Jaina Solo is holding out for a hero (jainasolo) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2015-01-21 10:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, jaina solo, mara jade |
Who: Jaina and Mara
When: 17 January, Saturday
Where: Brew Ha Ha
What: Chatting
Rating: Lowish
Jaina had been looking forward to spending some time with her aunt. Since she’d arrived, there had been a lot of things to deal with, including the freakish timeline, then the holidays which she still wasn’t completely sure she understood and there hadn’t been much time. Today though they were going to meet for coffee and finally sit down to have a conversation. Which was a good thing since Jaina had a lot of things she wanted to ask her. She breezed into the coffee shop and looked around for Mara who wasn’t there yet. Jaina walked up to the counter and ordered something that sounded good and once she had gotten it, she went to take a seat at a table close enough to the door so that Mara could see her. It wasn’t long until she spotted her walking in and Jaina waved at her then waited while her aunt ordered her own drink. Or was she her aunt here? Jaina didn’t know how that worked but as far as she was concerned, nothing had changed. It was just easier that way. The coffee retrieved, Mara walked towards her niece. Jaina was from around the same age she had been before, but so much had happened since then - including Mara actually learning more about the future she hadn't lived but Jaina had - that this was a different meeting on different terms and with different situations attached to it. In particular Jacen's arrival and that future was on Mara's mind, and Mara suspected also on Jaina's, even if Jaina didn't mention it. Mara sat down across from Jaina and sat her coffee down on the table in front of her. She offered Jaina a quick smile. "I hope you haven't been waiting too long. I didn't get on the initial train I wanted to for coming into the Tower." She paused and reached over and gave Jaina's hand a squeeze. "It's really good to see you again. How have you been settling in?" “It’s okay. I haven’t been here long. I go running every morning and I ran up to take a shower so I thought maybe you’d beat me here,” she squeezed her aunt’s hand and smiled. “It’s good to see you too. We didn’t get to talk much on Christmas. It was kind of crazy.” Jaina picked up her coffee and took a sip. “I’m doing okay. I’ve made a few friends, I start work with SHIELD soon. A lot of paperwork from what I understand for the first few days. I also need to sign up for pilot lessons. I’m excited about that.” She glanced out the window at the traffic then back at Mara. “I should probably learn how to drive one of those things, shouldn’t I? Although I’d rather be in the air than on the ground.” That was just a basic fact of life with Jaina. If she could fly it, she’d rather be in it. “The best part about all this? Getting to see Anakin again. He stays with me a lot, I think that’s easier for him right now.” "So would I," Mara said with a grin. "But it's not hard, just different than anything we'd fly at home - even air transports, it's different than. But sign yourself up for lessons and you'll have it pretty quickly I've no doubt. And with SHIELD you may have the opportunity to do some training on other types of transports - air transports. It wouldn't surprise me anyway." She looked Jaina over and nodded briefly. "All of the time that I've been here, you've shown up when everyone is here, and that's been a bit rare. But I'm so glad Anakin is here as well. Perhaps he'll get to stay as long as I have - or even longer. He deserves that chance, doesn't he?" Mara's eyes twinkled at that point and she turned back to another topic. "So how was your running?" “He does. I hope he gets that.” Losing her younger brother had been devastating and Jaina hoped that he got the chance to live the life here that he wouldn’t get to live at home. “Running was fun. I run with a guy named Finnick. He’s about my age. We came the same day actually, that’s how I met him. We were both posting on the network the same night. He wanted someone to run with and I needed to do something...I was getting restless...so that’s how that happened. He’s nice.” Jaina shrugged. There was nothing going on between them even though she would certainly not deny that Finnick was gorgeous. No, they were friends, nothing more. Mara took a sip of her coffee and nodded. She was glad to see Jaina having time to settle in. One of the things that had helped her most during those first few months had been meeting people she didn't know from home. The people from home had been good in their own way and helpful, but the discrepancies in timelines and knowledge and relationships made for some discomfort as well and it was nice to bond with others that were feeling the same thing at that particular time. She'd noticed that Jaina seemed to attract some masculine attention - something that didn't surprise her exactly. Jaina had her mother's good looks and her father's charisma and it was unsurprising that had made people look. She smiled though. "Some of my closest friends here are people who I met in a similar situation, so it's good that you're meeting people. And how is your coffee? Have you found the perfect drink yet?" “Well I’ve tried a few things,” she said. “but I’m leaning toward white chocolate mocha which is funny since chocolate is not white but I like it.” Jaina held up her cup. “that’s what I’ve got here actually. I saw someone the other day drinking some kind of green something but I didn’t want any part of that. It looked disgusting.” she pulled a face. “although I’m sure the people here would think that blue milk was disgusting and that’s what we have at home. I was a little freaked to find out it was white.” She was learning that a lot of things weren’t exactly the same here. “The music, it’s way different. I’ve poked around online a little and some of it doesn’t even sound like music.” "A decent choice, the white chocolate mocha I mean," Mara nodded. "I tend to go black more often than not although it depends on whether or not they've got a decent roast in the shop - if it's not, the syrup is necessary to hide the flavour." She grinned. "I may have become a bit of a coffee snob over the past two years, but I blame local friends. A year ago it was all just coffee - sort of like caf - some of it a bit better than others, but I hadn't taken the time to figure out what or how it was different. I immersed myself in Netflix for a while after first getting here - just watching things randomly to get a feel for what the culture was like. It was interesting, some of it very similar to home, some of it not, all of it just the edge of foreign. But I think one of the most disorienting things was how little I knew of the culture. I'm used to being able to blend into local culture much better than I could here when I first arrived. It's gotten better though." She raised her coffee to her lips and took a sip, her thoughts turning to things more serious. A conversational topic that wasn't likely to go away anytime soon so they might as well address the tauntaun in the room and move over it. "Have you spoken with Jacen yet?" “I haven’t spent much time on Netflix yet but I plan to. There are some things on there that look interesting. Anakin wants us to take a class on the history of this world and the culture too. I think it’s a good idea. I’d like to learn more about it instead of having to ask people what they’re talking about when they bring up something. Like the Spanish Inquisition,” Jaina laughed and shook her head. “I did look that up and wished I hadn’t. Not something I would want to have been around for. And it sounded a little bit too familiar to some of the things that have happened back home.” She took a sip of her drink and tried to figure out how to answer Mara’s question. They had to talk about Jacen, she knew that but Jaina still didn’t know what to say about her brother. “Not much actually. A little bit at Christmas but he’s still blocking me. It’s for my own good, he says. He wants to be sure he’s ready for it when we talk.” Jaina looked up. “I mean I get it, I do kill him after all but it’s strange not being connected to him. I’m used to us essentially being one entity. it feels like half of me is not there.” The coffee was warm in Mara's hands as she kept her hands wrapped around the cup and watched her niece carefully. Her memories from home remembered a girl of not more than 11 years, but she'd known Jaina on this side of the tesseract before, and she had read far into her future. Those memories from home were wrapped in memories of here and memories she had not yet known and a future that had more than one or two challenges. She knew how close she and Luke were in the Force, she knew how close Luke was with his sister - and the two did not even share the same from-birth Force knowledge that Jaina and Jacen had shared. Mara had no doubt it was a little unsettling. she knew the two had been in the same area at Christmas, but that was different than a one-on-one conversation, something she had not even done in person with her nephew, only over the network. "Have you thought about what you're going to say to him?" Mara asked. "It does feel that he's… trying here. I've gotten that sense, although it's difficult to know motives, or to trust what he says entirely." She pushed hair behind her ear and put the coffee down. "I think only time will tell us for certain." The worry of course being that the Jaina that killed her brother was a much different woman from the one in front of Mara. They were all different, and if Jacen should decide to create problems… well Mara Jade had never been one to go into something unprepared, and right now that meant dealing with the idea that he might, while hoping that he wouldn't. “Yeah, I’ve thought about it a lot,” she said. “I mean where do you start with something like that? He says he wants to explain things so I guess that’s a start. I’ve read things but that’s not the same. He’s the only one who can really tell me what was going on in his head.” Jaina shook her head. “Uncle Luke says that he doesn’t think he’s dangerous and I believe him. He’d tell us if he thought he was especially because of what happened….well what happens to you. If he thought Jacen was going to hurt any of us, he wouldn’t have taken him in, I know that.” That was one thing Jaina knew she could count on. Her uncle would never let anything happen to them especially not to Mara. “He’s so much older than me right now. That feels strange. Jacen has memories of thing that I haven’t even lived through yet so talking to me is going to be as strange for him as it is for me I guess. I keep thinking that he’s the Jacen I saw right before I ended up here but then I see him and I remember that he’s not. This is not the brother that I remember.” She closed her eyes and rubbed her head for a moment before looking up again. “It give me a headache, all these timelines and age differences. I suppose you get used to it after a while though but right now I’m still feeling a little overwhelmed. I just….well you know me. I don’t like to admit that. I’m too much like my father.” There was empathy in Mara's countenance as she listened to Jaina. She'd dealt with her own variations of timelines over the past two years but none of them had been quite as awkward as the set recently. Between Luke coming in so close to her own timeline, and Jacen showing up from far in her future, she had a fair idea of what it was like - if not precisely. She couldn't know precisely after all. She didn't have siblings, and those who might fill that role didn't connect to her in the Force as Jaina and Jacen had been able to do once. "You do, a bit, and then something shakes it up again," she offered calmly. "It is overwhelming, and sometimes discouraging, and sometimes it will break your heart, but you're a strong woman Jaina Solo, and I know you can keep on despite that strangeness." Mara took a moment and put the coffee cup down on the edge of the table. "It isn't the brother you remember, but you're not the sister he remembers either. Not exactly. And the longer you are here the further you are changed from that person and the further he will be as well. But the Force still works here and it still will help us if we listen to it. And sometimes I wonder if it's not… purposeful all of us being here. I don't always like to put much stock in fate and destiny, but it does seem we've been given a unique opportunity - all of us - with how things have gone recently. Make certain you're ready to talk to him too. It's not just about him being ready to talk to you. That works both ways." Jaina listened to her aunt’s words. They made sense. She could see that in some ways Mara wasn’t the person she remembered but she could also see that in some ways she hadn’t changed at all. “You have to adapt, don’t you? To being here,” she waved a hand to indicate the general direction of the world around them. “and you’re right. I’m not sure when I’ll be ready. I want to be because I want to understand this but I’m a little scared too because I don’t like to think about what he did, what he might still be capable of doing. With Anakin it’s easier. It’s just so good to have him back, to see him happy” She couldn’t help but smile as she spoke of her younger brother. “he’s getting a second chance and nobody deserves it more.” She picked up her drink and took a sip, trying to hide the tears that came to her eyes at the thought of what had happened to Anakin at home. Not that she’d fool Mara and Jaina knew that. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe the Force did bring us all here from these different points for a reason. We’ll never have another chance like it that’s for sure.” She took a deep breath and decided to ask the question that had been on her mind since she’d gotten here. “I have to ask and I’m sorry if this is awkward but what is the deal with you and Uncle Luke? I know you’ve been here for a while, I know you’re seeing someone else but when I see you and Uncle Luke together, it doesn’t feel any different. In the Force I mean. It feels the same even though I can tell it’s not.” Everything Jaina said made sense and Mara nodded as she spoke. Adaptation was something you had to do everywhere, but when you shifted your world so radically it was even more important. And for herself, for Jaina, for everyone from their reality - this was a radical shift. It wasn't the same as at home. For others who came through from other realities more similar to this one, the shift was more about missing people at home, less about learning an entirely new world and culture. Add on top of that shift, one of such drastic knowledge about one's future - it was challenging, but Mara had every confidence that Jaina was up to the task. She'd always done so well. She smiled at Jaina's words about Anakin, but the smile froze a little at the next question. Mara sat back in her chair, her eyes on Jaina's face for a minute, her natural inclination towards hiding emotions and closing off kicking in almost automatically. It hadn't been a question that she'd been expecting although she supposed it was only a matter of time before it came from one of them. Anakin had taken in stride that she and Luke weren't married and hadn't seemed to ask any questions beyond that. Jacen hadn't appeared to notice, although she had no doubt that he had -- he was certainly clever and observant enough to recognize that. No, of course it would come from Jaina. The two of them had been close, Jaina one of her Jedi apprentices, and would perhaps have known her better than any of the three. "It's... Your Uncle and I have always had a connection. For most of my memory, it's been friendship, or frustration. When I first arrived, it was actually just after Wayland for me. Your Uncle was here, but was just barely off of Tatooine. And it was that way for a long time. At some point in that first autumn, I got memories overnight - nearly ten years worth including the memory of Luke's proposal, and the connection that came with it. But at the time it was just me that felt that. And then I was here all alone and I honestly suspected it might be that way for some time - I made peace with that, and in the process I found a man who cared for me. "I didn't expect to fall in love with that man, and I didn't expect your Uncle to ever show up again. However I did, and he did, but the emotional connection we share is still there. That's likely what you feel in the Force. It's a different relationship - we aren't engaged, or married here - but he is still one of my closest friends…" she paused and tilted her head in Jaina's direction, a somewhat sad smile crossing her lips. "And in learning about my future, I've learned it's not a good idea to push him out of my life -- whatever the reason. He's here. We're still family. Just like you are." She reached a hand over and covered Jaina's momentarily. “But you love him,” it wasn’t a question. Jaina could sense it but she needed to make sense of it. “I understand that you didn’t know he was going to show up, I mean how could you? It’s just weird. It’s always been the two of you ever since i can remember. Even before you got together, you were around, I have memories of you. I didn’t get it of course because I was a kid but I always wondered why you spent so much time pissing each other off.” She shook her head and laughed. “Maybe that’s true love. Maybe when I find the guy who pisses me off the most..that isn’t related to me of course because Jacen will always win that prize....that’ll be the man I marry.” She squeezed her aunt’s hand. “I’m not going to pretend I completely understand it but I do think you’re right. We all need each other right now. We’re the only ones who get what it means to be us.” And that certainly came with a lot of baggage as she was beginning to understand. Jaina grinned as something Mara had said hit her. “Fresh off Tatooine? Oh my god. He really was a farmboy then? I wish I could have seen that.” Mara didn't confirm or deny. She didn't need to and she realized that. Of course she loved Luke. She had never really stopped loving him, and the entire point of having a casual relationship had been that she'd be able to disentangle if she needed to. And then it had stopped being casual, and when that had happened Mara couldn't say. She couldn't regret that change though. It had meant that Nick had been gifted with a partner through these last horrible months, and she'd had the opportunity to help people she wouldn't have been otherwise in a position to help. At times it might feel extremely strange, but it was not a regret. She did love Luke. She just wasn't with Luke, and she was beginning to get used to the odd discongruity of her life. She couldn't precisely blame anyone else for not getting used to it though. "I don't know that I completely understand," Mara admitted to her niece. "But it is the current way of things, and as best I can tell it's how things should be right now." She grinned at Jaina's last comment "And yes, he was very much still a farmboy. None of the experiences of the Death Star, or the rebellion. In some ways a very different person, and in some ways, not so different. It was rather interesting." “Well that’s good. At least we can all be confused together,” she grinned. “Oh man I’d have loved to see Uncle Luke in Farmboy Mode. I haven’t watched the movies but I’ve googled some stuff and I’ve seen what he looked like. The hair...I can’t even.” Jaina loved her uncle dearly but she couldn’t get over how different he looked. “speaking of hair, Mom and those buns? Kriff, I couldn’t stop laughing. Dad doesn’t look that much different just a little older. I kind of want to ask Mom about that iron bikini but I don’t know how she’d feel about that. I wonder if Anakin’s seen that? He’d probably never recover.” Jaina made a mental note to show him the picture she’d found just because she could. “I’m glad you’re still friends at least. The two of you couldn’t exist without each other if that makes any sense. I’m old enough to understand that now. Even if you aren’t together here, you’re still together because like you said, we’re all family.” she squeezed Mara’s hand. “and you’re still my aunt even if technically you aren’t besides in our family we don’t worry about technicalities.” There was a grin from Mara. Farmboy Skywalker might have proven occasionally bewildering and frequently frustrating, but then again, when didn't Skywalker prove occasionally frustrating - even Jedi Master Skywalker, certain Arrogant Jedi Skywalker. And his hair had been, dare she say it? Adorable? No. she wouldn't say it to Jaina, it was the sort of information that Jaina could live without, and instead she lifted her cup to her lips, her eyes twinkling mischief. "Those were all the fashion in Imperial City when your mother was your age," she said. "Times change, fashions change, people change, a bit anyway, but I'm sure she'd show you how to put them together if you'd like." And now Mara was teasing her niece at least a little. But she knew Jaina could handle it. And she was right about something - they were all family still. Marriage or not, these people were an intricate part of Mara's life, whether they remembered being so or not. And Mara had received memories and lived enough in this reality that she couldn't imagine her life without it having Skywalkers and Solos as a part of it - even in their absence, they had influenced her in ways too numerous to count. "So tell me," Mara said, putting her cup down and turning the conversation to something less serious. "This young man you've been running with, is he nice?" |