She was still so beautiful.

Despite the fact that Lux was utilizing a blank expression and a mental block to partially disguise his current state of mind, underneath it all, every second Sorena stared at him with her alien yellow eyes was chipping a piece of his heart away.

It was a few moments before she spoke. "You're not like the others," she said, cocking her head as if something confused her ever so slightly. But her unsettling little smile never wavered. "The Jedi and his Padawan, they don't know the Force like the Order did during the Republic. They're weak. But you... You're a mystery, Teri. Who are you, really? And don't lie to me. I can see through it."

He sighed, trying not to show any of the pain he was feeling. "Don't you know?" he asked, his voice hardly above a whisper.

"Look at me."

Lux managed to lift his head, meeting her eyes once more.

"I have lived long enough to see the same eyes in different people. I know your eyes – they are those of a soldier, of someone who will fight for the weaker side even if he knows the situation is beyond hopeless. Someone who should by all rights be weak but somehow finds reserves of strength to call upon by ways of passion for their cause." Her eyes narrowed to catlike slits. "The eyes of a rebel."

"All of those are true," he said, calming his thoughts to the best of his abilities, "but you're also missing the point. Look closer."

Taking his invitation, Sorena exhaled softly, deep in thought. "But there's something else. You question orders. You're not just a fighter – your first instinct is to negotiate. Actually, you're quite like someone I knew back on–"

Suddenly, she went completely still, her entire body poised as if preparing to strike. Lux knew she had connected the dots between his appearance that he guessed had seemed familiar to her when they had fought a few hours before, and everything that could be determined about him through his eyes. "You," she hissed.

"You know who I am," he told her, looking upon her coolly. He knew he was treading on dangerous ground, but he had to be sure she knew. "I want to hear you say it. My name."

She bristled at that, her yellow eyes burning a spot into the floor in front of her. But she refused to speak.

"Say it."

"Aluxso Prowyn Bonteri," she said in a tone that wasn't far short of a snarl, drawing every syllable out to its full length. She looked up at him from the confines of the force field poisonously.

"Miss me?" Lux smirked mockingly at her, but he knew the time for games was over. A light directly over her force field prison began to flicker, and he could feel as well as see Sorena's whirlwind of powerful rage manifesting around her as a breeze pulled at the folds of the blanket beside her.

With a yell of fury, she extended her hand to wrap the power she had generated around his neck with enough power to break it in less than a second. But, try as she did, nothing happened.

"How is this possible?" she asked, darkly amazed. Despite the fact that all the effort she was putting into trying to choke him was making her tired, she doubled her efforts.

Lux stood up calmly, entirely unaffected by the energy that should have killed him, crossing his arms behind his back. "Are you acquainted with the ysalamiri of the planet Myrkr?" he asked. "Their sole predators are creatures with the ability to use the Force. To survive, they developed an ability to create bubbles empty of the Force around them."

It was then that Sorena broke off her attack. She scrambled to the far edge of the force field, as if under the impression that she was surrounded by ysalamiri.

"But the actual specimens are difficult to find and care for. I bought a few jars of oil made from their skin from a trader a while back. I painted a ring of it around your force field while you were still on sedatives. Some information from the Force can reach you, but you can't project anything beyond that circle, physically or mentally."

"To do this to a Force user? Cutting them off from everything they've ever known?" She glared at him. "This is cruel."

"No. It's cruel when you're a Force user with a live ysalamir next to you, and I've had that done to me more than a few times," he corrected her coldly. "It's cruel to leave your closest friends in the dark, leaving them to grieve you when you're still alive! It's cruel to just leave me like that, after all those years we spent together!"

"I did what I had to do to survive!"

"No, you did what was easy. You threw your lot in with the Empire, the very dictatorship you swore to destroy!"

"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!" she screeched. "You don't understand anything I went through that day! That blast broke almost every bone in my body, and you left me for dead!"

In that moment, all of Lux's anger and pent-up emotions evaporated. "I– I don't know what you're talking about," he said softly, his eyes wide. "I could never do that to you and live with myself, Ahsoka, I–"

"Do not call me that. Ahsoka Tano died that day, burnt into oblivion by the bomb that vaporized the base. And I was the one born from the ashes as Lady Sorena." She looked him right in the eye, her yellow-and-red gaze unyielding. "And the day I took on that name I made a promise. I swore that if I ever saw you again, I would kill you for leaving me behind when there was still a chance."

Sorena smashed her fist against the wall of the force field, ignoring the pain it had to be causing her. Instead, she was letting it fuel her; letting it fill her depleted reserves of power in the way that only those who embraced the Dark Side of the Force were able.

Bluish-white sparks began to dance across her clenched fingers, slowly spreading across the inner surface of the force field until the entire thing was covered in wreaths of deadly lightening.

"Whatever fire into that force field will only make it stronger," he said, trying to calm his beating heart at the terrifying display of power.

"Technology is nothing compared to the power of the Force. I will find a way out of here," she assured him, "and when I do, you will die. By my blade. Then go the crew, and their pathetic Jedi leader. Hm... The boy I might take as an apprentice. The Dark Side is... strong in him. He is allied with the Light for now, but it's only so long before the right kind of pressure is applied and he snaps..."

"Not..." Lux stopped himself before his voice could rise too much. "Not Ezra. Not any of them."

The barest hint of a laugh made its way up her throat. "You still have that strange little habit of caring for people you hardly know, I see."

His hands curled into fists.

"But you know it won't do you any good. All the kindness in the galaxy wouldn't." Sorena looked at him, a malevolent smile on her dark lips. "When I get out," she said, her voice little more than a whisper, "you had better be ready to run."

With that, she turned her back to him, the unsettling smirk never leaving her face. Then she crossed her legs under her and began to meditate.

Lux knew that she had nothing more she wished to impart with him. And she wasn't the sort of person who said anything more than she meant to. Besides, shaken as he was by what he had learned, now would be a good time to leave.

And leave he did, but the minute he was through the door, his legs caved out from under him. He slid to the ground, cradling his face in his hands. She's lost to me, he thought despairingly. Now I'm left with a stranger wearing her face like a mask.

Before he knew it, tears were running down his cheeks. He tried in vain to wipe them away, but it was worse than it had been when he'd first found out that she was alive and had allied herself with the Empire, just a short while before. But back then, he hadn't lost hope that she was still... well, herself. But that foolish desire had just been hammered brutally into the ground. Her very memory hurt.

He hardly even noticed it when he heard the familiar footsteps coming down the hallway. Nor did he feel like looking up.

But then, a pair of hands, calloused in places from working with metal, gently lifted his face from where he had buried it in his arms. Kaya Ti looked down at him, a sad smile on her face. "Oh, Lux," she whispered. Then, without any pause or ceremony, she pulled him into a warm embrace, letting him lean on her.

For a few long minutes he just let himself cry on her shoulder as she rubbed the short locks of hair at the nape of his neck soothingly. But, feeling as though he had to explain himself for his actions, he began to speak through the sobs to the best of his abilities. "Kaya, I– I'm sorry, I–"

"Shhh." She hugged him tighter. "Don't try to talk about it. It's not ready to leave your system yet. And besides, I think I already know."

He nodded against her worn grey shirt, hoping that the gesture was perceptible through his body's periodic shaking fits.

"Love is... It's just so weird. It's got this way of suddenly dropping everything you ever wanted into your lap and then takes it all away just as fast." She sighed. "We've just got to push through it and not let it get to us. It's the best we can do in this insane galaxy we live in."

"T-thank you," he whispered.

"Don't mention it. You need someone right now, and I'm more than okay with being that someone. I'm here for you."

Managing a small smile despite the tears, Lux closed his eyes again and tried not to think about what he was going to tell Maddox and the others when he saw them next.

*HELLO MEH LOVELY HUMANS!! How are you all in the middle of the night? (Or whatever time it is where you live.)

So here I am, creating insanely angsty moments and throwing references to both the EU canon and TFA canon left, right and center. It's the battle between friends as old wounds open up once more, and poor Kaya Ti (also known as the queen of giving phrases two meanings) is still trying to wrap her head around the situation and try to figure out if she has a chance with Lux now that the one he loves is back in his life.

I mentioned some new stuff here that will be explained in detail in future chapters. One, I said something about a bomb going off and a base. Two that Sorena seems to think that Lux abandoned her when she needed him most. And three that her survival depended on unknown factors, but whose nature makes her want to kill one of her closest friends... Who may even have been something more than that to her.

I guess we'll just have to wait and watch as the flashbacks unfold and see what more is revealed about our cast of characters, whose lives have been twisted for better or for worse by this strange little AU of mine...

And AGAIN Maddox is mentioned. (Hi, Storm.) But who is he, exactly? What sort of part could he have to play in both the past and future of this fanfic? You'll just have to wait and find out in the next couple of chapters ;)

Also, today I was reminded of a tragic, but sadly unchangeable fact pertaining to my existence as a student: EXAMS. They start in less than two weeks for me, so I have to study as much as I can. This means less writing time, but I'll see what updates for fanfics I can squeeze into my now considerably busier schedule...

Meh, I'll worry about that later. I'm going to bed.

May the Force be with you,

Sharron