Previously on The New Girl...

Kyp doesn't care what the Force says… Jysella's a pain in the ass...

Season 3
Episode 7,
Interlude, Part 2

When your day is long
And the night, the night is yours alone
When you're sure you've had enough
Of this life, well hang on

Don't let yourself go
'Cause everybody cries
Everybody hurts sometimes

Sometimes everything is wrong
Now it's time to sing along

When your day is night alone (hold on, hold on)
If you feel like letting go (hold on)
If you think you've had too much
Of this life, well hang on

'Cause everybody hurts
Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts

Don't throw your hand, oh no
Don't throw your hand
If you feel like you're alone
No, no, no, you are not alone

If you're on your own in this life
The days and nights are long
When you think you've had too much
Of this life to hang on

Well, everybody hurts sometimes
Everybody cries
Everybody hurts, sometimes

And everybody hurts sometimes
So hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on, hold on
Everybody hurts

Everybody Hurts/Mills, Berry, Buck, Stipe

Jedi Temple and Training Academy, Ossus
35 ABY
Five years after the Yuuzhan Vong War

Kyp dragged his weary body through the door of his suite at the Jedi Temple, exhausted, sore, and emotionally depleted. The mission had gone badly. Not horribly badly, just fifteen hours in a Bacta tank badly; something that always seemed to happen when he was teamed up with Jacen Solo.

He couldn't figure out why they had such bad luck together. They were both highly trained, had tremendous raw strength; mastery, on his own part, and near mastery on Jacen's. So why was it that a whole host of bizarre circumstances always seemed to find them?

After a few days of basic, average investigation, they had gone to follow up on the leads they had found, and then everything went to hell.

Ysalamiri, wild animals, broken down speeders, lack of food and water, an ambush by a paramilitary group, and one desperate call to the Wraiths later, and they had finally made it off Aaeton.

At least he'd gotten to spend a day hanging out with Dex after he'd been discharged from the medbay.

Of course, that day had cost him more credits than he wanted to think about, and he vaguely wondered if all Corellians had a compulsive gambling gene. Dex Wessiri, Valin Horn, and Jacen Solo certainly seemed to. As did Dex's 'cousins', Jag and Cem Fel, whose parents had left Corellia years before either of them had even been born.

The concept flitted through Kyp's mind for mere moments before he thought that Jysella didn't seem to have inherited it. But then she had inherited telekinesis, which her brother, father, and paternal grandfather had all lacked, so maybe this was just one more way in which she was a genetic anomaly.

Jacen had made a comment about their Horn apprentices at some point on this trip, before the mission had gone bust; that it was a shame for Kyp that Jacen got the 'fun' one and Kyp had gotten the 'angry' one. He didn't know what surprised him more, the normally diplomatic Jacen coming right out and saying that, or the odd, and fleeting, surge of protectiveness that the comment had aroused in him.

Dropping his bag on the floor of his bedroom and falling face first onto his bed, he tried not to think about the Council meeting he had to be at the next morning. Or… this morning.

He had worked really hard over the last two weeks to avoid thinking about Jysella, not easy with her brother right next to him the whole time. He made every effort to continue to ignore the half memory of her expression just before she asked if he was ditching her. He didn't need her issues or her attitude. He didn't want the headache that was his life with her in it, and he had given up any hope of reaching her, helping her let go of her anger. He told himself he had done all he could do. If she refused to meet him halfway, if she had no interest in anything he had to say, except the opportunities it gave her to argue with someone… him… then why was he continuing to try to train her?

He had given it over a year. Which was far longer than he had wanted to, and probably far longer than any sane man would have.

So why did he feel guilty? Why did he feel that he was letting her down, shirking a responsibility? And why did he feel like the Force wanted them together? Did the Force hate him that much? Was Jysella Horn his long delayed punishment for Carida? Tricking Jaina into destroying that developing Worldship?

Kyp rolled over and glanced at the chrono beside the bed, but what looked like a piece of flimsi was propped up against it, blocking his view of the numbers.

Too tired to sit up, he used the Force to trigger the light, and reached for the folded flimsi. His name was on the front, Master Durron written out in a precise, cold, script that he instantly recognized.

That brought a half smile to his face. He wondered how long it had taken her to slice into his locking code and break into his apartment, and if she liked the code itself, which was a message. For her. And not a very nice one.

But the last thing he needed right now was a note from the little witch, most likely telling him, yet again, what all of his shortcomings were. He balled it up and threw it, but the lightness of the thing didn't allow it to travel as far away from him as he wanted, and it landed only half a meter away.

He sighed again, was there no end to the torture she would subject him too? Did she really feel the need to yell at him so much that she was now willing to resort to leaving him handwritten messages to get her point across?

Giving up on falling asleep naturally, or getting his apprentice, former apprentice, as of four hours from now, out of his mind, he took a deep cleansing breath, exhaled, and began to put himself into a rejuvenation trance.

Several breaths later, he was nowhere near his goal.

"Ahhhhh….."

Disgusted, with himself for not being able to just ignore the note, with Jysella for haunting him, and Force for being so loud, Kyp held his hand up and called the crumpled thing back, wondering who was more of a sadist, Jysella for doing this, or himself for reading.

Master Durron,

I know the Council is scheduled to meet at 0900 and you are expected to be there, would you please meet with me first? Clover Meditation Garden, 0800?

JH

Right, like he was going to do that. She'd probably already laid the explosives.

Teaching her how to disarm, and therefore arm, a bomb may not have been the wisest move he'd ever made, but that would become someone else's problem soon.

Kyp stood up, stripped off all of his clothes, set the alarm, and fell back onto his bed. There was no way he was getting up a moment before 0845.

Clover Meditation Garden

Jysella sat on a stone bench, disappointed.

She glanced at her wrist chrono again; 0830.

He wasn't going to come.

Of course, she couldn't really blame him. She had made it her singular objective over the last year and a half to punish Kyp for not being her father, for being the person her father had sent her to instead of working with her himself, for not sending her back to her father.

Jysella was smart. She knew, intellectually, that her parents hadn't abandoned her by sending her to the Maw; they did it to protect her. They didn't ship her off to Ossus to get away from her; they did it to give her an education at the very Academy where Corran would often be teaching, and Valin would be living. And they hadn't teamed her up with Kyp for any reason other than the fact that he stood a better chance of being able to deal with her temper and antics than anyone else they might have had her apprenticed to. However, knowing all of those things intellectually, and allowing them to guide her actions in an emotional situation were two entirely different things.

She didn't mean to fight with Kyp all the time, she didn't mean to cause him such agony that he spent a fair amount of time in Cilghal's infirmary looking for digestive remedies, or that he had gotten significantly more grey since she came into his life. For some reason, he was just so easy to fight with. He fought back, unlike anyone else in her life.

Kyp didn't give her guilt-ridden looks, or alternate between showering her with attention and withdrawing from her. He didn't have a million other things to do that took him away from her. Which is why when he did have something to do that took him away, she was terrified. What if something happened to him while he was gone? What if he never came back?

Of course, the shock and terror she felt when he told her that he was going to have the Council reassign her had been a million times worse than any terror she'd ever felt when he was just going out on assignment. And that was why she had spent the entire fourteen days he'd been gone meditating, thinking, digging deep down for all the maturity and insight she could muster at sixteen years old, and trying to come up with what she could possibly say that might make him change his mind. Might make him reconsider.

The hardest part of all this self-reflection was trying to accept the fact that she may have engaged in the exercise too late to make a difference.

Deciding that waiting was no longer her best option, Jysella stood and began to make her way to Kyp's suite. She might not be able to change his mind, but she would do everything in her power to make listening easy for him.

Kyp woke to the sound of insistent knocking on his door. Opening one eyelid, and glancing at the chrono, he cursed the idiot who was depriving him of his last ten minutes of sleep. Then he reached out with the Force to find that Jysella was the idiot insistently knocking, and groaned.

He knew her well enough to know that she wasn't going to go away, so he might as well let her yell a little more before she was out of his life.

Getting up and pulling on his discarded pants, he made his way to the kitchen, using the Force to unlock his door on the way, wondering briefly why she hadn't just done that herself, and was already making a cup of caf… one cup of caf, when Jysella walked in.

The change in her demeanor was obvious; she was contrite, which might have surprised him, but he'd seen her play this game before. It was usually followed up by a whopper of an insult to his masculinity.

She bowed her head slightly before saying; "Good morning, Master Durron."

He quirked one eyebrow. That was unexpected… but he was too weary to fall for it.

"Horn. To what do I owe the displeasure of your company this early in the morning? I figured I'd be the last person you'd have any interest in seeing today."

She seemed hesitant, but finally got to it.

"I'd like to talk to you about the reassignment."

"There's nothing to talk about. You aren't my problem anymore. You can fulfill everyone's deepest fear by going Sith on someone else's watch."

He was about to tell her to get out, so he could go take a shower and get to his meeting, but was stopped by the shock, and then pain, that flooded out of her, giving Kyp a sense of regret he hadn't felt in years.

Was it possible that she didn't realize that this was a fear?

He watched as, for the first time in the year that he had known her, the hard mask she wore to hide behind collapsed. Her eyes became glassy and she blinked rapidly for a minute, clearly trying to prevent the tears from falling. Her lower lip quivered, her chest heaved and her hand went up to her heart. She shook her head, as though trying to block out his remark, turned, and had started to run for the door when Kyp registered that the strange surge of protectiveness he'd felt after Jacen's flip comment was back. He was instantly sorry he'd made such a callous remark, especially with no provocation.

He used the Force to lock the door, preventing her escape, and ran around the counter of the kitchenette, toward where she now stood, hands against the door, wanting out, he knew, but somehow lacking the presence of mind to actually open the door. Instead, she leaned into it and let out a loud sob before sliding slowly down to the floor, pulling her knees into her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

Kyp had never felt her so vulnerable, or her shielding so weak. He wasn't sure if it was a wise thing to do but he couldn't resist the temptation to reach out to her. At first, he met slight resistance - she had felt him and tried to push him away, reinforce her defenses, but the effort was too much and she gave up within seconds and he was flooded by her agony; at being left by her parents so many times, her fear that they didn't love her and only pretended to be interested because it was the right thing to do. He felt her own surprise that Kyp, and his opinion of her, meant so much, and the fear she had that he too was only paying attention to her because he had no choice.

As he began to realize that this girl that he had thought he hated, had been so desperate to be rid of, was more than a little afraid of, was nothing more than a desperate and lonely child, he suddenly identified with her more than he ever imagined was possible. He sat down beside her and pulled her to him, tucked her head under his chin and her body into his side and tried to calm her as her sobbing became so strong it shook both their bodies.

Kyp was stunned. He'd never seen her like this, and didn't know if her reaction when she got her defenses back up would be stronger, more lethal than normal, from embarrassment. Despite this, instinct, or the Force, told him he was doing the right thing by comforting her this way.

A long time passed, and he felt Jysella slowly erect her mental barriers once more. She pulled back emotionally, and in the Force, to very close to where she normally was; very close, but not quite all the way there.

"What difference does it make to you if I go Dark?" she finally asked hoarsely.

He chuckled, "Aside from not wanting to see you do any harm to a galaxy I've spent the last twenty years trying to protect? Aside from not wanting to see anyone make the same mistakes I've made? Aside from not wanting to spoil my record of soothing angry, Force wielding teenage girls? Aside from seeing a lot of potential in you and wanting to help you find that in yourself… none really."

More sobs rocked her, and she turned her body slightly, leaning into Kyp again, burying her head into his neck and gasping out, "Shows you… how well my… loving father actually knows me." She drew a couple of ragged breaths before continuing, more steady this time, "It's never even occurred to me to go Dark."

Kyp lifted her chin and peered into her face.

"I kind of knew that. And I think Luke knows that, too…"

"So it was just Master Horn that feared it."

He wasn't about to name the others who had brought it up, and he'd seen the hurt again as she said her father's name and realized that her always referring to him as 'Master Horn' had not been the act of respect she had claimed.

"Jysella, I don't know what the deal is with you and your dad, well, I mean I've got my suspicions, but I don't know exactly what has happened between you two to cause you so much pain…"

"Nothing has happened. Absolutely nothing. He ignores me. I'm an inconvenience. I'm pretty sure he never wanted children, or at least not me. He got the perfect son the first time around and I was just a girl. Just a girl born right before an extragalactic invasion that nearly ruined his life and reputation. I've never had anything to offer him. If I was good at something, Valin had been good at it first… or he had. I'm already a better pilot than any of the other apprentices my age, but I'm not as good as they are."

"Has he ever told you he was disappointed in you?"

"You mean has he looked me in the eye and said the words? He doesn't have to, I can see it all over his face, and he's never just disappointed in a choice I've made, or something I've done… it's always me personally."

Kyp tucked her head back under his chin and rubbed her arm, trying to sooth some of the anguish coming off of her. When she had calmed down again he said, "I'm sorry, Jysella, I truly am. I can't even begin to understand how that must feel. I may have lost my parents early, but I never got the feeling that they were anything but thrilled with me. But there is one way that our situations are the same." He tipped her chin up and looked into her eyes, wanting to make sure that she got this message, "As hard as it may seem, you have to get on with your life, just like I did. You have to find something that makes you happy, something that you want to do for yourself and then do it well, regardless of what it means to Corran and Mirax."

She nodded, seeming to really hear what he was saying, but a fresh wave of tears spilled down her cheeks and her pain began leaking out again.

"What's wrong with me? Why do my parents run away from me?"

"Oh, Jysella, there isn't anything wrong with you. I think you may even be wonderful, and smart, and funny, if you would ever let anyone see that side of you. I've only just barely glimpsed it, and I'm sure you didn't mean for that to happen. You have so much to give, if you would just stop punishing anyone who tries to get close to you.

"And," he continued, "I think they do love you, they just don't know how to show you that in a way that you want."

"So you're siding with them? You think it's all my fault?"

"I'm not siding with anyone. Look, I'm not a parent, I don't know why parents do anything they do, but I did fight the Vong, and it was terrifying. It was terrifying everyday for five years, and I can't begin to imagine what that terror would have felt like if I cared about anyone the way a parent must care for a child. I think it was probably really hard for them to send you and Valin away, but I think, I'm sure, they thought at the time that they were making the best choice from a list of really crappy choices.

"They didn't send you off because they didn't care or because you were a burden, or a disappointment. They sent you off to keep you as far away from the Vong as they could. And they didn't stay with you because they felt that the best way to further protect you was to kill as many Vong as they could as far away from you as they could."

"And what about now? Why are they so far away now?"

He hesitated. If he said this wrong, Sithella could come roaring back stronger than ever, and he briefly wondered how the kriff it fell to him to help Corran Horn's kid make this breakthrough.

"It might be… because… because they have no idea how much you need them, or… that despite the way you treat them, you really wish you could be with them. And I suspect they're afraid to look too closely at why you're so angry."

She continued to look up into Kyp's eyes as though she were searching, looking for something to believe in, and he again felt that surge of protectiveness, and a sense that at this very moment he was exactly where he was supposed to be - that all the things he had ever done in life had led him to this; sitting on the floor of his apartment, leaning up against a locked door, making a difference in Jysella Horn's life, and that the magnitude, and repercussions of this moment would affect the rest of his.

"They probably feel guilty for the very things you're angry about; that you were robbed of all that time with them. That they had to make the choices that they made, that they had to make any choices at all that took them away from you. And they probably don't know how to deal with your anger as a result of what they felt they had to do. And... I think the only way to fix any of this is to let go of the anger, and the past, and try to build your own life, a life that you can be proud of and feel comfortable in."

"I'm not sure I know how to do that."

"Well, that's what I'm here for. I'm here to help you find your way."

"I thought you were here to keep me from becoming Sithella."

Kyp cringed, and looked away, feeling himself blushing.

Her voice was so small when she said, "I just thought you referred to me that way because you hated me. I didn't realize it was a prediction."

"I referred to you that way because you frustrated me, and I was being mean and immature, too. I'm sorry. I had no idea you knew."

Jysella sighed deeply, pulled back from Kyp, and rose. She walked over to the counter where Kyp's caf was finished brewing and stared morosely at the surface.

"And for the record, Jysella, I never really thought you'd go Sith."

"I'm sure my new Master will be grateful for your input."

"I seem to be missing the meeting where I was going to request that you have a new Master."

A flicker of hope played across her face, and Kyp was again overwhelmed, this time with a sense of accomplishment. He'd finally broken through.

"So," she asked hesitantly, "you're not going to have me reassigned?"

"Will you listen to me? Try to hear what I'm saying and teaching? Open up a little bit and accept that I might have some wisdom to impart that you haven't come up with on your own?"

"Yeah… I can try."

"Will you also try to remember that I care, and I want what's best for you?"

He wasn't sure if 'care' was the right word, but there was definitely something there, something that had developed in spite of all the fighting and bitter words.

"Yeah," one side of her mouth rose up in a sort of half smile, the first Kyp thought he'd ever seen that wasn't laced with contempt, and she ran her fingertip along the counter as she finished, "I'll try."

"Well, I guess I can't ask for any more than that."

She smiled again, this time wider, though wearily, and Kyp was amazed at the transformation, "You'll have to come up with something new to call me."

"I'm sure I'll think of something."

Next time on Fear and Love…

Kyp and Jysella - years 3 and 4...