thumping on the walkways, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t feel her presence, but maybe she was just being sneaky and hiding her connection to the Force? He hoped. Oh, he hoped.

Would she take the Ebon Hawk? She would, at least for the first part of her journey, right? It was still in its berth, and he propped himself against the wall outside, crossing his arms and his ankles and feigning nonchalance. Inside, his heart pounded with anxiety. What if she had already gone? What if he guessed wrong and she took a different ship?

But she was a Jedi, and he knew how to read Jedi. A small figure stepped out of the cross-corridor and stopped short. He turned to her, affecting a smirk, although it was shaky with relief, his heart jumping inadvertently at the sight of her.

“So…” he drawled, “need any company? I mean, I’m not doing anything.”

She stared at him. “I left a note…”

He gave her a skeptical look. As if a note would satisfy him, and she knew it. “Besides, if I’m not around to bail you out of trouble, who knows what could happen.”

Her blank expression melted into an affectionate smile. “All right. You can come with.”

He grinned. “All right, then. Where are we going again? I mean, because last time, we were hightailing it out of this mining colony on the edge of space, and there was this Sith Lord, and…”

His time with her was limited, he knew. One day not long from now he’d wake up and she’d have really given him the slip, and he’d have to go back and help the others set up the new Jedi Order and be responsible and stuff. But he was going to stick around as long as she would let him.

They launched into space, heading out into the limitless stars. Off on another adventure, with probably as much heart-ache and pain and despair as the last one… and as much joy and discovery and hope, too. He glanced over at her in the co-pilot’s seat, and she smiled at him, so beautiful. He smiled back, reached out, and pulled on the hyperspace lever.