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.
She remembered arguing with Skywalker a short while ago, saying that maybe they needed to let Vaiya go her own way, and not go chasing after her. She remembered the rage she felt when she had realized Jaid was really Cal, and had been using her daughter to get to the rest of them. She remembered the pity she felt for Jaid when he'd come there, giving them a story about how he was searching out his "father..." How Luke had disliked that Vaiya was giving so much attention to Derrin, who obviously wasn't interested, but liked to pretend that he was. She remembered their life on Yavin IV, how it had irritated her to be in such a "country" setting when she was a big city girl, but how little it really mattered to her with her responsibilities as a Jedi, and the love of her family. She remembered realizing that home wasn't a where, but a why. Even in the stars, aboard the Jaded Sky, it was still home to her. She saw how Vaiya had grown in skill and intelligence, absorbing everything new, but soon had grown bored with all the galaxy stretched out before her. She felt old worries that had not entered her mind in what felt like forever, but knew they were as fresh as last week.
But there was still more, pushing farther back into her past. The memories of Callista, watching her die, trapped under the heavy boulders in that mine that was slowly caving in. Callista had gone there, seeking her help, knowing about Luke and herself, and willing to accept it, even though it broke her heart. Mara remembered feeling sorry for Callista, having borne Luke a son and never knowing if he would ever be found. She remembered thinking about her own child, and how she would feel if slavers stole it from her. And then, with her dying breath, Callista had found the name for the Skywalker-Jade child...Vaiya. Stonelifter, in the Chad language. But it also meant something else, something she had not seen back then, but could see only slightly better now.
The years with Luke had drifted past her like an idyllic existence, and just as serenely they went by again, back to a more tumultuous time, where she and Luke were so afraid of each other without knowing it. Back on the cliffs of the Hand of Thrawn, locked deep in the heart where the water roared in their ears and threatened to end their new lives, she remembered his face when she asked him to marry her, and she found that she could not remember a time when she did not love him. Even as her memories carried even farther back, to when they had first met and she was struggling against the rage of the Emperor's Last Command, she could not imagine her life having gone anywhere else.
Before Luke, all it had been was aimless wanderings. Karrde had been the only saving grace during that time of her life, and still she spent much time wandering. She thought of Cal, of how they had worked together so well, but how he scared her for reasons she always felt better than she named. There was something dark and twisted about him...the connections he made, the beings that were rank with the sith. Palpatine was the highest sith lord in all of the galaxy, but he did not frighten her like these men did, with their faces tattooed in dark and dangerous shapes.
And still, there was more.
Palpatine and his training, her pledge of undying loyalty. The dark betrayal of the offworlders, the execution of her parents before her very eyes, the feeling of something dying in her and her, in return, forsaking something as important to her as her life's breath.
Durran...was home. She could see it, as it used to be, when it was not forbidden to offworlders. She remembered running through its thick meadows and playing with the flowers, using the Force to make them fly around her. She remembered an old man, his head devoid of any hair but his smile bright with youth. She remembered him teaching her the ways of the....no, not the Force....Psyenergy. She could see the bright layers of energy that enveloped the world around her, could make them move. And the old man...he had loved his religion. He had been scorned and mocked for it, and her own parents wanted to get her away from him, afraid that she, too, might become like him. But....Valeris?...had always assured her that whatever path Yejion chose to put them on, it would be for the best. But her faith had died that day when Palpatine came. She could have resisted, she had the will to resist, but she had given in because she had been deceived. Only years and years later would that deceit come to light, but the bitterness it could have caused had been easily brushed away.
That was all over now. Where was she? Oh, yes, in that hospital room on Coruscant, where she had spent the last days acting like a vonskyrr.
Mother? Vaiya sent to her through the bond.
I am here.
Then come and see what I have to show you.
Mara followed Vaiya into her thoughts, and saw the man she had seen in her own memories. Valeris, much older, but with his eyes still bright and his spirit still young, living the life of a hermit. But he had known who Vaiya was, and knew that Mara was not far behind. He was all that was left of her family...all that was left of her past, before the Emperor.
Mara opened her eyes. Maybe the whole experience was just too much for her, or maybe her mind was struggling to find some way to vent all the emotions she'd just experienced. But as she looked at Vaiya, who was watching her with open concern, she felt a sudden, overwhelming rush of....shame.
She saw Luke's face when she had screamed and railed against him, when she had said she didn't want to remember. As surely as if a veil had been lifted, she could feel his pain as accutely as her own. She had done that to him...all that hatred she had shown for him, that refusal to even desire getting her life back, until somehow she had found it, not knowing how or by, but just knowing that it was to be, it was what she had to do.
She couldn't breathe.
"Mother?" Vaiya whispered, her voice slightly strange-sounding to Mara's ears. "Are you...."
Vaiya didn't dare finish. Mara crumpled to the ground, on her knees, throwing her arms forward and resting her face on top of them. Within a few seconds, there was the terrible sound of someone letting out huge, heaving sobs; sobs filled with more pain than all the dying voices of Alderaan.
Vaiya didn't know what to do. The emotions blasted at her so loud, like the sonic pulse of a transistor, that she couldn't make any sense from them. There was just shame. A self-hatred that seemed to threaten Mara with complete engulfment. Vaiya was afraid that if Mara willed it hard enough, space itself would open for her and suck her into a black hole of her own making.
This was not her place, anymore. Only one person could help her now. Vaiya turned around and headed for the door, but it slid open and her father was there, walking toward her with his eyes locked on Mara. He looked at Mara in utter confusion, feeling her emotions as Vaiya did, but even more baffled by them in the midst of his joy that Mara had returned to him.
He passed Vaiya, who continued her walk toward the door, step through and then shut it behind her.
Whatever happened now was in the hands of God.
This was not the reaction he had expected. He had half-expected Mara to sit up the second she saw him and tell him that she had already made herself clear, that she did not want to love him, and wish that he had respected that wish.
But no, she had continued to cry. In fact, she was crying harder now that he was here. She wouldn't look at him, but she knew he was there. He tried to send her comforting thoughts, but she pushed them away with something that felt like...shame?
Unwilling to accept that, he gently lifted her up into his arms and held her like a little child, letting her use his shoulder even though she refused to look at his face. Long minutes passed, and Luke found himself enjoying just being close to her again.
Finally, she muttered in a hoarse voice, "I can't even believe you're doing this."
"Doing what?" he asked.
"Coddling me like this...after what I've done." He looked down at her in surprise, but she wouldn't look up at him.
"What have you done?" he whispered.
Finally, those glittering emerald orbs looked at him. What he saw there...it frightened him. The dishonor there, the complete shame, the pain at having hurt him so much with her vengeful hate....if she had had a lightsaber at the moment Luke would have feared for her life. Her mouth wouldn't work, it had gone dry. Through the Force, he heard, Everything I have done to you.
He started. "What are you talking about? All that? It's in the past, Mara. How could I possibly be angry at you for all of that? You're my wife, have been for almost twenty years! What would make you think of all of that now?"
"Because that's who I just was!" she cried, a muted croak. She shook her head. There are no words, and then silence.
Gently, Luke touched her mind. He tried to see around the heavy, blinding pain. He saw that her heart had not changed...that she remembered loving him, and loved him still the same as ever. But the pain of coming face to face with the part of her that she thought long dead, the part that was the Emperor's Hand...no, it was not dead as she had suspected. It was still there, waiting. Like the dark side, it just needed the right moment to make its presence known.
And she hated it.
Caught in its power, she had refused the person she had become, had refused the core of her idenity just to appease the darkness. The darkness, the price of self, placing her self over everything else, even blood and family, had ruled her, and she did not know how she had controlled it. The very thought that Vaiya might not have been able to do what she did made her sick, and Mara groaned.
Perhaps her loving husband was not what she needed right now. Perhaps what she needed was her teacher. "Mara," Luke said, his tone taking a different edge--a softer, more patient edge, not so heavily laced with his emotions, even as love-based as they were.
It surprised her. She had managed to calm a bit from her tears--for there were not many tears in Mara that she could shed--but the sound of her name made her fall silent. She lifted her head to look at him, fear prominent on her face. He carressed her cheek assuringly and gently guided her into a sitting position, carefully positioning himself before her, taking her hands firmly.
"There's something I never told you," he began, his voice still that same, gently authorative tone. "When we fought CyBoth. When you killed that clone of me."
She nodded, flinching. "What about it?" she asked, her voice cracking as the despair threatened to swell around her again. All the horrible things she'd done....
"No, Mara," Master Skywalker said, forcing her attention back to his voice. "None of those thoughts. This is about me. When we fought against CyBoth, he had a clone made of me, from the hand I lost at Bespin. I had to fight that clone, but I couldn't because of the buzzing in my head. But just because I was distracted, that didn't mean that the dark side couldn't tempt me again. I could have killed that clone. I didn't have to believe that it led to maddness. There's no proof of that, not really."
"But you didn't kill him," Mara reminded him. "In fact, you offered yourself to CyBoth in return for setting the rest of us...free."
"Yes, I did. But I still wanted to kill my clone. I saw how the dark side had twisted him, how angry he was, angry as I had been on Bespin. I saw my dark side, what I could become. Half of the reason I joined the Emperor when he was ressurected--or rather, who we thought was the ressurrected Emperor--" he added hastily at Mara's familiar disagreeing frown, "was to prove to myself that that wasn't who I was, that I could never become that. I found out that it was me, that that darkness lay within me. I was capable of terrible things, but I had chosen the light, even though it hurt to have my dark flaws. I had to face myself and accept myself as I was, set myself to my path and never let pain or regret make me turn back or forsake what I had worked so hard to build." He paused. "Or the Academy. I know you didn't think much of me when I declared myself a Jedi Master, and I know the move was very audacious, and the only reason it was accepted was because of the simple fact that I was the first of the Jedi Knights since Ben. And the Academy, of course. But I would never have dared declare myself a Master unless I felt I had won the battle with myself. The trials of the Jedi do not end with Knighthood, Mara. They come every day, and few are blessed with trails large enough to provide the opportunity to really know themselves. A Master of the Force must be a master of himself first. Or herself. Mara, I believe that this is your trial. You have to come to terms with yourself. I have always known that one day you would become a Jedi Master. If that time is now...do not waste it on shame."
"I can't help but waste it that way," Mara said with more than a touch of irritation. "I've always been able to control my emotions, but this shame...it's different. It's a rebellion against my own self!"
"Then try humility," he whispered.
She shut her eyes. "You make it sound so easy. How does one be humble?"
"I'll show you." Instantly, the Jedi Master dropped away, and Luke reached out to her, pulling her into his arms so that they faced each other on their knees. Gently, he ran his hand through her hair, letting his fingers relish the sensation they had missed for so long. "I don't care what you've done, Mara, you're my wife and I love you. I wouldn't care if you had tried to kill me again...you tried it before and I loved you even then. So you're just going to have to accept that and move on, because I don't care what kind of horrible monster you think you have living inside of you. I'm not letting you go. Period."
Rarely--extremely rarely--Mara Jade had blushed in her life. But this was not exactly a point in her life where any of that mattered. And as the blush rushed across her cheeks, a smile played at her lips. "I can't ask you to even try and save yourself?"
"Nope. I'm a completely lost cause."
What it was about that moment, she didn't know. But suddenly she found herself laughing. Laughing at Skywalker, laughing at herself, laughing at the two of them facing each other, knee to knee, in the middle of a hospital room with probably a dozen people watching from behind that two-way mirror. Laughing at her own foolishness, at Luke's die-hard affection and loyalty to her, at the mad course the Force had seen to send them through. Best of it all was, Luke was laughing with her, not in amusement, for he knew the joke was for her alone, but out of joy that she was smiling again, those old sarcastic lines softening and yet reappearing from under the heavy sorrowful tears she had shed.
"You...you really are crazy, farmboy. I don't think I ever really realized it until now," she finally managed.
He calmed. "Oh, you realized it, I'm sure," he said, getting to his feet and pulling her up with him in one quick yank.
"Good God, I feel like I'm twenty years younger again," she breathed, the laughter fading underneath the more real, sombre joy of the moment.
"Wouldn't it be nice?" Luke murmured.
Then she looked up into his eyes, puzzled. "That can't be it," she said suddenly. "I mean, a burst of laughter and everything is better? I forget all about how I was such a horrible person?"
"You were no more of a horrible person than anyone else. It's just the rare few of us who get to see it face to face. And no, this isn't it. You're going to need some real time to heal your wounds. You have to learn to forgive yourself, Mara. The Force can forgive you, and I can forgive you, but you have to forgive yourself if you ever truly want to move on."
"I though I had moved on," she mumbled. "I feel like I've had such a setback."
Luke shook his head. "They often say that you're getting closer to the Force if you start to see yourself making a lot of mistakes."
Mara's face took on a faraway look. "I heard that somewhere....something in Vaiya's mind, in my past...a man named Valeris. He taught me about that...but it wasn't the Force." She shook her head, her mind suddenly going all fuzzy. "So much," she gasped.
"Take your time. You have the rest of your life."
"Oh, you mean I'm going to be this weepy, blushing, emotional wreck for the rest of my Force-extended life?"
Luke laughed. "I'm willing to bet a weekend on that Comet Resort you refuse to go to that you're back to the sarcastic, snarling, putting-me-in-my-place-every-chance-you-get hellcat that I married twenty years ago."
"If I agree with you, that means no bet, right?" she asked, looking at him with a pleading expression. "God, anywhere but that resort."
"Callista liked it," Luke muttered.
Mara playfully punched him in the ribs.