Title: Reality
Author: VeryBusy
Timeframe: Rebirth
Characters: L/M
Genre: Missing Scene
Disclaimer: This is not written in order to make any money with it. I do not own anything belonging into the Star Wars Universe.
He could not tell what woke him up lately.
It was in the middle of the night and the crono on the opposite wall showed 2 a.m.
This was Errant Venture Time of course, so Luke could not really tell if there was any relation to the local time on a planet or if this was just the time the Star Destroyer's captain had made up in order to fit with his personal inner schedule.
Not that it really mattered.
Somehow, for Luke the times of the day had become nonexistent during the past week. There had been only one thing to focus on – Mara – her fight for life, her fight for their unborn child; his struggle to help keeping the disease at bay, his meager attempts to help her to survive.
There must have been times when he had slept, times when Mara allowed herself some rest but there was no relation to the normal schedule on the ship. Another reality maybe…
Luke glanced at the crono again, recognizing that the design of the clock wasn't anything he had expected on a Star Destroyer; in fact it was no design he had ever seen on Coruscant or any other of the core worlds, but rather some antique Booster must have picked up on one of his journeys though out the galaxy.
He shook his head in amazement, until now he just had not realized that there was a quite tick-tack announcing every second that passed.
Listening to the low noise he could not help but muse about how he would have felt listening to that sound not even 24 hours ago.
Had this clock been there at all?
It must have been, but somehow the noise had never reached his conscious mind.
If it had, he had gone crazy, knowing that every tick had pointed to another amount of time having passed without him finding a way out … another second where Mara's signature in the force seemed to become more and more distant without any hope.
Right now, the small ever repeating sounds together with the distant humming of the Ventures sub light engines were very welcome. Every tick-tack reminded him that this was reality.
A reality he had not dared to wish for finally.
A reality that included a comfortable silence that allowed him to recognize things in his surrounding that were totally out of focus before.
He was sitting in that armchair right next to Mara's bed while the whole med area seemed to be deserted. Everyone had finally gone to bed, even the medic-droids had powered down in their charging alcoves. The lights were turned low so that the whole surrounding behind her bed and behind the makeshift crib with their new born son were out of focus.
The ticking of the clock seemed to be synchronized with Mara's strong pulse that he could feel under his fingers while carefully stroking her hand and her wrist. A reality where the engine's humming seemed to be the perfect background music to her even breathing.
A miracle – their miracle – as veritable as it could be, alive, their victory!
Leaning back in his chair, Luke's gaze went back to his wife's face. A face that - as beautiful as it was to him still - told how much pain she had endured, how closed they had been to loosing this fight.
Earlier, while she had been awake holding Ben in her arms, the sparking in her eyes and her brilliant smile had outshined the dark circles now clearly visible under her eyes and her haggard cheeks. She was so thin; one could think she would break from the most feather light touch.
He knew she would not, she was one of the strongest person he had ever known and time would erase those still visible reminders of the disease soon.
Never the less, he had to seek for her presence through the force, he just needed to touch her mind right now in order to ensure that this was true- they had made it.
It was true indeed; Luke felt her currently unconscious mind reflexively returning the mental caress.
He closed his eyes and basked in the feeling of her spirit coiling around his sending reassurance that everything would be fine and at the same time drawing from his strength in order to help healing her physical wounds.
His wife, his soul mate, his other half – he could not have felt more complete at the moment. All those months where she had kept him at arms length, where she had recoiled at his mental touch in order to protect him from darkness, feeling that she sought for his presence again, that she allowed herself to need him was nearly overwhelming.
He needed some rest nearly as much as she did, but currently Luke was thankful for whatever had woken him in the middle of the Errant Venture's night. It had felt like a dream, but now it was real.
fin