A FATHER'S WISDOM, A FATHER'S LOVE
After months of planning and a few meltdowns in the process, it was Jacen's and Tenel Ka's wedding day.
Tenel Ka was brimming with excitement but at the moment, but she was also having a problem. She and Jacen were to write their vows, as was the custom in the Jedi Temple, but nothing she'd come up with seemed to work. The wedding was in two hours; Jaina and Tahiri and Allana were due to arrive in an hour.
What was she supposed to say? How could she describe the experiences she and Jacen had shared, the love that bound them?
It wasn't that she had no feelings for Jacen. To the contrary, she was bursting with them. Their lives were rich with emotion.
She wished in that moment her mother was alive. Not that she would have been able to help much, but at least she would have been there - and she would have been happy for Jacen, Allana and her. Her father and grandmother, she was not in the least bereft that they left their mortal coils long ago.
In desperation, she headed out of the wardrobe in the Jedi Templer; perhaps all she needed, she thought, was some air. She sat on one of the benches in the courtyard, holding her head in her hands.
She then remembered who Jacen said always gave the best advice, the most help.
She headed back into the temple, hoping he'd arrived.
"Father Han?" she called out quietly. She'd taken to calling him that; he told her a while back that she really needed to stop calling him Captain Solo unless she was aboard the Falcon.
He's not here, she thought sadly.
"Tenel Ka?" came a deep, familiar voice. "What's wrong, sweetie?" He headed over to her and gave her a hug.
"I need your help, Father Han," she said. "I'm having a horrible time writing my vows and I need your help."
Han looked at her. "Leia's a lot more eloquent than I am, sweetie."
"Yeah, but Jacen says you always give him the best advice."
Han looked baffled. "Jacen said that?"
"He says you always help him even when you don't know it."
Han tried to think back to whenver he might have helped Jacen. He couldn't really be sure. But he wasn't about to leave Tenel Ka in the lurch.
"C'mon, let's see what you've got." He slipped an arm over Tenel Ka's shoulers.
"Actually, I don't have anything. Father Han, what was it like when you married Mother Leia?"
Han smiled at the memory. "I think I was worried till the last moment she wouldn't show, that she'd finally get to her senses and leave me at Cantham House and we'd have wasted a lot of money on some very good booze."
"I'm serious!"
Han realized she was.
"What did you think of on your wedding day?" she asked.
"Well, I walked down the aisle and when I reached the altar, I turned to face the aisle my bride was about to walk down. I was nervous as hell. And as I saw her making her first step, on Chewie's arm, I wondered, would I be equal to the task? Was I deluding myself that I could be a good husband? Would I make a good father? What would happen to us in the future? Would our love sustain us?"
"So what happened?"
"When Leia met me at the altar, I had the answer."
"And that was?"
"That there were no certainties in life. But I knew who I wanted on the journey with me." He paused. "You and Jacen have had more than a little of that already. I think love's more than a feeling. I think it's what you do."
"You mean, like all the things we do for each other?"
"Exactly. Leia does things for me that she doesn't have to. I do the same for her. Because we want to do 'em. Not just big things, either. All the little things. If you think about it, you can probably think a bunch of stuff you guys do for each other."
Tenel Ka's lips curved into a smile. Now she knew what she was going to write.
"Thanks, Father Han," she said, hugging him. "Jacen was right about you."
"Only if he thinks I'm getting drunk tonight." The two laughed, and with a smile, Tenel Ka picked up her stylus.