In Eyes Made Far Wiser by Time

Luke was pouting again, a signal that he was furious with his father. As Luke generally hero worshiped the man, this meant that he was mad about two things, and there were only two things the fifteen year old was ever mad about.

"Look," explained his father, who was busily organizing the room the way he preferred it, "I know you don't like Coruscant, but it's practically the center of the universe. There are times we simply have to be here."

Luke was staring out the window, his arms crossed and resting on the window pane, his head sunk to meet them. He blinked slightly sleepy eyes, watching the busy neon of the city. The activity both revolted him and fascinated him at once. He longed to be down there, and yet the idea seemed far beneath him. So torn, it confused him as to where he actually wanted to be – in the lavish apartment with his father, a noble and mature Imperial Prince, or a wild thing of the night outside, actually living.

In the distant fading glow of fluorescent lights and speeder head lights, Luke could just make out the dilapidated silhouette of the ancient Jedi Temple, which now lay in crumbling pieces. He distantly noted that his father had helped to destroy it. He shrugged. What did that matter?

Dislike was not near a strong enough word to describe Luke's feelings toward Coruscant. He hated it passionately. He got sick at the thought of coming, despised the Emperor, and could see very few valid reasons for staying at all.

Well, there was one reason…..

Luke grunted in response to his father, and Darth Vader took it as a sign to continue. "I mean, it is our home."

Luke's bent shoulders stiffened. He didn't turn around, but in a voice that he managed to make audible denied "No it's not. It's not home."

"We spend most of our time here," Vader countered.

"We spend most of our time in space. This is just a rest stop we frequent to keep His Majesty happy." He was careful to refer to Palpatine respectfully when either on Coruscant or mentioning something he disliked that somehow involved the emperor.

"Luke…" his father growled in a warning voice. Luke's incessant need to argue had only grown worse as he neared adulthood. Fifteen and soon to be sixteen, he was both eager and terrified at the prospect of having the strings that chained him to his father like a leash cut.

Vader might have admonished him, but he sensed that Luke was being more than just a moody teenager. He was deeply saddened by something. Did being on Coruscant effect him that much? Well, that was one of two things that usually did it.

The Lord of the Sith walked closer to his son, gently and uncharacteristically smoothing back a lock of his blond hair that stuck out at an odd angle. For however much the boy looked like his father had, he could always manage to make the Dark Lord think of his wife.

Deciding to bargain, he offered "I don't like it much either. Too many memories."

Luke's eyes widened and his heartbeat sped up; a golden opportunity. Turning around he asked, not bothering to hide the hope in his voice, "Why? What do you remember."

Vader realized all too late that bargaining was a mistake, and quickly turned back to his task.

"Was it the Jedi Order? Do you remember the old Republic?" Being successfully ignored only badgered the young man, so he went right in for the target. "Was it mother?"

That made Vader pause involuntarily, and Luke knew the arrow had struck. Now turning his chair entirely around, the excited line of questioning only got worse. "Was she a senator here? Did you meet her when she was still a queen?" Luke had been offered little about his mother; she'd defied the Empire, and that was an unforgivable crime. She'd also been a queen somewhere. And that was the extent of his knowledge. "Was she just a citizen on Coruscant?" When none of his questions were answered, Luke resorted to begging. "Please, Father."

The displeasure Luke keenly felt through the Force made him aware that it wasn't going to work. Angered again, he turned back to the window, making it very clear to his father that he would remained shunned until he was given some harmless kernel of something. He didn't care if all he got was her blood type, it was still hers, and therefore something special.

Still trying to end the distance between them, Vader sighed, and gave just a little ground. "She was…." Luke perked up visibly, "….very beautiful."

That was all. Not quite a precise detail, nor what he'd been looking for, but the young Imperial Prince would take it. Deciding that a little boldness would do no harm, he asked "When did you meet her?"

"Not right now, Luke." That clearly meant that questions were to be done, but the Sith Apprentice wasn't giving up.

"How old were you?"

"I said enough."

Luke gave in, trying to imagine what his mother looked like. Very beautiful described a lot of women. Rising, the boy stretched, yawning. "I think I'm going to go to bed."

His father nodded. "That's fine."

There was a pause where Luke simply refused to leave the room. "What color was her hair?"

"Go to bed!"

…

"And, in conclusion, I-"

"Lord Skywalker? At a meeting of the Galactic Senate? Don't you think that's a bit too intelligent for you?"

Luke didn't turn around, absorbed in watching the senator from Mon Calamari. At great length, he finally said "Hello, Mara," but it came out a husky whisper she barely heard. However, she accepted it as the only greeting she'd get, and, shrugging, pulled a chair over.

"What are you looking at?" she asked, leaning an elbow against the counter rail.

"The Senate is debating a course of action against the spice smugglers that are running rampant across the galaxy."

Mara replied with a simple, "Oh," which meant she found the subject boring.

As though he could some how make it more interesting in this way, Luke offered, "Father says that when the Senate debates something, nothing ever gets done. That's why Emperor Palpatine is in control, to make sure things are handled justly and fairly."

Mention of the emperor, whom Mara followed devotedly, did spark her interest, but only briefly. "Yes, he does a good job of that."

Just to gauge a reaction and get a rise from the teenage girl, he added "And then, eventually, that will be my father's job. And then my job."

Mara stiffened at that. "Emperor Palpatine's not going anywhere."

"No one lives forever, Mara. I'm not saying I'm eager, or anything, I'm just saying it's going to happen." Carefully, he continued, "And when that happens, you'll be father's Hand. I guess that means you'll be my Hand someday, too." Grinning, he leaned back in the chair, his interest in what the senators had to say momentarily forgotten as the senator from Dantooine stepped up. "That means you'll have to do what I tell you to."

She shot him a hot glare, which only made him grin more. "Don't even go there, Skywalker. I'd just as soon kiss a Jawa."

He wrinkled his nose at that, but his smile didn't fade. "Anyway," he continued, flicking an imaginary piece of dust from his sleeve as he changed the subject, "I thought you didn't like going to meetings of the Senate?"

"Neither do you," she pointed out, and young Lord Skywalker shrugged.

"I don't have anything else to do today, and I made it clear to father that I wasn't going to follow him around until he told me something about mother. Besides, I think they ought to do something about the spice smugglers."

Mara ignored the last part, as it still didn't interest her, and dove straight in for the main point of the sentence. "Why do you care so much? It's not like you ever met, or ever will."

Luke bristled visibly, and Mara slightly regretted having said that. His mother meant a lot to Luke, and maybe she should be more considerate of that. "Maybe you should try thinking before you just open your mouth, Mara. I know you don't care about your heredity, but my mother means something to me."

She gave in, lowering her emerald eyes. "Sorry."

"Yeah," he allowed, still fuming, and turned back to the meeting. He politely applauded as the senator took her seat again, though he'd entirely missed what she'd said. Next up was….ah, it would be Senator Bail Organa, of Alderaan. He'd met him once or twice. His father tried not to talk with him too much, but Luke had found the man to be a good conversationalist, with very interesting ideas. His daughter didn't seem so promising, but he had found out she was very good at oratory. Maybe there was something to look foreword to in her, it just needed being brought out.

"Can we go yet?" she whined, and Luke waved her off. Senator Organa's speeches were generally treasure's not to be missed.

Luke, let's go already!

The stiff wave of annoyance he sent her through the Force managed to get her to ebb off, but she still sat, glaring at him and pouting.

"My fellow senators, I believe that…."

…

When Senator Organa's fiery speech ended, so did the meeting of the senate. Greeted with enthusiastic cheers, Luke was so bold as to give a standing ovation. Mara merely said the boy looked like a fool.

He finally gave in to her angry requests to leave, and talked with her on his way out the doors. Trying to explain to her why the spice smuggler's had made him briefly interested in the senate, he was interrupted when he caught sight of Senator Organa again.

"Oh, look, let's go talk to him!"

"No, Luke, come on," Mara pleaded, grabbing his arm. For a moment, it seemed as Luke would not be stopped, but he did give in, slightly disappointed.

"Yeah, you're right, he's talking to someone else."

"Who is she?" Mara asked, glancing curiously at the brown haired teenager who had come bounding up to the senator excitedly.

"Umm…It looks like Princess Leia Organa," he offered, hooking arms with the red head.

"Ugh, not terribly pretty, is she?"

"Mara!"

"What? I'm just saying what we're both thinking."

Actually, Luke had to admit that he had been thinking along the same lines. Princess Organa was not terribly pretty. Personality wise, of course, he wasn't sure. But he highly doubted she'd ever be stunning.

"Did you hear what I said?"

"Hm?" Luke turned his attention back to the girl his arm was linked to, who really was stunning.

"I said," she huffed, shoving a lock of unruly red hair behind her ear – a motion which momentarily distracted Luke again (he'd been feeling so odd around Mara lately) – "Have you seen the new work on your father's Star Destroyer yet?"

Luke blinked, slightly surprised any work was being done on it at all. With the Death Star requiring so much construction, ninety percent of all the work force was busy there. "No, not yet." Eagerly, he asked, "What have the added."

"Not much," she shrugged. "They're still working on the control paneling."

"Still? That's what they were working on last time!"

"They had an electronic difficulty. They practically had to take the whole thing apart and rebuild it to find what was the matter with it."

"Well, what was the matter with it." She merely shrugged again, and Luke was annoyingly reminded that the Emperor's Hand did not share his love of electronics in the same passionate way he and his father did. Still, there was very few similarities between Mara and his father at all. And he was sometimes very grateful for that.

Mara occasionally made a better listening ear than his father. Especially when the problem was his father, like now. And as she lead him nonchalantly and easy down to the ship yards, Luke couldn't help but smile, and paused her for a moment.

"You're really the best friend I have. Do you know that?"

She'd been so surprised, she could only stare at him for a moment, before she blushed and mumbled that they'd better get going.

The End