He knew the theory of the game at least. Chess, it was like a poor man's sabbac and he wasn't about to interrupt the unfinished game unless she asked him to. If she'd been playing with Anatoly then he knew it should stay that way. The man was a champion of the game, he knew that much. Maybe there was something to the layout of the board. Either way that wasn't why he was here. And as such the former Sith Lord moved to sit near her once she'd tuned to face him and watched her. Oh she wasn't okay, far from it, but he figured that came par for the course with what had been done to her.
"They are. Its a busy time, and a lot of people have a lot of reasons for the fluster. But its really hit down here badly. Anatoly has had to take some time to rest and see his family, and John..." Well, what really could he say there. Jacen didn't understand the man's grief. Not really. Oh he knew it happened, he knew grief well, he'd felt it for Anakin, Chewie, so many good friends lost. But to let it best you so completely. He didn't understand that. Perhaps he might have once, a long time ago. Before the Embrace, before Vergere and Lumiya.
"He's had to leave his work here." he finished simply. "So I thought I'd come see you. It was too busy before and you were still sleeping. But now that you're not we can talk, or I can try to help calm you if you'd like that? You remember what we used to do, with our minds. I'd show you how I do it, how I block out the voices and you'd copy me."
He'd taught the River before this one, they'd been making progress before the seal had snatched her and sent her from a time where she held no memory of being here, of him. It was probably for the best, at the start a part of him had seen her as a replacement for Tahiri. A weapon. But he was long since past thoughts like that now, at least past any thought of giving in.
"What would you like to do? I'm here for as long as you want me to be"