The Fan Fiction Archive updates with four new stories this week. The second story, "Tangled Paths" by Gabri_Jade, reflects on what is and what could have been, with the primary characters being Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade.

Tangled Paths by Gabri_Jade

Excerpt

I sit quietly beside Leia, holding tightly to my emotions. Jaina and Jacen, Luke's niece and nephew, glance at me with shy smiles before burrowing their faces against their parents' sides. Anakin, the youngest, is still asleep in Han's arms. We're hardly seated before the happy couple enters the temple. Next to me, Leia turns to watch Luke escort his bride up the aisle to where General Antilles is waiting. It's a relatively small wedding, officiated by one of Luke's oldest friends, and I feel frighteningly out of place. Luke turns his head a fraction to smile at Han and Leia as he passes us, then aims a smile directly at me. My heart leaps into my throat, and I swallow it brutally. Too late, too late to think like that.

Wedge begins the ceremony, and I watch, unseeing, as my thoughts drift defiantly. Luke had been my best friend, my anchor in an uncertain galaxy. He'd come to mean so much to me that I'd never even imagined this eventuality, never dreamed that someone else would become more dear to him. As far away as my mind is, my eyes cannot tear themselves from the scene that seems to rip my heart out, and I see the rightness of it. How could I ever have been so blind? She is his match in every way, able to share aspects of his life that I never could. Her eyes meet his adoringly, and I close my own against the surge of pain. He's chosen well. He will have every happiness I could have wished for him; that will have to be enough. Read more here.

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