I Want to be Your Knight - 32

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A few hours later, we were leaving Coruscant airspace. Seha had still not talked to me, and every time I looked at Jysella, I felt like she wanted to skin me alive. So I did what any sensible man in my position would do. I ran and hid.

In this case, it was to the cockpit, as we were on my starship, the Jade's Scion. It was a Baudo-class star yacht. The same class of ship which Jysella's mom used, and which in theory Jysella herself owned, though the rumor was that the Pulsar Skate was in dry dock on her grandfather's Star Destroyer.

Frankly, I'd always been too scared to ask her, and I could only guess that the reason she was so angry on this voyage was because I was flying a Baudo-class. I hadn't told her, so it did come as something of a nasty shock.

But in my defense, I hadn't thought of it either. When I bought it I did so so that it would be a reminder of my own stupidity. That every time I flew somewhere, I would be reminded explicitly of my own implicitness in the death of Mirax Horn. I didn't think about how it would affect her.

Just one of those stupid things I seem to do around both of these girls.

I sighed, as I settled into the pilot's seat, my eyes flicking across the array of controls and indicator lights. Seeing nothing abnormal, I leaned back in my seat, waiting until the navicomp told me that it had calculated the jump to lightspeed. Finally, the navicomp beeped in notification, and I grabbed the lightspeed control levers, and pushed them forward.

A part of me soared as the stars elongated and jumped towards me, before collapsing into the swirling blue madness of hyperspace. I stared at it, wondering what other people felt when they did so. I remember, there used to be a superstition that humans would go insane if they stared too long into the abyss. It was so bad in fact that ships made a little over a millennium ago came equipped with viewports that instantly opaqued when the ship made the jump.

"What do you see out there?" Seha's voice came from behind me, and I closed my eyes.

"I see ghosts of the past," I replied. "Of course I know that's just my mind trying to make sense out of the fog and swirls, but..."

I heard the co-pilot's seat shift, and opened my eyes, to look at her. She was folded into it, staring out the canopy, her feet resting on the chair, arms wrapped around her legs, and her chin resting on her knees. She gazed into the distance, her eyes haunted, filled with pain.

Kriff, I thought as I frowned. How can I help her?

"Seha..." I began, trying to figure out what I should say next. Wondering what I could do. Not knowing what else to do, I played dumb. "What... what do you see out there?"

A shiver raced through her, and she lifted her chin up, and turned away from the viewport and the scar of colors on the far side of it. A tear was rolling down her right cheek.

"Why did you do it Ben? Why did you follow him for so long?"

I frowned and shook my head. "For the same reason you did things for him for so long. He was charismatic, and I thought he knew what was best. I thought he deserved my loyalty."

She turned away from me again. "That's not a good enough reason Ben. You... you turned them over to him, knowing what he'd do to him. How many other times did you do that?"

"I..."

How could I answer that question truthfully? Every Corellian I arrested, every Corellian I snitched on. When I arrested Aunt Mirax. When I slashed Zekk with my saber while trying to arrest Aunt Leia and Uncle Han. Sacrificing Cal Omas for my revenge. Sacrificing Kashyyk.

How could I tell her all those things that I had done.

I didn't want to know about them myself.

I hated myself for doing them.

In the time between Nelani Dinn's death and my walking away from Jacen, I had done, or allowed to be done, countless terrible things.

During that time, I did two good things. One was saving a little girl while on Kiost and the other was saving Uncle Lando and his family.

And both of those I considered myself as having failed as what I did at first was to effectively sentence them to death.

"Yes, Ben," Jysella said, her voice cutting through my thoughts from behind me. "Why don't you tell us all those things you did while being Jacen's Vader?"

I shifted my seat around to face her for a moment. Her face was cold and hard, and I merely shook my head. "It won't do us any good. I'm not proud of what I did back then, and I'm trying to make up for it."

"Shavit Ben!" Seha snarled. "I don't care about you making something up. I just don't want to know how people suffered under you. I don't want another one of those visions kicking me in the stomach."

I sighed, and scrubbed my hands across my face. Out of a whole year's worth of actions, there were two worthwhile things I done, and she had just described half of those actions as a kick in the stomach because of the evil I had caused.

"I'm sorry Seha," I whispered. "I don't have control over what the Force decides to share."

I glanced over at Jysella, and realized she was watching Seha, frowning slightly. Finally, she spoke, "You really didn't know, did you? You had no clue about everything he's done."

Seha frowned as she shook her head. "I knew he worked with Jacen Solo and was trained by him, but none of the Master's told us what that meant."

This won't end well, I thought as I shook my head, trying to cut Jysella off. "It meant that I did a lot of things that I regret now. Most of which I'll never be able to make up for."

I felt Jys' staring at me. It was a hot, prickly sensation at the nape of my neck--one I'd often associated with imminent danger. The type of danger that could very well leave me dead.

I ignored it, and kept my focus on Seha. She had been rattled enough by her participation in the vision. She really didn't need any more details of what I had done while being Jace's lapdog.

"Regret? Amends?" Jysella hissed out. Her voice low and dangerous, and I felt myself cringing. "Is that what this is all about? Is that why you came back?"

I closed my eyes and exhaled. Opening them back up I twisted the seat around until I was facing her and then I stood up. I had known that this was going to happen sooner or later. In fact I'd been expecting it since I had returned to the Jedi.

I just didn't expect it on this mission.

In front of Seha.

"Jysella... Jys, you know I wish I hadn't-"

She interrupted me with her fist. Stars flared across my vision as I dropped back to my seat, blood pouring from my nose.

The Force was a maelstrom around her, raging, as she snarled over me. "Then why the kriff did you?"

I felt Seha's confusion, and from the corner of my eye saw her looking between us.

I had no answer. I didn't all those years ago when I did it. I didn't all those years ago when I finally left Jacen and went to the Jedi. And I still didn't. I probably never would have an answer that would satisfy her.

Or myself.

I merely shook my head. She knew all of this. I had told it to her the day she put me in the medward after I had confessed to the Council everything I had done as Jacen's apprentice.

She dropped to her knees, her hands covering her face as her body shook with tears. Her voice lost that edge of anger, replacing it with a deep vein of pain. "Why did you turn my mom over to him?"

I closed my eyes as realization sunk into Seha. I glanced at her, and saw the horror on her face. Grimacing, I turned back to Jys.

"All I can do is say I'm sorry. I know I'll never make it up to you, I know it, but you're right. It's why I'm here. I have to try."

She pulled her hands away, and looked at me as the tears continued to roll down her face. "Tell me Ben, if I hadn't been hiding in the Force, would you have turned me in as well?"

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