Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars or any of these characters (though like many people I wish I did). They are all the property of George Lucas, or Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta.
Author's Note: This story takes place approximately two months after the events in "We're All Breakable Sometimes".
Even though the main genres are romance and drama there's some action and adventure throughout the story as well. Hope you enjoy it!
CHAPTER ONE: FLYING SOLO
Sitting alone in the Crafted Hand, Anakin Solo waited for the ship's nav computer to signal it was time to come out of hyperspace. The waiting did not bother him, since it was not as if he had anything better to do with his time.
Tahiri's death had hit him hard – even harder then he had thought it would. He could not even remember the last time he had slept through the night without waking up in a cold sweat, crying out her name. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her – standing there with an amphistaff sticking out of her midsection, staring at him with her green eyes full of terror before she crumpled to the ground. The nightmares were the worst part, because every time – no matter what he tried to do differently – he still couldn't save her. The nightmares came to him at least three or four times a week. He thought they would have subsided after the first month, but they hadn't.
Anakin would be the first one to admit that he had not been dealing with her death in the best of ways.
When Master Skywalker had begun sending Jedi to help move refugees from worlds that were in danger or in the process of falling to the Yuuzhan Vong, was when his first major changes in behaviour had started appearing.
When they had already rescued as many refugees as possible without putting themselves or the ships full of rescued beings at risk, that was when the were supposed to leave. Anakin had decided to make his own set of orders to follow. He would continue making runs down to the planet's surfaced until he forced to jump to lightspeed in his own cramped ship because the Yuuzhan Vong had started attacking them. More then once he had to fight his way past Vong warriors to get the last of the refugees to his ship.
It was not like he was going to get himself killed making those last few rescue attempts. It was only the people around him who ever got hurt or lost their lives.
His Uncle Luke had been extremely concerned about the complete disregard he had for his own safety by continuously putting his life in danger. Anakin had always been a little reckless but not to the point where he was purposely endangering his life and possibly putting others at risk as well. When Luke had expressed his concern, Anakin had simply told him he was doing what any Jedi should: preserve justice and protect the innocent. His Uncle had not been overly impressed with that answer, and that's what had earned Anakin a few weeks of ground time on Yavin Four. That did not go too well either.
All the students at the praxeum had heard about what happened to Tahiri, and how Anakin had been there and seen the whole thing happen. So, each and every time he walked into a room, all the other gossip would stop and everyone would turn and stare at him. He had never liked being the center of attention, and liked even less the way every being there was talking about him behind his back. With his sensitive hearing he had heard all the rumours that were going on about the incident at Rygelia. There was everything from he killed all the Vong on the planet in a blind rage, to the reason Master Skywalker had stranded him on Yavin Four was because he was suicidal. He could care less about them or what they said. They knew nothing about him and had not been there on Rygelia to see what had happened for themselves.
He had been able to maintain his air of not caring about what they said, until one day in the Jedi Academy's mess hall when he was in line to get his food, he heard the person in front of him say that maybe if they gave the Vong the planets they wanted they would stop killing and enslaving people. Anakin had to do everything in his power to keep his temper from breaking loose at hearing that, but he could not stand there and say nothing. Anakin had not so quietly informed the so-called Jedi, a human male named Riley, that the Vong had shown no signs of stopping their conquest of this galaxy until every planet was theirs. Then Riley, who was a couple of years older then Anakin, had said his judgment was clouded because the Yuuzhan Vong had murdered someone close to him. Anakin had no control over what he did next.
He did not remember actually knocking Riley to the floor, but he did remember hitting him mercilessly with his fists over and over again, until his sister and four trainees had finally managed to pull him off of Riley.
Luke Skywalker had been understanding and sympathetic about his nephew's behaviour up until that point. Anakin had listened to his Uncle reprimand him, as he sat across from his desk with his bloody knuckles resting on the armrests of the chair – but it had not been his own blood. It was never his own blood. He always had the blood of someone else on his hands.
Luke had given him the famous speech 'fighting never solves anything'. It did not matter how upset someone made you, he had said to Anakin, a Jedi used words – not fists – to solve an argument. Anakin still thought that Riley should have kept his mouth shut because he didn't know what he was talking about. Somehow, though, he did not think his Uncle would see that as an acceptable excuse for landing someone in the med center, so he had kept that opinion to himself.
Luke had told him his parents would be dropping by Yavin Four in the next few days, and that it would be a good idea if he went back with them to Courscant to clear his head. Anakin knew that was his Uncle's way of politely kicking him out of the Academy until he was ready to use 'words' and not 'fists' to solve his problems.
Before he had left his office, Luke had suggested that he talk to someone about Tahiri's death, but Anakin had told him flat out he didn't need to talk to anyone. He just needed to be left alone.
When his parents came to the jungle moon and then departed, he had gone with them. He knew his Uncle had to have told them what had happened in the mess hall, but neither one of his parents had talked to him about the incident. They were probably afraid he would snap on them too.
When he was back on Courscant, he and his dad had spent a lot of time together, talking and tinkering with the Falcon like they had always done before Chewbacca's death. His dad and him had finally managed to mend their relationship back to what it was before Han had blamed him for Chewie's death more than a month before.
His father had not prodded or tried to get him to talk about what he was feeling, and that's what made Anakin not mind hanging around him. Unlike every other person in his life, his dad didn't try to force him to talk about what had happened. If anyone knew what he was going through, it was his dad…and maybe Jaina. But even then the both of them could only understand to a certain extent. Chewbacca had been his father's best friend, and he had loved him – but he had not been in love with him – that was the big difference. With his sister, she knew what it was like to lose someone you were in love with, but Zekk had left her – Tahiri had been taken from him. So, really, when he sat down and thought about it, he realized no one around him understood the grief and pain he was feeling inside. There was no guilt though – well, maybe at the beginning – but he had dealt with it. Tahiri had taught him that.
It was not long before his siblings returned to Courscant because Master Skywalker had called a meeting there, asking all the Jedi, no matter where they were in the galaxy, to attend it. Since he had decided not to go to the meeting, he never learned what it was about. Though Anakin was sure it was about how the Yuuzhan Vong were going to continue taking the galaxy as their own, and the only way to stop them would be for the Jedi to work together. That's what almost all of the meetings his Uncle called were about. If he wanted to, he could probably recite the entire lecture word for word.
Instead of going to it, he had opted to stay home, alone. When his parents had returned to the apartment from wherever it was they had gone, they had walked in to find their sixteen-year-old son drunk. He was not sure what had possessed him to go into his dad's liquor cabinet, but he was his father's son after all.
His mother had wanted to ground him, but his father had somehow managed to talk her out of it. He had listened to them argue about it after they had sent him to his room. Han had said that grounding him would make things worse – not better. Leia had eventually caved in, on the condition that if he ever did anything that stupid or irresponsible again, he would be grounded until Dagobah became a tourist attraction.
The minute Luke had found out about the drinking incident he had made his way over to the Solo's apartment. Anakin had expected the same lecture that he gotten from his parents, especially from his mother, on trust and responsibility, but that was not at all why Luke had come by to talk to him. Luke had told him he was not choosing the best way to handle his grief, and that was why he thought that Anakin needed to take a break from everything and everyone.
The next thing Anakin knew, he was packing his bags and leaving Courscant on the Crafted Hand, the small ship his Uncle had loaned him.
He was glad to be gone because he was not even sure if he wanted to be a Jedi anymore. He was tired of following the Jedi Code, and doing what was right all the time. What had that ever gotten him anyways? The answer was nothing. More and more he found it hard to care about anything. Nothing seemed to matter to him anymore. What good was a Jedi who no longer had the desire to care about anyone, not even himself?
The nav computer in front of him started beeping, breaking him away from his reverie. Anakin pulled down on the throttle and brought the ship back into normal space.
As the stars went back to their normal bright specks against a black background, he saw a bulky transport leaving the atmosphere of the planet, while sleek and heavily armed ships headed for its dry, barren surface. Anakin followed them, bringing his own ship towards the atmosphere of Tatooine.
Tatooine was not a planet any normal person would choose to go to to get away from their problems. For Anakin, though, this place served the purpose of reminding him of how normal everything had been before the horrible event on Rygelia. It was here where Tahiri had found him after he had run away from Yavin Four, and had helped him work through the emotional breakdown he had been going through at the time. It was here where they had fought side by side against Tusken Raiders. And it was here where their friendship had begun to develop into something completely unexpected, and yet something they both wanted.
While he steered the Crafted Hand down towards Mos Eisley spaceport, Anakin knew he had made the right decision to come there.
Stepping out of docking bay eighty-eight and into the bustling streets of Mos Eisley, Anakin found himself once again having to adjust to the dry, humid air that the twin suns gave the desolate rock he was on.
He was dressed similar to the other beings walking around him, trying his best to look like he belonged there.
Humans and aliens alike bumped into him or pushed past him. The stench coming off some of them was enough to make Anakin wish he did not have such a heightened sense of smell.
He blocked out most of the meaningless chatter and conversations going on around him. They were mainly about the best place in the spaceport to get a good drink from or who was looking to hire a smuggler to do some highly illegal activities. Even though he was blocking all that nonsense out, he was still able to tell that among the crowded streets and shops that someone was following him. That someone had been following him since he had left the docking bay.
Anakin casually placed his hand on the blaster at his side, just to reassure himself that it was still there. He reached out with his senses, finding the being approaching him was getting closer, and judging by the anxious emotions he was reading from it, it was getting ready to make its move.
He made the decision to turn down an empty street he was coming to. It was probably not the brightest decision he had ever made, but he had no intention of letting whoever or whatever was behind him continue to follow him.
He made a right into the deserted street, checking behind himself to see if he was still being followed. At that moment no one was behind him. When he faced forward again, he found a razor sharp vibroblade being held at his throat by a rough-looking human.
"Just give me your wallet and you won't get hurt," his attacker said to him in a threatening voice.
Out of the corner of his eye, Anakin saw the creature that had been following him, a female Rodian, turn onto the street. Four other beings – two humans, a fury Talz, and an Aqualish – jumped down from the low roofed buildings, forming a tight circle around him.
Despite the dangerous situation he had gotten himself into, Anakin smiled. This was going to be fun.
