i.
Here, child, he said.
Reach out to me, and touch me
But not with your fingers. There are
No fingers here.
She tried but did not know
What he meant. No fingers?
But she kept her hands close
Straight at her sides, tiny
Fists curled into balls, angry
That she didn't know what he meant.
Reach out to me, he said again. Imagine
That you are going to touch me. Imagine
That my hand will meet yours
In the middle space between us.
So she closed her eyes and imagined
That her hand was stretching out, imagined
That it was touching his.
His fingers--imagined--closed around her
Equally imagined
Fingers, and tightened until the grip was
Almost painful.
Good, her new Master crooned. Good.
I think you will do very well,
Mara Jade.
ii.
There was a ripping, and then
He was gone.
Sudden, shocking
--what happened to him
what could have happened to him
what will happen to me now?
The feeling of him
In her mind
Slid through those mental fingers
She'd learned to create from him,
Dripping away like blood though
She tried to staunch the wound.
And he was gone.
(Where is your control now?)
He was her teacher, her master, her
Home, and he was
Gone.
(Do you know what to do?)
But in his place an image
Grew, hard black planes on one side and
Chill blue eyes on the other. The black
Swirled and disappeared, but the blue eyes
Swelled until she could see nothing else.
YOU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER.
iii.
He was hers, completely. His life was
In her hands, which were cupped to receive it
And crush it between them until
There was nothing left.
He was at her mercy.
(What mercy?)
But he would not die yet. Not
When he knew nothing, when he
Understood nothing. He was empty still,
And he could not die until
She had filled him with
Everything he had given her.
But--strange that those blue eyes
were not cold, were not hard, were not
Angry. They were surprisingly
Warm.
(What do you think that means?)
I did not kill your master, he told her, but
She saw it.
She
Saw
It.
He lied, of course, trying to
Save himself.
But what could she expect?
He was a Jedi.
iv.
He was too close, and at the same time
Too far.
He was starting to know her.
The last person who had known her
Had not fared so well.
And here was the reason her master was dead;
Not the killer, no cold blue eyes in the truth,
But the reason all the same.
(Is that a bad thing?)
People did not know her. She
Had lived in the shadows,
In the secrets in the soul,
Slipping through the cracks of consciousness.
She was not known.
But he did now, this Jedi,
This catalyst.
She had lived inside
The darkness of secrets
And the space between
But he illuminated
And found her.
(What are you going to do about him?)
Rarely did she feel uncertain,
No hesitation, no stumbling, but
That was then, and
This is now.
He knew her, and now
She wanted to know him.
v.
Love was a strange thing,
Alien, unknown.
What was it?
Was it the pounding feeling in her chest
As she looked at him, and thought
That she could watch him till the
Ends of time and be content?
Or was it the sizzling in her blood
When he took her in his arms
And pressed kisses onto her face,
Her brow and eyelids and cheeks and mouth?
I will stay with you forever, he told her,
Which no one ever had before, and no one
Could have meant it as much as he did.
And that strange almost-gratitude she felt
When he held her close to him as if
He never wanted her to leave--
Was that love?
There was a ring on her finger now, and
It was strange, the difference
Such a simple piece of jewelry could make.
It changed nothing about her,
Not her hair or her eyes or her height, and
Her personality was the same,
The rough edges barely
Beginning to smooth.
But still there was a change.
She did not know what it was, but
She noticed that she also
Did not really care.
vi.
There was life in this room,
New,
Miraculous.
She had created it,
She and Luke together,
Their love bursting into something
Infinitely precious.
(Did you ever think you'd end up here?)
There was a baby in her arms,
Squalling and red and
Loudly, wonderfully alive.
Never had screaming made her so
Happy.
She looked up, and Luke was
Beaming at her, and she could
Feel his joy, and how it
Burned away all traces of
Exhaustion.
He's perfect, Luke whispered, and she
Just let her smile tell of
Her absolute agreement, because
This was their son, and he was
Perfect.
And he came of her,
Born of her body, and
She would be inside him
Forever.
He is the world now.
She is not just herself anymore,
Not just Mara, or even Mara-and-Luke.
She is--they are--
Mara-and-Luke-and-Ben,
And the whole is greater than
The sum of its parts.