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English
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Published:
2016-02-05
Updated:
2017-04-28
Words:
4,018
Chapters:
6/?
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Every Moment Lost Is Found Again

Summary:

A series of assorted Luke Skywalker/Mara Jade vignettes and missing moments.

 

Chapter 1: Embrace

Summary:

Their first kiss was in Vision of the Future, but when was their first hug? And how awkward was it?

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

It happens at, of all places, in front of 70,000 people.

 

Somehow both Mara and Luke are in Coruscant at the same time for two weeks and like the farmboy he is, he insists on meeting up with her and going to a smashball tournament. It’s not even a championship game—it’s a regional tournament—but his favorite team is playing and he wants to see them in person instead of just on the holo.

 

“Awfully violent game for a Jedi Master, isn’t it?” she asks, surreptitiously suggesting to the security guard at the gates that she doesn’t need to be patted down, thank you very much, and that the only hands touching her ankle blaster will be hers.

 

Han and Leia are in tow and Leia hears the question and laughs. “You should see him run through his Force calming techniques when the Mynocks are losing.”

 

“It’s ugly,” Han quips.

 

“Hey!” he says, “I’m standing right here. I can hear you.” He turns on Leia, “And let’s not pretend you aren’t the same when the Corellian Dreadnaughts are having an off season.”

 

Leia shrugs as though to say, I am who I am, and says, “I’m going to get some refreshments. Han?”

 

Han grabs his wife’s hand and says, “Meet you two up at our seats,” and Mara is left alone with Skywalker–with Luke–and it dawns on her that this looks suspiciously like a double date and a hot flush creeps up her neck. Moved by the impulse to clarify this to him, he taps him on the shoulder, only to be pushed away from him by a crowd surging to their seats as the buzzer goes off to indicate the start of the game.

 

He catches up with her, and grinning says, “I was able to keep track of you…”

 

“Through the Force?” she snaps, feeling peeved, bracing for another lecture about her Jedi training, but he lets her mood just roll past him, his smile crooked.

 

“No, by the sound of your cursing.”

 

“Ah,” she says, embarrassed, wondering how he is able to do that to her.

 

“Uh huh.”

 

The game is a mess for the Mynocks, and Luke is a wreck. By halftime he is nearly rending his garments, the top button of his tunic undone, a expanse of tanned collarbone exposed that she finds herself staring at when he turns to her with another complaint about the referees. She thinks about the warm sun shining down on Yavin, about him sparring with one of his students, and makes a note that maybe she should stop by again for a refresher course before she remembers herself and shakes away the thought.

 

“Are you going to be naked by the time this game ends?” she say when he storms to the back of the room after a dreadful series and whips his jacket onto the floor.

 

“Maybe,” he says petulantly, and she laughs, finding herself having a good time despite how one-sided the game has been.

 

“Face it, Luke,” Leia says, “this game is over. There’s only fifteen minutes left and with the way the Mynocks are playing, it would take a miracle for them to win.”

 

But a miracle does happen. The Skull Crackers fumble the ball into their own end zone and the Mynocks get easy points to bring them within five. Suddenly energized, the Mynocks come within 3, and with seconds left, a floater from Tifera Valent seals the win.

 

And like that Mara finds herself off her feet, Luke’s arms tight around her shoulders. Her arms are ramrod straight, flush to her sides, and it occurs to her that she doesn’t remember the last time anyone embraced her with affection. The thought makes her lose her breath for a moment. She understands how stiff she must feel to him, and shifts her body to try to indicate to him that that’s enough, farmboy, let me go. But he holds on, caught up in the rapture of his delight, and she finds her body loosening up, her muscles giving in to being held. It’s not altogether unpleasant and reminds her of when she used to dance, when her partner would lift her up and she would feel lighter than air and freer in that moment than in any other time in her life under the Empire.

 

When he puts her back down, he doesn’t yet let go. Instead he leans in and hugs her tighter, shouting, “I can’t believe it!”

 

He’s warm, she thinks, and smells like soap and sweat, and a hint of something she can’t identify, the name of some spice lost on the tip of her tongue. His head is on her shoulder, and his hair is soft and ticklish against her cheek, and she suddenly becomes aware of another roar in the stadium and pushes him away, stumbling back, searching for empty air between him and her.

 

“Mara…” he says, looking at her mouth, his next words lost to him. He looks at her, a question on his face, his half-lidded blue eyes foggy.

 

A moment passes, and she struggles to find something to say, something that will take her mind off the way her body is humming as it holds on to the feel of his arms, the weight of his body pressed against hers.

 

“Last time someone tried to hold me like that, I had a blaster at their side.”

 

“Guess I lost my head for a second,” he says, running a hand through his sandy blonde hair.

 

She holds her fingers up, indicates an inch of space. “Just a bit.”

 

“I…Mara…”

 

“What a game,” she deflects, “right?”

 

“Yeah,” he says, “It was…amazing.”

 

Han leans toward them with an armful of Leia and says, “One for the records books!” and the spell breaks.

 

Mara parts ways with them at the stadium gates, declining their offers to get some caf or some whisky before heading back to her apartment, and she wonders if Luke will try to embrace her again. She half expects it, but he just waves, his hand lingering in the night air, and she exhales, half in relief, half in disappointment.

 

“I’ll see you when I see you?” she asks, and he nods wordlessly as she turns to go.

 

She touches her cheek as she walks away, stops, then turns to see him depart. Sighing into the Coruscanti evening, she wraps her arms around her chest to stave off the chill, heading home, missing the moment a split second later when he, too, turns to find her in the crowd, watching her walk away until he can see her no more.

Notes:

Not included in the piece but in my head, the stadium cameras pan in on their skybox during the celebration, a la Kiss Cam, and everyone in the stadium and on the holos sees it, and the gossip hounds go nuts, and a bunch of RP shippers are born.