Compromise

by obaona

 The sensation itself wasn’t strange, but the way a single thought could bring them out of step was.

They had always been a perfect team, had always been able to communicate quickly and easily, adapt and change to the situation, know what the other was thinking. But here, now, there was an unsteady jolt, her thoughts diverging off of his; not that he would ever want them to think the same, but they just clash, sitting in this cramped ship, staring at the other silently.

She has very green eyes.

His concerns are fairly simple, the wider reaching applications fainter in his mind. He’s not worried about Leia’s reaction. He knows his sister, her love for him, and it is boundless, like his for their father; he thinks his sister just as capable of forgiveness as him, she just never had the opportunity. Mara thinks of Vader, thought tinged with the brooding darkness she had found him so characterized with, but for Luke, Vader is a back-thought, a memory easily familiar and comfortable.

She raises an eyebrow, because they are getting off track.

He reacts with a smile, because she’s right, and whenever she’s right a faint mockery of himself trickles through him, tickling. Leia will perhaps not understand, but she will accept. She trusts him.

But Mara is still thinking, because while Leia has never shunned her, even in those cold beginnings where Mara had bluntly told her she would kill her brother, Leia is the type who meddles. Who cares, but meddles. And she thinks, those types always mess up the plan, maps of action gone awry.

Luke wants to remind her there love isn’t a battle plan, and they flit off together somewhere else. Han will react – honestly. They are in step with that thought, and smile at each other. He’ll wait and see, hope for the best and dither on planning for the worst or winging it like he so often has.

She will catch Karrde off guard. He’ll smile, congratulate her, politely inquire about her plans regarding her position, but secretly he’ll be adjusting, reminding himself all over again, that no matter how much he knows, he doesn’t know it all.

Mara thinks that’s unsurprising; she wonders if anyone knew this.

They step again, outward, and Luke thinks that he doesn’t like Coruscant, and Mara thinks she can only stand Yavin IV for a couple weeks, and that’s not completely because Luke has gone wrong in certain places. Luke reacts, stifles it, sighs, and she sighs with him. She had thought he would react – badly, when she had first brought it up to him in those caves, but Luke always did surprise her; frighten her, sometimes, and reassure, all the others.

Luke needs to be at the Temple; he needs to be elsewhere. Mara isn’t sure yet. Her uncertainty settles into him, a compromise, and that’s enough for the moment.

He thinks of Leia’s smile, and they are in step. All the little things they had never realized, never been in step, but what they have now covers enough. They’ll fight the rest later; now happiness washes over them both, cleansing like a storm. She says, “We’re ready.”

Luke leans forward and kisses her.
 

[finis]

Fanfiction | Main