"What Ifs" (Star Wars)
Title: What Ifs
Fandom: Star Wars
Characters: Mara Jade mentions of Luke, Owen and Beru
Rating: G
Setting: Post-VOTF
Words: 1,515
Summary: Mara considers what it would be like to meet Luke’s family.
A/N: This was inspired by the discussion over on the Luke/Mara thread over at the JC, about meeting the in-laws/family. It is a bit of an...odd fic, I think, but for some reason I didn’t want to make an AU, so Mara’s thoughts here might require a little suspension of disbelief. I don’t know why this is in second person. It just came out that way. Also it’s probably full of tense mistakes, so feel free to point them out to me.
Luke never speaks of his aunt and uncle. At first you wonder why, when he is so open and forthright when reminiscing of everyone else - his old Masters, Yoda and Ben Kenobi, of Biggs and all his many other friends who fell in battle - he even has no reservations discussing his father (although refuses to refer to him as Vader.)
But never do the words Owen and Beru cross his lips.
You soon come to realise that he does not speak of them because he hold them the closest to his heart. Their loss is what he grieves the most.
Not wanting to cause his pain, you do not ask him about them. But your curiosity is piqued. Getting information, however, proves to be something of a dilemma, since no other sentient of your acquaintance knew the couple. No flesh-and-blood sentient, that is.
You are sure Threepio would be more than willing to enlighten you on the subject at length - but you are not quite that desperate. Instead, you seek out Artoo, and after initial reluctance at being hooked up to a translator datapad, agrees to tell you what he knows.
Which, surprisingly, turn out to be quite a bit, considering he was only owned by the couple for less than a day. You question him on this - especially his comments on a youthful Owen and Beru - but the astromech retorts that his internal mechanics equip him with powers of observation superior to that of humans, and that if you weren’t going to trust his word, you should not have asked for it.
You have no response to this, and although you are not pleased at being silenced by a mere droid, you bid him to continue. Which he does, and eventually, shows you a holo of the pair that must have been taken with his internal security camera. You wonder briefly what images and recordings he has of you in that metallic mind of his, but decide you don’t really want to know. Instead you thank the droid, and he ambles off, leaving you alone with your thoughts.
Family is such a strange concept to you. You’ve seen how Luke is with his niece and nephews and although you cannot quite envy the closeness they have, you know it is something unique, and unlike anything you have ever known. Was Luke as close to his aunt and uncle - was he as dear to them as Jacen, Jaina and Anakin so clearly are to him?
You begin to wonder what their reaction would be to your impending marriage to Luke - were they still alive - and retreat into the Force for possible answers...
He takes you to their home on Tatooine, to their humble moisture farm in the middle of the desert. Luke has, of course, offered to transplant them to Coruscant or even Yavin IV, but they remain resolute in their defiance. They have no wish to leave the family homestead, and Owen says gruffly that if he wants to see the stars, he can look out the window - and that is as close as he wants to get to them.
Luke takes this all in his stride; he knows they will never accept his offer, yet he keeps asking - just in case. It is at this moment you can clearly see the difference in Luke - the aspect of Skywalker in him that Tatooine was never able to dilute. Luke informed you that there is no blood relation between him and the Lars family, and it could not be clearer, to be in the same room with all three of them. And yet, it is apparent that so much of what you love about Luke is thanks to Owen and Beru. You see in Beru his tenderness and kind acceptance, and in Owen his open and frank manner. You decide that there is a spark of Lars in him as well - the farmboy, the eternal child. And you like that.
He slips back into habits of adolescence in their home - he calls Owen ‘sir’ every now and again, and eagerly wolfs down the extra food Beru slips him from her own plate. They act as you imagine normal parents would when their son brings home an intended wife, although to be fair, you have nothing to compare it to. He had warned you that they were simple folk - as in uncomplicated - he was quick to point out that most of his early education was given by Beru on the very table you were eating at, or by Owen out on the farm. While many people you know are embarrassed to return home after living on Coruscant, and make excuses for their family’s ‘backward’ customs and lifestyles, Luke is not. If anything, he is proud of his roots, of his family. After all, he had told you on the flight there - they were the kind of people he had always been fighting for. They were the reason the Jedi existed.
Owen seems rather unimpressed with you to begin with, and takes no pains to hide it. But you appreciate his honesty, and while you reciprocate with a cool, mannered respect, you take no trouble to try and please or flatter him. He talks of his vaporators, a topic of conversation you think he deliberately brings up to discourage guests from returning to his home and disrupting his quiet life, but you match him with your own knowledge gained from your years of working as a mechanic. He is surprised, and says he thought Luke was bringing home a lily-wristed Imperial girl. You imagine that he considers anyone raised on Coruscant to be ‘soft’. Luke sighs in exasperation and reminds Owen that he’s already told him about your past, and that you’ve known much hardship.
Owen shrugs and says he has far more important things to remember, but you know he didn’t forget. He was testing Luke’s story out, and apparently, you passed, because Owen no longer attempts to bore you. In fact, you find that you have many things in common, and that you share the same blunt disregard for social niceties. You even enjoy his passionate description of the Tatooine landscape, and he offers to take you for a tour of the Dune Sea, which he assures you can only really be appreciated with a local guide. Luke shoots you a grin at this - for he told you Owen does not take kindly to strangers, especially strangers trying to worm their way into his family. His words, Luke had hastily added.
Beru you find a bit more challenging. She spends most of her time concentrating on Luke, begging him to tell her about the outside world, about his Academy, his students, his ‘lovely sister’. But you notice Beru does not seem to be listening to his words (you know Luke writes her extensive letters, and so she would know all the information already). Rather, she seems intent on Luke himself; listening to his voice, smiling indulgently at his jokes, picking the fluff off his tunic, patting him affectionately on the head and ruffling his hair. He is her child, still.
It takes her almost half the evening to speak to you, and only does so after Owen and Luke have retreated to the garage, where Luke is eager to look at Owen’s new speeder. Beru makes you a hot drink, which is thankfully not blue, and takes your hand gently. She tells you that while Owen may have ranted and raved about the suddenness of your engagement (he made a point to mention how frivolous he thought it was earlier that evening) she was not surprised to hear of it. Apparently Luke had often mentioned you in his correspondence, and that her ‘old eyes’ could read between the lines very easily. She likes you, she says.
You realise that she hadn’t been ignoring you in favour of Luke the entire evening - rather she had been watching and studying you, taking time to make her judgement. And it is simple - she likes you. You appreciate that more than any flowery compliment or wordy praise.
She is a woman of the earth - grounded, resolute, enduring. You respect that.
You decide you like her too.
Your vision ends - and you realise is no more than that - a whisper of the possible. You file it away under the endless ‘what ifs’ of your life. What if you had never been taken from your family - what if the Emperor had truly tried to make you a Sith - what if you had killed Luke at Jabba’s palace - what if you had fallen in love with Luke earlier... all the possibilities flowing through the Force. And yet you know that it is only the one you are living right now that matters.
Owen and Beru are Luke’s past, and you are his future. The two cannot be reconciled. And yet...you hope someday, he will speak of them without prompting, that he will share that last corner of his heart with you.
And when that time comes, you will listen.