Between the Light and Dark Side

Time heals all wounds. Perhaps... perhaps not. Time gives distance to think though. Which I've been doing. It's been like... three months now, I think. I'm not sure really, since Kale and Tobias left. Tobias went home and got his leg fixed. And Kale went somewhere else.

I don't know where he went. It hurts not knowing.

But it's given me time to think about myself and about what happened over the past couple of years. It was fine in the beginning but then it changed when I found Kale. No, he'd already changed a little. There's no one to blame for it. I could blame Carcer or Tobias or Revan or even my father or myself. I could blame the Force for it too. Kree'sha. I think it's one of those things that just doesn't have any blame to attach. It just happened.

Perhaps if things were different, but they're not, so I shouldn't think about it.

Kale wasn't Kale... no, that's not right. Kale was Kale, but a very changed Kale. His Force powers re-emerging along with his psychometry in Revan's house, absorbing all of that. Before that with Zhin-Ja and whatever happened there. He never told me, but I never saw him so angry at a person before. I never saw him know another person before.

He was angry, surrounded by gray and dark siders, absorbing things and then he just got completely overwhelmed. He became someone else with all those different minds in his head. I don't think who he was ever came back. I think he died that day when Tobias cut him off and someone else was left. Someone who only called himself Kale because that's what we called him, who had Kale's memories.

It's probably just wistful thinking on my part though. Kale was Kale. A very hurt down to the soul Kale. Tobias hurt him. Good old noble Tobias. I thought for a while Tobias did it so he'd have someone like him around. I know that's wrong now. Tobias wouldn't hurt a fly if he could help it.

He wants to save the whole world.

What happened, I think, was just the opposite. I think Kale wanted Tobias to hurt as much as he did and I think ... I don't know... I think he did what he could to do that. When he wasn't trapped in his own head and his nightmares. There's no way I can ever know what goes on in his head any more. I don't want to know. I may never know. I may never see him again, him having slunk off into the universe without saying good bye, and me without a way to track him.

I just wish now I knew what to do with my life. It always seemed so clear before, and now I have nothing. No path in front of me. No map or ship.

Force... I just. I just want to get so drunk I can forget all this.

I hate feeling so rudderless and useless.

Trever let the tiny kitten gnaw on his fingers as he stroked it with his other hand. Or her. Zina, or Darth Zina as he called her. Tobias didn't like the Darth part. But she belonged to him, so he could call her whatever he wanted to. The little black kitten with large amber eyes somehow knew the difference between him and Kale. Perhaps by the way they smelled or perhaps because it could sense Kale's lack of connection to the Force. He figured it was more the former than the latter. Though Kale did feel wrong.

Which hurt him. It hurt to be near him.

He knew it didn't hurt Tobias, because they were the same. Both cut off from the Force.

Still, he wanted to be held by Kale. Wanted to hold Kale. Let him tell him everything would be all right. Tell him that everything would be all right. But he knew that it wasn't true. That they were separated. Individuals now. Even if they did have their moments. But that was only resonance. An echo. An old habit. Of knowing the other so well that they could predict the other's behavior. They were just pretending, really. Not that they told anyone that.

They just smiled and pretended that everything was okay.

And now he had a kitten that liked him and not Kale. That followed him around, except when attacking Tobias' ankles. It was strange to have something he couldn't share with his brother. Or wouldn't be shared.

Somehow, he was glad about that.