MaraJadeSkywalkerJedi: thanks!
Eowyn Skywalker: thank you! And QuickEdit's horrible…but as long as I know someone's reading my stories, I'll keep posting, I guess :P :)
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Well, here it is…the climax…the "anything"…there will be one more post after this, so stick around!
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Part Five: Cry
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It was late, but Jaina was not in the habit of going to bed before Kyp returned for the night. Wistfully, she thought of her daughter; it had been almost a week since she had been able to spend time with Mikela. Her growing unease about Sanar's prophecy did not lift her misery. Even Kyp had commented on the storm that hung over her head.
Kyp… Jaina sighed, and indulged her heart for a moment, remembering the soft kiss that had followed his teasing. She had slept better last night than she had in ages.
The next second she scowled. Jaina Solo-Durron, you are turning into a sentimental old fool at the age of twenty-seven; what are you going to be like when you're actually "old"?
She flinched at her mind's instant response: Well, I'll never know, will I?
Properly furious with herself now, Jaina stomped over to the clock that hung over the dinner table. It was time someone made the thing able to zip around without a chain attached to it, she decided, eyes flashing. By now, she should be able to call it right into her room, when she didn't want to move from Kyp's arms. Its lack of artificial intelligence was the stupidest reason in the universe for the machine to wait around in one spot.
The clock's digital numbers glowed the time: two in the morning. She sighed again and rubbed her eyes. Where was Kyp? He was usually home by now…
And she sounded like a bossy old woman.
Maybe it's a good thing I'll have a short life; if I spent too long in my head, I'd go insane, the Jedi thought with exasperation.
Giving up on Kyp, Jaina headed over to the bed chamber. If she was going to deal with the insufferable clock, she was going to do it in the comfort of her bed. Opening the door, however, stole a small scream from her lips.
Standing in the middle of her room, studying a holo from Jaina and Kyp's honeymoon, was Emperor Palpatine.
The clock tumbled from Jaina's hand as she stepped back. The motion – and her scream – brought Palpatine's attention to her. "Have a seat," the Sith crowed beneath his hood. "Or don't; this won't take long."
Ice shrieked through Jaina's veins, and she realized this was it. This was Sanar's prophecy. This was what brought around Kyp's redemption.
"Love him, Jaina. Forget he's Lord Durron, and love him until your heart aches. It will weaken him." "…Palpatine will damn himself."
"Why are you here?" Jaina asked, forcing her voice to stay in control. Her fear showed only through her open derisiveness.
"You've been a very busy girl," Palpatine said, a demonic grin spreading across his face as he took a step forward. "Very busy."
Jaina didn't reply, but it took all her strength to stay where she was. His very stench was offensive, and even without the Force she knew she wouldn't like what was coming next.
"War can do that to a person," she replied.
"How, little one, is your head?"
The muscle in her jaw tightened, knowing he spoke of the tumour that had rooted itself in her head years ago, bringing about Kyp's betrayal. "I think your medicine was faulty," she stated bluntly.
Palpatine cackled. "What medicine?"
Jaina's eyes widened, despite herself. "What medicine"?? Did he… Would he… How…?
"It was an easy matter," the Sith sneered, "to put too much pressure on your brain; Durron was watching you closely but without real knowledge of medicine. His panic made him stupid. So easy," the emperor repeated, orange eyes glittering.
It took Jaina a long moment to find her voice, and then it failed and stumbled. "It – it was all a…fabrication?" she said weakly. "Just to get Kyp?"
"True, Jedi." Palpatine's triumphant sneer reached both ears.
"And meanwhile you pumped me full of…what? Metal?"
Again, Palpatine cackled. He was clearly enjoying this. Jaina was barely holding together under the more than unpleasant epiphany. She didn't need to be a seer to understand and agree with Sanar's prophecy; if anything threw Kyp over the edge, it would be this.
It was all for nothing.
"Insurance," the emperor finally said, deciding to crush her a little more. "I'm afraid," he continued mockingly, "that for three years poison has been lying dormant in your blood. Your death, when I activate the poison, will be painful."
She shut her ears as he went on about the slow, unstoppable agony. Stars in heaven; is this even worth it? Kyp, where are you? When no answer came, she gathered all her strength and glared right into Palpatine's hideous face. "Well, then, what are you waiting for? Activate it."
"Not yet; I'm waiting…" Palpatine's eyes gleamed, "for the daughter you so successfully hid from my apprentice."
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Mikela. My daughter. My sole reason for life when I wanted to give up. The best part of Kyp and I.
Palpatine went too far; everyone has their limit. The idea of Mikela being hurt was mine. Kyp's turning, I could fight for, sacrifice for. Mikela's life, I would die for.
I attacked before Palpatine could blink. In the confusion, an Imperial Guard entered the room, a great deal of Sith electricity flew about and in me, and someone…someone, who I will alternately curse and bless for the rest of my ever shortening life, activated the poison.
Palpatine was right: it was more painful than I could have possibly imagined.
But it wasn't Hell; Kyp would be there soon – had to be – and Palpatine would die, or we all would.
Mikela would be safe.
Regrets, I have many. My daughter…my husband…my sister. I was leaving them; my breathing was coming, going, in bursts. Sanar could never have prepared me for this. Agony laced through my veins.
Kyp…
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Underlings, bounty hunters and assassins were blown every which way as Lord Durron suddenly exploded in fear and anger. The Force threw everyone – with the exception of its furious wielder – to the closest wall, if the beings were lucky. A few spun into the centre of the command area and slid right down to the next level of technicians.
The next moment, Lord Durron was gone, faster than anyone could blink, if the larger percentage of them hadn't been unconscious.
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The pain made comprehension of the scene before her close to impossible. Jaina was pretty sure Kyp had come in…yelling…and she thought she might have been moved around and bruised. Bruises, she thought. The poison didn't affect her outward appearance. It cut at her insides, burned through her organs, but she didn't…
Yes, someone – or something – had thrown her about. Her skin was more tender in certain parts than it was in others. The part of her that could still think was pretty sure the poison spread throughout all of her body.
Vaguely, she heard accusations and condemnations ring through the room, felt the air crackle with electricity, saw three figures battle. Then one of the fighters (was he clothed in red or blood?) dropped, his head hurtling into her legs, banging them painfully and splattering blood. The body landed elsewhere. The smell of gore and burnt skin assaulted her senses.
Jaina felt life seep from her, wished she could have cuddled Mikela – laughed with Sanar – kissed the husband she'd lost years ago – just one last time Salty tears, bittersweet in her sacrifice, lined her cheeks, though she was barely aware of them. She wished she had a happier life to look back on.
Red and then black began to steal her vision. It was the end, she knew, but she wished she could have seen the start of the beginning she had lain down her life for.
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Give it up baby
I hear you're doin' fine.
Nothin's gonna save me
I see it in your eyes.
Some kind of heartache
Honey give it a try.
I don't want pity,
I just want what is mine
- "Cry" by Faith Hill
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Kyp didn't see Palpatine fall; he turned away from the twisted man, confident the vile thing would die without his watching. His thoughts were only for his wife, who he found, weakly twitching, to the far left, against her dresser.
He stared at her, wondering if he should touch her, hold her, or if that would just speed everything. If it would take her – the woman he had loved enough to betray – even more quickly. His impulses took over, and he gently lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed. Her head drooped, and her breathing was shallow. He left her for only a moment, to find the control panel for Jaina's anti-Force collar. Fingers trembling, he deactivated the contraption, but it was too late.
The Force had made Its decision; the Force was going to welcome a daughter in need of comforting; nothing would save her from Its comfort.
She was leaving him; she was already gone.
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If this was a storybook, Jaina would have been awake when I held her. We might have been able to cry together; I might have begged her forgiveness, told her that I had, did and would always love her. In a particularly romantic story, we would have shared a last kiss – and maybe that would have brought her back to life.
This is not a story; at least, not one you would pick off your bookshelf and read to your child. This is the untold truth: the dying and the left-behind to do not always have their goodbyes.
For one tiny moment, however, I felt the Force surge around us and Jaina opened her eyes. It was only a second, not nearly enough for all that needed to be said and done, but a true thing.
We shared no words, only a look: a look that spoke of the love and the hatred that we shared. Of the suffering and the joy; the truth and the lies. The sacrifice and the cowardly betrayals; the faults and the virtues.
Jaina and I shared more than most people will ever feel for a group of people, let alone for one other person. For every beautiful moment in our relationship, there was its polar opposite.
I betrayed her because I thought it was the only way to save her. I never meant for my Darkness to touch her.
It is only now, as her breathing slows, that I realize the truth: it was she that my turning most affected. Look at me, curse me, and do your best to hurt me, but nothing you do or say can be worse than the fact that I destroyed the one person I wanted to save.
Nothing.
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There was no clear line between the life and death of the Jedi Knight Jaina Solo-Durron. The poison did its work well; she was in pain until she fell into unconsciousness. The twitching of muscles faded, eventually, but it was impossible to see when, exactly, the last one was. Her breathing continued for a long time, but so did the breaks in between.
Three people cried that night: Jaina's lost and then returned husband, her sister and her daughter. One remained locked up in his quarters, torn apart by guilt and grief; two others escaped under the cover of darkness, the night doing nothing to hide either's tear-stained faces.
Beyond the solitary, grief-stricken trio, a stunned galaxy woke and saw the news: after a terrible fifty year reign, Emperor Palpatine was dead.
Eventually, the story of Jaina's sacrifice got out, but it became myth. Few knew the real truth. Elements were twisted – she had been the Emperor's Hand, or the concubine that finally took matters into her own hands. What was never told was the real tragedy of the sacrifices made by many – by Sanar, who let her sister go, by Kyp, who lost everything he never knew he had but refused to corrupt his wife's memory. Jaina's was the most obvious, the scream amongst whispers, but hers was, as she knew, over and done with.
Not everyone has that kind of twisted blessing.
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It's hard to just
Forget the past
So fast
It was good
It was bad but
It was real and that's
All you have
In the end
Our love mattered
- "Escape" by Enrique Inglesias
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...and I can't belive it. QuickEdit actually worked ths time :O What a twisted world we live in....
Please R&R!
-Tjz