Beyond - Legends Crimes of the Son (Movie Quote Challenge)

Here's my entry for the Movie Quote Challenge, along with the provided quote.

Tell me my dear, can a heart still break once it’s stopped beating? – Corpse Bride (2005)

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Darth Caedus had always thought he was doing what was best for the galaxy. He had always wanted that. He'd saved the galaxy from the Supreme Overlord of the Yuuzhan Vong, Onimi, as Jacen Solo. He'd gone off in search of himself for five years after that...he'd come back a changed man. But in spite of that, he'd always wanted to help.

He'd lost sight of that, he realized now. He'd been a fool. He had, like so many Sith before him–Darths Plagueis, Sidious, and Vader–lost himself in the dark side, and become a near-sighted, selfish fool who sought power for personal gain. It had been his undoing. He, Darth Caedus, had betrayed everything that Jacen Solo had stood for. He'd killed Jacen Solo.

The purple blade was driven deep in his heart, but it didn't pierce him as deeply as that knowledge.

Caedus' vision began to blur, and he knew he was dying. Still...there were worse days to die. He'd warned Tenel Ka and Allana, hopefully saving their lives. And the last thing he saw before he died...that last sight...the face of his sister, Jaina.

Caedus didn't know when it had happened, but he was lying on his back. His head...was lying on someone's legs. Dimly, he could see the face above him. Jaina. Tears dripped from her eyes and she looked down at him with anguish and pain on her face, and Caedus was truly sorry to have caused her that. He tried to move his lips, to tell her that he was sorry–and that he forgave her for killing him–but he couldn't.

The last thing he felt, as he died, was the touch of her hands as they ran lovingly through his hair.

"Well, you've made a blasted fool of yourself, boy," a familiar voice said.

Jacen looked up. He frowned. He wore not his black GAG uniform with its cape, but a Jedi robe. But the robe...it was black. All of it. It felt wrong. He stood and looked around. There was an odd, mist-like substance all around him. He couldn't see anything, except for the small being standing in front of him.

"Vergere!" he exclaimed. He frowned. "I'm dead, aren't I?

"You are," Vergere confirmed. "And what a way to go, too. Killed by your own sister. What were you thinking, Jacen? I taught you better than all that."

"What do you mean, 'all that'?"

"That foolish mess you made of the galaxy this last year," Vergere replied. "A Sith, boy? Really?"

"Lumiya...she told me you were a Sith. That you had been training me to be a Sith all along."

"And you believed her?" Vergere shook her head in disgust. "How could you be so gullible? What did I tell you on Coruscant? I am not a Jedi, nor am I a Sith. I am above such titles. And how could you believe my teachings guided you toward becoming a Sith? I taught you to love, boy."

Jacen winced. "Well..."

"No excuses!" Vergere replied, shaking her head. "After all the good you did, uniting the galaxy against the Yuuzhan Vong and defeating their leader, and then even getting the Yuuzhan Vong to surrender to the Galactic Alliance without fighting to the last man...that was the greatest feat you ever performed, Jacen. This...this atrocity. Why?"

"My visions," Jacen replied. "I saw...a Dark Man ruling the galaxy."

"And you didn't pause to think that, by trying to stop this, you may have caused it? Jacen, what if you were the Dark Man?"

Jacen winced again. He had a feeling he'd be doing that a lot here. "I...never thought of that, Vergere."

"And Lumiya!" Vergere added. "How could you believe that she was teaching you to stop this so-called Dark Man?"

"I sensed no deception..."

"You didn't want to sense deception, Jacen. You failed."

Jacen sighed, and hung his head. "I'm so sorry, Vergere. I really did make a mess of things, didn't I?"

Vergere nodded. "You better believe it."

Another figure appeared, then. He was about the same age as Jacen, with hair the same length. He had a glitter in his eye that Jacen himself had once had, back before he'd become Darth Caedus. Jacen recognized the man from the holorecordings, and from the times he'd flow-walked back to the old Jedi Temple on Coruscant. He'd heard his voice, twice–and both times they'd said the same thing: "Stand firm, Jacen." Jacen realized he hadn't stood very firm.

"Anakin Skywalker," he said. "Grandfather."

Anakin nodded. "Jacen," he said calmly, but with some annoyance evident in his voice, "what in the worlds did you see in my actions that would possess you to think that they were right, boy?"

Jacen frowned. "You know I flow-walked?"

"We're ghosts, Jacen," Vergere said. "We kind of know everything."

"Oh, right." Jacen would've blushed if he'd had a physical body. "To answer your question, Grandfather, I...I saw that you cared for your wife and wanted to protect her. I felt the same way about Tenel Ka and Allana. I figured...I figured I was smarter than you, I guess, more in control, and that I wouldn't fall as far as you did."

Anakin laughed. "And I thought the same thing. I thought I could learn what I needed to in order to save Padme, and then I could kill Palpatine and rule the galaxy myself, and everything would be good and right. But it never works out that way, does it, Jacen?"

Jacen sighed. "No, I guess not."

"Come on, Jacen," Anakin said. "We've got a lot of people to introduce you to. Some you know...and some, unfortunately, that you killed. That'll be the hardest, I think. You know, don't you, that you'll be around them for all eternity?"

"That'll be fun," Jacen replied with a resigned nod.

He followed Anakin and Vergere farther into the mist. He knew he'd see Aunt Mara, and Nelani, and Thann Mithric. The thought of seeing them was embarrassing, since he'd killed them all, but it didn't hurt nearly as much as the other person he knew he'd see. And he knew, before he even got there, that it would be the hardest thing he'd ever have to do, even when he'd been alive.

He had to face his brother, Anakin Solo. And in that moment, Jacen realized that even though his heart no longer beat–even though it had been thoroughly ruined by the blade of Jaina's lightsaber–it would break into a million pieces when he had to look his brother in the eye and try to explain what he'd done this past year.

 

Great response to the challenge.
Love how you wrote Jacen in the afterlife

 

Superb and compelling I like the voice you have for Vergere here. Excellent in its cutting to the chase. Anakin Sr.'s been there-tried that message was spot on also.

 

Exactly! The reasoning given for Jacen’s fall was so disappointing. He had all that access to the past, and still made the most bone-headed possible decisions. Argh.

This is a good resolution to the whole Caedus thing (aka one of the reasons why the FOTJ series isn’t high on my to-read list.) I especially liked Vergere’s appearance. She’s not a character that I know well, but it always sounded like they oversimplified her in later books. The beyond Jedi and Sith self-description leaves her a little creepy while still being not so malevolent. Jacen’s realization that he will meet a lot of people he killed and the integration of the quote were very effective, and the conversation with Anakin Skywalker gives it a sense of closure.