this is a disclaimer.
AN: collection of "ten things ficlets" for the various members of the Skywalker family; belongs to my swallows and amazons verse.
Mara Jade 1)
2) "It's up to you," Organa Solo says. "I think if you decide you're ready for it, then you're ready for it."
Mara shrugs and glares down at the baby in her lap - she's already forgotten whether it's Jaina or Jacen, Organa Solo dumped the kid in her arms to shut it up while she was breastfeeding the other one, but that was hours ago. "It's more than just Force techniques and sabre forms," she says.
"It's a way of life," Organa Solo agrees. "I know I'm not ready to make that committment - not yet. I have other responsibilities."
"To the New Republic?" Mara says. Perhaps there's a touch of acidic sarcasm there and perhaps there isn't.
"To other people," Organa Solo says. "People I made promises to long before Luke and I found each other again. Mon Mothma, my Dad..."
Mara can't help it; she starts to laugh. "I'm sorry. But please - tell me you didn't mean Vader with that."
Organa Solo snorts, struggles for a moment to keep her composure, and then bursts out laughing, warm and loud and free.
3) A lot of the way Mara sees herself is tied up with her body. As Emperor's Hand, she was nothing more than an extension of Palpatine's will. It makes sense that the first independence she feels is connected to her physical abilities: I can do this. I can run and shoot and fight and I can do it for me, not in furtherance of someone else's goals.
4) Feeling for herself takes a lot longer. For a few months after Wayland she struggles with the temptation to just sit back and hand everything she is over to Karrde the same way Palpatine took everything she was; freedom isn't delightful, just scary, and full of pitfalls.
5) Then she gets the Jade's Fire.
6) It's not hard to realise that Luke and the Jedi Order are a package deal; she can't have him but reject what he's spent his life trying to build. It's equally easy to realise that the best way to accept what he does is to become a part of it. Karrde's torn between glee at the thought of having a Jedi Knight as an SIC, and irritated that it's going to take her at least two years to get that far, but there you go. Mara arranges a schedule that will allow her to train at Yavin regularly without completely giving up her duties with Karrde, and privately comms Tionne to let her know not to bother arranging separate quarters for her. Tionne, busy and distracted, tells her she can't live on the Fire for the whole time she's here, and Mara lets her silence speak for her, smirking to herself.
7) Luke has a whole speech full of objections to their new living arrangements - "unethical", "teacher-student relationships" and so on - but Mara has whole new ways of shutting him up now, and anyway, as she points out to him later on, tangled up sweaty and breathless in the sheeets and each other, she thought he did away with that celibacy business. Several conversations she's had with the Rogues would suggest it's not his strong point anyway.
8) The worst thing about being pregnant is the sense that she's not in control of her own body anymore: there's something else inside her whose needs take priority over her wants. She remembers that feeling only too well.
9) But she also really wants a family, babies and all, a home and a haven of her own. Mara loves her niece and nephews, but they don't belong to her, and she wants to create - the ultimate kriff-you to the Emperor, maybe. You broke me apart and got control over all the pieces but now look what I'm capable of: being as pathetic and normal as anyone else in the universe.
10) The first time Ben looks at her, her heart stands still in a way it never has before - not even for Luke.
