▸ Column · Rebel Alliance, late Galactic Civil War — approximately the period of the Battle of Endor, set at an unnamed Rebel intelligence base on an outer moon.
LUKE SKYWALKER replies.
Replied to by Luke Skywalker, with a rebuttal from Harley Quinn.
The letter
Her partner of four years — Marek — told her over evening rations in their quarters, completely offhand, that he'd already accepted a commission at an Outer Rim outpost and claimed a permanent bunk assignment there, assuming she'd just file a transfer request and fall in behind him. She holds a senior posting in Rebel intelligence she spent years earning, has been covering their shared quarters and supply costs alone for two years while he finished his tactical officer training, and has family on a moon a short shuttle hop away. When she pointed out that this was a decision affecting both of them and that she hadn't been asked, he said he figured she'd be "thrilled for a new assignment" and seemed genuinely baffled that she wasn't. He's now saying her upset means she isn't supporting his career — even though she ran extra duty rotations for two standard years to keep them both resourced while he completed his commission. She doesn't want to end things over this, but she cannot understand how someone who loves her could look at a decision this enormous and never once send a transmission before signing the transfer papers.
Luke Skywalker replies
I'm not going to tell you Marek is gone. But what you're describing isn't a miscommunication. This is someone who planned an entire chapter of your shared life and never once stopped to ask whether you were in it on your own terms.
I know something about people making enormous choices that reshape your whole future without consulting you. Obi-Wan knew the truth of who my father was for years and kept it from me. I understand now why he thought he was protecting me — but a good reason and the right choice aren't the same thing. And love and consideration aren't the same thing either. You need both.
Here's where I think the real moment is: the question right now isn't whether you stay or go. That's not where you are yet. Where you are is — when you put this in front of him plainly, not "I'm hurt" but "you built a plan for my life without asking me" — can he actually land on that? Not just apologize. Feel the actual weight of what he assumed your life was for. Because if he can get there, there is something real to work with. If the injury keeps circling back to him every time, if your reaction stays the problem no matter how he turns it over, that tells you something important. Not that he is lost as a person. But that he hasn't learned yet to hold your life as equal to his own.
You still have choices here. None of them should include calling this small.
— Luke Skywalker
Harley Quinn weighs in
Farmboy there is real hopeful about whether Marek can "feel the weight of it" — bless his heart. I'm a doctor, sweetie, so here's the faster read: this man spent two years letting you carry the bills, and the very first decision he makes once he's got credits of his own is about both your lives — alone. "I figured you'd be thrilled for a new assignment." He looked at the home you built and what he saw was a starting line for himself. That ain't a blind spot, puddin'. That's a window into how he's been keeping score the whole time.
— Harley Quinn