A/N: To all who have favorited (is that a word?), reviewed, read, or lurked...thank you so much!

Chapter 7 – Fall Out

As Leia walked down the well-travelled thoroughfare on Dubrillion with her husband, she expanded her Force presence as far as she dared, only half-listening to Han's recount of his last conversation with Lando.

"…could do is a regular room, but I told him that anything will be an improvement over where we stayed last night." Han concluded, and she caught his famous smirk nodding absently in reply, still thinking about the vague sense of unease that she was getting. Suddenly, in a flash of intense pain, her worst fears became reality.

It took Han a couple of steps to realize that his wife was no longer walking beside him. Confused, he turned and found her slumped against a lamppost, doubled over in clear agony, gasping for breath.

"Leia!" He rushed to her side, "Leia, what's…" he stopped when she looked up at him, her face a grotesque mask of pain. He had seen that look once before, and it was a look that he had hoped that he would never see again. Han's heart stopped as he enveloped his wife in an embrace. "Jacen?" He whispered and felt her nod against his shoulder, her tears soaking into his shirt. He closed his eyes, and quietly cursed fate as he wondered sadly what he had done to deserve such a life. His best friend, both of his sons…what more did Han have left to give?

It was unclear just how long they had remained like that; the two of them alone in their sea of despair, when Han became aware of the incessant vibrating of his comlink. Before he could stop himself, he answered the call, "Solo."

Leia stiffened against him as they heard her brother's voice sound over the small speaker, "Han, I'm…"

"DO NOT. Finish. That. Sentence." Han growled into the comlink, interrupting his brother-in-law. "You are most definitely NOT sorry. At looks as though you got your wish. My son can no longer make you look incompetent."

They heard Luke sigh into the speaker, "You think that this is what I…"

Again, Han interrupted, "Yes. We know that you wanted to 'stop Jacen'." His voice rose to a shout, "Leave us alone!"

A new, feminine voice sounded over the speaker, "Han, he's arresting Corellians."

Han let out a sad sigh, "Yeah." He and Leia had argued on and off about Jacen's actions as head of the Galactic Alliance Guard for the better part of two months. He could not believe that his son would think that rounding up Corellians, people from his homeland, was a good idea. Leia consistently argued that while she was not in favor of the 'detention camps', nobody else had proposed any better ideas. Part of the reason Han was so upset at his son was that Leia was right: no one, including himself, had offered a better solution. No one, it seemed, had been acting rationally over the last few months.

Mara chided in a haughty tone, "So, now you're making excuses for him?"

Leia snatched the comlink from her husband's hand, "How DARE you, Mara Jade. Jacen was enforcing the law, which is something that the Order has NOT been doing. While you were busy subverting the authority of the Chief-of-State, my son was trying to keep Coruscant from exploding." In her rage, Leia started to shake, "My sons are DEAD. They're dead while you two continue to debate what the role of your Order should be. I expected more from the Emperor's Hand." She paused to let that sink in. "Don't call us again." With that, Leia threw the comlink with all of her might against the brick wall on the other side of the sidewalk and gave a satisfied nod as it broke apart with a small 'crack' and fell to the ground.

Han could only stare at the remains of his comlink as Leia stormed off up the sidewalk. Shaking his head, he hurried after her, catching up in a few long strides. Just as he caught up, she stopped and spun around, her lovely face still clouded with pain and anger. "I hate him. I hate them both."

Han drew into another hug and shook his head, saying gently, "No, you don't."

She backed up a step and glared at her husband. "YES. I. DO. Luke sits and does nothing while the galaxy goes to hell, and then has the audacity to berate people who actually are doing something." Gesturing wildly with her right hand, she allowed her voice to get louder, "There is a war coming, and what are his Jedi doing?" Her voice fell in disgust, "Nothing. Not one damned thing."

Han saw a new fire in her beautiful eyes, and he knew that he was in for a wild ride. She stabbed him in the chest with her right index finger, "You helped start this mess with your support of the Corellians. You and I are going to try to stop it." Her voice fell to a whisper and Han could barely hear her over the traffic, "I owe it to Jacen to do what he could not."

T

O O(_)O O

Looking about her gym, Tenel Ka found an exercise mat against one wall and called it to her hand. After rolling it into a pillow, she placed it under Jacen's head and then looked for a first-aid kit. Finding one by the door, she again used the Force to call it to her and dug out some bandages. There is a common misconception that lightsaber wounds are clean wounds and never bleed. This is untrue; Jacen's wound had had some cauterization, but the human arm simply has too many veins and arteries to cauterize them all with one swing of a lightsaber. As a result, Jacen was bleeding—not a lot, perhaps, but enough to be concerning. Finding what she was looking for, Tenel Ka tightly wrapped a pressure bandage around Jacen's right bicep, staunching the flow of blood. That done, she went about placing a dressing and bandage over the wound, trying not to look at the bone in what remained of his arm.

Only after the Queen performed the necessary first aid did the full impact of what he had done dawn on her. Sitting next to his prone form, she stroked his cheek, grimacing as she felt the bone give way under her fingers. For all intents and purposes, Jacen Solo was dead; and it saddened her to know that she would never be able to tell everyone just how incredibly brave he had been. He had saved them all, and no one was ever going to know.

As she looked at her best friend's face, she realized that she would never again feel his reassuring presence in her mind, never feel him be part of her. Jacen would not be able to show Allana how to levitate her stuffed tauntaun or teach her any of the esoteric tricks he had learned while traveling the galaxy. While she would miss these things, her and Allana would still have Jacen, and that meant more. Tenel Ka kissed her Jacen's forehead and did something she had not done in quite a while: smile. We will just have to make the best of the time we have.

She was so caught up in her thoughts that she almost missed the sound of bare feet running at breakneck speed down the hallway towards the gym. Allana. Neither she nor Jacen had stopped to consider how this would affect their daughter. Reaching out, she could feel the sense of panic boiling out of her little girl and tried her best to soothe her frantic thoughts. Looking down at Jacen, she grimaced and slid his detached arm closer to his side, hoping to keep it from view.

Just as she finished, Allana rushed into the room, fear clearly etched onto her young face as her words tumbled out of her mouth in a rush, "Mommy, something bad has happened to…" Allana's grey eyes widened in horror when she saw Jacen's prone form, "…DADDY!" she shrieked, rushing forward.

Tenel Ka lunged at Allana catching her in a tight embrace that lifted her off the floor before she could reach her father.

"Shh…it's okay." She whispered, trying to soothe her struggling daughter, "Look, he's still breathing." Allana stopped trying to escape and looked at her father's chest and watched as it rose and fell rhythmically.

Melting into her mother, Allana never took her eyes off Jacen as her mother stroked her hair. Quietly, she asked, "What happened to Daddy?" Turning her head to look her mother in the eye, "Was it an accident like yours?"

Tenel Ka held her daughter close and rested her chin on the top of Allana's head. Despite their best efforts, Allana had figured out who her father was and had probably done so quite a while ago.

Feeling a wave of guilt wash over her, she closed her eyes and shook her head, "No, honey. Jedi Ja…" she stopped and corrected herself, "…Daddy needed me to help him." Relaxing her embrace, she knelt to place Allana back on the floor and looked her daughter in the eye to try to explain. "Jacen wants to spend more of his time here on Hapes, but he needed me to help him from becoming a bad man."

Allana scowled at her mother. Jacen had always been very nice to her, and she could feel his love for her every time he visited; she could not believe her Daddy was anything but nice.

Timidly, as if she were afraid of the answer, she asked quietly, "Was he a bad man?"

The Queen Mother shook her head adamantly, "No, sweetie." She kissed Allana's forehead, "He cut himself off from the Force before that could happen. It was a very brave thing to do."

Allana nodded absently, not really understanding what her mother meant. Was not the Force part of who you were? Daddy had always said that it was. And if he had cut himself out of the Force, how come she could still feel Daddy? Maybe she was just imagining it, the way that she imagined her stuffed tauntaun could talk. She would have to ask Daddy about it when he woke up; he would know…Daddy knew everything.

Looking up at her mother, "Can Daddy stay with us now?"

Tenel Ka gave Allana a small smile, "Not right away, but he will soon."

The Chume'da of Hapes nodded again and knelt next to her father. Kissing his forehead, she whispered, "I love you, daddy."

T

O O(_)O O

Jacen awoke to a darkened room, the only light being the ambient city lights filtering in through the partially closed blinds in the room. Scowling, he took a closer look out the window; the light was much too bright and artificial to be Hapes. How'd I get to Coruscant? The thought jumped into his mind, but he knew that it must be right, nowhere else had a nighttime glow like Coruscant. He looked around as he sat up on the bed, recognizing one of the posters on the wall. Hey, I had a poster just like that. He smiled at the memory of his favorite singer from his teenage years: Gorah Dibbon. She had only made four albums (naturally, he had them all), and it was her 'girl-next-door' persona that had always drawn him to her, earning him endless jibes from Jaina, Anakin, Zekk, and Tahiri. Oddly, Tenel Ka never had much to say about his crush on the pretty, brown-eyed, singer-songwriter. Pushing that thought away, he continued to look around the darkened room, and stopped, stunned. That is his Gorah Dibbon poster; Jacen was in his old room on Coruscant. That means I'm…

"…Dreaming." Answered a chuckling voice from the doorway. Jacen's head snapped around to look at the source of the voice.

It took him a second to find his voice. Before him stood his brother, looking just as he did the day prior to them leaving for their Myrkr mission. Jacen frowned slightly; he had forgotten how tall his brother had been. "Anakin?"

Anakin smiled a warm brotherly smile, "Hi Jace. It's been a while."

Flopping back on the bed, Jacen sighed, "If I can see you, it means that everything I just did was for naught."

Anakin stepped closer and shook his head, "No, it worked." He gave Jacen the famous 'Solo' smirk, "Mostly. I'm just a…residual benefit, I guess you could call me."

Turning his head to face his brother, Jacen wrinkled his brow, "Residual?"

Anakin answered with a non-committal shrug—the same shrug they had seen their father do a thousand lifetimes ago. "We're all curious… how'd you do it?"

His younger brother's question certainly piqued Jacen's curiosity, "We?"

The younger man offered a wry smile and nodded as he answered, "We."

Jacen was hoping that his brother would elaborate, but Anakin only continued to look expectantly at him. Sighing, he finally got up off the bed and walked over to the window, gazing out over the pre-war Coruscanti nightscape.

Looking over his shoulder, "I took all of the pain and anger coming from Tenel Ka and stored it in a sort of Force…" He paused, not sure what to call it. Suddenly, Anakin's propensity for fiddling with electronics jumped into his memory. "…capacitor, I guess." He glanced at his brother and saw the understanding nod. "Losing my arm was the trigger mechanism I used to release all of the energy from this 'capacitor' to expand both my Force presence and my 'Vong' sense at the same time." Anakin opened his mouth to reply, but Jacen pressed on, turning back to the window, "It worked as I thought it would; the two 'short-circuited' each other and sort of…blew a fuse." He took a deep breath and said quietly, "At least Dad won't be the only non-Force user in the family anymore."

Anakin whistled appreciatively, "Sounds painful." Seeing Jacen's single nod, Anakin continued, awe still in his voice, "Qui-Gon will be impressed."

Jacen said nothing as he turned to stare dumbly at his brother; unsure as to whether he should be honored or not about being able to impress Qui-Gon Jinn.

Anakin could sense his brother's inner turmoil and chuckled. "You'd like him…reminds me a lot of you, actually. He, too, is always trying to learn more about the different aspects of the Force." Anakin turned his attention to the view behind Jacen, his voice almost reverential, "Apparently, it was Qui-Gon who 'discovered' how to anchor ourselves to the Force after our deaths." He looked back at Jacen, "His jokes are loads better, though."

Jacen smiled at his younger brother's comment; even he had to admit, his jokes were pretty lame. For a moment, neither of them said anything, both lost in memories of times long gone.

"It's a pity I won't be able to meet him." Jacen finally admitted, saddened by the realization of the consequences of removing himself from the Force.

Anakin smirked again, "Don't be too sure. 'Always in motion the future is.'" Jacen rolled his eyes at his brother's impersonation of Yoda. The youngest Solo looked at his brother earnestly, "Which brings me to why I'm here: your 'Plan B'…" he shook his head sadly, "…won't work." He held up his hand to forestall Jacen's reply. "There are too many holes in the back story for the person you've invented. Unfortunately for you, both the Palace Guard and the Hapan public have become rather fond of the Queen Mother." Jacen nodded; he, too, had noticed the public's growing affection for their Head of State, and her for them. Anakin continued, "While this is good for Hapes as a whole, it also means that both will view her new 'bodyguard' skeptically. They will view you as someone who is merely a 'gold-digger' preying on their poor Queen's affections." Anakin paused briefly, letting this information sink in.

Quietly, he continued, "The press and the Palace Guard will find the inconsistencies in your story and they will coerce you to leave Hapes." Anakin did not mention how this would be done, but he did not have to. Jacen understood that he would be exposed as a fraud and embarrass the Queen Mother. Once again, Jacen would hurt his best friend. Anakin looked sadly at his brother, "It'll be some time before you will be able to see Allana again."

Jacen sunk to the bed, running his fingers through his hair as he hung his head in defeat. The bodyguard character he created did have inconsistencies, but he had hoped to be able to steer the press away from looking too closely. He had hoped that Hapes would see that the Queen Mother was happy for the first time in years and that this would outweigh the holes in his personal history. Sighing, he mentally prepared himself for 'Plan C'. He would not be able to spend time with Tenel Ka or Allana, but at least he would not hurt them anymore. Fate, it seemed, had deemed it impossible for him to be able to spend his life with the two women he loved most.

Anakin stepped closer and leaned against the desk opposite Jacen's bed. "No, don't go to 'Plan C' just yet. There is another way." He waited for Jacen to look up, a small sliver of hope in his eyes. "We have shown you a different path."

Understanding dawned on Jacen's face as he realized Anakin meant the same dream he had the last three times he had fallen asleep. "That was you? I thought it was just a dream."

Anakin snorted, "You should know better than that by now." He shrugged again, "We needed to make sure you saw it more than once."

The flicker of hope died in Jacen's eyes. Defeated, he said quietly, "I can't Anakin. I killed an innocent person because of these Force visions. I'm not sure I trust the Force anymore."

The youngest Solo nodded his head in understanding, "I'm not going to pretend to understand what the Force was trying to show you on that damned asteroid. None of us seem to be able to reach a consensus about it." He looked at his older brother sympathetically, "However, this will work." He leaned forward to emphasize his words, "Trust the Force one more time. Trust me."

Jacen shook his head and opened his mouth to offer a rebuttal but stopped. He and his brother didn't agree on how to use the Force, but this was different; this was about trust. Nodding once in agreement, Jacen again turned toward the window.

Anakin sighed and pursed his lips. "In an odd twist of fate, there actually was a 'Jason Naberre'. He was born 10ABY on Commenor, the only child of Kayrin Naberre, a single teenage mother. His childhood was pretty normal, and his mother allowed him to join the Republic Marines at age 17. During the Coruscant campaign, Jason earned a Bronze Star for getting his squad out of a pretty dire situation."

"After the war, he returned to Commenor to aid in the rebuilding effort. Jason spent three years tracking down old tax returns for the Commenor Revenue Service, mostly in an attempt to find missing persons. One day, he got into an argument with one of his coworkers and, in his rage, punched her, knocking out one of her teeth. Jason was fired immediately and became a bit of a recluse, bouncing around for about five years from town to town on Commenor, before moving to Coruscant a couple of years ago to open an Army surplus store. He was last seen leaving a 'gentlebeings' club about two weeks ago."

With a flash of insight, Jacen understood. "He's the 'John Doe' robbery victim we found in Sector 46." Anakin nodded in reply. Jacen stood and started pacing around the room, unsure as to how to feel.

Anakin could only shake his head at his brother; Jacen always did think better when he was moving around. He reached into one of his cargo pockets and produced a holodisk, holding it out for his brother to take.

Jacen nodded at the disk, "What's on that?"

"Naberre's memories." Anakin paused, "Well, not his memories…it's more like a third-person account of his life. Basically, this is a verifiable history for you to use as your new persona."

For a long moment, Jacen stared at the proffered disk. He wanted desperately to believe in Anakin's plan, but his track history with following Force visions was pretty dreadful.

"This will work, Jace." Anakin paused and looked at his brother meaningfully, "Choose and act."

Jacen snapped his gaze up to his brother's face. Anakin had known about Vergere, of course, but he had died before the Fosh taught Jacen her most important lesson. If Anakin knew the quote…Jacen's heart dropped into the pit of his stomach.

"You know Vergere?" he asked quietly, never taking his eyes off his brother's face.

Anakin nodded and Jacen collapsed onto the bed, his eyes full of despair. In the same quiet voice, "She's not…" he trailed off, unable to finish his sentence.

Anakin shook his head slightly, "A Sith? No Jacen, she never was."

Jacen's head slumped forward as he bit into his left fist. Closing his eyes, he took several ragged breaths, clearly trying to keep from crying. A quiet sob escaped his lips and he hid his face in his hands. "Damn. It!" he whispered, looking up at ceiling.

"Dammit, Anakin." He glanced over at his brother, his lip still quivering, "I believed Lumiya." His brother could only offer a sad nod in answer.

Jacen leaned forward again, his face in his hands, "I knew it wasn't true. There were too many inconsistencies in what Lumiya told me." Jacen took another ragged breath, "Vergere would never be pigeon-holed like that." Looking to his right at the cityscape out the window, Jacen wiped his eyes, disappointed in himself. He had been so desperate for approval that he ended up following the advice of a bitter, washed up, Sith Lord. "I knew. I knew it couldn't be true, but I doubted myself…again." Chuckling bitterly, his eyes red with unshed tears, he looked over at Anakin, "I tried so hard…" he choked back a sob, "I tried so hard to prove to everyone that I could do it. That it was possible to be Sith and not be evil. I wanted to prove that we are not defined by labels." His face fell, ashamed at what he had done. Finally, he whispered the one admission that he had been hiding from himself for months, "I wanted Vergere to be proud of what I was trying to do."

Anakin knelt in front of his brother, looking him in the eye. "She is."

Whatever dam Jacen had built to keep his emotions in check collapsed and his chest heaved with sobs. "Sh...she can't b..be." His body convulsed, "I've d..done horrible things."

Anakin leaned forward and gave his big brother a warm hug and felt Jacen collapse against his shoulder. For a long while, he simply let his brother cry onto his shoulder.

Finally, Anakin explained quietly, "You're the first person ever to say, 'Enough! I'm not following this path anymore.'" He leaned back and Jacen sat more upright, "Plaegius couldn't do it, Granddad couldn't do it; even Uncle Luke couldn't do it. If it hadn't been for Mom, he would have become 'Darth Luke'."

Anakin smiled as he heard a small chuckle from his brother. "You're the only one that had the ability to look at yourself critically and realize you were only deluding yourself. All of us, Granddad, Vergere…me; we are all proud of what you did today." He reached up and dried his brother's eyes, "You proved that darkness doesn't 'always dominate your destiny'; that there is no 'point-of-no-return'."

Jacen only nodded as Anakin moved to sit beside him on the bed, each comfortable with the silence, content to simply be with each other. Finally, after ten minutes or so, Jacen looked over at his brother, "I've missed you, Anakin."

Anakin grinned his infectious grin, "Me too."

The eldest Solo son snorted as he shook his head in disbelief. "That's what I get for being sentimental." Anakin only shrugged. Jacen again glanced at his brother, and nodded towards the disk in Anakin's left hand, "What's the price of all of this help?"

The three of them: Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin, had spent way too much time around smugglers as kids to know to be leery of free help. Smirking at the memories, Anakin held up three fingers, "Three things. One: be a good husband and a better Dad." Jacen nodded in agreement. That was, after all, the whole reason he had working on this plan for the last month. "Two: find a peaceful way out of this current mess."

Jacen narrowed his eyes in confusion, "How am I supposed to be able to do that? I'm dead now, remember?"

His younger brother only shrugged noncommittally, "You'll just have to be more creative." Ignoring Jacen's exasperated look, he continued, "Three: there are several Jedi out there who are rudderless and just drifting. Help them find their way."

Jacen's first thought went to Tahiri and he felt a new wave of guilt swept over him. He continued to think of Tahiri as his sister, but he and Jaina had been doing a lousy job of showing it. Still, Anakin's phraseology gave him pause. "Several?"

Anakin only shook his head in reply, "You and Tenel Ka will figure it out." Seeing Jacen's exasperated look, he held out the disk again, a wry smile on his lips, "There's a special 'Force Ghost' school that teaches us how to be vague."

Frowning, Jacen reached for the disk, "Apparently."

As soon as he took the offered disk from his brother, it started to dissolve and a barrage of images, sounds, smells, and feelings bombarded Jacen's mind as he 'uploaded' the majority of Jason Naberre's life into his mind.

Blinking his eyes rapidly, he blurted, "Whoa." It was as Anakin had said: these weren't Jason's memories per se, but it was like Jason Naberre had been followed around by a holo-film crew his entire life. After the process finished, Jacen had to shake his head to clear it. "That'll take some getting used to."

Anakin nodded before asking, "Who Jason's first-grade teacher?"

Perplexed, Jacen looked over at his brother before finally catching on. "Oh. Hang on a second." He searched the new 'archive' to find the right images. "Miss…Stormborn."

"His first kiss?"

"Uh…Nandi Viscount."

"Your first date?"

Jacen grinned, "The Hapan Zoo."

Anakin smiled, "Good, you are able to keep your memories separate from his."

Jacen only rolled his eyes at the test before turning contemplative. Looking at his brother again, his asked quietly, "Do you know what happened to Kayrin?"

Anakin shook his head as he rose of the bed. "It doesn't really work that way." His tone was sad, and Jacen got the impression that his brother wished to be able to solve that problem, particularly with so many beings still unaccounted for. Shaking his head, "Anyway, we've found a couple of people who have memories of her in a camp on Dubrillion, but only from shortly after the planet fell. We can only guess as to what happened to her after that."

Somehow, Jacen sensed that his 'visit' with his brother was at a close. What do you say to someone when you know you will probably never see him again? He glanced over at his brother, hoping that he could articulate how much he missed him. Instead of blubbering on, he simply said quietly, "Thank you, Anakin."

Anakin smiled, seeming to know what his older brother meant, and pulled him into a warm embrace. For a few long moments, they stayed that way, both not wanting to let go.

Finally, Anakin stepped back and whispered, "Please tell Tahiri that it is time to move on." Jacen nodded once as he watched his brother make his way to the door.

"Wait." Jacen called, remembering something from the beginning of their conversation, "You said it 'mostly' worked?"

Anakin turned, grinning once more, "You'll see." He turned and walked through the door, closing it behind him. "Oh, Jacen?" Anakin called as he stuck his head back around the door, "One more thing." Suddenly, Anakin's voice changed to that of a confused little girl, "I love you, daddy."

With that, the door clicked shut.

T

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