Title: From the Shadows (Between the Moments series #1)
Timeframe: During Edge of Victory: Rebirth (tail end of it, actually)
Characters: Mara Jade Skywalker, with references to Luke and Ben
Summary: Upon the birth of her son, Mara thinks about the choices she's made that led her to this point.
Note: This was my first foray into SW fic, written October 19, 2005.
I've always been in the shadows. I was comfortable there. I was an unknown, willing to stop at nothing to serve my master. Even kill.
And then the world changed around me and everything I knew crumbled away until all that was left was me. Standing in the harsh light of day.
And I changed.
So many changes were gone through by the time I finally met him for the first time. The one who changed my world.
I wanted to kill him, of course. Wanted him to know my pain. My grief. To feel the loneliness that had been thrust upon me so suddenly. To do to him what he had done to me.
And so, upon this meeting with a man whom I detested and loathed, I began to change again. I didn't like it... I didn't embrace it... I didn't understand it.
And what started out as hate and grief, slowly, ever so slowly, became a sort of friendship... then denile... and longing... and then love.
And my loneliness became togetherness.
And my pain became joy.
And all it took was a choice between what that voice in my head was telling me to do, or the right thing to do.
A choice to rescue a man I thought hated with a passion from certain death in the void of space.
A choice to follow him into the jungle or let him go.
A choice to trust him.
To be his friend.
To love him.
To become his wife.
And you know something?
Looking down at our son as I hold him in my arms and look into his gray eyes for the first time, and feel the love well up inside myself that makes the pain of labor a distant memory... I'm glad I made the right ones.
Fini