had our positions been reversed
The door before him loomed large and threatening and cold, swallowing the rest of the room until only it remained. And yet, for all its imposing demand for attention it was not even a speck, compared to the presence beyond it, which swallowed up even the oppressive power of the Star Forge. Though if that was because of the bond, tender and strained, that was rooted somewhere deep, deep inside of the mess of his mind, or because he was absolutely terrified Alak couldn't say. It didn't really matter either way. One way or another this would end today. It had to. And the only way to accomplish that lay beyond that door.
-
"I... I cannot help but wonder, Revan. What would have happened had our positions been reversed? Had fate decreed I would be captured by the Jedi?" What indeed?
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The door before him loomed large and threatening and cold, swallowing the rest of the room until only it remained. And yet, for all its imposing demand for attention it was not even a speck, compared to the presence beyond it, which swallowed up even the oppressive power of the Star Forge. Though if that was because of the bond, tender and strained, that was rooted somewhere deep, deep inside of the mess of his mind, or because he was absolutely terrified Alak couldn't say. It didn't really matter either way. One way or another this would end today. It had to. And the only way to accomplish that lay beyond that door.
"Good luck. You will need it to defeat Revan." Bastila sounded so serious as she carefully hovered her hands over his aching shoulder, a healing cool flooding through his flesh, and Alak nearly laughed. He only didn't because laughing aggravated the implant in his throat.
"Oh please, I would need far more than luck for that, and you knew that when you staged your assault. That I was the easier target. If I'm getting out of this, then it will be because Revan wants me to." He'd been bitter about it for a while, had felt the humiliation of it all eat at him right after leaving Dantooine, when the conclusion had still been fresh on his mind and his pockets heavy with the mementos he'd stolen from their old room. Revan's and Alek's. But the sting had faded with time, with every puzzle piece of his mind that he managed to wrangle into the right spot again, with every treasured memory he could unearth in meditation and every fraying thread of the bond in his head that had reconnected and filled the hole that he hadn't known had been there. No, it didn't hurt anymore to know he'd always been second and always would be, even knowing that it would likely be his death sentence today. But he had long run out of patience with Bastila's naivete.
"That's not- That's not true..." She trailed off, her fingers skimming lightly over the burn at his collar bone she'd give him in their duel, her eyes never meeting his. Alak only raised an eyebrow. Again a cooling wave lightly washed over his injuries, numbing the pain until it was only an unpleasant buzz. Some of it might need kolto later. If either of them would still be alive then. Whatever Revan had done to the girl to turn her, it had clearly not damaged her ability to fight. She'd landed quite a few solid hits before Alak had pinned her and forced her to explain herself for so long, she'd eventually talked herself down. A vaguely remembered strategy from times that felt like centuries ago. Taught by a hand that had yet to unlearn everything but violence. The sliver of a memory added just another cold, hard rock in his chest.
Eventually Bastila's hands dropped, and for a moment she simply stood in front of him, her eyes fixed on the floor, in those sith robes that fit her far too well to have been anything but made for her. Somehow she seemed even smaller than she ever had before on their journeys.
A moment or two passed. Then she stepped back, her arms wrapped around herself, and with a small voice that didn't fit her at all muttered "I'm sorry."
Alak sighed. "I don't need you to be sorry. I need you to get back to the ship, tell Carth to throw on the engines, and then use your Battle Meditation to make sure the Republic troops out there don't get decimated while I try to achieve the impossible and get Revan to back down." She nodded, still avoiding his gaze. Then hesitated.
"Do you- do you really think it's impossible?" When she finally raised her head to look at him her eyes were watery, and for the first time since he saw her stepping out of the cage on Taris, all self-righteous fire and confidence, Alak saw her as the teenager she still was. Too young and pushed into a position of authority she felt obligated to fulfil by her innate strength in the Force.
No wonder Revan had been interested in her.
But she had played her part in dismembering the part of him that understood this, and so his sympathy was limited. (But not non-existent.)
"To win against Revan? Yes, without a doubt. To convince Revan to back down?" Alak sighed again, his implant crackling slightly. "I don't know. But I have every intention of trying, and if anyone could do it..." He trailed off, because the truth was, if anyone could do it, it would have been Knight Alek, Squint, faithful compatriot to his master, friend, bond-sibling. Not him. Not Alak, failed Sith Lord, failed friend, bastardized mess of two lives. But Jedi Knight Alek was dead, and would never return, even if he somehow managed to piece all his memories back together. Then again, so was Jedi Knight Revan, the Revanchist, hero of the Mandalorian wars. Either way, it would have to be enough.
Bastila nodded quietly anyway, apparently satisfied as much as she could be.
"If anyone could do it." She didn't look back again before running off, something like resigned determination oozing through their bond. Alak watched her leave, fear turning his feet into concrete, and tried to forget that her healing had always felt warm before.
But the moment passed, and she was gone, and Alak knew there was no more stalling. No more dragging out when not only were people dying out there, relying on this intervention, but he could feel the painful pull of the other bond, the older one. The one he had found, halfway cauterized and burnt out in the recesses of his mind when he'd just been trying to pick up the pieces, shortly after leaving Dantooine. He'd known instinctively who it led to, and for a while it had scared him, even as he hadn't been able to bring himself to sever it completely. But nothing had happened. It had simply stayed there, inert but somehow smoldering, red hot and painful. So he had started to nurture it, tried to rebuild it, bit by bit, healing the burnt edges and strengthening it, and even while the sense of angry malevolence radiating from it had become stronger, the gaping hole inside of him had shrunken, and still Revan had not tried to use it. He'd been careful, had researched advanced shielding methods as well as he'd been able to, but the reaching, digging, invading sensation of darkness encroaching over the bond had never come. Only a constant, ever rising pressure that was finally coming to a breaking point.
Whatever was going to happen, it was going to happen now.
One step after another Alak approached the door. Stopped in front of it. And it opened.
The room beyond was huge, an observatory of some kind, filled with all manner of terminals, the purpose of which Alak had no chance of guessing. Instead of walls the far side was made up of giant windows, opening the room up to the view of space outside, and illuminating it with the green and red of flashing canon fire. And right in front of them, their back towards the door, stood Revan.
Somewhere in his mind Alak had expected to freeze at their sight. To have his body shut down in terror and simply be able to stare in remembered horrors. But instead he found his terror muted, drawing back, as if only their presence was enough to put steel into his spine and determination in his heart. Even after everything. Even if it was against them.
When they finally turned to look at him through that familiar mask of theirs his implant itched and the new burn scar over his left ear ached, and still there was a strange calm in his chest.
Somehow, despite everything, through all the horrors, this was still where he belonged. And somehow he had to convince Revan to follow him this time.
They took their time joining him in the middle of the room, every movement carefully leashed violence, their hands never far from the sabers at their hips and their robes fanning out with every step as if in a threat display. A raptor just before the dive to kill its prey.
Oftentimes a fight can be ended before it begins, with just the right display of power.
He resisted the urge to check the bond.
Eventually they both stood in the middle of the hall, a sensible distance apart, not so much to have to yell to speak, but enough to have the time to draw a saber if the other party were to attack. Neither of them had their weapons drawn just yet.
It was a start at least.
"So, here we are now, Malak." It sounded like an insult, the way Revan drawled the name. "At the end of the road. Do you think your new friends will save you? The girl was disgustingly easy to break, you should know, and once you're dead, I will make sure it will stick. She will be much more useful than you ever were." Alak frowned. Revan was taunting him, testing the waters, but it was...clumsy. Uncharacteristically heavy-handed. Obvious to a degree it nullified any impact the hit against Bastila or his own worth in their eyes might have had.
Something had already thrown them off balance, and now Alak had to find the right buttons to push them over completely. Only he had no idea how to accomplish that. Trying to appeal to their shared past was a bad idea, as had been proven by their last encounter. He'd been... Not in his best state of mind then either, and seeing them, actually seeing them right there, had knocked loose another flood of memories and an amalgamation of emotions, all mixing into a desperate yearning horror. All his pleading had gotten him then was a new scar, as Revan had flown into a rage and tried to slice off the rest of his head. (The nightmares had become much worse after that, and his implant hadn't quite stopped hurting ever since.)
No, this needed... A more deliberate touch. A cornered predator did not take well to being petted. Though why Revan would feel cornered he had no idea.
Slowly a plan started to form in his head.
"...My lightsaber, the original one. Was it always yellow?" It hadn't been, he suspected, but when Master Zhar had presented him with his choices, the path of the Sentinel had called to him, almost vibrating somewhere in his bones. Later he'd realized the strange look on the master's face had been surprise.
Much like the slight twitch he could now feel through the bond, as if compressed by the pressure of a black hole.
"...It was blue."
"That makes sense, I suppose." A guardian... Yes, that made sense. The more physical applications and combat forms had come easier to him than the indirect force work, like the difference between long loved shoes and a fresh pair. Not that it really mattered, all that mattered was that Revan had answered at all. That he got a foot in the door. Now all he had to do was force it open completely.
"You didn't come all this way just to ask questions." A shot of blaster fire flying past outside the window lit up the room and Revan's silhouette in bloody red.
"...No. I'm getting the impression that was always more your forte. Asking too many questions and getting us into trouble for it." The questions had been among the first memories to return, questions over questions, a burning curiosity at his side, that over time had morphed into a raving, never-sated hunger. He wasn't sure if he blamed them for it.
He was sure that Revan had been aware of it once and had more than once pulled them both out of trouble again, and yet they full-body flinched at his words.
"Choose your words carefully, traitor." Revan hissed, low and promising violence.
"Or what? You plan to kill me anyway." They could, if they wanted to. He would fight for his life, for as long as he could, and he might even hold out for a while, but he would lose if it came down to a fight. And yet the longer they talked, the more they slipped, showing the cracks in their facade, and Alak felt himself grow more and more determined. He could only hope that forcing those cracks open, digging further into whatever had unsettled them so, would give him the opening he needed rather than push them completely over the edge.
"I have let you live this far for the sake of old attachments, but I can certainly rectify this in particularly slow and painful ways." Another shot outside flashed by, as if to underscore the threat. For another it might have worked, for ever subtle, cunning Revan all it did was make it feel crude. And desperate.
"You let me live, did you? I can't tell if that's a compliment to my skills because you knew your assassins would fail or if you're trying to justify their failure." The moment he let the threat bounce off Revan immediately pivoted back to disdain.
"And that was always your failure wasn't it? Always too thick to understand." It should hurt, Alak thought. It should, and yet all he could focus on was the durasteel line of their shoulders, the slight trembling of their gloved hands, and the head splitting tension of the bond, a muffled but unbearable pressure at the back of his mind.
The only way out was forward.
"Then make me understand. Tell me, Revan, why are you doing this? What happened to you?" What, besides the horrors of war, of abandonment, the insatiable hunger to understand, and this horrible place.
"To me?" Revan scoffed. "Are you so quick to deny all your responsibility in this? Have the Jedi so kindly absolved you of all your crimes when they ripped your mind apart?" This one did hit, and it took all the willpower he could still scrape together to not flinch, to remain the steadfast rock in this maelstrom that he had to be. But he couldn't let the feint work.
"Oh no, I know what happened to me." Or at least all that mattered at this moment. "I followed you to whatever it was you ran into, without question or thought. And I let you run into it headfirst." Of that he had no doubt. That he'd followed willingly and readily. The time after the war was the most patchy in his memory, their fall and their own war. The few slivers of it left, those that burned with rage and pain, and hatred so repulsive he barely dared reach for them. But even so he knew his failure, his inability and unwillingness to stop Revan.
Revan, who flinched again, and suddenly cracked right down the middle, spilling panic and rage and desperate hatred into the Force.
"You didn't let me do anything, I was always your superior, and you are a pathetic idiot who couldn't see what was right in front of him, not even when it killed you. You never understood anything about what's coming, about what I have to do. You are nothing more than an attack dog, biting at anything in your way." There it was, the crux of it all, buried under desperate insults and provocations. The thing that scared Revan so much they had unraveled, their previously ironclad control tattered shreds.
It was surreal to watch, Alak thought numbly, as they spat vitriol and shook as if wrecked by fever.
"What is coming, Revan? What is it that you see and I can't?" Slowly and carefully he stepped forward, closer, hands flat, turned outward, and as unthreatening as he could manage.
He froze as Revan stepped back as well, their heaving shoulders betraying the stoic mask, but they did not draw their sabers.
The bond was still overlayered with tension and pressure, a deafening buzz drowning out all else.
"I believe you, Revan." Once again he cursed his injury, the limits of the implant that meant he couldn't temper his voice as well anymore, couldn't speak as softly as he wanted to. "I believe you that something is coming, but look around you! This is not the way to stage a defense! You are tearing the Republic apart, dividing loyalties and wasting resources. They would have followed you if you had asked! And you knew that before, you knew that you had the entire galaxy in the palm of your hand so why did you throw it all away?" He knew some aspects at least. He remembered his own feelings of betrayal after the war, feeling abandoned by the Order who refused to acknowledge their success as well as by the Republic who celebrated them as heroes without truly understanding the sacrifices made. He remembered how it all had felt so tasteless, senseless, and no one had seemed to see. But try as he might, and he had tried, over and over until he'd had migraines, he couldn't see how they had gotten here. What Revan thought was coming. What this horrible, nauseating place was latching onto to drive them into this frenzy.
"I had to! This isn't enough, it was never going to be enough! He will come and he will kill everything unless I-"
"Unless you kill everything first?!" Alak took another step closer, unwilling to let them talk themselves even further into their corner. "Revan, you know that's not how it works, this isn't how you think! It's this Force-damned place that got into your head! You know what it does, you must have found all of this long before I ever did, so please, look around you!" Something pinged in his mind, sharp and insistent, his gaze stuck to Revan's mask, and the next words tumbled out as if said by someone else. "You didn't need to do it!"
Instantly he knew he'd stepped too far, could taste it like ash in the Force, even as he scrambled and failed to remember why.
And Revan exploded.
"What would you know, cripple?! You are nothing but the shambling corpse of the man who was my brother, mutilated by the Jedi, and now you want to drag me back to them to do the same to me." Oh. Oh. That accusation cut deeply, jammed itself right into the cracks of his carefully rebuilt self until his bones cracked with the heat of shame and rage. But he had an in.
"Fuck the Jedi," Alak snapped. "If we get out of here, I promise you, I will not let them put their hands on you, on my life, they will not have you." He didn't know how he was going to accomplish it, doubted the Jedi would be willing to just let him leave, much less Revan, even though he was reasonably certain neither Bastila nor Juhani at least would argue with him. Both had now seen the horrors of the dark side, though it had been far from his intention. But he meant every word of it. Somehow he would find a way. Handing Revan to the Jedi had never been an option.
In that way Revan had done him a favour in eradicating the Conclave. Even if the thought sent something cold and biting and horribly familiar through his veins. None of that mattered now, nothing but Revan, a presence of violence, darkness, desperation, and pain, crumbling into the Force with the power of a supernova.
"And while I am not who I used to be you can't deny that we still share a bond." He took another step closer and stretched out his hand, threat as much as offering. "You know me." And for the first time he pushed back against the pressure pressing in over the bond, reached for it with all his presence and shoved through. It was like walking against a tornado, resistance with every step, but it was a well-trodden path, and he would not be deterred by whatever this was. Not their shields, because those he found anyway, shredded and jagged like shattered glass, little left of the smooth, mirroring surface that had so often offered a door to him. There was none now. He reached out anyway, the pressure still bearing down on him, and gently nudged against the barbed surface.
Revan shuddered. Shook their head, slowly and hazily. But they didn't draw back, from the bond or in the room.
"No- No I... I can't stop. I can't stop now. He will come, and then- and then..." They trailed off, blank mask turned away from him. Alak dared another step, hand stretched out still, until he was barely a few steps away from them.
"Yes you can. You can stop. Right now," he urged, his pulse thundering in his ears. "We will figure something out, we will get out, away from everyone, you can tell me everything, and together we will figure out how to stop him." Whoever 'he' was. But it didn’t matter in the moment. "It's not surrender; it's only adapting your strategy when the first one fails."
It felt like eternity, standing in the middle of room with his arm outstretched, the dark energies of the place pressing into him, flashes of light from the battle outside, Revan just out of reach, as if frozen in time. Waiting for something to happen. For Revan to cave, one way or another, either to him and to his iron grip on the bond, or to the violence suffusing the air.
And then something snapped, cracked in the force, a quiet but resounding ping, Revan sagged into themselves, their mask turned to him with an air of quiet resignation, and Alak knew with dizzying certainty that he'd won.
Until he suddenly hadn't.
Pain lanced through his head as the pressure over the bond surged and nearly sent him to his knees, just as Revan staggered backwards, bent over and hands pressed to their head.
The pain was paralyzing, an unbearable force bearing down on him, as if the universe itself was trying to pry loose his hold on the bond. It was all Alak could do to keep standing as he helplessly watched Revan struggle, some panicked, choking noise tearing itself from their throat as they thrashed.
"What- No, no get out of my-" The words turned into a scream, a horrible, agonized howl-
Until it suddenly cut off, and everything happened at once. The pressure ceased, the pain disappeared, and so did Revan's force signature as they went limp. From one second to the next they simply blinked out of existence, the bond slipping out of his grasp like a cut lifeline.
"No!" Alak was running before he knew it himself, hot desperation fueling his steps as he reached for them, for their falling form before him and the vestiges of the bond that were rapidly dwindling.
Somehow he caught both, clung desperately to the torn fragments of the bond, cold and fraying, as lifeless as their still body in his arms. As if they hadn't just been standing there, screaming at him, animated in all the wrong ways, but alive-!
Distantly he could feel his hands shaking, but there was nothing for them to do, no wound to find, no blood to staunch, only a body and a gaping hole in the Force where Revan used to be just moments before. And the fraying bond. Not quite yet gone from his death grip.
The adrenaline numbed any pain as well as everything else as he slid to his knees, Revan laid out before him with no resistance. He wanted to scream, draw his saber and destroy this force forsaken station until nothing was left of it and him. Instead he gently bedded Revan's head on his thighs, ignored the way their helmet dug into his flesh, placed his hands against their temples and sank into himself.
It wasn't quite the same as healing. There was nothing for him to target, nothing to hold onto with the hard-earned precision he'd learnt from Master Zhar, practicing over and over until he wasn't half dead on his feet after every attempt at healing a scratch because he couldn't quite find the right limit. (Sinking deeper into meditation Alak recognized another emotion on the Twi'Lek's face he hadn't been able to place then. Guilt.) All that was there were the shredded remains of the bond, strained and dark, cold in a way it had never been, not even when waking up on the Spire, leading into seemingly nothing, but still present in his mind.
Master Zhar would be furious with him for what he was about to do.
Good.
Steeling himself, with another deep breath, he yanked on the bond and lowered his shields.
Instantly the malevolent aura of the Star Forge slammed into him, stoking the fire of anger and fear burning in his core until it threatened to swallow him, promised him power, revenge for his suffering, but he ignored it. He didn't have time for this nonsense again.
He kept pulling on the bond, reached further and further, until finally there was... something. A spark. Flickering and sputtering, hardly comparable to what Revan was meant to be, but something. He pulled the spark closer, raised his shields around them both and poured his own energy into the bond. It was aimless, an attempt at a blanket fix when he didn't know what was wrong, like trying to fill up a black hole, everything he knew healing was not supposed to be.
He didn't care.
The spark kept flickering, and the bond kept threatening to slip away, as if someone else was tugging at it from the other side.
The fire rose up again.
Oh no, you don't.
It was a fight, though Alak didn't know how long it took it or who he was fighting. For how long he knelt there on the cold metal floor trying to shove life back into the body of his- of Revan, while something tried to smother them, to extinguish their presence in the force and their life along with it. It was a fight, a constant tug of war, trying to keep the spark alive as it seemed determined to sputter out and leave him alone in the dark, again, but however long it took, it was a fight he eventually won. The bond, muted as it was, stabilized, the spark burned just a bit brighter, behind his own shields, filling just a fraction more of the hole Revan had so suddenly left behind, and when Alak finally opened his eyes again, dizzy, and nauseous and tired beyond anything he could remember, Revan's chest rose and fell ever so slightly. His throat constricted, trying to swallow, and his eyes burnt with unshed tears. He couldn't cry, not just yet, they weren't safe yet. Spite and anger were the much safer option.
"You horrible, selfish, melodramatic kriffin bastard." His implant crackled painfully, the way it always did when he pushed it too much. "Just like you to listen and then immediately try to die on me. Got anything to say in your defense?"
Revan didn't respond, stayed unconscious like the ungrateful little hutt-spawn they were.
For a few moments he remained still, allowed himself the time to just breathe, and watch Revan breathe, his hands ghosting down towards their shoulders, just to feel the slight movement of life. He was tempted for only a second to remove their helmet and finally look at their real face again, put his palms against their neck and assure himself of the warmth of their skin and the pulse beating underneath, but something stopped him, some slight ringing in the back of his head. The intrusive awareness that they would be angry with him if he did. It was a stupid idea anyway, in the middle of enemy territory.
The station shook, and Alak realized the break had to be over, no matter how much his limbs protested the idea of getting up. It wasn't safe. It wasn't safe.
Slowly and heavily, he pulled himself to one knee, uncomfortably aware that if he fell after standing, he would not be getting up again. It took him a moment for the room to stop spinning, and another to consider how best to pick up Revan. Using the Force to help was out of the question, the thought alone made his head feel like it was being split in two. An unsettlingly familiar sensation. No, he would have to carry them, preferably without repeated ups and downs. It required some maneuvering and more false starts than he cared to admit, but eventually he made it to his feet, Revan slung across his shoulders. For one absurd second, he was nearly overcome by the instinct to make a joke about them finally seeing the world from higher up than a Jawa, before reality slammed back into his mind with the force of another canon shot shaking the room.
The way out and towards the hangar bay he somehow, painfully, knew was through a door at the left side of the room was longer than it should have been, but he made it without stumbling. Getting the door open was again much easier than it should have been. Revan had apparently never changed the access codes. What that could possibly mean Alak was too exhausted to think about.
When he finally arrived at the hanger he found both what he needed and dreaded, the Ebon Hawk, and Bastila and Carth, the former pacing up and down, leaking worry-guilt-concern into the force so carelessly Alak reflexively pulled his own shields tighter around Revan's fragile presence. Carth spotted him first, his eyes widening as he froze. Bastila quickly followed, whirling around, her shock slamming through their bond strongly enough to make him wince.
"Is that- are they- Are they dead?" It was a small question, somehow brimming with emotion, with fear, relief, sympathy, regret and disbelief, all crashing through the bond so much worse than anything before, not helped by the fact that neither of them were quite at their best.
Alak shook his head, and winced again when the motion sent another shock of pain through his head.
"They're alive. I'll explain later, but for now we need to leave." The station shook again under the republic onslaught. Bastila hesitated for a moment, fear shimmering in her eyes as she glanced at Revan's still form across his shoulders, but she relented and turned, hurrying onto the ship. Alak moved to follow her, but a hand on his arm stopped him.
"Are you sure about this?" Carth's eyes drilled into his, a hard set to his jaw and a million other questions behind the one asked. But there was only one answer for all of them.
"I'm not leaving them here." Carth wanted to argue he could tell. Alak also knew he wouldn't. They'd had this conversation before, multiple times since the Leviathan, and most recently only hours before when Alak had left and informed them all in no uncertain terms he would be returning with Revan or not at all and what to do in either case. It had been a loud discussion with Carth particularly, but as much as he might hate Revan, as much as he still might hold a grudge against Alak, they both knew Carth understood the refusal to leave someone behind. And so did Dustil now. So Carth had let him leave, grinding his teeth the entire time, but he had, on Alak's promise he would be returning Bastila as well. As if he needed to be told.
Returning with Revan's unconscious body had not been the plan, but in the end it didn't change anything.
It would still be another discussion Alak knew, could see it in the way Carth was again grinding his teeth, but it was a discussion for later. Later, when they were not on a space station trying to worm its way into Alak's mind to dig up every dark thought, impulse and memory in there, that was also about to explode, and when Alak's head would no longer feel like it wanted to split in two on its own.
Carth grimaced, but he let go, and together they returned to the ship.
Inside the Ebon Hawk Carth hurried away towards the cockpit without another glance back. Alak hesitated while the ramp closed behind him, eyes fixed on the welcoming committee Carth had quickly passed by. Canderous and Jolee stood waiting for him, not blocking the way exactly, they were past that stage, but undeniably present. No one else was around, though he could sense Bastila in the bunk room across the ship. Likely she had collected at least Juhani and Mission to get them out of the way. Without quite meaning to Alak gripped the body on his shoulders just a bit tighter. Revan only breathed.
"The unstoppable force has won against the immovable object then, I see." The comment wasn't quite deadpan, there was something there in Jolee's voice, but Alak had neither patience nor the energy to deal with it.
"Something like that." The answer hadn't been meant as a whisper, but every moment he stood there, Revan's unmoving body pressing down on him along with everything else that had happened, the more exhaustion tried to pull him under. But rest wasn't in the cards. Not yet. No matter how much he ached all over, down to his bones and his very core.
With a rumble of the engines the ship took off, and with jerk they were out the hangar, shooting off into the firefight still going on outside. And the floor under Alak's feet lurched away. He had a brief moment to wonder if Carth was intentionally flying bumpier than usually, but the thought was quickly replaced by scrambling panic as he stumbled, and Revan started slipping from his shoulders, and he couldn't reach the Force, couldn't grab them fast enough, and oh Force what if they fell and hit their head and *died again*- Until suddenly a hand was there, shoving him back up and stopping Revan's fall. And staring at him was Canderous, a sour expression on his face, somewhere between mild disdain, annoyance, and that same indefinable something of Jolee's voice. Something... Not soft exactly, but similar. Like it would give if he touched it. For better or worse.
"Give them here. If that breeze knocks you over, you're gonna land on your face before you get to the medbay," Canderous demanded, and reflexively Alak tightened his hold on Revan again. It wasn't that he distrusted Canderous. For all their shared past the Mandalorian had somehow proven the easiest to work with, someone who understood, and who, ironically, had the least personal dislike of Darth Malak. But he also had an... Unsettling interest in Revan. If his stance towards Alak was gruffly appreciative then his way of talking about Revan bordered on worshipful. As if the defeat of his entire people at their hands was something to be admired rather than resented.
For a few moments nothing happened, they both just stood there in silence, Alak grappling with his own more or less irrational fears, and Canderous with a hand outstretched and an eyebrow raised.
It felt oddly similar to his standoff with Revan not even an hour ago.
And so Alak followed their example, as he'd always done, sighed and caved.
He allowed Canderous to pull Revan off his shoulders and suppressed the shiver as their dead weight slid off his back with no resistance. It should have been a relief when Canderous heaved them off him, one arm under their knees and the other under their shoulders, even if just a physical one, but instead he watched Canderous carry Revan towards the medbay and only felt more drawn, as if something inside of him was stretched thin and worn out.
He nearly fell on his face again when Jolee lightly shoved him to follow Canderous.
"Come on. Will be good to have a look at you as well." Alak shook his head, but started walking.
"There was no fight. I'm fine."
"Yes, and that's why you're stumbling around like a newborn bantha. Take it from another veteran, not every battle is a physical one."
"Oh, I'm well aware," Alak muttered. Jolee frowned and clearly was about to respond something, but Alak quickly stepped past him, following Canderous into the room, who was placing Revan onto the screening bed. Thankfully it seemed for once Jolee decided to leave it be, if only for now, and followed quietly.
The other two men in the room faded into the background as Alak approached Revan, still motionless but for the almost imperceptible rise and fall of their chest under the armor. The spark was still there, tucked safely behind his own shields, which held firm, even as he kept checking them almost neurotically. The bond remained quiet, strained but stable for the moment, though every nervous brush against it sent another spike of pain through his head.
This hadn't been what he'd prepared for. In truth he'd expected one of two outcomes. Either he would fail, catastrophically, and Revan would kill him, or he would succeed and Revan would come along, of their own volition and under their own power. This... This was unnatural. And Alak couldn't remember ever feeling so helpless.
But there was nothing for it, and he was not made for inaction. There was nothing he could do about whatever had happened in the Star Forge, nothing more to do about Revan's almost smothered presence that he hadn't done already, but that didn't mean there was nothing he could do at all. Because even though the details were fuzzy in his mind, the memories buried somewhere in the rubble of his self he hadn't sorted through yet, he knew in his bones that the little shit had kriffed themselves up somehow while he was gone. If not longer, but that thought didn't help, only froze something in his chest, so he pushed it aside.
He started with the cloak, a truly unnecessarily elaborate construction of layers and buckles fixing it to the breastplate, but his fingers still remembered the latches and movements, and it didn't take long before he had it peeled off and carefully tugged from underneath them to be dropped into a corner. Next came the belt and extra layers over the robe, the ring clattering slightly as he dropped it. The vambraces. The pauldrons. The boots. The gloves. The breastplate proved slightly more challenging to get off without jostling them overmuch, but he eventually managed. The shirt covering shirt. The leg braces. The skirt. The thermoregulation suit. One by one they were dropped carelessly to the floor and shoved into a corner out of the way, until Revan was left only in their undershirt and trousers. And- and the helmet.
For the first time since entering the room Alak hesitated. He could feel the humming in his veins, the certainty that they would hate this warring with the knowledge that he had to check. For their sake as much as for his. He could feel both Jolee's and Canderous' eyes drilling into his back.
He turned around and glared at Canderous.
"Turn around." For a second Canderous only blinked at him, that strange something back in his eyes. Then he turned and stepped out of the room, leaning against the wall outside, his back half visible through the doorframe.
It would have to do. He needed Jolee's help and experience, or he would have sent him out as well.
As gently as possible he pulled the helmet off their head, revealing the same face he'd seen in his dreams and nightmares for months. And yet not quite. Their skin was ashen, greying in a way beyond just lacking sunlight. The bright copper he remembered of their hair was dull and flat. And most jarring of all was the scar spread across half their face, rough and discoloured but clearly already years old.
For a moment Alak's breath got stuck in his throat as his body froze, the implant burning, pain stabbing through his face where his jaw used to be, and something tingling in his fingers. Nausea rising in his throat. He'd known it had been Revan that had mutilated him. Had seen it in his nightmares almost since leaving Dantooine. Had been trying to ignore it, to shut it away and not think about it when knowing didn't help anything and only brought back the onslaught of fire still burning in his chest sometimes. Now he knew that he'd returned the favour. He couldn't remember doing it, had no idea how he'd even managed or why they'd let him live after it, but he knew it had been him. Could feel an echo of lightning crackle through his veins as he looked at the scar burned into their face.
He flinched as a hand squeezed his shoulder and again as the helmet slipped from his numb fingers and loudly clattered to the floor. Jolee made no comment as Alak looked towards him, only kept his hand on his shoulder, warm and supportive in a way that seemed unbearable in the moment. It all threatened to crash over his head then. His own crimes. Revan's. The impossibility of escaping any of it. The looming task of having to deal with it somehow anyway. The rising flames of anger at the council and the order as a whole, for having abandoned them and everyone else, multiple times over.
He didn't know if Jolee could see it, or simply knew how it was, to be confronted with the consequences of your actions when you already had nothing left to give, but either way he clapped Alak on the shoulder and gently pushed him aside. Together they made short work of a general examination, even while the ship rattled on occasion as Carth swerved out of the line of fire. The distraction was almost comforting. They worked in silence, Jolee making use of his experience with the Ebon Hawke's limited medical equipment, and Alak of his knowledge of Revan. It took him longer than it should have to notice that Jolee avoided looking at their bare face whenever possible. A courtesy he hadn't asked for and Revan couldn't. He wasn't quite sure if he liked the feeling that brought up in his chest, the reminder that he could ask for things, for comfort, not just deadly necessity, and it would be granted. Not when so much of what he remembered from before was tainted with disappointment and betrayal. He accepted it anyway.
Only once while they were working did Jolee reach out in the Force, a habitual action, necessary for force healing, but even the delicate brush against his shields had Alak flinch and almost draw his saber on reflex, much to Jolee's visible surprise. It took Alak several heartbeats to regulate his breathing again, and another few to recognize that Jolee had reached out to Revan's presence, still tucked securely behind his own shields. Again Jolee frowned at him, but again he remained silent, only pointed the scanner at Alak for a moment with a disapproving frown before turning back to Revan.
The result of their work was at once relieving and disappointing. Physically they were largely fine. Some nutritional deficiencies, signs of long-term exhaustion, minor wounds that hadn't quite healed yet, a truly astounding collection of scars, some of them he recognized and some he didn't, but nothing particularly surprising. Nothing that could point to what could possibly have happened in the station. Why they were reduced to a single, vulnerable spark when Revan had always been a super nova. Or how long it would take for them to wake up.
When they were done Alak found himself simply standing next to them, looking down at their face, relaxed in sleep, though furrowed with scars, and marked with dark eyebags. They seemed too small on the bed, stripped of all their usual layers of cloth, armor, dramatics and presence. At least they didn't seem to be in pain. Jolee busied himself in the corner, rummaging through a bag. Slowly Alak picked up the helmet from where he'd dropped it, smoothing his thumb over the mask, feeling every mark of time and use burn into his fingers like they were filled with lava. The inside still held the warmth of their skin. Carefully he brushed Revan's hair out of the way, and slid the helmet back over their face. It felt right, even as it felt wrong to hide their face under the familiar metal again, a cold kind of comfort.
Alak startled out of his contemplation when Jolee shoved a stimpack into his face.
"Here. Take it. I'd tell you to go take a nap as well, but I'll save my breath on that pointless advice." Alak felt his neck grow warm at the admonishment and he grumbled under his breath, but took the stim, pressing it into his arm. It helped a bit. At least his knees didn't feel quite so much like pudding anymore.
But what remained was a nagging feeling, a pinch of guilt, and Jolee at his shoulder with that undefinable something about him. He'd helped. And Alak couldn't quite make sense of why.
"What are you thinking?" Alak eventually asked, and it wasn't quite the question he meant, but all he could find the courage to voice.
Jolee sighed, suddenly seeming as tired as Alak felt. "I think this is a terrible idea and you are a better man than I've ever been."
Alak's throat tightened, something hot and ugly stuck in it, something tasting of blood and dirt and love, of war and death and life, and so he remained silent. Trying to ignore the tremor in his hands.
Revan stayed motionless, breathing slowly. The spark tucked behind his shields burning quietly and steadily.
Eventually Jolee nudged him again. "Go on, figure out where we're going next. I'll let you know if something changes." He narrowed his eyes. "And then you can explain what the kriff happened."
Jolee was right, Alak knew. The day was in no way over, he couldn't lie down and pass out yet, even though he had gotten past what had in the morning felt like the greatest hurdle. That idea now felt foolish. For a brief moment he chafed at the idea to leave Revan's side, fear biting into his bones, but the feeling passed quickly with Jolee's surly but supporting presence beside him and the quiet thrum of the now clear if bruised bond. They were safe here. No one on the ship was an enemy. Even if it might take a while to convince them of it. Revan and the others both.
And so Alak nodded mutely, the words still stuck somewhere in his throat, and with a last look back at Revan's still form he stepped out.
And very nearly into Canderous who was still leaning against the wall outside, arms crossed and halfway covering the doorway.
For a moment they simply regarded each other, a familiar kind of quiet standoff, not aggressive but evaluating. Finding their footing with each other in a well-worn ritual. The tightness in his throat loosened somewhat.
Alak sighed. "Thank you. For leaving when I asked."
Canderous watched him for a second, that unnamable something still there in his gaze and nagging at Alak. Then he huffed and turned back to facing the corridor.
"You don't unmask a warrior in front of strangers," Canderous grunted, and it suddenly occurred to Alak that his position in front of the door almost seemed like he was guarding it. Guarding Revan from unwanted looks. That... caused another wave of strange feelings welling up in his chest, something sticky and nauseating, constricting in his chest, warm and yet sharp. How much had they absorbed from their enemies during the war? How similar had they become while death spread through the galaxy? Was that what had broken Revan? Or could they have leveraged their understanding, their similarities, and put an end to the dying sooner? There was something else in the cacophony of emotions he thought, something cutting even deeper, making him feel small and powerless and angry, but it was so deeply buried under the mess of his memories there was no hope of unearthing it, and so he disregarded it. With a deep breath he pried everything loose, every unhelpful feeling of petulant spite and helpless grief and defensive jealousy, until all that was left was tired emptiness and vague gratitude. None of it mattered. Some of it he couldn't even place. It didn't matter.
There was no answer he could give Canderous, and none the other man would have even wanted, and so Alak simply nodded tiredly and left for the cockpit, ignoring Canderous' eyes drilling into the back of his head.
At some point while he'd been busy with Revan they had left the thick of the fighting behind them, and when he stepped onto what counted for a bridge on the Ebon Hawk it was on a steady floor and to a calm if tense Carth. The co-pilot's seat was empty, so Alak stepped up and slid into the chair, checking their flight path and going through the motions of checking for damage without much thought.
For a few minutes they stayed quiet, working in tandem on familiar routines. It was soothing almost, numbing the soreness spreading from his mind all throughout his body. The quiet thrum of Revan's presence in the back of his mind stayed constant, a muted comfort. Eventually Carth broke the silence.
"ETA Rendavouz with our troops in 15 minutes. Apparently we'll be expected by the Jedi council even," he offered, carefully calm. Alak heard the unspoken implication anyway.
"I'm not handing them over to the Jedi." In a way it felt like a promise both so monumental it should shake the very Force itself, and like a statement as self-evident as gravity. Giving them to the Jedi had never been an option, even if he had to fight the entire Order for it. Again.
The ship stayed steady under Alak's fingers. Carth kept his eyes on the controls.
"You can't just let them go free," Carth challenged, but it lacked the bite of their previous arguments. Not an accusation. Merely a statement. One ringing of truth in a way that made his ears hurt.
"I- I know." Alak sighed, eyes flitting over the blinking lights of the controls. "But I promised. I will not let the Jedi get their hands on them. There will not be a repeat of what happened to me." Something like steel snuck into his voice, hard and sharp and unwilling to bend. There was no running from their crimes for Revan, he knew that, and there wouldn't be for Alak either, for all the council clearly wanted to pretend. But he would not give Revan up to them. He didn't know if it was justice that was done to him, if he deserved it for his actions, for all that he only remembered a fraction of them. But whether it was justice or not, it was a horror and a cruelty that stuck in his bones, a spectre of himself haunting his steps, living on a delicate line between people he'd been and someone unreal they had wanted him to be, never quite sure what of himself was truly him. It had gotten easier over time, bit by excruciating bit, but any trust he could have had in the Jedi had shattered with his self-image, back on Dantooine. He would deal with them, with the council, didn't have much of a choice really unless he wanted to go down the road of blood again and that... That wouldn't help anybody. Including himself. But he would not hand over Revan to them. Wouldn't have, even before, but especially not now, after Force only knew what had ripped them apart and left them vulnerable. And if he had to fight the council on this... Well. He'd faced worse odds today.
"So, what's the plan then?" Carth ripped him out of his brooding. "You'll need more help than just us." The phrasing did not escape Alak's notice and something warm melted some of the tension from his body as he finally glanced at Carth. 'More than *just us*'. It was a tentative concession, made subtly enough to slip under the radar, but a concession nonetheless. He would not be abandoned to his foolish ideas.
And yet Carth was right, he thought. He needed help. Somehow he'd expected Revan to just know what to do. To take charge again, if he just managed to get them back on the right track. To at least have an opinion on what to do, something to take care of. But now he was left directionless, Revan unconscious and some other horror on their heels that he knew absolutely nothing of.
He watched space hurtle by outside, lights streaming past the window, and an idea crystallized in his mind, a name that had danced around somewhere in his memories for a while, coated in an ashy feeling of guilt and shame. And yet... And yet it was accompanied by a steadfast confidence, an unshakable faith sprouting from a series of half recovered memories that made little sense on their own, though he knew them to be true. Memories of insane plans, unlikely rescues, and most of all mercy.
"There is one man. If he's still alive. If anyone would help us it would be him. Zayne Carrick."