669. Chapter 669

They didn’t start training as younglings. Not officially, anyway.

Because the Jedi, everyone said, were all but extinct.

But Jeremiah and Eliza had always suspected otherwise.

First, of their eldest, who could see things with a clarity others couldn’t; whose reflexes were almost inhumanly fast; who was so undeniably good that they couldn’t stop her from joining the rebel fleet as soon as she was old enough.

Barely old enough.

And second, their youngest. Adopted.

The girl Alex had rescued after the Emperor’s forces destroyed Alderaan. Alex and her crew were some of those sent in search of survivors.

They didn’t find many.

But they found Kara.

And Alex brought her home, and when he saw what she could do – like Alex, she could see things, hear things, but unlike Alex, she could control things, too, just a bit – Jeremiah couldn’t wait any longer.

Especially after Kara said she wanted to stay with Alex, in the rebel fleet.

There was no place for her anywhere else, anyway.

He couldn’t wait any longer: he gave both of his daughters what he should have given Alex the first time he left home.

For Kara, a blue saber; one he’d found in the charred remains of one of the old Jedi temples.

For Alex, a green one; one he’d built based on the blue, when she was a child, when he first started noticing, first started hoping, that maybe, the Jedi weren’t dead.

That maybe, the Jedi lived on, in his daughter.

And now, in both his daughters.

The Force wasn’t strong with him, but he knew enough – he remembered enough from the old days – and he taught them what he could before they left for war again.

Eliza knew more than she’d let on, all these years. She taught her girls even more than he could.

About control, about emptying themselves. About draining the emotion from their limbs and from their bloodstream, replacing it with the flow of the Force. Replacing it with their mission. With their connection to each particle around them.

They learned together. They grew together. They practiced together.

Until Jeremiah’s science research vessel was destroyed in crossfire of a battle with the Empire.

Destroyed by a TIE fighter that should have been shot down so much earlier.

And Alex shouldered the blame.

Because it was a gunner she’d trained that failed to pull the trigger on the TIE that destroyed her father’s ship, and when Eliza found out, she made sure Alex never forgot.

She was grieving, Kara tried to comfort her big sister. Eliza was grieving, she didn’t mean the things she was saying.

Alex wasn’t to blame.

Alex left that night, anyway. Left to seek training elsewhere.

Left to seek vengeance elsewhere.

“Whoa there, Danvers. I can’t just loan you my ship without knowing what you’re gonna do with it,” Maggie Sawyer had objected at the space port, and Alex itched for her lightsaber.

Itched for the ability to reach into Maggie’s mind with her own and change it.

But Maggie’s eyes were soft and steely and steady and understanding, and they cracked something open in Alex’s heart.

They reminded Alex that she had one.

“My dad’s dead,” is all she said.

And Maggie just took her hand, and sighed, and nodded. She knew.

She’d held Alex all night, that night.

All night, like she wished she could hold her every night.

“And you wanna… what? Go off after the Empire on your own?” Somehow, her words are gentle. Somehow, her words are understanding. Somehow, her words forgive Alex for every dark thought she’d ever had, every dark desire she’d ever wanted to succumb to.

“Jedi are always alone,” Alex reminded her, and Maggie tilted her head.

“No,” she re-corrected. “You’ve been training with Kara. That’s hardly alone. And Alex, just because you trained the kid that missed that TIE fighter… Battles are terrifying, Danvers. You weren’t the only one in that fleet. We both saw the same things. The same war. I helped you get Kara out, remember?”

She looked around, made sure no one was listening. Lowered her voice anyway. “I was the one who first told you I thought the Force was strong in your veins. Remember? So I know, Alex. I know. But not everyone has your reflexes. And not everything is your fault. And that can be intolerable, and unfair, and… I know. But you…”

Maggie sighed and drew her hair back into a ponytail. Alex keened at the loss of her hand on hers, and wondered, not for the first time, what it would be like to kiss her lips.

Even though she couldn’t, if she wanted to be a true Jedi.

Couldn’t, if she wanted to serve her people as best she could.

Couldn’t, but Maggie’s eyes…

Maggie was speaking again. She forced herself to focus. True Jedi need focus, not distraction. Discipline, not… love.

“Look, let me get a crew together. You wanna rejoin the rebellion without letting it look through the Empire that they’ve got a couple Jedi rising up? Alright. Let’s get Kara. And Luthor, Olsen, Schott. We’re better off together than we are alone, okay? Please?”

Alex chuckled unconsciously, and the tilt of Maggie’s head deepened. “What?”

“Nothing,” Alex chuckled again. “Just… something Kara says. That we’re stronger together.”

Her eyes drifted down to Maggie’s lips, and her heart leapt when she thought she saw Maggie’s doing the same.

Better off together than alone.

And looking into Maggie’s wide eyes, she started to believe it.

That maybe being a Jedi didn’t have to mean being alone.

That maybe bringing down the Empire didn’t have to be through a thirst for blood. Maybe it could be a thirst for… together.

And, for the first time since Jeremiah, Alex grinned, and Maggie’s hand was warm under hers.

“Alright, Sawyer. You’re on. Let’s get that crew together.”