DISCLAIMER: Star Wars and all publicly recognisable characters, names and references, etc are the sole property of George Lucas, Lucasfilm Ltd, Lucasarts Inc, 20th Century Fox, Timothy Zahn, Barbara Hambly, YKW and the other writers of the expanded Star Wars Universe. This fan fiction was created solely for entertainment and no money was made from it. Also, no copyright or trademark infringement was intended. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any other characters, the storyline and the actual story are the property of the author.
As Mara got older, she realized that there were fewer things in the universe that she thought she understood. Like this thing with her and Luke, for instance. How many years had they known each other? How many before that had she spent hating him? And yet, all along, this had been their destiny.
She just didn't get it.
Looking down with a sigh, she rubbed her protruding belly. *Only three more months to go, little one,* she thought to herself. She smiled. They would have to pick a name soon, but nothing seemed to work. Mara had wanted to call the baby Jade, no matter what the sex. Jade Skywalker. It fit. She missed the use of her old name sometimes, but Mara Skywalker was such a title, such an honorific that she had no desire to insert her old surname in between. That wasn't who she was anymore, not really. She had changed. And she had stayed the same. She still had her temper, her old predator instinct. She still loved to dance, and still enjoyed raking her husband over the coals more than anything. She even loved calling him Skywalker, like she always had. Except during the more passionate moments....
The baby kicked. Mara let loose a small giggle, and then quickly looked around to make sure no one had heard. Not that there was anyone around this deserted mountaintop, where she usually did her morning meditations. She had a reputation to protect, after all. Speaking of things that didn't change...her pride was one thing she couldn't shake, no matter what. Only Luke knew her as she truly was, as she had truly become. To many, though, she was still Mara Jade, smuggler, trader, ex-assassin. Ex- Emperor's Hand.
Okay, so maybe they wouldn't call the baby Jade. Unless she had Mara's green eyes. Mara knew that the child was a girl. She didn't need to be force sensitive. A mother just knew. Luke had wanted to call the baby Bernadette (if it was a girl, he said, because Mara knew he deep down wanted a son), a female derivative of his mentor and one-time teacher, Ben Kenobi. But Mara couldn't imagine calling her child Bernie, so that was off. Beru, after Luke's aunt, also came to mind, but that was discarded by Luke himself. The name did not seem to fit the mental picture Luke had of his child in his head. If it was a boy, there was little question of him being called Ben. Mara did not even attempt to debate it.
But this baby was going to be a girl. And this morning, Mara was determined to think of a name.
She sat down carefully--her belly made any sitting without a chair difficult, but Mara was in good shape and had never needed any help, in spite of Luke's mother-henning of her since she'd announced to him that she was pregnant.
She laughed when she thought of the look on his face. She had seen it before, when he had proposed to her and she had said yes. His eyes had just lit up from inside, like a child receiving a birthday gift they had longed for their entire lives. She had never had any reason to doubt that he loved her, but when she saw that look, it was like finding it out all over again.
Not that their "romance" had exactly been romantic. After all, how many couples could brag of their kind of history? With her trapped on a planet where a band of renegade Imperials awaited the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn (or rather, his clone, as she and Luke had discovered), he had come to her rescue, playing hero to her damsel in distress. She hadn't liked it one bit, but after it had all ended, she knew why. She had been fighting destiny. Now that she had accepted it, she would never understand why she had ever wanted to fight. But she had fought so hard, and for so long. Even from the first moment she had laid eyes on Luke, in his black Jedi garments, with that unshakable calm and tranquility that she had wanted all her life but would never let herself have. The way he treated her, as if he knew it as well, as if he wanted it but could not see past her hatred of him. Instead, he was reduced to playing pacifier, placating her at every turn, giving her no reason to lose her temper or shoot off the inevitable blaster bolt that would end his life and fulfill the Emperor's last command. No, Luke had known, somewhere in that vast force-ability of his. She had always wanted to ask him how he had felt, being in that position. Seeing her, knowing her in a way beyond human kinship, and yet unable to do anything but wait, and watch. If he had been aware of the barrier, it might have driven him insane. But apparently, there had been a barrier, because it had taken ten years for him to finally take that last step toward her, giving her no choice but to see it, too.
The biggest clue, as she had come to realize in her meditations, had been when whe saved her life during the Katana Fleet incident. Although it hadn't been the first and only clue. The first clue had been when he'd come with her, with no suspicions or bargaining, to help her free Karrde from that Imperial prison, after Thrawn had betrayed her. In the beginning, she dismissed it as him realizing it was less dangerous to go with her and risk physical harm than stay with that mad Jedi Cy'Both and eventually go insane. Then she'd dismissed it as his continuous crusade to be the perfect Jedi Knight, and help everyone, even pity-cases like hers when she was obviously not in control of her own feelings and didn't even know it. But later, after she had realized that he'd saved her life *when he hadn't had to,* that he'd gone to all that trouble just to save her because it was something he felt he had to do.
From then on, there had been no rhyme or reason in her relationship with Luke. She couldn't see the obvious, and he wouldn't confront it. But that command in her head held her firmly in place, at his side. After facing Cy'Both, on the roof of the Palace, when he had given her his father's lightsaber, that should have been the moment for him to say something, anything, give her a chance to crush him cold and walk away, totally free. But he didn't. He let her go as she pleased. He knew she wasn't ready, and quite frankly, neither was he.
She stayed close, though. Through the years, she went from tolerating him to respecting him and then even liking him. She never let herself think about what might be with Skywalker, though. It was ridiculous, she always told herself when the thought came to mind. He was running off from this place to that, building the Academy, recruiting force-sensitives, destroying superweapons and.... falling in love with Callista.
Mara never questioned Luke's feelings for Callista. She didn't have to. Nor did she feel jealous. She was here and Callista was not. Whatever their relationship had really been, it was Luke's private business. Even though she knew he would never keep it from her, she understood about lost loves. Now she did, anyway, once she'd had a chance to look back. That day she had come to Luke's rescue, yet again, and watched as Luke realized that his former student, Cray, had "stepped aside" so that Callista might have life again, she realized that her heart had broken and she had never realized it. It was just as well. She probably would have acted even stupider than she did. Going to Yavin IV, taking him for a joyride and giving him a silly line about how she sometimes had the urge to "see" him was not one of her better moments. And of course, there was her little chat with Callista. She'd felt sorry for the girl, really. Losing her force powers and all. Callista had seemed so alone at that table in the mess hall, so set apart. Mara felt for her. She knew what that was like more than she cared to admit. And then Callista had laid that line on her about her being "interested" in Skywalker, something Mara had shaken off, even if- -for a reason that had seemed strange at the time but made perfect sense now--it had been a slow shake. Slow enough to make Callie suspicious that she'd hit a mark.
Oh, well. Water under the bridge. Luke had chased her, caught her, and let her go. It was over. Although the fact that Callista was still out there somewhere, possibly with the idea in her head that Luke was waiting for her, did not make Mara feel all that comfortable sometimes. In the beginning, she had jumped at every ship she heard land, worried that it would be *the* ship, the final moment of truth. And even though Mara knew Luke loved her, there was a little voice inside of her that made her worry about what Luke would really do if Callista ever came back. Mara was his wife, his very pregnant wife now...but that wouldn't stop him from wanting....
Mara shut her eyes against the thought. Luke and Callista had been a strange meeting, but at least there had been real romance there. As for her and Skywalker, well...for a while she was tempted to think that it was all brought on by duress, the belief that they were going to die, and that there was no reason to hesitate any longer. She had been more than willing to let him out of the deal, not wanting him to leave her but having no desire to trap him. Mara was, at heart, a free spirit. She knew that Luke loved that about her. She would not change to please him because she pleased him the most as she was. She was strong, she was loyal, and she was smart. She would not run off and get herself killed, like so many of his past loves had tired to do. She would not coddle him or protect him from herself, but she would not shut him out. She belonged to him as surely as he belonged to her. She had known that the very moment their souls had touched in that chamber, trapped by sentinel droids and fighting for their lives. They were bound together for life.
Nothing would change it. She had every faith in that.
The morning breeze ruffled her clothes, but Mara was only vaguely aware of it as she sunk deeper into her meditation. Memories gave way to more pure emotions, and emotion gave way to the buzzing hum of the energy of the Force. It sounded like a hum to her, anyway, even though Luke said that was unlikely. The Force wasn't like a power converter or a speeder, wires didn't conduct electricity from the tree to the rock...or the land to the ship.
It was this memory, even though it was Luke's, that she chose to focus on. The lesson Yoda had taught him about size not mattering, and that belief was everything. If you do not believe, you fail. It had touched her when Luke had shared it with her. In the beginning, she thought it was a matter of confidence, of which she had spades of throughout her life. But it wasn't the same thing. This was a matter of faith, something she had never had much of in anything but herself until she had been freed of the Emperor's grasp on her. It was a puzzle she wanted to figure out, had been trying to figure out for years but had never had a trustworthy guide...who she could tolerate for long, anyway.
What had kept her loyal to Palpatine for so long? She had served him unquestioningly, and had completely believed in him and in the Empire. But now she was married to his worst enemy. Was that explained away by it just being destiny? It couldn't be...it didn't make sense. And until she reconciled it, she had a feeling that the name of her child would remain elusively out of her grasp.
Why they were connected, she didn't know. She just knew they were.
So Mara took the lesson Luke had learned about faith in that hellish swamp of Degobah so many years ago and let it flow over what memories she could summon of her beginning years in the Emperor's service. She didn't know how the pieces of this puzzle fit together, but they did somehow, and she would figure it out before her child came into the world.