Jaina Sleeps
Summary: title=summary. Six ficlets. Complete.
Warning: -
Set: post-Fate of the Jedi
Disclaimer: Standards apply.
I.
Jaina sleeps.
The lights of Coruscant are reflected from the window, the self-darkening dura glass a barrier between a peaceful room and a world that never sleeps. But a section of it has been left unreflecting, though, so the silver and blue lights of the world city dance through the room, paint pictures onto the walls and onto the two beds. She is twelve years old and on a leave from the Jedi Academy, and the one-and-a-half weeks she has spent with her parents on Coruscant are coming to an end.
To be honest, she hasn't seen a lot of her mother these days, because Mum always has a meeting with the Senate or with foreign diplomats or important senators. She mostly comes home late, and then she orders them around – Clean up your rooms and Have you finished your assignments and Why are there dirty shoes on my sofa and Didn't I ask you to do take care of Anakin. But there are evenings when they sit around the dinner table and Dad jokes and Mum laughs at Jacen's stupid remarks and Chewie growls and Anakin listens to the stories his elder siblings tell of the Academy with huge eyes. During day, Dad takes them somewhere, a park, a museum, a fair, and Jacen collects even more stupid jokes and Anakin tries to sneak into the Falcon's cockpit to fly the ship himself and Chewie and Dad work on the Falcon, swearing and shouting, and two Noghri bodyguards hustle them backwards and forwards so often Jaina loses track of the time. And suddenly, the holidays have passed, and tomorrow they will return to Yavin 4.
In his bed on the other side of the room, identical to Jaina's, Jacen sleeps quietly. He mirrors his sister's position, one arm on the pillow over his head, one by his ear, and his face is relaxed. His corner of the room is kept dark. Unlike Jaina, he does not like the lights of the city. But like Jaina, he sleeps deeply and peacefully. Dreams flit across their minds, race along the walls and disappear into the shadows, from where they came. Jaina sighs in her sleep as she remembers that there is an old speeder waiting for her on Yavin 4, along with Zekk, Lowie and Tenel Ka. She loves the holidays but she misses her friends and seeing them again makes up for the fact that they will have to study, too. Maybe Uncle Luke will teach them to build their own light sabers this year. When she voiced her hope in Dad's presence, he choked on his nerf steak and turned very, very red. It was kind of funny, and Mum threw him an amused glance. Then she looked at Jaina and there was something in her eyes, only she couldn't read it completely. Sometimes, her parents were strange.
A speeder passes by and blinking lights fall through the small section of her window that is open to the world. Jaina sighs again in her sleep and turns around, squirming a bit until she finds a comfortable position. For a short while, her consciousness surfaces from the world of dreams and she tries to hold on to the vision of her friends laughing and playing in Yavin's jungle. Then her eyes fall close again, and the dream disappears soundlessly.
Jaina sleeps on.
II.
Jaina sleeps.
The tiny room she shares with her wing mate Anni Capstan is completely dark, so dark she needed a few days to get used to it. Outside the tiny window there is only endless blackness, the intense emptiness of open space. And since Anni always turns off any electronic devices in their room there isn't even the red, digital light of the chrono on the wall beside the door. The place isn't exactly big enough to be qualified as a room, really, it is a bunk, no more. But Jaina is young and excited and simply everything is new to her here, and, therefore, wonderful.
She is on a space ship. She works on a space ship. She is flying with Wedge Antilles.
And, right now, there is nothing more she wishes for. Well, maybe, for the war to end. For Chewie to come back. For Dad to get over his death, for Mum to work less, for Aunt Mara to get better. For the universe to regain its balance.
But – hell! Jaina is the youngest Rouge in history, one of the best X-Wing-pilots in the known universe, and she is young enough to feel invincible. She flies with the Force, and the Force is with her. She has been lucky until now, even though she, of course, would say it's not due to luck but to skill, and she does not yet know what it means to lose a wing mate. Jacen is somewhere down there, her other half, she can feel him in their twin bond. Far away but there, close. Also asleep, her twin is the same, calm presence he always was, and the knowledge that he is okay in this slowly collapsing world is an anchor that binds her to reality. She knows tomorrow she might fight again, as might Jacen. Maybe Dad will get hurt (she refuses to think "killed") on his endless trips through the galaxy. Chewie wouldn't have wanted it. Maybe Mum will be injured, while trying to negotiate and negotiate and negotiate. Maybe Aunt Mara won't be strong enough to fight her illness. Maybe Uncle Luke, maybe Anakin, her little brother, or his friend Tahiri. Or Tenel Ka, or Zekk, or all the people she knows. Jaina has already experienced the pain of losing a member of her family, and she desperately tries to tell herself she will protect the rest. Soon, very soon, she will realize that this is not in her power, that everyone can die surprisingly, quickly and terribly, and that every new death is a new blow, a new black hole. A new scar on her young soul. Every day is a new fight against everything that threatens the world she knows.
But, for the first time since long, she feels like she knows who she is.
She is Jaina. She is the daughter of an Alderaan Princess and Rebel leader, former Head of State, now Senator to the People. She is the daughter of a Corellian smuggler and reluctant rebel, hero of many battles. She is the sister of Jacen and Anakin, two so different people and yet so similar. She is a Jedi, a Knight, a Force user. It is in her blood, the quest for justice, the run for peace. She wants to protect the people, wants to fight the Yuuzhan Vong with all she has. Yes, her mother is a figure so bright Jaina is only a dark shadow in the background. Yes, her father is a person who feels so deeply that it destroys himself and his family. Yes, her brothers are brilliant, intelligent and so determined Jaina does not know what to do. But this – this is hers. None of them ever was a pilot, ever flew with the Rouge Squadron. None of them knows how it is to be in the tiny cockpit, to fly with the Force and to know one wrong decision will kill you and your comrades. Yes, Dad is a pilot, and yes, Mum has the Force. But she has both. Jaina is a brilliant mixture of both her parents, and, for one time in her life, she is proud of herself. Maybe Jacen had a better control of the Force, and Anakin a better understanding. But Jaina takes just what she has and concentrates it and does what she does best, uses all her abilities to do what she loves to do and has to do.
If Aunt Mara could only see her.
She loves her a lot – her and Uncle Luke. In a strange and yet completely normal way he is the one she feels closest to. Many years later she will know why – know about sacrifices and loss and lives devoted to making other people safe while never finding peace herself – but right now Aunt Mara is the one she wants to please most. Well, she comes directly after her parents, but Jaina's of an age in which she does not want to hear that. And she does not know how much grief this war will cause, how much she will lose and what little she will gain (little but the more precious for it) and how much everything will change.
Right now Jaina is young and she does not yet know this war will swallow up her teenage years. Right now she does not know that wars are followed by peace are followed by wars are followed by peace and that no conflict ever really ends. Right now she sleeps, a shallow and yet restorative sleep, and whenever the intercom sounds alarm she will be right awake and ready to run to her X-Wing. Ready to fly, ready to fight. Ready to save the world with that little power of hers. But this night no alarm sounds, and she sleeps.
And dreams of flying.
III.
Jaina can't remember when she slept the last time.
Every bone in her body hurts and every single piece of the shattered thing that is her heart screams in agony. But grim determination keeps her upright, the knowledge that two of her siblings and many more of her friends have been lost to fulfill the mission they are on and that even more will die if she does not make it back in one piece. It keeps her going. This – and the thirst for revenge.
Anakin died.
And Ulara, and Drak, and Eryl, and Bela, and Krasov, and Raynar was gone and Jacen was missing and –
And she is taking them home, the rest of her shattered command team, because it is the last thing there is to do and she is responsible for them.
She hasn't slept for days.
None of them has and though she is constantly drawing strength from the Force she knows she won't be able to keep it up forever. Everyone knows. Their Force Meld is brittle and thrumming with emotions too heavy to describe. Too terrible to even think about. Jaina feels like she is moving through a swamp. The mud clings to her, makes each step a torturous effort. Focusing her entire being on the only thing that matters now – getting them home – she struggles on, trying to run through a bog, and every time she threatens to sink someone grabs her and pulls her upright again. She does not even say thank you. They are far too exhausted and empty to care about niceties. Their only priority is getting back.
Jaina leans back into what qualifies as a pilot chair on a ship of Yuuzhan Vong design and does not even try to relax.
As long as she is tense, she can hold on. Stress and Adrenaline keep her going, them and the Force, and deep inside her she knows as soon as she lets go she'll break. So while she draws on the Force in order to steel herself, pushes every thought away except for the one she sends into the Force Meld reverberating between the last members of her team: We'll make it. We owe it to them. We'll get home. Again and again she repeats the words, like a prayer. Whether she tries to make herself believe or to reassure her friends she cannot tell. It does not matter, anyway. They press forward, leaving behind Mykr and everything and everyone they lost there, and Jaina keeps them together by forcing them on and on.
Zekk worries about her.
She can feel it – his emotions are there, right in the Meld, and they make her head hurt even more. They make her angry, too, because he should be grieving. Like Tesar is grieving for Bela and Krasov, like Tahiri is grieving for Anakin and Tenel Ka is grieving for Jacen. Like Ganner grieves for Ulara and Drak and Raynar and like Tekli grieves for everyone they lost. Like Jaina herself grieves, a grief so deep and profound it feels like it has become a part of her. Like there is a black hole inside her that swallows up all the warmth that is left in her. The grief is almost palpable, hangs in the Force Meld like an invisible cloud. And Zekk should grieve, too, he should be angry that Anakin didn't listen to her, that Jacen had to get caught by Vegere, that so many had to die because of the Voxyn Queen. He should know that those deaths had been necessary to fulfill their mission and yet so unnecessary, he should accept and yet grieve. In short, Jaina wants him to feel what she feels, perhaps for egoistical, selfish reasons. But Zekk concentrates on her and Jaina does not want that. She wants her brothers back. She wants her life back. She wants her family back. She wants to be home.
When she closes her eyes, exhausted to the bone, she only sees their faces in front of her mind's eye.
IV.
It is almost sleep.
But Bacta tanks and Jedi Healing Trances only heal wounds of her body, not of her mind, and Jacen's face drifts before her closed eyes always. Jacen's face, not Darth Caedus' face. Jacen, as in Jacen her twin brother, the boy she knew and loved, the boy she grew up with. The boy who loved animals and contemplation of the Force and really, really bad jokes. The boy who would never, ever have dreamed of murdering his aunt, torturing his cousin, abducting his daughter and fighting his own twin sister.
She can feel her mother's presence outside the tank.
Mum is there, and Dad as well, and Uncle Luke and Ben. Even in her state of semi-consciousness, she craves their closeness as much as she fears it. Leave me alone, she wants to scream. I killed him. He's dead. But their love and worry for her and their deep sorrow floats through the Force so strongly she wants to cry. And she loves them back, every single member of her family: Mum, so tired and sad and yet so strong. Dad, so supportive, so worried, so old and fit, and Uncle Luke who still blames himself for having nominated her Sword of the Jedi even though both of them know there is no other way for her. Ben, sad and too-wise for his age, looking at the proof that his best friend, cousin and teacher is dead. And Jag, who drops by once only and shortly, too, on his way to a meeting, who radiates warmth and love, understanding, detachedness and professionalism (everything that makes him Jag, his whole, split personality, and she loves every single part of him). And there are many more. Cilghal's presence is scientific and reassuring, Tekli's warm and welcoming. Allanna's is bright and clear and painfully familiar. People seem to be coming and going. This is a sickroom, she thinks, no space port, she ought to be left alone in here. And most of the time she wants to be alone. Then she remembers what happened (it's not as if she forgets, she just… drifts off) and she wants to feel her mother's warm embrace and hear her father's voice.
Opening her eyes is too difficult, though, so she floats in the gentle light of the Bacta tank and lets the Force flow through her.
Zekk. Jag has found him. He's alive, and he is well.
Allanna. She's so much like Jacen, in so many little details.
Jag. Jaina has no idea what will happen next, to either one of them. But she wishes. For the first time in a long, long time, she only wishes. Have faith, she can almost hear Jacen's whisper. We are one in the Force. The whisper comes from a time far, far away, when they both were children and when war and fights and death were concepts they had never seen come to life. In the huge halls of the Shadow Academy she has fought him, and in the familiar rooms of the Falcon they have argued, and now, on his own flagship, named after their dead brother they have fought again. Every fight was different, but then, they were different: grown up from the children they were at that time, or the lanky teenagers during the Yuuzhan Vong war. She might always have been the restless one of their twin pair, the impatient one, the one who rushed and, in the process, got things messy. Jacen was the calm one who thought about his actions first, the patient one, the one who preferred discussions over actions. But he was Jacen, her twin, and without him Jaina feels…
She feels half.
It might be easier for her parents to think Jacen died long ago, in the Embrace of Pain Vegere had subjected him to. Of course it was easier to think of him dying broken and lost, alone and cut off from everything he had known and loved. But while Jaina's mind willed herself to believe the same thing her heart knew Jacen had died when she had killed Darth Caedus and not before. There had been a piece of Jacen in this dark, cruel and broken man she had fought, a little bit left of her peace-loving, gentle brother. It had been the part of him that had warned Tenel Ka to save Allanna. He had known he would die, and he had known the little girl with his nose and eyes would die, as well, when he did. So he had remembered: remembered a bond that was older than the little girl whose life was at stake. And to Jaina, this was the proof that Jacen hadn't been Darth Caedus completely, not in the end, at least.
Of course it hurt.
Jacen had fought to regain a tiny piece of his old self in order to save his daughter. He had had no intention whatsoever to save his family, or his parents, or even his twin sister. Rather the opposite he had tried to kill them whenever possible. Deep within her, Jaina has the feeling that there might have been another reason why he had turned to the Dark Side in the first place. But she knows it is a foolish hope, even more so since he was dead now. Nobody would ever know what had compelled Jacen to turn, what had made him cast aside everything he had believed in in order to fight his family. Nobody. Not even she would know, she, who knew him best of all. The thought hurt even more than the thought that he had willingly tried to kill her had and neither the Trance nor the Bacta could take away any of that pain.
Outside the tank, her parents smile at her.
Mum's smile is sad and still it lights up the room, Dad's crooked as always, with pain tinting the edges and coloring his eyes darker than they are. Jaina can feel their overwhelming grief and overwhelming relief: they didn't lose her. They have lost Chewie and Anakin and Jacen, but Jaina is still there. For a second, the burden of being the only survivor of all of her siblings presses down on her like a Durasteel vice. Then, it lifts, because the love she feels for them is so strong it warms her on the inside. Maybe they see her smile on the inside. She gathers the love and sends it back through the Force, and perhaps she imagines it but her parents look like they understand. Get better soon, their eyes say, and Jaina sinks back into the not-sleep that is the warm, comfortable world of a Bacta-aided Healing Trance.
Everything will be okay. Somehow.
V.
Jaina would like to sleep, but she cannot.
Lying awake on board of Lando's asteroid trawler, the Rockhound, on their way back from the Maw, she watches the darkness of space pass by while they travel through hyper space. Their encounter with the Sith was nothing she would like to repeat, even though they made it out of it relatively unscathed. She worries about Uncle Luke and Ben, whom they left on Abeloth's planet, though.
She has many things to worry about right now, she guesses.
Mum and Dad and Allanna stayed behind at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant and when Jaina left the planet she didn't exactly leave behind a happy tea party. Of course, now that Uncle Luke fought Abeloth the young Jedi should be okay again, but there were many ways Daala can still cause trouble. The Horn siblings, for example, still are frozen in Carbonite. Knowing her parents, they will do anything possible to get them out of there, but the GA isn't really happy with the Jedi Order at the moment… Plus, Tahiri's trial should be in the middle of proceedings, and like Allanna, Tahiri is like a little sister to Jaina and like a daughter to her parents. They, most likely, are spending a lot of time in the court, at least whenever they aren't busy trying to get the Horn kids back or crashing Jedi Council meetings or annoying Daala or talking to the Press.
Ben and Uncle Luke remain on Abeloth's planet, along with three Sith. Jaina made sure the other Sith ships had left the planet, while she and Lando had done the same, but that didn't mean she has to like it. She has left them behind, those two members of her family that already is small enough as it is. Even though Uncle Luke has ordered her – and even though he doesn't have the Grand Master's authority behind him he still has all her love, respect and loyalty – to leave, that doesn't mean she has to like it. They have lost Chewie and Anakin and Aunt Mara and Jacen (and Jag) and Jaina is pretty sure the next loss – whoever it will be – will make her heart break finally. She isn't sure how her parents manage it. Maybe they did because they are together, the two of them, and have a goal and a reason. Maybe because they have her, too, their last child, their beloved daughter. But Jaina has no child, like her parents have her and Uncle Luke has Ben. And Jaina has no partner to cling to, like her parents have each other. Not anymore. The thought hurts. Amazingly, the pain only seems to get stronger the longer she feels it. Loosing Uncle Luke and Ben would be unbearable, added up to the people she has already lost.
Then, there is the incident in which they had been attacked in the restaurant. Now the Solos had a distinct history of people trying to kill them, and there never had been too few chances. Perhaps the attack had been meant to target Allanna, too, which would cause another huge kind of mess. Or, of course, Daala could have tried to get them out of her way, seeing as her parents were one of the greater obstacles she would have to overcome when it came to the Order. But someone had attacked Admiral Bwua'tu, as well, and had tried to have it look like the Jedi were the assassins. That was bad. Bad for them, bad for the GA, bad for the Galactic Empire. Jaina is so sick of it – sick of people trying to kill her friends and her family, sick of people trying to annihilate the Jedi Order, sick of politicians plotting and planning and playing false. Sick of wars and political issues. Sick of losing her family.
Or the attack had really been meant for Jag, as the Head of the Imperial Remnant, and…
And, again, her thoughts have drawn a full circle and bring her back to him.
Being alone in the middle of the night isn't the problem. What makes her toss and turn and feel like she wants to cry is the fact that she knows that she will be alone for the rest of her life, now that she has cancelled their engagement. She never will wake up next to him ever again, will never hear his breath again at night, never feel his steady heart-beat again. And okay, maybe she is being melodramatic and pathetic now, but she feels tired and sad and hollow and empty and so damn, damn alone.
But she won't cry.
She pulls her knees up to her chin, hugs her legs and tries to disappear in the too-big, too-cold bunk on the huge, automated ship. Lando views it as a commodity: since there are more robots piloting the ship than humans, there is space enough. But to Jaina the Rockhound is a ship devoid of life and full of ghosts. She wishes Jag was there to hold her – and detests herself for being that weak and pathetic. She has made a decision and has put the Order before her husband-to-be and now she will face the consequences. She will be strong. She will be the Sword of the Jedi as long as she lived. Maybe twenty years more, maybe thirty, she thinks and is terrified by the prospect of the future. Yes, she can be killed in a few days, but more likely she will live some more years, watch her parents grow old, watch Allanna grow up and take the throne and find a good husband. And Ben will marry, too, and Zekk and Taryn don't need to marry to make it official. Maybe even Tahiri will find someone new. But there is nothing like that in her future. When Jaina imagined herself with someone, it was always Jag. Jag whom she has left. Jag, who looked at her with those wounded eyes even while his face stayed absolutely unreadable. And yet Jaina could yet read his emotions because she knew him so well, knew him better than herself. A dry sob escapes her lips. Tomorrow, she will be strong, she promises herself. Tomorrow. Tonight…
Tonight, she allows herself to be weak.
She curls up in the darkness and cries into her pillow, her engagement ring clutched in her hands.
VI.
Jaina sleeps.
It's strange, Jag thinks, what turns and twists fate seemed to take, and how it only ever seemed to get worse. But sometimes, once in a while, it got better. And this – holding her again, feeling her breath ghost over his skin, her hair tickle his arms – was far more than just better.
If it was for him, he could spend his life like this.
Jeez. You're getting mushy. But Jaina is beautiful, her face relaxed and her guard down. There are lines around her eyes, lines that speak of sorrow and laughter and experience. But her face is as expressive as the day he saw her for the first time, and in his eyes, she hasn't aged a year. Every time he looks back on their history, he feels so many emotions swirling inside him that he cannot push away: the pride at flying with her, both of them joint commanders of the Twin Suns, the happiness of being with her, the pain of losing her to the Yuuzhan Vong and the Dark Side. The betrayal he felt when she left him for dead after the Great Swarm War, the careful detachedness they treated each other with when they met again. Again, happiness at being able to fly with her, and the sorrow for knowing what she was going through while preparing to fight Jacen and not being able to help her more. The joy when she agreed to his proposal. The pain when she cancelled it again.
Time never stops.
And lives change and they are still there, both of them, and they still are together. Jaina will marry him and if he had his wish she would do so this instant, so she cannot run from him another time. While he understands all her reasons, her complicated loyalties and her sense of duty, and while he has his own codex and his own loyalties, there is a part of him that does not care for all that at all. It is the part that struggled on even when exiled from his home and left to die, the part that made him start again as a headhunter. The part that knew there was a way, always and everywhere. The part that would make a way if none existed, simply for the reason that he loved Jaina and wouldn't let her leave ever again. The part that would kill a man in cold blood, political correctness or not, if someone touched a hair on his wife's head.
He almost chuckles, because an image of a Jaina not being able to defend herself is somewhat… Funny. He immediately becomes serious again because the one person Jaina has to be protected from is herself, and he will gladly do so. He knows she will do the same for him. They have suffered so much, been through so much and have both changed so much and yet there is a part of him that will always remain the same. Jaina knows this part, and he loves her for it. Because she loves him for it, even though it is a brutal and cruel and unsure and scared part of him.
Peace.
Finally.
It is small and fragile and Jag has lived too long to be all too enthusiastic about it. But realistic he is and maybe, he thinks, there is a chance. Because time will continue to flow. The GA will have new Heads of States and the Galactic Empire will have new leaders. There will be new treaties. People will leave, and return, and leave again. There will be conflicts and fights and, perhaps, even wars. But for once, he concentrates on the moment and feels like maybe, they haven't done all that bad. Maybe the decisions they made along the road were the right ones, and maybe the results weren't always as horrible as they sometimes seemed to be. Maybe broken lives could find a reason to live again. Maybe shattered hearts could be held together. Maybe wounds of the soul could heal, and maybe, one day, the scars stopped aching.
And Jaina is here, asleep in his arms.
Jag doesn't think he could wish for more in this universe.