Nicole: ::laughs:: Isn't it grand? I'm actually updating this after a fashion too... Ooooooh.... Hurrah for Deadened!Mara!!!!
InsaneJediGirl: Thank you for thinking this is a good start, I'm rather proud of this story. ::cough::ridiculously...::cough::
But, tell me. Are you SURE that Mara'll wake up?
DMS: ::glows:: Well done? Well done?? Hurray! I have been given praise!! And don't worry. As much as I love hurting characters, I love fixing them more. I just like to hurt them an awful lot. And I'm perfectly at ease with totally scrapping pairings, and mixing them up to be Han/Mara and other such things. So while I think it'll be a happy ending, you might want to start cringing. ;-)
(JUST KIDDING!!!! It'll have a happy ending, but it'll be a different happy ending then you'd expect.)
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Chapter One
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Mara sat on her hospital bed quietly. The sunlight was gentle and warm, filling the room with diluted gold. There were faint sounds coming from outside, but they all seemed very far away, and unable to touch her. She shivered and wrapped her weak arms around herself, shielding herself from something she couldn't identify.
Mara had been in the medward for thirteen days, and the 2-1B had assured her that she was healthy. That was something she doubted though. When she had seen her reflection in a mirror earlier, she had felt like crying. Her jade eyes were dazed and unfocused; her skin, usually an alabaster tone, was closer to a dirty white, and even her flame golden hair was lank and didn't reflect the light with its usual brilliancy. In short, she looked as bad as she felt.
A ghostly laugh filtered through the still air, a sound that was far more suited to the psychiatric ward then post-op room Mara was being held. Her mind was blank and utterly devoid of anything resembling a plan that would help her evade the eyes that hounded her every thought.
A female nurse walked in smoothly, studying a datapad intently. The nurse was tall, although not that tall for an Umbaran, Mara noted, easily identifying the woman's race from the way her pale skin darkened around her light yellow eyes and the seemingly-bland, shaggy cape she wore roundabout her shoulders. An eerie smile was on the other's lips, and Mara felt helpless to do anything other then smile faintly back.
"How are you doing today, Mistress Skywalker?" The smoothly modulated tones made Mara feel as if she were wrapped in warm silk.
"I'm fine," Mara whispered, wishing her voice were stronger.
"That's good." The nurse set the datapad down next to Mara on the bed and began to take her vitals. Mara tried to pay attention to what the nurse was saying, but she felt uncharacteristically mellow.
There was a gentle knock at the door and both women jerked their heads up to look at the man standing just outside the room.
"May I come in?" Luke asked, already stepping into the room, his warm blue eyes fastening onto Mara's barely awake green ones like they were a lifeline to sanity.
"Of course, Master Skywalker," the nurse gracefully inclined her head, pulling out a long needle from a case on her utility belt and preparing to draw blood from the patient.
Luke took a few steps in, but then simply hung back by the door, waiting for the nurse to be finished with the check up. The minutes ticked by softly, the pale sunlight darkening and seeming to almost smoother the room with dark golden honey. As the nurse finally began to pick up her things and leave, Luke smiled and walked forward to be by his wife's side, thrilled that she was finally alert.
Mara felt exposed when Luke finally reached her side and wrapped his warm, strong hands around one of her pale fragile ones. She swallowed weakly when the door hissed shut, and her husband leaned in to kiss her forehead.
"Oh Force Mara," Luke whispered as he pulled back, his blue eyes misty with unshed tears of thankfulness. "I love you."
Mara pulled her trembling hand out of his and laid it gently on his cheek. "Glad to hear it, farmboy." She whispered.
Luke sat next to her on the bed and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her as tenderly as he could. Mara's eyes closed tightly, trying to keep the tears from falling as they suddenly raced to her dry eyes.
Stop that, Mara ordered herself savagely. You don't cry. Only the weak cry, she lied to herself. Do you want to be weak? You have to be strong. You have to support him. After all, you're a failure in everything else.
Luke simply held Mara, not making a move to kiss her or to talk - something both of them knew that would have to be done. The ventilation system turned on, blowing cool air into the room and the faint strands of music that had Mara humming along. Luke chuckled. "You know this song, do you?" he asked, pulling back and brushing her hair back from her face tenderly.
Mara colored faintly, tingeing her cheeks with pink that, although slight, still stood out against her skin like an unnatural flush. Luke's face seemed to become shadowed with worry as he realized that his sharp-tongued wife wasn't going to toss one of the sarcastic, biting responses that were as much of a trademark of hers as was her flaming hair.
"Please go," Mara said, her voice snagging on a sob that persistently struggled up her throat. "I - I - Go, Luke."
Luke pulled back; her simply worded request hitting him harder then anything ever had before. Glancing down at his hand that was still threaded through her hair, he pulled it away and took a deep breath, trying to keep the raging hurt hidden from his wife.
Mara watched as her husband began to hide his emotions behind the mask of Jedi calm that she hated. She turned her head away, calling herself every kind of fool for believing that he had meant it when he had said those three tiny words that she had never heard out of the mouth of another. She reached down their bond, trying to sense his emotions and the tears that she had managed to contain before, now tumbled through her eyelashes.
"I love you..." Luke's warm voice rang in her memory and she felt worse then ever. He hadn't meant it. He couldn't have meant it. If he had... then why was he blocking their bond? Why did his eyes fill with that noble look of self-sacrifice whenever he looked at her? He didn't really love her. But he was married to her, and Mara knew that for that fact alone he would lie to her, and do everything that was expected of him without ever giving her chance to see that the love was a lie.
Mara was still crying when Luke left, closing the door resolutely behind him.
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I hope you like it - This chapter was written rather quickly, but I'm still fairly pleased with it. Happy New Years Eve!!
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