Kanan's disoriented thoughts refused to make sense of what was happening. He tried sitting up, but he was strapped to a metal table. "How am I alive?" His voice was hoarse as if he had been screaming.

"Kanan! They did something to you—"

Kanan's eyes shifted to Adaara, quieting her. Gritting his teeth, he looked away, ignoring the flare of pain in his chest. He didn't understand why she was strapped to a matching table next to his or how they were alive, but he couldn't bring himself to speak to her.

"Kanan... they gave you something, but I don't know what it—"

"If you want the details of what we gave him, all you had to do was ask." Dasram, a Sith Kanan had encountered years ago, entered the room, twirling a needle around in his hands.

"How am I alive?" Kanan growled.

"I take it that you wanted to die then? Couldn't bear the thought that your precious wife betrayed you, eh?" Dasram watched Kanan with an unreadable expression.

"Betrayed him? What are you talking about?" Adaara glared at Dasram.

"We gave you a drug that showed you your worst nightmare. Everything that just happened to you... was a dream." Dasram turned around, shuffling through cabinets to fill the needle with liquids.

Kanan swallowed, closing his eyes. He tried calling to the Force, but it trembled in response. Anger burst inside him, beating in time with his racing heart. A dream? Is that possible? How desperately he wanted to believe it was just a horrible nightmare. That she never betrayed him, that they were still married with a child on the way.

Either way, they were being sent to die, so what difference did it make?

"Don't do that, Kanan!" Adaara hissed. "Giving you that drug was meant to make you give up and I can see it on your expression that that's exactly what you're

doing. Don't give up! Don't let them kriffing get to you!"

Kanan's eyes snapped open. "You don't think I want to believe it was a nightmare? That you betraying me to the Empire was just a terrible dream?"

Adaara jerked against her restraints, making her lekku fall to the side of the table. "Is that easier than facing reality?"

Again Kanan closed his eyes. This time, the Force wrapped around him, containing his anger and clearing his mental vision. "Maybe." Without opening his eyes, he sighed. "You're with child and we're being sent to die. Maybe knowing we were already dead was much easier."

His meditation was interrupted by Dasram who slammed the needle into his arm, making Kanan wince. "After how many years it took us to find you, I thought you were a force to be reckoned with. Yet here you are, begging for death. Pathetic. Maybe your wife should have betrayed you."

Kanan snarled at him, trying to slam his head against Dasram's. Dasram used the Force to glide out of the way.

I'm stronger than you think, Sith, Kanan wanted to say. I'll stay alive and protect Adaara and our unborn child. Instead, he simply closed his eyes and called to the Force.

His strength didn't matter. The Force inside him was all the strength he needed.