~*~*~*~
Jaelle re-entered the room to find Torath sitting on the bed holding Alena's gaze as she breathed rythmically through a contraction. "That was very weird."
Torath glanced her way as Alena relaxed with a sigh. "What was?"
"How could it not 'be that bad' if it caused nightmares?"
"Jae? You're dropping us into the middle again," Torath pointed out gently. "Maybe start from the top?"
Jaelle stared at him a moment before moving to the other side of the bed to give the glass of water to Alena. "Here."
Alena shook her head. "I don't want it."
"You're sure you're not thirsty?" Seeing the expression of steely ire, Jaelle set the glass down on the nightstand. "It'll be here if you want it."
"I'm still waiting, Jaelle," Torath reminded her. "What was weird and caused nightmares and wasn't bad?"
"Mara was trying to pass off what ever happened to her as not that big of a deal." Jaelle shuddered, then composed herself somewhat. She noticed that Alena was shivering. "Are you cold?"
"No, but I am confused. Explain, please."
Jaelle sighed. "I had nightmares as a child, presummably because I was picking up on whatever what happening to her. I had them often, so I remember a little. Mom and Mara were talking about them when I came back from the kitchen with your water."
"What does that have to do with it not being that bad?" Torath redirected her as she began to take Alena's pulse, knowing that she always got to the point eventually.
"That's what Mara said. That it wasn't that bad, once she forgot, whatever that means, exactly." Jaelle took a moment to write down some numbers on a piece of flimsy, and then she glanced at Alena, and noticed that the shivering had intesified. "You sure you don't want the water?"
Alena rolled her eyes. "I'm very sure... What were the dreams about?"
"That's not important right now."
"Sure it is." At Jaelle's dumbfounded expression, Alena's eyes narrowed. "Take what you know and think about it, Jaelle. If YOU are finding it difficult to think about, why would one who lived through it find it easy to resolve or talk about?"
"Alena's right, you know," Torath said, startling her. "If it was so bad that you don't want to explain it... there would have been mental/emotional repercussions."
Jaelle glanced from one, then the other. "That makes sense, I guess. Alena, how do you know about behavioral theory?"
"Part of my education... uhg... centered on it." Alena closed her eyes, going with the pain.
"Were you timing?" Jaelle asked her brother, who nodded.
"Two minutes that time, last one lasted sixty seconds."
Jaelle wrote that information down the flimsy pad and they waited as Alena breathed through it. She noticed that when the contraction was over, the shivering was less than it had been. "Hmm..."
Torath leaned over to Jaelle. "Is the shivering normal?"
"It's transition. Shouldn't be that long, now, I think." Jaelle smiled at him. "Go take a breather and have a cup of caf."
"You're kicking me out?"
"Yes. Go." At his confused expression, she patted him on the shoulder. "I'm going to do an exam, and Alena would have demanded you go do something if I didn't."
"Oh." He turned, held Alena's hand for a moment, and then left the room.
"I wonder if he got the baby's room done," Alena said fleetingly as Jaelle put on some rubber gloves and moved around so she could examine her.
Jaelle laughed. "Probably not. But most of it was done, right?"
"I think so... Well?"
"Just like I thought. Almost there." Jaelle glanced up and saw the quizzical expression. "What?"
"What you said about Mara trying to brush it off as nothing. You know why she was doing it. I know it and so do you."
"And I'm still confused by it."
~*~*~*~
As Widia and Mara were talking about her past, a memory or two came to mind for Mara...
Palpatine smiled as he watched the little girl eat her snack. It had been the first thing she had asked for upon their arrival in the palace, so he had complied with the request.
Little Marani smiled guilelessly at him, got a heaping spoonful of pudding on her spoon, and flung it at him when he looked away for a moment.
Startled, Palpatine stared at the child. "What was that for?"
"Fun," Mara said impishly as she continued to eat her pudding. She blinked as the spoon as ripped from her hand. "Huh?" Marani looked up and saw the deep frown turn into a scowl. "What?"
"There will be none of that," Palpatine hissed as he grabbed her hand and dragged her away from the table.
"But I'm not done!"
"Yes you are." There was a coldness under his voice that she'd never heard anyone use before, and Marani protested by trying to pull out of his grip.
"Let me go!"
He dragged her to a closet and pushed her in, then shut the door firmly and left her there without another word.
Marani banged her hand on the door once, waited, and then sat down in a corner of the dark closet. The confused girl sniffled in the darkness. "He's mean."
~*~*~*~
Marani stared at the man as he towered over her, his face infused with anger. "Who are you? Where's momma and daddy?" With no warning, her world was lost to pain as lightning shot from his fingertips. When the pain faded, she slowly looked up at him. "Wha?"
He closed his eyes, and suddenly her mind felt like it was on fire. Images and sounds from her life flew around her as the pain intensified, and she screamed.
Later, after the pain subsided and her mind no longer burned, the child blinked her eyes open to find... a man she did not know sitting on a chair looking at her. "Hi."
The man nodded to her. "Hello, Mara. You really shouldn't run around like that. Accidents will happen."
"Did I fall?" Mara asked as she sat up on the bed and looked around the sparsely decorated room.
"Yes."
Mara tilted her head to the side for a moment, studying him. "Do I... know you?"
"You do, child. My name is Palpatine, and I'm your caretaker."
"Palpat?" Mara tried to say it, but it came out wrong. She looked at him hopefully.
Palaptine smiled at her. "It's a start." He held out a hand and she gingerly took it. "Are you hungry, child?"
Mara nodded eagerly. "Yes."
"Then let's go see what we have in the kitchens, shall we?"
And just like that, she was his.
~*~*~*~
Widia sat back and thought about what Mara had just told her. "It felt like your mind was on fire?"
Mara nodded. "That first time, yes. It burned something fierce and afterward, I didn't remember who he was... And every subsequent time that I started to remember, there was always pain." She stopped for a moment, remembering that time in the hospital, just after she and Luke had gotten engaged. She'd had a flash of something, and then pain. "That explains it."
"Explains what?" Widia noticed that Mara was staring at the carpet in concentration.
"About five years ago, I had an attack of some sort, and afterwards somehow forgot that The Emperor had been dead a long time." She shook her head slowly, trying to sort it out. "What ever brought it on, I still don't recall clearly."
Widia quietly considered the options, and then cocked her head to one side. "The attack was painful?"
Mara nodded. "Somewhat."
"That could have been a memory trying to resurface." Widia stopped a moment and thought about it some more. "Wait... five years ago? Renna was on a reconstruction project in the southern hemisphere around then. The project leader told me that she woke up screaming on more than one occasion. You wouldn't happen to know why, would you?"
Mara looked away, wincing. "Something bad happened. If Renna asks, I'll talk to her about it." She was saved from further questioning by Torath coming out from the hall and plopping himself in a chair. "Uh..."
"Jaelle kicked me out," he said sullenly.
Widia chuckled a little. "I kicked your father out of the labor room at least once, Tor, so that really isn't a surprise." Torath just rolled his eyes at her.
~*~*~*~*~
In the shadows, an old woman stands, clutching her tattered robe to herself, and mumbling. She watches as the denziens of the space port go about their daily routines and assorted business, unconcerned that there is someone watching them.
A voice speaks up behind her, she turns... and smiles in recognition.
