The Emerald Price Chapter 16

By Ash Darklighter

Disclaimer:- The characters and situations used in this story are the property of George Lucas and Lucasfilm Ltd. I am only using them for some entertainment and will not even make one Republican credit from this endeavour. This is set around eight to ten years after Luke and Mara met each other for the first time. This one is for all the girls on the AA list and of course for Mona – what would I do without you?

Manarai Medical Centre, Coruscant

"Where the hell have you been?" Luke's voice was soft but filled with the kind of deep rooted anger that flayed skin from bones.

Lando nervously flashed the Jedi a conciliatory grin. "Hey, hey, buddy. I'm here now. You're looking… well."

"I told you to be here when Mara arrived on Coruscant." The words left the Jedi's mouth with all the intensity of a proton torpedo.

Lando definitely knew something was wrong and felt a trickle of sweat run down the back of his neck. So he'd been a little late but the Jedi couldn't know how business tied you up. Mara would understand – she was a born businesswoman. He glanced edgily at the Jedi. Luke was keeping his temper in check but Lando could tell it was an effort for him to do so. Memories of Darth Vader at the height of his powers flashed through his mind and Luke was related to the guy. "Where is the lovely Jade?" He stared around the polished marble entrance hall suddenly feeling that his own tone was false.

"This is the Manarai Medical Centre – where do you think she is?"

"Mara's a patient… here?"

"Didn't Karrde inform you that Mara had been hurt?"

The gambler shrugged. "He didn't say anything definite."

"So he did say something," Luke concluded grimly. "He told you Mara was ill and you ignored him."

"He passed on your… message," Lando sneered. "I don't respond to that sort of message."

Luke's face was impassive. He sensed Lando responding instantly to his words. "And I thought that you did. You should have reacted to that message. I asked you to be there. This wasn't a whim."

Lando stared down at his new crimson cape trimmed with gold. He'd thought it looked smart against his blue tunic but now it was wasted and he felt overdressed. He would not be able to be seen with Mara in suitable surroundings; he wouldn't be viewed by billions of beings over the holonet looking his best. He'd planned on dropping little hints that he'd successfully taken over the Klaz Kasino chain into the receptive cams of the holojournalists. Mara would have been impressed… Maybe. Somehow he didn't think that Luke Skywalker would be as impressed. "I must see her…"

"Visits to Mara have been restricted."

"Restricted! Why?"

Luke's stare never left the other man for an instant and proved to be quite unnerving. "In view of the severity of her condition."

"What condition?" Lando felt something twist in his stomach. "Severity?" His voice rose in apprehension. When Karrde had issued his threat purporting to come from Skywalker he hadn't really believed it was genuine. Now he wasn't so sure.

Luke was sitting, one leg lying across his knee, dressed in his usual Jedi blacks. He uncrossed his polished booted feet and stood up slowly, power radiating from his compact frame. "Let me spell it out to you in simple words that you might understand."

"Now wait a minute," Lando bristled. Luke had no right to talk to him like this.

"No!" Luke bit out, the quiet fury in his voice more unnerving than if he had shouted. "You wait and you listen. Mara nearly died out there and…"

"Died?" Lando swallowed. The guilt that he'd successfully banished from his system in the arms of Vari Klaz bubbled up once more. "She was more than just hurt?"

"Died," Luke confirmed resentfully. "We shipped her home in a stasis chamber otherwise she wouldn't have made it past Mid Rim. You should have been on that trip with her. Karrde told me."

"She didn't want me with her," Lando spluttered.

"She didn't?" Luke frowned. Karrde hadn't told him that piece of news.

"It's all for the best. She's all better…" Lando let his voice peter out as Luke's gaze grew even colder if that was possible.

"I expected you back here a week ago."

"I reckoned there wasn't any real emergency." The former administrator of Cloud City knew he'd said the wrong thing again as Luke's expression grew even more forbidding.

"Well, you 'reckoned' wrong, Calrissian. It's a miracle she survived and she's not out of the canyon yet. She spent three days in a bacta tank and then another two under sedation. They're still waiting for her to wake up properly."

Lando recovered his equilibrium to strike back spitefully. "Ah, but the great Jedi Master Skywalker rushed to save her in his shiny X-wing - the hero of the galaxy."

"Someone had to since you'd let her go off on a trip alone."

"She's a big girl. Imperial assassins often worked alone."

"She shouldn't have been on this trip alone and you know it. Han and I used the Falcon, not my X-wing, and we nearly did fail to bring her back alive."

"You - fail!" Lando hooted with derisive laughter. "I don't believe it."

"Believe it. Mara got into trouble out on the rim and got picked up by a bunch of slavers. It was sheer luck and the Force that led Han and me to the right place at the right time. She could have been sold and across the galaxy by now."

"You rescued the fair maiden and now she's alive to tell the tale," Lando retorted airily, although inside he felt worse. 'Slavers!'He was quite aware what could happen to a lone woman if she got caught by such beings.

"This is Mara we're speaking about. The woman you're in love with – one of the most capable and deadly fighters I know. As you said yourself, she was an Imperial assassin. She's not some harmless, inept aristocrat." Luke's voice was hard. "She was in trouble and you were dealing with meaningless business issues and romancing other women…" It was a complete spur of the moment comment by Luke but as soon as he'd said it, Luke knew that it was the truth. Lando had been seeing someone else – he couldn't help himself if a beautiful woman was nearby. His natural instinct was to charm and flirt. A tide of white hot rage threatened to swamp him but he clenched his fists tightly, forcing it down. "While Mara was being captured, beaten and drugged you were..."

"Now… I never said that I loved Jade. She doesn't love me either."

"But you're together – you're in a relationship." Luke didn't really understand how people could be together and yet not be committed to one another. To him, commitment meant something – loyalty and faithfulness. Luke knew that for him his heart had to be involved.

Lando's voice was snide. "You've not had many successes with women, have you Luke? Being in a relationship doesn't necessarily mean that you're in love. Sometimes it's based on something else. Sex, for example… or a business deal or perhaps even money. Love is the rarest of all the commodities. It can be far too costly. I currently don't have time for it and neither does Jade."

He groaned inwardly. He liked being the man accompanying Mara Jade but not at the expense of having Luke angry at him and the Jedi was more than angry – he was furious. Luke looked ready to carve out a sculpture using Lando's internal organs for clay.

Karrde's cover story had been more convincing than he'd thought. But why hadn't Mara told Luke that it was all a sham? The Jedi was the one person he thought she might have let into the secret.

"It's wrong."

"That's my affair," Lando snapped.

Luke gave him a long stare filled with ice and then turned swiftly on his booted heel, marching down the corridor towards the turbo lifts, his black cloak lightly skimming the gleaming patterned floor.

Lando gazed around him. The pretty receptionist had returned to the front desk but was studiously ignoring him. He felt a fool and had no choice but to follow the Jedi Master.

"Luke… I didn't know," he tried to start in apology. He didn't like being at odds with people like Luke.

"Still looking out for number one, eh, Lando?" Luke asked cynically. "Well, it's time to start being there for Mara. You are the man she's seeing; you are the man who should have been there for her. You owe it to her to be the one who's there for her now. She's got a long recovery ahead. She won't want to know that it was me that went for her and saw her in such a weak position."

"That rankles, does it, Luke?" Lando gibed as Luke ignored his half-hearted apology.

"It doesn't matter what I think," Luke ground out from between closed lips. "Mara's recovery matters."

The Jedi shot him a glare and Lando felt as if he was being regarded as something loathsome that had crawled up from underneath a stone. He didn't like that feeling. The way Luke was reacting about this didn't make sense but he would work it out later. He had to make sure that the Jedi didn't run him through with his lightsaber.

"You'd better be there for Jade…"

"Or what?" Lando muttered as he sauntered into the turbo lift.

"You'll wish you'd never made that last deal." The words emerged flatly as if there was no feeling behind them but Luke meant every syllable and Lando knew it.

The ride up to the three hundred and fiftieth level was made in complete and utter stony silence. "Infectious diseases level," intoned the bland female computer voice.

"This way, said Luke and ushered Lando from the lift.

"What!" Lando came to a sudden halt. "I'm not going near her if…"

"Infectious diseases," Luke said, his hand running over the hilt of his lightsaber. "Don't worry, Calrissian, she's not infectious any longer. You're not at risk from her. You wouldn't be allowed near her otherwise. I'm sure you've had all your shots...for everything."

"But…"

Luke's shoulders stiffened imperceptibly. "Start thinking of someone other than yourself. Mara needs your focused attention."

"That's not fair."

"Neither's life. Get over it," Luke snapped and gave Lando's crimson clad shoulder a push into the visitor's lounge.

Talon Karrde sat, looking slightly out of place, in a large flowered armchair. "Ah, Calrissian," he murmured as he stood up.

"Karrde!" Lando squeezed out from between set lips. He gave Luke a sideways glance which the Jedi ignored. "Mara's infectious? With what?"

"I'm going to see Mara, Talon," Luke murmured quietly.

"Of course." Karrde smiled. "The doctor says she opened her eyes for the first time last night."

"I know," Luke said. "I felt her energy return. She's still very weak and it will take time but finally we have some good news."

"She'll have the best care. I can promise you that."

Luke smiled properly for the first time that morning. "I know. I'll only be moment and then I'll leave her to you two. You can explain everything else to Lando." The unspoken 'I don't know if I can do so without resorting to violence,' was felt both by the smuggler chief and the former gambler.

"Thanks, Luke, for everything you've done for Mara." Karrde shook the Jedi's hand warmly.

"She would do the same for me," Luke said quietly. "No thanks are needed. He nodded at Lando, his anger appearing to have cooled to a chilly civility and left the lounge.

"What's wrong with him?" Lando asked. "I thought he was going to attack me."

"Hardly," Karrde said scornfully. "Luke would never attack - he retaliates. Vader's legacy is a heavy one for Luke to carry. He does not show his anger often and only if he knows that he can control it."

"I've never seen Luke like that before. I wouldn't like to see him if he wasn't controlling it."

"Neither would I. Lucky for us he's usually in control." A strange expression flitted across Karrde's face, his pale blue eyes narrowing. "How is Vari Klaz?"

Lando's handsome face almost blanched. His mouth dropped open. "What!"

"I know Vari of old and I know you. I'm surprised she said yes to selling and I'm surprised it hasn't hit the holonet yet."

"She wanted freedom to travel and not be tied down to her business. She's still young and now she's ridiculously wealthy."

"She was ridiculously wealthy before."

"And her husband was still alive."

"That wouldn't have stopped Vari."

"No, probably not."

Karrde suppressed a sardonic smirk. Lando had just answered all his unasked questions. He'd bedded Vari Klaz. Karrde remembered Vari once coming on to him with all the finesse of a rutting bantha and he couldn't say that he hadn't been tempted. But she was a married woman back then, not a wealthy widow as she was now and he still didn't mix business with pleasure.

"Did you tell Luke I was with another woman?" Lando asked.

"No."

"He accused me of that."

"He was probably guessing but he's right. You should have been with her and instead you were bedding Vari. We almost lost Mara this time. I don't know what that would have done to Skywalker if we had. Most of the blame must fall on me – I was the one who wanted to find Car'das - but you must take your share."

Lando wanted to argue but kept his mouth shut. Why was Karrde so concerned about the Jedi?

"You have another problem, Calrissian. If this gets out it won't look too good for you either. There have already been rumblings in the press about the sudden disappearance of you both. If it comes out that Mara's gravely ill in the Manarai medicentre and you've been buying casinos on Systra and romancing the owner…" Karrde left his sentence hanging.

Lando's mouth went dry. "It hasn't got out, has it?"

"No. The best thing about the Manarai, as well as its medical expertise, is its security. I'm preparing a small bulletin for the press to say that Mara contracted a mild version of the Leptas virus while on a trading run to the Outer Rim. You were away on business at the time but have returned to be by her side."

"Clever," Lando muttered.

"When she has recovered, you and she will find some way to end this arrangement. I wish I'd never thought of it in the first place."

"So do I."

The room was lit sparsely; the girl still lay motionless in the bed surrounded by the medical equipment. Luke sank down in the chair he'd occupied the precious evening. Mara's emerald eyes opened slowly and focused on the figure by her side. Luke could feel her searching through the Force and latching on to his presence almost hungrily.

"Hey," he said gently, a smile colouring his voice.

"Luke?" Her voice was so soft.

"I heard you'd been in a spot of trouble."

"I had?"

"Karrde told me."

"Karrde?"

"Said you'd caught some sort of nasty bug. Makes a change from me catching it."

Mara tried to laugh. He was the one that was usually in the medicentre. She knew that's where she was but couldn't remember how or why. She would think about it later but for now she was too tired.

"Don't," Luke whispered with understanding. "You can try working it all out when you're strong again. Concentrate on getting better."

Mara's hand fumbled over the bedclothes and caught Luke's. He stared in shock as her slender hand fumbled for his. He gave it a gentle squeeze. "Stay?" she whispered. Her once greatest enemy was now her greatest friend and the one person she trusted above all others – the one dependable, safe thing in her tumultuous universe and she wanted him beside her.

Luke froze in shock as her fingers tightened on his with surprising strength. "Are you sure?"

Mara nodded. "Please."

"For a little while then. I don't want to tire you out. 2-1B will throw me out bodily if I do."

"Droids can't do that… nerf."

"Who you calling a nerf?"

"You… farmboy."

"I like that. I take time to come visit you and you insult me. But then again," he grinned, "some things never change."

"Getting better?"

"Yes. You are." Luke kept hold of her hot little hand and watched as her eyelashes fluttered closed. When he tried to pull his hand away, Mara moaned and again her grip tightened. "I'll stay for a little while longer, Mara. Leia's coming to get me very soon. I'm staying with her for a few days before I return to Yavin."

"Yavin," Mara echoed.

"Yeah, you know where that is. Place you like - filled with jungle and Jedi."

Mara made a face. "I'm a Jedi," she managed to say.

Luke's heart jumped in his chest. "Yes, you are and a powerful one too." He waited as her eyes closed once again. Even talking to him for such a short time was tiring for her but she would recover now. He gave a surreptitious glance at his wrist chrono and carefully extricated his hand from hers, thinking that she'd finally fallen asleep. She was so beautiful and now that he knew he loved her it was difficult to bear the thought that he could have lost her forever.

Mara opened her eyes properly, feeling the loss of his hand in hers and stared at the man by her side, surprising an expression of something approaching pain on his face. "What's wrong, Skywalker?"

"Nothing," he answered with a dismissive smile. "You should be sleeping."

"Slept enough," she murmured. "Bored."

Luke's eyebrows rose toward his hairline. "Bored!"

Mara managed a feeble chuckle at the expression on his face. Luke usually managed to cheer her into a better mood. Either that or send her into a far worse one. He never made her feel nothing or empty. She could be exactly who she was with Luke – there was no pretence between them. "Just lying here - bored. I want to do something."

"Concentrate on getting well. I told you. Save the infiltrating a pirate's den or beating me in a lightsaber duel for tomorrow. If you are genuinely bored… I've got some Jedi healing techniques you can practice."

Mara grinned and managed to retort, "Oh please."

"Or… I could call Cilghal to come and tutor you on those instead. She's on Coruscant at a medical conference on behalf of the Jedi."

"No… you."

"Cilghal's much better at showing you healing techniques than I will ever be," Luke reminded her calmly.

"Don't want her… want you," Mara insisted.

Luke stifled a grin. She was on the mend all right. Her stubbornness was already working overtime. "Okay, you'll get me for the next few days then I really need to return to Yavin. Now get some rest. I have to go but I'll be back to visit you. Leia or Han will be here to pick me up…" He stretched out with the Force. "It's Leia. Concentrate on your recovery and don't give the doctors a hard time."

"Who me?"

Luke hesitated but then thought, 'why not?' He bent over and dropped a chaste kiss on Mara's forehead. "I'll see you tomorrow. Take care."

Mara smiled and settled back in the bed. Lando, watching though a glass panel in the door, knew he had stumbled across something important. He quickly returned to the lounge and waited until the Jedi Master left.

"He's gone," Karrde said dryly.

"I know." Lando walked along the corridor and tapped on the door leading into Mara's room. "Hey beautiful!" he teased gently as he eased into the chair Luke had vacated. Lando stilled his face to cover his shock at seeing how pale and listless Mara looked. His guilt threatened to overwhelm him. Karrde and Luke had been right. He should have accompanied Mara.

"It's okay," Mara mumbled, intuitively picking up on his mood.

"No, it's not."

"I went on my own," she whispered. "Can't remember what happened. Karrde said you and he found me after raiding the headquarters of the people that attacked me."

"Don't try to talk." Lando's mind suddenly went blank. He was being granted hero status by Karrde and the Jedi Master? This he didn't understand and wasn't sure if he liked. What was wrong with telling Mara that Luke and Han had found her?

"But I must."

"No," Lando said. "It's over and you're safe and will be well again."

Mara wrinkled her straight little nose. "Feeling lousy."

"Your body is fighting off the virus."

"I can't believe it – felled by a microscopic bug."

"Yeah," Lando joked. "The big bugs you can cope with."

Mara chuckled but Lando could see how ill she'd been and how tired she was. "I'll be back to see you very soon," he said and watched as she slipped into sleep. Lando wondered at the strange feeling filling his heart as he remained by her side for a few more minutes. Was this what love was?

The visits of Luke, Karrde and Lando set a pattern for the next few days. The Jedi Master would arrive at the crack of dawn and just sit with a sleeping Mara until she woke up. Mara looked forward to just opening her eyes and finding his blue gaze warmly watching her.

"Hello," he would say softly and smile and Mara's heart would leap up in her chest, surprising her at how much she looked forward to him being there. He was good company. On her better days they would discuss neutral subjects and occasionally, if Luke felt brave enough, he would help her with certain healing techniques and other Force lessons which she could do without expending too much of her hard gained health.

On bad days, he would sit beside her and hold her hand, lending her his strength, his thumb rubbing gently, sending little shivers of awareness through both their bodies with neither of them thinking that the other was being affected.

After a couple of hours, Luke would rise from his seat, drop a kiss on her forehead and make ready to leave. That would be the cue for Lando and Karrde to arrive. There would be a stilted conversation between Lando and Luke and then the Jedi Master would vanish.

Lando brought extravagant bouquets of flowers and expensive gifts. He would charm her and make her laugh but it all felt a little false to Mara and she longed for the quiet times when Luke sat beside her. Karrde would talk about the business and how he'd made arrangements for the Jade's Fire. When she was well, they would go to Aaris III to collect it. Mara had winced at the name of the planet but had deliberately talked about returning for her beloved Fire. She didn't tell Karrde or Lando that she also desperately wanted her lightsaber, the one that Luke had given her. It was hidden on board her ship and she felt incomplete without it. As soon as they let her go from the medicentre she was going to return to Aaris III to collect what was hers.

Mara enjoyed their visits but she looked forward to the Jedi Master's visits the most and that surprised her. For a change, they hadn't argued and he hadn't pressured her about her training. Perhaps he realised that he didn't have to any more. As soon as she was well and had collected her ship, Mara was going to join Luke on Yavin and train to be a Jedi. It troubled her that she'd been taken down so easily and even more so that she couldn't remember what had really happened to her.

It also troubled her that something was worrying Luke. He hadn't said anything and she knew that, with his usual farmboy stubbornness, he wouldn't say anything unless she beat it out of him in a lightsaber duel. He was keeping his shields up when he was around her as if there were things he didn't want her to know about and where was his lightsaber. She'd seen him wearing it a couple of times but she could have sworn that yesterday he'd been wearing a blaster.

Luke Skywalker wearing a blaster instead of his lightsaber!

Mara also wondered if Lando was trying to get into her bed again. He was being charming to an excessive degree but it all felt a little false. She knew he felt guilty about letting her make the trip alone but she'd made up her mind before she'd left for the Outer Rim that their make-believe public romance to fool the galaxy was over.

Luke arrived at the medical centre at his usual appointed time and made his way to Mara's room. She'd been moved completely away from the intensive care area and now occupied a pleasant chamber just long the corridor from where she'd been before. Her bruises had faded and the needle marks on her arms were disappearing quickly. Her old restlessness was beginning to stir and, as with Luke, inactivity didn't settle well on her shoulders.

"Luke!" Her voice greeted him as he peered through the door.

"Mara… you're…"

"I knew it was you, Skywalker. I could feel your presence as soon as you entered the building." Mara was sitting in the chair by the bed, dressed in a dark green jumpsuit and over-tunic, her beautiful face alight with excitement and happiness. "They're finally allowing me to get up out of this blasted bed. I've been down to the gym and started building up my fitness."

"Whoa!" Luke exclaimed.

"I may even get out of here in a couple of days if I promise to 'rest and not overdo it'."

"2-1B?"

Mara nodded. "I've had plenty of lectures."

"That's wonderful." Luke held out his hands and clasped hers firmly. "He's very good at the lectures. I think Leia is the only person who could beat him." He tilted his head to one side and gazed thoughtfully at the woman in front of him. "You are looking much better."

"So I should hope. It's good to finally get out of that hospital gown and wear my own clothes." Mara hesitated and then decided to speak her mind. Luke had been to visit her every day since she'd woken up and she'd been ill but not mentally impaired. He wasn't happy about something. She'd never hidden what she thought in the past and wasn't about to let the farmboy get away with anything that might be bothering him. "Skywalker, what is it? I sense that there's a problem. You're shielding overtime. Is there something you don't want me to know?"

Luke winced. She was too sharp for him. "No, everything's fine. I just have some Jedi things to think about. Nothing you need concern yourself with."

Eyes narrowing, Mara was not convinced in the least. "Luke…" She used his first name. "Is there something wrong?"

"No, nothing and now you're getting better everything's alright."

"You're hiding things from me," Mara stated.

"Now why would I want to do that?" Luke queried mildly, a little smile on his lips.

"You tell me."

"Mara, everything's fine. There's nothing wrong…"

"I just wondered if there was anything that I could do to help," Mara whispered, feeling something between her and Luke pulse.

Blue eyes stared into green and so intent on each other were they that neither of them saw Lando and Karrde arrive early. But the smuggler chief and the former gambler turned businessman saw quite a lot.

Suddenly the reason Luke had gone to rescue Mara and had been so angry at his apparent desertion of her became clear. "Stang!" Lando swore as he turned away and returned to the lounge. He'd never thought that would happen to the solemn Jedi Master…and with Jade?

"Good idea," Karrde agreed following him.

"Karrde…"

"Don't say it. Don't even think it."

"But… do they know?"

Karrde laughed. "Of course not. They didn't even sense us coming up behind them and in there we have two of the most powerful known Force users in the galaxy. The sad thing is that they may never know. They would go to the ends of the galaxy for one another but I've never known them to spend any time in each other's company without arguing."

"Sexual tension?"

"I said 'don't even say it or think it.' Woe betide you if either of them pick that up coming from us."

Lando sank into the cushions of the sofa. He'd had no idea – none at all - and Luke would just step aside and let him be with Mara? He didn't know if he could be as generous.

The door slid aside and Karrde turned to see who had entered. He smiled to see Luke supporting Mara as she walked slowly through to join them.

"I can manage," she said, her independence reasserting itself.

Luke grinned down at her, his blue eyes shining into hers. "Maybe you can but I don't think I can manage. I'm actually leaning on you."

Mara laughed. "Yeah, right." But she was glad to sit in Karrde's favourite flowery armchair. She tapped the sides and looked at the three men. "This is the most hideous fabric I've ever seen."

"Karrde likes it," said Luke.

"He has no taste."

"I resent that, Jade," remarked her boss carelessly as he stood there with not a hair out of place, his attire faultless as ever.

"And I'm not going to ask the Jedi Master in black."

"It's cheerful," Luke said with a shrug. "One of the flowers is the same colour as the paint on the walls. And I match myself."

"Maybe you do but I still don't see you as the ideal spokesperson for the fashion and fabric industry."

"Mara is correct - it is hideous." Lando was dressed in a pale blue outfit with a matching darker blue cape.

"You go too far the other way," Mara stated, smirking as she surveyed Lando's outfit closely. He must have spent hours getting ready. No wonder she never saw him early in the morning.

Luke chuckled as Lando glared at him. It was so good to see Mara's acerbic wit returning. Now Luke knew that she was on the true road to recovery and it was time to bow out. He wanted to reach out and enfold her in the bond between them that was so strong but he daren't. Mara already knew that he was holding back with her and it wouldn't be long before she guessed why. He wanted to delay that as long as possible.

Cilghal was primed and ready to pay Mara a couple of visits to help her with her fitness. Luke wasn't needed on Yavin but he couldn't stay around Mara for much longer or she would guess he was in love with her. Once that came out he wouldn't be able to hold onto the fact that he could hear her call for him anywhere in the galaxy.

Then there was the matter of his lightsaber. Luke sighed and stared down at his boots, his heart sinking at the thought of leaving her.

"What is it, Skywalker?" Mara asked.

Luke lifted his head. She'd felt that? Yes, it was time. She was beginning to read him far too easily but then she always had. "I have to return to Yavin," he said. He was telling them all but his eyes never left Mara's.

"So soon," she whispered.

"I've been on Coruscant for nearly a month," Luke said. "I have to go and see that the Jedi on Yavin haven't all turned to the dark side and I'm left with a load of unmanageable Sith to deal with." He smiled gently at Mara. "All that dark side energy just wears me out. You have Karrde and Lando to visit you instead. You frequently slept through my most scintillating topics of conversation."

"It couldn't have been that good or I would have opened my eyes earlier."

"That's not the kind of comment that keeps me here." He sighed. "I don't want to go but I have to."

"But…" Mara protested.

Luke held up his hand. "Excuse me, gentlemen," he said to the men before addressing her quietly. "Are you okay to walk with me to the turbo lift?"

Mara lifted her chin. "Of course."

Luke flicked a quick glance at Lando who understood. "Five minutes."

The Jedi Master turned and walked slowly along the corridor, Mara by his side. "I can't put off returning to Yavin any longer, Jade. I have responsibilities – my students and staff at the academy."

"But you're hardly ever there these days."

"That's exactly why I have to go, because I haven't been there. They need and deserve my time as much as the rest of the galaxy does. Perhaps even more than the rest of the galaxy. What would you say if I asked you to do the exact same thing and come with me to Yavin to train as a Jedi? You know, quit your job – lose your independence and possibly much of your freedom?"

"I would refuse and tell you that I have other responsibilities to Karrde and to my customers. Unless I totally cleared my schedules, and for that I would need time.

Luke smiled gently at her, his hands rising to carefully clasp her shoulders. "See – you know what I have to do. You are welcome to pop in past Yavin if you happen to be around that area."

"You can count on it, farmboy." Mara still couldn't help the feeling that something was wrong with Luke. His shields had always been strong but she seemed to be reading his mood more clearly than usual. "I do want to train as a Jedi. This illness has made me reassess my priorities but I have my responsibilities too. We make a great pair," she muttered self-denigratingly.

"Mara…" He meant to say, 'I'm glad you have Lando,' but he didn't get the chance. He looked down into Mara's face and again marvelled at how beautiful she was. In the past few days her skin had recovered its creamy lustre, her red-gold hair had begun to curl back into riotous life and the light in her green eyes sparkled anew. It was time to go before he risked further heartbreak – heartbreak he was not yet equipped to handle. "Look after yourself, okay?"

"Okay," she echoed hesitantly. She watched as he took a step away from her, his hands falling from her shoulders and felt torn inside. She would examine this strange new sensation later when she was alone. "Luke…"

"Yes," he smiled at her.

"Take care of yourself, too."

"I will." He bent his fair head to kiss her cheek and when Mara lifted her head at the same time their mouths connected. The kiss was brief but for a moment they could feel each other react and a tingle of awareness shot through them. Horrified blue eyes met green and Luke stepped back and disappeared quickly into the turbo lift leaving Mara staring after him with her mouth open.

What in the name of the Force had happened there?