Follow My Lead
Summary: Mara and Luke are stranded and credits are short. What will they do? One-shot.
Timeframe: I have no idea. Before Mara and Luke are married, so therefore before Mara is a proper Jedi.
Archive: In the unlikely event that someone would actually want to archive this – ask and I'll say yes. Just let me know where it's going.
Disclaimer: All things recognisably Star Wars belong to George Lucas. I just like making up my own stories. ALL HAIL LUCAS!
A/N: I apologise in advance for dodgy mechanics. It's a bunny that bounced around my brain for a few months, and it's been gathering dust in my computer for almost a year now. May be a little OOC, as this is only the second time I've tried to write Mara and the first time I've written her and Luke. Don't kill me!
"Now you've done it, Skywalker."
Luke blinked at his companion, a picture of innocence. Mara Jade simply rolled her eyes and turned back to the wreckage.
Well, perhaps 'wreckage' was a strong word. After all, the ship was mostly intact.
Mostly.
"In all fairness, Mara, it was your idea to land out here. If we had landed earlier, the ship wouldn't have been so damaged."
"Actually, Skywalker, I seem to recall saying 'if we don't land now we're going to be blown to Hoth'. I suggested this place because it was the only clear area I could see," Mara shot back. "Besides, if you hadn't wasted time looking for somewhere else to land, it would have been fine."
A loud, metallic clunk resonated from somewhere inside the ship.
Luke glanced once at Mara, and headed quickly back towards the ship, saying "I'll go and find out exactly what the problem is."
He emerged a short while later looking grim. "We're not getting off this place anytime soon," he said to Mara. "The shifter and the left thrusters are fried."
Mara glared at him. "You know whose fault this is, don't you?"
Luke wisely kept silent.
"If you hadn't responded to the signal from that 'rogue' TIE fighter, we wouldn't be stuck here."
He sighed inaudibly. This point had been made twice already, and he couldn't see the merit in arguing it again – it could take hours.
"Look, Mara, whoever's fault it was, we're stuck here until we can replace those parts. We have to work together."
She kept glaring, but Luke sensed her soften a little.
"Fine," she replied shortly. "How much is this going to cost?"
"Probably around two or three thousand credits for the parts," Luke replied.
Mara winced. Three thousand credits was a lot of money – probably more than both she and Skywalker had on them put together.
"Are you sure there's no way we can fix it ourselves?" she asked.
Luke shook his head reluctantly. "We could probably get halfway to Coruscant, but then we'd be in even worse shape."
Mara blew out a long, loud, frustrated sigh, digging into her pack for money as Luke did the same. They held their findings out and counted – seven hundred and thirty.
"Blast," the red-haired woman muttered. "How are we going to come up with two thousand two hundred and seventy credits in less than a week?"
Luke pocketed his credits and pulled out his comlink.
"If we can contact somebody, they could come get us…" he muttered.
Mara watched him try to raise Leia – no signal. He tried Han – still nothing.
"They must block unfamiliar signals here," she mused. "We're on our own."
Reluctantly, the young Jedi put his comlink away. "We should probably head into that town," he suggested, pointing into the distance. "We might find a way to get the credits for those parts."
She nodded shortly, and began to stride off.
"Wait, Mara!"
Turning, she snapped, "What?" Her impatience was making her short-tempered.
Luke gestured at the ship. "We should shield it somehow. We don't want to come back and find it gone."
Mara sighed again. "Skywalker, the ship's pretty much a wreck – nobody's going to get far in it. I can't sense anything nearby, and we're far beyond the outskirts of the closest town."
After some hesitation, her companion reluctantly walked forward to join her. Mara smiled grimly. Things would run much more smoothly is Skywalker listened to her from now on.
Their first stop was a junkyard. It seemed more upmarket than those on Tatooine. Luke had been right – the parts they needed would cost them just over three thousand credits. Mara contemplated choking the proprietor for what she considered robbery, but Luke stopped her. After all, he said, they had expected a high price. He moved on ahead, and as she followed, she made a subtle movement with her hand – and a pile of carefully stacked machinery in the centre of the yard spilled across the floor with a smash.
Help Wanted
"Mara. What about this place?"
She inspected the small building doubtfully. "Here?" Taking in the peeling paint and cracked duracrete, she said, "I don't know, Skywalker. I don't think we'd make enough cash working in a place like this."
"Oh, come on," Luke replied enthusiastically. "We'd be doing good for the community as well. And nowhere else we've seen will hire us."
"If you'd let me use Force manipulation…"
Luke cut her off with a look. "Mara, we've been through this. We will not deceive the innocent citizens of this planet just to achieve our own ends. It's not the Jedi way."
"I'm not the Jedi here," Mara muttered under her breath. She turned back to the building and raised her eyebrows.
"Mara, trust me," her companion said gently. "Just…follow my lead. It'll be fine."
She turned her piercing gaze on him and reached out to him through the Force. Nothing but sincerity and eagerness to help. She did trust Luke – most of the time. He'd helped her out on more than one occasion, and was not often wrong…and the times he was, she had helped him. She sighed and glanced back at the door. "All right," she said.
Luke smiled and opened the door to Smiling Faces Day-care.
The first face they saw was not smiling. A harried-looking human woman of about thirty came up to them, carrying a crying Twi'lek toddler.
"I'm sorry, we're not able to accept any more children, we're quite full," she said, trying to soothe her charge with a soft toy.
"What? No, we don't have any –" Luke started, blushing faintly.
"We're not –" Mara said at the same time. They both stopped and glanced briefly at each other. The woman had begun flying a toy speeder around the toddler's head, who ceased crying and giggled.
"There was a 'Help Wanted' sign up, and we've come to apply," Luke told the woman.
She looked up at them, relief written all over her face. "Excellent!" The child in her arms began to wail again, so she placed him on the ground with the speeder. "Do you have any experience with children?"
Exchanging another look with Mara, Luke answered, "Yes, we were…teachers bef–"
"And do you like working with children?" she interrupted, prising the end of the speeder out of the Twi'lek's mouth.
"Yes, of course," Luke replied.
"Great. I'm Erienne, by the way."
"Luke Skywalker, and this is my friend, Mara Jade."
Erienne nodded to both of them and smiled. "You're hired. Both of you. Come with me, I'll show you what to do."
After a moment of surprise, they followed her.
Well…that was easy.
Erienne showed them where the food and juice were kept, where the refreshers were, and the kinds of activities the children liked. They were to work five hours a day, thirty-four credits an hour each.
"Basically," she told them, "your job is to help the kids, keep them happy and out of harm. Keep them occupied, and play with them." She left them inside and went to supervise the four or so children playing outside.
Immediately, a small group of six-year-old boys surrounded Luke and began to chatter to him. Mara watched, amused, as the young Jedi sat down and began to help them build an X-wing out of blocks.
Suddenly, she became aware that she was being watched. She turned around to see a little girl blinking up at her.
"Oh – hello," Mara greeted her, crouching down. "What's your name?"
"Ryn," the girl answered a little shyly.
"Hi Ryn. I'm Mara."
Ryn smiled toothily at her and tugged at Mara's long red hair. "You have pretty hair," she giggled.
Ouch! Mara smiled through a wince (This girl tugs hard) and gently tried to untangle Ryn's fingers from her hair. When her fingers refused to move, Mara groaned inwardly and used the Force to loosen them. Ryn looked surprised to see her fingers move on their own accord.
Quickly, Mara took her hand and said, "Why don't you show me the kinds of things you like doing?"
The little girl grinned and skipped to the dress-up corner, dragging Mara behind. Once there, she plopped a huge, floppy flowered hat on the older woman's head, and hung several strands of cracked glass beads around her neck. She then crowned herself with a flimsy tiara and draped a long, holey purple cloak around her shoulders.
"I'm a princess, and you can be my handmaiden!" Ryn giggled.
The handmaiden look suits you, Mara.
Mara raised an eyebrow and shot a look at Luke, whose blue eyes shone with laughter.
Shut it, Skywalker. Don't make me have to kill you in front of the children, she sent back at him as Ryn led her to a little table and directed her to set it with tea things. But she too was suppressing a smile.
After another two hours, Mara was ready to scream.
Ryn had the shortest attention span of any sentient being Mara had ever seen. After approximately three minutes of one game, she tired of it and dashed off to something else. And as soon as Mara attempted to clear away the mess of toys, clothes or blocks, Ryn squawked for help in her new amusement. And the three or so other girls in the room had noticed the red-haired woman, and had begun clamouring for attention too. Mara had had to sit and grit her teeth patiently as four little girls turned her long red hair into a tangle of messy braids and twists. Erienne had come in and taken the girls off her hands for a while, but in doing so, she had left the fussy Twi'lek toddler in Mara's care. And it was feeding time. The former Emperor's Hand was now splattered with various flavours of half-solid mush.
But through all this, she had focused only on the promise of money – money to buy the parts to repair the ship that would cart her and the Jedi off this planet.
Suddenly, Mara stopped sponging off the mess on her jumpsuit. A nasty thought had entered her mind…
"Skywalker, I need to talk to you."
Luke looked up at her. "In a second, Mara – can I get a little help?"
The boys he had been playing with had gotten into a heated argument about TIE fighters and X-wings, and had begun to express their views somewhat…violently. Luke had managed to keep a couple of them apart, but a few others were still locked in battle.
Mara sighed and wrenched the boys apart. "Look, kids – I need to talk to my friend here. So if you all just go over there and play quietly, I'll let you sit in my real X-wing."
"I don't like X-wings," a short Rodian said, staring up at her mistrustfully.
"Well, luckily for you, I also have a TIE fighter. Go on, go over there."
The group of boys scrambled off eagerly, leaving Luke and Mara alone.
"You don't have a TIE fighter or an X-wing," Luke pointed out, beginning to gather the blocks that had been knocked over in the fight.
"They don't know that."
Silence prevailed for a couple of moments, but Luke sensed Mara's brooding. "What's wrong?"
"Our pay."
"Thirty-four credits an hour each? Sounds good to me."
Mara sighed inaudibly. "Add it up, Skywalker. We only have five days to get the money. It's only seventeen hundred credits. That's not enough!"
"We could delay for a couple of days…" Luke suggested hesitantly. But he knew that it would be impossible – Leia had made it clear that she needed his help on Coruscant, and he couldn't let his sister down. "What do you suggest we do?"
Mara pondered this for a few seconds, and responded with "Leave."
And she turned and walked to the door.
Luke had no choice but to murmur a hasty explanation and apology to the bemused Erienne and follow Mara out.
Once outside, Luke let loose.
"Mara, we can't just leave! We agreed to work there for a week. We can't just leave Erienne by herself!"
The former Emperor's Hand sighed. "Fine." She spotted two young women in slightly ragged clothes haggling with a nearby stall keeper, and strode purposefully to them, Luke trailing hesitantly behind.
"Excuse me, do either of you have jobs?" she asked.
The women exchanged a glance before one cautiously replied, "No, but we'd like to be employed."
Mara smiled. "Perfect. See there? Smiling Faces Day-care? Apply in there. The owner's name is Erienne. Good pay and good hours."
The speaker glanced at the building, and then fixed her suspicious gaze on Mara. "But –"
"You should both apply in there. Now," Mara cut in, injecting the weight of the Force into her voice.
"We should," the women agreed, and they ambled off.
"Mara!" Luke was scandalised.
"What? Oh, don't get high-and-mighty. They needed jobs, I helped them get them. And it solved Erienne's problem, didn't it?"
"Yes, but –"
"Save it, Farmboy."
They walked in silence until they reached the ship, and decided to remain there for the night. When morning came, they could plan another way of earning credits.
Luke was just falling asleep when a vague sensation in the Force jerked him awake. Something was happening with Mara – something potentially dangerous. He scrambled up and checked that his lightsaber was secure on his belt.
"Mara?" He called, walking cautiously to the ramp. Finally, he spotted her – walking back towards the town. "Mara, where are you going?"
The red-haired woman stopped and waited for Luke to catch up. "You have two choices – ignore me and go back to the ship, or come with me and do exactly what I tell you to do, no questions asked. Take your pick."
Luke chose the latter, sending her a worried I hope you know what you're doing, Mara.
Don't I always? Trust me, Farmboy.
Luke blinked warily. The good news was that trusting Mara often led to the solution of their problems. The bad news was that it could sometimes lead to pain, humiliation, something potentially illegal or dangerous, or all three. And sometimes the risks outweighed the costs.
"Wait here," Mara instructed. "I won't be long." She disappeared around the corner.
Luke melted into the shadow of the building behind him and looked around, stretching out with the Force. He was able to ascertain that Mara had moved to the junkyard they had visited earlier in the day. He puzzled over this – how would a late night visit solve their problem? Unless…
Oh dear Force, she's not…
Against his better judgement, he fought back the overwhelming urge to find his friend and stop her from doing whatever she was doing. But in a few more minutes he felt her approach.
"Mara, what did you…" The words died on his lips when he saw that the red-haired woman was floating all the parts they needed before her, using the Force.
"Okay, let's repair the ship and get to Coruscant," she said, sending a few of the parts to Luke, who automatically manipulated the Force to handle them.
"Wait, Mara – did you do anything –"
"Skywalker, do you really want to ask me that?"
Luke muttered, "I guess not," but Mara could clearly sense the worry in him.
She waited until they were on the outskirts of the city before giving her short explanation.
"Okay, I originally planned to steal these. But I knew you'd kill me if I did anything illegal, so I got the owner awake, paid him the money I had, and with some…persuasion…he let me take these."
"You still basically cheated an innocent store owner," Luke pointed out.
"At least I didn't steal," she snapped.
"True." A pause. "Thank you for respecting me, Mara. It means a lot."
"I bet it does." She looked sideways at him, and added in a softer voice, "You're welcome."
"Okay, everything's done. We can go," Mara said, wiping grease off her hands with a rag as she joined Luke in the cockpit.
"Good. We'll be early," he remarked, sitting down in the pilot's chair.
She looked at him. "What are you doing?"
Surprised, his brow furrowed. "I –"
"Get up."
"What?"
"I thought even you could understand a simple phrase like 'get up', Skywalker."
He stood and moved to the other chair, still obviously confused.
"Look, you're a good pilot, Farmboy. But this time…" Mara began the take off sequence and the ship started to move, "…you're following my lead."
And with a smirk and a slightly embarrassed chuckle, they left.
Fin