In a flash of space and time, Leia Organa Solo and Mara Jade stood, open-mouthed and silent, as the explosion engulfed Luke's X-wing right after Artoo was ejected. Leia's heart ached and she immediately began to stretch out with her feelings to find her twin brother in the all-encompassing light of ignited gas from the pirate's ship. For a moment, it seemed as if Luke was completely gone, his presence disappeared from the Force, as if in death.
"Leia…" She heard Mara whisper, a world of emotions in the woman's tone. Force-sensitive like her but more trained, Mara had already felt the same thing Leia was straining to achieve.
Leia swallowed, tears forming in her eyes. Emotion washing over her, she started to turn her little ship, Alderaan, back into the fleeing formation from the smaller pirate ships.
Then a hitch, almost like a Force hiccup, and suddenly she could feel Luke again. He was weak, exhausted and in terrible pain, but he was there again.
"Go!" Mara shouted at her in the co-pilot's seat but Leia had already accelerated toward her brother's battered X-wing. In mere moments, her little ship had reached where the gas was slowly cooling from its explosion and where Luke's ship floated, all the power down.
"Skywalker!" Mara was shouting in to the comm unit. "Luke! Answer me!"
Leia set up a tractor beam to drag her brother's ship with her to the surface of the planet since her cargo bay was too small to house the crippled X-wing. While she was at it, as she passed Artoo she briefly opened her cargo bay to let the little droid drift himself in. Meanwhile, Mara called and called for Luke the entire way to the safety of the atmosphere of Tangoria but his comm was either too damaged to be used or he was injured beyond the ability to answer. Both possibilities kept Leia's stomach in knots until she was able to power down Alderaan and follow Mara out to Luke's X-wing at a dead run.
Mara had leaped onto the scorched X-wing's wing and was pounding a fist against the canopy, frustrated that the manual emergency lever on the outside was not working. From Leia's position on the ground, she could not see her brother or anything else in the cockpit but Mara's franticness did nothing to calm her own fears.
Finally, with a great heave half through the Force and half physical strength, Mara succeeded on prying the canopy up so that she could launch herself at whatever she found while Leia waited with a calm detachment, ready to burst into tears from either joy or loss. Mara was mumbling something to Luke inside the cockpit and the top half of her body disappeared as she leaned further in. Leia felt a surge from the usually implacable woman through the Force mere seconds before Mara reemerged, completely supporting an unconscious Luke. Leia was surprised to see a white bandage on his head already and assumed that Mara had quickly placed the bacta bandage on Luke's head from his first aid kit that all pilots kept under their seats.
"Don't just stand there," Mara grunted. "Help me lift him down."
Chagrined, Leia stretched out her hand to help herself focus as she and Mara together used the Force to gently lower Luke to the ground beside her. As soon as he was prone on the dry grass, Leia knelt beside him.
"Luke!" She gasped, taking in the torn patch on his right knee and confused at seeing perfectly healed skin there. Her eyes roamed over him and found numerous other cuts and abrasions from being bounced around in the cockpit during the explosion and one really nasty and deep furrow in his right arm that went all the way into his mechanical hand. "Luke, talk to me!"
Mara landed softly beside her. "It's no use. I tried every trick I know and he won't come around. He needs medical attention."
Just then, as if summoned by her words, a rather large man in a white lab coat and two assistants came running up to them. A parked landspeeder hovered not too far away from Leia's ship, indicating how they had gotten to them so quickly.
"Quick," the man panted. "Let's get him to the medcenter. Boris and L'atha, get him on the repulsorsled and take him in the landspeeder then Boris can come back for us as L'atha begins to diagnose Master Skywalker's condition."
Leia frowned. "How did you…"
The obvious doctor started barking more orders, cutting Leia off. She and Mara both exchanged a glance. No one knew Luke was going to be in-system except a few of the High Counselors. How did this doctor know?
As soon as Luke was whisked away by the two assistants, Leia asked the doctor, "Sir, who are you and how did you know my brother was here?" Mara glowered at her side, a silent and more potent threat.
The doctor wiped sweat from his brow, his dark hair thinning into a bald spot. Blinking, he sighed. "You won't believe me when I explain."
Mara crossed her arms. "Try us."
The doctor appraised her but didn't seem intimidated. Shrugging, he answered, "My name is Bronton Monta. My family's been on this planet for generations, ever since the first settlers came here. All the males in my family have been interested in medicine." Now he stared right at the two women. "Almost thirty years ago, a mysterious explosion occurred briefly in the space above Tangoria. It was never explained. Two Jedi were here to help the first election of our king run smoothly and they discovered, quite by accident, a man dressed in black from the future who was also a Jedi. Somehow, the explosion created a rip in time and Master Skywalker ended up in Tangoria's past. My father was the Chief Physician at that time and treated him for a badly injured knee, head injury and other minor cuts and scrapes. It wasn't too long and he discovered that time was correcting itself and the Jedi Master was slowly being reduced to nothing."
Mara frowned. "'Slowly being reduced to nothing'?" She repeated. "Care to explain that?" Leia nodded her own agreement to Mara's question.
Very carefully, as best as he knew how, Doctor Bronton Monta explained his father's theory that had been proving itself true until Luke left the past. His father had left notes that had been passed down to him when he had taken over as Chief Physician on Tangoria. Leia and Mara both listened in ever-growing shock as they heard about how Luke's body had been shrinking down to nothing.
"And so the two Jedi re-created the explosion and Master Skywalker disappeared as mysteriously as he came. My father wrote down the day he left and predicted which day he would arrive—the day that all this would happen," Doctor Monta finished.
The landspeeder cruised to a stop beside them, preventing the two women from commenting as they were ushered into the back. The ride to the medical center was a very quiet one as everyone was lost in their own thoughts.
L'asha met them at the medcenter's double doors. Ignoring everyone but the doctor, the Twi'lek woman started spouting technical medical terms. The only thing Leia caught that she understood was that Luke's injuries were not serious enough to make him unconscious—something else had to be keeping him that way.
Leia and Mara hung back as the doctor and his assistants began trying to find a way to wake Luke. By mutual consent, the women decided to talk as the doctors tried conventional methods on a Jedi.
"So, do you believe all this past and future talk?" Mara murmured, her eyes on Luke's prone form.
Leia shrugged slightly. "It could be true. We did lose him in the Force for a moment, right at the apex of the explosion. That could have been when he traveled through time. Stranger things have happened to Jedi and especially to Luke. Remember when his spirit was trapped in the Jedi temple by Exar Kun? It's hard to believe, but I think it's definitely possible."
Mara was silent a moment before she spoke next. "If this is true, then I have a theory; actually, a memory from something Palpatine said a long time ago that I dismissed at the time. If a Jedi had been able to travel in time, then the Force would work to correct the mistake. If the Jedi had been there too long, then there could be damage to the Force and to the Jedi."
"Any specifics to the term 'damage'?" Leia inquired.
Mara shook her head. "Palpatine wanted to try it but was never able to find the time—which was probably a good thing for the future in all. I have no idea but I suspect that it's nothing that conventional doctors can fix."
Both women became silent and quietly watched, lost in her own thoughts, as the medical staff worked hard on Luke. Finally, Doctor Monta had Luke ordered in to a bacta tank to heal his cuts, especially the one on his arm. Before Luke was lowered in to the tank with the mask on his face, Doctor Monta carefully attached a sealed container over Luke's prosthetic hand to keep the bacta from causing any further damage to the exposed wiring.
Doctor Monta shook his head as he approached them. "It's a matter of waiting now."
Mara's lips curled upward in a private smile as she silently acknowledged the doctor. Ignoring his urgings to leave to get some sleep, the slender red-haired, green-eyed love of Luke's approached the bacta tank as the lights lowered into night mode. Leia followed her, a prompting in the Force urging her to take part in whatever Mara had in mind. The doctor simply watched them both and kept his assistants from interfering.
Mara gazed at the floating Luke before placing her hand on the bacta tank and closing her eyes with Leia copying her movements. Stretching out through the Force, she called, Luke, come back to me. Follow my voice and return to the time you belong. You made it through the explosion—don't let this keep you from me.
Focused so tightly through the Force was she that she also heard Leia's addition to her call: Luke, hear me. I need you. The children need you. Without you, the Jedi will fall into darkness. Come back so you may teach them what you know. Come back to me.
Mara slightly opened her eyes just enough to tell that there was still no response from Luke. Frustrated that what she was trying wasn't working, she suddenly remembered the night that he had proposed to her when they had been neck-deep in water with no possible way out of the room they had been in. The situation then had seemed just as hopeless as this one but he had thought of a way to get them out alive and had set up a key phrase to snap her out of the meditation trance he had had to put her in for her survival. Smirking, she refocused her mind and returned to him the snap phrase he had said, and meant, a few months back.
I love you.
And she meant it with all her heart, mind, and soul.
A heartbeat later she felt an almost electric shock through the Force that focused around Luke. Her eyes popped open as she gasped from the jolt of it. As her eyes focused, she noticed that Luke's ice-blue eyes were staring at her and his hand was pressed against the bacta tank aligned with hers.
"Get him out!" Doctor Monta was yelling excitedly. "Quickly!"
Luke was pulled, dripping bacta, from the tank and he sank down onto the grate to let the excess bacta roll off of him to return to the tub of pink goo. Leia and Mara waited impatiently for him to be wrapped in a robe and led down the steps to sit on a self-conforming chair near a recovery room. Exhaustion rolled off of him in waves but the two women beamed at him.
Very, very quietly, he whispered, "Thank you". It was evident that he meant them both but his eyes locked with Mara's.
Gently, Mara asked, "How do you feel?" at the same time Leia asked, "What do you remember?"
Luke frowned as he searched his memory. "There was an explosion after I shot the pirate's ship…a rift in time…and two Jedi…" He trailed off, a strange expression halfway between a smile and a puzzled look on his face.
The doctor, who had come up behind them, inquired, "Who were they? The Jedi, I mean."
Luke tilted his head to the side for a moment. "I'm not sure if I should say; if it would damage time more. Perhaps not." He sighed. "I got to meet a very young Obi-Wan Kenobi and his Jedi Master, Qui-Gon Jinn."
Leia looked shocked. "You met General Kenobi when he was younger?"
The doctor seemed ecstatic. "Exactly! From the notes I received, whenever Master Skywalker and young Kenobi were close to one another, they would experience an odd kind of 'Force-back feed' that caused discomfort. Do you remember, Master Skywalker?"
Luke grinned at the doctor, finally erasing the odd haunted look in his eyes. "You are just like your father, Doctor. And yes, I remember that." He sobered. "I also remember the feeling of myself being erased into nothingness. I put myself into a Jedi meditation trance before the pain got so bad that I couldn't think or concentrate. I evidently either put myself too far into one or else something else happened to me that I can't explain."
Mara patted his knee. "We'll explain it to you later, Luke. Right now, I think we should put you back into the bacta to let that arm of yours heal." She nodded at his arm, which had begun to drip blood again, except for the protected section of his mechanical hand.
Luke sighed in a resigned way and stood slowly. "I suppose so. Lead the way, Doctor."
"Wait!" Leia said. She wrapped her arms around her twin brother in a fierce hug. Whispering, she confided, "I thought I had truly lost you there for a moment. I'll be here when you wake up."
Luke nodded and a lock of hair fell into his eyes. Mara stepped up to him and tenderly brushed it back off of his forehead, her fingertips lightly running over the top edge of the scar on his face that he had received so many years ago from the wampa ice creature on Hoth. Their eyes met once again and she pulled him into her embrace for a passionate kiss that spoke beyond words of her love and worry for him. When they parted, both the doctor and Leia were trying hard to look somewhere else to give them a little privacy.
Mara smiled mischievously. "Another of that and more where it came from, farmboy, when you are recovered enough," she whispered seductively.
Luke entered the bacta tank, still wearing a slight blush on his cheeks.
Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn dropped onto his back on the already speeding ship, closing down his lightsaber as he did so. Dust from Tatooine clung to his sweat-soaked clothes from his fight with the Sith and he took a moment to catch his breath.
When he looked up, the first thing he noticed was two pairs of eyes with identical concern staring down at him. Smiling slightly, he gestured with his left hand from one to the other and said, "Obi-Wan Kenobi, meet Anakin Skywalker."
Obi-Wan Kenobi, in his twenties, stretched out a hand to shake with the eight-year-old sandy-haired young boy in slave's clothes. As their hands met, he felt a sudden sense of clarity from his past and he remembered Luke Skywalker's face as clearly as if the Jedi had been standing before him.
In a split second, he compared the two and noticed the remarkable resemblance—along with the unusual last name—that could only mean one possible thing: this young boy was going to grow to be Luke's father. Other pieces that Luke had told him about the future began to come together in his mind, though he had yet to have enough to fit it together into a whole; Luke had been so cautious to avoid mentioning specifics to him, more than likely, for this very reason. Or maybe other reasons of his own.
Obi-Wan released Anakin's hand and glanced at Qui-Gon. His Master gave the tiniest of nods and Obi-Wan finally began to have glimmer of understanding of why it had taken his Master so long on Tatooine: Qui-Gon, too, had remember the last name of Skywalker and had done all that he could to get this Force-talented boy out of slavery.
Obi-Wan frowned a little. Something else about this seemed odd, but he decided to ignore the feeling for a little while. The Force would let him know when it was time for him to understand and not before. Right now, something else held more import to him than Luke's ancestors.
Turning to Qui-Gon, he asked, "What was that?"
The EndWell, that's it then. Send comments and reviews of course. And look for another by me (with more Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan angst/torture and none of Luke) called 'Exquisite Pain: Linked'…which should appear at the same time this chapter does. Thanks for hanging in the ride with me. I feel very satisfied with this ending and I hope you do too.