There were a lot of things to be said about desondency, but the quickest way to get around it, or so I thought, was to stay busy and to stay motivated. People used to motivate me. People, who were fundamentally flawed and broken, as crippled as they were, kept me going.

I'd have to do the same again, and, once back in Khoonda, I began to prepare the settlement for war if for nothing else than to keep it from drastically changing yet again.

It struck me as very strange that the place I'd once loathed for its peace was now what served primarily as its draw. The grass was tall and beautiful on Dantooine, the flowers vibrant and reactive to the intense heat of the sunlight against the cool breeze. I strode pensively through the grove just outside of Khoonda, thinking about how fickle it was that I'd once detested being in places as boring as this and now all I wanted to do was to get lost in the plains somewhere. Go beyond where the sensors were and just become lost.

For the first time since I'd woken up on Peragus, since I'd gone to find the infamous Ebon Hawk, actually, I felt the tug to run away. I stood at the furthest edge of the furthest hill on the furthest outcrop of domesticated land, right where the crops were beginning to grow again in season, and I was overwhelmed by the need of getting to a place that wasn't near anybody or anyone. I thought about it, really, in all explicit terms. Thought about abandoning Atton, abandoning Bao-Dur. I was confident, given my new and increasingly strong connection to the Force, that I would undoubtedly be able to hide again.

Hiding was easy.

From there, I could sit on the outside looking in through a very small, very dim window. That was legitimately okay with me. I could watch through the window as the galaxy burned, and it wouldn't matter because I'd be safe behind my boxed view of the world. And when they came to find me - "they" being whoever they happened to be - I would not run or hide but sit emptily and wait. There wasn't distress with this. There was contentment in knowing that, when I met my end, it would mean the end to a long and gruesome uphill battle. The thought of that rest made everything else so worth it.

But then, when I was tired of contemplating the horizon of Dantooine, tired of staring into the wild that tore me in two, I simply sat down, and my hands were taken up in the painfully familiar scratching of matted grass and dirt beneath my heaped, and yet stock still, figure. I noticed seed pods cropped up around me, little tips of plants poking up through the dirt demanding to be known. I was standing on the site of a battle. I wasn't too far from the Enclave, and I knew, at one point, that the ground here had been razed completely. Black char. Fire and death. And yet, here I was, feeling the culmination of all that wasn't sitting and waiting.

If every farmer who'd ever lived on Dantooine had decided to give up just because there wasn't any land to cultivate crops, everyone would have died. Farmers, simple people who wanted simple things. Strong-willed, tough, but not dimwitted. If they could do it, so too could I.

Feeling invigorated, I made my way back to the settlement, finding the site busy with activity. People were hustling, as if preparing for an imminent stage production rather than a battle, and the pace of it indicated panic and frustration. I felt the ebbing despair of these settlers, who I sensed feared they'd be uprooted once again if I failed. It tugged on my heartstrings, and it didn't make anything any easier. Atton was leaning against a pillar outside, almost pointedly doing nothing, as he scowled at passersby who dared to look at him inquisitively in hopes that it would stir action into him.

Fools.

Atton did what Atton wanted, and that was all that really mattered to him. He was ultimately selfish, and, moody as I was, my tenuous dedication not to abandon him completely made me feel angry and sick to my stomach. I stormed by him, feeling frustrated with the world and my position, and I saw him move from his position to jog next to me.

"Hey, where've you been?" he asked. "Everyone's been looking for you. They were worried."

"No, they were not," I corrected, not looking at him.

I stomped forward, wishing that the galaxy was different somehow. That Atton was different. Somehow, his standing there, waiting for me to return, and all of a sudden that was obviously what he'd been doing, made me so angry. If I died, what would he do to honor me? How would he remember me? The girl with the nicest ass, the woman with the darkest skin, the Outer Rim Rat with the strangest accent. If I mattered, and that was a huge and doubtful if, he'd probably drown out his sorrows with drugs and alcohol and seedy women.

Tears came into my eyes as I rounded a corner to enter the settlement, and still I did not look at him.

What a way to be honored, I thought.

What had the galaxy come to these days?

"Hey, what's wrong?" he asked with what seemed to be sincere concern, a gentle hand yanking me back to the present.

With Atton, it was impossible to tell what was true and what was false, but it was a fool's task to try. So I wouldn't.

"Nothing is wrong," I told him pointedly, clearly through tears.

"Where'd you go?"

"I was running," I replied calmly.

Though, it was obvious by Atton's hesitation that we both heard the last word that I didn't speak out loud.

Away. I was running away.

I felt Atton pause at this. Our connection through the Force was temporarily overwhelming, and I was almost stuck with drowning in it when I couldn't take it anymore.

"Look, why are you following me?"

But before Atton could answer, a man, dressed in Republic robes, ran up to us both.

"Oh, there you are! Come quickly! Some of the militia have been injured!"

"They were looking for you," Atton explained uncomfortably. "I told them I'd find you, but I couldn't."

I glanced between them both, feeling overwhelmed again.

"Why are you telling this to me?"

"You've told me before you were a healer," Atton mentioned. "These guys are just kids. Farmers."

The man who'd come in the robes to fetch us bolted off in the opposite direction, and I followed him quickly, feeling my heart begin to race. I hadn't treated anybody's injuries but my own in a very long time.

We turned a corner and entered a room full of blood and screaming. Almost without thinking, my hand flew to the nearest thing to latch onto, which happened to be Atton's fourth and fifth fingers. I clung to them, looking around, breathing deeply. I hadn't seen this in a long time.

"Jedi, what do we do?" somebody asked me, a faceless person off to the side.

The desperation there was frightening.

But, in a strange way, it made me feel powerful. Strong. I'd never felt that since the wars, and I wanted to hold onto it. Like I was supposed to, I stepped forward.

"What happened to these men?" I asked with authority.

And then there were answers. Plenty of them. Blood. Guts, even. There'd been a firefight and those mercenaries had clearly assaulted these boys. Again, farmers. Strong. Not dimwitted. But simple.

That's all this was. I had to be strong, and I had to simplify. I'd done it once as a girl. I could sure as hell do it again.

Because I'd have to.

Zherron and Neli clearly didn't get along after she'd reported him to Adare, but there was little to be helped with that. They were working together against Azkul, and that was all that really mattered to them both, it seemed. It was almost nice to see them coming together against a common enemy. And Neli was really coming into her own. It was beautiful. Almost frightening, too. She wasn't this big, strong, special person. Well, she was, but I had to hide that I knew that, that I saw that, because if I didn't I would be exposed. Then, I'd have to go off myself somewhere, just get rid of me so the galaxy didn't have to tolerate me anymore.

Neli really was General Hyrra, war hero, leader, military strategist, brilliant tactician. She thought of things that nobody else seemed to, not even Zherron. She healed the sick, she repaired doors, activated droids. Bao-Dur was running a mechanics team, at her suggestion, to outfit the farmer droids with military upgrades that the settlers purchased from the salvagers. Even that prissy Mical was helping out, stockpiling food stores and harvesting all crops to prevent any from being needlessly burned down. That, too, was Neli's idea.

Her attention to detail gave me chills when I thought about it too hard.

She was the real thing. The real deal. I hadn't seen it before. It hadn't been possible. But, like this was what she was born to do. She was the military leader everybody talked about.

The Jedi that nobody remembered anymore.

Including me.

It made me feel uncomfortable and exasperated. It was like watching a priest proselytize a dead religion that everybody knew was false now.

We were sitting outside of the Khoonda, her and I. We shared a rare, precious moment of solitude, just me and her, and the silence that endured was unbearable. I rarely had so much I wished I could say that I would never be able to say. Usually, I didn't care much to say anything, and that was when I realized that I cared, which was infuriating. It was the four month anniversary of meeting her, not that I was counting, but to think that it had been only four months when it seemed like a life time was preposterous to me.

Everything about being where I was made me itch, but I was under the oppressive thumb of my terrible dictator, the old shrew, Kreia.

I was scowling into my drink when Neli finally said,

"If you keep your face long enough like that, it will stay that way."

A joke.

I glanced at her in surprise, and, reluctantly, a smirk played out on my face.

"Stay up all night practicing that line? It was absolutely precious."

"No, but the last few minutes I thought of it, and I thought you would appreciate it," she replied, undeterred.

She was in good spirits tonight.

Good...my brain thought, and something about the calm in her voice made me feel calm too.

"Well, thanks for thinking of me, princess," I drawled to her.

Then, I took a long swig of my flask. Corellian ale. The good stuff.

"But I guess I'm not that special. You seem to think of everyone."

I glanced at her, and her brow was furrowed now.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I guess the Jedi code is still alive and well. We're attracting an awful lot of attention."

She was silent for a moment.

"Do you want me not to help them?" she asked.

I huffed into my drink.

Truth was, I didn't know. But I sure as hell wasn't going to say that.

"Don't you think it's a little bit of overkill to stop and help out every other person in the galaxy that begs us for help?"

She thought about it.

Neli always thought about it. I loved that about her. She really wanted to answer questions.

"I think if someone suffers, we should help them if we're capable. And we are, aren't we?"

"I wouldn't say we're in much of a position to do anything," I replied seriously. "We've got Sith on our tail. Can they say the same?"

"But it isn't a race," she said back to me.

Her language barrier came in a little, and I fought a smirk.

"It isn't a competition, you mean?"

"Yes," she said to me seriously, "I think if someone can be helped, we should. You don't think so?"

"But what I'm saying is that it isn't that we shouldn't help people, it's just that we need more help than they ever would."

Neli narrowed her eyes at me, as if deep in thought.

"But how do you judge this?" she asked. "Someone who stubs their toe might have pain and someone who is shot in the back by a blaster will also have pain. Both must deal with pain, it's just varying degrees of it. Don't you think pain is relative?"

"No," was my reply, feeling a little exposed now. "No, I don't."

She waited for me to continue, so I did in a rush before I could talk myself out of it.

"Pain comes down to whoever feels it worst. Anyone else below that can shove it, for all I care. They don't have any right to be complaining to us about anything. Like I said, they don't have Sith dogging them, and we do. Still, they will be the ones who give away our position because we are helping them. You see my hesitation..."

She smiled goodnaturedly at me.

"I disagree," she told me.

"Oh yeah?" I challenged, entertained by the this repartee. "And what is it that you think, princess?"

"I think..."

She thought some more.

"I think that we have a ship. A crew. We have food. Credits. We have your blaster, Bao-Dur's intelligence, Kreia's preachiness -" (I smiled at this.) "- and I think we have many fewer problems than most others right now. We are lucky."

"You didn't mention you in that cute little list you've got there," I mentioned.

She thought about it again, a new toothy smile breaking free.

"I am the label of the team!" she said, giggling like a young girl.

She looked years younger when she did that, and I smiled with her, feeling unfamiliar and warm and nice.

"The label, huh?" I asked. "Pretty damn hot label."

She giggled again. For the first time in all the time that I'd known her, she seemed pleased with this comment on her looks. Like the giving of some tension inside of me, I felt the need to laugh when I never laughed, from a place that never saw the light of day. Relief mixed with pride struck me, and I couldn't help it. I laughed.

Then, we both laughed.

And it was stupid and silly and neither of us knew why, but the laughter was healing and glorious.

"I must have drank a lot more than I thought!" I said breathlessly, trying to reel it in.

It almost felt too good.

"Maybe I can try some, and we can see," she said.

We both paused at this. I just stared at her.

"I thought you didn't drink," I asked cautiously.

"I don't, but maybe I'll try it. If you let me."

Shrugging, curious, I handed her the drink, and she sniffed it. Then, she recoiled.

"Ugh!" she cried.

I laughed a little again.

"What is this?" she asked.

"Corellian ale," I corrected her. "And that stuff is expensive, so enjoy it!"

Without hesitating, she dipped her head back and took a swig.

The next moment, she was coughing and spluttering, and I couldn't help but laugh again.

"That's disgusting!" she cried, handing me back the flask. "You keep it!"

"I will, thank you very much!"

And we laughed again.

And for a moment, just a moment, there was peace between us. No suspicions, no fears, just us together, laughing before the evening of the storm. And even though I wasn't sure I agreed with everything she said or did all the time, thinking about the fact that she preached forgiveness and helpfulness and compassion, it gave me hope for myself. A dangerous hope that I hadn't felt in a long, long time.

A fool's hope, perhaps.

But nobody had ever accused me of being wise.