Aftermath: Catharsis
by SJ 07-00/12-2002 (skyjade@globetrotter.net)
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Disclaimers: Nothing in the Star Wars Universe belong to me; everything belongs
to George Lucas. Naturally, everything related to events of Dark Empire also
belong to Tom Veitch.
Please don't sue me, it's only for fun; I'm not making any money out of this.
See my home page for more details.
Http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Quasar/3702
Special thanks to Adrianne for her help with beta-reading. Thank you for
giving me some of your precious time, my friend; I appreciate.
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As Leia gazed at Artoo's visual sensor, she wondered yet again how Mara Jade had
known that her brother's droid would understand her request to guard his
master's door.
"You agree, Artoo?" she asked him once again. "Don't let Luke out of his room
unless either myself, Han, or Mara Jade are with him."
"And give the alarm if anything happens," he completed for her on his
translation screen.
Unless her brother manipulated the Force and deactivated the droid before he
could give the alarm, she mused inwardly. In such a case, even Artoo's still
surprising devotion to his master would not keep the Jedi from eluding them, and
then...
No, she shook her head in stubborn denial. Her dear, gentle, kind brother would
not turn again to the Dark Side, especially since he had 'never' willingly
chosen the darkness, she heartened herself. Surely he wouldn't choose it...
now.
Now that he was back amongst his friends and family.
Now that he had had a vision of the future about her third child.
Now that the Emperor was dead.
*Luke?* she tentatively reached out.
He didn't speak to her, but his closing their bond between them was as wordy as
any rebuttal he could have given to her.
He didn't want to see her nor sense her at the moment. He wanted to be left
alone.
No matter if it left him alone to deal with is morose, defeated attitude, she
reflected glumly. Reluctantly accepting his request yet again, she withdrew
from their bond, then checked on Artoo one last time.
She still wasn't sure if the little astromech droid, with which Mara seemed
quite familiar, would be able to guard the Jedi master, but she knew that short
of keeping her brother under an ysalimiri veil, nobody else would be able to
guard him either. Hence, she trusted Mara that Artoo's presence would keep Luke
in place until they could figure out what was wrong with him.
Besides, she shrugged as she walked away from his door, Luke wasn't a
prisoner... He was just worrying her a lot and she was only seeking to protect
him from even himself should things turn bad once again.
On her way to the nearby turbolifts, she reflected that she had rarely seen her
brother in such a state of utter defeat before. Both other times had been after
his defeats at their father's hand, when he had lost an important part of
himself. The first time, he had almost lost his will to live as a Jedi, and the
second time, his delusions and last remnants of naivete. Both times though, he
had pulled through.
With her help.
Thus, she had truly expected that her brother would talk to her this time. He
hadn't.
In a way, she admitted to herself, it hurt her that her brother would turn his
back to her like this. They had always been close before, had never hid
anything from the other. Their bond had always been strong, even when they
hadn't known what it had been. Up till now, they had always been there for one
another, but not anymore.
Something had happened to her brother while he had been on Byss, and it had
erected a strong, impregnable wall between even themselves.
She dimly hoped that her own children would never face such a vicious
interruption of their bond with one another. It was most difficult to bear
without trying to force her twin to open up again.
As she slowly made her way toward the hangar bays, she prayed the Force that
Mara Jade would be able to help Luke. Then, perhaps, he would talk to her once
again.
******
Using the shortest route through hyperspace, balancing her need for speed with
the risk of not reaching her destination, Mara Jade covered as fast as she could
the parsecs that were separating her from her best friend.
The moment that she had left the ysalamiri blanket of Karrde's secret base, she
had felt what Leia had described to her.
Thanks to her bond with the Jedi, his despair and psychological torment now rang
clearly through her senses. It rang even louder when she finally reached her
destination.
X-Wings naturally came straight at her, intent on warding her off. "This is
Mara Jade," she identified herself quickly. "Councilor Organa-Solo has
contacted me."
"Let her through, Wedge," Leia's voice interrupted the other's beginning of a
question. "I can feel the truth of her presence."
"All right," the man agreed unconvincingly. "Follow us, but don't stray away
from between us or we will open fire," he needlessly warned her.
Suppressing a sigh of annoyance, Mara followed her military escort in. They
swiftly flew past high spires of reddish, large towers of rocks.
As she navigated amongst the natural constructions of stones, she reflected that
it somewhat reminded her of Coruscant, then that the terrain was excellent to
hide a secret base, although it wasn't secret anymore, even to their enemy.
Still, she didn't uncover the location of the base proper until her escort took
her directly to her assigned landing platform.
By the time that she had turned off her skypray blastboat, Skywalker's sister
was standing beside the ship. Even though Mara didn't know the woman 'that'
much, she felt how worried she was about her brother.
It put her even more on edge than she already felt.
"Mara," the ex-princess greeted her with relief. "Thanks the Force, you made
it. For a while, I was worried that you'd run into one of the interdictor
blockades."
"No," she reassured the smaller woman as she shook her head. "I knew about
those. So where is he?" she inquired, getting straight to business about why
she was there. She was unfortunately extremely aware that she was risking her
protection and refuge in order to help her friend.
"According to Artoo's last report, thirty minutes ago, he is still in his room.
He hasn't moved around either."
"What can you tell me about what happened to him?" she asked the other while she
tried to imagine how her friend would go from fighting, even frightfully,
against what had happened to him, to brooding and locking himself up.
With the Emperor in the background of whatever had recently happened to him, she
didn't like her possible answer one single bit.
"Not much," Leia shook her head sadly. "He simply refuses to let me in. What I
know is that he thought that he could destroy the Dark Side by learning its
secrets. He also wanted to know our father, to understand him. Then, just
after he came back, he admitted that the path of the Jedi was not a solitary
one... only to hole up completely a few days later," the young woman sighed
wearily.
While she listened to the other's summary, Mara shook her head at the
superficiality of her friend's comments. She now understood that he had been
keeping away from his sister for a while already. Except for the fact that he
had wanted to defeat the Dark Side from within, which she could readily imagine
him attempting, the rest was, well... a lame attempt to cover what had truly
happened and what was now inhabiting his thoughts.
"Can you help him?" the petite brunette inquired seriously once they were aboard
a turbolift. "I don't know much about you, but Luke told me that you came back
from your service to the Emperor, that you defeated what he had done to you."
'With Luke's help', she reflected glumly. "I will do everything that I can to
pull him out of wherever the Emperor tossed him to control him," she promised
her companion earnestly.
The lift stopped; they had reached their destination.
Luke was oblivious to his hunger, his tiredness, even his need to change clothes
and refresh himself a little. He had finally made up his mind about what a no-
good-Jedi-wannabe like himself had to do now.
He was leaving. He had stood up from his slouch and was busy going through his
drawers and closet to gather what meager possessions he wanted to take with him
in his exile. His family's pictures were already in his duffel bag, but his
lightsaber was still laying where he had thrown it a while ago.
He was leaving, he reminded himself sternly. He would not hurt either himself,
his family, his friends,... or Mara ever again. He would disappear from their
lives, would never be at risk to turn into their enemy ever again.
He might even willingly run his ship into a sun once he would be out there, he
then reflected glumly.
He was a failure, an insignificant fool, but a powerful one.
Too powerful to allow him to live amongst regular beings----
His door suddenly slid open; he whirled around, his hand instantly going for his
lightsaber, which was missing.
The door closed behind Mara Jade, leaving him with the impossible sight of her
most unexpected presence. Mara?, he frowned in confusion. No, he shook his
head in disbelief. He was simply hungry and thirsty and was beginning to
imagine things. He turned away from his delusion.
"Going somewhere, farmboy?" it inquired teasingly---
He refocused on her, then took a step closer to her, tilting his head slightly
to see if his mirage would disappear that way. It didn't. "Mara?" he asked in
bemusement, then extended his hand to touch her.
He met with her solid, soft yet strong arm... She was really here, he gaped in
utter shock. "What?.. How?.. I thought that..." he stuttered incoherently.
"I was hiding, Luke," she nodded, "until your sister informed me that you were
looking like Hell, and I must admit that you do," she finished, openly scolding
him this time.
"But you must not be here," he argued, stepping closer to her. "He can find you
wherever you are if exposed to his senses, you said so yourself,. You can't
stay here," he urged her to leave, taking hold of both of her biceps with his
hands as if to protect her and get her on her way out. "Save yourself while
it's still time to---"
Instead of shrugging him off though, his friend used their closer positions to
lock her eyes with his while she too gripped his arms.
As she gazed deep into his eyes, she understood better why she had found him the
way she had.
Still garbed in what was the Emperor's trademark clothes for his dark lords of
the Sith, he had truly worried her when he had moved to pull his missing
lightsaber on her, but as she looked deep into the swirling oceans of his eyes,
she understood that her friend was truly back from the Dark Side. However, he
was still dragging after him the shame, loss of self-confidence and fear that
had originally pulled him down into it, way before the Emperor had completed
what he had begun to do on Corellia.
Long before he had encountered Palpatine himself again and had faced his full
might.
"Our friendship matters more to me than my safety, Luke," she told him
soothingly, then shifted her arms until she slowly removed his hands from her
arms; she held them in her owns. Their rough-leather covers grated at her
senses. Impulsively, she pulled them off of him with the Force, surprising him
with her actions. He opened his lips as if to protest; she shook her head at
him and searched his eyes once again. "Why do you still wear the cloak of
darkness now that you're free from it?" she asked him pointedly as he gaped in
continued shock at her actions. "Why do you turn your back to those who love
you, Luke?"
Flinching at her direct approach, her friend agilely pulled away from her touch
and turned his back to her, then hung his head and sighed heavily. "I'm not
worthy to be their friend, nor your friend anymore," he barely whispered in
shame. "I did unspeakable things, Mara... I," he hesitated briefly, then
slumped to the floor and sat against his bunk, hanging his head in sadness once
again. "I can never be the friend that you all once loved."
"That we still love," Mara corrected him as she sat beside him. "As for being
the same, considering what the Emperor put you through, I don't expect you to be
the same as when we met, Luke. What I do expect though," she continued more
gently, "is that you will have faith in the strength of the friendship that we
had 'before' and that you will allow me, and us, to forgive you."
For a brief moment, Luke felt immense relief flood through him, but the moment
that it encountered the memory of his victims on Mon Calamari, it ebbed to be
replaced by a new wave of shame. He slumped a little lower on the floor. "How
can you ever forgive me?" he muttered forlornly. "I know that I ca---"
"Like you yourself forgave us," his gentle friend countered wisely. "Remember?
You forgave Solo for his selfish attitude, then you forgave Calrissian for
betraying you and your friends to Vader, and finally, you forgave me for wanting
to kill you and hurt you."
"That was not the same thing," he objected instantly, locking his eyes with
hers. "He was manipulating you at that time, you were not awa---"
"You're wrong, Luke," she shook her head. "I was 'very' aware of everything
that I did while under his order, as your father was. I knew that I was hurting
people, and I knew that I was cruel while doing my master's bidding, but I did
it all the same. I had chosen to bow to his will, yet you forgave me, as you
had forgiven your father aboard the second Death Star."
Luke was speechless.
Mara didn't give him time to gather his thoughts; she continued to reason with
him. "Remember?," she prompted him again, "you forgave both myself and your
father even though we had spent more time of our lives serving the Dark Side
than the Light one. At the moment, the situation is opposite with you. You
have fallen a little in the Dark Side, but you have devoted the longest part of
your life to goodness and what your heart dictated to you."
"But I am a Jedi, Mara," he reminded her almost scoldingly. "I have failed my
vows to the Light---"
"Yet did destroy Palpatine once again," she countered knowingly. "Perhaps
'this' was the Way of the Force, Luke. Perhaps it knew that you'd be strong
enough to survive even in the grips of the Emperor, and would eventually turn
against him once again, like your father had aboard the Death Star."
Mara didn't add anything to her last argument, but she reflected that if Luke's
challenge with Lecia had obviously been orchestrated by the Emperor, it also
appeared to be part of his Destiny as a Jedi since it had made him vulnerable to
the Dark Side, yes, but had also opened to him the only access that they could
have ever had to defeat the reborn Emperor.
"He's probably reborn again," her friend muttered in defeat. "Whatever I did
was for nothing."
"Didn't you destroy his clones?" she inquired, remembering Leia's confirmation
that the Emperor had re-cloned himself between Byss and their last face-off.
"Not all of them," he shook his head, avoiding her gaze once again.
She didn't let him hole up this time; instead, she took a gentle hold on his
chin and kept him from looking away. As usual, their skin-to-skin touch awoke
their Force-bond further.
"You still weakened him, Luke," she reassured her glum friend. "I remember his
telling me that the more transitions he went through, the more difficult they
became and that they took a little of his immense power every time if he wanted
to return. I'm sure that the Force knows this too and---"
"What about what he killed in me?" Luke suddenly interrupted her, his eyes
surprisingly blazing in frustration again even as tears of sorrow appeared in
them. He sharply pulled his chin out of her hold, then turned away to hide his
tears. "I know that's what happened, but I don't know what fell under his
attack," he admitted between two sobs.
"What makes you think that he killed more than hurt something in you?" she
inquired meaningfully, adamantly refusing to let his arguments convince her that
the Emperor had destroyed him.
"Because it hurt too much to not be a death," Luke whispered while he tried to
understand why Mara was trying so very hard to make him change his mind about
everything that he now knew about himself.
She had been through the Dark Side, he wanted to remind her. She 'knew' how it
was and how he was unable to trust himself anymore.
"Had it died," she answered his previous comment in a comforting voice, "the
pain would have been less, and you wouldn't be here today..."
What?, he gaped soundlessly even as he turned his head around to gaze at her
once again. The Emperor's veil would have only knocked unconscious part of him,
and that part had saved... "How can you know for sure??" he finally half-
whispered, feeling both hopeful and incredulous in face of her reasoning.
His friend edged slightly closer to him, then gently touched his temple and
reached out to enter his mind. He reflexively blocked her, then, sensing that
she wanted to 'show' him something, he followed her inside her memory... then
his.
*Because,* her gentle voice seemed to whisper in his mind, soothing his bruised
soul as it did so, *the Emperor can not destroy who we truly are.*
She first invited him inside her own mind and showed him how the evil despot had
cruelly 'shaped' her into the cool assassin that he had wanted her to be, yet
even as a child, she showed him, part of her true self had survived. Years
later, he himself had rekindled it to life.
He could only fall mute at the undeniable truth of her example.
Satisfied by his reaction, she then re-entered his mind and found his memories
of his father. There, she visually reminded him that no matter how evil the
older man had been, he had still retained a part of Anakin, which had resurfaced
in the end in order to save him, and the whole galaxy.
Once again, Luke couldn't think of any argument to refute her example; he was
stumped by the veracity of her chosen, and somehow ignored, examples.
Then, when he signaled to Mara that he was ready for what she wanted to show him
next, she surprisingly guided him to the center of his inner self, where she had
gone when they been on Earth, he dimly remembered while he 'gazed' around
himself at his known self. Once there, she showed him his true nature, but from
her own, uninfluenced point of view.
As he had told him, he discovered that he had been gravelly hurt by the veil of
darkness, even forced mute, but, he also slowly realized that the nothing had
not been killed either. He was just beginning to heal and recover his true
self.
Feeling tears of relief form at the corner of his eyes, he gently shut their
link, then reflexively leaned into her embrace where he sobbed in indescribable
relief and reborn happiness. He had truly survived the trials once again.
He had been wrong about himself once again, and he had been about to commit the
worst mistake of his life. "I'm sorry, Mara," he apologized contritely while
she hugged him soothingly, "I'm sorry for everything."
"Welcome back to the Light, Luke," she comforted him, then added more seriously:
"About apologies though, I think that you hurt Leia's feelings more than you did
mine. She was truly worried about you, you know?"
Leia!, he suddenly remembered, then reached out--- and found her worried
presence just on the other side of the door. Pulling away from Mara's embrace,
he reached out to open his door even as he mentally invited his sister to join
them inside.
The moment that she stepped through the door, he engulfed her petite form in a
Wookiee-like hug, half hiding her in his ominous-yet-Jedi-like cloak. "I'm
sorry for my coldness, Leia," he apologized earnestly. "I was lost."
"Oh, Luke," she hugged him back, "Don't ever scare me like this again. You know
that you can always count on me."
"Yes, I know," he reassured her, then refocused on his best friend. "Thank you,
Mara. I know what you are risking by coming here. I can't thank you enough
for---"
Mara, who was quietly watching the brother/sister reunion, sighed in relief and
contentment as she felt her friend's spirits lift faster than any turbolift that
she had ever boarded.
He was truly back now, and the Emperor had lost once again.
More important, she then smirked inwardly, he had lost more than he ever
expected to, and that, she admitted to herself, greatly pleased her. The mere
thought that he was probably going through another of his painfully maddening
transition was even enough revenge for what he had tried to do to her dear
friend.
However, with the transition came his upcoming return, and personally, she still
wanted to avoid him at all costs.
As if sensing this, Luke silently nodded at her in understanding. He turned
toward his sister, who was telling her to join them for dinner. "I'll take Mara
back to her ship, Leia," he informed her seriously, some of his more somber mood
resurfacing, although less dark than previously. "She is not safe here."
"I'd go further and say that he isn't either," the red-head retorted seriously,
"but the Emperor didn't forge a link with him... as he did with me."
"You're talking as if..." Leia frowned, then paused... "Is he coming back?" she
asked, her smile turning to a worried pout.
"Most probably," both Jedi knights nodded forlornly.
"It will take him a while to complete the transition," Mara added, "but if one
of his body survived Skywalker's attack, then sadly, we're not done with him
yet."
"Then be safe, Mara," Leia answered seriously, then stepped closer and quickly
hugged her.
Surprised by the other's sudden warmth, Mara returned the embrace as best as she
could, then pulled away from it. "Take care of him, Princess, and if something
goes wrong again," she smirked at her dear friend, "you know how to reach me."
"Which I still don't, by the way," he retorted playfully.
"Call it safety-insurance, farmboy," she ribbed him. "But you can always try to
make me change my mind on the way to the hangar bay."
Smirking at her challenge, Luke called his discarded lightsaber to his hand and
attached it to his belt, then he, his sister, and herself walked out of the
small room. They separated paths at the turbolifts.
They were once again alone.
At first, Luke slightly shifted from one foot to another in uneasiness, then he
finally worked up the courage to turn his head toward his friend and face her
once again.
"You truly are getting excellent in that friendship business, Mara," he teased
her lightly, referring to a conversation that they had once had about her not
being a good friend. "I certainly never expected to see you now that we 'did'
know that the Emperor was alive."
"I'm full of surprises," she shrugged, briefly reminding him of himself as a
brash youth.
He quirked his lips a little at that thought. Brashness, brazenness... Those
had died within him now. From now on, he would know better than to throw
himself head first into the obviously dangerous unknown.
"Luke," Mara began in the silence. "I," she hesitated slightly, "I don't know
if you realized this, but what happened on Corellia was the Emperor's doing, not
the Force, or not entirely the Force at any rate," she shrugged feebly. "Either
way thought," she continued more seriously, "I think that he knew how you would
react to this after what had happened to you on Earth."
"Yes, I know," he nodded, then turned his whole body in order to truly face her.
He then reached out and kept the turbolift from reaching its destination just
yet, blocking it between two floors. If Mara was surprised by his action, she
did not give him any outward sign that she was. "I've also been thinking about
that," he admitted, "Now I can see where I was wrong about my understanding of
the challenge," he continued, his voice taking on a softer, more intimate range.
"...And?" she prompted him hesitantly. She too was facing him now, her eyes
reminding him of when he had told her that he couldn't love her anymore, after
Corellia.
"While you, or women in general, are not dangerous and that I can trust you with
my heart," he reassured her softly, "my emotions are still my sole enemy in
everything," he reluctantly admitted once again. "When I thought that I was
facing the Emperor, I was in fact facing my own dark self. The Emperor was
merely tapping into it, but I was the sole reason why it happened. I can't
control the others," he finished wisely, "but I can control my own emotions."
While Mara felt her hopeful heart flinch once again at his new confirmation that
he couldn't be in love with her, she couldn't, in her heart, either condemn him
nor be angry at him.
He was right. It was what he had taught her, and what constantly got 'him' into
trouble: his out-of-control goodness and earnestness to make things right for
everyone.
Even when he had joined the Emperor, his main goal had been to right the wrongs
of the whole universe. Sadly though, he had only ended up being a problem
himself before he had woken up, but too late.
Considering how powerful her friend was, she truly understood, and began to
accept, that the Force's will in his case was to teach him control of himself.
As for her own Destiny, she reflected sadly, perhaps it was to not be able to
love the man that she loved because of her sins of the past... "I understand,
Luke," she reassured him as steadily as she could although she had long avoided
his beautiful eyes.
To her surprise, he stepped closer to her and gently made her look back up at
him. "But there's one thing that I have also understood," he soothingly
continued his previous idea, "and that is that the Jedi path truly is not a
solitary one. Thank you, Mara, for teaching me this lesson today."
"You're---"
Before she could finish her sentence, her companion had leaned closer and rested
his lips against her owns, shocking her mute even as she gazed confusedly at
him.
Then, as his lips lingered against hers, she closed her eyes and enjoyed the
electrifying touch, noticing how wonderful it felt. Then, slowly, she realized
that he was not moving around as a passionate lover would, nor did he expect her
to answer him. Yet, she could feel that he loved her as much as she loved him.
He finally pulled away, a second and a half later although it had felt like an
eternity to her. "Thank you, Mara. I will never be able to thank you enough
for everything that you did for me," he finished gently, then kissed her
forehead before he physically pulled away from her.
Still reeling under the shock of his most unexpected behavior, Mara wasn't fast
enough to pull him back against herself for another, much more demanding kiss.
By the time that she did think about this, the lift had already resumed its
course down and had even reached its destination.
The doors slid open; they both walked through, lost in their thoughts. Since
the surrounding corridors were crowded and not offering her any new occasion to
talk to him about what had happened in the lift, or even try to push it further,
they reached the hangar bay.
******
After a quick exchange of platonic farewells, Mara lifted off, leaving Luke
alone once again. However, unlike the last time that they had parted company,
Luke wasn't morose. Instead, he was suddenly filled with a new energy to be
true to what he had promised to his sister a few days ago.
He wanted to make the Jedi rise again, for real this time.
And the one person he had to thank for this, and more, was his best friend...
whom he loved but couldn't love passionately.
As he watched her ship gain altitude, he gently ran his index along his lower
lip, remembering how wonderful he had felt when he had been kissing her. Oh, he
conceded to himself, it had not been the impassioned kiss that he would have
given her right after Wayland if he had known how deeply he would someday feel
for her, nor had it been the out-of-control kiss that he would have given her on
Earth if she had been ready. Instead, it had been a controlled, gentle touch of
his lips against hers, the only way that he could show her that he did love her
too...
Love was not prohibited to him, he now understood, but he had to deal with it,
and every other feeling of his life, as a Jedi... Master, he grimaced at the
word.
He was barely a Jedi Knight, having given himself that title after his first
meeting with the Emperor. He couldn't be a master after only six extra years of
self-learning and training, could he? Still, he sighed, the others were already
used to calling him that way. Better let them be, he decided. He himself would
simply do as best as he could with what he knew as well as what he had learnt
the hard way once again.
Reaching out one last time for his friend's presence, he bared his heart to her
once again, as he had on Earth. For the last time of his life, he did so
without controlling his emotions for his friend.
*I love you, Mara.*
In her skypray, Mara felt a new tear of joy and regret slide down her cheek as
she caught the barely whispered sending of her friend.
She had been right moments ago, she nodded to herself even as she tried to
answer him. The kiss that he had given her had been one of love, not of
friendship.
However, after what he had told her, he hadn't allowed himself to be
demonstrative, but he 'had' shown her that he would still love her the way that
he would be able to.
Gently, softly... serenely.
*And I will still love you too, Luke,* she sent him.
She was already too far; he didn't hear her.
******
Epilogue:
That night, unbeknown to Mara, Luke and his friends utterly defeated the
Emperor. A Jedi had sacrificed himself and had taken the Emperor with him into
the realm of the after-life...
Finally lifting whatever bonds he had maintained on both hers and Luke's minds,
thus freeing them from his dark veil while opening the way to a more friendly
guardian to intervene, at last.
Mara was back on Tatooine, running for her life. Behind her, a sandstorm was
quickly catching on her, intent on burying her forever.
She finally reached the targeted hut, rushed inside, then, hearing noises of
complaint, realized that she had a companion and returned in the storm to save
him too. As a Jedi, she simply couldn't abandon whoever that was.
Using the Force to find his presence, she found him, then grabbed hold of--- a
well-remembered farmboy tunic and guided him back inside the emergency hut. She
had barely closed the door that a new opening seemed to appear for the howling
wind. The youth instantly took hold of a nearby table and wedged it in the sole
window of the building, then they both caught their breaths and collapsed to
their knees, exhausted.
While she used her tricks to catch her breath faster, Mara tried to peer through
the near darkness; she simply 'wanted' to see the features of her companion,
whom she almost remembered now. Suddenly remembering that she had had a pocket
luma that day, she shed her Tatooinian robe and pulled it out from her utility
belt.
"Thank you," a very familiar, if younger-sounding, voice suddenly told her
earnestly in the surrounding silence. "I will never be able to thank you enough
for everything that you did for me."
And then, at last, she knew who was the farmboy; she hurried to turn on her
portable lamp---- and gaped as Luke's young, sand-scorched,... suddenly well-
remembered features were revealed to her once again.
"Luke!", she exclaimed in great joy, then, ignoring his scorches, threw herself
in his arms and kissed him like she now remembered kissing him and making love
to him, all those years ago.
Back on Tatooine, when they had been sixteen years old-----
Luke truly was her farmboy!!!, Mara thought instantly even as she sat bolt
upright on her bunk. The eerie resemblance between the two men had not been a
result of her imagination; they had been latent memories---
"Commander Jade!!" a Mystril guard suddenly called from behind her door,
startling her once again, but this time in an unpleasant way. "You've got to
come quickly!!"
Picking up her blaster from under her pillow, she threw on a long shirt, then
ran out of her room. The strong woman barely nodded in greetings at her, then
ran as fast as she could, guiding her toward the end of the corridor.
"What's going on? Are we being attacked?" the red-head inquired as her bare
feet slapped on the cool decking of hers and Karrde's new base.
"No," the other shook her head, then finally stopped once they were inside the
main communication room of the base. There, Karrde, Aves, and most members of
their groups were already gathered and cheering in obvious victory.
"What's the matter?" she queried, bemused.
Karrde turned toward her, a rare, genuine grin filling his face. "The war is
over, Mara. Organa-Solo had already confirmed it to me, but the news are
official now. The Emperor is dead, for real this time. This is confirmed by
Skywalker himself, and..."
Mara didn't hear the rest of her friend's report.
The Emperor was dead.
The man who had still been controlling her life by forcing her to hide... was
dead.
Suddenly remembering her dream, and everything that she had not been able to
remember until now, she understood what 'he' had truly done to her when he had
sent her the order to kill Skywalker. That vile fiend had known that she would
recognize her long-lost lover in Skywalker, she realized in both horror and
rage. How he had known about him, she didn't want to consider, but the fact
still remained that he had blocked her memories of her beloved farmboy to ensure
his revenge over Vader... as well as her betrayal as a youth!
Unusually terrified by the prospect of what had almost happened, she felt her
knees give under her... and would have completely crumpled to the floor if not
for the sudden assistance of both Karrde and the guard who had come to fetch
her.
"Mara, are you all right?" Karrde inquired even as he signaled to Aves to send a
chair rolling their way.
"I," she hesitated, feeling both sickened and relieved at the same time. "I...
I think that I just can't believe that he's truly gone."
But he was, she reminded herself, and she hadn't killed her beloved farmboy.
Instead, they were already best friend, and they loved each other again,
although circumstances were making that complicated for both of them. Still,
she tried to hearten herself. There was hope. Now that she knew the truth
about the man she loved, the man that she had always loved, she could undo the
block that she had set around his mind, then perhaps...
Hidden in the current of the Force, Anakin Skywalker smiled fondly at both
Mara's senses and his son's. While he knew that Mara would not be able to undo
his son's block now that he had chosen to become a 'true' Jedi, he himself could
still influence the memory block so that next time that the two soul mates would
kiss, Luke too would both recover his complete memory of his and Mara's first
encounter as well as understand that passionate love was 'not' going against his
vows to the Light.
In the meantime though, now that the Emperor's veil of control had disappeared
from his son's mind, he himself could influence the newly-freed memories of a
shadowy red-head girl into Mara returning to Luke... and kissing him.
Ever since he had become one with the Force, Anakin had tried to undo the evil
manipulations that the Emperor had operated on both Luke's and Mara's memories
about their true identities, but the presence of the reborn Emperor had
completely blocked him away from accessing even his son's soul. Thus, he had
been reduced to watching as the evil darksider had pulled the youths' strings in
order to accomplish his evil plans. He had naturally sighed in relief every
time that the Force itself had intervened to foul Palpatine's plans.
Still, he had worried when Luke had finally crossed path with Mara, then had
felt proud of him when the young Jedi had followed his heart and befriended the
young assassin despite her acerb nature. Finally, he had sighed in relief when
Mara had saved his son on Wayland. From that day forth, her danger had been
over for his precious son, but, he reflected sadly, it had far from been the
beginning of Peace for Luke. He himself had cringed and tried to influence
events when he had witnessed what had befallen the young Jedi next. He had
especially begun to lose faith in the Force when even his Lightbringer of a Son
had fallen to the Dark Side, but in the end, what he himself, as well as Leia
and Mara had retained of trust in the All-Powerful Force had been proven
worthwhile once again.
And now, the darkness was truly dead, he smiled to himself in relief. His son
and his soul mate were also 'mostly' on the right path to join together in a
relatively near future, and he himself could finally make sure that it 'would'
happen sooner than later.
The youths had suffered enough, he decided in fatherly care; it was time for
them to be happy.
As for his daughter, he reflected more wistfully, he wished that he could
contact her only once again to tell her how proud he was of her as well as how
honored he felt that his new grandson had been named after him.
Content and at peace, Anakin Skywalker watched his family, as well as future
daughter-in-law, as they began to live without being under any influence of the
Emperor.
'Copyright' 2003, SJ (skyjade@globetrotter.net)
by SJ 07-00/12-2002 (skyjade@globetrotter.net)
___________________________________________________
Disclaimers: Nothing in the Star Wars Universe belong to me; everything belongs
to George Lucas. Naturally, everything related to events of Dark Empire also
belong to Tom Veitch.
Please don't sue me, it's only for fun; I'm not making any money out of this.
See my home page for more details.
Http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Quasar/3702
Special thanks to Adrianne for her help with beta-reading. Thank you for
giving me some of your precious time, my friend; I appreciate.
____________________________________________________
As Leia gazed at Artoo's visual sensor, she wondered yet again how Mara Jade had
known that her brother's droid would understand her request to guard his
master's door.
"You agree, Artoo?" she asked him once again. "Don't let Luke out of his room
unless either myself, Han, or Mara Jade are with him."
"And give the alarm if anything happens," he completed for her on his
translation screen.
Unless her brother manipulated the Force and deactivated the droid before he
could give the alarm, she mused inwardly. In such a case, even Artoo's still
surprising devotion to his master would not keep the Jedi from eluding them, and
then...
No, she shook her head in stubborn denial. Her dear, gentle, kind brother would
not turn again to the Dark Side, especially since he had 'never' willingly
chosen the darkness, she heartened herself. Surely he wouldn't choose it...
now.
Now that he was back amongst his friends and family.
Now that he had had a vision of the future about her third child.
Now that the Emperor was dead.
*Luke?* she tentatively reached out.
He didn't speak to her, but his closing their bond between them was as wordy as
any rebuttal he could have given to her.
He didn't want to see her nor sense her at the moment. He wanted to be left
alone.
No matter if it left him alone to deal with is morose, defeated attitude, she
reflected glumly. Reluctantly accepting his request yet again, she withdrew
from their bond, then checked on Artoo one last time.
She still wasn't sure if the little astromech droid, with which Mara seemed
quite familiar, would be able to guard the Jedi master, but she knew that short
of keeping her brother under an ysalimiri veil, nobody else would be able to
guard him either. Hence, she trusted Mara that Artoo's presence would keep Luke
in place until they could figure out what was wrong with him.
Besides, she shrugged as she walked away from his door, Luke wasn't a
prisoner... He was just worrying her a lot and she was only seeking to protect
him from even himself should things turn bad once again.
On her way to the nearby turbolifts, she reflected that she had rarely seen her
brother in such a state of utter defeat before. Both other times had been after
his defeats at their father's hand, when he had lost an important part of
himself. The first time, he had almost lost his will to live as a Jedi, and the
second time, his delusions and last remnants of naivete. Both times though, he
had pulled through.
With her help.
Thus, she had truly expected that her brother would talk to her this time. He
hadn't.
In a way, she admitted to herself, it hurt her that her brother would turn his
back to her like this. They had always been close before, had never hid
anything from the other. Their bond had always been strong, even when they
hadn't known what it had been. Up till now, they had always been there for one
another, but not anymore.
Something had happened to her brother while he had been on Byss, and it had
erected a strong, impregnable wall between even themselves.
She dimly hoped that her own children would never face such a vicious
interruption of their bond with one another. It was most difficult to bear
without trying to force her twin to open up again.
As she slowly made her way toward the hangar bays, she prayed the Force that
Mara Jade would be able to help Luke. Then, perhaps, he would talk to her once
again.
******
Using the shortest route through hyperspace, balancing her need for speed with
the risk of not reaching her destination, Mara Jade covered as fast as she could
the parsecs that were separating her from her best friend.
The moment that she had left the ysalamiri blanket of Karrde's secret base, she
had felt what Leia had described to her.
Thanks to her bond with the Jedi, his despair and psychological torment now rang
clearly through her senses. It rang even louder when she finally reached her
destination.
X-Wings naturally came straight at her, intent on warding her off. "This is
Mara Jade," she identified herself quickly. "Councilor Organa-Solo has
contacted me."
"Let her through, Wedge," Leia's voice interrupted the other's beginning of a
question. "I can feel the truth of her presence."
"All right," the man agreed unconvincingly. "Follow us, but don't stray away
from between us or we will open fire," he needlessly warned her.
Suppressing a sigh of annoyance, Mara followed her military escort in. They
swiftly flew past high spires of reddish, large towers of rocks.
As she navigated amongst the natural constructions of stones, she reflected that
it somewhat reminded her of Coruscant, then that the terrain was excellent to
hide a secret base, although it wasn't secret anymore, even to their enemy.
Still, she didn't uncover the location of the base proper until her escort took
her directly to her assigned landing platform.
By the time that she had turned off her skypray blastboat, Skywalker's sister
was standing beside the ship. Even though Mara didn't know the woman 'that'
much, she felt how worried she was about her brother.
It put her even more on edge than she already felt.
"Mara," the ex-princess greeted her with relief. "Thanks the Force, you made
it. For a while, I was worried that you'd run into one of the interdictor
blockades."
"No," she reassured the smaller woman as she shook her head. "I knew about
those. So where is he?" she inquired, getting straight to business about why
she was there. She was unfortunately extremely aware that she was risking her
protection and refuge in order to help her friend.
"According to Artoo's last report, thirty minutes ago, he is still in his room.
He hasn't moved around either."
"What can you tell me about what happened to him?" she asked the other while she
tried to imagine how her friend would go from fighting, even frightfully,
against what had happened to him, to brooding and locking himself up.
With the Emperor in the background of whatever had recently happened to him, she
didn't like her possible answer one single bit.
"Not much," Leia shook her head sadly. "He simply refuses to let me in. What I
know is that he thought that he could destroy the Dark Side by learning its
secrets. He also wanted to know our father, to understand him. Then, just
after he came back, he admitted that the path of the Jedi was not a solitary
one... only to hole up completely a few days later," the young woman sighed
wearily.
While she listened to the other's summary, Mara shook her head at the
superficiality of her friend's comments. She now understood that he had been
keeping away from his sister for a while already. Except for the fact that he
had wanted to defeat the Dark Side from within, which she could readily imagine
him attempting, the rest was, well... a lame attempt to cover what had truly
happened and what was now inhabiting his thoughts.
"Can you help him?" the petite brunette inquired seriously once they were aboard
a turbolift. "I don't know much about you, but Luke told me that you came back
from your service to the Emperor, that you defeated what he had done to you."
'With Luke's help', she reflected glumly. "I will do everything that I can to
pull him out of wherever the Emperor tossed him to control him," she promised
her companion earnestly.
The lift stopped; they had reached their destination.
Luke was oblivious to his hunger, his tiredness, even his need to change clothes
and refresh himself a little. He had finally made up his mind about what a no-
good-Jedi-wannabe like himself had to do now.
He was leaving. He had stood up from his slouch and was busy going through his
drawers and closet to gather what meager possessions he wanted to take with him
in his exile. His family's pictures were already in his duffel bag, but his
lightsaber was still laying where he had thrown it a while ago.
He was leaving, he reminded himself sternly. He would not hurt either himself,
his family, his friends,... or Mara ever again. He would disappear from their
lives, would never be at risk to turn into their enemy ever again.
He might even willingly run his ship into a sun once he would be out there, he
then reflected glumly.
He was a failure, an insignificant fool, but a powerful one.
Too powerful to allow him to live amongst regular beings----
His door suddenly slid open; he whirled around, his hand instantly going for his
lightsaber, which was missing.
The door closed behind Mara Jade, leaving him with the impossible sight of her
most unexpected presence. Mara?, he frowned in confusion. No, he shook his
head in disbelief. He was simply hungry and thirsty and was beginning to
imagine things. He turned away from his delusion.
"Going somewhere, farmboy?" it inquired teasingly---
He refocused on her, then took a step closer to her, tilting his head slightly
to see if his mirage would disappear that way. It didn't. "Mara?" he asked in
bemusement, then extended his hand to touch her.
He met with her solid, soft yet strong arm... She was really here, he gaped in
utter shock. "What?.. How?.. I thought that..." he stuttered incoherently.
"I was hiding, Luke," she nodded, "until your sister informed me that you were
looking like Hell, and I must admit that you do," she finished, openly scolding
him this time.
"But you must not be here," he argued, stepping closer to her. "He can find you
wherever you are if exposed to his senses, you said so yourself,. You can't
stay here," he urged her to leave, taking hold of both of her biceps with his
hands as if to protect her and get her on her way out. "Save yourself while
it's still time to---"
Instead of shrugging him off though, his friend used their closer positions to
lock her eyes with his while she too gripped his arms.
As she gazed deep into his eyes, she understood better why she had found him the
way she had.
Still garbed in what was the Emperor's trademark clothes for his dark lords of
the Sith, he had truly worried her when he had moved to pull his missing
lightsaber on her, but as she looked deep into the swirling oceans of his eyes,
she understood that her friend was truly back from the Dark Side. However, he
was still dragging after him the shame, loss of self-confidence and fear that
had originally pulled him down into it, way before the Emperor had completed
what he had begun to do on Corellia.
Long before he had encountered Palpatine himself again and had faced his full
might.
"Our friendship matters more to me than my safety, Luke," she told him
soothingly, then shifted her arms until she slowly removed his hands from her
arms; she held them in her owns. Their rough-leather covers grated at her
senses. Impulsively, she pulled them off of him with the Force, surprising him
with her actions. He opened his lips as if to protest; she shook her head at
him and searched his eyes once again. "Why do you still wear the cloak of
darkness now that you're free from it?" she asked him pointedly as he gaped in
continued shock at her actions. "Why do you turn your back to those who love
you, Luke?"
Flinching at her direct approach, her friend agilely pulled away from her touch
and turned his back to her, then hung his head and sighed heavily. "I'm not
worthy to be their friend, nor your friend anymore," he barely whispered in
shame. "I did unspeakable things, Mara... I," he hesitated briefly, then
slumped to the floor and sat against his bunk, hanging his head in sadness once
again. "I can never be the friend that you all once loved."
"That we still love," Mara corrected him as she sat beside him. "As for being
the same, considering what the Emperor put you through, I don't expect you to be
the same as when we met, Luke. What I do expect though," she continued more
gently, "is that you will have faith in the strength of the friendship that we
had 'before' and that you will allow me, and us, to forgive you."
For a brief moment, Luke felt immense relief flood through him, but the moment
that it encountered the memory of his victims on Mon Calamari, it ebbed to be
replaced by a new wave of shame. He slumped a little lower on the floor. "How
can you ever forgive me?" he muttered forlornly. "I know that I ca---"
"Like you yourself forgave us," his gentle friend countered wisely. "Remember?
You forgave Solo for his selfish attitude, then you forgave Calrissian for
betraying you and your friends to Vader, and finally, you forgave me for wanting
to kill you and hurt you."
"That was not the same thing," he objected instantly, locking his eyes with
hers. "He was manipulating you at that time, you were not awa---"
"You're wrong, Luke," she shook her head. "I was 'very' aware of everything
that I did while under his order, as your father was. I knew that I was hurting
people, and I knew that I was cruel while doing my master's bidding, but I did
it all the same. I had chosen to bow to his will, yet you forgave me, as you
had forgiven your father aboard the second Death Star."
Luke was speechless.
Mara didn't give him time to gather his thoughts; she continued to reason with
him. "Remember?," she prompted him again, "you forgave both myself and your
father even though we had spent more time of our lives serving the Dark Side
than the Light one. At the moment, the situation is opposite with you. You
have fallen a little in the Dark Side, but you have devoted the longest part of
your life to goodness and what your heart dictated to you."
"But I am a Jedi, Mara," he reminded her almost scoldingly. "I have failed my
vows to the Light---"
"Yet did destroy Palpatine once again," she countered knowingly. "Perhaps
'this' was the Way of the Force, Luke. Perhaps it knew that you'd be strong
enough to survive even in the grips of the Emperor, and would eventually turn
against him once again, like your father had aboard the Death Star."
Mara didn't add anything to her last argument, but she reflected that if Luke's
challenge with Lecia had obviously been orchestrated by the Emperor, it also
appeared to be part of his Destiny as a Jedi since it had made him vulnerable to
the Dark Side, yes, but had also opened to him the only access that they could
have ever had to defeat the reborn Emperor.
"He's probably reborn again," her friend muttered in defeat. "Whatever I did
was for nothing."
"Didn't you destroy his clones?" she inquired, remembering Leia's confirmation
that the Emperor had re-cloned himself between Byss and their last face-off.
"Not all of them," he shook his head, avoiding her gaze once again.
She didn't let him hole up this time; instead, she took a gentle hold on his
chin and kept him from looking away. As usual, their skin-to-skin touch awoke
their Force-bond further.
"You still weakened him, Luke," she reassured her glum friend. "I remember his
telling me that the more transitions he went through, the more difficult they
became and that they took a little of his immense power every time if he wanted
to return. I'm sure that the Force knows this too and---"
"What about what he killed in me?" Luke suddenly interrupted her, his eyes
surprisingly blazing in frustration again even as tears of sorrow appeared in
them. He sharply pulled his chin out of her hold, then turned away to hide his
tears. "I know that's what happened, but I don't know what fell under his
attack," he admitted between two sobs.
"What makes you think that he killed more than hurt something in you?" she
inquired meaningfully, adamantly refusing to let his arguments convince her that
the Emperor had destroyed him.
"Because it hurt too much to not be a death," Luke whispered while he tried to
understand why Mara was trying so very hard to make him change his mind about
everything that he now knew about himself.
She had been through the Dark Side, he wanted to remind her. She 'knew' how it
was and how he was unable to trust himself anymore.
"Had it died," she answered his previous comment in a comforting voice, "the
pain would have been less, and you wouldn't be here today..."
What?, he gaped soundlessly even as he turned his head around to gaze at her
once again. The Emperor's veil would have only knocked unconscious part of him,
and that part had saved... "How can you know for sure??" he finally half-
whispered, feeling both hopeful and incredulous in face of her reasoning.
His friend edged slightly closer to him, then gently touched his temple and
reached out to enter his mind. He reflexively blocked her, then, sensing that
she wanted to 'show' him something, he followed her inside her memory... then
his.
*Because,* her gentle voice seemed to whisper in his mind, soothing his bruised
soul as it did so, *the Emperor can not destroy who we truly are.*
She first invited him inside her own mind and showed him how the evil despot had
cruelly 'shaped' her into the cool assassin that he had wanted her to be, yet
even as a child, she showed him, part of her true self had survived. Years
later, he himself had rekindled it to life.
He could only fall mute at the undeniable truth of her example.
Satisfied by his reaction, she then re-entered his mind and found his memories
of his father. There, she visually reminded him that no matter how evil the
older man had been, he had still retained a part of Anakin, which had resurfaced
in the end in order to save him, and the whole galaxy.
Once again, Luke couldn't think of any argument to refute her example; he was
stumped by the veracity of her chosen, and somehow ignored, examples.
Then, when he signaled to Mara that he was ready for what she wanted to show him
next, she surprisingly guided him to the center of his inner self, where she had
gone when they been on Earth, he dimly remembered while he 'gazed' around
himself at his known self. Once there, she showed him his true nature, but from
her own, uninfluenced point of view.
As he had told him, he discovered that he had been gravelly hurt by the veil of
darkness, even forced mute, but, he also slowly realized that the nothing had
not been killed either. He was just beginning to heal and recover his true
self.
Feeling tears of relief form at the corner of his eyes, he gently shut their
link, then reflexively leaned into her embrace where he sobbed in indescribable
relief and reborn happiness. He had truly survived the trials once again.
He had been wrong about himself once again, and he had been about to commit the
worst mistake of his life. "I'm sorry, Mara," he apologized contritely while
she hugged him soothingly, "I'm sorry for everything."
"Welcome back to the Light, Luke," she comforted him, then added more seriously:
"About apologies though, I think that you hurt Leia's feelings more than you did
mine. She was truly worried about you, you know?"
Leia!, he suddenly remembered, then reached out--- and found her worried
presence just on the other side of the door. Pulling away from Mara's embrace,
he reached out to open his door even as he mentally invited his sister to join
them inside.
The moment that she stepped through the door, he engulfed her petite form in a
Wookiee-like hug, half hiding her in his ominous-yet-Jedi-like cloak. "I'm
sorry for my coldness, Leia," he apologized earnestly. "I was lost."
"Oh, Luke," she hugged him back, "Don't ever scare me like this again. You know
that you can always count on me."
"Yes, I know," he reassured her, then refocused on his best friend. "Thank you,
Mara. I know what you are risking by coming here. I can't thank you enough
for---"
Mara, who was quietly watching the brother/sister reunion, sighed in relief and
contentment as she felt her friend's spirits lift faster than any turbolift that
she had ever boarded.
He was truly back now, and the Emperor had lost once again.
More important, she then smirked inwardly, he had lost more than he ever
expected to, and that, she admitted to herself, greatly pleased her. The mere
thought that he was probably going through another of his painfully maddening
transition was even enough revenge for what he had tried to do to her dear
friend.
However, with the transition came his upcoming return, and personally, she still
wanted to avoid him at all costs.
As if sensing this, Luke silently nodded at her in understanding. He turned
toward his sister, who was telling her to join them for dinner. "I'll take Mara
back to her ship, Leia," he informed her seriously, some of his more somber mood
resurfacing, although less dark than previously. "She is not safe here."
"I'd go further and say that he isn't either," the red-head retorted seriously,
"but the Emperor didn't forge a link with him... as he did with me."
"You're talking as if..." Leia frowned, then paused... "Is he coming back?" she
asked, her smile turning to a worried pout.
"Most probably," both Jedi knights nodded forlornly.
"It will take him a while to complete the transition," Mara added, "but if one
of his body survived Skywalker's attack, then sadly, we're not done with him
yet."
"Then be safe, Mara," Leia answered seriously, then stepped closer and quickly
hugged her.
Surprised by the other's sudden warmth, Mara returned the embrace as best as she
could, then pulled away from it. "Take care of him, Princess, and if something
goes wrong again," she smirked at her dear friend, "you know how to reach me."
"Which I still don't, by the way," he retorted playfully.
"Call it safety-insurance, farmboy," she ribbed him. "But you can always try to
make me change my mind on the way to the hangar bay."
Smirking at her challenge, Luke called his discarded lightsaber to his hand and
attached it to his belt, then he, his sister, and herself walked out of the
small room. They separated paths at the turbolifts.
They were once again alone.
At first, Luke slightly shifted from one foot to another in uneasiness, then he
finally worked up the courage to turn his head toward his friend and face her
once again.
"You truly are getting excellent in that friendship business, Mara," he teased
her lightly, referring to a conversation that they had once had about her not
being a good friend. "I certainly never expected to see you now that we 'did'
know that the Emperor was alive."
"I'm full of surprises," she shrugged, briefly reminding him of himself as a
brash youth.
He quirked his lips a little at that thought. Brashness, brazenness... Those
had died within him now. From now on, he would know better than to throw
himself head first into the obviously dangerous unknown.
"Luke," Mara began in the silence. "I," she hesitated slightly, "I don't know
if you realized this, but what happened on Corellia was the Emperor's doing, not
the Force, or not entirely the Force at any rate," she shrugged feebly. "Either
way thought," she continued more seriously, "I think that he knew how you would
react to this after what had happened to you on Earth."
"Yes, I know," he nodded, then turned his whole body in order to truly face her.
He then reached out and kept the turbolift from reaching its destination just
yet, blocking it between two floors. If Mara was surprised by his action, she
did not give him any outward sign that she was. "I've also been thinking about
that," he admitted, "Now I can see where I was wrong about my understanding of
the challenge," he continued, his voice taking on a softer, more intimate range.
"...And?" she prompted him hesitantly. She too was facing him now, her eyes
reminding him of when he had told her that he couldn't love her anymore, after
Corellia.
"While you, or women in general, are not dangerous and that I can trust you with
my heart," he reassured her softly, "my emotions are still my sole enemy in
everything," he reluctantly admitted once again. "When I thought that I was
facing the Emperor, I was in fact facing my own dark self. The Emperor was
merely tapping into it, but I was the sole reason why it happened. I can't
control the others," he finished wisely, "but I can control my own emotions."
While Mara felt her hopeful heart flinch once again at his new confirmation that
he couldn't be in love with her, she couldn't, in her heart, either condemn him
nor be angry at him.
He was right. It was what he had taught her, and what constantly got 'him' into
trouble: his out-of-control goodness and earnestness to make things right for
everyone.
Even when he had joined the Emperor, his main goal had been to right the wrongs
of the whole universe. Sadly though, he had only ended up being a problem
himself before he had woken up, but too late.
Considering how powerful her friend was, she truly understood, and began to
accept, that the Force's will in his case was to teach him control of himself.
As for her own Destiny, she reflected sadly, perhaps it was to not be able to
love the man that she loved because of her sins of the past... "I understand,
Luke," she reassured him as steadily as she could although she had long avoided
his beautiful eyes.
To her surprise, he stepped closer to her and gently made her look back up at
him. "But there's one thing that I have also understood," he soothingly
continued his previous idea, "and that is that the Jedi path truly is not a
solitary one. Thank you, Mara, for teaching me this lesson today."
"You're---"
Before she could finish her sentence, her companion had leaned closer and rested
his lips against her owns, shocking her mute even as she gazed confusedly at
him.
Then, as his lips lingered against hers, she closed her eyes and enjoyed the
electrifying touch, noticing how wonderful it felt. Then, slowly, she realized
that he was not moving around as a passionate lover would, nor did he expect her
to answer him. Yet, she could feel that he loved her as much as she loved him.
He finally pulled away, a second and a half later although it had felt like an
eternity to her. "Thank you, Mara. I will never be able to thank you enough
for everything that you did for me," he finished gently, then kissed her
forehead before he physically pulled away from her.
Still reeling under the shock of his most unexpected behavior, Mara wasn't fast
enough to pull him back against herself for another, much more demanding kiss.
By the time that she did think about this, the lift had already resumed its
course down and had even reached its destination.
The doors slid open; they both walked through, lost in their thoughts. Since
the surrounding corridors were crowded and not offering her any new occasion to
talk to him about what had happened in the lift, or even try to push it further,
they reached the hangar bay.
******
After a quick exchange of platonic farewells, Mara lifted off, leaving Luke
alone once again. However, unlike the last time that they had parted company,
Luke wasn't morose. Instead, he was suddenly filled with a new energy to be
true to what he had promised to his sister a few days ago.
He wanted to make the Jedi rise again, for real this time.
And the one person he had to thank for this, and more, was his best friend...
whom he loved but couldn't love passionately.
As he watched her ship gain altitude, he gently ran his index along his lower
lip, remembering how wonderful he had felt when he had been kissing her. Oh, he
conceded to himself, it had not been the impassioned kiss that he would have
given her right after Wayland if he had known how deeply he would someday feel
for her, nor had it been the out-of-control kiss that he would have given her on
Earth if she had been ready. Instead, it had been a controlled, gentle touch of
his lips against hers, the only way that he could show her that he did love her
too...
Love was not prohibited to him, he now understood, but he had to deal with it,
and every other feeling of his life, as a Jedi... Master, he grimaced at the
word.
He was barely a Jedi Knight, having given himself that title after his first
meeting with the Emperor. He couldn't be a master after only six extra years of
self-learning and training, could he? Still, he sighed, the others were already
used to calling him that way. Better let them be, he decided. He himself would
simply do as best as he could with what he knew as well as what he had learnt
the hard way once again.
Reaching out one last time for his friend's presence, he bared his heart to her
once again, as he had on Earth. For the last time of his life, he did so
without controlling his emotions for his friend.
*I love you, Mara.*
In her skypray, Mara felt a new tear of joy and regret slide down her cheek as
she caught the barely whispered sending of her friend.
She had been right moments ago, she nodded to herself even as she tried to
answer him. The kiss that he had given her had been one of love, not of
friendship.
However, after what he had told her, he hadn't allowed himself to be
demonstrative, but he 'had' shown her that he would still love her the way that
he would be able to.
Gently, softly... serenely.
*And I will still love you too, Luke,* she sent him.
She was already too far; he didn't hear her.
******
Epilogue:
That night, unbeknown to Mara, Luke and his friends utterly defeated the
Emperor. A Jedi had sacrificed himself and had taken the Emperor with him into
the realm of the after-life...
Finally lifting whatever bonds he had maintained on both hers and Luke's minds,
thus freeing them from his dark veil while opening the way to a more friendly
guardian to intervene, at last.
Mara was back on Tatooine, running for her life. Behind her, a sandstorm was
quickly catching on her, intent on burying her forever.
She finally reached the targeted hut, rushed inside, then, hearing noises of
complaint, realized that she had a companion and returned in the storm to save
him too. As a Jedi, she simply couldn't abandon whoever that was.
Using the Force to find his presence, she found him, then grabbed hold of--- a
well-remembered farmboy tunic and guided him back inside the emergency hut. She
had barely closed the door that a new opening seemed to appear for the howling
wind. The youth instantly took hold of a nearby table and wedged it in the sole
window of the building, then they both caught their breaths and collapsed to
their knees, exhausted.
While she used her tricks to catch her breath faster, Mara tried to peer through
the near darkness; she simply 'wanted' to see the features of her companion,
whom she almost remembered now. Suddenly remembering that she had had a pocket
luma that day, she shed her Tatooinian robe and pulled it out from her utility
belt.
"Thank you," a very familiar, if younger-sounding, voice suddenly told her
earnestly in the surrounding silence. "I will never be able to thank you enough
for everything that you did for me."
And then, at last, she knew who was the farmboy; she hurried to turn on her
portable lamp---- and gaped as Luke's young, sand-scorched,... suddenly well-
remembered features were revealed to her once again.
"Luke!", she exclaimed in great joy, then, ignoring his scorches, threw herself
in his arms and kissed him like she now remembered kissing him and making love
to him, all those years ago.
Back on Tatooine, when they had been sixteen years old-----
Luke truly was her farmboy!!!, Mara thought instantly even as she sat bolt
upright on her bunk. The eerie resemblance between the two men had not been a
result of her imagination; they had been latent memories---
"Commander Jade!!" a Mystril guard suddenly called from behind her door,
startling her once again, but this time in an unpleasant way. "You've got to
come quickly!!"
Picking up her blaster from under her pillow, she threw on a long shirt, then
ran out of her room. The strong woman barely nodded in greetings at her, then
ran as fast as she could, guiding her toward the end of the corridor.
"What's going on? Are we being attacked?" the red-head inquired as her bare
feet slapped on the cool decking of hers and Karrde's new base.
"No," the other shook her head, then finally stopped once they were inside the
main communication room of the base. There, Karrde, Aves, and most members of
their groups were already gathered and cheering in obvious victory.
"What's the matter?" she queried, bemused.
Karrde turned toward her, a rare, genuine grin filling his face. "The war is
over, Mara. Organa-Solo had already confirmed it to me, but the news are
official now. The Emperor is dead, for real this time. This is confirmed by
Skywalker himself, and..."
Mara didn't hear the rest of her friend's report.
The Emperor was dead.
The man who had still been controlling her life by forcing her to hide... was
dead.
Suddenly remembering her dream, and everything that she had not been able to
remember until now, she understood what 'he' had truly done to her when he had
sent her the order to kill Skywalker. That vile fiend had known that she would
recognize her long-lost lover in Skywalker, she realized in both horror and
rage. How he had known about him, she didn't want to consider, but the fact
still remained that he had blocked her memories of her beloved farmboy to ensure
his revenge over Vader... as well as her betrayal as a youth!
Unusually terrified by the prospect of what had almost happened, she felt her
knees give under her... and would have completely crumpled to the floor if not
for the sudden assistance of both Karrde and the guard who had come to fetch
her.
"Mara, are you all right?" Karrde inquired even as he signaled to Aves to send a
chair rolling their way.
"I," she hesitated, feeling both sickened and relieved at the same time. "I...
I think that I just can't believe that he's truly gone."
But he was, she reminded herself, and she hadn't killed her beloved farmboy.
Instead, they were already best friend, and they loved each other again,
although circumstances were making that complicated for both of them. Still,
she tried to hearten herself. There was hope. Now that she knew the truth
about the man she loved, the man that she had always loved, she could undo the
block that she had set around his mind, then perhaps...
Hidden in the current of the Force, Anakin Skywalker smiled fondly at both
Mara's senses and his son's. While he knew that Mara would not be able to undo
his son's block now that he had chosen to become a 'true' Jedi, he himself could
still influence the memory block so that next time that the two soul mates would
kiss, Luke too would both recover his complete memory of his and Mara's first
encounter as well as understand that passionate love was 'not' going against his
vows to the Light.
In the meantime though, now that the Emperor's veil of control had disappeared
from his son's mind, he himself could influence the newly-freed memories of a
shadowy red-head girl into Mara returning to Luke... and kissing him.
Ever since he had become one with the Force, Anakin had tried to undo the evil
manipulations that the Emperor had operated on both Luke's and Mara's memories
about their true identities, but the presence of the reborn Emperor had
completely blocked him away from accessing even his son's soul. Thus, he had
been reduced to watching as the evil darksider had pulled the youths' strings in
order to accomplish his evil plans. He had naturally sighed in relief every
time that the Force itself had intervened to foul Palpatine's plans.
Still, he had worried when Luke had finally crossed path with Mara, then had
felt proud of him when the young Jedi had followed his heart and befriended the
young assassin despite her acerb nature. Finally, he had sighed in relief when
Mara had saved his son on Wayland. From that day forth, her danger had been
over for his precious son, but, he reflected sadly, it had far from been the
beginning of Peace for Luke. He himself had cringed and tried to influence
events when he had witnessed what had befallen the young Jedi next. He had
especially begun to lose faith in the Force when even his Lightbringer of a Son
had fallen to the Dark Side, but in the end, what he himself, as well as Leia
and Mara had retained of trust in the All-Powerful Force had been proven
worthwhile once again.
And now, the darkness was truly dead, he smiled to himself in relief. His son
and his soul mate were also 'mostly' on the right path to join together in a
relatively near future, and he himself could finally make sure that it 'would'
happen sooner than later.
The youths had suffered enough, he decided in fatherly care; it was time for
them to be happy.
As for his daughter, he reflected more wistfully, he wished that he could
contact her only once again to tell her how proud he was of her as well as how
honored he felt that his new grandson had been named after him.
Content and at peace, Anakin Skywalker watched his family, as well as future
daughter-in-law, as they began to live without being under any influence of the
Emperor.
'Copyright' 2003, SJ (skyjade@globetrotter.net)