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Jaina sat bolt upright, pulling her knees to her chest and gasping for air. She felt wet, although she didn’t know why, and she scrubbed at her face with her blanket. Instinctively she reached out for her twin bond with Jacen, but of course that was empty. Reality slowly sunk in as she worked on steadying her breathing. She was safe, she was in bed, she was crying, and she wasn’t entirely sure why. A glance at her chrono showed that it wasn’t even 0400 yet. She laid back down, only to find that her pillow was gone. Not bothering to look for it, she just used her arm as a pillow as she curled up tightly into a ball and tried to clear her mind of her nightmares. The Jedi had so many techniques for meditating and none of them were working. Even though she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what the nightmare was, the anger and anxiety and terror remained. She kept her breathing as steadily as she could and she shut her eyes.
An hour of tossing and turning while being wide awake was her reward, and eventually she gave up. She pulled herself out of bed and stretched for a moment before starting a pot of caf. She found the missing pillow and put it back in its correct place as she neatly made her bed. Jaina pulled on some clothes, and did some static stretches while waiting for her caf. Moving felt good, much better than just standing there in her thoughts, so she grabbed her lightsaber and headed for the training room. The halls were mostly empty, and the room itself was completely empty, silent, and pitch black. Jaina didn’t bother to turn on the lights as she activated a trainer droid and ignited her lightsaber.
An hour and a half later, she was physically exhausted, covered in a nice sheen of sweat, and late. She sprinted back to her room, dodging around the beings that were starting to fill the hallways as the day started, ignoring their startled noises.
She just got through the door when the holoreceiver popped on. There, in fuzzy shades of blue, was Jag smiling at her. His smile faded though as he asked, “Is everything alright?”
Jaina flopped into the chair next to the table the receiver sat on. “Everything’s fine, don’t worry.”
A few seconds delay, then “That has never once been a comforting thing for you to say to me.”
“I missed you too,” said Jaina with a laugh. “Let me grab some food real fast.”
Jag smiled at her and then resumed working through a bowl of some sort of indeterminate food with his chopsticks and her stomach growled at her. “I would never begrudge you breakfast,” said Jag, between bites.
As she pulled the box of instant porridge packets out, a wave of how much she really did miss him hit her. “I’m happy this timing worked out.” It’d been two months since she’d last been able to talk to him like this at all. Usually they were restricted to leaving each other voice messages.
Jaina could practically feel him sigh from 100,000 lightyears away. “I’m happy to see you eating,” he said. “Mostly I’m just happy to see you at all.”
“How much longer are you going to be out on patrols, can you say?”
“How are things going for you at the temple?” asked Jag, totally ignoring her question and answering it at the same time. It was about what she expected, and she had enough sense to not ask anything further. “Security patrols” were the reason Jag had given her for being so hard to talk to, and if it was really just security patrols she’d eat her lightsaber.
“Damn,” she said as she found her pot of caf still in the brewer, as cold as Hoth.
“That doesn’t sound good,” said Jag.
Jaina sighed and poured it into a mug anyway. “The damn was for my caf. I forgot about it when I went to training.” Jaina set the brewer up to boil water and poured her instant porridge into a bowl.
“Training so early?” Jag put down his chopsticks and glanced at his chrono. “Isn’t it just past 0600 there?”
“I just wanted an empty training room, that’s all,” said Jaina.
“Is it?” he said, clearly not believing her, but not pushing. “What training?”
“Just some lightsaber runs with a training droid. Nothing too crazy, but they’re in constant use during the day.” The brewer dinged again, and Jaina went and poured the boiling water into her bowl and grabbed a spoon. “If I was going to be awake early, I might as well take advantage of it.”
Jaina watched her porridge bloom for a moment before she dropped back into her chair. She stirred her porridge and took a good look at him. He might’ve been on a few seconds delay, in grayscale, and slightly out of focus, but none of that hid how slowly he was picking through his food, the bags under his eyes, or the slight tinge of exhaustion to his voice. He was circling around being worried for her, while she was safe and sound on Ossus. Meanwhile he was being ground down by his “security patrols”, doing who knows what for who knows how long for the Chiss. Even these holochats were a luxury for him right now, and they’d become fewer and further in between the longer his patrols dragged on. She wished she could give him a kiss.
“You’re staring,” he said, smiling at her.
“I like what I see,” she smiled back at him. “How are you holding up?”
“I am doing well,” he said. “I could use a good night’s sleep, perhaps.”
“That makes two of us. I’d sleep better next to you, though.”
“Me too. I -” Jag suddenly stopped talking and looked up, his face hardening. He turned back to Jaina and quickly said “I love you.”
The line cut out.
“Fly well,” said Jaina to the empty air. She sat back in her chair, and idly stirred her breakfast. She ate a couple of bites of porridge before abandoning it. The adage “a tired pilot is a dead pilot” ran through her mind and she did her best to banish it for the moment. A thought that wasn’t worth dwelling on today, or any day. Jag was an incredible pilot, and a tired Jag was still better than almost anyone in the galaxy. Besides, she didn’t like it when he worried over her, she should at least attempt to return the favor, but it seemed impossible.
Doing something, anything, would help, distract her, but a part of her didn’t want to be distracted. Jaina moved to her desk and pulled out the last letter she’d gotten from Jag. He’d written it on actual flimsi, during a time where she suspected no transmissions were allowed out. She’d read it so many times she’d almost memorized it, but she read it again.
Digging around in her desk, she found some flimsi and a stylus and started writing back to him. She told him how she missed him, how she hated that he got called away midconversation, how she hoped he was doing well, how her missions had gone, how she hoped he’d say hi to Shawnkyr for her, how she was practicing a new style of lightsaber combat, how she loved him. The letter ended with about a quarter of a sheet left blank, so she kissed the empty space and then immediately felt a little ridiculous as she told him what she did. Jaina addressed it as best as she could for someone on active duty for a different government, put it in an envelope and sent it off with a mail droid she found in a hallway.
Back in her room, she felt the anxiety creeping back. She took Jag’s letter to her off her desk and curled up in bed with it, pressed against her chest. Snuggling the letter didn’t make her feel less ridiculous, but it made her feel better all the same. This time, as she tried her various calming techniques, they worked.