The Letter

A/N: This is probably the absolute fluffiest one-shot I've ever done, so I'm warning you now: it is so sweet it makes ME puke candy canes, and I wrote it!  You have been warned; read at your own risk. 

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The Letter 

     He was home in the most literal sense.  From where he sat, he could see the rest of the station and could think about the recently renewed parts of the surface far below.  He sat at the desk in his room, a piece of thick, cream-colored parchment spread before him and a fountain pen clasped in his hand.  He only ever used such fine writing materials when it was of the highest importance; normally, he wrote notes and letters on pieces of flimsi with a stylus.  But this . . . this was special.  He sighed and put his pen to the paper as he began to write.

I met someone, Mori.  She’s really something.  She’s strong and sometimes feisty, and she stands up for what she believes in.  She’s like you in that.  And she’s talented and beautiful.  I only met her a year ago, but it already feels like I’ve known her all my life.  She’s got that effect on people, I’ve found.  She’s . . . special.  She can make me laugh, and Force knows I haven’t laughed since before you died.

We met when we crash-landed together.  We argued more often than not back then.  She called me a paranoid child and a hairless Wookiee.  Once I called her your old nickname, but as soon as I did, I felt guilty.  But she smiled; she liked it.  She made me promise to keep calling her that; I did.  Maybe I wasn’t supposed to, but I did.  We traveled together for a long while, and she considered me her friend, her confidant.  I guess that, even though I denied it at first, I treated her as more my own confidant than anything.

I told her about you when I found out Dustil was alive.  She understood; she wanted to help.  I told her there was nothing that could be helped.  She did anyway.  She saved our boy, Mori.  He’d joined the Sith; she got him to change his mind.  I think she loved him like her own son even though she didn’t say anything to that effect.  I think she felt that way on account of me.  She helped me begin to learn to let go of everything, all the pain and regret, all the things that were weighing me down.  But she didn’t try to make me forget you.  I think she knew it’d be better if I didn’t.

I met someone, Mori.  But she wasn’t who I thought she was.  You see, she used to be Darth Revan.  When I killed Saul, just as I promised you I would, he told me.  I know he wanted to hurt me.  I was starting to think that I could let all this baggage go, but then he told me who she was.  She was standing right next to me, trying to get me to leave, but I couldn’t understand how that woman who could be so tough when she needed to be or so gentle otherwise could be Revan.  But she was.

I tried to kill her, Mori.  I was drunk and didn’t know what I was doing.  Or maybe I did.  Maybe I wanted to be rid of her, because every time I looked her way after that, I got a strange feeling in the pit of my gut.  Maybe I was feeling guilt; maybe it was something else.  She told me she was sorry; I didn’t believe her.  I hit her.  She didn’t come near me for another month.  She was afraid of me.  The very person she called “Flyboy,” just like you used to, became some monster of whom she was terrified.  I guess I really couldn’t blame her.

But that all changed when she tried to kill herself.  She left a note, apologizing over and over for being who she was.  She was nearly dead when the rest of the crew found her.  That woke me up, made me realize I’d been an idiot.  I apologized to her.  She cried.  I told her I might love her.  She cried harder.  I held her, and she sobbed uncontrollably, as if all she’d ever needed to hear from me was “I’m sorry.”  Mori, I met someone.  She used to be Revan.  She isn’t now.

She defeated the temptations of the Dark Side, but I knew it was hard.  It’s hard to turn away from something you’ve always had tucked inside of you; I know because it was hard to give up that need for revenge even after Saul was dead at my feet.  She did it, though, and I told her I loved her.  She cried and said she loved me, too.  I didn’t doubt her.  I promised I’d stand by her.  She cried again.  See, the thing about her is that she doesn’t try to hide her emotions.  I think she might wear her heart on her sleeve.

She defeated Malak a couple weeks ago even though she didn’t want to kill him.  She nearly gave everything trying to save him the way she’d been saved.  Ultimately, she and all the rest of us saved the galaxy, the Republic, even though they, for the most part, gave her the credit.  I think she never liked the attention; she was just glad it was over.

I met someone, Mori.  I love her.  I’m thinking about asking her to marry me.  But I need to know if it’s all right, if I can go ahead.  Once, she told me that you wouldn’t want me to beat myself up for your death.  I know she’s right, but I want to be sure.  She’s a good woman, Mori—nothing like she used to be when she was Revan.  I’d like to bring her home as my wife, as a stepmother to Dustil.  Maybe this can be my second chance at having a family.  Maybe I can do things right this time.  Maybe we met for a reason.  I think I started healing the day we did.  I think I’m ready to let you rest in peace now. 

     He put the pen aside and picked up the parchment, reading over it before sighing.  He signed his name at the bottom before folding it and tucking it inside an envelope, which he placed gently inside the inside pocket of his jacket.  He pushed back from the desk and left the small apartment, headed for the shuttle bays.  He didn’t tell anyone where he was going, but that was fine.  He took a shuttle down to the memorial on the surface.

     When he stepped out and onto the new green grass, a calming sense of familiarity washed over him.  About a half mile from the shuttle dock, out in the middle of a wide expanse of plains between the mountains and the sea, was a tall willow tree, its drooping branches sweeping across the ground and the memorial stones at its base.  A fountain gurgled cheerfully not too far away, and birds twittered in the willow’s highest branches.  He headed for the tree, to the side opposite the dock, passing a dozens of marble tablets nestled in the ground, each engraved with the name of one killed in the attack.  When he found the one he wanted, he crouched down in front of it, smoothing his hands, calloused from a lifetime of clutching a blaster, across the cool stone front.  A quiet breeze whispered through the willow’s leaves as he pulled the envelope from his pocket and placed it beneath the name carved on the stone.  Now he realized he could’ve brought flowers to brighten the plain white stone.  He would have to do that next time.  But for now, this was his way of neatening all the loose ends in his life and bringing himself to terms with everything.

      He sat back against the willow’s trunk, studying the memorial stone and the hologram playing in a continuous loop atop it.  The hologram smiled at him in that charming way he’d always remembered, and he clasped his hands beneath his chin as he watched it thoughtfully.  The breeze rustled the envelope, opening the back flap.  He just sat there, shaded beneath the willow tree and serenaded by the babbling of the fountain across the way.  The breeze made the envelope flutter again, and a chill ran down his back as another sense of familiarity, this one more so, wrapped around him.  It sounded as though the wind in the trees was murmuring, answering his question that he’d put inside that envelope.  A soothing peace flooded his soul as one word seemed to be whispered over and over by the wind: yes.  Suddenly, he didn’t miss her so much anymore.  He felt as though his request had been thoroughly answered and in the affirmative.  He fingered the tiny gold band tucked away in his pocket; he’d bought it a week ago but hadn’t proposed yet.  Now he knew he could.  He felt as if the blessing he had asked for in his letter was given him, and a faint smile worked its way onto his face as he pushed himself up from his perch beneath the willow.  Everything would be fine now, he mused as he walked away, glancing once over his shoulder at the memorial stone.  Now his thoughts were consumed by the best way to ask the new question tugging at his mind.  But it would work out, he reminded himself as he returned to the dock to wait for the return shuttle.  After all, he would just tell her that he had something to ask.