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The Perk- Late Friday night

Coffee this late was never a good idea, but Jaina had enough work to keep her up the last few nights that she found it necessary. More to keep herself awake than anything, she opted to head into town and see if the Perk was still open rather than actually making it herself in a common room. Plus she liked theirs better than what she made.

Shoving her hands deeper in her jacket, she looked inside to make sure they hadn't started putting the chairs on the tables or closing up yet.

[For one!]

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It had been a long day, seeing Nancy off to spend some much-deserved time with her family and then grabbing a portal to Fandom for however long he could manage before he got called back to real life.

Even though it was late when he got in, John had felt the need for coffee. He was just heading out of the shop with a hot cup in hand and had to stop short of running smack into Jaina.

He'd take instant awkward anxiety for six hundred, Alex.

Of all the things Jaina could have possibly expected from tonight, seeing John here, in Fandom, was not one of them. In fact, if it wasn't aware about a second after the most initial of the shock wore off that she could sense him, she might have blamed it on being overtired and started pinching herself.

Eloquently, she greeted him with, "You're here."

Yes, he probably knew that.

John had honestly planned to call, just not till a decent hour of the morning. He swallowed his coffee and had to work not to breathe it instead. "Yeah, you too," he said intelligently, his mind stuck on how she'd barely changed in three years.

"Uh, right, you live here," he remembered. He'd talked to her a couple months back even. "There's a thing this weekend? They invited us all back."

"Right." If she'd heard about it, she'd paid zero attention. "I just... wouldn't have figured you'd show. The time thing."

Amazing how hard it was to focus on things like words when your brain had set itself to the 'flail' setting and wouldn't budge.

"You cut your hair again," she noticed. Of course, she didn't know he'd never grown it out to start with.

His free hand jerked up to scrape over what was left of his hair, surprised she'd mentioned it when it'd been like this for at least six years. "Yeah, every few weeks. Uh, god this shouldn't be so weird - Hi! How are you?" John asked, shaking himself from the inner confusion over seeing her because he really was wanting to try whatever friendly thing he'd say if she was just any old friend.

"Good," she said automatically, because she wasn't actually good, but that was not a good way to start this. "In need of caffeine. Obviously. Glad you're here."

And she was. There were way too many thoughts and emotions running around in her at the moment, but it was never not good to see him.

They had just talked like normal people, John mentally chastised himself and pulled it together with a fast smile. "I'm pretty glad I'm here myself. You, uh, want some company while you get your coffee?" If he offered to hang out he figured her reply would give him a better understanding of where they stood.

The answer was immediate. "Yes," she said, though she'd have to follow him back inside. "I mean, if you came all this way, the least I can do is let you spend that much time with me."

Teasing, of course, but in reality she'd take his company for as long as she could possibly get it. That was probably not a great sign for the month she'd spent just beginning to try and get over him, but too kriffing bad.

"Hey, I was gonna call, just not so late," he said, backing up and holding the door to let her past him. "It was kind of a last minute decision on my end." Talking seemed to push away some of the weird, so he was going with it.

Sneaking past him to get inside, she hung back a bit to wait for him so they could walk together. "Missed the place that much?" she wondered. She also wondered if maybe he'd wanted to see her, but she knew that was a hopeful part of her that needed to be killed dead as soon as possible, and she'd work on that as soon as they parted ways here.

"You could say that," he inclined his head in a slow nod, thinking it had been more about the people, but she probably didn't want to know any of that. "Though the last few months have been a little wild with Fandom, so."

Jaina was unable to help the smile as she realized, "Tell me there was a month of an elf costume."

It really was a great mental image, if nothing else. Consider his ears.

John made a scowling face at her. She knew very well it had been a month of personal torture for him. "Least I wasn't a girl again."

As much as she would rather smiles instead of scowling faces, Jaina was just glad she could see his face at all. She'd half resigned herself to never seeing him again outside of pictures.

"See, there's a bright side. I'm sorry, I think it's just impossible for me not to like when you're costumed." She'd gotten in some good teasing from the barbershop outfit too. Though he probably didn't still have the hat. "Call it habit."

Anything that had left Fandom in his possession and managed not to get tossed over the three years at Stanford was safely packed away in storage. Including the barbershop hat.

"Habit," he repeated, completely out of so many former habits. "So what are you doing getting coffee this late? I assume coffee because lord only knows how serious this could get if you order hot chocolate."

Seriously. For as long as they'd been together, he'd always found ways to surprise her, and somehow he was still managing it. "Your memory scares me sometimes," she said with a little smile. "My sleep schedule's all off for work stuff. Hot chocolate might be appropriately serious for that, but I'm going for the caffeine anyway."

His memory made his job a hell of a lot easier most days. "Then I take it you're still working too hard." John couldn't help how weird it felt that she was still doing all the same things when his life was...different now.

Not necessarily different good, just not the same. He wondered if she thought he was too different.

"Not too hard. I've gotten better. But the war's still going on, so until then I get to be attached to my comm," she said. Her training was sort of insane these days, but she was doing pretty good on balancing the work.

She took a second to order, and as she was paying, asked, "How are you liking work? If you're still liking it, I mean."

"It's okay," he shrugged noncommittally, leaning his hip against the counter while he waited. The thing about John and work was that he was damn good at his job, he just always felt like there was something else he should be doing. "You'd probably scoff at our lack of tech."

"Well, yeah, or I'd at least try to improve on what you have," she shrugged, trying to make herself not enjoy the leaning. "Just okay?"

"Okay's kinda the composite," he replied, accompanying the leaning with a little smirk. "You take the good and the bad and it's an overall okay."

And now he was smirking. He had to be doing this on purpose. "And to think, you could have lied, and made me jealous with all the fabulous places you've seen and how many medals you've got now."

Though, really, she was a colonel after being in a war for five years. She wouldn't have believed that anyway.

"Like I could make a twenty-one-year-old with her full bird jealous," John pointed out, though he was still smirking just a little. "And I've been places, but I don't think you'd like the sand without the water. I haven't found a benefit to it yet."

"Pretend you're on Tatooine?" she suggested. "Can you say where you've been?" Because if he could, she wanted to look up about what was going on there, even if the timelines didn't match up. She was allowed to still worry. And want to send bacta patches.

"I would if I'd ever made it there," John smiled, kind of wishing he had. "But the places aren't all that interesting, I promise. It's no tourist trip." That was code for 'I can't tell and it's easier if you just don't ask.'

That went for so many other things, too.

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