High Flying, Adored

Chapter Eleven

Disclaimer: Lyrics used are copyright their lyricists, literary references I do not apologize for (I'm in AP English, that's what they teach you to do). The characters, however, are not mine.

ILDV: Thanks.

Healing Hands: Well, maybe, who knows?

wAcKaMoLe911: Thank you! Hopefully it's emotional enough, I kind of struggled with it.

RozzandMaya: Good questions. Vader died of natural causes, just a really bad, non-specified disease we can attribute to a constant weakness after killing Palpatine – took a lot out of him. As to Luke and Padmè, she hasn't been a part of his life since he was an infant, and it's hard to let someone just step into the void of mother, even for a couple of hours. He's just sensitive.

kokuhaku: Thank you very much!

TnTornado: Well, that's what you're waiting to find out, isn't it? ;p

Amazon101: The "accept," one I caught on the word document recently before your review and changed. But thank you for catching those errors, sometimes they slip by me!

Encarna: I think you deserve a prize for seeing the future. But you'll have to wait and see.

Astaire: Am I heading in an LM direction? It's an interesting topic to ponder.

Madame Naberrie: No apology necessary, since I took forever to update. I'm just glad you read it, since you're such a loyal reader and give such nice reviews!

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High flying, adored

What happens now, where do you go from here?

For someone on top of the world

The view's not exactly clear

A shame you did it all at twenty six

There are no mysteries now

Nothing can thrill you

No one fulfill you.

- Evita

………………………………………………………………………………………

Luke was standing on the stage, behind the podium, looking so serious, so sad. The stadium hummed with whispers and the electric quality of the air was unmistakable. Behind him was a giant holovid projector, which Mara was standing by since she had no real place on the stage but had been asked to be there anyway.

"You stand there," Luke had explained before hand, making sure he was utterly immaculate – he'd had enough of his health return to look decent again – "Because then you represent that the Republic Confederacy has a real hand in Imperial society; even in the death of the emperor."

"Couldn't I just stand there," she'd sighed, "as your wife, being supportive?"

He hadn't had the time to answer that. Mara was tired of being symbolic.

And her husband was tired of being strong and perfect, but he maintained that façade, so carefully built, as he stood on the podium, the eyes of all the galaxy upon him. And that's why Mara really was there, because he was tired of being strong. She was there for if needed.

Hopefully not needed. The new emperor's entire reign might rest upon how well he could perform his father's funeral.

What a sham, Mara thought. Using a relative's death for personal protection.

Yet she couldn't make herself believe that. The remorse Luke showed was true remorse, and she hurt for him a little. They'd been married nearly six standard months. How things could change in six standard months.

He cleared his throat and a hush fell upon the entire crowd, cameras and droids and humans and aliens all focused upon his very breath. He need not speak a word to draw in silence, what power! What utter prestige! What calm in the face of all that multitude, and the emperor was in his prime.

"What words," he began, voice low as he looked down, unable to look up, "what words would you have me use to acclaim my father?" No one spoke. "Come now, it is a question put to my people – I am here to serve them, and as they are here to honor my father, let me know how I might do it best. What honors could be given to such a man? What words, oh my people? Well. It is done. He is gone, and I am here, and I cannot incarnate him for you. It would be a false pretense to say I merely stepped into his shoes and fill the position he once did. I do not believe in Fate like that, my reign and my destiny is my own. Not his. Force help us all when we become the people before us and not our own." His hands ran along the edge of the microphone stand for a moment, and everything was quiet…so very quiet, and he coughed again. Mara would have believed it if someone told her he was fighting off his own feelings.

"As you all know, I had the holonet service shut off for the last week. I thought it good preparation for what I would show you now." Lights dimmed across the compound, and the holovid lit up to a blaze of glory, with the title display of, "Coruscant Daily Chronicle," emblazoned there. What followed was a short autobiography of their former emperor – and if details were sometimes glossed over and some things better glorified, who could blame the man for being careful, for it was the most honest representation of their leader ever given. The emperor said not a word as this continued, he sat back next to his wife, who did not so much as look at him, and watched the proceedings, very calm. It explained Amidala, it explained going to the Sith (though this was one of those glorified proceedings). His achievements, his strength as a father were highlighted, and Mara could hear the sound of weeping, and wondered if the Senator Amidala was weeping as well at being finally recognized by an empire as being Vader's husband, being Luke's mother.

And that little Coruscant Daily Chronicle had put together that! Luke must have helped finance a great deal of it, for it was vivid and detailed and so utterly…beautiful. Mara was stunned, not only by the production, but by the empathetic waves she felt rolling off the crowd, coming in surge after surge, and as it ended and her husband returned before the podium, she had to marvel at what must follow after…that.

"I am not my father," he swore before them as he stepped up and they cried. He looked as though he might cry, too. "I am only honoring him, I must ask you to expect nothing of him in me. I don't exactly know what I ask you to expect of me, unproven, untried."

There was that unanimous cry of, "No!" so interesting in impassioned, linked crowds. "No, hail Imperator! He is our emperor, and he is good!"

He smiled a little, waving them down, whispering hush. "Sh, sh, my people, just listen…" Yet onward they cried, "Hail Imperator! Hail Luke Skywalker! Our emperor, our emperor!" And it was a full five minutes before they calmed enough again to allow their emperor to speak.

"Such enthusiasm," he smiled, giving a short, "ha," more to release breath than to say anything. "I don't understand it. The only thing I've given you is the body of my father. Who loved you…as I love you. Who loved me, well, I am not so hopeful on how much you love me." The cry started up again, and he stopped it before it could really take off. "Enough of this, such momentary passions must not rule us! My friends, sh, listen!" he instructed again as they slowly calmed down, mulling and seething and hanging on the words - soft words - upon his lips. "My people…I have done nothing to earn either your loyalty nor your affections, but I ask only your patience and I shall deliver to you the entirety of my heart. What is an emperor who does not embody and become his people? What good is it to rule if one rules apart? I swear to you, here and now, that I am your emperor, a part of you. I shall strive with all that I have to aid you, to better you, to nurture and care for you and may I be struck down if I fail! Upon the solemnity of my father's grave do I make this vow to be your protector and provider, a father to my children, a brother to my people. I…I-"

But the emotion of the moment overwhelmed him, and he choked on threatening tears. He stopped, trying to regain himself, leaning so far over the podium as though he were reaching to touch the masses. They, in turn, rose up like one great wave to greet and engulf him, like a child going to its parents. Their arms mutually stretched, in the reality of the moment, towards each other. Mara was hiding her face, for she was crying. In the back, Padmè Amidala was crying, for she was overwhelmed that her own child could be so moving, so very real. She knew each political ploy, and she knew Luke hadn't all the right parts to be so truly conniving as to manipulate such an emotional response. It had come from the bottom of each heart of the masses, and the bottom of his own.

"I…" he tried again, slowly pulling his arms back as the people still surged toward him, and the two women of his life present wanted to surge as well. "That," he finally managed, coughing and regaining his control, "is what I would give and promise to my people. Nothing less. May the Force deliver me victorious in this, or may my name be expunged from history. For nothing else is worth pursuing."

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"What business of yours is it how I came by her, or how I brought her to the Temple to train, or how I and the Jedi raise her? I don't think it so inappropriate to ask!"

"It is inappropriate to pitch a fit."

"She isn't yours. Damn it all, maybe Luke was, but Mara isn't, I rescued her-"

"So she belongs to you?"

How dare the Senator Amidala be so calm and calculated as the Jedi stood on the verge of ranting and raving. Mara wasn't saying much of anything, still so wary of the world as she munched a treat the woman had given her.

"No," he finally sighed, forcing himself to exorcise the tension from his shoulders and posture. "I didn't say that."

"I'm stealing nothing that wasn't already taken. If I want to have communal interest in raising the girl, what's the harm? I've been raising Leia already, who's the-" She stopped. "Nearly the same age."

"Leia is four."

"Leia is four." This point was driven home and the woman continued. "You have three Jedi in the Temple. It is lonely, it is cold, it is too sterile for such a child from such conditions on such a planet as Coruscant to adapt to so easily."

"I'm her Master, that's what I'm there for."

"On the contrary. You would teach her separation of emotion, to never become attached."

"Naturally, it is the Jedi way. It worked for centuries."

"Yet failed at the critical moment." He simply glared and ground his teeth. "The Jedi Order was good. But now it must be made better to fit a new world, for it cannot hold so stuffily to tradition. It will suffocate on old air and die. Therefore, give me the child to mother and you shall have better than Jedi."

"Better than Jedi?" he scoffed. "What would you make that is better than Jedi."

"The natural thing," she said, par course and easy. "People."

………………………………………………………………………………………

Mara found him tucked into the corner of a hall while the rest of the population was partaking of the free food and drink provided at the service.

"Sir!" his treasurer had protested. "It will cost a fortune!"

"And what do I have fortunes for," he'd replied, "but to spend them?"

Mara had not been proud of him then, it was the decent thing to do.

Luke had his head in his hands and was breathing deeply, sitting on the floor as though he weren't the sovereign emperor. His mother had left, escorted to the speeder by her son and droves who praised her for mothering him – when she'd expected boos as a traitor.

"Thank you," she'd told him as she prepared to leave. "It was a beautiful service and I was glad to be there."

"I hope you have a safe flight back and your stay was a comfortable one." He'd looked hurt and could not make eye contact with her, but she'd left after that, deeply touched and much happier.

Mara had not been proud of him then, it was the decent thing to do.

But his speech…

That he could craft such language. Such open, honest language that expressed real remorse, true sympathies, exact emotions and bonds. Luke was articulate and he was clever, but Mara had never appreciated his diplomatic knack his father had praised him for until that moment. He had used Vader's funeral as a jumping off point to his own reign, but how could she fault him when that's exactly what the doting, loving, worshiping father would have wanted for his devoted son.

"It was a beautiful service," she said softly as she came upon him, all alone, and he shuddered and stiffened, and was only able to look at the hem of her black dress. "I think you made the holonet reporters cry."

"Oh," was all he could say, looking down the dark hallway and thinking.

"Your father would have loved it."

"I know that."

How nearly she said, "Oh, Luke, I'm so proud of you!" But she'd been taught at an early age to keep her emotions in check, and she didn't want to seem impetuous or for him to take that the wrong way. How awkward things might be then, even as he sat on the tile and shuddered.

But she was very proud of him.

"And thank you for allowing Senator Padmè Amidala to come."

"Sure."

"After all," she sighed, rubbing the outside of her arm. "She is your mother. She was his wife. Was it really so awful having her here?"

"Yes," he finally growled, standing up and staring her down. Mara just sighed, disappointed at the darkness that congregated around him with his grief. Such promise of power and justice was wasted on Skywalker, she reminded herself. "Yes. It was awful, it was horrid, I hated every minute of it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I want to be alone." He stormed down the hall and Mara just sighed, shaking her head.

That stubborn jerk.

She was so proud of him.