Use Somebody
Title: Use Somebody
Rating: T
Fandom: Star Wars
Summary: How did the Archives get erased, and how did Jocasta Nu not notice? And how did she react when she learned Kamino existed, but Dooku had erased it from the Archive memory? Mild Dooku x Jocasta.
note: based on the song Use Somebody by Kings of Leon.
-
you know that I could use somebody
you know that I could use somebody
someone like you;
-
Jocasta Nu first met Octavius Dooku when they were both Initiates at the Jedi Temple. He was at least two years older than her, and in the best lightsaber class. The Masters all spoke approvingly of his style with a lightsaber - he had a flair for the elegant and the precise that made his execution of Shii-Cho almost beautiful to watch.
There was little doubt that he would become one of the greatest Jedi in the Temple, even then.
Her own talents with a lightsaber were less obvious. It was hard for her to take on someone of Dooku’s caliber with a lightsaber - he was skilled in the unconscious, effortless way that characterised genius.
But they met, and while he defeated her, he complimented her on her style.
Sometimes, she would find him during her private lightsaber practices, or the times she spent searching the Jedi Archives for some kind of knowledge, especially when he was not with Lorian Nod.
And then, when Lorian left, she started to see him more often.
-
When he became Thame Cerulian’s apprentice, he spent more time in the Archives, perhaps at the behest of his new Master, who was a famed Jedi Master and a devoted historian.
Jocasta ran into him more often, especially when she was apprenticed to her own Master, Ranira Ilen, one of the Archivists in the Order, assigned to the procurement department. Master Ilen approved of her contact with Dooku, pointing out that procurement and archaeology needed lightsaber skills - more so than any other division in the Archives.
And so they met, and they sparred. Dooku showed her some of his elegant Makashi moves.
He had always been one to push for his opinions, dancing at the very edge of Jedi manners by subtly criticising her choice of Niman as the lightsaber form she wished to learn. In the end, she gave in, but to his disappointment, she chose Soresu instead of Makashi.
It was also around that time they were both sent more and more often on field missions, and were less able to meet and spar. More often than not, when they met, they were too tired to spar, or there was just too little time to begin a truly instructive match.
When Dooku became a Jedi Knight, they had even fewer meetings - Jocasta still answered to her Master, while the Council kept Dooku busy with mission after mission.
She would sometimes find bits of Jedi lore slipped under her door, written in a familiar hand. The flowing slashes of Dooku’s handwriting were much like the way he practiced lightsaber combat - were much like the way he lived. It was an embodiment of who Dooku was.
She returned the favor.
-
When she became a Jedi Knight, she met him on Korriban. She had been sent there to retrieve a Sith holocron in a dangerous mission, and when she had called for backup, the Knight had turned out to be Dooku.
He had never been one for overt facial expressions - no unseemly grins, no sudden laughter, but neither had Jocasta. Still, as Master Yoda had always told them, one need not display the outer forms of a lightsaber attack but one must feel its intention in every cell. And so it was that Dooku’s slight nod, the way he turned his back slightly towards her as he fended off the attack from a tuk’ata displayed a subtle bond of trust and friendship that was wordless.
She did wish he wouldn’t criticise her camp tea. She felt she was fairly proficient at it, although she always managed to catch the slight upturned corners of Dooku’s mouth, the reluctant faint smile which suggested he was humoring her by drinking the tea, as well as the inadvertent, or perhaps deliberate wince.
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It was some time after Dooku’s apprentice, Qui-Gon Jinn, had become a Jedi Master and taken Obi-Wan Kenobi as his Padawan Learner.
It was always as if there was some kind of darkness to Dooku, some depth that had never been there before. He was more silent, more brooding - his occasional display of wit lacked an edge, as if he was going through the motions, but he wasn’t really there.
At other times, it was as if he was his old self, perfectly fine, with the mannerisms she knew, and recognised.
He was beginning to reject missions from the Council - the loss of Komari Vosa, and the mission to Baltizaar had hit him hard. Instead, he told Jocasta he wanted to work in the Archives.
It was not Jocasta’s policy to go against the Council, particularly when she had once assumed one of the rotating seats on the Council. However, Dooku wasn’t grounded - he was merely in some kind of mild disgrace. Even Jedi reserved the right to object on grounds of conscience to a mission assigned to them - and it was only the fact that Dooku’s increasing protests were becoming sharper and more critical of the Jedi that gave him some kind of notoriety.
So she allowed Dooku to work in the Archives for a while, voluntarily. It was obvious though, that even giving him something to do didn’t take his mind off the brooding wariness of the Jedi Order and of the Republic that was growing in him.
She tried talking to him, but it was clear he was more troubled than he would say, even when they were both Jedi Masters. He confided as well in Sifo-Dyas, but she had the feeling even the two of them together could barely reach the slow poison that was filling Dooku’s mind.
Being cynical was one thing, and being practical or realistic was another. But slowly, she could sense the sparkle of the Force around him dimming with a soft air of despair, and she tried to engage him in talks of what he intended to do as a Jedi, talk of the future, and even talk of the Archives, and Jedi lore.
Drawing the despair from Dooku was a two-way process, however. She could leech it from him only if he was willing to let go of his despair.
-
Perhaps she had deceived herself as to her success.
There were no more illusions, on the day Dooku’s Archivist access card was deposited neatly at the bottom of her door, with a sheet of crinkled flimsi. She reached for it carefully, feeling her emotions recede and become distant.
She didn’t need to hear the murmuring flashes of excitement in the Force to know what had happened. Every sense of intuition was telling her the note smouldered sullenly in the Force. This would be bad.
She unfolded it, straightening it against the skirts of her robe. She smoothed out the wrinkles out carefully. The elegant writing unfolded with the spiralling neatness of a series of musical notations of the Andunai.
Jocasta,
I have resigned my commission as a Jedi Master. I no longer want to remain a member of the Jedi Order. I therefore return my Archivist access card to you.
I apologise.
-Octavius Dooku, Count of Serenno
She was barely aware of the fact she was nearly crushing the flimsi in her hand. She folded it again, and tucked it into her robe pocket. She needed to return the access card to the Archives. One thing at a time.
She felt each emotion, taking stock of them, and then released the seething disbelief, guilt, and unhappiness into the Force, using a Jedi breathing exercise. No matter what happened, she was a Jedi Master, even if Dooku had forgotten the fact that he had been one.
Word of Dooku’s departure had spread through the Temple like wildfire on dry grass, and she heard the whispers down the corridors as she headed to the Archives.
But the Archives would only serve as a mocking reminder of another of the Order’s deep failures - the twentieth, whose bronzium bust would soon join sculpted, preserved faces of departed Masters.
That, and the lightsaber Dooku had left behind with Sifo-Dyas, built by a proud, confident Jedi Knight that no longer was.
-
It was in the aftermath of Geonosis that Jocasta learned of Dooku’s betrayal.
She wasn’t sure which stung more - that what was once brilliance had fallen so far into the Dark Side and become a Sith Lord…or that Dooku had lied. That Dooku had, she realised, used her.
He had used their friendship, used her concern for him, and used his Archivist’s card to access forbidden sections of the Jedi Archives, and to cover his tracks. He had masked sections on what she vaguely remembered to be the art of concealing one’s presence in the Force.
And he had eradicated swathes of the Outer Rim - such as Kamino from the Archives.
I apologise, he had said.
This was what he was apologising for, then. For his endless lies, his deception…not for leaving the Jedi Order. That was Dooku’s flaw, and perhaps her own, as the Kamino affair had shown.
Both of them believed too strongly they were right.
But still, it was like a knife twisting in her gut, the endless moment of cold and the inability to breathe. She forced herself to do so, with the Jedi training that had become almost instinct by now.
And in that moment, she almost understood why Dooku could turn to despair. Why Dooku had been so bitter about the ultimate disintegration of his friendship with Lorian Nod.
But she was not Dooku. And where Dooku had fallen, Jocasta was stronger. She opened herself to the Force, allowed herself to feel the anger, sadness, and disappointment, as well as the acute sense of betrayal. They gleamed in the Force, each resonating with a different frequency, and then she let go of them, allowing them to float away.
She would not let her heart control her head.
I apologise, Dooku had said. He had felt some kind of guilt, and in that moment, she knew that even if Dooku didn’t know it, their friendship had not been a lie. That while he had broken the trust between them…he had felt some kind of regret.
She stared at the solemn visage of the Jedi Master who stood watch over the Archives in bronzium. Here was the look of easy calm that always filled Dooku’s features. He was not easily ruffled - whatever tension there was always lay beneath his surface.
In the Force, he was like an Antarian poem, elegant, filled with a tense conflict.
And despite the conflicting feelings she had, she saluted the bust, and the memory of the man who had once been a Jedi, and someone who was a friend.
Someone at least, would remember the man Dooku had been.
And someone would also bear his personal betrayal, and the guilt that whatever had led Dooku to the Dark Side had been partly her fault. The Dark Side was a matter of choice. But only time would erase the guilt that had she been able to get through to Dooku, things might have changed. Might have been better.
Jedi did not dwell on the past, but Jocasta Nu was the Chief Archivist.
Preserving the past was her duty, and an honor, and so she would preserve the past, including the honored Jedi Master Dooku had once been - one of the brightest the Order had ever produced in its long history.
And perhaps, as the personal failing of an old woman, she would remember a friend.
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A/N: I got a plot bunny suddenly. A very random plot bunny attack of a mild Jocasta x Dooku, simply because their characters are too stately and reserved to actually do wild, naughty things, like Anakin and Padme.
-Cymru