A/N: This might be a shock to some, but this is my final chapter. The reason is simple; I'm all out of ideas! Mara's seen the past, the rest have seen the present, and they've had a little fun along the way. It took me a week to finally think of one idea of what they could do that can be described as conclusive. So please enjoy the final chapter.
Mara was still thinking about Allana all the way home. She always suspected Jacen knew the father. Apparently he knew the guy better than anyone else. No wonder Tenel Ka kept her away from people; the resemblance was so obvious. She laughed at the idea that her living family back home still suspects the little girl is blemished. Then, one thought struck her, that little girl's parents are both force-sensitive. Did she see anyone she wasn't supposed to?
Meanwhile, at the Hapan Castle, Tenel and Jacen were worried that someone knew about them.
"Jacen, whoever it was, they could expose Allana's paternity in tabloids or the Holonet!" Tenel paced back and forth.
"Darling, please calm down. If it shows up in the Holonet, we shall quickly dispose it as a rumor." Jacen said calmly.
"What if they manage to get proof?" Tenel said still worried.
"Then, I'll track them down. When I find him, there will be no proof." Jacen said in a way that was sort of dark. Then, Allana walked into the room.
"Mommy, Daddy, when are the funny glowing people coming back?" She asked in a cute way. Tenel and Jacen stared at each other in a weird way.
Back at the Skywalkers' place, the family sat around going about their normal business. Shmi was cooking, the Anakins were watching the Holonet, and Padme and Mara were reading magazines. Suddenly, the holophone began to ring. Padme quickly rushed to pick it up.
"Hello? Hi, Mom. Everything's fine. Yes, we've just been out and about recently. Oh, yeah, we have a new tenant. Her name is Mara Jade, she's Luke's wife. Now Mom, you know no one really likes to talk about that. Sure, we'd love to come over. Alright, we'll be there this evening. Bye." Padme hung up the phone.
"You know, I've never heard about your mom. I haven't seen her either." Mara commented. Padme got a look like she finally remembered something. She ran upstairs to get something. When she came back down, she turned on the DVD player.
"I don't remember seeing her in the movie." Mara said. Padme didn't respond. She simply pulled out the second disk in the Attack of the Clones case and placed it in. On the screen came on something different than before. She went to the deleted scenes menu, pushed play on one of the scenes, and sat down. The scene played Anakin and Padme visiting her family. She saw her mother, her father, sister, and Padme's two little nieces.
After the scene was done, she put the movie back and went to the restroom to brush her hair.
"C'mon people. Let's get ready! They're expecting us in an hour!"
They all took the bus to the Naberrie Retreats. It was a very elegant building, as far as Mara just saw, these were elegant people. They walked in to two young women, and two young men. Mara remembered the youth rule, so one of these couples was Padme's parents, and the other was her sister and brother in law. Then one of the men walked up to her.
"Welcome, you must be Mara. It's so nice to meet you." The young man said. Mara quickly tried to guess who this was, but didn't want to wait to long to respond.
"Thank you. You must be Padme's…brother in law?" She guessed.
"No, I'm her father." The young man giggled. Mara felt like she just made a fool out of herself.
"It's alright. It's easy to get mixed up. Jobal got mixed up once." Ruwee joked. Then Jobal, Sola, and Darred introduced themselves as well. They all sat down, and had a nice dinner.
"So Padme, you'll never believe what I found out." Sola said. Padme looked up at her sister.
"I was reading some old newspapers from 2BBY, and it turns out Leia and Pooja are familiar with each other." Sola said. Padme eyes grew with shock
"No! Really?!" She exclaimed.
"Indeed, it turns out they knew each other in the Senate. They just don't know they're cousins." Jobal explained. In the middle of dinner, Mara said out of the blue,
"I'm surprised no one has asked me how I got here." Mara said without any despair. The whole table got quiet.
"Well, we didn't want to trouble you, Mara." Ruwee said.
"But, if you're comfortable with it. We're all ears." Jobal said sounding interested.
"Well, in a nutshell, I was poisoned. Yes, there are a lot of out to get you when you're a Jedi." She said. Padme understood how she didn't want to break it to her folks that their great-grandson killed her.
Throughout the dinner, Mara didn't talk much. She answered a question every now and then, but remained quiet most of the time. She watched as Padme interacted with her parents. It made Mara think about her parents. She never knew them. She knew nothing about the Jade heritage.
After dinner, they family went back to their place and went to bed. Mara couldn't sleep all night. For the first time, she wondered about her real parents. The Emperor took her away when she was a baby, so her earliest memory was of him. He had told her that her family abandoned her, but she knew he was most likely lying. Where were they?
The next morning, Padme woke up to find Mara's bed empty and already made. She figured she was downstairs already. She went down to get some breakfast. As she sat down Shmi asked her,
"Padme, do you mid waking up Mara? She shouldn't sleep in if she wants a breakfast that isn't cold."
Padme froze in her seat.
"She hasn't come down already?" Padme asked. Everyone stopped in their tracks.
"No, we haven't seen her all morning." Anakin said.
"She wasn't in her bed when I got up!" Padme said worried. They each started looking around the house for her. She was nowhere to be found.
"Something bad might have happened to her." Padme said.
"Maybe Palpatine kidnapped her as revenge for the TPing incident." Anakin guessed. They all searched through the entire neighborhood. They split up and searched through each neighborhood. Padme walked for what seemed like miles before she finally saw a red-headed figure in the distance. She ran up to it, and she realized it was Mara Jade. She ran up to her.
"There you are! You gave us such a scare. We thought you had..." She stopped when she realized what Mara Jade was staring at. It was the Jade Retreats.
"You found your parents?" Padme thought Mara discovered, but Mara bowed and shook her head. She grabbed Padme's hand and led her inside.
Padme walked in to an empty lobby. Then, they passed an empty kitchen, and walked through a bunch of empty hallways with empty suites.
"I don't understand. Why aren't your parents here?" Padme asked.
"Apparently," Mara finally spoke, "They're not dead yet."
Padme realized that must be the cause. She saw a tear run down Mara's eyes. She put her hand on her shoulder.
"I thought that, maybe, I could see my parents, and I would feel like somebody's daughter." Mara said wiping away her tear. Padme hugged her tightly.
"You are somebody's daughter," Padme assured her, "I never got to meet my real daughter, but as I spent more time with you, I really saw the Skywalker in you. You are like a daughter to me." Her words really touched Mara's heart. She'd spent her entire life without a mother. Now, she never felt more at home than when she was with Padme.
"C'mon, let's go home, Mom." Mara said. Padme smiled as they walked out of the empty house.
"You know, there's one thing that bothers me, Mara."
"What's that?"
"The fact that you actually thought a descendant of mine would be ugly!"