CHAPTER SEVEN: A SLIP OF THE MIND
It was the gritty taste in her mouth that woke Tahiri from her peaceful slumber. A few grains of sand, however, were not what made her bolt upright into a sitting position.
She squeezed her eyes shut – praying for both their sakes that this was just a dream. When she opened her eyes, it wasn't a dream – it was a nightmare.
Dawn was fast approaching, and the beach was unusually quiet. Even the surf was calm, but the only two people around to appreciate it, would likely be living out the remainder of their days working the spice mines of Kessel.
Tahiri looked over at Anakin's sleeping form. We are going to be in so much bantha dung…
"Anakin, wake up," she said, shaking his shoulder.
He came around slowly and blinked drowsily at her.
"Notice anything about our current surroundings?" She did not want to be the only one panicking.
Anakin's brain processed the information in a matter of seconds. "Oh, stars," he muttered under his breath.
Tahiri dragged him to his feet. "That's what we'll be seeing when our parents decide to jettison us out a torpedo bay,"
They hurried into the airspeeder and sped back towards the Imperial Palace. Tahiri was going to ask if it could go any faster, but decided their current velocity was just fine. The longer it took for them to get back, the longer they could avoid punishment. Then again, if she took the positive approach to their situation, maybe they would get lucky without anyone noticing they hadn't come home last night.
Anakin reached the Solo residence and all his hopes of sneaking quietly inside and escaping into his room unnoticed, vanished when he felt the two distinct presence's that belonged to his parents – and they were very much awake.
His mother would know he was standing there, so there was no point in turning and leaving. He might as well go inside and get it over with.
He stepped inside the apartment and was greeted by the disappointed frowns of his parents, who looked like they had barely slept at all.
"Hi," Anakin said in a timid voice. Perhaps that had not been the most appropriate thing to say.
His mother sprang up from the sofa and tossed aside the blanket that was covering her. "You were out all night and that's all you've got to say for yourself?"
"Mom, I can explain,"
He had no idea what he could say to get himself out of the load of trouble he knew he was in.
"If it was a Jedi thing, I could understand, but I know it wasn't. You were with Tahiri, weren't you?"
So much for talking himself out of trouble. If his parents knew he had spent the night with Tahiri, they would automatically jump to the wrong conclusion.
"We called Kam and Tionne to see if Tahiri knew where you were," Han spoke up from the sofa, "but they said she didn't come home either,"
Anakin suppressed the urge to sigh. There was no point in trying to lie. His mother may not be a fully trained Jedi but she had a knack for knowing when her children were lying to her. "We were together, but nothing happened," he emphasized the word 'nothing' as much as possible. "We left after the funeral reception for the artificial beach a few miles from here and fell asleep. But that's all,"
He might have sounded more convincing without the sand in his hair and his clothes didn't look like he had slept in them for a week.
"Anakin, you could have called," his father reprimanded him. "We were worried sick,"
"I know," he said, lowering his head. "I wasn't thinking,"
"Don't worry, you'll have plenty of time to think," Leia assured him. "You're grounded for the next two weeks,"
"What?!" He had stayed out one night – one night! It wasn't as if he did this sort of thing all the time. She was being completely unreasonable.
"You can go to any meetings Luke calls, but then you're to come straight home," she explained to him. She looked back at Han and then back at her son. "We talked with Kam and Tionne and we're in agreement that it's a good idea for you and Tahiri to not see each other for those two weeks,"
"This isn't fair," he protested.
"Was it fair for you to stay out all night and not even bother to let us know where you were?" His mother demanded. "You're more responsible then that, Anakin."
Her disappointment in him came through in her voice. He turned to his dad for support. If anyone could get him a lesser sentence it was him. But it was apparent he was sticking with Leia on this one.
Anakin hoped they were done punishing him because he was through listening to them. He stormed off to his room and shut the door behind him.
"I think you were a little hard on him," Han said, coming to stand beside her.
"Someone has to get tough on him,"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means," Leia said, turning and pointing at him square in the chest, "you were supposed to have an adult conversation with your son about sex and then he doesn't come home the next night,"
"I never told him it was okay to stay out all night," said Han in his own defense. Han's mind was racing when he said, "was he lying about nothing happening?"
"No, he was telling the truth. But he's still our kid and no matter how many battles he fights in that's not going to change. Trust me, Han," Leia said, grabbing both his hands in hers, "a little break is what those two need right now,"
Anakin waited until both his parents were gone before coming out of his room later on that morning. He had tried sleeping and keeping himself occupied with the mechanical gadgets in his room, but mostly he laid on his bed doing exactly what his mom had said he would be doing a lot of over the next two weeks: thinking.
He couldn't even remember the last time he had been grounded. He wished he could talk to Tahiri, and see how it had gone for her, but he couldn't even use the HoloNet to call her. They weren't supposed to speak to each other at all.
Who was going to take a Jedi serious that got grounded by his parents?
He knew they were disappointed with him, but he hated even more that he had gotten his dad into trouble. He had heard them talking after he had disappeared into his room. His mom partially blamed his dad for his staying out all night when their 'talk' had nothing to do with it.
He planned to get himself some breakfast and then head back to his room before his parents returned. They never said he had to spend the two weeks couped up in his room, but he figured if he did that he could avoid any more lectures they had planned for him.
He found his older brother sitting on the counter eating his own breakfast when he walked in to the kitchen.
"I heard about your 'all nighter," Jacen smirked at him. "I can see the headlines on Courscant Nightly News: Brave Jedi Knight who Fights Fearsome Yuuzhan Vong gets Grounded by Parents,"
"This isn't funny, Jace,"
"I'm sure mom and dad would agree with you. From what I hear, you're 'we fell asleep' excuse didn't go over too well with mom,"
"It wasn't an excuse, okay?" Did his whole family think he and Tahiri were two hormone-crazed teenagers? "Tahiri and I took off during the reception, and I knew she hadn't been feeling well lately, so I – " He came to an abrupt halt when he felt the sudden change in Jacen's emotions. It lasted only a second, but his brother's slip was noticeable enough that Anakin confronted him on it.
"What is it?" Anakin questioned him. "I said something about Tahiri feeling sick and then I felt – " He closed his eyes, trying to remember exactly what he had felt coming from Jacen. " – this sadness and sympathy and fear," Anakin's eyes snapped open. "Where is this coming from?"
Jacen put his mental barriers back up. That momentary slip was going to earn him an intense grilling from Anakin.
"It's got nothing to do with Tahiri," he tried to convince Anakin.
"Its got everything to do with her," Anakin countered. "You can put you emotional shields back up, Jacen, but that doesn't change what I felt – and it was being directed at Tahiri. Now, tell me what's going on?"
"You're making a big deal out of nothing," Jacen told him, trying to shrug it off.
"It's not nothing. You know something that I don't and I want to know what it is,"
Lying would be impossible at this point. Anakin was already too suspicious. So he told him about what happened in the training room the other day.
Anakin listened to it all carefully. "Why would she do that?"
"I don't know,"
"But you suspect. There's more you're not telling me,"
He couldn't break his promise to Tahiri, even if it meant Anakin being angry with him. She was going to have to be the one to tell him. "Anakin just talk to her,"
"I can't. That's why I'm asking you. Jacen, please," Anakin pleaded with his older brother, "tell me what's going on with her,"
"Anakin, I can't. I gave her my word,"
Promise or no promise, he could feel how extremely close Anakin was to hitting him.
"Hey, what's going on in here?"
Jaina walked into the kitchen, taking in the sight of how dangerously close the two brother's were standing together. The animosity coming from Anakin was beyond anything that normally accompanied his frequent arguments with Jacen.
His sister's voice brought Anakin back to reality. He backed away from Jacen, brushed past Jaina and walked and out of the apartment.
Jaina turned an inquisitive look on her twin. "Do you want to tell me what's going on?"
It wasn't an easy feat convincing Kam that he needed to speak with Tahiri, but Anakin had pleaded with him for several minutes, saying that it was important for him to see her. In the end, Anakin suspected the only reason Kam had agreed to it was because of the turmoil of emotions he felt rolling off Anakin, and knowing this was not an attempt to get around their punishment.
The Jedi Master gave him ten minutes, which was more time then Anakin could have hoped for. He waited for Kam to follow him to Tahiri's room to act as a chaperone, but the older man remained in the residence's living area.
He was not even halfway to her room when he felt her spike in emotion at finding him there. Her excitement continued to mount until he made to her door and she flung it open before he had a chance to reach for the handle.
In a blur of motion, she threw her arms around him, saying, "I can't believe they let you in! You won't believe the lecture I got on responsibility,"
She let go of him when he did not return the embrace. "What's wrong? You didn't to knock Kam unconscious to see me, did you?" The laughter in her eyes died when the serious look on his face remained. "Anakin, what's going on?" His silence was scaring her.
"I know about what happened with you and Jacen in the training center,"
"Oh, that," she said, keeping her voice casual. "It was an accident. I lost control for a second, but the same thing's happened to you before," she added, hoping to keep him from an intergalactic incident out of it.
"But I've never mentally slammed someone into a wall because they wanted to look at my arm,"
"Sorry, I'm not as perfect as some people," she scoffed.
"It's more then about just losing control, and don't try to tell me it isn't. Because I tried to get Jacen to tell me but he said he promised you he wouldn't say anything,"
She purposely avoided his gaze.
"Tahiri, what are you trying to hide from me?"
"Anakin, just let it go," she said in a quiet voice.
"I won't let it go because I want to know what the big secret is you can tell my brother and not me,"
"I can't tell you, okay?"
"We've never kept anything from each other before,"
"This is different, Anakin," she said, trying to make him understand. "I never told Jacen because I wanted to keep secrets from you. Please, believe that,"
"Then why did you tell him?" Anakin was demanding to know. His temper was rising by the second. "Because you trust him more than me, is that it?"
She could hear the jealousy raging in his voice. This was the last thing she had wanted to happen. "That's not true and you know it. I just can't talk to you about it right now. I'm not saying that to hurt you but it's the truth,"
"When we were working on the ship, was all that just to keep me from finding out the truth? Pretending to take an interest in mechanics to keep me distracted so I wouldn't sense whatever it was you're hiding?"
"That's not true at all," she said, shaking her head. "I really wanted to learn about that stuff,"
He was too angry and too hurt to tell if she lying. Why else would she bother with taking an interest in how to fix ships when she had never before made an effort to in all the years he had known her? He never thought she was capable of being so deceptive and that's what hurt the most – even more so, then her choosing to confide in Jacen over him. He needed to get out of there and as far away from her as possible. She had been hiding things from him for months now and had gone running to confide in his brother. This wasn't the Tahiri he knew. It was a total stranger.
"I have to go," he muttered, turning away.
"Anakin, please – "
"Save it, Tahiri," he snapped at her. "When you feel like you're able to confide in me again, don't bother. Go talk to Jacen, I'm sure he'll be more than willing to listen,"
With those last words, Anakin left her room and stormed out of the apartment.
She could tell by the way his mind clamped shut when she tried to reach out to him that she had hurt him deeply. So how could she hurt him even more by telling him the truth?
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