Room 313, Wednesday afternoon

[solo_sword]

All right, fine, Jaina may have been sulking a bit. She hadn't had time to find something to distract her between leaving John and Colorado and getting back to the dorms, which meant too much time thinking. There'd been plenty of goodbyes lately, but having the person who'd pretty much gotten you through the last year, what, 3000 miles away? It was different.

Worse still was that this was the first time in a long time she hadn't just gone up to John's room after a trip, so she almost bypassed the third floor entirely, which was just going to make her feel like an idiot for a while. And when she got to her room and started to unpack, she set up her comlink to play her messages so she could multitask.

And she found a few she wasn't really expecting.

Frowning, she decided unpacking could wait a bit, and called him back. She hadn't even heard her comlink go off.


[For he on the other end of the line, and up early for timezone/RL interference.]

Comments

[missed-the-gate.livejournal.com]

"Finally!" John exclaimed, letting out a breath when he'd seen the caller id. He picked up the phone smoothly, not wanting to sound desperate to talk to her, just in case.

"Hey Jaina, nice of you to call."

[solo_sword]

"I just checked my messages," she said, closing the door. "I think maybe the phones are acting up again or something."

[missed-the-gate.livejournal.com]

"Did you lose your comm or something?" John asked, because it wasn't likely in his mind that she'd go a week without trying to communicate with work.

[solo_sword]

"No, it's been right in my bag where I've had it," she answered. She wasn't sure if this was it hitting him, and he was just reacting weirdly to missing her or what. "I just got in, I called as soon as I heard them."

[missed-the-gate.livejournal.com]

"Were you in class?" John didn't understand. "How long were you out?"

[solo_sword]

"As long as it too me to get from the causeway to here?" she said slowly, completely confused. "Classes don't start till what, tomorrow?"

[missed-the-gate.livejournal.com]

"Um, Jaina, I don't know what happened to you between the causeway and your room, but it's been a week. I'm in California." This was disturbing.

[solo_sword]

Jaina went quiet for a moment. "It can't have been a week. I just got here. I'm not even unpacked. This isn't funny."

[missed-the-gate.livejournal.com]

"No, it's not funny," John agreed. "Which is why my next call was going to your grandfather because I thought something had happened to you."

[solo_sword]

"Thank you for your restraint," she said, a bit absently as she went to start searching her desk. When John had started going home with her and she lost the ability to ask 'what day is it?' whenever she got back, she'd caved and gotten one of those digital clocks with the date on it. She'd used it maybe once. Because she'd always just gone up to his room.

[missed-the-gate.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, well, it's not like I had a whole lot of choice with you ignoring my calls." Or so he'd thought she'd been doing for a week.

[solo_sword]

"John, my comlink didn't even go off," she insisted, and when she did finally find the clock in a drawer, there was quite the impressive curse coming from Jaina's end of the line.

[missed-the-gate.livejournal.com]

He held his phone away from his ear with an eyeroll while she cursed. "I take it you realized I'm right?"

[solo_sword]

"It's July 1," Jaina stated. "I was gone like a day."

She had a really bad feeling about this.

[missed-the-gate.livejournal.com]

"We were in Colorado for a week," he reminded her. "And you went home almost a week ago!" This was not happening.

[solo_sword]

"Well, apparently I get a redo," she said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. This was even faster than it was between here and home.

[missed-the-gate.livejournal.com]

"And when do I get one?" John asked, pacing his room in frustration.

[solo_sword]

"I don't know," she sighed. "Nothing can just be easy, can it?"

[missed-the-gate.livejournal.com]

"So what, I live in fast forward land now?" John couldn't stop talking in the form of a question it seemed. "And time just flies by while nothing happens anywhere else?"

[solo_sword]

"I don't know," Jaina repeated, taking a seat on the bed beside her bag. "It's more of that stupid messed up time differential. Except... really fast." Two weeks for a day. She hated this place. Hated it.

[missed-the-gate.livejournal.com]

"It's not fair," John said, not enjoying this new development one bit. "I was supposed to see you again in a week." So, another day or something for her and classes hadn't even started in Fandom. Just great.

[solo_sword]

There seemed to have been part of her that was expecting to be spending as much time in California as she did at home, splitting her time three ways. That was not looking like it was going to happen. She was trying to figure out timing in her head, though.

"So we put it off a bit," she said. "I can't exactly go right back tomorrow, but it's a portal trip. We can manage this, just... not as often as we'd maybe like."

[missed-the-gate.livejournal.com]

"Sure," he didn't sound convinced, his tone a little flat and defeated. "We'll figure it out."

[solo_sword]

Noticing the tone, she asked, "Do you want to figure it out?" She might have felt her stomach tie in a knot at the possibility he might say no.

[missed-the-gate.livejournal.com]

"No," he complained. "I want to not feel like a damned stalker trying to get in touch with you. One day? One day? I left like four messages!"