The Solo family had a a small apartment on Mon Calamari to use. Jaina was nervous enough to get there, and the anxiety only increased when she found out that Jacen wasn't there at the moment. He'd left a note saying he'd gone to the reef with Danni Quee, which seemed like such a normal thing to do that she didn't know what to think about it. On one hand, it felt like she'd dodged this particular razor bug for now. She was absolutely terrified to see him, considering her encounters with other Jacens in Fandom, and what Ben had told her of his, but at the same time... it was Jacen. The anticipation wasn't all bad, just tinged with it.

Not knowing how long he'd be, Jaina decided to head to headquarters now, and hopefully he'd be here when she got back. Maybe hopefully. She didn't know yet. She just dropped her bag on the floor of the living room to rifle through for a dressier uniform to wear out, and the door slid open.

She didn't have time for anything more than the heart lurch that came with being that nervous before she really realized that there he was.

Even having seen the message from him, she almost didn't recognize him. She didn't remember him being this tall, or looking like a man instead of a teenage boy. Though he'd shaved to look less like a hobo, his hair was still longer and therefore curlier, streaked with blond from too much time in the sun. He looked so different, and still so like her brother, and she could actually feel him in the Force. For the first time in so many months it felt like that other half of her was finally there again, and all the earlier fears just disappeared.

She ran at him, crushing him in a hug he returned just as enthusiastically, both of them half-laughing and half-crying in giddy relief. That was all she needed. This was her Jacen.

When they pulled back, the first thing Jacen noticed was the insignia on her uniform. "You're a major now?" he said.

"I'm better than that, I'm a goddess," Jaina grinned, and then her gaze shifted to the two females at the door. She knew Danni, but there was an Ishi Tib there that they introduced her to, not that she really cared to remember her name. She wasn't into making new friends all over. And part of her immediately wanted to shut down at people viewing something that felt really personal to her.

So Jaina did what she did best. She played the avoidance card. "I have to change now, and run," she said. "I've got dispatches to deliver to headquarters. And I've got a personal message from Admiral Kre'fey to Uncle Luke. He wants Jedi."

"At least someone wants us," Jacen said, sounding surprised.

Jaina excused herself to duck into a bedroom to change, taking slightly longer than necessary to just stand there and be amazed that this was real, and that any of it was happening. She'd lost a lot in this war, and was far beyond complaining about it. She could whine and emo all she wanted and it wouldn't do any good, so why bother. She'd continue to lose people. She'd already been resigned to being lost herself. But she hadn't counted on the war giving anything back. Too bad there were still so many issues wrapped up in it.

She didn't linger when she emerged from the bedroom in her formal uniform, instead heading for the door. "We'll talk later, right?" she asked Jacen. "I want to hear everything."

And she meant that part. She was wondering where the red flags might start popping up.

*****

She honestly hadn't meant to be at HQ all that long, but it was much later when she finally got back. As soon as she walked into the house she was met with Jacen's, "Wow, you're tense," and realized that she wasn't used to anyone being able to read her that well immediately anymore. And she was still mostly keeping him shut out.

Luke and Mara had returned, and rather than engage in small talk, Jaina had gone straight to "I'm still working, technically," and relayed Kre'fey's request to Luke for more Jedi. He seemed pretty up on the idea, and then used it as a segue back onto her. "Jaina's been quite the rising star in the military," Luke said, for Jacen's benefit.

"I'd noticed," Jacen said, and asked, "Are you not going to school anymore?"

"No, I am," Jaina answered. "I figure as long as they keep teaching me things I can use out here, it's worth staying. So I go back and forth. Work from Earth in my week between classes, come back here for long weekends when I can, which means I get weeks straight or so to work here at a time."

"How have you not completely burnt out?" he wondered, and Jaina didn't answer that one.

"Have you told Jacen of your work on Hapes?" Luke asked.

She knew what he was doing. Either Jacen had told him how she wasn't being very open, or Luke had guessed, and now he was trying to ease her into it. Of course she wasn't going to want to confess the things she'd done. Jacen had been the one who tried to stop being a Jedi because he was terrified of sending the galaxy spiraling into darkness. Admitting that she'd been perfectly fine with spiraling herself wasn't exactly the easiest thing to do. And she really didn't want to be the reason he stopped trying again. She wasn't exactly liking how Luke was leading the conversation, but she couldn't exactly refuse to talk about it without a lot of future Talks with Luke, Mara, and Jacen.

So she let Luke talk it out of her. She did leave out a lot of details, though. Most of the stuff she'd come clean about, but it wasn't anything she just wanted to throw out there in a group setting. She started off telling Jacen about her work with the gravitic signatures, and how Ta'a Chume had been helping her (and for as serious as the talk was, the mention of nearly having to marry Isolder was met with a healthy teenage "Ew") and her reasoning. How she honestly hadn't cared if she died, how nothing had been more important than killing Vong in the name of vengeance.

And she felt horrible about it. She was far enough removed from it now to not recognize the person she'd been. And she knew Jacen, knew he'd accept guilt for being part of the reason for her downward spiral, and she felt like a giant hypocrite now. She didn't want anyone dying in her name, but she'd done it in his. And Anakin's.

There were no recriminations, though. Luke and Mara knew the story, they wouldn't press her any more than they needed to, and Jacen just listened, sometimes with wide eyes. Imagine if he'd heard the really scary stuff.

As she went to the room to change for bed, Jacen caught up with her. "Hey, can we talk?"

It didn't stop her from fearing the recriminations that she was sure were coming, though. Imagine that, even with her paranoia over what was happening in other realities with other Jacens, she was still afraid of what he might think of her. She hadn't thought she'd be worried about that, but... oops. "Can it wait?" she asked, genuinely apologetic. "It was a really long flight in from Kashyyyk, and a really long day. I kind of just want to sleep."

He didn't look happy about it, but nodded. "Okay. Later."

*****

There were a lot of thoughts and emotions involved in her reunion with Jacen, and they remained after that initial glee wore off, even after she'd come clean out her own actions. The twins were sharing a room, something they hadn't done since they were kids. And Jaina once again realized how much she wasn't used to anyone being able to read her that closely until she heard him ask, "I know you're still awake. What's wrong?"

He was in the bunk across the dark room, and Jaina turned onto her side to face him. The fact that he didn't just know what was wrong was her doing, still unable to let anyone in completely. Even him for now. "Just thinking."

"Then something is wrong."

She didn't smile at the jibe, and after a moment of serious consideration, she said, "When you were gone, a couple versions of you visited Fandom."

There was the sound of covers rustling as he seemed to be propping himself up to try and see her better. "Oh?"

Now that she'd started, she couldn't not tell him. She wanted to gauge his reaction. She wanted to tell him his future in other places knowing that if anyone could prevent that sort of thing from happening to himself, it was Jacen. "We have a Ben there now, a teenage version. In his time... you're a Sith."

There was dead silence from his side of the room, and she went on, "And there was another version of you that put me in the clinic."

A moment later, there was exactly the sort of question she would expect from Jacen: "Why?":

"I don't know," Jaina said. "You were too busy throwing large objects at me to give an answer."

Strangely, he didn't have much of a reaction either way. He went quiet again, then asked, "Did you think I'd do that? That's what I'd be like now?"

"I wasn't sure," Jaina replied "I didn't know what happened to you, what you'd be like when you got back."

"You know I couldn't do that to you, right?"

"I know." And she did. Part of what was bothering her was how to keep it that way. Wondering what needed to change to keep him in the light as he was now.

There was even more silence, but she could hear his breathing and knew he wasn't asleep yet.

"Hey, Jaina?"

"Hm?"

"What do you call the person who brings a rancor his dinner?"

Jaina had to smile. She'd remembered this routine, knew this was something he'd thought was so original when he was fourteen. "I don't know. What?"

"The appetizer."

It wasn't a funny joke. At all. In fact, she thought she may have remembered it from back at the Academy and not found it funny then, either. It didn't stop her from chuckling into her pillow. "Go to sleep, Jacen."

She didn't sleep much that night, laying awake late even when she could tell Jacen was asleep, and then before daylight, Han and Leia arrived. Jaina was woken by the noise of their arrival, and when she saw that Jacen was gone from his bunk and went out to the living room to see what was happening. She found Han hugging his fully-grown, nearly-as-tall-as-him son off the ground, happy as could be. It went down as one of the greatest things she'd ever see in her life.

When he was finished with Jacen, he greeted his daughter with a "There's my girl," and a hug that was met with a sleepy "Mmph," followed closely by Leia.

SInce it made no sense going back to bed at this point, she and Jacen stayed up with their parents till the sun rose. The spotlight was definitely on Jacen, who seemed to be trying to be honest without being really forthcoming. Jana couldn't blame him. She hadn't told her parents the details of her torture at the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong, and what he'd been through had to be so much worse. Still, he did try as much as he could without worrying them.

And for as much as it wasn't right that Anakin wasn't there, that their reunion conversation focused on war and torture, it didn't change the fact that they were together and her parents had been in better spirits than they had been in a while. And for that, Jaina would take it all.


[NFB, NFI, OOC okay. Most dialogue taken from Destiny's Way by Walter Jon Williams. ... This is new, Jaina's having a better time than I am. I must be doing something wrong.]