Chapter 8: Revelations and Complications

Csilla had been in the midst of its third ice age for the past ten thousand years. At some points in the winter months—which compromised half a Csillan year, since there were only two seasons—moisture could freeze instantly when it came in contact with the outside air. Jaina had always joked that you could spit and have the saliva shatter on the ground by the time it hit. But walking along at a brisk pace under the ineffective noonday sun sobered her humorous outlook. The air she breathed in seemed almost solid in its crystallized form, constricting the muscles in her chest and lungs. By the time respiration was complete her body had warmed it, and the following exhale was nothing more than a cloud that temporarily blinded her until she walked through it.

Hanna stumbled beside her, clutching Jaina's hand to keep from tripping. It was no wonder. Jaina had blanketed her like a mummy, covered in thermals, clothes, and three parkas. Her hands were wrapped in two sets of goulashes, and the fur hood cinched tight under her chin framed her round face like a mane. "Mommy," she gasped, her breath temporarily masking her face, "it's so cold."

"I know," Jaina said, squeezing her hand in return. "We'll be inside the heat shield in just a second." After conferring with Syal over Jag's predicament, she had spent the next two weeks covertly searching through Chiss files and eavesdropping on conversations. None of it had been easy, considering it was becoming harder and harder to move around. The fact that Hanna could rarely be persuaded to stay with Syal didn't help things either. Worst of all, though, was making sure the CEDF remained ignorant of her presence. It's not as if there were an inordinate amount of pregnant human females running around Csaplar. Jaina wasn't sure she had ever been more thankful for her skills as a Jedi.

After another week of coming up empty-handed, Jaina had almost decided to give up and return home. But Jag still needed her, and it was beyond her power to give up on him. The evidence was too incriminating. Without something to discredit it she might lose him forever.

Unfortunately, Space Patrol had forced them to move the Always from the Fel mansion to the public ports in Csaplar. It hadn't really endangered anything since Syal had 'bought' it and transferred in there under a different name and title, but made getting the things she needed much more inconvenient. Especially since the outdoor walkway from the landspeeder parking area to the docking bays had been temporarily put under construction, leaving it open to the elements.

Jaina had rarely spent a moment in the past two weeks not in anxiety over her husband. Not only because there was a chance he could be taken from her and imprisoned for who knows how long, but also because Csilla brought up so many memories she had lost along the way. It reminded her of the person she had once been, and all the things that had transpired as a young wife married to a man she hardly knew, fighting a strange and persistent attraction to him that wouldn't be put away. She remembered the night she had first confessed her love for him. It had been as much a surprise to her as to him, but had led to a more than pleasant outcome that night.

Jaina felt her face as well as other things warm at the memory, and hoped Hanna's Force sense hadn't picked up on any of that. But this place reminded her of the crazy exuberance that followed, the wild youthful recklessness that had tossed them through three governments and war while still holding each other above all other precedences. Somehow they had lost that along the way, and only now was that full loss apparent to Jaina. It almost killed her. She wanted her husband back, in so many ways.

She felt her stomach knot in anxiety that was now familiar, but it was intense enough to make her temporarily break her stride. Running a hand over her stomach with a wince, Jaina took the last few steps that would take her inside the heat shield. She heard Hanna sigh with relief and give a final shiver, shaking the snow from her hood and shoulders.

The Always loomed before them, its sleek silver hull glinting in unison with the snow outside the dock. If something in the case didn't break soon, they would be re-commandeering the IDY-1000 space yacht and heading home, where they could at least lend Jag their support in person.

"Hanna, I'm just going to grab a new datapad out of the lounge and then we can head back to Grandma's house," she told her. Jaina had put hers under so much abuse during the past two weeks and before that it had finally gave out and died on her.

"Okay," Hanna agreed, tugging at the knot holding her hood on her head. "Can I take this off?"

"No, not yet, we're going back outside in just a minute."

She entered the access codes into the ships entry pad, then trotted up the ramp and inside. After a few minutes of searching, she found the extra datapad and exited quickly, hoping anyone that saw might think her extra bulk was due to the parka, and that she was only Syal. It was a lucky coincidence in her mind that she happened to be of the same stature and size as her mother-in-law, at least normally when she wasn't carrying a baby.

Jaina and Hanna had made it perhaps three steps when a pain so great there were no words to describe it attacked her from nowhere. It felt as if she was being stabbed repeatedly, her skin peeled off like a fruit and muscle fibers ripped away. The ground rushed up at her and she had no way of stopping it, her hands occupied as they clutched at her writhing form. Due to her training as a Jedi or reflexes as a pilot, she managed to roll slightly, landing on her side instead of her anterior. Her skull cracked against the ferrocrete, drawing blood and snagging away skin near her temple. All this she understood, but didn't feel.

All there was was pain, a torment so deep it blinded her. She imagined it was something akin to being eaten alive by some beast, her entrails torn out by jagged teeth. Numb fingers clutched the inside of her thighs, feeling with her digits as well as her own skin the water and blood. Something about that tickled her brain, but that was numb too; she couldn't register the meaning, everything was swallowed up in a white fire that consumed her.

"Mommy!"

The voice was faint, distant, faceless.

Small hands touched her tear-streaked face, their own palms wet with saltwater. "Mama."

Something in that voice brought her back a measure of reality. She still could barely speak, couldn't think at all, but she knew one thing: she needed help. "Hanna," she croaked, then stopped as her back arched with a stabbing affliction. One more word, just one more word. "Comlink."

Hanna Fel could never remember being so scared in her whole life. Mommy was someone who took care of her. What was she supposed to do when Mommy couldn't take care of herself? She could protect her from other people, but how could she protect her from something that wasn't there?

"Mama," she said again, holding her face in her tiny hands. She wanted to scream at her to wake up, to get up, to stop crying and tell her what to do. Daddy would know what to do. But then she remembered: Daddy was in jail. He couldn't help. Maybe Uncle Chak then. Someone, anyone.

Hanna looked up, feeling tears swell in her emerald eyes. There was no one around. "Help me!" she screamed. "Help Mommy!"

"Hanna."

She stopped, looking down at Mommy. Her hands were still clutched in fists between her legs, covered in blood. Hanna turned around and threw up on the sidewalk. On hands and knees, she wiped her mouth and eyes, distraught in her inability to help. It wasn't just Mommy, either. Whatever was hurting her had to be hurting Hanna's little brother, too.

"Comlink," Mommy ground out again, and suddenly Hanna understood. Still, she hesitated. Daddy had forbid her to play with the comlinks after she had called him during an important meeting while Mommy was sleeping. But surely he would forgive her, just this once, wouldn't he?

Mommy screamed again, and Hanna fumbled through her pockets trying to find the little metal thing that might help save her. Finally her small hand found it, and she pulled it out nervously. A chubby thumb pressed the small button and she cried. "Uncle Chak?"

No one answered.

Hanna couldn't see, her tears made everything blurry. She wiped at them with her free hand and cried. "Uncle Chak!"

Suddenly a voice answered her. "Hanna?"

"Grandma," Hanna wept. "Mommy...needs...needs...hurting...Mommy," she choked on her sobs, trying to stop the hammering headache that had began when Mommy had first got sick.

"Oh Hanna, what's wrong? Where are you, what's going on?"

"Help," she cried. "Help!"

Another voice, one not over the comlink, started speaking close by. Hanna looked up to see a blue man running towards her, speaking in some language she didn't know. Hanna stood shakily, waving her hands. "Help Mommy!"

He had his own comlink out and was talking quickly as he rolled Mommy onto her back. She knelt beside him, forgetting Grandma and the comlink and trying to hold Mommy's hand, but they were balled too tightly into fists.

Within minutes there were other blue people running around, but none of them could stop the hurt Hanna could sense in her mother. Then one of them scooped her into their arms and carried her off, even as she screamed to be left.

What if she never saw her again?

Jag rolled over on his cot, the hard surface making his muscles sore and stiff. The processed air was a few degrees too cold to be comfortable, and the thin prisoner's uniform did little to help with that. A silver slab of wall stretched up to the ceiling in front of him, undecorated and indistinct. He pressed his forehead to the cold surface, trying to find some measure of relief from the headache he had suffered with since his arrest.

The situation he was currently in was too ironic to be serious or humorous. He had lived the first eighteen years of his life dedicating every speck of energy and time on being the very best pilot and officer to could be. It had been his life, his sanity. A purpose. In some ways it had been an obsession, a chance to prove himself on a world where he was constantly being judged and tested, even by his own family.

He had given more than that. His very life had been laid on an altar and sacrificed for the good of a government who had given him nothing. They had taken his freedom and leashed him to a stranger who had—at first—given him no respect and consideration and had done everything in her power to rebel against his most trivial of wishes.

After that matter had resolved, he had thrown away every accomplishment, every accolade and achievement he had ever received to switch governments in the hopes of saving the galaxy. He had even been separated from his wife, almost lost her to a war he had no obligation to fight, other than that of a moral one.

After that, he had lost the best thing that had ever happened to him to keep the fragile alliance between the NR and Empire together. He had spent hours of overtime negotiating and haggling with witless politicians who had no interest in the wellbeing of those they represented, only themselves. His reasoning had been that if the he made the galaxy a more stable, safe place, his family would benefit.

After spending nearly a month in a jail cell with nothing but his thoughts, he knew that wasn't true. His whole life he had defined himself in his work, in his monetary and military success. That was who he was. He was a General, and and Ambassador, and a damn good one at that. If he wasn't successful—no, not successful, the best—then what good was he?

All of that had been turned on its head with one simple act.

Suddenly he was a traitor, a treasonous Chiss spy whose sole purpose in life was to ruin to the New Republic. Not only that, he was an Imperial conspirator, a part of the diabolical plan to take back the Imperial glory of old under a new banner, one that offered justice and goodwill with one hand and slit throats with a bloody dagger in the other. All the things he had done, everything he had forfeited for the different governments he had served, the entire galaxy...it all faded under a lie.

Had any of it been worth it? Probably not. In fact, Jag readily believed that his marriage was in its final death throes, even if he somehow managed to dig himself out of the mess he was currently in. He had become so separate from Jaina, so isolated within himself. It wasn't all his fault, he knew that, she had certainly gave no great effort to bring back what they had once shared. But that was beside the point. The fact was he had no idea who he was anymore, let alone who she was. All he had was memories of who they had once been.

He claimed to love her. Every beat of his heart ached to declare she was the reason he continued to live, completed him, and all that other sappy dribble that cluttered the holodramas. He wanted that. But if he was utterly, completely, unequivocally honest with himself, it just wasn't so.

The man he had been loved the Jaina he had met years before under those awful circumstances. But he wasn't that man anymore, and had no idea if she was still that woman. How long had it been since he had made love to her and thought he might die, because knowing her so fully shouldn't be something he could experience and then live? How long had it been since they had stayed up half the night talking about meaningless things that made up who they really were? Nowadays, he didn't even talk to her if it wasn't about politics, the military, or the children. Occasionally they would talk about the move to Bastion, or fight over something stupid when it was really a cover for their frustration, but that was it.

All of that was true, and he could no longer ignore it. But there were other truths as well.

He didn't want to lose her. He wanted back that closeness, that tie that had made the simple thought of going a day without holding her make him shiver with dread. He wanted to remember every curve of her body, the scent of her hair, and most importantly he wanted to know exactly what she was thinking. At one time, he had been able to read her like an open book, knew her every thought and desire and whim, and absolutely loved the person she was. He had loved her strength, her passion and fire, her wit and humor, her skill as a pilot and affection as a mother. He couldn't have made her any more perfect if he had ordered exactly what he wanted in a wife out of a holocatalog. Even her reckless abandon that had threatened to give him a heart attack on more than one occasion, it excited him, drew him out of the solemn and grim shell he had built for himself. She was strange and different to his Chiss-raised mind, and everything about her had been exciting.

He hadn't felt that way in a very long time. Somehow, she had stopped being all those things. She had become a measured and even housewife, tempered and stern and bland. Not that he hadn't done all those things as well. When he looked back he thought of how bored she must have been with him, coming home every night with nothing more to say than to give complaints on how ridiculous politicians were.

Coruscant had changed them, poured them into a different mold and reshaped who they were. And consequently, the new Jaina and Jag just didn't get along very well. He was smart enough to know they would never again be the people they had been during the war, but he also knew that neither of them were themselves. Those people, the essence of who they were inside—they fit together perfectly. They needed to each revive the persons they were; only then could they ever be happy together again.

The door to his cell slid suddenly open. He rolled away from the wall to look over his shoulder at the guardsman who had been assigned to his cell. Jag had considered breaking out on more than one occasion, thought of several ways how to, but didn't really want to take the risk until he had no other choice. "General," the officer began, "a visitor for you."

Good, maybe it was word on Jaina. He didn't know what had possessed her to run off like that, but in some ways it gave him hope. Not only for a future where he was free, but for a future with the woman he had married. It reminded him of something she would have done then, and maybe part of that woman still lived.

He rose unenthusiastically, the stretch of his unused muscles making his legs ache slightly. He ignored it, stepping out the door and following the guard down the corridor lined with identical cell banks. His hands were in binders, tied in front of him to prevent escape. They grew sore now and then and the guards would remove them for a day or two, but usually he was confined.

The door to the visiting room opened and he stepped inside, hoping to see Jacen or maybe even Jaina. Instead, it was one of the last people he had ever expected to see.

Jag sat, stunned, and for a few seconds said nothing. After finding his tongue, "Dr. Banks?"

She smiled shyly, looking nervous and maybe a little ill. "Hello Jag. How are you faring?"

Jag scowled. She had called him by his informal first name only a scant few times before then. What was going on? "As well as can be expected, I suppose," he answered warily.

"That is good," she smiled again, clutching her purse that laid in her lap until her knuckled turned white.

A moment of awkward silence fell between them. "Is," Jag began slowly, "there something I can do for you?"

"Oh, no," she stammered, blushing. "I just—" Looking flustered, she stopped, biting her lower lip. "I'm sorry."

Jag frowned again, cocking his head to one side in curiosity. "For what?"

"Well, I..." she trailed off, then finally heaved a defeated sigh. "There's something I need to tell you."

Jag raised his eyebrows. Had she found a cure for Chak, some sort of medical wonder that could heal his brother? "Tell me."

The excited tone in his voice seemed to encourage her. "How long have I known you?" she began.

"About four years, I guess," Jag answered, wondering where this was going. Maybe it wasn't good news. Maybe it was bad. Hard conversations often did start like this.

She nodded, keeping her eyes fixed on some point in her lap. "And during this time, have you ever known me to do anything unorthodox or unprofessional?"

"No, never, you've been a fabulous doctor," he answered truthfully. He wasn't sure what he and Jaina would have done if she hadn't been there to help with Chak.

She looked up then, meeting his eyes squarely. "That's very important. I want you to remember that when you hear what I have to say. Because I'm not a bad person, I'm really not, and I would never want you to misinterpret my reason for telling you all this."

Jag was starting to become confused. "I don't think I understand."

She broke down then, and everything gushed forth like from a fountain. "I've tried to hide it, tried to ignore it, but it's all been in vain. I don't want to feel this way, but I do. I love you. Gods, I love you."

Jag blinked. No matter how hard he tried, his mind refuse to acknowledge the words that had just come from her mouth. He had to have heard her incorrectly, hadn't he? "Wait. What?"

She wiped a solitary tear from her left eye. "I know you're married, Jag, and I know you have a family, and I am so terribly sorry. I just can't help it. I'd thought—well, I'd thought that there was no point in torturing you with this when you were happily married. But I was talking to Danni today, and well—"

"Danni Quee?" Jag asked.

Ismene nodded. "She's been working for me for some time now. And well, she said that you're in fact not happy at all, and that you're marriage was arranged, and that you or Jaina one would probably ask for a divorce soon. And I, well, I just..." she trailed off, holding her head as if she had a sudden headache. Two more tears slipped from her eyes. "And I just love you so much. I couldn't help but think that if there was any chance at all that you felt the same way..." she looked up then, her comment obviously leading him to confess his own heart's desire.

Jag thought he might not even be able to breathe. This was so terrible that there were no words. One, this poor girl might as well have signed her own death warrant, because if Jaina found out there would be nothing left but a grease spot on the sidewalk. Two, he was going to have to break her heart. And three...well, it added a whole new layer to his dilemma with Jaina and their marriage.

After he didn't speak, Ismene looked away from him, obviously trying to reign her emotions back in and make herself a little more dignified in her response to whatever he said. "Dr. Banks...Ismene," he began slowly.

Hope lit up in her eyes, and he repressed a wince.

"I am terribly flattered. And I am also terribly sorry."

Her face fell, but he pressed on.

"You are an intelligent, talented, beautiful young woman, and any man would be lucky to have you. But I'm a married man. I'm committed to Jaina, and our children. And even if I didn't love her like I do, I respect her far too much to ever do something like that to her. I am sorry, sorry for hurting you, and for anything I may have done to unintentionally encourage you in this."

She actually smiled, a sad, despondent sort of smile. "I supposed as much. But I couldn't go another day without telling you. Truthfully, I would hate myself more than you would be worth if I took you from Jaina. But I had to tell you. And I had to see."

He nodded, knowing there was nothing else he could say. She stood slowly, straightening her clothes and wiping her eyes. "Good luck with your trial, General."

"Thank you," he responded quietly. He watched her leave, then continued to sit. He had thought a few minutes before that the complications in his life couldn't possibly get any worse. He had been wrong.