Chapter 18: I Love You, I Know
Relief coursed through Ben as the false New Republic fleet retreated away from the Naboo system; however, the relief was short-lived as he remembered that they had not been able to hold off Nefarion's fleet the way they had wanted to. Many of the fighters had made passes over Yuuzhan Vong settlements before Ben's or Anakin's squadrons could come through and chase them off. He had a feeling that his vision had not been as avoided as he thought it could be.
Keorra's X-wing came to flank his; Artoo beeped at her astromech droid. "Do we head back, Skywalker?" she asked sharply, still angry about what had happened back at Uncle
Karrde's home base.
He shook his head, knowing he could no longer run from Anakin, from the Temple, and from the Jedi. His destiny was pulling him to them, and he would no longer fight the will of the Force. "Land near the Yuuzhan Vong settlements, I want to see how many I can save before I recall Uncle Talon's people."
He felt her soften under these words. "Good plan, Skywalker. But what after that?" she asked, knowing that he had not wanted to be discovered by his family. That his fear of what she called Kalla would destroy them all.
The vision of his older self reaching out to him, as if to grasp his very spirit, flashed before his eyes, the Yuuzhan Vong surrounding the Temple, Yuuzhan Vong he would control, roaring battle cries, worshipping him as though he were a god. Un'kalla, he was now the sheathed sword of destruction, but what if he became like the Emperor, let the power that could do so much good destroy the galaxy? The Emperor had gone Kalla, unleashing the sword, and Ben's visions showed him that he would do the same.
iNo, I will stop myself before that future can ever come to pass/i, Ben swore to himself. The sword will stay sheathed, even if it means melting it down.
"Ben?" It was Anakin's voice this time.
Ben scratched his chin where the strap to his flight helmet cut into the skin. "Anakin, I'll meet you down on the surface, I'm sending you the coordinates now."
"Does that mean you're coming home, Ben?" Anakin asked softly, afraid to hear the answer.
A shudder went through Ben. "I don't know, Anakin. I just know that I can't run any longer."
The Force had made that clear to him, had directed him to face his destiny, had pulled him towards it with each unconscious move, until he had found himself in the very place he had tried to avoid. Amongst the people he cared about the most, the people he could destroy if he went Kalla - not if, when.
"Alright, Ben. I'll meet you at your coordinates, but then I want to have a talk with you," Anakin said, his deep voice coming over the earset in his helmet. "You must understand that this fear of yours is ridiculous."
"Is it, Anakin?" Ben asked harshly. "Have you seen what I have? Have you suddenly been gifted with this curse?"
There was a hesitation from his cousin that Ben had planned on. Everyone would tell him that he had nothing to fear, that they could not imagine him becoming what his visions betrayed, but none of them had actually seen what he had. Would they say the same thing if it was them in his place?
"We'll discuss this when we land," Anakin answered, ignoring the antagonism in Ben's tone.
"You shouldn't be so hard on him, Skywalker," Keorra came back after Anakin had signed off. "He just cares for you."
Ben sighed, feeling guilt well up inside of him. He knew Anakin was trying to do his best for Ben, felt obligated since his father's dying request had been for Anakin to train Ben, Anakin having always been especially close to Luke Skywalker. "I know," he whispered.
Without another word the two angled their respective ships towards the jewel-like planet of Naboo, a peace exploited by the Sith. Touching down on the surface, Ben was the only one prepared to see what lay before them. They had gone to the settlement that had been hit the worst by Nefarion's fleet, and it was evident in the streets. Ben hopped out of his X-wing, ignoring Artoo's mournful whisper, and walked out onto the pavement, where dozens upon dozens of Yuuzhan Vong lay dead at his feet. He closed his eyes against the sight, as he had in his vision, not wanting to see the rusted blood that pooled under each of them. It made him want to lose the contents of his stomach.
iI could have seen this sooner, he thought abruptly. I stopped the visions, and disaster lay in its wake. Perhaps the Force would have shown it to me in such a way that I could have stopped it, if I had allowed the visions earlier./i Ben had wanted the nightmares to stop so much, the rising darkness tainting what he saw now. In his youth, he had enjoyed the visions, even the dark ones of the past, for they had given him knowledge into the Order, but now he only saw the torture of knowing what you could not stop.
He knelt beside the closest Yuuzhan Vong, pressing a finger to the spot where he could check the Yuuzhan Vong for any sort of thready heart rate. His searching fingers found nothing, and he hopped from one prone Vong to the next, hoping to find one Yuuzhan Vong he could save. Soon Keorra came to stand beside him and grabbed him by the shoulders, lifting him from the mayhem.
"You can't help them, Skywalker," she said softly, drawing him back to where Anakin stood by his Naboo fighter. It was as natural as breathing when Keorra's fingers laced with his own.
Ben stilled himself in front of his cousin - he didn't want any emotion to be betrayed that Anakin could read. He did not want to have sympathy, for it was not him that lay dead in the streets of Naboo. "You wanted to talk, Anakin?"
It surprised him when his cousin plowed through Keorra and crushed Ben in a hug. "I'm so glad you're safe," Anakin breathed into his ear.
For a moment Ben was too shocked to do anything. Anakin had never hugged him before, and it had been so long since anyone had given him this sort of physical contact that Ben froze for a moment. Then he reached up his arms and flung them around Anakin, savoring the moment where he could feel loved. But eventually it was Ben who pulled away. There was still much to do, and very little time to do it. The Force was whispering this to him.
"Where're Cherrz and Analsa?" Ben asked, knowing that the two had been with Anakin when they had arrived on Naboo.
A shadow crossed over Anakin's face. "Analsa was hurt in the attack, Ben. I left Cherrz to watch her, but I don't know her condition." There came an enigmatic smile upon Anakin's features. "She was saving the Queen."
"How did Valin die, Anakin?" Ben asked softly. He and the other boy had never been close, but they had come to an understanding between them, and Ben had hoped that it could have developed into a friendship.
Anakin's hesitance made Ben uncomfortable. What was the story behind Valin Horn's death? "We should talk about it another time, Ben."
"No, Anakin, we can talk about it now," Ben was being more demanding then he had ever been before with Anakin, but he needed to know. "Why won't you tell me?"
"He's afraid of what your reaction might be," Keorra said from his left, the tone of her voice alerting him that she was in Soulreader mode.
Anakin's head snapped on Keorra, and Ben could only imagine what was running through the older Jedi's mind. But a decisive look came over the tall Jedi, and he centered his gaze back on Ben. "Valin was killed in one of the strikes against the Yuuzhan Vong. He was out by a Separatist planet, leading the Jedi team away from me and you."
Ben paled at Anakin's gently spoken words; they had been uttered in such a way as to be soothing for Ben, but it did not help to hide the truth. Valin had died because of him, had died to protect him in a roundabout way, and the pain of this struck home in Ben's heart. iHow many more people will die to protect me/i he thought, his parents' specters dancing in his head.
"I see," Ben stammered out. "Corran - is he alright?" Ben asked.
"He has handled it as well as can be expected," Anakin assured him.
iProbably better then I have handled my parents' death/i, Ben thought, seeing the stoic Jedi Master Corran Horn. A man whom he had respected since the day his parents had introduced them. "Good," Ben said shortly. "Let's check on Analsa and Cherrz. We should get back to the Temple as soon as possible." He owed Corran at least that much, to not let his son's death be in vain.
"Now you are so eager to get back?" Anakin questioned, disbelievingly. "Why?"
"I'm going - isn't that enough for you?" Ben shot back, his hands clenching into fists at his side. "People have been hurt and killed so that I could return safely, do you think I would just brush aside their sacrifices? Or do you not know me so well, cousin?"
Anakin was reacting to Ben's own frustration, their anger fueling off of one another. "Ben, I don't think you know yourself well enough."
That hit Ben like a slap to the face, stinging with just as much force. He backed away from Anakin in the shock of sudden realization, knocking into Keorra. "You're right, Anakin, I don't but you have no idea what I do know. If you'll excuse me," was all he said, before making a dash for his father's X-wing.
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Anakin watched his cousin as he ran for the X-wing that had once been his father's. He could see that he had struck a nerve in the usually cool Ben Skywalker, and he wondered how Uncle Luke would have handled this situation. But if Uncle Luke had been here, this situation would have been obviated. And only Anakin Solo had ever come back from the dead.
He was just about to head off for his cousin, when a slim hand grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. "Just who do you think you are?" came the much crisper feminine voice he had heard on the comm unit over Naboo space. He was finally able to put a face to the voice. She wasn't a tall girl, probably a handspan shorter than Ben himself, her hair so light that it was nearly white, standing out against the rich color of her skin and the vibrancy of her violet eye. No, she wasn't physically commanding, but her presence made you stand on tiptoe. "Do you have any idea how difficult it was for him to come here? Feeling as though he was putting you in danger? Can't you see it in his eyes?"
"Keorra Cereaslean, I assume," Anakin addressed her, matching that haughtiness of her tone. "A pleasure to meet you."
"I'm sure," she sneered at him.
"And what is it exactly that I should have seen in my cousin?" he asked pointedly. He felt as though he were being pulled in two directions; towards Ben and towards Analsa. Each vying for dominance inside of him.
Those enigmatic violet eyes bore into him. "Perhaps that he is just a boy, with a power he still doesn't understand."
That shocked Anakin. "You know of Ben's abilities?"
"He trusted me as much," Cereaslean said, tipping her chin upward in certain pride. "Perhaps you should worry about his trust for you, rather than his motives. For I assure you, right now they are pure."
It was the way she had formed the sentence that alarmed him the most. "Right now? You act as though that may change."
Her shoulders hunched, and she looked as though this was the hardest thing in the world for her to say. "Because they might. You don't understand the power your cousin holds, and thus the duty you have to him. He told me that his father asked you to train him. I don't think even Master Skywalker knew the power his son could command one day, or what he was asking of you."
"He told me that balance would be brought through us," Anakin spoke, but as though he were thinking out loud to himself. He fell back against his fighter. "I can't do this."
"I believe you can," said Cereaslean, sincerity ringing from every word.
Angrily, Anakin shook his head. "Who are you?"
A smile to match the puzzle of her eyes flashed over Cereaslean's elfin face. "Let's just say that I can see into your soul, Anakin Solo."
"And what do you see? A seventeen-year-old trapped in the body of a thirty-year-old?" he asked softly.
"Sometimes age is not numbered by years, but by experience," Cereaslean countered. "You have been through an ordeal few people, if any, can understand. Just don't let that ordeal ruin you."
"So how do I help Ben?" Anakin asked, somehow knowing that this girl could guide him through to his cousin.
"I've got an idea, but it will take a while to set up," Cereaslean said. "I'll let you know when I've got it."
Again, Anakin caught a certain tone to her voice. "Why do I get the feeling this isn't going to help us very much?"
"Be optimistic," she chided him, before spinning on her heel and climbing the ladder to her X-wing.
Anakin had thought that he would never meet a person more of a frustrating mystery than Analsa Vinn, but he was sure that Analsa would be meeting her match with this one. The girl had more confidence than anyone he had ever met at her age, and it was obvious that Ben had stolen a piece of her heart, even though they were both ignoring the fact. Shaking his head at the new complications that sprung into his life with every breath, Anakin decided to follow Keorra Cereaslean's lead and mounted the Naboo starfighter the Queen had prepared for him.
iWhen does my life start to get less complicated/i
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Consciousness was like leaping into hyperspace for Sarlana - one moment she was lost in the bliss of darkness, the next there were shooting stabs of light tormenting her sandblasted eyes and mind. She jerked, legs and arms flinging around in the confines of the medical sheets, a gasp tearing from her mouth. She was awake, but she wasn't totally aware, her arms bound by analysis wires monitoring her heart and air-oxygen levels. But Sarlana was running on the nearly animalistic tendencies that had been drilled into her by her Sith Master.
She rolled off the medical bunk, hunching down on her flanks to gather information with those instincts that had been coerced from her by savagery. Brown eyes the color of hot chocolate hopped among corners of a room, never staying long on one object before snapping to take in another. Swirls of light and Dark Side Force clashed around her, vying for dominance inside the injured Sith apprentice.
Pulling off the monitoring wires, alarms blared loudly on the machines built into the bulkhead, and Sarlana leaped half a meter in the air before kicking a leg out to demolish the annoyance. A trace of blood trickled down her bare heel, leaving patches of blood as she inched her way through the room. Awareness was beginning to come, but only served to fuel her fright, for she still had no idea where she was.
For the moment she forgot that she was under the guise of Analsa Vinn, her real name, the person she had started life as, and not Lady Sarlana, the Sith apprentice to Lord Nefarion. So when the medical aide came running into the room to check on his patient, Sarlana reacted without thought, leaping at the hapless Gungan.
They both went down in a pile of rubbery limbs, and Analsa fought to knock the Gungan senseless. Sarlana's breath came out in haggard gasps as she leaned over the blubbering Gungan, who was fighting desperately to knock off his mad patient. She grabbed either side of his head, ready to pound it into the floor, when a voice stopped her short.
"Analsa!" With the simplicity of her alias spoken by Anakin Solo, Sarlana's memory finally snapped into place, her alias automatically covering the first layer of consciousness.
Slowly, she pulled her hands from the side of the Gungan's amphibious head, and looked at them as though surprised that they belonged to her. In the moment she had seen him, she had feared him, had continued to fear him, despite the fact that his whole defense had been to flop around on the floor she had him keenly pressed against. Sith reacted when it was in the greatest benefit to them, but she had reacted without thought, feral almost. She put her hands to her own head, as if to press the broken menagerie of thoughts into place. What had Nefarion done to her?
She flung herself off of the Gungan, and scooted backwards until her back hit the bunk she had just vacated, rolling her legs under her and hugging them so that her knees rested under her chest. She felt now that she claimed two personalities; that Analsa Vinn had not only become a persona to don during her infiltration of the Temple, but a reality inside of her. There wasn't enough room for two in her mind, and Analsa was fighting for dominance. Tears glimmered in her eyes, trickling down her cheeks to fall on the knee-pulled fabric of her medical smock, sopping into the fabric to touch the heated skin of her knee.
Anakin helped the distraught Gungan to his feet, and spoke in such a soft tone that Sarlana couldn't have heard him even if she had tried. After a while the Gungan nodded and scampered off, not bothering to hide the fact that he wanted to be as far away from Sarlana as possible. Purposefully, Anakin came towards her slowly, gauging the reaction of her face before advancing any further. Then - sliding next to her on the floor, wrapping an arm around her, pulling her close until her head was pillowed on his shoulder.
Momentarily, she stiffened in his arms, alarmed by the tenderness in his embrace. No one had touched her with so much care, no one except Padami. She melted against him, trying to choke down the tears that were falling freely. "I don't know what happened," she stuttered out between the tears, truthful to him in this one instance.
Her feelings were a cyclone within her. The Gungan had been helpless in her hands, but she hadn't tried to kill him. She had been utterly frightened in her confusion, and had attacked with such viciousness that Lord Nefarion would have been pleased, but then she had fallen short of murder. Her control was slipping, and she could only explain it as the result of the confusion that Anakin Solo was causing her. She could not help but want to be the person that he saw, Analsa Vinn: good, kind, with a sharp temper that could cut durasteel.
"I should have been here when you woke, I'm sorry," he whispered, rocking her gently as she continued to cry like the child Padami had held in her arms. "I could feel you stirring in the Force."
"You could?" she asked, stiffening again, this time in fear that she had been discovered.
He chuckled lightly. "Don't worry, I didn't peek," he said with an air of jocularity.
If he only he knew that she had truly been concerned, concerned that he would find the darkness inside of her. Sarlana did not know exactly who she was. She had been born Analsa Vinn, a babe strong in the Force, a babe the growing Sith Lord Nefarion had snatched from her home and family. She had no memory of them; her first memory was of Padami and her Master. Padami's kind smiling face looming over her, the discontented look of her Master as though he was put off that she were still a child and not able to embrace the destiny he had planned for her.
She had become that destiny, his Sith apprentice, doing whatever was necessary to secure her Master's desires. So how was it possible, after twenty-one years of training under the direction of her Master, that she felt torn from the beliefs that had been indoctrinated into her?
Anakin did not disturb her, did not chastise her for this moment of weakness, just allowed her tears to soak his tunic, rocking her back and forth until she calmed. Pulling away from him, she dashed at her eyes, swiping the residual tears from under her eyes. Showing his continual tenderness to her, Anakin brushed her long hair away from her face, smoothing it against the side of her head.
"All better?" he asked her gently.
She nodded silently, feeling the furthest from the statement a person could. Concern was mirrored in his ice-chipped eyes, and she knew that she had let the emotion of uncertainty pass through her shields. It made her wonder,what if she let down everything, bared all to the Jedi sitting next to her: the darkness, the burgeoning light, everything. She would shed the Analsa persona, and stand mentally naked before him as the Sith Lady, Sarlana. It was a temptation she found difficult to press back in her mind. For Padami's grandson, wasn't it enough?
She laced her fingers in his. "Anakin, I want to tell you something," she started.
He studied their entwined hands for a moment, before bringing those ice-chipped eyes to meet her chocolate-brown. "Yes, Analsa," he breathed.
Dropping the facade would be a relief, but it also brought its share of fear. Sith and Jedi were mortal enemies, each side fanatical about bringing down the other, if in varying ways. He would not accept her as she was, he would want to change her to their light-minded ways. She would have to become the persona to love him.
Shaking her head, she fell silent. A Sith was not supposed to feel love, let alone for a Jedi. Desire - yes, sensation - of course, but love was a weakness to be exploited. Vader had shown that when the love for his son had brought him back to the light, destroying everything he had gained under the tutorship of the Emperor. "I don't know how to begin."
"It's alright, I understand. You were scared, you acted on instinct. But we'll have to work on that. You can't attack your aides every time you wake up in the infirmary," he said, sincerity on a teasing note.
"No, not that," she said, then caught the look on his face. "Not just that," she amended, knowing it would go against her persona to leave out the injured Gungan.
He gave her an encouraging smile. "Analsa, you can tell me anything."
But she couldn't tell him this. Instead, she leaned over and once more pressed her lips to his, slightly taken off guard when he did not stiffen or pull away, but put his arms around her to crush her to him. The musk of him filled her, and she felt his mind butt up against her shields, the way it had the first time she had kissed him. He wouldn't purposefully break through those barriers, but it seemed every time they got close to one another those natural shields hovering over each of their minds were weakened.
"Hey, Anakin, is everything al...," the voice trailed off, with the sound of clawed toes screeching on the tile. Dorsca Cherrz inserting himself into the situation just at the right time. She had not wanted to break away, despite the fact that Anakin would have peeked into the innermost parts of her mind.
Cherrz's cheeks did not flush red, but he started backing out of the room as he spoke. "Sorry, I didn't know you two were... busy. I just wanted to make sure everything was fine... and it looks like it is. I'll just find Ben." And she had never seen a Yuuzhan Vong move so quickly outside of a battle.
She turned back to find Anakin studying her. "What did you want to tell me?" he asked.
"It was nothing, just nerves I guess," she stammered an excuse. "You found Ben?" she turned the subject off of her and onto his charge.
He nodded. "Well, actually - he found me. He came to help defend Naboo. Without him, I don't think there would have been any Yuuzhan Vong standing."
"The attack!" she exclaimed, that part of her memory finally surfacing. "The Queen, is she alright?"
"Yes, thanks to you," Anakin said, gifting her with a fond smile. "She'll probably skin me alive for letting you out of bed before you're fully healed."
"Healed?" she questioned. "I feel fine."
He frowned thoughtfully. "I did put you in a healing trance. You had severe head trauma, and your spine was nearly snapped. That was some rescue."
"I just reacted," she said honestly.
"Come on." Standing up, he offered her a hand and helped her rise steadily to her feet. Once fully vertical, she felt the effects of her injuries: the room spun in front of her and her knees buckled. Anakin steadied her. "I guess you're right," she admitted, allowing him to lever her into the bed.
He kissed her forehead gently, and Sarlana wondered if he had begun to share her love. "Get some rest, Analsa. We'll be heading back to the Temple in a few days."
She nodded, closing her eyes to show him that she intended to obey him this time. "I love you," she whispered as the door closed behind him.
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Anakin pressed his hand against the door plate. "I know," he responded, having heard the whisper she had been trying to tell him, but too afraid to. The truly frightening thing was he loved her, too.