Whisper Your Weakness

“Mmmm. I could stay right here with you all day,” Mara murmured as she snuggled up against him. They had moved to the bedroom sometime mid-morning and had stayed there until lunch. Luke had cooked for her, much to her delight, and then they had moved back into the bedroom. He didn’t think he could ever get enough of her.

Unfortunately, real life had to intervene. Sighing in disappointment, he said, “As much as I would love to be able to do that, I have a doctor’s appointment at 1600.”

She raised her head and looked at him in surprise. “You have a doctor’s appointment? I thought you hated medcenters and would go to any lengths to avoid them,” she teased.

He scowled at her playfully. “Well, normally, I do. But at least once a year, I have to go see Dr. Mondahl about this,” he said as he held up the bionic hand.

“What, like regular check-ups?”

“Yeah, he’s the one that put it on there, and he likes to look at it every once in a while, make sure everything’s still working like it should. Plus, Leia makes me go.”

“She makes you go?” Mara said with a raised eyebrow. Somehow, she had a hard time envisioning anyone making Luke Skywalker do anything.

Luke lapsed into a hilarious imitation of his sister, holding up one finger and shaking it at the ceiling. “Luke Skywalker, you know I only want what’s best for you. Now if you ever want to be able to use that hand again, you will go see Dr. Mondahl. Here, I’ve already made your appointment. Don’t be late!”

Mara rolled with laughter at the high-pitched tone he affected and he chuckled along with her.

“By the way, don’t ever tell her I did that,” he said.

“Oh, I don’t know…I can just imagine the look on her face.”

Luke’s face showed his horror and Mara wasn’t quite sure if he was teasing or not. “No, I’m serious, she would kill me. And Han would never let me live it down.”

She decided to let the subject drop as she rolled over and plopped down on top of him, planting a lingering kiss on his mouth as she did so. “How long will this appointment take you?”

“Shouldn’t be too long, but I have to go to Leia’s apartment afterwards. She always wants an update on what Dr. Mondahl says,” Luke admitted with a little wince.

“Skywalker, you have got to get out from under your sister’s thumb,” she said as she shook her head in disbelief.

“Hey, I’m not under her thumb-” he broke off as Mara gave him a knowing look. “Well, not completely. Leia is just very…determined.”

“I’m sorry, did you say ‘dominating’? Because that’s what I heard.”

“That is not funny. And it’s not true, either. It’s just easier to let her have her way sometimes than it is to argue with her.” Luke looked up at her uncertainly. “You could, uh, come with me to her place. I usually have dinner with her and Han and the kids afterwards.”

Mara frowned at the thought of dinner at the Solo’s. “No, I don’t think that would be a good idea. This relationship is supposed to be a secret, remember?”

“It doesn’t have to be-”

Mara leapt up off of him and the bed and stalked over to where her clothes were. “We agreed on this, Skywalker. I am not comfortable sharing the fact that we’re involved. I can just hear the comments. The Jedi Master and the former Emperor’s Hand? I’m not dealing with all that. If you can’t understand that-”

Luke sat up quickly. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to bring it up again. I just hate the idea of sneaking around.”

Mara paused in the middle of pulling her boots on, her back to him. Her whole body was stiff with irritation and - Luke reached out with the Force tentatively, trying to read her mood - a little fear. She whirled around to glare at him and the fear quickly melted into anger.

“Don’t do that, Jedi!” she snarled as her barriers tightened even more, blocking him out completely.

Luke sighed as he flopped back down onto the mattress. “Again, I’m sorry, Mara. I don’t want to argue with you. Please?” He was silently cursing himself. Sithspawn stupid Farmboy! Remember, slowly! You mess this up and you’ll likely never see her again! “When do you have to report back to the Wild Karrde?”

She stared at him, her green eyes glinting with her annoyance for a long moment. “Tomorrow. 1900.”

“Will you be here when I get back from Leia’s tonight?”

She didn’t answer as she turned to grab her flight jacket from the back of a chair. Luke felt panic begin to well up in him. That’s it, Skywalker, you blew it.

She turned to face him. “I have some work to do at my place. You can meet me there when you’re done at your boss’s, sorry, your sister’s place.”

He grinned at her in relief. She was teasing; he was forgiven. She walked forward briskly and gave him a too-brief kiss before turning to leave. He had to bite his lip to keep from blurting out I love you as she did. She smiled at him as she left the room.

“See you soon, Skywalker.”

“I can’t wait, Jade.”

*********************************

Luke glanced down at his wrist chrono as he stepped onto the turbolift that would take him to Dr. Mondahl’s office. He was a few minutes early, but that was okay. Normally, Dr. Mondahl didn’t make him wait very long. He had been seeing Luke for the bionic hand for almost ten years now and Luke felt comfortable in his office. Dr. Mondahl usually tried to schedule as few other appointments on the day of Luke’s visit as possible so that Luke wouldn’t be besieged by admirers in the waiting room.

He stepped into the cheery front room of Dr. Mondahl’s office. Glancing around, he saw only three other people in the room; there was an old man sitting in the corner, half asleep, and a young mother with a little boy about five years old. She was reading a holozine and the little boy was playing with a toy speeder. He smiled as he walked up to the receptionist’s window.

“Hi, Beki. Have you missed me?” he whispered.

Beki Andray was a human from Alderaan and she had been Dr. Mondahl’s receptionist for as long as Luke had been a patient, and undoubtedly for at least twenty years longer than that. The older woman blushed slightly as she smiled at Luke.

“Luke, you rascal. Is it that time of year already? I didn’t even notice.”

“Oh, Beki, you wound me. You didn’t miss me at all?”

She reached out and lightly smacked his shoulder as she pulled his datapad down from a shelf above her at the same time. “You know I did.” She made a notation before setting the datapad aside where the doctor could pick it up. “He’s running just a little behind today. He’s training a new partner.”

“Really? I didn’t know he was taking on a partner.”

“Well, he’s not getting any younger, you know. This young man came highly recommended. His name is Viktor Berdin and I think you’ll like him.”

“Hmm.” Luke made a noncommittal noise.

“I don’t believe you’ll have to wait too long. I’ll come and get you when he’s ready.”

“Thanks, Beki.”

He turned away from her and looked around the room. He walked over and sat across from the young mother and son, but a few seats down so they weren’t facing each other directly. Idly, he picked up one of the holozines and looked at the front cover. He grimaced and put it down quickly when his own face stared back up at him. He looked through the rest of them lying on the small table and finally found one that centered on smashball. Surely, there would be no mention of his name in that one.

He was reading about the latest controversy surrounding the Coruscant team’s best goalkeeper when something hit his foot. He looked down to see two curious brown eyes staring back up at him. The little boy reached out a hand for his toy speeder at the same time that Luke reached down for it himself. Luke’s hand got there first and he handed the toy back to the child, smiling at him softly.

The boy grinned back at him a little shyly as he accepted the speeder.

“Luke, don’t bother the nice man,” the boy’s mother said, briefly looking up from her holozine.

The elder Luke couldn’t help but start in surprise. “Your name is Luke?” he quietly asked the little boy.

Little Luke nodded. “My momma named me after Luke Skywalker.”

“Why?” Luke asked in amazement. The notion of a total stranger naming her child after him was a completely foreign concept.

“He saved my momma’s life when she had me in her tummy.”

Luke was floored. He had no idea what to say to his little namesake, especially since he was certain, after a covert inspection, that he didn’t remember the child’s mother. He cleared his throat self-consciously and tried again to recall if he’d ever seen the young woman before. She was pretty, with dark-blonde hair like her son, but not unusually so. There wasn’t anything about her that sparked his memory.

“Um, has your momma ever told you how Luke Skywalker saved her life?”

Little Luke’s face brightened and he gave Luke a huge smile. “Oh, yes! It’s one of my favorite bedtime stories.”

“What happened, then?” Luke asked, unable to resist smiling back at the boy’s infectious grin.

“Well, my momma used to live on Calius and my daddy was off-planet because of his biz-ness.” Luke smiled at the boy’s pronunciation of the word ‘business.’ “Momma was working for Mr. Tanders at his store and it was her job to take the credits to the big bank after the store closed up. One night, some really mean, nasty, bad guys tried to steal the credits from my momma before she could get to the big bank.”

Little Luke’s face fell into a fierce scowl as he told this part of the story and Luke took care to match his expression.

“We don’t like the really mean, nasty, bad guys,” he whispered to his amused audience.

“Of course not,” Luke agreed solemnly.

“So then, they were threatening to hurt my momma--” Little Luke broke off and his lower lip trembled. “This is the sad part.”

“I’m sorry,” Luke said sincerely.

“They said they were gonna kill her, even though they could tell that she had a baby in her tummy.” He paused again in his tale. “That was me,” he said with a conspiratorial air. Luke nodded, having to hold back his grin again.

“Then…” Little Luke paused and his eyes sparkled with delight as he got to his favorite part of the tale. “Momma heard a funny noise and the really mean, nasty, bad guys turned around. Luke Skywalker was there an’ he had his lightsaber.” Little Luke said the word with an enormous amount of awe in his tone and again Luke had to bite back his grin. “The really mean, nasty, bad guys tried to shoot Luke Skywalker with their blasters…”

At this point, Little Luke imitated the sound of blasters firing. Luke couldn’t hold back the smile this time. “…but Luke Skywalker blocked all of ‘em with his lightsaber!” Now the blaster sounds were followed up by the humming of a lightsaber blade and Little Luke jumped up to wave around an imaginary Jedi weapon of his own.

“Luke, calm down and stop bothering the man,” the boy’s mother said and glanced up at the two of them. Luke managed to keep the groan of dismay to himself as her eyes widened in recognition. “You, you’re--” she stammered as she sat up straight, the holozine dropping to the floor.

Luke held a hand up as he said, “Yes, I am. It’s all right. Luke’s not bothering me at all.” He frowned a moment and tilted his head to the side as he gazed at her. “Calius. Now I remember. I ran into you a few minutes before I had to leave in a hurry,” he said with a smile, as he remembered having to shake Thrawn’s tail in escaping the planet. “I’m glad that I was able to help you out and I’m honored by the way you chose to remember me,” he said, with a nod of his head towards the small boy standing in front of him.

“I…well, you not only saved my life that day. You saved his, too.”

“Hey, you didn’t let me finish my story!” Little Luke said, somewhat indignantly.

“I’m sorry, go ahead, Luke,” the Jedi Master said indulgently.

“So then, Luke Skywalker chargeem wem with his lightsaber and cut up all their blasters. The really mean, nasty, bad guys got so scared, they all ran away and never bothered my momma again,” Little Luke finished his story triumphantly.