Chapter 7

Luke paused before his apartment door and glanced at the new Mrs. Skywalker. He cleared his throat. "Will I be permanently injured if we do this traditionally?"

"If you're thinking about carrying me over the threshold Skywalker, forget it."

"Not even for the audience?"

"Because of that audience! The last thing I need is to play some helpless female for all the holonet to see. I'd be laughed out of negotiation rooms across the galaxy!"

"Oh." He palmed the door open, ignoring the holocams that watched obviously not having considered the ramifications of that particular action before he'd asked. They'd agreed that the more publicity they received when it came to exhibiting their new relationship the better. It would prevent Skyes from attempting to sink them. Not that it would stop him completely, but it would give them ammunition for later. "Home sweet home."

Mara stepped inside with her bag and dropped it inside the door as it closed behind them. She felt the ridiculous urge to run at that moment as the walls seemed to squeeze inwards, pushing what little oxygen there was out. It was ridiculous, the urge, for she knew logically that things were as they always had been. That nothing had technically changed between them except their legal state - and even that was in question if they couldn't make it seem plausible for the courts.

Plausible. Right.

Luke crossed the living room towards the hallway. "I'll show you the spare room, Mara."

She left her bag where it was, figuring she'd come back for it in a minute - once Skywalker wasn't standing in her room - and followed him through his home. Their home, she corrected silently. This was where she and Luke would be spending a good deal of their next two months.

The thought almost made her scream.

"It won't be all bad," Luke assured her, reacting to her unspoken fears as he flicked on the lights to his spare room and stepped inside.

"Define all, Skywalker." Mara practically growled the words as she stopped in the doorway to his spare room.

The mattress was on the floor, just like he'd said it would be, the box for the bed frame leaning half-way out of the closet. Fresh sheets and towels were stacked on a small dresser and there was a night table beside the bed which looked a little ridiculous with the bed sitting on the floor.

Luke turned to face her with an elaborate wave, his tone teasing. "Your new accommodations, Mrs. Skywalker. Unless you should decide my bunk is more appealing."

She smirked, crossing her arms over her chest as she leaned against the door jamb. "It would serve you right if I claimed your room."

"Ha!" He grinned. "I'm still the only Jedi Master in this house. You might claim it, but you wouldn't keep it for long."

"Wanna bet?"

"I never bet - I told you that."

"Right." Her tone was dry. "I forgot that the former Rogue pilot has been reformed."

His grin turned positively impish. "I believe the word is refined. Would you like a hand setting up the stand for the bed?"

She glanced at the box sticking out of the closet. From what she could see, the stand was one of those which was almost a solid state with several places for drawers underneath. That explained the mattress in the middle of the tiny room. She surprised both of them by nodding her head. "This may come as a shock to you, farmboy, but I've never put together a mattress stand."

"I had Han help me with mine," his admission was easy. "I suppose we could always read the instructions."

"You read instructions?"

Luke arched his eyebrows at her. "What's wrong with that?"

"Men never read the instructions."

"Most men never had my Uncle Owen for a teacher," he returned, pulling the box from the closet. "Uncle Owen insisted I read the manuals for every piece of equipment we had on the moisture farm. Admittedly most things were bought from the Jawas and didn't come with manuals."

"Why?" Mara moved the mattress out of the way, standing it on its end as Luke slid the box out onto the floor and laid it flat.

Luke shrugged, opening the packaging and staring to pull out the long slats of material that would form the base for her bed. "He insisted that a man didn't have anything to prove by admitting he didn't know something - or in looking it up to find the answer. It was probably a good thing he got me to read those manuals. I loved to tinker and more often than not they saved my hide when I made some catastrophic mistake."

"You?"

"I was young once."

"It wasn't that long ago."

Luke sobered, stopping in mid pull, his right hand clenching into an unconscious fist. His right hand - his mechanical hand. "It was long enough," he finally told her honestly. "I don't remember what it was like to be that carefree youth anymore."

"Liar." Even as she said the word, she put no accusation into it. It was softer, more like an admonition. "You do so. Only you wish you could go back to being that carefree kid."

"Sometimes." His admission was reluctant. "At least until I remember what it cost me to bring me to where I am today. That youth would never have been able to deal with what I've dealt with."

"Ah," She poked him in the shoulder as she knelt beside him to help pull the frame from the box. "Then how do you explain the fact that you're not dead? And don't tell me because of the Force."

"Han would say luck."

"Jedi don't believe in luck."

"Neither do Sith." He shot her a pointed look. "The Emperor certainly didn't."

Mara let it pass, much to her own surprise, and shrugged. "Smugglers believe in luck. I believe in skill. You had to have some to encounter the trials you faced and emerge successful. Luck, as Karrde would say, likely lent a hand, but wouldn't have accounted for all of it. Even the luckiest person can't get by without some skill."

Luke was silent for a long moment, organizing the larger slats of material against the wall and the smaller ones near the closet. Mara continued to empty the box as she waited for his reply, wondering if she'd surprised him. His shields were up again and she found it surprisingly frustrating. A part of her really relished being able to literally read him like a book.

"You're right, I guess." He crouched beside her, helping her pull one of the longest slats out and placing it on the ground. "I never considered it from that point of view."

"That point of view?" She almost snorted at the line. "Now you sound like those old training holos of the Emperor's."

Luke smiled faintly. "It was one of Obi-Wan Kenobi's favorite sayings. He told me that Vader had betrayed and murdered my father. It wasn't until I learned the truth - that Vader was my father - that I had to consider Obi-Wan's viewpoint. From what I know, Anakin Skywalker was Obi-Wan's apprentice and betrayed the Jedi. I don't know how or why, but he did. So what Obi-Wan told me was true - from his point of view."

Mara listened as much to what he was saying as what he wasn't saying. Luke's acceptance of his father and what he had been, what he'd become and his supposed redemption, were clear. Yet there was still some of a lost little boy inside him clamoring to know about his parents. With his father's death, he'd lost the only person who'd been able to answer the pressing questions about his parents. And while Luke accepted it, she could sense - she knew - a part of him was reluctant to do so. She shifted, lifting one of the slats and finally pulling the datarod with the instructions out of the box. Her skirt rustled as she moved, echoing in the sudden silence in the room.

Mara felt Luke's eyes upon her once more and placed the slat with the others. "Maybe you should change before we continue, Mara."

"Now?" She arched an eyebrow at him, looking pointedly down at where the fabric of her skirt had been creased and dirtied by her crouch on the floor. She didn't really mind as she had no intention of wearing the dress again. If she ruined it, all the better. "I think it's a little late for that Skywalker."

Luke pushed to his feet, "Nothing a good cleaning won't fix. I'm going to change - the 'fresher's the next door over if you'd like to use it."

Mara watched, amused, as Luke made a discreet escape. And an escape it was. He'd been blathering on about his father and Obi-Wan, topics she was fairly certain - though not positive with his shielding - that he spoke of to no one. Why he'd chosen their first day as a married couple - while putting together her bed frame for Force sakes - to talk about it was beyond her.

She suspected he was trying to get her to think more like a Jedi. Or maybe he was simply trying to get her mind off the fact that he was still envisioning what it would be like to undo the knotted fabric at her shoulder to see exactly what was underneath. She chuckled, shaking her head as she strode from the room.

A change of clothing suddenly seemed like a good idea.

Mara's bed frame came together slowly over the course of the afternoon and she found out, quite by accident, that Luke had a decidedly wicked sense of humor. She wasn't certain if the discovery delighted her or worried her - he wasn't supposed to be able to make her laugh. The revelation soured her mood and left her irritable.

Luke seemed to pick up on the fact and had silently continued to assist her with the frame. It was dinner time by the time they finished and, as one, slid the mattress onto the finished product.

Mara's gaze was drawn to Luke as he wiped his forearm across his brow. "That's certainly a good way to work up an appetite."

Their gazes met and locked and his lips curved in a wicked smile. "Why Mara, I do believe you're right."

"I don't know what you're talking about - I didn't say anything."

His expression turned unexpectedly innocent. "Then you weren't thinking about how many better ways there are to work up an appetite?"

Damn him. She really was going to kill him before the end of this ridiculous honeymoon period.

"No? Then it must have been one of my stray unreformed thoughts."

"Stuff it, Skywalker."

"Might as well stop calling me that, Skywalker."

Her gaze narrowed. "Don't ever call me that"

"You don't like our last name?"

"Your last name belonged to a man who spent the better part of his adult life terrorizing innocent people and executing them for pleasure."

Luke's smile vanished and he flinched at the unexpected attack. "I know he was a monster, Mara. I know that better than most. I can't forgive him for his actions, but I can accept that something happened to change him into a person willing to commit those atrocities. Regardless, he was my father."

"Just because he was your father doesn't make him right."

"Doesn't make him wrong either." Luke straightened and turned to the dresser, opening the top drawer to pull out a new package of sheets and blankets. He tore one corner before ripping off the top and dropping the load, package-free, on the bed. "Vader was a monster, but Anakin Skywalker had been a good man."

"How would you know?" Mara picked out the fitted sheet and began to unfold it. It was crisp in her hands and slightly rough against her skin. Maybe she would steal his bed after all - for the first couple of nights. "I thought you never knew your father."

"I didn't. I just... know."

She snorted, snapping the sheet out and trying not to notice that he caught it to help her. Luke moved the other sheets off the bed with his free hand before assisting her with fitting the sheet over the mattress. "More Jedi stuff, huh?"

"Can you honestly tell me you've never listened when the Force has given you an impression of someone? That you haven't actively used it to discover their nature?"

Frowning, she smoothed the sheet over the mattress before hooking the second corner over the base. Luke was mimicking her movements and in moments the sheet was set. "Some of us have other skills to determine someone's intentions."

"Like the Emperor telling you about them?"

That stung. She shot him a scathing look. "Before you killed him, yes!"

"Anakin killed him - not me."

"You mean Vader."

Luke shrugged, pulling the next sheet from the pile and unfolding it a bit before snapping it open. Mara's eyebrows rose behind the billow of white - his movements were almost expert, as if he'd done this a lot. She caught the sheet, helping him align it.

"I mean Anakin. Vader was gone by then and my father, my real father had reasserted himself. At least mentally. Anakin saved me from the Emperor at the cost of his own life. Vader never would have."

"Doesn't that bother you?"

Luke glanced up from where he'd crouched to slip the sheet under the mattress. "Which part?"

"Knowing that Vader and Anakin were essentially two different people but were born in the same mind?"

"You make it sounds like a mental defect."

"Isn't it?"

Luke shook his head, straightening as she crouched to do her side. "There's light and dark in all of us. That my father succumbed to one only to return to the other speaks of strength, not weakness."

"Yet he slipped into darkness to begin with. If he'd been stronger, don't you think he'd have avoided the darkness all together."

Luke made a face. "You know more about him than I do, Mara. What do you think?"

Mara finished tucking in the sheet at the corner and rose slowly back to her feet. "I think we should find another topic."

He felt crestfallen, as if she'd just stolen candy from a child, but his expression gave away nothing. It suddenly occurred to her that she knew more about Luke's father than he did. She was his only link to a past he didn't know and one he had no hope of retrieving. She understood all too well the yearning to know more about one's past and being unable to find even the slightest smidgen of information - and Force knew she'd tried.

Luke threw the light blanket on the bed and snapped it open, drawing her thoughts back to the present as she caught the sheet reflexively. "Mara?"

"Hm?"

Luke tugged on the sheet, gaining her full attention. "I understand if you don't want to talk about him."

"Vader meant nothing to me, Luke," her reply was honest. "He was just another of the Emperor's underlings, a powerful one, but an underling none the less."

"But you knew about him."

"I know about them all." She tugged the sheet back and helped him position it on the bed. Despite her desire not to talk about the subject, she felt a completely contrary desire to help Luke understand. To help him know who and what his father had been. Even if he'd been a cold-blooded killer. "I had to. Not because I was interested, but because it was my job to know their strengths... and their weaknesses. Vader had none."

"Not one?"

"Nothing." Mara caught one of the pillows Luke threw her way and then the pillow case. "Until you came along."

"I find that hard to believe."

She caught Luke flexing his mechanical hand again; a nervous habit he'd developed when speaking of things unpleasant. She knew because he only did it when his thoughts turned to matters he didn't fully understand - or want to understand. She smiled faintly. "Most people did. He was obsessed, Luke. With you. Obsession is a flaw, one that can be exploited and manipulated. I knew about his offer for you to join him, to overthrow the Emperor." Her voice hitched and she took a breath to steady herself before continuing, her tone even once more. "I knew because it was my job to know."

"And you told the Emperor."

"It was my job."

There was silence in the room for long minutes as they finished putting the pillows, now in their pillow cases - on the bed and folding the heavy quilt at the foot of it. Luke sank down onto the end, disregarding the mess he was making of the tidy folds and leaned his elbows on his knees, staring at his boots. "I don't blame you for that, Mara."

"I'm not looking for your forgiveness, Skywalker." She crossed her arms over her chest, watching him from her position beside the bed. "I'm telling you because you need to understand why I know what I had to know. It was my job to protect the Emperor from his underlings. My job." She slapped one palm against her breast bone. "And I failed."

Luke lifted his head to look at her and she knew in that instant he'd seen to the core of her words, to the meaning behind them. "Are you really any worse off with me than you were with him, Mara?"

Their gazes locked as her breath caught in her throat. Was she? With Luke she had freedom - or would once this interminable incarceration was over with. She could choose to come and go whenever she wished. Wouldn't have to obtain permission, or be given orders. She wouldn't be constantly on guard for her life, or primed for her next assignment. She'd have the chance to relax, without having to schedule time for it.

Was that what she wanted?

Mara knew the look she threw his way was almost as confused as she felt, but she couldn't explain it - didn't want to explain it, and instead did something she wasn't used to doing.

She walked away.

Mara skirted the small kitchenette and passed into the sitting area where she paced to the balcony access. She paused, looking outside into the skylanes through the privacy blinds and her grim face tightened into marked displeasure.

Their apartment was being watched. Not just watched, but monitored with remote sensors and she could just make out the small flitterbys that were darting from window to window, trying to gain a glimpse of them. Holo-reporters were not known for their scruples and for the first time she wondered if there really was privacy in the apartment. Would their arguments and discussions be a part of the evening news? Would they be exposed as the frauds they were, mere pretenders with no more genuine feeling for one another than strangers who met at a tap café?

With a sigh, she unconsciously braced her feet apart and she stared beyond the privacy blinds, beyond the hovering vultures and into the traffic and mess of Coruscant's skylanes. If they were going to be exposed, she supposed it was better to happen now rather than later. Now, at least, she was in no danger of actually liking Sky- in liking Luke.

She grimaced.

He was right, damn him. She couldn't very well continue to call him Skywalker. Well, she could but it was technically her last name now too. And she didn't know how she felt about that.

Mara was not a woman who lied to herself and, despite her understanding and genuine affection for the man who had been her Master, she knew Palpatine was just as guilty - probably more so - as Vader when it came to the suffering in the galaxy. Vader had been merely a pawn. She hadn't lied to Luke about that. Palpatine had controlled Vader with an iron fist and Vader had never objected. But Vader's orders had come from her Master. The galaxy's subjugation had been started by his hands. Not that he had ever seen it that way, and it was not that it had ever been taught that way.

Luke had helped her to understand that the Emperor hadn't always been right. Luke had helped her to see the Emperor through his eyes. Not just at Wayland where she'd finally understood why he saw things the way he did, but in their time before that. While she'd been trying to kill him, trying her best to hate him for everything he'd taken away from her, a part of her had begun to doubt what she'd had.

The flinch that crossed her features was unconscious and unnoticed as she stared blankly into the sky. She didn't see the sky lanes, or the buildings stretching beyond the ranger of her vision. She didn't see the clouds, or the hovering holo-recorders. She saw glittering shimmer silks, the Emperor's court, Galas, meetings, discussions, tactical sessions and training rooms. She saw her quarters, imperial credits and faces - so many faces - of people long dead. Some she had killed, some who had simply disappeared, as if they'd faded away with the Emperor.

An ache started in the center of her chest and blossomed outward until it seemed to encompass her whole body. It wasn't the ache she expected. She knew she was still susceptible to bouts of anger and resentment for what she'd lost, but she'd never really grieved for it. How could she when the signs all around her indicated that most beings had fared far worse than she under the Emperor's rule? How could she genuinely miss the regime that had been responsible for millions upon millions of deaths? How could she have missed what the Emperor's rule was doing to the galaxy? Had she really been that blind?

The ache slowed and finally stalled, the warmth of acceptance and understanding - unquestionable compassion - flooding her. Luke's mental touch. His presence was light and soothing, but hesitant. As if he didn't know if she'd accept it after their last words. She didn't resist the mental touch, but neither did she encourage it. Luke, seeming to take it as acceptance when she didn't withdraw, intensified the feeling.

Her doubts eased as did her self-recriminations. They weren't gone, but Luke's touch helped her push them away, folding them back into her unconscious mind as she simply basked in the warmth of his mental touch. It wasn't much of a surprise when that mental warmth was echoed in the slide of his arms around her waist and the heat of his body at her back.

The fragile truce continued in silence Luke rested his chin on her shoulder and followed her gaze outside the window. Neither was willing to break the silence, and Mara found herself leaning back against him a little, taking comfort in the feel of him against her body. His arms tightened unconsciously, securing her just that little bit closer, drawing her just that much nearer, as he took as much comfort from her presence as he gave. It was a revelation that Luke seemed to need comforting as much as she.

Mara could still feel the echoes of their argument between them, a slight tension that hadn't dissipated or eased, but had instead shifted. It didn't stop them from seeking out the human contact that made dealing with the sharp emotions easier, but it also didn't shy from the fact the very person they sought was the cause. She didn't dwell on it, and chose to ignore it.

Until Luke spoke. "Are you really any worse off with me than you were with him, Mara?"

The fragile bond between them shattered and Mara turned, taking a step away and out of his arms. The loss of it hit her harder than she expected, a wave of denial sweeping through her even as she pinned him with a disgusted look. She didn't know if the emotion was hers or his and she wasn't willing to take that moment to figure it out. "You just can't leave it be, can you?"

"You've never been one to run from a fight, Mara."

"And you're not usually so pushy."

Luke's azure gaze was direct, and Mara fought against the emotions she could see in his eyes and could feel seeping from behind his barriers. The answer to his question meant a lot to him, more than she'd suspected, and more than she'd been previously been able to understand. Luke wanted to believe, needed to believe, he wasn't her captor. That she didn't think of him as her jailer, or Master. If the pain in his eyes hadn't been so raw, she might have laughed.

Whatever he saw in her eyes made his jaw tighten, and he nodded once, as if she'd answered his question. She blinked as he turned on his heel and stalked towards the kitchenette, the sound of cupboards and the cooling unit opening and closing and then bottles and utensils hitting the counter.

What had he seen?

Mara turned back to the window, but her peace had been shattered. She felt restless and guilty, as if she'd been responsible for Luke's sudden mood shift. And hadn't she been? Hadn't he turned away after seeing whatever it was he'd seen in her eyes and face? Hadn't he shut down after supposedly finding his answer? Only she didn't know what answer he'd found because she didn't have one for him.

"Are you really any worse off with me than you were with him, Mara?"

The question reverberated through her mind, demanding an answer - an honest answer. Mara was nothing if not honest with herself, and behind the privacy of her mental shields she reluctantly admitted that she didn't consider the circumstances even remotely similar. Sure, both Luke and the Emperor were Force users, but where the Emperor ruled through fear, Luke sought understanding. The Emperor had rewarded her for good behavior; giving her anything she asked when she pleased him - only to take it away when she failed. Luke, she knew without a doubt, would never do something so petty. The Emperor had treated her like a daughter, disciplining her as he'd seen fit. Luke... Luke saw her as a woman. An independent, desirable woman and one he considered his equal.

Would he believe her if she told him? Did she dare tell him?

A slight smile curved her lips. She could at least answer his question even if she'd never reveal that kind of thinking to him willingly. The mental shield she'd built between her thoughts and his was shaky at best and so she buried the thoughts and revelations deep within her subconscious, using a technique the Emperor had forbade her to use with him. A technique she'd used often before, but one that didn't last long with the bond between her and Luke. But it would do for the moment.

Mara crossed to the kitchenette and stopped in the doorway, leaning against the jamb as she watched Luke. His back was to her, but she knew that he knew she was there. Without sparing her a look, Luke was making something on the main heating unit and giving it his full attention. She took the opportunity, as she had before, to study him. The domestic scene didn't diminish his masculine appeal in the slightest and a part of her found him all the more appealing in it.

Luke pointedly ignored her, hurt radiating from him like a cloud. Whatever he'd seen in her expression had done this. She'd done this. She had the power to hurt him where he'd promised to strive for the very opposite. She held her tongue for a few minutes more as he continued to work on whatever was on the cooking unit until she couldn't stand the silence any longer. "You're very good at that."

"Thanks." He flipped whatever it was he had in the pan as she watched. "Threepio's been giving me cooking lessons."

"So the gold menace is good for something after all."

"You do him a disservice."

Mara wasn't about to turn down an opening like that. "I did you one too." He looked up in surprise, but she continued before he had the opportunity to speak. "You've asked me twice now if my circumstances are much changed between my time as a Hand and this time with you."

"You don't have to go on, Mara." Luke's voice was quiet as he poked at the creation on the stove. "I practically bullied you into this marriage. I can't blame you for thinking of it like another gilded cage."

She laughed; she couldn't help it, and Luke's head came around sharply. "You didn't force me into anything, farm boy. Much as I'm sure you'd like to believe you could, I never would have married you for a threat - not one from you anyhow."

His lips twitched. "I don't know if I should be grateful or insulted."

"Would it help if I told you I don't consider myself worse off than when I was with the Emperor?"

"It might." He nodded to the seats at the island.

Mara seated herself, nodding her thanks as he poured her a fresh cup of caf. She took a sip before cradling the mug between her hands. "Then you might also like to know that a cage is still a cage, no matter the color, make or substance of the bars."

"You were hardly caged."

"No?" She took another sip of her caf. "Do you remember what it felt like to be on your aunt and uncle's moisture farm?"

His lips twitched as he turned around to face her once more, a glass of blue milk in hand. "It's hard to forget."

"Did you ever feel trapped? Like there was no escape no matter what you did?"

"All the time."

"Isn't that, by definition, a prison?"

"I... hadn't thought of it that way."

"Not many people have." Mara met his gaze frankly. "My place was no better. I'm starting to think that being able to hear the Emperor's voice anywhere in the galaxy was a control mechanism. Not unlike the way a Hutt leashes his slaves."

"You weren't his slave, Mara."

"Wasn't I?"

The silence between them was charged. Mara arched an eyebrow at him, her lips twisting into a dark, humorous smile. "You know better than that, Luke. You felt trapped by your responsibilities - by your perceived obligations. Once your aunt and uncle died, there was nothing keeping you there."

"The same could be said for you."

"You stayed out of love-"

"Mara."

"You could let me finish."

He chuckled softly. "You were going to say that my reasons for staying were different from you own. I don't think they were. You felt trapped because of the same reasons I did. Once that reason was gone, there was nothing keeping you there either."

"You had the choice to stay, Luke. You could have rebuilt, become what your uncle wanted you to become."

"You know me better than that."

"Do you honestly think I could have stayed once the Emperor died?" Mara shook her head, her hands cradling the cup of caf. "The galaxy was going through another upheaval, one that fractured the remnants of the Empire and drove them apart."

"You could have stayed and become Empress."

Mara snorted. "I didn't want the headaches that went with the job description. Tyrant doesn't really suit me."

"Oh, I don't know." Luke's eyes twinkled. "You do a good impression of one."

"And you do a lousy impression of a chef." She nodded towards the cooker. "I think it's burning."

Luke jumped away from the island and spun. Sure enough whatever he was cooking was starting to scorch and he whipped it off the burner with one hand before dropping it onto a hot plate. He scrambled for something to get it out of the pan and Mara managed not to laugh at the comical site. The calm, serene Jedi Master panicked by a piece of food.

It wasn't until Luke scraped it from the dish and separated it into two portions on separate plates did she realize that this was likely their dinner. The thought was sobering even as she was unwillingly touched by the gesture. The plate was deposited in front of her.

"I'm not much of a cook, but it should be edible."

Mara accepted the fork he offered and smiled, accepting the peace offering for what it was. "I can't cook to save my life, so you're one up on me. Thanks. I'm starving."

Luke simply shrugged as he settled himself across from her and collected a fork of his own.

They ate in silence and while not the best meal either of them had ever had, the slightly scorched stir fry was a sweeter dish than some. It was the beginning of a truce that was far deeper than words. A silent apology and an acceptance of that apology. It was a tactful way of telling her that Luke had no intention to pry before she was ready and it showed a sweet side of him that, despite his frustrations, would never be hidden from her.

It was a pity she was going to have to kill him before this was over; he wasn't such a bad guy.