A/N: Thanks again for the reviews and private messages! Sorry that I took so long in updating this one. This one isn't as funny as it should have been, but then again, discussing a possible fall to the Dark Side is no laughing matter. ;)

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

Three weeks on Dagobah and I was beginning to feel like I was staring in a really bad crossover fanfic between Star Wars and Little House on the Prairie. Those of you in my age bracket know exactly what I'm talking about. Anyone born after 1985 is just going to have to look up the wiki or just nod and pretend like you know what I'm talking about. But don't feel bad if you have to do that. You'd fit right in with Luke, Nova and the rest of the residents of the wannabe Walnut Grove. They had no idea what I was talking about either.

You'd think I'd be used to that by now. Let me tell you something, you never get used to being misunderstood, especially when you know you are explaining something that is perfectly valid where you come from.

But to try to show you what I'm getting at, life on Dagobah was like living in a frontier town in the old American West. Those of the non-padawan variety were busy doing things like erecting temporary housing (let's face it, the Runaway Princess was a nice-sized craft, but it couldn't sleep us all comfortably), foraging for food and generally setting up a perimeter just in case there was anything on this planet with the ability to take a larger bite out of us that we could. While Yoda assured us that we were safe if we stayed in his designated areas, we all weren't completely convinced. Jedi Masters we were not, and what he considered a minor issue could very well swallow us whole without trying.

Much love to the little green dude, but we had to trust our instincts, too.

Regardless, Wedge apparently rose to the top and became the Mayor of Swampville, with Dr. Uli as his… uh… vice-mayor? Second chair? Co-consul? No, wait, this wasn't Rome for crying out loud. There was no consulate. Anyway, Wedge was in charge of the non-wans as I called them, and Luke ended up being in charge of us padawans. I think that had to do with the fact that he was so much stronger in the Force than Nova. Like, seriously stronger. I'd often wondered what made Luke so special that he was able to defeat Darth Vader—a man that had been a trained Jedi for two decades before he became a Sith Lord for like two more decades on top of that—with only about a scant two weeks of hard core lessons from Yoda.

Now I knew. It was called raw talent and an intuitive nature so acute that even I wanted to slap him. Not that you could, mind you. He saw the attempt coming a mile away and blocked it before it landed near him. Sometimes I swore that he knew I was going to strike him before I even knew it. Creepy, I tell ya!

Aside from that, I had to admit that live in Swampville actually agreed with me. I was probably in the best shape of my life. And let me stop you right there. It wasn't like that. There was no big montage of cut-scenes and booming empowering music to suddenly illustrate the magnitude of what I was undertaking in my padawan training. No before and after images that flashed by in the blink of an eye to show my transition from wimpy bartender to Wonder Woman. I didn't suddenly manifest Yoda-like inner peace and a connection to the Force, either.

Just because I was able to run a mile now in six minutes did not mean I could suddenly weld a lightsaber that shifted color with my eyes depending on my mood, while simultaneously putting on lip gloss and flipping my longer-than-average prefect hair over my shoulder. Oh, and never get dirty even though I stood in the middle of a swamp. In other words, my name may be Mary, but I wasn't a Mary Sue.

If you were looking for something along those lines, I've got an invisible jet to sell you.

No, the only thing from that above list that I'd managed to do was run a mile in six minutes without feeling like I wanted to die. Mostly. At the end of the day, I was still covered in swamp crud and I stayed as far away from the lightsaber practice as I could without being out of Master Yoda's earshot. It didn't matter that he insisted that I have a lightsaber of my own. The thing hung from my belt like a load stone. Like a dangerous, heavy, could-accidently-activate-on-its-own-and-chop-off-my-leg kind of load stone.

Hell yeah, I was afraid of it. Wouldn't you be? Oh shut up, you know you would be, too. Stop fronting!

By that point, life had pretty much set itself up in a routine of sorts. Mornings were spent in lecture with Master Yoda on tenants of the Force, most of which went right over my head. Then Nova and Luke were set to practice that day's lesson with each other, and I was pulled aside for my Non-Force-Using Padawan lesson. Which normally included a verbal test on the principles of the morning's lecture. And let me tell you this, you don't bullshit a Jedi Master. If you don't know the answer, you speak the freak up and say so. Otherwise you get punishment work.

Like being Teela's personal bitch for a full day. Oh, that woman still hated me for whatever I did to her when I was fully Aurora. And spending the whole day lugging tools around to hand to her as she helped repair the ships—while only being able to say things like "Yes, Miss Dance" or "No, Miss Dance" or "Please clarify as I do not know the right tool you request, Miss Dance"—was an exercise in torture. Geneva Convention level torture!

Not that anyone here knew what the Geneva Convention was about, or even cared to learn. Wedge asked about it once, and after I lost my mind screaming at him because he said it sounded bizarrely anti-alien in its "human rights" bits, I got to spend another day with Teela the Wicked Bitch of the West to pay for that. I swear, the one thing I can quote like it's my own personal history, and I get punished for trying to explain it. No justice anywhere, I swear.

Keep in mind that I was saying and doing all this of my own free will. Yoda wasn't the type to mind-wonky me. And Teela? Oh, she loved it. So much so that she requested me each and every time she could. Pure, sheer torture. Since I'd been through torture before, I could safely make that claim.

So yeah, needless to say that my memory was improving, too. Rapidly. So was my ability to focus, believe it or not.

After the quiz on the Lesson of the Day, I was sent to different places to meditate. Trees, rocks, fallen logs... neck deep in the water… No, I'm not making that up. I seriously had to find a way to meditate in the nasty swampy water. It was something about learning to meditate even in the midst of danger and distraction, like Qui-Gon did when facing off with Darth Maul. And I was to think about such august topics as: why was I here, what happened the last time I changed something, what was coming in light of those changes, etc.

After that, it was more tree-climbing or running or whatever physical combat training that Nova had devised for us. He was in charge of primary exercises, and had developed a routine for Rogue Squadron as well. Trying to keep them in fighting shape since there was drek-all to do on this planet if you weren't a Jedi. And when Nova and Luke worked on their lightsaber combat, Master Yoda had me running basic fighting drills with a practice saber. Again, just because I wasn't a Force user didn't mean I couldn't benefit from learning how to fight.

Too bad I couldn't use my new found skillz to run away from nightmares or beat them down. They returned in full force not two days back, and for the life of me I couldn't remember what they were. All I knew was that they involved sleep walking and feeling cold and afraid and sad. I'd wake up each time either curled in the fetal position on the floor, or sitting in the chair opposite my communications station in the Runaway Princess. Which was stupid, as the comm system was on lockdown per Nova's instructions.

No signals were to get in or out, not if it meant we could accidently alert the Empire to Yoda's presence here.

But the worst part was the returned dreams of the Great Blue Dragon, himself. He featured heavily in the dreams that came after the nightmares. And in them I either sat across from him as we played a game of chess together (which was dumb as I hated that game. Strategy and I did not get along) while I cried. Not about the chess game, surprisingly enough, but about feeling helpless and alone. Other times we were on the bridge of the Admonitor and battles were raging all around. He looked tense, and I kept telling him I was of no help. He kept insisting otherwise and that he would not let me go back to him. So insistent was he about that that he'd taken a pair of binders and locked one cuff around each of our wrists.

I had no idea what 'him' he was talking about. And saying that repeatedly did nothing to change his mind. Asking Yoda about the dreams ended in more riddles and a suggestion to meditate.

Translation: Find the answer by yourself, blondie. I gots me some real Jedi to train. Git off mah lawn.

"What are you sulking about this time?"

I jerked, nearly falling off my log. Yes, today I was to mediate while balancing on a fallen tree. Seriously! This so wasn't like any yoga class I had ever attended, and I had found a pretty good zen balance when I went to yoga regularly. But at least this time I didn't fall. I just looked like a drunken idiot weaving on one foot for a second. Or like the Karate Kid—the original, not the Jayden Smith remake. Seesh! Appreciate the classics, people!

"Just how much I want to smack you on the arm," I chirped cheerfully at Nova, finally regaining my equilibrium.

He chuckled. "No desire to punch me anymore?"

"Oh, there's a big desire to do that, still. Huge desire, actually. I'd say somewhere in the range of planetary in its size. But I'm supposed to be thinking of anything instead of that now. You know, trying to find my inner-Jedi or whatever. Why are you here anyway? Aren't you supposed to be running off with Luke learning how to juggle rocks or something?"

As if on cue, about six pebbles rose out of the muck around us and started to weave in a complex pattern before his face.

I glared. "Show off."

"No, simply following orders," Nova replied, shrugging and sinking down onto a previously unseen rock. He crossed his legs Indian-style and continued to watch the rocks in the air. "How about you?"

I stared down my nose at him, weaving slightly as I tried to watch his rock show and keep my balance all at once. Which was a lot harder than it sounded. "Same," I gritted my teeth. "Supposed to be learning outer balance today, in hopes that if my body was aligned properly, my temper might follow it."

Nova bit back a laugh, but not the bright smile that it painted on his mug. "It's supposed to be the other way around, Mary."

"Since when has anything about me been the way it should be?" I shrugged on reflex, and nearly lost my footing. Stupid lack of balance! "Case in point, I should be at home right now watching Luke do this by himself on DVD. You should be…"

Ergh. Sometimes I really hated it when my mouth ran away from my brain.

"I should be dead?" he offered helpfully, the stones in the air now doing this figure eight weaving thing that was oddly pretty. You know, for rocks covered in swamp crud, that is.

I sighed, lowering my arms and staring at him. "You know that's not what I meant."

"Isn't it?"

He had me there. I sighed, lifting my arms again in the pose that Yoda had shown me. "Ignore me. I'm an idiot and you know it."

"I can't," he replied, voice sounding strained. One of the rocks fell from his control. "That's part of my study for today."

I cracked open one eye, lurching precariously as I split my attention again. "Not ignoring me is part of your Jedi training?" I couldn't help but snerk. "Isn't that the opposite of what you want to do if you want to keep your Jedi demeanor? I've noticed severe lack of you wanting to be near me lately, and a short fuse on your bomb-like temper when you are. Dude, you might as well give up now if you want to stay calm around me. I've made the most rigidly controlled Grand Admiral in the Empire grind his teeth in frustration."

Two more of the rocks fell, and a grimace of concentration creased his features. "That's… precisely why Master Yoda… wants me to be near you… today."

Okay, that one knocked me off my pedestal…err log. I managed to land on my feet instead of my ass for once. See, I could be taught! "What the crap is that supposed to mean" I snapped, planting my hands on my hips. "And are you okay? You don't look well."

Tiny rivulets of sweat were running down his face, only two of the six rocks still in the air. And those were no longer doing the pretty twirly dancy thing. It was like he had to concentrate for all his worth to keep those two stones hovering an inch from the swamp. And even then they plunked down in the sodden ground like all my fallen hopes.

"I'm fine," he huffed, swiping a hand across his forehead, breathing hard. "It's harder for me to control small objects than it is to control the larger ones. I think Luke has the opposite problem."

I blinked at him as the implications of his sentences sank in, and then gaped. "If that's true and your assignment is to sit here and juggle rocks, I don't want to know what Yoda is having Luke try and juggle."

The thought of him juggling, I don't know, entire asteroid belts or something, made me want to run and hide. If Nova dropped a rock, it was no biggie. If Luke dropped an asteroid belt onto Dagobah… well, let's just say that we wouldn't have to worry about the Empire finding us out here. That would pretty much wrap up our stories nice and tight, like dinosaur-style ending. As in total planetary destruction.

Nova about fell over on his side laughing, and I realized that he'd picked up some of that mental imagery from me. Especially the part where all of us—us padawans, Rogue Squadron, the good doctor and Teela, plus Master Yoda—all appeared in the afterlife as glittering blue ghosts. And all Luke could do was look at us all sheepishly and say "oops. I dropped one."

"Nothing that big, Mary," Nova chuckled, pushing himself back up onto his rock. "Master Yoda has Luke attempting to pull the two stranded X-Wings out of the lake."

Oh, well when he put it that way… I sank down on my log, sitting just like he was. Except I plunked my elbow on my knee and dropped my chin into my palm. "So what do X-wings and stones and your Jedi peace of mind have to do with me? And if you say that you'd like to drop either one on me like the Wicked Witch of the East, so help me I'll go back on my promise to Yoda and punch you in the head."

Nova shook his head, absently rubbing the muck off his hand onto his already mucky shirt. Which didn't accomplish anything more than spreading the muck around on both. "You should call him Master. He is your teacher."

"I'm not a real padawan, so he isn't my real master."

"No, I think rage is your real master. And rage leads to the dark side."

I snerked out another laugh, remembering all my previous moments as Darth Cupcake, Darth Blondie, and possibly doing a Disney musical scene on the Death Star about how so very wicked I was. "Nova, I'm about as threatening as a dead gnat. You really think I'm falling to the dark side?"

"Not yet, but I think you are dangerously close to it."

He was serious, I realized. And that almost knocked me off my log again. That, and the way the humor had slowly bled out of his eyes, replaced with something that I didn't want to see. It reminded me too much of the look in his eyes when we were rescuing Wedge and the future members of Rogue Squadron from the Admonitor. Like he was preparing to take me apart at the seams if he needed to.

"Well, news flash, dearheart," I tried to chirp brightly, managed only to sound a little breathy. "I don't have a dark side to fall to. Remember, no Force powers? Hard to be a dark Jedi when I can't be a Jedi in the first place."

"Do you think Tarkin and Motti were Jedi?"

I snorted. "Maybe in their dreams—their wildest dreams."

"They were more evil than Lord Vader, Mary," Nova said softly, two of the stones rising into the air again. "And they were full of the dark side."

I suddenly didn't like the way this conversation was heading. "Dude, if you came here to harsh my mellow…"

A third stone rose, and Nova's face twisted in concentration. When he spoke again, his voice was strained. "No, I came here because I have a lesson to learn."

"That interrupting my not-meditation with bizarre theories is a surefire way to piss me off?"

"No, that burying my anger behind good intentions does not alleviate it."

Anger? What the hell? "Good intentions? I don't follow."

The stones plunked to the ground again, and when his eyes hit me, I fell off my log. Seriously, the simmering anger in his eyes was strong enough to fry me on the spot. I hit the ground in my usual manner this time—face first. And that had him on his feet and over to my side quickly, grabbing my arm and hauling me to my feet.

"Seriously, what's your damage?" I gasped, terrified. And pissed. Suddenly so very pissed that I really did wanted to punch him in the face.

"You are," He snapped. "I've tried so hard to bury this anger behind keeping you alive, hoping one day I could reach you. But you just keep doing this."

"Well, sorry for living. I'll try not to live in your presence," I snapped back. "Now leggo!"

"Why did you lie to me?"

Really? That's what had him all torqued out? That I had lied to him to save his life? And why was all this coming up now of all times, when it had been almost two and a half months since then?

"Uh, it was called a snap decision to save your life? Feel free to apologize and thank me any time now."

He ignored that. "If I hadn't brought it up, would you have ever told me that you lied to me?"

"Honestly? No, no I wouldn't," I said bluntly. "And I resent the hell out of the fact that you are making me feel guilty for doing whatever I had to in order to save your life."

"So for you, the ends justified the means?"

"In this instance, yes! What, are you telling me that you would have accepted the truth there on the Death Star? You would have believed me if I came storming up to you and said 'Hey, Nova Stihl, I know all about you and the Blink. But I don't have the Blink to know about it. So just trust me blindly, okay? You're gonna die if you don't listen to me.' Please, you would have shot me or hauled my ass over to Lord Hater in that instant. Then you'd be dead and I couldn't let that happen. So stop looking the gift mynock in the mouth and just say thank you already!" I tugged on my arm, and like with every man in my life, found his grip ironclad. "Besides, you were supposed to do the smart thing and go with Teela and crew, not hang around with me to find out that I lied. You weren't supposed to come after me and get caught up in all of this. You could have lived a nice normal life—which is what I wanted for you."

"You?" he balked. "Have you listened to a word you've said? All of this is still about you. You never once considered what I wanted in the situation."

"Yeah, yeah. I get that all the time," I snarled. "From you and Leia and Thrawn. I never think about anything but me or listen to anything other than the sound of my own voice. Blah, blah. Move on already."

He looked like he wanted to shake me. Like grab both of my arms and shake me until my teeth rattled. "You are still doing it!"

"Well, yeah! Because I'm the only one that knows me. I'm the only one that gives a flip about the real me. Even you, you ungrateful bastard, you felt you owed a debt to Aurora instead of Mary. So if the only person rooting for the me me is me, then that's who I'm going to listen to. Because I'll be damned if I'm going to be come that selfish, insipid, spoiled Princess. I'd rather be the selfish, insipid, spoiled bartender. Because then I know my choices are my own."

"And Luke doesn't care about you?"

Now that was a low blow. "He thinks he does. But I'm not the one for—"

This time he did shake me. "And there you go again, thinking about what you want for us all. Never thinking that maybe, just maybe, we want to make our own choices, too. Can't you hear yourself? You sound just like a Sith. Like Vader and Palpatine, trying to make others do what you want them to do because you think its best."

Oh hell no! He did not just call me a Paply wannabe!

"No, not because of that!" I yelled back, my voice sorta sounding like a rolling hiccup from him shaking me while I'm trying to talk. "Because I know what will happen otherwise. I'm trying to save everyone!"

And then it clicked. What I had just said slammed home like a kamikaze pilot bombing my emotional Pearl Harbor. I think it clicked for him at that same moment, or at least my emotional response did. I was fairly certain that he didn't know Thrawn's backstory, nor the vision that first set young Palpatine on the path that turned him into the Emperor. Thrawn was moving heaven and hell to protect his people—the Chiss—from the approaching storm of the Yuzhan Vong threat.

Palpatine had seen a vision of the Vong as well, and had literally toppled the Old Republic in order to turn it into a weapon to fight the Vong invasion. Granted, Uncle Palpy would have performed his hostile takeover of the galaxy anyway because Sith Lords always hunger for more power. The Vong was just a convenient excuse. But Thrawn… he was doing all this because he was a patriot, because he was terrified of what would become of his people if the Vong won. He'd accepted exile from his own people in order to come to the Empire and help Palpy forge his weapon to take down the Vong.

Because he knew what would happen if he didn't act. Just like I knew what would have happened if I didn't act. No wonder we hated each other. Thrawn and I, I meant. Deep inside, we were exactly alike.

And suddenly that conversation with Yoda two weeks ago about the false memories inside me made perfect sense.

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

"And what does that mean?"

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

Son of a bitch. I really was falling to the dark side, wasn't I? Becoming just as much of a control freak as Palpatine and Thrawn and Vader.

I didn't remember when it happened, but I was suddenly holding onto Nova for dear life. I had my head buried into his chest, and I was sobbing. "I'm sorry, Nova. I'm so sorry. No, this isn't me saying 'I' because I'm only thinking about me. I don't know how to say sorry any other way! I'm sorry I lied. I'm sorry I never asked what you wanted. I'm sorry for being an arrogant dilhole. I'm sorry!"

"I'm sorry, too," he said, hugging me. "I've been harboring this grudge for months, hiding it beneath my need to see you safe, to repay the debt of saving my life. I should have brought it up sooner, but there was always an excuse, always a battle of some kind to be fought and it just seemed unimportant. I'm sorry, Mary. Sorry for clinging to Aurora, for listening to Master Kenobi instead of stopping to talk to you."

"No, don't be sorry for that," I sniffled. "I don't know how much would have reached me and how much Aurora would have swallowed whole. She's not a nice person. And I'm afraid she's me in some way. Like the dark me or something. The evil twin inside that I didn't know I had. She's a real bitch. You should punch her in the head."

That produced a slight laugh from him. "Mary, if I were to punch you in the head, you would not wake up again."

"True," I muttered, finally looking up at him. I tried a small smile, saw one on his lips, too. A fragile thing, but something to build a real friendship on if we worked hard at it. "So, a truce then? If you promise to keep me from swan diving into the dark side, I promise to make you confront your anger even when you don't know you have it."

He shook his head. "Do we really need to put definitive stipulations and labels on things? Why not say that we are in this together, and we'll see it through to the end."

"Because only a Sith deals in absolutes?"

"Exactly."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"When did we get on this branch?"

He blinked and noticed for the first time that we were perfectly balanced on the branch of the log I'd been using as a meditation board. And all around us, ten little stones hovered and twisted in a circle. And from somewhere off to our left, we heard the familiar Muppet-chuckle of our Jedi Master. Apparently we'd somehow broken through a plateau of mutual anger and found our inner balance.

Together.

Who would have thought?