Author's Note: I'm admittedly a sucker for the "significant other comforts their partner after a nightmare" trope (I'm not sure if this actually has a trope name) so of course I ended up trying my hand at applying it to my favorite couple. The idea of Luke helping Mara confront and overcome her past baggage/trauma is something that really resonates with me on a personal level, so it's a theme I'm going to explore quite a bit when writing for these two. And as angsty as this little fic is, I enjoyed writing it in the sense that it was somewhat cathartic to get the idea out in the open. There's nothing explicit, but just in case, I will preface this with a mild trigger warning about very vaguely implied PTSD (hence the nightmare scenario) and references to emotional trauma. On a lighter note, there's also a tiny reference to a particular favorite scene of mine in Casino Royale if you can catch it - that was honestly probably the image that ultimately ended up inspiring this story.

In order to be canon compliant with the EU/Legends timeline, this probably makes the most sense to be set after the Hand of Thrawn Duology and Star Wars: Union, but since it doesn't reference anything specifically aside from the end of the Thrawn Trilogy, you're free to imagine it taking place whenever after the events of that series.

Anyway, thank you in advance for reading, and may the fic be with you!


The Shadow Comes Down


"If terror falls upon your bed
And sleep no longer comes
Remember all the words I said
Be still, be still, and know

And when you go through the valley
And the shadow comes down from the hill
If morning never comes to be
Be still, be still, be still..."

-The Fray, "Be Still"


He awakes to the sound of rain.

It is only when his eyes blink away the remnants of sleep and settle on the dry windowpane next to him that he realizes that the sound is not, in fact, rain at all.

A tiny sigh drifts past his lips.

Without much hesitation, he rises up into the darkness, leaving the maw of tangled bedsheets behind him. It doesn't take much probing for him to detect the waves of terror and anguish emanating from beyond the walls of the bedroom, mingling with the muffled sound of running water. He follows the trail past the door and into the hallway until his feet inevitably come to rest outside the 'fresher. The noise of drumming water is much stronger now, as is the impression of emotions roiling just beyond the reach of his Force sense.

He palms the door open and makes his way towards the shower.

He finds her huddled in the far corner, back pressed up against the tiles and knees pulled tightly against her chest. Her face is buried in her lap, so the only thing visible is a soaking mop of scarlet strands nestled against her bare-skinned legs. The top half of her body is still clothed in a loose nightshirt, but the downpour has drenched the fabric so thoroughly that it clings to her like a second skin. She is shivering violently, and it doesn't take him long to ascertain why. The water is freezing, the icy drizzle sending a chill rippling across his own skin as he reaches through the curtain of droplets to turn off the faucet.

As the echo of silence falls heavily upon the room, he grabs a towel from a nearby rack and moves to wrap it securely around her quivering form. She instinctively leans into his touch, and he uses the leverage to gently maneuver her to her feet and slowly escort her into the hallway. With both arms cradling her against him, he leads her into the bedroom, releasing her only after lowering her onto the bed. While he combs through her side of the closet in search of dry nightclothes, she sits limply at the edge of the mattress, white-knuckled hands clutching the towel around her shoulders, green eyes fixed blankly on a spot on the wall before her.

She says nothing until his hands land on another of her plain nightshirts. Either sensing his motives or having caught notice of his actions out of the corner of her eye, she shakes her head and at last lets one word slip past her trembling lips in a fractured whisper.

"No."

He doesn't catch her meaning at first, but after a moment he feels it, the raw ache of her simple yet desperate request reverberating across the reaches of their bond. Meeting her petition with silent acknowledgement, he moves his hands away from her nightshirt and pulls a tunic out from underneath a pile of his clothing instead. He offers the item to her as he approaches the bed, and she stretches her arms out to receive it, the towel falling away from her body as she does so. Still shuddering from the effects of the frigid shower, she carefully strips away her sodden nightshirt and pulls his tunic over her head, allowing the dry fabric to envelop her in much-needed warmth.

She then lifts the collar to her face and buries her nose in the cloth, closing her eyes and pausing to inhale his scent for a long moment before finally pulling away to meet his gaze.

The tortured yet grateful expression on her face speaks more than any words can hope to, and he nods once in understanding before circling to his side of the bed and crawling back beneath the covers. He then reaches for her with both body and soul, his thoughts sending out an unspoken request of his own.

Come here.

She answers immediately.

Burying herself underneath the sheets, she scoots as close to him as she possibly can, curling her body into his until there is no space left between them, their limbs so intricately entwined that neither of them can decipher where one of them ends and the other begins. His fingers thread delicately through the still sopping mess of red-gold hair, and she nuzzles her nose into his collarbone as the tension in her body and in her Force sense at last begins to dissipate into their embrace.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

She freezes in his arms then, quietly considering his question. After several moments without a response, he figures that she has - as she has on so many restless nights before this - settled on a silent "no." He suppresses another sigh and prepares to resign himself to sleep once more. But she surprises him this time by speaking suddenly, and although her voice is barely above a whisper, he can make out the words clearly enough to be startled by their unsettling revelation.

"I killed you."

The words hang in the air for a moment, the weight of them threatening to crush them both as an eerie stillness settles upon the room. He pulls away slightly to get a better look at her, but her eyes are cast downward, stubbornly fixated on his chest. Even then, he can still see a glistening trail of moisture trickling down one cheek.

"What do you mean?" he whispers.

She still refuses to look at him and instead clenches her fists in the fabric of his sleep shirt. He feels her body begin to shake, and he immediately sends out a wave of reassurance through the Force, hoping it will be enough to calm her and encourage her to go on.

"Exactly what I said," she chokes out hoarsely, her words catching on the lump in her throat. "I killed you."

The whirlwind of emotions from her end of their bond is so intense that he can sense them bleeding into his own consciousness, and he feels a sharp pang in his heart when he realizes the true magnitude of her pain. "Hey," he murmurs, lifting a hand to cup her cheek. "It was just a dream."

She shakes her head vehemently, her gaze still trained on his shirt. "It felt real," she rasps.

He curls his fingers around one of her hands and gently eases her fist open, moving it so that he can press her palm against his chest. "Do you feel that?" he asks, sweeping his thumb across her knuckles. She shivers in response to his touch, and he pauses a moment to allow her to drink in the sensation of his heartbeat thudding beneath her fingertips. "Feel that," he says firmly, enfolding her hand in his own. "That's real."

A soft whimper escapes her throat, and before she has the chance to stop it, a flood of tears begins to spill down her cheeks.

"I'm here," he continues, shifting his other arm to wrap around her waist and draw her back into him. "It was just a nightmare."

"It felt real," she repeats, her voice breaking as a small sob overtakes her.

He lifts his hand from its place atop hers and moves it to tilt her chin upwards so that he can finally look her in the eye. When her gaze meets his, another pang strikes his heart at the unfathomable agony swimming beneath the surface of her tears. "Tell me," he whispers, sending out another wordless message of silent reassurance. "Tell me what happened."

She hesitates for a moment, her green eyes roaming the contours of his face as if assessing whether or not he can stomach the details of her morbid dream. Then, at last, she opens her mouth again to speak. "It was awful," she mutters.

"I can handle it," he replies, answering her unspoken question. "Tell me."

She inhales deeply, preparing herself to release the words that she has long held captive in her mind. Then, after blinking away another surge of tears, she finally allows the story to tumble forth from her lips - the story behind the countless sleepless nights spent numbing her emotions in the 'fresher, drowning beneath the unforgiving torrent of a cold shower. "It's the same every time," she says, her voice wavering. "We go to fight C'baoth, but instead of a clone, there's just you and me."

"I see," he murmurs, understanding beginning to set in.

"He makes me fight you," she goes on, her voice cracking as the lump starts to swell once more in the back of her throat. "I don't want to at first. But then I hear him in my head, screaming at me to do it, and then I hear Palpatine's voice screaming at me to kill you, and I'm not strong enough, I can't say no, and I can't make it stop, and the screaming is so loud I just - " she breaks off, another strangled sob swallowing the rest of her words.

"It's okay," he whispers, sliding his fingers up the length of her jaw to once again nestle in her hair. "Take your time."

"I'm not strong enough," she reiterates, her body quaking as the river of tears continues to stream down her face. "No matter how hard I try, I can't fight off the voices. So I just…give in. But of course you don't want to fight me. You just keep telling me to stop, keep telling me that I don't have to listen to them and that I don't have to do this. And I know you're holding back because you don't want to hurt me, but I don't care, I just keep coming at you until I have you cornered, and you keep begging me to stop but I can't, I can't do it because I'm not strong enough to stop, and then - and then - " she trails off again, unable to complete the thought.

"And then you kill me," he finishes quietly.

She swallows thickly and nods, her hands once again fisting in his sleep shirt. "When I wake up and see you asleep next to me," she continues with a shuddering breath, "it looks so much like you just…lying there…dead…I can't stay still and I can't go back to sleep."

She averts her eyes again, her gaze refocusing on his chest as if the shame of her admission has rendered her unworthy to look him in the eye. His heart plummets at the sight of her figure collapsed hopelessly against him, the still trembling woman in his arms now a broken shell of the fierce warrior he has come to know and love. At a loss for what to say to soothe her, he simply leans forward and presses a soft kiss to her forehead, allowing his lips to linger there a moment in the hopes that the action will in some small way ease her distress.

"Sometimes I think I'll always belong to him."

He pulls back abruptly, his mouth agape in horror at her statement. "Mara."

"It's true," she declares before he can speak another word to contradict her. Her eyes finally flit back upward then, meeting his with a stare so forlorn that he can feel the despair radiating off her even before the emotion seeps into his side of their bond. "Every time I think I've gotten rid of him, every time I think I'm finally free, the nightmares just come back. It's like he's punishing me for deserting him."

"Mara, they're just nightmares," he counters imploringly. "Palpatine's been dead for years. You're not his prisoner anymore."

"Then why won't he leave me alone?!" she cries, her hands clenching so tightly against his chest now that he can feel her nails scraping against his skin through the fabric of his tunic. "How long does it have to be before he stops haunting me?"

A heavy sigh escapes his lips as he moves to unlatch her hands from their grip on his shirt. He cradles them in his own for a few moments before bringing them up to his lips to plant a tender kiss against her knuckles. "They're just nightmares," he repeats, more gently this time. "Nothing more."

"I want them to stop," she whimpers.

"I know."

"It's been so damn long already," she mutters through gritted teeth, a hint of raw fury beginning to creep into the edges of her voice. "And he still won't go away."

He releases her hands to wrap his arms around her and once again enfold her in his embrace. "You know I still dream about the day I met him," he murmurs quietly. "About how he almost killed me. And sometimes about what would have happened had I killed my father and joined him."

"I know," she sighs, her expression softening somewhat. "But at least you never actually did join him. I did. For a long time."

"That wasn't your fault," he insists, his eyes challenging her with a fierce glint of determination. "You were just a child. He took you from your parents before you were old enough to know what real choices were." He draws in a small breath before continuing. "The point is, this isn't the kind of thing that just goes away and never comes back. There's a part of it that will always live inside of you no matter how long it's been or how much you've healed. That doesn't mean you aren't free."

She lies still, once again silently considering his words as he holds her close enough to feel his pulse drumming in tandem with the beat of her own heart. "I just wish I didn't feel so trapped sometimes," she whispers finally.

He grants her a small but sympathetic smile before closing the gap between them and softly pressing his mouth to hers. "I know," he murmurs when he pulls away, his warm breath skittering across her lips. "But just because you feel that way doesn't mean it's true."

"I guess," she mumbles skeptically.

"You've come so far," he continues, lifting a hand to brush his knuckles against her cheek. "And I'm proud of you. Don't ever think that none of that matters."

It takes a few seconds for his words to settle, but after a brief pause, the corners of her mouth twitch upward slightly. "How is it that you always know exactly what to say, Farmboy?"

He lets out a tiny chuckle. "Special Jedi talent," he replies with another smile, leaning forward once again to capture her mouth in his. They both linger there, sinking into each other and drinking in the feeling of being perfectly joined together for one suspended moment in time. He can at last feel her relaxing in his grasp, her whole body sighing against his when his lips ease hers apart to take her in more fully. When the need for air finally overtakes them, he draws back and rests his forehead against hers, blue eyes twinkling with a spark of boundless affection despite the darkness surrounding them.

He doesn't need to speak the words to tell her the thought resting at the forefront of his mind.

I love you too, she relays back.

His smile widens, and he pulls her into him so that she can nestle her cheek against his chest.

It is his heartbeat that eventually dispels the last of her sorrow, and sometime later, still enveloped in his embrace, she at last falls into a deep and dreamless sleep.