It had taken more convincing than Jaina would have liked, but when she got some time, she was able to take Ben on a little trip, like she'd told that other Ben she would. It was mainly for her to check in with him and make sure things were going all right and there weren't any red flags, but there'd been a very large red flag right from the start: she had no idea why she had to convince Jacen to let Ben go instead of his parents.

The trip itself had been... fine? Jaina got the distinct impression that Ben would rather not go at all, but he'd been okay. And if she was being honest with herself, she and Ben didn't seem to connect the same way that they used to. She hadn't worked out training him, but she'd always looked out for him and he'd always been really glad to see her, and now he just... wasn't. He just thought he had more important things to do, because he was twelve and that's how twelve-year-olds (especially ones paired to train with self-important jerks) started to think. Then Jaina had gotten him to help her out in tinkering with the ship they'd been traveling on and things had been just fine, because he was twelve and some things don't change.

She'd gone back to her quarters to check her messages, unpacking while she listened. And when she got to the one from her grandfather, she immediately began piling the things she'd just taken out of her bag back in.

[Mostly establishy but if you feel like pinging in, I am not gonna stop you.]

Between the messages she'd gotten and what she'd seen on the board, Jaina would call herself anything but happy, but she didn't feel as if her brain was just stopped today. With yesterday's Portalocity email, she had to refocus, and there were some things she needed to do.

The first thing she did was call her Luke, to make sure he knew exactly what was going on. She didn't tell him about any of the disappeared that he might know. That wasn't going to do anyone any good. The second thing she did was record a message for Jacen.

( which would be here )

She ended the transmission and sent it, telling herself that as soon as this was over and everything was fixed she'd be able to threaten someone but good in order to get back home. It made her feel mildly better.

[Mostly establishy, as I'm leaving in like half an hour. But if you're up for SP, go ahead and knock.]

It was early when Jaina woke up from the nightmare, the kind of early where you don't need to look at the clock to know that you didn't need to get out of bed for hours yet. She didn't have the nightmares as often anymore, to the point where she could forget she had them at all most days, and she knew why she was having them again now. The anniversary was coming up again.

( cut so you don't have to read it! )


[Establishy as it is book day, and NFB.]