Finding
Freedom – Part 1
This
story is PG I suppose, and is in response to a Freedom Celebration challenge
made by Angela. The requirements were that it must contain
Luke and Mara and something about the celebration itself. The
characters all belong to Lucasfilm and I'm just fiddling with them for fun and
no profit. This is somewhat AU and occurs when – well that
will be obvious by the third paragraph. I specifically want
to thank Ash for trusting me to grade her papers, or I would never have had the
notion to even try this. Also thanks to everyone at the SSB
for trusting a guy to play there. And lastly, but not
by far leastly, thanks to both Ash and Kataja for reviewing and providing
valuable suggestions.
By
Cat's Cradle
Mara
glanced yet again out the transpairsteel view wall of her bedroom at the light
holiday traffic, and then resumed pacing through her apartment like a caged
animal. She was still clad in her sleeping shift, even though
the time was approaching mid morning. Her dirty breakfast
dishes were still at her table, and she had yet to take her normal morning
shower. Her whole routine had just ground to a halt after she
had eaten today. Normally by this time, on any other work
day, she would have been long gone from her apartment, but no one else was
working on this holiday. On any other holiday, she would have
welcomed the time to catch up on personal matters, but today she didn't want to
be here, but also didn't know where else she wanted to go.
What
she wanted was to be as far away from Coruscant as possible, but the Gala event
she had to attend on Karrde's behalf here on planet later that evening held her
here. She looked at the transparency controls for the view
wall, considered making the wall opaque so she would not be able to see outside,
then thought better of it. She did not want or need to feel
like she was in a cave. Not when she already felt so trapped.
It
was the sixth anniversary of the end of the Empire, and the death of her former
master, the day the New Republic now called Liberation Day. There
were celebrations planned every place she might try to go on the planet, or
anywhere else in the New Republic for that matter. She would
need to travel very far indeed to escape the festivities. She
couldn't even distract herself with the normally mindless diversion of the idiot
cube, because today, all of the programming was given over to holiday specials.
In
past years, she had hated this day for all that it had represented, the loss of
her previous life and status, along with the actual Empire itself, the only home
she had ever known. And there was also the remembered pain
exploding in her mind as her master vaporized in the reactor shaft of the second
Death Star. Now all that was left of his evil signature was
an impotent smudge in the Force orbiting Endor.
It
was the question of the Emperor's evil that had most haunted her. During
much of the intervening time between his death and now, she has vacillated
between admitting that her former master had indeed been evil, or that rebellion
leaders were traitors against him. After all, if Palpatine
was indeed evil, she would also have to admit that she had been manipulated, and
Mara abhorred that idea. But she also had to reluctantly
admit that much of the
How
he could have been so careless to leave a copy like that laying around
was beyond her. But the copy was genuine, and she knew.
Oh her suspicion had been growing for some time, and she thought she
would be prepared for the revelation that she somehow knew was inevitable.
But confirmation, the stark reality of the truth, had come as a
shock that rivaled that of her Master's death.
Mara
Jade had been used. Used! As
a tool! Her former master had never even cared for her.
She had been a means to an end for him and nothing more. And
the certainty of this knowledge seemed to be slowly consuming her heart.
She had given her unswerving loyalty to her former master and had been
betrayed. Palpatine had used his Force given soul reading
ability to manipulate her into doing his will. She had been
played like a fine musical instrument in an artists hand for the singular
purpose of amassing power and controlling lives on a galactic scale.
Even now, weeks after her chance discovery, she felt as if she would
never be able to wash the Emperor's stain from her soul.
All
the holiday celebration did was pick the scab off the ever present wound.
And
if all this was not bad enough, Skywalker had been right all along.
She
stopped her pacing at the thought of the blue eyed Jedi. Apparently
at random she had come to rest in front of her still unmade bed, its sheets
still in disarray from her restless sleep the previous night. She
grabbed a wayward pillow, flopped face down across the width of the bed which
heaved for a few brief moments until the repulsors stabilized it again.
Jamming her elbows on the mattress and the heels of her hands under her
chin, she cast her unseeing emeralds at the ruddy stained image of a Tatooine
double sunset, which hung on her bedroom wall, as she considered her, well, her
friend.
She
had formed an uneasy friendship with the Jedi over the last couple of years, but
she really didn't want him to know how wrong she had been about the Emperor just
now. The memory was too raw, and knowing the Skywalker, he
would probably just use the opportunity to try to talk her into continuing her
training as a Jedi, or some other such nonsense. There would
be no use in trying to hide it from him either. He would know
the moment he saw her that she had finally discovered the truth of the matter.
This tiresome bond that seemed to flow between them would confirm it
unless he was seriously preoccupied by something else. The
Sith spawned Jedi would probably gloat, she thought, even as another part of her
mind knew he would never do such a thing.
Yeah,
right, he would never gloat, she thought uncharitably. It
just wasn't in his nature. He would be more likely to offer
her pity.
She
would rather have the gloating.
At
least gloating on his part would provide a valid reason to start an argument,
which, given her current state of mind suited her much better. Yes,
an argument with Skywalker was just what she needed to help take her mind off
the grim reality that seemed to gaze back at her every time she passed a mirror.
At the very least she could feel angry at someone other than herself for
a while.
Her
mind briefly flicked in his direction. Maybe, she thought,
she could find a way to start an argument anyway, even if pity were involved.
After all, arguments were not usually a problem where Skywalker was
concerned. But even as her mind began to automatically
reached toward him, she realized that he would probably be out celebrating with
the Rogues or his sister and her family early today.
She
momentarily brushed his mind anyway, on the odd chance he was at home.
He was there, she realized to her secret delight, before the mood she
felt radiating from him caused her to take pause.
Skywalker
was in his apartment just a few levels below hers, and his thoughts were
anything but celebratory. In fact, if she had to describe the
mood she felt coming from his direction, it would have been melancholy.
Something must be seriously wrong for him to be in this kind of mood
today of all days.
Her
need for an argument evaporated with concern for her friend. Luke
might be annoying, overly persistent in trying to train her, hopelessly naïve
when it came to judging some individuals, and, naturally, had freighter load
full of other faults that she could not remember at the moment, but he had shown
faith in her when no one else would. He had been loyal to her
in situations where, she now realized, Palpatine would have long since abandoned
her or had her killed outright. At the very least, she at
least had to go and see what was wrong and if she could help.
Abandoning
any thought of a shower for now, she rolled off the bed, putting it into another
fit of heaving. She dressed quickly in the previous days
clothes, ran a statbrush through her hair to remove any errant tangles, and was
out her front door all before her bed could stabilize. Statbrushes
were new and used carefully programmed sequences of static electricity to remove
tangles without pulling and leave the hair soft and natural with just one pass
of the brush. Nice, she thought as she braided her hair
riding down the empty lift. She then strode purposefully to
Skywalker's apartment door. But after pressing the call
button at his door for the sixth time without any response what so ever, her
concern was rapidly sliding over to frustration.
`Skywalker,'
she sent, `I know you're in there, so let me in. Or would
you rather purchase a new door? Which, by the way, will be quite difficult on a
holiday.' She felt him start and then move toward the
door.
"Hello
Jade." He said, listlessly as the door slid aside. Mara
had never seen such a haunted look in the blue eyes above dark circles that
greeted her. His face was drawn, his hair rumpled, his chin
sported a blond stubble, and his body language said go away. Skywalker
was normally an early riser, but he was dressed in a short fresher robe with
thin sleep pants and bare feet showing below. He looked for
all the world as one who had just been woken from bed, even though she knew,
from their brief contact earlier, that he had been awake for a while.
His mood appeared to brighten somewhat when he saw her. "What
can I do for you today?" he asked.
"If
you let every woman wait at the door like that, it's no wonder you have such a
lousy social life." she snapped.
His
expression hardened, and he began to reach for the door panel but she was able
to step forward, grab his hand, while ignoring the sudden intensification of
their bond, and prevent him from closing the door on her. "Please,"
she said, her tone softening "I didn't mean to probe, but I felt all this
sadness coming from you and I just had to come over to see if you were all right
or if there was anything I could do to help." It was the
closest thing she could manage to an apology, but her intent flowed over the
bond and she was rewarded with a measure of forgiveness mixed with guilt.
"Thanks,"
he replied, flashing a wane grin, "I guess I was so wrapped up in my own
thoughts that I really didn't think I wanted to see anyone just now, but I would
welcome your company. Besides, I could certainly use a
distraction today."
"Nice
to know that you consider me to be a distraction" she smirked, "I
wouldn't want to get out of practice."
He
colored slightly, but refused to rise to the bait. He must be
really upset about something, she thought.
She
released her grip on his hand as he pulled it back from the door panel and
shuddered slightly with the diminishment of the bond. It was
always that way with the bond, and it was why she avoided touching him if at all
possible, as if she was avoiding a static electric shock that she knew was
coming. She had yet to reconcile though why she always felt a
bit cold when the physical contact was broken.
Luke
stepped back from the doorway to allow her to enter his apartment, tapping the
door closed after she had passed. His view wall had been
darkened to the point where the sun shone as a smudge barely brighter than the
rest of the inky black wall.
She
took a seat on the divan he offered, waited as he padded into the kitchen, and
returned moments later with two steaming mugs of caf. He
handed her one, sat on his favorite recliner opposite her, and began an intense
examination of his drink.
"Is
everyone in your circle of friends and family all right?" she asked
hesitantly after a few moments of awkward silence.
Luke
merely nodded.
"You
know," she began, trying to start some sort of dialogue, he had been quiet
for almost a minute, "if you're going to have the wall block the outside
view like that, you should purchase the add-on that allows it to convert to a
viewer. Then you could watch the news or put on a nice
planetscape or swimming fish or something. It would certainly
be better than turning your apartment into a cave, Skywalker."
"Well,
those things are fairly expensive, and since I am only here some of the
time…" He gave a small shrug and resumed the study of
his mug.
"Luke..."
she said, after another long moment of silence, and waited for his reaction.
It took longer than she had expected for him to realize that she had used
his first name, a testament to how withdrawn he was. He
finally looked directly at her and she shook her head tetchily. "That's
better. Took you long enough. Look, I know
I tell you often enough to stay out of my head, and here I am getting into
yours. I really didn't mean to pry, but I picked up your
feelings over this irritating bond we seem to have."
He
stared at her for a brief moment, then favored her with a slight smile.
"Most of the time, it's the same way from my side. I
never mean to pry, but it's hard to ignore when someone important to you seems
to have a problem."
She
found herself unexpectedly warmed at the thought that he had just admitted that
she was important to him, but set a stern look on her face and asked, "Most
of the time? Does that mean that there have been times where
you were meaning to pry?"
His
face registered a slight shock at his gaffe, but she quickly smiled at him to
let him know that she was only teasing and said "Relax, Skywalker,"
and then paused, because the real meaning of her statement and his words had
finally begun to sink in, and she found that it was her turn to feel a bit
embarrassed. After considering him for a moment longer she
said seriously, "I guess I never realized until just now that you weren't
trying to pry, at least most of the time."
"It's
probably just my `I've got to save everyone' attitude that must make you think
the worst of me." He teased in return.
Good,
she thought, he still seems to have his wits about him. "Well,
I'm here to listen if you want to talk."
Luke
seemed to study her for a while, as if wrestling with himself, seemed to give a
mental shrug, and finally took a deep breath, and sighed. "I
suppose you are probably the only person I know who even has a chance of
understanding this." He began. "I
can well imagine that this holiday is probably not your favorite."
"That
would be an understatement." She said darkly.
"Would
it surprise you if I said that I will be glad when this is over for another year
as well?"
Mara's
eyes widened in astonishment. Of all the possible answers he
might have given, this one was the least expected, and she told him so.
"Is that what has you so down today?" she asked.
"Yes"
he replied as his gaze returned to his mug.
"Why
don't you like this holiday?" She asked. "It seems
to me that celebrating
He
continued to stare at his drink for a moment longer, then, placing it on the
table between them and leaning back in his chair, he looked into her eyes and
asked "Mara, what was your impression of Vader?"
The
question caught her completely off guard. Clearly he didn't
seem to want to discuss her question, but she felt she had better push a little
further. He always seemed to do so with her when she didn't
want to discuss uncomfortable matters, but she reluctantly admitted to herself
that when pushed into such a discussion she often felt better afterward.
So she tried to call him at his own game by saying "Luke, you're
always telling me to get these sorts of things out in the open and I will feel
better. I can sense that this is difficult for you to
discuss, but trying to change the subject and hiding it will just cause it to
fester and…"
She
stopped when she saw a tired grin spreading itself across his face. "Actually,"
he replied "I wasn't trying to change the subject. Besides,
I know you that you wouldn't let me change the subject so easily. Please
just humor me for a moment and answer the question."
She
considered him for a moment then said a bit testily "Alright, I'll humor
you. But I am not letting you off the hook for a moment
Skywalker. I interrupted my morning for your benefit you
know." Actually, she thought, he was providing her an
adequate diversion as well, but she found it was always best to try to keep the
man off guard, and, more importantly, feeling like he owed her favors.
"Just give me a moment to think about this."
The
problem was that she was not sure what she thought about Vader now. Her
recent discovery had modified her assessment somewhat, but she also realized
that much of her opinion was based on his reputation, and from what her former
master had told her. She really hadn't interacted that much
with Vader.
Gazing
back into Luke's expectant face, and choosing her words carefully, she began her
narrative. "To be honest with you, I didn't work
directly with him very much. He provided me with some saber
training, but now that I think about it, much of what I knew about him came from
others. He had a reputation for being moody, angered quickly,
clever, and very strong in the Force. I never went with him
on any missions. When I was younger, he was still fairly busy
hunting down the remaining Jedi. Those missions seemed to
diminish as I got older, but then he seemed busy working with the Imperial Fleet
trying to hunt down members of the Rebellion."
"Did
you spend any time with him outside of training?" Luke wanted to know.
"Very
little." she hesitated a moment before continuing, "Actually, I would
have preferred to be trained by someone else – he stunk."
Luke
said with a surprised look "He seemed fairly competent with a saber to
me."
Mara
wrinkled her nose, "No, Skywalker, you misunderstand, he was excellent with
a saber, but he stunk. He always seemed to have this horrible
smell of burnt flesh hovering around him. It was the suit, I
suppose. I heard that he would risk infection and death each
time he came out of it to get clean. They said that almost
all of his skin had been burned away, so he hardly ever bathed."
Luke
had a somewhat queasy look about him and Mara quickly added "I'm sorry,
Luke, I know he was your father but…." her voice trailed off as she
looked at him more closely. The haunted look had returned and
she could see that his eyes had become very bright. And
suddenly, everything fell into place.
"That's
why you hate this day isn't it. You lost your father
today." She had said it so softly she was sure he hadn't
heard, but he nodded ascension. And as he did so she realized
something else. She had once considered Palpatine to be the
closest thing she had to a father, regardless of the fact that her old master
had betrayed her. She had lost her father on this day as
well, just like he had.
Perhaps
they were not so different after all, she thought.
They
looked at each other for a long time, each lost in their own thoughts.
Finally Luke broke the silence.
"You're
pretty perceptive Mara, but it's more than that. I lost a lot
of friends during the war, but none so many as that day. I
watched from the tower, being taunted by the Emperor as he ordered ship after
ship to be vaporized. He told me that my friends were walking
into a trap on the planet below. And Vader was beside him.
"Vader
had always been an embodiment of evil for me. Just
some….thing that had killed Obi-Wan and Biggs, before that day I fought him on
Besbin and he told me he was my father. I didn't want to
believe him, but the Force kept telling me he had spoken the truth. That
revelation made him more human and less monster to me. To
make things worse, while I knew he had done all these terrible things, I also
could feel that he hadn't completely given over to the dark side. After
I had time to reflect on our duel, I began to realize that there was conflict
within him even then. Almost as if he was trying to find a
way to correct something that had gone terribly wrong. He
actually tried to get me to join him so we could we could overthrow Palpatine
together."
"I
know" Mara commented. "The Emperor suspected that
he was becoming unstable. That's why he sent me after
you."
He
gave a slight chuckle "I suppose Vader being in conflict would have seemed
`unstable' to Palpatine." Luke closed his eyes.
"Do you know that I could actually feel him turn. I
was dying. I was being blasted by Palpatine's dark lightning.
I was sure that I was dead. The pain was like nothing
I have felt before or since. And suddenly I felt this titanic
shift in the force, and an eternal moment later, the lightning stopped.
I looked up, and there was Anakin carrying the Emperor over to the
shaft."
Mara
shuddered at Luke's remembered pain leaking across their bond. Before
she would have scoffed at his statement, but her recent discovery, and Luke's
own behavior now, had eliminated her last remaining shreds of doubt.
Luke
opened his eyes and gazed back into hers and she saw blue standing in unshed
tears. He had never spoken to her about this particular time
in his past. Oh, she knew the basics of the story, but he had
always avoided the details, and she had always assumed that this was because he
was hiding something from her. She had never realized how
painful this was for him, and that he had really been hiding from the pain of
the moment itself. All she could do was shakily whisper
"I never knew. I can tell how distressing this is for
you. Don't feel like you have to continue…"
But
Luke gently shook his head "No," he said after taking a deep breath,
"as painful as this is, it kind of feels good to finally tell someone.
I've never even told Leia or Han the whole story. As I
was saying, Anakin was carrying the Emperor. And he was
Anakin then. Vader was finally gone. I
could feel it. He had grabbed the Emperor from behind and was
holding him over his head. Palpatine was still spewing dark
lightning, some of which was going into the air, but much of it was arcing back
down and catching Anakin. After the Emperor was gone, Anakin
was just laying on the floor. The lightning had destroyed his
life support system. He was dying. He only
managed to stay alive for a while longer through sheer force of will…"
Mara
could not help herself. She had been listening in rapt
attention, but her curiosity finally got the better of her. When
Luke took a moment to gather his thoughts, she asked in a small voice, "Did
my former master have any final words?"
She
had to know. She now suspected that he likely thought nothing
of her, but she also itched to know the truth, even if it was painful.
Luke
considered the floor for a moment, lost in thought, remembering. Finally
he said, "He was very angry with me when I refused to turn. He
would blast me with lightning, pause, say a few taunting words, then blast me
again. Each time worse than the last. Finally
he said `Now young Skywalker, you will die.'
"When
Anakin picked him up, all he did was scream in anger from what I could tell.
He was furious that Anakin was turning against him. He
continued to scream as he fell, and I could hear more lightning coming from him
as if he was still trying to kill Anakin as he fell. It took
him a long time to fall. When he hit the plasma barrier near
the bottom of the shaft this roar of dark Force energy came back up the shaft
for a moment, as if he was still trying get to Anakin."
Mara
sat in silence. "He must have sent the message to me
during his fall down the shaft. Just another lie"
Luke
continued his narrative as if she hadn't spoken. "When I
was little, I had always wondered about my Parents. Then when
Ben told me about how my Father had been his friend who had been murdered by
Vader…well it sort of cemented a certain image of my Father into my mind.
I had all of these childhood fantasies about what my father might have
been like, many of them the exact opposite of my Uncle.
"When
I found out what he really was, a lot of my world almost came apart.
So many dreams lost. If Leia hadn't been there, and we
didn't have the task of trying to rescue Han, I might have done something
stupid. Hell, I had done something stupid. I
had gone off to fight Vader when I wasn't really prepared. But
I was young and…what did you just say?" he asked as the meaning of
earlier comment finally registered.
"I
said that is was just another lie. He lied to me while he was
falling down that shaft. Just more manipulations," she
said quietly. She was really surprised at Luke. He
had come out of his reverie to listen to her. It was one of
the things she really liked about him, his ability to put others ahead of his
own concerns. But an idea was beginning to form in her mind.
Something she had never considered earlier today.
Luke
was looking at her with a puzzled expression on his face, and appeared to be
about to speak, but at a glare from Mara, held his tongue. Mara
considered her options. It was pretty clear that Luke had
finally realized that something had caused her to accept the true nature of
Palpatine, and he wanted to know why. She would need to tell
Luke something. He would not simply accept any explanation,
he knew her too well, so her explanation would need to be convincing.
And she couldn't lie to him, especially after he had trusted her with
such a very private part of his history. She could just tell
him that it was none of his business, but that would feel almost as bad as a
lie.
And
maybe showing him what she had found would help her as well. After
all, she could feel that his mood had lightened considerably since he began
telling her his story. Maybe sharing something with some one
you trusted – a friend – could help, even if it meant sharing something
disturbing and painful about yourself.
Making
her decision, she said to him in a very stiff and formal voice, "Skywalker,
whether you want to believe it or not, I can understand how you must feel about
your Father, and it is not because of what I can sense across this tiresome bond
of ours. You have a love/hate relationship with him, but at
least he stood up for you in the end. The person I have
always believed as my father betrayed me, and never redeemed himself, and no, I
will not tell you how I know this, I'll show you. But first
look at the time. We both have a little less than six hours
before we need to present ourselves for this ridiculous celebration."
At
Luke's grimace, she continued "And you sir, look like you have just gotten
out of bed."
"Well,
I have been up for a while, but haven't progressed much beyond putting on a
robe. What is it you want to show me?" He
replied, his curiosity clearly piqued.
"I
have it up in my apartment, but I need to at least start getting ready for this
evening, and so do you." His expression darkened
slightly, so she stood with her hands on her hips to forestall further
discussion. "Look, I put on yesterday's clothes to come
down here, and I haven't had a shower yet either, so I feel filthy, and I am not
fit to be seen in public."
"How
do you manage to still look spectacular then?" he asked.
Mara
ignored the flush rising to her cheeks at his blatant complement, but deflected
it, as she always did, with a stern look, while trying to keep the smile out of
her voice. "Don't try Calrissian's lines on me,
Skywalker, they sound even worse coming from you, if that's possible.
Now, as I was trying to say, since we both need to get cleaned up anyway,
I'll head back to my place, and get in the fresher while you do the same down
here." She started for the front entrance before he
could get in her way.
Trailing
behind her like a sad pitten, Luke tried to change her mind, but Mara wouldn't
have any of it. "Not another word, Skywalker." she
chided him, "We both need to get ready, and I need lots more time to fix my
hair than you do. Just bring yours over wet, and it can dry
at my place all by itself. Now get in your fresher, shave,
take a shower, put on one of those ridiculous black Jedi uniforms, order us some
lunch, and come to my apartment. I should be out of the
fresher by then and you can see what I've found while I am working on my
hair."
She
smacked the door control and it whooshed open.
"Mara!
Wait!" he said tapping the door to stay open and following her out.
She
jabbed at the lift call button and spun about glaring at him. "Don't
you dare follow me out here dressed like that," she hissed, "If anyone
sees you they'll think…." but she stopped as he brought a single finger
to her lips and she felt unwanted feelings flutter between their suddenly
strengthened bond.
"I'll
go and do what you asked, Mara, but please just tell me what you have to show
me." And he said sending a calming wave washing over
her.
In
the sudden silence she pulled back from contact with him and, feeling that
familiar yearning she always did when physical contact was broken, she gazed
into his suddenly expectant blue eyes and said in a hushed and hesitating voice,
"I think I have found your Father's journal."
And
as Luke stood riveted to the floor in shock, she felt the elevator door open
behind her. She took two steps backward, smacked her floor
button, and watched the door hiss shut on Skywalker's stunned expression.
Realizing that she would never forget the sudden wash of strong emotions
coming from her friend, she closed her eyes and leaned back against the cool
wall of the lift as it rose into the sky.
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