Chapter Text
Nothing ever stays the same on Nar Shaddaa.
It’s a place of constant motion, of ever-present change, where you either keep moving along with it or it swallows you whole. There are no peaceful places on Smuggler’s Moon, not even the Promenade with all of its flashy, artificial beauty only filthy amounts of Hutt money could buy, not the Sky Palaces, where the richest of the rich look down on struggling masses.
Jekk’Jekk Tarr didn’t use to be exactly a peaceful place either, but it was a place to avoid. It might have already been infamous a couple years ago, even before a crazy Jedi walked in and murdered all patrons, but now, it’s also simply unpopular. It’s not like the clientele was squeamish about drinking in a place of a brutal massacre, only that it involved a Jedi, and bounty hunters tend to be a superstitious lot.
Still, it’s quite unusual even for the worst hellhole on the moon to remain without an owner for long, and Jekk’Jekk Tarr was ready for the taking for anyone who walked through the door. A disgruntled Devaronian stranded on Nar Shadaa set up his business there and continued on like nothing ever happened. But it’s not as it used to be. There are still scorch marks on the walls, broken chemicals dispensers standing in corners, and the clientele now consists mostly of addicts, slythmongers, cutthroats and people who are entirely indifferent whether they’ll live to see another day.
Atton used to spend most of his evenings just looking for marks left by a lightsaber, but he couldn’t find any, not here or on any other level. He wasn’t surprised, really, Yaire’s movements were always precise, terrifyingly so, considering the unforgiving nature of her double-bladed weapon.
“You’re gonna buy something or stare at the walls all night again?” The owner’s acerbic tone pulls Atton out of his musings.
“The usual, Zerc,” he orders, perching on one of the tattered barstools.
“Staring at the walls it is, then. With a dash of Dreamdust?” the Devaronian sighs, grabbing a bottle of tihaar from underneath the counter.
“My, aren’t you a comedian. Can’t wait for the day when someone shoots you in the face, ‘cause that will finally make me laugh.”
“Sorry, you were saying something?” Zerc makes a show of deliberately slowly poring the drink. “I just assumed you were talking to yourself again.”
“Why don’t you go take a walk off a landing pad.” Atton waves him off, emptying the glass in one go, and then grabbing the bottle.
He goes to lie down on one of the couches in the furthest corner of the room, where no one bothered to fix the light, and, hopefully, no one will bother him.
Jekk’Jekk Tarr is deathlike-still nowadays. Almost peaceful. He knows it’s not going to last forever, so he’s enjoying it while he still can.
“Wow, this place went from a regular shithole to a miserable shithole. No wonder you fit in so well.”
He would roll his eyes if he cared enough to open them.
“I like it here. If anyone tries to talk to me, I just shoot them and leave them for Zerc to clean up,” Atton cracks one eye open and looks at Mira pointedly.
“Cute,” she snorts, moving to sit at the table. “Mandalorian booze? Really?”
Atton jerks up and grabs the bottle before she can touch it.
“Hands off,” he says, taking a swing. “Are Jedi even allowed alcohol? Wait, are you still a Jedi?” He eyes her outfit, a simple light vest and leather trousers may be a far cry from what she used to wear as a bounty hunter, but they’re no Jedi robes either. “Did you get kicked out or did you miss Nar Shadaa that badly?”
“Can you stop saying ‘Jedi’ now?” she asks irritably. “I can’t imagine we’re exactly popular in this place.”
“Oh, please, don’t tell me you wouldn’t be able to handle a few lowlifes drugged up to their eyeballs,” he snorts, pointing at the other patrons looking morosely into their glasses or fiddling with broken chemical dispensers.
Mira sighs, looking around. “This place doesn’t need any more violence.”
“Well, that was deep,” he says after a pause. “Is there anything in particular you wanted from me? We’re not doing reunions now, are we?”
“You know, I forgot how fucking annoying you are.”
“Huh, are Jedi even allowed such language?”
She slaps her palms on the table and moves to stand up.
“Dammit, Atton! Why am I even doing this,” she hisses. “I never understood what she saw in you.”
“Great, that makes two of us,” he bites out. He feels restless all of sudden, an old, long-buried anger slowly bubbling under the surface of his skin. He tries to ignore it, probably just some asshole released Xyathone in the air again. Fuck knows with these people. “Now, is there anything else, or did you just come to shit-talk my feelings for old times’ sake?”
Mira’s shoulders sag in defeat. For a moment she just stands there, unmoving, a slight frown marring her face.
“Yes,” she answers finally. “Yes, there is. It’s… It’s Yaire.”
He feels frozen in place, his insides gone cold.
“Is it… Did you find the…” body? He can’t make himself say it out loud.
“No, Atton. We found her. She’s alive.”
Dantooine is different from what he remembers. It isn’t just that what he remembers are kinrath-infested ruins, that now got turned back into a functioning Jedi Enclave without rubble and dead bodies littering the hallways. It feels more peaceful now, but it’s peace born out of a quiet routine of day-to-day life, not a deathlike stillness of a mass tomb. He hates a bit that he can feel it, and he builds his walls even higher, makes his thoughts even louder, making the young Jedi-to-be turn away from him in confusion and disgust.
Good. That’ll teach them not to rummage through someone’s mind without permission.
“Try not to attract too much attention.” Mira whispers as they pass another suddenly-wide-eyed padawan. “Mical is going to kill me, if he ever finds out I brought you here.”
“He’s not here, then? Gee, what a shame.”
“He’s away.” Mira gives him an exasperated look. “There’s been some dissent, it seems to be spreading all over the Republic space. He’s dealing with it on behalf of the Order.”
“You know I don’t actually care, right?”
“Well, you should, since he pretty much forbid me from telling you anything.”
“Of course he did,” Atton scoffs.
“Hey, I don’t agree with him, but still, it’s not what you think,” she shrugs. "He genuinely thinks it’s for your own good.”
A blonde padawan eyeing them curiously while pretending to tend to the plants yelps quietly at the wave of murderous rage Atton feels all of sudden. Mira smiles soothingly at the terrified girl and pushes Atton forward through one of the branching corridors he only vaguely recollects.
“Look,” she says, stopping him. “The truth is, she’s not well. We’re still not sure she’s going to make it. And Mical just didn’t want to make you go through losing her for the second time.”
“How magnanimous of him,” Atton’s voice drips with venom. “Just cut the bullshit, Mira, I couldn’t care less about what the insipid moron thinks of me. He’s lucky he has you as the brains of this entire circus, because if I had found out he was trying to keep me from Yaire, I would have hunt him down and broken every bone in his body.”
“Wow, you’re really making me not regret bringing you here, at all,” she mutters angrily and pulls him by the arm further down the hallway. They’re about to turn into the infirmary when she suddenly stops.
“What the…”she lets out a whisper. Atton follows her awe-struck gaze and feels his own breath catch.
There were days when Atton, drunk on Mandalorian booze and high on Dreamdust, let himself dream up finding Yaire again. She would be healthy and whole, smiling at him, while he cracked a joke and then told her how much he had missed her. He dreamed it nice and simple, so completely unlike his entire life. It’s stupid, he knows, Atton doesn’t deserve nice and simple, but it’s fine, because he never gets it anyway. And yet…
There is Yaire, wearing some kind of soft-looking robes in white and pale brown, sitting cross-legged at the steps of a freshly rebuilt fountain and meditating. She’s surrounded by younger Jedi, situated around her in a half-circle, all of them motionless, completely immersed in whatever trance they are practicing . It’s a picture of tranquility, like something straight out of those holofilms that like to portray Jedi as unerring pillars of wisdom and serenity, and yet… there’s an odd, heavy feeling around them, something he can’t quite put a finger on.
The water gently flowing through the fountain seems deafening in this unnerving quiet, so he can hear Mira’s soft gasp when Yaire’s eyes snap open. He feels his own mouth go dry as she looks straight at him, and he has to force himself not to take a step back.
She is…different. Her normally tan skin looks sickly pale, almost paper-thin on sunken cheeks, and her lips are so white they seem translucent. Gone is the glossiness of her jet-black hair, now hanging around her face in slight disarray. Atton knows they’re all effects of severe exhaustion and malnourishment, it doesn’t make her any less breathtaking than ever, and he’d be the happiest man alive right now, if not for her eyes. There is no warmth in their dusky depths anymore, her gaze is cold, sharp and void-like in ways he dreads to think about.
“You know, coming back from the dead, I expected a little bit more enthusiastic greeting,” Yaire says abruptly, almost making him jump. There is a small smile playing on her lips that makes Atton’s heart constrict painfully in his chest.
“Yaire!” Mira runs up to the fountain and throws her arms around the other woman. “You’re awake, thank the Force, I was so scared you were going to expire before I manage to drag Atton here. Shit,” she sniffs into Yaire’s collar.
“It’s all right, don’t worry, I’m feeling a lot better now.” She keeps stroking Mira’s back, while the Jedi around them are coming out of their trance, oddly vacant expressions on their faces. They look at Atton quizzically, but don’t move otherwise.
“You’re not going to say ‘hi’ to me?” Yaire asks Atton, her smile quivering.
That makes him finally uproot from his spot. He walks up slowly and catches Yaire’s outstretched hand.
“We thought she killed you,” he whispers, voice cracking. “How are you alive? We’ve been looking for you! You just… disappeared. I thought you were dead.”
The small smile drops from Yaire’s face and the entire mood of the moment seems to shift.
“I… can we talk about it later, please?” she replies, voice strangled. “I think I’ve overexerted myself a bit today.” She looks at the group of the young Jedi, who have already started to leave, still eerily indifferent.
“You shouldn’t even be out of bed, let alone running around the Enclave.” Mira grabs her arm and leads her down the steps, throwing Atton a withering glance. He ignores her and tightens his hold on Yaire’s hand just before it’s about to slip away from his grasp.
“Yaire…,” he has to suppress a shudder when her eyes meet his again. He’ll get used to it, he’s sure. “I’m glad you’re back.”
“Me, too.” She smiles, and it looks happy in the way he so rarely saw during their travels.
For the first and only time in his life he hates her a little for giving him this sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe, everything will end well.
Atton goes back to sleep on the ship, even though Mira offers him guest quarters in the compound. He doesn’t want to, his body and mind calling to stay closer to Yaire, to hold on to her and take that gift of her being alive at face value. But, no matter what others may say, he hasn’t survived for so long by being needlessly reckless.
He thinks back to the way she looked at him and lets out a heavy sigh. There is something about her now, that reminds him of Nihilus and the emptiness surrounding him, of Sion’s anger burning relentlessly from the inside. She has changed, there is no doubt, and Atton is not without fault. All that talk about protecting her only to fail at the most crucial moment.
It doesn’t surprise him when he hears quiet footsteps reverberating in the silent corners of Ebon Hawk. She walks around the ship taking in empty, once-familiar spaces with a detached sort of calmness. Atton doesn’t comment, cautiously watching her progress, until she comes up to sit by his side on the tattered couch, hands hidden in too-big sleeves of her robes.
“How?” he asks again, softly.
There’s an odd look on her face. Unfocused, unsettling.
“I survived,” she replies, voice hollow. “Malachor can’t claim me. Not then, not now. Not ever.”
“What happened there? With Kreia?”
“Does it matter? She’s gone, too. I am finally beyond her reach.”
Are you, really?
Yaire narrows her eyes. Maybe she caught that stray thought or maybe he’s just that easy to read, it doesn’t matter, he always told her what she didn’t want to hear, he’s not going to shy away from it now.
“I thought there were no more secrets between us, Yaire,” Atton persists, trying to ignore the way her face darkens at his words. “Is it so weird I want to know what happened to you?”
The lights on the ship flicker and then dim, leaving them to sit in near-darkness. Atton can feel her rage burning on his skin, like a brutal force rapidly filling all the spaces between them, sucking up the oxygen, suffocating him slowly.
“What happened?! She beat me and then broke me and there was no one I could turn to! You were gone and I stayed there, on Malachor, wishing I was dead.” Her voice sounds raw, like the venom dripping from her words is physically burning her throat.
Atton catches Yaire’s hands and winces at how cold they are. He half-expected all that hurt and anger to course like fire through her veins, to set him ablaze at the smallest touch.
“I’m sorry,” he says, dropping to his knees. “I’m sorry I left you there. I should’ve looked harder.”
“No,” she bites back, moving away from his reach. “You should have burned it all. And let me burn with it.”