someleader.
They've given up hope, every last one of them. He knows this. It breaks his heart to look at Ben and see a battle-hardened soldier instead of an excitable kid playing spy games; to look at Jaina and see a Sword instead of a sister.
To watch the Holonews and see Caedus instead of Jacen.
Names have a real, almost tangible effect. He knows this, too, probably better than the rest of his family. What you call someone determines who they are to you and those around you.
Caedus, not Jacen.
Vader, not Anakin.
He remembers the essay Ben wrote for his parents. The fall of Anakin Skywalker. And he remembers the end of that story, that they all know so well -- or do they? Because sometimes he thinks they don't. They've forgotten. Sometimes he thinks it doesn't mean as much to them as to him, because they aren't reminded of the shadow in which they still live every time a security guard checks their ID, every time they sign a tapcaf check, every time someone calls them in the street.
(Shouldn't Luke Skywalker be reminded? Sometimes he wants to scream at his uncle, You didn't give up then. Why are you giving up now?)
It's youth and naivety and a little bit of arrogance. He's self-aware enough to know this along with everything else. He is the only one who truly understands that this is not over just because he's the only one named after a Sith Lord? It's hardly an academic qualification.
But he's also determined enough not to care, because it's not just about what he knows. It's about what he feels, and though his mind says Caedus, his heart still says Jacen.
(There's a fortress somewhere; an idle thought. The password is Jacen, not Caedus.)
(Anakin, not Vader.)
This isn't over yet.
And maybe he'll be wrong and maybe he'll fail and maybe he'll die.
But someone has to make Jacen start asking questions again. And Anakin knows that it has to be him.