Room 317 [late afternoon]

[tatooine_doofus]

Luke was in his room, sleeves up--the gash on his arm was fading rapidly--surrounded by his tool kit and fiddling with Artoo. If it stopped him from dwelling on other things, well, bonus.

Artoo was not entirely thrilled being used as a distraction.

"Try it again, please," Luke said.

Artoo obligingly began to spit back the beginning of "I Know A Song That Gets On Everybody's Nerves."

"It needs to be higher pitched, louder," Luke said, "and more off-key."

The door was open if anyone was wondering what he was up to.

Comments

[solo_sword]

Jaina nodded. She hoped he wouldn't, especially given the circumstances back home, though. "And I can understand not wanting to push yourself farther than you're comfortable with," she said. "But when I go home, I'm rarely doing any fighting with a lightsaber. But I've learned how to refocus so it helps me when I'm in a cockpit, and I can compensate that way. And Jacen realizes this, but he won't do anything about it. He wants to be right before he does anything and it's not that cut and dry."

[tatooine-doofus.livejournal.com]

"And you kind of want to poke him, huh," Luke guessed.

[solo_sword]

"So much," Jaina sighed. "Anakin, too, but he actually will do things."

And sometimes it bit the poor kid.

[tatooine-doofus.livejournal.com]

"That might be a name thing," Luke commented bitterly. "Home was...frustrating, then?"

[solo_sword]

"Parts of it," she said. "I wasn't actually around my family for most of it. There were times we'd be on the same ship, but I would be in a sim somewhere and everyone else would be doing their own thing."

[tatooine-doofus.livejournal.com]

Luke nodded. "They're all right, though?" he asked, watching her expression carefully.

[solo_sword]

Jaina took the slightest of pauses before saying, "More or less. The situation's a little rough. But everyone's still in one piece."

[tatooine-doofus.livejournal.com]

Luke's forehead creased with concern. "Anything I can do? This me, not your me."

[solo_sword]

She shook her head. "Thanks, but it's okay. There's nothing I would really be able to do even if I was back home, so I'm counting on them to straighten things out and not worrying too much. If you could kick them into sending me news more often, though, that would be great."

[tatooine-doofus.livejournal.com]

"Next time I talk to your father, I'll be sure to tell him to keep in touch," Luke teased.

He had the worst timing ever.

[solo_sword]

Jaina had no idea what the expression that flickered across her face might have been, but she got control of it quickly. "Make sure he listens," she said totally evenly.

[tatooine-doofus.livejournal.com]

"I will," he said softly, then gestured at Artoo. "Want to get your hands dirty?"

[solo_sword]

"Sure," Jaina said. "What are you doing?"

[tatooine-doofus.livejournal.com]

"Adding irritating songs to his programming," Luke said. "He's going to visit Umbridge next week."

[solo_sword]

"I know a few Corellian drinking songs," Jaina said immediately.

[tatooine-doofus.livejournal.com]

"The one with the really terrible chorus and about a trillion verses?"

[solo_sword]

"That's one!"

[tatooine-doofus.livejournal.com]

Luke burst out laughing. "Your father and Wedge almost got into a fight about verse 73. It was a looooooong night."

[solo_sword]

She thought about which verse that was. "Suddenly some references they'd made make more sense..."

[tatooine-doofus.livejournal.com]

Luke's eyes lit up. "I haven't accidentally traumatized you or anything, right?" he checked belatedly.

[solo_sword]

"I think all the traumatization that could possibly happen did so in the first month or so of being here."

No, it hadn't.

[tatooine-doofus.livejournal.com]

Luke snickered. "Yeah, just wait," he said. "One of these days your twin brother'll show up to teacher or your mom will be fourteen years old and then you'll be sorry you tempted the dramatic irony gods."

[solo_sword]

"See, I'm not so sure that would be weird anymore," Jaina said. "I think finding out who was teaching Flight and Flying about did it."

[tatooine-doofus.livejournal.com]

Luke's entire sense went flat again. "You can still be surprised," he said.

[solo_sword]

Jaina raised her eyebrows, asking, "You okay?"