EPILOGUE
Asajj Ventress slowly resurfaced from her hour long meditation. She opened her eyes and found herself face to face with her master.
"Pleased with your progress I am, Padawan," Yoda said, ears perked up.
Asajj bowed her head. "Thank you, Master."
"Released all your emotions you did. A good knight you will become."
This time she could not help but smile. Yoda's praises were rare and that made them special.
"Thanks to your teaching, Master."
Yoda harrumphed good naturally, "Rest of the day free, you have. To Obi-Wan, you should go. Great news to share, you have."
Asajj looked at him stunned, as one of her hands posed on her belly. "How do you know Master?"
Yoda's eyes glinted. "Many things I know, but tell you how, I will not. Now go."
Asajj nodded and stood up, still a bit shocked Yoda knew about her pregnancy when she had only learned about it a few hours before. A final bow to her master and then she left the gardens in search of Ben.
She strode confidently along the Temple hallways, exchanging bows with the knights and masters she met along the way.
Asajj was always awed by the way they treated her, with a respect she had never known but with Ben and Ky…the two Jedi or formerly so who had shaped her life. And now Yoda was completing their job.
Had someone told her a couple of years before she would have one day lived in the Jedi Temple and completed her training there, she would have probably strangled them.
Only now, with Yoda's guidance, she realized her anger toward the Jedi had just been a way to disguise her longing. She, contrary to Ben who had built a satisfying life for himself outside the Jedi order, had desperately wanted to be a Jedi, but all her hopes had died when Ky Narec had been killed. Her longing had transformed into anger and hate and the Force only knew how she could have ended up if Ben had not entered her life.
Their bond had been unplanned and unwanted, but it had been her salvation. Ben had been so different from her—and yet so perfect.
Yet, even while living at his side, helping him and basking in his love, Asajj had felt incomplete —and so it had been until the day Yoda had offered to take her as his Padawan.
Asajj would remember that day for the rest of her life. It had happened about a week after Ben had safely delivered the Skywalker twins.
The terrible visions Ben, Anakin and Qui-Gon had had never materialized. There was a tense moment when a haemorrhage had started inside Padme's body, but Ben had stopped it almost at once and the rest of the labour had gone smoothly, much to everybody's relief.
Afterward, Ben and Asajj had stayed on Coruscant, where they had to testify in front of a Senate commission about what they had seen and heard in Palpatine's office the night the Chancellor had been killed.
Once that task had been completed, there had been nothing more to keep them in Coruscant, so they had started packing for their trip back to Langara. Asajj had felt Ben's sadness at the prospect of leaving. He was beginning to forge a strong friendship with both Qui-Gon and Anakin and also liked being back in the serenity of the Jedi Temple—his first home.
So when they had been summoned by the Council because the masters had an offer to make, Ben had been more than a little hopeful.
The Council's offer to Ben had almost been a dream come true: the position of Chief Healer at the Temple with the stipulation that from now on the Healers' Ward would be opened to non-Jedi too. Being based in Coruscant would make it easier for the people looking for Ben's help to reach him and working along other Force healers would help him to treat more patients without exhausting himself as had happened in the past.
Standing at Ben's side in the centre of the Council chamber, Asajj had sensed her bond-mate's desire to say "yes" even before Master Windu had finished illustrating his offer. However Ben had kept his enthusiasm in check because he had not been sure she would have liked living at the Temple and had not wanted to force her.
It had been then that Yoda had dropped the bombshell and asked Asajj to give him the honour to complete her Jedi training.
It had been immediately clear, the rest of the Council had not been informed of their leader's intentions. Shock and surprise had poured from them while Mace Windu had seemed on the verge of apoplexy.
Asajj had been as stunned as the others and instinctively reached out to Ben, asking for his advice.
/I cannot choose for you/ his answer had been. /It's your life. Being a Jedi isn't an easy life, not even now they have decided to remove the rule against attachment. I can only tell you I will support you in whatever decision you make./
Asajj had closed her eyes and listened to what the Force was saying to her. Then she had given Yoda her answer.
"I accept your offer, Master Yoda. It will be a honour and a privilege to learn from you."
Thus she had become Yoda's Padawan. Their first times together had been as stormy as her first months near Ben. No, she had not tried to kill Yoda as she had done with her bond-mate, but she had questioned him and his knowledge at every turn, often letting her anger get the best of her. Then, one day Yoda had had enough of her temper tantrums and after levitating her in the air, he had dumped her in a chilly pool in the Room Of The Thousand Fountains.
It had been quite a humbling experience and from that moment on things had improved between Asajj and Yoda. She had started to listen to his teachings and now her goal of becoming a Jedi knight was getting closer and closer under the wise master's tutelage.
Asajj smiled again. She could not remember having ever smiled so often before in her life. But how could she not do so, now that everything was so good in her life? She had a wonderful bond-mate, she was close to achieving her dream and in eight months or so she would also become a mother.
Her smile became a full grin as turning the final corner she came to a halt in front of
her and Ben's quarters and palmed the door open.
Her bond-mate was home, sitting at his desk and typing on his datapad. Ben smiled up at her in welcome and opening their bond, she let her unrestrained love and joy wash over him.
Then, before he could ask her what was going on, Asajj sat down on his lap, wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered the good news in his ear, watching as Ben's unseeing eyes started shining as two azure stars…the most beautiful stars in the galaxy, she was quite sure.
THE END