26 ABY, in hiding aboard the Errant Venture.
Mara woke in the darkness after what seemed like an impossibly long time, which just after giving birth meant a few uninterrupted hours. She glanced around sharply, immediately wondering where Ben had gone.
He was there, with his father. Luke was standing in the starlight streaming into their stateroom aboard the Errant Venture, holding tiny Ben close against his chest. He had found his center again after the emotional chaos of the birth, and now he stood in a soothing aura of profound calm and contentment, pleasantly colored by his wonder and joy as he cradled their newborn son in his arms.
Mara's thoughts were still confused and disorganized, though less frantic than they had been earlier. For a moment she envied her husband's steadiness as she drifted in a slow maelstrom of half-formed emotions, impressions, and conclusions. Then she rejected such a petty sentiment; it was negativity she didn't need, and it was ultimately unnecessary. She gently reached for Luke in the Force, touched that cultivated calm, and he immediately extended it to her without thought or question. More than that, she felt an additional bloom of happiness that she had asked.
It was still difficult for her to lean on someone else after surviving so long on hard-bitten self-reliance. It still felt like weakness, capitulation. People were fallible and often unreliable, likely to disappoint you at the worst conceivable times. But she knew Luke would never betray her, would never intentionally disappoint her. She had known that even before they had officially vowed as much to one another. Why was it still so hard for her to trust him in practice?
His benign touch allowed her to think more clearly, casting her scattered thoughts in a new light, his light. It was her own pride that was limiting her, Mara realized, preventing her from completely embracing their extraordinary partnership. She had just admitted as much to them both during the last throes of their battle against her disease. Her self-reliance was supposed to have been a defense against the limitations imposed upon her by the shortcomings of other people, but it had become a real liability when it prevented her from accepting assistance from one of the most powerful, most capable, and most devoted beings in the galaxy. It was an attitude that had endangered their son, and had almost been the death of her. It was not a comfortable conclusion, but one she felt she was obligated to learn from.
In the inevitable comparison, Mara realized the same vice had been bludgeoned out of Luke some time ago. By his own admission, he had started his journey with a respectable streak of it, but the trials and obstacles he had overcome had forced him to root out his own pride bit by bit. It had not been an easy process, and it was something for which he explicitly prepared his students. Some listened more attentively than others, and Mara herself had never liked that particular lesson because it made her uncomfortable. It was a lesson she realized Luke had been forced to practice quite often in the recent past.
As he had categorized it, pride was ultimately a manifestation of fear. For the Jedi there is no fear, the recitation began.
No fear of being humiliated . . .
Trying to plot the forward course for the new Jedi with almost no assistance would have been a tall order for anyone. Of course Luke had made mistakes over the years, some of them incidents and some of them people, all of which had very publicly bitten him in the ass and invited extensive public comment. Even now, his vague intention to reestablish a firm hierarchy within the Jedi Order was the subject of strenuous debate among people who had no business having an opinion. Every move he made was closely watched, every decision criticized, every misstep remembered. Mara had been standing with him in that harsh glare for seven years, and it chafed.
No fear of suffering rebukes . . .
Mara had not been the only one who had been very free with the armchair criticism of Luke's past shortcomings, justified or not, and his ability to bite his tongue and accept unsolicited criticism was itself a hard-won skill, one she had not yet cared to master. She should probably make a greater effort, for solidarity's sake. Criticism was coming hard and fast from many quarters recently.
No fear of being despised . . .
Anti-Jedi screeds had become fashionable amid the hysteria which accompanied the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, spewing from every HoloNet channel available, and Luke was among those few who were conspicuous enough to be personally denounced. Skywalker and his Jedi weren't doing enough, or they were meddling and should stand down, or perhaps they should be rounded up and fed to the insatiable invaders as the enemy Warmaster had demanded. Every lost battle and ruined world brought a new onslaught of hostility. They tried not to watch it, not to hear it, but there was always someone who felt the need to remind them of it, usually some idiot bureaucrat sitting on the Senate Advisory Council. Considering Luke's record of service to the Rebel Alliance and the New Republic, the snide comments from official quarters were a slap in the face, but he held his course regardless.
No fear of being calumniated . . .
Absurd accusations were aired almost daily, but the ravings of the representative from Obroa-skai had been one of the most explicit, indicative of many others. I hold Luke Skywalker and the Jedi responsible for the death of Senator A'Kla, he had fumed, and all that has befallen us. The political powers were keen to pin Luke personally for Corran Horn's disgrace, for the unsanctioned aggressions of Kyp Durron and the rogue Jedi who were disinclined to take direction, for the disaster at Centerpoint Station involving his nephews, for the misinformation of their intelligence network, and for the disorganization of the whole Jedi Order even as they discouraged his efforts to reestablish the Jedi Council. Luke Skywalker was the figurehead, the scapegoat always present on Coruscant to endure a new round of rhetorical abuse from frightened, small-minded people, culminating in this latest outrage, being driven from Coruscant under literal blaster fire by threat of civil arrest. That was how he currently found himself temporarily homeless aboard a garishly red Star Destroyer on the fringe of legality with his wife and newborn child.
No fear of being ridiculed . . .
Those pompous senators knew no shame. It seems that you head an order of twenty vigilantes and eighty do-nothings, one had said. The comment had enraged Mara, but Luke had endured it in silence, and she had held her peace out of deference to him. Nothing he did seemed acceptable. Kyp Durron, that delightful package of arrogance and deceit, had recently had the almighty gall to berate him in front of a large convocation of Jedi, all but accusing him of cowardice and incompetence. Luke maintained his unpopular position against naked aggression regardless, knowing it to be right.
No fear of being wronged.
Her conscience pricked her at that juncture, and Mara shifted in the bed. It was easy to dwell on the obvious ways other people had wounded Luke, and there were many she could name, but it was harder to look inward. In light of what had just happened between them, in the quiet before the inevitable chaos began again, she felt overdue for some introspection.
Mara could admit that she was not proud of the way she often spoke to Luke, especially while under stress, the way she often interpreted gestures of kindness as annoying or condescending. She knew he didn't mean it that way, but it was easy to put him off with a sharp word when she felt she needed the space. She should probably think of a nicer way of asking.
She realized she had been guilty of overestimating her own abilities at Luke's expense, not that he would ever accuse her of it, and even if he did, he would forgive her in the next moment. This is my child, too, he had ventured to say the day they had discovered her pregnancy. Mara, you're going to have to make an allowance for that. She really hadn't. She had continued to dictate to him and essentially do exactly as she pleased.
She had convinced herself that it was imperative that she maintain her independence even within their marriage, that somehow Luke couldn't love her in the same way if she lost her edge or relied on him too much. That was probably ridiculous. Luke would love her even if she sprouted a second head, and he would probably be thrilled if she allowed him to dote on her more often. She had been guilty of trying to mold him to her needs and wants without affording him the same consideration. Farther along the journey than she was, Luke had stepped back and allowed her to gradually mortify his protective instincts, his compulsive desire to reach for her at every other moment, enduring her rough comments and petty rebuffs until she had trained him so well it had nearly destroyed them.
Mara had never allowed Luke into her illness, seeing it as an embarrassing weakness she had to conquer on her own or else sacrifice her self-respect. It hadn't been her self-respect at risk, she realized now. It had been her pride. She had fought it alone with all her strength and determination for years, forcing her husband—her most intimate companion—to watch her struggle from a distance. It had been an enormous trial for him to do nothing, but Luke had respected her boundaries until she had literally been at the threshold of death, and the frustrated helplessness she had imposed on him had nearly driven him mad.
When she had finally seen the limits of her own strength, Mara had allowed him back into her weakness for the good of their unborn son, almost too late. She'd had nothing left. Luke had pulled himself together, stepped into her battle and dominated it. She had perceived him as a sunrise, brilliant blue-white and blindingly pure. There was strength enough for all of them as he enveloped his family within that tremendous well of power she had tried so hard to live without, and together they utterly defeated her wasting disease within an hour.
Why had she resisted that? She trusted Luke, she loved him, and they had both seen into the depths of each other's souls long ago, so why was it still so hard to submit to him?
It was her pride. It always came back to that. Looking at her husband in the starlight with their son, aware of the gently swirling kaleidoscope of emotion and affection that was the giddy zenith of Luke's own personal happiness, Mara was forced to confront the fact that her pride had come within a few heartbeats of depriving him of all he held most dear in life, and he had almost allowed it to happen for love of her.
There was a stark lesson there. As it often did, Luke's very presence skewed the paradigm. She should probably start thinking of independence from him as weakness rather than strength. It would be a good step on that excruciating journey toward humility, and it would be her own fault if she neglected to learn anything and someday got herself killed playing the hero.
Luke returned to her bedside, positively beaming. "Do you want him back?" he asked quietly.
"I kind of do," Mara admitted. She should probably rest while she could, but maternal instinct was a force to be reckoned with. She was still coming to terms with the idea that she and Luke had produced a living, breathing child, and that he wouldn't vanish in the morning. It was absolutely not where she had seen the future of their relationship when she had held him at blasterpoint on Myrkr, but he definitely had a way with people. Something about those big, innocent eyes. It was just a stray thought, but Mara hoped Ben would have his father's eyes.
Luke passed the infant to her, careful not to wake him. Mara took a moment just to consider Ben's little face, putting his features together with the bright spot in the Force she already knew so well. "He's perfect," she said.
"I think those are the hormones talking," Luke observed with a smile, stealthily climbing into bed beside her, "even though I agree. He'll dry out in a few days and be twice as cute."
She glared at him. "You're lucky I love you," she said.
He nodded, willfully oblivious to her threatening tone. "I'll agree with that, too."
Mara sighed. There was no sense in putting off the inevitable, and apologies were more easily made without an infant squalling in the background. "Listen, Luke," she began, her earnest tone immediately piquing his interest, "I'm sorry I pushed you out the way I did, always trying to do things my own way. I never imagined we'd be able to beat that kriffing disease so quickly together. Makes me feel silly for putting up with it for so long. I guess I need to remember that my way isn't always better than your way."
Luke accepted her apology very generously, with no hint of I-told-you-so. "I think I'm going to let you off with time served on that count," he said. "You're the one who was suffering."
"It's not about me suffering," Mara insisted, "it's about me trusting you. I'm going to try to be better about that. Just be patient with me."
He kissed her forehead, glowing with a warm appreciation of the sentiment. "Always."
Ben stirred in his sleep, opening his toothless mouth with a wet grunt, flexing his impossibly small fingers. Mara smiled and leaned on Luke's shoulder. "Is he real?" she asked.
"I'm afraid so," Luke said, radiant with joy despite his tone. "Changes things, doesn't it?"
"It changes everything." It was as though something in the universe had shifted. Life was now irrevocably different, and they were different. They had grown comfortable in the roles of husband and wife, but now they had to be parents. It was an entirely new era that required a new level of maturity. Mara felt like she had aged a decade in the last twelve hours, and not in a bad way.
Then she heard a tell-tale bubbling sound that interrupted her reverie.
"Speaking of changing things," she said, "I think he's made another masterpiece."
Luke frowned. "Again? He's very productive for someone who hasn't had a chance to eat much yet. Give him to me; I'll get it."
"Do you know how to change a diaper?" Mara asked dubiously, passing him the baby. "Maybe we should get Mirax back in here."
Luke shot her a narrow glance, accepting his son with a confidence she found mildly surprising. Maybe he'd had more experience with his sister's children than she'd thought. "I built you a starship from scratch," he said. "I think I can figure out a diaper."
Trust, Mara reminded herself. She was supposed to trust him. Luke apparently heard her, though he turned away before his smile could betray him.
There was no doubt enough crazy coming for the both of them in the near future, and she had to remember they were stronger together. Having a functional family was still new to her, but Mara didn't want to be the weak link in that chain. She owed it to Luke, and she owed it to Ben.
She just had to get out of her own way. Perversely, it seemed like that was one of the hardest challenges for anyone to master.