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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.
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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.
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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 7 of ?
Story Status: Work in Progress.
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As always, reviews are appreciated.
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Kyp had finally made up his mind. He would do it. It was the right thing to do. She was entitled to it, after all. It was probably what was best for her, and that was really all that mattered in the end. Jaina deserved to be happy. She had earned the right to be alive and well and happy.
It was just after midnight, and all the rooms were dark and silent. A mere eleven days ago, at the same time, nearly every light had been on and fast-paced music designed to keep sentient beings awake had been playing. He'd been distracting Jaina as she'd tried to work out some detail about her squadron– he had lounged on the couch, using the Force to tug at her hair, move her datapads just out of reach, or simply try to push her out of her chair. She'd been more amused than upset, but she'd been a bit indignant that he was keeping her from her work.
They'd been laughing, bantering back and forth with the same sarcastic wit they'd perfected on each other years ago. She had finally tossed down her datapad, crossed the room, and cuddled up against him on the couch, draping her body over his like a warm, living blanket. It was morning before either had moved from the couch. Jaina had left that same afternoon for Reseja.
Kyp took a deep breath. He had made up his mind twenty minutes ago, sitting on the bed and running his fingers along the cool metal of her hair clip until it had warmed from his touch. It had taken all his strength to move out to the comm center in the living room; now he simply sat before the screen, trying to force himself to move.
It would be the right thing to do. He had convinced himself of that much, but he still sat motionless, his mind unable to convince his body to act.
She deserved any chance she had at happiness. He hadn't been the only one she'd been happy with.
It was the hardest thing he'd ever done to simply lift his hand to the control panel and begin.
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Jaina shut the door to her room behind her with a click. It was just past midnight. At her mother's insistence, she had bid her family goodnight and had burrowed into her blankets some four hours ago.
She hadn't been able to sleep at all. She was tired, yawning and bleary-eyed, but sleep still wouldn't come. She had gone out to the quiet living room and curled up in the same chair that she'd managed to fall asleep in last night, but it hadn't helped this time. After a half hour of increasing discomfort, she had given up and returned to her room, where she at least had a bed to lie out on as she waited for dreams.
She had nothing else to do but think, and thinking was beginning to hurt. Things were so confusing she had mentally divided them up into sections: Jedi, pilot, family, friends, and Kyp.
Jedi and pilot were easy enough to figure out: she was a Jedi, and she was a pilot. Supposedly simple, but nothing had proved simple in the past two days. She was, according to her uncle, the Sword of the Jedi– whatever that meant. But if she listened to Jacen, that didn't matter much anymore. She wasn't on the new High Council, though Kyp was and so she apparently knew a bit more than the average Jedi about how things were done. Even being a pilot was complicated. She had somehow attained the rank of Commander and had a whole squadron under her leadership, even though that squadron was now halfway decimated. She'd never envisioned herself in the military.
Family was different now too. Anakin, with his bright eyes and limitless potential, was gone. Had been gone for years. She'd been one of the few members of the mission that had killed him; she'd been the one to lead the survivors to safety after his death. But she still couldn't remember it, and she had to remind herself that Anakin was not going to simply bound into her room to show off some new and horrendously complicated puzzle he'd just completed. Seeing holos of him, eternally a teenager and eternally cheerful, made her somehow feel old and guilty that she'd lived.
It hurt.
Chewie's loss hurt almost as much. He'd been an honorary uncle to her, a favored babysitter, a staunch defended. He'd saved her life when she was barely more than a toddler; he'd taught her how to speak Wookiee and which end of a hydrospanner to hold. He'd been the one to convince Han to let her help with the Falcon. He had helped teach her to fly by letting her sit on his lap when she was little.
Part of her felt guilty over the fact that she accepted Chewbacca's death easier than Anakin's. It was easier to mourn Chewie than it was to mourn her little brother. She understood how to mourn for friends, for honorary members of her family. Mourning for family she hadn't wanted to learn.
The only bright side was that she had a cousin now. Ben. Although he was now several years old and she had only learned of his existence yesterday.
Friends. Her friends appeared just as changed as her family. At the Academy, she had taken her friends for granted: Zekk, of course, handsome, a bit rough, and her main competition in just about anything; Tenel Ka, fit and serious and loyal; Lowie, who perhaps understood her the best of them all, supportive and somehow older-brother-ish; even Em Teedee, his too-talkative droid; Raynar, noble and kind and a bit too colorful; Lusa, skittish and beautiful. She'd never thought that they would grow apart. Now they were scattered across the galaxy, some dead, some missing, some leading, some following.
And there were a whole crowd of others to help take their place. Jagged Fel topped the list, and she silently listed what she knew about him. Pilot from the Unknown Regions. Wedge Antilles's nephew. Her friend for nearly nine years; possibly more than that for some of them. He called her 'Great One' to annoy her. He'd given her a necklace, and Kyp Durron was jealous of him.
There were more names after that. Some she recognized, and she wondered how and why she'd had become friends with them: her brother's friend Tahiri, Releqi A'Kla, Wedge and Iella Antilles, Saba and Tesar, Kenth Hamner. Some she couldn't remember at all and were only names and faces remembered from recently-seen holos: Danni Quee, Tekli, Droma, Harrar, Piggy, Sharr, Shawnkyr... The names were unfamiliar, but she had painstakingly memorized them. She had been able to claim them as friends, which said they had meant something to her.
She was loathe to give up anything that held meaning until she understood why the meaning was there in the first place.
Which brought her to Kyp.
Kyp had become a category all to himself because he was at the center of the web Jaina found herself tangled in. Jaina rolled over onto her left side, felt her shoulder ache, and sighed and rolled back onto her back. She stared at the ceiling for a moment, then forced herself to shut her eyes and think.
She was comfortable around him, as she had tried to explain to Jacen. She felt safe around him. And yes, she forced herself to admit, she was attracted to him. Which was a surprise in and of itself.
Looking at things logically, Jaina had determined that it had made sense that she'd fallen in love and agreed to marry Kyp Durron. The two of them became friends during the war, worked together nearly every day for a few years, risked their lives for each other and saved each other countless times. He was one of perhaps three other Jedi who would understand just what falling to the Dark Side had done to her. He was as good a pilot– almost the competitive part of her mind whispered– as she was. Jaina could understand how, under the circumstances, their friendship had become love and their love had become commitment.
She just didn't remember any of it happening.
She'd spoken the truth earlier: she was seriously considering marrying Kyp anyways. She believed– truly believed– that he had been honest when he'd told her they had been happy together. The way he looked at her, the way he spoke to her, made her understand just how much he had loved her. Any woman would be happy to have a man that loved her like that.
But it wouldn't be fair to Kyp to marry him. Not before she found out if she could make him happy. He might have loved the Jaina of three days ago, but if she turned out to be a different Jaina, no matter what declarations he made, he might not love her still. It wouldn't be fair to trap him into a marriage with the memory of the woman he loved.
So she had six more days to think things over.
Six days.
Jaina opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling, wishing she could fall asleep and stop thinking. Six days was so little time to try and remember why she had been happy with Kyp. So little time to try and remember why she had loved him. She needed to discover if she could still make him happy before she gave him an answer. She needed to know if there was a chance for them still.
She sat up and moved off her bed, beginning to pace around her darkened room. If she could learn to love him again– if she could still make him happy– if he could still make her happy– she would marry him. As she told him, she was selfish. She wanted to be happy. And she did trust the person she'd become over the past ten years. If that Jaina had been able to love Kyp; if Kyp had been able to love that Jaina– then perhaps she had a chance.
But not if she wasn't able to get a few hours of sleep. Was she doomed to have insomnia for the rest of her life? First last night she'd been unable to drift into unconsciousness; now tonight. If her mind hadn't been buzzing with so many questions, she'd have slipped into a Jedi trance. As it was, she didn't think she'd be able to clear her brain enough to order her thoughts into meditation, much less a trance.
If it wouldn't hurt so much, she'd seriously contemplate smacking a large blunt object into her forehead and knocking herself out. She wanted the peace of deep sleep, the oblivion of dreams free of whirling thoughts and searching questions. Was that so much to ask?
She turned and continued pacing. Her eye caught a patch of slick darkness, and she paused. Then she bent and picked it up. Kyp's cape unfolded in a whoosh of dark cloth. He hadn't seen her back to the apartment and so had forgotten to take it back; Threepio had probably found it, folded it, and placed it neatly on her desk.
Jaina hesitated, then buried her face in the cape and inhaled. Kyp's scent was faint and nearly gone, but something of it lingered in the folds. She felt a bit of the tension she'd been trying to release through pacing drift away.
She stood still before her desk for a long minute, then she turned and crawled back into bed. Hugging the cape to her as though it were another blanket, she pillowed her cheek on a corner of it and shut her eyes.
The part of her that remembered such things without releasing specific memories recognized the scent and began to calm. Gradually, her breathing evened out and slowed. Promising herself she'd think about it later, Jaina gave a sigh of relief. In a matter of minutes, Jaina was dragged down into the welcome blankness of sleep, one hand tightly wrapped around the frayed edge of the cape.
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Done.
Kyp leaned back, suddenly wearily, as he shut down the comm unit. He'd explained Jaina's memory loss, her driving need to understand what she had done over the past ten years. He hadn't said that he was afraid of losing her. He'd managed to hide his grief. His concern had been only for Jaina, not for himself.
All in all, it had been well done, he thought. He stood, felt muscles protest and heard joints pop, and felt truly old for the first time since he'd first kissed Jaina years ago. She'd managed to make him feel young again. Kyp supposed he'd have to get used to feeling his age.
He moved into their bedroom– now solely his bedroom– and pulled off his shirt and boots before he sat on carefully down on his side of the bed. He put Jaina's hair clip back into the stand beside the bed, turned off the lights, and lay down. The bed was somehow huge and cold without Jaina beside him; lying on his back, he reached his left hand out for where she should have been and found nothing but air.
He sighed softly. He'd have to get used to that, too.
Kyp shut his eyes. He'd done the right thing. Jag would be here the day after next.
He had one day left. One last day alone with Jaina. She'd wanted to see her X-wing, so he would take her flying. And then he'd kiss her goodbye– he was adamant on that part; he'd kiss her one last time before things were taken out of his control– and let her know he'd contacted Jag and when the pilot was landing.
And then she could ask Jag about the time she'd spent with him, about why the two of them had split up. And then they'd most likely decide that it had been a mistake to break up and get back together. She'd give Kyp back the ring he'd been so proud she'd accepted, and he wouldn't be able to do anything about it. It had been a miracle she'd chosen him in the first place– what woman in her right mind would love him? She'd leave him for Jag; he more than half expected her to... but she'd be happy.
And really, did anything else matter?
Yes! part of his mind screamed. Aren't I allowed to be happy for once? I was close, so close to having her be mine forever. Isn't loving her enough? I've lost enough in my life; I don't need to lose her. Not when I was so close. I did everything I could to keep her happy. I loved her. Force help me, I still do.
He turned his head into his pillow, reminded himself that he was nearly forty and far too old to cry over a girl like a teenager.
Shouldn't loving her have been enough?
