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Chapter 9

Mara snuggled up to Luke just as she broke consciousness. They were lying side by side on his bunk, which really wasn't big enough to accommodate them both which gave her a perfect reason to snuggle closer.

Freshly showered, Luke smelled good, very good, like the jungle musk, however, the clean starchiness of the desert clung to him. Pressing her nose into his neck, she breathed in deep. Closing her eyes she cuddled, letting her troubles melt away, being replaced by his warmth and being.

It had been too long since she allowed herself the pleasure of the hard planes of a man. Surely Luke wouldn't mind, they were to be married anyway. She reached out and gently ran her hand down his covered chest, chasing every angle and curve. Reaching lower she found the hem of his tunic.

Her already bruised wrist was snatched at again.

"What are you doing?" Luke's voice was low, a touch of hoarseness.

"I, ah," Mara burned red and felt like crying again, which made her mad because it wasn't like her, "I just needed to touch you."

He sighed, sitting up in the bed but not pushing her away. "I know what you think you needed Mara, and it wouldn't have helped."

Shame now burned her insides, which was odd cause she never felt shame before, her mind a jumbled mess, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he held her close and let her rest against him.

"Some days I feel like I just don't know what I'm doing," she mumbled into his chest, a few tears escaping.

He stroked her hair gently, "You're just having a rough moment in your life."

"Trying to master understatement, Luke?" Mara teased, but with little mirth. She was still tired though she had slept, and her body and emotions seemingly working against her.

"Just trying to help," he rubbed her back with slow up and down strokes.

"You help too much," she laid her head against his shoulder, "it will be the death of you."

"I know," he answered simply.

There was a long silence, Mara enjoying in the closeness of another human being. "What a pair we make."

He hugged her shoulders gently. "We'll get through this."

"You keep saying that," she groaned.

"One day it will be true."

With one of those laughs only reserved for those moments where you've reached the point where you have nothing left, she pushed away from him and flopped her back down onto the bed, rubbing her forehead.

"You should have more faith," he replied to her actions.

"I had faith once before," she moaned, "and that didn't turn out very well."

"I beg to differ," he turned slightly on the bed, giving her more room. "You are no longer his servant, you have changed yourself, bettered yourself."

She considered his words, then answered, "But it broke me first."

He took her hand and caressed it gently, "And you will be whole again, soon."

Still tired and no longer feeling the urge to argue, what was the point anymore, she looked up at him and gave a small smile, the least she could do for a man who was going to do so much for her. "If you say so…"

He let out a long sigh and stood from the bed, making his way to his refresher. There was the sound of running water then he came back with two metal cups. Sitting down on the edge of the bed he handed her one of the liquid filled containers.

"We have a lot to talk about," he said after he sipped his and sat the item down on a nearby table.

Mara scooted back so she could prop herself up and gulped some water. "Yet again with the understatement."

"When we get to Yavin," he ignored her comment, "we are going to officially start living together. I figure we can take any adjustment problems in stride, after all, we haven't 'lived together' before so no need to put on a show of easy co-existing if there are issues."

"Logical," she conceded. "I warn you, I'm very particular about a few things."

"Such as?"

"For one, no dirty clothes in the bedroom, at all," she pointed a stern finger at him, "there is this little invention called a hamper, use it."

His lip twitched as if he was fighting a smirk, "What makes you think I don't?"

Mara had to chuckle, "I have yet to meet a man who doesn't just leave his clothes lying about."

A strange look came over his face, stealing any mirth, "Known a lot of men that closely?"

"Maybe," she mumbled, trying to avoid a subject that she had long since tried to forget. There was so much about her past she wanted to destroy, blank out. She only hoped it would never come up or at least when her child was old enough to understand.

Not being able to deal with this at the moment, she changed the subject. "What are we going to do about Corran?"

Luke took another drink of water as his brow furrowed in thought. "Han said he figured out that the marriage was for the sake of the child, but not that the child isn't mine."

"That good or bad?"

"Good," he shrugged, "in that he's not going to call us on it. He'll let us play this out."

"Han said that Corran didn't sense any love between us," Mara tried to recall everything her future brother-in-law told them, "only caring."

"We're friends," he managed a small smile, "and I do care a lot about you."

She felt a tint of red touch her cheeks. "I care about you too, somehow, in all this craziness since we met, you became my best friend."

"I know," he said quietly.

"Will the other Jedi sense the lack of love between us?" she asked the question, the possible answer scaring her.

Luke rubbed his chin for a moment. "Corran is very good at picking up mental thoughts and processing them into their exact focusing points. As you said, his telepathy could be better than my own."

"Streen is very empathic," Mara pointed out.

"Yes," Luke nodded, "and he'll probably figure it out. The rest of the Jedi will only sense a pile of emotion, love for the baby mixed in with our care for each other. Unless they activity try to seek out the focus, which Corran and Streen do naturally, they won't be able to tell the difference."

"Will Streen give us trouble?" To be truthful, she didn't know the guy that well, seeing as he liked to keep to his hermit ways because he was so sensitive to others emotions.

"No," he replied after a moment of thought. "He's not one to get involved. He'll just figure it's between us and go on."

"That's something at least," she sighed, now unable to look at her cup of water without gagging. She hated feeling like this, like she was bounding back and forth from every extreme possible.

"Well," Luke broke into her thoughts, "we have a few more things to talk about."

"Not now," she moaned, getting off his bed, just needing to walk around, go someplace, anyplace.

"Mara," he stood and placed a hand on her shoulder.

She shrugged the hand off almost violently. "Don't touch me."

He gave her an astonished look, a part of her realizing that moments ago all she wanted was to touch and be touched, but she ignored that voice because she couldn't be fussed with logic at the moment.

Shrugging past him she didn't bother waiting for an answer or a comment.

…

Luke sat at the terminal, rubbing his eyes, temple and forehead repeatedly. He knew he wasn't an expert on women, but even he could figure out that there wasn't something quite right about Mara. Leia had been known to have a few odd moments when she was pregnant, but they seemed to have had a more logical flow than what Mara was going through.

He feared he knew what the problem was, but he hoped he was wrong.

"Master Skywalker?" Cilghal's face finally appeared in the hololink.

"Sorry, I know it's early," Luke apologized straight off. He could have waited but Mara was occupying herself down in the hold and he really didn't want her to listen in to this conversation.

"It's okay," the Mon Calamarian smiled, "I was awake."

"Thank you," he half-smiled back, then took a deep breath. "Something is wrong with Mara."

"What do you mean?" her expression was hard to read for most humans, but Luke could see the concern forming in her bulbous eyes.

Taking another deep breath, "For one, she was contemplating terminating the pregnancy not but a few hours ago."

"She was?" there was an audible shock to her voice.

"Yes," he nodded sadly. "I convinced her otherwise, but I feel the same reasoning that led her to that conclusion still weighs on her. I'm afraid she won't keep her promise to me not to consider the option again."

"Do you believe Mara capable of that act?"

Luke sighed, "Yes."

"I see," she answered quietly.

"Mara could do anything she set her mind to," Luke explained, "but I don't believe she is thinking straight. If she got the twisted logic through her head once she could again and next time I may too late to stop her."

Cilghal went silent and he could tell she was thinking by the subtle changes in her facial features. Finally she said, "Can you tell me of any other strange behaviors Mara has been experiencing?"

"You mean besides the fact that she tried to make out with me then moments later told me not to touch her?" he almost laughed.

"Yes," Cilghal was unfazed, "anything else?"

"Well…" Luke started to go through the last few days he had spent with Mara since they announced their engagement to their friends, then made arrangements to fly to Yavin before Leia told the galaxy the 'good news'.

He left nothing out and Cilghal was professional and non-judgemental, taking in everything. Luke was glad that the connection to the academy was as secure as it could be and it would take a slicer like Ghent to get through the encoding, because he was the one who encoded it.

"I should have seen this coming," Cilghal sighed.

"What is it?" he asked slowly, knowing his fears were confirmed.

"From what you've told me, I believe Mara might be suffering from clinical depression."

Luke frowned, closing his eyes, "I thought as much."

"It's not surprising, for a woman in her position," Cilghal continued her train of thought. "Prenatal depression has been known to occur without reason in planned and unplanned pregnancies to women who can be classed with either strong or weak wills. There is no way to predict it, but… it often does occur in women who are victims of a sexual crime."

"But Mara isn't a victim of a sexual crime," he shook his head, not wanting to believe this was happening. He knew there would be issues and problems but he promised her everything would be okay, and this was not okay.

"Technically yes, and technically no," Cilghal didn't try to coddle him, something he would be thankful for later. "If it wasn't for the genetics, that would be the only possible explanation to her waking up pregnant."

Luke held his head in his hands, having to accept that not only where there outside factors to contend with, but now internal ones too. If it had been one of his students battling the Dark Side within, he could deal with that… but this was something else entirely, a dark side of a different sort.

"What can we do for her?" he finally asked.

"There are medications, but I feel that they wouldn't be right in this situation," she answered, "she's much too stubborn and far too stressed and high-strung, which only compounds the problem."

"That needs to be dealt with too," Luke sighed.

"When she gets here, I'm going to put her on a special diet," Cilghal said almost conspiratorially, "I can explain it away easily as being something the child needs nutrition wise, but it will have many natural ingredients/herbs that have been known to help calm and de-stress."

"Good idea," he nodded, "but the depression won't be so easily taken care of."

"True," a smile came to the healer's face. "Do you trust me Master Skywalker?"

Luke blinked, but answered truthfully, "You have always been wiser than me in the ways of medicine, so yes, I do."

"Then I shall see you tonight when you arrive, leave everything to me," and with that she closed the connection.

Look took a deep breath, wondering if things could only get better, or worse.