"Pass me that welder, Vandis."
Mara caught the tossed tool. She leaned back into the service room in the Jade's Fire. Her ship had a slight engine malfunction. Minor damage, easily fixable, but also effectively grounded the ship until repairs could be made. She welded the two metal plates together, and finally decided that they were satisfactorily fused together. Climbing out of the below-the-deck room, she nearly ran into Vandis.
The fair-haired Vandis smiled and backed up a few steps.
"You know, you can go out to the city. You don't have to spend all your time out here. I can fix my own ship." Mara placed the welder back and grabbed a cloth to wipe off some of the oil on her hands.
"I'm stayin' for two reasons," the other woman said. "Number one, you'd prob'ly leave without me. The other is that Karrde would prob'ly make me do runs out to the Outer Rim the rest of my career. He told me to stay and watch you. Make sure you didn't work to hard and undo the bacta therapy."
"I'm fine."
"If that blaster bolt had gotten any closer to your bone, they'd probably have had to replace the entire bone, Captain."
"So? It didn't, and I'm fine."
"Sure, Captain Jade. But I have my orders, nonetheless."
Mara rolled her green eyes. "Just get out of here. You're bugging me."
"Captain…"
"Do I have to threaten you?" Jade asked.
"No, Captain."
"I promise Karrde will never know, and I won't leave without you."
Vandis watched the younger woman warily. Although Mara had never left her behind before, she'd threatened plenty of times. Usually, Mara assumed most crews would have taken it as sardonic humor, but with her, they treated her like a Corellian sand panther. Any threat she made, and they jumped.
"Get out of here, Vandis. I'm going to take a shower, and get some sleep. I expect you to be gone by the time I get to the refresher."
Several minutes later, Vandis left the ship, with a pocketful of Republic credits, probably to spend on her favorite pastime—gambling.
"Gods that was annoying," Mara muttered. She had no intention to get a shower yet; the Fire still needed some work, but she didn't want some older woman staring over her shoulder the whole time. She was fine; the bacta therapy had helped, and her leg was almost as good as new. She had one more session once she got back to Karrde's base. Until then, she made do with a slight limp. It was hardly noticeable, unless someone was watching her closely.
She reopened the panel and lowered herself back into it again. Karrde had been bothering her since she came back with him from Coruscant. As soon as was possible, he had her dunked in bacta. He constantly asked her what had happened between sessions, but she didn't answer much. She was still surprised she had been able to help Luke. It had taken so much for her to do all that. Now, two weeks after all that, even now she felt a very little hesitation whenever she summoned the Force for anything. But it wasn't bad.
Every night she found it difficult to sleep. Every night, she was tempted to reach out with the Force and just touch him, see how he was doing. When she had kissed him…she hadn't meant to. It just happened. But his eyes had opened.
Had he been awake, somehow? Did he know who had been there, or did it seem like a hallucination to him?
"Hello, Mara."
Mara spun around. There, just outside the room above, was Luke Skywalker.
"Skywalker," she said, forcing a smile. "Hi. Didn't know you were onplanet." She wanted to at least pretend to be angry that he'd come onboard without her permission—or knowledge.
"Just arrived." He leaned down and offered her a hand up. She took it, and he helped her out of the hole. She stood up.
"I heard you ran into some trouble," she said. "I see that it's not true, once again."
Luke groaned inside. So she was going to feign ignorance. "Oh, I did run into trouble. They had to completely reconstruct my nerve paths."
"And how long did that take?"
"Not very long. Two weeks altogether, with the burns, and the broken bones, and everything else."
She ran an appraising eye over him. "Two weeks? You look like you don't even have scars."
"I healed very quickly."
"Obviously." She glanced around, and found the oil-covered rag from before. She walked over to it, and then looked back at Skywalker. He had a concerned look on his face.
"You're limping," he said.
"No I'm not." It was a knee-jerk reaction: deny any weakness.
"Yeah, you were. I could tell. Just a little bit, but you were. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Skywalker. It was just a little thing that happened. Trading run."
"You always find trouble on trading runs?"
"Do you always find trouble on you New Rep mercy missions?" the redhead countered.
"I guess I do," he admitted. "It's hard not to."
"Yeah, I know. You attract hopeless causes and just plain trouble."
"Sure do. So, what happened to your leg again? What run were you on that turned hostile?"
"It was nothing, really. In a few days, you won't even be able to tell I was hurt in the first place."
There was a long pause, and then Luke stepped closer to her. His blue eyes caught hers, and she wasn't sure she could voluntarily look away from the intense look in his eyes. He stepped even closer.
"I wanted to thank you," he said softly.
She licked her lips to moisten them. Her mouth was completely dry.
"For what?"
"You know," he said. "I knew it was you the whole time." He lifted his hand—his left one, his real one—and gently caressed her cheek. She was tempted to lean into him, but dismissed it. She stepped back abruptly, and nearly fell when her left leg buckled. He caught her easily.
"What happened to your leg?" he asked, his voice as soft as it had been before. "I can tell, whatever it is, it's still healing. You should rest off it for a while."
"I've got work to do," she muttered, and tried half-heartedly to pull away from him. She was caught in momentary surprise when she saw his lips descend on hers, and he kissed her softly. Before he could pull away, she pulled him closer, wrapping her arms around his neck.
Finally pulling away, he smiled at her.
"Thanks for saving me, Mara."
"No problem. You've saved me in more ways, Luke." She pulled him close again, gazing into his deep blue eyes.
*~*~*~*Author's Note: I hope all you readers enjoyed this. I had fun writing it, and it's always good to know people had fun reading it. I know in the disclaimer I say something about Corran Horn. My original draft did include Corran, but I just didn't put him in this time. I promise to next time, though, for all the loyal Corran Horn fans out there. I'm thinking about doing another Mara/Luke fic. Do you guys think I should? If so, any suggestions? I have one, but if you can come up with something better, I'm up for suggestions. May the Force be with you all*~*~*~*