AFTERMATH- Tahiri/Jacen
Her breath hitched as he pressed against the small cut as she felt the strength that came from pain. Just a little, nothing like what she could have taken if it was only her to worry about, but that feeling of being real and there and her. So she didn't pull away, didn't shrink from his touch. If anything she pushed a little back, making the touch firmer and taking comfort and strength from it.
"We all break and change over time." Some more than others, it was true. Tahiri herself had been described as broken and remade so many times over the years. When Anakin died, when she was Shaped, her path to becoming Sith, losing Jacen. "Even the slightest difference in our decisions could have led us all down completely different paths but..." she paused and actually took a deep breath, reminding him of the hardest lesson he himself had taught her. "We can't change the past. Just our perceptions of it. We evolve, we change. We accept our pasts and learn from them. Never forget who we were because that all brought us to here, to this moment." Jacen, the God, Caedus, to this. This man in front of her, asking the difficult questions.
"Jacen Solo is the one man who understands me, who truly knows me, all of me, who has seen the very worst of me and made me better." Not through the path of the Sith, that wasn't what she meant, but who she was here, in Lawrence. This was the best of Tahiri, the strongest she had ever been, who still had hope for the future even after everything. "And Jacen Solo is the man I love." It was the first time she had said the words out loud, and to many it would seem the most inappropriate time, standing in the remains of a battlefield, surrounded by death and pain, but then wasn't that just them all over? They would never be a grand fairytale, the love story told to children. They were born from war and hardship and overcome it all to find this relationship, unconventional, unique as it was. She didn't expect him to say anything back, she knew who she was to him, and she was alright with that. But she needed him to know that he was loved by her, and would be by his children.
"You are a man capable of so much love, so much strength, who can do things others never could. You're a father, and I believe in you, I believe in the father you are going to be to these babies of ours. They are going to be so lucky to have you." He would keep them safe. Not with the war that had so driven him to try to protect Allana, losing himself in the process, but in a better way. Keep them protected from the creatures who went bump in the night by being there with them.
"You can do this, Jacen. I have faith in you, I always have."