Chapter Text
Chapter One: At the Crossroads
“You ready?”
Elzie looked around the room for the eight time. The deluxe medical bed looked as though it belonged in a high-end hotel, except that the mattress was bare; covers and pillows had already been stripped and carried off by housekeeping. An elegant synth-wood side table was also bare. The matching desk with the built-in light fixture was clear. The wardrobe curtain was drawn to reveal an empty hanger bar and wall in the back. The door to the fresher chamber stood open, the counter by the sink held not a single bottle or brush. The patterned synth-stone floor was spotless. Even the waste basket was empty.
Light streamed in from the full-length windows, leaving no shadowed corner where an errant object could be missed. The eight look told her what the first seven had. “Yup. Got everything.”
Leia smiled and took her arm as if she was being escorted to a society event, rather than attending an old friend being discharged from the Imperial Palace’s medi-center. “I thought we might grab lunch on the way. Or if you’re not hungry, we could go straight to the hotel.”
“I could eat,” Elzie replied, shrugging the shoulder that held her luggage. A single kit bag the same shade of orange as a Rogue pilot’s jumpsuit contained every personal belonging she’d used in the past four months. It was barely half full.
Leia squeezed her arm affectionately. “And how are you otherwise? Feels good to be out?”
“Yup.” Elzie kept her eyes ahead of her as they walked. She didn’t feel any expression cross her face.
She sensed Leia’s frown, then heard it in her voice. “Are you sure?”
Elzie stopped and focused, trying to answer Leia honestly. “Hard to say. I’ve spent so much time in so many centers, I don’t really know what to compare it to. But I’m not hallucinating that I’m on fire, and that feels pretty good anywhere.”
It was a weak joke, but Leia offered a commiserating smile anyway. “You know, he used that on me, too. Did I ever tell you that?”
“No. When did this happen?”
“On the Death Star. Before you and the boys came aboard. Before…” She closed her eyes and took a breath. “Before they destroyed Alderaan. That was how they tortured me. How he tortured me. To try and make me reveal the Rebel Base on Yavin 4.”
“Oh, Leia.” Elzie extracted her arm so that she could wrap it around Leia’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
“Well, I don’t really like talking about it,” she said, wrinkling her nose in self-deprecation at the understatement. “It could have been a lot worse. The drug didn’t leave any permanent effects on me. Not that I don’t think Vader would have tried, but Tarkin wasn’t willing to let me live that long. But I wanted you to know you weren’t alone. I wish I’d told you sooner. I know what it’s like to burn to death and live to remember it.”
Elzie grimaced. “You ever talk to someone who’s survived serious burns? To try and relate?”
“No…”
“It’s not the same at all. Human brains… there’s all these different ways you can respond to emergencies. Some people go into shock. They stop feeling the pain. Some people just react on autopilot. The adrenaline takes over. Some people don’t remember what happened or how it felt. The brain wants to cope. It wants to compartmentalize trauma. But the drugs in a torture droid override all that. They make sure all your senses are turned up as high as they’ll go, and that you remember every bit of it.”
She looked into Leia’s eyes and found a clear understanding. Every detail of that experience was forever engraved into their minds—they’d felt their flesh blistering as all their fluids reached a boiling point; smelled their skin and hair as it charred; watched the flames around them go to black as their eyeballs melted. So vivid, so clear... so permanent.
It was the same with everything else Vader had made Elzie hallucinate. Drowning. Freezing. Suffocating in space. Crushed under rubble. Torn apart by wild animals. Always ending in her waking up, her body unharmed, ready to start again at zero.
“So, anyway,” Elzie finished, “if you ever do need to talk about it, you come and find me, got it?”
“I appreciate that,” Leia replied. Her smile was genuine, but there was some hesitation in her eyes. She didn’t need to say why. For her, those hallucinations were a memory. They’d disappeared as soon as the drugs were purged from her system. That’s how it was supposed to go.
For Elzie, they continued, years and years after the last atom of Xebonica was metabolized, after Darth Vader’s body was ash absorbed into Endor’s soil. For the rest of the war and years afterwards, Elzie could not sleep without experiencing those phantom deaths. There had been three previous medical-center discharges in seven years, and each time those damned hallucinations had crawled their way back.
“I mean it,” Elzie said seriously. “I’m here for you. Even in a medi-center, I’m here for my friends. It doesn’t matter who has it worse. It only matters that we have each other.”
Leia’s expression warmed, and she returned Elzie’s one-armed embrace. “Come on. The twins are so excited to seeing you again. I think they remember you better than Han and me.”
“Well, that’s why you take lots of holovids to remind them,” Elzie teased. “Of course, it helps if you can play a cool instrument.”
They took the turbolift eleven levels down, headed through another corridor and past a set of double doors, where Han was sitting with a bouncing Jacen on one knee and a wriggly Jaina on the other. Three sets of brown eyes lit up when they saw her.
“Aunt Ezzie! Aunt Ezzie!” Jaina and Jacen ejected themselves from their father’s lap and barreled across the lobby, each individually making more noise than the rest of the hospital combined. Han jogged after them, shushing to no avail.
“Hey, you little squirts!” Elzie stage-whispered, dropping to her knees to give them both a hug. “Let’s try to keep it down, okay? There’s sick people resting upstairs.”
“Aunt Ezzie, play the song!” Jacen demanded.
“With what?” Elzie grinned. “My hallikset’s at home. My dads’ home.”
“Go and get it!” Jaina declared, as if that were obvious.
“It’s two days in hyperspace, kiddo.”
“Alright, kids, go easy on Auntie Ezzie,” Han chided playfully. “She’s just got her freedom back, let her enjoy it.”
“Hey, Han,” she greeted him, smiling up from the floor. “Good to see you.”
“You too, kid. You’re lookin’ good. Your hair get even shorter?”
“Yeah, they went a little nuts with the diodes this time around, so I just shaved it off again to make it easier.” Twenty diodes a night, every night, constantly scanning her brain for doctors and medical droids to analyze. She had to have them removed and replaced if she wanted to shower. If her hair was long enough to hide the diodes, then the nurse droid inevitably ended up yanking out a few strands as it picked them out. It finally got to the point that Elzie could either shave her head or punch a hole in something. She chose the one that would grow back.
“Well, you make it work,” Han assured her. Elzie smiled. It was meaningless, because neither of them had any fashion sense, but it the thought that counted.
“Fuzzy!” Jaina said, rubbing the top of Elzie’s head. Jacen joined in and giggled.
“Careful,” she said with a wink. “That’s how you summon… the Tickle Monster.”
“No,” said Leia. “Not today. We’ve already cast the Anti-Tickle Monster field.”
“Aw.” Elzie pretended to pout, but obviously this was not the place to be chasing shrieking children around at top speed. “Alright, children, you’re safe. For now. Muahahaha!”
“Glad that’s settled.” Leia clapped her hands once with a satisfied smile. “Now, then. I think this is a good time for lunch.”
“Mommy, we’re gonna have cake for lunch because Aunt Ezzie’s back and it’s a very special day,” Jaina declared, taking her mother’s hand.
“Oh, is that so?” she chuckled. “Did you plan that yourself?”
“Yeah!”
“And Aunt Ezzie, you gotta stay better this time so you can’t go back in the medi-center,” Jacen added.
Elzie managed a weak smile as she stood up and grasped the child’s hand. “I’ll do my best, little one.”
“Alright, who’s up for room service?” Han asked, in a cheerful voice that was just a little too loud.
“Han, we’re taking Elzie somewhere nice,” said Leia, sternly.
“Hey, that hotel suite is the nicest place I’ve ever seen, and we don’t have to worry about tipping.”
“You absolutely tip for room service, Han.”
“Yeah, but you can just bill it to the room these days, can’t you?”
Elzie sighed and smiled as she walked after her old friends. They sort of reminded her of Owen and Beru Lars, with the way they bickered for entertainment. She remembered having dinner at Luke’s house, the way the two of them would watch the battle of wits unfold while whispering and giggling to each other, half forgotten by the adults.
Never thought I’d be nostalgic for Tatooine, but I guess here we are. “Is Luke joining us?”
“Sorry, Elz, Luke’s up to his elbows in something big.”
Elzie’s eyes widened in alarm before she registered Han’s lopsided grin. “Oh? Big like how?”
“He’s gonna be over tonight after dinner,” he told her. His I’ve got a secret grin was even bigger and goofier than his normal one. “He wants to tell you himself.”
✦❘༻༺❘✦
“A school for Jedi?”
“That’s right.” Luke could not stifle his grin. He might have to appear dignified and serene for senates, councils, and prospective students. But he could show his true feelings to his friends. And with his oldest friend his guard could relax the most.
As he spoke, he put the finishing touches on two mugs of hot chocolate. The suite Leia had gotten for Elzie had a finely appointed kitchenette, and he was taking full advantage of it. “We’ve chosen the temple on Yavin 4. You know, the first Rebel Base? Well, first for us.”
“Guess that’d work,” she said thoughtfully. “So, does that mean you’re bringing in kids, then?”
“Eventually,” he replied, handing her her mug. “I do want the Jedi Academy to be open to students of any age. But we’ll need a lot more Jedi Masters before we can meet the needs of children.”
“Not to mention you’ve got this Admiral Daala character to worry about.”
Luke excitement wilted a bit. “There’s also that. So, for now, I’m focusing on gathering adults with potential with the Force. I’ve already found some excellent candidates.”
He waited for Elzie to comment or question him about his picks, but she said nothing. She just wandered out the balcony and sat down on a covered hover-swing bench overlooking the city. He followed and sat beside her.
“You know,” he went on with a chuckle, “the remnants of the Empire have already gotten wind of my plans, if you can believe it. I’ve had over a dozen spies apply to be students already.”
“Surprised you’re not trying to turn them to your side,” she remarked idly. “Seems like that move really comes in clutch.”
Luke’s throat closed abruptly, but Elzie was only sipping her drink and staring out at the horizon. Coruscant at night had a strange beauty to it; the lights of the traffic and the towers could almost pass for stars at this height. Ironic that all that light meant real stars were invisible from this vantage point.
“They haven’t sent anyone with even a hint of Force potential,” he explained. “I’m hoping that means they don’t have anyone else.”
“We can always hope. But I doubt it.”
“We have one that’s already turned from the Empire and the dark side. Does that count?”
Elzie smiled thinly, but it didn’t meet her eyes. “Guess you’ll have to settle for now.”
They sipped their drinks in silence for a few moments. Then a few minutes. It was an uncomfortable silence, heavy with uncertainty. Luke missed comfortable silences with his friend. Some days it seemed they had died with the light in her eyes on Hoth. The day he’d left her behind…
“You doing okay?” he asked quietly.
She shrugged. “Okay enough to be out.”
“Sleeping through the night?”
“Most nights.”
“How’s your leg?”
“Well, the pain still comes and goes, and it’s still all in my head. All I can really do is walk it off when it happens and hope it goes away for good.”
Luke wilted a bit more. “I hoped they’d at least figure that one out. Four months is a long time.”
“Wasn’t the longest. That’d be—”
“Before the twins. I remember. We were afraid you might miss them.”
“Came real close. Got out the day before they did.” Elzie bowed her head, gripping her mug in both hands. “I’m still sorry. That I wasn’t able to help with everything going on.”
“Elzie, you helped. You and Winter watched over the twins.”
“Mostly Winter. If I’d been any more useless, she could say she was guarding three babies.”
“That is not true,” Luke said firmly. “You were not and have never been useless. You were just in recovery.”
“Meanwhile, all my friends are off battling an insane evil space wizard clone,” Elzie continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “You could have all died and I’dve been sitting here practically bedridden.”
“No one blames you for not joining that fight,” Luke insisted. “Elzie, C'baoth tried to turn me to the dark side that day. And if you’d been there in your weakened state, and I’d had to see him kill you… he might have succeeded.”
Elzie shuddered. She sipped her hot chocolate as if she couldn’t even taste it. She had the expression she’d worn most often since escaping the Empire. Creased brow, clenched jaw, thousand meter stare.
Luke silently kicked himself. That had been the wrong thing to say. The last thing Elzie needed to hear was that she was a liability. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t put a burden like that on you. Staying on the side of light is my own responsibility. No one else’s.”
“We’re best friends, Luke,” she replied wearily. “We’re a lil’ symbiot circle. What happens to one affects the other.”
“Then, I hope you’ll let me do more to help you recover,” he said. “Not because of what you could do for me, but because of what you mean to me. I don’t want you to suffer like this.”
Her eyes finally flicked towards him, and the corners of her mouth deepened in a quick suggestion of a smile. “Cue the part where you suggest I start training again.”
“Well, I do have a good place for that in the works right now,” he joked lightly.
“Do you really think that’s wise, though?” she asked, her face turning anxious again. “There’s still a lot of anger in me. Maybe stronger Force powers isn’t what I need right now.”
“Hey, if that’s what you’re worried about, I’ll trust your judgment. You’re insightful enough to know whether you’re ready to be a Jedi. But your training isn’t the only reason I’m asking you to come.” He looked down at the twinkling city below, rolling his mug between his hands. “The Jedi Academy is the most important thing I’ll ever be a part of. If it goes well, it will save and change more lives than destroying a thousand Death Stars could. If I could have only a single legacy, I’d want it to be this. And… it’s a lot. The new Order will be built on the wisdom of the old. Part of wisdom is learning from mistakes. Which makes it my job to figure out where the old Order’s mistakes were, and how we need to be different.”
“That’s a lot of responsibility for just one person,” Elzie said, staring at him.
“And not much less for two,” Luke replied. “But, in time, there will be others to help shoulder the burden. I intend to surround myself with as many trusted voices as possible from the very beginning. Which is why I’m inviting you to be the first.”
“I… I don’t know. You sure you want me helping you with this?”
Luke couldn’t help but smirk a little. “You’ve never been shy of criticizing the old Jedi ways when you felt it was warranted.”
“Considering I’m descended from a Jedi wash-out, is that really so surprising?” she chuckled.
“Wash-out or not, I have to respect her,” he said earnestly. “She was skilled enough to create the only bio-locked holocron I’ve ever seen. Do you still have that, by the way?”
“My dads do. They’re waiting for me to settle on a place before they start bringing over my stuff.”
“Maybe there’s something in there that can help. Or, if not, we’ll also have access to the holocron that Leia stole from the resurrected Emperor.”
“I still can’t believe that was a thing.”
“If your holocron doesn’t have the wisdom you need, perhaps Master Baas does. Either way, I really do believe the Force can help you.”
“You’re probably right,” Elzie sighed. “It’s just… what if it’s just not the right place for me to be?”
There was a moment when Luke felt he should try to hide his disappointment. But this was Elzie he was talking to. No lapse in her training nor stifling of her senses was going to prevent her from seeing right through him.
“I would miss you,” he admitted with a sad smile. “I would miss you terribly. But I would never stand in your way. If you feel there’s somewhere else you need to be, something that would help you how I can’t… I could never keep that from you, Elzie. I hope you know that.”
“I know.”
Keeping her with him when she needed to be elsewhere would be as cruel as preventing her from seeking treatment at the medi-center. Even if at this point it was starting to look like the doctors and medical droids had hit a wall.
“Nobody else has what I have,” she murmured, as if she’d sensed his thoughts. “There’s no medical records, no literature, nothing. Anyone who had that much Xebonica pumped into their veins for that long should be dead. I should be dead.”
“But you’re not. You survived. You found a strength in the Force that even Ben Kenobi missed.” He reached over and gently took her hand. “That’s not an accident. I believe the Force kept you alive, and that it was for a reason. The galaxy needs you.”
“Come on,” Elzie scoffed.
“I need you,” Luke insisted. “Symbiotic circle, remember?”
“Maybe that’s the real reason I shouldn’t go,” she muttered. “You won’t have to be let down.”
“What about anything that’s happened makes you think you’d let me down?” he argued. “Elzie, the Empire put you through hell and you survived. Do you really think I care if you came out battered on the other side? Your injuries aren’t a sign of weakness. Just the opposite.”
Her brow creased and her eyes went vacant. He was saying something wrong, as he often did these days. But he couldn’t figure out what.
With a sigh, he squeezed her hand one last time before he released it. “You don’t have to make a decision right away. And you can always change your mind. One way or the other, I will leave that door open all my life, alright? So don’t feel any pressure.”
She gave him a thin smile in return. “Alright. Thanks for that. I’ll consider it.”
“That’s all I can ask. And, hey—” he slid an arm around her shoulders—“no matter what you choose. Still my best friend.”
✦❘༻༺❘✦
Elzie switched to Nabooian whiskey and soda after Luke left. Over a mountain of ice, of course, and never mind what a spirit snob like Lando would think if he saw it. Ice was pure decadence that no desert rat should be expected to resist.
Same with that bathtub back there. To not only have that much water on command, but to have it just for sitting in? That just bordered on surreal.
Actually, now that she thought about it, that might be a nice way to relax and think. Of course, Luke would advise her to feel and not think. But, eh, didn’t sound like a bad way to relax and feel, either.
A computer panel on the wall defaulted to a preset temperature based on her species and age. Not having enough experience with baths to have her own opinion, she didn’t bother to countermand it. As the water filled, some text on the screen suggested that she try adding a dash of one of the scents that were lined up on the shelf. She opened a bottle bearing the name of a flower she’d never heard of, gave it a sniff, declared it “Hm, nice,” and gave the tub a few sprinkles.
Sinking into the tub with a fresh Naboo highball in her hand, Elzie let her body go limp and her mind go blank. She was calm, she was safe, she wasn’t in pain. And if her state of mind couldn’t be called pleasant, at least it was relaxed.
It was nice of Han and Leia to get her this room while she adjusted. It was like a recovery from the recovery. It was also nice of Leia to pull strings to get her into the Imperial Palace’s medi-center in the first place. Promising as the last three centers had been, the stay had been grueling. Their budgets didn’t exactly go into accommodation. The Imperial Palace made everything look like a spa, even if it couldn’t always feel that way and remain medically productive. Still leaps and bounds more comfortable than some places. And there was a pool adjacent, which meant she could learn how to swim. That had killed a lot of time and kept her reasonably in shape, which was more than the other three hospitals could say.
Even if it felt a little like these medi-center stays were just a quick patch. Maybe that was why Leia sprang for the Imperial Palace this time around. She was giving up hope for a cure, and just working to manage the problem as painlessly as possible.
Everything Han and Leia had done for her was so nice. So nice that she hated it. They were doing too much. She didn’t need all this. They felt sorry for her.
Or, worse… they felt guilty.
Because they knew that, in between Darth Vader’s daily torture sessions, Elzie had been doing everything in her power to keep the Imperials off of the Falcon’s tail. It didn’t matter that she’d failed miserably. She kept pushing, turning valor and determination into monomaniacal zeal. To the point where she was even caught trying to overload the reactor core on Vader’s flagship, which would have sent the Dark Lord of the Sith straight to hell. The fact that she would have blown herself up with him had yet to make her blink.
She had a little masochistic giggle at the memory of his rage when his troops dragged her before him. He wanted to kill me so bad.
Well, now he was dead. He was dead and Elzie was alive. She could feel satisfied about that. One less Sith in the galaxy was never a bad thing.
Or maybe that was the dark side whispering in her ear. She had never turned—in fact, to her conscious knowledge, she’d never used the Force to directly harm anyone. (Mostly because she could barely use the Force at all, but still. Small victories.) But she had been tempted. Oh, yes. She had certainly been tempted.
Watching Vader strangle Lorth Needa after losing the Millennium Falcon, for instance… oh, how she’d longed to pull her own metaphysical noose around the Sith Lord’s neck. That yearning still burned through her sometimes. He was dead and gone and out of reach… but what if she’d been able to make him suffer before she escaped? To make him feel those flames, or break his bones one by one?
He deserves it. He deserves all of it and worse. How many murders? How much torture? How many still haven’t fully healed after all this time?
Anger leading to hate leading… well, she knew where. Didn’t matter how justified or righteous that anger was. Not when it came to the Force. If she wanted to study the ways of the Force… she’d have to find a way to give up that anger.
For a second, she railed against the thought. She’d rather give up the Force. She’d close herself off and never touch it again before she let that bastard off the hook for what he’d done.
She was so angry she didn’t realize she’d begun to cry until she tasted salt on her lips.
Even if giving up the Force did protect her from the dark side… who would she become if she stayed angry for the rest of her life? Say she could let that six months of torture go… shouldn’t she want to? If the phantom pains and the hallucinations all ended, and her body and mind were restored… did she really want to keep feeling like this? Even if Vader deserved all the hatred in the universe, she did not deserve to carry that burden. She deserved her life back.
Worse… the longer it took her to let go of her anger, the deeper the rift between her and Luke would grow.
That would make life unbearable.
✦❘༻༺❘✦
Thoughts and feelings alike would run through her mind on a loop for the rest of the night. She was at a crossroads, with little to tell her what lay down each path. She only knew that each would hurt in its own way.
In an infinite multiverse, there was a path in which Elzarynn Banix packed up her meager belongings, checked out in the middle of the night, and booked the first transport off of Coruscant she could find. No goodbyes. No notes. She didn’t even check where she was going. She watched the lines of hyperspace dance by her window with silent tears on her face that her fellow passengers awkwardly pretended not to notice. Certain she’d never speak to Luke again. Hating herself for it.
On another path, Elzarynn Banix finished her bath and went to bed as the sun was coming up. That afternoon, she sent her old friend a message over a text channel.
Okay. I’ll be there.