Chapter 14: Lessons

Antilles Historical Salon (under reconstruction), Coruscant

Leia looked down at the bowl suspiciously. It didn't smell bad exactly, but it didn't smell good either. She took her spoon and prodded the mud-thick substance. She had never tried charbote root stew, but she had heard it described, and this did not seem to be the right color or consistency. Well, she told herself, it can't be worse than ration cubes, and I've eaten plenty of those. She took a sip.

It was worse.

Kalf and Halagad were watching her carefully, having made no move to try their own bowls of stew, while Lady Antilles had delicately buttered a piece of bread and begun to eat that, pretending that the stew didn't even exist. Leia put her spoon down.

"Alright," she sighed, "I give up. She's not going to become a cook. At least not any time soon."

Gretta smiled grimly, "Excellent. I have three candidates for the position; with your permission, I will begin interviews tomorrow."

"I don't want a chef here, Lady Antilles," Leia warned, "I want a cook, preferably someone who won't mind teaching us…some of us…their skills. This order is not going to consist of social hierarchies that include servants. But for now, we do need someone. And you can hire a housekeeper as well, again, with the proviso that the being is willing to teach us how to clean and organize effectively."

"Teachers," Kalf spoke up. "We should call them teachers. We need to know how to do practical things like cook and clean, so we need people to teach us lessons in those things, just as we need lessons in using the Force."

"That is a remarkably good way to approach it! Well done, Kalf!" Leia smiled at him. "Lady Antilles, please make it clear that we are hiring teachers in domestic skills."

"And what do you plan to do with Ms. Solo?" Gretta asked.

Leia thought a minute. "For the moment, I will hire her as my personal companion. She can accompany me when I need to go places and do things that are not appropriate for a twelve-year old. Perhaps she can learn to fly as well, and become my personal pilot, as least until she discovers her true vocation."

"You'd better go and meet her, then," Halagad suggested. "I don't know why you've been avoiding her, but she doesn't trust any of us. I tried to help her move a delivery of nerf steaks, and she nearly broke my left kneecap!"

"You're right, of course. Halagad, why don't you order something in for dinner, and I will go and speak to our cook." I'm being stupid about this, Leia thought. She's not my mother-in-law and never will be. She's a scared nineteen year old who needs guidance. She pushed back her chair, stood and headed for the newly updated kitchen.

Jaina Solo knew she was going to be fired. She'd been fired before, usually because she demanded to be paid or refused to sleep with the boss, but mostly it hadn't been the actual job that was the problem.

Not so this time.

When Gretta Antilles had met her at the spaceport, the first thing she'd asked was, "Can you cook?" Jaina had shrugged, and said, "I can learn." And that seemed to be good enough for the Alderaanian noblewoman. She'd taken Jaina to a dilapidated building and led her inside and to a small bedroom, freshly painted and furnished, but still needing some repairs. "That closet," Lady Antilles had pointed, "is going to become your refresher. It will have a sink and shower, as well as personal storage. The plumbers should be here in two or three days; there is a common bathing room on the second level that we are all using for the moment. That room has actual tubs, which might be more appropriate for your child's use in any case. We will be creating a door there," she pointed to the opposite wall, "to expand your quarters with an extra room for the boy. Until then, we have a pallet he can use which slides under your bed during the day."

That was when Jaina realized that this wasn't some slum quarters for servants. The building was being rapidly refurbished, and her employers would be living here as well. Lady Antilles had introduced her to two other members of their group, a rather sweet boy and a dangerously handsome man, and explained that they were part of something called the Alderaanian Jedi Order, living on Coruscant temporarily, until the new temple on Alderaan could be completed.

Then she explained that none of them could cook, not even "passable gruel," whatever that was, but they would provide her with cookbooks, instruction manuals, and ingredients and let her teach herself to cook several meals a day for five people. She promised that they would be patient and stock plenty of fruit and cereals to use when recipes went wrong.

Well, every single recipe so far had gone wrong. Extremely wrong. Nothing she'd made, including hot oats, had been edible, and tonight was the worst. The charbote root stew was thoroughly disgusting. Han had actually burst into tears when forced to try it.

Jaina knew these people were rich. They spoke and acted with a confidence that only the wealthy wore so easily. But no matter how much money they had, they would be fools to keep paying for both a cook and for emergency meal delivery every night. At this point, she thought, I probably owe them money. What will they want me to do to pay them off?

She turned to lift the heavy stockpot off of the stove top and pour the noxious liquid down the sink, when the kitchen door swung open, startling her. She jumped and lost her grip on the pot, which lurched forward, dropping towards her son, who was sitting on the floor, angrily biting into a pashie fruit. Before the pot, stew and all, could hit her son, Jaina saw the darkhaired girl from the hologram wave a hand, using the Force to send the whole mess back toward the sink, while only a small splash hit the tiles of the kitchen floor.

"Well," the girl said, "it was bad, but throwing it seems a bit of an overreaction."

Jaina was not amused. "If you're going to fire me, just do it. We all know I'm not getting any better at this." She folded her arms and tried to pretend she wasn't panicking at the thought of being sent back to Corellia.

"I'm Leia Organa, and I'm sorry I haven't introduced myself in person before now." The girl moved into the room, and boosted herself up onto one of the high kitchen stools.

"Aren't you a little short to be a Jedi?" Jaina asked.

Leia widened her eyes. "A little…?" Then, to Jaina's surprise, the jedi girl started giggling. She shook her head, looked at Jaina, and then…lost it again, overcome this time with laughter that she couldn't control. After several minutes, Jaina grabbed a glass, filled it with water and thrust it at the girl. She had no idea what was so funny.

After a few more minutes, the girl finally seemed to regain control of herself and wiped at her eyes. "I'm sorry. That was…I said something like that once, a long, long time ago, and if my brother were here, he would be absolutely delighted to see me get my just desserts."

She drank from the glass, then put it down carefully. "Yes, you're being fired, but don't worry, you're also being rehired. You are clearly not meant to be a professional cook. For now, I'd like you to be a kind of personal companion for me when I need to travel, both here on Coruscant, as well as off-planet. Did the others tell you that I'm older than I look?"

Jaina shook her head. "They've told me nothing about you at all, not even your name."

"I'm sorry about that. Here it is: I'm actually fifty-five years old, but I've traveled back in time and been transferred into a twelve-year old version of myself. No, I don't expect you to actually believe that," she saw the skeptical look Jaina was giving her, "and it really doesn't matter whether you do or not. The fact is that I need to do things and go places that twelve-year olds aren't supposed to do and go, at least not alone. You can be my adult chaperone. I won't ask you to do anything illegal, but I may ask you to sign for packages or pretend to be the one negotiating with other adults. Do you think you'd be willing to do that?"

Jaina shifted. This jedi, if she was a jedi, was clearly insane. But what she was asking didn't seem dangerous. "That doesn't really sound like something you'd need full time," she observed.

"Very true," Leia agreed. "When you're not working as a chaperone, you can help with the reconstruction around here, if you like. I don't know what you can do. If you know electronics or carpentry, we can definitely use you, but even basic cleaning and organizing would be helpful. It will give you time to think about what you actually want to do. We'll pay for an apprenticeship or a degree if you decide to pursue education; we can draw up a contract that provides that in exchange for giving us first chance to hire you when you're finished. How does that sound?"

"Suspicious," Jaina told her.

Leia raised both eyebrows. "How so?"

"You want to hire me, with no useful skills, to pay for me to find a career, to give me a place for me and my son to live, and ask nothing in return? Not even an indentureship? No one would do that. Is this some kind of cult? What do you really want?"

"That's difficult to explain," the girl answered.

"Try."

"In the future, many years in the future, I was taken captive by…enemies. They tortured me, killed everyone I loved, and scheduled my execution. And then…two young men burst into my cell and rescued me. One of them was my brother. The other was, well, Han. Your Han, as an adult." Leia looked down at the little boy, who was now dragging a spoon through the spilled stew, making some kind of elaborate pattern on the floor. "I've brought you here from Corellia because I know how hard life was for you and Han there, and being here, in this time, I have ability to fix that. Your son was…he was one of the best friends I ever had. I had a wonderful childhood; I want him to have that too."

"You're right," Jaina told her, "I don't believe any of that. But I don't have any better options."

"Good enough!" Leia jumped down from the stool and stepped forward to take her hand…and immediately slipped in the spilled stew, hopped a bit to miss kicking Han, then crashed rather spectacularly to the floor.

There was a moment of silence, as both Jaina and Han looked at the girl in horror.

"Kriff," Leia said, "I think I've broken my ankle. Again."

"Kriff!" Han echoed, waving the spoon in the air.

Jedi Temple, Coruscant

"Master Organa," Yoda greeted her as he entered the infirmary in his power chair. "Injured you are? Dueling with your apprentices in the streets of Coruscant perhaps?"

"She hurt her foot, Master Yoda," a young voice piped up, "it is broken! How it is broken? Will it get fixed, or will the healers chop it off and feed it to the hive rats?"

"Ah, young Tano, so curious are you? Perhaps ask Master Organa about her injury you should before consigning her body parts to the rats, hmmm?"

"Tano?" Leia repeated, looking down at the Togruta child.

Aldera Palace gardens, Alderaan, 5 BBY

Leia wanted to run, to run straight into the woods like she had as a small child. But at fourteen, she couldn't just abandon her duties, and she had to appear at the gala tonight to show support for her father's relief efforts. So instead of running into the woods, she marched angrily into the gardens, kicking childishly at the smooth paths and cursing angrily under her breath. That vile cousin of hers! How could he treat Adin that way?! He knew, he knew Adin was shy, and that he'd had a crush on Niano for years. But he couldn't let her friend down easy, oh no! He had to flirt and hint and keep him hanging, until Adin finally got up the courage to ask Niano to the fall dance, only to have that…jakobeast..humiliate him in front of everyone. No one deserved that, but especially not Adin Panteer who worked so hard and asked so little of life…

"Ouch!" said a low voice, as Leia, paying no attention to where she was going, walked into something.

No, not something, someone. There was a Togruta woman sitting cross-legged on the ground.

"Oh, my apologies!" Leia was embarrassed. She had let her anger overcome her good sense and actually kicked the woman. "Are you okay? Have I hurt you?"

The woman looked up. "I'll survive," she answered.

Leia started to ask what she was doing sitting alone on an empty path in the dark, but then she hesitated. She's meditating, she thought. And, she peered hard at woman in front of her, and this is not a diplomat. Or a guest at the gala, not dressed like that. In fact…was she like Obiwan? Was there a Jedi in the gardens?! Did she know Obiwan?

She knew that she could not ask. To do so would threaten them both and perhaps put all of Alderaan at risk.

"I'm Leia," she said, "Leia Organa. If you need anything, I'm at your service."

"That is a very generous offer, Princess," the woman answered, "and a foolish one. What if I am a threat to you or your family?"

Leia frowned; she did not know how such a threat would be embodied, but she doubted it would be in the form of a solitary woman meditating in the palace gardens. "You're not going to tell me your name," she concluded.

"I'm not. Do you want to tell me why you're angrily stomping on innocents instead of preparing for the lovely event your parents are hosting tonight?"

"My cousin is a terrible person, and he hurt someone I care about."

The woman looked at her, "Do you have a plan to stop him from hurting people in the future?"

Leia narrowed her eyes. "Not yet."

"Then perhaps you should formulate one. Justice, in my experience, is always worth fighting for."

Leia nodded. Rebel, she thought, I don't know if she's a jedi, but she's definitely a rebel. I wonder how many others are here.

Jedi Temple, Coruscant, 29 BBY

"Ahsoka Tano!" the little girl announced, giving Leia a bow. "I have a fever! Will they cut off your foot?"

"I'm sorry about your fever," Leia told her solemnly, "and I don't think I'm injured so badly that the healers will remove my foot."

"Janson Dox dared me to eat a root! I did it because I am brave, but it gave me a fever, so that was not very smart. I'm not going to die though. Healer Bartok gave me a drink and I vomited." She leaned forward to whisper to Leia. "I vomited a lot. It was gross! How did you break your foot? Did you do a dare?"

"I slipped in a puddle of stew," Leia told the child, "and fell down. No dare, and no dueling, but the stew was very gross." She looked at Yoda. "I know I could have gone to a doctor, but I wanted the chance to observe healing with the Force. In my time, Force healing had died out. Although…" she paused a moment, sorting through the vague impressions she had of Rey's last mission, "I think that my apprentice healed a snake. Possibly."

"A snake!" Ahsoka was impressed. "Why did she heal a snake? Was it a pet?"

"I'm honestly not sure. But it was a very big snake." She turned to Healer Bartok. "My brother speculated that I might have been a healer had we been raised in the Temple. I think he told me that mostly because my physical abilities never reached his level. Since we're twins, he thought perhaps I had different aptitudes in the Force than he did."

"Healing is one of the more difficult and specialized Force abilities," Bartok told her. "It requires channeling the Force with great precision while avoiding burning out one's own strength. It is quite dangerous to attempt it without training. If your apprentice did it without supervision, she was very lucky not to damage herself."

"Listen, you will, to Healer Bartok," Yoda instructed, "to avoid damage to your students."

Leia nodded. "I understand. Could you walk me through it? I would still like to observe."

Healer Bartok agreed, though she warned Leia that slowing down the healing would cause the patient more pain. Leia shrugged that off; the knowledge was well worth a bit of suffering. She watched carefully, with both her physical and Force sight, as the healer channeled the Force into her foot, first easing the swelling and then gently encouraging the broken bone to knit together. It did hurt, but not any more than using a mechanical bone mender.

"I'm impressed," Leia said, when the healing was over. "You must have to study extensively to learn to do that, to know exactly how to repair multiple body parts on different beings."

"Study helps," Healer Bartok told her, "because it makes it easier to follow the will of the Force. But injuries tend toward healing; one merely needs to aid the body in doing what it was designed to do. The real challenge is to keep from damaging one's self while channeling this power. It is all too easy to lose track of the signal from one's own body when focusing on that of the patient."

Leia nodded. "Thank you for demonstrating…and for healing me." She flexed her ankle. Is this the solution to defeating my enemy? she wondered. If the Force can heal a broken bone, surely it can sever a specific artery or burst a blood vessel in a brain. Or is that a power only available to Dark Side users? And if that's the case…do I really care?