Luke left the bar and took the time to navigate the way back to his quarters and retrieve his pilot's helmet. It was beat up and dusty from the battle, and Luke ran his hands over the red stripes down the centre and the twin rebel starbirds on the crown. When he'd been given the helmet and X-Wing to fly, he'd not considered that he was taking the place of another pilot who had been grounded die to injury. When he'd run his hand on the underside of the ship and slipped into the cockpit it had felt so right, as if the X-Wing had always been sitting in the hangar bay waiting for him to claim it. And yet the scuff marks and dents in the helmet told a different story, and Luke smiled as an idea formed in his mind.
He made his way up to the medbay after getting lost only twice, and entered the sterile white room containing a row of medical beds. Only one was occupied, and there wasn't a meddroid in sight. Carefully, Luke approached the woman seated upright in the bed, staring unblinking at the wall straight ahead of her. She was perhaps a few years older than him, with dark hair that fell across her forehead and framed the side of her face, with the rest drawn into a messy bun at the nape of her neck. The whites of her eyes were red and bloodshot, with the skin around them bright and blistering, although from the shine a bacta salve had clearly been applied. Despite that she was beautiful, and for a moment Luke's gaze lingered on her high cheekbones, full lips and vivid green irises which were bright despite the obvious damage.
"So who has come to to see the invalid?" she asked in a clear, crisp voice betraying a Coruscanti accent.
"My name's Luke Skywalker," he introduced himself as he approached. "I-"
"Ah, the hero of the hour," she interrupted him. "Aren't I lucky."
"Oh, you know about that?" Luke asked, unable to stop himself smiling.
"News travels fast around here," she said shortly, her unseeing gaze fixed and unmoving. "If you're looking for a thank you, go somewhere else."
Luke's smile dropped immediately, nervously rocking on the balls of his feet. "I didn't come here for that."
"Then why are you here?" she demanded of him. "Go and find some sycophants who will fawn over you, buy you drinks and offer you kriff knows what else. You probably deserve it, but you won't get any of that from me."
Luke could see why Wedge had described her asprickly. "To be honest, I'm a bit sick of being thanked," he said, finding that words were true. Although he had enjoyed the attention at first, the constant adoration on his way up to the medbay had begun to grate. "I didn't do anything more than anyone else," he told her. "In fact I did less, because they gave their lives and I didn't."
She turned towards him slightly, and though he knew she couldn't see him her unblinking gaze was oddly intense. "I know what you mean," she said quietly, then stretched out out her hand straight in front of her and Luke shifted slightly so he could shake it. "I'm Valara." She had a firm, decisive grip that took him somewhat by surprise, and so he held onto her hand for a moment too long before dropping it sheepishly.
"Luke," he told her.
"I know, remember?" she said dryly, although he thought he saw the corner of her mouth twitch.
"Right," Luke nodded, realising belatedly that the action was pointless. "Of course."
"You sound young," Valara said shortly, and it was impossible to tell whether she was disappointed.
"I'm nineteen," Luke told her, unsure about whether she'd consider that young or not.
"Nineteen, and the hero of the Rebellion." Valara shifted uncomfortably in the bed. "How nice."
"I made a lucky shot, I guess," Luke shrugged. He'd hadn't told anyone - not even Leia - of how he'd heard Ben Kenobi's voice in his head, telling Luke to trust himself. It sounded ridiculous even in his own mind, and he didn't want the Rebels to think he'd lost his mental faculties and stop him flying.
"A one in a million shot, or so I heard." Valara was staring at him again, and Luke felt the hair raise at the back of his neck. He had the disconcerting feeling that she could somehow perceive him, even though she could not see. "It's unusual for a pilot to claim luck instead of skill - I certainly wouldn't if I'd made that shot. Where you from, Skywalker?"
"Tatooine."
"Never heard of it."
"I'm not surprised," Luke said, and perched himself on the side of her bed.
"Did I say you could sit?" she snapped, her whole body tensing and Luke moved cautiously back to his feet.
"Sorry."
Valara sighed. "I just...like my personal space," she explained, gently touching her temple where the skin was covered in angry red welts. "Especially...you know."
Luke understood - they'd been times in the X-Wing when he hadn't been able to see ships approaching in his blind spot, and knew the panic such uncertainty could cause. "They said you helped get the Death Star plans," he said, trying a different track.
Valara huffed, her mouth creasing with obvious displeasure. "Who told you that?"
"Wedge Antilles."
"Yeah, Antilles would say I helped," Valara said snippishly. "Ilead the team, Skywalker."
Luke didn't doubt it. "Well, I hope you've been thanked."
Valara tilted her head, fixing him again with her unseeing gaze. "They sent some grunt to give me a commendation - but to be honest visitors have been few and far between."
"What, with the warm welcome you give them?" Luke teased. "I don't believe it."
"Ha." Valara almost smiled. "No one wants to talk to the blind girl. Except you...the man who finished what I started."
"It seems we make a good team," Luke said, and finally won a smile from her.
"I wish I'd been in that trench with you," Valara said wistfully. Luke wanted to say that he wouldn't have wished the experience on anyone - comrades being picked off one by one around him, the heat of blaster fire searing his hull, almost losing Artoo, Vader breathing down his neck, his dark presence cold like death...
Luke pinched his arm to snap himself out of the memory. "I heard you had plenty of excitement getting the plans to begin with," he said, eager to change the subject.
"You could say that," Valara gave him a wry smile. "And got a blaster shot in the face for my troubles."
Luke winced, his eyes drawn once again the scaled skin around her eyes. Despite her churlish greeting, he felt strangely drawn to her - as if they shared some kind of affinity yet to be discovered.
"It could have been worse," Valara continued with a shrug. "Although it's just my luck to get the helmet with the faulty blast shield."
"Speaking of which," Luke held out the helmet he'd brought with him and pressed it into her hands. "I think this belongs to you."
She traced the marks and grooves, as if recognising it by touch. "I used to be Red Five," she said softly. "The group that went after the Death Star plans was picked from a few different squads, and the mission wasn't officially sanctioned, you see. We were rogues."
"Rogue Squadron," Luke grinned to himself. "I like that."
"You keep this," she held the helmet back out at him, her voice wavering. "It's no use to me anymore."
"But surely...with bacta treatments?" Luke stumbled over the words, not exactly sure how to express himself. Valara seemed to understand, and she just sighed and shook her head unhappily.
"My sight will come back eventually. But it will never be 100%." She lightly touched the scalded skin around her eyes again and winced. "They'll never let me fly an X-Wing again, that's for sure."
"I'm sorry." Luke had only flown in the snub fighter once, but he couldn't imagine being told he'd never be able to again. It was something he didn't even want to imagine.
"I want you to keep my old callsign," Valara said, and again pushed the helmet into his hands until he took it back. "And this - just get a new blast shield."
"Are you sure?" Luke asked, seeing that she was deeply upset even through her aloof pretense.
"Yes," she said shortly. "You can have my blessing if it will alleviate your guilt. Now you can go."
Luke put the helmet aside on an empty chair and held his ground. "I don't have anywhere else better to be," he said, absently looking up at the fluorescent lighting that glared down on them. "Are you alright with these lights?" he asked, unsure why the meddroids hadn't turned them down or put bandages over Valara's eyes.
"I'm fine," she said shortly. "I'm not going to sit here in the dark feeling sorry for myself."
"So you've been sitting here with the lights on feeling sorry for yourself?"
"I have not!" she protested forcefully.
"No one wants to talk to the blind girl," he affected her crisp accent and tone perfectly.
She reached out and slapped him on the arm. "Shut up, Skywalker," she said, but couldn't hide her amusement.
"Okay, okay," he raised his hands in mock defeat and grinned, pleased to have punctured her steely countenance.
"The sooner I can acclimatise to the light again, the sooner my sight will come back," she looked up at the ceiling and squinted as if her recovery would be accelerated through sheer willpower.
Luke didn't know much about medicine, but to him that hardly sounded like a good idea. Old Mari Sandskimmer had gone blind in her old age, and she always said the twin suns just made it worse. "Don't you think-"
"I know what I can handle Skywalker," she cut him off, in an instant her smile turning back into a scowl. She turned away, as if expecting him to have had enough abuse and simply leave, but Luke was not so easily cowed.
"Where are you from, Valara?" he asked lightly, "that you learned such fine manners?"
"Coruscant," she said, her gaze still askew, although Luke could see that she bit down on her lower lip to keep from smiling. It seemed she liked to be teased - perhaps no one else ever had the courage to do so. His gaze lingered on the curve of her neck and the way the corner of her mouth creased. He wasn't quite sure why he was so adamant about staying - perhaps he felt a kinship with her, since he'd flown her ship into battle and it had brought him home safely. Perhaps it was something else entirely.
"In the orphanages they teach you to follow orders, not to be polite," she added, her face still turned away.
Suddenly her behaviour made a lot more sense, and Luke moved instinctively closer. "I'm an orphan, too," he told her. "I was raised by my aunt and uncle, though - I guess I was lucky."
"There's that word luck again," she said, and briefly Luke recalled Ben saying there was no such thing. "You got lucky being raised by family and making that shot on the Death Star - I was unlucky by being born alone and getting shot in the face. Is that how life works?"
"No," Luke conceded, seeing her point. "So how did you end up in the Rebellion?"
Valara sighed, and for a moment Luke thought she wouldn't answer, but eventually she began to speak. "The orphanages feed right into the military academies and no one has a choice about it," she said, her voice soft and sad. "Not that you'd choose otherwise at that age, with Imperial propaganda pumped into you practically from birth. They give you a different name, close enough to your own to feel familiar, but still a reminder that you're theirs, that they own you." Her mouth twisted bitterly, and at the back of his mind Luke felt - something - almost as if he could somehow feel her sour memory. The skin around her eyes crinkled, and she hissed in pain and finally blinked. Luke wondered if tears had tried to form in her seared ducts, and instead had burned her again.
"How did you escape?" Luke asked. Biggs had jumped ship from the Imperial Academy fairly easily, it seemed, but he guessed that absconding from Coruscant would be slightly more perilous that from some 'Rim outpost.
"It's a long story."
Luke shrugged. "I've got time."
Valara pursed her lips, and Luke saw that he'd touched a raw nerve. "Tell you what, Red Five," she said, turning her unseeing eyes back to him. "I promise I'll tell you all about it one day."
He was happy to leave it at that, and pleased with the implication that they would be spending more time together. "Are you going to the celebrations?" he asked, checking his chrono and seeing that they would be starting soon.
Valara sniffed and looked away again. "What's the point? I can't even walk around by myself."
"I'll help you," Luke suggested.
"You'll be stuck with me all night," Valara said shortly.
Luke kicked his toe against the side of the bed sheepishly. "Yeah..."
Valara smiled, her face lighting up with a beautiful warmth that made his stomach flip-flop - she flashed hot and cold, but that only made Luke more determined to figure her out.
"Alright then," she held out her hand so he could grasp it and help her out of the bed. She was slightly unsteady on her feet, and Luke's arm grasped her around the waist, holding her firm and helping her walk.
"Not too much in your personal space?" he asked softly into her ear, surprised at how husky his voice was.
"A little," she whispered back, leaning further into him. "But that's okay."
