Was it because he was a Jedi--because he was the first person beside the Emperor whom she could sense? Or because she could always feel those expressive blue eyes on her, always asking but never judging.
Perhaps it was empathy because he was so very alone. Because she knew that in his position, with everything ripped away, every freedom, every hope, no one would come to her aid, either.
As she had left the opulent drawing room in his quarters in the Palace many weeks previously, Mara remembered hearing the Emperor tell Skywalker that she felt no compassion. The assertion which had previously seemed her master's greatest praise, the creed by which she had lived her life, now made her burn with humiliation.
But if she felt no compassion, then what was this?
The medical equipment had been removed just over a week ago, Skywalker being returned unknowing to the cold cell floor, as her master had ordered. It was eight days since he had lashed out with vindictive vengeance, driven to the act by Skywalker's actions. Since Palpatine had summoned her into the cell, to a shocking revelation.
Her eyes had widened at the sight of her master, who stood quietly brooding, his face bloody. His blood. No one had ever drawn blood on her master before. No one could ever hope to threaten him. No one. The repercussions had twisted her stomach into a tight knot as she'd scanned the room for Skywalker's body, sure that he would be dead. In the veiled shadows she made out his crumpled form, twisted awkwardly away from her, very still.
She remembered distinctly hearing her breath catch in her throat.
Lost in his thoughts, the Emperor had said nothing as she remained frozen to the spot, torn between who to go to first.
After long seconds of numb, paralyzing indecision she had started toward her master, who stirred from his reverie as she approached and gestured her away, pointing to the Jedi. Her heart in her mouth, Mara had crouched beside Luke and released in a rush of relief the breath she hadn't known that she was holding, at the realization that he was still breathing.
He was alive, but grievously wounded, his breath short and shallow, blood dripping in a viscous trail from his nose and mouth to pool in a dark stain on the cold white floor, though it was impossible to tell whether this was from internal injuries or the countless grisly lacerations hacked into bruised skin which bled profusely, appalling in their severity.
Realizing what Skywalker had done, she couldn't imagine for a second what had been going through his mind, that he would actually initiate an attack which he knew would be met with savage, merciless brutality. He was lucky to be alive.
Realization had hit her at that thought; that he hadn't expected to be--had done this intentionally.
He'd wanted the ultimate response--and had done everything in his power to provoke it.
The Emperor had walked in silence to the door, lifting his hood to hide his face as he paused without turning, his grating voice remorseless, absolutely without pity. "Have a medic treat him. Not Hallin," he said quietly, before adding pointedly, "Mara--only what is life-threatening. Nothing else."
Mara had nodded wordlessly at her master's back, a strange, cold chill tightening about her heart and making her stomach twist. Tugging for the first time at the fringes of her own ambiguous, irresolute morals as she tried to turn away from the battered, mutilated man.
Eight days, just to treat the life-threatening injuries. Four days in bacta, unconscious, three more in high-dependency, one final day to get him off the machines... Then they'd brought him back here and laid him on the floor as if all that work to put him back together simply hadn't happened. Never once woken; never even knowing he'd left the cell. Brought him back here knowing full well that he wasn't ready; that he may well be back within the week, anyway.
And when she'd crouched down beside him to give the antidote which would wake him to face his tormentor again, she'd felt...something. Felt some part of herself crumple inside at her role in this. At his knowledge of that.
At the fact that she would have to face him again...
If she felt no compassion, then what was this?
.
She paused now beside Skywalker's still body, waiting a moment until the door was locked before she crouched next to him, trying not to see the bruises and the blood.
Her master had remained 'indisposed' following his explosive retribution on Skywalker, for the first time in fifteen weeks not visiting his prisoner. Whether this was because he was still too angry to return or whether it was simply to allow Skywalker the time to heal, Mara wasn't sure.
Perhaps he was contemplating his own unexpected loss of control, because he must surely have realized that the intensity of his attack had been purposely incited by the Jedi, and in her master's closely controlled and manipulated world, any being who had the ability to overturn his carefully constructed plans would be deeply unsettling.
Because everything had changed from that day on. Everything intensified, all previous rules falling by the wayside. The frequency of his visits, when her master finally returned, were stepped up to several per day. Drugged between visits, given practically no food or water, Skywalker would have no real concept of how long he'd been here, by now. No sense of day or night, of how long he was left between visits. If he was awake, it was to face Palpatine...and the guards.
Because her master had now taken to bringing a compliment of his Royal Guard to every meeting, each armed with a force pike, or similar. In fatigues rather than their usual ceremonial dress, they waited outside the cell, staring stony-faced at the regular Detention Center guards as the Emperor spoke to his captive. At the end of the discourse, sometimes before the Emperor left, sometimes after, they would be called in--more often than not when Skywalker was already lying bruised and battered senseless.
She didn't need to watch to know their purpose.
And always when the Emperor and his guards left, she was ordered to inject the SCA immediately, which would re-activate the drugs, giving them free reign in his system again. She disliked intensely having to wait in the corridor as her master held his 'discussions' with the Jedi. Their voices were always quiet, barely audible often for an hour or more, until Skywalker finally dug his heels in and did something which called down the Emperor's wrath.
Then they all heard, she and the ever-present guards. Heard him cry out, heard the Emperor throw the Force against him; heard the sickening, never-to-be-mistaken crack of the lightening searching to ground.
And when the cries died down, the Red Guards would be called into the cell.
For the first few days, it hadn't bothered the dozen or so guards who were always stationed along the corridor outside the cell. They had all expected the Jedi to be killed quite quickly, Mara knew, as their Emperor tired of torturing him. But he never tired of it; seemed to relish it a little more every day.
Now when the Emperor arrived, everyone was mute. No one made eye contact, even with each other. Everyone listened in the cold silence of the long featureless corridor, knowing...waiting.
.
Pulling his arm straight, careful to avoid the now-old break at his wrist, Mara hesitated for several seconds, eyes on the multiple fine needle scars where she'd injected him intravenously, searching for undamaged skin. Her heart collapsed a little more as opposing emotions raced. Somewhere, in some crushed and hidden corner of her soul which she had thought long dead, did she actually feel this was wrong? Or was it more personal than that? Was it that which scared her? Every day that distant voice got a little clearer, a little more perceptible.
She'd never really had a conscience--a set of rules yes, but nothing more--it had never been of value to her master. So perhaps the voice was not hers at all. But she heard it nonetheless, whispering at the fringes of her consciousness, leaching into her dreams at night. Not an actual voice. Not words; not like when Palpatine spoke through the Force, but there all the same. More basic, less attuned. Empathy.