there's never a wish better than this: Destiel One-Shot

(It's been a while since I've written a fanfic, but I just loved this idea and had to write it down; I'm also working on a long Destiel fanfic which follows the story from season 4 to the present and beyond, which I can hopefully start posting eventually.
I didn't make Castiel female because I don't feel comfortable with them getting together as men- in fact, when it does go canon, they had BETTER both be men when it occurs or I'll be -_-; I did this because I've always wanted to see a female Castiel and I've found so few fanfic like that and because the idea just came to me in the format of Castiel being reincarnated as a human female).
Hope you enjoy :)

I had been an angel once. Or, maybe I was still. I couldn't know. I don't remember all that much these days.

I know my face- young and surrounded by long, curly dark hair. I still have the blue eyes I'd once possessed but these that now looked back at me in mirrors were my own. I knew my body- it was still as tall and still has muscled as the last one, but there were some differences- my skin was covered in freckles and was lighter than it had been. Or, my vessel's at least. Angels don't have skin.

And I knew a face, a beautiful face, one that had looked at me with stunning gazes that had cut me to the core, had cut me open so that my wings burst asunder and the stars in my veins, barely contained, had thrust themselves out. These stars, these galaxies and nebulae and everything from time and space that I'd ever seen, had enveloped him and I'd shone around him, mighty and powerful and happy.

For the briefest of a time span, I'd been content.

But something had happened and I'd awoken, wings- wings that hadn't worked in a smidgen of that blip- gone, my body coiled tightly around my essence. A body that I was not used to and that had been around for a long time from the wear I detected.

“Who are you?”

There is a human before me and the air stifles me, pushing down my throat and I try not to gag.

I was an angel.

And when angels fall, they fall hard.

“Castiel.”

I only knew the name because of the memory of that face, that voice, murmuring it- on a prayer blown in the winds of distance, in a desperate shout, in a soft plead. My heart ached for him, even if I couldn't remember more than snatches.

The human- a woman- leans towards me, green eyes so like his, and continues to probe.

“We found you unconscious again outside of that bar, Cassie. What do you remember?”

I remember stumbling through a forest of trees and then a forest of buildings, I remember my hands catching and bleeding against the stone, the branches, the wood, and the metal. I remember a faded life of a girl that I am not. I remember the feel of wings at my back, soaring me to places far above and away. I'd seen planets and stars and galaxies and supernovas, the lights blazing around me in such beauty I could barely believe it.

And how those wings- even when they didn't work anymore- longed to return to an emerald soul so bright I could barely dare look when I plucked him from a ravenous pit of screams.

I must have been a fool. For angels shouldn't fall.

“I-”

I swallow, pressing a hand to my mouth. Another difference to the one that had been mine for that time. Unlike those chapped, firm ones, these felt thin and soft, like they'd been newly made.

His face appeared before me again and the ache redoubled its efforts. There was something I'd wanted to say to this man, something I needed, something important and all encompassing, but I'd forgotten

Maybe?

I blink back the stings that form in my eyelids.

“I think I have a friend I need to find.”

I had never felt the need to classify a gender to myself but the body I'd had for that time had been male, and therefore it had become comfortable. This new one was most definitely that of a cisgender female. I stare down at it in the shower the nice lady had directed me to. As I press my forehead to the glass of the door, I try to remember more details. But the specifics allude me, memories a haze of swirlings confusions.

My form was young too. My old one had always been somewhat close in age to the man's- the age of a father- but now, looking at the slick young skin- free of all wrinkles- I knew I was little more than a child. And from looking in the reflective glass, I can see that I no longer held lighting in those irises that once had pulsed from my palms. They are the eyes of a child too.

I'd been a girl not that long ago- it was sooner than my memories of the man and of my wings, but those memories dim as these new ones surface. I knew I was called Cassie in this world, this body, but the name had never fit well, a too-small jacket pressing in on me, suffocating me.

I'd had a daughter- or someone like daughter- that had been around this age. Or, least, I think I did. All I can remember of her is a flash of yellow hair the color of corn and a pair of arms pressed around me.

I slick my hair back from my face and stare at the drizzles of drips that zigzagg along the glass like rain. I remember being able to peer into a single drop once, see its every detail, trace its beauty and clarity for hours as the light shone on it changed from the pinks of dawn, to the yellows of day, to the purples and blacks of twilight and night.

But now its just clear and its just a droplet. Not a galaxy of wonders any longer.

Just like me.

I am cresting a hill in the park outside the children's home when I remember his name.

Dean.

I can recall the sound of his name as it had rolled off my tongue. My voice had been deeper than but even as I whisper it now to the grass under my bare feet, I can still feel that reverence, that strange utter amazement at such a name. Once I had thrown my very essence before his puny, delicate fragility, fallen with a crash, tumbled further and further until I knew not what was up and down any longer. I had risen up, a terror, wings expanded to shield him.

And now I would fling this well-worn body before him if I could, to save him no matter what the cost.

I don't remember why I feel this way, but I do know that it is right. It's the only thing that's right.

He'd had a brother. Sam.

My friend, I remember, a chill freezing me as I recall another face, his face. I glance up into the heavens as a flood of memories suddenly accosts me- flurries of me laughing with the two brothers, or me cradling- stone faced- a warm body to my chest as sobs escalated around me- oh how I wish I had turned my head-, or even me staring at the reflective lights on the back of Dean's battered t-shirts as he stared down at back of his car, headlights rendering him an angel himself in the dark of night.

I dream about him that night- a soft, desperate hand pulling me up an incline, a voice calling out to me over and over, vibrant eyes that poured a multitude of emotions into me, filling my empty places, making me whole.

Sitting up in bed, arms encircling legs, I blink away the tears that had fallen from eyelashes like morning dew once the sun hits it. I could barely remember him- how had we met? Were we friends? What did we do together? How had I met his brother, Sam? Why were my feelings for him so very different than they were for Dean?

Once I had been Cassie- a waif wandering through life- but now that I was recalling these sights, these memories, these feelings, I knew I had to find him.

Before I left the home I had been admitted to after being found wandering alone for days on end, I dug through a trashcan out back. I found a battered, tan trenchcoat and pulled it on. It was too big for me, enveloping my skinny frame, but it was familiar and real and it set my heart a flutter.

I couldn't wait any longer. I had to find Dean. I couldn't figure out WHY exactly, but something niggled at the back of my skull, something I had to do, something I had to tell him.

The streets I traversed in my search were splattered with rain, the overgrown coat hanging from me like a second skin, shivering me to the bone. As night descended, the lights came on and decorated the slick stone with their electric paint. My eyes trained on it, parsing out the particles and pigments, naming the myriad of shades I could- and could no longer- see. I had seen stars die and form and explode and grace the sky, but these sights are more bright and real than any of those ever had.

Sometimes I wonder if an angel I will always be. One night, when the moon is but a sliver in the sky overhead, a tight hand curls its way around my upper arm. Strange, hissing words of fake kindness- filled with sweethearts, and babys- fill my hearing and before I know it, the man is on the ground, fear in his eyes as I stand over him.

I wonder if Dean had been a fighter like me, or if he'd been something else entirely. I remembered the look of awe as he stared at me. At the time it had filled me with the greatest of joys. But now it just made me ache.

I must be getting closer to him- the information I found online tells me someone by that name lives in Kansas (somehow this does not surprise me a bit)- for the memories start assaulting my memory more frequently.

Bursts of light as I entered a barn, reminding me of a faint echo of hell where I first beheld his beloved majesty.

“Help me, please.”

“And I did it, all of it, for you.”

The rolling hills of the east become soft plains of wild grass and shrubs. I tie my hair back to let the warm sun freckle my face. Dean had had freckles, I remember, and I'd loved to count them when he'd been laughing or talking and hadn't been looking my way.

“Dammit Cas, we can fix this!”

“Dean, it's not broken.”

A last look before fleeing, the flicker in his gaze filling me to the brim with an emotion I had barely begun to name even to myself.

“I'd rather have you, cursed or not.”

The cities also change as I walk through them. They grow smaller, more old; cracked-stone buildings appearing randomly even in the metropolises. I remember these places- Dean had grown up in such landscapes, the open space wide and ready to swallow him and his brother whole into its soft embrace. The only mother Dean had ever had once Mary had past.

A strong hug in a swiftly tilting hell. Except it wasn't hell- it was Purgatory and that was almost worse. The hug, brief but powerful, had calmed those waters of rage inside of me and it had taken all of my willpower to not grip onto him and never let go- let him save me like I had done for him. But I had to be strong.

“Let me bottom line it for you. I'm not leaving here without you. Understand?”

“We're family. We need you. I need you.”

That last memory had me doubled over in the middle of a sidewalk; pressed to a shop wall, I had squeezed my eyes shut until I'd stopped weeping. The feeling- the emotion I had known in that moment with all my body and mind and grace and soul- flared up withn me and I knew it. Knew it with such clarity and certainty I was confused as to how I could have ever forgotten its terrible, but beautiful touch.

“Everyone except me.”

I raise my head to the sun, sniff roughly in and wipe my damp eyes til they were dry.

Dean is close. I know he is. He had to be.

I stare at my hands as I sit in a booth outside of a coffee shop. The empty paper cup grows cold on the metal mesh as the street lights glance off it. The palms are the thing I miss the most of my old form. I had left that print on Dean's arm, I had used those hands to heal him, to grip him tight when I raised him from perdition.

I clench the fingers over the new and varied lines and moved to pick up the cup. And the light that erupts around the stretched out fingers is pure white.

Setting my jaw to keep myself from weeping, I snatch the paper cup up and stand, throwing it away as I escape out into the night once again.

I missed being an Angel.

“Dean Winchester?”

The policeman eyes me suspiciously and I swallow, wishing I still had that FBI badge Dean had given me. Of course, considering I looked fresh out of highschool, it wouldn't have worked anyway.

“Yes,” I reply with a nod, my voice deeper and more gravelly now that my memories had returned. The man's eyes perceptibly widen but he nods and plugs the name in.

“Relation?”

“Um..cousin,” I manage, delighted at my quick lie. Dean would have been proud.

At the thought, a hot rush crawls up into my cheeks.

“Why did you come here, then? Couldn't you have just asked your family.”

Crap.

“Well..we're..estranged...and I wanted to reconnect now that my...gran has died.”

Great. I sounded like those terrible plots for those B movies Dean pretended to like. But, somehow, the man bought it.

He sent me out with information with a distracted wave of the hand.

And as I walk the last few miles, coat billowing around my grungy AC/DC t-shirt, jeans, and battered tennis shoes, I feel my heart beat quicken.

I am confused when I find myself standing adrift in the pushing breeze before an assisted living center. The policeman must have been wrong. Why would Dean be here? Unless he was working a case? That makes sense.

Pulling my trenchcoat tightly around my frame in the chilly air, I march up the steps purposefully when I catch sight of the Impala. It's more battered than I remember it being, but there it is. How many times had I ridden in there with my friends? When my wings had been lost, I'd rode in there many a time before I got my own car.

What had ever happened to it?

I pry my fingers at the door and it creaks open on shimmery hinges. Inside is vast and mustily bright, a faint echo of a heavenly chamber.

A lone woman, brown hair in a bun, sits at the far wall and for a moment I pause. Naomi?

No, not Naomi, she was gone. She couldn't hurt Dean again, could never use my hands to beat him to a pulp like she had in my dim past. I start towards her with purpose, pretending I know exactly what I was doing.

“May I help you?”

“Yes, I'm looking for a man- fairly tall, handsome, with dark blond hair and green eyes. His name is Dean Win-”

The woman smiles sadly as I say the name and I feel a surge within me. She's seen him.

“What is your name, dear?”

The endearment confuses me and I'm about to ask why she's comparing me to an animal when I realize- something from that Cassie's memory- that saying such a thing wouldn't be right.

“Castiel....Castiel Winchester. I'm his cousin.”

At the placing of my name before his last name, a warm sensation thrills through me and tears prickle my eyes before I can stop them.

“Cas....?”

The woman's eyes move from me to someone behind me and I freeze. I-I know that voice. It had laughed with me, encouraged me, assured me that Dean still cared for me. His arms had hugged me in such a way that I felt like I truly had a brother.

I spin around, hair slapping tan shoulder padding, and find myself looking at Sam Winchester.

Something is...wrong though. He looks older. Much older. His long hair is graying and new lines streak his face, especially on his forehead. An older woman is at his side, her hair cut short, arm linked around Sam's.

I open my mouth to reply, to say that yes it is indeed me, but before I can stop myself I am flinging myself around Sam, holding him tightly as I press my face to his chest. He smells like flannel and cinnamon, just like I remembered.

“What happened to you, Sam?” I ask with a crack. Before, I would have been embarrassed at the sound but I knew now that it didn't matter. What mattered was that I'd found him and that I would soon see Dean again and tell him the promise of my heart.

My friend laughs with a slight choke.

“I could say the same to you. You look like one of Dean's high school girlfriends.”

I glare up at Sam, but I was secretly pleased. I had always tampered down this feeling- Angels should not feel such things towards their charges- but now that I was permantely human it would seem and there was no dangers to worry oneself over, I let them come. I wouldn't act on them completely- and thankfully I didn't experience the lust Balthazar and Gabriel had felt- but I would make them known.

And, if he'd let me, I'd like to be close to him. Just once.

Sam claps me on the side of the face tenderly and I jolt back to reality with a sickening punch. If Sam looked older, then Dean was older, and I had been gone for far, far too long, and-

“Cas, do you remember anything that happened?”

Warm, comforting hands guide me down an adjacent passageway, the woman trailing behind Sam with a sharp look that I usually associated with hunters. I wonder who she was and if she and Sam were a 'thing' now.

And I desperately need to find Dean.

“No. I just-”

A flash of light, the dead weight of a body in my arms, my grace screaming in denial as I pushed and tugged and fought stoically with some-

“Is Dean okay?!”

That had been his body. I'd left him again, been lost to him, he'd been lost and maybe I hadn't found him and-

Two hands grip my shoulder and I look up into Sam's face.

“Cas, calm down. Yes, Dean's okay.”

I sag in Sam's grip, before I burst into tears.

Damn human emotions.

Quickly stopping myself and wiping the tears from my cheeks, I step to the side, coat whispering along with my voice.

“What did happen, Sam. I know Dean was hurt, but I can't remember much after that. And where's Claire?”

“Cas....”

Sam's fingers on my shoulders loosen and he looks down sadly before clearing his throat.

“When Dean was hurt you....you used your grace to save him. The darkness, it had gotten to him, because he was a holder of the mark it made him more suceptible. But you put yourself in his place and you just vanished. Dean...and Claire...they haven't been the same sense.”

From the weighted look in his shoulders, neither had Sam.

I reach up and pull my friend into a hug, feeling the tremor of his chest as he suppresses old wounds now brought up once again. I would save him if I could from these but that it is not longer in my power. While I may still scare like an Angel, I am no longer one.

I swallow at Sam's harrowing words as they fully computed. What had happened to Dean and Claire during my absence?

I take in Sam's graying hair, lined and weary face, once again and feel that gagging fear overtake me.

“Sam...how long have I been gone.”

“Eighteen years. Which makes sense seeing as you look that age. You must have been reincarnated somehow. Not sure how, but I have some theories.”

My world spins but this time instead of my wings guiding me, I flailed, because I was a human again and I couldn't fly straight and I would crash and burn and it had been eighteen years.

Arms press into my torso and I realize I must have tripped in my initial panic. I breathe in and stand up straight, embarrassed at such a showing of terror.

“You can see Dean, if you wish. Jody and I were just visiting.”

Sam gesters to the woman who gives me a faint smile that I return.

“I would, Sam. Thank you.”

I pull the coat round me, the soft and warm folds comforting somehow, as I follow Sam and Jody down the passage. This place almost reminds me of a hospital- with its similar scents- but its much home-yer.

My pulse speeds up once again and suddenly I am strangely frightened, the sensation overwhelming my before-hand determination. What would Dean say? Would he hate me? Be disgusted? I'd worried before- after all, I'd looked like a man and I knew that even though he had attraction to men, he would never love me in that way. And I am worried now, because I look like a child and nothing could come of that.

Sam chats with me and I hear snatches. Jody is his wife and is a Sheriff, though she also hunts occasionally. Sam has given up the life for the most part, though he is still a man of letters and helps others in any way he can. He'd also raised Claire, who was now entering grad school. The soft smile on his face warms my heart. At least something in my existence had turned out all right.

Sam stops at a door and hovers uncertainly, looking suddenly frail.

“Cas...Dean has. Changed since you last saw him. You did save him, but.”

Thud. Beat. Drop.

Stars were dying, bursting into supernovas inside of me, crashing down to smother me until I nearly howled, the light matter crashing in on itself, swamping me in utter blankness, the last monster Dean and I had ever faced together.

“Don't freak. But he was hurt and...he might not remember you. He barely remembers me on his best days.”

Numbed, not only wingless but senseless, I stumble to the door and push it open.

There Dean sits on a couch, legs stiff from no use, leafing through a book, a novel titled “Paradise Lost”; it appears to include a sequel as well called “Paradise Regained”. It seems like a nice idea.

He is very old now, that much is certain. His hair is all silver and his still beautiful face is sagged with lines of age.

I nearly wept aloud at the sight of the man I loved looking so worn and faded in a pair of gray sweats. His hands are shaking and from the sweat that glistened on his wan forehead I know he is ill.

I press a hand to stem my crying for lost time, for the loss of a chance to throw myself before him once again. Because I could do nothing for him now, being just a human child.

But he's so old now, tired and different and still somehow the same.

“Hello Dean.”

Usually that got his attention and I would hear his pulse quicken through the air separating us, but this time when he looks up, the gaze directed towards me was the one that I'd seen when we first met. Wary, distrustful.

“What is it?” He asks lightly, dropping the book into his lap.

Trying to be silent, careful, as to not startle him, I walk towards him, the light above us flickering, dapples of shadow and golden light slipping hypnotically across his features. A sense of familiarty sweeps over me and I pause uncertainly before him.

I remember something my friend Anna had said oh so long ago. That time was circular, that beginnings and endings were one and the same, meshing together to connect others and events and places. And, for the lucky few, on these roads- these paths- you would find someone or something meaningful and important and profound. They were webs of light betwixt the stars, in the dirt, in the clouds that painted sunsets, twisting lanes leading to a soft...

The word appears in my mind, clear as day.

“you.”

Dean blinks up at me, wide-eyed face drained of color, the book sliding off his even more slack legs.

“Cas?”

Tears build up in my now human eyes but I hold them back for his sake. He coughs and I reach forward as if to heal him before I realize I cannot. Instead, I place my hand on his shoulder, the one my hand print had once been branded upon.

I feel foolish about that now. Dean was no more mine than the wind. Yes, I had saved him and we had become friends, but there was nothing for me beyond that. All I could have was this one moment, if he allowed it.

“Cas...you're here? H-how? I saw you...you...”

His hands, gnarled and old but still his, bunched in my trenchcoat and I feel him pull me to him. I hold myself back, not allowing myself to sink against him like I wanted, like I had for years and years, but I let my cheek rest against his shoulder, let myself take in the feel of his clenched hands against my back.

“I'm so sorry Dean.”

“I missed you.”

I pull back slightly and found myself face to face with him, closer than when he'd admonished me about personal space. He looks worse than he had before, skin tinged gray as if my arrival had taken a decades toll on him.

Abruptly, he is moving, gesturing with his arm, face strained and taut.

“Over t-there, Cas. In the drawer. I- I kept it. L..like the last time.”

I don't want to pull away, don't want to let my gaze travel from him for even the briefest of moments, but I move anyway when I see the desperation in his eyes, hear it in his voice.

“A part of me always believed you'd come back.”

Pulling on the handle, I see inside- folded neatly and pressed- my second old trenchcoat, the one I'd been wearing when I'd last been me. I gently tug it free from its prison and hold it before me. Dean's scent- leather and vanilla- wafts off from it and I tighten my hands around the stiff folds.

He had kept it again. All these years and he-

I turn to him, determination a pounding alarm in my blood, surging with the power of a thousand suns.

“Dean, I have something I need to tell you.”

Dean doesn't speak but gives me a nod. Cautiously, I approach and sit down beside him, which, at the angle he was in the seat, put my shoulder up against the warm planes and muscles of his back. I rest my head against his shoulders and close my eyes with a deep exhale.

I have to tell him. I have to tell him the truth, about what broke the connection, why I listned to him even through my programming, why I'd stood so close back when I didn't understand. Why I'd- despite draping myself in the flag of heaven as Metatron had so eloquently put it- done what I'd done because of one human. Why he'd taught me more than I'd ever thought to learn.

Why I'd somehow stayed alive, even when I shouldn't have, so I could get the chance to see him again.

It didn't matter that he didn't feel the same. I accepted that. All that I cared was that I finally put it out there.

Breathing in one last time, I squeeze my lids tight and whisper.

“I love you.”

The silence is deafening. But the world doesn't implode, I'm not smote down for loving a human, and Dean doesn't recoil in disgust. I keep my eyes closed anyway. I want to enjoy the close contact I had while it lasted.

“C-Cas. I...”

A hand fumbles against my hair and I turn to see him with his head bent, palms shoved against scrunched up features.

I reach out and place my hand against his and he gives a jolt, raising tearful eyes to me.

“I am sorry for leaving you again, Dean. I'm sorry that I make you uncomfortable. I will always be your friend and I am content to stay in that role.”

Dean's hand suddenly curls around me, pulling me tight against him as he burries his face in my neck. His body shakes against mine.

Carrying him out of hell had felt like this- me holding him close, him clutching to me with a desperation that at the time I had thought was only fear. Now I understood. For now, I felt the same way.

It had been joy too.

And, as I stand at the beginning once again, our roles almost reversed, I turn his face to mine.

Dean lightly rests his forehead against my own, eyes closed and I brush a soft kiss to his cheek.

He gives a choking gasp and I open my eyes to see a gentle smile in them as the light fades.

A peace steals over me, his body weightless against mine. A darkness softly closes in around us, but it is a comforting one, one masking a soon to be revealed light. A light I knew well.

It was then that I realized and when I did I couldn't help but smiling.

I had been the one to grip him tight an raise him from perdition, but I hadn't fulfilled my promise to save him. Not quite. When I'd died, my promise had been broken. By all accounts I shouldn't have been able to fulfill it. But I had. Somehow- whether through my own volition or through God's- I had forced my way through the rules, shattering them, to see my beloved one last time, to save him like he'd saved me.

And I as I look up into the light that broke through the shadows of death, Dean bundled in my arms, I knew I'd finally done it.

I'd saved Dean Winchester. 

From the holo-diary of Aran Liander: Jedi Apprentice. Final entry

(I never did finish this fanfiction, so I thought I might as well finish it and give it a resolution :) Hope you enjoy!) (for 14/15 +) (Triggers for some hinted-at previous r-pe.)

The type of time keeping has changed since I last wrote. I'm going to stick with my way of measuring years and say 1005 ARR. That's all I have left of my past life, really, besides my lightsaber and the Force.

It's been so long since I last wrote to you, diary, and for that I am truly sorry. But I entered a really dark time and I was so ashamed to face you again, to face my Master again who was the one who placed you into my then-innocent hands. But now, as I hear the celebrations of the empire's fall outside, I realize I'm no longer the boy that made his way onto a terrible world and struggled with himself, with his loss, and with things he did not want to think about. I'm now nearly forty, almost the same age as my Master when he first chose me as his apprentice.

And, really, I believe it is time to face the last 23 years and tell you what has happened to me. I may not be the naive Padawan I was then, but I'm still very much a Jedi. And Jedi don't hide.

I still can't believe the empire has gone. I didn't help as much as I would have liked, but I still joined the rebellion, as a pilot, keeping my prowess to a minimum, to keep under the radar. But young Skywalker's bravery, his valor, his ending of the evil Siths holds me in awe. I've heard some snatches that he is the son of Anakin Skwalker, which I would undoubtedly believe- who else but the child of the Chosen One could take down the Chosen One and his Master? What will I do now, though? Now that the war is over, that the nightmare is over. Master, I know I am old enough, but I still don't feel wise enough to be a Knight- or even a Master. I can't even decide what route to take. I could restart the Jedi Order but I don't feel like that is my calling and the Force is silent to me. Young Skywalker, he would be a much better candidate. He is a true hero. Unlike me, a washed up Padawan stuck in a Knight's body. A Jedi Knight who couldn't even confront the Sith. I'd heard of others- other Jedi who had stood up. But most of them had died or been run offworld from the major worlds. Or worse. Maybe I did right. Maybe I didn't. I'll never know now.

Oh Master, I'm sorry I failed. I didn't do anything right. Or did I? Oh force, my mind keeps going in circles. Maybe I should just go through what transpired over the last twenty three years, to reorder my thoughts.

Yes, it was Kyla I saw on that day, on that dreadful world, which seems like so long ago now.

I can still remember that nasty meat stew I had made myself eat, still remember how I'd caught sight of her familiar hair by what was a brothel house, a place filled with the most disgusting of customers. I was convinced I was wrong, that I was seeing things in my all-consuming grief. But I'd gotten up, I'd rushed over there, breath held, sillily hopeful.

And I stopped dead when I realized I wasn't mistaken, that it was indeed my friend.

And she looked terrible. Gaunt cheeks, an outfit that barely fit her, her formerly muscular body now skeletal thin.

“Kyla?” I'd tentatively asked and she'd turned to me, her eyes the worst of it all. They were dead, gray, unseeing.

“Who's asking?” her voice was gruff, her eyes wandering up to the smoky sky where they seemed to catch onto the tangled knottings of smog and cloud above. I'd wanted to grab her, to take her shoulders, and I would have, but nausea at the last physical contact I'd received- Kayla's violence, her violation, blossoming before my eyes, tearing me to shreds, nearly sending me into a raging, sobbing ball of terror- stalled me.

“Kyla. It's me. Aran.” Her face swung towards me, eyes clearing just slightly, and she appeared to see me.

“Aran. What the kriff are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question,” I whispered, tears suddenly clotting my eyes, vision blurred. I wanted to embrace her, but her wary stance, the recoiling her body made me decide it was probably a bad idea. Who knew how many bad things had happened to her since last I'd seen her.

“I thought you'd died.” Her voice sounds sorrowful, yet empty, all life sucked out of her. It wasn't just her body that looked like it had wasted away. Her spirit seemed to have done so as well. I swallowed, and gently reached out and tugged on her sleeve, being careful to not touch her skin.

“Come on, Kyla. Let's get out of this place. I'm sure we can find ourselves better jobs and leave this planet.”

But she wouldn't come. Her feet rooted to the spot and she wouldn't budge when I tried to get her to follow me.

“No, Aran. We can't. I tried. I attacked the Senate myself, along with some others. They all died and I fled, from system to system. I tried to find jobs but I was recognized from my folly. No one would take me. Except this trash heap. Give up. It's hopeless.” She turned away, black hair covering her face in a dark veil.

“Kyla, we can't give up! We have to carry on. Who will continue the Jedi Order if we don't?”

“You're lying, Aran. You don't really believe that.” Kyla's voice was hushed, a soft, gentle whisper, her old kindness surfacing, a strange fragility emanating from her. The Kyla I had grown up had been tough, rambunctious- immature yes, but still strong and kind- a better person than me, who had always been too curious for his own good, too anxious, too trusting. But that Kyla was gone, just like my old self was too gone. Had the empire really rendered us ghosts?

And it struck me that Kyla was right. In a way, I had given up hope. I'd tried not to, but I had. Otherwise, why was I even on this stupid planet? Why had I been weeping so much, why had I written in my journal about ….about what Kayla had done to me? Why had I punched that pole dancer I'd seen earlier that day? The old Aran, the one who was a good Jedi would never have done that, would never had even ventured near that place, looking for work.

The old Aran wouldn't have been so hurt, so decimated, so violated and ashamed, pushing things out of mind. The old Aran would have faced them head-on and not shoved them down, not shoved them so far down inside himself that he'd twisted his memories. That Aran would never have lied to himself.

I remember to this day, with violent recollection, how ill I'd felt at that realization, how it felt like she'd punched me in the stomach. I'd sunk to my knees, not caring that the mud squelched against my pants, smearing it's filth all over me. I was already dirty, wasn't I? I had given up. I'd lied to myself. I'd betrayed my inner self.

“Take this, Aran. And leave this place. Please.” I'd felt her enfold my fingers around some crumpled money bills, pressing them into my palm. I looked up at her, abruptly realizing that my face was damp, tears crawling sickly over my cheeks.

“Come with me, then. I can't do this without..without someone good. I need you, my friend.” Her bleak physiognomy briefly parted its clouds and she smiled.

“All right, Aran. Let's go. We can leave later.”

Of course, that's not what happened. My luck- which I don't believe in, of course, but it's the only word I can think of for this- just, well, you know, is pretty awful. I was so ecstatic, you wouldn't believe it, at being reunited with my friend. It even made the ghostly pain in my mouth, in my skull, fade away. Even the creepy man who I was sharing the room with- who had stared at us leeringly before falling into a snoring slumber- could take the feeling away from me.

“I thought you had died in that firestorm, that purge,” I had said to her as we huddled in the small corner I'd rented. We had booked passage on a vessel out of this system, away from this wretched world. I hadn't felt so hopeful in...well, since before the war, if I'm being honest. I was stupid to be too trusting, of course. I didn't notice how much Kyla had changed.

“I didn't- I escaped, albeit barely. My Master went to find you but when she did, and she didn't come back...well, I ran, like she told me too. Where is your Master? Did he-”

“Yes,” I'd responded quickly, a sour note entering into blissful emotions.

“I'm sorry, Aran,” she'd said, gazing disjointedly at the corner. I wanted to ask her why and how she had ended up in a brothel house, but I decided against it. She wasn't ready to talk about it, just like I wasn't with my sickening realization. She was more broken than I was, that much was obvious, and I would have to handle her, and myself, delicately. Our training was amazing, of course, but we had never been taught how to handle such terrible things, one after the other, watch our whole world crumple and rip itself part until there was nothing left. I kept babbling to her, about nothing really- actually, I can barely remember what I even said- but I do remember having a lighter sensation hovering in my chest, like maybe the worst was over.

I was wrong.

The next morning, I awoke to find my friend gone, as well as half the money, with just a note where her figure had once lain. I picked it up, paper rumpled and spotted with stains of some greasy substance. I don't want to relate it completely- it still hurts to think about it too much, even now- but it basically stated that she couldn't be around me anymore. That I reminded her of a happier past and that it hurt too much. And that she was sorry.

I don't know how long I cried, balled up on the floor, but it must have been a bit, and I must have been loud, because the creep snoring in bed was suddenly on me, shaking me, shouted obscenities wresting me from my despair. The man catching me weeping wasn't the bad part- that was fine, there was no harm nor weakness is tears- it was the contact, the rough grabbing of me around the arms. It brought those memories, that I'd forced from my mind, that I'd twisted into something different, something less and tamer, up from the ugly dregs of my soul, blaring them like a bullhorn so that they rattled in my skull.

The forced kissing hadn't been the only thing Kayla had done to me that day.....

This time, I wasn't held by a stun, and I lashed out, a force push gone so arry and sloppy that it could have been done with more finesse when I was three, striking the man- and various other things- back and away from me. The man was unconscious, everything in the room in disarray, and I knew I couldn't stay. How I fought through my heaving and sobbing to gather all of my belongings and flee I'll never know. But I got out, in a daze, and hurried to that ship I'd booked along with...Kyla.

Once aboard I didn't look back.

I know it's been years, but I still can't believe she left. I know I'm probably being selfish, but it still stings. I'd lost my other two best friends, and my Master, as well as my innocence and, well, that kind of innocence as well.... How could someone walk out on me like that? But then, Anakin Skywalker, who I thought was the Chosen One, turned out to be the man who killed my Master and many other Jedi and the nice, sweet girl I thought Kayla was turned out to be a psychopath who hurt me in such a way that I still...I..never-mind. I can't. I just.....

And no, I never heard from Ky- her again. I did hear that she died a month or two later in a firefight, saving a family- whose mother was a member of the rebellion- from an avenging wave of stormtroopers. All my friends are officially gone now....

As I stated earlier, I did join the rebellion as a pilot. I didn't do anything overly heroic, but I did save as many people as I could and I feel like I did my part. But still, I wish I could have served as a Jedi. Am I still even a Jedi?

I made no friends in the rebellion, though. Everyone must have seen my secrets inside of me, known that I wasn't like them, and shunned me. They weren't all cruel or anything- some were even amiable- but it was like they didn't want to get to close, lest I turn into a raging freak who “kidnapped people's children”. Or what other crap people believed about us.

Maybe I'll contact Ben and Natalie. Let them know what happened to that boy they took in so many years ago. I'll thank them for what they did for me, giving me a small bit of happiness after the Sith wrenched it away from me.

******

Ben and Natalie are officially the only people in the galaxy to still care for me. They were so old now but they seemed happy enough to hear from me. I apologized for not calling sooner, but they understood. They didn't even seem to care that I was a Jedi, which was a first.

I know I've sounded unfair- I know most people don't really hate me or the Jedi, but...I just...well, I still have fear about all of that after everything that happened to me. After my Master died and my home went up in smoke and my family died, almost everyone left me or hurt me. But Natalie and Ben have given me some hope....

* * * * * * *

Good news! I have heard that Luke Skywalker is planning to restart the Jedi Order. I can't quite believe it. I haven't even picked up my ligthsaber in years, its sight too heartbreaking. But here it is before me. A chance to reclaim my life, to pull myself from this choking smoke that had descended on my soul. I will join once I visit Natalie and Ben. I have let the young Skywalker know that I was once a Jedi and he seemed glad to have found another Jedi of old, someone who knew the old customs. I only hope I will be up to the task. I'm such a disappointment......

So, diary, I guess it's time for me to put a close on this chapter of my life. I embark on a new journey until I rejoin my Master and my friends and fellows once again in the Force.

Master, I'm so so sorry I wasn't able to do much, but I hope I've earned the rank of “Knight” which you bestowed on me.

I don't belong in this time, that much is certain, especially with how I hear Luke- or Master Skywalker I guess now- talking(he seems to think we should allow marriage amongst the Jedi Order- something that will be hard to watch). Natalie and Ben remember what it was like, oh so long ago, but I know they won't live for forever and eventually I'll have to say goodbye to them. Until then, I plan on visiting them as much as I can. They're the only family I now have and I owe that to them. The new Jedi Order might be a good fit, who knows, but it will never be home.

Because I don't have one.

(Goodbye)

Aran Liander

25 ABY

Jedi Master Aran Liander died at the age of 65 in one of the first battles of this war(which I'm going to tentatively name the “Yuuzhan Vong” war. Uncle Luke- I mean, Master Skywalker- hasn't decided what to call it yet, to be honest). Normally I wouldn't do this, it isn't in my department of expertise nor a part of my job, but since I was with him in the battle and heard his last words, I feel like it's my duty to do so. And what better way than to put it in the diary I was given? I didn't read it of course- I understand privacy and he was a very private man. But I do think, if anyone who cared about him were to want this diary, they deserve to know how he ended up.

Aran Liander was a loner but I did get to know him well enough on the few missions I went on with him. He was a kind soul, yet extraordinarily sad. He never married, nor had any kind of relationship with anyone, still clinging to his old ways. And while I couldn't understand it, I do get why in a way. I know I still tinker with ships and mechanics even though I don't need to. It's a way to connect me to my carefree(well, mostly) childhood. And we all need that, a tie to our innocent youth, a way to show us where we come from. So, I don't blame him. I just wish he could have had more happiness in his life.

Master Liander did train an apprentice- a female Twi-Lek- and she was the only one who could bring a smile to his face, bring a light into his eyes. He loved her so much, that much I could tell from what little we worked together.

Sadly he lost her in an earlier skirmish in the war. I think that's what finally broke him, what made his death so easy, so quick in the battle I emerged from relatively unscathed. He was a strong Jedi, he should have made it through.

As I stated above, I was there when he died- I caught him when he fell in fact, my friend Tenel Ka helping me to shield him from the firestorm that raged around him. It was then when I felt him palm something- a holo-diary- into my hands.

“Take it,” he'd whispered.

“Finish my story. I don't want to be forgotten. Please.” He'd passed soon after that, and my twin brother and I had carried his body into the ship as we'd made our escape, Tenel Ka and my other sibling covering us.

His words haunted me for quite some time. So much in fact, I went looking in the old archives Uncle Luke had managed to find for anything relating to him. I didn't find much, but I was able to glean two things. The first was an old, grainy, holo-vid of himself as a small child, a youngling in the Jedi Temple in the creche, playing with the other children in his clan(not sure which one it was). He had been so happy then- giggling, smiling, all adorable and happy like I know my aunt's nearly born baby will soon be. He looked even more different in the faded image I'd found, somehow still there from an old security camera. He'd been older here- no older than thirteen I'd guess- and just a Padawan. His face was serene in the picture, with a touch of nobility about it. However, there was a humble hint in his physiognomy, a sense that he, while aware he the regard he held in society, didn't view himself as better, as superior, than anyone else. He looked so, so different from the morose man I had known and worked with. He still had that spark of life in him then, that desire to be and to do good. How he survived such loss, I'll never know, Somehow, he, Master Kenobi, Master Yoda, and all the others I learned about and know dealt with it were able to go on after losing their family, their friends, their family, their whole lives. And even when they find it again, it's not the same, and it never will be. I know I could hardly bear it if I were to loose everything like that. I'll always respect their strength.

Okay, I lied earlier. I did read some of it, the last few lines. I didn't mean to, completely, but I felt like I should, since how could I finish his story if I didn't know what to write about. But that was all, I promise. And what I read was so very sad.

So Master Liander- Aran- if you can hear me or somehow can read this, I want to let you know. Your Master, your Padawan, they both loved you. I hope you know that. And you didn't fail. You were a good Jedi, and an honorable one. I believe, I believe your family is proud of you. And nothing was your fault.

And one more thing before I wrap your tale up and finally give it an end. You had a home here. You belonged. You may not have realized it, but I think it's important to for you to know that. We may have not been your Jedi Order, but I hope we were enough.

You will be missed

May the Force be with you

Jaina Solo

****

(later)

(Thank you)  

From the Diary of Aran Liander: Jedi Apprentice

982 ARR

We're going to be arriving today and I have a few things to tell you before we get there.

Number one is I'm sorry for not writing in here in such a long time- I've been really....I guess you could say 'despondent' lately and I don't feel like writing anything. It's all the same old stuff- my depression over Order 66, death, Kayla, my friends, and so on. The nightmares just get worse and I sometimes still feel a phantom pain in my mouth or in the back of my skull. I don't know how much more of this I can take...

Anyway, I tried to contact Ben and Natalie but I couldn't get through....or it might have been that they don't want to answer my comlink. I felt crushed that they would ignore me like this but in a way I'm glad they haven't answered. That way, I don't have to see the hate and shame in their eyes. I don't have to see the hatred.

Well, the bell just rang, so that means we're here. I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

I wasn't able to buy anything with my measly amount of crumpled credits so I was forced to comb the streets for currency, like I did after Order 66. I used what little I could find to rent a corner in a room since I don't have enough to buy a full room. The man I'm 'rooming' with is a middle aged man about my Master's age and roughly human; all comparisons to my Master end there, however. He is dirty, grunge-faced, with darting eyes that I find very unsettling. I think I completely understand girl's wariness now, especially after Kayla. If that instance has taught me anything, it has taught me about the monsters inside certain people and how it can take away everything that makes them alive. I don't want to loose hope but...but I can't believe in living beings anymore.

Damn Kayla, why did you take my last bit of Jedi out of me?! You gutted me and left me for dead! You took something away from me that I'll never get back now and how can I be a Jedi if I have this big burning hatred for everything in myself?! I HATE YOU!!

….

I'm so, so sorry. I'm sorry. I won't do it again, I promise, I promise, okay?

Since I don't have anymore currency with which to pay my owner and rent is tomorrow, I went job scoping. So far I've managed to piss off several store owners when they tried to pickpocket me, and totally humiliate myself when I punched a pole dancer in the face when she made a move on me.

And now, I'm sitting in a wretched restaurant eating an unrecognizable-meat stew from some place that takes credits. I've been looking at job opportunities, not believing I'm doing this, and I have some ideas which I'll write down now.

1 – I could be a body guard or something- I am very skilled in combat and my Force sensitivity would definitely be a bonus. And it would definitely be better than every other karking job here that is crooked and, quite possibly, immoral. I may have sunk far, but I'm NOT going to betray myself anymore than I already have.

2 – I could-....Oh, who am I kidding, I'm a Jedi! I can't do anything on this damn, rotten world! I shouldn't have come here, I know I shouldn't have! It was stupid. And now I'm stranded here...alone..

Wait, that girl over there by the brothel house....she looks familiar..

Oh...

Oh my Force, is that Kyla? What's she doing here? Didn't she die, didn't-?

Forget this, I'm getting a closer look.

Aran Liander 

From the Holo-diary of Aran Liander: Jedi Apprentice

982 ARR

I saw a medic on the ship who administrated bacta to me yesterday; I could tell she wanted to know where I got my injuries from but I was thankful she fought the impulse. While I'm still in pain, it isn't as sharp as it was; I am especially glad that the wound to my skull is looking much better now. That bacta immersion definitely helped.

I began having nightmares again- this time it was a replay of the brutal killing of the Jedi and Kayla's...craziness(which was so disturbing...). I awoke last night, covered in a sweat, and hearing the sound of my screams echoing my ears. At breakfast this morning I saw several people glaring at me and I guess I woke them up with my cries last night.

I feel like such a piece of poodoo.

That reminds me, I have chosen a planet to stay on. Well, not really a planet; it's actually a moon, a moon called “Nar Shaddaa” which orbits the Hutt world of Nal Hutta. I can't believe I'm going to the smuggler captial of the galaxy but I think it will be a good place to get lost in for awhile. The imperial leader, from what I learned by doing research last night, is very lax on keeping order on the world(he's most likely paid off handsomely by the Hutts). I don't know when I'll leave that moon but I should be there for awhile since my escape will have most likely caused the Empire to want to search for me- not that I'm important, it's just that they want all Jedi dead.

Oh no, I just saw some stormtroopers.

Sorry I had to abandon you like that. I returned to my room after seeing a few stormtroopers enter the dining hall and I had to run for it. Luckily, they didn't see me sprint out of there.

I'm debating on whether or not to contact Natalie and Ben to tell them that I'm okay. They seemed to care about me while I was staying with them but I don't know if they are on my side or not.

I shouldn't! Just look at Kayla! I trusted her and she turned into a total creep. I think I hate romance even more now than I used to. I'd seen and heard about people behaving that way but I never expected to actually meet someone I cared about be that way. I never expected to see someone I cared about be fine with murder just to get at someone. Calling them would be a terrible mistake, wouldn't it diary?

I wish I had another Jedi to talk to- they'd understand me, they'd get this fear I have that I've been loosing it all again, just like I did after Order 66. They'd understand my fear and help me control and accept it.

And I wish that Jedi was my Master.

I also wish I could see my friends Kyla, Lint, and Rune. After seeing Kayla betray my trust in such a horrifying way I want that innocent, kind, complete trust I had with my friends. I miss our quiet talks, sitting together in meditation, all connected.

But missing won't help them or me now, will it?

I was lucky enough to have had such good friends and such a good Master in my life. I shouldn't expect to have anymore. I may not be fine but I have my lightsaber and the Force is with me.

Well, I'm off to meditate on the terrible things that happened yesterday. I still haven't been able to get them out of my mind- my heart and mouth won't stop hurting, and I can't think about anything without beginning to feel nauseous. Wish me luck.

May the Force be with me in my new home when I get there and lend me the patience to live in such settings.

Aran Liander