{{ simply being loved - chapter 13
"I can't..." Jacen curled up on his side and hugged his knees to his chest as he tried to feel Tenel Ka in the Force, "All I get is a wall. Like she used to do at the Academy, except it's more hostile now. Then, she did it because that's just how she was; now she does it out of spite, it seems like."
Seated on the edge of the bed beside her brother, Jaina also tried to prod Tenel Ka's mind to try to find the reasoning behind this outburst. But if Jacen couldn't even reach her, then there was no way Jaina was going to be able to do so. "We'll have to talk to Uncle Luke tomorrow. Maybe he has some kind of an idea of what's going on."
Jacen turned over onto his right side, away from his sister. He could feel the soft breeze through the huge open doors, floating over his face and down his neck. A few silent moments was all he needed to drift back into a light sleep. He had too much on his mind, it was all too stressful. He wanted to rest.
He wanted to wake up the next morning and find out that it was all a dream.
Sorry Jasa.
Jaina scooted up beside her little brother and reached over him, lightly brushing brown wisps of hair away from his closed eyes. She felt horrible that there was nothing she could do right then and there to help.
She had never seen her brother look so helpless.
The war with the Yuuzhan Vong was over. The galaxy was in a time of peace. Who knew how long it would last or if it would last... but everything was right. Except the state that Jacen was in. And the state Tenel Ka was in. And the state of their relationship.
Leaning down, almost silently, she whispered in her brother's ear, "We'll figure this out Jacen, everything will be right. I promise."
Jaina lightly patted his back and slid off of his bed, with the least amount of movement possible. She knew Jacen was a light sleeper and she didn't want to wake him up.
Creeping out of the room, she stopped as she heard him, "Jaya..."
A pause interrupted his words.
"Thank you."
She turned her head and shot her brother a lopsided grin, one that she definitely didn't get from her mother, before leaving the room.
Jacen rested his head back down on the big feather pillows of his bed and pulled the sheets over himself. His nightclothes and robe were twisted around his body but he was too tired to deal with them, so he just closed his eyes and let himself fall into the Force one more time.
He could feel Tenel Ka's wall of numbness. When he gazed on it through the Force, it was incandescent and he could see streams of emotions running faintly behind the wall. He could sense a stream for anger, a bright red color. One for fear which took on a deep blue shade. Jealousy, a blinding viridian. Even through the wall, he could make out these colors, these shambles of negativity.
She wasn't paying good attention to keeping her wall up.
There were many other streams floating behind the wall, he couldn't put his finger on the rest of them. The one that stood out the most though was a dull void of black, snaking it's way in and out of the other emotions. He couldn't tell if it was a feeling or a void or something else.
When he tried to focus on the black mass, it would become blurry and slither away from Jacen's view.
His eyes shot open.
What was that thing?
Sprawling out on his back, the sheets had tangled themselves around Jacen's legs, but he just stared at the high, stone ceiling.
He was wide awake now.
And the flood of questions would not stop moving through his mind.
"Jaya. Jaya, seriously. I thought about it last night. They both had some serious mood swings. Gadell was snappy one minute and then helped me back to my room the next... only to turn all odd at the last minute. And his eyes... his eyes..."
Jaina stared across the table at her highly caffeinated brother, who was spouting off what he figured out the night before. She watched him through the steam of her own cup of caf, her lids drooping and her upper body slouched on the table. Jacen had four empty cups in front of him and almost succeeded in knocking two of them over as he exaggerated his words with his arms.
"And Tenel Ka... last night... she was the Tenel Ka I knew, I---"
"Wait. Last night? The only time you saw Tenel Ka was when she was being all malicious last night, right?"
Jacen stared innocently to his sister.
She took a deep breath, "Spill it."
"I wanted to go tell her how I felt about her. And the guards weren't letting anyone in. So I..." He mumbled the rest of the sentence.
"Jacen."
He slammed his hands down on the table and leaned forward, quickly hissing the answer to his sister, "I climbed up the vines on the side of the Palace and snuck in her window."
"You WHAT?!" Jaina almost choked on the sip of caf she was taking.
"Shhh!" Jacen crossed his arms over chest and glared at his female counterpart.
"Keep talking."
"I went up there. I questioned her arm a bit. A part of her seemed against it. And a part of her seemed totally for it."
"What did you feel in the Force?"
"She already had the wall up by then. And it was stronger then too. Well, one thing led to another and I was sortofwithherinherbedsortofkissingheryouknow?" He spewed the words out in a trail of non-stop jumble.
Jaina heard every word loud and clear. If the Solo men were bad at one thing; it was romancing.
She rubbed the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes, as if trying to expel a headache, "Jacen. She is supposed to be getting married; and you went up there and crawled on top of her?!"
"YOU WHAT?!" Zekk slid into the bench beside Jaina, and Lowie beside Jacen.
They were all seated in the Palace's casual dining hall. A large room with tables scattered all over the place. The walls and surrounding area were covered with vines and plants, lending a calm, cool atmosphere to the big stone chamber. It was a good place to eat, hang out and just chat. And everytime someone walked by the table containing the Solos and crew, the patrons of the table had to quiet their conversation.
"Zekk," Jaina turned to her longtime friend and spoke in a smarmy tone. "How many years? And Jacen's horomones concerning Tenel Ka have finally kicked in...?"
"The krayt dragon awakens from it's loooooooooong slumber," Twenty-five year old Zekk threw his head back and cackled. Jaina smacked his stomach, causing a cough to erupt from the dark-haired male. Zekk and Lowbacca had become inseperable after the war ended. Jacen was reminded of Han and Chewbacca whenever he saw them, giggling, helping each other out, fighting. All that was missing was the life debt. And no matter how old they got, they still joked like they were at the Academy.
Jacen, who had a small grin on his face, leaned back in his seat. Lowie put arm around his shorter and less scruffy friend and shook him around a little bit rumbling a question.
"I'm fine. It's just this whole Tenel Ka thing is bothering me. She's been acting odd. One minute she's answering my every wish by replying with an 'I love you' and then next minute her eyes are like liquid silver and she's cursing me and telling me to get lost."
"Maybe you should try talking to her again," Zekk sniffled and pulled himself away from the table, setting his heels down on the edge.
"I've tried that numerous times."
"What else can you do?"
Jaina sipped the last of her caf out of her mug and set it on the table with a loud slam, "We should talk to Uncle Luke. Or Kyp. They've had more experience with the Dark Side then we have."
Zekk clicked his tongue.
Jaina looked to him. "You don't count." She slid out of the bench, with Jacen and Lowie sliding out of the one across from her.
Zekk's mouth dropped as he scampered out of the bench and ran up behind Jaina, grabbing her sides and tickling them, "I don't count, huh? Huh? Huh?"
He cackled as Jag joined the group. Jag was just waking up and entering the dining hall when he saw Jaina being tickled by Zekk. He approached the group.
"What'd she do this time?"
Zekk replied, "She's just being herself. How about a little help?"
A smile that didn't cross Jag's face too often showed itself as he helped Zekk tickle the breath out of Jaina. Lowie just laughed.
"Jasa!" She squeaked between laughs. "I need a little... brotherly help here!"
Jacen crossed his arms, poised himself in front of the laughing Jaina Solo and just stared at her, a trademark Solo smirk pasted on his face, "Sorry Jay. Gotta go talk to Tenel Ka."
She continued to chitter with laughs as Zekk and Jag let her go. Catching her breath after a few moments, she eyed Lowie, then Zekk, then Jag and finally her snickering twin, standing between them.
"I will NOT forget this. One day, each of you will regret that this ever happened." With that, she clapped Jacen on the back in passing and exited the dining hall, echoes of pseudo-evil laughter sneaking into their ears. Zekk held his hand up and received a stiff high-five from Jag, who then nodded to Lowie and Jacen and turned to follow Jaina, to try to stop whatever plan she was hatching in her mind and apoligize for his outburst of craziness.
Zekk threw his left arm around Jacen's shoulders in a compassionate manner and drew in a breath, "Let's go see Master Skywalker. I'm sure your sister will find her way to him soon also. Then we can try to figure out what's with this mess."
"Let me go try to talk to Tenel Ka one more time."
The slightly older male eyed Jacen, a look of concern spreading across his face. After a few moments deliberation, he nodded. Looking to Lowie for a back up opinion, Lowie nodded also.
"Alright. Comm us when you want to go see Master Skywalker."
Tenel Ka awoke to the steady beating of a heart and the warm embrace of arms wrapped around her back.
Jacen?
You wish.
Her mind cursed itself as she stirred restlessly, the arms slowly pulling away from her, the hands sliding up the small of her back. Tenel Ka was swimming in the crimson robe, but the thin silk let her feel every tiny movement the arms made as they were drawn away from her.
A low voice, twinges of a Hapan accent seeping in, sliced the silent air.
"Your fever is gone, dear."
The Queen Mother tiredly twisted her head upwards to look into a pair of light blue eyes, a few shades darker than the ice on Hoth. She reached up with her left hand, the metal one, and tucked strands of black hair behind the Commander's right ear. Scooting herself up beside him and tucking her head into the side of his chest, she fell back asleep.
Jacen silently stalked the hallways of the Palace, towards the Queen Mother's quarters. He made his way through the guest quarters, through the halls, through the meeting rooms...
Reflexes backed Jacen into a corner, behind a tall plant, as two suspicious looking men spoke to a guard outside one of the meeting rooms. He watched them flash some papers to the tall female guard and enter one of the meeting rooms, knowing that the door would close automatically when the holo-screen came on.
He found his way into their minds and poked around a little. He could tell they were bad news just by the static clouds and flashing emotions in their mind.
Something is terribly wrong here.
Jacen slid out casually from behind the plant and made his way down the hallway and over to the guard.
"Hi, I'm supposed to have a meeting here." Jacen pointed towards the room the two men had just entered.
"Can I see the papers you need to get in, General Solo?"
"Uhm, I uh... left them back in my quarters." He was acting more and more like his father everyday.
"Then I cannot let you in."
He threw on his sly grin and probed the guard with his mind, "I just need to get in there for a couple of minutes. They can come out here and tell you I'm supposed to be in there if you really want them to."
He didn't think it would work. Hapans were very smart and Jedi mind tricks didn't work on intelligent beings.
Jacen waited.
"That will not be necessary General, just go on in."
Hm. Maybe she's new.
Jacen giggled nervously and slid quietly inside the open door. He felt bad for doing a mind trick on the guard, but he knew that whatever was in this room was more important. He stuck back into the shadows near the door of the dark room as the huge holo-screen flickered to life and the door closed. The two males were seated at a table far at the front of the room, near the holo-screen. Jacen pushed himself behind another plant and thanked the Force that the Hapans liked greenery.
A fuzzy image of a woman appeared on the screen.
"Tee Cee? The feed's sort of messed up. But we can here ya loud and clear, go ahead."
"I just wanted to show you boys that the camera feed is working excellently. When the Queen was out sick last night and Gadell let you boys in to install it and program it, you did a wonderful job. Take a look."
The holo-screen faded into a picture of the Queen Mother's room. The morning, almost afternoon, sunlight splashed cheerily into the chamber and as the camera moved itself around the room, Jacen could see the bed. And he could see Commander Gadell Vessau and Queen Mother Tenel Ka Chume Djo curled up on the bed together, laced in each others arms, her hair fanned out across Gadell's chest as she rested almost perpendicular to him with her head on his stomach.
The camera was a new model, it could be controlled from numerous planets away and move freely around where ever it was programmed to. Tee Cee moved the camera up to Gadell's face. He almost smacked it, as if it were an insect, until he opened his eyes and saw the little metallic creature floating in front of him. Jacen watched as Gadell stuck his hand in front of the lens, giving a thumbs up.
Jacen heard Exna, "Ain't they cute."
The camera flew away from him and the picture on the holo-screen faded back into the blurry image of the woman.
"Exna, you can still hear me, correct?"
"Yes, Tee Cee. I just can't really see you."
"Hm. Odd. I can see both of you perfectly. You, Exna, with your arms crossed and Jeauno with those big lugging feet on the clean table. Jeauno, you had better not be doing things like that when I'm Queen Mother."
Jeauno tilted his head slightly and gave a brutish nod.
"Anyways," Tee Cee drew in a breath. "I just wanted to tell you to let Gadell know that I need to talk to him when he gets a moment away from the Queen Mother."
Exna nodded once in acknowledgement.
"And I want you to let him know that I shall be attending the wedding."
"How Tee Cee? How do you think you're gonna get in?"
Jeauno crossed his arms, waiting for a legitimate response to Exna's question.
"I will find a way. Come on boys, what is a wedding without the bride's grandmother?"
Jacen slammed his hands over his mouth to keep from making noise. First, seeing Gadell and Tenel Ka sprawled out with each other, and now this.
THIS.
He started to breath heavily. The room was getting stuffy around him.
THIS. I have to tell Tenel Ka. TENEL KA. NOW.
He knew he'd give himself away if he opened the door, he knew light would spill into the dark room and then they would know someone was in there with them. But he had to get out of there before he screamed. Before he lashed out and hit the two men and vowed to get the woman. He knew he had to leave. Trying to be as quiet as possible, Jacen reached upwards, behind him to the door controls. And slamming the open button, he slid around the corner of the open door and dashed out, leaving a surprised Exna, Jeauno and Ta'a Chume behind him.
| 