The case was closed, signatures filed, evidence cataloged, conclusions approved by the Council, but her fingers kept hovering as if there were something left to fix. Eventually she exhaled, slow and controlled, and set the datapad aside. Her shoulders ached from hours hunched over the briefing table. She rolled her neck once, then stood and stretched, joints popping softly beneath her robes.
The briefing room overlooked the gardens and waterways beyond the Temple. Naboo was settling into dusk, the sky melting from gold to rose to deepening violet. Lights were beginning to glow along distant balconies, reflected in the still water like fallen stars. It was peaceful. She rested her hands on the cool transparisteel and let herself breathe.
The door hissed open behind her.
Katarine went rigid.
She didn't turn. She didn't need to. The Force shifted familiar and warm, painfully so. A presence she had tried for years to bury beneath duty, distance, and silence. Her pulse spiked, a sharp, traitorous reaction she despised herself for.
"Kat," he said.
Her jaw tightened. Slowly, she turned.
James Terran stood just inside the doorway, thinner than she remembered, the lingering pallor of someone who had spent too long healing instead of living. His posture was careful, like he wasn't sure whether to step forward or retreat. His eyes, those same eyes she had once trusted more than her own, searched her face.
"You shouldn't be here," she said. Her voice was so steady she couldn't believe it was actually her own.
"I asked permission, even got it cleared with the doctors" he replied quietly. "They said you were at the Temple. I… I needed to see you."
A bitter laugh slipped out before she could stop it. "You needed to see me," she echoed. "That's new."
He flinched, just slightly. "Kat, I'm not here to fight."
"I see," she said, turning away from him and folding her arms. "Then why are you here?"
Silence stretched between them, heavy and charged.
"I wanted to thank you," James said at last. "For saving me. If you hadn't come.."
"Don't," she snapped, spinning back toward him. Her deep green eyes burned. "Don't thank me like it erases everything else."
He took a step forward despite himself. "I never stopped thinking about you. Not for a day."
Her laugh this time was sharp enough to cut. "You left me the morning after we were married. No message. No explanation. You vanished, James. Do you have any idea what that did to me?"
"I didn't mean to hurt you," he said, pain bleeding into his voice. "I was so young.. I made a foolish choice...."
"I didn't get a choice," Katarine shot back. The Force churned restlessly around her, responding to the crack in her control. "You decided for me. And when you disappeared, I unraveled. I spiraled. I made mistakes I will carry for the rest of my life."
His brow furrowed. "Kat… I heard about your Padawan Mist Mayweather. I'm so sorry."
That name, Mist hit like a blade between her ribs.
"Sorry doesn't bring her back," Katarine whispered. Her vision blurred, emotions surging too fast, too tangled. Grief. Rage. Guilt. All of it clawed upward, demanding release. "If I hadn't allowed myself to love... if I hadn't spent so much time searching..."
"That's not fair to yourself" James said, voice rising despite himself. "For better or for worse..."
The words of the vow they had both taken snapped something inside her.
Lightning exploded from her outstretched hand.
A jagged arc of violet-white energy slammed into the wall beside James, blasting durasteel and stone in a shower of sparks and scorched debris. The room rang with the crack of thunder. James recoiled, stunned, thrown back a step by the force of it, eyes wide with shock.
Katarine staggered.
The dark side flooded her system, sharp, intoxicating, wrong. The world tilted. Her heart pounded erratically, nausea rising as the adrenaline burned off too fast. She grabbed the edge of the table, breath hitching, fighting the dizzy void threatening to pull her under.
She didn't wait to hear his answer, his gasp, his voice saying her name again.
Katarine straightened with effort, turned, and fled.
The door hissed shut behind her as she rushed into the corridor, robes trailing, leaving James Terran alone in the smoking briefing room, alive, unharmed, and staring at the scorch mark she had left behind.
