"Echoes of Always" - Luke/Mara - Chapter 13, April 9
Introducing Betrys and Ben...
Chapter 13
The shock on the faces of the children tugged at Luke’s heart and assaulted him almost violently in the Force. He was still masking his presence but could feel the vibration of the Force around him. The children were amazingly strong in it, just like his own son. He wondered how many nearby Jedi had felt their shock and what the consequences of that could be.
Time seemed to slow for a moment. He got a good look at both of Mara’s children, though calling them children didn’t seem correct. Young adults, more realistically, though Betrys was actually almost thirty-one years old. Older than he had been when he had met Mara. That thought made him feel very old.
She was beautiful, this daughter he never had. She was definitely Skywalker, in the set and shape of her face, with her high cheekbones and her dark blonde hair. She had her mother’s clear green eyes. Even the narrowing of her gaze was pure Mara. Though she looked like a good mix of himself and of Mara, there was something more there, a look all her own or perhaps the look of Mara’s side of the family about her mouth and forehead. After Ben was born, Mara had made the comment that sometimes she felt she was seeing her own mother or father in him. Luke was sure this Mara had felt the same about her first child.
Betrys carried herself as a Jedi Knight, a saber at her waist. He noticed Artoo-Detoo standing right behind her and thought about Mara’s comment that Artoo followed Betrys around like he had Luke. The thought made him glad. Just next to Artoo stood Ben and he, too, held himself as a Jedi. It tugged at Luke’s heart even more to see Mara’s son, as he was an exact copy of the son he had left behind, bright red hair even cut in the same style. Ben could pass for his son’s identical twin and it made him long for the child he might never see again. He had to stop himself from reflexively stepping forward and hugging the boy.
He turned his head slightly to see Mara, mouth open but no sound coming out. She had been against the kids ever seeing him and he hated that this had been thrust on her. But he didn’t speak, waiting for her to break the silence first.
"What in blazes is going on here?" Betrys growled. "I thought…you look…"
Ben looked just as thunderstruck as he did. "Dad?"
Luke dropped his head to his chest, tears prickling at his eyes. How he wanted to say ‘yes’ and validate the hope in Ben’s eyes. In Betrys’s.
"This is not your father," Mara finally spoke up, regaining some of her composure. "But he is Luke Skywalker."
"Clear as mud, Mom," Ben muttered, still staring at Luke. "What the kriff?" Artoo beeped, seemingly in agreement with Ben.
Mara let the curse slide. "As hard as it is to believe, he’s Luke Skywalker, but from a different dimension."
"Okay, I’ll bite," Betrys said. "What’s he doing here?" Her eyes shot back to his but she looked away quickly, almost as if it hurt to look at him.
Luke spoke up for the first time. "I used a…device to travel here. It allows for inter-dimensional travel. My wife… My Mara… passed away. I came here, seeking her again. I realize how this must sound. But the device is broken now and I’m trying to find a way home. Your mom is helping me-"
"Let me get this straight," Ben cut in. "You came here for an inter-dimensional kriff?"
"Ben!" Mara scolded, her face red and tight with tension.
Ben didn’t back down though, a Jade to the core. "Well, isn’t tomorrow yours and Dad’s anniversary, Mom? That’s why we came home early, so you wouldn’t have to be alone. We thought we would surprise you. I guess the joke was on us."
Mara shook her head. "Look, I know you’re upset, angry even. So was I when he first came here. But even though he’s not really your father, he is your father from another place and time."
"I can’t believe you’re so calm about this, Mom!" Betrys burst out. "I was…I can’t even tell you the emotions I’ve gone through in the last few minutes. Too see him and he looks so much like Dad only to find out he’s my Dad but not really? What are we supposed to think?"
"Come sit down, let’s talk about this like rational adults."
"I’m not sure I want to do that," Betrys muttered. Ben nodded, apparently completely in his sister’s corner.
And though Luke’s heart ached, he smiled inwardly at Ben’s nod to his sister. It warmed his heart to think of Ben having an older sibling, even as it hurt him to think of his Ben, all alone in his galaxy.
"Well, too bad. Sit," Mara said in her mom voice, the voice that had never failed to make Ben stop whatever he had been doing to obey. Luke realized he had never quite mastered that particular voice or ability.
Betrys looked at war with herself but sat on the edge of the chair by the couch, Artoo rolling to a stop beside her. Ben flopped on the couch and picked up a sweet roll from their discarded dinner, popping it into his mouth and chewing.
Luke knew the only way to prove to them that he was who he claimed to be was to show them through the Force. They may have believed their mother but needed more proof.
"I can prove to you who I am, the same way I did for your mother," he offered.
"I’ll pass," Ben said, his voice leaving little doubt as to how he thought Luke’s identity had been proven.
Luke flushed, but didn’t back down. "Through the Force, Ben," he said, his voice cracking over his son’s name.
Betrys glanced at her mother and received a nod before turning to eye her brother. She nodded and he made a face, but agreed, too.
Using the skills he had acquired in hiding himself from the Force but still establishing a bond with individual people, he carefully reached out a Force strand to both Betrys and Ben. Betrys had amazing shields and initially rebuffed him, but eventually caught the strand of memory and allowed it to show her who he was, and what he was doing there in her galaxy. Ben faltered a little with the task, but managed after seeing his sister participate.
He didn’t show them specific memories as he had with Mara, but let more of a feeling flow to them, letting them sense his place in the Force and how he was a man named Luke Skywalker, even if he wasn’t the Luke Skywalker they had known and loved.
The decision to not show them specific memories was a last minute one, as he realized the implications of showing Betrys a galaxy in which she did not exist. The thought struck him as too sad to contemplate and he did not want her to bear that burden, to wonder if perhaps Ben was the only Skywalker child meant to be. He wasn’t sure how to speak to her without revealing the information, but he would sooner run himself through with a saber than tell his-Luke’s-daughter that she was a stranger to him.
A quiet sniffle surprised him and he looked to see Betrys wiping a tear from her eye. "You feel just like him," she said softly. "So much like my Dad."
His own eyes flooded with tears then. He expected more recrimination from her, more anger. But perhaps she could see that he had never meant to cause them or Mara any pain, that even if he had made the wrong choice it was a choice born of love.
"I’m so sorry that I’m not him," he said to her. "More than you can possibly know."
Ben watched impassively and stuck the last sweet roll into his mouth. "What do you mean you’re stuck?"
Betrys turned to her younger brother. "What?"
"Earlier. He said he was stuck here now. What exactly does that mean?"
Mara shook her head at her children. "It means what it sounds like. He’s stuck here because the machine that brought him here malfunctioned." She left out that he had been unintentionally led to believe false instructions and he wondered if they would have to tell them that later on.
"Actually," Luke cut in, "I have something to tell you about that, Mara. I started to suspect it on Creish Station, but wasn’t sure how to bring it up."
"Creish station?" Ben asked. "Where’s that?"
"Outer Rim," Betrys told him just as Mara turned narrowed eyes on Luke.
He took her narrowed gaze to be a question and answered it. "While we were there I talked to the guy who shot at us."
"When was this?" Mara asked immediately.
"When you were dealing with the authorities over the crash."
"What the-what’s been going on since we’ve been gone, Mom?" Betrys tried to cut in, but they didn’t answer her.
"What did he say?" Mara asked crisply, sending her daughter a ‘not now’ expression.
"He said that he had been paid to shoot at anyone who visited Niargen…by a man who was very good at sabacc."
"So?" Mara said. "Get to the point, Farmboy."
Luke didn’t miss the astonished look that Betrys shot at Ben over the nickname. He sighed. "The man I arrested and took the machine from-he was a notorious gambler. And this is flimsy evidence at best, but the Force is telling me it’s true-I was set up to come here, Mara. None of it was by chance."
.
.
"What do you mean, ‘set up’?" Betrys asked before Mara could form the words.
"I mean that I was put in this situation not entirely of my own volition. Natasi Daala became Chief of State recently and she is distrustful of the Jedi. She and I have been going round and round on it. She believes that a just and balanced government, one that was fair, would have no need for the Jedi Order, no matter how often I explain to her that we do not bow to the government nor work within their regulation."
"The recent Sith that you had in your galaxy couldn’t have helped," Mara pointed out.
Ben choked on the rice he was eating from the box of takeout. "A Sith? But they’re extinct. Grandfather brought balance to the Force with his death. Every crechling knows that."
Luke was grateful that Mara hadn’t pointed out the identity of the Sith in his galaxy, as he was this Ben’s Master, too. "That balance hasn’t worked out quite so well in my time," he said, looking at Ben, forgetting for a moment that he was not his son. The overly long arms and legs were endearing, but Ben was growing into his body. He was a young man now and Luke blinked, thinking of the chubby baby he and Mara had left at the Maw. He had missed so much of his son’s early life and now he might miss the rest of it due to Daala and his own stubborn heart.
"But I don’t understand," Betrys said, picking up the thread of conversation. "How are there Sith at all in your galaxy, unless…did Grandfather never defeat the Sith?" She touched her head to her temple as if the information or idea of it hurt. He couldn’t blame her. Especially now with the situation on Byss. He noticed that Mara hadn’t mentioned their suspicions of something dark lying in wait at Byss and decided to let her be the one to bring it up. There was no reason to alarm the kids yet.
"No, he did. In the skies over Endor he killed Palpatine to save me and then died himself, becoming Anakin Skywalker again in the process. But for many years after his death there were Dark Jedi in the galaxy. There were Sith teachings and spirits that were found and used by those who didn’t understand what they were doing." Like me, he thought. His failure with the Dark Side would always haunt him. His time with Mara and her understanding had helped, but he still heard Master Yoda’s words deep within his mind and regretted that the Dark Side now touched him so deeply, even thirty years out. But forever was an even longer time.
"It sounds like your galaxy is a lot different from ours," Betrys said. "But why would Daala send you away like this? Why not just kill you? This seems awfully orchestrated. Too orchestrated."
Luke thought about that for a moment. "I think there are a few reasons she didn’t want to kill me outright. If she’d had me murdered, she would risk being uncovered and turning me into a martyr. But if she could tempt me away by giving me something I desperately wanted, all the better, right?"
"Plus, she knows right where you are just in case she ever has need of you," Mara added darkly.
"That would mean there’s a way back," Luke mused.
"It could be as simple as someone else with an IDD carrying you back. Remember Naelli and how his device was stolen from him."
Luke nodded at her, remembering that conversation. He didn’t miss the look Ben was giving Betrys, both of them wondering what their mother had been up to since they had been gone.
"How long have you been here?" Ben asked him.
"Six days."
"Were you even going to tell us you were here?" Betrys asked, her voice gone soft again.
Luke didn’t know how to answer, but Mara jumped in for him. "No. I wasn’t going to let him. I tried to send him back that first day, but there were complications."
"Yeah. He looks just like Dad," Betrys said.
"I mean other complications," Mara said, but Betrys gave her a skeptical look. Mara shook her head. "It’s late. I think we should go to bed and deal with this tomorrow."
"Where’s he sleeping?" Ben muttered, looking at Luke. Not waiting for an answer, he got up and left the room.
Betrys sent Luke an apologetic look. "He’s just overwhelmed. I guess I’ll go back up to my room. I’ll see you in the morning?"
Mara nodded and hugged her daughter. "I’m glad to see you. I had planned to celebrate your birthday when you came back. We’ll have to do something tomorrow."
Betrys smiled faintly, returning the hug. "Okay, Mom. Goodnight." She looked down at her droid. "Come on, Artoo." Artoo shrilled out a response, his mechanical eye moving up and down as he looked at Luke. "Yes, we’re leaving now," she said to the droid, sneaking a look at Luke herself. "Night," she murmured to him before escaping out the door.
Mara heaved out a sigh when the door closed behind them.
"Mara, I’m so sorry," Luke began, reaching out to grasp her arm. "I know you didn’t want them to find out this way."
"They were going to know sooner or later," she said. "It would be kind of hard to hide you forever. I guess we need to work on a plan of action. Do we reveal you to the galaxy or just the Council?"
"Do I work with the Jedi or quietly slip around the edges of society looking for an elusive answer?"
Mara had no answer for him and moved to sit on the couch again. He sat next to her, not quite touching her. "Betrys is beautiful," he said, smiling as he thought of Mara’s daughter. "She really does remind me of myself, but there’s a lot of you there, too."
"She was definitely her father’s daughter."
Luke smiled sadly. "As for Ben-he could be my Ben’s twin. It made me miss him even more than I already was," Luke admitted. "I keep wondering if time is passing the same way in my dimension as here. If so, it’s only been six days. He could still be on Adumar. He probably doesn’t even know I’m gone, unless he felt it in the Force."
"I think of your Ben, too," Mara said. "I’ve been thinking about how we have to get you home to him. But every time I think of never seeing you again, I… it’s…hard." Mara entwined her fingers with his and raised them to her mouth to kiss his knuckles. Over his hand she gave him a determined look. "In the morning, we’ll figure something out."
"In the morning," Luke repeated. "I guess I’ll go back into the, uh, guest room. I don’t want to upset Ben further."
Mara nodded. "I think that would be wise." But she made no move to get up, using her hold on his hand to pull him in closer to her. He laid his head against her shoulder and she shifted so that they lay together in the crook of the couch.
The gift of holding her again was enough to quell the anxiety in his chest, but he didn’t sleep, his mind too busy thinking of what the morning would bring.