Fic: Jenna's War II: Big Girl (1/12)
Title: Jenna's War II: Big Girl (1/12)
Fandom: Star Wars
Rating: K+
Genres: Drama
Summary: There's good news and bad news for Private Jenna Melara... no, there are only bad news. And she wants to share them with all of us!
A/N: Um, yeah, so... it's been a while since I posted anything Star Wars and since we're at the beginning of a new year, I decided I'll give the Jenna's War series another shot. In case anyone needs a reminder/refresher, I'd recommend you to have a look at the master post to the first installment, Screw Up.
Big Girl
“Outside it's now raining
And tears are falling from my eyes
Why did it have to happen
Why did it all have to end
I'm a big big girl
In a big big world.”
Emilia, “Big, Big Girl”
One
“Hey Mel, how ‘bout a game of sabacc?” I hear Xanas say behind me but I keep on reading my datapad. Without looking up, I notice that he sits down at the foot of my cot. I don't acknowledge his presence, keeping my focus on my reading. “Aw, come on. Are you still not talking to me?” Well, what does it look like mister? “Mel... come on!”
He's nudging my foot now. And becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. “Jeeennaaa!” He nudges my foot again. At this point, I have given up on reading and am only pretending to do so to prevent him from bothering me. It's not working very well. He's now leaning his chin on my upper foot, looking at me like a kicked puppy. “How long are going to keep on ignoring me?” Batting his eyelashes at me, he waits for the answer. Well, he’s not going to get one, that’s for sure.
“Okay. You don’t want to talk? I'll make you talk.” What the…? He just started to unlace my boots. Okay, that’s enough. I draw my feet away. Which doesn’t stop him from trying to unlace my boots.
“Will you just stop it? You're behaving like a damn three-year-old!” Ooops. For a moment, neither of us says a word. Then suddenly a beaming grin lights up Xanas’ face and he points at me.
“She speaks! Oh Force, she has heard me! The sun has risen again!” What an idiot. I tell him that he behaves like a three-year-old and he just keeps on making a fool of himself. And me, for that matter.
Exasperated, I fling away the datapad and start lacing my boots again. “Stop messing around, will you? You've embarrassed both of us enough already.” He raises an eyebrow.
“Embarrassed? What are you talking about, pray tell?” He folds his arms and tries to look dignified, which is incredibly funny. Now, don’t laugh Melara, if you want him to take you seriously. Force, who am I trying to kid? As if he ever did that.
“You know full well what I’m talking about. Now go away.” I try to make an adequately annoyed face and I think I manage it quite well. Doesn’t mean he does what I want, though.
“Oh come on, Mel, it’s been two weeks since that… incident. You started talking to Magic two days after he got out of the brig, and you never stopped talking to Kreth. The only one that had to come begging was me. Why is that?” He didn’t just ask that, right? Because if he did, I’d have to think that he didn’t understand anything about women.
“You really don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?” Oh Gods. Can I shoot him? Strangle him? Anything? Please?
“Hello? You took part in an utterly stupid fight, got knocked out for your trouble, and were proud of it to boot? What would your mother say?” Okay; that was a low blow but he deserved it. He did something really stupid and in the end no one gained anything. He went to the brig and is not likely to get promoted for the next hundred years and I got humiliated more than ever by everyone who was there or heard about the fight from someone who was there. I really thought he might have noticed some of that until now.
“Uh… Magic and Kreth took part in the fight, too, you know. And they're proud of it.” Poor Xanas; sometimes I wonder how someone so clever and obviously well-educated can be so dense.
“That’s different. They're recon. You're infantry.”
He raises an eyebrow. “And?”
“And what? And nothing. That explains everything.” Gods, I just hope he doesn’t push the issue because one by one, the arguments are leaving me.
“Private Jenna Melara, if I didn’t know better, I would say you've got a problem with double-standards.” A smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth, barely being held at bay. As always, it’s making him nearly irresistible. Need to stay firm. Must not look at him.
“So what? Sue me.” Oh, that was a good one. Curt and nonchalant.
“Sue me? I’ll give you ‘sue me’.” With that he suddenly pounces me and starts tickling me, making me squeal and struggle against him. Unable to say anything coherent through my peals of forced laughter, I try to wriggle out of his grasp and accidentally roll off my cot. For a moment I’m free of him but before I can get away, he’s straddling me and pinning my arms on the ground left and right of my face. On his face there’s a grin that can only be described as maniac. It makes him look even more desirable.
He brings his face down to mine, still grinning and panting.
“Do you yield?” Also panting, I stick out my tongue.
“Never.” Our breathing has slowed down a little, and suddenly I realize that his eyes are the most intriguing shade of dark green when he’s excited. The grin has faded and something different is starting to show in his face. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was…
“ATTENTION!” Months of training and warfare have drilled certain things into us. Like forgetting whatever we are doing and jumping to our feet immediately whenever someone yells “Attention!” at us. Just like now.
Xanas and I scramble up and stand at attention. When I see that it was Tarkker who bawled the order for attention, I have a difficult time remaining cool. The spiteful grin on his face tells me that he called us to attention for something really, really unimportant.
“Mail distribution. I’ll call the names, and people will get their mail. No scrambling for letters, no shouting, no queuing up. You got me?” Gods, whoever made that guy a Corporal and Sarge’s replacement?
“Yes, sir!” everyone calls out but I can see a few people who are doing it through clenched teeth. Good to know that I’m not the only one hating the fact that Tarkker is acting Platoon leader since the LT died and Sarge will be on the hospital ship for an indefinite amount of time. Is it really that hard to find some Lieutenant to replace Drennel?
Tarkker barks out the names and then suddenly I hear him call out “Melara!” For a moment, I’m a little stunned. I haven’t gotten any letters for months now and I thought I would never get any at all. Another “Melara!” - this time a little sharper than before - shakes me out of the reverie and I walk to the entrance. When Tarkker gives me the envelope, a nasty grin spreads over his face. “Have fun reading it, queeny.” I never really hated anyone before. I think that just changed. For one thing, he's still using that stupid nickname that they gave me aboard the box. Second, the look on his face tells me that he probably opened my letter and read it, now knowing that there's something distinctly unpleasant inside.
It seems he’s taking his time with finishing giving out the mail, or at least that’s what it looks like to me. Finally, he’s finished, unfortunately not without giving me another one of those sleazy grins. Apparently I’m not the only one who noticed it because the moment Tarkker is out of the tent, Xan turns to me, saying, “What was that all about? What did he say to you?” I just shrug and finally take a look at the envelope.
The handwriting doesn’t ring any bells, so I have a look at the sender’s address. And my heart nearly skips a beat. It’s the address of my family’s summer residence on Borleias, a forest moon near Coruscant. When I went away, we agreed on not sending mail to each other so as not to draw attention to my family, with only real emergencies being the only exception. We would use this address then because no one knows that house belongs to us. Whatever happened, it has to be something terrible.
Ignoring everything around me, I open the letter, noticing that my hands are shaking. The paper in my hand feels strange. It’s been years since I last saw and wrote on real paper, not flimsyplast or datapads. Unfolding the sheet of paper, I already feel my throat constricting, and terrible dread settling in my stomach. Finally, I read the text.
Dad died yesterday. Come home Jen. We need you.
And that’s it; that's everything. Still, that's all it takes for my world to begin crumbling and falling down around me. The writing before my eyes begins to blur and the sudden need to be out of this stifling tent full of people overwhelms me. Without saying anything, I storm past a bewildered Xanas, with no destination in mind. I just need to get out for a while... anywhere else but here.
~*~
I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here and I don’t care either. My head is empty of any thoughts of the war and I feel a numbness that is almost comforting. Not even the infernal Tatooine heat or the glaring light of the sun bother me now. I don’t feel pain or heat or anything else. Which, to be honest, scares the living daylights out of me. Shouldn’t I be bawling my eyes out or something? Screaming in pain would be appropriate too, right? But for some reason, the only thing I feel is a strange sense of detached numbness.
“Jenna?” And that would be Danna Kreth. She's my best friend but right now I just wish she would leave. I don’t want anyone expressing their sympathy to me, not even Danna. At least not right now. “Hey, uh, can I sit down?” I don’t say anything, hoping she’ll take the hint. Of course she doesn’t. “I'll take that as a yes,” she says and sits down beside me.
For a while, neither of us says a word and I’m thankful for it. The last thing I want to do now is ‘talk it over’.
“Jenna… for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” And that was exactly the wrong thing to say. But I already offended her once by being too closed off... by pushing her away. So I force myself to answer.
“You don’t need to be.” I’m not looking at her but at the endless desert and the stunning sight of the day's first sunset in front of me. She takes her time in answering, obviously sensing something in me. It’s something I noticed very soon after meeting her: her ability to just... know certain things without even asking. It can be really scary at times.
“You know… you gave Farrayn a real scare back in the tent.” Huh? What’s Xanas got to do with all of this? “Really, I never saw a guy more worried. Okay, maybe apart from Magic when I arbitrarily decided to go with the rescue crew without telling him, back when your box crashed. But Korwin’s a natural worrier. Farrayn isn’t, as far as I know, so something must be up. You want to tell me how bad it really is?” Very clever. Using Xanas as a means to get me to talk. Not that it’ll work or anything but I have to commend her on her strategy.
We are silent again. Impressive. I knew that Danna was patient but I never thought she could be this patient when she wasn't in the field. “Come on, Jenna. At least tell me what that 'Jen, we need you.' line was all about. And what you’re going to do about the whole thing. Okay, so maybe she isn't as patient as I thought. Oh well, I guess I owe her at least some kind of answer. Plus, she might leave me alone when she gets what she wants.
“They need me for my father's funeral. On Chandrila, when a family member dies, it’s always the oldest daughter that performs the necessary rituals for the ch’tartha of the deceased person to find their peace. I already had to do it for my mother, although we never had a body.” I’m a bit afraid of my own voice, sounding so even and detached. As if I was a narrator of some documentary holo.
“I… see. And do you want to do it?” Okay. Time for a crash course in Chandrilan burial traditions for Danna.
“It’s not a question of wanting to do it, Danna. I have to. It’s my duty and there’s nothing that could release me from it. If there was, they wouldn’t have contacted me. I need to go. In the next two days, if possible.” And how I wish I wouldn’t have to. My mother’s funeral had been hard on me but then at least I didn’t have to look at her dead body. And my father did all the organization. Now I have to do both: the organization and the ritual.
“Jenna… you know that it could be a trap, right?” Of course I do. I've already thought of that. I’m not stupid.
“Yes. My family has a certain reputation because of my mother’s service to the Old Republic and the Alliance but my father managed to make himself invaluable to the Imps by supplying them with certain luxury goods. Anyway, even if it is a trap, I need to go. Either my father really is gone or someone is trying to draw us all back home. Either way, my family needs me.”
“But you really shouldn’t go alone.” I jump a little. Does he always have to startle me like that? And what was he doing eavesdropping on us anyway?
“That’s none of your business, Private.” And it really isn't. Who does he think he is? And why isn't Danna saying something?
“Jenna… he does have a point, you know.” Hey! That’s not what I meant with “Say something, Danna.”!
“Of course I do. And it is my business, because it concerns you, Mel.” What the fuck is happening here? Why are they ganging up on me?
“Look, Jenna, I would go with you but I can’t leave. Recon is getting a lot of work right now and it doesn't look like the patrol schedule is going to get any lighter. So… we thought… that maybe… Xanas could accompany you.” What the… “we thought”? Who in all hells is “we”? What right do they have to decide who, if anyone, is accompanying me? This is just too much.
Without saying anything, I jump up and start running away blindly, once again seeking my solitude. I need to find someplace quiet, where no one will ask me about the letter, about Chandrila, about my father; where no one will try to force me into taking someone to share my pain with.
I stagger through the camp, not caring where I’m actually going. Around me, dusk is setting in and like in every desert, it doesn’t take much time to grow completely dark once the last sun is down. In my blind fury, I bump into something solid. On second glance it reveals itself as the backside of the mess tent. Well, it's a good enough for taking a short break. I slowly sink to the sand outside the mess tent, my back resting against the fabric that makes up the back wall, and tune out the rest of camp as wordless sobs begin to shake my body.
~*~
TBC in Chapter 2.
Fandom: Star Wars
Rating: K+
Genres: Drama
Summary: There's good news and bad news for Private Jenna Melara... no, there are only bad news. And she wants to share them with all of us!
A/N: Um, yeah, so... it's been a while since I posted anything Star Wars and since we're at the beginning of a new year, I decided I'll give the Jenna's War series another shot. In case anyone needs a reminder/refresher, I'd recommend you to have a look at the master post to the first installment, Screw Up.
Big Girl
“Outside it's now raining
And tears are falling from my eyes
Why did it have to happen
Why did it all have to end
I'm a big big girl
In a big big world.”
Emilia, “Big, Big Girl”
One
“Hey Mel, how ‘bout a game of sabacc?” I hear Xanas say behind me but I keep on reading my datapad. Without looking up, I notice that he sits down at the foot of my cot. I don't acknowledge his presence, keeping my focus on my reading. “Aw, come on. Are you still not talking to me?” Well, what does it look like mister? “Mel... come on!”
He's nudging my foot now. And becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. “Jeeennaaa!” He nudges my foot again. At this point, I have given up on reading and am only pretending to do so to prevent him from bothering me. It's not working very well. He's now leaning his chin on my upper foot, looking at me like a kicked puppy. “How long are going to keep on ignoring me?” Batting his eyelashes at me, he waits for the answer. Well, he’s not going to get one, that’s for sure.
“Okay. You don’t want to talk? I'll make you talk.” What the…? He just started to unlace my boots. Okay, that’s enough. I draw my feet away. Which doesn’t stop him from trying to unlace my boots.
“Will you just stop it? You're behaving like a damn three-year-old!” Ooops. For a moment, neither of us says a word. Then suddenly a beaming grin lights up Xanas’ face and he points at me.
“She speaks! Oh Force, she has heard me! The sun has risen again!” What an idiot. I tell him that he behaves like a three-year-old and he just keeps on making a fool of himself. And me, for that matter.
Exasperated, I fling away the datapad and start lacing my boots again. “Stop messing around, will you? You've embarrassed both of us enough already.” He raises an eyebrow.
“Embarrassed? What are you talking about, pray tell?” He folds his arms and tries to look dignified, which is incredibly funny. Now, don’t laugh Melara, if you want him to take you seriously. Force, who am I trying to kid? As if he ever did that.
“You know full well what I’m talking about. Now go away.” I try to make an adequately annoyed face and I think I manage it quite well. Doesn’t mean he does what I want, though.
“Oh come on, Mel, it’s been two weeks since that… incident. You started talking to Magic two days after he got out of the brig, and you never stopped talking to Kreth. The only one that had to come begging was me. Why is that?” He didn’t just ask that, right? Because if he did, I’d have to think that he didn’t understand anything about women.
“You really don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?” Oh Gods. Can I shoot him? Strangle him? Anything? Please?
“Hello? You took part in an utterly stupid fight, got knocked out for your trouble, and were proud of it to boot? What would your mother say?” Okay; that was a low blow but he deserved it. He did something really stupid and in the end no one gained anything. He went to the brig and is not likely to get promoted for the next hundred years and I got humiliated more than ever by everyone who was there or heard about the fight from someone who was there. I really thought he might have noticed some of that until now.
“Uh… Magic and Kreth took part in the fight, too, you know. And they're proud of it.” Poor Xanas; sometimes I wonder how someone so clever and obviously well-educated can be so dense.
“That’s different. They're recon. You're infantry.”
He raises an eyebrow. “And?”
“And what? And nothing. That explains everything.” Gods, I just hope he doesn’t push the issue because one by one, the arguments are leaving me.
“Private Jenna Melara, if I didn’t know better, I would say you've got a problem with double-standards.” A smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth, barely being held at bay. As always, it’s making him nearly irresistible. Need to stay firm. Must not look at him.
“So what? Sue me.” Oh, that was a good one. Curt and nonchalant.
“Sue me? I’ll give you ‘sue me’.” With that he suddenly pounces me and starts tickling me, making me squeal and struggle against him. Unable to say anything coherent through my peals of forced laughter, I try to wriggle out of his grasp and accidentally roll off my cot. For a moment I’m free of him but before I can get away, he’s straddling me and pinning my arms on the ground left and right of my face. On his face there’s a grin that can only be described as maniac. It makes him look even more desirable.
He brings his face down to mine, still grinning and panting.
“Do you yield?” Also panting, I stick out my tongue.
“Never.” Our breathing has slowed down a little, and suddenly I realize that his eyes are the most intriguing shade of dark green when he’s excited. The grin has faded and something different is starting to show in his face. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was…
“ATTENTION!” Months of training and warfare have drilled certain things into us. Like forgetting whatever we are doing and jumping to our feet immediately whenever someone yells “Attention!” at us. Just like now.
Xanas and I scramble up and stand at attention. When I see that it was Tarkker who bawled the order for attention, I have a difficult time remaining cool. The spiteful grin on his face tells me that he called us to attention for something really, really unimportant.
“Mail distribution. I’ll call the names, and people will get their mail. No scrambling for letters, no shouting, no queuing up. You got me?” Gods, whoever made that guy a Corporal and Sarge’s replacement?
“Yes, sir!” everyone calls out but I can see a few people who are doing it through clenched teeth. Good to know that I’m not the only one hating the fact that Tarkker is acting Platoon leader since the LT died and Sarge will be on the hospital ship for an indefinite amount of time. Is it really that hard to find some Lieutenant to replace Drennel?
Tarkker barks out the names and then suddenly I hear him call out “Melara!” For a moment, I’m a little stunned. I haven’t gotten any letters for months now and I thought I would never get any at all. Another “Melara!” - this time a little sharper than before - shakes me out of the reverie and I walk to the entrance. When Tarkker gives me the envelope, a nasty grin spreads over his face. “Have fun reading it, queeny.” I never really hated anyone before. I think that just changed. For one thing, he's still using that stupid nickname that they gave me aboard the box. Second, the look on his face tells me that he probably opened my letter and read it, now knowing that there's something distinctly unpleasant inside.
It seems he’s taking his time with finishing giving out the mail, or at least that’s what it looks like to me. Finally, he’s finished, unfortunately not without giving me another one of those sleazy grins. Apparently I’m not the only one who noticed it because the moment Tarkker is out of the tent, Xan turns to me, saying, “What was that all about? What did he say to you?” I just shrug and finally take a look at the envelope.
The handwriting doesn’t ring any bells, so I have a look at the sender’s address. And my heart nearly skips a beat. It’s the address of my family’s summer residence on Borleias, a forest moon near Coruscant. When I went away, we agreed on not sending mail to each other so as not to draw attention to my family, with only real emergencies being the only exception. We would use this address then because no one knows that house belongs to us. Whatever happened, it has to be something terrible.
Ignoring everything around me, I open the letter, noticing that my hands are shaking. The paper in my hand feels strange. It’s been years since I last saw and wrote on real paper, not flimsyplast or datapads. Unfolding the sheet of paper, I already feel my throat constricting, and terrible dread settling in my stomach. Finally, I read the text.
Dad died yesterday. Come home Jen. We need you.
And that’s it; that's everything. Still, that's all it takes for my world to begin crumbling and falling down around me. The writing before my eyes begins to blur and the sudden need to be out of this stifling tent full of people overwhelms me. Without saying anything, I storm past a bewildered Xanas, with no destination in mind. I just need to get out for a while... anywhere else but here.
~*~
I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here and I don’t care either. My head is empty of any thoughts of the war and I feel a numbness that is almost comforting. Not even the infernal Tatooine heat or the glaring light of the sun bother me now. I don’t feel pain or heat or anything else. Which, to be honest, scares the living daylights out of me. Shouldn’t I be bawling my eyes out or something? Screaming in pain would be appropriate too, right? But for some reason, the only thing I feel is a strange sense of detached numbness.
“Jenna?” And that would be Danna Kreth. She's my best friend but right now I just wish she would leave. I don’t want anyone expressing their sympathy to me, not even Danna. At least not right now. “Hey, uh, can I sit down?” I don’t say anything, hoping she’ll take the hint. Of course she doesn’t. “I'll take that as a yes,” she says and sits down beside me.
For a while, neither of us says a word and I’m thankful for it. The last thing I want to do now is ‘talk it over’.
“Jenna… for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” And that was exactly the wrong thing to say. But I already offended her once by being too closed off... by pushing her away. So I force myself to answer.
“You don’t need to be.” I’m not looking at her but at the endless desert and the stunning sight of the day's first sunset in front of me. She takes her time in answering, obviously sensing something in me. It’s something I noticed very soon after meeting her: her ability to just... know certain things without even asking. It can be really scary at times.
“You know… you gave Farrayn a real scare back in the tent.” Huh? What’s Xanas got to do with all of this? “Really, I never saw a guy more worried. Okay, maybe apart from Magic when I arbitrarily decided to go with the rescue crew without telling him, back when your box crashed. But Korwin’s a natural worrier. Farrayn isn’t, as far as I know, so something must be up. You want to tell me how bad it really is?” Very clever. Using Xanas as a means to get me to talk. Not that it’ll work or anything but I have to commend her on her strategy.
We are silent again. Impressive. I knew that Danna was patient but I never thought she could be this patient when she wasn't in the field. “Come on, Jenna. At least tell me what that 'Jen, we need you.' line was all about. And what you’re going to do about the whole thing. Okay, so maybe she isn't as patient as I thought. Oh well, I guess I owe her at least some kind of answer. Plus, she might leave me alone when she gets what she wants.
“They need me for my father's funeral. On Chandrila, when a family member dies, it’s always the oldest daughter that performs the necessary rituals for the ch’tartha of the deceased person to find their peace. I already had to do it for my mother, although we never had a body.” I’m a bit afraid of my own voice, sounding so even and detached. As if I was a narrator of some documentary holo.
“I… see. And do you want to do it?” Okay. Time for a crash course in Chandrilan burial traditions for Danna.
“It’s not a question of wanting to do it, Danna. I have to. It’s my duty and there’s nothing that could release me from it. If there was, they wouldn’t have contacted me. I need to go. In the next two days, if possible.” And how I wish I wouldn’t have to. My mother’s funeral had been hard on me but then at least I didn’t have to look at her dead body. And my father did all the organization. Now I have to do both: the organization and the ritual.
“Jenna… you know that it could be a trap, right?” Of course I do. I've already thought of that. I’m not stupid.
“Yes. My family has a certain reputation because of my mother’s service to the Old Republic and the Alliance but my father managed to make himself invaluable to the Imps by supplying them with certain luxury goods. Anyway, even if it is a trap, I need to go. Either my father really is gone or someone is trying to draw us all back home. Either way, my family needs me.”
“But you really shouldn’t go alone.” I jump a little. Does he always have to startle me like that? And what was he doing eavesdropping on us anyway?
“That’s none of your business, Private.” And it really isn't. Who does he think he is? And why isn't Danna saying something?
“Jenna… he does have a point, you know.” Hey! That’s not what I meant with “Say something, Danna.”!
“Of course I do. And it is my business, because it concerns you, Mel.” What the fuck is happening here? Why are they ganging up on me?
“Look, Jenna, I would go with you but I can’t leave. Recon is getting a lot of work right now and it doesn't look like the patrol schedule is going to get any lighter. So… we thought… that maybe… Xanas could accompany you.” What the… “we thought”? Who in all hells is “we”? What right do they have to decide who, if anyone, is accompanying me? This is just too much.
Without saying anything, I jump up and start running away blindly, once again seeking my solitude. I need to find someplace quiet, where no one will ask me about the letter, about Chandrila, about my father; where no one will try to force me into taking someone to share my pain with.
I stagger through the camp, not caring where I’m actually going. Around me, dusk is setting in and like in every desert, it doesn’t take much time to grow completely dark once the last sun is down. In my blind fury, I bump into something solid. On second glance it reveals itself as the backside of the mess tent. Well, it's a good enough for taking a short break. I slowly sink to the sand outside the mess tent, my back resting against the fabric that makes up the back wall, and tune out the rest of camp as wordless sobs begin to shake my body.
~*~
TBC in Chapter 2.