A/N: Chapter challenge: there's a little tongue-in-cheek reference to the LotF series in this part… can you find it? ;-P

Part IV

They stared at each other somberly, an arm's length away, as Han and Leia retreated from the docking bay atop the Chiss-Imperial Embassy, and Jag's assistant and bodyguard, Ashik, stepped onto the waiting shuttle to give the separating husband and wife a few private minutes to say their farewells.

Smiling sadly, he reached a hand out to stroke her cheek as he stepped almost flush against her, leaning down to press his forehead against hers. "Two weeks," he murmured, barely audible above the roar of engines and repulsorjets firing up. "If they can't sort themselves out by then, who needs them?"

She forced a laugh, but it sounded disingenuous even to her own ears. "If they can't work things out by then, I'll come sort them out for you," she teased.

"I know you will." He looked down for a moment before glancing around, making sure they were alone. "Jaina… I know that things have been a little stressful for us, especially this last year…" she opened her mouth to argue, but he pressed a soft finger to her lips. "But when I get back, we're going to start over, stop worrying about my work, or about trying to have another baby…" Jaina flushed, though Jag didn't seem to read in her eyes the guilt that she felt. "We'll focus again on what it means to be a family, me and you and Leyla- and Kyp," he added, smiling ruefully. "And if we can't do that while I'm representing the Ascendancy here on Coruscant, then I'll just have to find something else to do with my time."

His thumb traced lightly over her lip as she gave him a watery smile. "I love you," she murmured moments before his mouth descended over hers again in a fast but playful kiss, his tongue skimming along her lower lip as she wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into him.

"I love you, too," he spoke softly against her ear. "I'll comm you- and Leyla- when we arrive in-system." She nodded stiffly, reluctant to release him, to allow him to disappear into the shuttle that was to whisk him away for two weeks- plus travel time- to the Unknown Regions, where he might have come from, but where he had not returned except for the occasional visit in the past twelve years. "Take care of yourself, sweetheart, and may the Force be with you."

"And with you," she returned softly. "I'll be waiting for those romantic nights together when you're back."

"All the more reason to hurry," he squeezed her hand tightly in his, leaned down for one last deep kiss, and pulled reluctantly away. "Two weeks," he mouthed as he turned to stride towards the ramp, posture straight and stiff as always, groomed from a young age in a military family and later serving in the military itself.

She raised a hand in farewell as the ramp retracted and the hatch closed. "Goodbye," she murmured, not loud enough to be heard in the slightest, but she was confident that he could read her lips, even from the distance between them.

Once the hatch was closed, she smiled sadly and turned to retreat from the landing pad, to find her parents and watch from a safe distance as the shuttle rose into the sunlight, eventually disappearing behind lanes of hundreds of ships and speeders criss-crossing in the Coruscant sky.

X-X-X-X

"Daddy? Kyp?" Leyla peered around the corner of the door that separated the cockpit from the aft sections of the ship and finally found him sitting in the pilot's chair, leaning heavily on one arm, staring straight ahead and brooding. "Oh," she stopped short, surprised to see him in such a mood. "You feel it too, don't you?"

"Hm?" he turned around and met her concerned look.

She sighed and threw herself into the co-pilot's seat, nearly matching his slumped posture. "You can feel that my mother is sad." It was not a question. "I was trying to figure out why…"

"Something to do with Jag…" Kyp murmured, before shaking his head to clear his thoughts. "Sorry. I suppose it's not any of my business."

His daughter peered intently at him. "Mom has been sad a lot lately," she stated matter-of-factly. "She thinks she hides it from me, but I can usually tell."

"She was sad that you left," Kyp pointed out wryly.

"Before that," Leyla countered.

Kyp stared at her for a few moments. "I wouldn't worry about it," he finally said. "If something was wrong, your parents would tell you about it, you know that." Leyla shrugged and turned to look out the viewport, though it was darkened while they traveled through hyperspace. "What about me?" Kyp asked. "Can you sense how I feel?"

Her eyes narrowed as she turned back to him. She bit her lip and thought for a minute. "Not as well," she admitted. "I can always sense your presence," she added quickly, as though it might offend him. "But your feelings… you hide them better than mom."

"You've inherited that particular skill," Kyp pointed out ruefully. It was true; Leyla had always kept her emotions close to her chest, even as a small child, but her experience being kidnapped had heightened the ability and she now kept her feelings under wraps almost as an unconscious defensive mechanism, even when she had nothing about which to worry. It was just one of those things that Luke wanted to make sure she understood before she developed the control to utilize the ability for her own ends. Much as being kidnapped had altered Leyla's outlook on social interactions, so had Kyp's experiences in the spice mines of Kessel, where he'd kept to himself and out of others' ways even as a small boy, in order to survive.

"Mom was sad about you a couple of weeks ago."

He didn't fully register what she'd said for a minute. Then, he turned to look at her sharply, and she sat up a little straighter in her chair, though there was little reaction to be felt in the Force. "Leyla, your perceptiveness is impressive, but there is such a thing as overdoing it, especially for Force-sensitives. Be wary that you are not encroaching on others' privacy with your talents."

It was a gentle rebuke, but she looked chastised nonetheless. "Sorry," she muttered. "I was just worried that you'd been in a fight or something."

Even with emotions well under control, Kyp could sense her embarrassment, and he realized how difficult Leyla must find it at times, juggling the bizarre family situation in which she had suddenly found herself four years prior. Until the age of seven, Jag had been the only father she knew, had been present for her birth, had helped raise her from infancy. Kyp had not met her until she was nearly two years old, and he had soon after decided that it would be best if they allowed the assumption to persist that Jagged Fel was her biological father. Her name had been changed to Solo-Fel, and only their immediate families had known the truth- in varying degrees, however, as they had never revealed to Jag's family that the infamous Kyp Durron was Leyla's father, simply that Jag was not.

All of that had changed though when Leyla was kidnapped. Using the secrecy afforded by his distance from her, Kyp had infiltrated the organization and retrieved Leyla- but not before Leyla learned a Force-technique for heightening her powers of memory-recall, a technique that had inadvertently alerted her to the fact that Kyp was truly her father. She had accepted him immediately, and the Force was more than enough to tell him that her affection for him was genuine… but he got the feeling that, as she grew older, she became more aware of the holes in the story she had been told to explain her parentage, and he knew that one day soon, the full truth would have to come out.

It wasn't a conversation that he particularly looked forward to.

He forced a smile onto his face. "It's alright. We didn't have a fight, she just… remembered a time when we didn't get along so well."

"Is that when I was born?"

She was really a bit too smart for her own good. "Around then," he replied evenly. "Anyway, it isn't worth worrying over, it's done."

But that didn't change the fact that Jaina was upset about something to do with Jag, and both he and Leyla could sense it like she was there in the cockpit with him. Despite his assurances to her, he couldn't help but worry a little- and he was savvy enough to know that Leyla hadn't forgotten about it either.

X-X-X-X

A soft hand brushed a stray lock of hair from her face, tickling her nose in the process. She sniffed once in annoyance before opening her eyes, knowing even before she met a pair of brandy-brown eyes, identical to her own, that it was Jacen who knelt beside the couch where she had fallen asleep after dinner.

"Hey," he murmured.

"You're late," she greeted wryly.

A crooked smile graced his features. "Yeah, well… I guess those pirates in the Neimodia system just don't have respect for making it home for a family dinner. I didn't do too bad though," he nodded towards the kitchen, where Leia was preparing him a leftover plate.

"I suppose not."

For a long moment, he studied her as she stretched out her arms above her head and yawned. "I hear that Jag left," he finally said.

She scowled. "It sounds so bad when you say it like that. He had to leave, they summoned him back to the Ascendancy."

His brows quirked. "I guess; I have to be annoyed though, it's my job as a big brother."

"Jacen, I'm five minutes older than you."

"Yeah, but you're little."

"Feisty though," Han swept into the room bearing a plate of food for Jacen. "Don't underestimate your sister, Jacen, my money's on her in a fight."

Jaina grinned and Jacen adopted an offended expression, but lost it as he dug into his dinner with relish. "Thanks dad," he spoke through a mouthful. "I've been living off of fighter rations for the last week." He swallowed a huge bite with effort before turning back to his twin. "Seriously though- what gives? Kyp takes Leyla to Ossus and the same day, they tell Jag he needs to hurry back to Chiss space, where he's barely spent any time since the end of the war?"

She winced. "Yeah, I got all that; thanks." Jacen had the good grace to look guilty for his lack of tact. "And once Jag figures out what's going on, he says if he can't make it back here right away, I can come out to Csilla."

"It's cold there."

"But charming enough in its own way," she reasoned, turning to her father. "I mean, as far as icy planets go… I'm sure Hoth had a few nice spots, right?" she teased.

Her father just sighed. "Leave your old man alone. Hoth," he muttered. "That was more than thirty-five years ago now, you realize? Honey!" he called out to Leia. "We're getting old!"

X-X-X-X

For the first time, a hint of nervousness began to show through her brave and resolute mask. Wide, brown eyes gazed up at him as he knelt and clasped her shoulders, and periodically, her gaze would flicker to where Tionne Solusar stood a respectable distance away. "Hey," he grinned. "You'll do great; just be good for Tionne and Kam, and you'll be back to Coruscant before you know it."

"What if I'm not ready?" she whispered, and he blinked in surprise. It was the last reservation he expected from her.

"You alone can know if you are," he countered softly. "Are you?"

"I…" she hesitated. "Yes. I just…"

"What is it?"

She let out a small sigh, seeming devastatingly world-wearied for a moment. "When I was younger… when Xela and Wrynn took me and tried to train me… I knew that they were bad, that they used the dark side of the Force. But nothing that they wanted to teach me seemed bad, and I couldn't understand how I was supposed to know the difference."

Kyp frowned and worried his lower lip. "Sweetheart… how long has this been bothering you?"

Leyla shrugged. "Not long, I guess. I used to wonder about it when I was younger, but… I guess I just sort of thought it would make more sense when I was old enough to start training. But now that I'm here…" she glanced down to the ground. "I hear more than mom and dad think I do," she muttered. "I know that they've been talking to Uncle Luke, that they wanted me to come early because they're worried about me having too much power in the Force."

"Oh, Leyla," Kyp smiled sadly, "it isn't like that. No one is worried about you, no one thinks that you won't be able to understand the difference between right and wrong, between light and dark. It's just that…" he took a deep breath. "I never told you much about the months after I met your grandpa, after he rescued me from my imprisoned slavery. What happened though, was that I met your great uncle Luke, who was just starting his academy on the moon of Yavin, and I was young and eager, and more powerful than he knew how to handle. It made me susceptible to the dark side, because I had been using my powers in the Force in small ways for years, without really understanding them, and once I was free from the mines, I was desperate to prove myself, to hone my powers so that I would never be trapped away in the dark again.

"And then I trapped myself in darkness," he continued softly as she stared at him, wide-eyed. "I did everything wrong, and Luke was still young and new to teaching, and he didn't know what to do… I developed my abilities quickly, but took shortcuts, did not understand the merits of patience and humility… and I fell. And for good or bad, you have a heritage that is strong in the Force- but that has also demonstrated too ready an ability to succumb to fast-tracks to power, and those all-too-often lead to the dark side. I've fallen twice now; you know all about the Sith legacy on your mother's side, even Luke has brushed the dark side.

"So no one thinks you're heading down a wrong path," he took one of her hands in his as he looked seriously into her eyes. "You just have the misfortune of being born of two powerful Force-traditions, and you have extraordinary abilities; you'll be a great Jedi one day. And your parents, your great-uncle… they just want to make sure that you're taught better than I was, than the other students who have fallen into similar traps of power. We all learn from our mistakes," he pointed out ruefully, "and we've all made grave ones- and because of it, you have the advantage of benefiting from the hard lessons we've learned."

She was quiet for close to a minute, processing his words while Kyp watched her curiously. A small smile graced her features though, and she stepped forward to hug him. "I understand," she whispered.

He allowed a gentle warmth to flow from him, reassuring her, calming her fears as he pulled back and regarded her at arm's length again. "And don't forget," he reminded her, "that if you ever want to talk about any of this when I'm not available, or your mother… Vulcor will be here, and he spent years living with Wrynn, and he turned out well in the end."

Her face brightened a little at that. "You're right; thanks, daddy."

"Any time," he smiled. "My ship is waiting," he pointed out. "Do you think you're ready?"

"I am ready."

He tried- and failed- to keep the pride he felt from pouring too obviously across his face and through his emotions in the Force. "Good girl," he murmured. "Take care of yourself, Leyla; I'll see you again in three months, okay? And if you ever need anything, or just want to chat… you know where to reach me."

She nodded solemnly, and walked by his side as they crossed to the waiting shuttle on which they had arrived. "I'll leave you a message when I get back to Coruscant," he called loudly over the sound of the engines.

"Alright." She stopped near the base of the ramp and gave him a last hug. "Fly safe," she said, voice almost lost to the noise around them.

"I always do."

He turned after one last look at her serious expression and started up the ramp. After three steps, he heard her call out once more, and he might have missed what she said, except she projected the sentiment in to his mind simultaneously, surprising him into turning.

"Take care of mom."

But she was already walking away and his voice died in his throat when he opened his mouth to call her back. Instead, with effort, he threw a last wave towards Tionne, reached out with the Force to touch Leyla's mind with a final goodbye, and disappeared into the ship. Throughout the entire process of securing the shuttle and preparing to take off though, her words bothered him.