Whisper Your Weakness

Chapter 30

Mara’s speederbike skidded to a stop several meters away from the hut that had once been the hideaway for one of the last Jedi Knights in the galaxy. She was thankful that Anakin had known the coordinates of this place, because if Mara hadn’t been given the exact location, she might have overlooked it altogether. The small home was cleverly disguised to blend in with the surrounding cliffs and Mara could see how Obi-Wan had escaped capture as long as he had.

Taking a deep breath, Mara started towards the run-down hut, hoping against hope that Luke was indeed here, and praying to as many deities as she could think of that he hadn’t done anything really stupid yet. It was eerily quiet, and Mara could feel a dull sense of dread building in her gut. Oh, Force, please let him still be alive in there…

Finally, just as she got to the door of the hut, the quiet scrape of a foot against the covering of sand on the floor reached her ears. The tension that had been straining her shoulders eased just a tiny bit as she searched the gloomy interior of the building for the origin of the noise.

Seeing Luke sitting on a sagging sofa, Mara wanted to let loose with a cry of joy. She restrained herself, not wanting to startle him. He was sitting with his elbows braced on his knees, head hanging forward looking down at the lightsaber that he was twisting in his hands. Mara recognized it as his own, the one he’d made himself before going to the second Death Star to confront his father and her former Master. She remembered seeing it, still in need of rebuilding, at the Lars place when she’d arrived, but hadn’t felt it was the right time to bring it up with him then.

Now it was repaired, looking as familiar in his hands as it always had back on Coruscant and on Yavin those few times she’d stopped by the Jedi Academy. A cold chill passed through Mara, making her shiver involuntarily, as she realized this was the instrument he’d chosen to end his life. That was…just wrong.

Hoping to end this quickly, Mara reached out with the Force to the lightsaber held so casually in his hands. Unfortunately, she’d obviously been putting off that training that Luke had been haranguing her to take for too long, because as soon as he felt the lightsaber shift in his hand, his grip tightened instinctively and his head shot up in surprise.

Mara cursed silently as he gave her a look mixed with shock and indignation. She returned it with a fierce glare of her own. They held that staring contest for a moment more, before he stood up.

“What are you doing here?” he asked quietly.

“I think it’s pretty obvious what I’m doing here, Skywalker. I’m here to stop you from making the biggest mistake of your life,” Mara replied.

“You may think it’s a mistake, but it’s not, Mara. It’s what I have to do. To make things better for everyone.”

“No, Luke, it is a mistake, and a very selfish one at that. What do you think this would do to Leia? To Han and the children? To me?”

He gave a sardonic little laugh and Mara’s blood froze at the hopelessness she could sense behind it. “Maybe I’m tired of thinking of everyone else in the galaxy first. I’ve been putting everyone else’s thoughts and feelings ahead of my own for half my life. Maybe this time, I’m thinking of me first, because this pain has to go away, Mara,” he said, his voice growing thick with emotion. He shook his head, as though he hadn’t meant to let that show, but continued anyway. “I’m just ready for it to go away.”

“But this is not the only way to do that, Luke! You have other options,” she said, and took a step closer to him.

He immediately tensed up and faced her as one ready to do battle, gripping the lightsaber tightly in his hand, holding it ready as though he were about to face her in combat. Mara grimaced, but acknowledged his agitated state by taking a step backwards. The longer she could delay him igniting that saber until she could get it away from him, the better.

“Options,” he scoffed. “What options?”

“You could talk to me, tell me what’s going on with you. Let me help you deal with it,” she said coaxingly.

“Talk to you!” he said, and let out a laugh that was definitely edging towards the hysterical. He lifted his empty hand to push it roughly through his hair, and stared at her in disbelief. “That was the problem on Coruscant. Everyone just kept saying, ‘Oh, if you just talk about it, Luke, you’ll feel better.’ I don’t want to kriffing talk about it! It just needs to. Go. Away. And this…” he said and waved the lightsaber at her mockingly, “…is how I can make sure that happens.”

“Don’t you think your solution to this is a little too final?” Mara said, trying to get him to think logically and get out of this loop he seemed determined to continue going round in.

“That’s what makes it perfect. I won’t ever have to worry about it again,” Luke said, just a tad smugly. “Tell me, Mara, were you ever captured when you were doing your work as the Emperor’s Hand?” he asked, interrupting what would have been her argument against the ‘perfection’ of his plan.

It took her a moment to answer, as she was wondering where that question had suddenly come from. But anything that took his mind off that lightsaber, even temporarily, was a good thing in her opinion.

“No, I wasn’t. I only ever had one failed mission in my years of service to the Emperor, and I thank the Force for that one every day,” she said deliberately.

He blinked at her in surprise, and half-turned his head away as he gave a weak snort of denial. Mara knew that he remembered the same as her that she’d always teased him about being the one that had ‘gotten away’. She caught a glimpse of a tiny smile at the corner of his mouth, and that involuntary gesture gave her a ridiculous spark of hope that they could get through this ordeal with both their skins intact.

He scowled in an obvious effort to shake away the brief memory of that shared camaraderie, and snarled, “If you’ve never been held against your will, then you have no idea what it’s like. Remembering. Remembering all the things that he did, the things that he said, and how much he…hurt me…” Luke’s voice began to break as the memories became too much to bear again. “How much everything still hurts…and I just want it to stop!”

He was growing ever more agitated, starting to pace back and forth in short, little steps, and Mara could see his thumb anxiously stroking the switch on his lightsaber. She was on the verge of panic, desperately wishing that she had Leia’s skill with diplomacy and knowing just the right thing to say, because she needed some sort of magic words to make him see how wrong this was.

“Tell me what I can do to help, Luke! I want to help make the hurt go away, but you have to let me-”

“There’s nothing you can do, nothing anyone can do! I have to do this!” he screamed, and abruptly brought the lightsaber up to hold it against his chest, pointing inward so that when he ignited it, the saber would immediately impale him.

Mara swore that her heart stopped beating for moment as she froze in utter fear that she was not going to be able to stop this. She was a former assassin, what the hells did she know about stopping people from dying? He was going to kill himself and she would lose him forever and she would die without him, and she could not let this happen! Shaking herself free from that momentary stupor, Mara reached out to him with her hands.

“Luke, I can’t let you do this. I won’t let you do this!”

“You can’t stop me, Mara. I’m sorry for everything I ever did to hurt you, but this will be better. You can move on now, and Han and Leia have each other and the kids, so they’ll be fine, too,” Luke said.

Mara saw that the manic gleam in his eyes had dulled to a quiet determination, and knew she had to act soon or it would truly be too late.

“Luke, please…” she gasped, trying to figure out those elusive magic words.

“I don’t want to do this in front of you, Mara, but I will. I swear I will. Don’t make me hurt you anymore than I already have,” he said, and he half-turned away from her as though he couldn’t face her while he destroyed his life and hers.

And she saw her chance then. Mara grabbed at it with everything that she had, and reflected in that brief instant that she’d always been a woman of action rather than words anyway.

Calling on the Force, and on every bit of training she’d ever had while in the Emperor’s service, Mara leapt across the distance separating them and plastered herself against his back. She wrapped one arm under his armpit and up and across the back of his neck to hold him – silently thanking the gods that he wasn’t that much taller than she was – and reached around to grip the wrist of the hand holding the lightsaber with her other hand.

“Mara! What-” He started in shock and anger as he flinched and tried to throw her off.

She held on like a mynock as she leaned her head forward to whisper in his ear. “You go ahead then, Luke. You go ahead and kill yourself and when you do, you’ll kill me, too. But it doesn’t matter, because my life was meaningless before you came into it, and it will be just as empty if you leave it,” she hissed.

Luke stilled and for a moment, she thought he was still going to thumb that switch on anyway. Mara closed her eyes, trying to prepare herself for the blade piercing her body. Then she felt him begin to tremble, small tremors that reverberated through his whole body, and she knew hope once more.

“Not fair. Not…fair!” he choked, and his body was beginning to sag.

“Maybe I’ve decided to be selfish, too, Skywalker. I promised to be with you forever. Whether it’s in this life or the next one is up to you, but I’m not going anywhere without you ever again,” Mara vowed.

A tiny whimpering sound of distress came from Luke as shudders began to wrack his body. He slumped and fell to his knees, Mara still holding on and going with him. Her hold on him changed to more of a hug as she loosened her grip on his neck and stroked the side of his face tenderly. She breathed a sigh of relief as the lightsaber slipped from slackened fingers and dropped with a thunk to the floor, rolling away from them.

She had begun to think that the storm had passed, when his body suddenly tensed again and Luke screamed, so loud and long and raw that it startled her…and Mara understood that the storm was really just beginning. She held on tighter as the scream finally wound its way to an end, and then he was crying. More like sobbing, actually, his breathing harsh and rapid as anguish poured off of him in waves.

Mara pressed herself up against his back and started murmuring soft reassurances in his ear, much as she had done for the nightmares the previous night. Continuous whispers of ‘I’m here’ ‘It’s okay’ ‘You’re all right now’ and ‘I’ve got you, I’ve got you’ and gradually Luke’s ragged sobs slowed as he calmed down.

She wasn’t sure how long the two of them lay there, Mara’s whispers of comfort having dwindled to simply soft shushing sounds as she continued to stroke him. She hadn’t been allowed to touch him like this in so long, it was as though she couldn’t stop once she started.

They had slid down to where they were lying completely on the floor of Obi-Wan’s hut, Luke on his side and Mara still curled around his back, her arms wrapped around him. Hesitantly, one of his hands came up to gently grasp the one that was pressed against his chest, and Mara had to keep quiet her shout of joy at that little sign of him reaching out to her. Sneaking a peek at his face, she saw that he was calmer, but seemed to be drained, his expression showing his exhaustion.

His defenses were completely down, shattered by the emotional confrontation they’d had, and Mara knew there would never be a better time to get him to talk about what had happened. As much as she felt like she was taking advantage, she felt it was necessary, because he was never going to get past this if he never dealt with it.

“Luke, what did he do to you?” she asked softly.

His eyes fell closed and a shudder passed through his body, and for a moment, she thought he was still going to refuse to answer. But then he opened his eyes and caught her gaze and she saw that he had nothing left to resist her with.

Still, he dropped his eyes back to the floor before he finally answered her, in a voice so low she had to strain to hear it even in the utter silence that surrounded them.

“He raped me,” Luke whispered.

She watched as his jaw clenched and he kept his gaze lowered, as though he was ashamed to look at her, to have her look at him. Mara blinked back the tears she felt coming in her sympathy to his pain and softly kissed his shoulder.

“Oh, my poor love,” she said tenderly.

He let out a little sigh at her words, and then it was as if, by her quiet acceptance, the floodgates opened and he began to talk of what had happened to him.

“He tried to suffocate me first. He pushed my face into the mattress and I could feel myself about to pass out. I thought maybe the game was finally over and he was going to let me die, but then he-” his voice broke a little, but Luke took a deep breath and then continued, “All of a sudden his body was on top of mine and he was holding me down and he was breathing on the back of my neck…”

Again, he had to pause for a moment, and Mara just squeezed her arms around him a little harder, telling him without words that she would never leave him.

“Then he was…he was…there…and Force, it hurt so much! I think I went into shock or something, because then I couldn’t feel anything. Couldn’t see anything, hear anything, and it was such a relief. Because I was so tired by that point, Mara. I tried to be strong, to resist everything he did to me. The beatings, the whippings, when he choked me, when he half-electrocuted me. But when he did that, I just…I couldn’t be strong anymore. It was too much, and I wanted it to be over. I wanted to die.”

“Oh, Luke, I am so sorry,” Mara said.

“Why are you sorry? You didn’t do this to me,” Luke said dully.

“I’m sorry that we didn’t find you sooner, but we were looking. I swear to you we never gave up for a moment searching for you.”

“I know that,” he said, and patted her hand awkwardly.

“Why did you run?” she asked, and tried to keep the note of betrayal out of her voice. She wasn’t entirely sure that she succeeded because he winced just a little.

“Because I just couldn’t think about it anymore. Berdin hurt my body, but remembering it constantly was destroying my head, and I didn’t want it anymore. I just wanted it to go away.”

“But why run from me, Luke? I would have done anything to help you. After all the many times you’ve done the same for me, don’t you think I would have done whatever I could to help you?”

He shivered in her arms and risked a quick glance at her, but quickly looked away again.

“Because I was filthy and disgusting, and you deserve better than that,” he muttered.

Mara bit back the instinctive denials that wanted to fly out of her mouth, knowing they would probably do more harm than good at this point. She realized they’d been lying on the sand-covered floor of Obi-Wan’s hut for quite some time now, and it was beginning to get a little uncomfortable.

She let go of him reluctantly and got to her feet. Holding her hand out towards him, she said, “Come on, Skywalker, let’s head back to your aunt and uncle’s place where we can get cleaned up and decide what we’re going to do from here.”

“Okay,” he said quietly, and docilely allowed her to help him up.

Mara worried that the events of the day might have been too much for him to handle all at once, as Luke didn’t even notice when she reached down to pick up his lightsaber, attaching it securely to her own belt. He seemed to be in a bit of a daze as he followed her outside, watching without saying a word as she lashed the speederbike to the landspeeder. She didn’t want to push too much at once and so didn’t say anything as he sat in the passenger seat staring out at the swiftly passing horizon while she drove the distance back to the Lars homestead.

She was starting to fear that he was slipping back into that place that he’d escaped to right after they’d gotten him away from Berdin, because even as they pulled up to the Lars place, Luke made no move to get out of the speeder. So, she walked around to his side, and took him by the elbow, gently leading him out of the seat and guiding him into the house.

Mara led him to the sofa in the living room and pushed him carefully down onto it. Luke hadn’t said a word since they’d left Obi-Wan’s place and she was beginning to get a little nervous. When he did speak, she actually jumped a little to her embarrassment.

“How can you even stand to look at me now?” he said, his voice lifeless.

“Because I love you, Luke, and what happened to you was not your fault,” she said firmly.

He flinched and kept his eyes glued to the floor, and Mara had had about enough of that. Impulsively – which was odd, because Mara Jade was never impulsive – she strode over to where he was sitting and plopped herself down onto his lap, her knees falling to either side of his hips as she reached up to take his face in her hands. Luke started in surprise, but thankfully made no move to push her away.

“I am not going away, and I’m not going to let you run anymore, so you’d better get used to that idea.”

“Mara, I can’t…” he said, the whine creeping back into his tone. “You would be better off with someone like Lando.”

“Lando! Now you’re just talking crazy talk, Skywalker,” she scoffed. “You’re twice the man Calrissian is.”

“Not anymore,” Luke said sullenly. He tried to turn his face away, but she held on firmly, unwilling to let him hide any longer. “You must think I’m so weak.”

“No, I would never think that of you, Luke. You’ve taken so much weight on your shoulders that I think…I think you’re a little bowed, but you’re unbroken. Not many people would be able to function after what you’ve been through. But you don’t have to hold that weight all by yourself,” she said, and then thought she must be channeling Leia after all, because suddenly she knew exactly what to say to get through to him. “Whisper your weakness to me, and I will lend you my strength,” she said, determination ringing in the words.

Luke sucked in a shocked breath and his wide-eyed gaze met hers. She smiled at him and nodded.

“It works both ways, remember?” she asked.

Luke nodded, again seeming a little dazed. He opened his mouth to try and respond, but Mara simply put her finger over his lips and shushed him.

“You don’t have to say anything right now, Luke. Just know that I’m here,” she promised.

And then she leaned in and kissed him.