Linger
Title: Linger
Rating: T/PG-13
Fandom: Star Wars
Summary: Set during Undeserved Grace, and after Use Somebody. Jocasta learns that Dooku has fallen to the Dark Side. But she also cannot deny the fact that she can’t let go of her friendship with Dooku - or that it is a dangerous attachment. Mild Dooku x Jocasta.
note: based on the song Linger by the Cranberries
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were you lying all the time?
was it just a game to you?
-
One thing Jedi Masters knew too well was that Jedi were only too human, even though Padawans and younglings would claim that Jedi Masters were inhumanly calm and forever in control.
They would also claim that Jedi Masters were possessed of a trouble-sensing ability, able to ferret out the least bit of guilt in a youngling, and to thus punish the prankster accordingly. According to popular rumors, the Masters never needed to sleep and were always there to break up some of the funnest midnight prank wars. Some suggested Master Yoda was omniscient and omnipresent, and the rest of the Jedi Masters were similar in this to some degree.
Becoming a Jedi Master meant the destruction of all the childhood illusions. Jedi Masters were fallible. Jedi Masters fell.
And even the best of the Order, their brightest of students, Master Yoda’s star pupil…had fallen, to the Dark Side.
Jocasta Nu knew better than to display her emotions publicly. The Masters set the example for the younglings, and she wasn’t a youngling anymore, to break down so easily. She was older, and more experienced, or so she told herself.
So why did she feel raw, as if someone had rubbed salt across her grated nerves?
Because she had cared. Because Dooku had been a friend, and a close friend. And because she knew she had been used by him. He was a consummate liar, and more than skilled at misdirection. The though of it hurt - that her concern and her trust had been given to a man who regarded her only as a means to an end. He had been using her, ferreting out her vulnerabilities and then using it to obtain what he wanted.
He used her to further his own goals - and the goals of his Sith Master.
And that betrayal stung, enough that she found furious tears glittering in her eyes, and she scrubbed at them. It was easy to understand why Dooku’s betrayal hurt so deeply. It had been so deeply personal - they had been friends, and then closer, since they were Initiates.
Why did it hurt?
Because she was a strongly private person, and she had opened herself up to Dooku. He knew some of her deeper dreams, and her secret fears. She was probably one of the few members remaining in the Jedi Order who could still read him - who knew his moods and his thought processes so well, as if they were her own.
That betrayal of her trust was something that elicited a deeply emotional response from her - and one that wasn’t a Jedi response.
But as Jocasta knew only too well, she was a Jedi first, and then a woman. But sometimes, the heart just couldn’t be ignored by the head.
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oh, I thought the world of you,
I thought nothing could go wrong
But I was wrong, I was wrong
-
If there was one thing that chafed as well, it was the reminder that she had been too proud. Arrogance had been Dooku’s flaw, and still was his flaw. Those who knew Dooku would agree he had reason to be proud.
He was possibly one of the best Jedi Masters in the Order, in whom the Force was very strong, he who cleaved so strongly to the Jedi ideals, and he who was supremely and superbly skilled with a lightsaber.
But Dooku wasn’t just confident - he oozed arrogance, at times. He had a deep level of confidence in his abilities that had seldom been shaken, and a deep certainty in his own judgement that could not be easily swayed.
But pride was Jocasta’s own flaw. Pride in the completeness of the Archives, as an extension of her efforts and the efforts of the Masters before her to render them comprehensive. Pride in the structure of the Jedi - despite Dooku’s bitter recount of Galidraan and Baltizaar.
And it seemed it had been the flaw of the Jedi. No one could have thought that such a great Jedi Master could fall so far. Not even Mace Windu, who had resisted the chance to strike at Dooku, on account of their former friendship.
No, Octavius Dooku had been one of the greatest of the Jedi Order, and Yoda had felt he was his greatest student. And he was the harshest loss the Order had ever suffered.
In her moments of guilt, Jocasta always wondered how she - or any of the other Jedi - could have missed the warning signs that Dooku was falling, away from the light and towards the darkness.
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and I'm in so deep, you know I'm such a fool for you,
you got me wrapped around your finger
do you have to let it linger?
-
After she has crossed blades with him once, and let him go, Jocasta knew the truth - it hurt, because somewhere along, her friendship with Dooku had stopped being a friendship, and had started to become an attachment.
Somewhere along, when Dooku had first entered her life, he had found himself a place there, and now, traces of him still lingered in her mind. She couldn’t entirely let go of him - or of the memory of the man he had been.
She couldn’t let go of the hope he could return. That he could be redeemed from the Dark Side.
But redemption was a difficult path, and too few fallen Jedi walked it. But she knew the names of all those who had. Revan had been redeemed. So had Ulic Qel-Droma. And so had Atris, Jedi historian, and member of the Jedi Council.
It was an attachment, because she could not bring herself to strike Dooku down. Because she could not forget Dooku so easily. Because she had searched his eyes for any lingering recognition, any trace of her friend. Because she had fought him, but not seriously, and not with her heart in the battle.
And she dared not really think about the small seed of hope that had been planted in her heart when they fought.
He was the better duelist. But he had not struck her down.
She stared at the spot where Dooku had stood - a Force phantom, but it still carried all of his mannerisms, everything so stunningly familiar. Young Skywalker still gripped his lightsaber so hard she thought the metal would dent, scowling at where Dooku had been.
“We almost had him.” He nearly snarled, and she could feel him vibrating with hatred in the Force, thick with the deep bass of the darkness that smoked in his eyes.
She bit back the curt reply - that Dooku hadn’t really been there in the first place. It was a Force technique, and one that was difficult to execute. She could feel the underlying desire for revenge shivering through him.
And then suddenly, his eyes cleared, and Skywalker’s Force presence lost the darker undertone, becoming the strong, powerful melody within the Force that it was - of swirling nebulae, and spiralling arms of new galaxies.
“That was a Force phantom, Padawan.” She said, using the term not as Skywalker’s Master, but as a Jedi Master to a Jedi Padwan. Now that the anger was gone, it was almost as if it had never been there in the first place. She would say nothing of it, and just mention the incident to Master Kenobi. The speed at which Skywalker had resumed control was astounding, and yet she had the deep conviction the emotions were still there…but buried, a muffled undercurrent of a bass in his Force presence. “Killing indiscriminately is never the Jedi way.”
“We had him.” Skywalker insisted, but the anger was gone. “You weren’t attacking him. You were just letting him hit you.”
“Padawan!” She snapped. “You will watch your tone!”
As Skywalker sullenly tramped away, over the broken hulls and carcasses of smouldering battle droids, Jocasta knew that he had been right.
And she knew, instinctively, that this attachment was dangerous. One way or another, it would endanger her.
But some attachments were too deep to be released. Traces of them always remained.
He is still the Dooku I knew. But he was misguided, poisoned by despair…
She set to the task of searching out the Initiates where they had hidden, while Skywalker made sure the Archives were clean of super battle droids, droidekas, and any other hostiles.
Still, her duel with Dooku, memories of Dooku, and Skywalker’s words kept lingering in her mind.
-
A/N: Another fic in the Grace universe. The last part is actually based on the so-called canon game ‘The New Droid Army’, except I’ve swapped stuff so Anakin and Jocasta battle the Dooku phantom in the Archives.
I’ve tried to humanise Jocasta a bit more, especially given her relationship with Dooku. I’ve always been a follower of the school of thought that Jedi feel emotions, and then let the emotions go and work past them. Anakin’s flaw is, he can’t let go. He mires himself too deep in the emotion. So the most he can do is to suppress it, and then of course when he suppresses it, he tends to crack/explode.
And yes, Jocasta feels the Force as music - poetry, even. I decided it was a nice touch for one of the less combat-oriented Jedi.
-Cymru