Normally, it would have been a healer sent.
It was customary for the Council to send someone when a Jedi Knight endured particular hardships during a mission, especially those of the emotional or psychological kind.
Cilghal had offered, but Master Skywalker had felt that he was best suited for this.
After all, no one knew Jaina Solo better than Kyp Durron.
He had arrived on the frigid world to find even less greeting waiting for him than he'd been expecting, which was never a good sign, but he'd been granted the clearances he needed to land and pointed in the direction he needed to go, with a clear warning that he was not permitted anywhere else.
Not that a warning would have kept him from changing directions, had he sensed the need to.
Thankfully, however, there was no need for that this time, he found her precisely where they had told him that she would be, and even without their directions, he would have found her still.
Her pain had called out to him across the galaxy, like a beacon in the back of his mind, in the still of his heart, and it would have led him to her anywhere.
Kyp let himself into the room, but she didn't look up from where she sat in the transparisteel alcove, her knees hugged to her chest, gazing out at the horizon as the suns set over the endless white snow landscape, which stretched out in every direction the eye could see.
She knew he was there, though, she had known he was coming since the moment that his X-wing emerged from hyperspace over Csilla.
Maybe even before that.
For a long moment, Kyp stood there, just inside the door, watching her. He could feel her pain more keenly now that a galaxy didn't separate them, but she was shielding more tightly, as well, only allowing whispering tendrils to fall away from her dimmed presence in the Force.
"The Council sent you?" she said at last, without turning around.
"Yes," Kyp replied, taking a step forward. "But I would have come just the same if they hadn't."
Jaina didn't reply, so he moved to stand beside her, likewise gazing out of the clear transparisteel at the barren iceland in the distance.
He didn't need to look at her to see her, the dullness of her eyes, the droop of her mouth, the ache in her heart, were all perceived through the Force, across their rapport, but he pretended not to notice and she pretended not to know what he was doing.
They had both gotten quite good at pretending over the years.
Outside, the cold wind blew across the tundra, moving a spray of loose powder across the surface. Snowflakes fell from the sky, spiraling about in slow, graceful descent as they danced across the twilight canvas, the setting suns splaying a silverish glow across the landscape.
He might as well have been out there among the falling snow for the cold ache that wrapped around him in this room of shadow and gloom, compressing tighter and harder.
Still, he did not tear his gaze from the transparisteel.
Instead, he waited.
"I didn't have a choice," she finally spoke, so faintly he barely heard the words pass from her lips, even as the warmth of her breath spilled across the transparisteel in front of them in a whispered fog.
"I know," he replied evenly.
"If there had been any other way," she said with a small, fragile hitch to her voice. "If I could have saved her..."
"You did all you could," Kyp told her, taking care not to look at her, for he could sense the tears stinging in her eyes, the bitter bite of grief and guilt welling in her throat, and he knew she would not welcome his touch to wipe those tears if they started to fall.
"It hurts," Jaina whispered, in a voice so tiny and desolate that he hurt for her.
"I know," he said softly.
"Jag hates me now," she announced with a weak, bitter laugh that quaked, bordering on a sob.
"He doesn't hate you," Kyp assured her, turning to look down at her, and she looked away, lowering her eyes. "He's just grieving right now."
She gave a small shake of her head, causing her dark hair to fall across her face like a mourning veil.
"In time, he'll come to understand why you had to do what you did," Kyp told her solemnly, resisting the urge to tuck the hair behind her ear so that he could see her face. "He'll understand."
"Will he?" Jaina asked wanly, and he could feel the heavy weight on her chest through the Force as it bore down upon her. "I don't even know that I understand."
Easing himself down onto the sill of the transparisteel alcove beside her, Kyp reached out for her hand and took it in his own, their fingers lacing together in perfect, instinctive symmetry.
"You did the right thing, Jaina," he assured her gently, rubbing his thumb over the back of her knuckles. "You did the only thing you could have done in that situation, and every Jedi would have made the same decision in your place. Anything else would have been a betrayal of what the Jedi stand for, and of the Force."
"I know," Jaina whispered, and he heard her draw a shaky breath. "That doesn't make it any less painful."
"No," Kyp said softly, heart aching to take this burden away from her, to bear it himself so that she would not have to suffer this hurt. He squeezed her small hand, willing his strength and warmth to her through the Force. "I imagine it doesn't."
"I tried," she rasped, and her hand trembled in his. "I really did. But it wasn't enough. I wasn't enough."
"That's not true," Kyp promised her, his throat tightening even as her pain, which was felt so keenly in the part of him that was intricately connected to her, stirred tears to life in his eyes. "It's not."
"I let her die, Kyp," Jaina wailed strickenly, and her body shook wretchedly as frenzied grief began to slide towards hysteria. "Oh, Force, I let her die."
"No," Kyp replied huskily, his voice thick as tears stung his eyes. "No, Goddess, you didn't."
"It's my fault," she gasped out, breathing so erratic now that he grew alarmed, fearful she would make herself sick if she kept it up. "She's dead because of me. It's all because of me."
"None of this is your fault," Kyp told her sharply, and took her by the shoulders, eyes boring into her with unfaltering intensity. "Do you hear me, Jaina? You are not to blame for this."
"You didn't see the look in Jag's eyes, Kyp," she protested hoarsely, shaking her head and looking down at the floor to avoid meeting his gaze. "I could have saved her, and he knows it. I could have saved her."
"You could have," Kyp agreed somberly. "If you'd turned your back on all those people who would have died if you'd done it."
Jaina didn't reply, save for a faint strangled noise, and Kyp lifted a hand to take her chin between his thumb and forefinger, bringing her tear-streaked face up to his.
"One life can't be held above the lives of millions, no matter how precious a life it is," he told her softly, brushing away her tears with the back of one hand. "You know that, and deep down, Jag knows it, too. He's a logical man, a military man, he's just hurting right now. He'll get over it."
"Did you get over Zeth's death?" Jaina demanded bleakly, and though he managed to keep the wince off of his face, she knew just the same. "It's been years, and I haven't gotten over Anakin."
"This is an entirely different situation," Kyp insisted.
"Is it?" she muttered.
"You did not kill Wyn," Kyp said sharply, and she closed her eyes at the name of Jag's fallen sister. "Contrary to what Jag may or may not have insinuated in the heat of the moment, or what you chose to read into his words, or what your own guilt is telling you, you are not responsible for her death."
Shaking her head, Jaina opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off with a stern, angry glare.
"By blaming yourself," he hissed, squeezing her shoulders tightly. "You are absolving Lomi and Welk of her murder."
"They only took her because of me," Jaina pointed out, wrung with grief and guilt. "Welk expected me to come for her instead of going after Lomi."
"You had to go after Lomi, though," Kyp told her sternly, putting the full weight of the Force behind his words so that she would truly hear them. "If you hadn't, she would have released Alpha Red, and who knows how many millions, maybe even billions, of beings would have died then, Jaina."
He'd read the report that had been sent to the Temple, not by Jaina herself, but by Raynar Thul.
The details had been a bit sketchy on that situation, but Kyp had promised to bring the younger man back with him to Ossus to be brought before the Council to explain his actions. Kyp would have to speak with him on the trip through hyperspace, after getting the Chiss to release him into Jedi custody from whatever cell they'd stashed him in, but as far as he could gather Raynar had been abducted by Lomi and Welk at Myrkr when the Nightsister and her apprentice stole the Yuuzhan Vong ship the strike team had been intending to use to escape the worldship.
In the time that followed, he was slowly seduced to the dark side through the grief, anger and bitterness that the war, and the loss of friends and lovers, had knotted inside of him.
Only Raynar would be able to tell them what had happened to him during the years since Myrkr, but somehow he had ended up a follower of Lomi's, and willingly joined her in her crusade to turn Alpha Red loose on the galaxy.
They had not counted on Jaina being on Csilla, there for a visit with Jag to meet his family, when they made their move to steal the bioweapon from the secret Chiss laboratories hidden beneath the snowy terrain. In the altercation that followed, some part of Raynar that was still good, that had not yet fully embraced the darkness, had been awoken by Jaina, and he'd come to her aid, earning himself some painful injuries from Lomi that would require a healer's touch once they returned to Ossus.
Because of him, Jaina had been able to stop Lomi and Welk, but at a grim price.
"You were faced with a terrible choice," Kyp said gently, cupping Jaina's face in his hands. "To save the life of someone Jag loved, or to save the lives of an untold number of innocent beings throughout the galaxy, and you did the only thing you could have done. There was no time for indecision, no time to try and do both."
"I should have found a way-" she began hoarsely.
"There was no way, Jaina," Kyp replied firmly, with unwavering resolve. "You barely got to Lomi in time as it was. A single moment slower, and it would have been too late. If you'd moved to save Wyn, you would have doomed countless others."
"It's not fair," she whispered, lowering her eyes. "I should have been able to save her, too."
"We're Jedi, Jaina, not gods," Kyp reminded her softly. "We're not all powerful."
"Try explaining that to Wyn, or to her family," Jaina sniffled, and pulled away from him, drawing her legs to her chest and leaning against the cold surface of the transparisteel.
Kyp sighed, running a hand through his dark hair, which was becoming speckled with more gray at the temples with every passing month, or so it seemed. Hands loosely clasped in front of him, he leaned forward to rest the flat of his elbows on his legs, studying her languid profile for a long moment.
"I know you're hurting right now, Jaina," he told her quietly. "I know you're in pain, but you can't blame yourself for what happened to Wyn. You have to accept that sometimes these things happen, that there are things even Jedi can't stop, and you have to allow yourself to move on."
"She's only just died, Kyp," Jaina cried, looking at him incredulously.
"And you're only just sinking into despair," Kyp replied somberly, catching her gaze and holding it fixedly. "You know what path despair can take you down, Jaina." She swallowed hard, but didn't look away. "That's why you have to forgive yourself for making the right choice. It's the only way you'll find peace."
The two of them stared at one another for a long moment, a Jedi princess whose destiny would always bring her back to this place, to this repeating pain of loss and hurt, and the Jedi Master who would always be just a cry away.
"You're getting better at this Jedi Master stuff, you know," she said at last. "Being on the Council either agrees with you, or it's turning you into a dull stiff."
"You know you love me, Goddess," Kyp retorted with a wry smile.
Jaina didn't smile in return, and there was a flicker of something he couldn't quite define in her eyes. Something akin to regret or wistfulness, but with a distinct tinge of sadness.
"Even if Jag does come to terms with what happened, it won't change anything. I let his sister die, Kyp," she said softly, with a slight quiver to her voice. "Maybe it was for the greater good or whatever you want to call it, but in the end, that's what it comes down to. I let Wyn die." She looked back out the transparisteel, turning her eyes to the falling snow and the barren white landscape. "It's over between us."
"Has Jag said that?" Kyp asked mildly.
"No. He didn't have to," Jaina replied, shaking her head. "I think we both know it's finished now. In some ways, it never really got started."
"What do you mean?" Kyp inquired with a frown.
"I know Jag loves me, but... we're two very different people," she concluded, and there was a touch of bitterness behind those words. "I'm the Sword of the Jedi, and my life is never going to be normal, even by Jedi standards. Jag has trouble just understanding the Force sometimes. It wouldn't be fair to him in the long run."
No, Kyp thought to himself. It probably wouldn't.
"If I'm going to have a life with someone," Jaina murmured, and for a moment she sounded as distant as the falling snow outside. "It has to be with someone who can be a part of every aspect of that life, who can understand every aspect of me."
There was nothing Kyp could say to that, and he didn't allow his mind to tread down the path it wanted to take at her words.
Instead, he merely turned his own gaze to the arctic world outside as a gust of wind blew snow across the transparisteel, scattering snowflakes across the smooth surface and holding them there against the cold glass, perfectly preserved in the frigid air.
"Did you know every flake of snow is different?" Jaina asked softly, lifting her hand to let her fingertips dance over a spot on the transparisteel where a small cluster of snowflakes had gathered. "No two pieces are the same, in all those billions and billions of snowflakes."
"Really?" Kyp replied, even though he remembered that from science lessons at the Jedi Academy in his youth. "That's pretty incredible, when you think about it."
"Yeah," Jaina whispered, fingers stilling against the cold glass, and he felt a heavy ache well up inside of her. "Wyn told me that she couldn't imagine ever living anywhere but here on Csilla, because she loved the snow."
Wordlessly, Kyp reached out to her and put an arm around her shoulder, drawing her to his side. Instinctively, as if she had been waiting for him all along, Jaina uncurled and turned her face into his shoulder, allowing herself to be tucked into the warmth of his embrace as he rested his chin on the top of her head.
"I'm glad you're here," she murmured.
"Where else would I be, Goddess?" Kyp replied lightly, but they both knew the question was no joke.
He held her close, cradling her to him not only in the circle of his arms, but in the Force, as well, and though she did not make a sound and her small frame did not shake, her felt her battered spirit tremble as it wept.
They sat like that for a long time, staring out at the falling snow on the other side of the transparisteel.
"You really would have come all this way even if the Council had decided to send someone else?" Jaina asked some time later, but he couldn't have begun to guess how long, her warmth breath splaying across the cold surface of the transparisteel in front of them.
"Without a moment's hesitation," Kyp assured her, latching his gaze onto a particular snowflake as it fluttered its way down to the drifting snow bank along the side of the building.
"Why?"
Kyp paused only for a moment at her whispered question. "You know why."
"Yeah," Jaina said softly, but there was a quiet intensity behind her words that belied her tone, and stirred something deep within him. "I do know."
Lifting his chin away from her hair, Kyp looked down at her carefully, and found that though she was pointedly gazing out the transparisteel so their eyes couldn't meet, he could read what he'd been searching for in her profile. "Are you there with me?" he breathed, his chest tightening.
"I will be," Jaina answered after a moment, but she didn't look at him. "One day. When I'm ready."
"What does that mean?" Kyp asked cautiously.
Jaina didn't answer right away, and for the first time he became aware of the utter silence in the room around them. The walls were soundproof, no noise filtered in through the heavy door, and even though the wind was howling just outside the transparisteel, whipping along the side of the building with ravenous frenzy, not a sound reached their ears within these walls.
"It means..." she began hesitantly, and bit her lip as if trying to figure out how best to put it into words. "Wait for me?"
Simple words, but they carried with them a meaning that went deeper than any he'd ever known. The tension in his chest fell away, as if he'd let out a breath that he'd been holding for years, without ever realizing that he'd been holding it in the first place.
"Always, Goddess," he promised softly, but with heartfelt sincerity.
Neither of them spoke again for some time, they merely sat there in the shelter of one another's arms, and watched as the snow continued to fall in silence.