Notes: This was the first J/TK fanfiction I ever wrote (it was pretty much also my first fanfiction in general) and it was completed on April 15, 2003. It takes place during Destiny's Way and addresses the whole absence of him seeing-his-best-friend-after-being-gone-so-long issue that the book overlooked. :P Written 04/15/2003
At Least Smile
It was a gorgeous day at the Fountain Palace but the beauty of the morning sharply contrasted with the young Queen Mother's emotions at the moment. It had been like that a lot lately.
Day in, day out; the same thing. Appointments, speeches, meetings. Today was no exception. A speech to the public. Another one of those morale boosting speeches about how Hapes was safe from the Yuuzhan Vong. Queen Mother Tenel Ka Chume Ta' Djo was sick of it. She wanted to be out among the fighting, among the Jedi; helping them. Her place was among them. She would never get used to being the Queen Mother. But she held on; for the people of Hapes. For her late mother's people. Her father's people.
Her people.
Anhaje, one of Tenel Ka's diminutive handmaidens, stepped through the bedchamber door, "It is time, your worship."
The Queen Mother nodded, "I will be there in a moment."
Anhaje silently shut the bedchamber doors.
Tenel Ka picked up one of the armbands from her dresser and clasped it around the end of her left arm. It had a polished silver tone and glittered with numerous gems from Gallinore. Dangling cords of silver traced the lower half of it. It had been a gift from her mother, years ago. She liked it. But it wasn't 'her'... she started wearing it daily after her mother passed away.
Then the necklace.
It was the gort eggshell necklace the boy she had loved, and still loved, had given to her a lifetime ago. After he died, she began to absently wear it daily, like the armband. She could easily slip it on and off with one hand, since she had what seemed like years of practice.
Glancing at herself in the mirror, her stormy gray eyes trailed from the necklace to her severed left arm.
Jacen Solo.
A sigh escaped her lips.
Her people were waiting.
'It all happened at once.'
All it takes is a finely aimed A295 bolt. And the Queen Mother is clasping at her left shoulder and taking stumbles away from the podium. The Queen Mother's rugged female guards surround her within seconds and scan the crowd and the ledges of the buildings with their alert eyes. A team of Hapan medics crouch beside their Queen Mother and analyze her injury. They stand up, gently pick up her trembling body and drag her off, into the grand Palace towards the medical wing.
The assassin snickers, "Almost. But not quite."
His henchman smiles, "It'll do. She'll be out for at least a few days."
The men stand and slip silently away from the scene where they had just attempted an assassination on the Queen Mother of 63 planets.
The guards pick up on them and follow them. They're caught in a heartbeat.
Inexperienced assassins sent by a member of the extended family. Welcome to Hapes. This was all in a day's work.
Usually assassination attempts failed. This one was an exception. It failed to an extent though; as Isolder noticed his daughter was still breathing.
"She needs bacta treatment. Full immersion. We need to put her in the tank," the medic looked to Isolder, her concern for their Queen Mother showing on her worried visage.
Isolder sighed and looked at his daughter's prone body, "How long?"
"Just a few days."
"I think we can hold the family over until then."
He watched as the assistants wrapped his daughter's unconscious body into a bacta cloth and submerged her into the tank.
She was slated to be fully healed three days after the assassination attempt happened. It was the second day.
A medic trainee was keeping vigil over the Queen Mother's bacta tank. He was a young man, younger than the queen, with inquisitive brown eyes and scruffy mop of unruly black hair. The medics let him keep watch over their Queen Mother seeing as how nothing was supposed to happen. She was just supposed to hang in the liquid and heal. No medical training could've prepared him for what happened that day.
He pulled a chair up to the tank and watched his Queen. She was floating upside-down; her copper hair, out of any of the usual intricate braids or fancy styles, flowing euphorically around her face, like a halo of fire; the bacta sliding across her tanned skin, healing her every minuscule injury. The trainee tilted his head as he observed her. Her wound was red and gritty, he could see the scar tissue forming in the gash. It was below her collarbone, on her left shoulder.
She looked peaceful, calm, and serene; the trainee had never seen her in this state before. Whenever he was lucky enough to be in the same room with her, or to catch the end of one of her speeches on the holoprojector, she always looked stern, strong and untouchable.
And here she was, looking helpless.
He shook his head. How could the royal family be so ruthless? Did they want the throne that bad? Queen Mother Tenel Ka Chume Ta' Djo didn't seem to enjoy it that much.
The trainee tilted his chair back and let it rest against the medical counter. He shut his eyes. The silence of the room was boring him.
Tenel Ka had her shields up. She was closed off from the Force while she floated aimlessly in the tank. There was still too much pain. It wasn't her shoulder and its physical pain. It was still emotional pain, after years. The pain still hovered over her like a Kamino raincloud. She paid no attention to the throbbing pain in her shoulder. She paid attention to her clouded mind. All she knew was that she needed to heal. That was the only clear thought that penetrated her foggy brain.
At this rate, the throne will be taken over sixty times before I get out of here.
The throne, stolen by one of the greedy cousins, half-cousins, long-lost grandmothers, aunts, some kind of extended family member. They seemed to multiply whenever Tenel Ka's back was turned.
I need to go into a healing trance.
She planned to open her mind to the Force and pull in energy from around her to slowly pick at and fix the blaster wound in her shoulder... but as she opened herself to the Force she was assaulted by a blissful and incredible feeling she never thought she would experience again.
Jacen!
Her eyes shot open and were instantly abused by bacta. She shook her head violently, her long hair swirling lethargically around her face, slowed by the medical liquid. Tenel Ka thrashed around in it, scratching at the sides of the tank, turning herself upright and beating on the underside of the lid.
It was early evening. The trainee had dozed off. He was immediately awake and upright when he heard the banging and battering by the once serene body in the tank.
"Kriffing-!" He panicked. Smacking the lid's release button was all he got around to doing before he froze in his tracks and watched everything unfold.
The Queen Mother threw her right arm over the lip of the bacta tank and pulled herself up towards the air. Vaulting herself over the lip of the bacta tank and landing on her feet on the ground below was an impressive feat, especially doing it with one arm and keeping her grace and dignity the whole time; her right hand was now clutched around the top of the bacta cloth. Before it was tangled around her, now it was simply draped around her, leaving her shoulders (and her wound) exposed.
Her arduous breathing slowed as she stood there to catch it, her red-gold hair matted down and dripping bacta; the drops trailing down her bare shoulders and legs.
She was modestly covered up; but the trainee still blushed profusely. He kneeled quickly and bowed his head, keeping his eyes fixed to some invisible object on the ground.
"Get up."
He obeyed.
"Please, get me a bacta patch."
He shakily grabbed one off of the counter and handed it to her. She nodded her thanks and slapped it on her already aching injury.
He stammered, "Y- you should still... b- be in th- the tank. You... you aren't healed yet."
"Fact. But this is important."
It was. It was very important.
He just gawked.
She nodded once more and dashed out of the room, leaving the medic trainee red, embarrassed and oddly aroused.
Down the long hallway she dashed, into the huge living area, the excess bacta cloth trailing behind her like a shadowmoth's wings. There were a few handmaidens and servants milling around, busying themselves with odd jobs. Anhaje was in a corner of the airy room, talking to some of the female guards, probably about the assassins. All conversation stopped when a damp, barely covered Queen Mother burst into the room.
Tenel Ka's eyes instantly shifted to the huge holo-projector on the wall. She went against her ways and used the Force to flip it on just to fall to her knees and lose her breath at the first image that came on screen.
Jacen...
It was the boy she loved. He had returned. Alive. Healthy. It wasn't another one of Tenel Ka's hallucinations, nightmares or even daydreams. It was Jacen Solo. There he was. Alive.
He had changed a bit since she had seen him last. His hair was still the same unruly tangled mass of dark brown. His eyes, that same deep brown as before... she could see pain in them, months... maybe even years of frustration but with that a new sense of maturity. She noticed the muscles. Muscles? And a beard...?
Jacen? Muscles? Ah. Aha.
It was still Jacen Solo.
She had to do it. She had to tell him. Who knew when, but she had to.
First she had to let him know that she was still there.
She sat on the ground, on her knees, still clutching the bacta cloth, still staring up at the huge, live, real-time image of Jacen Solo projected on the screen. There were many holo-reporters harassing him and hounding him. He was being kind to them though, like he always was.
I have to. I have to tell him I'm here.
There were cords in the Force, connecting everything. A cord connecting Tenel Ka with Master Luke Skywalker. A cord connecting Tenel Ka with Jaina Solo. One to Lowbacca. One to Zekk. One to Tahiri. There was one for every Jedi, every living thing. Tenel Ka's most prominent cord was Jacen's.
She slowly closed her eyes and used her mind to open up the cords. She wanted to send some message through Jacen's to him. Just like a pinprick. To tell him she was still there for him. Instead, she assaulted him with every emotion she was feeling at the moment. She couldn't help herself. She didn't mean to. It just happened.
Jacen Solo stopped mid-sentence, mid-step and fell to the ground, holding his forehead. The holo-reporters collectively gasped and began asking more annoying questions. Uncle Luke ignored them and bent down beside his nephew, inquiring about his condition.
"I'm fine," a smile crossed Jacen's face.
Uncle Luke looked confused.
"It was nothing. I just... felt something for a moment."
I know. I felt joy. Pure relentless joy. I knew you had it in you.
"Whatever you say, Jacen. We're just glad you're back. Now we have a meeting to get to. We need to lose these reporters." Luke smiled and clapped his nephew on the shoulder.
Jacen clambered to his feet and continued to answer questions, scanning the faces of the reporters.
I need to find a woman reporter... intricate clothing. Exotic face... apprehensive holo-camera man... there we go.
It was the Hapan reporter and her cameraman. Obviously they broadcasted straight to the Consortium and its 63 planets. Jacen and Luke began walking again; the reporters following suit and crowding around beside them and behind them.
Jacen Solo made a point to walk beside the Hapan cameraman.
He turned and looked into the lens, sending a wink and that lopsided Solo grin straight to the woman who'd just poured out her soul to him.
And on Hapes, in the Palace, on the ground, wrapped in a bacta cloth, still dripping, Queen Mother Tenel Ka Chume Ta' Djo smiled the most brilliant and radiant smile ever.