Lift Me From This Place (K/J angst)
The lyrics are borrowed from Sarah McLachlan's haunting song "Full of Grace"
the winter here's cold, and bitter
it's chilled us to the bone
Their eyes found each other across the battlefield.
Everything else faded away, the battle raging around them died, the deafening sounds of combat became muted, time and place fell away from them.
In an instant, so many things left unspoken flickered in his eyes.
Love and devotion, dreams long kept secret and wistful hopes for the future, the promise of tomorrow and the day after that.
And bittersweet regret, for everything now slipping through their fingers.
we haven't seen the sun for weeks
too long too far from home
His body had been returned to Ossus, where Cilghal had carefully and reverently prepared him for the funeral pyre.
She sat with him the entire trip back.
Numb and broken, feeling detached from it all, as if she were somewhere else entirely, watching it all take place from outside of herself.
He was so still, and she didn't like it.
Still was not who he was, he had never been still for a single moment in his entire life.
He was a creature of movement, springing with energy and impatience, muscles always tensed and coiled, constantly in motion or preparing to launch himself into it.
It was wrong to see him lying there like that, pale and cold and still.
But he would never move again.
I feel just like I'm sinking
and I claw for solid ground
A part of her had died there with him that day.
Her soul had bled with him, draining from her body in time with the blood that pooled beneath him like a crimson robe.
It had taken her too long to fight her way to his side.
Others moved into place in front of him, to keep the enemy from devouring him as his strength crumpled beneath his weight and the ground took him.
She cried his name, and for a time he did not respond to her.
But when she fell upon her knees and reached for him, cradling his head in her bloodstained hands, he looked up at her, emerald eyes brimming with pain, from more than just the wound beneath his hand.
And she knew he was saying goodbye.
I'm pulled down by the undertow
I never thought I could feel so low
oh darkness I feel like letting go...
She'd gotten lost in the flames, watching him burn.
Family and friends stood with her, pressing in close, their concern pouring over her like a waterfall in the Force.
But all she could feel was the fire.
It was cold, colder than any cold she'd ever felt, and it seeped down into her very bones, turning her into ice, frozen and brittle.
Tiny embers floated up toward the heavens, bright and burning in the night.
They were there to honor him, to celebrate his life and his return into the welcoming embrace of the Force, or so she was told. Many paused as they passed, perhaps wishing to say something, yet not knowing how to go about it.
None of the hollow words of comfort they could have imparted would have mattered.
She was too far away to hear them.
"We commend our brother, Kyp Durron, into the Force."
come and lift me from this place
There were moments when she could feel him around her.
As she emerged from slumber in the mornings, sometimes she almost thought she felt his warmth beside her, and she would go still, afraid to open her eyes because she knew that he would not be there.
Her heart played merciless tricks on her that way.
He had never shared her bed to begin with.
But he should have.
They should have been able to share so much, to share everything, but they'd been fools and now it was too late.
He'd waited patiently in the wings for so long, letting her find herself, letting her explore her own heart and grow in so many ways. He alone hadn't judged her when she fell under the influence of the Killik hive, he'd had faith that she would find her way back again.
And when she'd needed a shoulder to cry on after the mess with Jag, he'd simply held her and not once remarked on the fact that he'd known it would end badly.
Which he had, right from the start.
But he'd loved her enough to let her try, to let her find out for herself.
And whenever she'd stumbled along the way, he had always been there to pick her up again, to keep her steady.
This time, he wasn't there to help her through it.
I know I can love you much better than this
full of grace, full of grace
my love...
"Goddess..."
She replayed that final moment over and over again.
It plagued her thoughts by day, haunted her dreams during the rare occasions she succumbed to sleep.
"Goddess..."
It was the only word he'd been able to speak.
And the last.
One simple word, an affectionate title, but it had conveyed everything that they'd been pushing aside, all the things that they'd waited too long to share.
Others had used the title during the war, merely as a means of psychological warfare against the Yuuzhan Vong, but it had been more than that with him. The way the word would roll of his tongue, the way the corner of his mouth lifted each time he said it, the gentle reverence half-veiled behind it...
She really had been a goddess in his eyes, and he would never know that he had been the only source of peace in her life.
They'd wasted so much time, time that they could have had together.
If only she could go back, if she could tell herself what she knew now, and make things right, make sure that they didn't miss their chance.
so it's better this way, I said
having seen this place before
She'd been so stupid, denying it for so long.
It had always been there, right from the start, and they'd both known it.
In her childhood, he had been the one she idolized, the one she imagined that her own hero would be molded after. And in her later years, she had begun to consider the notion that maybe he was the one, but then everything had gotten complicated.
Sernpidal, Myrkr, Hapes, Jag...
It hadn't been the right time for them, but she'd always known that time would come eventually.
They'd settled on partners, for a time.
Whatever that meant.
And they'd both pretended that he didn't love her, and that she didn't know, because it was easier that way.
Because it was better that way.
where everything we say and do
hurts us all the more
It had to have been painful for him, to see her with another.
Yet he'd put on a mask, for her, and smiled and supported her and guided her through the rough patches that she didn't know how to navigate on her own.
And she'd loved him for it.
There had been times when it hurt her, as well, not to be near him, not to sink into the closeness between them in the Force.
But they'd gotten pretty good at pretending.
Even after she'd left Jag disappointed, they'd kept their distance. That was still a line they did not dare cross, for there was too much to keep them apart. She was the Sword and he a Master, their duties often scattered them to opposite ends of the galaxy.
Her life was chaotic, filled with missions and conflicts, leaving little time for herself.
His was full of frustration and bureaucracy as the Council wrestled with the fracturing Order, and with itself.
It just wasn't the right time for them.
They were never in the same place, at the same time.
But they'd consoled themselves with the knowledge that someday, they would be.
its just that we stayed, too long
in the same old sickly skin
They'd thought they had forever.
A foolish notion, given the dangers and uncertainties of their lives.
But they'd survived so much already, made it through it all together and intact, and some part of them must have believed that they were invincible.
Tomorrow was a distant, golden horizon that they could look to in moments of doubt.
Only now tomorrow was over, it had come and gone in the blink of an eye, in that last shuddering breath that spilled from his bloodstained lips, and they could not go back again to even a day before.
She'd always known one of them would go before the other, but she imagined it to be decades down the road. They would have a life together first, maybe even a family if the Force saw fit to grant them such a blessing and the chaos of the galaxy ever died down enough for them to build one. They were supposed to have their whole lives to look forward to, they were going to grow old together, bickering and loving just like her parents.
That was how it was supposed to be.
If only she'd done something, said something, while there was still time.
The regrets would haunt her for the rest of her life.
I'm pulled down by the undertow
I never thought I could feel so low
oh darkness I feel like letting go...
She had little recollection of the rest of that battle.
They had won, of course, and the enemy had been subdued, but she had no memory of any of it, just what the official report had read.
Others had been injured, but he was the only casualty.
Of course it had been him, out of them all. He had been brash and reckless, full of passion and zeal. He'd placed himself on the front line, between their comrades and the enemy, just as she had.
They were two of kind, after all.
She'd stayed with him long after his final breath.
That was where she belonged, at his side, and the rest of the world had simply vanished for a time, as she was faced with the cruel and merciless truth that he was gone.
He was gone, and she'd been left behind.
There was no anger or rage, like she'd expected there to be, there was just emptiness.
She remembered sitting there, his lifeless head in her lap, numbly wondering why she couldn't draw on the fury that given her strength after her brother's death. Wondering if she would ever feel anything at all, ever again.
For a long time, she hadn't.
if all of the strength
and all of the courage
Her family had worried for her.
The Council, too; she'd felt their watchful gazes, full of pity and concern, but she hadn't even had the energy to be angered by it.
No one said it, but she knew that they'd all been afraid she would fall.
After all, she'd done so once before, and he had been the one to save her then. Now he was gone, taken from her before they'd ever gotten to discover what was between them, and they had feared her despair and desolation would pull her down into the darkness.
And maybe for a time it had.
The first few months had been hazy, as if she'd been walking through a dream.
She'd taken little notice of the world around her, her heart had become a prison from which she could not escape and she was entombed within the restraints of her own flesh.
If the Council sent her on a mission, she went, and did her job with precision.
But she wasn't really there.
Nothing touched her, nothing phased her, and she found that she could not connect with anyone around her, not even those who loved her most of all.
come and lift me from this place
I know I could love you much better than this
The day that she'd smiled for the first time since his death was a milestone.
Her aunt and uncle had gone to Coruscant, and since her parents were on Corellia for a vacation and Jacen away on Hapes, she'd been given the task of looking after Ben while they were gone.
Ben had grown several inches without her noticing, and all of the sudden he was aware of girls, if his infatuation with annoying Jysella Horn was any indication.
She'd missed out on a lot while the world passed her by.
Somehow, she'd let Ben talk her into accompanying him and Jysella down to the canyon lake, and she'd rolled up her leggings to wade in the shallows as the two kids splashed about.
It had been a particularly warm day, with the faintest hint of a summer breeze coming down over the canyon.
The twin suns around which Ossus orbited had been full and bright, bathing the canyon in glistening sunlight. The rays seeped into her skin, filling her with a warmth that seemed to penetrate the cold stone around her heart, and she'd smiled despite herself as Jysella shrieked when Ben splashed water at her.
And for the first time since he'd left her, she hadn't felt empty.
He'd been there, of that she was certain, the sun had warmed her hand as if he were holding it, and she'd closed her eyes, imagining their fingers laced together.
"Goddess..."
His voice, whispering on the wind.
He was everywhere, in the gentle morning breeze on Ossus, in the glistening stars that watched over her during her long sojourns across space, in the bright rays from the sun that danced across the water in the canyon.
The Force was in everything, always with her.
And so was he.
Love you, she sent out into the Force, with every fiber of her being, giving him the words that she had never had the chance to say.
And somewhere out of sight, she knew that he was smiling back at her.
I know I could love you much better than this
full of grace, full of grace
my love...