Thank's for the review... Yeah this story does show a lot of Ben's thoughts and really is about his growth as a normal person. I'm glad that you like it. Thanks so much for reading and reviewing...

Chapter 6

Ben side slipped the X-wing to port and immediately dove toward the unknown moon's surface. Then suddenly his proximity alarm sounded.

"Kriff!" he swore and pulled hard on his stick to level out and banked hard to starboard. However, he knew he was lost, he knew it was over. The R-5 unit squealed as the torpedo hit and then suddenly everything went black.

The sound of excited girlish laughter immediately gushed from the simulator's speakers about the same time as the lights came back up. "I got you again, Dad! That's two out of three. You owe me a chocolate frosty."

Ben just shook his head and chuckled. Hitting the mike he admitted, "That I do, kiddo." Then as he popped the canopy, "By the way, how did you do that? I thought that I finally had you."

She laughed again, a musical sound that Ben knew he'd never tire of, "I tricked you into thinking that I was going to do one thing while I actually planned something else. But the maneuver itself I learned from Aunt Jys."

He laughed and then as a memory came to him he muttered to himself, "I should have known. That trick almost fried my butt over Thyferra." After shutting down the controls, he climbed out of the simulator to find the fiery red head already standing beside the boxy contraption that held the interior of an X-wing. Her face was alit with a wide grin and her green eyes were bright with joy. Ben's heart suddenly was flooded with love and pride again as he remembered the past two weeks.

As long as he lived he would never forget the moment he met his daughter. It was even more emotional than the day she was born for Ben, although this time he kept it bottled up until he was able to make it back to his ship. Once safely inside, Ben cried. He had cried many times in his adult life when the memories of what he had done got too much for him to handle. He'd let the grief out in the only way he knew how. But this time it wasn't due to grief that he cried. It was because he never expected his daughter to see him in the light that she did.

She didn't think of him as a monster, or a deserter, or someone who should be despised and hated for all that he had done. She loved him. She accepted him in a way he honestly couldn't believe. But then he wondered what she really knew about his Sith days. Surely, if she honestly knew about the things that he had done, she could never forgive him.

He had met her two weeks ago after he had arranged the meeting with Jysella. Jysella arrived shortly after him and asked him to wait in her small office off the simulation room where she taught all levels of flight instruction. Mellina was in her third level class and was the youngest member of that group. Jys had told him that despite her young age, Melina had a natural talent in the cockpit. Ben could tell that Jysella had a close bond with his daughter even before he had seen them together.

After Melina arrived for her class, Jysella had called her into her office where father and daughter spent a long moment just staring at each other. Melina had been the first to shatter the tension when her face broke into one of her treasured smiles and she moved across the small room to fling her arms tightly around his waist. In that moment, Ben knew he had long feared the worse concerning his daughter and never once expected the best. It had overwhelmed him.

"Hey, Dad?" Ben was pulled out of his thoughts and smiled down at her

"Yeah, kiddo?"

"Do you think we can ask Aunt Jys to come with us?" Mellie looked toward the still lighted window of Jysella's office. Ben was suddenly curious about the girl's expression and at the wistful way she said, "I know she doesn't have anymore classes. That's why she let us practice." She turned back to Ben and the concern turned into a mischievous grin. It was amazing how much more it made her look like Mara, "Something that you really need a lot of, by the way."

Ben feigned indignity and pulled on the girl's braid. She dodged and twisted away, laughing. "It's been a long time since I've been in a starfighter. I'm a bit rusty, that's all."

She put her hands on her hips and raised a brow, that was a pose that was all his ex-wife, "Like I said, practice."

Ben just smiled and nodded toward the lighted window, "Go get your Master. Your mother want's you back before dinnertime and she'll be mad that I filled you up on sweetener and ice cream to begin with."

She shrugged, "Oh she'll get over it. Besides, Daryl will stick up for me. He's coming to dinner tonight."

Ben was suddenly not only curious but feeling protective and maybe a little jealous too. "Does he treat you well?"

The inevitable meeting with Seha happened three days after the first meeting with his daughter. Seha had met him with cool indifference and near intolerance that didn't surprise him. However, her choice of love interest did. He would have never expected her to be interested in someone like Daryl Boskett. Unworldly, grounded, educated only in his line of work and a non-Force user. But then maybe being married to Ben Skywalker, ex galaxy controlling Sith Lord wannabe, jaded her.

Ben didn't have anything against Boskett, as long as he treated his daughter well. Melina smiled, "Dad, I like Daryl and he likes me. He will make a good step-dad if that's what you're asking." Then she wrinkled her nose and reminded Ben again that she was only nine. "But all that hand holding and long stares where Mom feels all weird and tries to hide it from me, gets a little annoying." She turned and headed for Jys's office but over her shoulder she rolled her eyes, "And don't even get me started on the kissing.
Eeeks!"

Ben laughed; obviously Seha was as passionate as she had always been. Somehow that made him happy. He really hoped she hadn't been jaded concerning love too much after the way they ended. She did deserve love even if he wasn't ever able to really give it to her.

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Jysella sat in the booth of the small tapcafe and watched the father and daughter sitting across from her in quiet amusement. She had to admit, she was pleasantly surprised Ben Skywalker had taken so to Melina. She knew that Mellie had a near hero worship of Ben, which she wasn't sure how Ben would react too. Jys felt she had a pretty good understanding of Ben Skywalker and she was worried that Melina's outpouring of love would scare him, but instead he accepted it and that made her happy.

Jys considered Melina's perceptions of her father and where her information came from. Mellie was a very preconscious child; she had always been curious and intelligent. Jys knew it was her curiosity about Ben that Seha found both annoying and enlightening. However, despite Seha's warped reasons for not bad mouthing her ex-husband to his daughter, Melina's information didn't always come from her mother. Melina would ask Luke and Mara all sorts of questions about Ben as a child and, when she found out that Jys had known him when he was little, she had pestered Jysella until she told her all that she knew. Melina was amazingly more interested in what her father had done before and after being Sith than while he was a Sith. She would ask her quiet questions about Ben's dark time but she didn't dwell on it. Which, Jys supposed, Mellie had a message for them all including her father, Ben Skywalker was only a Sith for four short years—from age fifteen to about age nineteen—four years out of thirty. However, they were the four years that Ben thought everyone focused on and sometimes Jys had to admit she did too.

Melina's snort of laughter brought her back to the conversation. "I still can't believe you fell for that last trick, Dad. Geez, you should have seen what I was up to when I didn't follow you on the dive."

Jysella smiled, "Oh, your dad fell for that stunt another time too." She narrowed her eyes and met Ben's startling blue. "I think it was Thyferra. The GA decided to attack and gain control of the bacta supply. Ben was tasked as the commander for the invasion and decided that he wanted to play at being a pilot as well. But he ended up flying against me. I was leading Freedom Squad against his and…" Suddenly, she realized the light that she had seen in Ben's eyes went dead. She couldn't feel a thing from him and realized that he was shielding and maybe even projecting a false sense of being okay for Melina's sake.

And she felt like a complete imbecile. She had always had a habit of talking before thinking.

Ben recovered quickly and glanced down at Melina who sat beside him. Melina only looked curious. If she understood what just happened as she sat the empty frosty glass on the table, she didn't give any indication. He forced a smile that never really reached the tightness around his eyes. "Yeah, I remembered that after Melina got me in the sim."

Melina's eyes were wide with excitement; she missed the change in Ben's mood completely. "Aunt Jys did that and you lived to tell about it? Whoa…Maybe you are better than I thought."

"I try to forget most of those times. But, I never was a great pilot, I was more command material, and an accomplished assassin, I guess." Then he looked back at Jys and said, "You would have got me that time. If I hadn't," he paused and swallowed, "if I hadn't used the Force to deflect your torpedo."

Melina was agape, "You can do that? Wow, can you teach me that trick?"

Ben's emotions suddenly washed over Jysella in a wave of shame and not so subtle fear and self-loathing, "No!" Even Jys recoiled at the harshness and several of the customers nearby turned to stare at them. Jys was glad none of them were Jedi, mostly workers from the Academy who stopped here after their duty day was done. However, when Ben saw the wide eyes of his little girl he reached out and she surprisingly didn't flinch when he touched her hair. Jys wondered what Ben would have done if she had. Softly he regrouped, "Melina…I'm sorry, I can't teach you that. It's not something… I could do that sort of thing, and I maybe still could but at that time I…" he looked at Jys, his blue eyes pain-filled and then back to Mellie, "…I used the Dark Side to deflect that torpedo. I then used it to take out one of Jysella's fellow pilots."

Jysella was shocked. She had no idea he did that. "You turned the torp back into my squad?"

Ben stared at Mellie as he answered Jysella's question, his voice quiet and his eyes haunted, "Yeah. I…"

Melina Skywalker just stared at her father, a mix of awe and sadness on her pretty features that in that moment made her look like the man staring back at her. Finally, the girl, who truly was older than her years and Jys wondered if it was a Skywalker trait to be so, said, "Dad, I'm sorry I didn't mean to upset you. I…" she swallowed and then after a moment she went on, "I…I—"

She never finished the thought. Ben was out the door in a Force assisted whirlwind that unsettled Jysella as much as it did Melina along with most of those in the dining room.

Melina looked as if she was about to burst into tears but stubbornly bit her bottom lip and stared at the closed door. She turned and pleadingly asked, "I didn't mean to hurt him, Aunt Jys. Why is he so ashamed of his past? Why does he…" Now she sobbed and Jys knew that regardless of how strong Melina was she couldn't hold the tears in any more. With tears wetting her cheeks she asked the question that Jys knew the girl had asked herself more than once in her short lifetime. "Why does he hate me?"

Jysella threw a credcoin down on the table to cover their bill and quickly moved to wrap her arms around her adopted niece. She didn't say a word until they were outside the small establishment. There may not have been any Jedi in the tapcafe but everyone in there knew who they were and gossip would already be flying about Ben's outburst.

Jys sat the girl down on a bench next to a small garden between the restaurant and a Corellian bakery. She kneeled down before her and wiped the tears off her small pinched face. Melina repeated her question and it broke Jysella's heart.

I hope you're pleased with yourself, Seha. You let her build this fantasy about him.

"Oh, Mellie." She continued to wipe at her face. "Melina, he doesn't hate you."

"Then why did he run out like that. I felt his hate!" She sobbed again and angrily wiped at her nose with her jumpsuit sleeve.

Jys swallowed hard and reached out to find Ben. He was shielding. She could barely get a feel for him at all. "Melina, your dad has a hard time believing anyone can forgive him for his being Sith. It's not you he hates, it's him. He's ashamed of what he did and he's afraid that you will think he is a monster if he's too open about his time of darkness."

"But he's not like that now." Melina had stopped crying and stubborn determination took over; she was her grandmother's child, that's for sure, Jys thought. "I know what the Sith were, Aunt Jys. I know he killed people and Jedi and I know he helped his cousin try to take over the galaxy by assassinating heads of state. I know all that. And maybe I should care about that but I don't. He has done more good than bad. He helped bring peace to many Outer Rim planets and helped bring down the Resurrected Black Sun and other pirates. Jys, I don't think he's a monster, but I don't know why he doen't want me." Her words ended with a sob.

Jys felt a flicker in the Force and recognized it as Seha. She was concerned about Mellie. "C'mon, your mom is worried. Let's get you back home and—and I'll go have a talk with your dad."

Jys stood up and Melina let her guide her. They caught an air taxi and, after Jys paid the droid driver, Melina turned back to her and said, "Aunt Jys, tell Dad that I'm sorry."

"I will, sweetheart," Jys promised and kissed the girl's forehead. The front door than opened and Seha came rushing out onto the stoop. Daryl Boskett stood in the doorway watching with his hands shoved deeply into his pockets.

Seha looked at Jys and Jysella shivered at the look of triumph in Seha's brown eyes. Nor did she like the sad I-told-you-so she felt coming through the Force from her friend. No words were exchanged between the friends and Seha ushered her daughter into the typical styled sandy colored natural rock home. Daryl nodded at Jys and she back at him and then turned to go. She reached out for Ben again and suddenly panic filled her which was quickly replaced with anger and she took off at a dead run for the spaceport.

"Oh, no you don't, Skywalker. You aren't running this time. I'm done picking up the broken pieces after you."

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