Room 313- Friday evening

[solo_sword]

For the most part, Jaina was doing okay these days. She knew she wouldn't last and that was fine, but she was trying to enjoy the time while she had it. She was working, she was getting out more, she thought getting to know her mom this young was kind of astral, she wasn't stressing about every little thing, and she liked it. Taking her last semester to figure herself out and what she wanted to do was so far working really well for her. And if she so happened to be looking forward to graduation, when she could move on to the next step of her life, when she knew she'd be having to make some decisions in her relationship, when she could return to her normal family with about 75% less of the eyeroll-inducing complications, she didn't think she could really be blamed for that.

All right, maybe she was looking forward to it a lot, because at the moment she was playing with the countdown feature on her iPhone. 106 days till graduation, if anyone was keeping track.

Also, someone might want to stop her. The last time she started playing with her phone she ended up downloading the app that made her phone sound like a weapon from Space Battles.


[Open door, open post. I am procrastinating packing, so therefore I put up what will be a linkdrop.]

Comments

[solo_sword]

"No, but it gives instructions on what to do. If I'm actually considering trying to learn, clearly I need a second job. Or maybe a third," she said, frowning at the phone.

[momslilassassin]

Ben laughed. "Bet they'd take you at Stark's," he teased.

[solo_sword]

"Probably. Or maybe Atlas," she said. "Or with my new phone app, maybe Cafe Fina..." Yes, she'd just downloaded it. Sorry, common rooms, it was really too bad you were all going to get food poisoned.

[momslilassassin]

"Maybe try the diner first," Ben said. "I bet they'd love spiceloaf."

[solo_sword]

"I leave that to Mom. And I'll have you know I'm very good at throwing pasta noodles in boiling water," she said. "It took me months of experimentation on poor Mitch to manage it."

No, it hadn't, but it sounded good and she missed him sometimes.

[momslilassassin]

"How many servings of crunchy and burnt did you serve up?" he asked, smiling.

[solo_sword]

"I never burned it. And some people like crunchy pasta. Look, I got better," she insisted. That much was the truth. "One of these days I'm going to surprise John by making something that won't potentially send him to the hospital. It just might be very far off."

[momslilassassin]

"I can handle frozen pizza once I learned to take the cardboard part off," Ben said proudly.

[solo_sword]

Laughing a little, she said, "I'm beginning to realize we may have missed out on a valuable life skill here."

[momslilassassin]

"Maybe," Ben said. "I don't starve if I get stranded, even if protein bars aren't exactly gourmet."

[solo_sword]

"Whenever I'd go to England, there was always a chance I'd end up having to fend for myself for a couple days," Jaina explained. "And there was nothing around there to even cheat by ordering out all the time. So there was no starvation, but it was sad. I think it'd be much easier if they just imported some machines here for that sort of thing, but I don't think that'll happen anytime soon." Yet another reason she'd have to do the inviting, rather than the other way around.

[momslilassassin]

"I tried to take the machine apart on mom's ship when I was a kid," Ben admitted. "I didn't get far before she found me."

[solo_sword]

"And I bet that went well when she did..." She could imagine.

[momslilassassin]

"There was a Discussion," Ben said, making a face.

[solo_sword]

"Probably should have started with the one at home, rather than the one on her ship," Jaina said. "I know that helps not at all in retrospect."

[momslilassassin]

"I'd gotten bored," Ben said, "and the nanny droid was easy to turn off."

[solo_sword]

"You know I'm going to remember this, and if you do the same thing in my time I'm going to laugh, right?" Sometimes timelines worked out fun that way.

[momslilassassin]

"Tell him to try the one in the apartment," Ben advised.

[solo_sword]

Jaina grinned. "Will do. But I'll have to remember it for a while, as you're still three by me, and I have new blackmail photos on my phone from Christmas."

[momslilassassin]

"Uh oh," Ben said. "What was other me doing?"

[solo_sword]

"Being adorable," she said, looking to her wall and pointing at one picture of little tiny Ben. Because yes. It went up there.

[momslilassassin]

Ben let out a curse his father would be appalled to learn he knew and hid his face with his hands. "Have people seen that?"

[solo_sword]

"I don't get a lot of visitors," she assured him. "Oh, come on, it's cute. I didn't put up the really embarrassing ones."

[momslilassassin]

"There are other ones?" Ben squeaked.

[solo_sword]

She went through her phone to find one, and offered it to him to look. "I hadn't seen little you in over a year, Fandom time. Yes, there are other ones."

If he decided to look through the rest, he'd find a few of him with various family members (everyone except Jacen, yes) and John, along with a couple of Han looking annoyed at his daughter's new toy, which she kept flashing at him to make him look annoyed.

[momslilassassin]

He flipped through the photos and laughed. "Uncle Han didn't like this much, huh?"

He paused for a second on a picture of his mom, then pressed his lips together and clicked past it quickly. "Dad looks so young."

[solo_sword]

"You tend to look younger before you pack on ten years to your age," she teased. "I don't know the next time that many of us will all be in one place at the same time, I figured I should take advantage of it."

[momslilassassin]

"I think Dad ages four or five years at a time," Ben said with a smile. "I blame Kyp."

[solo_sword]

"Kyp's been a good little Master as of late," Jaina said thoughtfully. "It'd make sense that he'd get sick of it and start making Uncle Luke crazy again. Hopefully after this next mission."

[momslilassassin]

"Which mission is that?" Ben asked.

[solo_sword]

"There's someone I ran across months ago who's been running a human droid replicating facility," she explained. "He got away last time, but I got the okay to track him down, and I get to bring Kyp with me when I find him. Which hopefully will be soon or I'm going to snap and start driving Uncle Luke nuts."

[momslilassassin]

"I think there's a line for that," Ben teased. "Do you have a number?"

[solo_sword]

"Hey, no matter how you look at it, I've known him longer than you," she pointed out.

[momslilassassin]

"But I'm automatically at the front of the line because he likes me best," Ben replied.

[solo_sword]

"I'm pretty sure the line doesn't move that way..." she said.

[momslilassassin]

Ben laughed. "Why not?"