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Chapter Text

Chapter 1

Four lightsabers flashed in the artificial light of the exercise room, looking unusually dull in comparison to the overly bright glow-rods up under the ceiling. Four blades, two green and two purple, whirled in a complicated dance of slashes and parries, making the two men who were wielding them seem like secondary participants in the show.

It’s all Jacen’s fault, Luke thought with uncharacteristic irritation. Why, in the name of Twin Suns, did he have to remember it now, and why did I go along with this idea?

It seemed innocuous enough at the beginning. They had been having a family dinner the night before – he, Mara, and Jacen, who had lost his position of meld coordinator in the First Fleet after the stunt he pulled at the end of the battle at Ebaq 9. Traest Kre’fey had been less than happy with such an obvious and demonstrative breach of discipline and unofficially, but firmly, requested for Jacen to be recalled back to Mon Cal, which brought a certain sense of relief to Luke. After everything Jacen had been through, the Jedi Master preferred his nephew to be close by.

Han and Leia had been absent, sadly, being busy with Han’s Smuggler's Alliance group, which needed a lot of work after the losses it had suffered at Ebaq 9, but Jaina was present. She had been ordered to Mon Cal to help with the new pilots’ training and the creating of new simulator programs, and Luke was very glad to see his niece starting to relax, after everything she’d had to endure in that battle. They ate, they joked, they talked about Han, and Leia, and Ben; all in all, it was a very pleasant evening.

Then Jacen had made a comment about him, Luke, saving his stupid butt on Belkadan, while fighting the Yuuzhan Vong warriors with two lightsabers. That drew immediate attention from both Mara and Jaina, who had never before seen him doing that. Both wanted a demonstration, and since Kyp Durron, Luke’s one and only sparring partner in this form of combat, was also there, on Mon Cal, Luke readily agreed to provide it.

He was starting to regret this decision now. Outwardly, nothing was wrong. Their small crowd of spectators, which consisted of Mara, Jacen, Jaina, Kenth Hamner, and Octa Ramis, Kyp’s current second-in-command, definitely weren’t suspecting anything. Luke, however, knew better.

Kyp was currently losing the sixth round out of six, and that wasn’t normal, no matter what everybody thought.

Luke knew that his superiority in lightsaber combat was unquestionable in the Order. And if it had been a single-lightsaber fight, he wouldn’t have been worried, either, because normally he won eight rounds out of ten against Kyp. Dual sabers, however, were another matter entirely. This form of combat had been Kyp’s idea, and his favorite hobbyhorse, to begin with.

It all had started many years ago, in the first years of the Academy’s existence. One day, after a particularly vigorous and demanding week of exercises, the students asked for a day off. Luke, also more worn out than usual, granted it readily. They spent that day sleeping, eating, joking around and playing games, and then, when the night started to wrap its dark purple-orange robes around the Temple, they all gathered in the common room to watch a holovid together.

The holovid had proved to be an old Clone Wars era action drama about the Yovshin Swordsmen. The fight sequences displayed in it were outstanding, and while most of the students were just watching it and holding their collective breath, ever-practical Kyp was actually the first to propose trying the Jar’kai style with lightsabers.

The idea had been accepted with enthusiasm, which receded significantly after the first couple of weeks. The main reason was that Jar’kai hadn’t been, exactly, an independent style. It was more of an application, a method, and every fighter that used it had to adapt his particular preferred style to the use of two weapons. It required exceptional coordination, better than usual precision, and general proficiency that almost all of the new Jedi hadn’t mastered yet.

Not to mention that it also had required ambidextrous abilities that most of his students lacked. Luke, however, had got used to relying on his left hand out of sheer necessity, and had never quite gotten out of the habit, still harboring a sort of distrust for his cybernetic right hand. Kyp, on his side, got used to employing both of his hands on Kessel, where learning to do that was the only means by which he was able to collect the amount of spice required and not get himself punished on a regular basis. At the end, they were the only two left who hadn’t abandoned the Jar’kai. Even Kam Solusar cast it off, coming to the conclusion that it was of no use against an experienced single-bladed opponent, if you couldn’t do it right. And the others had enough trouble learning the single-weapon combat to even think about mastering dual blades.

Kyp, nevertheless, had been skilled enough and stubborn enough to continue working on it. Luke strongly suspected that the fact that it was the only form of combat in which Kyp was able to beat him soundly was the primary reason behind Kyp’s persistence. That fact itself was easily explainable: Kyp’s personal fighting style, based mostly on the Ataru form, with its reliance on quick movements, acrobatics, and agility, was better suited to Jar’kai than Luke’s own Djem So, whose wide attacking slashes were losing a lot of power when performed one-handed.

Luke often wondered why Kyp, who had developed his style during the years when he was the smallest and weakest of all Jedi students, and had to compensate, never switched to another style that would have been more suited to his current greater height and physical power. Probably it was because the only style he could have adopted would have been Djem So, and competing with his own Master in his own style would have been something that Kyp, consciously or not, wasn’t eager to do.

He could have won, after all, and while Kyp’s habitual deference to Luke was starting to wear thin, besting his Master in such a fundamental way would have been more than even Kyp’s ego could digest. The dual-saber combat, however, had been widely considered not important in the New Order. It was a fad, a foible; it was a safe ground. Here Kyp could let himself loose on Luke and not be afraid that his victory would have any far-reaching consequences.

Therefore, Luke knew very well that his winning six bouts in a row with Kyp hadn’t been anything close to normal. Either Kyp was consciously throwing a fight, not wanting to embarrass Luke before a crowd that wasn’t used to see him losing, or something was seriously wrong with his former student. Luke fell back a bit, not pressing his advantage, and probed the younger Master carefully. What he found made him wince.

Kyp’s mental shields were always formidable. But now they weren’t simply strong; they were airtight-sealed, as thick and hard as the walls of their old Temple. Not a whiff of a thought or emotion would be able to squeeze out; not a thing, no matter how insignificant, would be able to get in. And Luke knew very well that no one needed this kind of fortification unless there were some exceptionally good reasons for such a level of security. Erecting and maintaining such a shield tended to impede one’s connection to the Force, and it was actually a miracle, a testimony to Kyp’s extraordinary abilities, that he was still able to put on a good enough fight, and that Luke only now started to suspect something was wrong.

Luke deflected Kyp’s attack with one lightsaber in a block over his head and another at waist level, and then swiped Kyp’s blades with a half-circular inward movement that pushed Kyp back with both of his sabers pressed dangerously close to his face. Kyp bent backward, and sidestepped neatly, pivoting on one foot. It took his body out of immediate danger, and redirected both Luke’s blades to the opposite side forcibly, which threw the older Master off-stride and slightly off-balance. Kyp, however, was unable to press his advantage, since the momentum took him whirling too far away from his opponent.

A quiet snapping sound of a hair clasp would have been unnoticed in the midst of all this activity, if not for the fact that Kyp’s hair flew loose, following its owner in the spin, and plastering itself to Kyp’s sweaty face.

Luke took a step back and thumbed off both lightsabers at the same moment Kyp turned his weapons blades down in his raised hands, indicating a request for a break. Kyp nodded his gratitude, put his sabers on a bench and started to fish his recalcitrant hair clasp from under it, gathering the wet locks off his face at the same time. His military gray tank top was soaked with sweat – and that wasn’t normal, either. Usually it took much more than meager twenty-something minutes of sparring to make him break into a sweat, but, obviously, without a proper connection to the Force, the fight had been much more taxing physically.

The younger Master stood up again, popped the silver metallic clasp between his teeth, and started finger-combing his curly black mane back with quick, absent motions.

Suddenly Luke’s vision started to blur. A memory of something that happened long ago surfaced in his brain, blending with the current vision, replacing it in his eyes. A younger, smoother version of that same face, tilted at the same angle, started to bleed through the harsh, strained features before him. A spark of arousal shot through Luke, reminding him painfully that he knew the body under the ragged tank top and baggy training pants very well-- too well; better than he should have. It had been almost fifteen years since that fateful night when he abandoned everything he thought he knew about himself, surrendered his control and his body, violated every notion of propriety he knew of, and lived to not regret it in the morning. But no matter how often he tried to tell himself otherwise, Luke Skywalker hadn’t forgotten a thing.

He took a deep breath, and willed the stubborn memory away. He was a different man now. Kyp was a different man now. Nothing that had happened between them back then had any relation to what they were currently doing.

Mara’s voice, sharp and sarcastic, interrupted his thoughts and helped to ground him in the here and now. “You should consider getting a haircut, Durron. The Vong won’t wait until you’ve finished styling your pride and glory.”

“Yuuzhan Vong,” corrected Jacen.

Mara shrugged. Kyp didn’t answer. Not a muscle twitched on his still, tight-lipped face, as if he hadn’t heard a word, as if she wasn’t there at all. He clicked the clasp back into place, and shook his head vigorously, testing the strength of its hold.

Of course, it only served to infuriate Mara further. “It’d be a prudent thing to do,” she said even more cattily. “Or are you afraid women would stop noticing you without your main attraction?”

This one, at last, got a response out of Kyp. “My main attraction?” he asked quietly, barely turning his head. “Speaking from personal experience, Jade?” And with that, he turned to Luke, not even bothering to see the redhead’s reaction, and called both lightsabers back to his hands. “Shall we?”

Everyone tried not to look at Mara, who stood there with her teeth clenched hard, trying to glare a hole in the back of the black-haired Jedi’s head. Everyone except Octa, who was snickering openly. Luke, himself, while feeling sympathy for his wife, was unable to suppress a flicker of amusement. Everyone who was familiar with Kyp Durron knew better than to try to pick on him; Mara, however, hadn’t had a lot of contact with the younger man over the years, and, therefore, had been unprepared to hear this quick, cutting wit directed at herself. But, if he knew his wife, and he did, he had better do something before she decided to take the challenge and up the stakes. The last thing he needed was another conflict between those two.

He ignited his lightsabers and prepared to press an attack, hoping that even an infuriated Mara would realize the futility of exchanging insults with a man engaged in combat, but it proved to be unnecessary. The shrill, annoying sound of Jaina’s military comlink redirected everybody’s attention immediately.

His niece made a face, but answered right away. “Lieutenant Colonel Solo.”

No one was able to hear what had been said, but after switching it off Jaina turned to them with a crooked smile. “Sorry for that. I’ve got to go. Kyp?”

He handed out one of the purple sabers and gave her a small, sympathetic smile. “Another briefing?”

“Yeah,” she said with irritation. “More boring stuff. They just can’t live without my indispensable opinion. I’m surprised they haven’t called you, as well.”

As if it just had been waiting for a cue, Kyp’s comlink, which was lying under his shirt on a bench, went off. Kyp twitched the garment away and grabbed the device. “Durron,” he snapped at whoever was on the other side, then listened. “Half an hour, Colonel, unless you really don’t mind obnoxious odors. You caught me in the middle of a sparring session. Yes. Yes, I’ll tell her.” He switched it off and turned to Jaina. “I just won you at least twenty minutes. Grab me a caf on your way, will you?” Then he turned to Octa and looked at her inquiringly, while putting on his shirt.

“Only the sims,” his second answered to his unvoiced question. “And you know damn well we can manage them without you. Catch some shut-eye, Kyp. Probably all that endless droning during the briefing will finally put you to sleep.”

Her commander scowled at her, but obeyed her shooing gesture and left the room in a hurry. Luke sighed. This rushed and abrupt end was almost anticlimactic. Despite Kyp’s deteriorated condition, he hadn’t had such an excellent sparring partner since the beginning of the war, and, frankly, Luke missed it, missed the familiar thrill, missed the opportunity to best a worthy adversary in combat that wasn’t lethal.

Mara turned on her heel and stormed out of the room. Kenth Hamner, obviously uncomfortable, uttered a brief excuse and followed her. Now it was only himself, Jacen, and Octa left, and the Chandrillian woman was still lingering, as if expecting Jacen to leave so she could talk to Luke.

“Aunt Mara isn’t happy,” Jacen stated serenely. “But it was great, Uncle Luke. I had no idea Kyp was that good.”

“He’s usually better than that,” Luke answered. “For some reason he wasn’t fighting at his full ability today.”

Octa opened her mouth, as if wanting to say something, then promptly shut it again.

“Go on, Jacen,” Luke said to his nephew. “I’ll be along soon.”

Jacen looked at him, at Octa, nodded his understanding, and left.

“What’s wrong with Kyp, Octa?” Luke asked her, as soon as the door closed behind Jacen.

“I have no idea, Master Skywalker,” the stocky woman answered readily. “But something is, that’s for sure.”

He sat on the bench and indicated that she should do the same. “Tell me more. What exactly have you noticed?”

The young Jedi hesitated. “He’ll probably give me the cold shoulder for a week even for what I already let out. But what the kriff... if he can’t take care of himself, someone should. He hasn’t been sleeping well, that’s the first. I don’t even know since when, but definitely as long as we have been staying here on Mon Cal. Our rooms are next to each other. In fact, it’s one room that was split in half by a very thin wall, and I am not getting enough sleep because I have to listen to his constant pacing and tossing and turning.”

Luke frowned. The Dozen was relocated to Mon Calamari a good month ago, both for the purpose of letting Kyp participate in the Council meetings and letting his pilots, almost all of whom were seasoned veterans, help with the training of new recruits. If Kyp had been having problems with sleep for that amount of time, it would definitely explain his poor physical condition. But not that heavy fortification of his shielding.

“What else, Octa?” Luke asked insistently.

“He has been... very moody lately.”

Luke waited, trying to curb his impatience.

The woman sighed. “He’s not joking and bantering with us anymore, and when he does, it comes out much more sarcastic than usual. You can practically remove rust with those comments. I don’t know, Master Skywalker, it’s hard to explain. I know people often think of Kyp as guarded and aloof... and it might be true, to a degree. But he has always been pretty open with us. He really has a talent for uniting people, for making us feel like a family, instead of just another fighting unit. But he’s closing himself off now, to us as well as to others, and our guys don’t like that at all. We used to gather together regularly, just to sit and talk, and joke, and sing songs, you know, just let ourselves relax and enjoy life. But each time we want to do that now, he says he’s too busy. And that’s also true, but we can’t help feeling abandoned. He’s always found time before.”

“Have you considered asking him what’s going on?”

She shrugged. “You know Kyp. He’d never admit something is wrong with him. Not to his subordinates, at least. He thinks he’s supposed to be the reliable one. Probably it’s as simple as the strain of the war finally starting to get to him. Probably he just needs a break.” She smiled sadly. “But I don’t know how to make him take one.” She hesitated again, then continued. “Master Skywalker, do you have any idea how much work he’s doing here?”

“As much as any of us, I suppose,” Luke answered. “He’s a Council member, and a squadron commander as well, which makes a double load, but many of us are doing that. Cilghal, Kenth, Saba...”

Octa started to shake her head even before he finished. “He’s going to kill me for this,” she mumbled under her breath. “That’s not all, Master. He’s also acting as Admiral Kre’fey’s personal representative, and that includes at least as much work as the other two put together, and most of it is worse than pulling out gundarks’ teeth. He’s smoothing the bureaucratic channels to ensure that the supplies for the fleet wouldn’t end up sitting in the warehouses for months, or won’t be sent to parts unknown because some clerk was being stupid that day. He also makes sure that they are assigned to us in the first place – you know how hard the competition is now for supplies; everyone needs everything.”

Luke took a deep breath and let it out slowly. That was work he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy, much less on someone like Kyp. “Why, Octa?” he asked, with rising exasperation. “Couldn’t the Admiral find someone a bit less valuable to do the job of a supply pusher?”

“The only thing the Admiral cares about,” the young Jedi answered harshly, “is whether the job is done well. When Kyp is doing it, everything comes twice as fast as when it’s done by anyone else.” She smiled sardonically. “Probably because most of those clerks are female. Also, because people are less likely to say ‘no’ to Kyp Durron than to anyone else. Master Skywalker, I had no idea how much work he had to do until two weeks ago, when he asked me to start keeping track of all his meetings, because he wasn’t able to remember them all anymore. I tried to talk him into giving up at least the sims – but Force forbid he’d allow himself some slack in anything he considers his duty!” She hissed in irritation. “He’s so stubborn!”

Luke almost smiled, in complete discordance to the situation. Octa’s phrase brought back memories, all right. He could almost feel the taste of fresh water on his lips again. It seemed that now Kyp might be the one who needed the proverbial toss in a lake.

Octa was sitting beside him, rubbing her forehead tiredly with the tips of her fingers. To his dismay, Luke noticed that she was almost in tears – and that was, in itself, as alarming as Kyp’s condition. Octa had always been a stable one, not without some faults and emotional outbursts, but definitely not prone to fall into despair. He couldn’t even remember her crying after the death of her lover and longtime friend, Miko Reglia.

“Octa,” he asked suddenly, surprising himself. He usually didn’t pry into other people’s private matters. “Do you love him?”

She smiled crookedly and shook her head. “No. Not like I loved Miko, in any case. Kyp’s just... special. He brings warmth into our lives. Without him, this war would have been one cold, endless, hopeless struggle. One day, I was just sitting in a mess hall over a bowl of disgusting soup and suddenly realized I don’t want to live in a galaxy without Kyp in it, without his smile, without his jokes, without his resolve, without his ‘but of course you can do it, Octa!’ I just hate to see him as he is now,” she finished with quiet intensity. “He needs help, but he’d never accept mine. Probably if you try, he’d listen to you. I don’t know who else...” Her voice trailed off.

Luke squeezed her hand. “Thank you. I’ll help him if he allows me. Is there anything else that might be important?” For some reason he had a feeling she wasn’t telling him the whole story.

Octa fidgeted nervously. “Yes, there is. But if I tell you that, he’ll kill me for sure, and I’ll even stay still so he can do it comfortably. I’ve already betrayed him once, and that was one time too many. Ask someone else, Master Skywalker. The gossipers can be useful sometimes.”

Luke smiled a little wistfully. “I’m afraid the times when people were willing to gossip with me are long gone.”

Octa, who was already poised to leave, shrugged apologetically. “I still can’t.”

“That’s all right. Thanks anyway.”

After she left, he just sat there, staring at the opposite wall with unseeing eyes, trying to comprehend why the notion that Kyp could be weak always came as a surprise. Of all people, he had been the one who definitely should have known better than to take Kyp’s stability for granted.

Well, at least this time he’d received an honest and square warning, and he’d better not repeat his past mistakes. Waiting for the problem to disappear hadn’t worked before; he had no doubt it was not going to work now, either. And if he let Kyp fall again, this time it would be his, and only his, fault. No fool like twice fooled.

Instead of going back to his apartment and facing Mara’s wrath, Luke went to the medical ward. Mara could wait; he could make a damn good guess about what had set her off this time, and talking with her was not going to be easy, and it was not going to be simple, and, most importantly, it was not going to be short. There was something else he needed to do first.

Cilghal’s domain had a comfortable, homey feeling to it, so uncustomary for a medical establishment. But then, the Calamari Jedi Master had never been an average doctor.

She stood up and greeted him with a respectful nod upon his entering, abandoning whatever she had been studying on her holoscreen. “Master Skywalker?” she asked, with a hint of worry in her voice. It was understandable - he had never been a frequent visitor to the place.

“I need you to do something for me, Cilghal,” Luke said, quickly going to the heart of the issue. “I need you to run a complete health check on Kyp, but you have to do it in such a way that he won’t notice he’s being singled out. I don’t know, probably you should tell him I ordered health checks on all Jedi on Mon Cal... or anything else you can think of.”

“The health checks wouldn’t hurt in any case,” Cilghal answered calmly. “Jedi aren’t immune to stress-induced illnesses, and since the war is currently more or less on standstill, it might be a good idea to do it now. But why Kyp?”

“When did you see him the last time?” Luke answered with his own question.

“Three days ago, at the Council meeting,” she said. “You were there as well.”

“Have you noticed anything strange about him?”

The Calamari’s high, sloped forehead wrinkled slightly. “No. Although he looked tired, but that hardly can be constituted as unusual.”

Luke sighed. “I take it, you haven’t looked at him through the Force, then. Do it the next time; you might find something that can be constituted as unusual. That’s not all, however. I sparred with him today, with dual sabers. He lost six bouts in a row.”

The Jedi healer’s big, protruding eyes flashed orange. “Now, this is unusual, I agree.”

“According to Knight Ramis,” continued Luke, “he also hasn’t slept well in at least a month. She also reported that he’s appearing moody and withdrawn. Every one of these in itself might not be alarming, but put together...”

“I understand you, Master Skywalker. When do you want it done?”

Luke shrugged. “Yesterday? I’m serious, Cilghal. The last thing I want is to have a repeat performance of what happened back on Yavin 4.”

“Kyp is not the same man as he was then,” she answered reproachfully. “I don’t think that what you fear is possible, even if he is going to break down.”

“I know that, Cilghal,” Luke said, somewhat chastened. “But if he just gets himself killed because of sheer exhaustion, it will be even worse, don’t you agree? I’m not willing to lose him.”

“Me either,” the other Master answered seriously. “I’ll do everything I can.”

“Thank you. And try to talk to him, please. You’re one of his oldest friends, probably he’ll open up to you.” He smiled crookedly. “Miracles happen, after all.”

“Master Skywalker,” Cilghal said thoughtfully. “Have you considered that you might be Kyp’s problem? One of them, at least?”

Luke froze. “How so?”

The red-skinned Jedi sat back in her chair and looked at him intently with her enormous, luminescent orange eyes. “Placing him on the Council was a good way to give due acknowledgment to the Jedi Master Durron. But have you thought about giving the same recognition to your friend Kyp? He’s still your friend, isn’t he?”

“Of course he is,” Luke answered incredulously. “You know that.”

“No,” Cilghal answered calmly. “Actually, I don’t. You have been practically ignoring him since the beginning of the war, and for some time before that.” She raised her broad, big hand to forestall his objections. “I didn’t mean the official relationship between two Jedi Masters. You have always been much more than that for Kyp. ‘Positive regard’ isn’t an empty word, Master Skywalker. Think about that, please.”

“I will,” he promised.

“Thank you.” She bowed, politely but firmly dismissing him.

Luke walked out in a haze, not really registering where he was heading. He trusted his instincts to guide him to some place where he could just sit down and think. Fragments and snatches of all the meetings and conversations he had had with Kyp during the last five years were playing a continuous loop in his mind. The Jedi meetings, their arguments, him assigning Kyp the tasks to do at the beginning of the war, before Kyp decided he would be better off on his own. Kyp reporting back – always precise, always laconic in the extreme.

When had he started to be like that? When exactly had Kyp’s wry, often colorful accounts transmuted to this sterile military accuracy? After their first clash over how this war should be fought? Or before? He didn’t even remember, and that made him shiver. Once again he had lost control of the situation, and allowed something very vital and very important to slip through his fingers, quietly and imperceptibly. And once again it happened because he had been afraid.

A discreet ‘beep’ of a waiter droid brought his awareness back. He was sitting in an already familiar small café, not far from the Council chambers and other governmental facilities. It was half-empty; there weren’t a lot of strangers at this level, and discreet and efficient security personnel made sure that various members of the new galactic government and Senate wouldn’t be bothered by strangers.

Luke didn’t like it, but it was exactly what he needed now – a safe, quiet place to sit down and think. No one was likely to bother him here; if nothing else, the stink of sweat and his disheveled appearance would guarantee that.

“Juma juice,” he said to the droid. “And a shroom steak on Tusken bread.” Luke wasn’t hungry yet, but he thought he had better eat while he still had the chance. Mara wasn’t likely to let him have a peaceful dinner upon returning home. Chewing the food with much less attention than it deserved, Luke continued turning Cilghal’s idea around in his mind, finding it more and more likely with each passing minute.

Many, many years ago, ironically, on Dathomir, a woman, who eventually became the Queen of sixty-three planets, had given him a crash course on one of the Universe’s most ancient weapons – the longbow. “Always unstring the bow,” she had said, amongst other bits of knowledge. “If you don’t, the constant strain will ruin both the bow and the bowstring, wearing them out slowly, but surely, and one day when you need them most, they’ll just snap in your hands. And the stronger the bow, the more often you need to let it rest, because the strain on it is greater, too.” What he hadn’t understood at the time was that the same rule could be applied to people, as well.

“He thinks he’s supposed to be the reliable one,” Octa had said. These weren’t empty words; Luke knew that probably better than anyone else. Kyp’s reliability was another thing he had got used to take for granted, which surely would have surprised any bystanders who knew nothing but the bare bones of his and Kyp’s history. Luke, however, knew the truth.

Months ago, at their first public knighting ceremony, carried by a fit of Force-induced inspiration, he named his niece, Jaina, the Sword of the Jedi. What he hadn’t realized then was that the metaphor was incomplete.

Because in the world of ancient battle paraphernalia which became a staple for poetic allusions and heraldic images, the Sword had never been alone. There had always been another thing, the second part to the sacred pair – the Shield. Attack and defense, strike and guard, one without the other would always be only a part of the whole. And when the Sword failed, when the task became too overwhelming for it to carry on, when the enemies were too plentiful and the losses too unbearable, the Shield was there to cover it and help it back to safety.

What he tended to forget, Luke thought wryly, was that both the Sword and the Shield that the Order had been so lucky to have in such hard times, were appallingly and reassuringly human. And the things Teneniel Djo had said to him, eons ago, applied to them, as much as to anyone else. Jaina, well... Jaina had Kyp to lean on when the strain of being what she was became unbearable. But Kyp didn’t have anyone. After all, one can lean only on something that is stronger than he is, or at least just as strong. How many people in the Universe fit that requirement?

He was one of these people, and he failed at the task.

An insistent beeping interrupted Luke’s musings. “Skywalker,” he said resignedly into the dark plastic of his comlink.

“If you think you can outwait me, farmboy,” Mara’s voice told him with a hefty dose of sarcasm, “think again.”

“I’ll be at home in half an hour,” Luke answered, ignoring Mara’s displeasure. A public cantina wasn’t the best place to get into a fight with your spouse over a comm.

“You’d better, or I’ll come to get you,” his wife said dryly, and closed the connection.

Luke sighed again. He really should have cleared up this subject with Mara long ago, instead of just waiting for it to dissolve on its own. Would he ever gain enough wisdom to learn how to discern which problems the passive approach was going to work with, and which it wasn’t? He had been afraid to take an active stance in this war – and it almost led to a complete disaster. He had been afraid to talk about his past, and Mara’s issues with it – and it seemed that another disaster, this time a personal one, was waiting for him with impatience. One of those days he was going to figure out when the fear of aggression was becoming a trigger for aggression. One of those days...

When he closed the door to their small, humid apartment behind him, Mara was standing before the round window with her back to him. She didn’t turn. The turquoise light, filtered through meters of water, outlined her silhouette, creating an interesting effect on her hair. It appeared almost black now, with a muted purple hue. Luke wondered briefly why he was even noticing these details at such a moment.

“Old love never dies, Skywalker?” she asked, with brittle quiet.

Luke didn’t even try to pretend he hadn’t understood her. “I never loved Kyp,” he answered honestly. “Not in the sense you seem to imply.” He deliberately kept himself as open to her as possible, hoping she would feel his sincerity. “Mara... I love you more than I’ve loved anyone else in my life. But does it mean I’m not allowed to have any other attachments?”

She turned to him, arms firmly crossed on her chest. “So you do admit you love him.”

“I always did, in a way,” he said evenly. “Probably even from day one. It just took me a lot of time to recognize.”

Mara snorted. “You were besotted by him, Skywalker. From day one, all right. I hoped you had gotten over it, especially after everything he put you through, but it seems that I was wrong.”

“I was enamored with his potential at first,” Luke agreed. “Besotted probably is indeed the correct word. But it was just that – I was in love with the idea of having such a student. I never bothered to look past it, to see the person he was, not just a vessel for a huge amount of Force aptitude that I could shape according to my ideas. I paid for that mistake. Despite whatever you and other people think, I don’t consider him guilty for his fall.” She made a movement, as if to interrupt him, and he held out his hand, for once letting the weight of authority he had accumulated through the years slip through. “No, Mara. By taking on Kyp, I took responsibility for far more than just training him, and I neglected it, and you know that. Not intentionally, of course, but it doesn’t make my negligence any less criminal. I should have known better. I wasn’t sixteen years old at the time.”

He rubbed his forehead tiredly. “We seem to deviate here. Just to clear the subject – yes, I do love Kyp. In many ways. As a student, the best one I’ve ever had. As a friend, one of the very few I have who doesn’t have a problem with seeing me for who I am, and accepting it. As a child, too, in some sense, and I think I already told you that once. As just an amazing being, after all, one who managed to survive everything that life has thrown at him, without breaking down under the impossible weight. But romantic love doesn’t have any part in it, Mara. He’s not any competition for you, and he never has been.”

Mara suddenly stepped forward, and her strong, hard fingers dug into his shoulders. “You’re a lousy liar, Skywalker. I felt you this morning, and I felt your lust. And I’m pretty kriffin’ sure you weren’t thinking about me at the time. Do you know how many times I saw you dreaming of him? Do you know how many times I caught the images from your memories? You, making love to him with an abandon and intensity I never, ever, felt being directed at me! Tell me, how long this affair was going on? Why did you break up with him? Or was it him who left you? Was I just a cover for you? Or a convenient substitute?” She was shaking him now, with her fingers digging into his shoulders painfully, as if wanting nothing more than to throttle him, and refraining from it just because she wanted to hear the answer. “Tell me, damn you!”

Of course, Luke had never hoped he would be able to completely hide his past involvement with Kyp from Mara. He never even tried to. Their connection had been way too strong for such an attempt. Somehow, though, he hoped she would be able not only to see, but, sooner or later, to understand – and that was another mistake. He presumed, instead of asking and answering, and, obviously, Mara constructed a very incorrect picture out of the bits of insight she had been able to gain. An affair? She thought they had an affair?

“I can do better,” he told her. “I can show you. I’m sorry I haven’t done this earlier, Mara. What you think is almost totally wrong, but I can’t prove it in any way other than letting you take a walk through my memories, step by step. Do you want it?”

Mara was surprised enough to let go of him completely and make a step back. “Oh, you bet I do,” she answered, after a brief pause. “If I’m going to break up with you today, I damn well want to know what I’m doing it for.”

Luke felt punched in the gut. Had it gone that far? She was the one who knew him like no other, probably not even Leia. How could she doubt him in such a fundamental way, after everything they had been through? How was it possible, that with their bond, she was unable to look into his soul and see how deep his commitment to her was?

He had often heard that love made people blind. Apparently, the same was true for jealousy.

“One thing, Mara. I don’t want to hide anything from you. I really don’t. Please believe me. But what I’m going to show you concerns not only me. There are some things about Kyp there that very few people know about, and for a very good reason. Promise me that no matter what your decision is, you’ll never use it against him. Give me your word, Mara.”

Her green eyes narrowed. “And what if I won’t?”

Luke felt tears starting to gather somewhere inside his eye sockets, putting, it seemed, a ton of pressure on his brain. “Then I can’t show it to you. I really want you to understand, badly, but gaining your trust by betraying Kyp’s would be just exchanging one regret for another.”

Mara’s face softened a bit, and she covered it by rolling her eyes in a show of annoyance. “Fine. You have my word.”

“Thanks.” He took her hands and gently placed her fingers over his temples. “Just reach out to me. And please, Mara, don’t break the connection until I do. I don’t think I would be able to do it more than once.”

Looking back was hard. It had been a long time. Luke felt very far removed from that frustrated, clueless man he had been then. However, it was absolutely necessary that he recreated the events exactly, so Mara would be able to understand what had been driving him, the desperation and helplessness that gave birth to the fervor and intensity she was so envious about. He needed her to see the unbelievable generosity Kyp displayed by accepting something that was just shy of a rape, and showing him a way out of the trap that he drove himself into. He needed her to see the Kyp she never knew, even if the cause for that was mostly her own prejudice.

That was the Kyp he knew very well, though, this affectionate friend and staunch ally, a light-hearted, charming being that had the ability to brighten people’s lives by just being around. Only now Luke started to understand how much he missed this side of Kyp, which had not been on display for a while.

Or, probably, it had been, but not for him. And he allowed his sorrow to leak out to Mara as well. It was his mistake, no doubt about that, but it was her unyielding animosity toward Kyp that had been the cause, and he wanted her to understand how much he had missed just because of her inability to give up jealousy and old grudges. How much she had missed.

Luke finished his recollection with his meeting with Kyp on the balcony in the morning. Even if he wanted to continue it past that, he wouldn't have been able; such a deep delving into the old memories required a lot of effort, not to mention transferring them to someone else, and he was exhausted. He gently disengaged his mind from Mara’s, and just continued to stand there with his eyes closed, breathing hard, trying to quell the emotions that the memories had awakened.

When he finally looked into his wife’s eyes, they were distant and unfocused, with the pupils dilated so wide that they appeared almost black. Then she took two steps back and dropped herself into an armchair, with hands hanging limply by her sides.

“Go,” she said in a small voice. “Please, just go.”

Luke’s heart sank down and started to throb painfully. “Is that it?” he asked in a hoarse, hollow voice.

“Oh?” That caused her to startle. “No, Luke, no. I’m not kicking you out for good... at least yet.” She smiled bleakly. “But I need to think, and I need to be alone for that. I think it’d be better if you slept somewhere else tonight. Do you understand?”

He nodded, relieved. “I do.” Luke. She called him Luke. It was a good sign. Mara would come around; if nothing else, he could always count on her innate sense of fairness to guide her through.

He slept on one of the beds in the infirmary that night, thankful for Cilghal’s silent tact and the fact that the suite had been devoid of patients.