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Sweet and Sour Memories

by PaRu ([email protected])

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A Chapter destined for the series, "The Gift."

Synopsis: After Luc-Da faints, she remembers her last night with Obi-Wan. Shocking news surprises everyone.

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Mara stood behind her mother as she looked around the now finished chamber. The workmen had done a wonderful job with it. The only thing missing was the circle of chairs that the Jedi used to sit in. "It’s perfect," Luc-Da said as she paced the circle where the chairs used to sit. "Like it had never been..." she stopped speaking as well as pacing as a wave of dizziness and nausea hit her.

"Are you OK?" Mara asked her.

"I don’t know," Luc-Da whispered. "I feel awful all of a sudden."

"I’m taking you down to the med center," Mara said as she took the other’s arm. It was too late, however, and Luc-Da’s eyes rolled back into her head and she fainted into Mara’s arms.

Mara was holding her like that when Luke and Leia came in seconds later. "Something’s wrong," Mara said worriedly.

Luke picked Luc-Da up and turned with her as she moaned and began to come back to consciousness. Before she came completely awake, he was on the lift that took them down into the bowels of the palace. By the time they got to the level that the med center was on, she was awake and standing.

Tests and more tests later, she was told the news.

"That’s impossible!" she exclaimed. "I can’t be pregnant! I just spent thirty six years in carbon freeze..."

"...In perfect hibernation," the medical droid said. "It is entirely possible for a fetus to be placed in hibernation along with his or her mother."

She lay back on the bed. That last night with Obi-Wan had to be when this had happened. Only her memories of that night and the child within her remained. But it was after they had made love that she was remembering.

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

"Obi-Wan you’re going to spoil her," she said to the man who stood in the doorway to their bedroom with the child in his arms.

"If I want to spoil her, let me," he replied. "I never get to see her."

"I know," she said with a sigh as she lay back against the bed, her mass of thin red-gold braids spread out on the pillow behind her. "Soon. Soon I’ll come back here to stay."

Obi-Wan smiled at her as she lay on the bed wrapped in nothing but a sheet. Only moments before she had been wrapped in his arms as well. The baby’s crying had woken them both and he had pulled on his pants to tend to her. Mara had had a bad dream about a man in a mask. She was partly scared of him and partly not. In the dream he never hurt her, just frightened her.

Noticing that Mara had stopped crying, he took her back into the other room. Luc-Da pulled herself out of the bed and slipped on her dressing gown. In a mirror that hung next to the door she looked at her reflection. Fingering the braids, she studied the reflection in the mirror then made a decision. Nearby was a table. On it next to the red ribbon that she had taken from Mara’s hair was a pair of scissors, the scissors that Qui-Gon had bought a very long time ago to use on his Padawan’s hair and that his Padawan had used on his own apprentice’s hair. The same scissors that he had insisted she use to cut off his own braid after Qui-Gon’s death. Now she would use them on her own hair.

She picked them up by the handle and looked back into the mirror. Taking one of her thin braids in her hand, she snipped it off. She moved to another and cut it off as well. Then another and another and another. When she had snipped all of her braids off and lay them neatly on the table nearby, she ran her hands through her short hair, unbraiding the remains of the braids that had run along her scalp. The sun had bleached the braids a light color and now the shortness of her hair had designs from the braids. It was blonde now, with streaks of red.

At the sink in the other room, she filled a bowl and took it back to the mirror where she slicked it into her hair with a comb. When it was all slicked back and wet, she lay the comb next to the bowl on the table. She picked the ribbon up and wrapped the mass of braids in it, tying it into a neat bow.

"What have you done?" Obi-Wan asked from behind her.

Luc-Da turned with a suddenness that knocked the bowl off of the table and shattered it into several pieces. Obi-Wan stepped forward to help her pick up the pieces and clean up the mess. When they finished, they both stood facing each other.

"Why did you cut you your hair?" he asked as he ran his hand through the recently cropped hair.

"I’m coming back," she said. "That’s a promise. I’ve been really hot with the long hair in the braids and felt they needed to come off." She turned and picked up the bundle. "Here," she said. "To keep you company while you’re here alone."

He took the bundle from her and put his arms around her. His lips came to her in a kiss but they were interrupted by an extra set of arms around their knees. When they looked down, they saw their little red haired daughter hugging them about the knees.

"I don’t want to go away," she said.

Obi-Wan picked her up and tickled her face with his beard eliciting a giggle from the child. "You won’t be gone long," he said. "Then you’ll be coming back to stay."

Mara noticed her mother’s hair. "Why did you cut your hair?"

"It will be cooler for me when we come back," she replied then held up Obi-Wan’s hand with the mass of braid still in it. "Daddy is keeping the clippings until we come back so he won’t be so lonely."

"That’s silly," she said to which her parents laughed.

"Sometimes things that parents do are silly," Obi-Wan told her as he picked her up. "As for you, you should be in bed."

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The hot winds of Tatooine blew through Luc-Da’s short hair as she stood on a dune overlooking Beggar’s canyon. On the other side where the could barely see it was the house where Obi-Wan had lived until a young man had come and taken him away from the lonely life of waiting for her.

"Why did you want to come here?" Luke asked from behind her.

"I made him a promise," Luc-Da replied. "I have to keep it."

"I understand that but in your condition and after what...," he began.

"I made a promise," she repeated sternly. "I intend to keep it."

Luke looked back at Mara as she stood behind them both. She shrugged. "I wouldn’t mind visiting the place myself," she told him.

Luke gave her a dirty look for encouraging her mother and led Luc-Da back to the speeder that they had rented. A few minutes later, it was parked in front of the building and Luke opened the door so they could go inside.

The portable force field had kept the dirt from burying the house and Jawas from stealing things. The interior was almost as Obi-Wan had left it. Tools on the workbench showed signs of more recent use than the rest of the house and Luke explained that he had used them and the parts strewn across the bench to build his lightsaber. Luc-Da only smiled at him as she stood in the middle of the main room and looked around. In the cubby hole where Mara had slept on a tiny bed, the bed still sat but it was made up to look like a cushioned bench. Under it was a box that Luc-Da pulled out.

"Have you ever been in this?" she asked Luke.

"I haven’t been in anything but the chest and the workbench," he replied.

She smiled again then let the smile fade. "This is Mara’s toy box," she said then opened it. On top was a stuffed Bantha that made Mara grin.

"Mort!" she said. "I remember him!"

"You left him behind to keep your father company," Luc-Da said with a glance at her daughter. "You cried when we left and I couldn’t get you to stop."

"I don’t remember that part," Mara said as she knelt down by her mother. "I wish I had known him better."

"I wish you had known him better too," Luc-Da said then turned back to the box to replace the toy and close the lid.

She got to her feet and went into the bedroom. The mirror and table were still in the same place as they had been when she had cut her hair. She looked into the mirror and could almost see Obi-Wan standing behind her looking at her new haircut. The table was a bit more scratched than she had remembered it but the scissors no longer lay where they had used to. The table had a drawer and she slid it open as Luke and Mara watched from behind her. Inside the drawer, wrapped in a piece of soft fabric, were the scissors. They still shone as they had the day she had snipped off Obi-Wan’s Padawan braid. She clutched them tightly in her hand and held them to her chest.

Turning, she showed them to Luke. "My father bought these when Obi-Wan was just barely thirteen," she told him. "For twelve years he used them to keep his hair short. I cut his Padawan braid off with them." She handed them to him. "In turn, he used them on your father’s hair and I cut my own hair with them last time I was here."

Luke took them gingerly in his hands. "These are a family heirloom," he said. "They should be passed to our children."

"And they will," Luc-Da said as she turned around to look at the rest of the room.

The bed was neatly made; no one had likely slept in it for at least twenty years. Luc-Da sat on it then turned and lay on it on the side that she had always lay on. The bed was comfortable but the pillow was lumpy. Reaching up under it she found the reason why.

The braids were still tied with the red ribbon that she had used to tie in Mara’s hair. They shone in the light as if they hadn’t seen light since the day she had left them with him. They were soft on her fingers, unlike the braids that she had put in her box for safekeeping. Obi-Wan had slept with the braids under his pillow, waiting for his lover and their child to come back, but he had left this place and died before they could.

Tears poured from Luc-Da’s face as she held the bound braids to her heart. "He waited for so long," she said softly through her tears. "And now he will never know his son."

Luc-Da curled up on the bed and cried as Mara and Luke waited respectfully in the other room. When she was through, she stroked her belly and called them to join her. She told them about that last night then told him about what happened next.

"Six weeks after having left," she began. "We were on our way back. I was going to leave Mara with her father while I ran one last errand off planet then would be back to stay, but we were ambushed by Imperials..."

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

The white armored soldiers stood on either side of her as she her as she held her daughter close to her. They stood in an observation room on a ship that had been newly designed and built just for the new Emperor. They had called it a Super Star Destroyer. They waited until the dark man with the hood hiding his face came into the room.

"Well, Jedi," he said. "You have been trying to hide from me but you’ve failed, haven’t you?"

"Why don’t you just show your face, Palpatine?" Luc-Da said. "I already know who you are and you know it."

He pushed his hood back and gave her a nasty grin. Turning to the door, he waved someone else in. "I believe you know my apprentice, Darth Vader."

Vader came into the room and Luc-Da was surprised to see that he had indeed survived falling into the pit of lava. "How could you do this," she hissed. "I thought we were friends! You gave me that pendant..."

He waved his hand at her and she gasped for air, her breath being cut off by and invisible hand of the Force. As she gasped for air, she fell to the floor letting Mara slip from her arms and to the floor next to her mother. "That life no longer has any meaning for me," Vader growled between rasps of the respirator in the black suit he wore.

Mara got a good look at him and screamed. Palpatine scooped the child up and held her close as she kept screaming. Luc-Da was unable to do anything as Vader still held her in his Force created grip. "Please," she begged in a quiet rasp. "Don’t hurt her."

That her thoughts were only for the child made Vader stop his choke hold on her. "The child won’t be harmed," Palpatine said. "On the contrary, she will be well cared for." He paused. "She will make an excellent apprentice someday..."

Luc-Da reached out and grasped Mara’s hand just as it slipped out of her reach. Mara’s screams turned to sobs and she screamed, "Mommy! Daddy!" as Palpatine carried her away.

Tears ran down Luc-Da’s face as she turned to Vader. "How could you allow something like this after what happened to you?!"

Vader’s hand struck her across the face, but it carried no weight and Luc-Da knew she had struck a chord. Rubbing her face where he had slapped her, she looked into his eyes, or where his eyes would be if she could see them through his black mask. He stalked out of the room only to return a few minutes later with the child in tow. "Say your good-byes," he ordered.

Mara leapt into her mother’s arms. "I don’t want to go with them," she said through her tears. "I’m scared."

"I know," Luc-Da replied. "Always remember that I love you, OK?"

Mara nodded. "Daddy loves me too?"

"Forever," Luc-Da replied. She glanced up at Vader and sent her daughter back to him. "Don’t look back," she whispered and she felt it touch a chord in the masked man’s soul. Mara nodded and did as she was told. Vader looked at Luc-Da as she knelt on the floor then stalked out of the room.

Luc-Da sat there, waiting, for several hours. Finally Palpatine returned with Vader close behind. "I have decided to give you a reprieve," he told her. "You’re father was once a friend of my people." He paused. "But his last apprentice killed my first apprentice and since I cannot take revenge on a dead man, I shall take it out on you." Luc-Da looked up at him with alarm and he continued. "I have never been carbon frozen," he continued. "But I am told that if you survive the freezing process it would be like a living death. No movement, no breathing, no aging. Just a big nothingness for eternity."

"You can’t do that," she said in panic.

"I wanted to kill you," Palpatine went on. "But Vader suggested this and I think it would be so much more fitting."

Luc-Da looked at the man who had once been her friend. "How could you?" she hissed.

"I am not who I used to be," Vader intoned, but Luc-Da could see through the act. She could feel the good in him, the part of him that didn’t want her to suffer—and the stronger part that didn’t want her to die.

With minimal struggle, she allowed the stormtroopers to drag her away to the carbon freezing chamber. The last thing she saw as she dropped into the pit for carbon freezing was Vader. His hand reached slightly, as if to wave goodbye to her, then the gasses swirled around her and he was gone. In the seconds before she became encased in the carbonite, she put herself into a deep Jedi trance. From there, she couldn’t suffer. All the time she was in the carbonite she was asleep but that didn’t stop her from wondering if Vader—and the good man Anakin that she could still feel deep inside him—had planned it that way.

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Mara had tears in her eyes when Luke turned to look at her. "I remember that," she whispered.

Luke pulled her into a hug. "I’m glad," he said. "What else do you remember?"

Mara looked at Luke then over at her mother. "I remember sensing how upset Vader was when you told me not to look back," she said.

Luc-Da wiped a tear from her eye with her right hand and shifted the hair braid bundle to it. "When my father took the boy Anakin from his home here in Mos Espa..." Luke perked up at the mention of the ghost town. "He was frightened. His mother told him to go and not look back."

Mara nodded. Luke had a question. "Mos Espa was where he was a slave?" Luc-Da nodded. "That explains why the Empire destroyed it."

Now it was Luc-Da’s turn to nod. "I’ll tell you about it when it doesn’t hurt so much." She turned to Mara. "Do you remember what happened after we said our good-byes?"

Mara concentrated a minute then nodded. "Yes, I do," she said. "That’s why, I suppose, My name has been Mara Jade in stead of Kenobi or Jinn."

"Tell me," Luc-Da said. "I’d like to know."

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

Vader returned to Palpatine’s side with the child. "What is your name, child?" Palpatine asked.

Mara was slightly frightened, but she pushed it away and lifted her chin. "My daddy calls me Mara Jade."

"Well, then, Mara Jade," Palpatine began. "How would you like to live on Coruscant?"

"What is Coruscant?"

"My home," Palpatine replied. "Your parents used to live there."

"Are you going to hurt my parents?"

"Your mother is going to be frozen in carbonite," Palpatine told her. "Your father will be dealt with when he is found."

"Don’t hurt him please," Mara said. "He doesn’t do anything bad."

"In the future he may," Palpatine said.

"No he won’t," Mara replied. "He is depressed because he lost his friend."

Palpatine looked at Vader then back to the child. "If I promise not to do anything to your father, do you promise to do everything I tell you?"

Mara nodded. "I promise."

Palpatine smiled. "Then so do I," he said. "But if he tries to move against me, I will eliminate him."

"What’s eliminate?" Mara asked innocently.

Palpatine smiled at the childish innocence she projected. "I will kill him."

Mara looked at her shoes then back up at Palpatine. "He won’t do anything," she asserted.

"That is a relief to me," he said then looked up at Vader. "Take her to some quarters."

Vader bowed smoothly and led the child away.

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

"They next few years were pleasant," Mara said. "I was given anything I wanted except to see my parents." She paused before going on. "Now I realize that he was trying to erase my memories of them."

"He succeeded," Luke commented. "But not well enough."

Luc-Da nodded. "I just wish you could remember more," she said as she glanced around. The bundle of her braids still lay on the bed next to where she was sitting and Luke and Mara had joined her, all three sitting in a circle on the bed. Carefully, she picked them up and stroked them, missing her friend and lover all the more. Now she lifted the pillow and placed them back where he had left them. "It’s time to go," she said as she pushed herself up off the bed. "Time to leave the past in the past."

Mara and Luke stood and watched Luc-Da straighten the bed. She took a minute at the door just looking back before she turned and followed Luke and Mara out the door.