"Echoes of Always" - Luke/Mara - Chapter 14, April 13
This chapter is a tad short because it and chapter 15 were originally one very (very) long chapter. I’m glad so many of you like Betrys. :) I hope you'll enjoy seeing more of her interaction with Luke in this chapter, and Ben's, too...
CHAPTER 14
Mara woke early the next morning. Luke turned to smile at her, kissing her temple. She was warm in his arms and he was loathe to move. Ben hadn’t left his room since he entered it the night before, but Luke knew they should move before he came out and found them on the couch. He wasn’t sure how Mara’s son would feel or react if he saw them together. Mara appeared to be in silent agreement. She leaned into his kiss for but a brief moment before getting up, leaving him to feel cold at the lack of her heat. But neither of them spoke, not wanting to mention what day it was or the strangeness of celebrating an anniversary with a woman and man that had never really been their husband or wife.
Mara wandered off to her shower. He watched her go before getting up moments later himself and heading into the guest room and taking a shower of his own. After the shower he put on his own black clothing. He wasn’t sure if the kids could recognize their father’s clothes but felt more comfortable in his own around them. When he was finished he headed back out into the kitchen. It was quiet and he took the time to put on a pot of caf. Mara was never really herself before her first cup, and he knew that she liked it strong.
He felt Betrys’s presence behind him before he heard her move and turned to smile at her. “Good morning,” he said. “Do you want a cup?” He realized then that he didn’t know if she drank caf. He didn’t know much about her at all, really. He found himself wondering if she liked hot chocolate, like he did or her father had. Had her first word been ‘Daddy’ and did she like to fly fighters? Did she have a special person in her life? Was she happy? She was an enigma to him, and he found that he craved more knowledge about her.
“That’d be nice,” she said, walking closer to accept a mug. She was just a little taller than Mara, he saw, now that she was standing so close to him. She stared at him for a moment after she took the cup and looked away with a slight blush.
“I’m sorry this is so uncomfortable for you,” he said, trying to soothe her. He prepared his own mug and took a seat at the small table. “I really never meant… Actually, that’s not true. I didn’t really think about all the ramifications of what I was doing.”
“I remember how impetuous you could be at times…” she trailed off. “I mean how impetuous Dad was. Force, this is tough.”
“You mom told me that you were really close with your dad.”
Betrys smiled wistfully. “Yeah. I miss him so much, even still. But you said your wife had died. Mom, I mean. Your kids must understand what I’m going through. I can’t imagine losing her, too.”
Luke’s stomach clenched. Kids. “It’s been very rough.”
She took a slow drink, and her green eyes studied him over her mug. She swallowed and put the mug on the table. “I’d say so. Hopping dimensions is a bit… extreme.”
He smiled ruefully. “So I’ve heard.”
Betrys smiled back. “It’s just so strange to be sitting here with you. My dad died when I was 17. Since then I’ve wished he were here to ask him so many things.”
“I felt that way about my father, too,” Luke said. “I had a few moments with Anakin before he passed on into the Force. But after Endor I found myself wishing that he had lived so that I could talk to him about, well anything, really-my mother, his life as a Jedi, how to restructure the Order. The list was seemingly never ending.”
She nodded in commiseration. “That’s it exactly. I never thought about it that way, that he might have felt the same in his life.”
“I know he never would have wanted to be an absent father,” he murmured thickly, thinking of how absent he’s been with Ben since Mara’s death. He wasn’t selling himself short; he had tried. But the overwhelming loss and the chasm that had existed prior to Mara’s death had played into circumstance. “I wanted nothing more as a child and young man than to know my father. I’m so glad that you got to know yours, even if that was ripped from you far too soon.”
Betrys’s eyes were bright. “The only time Mom really talks about Dad is to tell me how much I’m like him. Sometimes too much like him, she says. He had this habit of being able to see all options in a situation-”
“And it hindered how he made choices involving those situations?” Luke finished.
“Sometimes. I would ask how you know that, but…” She gestured at him as if it were obvious.
He grinned. “Yeah. Listen, I know you’re not my daughter,” he throat ached with those words, “but if I could give you some advice…?”
She nodded, wrapping one hand around her mug.
“I’ve suffered from second guessing myself for many years now. It’s hard to be an impetuous second-guesser, but I always do things the hard way, at least according to your Uncle Han.”
Betrys nodded again, as if she knew that already.
“But I think that the second-guessing comes from not relying fully on the Force. The best decisions of my life have been made with a clear head and glad heart, when I’ve listened to the guidance of the Force. A wise woman once told me that the Force was about power and guidance and that a true balance between the two could only be achieved through listening and respecting the Force itself.”
“But that’s so tough to do sometimes,” she said softly. “Overwhelming.”
“That’s how I felt when your mother taught me-reminded me of-the lesson,” he said. “Well, my Mara. And it was-tough to do, I mean. But when you’re at peace and you can listen to the guidance, you’ll know what to do and suddenly, it’s not so overwhelming at all.”
Betrys smiled at him and he smiled back, longing to stand and give her a hug, to hold the daughter he could never have imagined. He felt a sense of happiness about her in the Force, however, and that was enough for him. It made him smile wider.
He realized, too, that his words were for him as much as they had been for Betrys. He had been chasing solutions to his predicament but hadn’t listened to the Force, hadn’t sought the answers through the most powerful tool at his disposal. At that thought a sense of peace settled over him, and he realized that he might be on track to finding out how to get back home.
“By the way,” he said. “Happy birthday.”
Betrys blinked and then grinned. “Thanks. Thirty-one. I can’t believe it.”
“Can’t believe what?” Mara asked, coming into the kitchen, followed by Ben. Ben looked furtively at Luke before grabbing a box of cereal from the cabinet.
“I was just telling… uh… Luke… that I can’t believe I’m thirty-one today,” Betrys explained.
“You can’t believe it?” Mara asked, leaning down to hug her daughter. “I pushed for three hours those many years ago and can’t believe it myself.”
Luke was happy to see Mara parenting her adult daughter. He could tell how close they were, could feel an echo of their strong bond in the Force. His Mara had died when Ben was only fourteen and had missed his formative teenage years. She would never see her son grow into a man and that left both Luke and Ben bereft.
“Dad always said I was born on your wedding night because I wanted to be there to celebrate with the two of you.” Betrys’s eyes were distant as if she were remembering her father telling her the story.
Mara released an amused puff of air. “Yeah… he had been nagging me every day since we had learned I was pregnant to marry him. I was stubborn and didn’t want to do it while pregnant… but on the day you were born… I finally gave in and said ‘yes’ and you have never seen a man move so fast in your life. We were married in a matter of hours.”
Betrys laughed. “You’ve never told us that story before. I’d only heard it from Dad. I like hearing you talk about him.”
Mara looked startled by the statement, before her eyes shuttered. “…It was a long time ago. Let’s talk about your birthday. What are you plans for tonight?”
Betrys sighed as if disappointed, but answered her mother. Ben didn’t say anything but had obviously been listening to the story by the look of the wide, interested set of his gaze. But Luke noticed that when Mara changed the subject his face had fallen. “Yeah, happy birthday, sis,” he muttered, punching her in the arm as he exited the kitchen with his breakfast.
Luke watched him go and frowned to himself. This Ben had never even known him, really. His father had died when he was so young. He tried to imagine all he would have missed with his own son had he died at the end of the Vong war. It was too great a loss to contemplate. He wondered what exactly Ben knew of his father. Something told him that most of Ben’s knowledge had come from Betrys, not Mara.
“…cheer up when I take him out with me tonight,” Betrys was saying when Luke tuned back into the conversation between mother and daughter.
“What about Mr. Blood-Stripes? Is he going to be at this party?” Mara asked, sending her daughter a sly look.
Luke was surprised at the protective feeling that streaked through him at the idea of Betrys and this unknown man.
Betrys rolled her eyes. “Not unless he was a stowaway from Naboo, Mom. Don’t get too excited for grandchildren just yet.”
“I think we can wait awhile on that,” Mara said coolly. “I’m not really what you’d call a ‘granny’.”
Betrys laughed. “I’m not that much younger than Jacen,” she pointed out.
“Yes, but Han’s twelve years older than me. I have no desire to hear him call me ‘Granny Jade’ yet.” But Mara quirked her lips in a small smile and Luke knew that someday she would make a fantastic grandmother. He felt voyeuristic watching this conversation and tried to figure out how to make his exit so that Betrys could have some time alone with her mother.
But Mara made it easy on him. “I have your present in my bedroom,” she said to her daughter. “Come on.”
Betrys stood to follow her mother, turning to give Luke a parting smile as she left the room.
He enjoyed the silence of the kitchen for a moment, finishing his caf and taking the mug to the sink to rinse. He heard Artoo whistling down the hall, and the sound managed to make him feel both at home and in a foreign land. He didn’t have time to contemplate that thought as he felt another presence behind him. He steeled himself, turning to look into Ben’s blue eyes, so like his own. If this Ben was as similar in action and emotion as he was in looks to his own Ben, Luke knew he should tread lightly. “Hi,” he said, asking for nothing except maybe a greeting in return.
Ben grunted and moved past Luke to get a different box of cereal from the cabinet. He opened it and poured it into his bowl, shooting another furtive glance in Luke’s direction. Still, Luke didn’t say anything, though his heart was beating hard in his chest. How different this conversation would be if he were back in his own dimension. But no matter where he was, Luke wasn’t sure where to start. Or if he should start.
“How did your wife die?” Ben asked, breaking the silence but not looking up from his bowl. He stirred his spoon around in it slowly.
Luke swallowed hard. He wasn’t sure how much to reveal, scared not only of revealing that Betrys didn’t exist in his dimension but also of telling Ben about Jacen’s fall to the Dark Side. “She was murdered by the Sith your mother mentioned earlier.”
“Oh,” Ben said, sounding incredibly young in stark dichotomy to the sharp set of his face. It was the angular and changing face of a young man. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“When did it happen?”
“Almost two years ago now,” Luke said, amazed by the span of time. That first night he hadn’t even wanted to go to sleep. If he slept then the day was over, the day he had felt Mara die. She had been alive that morning and gone that night and it just seemed so wrong and terrible. Now he had lived without her for almost two years, but it had been a half-life. A disservice to his son, and to himself. Not to mention a disservice to Mara’s memory.
“Two years,” Ben repeated and Luke could see him imagining himself as a fourteen year old, losing his mother. “That’s how old I was when Dad died. Two.”
Luke nodded. “I know. I … Your mother told me that.”
“You don’t look like I thought you would,” Ben said, changing the subject.
“Really?”
“Yeah, you’re shorter than I imagined.”
Luke laughed. “You’re not the first to say so, son.” He winced as soon as the word left his mouth.
Ben looked stunned but quickly recovered with a mask of indifference. “Guess you’re pretty happy to be stuck here with my Mom. You know, after losing your wife, and all.”
“Seeing your mom has been… healing.” He wasn’t sure how to explain the complexities of the situation to a teenager. Healing seemed to be good, and true enough, of a word.
“I’ll bet.” Ben was baiting him, covering up for being uncomfortable. And he wasn’t finished. “So what happens now, Dad?” Sarcasm dripped in his voice. “Are you and mom going to get together and ‘complete’ our family?”
“I think your family was pretty complete already,” Luke said evenly. “Just missing a member. But I’m not here to take his place. No one could ever do that.” He paused. Sighed. “You may not realize it but this is hard for me, too. I see you and think of my own son. I think about how I need to get home to him.”
“You have kids?”
Luke’s heart seized. “Yes,” he said, hoping Ben didn’t ask him to elaborate.
“And they lost mom-your Mara?”
Luke nodded. “I know you might not understand this, Ben. But I came here because I felt so desperate to see my wife again. I realize now that I didn’t completely control this choice, that I was led into it, but it was still with my eyes wide open. I can only apologize to you for … for interrupting your life.”
Ben set his bowl on the counter and regarded Luke. He ducked his head just slightly to the side in an action that Luke had seen from his own son. He was still uncomfortable but leaning toward forgiveness. “Yeah, all right,” he said after that beat. “Just-what happens now? Do we start a reality-based show on the HoloNet hawking you as the wacky dad of two Jedi that hopped dimensions to find the only woman who would have him, bowl-cut and all?”
“First, I don’t have a bowl-cut-”
“Anymore,” Bet cut in.
Luke concealed a smile, but kept talking. “And second-do you think anyone would watch?”
“Are you kidding?” Ben asked, with a small smile. “We’d be a hit.”
Ben’s half-smile eased some of the ache in Luke’s heart. But the unreality of it all was still a hard pill to swallow. His heart led him in two directions-staying here with Mara and her children or going back home to his own son. His brain knew he could only have one, but his heart, his heart wanted both.
He rolled his eyes playfully at Mara’s son. “I don’t know, Ben. I’m not sure our family life is messed up enough for a reality show.”
Ben grinned outright at that. “A sense of humor. I also didn’t expect that, no matter what Betrys says.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, just that Bets tells me about Dad sometimes and I never know what to think about it. I wish Mom would talk more about him, but she hardly does.”
Luke could imagine that. “I think it’s just hard for her, Ben. She loved your father very much.”
“Yeah,” Ben agreed. “But she’s not the only one who did.”