FicWad

What do I think of the Exile? What does it matter? But, If you're really that interested in knowing, I'll tell you.

When she first came through the door of the detention area on Peragus . . . well, I couldn't deny that my situation had improved. It didn't help that she was interrogating me half-naked. I knew that it was only a matter of time before she got us out of there. She seemed the capable sort. At the same time, her methods were the most crazy I'd ever seen, even for a Jedi! I'll have to admit though that her craziness saved our skin.

I never held any love for the Jedi, but she was different. Maybe it's because she was stronger than all the other Jedi. Not just because she turned away from war, either. She knew what loss was. When she left Revan, she lost everything, including her connection to the Force! She didn't lie. It was like everything she did exemplified who she was as a person and showed her devotion to her ideals. I never saw such an honest Jedi.

I knew I was Force-Sensitive. I learned that during the war. It was one of the things that made me so good at killing Jedi. I could make myself invisible to them just by putting up walls of strong emotion or by cluttering my surface thoughts by playing Pazaak in my head. It was one of the things Revan was looking for in me, and it made me turn away from her war.

Somehow I knew the Exile would make a Jedi of me, only I wasn't going to be like those Jedi in the war! I wasn't going to think one thing and do another. I wasn't going to claim to uphold the precepts of some ancient code and do a completely different thing. And I sure as hell wasn't going to help people only to squeeze them of everything they had.

But I was afraid to tell her my secret. I was afraid she wouldn't be able to forgive me. I'd murdered hundreds of Jedi. Not as much as she had, of course. My hands were covered in their blood, and I was afraid she was going to see it and that she wouldn't be able to accept it when I said they deserved it. Each and every one of them. I still believe that. The galaxy didn't need Jedi lies or Jedi arrogance or Jedi hypocrisy anymore!

I don't know what made her so different, but after Peragus, I could see a glow about her, shining with her inner light and it inspired me. As I travelled with her, I saw her light grow stronger. She did things that showed me she meant what she said when she told me her reason for going to war. She wanted to save the galaxy.

I believed her.

On Dantooine, we went to the Jedi Academy to find Vrook. We stood outside the ruins of the enclave. I had already taken my first steps down the path of the Jedi. I stood next to her and I could feel her pain at seeing the once shining pillar of the Jedi, the place where she had lived and trained, reduced to ashes and debris. It was like a physical pain, and I could feel it too. Hundreds of dead Jedi, their souls restless.

She dropped to her knees and she did something I hadn't expected of her. She cried. I knelt down beside her. I understood the pain she felt. It was thick, almost tangible, like a wound in the Force, just as she was a wound in the Force. I put my hand on her shoulder and she turned to me, tears running down her beautiful face and I did the only thing I could think of. I pulled her against me and held her and she cried into my chest. I never felt so close to her as I did then. I felt like I was a Jedi. A real Jedi and the compassion I felt for her was the compassion I was supposed to feel for the galaxy. The compassion she felt for the galaxy.

She never once told me to hide her moment of weakness. I knew she saw it as a strength to bare herself so completely, to allow her sadness to show through. After she cried, she taught me. We sat among the ruins and she told me about the Jedi Code. She taught me the words, the meanings, and I shared a moment with her that no one else could have.

The Disciple? Yeah, I was jealous of him acting all noble in that--noble way. I thought she might have seen the appeal in a guy that worshipped the ground she walked on. He would have gladly licked her boots if she asked him to, and I felt threatened by it. I told him to stay away from her, for all the good it did.

I didn't even want him to come with us, but she wouldn't turn away anyone willing to help. It was just like how Kreia didn't approve of Visas joining us. I was having a hard enough time accepting that she would embrace someone who tried to kill her, and that somehow, she had known Bao-Dur. This was another wall between us.

I never resolved that one thing, until she came to me as we were preparing to depart for Citadel Station.

"Is there something you'd like to tell me?" she asked.

"Didn't we already go over that?" I asked, absentmindedly checking the console even though we were on auto pilot. She shook her head and chuckled before sitting beside me in the co-pilot's chair. She watched me. Her gaze almost made me uncomfortable. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Do you have a problem with Mical?" she asked, getting straight to the point.

"Yeah. I have a problem with him," I told her. "I have a problem with how he just swoops in here and acts like he's always been here."

"Why?" she asked. I couldn't believe she didn't get it.

I stood up. "You wanna know why I have a problem with him? The real reason?" I asked, my voice raising. She never flinched. "I have a problem with him because he's trying to take you away from me. I have a problem with him because he's all honest and good and I'm not. I have a problem with him because I'm afraid there's something you see in him that you can't see in me because it's not there anymore. That's why I have a problem with him!" I exclaimed.

She didn't move for a moment. It was like she was considering what she was going to say. My heart thudded in my chest. I didn't want it to come out like that. How could she not know how I felt for her.

"Atton," she said. Her voice was calm, like she was trying to hold something back that she didn't want to. "I don't care about those things. Mical is different to me. I love him in a way a master loves her apprentice. He's almost like . . . family to me." Before I could speak, she continued. "But where I'm going, I have to go alone. I can't take the people I love with me."

That didn't make sense, until she left us at Citadel. She took T-3 and the Ebon Hawk and left to go after Kreia. We thought we were going with her. We were her apprentices. She hadn't finished teaching us! She left us a holo-message. In it, she told us the same thing she told me on the Hawk. That where she was going, we couldn't follow. She had left to confront Kreia. After that, if she wasn't dead, who knows?

I still believe she's out there. I think she's gone where Revan went. I don't know what she's doing there, but I believe she's going to come back to us. She's going to come back to me. And when she does, I'm going to tell her how I really feel. I won't cover it up or shroud it in jealousy. I hope she's safe, and I hope where she goes, the Force will keep her.