Mara Jade is SHIELD's ☕ Queen (marajade) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2015-04-04 22:06:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !log, luke skywalker, mara jade |
RP Log; Mara Jade & Luke Skywalker
Who: Luke Skywalker & Mara Jade
When: Saturday morning, March 21.
Where: Potts Tower, Luke Skywalker's apartment.
What: Well that cat is out of the bag.
Rating: Low
Status: COMPLETE.
Potts Tower always had a bit of a feel of home and she supposed that as long as she was in this universe, this would hold true. Mara Jade had been on Earth - this Earth - for more than two years and in that time she had traveled to nearly every continent as part of her work for SHIELD, but almost always she had ended up back at Potts Tower. And even now, when the plane was as much her home as her apartment, and when she had another apartment that she could share with Nick, Potts Tower was a base of operations. It was where her family from home was, and her family from here - in many cases. Particularly now that Sam had moved back into the tower nearly everyone she knew who wasn't from this universe in the first place lived here. This morning she carried two coffees in her hand from the downstairs coffee shop. She could feel that Luke was at home and while she supposed it would be smart to call ahead, she really hadn't done so - at least not directly. Now as she approached the door to his apartment she stretched out in the Force, a knock of sorts, a 'I have coffee and I'm coming to see you Farmboy' pre-warning that wasn't probably quite so easily read out in words, but the idea would have been clear. Mara never knew when she would be in New York though, despite the homeyness of the tower. And it had been too long since she had spoken to Luke in person. His nephew had moved into his own place, his father had arrived, and the world had nearly come to an end. It was more than time to catch-up with this man she would never quite be able to put out of her heart. The time away had been good for her, she supposed, and perhaps for him as well -- this place was different and their relationship was not the same here - but that didn't mean that she hadn't missed those conversations. He was here, and he was Luke, and there was coffee to be drunk. And if for some reason he wasn't in the mood for company, she'd go back to her apartment with two coffees and she'd drink one, and then warm up the other later. Two coffees were completely doable if that was how it ended up. As she reached the door, rather than knocking she stretched out with the Force again, this time the phrase was shorter: "Open your door, Skywalker." Luke hadn’t been awake very long when he felt the first nudge at the edge of his consciousness. At first he was surprised although he probably shouldn’t have been. He’d known Mara was in town, they’d spoken on the network right after the plague had started and Jaina had said she’d been in touch with her while he and Anakin had been comatose so her stopping by wasn’t completely unexpected. The timing though, early on a Saturday morning, that did surprise him. He got up and sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, letting himself wake up before he grabbed a t-shirt and pulled it on over the sweatpants he’d worn to bed. As it happened, he was alone and even if he hadn’t been, he wasn’t about to turn down free coffee. Although he supposed he would have to surrender his cup to Carol and make his own. The mental picture made him grin and he was still smiling when he opened the door. “You get right to the point, don’t you?” he said. “No good morning, just ‘open your door, Skywalker.” Teasing her was second nature, it always would be no matter what and he took one of the cups from her. “Are they the same or is one of them something I wouldn’t want to drink? Just checking before I swallow it.” "Have you ever known me to dance around and mince words?" Mara half rolled her eyes at him as she stepped into the door, but there was a smile on her face. It was really good to see him again, even if it was clear he hadn't been expecting company. That brought the edges of another smirk to her face. Him in a t-shirt and sweatpants, and she had been up and dressed for nearly three hours. Dark pants, tall boots, a green top, and a leather jacket pulled on over. She could have passed for Natasha Romanoff if she'd needed to. "But, good morning, Farmboy." She stepped in, extended senses telling her that Anakin was not in the apartment, something that didn't particularly surprise her. The young man seemed to be smitten with the Barnes girl, and from her observations, it felt like a good match for him. For her and Luke this place was merely a chance at a different life than at home, for Anakin it was a chance at a life - and she could hardly blame him for wanting to grasp at it. Mara lifted the cup to her lips, sniffing for a moment. "Oh wait, this is the one with the motor oil in it - That one's mine then." She raised both eyebrows in an amused smirk before continuing to take a sip of the coffee. They were both house blends, dark roast, fair trade and organic, and on a scale of 'Jasper would consider this amazing' to 'Jasper wouldn't touch it', the blend made it closer to the side of the former. She gave a pointed look at his t-shirt. "I'm not interrupting your amazing morning plans, am I?" He laughed as he took the cup from her. “No, you’re not. I have no amazing morning plans. The most exciting thing I had planned for today was going to the market. The only thing I have in the house is some coffee. Although I think there might be some soup left that one of Jaina’s friends brought over. Have a seat,” he told her as he walked over and sat down on the couch. “I’m glad you stopped by,” he said with a smile. Luke tried to remember the last time he’d actually seen her in person, it must have been at Sam and Veronica’s wedding...which sadly was not a happy thought anymore. “How are you feeling?” he asked her after he’d had a sip of coffee. “First you get shot then you catch the plague, it’s been a rough month for you.” She looked fine as if nothing had happened but Mara had always bounced back fairly quickly. “and I apologize for the fact that I look like I just crawled out of bed. Even though that’s exactly what I did,” he laughed. “I only went back to work on Thursday and I’ve been going in later and working into the evening. The doctors told everyone to take it slow since we still don’t know exactly what we were dealing with. And it’s easier to get things done when there aren’t so many people running around.” There was also the fact that Carol was there which he didn’t mention but he felt his face grow warm at the thought of her. Obviously he was never going to get rid of the part of himself that still acted like a farmboy when he thought about a pretty girl. Great. Mara glanced over, something just catching her sense, but for the moment she let it go. If Luke had something he wanted to tell her, he would. Even at home she didn't pry - what they shared had been such a natural outcome of everything else that had happened to her - and here she certainly did not pry. The connection would have been easy to forge again, she suspected, but she had her secrets and she would not begrudge him his. Instead she smiled and took a sip of her coffee. "Just a normal month on Earth, it seems," she said with a wry smile "Although the being shot is a first. Thankfully, my partner's pretty steady - not quite a med droid, but he did a decent job of stitching me up. Nor did I have the plague as much as he did - the two of you both going coma on me, it's a wonder I haven't decided to renew my vow to kill you - and him too while I'm at it," she grinned and took another sip of coffee. “Well thank you for not killing me and I’m sure he thanks you too,” Luke said. “I feel bad for Jaina though, she got stuck taking care of me. I tried to get her to go home before I fell into the coma but she wouldn’t do it. She insisted that she wasn’t as sick as I was and someone needed to stay with me. I’m glad she did now. Although I need to do something nice for her since she spent her birthday stuck here with me.” He knew he could never repay her for what she’d done but there had to be something. “I kind of wish I hadn’t gotten sick though. Celestial judgement, the planet on trial...wouldn’t have minded being there for that.” He grinned. “although I don’t know if I could have made much of a case for saving Earth since I haven’t been here that long. Still though I’ve met some good people and from what I read on the network after I woke up, a lot of them pulled together to take care of the sick during all that so I’m glad that things worked out. Even if cleaning up all the paperwork is kind of a pain. I like working for SWORD but sometimes the paperwork gets to me.” He would much rather be involved in the action but it took everyone to make things work. Mara could well imagine the look that Nick would give her at her comment and it brought a smile to her lips. Her smile faded a bit though, because she had ended up doing much the same as Jaina and it had been an exhausting and anxious work sitting there being able to do very little for their patient - both people they had cared about. "I should go by and take her out for breakfast," Mara said softly. "Do something for her birthday and to celebrate having successfully pulled our coma patients through the end of the world." She settled down on a chair and nodded briefly. She'd had her fill of paperwork with SHIELD before - now what she did with SHIELD seemed to involve much less paperwork - well, at least what she did seemed to involve less paperwork unrelated to the mission. Perhaps because what Nick was doing was under the radar so much that there was no point to filing it. The few times she had gone out on actual missions with SHIELD she had done some paperwork. She took a sip of her coffee and tilted her head at him. "It's odd isn't it? Having worked on both sides of legitimacy. With the Empire I rarely had paperwork - it was all direct reports to Palpatine - sometimes not even in person - and with the New Republic I was on the outskirts a bit - and smugglers don't always appreciate a paper trail… You've probably had more of that than I have at home of recent, and of course poor Leia," she smiled ruefully. "I have hardly envied her, her position as Chief of State. Mostly though - SWORD, and SHIELD before it - seemed to take paperwork to a level I've not had to deal with before. Are you liking it there though? At SWORD?" “I think Jaina would like that a lot,” he said with a smile. “she misses you, not that she’d come out and say it but I know she does.” Luke also knew that even though the girl loved her mother, it felt strange to her having her be so close to her own age. It felt strange to him seeing her this age and he was sure it must be even harder for her children. “I never envied Leia being Head of State. That was never something I aspired to. Even being a Jedi Master is sometimes more political than I’d like it to be and from the things I’ve read it only gets more so but apparently I deal with it although I do have you to keep me straight.” It suddenly hit him that he’d just mentioned their life at home and it hadn’t felt like someone had stabbed him in the chest. He’d been trying to keep his emotions close to himself but he felt the flash of surprise and knew that Mara must have felt it too. “I do like it at SWORD,” he said, trying to figure out how to explain himself without saying too much. He trusted Mara of course and there was no reason why he couldn’t tell her but he just wasn’t sure how. “I’m working directly for Abigail Brand now,” he finally told her. “that’s kind of new. I do the same thing I just report to her instead of to Car...Major Danvers.” Hell, he might as well just come out with it because if he didn’t, Mara was going to figure it out anyway. “Carol and I...we’re seeing each other. I mean we were friends and during the mission on the Ascension when she was ill, I spent a lot of time with her, I put her in a healing trance to keep her stable until we could get home. After she got better, I visited her several times and somehow along the way, it happened.” The thought of it brought a private smile to his face as he remembered the conversation they’d had just two nights ago. “We’re trying to keep it as quiet as we can because even though she’s not my direct report, there are always people who’ll try to make problems but family is different..” Luke looked over at Mara. “She’s a very special person, Mara. In some ways she reminds me of you but in other ways the two of you couldn’t be more different. There are a lot of reasons why being with someone here is difficult but I thought a lot about what you said, about how there were no guarantees and how you had to choose to make a life here. I decided that it was worth taking a chance and I’m lucky that she she felt the same way. I’m happy.” It was a simple statement but it spoke volumes. Luke would always love Mara, he didn’t have to tell her that and he knew she would always love him but there was room to care for someone else too even if he wouldn’t have believed that just a few months ago. "I'll check in with her. Technically she has been my apprentice at home, and she's used to that relationship. Since she's now with SHIELD I could serve as a mentor in that way as well," Mara said thoughtfully and she sat her coffee cup down on her knee. An eyebrow raised at the name slip, and it didn't come down as Luke continued talking. Mara was entirely too practiced at keeping her emotions steady to allow much to slide, but the truth was - while she had certainly considered the possibility that Luke might find someone else and even would have said she would want him to do so - there was apparently a difference in saying that and being brought face to face with it. The eyebrow raise was joined by the smallest of smiles as he kept rambling. The entire thing was just so very Luke. "Good," she said simply and she raised a cup to her lips to keep herself from having to add anything additional to that statement immediately. She was glad that he was happy. She was thankful that he'd found someone he could share this place with. It didn't keep it from being bizarre. It didn't keep her from feeling just a little off-centered emotionally. She breathed in, focused, and swallowed her sip of coffee before tilting her head his direction. "Carol and I worked together for a while. She's a good person. And you needn't worry about me saying anything. I understand the need to keep something quiet…" she hesitated and then added: "My situation is not so very different in that respect." Luke watched her as he spoke and he felt her brief slip but didn’t remark on it. That was the difference between them, he thought, when he’d found out, he hadn’t been able to hide his emotions and it had been plain to see. It was only later when he’d had time to think about it that he’d understood that it didn’t mean Mara didn’t care about him, it was just different. It didn’t surprise him that she would have the exact opposite response to his news. He might never know how she actually felt. “I know. I’ve never asked you about him and I never will. I know there’s a reason you can’t talk about it and I don’t need to know what it is. As long as you’re happy and he takes care of you, I’m happy for you. I’m grateful that he was with you when you were shot because regardless of where our relationship stands here, I don’t want to lose you.” She was too big a part of his life and it wouldn’t be the same without her. “You’re still important to me no matter who else is part of my life and if you need me, I’ll be there for you…. if you want me to that is.” He looked at the cup in his hand and took a drink before glancing back at Mara. “You’re right, Carol is a good woman. She’s been through a lot and she’s done a great job with SWORD. Even before there was anything else, I had a lot of respect for both her and Abigail Brand. They’ve built something amazing here.” For Luke to have any idea how she actually felt Mara might have had to sort through that first for herself. At the moment it was simpler to keep everything close to her chest, and to not let any of it out. Emotional outbursts, whatever the emotion, weren't likely to be useful in most cases and while she had always admired the ease with which Luke shared his emotions, she had never found it so simple to do so. And right now it felt like it would be anything but helpful. "I've appreciated that," she said softly. "Someday perhaps you can meet him, but maybe not." Mara had no idea whether or not Nick would ever be able to move freely as he once had on the network and amongst the refugees. For now it was safest that he stay unknown as a member of the living to most people, and she didn't expect that to change short of something large and unplanned revealing him as living in the near future. And that would create its own challenges were it to happen - it was nothing she would wish for. "And I know you will be, Farmboy. You always have been. SWORD is good though, and I'm glad they've been putting that together." She pulled the cup to her lips again - a business-like edge to her voice. "They're able to build with perhaps more freedom than SHIELD can at the moment and that's something this planet desperately needs." “You know it’s kind of ironic that you’re the one that told me to call Carol and ask her about a job,” Luke said with a smile. “I should thank you for that. It turned out to be a good thing on more than one level.” The true irony of it hadn’t hit him until just now actually but there it was and there was also the subject change which he’d been expecting. It was easier to not talk specifics when it came to their personal lives it seemed and Luke wondered if it would always be that way. Well, at least it wasn’t as awkward as it had been or as it could have been. “Right now everyone is happy with them because of the Celestial business,” he said, sitting back on the couch and getting more comfortable. “but you and I both know how quickly the tide of public opinion can change. We’ve seen it at home and you’ve seen it here with SHIELD. I’ve only read and heard things about what it was like when SHIELD fell but it was as if everything changed overnight.” And it had from what Luke could tell, he only hoped that wouldn’t happen in this case. “for all that the world didn’t end though, I’m still not sure we’re any closer to understanding the Celestial’s real purpose or what the White Event meant than we were. Maybe we’re not meant to know. I have no idea but I do like knowing that there is at least one ship here that can break atmosphere even if I only got to fly on it once. I can look at it though, I do have clearance to do that but only because I helped Kaylee fix it so they had to give it to me.” He grinned. “I promise I haven’t thought about stealing it. Not more than once or twice anyway.” Mara had forgotten about that. At the time it had mostly been the idea that Luke might do well at SWORD and find something that he could do in this world that would give him the opportunity to feel useful. She knew herself how difficult it could be to find that - to feel at home. She hadn't exactly meant for it to make him feel this at home. She offered a small smile and took another sip of her coffee, relieved to move into the topic of the Celestials. She was both curious what Luke might know that hadn't made it through her sources, and it was a relief to think about the business of SWORD, not whom Luke might have found in its ranks. "They seemed to give us people in the event that could stand up for us - but there doesn't seem to be any particular rhyme nor reason to why they were chosen," she mused. "But they did do the job - for the time being. It didn't seem as if they were completely finished with their judgement did it? This is why I'm glad you've one space ship - and why I'd feel much better if I had one too," she smirked over at him. "Work on that will you, Skywalker? I want a ship." “No it doesn’t seem like they were finished. They said they’d be watching whatever that means.” he shook his head. “I hate that I was sick and wasn’t actually at SWORD. I learned what happened after the fact and from reading transcripts but yes, the people who spoke for Earth did a good job. There were some that were rather shall we say...interesting...but overall it did seem as if the White Event targeted a certain type of person.” He might be completely off base about that but it did seem that way. “I don’t know if I can manage getting you a ship but I will see what I can do,” Luke smiled at her. “We got lucky with the one we have, the Asgaardians gave it to us but we’ve certainly got people who are capable of building one. My father could certainly do it, so could Wash and Kaylee. Convincing people to give SWORD the money to do it? That’s a whole different thing.” He sipped his coffee for a moment, letting his mind wander to thought of being back in space. “I miss it,” he finally said and looked over at Mara. “being up there. As much as I’ve adjusted to being grounded, I still don’t like it. I think taking pilot lessons will help, I just haven’t had the time to do that yet but it won’t be the same as being out there among the stars.” Mara tucked his thoughts away to consider later. She'd read some of the work SHIELD had done on the white event, but it hadn't been her primary focus recently and it still wasn't. She and Nick had other projects that they were working on and no one else was - but it didn't mean she didn't keep reading and keep some interest. Obviously it wasn't very helpful to be caught completely unawares during the end of the world. Unfortunately - despite what she had read up on, she had been caught off guard. It seemed everyone had. She smiled at his words and she nodded, taking a sip of her coffee. "I've got the pilot's training and it helps I've access to several planes, a quinjet, and some other things through work - but it isn't the same as Jade's Fire." She hesitated and shrugged. "Not that I have that ship at home anymore anyway, but still, I miss it tremendously. It is one of the things I miss most about home. It is certainly the thing that I would wish here if I could. Do you have the pilot lessons scheduled here?" “I haven’t done it yet,” he replied. “I had planned on doing it after the first of the year but things got a little crazy after Jacen arrived and I didn’t do it but I am going to take care of that soon. I hate being grounded.” What he really hated was being Earth bound but that went without saying and there was nothing he could do about that. “I know how much you miss your ship and even if you don’t have it at home anymore, I know how much it meant to you.” The ship had been such a part of Mara and Luke couldn’t imagine one without the other. “Hey there’s always hope the Tesseract could sent it to you and hopefully no one would confiscate before you got your hands on. Even if they did, you’d find a way to get her back.” he grinned at her. "I'm not going to admit to how long it took me to take the pilot's lessons," Mara admitted. "I did get my drivers license right away, but it took a bit longer to get cleared for flying things for SHIELD. But I was glad I did and glad I did when I did because it's ended up to be very helpful as it turned out. It's certainly better than not being able to be up in the air at all." Mara couldn't help but smile. If the tesseract sent her ship and SWORD tried to keep it from her, Mara would pull out all stops. And she did have a stop or two to pull out, some strings to pull, and some people that she knew. She suspected there wouldn't be much stopping her from getting it back. She rather doubted she'd be given the opportunity - so far it seemed the tesseract had sent out nothing that large - but if it happened, she rather hoped that Luke would be on her side in retrieving it. Although - perhaps not, because with Carol… it was a thought that sobered her a little, but the smile stayed on her lips. "I think I'd figure something out," she said aloud. "So tell me how things are with Jacen, and with your father," Mara lifted her cup of coffee to her lips. They were family and they always would be. And she would always care. And she was going to need time to think about Carol, and about Luke, and about how she felt about this particular case - but for the moment she could focus on other things - things that would never change. |