https://archiveofourown.org/works/74598581/chapters/194805961

Here’s a little preview:

Blue-white arcs zigzagged from her hands to the walls, the ceiling, the floor; blooming outwards in violent, uncontrollable detonations of light. The curtain by the window tore open in a flash and caught fire. The lamp shattered. The doorway panel exploded in a halo of sparks.

The whole room was strobing in fierce pulses - too bright to see, too loud to hear, overwhelming - until she wasn’t sure which parts were the nightmare and which were really her.

“No no no no”

Her breath seized.

She curled inward on the bed, fists over her skull.

Something slammed outside - loud, urgent. Voices from far away.

And then his presence hit like a door blowing open.

Luke. Half-dressed, sleep-creased, eyes wide with alarm.

He didn’t hesitate.

He crossed the room in two strides and caught her arms just as the power peaked. Wrapped himself around her from behind and pulled her tight against his chest.

The contact was blinding.

The energy poured through him like lightning through a conductor, hot and clean. The light flared once, then broke apart into harmless sparks that scattered across the floor and winked out. The smell of smoke thinned. The curtain collapsed in a heap of charred fabric. The lightning vanished so fast the room smelled like scorched air mourning the loss of it.

When she could breathe again, he was still holding her. Her whole body sagged as if someone had cut her strings.

Luke held her tighter, breathing hard but steadying fast. His cheek pressed to her temple. His voice was low, a whisper in the wreckage.

“It’s all right. I’ve got you.”

She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe properly.

“It’s dark,” she choked finally. “It’s lightning. You saw—”

“I felt it,” he said, voice firm. “And it’s not dark.”

“You don’t know that—”

“I do,” he said. “I know you.”

Something in her chest collapsed inward at that—pain, relief, terror, she couldn’t name it.

“I can’t stay here,” she whispered. “I’m going to hurt someone.”

He pulled back just enough to meet her eyes.

“Then you’re with me tonight,” he said. No hesitation. No option for refusal. “I’m not leaving you alone like this.”

The words struck something deep and fragile inside her chest.

Before she could protest - before she could form the sentence - he wrapped his hand around hers, careful but firm.

“Come on,” he murmured. “Let’s go.”

He helped her to her feet, one arm wrapped securely around her waist because she was still shaking too hard to stand. His other hand skimmed her ribs, grounding, steadying, gentling.

She was wearing only a thin sleep-wrap and shorts. He was just in sleep pants. The proximity should’ve been humiliating. Terrifying. Instead it felt like oxygen.

He didn’t let go of her the entire walk to his quarters.

Not when they passed two startled apprentices.

Not when the lights flickered back on across the hall.

Not even when she muttered, “I can walk, you know,” and tried halfheartedly to pull away.

His arm simply tightened, not possessive—protective, grounded, steady.

“You’re shaking,” he murmured. “Just lean.”

And she did, because her legs were unreliable and her chest still felt like it was full of broken glass.

His quarters were dim. Cooler than hers. The air smelled faintly of cedar resin and clean linen. He kicked the door closed behind them without ceremony.

“Mara.”

His voice gentled further - dangerously close to intimate.

“Come here.”

He guided her to the bed and sat with her on the edge. For a moment he just held her head against his shoulder, his hand warm at the back of her neck. She could feel the minute trembling in her muscles as the aftershocks passed.

Then he shifted, nudged her back gently, and pulled the covers down.

“Lie down.”

She bristled automatically. “I can take the sofa-”

“No.”

Soft, certain, as if the word were simply a fact of physics.

“You need contact. This is safest.”

She was too wrung out to argue. Her limbs felt heavy, her skin still humming faintly somehow. She sank back against the pillow, breath coming in uneven threads.

He stretched out beside her - no hesitation, no awkwardness - and curved his body against hers like it was a reflex he was born with. One arm slid around her waist, the other tucked under the pillow by her head. His bare chest pressed warm along her spine, steady as gravity.

The second he touched her, the residual static drained away like water finding its level.

Her shoulders loosened. A small, involuntary sound escaped her - barely more than a sigh.

Luke exhaled against her hair. “There we go.”

It was the gentleness that did it.

Not the closeness. Not even the warmth.

Just... that voice.

She closed her eyes. Too tired to think, too tired to fight.

His fingers brushed her hip in a grounding pattern she recognised from earlier - slow, repetitive, calm.

She drifted.

Just for *grounding* purposes, obviously… It’s like, science.

—

She spent the morning elbow-deep in her ship’s guts, running diagnostics, replacing melted relays, muttering inventive insults at the circuit blocks. When Luke’s shadow fell across the open hatchway she didn’t pause to look up.

“Your landing report says you nearly overloaded the primary converter,” he said mildly. “You all right?”

She kept her eyes on the coil she was loosening. “You’re reading maintenance logs now? Must be quiet around here.”

“Quiet isn’t bad,” he said. “It gives people space to listen.”

“To what, the insects?” The coil came free with a hiss and she set it aside. “I’m fine, Skywalker.”

“Luke,” he corrected automatically. “And you don’t look fine. Neither does your ship.”

She filled the silence by scraping at the carbon scorching.

He crouched beside her, close enough that she could feel his calm radiating out. It was infuriating, that endless steadiness. Like he didn’t know how to be anything but centred.

“Whatever you’re doing to block the Force,” he said, “it’s fighting back.”

She turned then, eyes sharp. “You think this is about control? You have no idea what - ”

Her sentence cut off as the hydrospanner in her hand suddenly *sparked*. Blue-white light licked across her hand snapping tiny fizzing stars into the air.

Luke was already moving; he grabbed the spanner, tossed it aside then went for her wrist.

“Mara-”

“Don’t touch me!”

The flash was instantaneous. The entire ship sang as every light in the cabin blew out and smoked. Panels cracked. Tiny blue filaments licked up over her arms like glowing neon lace.

Luke swore under his breath - the sound of a man unaccustomed to swearing - and pulled her against him, hard.

It was like a held breath released. The surge that she’d been holding, so bright and vicious, flooded out at the contact, humming harmlessly into him.

When the world steadied, they were both on the floor, pressed together, her heart hammering hard against his chest. He rubbed his thumb lightly where he was cupping the back of her neck.

“Are you hurt?” he asked quietly.

She pushed him away from her, shaking. “No. I… It’s just…”

The smell of smoke again. Her fingertips crackling blue.

Luke took her hand then, and laced their fingers tightly together. She watched the flickers run over them both, for a moment, and then dissipate into the air.

“Let’s just… keep hold of one another for now” he said, breezy, like a suggestion they go and drink tea.

New chapters up tomorrow, hopefully, but here’s a taster:

———

“Mara?” Luke’s heavy, warm presence flared on the other side of the door, bright with alarm.

No.

Another bolt ripped up from her palms. She gasped. The sound came out more like a sob.

She barely registered him entering; just the sudden gust of cooler air, his silhouette in the steam, the sharp, horrified spike of his senses as he took in the scene.

“Stop—” she got out, unsure if she meant the lightning, or him. Maybe both.

He did not stop. Of course he didn’t.

He crossed the small space in what felt like one stride. The water was still hammering down from above, turning the floor slick, but he didn’t falter.

“Skywalker, I’m naked,” she hissed, because humiliation was a good distraction from pain. Her voice cracked.

“Trust me,” he muttered, “I’m very aware”, and then his hands were on her.

He didn’t hesitate. Of all the ways this could have gone, that was what undid her.

One of his arms came around her from behind, under her breasts again, palm flat across her ribs. The other went over it, pinning her forearms against her body. He hauled her back away from the full force of the spray, rotating them so that he took the brunt of it across his shoulders.

The contact stole what remained of her breath.

Skin. Everywhere.

In the studio there had been clothes, her training tunic. Now there was only heat and slickness and the hard planes of his chest against her wet back. Every place they touched felt branded: his forearm under the swell of her breasts, his wrist against her sternum, his hands locking across the front of her like a bar.

The lightning did what it had done before, only worse.

It leapt.

The current that had been trying to eat her nerves alive found a new path and went for it gleefully. It stormed into him in a rush that made her vision white out. She felt it flood along the length of his arms, through his chest, down into his centre.

His body jerked once against her. His breath came out between clenched teeth.

“Okay,” he grated. “Okay. I’ve got you. Just—” He wrestled for control, voice and body coiled with tension.. “Just… let it come.”

As if that were easy. As if she hadn’t spent years slammed into the opposite discipline.

Her first instinct was to fight. To wrench away, to twist out of his hold, to slam the whole storm down before it could show him anything more.

His arms tightened, anticipation beating her to it. He pulled her more firmly against him, chest to spine, soaking wet. She could feel his heart hammering.

“Mara, listen to me,” he said, voice rough and close at her ear. “You clamp down right now, you’re going to burn yourself from the inside out.”

“You’re going to see—” she managed.

“Nothing I haven’t already”, he shot back, too fast. “Let it move. Through. Not away. Through.”

Her feet skidded on the wet floor. All that kept her upright was his hold. There was nowhere to anchor herself that wasn’t him.

The lightning roared, looking for the smallest narrowing to crash against.

She thought of letting go and everything in her screamed. You do not let go. You do not. You hold and hold until there is nothing left. That’s how you survive.

Luke’s chin brushed the crown of her head as he leaned in, bringing his mouth closer to her ear. “Trust me,” he said.

Stupid, she thought wildly. Stupid, naive farmboy words, offered like they meant something in a universe where trust was a currency people spent too easily and died for.

Her body believed him anyway. She stopped pushing back.

Tiny shift. Microscopic. She made no heroic decision; she simply didn’t brace quite so hard against the current as it battered through her.

It poured.

The path into him opened so quickly it made her dizzy. The pain in her hands eased by degrees, going from sharp, searing lines to a deep, fierce ache. The water carried away the worst of the heat as it bled off.

His hands spread more firmly over her ribs, fingers splaying as if to cover more surface. It didn’t feel like restraint. It felt like contact.

She felt him throw his own attention into the Force in that way he did – earnest, unguarded, like a kid opening all the windows in a stuffy room. The energy met it and sank, hungry, into the wider current.

His jaw was tight against her temple. Drops of water ran down his face and into her hair, cold tracks in the warmth.

“Good,” he said, sounding a little wrecked. “That’s it. Breathe.”

She did, because she had to to stop her lungs from shutting down. Each gulp of air pulled more of the power along with it, a tide rolling through and out instead of smashing inward.

The spray was still hitting her shoulder and the side of his neck. The noise of it was too loud in the small space. The steam was thicker now, curling around them like a curtain.

He moved one hand – she felt the loss of contact like a shock – just long enough to flick his fingers toward the control. The water shut off with a protesting clunk.

Sudden quiet crashed down around them.

Only the drip of cooling water on stone, the ragged echo of their breathing, the fading crackle of little residual arcs over her skin.

His arm was back around her in the same instant, as if he didn’t trust her not to disappear in the transition. Warm. Solid. Entirely too present.

Gradually, the buzzing in her fingers faded to pins and needles. The smell of singed skin, sharp and acrid, cut through the soap.

He swore softly under his breath. “You’re burned.”

“Don’t look at me,” she rasped.

“I’m looking after you.” He sounded almost furious now, which was unfair. She was the one who’d just had her nervous system turned into a power conduit.

He shifted his weight, adjusting their balance. The movement slid his chest against her back. Every inch of her that wasn’t numb from lightning was abruptly, humiliatingly aware of how extremely naked she was.

Her spine went stiff. “Let go of me.”

But here’s a snippet where Electric!Mara sneaks off and asks Kam to try grounding her instead of Luke, and it goes badly. Luke has to come to the rescue and he’s not exactly impressed…

—-

Luke didn’t release her immediately.

Even after the last of the static dissipated into the floor, he kept his hands on her arms as if daring the Force to contradict him.

Kam, normally the calmest presence in the room, seemed unusually careful now. He stepped back, hands clasped behind him, gaze flicking between them with a measured kind of concern.

“Mara,” Kam said gently, “how do you feel?”

“Tired,” she answered stiffly, then looking at Luke, “Irritated.”

All understatements. She felt like she’d been singed on the inside.

Luke didn’t let go.

Kam nodded. “Then maybe you should sit—”

“She’s not staying here,” Luke cut in.

Mara snapped her head toward him. “Excuse me?”

Luke’s grip didn’t shift. “You’re coming with me.”

Kam gave Luke a long, slow look - the kind that suggested he’d like to challenge him, but also wasn’t stupid enough to try while Mara was still actively crackling under Luke’s fingertips.

He cleared his throat. “We need to understand what happened.”

“What happened,” Luke said, voice low, “is that grounding is not a transferable skill. Not for this. It’s not a technique. It’s a resonance. It has to be me.”

Kam didn’t deny it, but he didn’t agree, either.

He just said, “Then we note that.”

Mara bristled. “I don’t need to be discussed like a lab experiment”

“No one said—” Kam began.

“Actually,” Luke interrupted sharply, “she has a point. None of this is normal, Kam. Not even by Jedi standards. And trying again without me is absolutely off the table.”

Kam folded his arms - slowly, deliberately. “Luke. You’re emotional. That’s understandable. But if you’re saying only you can help her, you need to be sure.”

“I am sure.”

Kam’s voice softened, though his eyes stayed keen.

“And you’re sure that that certainty isn’t… emotional investment?”

Mara’s stomach dropped.

She felt Luke’s entire body go rigid.

“That isnt relevent,” he said flatly.

Kam tilted his head. “Everything is relevent, Luke. You know that.”

A muscle jumped in Luke’s jaw. “This has nothing to do with—”

“Then why,” Kam said gently, “did she come to me instead of you this morning?”

The silence landed like a stone.

Mara’s cheeks burned hot. Luke stiffened. Kam realized he’d stepped on a fault line and immediately pulled back, hands raised.

“I’m not judging,” he said hastily. “Just observing. Something here is… personal. Maybe for both of you.”

Luke’s laugh was sharp and brittle. “You have no idea.”

Mara wanted to scream, or to smash something, or to run far away. Instead she said nothing, burning silently under Luke’s relentless grip.

After a long pause, Kam nodded to them both.

“Alright. I’ll write in my notes that grounding attempts with anyone but you are contraindicated. And dangerous.”

Luke’s voice was a blade.

“Good.”

Kam hesitated. Then he looked straight at Mara — not at Luke.

“If you need anything from me that isn’t grounding,” he said softly, “I’m here.”

For a moment, Mara’s breath went thin.

Luke pulled her a half-step closer to him — not quite possessive, but something very near the border — and she felt Kam notice.

He nodded once.

“Take her,” he said. “Get her settled.”

—-

She calls his com.

“I’m about 5 minutes from your place, and I need a medpac.” She tries to keep her breathing level but she can hear it rasping down the line all the same. His concern is immediate.

—

Mara breathes out and let’s her mind catch up with her skipping heart.

“I see,” she says, not entirely sure that she does.

“But I meant it” he’s telling her.

The first days after captivity are always an adjustment.

So she’s grateful, if a little awkward, when Skywalker insists on sleeping in her room to watch over her.