Finding Things
Arashi Leonhart
Disclaimer: NJO and Star Wars are not mine. Zekk and Jaina are not mine. Although if the licensing department were willing to part with them...yeah right. I'm making no money from this, so please don't sue.
Takes place maybe a year or so after The Unifying Force. Obviously disregards Dark Nest and the Legacy Era.
Jaina found herself staring down at Coruscant.
Nothing in particular seemed to have guided her here. She wondered if the Force was at work here or if simply, she had just arbitrarily chosen this to venture into.
Former Republic Capital-turned Imperial Center-turned Republic Capital-turned Yuuzhan Vong homeworld of Yuuzhan'tar-turned Galactic Alliance home grew bigger in Jaina's viewport as she began an easy descent into the planet's embrace. With nowhere else to truly turn to and having not truly inspected the place up close since the final battle against the Vong, Jaina had come here to start a shore leave that would potentially last a good month.
With only light combat duties since the war had ended, Jaina had plenty of time to further her relationship with Jagged Fel. Possibly the only good thing that had happened to her in the entirety of the war.
Perhaps this was why she was destined to be the "Sword of the Jedi". Destined to only truly live in battle.
Peace had brought the end to the relationship.
Jagged's father Baron Soontir Fel had died under "mysterious circumstances" on Csilla and Jagged had returned to his home. Respectful of his privacy, Jaina waited in hopes that after the funeral Jag would turn to her.
She had not seen him since.
He had sent a message of course. What was more infuriating was that it was out of his control: the house that the Fel family served under had seen it fit to marry Jag, eldest surviving heir to the household, to a house politician to strengthen the position of that house.
Jaina fought the urge to go blasting into Csilla's system and vaping down every chiss fighter she saw.
They would not allow him to leave now, of course, nor had they since lightened the rules for allowing outsiders access to their borders. Especially considering the political situation, they did not want some little human girl to come and shift the balance for some human-inflamed infatuation and passion.
Of all the things to think, Jaina had suddenly felt a kinship with ostracized Grand Admiral Thrawn.
With no one to turn to--Jacen off wandering the galaxy, her parents working with the Imperial Remnant to work out a mutual setting, even Tahiri off amidst the Yuuzhan Vong living on Zonama Sekot--Jaina had only places to choose from, not people to go to. Although not expecting to truly find anything in specific, returning to Coruscant seemed as good a place as any to search for...
Well, something.
After a brief query of her purpose to visit Coruscant from the Alliance forces stationed there, Jaina found herself landing not too far from what remained of Imperial Palace where the Solo's had made their home.
Regardless of her dull, rather unemotional feeling that seemed to reside in the place where thoughts of home should reside, Jaina found herself climbing out of her X-Wing's cockpit in a bit more of a hurry than she truly felt to take. Motioning to her R2 unit to stay put for a while and telling him that she would be back, Jaina simply stripped herself of her helmet and the boxy life support system that pilots wore when venturing into deep space. Leaving the ship behind, the young woman found herself moving at just beyond a leisurely pace down the stairways and bridges into the depths of the city-planet.
She was going somewhere. She just didn't know where that place was.
The walkways and bridges had finished their decay under the Yuuzhan Vong terraforming and the Alliance forces that had surveyed the planet had hastily marked those that still stood. Avoiding the ones marked potentially dangerous, Jaina found herself moving in the general direction of the outer reaches of what had been the entertainment district that had made residence near Imperial Palace after the destruction of the Reborn Emperor.
Despite the massive amounts of history this place evoked and the massive amount of things on her mind, Jaina felt vaguely aware of the fact that it all seemed to throb with a dull ache in the back of her head rather than pressing matters to be dealt with. She wondered if this was life imitating art; if her art was battle, and she felt this way in battle, was her regular life imitating it?
A figure landed behind her and she whirled around, the snap-hiss of her violet blade sounding as she turned to face the potential attacker.
Her blade was met by a flame-colored blade similar to her own. Feedback jolted her arms as the weapons met, locking in an X between the two wielders.
"Hey!" cried Zekk, "is this how Jedi Knights greet people?"
Both blades deactivated at the same time and Jaina shook her head, a sense of déjà vu threatening to overwhelm her. She sighed, annoyed with herself. "I didn't sense you were here, sorry."
The dark-haired man shrugged, clipping his lightsaber back onto his belt. "I didn't know it was you until you whipped out the blade." He blinked, then shook his head. "I mean, uh, hi. What brings you here?"
Jaina didn't smile. "Just ended up here. Why're you here?"
"Checking out...home." Zekk sighed himself, motioning back over his shoulder to where he had jumped down from. "I haven't been back here since...you know. And I wanted to see everything for myself."
"Peckhum with you?"
Zekk shook his head. "No. Came on my own, still trying to adjust to the Shadow's Escape."
Jaina blinked at him and he gave her his best roguish grin. "My Sekotian ship. Tenel Ka was actually the one to suggest it. She thought the name sounded 'apt'."
The Twin Suns commander managed a tight smirk. "That sounds right. Both her and the ship, I mean. How's she doing?"
"Same as always. Watching out for backstabbers double-time now that they're in the highest stages of their rebuilding process." He shook his head. "Can't imagine what it's like ruling an entire kingdom. Hard enough commanding a squadron."
"Heard you skipped out on the latter," Jaina said. She shook her head. "Didn't mean that like it sounded."
"Pretty much what happened anyway. Just, well, with how slow things were going, I thought at the very least I could use the time off." He narrowed his eyes. "What about you?"
"About the same." She didn't feel inclined to talk further about it. "Found anything around here?"
The former Bounty Hunter shrugged. "Not really. Except a secretive Alliance Colonel who's obviously got a lot on her mind."
They found themselves walking. Going somewhere. Even if they didn't know that somewhere just yet.
"How's Jacen doing?"
Jaina shrugged. "Well, I guess. Last I talked to him he was about to go back to Sekot for a while."
"And Jag?"
She found herself looking away from his green eyes. Just light enough to remind her too much of the topic of his question. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Fair enough." Zekk's tone suggested he at least got enough out of that to make a guess as to the answer.
Quick to turn the critical eye away from her, she conjured up long-unused memories. "How about you and...um..."
"Fiyal." He shrugged. "We broke up months ago. Still on friendly enough terms that I left her in charge of the Fireblades."
"Oh." Jaina felt more than a little embarassed that she hadn't even remembered her name, much less the fact that it had ended before she had even gotten used to it beginning. "Sorry, I didn't know."
"You never asked before."
For some reason, that comment stung although Jaina knew it should not have as much as it did. Shoulders falling a bit, she took a breath. "Jag got married on Csilla. I can't even visit him."
That seemed to turn the mood even further polar than before. "Um...wow. That's...complicated."
She couldn't really expect to not feel regretful when dealing with her friend's lives if she didn't open up herself, Jaina supposed. Although she still didn't want to stay on the topic any longer than she felt she had to. "Yeah."
They continued walking.
To somewhere.
And although the rift of the earlier comment on never asking had somehow been hastily patched, she realized that there was an even bigger one before her. Both of them did, really.
A rift she hadn't been aware existed, nor had she felt was so important it didn't exist until now.
Jaina sighed. "I don't know...really. Who I am anymore, what I do, any of it." She motioned to him. "I mean...I'm so far from the person I once was I didn't even recognize your presence earlier. I hardly even recognize my own family.
Zekk listened, silent, mulling over a response. Yet again, she marveled at the differences that everyone had gone through, knowing that the person she once knew would have had a dozen responses already plotted out.
"I don't know," she repeated. "I guess I came here to see if I can't track down my roots or something. The branch I was on just got pruned."
"I don't know if the same is true with you," Zekk said, "but my experience is that going back to the beginning doesn't work. Not at least in the way you want it to. All you find is that you can't go back and are even more inclined to go forward instead."
"Guess you would know something about that, huh?"
"Just a little."
They walked in silence for a while, content to simply keep company. Despite the destruction of the area, despite the unfamiliarity with the growth occurring around them, the landscapes were just familiar enough for them to be confident in their steps.
Where those steps led them was anyone's guess.
However close the two of them had been as teenagers had definitely changed. Jaina walked as one who had a purpose but had no idea how to walk to it. Zekk walked as if he knew how to get there, but had no destination in mind. They constantly had to readjust their tempo to keep steady with each other. Five years ago that would never have been an issue.
Five years ago, Jaina had been a part of a family. Now she had a family, but felt like all of the parts had collapsed into individuals with shared blood once...Anakin...once that had happened. He had been the backbone to a family regardless of being the youngest.
Five years ago, Zekk had been part of a family. Now that family was ruined by responsibility out of their control. A Hapan Princess. A fallen Jedi martyr. A questioning boy. A joking sentimentalist. A loyal guardian to them all. A chatterbox without shoes. A girl who had saved him once before, but refused to be saved in return.
Five years ago, neither of them knew or understood loss.
"What happened to them? The little boy and girl we once knew?" Zekk asked.
"I used to hope they were still out there. That I could find them again someday."
They were walking up an embankment, up to a level of Coruscant that had once housed entertainment. Now it housed the faint scent of rust and decay. It seemed to be untouched compared to a good deal of the areas Jaina had already seen by both the Yuuzhan Vong and the Alliance forces that had returned to their former capital.
"Zekk," Jaina whispered, "what happened to us?"
His green eyes dulled into something vaguely gray. "I don't know."
"It's not only you. But everyone. I look at my brother and I hardly even know him. My parents are different people. Uncle Luke now has a family of his own to worry about. All my friends...sans Lowie, we've all splintered off. Changed. Some of us have died." She visibly shivered. "I can't help but feel like I'm so disconnected that I actually did die during the war and my body just doesn't realize it yet."
They were silent for a long moment. Somehow or another, as they had been walking, they ended up standing amidst the remains of what had once been a holopark for children to view "live" images of exotic animals. Neither one of them seemed to really notice.
Zekk took his time to compose his words. "For as long as I've known you, one thing hasn't changed. You want to do things. You have to be active, working, not idle. You would always question why we were even waiting around before taking action. The war obviously forced you to take that to an extreme, but it was and is still you. I know that much hasn't changed. Nothing has happened to that."
"Everything else has changed."
"People have died. You've seen war. You've become an adult. Had to retire friendships and relationships." He shrugged. "That's life, I guess."
They found themselves climbing atop one of the rusted "cages" that had held the holo animals in captivity. It was the only one that had not fallen apart due to the Yuuzhan Vong's terraforming. Neither seemed to be aware of how child-like it would appear to an outsider just passing through.
"So now what?" She didn't like to voice the fact that both of them knew: one of the retired friendships had been between them. Although she knew it was not exactly her fault, Jaina felt guilty over it. "What's the point to all of that?"
"My point is that you need to still be Jaina and continue doing that," Zekk replied.
Silence ruled over them again for a little while. They found themselves sitting on the edge of the cage's roof, dangling their feet over the sides.
"For as long as I've known you," Jaina said, her voice quieting, "you've been good at finding your way to things you need."
"We've all learned that the Force leads us all down our destiny's way." He shrugged. "You should remember that, regardless of what has changed about us, you helped me go down that way."
"We can't start up where we just left off. There wasn't anything to leave off from."
"No, we can't. You're right."
Jaina suddenly jumped down from the cage, turning to look back up at Zekk.
Time to do something.
"Hey. Have we met before? My name's Jaina. I could really, really use a friend at the moment."
A tight, small smile made it's way onto Zekk's lips. He jumped down after her. "No, I don't think we have been properly introduced. I'm Zekk. I've been looking for a friend for a while now."
Tentative hands came up to clasp.
"I think you might've just found one."
End