"I can't believe he touched you!"

"Oh, it was totally worth getting my leg broken."

Force, did they never shut up?

"I'm going to try that," Lysia said in what was probably meant to be a conspirational whisper, but was loud enough for Revan to hear from her workbench four metres behind them.

"What, break your leg just to get near him? That's a bit extreme, isn't it?"

"No, don't be silly. I'll… fake a headache, or something. He's always having headaches, right, he'll be all sympathetic and… stuff."

"Or he might just get annoyed at them for wasting his time," Revan murmured to her droid, which beeped twice and cut its power. Damn, she thought she'd fixed that.

"Could work," Stacey said thoughtfully. "He's not exactly Mr. Charming, though. It was like, sit down, wash hands, fix leg, see you in class."

Really, Revan thought in despair, what had Stacey been expecting in the infirmary? And why the hell did this stupid thing keep losing power? It was only a scuzzer droid, how hard could it be to get right?

"He talks enough to his friends," Lysia said. "I don't see what those two have that we don't."

An ability to talk about something other than boys for five minutes, perhaps? And yet, Lysia and Stacey had been such nice normal people, a few years ago…

"Does it matter? He knows how to talk to girls. That's all that's important. And hey, Shalee says she saw him in his underwear the other day."

"Oh, Force, did she see it?"

Good grief.

"I don't think so. Hey, how long d'you think it is?"

Revan's self-control finally gave out and she turned around. "It goes all the way down his back and finishes on his tailbone."

Stacey and Lysia blinked at her. Finally, Stacey said, "Uh… what?"

"His tattoo." And if that wasn't what they had been talking about, then Revan simply didn't want to know.

"He has a tattoo?" Lysia asked.

/\/\/\

"You may not be aware of this, Padawan, but I have been speaking to the Council and it has been decided that I will have to let you go."

Kavar looked horribly apprehensive, Ania thought, which probably meant that he had forgotten about her precognitive abilities again. She had known that he was going to say this five minutes ago. In fact, her bag was already packed.

Oh, well. Better at least go through the motions, because if she didn't have the conversation then she would create a nasty paradox and Master Zilar would go mental. Again.

"But why, Master?" she asked, giving it a whole molecule's depth of emotion. It was all she could muster right now, when she already knew the answer.

He looked about to reprimand her for sheer apathy, but something made him think the better of it. It was just as well, because Ania really couldn't bring herself to care right now, let alone pretend to.

"It's not you, Padawan, it's me. As you know, I've taken on extra duties recently –"

To get away from her, yes. Why couldn't he just get to the point?

"- and I've simply become too busy to train you adequately," Kavar finished. "And you might at least try to look sorry, Ania."

"It is me," Ania said. Her voice sounded as flat and dead as she felt.

Kavar suddenly looked horribly awkward. "How did you – no, that's a terribly stupid question, isn't it. Very well, would you like me to explain?"

"Yeah, 'cos otherwise I'll get in trouble for causing time paradoxes."

"Because," he corrected, then sighed heavily and sat down next to her. "All right, it's you. I've become too attached. Far too emotionally involved. It's becoming silly; I've been terrified of taking you offworld after… after…"

"After I got attacked by that Hutt's bounty hunters," Ania said. "I know. He really didn't like me."

"The emotions which you provoke are far too strong," Kavar said simply, "and I can't train you under these conditions."

"So what happens to me?"

"You still have to be trained," he told her. "You are far too powerful to be left untrained. Atris has offered to take you on, and the Council are considering other possibilities as well."

"Right."

"Until then, you're being moved back into the apprentices' living quarters," he said. "I'm sorry, Ania."

/\/\/\

"It's a really bad headache," Lysia whined. "Feels like my brain's swelling up and it's going to make my skull explode, you know?"

"Trust me, Lysia, your brain would have to swell an awful lot before that happened," Malak said, and kept typing until she slammed her hands over his on the terminal.

"I'm sick," she hissed at him. "You're meant to be a Healer. So heal me!"

"It's a headache," Malak snapped. "Meditate it away." Or take a basic painkiller, which her Master must have somewhere in his room, or simply stop bothering him. He had work to do, and if he didn't finish it on time then he would lose yet another free afternoon while trying to catch up. He only had one free a week in any case, and he seemed to overrun so much these days that he had only managed to be free twice in the past three months.

Her eyes instantly filled with tears. "Oh, you're horrible!" The last word came out in a high-pitched squeak that set Malak's every last nerve on edge, not least because his own headache was exacting its revenge for the new Force form he'd been practising in his nightly meditations.

"You brought me a medical condition and I've given you advice," he said through gritted teeth. "Unless you'd like a painkiller as well, there's nothing more I can do, and your Master should have a painkiller anyway."

"I was thinking maybe a more unconventional remedy," Lysia said. Her hands, Malak noticed irritably, were still over his.

"Such as what?"

"Well, I bet if you kissed it better…"

Oh, Force, not this again. "Master Dissik's only in the next room, Lysia."

"Well, maybe we can go somewhere else, then," she simpered, and batted her eyelashes at him. Malak groaned inwardly.

It wasn't that she was in any way unattractive. It really couldn't be, because she wasn't. She had even got hold of some make-up from somewhere. And if you had asked Malak a few years ago, he might even have considered it. It was simply that he had had little sleep, was trying to calculate dosages, and also that Lysia had somehow turned into a complete imbecile in those past few years.

And besides, he had no spare time, let alone the ingenuity to keep something like this hidden for long. And… oh, to hell with it. She was pretty enough.

"If I do, will you go away?"

"Until next time, sure," Lysia said.

"Permanently."

"Oh, what are you like? – Hey, you really mean it."

"Lysia, I have barely any free time and frankly, I'd rather spend it with someone who I like."

"Ohhh, I get it," she said, and pulled her hands away from his with shocking speed. "You think I'm a slut."

"What?"

"You do!" Lysia screeched. "Just some… some piece of flesh to have your way with, I bet! Force, I bet you even check out the Twi'leks!"

"But you were the one who –" Malak began, but she kept on going.

"Spending all that time with those two… freaks, I knew there was something going on! How could anyone think Revan was prettier than me? Are you blind?"

"Revan is not prettier than you," Malak said, far more loudly than he'd intended. "If I was going to break the Code with either of them, it would be Ania, simply because she is ten times prettier than Revan. Revan is one of the most ordinary-looking people I have ever met!"

"Oh, Malak, how can I ever hope to resist such wanton flattery?" Revan's voice said from the doorway. "Take me. Take me now, you handsome thug, you."

/\/\/\

And not only was she forced to live with the apprentices, she was to obey the same rules as they did and share their common room. That meant, among other things, that she could not leave said common room without a Master's permission, except at mealtimes, and her meal schedule was different from the Padawans'. There was no chance of slipping off to see her friends, or even an easy way to let them know where she had gone.

And all these kids kept looking at her funny. She couldn't blame them, Ania supposed – it wasn't every day that a Padawan was even temporarily demoted and apprentice life had, in retrospect, been quite boring.

Still, at least she wasn't bonded to any of them, and they wouldn't dare to pick on someone two years older and a good deal more experienced than even the eldest of them. She dug her datapad out of her hastily-packed bag, checked the card in it was the right one, and settled down on one of the couches to read about adhesive grenades and mines.

It was fascinating stuff, and she quite lost track of time: when she finally looked up, it was to discover that she had a small blond boy curled up next to her, reading over her arm. Oh, Force, not again. There had better have been a reason for making her a people-magnet, besides the accumulation of graffiti in the boys' loos and changing rooms; graffiti which, Malak informed her, could not possibly be true because if it was then she wouldn't have time to do anything other than have daily appointments with every boy in the year and some older than her, too. Malak didn't know how lucky he was – at least his little fanclub was fairly small, if annoyingly persistent and, in Ania's opinion, quite mad.

"Hello," she said. The boy blinked up at her.

"'Lo. That's a hard book."

For someone his age, probably. He couldn't be more than five, and she wondered why he had even tried to read it at all when most younglings would have given up long ago.

"Don't worry, you won't have to understand it for a long time yet."

"But I want to," he protested. "What's 'ad-hesss-ive'?"

"Adhesive. A sticking agent… you know, glue."

"You can make grenades with glue?" he asked, his face flooding with amazement.

"You can make anything explode," Ania told him, a statement which turned out to be foolish in the extreme; he immediately wanted a demonstration, then several other younglings overheard and wanted one too, and by the time bedtime came Ania found herself coaching an entire crowd of younglings in Exploding Random Objects. Force help her, she even enjoyed it, and barely noticed when she bonded with a couple of them, the blond boy (whose name, she discovered when he brought her a used exercise book to blow up, was Mical) included.

There were only a few apprentices who had not joined her little group, in fact; a gaggle of the elder younglings, who clearly considered themselves above such petty amusements, and one small human girl who was curled up in a corner and looking as if she would very much like to join the group, but was too scared or too proud to actually do so.

"Oh, she's like that," Nicos, one of the elder apprentices, told Ania as she helped him to chivvy the little ones to their beds. "Came about a month ago, had massive temper tantrums over every little thing, and when that didn't work she just isolated herself. She's been spoiled, if you ask me."

"She might just be lonely," Ania suggested, but Nicos just shook his head.

"You can try talking to her, if you like. Force knows we have. That blond kid – Mical – she nearly scratched his eyes out when he tried. Spoiled rotten."

Perhaps she was, but there was something else there too; Ania was sure of it. Tomorrow, she decided, she would have to begin working on Apprentice Shan.

/\/\/\

Malak had never been so hideously embarrassed in his entire life. To make matters worse, Lysia – who had been able to see the doorway perfectly clearly the entire time – had a horrible smirk on her face which said all too clearly that she had known Revan was there all along.

As for Revan, she was – she was grinning, Malak noticed in disbelief. When he had first turned around she had been in a swoon against the doorframe, but now she was simply leaning against it, arms folded, and… grinning.

She must be in a brilliant mood. Either that, or she had finally succumbed to the collective female insanity in this Temple.

"How's your headache, Lysia?" she asked, as Malak opened his mouth to attempt some kind of explanation. "Hey, I ran into your Master on my way in – he said if you go back to your room, he's got some medicine which is very effective. Apparently it tastes horrible, though."

There was something in her eyes, in the way she jerked her thumb at the door, that was just too innocent. Collective female insanity, Malak decided. It was the only explanation.

Lysia's mouth opened and shut in shock a couple of times, then she muttered something entirely inaudible and, scowling at Revan all the way, left the infirmary.

"Er, thanks," Malak said.

"No problem. I heard her planning it earlier today, but Kreia got hold of me before I could warn you. Least I could do was drop by her Master's and give him some vile concoction for her to take. If anyone asks, you made it up for her, by the way."

Malak shook his head in awe. "How do you keep track of all these white lies?"

"Good memory. Is that something I can help with?"

"It's just inputting numbers," Malak said, and gestured to the terminal next to him. "If you've got nothing better to do –"

"I wouldn't have asked if I did," Revan said, and took her place next to him. "Besides, I'm free for the rest of the afternoon."

Something had clearly happened, then, but Malak still wasn't sure that she wasn't upset; he just nodded, and they worked in silence for half an hour before Revan started humming. At that point, he just had to ask.

"What did you do?"

"Hm?"

"You did something that Kreia liked, didn't you. Come on, she hardly ever lets you skip your timetable. What was it?"

"Oh, it's political stuff," Revan said. "You wouldn't be interested. Besides, I'm not sure I should be speaking to you right now."

And there it was, Malak thought irritably. He knew she wouldn't let him get away with it forever.

"But you want to tell me," he tried. She did, too – it was written all over her face, how openly she was teasing him now. He had never seen her so… so alive.

"Ah, but I'm not going to," she said. "I'm going to find Ania, and tell her, and then we shall have secrets from you. We'll huddle in corners, and whisper, then look at you and giggle. And you will never know why."

"Collective female insanity?" Malak suggested.

"The virus is transmitted in the bathrooms," Revan informed him solemnly. "It breeds among groups of females who gather in bathrooms to whisper and laugh and is borne on the wind, drawn inexorably towards the breeze caused by the opening door. None are spared. It is the Curse of the Ladies' Toilets. Alas, we are forever lost, doomed for all eternity. Our only hope of salvation is if some brave Knight were to throw off his chivalric virtues and dare to venture into that place most forbidden to men, there to collect a sample and analyse it in his infirmary. Alas!"

"And would this brave Knight learn any great mysteries of the universe in his quest?" Malak asked, trying his hardest not to laugh. "Such as, what fair Revan did to please her Master so?"

"Perhaps," Revan said.

"Well?"

"Oh, all right." She sighed in mock frustration. "But you'd better save us poor females from collective insanity afterwards. You know the Mandalorians attacked Iridonia?"

"Yeah, you mentioned it." At length. It had been Revan's pet peeve for almost a month now, and he was getting thoroughly sick of hearing how corrupt and evil the Senate was, to refuse aid to a devastated planet. Oh, and it was also stupid, because it couldn't see that the Mandalorians were going to attack the Republic itself soon. Or something like that; Malak hadn't been off-world since he got here, rarely left the Temple, and had little time to spend on luxuries such as reading the news. His grasp of the entire situation was limited to what Revan told him, and he knew that she was distorting it more than a little. She wasn't exactly subtle about it.

It was pure coincidence that he happened to look up as it happened, but he would remember that smile for the rest of his life. The laughter still hadn't quite died from Revan's eyes; she was flushed from pure excitement; and it slowly, insidiously crept upon her face. Revan's grins were rare enough as to be nonexistent, her everyday smiles typically fleeting, but this one was different.

It was clever, a little bit smug, and entirely cunning – but amused, too. It seemed to fill every atom of her face with pure, unbridled Revan, more Revan than he'd ever seen her in nine years of friendship. That smile, Malak thought, told you everything you needed to know about her…

…and, Force help him, it was sexy.

"The Senate voted to send aid today," Revan said. The smile reached its full radiance just after she finished speaking, and immediately vanished in much the same way as her other smiles always did. The thing was, he'd never much cared before… it was nice when she smiled, but that was just it – nice.

He must have been staring, because she rolled her eyes and said, "You're supposed to make a comment here, like 'But that's got nothing to do with you, Revan!'"

"Uh," Malak said, which was about as much as he felt up to right now. If he opened his mouth much more, he was sure he'd end up asking her the wrong question.

"You're no fun. Fine, then… I did it. It was me. I swung the Senate vote."

"Good," Malak managed weakly, before the small part of his brain that still had a blood supply registered that this called for a little more than 'good' and summoned the rest of his blood to return from its little trip to other parts of his anatomy. "Wait... what?"

"Are you all right? You look like you've seen a -"

"Fine," Malak said hastily. "Absolutely great. You swung a Senate vote?"

"Yeah," Revan said, though she was still eyeing him worriedly. "All through the Force, of course. It was like a mind-trick on a grand scale, except I didn't actually speak, I sort of… are you sure you're all right?"

"Yes," Malak said. "Isn't that, I don't know, illegal? And shouldn't Kreia be disciplining you for it?"

"They were about to make a mistake that would affect an entire planet," Revan snapped. "She was the one who gave me the idea. And I checked with her before I did it, and everything."

"You swung a Senate vote… with your Master's permission," Malak said. This day was getting more bizarre by the minute.

"Yes. And she didn't just give me the afternoon off, either –"

"She… didn't?"

"She said she'd try to talk the Council into doing a DNA test against the archives," Revan said,and he suddenly understood why she was so happy. "Malak, I might find out who my father is."