Title: Don't Look Back

Author: LadyElaine

Disclaimer: The characters and situations of Star Wars belong to George Lucas and Lucasfilm, Ltd.

Rating: PG

Summary: Based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.

Feedback: dragonlady75069@attbi.com

Don't Look Back

Jaina landed her X-Wing carefully on the swampy surface of Dagobah. She sat unmoving for several minutes, stretching out with her senses to make sure the ground beneath the ship held stable. She certainly didn't want to lose her fighter the way her uncle Luke had lost his; she doubted she could handle the "size matters not" trick of Yoda's.

When she finally did pop open the cockpit hatch, her R2 unit gave a questioning bleep. "No, I need you to stay here," she said. Cappie answered with a relieved hoot, and Jaina managed a chuckle. No reptilian horror stories were necessary for this one. Stuffing a hand lamp into her pack, she tossed it to the ground. In all likelihood, she'd be overnighting here, and a portable light source would be a boon.

She jumped out of the cockpit with a graceful flourish, but there was no help for the ugly squish upon her landing. The ground sucked at her boots, giving off a foul odor as she lifted one foot with a schlop. Whenever Luke had talked about Dagobah, he'd always found a way to include the words "moist" and "humid" in his descriptions. 'Well, Uncle Luke,' Jaina thought, 'you sure have a talent for understatement.' Her flight suit clung to her body in all the wrong places; she felt like she was trying to breathe underwater.

Bogwings shrieked away in the distance. Close by, the ever-present watery murk shifted and groaned like a living thing; of course, there probably was a living thing under the surface. Jaina sidled past, making for where Yoda's old hut had once sat.

The hut itself was long gone, of course, reclaimed by the hungry earth not long after the Jedi Master's death. Only a hollow still remained where the roots of a gnarltree had grown around and over the old mud hut.

But it wasn't Yoda's hut that Jaina was here for.

The dark side aura around the tree cave, a short distance away, was a familiar presence. It took every ounce of her self control not to simply slip into it, to unfetter her anger and despair. That wasn't the right way, though--the Jedi way.

It was fitting, she thought, that she had to drop through a hollow down into the cave below. A domain of evil, it had been called, by a Jedi Master she'd never met. The evil she had to face lay not in this underworld grotto, though. It lived within Jaina herself. It wore the scarred and scarified visage of every Yuuzhan Vong she'd ever slain, but it spoke to her with the voice of an adolescent boy.

The tangled interior of the tree cave dripped with roots and vines. The ground here was somewhat firmer than outside, but the air seemed heavier. The moisture pressed in on Jaina, crawling into her flight suit. It burrowed under her skin to settle uncomfortably, like all her unanswered questions, alongside her itch to run, to fight, to kill.

This was the place. Here, Luke had first faced--and rejected--his own dark side. If there were any answers to be had, Jaina would find them in here. She set her pack down, using it as an impromptu seat. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and centered herself. The dark side twisted its serpentine way around her, luring her with the promise of easy power. The power of death, of destruction, but most of all, of vengeance.

He didn't have to die....

"We both know that's not true, sis."

Jaina's eyes snapped open.

Her brother knelt before her.

"Anakin?" she whispered. But that was absurd. Anakin Solo had died on a Yuuzhan Vong worldship. He had battled more of the alien warriors than should have been possible, so filled with the energy of the Force that his body, in the end, simply couldn't withstand it.

"They would have taken you, Jaina. I wouldn't... I couldn't let them do that."

They'd held the funeral on Hapes with Han and Leia. It hadn't seemed right without Chewie--but Chewbacca was dead, too, another sacrifice to the peace and freedom that had long since crumbled. Anakin's remains had disappeared in a shower of sparks when the funeral pyre had been lit.

"But... but you can't be real!" She wondered, briefly, why she protested. It was Anakin's death that had driven her over the edge into the dark side. But here he knelt, as real as life.

An impish gleam came into Anakin's eyes. "I'm as real as the Force."

Without thinking, Jaina reached out to run her fingers through her little brother's perpetually tousled hair. She thought maybe she would touch nothing, but he felt as solid as ever. Gravity suddenly seemed to switch directions then, and Jaina's heart leapt into her throat. She wondered if her own hair was standing on end.

"But how...." She shook her head and stood up. "Never mind. We have to get out of here. We need all the Jedi we can get, and that means you!"

Anakin rose along with her. "I'll come with you," he said, "but only on one condition."

Jaina frowned at him, but before she could ask, she found herself enfolded in her little brother's arms. It had been so long since they had embraced. 'I will not cry, I will not cry,' she chanted silently to herself. And even before he had died, when had she last shown him such a simple gesture of affection?

"Just don't look back," Anakin whispered in her ear.

She disentangled herself and frowned at him. "What?"

"You can't look back," he repeated. "That's the only way I'll stay with you."

Jaina nodded, though she hadn't a clue what he meant. He'd always been so serious, even as a baby. She bent down to retrieve her pack and slung it over her shoulders, her back to her little brother. "Okay," she said, a smile tugging at the edges of her mouth. "I'm not looking back."

Anakin didn't reply.

She almost turned around then, almost glanced back to see if he still waited there, but caught herself. 'Well, am I a Jedi, or am I a Jedi?' she thought. Reaching out through the Force was second nature. She found Anakin's presence behind her, a warm and steady glow that seemed to say, "I'm right here. I'll always be with you."

The climb back up was just as slippery as the climb down had been, but now the slickness worked against her. She heaved herself out with an effort, then, without thinking, turned to give Anakin a hand up.

But Anakin was gone.

"No!" The scream tore its way out of her throat before she could stop it. "No, Anakin! I'm sorry! I looked back, I'm sorry, I'm sorry...." Jaina's words tumbled together into a sob. Panicking, she cast about through the Force again--and found the same presence as had been with her in the tree cave.

I'm right here. I'll always be with you.

She suddenly realized that she had been duped. Luke had seen a vision of Darth Vader, and her own vision of Anakin had been just as false. With a mindless cry, she picked up a rock and hurled it into the maw of the tree cave. Then another rock. And another.

When she ran out of rocks, she threw her pack. It hit the roots of the twisted old tree with a solid crack that said she wouldn't have a portable light source tonight. She still had enough of her wits to realize that camping in this hellhole was now out of the question. With a final, shuddering sigh, she retrieved her abused pack and found her way back to her fighter.

Sensing Jaina's mood, Cappie kept mostly silent, chirping out the preflight checklist with none of his usual commentary. The liftoff was spotless. As the mists of Dagobah slipped reluctantly away from her fighter's S-foils, Jaina found herself back in the cold comfort of empty space. The faraway stars glittered at her with a familiar presence.

I'm right here. I'll always be with you.

The salt of her tears tasted as bitter to her as her failure, as Jaina punched in her hyperspace coordinates and made the jump to light speed.

End.