"I'm sorry that things turned out the way they did," Cal says softly, almost hesitant to meet her gaze again, but he doesn't look away. They'd both been naive in that, that things wouldn't take such drastic turns. Merrin's sisters are gone. The Jedi Order is too.

"You still have a place to return to, but it's not the same without the people that made it home. I guess it works out about the same, not having a place to go back to, and any Jedi that may have survived are just scattered because it would be too dangerous otherwise."

He lifts his head a bit, offering a faint smile. "But it doesn't mean we have to deal with anything alone. I think that's something we just ended up choosing, for whatever reasons. It just takes a push to remind us that." His laugh is brief, the laugh of someone who wishes his experience could have been different. "I just wish that push wasn't so hard, but I guess I really needed it."