Jaina would never have believed she could even think it, but she was sort of glad to be able to get to Fandom after spending Thanksgiving with the family, because now she could get back to her routine. Especially now that her routine was beginning to become less about distraction and more about training again as she adjusted to certain new realities.

Too bad her routine got shot to hell today by a rare bout of oversleep coupled with work calls she had to take care of, so she didn't get to go for her workout till after class. Afterwards, she came back to her room, opened the water bottle on her desk, and went to drink from it-

"Ugh," she said, pulling it away from her mouth after tasting what was actually inside. It wasn't that it was bad, it was just that she needed actual water after that much time in the gym, not egg nog. Deciding that maybe she'd just head for the shower instead, it was a really good thing she ran the water before stepping in.

Fine. She'd just change clothes and stay sweaty today. Thanks, Fandom!


[Door and post open. I'm home today feeling icky. Entertain me plz. *makes Precious Moments eyes*]

Thanksgiving with the extended AU family in Connecticut was likely to be strange no matter how Jaina looked at it, but it was good to get away somewhere that wasn't Fandom or home. And as weird as her family was when you thought about it for more than two seconds, it did have its pluses. Namely, an alternate universe step-grandmother who was only a couple weeks older than her, and so it wouldn't look weird to see them together at a bar.

Of course, when they got to said bar, Jaina did the smartest thing she could possibly do tonight and held out her phone to Rory. "Hide that for me?"


[For Grandma, and NFB for distance.]

Jaina's trip home had actually done her some good. At the very least, she was realizing she had things like work to distract her from her non-relationship and her non-relationship to distract her from work. Somewhat worryingly, she was beginning to think maybe she shouldn't be trying at this friend thing, because it was giving her plenty of reasons to be confused. Maybe that was why she'd only told three people so far; she wasn't sure enough of where things stood in her own head.

Right now she was going with the work distraction. She couldn't help it, there was something centering about working towards something big like this. Her desk was covered in pieces of flimsi as she went over data she'd brought back from home, checking it against reports she'd received this morning, and feeling better than she had in a while. There was something deeply wrong with this.


[Door open, post open, for the love of god someone save her from herself.]

Jaina had gone out for her twenty-first birthday pretty much just to say she did it, even when the last thing she wanted to do these days was celebrate. And not only did she do it, but she did it well enough to wake up with a splitting headache when her alert buzzer went off. See, this was another reason she rarely drank like this; all the giggling and falling off of things (not that she'd done that) in the galaxy didn't make up for the aftermath.

After running through a technique to take away the worst of it, Jaina pulled her comlink and phone to her, because she still had messages to check, even if she wasn't getting up just yet. She was also still sore from yesterday's spar. Some degree of laziness was allowed. She rarely had messages on her phone anymore, so she was a little surprised to find one now. And then her heart did a little flip when she saw who it was from.

And then her stomach dropped when she remembered that she'd kind of initiated the whole thing.

She listened to it a couple times, then finally worked her way up to leaving one back before deciding maybe she should see how much she was up for in the gym. After a really greasy breakfast, some aspirin, and a gallon of water.


[Establishy, unless you wanna wait till 6!]

Even as much as she hated the lonely feeling she had going on lately, Jaina had been keeping to herself, filling her time mostly with work and training, as was good and proper. She'd also gotten in touch with her mother earlier, neglecting to mention anything that might have been important personally, an learned that- if her math was right- her birthday was Sunday. She was hoping she could just not tell anyone that and skip it, but since it'd be her twenty-first, she was betting that she'd never hear the end of it if she did that.

In a half-assed attempt at social, she'd left the door to her room cracked as she sat on the floor, taking apart pieces of an old computer she'd found in the junkyard. She didn't know what she was going to do with any of it, but it was mindless work and it made her feel nice and twelve.


[Door cracked, post open, entertain me! Today did not suck!]

In short, the time issue just got the better of them. Once Jaina got that voicemail from John last week, she knew things weren't going to work out. Not as long as he was still on fast forward. And really, she was new at this, but it had to be one of the weirdest breakups ever. Maybe it would have been easier if they'd yelled and ruined things forever, but they still loved each other, and it was obvious, and it was already making letting go that much harder. Odd, considering how much time she typically spent pushing people away. Odder was the fact that she didn't want everyone finding out, at least not now. It wasn't exactly something she wanted everyone hearing about on radio.

( cut, because i'm kind at 5 am. but only at 5 am. )


[Door closed, post is open if you're good with the usual SP. Watch totally not randomly stolen without permission.]

Jaina's Monday didn't start off any different than usual. Training, class, returning work calls, not necessarily in that order. When she got back to her room to check her messages and find out what she'd missed, she found a series of messages.

She saw the text first, which was confusing, and once she listened to both messages, she had a really bad feeling about this. There was only one other time she'd gotten that many messages from John in such a short amount of time without her replying back.

Which meant she was calling back and really hoping she got him and not his voicemail.


[For that guy, and up early for time zones and RL.]

There were always great things about date night. It was summer again out here, which was a still a little strange when it was just barely fall in Fandom, but it meant time in the pool with a hot shirtless boyfriend, so Jaina wasn't complaining. It also meant a trip to the pool hall (see what they did there?) so she could show off the mad skills she'd freshened up on during the Kellerman's trip.

"So," Jaina said after they selected a table, "what are we playing for?"


[For the challenger omg and yay sp.]

After getting in a spar with Jacen and seeing him off, Jaina didn't really feel like heading off to Fight Club. Instead she went back to her room for a shower, then collapsed on her bed, proud that between Jacen being around, meeting a tiny version of Wedge and an older Luke, having a conversation with her AU step-grandmother she was going to be older than soon, and several encounters with her older alternate universe boyfriend, no one had died.

That she knew of. She hadn't heard radio yet.

Not wanting to move off her bed, she pulled her phone to her hand, and called up Cuddle Bear's number.


[For the callee!]

Jaina was not the biggest fan of Fandom. At all. And she'd spent a week (mostly) silently freaking out about the weekend. Yet she was completely happy to show Jacen around and let him see where she'd spent so much of her time these last few years. She thought maybe she just hadn't realized how much having her brother back at school with her, if only for a weekend.

The bonus was that he wasn't a Jacen that wanted her dead.

She'd left him in order to make a call, and after meeting up with him again she decided to show him around the dorms. "So this is the war room," Jaina said, opening the door to her room.


[For the brother, but open!]

Jacen was going to be here this weekend, and Jaina was completely and totally worried about it. Ben and his version of Luke she didn't worry so much about (or she did, but she didn't expect any blowups from them), but she was going to worry about anything her grandfather might say right up until Jacen was on his way home.

And when there was something she didn't want to deal with, she completely avoided dealing with it. Which was why she was preparing to go on her second run of the day. There'd been handwavy time in the salle, too. Distraction was happy-making, or at least it helped her not freak out too much.


[Ping me. Door's half open, post totally is.]

As much as Jaina didn't want to admit it, there was some weird time stuff going on in her galaxy, too, because Han and Leia managed to drag her on a forced vacation to Mon Calamari for days. They were still freaked out, enough that she'd gone without (too much) complaint. And she'd gone stir crazy being out there with nothing to do. Her parents had finally taken pity and given her leave, though they insisted that she take it easy and just take a break already. This after she told them about Hawaii. They hadn't believed her.

Since she hadn't been able to pinpoint when she'd get where she was going thanks to all the time weirdness, she got to the apartment on her own, opening the door with her key and hoping John was around.

[For he who deals with her and yay SP! I'm done spamming, I swear. Because now I go to sleep.]

Once Jaina had called John to bitch, hey guess who wanted to see her. There were mixed feelings on this, yes. Especially if they were on his time, which meant she was stuck like this longer, though at least she'd still have time to get everything done she needed to do before tomorrow. You know. Like explaining to Wedge and Jag why she looked and sounded like Jacen. Though she was pretty sure Jacen had never looked this pissy.

Having agreed to meet up at the hotel, Jaina knocked on the door to the room, still hating everything. At least here she was relatively sure she could freak out with the management only telling her to shush once or twice, as opposed to somewhere embarrassingly public.


[For the boy... the real boy, and blissfully NFB for distance.]

To be completely honest, Jaina was in a really weird headspace today. She was two days away from a specific mission back home, trying to make sure everything was in order since she actually had time to prepare for once, and yet she really would rather be in California. Don't think there wouldn't be some serious denial of guilt over that. Add in the fact that out there another year had gone by in something like six weeks for her, and there were plenty of things she really didn't want to think about.

Which may have been why she did it. Somewhere between calls home, waiting for Jag to get back to her with a report on how Twin Suns was dealing with the drills she was putting them through, she found herself actually putting pictures up on her wall. She'd taken everything down and boxed up most of her things after Myrkr, but she didn't really think that way anymore. She didn't make specific plans anymore when she knew she was heading into something where things could go horribly wrong, but she didn't automatically assume she wasn't going to make it back. She just took it as a very real possibility instead. Still, putting up photos right before a mission? Weird headspace.

She didn't have a lot of pictures, anyway. She had very few holos from home, due to that whole middle-of-a-war thing, but there were a few more recent ones from Fandom and trips she'd taken with John that went up around that schedule he'd drawn up for his timeline. By the time she was done, it almost even looked like a normal person's dorm room.

Well okay, it was still way too bare for that, but it helped a little.

[Door half open, post totes open with the understanding that Firefox sucks like a Hoover to pings might be slow at times.]

There was something kind of comforting about making plans for a trip home (especially after that gremlin bite which was not to be mentioned), even if it now meant pulling out calendars and trying to work out timing. Even when she knew that she could very well end up staying longer at home than she meant to, since every time she seemed to get into some sort of trouble that kept her there and getting captured or nearly killed. Bring it on. It was a very wrong kind of normal, but it was a normal she needed sometimes.

Once she'd gotten things settled, she made a couple calls to let people know, and started playing with her phone to see if there was any way to schedule herself in there too. There had to be an app for this big a scale...


[Door and post are open!]

Jaina had been in an on-again, off-again bad mood all day, not that that was any different than normal. But the level of the irritation was new, because even as she sat on her bed reading through the latest report from home, she was about ready to hurt someone over that scratching noise she kept hearing.

Finally annoyed enough, she got up to follow the noise, which was coming from the grate just past her bed... and there was a little gremlin trying to pull a certain diamond necklace through said grate. The gremlin couldn't seem to turn it right to get it through, and though Jaina knew this was a bad idea, she did the stupidest thing she possibly could, and snatched the necklace before it could disappear, just because she didn't want that little bastard to have it.

And sure, okay, she might have taken a chomp to her finger, but... at least she won?

She completely blamed Layla Miller for this.

Omg I've been doing a lot of traveling this year, huh? I'm going to be gone again, as I am just about to leave for a weekend in DC! I'll be back on Monday night, but the hotel I'm staying at doesn't have free net in the rooms, so I can only get online if I wanna sit in the lobby, and I don't see myself being around a ton anyway.

So. Jaina is visiting John and can be modded at will, Mirax is home for the weekend, Angela escaped to home for the weekend, Aeryn's off island anyway and Lily totes can squish spiders for Marshall all he wants. I should be able to ping the kids in to classes and work and yadda yadda yadda.

And so everyone is aware, why yes, I did use fh_trips to figure out where I wanted to go. Sad or awesome? You decide.

Between spending days chasing after the universe's cutest three-year-old and following that up with a technical anniversary, Jaina had had a pretty damn good extended weekend. Which meant that once she'd knocked out some training time, she was dying for something to do.

So she spent a good amount of time on the comm with Jag, insisting that she get more stuff passed on to her, which led to a lot of "It's not meant as a slight, it's just easier if I get it done" from him, which in turn led to a comment of "Then if I'm not busy here, I guess it's not a big deal if I spend more time at John's," and half an hour later she had more stuff to do than she had in weeks.

Maybe later she'd feel bad about being a manipulative ho, but that was later.


[Mainly establishy, but the door's open if you wanna talk to heeeeer.]

For as much as Jaina was still kind of missing a certain little boy (and his siblings, shh), it was nice to get back to something a little more normal, even if it was entirely abnormal to others. But then again, how many of them got to celebrate a two year anniversary for six days? Technically speaking, between her sped-up time and his sped-up time, it had been much longer than just two years, which was why the Fandom date was the one that really counted: there was really no other way to work out the time. Might as well go the easy way.

Tonight Jaina had gone the simple route. When John got home, he'd find dinner was ready- takeout, but it was on actual plates so it was like she cooked- and music playing, and a girlfriend who probably shouldn't have put this out as early as she did, because it gave her free time to realize that "It's a Small World" was still in her head.

[I totally modded the boy. Mwahahahahaha.]

While this weekend had had its good points, it had also had its bad, and by Monday Jaina had figured that she'd put off resolving one of those issues long enough. Namely, setting things straight with her mother.

( cut for call )

Roughly half an hour later, Jaina had placed a call to Jacen begging forgiveness, and a call to John, and was really wondering who she had to yell at.



[Omg I had to. Door and post can be open post-call.]

Jaina kind of really liked the times she and John obviously had nothing better to do with their time. It was a nice change of pace for her, one she really only let herself enjoy when she was here, And it led to things like going out and getting nail polish. Not because she was going girly on anyone, but because she kind of didn't mind that kind of attention. And thank you for that, Walter Jon Williams. *eyeroll*

When they got back to the apartment, Jaina guessed, "Probably not worth doing this out in the open, huh?"


[Omg you know how this goes by now.]

It was really very, very weird that Jaina was doing as well as she was these days. For having a long-distance relationship she'd been so worried about at the beginning, it was actually going really well. And the time there allowed her time to relax without work being able to catch up to her. She'd even sort of had a vacation. Yes. In some reality Earth probably just spun off its axis into the sun and it was all Jaina's fault.

Which meant when she actually had a flood of messages and work to catch up on, it elt a little more normal. Or a lot more normal, and she'd been busy today, which was why she missed the call.

And immediately Jaina was getting to her feet to check on the fish John had left to her when he'd gone... and there it was, floating at the top of the water. She'd been pretty good about making sure it was fed and all so far, but between all the up and back and time lag she must have just forgotten. Cursing, she picked up a pen, pointing the non-writing end at the ex-fish, just in case it was enough to spur it into moving again, but no luck. There were better reasons to have to call.

At least it had taken her a month?


[I HAD TO. Post can totes be open. Door too.]

Apparently this was the week for Vegas or something. John was on spring break, and since Jaina seemed to be commuting for her weekends anyway, they needed to go somewhere that wasn't San Diego. For some reason. She didn't even know.

She kind of felt comfortable here, too. While the party side of things didn't really appeal to her, she was used to the lights and the noise and the crowds, and she didn't see a lot of that anymore. Plus it gave her a chance to clean up at the poker table and then wander around where she wasn't worried that security was checking them out. (She was doing nothing wrong. She was just good, okay?) And it just so happened that some of the wandering was done past stores that led to comments like, "This city just specializes in hookerwear, doesn't it?"


[For the boy!]

It was part time lag, part restlessness that had Jaina up already and raring to go. She still didn't know what had happened last week, though she'd figured out that something had, and apparently she'd developed an instinct to check up on Ben and Tahiri or something, to make sure they were okay. She knew where Tahiri was, Ben not so much, and she was actually fairly annoyed with herself for starting to worry there.

She set out early for the gym, figuring she'd get in some time before classes, but once she opened the door she found herself slightly distracted by the flowers set outside. Suddenly last night's conversation made more sense. She picked them up to set them on her desk, placing a quick call. Two years in and she was actually feeling more invested. That just wasn't right.


[Establishy.]

To be completely honest, Jaina had spent a large part of her visit (namely, the parts when John wasn't around) bored out of her mind. Time moved too fast for work to catch up to her here, and she was dying to find someplace she could actually practice lightsaber drills. But time alone while he was at school or training meant she was expanding her horizons a bit. Or at least it meant that she got bored enough to attempt dinner on her own, even if it was just pasta. She was relatively sure she couldn't food poison anyone with it.


[For the boooooooooy.]

Having finally gotten back onto a normal sleeping schedule almost just in time to mess it all up again, Jaina was up early and getting ready to head down to the gym for a bit when the thought hit her, completely out of nowhere as she was doing something as simple as pulling her hair back into a braid: she'd just gone three days without a nightmare. Or at least, she hadn't remembered it, and that made this the longest stretch of time without since it'd started.

Oddly, she sort of felt guilty about it. Like now that she knew what had been happening with her the last few weeks, she shouldn't be getting over everything.

No, she corrected herself. You didn't get over watching your little brother die. And there was really no need to feel bad about the fact that she didn't seem to be constantly subconsciously reliving it now. Logically she knew this, of course, but it might take a bit to sink in.

Shaking it off, because it was way too early for this, she finished pulling her hair back and set off to work some of this out.


[Establishy.]