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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 16 of ?
Story Status: Work in Progress.
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As always, reviews are appreciated.
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~ SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1
Kyp's attitude toward the Chiss hovered somewhere between respect and toleration. They were invaluable allies, good pilots and better strategists, brave, loyal, and bound by their honor. But they were a bit too formal, a bit too repressed for his taste.
The reception for their arrival was an odd mix of military uniforms and tasteful formal attire. Most of the Chiss seemed perfectly content to stand talking in small groups, voices quiet and calm, each taking the time to come forward and welcome them to Csilla before melting back into their groups and discussions. Jag had warned him that it would be like this, so Kyp wasn't precisely confused.
He was, however, making comparisons.
Once, a few years ago, he, Jaina and Jag had set off on a mission together. They'd been gone barely three weeks, and the mission itself had been boring and tedious. The night they'd arrived back, their friends had thrown a reception party involving alcohol, loud music and louder conversations, a few shouted arguments between pilots that nearly degraded into fistfights, what could loosely be called dancing, and more laughter than jokes.
The comparison between that gathering and the present gathering only made the differences in culture more obvious. Kyp decided that it said something about Jag's personality that the young man had been able, after a few years, to grow comfortable in such a different environment. The leap from Chiss to Rebel was a large one, and the man had jumped blind. He hadn't had any idea what he was getting into by making friends with the daughter of Han Solo and a rogue Jedi.
Despite everything, Jag had done well in Rebel space. Perhaps a little too well– Kyp caught him with an odd smile on his face twice, and wondered if Jag himself was making a few comparisons.
"It's very different," Jaina said softly, brown eyes distant and pensive.
"It is," Jag agreed at her side. His lips quirked upward into that amused half-grin again. "I wonder what you would have become if you had lived with them as I did."
Kyp entertained the notion of a calm, collected and always-formal Jaina for half a heartbeat for he shook his head. "Not a pretty image," he said, and meant it. Jaina wasn't Han Solo's daughter for nothing: her roughness and informality were genetic, as much a part of her as her hair and eye color.
Jaina's eyes focused back to the present and she giggled slightly. "Kyp Durron the polite and well-mannered," she mused. "No, not pretty."
He couldn't keep himself from grinning down at her. Oh, they were well-matched, they were.
Jag smothered his own laughter before it would attract attention from the polite Chiss. "No, I suspect not. Still, interesting to think about."
A Chiss stepped toward them, steps military-precise and back straight. He exchanged salutes with Jag, then turned toward Jaina. "Commander Solo," he acknowledged.
"Commander Eskalan," she said, and nodded her head politely. Kyp could almost see her switching gears, slipping out of the Jaina-self she was with her friends and into the Jaina-self that was politely diplomatic. Kyp always thought that her diplomatic self was based on her mother. "Thank you for arranging all of this. We are honored."
"It was our pleasure, Commander. Your fighters have all been safely docked in our hanger, and we have received the promised coordinates from Sekot." He paused. "Do you still wish to leave tomorrow?"
"We do," Jaina agreed. "If I am being targeted, then my presence here makes Csilla a target as well. I have no desire to make your world a target, Commander."
Black eyebrows rose in faint amusement. "Csilla would survive, Commander, but your concern is wise. If you are leaving tomorrow, then I suggest that you retire now. It will be a long flight to Sekot."
"Thank you, Commander," Jaina said, and she glanced at Jag before she continued. "We will take your advice."
"Then until tomorrow, Commander. Colonel Fel, Master Durron." He gave a small bow and another salute to Jag before turning and melting back into the hushed crowd.
Kyp touched Jaina's shoulder lightly, then let his hand drop. "All right, turn off your Leia-mode."
She glared up at him. "Oh, trust me, I enjoy it as much as you do. I hate being polite."
"You fake it well, at least," Jag murmured. "Since we were offered an escape route, shall we take it?" He gestured toward the arching door.
"Yeah," Kyp said. "C'mon, Goddess, time to go relax."
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Jag stood silently before his window. Beyond the window snow fell lightly onto the glacier-covered expanse. A gentle wind blew the loose flakes about in the air; all in all, the weather was decidedly calm.
To his surprise, he was also calm. He had expected to feel turmoil, to feel the warring loyalties to the Chiss and to his friends, but instead, he was serene. Almost content.
Almost.
He crossed his arms, saw the faint shadow of his reflection on the transparisteel do the same, and considered. He had been raised as a Chiss, among the Chiss, and had been a credit to his teachers. He had been as reserved as they could have asked for, as correct as any of the other students. And he had been secure in the knowledge that, even if he did not precisely fit in, he was accepted and respected.
Then Jag had left the Unknown Regions and entered a war. He had met Jaina so early on in the war that it was easier for him to simply say he had known her since he began fighting against the Yuuzhan Vong. He had liked her for her piloting skills, admired her for being both pilot and Jedi, enjoyed the way that she could talk with him and make him think.
But she made him lose a bit of that cool the Chiss had given him, made him take that first step over towards his human heritage rather than his Chiss training. Then she had left on that fiasco mission, and had come back shattered and a different person. That was when he had first met Kyp Durron; that was when the three of them had begun to work together.
A small grin crossed his face. The three of them made a good team; that was easily obvious. He and Kyp both needled Jaina, Jaina taunted both of them. Kyp kept Jaina sane and able to live with herself, Jag kept Jaina from giving up, from going complacent. Kyp made Jag have to keep trying, keep pushing himself; Jag made Kyp work for things, forced him to put extra effort into things to keep up with the younger man.
And they all teased each other mercilessly. They had become a good team. The war had seen to that much.
The war had split up their trio for a time, sent all three of them scattered across the galaxy. Still, in the back of his mind, Jaina's voice nagged at him to be a bit more spontaneous, a bit more unpredictable. She reminded him that he wasn't Chiss, no matter how hard he tried to act like one. She gave him back his humanity. And he was content in the knowledge that even if he wasn't quite normal, he was liked and respected by those whose opinions mattered to him.
Then the war had ended and he and Jaina had played their game of rendezvousing across the galaxy. It was an escape from reality, a time he could spend being simply himself and not having to conform to anyone's standards but his own. Even though he and Jaina had not worked out, it was a time he looked back on with real affection. She had given him the chance to find out who he was.
But even during that time, there had been a small part of his mind focused on another.
He told himself that he had watched her so closely at first because she was a threat to Jaina. Her episodes meant that she was unpredictable; her fits made her dangerous. And she had nearly killed Jaina before she had come back to herself.
After she had returned, though, then he had realized what she had gone through and what she had become. Caught between two opposing cultures, neither fully one nor the other. She was a more extreme version of what he felt.
He wouldn't think about her.
Deliberately, he turned away from the frozen landscape of a world he no longer considered home. But he couldn't turn away so easily from his thoughts of her.
He refused to allow himself to think her name. By denying her a name, he reminded himself that he was denied of her. Besides, which name should he call her? The one she had responded to for the first decade and a half of her life, the one she had been shaped into, or the one that combined the two?
Empathy welled up in him, and Jag waited for it to sink and vanish. He had been caught between two cultures, but never to her extent. Still, he understood a bit better than everyone else what she had gone through. Or at least he thought he did. He had never talked about it with her. Not since the last trip to Sekot.
He didn't want to remember, but he forced himself to replay the memory. He had gone looking for Jaina, and she had been with her. He had heard them say farewell, heard from her shaky voice that she had been crying, heard how Jaina's voice sounded a bit thick with suppressed tears.
Had heard Jaina tell her that it wasn't fair to her brother to mourn him for the rest of her life. Had heard her reply.
"When I love, I love forever."
Jag shut his eyes for a second, opened them again and stared at his room without seeing it. That had been years ago, before he and Jaina had broken up. He hadn't realized until the disaster that caused the breakup that his heart had been lost to the despairing young woman who would never love him.
He blinked. It was pointless to think on her. She still loved Anakin Solo. She would always love Anakin Solo. The one that had left her alone and desperate, trying to fit into a mix of cultures.
The one that had left her alone and struggling with a problem that seemed all too familiar to Jag. Simple sympathy and understanding had led to something more, something she didn't want.
Something Jag didn't think he would ever tell her.
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Author's Note: Some of you, by now, are going "WHAT? JAG AND TAHIRI? ARE YOU NUTS?" One of my friends on tf.n (screenname JainaDurron) has an excellent story called Oskio Preskiana Fracio, which in part featured this pairing. My fic has this pairing in homage to that story, which is (sadly) one post away from completion.
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Reviews make my day! Tell me what you think I did well or horribly. I appreciate constructive criticism and honest appraisals…
Thanks!
-Keth
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