Part IV - Reckoning Chapter Nineteen Darkness looked down from the ebony orb of Eloggi, lascivious witness to the passions of the pitiful humans far below, on the sanctuary moon. They had watched long, awaiting the powerful new Jedi foreseen in their Destiny, had felt the arrival of the babe in the tremendous wave of Force-energy that swept the universe at the moment of her birth. Soon they would travel to the surface of the forest moon and swoop down upon the natives once again, as had their father before them. Darkness had been patient. Soon that patience would be rewarded, for not one, not two, but three Jedi females awaited. Endor's double moons would soon be moving into a state of eclipse with the larger planet and the time would be right to begin their journey. Very soon. Darkness could wait. ********************* Leia stirred in Han's arms as they lay beneath the ancient Tree, basking in the afterglow of rejuvenation. She shook her head slightly to dismiss the distant but annoying tension tugging at her mind, an uneasy pressure not unlike what she had experienced weeks ago, upon first awakening from her illness. Han caught the movement, and looked at her questioningly. "What's wrong, sweetheart?" he asked, giving her a gentle squeeze. "You okay?" She pushed the unnamed presence from her consciousness, and smiled up into her lover's eyes. "I'm fine," she murmured, bringing his face down to hers and kissing him between her words. "I'm wonderful, I'm fabulous, I'm stupendous." "I'll bear witness to that," he growled, nuzzling her neck. "I keep thinking it can't get any better..." "...but it does," she finished for him, pressing closer to the warmth of his body. "I love you, Nerf Herder." "I know," he murmured, tasting again the sweetness of her lips, savoring their nectar. "Me too you." He tightened his arms around her, hugging her close, rubbing his face in her hair. "Do you still have doubts? About us, about our strength over this whatever-the-hell it is we're about to face?" "None," Leia assured him, looking into his eyes with sincerity. "You've convinced me that nothing is stronger than us - our own Force. Together, we are invincible." "Just remember that, sweetheart," he urged, reaching with a finger to trace the line of her jaw, up and over her lips, deep red and inviting. "Together we made those kids; together we'll keep them safe. And together we'll get Jaina back. I swear it with everything I've got...the Force will be with us." "I believe you," she whispered, and did. Han had scorned the Force for so many years; for him to take an oath invoking her heritage was to her of such monumental personal significance that to let even a trace of doubt invade her conviction was unthinkable. She seized his lips again, biting them gently. "I'm feeling a bit weak, Captain," she murmured huskily against his mouth. "I think maybe we need to work on our strength a little more." "I think you're right," Han readily agreed, his body moving to cover hers, pressing her back into the cool carpet of moss beneath the Tree. "Practice, practice, practice..." Their Senses intimately merged, pulsating with the intensity of their Force-link. The ground beneath them welcomed the union of their entities, their combined life-energies resonating with the preternatural concentration of Force that radiated from the Tree. And Jaina, though she could not see them, felt the nearness of her parents from deep within the Tree, and smiled with the knowledge that the time of their enlightenment was fast approaching. ****************** Luke Skywalker stood watch over his sister's children, all in peaceful repose - all save one. The Jedi Master struggled to keep despair from entering his consciousness as he thought of his dark-haired, happy little niece. Jaina had always held a special place in his heart, just as she touched all that came into contact with her. A happy child from the very beginning, she possessed an odd mixture of maturity and childishness that tugged at the heart. During the tortuous time when Jaina, Jacen and Anakin had been kidnapped from Munto Codru by the mad fallen Jedi, Hethrir, it had been Jaina who had kept her brothers' hopes high, as well as her own. The child's disposition had always been unfailingly positive, and Luke could only hope that it remained so now. Luke had searched exhaustively for her Essence through the Force, spending countless hours at the edge of the twisted Tree, calling upon all of the Jedi techniques he knew in order to sense the child's Presence. For some unknown reason, while Jacen could locate his twin's Sense quite easily within the vicinity of the Tree, Luke, Jedi Master, could not; nor could Leia, the child's own mother. Only Jacen was granted the privilege of contact with the little girl. Luke had doggedly returned to the site, over and over again during the last three days, determined to find the Tree's access point, or the cave that he suspected existed beneath it, as had the Dark Side cave on Dagobah so many years before. He had yet to locate that entrance and the weight of his failure was great. He felt the approach of his sister, and crossed the Solos' chambers to peer outside the picture window where the landscape was just beginning to brighten with the rising sun. Luke watched as Han and Leia appeared at the edge of the forest, hand-in-hand, obviously mentally linked as well. Luke marveled at the strength of their combined Senses, for a moment yielding to a bitter loneliness that stabbed at his heart. He knew that he had the love of his family, but in the still of the night Luke secretly hoped that, somewhere out there, a lifemate waited for him. The Force would bring them together when Destiny deemed the time right, and not before. But patience, even for the tightly disciplined Jedi Master, was a lonely bedfellow. Being this close to the raging passions that frequently consumed Han and Leia often made Luke's monkish existence nearly unbearable. Luke watched from the window as Han pulled Leia close and kissed her. Despite his best intentions, Luke's Sense lingered with that of his twin for a moment, absorbing the unfamiliar thrill that consumed her, and he ached to experience those same emotions first-hand and not vicariously. He closed his eyes against the pain of unfulfilled wants and needs, felt the shifting in Sense from the couple on the ground far below, and opened his eyes to find them looking directly up at him where he stood at the window. He guiltily broke the psychic connection with his sister and turned away, quelling the sudden, acute jealousy that nibbled at his vitals. He walked back to gaze down upon the sleeping innocence of his sister's children, calling upon the familiar canons of the Jedi code, and found comfort in their mantra. //There is no emotion; there is peace. There is no ignorance; there is knowledge. There is no passion; there is serenity. There is no death; there is the Force.// Some canons were more difficult to follow than others. ********************* Leia sat in her favorite spot on the verandah, rocking Arcadia in the porch swing, reaching as always over the forest for the lost Presence of her eldest child. Though she'd forced herself to accept the temporary loss of the little girl, and tried to draw comfort from Jacen's assurance of her well-being, the resignation did nothing to assuage Leia's aching heart. Jaina was sorely missed by all. Leia felt the child's absence most profoundly in moments like this, while nursing Arcadia. Jaina had often sat beside her mother and baby sister during these peaceful interludes, ever enthralled with the process. These were the moments when the three of them were bonded in the intimate communion of being female. Life supporting life, she had said to Jaina, when explaining the reason for nourishing her child from her body. This, Leia realized, had become her code since making their home on Endor, where her perception of the Force, and reverence for the strength of Nature, had always been so pronounced. She continued to ponder the mystery of the Tree, as she had all morning. Since last night's torrid exchange with Han beneath its twisted branches, Leia had come to believe that the Tree wasn't the Darkness she'd sensed after all. She thought that perhaps the Darkness surrounded the Tree, but was prevented from piercing its brilliance. Dark could not penetrate light, she told herself, but light could penetrate dark, and from this knowledge she drew strength. She and Han and their children and Luke - all of them were bright with the Force, a supernova of combined Strength. The coming Darkness, whatever it should turn out to be, would face a formidable opponent whenever it deemed the time right to attack. Arcadia squirmed in her arms and Leia brought her eyes back to focus on the present, gazing down at the precious bundle she held so closely. She lifted her free hand and stroked the silky blonde hair, running the tip of a finger along the curve of the dimpled cheek, allowing her love for this child to flow through her. The baby looked up at her mother with delicate blue eyes and favored her with a gummy grin as she broke away from the source of her nourishment. The gift brought an aching tenderness to Leia's heart. Again she marveled at the extraordinary blessing of this child. Through Arcadia she and Han were exquisitely bonded, to an extent they had never been permitted in the past. Han could now experience the full measure of Force-sensitivity with his wife, and her heart swelled with gratitude that he could finally share in a part of her life from which he had previously been barred. Anakin suddenly appeared at her elbow, and Leia started as she became aware of his presence. How had she not perceived his approach? She shook her head, resolving to get more sleep, beginning today. Her reflexes were getting sluggish, and she would need all of her faculties to persevere in the battle to come. Leia smiled at her youngest son, caressing him with her eyes, and with her Sense. "Hello, my love," she said warmly. "Hi," he mumbled, studying the downy head of the baby, squinting his eyes as if troubled. "What's the matter, honey?" Leia asked him, fingering his dark curls with her free hand. "Mama," he began, "why is Cady different from the rest of us?" Leia's heart knew another little squeeze at the child's words. "Different how, honey?" she asked softly. "Different hair, different Sense," he explained. "Different in the way she is with Daddy." Leia looked down at the infant, back up again at her son, thinking. "Cady is a little different," she finally told Anakin. "Because she's a very special gift." "A gift?" he wrinkled his small nose in confusion. "What kind of gift?" Leia thought of her mother, serene and beautiful and a source of tremendous peace and inspiration. "A gift from my mother to me," she said softly, only now understanding the connection herself. "And a gift from me to your father." As the child's frown deepened, she strove to paint for him a clearer picture. "Through Arcadia, Daddy can feel the Force, Anakin. He was never able to understand before, what it was about the Force that made us do or act or say the things that we do." She smiled dreamily at the memory of birthing their child into her husband's waiting hands. "With Arcadia came Force-transference, and with that came enlightenment - about a great many things." Anakin was deep in thought for a few moments, watching as his tiny sister's eyes began to close. "I guess that's the reason," he finally said. "Reason for what, sweetheart?" Leia asked absently, watching her daughter slip into dreamland. "The reason why the Tree wants her so bad," Anakin responded, as if sharing a confidence. "Because she's so special." Leia looked up sharply at his words. "You're all special, my love," she reminded him, trying to suppress the icy stab of renewed fear jabbing at her heart. "But what exactly has the Tree been telling you now, Anakin? And when has it been doing all this talking to you? I thought you understood that your father and I don't want you anywhere near that Tree." "Oh, I haven't been anywhere near it," he was quick to assure her, his clear blue eyes shining earnestly. "But it still talks to me in my sleep - all the time. It tells me that some bad people are coming and that we need to hide from them." Anakin lowered his voice to a whisper, as if revealing a secret. "And we need to hide inside the Tree." Leia's heart lurched with a flicker of hope: access to the Tree...and, thus, to Jaina! "Do you know how to get inside the Tree, honey?" she asked, trying hard to dampen the quickening in her Sense that he must surely feel. "No, Mama," he said, his eyes drifting over the verandah and off into the forest in the direction of the Tree - and his sister. "But when the time comes I will know." He turned his eyes back up to his mother, projecting reassurance with his untrained Sense. "Don't worry, Mama," he told her. "We'll be okay. The Tree knows what to do. And it will keep all of us safe. That's why it's here." He reached up to pat his mother's hand. "You should know, Mama...the Force is with us." ************************* Leia had indicated to Han and Luke during dinner that evening that she wished to discuss a few things with them after the children were in bed, and once the young ones were retired, the adults gathered on the verandah. Han sat beside her in the swing, and Luke perched on the railing, leaning against a support post, one knee drawn up. "So what's up?" he asked his twin, his Sense reaching for hers. "Anakin and I had a nice long talk this afternoon," Leia began, glancing from Han to Luke and back again. "During which he revealed that the Tree has warned him of the impending arrival of some 'bad people' and that the children need to hide - inside the Tree." Han sat up a little straighter in the swing, looked at them both. "I thought the boys understood they weren't supposed to go anywhere near that tree," he growled. "Anakin's never deliberately disobeyed us before." "And he hasn't now," Leia assured him. "He says that the Tree has been speaking to him in his dreams. All those nightmares he's been troubled with, all these months? The Tree has been talking to him all along." "What about before we left Coruscant?" Han wanted to know. "He started having trouble sleeping weeks before we left, and has had problems ever since - except during the trip out here." "I know," Leia said thoughtfully. "I don't understand that part." Luke recalled the lost spirits of the fallen Jedi tortured in the bowels of the Imperial Palace. "Maybe he was being directed while you were still living in the Palace," he offered. "Remember the people I told you about, the spirits of the Jedi that the Emperor took from Endor all those years ago?" They nodded, and he continued. "Perhaps Anakin was being summoned to Endor, Leia, just as you were. Maybe Destiny has something special in store for him, as well." Neither parent was sure they liked the implications of that prophecy. The thought of gentle, mild-mannered Anakin being haunted in any way was heart-wrenching, especially to Leia, who had never completely recovered from the residual guilt of having lost him for that entire first year of his life to sequestration. Later, when all three children had been kidnapped from Munto Codru, Leia had secretly blamed herself for the loss of her little ones, and had seen it as Fate's reprisal for giving them up during those early years, however necessary Luke had convinced her it was at the time. It had taken years for her to conquer the terror that had pervaded that period of their lives. And now, having finally risen above her feelings of guilt over what had happened to them, Leia was once again faced with the threat of losing her children. "So what now?" Han asked. "I have to tell you, I don't like the idea of just waiting around for this whatever-it-is that's coming. It goes against all the strategy I've ever learned, or been a part of; you're supposed to take the battle to the enemy, not wait for him to bring it to you. And, for that matter, do we even know for sure that it is coming?" "I know how you feel, Han, believe me," Luke assured his friend. "But we must wait for it to find us, not go to it or seek it out. The Force should be used only for knowledge or defense; never for attack." He remembered only too well the time he had gone against those rules, rushing off as he did to face Darth Vader, when he was younger and cockier, and nowhere near ready to face the level of Darkness he ended up battling. "And it is coming," Luke continued, his voice dropping ominously. "I've felt it. Not only that, but Master Yoda appeared before me and told me of the Dark Twins, way before Jacen even mentioned them the first time, on the morning Jaina disappeared." He looked back at his sister just as her dark eyes filled with tears, and Luke flinched at the wrenching sadness that shook her upon hearing the child's name. Again he ached for the torment he felt within her. "She's okay, Leia," he reminded her, hoping to ease her pain, and hush his own. "Oh, I know," she said quietly, leaning into Han's arm, which he'd placed comfortingly around her shoulders. "Jacen has told me of their contact - daily - and I know how strong their bond is." She looked up at her brother, her eyes huge and hurting. "Every bit as strong as the bond between us," she told him, riveting his eyes with hers for a moment before dropping them to her hands, now folded in her lap. "I just miss her...her lyrical little voice...her sweet essence around the house...oh, just everything!" Her voice quavered and Han squeezed her shoulders, brushed a kiss against her hair. "Me, too, sweetheart," he told her. "We'll get her back. I promise." Luke felt the immediate escalation in Leia's Sense at the touch of Han's lips, at the tightening of his embrace, and he put a quick block on his mental rapport with her. Rising from the railing he bid his sister and her husband goodnight. "We'll talk more tomorrow," he told them quietly, turning away and retreating across the verandah, toward the door leading to his lonely room. Leia allowed herself the luxury of leaning her head against Han's chest. As she snuggled against him she gained inner strength from the steady rhythm of his heart beneath her ear. She wondered if Jaina's disappearance was perhaps another protective sequestration. While logically Leia felt that her little girl was in a place of safe- keeping, just as she had been while sequestered on Anoth all those years ago, her rational mind had no effect on her emotional heart, which was now cinched with pain at her loss. To Han, Leia's sorrow was palpable, and he longed to ease her torment. He lifted her chin with a finger, his stomach doing its customary flip- flop at the sight of tears on her cheeks. Touching his mouth to them one by one, he tasted her pain on his lips, longed to ease it for her. Her eyes implored him, her Sense beseeching, and her lips put her need into words: "Make the hurt go away," she begged of him. "Please, Han, if only for tonight, if only for an hour, a moment; please - make it stop!" Han's Sense reeled with the force of her torment, and he vowed to fulfill her request, immediately, purposefully and quite completely. He gathered his wife onto his lap, holding her against him. Freeing the lustrous hair that obsessed him, he buried his face in it, deeply inhaling its fragrance. His hands moved to caress her shoulders, sliding down her back, along the sweet curve of her hip, finally sweeping leisurely back up her body to her face. He held her cheek in his hand and kissed her with warm, unhurried lips, the salt of her tears mingling with the honeyed taste of her mouth, her lips moistly parting beneath his, drinking of his spirit and sharing hers. Han rose with her in his arms, as he had that night not so very long ago, when they had consummated their new-found Force-link and reconsummated their marriage. Halfway to their doorway he paused, recalling the presence of three young children in the room where he had intended to ravish his wife. He turned to the living quarters, cursed inwardly as he realized that Luke's room was immediately across the hall, and remembered the edge of wistfulness he'd seen in his friend's gaze that morning. The poor kid was in a bad enough state already; the last thing any of them needed was for Luke to walk in on the type of scene Han intended to play out with Leia. He stopped, sweeping the surroundings with a critical eye, assessing the resources at hand: two self-conforming chairs, a railing over a twenty-meter drop and a hard porch swing. Not much there, even for a man of his ingenuity...but no matter. On the western side of the treehouse was a comfortable though lumpy couch, whose cushions could be removed and strategically placed. Han Solo bore his princess to a makeshift nest, far away from the easily disturbed ears of two small boys, a tiny infant - and one very lonely Jedi. There they proceeded to successfully displace their fears, losing themselves in the rapture they had always known in each other. For a while they found sweet forgetfulness. For a while they made the pain go away. ********************* Luke Skywalker, alone in his room, closed his eyes against his sister's Essence, tuning her out to the best of his ability, denied entrance to the mighty inner sanctum of the rampant Organa-Solo passion. He strolled over to the windows that overlooked the forest and studied the woody landscape, reaching for the peace that he had always found in reciting his Jedi ethics. //There is no passion - there is serenity.// Luke strove in vain to steady his breathing, to still his aching, lonely heart. The basic drives that defined him not only as Jedi, but also as a normal, healthy male, had been increasingly difficult to restrain since the day he'd touched down on Endor, nearly eight weeks ago. The longer he remained on the sanctuary moon, the more aware he was of the fact that he could no longer bury his more elemental traits under an air of Jedi asceticism. He was a Skywalker, as was Leia, and the very passions that they had inherited from their father was a source of self-deprecation to Luke. As a Jedi Master he should be in control of such emotions, should rise above such innately human characteristics. //There is no passion - there is serenity!// Luke wondered how many times he would have to repeat the Jedi canon before he was convinced. [End Chapter]