The room she woke up in was white and empty.  Too white.  Too empty.  The lights were at half, for her benefit she presumed, but they still echoed harshly off the bleak, blank walls.  She was lying on her side, hands curled tightly beneath her chin, covers tucked snugly around her shoulders.  Carth was sitting in a stiff-looking chair next to her bed, reading, but the lines that creased his forehead spoke of his distraction.  It took her a moment to remember where she was.  The Temple.  On Coruscant.  Carth shifted and sighed, throwing his datapad to the floor and scrubbing his face with his palms.  He glanced at her, out of habit it seemed, and was startled to find her eyes open and lucid.

The room, she now realized, was familiar.  “Am I in jail?” she asked hoarsely.  A ghost of a smile tugged at her lips as Carth looked away and nervously rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand.

“We…ah…we didn’t know what else to do with you, to keep you safe,” he admitted finally, still unable to look at her.  She didn’t respond.  There was no clock, she noticed, not that she expected to find one in what was, after all, a prison.  The silence stretched between them, and finally Carth ventured, “Do you remember what happened?”

She could tell, from the slight twang of hope in his voice, that he wanted her to say no, she didn’t remember, it was all an accident, a terrible mistake.  But it wasn’t an accident, really, and her only mistake was forgetting about Bastila, so she said as much.  Better to be honest, at this point; lies were what had gotten her into this room in the first place.

“Oh.”  Carth slumped forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees.  He looked deflated, lost.  She should feel guilty, she knew, but with the blood of billions of people on her hands this seemed rather inconsequential.  Carth would get over it.  Carth would get over her.  It would be better this way.

There was a hesitant tap on the door before it slid open.  Bastila’s brown hair, normally delicately braided, was instead pulled back into a messy bun, loose strands falling in front of her circle-rimmed eyes.  For a moment the two Jedi stared at one another.  Bastila would get over it, too, she reminded herself.  “The Council told me you were awake,” Bastila finally said softly.

“They’ve been watching me.”  It wasn’t a question, merely a grim observation.  Clearly she had fallen far enough to require a prison cell, constant surveillance, and someone in the room with her at all times.  Privacy was a luxury you relinquished when you tried to throw yourself off a building, she supposed.

“Yes.”  Also trust.  And dignity.

Bastila stood awkwardly behind Carth, fidgeting with the hem of her robes, her face a study in conflict.  Finally, she heaved a sigh and sat down at the foot of the bed.  “That was an incredibly foolish thing to do,” she said at length.

“It was worth a try.”  She struggled to sound flippant, but couldn’t bring herself to put much effort into it.

“Did you not, even for a moment, consider the consequences of your actions?  I know you to be impulsive, yes, but did not consider you capable of such selfishness.”  Bastila’s lips were pressed into a fine, pale line.

She almost laughed.  “Bastila, if the Council sent you as my psychiatrist, you’re not doing a very good job.”

Bastila wasn’t amused.  “The Council didn’t send me.  I came because I am your friend, your bondmate, and because last night I was forced to throw you across a rooftop to stop you from killing yourself!”  Angrily, Bastila pushed herself up from the bed and paced to the other side of the tiny room.

Carth was still as a statue next to her.  “I spent a year protecting you from the Sith, from the Jedi…” he began in a low voice.  Bastila turned and pinned him with a glare for that comment, but he didn’t notice.  Finally, he looked up at her, and the grief in his eyes was palpable.  “I know I promised to protect you from yourself, but I just don’t know how anymore.  Why did you have to do this now?  Why now, when we’ve finally won, it’s all over and we could be…”  His voice trailed off and he looked away again.

“I couldn’t live with myself any more.  I didn’t want to make you live with me any more.”

In one fluid motion Carth was standing and then kneeling next to her on the bed, her face trapped between his calloused palms.  “Don’t ever presume to make that sort of decision for me!” he snapped.  She tried to pull away, but he held firm.  “I love you and I want you in my life.  If you’ll let me.”

Bastila was leaning up against one of the white walls, her fingertips on her temples.  “Stop,” she pleaded.  “Just stop this.  Your…your self-destructive behavior is doing nothing to bring back the people you’ve killed or alleviate your guilt.  You’re only…” She let her hands drop.  “You’re only causing more pain.”

“Just let it go,” Carth whispered.  He began to rub his thumbs across her jaw.  Her eyes filled with tears.  She didn’t deserve this, any of this, she deserved death, she deserved to suffer billions of times over, once for every life she has taken, until the end…

“Let us decide what you deserve,” Bastila murmured.

“You deserve to be happy,” Carth said softly.  His fingers were ever so gentle against her skin.  “Let us help you.  Let me help you.  Please?”

With a nod, she pressed her face against the worn leather of Carth’s jacket and sobbed.

* Fin *