The noise that had woken her was the morning staff bringing breakfast to the panelled dining room, the first of the three rooms which formed Luke's private sanctuary within the sprawling Perlemian Apartments. When the two men re-emerged, they glanced nervously to Mara then back into the room before hurrying off.
Frowning, she walked quickly to the door, glancing into the empty dining room, moving quickly through and into the withdrawing room, heading for the bedroom beyond. Something made her glance sideways out onto the balcony...
and pause, heart in her throat.
She swallowed once, then set off out onto the wide veranda, the city laid out before and beneath it in distant splendour. She didn't even see it- save to register on some distant level just how high up they really were.
"Skywalker...." Mara murmured uneasily, uncertain what else to say.
Luke sat cross-legged, calmly balanced on the wide stone handrail that edged the balcony's balustrade, his back to her as he gazed out over the city. He wore light, linen sleep-trousers but nothing else, the fine scars of old injuries criss-crossing his skin in the bright sunlight, his dressing gown abandoned on the floor nearby, the fine fabric fluttering slightly in the morning breeze. He remained silent, didn't react at all to her voice, and eventually Mara walked forward... but slowly, gingerly.
Reaching the balustrade, she stopped ten paces away from him, afraid to go any closer.
Now she could see that his eyes were closed, wrists resting lightly on his knees, feet tucked close to his body on the carved handrail just wide enough to enable him to maintain equilibrium, hands hanging loose, the balancing-act seeming controlled and effortless. He said nothing, eyes still closed though she knew that he must have heard her.
"...Luke?" Mara asked at last, though he still didn't open his eyes. But he spoke.
"What if I was wrong?"
"About what?" Mara tried to pull him into conversation though she knew full well what he was thinking about.
He didn't turn; didn't answer.
"She would have tried again - and again." Mara said at last, "You did what you had to."
"That doesn't make me right." Luke said without turning. "Five years ago, seeing another Si... someone like me rising to power... I probably would have helped her."
Mara hesitated, trying to find a path through this, wondering what he would do if she simply lunged for him, aware that she could hear the beat on her own heart in her words as she spoke. "Perhaps... if it had been someone else, not you - maybe you would have been right to. Maybe then she would have been right. But this is you, and you're different."
Luke frowned, Master Yoda's words ringing through his head one more time; 'No; no different. Only different in your mind.'
He opened his eyes at last, gazing down at the drop before him; almost forty stories onto the hard, granite-set roof of the main Monolith.
"I should have closed my eyes." He said cryptically without looking at her.
Mara frowned, uncertain what he was saying; when should he have closed his eyes? At the execution yesterday? He'd seen so many before - why would...
"When the explosion went off." He said at last, "I should have just... closed my eyes."
For the first time he turned to her, mismatched eyes as intense-a blue as the morning sky, the long surgery scar which ran from his collar-bone down the centre of his chest still visible in the bright light. "But they would have died - everyone there. They would have all died. The shields would have failed." He looked away again, uncertain, "But I didn't know that - not for sure. I could have closed my eyes. I could have just closed my eyes and let it happen."
"You and your Fate?" Mara made the word a curse.
He smiled just slightly; the slightest twitch to the corners of his mouth. "I don't believe in fate."
Mara frowned uncertain; after everything that he'd said, everything he'd done... the chances he'd taken..."Then...why?"
He shrugged away the question, glancing down again to the distant roof, "Don't you get those moments, Mara?" He murmured at last, voice unnaturally calm, "Don't you get those moments when just for an instant you're at the eye in the centre of the storm and everything is finally still... everything is finally calm; quiet for the first time in so long..."
He took a deep breath, his eyes closing again as if reliving that moment- that intensity of feeling, "And when you get them you'd do anything - anything at all - to hold on to them. Because you can see the storm all around you and you know it so well... and you'd do anything at all to hold onto that moment of calm."
Mara took a slow step forward. He opened his eyes again, looking down to the Monolith far below, the dark granite easily swallowing up the early morning light, and Mara took another slow step forward as the brittle silence stretched to breaking point.
"...Luke..."
He moved just slightly and she froze in place again as he resettled his weight, still balanced over the sheer drop, the inference clear though he didn't look, didn't give any indication that he'd heard her speak his name at all.
"What if I'm wrong?" he asked again, quietly this time; little more than a murmur.
"Luke you're scaring me." Mara daren't move forward again; daren't move at all, frozen to the spot.
After long seconds he glanced to her as if realising what she had said and he grinned; laughed almost, the action pulling at the scar through is lips. "Mara Jade doesn't get scared."
"Except around you." She said honestly; "For you."
Those words seemed to drag him out of his reverie just a little. He frowned at her then he turned away again, refusing the concern; the closeness. Mara took another step forward, heart in her mouth...
He unfurled his legs to kick his heels casually against the outside of the balustrade, leaning out slightly over the precipice, stopping her cold. "It's not that far Mara; probably wouldn't kill me. Not me."
"I'd prefer not to take those odds." She said immediately and he smiled, eyes still on the drop.
"I've jumped further than that." he said, wry, self-depreciating amusement in his voice.
"I think the difference there is that you probably wanted to land on your feet."
"Good point." Luke said, eyes still on the drop; daring himself; Mara could see it in his eyes.
He lifted his head just slightly to gaze out over the city and Mara took another infinitesimal step forward. When he still didn't move she edged a little closer... "Stop creeping up on me Mara. It makes me nervous."
"Makes you nervous!" Mara half-shouted, "How d'you think I feel right now?!"
"Tired." He turned, impossibly blue eyes locking onto hers, "Very tired."
And she did- tired and woolly and desperate to lay down; to rest, even if just for a few seconds... she felt herself teeter just slightly, felt her knees and shoulders loosen as her muscles relaxed, felt as if she could just... drop; just slide down where she stood and...
"Son of a..." Mara shook her head against the impulse, broke eye-contact, shaking away his influence. The shadow of a frown crossed his face and he looked away again, leaving her breathless and furious.
"Don't ever do that to me again!" she almost yelled, such was her anger, "Don't even think that you..."
He turned, and those mismatched eyes held a very different look now, mercurial as ever, "Don't issue ultimatums to me, Mara. I didn't ask you to come out here."
She arched her eyebrows, "Don't issue ultimatums? Fine, how's this for not issuing ultimatums - jump. Go ahead and jump. I don't care! You spend half your life out on that ridge one way or another anyway, trying to decide whether you should jump or not. Well go ahead a..."
She lunged forward, heart in her mouth, as he opened his arms out... and fell-