Held Onto Me
Title: Held Onto Me
Characters: Jacen Solo, Mara Jade Skywalker, others.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2089
Summary: It's not redemption, but it's a start.
"...glad we got to them in time..."
"...going to be...?"
"...don't know why... when..."
Jacen tried to blink, tried to move his head, but something was holding him in place and his eyes felt gummy. He tried to draw on the Force, but it felt sluggish and thick as sap to him, and he finally stopped trying after a minute.
He must have moved somewhere, or made a noise, because the bright light that had been turning the insides of his eyelids red dimmed, and he felt a current of breath across his face.
"Just go back to sleep, kid," he heard his father say, in a voice so weary it made even Jacen tired. "We're not there yet."
He tried to ask where they were, what their destination was, where Allana was and if she was all right... but then the darkness came back, and Jacen spiraled into it.
*
She woke up in bright light, and at first thought she was dead. Where else could she be where she'd be laying in bed alone, without Luke beside her snoring away? Mara opened her eyes, then squinted them shut again when the light proved to be too much. A thick groan escaped her--and that made someone beside her stir.
Her sense of self-preservation kicked in before her Jedi senses did, but Luke's were still as sharp as ever, and he caught her hand at the wrist.
"Hey, I thought we were past the part where you wanted to kill me," he said. His words may have been joking, but Mara's ears caught that undercurrent of worry, the relief she'd woken up and was here with him. She felt his fingers slide in between hers, gripping her hand tightly.
"Old habits," she murmured. Mara let her head fall back against the pillows, and tried to open her eyes again. This time, the light wasn't so startlingly bright, and after a moment she could focus on Luke's face. He looked haggard, exhausted even, but those blue eyes she'd fallen in love with were still bright. She lifted her other hand; tubes from an IV clicked together softly. Mara lifted the hand anyway and looked at it; it was covered in scrapes and her arm, she saw when the loose sleeve of the med-center gown fell a bit, was the same. "What..."
"We got to Kavan," Luke said softly, and Mara sensed the residue of panic and worry in his presence. "We found you and Jacen, half-dead and still trying to strike at each other. We had to sedate both of you for the trip back."
"Jacen... he's still Jacen?"
Luke looked at her steadily, then got up, pulling back a set of drapes that nearly encircled her bed.
On the bed next to her lay Jacen, staring sullenly at anything but them.
"He sure looks like our nephew," Luke said.
Mara snorted. "Yeah, some family loyalty. He tried to kill me."
"He almost succeeded," Luke said quietly, twitching the drapes back and lowering his voice again. "He'd scratched you with a dart carrying a poison; not much got in but enough that we were worried we'd lose you. And well, I don't know if you can focus well yet but you should see Jacen's face."
Mara was quiet, staring at her husband. "You thought I was going to die."
Luke took his seat again and she got the sense that he'd been sitting there for a long time, waiting for her to wake up. "The thought occurred to me."
She didn't know what to say, other than to give his hand a tug to pull him in closer, until at last he got the hint and leaned over, kissing her temple; here, Mara could turn her head painfully slowly and kiss him back. The pain in her neck was worth feeling the love flowing from him along their bond, strengthening her.
"Mom!"
Mara tore herself away from her husband and nearly tipped over the machines she was hooked up to, trying to sit up so she could give Ben a proper hug. He wasn't the too-adult GAG troop right now, though he wore the black fatigues; he was just her Ben, the son she had sworn to keep safe.
Even if that meant killing the man in the bed next to hers.
*
Nighttime in the ward, and the light from the rest of Coruscant filtered through the drapes, casting lines of orange-gold light across empty beds and floors. Jacen couldn't sleep, mind in too much turmoil to allow him any rest.
He sensed he wasn't the only one.
"If you're going to say something," he spoke to the darkness, the shadow pressing in on them both, "Do it. Don't lay there brooding on it."
The shifting of the bed on the other side of the curtains told him he'd been right. "I know your parents taught you to respect your elders," Mara snapped. "But it sure looks like you could use a refresher course."
"Don't talk to me about them," Jacen muttered. "They're just as misguided as you."
"I'm misguided because I want to keep my family safe from someone like what you're becoming?" A derisive snort. "You need to get your head checked too, Jacen."
For some reason, that struck him, and he fell quiet for a while, thinking. Mara had fought him to protect her family--to keep her son safe, the son she'd nearly lost her life for on more than one occasion. Himself... Jacen wanted to make the galaxy safe for little Allana, who couldn't even know her own parentage.
Somewhere, there was an understanding here, but Jacen couldn't see it. He opened his mouth to ask something else, but Mara's deep, even breathing told him she was asleep.
*
Mara's recovery was longer than Jacen's, and as a result he was out of the med ward before she was--though he was not allowed out of the Temple. In fact, he was taken down to a level he hadn't been to before, one where the rooms were surrounded by ysalamiri and he couldn't so much as make a ball wobble without touching it first.
As a result of his confinement and its circumstances, he didn't feel Mara coming, and truth be told even if he had he would have been surprised to see her show up at his door.
"Going to let me in?" she asked. Her voice was as chilly as the waters of Helska IV had been, and her eyes were like flecks of tinted ice.
"Sure," he said, and stepped aside. Mara swept in and turned in a circle, looking around the little apartment with an appraising eye. "Cozy."
"Did you come here for something, Master Skywalker, or did you just want to insult me?"
He caught that flash of hurt on her face, and almost felt remorse. Jacen remembered clearly when she was Aunt Mara, and things weren't so formal. But in an instant her icy demeanor was back and she pushed hair out of her eyes.
"Just wanted to see how your recovery was going," she said archly. "If any of the rehabilitation's taken effect or not."
"I don't need it."
"Sure you don't." She leaned forward. "Your neighbor Raynar needs it less than you do, and he was the one speaking in plurals for years."
"There's nothing wrong with me!"
"Except that Sith who's had you on her leash."
"You would know about leashes, wouldn't you?"
Instantly he knew it was the wrong thing to say. Mara was shorter than he was, but she drew herself up, seeming to gather power to her. It didn't seem possible--she was just as Force-blind in here as he was--but he felt something in him shrinking back. Mara was dangerous when she was angry, and he'd struck a very tender nerve.
"Don't you dare speak to me about that," Mara hissed, her voice dangerously calm. "Don't you presume to talk about it." A moment later, she took a deep breath, and some of that menacing aura receded. "I've put it behind me. I've moved on, cast off the puppet's strings that I danced on for years after Palpatine was killed. I hope you do the same."
With that, she turned and gave some kind of signal to the people outside, because the door opened, and she vanished through it, leaving Jacen with an unasked question on his lips.
*
He was allowed out of the asylum level for walks eventually, usually with his uncle, after weeks of therapy sessions and shouting matches with various family members. Luke talked about things--how the conflict with Corellia had been resolved, Ben's continued training, Cal Omas working to restore order. Innocuous things. But he was often silent during these, letting Luke's words flow through him. Deep down, Jacen could sense the wariness Luke held whenever they were together, and he had politely but firmly declined Jacen's request to talk to Ben, and it hurt him.
"Lumiya was caught."
That got Jacen's attention from where he'd been brooding, touching the leaves of a plant in one of the Temple gardens. His eyes met his uncle's calm blue ones. "What?"
"She was trying to get into the Temple," Luke said. Jacen knew that he was being sized up. "We figure she was trying to break you out."
Jacen snorted. "I don't think she'd have ever found me. I'm buried, like the rest of the Order's dirty little secrets." He felt a strange surge in feeling from his uncle, and his brow furrowed.
"You know, we've been leaving the door unlocked for weeks."
Jacen's face must have had an incredulous expression on it, because Luke laughed when he inquired as to just what they were thinking.
"We've just been waiting for you to be ready to walk through it."
*
"What happened to Lumiya?"
A few days had passed since that walk in the Temple gardens, and Han and Leia had come to see their son. His parents looked between each other and then at Jacen.
"She tried to escape and was killed," his mother said.
"By a Jedi?"
"No. By one of those GAG troopers you commanded."
That made his eyebrows shoot up. "It wasn't Ben?"
"Ben hasn't had anything to do with GAG since Kavan," Leia said. "You broke his heart, Jacen. He looked up to you, and you tried to kill his mother."
Jacen was quiet for a long time after they'd left, and he was still quiet when Mara came in and sat across from him. Most of the hostility between them had waned, as Mara had regained her strength and assumed her duties again, but it could still flare up at any time, as far as he could tell.
"What's on your mind, kid?"
Jacen looked up at his aunt, and was surprised to see the barest hint of concern in her eyes. Of all the people who had every right to hate him, Mara Jade Skywalker was probably at the top of that list, but like her husband, she seemed to be going the other way. "Lots of things," he replied quietly. "Why do you care?"
"Because hating people for years without reason is a holo I've seen before," Mara replied, "And it's not one I particularly like. It's... I could use my energy in ways like this, I guess." She shrugged and sat back. "But hate my own nephew? Nah."
"Even though I almost killed you?"
"But you didn't."
"Only because we had beat each other almost senseless anyway."
"There's a lot of almosts coming from you," she said. "Why didn't you follow through?"
Jacen was silent, looking down at the slippers he wore indoors. "I don't know," he said at last.
"Maybe think about that, then," Mara said, and got up, walking over to the door.
"Hey, Aunt Mara?" She paused, looking back at him over her shoulder. He met her eyes, making himself hold them. "How did you throw off the darkness?"
She smiled at him, the first real smile he'd gotten from her in a long time. Jacen was surprised how much he realized he cared about getting it in the first place.
"I didn't do it sitting alone in some Force-blind cell, that's for kriffing sure," she replied. "Just takes time and patience, Jacen."
She left, the door closing behind her. Jacen stared at it for a long time before tentatively stepping forward, into the area where it would slide up at his approach. It did.
He smiled, and walked through after his aunt.
Characters: Jacen Solo, Mara Jade Skywalker, others.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2089
Summary: It's not redemption, but it's a start.
"...glad we got to them in time..."
"...going to be...?"
"...don't know why... when..."
Jacen tried to blink, tried to move his head, but something was holding him in place and his eyes felt gummy. He tried to draw on the Force, but it felt sluggish and thick as sap to him, and he finally stopped trying after a minute.
He must have moved somewhere, or made a noise, because the bright light that had been turning the insides of his eyelids red dimmed, and he felt a current of breath across his face.
"Just go back to sleep, kid," he heard his father say, in a voice so weary it made even Jacen tired. "We're not there yet."
He tried to ask where they were, what their destination was, where Allana was and if she was all right... but then the darkness came back, and Jacen spiraled into it.
*
She woke up in bright light, and at first thought she was dead. Where else could she be where she'd be laying in bed alone, without Luke beside her snoring away? Mara opened her eyes, then squinted them shut again when the light proved to be too much. A thick groan escaped her--and that made someone beside her stir.
Her sense of self-preservation kicked in before her Jedi senses did, but Luke's were still as sharp as ever, and he caught her hand at the wrist.
"Hey, I thought we were past the part where you wanted to kill me," he said. His words may have been joking, but Mara's ears caught that undercurrent of worry, the relief she'd woken up and was here with him. She felt his fingers slide in between hers, gripping her hand tightly.
"Old habits," she murmured. Mara let her head fall back against the pillows, and tried to open her eyes again. This time, the light wasn't so startlingly bright, and after a moment she could focus on Luke's face. He looked haggard, exhausted even, but those blue eyes she'd fallen in love with were still bright. She lifted her other hand; tubes from an IV clicked together softly. Mara lifted the hand anyway and looked at it; it was covered in scrapes and her arm, she saw when the loose sleeve of the med-center gown fell a bit, was the same. "What..."
"We got to Kavan," Luke said softly, and Mara sensed the residue of panic and worry in his presence. "We found you and Jacen, half-dead and still trying to strike at each other. We had to sedate both of you for the trip back."
"Jacen... he's still Jacen?"
Luke looked at her steadily, then got up, pulling back a set of drapes that nearly encircled her bed.
On the bed next to her lay Jacen, staring sullenly at anything but them.
"He sure looks like our nephew," Luke said.
Mara snorted. "Yeah, some family loyalty. He tried to kill me."
"He almost succeeded," Luke said quietly, twitching the drapes back and lowering his voice again. "He'd scratched you with a dart carrying a poison; not much got in but enough that we were worried we'd lose you. And well, I don't know if you can focus well yet but you should see Jacen's face."
Mara was quiet, staring at her husband. "You thought I was going to die."
Luke took his seat again and she got the sense that he'd been sitting there for a long time, waiting for her to wake up. "The thought occurred to me."
She didn't know what to say, other than to give his hand a tug to pull him in closer, until at last he got the hint and leaned over, kissing her temple; here, Mara could turn her head painfully slowly and kiss him back. The pain in her neck was worth feeling the love flowing from him along their bond, strengthening her.
"Mom!"
Mara tore herself away from her husband and nearly tipped over the machines she was hooked up to, trying to sit up so she could give Ben a proper hug. He wasn't the too-adult GAG troop right now, though he wore the black fatigues; he was just her Ben, the son she had sworn to keep safe.
Even if that meant killing the man in the bed next to hers.
*
Nighttime in the ward, and the light from the rest of Coruscant filtered through the drapes, casting lines of orange-gold light across empty beds and floors. Jacen couldn't sleep, mind in too much turmoil to allow him any rest.
He sensed he wasn't the only one.
"If you're going to say something," he spoke to the darkness, the shadow pressing in on them both, "Do it. Don't lay there brooding on it."
The shifting of the bed on the other side of the curtains told him he'd been right. "I know your parents taught you to respect your elders," Mara snapped. "But it sure looks like you could use a refresher course."
"Don't talk to me about them," Jacen muttered. "They're just as misguided as you."
"I'm misguided because I want to keep my family safe from someone like what you're becoming?" A derisive snort. "You need to get your head checked too, Jacen."
For some reason, that struck him, and he fell quiet for a while, thinking. Mara had fought him to protect her family--to keep her son safe, the son she'd nearly lost her life for on more than one occasion. Himself... Jacen wanted to make the galaxy safe for little Allana, who couldn't even know her own parentage.
Somewhere, there was an understanding here, but Jacen couldn't see it. He opened his mouth to ask something else, but Mara's deep, even breathing told him she was asleep.
*
Mara's recovery was longer than Jacen's, and as a result he was out of the med ward before she was--though he was not allowed out of the Temple. In fact, he was taken down to a level he hadn't been to before, one where the rooms were surrounded by ysalamiri and he couldn't so much as make a ball wobble without touching it first.
As a result of his confinement and its circumstances, he didn't feel Mara coming, and truth be told even if he had he would have been surprised to see her show up at his door.
"Going to let me in?" she asked. Her voice was as chilly as the waters of Helska IV had been, and her eyes were like flecks of tinted ice.
"Sure," he said, and stepped aside. Mara swept in and turned in a circle, looking around the little apartment with an appraising eye. "Cozy."
"Did you come here for something, Master Skywalker, or did you just want to insult me?"
He caught that flash of hurt on her face, and almost felt remorse. Jacen remembered clearly when she was Aunt Mara, and things weren't so formal. But in an instant her icy demeanor was back and she pushed hair out of her eyes.
"Just wanted to see how your recovery was going," she said archly. "If any of the rehabilitation's taken effect or not."
"I don't need it."
"Sure you don't." She leaned forward. "Your neighbor Raynar needs it less than you do, and he was the one speaking in plurals for years."
"There's nothing wrong with me!"
"Except that Sith who's had you on her leash."
"You would know about leashes, wouldn't you?"
Instantly he knew it was the wrong thing to say. Mara was shorter than he was, but she drew herself up, seeming to gather power to her. It didn't seem possible--she was just as Force-blind in here as he was--but he felt something in him shrinking back. Mara was dangerous when she was angry, and he'd struck a very tender nerve.
"Don't you dare speak to me about that," Mara hissed, her voice dangerously calm. "Don't you presume to talk about it." A moment later, she took a deep breath, and some of that menacing aura receded. "I've put it behind me. I've moved on, cast off the puppet's strings that I danced on for years after Palpatine was killed. I hope you do the same."
With that, she turned and gave some kind of signal to the people outside, because the door opened, and she vanished through it, leaving Jacen with an unasked question on his lips.
*
He was allowed out of the asylum level for walks eventually, usually with his uncle, after weeks of therapy sessions and shouting matches with various family members. Luke talked about things--how the conflict with Corellia had been resolved, Ben's continued training, Cal Omas working to restore order. Innocuous things. But he was often silent during these, letting Luke's words flow through him. Deep down, Jacen could sense the wariness Luke held whenever they were together, and he had politely but firmly declined Jacen's request to talk to Ben, and it hurt him.
"Lumiya was caught."
That got Jacen's attention from where he'd been brooding, touching the leaves of a plant in one of the Temple gardens. His eyes met his uncle's calm blue ones. "What?"
"She was trying to get into the Temple," Luke said. Jacen knew that he was being sized up. "We figure she was trying to break you out."
Jacen snorted. "I don't think she'd have ever found me. I'm buried, like the rest of the Order's dirty little secrets." He felt a strange surge in feeling from his uncle, and his brow furrowed.
"You know, we've been leaving the door unlocked for weeks."
Jacen's face must have had an incredulous expression on it, because Luke laughed when he inquired as to just what they were thinking.
"We've just been waiting for you to be ready to walk through it."
*
"What happened to Lumiya?"
A few days had passed since that walk in the Temple gardens, and Han and Leia had come to see their son. His parents looked between each other and then at Jacen.
"She tried to escape and was killed," his mother said.
"By a Jedi?"
"No. By one of those GAG troopers you commanded."
That made his eyebrows shoot up. "It wasn't Ben?"
"Ben hasn't had anything to do with GAG since Kavan," Leia said. "You broke his heart, Jacen. He looked up to you, and you tried to kill his mother."
Jacen was quiet for a long time after they'd left, and he was still quiet when Mara came in and sat across from him. Most of the hostility between them had waned, as Mara had regained her strength and assumed her duties again, but it could still flare up at any time, as far as he could tell.
"What's on your mind, kid?"
Jacen looked up at his aunt, and was surprised to see the barest hint of concern in her eyes. Of all the people who had every right to hate him, Mara Jade Skywalker was probably at the top of that list, but like her husband, she seemed to be going the other way. "Lots of things," he replied quietly. "Why do you care?"
"Because hating people for years without reason is a holo I've seen before," Mara replied, "And it's not one I particularly like. It's... I could use my energy in ways like this, I guess." She shrugged and sat back. "But hate my own nephew? Nah."
"Even though I almost killed you?"
"But you didn't."
"Only because we had beat each other almost senseless anyway."
"There's a lot of almosts coming from you," she said. "Why didn't you follow through?"
Jacen was silent, looking down at the slippers he wore indoors. "I don't know," he said at last.
"Maybe think about that, then," Mara said, and got up, walking over to the door.
"Hey, Aunt Mara?" She paused, looking back at him over her shoulder. He met her eyes, making himself hold them. "How did you throw off the darkness?"
She smiled at him, the first real smile he'd gotten from her in a long time. Jacen was surprised how much he realized he cared about getting it in the first place.
"I didn't do it sitting alone in some Force-blind cell, that's for kriffing sure," she replied. "Just takes time and patience, Jacen."
She left, the door closing behind her. Jacen stared at it for a long time before tentatively stepping forward, into the area where it would slide up at his approach. It did.
He smiled, and walked through after his aunt.