May the Force Be With You

There is no emotion, there is only peace.
There is no ignorance, there is only knowledge.
There is no passion, there is only serenity.
There is no chaos, there is only harmony.
There is no death, there is only the Force.

—The Jedi Code (Based on the meditations of Odan-Urr)

Richard Castle was lead into the room in the French villa where Alexis was being held, drawing her from her meditations and to her feet in the cage where she had been kept since the botched escape attempt a few days before. Though she gave every appearance of being frightened, beneath the surface she was a placid as a still pond.

When their hands met through the bars of the small cage, her father passed her metal cylinder, a move which had apparently gone unnoticed by the guards at either side of the cage door. Before a severe looking older Russian man walked imperiously into the room.

"Mr Castle, you should not have interfered in my affairs." Alexei Volkov stated.

Castle closed his eyes, which Volkov took as a sign if resignation and continued.

"The El Masri's owed me a very large amount of money, which they paid me, with interest to get their dear Sara back. Your daughter was of no consequence to me, and I would have turned her loose unharmed until I learned of your interference. As punishment for your misdeeds, I will make you watch her die before I kill you."

"You should have let her go and walked away, Mr. Volkov." Castle replied, his voice much more calm than he expected, given Richard Castle's playboy reputation. "It is the last mistake you will ever make."

Before Volkov could react to the fact that the man had just threatened him, before any of his men could react at all Castle exploded into action with the snap-hiss of an igniting a silver bladed lightsaber. decapitating Volkov in a single swift stroke. Gone was the egotistical man-child author Richard Castle.

In his place, Volkov's men were facing Jedi Master Ri Quan Castillion.

At nearly the same instant, with an explosive push of force energy, Alexis burst from the cage that had moments before been her prison cell, igniting her own bright green blade as she went, cutting down her two guards with a flick of her wrists as she joined the fight.

Father and daughter, master and apprentice the two engaged their adversaries, their flashing lightsabers making short work of all who opposed them. Their enemies pistols, rifles and machine pistols may as well have been firing spitballs for all the good they were doing.

Alexis was a prodigy with a lightsaber. Her father had often told her that she was one of the best he had ever trained in all his years training padawans in the Jedi temple, but even as she flowed with the force, cutting down any who came at her with evil intent, she marveled at her father's prowess with his shimmering silver blade.

The fight, if it could truly be called that, was over in minutes.

When the last of Volkov's men was cut down, Alexis and her father each spun to a stop, flicking their blades up then pointed at the floor in salute to each other with a flourish, before closing them down.

"You fought well, padawan," Castle said with conviction.

Just like that, the mask that was Richard Castle once again descended as he returned his lightsaber to the holdout in the sleeve of his leather jacket. The tailor had looked at him funny when he'd had the jacket custom made for him. Generally, the only time he carried it when not training his daughter in the Jedi arts was when he was following Detective Beckett into known danger.

Now, as Alexis and her father surveyed the carnage in the room, she could feel that he was overcome with a wave of distaste. Alexis felt it too. Both of them were sensitive to the disturbance in the force even killing these men created before they walked out of the villa and made their way to the American Consulate.

Alexis had lived on this small backward planet so far beyond the unknown regions there were no star maps at all, her entire life. She had spent the bulk of that time with one foot in two worlds. Citizen of the United States, and Padawan of the former Jedi Order.

She had seen images in her mind during her meditations in communion with the force over the years. Visions of the world her father had once inhabited. Her mind had often journeyed into the past as she touched the living force to see where she actually came from. The world her father had been forced to flee as the Old Republic crumbled to be supplanted by Palpatine's Empire.

She had witnessed the devastation of the Clone Wars, the destruction of the Jedi Order. Saw her real mother cut down by the very clone troopers she had once lead into battle as General Order 66 was set in motion. Saw her father leading every Padawan who could wield a lightsaber in the doomed defense of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Watched as he was finally forced to flee with her cradled in one arm, and his flashing lightsaber in the other.

After everything her father had suffered since her birth, Alexis was amazed that he hadn't lost his way and turned to the dark side. That he did what he could (there is no try) to keep the spirit of the Jedi Order alive on this small backwater planet in the middle of nowhere. Keeping true to the tenets that Master Yoda and Master Qui Gon had instilled in him as a child.

Even that he had found room in his heart for Detective Kate Beckett back in New York. Her quest for justice had inspired him, both as a Jedi and as the writer he once thought he only pretended to be. One day he promised her he would share this one last secret with Kate. But for now, it was safer for her that this remained between the two of them.

Until then, it was left to the will of the force.

**Author's note** A very belated, "May the Fourth be with you." This was written on the fourth so I hope this counts.