Chapter 6
Monsters and Angels
28 ABY
Solo Family Tent, Refugee Camp, Hapes
4 Days after the fall of Coruscant
Tahiri wanted to sneak back inside the tent, get her things, and leave again, had actually attempted tiptoeing, but she knew it was futile. Two of the four people she was trying to avoid were Jedi Masters after all.
"Tahiri, will you please join us?" came Mara's strained request before she'd made it a meter.
Letting her shoulders sag and her chin drop to her chest, she murmured, "kriff." Then louder, and more formally, "Of course."
She hadn't looked at any of them after she'd told them she was pregnant, had instead turned around, walked out of the tent and lost herself in the sea of misery outside. She'd allowed all the fear and frustration and grief and anger from the thousands surrounding her to flood her senses, welcomed it, called it in to drown out her own emotions. She could handle their pain because it wasn't her own.
She had wandered aimlessly, for who knows how long, through the mud and garbage and debris created by too many beings confined to too small an area, until she'd found a rock on the outskirts of the settlement, right near the fence that bordered the camp, then she'd sat down, crossed her legs, and reached out for Anakin.
She'd searched for hours, called to him through their bond in the Force, tried to feel him in that place inside of her that had belonged to only him for so many years; but he wasn't there. No matter how hard she tried, no matter how hard she focused; she couldn't find him.
Finally, exhausted, she gave up, resolved to try again after she'd collected her things from the Solos tent, found a place to rest and had gotten some sleep.
She figured that, technically, she was a refugee, and was therefore entitled to all that the other refugees were entitled to; food, shelter, and clothing. She didn't need to depend on Anakin's family, didn't need to burden people who did not want her and did not want to indulge her insistence that their son wasn't dead. She had no idea yet how she would support herself beyond this week; could hardly bear to think of how she would support Anakin's son, but she had time, she would think of something. The prospect was daunting, but she would think of something.
First things first though; she had to actually get away from Anakin's family.
Turning toward the sound of Mara's voice, Tahiri walked the few steps to the flap that divided the two front rooms of the tent, pushed it aside and found the Skywalkers and the Solos sitting around the table that she'd left them at.
"Please, have a seat, you look exhausted." As always, Luke was courteous, and Tahiri almost felt sorry for him, knowing, both from what she'd seen over the last few days, and from what Older Tahiri had told her, that he carried a huge burden of guilt over the Myrkr 'disaster'.
Tahiri nodded her head and sat in the chair closest to Han, briefly glancing at Leia. Anakin's mother's eyes were slightly red, nothing that anyone who didn't know her would notice, and Tahiri couldn't tell if it was caused by fatigue or crying.
It was eerily quiet, but Tahiri had no interest in starting conversation; if they had questions, let them ask, she'd share what she felt comfortable with, then she'd get the hell out of there and get on with her life.
As always, it was Mara who jumped right in; "Anakin knew?"
There could only be one thing she was referring to, so Tahiri nodded, tears again, Force, would it ever stop? "I realized the night before he left," she admitted quietly.
"That's why Anakin…" Han paused, even saying his son's name seemed difficult. "Why you didn't go?"
Tahiri nodded again; "We decided it would be safer for both of us. I was afraid his worry for me would make it hard for him to focus, and he was afraid the strain of the mission would be bad for Will."
"Will?" Luke, Mara and Leia all asked in unison.
Tahiri closed her eyes as another wave of pain washed over her. She had begun to wonder if this would be her permit state of existence; waves of discomfort, of varying degrees, rolling down her body, abusing her senses, for the rest of her life.
"Umm… Anakin, when I told him, he said that his existence was the will of the Force, and that Will would be a good name, started calling him Will immediately."
Leia snorted gently, evidently not impressed with her son's reasoning, and it dawned on Tahiri that of course she wouldn't understand his reasoning.
"I know what you're thinking…"
"Do you?" Leia snapped, bitterly.
Tahiri drew on the Force for calm, she had to be calm, Anakin would not want her arguing with his mother. For his sake she wouldn't lose her temper - they had spent so much time after Yavin working on both of their tempers, and their tendency to jump into things without thinking.
"We weren't being irresponsible." She wiped away a tear that slipped down her cheek. "He teased me that the Shapers must have implanted a fanatical devotion to Ovulation Suppression Meds along with the language and culture. I never missed a med shot."
She felt the discomfort radiating off of the four of them, and suddenly the idea of the mechanics of the situation, and their reaction to it, seemed ridiculous. All of these people had children, they all knew what was required to do so, why was this so hard?
"How far?" Mara asked, interrupting her mental query.
It took Tahiri a moment to switch gears and figure out what she was talking about, and a moment more to remember that she shouldn't know. Older Tahiri hadn't been to a healer until she was suffering from cramps that were the beginning of her miscarriage and it was the 2-1B that informed her that she was ten weeks into her pregnancy when it ended so she shook her head slightly and said; "I'm not sure."
"Not forty-two days?" Luke asked.
Tahiri looked at him, baffled for a moment, then realization hit, and she laughed out loud, then laughed again knowing that Anakin would have found that hilarious. Her mouth opened but no words came out for a moment, then she felt herself telling them and basked in the liberation of not having to pretend.
"Anakin said we were married."
"What?" Leia half shriek, and stood up so fast her chair toppled over.
Han grabbed her arm and tried to shush her, but Tahiri was already talking again, directing her explanation at Mara, who was the only one looking at her, though slack jawed, so Tahiri wasn't sure if she was actually getting it.
"Anakin claimed he was researching fighter specs on the holo-net when he came across this statistic, I never believed him, I think he was actually looking for information on marriage licenses, but according to him," here, Tahiri affected a fair impression of Anakin's voice, "the mutual agreement of two participants over the age of fourteen is all that is required for legality of matrimony in forty-two percent of New Republic star systems." She sniffed through a slight laugh and rubbed the back of a finger under each eye before quietly adding, "he used to recite it to me every night before bed."
Everyone was quiet for a while, but Tahiri was too smart to believe that she was anywhere close to getting away. And again, she had felt the discomfort rise when she said the words 'before bed'. She wanted to shout, 'get over it people' but instead just shook her head and remembered Anakin's quip about the hangar doors closing after the squadron had broken atmosphere.
Oh, Anakin… you were supposed to be here for this.
"Very romantic notion," Leia said, again, unimpressed, "but I don't care if my son said it, it means nothing."
"It meant something to us," Tahiri whispered. "And it was the last thing…" No. It wasn't the last thing he ever said to her; she didn't care what his family kept insisting, he would say other things to her. "It was the last thing he said to me before he left."
Anakin's father, aunt and uncle all three collapsed back into their chairs simultaneously, and Tahiri waited for the next question, the next obstacle she'd have to hurdle before she could go. But without realizing she was going to do it, she was talking again.
"I know that a lot of people thought that I bossed him around, and that he was the quiet one and I did all the talking, but the truth was that when something mattered to him, he got his way, and this mattered to him. When anything important needed to be done or decided, Anakin…he just knew, and I trust him, and I believe in him, and he always makes things right, keeps me safe, finds a way to make things better."
"And how exactly was Anakin planning on making things better here? Having a baby in the middle of a war is just stupid." Leia insisted.
Tahiri looked from Leia to Mara, saw the arch in Mara's eyebrow, looked at Han as he covered his mouth with his hand and rubbed his fingers over his lips, seemingly waiting to see how his wife was going to talk her way out of this one.
"Obviously," she said more to Luke than Mara, "it was different for you." Then, pinning Tahiri with another glare, she waited for an answer.
"I admit, we didn't know yet, and we were scared, and he was not looking forward to telling you, and I'm still scared, and don't know what I'm going to do yet. Does my saying all of this make you happy? Does it make you feel better to know that I've never been so terrified?"
Tahiri hoped that they'd find it in themselves to have some compassion; for Anakin's son if not for her. Instead, everyone remained silent for a while, until Luke, feeling the need to fill the air no doubt, appeared to need a brief.
"Okay, so you're pregnant with Anakin's baby, and he knew that before he left, and now he's… dead, and you are going to be a single mother at sixteen."
Tahiri rubbed her forehead, felt the ridges, wished she'd forgotten about her bag of meager possessions for the night and had found an empty cot to sleep in already.
"Technically," she breathed, "I'll be seventeen when Will is born. But in reality, we don't actually know how old I am, so maybe I'll be eighteen." She was babbling now, having a hard time keeping her eyes open and her mouth shut, but didn't care. "Sliven had no idea when my birthday was, in fact it was Anakin who made one up for me when we were kids."
"When you were kids?" This time it was Han's turn to sound incredulous, but there wasn't the venom that Leia's voice held, there was humor in it. And he called everyone 'kid', so it was different.
"Is there anything else you'd like to know?" Tahiri asked, standing up, "because I'm exhausted and I still need to find a place to sleep."
"What do you mean?" Han asked, confusion clear on his face.
"I mean, I came back to get my bag so I had some clean clothes and my ID chip, and I need to register with the Refugee Authorities in the morning."
"Tahiri..." Luke sounded very masterly all of a sudden and the hair on the back of Tahiri's neck stood up.
Things were about to get ugly; she could feel it.
"Yeah…"
"Technically, in most of the New Republic, you're still a minor and a ward of the Jedi Order."
Tahiri felt horror rise in her at the idea of Luke pulling rank on her like this. She was old enough to have been cleared to go on the Voxyn Mission, was older than Anakin had been when he'd fought in several battles, was older than Jaina when she'd joined Rogues, but now he was going to use her age against her. After she'd just pointed out that she may very well be older that they had always assumed? The hypocrisy was astounding, but she was so stupid to not see it coming.
"It's really up to me, as the head of the Order, to determine where you go and under whose supervision you stay."
Tahiri was too stunned to respond before Han weighed in.
"Now what are you thinking, Luke? Anakin was very specific. He asked me to take care of her until he got back, and I promised."
Leia turned on her husband, "Well Anakin isn't coming back so your obligation is over."
"She's having our grandchild." He bit out at his wife.
"Did it occur to you that if she hadn't told him she was having 'our grandchild' he wouldn't have been so preoccupied that he got himself killed?"
Tahiri felt the room begin to spin, felt the same sense of unreality that she'd felt when she'd first been told Anakin was gone, saw the ceiling of the tent, then saw nothing.
29 ABY
Tahiri Veila's Quarters
Third Fleet Flagship Lusankya
14 Months after the Fall of Coruscant
Tahiri sat bolt upright; a sense of panic overwhelming her.
She felt for Will, thinking that he had been crying and she'd been sleeping through his yells, and then realized that there were no sounds coming from the nursery. She reached out to him, felt his contentment and smiled. He was dreaming of liquid she thought, amused; either bath time or nursing. It was nice to know that her efforts to keep him healthy and nurtured ranked so high up on his list of favorite activities.
Taking a deep breath, Tahiri lay back down, turning on her side and hugging a pillow to her chest. She had to sleep, had to rest, but sleep had been elusive lately. She had woken in the middle of the night more and more frequently lately with the same sense of fear and confusion and had no idea why.
Will was happy and healthy and growing as he should be; or so the MD-3 droid she saw way too often promised her.
Iella and Winter had suggested that she requisition one of her own to save herself the time of walking over to the med bay every other day to have Will examined again. She'd rolled her eyes and told them to go find someone to spy on.
She had gotten better.
During the first couple of months after Will's birth she had been in the med center a lot; having Will checked to make sure he was gaining an adequate amount of weight, fearing her milk was lacking nutrients, fearing Will wasn't getting enough, fearing she wasn't feeding him right; fearing, fearing, fearing. When finally shown a chart and realizing that her son was bordering on the high end of healthy she relaxed and cut her visits down significantly, but still, Will's hold-mothers gently teased.
Giving up on sleep, Tahiri turned on the light beside her bed and, propping herself up, pulled her datapad from where she'd left it beside her before she'd fallen asleep only a few hours ago. She had a meeting with Iella and three visiting Intel agents in the morning and thought maybe going over notes on what she would be presenting would bore her back to sleep.
She didn't remember much of what happened over the first few weeks after she had fainted in the Solos tent on Hapes. She didn't know how it was decided that she would go to Borealis with the Skywalkers, or the trip itself, she didn't remember most of the time she spent there, but she did remember sitting in the mess one night and finding herself talking with the wife of General Antilles.
She did remember the kind woman who was a top ranking intelligence agent taking an interest in her time in captivity with the Yuuzhan Vong, and the fact that she had read the Strike Team member's debriefings and was impressed with Tahiri's contribution to the prep of the mission. She also remembered Iella seeking her out several days after the evacuation and asking Tahiri if she would consider tutoring some of her agents in the Yuuzhan Vong language.
Tahiri had agreed to the assignment because she had nothing better to do and still hadn't figured out where she was going or how she was going to take care of Will, who, by that point, she had been assured by a med droid, was 'growing adequately in-utero'. She had ended up enjoying the teaching, and had enjoyed sharing her knowledge, enjoyed knowing that she could turn what she had gone through into something positive.
Eventually, Iella offered her an actual job, she was given a salary and a title; Agent Tahiri Veila, and she formally resigned from the Jedi Order. She wasn't entirely sure that her effort was necessary, and there was no reply to the transmission she sent the Skywalkers, though she assumed they received it.
Her first several assignments were planning sessions with teams preparing to infiltrate Yuuzhan Vong territory, the most notable team being the Wraiths. Tahiri loved working with the Wraiths and had likened the experiences to good preparation for parenthood.
Kell Tainer had once offered his services as a babysitter, to which Tahiri responded that the only thing more frightening than her being left alone with a baby was him being left alone with her baby. He failed to see the problem with an explosives junkie and an inconsolable Force-sensitive infant in the same room.
Face Loran had wondered if the power of one Force-wielding parent plus the power of a second Force-wielding parent made for a doubly powerful Force-wielding child, musing that from the intel he'd 'gathered' this particular child might really pack a punch. Tahiri had allowed the novices to debate the issue, to great amusement, until someone realized they were all about to miss evening meal, at which point the matter became moot and everyone scrambled out of the conference room.
She was only a couple months away from giving birth when she was assigned to spend time on Mon Calamari with Admiral Ackbar, giving him insight into the mindset of the enemy. Again, she enjoyed the assignment itself, but this time there was an added bonus; she was able to spend time with people who knew and loved Anakin as a child.
She spent as many hours listening to the aged Mon Cal and his caretaker, Winter Celchu, speak of Anakin as she did telling them about her 'memories' of Riina's childhood. Of course she drew heavily on Older Tahiri's knowledge, once again, but that didn't make her information any less real, or, she would later find, any less valuable. She was eventually credited in a military report with offering some of the intel that helped turn the Admiral's final battle plan into a decisive victory.
It was during Tahiri's stay that the Admiral died.
After attending the funeral, she returned to the Lusankya. Winter was on the same shuttle flight. She had accepted a position working with Iella, her best friend, because it reunited her with her husband, Tycho Celchu, Iella's husband Wedge Antilles' own best friend, and second in command.
That was how Tahiri found herself surrounded by the people she now thought of as her family.
Seeing nothing but promise in Tahiri, Iella set about molding her into a force to be reckoned with; tapping into her natural talents, Jedi training, and implanted Vong knowledge, Iella had her translating, plotting, eavesdropping and advising within weeks of joining Intelligence.
Iella and Winter, having known each other for nearly thirty years, worked seamlessly together and taught Tahiri everything they could think of about the intelligence trade. Basically, Tahiri learned, it all boiled down to being really nosy, and having a good memory, both of which she was a natural at. Through long hours, hard work, and a confined working space, the two older women became the mothers Tahiri had never had, coddling her when no one else was around, making sure she was eating right, Iella teaching her about electronics and bugging devices, and sharing memories of her own pregnancies. Winter relaying stories of years as a deep undercover agent as well as her years as Anakin's nanny.
It was Winter and Iella who held her hands through Will's birth, and it was their husbands who were Will's first visitors.
In a highly emotional post delivery moment, Tahiri asked the four, who had been so wonderful to her over the months, to be Will's hold-parents. They'd all agreed instantly, and, once Tycho had secured a bottle of Whyren's, because, as Tahiri was to eventually realize, where these people were concerned, one couldn't do anything important without a bottle of whisky present, Wedge had performed an impromptu ceremony in Tahiri's med center room.
They each took turns holding Will and sipping at the whiskey cup, a sip for themselves, a sip for Will, a sip for Anakin, and a sip for Tahiri, and solemnly promised her son that they would look after him in good times and bad, that they would guide him, teach him, and see that he wanted for nothing; in memory of his father, for the peace of mind of his mother, and for love of him.
Naturally, Tahiri had cried, but she wasn't the only one, Tycho was a mess too. In fact, the only one with dry eyes was Will.
Tahiri dropped the datapad back onto her lap, and stared out the viewport at the stars beyond.
A squadron of X-wings was whizzing back and forth in the distance, the lead putting them through grueling maneuvers. Beyond them lay Thisspias.
The planet didn't mean much in terms of strategy or importance to the overall war effort; was merely a convenient place to pick up a material for the fleet and hang out while Wedge plotted his next move to push the Yuuzhan Vong farther back toward the edge of the galaxy, toward where they'd come from, but for some reason, since they'd arrived in system a few days ago, Tahiri had felt increasingly unbalanced, increasingly uncomfortable.
During a trip up to the bridge for Wedge and Tycho to see their favorite little pilot, Tahiri found herself staring at a massive three dimensional holodisplay of the galaxy and realized just how close to the Myrkr system they were and wondered if that was the reason for her unease, if it was because they were so close to where Anakin…
She could still barely bring herself to think it, had never actually said it out loud, and bless Iella and Winter and Tycho and Wedge for never making her. They'd all experienced horrific losses themselves; parents, spouses, planets... they'd all been through so much and they all seemed to understand what Anakin's being gone had done to her. So instead of standing over her while she wept and demanding that she admit that the love of her life was never coming home, the way Leia had, they simply let her be, made her as comfortable as they could in her new life and gave her baby all the love he wasn't getting from his father and his family.
