Confession

Companion piece to "A Reason To". Hope you enjoy!

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Everything had changed.

It had been screamingly loud when the world had turned to white; his ears had ached from the clang of vibroblades and the whine of starships outside the windows of the Sojourn, the harsh shrieking of blasters all around him.

Most strikingly absent was the sound of his officers dying around him, the barking of orders and the dull pound of his heart against his chest.

Carth turned around in a slow circle, trying to figure out why everything had changed.

The meaning of the absence of his heart pounding or the sound of his breathing reminded him of what the immediate biological truth was; he was dead.

He felt a certain surreal calmness about him even as he remembered his last moments, lying on the bridge of the Sojourn under the flickering lights and smoking computer consoles, remembered what he had frantically tried to make his last thoughts.

I'm sorry, Jawa. I'm sorry, Dustil, Tova, unborn grandchild. I'm sorry, gorgeous--

The room was empty and grey-blue. It could have been the apartments on Taris, or their old house on Telos, or the sections of Ahto City on Manaan. Hell if he knew or could remember. A fake sun shone through the windows a little past midday.

Someone cleared their throat behind him, quietly enough that he thought he'd imagined it.

It slowly dawned on him what being dead meant. It meant he would not see his Jawa, Dustil, or Beautiful for a long time.

But it did mean that he would see someone else that he had been waiting a lifetime for.

Her face...he remembered it perfectly now. Her black hair hung in gentle waves around her shoulders, pieces tucked behind her ears. She smiled, and it lit up the room brighter than any sun ever could. One look in her dark blue eyes and he was lost in them all over again.

She stood a few meters away from him, biting her lower lip and gently sliding her ring up and down her finger.

'Morgana,' Carth breathed.

'Hello, Carth,' his wife said softly, almost reverently.

He rushed forward and grabbed her shoulders, pulling her to him, against him, up on the tips of her toes to kiss her hard.

She threw her arms around his neck. He remembered the exact spots her elbows and fingers fit into their embrace, the feeling of her smiling against his kiss.

Even after the imaginary sun in the windows of the empty room had gone down considerably, he didn't think he had kissed her long enough. He finally drew back.

'I missed you every day, Ana,' he said, unable to keep from breaking into a grin. He caressed her cheek over and over.

Her dazzling smile made him weak-kneed. He felt twenty again instead of the fifty-six he had been when he had died.

'I've been waiting eighteen years for you,' Morgana said, laughing. 'Couldn't you have sped up the pace?'

'I was waiting for just the right heroic moment,' he replied with a wink.

There were vague concerns somewhere in the back of his mind for the Republic, for the rest of the Fleet caught in the attack, but they felt insignificant compared to what was happening here.

'Where are we? Was this...I mean...this is the afterlife?'

It had Morgana in it, and because of that he couldn't be totally unimpressed. She shrugged, glancing around him like she had just been dumped here moments ago too.

'If there's more, I don't need to see it. I've been watching you and Dustil for years. How could I get bored?'

If she had been watching then she had seen everything, from the Endar Spire on--

Carth's head bowed, refusing to meet her eyes. She tried for a moment or so to get him to look up at her, but finally gave up and just watched him expectantly.

'I...remarried, Morgana,' he forced himself to say. Better to say it now, better to get it over with.

She nodded.

'I know.'

He forced himself to look her in the eye. Morgana sighed brokenly.

'I...know.'

There was silence for a moment, complete and utter silence not even broken by imaginary climate controls or their nonexistent breathing.

'Revan?' his wife said slowly. 'The...Sith Revan?'

He nodded.

'You left us for her.' The old argument was so familiar and he felt strangely happy to be hearing it again.

'You reenlisted because you believed that she and Malak were a grave threat to the Republic. You thought they could seriously topple it and destroy everything. You left us to try and kill her...and now you're telling me you married her?'

'She decimated the Fleet, your Fleet," Morgana continued. She had that slight tilt to her head and that fire behind her eyes that had made him remember two adjectives when trying to describe her to someone else: "She had courage...and she was stubborn". "She destroyed entire planets...Taris and Dantooine, and Telos--'

'Malak attacked all of those,' Carth corrected weakly.

Morgana was pushing him away now, shaking her head in disbelief.

'She was responsible for the deaths of millions of people. Fathers and sons and daughters and mothers--'

Her voice broke on 'mothers'. Carth tried to pull her back into his arms, half wanting to comfort her and half selfishly never wanting to let her go.

'Mothers like me,' she said hoarsely. 'That didn't get to see their children grow up, or...or grow old with their husbands, or...'

She pushed against his chest, trying to make him release her.

'How could you even...with a person like that, Carth?' she whispered, tears dripping out of her blue eyes and down her cheeks and onto her clothing.

'Ana, please,' he said desperately, 'Please, I didn't know who she was when I...when I met her on Taris I thought she was just another soldier like me, and by the time I found out who she really was, it...it was too late--'

'Too late because you were in love with her,' Morgana finished.

His eyes stung. He swallowed the lump in his throat and tried to concentrate on how long he had wanted to hold her, how long he had wanted to feel her soft black tresses fluttering against his neck.

'I saw your daughter,' Morgana finally said softly, sniffling and glancing up at him. 'She's beautiful. She looks like you.'

'You and Celyn would get along great,' Carth answered, brushing her black hair behind her ears and trying to smile.

'I wanted us to have a daughter,' she added. 'After the war was over and you came home...'

'I'm sorry.' His knees shook. He suddenly felt incredibly weak. 'I'm so sorry I couldn't give you everything you wanted. I should have been there, always. I shouldn't have reenlisted. I should have stayed with you and Dustil. Maybe I would have been able to save you--'

'Ten minutes and we're having all the same old arguments,' she said, laughing softly, wiping away her tears.

'If you had been there, you might have died too. And Dustil would have...no one would have been around to save Dustil.'

Her fingers traced the lines of his jacket, and she finally looked up at him.

'I don't want you to feel guilty for that. There was nothing you could have done.'

Hearing her say that, hearing her reassure him of it, suddenly felt like weight he hadn't even known he was still carrying had disappeared.

'She's a good woman, Morgana,' he continued softly. 'She was stubborn and she made me laugh and she helped me find Dustil and I just...fell in love with her--'

His wife stiffened at 'fell in love'.

'I love you,' Carth rushed to reassure her. 'I never stopped loving you. But she changed and she's not the person that killed...that did all those things anymore.'

'I know,' Morgana said. She touched his cheek, running her palm along his beard, and he leaned into it.

'I didn't-- I never wanted you to turn into who you were after Telos was destroyed...you were in so much pain. I wanted someone to help you, I wanted someone to stop you before you got to Saul and destroyed yourself--'

'And she did,' she said, her voice bitter. 'She did stop you. I wanted you to be happy, Carth. I didn't mind it if you remarried, had more children-- but with someone like her...'

Morgana trailed off.

'Dustil's a Jedi, Morgana,' he said, trying to change the subject. 'He's a Jedi Knight, probably soon to be a Master. He started an entire Academy on Telos. He married a beautiful, intelligent girl and they're going to have a baby soon--'

'I know,' she nodded, smiling. 'I watch him all the time. I'm so proud of him. I can't believe all that he's done. He's a good man...just like his father.'

He felt guilty standing here under her compliment. He felt like he was cheating on his wife. Both of them.

"She helped save him," his wife murmured, almost to herself.

"Helped train him too," Carth added.

Because even now, standing here in the afterlife with Morgana in his arms, he thought of Katrina. Somewhere down there on Telos, somewhere barely holding on without him, somewhere in pain over his dead body. He would miss her face and the sound of her voice as much as he had missed Morgana.

Morgana gave him a sad smile, biting her lower lip.

'What happens when she dies, Carth?'

'It doesn't matter, Ana,' he said, deciding that he wasn't going to think about that. 'I'm here with you now.'

Stay strong, gorgeous, he thought, kissing Morgana again. She felt wonderful, like an ache that had been in his joints forever finally easing. Her fingers barely touched the nape of his neck. Her lips were warm and soft, undamaged. Not like the blood and ash and soot he had tasted on his tongue as he had kissed her dying in the ruins of Telos.

Be the good person I know you are. Be the woman I love. Show Morgana how frighteningly easy it was to fall in love with you.