VI. It Doesn't Really Matter

Mara turned to her nephew, her face disgruntled.

"Can we go back?" she asked vehemently. "I'm not finished with him yet."

Anakin folded his arms. "I think you are." He was back to normal colouring, as she was. It made Mara feel a little better that they weren't blue and transparent – even though both of them were floating in what qualified as mid-air. However, she was still offended that her time limit in the world of the living had run out before she had had a chance to properly chew Jacen out. Anakin's comment only served as a way to irk her already exasperated emotions.

"You?" she asked. "You think I'm finished?"

Anakin spread his hands. "Give it a rest, Aunt Mara," he said. "The afterlife is supposed to be peaceful."

Mara snorted. "Right. An insane place where people can 'fly' and Anakin Skywalker is running around challenging people to duels?"

"He's enjoying himself."

"In a violent way. That's the farthest thing from peaceful."

"He can't hurt anyone, and he wouldn't dream of hurting anyone, either. It's his way of having fun, Aunt Mara." Anakin shrugged. "'Peaceful' means different things to different people. Some of those who make it to this world find peace in meditation and being alone – like Yoda, for example. Others enjoy socializing. And yes, some enjoy running around having lightsaber duels."

"Must be something in the Skywalker genes, then," Mara grunted.

Anakin erupted in laughter. Mara stood still, folding her arms and glaring at him, waiting for her nephew to finish laughing. She didn't see what was so funny.

Suddenly – while Anakin was still laughing – the whiteness around them dissipated into an expansive garden. Mara noted the change and immediately spun on her heel, looking around. There was soft grass beneath her feet, a clear blue sky stretching above her, and well-kept decorative flower beds and trees all around. Mara thought she could hear a trickle of water from somewhere nearby. A fountain, perhaps.

"Mara!" someone called, and she soon saw a young, twenty-something version of her father-in-law running to greet her. His face was flushed, his blue eyes sparkling, and he was grinning with glee. "Anakin!"

Anakin waved in greeting. "Hey, granddad."

"I beat Obi-Wan," Mara's father-in-law announced proudly. "Finally."

"Good for you," Anakin replied, grinning.

"Do you want to know how?" Anakin Skywalker continued. "I swear it's the most devious trick ever invented."

Mara rolled her eyes sighed – loudly.

"What's the matter, Mara?" Anakin Sr. asked, turning to her.

"I just don't understand this… delight you take in having lightsaber duels," she explained, frustrated.

Anakin Sr. shrugged. "It's fun."

"Told you!" Anakin Jr. crowed.

Mara threw her hands up in the air. "All right! Enough! I get it!"

"No you don't," Anakin Sr. told her pointedly. "But you will."

Mara arched an eyebrow. "Isn't that just slightly cryptic?"

"Oh, of course!" Luke's father grinned at her. Mara had a sudden flash of memory as she remembered how Luke used to smile at her – a smile that she doubted she would see very often now that she was… well, dead, and he was still alive.

Kriffing Jacen, she thought viciously. He should die.

Anakin and Anakin glanced at each other.

"What?" Mara snapped, knowing that they had heard her thoughts. "He does!"

"Hmm." Anakin Sr. tapped his chin. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" He directed this at his grandson.

Anakin Jr. grinned. "Can't you tell?"

"I think you are."

"Yep. Can't you tell?"

Mara groaned. She knew what they were thinking, too. Their theatrics were beginning to get on her nerves.

"Theatrics are fun, Aunt Mara," Anakin began to explain, "they're—"

"Anakin, stop." She held up a hand. "I know exactly what you're thinking, so do you need to explain everything to me? You and your grandfather are going to make me go to this little 'family reunion' of yours, so I might as well go or I'll never hear the end of it. End of discussion. Let's get going before I find my way back to the land of the living and finishing giving Jacen the thing he deserves most."

Anakin Sr. chuckled. "We don't really have very far to go, Mara," he said blandly. "After all, this is everywhere and… erm… everywhen, I suppose, so technically the family is 'right around the corner.'"

And sure enough, they were – quite suddenly, too. Mara jumped in surprise as several people appeared out of nowhere, talking quietly amongst themselves as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.

The group was sitting in comfortable-looking white lounge chairs. Mara recognized two of them – Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon were unmistakable. They were joined by two women, both of whom Mara did not know, but felt like she should. One was young – somewhere in her twenties – with long, thick brown hair and a calm expression that reminded Mara of her sister-in-law. The second woman was older, but her face was unlined and sparkled with mirth.

"There they are," the second woman said, raising her head and waving in greeting.

"Hi, Mom!" Anakin Sr. called. He grinned. "Did you hear that I finally beat Obi-Wan?"

Luke's grandmother smiled patiently. "Yes, dear, I did. Obi-Wan was just telling us about it."

"Remember, Anakin," Obi-Wan said dryly, "I'm still beating you about a thousand to one."

Anakin Sr. crinkled his nose. "Yeah, I know," he said dejectedly. "I think fate's working against me."

The woman who reminded Mara of Leia let out a peal of laughter. "Come, Ani," she said, beckoning him. "Introduce us to our daughter-in-law."

Anakin Sr. walked over to the brown-haired woman and sat down beside her, kissing her lightly on the lips.

"That's Padmé, Aunt Mara," Anakin Jr. began. "She's—"

"Luke's mother, I know," Mara interrupted. Introductions were really very unnecessary when everyone could hear everyone else's thoughts. She nodded a hello to Padmé, and then to Shmi Skywalker, whose name Mara had never heard before, but now knew.

"Welcome, Mara," Shmi said warmly.

Mara nodded. She wasn't sure if she wanted to be welcome or not. Being welcomed by a group of spirits seemed to tell her that she was absolutely leaving the world of the living behind and all her attachments to it—

"Oh, what the hell," Mara murmured under her breath. "I've had enough excuses. It doesn't really matter." With that, she attempted to create her own white lounge chair, failed miserably and ended up sitting down on a lopsided, square-ish white box, much to the amusement of those present.

"Here," her nephew said. "Let me help." Anakin Jr. concentrated for a moment, and then Mara's dilapidated creation was replaced with a comfortable white lounge chair that Mara sat down, willingly, on. Several moments later, her nephew joined her.

"This is… an odd sort of family reunion," Mara commented.

"Yes," Padmé said. Her voice was a little sad. "We were hoping that things would have turned out differently… that our children would come first, followed by their children and so on, but the Galaxy has never stopped being in turmoil and I guess our family has the hero-complex gene."

Both Anakins chuckled at that.

"I think Tahiri told me once that I had a hero complex," Anakin Jr. said.

"I think you've told me that I have a hero complex more than once," Anakin Sr. said at the same time.

Anakin and Anakin glanced at each other and rolled their eyes.

Padmé and Shmi sighed.

Mara raised an eyebrow. "Is it always like this?" she asked no one in particular.

"Most days," Qui-Gon told her.

"All the time," Shmi added.

"They just can't help it," Obi-Wan said. "It must be in the blood."

"And the name," Padmé finished.

Mara stared at them in silence for a moment, mulling things over in her mind. She wished Luke was here – everything was better when Luke was with her. The farmboy was the only person in the entire Galaxy – real and incorporeal – who could calm her down.

"Luke needs to live, Mara," Shmi said quietly. "The Galaxy needs him. Only he can protect it from Jacen – and I have a feeling things are going to get a lot worse."

Mara gritted her teeth. "They might be different if I had a chance to go and talk to Jacen again."

Anakin Sr. laughed. "Ha! No." He shook his head. "I don't think that would be a good idea, Mara. You'll have to find your own way there again, and talking to Jacen… might be difficult for you. You could follow him to every place he ever goes and never manage to speak a word to him."

"He noticed me last time!" Mara exclaimed.

"That was once," her father-in-law replied firmly. "I doubt that you would be able to do it again."

"Why?"

"Because that's the way it works," Qui-Gon said. "You're dead, Mara. That is a fact. The world of the living does not matter anymore. All you can do is hope that your loved ones will be able to live full lives—"

"—and with Jacen out there, I doubt that any of them will be able to do just that!" Mara exclaimed.

"It doesn't really matter," Qui-Gon answered. "Death is a part of nature. A part of the Force. When they die, they will come to you."

Mara folded her arms. "Well… yes, perhaps, but –"

"I know it's in our nature to wish no ill upon our loved ones," Obi-Wan said, "but they will come when it is their time and there is nothing you can do about it. Mara – rest and relax. Your work is over."

"You can have some fun," Anakin Jr. added. "I'll teach you how to fly."

"There are no limits," Padmé said.

"It does not matter that you are dead," Shmi told her, speaking quietly. "You are at peace here. You can do whatever you want. Look at Anakin."

"Which one?" Qui-Gon asked mildly.

There were collective chuckles of laughter.

"You know this isn't easy for me," Mara pointed out, disgruntled. "I was ripped from my life before I was ready to go—"

"You'll adjust," Obi-Wan said.

"Look at it this way," Anakin Jr. interrupted. "Take this hypothetical situation for a moment. If you had been so lucky as to have had a steady life where you could spend every moment with your family and give them good advice when you discovered they were erring (for example, Jacen), your-existence-would-have-made-a-rather-interesting-idyll-and-you-might-have-lived-and-died-a-very-decent-indiwiddle—"

He was spoke faster and faster as he went. Mara raised an eyebrow.

"Indiwiddle?" she asked. "Anakin, what the hell does that mean?"

She looked at the others, but they merely shrugged.

"He likes to invent words," Padmé said. "They both do. From time to time. I think it happens when they're bored."

"Oh," said Mara. "I think he's getting a bit carried away with his hypothetical situation."

Anakin was, in fact, still speaking – and very rapidly, at that.

"—thisparticularlyrapidunintelligiblepatterisn'tgenerallyheardandifitisitdoesn'tmatter!" Anakin finished with gusto and at such a speed that no one could actually untangle his words.

Mara stared at him, incredulous. This was the final straw. Quite obviously, the afterlife had made him insane.

Anakin laughed. "I'm not crazy! Don't you see, Aunt Mara?" he said, his blue eyes gleaming. "It doesn't really matter now. Go, relax. Have fun. Be yourself. I learned how to do it – and believe me, it took me a while. I think it did, for all of us."

"Yes," Obi-Wan said.

Anakin Sr. reddened at that. "Please don't mention your death, Obi-Wan," he said. "Bad topic for me. Bad memories."

Obi-Wan sighed. "Anakin, for the last time, I forgive you for that and it was not you who killed me."

"Yeah, but still…"

Mara folded her hands together. "So, what I'm supposed to understand," she said slowly, "is that nothing matters because I'm dead?"

The Skywalker family and friends glanced at each other and nodded.

"Yeah."

"Yes."

"Pretty much."

"That's what we all did."

"You need to let go," Shmi said.

"All right," Mara said slowly. "I think I can do that."

Her nephew grinned. "Great! I'll teach you how to fly properly, then! 'Cause nothing really matters, right?"

Mara wasn't paying attention. This new world was entirely insane, she decided, and she might as well go insane with it. She was lost in thought, thinking about home and family and flying. She thought of Han and Leia, and of Luke. She saw Ben in her mind's eye several times as she played her memories of her son over and over again. She briefly wondered what Ben might be doing at this moment when—

"Oh, KRIFF!" she exclaimed.

"What's the matter?" six voices asked in perfect unison.

No one had ever said that being a Force Ghost was boring. They just said that death was peaceful. It was something which Mara Jade Skywalker knew with every fibre of her undead being was not true when you were related to the Skywalkers.

THE END

Final part posted with extreme apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan and their opretta Ruddigore for my lame attempt at twisting the "Matter, Patter Trio" for my own abominable uses.

HUGE thank you to EVERYONE who read! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR COMMENTS! You all rock!

Idri