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You have fallen. There is no way around it.
It happened slowly, inexorably, like the fall of empires; you watched it happen, and knew there was nothing you could do to stop it.
She carries her freedom with her, and around her there are circles of emptiness, radiating like ripples from a pebble dropped into a still pond, echoes reflecting from perfectly smooth walls. It is so tempting, that emptiness. You want to rest your head on her knees and close the aching part of your mind that you now think of as your eyes. You are a thing of weakness and selfish sentimentality. You cannot indulge these thoughts, you cannot allow your weakness to corrupt her.
She is not the ideal student. Revan studied at your feet, stroked your ego, hung upon your every word and at least pretended to take it as truth. Revan’s questions, when she voiced them, were brilliant, thoroughly thought out, stimulating to the mind. The exile takes your lessons with a mix of bewilderment and frustration, and so it is all the sweeter that she forces herself to patiently listen. That she considers your words and lets them hang around her like nets.
She is not the young prodigy, as Revan was, or the servant that Sion tried to be. She does not imagine herself a treacherous ally like Nihilus. The exile does not play such games. She is simply herself, unornamented. So you do not know what to do with her respect. You do not quite understand what she hopes to gain from your relationship.
"Kreia," she says, walking with you through the closed streets of Nar Shaddaa, keeping a distance of five feet or so between you, moving forward and away but never leaving, "do you understand people?"
"Kreia," she says, lying alone in the wet grass of Dxun, near to the ship but hidden, and you know she went to drown out the echoes with the clamor of rain and insects and the feel of mud so you let her go and watched through the bond, through her strong healthy eyes, "maybe after all this is over we should take a vacation. I’ve never been to an ocean."
"Kreia," she says, looking up from meditation, "if I asked you about your future plans, would you actually answer the question?"
Her tension is gnawing at her. The bond between you sings with it. It unsettles you, and you are disturbed that you are unsettled. Stress is a gift, it is a symptom of struggle, of development, of learning. It’s all according to plan, this anxiety that cramps her muscles and keeps her awake every night.
It is your job to push her just enough, not a shade more. To keep her teetering on the edge without falling.
"I answer all of your questions except the stupid ones," you snap.
She has beautiful eyes. They flit about the hold, resting anywhere but upon your face. For a moment you find yourself wishing you could see what color they are. Weakness, everything is weakness.
"Practice your lesson each day," you say, a dismissal.
She doesn’t leave. Not now, not this minute, not here, but soon. She will leave. Everyone leaves. That is the will of the Force. That is the way of the universe. She will leave you, or you will leave her, in the end it does not matter.
"Why do you keep pushing me away?"
She is leaning closer and her bright eyes have focused somewhere in the vicinity of your face. She is too close. Your treacherous body is betraying you, heart racing, skin growing hot.
You ask her, “Why do you persist in seeking friendship where you know you will not find it?”
"It doesn’t need to be friendship." Up close she is lovely to look at, a woman made of darkness, defined by her lack of light in a brilliant, swirling cosmos. You are an old woman. Surely you are allowed to be sentimental about your last and best student. "It could be simpler. We could be allies. We could be whatever you would like. I don’t care. But you’re part of me now, and it’s silly to pretend otherwise."
The tips of her fingers touch your knee. You gasp for breath.
"I’m not going anywhere, Kreia. I’m staying right here." The exile does not smile with her mouth, but with a sudden warmth in her voice and a shrug of the shoulders. "I was lost for so long but… this is where I belong, right now."
"A true Jedi does not have a home," you manage to say.
Her hand is fully on your knee now, and you can feel her palm making little circular movements on the cloth. “Good thing neither of us are Jedi, then.”
She does her little not smile again. Her hand stops moving. She gets to her feet, and walks to the doorway. As she moves away from you the Force comes rushing back into the vacuum left by her presence. You close your mental eyes against the glare. “I do not understand why you trust me.”
"I trust you," the exile says, "because it is easier than not trusting you."
When you open your perception again she is gone.