Author's Note: I wrote this as a holiday present for a friend who asked for anything J/TK with Ben in it. Here is what I came up with for her! Writing Ben as a snarky little punk teenager is quite fun. Written: 12/18/2006.

Interrupted

It was a maze. Of all things, the manor on Kuat had to have a hedge maze. Jacen sat rigidly in the high backed chair, staring across the table, over his cousin's shoulder and out the window, which looked down over the sprawl of vines and walls of plants.

He hadn't been paying much attention to the discussions at the tables around him. He and his cousin had been invited there for a good number of Galactic Alliance related talks, most of which he was usually a big part. There were dignitaries and emissaries from each planet and system that was part of the Galactic Alliance, no real leaders, just subordinates. Jacen never liked talking to subordinates; it always made him fear that the messages would get mangled while being relayed to the people who actually needed to hear them.

The talks had ended for that day, and everyone was seated at small tables in the dining room, munching on a late dinner. Jacen imagined the manor was cold and empty when events like this one weren't being held there. The ceilings hung high above them, rafters dusty and worn, the rooms were too big and drafty, the --

"What are you staring at?"

Jacen Solo let his eyes drift back into focus and shift to his younger cousin, Ben. The boy had let his hair grow out a bit and had begun parting it messily to the side, always throwing his head back to get his bangs out of his face. It had become a twitch, a reflex. Ben didn't even notice he did it anymore. Jacen definitely did. "Nothing."

"Obviously something. You were all slack-jawed and glazy-eyed."

"No, I wasn't."

"Yeah, you were like this." Ben let his mouth hang open and dropped his eyelids a bit, tilting his head to the side slightly for the added effect. He held it there till Jacen arched an eyebrow. "Don't deny it."

"I'm not denying anything." Jacen paused for a beat as he searched for a subject to change to. "Eat your vegetables."

"You sound just like my parents. Jacen, one of the reasons I come with you and work with you is to be away from them. And you tell me to eat my vegetables. Yuck."

Jacen had fazed out again, his eyes moving back to the window. The hedge maze. He felt something familiar about it, or maybe it just reminded him of the one behind the Fountain Palace on Hapes. Letting his gaze move across the large windows, it stopped on a table near their own. There was a lone female seated at it, clothed in a pale blue cloak. It was the emissary that Hapes sent. He could tell by those cheekbones. She was fiddling with a piece of bread between her hands and paused only to brush a few dark strands of hair from her face, up under the hood of the cloak. She looked up for a moment, catching Jacen's eyes, but quickly looked back down once she did.

He narrowed his own gaze, finding himself trying to read her feelings and sense her thoughts through the Force. She was embarrassed for staring at him and awed at his presence, which made Jacen pull back. He suddenly felt guilty, like he was intruding on the girl's innermost thoughts and feelings.

Snapping his attention back to the hedge maze ahead of him, he felt that familiar sense again and finally thought he put his finger on it. It was impossible. But he felt a presence that should've never been there. "... you're out there?" He whispered under his breath.

"What?"

"Nothing," Jacen calmly pushed his chair back from the table and stood, planting a few gloved fingers on the surface.

"I'll be back in a few. I'm gonna hit the refresher." He tapped his fingers for emphasis, letting Ben know he should stay at the table.

Ben nodded, still poking at the greens on his plate.

Turning, Jacen caught the gaze of the Hapan again, quickly trying to read her thoughts once more. He was looking for something that would tell him exactly why he was feeling the presence of the girl's Queen Mother in the hedge maze. He got nothing except a pair of wide pale eyes and the echo of her quickening heartbeat as he passed. With a sigh, Jacen continued out of the dining room, his black cloak billowing out behind him.

The Hapan girl watched him, her elbows planted on her table and her chin in her hands. In turn, Ben Skywalker was watching her, smirking at the adoration Jacen always seemed to get from the female sex. Force knows why, Ben always thought he looked like a scruffy nerfherder. What really caught him off guard though was when the Hapan got up and slinked towards the exit after him, her hands pulling her hood further over her face.

Something was odd here, and Ben figured it was up to him to find out what it was. He peered down to his plate. His parents -- and Jacen now, he guessed -- had always told him vegetables help build up muscle and all that. So Ben shoved one in his mouth and chewed through slowly, hoping it would give him a burst of something to help him with this new ordeal. Swallowing it, he shuddered and dumped the rest in a plant beside him, setting the plate back on the table.

And standing, Ben casually sauntered towards the exit, smacking his lips and trying to clean that healthy taste from his palate.

It had begun to drizzle lightly outside, as Jacen's feet moved from the stone steps to the short grass, his eyes narrowing as he stopped and peered ahead to the maze and its three entrances. Closing his eyes for a brief moment, he felt around ahead of him and masking his own presence, followed the one he had felt from the dining hall. Left, right, back; everything looked the same as he went. All he knew was that the presence was getting closer. And it seemed to be coming towards him.

Inhaling deeply, he looked to the tall hedges ahead of him. She was behind that wall. Jacen felt her presence flare with something close to excitement as they both began moving towards the opening further down the row at the same moment. Jacen hadn't seen her in months. He wanted to know how she was, how Allana was, he wanted to see her face, her body -- he wanted to hear her voice.

He finally came to the end of the wall, his heart beating fiercely, and when his eyes met with the person on the other side, he froze. The blue cloak, the dark hair, wide pale eyes. She was wringing her hands in front of her. It was the emissary.

"Oh... I..." Jacen's voice stopped in his throat at the sight of her, his heart sinking. He was about to inquire who sent her or why he felt Tenel Ka's presence or how to get out --

His thoughts were interrupted when she wrapped her arms around him and planted her lips on his. He was about to protest when he sensed that presence again, her presence. She was in front of him. He recognized that kiss.

"How?" He whispered breathlessly, once he pulled away, instantly looking down at the disguise she was in.

"I threw my own presence out into the maze to get you to come out here. I --"

Jacen cut her off by pressing his lips against hers again. That was all he needed to hear, it had been her the whole time up in the dining room. The quickening heartbeat he felt from her, the presence out in the hedge maze -- the one he felt running through it. It was her. He gently pushed her back a bit and held her in the corner they had been standing near, their lips still locked, both of them hidden from the manors windows by the high walls of the maze. One hand went to her hip and one around to the back of her head, his palms pushed against the damp cloth of the cloak.

A few rows over, Ben Skywalker was staying as quiet as possible and following his cousin's Force presence, all while hiding his own -- a trick Jacen himself had taught him. He heard noises that didn't sound like rain; murmuring and whispering and knew he had to be getting close.

Once he was as close as he could get to them without being found out, he slammed his back against the vines, his eyebrows furrowed. What exactly was going on here? Jacen was locking lips with some underling of the Queen Mother's -- Ben knew Jacen wasn't exactly tied to anyone, was he? But he always felt that his older cousin and the Queen Mother of Hapes herself had that something. He always noticed the way they looked at each other when they were visiting Hapes, the way they spoke to each other. And now here he was shoving his tongue down this --

"You didn't tell me you would be here..."

Ben pushed himself harder against the wall of greenery behind him, sticking his left ear as close to the edge as he could, trying to hear the voices over the tiny raindrops.

"Technically, I am not here. Aryanna is here."

"Of course, Aryanna." Ben heard Jacen chuckle.

Ben, you donk. That is Tenel Ka.

He turned, facing the wall now, and parted some of the vines to see through them.

"It's so odd to see..." Jacen's voice faded out as he quieted down, but Ben figured he was talking about the prosthetic arm Tenel Ka had for the disguise she was wearing -- as Jacen was currently holding her left arm out in front of him and studying it.

"...cannot wait... rid of it." Tenel Ka responded, her voice barely audible over the rain. She dropped the left arm by her side.

Ben watched them share a smile and join foreheads, whispering to each other as the rain soaked into their clothes. They turned a bit and Jacen's black cloak seemed to swallow them both up as they continued to speak in hushed tones. Jacen's head finally bobbed up as he peered behind him.

"I have to get back... dining hall."

"Then go..."

"I'll find you tonight. We have to --"

Skywalker stopped listening there as he realized something. His eyes widened; he figured Jacen would be making his way back to the dining hall very, very soon, and the absence of Ben would make him very suspicious. Bolting to the right, he ran off, hunkered over and almost sliding into the dirt as he went. He couldn't remember his way out of the maze and was half tempted to pull his lightsaber out and cut his own path. He knew he would be found out that way though. Following the perimeter of the maze got him to an exit, where he bolted back into the manor and headed towards the dining hall.

"Where did your vegetables go?" Jacen approached the table, peering down to Ben, both their clothes slightly damp from the rain outside. "And why are you wet?"

"I could ask the same thing about you," Ben leaned smarmily back in his chair, locking his fingers over his stomach. "Although, I'll one up you on it and ask why you have a smidge of makeup, what is that, lipstick on your --?"

"Enough."

"-- No, it's right there on the corner of you lip. Right, here, if you --"

"Enough."

"You sure? I can get it off, if you --"

"Ben."

His younger cousin shrugged and stood up from his seat, clasping his hands behind his back. He peered out the window for a few moments before turning back to Jacen, who had wiped the lipstick off while he wasn't looking. Ben pressed his lips together and exhaled through his nose, blinking a few times before daring to speak about it again. "It looked good on you."

Jacen Solo sighed and turned on his heel, calmly stalking out of the room, Ben on his tail. He knew his younger cousin had suspected, and now probably knew for a fact about him and Tenel Ka -- who knew exactly how much -- but he knew something. But he was older now, and Jacen trusted him.

"I trust that you'll keep all of this a secret? We don't need this --"

"You know I will." Ben flanked him on the right, pace the same, expression similar. He was serious.

"Thank you very --"

"Anytime."

Both with a grin on their faces, and Ben flipping his hair out of his eyes, they retreated to their rooms for the night. Well, Ben did anyways.