They'd known the Sith would eventually track Allana to Bastion, but they'd thought they'd have at least a little more time. Really, it could have been worse. Bastion was literally a fortress, which meant that they'd had some notice that this was coming and were able to take out two transport ships before they even got there. That had helped a lot.

Ultimately, they'd won. Of the Sith that made it to the school, none made it out. It'd been a tough fight, and having Ben and the other Jedi who had come on their own to help had been the difference between a tough fight and a potential massacre. The students had done their best and Jaina was amazingly proud of them, but they were still new at this. One hadn't made it.

Once it was over, she and Tahiri had a quick pep talk with the students and would talk to them more tomorrow. She was pretty sure Tahiri stayed with them for a bit, but Jaina had to do things like make incredibly hard calls to parents and make sure the bodies got cleared out and the place got cleaned up before they all had to see it in the light of day tomorrow. She still had to find Ben and check in with him after everything. She'd had to wait for Jag to contact her once they were in a good location to do so, and she'd spent probably longer than necessary making sure that Dax and Daniel were fine, yes, really, they didn't even know what was going on and had been away from most of the fighting, the security people did everything right, it was all okay. She really wanted to head over to that location- there was no way the boys were staying in the palace tonight- but she had to get things settled, and she had a very strict personal rule about her sons ever seeing her covered in blood. Settle things, shower, then hug them until they complained.

This wasn't the first time she'd been under siege like this. It wasn't even her fifth. It wasn't even her first at a Jedi school. Actually, she realized she only had one more to go there before she had the full set, which was a thought she hated the instant she had it. This time felt exhausting in a way the others hadn't, and when she got a moment she slipped outside to get some air.

Ben was still covered in dirt and mostly someone else's blood, and had found himself a spot to sit outside where he could see most of the exits, plus the likeliest places for a second wave of attackers (if such a thing existed) to land. Everything about him was still tensed for a fight.

Jaina didn't say anything at first, but she made her way over and found a spot to sit next to him. Her first instinct was to tell him "good job," but that felt like the wrong thing to say. She went with, "How're you doing?" instead.

"There have been better days," he said a little wryly, staring into the wilderness. "Tahiri with the kids?"

"Yeah. I'm going to stop and see mine, and then I'll be coming back. I don't feel any more threats, but it'd make me feel better to be around," she said. Probably the kids, too. She looked over at him for a moment and said, "You did what had to be done."

"Yeah," Ben said, sounding defeated. "Didn't mean I liked it. Dad would probably have some Jedi proverb he'd make up on the spot and blame Yoda for about Sith being Sith, but--"

"Vestara was Vestara, and the Sith part is just what did her in," Jaina said simply. "In the end, the choices she made were true to her. They were just bad."

"She brought her people to kill Allana," Ben said, sounding deeply betrayed despite himself. "It couldn't have ended any other way for them, prophecy be damned. We wouldn't allow it to." He looked down at the lightsaber burn along his pant leg. "She had to have known that."

"I don't think she did. I don't think they would have come if she did," Jaina said. "Confidence is funny like that. We were just more prepared than they expected."

"Can I be there when you send the report back to the Council regarding that?" Ben asked, glaring. "Because I have some thoughts on how this would've gone if we'd actually followed their guidance. They aren't positive thoughts."

"You'll be able to hear me outside the temple." She'd never shied away from yelling at authority figures and she kind of trumped them now, really. "It's great to know we can really count on them out here."

"I'd lead with that," Ben said, "followed by the body count."

"We're lucky that it was just one," Jaina said bitterly. "It should have been zero." Which was maybe not entirely fair, from a pragmatist perspective. There did tend to be some sort of body count in this kind of situation. She knew the realities of battle. But it was different when it was her students and more help maybe could have made a difference.

Ben blew out another breath. "She was protecting Allana," he said. "She just wasn't ready to face a fully trained Sith."

"Not many people are." Look how much training it had taken Jaina to get to that point. "Maybe that needs to be the new goal," she said darkly. "By graduation students must be prepared to take out a real Sith."

Actually… that'd be a good idea.

"Since there's an entire planet full--" he glanced off into the woods again, "--minus a few now--out to kill us again, it's just smart planning, really."

"We'll come up with something," Jaina said vaguely, already knowing that she and Tahiri would end up hashing out some new training within a week. "Thanks for your help, Ben. I know it wasn't easy."

She really, really knew.

And hopefully he didn't mind her putting an arm around him to sit there like that for a while.


[Making everything terrible again. Thanks to momslilassassin for being my Ben! NFB, NFI, etc.]