A/N: I have arachnophobia and so this fic came to me as a result. You're welcome.

Luke's heart soared and his feet bounced as he walked to his and Mara's apartments. His and Mara's. Still such a wonderful thing to think about. He was living with Mara Jade—Mara Jade Skywalker. They would share the rest of their lives together. He nudged the door of their apartment on Yavin 4 and his heart dropped.

The place was a disaster. Dishes lay on the floor. Cabinets swung open. Cushions and blankets were strewn over the floor and chairs, and one of the couches, the kitchen table, and several chairs were tipped over. The 'netscreen lay on the floor and blaster fire pockmarked the walls and floor.

Luke grabbed his lightsaber off of his belt and ignited it. "Mara!" he called.

A shriek and a thump echoed from the bedroom.

Luke bolted into the room. Mara's hold-out blaster lay against the wall. All the machinery that had been on his workbench had been swept onto the floor. Mara stood in the middle of the bed which had all the covers swept off of it. There was no one else in the room, just the light breeze blowing in jungle scents through the open window.

No enemy in sight. What in the galaxy was wrong?

Luke froze. "Mara? What's wrong?"

"It's an infestation!" Mara cried.

"What's an infestation?" Luke scanned the room with the Force. He couldn't sense any other sentient presence and there was no danger sense prickling between his shoulder blades or in the back of his mind. Maybe there was some enemy in the room that couldn't be sensed with the Force.

"They're everywhere!" Mara cried. "How can you live like this?"

"Like what?" Luke asked. He glanced around him, but he still didn't see anyone moving. Was she all right? Maybe she was trapped in a violent Force vision or something?

Mara didn't answer him. Instead, her gaze flitting around the room, catching on her hold-out blaster and the piled blankets, she cautiously climbed down off the bed. All of her muscles were tense. She let out a shaky sigh. "Maybe they've gone."

"Who's gone?" Luke deactivated his lightsaber and clipped it to his belt, then gripped Mara's shoulders. "What's wrong? Has someone attacked you?"

For some reason, Mara flushed. Embarrassment mingled with anxiety leaked from her side of the bond. "It's nothing."

Something small skittered across the floor. She screamed and jumped up, wrapping her arms around his neck. Luke automatically caught her in his arms. The creature skittered away underneath his workbench, a harmless uervenath spider. He frowned. An outlandish idea came to him. It was outrageous. Mara would probably slap him for suggesting it. She wasn't afraid of anything. "Are you afraid of that spider?"

"Spiders!" Mara corrected. Her arms tightened around his neck. "At least ten! They came in through the window!"

Luke still wasn't understanding her reaction. Maybe there was something he was missing. "And you're afraid of them?"

"Yes, spiders are incredibly deadly, of course I'm afraid of them. Why aren't you?" Mara demanded.

"Not all spiders are deadly, Mara," Luke said. Though he wasn't in a great hurry to alleviate her fears if it meant she'd stay in his arms like this.

"What are you talking about?" A spider skittered across the floor on the other side of the bed. Mara shifted in his arms as if she wanted to push herself even higher. "Of course they are. Vader told me so himself."

Luke's brows drew together. He swallowed and glanced around the room. He fought back the automatic emotions of fear, hope, grief, joy, and rending loss that always arose at his father's name. His utter confusion swamped him. This situation still didn't make sense. "My father told you all spiders are deadly?"

Mara nodded. "He said that a single drop of poison can send you into rigid death syndrome, and if they brushed against your skin, their poison would enter your body. They can even spit poison from a thousand paces."

Sudden clarity dawned on him. "Mara, that's only for Tatooine dart spiders, and most of that's a myth. Their poison can only enter you through bites, and they can't spit poison because they don't have lips." Most Tatooine children believed the myth but found out that it wasn't true as they got older. Tatooine dart spiders were dangerous, but only if they bit you. Surely his father must have known that their danger was greatly exaggerated and only applied to one species. Many called him a military genius, after all. "My father purposefully scared you away from spiders. He lied to you about them."

"No, he wasn't." Mara shook her head. "He wasn't lying. He was very honest." Too honest, if you ask Palpatine, bled over their bond.

Luke frowned. Honesty was not a trait he'd expect from a Sith lord, though, when he thought about it, Vader really hadn't lied to him, except when he was obviously lying to himself as well. An affinity for honesty wasn't something he'd thought he'd shared with his father. "You're sure?"

A smile quirked Mara's lips. "Pretty sure." She pushed a brief memory to him of a looming Darth Vader scrambling away from a spider so fast he tripped on his cloak and fell flat on his back.

Luke struggled not to laugh at the picture. His father had been afraid of spiders. Someone must have neglected to share the information that only the distinctive Tatooine dart spiders needed to be avoided and given him a lifelong phobia as a result. Leia would die when he told her. "So you absorbed my father's phobia of spiders." His mouth curled up.

Mara's smile widened. "Well, I was five at the most, and if Darth Vader was scared of something, how could it not be something worth fearing?"

Luke gave into the laugh and planted a kiss on her lips. "It's completely understandable," he murmured.

Mara sank into the kiss, then pulled back. "Kill the spiders for me?" she murmured, raising an eyebrow and grinning at him.

"Of course," Luke said. "Anything for you, my darling." He kissed her again.

She moved her arms to his shoulders and leaned into him.

The moment became considerably less romantic when a prickle crawled up Luke's leg. He gave an unceremonious scream and flung the spider halfway across the room with the Force. He shuddered and stared at the hideous creature. All this talk of Tatooine dart spiders was getting to him. "Eviction," he muttered. "Right."

It was rather difficult to track down and evict or crush every unwanted guest in their rooms, especially since Mara refused to set her feet on the ground until they were all gone, but Luke managed with a ridiculous amount of patience and copious exercising of the Force to fling, move, and crush the spiders. Finally, he ejected the last visitor and blocked off the window from any more intruders. He breathed a sigh of relief and wilted, his muscles actually aching.

"All spiders are dead, my dear."

Mara climbed out of his arms and planted a kiss on his lips. "My hero," she murmured, and kissed him again.

A/N: Ick. Creepy little things. All spider species are my own, not that I want to own any spiders. My kitty betrayed me today and was more interested in exploring than killing my enemy.

Luke is always willing to come to Mara's rescue, even if it's for tiny eight-legged demons that scare even Darth Vader.