A/N: A big thank you to everyone who's read and reviewed!

Standard disclaimers apply: I'm not making any money from this, please don't sue me, etc.

Chapter 2

Agony. Gnawing, twisting, burning, biting; he fought back a scream and was convinced his flesh was rending itself from his body. "Oportet fieri," he murmured to himself over and over again as he writhed on the floor of his seedy hotel room. It had been days and days and he was no closer to mastering his reaction than he had been at the outset. He could feel the light beginning to crackle behind his chest and in his fingertips and grunting with effort, pushed himself to standing. "Imperator vult," he whispered through clenched teeth as he stepped into the hallway, pressing toward his goal.

"Do you ever go anywhere without that droid?" Mara said as she leaned against the top of the entrance ramp of the freighter she'd arranged to borrow from Karrde and wiped her hands on an old rag.

Luke glanced at her as he trudged up the ramp, Artoo following in his wake and beeping madly. "Artoo? Why would I? He's the best little droid in the whole Republic."

"He's not a pet, Skywalker," she stated with an exaggerated roll of her eyes as she turned back into the the ship and headed toward the cockpit. She hadn't made it more than a few meters before she felt a solid bump against the back of her knees, accompanied by an indignant series of hoots and beeps. "Hey!" she called down and watched as Luke tried to hide a smile behind his hand. "What did he say?" she demanded of Luke with a jerk of her thumb at Artoo.

"I'm not sure I should repeat it in polite company," he demurred, still attempting to hold back a smile.

Mara's nostril's flared and and she huffed out an exasperated breath. "I am not polite company."

"I gathered that," Luke said dryly as he headed for the cockpit.

"Skywalker," she growled threateningly as she stalked after him, Artoo tweedling happily behind.

"Anger, fear, aggression; the dark side are they," he quipped as he slid into the pilot's seat and initiated the pre-flight sequence.

"Did you hit your head on the way in?" Mara asked contemptuously as stood behind his chair. "And who made you captain? This is Karrde's ship; ergo my ship. Now move."

Luke turned heavyhearted eyes to her face. "I'd hoped we were past this."

"Past what?"

"This anger, this contempt. I know this is new to you, but you can't treat people this way," he said softly.

"I can-" Mara stopped herself mid-sentence as she saw that she had, by some turn of events, hurt his feelings. She searched her own for why this mattered; she hadn't cared about other people's feelings in...maybe forever if she was honest with herself. She reached out tentatively with the Force and sensed Luke very gently bring down a barrier. He didn't close her out entirely, but shielded his more private emotions. She could still sense a lingering pain and frustration: she was suddenly very sorry for having caused it. She opened her mouth to speak but Luke held up a hand.

"My master was a wise being," he said, quiet but firm. "He told me to pass on what he taught me; to pass on the knowledge of the Jedi." He sighed and dragged an agitated hand through his dark gold hair. "I've tried with Leia, but she doesn't seem to have the time," he continued, a faint trace of bitterness coloring his voice. "It is my hope that I will be able to train you in the ways of the Force," he said simply and sincerely, looking Mara straight in the eye, "But I can't even ask you if that's something you want when you carry so much anger toward me."

"Skywalker," Mara began, floundering in this unfamiliar emotional territory. Not only was she unused to caring how other people felt towards her, she was completely baffled by the shame she felt at her own behavior. "I don't-" she cut herself off again and slid into the copilots seat, swiveling it around to face Luke. She cast her eyes around the cockpit looking for inspiration, but none was forthcoming. "Skywalker," she began again with a deep breath. "I'm not used to this. Friendship is a concept as alien to me as being an assassin would be to you. I understand loyalty and service, but not friendship." It was Luke's turn to be silenced as Mara held out a hand to halt his speech. "But I'm willing to give it a shot. And even I, with my limited knowledge of interpersonal relationships, understand that friends do not treat one another in this manner," she finished a bit stiffly.

"Thank you," Luke said with a nod, looking steadily into Mara's green eyes. After a moment, he turned to complete the pre-flight checks. He knew Mara wouldn't want to linger on the subject: sentimentality was not a trait she seemed to possess and certainly not one she admired in others.

Mara pulled in a breath and spoke in a rush before her courage deserted her. "I would be honored if you would teach me. I'm not ready to commit to being a Jedi," she warned with a waggle of her finger. "I might never be. But you need to teach someone and I would like to be taught."

Luke's hands stilled over the console and it was a few beats before he turned to face her, his eyes bright and a tentative smile on his face, pleasure spreading through his chest. "Really?"

Mara rolled her eyes. "Really." Neither one said anything further on the matter as they finished their checks, though she could feel Luke's Force sense fairly vibrating. He lifted the ship into the air above the capitol and piloted them swiftly and efficiently into the atmosphere.

"Skywalker?" Mara said as she flipped her braid over her shoulder and punched in the coordinates for their first jump.

"Yes, Mara?"

"You're a good pilot," she said almost grudgingly, then arched an eyebrow. "But if you take that seat again without asking I shall be most annoyed."

Luke just pulled the hyperdrive lever and grinned from ear to ear as the starlines flared around them.

After a long sleep in her cabin, Mara roused herself and padded across the cool floors to the refresher unit. As she'd fallen in to bed, she realized that if indeed she had been asleep for two straight days, that meant she hadn't had a shower in three. This realization made her skin crawl, but she was still too tired to do anything about it. Feeling rested but grimy, she sighed as she stepped into the sani-steam. When she was able to be, Mara was a scrupulously clean person. Occasionally, just for the sheer pleasure of being clean, she'd bathe twice a day. She hated grit and dirt and dust and muck, but over the years she'd learned to accept that she'd be covered in all four during the course of her work: assassins and smugglers didn't always get the cleanest of assignments.

Once she'd bathed and dressed, Mara puttered around her rather antiquated cabin, pulling back the lavish red drapes to look at the bright starlines flaring past. She knew she was avoiding Skywalker, but she wasn't entirely sure why, though she did still feel strangely guilty about her behavior last night. She hadn't ever considered she could actually hurt him; he always seemed so placid and unflappable. She left her damp hair to trail down her back and with a sigh left the stateroom. "No point in ignoring it," she muttered to herself as she headed toward the galley and squared her shoulders.

"Morning," he muttered as she rounded the corner, and Mara was woman enough to admit that she was surprised by what she saw. Skywalker was seated at the gaudy gold table in a loose cream tunic, a spoonful of cereal halted halfway to his mouth, his attention wholly on the datapad sitting on the tabletop. As she watched in confusion, his left hand traced baffling patterns on the screen.

"What are you doing?" she queried as she prepped a bowl of instant porridge for herself.

Luke looked up from the datapad and flushed. "Nothing really," he said with a nonchalant shrug. "It's just a game."

Mara eyed the datapad skeptically. "What kind of game?"

"Just something Han showed me," he said as he resumed eating. "It's silly, but it passes the time."

"How silly?" Mara asked as she sat down across from him and pulled the data pad toward her.

"Hey!" Luke exclaimed as he tried to slide it back toward himself. Mara clicked the screen to life and regarded it for long moments, then looked back up at Luke. "The best I can tell, you draw things on the screen and your opponent has to guess them?" she asked.

"That about sums it up," Luke said, a resigned expression on his face.

"It is silly," Mara proclaimed as she slid the datapad back across the table. "But it looks like it might be fun," she finished with a tentative smile. "What were you drawing?"

Luke returned the smile self-consciously and rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. "Jabba the Hutt."

Mara looked affronted by his negligible artistic skills. "That green blob was Jabba?"

"Well, how else would you draw him?" Luke defended. "He was a green blob with eyes, which was exactly what I drew." Mara opened her mouth to say something, then realized he was right: Jabba had been a green blob with eyes. A nasty green blob, but a blob nonetheless. "Besides, Han will know exactly what it is." Luke gestured to the galley with his spoon as he changed the subject. "I took a look around when I woke up; this is one of the oddest ships I've ever been on. There's some serious firepower but the cargo hold is almost nonexistent. The staterooms are huge, but the common areas are small; it looks like all the rooms have their own refresher units, too."

Mara stood to retrieve her porridge from the warming unit. "And don't forget all the gilding," she added.

"Right, even my 'fresher is gilt. Any ideas?" he asked, taking a large bite of his cereal.

"A few," Mara said dryly as she blew on a spoonful of her own breakfast. "The Brigand's Moll is, or was, a bona fide Arcanian Sky Brothel."

Luke choked a bit and coughed, not hiding his surprise. "A brothel?" he parroted.

"A brothel," she confirmed happily, enjoying Skywalker's discomfiture. "A den of iniquity, a house of ill repute."

"But what is Karrde doing with it?" Luke asked, swallowing a large gulp of water to try to soothe his throat.

"Ah, well about six months ago we had some cargo we need to get rid of rather hastily."

"Meaning it was stolen," Luke interjected wryly.

"We didn't steal it," Mara retorted, taking another nonchalant bite of her porridge.

"No, but somebody did," Luke continued with humor. "I've been friends with Han far to long to misunderstand that type of comment."

"Let's just say it was in our best interest to get rid of it, shall we? It had to be done in a way that wouldn't alert any of the authorities that it had been bought or sold, so we decided Karrde should lose it in a Sabacc game. He throws the game, we offload the cargo, nobody's the wiser."

Luke sat back in his chair, linking his hands behind his head. "But that's not how it happened, is it?"

Mara shook her head, clearly still bewildered by the incident. "Not at all. Karrde somehow won the game, so not only did we still have all the cargo, we got this ship, ten thousand credits, and an entire herd of jerbas. We had to get out of there quick, so we piled all the jerba's into the Brigand's Moll and the cargo hold of the Wile Karrde and made the jump to hyperspace as fast as possible." Mara stood and poured herself a tumbler of blue milk, then sat back down. "It would have been a great plan," she said thoughtfully, then sipped at her drink, "Except that we couldn't put down anywhere for three extra days and I was the only one on this ship; nobody told me what a horrible stench the jerba's give off."

"How long were you cooped up in here?" Luke asked, laughter beginning to creep into his speech. He was well acquainted of the singular aroma of a Tatooine jerba herd.

"Five days! There were jerba's chewing on curtains and sleeping in beds for five whole days," Mara said indignantly. Luke did laugh then, unable to contain his mirth at the situation and at Mara's obvious distress. Mara chuckled after a moment; Skywalker's laughter was infectious. He looked at her and laughed anew, his shoulders shaking with mirth.

"But then what about the ship?" Luke asked when he'd settled himself. "I don't see Karrde as the gilded 'fresher type."

"He's not," Mara confirmed with a shake of her head. "We dropped off the ship on Coruscant for a complete overhaul with one of our contacts there, but then everything with Thrawn happened and it was rather low on the list of priorities." She pushed back her chair and stood to rinse her bowl. "It did get a couple of upgrades though, "she stated as she cleaned the dish. "New hyperdrive, new shields, new armaments, new name; all the important stuff."

"Brigand's Moll is the new name?" Luke asked incredulously.

Mara glanced over her shoulder with a wicked smile. "Yeah, before we got a hold of her she was called Harlot's Delight."

Luke's eyes widened and he outright guffawed. "Well, whatever her name is," he breathed after a moment, "She seems to have a decent sized room for some exercise."

Mara couldn't help herself. She really couldn't. "She's got several very nice rooms for a particular form of exercise," she stated as she fluttered her long eyelashes.

Luke gulped and blinked rapidly, his blush flaring red along his neck. The brief mental image of engaging with Mara in that particular type of exercise left him flushed and stammering. He was only a man after all; he'd had fleeting thoughts about almost all the attractive women he'd ever encountered, but he had quite consciously tamped them down when it came to Mara. He'd always thought she was beautiful; it was one of those things everyone acknowledged, but no one really talked about. Saying Mara was beautiful would have been like saying that Tatooine had two suns. It was just something that was. But actively thinking about how soft her skin might be or how her laughter flushed her cheeks and made her eyes a shocking shade of green was a very bad idea. "That wasn't what I meant," he finally managed as he averted his gaze.

Mara shook her head and looked disappointed at his inability to play along. "I know that. You really are straight off the farm, aren't you?"

"Not quite 'straight off,'' Luke protested thinly.

"Close enough."

"I can't be anything but what I am, Mara," he said with one-shouldered shrug.

"No, you really can't, can you?" she mused aloud as she leaned back in her chair and regarded him across the remains of his breakfast.

He shook his head and pushed back from the table. "How about that exercise?"

"This isn't exactly what I had in mind," Mara muttered a few minutes later. She sat on the hard deck of the rec room, legs crossed, eyes closed, palms lying open and upward on her thighs.

"Meditation is an essential tool for understanding the will of the Force: it's mental exercise," Luke stated calmly. He sat across from her in the same position looking serene and comfortable, while Mara felt anything but.

"Can't we just have lightsaber duels or something?" she groused as she tried to get comfortable on the cold floor.

Luke chuckled. "Soon; but first I think we should begin with meditation."

"You think?" he asked sharply. She could hear Luke shift and sensed his vague discomfort.

"I'm not entirely sure," he admitted hesitantly. "My own training was a bit unorthodox; I can't see following the regimen Master Yoda set for me, so I have only my own instincts to go on. Your combat skills far surpass what mine were when I began: meditation and building your skills in the more esoteric aspects of the Jedi seems like the most practical path."

"Gee, I can't wait," Mara muttered sarcastically, but did not make any move to rise or open her eyes.

Luke ignored her and closed his own eyes. "Take a deep breath: clear your mind. Feel the Force flowing through you," he instructed. Mara had her reservations about this whole aspect of training, but she'd asked him to teach her and it seemed a little early in the process to begin questioning his methods. She took a few deep breaths and tried to do as he'd said. Clear your mind, clear your mind, she chanted to herself, but the harder she tried the harder it seemed to be. She opened one eye to look at Luke; he seemed fully absorbed in his meditation. She shut her eye and tried again: this time, all she could seem to focus on was what flavor of ration bar she might like to have for lunch. She opened the other eye after a few moments; Luke still looked blissfully in tune with the Force. Her mind wandered and she started cataloging all changes she'd ask Karrde to make to the ship once they got back: she could really do with a propulsion tune up, and those curtains had to go, and she'd read about some new weapons systems that could really-

"Mara?" Luke questioned without opening his eyes.

"What?" she responded, trying to sound innocent.

"Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Thinking. It's so loud I can hear it from over here."

"You can't hear thinking," she grumbled, but closed her eyes again and tried to clear her mind.

Ten minutes later, she was back to making lists. "Skywalker, this is impossible," she exclaimed as she stood and paced around the room, throwing her hair over her shoulder and braiding it to soothe her suddenly frayed nerves.

Luke remained where he was on the floor, but looked up to consider Mara. "Ok, let's try something different," he said after a moment. "Come sit back down," he said with a gesture to the patch of floor directly in front of him. Mara sighed heavily but did as he requested. "Give me your hands," he said as he held out his own.

"Skywalker-" Mara started. She had never been comfortable with physical contact unless it was absolutely necessary; she didn't see how this qualified.

"Just trust me," Luke said firmly, hands still extended, blue eyes intense on Mara's green ones. Mara hesitated a moment longer, then placed her palms on top of his. Luke's fingers closed around her hands, warm, enveloping, and surprisingly comforting. "Close your eyes," he commanded softly, then took a deep breath and relaxed into the flow of the Force. Mara followed suit, still struggling to clear her mind. Sshh, she felt more than heard. Relax and let me show you, Luke said in her mind. She was briefly startled; she hadn't heard someone that clearly since the Emperor's death. Relax, he said again and Mara forced herself to run through one of her old techniques from her days in Imperial service: she focused on one muscle, tensed it, relaxed it, and moved on to the next. Eventually, she began to feel her body calming, followed by a certain amount of stillness in her mind. As soon as she'd accomplished that, she felt a pressure on her mind, though it wasn't unpleasant. She had enough training with the Force to recognize that it was Skywalker's mental equivalent of holding out his hand to her. As she had with his corporeal hands, she hesitated slightly before latching on to the tendril he held out to her.

Suddenly, as if a screen had been switched from black and white to color, Mara could see and feel. She felt Luke's presence in the Force more strongly than ever; he was like a blazing sun in the swirling maelstrom of life around her. He nudged her own presence with his and before she realized what she was doing, opened herself up to him. Her body and mind felt alight; she could feel the energy from all the tiny living creatures on the ship; even the microscopic ones. She felt the vastness of space and the pulsing light from nearby worlds as they sped past. Most of all though, she felt Luke and the tremendous power that rippled and danced around him. Her only experience with that scale of power had been the Emperor; even in her euphoric state Mara was able to recognize that Luke had the potential for even more power than her former master which, for some reason, frightened her a little. Luke must have sensed her discomfort, so he nudged her again, this time somewhat playfully. She turned her mind back to his light and felt an unaccountable, terrible joy bubble up in her chest. The feeling gushed upward from her core like a fountain and Mara, suddenly overwhelmed, broke off the contact gasping and clutching her chest.

"Wow," she managed, looking up at Luke. She was surprised to find he was also wide eyed and breathing heavily; a fine sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead and matted the hairs at his temple. She had the sudden urge to brush the hair off his face with her hand, an urge that caught her completely off guard.

For his part, Luke was astounded, not only at their connection in the Force, but at the sudden intensity of his desire for Mara. Not only was she stunningly beautiful in her wide-eyed disarray, but her presence was intoxicating; he felt drunk on the prolonged contact and had to force himself not to run his thumb along the pounding pulse in her neck.

"Is that what it's like for you when you touch the Force?" Mara whispered, awestruck when she'd regained a modicum of composure.

Luke shook his head emphatically. "No, that was decidedly. . .unique," he said, then cleared his throat.

Mara gazed a him, suddenly wary and anxious to change the subject. "We don't have to do that all the way to Edan Two, do we? Because I think it might give me a heart attack."

Luke laughed, glad to dispel some of the tension and turn his mind back to teaching. "No, we'll work on something else."

"Lightsabers?" she asked hopefully.

"I was thinking more along the lines of actual meditation," Luke responded pleasantly.

"I knew you were going to say something like that," Mara grumbled under her breath.