This will probably be the last chapter I post for a few days. I need to get to work on the ending. Everything's been written, but I don't like the way it went so I intend to re-write it, but I don't have time to write and reformat on the same days. I would post as-is, except I write in wordpad, spell check in Word Perfect, and post from Microsoft Works. I would do everything in Works except it locks my computer up after only a few minutes. After all that, my stories end up looking like this: childs and that just isn't right.

In the mean time, I may not post for a few days. It will be less than a week, I promise. (posts will come sooner if I get lots of contributions to the "Buy Pokey1984 a New Computer" fund or if I get enough reviews to guilt me into it.)

Anyway, here it is...

History's Keeper

Part two: Skipping Forward

In the morning, Leia, Luke, and Doctor Faran met in the museum and went downstairs to Nerinika's rooms. Luke and Leia set up a table while Bren warmed up the breakfast and woke Nerinika.

Nerinika was very pleased to have her own clothes as well as the other items in the bag. She went into the 'fresher to change and came out moving much more swiftly than she had the previous day. She had chosen a long-ish tunic and leggings, the top was a pale cream while the leggings were a bright green. She was barefoot. Leia noted that she had not only brushed her hair, but braided it and was wearing jewelry; thin, dangling earrings and a round, coin sized pendant.

By the time breakfast was ready, the table was set and Nerinika was seated. Leia introduced herself, as neither of the men had thought to mention her to the girl, and Nerinika insisted that if she were to call the senator Leia, then Leia was to call her Neri.

"Well, Neri, I don't know much about you, other than your medical history, would you like to tell me about yourself?"

"Okay." Neri started talking while she filled her plate from the dishes on the table. "What would you like to know."

"Well, we know that Tara and Remi were your foster parents, did you know your birth parents?" Leia hoped that by asking what were probably the hardest questions first, the entire ordeal might be easier. Leia also hoped that since she and Luke were also raised by foster parents, the common ground would help the girl trust them. She did not get the reaction she expected however.

"But that is in the Temple archives. You are both Jedi, you should have been able to look that up! They have a whole file on my mom." The girls tone was somewhere between shock that they didn't know and admonishment for not doing their homework.

Luke and Leia looked at each other. This was going to be harder than they thought. Luke was the one who spoke, phrasing his sentence very carefully. "I am afraid that, over the years, most of the Archives have been destroyed."

This information seemed to shock her more than the revelation that over forty years had passed. Luke felt her denial. "But surely Obi-Wan told you when you contacted him, or Master Yaddle, she would know. It's only been fifty years, surely someone remembers me? I was at the temple all the time, everyone knows who I am." She wasn't bragging, she was just startled. "Have you even told anyone I am okay?" The girl was suddenly suspicious. What if these people weren't who they said they were. Obi-Wan had told her about many of his missions with Qui Gon, there were lots of bad people in the world. She didn't know what any of them would want with her, but it couldn't be good.

Luke was taken aback and Bren, who had taken the seat directly across from her was speechless. Neri decided that this shock was genuine and relaxed a bit, maybe they were telling the truth after all. Leia, who had maintained her composure, spoke next. "Neri, We don't know whom we should tell." Leia's tone was apologetic.

"Well, I figured Master Qui Gon had probably died. He wasn't a young man when I was hurt. Obi-Wan Kenobi was his apprentice, he would be about sixty five now, he was probably knighted just after my accident. Master Yaddle, She runs the Archives, would want to know that I was okay. Bant, I don't know her last name, I don't think she has one, she is a couple of years younger than Obi-Wan, she's a mon calmari, she was training to be a healer..." Neri trailed off slowly realizing that the people in front of her didn't know any of the people she was talking about.

"What is going on, I know forty years is a long time but it isn't that long. Surely someone I know is still around." Nerinika's eyes were pleading and her hands trembled slightly. Surely everyone can't be...

Luke took her hands and looked in her eyes. "Nerinika, some very terrible things have happened while you were asleep." he began quietly.

For the next three hours Luke quietly related the highlights of galactic history for the last forty years. Leia watched silently as the girl's eyes widened in horror at Luke's story. When he reached present day he stopped. Leia noted that he left out little. He had downplayed his and Leia's parts in the story and hadn't mentioned much about Darth Vader or the emperor's deaths, but otherwise he was nothing but honest and straight-forward even mentioning his own training and Obi-Wan and Yoda's deaths. By the end of the tale Nerinika had tears running down her face again. At some point, Bren had cleared the table of the breakfast dishes and had brought a hover chair to the table. He took the opportunity to change the subject and give the girl time to recover.

"I think it would be a good idea for you to get some fresh air. Come on, doctors orders." He said, pushing the hover chair next to her own stationary one.

"I can walk okay." Neri protested.

"I know you can, but you get tired very easily and I want to take you to a park that is quite a distance from here. You can get up and walk once your there but I don't want to have to carry you back here later Okay?"

Neri giggled a bit through her tears and obediently sat in the hover chair.

"Are you two coming or what?" Bren teased as he turned Neri toward the stairs.

"Right behind you." Luke called jumping up quickly, Leia mimicked his motion.

It turned out that the trip outside was exactly what Neri needed. The sun was shining and it had recently rained so the air smelled clean and fresh. Nerinika had always found it hard to be sad or depressed when the day was so beautiful. Luke could feel her stress melting away and was ever so grateful to the old doctor. He hadn't planed on the girl finding out that way. He had wanted to cushion the blow a bit, by giving the information to her in bits and pieces, but she had needed to know. It would have been harder on her to think that no one whom she had known cared about her anymore, than to know that they weren't by her side because they were dead.

Leia was heartened by the fresh air as well and wondered at the girl's recovery. Neri seemed to be taking everything very well. Of course, the girl was terribly upset, but she seemed to be putting her grief aside, to deal with it later. That, was something the former leader of the rebellion knew all too well. Leia watched the child as Bren pushed her hover chair down the sidewalk. Neri had a soft smile on her face as Bren told her stories about the buildings they passed.

The group walked until they reached a grassy expanse that sloped gently downhill. There were benches placed here and there around the edges of the field and there was a large pavilion at the top of the hill. Fifty yards away, at the bottom of the hill, a small stream ran across a bed of stone. The opposite side of the creek was a steep hill covered in paths where children had climbed through the trees and large boulders that made up the hillside. In either direction there was playground equipment.

"Its so beautiful!" Nerinika was quite enthralled. The park was very beautiful, but it was also a very happy place. Even though there were no children here currently, one could almost hear the sound of laughter.

"That it is. It is also a much nicer place for you to do calisthenics than that musty old basement." Bren put on his best 'doctor' face. "Now, up you go. I want you to walk down to the creek and back. Don't be afraid to stop and take a break if you need to."

Bren watched her confidence grow with every step and was pleased to note that she was much stronger than he had first estimated. When she returned, She asked if Leia would go back with her, she had found some small fish in the creek. Leia seemed as enthusiastic as Neri and the two were soon splashing in the water with their shoes off.

Bren and Luke watched from the top of the hill. "You should know, Luke, Doctor Quayde was not paranoid. I read his journal, every word of it."

"What did he have to say?"

"The girl was special. Master Yoda himself came to see to her after her accident. When Vader destroyed the temple, Quayde became frightened for the girls safety and hid her away, erasing any record of her. He felt that if the emperor ever found out about her, he would destroy her." Bren stopped and sighed. "I heard what you told Doctor Ecin, Luke. You were more right than you know. I don't know what those Jedi told Quayde, but you can see the result. The man never even heard the girl speak, but he was willing to risk his reputation to hide her, and risked his life by doing so."

Luke said nothing. He knew. He didn't know why the girl was so important either, but he could tell she was. Instead of responding, Luke just ran down the hill to join his sister and his friend in what was rapidly becoming a splashing war.

Bren just stared at the three of them. The princess turned senator, the Jedi master, and the fifty-six year old teenager were trying to catch fish barehanded in a stream in the park. Bren just sighed and took a holo of the spectacle. He knew no one would ever believe him otherwise.

After the park, the group went back to the museum, stopping along the way to buy a treat at a confectioners shop. Back in her rooms, Neri took a nap and Luke, Leia, and Bren talked about her. She woke after only an hour, feeling refreshed. The group had lunch and Leia restarted the conversation they had meant to have that morning.

"Neri, are you ready to tell us about yourself now?"

"Yes, I think I am." She took a deep steadying breath and thought about where to start. Best to start at the beginning... "Let's see, My mother was a Jedi Knight named Kaylia. She was a friend to many in the temple. One day, while she was meeting an informant in the lower reaches of Coruscant, she was attacked and raped. She killed her attacker and escaped, and I was the result." Neri paused here to see the adults reactions. Luke was horrified, Leia's face contained just a touch of anger on her behalf, and Bren was nodding sadly.

"My mother had a vision shortly after she learned she was pregnant. She never told anyone what it was of, but she said in a letter she left me that it told her I should not be raised in the temple. She said that she knew I needed a home, with a family like I couldn't get at the temple. She resigned from the order and tried to raise me by herself. She would have been okay, except the man who attacked her had a brother. The brother, who had been rejected by the Jedi because of his violent nature, swore vengeance on Kaylia.

"He tracked us all over the galaxy and Mother eventually called on her old friend, Master Qui Gon Jinn, to help. I think she knew she was going to die. I was only three, but I remember how determined she was, and how sad." Nerinika paused again, this time to take a drink of water.

"Mother fought the bad man. She had fought him before and her lightsabre was damaged. This time she was ready for him though." She stood up and walked to the bed, where she found the small wooden box and brought it back. She took a necklace off and used the charm to open the lock. She pulled out a twisted piece of metal and some fragments of purple crystal. Luke was the only one who recognized it.

"Mother gave me to Uncle Qui Gon and fought the bad man. While we were running away, her lightsabre failed. The makeshift repairs she had to do destroyed the crystal. As soon as we were safe, she set off a thermal detonator. This was thrown free of the blast."

Now Leia and Bren recognized it. Leia stood and hugged the girl. When she was seated again, the story resumed.

"I went to live with Aunt Tara and Uncle Remi after that. They weren't really related to me, but we were very happy. Qui Gon, who had been my mothers best friend, came to see me all the time. He and his apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi, helped me learn about my mother. I was here, on her home world, on vacation, when the speeder crash happened. Anyway, Obi-Wan helped me learn most of what I know of her. He took me to the temple library all the time. I loved it there. Master Yaddle, she ran the library, Liked me a lot. She helped me research anything I wanted to know. She even gave me Elyoo... Oh!"

Neri jumped up again and ran to the bed, sorting through the bag and finally just dumping it's contents on the floor. She found the item she was looking for wrapped in a large cloth. What she carried over to the table was a bronze sphere about the same size as a child's head. When she pushed a button on it's top, the droid came to life. It's photo receptors came on and it beeped before floating into the air. It looked at all of the people at the table and turned to Neri, seeming to beep a question. Neri giggled and responded. "Ellyoo, this is Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, Senator Leia Organa Solo, and Doctor Bren Faran. Everyone, this is LU-43. He is a library droid that master Yaddle gave to me when he was due to be retired."

"Nice to meet you Ellyoo" Nerinika looked at him with amusement when Luke responded cordially, Leia and Bren merely nodded their greetings.

"I'll fill you in later Ellyoo. Right now, I was telling these nice people about me." The droid beeped again and settled on the table top to wait it's turn. "As I was saying, I spent loads of time in the temple library, they had real books there, books about everything. I also loved to go to the initiates wing and play games with the other kids. Aunt Tara worried that I wanted to be a Jedi and that she had made the wrong choice but I didn't want to be a Jedi, I still don't, but I did like it in the temple. I can't believe it's gone."

"It isn't gone completely, Palpatine turned it into his imperial palace when he took over. We are working to restore some of it, but we don't know what most of it looked like before." Leia had an idea, she hoped the girl would be interested.

"I could help with that!" The girl caught on quickly and apparently loved the idea. "I have seen most of it, I could help you fix it!" Luke grinned at her enthusiasm. This was exactly who he needed to help him. Nerinika remembered everything. She had been there just a few days ago after all

Bren cleared his throat. "But not until you're well enough, got it?"

"I understand, doctor. Is there anything else you wanted to know about me. The rest is just plain, boring stuff."

Luke answered, "Not right now, you have answered most of the big questions, like who we should try to contact and..."

"I have a question," Bren interrupted, he turned to Leia "What is going to happen to Neri now?"

"I guess that depends on what she wants to do. What do you want Neri?"

Neri thought a while. "I always wanted to be a historian. I love learning about different people and cultures."

"I don't see why you can't still do that. And if you like, you are welcome to come back to Coruscant with Luke and I. I have a spare room you can have until you make more specific plans."

"I would like that very much. I don't suppose there is anything left of my home on Coruscant."

"No I don't think so." Luke replied with a sad shake of her head. "We can look though when we get there."

"Or better yet, I will have Han look when I call him tonight, that way we don't have to do any of the legwork and we'll know sooner. He'll probably be glad for the excuse to leave the children with Winter. I've haven't left him alone with them for this long since Anakin was born."

"Who's Han?" Neri and Bren asked in unison

"Han Solo is my husband. He is back on Coruscant with my children Jania and Jacen and Anakin. You'll meet him when we arrive. Speaking of, when will Neri be okay to travel?"

"Whenever she decides she can bear to part with my company."