Who? Jaina & Gabriel What? Srs conversations. Or, at least, that's the plan. We'll see how that goes. Where? Some random Lawrence park. When? Tonight! Rating? Not terrifying.
There were a lot of things on Jaina’s mind, lately. Top of the list at the moment was, of course, the latest argument with Jacen - and Allana’s question about whether or not Gabriel would actually hurt Jacen. It had gone from the question it really was to something else entirely in her head, from would he really...? to something more complicated and harder to put into words. It was hard to figure out what she was supposed to do, here - being caught between her family and the angel she’d fallen for was far from an ideal situation, because she didn’t want to have to give up either of them. She wanted both - and she didn’t completely understand why no one else seemed to think that was even an option.
Or, no, okay - most of the family didn’t seem to be anti-Gabriel, so much as they were sort of put-off by her behavior lately. Which, yeah, it hadn’t been her best, and she knew it. She was trying to fix that - but it wasn’t that simple when Jacen clearly hated Gabriel, kept saying things about how he wanted to kill the angel; it wasn’t simple because sometimes she was sure Anakin was scared of her, could feel that thread of unease in him that made her pull away. It made it harder to feel like trying to make it better when she kept thinking maybe it would be better for all of them if she wasn’t around. Jacen would be happier - he didn’t need her, and he only saw her as his killer; Ani wouldn’t have to be afraid if she edged a little outside what he remembered.
Allana still seemed to need her, even though Jaina was clearly failing her and all the rest of them. Cade had needed her, and she’d screwed that up - and now he was gone, so it wasn’t like she could even really fix it, now that she understood what she’d done. He was back in some world where he had no family that cared about him, and Jaina wasn’t even sure if she’d be able to change the future if or when she was sent back home. Stop Jacen without having to kill him, get rid of the Sith before they rose to power, keep things settled and keep the family together....
...how was she supposed to keep her family together and unbroken in the future if she couldn’t even do it here?
And then there was Gabriel - she still didn’t think she was wrong about him. He wasn’t going to simply change overnight, but he was changing - he’d even admitted to caring about her, and about the rest of the world. He’d said he didn’t want Lucifer to win. Sure, he didn’t want to fight his brother (she couldn’t blame him for that; the idea of ever fighting Jacen with the intent to actually kill him made her feel sick. Sword of the Jedi, and that was her fate, wasn’t it? If she couldn’t change anything, if she went home, that would be her in a couple of years), but he’d admitted that he’d rather save the Earth than let the angels wipe it clean.
He wasn’t like the rest of the angels, and he wasn’t like the demons, and he wasn’t like the humans. He was something else entirely - the Trickster, maybe, and maybe that was why they fit so well, because neither of them were who they were ‘supposed to be’, new identities wrapped up in deception and avoidance. He was a lot further in it than she ever had been, of course, but she’d had people around her to pull her out - and he didn’t, he was alone for a long time, hiding from his family and his enemies and forcing himself into a new shape that had never been meant to fit him but somehow still did. All that time, alone...
Now she was around, and she wasn’t going to let him go if she could help it, but she was just one person fighting to pull him out of something that had been going on for centuries longer than she’d even been alive. It was likely she’d never live long enough to really see him out of it - she was only human, after all, and the world was ending and there was a seal between worlds just biding its time waiting to pull her back - but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try.
And it wasn’t about changing who he was - it was about setting him back to how he was meant to be, before whatever had happened in Heaven to make him leave and put up defenses all around himself. She was sure his visit to that world where Lucifer had never fallen hadn’t helped anything for him - if anything, it had probably made things harder on him. She would help, though. She had to.
But she couldn’t do that if he didn’t let her, and she couldn’t do that if he got himself killed over some stupid joke or because of her brother’s hatred of him. Without Jacen supporting Sam, and with a little more time to try to get Gabriel to understand, she was pretty sure she could talk Sam down - figure out some way to explain to him what the situation really was, and yeah, maybe he’d never stop hating the angel, and honestly he probably had the right to hate him - but maybe at least he’d see Gabriel as useful enough to keep alive. He was far more important to Jaina than just useful, but she’d take what she could get from anyone else at this point.
Right now, though, Gabriel was making things worse with the Winchester. He’d just turned Sam’s wife human - which, without knowing the implications of it, could have passed for a good thing. But it wasn’t - Ruby had been asking to be turned back and he’d refused. She was vulnerable now, and Sam already had a grudge, and the two combined was... well, it wasn’t going to be good. Gabriel needed to put the demon back to how she belonged, and he needed to stay away or lie low until it blew over.
The odds of that actually happening, though...
Jaina sighed and ran a hand across her face, brushing hair out of her eyes. She’d gone for a walk - mostly to get her thoughts in order (which... hadn’t exactly been a resounding success), but a little bit of the reason she’d left her apartment was so that when she had them collected, she’d be able to call Gabriel to her without having to fuss with the sigils and wards she’d have to break to get him there, and then replace.
Calling him to her made her feel almost at peace, even with everything inside all in chaos. It was like calling across her bond with Jacen, except it was different - it was like meditation, too, the soothing effect of reaching out and reaching in at the same time, calling and quieting... She supposed the simplest way to explain it was that it was a prayer a touched through with the Force to make her voice stand out to him. She'd never been one for prayer, it hadn't really been the Jedi way - they had the Force, they didn't need deities - but this was ...nice.
She leaned against the corner of the pillar that held up the roof of the gazebo she’d wandered up to, cement cold against her back, and waited for the flash of white-gold across her mind that would announce his presence, that would say he’d listened to her call and come to her; every time he came through when she needed him here was another bit of evidence in her case that he was worth saving.