WHO: Jacen Solo and Tenel Ka Djo WHAT: the ex-Sith Lord returns WHEN: Night WHERE: the Anakin Solo and then the backstreets of LA RATING: PG13ish STATUS: COMPLETE
"Jaina listen to me, you need to get out of my way I'm trying to save Tenel Ka and Allana."
"Sure you are, Just like you saved Isolder," there was so much anger in his twin's voice. When did that happen again exactly? Caedus didn't have time to argue with her, too much was at stake.
"Isolder would have made the same choice, in fact he did, Jaina we don't have time for this," he snapped at her.
"So die already."
They continued to fight, Caedus showing more skill, even throwing Jaina at the nearby furnace. Admittedly her new moves, picked up from the Mando, surprised him, but still he dominated the fight. His sister fought like a woman who had nothing left to lose, even as he threw Force Lightning at her.
He couldn't win this. Not really. Because really the only way to truly win would be to save himself and his lover and daughter. It was becoming increasingly clear that he couldn't have both. In that instant he made up his mind, stopping blocking Jaina even as her blade cut into him just as she realized. She hesitated, just for a moment as he focused everything he had on screaming through the Force to Tenel Ka, screaming at her to save their daughter.
Then the lightsaber reached his heart and Jacen Solo died.
Only to open his eyes moments later, having a split second to move as the yellow wheeled vehicle rushed past him blaring it's horn. Purely on instinct he hide himself in the Force as he slipped into the shadows of a nearby alley as he tried to make sense of things. How was he here? Where was here?
He closed his eyes and focused, reaching for any Jedi signitures, even while keeping himself hidden. There was one, nearby, mere feet away around the corner. Had it drawn him here? He turned the corner, keeping as silent as possible as his eyes searched the gloom for the identity of the other Jedi.
She knew it was a bad idea even as she had left the hotel. To patrol just like any other night, theoretically she wasn’t supposed to go alone. But something drew her…a sense of…
It was her danger sense, she couldn’t tell how or why, and she couldn’t sense him, of course not she never could, not properly when he hid in the Force but her danger sense had never failed her in that regard.
It felt like that night in her ambassadorial rooms on Coruscant. He’d slipped in and she hadn’t noticed…but she’d felt it.
Jacen.
The voice in her head, the one urging her not to go, sounded oddly like Faith's. She failed to see how this was different than the Mayor, she had just felt someone who had done some terrible...horrible things, but that they still cared about deeply.
Of course the Mayor was unlikely to be able to change Faiths mind with the power of his own.
But he wouldn't do that. He wouldn't. If it was him, if he was back
She wasn't far from the hotel when her danger sense tingled in a way it hadn't in quite some time, in a way that had only ever meant him.
"I still have little patience for voyeurs" she said cooly. Her hand resting on the rancor tooth hilt that was her lightsaber.
It was her. Well of course it was, that was just typical.
"Oh I don't know," he stepped out of the shadows, his face expressionless. "You always seemed to great me so warmly when I sneaked into your Palace."
Even as his mind raged for answers, he kept his body language calm and unreadable. But there was one question and one only that he could not not ask.
"Where is Allana? Is she safe?"
Who was this?. It wasn't Jacen, wasn't Caedus either, Not completely. She had learned how they felt, how they both felt, so completely. And this... it felt like...Force, it felt like those last moments.
"Well you were always so showey, I felt I had to"
He asked about Allana and she blinked, Did he remember that?
"She is safe. She is likely at the Jedi Acadamy, or with your parents. You realize we are not in our galaxy any longer"
She drew her lightsaber slowly, not igniting it, knowing she couldn't beat him but knowing too that if she had to she would try.
"Tell me, Are you Jacen Solo...Or Darth Caedus. Because I am having some trouble telling?"
He paused and blinked, not sure how best to answer that. Nothing felt clear any more.
"You liked me being showy, just for you," he murmured, trying to buy some time.
"Maybe I'm Darth Jacen," he tried for a joke, weak as it was. His hand crept to his own saber.
"Then what is this?" He glared at her. "Another betrayal on your part Tenel Ka? Why am I here and not on the Anakin Solo?"
Not in their galaxy. He felt that as being the truth. But that didn't mean that she was not somehow responsible for this.
He wasn’t wrong. And Force he could still just look at her…
The bad joke had the strange effect of snapping her out of it, though it did make her smile sadly. Until he glared.
“Betrayal…no. I didn’t even know you were here. Not really. And you’re hiding, I can tell that too. I just…felt you, with my danger sense. You…somehow set it off. Which means I have something to fear from you”
She sighed, she hated that look in his eyes.
“I didn’t ever want to do what I did. But you were killing people on Kashyyk. You were burning the worshyrs, and targetting the cities. I…don’t know why you aren’t on the Anakin. You were brought here by some higher power. Nor do I know why so don’t bother to ask that”
"Of course I'm hiding," he rolled his eyes. "Given that the Jedi Council, in their infinite wisdom want me dead, I thought it best to hide my presence until I knew exactly which Jedi were here." He looked at her, slowly and deliberately. "And if they would be on my side."
Did she have anything to fear from him? Had she ever truly needed to fear Darth Caedus? Everything he had done had been to create a better galaxy for their daughter. He shook his head with a slightly frustrated scowl.
"Must we have this conversation again?" He turned his gaze on her, his eyes dark and intense, still with those traces of yellow and red tinging the irises even if it had faded from the Sith fury of before. "I was doing what I had to do, what they drove me to do. Do you really think I enjoyed burning Kashyyk? That I got some sort of pleasure from it? It was the right thing to do, but that doesn't mean I..." He stopped in the middle of his tirade, bringing his hand to the bridge of his nose as he tried to calm his irritation.
"I thought I could trust in your faith in me."
He had to laugh though, a harsh sound. "Higher powers? Come on Tenel Ka, do I look like some Padawan straight out of the Academy?"
"Well yes, it has been the Councils Policy on Sith Lords really since its inception. As to weather your asking me specifically. I don't want you dead. I never have. I just...you didn't leave any of us much..."
His gaze turned on her and Tenel Ka held it much as it pained her. She was a Queen of Hapes and he would not see her falter.
"Yes, every atrocity you commited, every step you took was always the 'right thing to do' You held the Acadamy to ransom so Luke would help you, You were responsible for the death of so many...My faith in you...that didn't waver. For so long. Even when your parents came to Hapes to tell me what you were doing. I didn't believe it until I saw...I couldn't believe that you..."
The colour of his eyes broke her heart.
"...But then you are a Sith Lord, who was I in comparison to that"
The feel of the lightsaber hilt was more of a comfort around him than anything else.
"Believe it or believe it not. It is true. Look around you, does this look like any world in our Galaxy. I am here, and there is one other Jedi besides, a Master of the Order in fact who I am sure will be just delighted to know her killer has arrived."
"The Council are fools," he stated simply, still looking at her. "Blinded by relics of a belief system that they do not understand."
There was still so much pride in her stance, in her glare. The regal beauty that if he was honest with himself, still drew him to her.
"I was driven to those atrocities. Because they wouldn't listen. I had no choice." He took a step towards her, almost reaching for her before catching himself. "The path I walked may not have been the most pleasant, but it was where I had to go to get to the destination that would have saved us all. Made the galaxy safer for Allana."
He looked around, a trace of a sneer on his lips. This world was indeed crude and chaotic. Quite unlike his galaxy. He was about to reply with something suitably cutting when her next words made him freeze.
"Aunt Mara is here? How?"
She waved his explainations away, a sneer of her own finding its way onto her features, She'd actually made him freeze in his tirade, and that had happened so rarely in that last year.
"Like I told you. Higher powers. Mara Jade Skywalker is here. Not long from the beginning of the Vong War. She knows what you did to her. She knows why. She does not, however, know what you made Ben endure. I still keep your secrets Jacen Solo though I don't know why I should"
He shook his head, frustrated.
"There is no Higher powers Tenel Ka, only the Force."
The Vong War. It felt like several lifetimes ago. And Aunt Mara was from the beginning of it. Before her death, before Ben, back when she was still sick.
"What I made Ben endure was to make him stronger," he commented, an automatic response now. "And don't call me that."
"And no Dark Side either, Sometimes even you are wrong. Jacen"
She knew he hated it, the name, his name, she could see it in his eyes and yet she remembered those last moments of his life, it had been him she knew it had, and if there was anything left. She took a step towards him, bolder perhaps than she should have been in this situation but what had she left to loose. Besides she didn't believe that even Caedus would have taken her life.
"You didn't answer before. Jacen or Caedus? Which one, both, neither?"
Just for a moment his eyes flashed angrily, resenting the implications, before he just felt so tired. Worn to the bone tired as he looked at her.
"Why can't I be both? Or be neither? Why do I always have to be defined in such a way?"
Force she wanted to just be near him, hold him, tell him it would be alright. But she didn't know that it would be, and no matter how much he looked like he needed her he didn't, he'd proven that.
"...You defined yourself so clearly. You hated people calling you Jacen by the end didn't you, because then perhaps you'd have to think about him, about the loving caring man you'd cast off to become Caedus. But you hadn't completely gotten rid of him had you, and now it hurts more than you could ever have imagined. Fact?"
She stood her ground, not moving closer but not backing off either.
"I haven't forgotten Jacen. So that is what I shall call you unless you tell me otherwise"
He tilted his head slightly as he looked at her, a faint trace of a smirk playing over his lips.
"No matter when you're from or where you are, you still can never let go of your facts can you."
He sighed and looked up at the night sky for a moment. The stars were so unfamiliar to him. A new world, a new galaxy even. What did any of this mean? Why was he here and not dead with a lightsaber in his heart?
"Call me what you want. I don't suppose it even matters here any more."
He knew what she wanted. To tell her he was Jacen and that Caedus was a lost, bad memory. But as much as he could not truly deny the death of Jacen Solo, nor could he state that Darth Caedus was no more. Perhaps he was both now. Or something new altogether.
It was physically wrenching, more than before, because this wasn't a Jacen she could keep from the dark. This was him as he had been at the end, and she didn't know how to reason with that. Her composure broke, just for a second, just long enough for a single tear to find its way from her eye, one that she quickly brushed away, furious her feelings had betrayed her.
"So...what does matter here?. You are here Jacen, for good or ill. I can help you. But you...What are your intentions?"
He didn't miss the crack in her emotions and for a moment he wondered how he was supposed to feel about that.
"My intentions?" He echoed, slightly incredulously. "Everything I did was to restore order in my galaxy and now, I'm not even there. So you tell me Tenel Ka, what am I even supposed to do here? Find these supposed Higher Powers and throw myself on their mercy? Because I hope I do not need to actually explain to you all the ways in which that is not going to happen."
That made sense, this was not his galaxy, not the one he'd given himself to protect. She replaced her lightsaber at her belt heart ruling head as ever when it came to the man before her. In his mind she had betrayed him, cast aside their love but she had never stopped loving him, it had just hurt to do so. She could no more walk away than she could cease breathing.
"Then...come with me. We can dicuss this further. I have a..residence, a room, I'm helping the people here, the ones who fight the good fight. Perhaps..."
What? Perhaps he could fight too. Jacen, Caedus. Peter would not be best pleased with what she was doing. Faith...Faith would perhaps hit her on the head. She held out her hand to him.
"Jacen..." she said softly.
Fight the good fight? Was she serious? He looked perturbed for a moment at the concept.
"You would have me..." he trailed off, looking for the right term. "Join some team? And be what? Their token Jedi? Or Sith," he hastily corrected himself, even as his own conviction over what he was wavered.
Still, when she spoke to him in that tone of voice it was harder and harder to remember how she had betrayed him once already.
"And if I go with you," he answered in a similar voice. "What will be waiting? Some kind of trap? Or at the very least tests and interrogations in which I somehow have to defend my choices and my actions?"
She kept her hand held out to him, her eyes locked on his.
"No traps. I would explain...as best I could the situation and you would speak to the man who is in charge there. Don't look for betrayal at every turn, you won't find it from me, not here...not now. As you said, this is not our galaxy, those reasons are past"
For now.
"You were here before you see. From a point just before you knew what Lumiya was, or maybe you did...At any rate you had not allowed her to teach you yet. But this is what I remember, this conflict that even your hiding in the Force cannot hide from me. I don't sense it, I see it. I feel it. Come with me. Where else would you go?"
His face twisted with some distaste at the idea of being... interviewed by some other man in charge. Answering to someone else.
And he had been here before? How could that be? The confusion of this place increased and he shook his head, trying to make things make sense again. He missed that clarity,
But she was right, he had no where else to go.
"Fine, I will go with you." He didn't take her hand, not yet, even as he kept his gaze on her, eyes still defiant. "But do not expect me to bow and follow another. I will speak with him because for now I have no choice, but I will never blindly follow his orders without question."
"This isn't GAG Colonal Solo, there is no question of following blindly, no fear if you question an order even if I thought for a second you would ever follow. All I ask is that you come and listen"
She paused for a moment, wondering weather to tell him and deciding she really ought to. He would find out soon enough. She turned slightly facing back in the direction of the hotel.
"Mirta Gev is here. Fett's Grandaughter. You remember her I expect. She is rather upset with you."
"No, as I recall, you support the GAG, your Highness," he retorted sarcastically before sighing. "Fine, I will listen."
His eyes darkened further at the mention of the name. "Mirta Gev?" He scowled. "Is this world out to drive me insane?"
Tenel Ka flinched at the cold sarcasm but retorted. "I did. I still think you were right for your actions against Corellia.That is why I commited Hapes to support you. But you just didn't know when you went too far. Perhaps I should have seen that coming"
They walked a ways towards the hotel. Tenel Ka at times actually turning her back, she didn't know why she trusted him not to just end her. But she did.
"Mirta Gev has every right to hate you. Every right, you killed her mother, you tortured her, and then you made certain if she sets foot in Keldabe again she will die. And her Grandfather too. But she's not a threat to you...Just don't hurt her anymore than you have. Make this a new beginning. Another galaxy, another world. Make it a fresh start...let me help you do so"
He arched an eyebrow, half annoyed and half amused at her. "Perhaps you should. Perhaps you alone should have been the one to smack me down and tell me no," his tone was almost mocking.
But he followed her anyway.
"I have no grudge against Gev, if she leaves me alone, I'll leave her alone," he commented, almost mildly, the trust Tenel Ka was showing him not lost on him.
Tenel Ka turned fury in her eyes and raised her one hand to slap him across the fac, but stopped before she even got close, finding she couldn't. She still loved him, force help her she did, but she didnt need to take this, not any more.
"I thought I had done so rather successfully when I said you couldn't play with the Hapan Fleets any longer"
Her voice shook.
"If you want the truth I believed in you until then. I ignored so much for you, so very many of your crimes. I looked away because you were Jacen Solo and you knew, you knew with such certainty what the galaxy needed. Because you knew it needed to be done to keep Allana and children like her safe. And because I loved you, and because when I did turn from you...knowing you were capable of such evil broke my heart"
He glared at her, challenging her to go through with it, actually slap him.
"I was capable of evil? So doing whatever it took to protect my daughter is evil now? You turned on me, you were the last person I could rely on and you betrayed me. So don't you dare talk to me of broken hearts Tenel Ka."
She couldn't do it, oh she wanted to, Force she wanted to, but she couldn't bring herself to strike him. She took a step back, collecting herself, centering her emotions, knowing well that he could sense her.
"Do you think for a second Allana will like thinking of that, the lives lost in her name, the countless destroyed so the galaxy could be saved. Ordered, in accordance with how you see fit.You started out with a vision, few believed in it but I did. It was hard and unpleasent and nessacary some of the steps you took. I backed you. But you took it too far. You took the path of the Sith and I could back you no longer. A burning world Jacen, Lowie's world...Lowie our friend for how many years Jacen, the only one besides me to ever actually laugh at one of your jokes. And Chewbacca? What would he have said if he could see what you were doing to his world?"
Another tear fell, and another.
"You broke my heart that day. I did not break yours because by then, you could not have had one left to break"
He glared at her, his eyes dark and defiant.
"Because other people's visions were doing the galaxy so much good, clearly," he snapped, the tone dripping with sarcasm. "The galaxy was a loving haven of peace and security and we all grew up happy. Oh wait, we didn't."
He clenched his jaw, tired of having the same conversation over and over. She couldn't understand, none of them could. The Vong, Vergere, Lumiya. They had happened to him, no one else. Shaped him into being what he had to be.
"You know nothing of the state of my heart, so do not presume to judge it," he finally growled before turning to walk on, ahead of her, even though he had no idea where he was going. Anything to not see those tears any more.
She stayed where she was for a few seconds, more shock than anything else keeping her in place, but what had she expected, she hadn't meant to cry in front of him, give him that dammed satisfaction.
And she wouldn't. But there was time for that later. For now she had to make sure he had a chance to listen to her again, make sure he didn't wind up dealing with people she really feared he might. So she followed, catching up to him and laying her hand on his right arm and tugging him around to her.
"Jacen, I'm sorry...but I have never once questioned your motives, not once.
Just his methods.
"I do understand why you did it all."
But not how he could take those steps.
"And Force help me...I still care, I still lo..." she sighed "Please come with me?"
He let her tug him around to face her, struggling to hide the conflict on his face.
"You understand and yet you turned on me anyway," there was no more anger in his voice, just a tired sort of resignation.
"I'll come with you Tenel Ka, I already said I would. And you know that when I say I'll do something, I follow it through."
He left the final part unsaid. The part that said he had no where else to go.
They were near the Hyperion now, almost there and Tenel Ka had a decision to make, she wasn't just going to walk him in to the hotel. She led him toward the outside gate without another word and once inside took his hand,
"Will you wait for a moment...just while I make your introductions, You can accuse me of pandering to formality or something later but I suppose its the Queen in me."
They approached this hotel, whatever it was, and he couldn't help the faint sneer that twisted his lips.
"So this is it? And now what, you pander to them and ask for some kind of permission? What sort of a Queen does that?"
Still, he followed her into the courtyard, sitting with feigned laziness on one of the benches.
"Well, what are you waiting for? Go and make your precious introductions your Majesty."
Tenel Ka looked away at the sneer, looking toward the hotel.
"Its not Hapes. I ask because its right to ask. Why must you...can't you just try..."
She sat down on the bench not going inside just yet and sighed "Its all I thought about, having you back, but you still think you know whats best don't you. Well here's a world you don't know. Just give it a chance Jacen, Please?"
He looked away from her for a moment before turning back. "I ruled the galaxy Tenel Ka. Even though I knew the price, even though it cost me my family, I ruled the galaxy in the name of order. And now you'll have me wait for someone else's permission to be here. My world or not, this is insulting."
Still, it felt strange, sitting here, on a garden bench with her. It felt like old times.
"I can almost imagine your various courtiers and suitors lurking just behind the trees there," he leaned back, his usual smirk firmly on his face.
She didn't say anything more about the 'insult' This Hotel was private property but was where she wanted him. And for that she had to ask Peter.
But Force when he talked about her gardens on Hapes.
"Politics became so much more so quickly. But even back then you wanted a fleet from me"
And she remembered how he had paid her. And just how unhappy the suitors had been
"They really didnt like you"
"But I was so charming to them," he retorted, still with that smirk. Did she really think that the Fleet was the only thing that drew him to Hapes and its Queen?
He looked away, quietly muttering. "I wanted you."
There was a pause before he forced the smirk back and looked back at her once more.
"Didn't you have introductions to make?"
"Charming indeed" she laughed, unable to help herself. He was still charming, and the sort of charm that was infectious. "You influenced the minds of my guards and there were seven seperate assasination attempts over breakfast before you left the next day."
She was about to speak again when he turned back, serious and talked of introductions, and Tenel Ka remembered to whom she was speaking. This was not the Jacen she had sat with on a bench in her Palace Gardens.
"...I do. It shouldn't take long" she said softly and stood, focusing her mind as she slipped in the side door. How by the Hapan Moons was she to explain this?