Jaina had her own quarters at the new Academy, but the first night she was there she ended up falling asleep on the sofa in her parents' suite. Someone had covered her with a blanket and turned out the light, and she was the first awake in the morning, feeling about seven years old. She wasn't sure how she felt about that. During the war there'd been more than a few times she'd been happy enough to run to mommy when things got bad, but since it had ended, and after this weekend especially it didn't seem to fit anymore.

Still, she wanted the time with her family, and so she sprawled on the sofa in her bare feet, working at some stuff Luke had given her to do. It was busy work, but the busy work here still actually had to be done as the Academy was still getting on its feet, and she was content to spend some time mindlessly fiddling with mechanics until her dad finally joined her in the living area. "It's early," he noted, moving her feet to sit with her on the sofa.

"Or you wake up late," she countered.

"There's that."

And when Leia joined them a moment later, her first words were, "I'm surprised you're still here."

"It was too quiet in my room," Jaina said unapologetically. She knew they didn't mind having her around. "Besides, I didn't get to talk to you guys enough last night."

"We got to hear about giant lizards, gremlins, and monkeyponies and there's more?" Han asked incredulously. "We covered the kid call last time..."

Yes, and Jaina wanted to be reminded of that right now. Even the space of a couple days was helping a little, letting her soothe the ache of missing kids that she hadn't even had with good old-fashioned logic. So those kids didn't happen for her. It didn't mean others never would. Like Cassa, Jonathyn and the twins existed somewhere. That was what mattered.

And she thought she was never telling her parents about Cassa.

She reached over to put her work down and grab her phone from the table, pulling up the photo of Tiny Mom from prom and showing it to Han, since he was closest. "Well, this comes to mind," she said.

Han didn't say anything at first, and Leia moved so that she could look over his shoulder. "There's a me there?"

"Yep," Jaina said, smiling a little on the look of her mother's face. "She's sixteen. She lives next door to me." Not mentioning her bad choice of dates while her dad was there. Or ever. Still ew.

"...When did I ever look like that?"

"When you were sixteen," Han answered. "I missed this phase on you?"

"So, um, I thought I should let you know she was around, before graduation," Jaina said.

"Will it break the time-space continuum if we're in the same room?" Leia wondered. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but you have more experience with that sort of thing than I do."

"I have no idea," she admitted. "And last I knew, Grandfather was trying to keep things from her and it's complicated."

Her parents both paused, and looked at each other. "I think she doesn't want us to come for graduation," Han inferred.

"No, no, I want you there," Jaina said quickly. "I'm not asking you not to come. It's just complicated and it makes my head hurt to think about what would happen and I wanted to make sure you knew ahead of time." It was that she seriously worried about the consequences of it.

"There's time," Leia said, though she was a little hard to read on the subject. "And if worse comes to worse, you'll be back soon."

And there was the other thing. "Yeah, about that..."

"Are you not coming back soon?"

"I have no idea," Jaina admitted. "I want to stay a little longer, see what happens with certain things. At most, it's four months I'm gone that you probably wouldn't have seen me due to work anyway." She felt like a terrible daughter.

"Are you sure about this, sweetheart?" Han asked. "Didn't you once threaten Kyp with kidnapping charges for sending you back there?"

"Yeah," Jaina said, though she still wasn't entirely sure on that point. "I don't think I'm done quite yet."

"We'll trust your judgment," Leia said slowly, and opened her mouth to say something else-

-And was interrupted by Han. "Jaina, what's on your feet?"

Jaina looked down at her bare feet, which still sported the pedicure from before prom. "Oh," Jaina said, wiggling her toes. "It's a thing my friend Rose and I do sometimes." Where they got pedicures and talked about boys. Don't judge. They were plenty badass. Sometimes in strappy shoes.

"Obviously they've done something to her," Han said, looking up at his wife. "Maybe they sent us back a clone."

"Or a Jaina from an alternate reality," Leia considered.

Jaina frowned. "Neither of you are funny."

[NFB, NFI, I wanna go back to bed.]