Part XX

He had his arm comfortingly around Leyla's shoulders as he spoke quietly to her, though she had to feel that his own anxiety was jumping off the charts, even as he adopted a reassuring tone. Nevertheless, she leaned against him, snuggling up to him in a way she hadn't done in years.

"Will the Chiss be able to find you here?" she asked softly.

He glanced down at the top of her head and sighed. "We aren't sure who actually knew that we were alive all this time, sweetheart. The guards who kept watch over us were killed when they tried to stop Zekk and Tahlia from getting to us, and the syndic who planned the whole thing- we were imprisoned in a secret holding area beneath his estate- he fled before we could get to him. He knows that he can never go back, once the government hears the truth."

"So everyone else still thinks you're dead?"

He shrugged. "Maybe; they won't for long though, and even some of those who do probably think we're dead helped Syndic Csun'abr'inrokini track my father's ship and assisted in what they thought was an assassination."

Her brow furrowed. "Why though? Why pretend to kill you and your father, go through the effort of making it look like an accident, and then keep you alive all this time?"

Jag chuckled slightly at that. "In all honesty, Leyla, I think Syndic Nabrin was a bit of a coward, and… he probably thought that it afforded him a bit of leverage."

"In case the Jedi came looking for you?" she nodded towards Zekk, who was exhausted and leaning heavily back in his chair with his eyes closed.

"More likely as potential blackmail against the other people involved in the conspiracy."

She seemed to mull that over for a minute before stiffening slightly and sitting up. "Kyp's coming," she murmured. "He's… upset."

Something in his throat tightened. "And your mother?"

Leyla fidgeted uncomfortably. "I… can't really sense mom anymore. She sort of… withdrew from the Force, a long time ago. She didn't want the baby to feel how sad she was all the time."

Before the guilt that he felt could express itself in words, the door slid open and Kyp stepped wearily into the room. Zekk sat more upright and opened his eyes, just as concerned about Jaina's wellbeing as everyone else in the room. Kyp's eyes never left Jag's though, and Jag fought from flinching away from the accusatory glare. "Will she be okay?" he asked quietly, trying to ease the dread he felt out of his tone.

"I don't know."

His stomach twisted up in even more knots. "Can I go to her? Did you tell her…?" he trailed away at the bitterness in Kyp's eyes.

"They're prepping her for surgery," Kyp muttered.

He opened his mouth, confused… and froze. "Surgery," he demanded. "Wha-? Why?"

Kyp's hands clenched in to fists. "You don't get it, do you?" he asked lowly, dangerously. "Months of careful planning, stress, constant awareness… all destroyed in an instant. She can't handle it. Tekli has to get the baby now, before her body- her mind- fights any harder."

Jag paled, Zekk sighed sadly, and Leyla sat frozen on the couch, eyes wide. "Kyp," Jag pleaded. "I'm sorry… I didn't know-"

"That it was your child!"

He was on his feet in an instant. "You son of a- how dare you? You think I would ever do anything to intentionally harm Jaina, regardless of what I thought when I got here?"

"When your way of greeting me is to punch me in the face, how am I supposed to know?" Kyp contested hotly.

"Excuse me for taking your little illusion here at face value!"

"Excuse me for trying to protect your wife and son from the crazy aliens you grew up with!"

"Stop it!" They both turned, eyes flashing, to see Leyla, face red and livid, staring the two of them down. "Look at you two!" she exclaimed. "You're in here, blaming each other for something that's not the fault of either of you, and you're arguing over things that you know aren't true, and you're happy aren't true! Dad, mom and Kyp aren't seeing each other; Kyp, dad isn't really dead. Can't we all agree that those are good things?"

The two men carried almost identical expressions of stubborn frustration, but they nodded and looked cowed as they were lectured by a twelve-year-old.

"Meanwhile," said twelve-year-old continued, "mom's sick and about to have a baby, and rather than be there for her, you're trying to take out your frustration on each other. Kyp, you know that dad didn't mean to hurt mom, so stop acting like he did something bad. And dad, you know that mom and Kyp aren't- and haven't been- together while you were gone, so stop acting like you have something to be jealous about!"

Jag cocked his head to the side as he regarded her. "Leyla, sweetheart… when did you get to be so smart?"

A ghost of a smile crossed her features, and she glanced at Kyp. "I had a lot of growing up to do while you've been gone- and a lot of practice at saying stupid things when I was upset."

Kyp smiled lightly at her, remembering their conversation the morning after she had arrived on Coruscant with Mara and Ben, so many months ago now… and then his expression hardened slightly, and he turned back to Jag. "Issue of ysalamiri aside… why do I get the feeling from you that you've already got one foot out the door?" Jag flushed. "Jag… if you leave again, it will break her, I can promise you that."

It was Zekk who responded though. "Jag… they don't need your help, your father and Ashik will understand, they're the ones who told you not to go back." There was the slightest bit of conflict in Jag's features, but Zekk stood and clasped his arm, peering seriously into his eyes. "I'll go comm Tahlia," he spoke quietly, "and tell her that something came up."

"Thank you," he murmured, a weight lifted from his shoulders.

As Zekk opened the door, he came face-to-face with a somber Luke. The two men regarded each other for a moment before, sensing the purpose in Zekk's actions, Luke waved him on and came into the room to regard the remaining two men and Leyla seriously. "Are we all… clear on the truth?" Jag nodded, swallowing thickly as he noted the somberness in Luke's eyes.

"I think Leyla gave us a pretty good reminder of what's important," Kyp agreed quietly.

The Jedi Master glanced at his great-niece before returning his attention to the unexpected arrival. "Jag, they're almost ready to begin the procedure- if you go down the hall, there's a washroom, one of the assistants will get you properly cleaned up so you can go be with Jaina." Jag blinked and shot a glance at Kyp. "She's unconscious again," Luke murmured softly, "and Kyp has done all he can; she doesn't want his help. Your presence might help where his couldn't."

He blinked back guilt-driven tears and nodded once more.

"Kyp," Luke turned to face the other man. "Tekli was hoping that you would make yourself available for a preliminary analysis of the condition of the baby, once they've… retrieved him," he winced slightly at the deceptively innocuous words. "Once you're able to sense him again, you'll probably still be best poised to be alert to any underlying problems that the first physical examinations won't pick up on."

"Of course," Kyp muttered, starting slightly as Leyla slid her hand into his and squeezed reassuringly.

Luke motioned them out the door. "Go get ready then; you don't want to hold them up any longer." When they were gone, he turned to Leyla and smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry, Leyla… but I have to ask you to stay here for a while longer." She looked grumpily resigned. "Mara and Ben are heading down now, you can fill them in on what's going on, okay?"

Nodding glumly, she sat down and drew her legs up close, wrapping her arms around her body protectively, with nothing to do but wait.

X-X-X-X

"Dad's being awfully funny about whatever's wrong…"

Mara glanced down at her son as they stepped out of the turbolift. "What do you mean?"

Ben shrugged his shoulders. "Can't you feel it? His emotions are going every which way-"

"His niece is about to undergo a serious operation," she pointed out wryly, feeling her own nervousness bubbling up inside of her.

"But beneath all the worry he's… happy. Or relieved. Or both."

She frowned and reached out, moving her focus from her former apprentice's turmoil-ridden mind towards her husband… and found that there was some truth in what Ben was saying. It was a tentative relief, heavily outweighed by his concern for Jaina's condition… but there. "Yes," she murmured, "something's happened. Something tied to all of this…"

At that moment, as they walked down the corridor, another door opened further down. One of the young assistants stepped out first, followed by Kyp, who was followed by…

"Sithspawn," Ben murmured- and for once, Mara didn't bother to reprimand him for his language. They went unnoticed as the three crossed the hall and disappeared through another door, a heavy atmosphere hanging about them- understandably. "Well that's… unexpected."

"Yes," she agreed slowly. "Come on," they started walking once more. "Let's find Leyla."

X-X-X-X

They worked quickly and nearly quietly, but the near-silence only served to put Jag further on edge as he sat on the other side of the screen, clasping one of Jaina's hands in his, ghosting his fingers across her pale face, willing the guilty desperation inside him to disperse, knowing that it would do neither of them any good right now.

"I'm sorry, darling," he murmured as he brushed brown locks of hair from her face. "I'm so sorry. But you'll be okay- you have to…"

It was a strange sort of irony, he thought bitterly- in the past week, he had gone from intense relief and anticipation at the prospect of seeing Jaina, seeing her face when she saw him alive and well, holding her in his arms… and then confusion as they established contact with his mother and she'd warned him about what Wedge had reported from his prior trip to Ossus… and then frustration, anger, jealousy…

And for what? To now be sitting beside his unconscious wife who had been too fragile for them to even risk telling her that he was alive… while they worked to deliver a baby that should have been born a month ago, but was still almost two months premature developmentally… a baby that they had wanted for years and had all but given up hope of having…

As the single tear slipped from the corner of his eye, the atmosphere in the room shifted, and Jag held his breath, focusing in on the steady rise and fall of Jaina's chest to reassure himself that she was still okay…

A soft and frighteningly weak cry split the air, and the collective tension faded a little. Out of the corner of his eye, Jag saw Kyp get up from his chair where he'd been sitting in utter stillness, eyes closed, for a quarter hour. He resisted the urge to get up and see the child- his child- knowing that there was nothing he could contribute at the moment. The baby was Kyp's charge, and he would give the Jedi Master his space.

Instead, he continued lightly brushing his hand against his wife's cheek, murmuring under his breath. "I know it's not how you envisioned almost five years ago now," he whispered. "But we have a son, Jaina, and Leyla has a little brother…"

"Jag." His head shot up and his eyes widened slightly at the sight of Kyp with the baby held gingerly in his arms, swathed in a small, white blanket. "Jag, they want to go ahead and start a bacta treatment regimen for him, they're prepping it now… do you want to hold him for a minute first?"

Jag stood shakily and peered down at the slightly red face of the tiny baby. "No," he said faintly, and he sensed Kyp's surprise even without any Force-sensitivity. "No, go ahead and take care of him, I don't want to…" he sat again and drew a shuddering breath. "I don't want to do any more damage here than I've already done."

"You won't-"

"Just take care of him, Kyp, please?"

Hesitating only a moment, Kyp withdrew and left Jag, breathing heavily and raggedly, staring at Jaina's deceptively peaceful form, trying desperately to avoid thinking about what would happen if she or the baby didn't recover.

X-X-X-X

"I know it may feel otherwise," Jag stiffened at the sound of the soft voice, breaking the somber silence, "but it really wasn't your fault."

He didn't turn, just continued sitting, hunched over with his elbows on his knees, head in hands, staring blankly at the tiny, sleeping baby. "Sure looks that way from my side of things."

"Your side of things has been sitting in a Chiss detention cell for nine months," Kyp murmured, sitting hesitantly in the chair beside him. "It doesn't really have an impartial view of things. I think… I think it was always going to be like this, in some way. No," he sighed at Jag's incredulous look, "I don't mean the ysalamiri… but Jaina was never going to be able to handle having the baby. I let her withdraw too much, get too dependent on me, on my presence to keep her strong… and just sort of hoped that one day, she'd snap out of it."

Jag leaned heavily back in his chair and sighed. "I was a fool," he murmured. "From the start. Everyone said I shouldn't return to Csilla… or maybe I should have taken Jaina with me from the beginning…"

"Then she would have been captured too," Kyp pointed out quietly. "Or worse, they would have killed you all with the belief that they wouldn't be able to hold a Jedi captive." He paused. "And, even with everything else… I know you wouldn't ever want to put Leyla through that."

The younger man sighed again in weary acknowledgement. "She's in bed?"

"Yeah, I took her up just now to try to get some sleep."

"How has she been?"

Kyp hesitated momentarily. "After the initial shock… not bad. She's been very understanding of everything Jaina's gone through, everything we've been doing here…"

Jag closed his eyes and rubbed at them exhaustedly. "I don't suppose, in light of everything else, she happened to mention the last conversation I had with her before I disappeared…?"

A slight smirk crossed the Jedi Master's features. "When she arrived on Coruscant, she hit me and yelled at me, and accused me of letting you die because I was jealous of you and was still in love with Jaina. So yeah, she mentioned it." Despite his teasing tone, Jag winced. "Don't worry about it," Kyp assured him. "We talked about it, she's fine and… Jaina and I should have told her a long time ago anyway."

They sat quietly for a long time. Kyp could sense the turmoil, confusion, guilt running through Jag's mind, but he let the young man work through it and bring it up on his own. "I replayed that conversation so many times during the jump here," he finally muttered. "Wondering if I'd been wrong in all of my reassurances to Leyla, if you were still…" he went a little pink. "I convinced myself that you must have done something, taken advantage of her in some way…"

Uneasy memories of an almost-forgotten night drifted into Kyp's mind, but he pushed them away. "Despite what I said earlier," he spoke softly, "I do know that you'd never hurt her. Why else would you have sent Zekk to run interference while you came to duke it out with me?" he teased, and actually drew a rueful smile from Jag, who glanced once at the darkened bruise on Kyp's jaw. "I think it makes me look roguish," Kyp assured him. "And you probably owed me one from a long time ago anyway. Probably owed me a lot more than one."

Jag's brows rose slightly before they furrowed and he looked back towards the baby, still dozing and attached to numerous monitors and sensors. "I do owe you a lot," he murmured. "And not in terms of punches to the face."

"Let's just say we're even then." Jag didn't respond. "Look, Jag… no offense, but you need to get over it." That drew a response; Jag snapped his head up and looked at Kyp in slightly angered confusion. "The baby is fine, Jaina is going to be fine… and she's going to wake up tomorrow, confused and in pain, but you know what? None of that is going to matter to her when she sees you. Don't lessen that reunion by spending it wallowing in guilt; you can tell her what happened later, but not when she first wakes."

Part of Jag- the guilty part, Kyp supposed- still looked annoyed, but after a moment, he slumped and relaxed visibly. "You're right," he sighed. "Shavit, I hate that… but you're right."

Kyp grinned and gestured over his shoulder towards the door. "She should be out of the bacta by now…" Jag nodded and stood slowly, muscles stiff. He shot a questioning look at Kyp though, who hadn't moved. "I'll stay here," the Jedi Master murmured, peering at the infant, "and keep an eye on the little guy."

Jag had a hand on the door release before something occurred to him and he stopped and half-turned. "Kyp? What were you going to do after the baby was born?"

He smiled wistfully as he reached out and touched the little hand which flexed reflexively.

"Whatever it took."