A/N: Aaaaand… on with the story!

Part I

He had already been on his way back to his apartment building when she'd commed twenty minutes ago to say she was coming over. Mildly confused- she hadn't offered a reason, and hadn't mentioned Leyla- he admitted her into the small suite just minutes after he arrived, before he even got around to removing his cloak and boots.

She smiled tightly as she walked into the apartment, looking idly around as she removed her cloak and draped it over a chair, not offering a verbal greeting and, in fact, generally avoiding looking in his general direction. Once he too had removed his cloak, he leaned against a wall and crossed his arms over his chest, staring and smiling bemusedly down at her.

"Something I can do for you, Jaina?"

Starting slightly, she turned and opened her mouth a few times before exhaling loudly. "Do you want to sit? Get a drink maybe?"

His lips quirked even more. "Jaina, this is my place; I think I'm the one who's supposed to offer refreshments."

"Right," she went pink. "Well I'll just go sit in here then. You can come sit with me, if you like, or you can stand there, it doesn't much matter…"

Brow furrowed in confusion at her nervous behavior, Kyp followed her into the living room where she sat heavily on the couch, her legs curled up under her body as she leaned against the arm. He chose to remain standing, frowning lightly at the young woman who he saw several times a week and never behaved so oddly. "What's wrong?" he asked slowly. "Is this about Leyla?"

She finally met his gaze. "No… well, sort of I guess, in a roundabout way…" she sighed. "I didn't really think this would be so awkward…"

"That what would be-?"

"Kyp, I need your help. But I don't want Jag to know, not yet anyway."

The frown deepened. "Help with what? And why can't Jag know?"

"Because he'll be mad when I tell him why I need your help."

For a long minute, Kyp stared impassively at the less-than-forthcoming woman curled up on his sofa. "Again- help with what?"

Her soft brown eyes met his quizzical green ones. When she spoke, her voice was soft but firm and even. "Jag and I have been trying to have a baby for four years now- and we just can't. And I think- Cilghal thinks- that it's your fault."

He blinked a few times, face blank. First, he looked confused, and then a shadow passed over his face and his brows contracted in anxiety.

"You want that drink now?" she asked. He nodded dumbly, but didn't move. "You want to sit down?"

"Yeah."

Five minutes later, two small tumblers of Corellian brandy in their hands, Kyp joined Jaina on the couch, sitting at the far end and alternating his look between the opposite wall and his drink, never casting his eyes in her direction. "So…" he mumbled. "You told Cilghal about…?"

"Kyp, she's known since the day after it happened. She's the one who figured everything out." He looked up at her in honest surprise. "Kyp," she said hesitantly, "did… did my uncle ever tell you how I knew that you'd…" she trailed away, suddenly claustrophobic and uncomfortable, addressing these years-old issues openly for the first time since they'd told him about Leyla, and even then, it was a highly-emotional and unfinished conversation.

"I raped you, Jaina," he put in tonelessly. "You can say it, you know." A flash of annoyance shot through her, but she suppressed it. "And… no, I guess not," he frowned. "Just that you knew when you… forgave me."

She nodded, realizing with a sudden jolt that he would have had no way of knowing how his efforts had affected her, how she'd been put in the med bay the next day while Cilghal figured out what was wrong. "Well… Kyp… I was sick the next day because of the way you forced me unconscious. My parents had a hard time waking me, and then I passed out while trying to er… tell the Council that you had been in my parents' cabin." Her smile was rueful, but he didn't seem to notice, just stared blankly down at his drink. "And while I was in the med bay, Cilghal noticed that my body was reacting oddly to the, ah… hormone inhibitor treatment that I was on."

At that, he shot her a look, face going slightly more pale than it already was. "I… I don't think I ever even thought about that…" he admitted.

"And you wouldn't have," she replied wryly, "you obviously didn't know I was seeing Jag at the time." He went slightly red. "But the point is, she followed the reaction to its obvious conclusion that you had… done something to me, something that went against the drug's intended purpose, and from there…" she shrugged, almost apologetically. "The first thing she asked when I was awake was whether I had been with Jag recently. When I said no… there was only one plausible explanation."

"Me," he said hoarsely. He sighed bitterly and took a short sip of his drink. "I knew there would be retribution further down the line for everything; it was just too easy, you forgiving me, me meeting Leyla…"

She pursed her lips. "I'm not looking for 'retribution,'" she countered. "But… Cilghal did whatever it is that Cilghal does today, trying to figure out why, with nothing medically wrong with either of us, Jag and I can't seem to have a baby together and… she thinks there's a connection."

"Why don't you want Jag to know?"

Her eyes darted away that time. "He, ah… I think it's taking a toll on him in some ways. He feels bad, because it was his idea to have another child, and it's been such a source of stress for us ever since; and he hides it well, but I think a part of him feels a little… bitter," she winced, "that, tricks or no tricks, you and I managed to create something as wonderful as Leyla, and he and I can't even ah… get the process rolling, as it were."

"And that bitterness will only multiply ten-fold when he realizes that it's been my fault all this time," Kyp surmised. Jaina nodded sadly. With a heavy sigh, running a hand wearily across his brow, Kyp turned to face her. "Alright- what exactly is it that you need me to do?"

X-X-X-X

"This isn't working." Jaina sighed and sat up, propping herself on her elbows. "I'm sorry, Master, I'm not blocking you on purpose here…"

The mon cal healer sighed and backed away from the bed. "I know," her voice was low and gravelly. "I suspected that such might be the case before I came in here, but I thought I'd try…" she turned and rolled her eyes around to where the small chadra-fan female stood by a couple of monitors across the room, politely disinterested in the bizarre goings-on in the room. "Tekli," Cilghal addressed her former apprentice, "can you bring Master Durron in here?"

If the meter-high chadra-fan found the request odd in any way, she did not show it. With a quick consenting nod from Jaina, she disappeared, but Jaina turned to Cilghal, mildly confused, once she was gone. "I don't think Kyp's out there anymore," she pointed out slowly. Cilghal blinked down at her in surprise, and moments later the Jedi Master in question slipped through the door behind the assistant healer, eyes slightly averted and looking even more discomfited than he had in his apartment the night prior. "You've been shielding yourself from me," Jaina accused.

He shrugged, looking guilty and red. "It hardly seemed like the time that you needed to feel my own emotions on top of the stress you're undoubtedly already under…"

She waved him off irritably. "Yeah, whatever. Just stop worrying about it, you're being ridiculous."

Cilghal watched the exchange quietly before stepping in when Kyp pursed his lips and looked down at the ground. "Master Durron, you said you would be willing to remain to assist however possible…?" he nodded, ignoring the eye-roll from Jaina. "Well, from what you told me an hour ago and from our… difficulties in here since then, I'm beginning to have suspicions about the nature of the problem." Jaina sat up more at that, and Kyp nodded jerkily. With a look at Tekli, the assistant ducked quietly out of the room as Cilghal faced the two Jedi seriously.

"Kyp," she said quietly, "I don't think your actions had a damaging effect on Jaina's body," he looked slightly relieved but still tense as she continued. "What I do think happened, however…" she turned towards the young woman, a bit consolingly perhaps, "is that you inadvertently… imprinted yourself."

A full minute of silence greeted that. Jaina's brow quirked in confusion as Kyp's whole body seemed to shudder in distaste. "Imprinted," he repeated dully. "You're saying I… what? Left traces of my manipulations?"

"More than that," Cilghal sat down and considered him. "Your invasion of Jaina's body was fueled by obsession and jealousy, by your own admission; it was important to you that- I'm sorry- that she belong to you, and those emotions emerged in your actions in ways that I doubt you ever intended or foresaw. It wasn't your goal that Jaina become pregnant," she emphasized, shifting her gaze briefly to the wide-eyed woman in question, "it was important that she become pregnant with your child."

A stunned and appropriately horrified silence greeted this assessment as the implications began to sink in. Then, Jaina spoke up slowly and carefully. "So… Master, you're saying that- all this time- I haven't been able to conceive another child because… I'm trying to with Jag and not Kyp?"

Kyp groaned and put his head in his hands. "That is my theory," Cilghal returned evenly. "Such as it is… these are entirely uncharted waters."

For a long minute, Jaina just stared, unblinking gaze shifting between the healer and the remorseful man sitting heavily across from her. Then, she just started laughing, and the other occupants of the room looked at her in surprise and mild concern. "I'm sorry," she gasped, "but that's just… some sort of poetic justice, isn't it?" she wiped at her eyes.

"It isn't funny," Kyp snapped, appalled at her reaction.

"I know!" she tried to calm her shaking shoulders. "I'm sorry, I know. I just can't believe… after all this time… I never once…" she stopped laughing and sobered dramatically, shaking her head ruefully. "You'll be able to do something about it, right?" she asked Cilghal.

"No." Jaina's head whipped around, all lingering traces of amusement vanishing instantly from her face. "The same obsession and jealousy… there are unconscious defenses preventing me from even attempting to counteract the issue, defenses that share a mingled signature of both of you," she shifted her eyes between the two of them. "There's nothing I can do," she repeated. "But you, Master Durron, created those defenses, even if advertently- it is my strong suspicion that you can bypass them and… undo your actions of twelve years ago."

Kyp was pale as he glanced guiltily at Jaina once before staring resolutely at his feet. "I… I barely remember anything about that night," he whispered hoarsely. "It's like a half-forgotten dream, the entirety of my time under the dark side is… just one, long nightmare that I can catch glimpses of but can't piece fully back together…"

"On the whole, I think it matters not," Cilghal murmured, clearly affected by the guilt and self-loathing roiling from Kyp and making Jaina wince. "The lingering signature of your presence… you will be able to follow it, to understand it in a way that I can't, and I think you alone can remedy this situation for Jaina and her husband."

Jaina closed her eyes briefly before swinging herself down from the bed and taking a careful step forward to place a hand on Kyp's shoulder. "I wish there had been another way, Kyp," she murmured. "I'm sor-"

"Don't," he said, voice hard. "Don't you dare tell me that you're sorry; you did the same thing eleven years ago when I first saw you again after you, Jag, and Zekk captured me, and I can't stand it; at some point, you have to make me take responsibility for my own failings…"

"Then do it!" she hissed. "Take responsibility! You caused a problem, you fix it."

"It isn't that simple!" he stood suddenly, making Jaina back up in surprise at his earnest distress. "What I did… it was utterly dark, spurred by selfishness, desire, anger, jealousy, fear… and you want me to go back, try to put myself in the same mindset, understand what I did while under the sway of darkness in order to reverse the effects… and I'm afraid, Jaina. Afraid of tasting darkness again, of forcing myself to remember what I was…"

He trailed away as she stared at him in a cold fury, Cilghal entirely forgotten as the two locked eyes. "Try this on for selfishness," she said in a dangerously soft voice. "What I want is to be able to have a baby with my husband who, I might point out, has been raising your child for more than eleven years with no complaint. And after four years of frustration and wondering why that can't seem to happen, I finally have an answer and a solution in my grasp- and you're trying to pull that out from under me." Kyp opened his mouth to argue, but she kept going. "I've asked nothing of you in all of this time, allowed you to step back from your relationship with Leyla for five years, agreed to stand idly by and trust you while you attacked Jedi and committed treason when she was in trouble, watched for the past four years while you felt out a comfortable relationship with your daughter… that's all fine. That's what I knew I was going to get when I decided first to hide Leyla from you and then to bring you into her life.

"But now," her voice shook and her eyes were red. "Now, I need something from you. Jag and I have always put Leyla first, put aside any grievances we might have had with you for her sake, knowing that the past can't change, that we can only learn from our mistakes. But this, Kyp- this you can change, this you can fix, and you'd be doing it for me, not for yourself, so I don't think you're afraid of touching darkness again at all, I think you're just afraid, period." With a heavy sigh and obvious effort, she wrenched her eyes from the stricken Master and turned to Cilghal. "Master Cilghal, I apologize; you were hesitant yesterday about bringing Master Durron here so soon, and I should have paid closer attention to that. As it stands though, clearly neither of us is in a position to proceed any further today, I am truly sorry for wasting your time. Masters," she jerked her head in acknowledgement, grabbed her cloak from the end of the bed, and slipped out of the room before another word could be uttered.