Teaspoon of Honey

[Hal Terrano]

There hadn't been a fuss.

It made a certain amount of sense that when Hal Terrano's name popped up on the passenger system that a few alarm bells went off. A former Republic Jedi affiliated with the One Sith just showing up on a pedestrian shuttle wasn't really the standard protocol for these kind of affairs. The men and women waiting for him upon arrival were understandably nervous, although their apprehension was entirely wasted upon him. Just doing their jobs, he imagined.

They detained him, and he had complied with a stiff politeness that could have only emerged from him. Probably wasn't what they were expecting. Terrano simply did as he was asked, stoic in the face of his own imprisonment on behalf of the Galactic Alliance. He did however, make a single request.

“I would like to see [member="Avalore Eden"], please.”

It wasn't perhaps the nicest backdrop in which to place fallen Jedi. Deep within the earth, surrounded by all-consuming magma that burned in shades oft associated with the Sith. Reds, yellows and orange. Perhaps it might have been more fitting if it were underwater, or at the very least more relaxing, especially given the state of those who would find themselves buried down here in isolation.

Hal quite liked it. After all, nature wasn't inherently good or evil. It was just...well...nature. He sat cross-legged in the chamber, considering a 'magma archive' of sorts before deciding that he would much prefer a simple design for himself personally.

In the back of his mind he knew that he was avoiding the issue, distracting his mind with trivial thoughts to avoid thinking about...

Frown.

It had been years now.

Should he have come? Was he ready? Would he ever be ready? Likely not, he wasn't a particularly dynamic man, but still, in the quest of his own personal absolution it was a necessity. He had to see her.

Why?

Just to let her know that he was alive? To apologise? To confess? Just to see her face?

Frown lines deepened, becoming veritable trenches as time and wear had marched ever on. What if she had changed too much? What if he had changed? What if she didn't come? Didn't want to see him? What if she hated him? As ever doubt stood as the dominant force within Hal's mind.

What would he even say?

 

[Avalore Eden]

Katarn Homestead - Sulon

"Opi...Opi? Could you hand me my comm, it's just there on the table."

It was a hot day on Sulon, moon of Sullust. Unusually so given the season. Avalore sat under the shade of the patio roof watching the twins crunch on sweet ice while she fed Svora a bottle of chilled formula. Today had been a trying day between the heat, awaiting a call from Stali, and her developing pregnancy. Three months in, four months engaged. Their marriage was on hold until the man disentangled himself from the Hounds - a tall order as any, but the warfront had died down. Stali was out on assignment, though nothing quite so dangerous as his previous missions had been, and he was expecting to be on his way home any day now.

Avalore awaited that call with patience as thin as a spiderweb. Her next appointment with the Doctors hinged on his return date; she wanted him to be there.

Her comm was chirping from another table across the way and she held out her hand as the massive wookie nanny gently passed it to her. Heart fluttering in her throat momentarily, it caught as she found it wasn't Stali's code, but that of the Sullust NJO command.

"H-hello? Master Eden speaking."
"Good day, Master Eden, hope I'm not interrupting. I have some ...urgent news for you."
"Urgent? Is it Stali? Did he get hurt? I can mobilize at once, just -"
"No, Master Eden, Master Peradun is perfectly fine. This is a different matter of urgency. I have a man here who came in on a civilian ship whose identity came up on our watch list from the disbanded One Sith. He's asking for you, specifically."
"Yes?" Avalore's brow furrowed, "Who is it?"
"Hal Terrano, Master. We thought you would want to know right away, considering your history and standing bounty."
"I..."

She felt the color drain from her face to form a lump in her chest. Her pulse froze and mouth went dry.

"I'll be there right away."

 

[Hal Terrano]

He wished that he had asked for a book.

The prospect of waiting in solitary without any constructive distractions was a daunting one. Just there, along with nothing but his own thoughts as company. Who knew when she'd come, if she'd come. For all the man knew, she was on the other side of the galaxy.

At the very least time offered preparation. What would he say? Hello, Avalore? In a rare moment hidden away from the galaxy Terrano actually snorted at the very notion of such. They hadn't seen each other years, and given the dire circumstances that it all fell under it would have been so typically ridiculous for him to open with 'Hello, Avalore'.

Standard Hal Terrano, with all the social awareness of a skraal.

He would shift every once in while, taking the time to stretch out his legs when he had been sitting too long. How long was too long? Hard to say, time moves differently in captivity.

But least he was there, at least he was trying. Only a few months prior he had been in no fit state to even entertain this idea. When thoughts of the healer had broached his thoughts he had been forced to swallow them down lest they consumed him entirely. She was unavoidable. Always caught unaware, she appeared in botanical volumes and bowls of porridge. Found lurking in the absurd slang of pedestrians. Teaspoons of honey.

Thank the Force for the intervention of Master Kismet. It was almost preposterous that a Jedi Hal had once read about from half a millennia ago appeared then and there at the library in a time of need. Almost.

Even still, in the face of progress the man was scared.

Did she know? About what happened to him, about what happened to Lira? Likely those two subjects alone might have filled the brunt of the conversation. Not very appealing topics to talk about, he considered not even mentioning the former, but Lira Dajenn had to be mentioned. Her death would forever lay upon his mind, especially given that it was in part his own fault.

Eventually he returned to sitting cross-legged, hands upon knees and posture straight, stiff. The only giveaway of apprehension was the small speckle of yellow that was displayed across blue irises.

---

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

Could it really be this time?

Avalore silently recounted the number of false claims over the years. The NJO and Alliance had been accomodating in her desire to press the bounty for Hal through their network, even offered to bolster the reward. Numerous fake Hal Terranos had appeared after that; turning themselves in, brought in by low-tier Bounty Hunters. Every time was just a little harder to handle than the last. [member="Kana Truden"] had even gone for the last one in her place only to return shaking her head.

Not him. Not Hal.

Avalore still had dreams about the Sanctuary. About his eyes. The video. About Coruscant. Prakith. Manaan. Especially Manaan. How different things could have been if she had just been there for him. Jedi weren't supposed to have regrets or fears but certainly they were two things she was intimately familiar with. She'd spent years teaching herself to overcome them but if there was one thing Avalore Eden could admit it was that those things were difficult to defeat.

Perhaps she really was a bad Jedi. Maybe she wasn't truly a Jedi at all.

~~

"Is it really him? Do you think?" she wrung her hands within the sleeves of her Healer robes, brow knitted upwards in an expression she felt she hadn't worn in a very long time.
The Captain nodded, "We believe so, Master. We took a blood sample to be certain - everything matches up."

Avalore felt like her heart was a war drum and someone was beating upon it in a frenzied stacatto, pushing the air from her lungs and making it hard to breath. She wished quite suddenly she had her Kasha Stone with her. How long had it been since she'd given that to Kana? It was him. It was really him? Couldn't be, they had to have made a mistake.

She had to see for herself and yet ... the fear was filling her up.

"This way, Master Eden."

This hall was a familiar one - Avalore had walked it before when coming to see Kana, as well as various other Alliance prisoners over the years. It wasn't a pleasant place to be, understandably it was never meant to be so, but it made the journey all the more difficult as the heat set in. She tried to breathe deeply as the lift slowly descended, tried to find her center but there would be none of that. The desperation to rush past the doors and the guards, to see him NOW, to know NOW once and for all if Hal was really alive, that he was ok was exceeded only by anxiety of the immediate future.

What had happened to him? What if he had changed? She knew he had and yet she hoped he hadn't. Wished he'd remained the same stoic Hal that stood as her rock all those years ago.

The lift gates hissed open and a plume of overwhelming heat greeted her with the glow of the magma chamber beyond.

"Master Eden?"

Avalore's hands tingled. Fire. She was scared to death of fire. Looking down they were blackened and charred, engulfed in flames.

"Master Eden..."

She felt a hand on her shoulder and blinked the vision from her eyes. The Guard gave her a patient look, "Are you alright?"

"Yes," she choked, lying, and nodded, "ehm - lead the way."

Ten steps. Twenty steps. Thirty. Had it been this long to Kana's cell? Avalore's heart beat so fervently that her chest ached. She tried to maintain a look of calm but inside she was utterly unraveling. They stopped at a door along the gangway leading into a connected cell suspended over the bubbling magma pit. Her heartbeat was in her ears and her hands trembled.

When the door finally hissed open and Hal looked up everything in the entire universe stopped.

Avalore stood stunned, face white like the ghost she'd expected to see, incapable of saying anything.

[member="Hal Terrano"]

 

[Hal Terrano]

Even after what must have been a few hours the archivist still had no idea of what he was going to say. Was there a protocol to these kind of scenarios? Were there things that he was supposed to say while avoiding others? Was he supposed to say it all? Every thought and emotion that had been oh-so-typically bottled up over the years?

Even he winced at the thought of that.

The longer he waited the more rattled the man became, the isolation cell proving to be a foe rather than a friend in the face of nervous anticipation. No turning back. Couldn't just ask nicely to be released and flee from the situation at hand. Trapped.

Why trapped?

Wasn't this supposed to be a good thing? Avalore had been his friend, his only friend and while unrequited she was something even more than that, as destructive as it had been. They were both alive, they were both presumably well. Then why this sense of dread? Why fear? Too many questions and none of the answers.

The door hissed, devastating the silence that had surrounded him.

His head moved on instinct, snapping upwards to look. All the preparation in the world wouldn't have saved Hal Terrano from that moment. He could have planned an entire speech and it would have been lost in the moment that his eyes touched upon hers.

Silence.

So much had changed and yet it felt like nothing at all. Both there, in the silence, ignoring things that needed to be said. Just as it had been after Manaan.

Brow furrowed, his saffron mottled stare finally being torn away and moving to settle upon the ground. Was this it? Did they just regress into this wordless stasis? In every single other scenario Hal craved that silence but here....not here...

The man shifted from his position on the floor, he was slow and cautious in his movement, as if he feared startling her with anything too sudden. Posture remained, back straight, arms by his side, practically exuding all of his social awkwardness right there and then.

“Say something. Please.”

---

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

The Guards had stepped back to give Avalore room, but they hadn't left. Their concern was well-founded, given the nature of his bounty and his wanted status as a known One Sith Lord. She wished they were gone, standing there feeling lost and overwhelmed with emotions a Jedi aught never feel. Her doubt lingered with her like a dark cloud.

Was this Hal. Her Hal? Or was this a Sith operative? Brainwashed and sleeping until she let down her guard? There had been rumors that the One Sith had not truly disbanded, but merely gone underground. Rumors that a new surge of Sith had appeared elsewhere in the galaxy, sewing fear and destruction. Was he with them?

Had he ever truly left them?

Many had doubted her faith in Hal after his first rescue from the Sith so long ago on Coruscant. How the tables had turned. Now it was he stuck in the cell and she come along distraught and wandering through depths of confusion.

Yet that second of hesitation, of the man breaking eye contact to stare at the floor told her exactly what she needed to know. This was still the Hal she remembered - the one that had seen her through some of her life's greatest challenges. The one that had rescued her from her deepest fears. The one that stoically recited the Jedi Code when he found her wandering astray, reminding her of their duties, making her a better, stronger person. Wiser than she had ever been, a greater Jedi than she could ever hope to be.

Avalore blinked at the sting of her eyes and felt her lashes grow heavy with equal parts regret and relief.

"Say something. Please."

"I love you," not but a second after his words finished had hers escaped her lips. Words she'd left unspoken for years - that should have been said so long ago.

"I always have. I'm so sorry I never told you when you needed to hear it the most."

 

[Hal Terrano]

It wasn't real.

Those words, they weren't...they couldn't have been...

His face shifted, the first emotion rising to the forefront was hurt. Brow still furrowed, but did not sit in the same manner as it would in his typical frown. His lips were drawn back, eyes beginning to swirl with colour anew in anticipation of this pain. Still Hal stared at the ground where she stood.

"I thought..."

The archivist had dissected what had taken place upon Manaan almost obsessively. The argument, their respective stubbornness, his outburst. That stiff, awkward and painful declaration of love. But no scene was replayed more than the moment in which Avalore walked away.

His own conclusion had been made. The feelings he had struggled with were not returned. That should have been it. But no, he had held onto it, thought about it, replayed it again and again like emotional self-cannibalisation was what he was born to do and well, wasn't he just so damned good at it. At first it was just four little words.

She doesn't love you.

Like a wound it had festered, as time passed the meaning changed, surely aided by the nature of his surroundings.

She doesn't care about you.

Even when Terrano rampantly tried to keep thoughts of her at bay he couldn't. At first he did it in fear that the One Sith would pry open his mind and find her, but then eventually he avoided those thoughts to protect himself.

She hates you.

Not even that. His final conclusion had been a dagger through the chest. In some ways it hurt more than anything than Vrag could have ever inflicted.

She forgot about you.

“I thought you...”

The words came out so slowly, each syllable struggling to leave the man's mouth as any and all mental preparation he had come with was instantly shredded in the wake of her words. Hal couldn't even finish the rest of that sentence, his hands coming up and cupping around his face, as if it was worth hiding his features from her now.

---

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

"When you didn't return from that last mission..."

The Healer's eyes shut, lines of the mental anguish began filling the expression there. Of all those memories once carefully packed away and now slowly being uncovered again ... she felt her hands slowly coil into fists within her sleeves.

"I sent so many messages. When you never replied Lira left to go look for you," Avalore felt her lungs burning for air and sucked in a deep breath that would have been a sob were she crying, "then Lira never returned. I didn't know what to do. I asked for help from the Jedi Order and the response was disappointing. They were busy with the war effort against the One Sith so I went to the Cato governing body to plead with them for assistance. I bargained with them for a bounty reward. I put up everything I had left from Diana's inheritance."

"A Kiffar Bounty Hunter took the job. When he returned from that place with nothing but Lira's staff and told me what he saw in it ..."

A pause. Avalore lifted a shaking hand to her head, feeling that state of undeniable fragility returning. The one that made her leave the Sanctuary and hole-up on Commenor. The one that kept her from leaving her tiny apartment there for so long to follow Stali on his grand adventure to join the Alliance. The one that very nearly ruined the Healer.

"I didn't do enough. I should have done more to find you..."

 

[Hal Terrano]

Just like that and Hal almost wished that they could return to the silence.

Almost. Almost because he needed to hear what Avalore had to say, for both his own sake and for hers. Was it closure? Was it just so they could continue tormenting themselves further about what had long since occurred? Couldn't go back now, couldn't change it. Had to accept it.

The man was thankful that his hands were obscuring his face, a sharp wince flashing upon his features as Lira's name was spoken. Snap. It was a matter that had to be spoken about. That didn't make it any easier however. On a grand scale, Hal's time spent with the One Sith was relatively peaceful (his own personal torment aside). He did not kill. He hopefully never would. However...

Snap.

It wasn't much of a relief actually knowing how much Avalore had put into finding him. Diana's inheritance. A bounty hunter. Kiffar. Too much for his sake, for his worth.

His hands moved from his face, slowly as if they had found some kind of revelation. What did he tell her? What did she know? It was two-parts fear, one-part sickness. It lurched in the pit of his stomach, a heavy weight of apprehension at what she might have thought of him now.

Snap.

“No. You shouldn't have.”

Hands now down by his side, digits trembling.

“I let Lira die.”

He could still remember it. Vrag had brought him to the planet of his initial disappearance, frustrated by his abject weakness. Lira had been looking. She found them. When the fighting started the archivist had been unable to even lift himself off the ground. Hal! Help! It took too long to spur him into action, and even then he was ineffective.

He remembered Vrag using him as a human shield, letting the young woman's lightwhip carve into his back. He deserved it, deserved it and so much more.

In hopelessness he told her, screamed at her to run. She didn't. She didn't run, and all he could think was who exactly instilled that stubborn defiance within her in the first place. His interjections had been weak, frail, not enough. Each time he charged recklessly towards the black beast he was tossed aside.

Couldn't stop her getting hurt. Couldn't stop her pain. Hal could picture her hand, dismembered and still gripping the lightsaber in the mud. He could still hear that sound when the Sith broke Lira Dajenn's neck.

Snap.

Tears welled and shame burned hard across his face. You always cry, Hal. You cry because you're weak, because you're a coward, because you're useless.

“She was so young,” he said, each word drawn out with anguish, “she had so much potential,” face twisted, features contorting in self-contained hatred and pain, “she was a good Jedi...and...”

Snap.

“...I let her die! It should have been me!”

---

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

"Don't say that."

Avalore could not deny the pain of losing Lira and the greater wash of confusion and anguish upon learning that Hal had been present and not stopped what had happened. Mind and heart collided for an internalized battle of grief and blame. Was it Hal's fault? Could he have done more to stop it?

Could anyone have stopped what happened to Lira?

All these years and Avalore still liked to think she was in control of her life, but happenstance and circumstance had caused her more and more to believe some external power was driving events beyond her control. Beyond everyone's control. She hated the idea of fate because it made people less responsible, less accountable for their actions or inactions. But what if no one could have saved Lira? What if it had been her time to die? The Healer's brow knit together, lips drawing thinner and thinner.

This wasn't about blame. This wasn't about who was responsible or not for the events that took place that day. This was about today. About now.

She moved forward, towards the man that had been her rock for so long. The roles had changed again - always between them, the roles they held with one another had been an ever-evolving beast. When she stopped to stand before him she felt both small and full of purpose.

"Hal," the voice she chose was a quiet one and it accompanied her motion to gentle take up one of his hands in her own, "I don't know what happened to you. I don't really know what happened that day. You don't have to tell me, I'm not asking you to - it won't undo what's done," her frown was faint as she took that hand of his and held it in her own. The scars were still there; they would always be there.

"But I know the kind of man that you are; the kind that takes great challenges and pain and darkness upon himself and hides it from the world. The kind that will always care for others before himself, every single day. The kind that doesn't know when to ask for help because he fears the judgement of others. The kind that would cut out his own grief and regrets before admitting them."

Avalore's face strained from the memories. From the day they first met to the last day she ever saw him. Repressed over the last several years, the visions of Hal Terrano from Ossus to Manaan to Ceto and beyond seeped forth and began to escape as thick tears silently gushing from her eyes. She squeezed his hand and pushed a wavering smile on her face.

He was here, he was safe, and Avalore Eden finally found closure on a horrifying chapter of her life.

"Let me help you Hal," her voice broke despite being quite soft, "I am stronger than I was before. I promise you I can bear the burden this time."

 

[Hal Terrano]

Don't say that.

Why not?

Was it not true? For all of their respective worth, would it not have been the better outcome for Lira Dajenn to be standing right there in his place? Somebody who had potential, somebody who had strength, somebody that would do something. What was his worth? What had Hal Terrano ever brought to the galaxy that Lira was not capable of? She would have done more, she would have done good.

In that moment he had expected condemnation, thinking that those cannibalising thoughts would come to fruition as the woman he loved told him that yes, he should have been dead instead of Lira. Told him that he was weak, a coward, a failure. Told him that she hated him.

The reality was, of course very different.

There was a flinch as Avalore's hand touched his own, minute but still real. He had always been a creature of physical isolation, but now it had been so long since hands with no ill-intent had been laid upon him that Hal's instinct lay in fear. On the surface he may have been left mostly intact, but the lasting damage was gouged deep into his mind.

Fear. Doubt. Such emotions had always been present within the archivist, this much was known, but when left alone in the realms of the One Sith they were amplified. What were once personal burdens became tormentors in their own right, less a hardship to overcome and more a part of who he was. Even now, as he looked down at her hand, mind flashing back to dark marks, carved flesh and a strong scolding he expected the healer to pull back and tell him that everything he had ever thought about himself was true.

Like so many nightmares before.

But there she was, irresponsible, ridiculous, porridge-hating, amusing, compassionate and stronger-than-she-knows Jedi Healer, Avalore Eden. Smiling up at him even through the tears. Offering help in the place of rejection.

Why?

Instead of giving doubt a voice the man stumbled forwards, crumpling while wrapping his arms around the smaller woman, burying his head into her shoulder. It was awkward, clumsy and in all actuality Terrano was probably squeezing too hard.

A desperate acceptance of an offer given.

---

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

"Uff-" the man had nearly knocked the wind out of her in the sudden assailing of an embrace. It was the sort of hug she would have expected from him - abrupt and anxious, but so far as she could recall it was one of the first he'd ever given her of his own accord. It might've turned out nicely for the pair, given a few moments to reorient herself, but Avalore soon felt the weight of the man as his knees buckled and he collapsed to the floor, bringing her with him, squeezing tightly.

"Hal-" she cringed as she attempted to keep them both righted, and glanced back quickly as the pair of Guards moved to intervene, thinking she might be in danger. Avalore shook her head at them, motioning with her free hand for the pair to stand back before attempting to soften the crumpled Jedi with a bracing hand. One arm looped over his shoulder, Avalore clung about his neck as the pair of them settled finally in a heap of Jedi robes and emotion.

"-I've got you now," said the Healer into the side of the man's head as she adjusted herself and brought both hands up to squeeze him back, "and you're going to be OK. I'm going to get you out of this cell and set things straight. We'll make things right again." She wasn't a Marshall anymore - feth, she wasn't really much of anyone to note within the Alliance at present time. Upon learning of her current....condition, Avalore chose to take a leave from her active duties within the New Jedi Order. To take time for herself to get the Homestead ready for yet another resident. To be with her boys and Stali and raise her family. To tend to the trees and help Gabe put his own life back together. To be there for Jacen and his son as they mended fences.

Smile fading as she thought of all these things, Avalore gently stroked her hands over Hal's head and shoulders. So many things had changed over the years for her in so many ways. How would she integrate Hal into this new life? How would she tell him about her family and her fiance? About the baby on the way. How would he react? Would he be happy for her? Jealous?

...heartbroken?

Where did she begin?

When did she begin?

Suddenly this wasn't as easy as getting a man out of jail.

"Say something Hal."

 

[Hal Terrano]

There was relief.

He had been so accustomed to taking every single moment of rising pain and pushing it back down. Every thought bottled. Every emotion buried within, never to be shared with the world around him. To let it all go in that moment caused Hal to physically crumble, legs giving way as if they were simply just tired of the weight of it all.

Shame didn't permeate in his collapse. No pride to make a peep at the sight of the larger man practically tumbling onto the healer, and embarrassment couldn't be found in the fact that he would leave tear-stains upon the shoulder of the woman's robe.

All this time. All this fear held for this one moment. Years of nightmares that held visions of rejection, mockery and scorn. Every time the archivist might have dared to imagine this moment it was consumed by the never-ending doubt. He thought she wouldn't come, that she'd turn her back or tell him just exactly how much of a disgrace he was, how much of a burden that he had been and that she had been glad that he had disappeared.

It wasn't true, it was ridiculous of the archivist to even consider such ideas but in time and in torturous isolation they had grown to be just as factual as all those books that he had read.

Dispelled in a single embrace.

Usually with Hal words were something of a conundrum. He only spoke when necessary, or when asked a question to which he had the answer. In emotionally charged circumstance, especially involving Avalore Eden most dialogue revolved back to two little words, usually said slowly and with great difficulty: I'm sorry. This time however Terrano did not conceal what was inside his head.

“I don't want to be alone any more,” he replied, voice muffled and breaking slightly as the words were almost sobbed into her shoulder.

---

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

"Oh, Hal-" Avalore frowned into the embrace, her grip of him tightening. What did she expect him to say? It had been years. Years since they last saw one another. Years since any news on the man had reached her. If only he knew how much he'd haunted her every day.

"You're not alone. I'm right here."

I've been here all along, she wanted to say, waiting, wishing, hoping for you to come back.

But had she given up her search for him? Had she lost hope somewhere along the way? Had she moved on from Hal Terrano or had her new life simply distracted her from the nightmares and flashbacks that still plagued her days? Avalore grimaced at the thoughts, turning to kiss at the side of the man's head before simply resting her chin on his shoulder. The Healer's hands smoothed across his shorn hair and along his back as he wept upon her. Within her own chest she felt a knot of guilt and grief mixing in a concoction of relief and happiness. She felt ill but she did not dare move. She would sit there with him all night if that's what it took for him to feel safe again.

"Where have you been Hal," Avalore intoned quietly, no hint of accusation, "where have you been all these years?"

 

[Hal Terrano]

If he could have chosen to stay there in Avalore's embrace for the rest of time, then he would have without hesitation.

To make up for time lost. To make up for all the things that should have been said. Those words that had cycled through his head over and over and over again upon Cato. Words and thoughts that desperately wished to burst out but were kept under strict lock and key, both concealed and suppressed as if they were dangerous. Inappropriate. Unbecoming. Disgraceful.

Then they did become dangerous.

Surrounded by predatory figures bearing naught but harm and steeped in a nexus of the dark side all those things left unsaid festered and changed. Even now, even in this moment there was a small part of him, right in the back of his mind that cast those same familiar doubts and fears. That this might all just be a trick. She hates you. Same thoughts, same notions. Even now.

A soft kiss graced upon the side of his head caused the man to bury his face even further into her shoulder, arms instinctively squeezing tight as if he was afraid that she would let go. Don't go.

Please.

This time it took a few seconds to gain a response to her question, as he attempted to gather some shred of composure in which to answer with. Slowly he lifted his head, a likely relief for the healer's shoulder but the archivist did not remove his arms from the desperate embrace.

“Prakith.”

Where it had all started.

“Byss.”

The Archives.

“Wherever she wanted me to go,” Hal said, voice not far from a quiet whimper upon speaking that last sentence. The she in question was reserved for his captor and tormentor. Vrag. The woman that snapped Lira's neck, the woman that had broken him and in wicked determination tried to force him into a new mould. It was still difficult to say if she had had much success in that venture.

Would he have to tell her what she had done? Could he? Would Avalore even look at him any more if he did? In a flash, weathered features scrunched for a second, as if real physical pain had surfaced so suddenly.

“When the One Sith fell,” he started slowly, eyes flecked with the yellow so representative of fear, “I didn't know where to go.”

---

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

Memories flowed forth, freely as if they'd happened only yesterday.

Prakith: a place of plight and rescue. They'd first attended the fortress world to collect young Lira Dajenn. Their return saw them arriving at the Sith Citadel in ruse - Hal acting the part of his Darkside brethren, taking Avalore in as his prisoner - all to save a Princess. The reality of that day had been a difficult pill to swallow. It had been one of the first times she'd ever truly doubted whether Hal had left the Darkside entirely. His acting had been...more than convincing. She supposed doubt was a natural reaction when under stress and terrified of being found out.

Byss was not a world she had visited but she knew of the place well enough. Another fortress world - but what had been there for him? How had Hal Terrano, the Archivist, thrived in a place of militial walls and war culture?

Then he brought up Her. Avalore felt her brow tighten as she tried, actively, to supress the memory of the video sent to her. The very thought of Hal enduring such torture at all, let alone having the visual, had been enough to send the Healer into a tailspin breakdown. Were it not for [member="Kira Talith"], she very likely would not have recovered. Instinctively her hands clutched at the fabric of his robes a bit more tightly. Holding on to this moment was of utmost importance after all the years of painful wondering, regret, guilt, depression.

"And where do you want to go next, Hal?"

 

[Hal Terrano]

It was an important question, especially in the face of their closure. Where did he want to go next? What was next? What would he do? Too many questions, too many variables but at the very least preferable to that voice of doubt. However, in the now, in the face of that question there was only one real answer to give.

“I want to go...home.”

Home only meant one place. No, not Byss, certainly not Prakith and nor was it upon Tython. They were all places where he had lived, but Terrano had never considered them to be home. The word home held different connotations. Things like comfort and warmth, a place where you can relax and that you looked forward to coming back to.

A place, or a person?

His arms finally loosened, the man pulling back slightly so he could actually look to her, as opposed to trying to bury himself into her shoulder. Brow was still creased, the Yuuzhan Vong biots that sat in the place of his eyes swirled a sickly yellow on top of a dark blue, ever shifting, ever changing. Not the icy blue that the woman had once gotten to know.

“I want to go to Cato Neimoidia.”

So much time had passed. Was home even still there? Both in a physical sense and in a sense of mind. It had been years. Even if the archivist's fears hadn't come to fruition, it didn't mean that things would still be the same, it would have been foolish to even think that.

Would it even be the same? Or would it be tainted by memory and time lost.

---

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

She let the man slide from her grasp, her own hands remaining at his shoulders as he sat up. Avalore knew what she hoped he would say, but she couldn't be sure it was really where they needed to go.

"I want to go ...home."

The Healer smiled. It was an expression that broke the barriers of her willpower to remain the level-headed Jedi of the situation. The stalwart. The rock. Thick tears filled the corners of her eyes and beaded out at the edges, running down along the smile lines and over the flesh of her cheeks.

"I want to go to Cato Nemoida."

Avalore's smile deepened with a mixture of warmth and sadness. She had no idea if the Sanctuary would still be there though she had taken every effort, every precaution to make it so. Abandoned, the place had been shut down under lock and key over ten years ago. There was simply no telling what the war between the Republic and the One Sith and any convening government in the system since then might've done to the place.

It could have been discovered.

It could have been destroyed.

But, she thought as she looked the man in the eyes, smile faltering momentarily as she noted the swirling colors, it could still be just as she left it. Overgrown, dusty, lonely, yet never truly forgotten.

"That," Avalore found she could not hold his gaze and instead let her eyes wander to study his face instead. She lifted a hand from his shoulder and pressed it to the side of his head where she brushed her fingers over his hair and down the side of his neck where they rested, "sounds real nice."

A nod, she pulled the man over gently and leaned up to kiss his forehead, "To Cato, then."

[member="Hal Terrano"]

 

[Hal Terrano]

There was a small inward notion that called for Terrano to correct Avalore's grammar, a tiny stern voice that demanded that Jedi speak properly, and not with the use of slang and colloquialisms. The briefest of thoughts that made it seem as though nothing had really changed.
Really nice.

But it had.

A rare but strained smile struggled to make its way to the surface of his features as the healer granted his forehead with a soft kiss, fear and doubt still etched hard in the back of Terrano's mind.

---

It had taken a small amount of time for Avalore to get him released from the cell, and then time was further spent leaving Sullust and making their way to Cato Neimoidia itself. Once there, a small transport shuttle took them as far as they needed to go, and then the rest was on foot across the massive sky bridges. More time gone there.

That time gave way to conversation. Catching up on the years lost between them, Hal would have much preferred to hear what she had been doing with her life in his absence, but the archivist was never going to be the one to command the topic of any kind of personal discussion. So ultimately he had ended up talking about himself, which was always an uncomfortable scenario.

Still, Terrano explained in typical monotone detail about the events largely following the collapse of the One Sith. The initial wandering and not being sure of where to go before he found himself working in a small public library on a backwater planet. It was quite a mundane place to end up, but it was oh-so-typically Hal Terrano mundane.

It moved on to the chance meeting with one Bethany Kismet, a Jedi Master from a time long before theirs. That had been an entirely too surreal encounter, and really chance was the wrong way to describe it. A sign through the Force. Hope. Progress. He deliberately skipped over the detail of his Sith Poison affliction and the eventual cure of the ailment and instead moved onto the latest chapter of his existence. The Order of the Sacred Lotus. It was a fledgling idea, something only just begun but at the very least it was a glimmer of hope and a sign that his own personal struggle was at an end.

Then he had come to see her.

He needed to.

The clouds of Cato Neimoidia hung so thick and low that it was an actual impossibility to tell if the temple still stood. Nature choosing to cloak the sanctuary in the place of the temple's own presumably failed systems. It added a mix of uncertainty to the air as they made their way across the bridge, a standard grim silence falling over the man as he walked.

Still, they would find out if it still stood soon enough.

---

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

Though Avalore had always prided herself on being a good listener, she found in the many hours and days spent between Sulon and Cato that she was more actively questioning everything the man said ... internally, rather than simply listening. Not to say she wasn't hearing him - more over that the words he was speaking, instead of firmly planting them in place to the mental scrolls serving as memory, she was taking those words and turning them into questions.

Unspoken, but questions nevertheless.

As they found the final bridge to the Sanctuary's peak, Avalore realized finally that she'd been doing just that. Perhaps it was for the better, as the ceaseless wheel of wonder had distracted her from how heavily her heart was pounding. How light her head felt. Physical strains she knew all too well, though it had been many years since she'd experienced them. The Healer gently cleared her throat as Hal took the lead across the bridge, taking a deep breath to steady the wobble of her senses as she followed after him. They got a little farther than halfway across the slowly swaying bridge when Avalore was hit with a dizzy spell and stumbled, falling to a knee.

"Uff-" she looked up, pushing strands fallen loose from her braid back out of her face. Hal was right there, of course, he always had been before, and she smiled meekly as he stepped back to assist her.

"These bridges...took me forever to master them the first time here," the Healer accepted a hand up with a weak laugh. It wasn't the bridges. Her feet had, surprisingly, found their memory for the sway easily enough. It was the pregnancy. "They're probably one of the only things I didn't miss about this-" she cut off, abruptly, brown eyes looking past Hal towards the rise of shadow behind him. A short breeze crossing through the gorge had sent a layer of clouds billowing away, revealing an overgrown but still very much intact Sanctuary temple.

"Oh...it's still here," she marveled breathlessly.