It wasn't some momentous revelation that knocked sense back into Jacen Solo. It wasn't even the fact that he managed to escape some corrupting maddening force entity. It was the fact that he was about to die. Proximity with death makes trivial things seem significant. And suddenly things that had seemed minor climbed in importance. The order of importance relating to facets of his life seemed to be completely rearranged. No longer did such a high and mighty goal as bringing "Peace and Justice" to the galaxy seem as consequential. No longer was reaching Allana and Tenel Ka to warn them of impending doom paramount.
No, here, at that very moment, Jaina's lightsaber arching towards his chest on a straight path towards his heart, he suddenly worried about other things. What sort of legacy am I leaving behind? Do I really want to become the next frightening tale, recited to Jedi initiates as a warning? It certainly wasn't noble or idealistic, it was selfish but it was also very human. Yet at that moment self preservation for the sake of salvaging his reputation in the eyes of those that survived him seemed of the highest import. He wanted someone to weep for him. And at that moment in time that had seemed to freeze, he felt convinced that no one but his parents and his sister would shed a tear.
And those would be tears for those lost. For the two sons that had died over a decade before in a war of never before seen magnitude and ferociousness. They would be tears for a brother that had betrayed her trust in his convictions, only forced to realize that her love for him was secondary to his beliefs of what should be. In short they would be tears of relief that the nightmare had come to a sudden painful end. No longer would they have to worry about the atrocities that Jacen Solo may very well commit the next day. No, they could comfortably mourn the death of the young empathetic man who only wished to make those he cared about laugh. He knew that to them he had died alongside Anakin on that disastrous mission to Myrkr.
All of this flashed through his mind in an instant and with sudden force. And with this newfound clairvoyance he realized an all too familiar truth. He wanted to live. Yet this time it was for an entirely different reason. It was long past due to make some amends.
He reached out to the force and wrapped himself in an illusion. Yet the illusion was not in the illusion itself. Jaina would not be fooled by the sudden of appearance of anyone. She had come to this confrontation for one purpose. And she knew most of Jacen's tricks. The illusion he covered himself in was his own form. As he felt the lightsaber cut into his side he reached out and extinguished her lightsaber. It was minute exertion and Jaina, in her sorrow and anger did not sense it. Yet Jaina would know that he was alive in a split second if he did not make it believable. And if she decided to turn her lightsaber "off" right after it reached his heart from her perspective, he would be dead regardless. But that was a gamble he had to take.
He called out to Tenel Ka through the force, sending a telepathic warning of the bio-weapon that the Moff Council wanted to use against them. He reopened his twin bond with Jaina at the same time and with roaring clarity he felt all her pain and sadness and… her surprise at his presence. And just as suddenly as he had opened himself up to her he forcefully closed his connection to her and hid his presence in the force more thoroughly than he ever had.
Reopening his twin bond with Jaina was his saving grace. She was so shocked by the sudden reemergence of something that had been suppressed for years that she forgot to "extinguish" her saber. He collapsed on the ground before her as realistically as he could. Pain shot up his leg as the severed nerve endings around his dissected Achilles tendon flared to agonizing life partially due to the adrenaline subsiding from his body. But that was not the biggest problem. His entire body had been transfixed by a lightsaber through his stomach. He was dying. Darkness was already creeping at the edge of his vision as he stared up at his sister who was staring at his collapsed form in shocked sorrow. He would have smirked at the irony of her sorrowfully and sadly cutting him down but that was wasted energy. In the distance somewhere he thought he registered the clatter of a lightsaber falling to the ground to his right.
He drew on as much force energy as he dared without alerting Jaina to the fact that he was still alive and poured healing energy into the hole that was through his torso. His eyes widened from the pain of feeling the tissue that was severed and cauterized and melted into free floating atoms reform, slowly and gradually closing the perforation. The process was so draining he feared for his consciousness. And losing consciousness at that moment might have him waking up to the unpleasant sensation of a funeral pyre… in his honor. The morbid joke kept him alert to an extent but he admitted that he was likely flattering himself… knowing that no funeral pyre would probably ever be erected commemorating him.
Nevertheless the fatigue threatened to overwhelm him when suddenly he felt his head lifted and placed on a warm soft surface. He opened his eyes to find Jaina looking down on him with tears streaming down her face. She was mumbling something about the twin bond being restored and that he wasn't really dead. The awkwardness of the situation caught up to him with staggering clarity. Here she was holding his head on her lap, mourning him after he had murdered and destroyed more peoples' lives than he could count in a lifetime. And the worst part was that he wasn't really dead. A part of him wished he was as tears welled up in his eyes. He felt like slime.
"You're not really dead. You'll always live on in my heart." Jaina whispered, choking on her words.
Jacen almost stopped healing himself, hearing those words. He did not deserve to live. The horror of his deeds caught up to him even as he tried to flee the truth in his mind. He had killed his one friend. The one person that had given him the benefit of the doubt for so long… and he had rewarded her faith in him by alienating her so much that she felt compelled to hunt him down and kill him. He had killed his master's beloved wife. And what would Chewbacca say if he was there now, knowing that the child he had helped rear, had rewarded the love and understanding of his surrogate parent by destroying his home and, in all likelihood, members of his family. And his long list of crimes did not end there.
He felt the shadow of death closing in on him once more. It did not even feel unpleasant. It felt painless, welcoming. A stark contrast to the pain and agony that had been his constant companion for nigh on fifteen long years… NO! I can't die like this. He focused all his considerable powers once more, pouring them into his grievous wound, feeding of the resurfacing pain that spiked through his nervous system. I have to live in order to die with some peace of mind. Not like this. He had been lucky that Jaina's lightsaber had only grazed bone or his wound would have been beyond his skills to heal.
Yet now he had another problem, no less lethal in nature. The illusion that was fooling Jaina into thinking him dead could not be kept up indefinitely. And he could not very well get up and walk away like some holovid horror zombie. Killing Jaina was not an option. Not only because he had suddenly rediscovered his conscience, but also because her corpse would definitely imply the survival of him, which would have every law enforcement agency in the galaxy and half again as many bounty hunters chasing him to the furthest reaches of the outer rim. Yet he needed to get out of there. And unless he thought of something quick it would have deadly consequences.
He opted for the direct, unsubtle approach; one that was in contrast to how he had been getting things done for quite some time now.
"Jaina." He said her name gently so as to not startle her.
She did not even seem to hear him. The effect his "death" was having on her made him feel lower than low. Yet he had gone too far to turn back now.
"Jaina!" He repeated more forcefully. Her head snapped up and she looked around. She was searching for the origin of the voice. When her eyes finally came to rest on his own she immediately tensed. He had dropped the illusion and used her momentary distraction to call his lightsaber to his hand.
"Impossible." She whispered. She shook her head and blinked several times apparently not trusting her own eyes. "Jacen?"
He nodded slightly. Her expression seemed to harden almost instantly. "You Sith blight!" she hissed reaching out for her lightsaber prepared to finish the job. Jacen was filled with respect for her sense of duty. The fact that moments before she had been genuinely morning his death and now, that duty called, she was quite willing to lay aside all her emotions to slice him into pieces was quite admirable. He ignited his own lightsaber just as she was calling her own to her outstretched hand.
His crimson blade coming to life right below her chin put a stop to her attempt to finish him off right then and there. Her wary gaze fell first on his lightsaber and then his face. She sneered. "Well I'm starting to understand Luke's annoyance when he speaks about how many times he had to "kill" Emperor Palpatine until the old Sith finally died for good." Jaina stared at him disgustedly. "So you haven't been dead this whole time?"
"Afraid not." Jacen croaked. He still felt ridiculously exhausted from the last hour or so of events. The comforting embrace on unconsciousness hiding at the edge of his awareness ready to pounce on him the moment he drifted off.
Jaina shook her head sadly. "Are you even a little…" she did not finish her sentence afraid of how absurd it may sound.
"Ashamed?" he filled in.
Their eyes met briefly and something like hope flashed across Jaina's face but it was quelled almost immediately. "You're Sith scum Caedus. Nothing more. You're attempts at gain sympathy from me are wasted effort."
Jacen shook his head sadly. "If I was truly as evil as you think me to be why haven't I killed you yet?"
Jaina scoffed. "I'll wager anything that it's not because you love me brother dear."
Jacen slowly rose, wary of her movements, yet aside from the icy look she was giving him the presence of his lightsaber at her neck was a large enough deterrent. It seemed that the force might finally be with him again. He knew trying to rise onto his feet with his wound would be an exercise in futility and one that would send even him spiraling into unconsciousness. Any normal human being that was still recovering from having his arm chopped off and subsequently perforated through the stomach followed by a severed Achilles tendon would have left most human beings curled up in a fetal position and though that seemed an almost alarmingly pleasant idea to him he knew this was not the time.
He looked around the room for some long bar like object he could use as a crutch. A metallic pole that must have served as an axis to some mechanism lay haplessly tossed into a corner, presumably by either one of his or Jaina's force blasts. He called it to his outstretched hand with the force. Jaina used that precise moment to propel herself backwards into a somersault calling her lightsaber to her own hand and igniting it in one swift motion.
Jacen brought his own weapon into a middle guard, all the while slowly backing to the exit of the room. "Listen to me Jaina, please, if not for my sake then for the sake of your niece, my daughter."
Jaina took a step towards him. "Hiding behind children now are we?"
Jacen's eyes blazed with fury. "No! I am not "hiding" behind my child. I'm asking you to think past your idealistic need to kill me and see the bigger picture. A moment ago I heard your grief when you thought me dead. Yet aside from you no one will think about the person I once was. No one will mourn for the person that discovered the way to defeat the Yuuzhan Vong. As it stands, the fact that I am Allana's father is like a sword suspended over her head." He paused to let the words sink in. "I have to make amends."
Jaina's sword lowered ever so slightly. The determined look in her eyes did not waver however. "Why should I believe you?"
He leaned against the frame of the door, the relief borne from this simple action pulsing through his wearied frame. "I could reopen our twin bond again and you could feel the truth. But that would probably alert our mother to my being alive as well. And I can't have that. That alone should reassure you. If I was planning on continuing my reign of terror why would I need to hide?"
He could feel the force gathering in his sister. She knew he was too weak to resist any offensive force powers any longer. "At least you call it what it really is. No equivocation to hide the truth. Assuming you are telling the truth, something I don't quite believe, what possible right do you even have to redemption? Why should I let you leave and make amends?" She gave him a once over, her eyes widening when her gaze came to rest on the hole through the fabric of his attire, the skin beneath it having almost completely healed. "And you better make it good considering your condition."
"Because I want my daughter to grow up in a galaxy where her own father's name is not a curse and a byword for filth. Because I want my mother to not have to live with the fact that both her sons died by the sword. Because I want my cousin to be able to look me in the eyes and see something other than the murderer of his mother. Because I want my uncle to look at me and see something more than a horrific failure. Because I want my father to pull me into a hug and tell me that he's proud of me." He choked on his words at that. Tears began to well up in his eyes. "Most of all I want to stand by the side of my sister and be a shield against the evils seeking to destroy her, not embody to them.
"But that can never be. No. Not after what I've done. The most I can hope for is that I can die with a sliver of peace. I can hope to die not hating myself."
Tears were running down his cheeks. His vision was blurred but it looked to him as though Jaina's eyes were not dry either.
"Jacen." She said tentatively, hiccupping.
"Jaina." He smiled at her lovingly.
With three quick steps she had rushed up to him and enveloped him in a hug. Jacen's one arm wrapped around her as they both cried. For the first time in many years Jacen held her as a loving brother would hold a grieving sister. Jacen felt torn apart by the fact that he had for so long been naught but a source of torment to someone who loved him so much. He should have been someone for her to rely on. Yet he had used her. A stepping stone he had used without compunction to get where he wanted to go. And here she was, forgiving him.
"I don't deserve your love or forgiveness." He said to her.
She looked up at him. "I know."
"I sense a presence making its way here. It blazes in the force but it's not force sensitive." He nodded towards the far door. "I must leave before Colonel Fel sees me."
She nodded with understanding. He sensed her desire for him to stay and return to the family but he knew that could never happen. "Tell me where you will go at least?"
"I can't." He said with finality.
Jaina's sorrowful expression turned instantly stern and unforgiving. An image flashed through his mind at that. Jaina, in a beautiful gown sitting on a throne… The very same expression on her face as she listened to the pleas of some traitor… She was formidable now.
He sighed. "I think it's long past time that I visited an old acquaintance."
Jaina gave him a quizzical look. "That doesn't tell me where you're going."
His lips curled in a smirk. "It does."
She gave him a confused look. A moment later understanding flashed through her eyes. He backed up from their embrace and clipped his extinguished lightsaber to his belt. As he turned his back to her, putting his weight on the makeshift crutch he turned his head over his shoulder once more. "Don't tell anyone I survived, not even Colonel Fel."
She nodded. "I won't. Why you would think I would tell him over others beats me but…"
Jacen smiled at her. "Maybe I have more insight into some matters than you do after all."
Jaina shrugged her shoulders. He waved once more and resumed his walk down the flickering corridor to the backdrop of blaring alarms. With each step the impact of his "crutch" caused a resonating clang that echoed down the hall. As he rounded a final corner into a hangar where his StealthX had been prepared for him, he felt Jaina touch his mind once more. If you make me regret letting you go this day I will hunt you down personally.
As surprised as he was that she had been able to find him in the force he allowed himself a chuckle. Leave it to Jaina to have the last word, he thought as he climbed into the fighter's cockpit. He engaged his stealth systems and hurtled out of the hangar, leaving another chapter in his life behind.