Author's Note: :O! A story that's not J/TK! Actually, it's Tenel Ka/Zekk, which for some reason popped into my head back then and I wrote a short fanfiction about it. I've written some more featuring them, but it was years after this. This was the first one I wrote with the two of them with any sort of relationship past friends. Jacen is off on some philosophical journey and he left all his friends to live their lives without him, the punk. ;) Written: 03/30/2004.

Past Fading

I didn't really mean to at first, I just did it.

I kissed her.

After the war with the Vong ended the Jedi got split up to do their own things. Some got assigned to small task force missions, some continued working with their Force powers, I have no idea about some of the others. Jaina and Lowie are off with the Twin Suns, Jacen decided to go play hermit, Tahiri is on Zonama Sekot. I got assigned to Hapes, to keep watch over Tenel Ka Chume Ta'Djo. There have been no more assassination attempts then the usual one or two every standard month or so, but Tenel Ka began to not be able to handle them alone; after her father was killed with a blaster bolt that was meant for her.

She had been moping around the Palace on Hapes, depressed about her father's recent death, depressed about her everyday royal life. Just depressed in general.

One night, after an assassination attempt (. . .it was poison this time) she went to her bedchambers to sit. Like she did every night. She would sit and stare out to the sky, the stars, the moons. . .

I would be lying to you if I said I never wondered what she was thinking about.

I had barged into her room, planning to complain about something irrelevant when I saw her seated stiffly on the floor in front of the open window. Her shoulders were shaking with quiet sobs. I felt horrible for my display of stupidity and my lack of manners; not just for trouncing into her room unannounced, but for how disrespectful I had been.

I had lounged around the Palace, using up its resources. I thought I deserved it for how well I was doing guarding the Queen Mother.

"She's not dead, right?" I had said to the advisors on the Palace staff, when asked why I was being so lazy. "I must be doing a good job then."

Something had come over me after the war. A wave of bitterness and a longing to return to the past. The way everything used to be. All of us shacked up in the Temple on Yavin 4, training to actually become what we could only dream of being. There are many reasons why I wouldn't mind returning to the past and I find myself thinking of them daily.

But the realization is dawning on me. The real reason I want to return and escape all of this.

I think I'm falling in love with Tenel Ka.

There would be none of this if it were the old days. I was always off with Jaina or Lowie and she was always with Jacen. Her and Jacen had so much.

She still has feelings for him, she has to. You can tell. But of course, as we all dreaded, Jacen had to forsake his family and friends (something he usually wouldn't do) to go find his place in the universe.

In other words, to play hermit.

In a way it hurt all of us. For him to just leave like that. . .

I think that's another reason Tenel Ka has been moping about lately. She misses him. I think that was what she was crying about when I invited myself into her room to complain. I completely forgot what I even came to complain about when she turned her head and drove those bloodshot stone daggers into me.

I suddenly had the urge to get her to talk. I mean, we talked during my time there but not as much as I suddenly would have liked. I usually just watched her work, watching in muted awe at how she did everything with an attitude of steel, as well as one arm. She never ceases to amaze me.

I told her to pretend I wasn't there. She did exactly that. I would watch her pace endlessly at night, in her chambers, racking her brain with some trivial problem the Hapans had produced for her. She would go back and forth moving her lips silently, her long nightgowns of silk would flutter around her as she spun and walked, one of the straps occasionally slipping a bit, off of her shoulder. . .

She had been crying that night, I wanted to know why exactly. All the years I had known her, not one single tear.

"TK?" I had gotten so lazy the time I was there, I even shortened her name. "What's wrong?"

She had continued to glare up at me with those hypnotizing eyes of hers, that now seemed all dried out, and then with no trouble she stood and faced me.

"Nothing."

"That's a lie."

"Nothing is wrong."

I had stepped forward. "I'm not crawling into my bed until you tell me what's wrong."

I would've crawled into her bed and waited all night for her to tell me.

Finally, it all exploded.

"What do you think is wrong?! My father is dead. Jacen is gone. Jaina is gone. Lowie, Tahiri, Jag all gone off somewhere. Problems thrown in my face left and right. My mind. I am going insane here! Nothing is the same anymore! I---"

That's when I kissed her. I just cut her off and pressed my lips to hers. I could sense her surprise, but she did nothing to stop it. I could tell she was aiming to go on to talk about the past, and how nothing would ever be the same, how everything she had grown accustomed to and all the people she had gotten to know would never be as close as they were. That scared her.

I was her link to the past. I was all she had left.

Her lips were warm, inviting and I could taste the salt of her tears drifting across them. The tears she cried for Jacen. . . and my lips were kissing them away. Part of me thought I was betraying him, while the other part cursed at him for leaving us all in the first place. My hair was messy and disoriented, as usual, and I could feel the tips brushing across her bronze cheeks. My arms had clasped around her waist and her right hand was clutching at the left sleeve of my shirt. It couldn't decide whether it wanted to push me away or pull me closer.

When I let go of her, tears welled up in her eyes again.

"Zekk..."

She closed herself off from the Force after that and only said one thing.

"I want to be alone."

"That won't help you let go of the past."

I could feel my words sinking into her.

"Get out," she murmured, curtly.

I had left her then and retreated to my quarters across the hall. It didn't take me long to fall asleep that night, and I slept peacefully until a ripple in the Force jolted my eyes open.

She stood beside my bed, her eyes wide in the dim light. She didn't even have to say anything. I knew what she wanted.

Tenel Ka didn't want to be alone.

I had pulled my covers back and much to my surprise she tucked herself right in beside me, nestling her head on the pillow beside mine. As I slept, I knew it, she had let go of the past.

As she rested her right hand on my chest and I fell into a deep sleep, I realized something else.

She had learned to embrace the future.