"Malak?"

"Yes?"

"Where are we?"

"Buggered if I know," Malak's voice said through the dense black fog. His voice sounded... wrong, Revan thought. But not wrong. Almost like a memory of a voice, really. It was probably just the weather; fog did strange things to your hearing, and the dampness made his vocabulator go funny sometimes.

"How did we get here?"

"Buggered if I know," Malak said again.

"Oh, you're being a great help."

"Because you know so much more than I do."

"I know we must be here for a reason," Revan said. If possible, the fog was getting thicker. All she could see was blackness, crowding in around her. She didn't feel damp or cold, though, which was odd.

"And what reason is that?"

The question caught her off-balance. There was a reason, and she knew what it was, but...

"We're here because we're here," she said firmly. That was evidently good enough for Malak, because he shut up.

Temporarily, at least.

"So whereis here?" he asked after they had stood still for several minutes.

"It's here, Malak."

"Oh." A brief pause, then he added, "Is anyone else here, do you think?"

"I don't know," Revan said. "We could try and lift the fog."

"Good idea," Malak said, and sneezed. The fog vanished with a sort of sucking sound, and they were standing in the Rakatan ruins on Dantooine.

"How did we get here?"

"Buggered if I know."

"Well, at least the fog's gone," Revan said. Malak was standing very close to her, she realised now, close enough that she should have felt him by her even without the Force.

"And there's nobody around," he said. "That's good, because we don't want the Council following us."

Revan nodded and pulled her mask over her face. The door opened almost before she had touched it, revealing a large room beyond. In the middle was the Star Map, open, filling the room with soft yellow light.

"Well," Malak said softly as he followed her in, "this looks nice. It's a pity we're not a romantic sort of couple."

"We're not a couple," Revan reminded him.

"I thought we were."

"Well, we're not. All right?"

"Fine, fine," Malak said. He sounded tired, as if he was fed up of having this conversation. "We're not a couple, you don't dream about us in situations where we are strangely close together with nobody else for miles around, you don't love me and never did, and you don't sneak into my bed every night like some small child who's just had a mildly upsetting nightmare."

"And don't you forget it," Revan said.

"One day, I'm going to fall in love with someone else."

"You've been saying that for years."

"And that's just you all over. One day soon, you're going to wake up and I won't be there."

"Malak, last time you wanted to get away from me you had to kill me to even stand a chance."

There was the snap-hiss of an igniting lightsaber, and Malak said, "I was wondering if you would remember that."

Revan grabbed for her own 'saber, but it wasn't there. She backed away as Malak advanced, pinning her up against a wall which suddenly seemed much closer than it had been originally. One of his hands thudded into the stone above her shoulder; the other took her other shoulder, and gently pushed it against the wall, pinning her in place. Malak leant down, intense concentration on his face, and Revan felt her heart stop.

"Love you," he said, and kissed her.

She leaned into it, enjoyed it, and considered that it was over far too quickly when he suddenly broke away from her, picking up his lightsaber. She was almost about to say as much, before she remembered that this was Malak and wrong and not allowed to happen, and as he ignited his 'saber again she said, in as harsh a voice as possible, "What the hell was that for?"

"Hey, don't look at me," he said, and sliced her in half. "It's your dream."