Chapter Text
Hyperspace casts a sterile blue smear through the Millennium Falcon’s corridors, the ship humming and rattling around its passengers like an old bantha settling uneasily into sleep. Mara suspects that most beings eventually get used to the shuddering of the tattered starship, even finding the creaks and groans comforting, like a turbulent version of white noise.
Mara is not one of those beings.
The screech of overheated alloy, the flicker of too-bright overhead lighting, and the stomach-churning vibration under her boots scrape at nerves already worn thin by the mission ahead. Wayland looms over all of them like a shadow they can’t outrun, and the Falcon – cramped, loud, and smelling strongly of engine coolant and caf – feels more akin to a pressure cooker than any mode of transportation ever should.
She had spent most of the day actively avoiding every sentient and non-sentient being on board. Chewbacca and Solo had seemingly understood the hint and barely glanced her way, while Calrissian, who is not as smooth and suave as he thinks, tossed a few semi-hostile words here and there. Skywalker is a phantom in her peripheral vision, watching her with that maddening mix of patience and quiet compassion, but never approaching or speaking to her directly. Initially, she planned to skip eating meals with the crew, preferring to wait until the main hold was vacated. Eventually they’d get sick of gambling and sabacc and holographic card games, no? Amazingly, they never do, and Mara is forced to pass them on the way to the galley every time she requires sustenance. Withdrawing into the tiny bunk she’d been assigned, Mara chews ration bars and ingests chunky protein paste as her mind constantly churns with failures of the past.
It’s difficult keeping food down. Every lurch of the Falcon leaves her queasy and resentful of the string of events that has led her into this awful predicament. Laments are easy though – Mara sometimes feels like she’s suspended in an abyss, her faculties removed so there’s no choice left but to drift and accept her fate. She remembers the grogginess that greeted her after swimming back to consciousness in a medcentre following the Battle for the Katana. The arduous recovery process made her feel weak and delicate, like a toddler learning how to walk.
How simple it would be to shut down, to drown in blissful nothingness. But that’s not her. Mara is a fighter – always has been, since she learned how to fire a long-range blaster as a teenager, since she hit a moving target from miles away…ever since she knew anything at all, really. Struggles overwhelm her, but nothing lasts forever. She knows this. It’s just right now, she feels like complete shit and her short-tempered attitude isn’t helping matters. It’s a wonder she’s even able to function at all with her inability to eat and the emperor’s final command pounding away in her skull.
She finishes the last morsel of her disappointing meal. With a sigh, she wanders into the forward hold and tosses the wrapper into a trash receptacle, ignoring the roaring round of Dejarik currently being played by everyone – well, everyone except Skywalker.
Mara has zero interest in his whereabouts and doesn’t bother asking. Calrissian extends a mystifyingly warm greeting and an invitation to join, but she barks out a crisp negative. The refresher is unoccupied, so she shucks her boots in the sleeping bunk, retrieves her sleep clothes and toiletries bag, and begins her truncated nighttime routine.
The young woman staring back at her in the mirror is tired. The brilliant emerald fire of her eyes has dulled, ringed with undereye bags tinted an unflattering gray under the fluorescent bulbs. She’s lost muscle mass, and her ribs are beginning to protrude beneath her sleeveless yellow tank top. The knot at the front of her matching shorts is a bit looser than usual, but it’s fine. She’s ignored her combat training for the moment – not on purpose, but the thought of gritting her teeth through a sequence of high knees, planks, and jumping jacks has lost its appeal. Instead, she’s found an outlet in the dance training foisted upon her by her imperial instructors. The rigidity of the eight-count, the precision of the pliés and revelés, the stiffness of her arm held high above her head and swooping around her torso in a graceful arch – this is what she needs. A jutting metal fixture at hip height in the cargo hold doubles as a makeshift barre, and for a brief moment, as she bends her knees and angles her toes and straightens her spine, Mara’s in control again.
Their mission to Wayland fills her with dread. Part of her thinks this is a one-way trip; the other, irrational part hopes everything will settle. She’ll return to Karrde, continue with her duties assisting him and his operation. She can avoid stepping foot on Coruscant since the New Republic will have no reasons to contact her. And she’ll never see Luke Skywalker again – either because she succeeds in fulfilling Palpatine’s dying wish…or because the Jedi kills her before she can.
Something in that thought stops her cold – quite literally. A gust of freezing air whips right into her body, and she glares around the space to identify the culprit. A shiver races along her exposed skin, and she wraps her arms around herself even as she analyzes every corner and peers behind the porcelain fixtures with a scowl. Damn this ship and everyone on it, she thinks with contempt.
Another blast chills her from the inside out, and then she spots it.
A ceiling vent, only partially attached to the durasteel plating. It must be a faulty drip in one of the engines – she’s seen this sort of thing before on older imperial shuttles that the empire had not yet phased out. A leak of this nature isn’t fatal to this mission or the functioning of the Falcon, but it’s annoying nonetheless. She stares at it and contemplates her options until she’s hit with another icy wave that penetrates right through her skin and into her bones. With a sigh, she decides to suck it up and inform Solo the next morning.
But as soon as she enters her bunk, Mara squeaks. The venting must be the same as the one in the refresher, because the temperature has dropped at least ten degrees. Goosebumps prickle and she mutters a string of colourful curse words under her breath. She’s survived much colder conditions than this though, so she sets her clothes and personal items aside and climbs onto the bunk to inspect the vent above. It’s screwed securely into the panel so there’s no danger of the plating falling on her head. That’s a plus, she concedes. But rest will be a challenge here, especially with the thin rectangle of linen that Solo insists is a blanket.
Gingerly, she inches off the bunk and wraps the fabric around herself like a shawl. Where to go? The main hold is out of the question – Mara hears the raucousness and wants nothing to do with it.
The cool floor numbs her bare feet as she stalks through the guts of the Falcon. She passes the third hold, imagines herself curling into an empty stretch between stacks of unopened crates – but the biting chill is even worse there, and the hum of engines rattles the floor like a live wire. There are the engineering and circuitry bays, which should stay vacant until morning barring an unforeseen attack from rogue space pirates. But each space is inhospitable in its own way – danger lurks in the shapes of sparking conduits, sharp corners, a patrolling Wookiee who might trip on her as she sleeps…
With a sigh, Mara retraces her steps back to the crew’s quarters and stops before hitting the threshold. A yawn escapes her, and she clutches the blanket more securely around her like armor. She’d rather sleep in a hive of colossus wasps, but there’s nowhere else to go. Her bunk is out of the question, which leaves…
She turns to her left and stands in front of the small alcove where she assumes Skywalker has been keeping to himself for most of the evening. Her closed fist rises and hovers in front of the door. Something twists unpleasantly in her stomach – general nausea, yes, but also a bit of irritation and embarrassment at what she’s about to do. She glances down the corridor again, perhaps looking for an escape, but cold air snakes through and punches her in the face.
Mara swears under her breath. Fine. Fine.
She hesitates, then knocks on the solid durasteel frame before she can talk herself out of it. Mara hears movement inside – the squeal of a coiled mattress, the slight rustle of clothing. Through the Force, she senses Skywalker’s confusion and curiosity. He brushes up against her mental shields – it’s nothing more than a whisper of a touch, but she bristles at the unwelcome contact and Skywalker instantly retreats.
This is a mistake, she admonishes herself. What in the Corellian Void is she thinking, coming to him like this?
Mara shuffles backward and looks over her shoulder at her bunk, recalling a quarry she had once tracked for several days over barren, frosty wilderness. She survived that subzero trek, didn’t she? But then Skywalker’s door slides open, and he beckons her inside with his signature farmboy smile that she doesn’t return. Warmth saturates the Force, and inadvertently, Skywalker is the calm point in the storm of her thoughts.
“Mara. Please come in.”
She enters, the edge of the blanket trailing behind her like a defeated banner. She acknowledges him with a stiff dip of her head, acutely aware of how ridiculous she must look – no shoes or socks, wrapped in a threadbare scrap of cheap textile, her red hair with gold highlights wild and disheveled in its braid.
Skywalker’s bunk is the same small size as hers, but it looks lived-in. Homely, even, like he’s spent many nights here. A datapad rests on the narrow shelf beside the mattress, still glowing faintly from whatever he’d been reading. A small holophoto of him and Leia Organa Solo in tailored designer outfits sits propped beside it, the siblings smiling and posing in a way that strikes a painful chord deep within Mara’s chest. Skywalker watches her closely, his fleecy grey sweatpants and t-shirt appearing far too comfortable and out-of-place next to her frazzled state.
“How can I help you?” he asks, his voice low and imbued with concern. “Is everything alright?”
He scans her with perceptive blue eyes, and Mara forces herself to hold his intense gaze despite her apprehension with the situation. She isn’t armed – hadn’t even considered concealing a mini vibroblade on her hip before committing to this harebrained scheme – and Skywalker’s lightsaber is stowed somewhere in the space, away from prying eyes. Even if the emperor’s kill command echoes in the night, Skywalker will likely see her through it without harming her, and that…that sends an unwanted jolt to her nervous system. With a start, she realizes that she trusts him implicitly – a notion so ludicrous that she has little choice but to violently shove it away into the darkest corner of her mind.
He probably senses her distress, but Mara keeps her expression neutral. “I’m cold,” she says flatly.
Skywalker frowns, glancing toward an unzipped duffel bag in the corner. “Okay. Do you need extra clothes? I’ve got a wool sweater I haven’t worn yet, or – ”
She shakes her head. “I just need a place to sleep for tonight. My room is freezing. I think there’s something wrong with the engine and it’s filtering through the vent.”
Understanding dawns across his face, followed by a sympathetic grin. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Where you were assigned – that used to be my bunk, until I couldn’t take the random temperature plunges anymore. Han kept promising he’d buy a new engine part, but it clearly hasn’t happened yet and…” He shrugs and gestures vaguely at the ceiling. “Well, you’ve seen the Falcon.”
Mara shifts her weight from foot to foot, calves sore from her earlier workout, upper back aching with exhaustion. “Yeah,” she mutters. It feels strange and wrong to converse this casually with Skywalker. “So…” She points at the bunk, unable to articulate the rest.
His eyes widen, and he nods. “Feel free to take it. I’ll just find another spot.”
“No.” The word comes out sharper than she intends, startling them both. She clears her throat and tries again. “I mean…look, this is your bunk, long before I entered the picture. You can stay. The cot is big enough for both of us.”
Skywalker’s mouth opens and closes as he searches for an excuse. “But won’t that be…” He tails off, cheeks pinking faintly on tanned skin.
“Skywalker,” she says, exasperated. Whatever nonsense he’s about to say is not worth entertaining. “We’re not doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“The chivalrous Jedi routine. Remember Myrkr? This is just like that, but without the insects and humidity and vornskrs.”
His expression softens and a fond smile lifts the corners of his mouth, though Mara can’t imagine why, since there was nothing fun or magical about their unplanned hike through the ripe, untamed forest.
“If you’re sure.”
Mara exhales in relief. “I’m sure,” she says firmly, putting the matter to rest. Following suit, she pulls the blanket from her shoulders and tosses it haphazardly onto the cot.
There’s a sudden intake of breath behind her, immediately succeeded by a drawn-out cough so obviously fake she almost snorts. She glances over her shoulder balefully. Skywalker is staring very intently at the wall above her head, a deepening flush creeping up his neck and spreading all over his face and engulfing his ears. When he notices her glare, his features smooth into a bland mask and he turns his head away, judiciously looking anywhere but at her.
Of course. Her sleep clothes that probably reveal too many scars and too much skin for his farmboy sensibilities. Her obvious weight loss due to stress and rehabilitation from her injuries. Her sordid past as the former assassin of the most powerful being in the galaxy. She rolls her eyes and soaks in the compulsion to call him out on his judgment of her. But she yawns, loud and long, and decides she’s too drained to argue.
She climbs onto the cot and settles against the wall, drawing her knees up and tugging the blanket over her lower body. She debates calling out to Skywalker and offering some form of reassurance; this is his space, after all, and she’s the intruder. But then the mattress dips and a moment later, he joins her, carefully and considerately. Whatever flustered Skywalker earlier seems to have disappeared; he nestles beside her into the remaining space, sitting up against the flimsy headrest, and she’s suddenly ensconced in a very inviting and toasty cocoon.
Mara’s right — the cot is big enough for both of them. Barely. But they have enough room to maneuver without bothering each other.
Skywalker resumes scrolling through his datapad, the off-white glow illuminating the day-old stubble along the well-defined ridge of his jaw. Mara lays on her right side, facing him, and her eyelids grow heavier with each passing second. Her brain screams a flurry of warnings at her – you’re defenseless, you’re supposed to kill him, you have no weapons, you’re too far away from the door – but they fragment and dissolve under the weight of fatigue.
Besides, heat radiates from him like a furnace – desert genes, she thinks hazily – and she greedily syphons it all into her muscles, loosening the knots she had been carrying for so long.
“Mara?” His voice is soft, close to her ear. “You’re good?”
All she can manage is a grunt of approval before sleep drags her under.
Mara dreams.
A white‑sand beach. Tropical sunshine glitters across the endless sea like millions of scattered gemstones. Waves ebb over her toes at the shoreline. Her hand visors her eyes to probe the horizon. A figure approaches in the distance – blurry but familiar. He calls her name, affectionately, with a slight accent. She recognizes the inflection in his voice but can’t place its origin. Where is he from? She remembers but doesn’t. He calls her name again and she squints through drenching daylight. She can’t see him, but she wants to. He makes her feel luminous and unburdened. He makes everything better. She compels herself forward, closer and closer. She needs to see him clearly, she needs to…
Wakefulness drags her back into the realm of the living.
She groans into the mattress, her arm splayed over a lingering pocket of warmth. Her legs tangle in the blanket as she shifts onto her belly. Her dream unravels, deluging into the ether until it evaporates, and Mara is left to grasp clumsily at its ephemeral remnants.
She wants to return to that delightful place where pain doesn’t exist. But the Falcon lumbers through hyperspace, a rude interruption, and she’s thrust back into the moment despite her inner protests.
Someone else is in the room with her – she can sense his solid presence before she sees him – but it takes an overly friendly chuckle to snap her eyes open.
“There she is,” Skywalker says.
He’s not beside her any longer. Instead, he sits at the foot of the bed, clad in all-black workout clothes, blond hair slicked back in a style she’s never seen him sport before. His lightsaber hangs from a loop on his belt, and he laces his boots diligently.
Mara blinks at him, slightly disoriented. She’s sprawled diagonally across the lumpy mattress, her head halfway off a sizeable pillow that she doesn’t recall being there last night. Heat floods her cheeks when she discovers she’s completely encroached on his side of the cot.
She pushes herself upright, mumbling an apology as she rubs her eyes.
“What time is it?” she asks, her voice a half-croak.
“Late,” he says as he stands, slinging the duffel bag over his shoulder. “You slept through breakfast.”
“I did?” Mara frowns, disbelieving. This can’t be right. Her internal chrono is precise to a fault. She never oversleeps. And her anxious mind usually jerks her awake at least once through the night.
“Yeah. You looked peaceful, so I didn’t wake you.” He unclips his lightsaber to check the emitter with a practiced ease that suggests he’s done this countless times before. The sight leaves Mara with a melancholic pang she can’t decipher. “Feel like training?”
A part of her is tempted, but the rest of her is smarter. And hungrier.
She shakes her head. “Maybe another time. I should eat something first.”
“Good idea.” He pauses at the door. “Just a warning – Han, Lando, and Chewie are playing sabacc. They might try to rope you in to even out the numbers. I barely got out of it after they cornered me earlier.”
Mara smirks unwittingly as she pictures the others converging on Skywalker with promises of easy credits, like a trio of street hustlers running a cup-and-ball scam. “I guess one round wouldn’t hurt,” she mutters.
Skywalker smiles – in that easy-going, infuriating manner of his – and steps into the corridor. “By the way,” he adds, turning around to look back at her, “Han applied a temporary fix to the engine. Your bunk should be livable again. But if you’d rather stay here…” His voice gentles. “You’re welcome to, as long as you want."
Then he’s gone.
Mara lounges there, basking in the heat of the room for a few minutes, staring at the bare walls, gradually coming back to herself. Eventually, she kicks off the blanket and stretches her arms overhead, joints cracking pleasantly. She feels refreshed in a way she hasn’t in a long time. Certainly, more than she has in weeks…or months, more accurately.
Her stomach grumbles, and she mentally reviews the rules of sabacc as she folds the blanket into a tidy square and heads back to her bunk to change and freshen up. Skywalker is correct – the temperature is normal again, thankfully. She’ll sleep here tonight, on what will likely be their final night on the Falcon.
But Skywalker’s offer rings in her ears the rest of the day.
As long as you want.