Author's Note
All Star Wars characters are the property of George Lucas.
All Star Trek characters are the property of Gene Roddenberry and Paramount Pictures.
I don't own them; I'm just borrowing them for a little while.
So please don't sue.
This story is an AU one shot.
A path not traveled
By
jediryu ©
Jacen Solo lay sleeping. Sleeping and dreaming. Next to him lay his wife and fellow Jedi, Tenel Ka. The stump of her left arm, the one she lost in a lightsaber training accident while still a teenager, fit in the hollow created in the space between Jacen's head on his pillow and the mattress like a puzzle piece; her right draped across him.
In his dream, Jacen was seeing places he had and hadn't been to. He was doing things he had and hadn't done in his travels. Images, thoughts, and feelings bombarded him. At first he stirred only slightly but as the images, thoughts and feelings coalesced in his minds' eye, Jacen began to sweat and then thrash under his covers.
This last was what woke Tenel Ka. Awakened by concern for the man she'd loved since they first met at the original Jedi Academy on Yavin 4, she was for a moment, afraid. This fear sliced through her consciousness like the lightsaber that took her arm and woke her up fully. She recognized a Force-inspired dream state on her husband's features. At first she thought to let this dream state run its course, but when Jacen started moaning, "No! No! I'll never turn to the dark side!" Tenel Ka called to him, both mentally through the Force and verbally, "Jacen! Jacen! Wake up! You must wake up, this is a fact!" Jacen sat up reaching out and yelling, "Noooooo!"
Jacen threw his covers aside and ran for the 'fresher station. Making it just in time, he fell to his knees and vomited into the bowl. Tenel Ka walked into the station behind him and gently ran her hand up and down his back along the ridge of his spine to comfort him. His heaves wracked his entire frame and subsided soon after. Slowly standing, he pressed the purge control for the bowl and then went to the sink and rinsed his mouth and beard and then his whole face, letting the cold water cool his sweaty brow. Drying his face and beard off, he returned to their bedroom, sat on the edge of their bed at the foot and cradled his face in his hands, elbows on knees.
Tenel Ka sat beside him, placed her right arm around his shoulders and put her red braided head on his shoulder. Though her mannerisms had relaxed some in her years of associating with the Solo twins, in times of stress her diction returned to its almost too precise and clipped tones as she said, "Speak husband. Tell me what has disturbed you so." Jacen rubbed his face, took a breath and did.
Elsewhere on Coruscant, several kilometers away in fact, in the rebuilt Jedi Temple, Jedi Master Jaina Solo sat up in her bed in one of the two rooms she occupied, nearly hyperventilating. The other room was occupied by her padawan learner Michelle Karú, who just then, knocked on the door that adjoined their rooms, entered, and inquired, "Master Jaina, are you all right? I felt your distress through the Force." Jaina rubbed her eyes tiredly and said, "Thank you for your concern Michelle. I'm fine now. You remember how I've mentioned on occasion that because Jacen and I are Jedi twins, sometimes we know what the other is feeling or experiencing?"
When Michelle nodded her head, Jaina continued, "When we were children, growing up together as we did, sometimes we would finish each other's sentences or when doing some chore around our home we would seamlessly trade off and pick up where the other left off and back again, but with no words exchanged between us. More than once, our dad would make the observation that it was really creepy when we did this, but Jacen and I both knew it wasn't meant maliciously. Anyway, what woke me up just now was that Jacen just had a really, really intense nightmare. Back when we were children, it used to be fairly standard for the other to wake up when one had a nightmare but that hasn't happened for quite a few years now." Michelle nodded her head again and said, "Since, as you say, neither of you has had such a detailed emotional backlash for many years, what kind of dream do you think he could have had to cause one now?" Jaina shook her head and said, "I'm really not sure Michelle except to say that whatever his nightmare was, it scared the living daylights out of him."
Jacen sat up in bed yelling, "Noooooo!" Throwing his covers aside he ran for the 'fresher station and made it just in time as he fell to his knees and vomited into the bowl. As the wracking spasms subsided, Jacen was aware of the gentle caress of Tenel Ka's hand on his back along his spine. Standing up and pressing the purge button for the bowl, he went to the sink and rinsed the particles of vomit from his mouth and beard and then splashed cold water on his face. Looking into the mirror he saw, or thought he saw his eyes return to their normal brown from a fiery red-yellow combination. Mentally he said, "No, no. It's just my imagination. I'm still me. I am Jacen Solo, Jedi Knight and Master, husband to Tenel Ka, nephew of Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade-Skywalker, son of Han Solo and Leia Organa-Solo."
Drying his face off and then returning to the bedroom, he sat on the foot of the bed and cradled his face in his hands, elbows on knees. He felt the mattress sink a little as Tenel Ka sat beside him, put her right arm around his shoulders and place her red braided head on his shoulder. Jacen knew his wife was worried for him because her diction had slid back to what it used to be when they first met at the Jedi Academy on Yavin 4. "Speak husband. Tell me what has disturbed you so." Rubbing his face, Jacen took a breath and started talking.
"Tenel Ka, the nightmare I just had was almost too terrible to speak of but I know I must so that I can face the fears that it has caused. Face them, merge with them and overcome them. In this dream you and I weren't married but we did end up together but not nearly as soon as we did. The nightmare is already fading, thank the Force, so bits of it are slipping beyond my ability to grasp and recall, but what I can remember was that some kind of new enemy had come to conquer our galaxy. They were some kind of religious zealot that didn't exist in the Force. Because of this, the ranks of the new Jedi Order were already being depleted as Jedi fell in battle to them one after another. Aunt Mara was infected with an engineered virus and almost died giving birth to Cousin Ben. Chewbacca died. Anakin died and it almost drove my mom insane with grief because she felt him die. Almost as if he'd died in her arms. He and Tahiri weren't married. She was torn with her own grief over his death, captured and almost converted into a kind of double agent to betray us."
Tenel Ka said nothing, knowing that if she did, Jacen would forget everything. The Force told her that he needed to speak of this nightmare and so she remained silent while he did. "The New Republic had crumbled, Coruscant had fallen. Needless to say, we didn't have the treaty with the Federation. Your grandmother had finally succeeded in assassinating your mother, compelling you to take on the throne and crown of Hapes though you wanted more than anything to stay with the Jedi, with me. After we defeated the zealots, I went on some kind of sabbatical and came back somehow changed in the Force. I began to travel the path of 'the ends justify the means'. I infiltrated your compound on Hapes to speak with you and you made me your consort or some such but not before I had met with your grandmother and essentially used the Force to break her will, shred her mind . . . practically rape her very soul. You gave birth to a daughter, our daughter but we couldn't tell anyone because she would have gone to the top of the 'to be assassinated' list."
Jacen continued with, "We couldn't even tell my parents that they were grandparents. I lied straight into Uncle Luke's face but he didn't know it. I altered Ben's memories so that he wouldn't remember his cousin and accidentally tell anyone else. Then I met a person claiming to be a Sith Lord that Darth Vader had trained and sequestered away somewhere. I don't remember his, her or its name, just that it was steeped in the Dark Side of the Force and that this Sith started training me in the Dark Side though I didn't know it at the time. I began to believe that only I could save the galaxy from itself, that only my vision of how things had to be was right and just. I ceased being Jacen Solo and became Darth Caedus. I don't remember for sure but I may have killed Aunt Mara, Uncle Luke, my mom, you . . . all in the name of my 'holy' calling to set the galaxy right."
Taking another breath, Jacen shuddered violently and said, "In the end, Jaina killed me. She had to. I don't remember her exact words but it was something like, "Jacen, you are my brother and I love you, even after all you've done, all the people you've killed, the families you've torn asunder, ours included. I still love you and must free you." I think in that moment, I came back to my senses and dropped my defenses. Jaina's lightsaber ran me through the dark hole where my heart once had been. If that wasn't bad enough, even though I've only seen holo-scenes of him, Emperor Palpatine's laughter sounded clearly in my ear as I died and he welcomed me to the formless, dark oblivion that is the Dark Side of the Force." Shuddering again, Jacen put his face back in his hands.
Taking her head from where it lay on his shoulder, Tenel Ka spoke then, "Jacen, look at me." At first he didn't but then she took her right arm from around his shoulders and gently grabbed his chin with her strong, very strong, right hand and forced him to make eye contact with her as she said, "Jacen, my husband, my love, it-was-a-dream. You must remember that dreams, even dreams empowered by the Force have-no-control over us unless we allow it. Always remember that. Also remember, when I swore to stay with you till death do us part, I meant every word and would never turn by back on you. If you ever started on the dark path, I would pull you back with this strong right hand of mine and slap so much sense into you, you would think that you had just gone through the Kessel Run without a ship and no suit by going through the Maw." Realizing that his usually taciturn wife had just made a joke, Jacen said, "Ah. Aha. This is a fact?" Tenel Ka said, "This is a fact."
As Jacen felt his wife's love for him in the Force flow over and through him and wash the vestiges of his nightmare away, he felt something else in the Force. Focusing on it, he said, "Why haven't you told me you're pregnant?" Tenel Ka's face colored a little but didn't lower her gaze from his. "I was going to announce it in three days time when we saw the rest of the family at your parent's anniversary dinner." Jacen smiled slyly and said, "Wanna try for twins of our own?" Tenel Ka blushed again and said, "Try and stop me."
Three days later, Han and Leia were celebrating their wedding anniversary. In attendance were Luke, Mara and Ben. Also there were Jaina, the newlywed Anakin and Tahiri, Jacen and Tenel Ka, Chewbacca and his nephew Lowbacca. Even though the Treaty with the Federation was only a year old by this time, Jean-Luc Picard and his wife Beverly had become personal friends to the Solos and Skywalkers. By extension of that friendship, Michelle Karú, Deanna Troi and her husband Will Riker were there as well. Riker was visiting Coruscant with his ship the Titan, to deliver the personnel who would be working in the Federation Embassy just recently built on Coruscant.
When Tenel Ka made the announcement of her pregnancy, Han and Leia's faces lit up as bright as one of the orbital solar power reflectors around Coruscant. Jaina, Anakin, Tahiri, Luke, Mara, Ben, Deanna, Michelle and Will Riker all congratulated the parents-to-be, Chewbacca and Lowbacca both roared out the wookie equivalent and Picard made a toast which everyone shared in. Jacen soon forgot the dream of a path not traveled, and for the rest of his days never let it influence him.
Yet another circle was now complete.
The End