In Darkness

A/N: THANK YOU REVIEWERS! I love you guys! This chapter is gonna sound completly insane in places... But don't worry! I have a Plot!(I hear you gasp) Yes a Plot! So please bear with me!

In Darkness

A/N: THANK YOU REVIEWERS! I love you guys! This chapter is gonna sound completly insane in places... But don't worry! I have a Plot!(I hear you gasp) Yes a Plot! So please bear with me!

Chapter 3: Into the light.

Chak watched her lean against the dark wall, they were alone outside the spaceport. Slowly her eyes changed, the hardness fled them, replaced by a softness few ever saw. Tears formed as he watched and slid down her face. He watched her dark eyes as she cried. She just leant there against the wall, her tears her absolution.

Finally she wiped her face with a shaking hand. She turned to him with a sniffle. Her dark eyes were haunted and sad as she looked at him. He returned her gaze. A slight, bitter smile graced her lips as she walked past him, her steps confidant once more.

Her emotions swirled through her still as she walked across the docking bay. Her dark eyes swept the shadows of their own accord. She had done it again. She had let lose the monster within. The creature that killed and whispered. She moved to her small ship. She quickly climbed the side of the old smuggling ship.

She was met by the eyes of her team. She knew their eyes, some glowing crimson, some with elongated pupils and scales would not look at the tears. They knew to look away, they understood, or thought they did. They thought she was under controlhyperspace a warm hand took hold of hers. She smiled into a pair of warm eyes.

"It's alright." Said Chak as he held her smaller hand in his own. She waited a moment before removing her hand from under his and turning away to examine all the boards. She heard his soft sigh at her withdrawal and stopped herself as she went to turn back to him. It wasn't right and it wasn't fair on him she reminded herself.

She sighed herself as she stood and walked though into the main area, avoiding the eyes that followed her.

One week later

Luke glanced worriedly from his overtired wife to Kardde and then to his sister. All of them looked worried at the news Kardde had brought. They all stayed silent as he trailed off. Leia was frowning fiercly, as she stared into space. Han looked uneasy as did Mara while Kardde himself seemed on the verge of an aneurism, a state Luke had never seen him in before. It had been a week since Karrde had left Tatooine.

Mara's wan face was lowered into her hands in a strangely uncharacteristic sign of defeat. Luke placed a hand on her tense shoulder. She looked up at him and smiled tiredly. He smiled back and squeezed her tense shoulder. His thought s flickering for a moment to the nightmares Mara had been having. He wondered if this strange incident had something too do with them and then dismissed the idea. Mara would say something. Yet still it nagged at him.

She looked over at him. The calm look of concentration she knew was a far cry from the feelings raging inside. She flickered over her own feelings. Grimacing as she remembered the dream of the night before. For the first time the child had spoken. "I serve." The words still sent a chill down her spine. Luke noticed her discomfort and sent a enquring tendril of the force at her, a total supplication for which there were no words to describe. She smiled slightly at him but she could see he knew it was not a real smile.

Mara flicked her eyes over him and shivered. The room fell away into darkness.

In the darkness sat a crumpled figure in black, she shivered. Small bars of red shone from the deepest recesses of the room. The throne had a light centered on it, all else was dark. Yellow eyes sought hers and an evil cackle reverberated through the dark room. Mara shivered again as a small figure stepped beside the throne. Night black eyes met Mara's. Mara whispered an apology to the child's ghost. She still regretted leaving the child, dirty, afraid and alone on that floating lab. The child looked away as though she guessed Mara's thoughts, her tiny body shaking from some emotion.

The small child looked up into Mara's eyes again and then crumpled. On her knees she raised her head. Mara gasped in shock. No longer a child, but a young woman knelt beside the emperor's throne. She looked up at Mara, a pleading expression on her face. An old hand came down and stroked the soft black curls, that crowned the beauty the child had become, Mara looked away repulsed at the possessive gesture. The pretty face changed and became hard, cold and distant. Only the eyes remained the same. As though two different people inhabited one body. Dark eyes still looked out pleadingly at her as tears ran down her face, a face of hatred and evil.

A red lightsaber ignited as the girl, now a woman stood. A sandy haired man stepped in front of her. Mara felt her own tears falling. She screamed at Luke but he did not turn or react in any way to show he even knew she was there. He looked up at the girl as she turned towards him. Tears still falling to her cold cheeks, pain greater than any Mara had seen in her eyes. Mara cried again as she fell to her knees, Luke did not even flinch when the girl raised the lightsaber and as Luke looked up at her she lowered it. Collapsing into a weeping ball on the floor as the girl inside took over again. Mara Screamed and cried again and again as she collapsed as well. But to no avail. Luke was falling, his eyes staying on the young girl. With a look of forgiveness in them for the weeping figure who crawled to his side. Mara was also on her knees, hot tears running down her cheeks…

Naraé looked out at the heat wave shimmering over Tatooine's desert. She watched the figures in it without making a sound or moving at all. They looked like children. In her heart she knew them well and even at this distance her heart was singing. Sometimes she felt as though they were with her, helping her fight the other her. But that wasn't possible.

She stepped out of the broken down building and began across the desert. Swallowing her emotions she brought a little of the other her out to join her to hold back her fear.

They seemed to stop at her approach. A girl with very short blonde curls waved to her as she walked closer. Naraé blinked to make sure she was right about the girl. She could feel it here the lightside aura left by Obi-Wan Kenobi. It filled the desert air with moisture, gave it scent that it didn't truly have. She stepped amongst the ephemeral figures. She smiled slightly as she looked around. A deep breath in and out and she felt steadier.

They wore either plain grey clothing of pants and a loose top or soft brown clothing that was loose, and their bare feet danced across the blistering sand with reckless abandon. The desert wind carried soft sounds to her ears. They called her name. They laughed and giggled. The blonde girl stopped in front of her. Serious eyes looked up and she smiled. "You have come back!" Naraé shook her head. "I never left Mernaé," she told her friend. Mernaé looked down and away, back to the others who had stopped and were watching her with a mixture of sadness and happiness.

"We missed you. No one else was as clever as you." She looked up at her now adult friend shyly. "nor are we still with you. I'm sorry we left you." the words were barely a whisper. Naraé shook her head. "No," she whispered. "I left you. I left you" she repeated. The blonde reached up and Naraé realised tears fell from her eyes a gentle wind brushed her tear away and she felt a wondrous joy well up within her.

"You can feel me can't you?" Naraé nodded and looked up to the others they watched her with pride. "You are changing. Be strong Naraé, you are the best of us. Remember that, and remember, as long as you remember us, we are with you." As she spoke she turned to gossamer then smoke. Naraé reached out as though to grab something real but her fingers encountered only air. Her cheeks were dry of tears as she turned away. The desert wind had scoured them away.

Mara felt them before she heard them. They were calling her name. Luke… Leia, Karrde. She identified them quickly. She opened her eyes slowly.

Luke's heart was beating as though it were a trapped birds wings, he felt an awful taste I his mouth as he called Mara's name over and over. He eyes fluttered. The lashes opening to show her incedible eyes. As she did so tears fell from each eye. Forming trails back into her hair. Slowly she sat up from her prone position.

They looked at her as though they thought she might faint. Well, she thought wryly, that's probably what it looked like. She swallowed and felt the roughness of her throat. She looked up and met Luke's pale eyes. They had dark circle's underneath them. She smiled wryly at him. "Well," she began and stopped at the croak her voice made. "I take it I was screaming here too?" she half asked and struggled to stand. As she did so she had to reach out for Luke's arm as the room spun for a moment She noticed as she did so that Kardde was now even more pale and that Luke was nodding slightly while Leia and Han exchanged worried glances. She met each of her friends gazes. They all seemed half worried and half shocked at her collapse. "I'm alright," she said. "just… Just.." she struggled to find the words.

"Another nightmare?" asked Luke. She nodded as the others focused their eyes on Luke for a moment.

"Yeah," she said awkwardly as she straightened her self up. She could see the questions in all of their eyes. But right at that moment she was not prepared to face those questions, no matter that Luke at least was owed an explanation. "I'd rather not talk about it." She said with a slight fire to her words. Acidity returning to deflect them as it had always done before.

Naraé watched the sunset from the calm interior of Obi-Wan's hut. Not that it was anything but a mess. Parts of the roof had fallen in among other things. Yet there was a sense of belonging, of contentment that she missed. The Galaxy might fall apart but the Jedi calm still remained in a few places. She thought back to her earliest memories. To faces of people long dead. To her friends she had seen again today. To the small alien who had once told her sadly that hope was all they had left.

Hope. She wondered what would have change if she had not survived. Not very much she concluded. Her dark eyes slid shut as she entered a meditation. As flew down within herself she found the pain and anger, the bitterness bleeding away with every steady breath. Slowly she began to sing an old folk song. Where she had learned the lullaby she did not remember, but the words came back, and with it other things came. Her mother came first, tall and beautiful, her strong aunt's face entered her mind. Then came others.

The tall young man who had knelt in front of her and whispered wonderingly in her mind. 'Little Jedi'. She remembered tears and then a place of towers and serious people. A place where the planet put the stars to shame. Where each building was it's own slice of heaven, and then below, the hell of darkness and fear. She remembered looking up at stormy eyes. He smiled at her this young man. Trust flowed through her. He smiled. "Come my little one, I'll protect you." He had knelt in front of her. Another joined him. Serious grey blue eyes twinkling at her with promises.

Slowly, as though waking from a pleasant dream Naraé drifted back into the cold empty remains of Obi-Wan's old home. Her memories slipping away like sand through her fingers, yet the warmth of being loved, protected remained.