SLATE. / by Lissa Strawberry

A/N: SLATE is set before "Legacy" and after "Legacy of the Force."

Though this vig has nary a mention of color, the color "slate" is more of a coloring within the mind, as you read. For a better explanation, read the previous A/Ns.

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"...for my Ben."

Mara Jade Skywalker's last words woke Master Skywalker from a fitful sleep. Though they were the words he kept next to his heart, he knew as he dressed that it would be another long day.

His mother had been murdered; his father, long since gone into the Force. Master Skywalker stood completely still at the foot of the small stone set in the temple garden.

It was a simple, rough stone. He knew that a better one, of marble, of gold, perhaps, could have been fashioned into a memorial for his family—but the natural stone, for Master Ben Skywalker, spoke volumes.

THE SKYWALKER FAMILY

PADME AMIDALA & ANAKIN SKYWALKER

MARA JADE & LUKE SKYWALKER

LEIA (SKYWALKER) ORGANA & HAN SOLO

Anakin & Jaina Solo, their children.

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU.

Luke Skywalker had rebuilt the Jedi Order in his twenties and had dedicated his life to serving it. Ben, named for a master of old, was fast approaching thirty, lacking direction and...purpose.

Jacen Solo, his cousin, had perpetrated war upon the galaxy—but that war, costing billions of lives and nearly the galaxy itself—had been a ruse. The war had been a distraction for the Skywalker and Solo families, as Jacen tore them apart.

Jacen had tortured his parents. Ben could still see the pain and—how could it still be there?—the love in his aunt Leia's brown eyes as she died by the hand of her son—Ben's father had struck the blow to end Jacen's life—but not before Jacen had landed the killing blow to Luke Skywalker. Ben left the sides of his dying uncle Han and dead cousin Jaina to be with his father one last time—and was haunted still by the clearness in his father's blue eyes. They had been cloudless, pure, peaceful; Ben had been jealous of that peace and had wanted to take it for himself—Luke Skywalker's final act of love for his son was to stay his hand. His fatal wounds denying him the power of speech, he simply shook his head. When Ben dropped his chosen weapon of suicide, his father had sought his hand. And had squeezed with all the life within him.

And then he had gone.

Ben Skywalker never lied to himself and said that he was no longer jealous of his father's peace. He was still jealous—ravenously so. But as the years passed, the hunger for it was replaced with an ache around his heart that pulsed painfully along with every heartbeat.

He had once had a family. Now, he had only himself. He was afraid to get near the other masters and the students—what would happen to them if he did? He had lost everyone dear to him—because they had all loved him and had all, in their own special ways, tried to protect him from himself. His bout of Darkness had spurred Jacen on, encouraged him in his agenda of brutality.

The Light was a punishment for all of his sins. He found it hard to live everyday with the grace he had been afforded. But just as his heart kept beating—albeit painfully—he found the will to keep living. The ultimate death, he had realized as he had set his father atop a funeral pyre, would be to let his family die. They had passed through a curtain to the other side; they were waiting within the Force, ready to welcome him when it was time.

But it wasn't time yet. Master Skywalker had a family memory to keep alive. If that burned out, then Jacen would have won.

Ben Skywalker shook himself out of the past, out of the thoughts that followed him everyday. He looked around, as he always did, half-hoping to see the shimmering blue of a Force ghost—his mother, come to give him a smile; his father, come to clap him on the shoulder.

See, Dad? I stayed my hand. I stayed here. And for what?

But there was no one, nothing; no one had ever come to visit him from the other side. No one had spoken in his mind as his father used to laugh about Ben Kenobi always having done so.

Ben was truly alone.

"Master Skywalker?"

He turned, startled out of his thoughts.

Queen Mother Allana Solo Djo stood before him, her red hair hanging loosely around her pale face, her wide brown eyes every bit as warm and loving as Aunt Leia's had always been.

"Allana...Your Majesty." He madeas if to bow, but she stopped him with soft fingers lifting his chin.

"You are honoring them." It was not a question. He nodded. "I will honor them with you."

They stood in silence for a long time, staring at the stone, at the words carved there, at the lightsaber permanently burning, upside down, as an accompanying memorial, next to the stone. It had been his cousin Anakin's lightsaber, brought back by the Yuuzhan Vong after being thought lost for many years.

Ben wore both Luke and Mara's lightsabers; Allana, he knew, carried her mother's lightsaber. Tenel Ka had perished early on in the war. Leia had stepped in and rescued Allana; Luke had mentored and tutored her.

Allana never mentioned her father, Jacen; and Ben never asked where Leia's lightsaber had gone. He had a suspicion that the Queen Mother had it in her personal keeping, in a place of honor. He found that he did not mind, however much Aunt Leia had tried to mother him in her final years. She had never replaced Mara in his heart.

"I have thought, many times, that I should sleep here, under the earth." Allana kicked at a tuft of grass with a jeweled slipper. "What is the point in going on when we are separated from the ones that loved us—the ones we truly loved?"

The master's stance softened, his eyes suddenly filled with tears.

"Hapes is dead," Allana Solo Djo said flatly. "Hapes is as dead as Alderaan. The monarchy is a mockery. I am little more than a figurehead, and a useless one at that. Of whom shall I govern, when there is nothing left?"

Ben felt a pang. Every word was true. The Hapes Consortium had been devastated by war, leaving only a tenth of its original collective population alive. Small villages had banded together, forming their own governments. Allana's power was indeed useless—as redundant as rubies in a sandstorm. She spent most of her time at the Jedi Temple, or traveling to war-ravaged planets, doing her best to make amends for the war her father had wrought.

"We can't turn," he said softly, into the silence.

She turned her face to him, eyes ablaze. "What?"

"Allana...you're angry...and so am I. You have lost your family, your kingdom—I have lost my family, and the Jedi have hardly enough masters to teach what students we have left. It's almost like I have to rebuild my father's legacy—and he gave his life rebuilding what his father had destroyed. Allana...is that all we are fit for? Our family will always be destroying and rebuilding—but why should we have the say in deciding the fate of the galaxy? It's not right..."

Allana's eyes cleared, now thoughtful and...sad. "Our family legacy."

"I was thinking earlier...that I was alone, all that is left of my family. But I forgot about you—you are my family too. Allana, let's rebuild our family. Let's start over. But let's start over so well that our children won't be leaving a mess for their children to rebuild."

Allana smiled, a shadow of her aunt Jaina's mischief playing in her lashes.

Skywalker and Solo joined hands and walked away from their family memorial; Ben and Allana held each other's hands as their new chance at life, the lifeline they had forgotten they shared.

Allana and Ben had yet another future to rebuild—and for the first time, both felt just a little Lighter.