-Hands-

He's working on his datapad when she pauses in his office doorway. It's late, the students and others retired, but Kyp Durron is still awake, going over a report or something.

Jaina taps at the doorframe and he looks up, face bleached of colour by the datapad's display. He blinks, as if just realising it's gotten dark.

"You're working late," she says as she enters.

Kyp leans over and taps the lamp on his desk, turning it on. It spills warm, golden light through the room. "Luke wanted me to look over some things."

She perches on the edge of the desk. "I just had some news."

"Oh? What's that?"

"The Imperial Remnant has joined with the Empire of the Hand under one banner."

His brow furrows. "You hear this from Jag?"

She shakes her head. "No. Tahiri."

Kyp sets down the datapad. "Tahiri," he repeats. "Why…?"

She shrugs. "She worked for him. They keep in better contact."

Leaning back in his chair, Kyp frowns. "Okay. So they're regrouping."

"It gets better. They're renaming themselves, and are considering declaring themselves hostile to the Galactic Alliance. They've named an Emperor."

They both consider that in silence.

"Do I want to know?" he asks finally.

She looks down at her ringless fingers. "As of this morning, the Imperial Remnant is now the Galactic Empire, under the rule of Emperor Jagged Fel."

For once, Kyp doesn't have a single smart remark. He stares at her, mouth hanging open.

"Looks like I really dodged a thud bug there, huh?" she asks, and her voice is bleak. "I don't know if he wanted me to be his Empress, or if this is retaliation for my divorcing him."

Kyp stands and guides her over to the sofa that takes up part of one wall, beside a mini-fridge and a small food prep unit. He fetches a bottle of Corellian whiskey from the cupboard and pours her a small amount in a tumbler, handing it over before he pours himself a glass.

She could remark on his penchant for alcohol, given what she learned from Allana, but this isn't the time, and she'd only be doing it to lash out. Kyp doesn't deserve that.

Jaina wraps her fingers around the glass, staring into the liquid. She's still a little numb from Tahiri's report. Her ex-husband is an emperor. If Jacen were alive, he'd be ribbing her mercilessly.

But he's not. She killed him almost four years ago.

She takes a large gulp of the liquor, managing not to wince as it burns its way down. She does cough a little.

"You're supposed to sip it," Kyp says, "not inhale it."

"Kyp, please don't be facetious right now."

He toasts her silently and takes a drink.

Jaina rolls the glass between her hands, back and forth, while she tries to think of words. They both know this was never what she wanted, what she never would have wanted. And though she divorced him months before, she still loves him.

Wisely, Kyp offers no disparaging remarks, no wise cracks. As he did the day she told him her marriage was over, he merely sits in silent support while she gathers her thoughts.

"Did I do this?" she asks finally. "Did I make him become this?"

He drains his glass and sets it on the low table in front of the sofa.

"No," Kyp tells her. "Unless you held a blaster to his head or possessed him or something, you didn't make Jag do anything. I suspect he got a taste of power when he was Head of State and he liked it. He wanted more, but he also wanted you. Since he risked losing you, he stepped down, got you to marry him, then planned to gradually introduce you to the idea. This is speculation, mind you. I've never trawled through his brain or anything."

She snorts.

"So," he continues, "you leave him because he's pushing you, yet again, to leave the Jedi, your family, and everything you've worked for your whole life, to move to the Unknown Regions. He figures, what the hell, he's got nothing to lose now, so he steps up and takes the throne."

She nods. Everything he says makes perfect sense. "The things I let him do…"

Kyp arches a brow. Jaina reaches over and smacks his leg, where it's bent up on the sofa, since he's sitting sideways, facing her.

"Not like that, you nerf," she grumps, flushing, and he snickers.

"If 'not like that', do elaborate. I don't want details on 'that', I should add."

She rolls her eyes. "I loved him. I think part of me always will. But there were just so many little things. I never did things the way he thought I should. I was too reckless for his tastes. I was never polished enough. He didn't want me to be a Jedi."

"Which shows a fundamental lack of understanding about who you are," Kyp points out.

"Exactly. He criticised and pushed and harassed when I was trying to figure out how to fight Jacen. He got me so angry once that I pushed him into a tree. And then there was the time he assaulted me in my quarters, in the dark, and kissed me."

Kyp goes dangerously still. "When was this?" he asks, and his voice is carefully controlled.

She waves a hand. It's long in the past, and she doesn't want him storming off to pound Jag into blorash jelly. "Please don't go start a war. I haven't fully recovered from the last three. Anyway, it was back during the Vong war, before we went after the Peace Brigade on Ylesia. Right after Jacen came back."

He's clearly bothered by her confession, and she reflects that, technically speaking, it could be considered sexual assault. And his desire to avenge it this long after is really sweet. "Jay, I'm going to be very blunt here. Did you lose your vaping mind?! Why the hell did you keep seeing that pile of bantha droppings, let alone marry him?"

She sets her glass down and pressed the heels of both hands to her forehead, propping her elbows on her knees. "Because I loved him, and because Uncle Luke said I was going to be alone, and I latched onto Jag because I was terrified he was right and I wanted to prove him wrong."

Kyp makes a derisive sound. "You married an emotionally abusive megalomaniac to spite your uncle."

To their mutual surprise, she laughs. It's a little bitter, and not pretty, but it still holds amusement. Self-deprecating amusement, but amusement nonetheless.

"Yeah, I guess I did."

"And people think I'm masochistic," he mutters darkly, and rises to pour himself another drink.

When he comes back, it's with the bottle. He sets it on the table and reclaims his seat.

"You didn't just dodge a thud bug, Jaina, you dodged kriffing worldship."

"I should tell Uncle Luke. My parents."

"You haven't?" he asks, genuinely surprised.

"No. I… wanted to talk it out with you first, before I said anything. I mean, what am I gonna say?"

"Same thing you told me. Jag's gone crazy and declared himself emperor."

She sighs and lifts her head, eyes closed as she leans back on the sofa. "They'll want to do something about him."

"That's not our arena anymore," he reminds her. "At least until he does something stupid, like attack the Alliance. Then they need to submit a formal, notarised request in triplicate. Even then, I'm done with politics. I never wanted to be involved, I only did it as a favour to Luke."

"I miss when things were pretty simple, before the invasion. All I had planned was to be a Jedi and have my own ship."

"Things don't have to be that complicated now. You're a Jedi, a Jedi Master, and I'm sure your sister-in-law would give you any ship you wanted."

Jaina shakes her head. "She's not my sister-in-law."

"She's the mother of your niece. And I'm sure that if Jacen hadn't turned, they'd be married now. That's close enough for me."

Jaina doesn't like thinking about Jacen, or what might have been if he hadn't become a Sith Lord and tried to take over the galaxy. "Ugh," she groans. "First my grandfather, then my brother, and then my ex-husband. What is it about my family that attracts this need to dominate the universe?"

"Just lucky, I guess. For the record, I have never attempted galactic domination, nor do I want to." His smile is wry. "For one, it's too much work."

"You weren't a very good Sith, either. You lasted, what, a week?" Jaina knows she's the only one who can tease him about that, just as he's the only one who dares bring up her own downward slide.

"You're one to talk. All you managed was some questionable behaviour. 'I'm such a Dark Jedi! I mind-wiped a morally corrupt scientist and I used Force lightning once on some bad guys!'"

She laughs out loud at his bad falsetto imitation. Only they, two survivors of the dark, dare joke about such things. It's one of the reasons they get along so well. At least when she's not feeling prickly over his… attraction.

Jaina eyes him, glass in hand. He's mellowed a lot since she was briefly his apprentice, the cocky and antagonistic side fading like the grey in his hair. She remembers when he was bold and dashing and dangerous. He's still dangerous, but more honed now. Dangerous in different ways.

He smirks, and something in her stomach tingles, and she thinks, "No, still dangerous the same ways."

The day he sat with her while she cried for the end of the marriage she'd pinned all her hopes on, they'd had a moment, one she had pushed away into a little box with all the other moments over the years. He's loved her nearly two decades, and she's known it that long. He flirted before Jag, teasing her, making her feel things she was too young to handle. He's only spoken of his feelings once, and then only in passing.

They've never brought it up, but he'd ended a fairly serious relationship with a woman who had wanted to marry him, because he'd known it was a choice between his girlfriend or her. He'd never said it, but when the stupid yellow airspeeder never made a return appearance, and the woman hadn't evacuated Coruscant with them, Jaina knew.

Sitting here, knowing she has his complete support, his love, no longer seems scary. One unfortunate incident when she was eighteen aside-one that had ended up being for the greater good, no matter her anger at the time-Kyp had never pushed her too far, never tried to force her hand and change her into something she wasn't.

He'd been the only one who cared for her when Anakin died. And when Jacen was lost, when she had, as Sword of the Jedi, been forced to kill her twin, he'd been there for her. Weeks in the medcenter, recovering from a shattered hand and a lightsaber slice across her abdomen, but more from the broken heart she'd suffered, and Kyp had come to visit her nearly every day. To talk, to listen, to tell lousy jokes or to sit with her while she screamed over the injustice of it all.

And he'd never once made that move, knowing she was unready, unwilling, unable to reciprocate.

His smirk slowly dies the longer she looks at him, replaced with concern, then unease. "What?" he demands finally.

"I mess things up," she says. "Friendships, relationships. Everything with Zekk was a disaster, and then Jag was even worse. Tahiri barely speaks to me. You and Tenel Ka are just about my only close friends left. She can't leave because she's family now. I'm kind of terrified that I'll do something to make you run screaming."

He shakes his head. "That is the most groundless fear you could have."

"Is it? What if you meet someone and she doesn't like you hanging out with me?"

"That already happened."

"It did?"

"Yeah. You said her speeder was ugly."

He stretches his arm along the back of the sofa, towards her. His fingers are almost as battered as hers, and she notices, not for the first time, that the digits are a little misshapen. From what, she doesn't know. The scars on his arms are from surgery when he was just shy of seventeen. They'd had to cut him open nearly everywhere, because the Sun Crusher hadn't had an escape pod and he'd had to break most of the bones in his body to fit into a message cylinder instead. It had nearly killed him.

She traces one faded, white line that runs the length of his forearm. Her fingers, too, will never be the same as they were before Caedus pulverised her hand under his boot heel in an attempt to keep her from wielding her lightsaber against him.

"What are you thinking about so hard?" he asks, his voice low.

"Crucibles," she murmurs. "Or… how they make blades the really old way, tempering steel by folding it and pounding it, over and over. I feel very tempered right now."

He catches her hand, the one Caedus had crushed, and presses their hands together, palm to palm. "Well, you're certainly battle scarred."

"So are you. How do you keep it from crippling you?"

"Same way you do for the physical wounds. Keep moving. Use the muscles so they don't atrophy. Break up the scar tissue. Keep the blood moving." He's rueful as he adds, "I had months of physical therapy after they reset my bones."

She flexes her hand against his. "I thought I was going to lose the use of my hand. But I didn't."

Kyp leans over, taps a finger just below her collarbone. "Same principle here."

"Yeah?

"Yeah." Then he settles back on his end of the sofa. "Zekk's taken, but I'm sure you'll find someone else in time."

"I haven't been interested in Zekk that way since I was seventeen. It just took him way too long to realise that." She bites the inside of her cheek. The same could potentially be said of Kyp, and yet... It could be the whiskey, or just emotional fatigue, but she says, "You said I couldn't scare you away."

"Right."

"Well. There might be someone."

He's good, but not quite good enough to hide the dismay as fast as he'd probably like. The flicker of hurt that goes through his eyes makes something in her chest sting, for just a moment. "That was fast. You haven't even been divorced six months."

"No," she says slowly. "It's actually been a really long time."

Kyp's green eyes reflect confusion. He cocks his head, an unspoken question on his handsome features. "Anyone I know?" he queries when the curiosity gets the better of him.

She's better at a sabacc face than he is. She's had practise, and he's always been too open to her. "Mm. That's a distinct possibility."

He looks up and slightly to her left, black brows drawing together as he visibly thinks over who she could possibly know "a long time" that's still alive after three very brutal wars in twenty years.

"Someone from Rogue Squadron?" Kyp guesses.

"Someone I flew with," she allows.

He's clearly drawing a blank. Jaina considers lengthening the torment just a bit, but she's not that sadistic. She huffs out a laugh and says, "Stang, you can be dense as duracrete sometimes, Durron."

He starts to take offence, then he notices she's smiling smugly. It's clear the moment he realises, because he fumbles his glass and spills expensive whiskey on his robes.

"You could have just said-" he begins irritably, then stops, as it fully hits him.

"Messing with you is much more entertaining." She takes a last sip of her second glass and put the tumbler down, pushing it with her fingertips so that it's out of reach. "I think I've had enough of that, even if my inclination right now is to drink myself into a stupor."

Kyp's still looking at her with an expression somewhere between shock and distrust. "When you said you're messing with me…"

She sighs. "I don't want to screw up our friendship on a chance. I'm scared that … things would go the way everything else has. But…"

He sets his glass down with a thunk. "But."

"I have feelings for you that are not platonic," Jaina says, measuring every word. She's not ready for a full declaration of anything yet. "And I suppose never have been."

He's cautious, understandably so. "Okay. Are you thinking about… exploring these feelings?" He's casual, but there's a tremour of hope there, one he's obviously leery of letting grow. It's been a very long time, she knows. This isn't anything she says lightly. Not for this.

"I am."

Kyp releases a breath and then doesn't seem to know how to react.

Jaina rolls her eyes. "Dammit, Kyp, it's been seventeen years. For once, just… Stop treating me like I'm going to shatter if you make a move."

He stands, leans over, grabs her by the arm, and hauls her to her feet. She has a moment of surprise and confusion, and then he's holding her tight, his mouth covering hers.

She melts into him, her body moulding to his. She forgets her anxiety, her fears and regrets, as he kisses her. His hand cradles the back of her head, and his kiss takes her breath. It's firm but gentle, hinting at power and passion but not pushing. It's everything she hoped kissing him would be, and somehow more.

They separate by degrees, breath mingling as they pull apart. She feels a little unsteady, and holds him to keep her balance. There's no cockiness in him, just wonder and suffuse joy, and he smiles. It sends flutters clear to her toes.

"It's late," she breathes. "And I need to go wake the old people to let them know what's happening before they hear it from anyone else."

"I'll go roust Luke," he volunteers, laughing a little at her description of her parents and uncle as "old people". "You get Han and Leia."

Kyp kisses her again, lightly. She hugs him for a long moment.

"I don't want to hide this. I don't care who knows or what they think," she tells him. "I don't want secrets and lies and decoys. But just for now, just a few days, I want you to myself. I need to take this slow."

"Okay," he agrees. "We can do that."