solo_sword | MCA #6- Sunday early evening

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MCA #6- Sunday early evening

At work, Jaina officially broke things off with John, and even if she thought it was the right thing to do, it hadn't stopped her from having a seriously good cry about it last night. And a little this morning. She was doing pretty okay, though. Maybe she'd known this was coming since the picnic, and it was civil enough that she thought something could be salvaged out of it. Even if it meant she could never listen to the radio again.

Besides the eyes that were still a little puffy, Jaina appeared to be handling it well. She'd gone about her day as normal, doing some training, working, (running a Google search for Bea Arthur, thanks Deadpool), running errands, and finally calling Rose to say that there needed to be ice cream and she should come over.

And then she took a seat on the sofa, really wishing she had a TV or something just so it wouldn't seem so quiet.

[For she who gets to share in ice cream.]

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Message received, Rose and ice cream showed up at Jaina's apartment door. It wasn't like it was a long way from where she'd been, but if ice cream was necessary, ice cream it would be.

She tapped at the door quietly. It was still so weird going to an apartment.

There were times it was really nice to be able to sense who was on the other side of a closed door, because there were just some people she wouldn't have been able to handle today. Since she knew it was Rose, she got up and opened the door, greeting her with an almost-smile. "Welcome back," she said, letting her in.

"Back from where?" she asked confused. "I brought ice cream. In case you didn't have enough."

"Back to my apartment," she clarified. "And thanks. I got some while I was out earlier. It's been that kind of day."

Truth be told, her freezer looked like she'd let Ben go grocery shopping for her. It was that bad.

"Need a spoon?" Apparently she was just going straight to the ice cream today.

"Yeah, cause I don't carry one around with me," Rose pointed out. "Which - okay, it'd be weird if I did." She came in, looking around to see if anything had changed in the past few days. "So...should I ask what happened? Or do you just wanna eat the ice cream."

Nothing had really changed in the apartment, save for the little things like a water glass being left out on the counter or a strappy shoe left by the door from her birthday night. Jaina went to the kitchen to retrieve spoons, glad she wasn't looking up when she said, "I broke up with John."

It still hurt to say. For some reason it hurt less when she could look at inanimate objects while saying it.

Rose frowned a little, thinking back to Thursday's conversation. "Did it change since Thursday?"

"Yeah, it's officially over now," she said, handing Rose a spoon. "Apparently I don't handle hearing about the man I love going on dates with other women very well. That arrangement... it just can't work for me."

"Yeah, but it wasn't anyone threatening, it was, like, Shelley," Rose pointed out with a stunning lack of logic. She opened the ice cream and pushed one of the cartons to Jaina. "But - yeah, I can see that. I'm sorry."

"Threatening or not, I don't know what happened. I don't know if they kissed, if they slept together, if they're going to see each other again. And I don't want to know," Jaina sighed. There were times she felt okay about it and times that it just ached. Guess which this was. "And I know it's not her fault and she didn't know, but I just want to find Shelley and hit her in the nose and I can't believe I was so happy for John to come back only to feel like this now."

Yes, time for ice cream, and she picked up the carton. "He didn't have much of a reaction, so I guess it's for the best." That part killed, too.

Rose made a face. "Wouldn't be hard to find her. She lives with Dimitri." But hopefully Jaina wouldn't go that route because then Rose would feel a little badly. "And, you know, if anyone deserves to get punched, it'd be John. I could totally do it if you don't wanna." It was good this was Jaina and not Lissa because Rose would've already be punching the guy for Lissa. Jaina, she figured, would want to do it herself.

"It's easier to be mad at someone I don't know," she explained. She knew it was irrational, but that was the way it was. And she certainly wouldn't seek Shelley out, but she also really didn't want to see what would happen if she ran into her in the laundry room or something. "I don't want him to get punched. I think. I go up and back on it. But if he doesn't want to be with me anymore, he doesn't want to be with me anymore. That's just the way it is."

"Fair enough," Rose agreed with a shrug. If she was being fair, it wasn't like she could judge given her reaction to Tasha Ozera. Ugh, Tasha Ozera. She wrinkled her nose and went to find a seat in the living room. "Maybe it's just like - the shock of being back? I mean, he's pretty old now, maybe it's weird that nothing's changed and once he adjusts, he'll be back to normal."

"Yeah, I get where he's coming from," she admitted, making room in case Rose wanted to sit on the sofa instead of the armchair. "And I do hope that settles for him, and I'm more than happy to be there for him if he needs me. But if after three years he didn't seem to care that him going on a date hurt me, and if he was willing to let me go that easy... That's a whole separate problem, one just about us. Unfortunately it's not one I was expecting."

For all the punching she wanted to sometimes do, she really did see the logic of everything. It honestly helped her keep her cool when she wanted to get mad or teary.

"Wait, what's three years?" she asked, moving over to the sofa with her ice cream. "Following timelines is hard, yeah, yeah."

"The end of August would be three Fandom years together," Jaina said, maybe a little wistfully. "Six years in my galaxy. Much longer in his time." Another reason this sucked, it felt like a lot of time for something that just fizzled out.

Rose nodded. "So long. Either way. I can't even imagine." She poked at the ice cream with her spoon. "So are you giving up on it?"

She paused, taking time to concentrate on her ice cream as she thought about it. "If he honestly decided he wanted to give it another shot, and try an actual relationship again, I think I'd go for it," Jaina said finally. "But I don't think that would be for a while even if it happens, and I need some time, too. This is essentially our third breakup in a year for me. I can't go for four right now."

The timeline of the whole thing still confused Rose more than she'd like to admit, but luckily it wasn't the most important thing she had to think about right that moment. "Four's probably overkill, yeah," she agreed, sucking on her ice cream spoon thoughtfully. "Dude, that just sucks that it all turned out this way."

"That's probably the best way to put it," Jaina agreed. "A few months ago I still thought I was going to end up marrying him. Now I just want to be anywhere but here."

It was too weird to talk about marriage, and Rose ignored it for the rest of her statement. "Yeah, but you just got an apartment and decided to stay here. You're just going to leave?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "But I do have some stuff coming up at home in a couple weeks I have to attend to. There's a mission I'm assisting on, and they're actually supposed to get Coruscant renamed as capitol by the end of the month. I just need a break, just get away from it a little, you know?"

Because that was how Jaina did things. Anything she didn't want to deal with, she avoided like the plague. It was really how she'd kept herself going for twenty-two years.

"I guess," Rose agreed, shrugging a little. Not that she had any idea what it was like to be able to just leave when she wanted. "So when are you leaving?"

She made a face. "Not for another couple weeks, by the looks of it. I'm at the whims of other people there. But I should only be gone for a week or so, assuming everything goes right. And everything better go right."

"Things don't usually go right though," Rose pointed out, a tiny smirk present. "So you better be back before I leave or I'll have to kick your ass at some point."

"Oh, I will be," she promised, smirking back a little herself. "It's bad enough I'm going to be stuck here without you and Chuck to keep things entertaining for me once you go, I'm getting as much time in as I can." She meant it, too. For as much as she wanted to get away and flee a personal situation she didn't like, there were people she cared too much about to leave now.

There was a sudden flare of that odd black rage that had started to appear every time people got to talking about choosing to do one thing or another. Rose managed to suppress it under a spoonful of ice cream. "What are you going to do? Just hang out with the teachers or what?"

Jaina could sense the sudden change, but if Rose wasn't bringing it up, neither was she. "For now, I'm continuing as is. Working from here and helping out on stuff from home is keeping me from going completely one-track minded like I was during the war, so I'm keeping up my training and doing the same thing I was as a student, but in town instead."

She paused, admitting, "I'm really worried I'm going to be incredibly bored."

"Bored? At Fandom?" Rose asked. "How Can you do your duty and not be fully there?"

Jaina was hearing enough of that to start to doubt herself. She found this weird, since she'd never relied on other people's opinions. "I've done it for three years," she pointed out.

"Sure, but you didn't have a choice then," she pointed out. "And it wasn't like you liked being here - or that's how it seemed last year."

"Oh, I almost always had a choice," Jaina told her. "The only time that got iffy was after I got back from Hapes, and when everyone decided they trusted me again, I could have gone back home." She shrugged. "I don't like the town, I don't like what tends to happen to me here. But there have always been reasons for me to stay."

Rose stared at her. "Jaina - what - you're sitting here telling me that for the past three years or six years or whatever you've been choosing to be in a place you hate and where you're unhappy? What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Nothing's wrong with me," she said, maybe a little defensive. She was already stinging from yesterday, and now everything felt like a critique of her life choices. "Here, I can spend time with a grandfather- frustrating as it can be- who's been dead since before I was born in my time. I've been able to see a Tahiri who isn't nearly as messed up as mine is. I've gotten information that means my other brother might not have to die horribly in the future. I have friends who've made sure I don't sit around and work all the time and that's kept me sane. I'm apparently on a right track since Ben and Tahiri have both told me I'm easier than their versions of me, which is good because I don't think I want to be their versions of me. The pluses have always outweighed the minuses."

"I never said you shouldn't've been here," Rose shot back. "Or that I'm not glad you were so we could become friends and stuff, but you have all these choices you can do anything with. And you seem so unhappy - not just today, I mean, yeah, that sucks so much about John, and I wish it had turned out better, but even before. What's the point of having choices if you don't use 'em?"

"I use them. I'm here. I'm not exactly set up for the happiest life ever, Rose," she said, and that was actually the first time ever she'd admitted that. "It's probably actually going to be worse when I go home for good. I'm here trying to figure out if there is a way I can manage at least a little bit of happiness there."

"You're not the only one set up for a shitty life," she pointed out, the bottom of her stomach dropping out in an odd mix of dread and apprehension at the end of the summer. "But, like, not even looking at that, okay? Honestly? It sounds like you're using here to escape from your life at home and your stuff at home to escape from here. You're upset about John so you're escaping back there. You're here because you want to escape what might happen at home. That's - fine, I guess, but I think you should be honest about it to yourself at least."

Rose was a little proud of the fact that that all came out calmly.

"I'm not lying to myself about anything. I'm trying to prepare myself for what might happen at home," she insisted, not as calm. It'd been a really rough couple days for her, and she was afraid she was going to get to the point of either yelling or crying. "Not that that matters to anyone else, since everyone's telling me I shouldn't be here. If I'm making a mistake, then fine, I'm making a mistake, but then it's my own damn fault and I'm the one who gets to pay for it."

"If it didn't matter, Jaina, I wouldn't say anything," Rose pointed out. "If you weren't my friend, I'd just accept whatever the hell you wanted to tell me, but you are so it's my damn job to make sure you've - thought about stuff." She almost said 'protect you' but stopped herself at the last minute, way too aware Jaina wouldn't appreciate it.

It was probably a good thing she skipped those words, because as it was, Jaina calmed a little at hearing it. "I've thought about it," she assured her, taking a breath. "It's like I never stop thinking about it anymore."

She wasn't going to point out that no matter what else, Jaina sure didn't sound like she'd thought about it completely. "Eat more ice cream. Maybe a brain freeze will help."

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MCA #6- Sunday early evening

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