InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "DY-NO-MIIITE!"

Mara Jade Skywalker is always surprising you (lifeyoulive) wrote in wariscoming,
@ 2012-11-25 02:04:00

Entry tags:

jaina solo, mara jade skywalker

Who: Jaina and Mara
What: Mara is trying to get Jaina to open up and talk about things.
When: Backdated slightly to Saturday evening
Where: Their motel room
Warnings: Jaina feels, possible language, but otherwise should be low?

There had been several reasons Mara had offered to join Jaina on this hunt. One of them was that Mara didn't like these long periods of inactivity. She didn't like sitting still for too long without something constructive to do. So a hunt seemed like a good idea. Another reason was because she was worried about her niece. She'd given her distance ever since Gabriel had been taken away, but now she had a plan to try and get Jaina to open up to her. The Jedi Master was fairly certain she was the only one of their family that Jaina would even consider opening up to in such a manner. But of course, Mara would approach the subject carefully in a way where Jaina wouldn't be on the defensive from the get go. As much as Jaina may pretend she was fine, Mara knew better, and she didn't even need the Force to know that. Jaina had been her apprentice once, and she knew her well. She didn't care if Jacen would get uppity with her for enabling Jaina to take another hunt, Mara had a plan, and if Jacen wanted his sister to talk, then he would just need to accept that it would take getting Jaina away from a place of stress and into a different situation. Though Mara knew she needed to tread a thin line in this matter. While in some ways this felt like old training missions her and Jaina would go on, it was not. Mara also was not Jaina's mother, so she had to keep her maternal side in check. She was an aunt, a potential confidant, and that is the path she needed to take. This wouldn't work if Jaina felt bullied or pressured into talking.

The hunt was fairly straight forward. There was a ghost, so it was just a matter of salting and burning the remains. The day had been spent gathering intel around the town, inquiring about the deaths and place that was haunted. Even with a straight forward hunt like this, one couldn't be too careful. Mara had gathered some files and old newspaper articles relating to the case they were working. She'd read through some of them earlier, then passed them on to Jaina to read. Brushing a hand through her red hair, Mara glanced at the clock in the room. Getting some food would be a good idea. Jaina may think she hadn't noticed, but Mara had made note of what she'd seen Jaina eat since they set out, which was very little. Her niece was living on coffee, it seemed. That most certainly needed to change, though again Mara would try for the subtle approach.

"I was thinking of grabbing some food, did you want anything?" Mara was fairly certain she knew what Jaina would respond with, but it would at least open up lines of communication. Mara was also incredibly persistent and stubborn when she got something into her head that she wished to accomplish. It was more a matter of how much Jaina would resist taking care of herself. The Jedi Master had also noticed Jaina wasn't sleeping much, if at all. But one thing at a time, really. She'd see if she could interest Jaina in eating anything.

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tricksterjaina
2012-11-25 09:26 pm UTC (link)

Things were better, and they were worse. Better, in that Jaina was finally falling out of the restlessness that had been a problem for a while, now (she refused to think in lengths of time, anymore, didn't want to know how long it had ben), the need to keep moving was decreasing as long as she had something else to think about.

It was also worse, though, because the holidays were just hard, between Gabriel's absence, and Anakin's return to their world (return to his death). It was difficult not to think about one or the other, even when she tried to pointedly not think about them. Last year, they'd been here. Now, they weren't. Anakin was dead. Gabriel was... well, she didn't know what had happened to him. Where he had gone, when the seal took him.

Not knowing almost made it worse.

She had been trying, at first, to keep her distance from the rest of her family. If the rest of them were sent home, she didn't want to feel it as intensely. How could she deal with that, too? But the effort of holding herself at a distance was becoming too much to deal with on top of the ongoing lonliness, and, well, that was never really going to work, was it?

So she'd tried. And she was almost sure she regretted trying more than not trying, because now her uncle's words were bouncing around in her head, and if anyone knew anything about loss, it was Luke. But she was in no way ready to think about what he'd said.

So Jaina was currently throwing herself at this case the way she'd thrown herself at the drive up here (north, of course they were further north, because they couldn't possibly have gone somewhere warmer, and now it was snowing, white flakes hitting the window and she wasn't going to think). Shuffling papers handed to her, reading through everything, putting the pieces together where they seemed to go and looking for what went in the blank spaces (don't think about the blank spaces). She could do this.

>"I was thinking of grabbing some food, did you want anything?" her aunt's voice pulled her out of her own head for a moment, and out of the pages she was reading, and she looked up distractedly, and shrugged.

"I'm not really hungry," she offered with another shrug, and she dropped her eyes back down to the pages in front of her. This was nothing new. Not surprising, either, though, considering they were reading about people's lungs being ripped out by ghosts. That was a fair excuse, wasn't it? She shuffled the papers around again, setting them aside and flipping the laptop beside her open. "Maybe some coffee, though. All these news reports are getting blurry."

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lifeyoulive
2012-11-26 11:50 am UTC (link)

Even if they hadn't been reading details of people's lungs being ripped out by ghosts, Mara had expected that to be Jaina's response. As much as Mara's maternal instincts were screaming at her to get Jaina to eat a decent meal and get a good night's sleep, the Jedi Master needed to approach this in a subtle way. If Ben were there, she would have no hesitation smothering him with her maternal instincts to get him to take care of himself. But Jaina was her niece, not her daughter, and she wasn't about to act like it. There was a fine line between a concerned aunt and an overbearing aunt who was trying to act like a mother.

"All right, I'll be back in a few minutes." There had been a 24-mart across the street Mara had spied earlier. No doubt she could find some decent kind of food there. Standing up, Mara ensured she had enough money and slipping her coat on, she slid her lightsaber into an inside pocket of the jacket. One could never be too careful just crossing a street. "No making breakthroughs in the case at hand while I'm gone," Mara added with a little smirk before she slipped out the door. She was fairly certain if Jaina found what they needed while Mara was gone that her niece would at least wait for her to get back instead of running off to do it herself. Well okay, maybe she was more like relatively certain of this.

Crossing the street, Mara entered the mart and perused the aisles. She was going to ensure Jaina ate something that was half way decent. In the end, Mara settled for getting a cup of the soup of the day, which seemed to be chicken noodle or some variation thereof, a salad and a couple sandwiches, one ham, one turkey. She spent a minute or two debating with herself over whether she should give Jaina a coffee or not, but she figured one thing at a time. Food first, sleep later. If anything, Mara could always dose Jaina's drink with a sleeping aid. She grabbed two coffees, purchased everything, and carefully carried it all back to their room. Carefully, she opened the door and stepped in, closing it with her elbow.

Walking over to the table, she set her own coffee down, along with the bag of food, then handed Jaina her coffee. After that, she pulled out the turkey sandwich and began unwrapping it, sitting back down where she'd been before.

"Find anything out?" She was making conversation while she surreptitiously kept an eye on whether Jaina would bite on any of the other food or not. Taking a bite of her sandwich, Mara began glancing over what she'd been reading before.

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