Welcome to the update nobody, not even me, saw coming! I always hoped to come back and bring this fic to, if not the true epic finale I once hoped for, at least the good resting place I knew it was so close to. And here we are, thanks to unexpected motivation during National Novel Writing Month. This is the end of Path of Choice, in its current incarnation. I have always had more ideas and plans, and it's possible I'll finish them off and publish some of them — but after so long, I'm more than happy with this. Looking back, there's a lot in this fic I would have done differently — but there's a lot I'm still proud of, even though it was done back in high school.

I'll post any follow-ups as standalone fics, so feel free to follow me if you're curious! Other than those, I've moved away from — come find me at AO3 under the name figmentera! I'll also be crossposting this fic and any future updates, for archival purposes and because I'm mostly active there now.

To anyone who's reading this because they subscribed back when this was active: I love you more than words can say, and PLEASE tell me so in the comments, even if you say nothing else. To anyone who's found this in the hiatus: Welcome! I admire the faith it took to click "subscribe" even as the years since the last update got longer and longer. To anyone who finds this in the future: I hope you enjoyed this, however you found it!

Also, if you for some reason don't remember what's going on, the current arc started at the very end of chapter 20, with the news that Mara and Luke would be fighting Jabba as the end of their training on Tatooine. This picks up just after they found a way to drop the ceiling on him.

Forgive any formatting irregularities, please. It's been a minute or two since I posted anything to here.

Chapter 26: Nightfall

The silence lasted longer than it should have, with all those people crammed in such a small space. Mara and Luke were breathing hard, recovering from the fight with Boba Fett, but the rest of the room seemed to be holding their breath. All eyes were on Sharia, but she was just as solidly frozen as the rest of them. She seemed to be in shock at her own audacity.

As soon as anybody moved, Mara thought, the spell would be over. Right now, they were all focused on Sharia, and the former slave girl had more power than anybody in the room. If she stood up and took control, Mara doubted that anybody would ever argue. A shame she wasn't going to. A shame she was too wrapped up in her own daring to dare any more.

Then she heard a voice from the crowd. "Let me through," it said, firmly. She turned with half the room to look at the speaker. It was Rutan, pushing firmly through the crowd. The people around him made space, watching to see what would happen next.

He made his way to the beginning of the room. Mara glanced at Luke as he made his way, wondering if they should follow him, but Luke was watching Rutan intensely and didn't give her any sign. Behind him, though, she saw three electropikes still pointed at them. They would be viewed as a threat, if they moved.

She turned back to Rutan as he reached the front of the room, willing him to make the right moves. He reached down, inspecting Jabba's corpse – looking in his eye for movement, it looked like. Everyone's focus stayed on him, waiting for his verdict.

He straightened up, and looked around the room, as the tension built. Nobody breathed, now. Not even Mara, who was almost certain she knew what the answer was.

"Jabba is dead," Rutan said, and there was a mass exhalation. Rutan continued, "If any of you pretend to be anything but relieved, I'll laugh. Esert, Feld, get this out of here, would you? Put it outside for the scavengers."

Two of the other guards moved to follow his orders, and Rutan turned to Sharia. "You did this," he said. His voice was gentle, encouraging. "Would you like to tell them why?"

She looked at him for a moment, then out at the crowd. Her eyes met Mara's, for one long second, and then looked beyond. "Yesterday," she said, "I was waiting to die." Her voice was carefully controlled, almost flat. "Five months ago, that piece of filth took me from my home and forced me into his service. There were ten other innocent women being held when I arrived. Every one of them is dead now. More have taken their place." She paused, looking around. Her eyes reminded Mara of the suns. "I was waiting to die, yesterday, ten minutes ago. I was waiting for my kidnapper to become my murder, as he has for so many others. And then I saw a chance to end that. I did it."

The crowd was hanging on her every word, Mara noticed. Some looked uncomfortable, some shocked. A few were nearly crying. It was no wonder. Sharia looked fierce, confident. Rutan had given her the chance to step into the role she'd created for herself, and she'd delivered.

There was a brief silence, as everybody thought over what she had said. Jabba's body, being pushed out on its hover sled, was almost irrelevant.

Then, Rutan asked quietly, still addressing Sharia, "What happens now?"

She didn't look at him. She kept her eyes on the crowd, darting from eye to eye. "If I have my way," she said, "Nothing happens now. Everyone goes home, to their family if they have one. Everyone thinks about their choices, tries to figure out why they came here in the first place. Everyone who supported that tyrant figures out why the hell they thought it was a good idea."

Her control of the crowd was slipping, and Mara decided it was time to step in. She reached out to Luke with her hand and her senses, and she felt him naturally reach back, lending her strength. "That's a good idea," Mara said, pulling on the Force, pulling on every lesson Obi-Wan had ever taught her. "Some time to think sounds like just what we need."

It wouldn't have worked in any other circumstance, she knew. She didn't have the pull to influence an entire crowd, not even with Luke helping. Not even close. But right now, this crowd was still reeling. They'd lost their center, in Jabba, and they were ready to follow any other strong presence. Sharia had been it, until she started pushing them to something that was against most of their nature. But with a little extra Force, they'd listen to even that.

It got a little anticlimactic, from there. Half the people hanging around cleared out pretty quick—Mara figured they were mostly the smartest smugglers and skimmers, the ones who could see the writing on the wall and decided they didn't want to be around. The rest milled around aimlessly, drifting off one or two at a time. Mara and Luke, in an unspoken agreement, circulated around reinforcing Mara and Sharia's initial command in casual conversation with the people left. After a few minutes, the room was almost empty, and the two of them met at the front, near Sharia. Rutan joined them, from where he'd been talking to a few of the Gamorrean guards.

For a moment, they stood awkwardly, before Mara decided she'd need to take the lead. After all, she had the best connections with everybody here.

"I'm surprised," she said to Sharia, "But that was well done."

Sharia looked at her, looking deeper than Mara expected. "Are you surprised? You seem to have been predicting this since you arrived."

Mara shrugged. "I never thought you'd help. It seems I gave up too soon."

"It was a good shot," Rutan added. "I wouldn't have guessed it was in you from seeing you around. What was your name, anyway?"

She looked at him with hard eyes, and when she spoke, it was not to answer his question. "You're Rutan, aren't you? You were here to rescue Dessa."

At the sound of the name, he inhaled sharply, leaning away from her as though struck. He nodded brusquely.

"She died wondering why you did nothing," Sharia said, bluntly.

Rutan stared at her. He didn't have a response to that. Mara wasn't sure there is one.

"This is Sharia," she said. "She did her best to keep me alive."

"Apparently, I shouldn't have bothered," Sharia said, laser-sharp gaze transferring to Mara. "You can protect yourself, it seems."

Mara inclined her head. "I do have some experience in that. Can I take off that collar?"

Sharia's eyes widened. "Can you?" she asked sharply.

"I can," she said, simply, and steps around behind the other woman. It's a slightly different model than her own, but she found the catch and reached in to disable it easily enough, then unhooked it and let Sharia remove it. She stared at it in her hand.

"I really thought this was a death sentence," she said. "I thought I'd been foolish enough to go unprotected, and I had a slow death waiting me. It still might happen, I suppose."

Mara inclined her head. "It still might." She turned to Luke. "You think Boba Fett survived?"

Luke looked worried. "He should be good, all that armor."

She grimaced. "That might be a problem. He — well, he'd have quite a report to carry out, if he leaves," she said, glancing at Sharia and Rutan.

"He will be a problem," Sharia said. "You can bet on it."

"And he's not the only one," Rutan added. [/Tense] "There's half-a-dozen big players that come to Jabba's on the regular. The next big crime boss that comes along seeking a meeting, they'll step into the gap if we don't keep up operations. We need to be able to negotiate from a position of strength."

"Killed one boss just to take his place, did you?" Sharia said, scornfully.

"No. But — I may not have been able to save Dessa. So I'll just have to let her memory guide me. She would've told me to worry about the people of Tatooine. With all Jabba's resources, we may just be able to kick the Hutts of Tatooine. For good, maybe."

"You don't dream small, do you?" Sharia asked, but there was a spark of approval in her eyes. "Fine. Let's talk how we do that." Her gaze shifted to Mara. "Right after you come with me to free the other girls. No more slave collars, that's first."

"Right," Luke says. "You take care of that, and Rutan — can you round up some guys to help me get Fett down into the dungeons? I'll feel better the less likely he is to emerge from under the rubble at any moment."

They stayed at the complex for some days, with Mara only briefly leaving to let Obi-Wan and the Lars know what was happening and fetch her old clothes. It was a huge relief to be walking around in her normal, sensible outfit again. She knew that she had it easier than the other women, having chosen to don the costume to go undercover. Uncomfortable as it was, it was at least her choice, on some dimension.

Obi-Wan seemed curiously patient when she breezed through with nothing but the barest outline. Usually he asked for a thorough debriefing immediately on any assignments they went on, but this time he merely smiled and thanked her for the news before she breezed on out again.

They were all on edge. Luke and Mara wanted to stay around until the first challenge came. They all knew it would, sooner or later — Jabba's death was too big of a treat to be dismissed. Add that to the news that none of the other big players in the underworld had been involved, or had come in after? That it was done by some of his own flunkies? Everyone would be swarming.

They thought they were prepared. Rutan had done an excellent job of rising to leadership in the guard, even over some older brutes, and Sharia had a kind of mythic respect to her now. Huttkiller, she was. And she knew how to wield an image. Moreover, she had a wicked mind for setting up plans and defensive strategies.

Luke and Mara had let them know that they wouldn't be here long almost immediately. It had been an argument, until Boba Fett had woken up, caught sight of Luke, and hissed Jedi and tried to lunge out of his bonds.

Sharia, Rutan, and everybody else present put it all together pretty quickly after that.

It helped, strangely. They didn't expect mythic Jedi to stick around for the long-term, and they were all aware it'd be worse for everyone if they did, if word got around to the Empire. Even in the wreckage of Jabba's organization, so far nobody had been desperate enough to turn the catalysts for their new freedom into a bit of fancy news, but they needed to be gone well before anybody did.

Still, they couldn't leave the new establishment to face the first challenge alone. They hoped not to jump in, but as a last resort, it was better than everybody being returned to slavery.

They were in the audience, when a local smuggler boss came swaggering in, all cocky demands and blasters prominently displayed. They got to keep watching while one of them tried to lay a hand on Sharia and was absolutely dog-piled by everyone around. A fight broke out, but the group was outnumbered, and after some of the weaponry in the armory was looted, fairly heavily outgunned.

Luke and Mara bid their farewells soon after.

"Come back, if you can. You seem like good allies to have," Sharia told them. "We'll be here, holding down the fort."

"It's quite a fort to hold down," Luke said. "But you seem to have good help."

"Growing slowly," Sharia said. She looked at Mara. "I've almost forgiven you for being right, by the way. I guess you named the right names after all."

Luke looked at her curiously, but Mara ignored him for now. "I understood why you gave the advice. I'm sorry I didn't tell you the truth."

Owen and Beru both came out to Obi-Wan's little hut for the Knighting ceremony. It' was practically the first time Owen's set foot inside, and he's far from at ease. Obi-Wan ignored it politely. He did look practically proud to bursting at Luke's new honor, and that was far more than Obi-Wan would've expected, once upon a time.

He spent a moment, while Luke and Leia were preparing, thinking of the Temple. They would be preparing in the privacy of their own quarters, not the single living room, and then they'd walk, maybe through the Room of a Thousand Fountains for extra tranquility, and by pure coincidence, every Jedi they'd grown up with would be somewhere along the route to congratulate them subtly. They'd ride all the way up to the Council Chambers, and he'd be waiting for them, with the rest of the council…

He wished more than anything they could experience that. Maybe more for his own sake than theirs — they would never know what it was. They had no Jedi friends to wish them welcome, no Council to offer their support. Only him, a sad stand-in for an entire culture.

But perhaps more meaningful than the day he dreamed of for them was Owen and Beru's proud presence. Beru was openly sniffling from her spot at the table, and Owen was watching the pair with a slight, but obvious, smile. They never would have been present, in the Temple. They never would have been there to provide support in all the ways he'd failed.

Everything was as it was, he reminded himself. No more, no less. And in the here and now his Padawans had proven themselves beyond all doubt, had passed through all the Trials in their own unique ways, and were ready to step forward into the galaxy. He smiled at them, and stood, ready to perform the rituals of the Knighting.

The stars above gleamed, countless and forever, shot through with half a dozen moons. It was the moons Mara was looking at. She could name them offhand, even the ones that were little brighter than pale dots, from years and years of living here, watching the cycles at night when she couldn't sleep, when Luke was over and they were talking all night, when she wanted to think about her place in the universe. She knew them as only a resident of a planet ever would bother to. They'd watched over her all the life she cared to remember.

She heard movement behind her, and then Obi-Wan sat down, groaning softly as he did. "Oh, I'm getting too old for this climb," he said,

"You? Never."

He stroked his beard. "Ah. What would you call this soreness in my bones, then?"

"Overexcitement," she said. "From a long week." She leaned back on her hands to look up more fully.

"Ah, well, that does make a certain amount of sense as well. It certainly has been a week. Moreso for you than for me."

"Maybe." She paused, closing her eyes and shivering slightly at the chill in the air. "It feels weird."

"Transitions often do," he said. "What, in particular, if I may ask?"

"I was thinking about this sky." She gestured vaguely. "How familiar it's been, for so long. I barely remember another. But I'll see them soon enough, I suppose."

She could feel his eyes on her, measuring. The wind rushed by, picking up her hair. There was a little tuft, hidden behind her ear, where she'd braided the proper Padawan braid just to cut it off. Wearing it loose out here was just asking for a scalp full of sand, but that was hardly anything new at this point.

"I mean," she continued, "That's the plan, isn't it? Now that we're full Jedi, we go out and make the universe a better place? Hold our candle against the darkness, and see how bright it shines?"

"Only if you feel ready," Obi-Wan said, gravely. "There's still plenty to do here, if you'd rather."

"No. No, of course I'm going. Don't worry, I never thought of anything else. It's just strange."

"Yes," he said. "I feel rather the same way. Once upon a time, I thought I'd never leave this planet again, and yet the day arrived for it all the same."

She glanced at him, sidelong, and saw him looking up at the skies, a complicated look on his face. Anxiety, she thought, as well as a longing.

"Anywhere in particular you're looking forward to seeing again?"

He looked a moment longer, than shook his head, looking down to meet her gaze. "No. The places I loved are lost, or closed to me. I'm not foolish enough to think that even if I can someday return to Coruscant, or any other place I frequented, it'll look anything like my memory. I suspect your memories would guide you better than mine, there." He shook his head, sighing, and turned it into a dry laugh. "Still, I look forward to seeing greenery again. I'm not sure you know what green is, Mara, not truly."

"It'll be good to discover. I can't wait to see how much there is to learn out there."

He smiled at her, and reached out a hand to rest on her shoulder. "I'm proud of you, Mara. Whatever you do next, I'm proud of you."

She smiled, letting the warmth of the words wash over her. "Thank you, Master. It means the world to hear you say that."

His smile grew, and they both turned back to the stars. There were still so many, they were still the only stars she knew, but Mara felt less lost looking out at them now. In some ways, this sky would always be home. She'd had fifteen years growing and learning here, on this miserable little dust cloud of a planet that held all her favorite people. She'd bring some of those people away, and they'd go to make a better galaxy for the ones who stayed behind — her and Luke and Obi-Wan and the entire Rebellion of allies still waiting for her to meet them.

She could see the path laid out in front of her, and she couldn't wait to walk it.