Rori was normally a remarkably warm planet but at the moment with the heavy rain showers Lani was wondering if it was reflecting the general atmosphere of the galaxy. Two years into the Clone Wars and it seemed no closer to ending, she didn't want her son to grow up in a galaxy torn in two. Her gaze moved from the window to where her infant son was sleeping peacefully.
One small change in her past would have had Lani fighting as a Jedi, however her mother had chosen not to give her only daughter to the Jedi but it might have been better if she had. Plagued with dark dreams of things yet to pass from a young age she had for a long time believed she belonged in an asylum. Five years before, she had reached her breaking point and thrown herself into a lake with the full intention of drowning herself and ending the constant dark dreams. She would have succeeded if not for the intervention of a young Jedi Knight who had pulled her from her chosen watery grave and gone on to coax her troubles from her. It was then she discovered that she held a specific talent with seeing the future, a skill few Jedi possessed anymore.
Lance Nayma had despite knowing he was breaking many rules had tried to teach her to use the force, however she had little success but through meditation had found a way to control the visions. He had became one of her closest friends and occasional lover but nothing more. It had been over a year since she had last saw the Jedi Knight and he had came to her one night with haunted eyes on ten days leave. She had forced him to clean himself up, washed his robes and cooked for him and as the days passed she had seen pieces of the man she knew reappear.
That domestic period had been bliss even if she knew that as a Jedi Knight he would form no attachment beyond friendship with her. He indulged in the physical act of sex with her because she was a friend to him and he knew she expected nothing more.
She snorted, as she glanced at Aven who had inherited the same grey eyes and black hair that Lance possessed. Five weeks after he had returned to his duties she had discovered that Lance had done more than leave her some robes that were beyond repair, he had left her a baby growing within her womb.
The pregnancy had been difficult and she had suffered complications when she had given birth to a three weeks premature baby boy but she had never once regretted carrying on with the pregnancy. Now looking at her three month old son with a warmth in her chest that she knew was a love she had never believed possible. Of course she still wished that she would regain her pre-pregnancy figure but having her son was well worth all she had gone through. She wished that Lance was a better known Jedi who would appear on the Holo-News, then she would know if he was alive or dead.
Distracted from her thoughts by the sound of her door opening Lani immediately jumped to her feet and grabbed Aven and clutched him to her chest as she ran through the list of people who had had access to her home and as she stepped out into the hall she saw him.
Lance was thinner and dressed in sopping wet robes and just a few steps behind him another Jedi followed. Lani adjusted Aven so his face was out of the view of the two men and took a deep breath, she hadn't expected to see him at her door and especially with unknown company.
"I'm glad you are still alive," Lani said bluntly, she had heard nothing of him in a year and a large part of her was overjoyed to see him despite the baby in her arms that he had unknowingly fathered, "who is your friend?" She asked glancing at who she presumed was a friend to Lance.
"Ahh, that is Jedi Knight Alec Narano, I hope you don't mind if we stay a few days before we head back to Coruscant?" Lance asked looking at her with a hopeful expression that Lani didn't think she could say no when faced with it.
Just then Aven began to cry and for the first time Lance and his companion noticed the baby in her arms. Lani adjusted Aven again and his cries stopped immediately and she glanced at Lance nervously as she wondered if he had realised that the child in her arms was his son. She tried to control the worry and fear of what would happen because she knew enough about the force that Lance would be sensing all of this. "I don't think that is a good idea, Aven isn't good with strangers and he still wakes up a lot during the night." Lani lied through her teeth hoping he would not prod for any answers.
His eyes were narrowed as he adjusted his position so that he could clearly make out the face of the baby and when he did he froze and held his breath for several seconds before remembering he needed to breath. "Who is his father? I didn't know you were dating anyone and it would have been about a year ago when you were dating, wouldn't it have been?" His eyes zeroed in on the baby boy held by Lani as he moved closer. Both were forgetting about the other Jedi Knight who watched with a frown.
"It is none of your business," Lani hissed as she stepped backwards trying to hide Aven from his gaze, "you don't need to concern yourself with the father."
Lance chuckled harshly. "On the contrary I think I have every right to concern myself. He is around three months old, and around twelve months ago we indulged in sex for more than a week every day.I can do the arithmetic, Lani, I'm not blind to how that baby in your arms shares my hair colour and eye colour and is the right age to be my son." His voice was cold and almost angry as he spoke in a low voice that she had never heard from him.
Lani wondered if right now he wished he had never met her. "As far as anyone else knows Aven is the son of a freelance pilot," she murmured, "you have no obligation to him, any sexual encounters were purely physical and as it were birth control failed. I love my son and he will grow up cherished. You are a Jedi Knight and you can't form attachments, walk away now and forget." The words came strangely easily to her despite the large part of her that wanted him to tell her that he chose his son over duty.
His hand ran through his hair as he stood with his eyes avoiding her and Aven. Abruptly he looked at her almost shyly before speaking. "Could I hold him?" He asked and Lani gently placed Aven in his arms all the while she carefully made sure that Lance held Aven correctly. "He is very small, so fragile." He murmured as his eyes almost hungrily took in the face of the wide eyed infant who gurgled happily.
"He likes you," Lani said softly as she saw how Aven seemed to recognise his father and Lance looked peaceful as the cold demeanour had ebbed slowly away, "he knows you are his Daddy." It was fascinating to see how Aven settled in the arms of a stranger, a stranger who happened to be his father.
"I will have to inform the Jedi Council but.." he trailed off and almost pleadingly murmured, "I'd like to stay for a few days, it is a shock but he is my son." He cradled the smiling infant and continued to devour his features as he gazed hungrily at a child he had never thought he would have.
Alec Narano was now no longer frowning as he cleared his throat. "As far as I am aware Miss Lani Latowa is your friend who recently had a young son, sadly the father is no longer in her life," the Jedi Knight was hesitant but would not turn in his fellow Jedi, "he is a cute kid." He added.
They walked through Linearo street in Narmle but neither of the Jedi were particularly cheerful. "You have let yourself become attached, I am willing to forget the fact you fathered a child but I cannot even as a friend let you break the code any further." Alec warned his friend sadly.
Lance did not deny it. "How could I not? That child is part of me, if you knew the feelings that come so naturally when holding him in my arms you would not say such things." Three days ago he would never have conceived that these feelings would seem so natural. I have never been an ideal Jedi, always chafing against the restraints and I suppose long ago my attachment to Lani exceeded acceptable. What is recognising an attachment to a child he had fathered compared to that? He thought to himself.
Alec sighed. "I know what I should do but I won't, you'd do well to try and let go of your attachment." He told his fellow Jedi and despite the turmoil within him at hiding such a breach of the rules he lived by, he tried to appreciate at how the horrors of war seemed a little more distant now.
Authors Note:
This is my way of slowly easing my way back into Star wars. All are original characters and as it goes: Lance died at the Jedi Temple at the hands of the Clone troopers;Lani raised Aven who would later join the New Jedi Order and have kids. Alec survived Order 66 and would find his way to Narmle City, Rori and marry Lani and settle in a comfortable but non-romantic partnership and raise Aven, training him in the force. Alec would later die from a long illness contracted years earlier fighting in the Clone Wars and while Lani mourned the loss of a longtime friend and sometime lover but she moved on with her life.
Lance never got the chance to see Aven again but the thought of his son was what gave him strength against the horrors and stress of war and it kept him fighting. He often dreamed of his son and while he never realised that he held romantic feelings towards Lani he hoped to see her again as well. He kept several different holo-pictures of Aven which were later found by Luke Skywalker in the ruins of the Jedi Temple.