Mara Jade is SHIELD's ☕ Queen (marajade) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2014-09-03 21:26:00 |
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Entry tags: | !phone call, luke skywalker, mara jade |
Phone Call; Mara Jade & Luke Skywalker
Who: Mara Jade & Luke Skywalker
When: Monday, Sept. 1st. (slightly backdated)
Where: Her location is classified; his is Potts Tower
What: A phone call between two Jedi.
Rating: Low
Status: COMPLETE.
It wasn’t in Mara Jade’s nature to spend too much of her time beating herself up because of something she’d done in the past, but more than once her mind had turned to the conversation she had half begun with Skywalker and then abruptly ended. Considering it had continued to play in the back of her mind through at least three separate continents, a secret HYDRA base (or two), and listening to interrogations, meant she knew she ought to do something with it. It was a conversation she’d had once, in her memories, a conversation that had been a necessary part of her and Skywalker’s relationship growing to where it would. It was, perhaps, less necessary here in this world, or perhaps it was equally necessary because the reality was that it had nothing to do with them and everything to do with Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master -- and how he tended to use his powers, and Mara needed to know that he’d come to the conclusions she knew he would eventually come to at home, here and now. It was important for this world that he had gotten over that arrogant ‘only I can save the world’ phase. Or at least that was what she told herself as she fingered the phone in her hand considering whether she wanted to take the time to have this conversation, and the consideration of whether it would lead to other conversations she didn’t really want to have over the phone. But if it did, then it did. Knowing that Skywalker was at a place where he was truly willing to use his powers responsibly was important for this world and it would be irresponsible of her to not check and it wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have over the Network, this was something where she needed to hear his voice. And maybe she wanted to hear his voice too, but Mara would say that wasn’t the point so much as knowing that on the phone it would be harder to simply hang-up and walk away if the conversation got difficult -- something all too easy to do on the network. Mara turned the phone over in her hand calculated the time difference in her head before dialing Skywalker. As she did so she reached out tentatively to the Luke shaped presence that had existed in the Force ever since he had arrived through the Tesseract. She wouldn’t push her way into his space -- he was the one who usually seemed to pick up on her moods and unstated commentary much to her annoyance -- but it was a knock, of sorts, so that there was no way Luke would be surprised by the person on the other end of the phone even if her own walls were still held high. She waited until he picked up before smiling and speaking. “Hey Farmboy.” Luke was looking out his living room window at the city, thinking about how different this place was from anything he’d ever experienced. After watching the films that told the story of his parents over the weekend, he’d spent a lot of time meditating and he could easily see how Anakin had fallen to the Dark Side. Yoda had tried to tell him that it was easy to fall if you gave in to your emotions and while Luke could understand what he meant by that now, he wasn’t completely sure that feeling was a bad thing. How could caring about someone, loving someone be bad? This of course led to thought of Mara and his feelings for her which he wasn’t entirely sure of. He knew he felt something for her and knowing that they were married in their own time in the future made sense. It had surprised him yet not surprised him at the same time. He felt the nudge in his mind just before the phone rang and he smiled as he pushed the button to answer. There was no need to look at the screen, Luke knew exactly who it was. “Mara,” he said, the smile on his face reflected in his voice. “It’s good to hear your voice. On the phone and in my head.” "I wasn't certain if you would want to hear it in your head." And Mara really hadn't been. She knew that the conversations and events she remembered were only weeks in his future - at most - she still wasn't certain where that left them here for the moment. Not when he'd found out via the network that they would get married and she was miles away from him. And not when her own walls were so much higher than she knew they could be. She ignored the uncertainty for the moment and instead allowed a smile to play at her lips. It was amazingly good to hear his voice. As her lips curved upwards, she settled into her chair and stared out the window, offering the closest she would get to an apology for her terse statements previously: "I thought I ought to check in on you. I ended our last conversation rather abruptly." “I missed having your voice in my head,” Luke said, walking away from the window and sitting down on the couch. As he spoke, he knew the words were true. Even when they were apart, there was always a sense of Mara’s presence in his mind. Since he’d been in New York, it had come and gone, no doubt because both of them were unsure of what to do with this situation. Luke had put some walls and he knew that Mara had, he could feel them but right now there was peace and he liked that feeling. “You did,” he said mildly. Luke wondered why she had but he didn’t ask. She’d tell him when and if she was ready and part of him wasn’t sure he wanted to know in the first place. “but I’m fine. I’m glad you called, I wanted to talk to you but I wasn’t sure if you wanted to talk to me.” If he had known they’d been thinking the same thing more or less, he would have been highly amused. “I watched some of the films this weekend,” he blurted out. “The ones about my parents. It was hard but it was also good to see them as they were or as someone interpreted them to be anyway.” The films were an easy out and Mara knew it, but they weren’t just that. She'd seen the films and she knew how difficult moments had been for her even without having the same relationships that Luke had throughout the films. Anakin Skywalker's fall to the dark side had been painful enough for her to watch knowing the affect it had and continued to have on Leia and Luke but she could more easily put it to the side than either of the twins would be able to do. Thus, when it came to down to it, the conversation topic wasn't so much distraction or an out as it was part of the larger conversation she supposed. She pulled her knees up and leaned her chin down on them. Her tone turned almost gentle for Mara and although Luke would not see it, a thoughtful look crossed her face and touched the edges of her question. "Did you watch all three of them?" The unspoken question of course: had he seen Anakin cleansing the Jedi Temple, the fight with Obi-Wan, the truly painful descent into darkness that Anakin had descended into as a result of Palpatine's manipulations. “Yes,” he said simply. “and even though I’d heard bits and pieces of the story over the years, watching it….knowing that man was my father. It was painful but it helped me understand some of the things Obi-Wan told me and didn’t tell me.” Luke wished that Mara had been there with him, he wished he’d had her to talk to as soon as it was done but he couldn’t tell her that. Not now. Even though they were light years away from where they’d be in the future, at least Han and Leia had each other to talk to. “The Dark Side is so seductive isn’t it? And when someone like Palpatine chooses to follow it..it’s easy to see how the Empire grew so strong.” He sighed thinking of his own struggles with the Dark Side. “I’ve come too close to that more times than I’d like to admit,” he said. “and watching the films made me realize that I can’t let myself do that. Maybe being brought here is the Force’s way of teaching me how to resist the Dark Side. I don’t know, I’m not making any sense I’m sure.” Mara was quiet as she listened to Luke’s musings and she found something comfortable in his uncertainty. This was Luke, the earnest farmboy from Tatooine who wanted to do the right thing, but wasn’t always quite certain how to do it. This was the man who had managed, despite his mistakes, to pull the Jedi Order from one man into many Knights and Masters. And she was fairly certain it was the Skywalker who had realised… he needed to pull back his use of the Force or risk losing himself in that darkness. Mara knew well that he had come perilously close at times, but somehow he always managed to pull back. Whether it was the responsibilities to his family, the Jedi community, or some combination of all of those things or others, Luke had always managed to pull through, but he couldn’t have kept going as he was and continued pulling through and she sensed the man she was talking to knew that as well. Because those near calls had done their damage and Mara knew that as well and Luke perhaps did too. The thought crossed Mara’s mind that she knew he knew it, knew he would know it, and perhaps she ought to let him off a bit more easily than she had or would on Nirauan, but the thought was quickly discarded. She only remembered the conversations they’d had on Nirauan and Luke did not remember them at all: the outcome was still important. "Even Jedi Masters aren't required to make sense all of the time," she said mildly. "In fact, I like you better when you'll admit you aren't perfect." Luke laughed. “I know you do. I’ll even admit it right now. I am not perfect. You’re right, even Jedi Masters make mistakes.” And he’d made many. He wondered if that was what had finally brought him and Mara together, the fact that he’d finally taken responsibility for those mistakes. Being here in this time, it was easy to see where he’d gone wrong and why there were times when he was sure that Mara would never speak to him again. He was also beginning to see that he would never want that to happen. Mara joined him in a small laugh, and shifted her body, stretching a leg out in front of her and stretching her muscles as she did so. Sharing laughter, and conversations, and the sense of him there in the Force -- neither of them were exactly wall free, that was a place Mara didn’t think she could safely go right now -- but regardless of that, she didn’t put everything behind walls. She did worry about him a bit, and there was a genuine, if cautious, compassion sent his direction, despite the walls around where she was and what she’d been doing. She sobered and stretched her other leg in front. There was no sarcasm or accusation as she stated simply. “You’ve made a few of those, but you haven’t always been willing to admit it.” She hesitated, and then added: “It isn’t just the films, is it?” He knew she’d be able to tell and he’d lowered his own walls just enough to let her in. “No, it’s not,” he said quietly. “It’s being here in this place, seeing people from other worlds, having to learn to adjust to all of it. People thinking that they know me but they don’t, not really. It’s given me a lot to think about.” Luke ran a hand through his hair. “seeing Han and Leia so young is strange too. Of course I remember them the way they are here but my most recent memories of them are so different. In some ways they’re exactly the same as ever but in other ways they’re different.” He shook his head even though he knew she couldn’t see it. “but you know how that feels better than I do. It must have been very strange for you meeting people you’d only heard about, like Obi-Wan.” He’d been dead for a long time when Luke and Mara met even if stories about him lived on. “I’m trying to figure out who I am here,” he said, opening his mind a little further to her. “I’m Luke Skywalker but I’m not Luke Skywalker Jedi Master, I’m just Luke. I don’t mind that so much. It’s almost like having to start over again. Did it feel that way to you?” Luke was curious, she hadn’t talked much about her time here and he wanted to know if they’d felt some of the same things. Mara held her phone against her shoulder for a moment. She could sense his curiosity and it was reasonable. She held onto so many secrets that weren’t her own right now. She would trust Luke Skywalker with her life, and had done so on more than one occasion, but trusting him with Nick’s life, with the fall-out of SHIELD, with everything she’d been doing here was something completely different. Those things stayed behind walls as she considered, finally tilting her head towards Luke - or at least the continent he was sitting in. “I told Sam the other day that this place has a way of putting into contrast all the things that shape you at home, and stripping away the things that are circumstantial and highlighting the pieces that make you truly you.” She played with the hem of her sleeve and considered what to say. “When I first got here, I was straight from Wayland. That was the thing I remembered last, and yet I was still further in the future than most everyone else that came from our galaxy. Later I got - the tesseract tends to grant memories to people, like a dream, and you wake up with new memories, and new powers, and a few more wrinkles,” she shrugged even though he couldn’t see her do so. “And I’m a little further in the future than you now, although not much. But I’ve had two years here… and everything that has come along with it. It… is a bit like starting over, but I found something that felt right here and in the end it hasn’t been so different from home.” She focused on her team, sending his direction bits and pieces of what SHIELD had really been before it had dissolved, knowing he’d get only pieces of that whole, but it was easier than trying to explain. “You’re still Luke Skywalker Jedi Master, Farmboy. I don’t think you escape that destiny quite so easily. But you can choose to do it differently from what you have done in the past.” Luke let himself relax and see the images she was sending him. He could see how she’d come to work with her team, how that had been good for her and he was glad that she’d been able to find that. Being pulled out of time and space was difficult as he was seeing for himself so he was happy that Mara had found a place here. “I don’t think I can either. I think it was decided long before I was born.” and there were times when he wished he could change it but Luke knew that wasn’t possible. “I like the idea of starting over, of this being a second chance. I can’t be a Jedi Master here but it’s part of me and I have to figure out what the means. So far I like SWORD. They’ve paired me with a man named Jean-Luc Picard, he’s the captain of a starship in his world. He’s a fascinating man, reminds me a bit of Obi-Wan. We’ve worked together a couple of times and we seem to fit.” Mara settled back again, truly relaxing into the conversation for the first time. There were things she couldn’t say, and things she didn’t want to say over the phone, but that didn’t mean that talking would be inherently awkward, and truthfully it felt more comfortable than she could have hoped for. She nodded, at his description of SWORD. “I know of Picard and I could see the description. He’s got a television show called Star Trek, he’s a leader, rather like Obi-Wan really.” She played her fingers against the edge of her hem as she continued. “This world isn’t so different from ours -- I thought at first it was different, but I was bewildered by the culture. The longer I was here, the more I got to know people who lived here, the more I was able to do with SHIELD -- it fights the same problems we do, just on a slightly smaller scale. And my life here isn’t so different from at home in some ways, just with more odd moments where you meet your son or end up discussing the Jedi Order with your future Father-in-Law,” her lips formed a smile. “The timelines are certainly the oddest part of this place.” Luke was startled for a moment when she mentioned a son. “A son?” he said. “Our son? We have a son?” It made sense, he knew they would end up married and Luke wanted children, he’d just never expected that he’d have them. “What was he like?” “Yes, our son,” Mara was quiet for a moment as she thought back to the brief time that Ben had been there, his face hanging in her mind for a moment and she didn’t bother to shield it from Luke. “He was a Jedi, mature, more than a little snarky -- which might be my doing,” her words held the sound of the smile on her lips. “He was only here for a few weeks, but I think we did well. We do well, rather.” The tense hadn’t been quite right and she repeated the phrase with the tense shifted slightly an unreasonable amount of embarrassment seizing her mind as she did so. He smiled at the image of their son and then laughed when Mara said that he was snarky. “That might be your doing but snark kind of runs in the family so he didn’t have a chance at avoiding it. What’s his name?” There was a name that Luke had always thought he’d use if he had a son and he wondered if that was the one they’d chosen. Mara laughed. It was true - between Han, Leia, herself, and luke it was a wonder the boy had been able to string a non-snarky sentence together at all. But he’d seemed like a good kid, if slightly troubled - if she’d only realised then what she realised now about the future he’d likely lived. But she’d only been in this reality a few weeks herself and was still getting used to everything. She wondered how much Skywalker would choose to read ahead, or if he would at all. “Ben.” Aloud she only answered the question asked. “That was how I found out we got married in the future. It must have odd for him, to show up and both of his parents were so much younger - not much older than him - and not together, or even aware they would be. that’s the difficult part. Protecting people, and carrying out Jedi oaths - that part is definitely more familiar. What are you doing at SWORD?” Luke closed his eyes for a moment when she told him their son’s name. It was the name he’d always wanted to use and he was glad that it had happened that way. Even though he now knew more about Obi-Wan, Luke still thought of his one time Master as Ben. He always would. “I’m sure it was strange for him. I know that if I’d been here when my parents were here, I...well I don’t know how I would have reacted.” It would have been difficult that was for certain. Especially knowing what he knew about his father. “Comms is where they have me. A lot of questioning people, trying to sort things out. I like it so far, it keeps my mind busy.” Which was a relief since he was still trying to figure out how to deal with all the different voice he could sense here. “When you first got here, was it hard to shut off your mind? It’s been hard for me. I’m used to doing it back home but here there are so many people and there are some in the Tower that I can sense. Not Force sensitives but I can sense things about them. I’m not sure what it is.” Mara wasn’t about to tell Luke what she’d discovered about her life, and about when Ben had likely been from -- it had probably been even more odd for him than Luke was aware. But he kept silent about that particular thing and simply nodded: “It would have been difficult at first, but he was your father. And you’ve always wanted to get to know him - you never got the chance really. I think you would have taken that chance. Or would, if he should show up again.” She sent warmth through the Force, knowing that the topic of his father was probably a difficult one for him - particularly considering everything he’d just watched and learned. She considered his question. “When I first got here I wasn’t a fully trained Jedi. So, it wasn’t difficult at first, but it was more difficult later on, I suppose. there are a lot of people in the tower with very strong personalities and imprints in the Force even if they aren’t Jedi.” The warmth soothed him and Luke was grateful for it. He hoped that he would get the chance to meet his father as Anakin Skywalker and not Darth Vader. If the films were anywhere close to accurate, he could see a lot of himself in his father as a young man. “Maybe I’ll get that chance,” he said. “I know there are some who’ve been here more than once. I would like to meet my mother too. I was never told anything about her when I was growing up so she never seemed real to me. Now I have a better sense of her, Leia is very much like her.” That had struck him too, how much Padme’ and Leia had in common. Similar personalities yes but also similar feelings. He wondered if Bail Organa had set Leia on a political path because of their mother. That was more than likely a question he would never know the answer to. He nodded at Mara’s words even though she was far away from him. “That’s what I feel. Imprints and you’re right, there are some very strong personalities here. I’m learning to deal with it though. I’ve been doing a lot of mediation which helps.” Luke tried to stop the thought before it came but he’d been thinking a great deal about Mara too which he didn’t want her to know. He still had a sense that she was hiding something and he wasn’t ready to let her know that he was beginning to understand the feelings he had for her. Not just because he knew that they were married in their future but because he’d been feeling them before he was ever brought here. “You might,” Mara nodded, shifting her phone to her other ear and shifting her position to go after a cup of coffee. “I’d about given up on anyone from home showing up here again and then you, Leia, Han, all in a few week’s time. It’s not an impossibility.” And she caught the shift in his sense as she reached the counter and she stopped, staring down at the French Press in front of her. It brought her to a conversation she’d been avoiding and she’d desperately wanted to have in person. She’d been so careful about her own shields throughout all of this perhaps partly because she knew how easily they’d come down once they’d hit that point, that indefinable moment when he’d dropped his shields and she’d dropped her shields, and from that moment on their thoughts had simply flowed together so naturally. She had all the memory of it, she’d missed it for so long, and she’d given up on the possibility of it here. Mara reached for the coffee grinder and scooped out ground beans into the French press a flash of frustration and resignation stepping on each others toes as she considered options. “You’ve been remarkably patient with your questions, Skywalker. I almost don’t know what to do with it.” “Neither do I to be quite honest,” he said with a sigh. “I feel like I’m having to learn how to be me all over again. That was hard enough the first time.” Luke knew he’d made some spectacular blunders in the past, a lot of them having to do with Mara and he didn’t want to make them again here. “I’m glad you called,” he said suddenly. “I know we talk on the network but it’s not the same as hearing your voice.” Luke wished he could see her face to face but he kept that thought from her. He’d let his guard slip once and he didn’t want to do it again. Not when he couldn’t see her because even though he could sense her, he also could tell a lot by seeing her expressions. “Get out of my head, Skywalker.” Mara’s face broke into a smile and the warmth and amusement crept into her voice as she teased him because she had just been thinking precisely the same thing. It was good to hear his voice, and it was perhaps even nicer to hear him say that it was good to hear hers. That stirred some emotions she didn’t want to try to identify and left her with the Thing she still hadn’t talked about with him. That thing she just didn’t know how to bring up over the phone, but that she was beginning to feel guilty for having not said something yet. “You have my number,” she pointed out, the warmth that accompanied the statement was an invitation for him to use it. “You know, you’re going to figure this out, Farmboy, you always do.” There was a beat and her thoughts still skirting the Thing she still hadn’t told him about, she added: “We’ll figure it out.” |