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“Well, we do have some good news.”
“Jag is coming to see me?”
“As soon as he can,” her father promised. “He’s pretty busy with the peace conference right now. The Moffs seem to keep getting the idea that they’re the ones who won this war.”
In the accelerated care ward of Hapes’ best medical facility, Jaina Solo began to wonder if she’d been forgotten. Of course the med droids still checked on her and brought her meals (real meals, now that her jaw worked again), and her parents and little Allana--Amelia, she reminded herself--visited daily. Everyone else, she knew, had duties. The Galactic Alliance, the Jedi Order, the Imperial Remnant, all required urgent attention in the wake of Caedus’ defeat. Jaina realized her sense of abandonment was irrational and immature, and borne mostly of frustration at being immobile for so long and unable to contribute to the process of restoring order to the galaxy. But her emotions were heightened and harder than ever to control, so when she wasn’t gutted over what she did to Jacen, she mostly felt an aching loneliness.
She was finally healed enough to sit up on a sleeping pallet without a mist of bacta around her, but not yet cleared to leave her room, and so she spent her days viewing recaps of the peace ceremony on the holonet. When the reporters mentioned her name, which was rarely, it was with a blessedly neutral tone; the galaxy, it seemed, had chosen to label her neither as a hero nor a pariah. Jaina lowered the volume when Daala spoke, raised it when Jag appeared on the dais, and switched the unit off when they showed security cam footage of her duel with Caedus. She remembered practically nothing of the fight, and did not wish to be reminded with commentary.
On a Katunda afternoon, when her parents had already been to see her and the med droids had just cleared away her half-eaten lunch, the door to her room surprised her by sliding open. As her tall, lean visitor stepped inside, Jaina let a wide and very sincere grin occupy her lips. “Hey,” she said, easing herself up to lean against the wall at the head of her sleeping pallet, and switching off the Perre Needmo Newshour.
“Hey,” Kyp said with an answering grin, and rapidly crossed the distance to her side. “You look...” His vocabulary failed him, and instead he nodded in a manner that was undoubtedly meant to be reassuring.
Jaina laughed at him. “Shut up, old man.” There would be scars, and she wanted it that way. Her mother had gently suggested cosmetic operations a week earlier. Ten years ago Jaina would have shot down the idea instantly, with a cutting remark for good measure. Instead she explained that she didn’t want to be stuck in the care ward any longer than necessary, and anyway, the more scars she had on the outside to remind her, the quicker the wounds on the inside would heal. Amelia had chimed in then and said the scars looked really astral, and Jaina heard both her brothers in the remark, and so it was decided.
Kyp took the insult in stride and leaned down to kiss her, long and tender, then pulled up a seat by her side. “The Head of State will be here to see you shortly,” he informed her. “The pretty one, I mean.”
Not Daala, then. “You were there when Uncle Luke elected him?” Kyp confirmed it with a nod. “Describe his face,” Jaina requested with a sly smile.
“He struggled to control his expression. You know the look, like a tremor under ferrocrete. After a minute he looked tired--I wanted to be amused, but I just felt sorry for him. Master Skywalker saddled him with more work than all the rest of us combined.” He turned a serious gaze on her. “We have a lot to discuss, the three of us. There’s so much we never talked through, about our... arrangement. We didn’t have time before. And it’s different now, with Jag being what he is.”
Jaina sighed in frustration. She had thought about it over the past nine days: how would they proceed, would their relationship be public, what would happen when Jag formally relocated to Bastion, and on and on, an endless stream of questions through her mind. She had reached no conclusions, and wouldn’t until they were all present to work it out. “I don’t want to talk,” she complained. “Not yet, anyway. I want to greet you both properly, but the medics still won’t allow physical contact.”
A slow, wicked grin overtook Kyp’s face. He leaned tantalizingly close. “You’re forgetting, Goddess,” he breathed in her ear, “I don’t need physical contact.”
And he followed his words with a pulse through the Force that reached a portion of her mind only a select few people had ever been able to access. He opened that part of her like a japor puzzle box, and then carefully put it back the way he’d found it. Jaina was left gasping, with a warmth soaking her limbs that made her feel like she’d taken a nap out in the sunlight.
As she stared incredulously at him, she wanted to ask how many other tricks he’d picked up as a Jedi Master, and why he’d waited so long to show her that one, and whether it would work on him too. Instead she panted, “Do it again.”
Kyp chuckled. “I think we should let your heart rate return to normal first.”
Her disappointment didn’t last, because a moment later the door slid open once more, and Jag dashed inside. Before she could say anything, Jaina was gathered into strong arms, with cool, fresh-tasting lips pressed against hers so hard she worried they’d create a vacuum seal. Her ribs ached and she couldn’t catch her breath, but she clutched at Jag’s tunic with one hand and his hair with the other and held on until he pulled away at last. “I’m sorry,” he told her as he rested his forehead against hers, eyes tightly shut. “I came every night when you were in the tank, but when they brought you out I didn’t want to wake you. I’m in talks with the Moffs, or the Queen Mother, or Daala sixteen hours a day. I had to schedule this break a week ago.”
“It’s fine,” she assured him with a weak smile. “Really, Jag, it’s fine. You’re here now.”
He opened his eyes and looked at her. “You’re flushed,” he noted. “Did you miss me that much?” He kissed her on the cheek and then took the seat Kyp offered, grasping the older man’s shoulder briefly in greeting. Jaina just grinned, reluctant to explain that the color in her cheeks was mostly Kyp’s doing. “How’s the Order?” Jag asked Kyp, and Jaina was embarrassed to realize she hadn’t even wondered that very thing during the Jedi Master’s visit.
“We’re all occupied with transporting apprentices from Shedu Maad back to Coruscant,” Kyp explained. “A small group is staying behind to establish a new academy, in the hopes that the Queen Mother will encourage her subjects to set aside their aversion to the Jedi, and some new Force users will be discovered.”
“And you?” Jag pressed. “Where do you intend to go?”
Kyp lowered his gaze. “Back to Coruscant, I think. Master Skywalker wants the Council to sit on a regular basis, not only during this transitional period, but permanently if he can manage it. I’ll do my best to help make that happen.” He glanced up at Jaina, a question in his eyes.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “I think that’s where I should be, too.”
Both Jedi turned to Jag, who let the barest hint of a smile cross his lips. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said. “Chief of State Daala wants to arrange a partnership between the Galactic Alliance and the Empire immediately, and the delicate nature of those talks will require me and the Moff Council to be on Coruscant for the foreseeable future.”
“That’s great,” Kyp said sincerely. “I suppose we should figure out how we’re going to carry on, then.”
“I don’t see a reason to change anything,” Jag asserted quickly. “Unless, of course, one of you has second thoughts about what happened before.”
“Not at all,” Jaina rushed to assure him. “We just didn’t have time to work out the logistics before. Now...” She gestured at her reclined posture and the medical equipment around her. “We have all the time we need.”
Jag steepled his fingers, and Jaina wondered if he approached the grievances of the Moffs with the same steady, focused look in his eyes. Of course he did, she realized--he approached every problem in his life that way. “Okay,” he said. “First things first. Do we live together?”
Kyp made a face. “No,” Jaina said. “Not yet, anyway. I’m a terrible roommate.”
Though Jag’s expression clearly said that wasn’t why he’d keep her around, he pressed on. “Do we go out together in public?”
The silence was uncomfortable as all three of them considered this. While many civilizations throughout the galaxy would have no qualms with what they were doing, the fact remained that the gossip-hungry holomedia would make it seem as taboo as possible. Kyp cleared his throat and spoke up. “I, for one, don’t want the publicity. What we do is our business. Take Jaina out to dinner and smile for the cameras if you like, but I’ll meet you both privately.” Jaina and Jag both nodded.
“Fine,” Jag said. “That brings us to my next question. Do we see each other individually?”
Aware that both men expected her to determine this issue, Jaina felt a very Jacen-like need to diffuse the tension with humor. “Well, if you two want a quiet night in, I won’t be jealous,” she quipped, and instantly regretted it when Jag and Kyp both found items in opposite parts of the room where they focused their attention.
“Our schedules won’t always correspond,” Kyp suggested at last. “I have no problem with you and Jaina being together without me now and then, Jag.”
“Likewise,” Jag said. “Good. Ground rules are important. I think we can figure out the rest as it comes.”
Jaina felt a swell of emotion, the kind of alarm that snuck up on her at odd hours when something completely random reminded her of Jacen, and a scramble of words came with it. She struggled to put them in order before they escaped. “I... I’m going to need you,” she said haltingly. “Both of you. To get myself... back to normal. To work through what I did. There will be good days and bad days.” Her eyes stung like they were full of smoke, and when she blinked, hot tears rolled down her cheeks. “Sometimes I feel... like I’m half a person, you know? And the rest of the time I’m just empty. I don’t know what’s worse. I think you’re the only ones... who can really help me.”
Jag reached over and grasped her hand in both of his with a grip that managed to be as strong as a turbovise and as warm as the Hapan sea. Kyp ran a thumb over her cheeks to brush away the tears. “You have us,” he promised her. “Both of us, forever. Don’t ever doubt it.”
The panic in her eased, and she relaxed a little. Kyp’s hand stayed near her face, toying with her hair, which was cropped short now to even out the spots where it was singed away in her duel with Caedus. Jag did not release her hand until his commlink buzzed, and even then he did so grudgingly, and walked to the other side of the room to answer it in a low, terse voice. Kyp ran his fingers down the side of Jaina’s face and whispered, “I’ve been where you are. Jag has, too. We found a way out, and we’ll show you.” Jaina looked in his eyes and saw only love gazing back at her.
“My time’s up,” Jag sighed as he switched off his comm. He strode back to her side and leaned down to kiss her once more. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he vowed.
“I know,” she replied with a smile. “I’ll be here.” Jag smiled down at her, nodded once to Kyp, and left the room to take up the burden her uncle had given him.
Kyp stretched and stood. “I’ll let you rest,” he told her. “If you need anything, anytime, just call. Even if you just want someone to come play fifty hands of Sabacc with you. Truth be told, I’ve been crushingly bored for the last two weeks.”
Jaina grinned up at him, and he turned to go. “Wait,” she said, and grabbed his hand. Kyp turned back, concern in his eyes, but she smiled with a hint of a plea in her expression. “Do it again?”
The concern turned to mirth. “As my Goddess commands,” he said with a mock bow. “Just this once, though.” And this time the sensation that flooded her was mingled with the assurance that she had two of the best men she’d ever known on her side, and circumstances may separate them for a little while, but when they were together, nothing could stop them. And after a few moments Kyp kissed her brow and left the room, and Jaina drifted off to sleep feeling very content indeed.