Guardian Angel
(I don't own Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: The Sith Lords. If i did, it probably wouldn't have so many colons in it.)
"There was a woman. A Jedi. She ... she gave her life for mine. I never knew her name; she sought me out. She said she had come to save me ... She wasted her life to save me. Me." ~ Atton Rand
(1)
Rachel was four when she got a baby brother.
He wasn't very interesting at first. When he wasn't sleeping, he was eating, crying or being changed, and whenever Nurse was done feeding, rocking or changing him, she put him back in his crib and he went back to sleeping. He was little and red and wrinkly, and smelled funny. Rachel thought her dolls were much more fun, and nicer-looking.
But when the baby brother came to live in the nursery, Mama and Papa came by every day. Rachel liked that part of having a baby brother, very very much.
(2)
He never learned to say her name right.
Nurse said some sounds, like /r/, /k/ and /l/ were harder for little mouths to say, but that he would learn eventually. Rachel didn't know what "eventually" meant, but she took it as her responsibility, as big sister, to teach him.
"'Rachel', Jaqi," she coached him encouragingly. "Say 'Rachel'!"
Jaq looked up at her curiously, then pounded one block into another. "Ay-jow!"
"No, Jaqi. 'Rachel'."
"Jat!" he replied exultantly.
She giggled a little, then made her face stern. "No, silly boy, that's your name. Can't you say my name? 'Rachel'! Come on!"
Jaq knocked over the tower of blocks she had built for him. "Boom!" He grinned.
"He still can't say it right." Rachel looked up hopelessly at Nurse.
Nurse didn't look up from her sewing. "He will, Rachel."
Rachel turned back to Jaq, who beamed up at her. "Ain-gel!"
(3)
Rachel was nearly seven when she met a Jedi.
Some of Jaq's favorite storybooks had Jedi in them, saving the galaxy from vicious monsters and evil Sith. At the dinner table, Papa sometimes made mention of someone being "as dull as a Jedi Master". On their daily walk outdoors, Rachel occasionally heard other servants mention Jedi when they stopped to talk to Nurse. Nurse never liked talking about it.
It was a month before Rachel's birthday when Nurse told her to dress up nice, brush her hair and teeth, and hold Jaq's hand while they went into the sitting room. There was a Jedi there, talking with Mama and Papa. The Jedi was an old man, with thin gray hair and a bristled chin. Mama was crying, and Papa's face was red. "You are not taking my son," he was saying. "The girl - you can have her, if you want her, but you are not taking my son."
Nurse protested, Mama cried, the Jedi argued, but Papa would not listen. Finally the Jedi said, "Very well. I will take the girl with me."
"Good," Papa said flatly. "Take her."
Jaq didn't cry when she left. He just waved good-bye.
(4)
Rachel didn't think about him much during her training.
She missed them all at first – so much it sometimes felt like her heart was being ripped in two. But the Jedi had many interesting things to teach her, there were children her own age to talk to and play with, and thinking too much about home only made things worse. So she focused instead on her studies, especially as she began to realize what being a Jedi meant – and how badly she wanted it.
Then she was accepted into the Order officially, as a Padawan. It meant getting her lightsaber, being chosen by a Master, and picking the class of Jedi she would become. It was an exciting step, but Rachel was nervous too; her decisions now would shape the rest of her life.
Every night, Rachel dreamed of the day the Master took her away. During the day, she couldn't remember her mother's voice or her father's face, but every night she could see it clearly, as if it had been yesterday. The night before she graduated, she dreamed instead of her time in the nursery: playing hide-and-go-seek with Jaq, reading stories, tucking him into bed at night, the way he called her "angel". When she woke, she remembered her nurse's words about her responsibilities as a big sister – to look out for her little brother, to keep him safe. To be his "guardian angel".
When Rachel was twelve, she became a Jedi Guardian.
(5)
When Rachel was twenty-four, Revan and Malak went to war.
They spoke persuasively, but she listened to the Masters and the Jedi Council. Every action had an equal and opposite reaction, and every decision made affected everyone, sending ripples throughout the galaxy. War and violence would only bring more war and violence. In time, there would be a plan that would save the Republic without bringing more death.
She tried to explain this to her Padawan, Mairë, when the girl came back upset from a meeting of the Revanchists.
"The Mandalorians are winning, and the Council is doing nothing to help!" She had her braid wrapped tightly around her finger even while she gesticulated agitatedly.
"They are not doing nothing – they are assessing the threat. A force as disorganized and yet successful as the Mandalorians can't have just come up out of nowhere. Who do you suppose is assisting them?"
" … I don't know."
"No one does, not even Revan or Malak. And how can they fight an enemy they don't know?"
"But people are dying!"
Rachel couldn't blame Mairë for her doubts. It's hard to convince someone of what you don't believe yourself.
(6)
A blast of Sith lightning would have hurt less.
People were still dying, now at Revan's hand rather than at the Mandalorians', and the Jedi had no choice but to get involved. Every day they lost more to the dark side than to death, and among them was her own Padawan.
Her blonde hair was thin and graying. Her beautiful brown eyes had gone gold. A horrible ashen color had aged her face prematurely. The lightsaber she wielded so effortlessly had a red blade. She spoke in a different voice; louder, harsher.
"Funny – your brother doesn't look like you at all, but he fights much the same way. Except he's a lot less concerned about causing injury. No offense, but his Sith uniform looks much better on him than those Jedi robes do on you."
She realized an hour later she was still standing over Mairë's body, unmoving.
(7)
Rachel was twenty-eight when she lost her baby brother.
She hadn't let herself believe – couldn't let herself believe it, not until she found him. Not until she saw him in the flesh on some Outer Rim planet, hunting. Hunting Jedi.
The little boy who clung to her and cried during thunderstorms, drew her pictures, gave her baby-kisses every night before bed, was gone. She had failed him. But if she knew anything, she knew she wasn't going to let it end this way, even if it cost her life to save him.
The last act of his guardian angel.
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A/N: In case the lay-out looks odd to anyone, the first section is (according to Open Office, anyway) 100 words, the second is 150, the third is 200, the fourth is 250, the fifth is 200 again, the sixth is 150 and the seventh is 100. If anyone was wondering.
Anyway, the idea came to me when i was wondering why the nameless Jedi woman sought him out so specifically; i mean, there were most likely hundreds, if not thousands or even millions, of Sith assassins, and considering his talent at hiding from Jedi, she probably had to go to a lot of effort just to find him. And, too, how did she know he was Force-sensitive? That is a lot of work just to find one assassin, that she probably won't be able to save anyway, and who will most likely kill her in the most painful way possible.
As a big sister, i can testify that if my little brother or sister went over to the Dark Side, there's pretty much nothing that would keep me from trying to save them.