Ben's shuttle back to Fandom had barely given him enough time to drop his stuff off before he had to get to Master Atreides' class.

And if a class that was going to be devoted to torture and madness of leaders was going to cause him any kind of problem, well, he wasn't thinking about it.

He lowered himself carefully onto the bed--all of the walking he'd done today was hurting his joints--closed his eyes and began to work on a healing meditation his father had taught him.

The door was cracked open.

[OOC: Ben's back, yay!]

After going for a long run and an even longer workout, Ben finally made it back to his room and collapsed onto his bed.

The message light was blinking on his comm.

"Finally," he muttered, waving it over to him. It'd been weeks since he'd heard anything from home. Not that he thought Jacen would call, but Master Horn had promised to keep him updated on what was happening.

He pressed the button to play the message, expelling a breath he didn't know he was holding when Master Corran Horn's image floated in front of him. A message from Jacen would have been hard to hear. And a message from his father would have been unrealistic.

Ben ignored the pang that realization gave him.

Five minutes later, after listening three times to Master Horn's message just to make sure his ears weren't messing with him, Ben began to wonder if hearing from Jacen might not have been the better choice.

"Jacen's taken the academy hostage," he repeated aloud, just in case that would help it sink in.

It didn't.

[OOC: Door's cracked, post is open!]

Ben's shuttle had arrived too late for him to get to his morning class.

Not that he was terribly upset about that: Jaina and Tahiri were both there and he wasn't quite ready to face people who would know how very okay he wasn't.

He sat back down in the center of his room and began beating the hell out of a piece of metal, just like he'd been doing last week.

Just like nothing had changed.

The door was cracked open.

Ben was in his room, surrounded by several hundred pieces of electronics.

He'd tell you he was building a droid.

He was really keeping himself incredibly distracted.

The door was cracked open.

[OOC: Open to all.]

Ben sat in the center of his floor surrounded by tools, bits of machinery, and a schematic of a modified mouse droid he'd sketched out.

The door was open as he banged industriously on the little toy he was building for John. He...might be a little loud.

Even after seeing Jacen, Ben was holding himself responsible for Lekauf's death. If he had been faster, they wouldn't have needed a diversion.

He slipped into his room, carefully closing the door so he wouldn't wake up Wendy, and curled up on his bed.

He just wanted to disappear. He'd work on that Force technique Jacen had showed him that made him do that later. Something that felt like dying very, very slowly when he was in this kind of mood was just asking for trouble.

It had been a busy few days--meeting a fake sibling and a real cousin from another universe (and her boyfriend who was already less annoying than Zekk or Jag), and a friend who should be fourteen years older and a grandfather who should be dead...

...and that was before meeting a friend of a different version of his father, who had apparently been gremlin bait (whatever a gremlin was. Ben didn't plan to find out).

At least his roommate seemed normal. And Tony, Joan, Myn, Hurley, and Jess all seemed pretty astral (that one girl might eat shoes and bore closer investigation)--and had the added benefit of not knowing anything about Ben's insane family.

He propped the door open just in case anyone was wandering the halls, then went back to writing a report about what he'd seen here so far to Jacen.

In case Jacen had been wondering where he'd gone. Or noticed he was missing. Jacen was kind of hard to figure out sometimes.

[OOC: Open like a post that is doubling as a linkdrop.]