Title: Bleeding Love
Author(s): FelsGoddess
Timeframe: Fate of the Jedi era
Characters: Jagged Fel, Jaina Solo
Genre: Challenge response
Keywords: love song challenge response
Summary: Jagged Fel reflects on the damage he and Jaina have done to each other through the course of their relationship. Jag's POV.
Notes: This is a response to the Love Song Roulette Challenge My song was "Bleeding Love" performed by Leona Lewis. I took parts of the song and paired the lyrics with what I wrote. The lyrics do not belong to me, nor does Star Wars.

Closed off from love, I didn't need the pain
Once or twice was enough and it was all in vain
Time starts to pass, before you know it you're frozen

The concept of falling in love never crossed my mind as a teenager. For starters, I grew up as an alien. There weren't many humans roaming the ice-covered landscape of Csilla. I was also, essentially, the middle child, the odd man out. Davin and Chak believed they were far more superior. The two were constantly trying to out-do each other. The competition was fierce to prove themselves in the eyes of the galaxy that they were worthy of being the sons of the great General Baron Soontir Fel.

I followed Davin around with almost hero worship. I never strived to be the best, I merely wanted to know that I was worth my own weight. As I look back, I remember how annoyed he was at me. I can't remember Davin ever spending any time with a girl. The whole family knew that women found Davin attractive, but he didn't seem to care. He was always trying to save others from death during battle and challenging his superiors. I remember, after hearing of one such exploit, Mother saying that he would be a good husband. We never found out. He was killed at age 20.

Shortly after Davin died, Chak brought home a girl. We were still on Nirauan. I remember how uncomfortable the evening was. Chak was so blunt, so Chak, when speaking to the girl of the family's past. He seemed almost clueless to her reactions. I remember Mother remarking that night that Chak reminded her of Uncle Wedge, somewhat clueless but caring. Needless to say, my second eldest brother offered no real help when it came to woman.

Cherith was the first Fel child to show any success with the opposite sex. Davin, Chak and I all knew the day would come sooner than later. Cherith was beautiful, like our mother. The three of us had already decided no man would ever be good enough for our dear Cherith. Cherith had her first boyfriend at age 15. Father threatened that boy for an hour. Cherith would become angry at the silliest things those boys did. As her brother, I took her side, but as a man, I was confused. I never understood what they did to make her upset. Mother always understood; Wynssa understood. Father told us boys that it was a woman thing and that we should give up on trying to understand them. A relationship seemed far more complicated than it was worth, to me. I felt I had more important items to accomplish before getting involved with a woman.

I suppose that was the first lesson I received about love, aside from what I learned from my parents over the years. All the times my father had upset my mother over little things seem to solidify the concept of how complicated women were.

The deaths of Davin and Cherith shoved me into my self-erected safe. Watching my father's lips say that Davin was dead was the most painful experience of my life at that point. It was that moment that our lives broke; we would never be the same again. I hurt for years; I still hurt. Then, before her 18 birthday, Cherith died. I threw myself into the Chiss doctrine. It was much easier to block out the emotions than to feel them. I wanted to stay away from everyone. I didn't want to hurt when I lost everyone else.

How stupid of me.

I was blindsided by a 16 year-old girl. She asked who my squadron was. I have no idea what force possessed me to give such a cocky, haughty response, but I did. The Spike Squadron simmed with the famed Rogue Squadron several times. I sought at the most talented pilot, par usual. She gave the slip so many times before I could track her down. My curiosity got the best of me. I looked at the boards to get her name.

Jaina Solo.

When I heard she would be attending the reception aboard the Tafanda Bay, my curiosity increased tenfold. I couldn't have waited to greet her even if I had wanted to. I saw her from across the room. Every cliché movie line and scene flashed through my eyes in a nanosecond as I stared at her. I had to see her face-to-face. Even from across the room, I could see how beautiful she was. I have no idea what I said to the others I greeted first. I was vaguely aware of my uncle's greeting. I thanked my training to appear completely confident and aware, regardless of how far from the truth that appearance was.

I introduced myself. Our contact was brief, far too brief, though at the time I didn't understand my disappointment. I did not see the Jedi pilot for two years. Yet, in that one meeting, she had penetrated my world in a way I couldn't understand.

But something happened for the very first time with you
My heart melted to the ground, found something true
And everyone's looking 'round, thinking I'm going crazy

Back on Csilla, I would find myself staring off into space, thinking about the brunette Jedi. I couldn't figure it out. Why did she plague my thoughts? Why did I imagine running my hands through her shiny brown hair? I would awake at night, dreaming what her lips, her skin would feel like against my own. Her brandy-brown eyes haunted me daily. I remember the odd looks I'd receive after I snapped out of my mental hazes, her voice echoing in my head, whispering words I swore I'd never hear.

I remember the sheer fear and panic I felt when Father told me that a Solo child was dead. I feared my temptress was gone. I couldn't understand my fear anymore than I could understand my ongoing obsession with her. I prayed to whatever high being existed that Jaina Solo was alive. The galaxy without her would be far darker than it was with her. She was like my personal bright star, though why I felt this way, I did not know.

I had never experienced or witnessed sexual tension until Hapes. At the time, I hadn't been able to identify what it was about Jaina Solo that infuriated and thrilled me so much. Each fight was more exciting as the last. She floored me in that red dress. I had known she was attractive before, of course, but seeing her as a woman about knocked me flat to the ground. I can't help but wonder what would have happened had we not been interrupted. I sought her out; enjoying each inflicting blow threw at me. I would get angry with her, at myself for seeking the thrill, but I couldn't stop. It was like being an adrenaline junkie; quite a statement coming from a fighter pilot.

My heart's crippled by the vein that I keep on closing
You cut me open and I

Keep bleeding, keep, keep bleeding love
I keep bleeding, I keep, keep bleeding love
Keep bleeding, keep, keep bleeding love
You cut me open

My mother had taught all six of us children to ignore gossip. She'd been a holostar once. She knew what slander and gossip did to good people. She knew how horrible it could be. None of us was allowed to read or watch any such material. This training to ignore the murmurings of others trained me to ignore the talk of the others on Hapes and Borelais. Bets about our behavior, the outcome and discussions of what would happen between us filled my deaf ears as I passed. I was slowly growing to accept my feelings for the Jedi, but I refused to do anything. Call it Corellian pride or male stubbornness, but there it was. I refused to put myself out there and be rejected. I didn't want the hurt that was sure to follow such advances. The mere concept that she felt anything for me was laughable. It wasn't until she turned around and saved me on Day 39 that I could not stop myself. I had to know. I asked her and she broke.

And I kissed her.

I think at that moment I saw more of Jaina Solo than anyone had in years. Her raw pain shown through her soft eyes. The taste of her tears on her lips was heart-wrenchingly beautiful. She was there. She was real. The feel of her was greater than I had ever imagined. She'd later told me it was like flying. For her, perhaps it was. For me, it was freedom and uninhibited bliss. All I had ever known was shattered in that one moment. Each tearing wound healed as she clung to me.

That moment paled every other event in my life.

Keep bleeding, keep, keep bleeding love
I keep bleeding, I keep, keep bleeding love
Keep bleeding, keep, keep bleeding love
You cut me open

She was a plague on my life. A plague I would take any day. Each day was like sweet torment. We had so little time together. Those small pockets of time we managed to steal made the pain well worth it. I would trade months of loneliness and aching for one night with my Jedi temptress.

The plague continued after the war. In a way, I wished the war would never end. I knew on Zonoma Sekot, that one of us had to give. We were both slaves to duty; slaves to our names. I was the eldest living son of Soontir Fel, I had a name to live up to. I had to make-up for my dead siblings. She was the Jedi princess, the daughter of heroes. Her title bestowed by her uncle may have cemented both sentences. Neither one of us would know peace. The only peace I knew was with her and for her, with me. We were our own oasis in the blistering desert of our lives.

It was through these heart-wrenching conditions we threw ourselves at each other any moment possible. Yet not all of our love and unyielding need could force either one of us to live for ourselves. She could not put her title aside and I could not give up on my need to prove myself different from my brother and sister.

It was duty that killed us. I will never forget, despite where we are now, the pain that ripped through me when I heard her voice and saw her as one of them. A Joiner. A Joiner with that damn Jedi.

Being shot down by her own mother paled in comparison to what Jaina had become. Part me of me couldn't believe she could fight on the other side of me, yet part of me wasn't surprised. She had never gotten over the war. Her mind was perfect for the Joiners to take. She was too damn stubborn to step back and heal herself. Her brother's death ate at her like a cancer, slowly sucking the life out of her beautiful, compassionate soul.

I spent two years angry. I was angry with her, her family, the Jedi, but mostly myself. It was a fresh slap in the face every morning I awoke without seeing her face and each night I fell asleep without hearing her voice. Upon my eventual rescue, the pain was worsened with the news of the death of Chak. For a brief time, my family believed they had lost not only Chak, but also me. It seemed that my family's was destined to smear the stars in the galaxy.

And it's draining all of me
Though they find it hard to believe
I'll be wearing these scars for everyone to see

In vain and stupid attempt to see her again, I took an obvious route both in and out of the Jedi Temple the day I saw the Skywalkers. When I saw her, I couldn't face her. I couldn't stand to see the look in her eyes. I did not know what she thought of me. She had said she loved me, but she left me. From what I had learned, she didn't even question if I had survived. I had to convince myself she hated me. It was easier. Hatred was easier than love.

I couldn't help myself. We were thrown in to work together, Jedi Zekk and us. I felt like I was in a bad holovision show. At any moment, I knew I would break. I fought with Zekk; I couldn't help it. The mere knowledge that he violated the inner workings of Jaina's mind and possibly body as a Joiner made my blood boil. It didn't matter if she had wanted it or not. That fact was irrelevant. I would have liked to say I was too disciplined for jealousy, but I would be lying.

Any physicist will tell you that if you place two combustible materials near a flame, they will explode.

And we did. We both knew, long before we could admit it to each other, that we needed, wanted each other. We both understood, though unspoken, the pain it would cause if we acted before the deed was done. Jacen had to die. It was a sad, sickening, bittersweet situation. Her twin had to die in order for us to act. I do not believe Jacen could be saved. He was gone before he made his official declaration.

Every day she was training with Boba Fett sliced into me. I heard a few comments regarding the effect it was having on me. I was not granted relief with her return; however, she was leaving to embark on a far more dangerous journey; a journey that may end in her death.

She survived, amazingly. In her medical room, the dams broke. I'm not sure if I had finally come to my senses or seeing her tears broke me. Everything came out. We spoke of our frustration, past, future, pain and joy. We'd both been broken and beaten for far too long.

Trying hard not to hear, but they talk so loud
Their piercing sounds fill my ears, try to fill me with doubt
Yet I know that their goal is to keep me from falling
But nothing's greater than the risk that comes with your embrace
And in this world of loneliness, I see your face
Yet everyone around me thinks that I'm going crazy
Maybe, maybe

Now I find myself lying on my bed, our bed. She's curled up next to me; her brown hair lying haphazardly around her. To say it's been difficult is an understatement. We're facing a new enemy. Chief of State Natasi Daala's anti-Jedi propaganda has caused even more gossip and talk. We knew our relationship would attract unwanted attention. We aren't pilots anymore. I've been thrust into the role of head of the Empire. Sometimes I wish I could change the name. The masses hear Empire and think of Palpatine, Vader and Jedi purging.

Insults and taunting have been thrown at Jaina over the past several weeks. It'd had always been there, but it was a quieter tone. Now it's become a full-out roar. The errors in our relationship, rumors, the forbidden pairing of a Jedi and Imperial, the list goes on. It's not only the press I hear the whispers, but from people in my past, even my family. My family's reservations are understandable, but unwanted and unnecessary. We made our choices and paid for our stupidity. I wish I could say that we had finally given up on duty, but I can't. I'm stuck with a title I cannot comfortably give up and she is still sworn to her role as Sword of the Jedi. The difference now is that our determination to make this work is stronger than the hardest plating. It's become like scar tissue, tougher than skin. We've cut each other, bleed so much that there is not natural skin left. Each cut made our resolve stronger, more permanent.

I pull her closer to me. Morning has come too quickly, once again. It's ridiculously selfish of me to want to keep her with me instead of returning to our respective jobs, but I don't care. I learned the hard way that we would have to be just a little selfish to get what we want.

Jaina's eyes opened slowly as she awoke. She blinks once, twice, and then smiles softly at me. Her soft voice says, "Good morning."

I roll to my side to face her better. My hand brushes her soft cheek. Gone are any marks or scars from her many trials. It's smooth, inviting. I lean down and brush her lips with my own. She leans into the kiss. It is strong, but tender; meaningful, yet light.

I rest my forehead against hers, closing my eyes. This is why I bled, why I continue to bleed. This is why I let myself be hurt by separation and duty and prophecies. It's all for this woman lying next to me.

I don't care what they say, I'm in love with you
They try to pull me away, but they don't know the truth
My heart's crippled by the vein that I keep on closing
Oh, you cut me open and I

Keep bleeding, keep, keep bleeding love
I keep bleeding, I keep, keep bleeding love