"Echoes of Always" - Luke/Mara - Chapter 11, April 2
Chapter 11 marks another turning point--I am completely done with EoA!! *throws confetti* The wonderful jedimara77 has finished betaing so I will now be posting 2x a week! I'll probably post Chapter 12 this Thursday. I feel so accomplished. I've been working on this since November. The bulk of it was written then, but several scenes had to be changed and a lot (a lot) of editing had to be done... just ask Nanci. ;) Thanks for reading!!
CHAPTER 11
Luke woke sometime later to find Mara staring at him, her hand warm and still on his belly. He grinned at her but fell back into a doze. He wasn’t quite as young as he had once been and making love twice in less than that many hours had worn him out.
The next time he opened his eyes Mara was still beside him but was wearing his tunic. She had pulled a sheet up over their bodies. He frowned at her covering but admitted to himself that he liked seeing her in his clothes. She used to walk around in nothing but his loose shirts in their old quarters on Yavin IV, the wet heat driving her insane. And quite likely she had realized the sight of her in his shirts had driven him insane. She did always like to bait him.
She was dozing herself, a small smile on those full lips that he loved. He couldn’t resist brushing his lips over that smile and smiled even wider when her eyes fluttered open.
“Got your beauty sleep in, I see,” she snarked.
His smile grew into a grin and he couldn’t help but laugh. “How close are we to Coruscant?”
Her eyes darkened just slightly. “About half a day left.”
He nodded, turning on his pillow to look at her lying on her side next to him. He wriggled his leg in between hers and looped an arm around her waist. “What happens then?” he asked, addressing the bantha in the bed with them.
“I don’t know,” Mara answered honestly, the words troubling her as her brow furrowed. “I hate that.”
He let out an amused puff of air. “I know you do, my love. But I admit to not knowing myself. This situation is…unique.”
Mara blew the fringe of her hair out of her eyes. “You can say that again.” She let her fingers wander down his arm, tracing the line of it.
“I don’t even know if you’ve…moved on,” Luke murmured gently, burrowing further into the pillow, reveling in Mara’s warm breath as it caressed his cheek. He looked at the space between them on the pillow and thought of how warm and cozy that space must be, smaller than it had been before.
Mara laughed quietly. “Little late to be asking that, isn’t it, Farmboy?”
He grinned. “That’s true. But thirteen years is a long time.”
“Are you saying that you’ve…moved on?”
Luke moved the arm on her waist down and patted her bottom. “I think the fact that I’m here should tell you something,” he answered dryly.
Mara smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. She flopped her head on her pillow. “I…I did see someone, a few years ago.”
Even though he had prepared himself for that answer, Luke’s stomach still dropped. But he knew he was being unfair. Thirteen years was a long time and Mara’s children had been so young when her Luke died.
“It felt so wrong, at first,” Mara said, and he looked at her to see her eyes becoming glassy again.
He cupped her cheek. “Mara, it’s okay. I…he wouldn’t want you to be alone. To be lonely.”
She gave him a smirk and laughed through a choked throat. “Aren’t you the generous one,” she teased. Then she sobered. “I know that. But I just…it was Kyle.”
“Katarn?” Luke asked. “I’ll have to have words with him when I get back. Maybe send him into the Outer Rim on a mission for a few months.”
Mara poked his chest. “You’re jealous!”
“What’s to be jealous of? His beard? I could grow one if I wanted.”
She laughed, the sound delighting him. Her hand cupped his cheek and her thumb brushed against the softening beard stubble he hadn’t the time to shave. “I don’t think so, Farmboy. Besides…look at where I am now. That should tell you something.”
“Didn’t work out?” he asked carefully, feeling surreal to even be talking with her about this.
She was silent as if weighing her thoughts. “No. We were sort of just friends…he really was there for me after Luke died. He had lost Jan and knew what it was to lose someone you loved so deeply.”
“This was when she was presumed dead?”
“Presumed?” Mara’s brow furrowed again. “No, Jan’s gone. She was killed sometime before Luke.”
“Another difference to this galaxy then,” he murmured.
Mara nodded. “Anyway, we used to-joke. About loving and losing someone with a prosthetic right hand. How we missed those hands, that sort of thing. And it felt good to joke, to talk to someone who could understand…”
“I understand, really I do,” Luke soothed, rubbing her back comfortingly.
Mara rolled her eyes. “Why do you have to be so…you?” She leaned into his embrace and kissed his neck. “But after awhile…it didn’t work out. I was still in love with you, and he with Jan…we couldn’t move forward like that.” She kissed up his neck, over the cleft in his chin, to his lips. “You’re an impossible act to follow, Luke. There’s no getting over you.”
He kissed her back, threading his fingers through her hair and holding her close. “If it makes you feel any better, there’s a newly knighted Jedi who’s been asking about me around the Temple.”
Mara pulled back and eyed him. “Go for it, Farmboy,” she said encouragingly. “Just tell her that your dead Master of a wife will be watching her from beyond the Force.”
Luke chucked and kissed her forehead. “Now, Mara,” he chided.
“You just had to get that in there, didn’t you?”
“Perhaps,” he allowed, before sighing. “This doesn’t get us any closer to my original question, though.”
Mara kissed his shoulder. “Shhh…I’m trying not to think about that.”
Luke gave her a faux questioning look. “Who are you and what have you done with Mara Jade Skywalker?”
“Let’s just say that I lost my husband many years ago, and I’ve deserved these quiet moments between us.”
“The quiet and the not so quiet,” he teased, smiling as she nudged him hard in the ribs. But she was smiling. “We both do,” he murmured, turning serious, pulling her in to another kiss He entwined his fingers with hers as they continued to kiss, but after a moment she pulled away and nestled her head against his neck, her breath warm against his body.
She took his left hand and looked at the rings adorning it. His and Mara’s. She let her fingers trace each ring slowly.
He swallowed hard and used his right hand to remove his wedding band from his finger. His heart beat rapidly in his chest as he took Mara’s hand and wrapped it around the ring until it was nestled in her closed fist. “I want you to have that,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “It could never take the place of his ring, but I want you to have something of mine.”
A tear leaked from the corner of Mara’s eye and she cleared her throat, unable to speak. Instead she lifted her head from his shoulder and grabbed her golden chain and bands from the bedside table. She didn’t look at him as she opened the clasp and slid his ring onto the chain until it clinked into place next to her husband’s wedding band. She then took the smaller band off and held it out to him.
He held out the small finger on his left hand, the one that already had his Mara’s ring on it. He smiled at the small pulse that lit the Force as Mara slid her ring onto his finger.
“Ever and always,” she whispered, repeating his earlier vow as the ring clinked into place. She placed her necklace back around her throat and lay down beside him again.
They stayed that way a long time, curled up together in the state room. The rest of the galaxy seemed far away in those moments, and they intended to take full advantage of that fact if for just a little while longer.
.
.
A chime sounded when they were two hours out from Coruscant. Luke groaned, nuzzling his head into Mara’s neck, breathing in deeply to imprint the scent and feel of her into his mind. Mara lifted her arm and wrapped it around his shoulders, digging her fingers into his hair and massaging. After a long moment she released him and stood from the bed, heading into the small fresher. “I’m going through the sonics,” she said and let the door close behind her.
He realized that she needed a moment to herself. He could use a moment to clear his brain, too. Making love to Mara was as amazing as ever, an unexpected and most welcome gift. But he still wondered what his Mara would say about the situation. He closed his eyes with a smile to think of some of the jokes she may have made.
Mara Jade, her doppelganger, and Luke Skywalker walk into a bar-stop me if you’ve heard this one, Farmboy…
I know most men have a fantasy of two women in their bed, but this is taking it a bit too literally, Farmboy…
He also needed a moment because when Mara came back they would have to have The Talk. They had avoided it so far, but with his options of going home close to nil they would have to have it. Making love had probably complicated the matter but he wouldn’t take that back, even if he had the chance. He felt more alive than he had in a long time. But now he was stuck in a galaxy with a woman who was not his wife but who he was in love with anyway. The fact that there were small differences between her and his Mara only made him more interested-every day with Mara had been an adventure and now there were new adventures to be had, old memories to learn and new memories to be made.
His heart still tugged to think of Ben, though. He could imagine and fantasize about a life here with Mara, but he could never and would never stop trying to get home to his son. Mara’s own children, too, would never know of his presence here, unless he truly was stuck in this galaxy forever. Even though, how could he even approach them? Especially Betrys. Mara said that she had been devastated by her father’s death. Ben had, too, but on a much different scale. Luke wasn’t even sure if Ben even had any memories of his father.
He let his mind backtrack to the end of the Vong war, when he was infirmed from the amphistaff wound and had taken time to heal on Zonoma Sekot. In those days he had seen visions, visions of a future that had shown him Ben and the path his life could take. Only the fall of his nephew had changed that future and now Ben was thrust into an uncertain galaxy much like Luke had been forty years before. It was not the galaxy he wanted for his only child. But in those moments on the wandering planet and then later, when they had been reunited with the toddler that had replaced the chubby baby they had left behind in the Maw, a future of happiness and loved had seemed assured. It seemed as if the terrible rends in the Force could be fixed, sewn together by his sheer will to see his son live a life unlike Luke’s own. A life without strife.
And now Ben was in another dimension, on Adumar, so far away from where Luke was this night.
His eyes strayed to the shower door and he thought of Mara, one half of his heart. Ben was the other half, born of the love he held for Mara. No, he could never stop trying to get back home to his son.
But leaving Mara behind, if he ever did find a way-that, that would break his heart all over again.
.
.
Mara exited the fresher and ushered him in. He couldn’t resist wrapping her in his arms as he passed her, lured by her sweet clean scent, fresh from the sonics. She sighed as if put out but kissed his bicep, rubbing her face against his arm. Her eyes looked clear and untroubled, but a tiny furrow in her brow told him she had been thinking just as he had.
He put it out of his mind and cleaned up, donning the last pair of clean clothing that he had. He paused in the mirror to comb his hair, and touched a small red patch of skin at his shirt’s collar. A visible reminder of what had happened between him and Mara. He smiled at the bruise and buttoned an extra button, keeping his secret to himself.
Mara was in her captain’s chair when he headed to the cockpit. He settled into the second seat and checked the course as matter of route. Still an hour and a half out. He sighed. “So…”
Mara clucked her tongue. “There’s a lot in that little word, Farmboy.”
He smiled faintly. “I know. I just…what do we do now? I can’t stop trying to get home, but what if…what if I can’t?”
“There has to be a way,” Mara said automatically. “I can’t imagine the device would just trap you here forever with no way back. Maybe another scientist-”
“Yes, but those are all maybes.”
“When did our situations reverse?” Mara asked. “Me, the optimist? I just don’t think…I just think you’ll get back home to your Ben.”
“I hope so,” he murmured. “’Course maybe he’ll like being dadless for a bit. No one to tell him to clean up after himself, or corny jokes, or to embarrass him.”
“Hm, teenagers,” Mara said. “Hard to believe we were once this young and some of us helped to bring down an Empire.”
“That’s true,” he said with a laugh. “I never really thought of it that way. I just have such a hard time with Ben sometimes. I love him and I know that he loves me, but since Mara…it’s been tough.”
Mara looked troubled. “I can’t imagine. My poor Ben. He feels things so deeply-he gets that from you. With his mother having been…murdered…I can only imagine that made it worse.”
“Things were rough before that. I showed you some of it when we shared images in the Force, but you may not have understood what you saw. Jacen was manipulating Ben. Had turned him into an assassin.”
Mara gasped, her eyes hardening.
“It all had come to a head, and Mara…she could see more than I could. I just couldn’t believe that my nephew, my apprentice…”
“What happened to Ben?”
“He found her,” Luke said. “After her death. She had been hit with a poison dart and was sitting against a wall, looking like she could have been asleep, he said. He spent time with her there…I can’t even imagine what he went through in those moments.”
Tears shimmered in Mara’s eyes, but she didn’t speak. He continued. “I’ve been so wrapped up in my own grief. When our bond snapped I didn’t know how to react, how to feel. I had always assumed that the bond wouldn’t allow for one of us to live while the other died. And that sudden absence…so quiet.” He touched his forehead. “It’s been so quiet.”
“I know.”
“And now I realize how wrong I was. I tried to reach out to Ben, but not enough. I was in a dark place, my head not on right, and our son…I’ve failed our son, Mara.”
Mara was silent for a moment. She worried her lower lip slightly before speaking. “Once, during the Vong war, Luke and I talked about the future for Betrys and Ben, should something happen to one of us. About assuring our future through our kids…”
But as Mara kept talking, suddenly it was his Mara’s voice in his head, asking him to take care of Ben should anything happen to her, to make Ben the center of his heart and universe as he was to her. Then no matter what, the future’s assured, she had said when he agreed.
“…I think that’s why she left you with just a note,” Mara was saying as he came back to the conversation. “She knew that, if she told you where she was going or what she was doing, you would stop her. One look into your eyes and she wouldn’t be able to go through with it. But for Ben…for your son…she would have done anything, including leaving in the middle of the night to face the unknown. Like me, she would have done anything for her child.” Mara paused, turning to look him in the eye. “I’ll do all I can to help you to get home to your son.”
Luke swallowed hard, and reached out for Mara’s hand. She took it and squeezed, sealing that vow.
.
.
.
.
.
A note on Kyle and Jan: What I know about them could fit a thimble. But the fact that Jan had a prosthetic right hand made me think that Mara and Kyle could snark on that fact and build somewhat of a relationship for a time. If anything is amiss with that, let me know.
CHAPTER 11
Luke woke sometime later to find Mara staring at him, her hand warm and still on his belly. He grinned at her but fell back into a doze. He wasn’t quite as young as he had once been and making love twice in less than that many hours had worn him out.
The next time he opened his eyes Mara was still beside him but was wearing his tunic. She had pulled a sheet up over their bodies. He frowned at her covering but admitted to himself that he liked seeing her in his clothes. She used to walk around in nothing but his loose shirts in their old quarters on Yavin IV, the wet heat driving her insane. And quite likely she had realized the sight of her in his shirts had driven him insane. She did always like to bait him.
She was dozing herself, a small smile on those full lips that he loved. He couldn’t resist brushing his lips over that smile and smiled even wider when her eyes fluttered open.
“Got your beauty sleep in, I see,” she snarked.
His smile grew into a grin and he couldn’t help but laugh. “How close are we to Coruscant?”
Her eyes darkened just slightly. “About half a day left.”
He nodded, turning on his pillow to look at her lying on her side next to him. He wriggled his leg in between hers and looped an arm around her waist. “What happens then?” he asked, addressing the bantha in the bed with them.
“I don’t know,” Mara answered honestly, the words troubling her as her brow furrowed. “I hate that.”
He let out an amused puff of air. “I know you do, my love. But I admit to not knowing myself. This situation is…unique.”
Mara blew the fringe of her hair out of her eyes. “You can say that again.” She let her fingers wander down his arm, tracing the line of it.
“I don’t even know if you’ve…moved on,” Luke murmured gently, burrowing further into the pillow, reveling in Mara’s warm breath as it caressed his cheek. He looked at the space between them on the pillow and thought of how warm and cozy that space must be, smaller than it had been before.
Mara laughed quietly. “Little late to be asking that, isn’t it, Farmboy?”
He grinned. “That’s true. But thirteen years is a long time.”
“Are you saying that you’ve…moved on?”
Luke moved the arm on her waist down and patted her bottom. “I think the fact that I’m here should tell you something,” he answered dryly.
Mara smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. She flopped her head on her pillow. “I…I did see someone, a few years ago.”
Even though he had prepared himself for that answer, Luke’s stomach still dropped. But he knew he was being unfair. Thirteen years was a long time and Mara’s children had been so young when her Luke died.
“It felt so wrong, at first,” Mara said, and he looked at her to see her eyes becoming glassy again.
He cupped her cheek. “Mara, it’s okay. I…he wouldn’t want you to be alone. To be lonely.”
She gave him a smirk and laughed through a choked throat. “Aren’t you the generous one,” she teased. Then she sobered. “I know that. But I just…it was Kyle.”
“Katarn?” Luke asked. “I’ll have to have words with him when I get back. Maybe send him into the Outer Rim on a mission for a few months.”
Mara poked his chest. “You’re jealous!”
“What’s to be jealous of? His beard? I could grow one if I wanted.”
She laughed, the sound delighting him. Her hand cupped his cheek and her thumb brushed against the softening beard stubble he hadn’t the time to shave. “I don’t think so, Farmboy. Besides…look at where I am now. That should tell you something.”
“Didn’t work out?” he asked carefully, feeling surreal to even be talking with her about this.
She was silent as if weighing her thoughts. “No. We were sort of just friends…he really was there for me after Luke died. He had lost Jan and knew what it was to lose someone you loved so deeply.”
“This was when she was presumed dead?”
“Presumed?” Mara’s brow furrowed again. “No, Jan’s gone. She was killed sometime before Luke.”
“Another difference to this galaxy then,” he murmured.
Mara nodded. “Anyway, we used to-joke. About loving and losing someone with a prosthetic right hand. How we missed those hands, that sort of thing. And it felt good to joke, to talk to someone who could understand…”
“I understand, really I do,” Luke soothed, rubbing her back comfortingly.
Mara rolled her eyes. “Why do you have to be so…you?” She leaned into his embrace and kissed his neck. “But after awhile…it didn’t work out. I was still in love with you, and he with Jan…we couldn’t move forward like that.” She kissed up his neck, over the cleft in his chin, to his lips. “You’re an impossible act to follow, Luke. There’s no getting over you.”
He kissed her back, threading his fingers through her hair and holding her close. “If it makes you feel any better, there’s a newly knighted Jedi who’s been asking about me around the Temple.”
Mara pulled back and eyed him. “Go for it, Farmboy,” she said encouragingly. “Just tell her that your dead Master of a wife will be watching her from beyond the Force.”
Luke chucked and kissed her forehead. “Now, Mara,” he chided.
“You just had to get that in there, didn’t you?”
“Perhaps,” he allowed, before sighing. “This doesn’t get us any closer to my original question, though.”
Mara kissed his shoulder. “Shhh…I’m trying not to think about that.”
Luke gave her a faux questioning look. “Who are you and what have you done with Mara Jade Skywalker?”
“Let’s just say that I lost my husband many years ago, and I’ve deserved these quiet moments between us.”
“The quiet and the not so quiet,” he teased, smiling as she nudged him hard in the ribs. But she was smiling. “We both do,” he murmured, turning serious, pulling her in to another kiss He entwined his fingers with hers as they continued to kiss, but after a moment she pulled away and nestled her head against his neck, her breath warm against his body.
She took his left hand and looked at the rings adorning it. His and Mara’s. She let her fingers trace each ring slowly.
He swallowed hard and used his right hand to remove his wedding band from his finger. His heart beat rapidly in his chest as he took Mara’s hand and wrapped it around the ring until it was nestled in her closed fist. “I want you to have that,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “It could never take the place of his ring, but I want you to have something of mine.”
A tear leaked from the corner of Mara’s eye and she cleared her throat, unable to speak. Instead she lifted her head from his shoulder and grabbed her golden chain and bands from the bedside table. She didn’t look at him as she opened the clasp and slid his ring onto the chain until it clinked into place next to her husband’s wedding band. She then took the smaller band off and held it out to him.
He held out the small finger on his left hand, the one that already had his Mara’s ring on it. He smiled at the small pulse that lit the Force as Mara slid her ring onto his finger.
“Ever and always,” she whispered, repeating his earlier vow as the ring clinked into place. She placed her necklace back around her throat and lay down beside him again.
They stayed that way a long time, curled up together in the state room. The rest of the galaxy seemed far away in those moments, and they intended to take full advantage of that fact if for just a little while longer.
.
.
A chime sounded when they were two hours out from Coruscant. Luke groaned, nuzzling his head into Mara’s neck, breathing in deeply to imprint the scent and feel of her into his mind. Mara lifted her arm and wrapped it around his shoulders, digging her fingers into his hair and massaging. After a long moment she released him and stood from the bed, heading into the small fresher. “I’m going through the sonics,” she said and let the door close behind her.
He realized that she needed a moment to herself. He could use a moment to clear his brain, too. Making love to Mara was as amazing as ever, an unexpected and most welcome gift. But he still wondered what his Mara would say about the situation. He closed his eyes with a smile to think of some of the jokes she may have made.
Mara Jade, her doppelganger, and Luke Skywalker walk into a bar-stop me if you’ve heard this one, Farmboy…
I know most men have a fantasy of two women in their bed, but this is taking it a bit too literally, Farmboy…
He also needed a moment because when Mara came back they would have to have The Talk. They had avoided it so far, but with his options of going home close to nil they would have to have it. Making love had probably complicated the matter but he wouldn’t take that back, even if he had the chance. He felt more alive than he had in a long time. But now he was stuck in a galaxy with a woman who was not his wife but who he was in love with anyway. The fact that there were small differences between her and his Mara only made him more interested-every day with Mara had been an adventure and now there were new adventures to be had, old memories to learn and new memories to be made.
His heart still tugged to think of Ben, though. He could imagine and fantasize about a life here with Mara, but he could never and would never stop trying to get home to his son. Mara’s own children, too, would never know of his presence here, unless he truly was stuck in this galaxy forever. Even though, how could he even approach them? Especially Betrys. Mara said that she had been devastated by her father’s death. Ben had, too, but on a much different scale. Luke wasn’t even sure if Ben even had any memories of his father.
He let his mind backtrack to the end of the Vong war, when he was infirmed from the amphistaff wound and had taken time to heal on Zonoma Sekot. In those days he had seen visions, visions of a future that had shown him Ben and the path his life could take. Only the fall of his nephew had changed that future and now Ben was thrust into an uncertain galaxy much like Luke had been forty years before. It was not the galaxy he wanted for his only child. But in those moments on the wandering planet and then later, when they had been reunited with the toddler that had replaced the chubby baby they had left behind in the Maw, a future of happiness and loved had seemed assured. It seemed as if the terrible rends in the Force could be fixed, sewn together by his sheer will to see his son live a life unlike Luke’s own. A life without strife.
And now Ben was in another dimension, on Adumar, so far away from where Luke was this night.
His eyes strayed to the shower door and he thought of Mara, one half of his heart. Ben was the other half, born of the love he held for Mara. No, he could never stop trying to get back home to his son.
But leaving Mara behind, if he ever did find a way-that, that would break his heart all over again.
.
.
Mara exited the fresher and ushered him in. He couldn’t resist wrapping her in his arms as he passed her, lured by her sweet clean scent, fresh from the sonics. She sighed as if put out but kissed his bicep, rubbing her face against his arm. Her eyes looked clear and untroubled, but a tiny furrow in her brow told him she had been thinking just as he had.
He put it out of his mind and cleaned up, donning the last pair of clean clothing that he had. He paused in the mirror to comb his hair, and touched a small red patch of skin at his shirt’s collar. A visible reminder of what had happened between him and Mara. He smiled at the bruise and buttoned an extra button, keeping his secret to himself.
Mara was in her captain’s chair when he headed to the cockpit. He settled into the second seat and checked the course as matter of route. Still an hour and a half out. He sighed. “So…”
Mara clucked her tongue. “There’s a lot in that little word, Farmboy.”
He smiled faintly. “I know. I just…what do we do now? I can’t stop trying to get home, but what if…what if I can’t?”
“There has to be a way,” Mara said automatically. “I can’t imagine the device would just trap you here forever with no way back. Maybe another scientist-”
“Yes, but those are all maybes.”
“When did our situations reverse?” Mara asked. “Me, the optimist? I just don’t think…I just think you’ll get back home to your Ben.”
“I hope so,” he murmured. “’Course maybe he’ll like being dadless for a bit. No one to tell him to clean up after himself, or corny jokes, or to embarrass him.”
“Hm, teenagers,” Mara said. “Hard to believe we were once this young and some of us helped to bring down an Empire.”
“That’s true,” he said with a laugh. “I never really thought of it that way. I just have such a hard time with Ben sometimes. I love him and I know that he loves me, but since Mara…it’s been tough.”
Mara looked troubled. “I can’t imagine. My poor Ben. He feels things so deeply-he gets that from you. With his mother having been…murdered…I can only imagine that made it worse.”
“Things were rough before that. I showed you some of it when we shared images in the Force, but you may not have understood what you saw. Jacen was manipulating Ben. Had turned him into an assassin.”
Mara gasped, her eyes hardening.
“It all had come to a head, and Mara…she could see more than I could. I just couldn’t believe that my nephew, my apprentice…”
“What happened to Ben?”
“He found her,” Luke said. “After her death. She had been hit with a poison dart and was sitting against a wall, looking like she could have been asleep, he said. He spent time with her there…I can’t even imagine what he went through in those moments.”
Tears shimmered in Mara’s eyes, but she didn’t speak. He continued. “I’ve been so wrapped up in my own grief. When our bond snapped I didn’t know how to react, how to feel. I had always assumed that the bond wouldn’t allow for one of us to live while the other died. And that sudden absence…so quiet.” He touched his forehead. “It’s been so quiet.”
“I know.”
“And now I realize how wrong I was. I tried to reach out to Ben, but not enough. I was in a dark place, my head not on right, and our son…I’ve failed our son, Mara.”
Mara was silent for a moment. She worried her lower lip slightly before speaking. “Once, during the Vong war, Luke and I talked about the future for Betrys and Ben, should something happen to one of us. About assuring our future through our kids…”
But as Mara kept talking, suddenly it was his Mara’s voice in his head, asking him to take care of Ben should anything happen to her, to make Ben the center of his heart and universe as he was to her. Then no matter what, the future’s assured, she had said when he agreed.
“…I think that’s why she left you with just a note,” Mara was saying as he came back to the conversation. “She knew that, if she told you where she was going or what she was doing, you would stop her. One look into your eyes and she wouldn’t be able to go through with it. But for Ben…for your son…she would have done anything, including leaving in the middle of the night to face the unknown. Like me, she would have done anything for her child.” Mara paused, turning to look him in the eye. “I’ll do all I can to help you to get home to your son.”
Luke swallowed hard, and reached out for Mara’s hand. She took it and squeezed, sealing that vow.
.
.
.
.
.
A note on Kyle and Jan: What I know about them could fit a thimble. But the fact that Jan had a prosthetic right hand made me think that Mara and Kyle could snark on that fact and build somewhat of a relationship for a time. If anything is amiss with that, let me know.