"Can't catch me!"

"Can too!"

"Hi, Master."

Jacen didn't even pause to wave at one of his younger students as he raced by the group of children playing in the hall, oblivious as to how they all stared after him.

Jaina, Jaina, Jaina. His sister's name range in his head, keeping time to his thudding heart.

Kam Solusar walked by him, herding a small cluster of crèche children, including his own daughter.

"Jati!" she exclaimed, waving and skipping towards him.

"Not now, Si." He kept running. "Stay with Master Solusar."

She stopped, confusion furrowing her brow.

Kam must've sensed that something was going on, because he took Sieren's hand and moved her down the hall, quickening the group's pace.

Jacen swung his hand, flinging a warning at his uncle that something was wrong.

His response was a flurry of questioning emotions from his uncle, mother, aunt, Kam, and Tahiri.

I don't know. He sent back, rounding the corner to the ship hangar where his sister's x-wing was, expecting to find it gone.

He stopped short when he saw it wasn't.

"No." he groaned, as if the word had been ripped from him, when he saw Kyp cradling her limp body against his chest. "Oh no."

"She's breathing." The other man rasped. "But we need to hurry."

Jacen ripped his eyes off his sister's still face and looked at Kyp, noticing for the first time the strain on his face. Jacen nodded, already thumbing his commlink on as he ran to open the heavy hangar door.

"I need a med team prepped." He said on the Academy's open channel. "Possible pulmonary arrest."

"We'll be ready when you arrive." The medic's bland voice crackled over the channel.

Jacen looked back at Kyp to see where he was.

He was amazed at how haggard the man looked.

"They're waiting for us." He said quickly.

"Good." Kyp replied simply, catching up with him. "Where is everybody?"

Jacen looked around, finally noticing that the halls were empty. "Kam must've been worried."

Kyp only grunted in reply, his eyes on the med center ahead. He glanced down at Jaina, then looked back up, catching Jacen's fearful gaze.

"She's still breathing." He said shortly, stumbling past Jacen toward the med center.

Jacen followed as two medics ran out to meet Kyp, talking quickly, but somehow managing to maintain the façade of calm.

Kyp said something wearily, shaking his head at something one of the medics said.

The other medic tried to take Jaina from him, but he shook his head adamantly and held her closer.

"Jacen!" Jacen turned and saw his mother running toward him, fear written across her face.

"Mom." He caught her in a hug.

Leia pulled away quickly. "Where's Jaina?"

Jacen turned and saw that Kyp and the medics were gone.

"Inside."

"How is she?" Han asked grimly, joining the group.

"Breathing." Jacen said simply.'

Leia left them, hurrying up the steps into the med center.

Without a word, Han and Jacen followed her.

"Is she going to be all right?" Leia questioned one of the medics working around Jaina's bed.

"We're doing everything we can." The medic assured her.

"Where's Cilghal?" Leia looked around for the Mon Calamari healer.

"On Zonoma Sekot." Jacen answered grimly.

"Outa my way, idiot!"

They all turned to see Mara shoving an orderly droid.

What's happened to her?" she demanded breathlessly, making it halfway across the room to Jaina's bed before one of the medics stopped her.

Leia looked at her sister-in-law, tears spilling onto her cheeks. "She's oxygen deprived." She whispered.

Mara turned her hard gaze to Jacen. "How? What happened?"

"I don't know. She'd already been out for a few minutes by the time I got there." He said dully, guilt stabbing at him for not being there sooner. "Thank the Force she's still breathing."

"Solo's pure obstinacy." Han remarked.

"No." Mara shook her head slowly, her eyes on her niece's still form. "It's Kyp."

Jacen lifted his eyes to where the older man stood over Jaina, his head bowed and eyes closed, his hand resting on her.

Jacen thought the Master looked even more tired than he felt himself.

"He's breathing for her."

Jacen covered his face with his hands, feeling every ounce of energy drain out of him; watching his mother cry, he felt a heavy weariness overwhelm him.

"Jacen."

Jacen knew without turning who it was.

Tenel Ka stood behind him silently.

Jacen just gazed at her wordlessly for a moment.

"Jaina…" he said finally, then found himself simply too tired to go on.

She stepped closer, laying one hand on his chest, and Jacen felt strength seeping back into his muscles, spreading outward from her fingertips.

Jacen's eyes fell shut and his forehead dropped to her shoulder, his chest heaving as he wept.

Whoosh, beep. Whoosh, beep. Whoosh, beep.

The Academy's med center was silent but for the ventilator's pronounced whisper and the incessant beeping of the vitals monitor.

Kyp Durron sat in the same seat he had for the last six hours, watching Jaina.

Her chest rose and fell with the ventilator pump, the entire lower half of her face covered by an oxygen mask and traech tube.

In all his dreams, he had never imagined he would one day sit here begging for Jaina Solo's life.

She had always seemed invincible to him, the Sword that would never fall, never break.

He was finding out rather rapidly just how vulnerable people could be.

"Oh, Jay." He sighed, rubbing the back of her hand. "You give me more gray hairs every day, kiddo."

He could count on one hand the number of times she'd done anything that hadn't scared him.

He'd thought he was going to have a heart attack every time she'd given him that grin, knowing she was about to do something stupid and rash.

It was different this time.

Never before had he been truly afraid. Never before had he actually wondered what he would do if she wouldn't be alive to make him laugh the next morning. Her ability to always beat the odds had seemed like indisputable fact to him, like that the sun would always rise.

Now he wondered, if Jaina never woke, if Yavin's star would indeed ever appear again.

He knew that if that day came, he would never again step foot on a planet within a radial quadrant of the Academy.

He picked her hand up in his, feeling her faint pulse in her fingertips. He watched her face for a moment, wishing she would smile at him.

He sighed and rested his forehead on the hand that was holding hers. "Guess I've been a little stupid, huh, Jay?"

He smiled wistfully, knowing that if she were awake, she'd be grinning.

That would be a yes. He pushed a stray lock of hair away from her face, combing it into the rest of the amber-brown waves fanned across the other side of her pillow.

Ok, he admitted, so saying 'maybe I was stupid' was the understatement of the century.

He could almost picture her hands on her hips, eyes scolding him.

Fine. He mock-glared. Millennium.

He closed his eyes and was assaulted with a barrage of memories.

"Kyp!"

He turned and saw the three-year-old little girl running toward him, completely unaware of how the other Jedi stared mistrustfully at him.

Amazing how ironic it was, considering that it had now almost flip-flopped.

She laughed, running as fast as she could to keep ahead of him.

Kyp chased her, his 26-year-old legs eating up the ground behind her 12-year-old ones.

He smiled wistfully, wishing all the memories were happy.

Smuggler's Run. Sernpidal. Myrkyrr.

"I'll never help you again." Jaina's anger was radiating off of her. "You could be dying on Tatooine, and I wouldn't even spit on you."

She'd been right. He deserved to rot for all the things he had done.

"I thought when you asked to join my squadron, it meant you'd forgiven me. When I accepted, it meant I'd forgiven you. Did it mean that, or didn't it?" she watched him carefully.

"It did."

She thought about that for a moment. "So are we still partners?"

"We are."

Whatever that had meant, it hadn't been enough.

"Get out of here, Durron." Her eyes flashed.

He stared at her in astonishment, reaching out to steady her. "Jay,

what—˝

"Don't call me that." She snapped as he jerked away. "And don't touch me."

"Jaina, what wrong?!"

She swore loudly, spewing oaths he would have been ashamed to repeat. "Get out!"

Kyp took a deep breath and blew it out, brushing his hand against her flushed cheek, her limp hand still in his.

The memory was a blatant reminder that regardless of how he felt about her, Jaina Solo hated him.

A medic came in then, smiling sympathetically at him as she changed the drip pack hanging over the monitor beside the bed.

She obviously didn't know his role in the Jedi's history.

"Don't worry." Her voice was kind. "She's responding well to the nuero reconstruction."

"She's so warm." Kyp's voice was rough from lack of use.

The medic finished rehooking the drip pack, turned, and lay one small hand on Jaina's forehead. She frowned and turned back to the vitals monitor and punched a few buttons.

"She is running a slight fever." The medic told him. "The problem is, because her brain was damaged, it's not regulating her body temperature very well. We've got her on cooled liquids to keep her temperature controlled."

"Thanks." Kyp managed a smile as the girl left the room.

He turned his head and looked back at Jaina, the flush already fading from her cheeks.

He lay her hand gently on the bed and stood slowly. He leaned down and kissed her forehead.

"Don't worry, sweetheart. I'll be back."

He smiled at her still face one last time and turned and walked out of the room.