#skycrawlers

Luke sighed and dragged a hand down his face. “I know that,” he relented, slightly. “I do. But I have to see her. Please, Wedge.”

“Ten minutes,” Antilles agreed, finally. “Off the record.” He looked at his friend seriously. “Just be careful, Luke.”

The Jedi Master nodded. A few moments later, he stood in front of a non-descript but heavily guarded door. He wondered for a moment, absurdly, if he should press the annunciator. Then, shaking his head at himself, he pressed the door controls and stepped inside.

She was waiting for him, her back to the wide windows of the suite they’d deigned to keep her in in place of a cell, arms folded across her chest. His first thought was that she really wasn’t his Mara at all. There were no grey strands in her thick, red-gold braid. No crows feet in the fine skin around her eyes. And her younger frame was marred in Force by painful fault lines his Mara had not borne, evident even with the strong shields she armored herself with and the odd but vaguely familiar blurriness that marked his feel of her.

“Skywalker.” Her voice was the same, though. Down to the low, cautious inflection she’d used when things got tense between them in the days before they were married.

“Mara.”

“I didn’t think you’d come.”

“You don’t have to shield that hard.” 

Luke sidestepped her point and walked a little stiffly to the small conform couch that made up half the suite’s seating circle. He sat down, slowly, never taking his eye off of her. He wanted to ask if it was him that made her shield so fiercely, or the product of whatever had ravaged her so badly in her universe.

Her universe.

That multiple dimensions existed had been a known scientific fact for millennia. That beings could cross over and become stranded was also known. But no one in recorded history had ever crossed over intentionally, and none of the former cross-overs had been sentient beings.  

“Is it true what they’re saying? You crossed over on purpose?”

Mara Jade nodded, her eyes fixed on him with an intensity Luke remembered well.

“May I ask why?” Luke made his voice intentionally calm and gentle, despite the unreasonable and warring desires of his heart.

“Personal reasons.” She said it crisply, but her eyes stayed fixed on him with a look that bordered on hunger – and contained no small amount of anxiety.

Luke tried to imagine what would have driven Mara – any version of her – to something so extreme. His gut knotted. “Who was in danger?”

Mara said nothing, but every line of her body went even tighter than it had been.

“Ben?” His brow furrowed. “No, you wouldn’t have come without him. Or wouldn’t have let yourself be taken if you were here to get something for him.” Blurriness, his mind prompted. He cast about for why that sensation was familiar. Then his eyes widened and his stomach dropped. “You’re pregnant.”

“Yes.” The word came out pinched with pain.

Luke stood up and had taken two steps toward her before he could make himself stop. She wasn’t his. He couldn’t assume the right to touch her. But the baby -. He swallowed hard. “Is it mine?”

Mara’s arms dropped to her sides, fists clenching. “She’s mine.”

A daughter. Luke planted his feet to keep from swaying. “Please – I didn’t mean it that way. I would never -.”

“Yes,” Mara said again, suddenly looking exhausted and fragile. She wrapped her arms around her stomach, protectively. “I couldn’t let anyone take her from me.”

Luke had a million questions, but all of them were overridden by a sudden and ferocious protectiveness. “Come home with me.”

Mara’s shock showed on her face. “What?”

“Let me help you.” He stepped closer, hands out soothingly as if that could somehow mitigate the blazing energy he knew he was giving off. “I don’t know why your Luke didn’t – couldn’t? – but I will. Anything you need, Mara.” He glanced at her abdomen, still hidden under her crossed hands. “Anything she needs.”

“You already have a son,” she said, watching him, a slender thread of hope winding through her sense.