Confessions

 “I can’t do this, Carth!”

I knew I was screaming, that the whole ship would be able to hear me. I knew but that certainly didn’t stop me from yelling at the top of my voice. I wanted them to hear. I wanted them to know exactly what they put me through. I wanted them to listen, to be unable to avoid hearing the terror and the despair and the anger I felt every single night, every day, every minute. I wanted Canderous to realise that his pride in bloodshed was no pride at all when it sent thousands of people into unstoppable grief. I wanted Bastila to shut the Force up with her endless, endless lectures on the Dark Side and our Bond and the Jedi Council. I wanted to feel Juhani’s anger. I wanted Jolee to give me a straight answer, just once! I wanted Mission to feel guilty for hounding me over and over about her worthless, selfish brother. I wanted to take HK apart piece by piece until he was a pile of rubble I could sweep out the airlock. I wanted Zaalbar to – to – go away. I wanted them all to go away. Especially Carth.

“I can’t stand there listening to you go on and on about Saul Karath and how he destroyed your family any more! Don’t you realise what you’re doing? Can’t you see past your own hatred, your own grief? Find a new reason to live. Let it go!” Carth had followed me into the cargo hold; he stood in the doorway glaring at me as I hurled an empty plasteel container into the wall, sent it bouncing around the ceiling with a snap of my fingers. Bitterly I imagined it to be Malak’s head, crashing against the unyielding walls of the Hawk. “You listen to every lecture Bastila throws at me, and then you, Carth, turn around and say all the things you shouldn’t say, all the hatred and anger and revenge that will drive you mad because you can’t let it go.”

It felt so good to get it all out, good in a dangerous, violent, hurting way. I felt the familiar twinge of guilt and refused to admit that Mission was just a child, she couldn’t understand what she put me through when she chased me around the ship begging to go to Tatooine. I couldn’t hit Bastila at all. Every time she felt me get angry, she sent these blasted waves of calm across into my mind until I was smiling at everyone, not shouting. But now – now, she was off with Juhani and Zaalbar, buying supplies and information while Carth and I were supposed to be fixing the ship. What information Bastila thought she could buy on Kashyyyk, I didn’t know. I didn’t care. The fact was, she was too far away to feel me and I’d caught Carth muttering under his breath about his wife and Saul and … enough.

“Well thank you for the concern,” Carth snapped, hands bunched in his pockets. “I’m no righteous Jedi, Hala. I can say what I want, I’ll feel what I want and you – you have no right to say that to me. Have you searched everywhere for your son, calling his name over the explosions and dying screams of millions? Have you held the one person you loved and watched them die in horrible pain, completely helpless to stop their agony, watching their eyes go still? Have you?”

I spun around and met his burning eyes. The plasteel box fell to the ground and rolled to a frustratingly gentle halt at Carth’s feet. He kicked it aside. “I’ve watched entire planets die, Carth. I’ve seen – I’ve been everything the Sith are capable of and more – don’t you dare say I know nothing of what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t!” Carth roared. I flinched back from his sudden explosion. “You’ve seen worlds of people you don’t know die – you ordered it! You’ve seen the Sith hurt everyone except those you love – except you. You stood there and refused to give them any information while I and Bastila were tortured into unconsciousness. I thought you were brave, then. Hah. How can you stand there and accuse me of obsession, of ‘falling to the Dark Side’ when that is exactly what you’re doing – exactly what you’ve done? You’re supposed to be a Jedi, Hala. Start acting like one, or else you’ll become Revan again.”

“And what does a Jedi do, Carth?” The plasteel cylinder rose and spun in the air several feet from Carth’s head.  “Tell me. What exactly is a Jedi supposed to be? A floating spirit of goodness, flying through the world bestowing justice and kindness and credits to all in need? We’re human. We feel anger. We feel pain. We – I – felt every moment of the torture Saul put you and Bastila through. What do you know of my past – you only know what you’ve heard. I remember everything now, every reason for why I did what I did. I know all of your story. I know everything that you’ve been through – and you, Carth, you don’t know anything about me. I can’t – I can’t – “ I stopped and swore, hurled the cylinder into the wall and let it bounce off. It hit the ground with a satisfying crash, a heavy dent in one side of the container stopping it from rolling.

“You can’t what?” Carth’s voice was as cold as the ice on Hoth. The anger was gone as quickly as it had come. I was so tired. So exhausted I couldn’t focus straight. It was amazing how much rage took out of me. I wouldn’t admit that it was frightening, too. Wearily, I bent down and set the cylinder I’d been using as stress relief upright. Somehow the simple action made me feel like a normal person, rather than the Jedi I had been striving to become for months, all floating feelings and waving of hands. Carth repeated his question. “You can’t what?”

I didn’t meet Carth’s eyes as I pushed past him. “It doesn’t matter.” He caught my arm and hurled me around fiercely. I hit the side of the passage with a bang. “Ow! Force, Carth, watch it.” 

“You can’t what?” Colder than Hoth. 

“Hey guys?” Mission sounded nervous. Behind her Zaalbar shadowed the passage, his brown eyes fixed on me. Mission waited a moment, but neither Carth nor I said anything. “Um … are you two okay? Sounded pretty rough from the bridge.”

“Go away, Mission.” Zaalbar growled at me protectively, one large paw reaching over to pull Mission behind him. She sidestepped impatiently.

            “What’s wrong?” Blasted street kids, you’d think she knew when she saw trouble too big for her to handle. I tried to pull free of Carth’s stranglehold on my arm. He was stronger than I thought.

“Go away, Mission!” Carth, this time. He glanced at Zaalbar, who roared and in one swift movement picked Mission up and carried her, swearing at him furiously, back to the bridge. I sighed and forced my gaze up to meet Carth’s. Still holding my arm, he dragged me back into the cargo hold. What, were he and Zaalbar telepathic now?

“What is wrong with you, Hala? You’re shouting at everyone, you’re snapping at Mission – Mission, of all people. Even Jolee is avoiding you. And now you’re insulting my dead family and throwing our supplies around the hold. I’ve had enough –“

“You’ve had enough?” I interrupted him, incredulous. “You’ve had enough of what, Carth? Me? The Sith? This ship? Well, tough. None of us are going away for a while yet. I’ve got to ‘save the galaxy’ from the Sith, and you’re here to help me. I can’t –“ Force! I’d done it again. 

“You can’t what?” He was gripping both my arms now, I couldn’t look away and he wasn’t going to let me move until I told him. And then I felt it. She was coming back. I closed my eyes.

“Please. Drop it, Carth.” I hated hearing that pleading in my voice. Made me sound like a little girl.

“No.”

“… Then don’t blame me for this.”

He gripped tighter, suspicion in his eyes. “For what?”

I breathed in, breathed out, and Carth was hurled across the cargo hold to the other side. I stopped him before he hit the wall and made good my escape. I felt like a child, running away from school. Enough. She was coming back. No, she was here.

Bastila burst into the main hold, lightsaber in her hand, eyes worried. She saw me and stopped. “What’s wrong? What happened? I felt a disturbance.”

“An explosion, you mean,” Carth’s voice was icier than Hoth would ever be. “Hala decided she’d had enough of my whining and had a temper tantrum.”

“Whining?” Bastila looked at me. I glared back at her, daring her to use the connection between us to nose around in my mind. I could feel her itching to do so, trying to decide whether to break down my barricades or not. The Jedi training won out. Calm washed over me, peace … I didn’t want to hurt Carth. I didn’t want to scare Mission. I wanted to find the Star Map and live in the Light, as a Jedi –

“Enough.” I fought, struggled, hurled the waves of calm back at Bastila’s mind and threw my iron barricades back up. “Don’t interfere, Bastila, don’t you dare do that again.” I was shaking. Why was I so angry? What was wrong? If I let them go, if I turned and spat at them and hated them … it wasn’t working. They were still here. Carth stood there like the unmovable loyal Republic soldier that he was. Bastila opened her mouth to begin another lecture, I could hear it forming in her mind. I began to be aware that Jolee and Juhani were standing nearby, Juhani with a sack of supplies over her shoulder. Canderous was nowhere to be seen.

“Stop it. Stop it, Bastila! I can’t –“ Again! What was wrong with me? I was out of the hold and heading to the dormitories before I knew what was happening.

 

Curled up on my bed I flicked the pazaak cards backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. I didn’t even see what cards they were; the numbers were blurred, their white backs stinging my eyes as they flickered in the harsh glare of the bunk light. I sniffed and rubbed the back of one hand across my eyes. Force it, now I was crying. I’d gone through complete agony, shouted at Carth and Mission, thrown Bastila’s attempts at reconciliation back in her face and then stomped off here to sulk. They’d left me alone after I’d hurled Carth back into the wall a second time as he tried to stop me from getting in here. I had no idea how long I’d been sitting here. My legs had gone numb. I didn’t want to move. I was supposed to go and find this Star Map, supposed to help Zaalbar find his family again, save the galaxy … the Jedi training in my head spoke in a voice too similar to Bastila’s for comfort. Go and apologise. Jedi do not lose their temper. You’re tipping over. Too close to the edge. Too close. Apologise … you hurt Bastila as well as yourself … you hurt Carth where you should be giving peace and healing.

“Ah, shut up,” I muttered.

“I didn’t even say anything!” Carth’s voice made me jump. I hadn’t even heard him come in. He was standing in the doorway, arms folded across his chest, brown eyes wary. The pazaak cards spilled across my scratchy brown blanket. My legs groaned at me as I straightened and stood up. The dull anger still sat inside me, waiting for another moment to rear up and explode. I was too tired to do anything more now, though. I just wanted it to end, go away, finish. And I wanted Carth to stop eyeing me like I was a pack of plasma grenades.

“Sorry,” I muttered, words unwillingly forcing themselves through my dry, closed throat. I hope I didn’t look like I was crying. “Talking to myself.”

“Wise advice. You should listen to yourself more.” I didn’t know what to make of his sudden change of direction. Carth tried a smile, and when I didn’t throw him across the room again, ventured to take a few steps into the dormitory. He sat down opposite my bunk, shoving a few of Mission’s obscure and greasy mechanical artifacts out of the way. I followed suit, sitting back down on my own bunk. I couldn’t meet his gaze for some annoying reason, so I began to sort through the pazaak cards, placing them in piles according to numbers.

“What … what can’t you do, Hala?” Carth’s voice was empty of all his earlier biting anger but still cautious, so cautious I could almost hear him hold his breath. I stared at a bent card, tried to straighten it out so the plus-two wasn’t crooked. What could I tell him? That I couldn’t lie anymore? That I couldn’t save the galaxy? That I couldn’t look him in the eye because I was so ashamed, so disgusted by everything I used to be? That I couldn’t live like this any more? … That if I couldn’t fix this damned pazaak card, how the Force was I supposed to fix the war?


            The silence stretched on. I twitched the last pazaak card into place and stared at the innocuous pack in my hands, hoping it would all go away if I ignored it. Finally, I sighed and looked up. Carth was still watching me, something odd in his eyes. I’d already caused him enough pain – if not for me, Malak wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t have ordered the destruction of Taris … 

“I can’t pretend I’m a perfect Jedi any more. I can’t pretend I’m alive. I’m not alive, Carth. I am a lie. Everything about me is a lie. From my pretence of being a Jedi to my own name – lie. Revan lied to the Republic, told them she wanted to fight the Mandalorians when she was already deeply engrossed in the Dark Side. She’d already found the first Star Map then … she lied. Everything I am, everything I’ve been, everything I ever will be, is a lie. I can’t pretend that’s – I can’t call myself Hala any more. I can’t sit on this ship being a Jedi on a mission to save the galaxy when it was my lies that got me here. Even the Jedi Council lied. They lied to the entire galaxy when they announced Revan’s death. Hell, even Malak believed them! I’ve … I can’t live a lie any more, Carth. Saul lied to you, and you paid the price for trusting him. How can I let anyone – even you – trust me when I don’t even know who I’ll be when I wake up tomorrow morning?”

He was silent for a moment, a long empty moment. I was so tired of conversations about nothing, of silences so awkward I felt like I was thirteen years old again. What happened to all my calm – well, had I ever had any calm? Not really. Just the superfluous ease of mind Bastila constantly threw at me to hide her own fear. Sometimes I think she forgot I knew what was going on in her head as much as she did mine. Carth stirred, leaned forward. “You’re not … telling me everything, are you?” he said, more a statement than a question. I looked at him, looked at his tired, lined face, battered orange jacket, scarred hands. “What can’t you do any more?” For some reason, hearing his voice speak so – so gently made me angrier than ever, but not at him. I was angry at myself.

“I can’t … I can’t handle you being so close. I can’t watch you fight every day to look at me as Hala, not Revan. I can’t stand seeing the pain in your eyes, because every time I look at you I see the faces of a million people I’ve caused pain across the galaxy. I can’t handle knowing I did that. I killed your wife, by training Malak. I deliberately undermined Saul’s faith and loyalty. I turned on everything I had, I threw it all back in the Jedi Master’s faces and walked my own way. And because I did – because I did that, I can’t look you or Mission or Jolee or Juhani in the face. Any of you. None of you should be here. I should be doing this alone. This is my atonement. You’ve all – you’ve all suffered enough because of what I chose to do. And most of all …” I stopped again, my throat closing over as it had every time I’d almost shouted what I wanted to say most to Carth, Carth alone. He was still leaning forward, brown eyes holding a curious tautness in them. I’d had enough of lying, of pretending to be what I wasn’t. Shame choked my words off again.

“Hala. Tell me.” How? How could I tell him? How could I tell him without him exploding, grieving, fleeing from me in disgust and hatred and more, more betrayal? But I had do. If I was going to get through this, if Carth was going to ask me, then I had to tell him.

“I can’t keep pretending all I feel is guilt. I can’t keep quiet any more. But … I can’t stay on this ship and have you around me all the time, hating me. Not you.” Carth hadn’t moved. I wanted desperately to look away from his intense stare, to go back to flicking cards over, to run back to the hold and throw cylinders around again. I wanted to stop myself from talking, but if I did I would be nothing more than Revan, still.

If I told him, perhaps I’d get somewhere more, somewhere Revan never tried to go. Perhaps I’d find the truth, rather than more lies. “I just … I can’t let you stay here without knowing that I feel like a monster – I am a monster -  for killing your family and then – and then loving you for who you are, for – how you’ve survived that without becoming a twisted, bitter shell. And I can’t let you stay on this ship without knowing just what I am. I can’t lie any more. I can’t stand you hating me without making sure you know the full extent of what you should hate me for."

Done. Said. Finished. If he shot me, fine. Maybe that would be the end, and if I was dead, would I care what happened to the galaxy? Would anyone? No. Most of the galaxy thought I was dead already, and they were lucky to think so. Then again, my confession had come out so convoluted and confused, perhaps I’d be let off the hook again and he’d leave, not understanding, just thinking all I felt was guilt for being an ignorant Revan who had ruined half the galaxy and murdered the rest. I looked down again, back at the cards, waiting for Carth to explode.

The silence stretched. I risked a glance; he was still staring at me, a small frown on his face, brown eyes still so taut. Any minute now, he would scream, he would shout, he would call me the liar, he would throw me out a well-deserved airlock. He drew breath and I tensed, waiting for the curses as he opened his mouth and said, “I don’t hate you.”

The cards slipped out of my fingers and onto the blankets again. “What?”

“I don’t hate you,” he repeated, almost as if he himself was surprised by the words. “But you owe me, Revan –“ Carth didn’t even stress my name, it just seemed to slip out without him being aware of it “- and if you’re willing, then … maybe you can fill the hole you tore out of me years ago. Maybe you can give back what you took. If you want.”

“I wish I could do that for every person,” I said. My voice was getting more ragged, torn, by the moment. What was happening? Why wasn’t he angry?

He nodded. “But you can’t. You can find the star maps, take down Malak – yes. You can’t repair everything, Revan. It’s too big. But you can – you can repair what you did to me.”

“How?”

“If, as you say … you love me, then – then love is the clearest sign of all that you’re not the Revan you were. And I can love the Revan you are. I think I can. I’ve been angry with you because you’re still acting like Hala, the woman who has no clue who she is, but you’ve known for weeks, now. You’re Revan. You don’t have to be the Revan you were. And if I can stop you, somehow, by loving you – if you can stop me from becoming a wreck again – then … I can’t leave it at that, Revan.”

Damn pazaak cards. They fell off the bed, slapped onto the ground in a cardboard hail that distracted us both. I bent down to pick them up and found I couldn’t move. Tears? Again? Not the self-sorrowing tears from earlier, though. I was crying, sobbing for every person I’d hurt and destroyed and maimed and killed. I was crying because Carth, who had seemed such a wreck, one of the worst of my injured millions, had turned and – had he just told me he loved me? Love? For Revan?

Hands on my shoulders, pulling me upright, wrapping around me and holding me like I was a little child who had apologised for hurting their friend. When was the last time anyone had touched me, unless to hurt, to stop me? When was the last time anyone had held me with gentle hands? I could hear Carth breathing, jacket rustling against my ear as I cried for the worlds I’d destroyed, for the forgiveness I had never dared hope to find. I would bear this shame for the rest of my life. Carth’s arms tightened around me and for the first time in years, I felt safe.

“I don’t hate you, Revan,” he repeated softly, voice muffled against the sound of my tears. “You’ll be alright.”