"Echoes of Always" - Luke/Mara - Chapter 16, April 20

[ginchy]

Chapter 16 is a long chapter, but I didn't feel like any of it could be cut or halved.   Hope you enjoy!!



CHAPTER 16

After the door closed behind Betrys, Luke risked looking at Mara, fearing that he might have overstepped his bounds. But Mara’s own eyes were suspiciously wet and he realized the impact of her seeing him hug her daughter. "Come here," he said, reaching for her hand, pulling her close. He buried his face in her hair, the tears drying on his cheeks. "She’s remarkable," he murmured into her ear. "They both are, and that’s a testament to your strength."

Mara pulled back and gave him a sad smile. She shook her head. "They’re a testament to both me and Luke." There was an awkward silence and as before, she clammed up when she spoke of her husband. Pulling away from him she went around the room, gathering up the flimsies and datapads.

Luke pitched in, picking up the items closest to him and setting them neatly onto the occasional table. Her silence made him think about his hug with Betrys and his talk with Ben. He could see how the kids could be frustrated. When they mentioned their father, Mara would change the subject or stop talking all together, though her story to Ben at dinner had seemed a step in the right direction. But still he wasn’t sure how to broach the subject with Mara, or even if he should broach the subject at all.

He thought back to the look on Ben’s face when Mara had told the story of his late night escapade with his father. Even just that small story had seemed amazing to Ben. Betrys remembered her dad, but Ben didn’t remember him at all. And that thought alone was enough to make him speak. "Ben really enjoyed your talk at dinner."

Mara’s back stiffened. But when she turned to face him her eyes were not as guarded as he had thought they would be. "Yeah. Listen, I’m going to take these back to the Archives." She held up the bundle in her hands.

"Mara-"

"Skywalker."

He sighed. He knew she wanted to get away from him, to clear her head and be alone with her memories. He forced a smile. "Go ahead. You’ll be back soon?"

Mara’s smile was relieved. "Yes…I-yes." She seemed ready to say more, but didn’t. She turned and left the room, and a moment later he heard the front doors cycling shut. He let out a defeated breath and sat on the couch. The room darkened toward night and still he sat there, his brain and heart too heavy and full for him to think of what to do next.

A beep at the doorway drew his attention and he looked up to see Artoo Detoo trundling through the door. He smiled at the faithful little droid. "Hi, buddy."

Artoo’s dome whirled and he let out a series of whistles and beeps as he came closer. Luke absently patted the droid and looked at the datapad attached to him. He let out a puff of air at what he read there. "No, I’m not your Master. Betrys is right."

Artoo trilled another response. Luke read the datapad again. "That’s right, Artoo. I am Luke Skywalker, but not-I’m not the Luke Skywalker who was married to Mara. Or the father of Betrys and Ben."

Contemplating that, Artoo’s mechanical eye moved up and down as if taking in Luke’s full measure. At the response on the screen, Luke laughed. "Yes, I am pretty sure my inner workings are the same as his."

Artoo rocked from side to side and whistled mournfully. Luke didn’t need to read the screen to interpret that sound. A lump formed in his throat. "I’m sure he… I’m sure he would miss you, too."

Another response popped up on Artoo’s screen. "Betrys says that, too, huh?" Luke smiled at the little droid. "She’s amazing, Artoo. I know she’s a good Master for you now. I… couldn’t tell her this, but where I come from, I don’t have a daughter. And it makes me sad to think that I missed out on knowing her."

Artoo was silent and Luke patted his dome. "Sorry, ‘Too. I didn’t mean to dump that on-" He stopped as Artoo’s robotic eye flashed a hologram. And much like he had some forty years before when viewing another of Artoo’s holos, Luke had to sit down.

"Da-Da." A baby voice rang out from the holo. A baby, Betrys, was speaking. "Da-Da," she said again. Luke watched her walk on chubby legs only to be caught up in a pair of familiar arms. "Bets!" his own voice exclaimed. He watched as Luke picked up his daughter and blew on her belly, tickling her. "Bets."

He swallowed past a lump in his throat. "That…that’s amazing." His voice was raw, scratchy with more unshed tears. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, just staring at the image of father and daughter. His mind trailed to Mara, in the Archives, and how seeing him hug her daughter must have affected her. "Do you have any holos of the three of them together, Artoo?"

An affirmative beep came only seconds before another holo, this one of Betrys a little older. It appeared to be her birthday, as she was grinning and leaning over a large cake. Her parents were behind her, holding hands. Betrys looked to be about four, so it would have been their fourth anniversary. He smiled as young Betrys dipped her finger into the cake’s icing and stuck it into her mouth. "Betrys," holo Mara moaned. "Wait for me to cut you a slice." But holo Luke just looked amused. He reached out and swiped his own finger into the icing, and put it into Mara’s mouth. Mara did not appear amused and grabbed his hand to remove it, but at the last minute used just the tip of her tongue to tease his finger. Luke’s stomach clenched as he recognized the look in holo Mara’s eyes, but holo Betrys didn’t notice her parents’ antics, too busy grabbing fistfuls of cake and stuffing them in her mouth.

Luke smiled at the image of Betrys enjoying her cake, and wondered how her party was going on this birthday night. She looked so carefree in that holo, a happy child. His mind drifted to Ben as a four year old. He had been happy, too, if guarded. His time in the Maw had changed him, had turned him into a child afraid to use the Force for fear of the pain and suffering that he could sense and that had trickled into other aspects of his life, and personality. It pained Luke to know that Ben’s short life had been filled with feelings such as those, and suddenly all he wanted was to see his son-Luke’s son.

"Do you have any holos of Ben with Luke?" Again, Artoo beeped and only a fraction later another holo flickered to life. "Artoo, are you recording this?" Holo Luke’s voice sounded tired. He held a small bundle in his arms and had a huge grin on his face. A beep sounded in the holo-cording, Artoo answering yes to his Master. "Good," holo Luke said. "I wanted to record this video for Bets. She misses her brother already." He held the little bundle up for Artoo to see.

Luke had trouble catching his breath. There was Ben as he remembered him, shortly after his birth. He could understand holo Luke’s joy and could remember just how tired he had been. No one could quite prepare you for a newborn; it just had to be learned. "Hi, Bets," holo Luke was speaking for baby Ben. "I miss you, Big Sis, and Momma and Daddy miss you, too-especially early in the morning when I’m still awake and ready to party!" Holo Luke settled into a chair, but Artoo rolled across the floor and kept recording. Luke cupped the baby’s head in his hand and smiled down at him with such a look of love. "He looks a lot like you did when you were a baby, Bets," Luke whispered. "I like to just sit and look at him, like I did with you. It pains me, though, because I want him to have the childhood that you did, the joys and wonder of it all…" Holo Luke sighed.

Luke bit his lip. He recognized that sigh. He, too, had sat with Baby Ben in those long early morning hours during the Vong war and worried about the baby’s future. All of their futures.

"…but I don’t want to burden you, Betrys. Really, we Skywalker men were just sending this message to tell you how much we miss you." Holo Luke looked up from the baby. "Stay safe, Bets. I love you."

It was quiet for only a moment and then another holo started. It was Luke and Mara and an older Ben, in a room that was unfamiliar to Luke. Ben appeared to be just under two years old, his hair curling in the back and his chubby legs so familiar to Luke that he felt a physical tug at his heart. "Soon it’ll be bedtime," holo Mara said. "No," baby Ben protested. Holo Luke laughed. "I agree, buddy." Holo Mara rolled her eyes. "You’re supposed to be on my side here, Farmboy."

Luke smiled at the familiar retort. As he thought about the time frame, he wondered if this was the trip where Luke and Ben had stayed up late in the night eating chips. He found himself hoping there had been more than that one trip, more time for Luke and Ben to have been father and son.

"Da-dee," holo Ben said, climbing over his father’s legs, heedless of where he stepped. "Da-dee."

Luke remembered the joy he felt when Ben called him "Daddy" for the first time. He had not been able to see his son while he was in hiding, but when they had come back together as a family, after the war, Ben had seemed to know instinctively who he and Mara were. The first night when he had helped Mara put him to bed, Ben had looked up at him and called him Daddy. It had seemed then that all the weight of the galaxy had lifted from his chest, and he was able to breathe again as he smiled down at his small son.

He smiled again at the holo family. "Have you shown these to Ben, Artoo?"

But Artoo wasn’t the one to answer him. "No," Mara said. He turned to look at her, standing in the doorway. He had been so preoccupied with Artoo’s holos that he hadn’t realized she had returned from the Archives. She wasn’t looking at Luke, but at the still frame of the holo. "I didn’t even know he had them."

"I think that Ben-and Betrys-would really like to see them."

Mara nodded, and he watched her throat move as she swallowed past what must have been a lump in her throat. "I think so, too."

He thought again of Ben’s face, when Ben had said that he didn’t know much about his father, and that Mara never spoke about him. He thought again of how amazed Ben had been to hear the story of sitting up late into the night with his father. And he thought about his own son, who remembered his mother, but there were years of her life that he knew nothing about. Stories and memories that he could help to fill in. "It’s hard, isn’t it? Talking about Luke?" It was strange to speak of Luke as a different person, to fully realize that he had never been her husband, and that he was forever gone from her life.

"What gave me away? The tears or the pathetic look on my face?" Mara sat on the couch. "Turn that off, Artoo."

Artoo beeped in compliance and the holo disappeared, though the bright light continued to dazzle Luke’s eyes. He sat next to her, relieved when she didn’t push away. He reached for her hand. "It’s not pathetic to remember him. The kids want to know. Ben wants to know." He squeezed her hand. "The memories don’t have to hurt."

"When he died…" Her voice broke but Luke gave her a minute. He knew that she would continue in her own time, and she did. "When he died, I had these two kids to take care of and an Academy of Jedi. I had people wanting to tell me how great he had been, how much they loved him… how much the galaxy needed him. But I couldn’t say anything. It hurt to think about him when I felt so empty."

Luke nodded. He knew that feeling well. "That bond in the Force was never meant to be broken." He let his Force sense pulse around him in the empty space where his bond with his Mara had once existed. He smiled sadly at her. "But it was… and we survived."

"We’re good at that," Mara said with a trace of dark humor.

An amused puff of air escaped his mouth. "Yeah." Giving her a measured look, he went on. "I realized something earlier, when the kids were still here. Artoo’s holos helped to solidify it." Mara raised a brow in a ‘go on’ gesture. "I realized that losing Mara doesn’t mean I have to love her any less. But it does mean I have to keep living for Ben… and for myself."

She leaned her head against his shoulder and nodded. "It’s a hard lesson, but then, all lessons that are worth learning are tough."

"Mara Jade Skywalker: Jedi Philosopher," Luke murmured through a laugh.

Mara scoffed and shook against him in laugher, lifting her head to shake it at him. She wiped at her eyes. "We’ll meet with the Council soon… but I can’t believe we couldn’t find anything in the materials from the Archives. They’ve got a step by step process for using a mind trick to make people believe shapeless brown robes are the height of fashion but we can’t figure out how to get you back home."

Luke smiled at her attempt to lighten the mood. "Strangely, I’m not too worried at the moment. I have a good feeling about this."

Mara raised a perfect eyebrow. "A ‘good feeling’, Farmboy?"

"Yeah," he said. "Strange, isn’t it? But come on, it’s late, and it’s our anniversaries-my 23rd anniversary and your 31st. It’s also your daughter’s birthday. We should celebrate."

Mara paused to give him a measured look of her own. "What the hell. I’ll call for take-out."

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An hour later found them sitting at Mara’s kitchen table, eating outrageously expensive Alderaanian food. Luke felt lighter than he had in years and Mara responded to him in a similar manner. Out from the watchful eyes of her children she was freer, less concerned. And they both seemed lighter after the talk over the holos.

"Ruge," he said, looking at the bottle of wine Mara had ordered for their impromptu celebration. "Leia loves this stuff."

"She has good taste… except in men." She rolled her eyes, but was smiling.

Luke smiled back, remembering how Han and Mara liked to bicker with one another. "I know you said that they were in a good place, Leia and Han, but I can only imagine how they-how she took Luke’s death."

Mara was quiet. "It was very hard on her, too. She misses him almost as much as I do, I think."

Luke looked down at the table, thinking of his sister. She and Han had been there for him since Mara’s death, but he hadn’t really opened up to them as he should have. He looked back up to meet Mara’s eyes. "Do me a favor, will you? If-when-you tell her about this, will you tell her how much I love her?"

"She knows, Farmboy. But of course I will."

He grinned his thanks and popped open the bottle of Ruge, struggling a little to get the cork out of the bottle’s neck. Mara laughed and he smiled in reaction, loving the sound from her, so rare. "What?" He shook off his sad thoughts about Leia, concentrating only on the lovely sounds of Mara’s laugh and the sight of her smile.

"Nothing, it just… well, this reminds me of my first date with Luke."

"You drank Ruge on your first date? No wonder Betrys was born on your wedding night."

"I love when you try to act roguish," Mara smirked. "And we dated for more than a year before I got pregnant. Anyway, we did have Ruge that first night, and Luke struggled to get it open, just like you are now. The cork finally came out, along with most of the bottle. He was fast enough to keep it from hitting him, but my rug…" Mara rolled her eyes, but was smiling as if the memories didn’t hurt as much this time. "He was so embarrassed." She took the bottle and pulled the cork out expertly, pouring them each a glass.

Luke tried to imagine the night in his mind, but found that he couldn’t. He and Mara had been light years from a date at that time in his galaxy. The Reborn Emperor and the opening of the Academy had been foremost in his mind. "Mara and I never really dated. I asked her to marry me before we could date."

"Luke liked to joke that he had to ask me to marry him over two hundred times before I was ready." Mara smiled ruefully.

"Two hundred times? And you didn’t kill him?"

She smirked. "No, eventually he wore me down…or Betrys and I were just so sick of hearing him ask. It was really sort of a joke between us. I got pregnant before anyone even knew we were dating, and…well, it was just something he would ask me every day of my pregnancy. Obviously he wore me down eventually." Mara’s smirk melted into a smile. "Another story for the kids."

"I think they’d like that."

"Yeah. I know they will." Mara took a gulp from her glass and eyed him speculatively. "But as for you and your Mara, and the years between meeting and marrying-I guess I can tell that you didn’t have a baby on the way to help you along." She half-smiled at him, but seemed to turn serious. "I remember you mentioning issues between the two of you. I thought my being Luke’s assassin brought along more issues than possibly any other couple in the galaxy."

"This galaxy, sure." Luke’s stomach rolled, his earlier good humor dampened a little as he worried anew about Mara’s reaction to the things he had been hiding from her. "We had those same issues. It was hard for Mara to change her way of thinking so quickly. She ran away from her emotions for a long time. But I think…sometimes I worry it was my fault. That we would have been together much earlier if it wasn’t for certain things I did."

"What do you mean?"

He paused, scared of her reaction, but needing to tell her, to give her the missing piece of the puzzle. "I touched the Dark Side, Mara. In my galaxy, not long after Mara and I had met. On Byss. That’s why that planet scares me so badly. That’s why I reacted the way I did with Niargen’s cup. I was so arrogant back then. I thought I could trick Palpatine, that I could defeat the dark side from within but not become dark myself. I lost myself, and Leia redeemed me, helped me back to the light. That’s where my and Mara’s issues doubled and why we didn’t get married-"

"Until 20," Mara cut in softly. "I think… I think I knew there was something vastly different. You feel so much the same in the Force as my Luke, but different. I knew that you had been through something that he hadn’t."

"It truly is my greatest regret."

"Seems that you have many," she countered, alluding to the regrets he had already mentioned to her. "But they all flow from that one."

He looked down at the table. He didn’t want to look up and see the hurt in her eyes again.

The silence stretched until Mara’s hand snaked across the table and covered his. "Luke, we learn from our mistakes, and we move on. And from what I can see, from what you’ve told me, you are the man I know, so much like that man that I once knew. A good man. I…I can feel it, and not just in the Force. You have to let this go, Luke. Doubt will only hold you back."

Luke gasped lightly as the vision that had led him to this dimension turned into sudden reality. Tears pricked at his eyes as he realized the depth of the gift he had received from the Force, and from Mara. He had told Betrys nearly the same thing earlier, but hearing it from Mara made it all the more clear to him. The Force had been telling him that it was time to move on, to let his heart and mind guide him again and not be held back by his grief.

Only Mara could teach him to move on without her. That thought made him smile. "Thank you, Mara," he said, turning his palm to hold and gently squeeze her hand. "You always did know just what to say to me."

Mara pulled her hand away and took a sip of her drink. "It’s the Ruge," she said with a smirk.

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Ben commed from the party sometime later and said that he was staying in his sister’s suite for the night. Luke wasn’t sure if it was because he was still somewhat uncomfortable with him being there or if it was just a convenient way to party later, but he was grateful for the time alone with Mara, to figure things out. They would soon go before the Jedi Council to seek their guidance. Luke would take a room in the Temple and, as for he and Mara, he had no worries. He knew it would eventually work itself out. He would continue to try to get home for as long as it took, and for now that certainty was enough to comfort him.

For this night, though, he wanted to hold Mara in his arms again, to feel her pressed against him, warm and supple. He didn’t bother to change as they entered her bedroom. He lay down on the bed, pulling her into his arms. She came willingly, settling her head against his shoulder, her warm breath tickling his neck pleasantly. He ran his fingers over her spine and closed his eyes, so thankful for the gift of holding her.

"I love you," he murmured. "I never thought I could love someone so much. I had to find you again to tell you that."

"And through such extreme measures, too." Her words were belied when she pushed closer against him. "I know… I’ve always known that. And, Luke, we’ll figure this out," she promised. "We’ll meet with the Council and discuss Byss and you. But for now…" She trailed off, tracing her fingers over his face.

The moment lengthened as they stared into one another’s eyes, and she pushed up to softly meet his lips with hers. It was a slow kiss, lips barely brushing in a rush of sensation. Luke teased it out, letting his breath mingle with hers.

Mara pulled away first. "Let’s just stay like this for now," she whispered.

That’s what he wanted, too. He shifted further to his side to hold her fully against his body. Her familiar contours fit him perfectly and the scent of her hair made him think of home, of how she had always been his touchstone, his very definition of home. It was amazing that he had found that port in the storm again with this woman, so much like his own Mara, but someone he could love for her own life and personality, softened slightly from earlier motherhood and trials faced. That he was lucky enough to love two extraordinary Mara Jades was not lost on Luke.

He closed his eyes in contentment for the first time in years, his body relaxing and his mind setting completely free.

After a time in darkness he noticed a small prickling of light and chased toward it with his mind, for no other reason than it felt right to do so. When he caught it the light spilled over him, bathing him in a feeling of warmth and love. In that moment Mara was there with him in his mind, not just in his arms, almost as if the bond in the Force had been reestablished. After a moment of that euphoric sensation it seemed that Betrys and Ben were there, too, the four of them melding together, just as he, Mara, and Ben had done long ago on the Errant Venture before Ben’s birth.

Mara’s love was overwhelming, and Ben and Betrys felt so much like her, their love for their father overlapping with Mara’s love for both men. He realized he was on a precipice, as in that moment a fifth mind joined with them and he could feel Ben-his Ben-at the edge of his consciousness. His heart cried out for his son, the light of his presence having been so missed. But his heart clung to Mara as he basked in the glow of that bond in the Force. But as much as he wanted to be with her, he knew he could not. He would always love her and miss her, as well as her children. But Ben needed him, and Luke had come to realize that he needed Ben as well. He loved his son, his gift from Mara, the light of their love made real. The rightness of that thought fell over him like his well-worn cloak, making him feel warm and safe.

He realized then that getting home had always been up to him. He did not need the missing IDD. He had to harness something more powerful than time and space itself. As Niargen said, the answer had been in front of him all the time. The Force was strong enough to grant the wish, if only he knew how to ask and didn’t let doubt hold him back. The only doubt in his mind, Byss, disappeared as he saw future events unfold there, saw Mara and Betrys joining together with the other Jedi to defeat a Sith, a Sith with red hair that was not Palpatine’s clone. And he could see how they recognized a familiar device the Sith wielded, and how in their recognition they were able to stop her inter-dimensional escape…

As the last shred of doubt left him, he knew that his time with Mara and her children was over. The Force had given him a gift, but now it was time to return to his son, to his own life. With one last brush of love to Mara and her children, his sleeping presence smiled.

His decision made, the strange pulling sensation came over him again and he gasped, falling quickly into peaceful darkness.

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There is still a chapter and an epilogue left. I hope you enjoyed Luke’s realization and the power behind his actions. Love. As I’ve said before, this is a love story. But it’s not just about the romantic or abiding love between a man and a woman. It's also about the parental love between a father and a son, because isn't that what Star Wars is really all about? Thanks for reading.