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It’s as though Bespin’s toxic gases suddenly permeate the life zone. Luke feels choked by the air he breathes and doesn’t understand why.
He takes off abruptly.
The feeling doesn’t fade away. The shortness of breath follows him as he flies home.
What’s different? What’s changed? he asks himself over and over. He looks to the Force and doesn’t believe it when it provides him an answer.
When he searches for another explanation; the Force stubbornly insists: Mara Jade.
Luke pinches his nose. They’re partners – friends even – nothing else. How could they be anything else with their pasts and the last few days?
The last few days…
He hasn’t been able to meet her eye since the duel – the duel where they locked blades and locked eyes, where he could have sworn something more would have happened if they weren’t called to the bridge.
Luke must have imagined what passed between them during their sparring match. But even if he didn’t, it doesn’t matter. There’s Lando.
Surprised would be an accurate description of what he felt when Lando said he was getting a drink with Mara. Luke never thought this was the reason why.
Still, he only knows what he feels; he can’t assume Mara feels it too.
He swallows the lump in his throat. He swallows disappointment and regret for not realizing it sooner. He swallows pride.
If Mara wants Lando, he won’t get in the way.
But Luke knows his heart now; he can’t continue on as they were, nor can he blot her out.
When Mara returns to the Temple, Luke fades into the background. It does nothing to spare his feelings.
He does not guess what Mara thinks and feels.
----------
Ahsoka clears her throat loudly. Her mouth curls watching them spring apart faster than hunted akul. Embarrassment, not shame, overwhelms them.
It amuses her, “I was wondering where my apprentice ran off to.”
The pair flush dramatically, still no shame. Not that Ahsoka expects there to be. There’s nothing to be ashamed of; this is what they rebuilt the Order to allow.
“When you’re ready, Mara.” She nods, but doesn’t move when Ahsoka turns to go.
Luke and Mara are wrapped together again as Ahsoka approaches the end of the hall. She feels the gravity pulling them toward each. Its strength surprises her. She would have expected to feel something this strong sooner – for it to fall into place faster.
She wonders if either of them saw it coming. She wonders if it will last. She tries to remember if she ever felt the same pull between Anakin and Padmé, but didn’t recognize what it was.
No, now is not the time to regret what I didn’t – couldn’t have known.
The Order trained her to be unable to recognize love. It wasn’t meant for her – it wasn’t meant for the Jedi, so they pretended, as much as they could, it didn’t exist.
It’s why they changed the code. They can’t pretend love isn’t the Force’s strongest ally against the Dark Side anymore.
Then again, maybe she and Luke are wrong.
“You’re not wrong,” Obi-Wan soothes.
“How can you be sure?”
“Love has done more good in the galaxy than harm. Anakin was not the only Jedi to feel its pull in the Force.”
Ahsoka knits her brow, “You’re talking about yourself.”
“Among others.” (Typical Obi-Wan – avoiding the point.)
Devoted-to-the-code Obi-Wan did something against it, but after everything, it doesn’t it shock her as much as it might have.
“Who?”
“A handful of others.”
“No. Who were you in love with? There’s no point in hiding it now.”
Obi-Wan’s indistinct eyes seem to sparkle, “Satine Kryze.”
Ahsoka recalls the proud Duchess of Mandalore. She was always stern, but kind; a matching will and personality Obi-Wan.
“I was fool enough to let her slip away. I accepted what I was taught, instead of fighting for what I felt was true.”
“You couldn’t have known. Nobody did.”
“But you do now.”
Footsteps approach Ahsoka and the ghost. Obi-Wan smiles at woven fingers.
They know now. The past confirms it and the future welcomes it.
----------
After Han, Luke is the first person Leia needs to tell she is pregnant; he’s the first person she needs to tell about the impending wedding. If only he weren’t off on one of his missions.
She waits in the Temple hangar for him to return. The first ship to arrive is not Luke’s. Jade’s Fire creates huge gusts of wind as it lands, blowing strands of Leia’s hair free from their braids. Mara half-salutes from the cockpit; Leia raises an arm in response.
“You know, I don’t expect a welcoming committee every time I arrive.”
“One person is hardly a welcoming committee. You should see Senate proceedings.”
“No thanks. I saw plenty of them from the shadows.” Casual references to Mara’s time as an Imperial agent have grown more frequent. Either the past doesn’t trouble her as much as it used to or she’s finally allowed herself to open up to all of them (not just to Luke).
Leia leaves well enough alone, “I actually didn’t know you were coming today.”
“Ahsoka didn’t mention it?”
She shakes her head, “I’ve been busy.”
“Mandalore?”
“Yes and other things. I was waiting for Luke when you arrived.”
“He’s not here?” Mara seems to deflate as she asks it.
Leia resists the tug at the corners of her mouth. Luke is easy to read where she is concerned, but nobody expected Mara would feel as deeply for him (especially not Han).
“He left suddenly a couple days ago – tracking down another possible student. He said he’d be back today.”
“Would you like some company while you wait?”
This time Leia does smile, Mara doesn’t know she already has company, but allows the other woman to stay.
An X-wing enters the hangar not much later. Luke leaps out of the cockpit, not bothering with the ladder, and runs to them. Grabbing Mara, he enthusiastically presses his mouth to hers. He pulls away grinning from ear-to-ear.
A vision of the past comes to her in a flash: their mother and father in this hangar, not yet married and a war looming over them, but it does not overshadow the bright spot of love burning between them as they lay beneath a ship. Joy outshines any darkness.
“We have a student!”
Mara is too stunned by the intensity of his greeting to respond.
Leia asks, “Who is it?”
“Set, a boy from Stewjon. He’ll be coming in a few weeks.”
Apparently his excitement hasn’t died down any because he lets go of Mara and throws his arms around Leia in a firm embrace.
Panicked, “Luke! Not so tight!”
He lets go immediately, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Everything’s fine – more than fine. I’m pregnant.”
“Pregnant?”
“And Han and I are getting married.”
Mara looks as surprised as Luke.
Their lives overflow with good news. An apprentice, a child, a wedding; everything would be perfect if Mandalore’s threat of war didn’t hang over them.
Leia hasn’t let herself consider the inevitable, afraid it will ruin her happiness. Han has go to war, but they will share their blessings first (they still have some time before he leaves).
“Why didn’t you tell me right away?”
“I just did,” she insists.
“Leia, this is great news. Congratulations, to you and Han.” He’s beaming again. Mara slips an arm around Luke and offers her congratulations too.
In another flash Leia sees them all together; smiling, incandescently happy, and safe from the war. She aches for the day and the certainty it will come true, but is thankful that if Han cannot be here, Luke and Mara will.
----------
Fresh faces are a sight for Han’s sore and sand-stung eyes. Maybe it’s the exhaustion or maybe it’s the beard, but he almost misses Luke when the Jedi disembark. (“Mara bet I couldn’t pull one off.”)
Alone, Han’s first questions are about Leia.
“She misses you, but otherwise she’s fine – getting big. Told me to remind you she wants her husband back and that she loves you.”
Han grins for the first time in weeks, “I know.”
Luke rolls his eyes; he would feel differently in Han’s situation.
The tent flap opens and they are joined by Chewie, Lando, Ahsoka, and Mara. After Chewie and Lando greet Luke, Mara is at his side; she pecks his cheek. The gesture makes Han’s heart twist.
Unlike Leia, Mara doesn’t have to stand on her toes to reach Luke, but the action is so similar and so familiar. He wonders when the two of them became so open.
Part of him assumed they wouldn’t last long. Part of him assumed Mara would never fit into Luke’s life, but she did. She made herself fit, carving out a space for herself. Han doesn’t claim to know Mara enough to say for certain, but Luke must have done the same.
It hits him, halfway through their strategic meeting: Luke and Mara will be sharing a tent.
Jealousy flares.
They’ve been together all this time; they’ll continue to be together while he and Leia are still light-years apart.
He damns Mandalore and Katan for their ill-timed war on the galaxy. He damns Leia’s stubborn insistence he not back out. He damns himself for letting himself be talked into this mess of a campaign.
He might damn Luke and Mara too, but it’s not their fault he’s separated from Leia and their unborn child.
Across the table, Mara shoots him a curious look.
Suddenly self-aware, Han realizes how stupid all of this jealousy is. He’s been at war too long; reverting to his old selfish habits. For whatever remainder there is, he’ll try to be more conscious of it.
He’ll try not to notice the little things which pass between Luke and Mara.
----------
She’s not sure if she likes Luke’s new scent. Oh, Mara loves the smell of combat, but when it adheres to Luke, it is not him.
Luke is not himself on the battlefield.
He probably doesn’t recognize her during a fight either.
In their tent late at night, after the screaming and the explosions have faded, they come back to each other. Mara slinks into bed and slinks onto Luke.
They can leave the battlefield; it doesn’t always leave them. The stench doesn’t cling as strongly to his chest as it does to his clothes, but she finds ash and sand in his beard. It probably sticks in her hair too.
Arching into each other, none of it matters.
They have each other; more than can be said for Han or Ahsoka, their partners elsewhere (Saw, Ahsoka argues, is not her partner, but he would be something here – a warm body, a human connection in warfare). Mara and Luke try to be discreet for their sakes.
“I can’t imagine leaving you behind pregnant,” he says absently one night, arms wrapped tightly around her. The synthetic hand holds her hip to him, while the thumb of the other rubs the small of her back.
She is taken aback; she wasn’t expecting talk of children. She recovers quickly from her open-mouthed balking. (Children together would not be so bad – just not anytime soon.)
“You couldn’t stop me from going.”
“That’s what I meant.”
He grins at her. Careless and stupid, maybe, but pregnancy would not stop her from performing her duty as a Jedi, and they both know it.
“Do you think Han regrets leaving?”
“I think Han regrets not being there for Leia.”
Mara chews her bottom lip.
Not joining up – not doing anything for the war effort, might harbor plenty of regrets. Luke holds it close, but he has just as many misgivings about leaving his sister and Set.
“We’ll all be home soon,” she means it encouragingly.
“How do you know?”
“We’re losing, Luke. Better to draw out sooner than to leave too late.”
It hopefully will not be months before the Senate comes to the same conclusion. Mara has seen too many battles (desperate attempts to make an impact though the day is lost) against rebels and insurgents from the winning side not to recognize a hopeless situation.
“Katan has most of Mandalore behind her. Her rallying cry of ‘Mandalore for Mandalorians’ harkens back to bygone wars against the Jedi. I didn’t see it until we got here, but our presence isn’t helping anything.”
It’s a grave look which overcomes Luke, “You felt it too.”
There’s no need to respond. They both knew it was a doomed expedition the moment they set foot on this damned planet.
Mandalore has come full circle – their history and tradition of violence preserved. Would that they had returned to their pacifist ways after the Empire’s fall.
Luke’s expression is almost enough to make Mara consider sliding back into her old ways: assassinate Katan, free the system of her influence. She checks herself. Assassination is not like the battlefield; she’s not sure she could come back from it, even for him.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he says weakly. “Don’t…”
Mara smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes, “You’re not supposed to be in my head, Skywalker.” She pauses to see if the old joke eases his fears.
It doesn’t.
“Don’t worry; I’m not going anywhere I can’t come back from.”
----------
It’s up to their necks now.
Two or three more deep breaths of the chilled air and they’ll be drowning.
They’re both about to lose their lives, with no hope anyone will ever find their bodies, and the only thing going through Mara’s head is, “What a fucking waste.”
It was stupid for them to come here in the first place, chasing some ridiculous rumor about a sacred Jedi temple, hidden away for centuries, even before the days of the Galactic Republic.
If only she had thought it was so stupid when they first heard about it. She wanted to come. The allure of finding the lost temple drew her in, but her numbing fingers clutching the folds of Luke’s shirt tell her differently.
Why is the only thing she can think about how stupid an idea this was? Why can’t her dying thoughts be something meaningful; a distant childhood memory, a regret from her service to the Empire, one last admission of love?
She’s about to die clinging to the man she loves and there’s nothing they, their lightsabers, or the Force can do about it. And all she can think is, “What a fucking waste?”
Luke tries to hide he’s as cold as her is by clenching his teeth; it doesn’t stop them from chattering.
The sound gets worse when he tries to speak, “When we get out of this, will you marry me?”
Mara gasps; it may be in surprise or it may be in attempt to fill her lungs one last time before they go under. Either way it robs her of her chance to answer.
The water reaches the top of the cave and they are in darkness.
Though the water pushes and pulls them, Mara refuses to release Luke from her grasp. If they are to die, at least they won’t be alone.
But Luke said ‘when they get out of here.’
Stupid, handsome, unfailingly optimistic Luke said ‘when.’ They’ll get out of this alive because when Luke speaks, it is the truth and it is a promise.
When they get out of this, she will give him her answer and she will kiss him like they’re about to die all over again, but they will be more alive than they ever have been.
He will be her Luke when they get out of this.
Something finally manages to loosen her grip on his shirt. For a moment, Mara despairs; if they don’t get out together, what’s the point of getting out at all?
But his fingers find hers and they lace together, never letting go.
It is all blackness ahead of them; they swim blindly, hoping for something – anything. Staying still is certain doom. Moving forward there is a chance – their only chance.
Mara doesn’t know how much time passes or how they managed to find their way to the surface, but she awakes next to Luke on a cave floor, their feet dangling in the cold waters.
They are drenched, head to toe. Fresh cuts and scrapes bleed; the blood thinning where it meets their wet skin. Mara breathes easy with the knowledge that what fills her lungs won’t be the icy waters of her death.
Luke doesn’t stir.
As quick to tears as she’s ever been, she shakes him viciously, “Wake up! Please, Luke! Don’t do this to me! Please, wake up!”
She is desperate; pounding his chest and trying to breathe life into him.
“You said ‘when,’” she pleads. “Don’t you dare start lying to me now!”
Mara hits him again and he splutters; coughing up water and choking, but alive. Luke rolls onto his side and lets the water drain from his mouth.
Relief washes over, without drowning her. All at once, she is terrified and glad of the ordeal they endured; she nearly lost Luke, but water droplets disguise the tear streaks down her face.
Not waiting for him to finish recovering, Mara gives her answer, “Yes.”
Not comprehending and still coughing, “Yes what?”
“Yes, I will marry you, when we get out of this.”
Every fiber of her being wishes the light weren’t so dim, so she could better make out the expression on his face (slightly dazed and bewildered, but completely happy and irrevocably in love).
Then Mara fulfills the other part of her promise to herself. The water on their lips conducts an electric shock through her; her whole body tingles from the current.
Luke reciprocates in full force; as though they were about to die, but breathing new life into each other.
----------
Luke never believed the man with the wheel ever stopped hanging stars in the sky. He knows it’s true now.
The bundle in his arms his evidence.
He muses on his grandmom’s stories. He wants to tell them to the girl nestled into his chest, though she will never see the pictures. Even if Coruscant were dark enough to see its celestial sphere, the constellations would not be there.
Mara sits upright in bed, “Are you ever going to let me hold her again?”
He hands Mara their daughter; she makes a space for him on the bed. Luke sits, continuing to watch the baby, silently dreaming, over Mara’s shoulder.
City lights illuminate the room with their unnatural glow. It creates its own peaceful ambiance.
Trying not to break the evening’s spell, he whispers, “We shouldn’t get used to this – her sleeping at night.”
“If Han can survive three, we can handle one.”
He tears his eyes away from the baby girl for a moment to look at Mara. She lightly traces the nose of the contented child; once-sharp eyes stare lovingly. Years ago no one would have ever guessed she possessed such gentleness.
The curve of her cheek invites a kiss.
“What’s on your mind?”
Mara adjusts the blanket around the child, “I’m thinking about what we’re going to call her.”
Throughout Mara’s pregnancy, they considered dozens of names. Until she was born, they thought they had settled on one. Once they held her in their arms, no name they discussed was good enough.
Leia had it easy, choosing the names of her Alderaanian family, a fitting remembrance. With pasts as mixed as theirs, neither Luke nor Mara wants to draw attention to them.
“And you? What are you thinking about?”
“My grandmom’s stories,” Luke admits. Answering her quizzical look, “Aunt Beru used to tell me her stories of the night sky on Tatooine.”
“Sounds nice. Tell me one.”
He doesn’t tell her the tale of the man with the wheel or Anakin the Giant Slayer, Luke chooses a different story: the myth of the twin suns. Mara curls around him, their daughter napping in her lap, to listen to the desert folklore. When one tale is done, Luke begins another.
His arm’s asleep after the second story; Mara on top of it. The slight movement of freeing his arm wakes her.
“Sorry. Go back to sleep.”
Mara shakes her head, “It’s alright.”
“Hey, I know we agreed we wouldn’t name her after our family –”
“We agreed we wouldn’t name our baby after our parents,” she corrects.
“Right. So, how would you feel about –?”
“Naming her Shmi? I would like that.”
Shmi yawns from the folds of the blanket and her little arms stretch out to them. Luke puts a finger in her reach and the baby grasps it in her tiny hand. The gesture brings a smile to Mara’s face and she does the same.
Like the orbits of the planets and the moons, a circle completes.