So once again I'm taking a turn on the Star Wars ride, hating New Jedi Order more and more as each day goes by and trying EVER so hard to read that last book, for a sense of closure ya know? But alas, it is so repulsive I am overcome by dread when I look at it.

Tenel Ka and Jacen belong to George Lucas, as much as I am loath to admit it sice he has not taken very good care of them. I should steal them away…In fact I think I have, since I made up quite a bit of the background of this story…thing…Whatever you remember hearing from a New Jedi Order book I borrowed, and whatever parts actually pay attention to their already established characters, I made up.

It's a sorta sequel to my other short short short fic Home, but really they were not intended to be written as one. They are both simply narrative threads about two people who drift apart over time before realizing where they really should be – with each other.

Thank you all those Tenel Ka/Jacen supporters I know are out there. The fact that you still exist makes me happy. And those of you corrupted by the Danni, my heart pains for you…

The Taste of Honesty

Sometimes he could still taste their last kiss.

It had been a long time ago. Before the invasion, he thought; before Danni he knew for certain. It had been deep and heartfelt; the last truly honest emotion he had participated in. After that, all he remembered was confusion and a sea of half-truths.

Things had fallen apart swiftly after graduation from the Academy. His life had deteriorated from the optimistic young man of before the Vong invasion to a new initiate to the ranks of the disillusioned. Each day that passed was another step down a dark and terrible road with no end. He saw her occasionally but never alone, and slowly they drifted apart. He had his responsibilities to the Order and she had problems enough of her own to tend to back home.

In a few spare moments between meetings they chatted in the halls. She shared his uncertainty regarding the future, which resembled a downward spiraling horror. But it seemed aside from that small similarity, they were two well acquainted strangers. Their words were the dying embers of an old relationship and both could see it. Like most other aspects of their life, events were out of their control. They could not seem to hold back the inevitable.

For many months neither saw the other. Then the voxyn came, and with them, the funerals. Tenel Ka took a leave of absence from her obligations at home and arrived in time to mourn the loss of friends from ages past. Jacen, still wandering existence like a lost dog, came as duty demanded of him. It was in the hallways between memorial services that they met again.

This time, the old relationship seemed revived from the dead. There was a passion resurrected between them, which they mistakenly labeled love. In each other's eyes they saw only their own perfect reflections, viewed only as they wanted themselves seen – the spitting image of the figures they remembered from long ago.

There was a mission, it was rumored. There were too many funerals to forgive. The Jedi had decided it was past time to put an end to the indiscriminant murders of their young and old members. The word mission struck at something deep inside the two of them. They remembered missions from before – before life had taken them by surprise and changed.

They covered their regret at the loss of life and vibrant youth around them with renewed passion, hoping to erase what they had lost with something new. Life had stung too much, too soon, and too unexpectedly. They craved the days gone by. Once upon a time they had know each other, they reasoned. Somewhere deep inside that once upon a time must still be hiding. They had to find it; the past was a drug to dull the pain of the present.

The basic mechanics of their affection were the same as before, but they could feel the taint of sadness burn them like ice. Everything was poisoned by their past – their unattainable past. The honesty they had felt in that one kiss from a time long ago was lost to them now. But still, they kissed and said they loved each other when in truth each word was bitter bile in their mouth. They hated one another for slaving their lives to the past but they could not resist its charms. They immersed themselves in it.

While on the mission they left it no secret. They flaunted their affair, hoping that with an outward display of their affection they could feel there was truth to it after all. They did not care who saw them; there was no one there to care in the first place. When the mission was over there would be time enough for public deceit, rather than this secret internal dishonesty. For once they could bare their souls to the world and attempt to lift the shadows that hung over their hearts. They felt clean for a time, or fooled themselves enough into thinking so. They were blinded by the apparent sincerity of the situation. Surely now, in this state of open truth with the world, they could find that veracity that was missing from their lives.

But if the galaxy had taught them one thing in their short years it was that all good things must come to an end.

The mission fell apart, leaving the two on opposite sides of the conflict – one captive and one escaped. Tenel Ka made her way home slowly, mournfully. It was over for her, the brief love affair with her past. Now the world would take this chance to remind her of what she had tried so hard to shut out.

While she had been gone nothing had changed. Hapan intrigue was as rotten as ever and she learned destiny could not be avoided, despite her most resolute efforts otherwise. Though she had eluded her position as long as possible, the new Queen Mother stepped up to the throne, heart heavy and sullen as a child who had been deprived of her sweets. She gained nothing more for her efforts than renewed assassination attempts and more than a few political headaches. She found it strangely ironic that, though she held in her single hand more power than at any other point in her life, she had never felt so defeated by the one foe she could never beat – the galaxy itself.

There was another funeral during that time she attended. This time, the victim was more closely related to her, though perhaps even less a part of her life. In the burning pyre she saw her renewed hopes and dreams dying slowly, roasting and popping under the extreme heat. She watched the fire build delicate ash structures out of her mother's remains only to see them crumble in a gust of air.

On the other hand, Jacen learned and grew during his time away. He resembled even less the boy he had once been – the one who had so loved Tenel Ka what seemed like ages ago. But it was in his moment of greatest change that he reverted back to that well remembered kiss, the last sincere one. He realized how false his life had become in these last few months and he could taste once more the caustic acid of that last affair.

But under them, under those false kisses was that last one that hummed with a long forgotten vitality, hidden away in order to forget their present failings. If only he could go back to then. If only he could be the person he once was. But he had lost himself along the way and could not stop to wait for that lost boy to catch up. He could only go forward and so he let himself fall behind as he reached towards tomorrow. He could not find the past in his heart anymore so he would have to make do with the future. Each day was a new opportunity to recreate in a new form that missing piece of himself, that boy from deep inside who had laughed and loved so easily. That boy that was too far gone to ever hope to find.

Eventually, he was the Gardener and she was the Queen. Time passed and he once again found himself among those he had known in his previous life. He had risen from the dead and she, who had been initially shattered by his disappearance, could not take time from her busy life to give him a moment's recognition. She had buried herself, as had he. What differed was that she knew where she had hidden her soul.

For a third time, they encountered one another in that same hall; the hall which had been witness to the death and rebirth of the various stages of their relationship. This time they shared a greeting and polite pleasantries. They never gave each other a second glance. He was running so far forward that he did not notice her approach from behind. She was working so hard to block out the entire galaxy that she could not see his individual face amidst everyone else. Their paths completely missed one another by lightyears.

He went on from there to find Danni in an attempt to continue his forward momentum. She was his effort to fill that void in his life, as Tenel Ka had been during the mission. As before, he was fooled for a while. It lasted a few months before he noticed his internal apathy towards the woman could not be beaten. It was a futile relationship. Since he had forgotten how to love, he could never do so with her, and he came once more to hate what the woman he "loved" represented in his life.

Tenel Ka found no one and preferred it that way. A Queen Mother must be leader to her people first and foremost, she said. It was an idea the Hapans had not seen in action for quite a while. She embraced it for its absence of emotional complications. In the future there would be complications with this plan of action, but heirs to the throne were not pressing on her mind.

Eventually Danni and Tenel Ka met. The one scrutinized the other and found to her surprise she did not care that Jacen had been able to move on so well. At one time she had loved him, then the idea of him, until finally she did not even love his memory. She felt empty inside. She supposed this was what she had desired when she turned her heart to stone. Rather than being pleased, she felt sick and broken.

They did not meet in that hallway ever again. After years of separation, a chance encounter in a tapcaf on some small backwater planet was enough of an excuse to spare a moment to chat. The war had been over for a while – as over as something of that magnitude could actually be. She was tired of the grinding schedule as leader of a star system and had escaped for a small break disguised as a diplomatic envoy to a neighboring star system. He was finally continuing that philosophical journey which had been interrupted by the arrival of the Vong. He had buried himself under other people's sagacious words once before and was still doing it now, operating under the assumption that he was finding himself in all their wisdom rather than losing himself further.

Staring into each other's eyes over the grungy table of the third-rate tapcaf, they could see themselves clearly for the first time in a while. Every fault and failure was reflected; nothing was held back. Unbidden, the memory of the kiss replayed in their minds. He had forgotten many things over the years but never once had that particular memory every left his mind, even as masked by the years and pains as it was. Time had worn away at the false passion which lay over it, so that the purity of that kiss shone through in spots. He could taste at times the sweetness that still lingered from her lips on his. He had loved her deeply once – or that boy within him had. Could they ever have been the same person?

She was there in his memories, flitting between each one as though she belonged in all of them. The two of them were there, the lost boy and her. They were connected somehow, beyond the limits of reason or distance or even reality. They had always been far beyond the rules of the galaxy. When he saw them, Jacen realized he was not lost; had never been lost. He had turned to Tenel Ka for guidance in his misery, but only saw himself reflected on her surfaces. Had he seen the truth in her connection with him he would never have twisted her to such a superficial purpose. Now, he could see her as she truly was; the first light he saw in a long while in this dark galaxy. It was refreshing.

The illusion had finally been cleared from their eyes, like cobwebs from the cheerless corners of the soul. That purity, that honesty from ages past was attainable again, through a miracle of luck of fate or the Force. There were no chains holding them in the shadows this time. They could, in an instance of freedom, embrace their chance to love one another. It would not be as it had been – time could not rewind itself – but they could rest assured that there were no hidden demons in this love they would share.

So they took the opportunity presented to them. Together, they would find that honesty; together, they would live that honesty.