Pain split Cyria's head as her eyes flickered open. She moaned slightly, shifting on the bed as she tried to get her bearings, but whenever she attempted to raise herself up off her back, the pain surged through her skull and made the very thought of moving unbearable.

Slowly, she became aware of a presence, someone sitting beside her. Turning her head slightly, her eyes landed on Sev, looking at her worriedly.

"You –" Cyria snarled, trying to thrust herself up again. The pain just lanced through her head, thousands of tiny knives stabbing into her brain, and she sank back down onto the pillows with a moan. Her lips drew back in a growl. "You," she repeated, her chest heaving with anger.

"Cyria, I'm not here to hurt you," Sev said softly. He raised his hands, one of them holding his lightsaber. Before she could react, he had tossed it away, and she heard the soft thud as it hit the floor. She flicked her eyes toward the sound and realized with a start she was back in her small apartment. "You fell from the speeder and I caught you. Will you let me explain about earlier? You need to trust me – we're in danger. But I will explain first."

Cyria's eyes screamed murder as the pain in her head subsided again to a more manageable level. "I don't need an explanation," she hissed. "You came to kill me. You're a damn Jedi Hunter."

"You are right," Sev said quietly, glancing down. "I am a Jedi Hunter. I did come to kill you. But when it came down to it, Cyria, I couldn't. I couldn't kill you. I love you."

Cyria curled her lip in disgust. "I don't believe you. Your kind can't love anyone but yourselves."

Sev met her gaze. "'There is no emotion, there is only peace. There is no passion, there is serenity.' Are you saying the Jedi were any freer to love than I am?"

"The Sith can't love," Cyria spat. "The dark side has no love, no compassion. The Jedi were the ones who helped people!"

"'Peace is a lie. There is only passion. Through passion I gain strength.' Cyria, I am permitted to love."

"But you can't," Cyria insisted. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. "Sev, you remember everything they taught us at the Temple! How –"

"Everything they taught you," Sev corrected abruptly. "They taught me next to nothing, Cyria. Instead, they sent me to Takai to join the AgriCorps, to spend the rest of my life tending planets like an ungifted farmer. If it hadn't been for my shift in alliances when the Separatists arrived, I would be dead."

"Shift in alliances?" Cyria repeated.

Sev nodded. "I attempted to fight Count Dooku. I had a lost lightsaber from one of the Jedi at the base and I used it. But of course, I failed. I had only been a youngling when I was rejected – the Jedi had taught me nothing.

"Dooku promised to teach me the ways of the Force. He promised me my life. He had an opening for an apprentice, both Asajj Ventress and Savage Opress were out of the way. So I agreed, vowed loyalty to him, and I learned of the dark side."

"Traitor," Cyria hissed. "You betrayed us."

Sev sighed. "Perhaps. I didn't feel I owed much to the Jedi, after the thing I had been dreaming about my entire life, training for my entire life, was stripped from me without redress. And I didn't want to die for a cause that hadn't cared too much for me in the first place."

Cyria glared at him as Sev laughed bitterly. "Can you blame me, Cyria? Can you blame me for that?"

"Yes," she answered promptly.

"Really?" Sev asked, faking surprise. "Really? Correct me if I'm wrong, Cyria, but I think you abandoned them, too, after the Jedi Purge. Or why else do you not carry a lightsaber with you anymore, not even one hidden on your person? Why else do you not use the Force? Why, Cyria? I don't call that loyalty, I call that abandonment."

"It was survival," Cyria retorted, furious. A small part of her, however, could see the truth of Sev's words. What sort of Jedi am I, after all?

"That's exactly what I was doing," Sev said, a grim smile twisting his lips. "Surviving. It wasn't worth dying for, so I decided not to." He nodded at her. "Seems you made the same decision as me."

"There's a difference," Cyria insisted. "I didn't betray all the values I held dear, I just went into hiding. That difference is crucial, Sev."

Sev's smile faded. "In that moment, it was either turn or die for me, Cyria."

"You should have died," Cyria said hopelessly, wincing as she heard how heartless she sounded.

"I was sixteen," Sev said, his eyes growing distant. "I had the barest training in the Force; everything I learned after leaving the Temple applied to the growth and care of plants. I was using a lightsaber not my own, and I hadn't practiced with one since I was eleven. And I wasn't fighting any lackey, I was fighting Count Dooku. A master in –"

"Form II," Cyria and Sev finished together, and Sev gave a weak laugh. As younglings, they had heard the same story from Jocasta Nu, the chief archivist, of the former Jedi's skill in the style of fencing.

"So can you forgive me my choice? Can you honestly say you would have chosen to die, if you had been in my place?"

"I would very much like to," Cyria whispered.

"I thought that, too, once," Sev replied.

"But Dooku is dead," Cyria asked, furrowing her brow. "If you were his apprentice, how did you stay alive after he could no longer protect you?"

Sev raised an eyebrow. "Because while the Clone Wars still lasted, Dooku volunteered me for several dangerous missions assigned by Darth Sidious himself. I handled myself well and so when Dooku was killed by Anakin Skywalker, Sidious offered me a position as a Jedi Hunter."

"How many have you killed?" Cyria demanded, dreading the answer.

"Two," Sev replied grimly. "In any case, I wish I hadn't. But at that point, I had been too far gone. Or so I had thought."

Cyria narrowed her eyes, shoving the pain away as best she could as she stayed still. If Sev decided to kill her after their chat, she wouldn't stand any chance at all, not if she couldn't control and minimize her pain.

"And then I met you."

Sev's voice had softened, his eyes had grown distant for a moment, as if remembering the day they had become reacquainted. Cyria, too, flashed back to that day in the open air market, at the Kyyten speila stall where she had been bargaining for the crisp, tangy fruits. After striking her deal, she had turned and bumped into Sev Markin.

"When I met you," Sev continued, his eyes focusing on Cyria's. "I recalled all those times we had hung out together as younglings in the Temple. And I remembered leaving, the day the Council told me to pack my bags, and I saw you in the corridors. You didn't say anything, but you looked frightened as I left."

"I was," Cyria said softly, despite herself. "Being raised in the Jedi Temple did not guarantee one a destiny as a Jedi and your departure proved that to me. To all of us."

Sev snorted at her words, then was silent a moment before continuing. "My orders were to kill you. I was operating off of a list compiled by Darth Vader himself, to scout around for Jedi who had never been confirmed killed. You were one of them. Surveillance says you were in the Temple that night but your body was never recovered."

Cyria nodded, her emotions for Sev struggling with the wariness cultivated after a war and five years on the run. "I managed to escape out of one of the lower exits. The clones guarding it were few; they died quickly."

"And you managed to avoid detection for five years," Sev marveled. "You told me you ditched your lightsaber and I've seen how you refuse to access the Force unless absolutely necessary. You ran from everything associated with the Jedi."

"To survive," Cyria countered. "To avoid beings like you."

"I wasn't looking for you," Sev said suddenly. "That day in the market. I had never been looking for you. In fact, when I saw your name on that list I couldn't believe it. And I never wanted you dead. When I ran into you at that fruit stall, I was astonished. And...afraid. I had a job to do and I couldn't walk away from it.

"Another Hunter had been with me that day. He also saw you and so I couldn't just let you go back to your life. It was either I kill you or he kill you and Cyria, please believe me, Venom would have killed you by now."

"Why didn't you want me dead?" Cyria asked. "I thought you owed nothing to the Jedi."

"Not to the Jedi, no," Sev agreed. "But you had been a companion from my childhood. I owed you something. You had never been something abstract, as everything else had become. I had known you, talked to you, played with you, trained with you, and you were real. You were...a piece from the past.

"So I told Venom I would take you down. But I told him I needed time, to get what information I could about other missing Jedi out of you. He was impatient but he acquiesced. If you could provide any names, any data, I would be the one able to get it out of you, due to our history. You knew me, and so would come to trust me." Sev looked pained as he added, "And so you did."

"Sev, I loved you," Cyria said, the words coming out as a mix between snarl and plea.

"And I love you," Sev was quick to say, before she could continue. "Cyria, I do love you. I couldn't bring myself to kill you and yet, I couldn't give up the charade. Yesterday, Venom told me orders had come down from the Emperor to kill you, once and for all. If I didn't do it, he would." Sev fell silent, his eyes falling away from hers. "But I couldn't do it. I loved you too much. I couldn't kill you." Cyria closed her eyes briefly as he added, "Can you ever forgive me for breaking your trust?"

"What now?" Cyria asked, opening her eyes and pinning him with her stare. "Is Venom coming to kill me?"

Sev nodded. "He'll be arriving soon. He knows where you live. So we have to run, Cyria. Run as far from the Empire as we can."

"They'll find us again," Cyria pointed out. "Like you found me. It's hopeless."

"We have to try!" Sev insisted. "Cyria, they're coming here to kill us."

"Me," Cyria corrected, feeling a strange sense of mixed desperation and calmness fill her. "They're coming here to kill me. You play your sabacc cards right, you'll live."

"How do I do that?"

"Kill me now."

Sev looked shocked and confused. "What?"

"If you kill me, you'll have carried out orders and no one will know you contemplated escaping. From what I understand, it doesn't violate your new code or anything, and you will be able to continue this handy little life you've built for yourself. And judging from your story, it's not like you haven't killed Jedi before." Cyria couldn't prevent the taste of bitterness from flavoring her voice on the last words.

Sev stared at Cyria, still puzzled. "Cyria, I can't kill you. I love you!"

"Love means nothing to a Sith," Cyria countered, her voice quiet. "Ultimately, self-preservation is more important, right? Hence why you turned in the first place. I'm not judging, I'm just telling you. Sev, the choices you made mean my life should mean nothing more than those other Jedi you've already killed, and the ones you're going to kill after I'm dead."

"Love doesn't mean anything to a Jedi, either," Sev told her desperately.

"But at least I'm not defined by what I do to preserve my own life," Cyria said, choosing her words carefully as she held his wild gaze. "I haven't been the best Jedi, perhaps, and yes, everyone tries to save their own lives, but at least I haven't killed any innocent people to save my hide."

"You left everything," Sev pointed out. "You threw away your Jedi past in order to survive."

"Yes, I did," Cyria said softly. "But now I'm standing by my Code."

"Run away with me," Sev urged. "We'll disappear and they'll never find us. You don't have to die."

"Why?" Cyria asked, feeling that she had to keep pushing him on this. Sev had to understand. Sev had to choose. Cyria loved him, despite the Code, but she didn't love the Sith lurking inside him. If she was going to run away with anyone, live her life with someone, she had to know. "Sev, where is this coming from?"

"Do you want me to kill you?" Sev demanded. "Cyria, we're in danger."

"I'm in danger," Cyria corrected quietly. Her entire body was screaming at her to run, to fight, to escape somehow, but her Jedi instincts told her to stay, the Force told her to stay. Running never solved anything.

You run one time, you'll just begin running sooner the second time. Before long, you want to run before there is any reason to. And that's true. I've been running from everything ever since fleeing from the Jedi Temple.

I'm not running this time.