Chapter 2
Luke couldn't feel anything.
Surroundings floated around him in globs of pale light and grainy color. There were no words, no sounds, just the mirage of life behind his eyelids.
His mind acted like a desperate pair of hands, groping for something, anything to hold onto that would remind him of reality. Thoughts shifted through the sands of unconsciousness until one floated to the surface.
Open your eyes, Luke.
Blue, pure eyes opened.
He saw but did not understand.
What were those objects?
Chair. Floor. Hands.
More words flooded back to his grasping brain.
Han. Leia. Chewbacca. Lights.
He wanted to reach out, for even though his brain was sluggish he could sense the worry written on his friend's faces. In unison the three held grim frowns, squinted eyes.
What was wrong?
His legs were the next movement he gained use of. He managed to steadily bend and point his aching toes. Where was the ache from?
His hearing slowly returned next. Surprised, Luke found soft voices surrounding him.
"Luke, talk to us."
"What's going on, Kid? Are you okay?"
"I'm calling the medics on ground. We don't know what's wrong."
"Arrrhggh!"
They overwhelmed him. Sinking lower, Luke curled up his legs and scrunched up his face, working to block out the noises he had thought he wanted to hear. Now, he wanted everyone to go away.
The oblivion was so much nicer.
It was warm, and he remembered that wonderful smell—like the best vase on his Aunt's table, or Leia's perfume. It had smelled so much nicer than wherever he was now, where it smelled like…
Piss.
Luke gained the use of his arms just in time to prop himself up and groan. The sudden movement made the three sets of worried hands grab onto him and push him back down. Back on the floor, Luke realized it was also more comfortable in the strange place of moving colors. Luke let out a disappointed whimper.
He had wet himself. As if he was three years old again.
His cheeks turned red with embarrassment.
"Shh, Luke. It's okay. Everything is going to be fine. We have a medical droid charging. Just stay put, and try not to move," Leia cooed. She held his pink cheeks with such gentleness; somehow, that made Luke more disappointed.
"Leave me alone." Luke tried to sound angry, but it simply turned out sounding pained and desperate. He wanted privacy, he wanted a change of clothes, or even just to move out of the wet, ammonia-smelling puddle would be enough for now. His friends only stood there, wide-eyed and loudly protective.
They wouldn't let him move.
Luke got frustrated fast.
"Go away!" Luke cried, fisting his hands. "I just want to be alone!"
Han grabbed his shoulders, pinning him to the floor. "Listen here Kid, we're trying to help—"
Leia scolded him. "Be gentle, Han!"
"He's just going to hurt himself more if he gets up!" Han shot back, his sweaty palms still pressing him down. "Look, Luke, we're not going anywhere. Something is seriously wrong—"
"Han, he doesn't need to know. Not yet," Leia cut him off again.
A clicking noise came from behind him. More words started to fill his once empty brain.
Endor. Jedi. The Force. Vader.
Vader's death. Anakin. His dad.
Everything started to snap slowly into place.
"How did I get here?" The last thing Luke could remember was his father's face, and his words.
"Don't be afraid, my son."
Unknowingly, Luke untensed, eyes sliding closed in a surreal state of calm. His father's face appeared in his memory, all pale and broken and scabbed beyond recognition: the most comforting face he had ever seen.
Han lessened his grip, taking a step back. "There, Kid. That's more like it."
More like what? Luke thought. More like myself? Or more like what they want me to behave like? It was a difficult question: he had never felt so distant from the Luke Skywalker he knew he was supposed to be.
A burst of cold stung the side of Luke's neck, and he jerked out of Han's hands. A distinct numbness followed.
No. No, no no. He didn't have time to be drugged—to be mushy-minded, drifting out of one conversation only to find he had drifted through a day, two days. He didn't want what was left of his energy to be drained, his Force signature dim and simmering beneath the drug's effects.
"Stim or sedative?" Luke asked hoarsely. He had to know.
"It's going to be all right, Luke. We're almost there." Leia's words.
"Was it a stim or a sedative?" he demanded. "I need to know." When he opened his eyes again, it was Leia who held a hypospray in her hand. It was trembling slightly, though she hid her worry behind the tight purse of her lips.
"Pain blocker. It's to help with…with what hurts."
Luke swallowed hard. Reaching inward, he tried to catalogue where the bright burn of agony stemmed from, finding he couldn't. Ben would have been able to pinpoint it, speaking the slightly cryptic language he tended to use whenever he told him about the "Jedi way." He'd tell him to sort through his emotions, search for his pain and let it swim to the top of his consciousness.
Or, Luke thought as he craned his neck to look down at his emaciated body. Or I look for myself.
Han was at his forehead is seconds. "Hey, hey hotshot. We don't have a tyrant to kill or a battle station to destroy right now. Just rest. We're almost to Endor, Kid."
"I'm cold," Luke only half-lied. "I-Is there a blanket?"
His anger was already wearing thin, leaving only bone-weary tiredness in its wake. He was cold—cold and wet—and miserably achy and filled to the brim with lead. The world went from red to a dismal gray in a shockingly short amount of time.
Luke watched Han hesitate, then nod once. "Okay. Yeah, okay Luke."
He walked out of Luke's line of sight.
Leia sat down on his left, her soft hand slipping into Luke's. She didn't have to ask for permission; she already knew that he wanted her to hold him tight. He didn't truly want to see what was wrong, and yet that pull of curiosity was lit underneath him. He would have to sooner or later, and he wanted Leia to be there when he did.
Luke lifted his head again.
His chest was bare with gauze and thin tan bandages as his only covering, though the ship's first aid seemed to have run out before they finished. As his eyes flicked over his ribs and abdomen, down to his naked legs he found harsh scratches and burns pocking his figure. His knees were black and blue, scrubbed clean from debris that left their indents in his skin. Lifting a heavy hand he found his arms to be in the same condition. Working to turn his head, Luke saw across his left bicep laid a single bacta patch, though it didn't nearly protect the length of the wound. Wincing, he realized it must snake up the entirety of his neck.
Leia caught him. "Why don't you listen?" she scolded softly, rubbing circles on his palm. Even that seemed unusually abrasive. "I wish I could explain."
"Me too," Luke croaked.
There was a beat. "Do you feel any pain?" Leia asked. Luke shook his head carefully, as to not upset his carefully healing wound. "Good."
"Is-is there anything for the smell?" Luke blushed as he said it, sure that Han would be laughing from wherever he was. Against his intuition, there was silence.
"Oh, Luke…"
Luke decided to block out the rest of Leia's sentence. It was sure to be an apology mixed with pity and medical jargons he wouldn't understand in his best condition. Excuses to why he was soaked in his own piss.
He didn't want any reasons. He wanted answers.
What had happened between the throne room and here, as he lay on the floor in the cramped medbay of a ship? His father's warning hadn't done him much good, seeing as he couldn't stop shaking with fright. Luke Skywalker—son of Lord Vader, Jedi Knight—laid in his own mess and did not even have the strength get up. He was not strong, not heroic, and definitely not willing to admit that he was alight with pain from every limb, no matter the pain blocker injected.
"Luke?" Leia asked, grappling for Luke's spacey attention. "Chewie's lifting you up for a few seconds while I clean you up. It's nothing to be ashamed of. You were…we found you…this can wait until you're feeling better."
Luke wanted to argue back. Instead, as the Wookie picked him up he buried his face in the soft fur neck and cried. He cried for his father, for Luke not being strong enough to fulfill his father's last words. He cried for the absolute ache he had deep in his bones, and for his friend's careful dance around his fragile form. He cried for Ben, because Ben would have been so disappointed of his lack of strength.
But Chewie didn't know why he cried. He only held the boy tighter to his chest—a fact that Luke would always be grateful for.
He was aware of a warm cloth sweeping over his legs and back, but lacked the energy to find out who it was. After that, a thin blanket was wrapped around his trembling shoulders, ending with a soft squeeze to his bicep. Luke resisted the urge to yelp at the tremor it sent up his arm.
He was placed onto a soft-pillowed cot. A medical droid stood over him, emotionless face scanning his nearly naked body. Instinctively, Luke tried to pull the blanket tighter around him. His arms scratched against what felt like restraints, and he shivered.
After what felt like an eternity, the droid straightened and walked away. Luke didn't bother following where he went. He knew what he would do: compute his data before printing it out on a long thin strip. He would prep whatever drug he saw fit in his syringes before returning to the small group gathered. Then he'd drone out his results.
The droid's yellow eyes reappeared. "Luke Skywalker, male, twenty-three years of age. In considerable disrepair to unknown computed cause," the medical droid recited. Luke could have sworn at the last sentence he glared at Han. "Is there any other data you wish to input, so that I may have a greater success in diagnosing the patient?"
Han snarled. "I don't trust you more than a Hutt."
The droid bristled. "Very well. According to my data collected and available to me, it seems as though Luke Skywalker, male, twenty three years of age is in the postictal stage of a seizure."
"Seizure?" Leia breathed, carefully gauging her reaction. "There has to be a cause of a seizure."
"Not necessarily, ma'am. Though it seems with patient Skywalker, the seizure was caused by massive electrical input in an unprepared state."
"That emperor piece of sh—"
"Han!"
"—did what to Luke?"
The medical droid repeated his sentences like a mantra. "Patient Skywalker's seizure was caused by massive electrical input in an unprepared state. Lightning being the most likely suspect."
Han snorted. "The most likely suspect? I'll tell you who the most likely suspect is—that son of a blaster Vader is who it was."
"We should have never let him go alone," Leia cried, talking over Luke as if he wasn't present. "We should have forced him to take one of us with him."
"And what? Been shot up with lightning too?"
"At least we would have been there! We could have done something!"
"We'd both have been dead in seconds, you know that Princess. Luke's a Jedi who's got—"
"Enough!" Luke rasped over the heated argument. "You don't even know what happened!"
Leia squeezed her hand back into his. "I'm sorry Luke. We were being too loud."
"Nhh," Luke tried to plead his case but finding his voice had been reduced to scratchy nothingness. When he opened his mouth again not a sound came out.
The droid droned on. "My suggested course of action is to have an official electroencephalogram performed as soon as possible. That will help your future medical staff pinpoint the next steps in patient Skywalker's diagnosis. Until the test, may I suggest a few different medications?"
Leia and Han both wandered after the droid to sign and date the data it collected, initialing the permission form in Luke's place for the use of whatever drugs the droid wanted him to have. Luke's stomach plummeted.
It wasn't Vader's fault.
As if it was glued behind his eyelids, Luke saw the Emperor's hands contort as the white hot lightning came spilling forth, igniting Luke's insides and melting away every thought but pain. Pain that was yet to go away.
Pain that was being pinned on his father.
As one last attempt at restoring the true story, Luke managed: "Vfff, hnn."
Vader's innocent.
While it's only success was drawing his three friends back to his sickbed, Luke felt better. The words weren't true in ever sense, but they felt right to say. Vader had proved in his last minutes his change of heart. He had shown Luke how to be brave and stand up against a world of hurt, a world of regret and force it to obey the present and future. His father was a hero.
Luke was just the weak remnant of a greater past.
Before the syringe ever entered his body Luke was already in the clutches of sleep. It wasn't peaceful—not the oblivion he had felt—but natural. The ache that plagued him made his eyelids heavy, and his body sagged into the cot.
Three pinches.
Three different drugs in his system, plus the pain blocker.
Luke wanted to scream, to cry, to get angry and throw whatever object was closest to him. His emotions coasted fast from one to another, but in the end, it only left exhaustion. He was only Luke Skywalker, the boy from Tatooine who lost so many family members and friends in the last four years of his life.
As his usual paranoia of falling asleep melted away behind a fog of medication, Luke found himself squeezing Leia's hand once again.
Three squeezes. I love you.
She returned the words with a single kiss on his pounding forehead.
