Ascension: REVISED

This is what should have happened during the scene where Ben Force-slapped Vestara in Christie Golden's final entry into Fate of the Jedi, Ascension.

Chapter 1

Ben had finished reading Vestara's personal private journals, which she had written on the Jade Shadow's guest cabin's computer. When he was done, he sat back in wide-eyed, open-mouthed horror, and looked back at Vestara, who was currently wrapped up in her own bedsheets so she couldn't get away or stop him from reading her journals.

And when he looked back at her, at the broken-hearted stare she gave to him, he knew what unforgivable wrong he did.

Ben looked away from the Sith girl he was so in love with, and sat back in the chair he took for himself in tired defeat. Previously, when he heard her crying, he went straight into her room to see what was going on, and saw that she was writing something down on the computer. He tried to get to the screen to read what she had written, but she tried to stop him.

When she did, he physically assaulted her; he Force-slapped her across the face, and following a short but intense struggle between them, he got her on the bed and used the Force to wrap her body in the sheets. She cried and begged him not to read what she wrote, but he did it anyway, for fear that she might have been doing something that would've compromised the Skywalkers' safety to the Lost Tribe of the Sith. At first, that's what Ben thought she did when he read the first two words, Dear Papa, in her first journal entry. Then, as he read on, all he saw was a fictitious diary written by a teenaged girl who wanted to have been born and raised under a fatherly Jedi Master.

And now, with her father dead, as she was the one who had been forced into killing him in a fierce lightsaber duel on the former Sith world of Dromund Kaas, these fake journals were all she could ever hope for when it came to a happy, un-Sith-like life.

And he, Ben Skywalker, Jedi Knight, hero of the Second Galactic Civil War, son of the great and legendary Grand Master Luke Skywalker of the New Jedi Order, had violated not only her body, but her private fantasies. Here, for what he did, he was reduced from a great and honorable warrior to nothing more than an abusive and invasive boyfriend-like low-life, no better than the typical spousal abusers who were arrested frequently on Coruscant and elsewhere in the Galactic Alliance.

He could never forgive himself for what he just did to Vestara. And as he looked back at her again, it looked like she wouldn't either.

Ben hesitated, not knowing what to do or say in this situation. Vestara was the same, except she had a look of contempt, mixed in with an emotional pain at not only what he did to her physically, but what he did to her in terms of their relationship. Ben, meanwhile, looked and felt the way he did when his mother died. Both he and Vestara thought that against all odds, in spite of the differences between them–he a Jedi, she a Sith–they would be together.

And within less than half an hour, Ben destroyed all of that.

In his mind, he tried to rationalize it all out. He had done it because he feared for the safety of himself and of his father, who had so much to deal with when it came to combatting the likes of Abeloth and the Lost Tribe of the Sith.

But no, Ben knew. He didn't do it because of something that could at least half-justify what he did to her. No, what he did to her, he did because he had felt hurt, because he thought that once again, like countless times before, Vestara had betrayed him and Luke. And he made her pay for it.

There was nothing that Ben could do to be forgiven by either Vestara, or by himself. Nothing.

In spite of himself, Ben had the courage and emotional strength to stand up and walk to the bed. Vestara turned her face away from him in an expression that amounted to disgust even as he began to unwrap her from the bedsheets. Once he was done, and she was completely free, she rolled so that she was facing away from Ben, and she hugged herself.

"Vestara..." Ben started to say. "I'm..." He couldn't say it, because he knew it wasn't true. For himself, he didn't think he could ever say it with any truth or resolution to Vestara for what he did to her.

Vestara had the same thing in mind. "Leave," she said simply and quietly.

Ben just stood there, again, not knowing what to do or say. Normally, he would've just reached for her shoulder and tried to say something reassuring for her. But there was nothing he could do or say that could reassure either of them of what had transpired minutes earlier.

So why was he standing here like the idiot he was, if he knew nothing could repair this? Ben thought this to himself.

"I said LEAVE!" Vestara cried out as she rolled back to face Ben, tears streaming from her eyes. And just as quickly, she turned back and began sobbing to herself. Ben reflexively reached for her, then just as reflexively pulled back, knowing that it was at best futile, and at worst, fuelling the fire to the situation.

The door to the guest cabin opened up. "What's going on here?" Luke Skywalker's authoritative voice asked to no one in particular before his eyes looked down at Vestara's crying form.

When Vestara's tear-blurred eyes met those of the emotionally cold Grand Master's, she turned away again, only to face a dumbfounded Ben again. "GET OUT!" she found herself screaming at her assaulter and would-be boyfriend.

Looking from Vestara to his neutral-expressed father, Ben didn't waste five more seconds before leaving Vestara's sight, walking around the bed, and heading for the exit of the room, which was blocked by Luke. The latter allowed his son to leave the guest cabin before he shut the door to leave Vestara in what peace she could find.

As Luke closed the door, Ben immediately began heading for his room. "Wait," his father stopped him. Ben hesitantly turned around to face Luke, and the latter asked, "What was that all about?"

Ben drew breath to speak, but found himself shaking to begin admitting the abuse he committed.

After a while, Luke grew impatient and demanded, "Well, speak, Ben."

And that was when turned to his side and slid down the wall behind him, sinking to his haunches. He piled his arms atop his folded-in legs, dropped his head, and began quietly sobbing to himself. Luke then approached him, and bent down, adopting a warm, fatherly voice rather than that of the cold and calculating persona of the Jedi Order's Grand Master.

"Ben, talk to me," Luke said, prompting Ben's tear-streaked face to raise up from his arms and into his father's eyes. "What's wrong?"

Ben sniffed. "I hurt her, Dad," and went back to crying in his arms. In between sobs, he managed to say, "I... hurt... her... I... beat... her... I..." He trailed off and began sobbing once more.

Luke stood up, and looking down at his son with a cold and calculating stare, he asked, "Why?"

Ben ceased sobbing and looked back up at his looming father. "Because... I thought she hurt me... as a friend," he said. "But instead, I hurt her, and I hurt her bad. And there's nothing I can do to fix this or make it up to her at all." He went back to crying again.

Luke didn't say anything after that. He just turned away from Ben, allowing him to weep like Vestara was weeping in her room right now, and then the Grand Master silently returned to his own quarters.