~

            This fic was originally posted on theforce.net, where I go by the screenname of SaberBlade.  If you recognize this, don't worry, it isn't plagiarized; I'm simply reposting it here also.

            ~

            General Disclaimer:  Star Wars belongs to George Lucas and the characters belong to their respective authors.  Anything you don't recognize is mine; please respect my muse.  I don't intend any infringement with this fic; it was created because I have an abiding love for Star Wars and a wish to share my interpretation of it with the world.

            ~

            ~

            Details:

            Name: Miracle

            Time Frame: Post-NJO

            Pairing: Kyp Durron and Jaina Solo

            Summary: A crash landing leaves Jaina lucky to be alive, but she can't remember the last ten years of her life.  What will this mean for her and the man she was to marry?

            Rating: PG to PG-13.

            Post: Chapter 2 of ?

            Story Status: Work in Progress.

            ~

            As always, reviews are appreciated.

            ~

            ~

Han glared down at Tekli.  "So explain to me just how this is going to work," he demanded.  "She doesn't remember anything from the last ten years?"

            "She has no memories from the last ten years," the small Jedi corrected him.  "She probably has retained many things- habits, phrases, responses, muscle memories.  But most of what she has retained will probably turn out to be deeply embedded in her subconscious.  She won't remember anything by trying to remember it.  If she remembers anything, she most likely won't even realize that she's remembered it."

            "What do you mean by muscle memories?" Jacen asked.

            Tekli shrugged.  "It's almost a habit– if she's walked down the same hallway and turned right for the past few years, she'll probably still turn right rather than left without thinking about it.  She won't know why she's going right, but her muscles and her body will remember the path taken.  Little things like that.  She'll probably still be as good as a pilot as she was at the end of the war rather than reverting back to a pilot with no combat experience.  She won't know why she's reacting so well, but she'll still be reacting."

            "So what do we do for her?" Kyp asked impatiently.  "How can we help her?"

            Han wasn't good at reading Chandra Fan facial expressions, but he thought that the expression on her face was that of pity.  "She's going to be very confused for a time," Tekli said gently.  "She'll want things explained to her.  You're going to have to give her back her memories as best you can.  Tell her what you remember, what she liked and what she didn't.  You're going to have to help her find out what she missed and who she became in the ten years she can't remember."  She paused, and then folded her hands.  "She might not be quite the same as she was.  The best thing to do for her is to make her comfortable.  She's going to need time to come to terms with who she became."

            Kyp growled low in his throat and hit the wall, then rested his arm against it.  "In other words, she might never be the Jaina from four days ago again."

            "Simply put, yes."  Tekli's eyes were sad, and as she passed him on her way to the door, she spoke one last time.  "I'm sorry, Master Durron."

            Kyp bowed his head and rested it against his forearm, leaning against the wall.  Han didn't think of himself as the sentimental sort, but he felt a sudden pull of sympathy for the younger man.  "She'll be more comfortable with you," Kyp said quietly.  "Do you think she can stay with you for a while?"

            "Of course," Leia responded instantly.  She turned to her son.  "Jacen, can you . . ."

            Jacen smiled and touched her shoulder.  "I'll go and have Threepio get a room ready for her.  Don't worry."  He slipped out of the waiting room.

            Han eyed Kyp's unmoving frame warily.  "Hey, kid, it's not that bad," he began.

            "It is," Kyp said roughly, head still against his arm.  "She doesn't remember me.  She won't remember any of it."

            Leia came over to the man she had learned to accept as part of her family.  "Kyp, she's still Jaina," she said quietly, placing a hand on his back.

            Kyp finally moved away from the wall.  "I know.  But she won't remember any of it.  She didn't know why I was even in her room."  He sounded bleak, self-depreciating.  "What little she remembers of me is from before the war.  Ten years ago."  He shook his head.  "I don't like who I was ten years ago.  Jaina didn't like who I was ten years ago."

            Han felt his sympathies lurch, and found himself firmly planted on Kyp's side.  "She admired you ten years ago," he pointed out. 

            "That was before the war," Kyp pointed out.  "She didn't even know me ten years ago.  She won't remember anything that we have in common."  His muscles tensed as he waved a hand out in front of him.  "She won't remember anything that matters."

            "Kyp," Leia said, coming over to his side and taking his hand.  "Jaina fell in love with you for a reason.  I'm sure that even if she never remembers that reason, she'll find it again."

            He shut his eyes.  "We're all allowed one miracle, Leia," he said, sounding tired and defeated.  "Mine was having Jaina love me.  I don't think I have another miracle left to have her love me again."

            Han shook his head.  "Kid-" he started, but the door leading to the medical wing swung open and Jaina hesitantly stepped through.  He cleared his throat and turned to her.  "Hey, sweetheart, ready to go?"

            "Can we go someplace we can talk?"  Her voice was quiet and subdued; her eyes were red.  Han had been her father long enough to know that she had been crying.

            Leia stepped in and put her arm around their daughter.  "Why don't we head home," she suggested gently.

            "All right," Jaina agreed lifelessly.  She stepped forward then, and faced Kyp.  "Did you give me this?" she asked softly, lifting up her left hand, thumb resting on her ring, eyes large and soulful and frightened.

            Slowly, Kyp reached out and curled his hands over hers.  "I did," he said.

            Jaina's hand trembled.  "When?" she asked, a faint trace of desperation in her voice.

            His voice was soft.  "Almost a year ago."

            The two stood still for a long moment, searching each other's faces for some trace of what they had once had.  After a moment, Han cleared his throat.  "There's a lot to talk about, obviously," he said.  "Let's head home, kids."

            Kyp dropped Jaina's hand and let her precede him out of the room.  Han reached over and gently hit his shoulder.  "Hang in there, kid," he said.  "She'll come back."

            But Kyp's eyes were bleak.

            "Here we are," Leia said, swinging open the door.  "Our home for the past few years."

            Jaina stepped through the doorway, apprehension written in every movement she made.

            "Mistress Jaina!" Threepio exclaimed.  "Oh, Mistress Jaina, I'm so pleased to have you back safely!  I've prepared a room for you and-"

            "Stow it, Goldenrod," Han ordered, following Kyp into the room.  "See if you can scrounge us up some drinks."

            "Why, of course, Master Han.  The usual for everyone, I assume?"

            Leia winced as Jaina glanced at her.  She could read the question in her daughter's eyes- just what was her usual?  "That'll be fine, Threepio," she said, and motioned for Jaina to sit on the couch. 

            "Certainly," the golden droid said, and made his way back into the kitchen.  Jacen ducked around him and came out to the living room.  He came over and sat beside his sister. 

            "Let me guess," he said, threading his fingers through hers.  "You want to know what you've missed."

            "Yes."  Jaina's voice was still too soft for Leia's peace of mind.  She took her own seat across from the twins and pulled Han down next to her.  She watched, heart breaking, as Kyp relinquished his usual place beside Jaina in favor of the chair to the left of the couch.  "The last thing I remember is flying the Crystal and having a thruster blow out."

            Han heaved a deep breath.  "A thruster blew out and sent you spinning.  You banged yourself up pretty good and crash-landed into Yavin 4 just in front of the Great Temple.  The Crystal didn't do so well.  It wasn't the greatest present I ever gave you."

            A faint smile quirked the edges of Jaina's lips up.  "No, I guess not.  That was ten years ago, wasn't it?  How did I wind up in the medical bay this time?"

            "You're an officer in Starfleet Command," Jacen said.  "You're a Commander– you lead Twin Suns Squadron.  You were flying escort as part of the Second Fleet when your squadron was ambushed in the atmosphere of Reseja.  You crash-landed and spent four days in the bacta tank before the droids let you out today."

            A flicker of concern crossed her face.  "How are the rest of my pilots?  Are they all right?"

            Everyone glanced at Kyp.  "You lost four pilots," he said, green eyes somber.  "Two more went EV and another crash-landed like you.  You were too outnumbered to do anything."

            "Oh."  Jaina glanced down at her hands, twisting her engagement ring around her finger.  "Kyp said something about a war?"  She looked up.  "Is it over?  Who did we fight?"

            "It's over," Leia said, glad to be able to reassure her daughter of at least something.  "Our galaxy was invaded by the Yuuzhan Vong."

            Even though she was missing some of her memories, the rest of Jaina's mind seemed as sharp as ever.  She perked up.  "Our galaxy?  They were extra-galactic?"

            "They were," Leia affirmed.  "They invaded and the war started– only a few months after you crashed the Crystal."

            "Did I fight in it?" Jaina asked.  Her eyes darted over to Kyp.  "Is that where we became friends?"

            Kyp couldn't seem to figure out how to answer that, but Han spoke up, pride still evident in his voice.  "You were sixteen when you joined Rogue Squadron," he informed her.

            Jaina's eyes flew wide with what Leia hoped was delight.  "I was in Rogue Squadron?"

            "You were an officer in Rogue Squadron," Han told her smugly.  "Always knew my girl could fly."

            "And we won," Jaina said slowly, as if she was rolling the idea around in her head.

            "We did," Leia said.  She hesitated.  "But we lost too much before we won."

            Jaina's delight at finding she was a Rogue dimmed almost instantly.  She glanced around the room, and finally the missing faces seemed to sink in.  "Anakin," she said on a moan.  "And Chewie."

            Leia nodded, and Threepio bustled in with their drinks, not giving Jaina time to speak again for a few minutes as he served everyone with a constant stream of chatter that Han couldn't stop.

            When Threepio clanked out, however, Jaina had regained control of herself.  "Tell me what happened in the war," she said quietly, eyes sad and serious and resigned.

            And as they explained everything, her eyes remained somehow detached from the memories they returned to her.  They grew moist as they told of the deaths of those she had known, but were only faintly troubled when the deaths of friends she couldn't remember were pointed out.  It was as though all her emotions were a step back from her, as though she was somehow listening to merely a child's story rather than the accounts of her life.

            And Leia was worried about her daughter.

            Jaina was relieved when Jacen finished his account of the war and stopped, not going into the next five years of her life.  Five years of war bounced around her head, accounts of what she had done and who she had met, and she felt more than a little overwhelmed.

            "We've made a room ready for you," her mother said gently, smiling at her.  "Do you want to go lie down for a while?"

            Jaina didn't think she could sleep, but neither did she want to be trapped in the same room as her family– what was left of it– while they politely told her everything they could possibly remember about her.  "Maybe I should," she said.  She stood up; things swirled dizzily for a moment and then resumed their positions. Four days in bacta, she reminded herself.  Take it easy.

            "I'll bring some of her things over," she heard Kyp say just as she left the room.  "She can't have much here."

            She spun around and entered the living room again before her parents could respond.  She didn't look at them; her attention was only for Kyp.  "Can I come with you?" she asked.

            He studied her for a moment, then nodded.  "If you want to."

            She made her way to his side.  "Honey, do you want me to come with you?" her mother asked.

            Jaina laughed lightly.  "I think we'll be all right, Mom," she said.  "If I decided to marry him, then I probably am safe with him."

            Leia looked as though she would say something, so Jaina quickly continued, "And the two of us should probably talk anyways."

            Her father nudged Leia.  "Let the kids go, Princess," he ordered her. 

            "All right," Leia said on a sigh.  "Bring her back safe, Kyp."

            "I will," he said, and he led her out of the room and into the long hallway.  They walked in silence for a long time, out of the building and into the streets of what appeared to be a neat city.  The pedestrian walkways were clean and relatively uncrowded; trees and greenery sprouted and flourished all along the walkways.

            "Where are we?" Jaina finally asked.

            "Anas," Kyp said.  "We're roughly in the middle of the northern continent."

            They lapsed into silence again.  The day was pleasant; the sun was slowly sinking, but it was still warm enough for her to go without a jacket.  The walk wasn't too long– about fifteen silent minutes later, Kyp led her into another building very like the one her parents lived in.  They went up a few floors and the Kyp opened a plain grey door and motioned her inside. 

            "Home," he said.  "Or mostly.  We've only been based here for six or seven months."

            Jaina stepped cautiously inside.  The walls were the same grey as the door; this set of rooms was obviously smaller than the ones her parents commanded.  "And we live here?" she asked, a little overwhelmed by the blankness on the walls.

            He came to a stop beside her.  "You keep threatening to decorate," he said wryly.  "Or put something up on the walls."

            She couldn't stop her giggle.  "I was just thinking how plain they were," she confessed.

            At that, a small smile finally graced his face.  "Nice to know some things haven't changed," he murmured.  He brought a hand up to touch her face, but it dropped before it made contact.  "You look pale," he said, and maneuvered her quickly back to sit on the worn couch.  "Sit down.  I'll pack what you'll need at your parents' place."

            It took less time than he liked to collect what she would want.  A hairbrush, some of her clothes . . . was it so easy for her to disappear from his life?  Kyp picked up a small silver hair clip, and weighed it in his palm.  She'd bought it on one of their days out, teasing him that she would give it to him for his birthday since his hair was long enough to warrant a clip to keep it neatly pulled back.  She'd worn it dozens of times since then; he couldn't count the number of times he'd pulled it from her hair to watch her brown tresses tumble down around her shoulders.

            He clenched his hand around the clip and slipped it inside his drawer.  A man was entitled to have something to remember the love of his life by.

            Kyp sealed the bag and moved out of the bedroom into the living room.  Jaina didn't look up; he glanced down and found that she had found his holocube.

            She was slowly flashing through the holos he had stored in it.  He eased down beside her.  "That's Miko Reglia," he told her as she came to the picture.  "He was my first apprentice."  The next picture was of her, laughing and making a face at the camera.  "And that would be my second apprentice," he said, unable to keep from smiling.  "With her Solo hatred of holoreporters."

            "If you think I'm bad, you should see Dad," Jaina muttered absently.  She flickered through a number of holos, most of him or her, and paused at one with three people in it.  All three were laughing, arms looped around each other's shoulders, Jaina wedged between two dark-haired men.  She reached a tentative hand up to touch the holoscreen.  "This is Jagged?" she asked.

            "You usually call him Jag," Kyp said softly.  "This was taken about four years ago."

            "The three of us flew in Twin Suns together."  It almost sounded like she was reminding herself.

            "We did."  Kyp forced himself to tell her the whole truth.  "You dated him, for a while.  He's a good pilot and a good friend."

            A frown settled onto her face, and she reached up to her neck and tapped the pendant that hung there.  "He gave me this, then?"

            "He did," Kyp said, and had to work to keep his tone even.  "After the two of you split up.  You always wear it."

            "Oh," was her response, which told him nothing.  She resumed cycling through the pictures, and stopped on the last one.  It was perhaps Kyp's favorite holo: he had his arm around Jaina's shoulders, and she was leaning against him.  They were sitting together on a couch and both had their eyes closed.

            Jaina stared at it for a long moment, and then switched the holocube off and set it down on the table beside the couch.  She looked up at him for a long moment, and finally spoke.  "So we've been engaged for almost a year," she ventured.

            It took an effort not to reach out and touch her.  "I asked you before I took the Dozen to B'fr'ia," he said.

            "How long have we been living together?" 

            "Since we were based here together.  Six or seven months, I don't know."  He lost his war with himself and reached out and draped an arm over her shoulders, regretting it when she tensed.  But then she relaxed and leaned her head against him.  The simple movement nearly rendered him speechless. 

            "So we're . . . lovers?"

            He curled his fingers into her hair, trying to imprint the texture into his memory.  He might not have another chance to touch it.  "We were."  Her hair was silky soft, dark brown and straight; he let it run through his fingers and then caught it up in his hand again.

            "Were we happy?"

            He nearly missed her question, it was so quiet.

            He straightened and looked down at her.  "I was happy.  I think you were happy."  He slid a hand out to cup her cheek.  "And I don't expect you to believe this after hearing what I did to you during the war, but I love you."

            There were tears shining in her eyes.  "Did you tell me that?" she asked.  "Before."

            He nodded.     

            She took a deep breath.  "Did I love you?  Did I tell you that I loved you?"

            "You did."  And the moment she had would be imprinted on his brain no matter how hard he hit his head. 

            Her tears spilled.  "I don't remember," she whispered.  "I don't remember any of it."  She dashed away tears carelessly, but they continued to fall.  "Anakin's gone and Chewie's gone and Coruscant is gone and Yavin's gone and I just found out today."

            Kyp wrapped his arms around her and held her as she cried.

            "I went to the Dark Side," she sobbed.  "Kyp, shouldn't I remember something?"

            "I don't know, Goddess," he said into her hair. 

            Her arms slipped around him and tightened.  "I wish I could remember it," she said, voice muffled against his chest.  "I wish I could remember you.  I want to be happy."

            He simply held her, wondering how he was going to let her go.

~~

Reviews make my day!  Tell me what you think I did well or horribly.  I appreciate constructive criticism and honest appraisals…

Thanks!

-Keth

~