MCA #4, Saturday Morning

[suitably_heroic]

Was it any surprise Atton hadn't slept long? Probably not.

He hadn't been in bed for long. Just a few hours, and then he'd tossed the sheets aside, put on some pants and a t-shirt and padded back into the living room.

He was still sitting there at dawn, on the floor, his legs curled under him. The sun rose steadily outside, and its light poured in through the window. Atton had his eyes closed, but he didn't need to see it; he could feel the warmth on his face.

His mind was elsewhere, out in space, in the preserve, in the millions of tiny lights that stretched out from here up the coast and past the great cities not too far away. Meditating, yes, but mostly he was trying to get away without leaving; to focus on the part of him that wanted this weekend to be over, instead of the part that wanted to make this stick forever.

It was working.

Somewhat.

[[ open if anyone's up this early or scrolled this far back. ]]

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[defiance-exiled.livejournal.com]

Meetra hadn't slept long, either. She hadn't been lying last night: she didn't need much. But she had stayed in the room designated to her until sunrise, and a little while past it.

She figured Atton needed his space. He usually did.

But now the sun had climbed a little further into the sky, and she left her room quietly. She hadn't expected to find him meditating, but there he was-- cross-legged and far gone.

She sat down next to him. She didn't speak a word.

[suitably_heroic]

Which he appreciated. Really, he did. It meant he got to collect his thoughts as he came back down to his screwed-up shell of a body and the reality he couldn't avoid forever.

"There's this girl," Atton said. Finding the words hadn't been hard. Getting them out, though... it felt difficult. Like his throat was going to crack.

"You don't need to know her name. I used to think she always had everything together, you know? Stupid of me to think that; I know better. I mean, not that she wasn't together, because she was. Is. But stupid of me to look at her and expect her to know better than me, right?"

He took a breath. Then let it go.

"I guess even when I was here the first time, part of me still bought into the Jedi myth. You start off as a screwed up Sith killer and then you work yourself up to a paragon of Jedihood, the guy who always knows how to do the right thing, who's out there to make up for all the crap he did," he said. "I was disappointing, the first time I was here. The second time, I had to be better, right?"

He stared at the window. The sun was glaring, but at least those clouds were keeping it from hurting his eyes. Which meant that whatever was hurting his eyes had to be something else.

Damn it.

"Since I came back, every time I look in her eyes, it's like I see that scale, like she's figuring out how far up it I am now. Maybe I'm just imagining it, maybe it's in my head. It probably is. And I can't-- I'm never going to be that guy. I still don't know what I'm doing half the time. What I think is right, sure. But I'm not doing it to even some unseen scale, or to live up to some Jedi ideal. I can't. I wouldn't even know where to start."

He should probably look at her. Probably.

He didn't usually talk this much. Well, okay. Sometimes he did. But he was rambling now, and he knew it, even though he had to-- maybe it was time to get it back to some kind of point.

"It's a nice story, though, isn't it? Our story?" he murmured.

Damn it. Now he was looking at her.

"The broken ex-Jedi and the broken ex-Sith who came looking for a way to square with the past, and saved a galaxy. Too bad it's not true."

[defiance-exiled.livejournal.com]

That was... a lot. Of talk. For Atton.

There'd been a time where getting anything out of him was like pulling teeth. Meetra couldn't say that didn't make her curious, but she remembered how easily he shut down if you pushed him just a little too hard, in any of the million wrong places.

"When I met you, you weren't looking for anything," she said, her voice level. "The opposite, actually."

[suitably_heroic]

"And you never chose to come back," Atton muttered. He shook his head. "If it wasn't for Atris, for Kreia, you'd still be roaming the skies past the Outer Rim, and the last of the Jedi would be dead. But that's not how stories work."

[defiance-exiled.livejournal.com]

"Not usually," Meetra agreed. "Though it's entirely possible the old Jedi Masters never would've come out of hiding. They might still be alive, if it wasn't for me."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton pulled a face. "Yeah, and what a great asset they would've been to the galaxy," he said. "A bunch of old men, hiding away, avoiding the fight. But then that's what the old Jedi Order was anyway."

[defiance-exiled.livejournal.com]

"It was more than that, once," Meetra said. "It could've stayed more than that, if they hadn't pushed Revan and the rest of us to make our own choices."

But that was an ancient slight, in comparison to the situation they dealt with now.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton let out a soft snort.

But he couldn't really argue with that. It wasn't like he'd been particularly aware of what the Jedi Order had been. He'd been involved in a war they'd refused to fight for so long, sometimes it was all he remembered.

"Why did you leave me behind?" he asked, instead.

[defiance-exiled.livejournal.com]

Meetra took in a deep breath. He was going to keep asking, wasn't he?

"Because you couldn't go where I was going," she said. "You'd have wound up as dead as I am."

Had Kreia known she'd die there, she wondered? Or had the old Master predicted something better, something greater for her than what she received?

[suitably_heroic]

"So what?" Atton said flatly. "I should've died on Malachor V. We both know that."

[defiance-exiled.livejournal.com]

She frowned and shot him an appraising look.

Beyond what had happened on Malachor, he'd always been... militant. Ready to fight, never inclined to just lay down and die, no matter how terrible things got.

"...Do you want to die, Atton?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Want to? No. Never. But I wanted to die for you."

There was a difference. There was a huge difference. Atton's life still sucked, and he didn't expect to live long, but he'd still fight for every second of it. Dying right now made no damned sense.

"He tortured me, you know. Sion," he said. Slowly, his voice staggering as he tried to keep the worst of the trembling out of it. "We fought for a very long time, that was the point, to stall for time. He beat me at least once. Grabbed me, promised me he'd remake me. That's when he almost took my arm. I managed to get out, but he made it hurt from that point on."

His voice did crack on the next line. He hated it.

"And you know what, that was fine. That was right. It's how the story's supposed to work, right? Me, the ex-Sith scumbag, having the tables turned on me, sacrificing my life in the same way I killed so many Jedi so something good could be done. It would've been perfect."

[defiance-exiled.livejournal.com]

The corner of Meetra's mouth tugged up; it was not a joyous smile. "Too bad it's not true," she said, echoing Atton's own words back at him.

[suitably_heroic]

"No," Atton agreed. "If it'd gone like that, I would've died on Malachor, and you would've left for the Unknown Regions and come back triumphant, the Jedi hero returned." His words were coming out in big bursts now; he kept talking so he wouldn't be crying and why had he even bothered, why was he even here-- "Instead I'm alive and you died for no good reason and I'm tired of this conversation, Meetra, can you just for once not ask me these questions, please, I'm begging you."

[defiance-exiled.livejournal.com]

"I'm not asking you anything at all," Meetra pointed out quietly. "You're just talking. And talking. And talking."

Not that she minded. Three months of trying to get Atton to crack and talk to her, getting bits and pieces, when apparently all it took was her dying to get him to do it.

[suitably_heroic]

"Yeah, well, you know me," Atton muttered, staring at the tips of his feet. Wriggled a toe or two. "Chattering all the time. Talking crap."

[defiance-exiled.livejournal.com]

She shot him a sideways glance. "You sound like you really need someone to talk to," she said.

[suitably_heroic]

"No, I need you to talk to," Atton said. Wow, look at that big toe, moving independently from the rest. "But I'll live."

As per usual.

[defiance-exiled.livejournal.com]

That's what it all kept coming back to, wasn't it? Meetra rubbed at her forehead, then slid her fingers over her eyes and exhaled.

"Do you want breakfast?" she asked. "I could make breakfast."

[suitably_heroic]

That little laugh that bubbled up was unexpected, and Atton sounded like it when he released it. "You?" he said. "You can't even make toast without burning it."

He nodded towards the kitchen. "But there's pizza in the fridge, just pop it in the microw-- you know what, I'll go pop it in the microwave."

He got up onto his feet.

[defiance-exiled.livejournal.com]

"I'm not that bad," she called after him, but he was already halfway to the kitchen.

[suitably_heroic]

"Yeah, you are!" Atton called back, grateful again for that kitchen wall so he could have a moment to compose himself.

Not that he'd been particularly composed just now. Just... for form's sake. To dispel the little voice in his head that was yelling at him for telling her so much at all.

(It's not like it matters. In two days, no one will be around to remember but you.)