A/N: Thank you all for the reviews, private messages, favorites and likes. :D This story keeps twisting around on me, and I hope you enjoy those twists.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my OCs. Please do not sue. This is purely for fun.

Life on Dagobah, what could I really say about it? Well, for starters, the smell never really got better. You got used to it in a sense, but it was more like being used to the idea that a dumpster was going to reek of decaying food. It still smacked you in the face with a brick made of oh-just-kill-me-now, but at least you were ready for it. For another, it was always wet, always damp and humid and you got to see the sun only when you climbed about twenty stories up into one of the Dagobah Giant Redwoods.

Okay, okay. That wasn't their real name. Yoda had explained it to me once, but trying to pronounce the proper name was like trying to inhale spaghetti noodles up your nose while simultaneously sneezing them out your mouth. Just no. Not happening.

And how did I know that the sun existed outside the canopy of the DGRs? Because I was forced to climb one, that's why. Seriously. I couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time, and yet I was supposed to make like Tarzan and swing from the branches. Simply because the Force and I had about as much attraction to one another as Kirstie Alley and healthy eating habits (really, would it kill her to put down the stick of butter and eat some broccoli or something?) did not excuse me from the physical Jedi training sessions. And fear of heights? That was so not an acceptable excuse to get out of Paul Bunyoning my way up the tree.

Or was Paul the lumberjack that cut down the trees? Oh, if only! I'd spend all my days trying to take one of these suckers out with a butter knife if it meant I wouldn't have to climb them!

But no, my life wasn't that blessed, even in a galaxy far, far away. If anything, when Yoda said "jump" it encouraged Nova to grab my sorry pattootie with the Force and throw me up into the air. Not even waiting for Yoda to say how high, either! Apparently it was just assumed that all padawans would know how high their masters meant them to leap.

I was so failing this Jedi Academy of Horrors.

For what felt like the millionth time, I swiped my hair out of my face with one hand and clung to the side of a tree like a blond koala with the other. Far above me, Luke, who was wearing the Yoda backpack today, came to a stop. Staring down at me with patient eyes. Below me, Nova the Jerkwad tapped impatiently on my foot.

"Keep moving," he said. "Every time you stop, your muscles relax and it makes it harder for you to move again. You're only making this more difficult on yourself."

"Says Mr. Perfect-in-Shape!" I snapped back, willing my protesting arms to reach above my head and grab some bark.

They stayed where they were, my aforementioned muscles walking in circles beneath my skin with little protest placards asking for no taxation without representation or better wage rates or something like that. I couldn't be bothered to listen to them, what with Mr. Pushy beneath me defying my biological union contracts with my body parts against unfair work practices. My legs started that union back when my boss on Earth had asked me to unload an entire truck full of alcohol into the stock room by myself. My arms quickly joined up after my lower back suffered a great injury. Nothing like a devastating display of agony to bring people—or in this case, my limbs—together on the same page.

Too bad the prospect of falling to a 'great injury' wasn't enough to unite me and Nova.

He shook his head. "I have no idea how you survived on your world if you are this out of shape, Mary."

"Where I come from, it was beauty above form. The only supermodel that would have survived a day of this torture was Tyra Banks. The rest would have snapped in half."

Nova just stared at me with the now familiar you're-an-idiot-I-can't-believe-you-are-a-padawan expression. Well, that made two of us. I still couldn't believe I was a padawan either. So there!

I glared at him, well, as much as I could from over my shoulder down past my body to what I could see of his face. "Just be lucky that I'm a nice person and I won't smash your face in with my boot."

He huffed out a laugh. Seriously, the jerk had enough oxygen after this climb to laugh! We were miles above the ground with miles more to go and he could laugh? What was he, the energizer bunny's cousin? "You couldn't hit me even from this range. You'd end up falling and I would have to catch you—again."

"See, that's your problem right there. You always live in the past. Let it go already. Why can't you think about the future for once and all the positive things that could happen?"

"Like you getting on with our training?"

"Like you shutting the hell up?"

"Focus, you must," our master cut in, disapproval weaving through his tone. "Padawan Vasquez, right you are in that the future your focus must be. But not at the expense of the moment. In that, Padawan Stihl has the right of it. Come, higher you must climb today. Trust you must in the Force to guide you."

Easy for him to say. He actually had the Force to fall—every pun intended!—back upon if he and gravity decided to argue about the fastest way out of this tree. Most times gravity would win that contest, and claim its spoils in the bloody puddle you'd become on the ground. Natural selection, a friend of mine would call it. If you were dumb enough to argue with a law of physics, you got what you deserved.

Idly I wondered if there was a saying like that about arguing with a Jedi Master.

Regardless, I finished my union negotiations with my various body parts and put one hand over the other, having no choice but to trust that Yoda wouldn't let me splat on the ground. Nova might, just to prove me wrong or something.

"I can almost hear that, Mary," Nova sighed, poking my foot again. "And no, I will not let you fall to your death on principle. Maybe into a few limbs to smack some sense into you, but not to your death."

"You would," I puffed/hissed at him.

His smile as he climbed up next to me was purely amused. At least, I hoped that flashing light in his eyes was pure amusement. "Possibly."

If I hadn't had my hands full of moss and bark, I would have formed my fingers into the sign of the cross and held them before my face. Not that that would do anything against him if he was all dark Jedi wannabe inside. Huh, what was the universal Star Wars sign to ward off the evil eye? I'd have to find that one out.

He responded by slipping an arm low around my waist and giving me a shove upwards. It was either climb faster or be hauled up like a child. And though the aspect of being carried—again—was appealing, my pride was getting the better of me. Stupid pride.

Failing to keep up with the rest of the class last time had stung a bit. Call it peer pressure. Call it a desire to actually finish an assignment. Call it what you will. But I was not going to be hauled around like a sack of potatoes again. Period. I took a deep breath and pulled myself ever higher.

I watched Nova take a deep, steadying breath and let go of the tree branch. He was balanced perfectly on his bare feet, walking out on a limb about as big around as my wrist and looked about as stable. Unconsciously my hand grabbed onto Luke's arm, my chest tightening. We were so much higher in the tree than we had gone before, so much so that the sun was bright and hot above us, the air clean smelling, and the ground below was impossible to see.

Nova continued to put one foot in front of the other, eyes closing as he did so. He reached the edge of the limb and—

Jumped.

No, soared.

Seriously, it was like watching Morpheus make that jump between buildings in the first Matrix movie. Nova was catapulted through the air; landing with what I hoped was grace on a tree much farther away. He spun around, and I didn't have to see his face to know it was lit up like a Christmas tree. He'd done it.

I sagged against the tree trunk, letting go of Luke's arm so I could slide down it and sit. Boneless. "Seriously," I uttered out loud. "I think I'm going to have a heart attack if they keep doing this."

Yoda chuckled. And I watched with a sort of dumb fascination as Nova repeated the exercise, landing back on our tree limb safely. Luke was up next, going through the same motions Nova had in order to prepare for his leap of destiny. Really, why couldn't we have done this over a lake or something? Why did it have to be over the freaking stratosphere of the freaking planet?

"Trust in the Force, they must," Yoda answered my unspoken question. "Same is the distance between one tree and the next. Same as the distance over the ground they have jumped. Only difference is in the mind. Trusting in the Force this exercise demands, not trusting in the eyes."

"Easy for you to say," I mumbled. "You actually have the Force."

The branch trembled as Luke made the same superman style leap to the other tree. A moment later he was back. And yes, he was grinning just as wide as Nova. I wanted to slap them both! See, I said slap this time instead of punch. That's progress, right? I was being all calm and Jedi-like. Besides, a slap is less angry than a punch, isn't it?

This time they both made like bald eagles and took flight to a different tree, this one farther away than the last. And when Luke's foot barely cleared the edge of thing, I couldn't take it anymore.

"I'm done," I announced. "I give up."

Yoda's ears twitched slightly, one rising a fraction of an inch higher than the other. "Why?"

"Because I'm not a Jedi, that's why!" I sighed in exasperation. "I can't sit here and watch them go through this stuff day in and day out. It's been two weeks of stuff like this, and each day gets progressively harder and more dangerous."

"Yet stronger and more capable they become."

"Yeah, sure. It's all fun and games until someone misses a branch and French-kisses the ground."

Yoda sighed. "Faith you lack, my padawan. Faith in yourself most of all. That is why you fail."

"Fail?" I blinked, surprised. "What have I failed at, aside from running, jumping, climbing, swimming…"

"Understanding," he said simply.

I wanted to rip my hair out by the roots. "Understanding what?! Master Yoda, I haven't understood a thing since I woke up on the Tantive IV. Okay, I take that back. I have understood love, but I lost that. No, scratch that. Vader stole that love from me and tried to replace it with lust instead. And I have understood pain, too. I damn well have a degree in that little area, thank you very much. Oh, and let's not forget screwing up a perfectly good timeline. I understand all that very well."

"But yourself, understand you do not."

Good lord, why didn't anyone tell me that arguing with Yoda was like arguing with a box of fortune cookies? All you were going to get were answers that made no sense and a stomach ache from eating stale cookies. Maybe that was why there were no stories about people arguing with the little guy. No one wanted to feel like they had tummy full of bleh.

"And what, pray tell, is that supposed to mean?"

"Occurred to you, it has not, that brought here for a reason you were?"

"Uh, no, not really. I've been trying too hard to survive here to think about that, honestly."

Both ears rose, his eyes lighting up. "Trying to survive, you have? Or trying to make sure others deserving of life also survive?"

Uh, what now? I felt my entire thought process grind to a halt. I honestly hadn't thought about my presence here in that way. I mean, sure, Nova and Teela were alive now. So were Thrass and Lorana. And I'd always said that all the above should have lived. It was tragic in a bad way that they all bit the big one in the novels. But I hadn't really considered that my total motivation for my actions. The things I'd done had been aimed at setting to rights what I thought was wrong with the Lucas-verse.

So, did that make me the galaxy's version of the retcon button? Was I here to fix all the little things all the authors wished they could have, but the corporate monster that was Lucasfilms wouldn't let them?

The tree branch trembled once, twice, a third and fourth time, as the two birds that were once my friends leapt about from tree to tree at Yoda's direction. I sat and pondered. And no, there was no smell of smoke from my mental circuits frying, thank you very much. I could think when I wanted to. More times than often I just didn't have time to! It was so much easier to react than to think. I usually relied on my roomie to be the brains of our operation. As in I would drag her into all sorts of trouble, and she'd think of a way to get us out of it.

"I don't know," I said at last. "It just… seemed like a way to write a wrong. It was something I could do along the way of trying to survive, myself. They shouldn't have died. I know that in my heart. I just… I didn't think that so many things would change because of that. Or that I would end up with a head full of nonsense."

"Nonsense, you say?" Yoda asked quietly, still watching Luke and Nova leap about like they were auditioning for Cirque de Soliel. "To which do you refer?"

"The false memories Lord Hater stuffed into my head, of course."

"False they may be," my master continued. "But small bits of truth hidden in them remains."

I was seriously going to have to ask for a Yoda-to-English dictionary. This was getting stupefying. "And what does that mean?"

"Alter you so clearly he could not if your permission he lacked."

"Are you trying to tell me that I wanted him to brain rape me?"

This time there was no mistaking the sigh of frustration. This was a new record for me. The most patient sentient in the universe was now at his wit's end with me.

"Telling you nothing am I," he replied at last. "Asking you to look deeper into yourself I am. Answers you will find that I cannot provide. Trust in the Force, my padawan. Jedi you may not be, yet destiny you have."

Yoda didn't say anything more. I sat there for a very long time, thinking about what he'd asked and said.

Could I really have been brought here for a reason? Was I really the vergence in the Force that both Yoda and Vader claimed? But if so, what was the reason? And why me of all people? I was useless , utterly and completely useless. I didn't possess Force powers or a brilliant insight into how to win a war. I was just lucky that I hadn't thrown up all over Thrawn's boots when forced to witness the battle of Yavin at his side! So what was my purpose here?

I sat and stared at the sunlit sky, and thought long and hard about that. So much so that I jumped when Luke put a hand on my shoulder.

"Easy, Mary," he said, settling down beside me. My real name sounding somehow wrong and somehow right on his lips. "I brought you something to eat."

I stared at the parcel he withdrew from his backpack. "Lunch up here?"

"Lunch?" he blinked and then smiled. "Mary, this is breakfast. You've been up here meditating for nearly a day and a night. Nova was beginning to think you were bragging, showing that you could beat his meditation skills."

My stomach growled loudly at that, as if catching up with all that Luke had said. I took the food—some kind of black bread-like substance with an earthy taste to it along with reddish brown berries that looked like blackberries but tasted like cantaloupe. I didn't bother to ask about the bread stuff. I was afraid it was some kind of cave fungus or mold or something. It did have a faint mushroom like flavor.

I covered the need to swallow hard by swallowing a berry instead. "So… uh, whose bright idea was it to leave me up here all alone?"

"Master Yoda's. He said you'd be fine, that you needed time to focus on your lessons."

Heh. Lessons. That was a funny way to put it. More like life lessons than Jedi lessons. But weren't life lessons still lessons? I mean they wouldn't call them that if they weren't some form of guidance.

I nodded once, eating another berry. "He pretty much dumped a heavy one on me," I confessed. "That maybe my presence here was destiny rather than an accident. And if that's true, I have a heavy one to carry."

He slipped an arm around my shoulders. "I know how that goes," he said softly as I leaned against him. "But at least we are not alone. You and me and Nova. Whatever happens, we have each other."

I tried not to wince at that. Shouldn't he have said 'me and Leia and Han and Chewie?' (oh my!)

"Larry, Curly, and Moe. The tree stooges of the Jedi Order," Luke's smile wilted around the edges slightly and I sighed. "Slick, I know this is serious for you. And I don't mean—mostly—to make light of it. You will be a Jedi, and you will go on to be a Jedi Master. I suppose Nova will as well. I'm not Jedi material. I'm still trying to figure out where I fit into all this, or if I'm even supposed to."

"Master Yoda seems to think so."

Master Yoda also thinks its dandy to live in a swamp and eat mold. What does that say about every decision that he makes? But I was kind enough not to say that part out loud.

"Master Yoda thinks a lot of things," I said instead.

"He has faith in you. So do I. So does the rest of the Alliance."

That one I did wince at. "Yeah, can't wait for them to find out that Aurora isn't real. Just wait and see how long they will have faith in me after that."

"I still do," he said quietly, tipping my head back to look into his eyes. "No matter what Darth Vader did to you, enough of the real you was in there to try and fight back. The same thing is going on with Leia right now."

I almost dropped my breakfast. "You… you knew?"

"That something was wrong with her? Yes. I knew, and Han knew, just as we knew something was off about you."

"And you didn't say anything?"

He shrugged. "What was there to say? We didn't have a basis of comparison for you, but Mon Mothma knew Leia before her ordeal with Vader. She could see something wasn't right. I could feel it, though I didn't know what it was at the time. I know it now."

"But you didn't know that it was something Vader had done until Yoda pointed it out."

He nodded. "Even then, I held out hope that you and Leia would overcome it somehow. That the women you were was strong enough to fight back. Or at the very least I would be able to heal you in time."

I didn't know what to say, and tried to lower my head, Yoda's words about being partially open to Vader's mind-wonkying still sharp in my memory. His hand on my cheek prevented that.

"Mary, I need to know. Was everything between me and Aurora… was there any part of it that was you?"

"I… I don't know. I want to believe it was, that a large part of it was me. He… he wants you so fiercely, Luke. He reprogrammed Leia and me to get to you, among other things. So I don't know how much was real, and how much was opportunity to get closer to you. I'm sorry about that."

He nodded, accepting. Always so accepting, even when it felt like his heart was ripping out of his chest. It was killing me.

"But what about now?"

This time I didn't try to look away. "Luke, someone is going to come along and blow what you feel for me out of the water. She's going to be your match, your equal in every way. And she's going to complete you on a level you never knew existed. I'm not saying this as a gentle let-down, or that some nebulous faceless woman is out there waiting for you. I'm saying it because I've seen it. I know it. I even know her name and what she looks like and everything. And I'll tell you if you want. But—"

"But that knowledge could change everything," he finished for me. "Master Yoda has warned us about acting on the images we see of the future. That it's always changing."

I nodded this time. "Yeah, I've learned that the hard way. Every time I try to fix something based on what I know, something else goes horribly wrong. It's like… like the galaxy is balancing itself out or something. For every good I do, something bad happens."

"Maybe that was what Master Yoda wanted you to learn yesterday," he said, gazing out at the rising sun. "The lesson was about balance in all things."

"Great. Can't wait to see what today's lesson is."

"Today is for independent study. To review and process what we have learned in the past three days. If you want, I'll help you down the tree."

He started to rise, and this time it was my hand that caught his cheek, turning his face down to mine. My lips touched his lightly at first, a delicate pressing meant as a thank you and an apology all rolled into one. But it didn't stop there, not when his hand settled back at my waist. I waited for the darkness to rise in time with the deepening of the kiss, for the Aurora thing to take over. For once I was willing to let it, to see if there was truly something of me inside the thing that loved him.

I waited. And nothing tried to control me, and still I wanted this. I wanted him.

So much for being the bad girl that only went for Imperials…

When the kiss broke I was in his lap, both of his arms around me and mine around his neck. "I'm not the right one for you, Luke Skywalker," I whispered. "And you are not the right one for me. But can I be your 'right now?'"

"That depends," he said, a growing smile on his face.

"Depends on what?"

"Will you take your training seriously?"

I lifted an eyebrow. "That sounds suspiciously like blackmail there, Slick."

"Not at all. Think of it like balance between what you want and what you have to do to get it."

"You need to unlearn what you have learned real fast, boyo," I jabbed a finger playfully into his chest. "You've spent too much time with Han. That's so what he would have said."

"He did," Luke said, lifting us both to our feet. "In an argument with Leia. It got through to the real Leia and she made the deal."

"So Han's her watchdog just like you and Nova were mine?"

"I pulled double duty on both you and your sis—I mean Leia."

"And I'm certain you didn't enjoy that one bit," I deadpanned.

This time he blushed as he smiled, and that reaction was all Luke. It was the one thing I hoped he never unlearned how to be.