Star Wars: KOTOR, fem!Revan/Carth, the past
Sorry it's so short - this is just how it came out.
Even now, Carth still finds it hard to believe. How could the woman he'd come to know, the one who tried to help everyone she met, be Revan? How could someone he'd come to care about, someone he'd taken to his bed willingly, even joyfully - the first woman he'd cared about since his wife had died - be the callous mass murderer he'd hated for so long?
Sometimes he wants to ask her, to shout, to demand answers. Why? But even that comfort is denied him. She doesn't remember, or says she doesn't, and he's come to believe it's true. Revan no longer knows the answers he seeks.
So instead, he finds himself watching her, staring at the way her skin glows under the ship's light, at the sheen of her hair, and not solely admiring the view. Even when he's close to her, staring into her eyes, sometimes he still searches them, seeking the truth, the person who made the choices he so abhors who must still be there, somewhere underneath.
But if she's there, Carth has never seen her, and he's begun to accept that he never will. This woman is different: she parts her lips under his and wraps her arms around him, surrendering in a way a Sith never could.
Her hands, when they touch him, are gentle, almost reverent; despite the calluses left by lightsaber and blaster, he could almost believe her too gentle to fight. But she is fierce, too - fierce in her affection, in the way she shoves him against the wall of the Ebon Hawk and tears away his clothes with single-minded purpose. And she is strong - he can feel it in the legs she wraps tightly around his waist, in the fingers she digs into his back to urge him on.
And after, crowded into a single bunk, his arm around her waist, he feels a peace he'd never thought he'd find again. The past is still there, still a burden they both must bear, but at times like this, it feels distant, manageable. They aren't the people they once were and he's glad of it. The fallen hero of the Republic is gone for good, and if the woman she left behind is merely her damaged remains, he can't say he isn't grateful. Carth is damaged remains himself, after all.